Indonesian Muslim Feminists: Islamic Reasoning, Rumah Kitab And The Case Of Child Brides

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Written by Nelly van Dorn-Harder, Professor at Wake Forest University, North Carolina. Published by Institute on Culture, Religion & World Affairs, Boston University, USA.

 

Indonesian: not Arab!

Indonesia is a vast country with numerous languages, cultures and ethnicities. It should not surprise us that discussions about Islam reflect the complexity of the country. In spite of this diversity, authorities on Indonesian Islam agree that several distinctive features set it apart from Middle Eastern Islam. According to Azyumardi Azra, Indonesian Islam is firmly embedded in local cultures, and the state is democratically governed under the common ideological platform of the Pancasila model that in principle sanctions the full legal presence of Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, and Bahai communities.1 Furthermore, a distinctive feature is that for nearly half a century the majority of Indonesian Muslim leaders have allowed women to hold religious and secular leadership roles. This development is also discernible in various mainstream Muslim organizations of which Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah are the largest, and “can be seen as a perfect representation of Islamic-based civil society.”2

Simply put, the prevalent opinion is that Indonesian Islam is not Arab and never will be. Yet, when in 1998, the Suharto regime fell and the country’s political system became more democratic, Islamic movements whose main goal was to align Indonesian Islam more closely with interpretations from Middle Eastern Arab countries started to influence the country’s public life. The new-found democratic freedoms not only allowed for a pluralization of Islamic ideals, but also led to a fragmentation of religious authority. Communal boundaries were redrawn and relatively small numbers of extremist Muslim thinkers disproportionately influenced the creation of new laws and Islamic regulations. New political and religious actors emerged, all presenting new possibilities for what Hoesterey and Clark referred to as a glorious Islam “in the abstract.”3 In this crowded landscape, women, their bodies, roles, and rights became the symbolic bearers of how the abstract should be translated into reality.4

This new religious reality begs the question as to how Muslim feminist activists belonging to the mainstream organizations of NU and Muhammadiyah negotiated some of the sweeping changes in religious attitudes. While feminism comes in many forms, in this context I refer to Muslim feminists; women and men for whom the key to women’s liberation is found in re-interpreting the Qur’an and other Islamic sources (for example the Tradition or Hadith) from the perspective of gender equality. Their reference point is the belief that the sources for women’s liberation are the Muslim holy texts, but that these have been misread and abused to subordinate women.5 In Indonesia, feminists, Muslim or not, fight several battles against multiple forms of injustice perpetrated against women. Among others, they address issues connected to domestic violence and other forms of violence against women such as human trafficking, women’s reproductive rights (including FGM, Female Genital Mutilation)6, polygamy, unregistered or secret forms of marriage (nikah siri), child marriage (pernikahan di bawah usia, or pernikahan dini), and women’s public and private leadership roles.7

In this essay I focus on the strategies developed against the practice of underage or child marriage by the non-governmental organization Rumah Kitab (Rumah Kita Bersama). The rationale for this choice is that the practice of child or underage marriage touches on several of the main priorities of the Muslim feminist agenda as it includes the issues of secret marriage and polygamy. Furthermore, in Indonesia and many Muslim majority countries it is a brazen infraction of state marriage laws that impose a minimum age for women and men. Underage marriage is a form of violence against women, it threatens a girl’s (reproductive) health, and is often performed in secret as by necessity
it remains unregistered. In many instances the child bride enters a polygamous union.

According to the 2015 report by Coram International, 7.8% of Indonesian brides were 12-14 years old and 30.6% were 15-17 at the time of marriage (according to Indonesian law, the minimum age for girls is sixteen and for boys, nineteen).8 These numbers are higher than the numbers given by Unicef in 2014 that estimated 21% of Indonesian women between the age of 20-24 to be married before the age of eighteen of whom 3% were under the age of 15.9 The practice is mostly driven by socioeconomic factors such as poverty and local customs. For example some areas perform so-called “hanging” marriages (kawin gantung): a girl child is officially married but sexual relations are postponed until she has reached maturity. Child marriage is also supported by rigid gender norms that normalize male violence against women. Certain radical Muslim groups have promoted the practice as proof of Islamic correctness and a means to protect the bride’s honor. Some groups even present the practice as “cool.”

Get the full journal here: https://www.bu.edu/cura/files/2016/02/Boston-University-presentation-January-29-2016-van-Doorn-2.pdf 

How Indonesian School System Segregates Believers

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The article was originally published in Magdalene, written by Amrina R. Wijaya.

I used to attend an all-Muslim school in my early years. There we did many things “Islamic”: the girls were obliged to cover their hair and once a week we were taught about the history of the Prophet and the glory of the Islamic civilizations.

Since everyone was of the same faith, I had never seen anyone at school making gesture in the shape of a cross across their chest before the class started. It was also a foreign idea for me back then to imagine that there were people in this world who are actually prohibited from savoring beef-based dish. Islam is the only religion we understood.

Attending a religious school was a good thing to some extent, because it exposed me, as a believer, to good Islamic values at such early age, which laid the foundation for me to later develop and rethink them as I grew older. But, on the other hand, being surrounded by people of the same faith has blinded me, and others, to religious multiculturalism we encounter in real life.

We were told over and over again that our religion was the truest of all that some of us became very disdainful and irrationally scared of getting dirty, whenever encountering a term not in our religious dictionary. The word Christianity used to be akin to the F-word for us, and making fun of Jesus would be considered appropriate.

Later I found out from my other friends who attended more heterogonous public schools that faith-related mockery also existed outside the walls of religious schools. One time, a friend of mine was told that she would burn in hell unless she converted.

In reality, diversity should not be a foreign concept for most Indonesians. People as young as schoolchildren have been exposed to diversity, from their neighborhood and from schoolbooks. This raises the question: why do the schoolchildren – who are supposedly pure hearted and innocent – treat other adherents like they were aliens, and declare that hellfire awaits them?

