Holiday Ayo - In the past, foreigners in Indonesia were called kompeni or londo. Londo itself refers to the Indonesian colonialists who came from the Netherlands.

However, nowadays Indonesian people commonly call foreigners "foreigners". Typically, the term "caucasian" refers to white people, especially Europeans and Americans, or Westerners. 

It's just that the use of this term continues across generations without people knowing why they call white foreigners that way.

So why does this habit occur? Tracing the use of the word "caucasian" to refer to white people is not easy.

Scientist Tom Popensky said that the word "Bule" had already been used to refer to such an object in 1952.

The proof is in W. le Febre's writing entitled "Student Garden: Is Trust in One's Own Strength to Grow" (1952).

The article contains the words "wong bule (white people") to refer to the racism that befell white people during the independence revolution. 

"...(The word Bule) describes the sentiments of young people during the Indonesian National Revolution, who saw white people confused by the social unrest that was taking place," said Tom Popensky. 

However, the popularity of "caucasian" among Indonesian people is thought to have been popularized due to the efforts of an Indonesianist from England named Benedict Anderson.

In his autobiography entitled Life Outside the Shell (2016), Ben claims to be the first person to popularize the word "caucasian" as an association for white people.

"I was the one who popularized the new meaning of the term (red, Caucasian) in 1962 and 1963," he said.

"Some people seem to bow down in respect to this unimportant foreign student simply because of the color of my skin," said Ben. 

As a solution, Ben then asked Indonesians who saw him not to call himself Mr or be called White, but with the term "Bule".

The word "Bule" itself is commonly used by Indonesian people to refer to animals with albino skin, such as "caucasian buffalo" which are within the scope of the Yogyakarta Sultanate. 

"So I told my young friends that they should be called Caucasians, not white," he said. 

From here, Ben's friends felt happy and then spread it to various popular media. Slowly but surely Indonesians are following these changes, calling white people "caucasians".

Even so, for foreigners the term "foreigner" is considered racist. Benedict Anderson admitted that there were friends ten years later, meaning in the 1970s, who protested because he had popularized the term.

However, Ben ignored the protest because in fact the foreigner was white, so he deserved to be called "foreigner." Until finally, the term became part of everyday Indonesian language.