Gender justice
Gerry van Klinken
As anti-Gus Dur demos began to hit the streets in January, I wondered if we were missing the real action by doing a gender edition. But working on it became an eye-opener for me, as I hope reading it will be for you.
I realised I had often imagined an 'Indonesian' agenda for change that was in fact a middle class masculine one. Susan Blackburn's piece showed me that even nationalism, supposedly that most basic of all political drives, was historically of more interest to men than to women - who really wanted a marriage law to protect their everyday lives.
Could it be that the 'get rid of Gus Dur' agenda is also a partial one, that actually hides other, bigger agendas?
This edition highlights Indonesia's women and men - and its gays, lesbians, bissu and other genders. Their diversity should warn us against stereotypes, if nothing else. Our authors - mostly women - have many messages. The one I hear loudly is that women, and powerless genders generally, no longer want to be a passive part of somebody else's project, no matter how grand or blessed by tradition that seems to be.
Gender justice is a crucial perspective because it has the potential to transform the political arena. Excluding powerless genders only produces a false consensus dark with hidden violence. Khofifah, the energetic young minister for women's empowerment, has it right: 'I want women to be the motor of democratisation.'
Most readers do not realise how much work goes into producing one edition of a little magazine like this. The bulk of it was done voluntarily - for example by the anonymous referees who now read all articles before they are accepted. To them all we say: thanks!
Gerry van Klinken is the editor of Inside Indonesia
Inside Indonesia 66: Apr - Jun 2001
Timorese women raped by Indonesian militias need justice. So do all the other women who survived New Order abuse
Galuh Wandita
After the attack on the [Suai] church, we were taken to Manumutin, Betun, in West Timor. We slept on the verandah of the cooperative because there was no other place. On 11 September [1999], about two in the morning, six Laksaur militias came in a car.... They asked about my daughter. My son-in-law called me and I came. His name is OB, a Laksaur militiaman. He took out a sword and said: 'Look. This sword is covered in the blood of four people I just killed.' They told me to get in the car.... They asked where my husband was; I said I didn't know.... They said: 'Do you like me?'... I had no choice, because they had a weapon... OB pushed me. I was raped in front of my son-in-law. I cried and cried, and felt so powerless, as if I was dead.
An East Timorese woman told this story to the women's organisation Fokupers after Indonesian militias ravaged the country for voting against Indonesia on 30 August, 1999. An authoritarian regime has fallen. An occupation has ended. In the new openness, we are hearing stories of human rights abuse that have long lain buried. They outrage our sense of justice. Old debts must be paid.
Transitional justice is the first hurdle for an often-fragile new democracy, to separate the dark past from a democratic future. But how can it be done, effectively yet in compliance with international human rights standards?
In a conflict situation, women suffer a special kind of violence. The men in East Timor were (often forcibly) recruited by the militias, leaving the women alone to look after the family. With the men gone, the women became vulnerable to 'proxy violence' by those who saw them as representing the defiant life of a whole society or of a group within it. Raping them was a way of crushing the enemy.
Trials
Fokupers spent the first half of 2000 documenting cases of violence against women that happened in the weeks around the East Timor ballot. We uncovered 255 cases of human rights violation, including 46 rapes, five attempted rapes, and sixteen other cases of sexual abuse. We know of at least four pregnancies caused by rape, and two where contraceptives were forced on the victim to prevent pregnancy. Eight of the rape cases involved sexual slavery - rape on a daily basis. Some of these involved children. In others, children were forced to watch their mothers raped. Nine of the rapes were done by TNI soldiers, nine by soldiers and militias together, and all the rest by militias themselves.
Fokupers also has information on the murders of eight women. Many of these occurred in the Suai church massacre, but some were specially targeted. Ana Lemos, for example, chairperson of the resistance organisation OMT in Ermera, was raped and murdered because, as one of her killers said, 'she was the most courageous woman in Ermera'.
The 1949 Geneva Convention does not list rape as a war crime. One reason why rapes were not included in the Nuremburg trials and those held in Japan after World War II is that both sides had committed them. The absence of women is a serious blind spot in the post-World War II trials. But the Yugoslavia trials of the 1990s introduced a new element. They linked rape to the crime of ethnic cleansing. New rules of evidence, now internationally accepted, also in the East Timor trials, make it more likely for rape survivors to obtain justice.
However, many problems remain. How is the victim to be identified in the first place? Especially in a society that tends to blame the rape victim, few are willing to stand up in court and relive the trauma in front of their rapist and his defence team. In East Timor, UN investigators are also facing serious communication difficulties as they attempt to get an accurate account, especially as the event recedes into the past. Time is another problem - the Rwanda genocide had a million victims, and only a tiny fraction of cases have been resolved. Yet, as one of my friends told me, a survivor cannot begin to live again until justice is done. Moreover, East Timorese have hitherto had little reason to trust the courts.
A Truth and Reconciliation Commission is another possibility. Less bound by legal procedure, such a commission can more quickly document a greater number of victims of authoritarian repression than the courts. Similar commissions in Guatemala and South Africa heard the testimonies of thousands of rape survivors. However, after much debate, the South African commission decided that rape was 'criminal' and not 'political' and therefore its amnesty offer did not apply to rape. This removed the incentive for rapists to confess, and for survivors to testify, and thus produced an ironic conspiracy of silence on rape.
Another important issue is compensation. The Chilean transitional justice mechanism offered comprehensive material compensation, including lifetime pensions, for families of those who died in prison under Pinochet. An important non-material form of compensation could be a national day of commemoration. In East Timor, 25 November, UN Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, is an important day for rape survivors.
Future
In Indonesia, we have to expose New Order violence against women in the militarised areas of Aceh, West Papua, Maluku and East Timor. We have to look also at the 'anti-PKI' killings of 1965, at the 'petrus' killings of the early 1980s, at the May 1998 riot; also at women political prisoners, and at the impact on women of the militarised family planning program.
In my opinion we should attempt to use all three transitional justice paths - criminal sanctions, truth confessions, and compensation. Considering the political situation, perhaps it should be a staged approach that begins with the last two while preparing for the first. This must be a survivor-centred approach, where they themselves are involved from the start.
A Truth Commission must have strong powers - be able to subpoena documents, and offer protection and compensation for the survivors. Also, ordinary people must be able to hear the stories and thus feel moved. Civil society can play a role in investigations, too. Then there must be a serious effort to rehabilitate the victims, making sure to involve them at every stage. We need to create a safe space for women survivors. In East Timor, widows and survivors have set up several non-government organisations to document crimes and rehabilitate victims. In Indonesia, the new law on human rights needs to be tested to see if the courts will take cases from the past. Perhaps other courts - even commercial ones - can be utilised creatively?
The road to restoration for the survivors, and for us as an Indonesia nation, is a long one. Sometimes people ask me why I am doing this. Isn't it better to forget the past and look to the future? Such questions leave me speechless. It is precisely to the future that I do look.
Materestu, 'Left over from death', is the name of a group of women survivors of the massacre in the Suai church on 6 September 1999. Galuh Wandita (gwandita@hotmail.com) is an Indonesian volunteer with the East Timorese organisation Fokupers. Extracted from a longer paper in Indonesian.
Inside Indonesia 66: Apr - Jun 2001
What if there were not just two genders, but five? In Indonesia, there are
Sharyn Graham
I first went to Sulawesi in August 1998 on a reconnaissance trip to determine if this would be an interesting place to study gender relations. I had read a little about gender in Sulawesi, encouraged by my supervisors Dr Greg Acciaioli and Dr Lyn Parker, but I was not quite prepared for the richness of Bugis gender identities. In Australia we tend to assume that there are only two genders, woman and man, and two matching biological sexes, female and male. The Bugis acknowledge three sexes (female, male, hermaphrodite), four genders (women, men, calabai, and calalai), and a fifth meta-gender group, the bissu.
'Bissu' tends to be translated as 'transvestite priest', but this term is less than satisfactory. Transvestite implies cross-dressing, but bissu have their own distinctive clothing. Moreover, bissudo not go from one gender to another; they are a combination of all genders. To become a bissu, one must be born both female and male, or hermaphroditic. (To be precise, the Bugis believe that a bissu who appears externally male is internally female, and vice versa). This combination of sexes enables a 'meta-gender' identity to emerge.
La Tenri Olli'Aseng tongeng-tongeng Mu ri langiMu nonno' ri linoMu riyaseng t
Your name in the heavensIs La Tenri Olli',In the name of the buffalo,Descend to earth.
Mariani begins her chant as the sun is setting behind the limestone cliff. The eerie chant is accompanied on the cylindrical drum called tumba, on cymbals (kancing), and metal rhythm sticks (ana' baccing).
Over 35 of us had squeezed into two small mini-vans and traveled for over an hour to reach this place. We then walked a few kilometres to the mouth of a small cave, which, as I was to find out, went deep into the mountain.
Blessing
We had come here to perform a ceremony. A woman I knew named Ibu Qadri wanted to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. She needed the blessing of the spirits before she set off. Bissu have long conducted ceremonies like this. They are able to act as mediators between humans and spirits (dewata) because they are considered neither male nor female, and neither woman nor man, but a mix of all four of these.
This was one of my first bissu ceremonies. I was somewhat baffled as to why a pious Muslim would want a blessing from other spiritual beings. However, over the 15 months (until November 2000) that I lived amongst bissu, I learned that at least to the Bugis there really was no contradiction. They told me that Allah is the one and only God, but Allah has helpers, called dewata. The most powerful of the dewata is the one Mariani is calling today. When Mariani is in contact, the dewata will arrange for the most appropriate lesser dewata to descend and take possession of Mariani. Only then can Mariani bestow blessings.
For the blessing to be a success, Mariani and three other bissu had to enter a cave. I too was invited in. We took off our sandals, and two of the bissu carried burning torches to light our way. I was urged to lead in front. I later found out this was so that I could take their photograph as they entered the cavern. After we had slid on our backsides down the entry passage, walked quite a distance, successfully avoiding treading barefoot upon the many scorpions surrounding us, we came into a large cavern. Here we squatted in a circle. Mariani began chanting. At appropriate times the other bissu joined in. The ceremony here was short. When the chant was over we returned to the opening of the cave.
While we were away, preparations had been made for the main ceremony. Mariani took her place (or 'hir' place, since she is both male and female) in front of the large assortment of ritual offerings that were to be offered to the dewata. These included cooked rice died into four different colours(songkolo), eggs, a hen and a rooster, cigarettes, bananas, and coconuts. Mariani again began to chant, but this time hir chanting became erratic and frightening. Hir body began to shake and s/he became very angry. 'Where are the siri leaves?' These are an important part of the ceremony, but there were not enough of them. The spirit that possessed Mariani was furious and refused to give the blessing. Through Mariani the spirit conveyed that we could, however, perform the ceremony at the woman's house. By the time we arrived at Ibu Qadri's house it was dark. The altar and the offerings were set up in her living room, and the bissuadorned themselves in their powerful, magical (sakti) clothing. The ceremony began again. Everything was complete.
Mariani and the three other bissuperformed their chants. In order to honour the spirits who had possessed them, and hence bless Ibu Qadri's pilgrimage, the four bissuperformed the ma'giri. Each bissutook their little dagger(kris) and tried to force it into their throat. If a powerful spirit has possessed them, and if the blessing is successful, the kris will not penetrate and they will not bleed. On this occasion, when Mariani had completed the ma'giri, I noticed blood coming from hir neck (see cover photo).
Not till many months later did I venture to question this. The reason was that the spirit who possessed Mariani had not been very powerful. However, with the combined efforts of the four bissu, Haji Qadri did make the pilgrimage to Mecca. On her return, she requested another bissu ceremony to give thanks to the dewata for protecting her on her journey.
Calalai
This brings us to calalaiand calabai. Strictly speaking, calalai means 'false man' and calabai'false woman'. However, people are not harrassed for identifying as either of these gender categories. On the contrary, calalaiand calabai are seen as essential to completing the gender system. A useful analogy suggested to me by Dr Greg Acciaioli is to imagine the Bugis gender system of South Sulawesi as a pyramid, with the bissu at the apex, and men, women, calalai, and calabai located at the four base corners.
Calalai are anatomical females who take on many of the roles and functions expected of men. For instance, Rani works alongside men as a blacksmith, shaping kris, small blades and other knives. Rani wears men's clothing and ties hir sarong in the fashion of men. Rani also lives with hir wife and their adopted child, Erna. While Rani works with men, dresses as a man, smokes cigarettes, and walks alone at night, which are all things women are not encouraged to do, Rani is female and therefore not considered a man. Nor does Rani wish to become a man. Rani is calalai. Rani's female anatomy, combined with hir occupation, behaviour, and sexuality, allows Rani to identify, and be identified, as a calalai.
Calabai, conversely, are anatomical males who, in many respects, adhere to the expectations of women. However, calabai do not consider themselves women, are not considered women. Nor do they wish to become women, either by accepting restrictions placed on women such as not going out alone at night, or by recreating their body through surgery. However, whereas calalai tend to conform more to the norms of men, calabai have created a specific role for themselves in Bugis society.
If there is to be a wedding in Bugis society, more often than not calabai will be involved in the organisation. When a wedding date has been agreed upon, the family will approach a calabai and negotiate a wedding plan. The calabai will be responsible for many things: setting up and decorating the tent, arranging the bridal chairs, bridal gown, costumes for the groom and the entire wedding party (numbering up to twenty-five), makeup for all those involved, and all the food. Rarely did I attend a village wedding with less than a thousand guests. On the day, some calabai remain in the kitchen preparing food while others form part of the reception, showing guests to their seats.
Bissu, calalai, and calabai challenge the notion that individuals must conform to one of two genders, woman or man, and that one's anatomy must support one's gender. Bugis gender reveals the diverse nature of human identity. It makes me question our own notions of gender. For example, why should Australia insist on a boring old two-gender system?
Sharyn Graham (sharyngr@cyllene.uwa.edu.au) is researching her PhD at the University of Western Australia, Perth. All names are pseudonyms. Thanks to Nick Herriman.
Inside Indonesia 66: Apr - Jun 2001
Between girl power and the mother image, young urban women struggle for identity
Yatun Sastramidjaja
While reformasi battles to clean up the old bureaucracy, young urban middle class women are contending with yet another New Order legacy. Every day they confront a Janus-faced social discourse on female gender, which wedges them between two conflicting ideals of femininity. One is the notion of a woman's inherent nature, or kodrat wanita, long fostered by the New Order. The other is the more recent popular notion of 'girl power'. As young women oscillate between these two strong images of female identity, they experience serious but usually hidden inner conflicts, particularly in the area of sexuality. Whereas kodrat wanita propagates the virtues of chastity and submissiveness, girl power celebrates the joys of sexual liberation. So which way should a girl turn?
The middle class, like the New Order generally, always held to a peculiar blend of conservatism and progressiveness. On the conservative side, the idea of kodrat wanita became visible in the New Order institution of Dharma Wanita (Women's Duty), an organisation every civil servant's wife was required to join. Practically all these wives were also middle class mothers. Their prime duty was to their families, the keystone upon which the nation's welfare was said to rest. Kodrat wanita is thus defined by the reproductive role of supportive wives and mothers, which partly consists of raising daughters to become good wives and mothers too.
