SCORING FOR WOMEN'S SPORTING RIGHTS © 2007 Duncan Graham
Training was rescheduled at the last minute. The location was far out of town. Traffic was heavy. Based on past experience jam karet (rubber time) would certainly be operating. No reason to hurry.
Wrong call. As the little hand touched 8 and the big hand hit 12 the Persekam team splendid in shimmering blue dashed out of their change rooms like the champions they hope to become.
Then followed two hours of intensive training that had the young women sweating under a blowtorch sun, the coach's relentless and demanding whistles ricocheting off the stadium's concrete walls so every blast was multiplied . If they thought it all too strenuous then they were keeping their complaints to themselves.
If discipline is an essential ingredient to success then the Malang Regency (East Java) women's soccer squad has a grand future.
But first they have to overcome off-field handicaps that Zinedine Zidane hopefuls never have to confront.
"Java isn't like Papua where the religion, culture and crowds support women in competitive sport," said Persekam president Cholis Bidajati. In Javanese soccer the big, powerful yet twinkle-toed Papuans are always discussed with awe.
"Some see soccer as men's business with women staying at home. This is changing. Women are coming to watch games and now they want to get involved.
"Yet there's still a residue who think it's inappropriate for women to be running around in public wearing sports gear."
It's not that the uniforms are immodest. Voyeurs lusting for a glimpse of cheeky underwear as players stretch and bend should go to Wimbledon. None of the women wore headscarves so taking a header can be the start of a real bad-hair day. A battered mop-top is hardly enticing.
The only flesh shows were grass-stained knobbly kneecaps peeping between floppy long shorts and high socks. Any man finding that arousing should consult a psychiatrist.
Cholis is an imposing no-nonsense figure in her starched government uniform and headscarf. It was probably the same when she played as a forward. (The posture, not the outfit.)
Only the most foolhardy cleric would suggest she's a subversive undermining Indonesian spiritual values by encouraging girls to boot balls rather than goggle sinetrons.
A widow for the past two years and mother of two, Cholis heads the statistics section in Malang Regency's planning department. She no longer plays but now busies herself with administration, promotion and fund raising.
In this she seems to have been reasonably successful with the Regency putting Rp 125 million (US $14,000) into Persekam. The Regency doesn't support Arema, the premier Malang men's football team that's backed by a cigarette company.
There's a Catch 22 factor operating here: Women's soccer can't attract sponsorship unless the sport becomes widely popular – but it can't reach that goal without more cash to fund competitions.
Last year Persekam played in Jakarta, drawing 1 – 1 against a university team, then got thrashed 4 – 1 by the dreaded Papuans.
Cholis is the only woman in Java on Indonesian men's soccer's Division 3 Committee.
Before she got involved with Persekam the few women who wanted to play had to do so with men. "But," Cholis quickly added, "they were always accompanied by their families."
"The problem is many get married and leave the sport so there's always a turnover," she said. "Because young women are studying or working long hours outside the home and traveling great distances they have little time for recreation.
"My grandfather and father were active in sport. My parents didn't oppose me playing soccer. Some think it's unfeminine, but I say you can be feminine off the field."
The squad in training watched by The Jakarta Post was more into footwork than facework. Before they go into competitions – often as crowd-warmers ahead of the boys' big match – Cholis gets them to put on lipstick. It's a sort of gender color code so the fans know there are real women under the shapeless tops and baggy bloomers.
Persekam is a mixed team, from veterans like high school sports teacher Siti Sumarni who at 37 shows no sign of weakening or ageing, down to teenagers who are still trying to master (sorry, mistress) the art of dribbling.
They come from all over the Republic and sometimes include Koreans, Taiwanese and the occasional Caucasian from the local international school.
Team sport is the great leveler where the only differences are the skills you can bring to your side, and where the universal language is a determination to win.
"It's fun, it keeps us fit and you make new friends," said Siti. "Some find they can't keep their boyfriends once they discover they're dating a soccer girl.
This is about skill and athleticism. It's not dangerous."
Reminded that the goalie had just taken a ball from a power punt straight into her bosom, doubling up like a man who'd had a boot up his crotch, Siti laughed. "You get used to it."
The weaker sex? Nonsense; the keeper was ready for the next rocket in a trice. If this had been the men's game the stretcher-bearers would already be sprinting across the sward.
Despite the progress (see sidebar) full emancipation is still at the far end of the field. Watching the warm ups in shady comfort an all-male self-appointed group of experts chewed over the problems faced by soccer girls.
They soon concluded that menstrual cycles were responsible for poor performances and a perceived inability to focus on the game. But when joined by a sweaty Siti, who fulfilled her gender-assigned role by bringing the blokes drinks, the bench pundits' positions were quickly declared offside. They retired, red-faced, to find another excuse.
Like many reformers in Indonesia Cholis rejects Western labels. She reluctantly accepted the compliment that she's a pioneer, but elbowed aside suggestions that she might be considered modern and progressive.
"I'm a traditional but not orthodox Muslim," she said with vigor. "There are problems with some ulama (religious scholars) condemning women in sport. I don't argue with them; we just go ahead. The media is at fault for giving these remarks so much prominence.
"I haven't had any mothers complain to me about their daughters wanting to play. Sport offers a healthy alternative to hanging about in shopping malls.
"We don't wear tight-fitting clothes. There's nothing in the Koran to forbid women taking part in sport as long as they take care of their family duties first."
In other words, hubby before hobby.
(Sidebar)
GO ASIA
Women's soccer is doing OK in Asia, though it's well to remember the uplifting figures come from a low base.
China and North Korea are in the front ranks with Vietnam not far behind. The game in that country is sponsored by cosmetic and pharmaceutical firms, and insurance companies.
Muslim Bangladesh is also reported to be dashing ahead with women's soccer despite early opposition from fundamentalists.
According to the world football body FIFA (Federation of International Football Associations) the number of registered male and female players is now 265 million worldwide. Although most are men the number of women in the sport has jumped 54 per cent in the past six years to 4.1 million.
The Asian Football Confederation has 85 million players making it the world's largest regional group.
(First published in The Jakarta Post 25 June 07)
">Link
FAITH IN INDONESIA
The shape of the world a generation from now will be influenced far more by how we communicate the values of our society to others than by military or diplomatic superiority. William Fulbright, 1964
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
SOCCER IN INDONESIA
GIVING INDONESIA A SPORTING CHANCE © Duncan Graham 2007
Imagine this: Indonesia wins the Asian Cup in July to be hailed as regional soccer champions with eyes on the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Manchester United gets anxious and Real Madrid revises its tactics to combat the threat from afar.
Indonesia produces its own David Beckhams, household names from Arsenal to Argentina. European clubs jostle to pick the archipelago's best. What a boost to national pride, what great benefits to the Republic's reputation!
Instead of being the butt of coarse jokes, unable even to best tiny Singapore in some sports, this huge nation could build teams renowned for excellence.
These dreams aren't exclusive to Indonesians. Australian entrepreneur and footy fan Geoffrey Gold has also been giving his imagination a workout. He thinks Indonesian soccer is currently in its "blackest period" but there could be light ahead if synergy can be developed with its southern neighbor.
Gold has been commissioned by the Western Australian (WA) government to talk to clubs in Surabaya and Malang. He will report on how soccer can be made the catalyst for regional development in Indonesia using the long established formal relationships between WA and the province of East Java.