One of the main reasons, I believe, lies in an education system with a curriculum that focuses on “knowing the what’s” instead of “understanding the why’s and how’s”. When it comes to religious diversity, schoolchildren know that there are Muslims and Christians and Buddhists, they know the name of other religions’ houses of worship, but they have no idea why their followers wear different religious symbols, or how all faiths believe in respecting men of all kind.

Religious subjects are still taught exclusively to its adherents – thanks to our constitution on national education system – keeping “the others” outside their reach and creating an even bigger gap among different believers.

The perpetuation of this segregation of believers is (unintendedly) supported by the local school system (in which ironically only reflects the fact that is a “normal” practice in society!). We see how most state schools in Indonesia are very Muslim-dominated, that prayers are often led in the Islamic way – rather than a universal one – to which the minority groups have to conform.

This condition would likely justify the dominance of a certain faith and perpetuate the underrepresentation of minorities. Today we also see that there are many faith-based groups in junior and senior high schools, and despite the common ground of love and peace they all agree upon, the discourse of tolerance is only taught and spoken of within their walls.

These groups create many religious events whose participation is restricted to a certain faith – retreat night for Christians and prayer gathering for Muslims, for example – but, strangely, no faith-based events open for all believers as an arena to understand each other. In practice, they are never seen to be “in contact” with other faith-based club members in promoting interreligious tolerance.

Being so used to be segregated by beliefs, it is no wonder that schoolchildren tend to magnify the theological differences each other has than to pose similarities such as on the ideas love, respect, and peace – aspects that are way more important in creating an inclusive social life. This “us-versus-them” point of view is what catalyzes intolerance that later leads to “othering” and faith-based mockery.

In her article “A Case for Pluralism in the Schools”, published in The Phi Delta Kappan magazine, social scientist and professor in multicultural education Christine Bennett wrote: “… we are greatly in need of a curriculum that builds understanding of each of our cultural orientations and fosters intercultural understanding.”

The implementation of the curriculum she argued for can take many forms: from reducing the dominance of a certain faith in schools, arranging school trips to different religions’ houses of worship, or engaging believers of different faiths in an interfaith event.

Nevertheless, this idea of interfaith understanding among schoolchildren, of course, still faces many criticisms. Many claim that introducing the values of one faith to another is never a good idea, fearing it would erode “religious purity”. People are afraid that by being tolerant and exposed to other beliefs, children will stray too far from their own religious teaching.

But refusal to understand other beliefs creates a mental state that the late Gus Dur calls “mental banteng” (the bull mentality). It’s a condition in which believers of a faith build walls around them and are very defensive of foreign ideas. People with this mental state are highly reactive to any kind of new ideas, and their close-mindedness is a peril to social integration. This is not what we expect from our young generations.

To deny multiculturalism in Indonesia is to deny fact. Instead of constantly being told about the differences between religions, children should hear more about how they are more alike. Focusing too much on religious differences only fosters and strengthens the sense of “other” between believers. Religious multiculturalism and pluralism should be cherished and embraced with love by children, like the colors of the paper rainbows on their classroom windows.

The journey of Lies Marcoes looking for women narrating their fight against poverty

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Ini adalah tulisan Prof Karel Steenbrink, mantan dosen Lies Marcoes di IAIN Jakarta sebagaimana dimuat dalam web Prof Karel, Relindonesia, 15 Januari 2015.

Lies Marcoes was one of my first students in Jakarta, 1981-1983. She was at that time a close friend of Yvonne Sutaredjo, a Chinese-Javanese student from Surinam. The two were quite exceptional. They were the only female students who went swimming in Sawangan, Not only for sport, but also as a protest against rules for the female students in the boarding house at the Islamic Academy, IAIN in Ciputat.

Lies was very keen on field research and she took for her final thesis the practices of a Libyan brotherhood in West Java. She became the first assistant to Martin van Bruinessen in the project on the ‘culture of poverty’ in the Sukapakir district of Bandung, one square km with about 100,000 citizens living or rather surviving. Lies and Martin wrote a special issue for the weekly Tempo that was no a report of poverty in statistics, but in lifestyle and personal portraits.

That was in 1984. Nearly thirty years later, and in a kind of sabbatical (although officially as ‘early retirement’ from the work at various NGO), she has given us another fight against poverty or at least how to survive in extreme poverty in a book written with the Australian Anne Lockley and beautiful pictures by Armin Hari.

Against-Defeat21

I received a copy of the book from Lies during our ‘tribute conference’ of  18-19 November 2014. In fact, it was not really a gift for me, but rather for my wife. We read it together, watched the photographs and told again stories about the many places she visited for this journey. Most places are known to us: Ende and Maumere in Flores, Makassar and Ambon, Pontianak and of course places in West Java. Lies has made many friends in Aceh and my wife Paule never joined me to a trip there.

This is not a book with statistics (although in the last of the five sections it is underlined that hard figures can be useful in the fight for justice. Its major goal is to give concrete examples that picture in a representative way how women and their children manage to survive, grow up, give help to children and older people. There are abundantly stories of women who are KK, Kepala Keluarga of ‘Head of a Family’ because they earn also the living for their husband, whether he is simply a loser, a too pious preacher earning nothing, or simply sick and disabled.

There are also quite a few pages about borrowing money (chapter 5, 112-122). It will be a good and critical appendix to the (too) positive words I wrote in Catholics in Indonesia vol 3 about credit union as the most important welfare activity of the Catholic Church, and other religious institutions, in Indonesia.

LM

This author with Lies Marcoes in our hotel during the Tribute conference of 18-19 November last year.

The book reminded me in several respects of the funny, sometimes also sad book by Elisabeth Pisani, Indonesia etc. Both women have a good connection with people really below the poverty line. They are not too easy with remedies and know that external help can be very good, but does not help quickly and often not at all. Pisani is very critical about formal religion. Lies did professional study of Islam, but is also very critical about traditional (adat) and religious institutions. She has, like Pisani, a special chapter 10 on religion. I read that of course with more than usual interest. The chapter begins with some nice words about religion: ‘Religious organisations are often among the many institutions that try to overcome poverty…’ (187). But following this beginning there is criticism because religious activities like collecting funds for Dompet Dhuafa often lacks an analysis of the roots of poverty. Religions often only want to remove female from the dangers of globalisation, but do not stimulate them to become active.