However, the daughters had to do more than simply become good mothers. New Order and middle class aspirations also converged in a concern with progress (called development - pembangunan) and with upward social mobility for the younger generation. In order to elevate the socio-economic standing of both their family and the nation, middle class sons and daughters were urged to pursue higher education and ambitious careers.
For girls, this meant entering a modern way of life not always compatible with the standards of kodrat wanita. This is not to say that kodrat wanita became invisible. On the contrary, it is strongly represented in all modern media, be they televised soap operas or lifestyle magazines like Femina. But it does have to compete there with divergent and far more high profile images of strong femininity. The image of fashionably cosmopolitan, self-reliant, and positively liberated young women prevails in the modern mass media.
On the face of it, young women do indeed live up to this progressive ideal. When moving in a modern public space such as the campus or big city shopping mall, their looks and attitude give them the air of independent city girls. They appear ready for take-off in exciting careers, and to have fully adopted the principle of 'girl power' so popular in the West.
Ideally, middle class girls are supposed to merge the two roles of girl power and kodrat wanita without much difficulty. Yet in reality they are often confronted by stark contradictions. The duality of the social discourse on female gender produces moral confusion, in which the distinction between 'good' and 'bad' behaviour is no longer clearly defined. Such moral conflict, 'the clash between Western and Eastern values' as it is commonly called, is evident in the stories of two girls I befriended in Bandung. A striking feature of these conflicts is that they most often revolve around sexuality.
Double standards
Mia (22) comes from a respectable, well to do middle class family, part of my extended family in Indonesia. Over the years, on my regular family visits to that country, I saw her grow into an independent-minded young woman. I became like a big sister to her - she knew that I, an outsider living in the West, would not judge her. On my last visit to Bandung, Mia turned to me more than once in despair for advice, which I'm afraid I was not able to give to her full satisfaction, as her anguish has remained until today. She had fallen in love with a fellow student, of whom her parents disapproved. In order to restrict her contacts with him they frequently put her under house arrest. Her parents had her shadowed by a relative, and made a habit of eavesdropping on her phone conversations. Mia was infuriated by this treatment, which she considered unfair and altogether hampering of her freedom. But the experience also confused her - it was wholly inconsistent with her self-image of a modern liberated girl who determines her own fate.
Mia could not see how it could be wrong to follow her own choices, or how it could be right to repress her sexuality. 'Sharing love is normal, isn't it', she said, 'everybody is doing it, and it's not like I'm a slut; but then how come I'm made to feel that way?' Yet despite her dismay, she felt uneasy about arguing with her parents. No Indonesian girl, not even modern Mia, will easily get it into her head to openly show defiance. Instead, Mia felt there was no way out but to lie. She started to spend a lot of time making up secret schemes and alibis, thus leading a double life for the sake of pursuing her own choices. In this precarious way she tried to combine her self-image of a liberated girl with compliance to kodrat wanita norms. Of course this proved to be no solution. The game of double standards increasingly depressed her. Mia began to occasionally run away from home. At the time of my stay in Bandung she sometimes came to me, too baffled to speak or cry.
Much the same conflict emerges in the story of Dian (26), another member of my extended family who comes from a similar, somewhat more religious middle class family. We were very close as small children in Bandung in the 1970s, and after I moved to the Netherlands we corresponded for many years. At first sight, Dian appears a true paragon of female chastity. A devout Muslim wearing Islamic veil and dress, she always abides by her parents' wishes. When we were children, she used to make a great effort to teach me the virtues of kodrat wanita. She was afraid that I, a girl living in the West, would otherwise be unable to become the virtuous Indonesian woman I was born to be. To me this didn't make much sense, but to her, even as an eight-year old, kodrat wanita stood for everything her mother wanted her to be.
An acquiescent woman, Dian is engaged to a man of her parents' liking, she studied a major of her family's choice, and after graduation she returned to live with her parents so they could keep a close eye on her until the wedding day. Freedom of choice, in the Western individual sense, seems practically non-existent in her life. But for Dian this is not an issue of debate. She used to tell me in her letters to the Netherlands that it was 'really for my own good' to be more restricted than I was, and that it was her woman's duty to respect the wishes of her 'superiors', be they her parents or future husband, no matter what.
But contrary to her outward appearances, Dian is not the chaste and docile woman she wants everyone to believe she is. When we recently met again in Bandung and started to catch up on each other's lives the past few years, she told me all about her private fantasies and imaginary future scenario's of a more autonomous way of life. This perfectly matches the image of an independent career woman. Even more astonishingly, she confided that she had been sexually active for many years. Not only had she shared the bed with her fiance, but without his knowledge with other lovers as well.
Despite the religious prohibition on premarital sexual intercourse, Dian says she has no regrets. In her private view, 'American style' sexuality, as she calls having intercourse with several partners, is a normal fact of contemporary life. 'These days young women are not as inhibited as they used to be', she said, 'we acknowledge having desires too, just like men do'. However, Dian is aware that her sexual behaviour is still considered a sin in Indonesian society at large. And she admits to feeling deep guilt every day, not for her sexual behaviour per se, but for being hypocritical about it towards her parents and even more so in regard to her religiosity. It is this hypocrisy that makes her feel an 'immoral' woman.
Mia and Dian both feel burdened by their double lives, yet they feel impelled to maintain it. The same goes for many other Indonesian girls I know. Sexuality is part of the 'girl power' discourse and lifestyle, yet sexually active young women are still cast off into the corner of pornography. They are called a perek (perempuan eksperimen), the Indonesian word for slut, and are accused of indifferently throwing away the integrity of their bodies and thereby disgracing their personal and family's honour. Indeed, since women's bodies are often made to represent the moral integrity of all of society, they can be accused of disgracing the nation.
Young women are hardly to blame for the moral ambiguities of contemporary social life. Neither are they to blame for the paternalistic structures still persisting in Indonesian society, that deny them an equal voice in moral debate and thus cause girls like Mia and Dian to feel they are better off maintaining a frustrating double life. Where social discourse on gender, sexuality and morality is concerned, reformasi still has a long way to go.
Yatun L.M. Sastramidjaja (sastramidjaja@pscw.uva.nl) was born in the Netherlands but lived in Bandung as a small child and has made numerous family visits since then. She is researching a PhD at the University of Amsterdam, and is the author of the Dutch language book 'Dromenjagers in Bandung: Twintigers in het moderne Indonesie' (Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 2000).
Inside Indonesia 66: Apr - Jun 2001
Lesbians want to be themselves
Bunga Jeumpa and Ulil
The progress of Indonesia's lesbian movement should not be measured by the yardstick of its gay movement. Nor by that of the Asian lesbian movement generally, even if they influence one another. It is honestly very difficult to build a movement for something that is so unpopular in the mainstream. Building socialist ideas is already difficult enough in Indonesia. During the New Order, just distributing Pramoedya's books was a battle.
The first lesbian group was formed in Jakarta in the 1980s. It was called Perlesin, short for Persatuan Lesbian Indonesia (Indonesian Lesbian Union). One of the curious features of this association is that it had a chapter of Dharma Wanita, usually reserved for the wives of bureaucrats. Saskia Wieringa, who has written about Perlesin, says they were a 'femme' group partnered with the butch group in Perlesin. Perlesin failed to reach the wider community, seemed to have no clear strategy, and folded soon after.
When the gay group Gaya Nusantara started in about 1986, lesbian groups began to orient themselves towards it through their activities as well as in their writing. The establishment of the Asian Lesbian Network (ALN) in 1989 inspired Indonesian lesbians to become more political. It led three people to set up the lesbian network Chandra Kirana in January 1993. Chandra Kirana published its own bulletin, which at the time was a big breakthrough to reduce alienation and widen public discourse.
Unfortunately the cooperative relationship with Gaya Nusantara did not last long. The gay men's movement did not provide enough space for a female group that had its own way of thinking. After the Second Lesbian and Gay Congress at the end of 1995, one protest letter from the lesbian community in Bandung (where the congress was held) said: 'There was not one session or workshop on lesbian issues, and the committee were all men. Why was Chandra Kirana ignored like that? That means we were all ignored.' An understanding that Gayatri felt she had with Dede Oetomo was also ignored. From that moment, Chandra Kirana tried to organise independently of the gay men's network.
Actually the organisation is not free from internal problems. The classic one is losing volunteers because of intervention from their own families. One was sent to Ambon just so she would be as far away from lesbian activities as possible. Others have been subjected to pressure or even violence from their families to make them 'return to normality'.
Nevertheless, the group continues to do its work. It wants to encourage more discussion of its way of life. One result is a book of short stories entitled Lines, written by Ratri M (2000), which tells about lesbian life in Indonesia. Lines is another word for lesbian in Indonesian.
None of this could have been achieved without Gayatri, the backbone of the group, one of its founders who remains true to her commitment. At the Indonesian Women's Coalition Congress held in Yogyakarta in December 1998, she was the only lesbian who dared to stand up and argue that lesbian concerns should become an advocacy issue for the Women's Coalition. One of the other founders, meanwhile, stayed still in her seat, Gayatri said afterwards.
With this recognition at a national level the lesbian movement entered a new era, that is, of political struggle within a gender framework. Not that this has stopped its activists from facing rejection. The poem (see box) is an illustration of that.
As activists within Chandra Kirana, we often wonder where our place really is. If we join the gay men's movement, we become the Second Sex and are coopted. If we join the Indonesian women's movement, we become like garlic among the onions - step sisters of the women's movement. Where do Indonesian lesbians want to go from here?
Bunga Jeumpa (bunga.jeumpa@eudoramail.com) is the coordinator of Chandra Kirana (www.swara.cjb.net/).
Satire
I just want to offer peaceSo the path we know will not lose its meaningHow happy I would be to know you do not see a leper before youNervously groping with her rotten fingerMaking a space between usOr perhaps I am just a flower eater to youWith savage passion devouring every breast or thigh I seeSo you can do disgusting things next to me
I am no homophobe, you say cheerfullyBut I don't see the sign of honesty in your eyesAll I see is your imagination screening pictures like a televisionAbout how good you would feel caught up at the end of my bootlacesAnd the fingers you spread out are invisible barriers To stop me from opening themOr about the 1000 men on your bedAnd the 1000 women under your bed
Never mind!Let's make peace, leave behindThe skin of hypocrisy and change the musicSo full of our sexual preference distinctions,Help me answer their question,How to eliminate the discrimination within anti-discrimination
(To a friend who often shares paper and pencil with me: BJD Gayatri)
Inside Indonesia 66: Apr - Jun 2001
Homophobic violence could be a by-product of the new openness
Dédé Oetomo
On the evening of November 11, 2000, a group of young volunteers organised an Aids education fair and party in the hill resort of Kaliurang, near Yogyakarta. They belonged to Lentera (meaning Oil Lamp), the Aids service wing of the Indonesian Planned Parenthood Association (PKBI) in Yogya.
Many national and international agencies have praised Lentera for reaching out and bringing in various stigmatised risk groups, such as gay men, male-to-female transgenders (waria), female sex workers, street children, as well as other people at risk but who have no particular societal identification, such as men who have sex with other men. Their approach is 'integrationist' - they do not directly challenge the conventional attitudes of the general public, yet are able to deliver effective services to those who are in need. People within Lentera often say their own philosophy is in line with the gentle Javanese belief in ngono ya ngono ning aja ngono, which you could translate as 'now you see it, now you don't'.
Lentera was started amid a wave of Aids activism in the early 1990s by a few young psychologists and planned parenthood activists, who saw the epidemic appearing on the horizon. From the very beginning a few concerned gay individuals 'integrated' themselves discreetly, often playing up the identity of an Aids activist rather than that of a gay activist. The events Lentera organised, however, always included an element of fun-filled entertainment, and there gay men and waria tended to predominate, if not in numbers then in ambience.
The Kaliurang event of November 2000 was called Kerlap-Kerlip Warna Kedaton 2000 (KKWK 2000, Flickers of Royal Court Colours). It was to be the second annual event where Aids activists could get together, take a break from the drudgery of activism, and share their knowledge with the general public in an entertaining way. There were stalls with Aids posters, condoms and lubricants, demonstration dildoes, gay magazines. A variety show combining entertainment and education was planned for the evening. Other people were there too, but the ambience was unmistakably campy. If not in number then in spirit, gay men and waria dominated the event.
KKWK 2000 became fatefully different compared to the first KKWK in 1999, and to other more ad hoc events in previous years. The event was held in the Hastorenggo Building, owned by the family of the sultan of Yogyakarta. As a sign of reformasi openness, members of the press were invited to cover it. They got more than they or the organisers bargained for. Around 9 pm, right in the middle of a campy fashion show, 150 men in traditional Muslim garb came in and attacked from the back rows, shouting 'Allahu Akbar!' The attack came without any warning. Wielding clubs, swords and machetes, and hurling soft drink bottles, the thugs attacked indiscriminately, forcing people in the audience to run towards the front part of the hall and through side doors to jump down to safety. The attackers then went from room to room, breaking down doors, and stealing wallets, handphones, small purses and the like.
The four policemen who were at hand could not cope with them, and called for help, which came soon afterwards. They apprehended 50-odd attackers, but these were soon released. Perhaps the police were afraid of a similar attack on their own premises, which would not be the first time.
The thugs claimed to represent a loose coalition called the Anti-Vice Movement (Gerakan Anti Maksiat (GAM). Some were members of the Ka'bah Youth Movement (Gerakan Pemuda Ka'bah, GPK), an organisation affiliated with the Muslim United Development Party (PPP). Others belonged to the Yogyakarta Mosque Youth (Remaja Masjid Yogyakarta). They launched their attack in the heightened moral atmosphere just ahead of the fasting month, Ramadhan.
Later, in the press, they justified their attack on the grounds that the Kaliurang event was a sex party of gays and waria. In the beginning of the subsequent media debate, KKWK 2000 organisers were given equal space. But it quickly became a one-sided affair, apparently because newspaper editors were threatened by GPK leaders and others claiming responsibility for the attack. A group of fifty-odd NGOs formed a coalition to protest the attack, but many soon left the ranks. Even the Yogya PKBI leadership was apparently under pressure to close down the program for gay men, waria and men who have sex with men.
New phase
I think we are entering a new phase in the development of Indonesian homosexualities, one where homophobic attacks, previously unknown, are becoming a bitter reality.
The attack on KKWK 2000 is not without precedent. Over the previous few months groups of men in traditional Muslim garb had been harassing gay men in the northern square in front of the sultan's palace, until then a safe gathering space. In the East Java town of Pasuruan a similar group paid a visit to a sometimes cross-dressing gay hair stylist and forced him to close down his business on the grounds that it was a den of vice. He argued back. The local branch of the political party PDIP advocated on his behalf, and he was able to keep his business open. In September 1999, following a huge demonstration by students and other elements against then-president Habibie during his visit to Solo, members of the Surakarta Front for the Defence of Islam (Front Pembela Islam Surakarta, FPIS) threatened to kill gay activists. The activists were planning a national working meeting of the Indonesian Network of Lesbians and Gay Men (Jaringan Lesbian dan Gay Indonesia, JLGI).