There's been a 'Sister State' agreement in place since 1990. It includes sport along with commerce, tourism, education and culture. But till now the big-ticket issues have taken priority.
If everything clicks in the Gold plan, Australian skills in running and marketing football, coaching players (male and female), sports medicine, training youngsters and improving facilities could be made available to Indonesian clubs. In return the teams Down Under could promote their brand names in Asia.
"With the entry last year of Australia into the Asian League there's now a sport that Indonesians can understand and share," said Gold. "In the past Australia has been better known for rugby and Australian Rules football, but soccer is rushing to the front line.
"Soccer in Australia has undergone huge changes in the boardrooms and the field during the past few years. Once it was seen as the plaything of ethnic groups. Now the Socceroos are a united force in the sporting world.
"These changes could really improve relationships at all levels. Indonesians are fanatical about football. Australia is internationally recognized for its sporting skills and resources and has much to offer its neighbor to lift the quality of the game."
Things in the Republic are getting better – though slowly. Proposed management restructuring and the Asian Cup contest are the main drivers- along with the anger of fans denied the chance to see their teams do well.
The Jakarta stadium has been given a US $10 million (Rp 90 billion) facelift and should be able to seat almost 90,000 people enjoying modern facilities. Sports administrators want other regions to follow suit. Till now the comfort of fans has been the last thing on the minds of many clubs.
Instead their attention has been focused on a more basic need – money. There are 36 teams in Indonesia's Premier League. All but four are funded by regional governments, often out of welfare budgets.
The national government has ordered this practice to stop. What could justify taxpayers' rupiah earmarked for the local poor being channeled into the pockets of high-wage players, including big names from overseas?
The obvious answer is vote buying. What mayor or regent wouldn't want tens of thousands of soccer supporters reckoning they're great guys because they've helped the local lads knock out a rival team – particularly at election time.
Next year (or so the plan goes) there'll be no more slurping at the public trough. Instead teams will have to find their own fodder.
Gold reckons this is a good move because it will allow creative and progressive managements the chance to get their act together, be truly professional and better promote their product.
"Because the teams had this regular source of money, supporters and sponsors were considered unnecessary," he said. "At some regional grounds the fans are treated like animals with no-where to sit and disgusting toilets.
"If facilities are improved women and families will feel more comfortable about attending matches."
Ground conditions aren't the only hassle. At the moment Indonesian soccer suffers a severe image problem with fans linked to hooliganism – once the English disease.
A feature at some events is a vicious set piece brawl between the police, supporters and their rivals. That might be a thug's idea of a good day out, but law-abiding citizens who love soccer would rather not take the risk of seeing their kids trampled and car torched.
Next year the Football Association of Indonesia is introducing rules to create Super and Premier Leagues each of 18 teams, and meet new standards of safety, security and accountability. These will include sound financial backing and programs to train youngsters properly.
Malang's Arema is one of the few that don't get government rupiah, a point made often and vigorously by club chair Satrija Budi Wibawa. Arema relies on smokes sponsorship from a big-name brand headquartered in Malang. Other clubs are bound to go knocking on the tobacco tsars' doors, but that may not be a healthy move.
In neighboring nations like Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and Singapore tobacco links to sport are banned. If Indonesia wants to play on the world stage it will have to quit its addiction to cash from ciggies.
The Indonesian League is also funded by a cigarette manufacturer – but no nicotine names are on the Asian Cup sponsors' list. Instead the backers are airlines, hotel chains, electronic goods companies, makers of power tools and sports gear.
These were the advertisers prominent in the recent match between Sydney and the East Java team Persik Kediri at Solo - won 2-1 by the locals. No tobacco ads could be seen on the telecast.
Although he's been involved with Indonesian business since the mid 1980s, Gold only recently realized the importance of soccer in Asia when he saw a game in Kuala Lumpur featuring English team Birmingham City.
"Till then I'd mixed with ex-pats who were only interested in rugby and Aussie Rules," he said. "The enthusiasm for soccer and English teams in particular throughout the ASEAN region is huge.
"People want to see professional football. At the end of a hard day's work this is their catharsis. It's the tribalisation of the modern world. When I came back to Indonesia I suddenly saw the obvious. But the game hasn't been well run or marketed."
If Gold's report is positive and his recommendations followed then formal links may be forged with Australian 11s like A-league team Perth Glory. Indonesian national teams have already used the facilities in WA to hone pre-match skills.
"The question raised in Indonesia is money, the issue in Australia is security," said Gold. "When we can sort these out then everything else will be about football."
(Sidebar 1)
BIG TIME – SMALL CHANCES
The contest to decide who'll be Asia's top football team will be decided at Jakarta's Bung Karno Stadium on Sunday 29 July. It's being promoted as the biggest sporting event ever staged in Indonesia, expected to draw an international TV audience of close to one billion.
Quarterfinals will be played in Jakarta and the other host countries, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.
At the moment hopes of Indonesia making an international mark any time soon seem fanciful indeed. Although Indonesia will be playing in the Asian Cup it has earned its place not through merit but because it's one of the four host nations. The hot favorite is Australia.
The 46-member Asian Football Confederation headquartered in Malaysia runs the Asian Cup.
The first Asian Cup match was in 1956 and it's contested every four years. The trophy has been won three times each by Iran, Japan and Saudi Arabia. Singapore won in 1984. So far Indonesia has never made it to the finals.
The first contest this year involving Indonesia will be against Bahrain on the evening of Tuesday 10 July at Bung Karno.
For more details of matches, times and locations see www.afcasiancup.com
(First published in The Weekender (JP) June 07)
##
">Link
Imagine this: Indonesia wins the Asian Cup in July to be hailed as regional soccer champions with eyes on the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Manchester United gets anxious and Real Madrid revises its tactics to combat the threat from afar.
Indonesia produces its own David Beckhams, household names from Arsenal to Argentina. European clubs jostle to pick the archipelago's best. What a boost to national pride, what great benefits to the Republic's reputation!
Instead of being the butt of coarse jokes, unable even to best tiny Singapore in some sports, this huge nation could build teams renowned for excellence.
These dreams aren't exclusive to Indonesians. Australian entrepreneur and footy fan Geoffrey Gold has also been giving his imagination a workout. He thinks Indonesian soccer is currently in its "blackest period" but there could be light ahead if synergy can be developed with its southern neighbor.
Gold has been commissioned by the Western Australian (WA) government to talk to clubs in Surabaya and Malang. He will report on how soccer can be made the catalyst for regional development in Indonesia using the long established formal relationships between WA and the province of East Java.
There's been a 'Sister State' agreement in place since 1990. It includes sport along with commerce, tourism, education and culture. But till now the big-ticket issues have taken priority.
If everything clicks in the Gold plan, Australian skills in running and marketing football, coaching players (male and female), sports medicine, training youngsters and improving facilities could be made available to Indonesian clubs. In return the teams Down Under could promote their brand names in Asia.
"With the entry last year of Australia into the Asian League there's now a sport that Indonesians can understand and share," said Gold. "In the past Australia has been better known for rugby and Australian Rules football, but soccer is rushing to the front line.
"Soccer in Australia has undergone huge changes in the boardrooms and the field during the past few years. Once it was seen as the plaything of ethnic groups. Now the Socceroos are a united force in the sporting world.
