Oei Tjoe Tat: The Unrecorded Name

Oei Tjoe Tat faded into Indonesia’s history. He championed the universal idea of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika and practiced Cold War diplomacy.THE name Oei Tjoe Tat may sound unfamiliar. He was not an activist who fought colonialism on the front lines or got involved in preparing Indonesia for independence. Nor was he a revolutionary thinker whose ideas found their way into history textbooks. Yet his role should not be underestimated. Thanks to Oei Tjoe Tat, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity) became more than an empty slogan.As a member of the Constituent Assembly representing the Indonesian Citizenship Consultative Body (Baperki) after the 1955 General Election, Oei Tjoe Tat was one of many Chinese-Indonesian activists who argued that Indonesia should be founded on the diversity of all ethnic groups, not merely the indigenous peoples of the archipelago.