So while reformasi has brought a sense of widening democratic space, the flip side is these homophobic attacks. What are we to make of them?
One important answer, in my opinion, is a greatly increased public awareness of the variety of human sexualities. Since the 1980s, the media have begun to sensationalise phenomena like homosexuality. In the 1990s this combined with the drive against HIV/Aids to make possible much more open discussion of sexualities. There is now a new understanding of gender and sexuality.
True, many misunderstandings remain, but they are eroding. The old blurring of waria and gays persists, but one can now discern a separation among waria and gay men (which in some localities has even resulted in a mini-identity politics). More people are realising that there are gay men (pronounced 'gaai') who have sex with other men. Perhaps a more serious blurring happened when in the late 1990s people discovered 'sodomites', ie. adult men who rape young boys and kill them afterwards. This added to the frightening element of the unknown which is homosexuality. To a lesser extent the same blurring is happening to lesbian identities. The Indonesian Women's Coalition for Justice and Democracy (Koalisi Perempuan Indonesia untuk Keadilan dan Demokrasi) explicitly mentions lesbian issues as one of the fifteen issues facing women, but often they find it difficult to get representatives of lesbian communities to join.
However, more than increased awareness of sexualities lies behind the public attacks. In the reformation era we have also seen a rise of attacks on brothels, discotheques, pubs, and the like. The attack on gay men and KKWK 2000 must be seen as part of this wave. The attackers could be people of true religious faith, but more often they were shady elements of society. Those who came within close proximity of the KKWK 2000 attackers, for instance, reported smelling alcohol on their breath. The breakdown of law and order that accompanied the resignation of Suharto seems to give them an excuse to run on the rampage, as it were.
Perhaps we should understand both the opening up of democratic space for gay men and the attacks from the thugs and other elements as related sides of the same emerging phenomenon. While one can say it is a price to pay, one can also say that the attacks have made gay people and waria more militant and resistant to the dominant ideology of conservative morality. Even if it is not free from the risk of reactionary attacks, we may be witnessing the beginning of profound change in Indonesia's sexual morality.
Dédé Oetomo (gayanusa@ilga.org) is the coordinator of GAYa NUSANTARA (http://welcome.to/gaya). He lives in Surabaya.
Inside Indonesia 66: Apr - Jun 2001
Poor kampung women double their income through their own micro-credit scheme
Lea Jellinek
In May 1999, Bambang Rustanto and I set up Kesuma Multiguna, an NGO which aimed to work with poor kampung dwellers in Jakarta. We were both dissatisfied with our experiences of international consulting. Poverty projects gave consultants like us good work, good money, and good opportunities, but left the poor unchanged. With the economic crisis of 1997-99 and subsequent big government spending on the Social Safety Net, we saw how the poverty excuse was used yet again to enrich aid agencies, consultants, and government departments. We decided to try to develop programs which would really reach the urban poor. We chose Jakarta because it seemed the most neglected and difficult place. We had set ourselves a challenge, and were by no means sure we could succeed.
We chose to focus on the area surrounding the Anggrek Mall in Slipi, West Jakarta. The mall is a towering structure with condominiums on top and the latest in shopping complexes underneath, complete with ice-skating rink. As you drive in from the airport, it looks like a surreal castle. It is surrounded by cloverleaf freeways, which have literally been imposed on top of a village. It is thus a mixture of very rich and very poor, new and old, modern and traditional. Kampung communities are imprisoned on all sides by high cement walls and multistorey developments.
Suspicious
My colleague Bambang comes from among the poor and communicates well with them. From working on the streets as a trader with his mother, he had learnt that capital for the purchase of trading stock was their most basic need. Many of the poor have small trades - cooked foods, vegetable selling, ginger medicine making, selling clothes on credit - but they lack enough capital to buy adequate stocks. This limits their sales and income.
The first task was to find one neighbourhood where the program could be tested. We spent two months familiarising ourselves with the poorest communities. Most of those we initially approached were suspicious. They had become disillusioned with government programs in the past, and thought this might be similar. Others - especially when they saw a white person - thought distrustfully that it had something to do with Christian proselytising. And still others adopted a handout mentality, thinking we were bringing gifts.
Eventually, however, one group of ten women in the poorest area beside the Grogol Canal was ready to take out loans. A dynamic and caring woman - the wife of the local headman - organised the group. She already ran the traditional rotating credit group, and our intentions were that our credit program would grow out of and build on this group. Neighbours started to talk about our program, and within one month another group had requested loans. Information spread surprisingly rapidly by word of mouth. After eighteen months, over 520 women were part of the savings and borrowing scheme, and there had not been one default.
We chose to work with women because they are the core of the household. They know everybody in their neighbourhood. They know who can and cannot be trusted. They are the ones who run the household enterprises which feed the local population. These enterprises often keep the family going while their husbands are unemployed or seeking work. The women are most concerned about their children's future, and traditionally hold the family purse strings. Moreover, men are out on the city streets seeking an income and thus much more difficult to monitor compared to the women who are reliably present in the kampung.
The first task when forming a group was to find a trusted local leader. Neighbourhood women were asked whom they most admired and who cared for them when they were in difficulties. When most of the fingers pointed at one woman, she was approached to be the leader. She then had the chore of deciding who would be the borrowers. We wanted to reach the poorest of the poor, but at the same time we could not afford default. In most cases, the borrower had to have a viable enterprise. Mostly petty traders were able to get a loan. The head of the group knew each borrower personally - their homes fronted onto one another's houses and they met along the pathways each day. They had lived next to each other for many years and knew each other's life stories. Over a year and a half, eighteen different neighbourhoods formed a savings and borrowers group. The numbers in each group varied from ten to sixty people.
'Interest'
Borrowing was done in stages. The first loan amounted to Rp 100,000 (A$20). It was paid back over the next five months in monthly installments of Rp 20,000 (A$4). In addition, each borrower paid Rp 2000 (A$0.40) every month to cover operating costs and insurance against default. Once they had paid back this amount, they could take out a larger loan of Rp 200,000 (A$40). On each satisfactory repayment, the amount of a subsequent loan could be increased, up to a maximum of Rp 500,000 (A$80). As the program progressed, we felt we wanted to encourage savings as an integral part of borrowing. For every Rp 100,000 borrowed, Rp 5000 was put aside into a savings account for the borrower, and they had a bankbook to prove it.
We constantly agonised over the amount of interest - called 'operating costs' because Muslims generally do not like the idea of interest. Bankers had warned us that if we wanted to remain viable, we had to charge market rates of 20-30 percent interest per annum. This sounds very high by Australian standards, but was in line with Indonesian banks. Furthermore, most of the people we were lending to had, at one time or another, been indebted to illegal moneylenders, who charge interest rates of 300 percent per annum. So kampung dwellers were pleased with the rates we were offering. The aim was to ultimately make the savings and credit system self-sustaining, so that it would not rely on outside funding to keep the office and staff running.
For the first four months, most of the staff worked for free. We had no desks, tables, or computers, but had to work on the floor. The kampung dwellers themselves started to offer us tables and chairs. Eventually Daimler Benz Jakarta gave us some old computers that they were replacing. During the first six months, all the details had been written in children's notebooks. Eighteen months later, all borrower records were computerised, so we could clearly see how many loans they had taken out and how much they had borrowed, saved, and repaid. A staff member who eighteen months earlier had not known anything about computers had become computer-literate.
From the initial groups of borrowers we recruited the most able, unemployed women to be part of our office staff. They had been secretaries and treasurers in supermarkets and shops before the economic crisis. After losing their jobs, they had become impoverished and despairing. It was these young women who lived in the kampung and had knowledge of kampung economics and trade who helped us design the micro-credit system. It was their ideas that formed the core of the program, and they designed the accounting system.
After four months, the staff could no longer afford to volunteer their services. They came from poor families and their husbands were annoyed that their wives were working without bringing home any resources. Although the staff had special borrowing rights from the program, they needed proper salaries if the micro-credit program was to be viable. The 'interest' or 'operating costs' had to cover their salaries.
Another aspect of the program was that it was conducted within peoples' homes like a 'barefoot doctor' scheme. Two of our staff would come to the home of the group leader each month, bringing cash from the bank. They would explain the details of the program, while the women sat in a circle and the money was piled up in front of them on the floor. After each woman signed the necessary documents, they received their loan.
Six months after starting the program, it was a joy to walk through the kampungs. Women came out and embraced us. We were greeted everywhere - no longer the sullen, doubting stares. Instead, many told us that their incomes had doubled from A$1 to A$2 per day. Moreover, a network of women was being created through the communities that belonged to the program. Our staff spread information about the available goods and services from one neighbourhood to another, and this may have expanded inter-neighbourhood trade.
We were painfully aware that the poorest of the poor, such as washerwomen and casual labourers, were still unable to borrow, because they lacked enterprises. We regarded the micro-credit program as a first step to gain entry and trust in the community. From this we are developing other programs for the really poor - nutrition, a lending program for health and schooling, monthly medical clinics and a neighbourhood library.
Lea Jellinek (leajell@ozemail.com.au) lives in Taggerty, Victoria, Australia. She is the author of 'The wheel of fortune: The history of a poor community in Jakarta' (1991).
Inside Indonesia 66: Apr - Jun 2001
Rifka Annisa is educating the community about the nature of domestic violence
Wineng Endah
The women's crisis centre (WCC) Rifka Annisa opened here in Yogyakarta in 1993. At the time we were the only one in Indonesia. We were concerned about domestic violence, dating violence, sexual harassment, rape and violence against children. However, we decided to focus on violence against wives. We aim to educate the community about the nature of domestic violence, as it is often taboo and considered the province of the family alone.
Women who come to our office to seek help receive psychological counselling as well as legal advice and aid if needed. They can join a group where they meet with other women with similar experiences, to share and support one another. If necessary, the women are offered shelter.
Almost all come for help confused and without the knowledge of their husbands. They hear about the WCC from other women, as well as via seminars and workshops we conduct with other organisations. We also have a regular column in the Sunday edition of the local Yogyakarta newspaper, Kedaulatan Rakyat, where women write in for advice. Below the letter we invite women to contact us by phone.
They come to our centre from all backgrounds, however middle class and educated women can take greater advantage of our facilities. To reach out to village people, we have been working the last six months to set up a community-based centre in the Gunung Kidul area east of Yogyakarta. We bring together likely village leaders, both men and women, and try to gradually raise their awareness through discussions and workshops. At first we must disguise the issues in less confrontational terms, though of course we can talk about rape and sexual harassment, as all community members agree these are violations. We hope that eventually this group will be able to take initiative to intervene in cases of domestic violence in their village. This will be the first time something like this is tried in a village in Indonesia. If it is successful we hope to set up other groups like it.
We approached the police and hospitals in Yogya to try to get them to recognise the special needs of domestic violence victims. The police have been very cooperative and we have helped them establish special consultation rooms in police stations. The Panti Rapih Hospital in Yogyakarta now has a special unit for such women, where they can be transferred from other sections of the hospital. We used to have to scan newspapers for stories to find the women we should be helping. Now police and hospital staff contact Rifka Annisa for help with counselling.
Wineng Endah (rifka@yogya.wasantara.net.id), coordinator for community relations, (web www.rifka.annisa.or.id).
Inside Indonesia 66: Apr - Jun 2001
Throughout its history, outsiders wanted the women's movement to be nationalist first of all. Now women are finding their own voice
Susan Blackburn
For most of its history the Indonesian women's movement has been framed, energised and constrained by two dominant paradigms: nationalism and developmentalism. In the last couple of years we have seen the movement emerge from the straitjacket of these ideas and spreadin many new directions. It has gained its autonomy at last in the 'malestream' mainstream of politics, albeit in circumstances that make the leadership of the movement anxious and insecure. Such is the price of liberation.
The Indonesian women's movement, seen broadly as a social movement to express the concerns of Indonesian women, emerged early in the twentieth century at the same time as the nationalist movement. They were fed by similar forces of socio-economic growth (especially urbanisation), modern education, improved communications and contact with international ideas. Early feminism's (or proto-feminism) best-known exponent was Kartini, a woman whose life was transformed by ideas derived from a Western education, ideas that generated discontent and aspirations for greater autonomy for women. Women began to form modern organisations to pursue their own concerns, and to air new views in the press.
Barely had the women's movement got under way than it was captured by the nationalist movement. This was obvious at the first women's congress in 1928. The very notion of an 'Indonesian' women's congress foregrounded its nationalist drive. Most participants framed their speeches in nationalist terms, linking the pursuit of women's interests to those of national unity and independence.
This was not always a comfortable combination. Some speakers were more preoccupied with issues of particular interest to women, such as schooling and early marriage, than they were with nationalism. Others were at loggerheads with one another, undermining any pretence of national unity. The divisions were mainly religious.
However, many women's organisations persisted in trying to create a united nationalist women's movement. Various federations and umbrella organisations dominated the movement in subsequent decades. The current federation, Kowani, the Indonesian Women's Congress, is part of this history. These bodies were always based on the ideal of Indonesian national unity, which frequently came before women's concerns. Issues that created disagreement among member organisations were discouraged, notably differences between Islamic and non-Islamic women's groups.
In the 1930s the most radical women's organisation of the day, Isteri Sedar, left the women's federation over issues perceived to be sensitive to Muslims. It saw the need to provide greater equity in marriage for Islamic women as more important than anything else. In particular it opposed current practices in the Islamic courts which permitted child marriage, arbitrary divorce of wives by their husbands, and husbands' unrestricted right to marry up to four wives. The Indonesian women's congress, however, preferred to downplay this issue in order to keep the peace with religious groups that opposed changes they regarded as undermining Islamic family law.
Accepting nationalism as a foundation plank not only meant subordinating some women's concerns in order to preserve unity. It also gained the women's movement the hostility of the Dutch colonial government, which was otherwise quite sympathetic towards its cause of improving the situation of women. Life was made difficult for a number of prominent women leaders of the day. S K Trimurti was imprisoned, while others found it hard to work and organise.
On the other hand, adopting nationalism also served the women's movement well in many ways. It won the support of the male-led nationalist movement, which was important in the longer term, when Indonesia finally gained independence, proclaimed in 1945. Women's support for the armed struggle for independence in the period 1945-9 won it further favour. The democratic government of the new Republic easily granted all sorts of legal rights to women in areas like constitutional equality, the right to vote, and equal pay in the civil service.
Yet the main concern of the women's movement in independent Indonesia, a uniform marriage law, was ignored by the male-dominated political system, which feared (quite legitimately) that focussing on that issue would arouse the wrath of Islamic parties.
As President Sukarno gained in power in the late 1950s and early 1960s, nationalism became increasingly strident and overwhelmed the women's movement. One of the few mass-based women's organisations of the time, Gerwani, sold out its specifically women's concerns in favour of wooing Sukarno's support through a strongly anti-imperialist orientation, as directed by the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) with which it was aligned.
Some regions of the country had been so alienated by increasingly centralised rule from Jakarta that they revolted, and women's organisations in those areas became preoccupied with the consequences of rebellion.