"These changes could really improve relationships at all levels. Indonesians are fanatical about football. Australia is internationally recognized for its sporting skills and resources and has much to offer its neighbor to lift the quality of the game."
Things in the Republic are getting better – though slowly. Proposed management restructuring and the Asian Cup contest are the main drivers- along with the anger of fans denied the chance to see their teams do well.
The Jakarta stadium has been given a US $10 million (Rp 90 billion) facelift and should be able to seat almost 90,000 people enjoying modern facilities. Sports administrators want other regions to follow suit. Till now the comfort of fans has been the last thing on the minds of many clubs.
Instead their attention has been focused on a more basic need – money. There are 36 teams in Indonesia's Premier League. All but four are funded by regional governments, often out of welfare budgets.
The national government has ordered this practice to stop. What could justify taxpayers' rupiah earmarked for the local poor being channeled into the pockets of high-wage players, including big names from overseas?
The obvious answer is vote buying. What mayor or regent wouldn't want tens of thousands of soccer supporters reckoning they're great guys because they've helped the local lads knock out a rival team – particularly at election time.
Next year (or so the plan goes) there'll be no more slurping at the public trough. Instead teams will have to find their own fodder.
Gold reckons this is a good move because it will allow creative and progressive managements the chance to get their act together, be truly professional and better promote their product.
"Because the teams had this regular source of money, supporters and sponsors were considered unnecessary," he said. "At some regional grounds the fans are treated like animals with no-where to sit and disgusting toilets.
"If facilities are improved women and families will feel more comfortable about attending matches."
Ground conditions aren't the only hassle. At the moment Indonesian soccer suffers a severe image problem with fans linked to hooliganism – once the English disease.
A feature at some events is a vicious set piece brawl between the police, supporters and their rivals. That might be a thug's idea of a good day out, but law-abiding citizens who love soccer would rather not take the risk of seeing their kids trampled and car torched.
Next year the Football Association of Indonesia is introducing rules to create Super and Premier Leagues each of 18 teams, and meet new standards of safety, security and accountability. These will include sound financial backing and programs to train youngsters properly.
Malang's Arema is one of the few that don't get government rupiah, a point made often and vigorously by club chair Satrija Budi Wibawa. Arema relies on smokes sponsorship from a big-name brand headquartered in Malang. Other clubs are bound to go knocking on the tobacco tsars' doors, but that may not be a healthy move.
In neighboring nations like Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and Singapore tobacco links to sport are banned. If Indonesia wants to play on the world stage it will have to quit its addiction to cash from ciggies.
The Indonesian League is also funded by a cigarette manufacturer – but no nicotine names are on the Asian Cup sponsors' list. Instead the backers are airlines, hotel chains, electronic goods companies, makers of power tools and sports gear.
These were the advertisers prominent in the recent match between Sydney and the East Java team Persik Kediri at Solo - won 2-1 by the locals. No tobacco ads could be seen on the telecast.
Although he's been involved with Indonesian business since the mid 1980s, Gold only recently realized the importance of soccer in Asia when he saw a game in Kuala Lumpur featuring English team Birmingham City.
"Till then I'd mixed with ex-pats who were only interested in rugby and Aussie Rules," he said. "The enthusiasm for soccer and English teams in particular throughout the ASEAN region is huge.
"People want to see professional football. At the end of a hard day's work this is their catharsis. It's the tribalisation of the modern world. When I came back to Indonesia I suddenly saw the obvious. But the game hasn't been well run or marketed."
If Gold's report is positive and his recommendations followed then formal links may be forged with Australian 11s like A-league team Perth Glory. Indonesian national teams have already used the facilities in WA to hone pre-match skills.
"The question raised in Indonesia is money, the issue in Australia is security," said Gold. "When we can sort these out then everything else will be about football."
(Sidebar 1)
BIG TIME – SMALL CHANCES
The contest to decide who'll be Asia's top football team will be decided at Jakarta's Bung Karno Stadium on Sunday 29 July. It's being promoted as the biggest sporting event ever staged in Indonesia, expected to draw an international TV audience of close to one billion.
Quarterfinals will be played in Jakarta and the other host countries, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.
At the moment hopes of Indonesia making an international mark any time soon seem fanciful indeed. Although Indonesia will be playing in the Asian Cup it has earned its place not through merit but because it's one of the four host nations. The hot favorite is Australia.
The 46-member Asian Football Confederation headquartered in Malaysia runs the Asian Cup.
The first Asian Cup match was in 1956 and it's contested every four years. The trophy has been won three times each by Iran, Japan and Saudi Arabia. Singapore won in 1984. So far Indonesia has never made it to the finals.
The first contest this year involving Indonesia will be against Bahrain on the evening of Tuesday 10 July at Bung Karno.
For more details of matches, times and locations see www.afcasiancup.com
(First published in The Weekender (JP) June 07)
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">Link
Thursday, June 21, 2007
THE SOEKARNO INDUSTRY
BUNG KARNO INDUSTRY BOOSTS BLITAR © Duncan Graham 2007
To get some understanding of Javanese mysticism and a sense of this nation's complex history, be in Blitar on 20 June. This is the eve of the death of first President Soekarno, and a major date in the calendar of those who revere his name. Duncan Graham reports from the East Java town:
Once a month on Legi Jumat (Friday in the Javanese calendar), Misril dresses in her best sarong and lacy white kebaya (traditional blouse). She pins back her hair and adds two small daisy-shaped gold earrings. Then leaning on the arm of her nephew Karyadi, the 70 year old shuffles up the polished marble steps and into the sanctuary.
This is a pendopo, the Javanese four-pillared open-walled hall with a richly carved timber ceiling. Inside are three graves. The smaller one in the center is strewn with leaves and flowers. The headstone is a huge black boulder.
Misril carries a tiny plastic bag of pink and yellow petals that she squeezes into the carpet of flowers as she prays. Then she moves away and others take her place. Most are also formally dressed.
"I ask for safety for my family and four grand-children, and I've always received that," she said in kromo, the high level Javanese language. Misril does not understand Indonesian.
"Bung (brother) Karno struggled for Indonesia. He saw no difference between the rich and poor. His soul comes to me in my dreams and tells me to go to his grave.
"I wanted to meet him when he was alive, but that was difficult. Now I can visit him any day."
Indonesia's first president died aged 69 under virtual house arrest on 21 June in 1970. This was five years after being deposed by General Suharto following a bloody coup allegedly engineered by communists, though this is a matter of dispute.
Soekarno was buried in a simple cemetery in his hometown of Blitar, about five road-hours south of Surabaya. The story goes that Suharto feared his rival's grave could become a focal point for fomenting opposition to the New Order government if located in Jakarta.
At first Soekarno was officially remembered only as the Proklamator, the man who happened to proclaim the Declaration of Independence on 17 August 1945. It was as though he was just a bit player in the struggle for the Republic, not its main architect.
Later, when Suharto was well entrenched, it was deemed politically safe to rehabilitate the nation's first President. In 1979 the present grand structure was built to house the body of Soekarno and his parents.
As expected the grave has become a shrine. In the arid Saudi versions of Islam Muslims are not supposed to pray at tombs, but in Indonesia that rule is widely ignored.