Six concrete examples are given of this negative influence of religion: 1. a young woman, Sum, who lost her job because she was dressing in a ‘fundamentalist way’.  Birth control was impossible for her. 2. Fira was a qualified pharmacist who had good jobs, but then married a pious preacher who did not earn the money himself, but still wanted her to leave her job. 3. Many criticism about the application of shari’a law in Aceh; very young children, pre-school, are not allowed to dance. 4. Prof. Alyasa Abubakar, one of the architects of the introduction of Shari’a in Aceh has consented that children of women who experienced the punishment of caning also feel stigmatised; 5. in not-recognised sects like Sunda Wiwitan and Ahmadiyah children do not have a birth certificate and they cannot inherit legally from their parents; 6. one Anne in Palu (probably a Christian) had a mixed marriage with a Muslim and the difference of religion was a disaster and caused a break in this marriage. Lies also gives some positive examples of prominent Muslims, approaching women. Page 198 is a funny recording of female Muslim leaders who visited prostitutes in Yogyakarta and were shocked to see how these women gave everything for the life and education of the children.

Thank you very much, Lies, for this honest, sincere and vivid book. I will read now in a different way the monthly sold by Utrecht homeless people, also full with their personal stories. Our son Florsi did not marry in a formal way and he had to go the the municipal administration before the birth of his two children, in order to have them formally registered also as his children and to give them a birth certificate, but for him this was an easy thing.

Why do Indonesian women join radical groups?

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Around the world, young women are disappearing, for a surprising reason. They are leaving their homes to join terrorist groups with religious ideologies, such as ISIS. Take Hasna Aitboulahcen, for example. She never appeared to be a pious girl and reportedly only started wearing a head covering last month. But last week she blew herself up during the police raid in Saint-Denis, Paris. Earlier this year, three British schoolgirls went to Syria through Turkey to join ISIS militants. Meanwhile, in March, an entire Indonesian family, including a toddler, a baby and a pregnant woman, slipped away from their tour group in Turkey and crossed into Syria. Indonesian terrorism expert Sidney Jones has said that her research has identified about 40 Indonesian women and 100 children under 15 in Syria.

The question is: why do these girls and women want to join radical groups? There is growing scholarly and media attention being paid to the role of women in violent jihadist movements, especially in light of the success of ISIS in attracting female recruits. Earlier studies have also examined the role of women in suicide bombings. In Indonesia, the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) has documented marriages of women to ISIS fighters by mobile phone, used to “cement alliances, reinforce social hierarchies, satisfy the ‘biological needs’ of prisoners or bring women out to the Middle East”. Historically, however, analyses of the role of women in radical movements have tended to be simplistic and have deprived women of their agency, painting them as victims of stronger or charismatic men.

Obviously it’s not that simple. In the Indonesian context, the appeal of radical groups can be explained partly by the position of women in patriarchal society and the desire of these women to contribute to building “an ideologically pure state” grounded in the laws of God.

Last year, the Jakarta-based nongovernmental organisation Rumah Kita Bersama launched a book,Testimony of the Faithful Servants (Kesaksian Para Pengabdi), which documents the stories of 20 Indonesian women who are, or have been, involved with fundamentalist groups. The women expressed a range of reasons for becoming involved in fundamentalist groups, including in violent extremist movements.

There are two levels to understanding this phenomenon, and both can be applied to both the Indonesian context and the global situation. First, just like the men who are part of radical movements, the women who join them also believe in the idea of a caliphate, both as their mandatory duty according to shari’a and as an answer to social and economic disparity. These are not just silly, thoughtless girls. On the contrary, many young women join these movements because they care deeply about inequality, suffering and injustice, and are disappointed with the government’s inability to eradicate poverty. Sadly, they have not found a more sensible outlet for channelling their concerns.

Involvement in transnational organisations such as ISIS that support the idea of a caliphate – and even to some extent with similar local experiments like Darul Islam/Islamic State of Indonesia (NII) – can make women feel as though they are part of an important global movement. In comparison to groups like ISIS, the shari’a discourse promoted by small-scale conservative movements in Indonesia appears feeble and hollow.

Men and women who believe in the idea of a universal caliphate have long committed to memory the stages to achieve this end. They have been trained to act as small parts of a larger movement, while putting into practice the concepts of a shari’a state on a small scale: how to pay (or not pay) taxes, identifying allies and opponents, suffering quietly while guarding the movement’s secrets, and so on. Through radical organisations, they have a vehicle to realise the results of all this training. But because the jihadist movement has a masculine face, mapping and analysing women’s involvement in this process is often neglected.

The second level to understanding women’s involvement in radical movements is to look at the patriarchal social structure in Indonesia, particularly among conservative Muslim communities, which places women in a subordinate position to men. In fundamentalist movements, however, women feel equal. In groups such as ISIS there is an ideological recognition of their unique role in building an ideal state. Many women believe strongly that participation in jihad will ensure they become “angels” in the afterlife.

Of course, these desires for gender equality are not so easily realised. All jihadist movements and organisations are extremely patriarchal. The meaning of jihad is also reduced to gender stereotypes. “Hard jihad” occurs on the field of battle, and is the realm of men. “Soft jihad”, meanwhile, is waged by women, who are expected to give birth to new soldiers for the movement and “service” the men in their group. Their roles are the same as those of women in most traditional societies – serving men – but radical movements give them an ideological value.

For some women, dedicating their wombs and their roles as wives and mothers to the soldiers of God is a source of pride. Having many children is important, but having male children is even more so. In their view, only male offspring can become jundullah (soldiers of God). It is therefore not surprising that women in these groups do not reject polygamy or refuse to bear large numbers of children. Women from some traditional societies long for recognition of their role as mothers who give birth to the next generation of fighters for truth and raise them.