New Order
When Sukarno's rule disastrously collapsed, the New Order that succeeded it maintained an equally strong nationalist ideology imposed through an impressive state apparatus of control.
President Suharto undertook not only to restore the country's economy from the disarray into which Sukarno's exploits had plunged it, but also to embark upon an ambitious program of socio-economic development. This had considerable advantages for the women's movement, since women benefited from greater order (at least after the initial massacres of 1965-6), from growing employment opportunities in the expanded economy, and from greatly improved education, health and other services.
The price they paid, however, was the mobilisation of the women's movement by the state. The regime set about 'cleansing' the women's movement by outlawing and demonising radical groups like Gerwani. It exerted strict control over the women's federation, Kowani, exploiting it for its own development purposes. The New Order boosted the role of the 'wives' organisations', such as Dharma Wanita (the wives of state employees), and created a new mass-based organisation, the Family Guidance Welfare Movement or PKK.
Apart from strictly non-political religious groups, the PKK was the only organisation permitted to sign up village women as members. PKK helped implement official development plans like the family planning program, which arguably brought great benefit to rural women by providing them with cheap or free contraceptives, albeit accompanied by considerable pressure and lack of adequate information or a wide range of choice.
In 1974 the authoritarian New Order gave the women's movement what it had long craved, a uniform marriage law that offered women more legal protection and certainty in marriage than the vast majority of them had previously had under the largely unsupervised and exclusively male-run Islamic legal system. Since 1974, the religious courts have been closely controlled by the government. Women have frequently been appointed as judges, and decisions, particularly about divorce and polygamy, are less arbitrary and weighted against wives.
Of course the Marriage Law was also useful to a government seeking to base its development plans on small, stable families. It could also be seen as a trade-off for getting the women's movement to provide unpaid labour for the government's development strategy.
By the last decade of the New Order, women, like many other sectors of society, grew restive under the restrictions enforced by an authoritarian regime relying on a nationalist and developmentalist ideology.Especially better-educated middle class young women chafed at the dominance of stuffy 'wives' organisations'. Lower-class women were deprived of any way of voicing their aspirations and grievances.
Middle class women began setting up new and often overtly feminist organisations, that sometimes claimed to defend the interests of poor women like overseas migrant workers, a growing category in recent years. They used support from international sources to their advantage to carve out a niche for their concerns. The fact that international conferences, supported by the Indonesian government, were trumpeting ideas like participation, empowerment, and opposition to domestic violence, gave the new organisations some legitimacy. Reluctantly, New Order discourse began to shift towards this rhetoric and to create official bodies like the Ministry for Women's Role that gave the new ideas a toe-hold in government.
However, the gradual adjustments the New Order was making in its final years were overwhelmed by the avalanche of reformasi that followed the economic collapse of 1997-98. The ideological edifice of the old regime was demolished. First Habibie and then Wahid recognised that the old ideas of tightly centralised nationalism and rapid economic growth were no longer viable. These two presidents were conciliatory towards the rising tide of regional dissatisfaction with Jakarta, tolerant of pluralism, and unable to buy off opponents with the fruits of economic growth.
Freedom
The atmosphere is heady. In some ways the situation reminds us of the first couple of decades of the twentieth century, when women began exploring a range of new ideas, before any ideologies had begun to gel and become exclusive. Enjoying the new freedom, innumerable new women's organisations have blossomed, based on local concerns as well as international ideas ranging from religious revivalism and reform to human rights and feminism.
Virtually unrestricted, the media expose the new trends freely. The ranks of government provide sympathetic niches such as the newly created National Commission on Violence Against Women and the renamed Ministry for the Empowerment of Women.
In a climate where foreign aid has become more important than it has been for years, international influence on behalf of women has gained increasing clout. Aid agencies support women's organisations working in previously neglected areas, such as reproductive health amongst Islamic women.
For many women, however, the end of the New Order's grip must feel as painful as abandoning foot-binding did for older Chinese women! There is no structure, no order. Violence has proliferated in new forms, and women and children suffer disproportionately among the refugees from military repression and separatist and communal strife. Women's organisations in places like Aceh, Maluku and Papua are called on to patch up the wounds of violence, to work for peace, to provide subsistence support for displaced people. This resembles not liberation but misery.
The women's movement, like everything else, is in transition. Ideologically, nationalism and developmentalism have lost their grip. Regional diversity and even separatism assert themselves. The Jakarta cliques, also within the women's movement, have to backpedal to avoid accusations of dominance. These differences surfaced at the women's congress of December 1998, which some saw as an attempt to bring together women's organisations under an alternative umbrella similar to that of Kowani. Triumphalist developmentalism has taken a beating. PKK and the wives' organisation Dharma Wanita, its main channels within the women's movement, are struggling to regroup.
No universalising ideology looks likely to gain dominance.Rather, there are competing paradigms, including human rights, Islam, and international feminism. The movement is fragmented, and any effort to manufacture a strong umbrella organisation looks likely to fail.
In my view, however, this is no cause for concern. A women's movement does not need to be united It needs rather to represent women in all their diversity. Shifting and temporary alliances have been and will continue to be formed between organisations on particular issues like opposition to violence against women.
Rather than relying on an umbrella group that has the ear of the government at the expense of being tied to it, as Kowani has been, women's organisations will need to learn how to build a mass base and be more politically effective in rallying support from local, national and international allies. Some already have these skills, and can be expected to hone them further in the future, taking advantage of the democratic space provided since the fall of Suharto.
At a time of considerable uncertainty and even peril for many women, the Indonesian women's movement has thrown off the bridle into which it was forced by adopting increasingly hegemonic versions of nationalism and developmentalism. It is now facing its new freedom with a mixture of exhilaration and trepidation.
Dr Susan Blackburn (Sue.Blackburn@arts.monash.edu.au) is senior lecturer in the Department of Politics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She is writing a book on the history of the women's movement in Indonesia.
Inside Indonesia 66: Apr - Jun 2001
This energetic cabinet minister wants more power for women, fast
Vanessa Johanson talks with Khofifah Indar Parawansa
At 35, Khofifah Indar Parawansa is the youngest cabinet member ever. She is also the only minister ever to give birth in office. Determination and a healthy sense of irony have served her well. 'The word gender is still alien to most people in this country,' she says. 'Recently I was in Central Java, and one of the heads of local government said to me: Oh gender, that means transvestites (banci), doesn't it?' She shrieks with laughter.
'Other people think gender means ladies' business. I get asked to a lot of "ladies' programs" on the sidelines of the main, "men's" activity. But I refuse to go unless all participants come, including the men.'
One of Khofifah's first actions was to change the name to the Ministry of State for Women's Empowerment. She wants to give women more power within a male dominated system. With a small budget and staff, she focuses on lobbying - other sections of government, the media and religious organisations.
'In ministerial coordination and cabinet meetings, we often spend all our time talking about the latest emergencies. It's hard to get gender on the agenda. But the important thing is that gender is taken into account in practice. We go to the ministers individually and ask them: "How many women work in your department, and how are your programs taking into account justice for women?"'
'Women's representation within the bureaucracy is very poor. It is easy for women to enter at the lowest level, but how many women do we have at the top level? One of the main problems is education. Every time there is an opportunity for further education, it is always men who are sent.' Women make up only seven percent of the top three public service echelons.
She also wants more women in parliament. In the 1999 elections, the percentage of women in the national legislature actually fell from 11.62% to 9.82%. 'We are concerned that the new (proposed) general elections act will make matters worse. Women candidates won't get even ten percent under a district rather than a proportional system of voting. Maybe we can learn from the non-government organisations,' she jokes, 'they are mostly led by women!'
Motor
'I want women to be the motor of democratisation. With the New Order women's organisations like Dharma Wanita, wellI told them frankly that they were becoming redundant. Their whole focus is the domestication of women. But as part of the government I can't just tell the old women's organisations to close down. I just keep reminding them that the community is very dynamic, that they will be judged by the community.'
Khofifah is a high-speed but persuasive speaker. Legislative change is another priority. 'We are grateful that women's rights were inserted into the constitution last year. The problem is, when people talk about human rights, they often translate "human" as "men". Women and children are not included as humans with rights. There are still about eight acts which have no gender perspective. We are trying to get them changed.'
Attitudes of judges also need to change. Under current law, the maximum sentence for rape is twelve years too low, she says yet judges usually sentence rapists to only seven months. Khofifah proposed to the Minister for Justice and Human Rights that in a rape case, at least one judge must be a woman. He scoffed at the suggestion as discriminatory.
Khofifah faces challenges also within her own ranks. She was an activist in the Indonesian Muslim Student Movement (PMII), then joined the Islamic party PPP, and finally, with Abdurrahman Wahid's encouragement, joined the NU-based National Awakening Party (Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa, PKB) when it was established in 1999. In all of these organisations, she says, there are many men, particularly religious teachers (kiai), who simply do not understand the role of women in politics. 'Even many of the women themselves don't have the confidence to stand for preselection.'
'None of the political parties have a quota system for women candidates. If women are in the leadership, it is usually as treasurer. That is regarded as a housewife's job!'
Khofifah is not afraid of controversy. In September 2000 she agreed with the annulment of the seventeen-year old ban on polygamy for public servants, not because she believed they have a right to practice this Islamic custom, but because 'there doesn't need to be a formal ban on polygamy. Men should be ashamed of themselves and self-aware enough not to want to practice it.'
In July 2000, she called for a moratorium on the export of women as domestic workers, particularly to the Middle East. Around 3- 400,000 women are sent overseas each year. Many are abused and exploited. The moratorium call sparked a furious response from the lucrative industry.
On abortion, Khofifah's views contrast starkly with many feminists. 'The increase in the number of abortions is related to the growing modern lifestyle that encourages promiscuity and drug use among teenagers,' she told the Jakarta Post in February 2000. 'As chief of the National Family Planning Board, I will never recommend abortion as part of the family planning program.' At the time, the Post reported, Khofifah blamed women for resorting to abortion.
Share
Khofifah gave birth to her fourth child in April 2000. Asked the inevitable question of how she juggles packed domestic and public lives, she replies irritably:
'Look, it's a commitment between two people to have children. Men of course cannot give birth. But once the child is born, everything becomes the job of both partners in the relationship. That's how we manage to have time for all that we do we share the responsibility.'
'Still, many women suffer terribly in motherhood,' she adds. With an astounding memory for statistics, Khofifah rattles off the deaths-in-childbirth rates for several countries, concluding: 'In Indonesia our target is a maximum of 125 deaths per 100,000 live births. At the moment it is 373.'
'We cannot end the marginalisation of women without raising their standard of living. Most women live in villages, yet they still don't have access to farm credit programs. There is a policy - unwritten, I think - that loans are only for men. So women are condemned to be farm labourers only. How can they raise their standard of living?'
Prominent women activists are proud of Khofifah's achievements. Says Karlina Leksono, founder of Suara Ibu Peduli: 'Khofifah is serious about structural change for women. She has declared a national program of zero tolerance of violence against women. One practical outcome is the women's crisis centres in hospitals. She is pushing for changes in the penal code for rape and violence against women. I have long been a great admirer of Khofifah.'
Saparinah Sadli, founder and chair of the National Commission on Violence Against Women, who was offered and turned down the position of women's minister, is also full of praise: 'She is very energetic and focused. It's a pity the rest of the government can't keep up with her.'
Vanessa Johanson (vjohanson@eudoramail.com) is an adviser with the Indonesian Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM). This exclusive interview was recorded on 25 January 2001.
Inside Indonesia 66: April-June 2001
A new novel explores the ambiguous role of the outlaw in today's Indonesia
Marshall Clark
Back in May 1998, just a few days before president Suharto resigned, like most Westerners in Indonesia I was lying low and keeping out of trouble. This strategy allowed me to catch the late Saturday-night wayang kulit puppet show on Indosiar, apparently one of Indonesia's highest rating TV programs. The name of the puppetmaster, or dalang, escapes me, however the star of the show, Wisanggeni, was unforgettable. Small and petite in stature, Wisanggeni spoke in a high-pitched voice in ngoko, low Javanese, and, on a rampage against the gods, he parried, thrusted, somersaulted and taunted with the best of them. After the death of each adversary, he broke into an energetic victory dance. Considering the context of economic crisis, riots, and reformasi, my question was obvious: was Wisanggeni a student in disguise?
I later discovered that Wisanggeni is one of several Mahabharata characters indigenous to Java, and almost for this reason alone he enjoys great popularity. His popularity might also have something to do with his status as an outlaw and a rebel. Even before his birth, Wisanggeni was hunted by the gods, who are horrified by this offspring of a brief union between the playboy Arjuna, a mere 'human,' and the goddess Dewi Dresanala.
The gods are also aware that his weapons and magical powers make Wisanggeni totally invincible, which, in the context of the equally weighted fratricidal conflict between the Pandawa and the Kurawa cousins, is disastrous. According to popular understanding, if Wisanggeni were to participate in the great war at the climax of the Mahabharata, the Pandawa would almost certainly win, but at great personal cost. Eventually, for the sake of his family, Wisanggeni sees reason and relents, ascending into the heavens.
In the years after Suharto fell, Wisanggeni has proven himself an irresistable hero, the star of a story with purpose, passion, and pain. By opposing the will of the gods, and by refusing to use the polite registers of Javanese, Wisanggeni at once represents the dissatisfactions of the common people of Java and Indonesia who sympathise with him, as well as being set apart from them by his outlaw status.
Ned Kelly
Since 1998, Wisanggeni has appeared as a major figure in two critically acclaimed novels, Ayu Utami's Saman (1998) and Seno Gumira Ajidarma's Wisanggeni sang buronan (2000). He also appeared in a major drama production by Teater Tetas, Wisanggeni berkelebat (2000), the script of which was written by Arya Dipayana. As an oppositional figure, Wisanggeni clearly still has much to offer, much like Australia's own outlaw of stature, Ned Kelly. In the words of Graham Seal, author of Ned Kelly in popular tradition, '[To] most of us he is somehow essentially Australian. Ned Kelly has secured the national pedestal because the image that we have made of him has been our own. As long as most Australians see themselves, no matter how realistically, as tough, resourceful and independent pioneer types who give everyone a fair go but take no nonsense from anyone, Ned Kelly will endure. Perhaps we will too.'
The Wisanggeni placed on a pedestal (or is it stabbed into a banana trunk?) by the likes of Ayu, Seno, and Teater Tetas is by no means deliberately represented as a figure of political rebellion. Yet Wisanggeni's rebellious spirit, and the fact that he is a fugitive living outside the rule of the gods, can easily be understood as the focus for an alternative set of values, a rallying point for resistance against the Indonesian status quo.
However, when I spoke with Seno Gumira Ajidarma in Jakarta in November 2000, soon after the hunt for 'Tommy Suharto: Outlaw of the People' was launched, I realised that too many Wisanggenis might be too much of a good thing. In Seno's words: 'The problem with Indonesia is that it has too many Wisanggenis.' Tommy aside, there has been no shortage of Wisanggenis clamouring for attention, be they in the form of Sukarno clones, the clown-god Semar, or the long-awaited mythical Javanese saviour, the Ratu Adil. Many would even go so far as to say that Indonesia cannot benefit from any new Wisanggenis anyway, as she has already, as it were, lost the plot.