For Blitar the grave has become a major earner, with the Bung Karno industry showing no sign of collapsing despite the passing of a generation that lived during Soekarno's turbulent times.
The local authorities have done a good job in crowd control. They've built a huge bus and car station away from the tomb and museum and set up a park-and-drive system – using becak (pedicabs) on a fixed and published tariff.
For Rp 15,000 (US $1.70) you can be wheeled to all locations and back to your vehicle, then have a feed at the scores of stalls while fending off trinket sellers.
Karno kitsch is everywhere, from key rings to T shirts, clocks and other down-market memorabilia. There are photos and busts aplenty, though the artists who duplicate Soekarno's image show little respect for reality.
So you can choose from any version that suits your view of the great man - leonine, saturnine, lean, plump, feisty or thoughtful – but always dapper.
Official presentations of the past gloss over Soekarno's sexual adventures. The badly arranged museum has masses of historical documents and happy family snaps – Karno with wife Fatmawati and five children, including Megawati who was to become the nation's fifth president.
But outside pavement sellers offer the unauthorized versions listing the founding father's nine wives and 11 kids in a smudged photocopied document titled Don Juan, the Skilled Lover. It seems he particularly liked younger women; the age gap was between 39 and 46 years for his last five wives.
Here's another paradox that confuses the outsider; a great statesman saturated in the conservative and rigid culture of Java was a playboy whose sexual exploits put world leaders like John Kennedy in the amateur class. You'd expect Karno to have been condemned for such affairs; instead they added to his stature.
Soekarno was a master orator and probably the only person who could have rallied the masses to fight for Independence. But history shows he fumbled the economy and botched foreign affairs.
All this has been forgotten in Blitar, where the worshipers speak only in respectful terms of the good old days. Any Westerner wanting to know more should just sit quietly in the shade at the tomb site and wait awhile.
It won't take long before you'll be given history lessons you never read, and anecdotes that make Soekarno into a demi-god, a man of mystery and magic who can still influence the present.
"Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the grave before he became president," said retired military man Susilo Adji, on a pilgrimage from Jakarta. "He should return again to receive more wisdom on how to run Indonesia."
(Sidebar)
MAN OF THE PEOPLE
But what was Soekarno really like? East Java singer Kadam became a court favorite and has a clear memory.
Nicknamed 'Golden Voice' he first met Soekarno at the Presidential Palace in 1960. The 17-year old was a member of a ludruk (grassroots theatre) group from Surabaya invited to perform in Jakarta.
"He took a real liking to me and I returned to the palace and his home in Bogor 13 times," Kadam said at his home in Malang. "He even picked me up because I was very small, and always waited for us to change after our performances so he could chat to us.
"I was never frightened of him because he treated everyone as equal. He didn't discriminate between high and low. He felt he was in touch with the village people – and he was.
"He was a teacher. He hadn't come from a business background. Unlike other leaders he never forgot his roots. What he said was in his heart and people understood that.
"He was a most exceptional person. There has never been anyone like him. I feel that God has accepted his soul."
(First published in The Jakarta Post 18 June 07)
##
">Link
To get some understanding of Javanese mysticism and a sense of this nation's complex history, be in Blitar on 20 June. This is the eve of the death of first President Soekarno, and a major date in the calendar of those who revere his name. Duncan Graham reports from the East Java town:
Once a month on Legi Jumat (Friday in the Javanese calendar), Misril dresses in her best sarong and lacy white kebaya (traditional blouse). She pins back her hair and adds two small daisy-shaped gold earrings. Then leaning on the arm of her nephew Karyadi, the 70 year old shuffles up the polished marble steps and into the sanctuary.
This is a pendopo, the Javanese four-pillared open-walled hall with a richly carved timber ceiling. Inside are three graves. The smaller one in the center is strewn with leaves and flowers. The headstone is a huge black boulder.
Misril carries a tiny plastic bag of pink and yellow petals that she squeezes into the carpet of flowers as she prays. Then she moves away and others take her place. Most are also formally dressed.
"I ask for safety for my family and four grand-children, and I've always received that," she said in kromo, the high level Javanese language. Misril does not understand Indonesian.
"Bung (brother) Karno struggled for Indonesia. He saw no difference between the rich and poor. His soul comes to me in my dreams and tells me to go to his grave.
"I wanted to meet him when he was alive, but that was difficult. Now I can visit him any day."
Indonesia's first president died aged 69 under virtual house arrest on 21 June in 1970. This was five years after being deposed by General Suharto following a bloody coup allegedly engineered by communists, though this is a matter of dispute.
Soekarno was buried in a simple cemetery in his hometown of Blitar, about five road-hours south of Surabaya. The story goes that Suharto feared his rival's grave could become a focal point for fomenting opposition to the New Order government if located in Jakarta.
At first Soekarno was officially remembered only as the Proklamator, the man who happened to proclaim the Declaration of Independence on 17 August 1945. It was as though he was just a bit player in the struggle for the Republic, not its main architect.
Later, when Suharto was well entrenched, it was deemed politically safe to rehabilitate the nation's first President. In 1979 the present grand structure was built to house the body of Soekarno and his parents.
As expected the grave has become a shrine. In the arid Saudi versions of Islam Muslims are not supposed to pray at tombs, but in Indonesia that rule is widely ignored.
For Blitar the grave has become a major earner, with the Bung Karno industry showing no sign of collapsing despite the passing of a generation that lived during Soekarno's turbulent times.
The local authorities have done a good job in crowd control. They've built a huge bus and car station away from the tomb and museum and set up a park-and-drive system – using becak (pedicabs) on a fixed and published tariff.
For Rp 15,000 (US $1.70) you can be wheeled to all locations and back to your vehicle, then have a feed at the scores of stalls while fending off trinket sellers.
Karno kitsch is everywhere, from key rings to T shirts, clocks and other down-market memorabilia. There are photos and busts aplenty, though the artists who duplicate Soekarno's image show little respect for reality.
So you can choose from any version that suits your view of the great man - leonine, saturnine, lean, plump, feisty or thoughtful – but always dapper.
Official presentations of the past gloss over Soekarno's sexual adventures. The badly arranged museum has masses of historical documents and happy family snaps – Karno with wife Fatmawati and five children, including Megawati who was to become the nation's fifth president.
But outside pavement sellers offer the unauthorized versions listing the founding father's nine wives and 11 kids in a smudged photocopied document titled Don Juan, the Skilled Lover. It seems he particularly liked younger women; the age gap was between 39 and 46 years for his last five wives.
Here's another paradox that confuses the outsider; a great statesman saturated in the conservative and rigid culture of Java was a playboy whose sexual exploits put world leaders like John Kennedy in the amateur class. You'd expect Karno to have been condemned for such affairs; instead they added to his stature.
Soekarno was a master orator and probably the only person who could have rallied the masses to fight for Independence. But history shows he fumbled the economy and botched foreign affairs.
All this has been forgotten in Blitar, where the worshipers speak only in respectful terms of the good old days. Any Westerner wanting to know more should just sit quietly in the shade at the tomb site and wait awhile.
It won't take long before you'll be given history lessons you never read, and anecdotes that make Soekarno into a demi-god, a man of mystery and magic who can still influence the present.
"Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the grave before he became president," said retired military man Susilo Adji, on a pilgrimage from Jakarta. "He should return again to receive more wisdom on how to run Indonesia."
