Not many of them want to assimilate with indigenous Indonesians, so this was different from previous waves of Arab migration. The first wave of immigrants was in the 7th century, the second wave in the 14th century and the third wave in the 18th century. The third wave of Arab immigrants in the 18th century and after, retained their original clan names, such as the surnames Al-Gadri, Al-Aydrus, Al-Habsyi, Al-Attas, Al-Jufri, Shahab, Syihab, Assegaf, Baswedan and others.
However, the influence of the Arabs in the field of culture was quite significant, because it was made easier by their activities to spread the religion of Islam, which has actually been adhered to by the Indonesian people since the time of the Wali Songo in the 14th century. The Arab Sultanate in the Dutch colonial era, with the seventh Sultan, Hamid Algadri II, who was ruling in the city of Pontianak, was appointed by the Dutch colonialists as Special Adjutant to the Queen of the Netherlands with the rank of Major General.
In line with their divide-and-conquer politics, on October 23, 1771, the Dutch colonialists, apart from supporting the establishment of the Arab Sultanate in Pontianak, also gave increasing power to the "Little Republic" of Chinese capitalist gold miners in the Monterado regency in West Kalimantan.
In 1776 the latter were even freer to regulate their own government, security and judiciary affairs, and even have their own flag. The Chinese Tai Kong Republic Company in Indonesia advanced very quickly in the field of economic trade and challenged the Dutch from January 20, 1823 until their defeat when the Monterado war ended in 1855. The Dutch succeeded in inciting the indigenous Indonesian people to hate the Chinese, which has been proven by a number of racial clashes in Indonesian history.
In the 19th century, Chinese people, who had been migrating to Indonesia since the 5th century, began to assimilate more strongly with the indigenous peoples and changed their names or took original Indonesian names as aliases. Today we see many people with names like Rudi Hartono, Budi Suraatmadja, Leo Tahir, and even Indonesian surnames being used, such as Manantu Sitorus, Edi Mantiri, Velix Raweyai and others.
With centuries of preferential treatment the Dutch colonialists afforded to Europeans and people to Eastern-Foreign nations, and the inferior status they gave to indigenous Indonesian people, the Indonesian people's sense of inferiority has become so prolonged that they no longer had a sense of their own ability to be able to hold a leading position in leading the people of their own nation. This was a very ironic situation compared to the history of the brilliant civilization of the Indonesian people before foreign Western and Eastern nations migrated to the archipelago in the 16th century.
Prince Harya Hikmadiraja Nurwakhyani Surya Kesuma, Islamic Sultanate of Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan.
Founder of the Taman Arum Udumbara (TAU) Majapahit in Miniature Park, Jakarta.