Meanwhile, in Seno's narration of the Wisanggeni legend, the opposite occurs. When Wisanggeni accepts the need to withdraw from the wayang realms, the plot of the Mahabharata is not lost but saved. In Seno's version, Wisanggeni does not ascend, Jesus-like, to heaven. Instead, he flies off, dips in and out of a few clouds, and ends up about 2000 feet above the sultan's palace in Yogyakarta, just in time to catch the last few scenes of a wayang kulit performance!
Intriguingly, the tale being performed is the very same tale that Wisanggeni had been enacting on the pages of Seno's novel. As the gamelan plays on, Wisanggeni slips in amongst the sleeping audience and sits behind the screen, watching the shadows of Arjuna and Kresna, who are discussing whether Wisanggeni has accepted his fate. At this point Wisanggeni, who looks like a tramp, bursts into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. The audience, however, fail to see the humour and, thinking he is mad, drag him off to be thrown out into the street.
Such a callous denouement to the novel is most unexpected, but in many respects Wisanggeni's fate sits perfectly with the rest of the novel. Earlier, Wisanggeni's life is often defined in terms of fiction. Even principal actors in his life story, such as Batara Brahma, are aware that Wisanggeni is but part of an extraordinary drama. However, Batara Brahma is unaware of how Wisanggeni's tale will unfold, even as he unfolds it himself. 'O dear holy baby, the child of fate', wept Batara Brahma uncontrollably, 'what tale is it that comes with your life, to the point where your grandfather is duty-bound to kill you?' (p39). Therefore, by leaving the relative safety of his fictional wayang world, Wisanggeni is confronted with a different type of threat, the threat of the 'real world.'
Fried dog
I use the word 'threat' here guardedly, as the world of contemporary Indonesia is only threatening when viewed in comparison to the comparative safety, predictability, and beauty of the wayang world. One narrative technique in particular highlights this point: the strategic usage of suluk verses, which are usually sung throughout wayang performances. The suluk verses in Seno's novel, however, not only present the majestic scenes of poetic beauty common to the traditional wayang world, but also foreshadow the sense of decay and lurking danger one may assume is inherent in the contemporary world outside the wayang universe. The juxtaposition between the 'heaven' of the wayang world and the 'hell' of the real world reminds us of the postmodern clichthat reality is as much a fictional representation as fiction itself.
The first suluk of Wisanggeni sang buronan, which from my observations has puzzled both critics and dalangalike, juxtaposes the timeless beauty of a lotus in a pond with the depravity of eating pork satay and fried dog:
a song for a scholar passed away, o, pork satay and fried dog o, how the oil oozes and drips and a lotus blossoms in a small pond awaiting the love of the outlaw, o!
Other suluk describe haunting Dante-esque images of burning wayang screens, drunk poets, debauchery, prostitutes, marijuana smoke, flowing arak beer, blood coughed up, and cold-blooded murder. Just as the narrator alludes more than once to the distant sound of gamelan accompanying his account, the suluk verses act as a significant point of convergence between the wayang world and the real world of contemporary Indonesia.
Despite the points of convergence, the two worlds are separate entities. So much so that, once Wisanggeni unwittingly disturbs the real world of Yogyakarta, he is no longer considered an outlaw representing the interests and perceived injustices of the supportive masses. On the contrary, his uncontrolled laughter at dawn confirms his reputation as a madman. Ironically, now that Wisanggeni, through death, has lost his fictional self, as reflected in the metafictional allusions throughout the novel, we find that the fictional self is hardly an object at all. It is a mere shadow, as it were.
In other words, Wisanggeni's self of real life imitates the self of fiction, only in reverse. Just as the gods reject Wisanggeni outright, and therefore attempt to wipe him from the Mahabharata slate, the audience at the wayang kulit in Yogya are equally unable to see the tramp as anything more than a madman, and so they too regard him as a threat to the natural order of the world. Wisanggeni's status as an outlaw is doubly ambivalent: on the one hand he has given up his fight against the gods, but on the other hand he is on the run from the very people who would normally consider him a kindred spirit.
Despite the imaginative use of narrative techniques such as metafiction and suluk to highlight the instability and lack of fixed identity of fiction and reality, the key point to emerge from such an unexpected climax to the novel appears to be ultimately political. Wisanggeni's fate suggests that for Indonesia's Mahabharata to continue, more and more of Indonesia's Wisanggeni-figures must give up their personal struggles and either have a glass of Baygon and a good lie down, or return to the real world, regardless of how bleak such a prospect may seem. Yes, Tommy, this means you.
Marshall Clark (Marshall.Clark@utas.edu.au) teaches Indonesian at the University of Tasmania, performs the odd GST-free wayang kulit puppet show, and is completing a PhD on modern Indonesian literature at ANU.
Inside Indonesia 66: April-June 2001
Australia must be a good global citizen towards refugees who transit Indonesia
Anita Roberts
The ten men staring through the bars at me ask me questions I cannot answer. 'Why are we here? What have we done that so hurts the Indonesian government? Why does Australia do nothing?' Mr Daud, an Afghani asylum seeker, also doubts the UN: 'The United Nations is the whole world, they must accept us, they need all people, the poor and those from war.' Like his fellow asylum seekers in detention in Denpasar, Daud has taken too many risks to consider the possibility that he will not be granted refugee status.
Daud, 'the Commander', fought with the United Front against the Taliban. When the Taliban captured and killed his brother, also a United Front commander, he put his wife and six children into hiding and fled. He has been in detention in Bali since he was arrested there on 14 June 2000 for overstaying his tourist visa. He has not yet been able to contact his family.
An officer from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) interviewed the asylum seekers in mid-July. Five months later, they have heard nothing, and hopes are sinking. Time stretches endlessly. The treatment of Daud's group is inconsistent with the UNHCR's own guideline advocating a 'rapid, flexible and liberal' process of status determination. Nor has the Indonesian Immigration Office in Denpasar, responsible for the 'quarantined' group, been kept informed.
The Immigration Department, meanwhile, lacks the funds to put Mr Daud on trial for breaking immigration law, so it treats his overstay as a procedural offence and is holding him in immigration detention. Officials hope the UNHCR will take him off their hands as a refugee. They are confused with the lack of policy guidelines to direct their response not only to the asylum seekers but also the various international bodies which also claim a role, the UNHCR and international organisation for migration (IOM).
If Daud does not get refugee status, he will in theory be blacklisted and deported from Indonesia. This would mean waiting in detention until either Indonesia has the funds to deport him or his home embassy agrees to pay. The latter is unlikely, and in any case, Daud would refuse to be repatriated. Immigration sources acknowledge that people in this situation have been detained for over forty years in the Kalideres detention centre in Jakarta. Over five hundred asylum seekers like Mr Daud are now stuck in Indonesian detention centres.
Indonesia's 'selective policy' on immigration means it does not accept the principle of naturalisation, nor does it permit itself to become a processing centre for refugees. However, while not party to the Refugee Convention, Indonesia has chosen not to remain blind to the global issue of asylum and refugees. The Department of Foreign Affairs and that of Justice and Human Rights both speak of a new 'humanitarian approach' to the refugee issue, which is in fact at odds with domestic law. This stance has allowed UNHCR and the IOM to become involved in the refugee determination process as representatives of the international community. Thus Mr Daud's future is determined by several often incompatible bodies - the Indonesian and Australian governments, and these international agencies.
The two governments each effectively have isolationist policies. Indeed, Indonesia is operating in a legal and policy vacuum regarding the current flow of Middle Eastern asylum seekers. There is no issue-specific memorandum of understanding on it between them. The Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs argues that a framework for a MoU should be taken from the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime, held in December 2000. While this MoU remains unrealised, cooperation is largely informal and carefully understated.
Persecution
Since the beginning of 1999, Indonesia has become the key staging point for the movement of people from the Middle East to Australia. Eighty five percent of those illegally entering Australia come by boat via Indonesia. Most asylum seekers enter Indonesia legally and try to reach either Christmas Island or Ashmore Reef. An asylum seeker is a person who applies to a national government for recognition as a refugee, and for permission to stay because they face persecution on the grounds of race, religion, political opinion, nationality or because they belong to a particular social group.
However, asylum seekers in Indonesia do not have their applications considered by the Indonesian government, as Indonesia has not yet signed the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 (the Refugee Convention) and its 1967 Protocol. Instead, the UNHCR branch in Jakarta considers their applications. If successful, they will await resettlement in a third country.
More than five hundred more illegal immigrants are feared to have died en route to Australia in 1999 alone. Yet, Indonesia and Australia both ignore this tragedy. Commenting on a report in December 2000 that 163 illegal immigrants had probably drowned while sailing to Ashmore Reef, Australia, Australia's Immigration Minister Mr Ruddock said: 'The incident appeared to have happened outside the area of responsibility'. What a contrast to the enthusiasm (and the money - an estimated A$2 million) the Australian Maritime Safety Authority exhibited to save Isabelle Autissier, the solo yachtswoman in 1995, and Tony Bullimore in 1997! Australia knows Indonesia does not have the capability to mount a 'coastwatch' service. Australia cannot hide behind its national boundaries.
Each year illegal people trafficking moves an estimated four million people worldwide, and generates proceeds of US$10 billion. Daud paid US$3,000 to an agent in Karachi, Pakistan, whom he met through an agent in Kabul, Afghanistan. For this fee he obtained an Afghanistan passport, Indonesian visa, and travel to Indonesia. In Indonesia, he contacted agents in Bali and Jakarta, and paid another US$2,000 in his attempts before arrest. Most of the asylum seekers I spoke to indicated they would try to reach Australia, even if it meant using up all their savings on up to three attempts. Indonesian police and immigration officials at remote ports, who lack the means to look after a sudden influx of foreigners, can sometimes be bribed just to let them leave. Their last resort was to contact the UNHCR and submit to status determination.
Peace
Australia attracts asylum seekers because of its wealth, peace, and stability. Mr Daud says: 'If our life is not in danger, why leave our children, our wife? I do not want to see Indonesia or Australia, I come here for safety.' The current flow is different only because they enter illegally. Does this make them criminals?
A recent letter to the editor in the Sydney Morning Herald stated 'illegals can nowadays not only drift in at will anywhere along our coastline but also demand the right to this and that'. Mr Ruddock himself claims illegal migration costs the Australian taxpayer millions of dollars in coastal surveillance, detention, litigation and removal costs. It is this perception that must be challenged. Firstly, from the 6,808 overstayers found in Australia in 1999, only 920 arrived as asylum seekers by boat. A media beatup. Secondly, the majority of those arriving by boat tend to apply to remain permanently in Australia as a refugee and as such contact Australian immigration. If any deception is involved it will be discovered when processing the claim for refugee status.
Asylum seekers rely on their own initiative and savings to reach safety. They face great dangers for a second opportunity at life. They use the established channels available to them - that is, narcotic and weapons networks. Restricted opportunity for legal migration has forced their hand. For those fleeing persecution, being smuggled is a reasonable alternative to bureaucratic, time consuming and therefore life endangering legal migration.
Each party is merely concerned with re-directing the flow away from their respective boundaries. There is no real recognition that this flow is due to migration issues such as reduced opportunity for legal migration combined with labour pressures, economic hardship, civil unrest, and persecution. The need is not for criminal but for migration solutions. The IOM does talk of resettlement and voluntary repatriation, but its counter-trafficking project gets substantial funding from Australia, so it has to concern itself with Australian views. It is senseless for individual states to act independently in the face of this global concern. Asylum seekers cannot call upon their homelands for protection. We cannot allow their plight to be viewed within the framework of individual nation states' interests.
For Australia, the 'boat people' are a hot topic, but they only become one at the moment they arrive in Australia and start affecting Australians. Those who make it that far are the lucky few. We should take a hard look at the asylum seeker situation before reaching Australian shores.
The global refugee flow is having an impact on our region. Australia should translate its global human rights rhetoric into regional action. This would ensure regional cohesion and security. People trafficking and smuggling networks should be destroyed. But criminal solutions should not be used to answer what is essentially a migration issue. Legal migration avenues should be improved. Australian obligations regarding the Refugee Convention should be fulfilled in the Australian spirit. Australia should also not be afraid to use its offshore humanitarian program to assist regional humanitarian migration issues such as the current flow. Regional benefits mean Australian benefits.
Only when nation states recognise that their global obligations transcend borders will people like Mr Daud know that their future is not arbitrarily determined by a political game of 'national interests'.
Anita Roberts (neetalr@yahoo.com) is a law student at the Australian National University, Canberra. She wrote a longer report on this topic while a participant in Acicis, the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/acicis/).
Inside Indonesia 66: April-June 2001
A new generation of victims speaks out. Will Indonesia now negotiate?
Lesley McCulloch
Brimob took my husband that day. I haven't seen him since. I pray he is still alive but in my sleep I dream he is dead. He was not a member of GAM and he was a good father.Now what will I do, I have two young children. (Aceh Pidie, 21 September 2000)
The Acehnese people, dispersed throughout their beautiful but remote homeland in the northern tip of Sumatra, have recognised that strength comes in numbers. In November 2000 the first 'Korban' Congress (Kongres Korban Pelanggaran HAM Aceh) was held. The word korban is usually translated victim, but also means blood offering, and sometimes refers more accurately to survivors (for which there is no Indonesian term). They came in any form of motorised transport they could find. Some who set out did not reach their final destination of Banda Aceh. The security forces ensured that terror remained their travelling companion. Friends and relatives paid tribute to those who were killed or 'taken' en route. The mood of the almost 400 who attended the congress over three days was of unity against the government in Jakarta. Long days of deliberation were followed by further strategy and tete a tete sessions into the early morning. The fact that so many had gathered was a success in itself.
The congress dismissed the argument from Jakarta that rogue elements of the military and police were responsible for the continuing violence. 'Someone, somewhere must take responsibility for the actions of a serving military officer,' said Jufri, chairman of the organising committee. The Acehnese are united in their feelings of betrayal by president Gus Dur. The congress passed resolutions calling for a UN monitoring team, for investigation of past human rights abuses, and for a special human rights court to bring to trial those accused.
The horrendous killings, torture, disappearances and rapes during Aceh's period as a Military Operational Area (DOM - Daerah Operasi Militer) 1989-1998 are well known. Since the end of DOM however, the Indonesian government has sought - and largely received - praise in the international arena for progress made towards reform in general and for their willingness to continue to strive for a negotiated settlement in Aceh. At the national level it gained itself the status of 'the world's newest democracy'.
The Aceh Refugee Forum (FPA) reported in December 2000 that there were 4,951 Acehnese refugees in North Sumatra, south of Aceh. Their latest data indicates that number has now risen to 10,972, mostly in Medan and Langkat, putting a severe strain on local resources. In Aceh itself there are almost 40,000 refugees, according to the People's Crisis Centre (PCC), a local non-government organisation.
The climate of fear is such that the mere proximity of security forces to a village often causes families to flee to the forest or farther afield. The degree to which each side is responsible is difficult to assess. No one denies that the Free Aceh Movement GAM has also been in part responsible for refugee flows and violations of human rights. It has often been argued that rumours, encouragement and threats by GAM play a not insignificant role in the refugee situation. However, my first hand experience and extensive interviews with civilians - other than those who attended the congress - suggest that it is the regular sweeping operations by the military and police which are the primary cause of the rise in numbers of internally displaced people.