Not all young women are satisfied with the soft jihad route. Rumah Kita Bersama’s research also found that some women were highly critical of the subordination of women in fundamentalist movements and would leave these groups as a form of protest. As Sidney Jones and others have pointed out, many young women also wish to engage directly in the field of battle. It is important to remember that the concept of jihad contains ideas not only of gender but also of class. Hard jihad can be a means for poor men and women to rise in social status. Of course, not all women who join radical groups are poor, however hard jihad may be one of the few options available for poor women to gain greater respect.

So far, ISIS has largely excluded women from combat but this may change in the future. As other scholars have noted in relation to Al Qaeda, the recruitment of women as suicide bombers avoids the empowerment of women that would occur as a consequence of their involvement in armed conflict.

While ISIS continues to remain reluctant to let women fight, there are other ways that women can improve their social mobility in fundamentalist movements. One way is, of course, to be chosen as the wife, or one of the wives, of the group’s leader. Skills in IT, language, intelligence, espionage, bank account hacking, or virtual study of bomb-making can also lead them to being accepted as equal to men in the elite structure of radical movements and organisations.

There are strong motivations for young women to become involved in radical movements, even if the reality often falls far short of their hopes. Women crave recognition of their role in establishing a caliphate and ideologically pure society in line with their beliefs. These desires are understandable, when we remember how they are so often neglected or marginalised in their communities of origin. In fundamentalist groups women can feel needed, praised, and appreciated. Only in this way, they feel, can they become angels in this world and in the next.

A shorter Bahasa Indonesia version of this piece appeared in Kompas under the title Merindu Bidadari.

This writing was originally published on Indonesia at Melbourne.

What is Bogor Mayor Bima Arya playing at?

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Bima Arya Sugiarto became mayor of Bogor in 2014 on the back of promises to root out corruption in the bureaucracy, restore order to the city’s chaotic streets and resolve the longstanding conflict over the construction of the Yasmin church. With a master’s degree from Monash University, a PhD from Australian National University and experience working with the United Nations Development Programme, he was touted as one of the new batch of reformist leaders who had come to power through direct elections and were set to transform Indonesia. Over recent months, however, his name has become synonymous with religious intolerance.

On 22 October, Bima Arya and other local officials prevented local Shi’a Muslims from commemmorating Ashura, a core celebration in the Shi’a faith that marks the death of the grandson of Ali, the first Shi’a Imam. Bima Arya issued a circular forbidding the celebration for the sake of “security”, saying that it had the potential to make other religious communities uncomfortable. The fate of the Yasmin Church, meanwhile, is still uncertain. Bima Arya has continued the much-criticised policies of his predecessor, Diani Budiarto, who ignored a clear Supreme Court ruling in the church’s favour and sealed the church property after protests from hard-line groups.

During Ramadhan earlier this year, Bima Arya also created controversy by reportedly smashing a glass in a bar that had remained open during the fasting month. And in 2014, he issued a circular urging all residents to stop work and pray at the closest mosque or prayer room whenever they heard the call to prayer. These incidents have created the impression that the so-called reformer of Bogor has some decidedly conservative tendencies.

How did Bima Arya get to this point? Bima Arya and his running mate, Usmar Hariman, won the mayoral election by a slim margin over Ahmad Ru’yat and Halim Hermana. The Bogor General Elections Commission (KPUD Bogor) reported that they won by under 2,000 votes, equivalent to less than 0.5 per cent of the total votes. There were just 673,938 registered voters in Bogor, and a voter turnout of 63 per cent, low by Indonesian standards.

Bima Arya surely knows that he won because Bogor residents were sick of the old mayor, who was more famous for preventing the construction of the Yasmin church and taking on multiple wives than for any efforts to improve the city. Electors wanted Bima Arya to restore order to the city, reduce congestion and improve waste management.

Residents of Bogor are mainly office workers, university staff, students, and traders. Many of the office workers commute every day to Jakarta. As in most areas of Indonesia, the majority of residents are Muslim, with the rest Protestant, Catholic or Buddhist, many of them ethnic Chinese.

However, Bogor is also a centre for hard-line Muslim communities. It is home to the Al-Ghazali Islamic boarding school, led by the preacher Mama Abdullah bin Nuh, where the Indonesian branch of Hizbut Tahrir was established. Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB) has also been fertile ground for conservative Islam, and was home to the Qur’an discussion groups that went on to form the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). There is emerging evidence of the influence of the conservative Wahhabi ideology in the region and it is not uncommon to see women with long black gowns covering them from foot to head, or men in long loose Islamic robes.

Given that many Bogor residents are commuters and new arrivals, they don’t show the same love for their city as, say, the residents of Bandung, who live, work and play in their city. It therefore makes sense that one of the first steps Bima Arya took when he came to power was to encourage residents to fall in love with Bogor, or “Bogoh ka Bogor”. He looked for quick wins, such as improving the city’s public gardens, revitalising public playgrounds, addressing waste management and trying to restore some order to the unruly public minibuses that clog the city’s streets. Bima Arya also promoted cultural events, such as Bogor-themed cooking demonstrations, and held public tours of the city’s unique Dutch architecture.

But Bogor is not known as the city of a million minibuses for nothing. Unchecked development of hotels and malls under the previous administration has also contributed to traffic chaos. The most miserable days are weekends and public holidays, when residents should be able to be out showing their love for their city. Instead they face infuriating congestion.

Bima Arya’s efforts to eradicate corruption in the civil service have also moved slowly. When the mayor came to power he began firing government officials who were suspected of corruption. Recently, however, he has admitted that when power relations are built on money politics, it is important to take a careful approach to combating corruption to avoid being impeached.

Despite these ongoing frustrations it must be acknowledged that public order and the management of city parks have vastly improved under Bima Arya. But as even he admits, waste management is a formidable task. Citizens who litter without any concern for who is going to pick it up – as well as a lack of commitment from city waste management staff – mean that it will be a very long time before Bogor gets a reputation for cleanliness.

