Indonesia’s woman to
watch
Yenny Wahid knows her place:
It’s everywhere.
With the collapse of other contenders the second daughter of
the late Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), the fourth President of Indonesia, has
become the face of struggling religious harmony in the nation with the largest
population of Muslims in the world.
It’s a role she seems to enjoy despite it ravaging her
personal life. “Maybe not my fate but an
obligation,” she said while running late between public engagements. “I also need to work smarter and manage time
better.” This last hope lacked conviction.
In late April Wahid spoke to 1,000 women splendidly dressed
in batik sarongs and tight lace kebaya
blouses at the Jakarta headquarters of the Japanese-Buddhist movement Soka
Gakkai.
Followers had gathered to honour Indonesia’s 19th
century women’s rights advocate Raden Adjeng Kartini under the banner The World is Yours to Change. Wahid was the
keynote speaker. Although lionized she never
looked prideful, wandering off the red carpet to chat to bystanders.
In her speech Wahid suggested deletion of
the ‘Y’ in the title but wrapped this with an easy demeanour which diluted organisers’
embarrassment.
Next stop a distant hotel to moderate a discussion. Here the gender imbalance was flipped. At the
Kongres Ekonomi Umat (Muslim Economic
Congress) elderly men ruled ten to one.
A speaker who complained of insufficient cash to open a
university because he had two wives drew titters. Wahid didn’t react. She preaches equality and respect but is too
smart to behave like some feminists and slap down a misogynist among mates.
The smile never subsides because everyone is paparazzi ready
to record a slip but up close the hard brown eyes tell another story: Controlled
determination.
Wahid comes across as bright and polite, but she’s also firm
and a little wary; she’s accompanied by an ‘adjutant’ who carries police ID but
keeps his distance.
During his two five-year terms President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono wore the moderate Muslim crown.
He was welcomed in the West and given entrée to the speaking circuit
after retirement in 2014.
SBY lost the eminence grise lustre late last year when he waded
into the political sewer in a failed attempt to get his oldest son Agus elected
Governor of Jakarta. He denied
allegations of funding mobs to bully voters but the stench stuck.
Another claimant to the coronet was Dr Anies Baswedan,
former university rector and Education Minister celebrated for his Indonesia Mengajar project putting
volunteer teachers into remote schools. Descriptors included ‘intellectual’ and
‘moderate’. The latter is now seldom
heard.
The US-educated academic abdicated when he teamed up with
some of the more dubious players in the power game. Their goal was to defeat the ethnic Chinese
Protestant Governor of Jakarta Basuki Tjahaja (Ahok) Purnama at whatever cost; it
seems Baswedan didn’t care that his side was using xenophobia and vile threats
like denying burial rites to Ahok voters.
His supporters included the Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders Front) street thugs who masquerade
as pious Muslims, and failed presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto who helped
bankroll Baswedan’s successful bid for the capital’s top job.
The departures of men with feet of clay now leaves Zannuba
Ariffah Chafsoh Rahman (Yenny) Wahid as a singular voice; her task is to
explain that the national motto Bhinneka
Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity) applies to all Indonesians – even the kafir (unbelievers).
She’s no neophyte – as Director of the Wahid Institute she’s
been articulating the organisation’s values of ‘seeding plural and peaceful
Islam’ since her father died in 2009.
Gus Dur and his wife Sinta Nuriyah had four daughters, but
Wahid says she was closest to her Dad sharing his interest in politics. Her Mum (below, right) is also active in reconciliation despite being confined to a wheelchair since a
car crash in 1992.
Wahid reported for the Fairfax Press when the Indonesian
Army trashed East Timor after locals broke free of Indonesian rule in the
UN-supervised 1999 referendum. The team including Wahid won a Walkley Award,
Australia’s highest prize in journalism.
She got a master’s degree in public administration from
Harvard, and returned home as an advisor to SBY. While lobbying as secretary general for the
Muslim Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (National Awakening Party) Wahid met
her future husband Dhohir Farisi. Now a businessman he used to be with
Subianto’s Gerindra (Great Indonesia
Movement) party.
Wahid’s reputation is rising. She talked to US VP Mike Pence on his visit
to Jakarta and will meet the Pope in the Vatican. She’s also ambitious and won’t discount a future
role in the UN.
“I’d like a Cabinet position, maybe Foreign Affairs, but
would worry about being away from my family,” she said. In Indonesia ministers
can be appointed from outside the Parliament.
“We need to link Indonesian Islam to the world, to bring
enlightenment and influence to other countries, to show that there’s another
way of Islam.
“I get my values and spirit from my Dad. He said ‘be brave, don’t hate and don’t lie’.
He followed the Javanese principle of sumeleh which means love of God and acceptance when all things
that can be done have been done. It’s
not fatalism.
“It might be easier if I was a man in this macho society,
but then the pressures could be physical rather than mental.”
As in many cultures the way women
dress and behave is minutely scrutinised for signs of unorthodoxy; pragmatic Wahid,
42, comes across as an Ibu, a safe homely
matron.
She mentions her spouse more than
her qualifications and sometimes brings her children to events, which softens
the image of activists as joyless agitators.
One daughter came to the Soka Gakkai, skipped, charmed and stayed
with Grandma when Wahid left. All very domestic.
She’s made the pilgrimage to Mecca but won’t use the
honorific Hajja “because I don’t want
to make it an issue.”
She wears a half headscarf, frustrating accusers hinting of
Western values, but appeasing those who see the jilbab as a mark of oppression.
“This is the way I express my right to wear what I want,”
she said. “My grandmother covered like this – it’s my symbol of struggle. I
sleep well.”
##
First published in Inside Indonesia, 19 June 2017: http://www.insideindonesia.org/indonesia-s-woman-to-watch
No comments:
Post a Comment