(Sidebar)
MAN OF THE PEOPLE
But what was Soekarno really like? East Java singer Kadam became a court favorite and has a clear memory.
Nicknamed 'Golden Voice' he first met Soekarno at the Presidential Palace in 1960. The 17-year old was a member of a ludruk (grassroots theatre) group from Surabaya invited to perform in Jakarta.
"He took a real liking to me and I returned to the palace and his home in Bogor 13 times," Kadam said at his home in Malang. "He even picked me up because I was very small, and always waited for us to change after our performances so he could chat to us.
"I was never frightened of him because he treated everyone as equal. He didn't discriminate between high and low. He felt he was in touch with the village people – and he was.
"He was a teacher. He hadn't come from a business background. Unlike other leaders he never forgot his roots. What he said was in his heart and people understood that.
"He was a most exceptional person. There has never been anyone like him. I feel that God has accepted his soul."
(First published in The Jakarta Post 18 June 07)
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">Link
KIM CHANCE
SYNERGIES, SPUDS AND SHOWTIME
© Duncan Graham 2007
Kim Chance offered a blunt message to the Nervous Nellies of Australian business fearful of investing in Indonesia, the perceived land of terror:
"Go to Indonesia and learn that it is safe – or the competition will cut the ground out from under you," he said. "Of course there are sharks in Indonesian business – and crocodiles in Australian business. But they're a minority."
Western Australia's minister for agriculture and food has an unusual approach to the media; he's been a politician for 15 years and a minister for the past six so by now should have mastered the art of doublespeak.
Maybe he guards his words back in his home state where journalists think they have a mortgage on cynicism. But in Indonesia Chance was so upbeat about promoting trade that his edgy minders were constantly trying to insert qualifiers and disclaimers into his enthusiastic predictions.
As he rattled off a list of present and future possibilities – halal meat exports from Indonesia using cattle imported from Australia, Boer goats into Sumatra, Australian raw stock for steel mills, Indonesian laboratories providing tissue culture services, Indonesia manufacturing parabolic solar collectors, village bio-diesel plants using sunflower seeds, importing windmills to lift deep-well water - the bureaucrats blanched.
But however difficult the implementation of these plans, any public servant keen to stay on the payroll doesn't gainsay a minister setting out his vision – even when adding measurably to the workload.
"International relations tend to be over complicated," Chance said. "The rules are that we don't shoot at each other, that we try to make a bit of money, and we have fun.
"I'm here to talk trade but that's not the most important thing. This is about people, about developing good relationships and helping Australians understand more about Indonesia.
"We need to stop considering each other as separate countries. It's far more helpful to take a regional approach. We (in WA) have the raw commodities – you in Indonesia have the labor and the skills for value adding.
"What sort of opportunities? It's as broad as your imagination. Think of the synergies."
WA is a resource rich, export-dependent state. It produces huge quantities of food – mainly grains - and mines vast reserves of minerals, particularly iron, gold, nickel and bauxite that's used to make aluminum. (See sidebar)
Though it has a population of little more than two million, WA is currently riding an economic boom. There's a huge shortage of skilled labor. Wages are high ensuring that manufacturing can't compete against imports from low-cost workforce countries.
But in the nation next door to the north there's a surplus of labor, and according to Chance, a keenness to use local skills in innovative ways and develop new industries.
Later this year Indonesia will have the chance to showcase its products at the Perth Royal Show, WA's most prestigious annual event staged for a week in the big state's capital city. (Perth is just over three hours flying time from Denpasar.)
Past guest nations at the show have included China, Germany, Japan and Malaysia. East Java, which has a 17-year sister-state relationship with WA, has booked a third of the floor space at the Indonesian stand to push its goods and culture.
Chance was in Indonesia for five days in June to check progress with the Royal Show arrangements and help boost two-way trade.
Although he displays a teenager's enthusiasm for the business possibilities between the countries, he's no novice in international trade.
He's been to Indonesia before and several times to the Middle East ramping sales of cattle and farm produce, and checking end-use arrangements. Unlike many Australians, he seems unfazed by the current wave of Islamophobia sweeping the country Down Under.
"I'm learning Arabic," he said. "I'm very fond of Islamic culture. I like the Muslim approach to life. I really enjoy being in Indonesia."
In Batu (a hillltown outside Malang in central East Java famous for its floriculture and horticulture) Chance watched the signing of a memorandum of understanding. This was between a local company and Western Potatoes Ltd for the supply of seed potatoes.
Growers based at Nongkojajar on the uplands of the Bromo-Semeru massif have been importing spuds from other WA suppliers for the past decade, boosting yields by two to three times.
"WA is geographically isolated from the Eastern states of Australia (there's a desert in between) so we can maintain high standards of quarantine," said Chance.
"We don't suffer from potato blight which stops exports from countries like the Netherlands. Consumer demand for potatoes in Indonesia is phenomenal – it's growing at about 50 per cent a year.
"At the moment most of this is going into the snack food market. But in the future potatoes are likely to help provide food security for Indonesians as the margin between rice production and rice consumption narrows.
"In Australia we have expertise in agricultural science, stock genetics, veterinary medicine and animal nutrition. The trade in services follows trade in commodities."
The other rural boom product is milk. As Indonesian consumers move from powdered to long-life UHT (ultra-high temperature) processed milk, the demand for the liquid product is booming.
Many of the high-yield Friesian dairy cattle now being farmed in East Java originally came from WA.
"I'd like to see Indonesian investors getting involved in the Kimberley (north-western Australia) by buying the leasehold of cattle stations (ranches)," he said. "That helps lock in the supply of animals to Indonesia.
"There are no restrictions on Indonesian companies acquiring land. The Sultan of Brunei is already a major landholder."
(Sidebar)
BIG, GROWING BUT UNBALANCED
Indonesia is Australia's tenth largest export market. Apart from petroleum products the major goods are aluminum, live animals, wheat, sugar and cotton. There seems to be plenty of demand – sales of Australian merchandise to Indonesia jumped 22.6 per cent last year.
In return Indonesia sends Australia large quantities of gold, paper and wood, including furniture.
Investment is one-sided. According to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia has AUD $2.6 billion (Rp 182 trillion) invested in Indonesia. But Indonesians have sunk just one fifth of this sum into business and property in their neighbor.
There are reckoned to be about 400 Australian companies in Indonesia with most operating out of Jakarta. There's some Australian investment in mining companies working in Kalimantan.
(First published in The Jakarta Post 18 June 07)
##
">Link
© Duncan Graham 2007
Kim Chance offered a blunt message to the Nervous Nellies of Australian business fearful of investing in Indonesia, the perceived land of terror:
"Go to Indonesia and learn that it is safe – or the competition will cut the ground out from under you," he said. "Of course there are sharks in Indonesian business – and crocodiles in Australian business. But they're a minority."
Western Australia's minister for agriculture and food has an unusual approach to the media; he's been a politician for 15 years and a minister for the past six so by now should have mastered the art of doublespeak.
Maybe he guards his words back in his home state where journalists think they have a mortgage on cynicism. But in Indonesia Chance was so upbeat about promoting trade that his edgy minders were constantly trying to insert qualifiers and disclaimers into his enthusiastic predictions.
