The Wall Street Journal

Jay Solomon

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Chandra Wijaja, Indonesia's world-champion badminton player, says the greatest challenge at the Asian Games hasn't necessarily been the rivals across the net, but fear.

Mr. Chandra is ethnic Chinese, and the recent sporadic violence in Indonesia has often been aimed squarely at the Chinese population. Yet he is a superstar in one of Indonesia's most popular sports, which presents an enigma: How to justify playing and winning for the national honor, even as family members become the target of rage back home.

He sees his task as both a personal shield and as hope. "Winning is the best way I know of bringing solidarity" to Indonesia, says Mr. Chandra, 23 years old. "In the end it shows we're all the same."

Medals and Tears

It's a sentiment that runs through Indonesia's badminton team, making it an unusual model for race relations for a nation that threatens to break down along ethnic and religious lines. The team -- almost evenly split between ethnic Chinese and indigenous, or pribumi, players -- has won three gold medals in the past two Olympic Games, and two gold medals, among several others, this week at the Asian Games.

The sport has particularly strong roots among Indonesia's ethnic Chinese. "Badminton is very much part of the culture" of Chinese Indonesians, Mr. Chandra says. "That's why we've done so well in it." He helped his teammates capture the gold medal in the men's team competition this week.

Nowhere was the team's grace under pressure clearer than in May at badminton's most prestigious team championship -- the Thomas and Uber Cups -- in Hong Kong. The tournament coincided with vicious rioting in Jakarta that left 1,200 Indonesians dead and at least 60 women, mostly ethnic Chinese, raped. Players spent the moments between matches and practices frantically calling home.

"It was all so confusing," says Elysa Nathanael, Indonesia's top-ranked women's doubles player, also ethnic Chinese. Her cousins in Yogyakarta had their shop burned down; other relatives were stoned. "On the one hand, we wanted to win and give Indonesia a good name. At the same time, all the players were worried about their families," she says.

Mr. Chandra, who says he was shaking before taking the court, asked himself at the time, "Why do they judge us by how we look? ... We're all trying to do the best for the country." Following his victory in the finals, he wept.

A Welcome Military Presence

In an indication of the tangled and sometimes contradictory allegiances within Indonesian sports, society and politics, it was the Indonesian armed forces that came to the defense of the team's families back home. (Some Indonesian security forces have been implicated by the government for inciting anti- Chinese unrest.) During the tournament, Maj. Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah -- who is the team's manager, reflecting the traditional ties between athletics and the country's armed forces -- got on the phone to troops in Indonesia to make sure players' homes were protected.

Since 1982, military officers have served as chairmen of the Indonesian Badminton Association, as they do in most sports federations. The pervasiveness of the military is increasingly under attack in Indonesian society, but in this instance players say they appreciate it. "Agus allowed us all to focus better by protecting our families," Mr. Chandra says. "We all respect him for that."

When they returned home, they were welcomed by a new president, B.J. Habibie. Weeks earlier, the team had been seen off for the Hong Kong trip by then President Suharto -- one of his last official state functions.

At last month's Indonesian Open tournament in Jakarta, Gen. Subagyo H.S., the current army commander and badminton federation chairman, was prominent in his center-court box. Sometimes Gen. Subagyo comes to the badminton training complex outside Jakarta to practice, players say, joking about his intimidating physique. His presence "keeps relations between the two sides strong," Mr. Chandra says.

Challenges Ahead

Despite their success at the Asian Games, Indonesia's badminton players fear they will have difficulty maintaining a dominant position in the sport in years to come. For one, the economic crisis is reducing the amount of international experience players can accumulate. In some cases, even stars like Ms. Elysa are being forced to pay their own way to overseas events. Some tournament sites, such as in Denmark, are too costly. Funding also is drying up for player development programs.

Indonesia's political and economic strife are exacting a toll in other ways. The shootings of Indonesian students on Nov. 13 and the ensuing attacks on ethnic-Chinese and Christians in Jakarta renewed the unease felt months earlier. And only weeks before, the majority of the world's top badminton players bypassed the Indonesian Open -- traditionally one of the tour's marquee events -- because of concerns over unrest.

The sense of Indonesia becoming increasingly isolated is weighing on the athletes' minds. "Our government promised to ensure all players' safety" at the Open, Ms. Elysa says, "but in the end it wasn't enough."

Other players talk of a cooler reception from fans overseas, particularly in ethnic-Chinese countries. Some players go so far as to voice the prospect of emigration -- but only in passing. For now they're sticking solidly to their roots. "I was born and raised here, and my family is here. There's nowhere else I'll go," Mr. Chandra says. "I hope to continue playing for Indonesia as long as I'm productive."