Facing these intractable problems, maybe it is no great surprise that Bima has turned to trying to woo the conservative supporters of his electoral rivals. After two years of only modest progress, and being dubbed “Wagiman” (Walikota Gila Taman, or Park-Crazy Mayor) perhaps Bima sees exploiting the intolerance of the Sunni majority toward Shi’a, Christian or Ahmadiyah minorities as a way to boost his waning popularity. But by doing so he has alienated his core supporters, who have begun to walk away.

As a city mayor, Bima Arya’s focus should be on public services and on getting things done, not playing politics. Perhaps his actions can be explained by further political aspirations, for example to the governorship of West Java. The depressing truth is that an anti-minority stance is popular among the conservative voters of the province. But other observers who have known the mayor since high school say that we are now seeing the real Bima Arya. He might seem like a reformist nationalist on the outside, they say, but the inside is Islamic fundamentalist.

Rather than turning their backs on him and allowing conservative groups to dictate policy, Bogor residents still have the potential to turn things around by demanding that Bima Arya demonstrate the strength of character that made people vote for him two years ago. Of course it will depend on which residents Bima Arya chooses to listen to, and the signs are not encouraging so far.

The article was originally posted here.

Women – Poor in Their Own Granary

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Men Mo, a Balinese woman in her seventies, will never forget the time in 2005 when the bombs shook Bali. She immediately realised how fragile her livelihood was. She could no longer obtain canang (tiny palm-leaf baskets), flowers and ducks for sesaji (offerings). Without worship, without the daily rituals that centre on the sesaji, for Men Mo there was no life.

Men Mo is a tiny, dark-skinned, illiterate woman from Pengubengan. Her given name is Luh Asih. She is the meme (mother) of Monastra, her eldest son, so by local custom she is called ‘Men Mo’, the mother of Mo. Luh Asih was born and has spent her whole life in Pengubengan Kauh, a traditional hamlet (banjar) that is part of the traditional village (desa adat) Kerobokan Kota Utara, not far from Kuta, Bali.

Everyone knows Kuta as the icon of Bali’s tourism, and a popular tourist destination since the 1930s. As tourism became a major industry, it expanded rapidly northward to the area where Men Mo and her husband Pan Mo live. Pengubengan changed very quickly. Farmland was sold to support the tourism industry, and the price skyrocketed. Like many other banjar, Pengubengan was a community of farmers, but the shift in the function of the land has changed the types of work available to the local people. None of Men Mo’s children work in farming. After gaining a high school education, they have become cogs in the tourism industry. They work in hotels, own warungs or small shops, or work as drivers or in restaurants. But not everyone in Pengubengan Kuah is able to pursue these new types of work. Older women feel the impact of the changes most, because all their knowledge and skill lies in the world of farming.

According to Men Mo, when she was young, Pengubengan was a vast, fertile rice growing area. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but expanses of rice fields, with small shelters (kubu) marking the ownership boundaries. From before she was married, her only skills were rice farming and making jarit (woven coconut leaves), canang and banten for sesaji. After she married, she and her husband farmed the fields that they bought and those they inherited from their parents.

When they needed money for their children’s education, to prepare them for the many jobs opening up in the tourism industry, they sold off their land little by little, even though it was the source of their livelihood. Now, Men Mo and her husband are sharecroppers. They cultivate sixty ares (6000 square meters) of rice fields, owned by the same city dweller who bought their land from them. Their wage is one fifth of the rice crop that is produced, enough to meet their own needs. Men Mo and her husband are grateful that they don’t have to buy rice, but this security could be lost at any time if the owner decides to build on the land.

Tourism brought an income to many of the local families. Their homes have been renovated, and from the outside, their poverty is not obvious. But as Balinese, residents of a banjar, they have traditional religious and social obligations. But now, the materials for the rituals are not longer available from the natural environment and have to be bought with cash. Life therefore seems very fragile, as they experienced when Bali’s economy suddenly seemed to halt.

There is another process which brings impoverishment to the people of Bali – mortgaging of land. Once mortgaged, almost no one is able to redeem their farmland once it has been transferred to the moneylenders.

Bali may be the most dramatic example of such shifts in land use and its consequences for women. The rapid growth of tourism has forced Bali to choose between this industry and maintaining the agriculture sector. In fact, most people don’t really have a choice – they are essentially being forced to abandon their agrarian culture. Those who cannot survive are pushed into the interior, or become transmigrants or migrant workers. And yet it is Bali’s agrarian culture that is the heart and soul of its ‘Balinese’ – with its roots in religious rituals and traditions to maintain the balance between humankind, nature, and Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa (God). []

Islam and Indonesia’s New Social Orphans

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This article was originall published in Jakarta Globe.

Every Ramadan, Muslims talk not only about fasting but also about helping orphans. Indeed, for those who are unable to fast and cannot make up for this later in the year, feeding orphans or the poor is seen as an equivalent deed.

In the Koran there are many verses that command us to uphold our prayers and to fast, followed immediately by a social obligation to help the poor: “Perform the prayers, pay zakat.”

But who exactly are these “orphans” and, considering the dramatic and ongoing changes in our social structure, isn’t it about time to review this concept?

Parents out of the picture

Generally, the Indonesian term yatim piatu is used to refer to children who have lost both parents — yatim is a child without a father, while piatu means a child without a mother. This interpretation is based on the assumption that parents are the sole source of both life and protection. However, the structure of society and the factors that cause children to become “orphans” have changed considerably in recent times.

Changes in our living space have altered the extended family structure throughout Indonesia. Traditional economic resources have been destroyed, but the economic resources that have replaced them — such as oil palm plantations, mining, oil and gas extraction and the cement industry — do not recognize a social or communal role of protection.

And so children and teenagers become social orphans: they have no parents, as their parents are absent, but they also receive no protection from the extended family because it — also — has become powerless.