The security forces under Gus Dur, and under Habibie before him, have continued to act with impunity in Aceh. The Indonesian Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) reported that 'the year 2000 has been the bloodiest in Aceh since before the military occupation which began in 1989'. Throughout 2000, almost 1,000 people died in the violence - half of those during the six months 'humanitarian pause'. The escalating violence, which was the impetus for implementing the pause in June 2000, has not abated.
Yet so far most of the international community has conveniently overlooked the situation in Aceh. As with the refugees, while no one is denying that GAM has contributed to the increasing number of deaths and atrocities, it is the Indonesian security forces that have perpetrated most of these violations. The government's hard line tactics have fuelled separatist demands. The 'new' generation of victims often supports not merely independence, but also GAM.
Dialogue
Swiss-brokered talks following the expiry of the pause in January 2001, while set against this background of on-going violence and verbal hostility by members of the Indonesian government, give hope that a functioning moratorium on violence may at least be a possibility. They concluded with a loose one-month 'provision of understanding', to come into effect immediately.
The latest agreement has only two provisions. The first is that it establishes a 'moratorium on violence' during which time both parties will 'work to substantially revise the security situation'. Second, further talks will include four substantive elements relating to security arrangements, democratic consultations, humanitarian law and human rights, and socio-economic development.
At the time of writing in January 2001, the common ground for any future agreement has yet to be identified. Dr Zaini Abdullah, head of the GAM negotiating team in Switzerland,said in a telephone interview with this author: 'for us the issue is quite simple. We (GAM) are united with the Acehnese people in their desire for independence. The first phase of any meaningful negotiations must be a cessation of violence.' This has proven to be elusive, as both the government and GAM have favoured, at varying times, a security approach to the Aceh dilemma.
Each of the four broad substantive areas constitutes a myriad of issues, and presents a possible hurdle to agreement. When pressed during the interview about such obstacles to progress, Dr Zaini said that GAM has recognised that the process by which the core demand of independence is likely to be achieved may include - by necessity - components to which historically they have been opposed. Zaini cited the following issues as central to the success of any future negotiations. They illustrate GAM's willingness to mix force with diplomacy:
GAM demands - in the first instance - the withdrawal of all non-organic troops from Aceh. The Indonesiangovernment (RI) continues to deploy increasing numbers of troops (now around 30,000). RI demands that all weapons in 'civilian' (GAM) hands must be surrendered.
GAM demands at least a vote for independence monitored by international independent observers. Initially this was a demand by SIRA (the Information Centre for Referendum in Aceh), long resisted by GAM, who said it meant dealing with the enemy, but, according to Dr Zaini, GAM are now ready to consider this option if civil society demands it assuming it is a precursor to independence. RI rejects such a vote (though Gus Dur once offered one), and has lobbied hard to prevent international support for GAM.
GAM demands the trial and punishment of those members of the security forces thought to be guilty of human rights violations. RI has convicted some low-ranking soldiers, but the process has stalled due to military obstruction. In January 2001, Komnas HAM announced it was establishing a long-delayed commission to investigate human rights violations in Aceh, and there are some indications of military and police support for it.
GAM demands that profits from natural resources remain in Aceh. However, a degree of flexibility may be possible at least for an initial transition period. The details of RI's 'special autonomy' package on offer to Aceh have still to be fine-tuned. It seems unlikely that RI will agree to give the 80% of natural resource revenues demanded by the Acehnese provincial parliament.
The Indonesian government goes into these negotiations knowing it is dealing with a more politicised Acehnese populace, and also it seems with a more sophisticated GAM. The growing support for civilian mass movements such as the student-led SIRA as well as for GAM reflects this newfound legitimacy. The Indonesian government is divided on how much compromise is appropriate to reach a workable agreement. The pause was always a Gus Dur project, while the military and police favoured a security solution. However, government actors are united in their claim that the loss of resource-rich Aceh would have serious consequences and could lead to the wholesale break-up of Indonesia.
The international community has its own reasons for fearing the disintegration of Indonesia, and is moreover reluctant to get on the wrong side of the world's fourth largest nation-state. There has been almost universal support for the efforts of the Gus Dur administration aimed above everything at preventing the break-up of this vast archipelagic state. The European Union (EU) for example has 'repeatedly stressed its support for a strong, united, democratic and prosperous Indonesia'. Japan, Australia and the US have made similar statements, which reflect concern for upheavals in investment, trade and security. Aceh is located at the entry to the Straits of Malacca, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
The prospect of a 'domino effect' resulting from an independent Aceh is limited. Yet precisely the fear of 'disintegrasi' is often used both domestically and abroad to garner support, no matter at what cost in lives, for the continued unity of the state. The international community must realise that this cost can be too high, and that in the long term it may not be possible to maintain Indonesia as it exists today.
Lesley McCulloch (mcculloch_lesley2@hotmail.com) is a Research Associate at the Centre for Defence Studies, Kings College, London, and was in Banda Aceh during the congress.
Inside Indonesia 66: April-June 2001
When reporting ethnic conflict, journalists can make a difference
Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick
Turning gently in the sea breeze which cools the town of Poso in the afternoon, the cover of Tabloid Mal is dominated by a crude cartoon drawing of a round black bomb, its fuse fizzing, and the headline Poso Bomb Mystery. Another local tabloid, Formasi, hanging alongside it from the canvas awning which shades customers browsing at the newspaper stall, is equally incendiary. Poso Reconciliation is Finished, its front page declares, in bright red capitals.
The fall of President Suharto and the repeal of his press laws triggered an explosion of new media. But no sooner was the Ministry of Information removed from the editorial process than Indonesian journalists entered a period of soul-searching about how to combine their new freedoms with a sense of responsibility.
Some coverage of the violence in Poso, in central Sulawesi, over the last two years shows these concerns. Jakarta Post, reporting on the third round of unrest in July of 2000, told its readers 124 people had been arrested for their part in 'communal clashes'. The Detik world web news service reported that a number of soldiers were being questioned, their commanding officer explaining that some had seen their own homes burned in the trouble: 'There are many whose families were murdered. That's why they helped and sided with those of a similar ideology.' Neither mentioned the religious identity of suspects or victims a restraint left over from the New Order, then a matter for the censor, now adopted as a self-denying ordinance for fear of stirring up trouble.
Can journalists in Indonesia help to reduce tensions by being honest about them? In November 2000 a group of reporters arrived in the provincial capital, Palu, in a visit sponsored by the British Council, to experiment with a set of techniques called peace journalism. All journalism is an intervention - peace journalism equips journalists covering conflicts to take an ethical approach. Three weekly magazines were represented, along with a radio station and the new 24-hour Metro TV service, as well as the Antara news agency and four national newspapers.
Kompas correspondent Maria Hartiningsih was clear about her reasons for making the trip: 'What really makes me want to do something with my reporting is that I saw a lot of innocent people become victims in this situation, especially women and childrenI have a spirit to do something to contribute to the reconciliation of this nation.'
Hope
At a rundown sports stadium on the outskirts of Palu which is now home to some 700 refugees, a clattering of carpentry tools interrupts Maria's conversation with a camp official. A group of men erect a makeshift partition to section off space for one of six or more families obliged to share a single room in sweltering conditions.
Not that she intends to wallow in the grief and trauma of the displaced. Though visibly affected by the scene, she explains: 'I want to prevent (violence), so that's why it needs another technique to explore the story, not the hatred of the people, not the emotion, not the anger, but the hope maybe, hope of the people for a new life.'
Further on, she encounters refugees living in very different conditions, thanks to a local grassroots organisation, Bantaya. A group of volunteers have banded together to care for people of either faith who were forced to flee their homes in Poso, some 220 kilometres away over the mountains.
Bantaya has persuaded landowners in Palu to lend fields for these unfortunates to cultivate. Maria is shown immaculately tended crops of black pepper and sweetcorn as well as a chilli harvest ten kilos, enough to fetch thirty thousand rupiah at local prices.
There are clerics, both Muslim and Christian, promoting understanding between their respective sections of the community. Kompas readers will learn about a church congregation working as volunteers, together with Muslim colleagues, to build and clean local mosques, for example.
To tell these stories requires frankness about the interreligious aspect of the 'communal clashes' coyly referred to by other accounts. What would be the point of reporting peace work to heal rifts between followers of different faiths if the rifts themselves were suppressed?
But peace journalism resists explanations for violence in terms of innate or essential enmities between parties the 'ancient hatreds' theory so prevalent in conflict reporting from the Middle East, the Balkans and Indonesia itself. This can make continuing strife seem inevitable, unless communities are segregated and the borders patrolled, which brings its own problems.
The road into Poso is salami-sliced into Muslim and Christian slivers, separated by paramilitary police (Brimob) observation posts at intervals of as little as fifty metres. Yet Maria's story suggests there is no inborn mutual loathing which automatically sets devotees of the two religions at each other's throats. So how did they lapse into a cycle of violence which has seen hundreds killed, three thousand houses burned down and perhaps as many as twenty thousand flee their homes?
The road itself holds a clue. It is part of the Trans-Sulawesi highway connecting the island's main cities a Suharto-era project which has brought the benefits of increased commerce as well as the problems associated with transmigration and development. The Pamona people who originally settled here learned Christianity a century ago from Dutch missionaries. New arrivals, mainly Bugis from Makassar but also a sprinkling of Javanese, tended to be Muslims until the groups attained roughly equal numbers.
By convention, the local government leader (bupati) would be drawn alternately from one section of the community, then the other. But the road and other developments made the office a valuable bauble in terms of kickbacks and patronage. With the fall of Suharto, the Muslim incumbent, Arif Patanga, challenged the convention by proposing his son Agfar to succeed him. The younger Patanga seems to have set out to turn religious difference into a political weapon to stir up trouble in Poso, with the object of keeping out the Christian candidate.
In the afternoon, the city is full of uniforms local police as well as Brimob, but also a large number of civil servants making their way home from the office. As a main administrative centre, Poso's livelihood depends heavily on public sector jobs. Simultaneous upheavals in both national and local politics were bound to have an unsettling effect.
At around this time, late 1998, a street brawl resulted in a Muslim man being cut in the arm with a knife. Instead of going to the police he rushed into a nearby mosque and called on believers to rouse themselves against the Christians who he blamed for inflicting the wound. The first round of house-burnings, known latterly as 'Poso I', ensued.
This trigger incident, and the background of political unrest, themselves suggest an alternative explanation for violence. A conflict model begins to take shape in which both parties inhabit a number of shared problems. The bupati was appointed from Palu, not elected in Poso, a deficient political system bound to encourage personal rivalry and 'top-doggery'.
Kickbacks from development projects were part of 'KKN', Corruption-Collusion-Nepotism, a flourishing culture under the New Order with its lack of transparency and accountability. These conditions encourage people to form and join groups to safeguard their interests, to stick together with those of their own kind they were one factor propelling the injured man into the arms of his co-religionists instead of taking up his grievance with the authorities.
Shared problems
By illuminating these shared problems, a peace journalist can expand the space to consider shared solutions, outcomes to the conflict which do not require one 'side' to 'win' and the other to 'lose'. As an alternative to apportioning blame, it makes it more logical to think of therapy than revenge or punishment.
About an hour's drive inland from Poso lies the town of Tentena, a Christian stronghold where blame is fixed squarely on the Muslims for 'starting it'. After Poso I, Christians turned the other cheek then that cheek was slapped in Poso II, which justified them in seeking vengeance, we were told.
At Tentena, the mountains of Lore Lindu National Park meet the shoreline of Lake Poso, famed for its wild orchids. But this bejewelled prospect is disfigured by gutted Muslim houses, while others bear a spray-painted cross to ward off the same fate. In caves in the mountains, it is said, leaders of the 'Red Squad' met and plotted Poso III, the Christians' revenge.
This version of events came from a local Christian guide who confidently asserted that Agfar Patanga had got clean away with his role as provocateur, and was now enjoying the comforts of a sinecure in Palu's local administration. Meanwhile, Christian militiamen Domingus Soares and Cornelius Tibo languished in jail proof, he believed, that the justice system could not be trusted, putting the onus on Christians to defend themselves.
Which turned out to be a symptom of another shared problem - a deficient information system. No newspapers were on sale in Tentena. It is doubtful whether townsfolk know even now that Patanga had been committed for trial in Palu.
Rumours flourish. One reporter, Misbah, from Muslim magazine Sabili, heard from refugees at Parigi that Laskar Jihad militiamen were organising and that members came openly to pray at the local mosque. They turned out to be white-robed students from the local pesantren, or religious high school.
In publicising and correcting these misconceptions, journalists themselves can contribute directly to reducing shared problems. Is that the same as the reporter's traditional role of 'reporting the facts'? For Maria Hartiningsih, this will not do. To report is to choose, and the journalist must take responsibility for those choices. The alternative to sensational tabloid headlines must include a positive choice for peace: 'Every journalist has the ideology in here, and me too my ideology is to contribute something for peace, to contribute something for justice,' she says.
Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick led the Peace Journalism trip to Poso for the British Council, organised in conjunction with a Jakarta-based NGO, LSPP, and with funding from the British Embassy. They teach the annual MA module in Peace-building Media at the University of Sydney, and run a website on responsible journalism at http://www.reportingtheworld.org/. For more information about peace journalism in Indonesia, contact Dr Nick Mawdsley (nick.mawdsley@britcoun.or.id).
Defence planners wake up and find Asia is (still) a threat
Simon Philpott
Despite the government's claims that the Defence White Paper is a forward looking and innovative document, its vision for the future remains wedded to an assumption that conflict between states is a permanent feature of international political life. It argues that 'changes [in the] dynamic Asia Pacific region could produce a more unstable and threatening strategic situation'. The White Paper is haunted by the twin implications of multiple poles of power in the wake of the Cold War, and the crisis in sovereignty in a region whose anti-colonial nationalism (including its Marxist variant) is under severe internal strain.
Australians find themselves living in a region in which the pitfalls and possibilities of postcolonial identity politics have spilled out of academic books and into day-to-day discourse throughout Southeast Asia. There is little doubt that so called separatists across Southeast Asia are encouraged by the tortured success of the East Timorese. In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet empire and the Balkans conflagration, the possibility of redrawing national boundaries is today less unthinkable in 'the West', even if it is intolerant of refugees fleeing the conflict the reconfiguration of boundaries often entails. How else are readers to understand references to the likelihood that peace-keeping operations may become more common in the next decade and beyond? And what are readers to make of the remark that in just the next decade, 'governments will consider using the Australian Defence Force in circumstances that we have not envisaged'. Arguably, these comments imply that the evolution of political community may be incomplete in the so-called arc of instability.