As he rattled off a list of present and future possibilities – halal meat exports from Indonesia using cattle imported from Australia, Boer goats into Sumatra, Australian raw stock for steel mills, Indonesian laboratories providing tissue culture services, Indonesia manufacturing parabolic solar collectors, village bio-diesel plants using sunflower seeds, importing windmills to lift deep-well water - the bureaucrats blanched.
But however difficult the implementation of these plans, any public servant keen to stay on the payroll doesn't gainsay a minister setting out his vision – even when adding measurably to the workload.
"International relations tend to be over complicated," Chance said. "The rules are that we don't shoot at each other, that we try to make a bit of money, and we have fun.
"I'm here to talk trade but that's not the most important thing. This is about people, about developing good relationships and helping Australians understand more about Indonesia.
"We need to stop considering each other as separate countries. It's far more helpful to take a regional approach. We (in WA) have the raw commodities – you in Indonesia have the labor and the skills for value adding.
"What sort of opportunities? It's as broad as your imagination. Think of the synergies."
WA is a resource rich, export-dependent state. It produces huge quantities of food – mainly grains - and mines vast reserves of minerals, particularly iron, gold, nickel and bauxite that's used to make aluminum. (See sidebar)
Though it has a population of little more than two million, WA is currently riding an economic boom. There's a huge shortage of skilled labor. Wages are high ensuring that manufacturing can't compete against imports from low-cost workforce countries.
But in the nation next door to the north there's a surplus of labor, and according to Chance, a keenness to use local skills in innovative ways and develop new industries.
Later this year Indonesia will have the chance to showcase its products at the Perth Royal Show, WA's most prestigious annual event staged for a week in the big state's capital city. (Perth is just over three hours flying time from Denpasar.)
Past guest nations at the show have included China, Germany, Japan and Malaysia. East Java, which has a 17-year sister-state relationship with WA, has booked a third of the floor space at the Indonesian stand to push its goods and culture.
Chance was in Indonesia for five days in June to check progress with the Royal Show arrangements and help boost two-way trade.
Although he displays a teenager's enthusiasm for the business possibilities between the countries, he's no novice in international trade.
He's been to Indonesia before and several times to the Middle East ramping sales of cattle and farm produce, and checking end-use arrangements. Unlike many Australians, he seems unfazed by the current wave of Islamophobia sweeping the country Down Under.
"I'm learning Arabic," he said. "I'm very fond of Islamic culture. I like the Muslim approach to life. I really enjoy being in Indonesia."
In Batu (a hillltown outside Malang in central East Java famous for its floriculture and horticulture) Chance watched the signing of a memorandum of understanding. This was between a local company and Western Potatoes Ltd for the supply of seed potatoes.
Growers based at Nongkojajar on the uplands of the Bromo-Semeru massif have been importing spuds from other WA suppliers for the past decade, boosting yields by two to three times.
"WA is geographically isolated from the Eastern states of Australia (there's a desert in between) so we can maintain high standards of quarantine," said Chance.
"We don't suffer from potato blight which stops exports from countries like the Netherlands. Consumer demand for potatoes in Indonesia is phenomenal – it's growing at about 50 per cent a year.
"At the moment most of this is going into the snack food market. But in the future potatoes are likely to help provide food security for Indonesians as the margin between rice production and rice consumption narrows.
"In Australia we have expertise in agricultural science, stock genetics, veterinary medicine and animal nutrition. The trade in services follows trade in commodities."
The other rural boom product is milk. As Indonesian consumers move from powdered to long-life UHT (ultra-high temperature) processed milk, the demand for the liquid product is booming.
Many of the high-yield Friesian dairy cattle now being farmed in East Java originally came from WA.
"I'd like to see Indonesian investors getting involved in the Kimberley (north-western Australia) by buying the leasehold of cattle stations (ranches)," he said. "That helps lock in the supply of animals to Indonesia.
"There are no restrictions on Indonesian companies acquiring land. The Sultan of Brunei is already a major landholder."
(Sidebar)
BIG, GROWING BUT UNBALANCED
Indonesia is Australia's tenth largest export market. Apart from petroleum products the major goods are aluminum, live animals, wheat, sugar and cotton. There seems to be plenty of demand – sales of Australian merchandise to Indonesia jumped 22.6 per cent last year.
In return Indonesia sends Australia large quantities of gold, paper and wood, including furniture.
Investment is one-sided. According to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia has AUD $2.6 billion (Rp 182 trillion) invested in Indonesia. But Indonesians have sunk just one fifth of this sum into business and property in their neighbor.
There are reckoned to be about 400 Australian companies in Indonesia with most operating out of Jakarta. There's some Australian investment in mining companies working in Kalimantan.
(First published in The Jakarta Post 18 June 07)
##
">Link
Sunday, June 17, 2007
RATNA INDRASWARI IBRAHIM
SEE THE PERSON, NOT THE PROBLEM:
CONSIDER THE IDEAS, NOT THE MYTHS
© Duncan Graham 2007
She's one of Indonesia's most prolific short-story writers with more than 300 published. Plus novels, poetry and a basket full of articles. For these she's collected several awards. When she's not writing she's pushing social and cultural causes.
All this makes Ratna Indraswari Ibrahim worthy of respect; add to this her work practices.
For Ratna is severely crippled and cannot write or use a keyboard; all her stories have to be dictated and transcribed. Duncan Graham met the determined author at her home in Malang, East Java.
While the interviews for this story were being conducted Malang was gripped by a bizarre family tragedy. A young Mum who seems to have suffered emotional, domestic and financial problems – and was clearly mentally unbalanced -poisoned her four children, then herself.
Adding to the tragedy is that the mother (ironically named Mercy) used her handphone to video the deaths of her youngsters. She then arranged their bodies neatly on the bed before committing suicide. The local media published the pictures.
Don't bother ploughing through newspaper archives for more details – just wait for Ratna's next story.
"I'm thinking about it," she said. "The seed is definitely there. I have to get my ideas from newspapers and books. It's not easy getting around."
But she does, and has already visited Australia, the US (where she had leadership training), and China. In some places mobility has been simpler than in her homeland. In many Western nations pavements should be smooth and level, and public buildings must have wheelchair-access ramps and wide doors for the physically challenged.
Ratna has been campaigning for similar laws in Indonesia for decades. Back in 1994 she was given a national award by then President Soeharto for her agitation on behalf of the disabled – arguing that the public should see the person, not the problem, and that all citizens have the right to use public space.
But architects and town planners largely remain unconcerned with the plight of Indonesia's handicapped; the legislation is still not in place, ensuring the disabled usually stay indoors.
"I should start a political party," a frustrated Ratna grumbled as an aside. "There are ten million disabled voters in Indonesia. Maybe then the lawmakers would start to pay attention."
It's not just the indifference of politicians that keeps the crippled out of sight. To have a child who is labeled abnormal is often regarded as a curse, proof to the superstitious that the family has committed some grave sin.
Fortunately for Ratna her parents - who came from Padang in West Sumatra, a region with a reputation for practising heavy-duty Islam - were open minded, progressive and liberal,
"I was born in 1949 and had a good and happy childhood," she said. "I could swim and loved playing outside. I was considered to be a tomboy."
When she was about ten tragedy struck. At first it was thought she'd contracted poliomyelitis, though later diagnoses indicate it may be rickets, a disease that softens bones. Whatever the cause, she lost the use of her limbs and has had to rely on others for her daily needs.