Sadly, the functions of traditional communities have become inadequate as a means of help, and in fact create social pressure to preserve the only remaining form of defense: the self-respect of the (otherwise ineffective) extended family.

Historical context

At the time the religious commands about helping orphans and the poor were revealed, parents were the source of protection, backed by their tribe or clan. In a traditional agrarian society, the functions of social protection and support, support from nature, and other mechanisms of protection, as documented in the moral guidelines in the Koran, were quite effective in aiding orphans and the poor.

In the social structure of historical Mecca and Medina, these functions grew and expanded in a communal society that depended on the strength of the clans, in which the tribal leaders carried out these protective functions. Islam then established rules, not merely as normative ideals (in the period when the Prophet Muhammad was still in Mecca) but also as explicit regulations for the procedure and its implementation (during the prophet’s time in Medina).

The Koran describes in great detail how these protection mechanisms are to be organized, such as the obligations to pay zakat fitrah (annually at Idul Fitri, the end-of-Ramadan celebrations), zakat mal (charitable donations), payments of fines for religious violations and it even presents specific calculations. This, at the time, was considered adequate to provide for orphans and the poor.

The problem is that in the modern socioeconomic structure, the term “orphans” should actually apply not only to those whose parents are no longer alive, but also those who have effectively lost their parents — such as children and adolescents whose parents are working in other provinces or as migrant workers abroad. These are children whose parents are alive but who have lost their entire social support network.

At the same time, the social functions of the extended family or clan can no longer be relied on, due to the interventions of corporations, the state and the wider context of economic globalization. The protective powers of parents and relatives have been eroded by same social changes that create these new social orphans.

Consider, for example, regions where many parents have gone away as migrant workers, such as West Nusa Tenggara, East Java, West Java, and West and South Kalimantan. The rates of child marriage in these regions are extremely high. The cause is obvious: children grow up without substitute parents who are able to safeguard their growth and development.

Religion of justice

We can explore the changes in Indonesians’ living space further by looking at statistics. School dropout rates and maternal and child mortality rates are all higher for residents in regions that undergo significant changes in their living spaces: from natural forests to oil palm plantations, from irrigated rice field agriculture to the tourism industry, from natural beaches and coastlines to iron-sand mining sites.

These changes in the structure of society, in power relations, and in living spaces create a multitude of social orphans. They have generated massive wealth for some and massive exploitation for others. These changes have also altered social relations to become more exploitative and oppressive. In this changing social structure, the meaning of the term “orphans” thus has to be expanded as well.

The protection of orphans needs to be seen in a new perspective.

What we need are ideas rooted in religion and society that recognize the concept of social orphans. Only then can we seek a solution through the injunction to fast and provide for those in need. Without this, Islam will merely be a set of rituals that has lost its essence as a religion of justice that defends the poor and the weak.

The Role of Tegalgubug Women as A Symbol of Contemporary Khadijah

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TEGALGUBUG is a village in Cirebon through which an inter-provincial transport flows; the Pantura (Pantai Utara Jawa – Java North Coast) route. Tegalgubug has been increasingly popular with its Pasar Sandang Murah (cheap clothing market) that contributes nicely to the dynamics of micro and macro economics.

Initially, Pasar Sandang Murah was integrated with pasar sembako (basic food supplies market) located next to the Village Office, Mosque and the Al-Hilal Madrasah Tsanawiyah (Islamic secondary school). A number of services for the community is located in one area; the market as a symbol of economic transaction and fulfilment of the people’s needs, the mosque as a symbol of religion and spirituality, the Village Office as a symbol of government, and the schools and the madrasah as a symbol of education. This strategic layout was said to have been created by the founder of the village, namely Ki Gede Suropati.

Previously, the Tegalgubug clothing market was only open on Saturdays, while the basic needs market are open every day of the week. The clothing and textile merchants would sell their products elsewhere; like in the Susukan sub-district market on Tuesdays, Jatibarang market of Indramayu on Sundays and Wednesdays, the Parapatan Penjalin Market of Majalengka on Mondays and Thursdays. Fridays are their day off, while Saturdays are used to shop for products in textile centers in Bandung, Tangerang, and Jakarta. Slowly but surely, the clothing market grew and the place it occupied could no longer hold it. The merchants then started to display their products around the designated market area, like in front of the Village Office, in front of the mosque, and on the sides of the streets. Consequently, the village officers in collaboration with local business owners finally built a 30 hectare market building located on the side of Pantura road, open on Saturdays and Tuesdays.

The market, is the beginning of all social changes that occurs.

Wadon Sing Ning Arep, Lanange Sing Ning Guri

There is a jargon circulating amongst the merchants in Tegalgubug which goes, “Kapa wong wadon sing ning arep dagangane payu/laris, tapi kapa lanang sing ning arep ora patian payu,” (If you put a woman at the shop front, you will sell more. But if you put a man, you will sell less). Sing ning arep or the one at the front means anyone who offers the products of the shop, bargains, and provide assistant with the customers. That girls should be sing ning arep (at the front), comes from the local people’s experience that the women are usually more efficient and capable in conducting a business. In fact, when purchasing products to re-sell (textile, clothes, etc.) from the factory or wholesale stores—although most would go as couples, the woman/wife with their man/husband—the women are usually more dominant in lobbying with the factory decision makers or wholesale traders. So, sing ning guri (the one at the back) are the men/husbands.This sing ning guri adage is also consistent with what is called konco wingking (sidekick).

The sing ning arep and sing ning guri relation is a true form of a parallel division of tasks, rather than a superior-inferior relationship. The image of women that are usually seen to only have duties in bed, kitchen and well, does not apply to women of Tegalgubug. The husband and wife relationship in Tegalgubug is a partnership between two subjects efficient in performing tasks; the women’s role is in bookeeping and regulating cashflow, diplomacy with customers and factory decision makers or wholesale traders, and analyzing what merchandise to sell in the market. While the husband’s task is to organize the products with the employees, prepare or assist customers in choosing and sorting, along with other manual work, in addition to assisting the wife. However, the distribution of these tasks are not steadfast, but only in general and does not apply to all people and circumstances. Because most of the times the women/wives also do what the husbands do. Especially for single parent women who certainly work on the job by themselves.