The White Paper enshrines a fundamental contradiction: a commitment to the integrity of existing nation-states (especially Indonesia), and an awareness that 'nationalism... remains potent and... an increasingly powerful motivator'. Nationalism may once have been a centripetal force, but currently it exhibits centrifugal tendencies. Thus, despite the veneer of optimism concerning the prospects for peace and prosperity in the region, and while welcoming the growing effectiveness of the United Nations, the White Paper warns that international politics is characterised by the permanent threat of disorder . However, it has little to say about the conceptual future of the nation-state, or about the question of sovereignty (resource sovereignty, indigenous rights), or about the moral and ethical justifications for maintaining colonial boundaries.
The White Paper foreshadows a return to a doctrine of forward defence, and emphasises self-reliance in the context of the US alliance, which remains the centrepiece of Australian security arrangements. Does the Howard government opposition to the emergence of other new states suggest that it now feels it paid a high price (politically and militarily) for its East Timor policies? Paradoxically, defending the national boundary status quo in the wake of East Timor may draw the Australian military further into regional affairs than the White Paper intends. Moreover, the government's habit of trumpeting (white Anglo) Australian values, particularly in the context of its well-executed East Timor intervention, has done little in the way of narrowing differences and building on common strategic perceptions, a stated aim of the White Paper.
Aceh and Papua
Aceh and Papua (Irian Jaya) are complex problems for this and any subsequent Indonesian government with democratic pretensions. In neither case do demands for independence look likely to dissipate, and Papuan activists may have a case in international law for separation from Indonesia given the deeply flawed Act of Free Choice (1969). While a defence White Paper may not be the place to canvass alternatives for the future of Aceh and Papua, defence and diplomacy are acknowledged there as opposite sides of the same foreign policy coin.
The dead bat of opposition to change not only diminishes the 'Australian values' of adherence to democratic procedures, tolerance and respect for human rights, but also implies acceptance of the fact of political repression in the present in preference to the potential for bloodshed that the Australian government believes will accompany Papuan independence.There is a contradiction in simultaneously seeking political disengagement from Indonesia's internal problems while seeking to develop a sense of regional security with a state whose defence forces have inadvertently nourished the fissiparous tendencies so clearly evident in Aceh and Papua.
John Howard has made much political capital out of playing a populist tune, so it is interesting that the Community Consultation Team reports that 'the public' supports increased expenditure on military affairs which 'contrasts sharply with the views of some academics and bureaucrats'. Whilst it would be wrong to overstate the importance of the consultation to the overall tenor of the White Paper and the proposals it outlines, the report presents the government with an anxious public ready to bear increased defence expenditure because of 'heightened instability' and 'unpredictability' in the region.
However, if the Hobart public consultation is anything to go by, overwhelmingly attended by white, middle aged or older males and conducted in a suburban Returned and Services Leagues club, the views gathered by the process are unrepresentative of contemporary Australian society.There is a good case for taking such meetings into schools and universities, to gauge the views of those who will be paying for defence expenditure long after many of those at the Hobart meeting have expired.
It was profoundly disappointing to hear 'Asia' so willingly constructed as an enduring threat to Australian security. Can it simply be assumed that younger Australians, a far more diverse group than was the case two generations ago, share the old white fear of invasion from Asia? After all, for a significant minority of Australians, the threatening sea of instability of the White Paper is a rather more domesticated setting of personal origins and extended family.
'Traditional' interstate tensions remain visible between India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, and the Koreas. But much of Asia's postcolonial history foreshadows twenty-first century problems: intrastate conflicts involving ideology, ethnicity, religion, economic inequality and forced dispossession of resources and land. Whilst the White Paper anticipates more regular deployment of Australian forces in multilateral, UN led missions, its twentieth century assumptions about international politics continue the long standing tradition of constructing Asia as Australia's security bnoire.
In indicating that Australia 'would be concerned about major internal challenges that threatened the stability and cohesion of... Indonesia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and the island countries of the Southwest Pacific', the White Paper vainly attempts to place the legacy of colonialism at the end of history. 'We' may not like it, but the consequences of European and Asian colonialism remain integral to regional politics. Idealising the world as it is not the answer to current and future challenges. As the White Paper observes, international politics offers few guarantees, but a genuinely forward-looking and innovative document would not so readily link change with fear. To do this is to remain in the cultural loop of assuming that no matter what happens in Asia, it is a threat to Australia's security.
Simon Philpott (Simon.Philpott@utas.edu.au) teaches at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia. 'Groundhog Day' is a 1993 film about a man who keeps reliving the same day.
Inside Indonesia 66: April-June 2001
Golkar and PDIP parliamentarians join forces to pull down Gus Dur
Gerry van Klinken
Gus Dur's supporters say New Order remnants are making a comeback. They are only partly right. The group of so-called 'cowboys' who are bringing him down are a new generation of politicians. They are young, well off, and say they hate corruption. They quite enjoyed the New Order, but they didn't like Suharto and don't like to be seen in public with soldiers. They may represent the beginnings of a new conservative alliance that will one day push aside the Suharto-era structures, and create new ones.
The most striking feature of this emerging alliance is its cross-party character, which belies all the symbolism of the 1999 election. Voters then thought of Golkar as the New Order bad guys, and Megawati's PDIP as the great hope for popular democracy. But Gus Dur is today being tackled at the knees by a group of Golkar and PDIP politicians for whom the 1999 symbols mean nothing, and who get along very well together.
Behind the major players - Abdurrahman Wahid (nicknamed Gus Dur), Megawati Sukarnoputri, and Golkar chief Akbar Tanjung - stand a host of often faceless party activists. These in turn represent groups that have long struggled for power within their own parties. The rebirth of Golkar after the fall of Suharto, in particular, is the result of a dramatic internal upheaval with dozens of key actors.
In the dying days of the Suharto regime, a dissident group within Golkar stood up against Suharto, and afterwards against Habibie too. They carried on a banner of internal reform unfurled in the late 1980s. Clustering around Harmoko first, then around Akbar Tanjung, they faced threats of expulsion. But in the end, fears that Golkar might lose the election helped them to prevail. They succeeded by turning it into a more conventional political party, cutting formal links with the military and the bureaucracy, building links with business, talking a lot about the rule of law - but all without apologising for a shady past.
The most dynamic figure of this new Golkar generation is Ade Komaruddin. Aged 35, he comes from an upper middle class family and runs a hotel in Jakarta, which he uses for political meetings. He is a former student activist with the Islamic Students Association HMI. The association has worked hard since the mid-1980s to influence national politics. Nearly half the last Suharto parliament consisted of former HMI members - in all the parties. Akbar Tanjung is one of many former HMI members who keep in touch through the alumni association KAHMI.
Behind Megawati Sukarnoputri stand similar factions. On one side is a group, led by her husband and major business figure Taufik Kiemas, who want her to stick with the Gus Dur alliance, presumably because it is a working arrangement, and moreover the symbolism is right. On the other is a group led by wealthy businessman Arifin Panigoro, who have long wanted her to dump a Gus Dur they see as incompetent, and set up shop with the Golkar that brought Indonesia prosperity for three decades. 'And hang the symbolism', this second group might say.
A key operative for the Arifin Panigoro faction is Zulvan Lindan. He comes from Aceh, but has long lived in Jakarta, where he headed the HMI in the early 1980s. Within two months of the June 1999 election, which pitted the PDIP against Golkar as light is pitted against darkness, he helped bring Megawati and Akbar Tanjung together at one table to explore the possibility of a coalition.
The 'cowboys', initially a group of twelve friends, are nationalists. Both Ade Komaruddin and Zulvan Lindan have said unsympathetic things about the East Timorese, Papuans and Acehnese. They belong to a new generation of young parliamentarians who, a Kompas survey showed, don't like federalism, fear 'communism', believe in the need for martial law powers, and think society remains 'immature'. They also seem to have forgotten the language of social justice. But they are not so easily bought and have made damaging revelations about money politics in parliament.
Topple Gus Dur
The group began to meet intensively but secretly from about May 2000 to try to topple Gus Dur. Some meetings may have involved military generals. They wanted a coalition between Golkar and PDIP to replace the shaky one that put Gus Dur in place.
At the end of May 2000, Ade Komaruddin presented Akbar Tanjung with a petition signed by 277 parliamentarians, from almost all parties, asking that the house question the president about his decision to sack two cabinet ministers in April. This led on 20 July 2000 to a stormy session, in which the president dismissed the questioning as unconstitutional.
Within a few days, Komaruddin made his next move. He handed Akbar Tanjung another petition, again signed by parliamentarians from most parties, to pursue the president on the so-called 'Buloggate' case, in which Gus Dur's aides allegedly took money from the state logistics agency. Since tickling the till of state agencies is standard practice, Akbar worried that Golkar would also be tainted by an expose, but he gave in, suddenly looking old beside the young Turks.
At the August 2000 MPR session, Ade Komaruddin and his mates hatched a plan to make Gus Dur divest day-to-day powers to his vice president Megawati. They wanted Gus Dur to be a constitutional head of state, 'like the Queen of England', with Megawati as head of government. Gus Dur agreed, but reneged once the MPR had dispersed.
On 5 September, parliament established a special committee (pansus) to investigate Buloggate and another problem they called Bruneigate, in which the Sultan of Brunei gave Gus Dur money to help the Acehnese. Ade Komaruddin was one of its key members. 'We have struck the hammer to call the president,' he said. He kept the committee in the headlines constantly since then.
In late November 2000, Ade Komaruddin used his trademark technique of the signature campaign once more to persuade the house to go down the road of a censure letter (a 'memorandum') that could result in the president's impeachment. For effect, Gus Dur's sins in this letter were multiplied. Zulvan Lindan, spokesperson for Ade's group, said Gus Dur had promoted separatism by allowing the Papuan flag to fly, had proposed to lift the ban on communism, had failed to prosecute Suharto for corruption, had replaced several key officials and ministers without consulting parliament, and had failed to divest powers to Megawati.
The memorandum came down on 1 February 2001. It led immediately to widespread popular protests around East Java, Gus Dur's political home base. At the time of writing (mid-February), Ade Komaruddin was at the heart of moves to call a special session of the MPR, at which a new president would replace Gus Dur.
What are we to make of all this? Much as they appreciate Gus Dur's democratic instincts, democracy activists will be advised to look less at personalities than at structures. Ever since its birth in 1945, Indonesia has had a strongly presidential system of government, with all important decisions made at the top. This system lent itself to authoritarianism and the abuse of power. But after the events of recent years, Indonesia no longer knows if it has a presidential or a parliamentary system. The parliamentarianism of Ade Komaruddin and his friends is actually preferable to a presidentialism wedded to the authoritarian 1945 constitution. But these new conservatives are out of touch with the popular mood, and their disgust of corruption is too selective to be convincing. This shows that the political parties themselves remain undemocratic too. Above all, it shows that authoritarian structures tend to reproduce themselves.
Gerry van Klinken (editor@insideindonesia.org) edits 'Inside Indonesia'.
Inside Indonesia 66: Apr - Jun 2001
Not as remote as you might think...
Mike Cookson
English language resources online for Papua have developed in curious and constrained ways since Inside Indonesia's first report 'Irian Jaya on the Net' in Oct-Dec 1999 (see edition #60 atwww.insideindonesia.org). The proliferation of print media in Papua and the growing use of email, newsgroups and the world wide web within Papua has seen the creation of several useful websites in Papua, almost all in Indonesian and all accessible through an excellent Jayapura (Port Numbay) based internet portal (www.infopapua.com). Almost all the other websites listed here are located in North America, Europe, Australia or New Zealand.
Newsgroups are one of the least expensive and most efficient ways to source information about Papua from the internet. Kabar-Irian maintains several moderated newsgroups available in English and Indonesian as daily postings or in a digest format (see www.kabar-irian.com for details). The two most popular unmoderated (unedited) news or 'chat' groups (both with around 200 subscribers) are the West Papua News list (formerly reg.westpapua, now at www.topica.com/lists/WestPapua) and Kabar-L (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/irianjaya). It is easy to subscribe or unsubscribe to these newsgroups and they don't forward your email to advertisers for spamming (junk mail). If you want more than the daily news, the following is a selection of the best Papua-related websites across the political spectrum.
Art, culture and tourism. Asmat art is the most widely known art form of Papua. The Crosier Missionaries have sponsored it for decades (www.asmat.org/default.asp) and others have collected it for as long (www.asmat.de/asmat-eng/index.htm). See more Asmat art at www.asmatart.net, Sentani barkcloth at www.artasiapacific.com/articles/maro/fn.html and a large (if at times unspecific) collection of Papua images at www.dinnissen.org. Search engines will turn up more, including tourist sites like: www.baliem.com, www.balimart.com/irian (very clear), www.irianjaya.de, www.papua-adventures.com/index.html, www.mountainmadness.com/gallery/carstenz/carstenz08.htm and travelogues like Where is Evan (www.whereisevan.com/indonesia00-3.html). The Biak Tourism Office is well worth a visit (www.infobiaknumfor.com) and you can combine an interest in culture, tourism and Christian missions at Eduventure (www.eduventure.net).
Mega projects. Reflecting the importance of its public profile and its massive financial resources, Freeport Indonesia offers one of the most comprehensive Papua-related sites on the web (www.fcx.com). An extensive Freeport bibliography (to 1998) is at http://rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/Pages/Textonline/Biblio_ij.html. Use local search engines for information on BP Amoco's huge Tangguh development (www.bp.com/index.asp) or Inco's exploration program (www.inco.com), or check some pages about the pending Mamberamo project (www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Island/4175 and http://home.snafu.de/watchin/Mamberamo.htm). Project Underground (www.moles.org), the Real History Archive (www.realhistoryarchives.com/collections/hidden/freeport.htm) and The Mineral Policy Institute (www.mpi.org.au) have news and critical commentary about some of these developments.
Concerned for the welfare, environment and human rights of Papuan communities? Down to Earth (www.gn.apc.org/dte), Tapol (www.gn.apc.org/tapol) and Inside Indonesia (you're reading it!) include Papua in their online newsletters, while Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org), Survival International (www.survival.org.uk), the Robert F Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights (www.rfkmemorial.org/center/pro_act.htm) and the International Crisis Group (www.intl-crisis-group.org) have detailed reports available on Papua. The Kemala network (www.bsp-kemala.or.id) has useful information about NGOs already working on these issues in Papua, while the West Papua Project aims to build peace initiatives there (www.arts.usyd.edu.au/arts/departs/cpacs/wppmain.html).
Papua solidarity groups typically rely on voluntary support to promote the cause of Papuan self-determination and are often unfettered by institutional affiliations. One of the oldest, the Australia West Papua Association offers the West Papua Information Kit online (www.cs.utexas.edu/users/cline/papua/core.htm, while Bob Boyer's Papua page on this server has disappeared). Others include the West Papua Action Group (www.westpapuaaction.buz.org), the Oxford Papuan Rights Campaign (www.westpapua.org), the Cambridge Peace Initiative (West Papua subgroup at www.campeace.org/westpapua.html), International Action for West Papua (www.koteka.net), Friends of People Close to Nature (www.fpcn-global.org with amazing photos) and www.angelfire.com/journal/issues/irian.html.