"For the first five years or so I was very angry – particularly with God because everyone else in the family was so fit," she said. "All my five sisters were beautiful. However I think I've only written one story expressing that anger – and I can't remember the title.
"My mother, Siti Bidasari, died only five years ago. She lived long enough to see and enjoy her daughter's success. I'm not trying to be immodest, but she was very proud of me.
"When I was young she told me: 'You cannot walk, but you can write. Not everyone who walks can write. You will do much more than other people because God has given you brains to use.'
"It's true that I may not have become a writer if I hadn't been disabled. I love plants and all living things, and I wanted to become a farmer.
"God made me like this so I could be writer. Originally I wrote for myself – and to please my parents, to show them that I could do other things. I didn't want them crying because I was sick."
The home environment was ideal. Dad, Saleh Ibrahim was fluent in numerous languages, an idealistic lawyer who quit his profession over issues of principle to become a businessman. The family did well - it owned a major cinema and the house was full of books. If it was a toss up between spending on haberdashery or hardbacks the novels usually won.
It was also a remarkably tolerant environment. Young Ratna was sent to a Christian school, liked some of the rituals and asked her parents if they could celebrate Christmas with a tree. They agreed – and they didn't prohibit her from talking to the prostitutes at a nearby brothel.
"I was taught not to see people for their faults," she said, "but to look at their characters piece-by-piece." It's a quality she has taken into her literature.
Mum was an admirer of intellectual and diplomat Agus Salim who also came from Padang. He was one of the founders of modern Indonesia and a writer of the Constitution who stressed the value of education.
While other kids were running the streets, kicking balls and testing the limits of their bodies and the physical environment, Ratna was exploring the limitless world of imagination.
She was exposed to the works of Anton Chekhov, Guy de Maupassant, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Hardy, Alexandre Dumas and others. Her parents would suggest books she might like – including Karl Marx's manifesto Das Kapital. This was before Soeharto introduced a ban on all works by communists.
"My parents said they would stand by me and visit me in jail if I decided to join the PKI (communist party), but they'd disown me if I was imprisoned for corruption," she said.
She didn't become a Red, but Marx influenced her to consider the plight of the poor, marginalized and dispossessed – the people who now feature in her stories.
Ratna went to Malang's Brawijaya University where her friends had to carry her up stairs to lectures. She wanted to learn more about human psychology but lost interest and channeled her energies into writing and activism.
For 13 years she chaired a Non-Government Organization (NGO) for disabled people, then founded an NGO concerned with environmental issues. She also works for Yayasan Kebudayaan Panjoeng, a cultural foundation to stimulate and preserve local history and the arts.
Her once secluded 93-year old home in central Malang is now overshadowed by a hotel on one side, and a high school on the other. When prayers and public announcements are made on what must be East Java's most raucous and deafening sound system, the mind hibernates for self-protection.
It hardly seems the ideal environment for creativity, but Ratna resting on a bed in her library while she structures her next sentence to be transcribed by secretary and poet Ragil Sukriwul, doesn't seem to mind. She has many visitors who bring her stories that may eventually find a way into her work.
Then there are the students seeking the magic elixir: 'Please tell me how to write.' Ratna's answer is blunt and direct: "Just do it!" So what sort of courses should they take? "Education is not the same as intelligence."
Relationships between the sexes are a major theme in her stories, with situations growing out of male domination of women in a society that's overwhelmingly dogmatic and masculine, and often violent.
Her female characters are usually semi-urban Muslims struggling with life and injustice, battling to raise families while maintaining a sense of self-worth. Their situations are real. Her popularity depends on her readers identifying with the characters and their daily lives. Surprisingly many of her admirers are men.
There are two main streams of women's literature in Indonesia, the traditional romantic novel (love lit) and the new kid on the shelves, sastra wangi (literally 'perfumed writing') but known elsewhere as chick lit.
Ratna rejects both as "pop writing". Despite her distaste she recognizes that the boom in sastra wangi featuring metropolitan teens coming to grips with their sexuality is encouraging young women to learn more about their bodies, human nature and the world they've inherited. "Better read than gossip," she conceded.
The success of these novelettes (check the number of titles in your nearest bookstore) clearly shows there's a great need among curious youngsters constrained by culture and imposed taboos. But it's the open discussion of sex that worries the 58-year old author.
"Sex belongs to God," she said. "It's a matter between two souls, it's not an issue that should be discussed in the open, or treated as vulgar which is how it's handled by men."
She lumps feminism into the same category because of the stress on sex – though in a Western reading of her work she is clearly a feminist writer striving to empower.
The traditional romantic novel is given the flick because it reinforces what Ratna calls the 'Cinderella complex'. This has a passive young woman waiting for some bloke to rescue her from hardships, then transport her to an abode of bliss. How he's constructed this is of no concern to author or reader.
In this genre the woman does little more than hang around, braid her locks, keep her legs together till marriage and look enchanting. She doesn't have to use her initiative or generate ideas. In fact any outburst of intelligence would probably frighten away Mr Right who has a fixation on body, not brains.
Sadly, claims Ratna, Indonesia is an "autistic country." Most women still believe in the Cinderella fantasy, even as they pummel clothes in streambeds, hump water up hills and fall pregnant too early and too often to male chauvinists.
She also attacks public perceptions of Islam as a religion that oppresses women. "People confuse culture with religion," she said. "Islam protects women's rights. It's the culture that creates the role of women in society.
"I want my readers to think about women, how they are treated, to understand their fate. I want to talk humanity – not feminism or individualism and selfishness.
"Our keraton (Javanese regal) culture promotes mutual support. Human beings were created to help each other. Readers will get what they want from my books."
(First published in the SundayPost 17 June 07)##
">Link
CONSIDER THE IDEAS, NOT THE MYTHS
© Duncan Graham 2007
She's one of Indonesia's most prolific short-story writers with more than 300 published. Plus novels, poetry and a basket full of articles. For these she's collected several awards. When she's not writing she's pushing social and cultural causes.
All this makes Ratna Indraswari Ibrahim worthy of respect; add to this her work practices.
For Ratna is severely crippled and cannot write or use a keyboard; all her stories have to be dictated and transcribed. Duncan Graham met the determined author at her home in Malang, East Java.
While the interviews for this story were being conducted Malang was gripped by a bizarre family tragedy. A young Mum who seems to have suffered emotional, domestic and financial problems – and was clearly mentally unbalanced -poisoned her four children, then herself.
Adding to the tragedy is that the mother (ironically named Mercy) used her handphone to video the deaths of her youngsters. She then arranged their bodies neatly on the bed before committing suicide. The local media published the pictures.
Don't bother ploughing through newspaper archives for more details – just wait for Ratna's next story.
"I'm thinking about it," she said. "The seed is definitely there. I have to get my ideas from newspapers and books. It's not easy getting around."
But she does, and has already visited Australia, the US (where she had leadership training), and China. In some places mobility has been simpler than in her homeland. In many Western nations pavements should be smooth and level, and public buildings must have wheelchair-access ramps and wide doors for the physically challenged.
Ratna has been campaigning for similar laws in Indonesia for decades. Back in 1994 she was given a national award by then President Soeharto for her agitation on behalf of the disabled – arguing that the public should see the person, not the problem, and that all citizens have the right to use public space.