So why do the women have position of control? There are a few points of considerations; First, they are seen to be more frugal and careful in spending money. Second, they are considered as more meticulous, calculative and organized. Third, based on the experience, when the men are in charge of the finances, they would often spend it irresponsibly. More often than not, a hedonistic lifestyle, uncontrolled hobbies or succumbing to wayuan (polygamy temptations) results in the family’s bankruptcy. This very common bankruptcy story teach a valuable lesson for the merchants to withhold the wives’ position as the financial managers.

The women of Tegalgubug are taught business, entreneurship, and economic independence from the early age by their parents—in addition to supportive environment—they learn how to manage the finances, help their mothers at the market while observing how to properly do business, usually done during the school or madrasah holiday, they also learn various skills such as sewing, dressmaking, overlocking, button making, folding, etc.

To their sons, the mothers of Tegalgubug give advices on how to find the right wife; aja kang kaya pedaringan bolong (not those who are like a hollow rice basket). Pedaringan or rice basket is a symbol of woman who accomodate and manage the finances. So a hollow rice basket or pedaringan bolong is a metaphor for women who are excessive and unable to manage the finances, which in turn will be uncapable of creating a prosperous life. This kind of parent’s advice reflects the people of Tegalgubug’s awareness on economy and that an ideal wife is the one that can manage the money, rather than overspending it—of course in addition to other criteria like good background.

Interpreting Religion

The people of Tegalgubug are mostly Nahdiyyin Muslims. There are a number of pesantren (islamic boarding school) and the salaf pesantren (pesantren with traditional teachings) are considered as the favorite education institution. The santri (pesantren student) society can be identified by their daily clothing, the men usually wear sarong and black kopiah (hat), and the women wear a veil (instead of long hijab) and an outfit that would cover everything except their faces, hands, and feet.

written by by Mukti Ali el-Qum

Gender and Pluralism in the Law of Inheritance in Indonesia

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By M. Billah Yuhadian *)

People may think that the prevailing law of inheritance in Indonesia is solely derived from the religious law (Islamic fiqh). While in reality, the implementation of inheritance allocation is very pluralistic and does not always use the Islamic jurisprudence as a reference. The most common principle used is discussion for a consensus. Although the foundation in determining the distribution of inheritance refers to the religious law (Faraid Law), but each family usually has a policy in the distribution of inheritance based on consensus. And as long as the decision was taken by consensus and in fairness, then the family members can accept the distribution of property without having to go through a formal decision of the judiciary (the District Court or a Religious Court).

This condition indicates that the inheritance law in Indonesia is pluralistic in nature; some are subject to the positive law sourced from the law applied since the colonial era, Burgerlijk Wetboek (BW), and some to the Islamic Inheritance Law compiled in the KHI (Compilation of Islamic Law) and the Traditional Inheritance Law. This diversity can be translated as a form of political accommodation that was established by the government in the colonial period which still continues to the present time to accomodate other laws that have been introduced in the society. The recognition shows that the three sources of law have full authority and regarded as equal.

Obviously, inheritance will be discussed only if all three required elements for inheritance distribution have been fulfilled; in the event of death, any property to be inherited, any party entitled to receive inheritance and the agreement for inheritance distribution.

In the traditional law, one of the reoccuring issue is regarding the eldest child’s position that is often associated with his/her responsibility as the successor of the clan, which is frequently seen as a reason enough for a firstborn to receive more/most inheritance compared to his/her siblings. As the case between sons and daughters, either one is sometimes more prioritized for inheritance. Some culture still distribute inheritance only to the sons, with the preassumption that the daughters would already get a cut from their husbands. Certainly this is based on the assumption that every woman will marry and every woman marries a man that is entitled for inheritance in his family. For this reason also, daughters are often expected to find a suitor from equal social status, and even sometimes subject to arranged marriage.

This viewpoint is deemed problematic, one of which is because not all woman gets a partner or gets a partner that is entitled for family inheritance. Therefore, a traditional mechanism is usually applied to ensure that a daughter would get equal share, such as home, land, or jewelry, as seen in Lombok indegenious people of NTB.

The inheritance distribution based on traditional law is not always in line with the other two law sources. This indicates that Indonesia’s inheritance law is still using the pluralistic law approach. The positive law (BW) introduced the equal 1:1 distribution of inheritance for both male and female children. This applies to all condition, regardless of position in the family, gender, or financial status. While the Islamic Inheritance Law generally applies the 2:1 distribution—where the son is entitled for twice the amount of inheritance than the daughter. The traditional inheritance law, however, has a diversed pattern and nature, which has become a inheritance distribution model that is unique to Indonesian culture that is completely different from the Islamic Inheritance law or the (western) Civil Inheritance Law based on the BW.

The inheritance distribution based on the Traditional Inheritance Law is influenced by the kinship in the society itself. Theoretically, the kinship system in Indonesia can be categorized in three patterns; the patrilineal system, in which the position of men is more favored and therefore affects the inheritance, the matrilineal system in which the position of daughters and women in generally are higher, and the parental or bilateral system which puts both man and woman as equal and therefore have equal rights.

The fact that the Inheritance Law in Indonesia is pluralist by nature, of course, makes those who seek for justice wonder; which inheritance law is most appropriate to be used in case of inheritance dispute. In most cases, people would seek justice in the courts provided by the government. Non-Muslim family or a Muslim family who do not want to use Islamic law, would use the western inheritance law or the positive law derived from BW. Those who uphold customary law can use the Traditional Inheritance Law, and Muslim Families can use the Islamic Inheritance Law in the Compilation of Islamic Law (KHI).