A number of websites represent the West Papuan independence movement, reflecting ambiguities in the movement's leadership and the strong sense of identity the movement evokes among Papuan exiles and independence activists. Prominent sites include the West Papua Nuigini/ Irian Jaya homepage (www.converge.org.nz/wpapua), an 'informal' Indonesian OPM website (www.geocities.com/opm-irja), the Liberation Army of West Papua's Free Papua Movement (www.geocities.com/wp_tpnopm) and the Diary of the OPM (www.westpapua.org.uk or www.westpapua.net) and www.eco-action.org/opm.
Researchers can assist with some of the intellectual resources necessary for a peaceful, just and secure future in Papua. The internet offers new possibilities for sharing and even repatriating existing research to Papua. Since 1994 Irja.org Inc. has provided a valuable information resource on Papua (www.irja.org). Other useful sites include: http://users.bart.nl/~edcolijn/irian.html, www.sil.org/ethnologue/families/West_Papuan.html, www.bps.go.id (go to the regional offices - Irian Jaya page) and AusAID's training module (http://globaled.ausaid.gov.au/secondary/casestud/indonesia/3/jayawijaya.html). Learn about Dutch research projects in Papua at http://iias.leidenuniv.nl/host/isir/gen and from back issues of Oceania Newsletter (www.kun.nl/cps/index.html#index). PNG research (http://rspas.anu.edu.au/lmp) suggests important future collaborations for researchers on Papua. Finally, Kirksey's homepage (www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/~wolf0983) offers the first free Papua-specific thesis online, while abstracts for other theses on Irian Jaya/ Papua/ West Papua (use all of these whenever you want a complete search) by North American researchers can be viewed or purchased at www.umi.com.
A popular Papuan peace building initiative can be found at www.wpu-fc.faithweb.com/main.html.
Mike Cookson (michael.cookson@anu.edu.au) is researching for a PhD
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Papua is not the Stone Age
Gerry van Klinken
Both Australia and Indonesia are probably about to get new leaders. We hope all the candidates for the top jobs - Megawati, John Howard and Kim Beazley - will read this edition of Inside Indonesia. So for that matter should George W Bush (who said we don't aim high?!). Papua has for too long been a remote, 'primitive' place whose fate is arranged in Jakarta, Canberra, New York and Washington. Today it is far less remote. Papua is all over the worldwide web, as Mike Cookson shows us here. Now is the time to start listening to Papuans themselves. That is the real meaning of self-determination, still one of the key beliefs underpinning the United Nations.
This edition does not take a view on Papuan independence as such. It wants to be a forum for ideas. What it does take a view on is the importance of people. No abstract idea of national sovereignty, or of a gross domestic product, can be more important than the right of ordinary children, women and men to live in peace and dignity.
I think this edition brings those Papuan people into closeup. Not surprisingly, we discover they are human beings who dream of a better future, not unlike humans elsewhere. Once we have 'met' people like John Rumbiak, Tom Beanal or Beatrix Koibur we can no longer talk about 'Stone Age rebels', as so many newspapers still do. We will also find it much less easy to say patronising things about what is advisable, permissible or possible for Papua.
This is about as packed an edition of our little magazine as we have ever managed! So many people contributed so gladly it has been an amazing one to edit. There is a growing Papuan solidarity movement out there, that's for sure. Of course, it would take a book to cover everything. Maybe this one can be a first guide to action.
Gerry van Klinken is the editor of Inside Indonesia
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Christianity, curly hair, and human dignity
Nico Schulte Nordholt
The two phenomena of ethnicity and ethno-nationalism are not restricted to West Papua. All over the archipelago they occur as a consequence of the present power vacuum in the 'centre' after Suharto's 32 years of centralistic and oppressive reign. Everywhere anti-Jakarta and, outside Java, anti-Javanese, sentiments can be noticed. To those who are not Papuan (or Acehnese, or any of the other ethnic groups now talking about seceding from Indonesia), these sentiments often sound dreadfully exclusive. Does this mean Indonesia is now inevitably headed away from earlier ideals of tolerance and diversity, towards narrower concepts of nationhood based on blood and religion?
The Dutch scholar Jan Nederveen Pieterse pointed out that an ethnic discourse is profoundly affected by macro processes such as post Cold War politics. For Indonesia, one can add to this the impact of the Asian economic crisis since 1997, which has led to the present Kristal(total crisis). IMF and World Bank policies such as 'the retreat of the central state', 'decentralisation', 'privatisation' and 'democratisation' are also driving politics in an ethnic direction.
The republic's national slogan of Diversity in Unity (Bhinneka Tunggal Ika) was intended in 1945 to express a unity (persatuan) based on a voluntary choice of belonging to the new republic of Indonesia. At that time there was great appreciation for the vast diversity of the republic. During Suharto's New Order, however, this national slogan shifted towards unity imposed from above (kesatuan). Ethnicity was reduced to folk customs, displayed on well-orchestrated TV performances.
Today the pendulum of ethnic diversity is shifting again, this time towards a kind of ethno-nationalism that causes many observers in and outside Indonesia to fear a complete falling-apart. I will show in a moment that I personally do not think the situation is that bad, but two regions, Aceh and West Papua, may indeed try to separate themselves from the republic.
'Being a christian'
When as a lecturer at a university in Java in the 1970s I first came to know students from what was then still called Irian Jaya, I discovered how diverse they really were. There were tensions especially between coastal and mountain Papuans. Moreover, individualism was deeply rooted. Even within one's own clan, creating co-operation was an uphill battle. But a number of things bound them together. They spoke Indonesian together. They all loved soccer. And 'being a christian' was important to them, especially when they experienced petty racism amidst their overwhelmingly Javanese and Islamic environment. They named the hostel where they lived 'Mansinam', after the small coastal village near Manokwari where the first missionaries landed in the nineteenth century. These things amounted to a Papuan ethnicity, which to them was not 'narrow' but broad and protective.
In the 1980s I helped the main Protestant church in Irian Jaya (GKI Irja) to develop some community development programs. I saw once more how 'being a christian' offered Papuans a new identity, lifting them above their own clan identity. Although separated by many Christian denominations, 'being a christian' gave them a self-respect that resisted the discrimination they experienced from the Indonesian authorities and the armed forces in particular. Even the distinction between Protestant and Catholic, elsewhere the source of much tension, appeared to be of minor interest.
Arnold Ap symbolised the severe discrimination most Papuans felt in the 1980s. This well-known Papuan anthropologist was killed by intelligence agents just before Easter 1984, on orders from the Jakarta headquarters. They saw him as the champion of a national liberation movement, and he therefore had to be eliminated. In fact he had only given Papuans back their self-respect, through church liturgy. He was a leader who bridged Papua's deep ethnic diversity. While himself from the coastal area, he equally supported the rights of the mountain people. The environment, and later in the nineties (entirely in Arnold Ap's spirit) human rights, were issues that rose above the ethnic divisions.
When the government announced in August 1983 that 750,000 households of transmigrants would be shipped to Irian Jaya, Papuans soon said: 'We will be no more than servants on our own soil', and: 'They wish to turn our curly hair into straight hair'.
To counter this widespread fear, the GKI Irja church synod thought it important to provide some hope for the future. Hence those plans for programs promising at least some kind of 'survival' as a group with their own identity. During the years that followed not many of those plans were realised. Church organisations did not have enough human capacity. Nevertheless, the churches did offer a shelter in which Papuans could experience their identity.
The churches, alongside several relatively small but influential NGOs, have similarly been vocal about the social cost of mining and forestry from the mid-eighties until today.
Emancipation
After the end of the Suharto regime these protests acquired a political meaning. The call for independence was first expressed openly in 1998. In June 2000, thanks to the tolerant attitude of the Wahid government at that time, a well-organised people's congress officially put forward the demand for independence to the government in Jakarta, although terms and conditions were negotiable.
Does this amount to a Papuan declaration of war on Indonesia, as Papuans dig in to fight for their own state, moreover one that is based on a narrowly racial and religious concept of Papuan ethnicity? I do not think so, at least not yet. Some leading Papuans have told me that in fact their main purpose was to win recognition of their human dignity, as well as full recognition from 'Jakarta' and the rest of the world of the grave injustice done to them by 'the treason of 1969'. In other words, they seemed to imply, their fight was for a better Indonesia rather than a separate Papua.
However, much will depend on how Jakarta now responds. Today, in May 2001, President Wahid is hostage to the Indonesian Armed Forces TNI, while the presidium of the people's congress is in jail. Possibly the present intelligence officers, like their predecessors who liquidated Arnold Ap in 1984, think that by 'decapitating' the leadership of a national movement they can enfeeble it. Meanwhile Wahid's likely successor, Megawati Sukarnoputri, leads a party that in all its statements about the regions beyond Java sounds centralistic and nationalistic rather than sympathetic to diversity. A government she leads may resort to increased repression in Papua.
Repression seemed to work in the eighties, at least at first sight. But now, nearly twenty years later, resistance against injustice is much more widespread. Besides the five leaders in jail, there are many more younger leaders who, in the spirit of Arnold Ap, are ready to stand up for the demands of the people. A policy of repression will only fuel the call for independence. Both within and beyond the church, these new leaders are at the same time rising above the boundaries of their own ethnic and religious groups and presenting themselves as representatives of a self-conscious Papuan nation in the making.
Nevertheless, much about Papuan self-consciousness remains fluid and open to different possibilities. It would be premature to jump to the conclusion that it is becoming a narrow and exclusive Papuan ethno-nationalism, completely rejecting Jakarta and threatening non-Papuans living in Papua with expulsion. Just as Papuan ethnicity has proved generous and inclusive towards Papuans from all over this vast territory, it has the potential to expand and embrace others too.
Nor is the concept of nationalism necessarily exclusive. All over the world, nationalism is 'Janus-faced' - it can be liberating and inclusive, or chauvinistic and exclusive. When nearly all Papuans loudly express the call for 'merdeka', that in itself is not sufficient to know what kind of freedom is envisaged. Does it mean 'emancipation' and 'liberation from injustice' - that is, to be accorded the same respect as all others within the one Indonesian nation? Or does it rather mean 'chauvinism' and 'domination' - that is, by Papuans against non-Papuan 'others', against 'Indonesians' and those who represent them locally, in particular traders and transmigrants?
Papuans who are (aspiring) state officials perhaps intend their call for 'merdeka' to be heard in a narrow ethno-nationalistic sense, meaning they want a state of their own where only Papuan Christians will be citizens. They say this in reaction against a Jakarta they see as the colonial centre. Their history of Dutch colonial rule, de facto, lasted only about fifteen years, but they endured the New Order for more than thirty years. For them, Papua must now coincide with the borders of the province of Irian Jaya as a distinct administrative unit.
It may turn out, however, that provided justice is done to the Papuan population the call for 'merdeka' will by and large be meant as a call for 'emancipation', a call to acknowledge the dignity of Papuan cultures in general, in line with the original Unity in Diversity slogan of the Indonesian nation-state. In my understanding, this interpretation is still the meaning and objective of the new leadership within Papuan civil society. If this leadership does eventually move towards the narrower meaning of 'ethnicity' held today mainly by the Papuan elite, that is towards a sovereign state based on an exclusive Papuan ethnicity, it will be because the domineering and chauvinistic, nationalistic politics of the TNI and of Megawati Sukarnoputri's PDI-P force them in that direction.
Nico Schulte Nordholt (n.g.schultenordholt@tdg.utwente.nl) teaches at the University of Twente, Enschede, in the Netherlands.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Beatrix Koibur explains why Christianity is important to Papuan women
Annie Feith
In August 2000, I had the good fortune to meet and interview Beatrix Koibur, one of two women on the Papuan Presidium, the executive body of the Papuan Council. I was researching West Papuan nationalism from a gender perspective. Beatrix is one of the few Papuan women leaders. She was in Brisbane with other presidium members, some of who attended the UN General Assembly the following month.
Beatrix Koibur Rumbino was born on July 10 1939, on Miokbundi, a small island to the east of Biak, and her own outlook reflects the influence of Dutch Protestant missionaries. This remains a strong influence in Papua, despite almost forty years of Indonesian rule. The Dutch are seen as having been a much more benign coloniser than the Indonesians. In some coastal areas such as Biak (from where many prominent nationalists originate), missionary efforts meant that by the late 1940s, most men and growing numbers of women were receiving a formal education. Hence this particular form of Christianity constitutes a strong part of Papuan - Melanesian identity.
In 1953, having completed three years at a Domestic Science Girls School, Beatrix was chosen to go to a missionary teachers college in Serui. As the first woman graduate in 1956, Beatrix was qualified as a primary teacher and Bible study leader. At that time, this was the highest level of education available to Papuan women. From 1963 with Indonesian rule, Beatrix said that it was only within the church that women had the confidence and courage to become leaders. Few government positions went to women, and almost all of those were given to women from Java and other parts of Indonesia, despite the fact that many Papuan women were capable of filling them, particularly those who had graduated from the Domestic Science Girls Schools.
Beatrix was proud of the fact that some women joined the OPM guerilla movement, and she pointed to a 1980 episode in which several women raised the Morning Star flag in Jayapura and were subsequently jailed. Women are now beginning to speak out about military repression, she said. In the past, if they spoke out they would be arrested. My argument that the militarisation of a nationalist movement tends to privilege men and masculinity to the detriment of women seemed not to resonate with Beatrix. Her perception of the Satgas Papua, the militia formed by Papuan nationalist Theys Eluay, was positive. She pointed out that these groups were not armed, but suggested that they may need to become so in the future.
Since late 1998 with reformasi, Beatrix has been called 'Mama Papua'. The title 'Mama' is also used for other outspoken women such as the Amungme leader Yosepha Alomang. For Biak people, powerful women leaders have historical significance. Angganetha Menufandu, for example, preached non-violence as she led a large anti-colonial millenarian movement in the 1940s (Koreri).
Church voice
According to Beatrix, the churches give great strength and hope to Papuans. Church leaders play a pastoral role, but also provide protection and a measure of political access, making possible the monitoring of human rights violations. As in East Timor, the churches have provided one of the few avenues through which Papuans can voice their grievances.
Beatrix Koibur is head of the Women's Christian Association of Indonesia in West Papua. In this position, since reformasi began in 1998, she has felt empowered to speak out. On 6 July 1998 in Biak City on the island of Biak, the Indonesian army opened fire on some two hundred people who were guarding the banned Morning Star flag. Beatrix went to Biak as head of a church team to care for the women and children survivors of the massacres. The naked mutilated bodies she saw horrified her. These massacres were even more shocking in that they took place after Suharto's fall. But they also had an empowering effect.
In the aftermath the three main churches - both Catholic and Protestant - formed the Forum for the Reconciliation of Irian Jaya Society (Foreri). Its aim was to create a 'national dialogue' to pursue political solutions for West Papua. From Foreri came the Team 100, which met President Habibie in February 1999 to demand independence. Beatrix was the only woman on the team.
Beatrix' account highlights the centrality of the Biak massacres of July 1998 as a catalyst in the most recent chapter of Papuan nationalism, and the crucial role played by the churches in it. With regard to gender relations within the movement, Beatrix' comments indicate that whilst Papuan women are actively involved, their engagement is contributive, and does not in general challenge the male-dominated power structures.
Anne Feith (anniefeith@hotmail.com) recently wrote an honour's thesis at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, on women and the West Papuan nationalist struggle.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Page 52 of 68
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