Whichever law that is finally applied, the most important thing is to uphold the values of justice and consensus. By using gender analysis, we can find a benchmark to see how justice can be enforced; that everyone should be considered as equal, or a discrimination could occur and prejudice would come into play and one party might oppress another. Whereas the inheritance law discussed in the aforementioned sources of law was created to avoid opression and to enforce justice. From the law point of view, we can make an independent choices on which law that conform with the collective agreement.

*) Writer is an alumni of the Faculty of Law University of Hasanuddin, Makassar and a researcher in Rumah Kita Bersama

Aisyiyah’s Challenges in the 2nd Century

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Born in 1917, the oldest women’s organizations in Indonesia, Aisyiyah, is going to be a hundred years old. This is an important achievement, considering other organizations born at the same era or even afterwards many have been collapsed.

A number of milestones have been recorded as Aisyiyah’s contributions to the nation. A number of annotations also should be delivered as a sign of love for Aisyiyah.

With the establishment of Aisyiyah alone has proved Muhammadiyah’s ijtihad in translating the values of progressive Islam. Through the examples shown by Kiai Ahmad Dahlan, Muhammadiyah firmly demonstrated the importance of women within organization and educating people. Starting from the establishment of Sopo Tresno association that taught women how to read, write, and recite Al Quran, then the association changed into Aisyiyah, Muhammadiyah showed its attitude against colonial politics that restricted access to education for Muslims and women.

Aisyiyah’s Contributions

Through Aisyiyah, within Aisyiyah, and together with Aisyiyah, Muhammadiyah has offered a progressive perspective that allows Muslim women to have a choice that is justified by syar’i to have roles in the realm of domestic and public spheres, dakwah, and tajdid. Aisyiyah’s movement is manifested in the strengthening and renewal of religious, educational, health, social services, and organizational disciplines.
All activities are driven by the members who are willing to practice good deeds and worship under the command of an organization that is tiered from the center to its branches throughout Indonesia. Using their own way, they are trying to translate the dakwah principles that keep people from ignorance through the real dakwah action by helping the duafa-mustadh’afin.

Together with the development of the country, Aisyiyah showed its achievements that were harmonious with the development of the era. In the New Order era, when a great number of Islamic organizations collapsed and did not pass “litsus”, Muhammadiyah and Aisyiyah survived as urban and middle-class organizations. Many of people reckoned it was because of their accommodative stances against the state’s will. In fact, it was not that easy because Muhammadiyah and Aisyiyah needed to keep the ideology and faith of its members. At that time, it was not easy as well to be different from the views of the country that insists on imposing the ideology of Pancasila as the single interpretation of the New Order.

Similarly, that happened to women’s issues. At that time, the state insisted on carrying the ideology of “Ibuism” that positioned women solely as a companion to the husband. This ideology was widely penetrated in the form of state’s version of coercive Keluarga Berencana (Family Planning). Among the difficulties to oppose, Aisyiyah chose to hold on to the principle of “Amar Makruf Nahi Munkar” (choose virtues, refuse wrongdoings). On the full support of Mr. A.R. Fachruddin, Chairman of Muhammadiyah at that time, Aisyiyah thrust the concept of “Sakinah Family” as a different perspective against “Kekonco-wingkingan” ideology that the New Order created.

Although it seems simple, the concept of “Sakinah Family” was based on the idea of responsibility that must be carried out by each individual, no matter what his/her position within the family was. This role will have to be accountable before God. The role of mothers in this concept was to protect family members.

Critically, this idea was interpreted as a form of Aisyiyah’s submission to the will of the New Order. On the other hand, this idea was suspected as an effort in the process of family Islamization. At that time the country was so phobia against Islam. In fact, the idea of “Sakinah Family” gave different basis because its basic concept was a matter of responsibility of the afterlife. Later on, when the country was more open to Muslims, the idea was adopted by the country in order to boost family planning program.

Losing Basic Rights

Right now, Aisyiyah’s effort in giving a decent place for women within organization has demonstrated outstanding achievements. Aisyiyah has managed to build valuable social capital, which is spread all over the country. Various types of Aisyiyah’s divine struggles include educational institutions, which are built from the level of early childhood/kindergarten (Aisyiyah Bustanul Atfal) up to the college level, including non-formal education.
The number of the educational institutions is approximately 24,000. They set up thousands of social welfare institutions (orphanages), homes for the elderly, and safe shelter for victims of domestic violence. In health sector, Aisyiyah works from bottom to top; they provide skilled workers in healthcare, hospitals, maternal child health centers, and polyclinics. The number is thousands with various capacity in delivering service; large, medium, and small.

Despite of Aisyiyah’s track record, this organization is dealing with issues that require a new tajdid attitude in their movement to face the second century. The extent of the problems faced is larger and more fundamental. Globalization has affected households, even up to the relationship between husband and wife. Relations carried on in the idea of “Sakinah Family” are no longer suitable in viewing the issues. It is because of changes in the living space due to the loss of people’s access, particularly poor people, half of them are women, over land and economic resources.

Ownership and land use transfer into giant extractive industries, forest clearance for coal and oil, demolition mountains to cement, as well as fishing by giant dredger, have clearly changed the resilience of families and people of the villages. Changes in living space cause millions of women migrate as low-skilled labors in the city, but they are rarely connected with religious organizations. Millions of women are losing their basic rights with vulnerable physical and reproductive health conditions.

Likewise, thousands of female workers have little protection. They need to be addressed with an approach that also understands the new forms of exploitation in the era of globalization. It shows humanitarian problems that are caused by changes in living space, and economic power relations should be seen as a problem of the people and not women solely.

Along with socio-ecological changes, the structures of social relations in urban and rural areas are also changing. The role of officials and religious leaders more as the servants of the corporations. Or they are eliminated by the exploitation and expansion of giant industries. When there is a “void” in leadership, the positions are filled with new players who do not understand the context of Islam and nationality. They conduct a new interpretation that is discriminatory against women, but use a more conservative and radical religious authority. Child marriage as well as exclusion of women from public sphere in the name syar’i are rampant. They are presumably two major issues that require consideration, not only for Aisyiyah, but also for Muhammadiyah.