But architects and town planners largely remain unconcerned with the plight of Indonesia's handicapped; the legislation is still not in place, ensuring the disabled usually stay indoors.
"I should start a political party," a frustrated Ratna grumbled as an aside. "There are ten million disabled voters in Indonesia. Maybe then the lawmakers would start to pay attention."
It's not just the indifference of politicians that keeps the crippled out of sight. To have a child who is labeled abnormal is often regarded as a curse, proof to the superstitious that the family has committed some grave sin.
Fortunately for Ratna her parents - who came from Padang in West Sumatra, a region with a reputation for practising heavy-duty Islam - were open minded, progressive and liberal,
"I was born in 1949 and had a good and happy childhood," she said. "I could swim and loved playing outside. I was considered to be a tomboy."
When she was about ten tragedy struck. At first it was thought she'd contracted poliomyelitis, though later diagnoses indicate it may be rickets, a disease that softens bones. Whatever the cause, she lost the use of her limbs and has had to rely on others for her daily needs.
"For the first five years or so I was very angry – particularly with God because everyone else in the family was so fit," she said. "All my five sisters were beautiful. However I think I've only written one story expressing that anger – and I can't remember the title.
"My mother, Siti Bidasari, died only five years ago. She lived long enough to see and enjoy her daughter's success. I'm not trying to be immodest, but she was very proud of me.
"When I was young she told me: 'You cannot walk, but you can write. Not everyone who walks can write. You will do much more than other people because God has given you brains to use.'
"It's true that I may not have become a writer if I hadn't been disabled. I love plants and all living things, and I wanted to become a farmer.
"God made me like this so I could be writer. Originally I wrote for myself – and to please my parents, to show them that I could do other things. I didn't want them crying because I was sick."
The home environment was ideal. Dad, Saleh Ibrahim was fluent in numerous languages, an idealistic lawyer who quit his profession over issues of principle to become a businessman. The family did well - it owned a major cinema and the house was full of books. If it was a toss up between spending on haberdashery or hardbacks the novels usually won.
It was also a remarkably tolerant environment. Young Ratna was sent to a Christian school, liked some of the rituals and asked her parents if they could celebrate Christmas with a tree. They agreed – and they didn't prohibit her from talking to the prostitutes at a nearby brothel.
"I was taught not to see people for their faults," she said, "but to look at their characters piece-by-piece." It's a quality she has taken into her literature.
Mum was an admirer of intellectual and diplomat Agus Salim who also came from Padang. He was one of the founders of modern Indonesia and a writer of the Constitution who stressed the value of education.
While other kids were running the streets, kicking balls and testing the limits of their bodies and the physical environment, Ratna was exploring the limitless world of imagination.
She was exposed to the works of Anton Chekhov, Guy de Maupassant, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Hardy, Alexandre Dumas and others. Her parents would suggest books she might like – including Karl Marx's manifesto Das Kapital. This was before Soeharto introduced a ban on all works by communists.
"My parents said they would stand by me and visit me in jail if I decided to join the PKI (communist party), but they'd disown me if I was imprisoned for corruption," she said.
She didn't become a Red, but Marx influenced her to consider the plight of the poor, marginalized and dispossessed – the people who now feature in her stories.
Ratna went to Malang's Brawijaya University where her friends had to carry her up stairs to lectures. She wanted to learn more about human psychology but lost interest and channeled her energies into writing and activism.
For 13 years she chaired a Non-Government Organization (NGO) for disabled people, then founded an NGO concerned with environmental issues. She also works for Yayasan Kebudayaan Panjoeng, a cultural foundation to stimulate and preserve local history and the arts.
Her once secluded 93-year old home in central Malang is now overshadowed by a hotel on one side, and a high school on the other. When prayers and public announcements are made on what must be East Java's most raucous and deafening sound system, the mind hibernates for self-protection.
It hardly seems the ideal environment for creativity, but Ratna resting on a bed in her library while she structures her next sentence to be transcribed by secretary and poet Ragil Sukriwul, doesn't seem to mind. She has many visitors who bring her stories that may eventually find a way into her work.
Then there are the students seeking the magic elixir: 'Please tell me how to write.' Ratna's answer is blunt and direct: "Just do it!" So what sort of courses should they take? "Education is not the same as intelligence."
Relationships between the sexes are a major theme in her stories, with situations growing out of male domination of women in a society that's overwhelmingly dogmatic and masculine, and often violent.
Her female characters are usually semi-urban Muslims struggling with life and injustice, battling to raise families while maintaining a sense of self-worth. Their situations are real. Her popularity depends on her readers identifying with the characters and their daily lives. Surprisingly many of her admirers are men.
There are two main streams of women's literature in Indonesia, the traditional romantic novel (love lit) and the new kid on the shelves, sastra wangi (literally 'perfumed writing') but known elsewhere as chick lit.
Ratna rejects both as "pop writing". Despite her distaste she recognizes that the boom in sastra wangi featuring metropolitan teens coming to grips with their sexuality is encouraging young women to learn more about their bodies, human nature and the world they've inherited. "Better read than gossip," she conceded.
The success of these novelettes (check the number of titles in your nearest bookstore) clearly shows there's a great need among curious youngsters constrained by culture and imposed taboos. But it's the open discussion of sex that worries the 58-year old author.
"Sex belongs to God," she said. "It's a matter between two souls, it's not an issue that should be discussed in the open, or treated as vulgar which is how it's handled by men."
She lumps feminism into the same category because of the stress on sex – though in a Western reading of her work she is clearly a feminist writer striving to empower.
The traditional romantic novel is given the flick because it reinforces what Ratna calls the 'Cinderella complex'. This has a passive young woman waiting for some bloke to rescue her from hardships, then transport her to an abode of bliss. How he's constructed this is of no concern to author or reader.
In this genre the woman does little more than hang around, braid her locks, keep her legs together till marriage and look enchanting. She doesn't have to use her initiative or generate ideas. In fact any outburst of intelligence would probably frighten away Mr Right who has a fixation on body, not brains.
Sadly, claims Ratna, Indonesia is an "autistic country." Most women still believe in the Cinderella fantasy, even as they pummel clothes in streambeds, hump water up hills and fall pregnant too early and too often to male chauvinists.
She also attacks public perceptions of Islam as a religion that oppresses women. "People confuse culture with religion," she said. "Islam protects women's rights. It's the culture that creates the role of women in society.
"I want my readers to think about women, how they are treated, to understand their fate. I want to talk humanity – not feminism or individualism and selfishness.
"Our keraton (Javanese regal) culture promotes mutual support. Human beings were created to help each other. Readers will get what they want from my books."
(First published in the SundayPost 17 June 07)##
">Link
Thursday, June 14, 2007
BAMBANG ADRIAN WENZEL
DRAWING THE PAIN OF PORONG © Duncan Graham 2007
The pain of Porong seems never-ending. Transport routes have been damaged and traffic disrupted, but the East Java village drowned by the continuously erupting Lapindo mud volcano has taken the biggest hit.
Though the villagers' problems haven't been resolved their plight doesn't pass unnoticed. There's a regular parade of impotent officials, gawkers and picture snappers, tut-tuting about the unstoppable outflow of gas and grime, and the anguish of the unfortunates caught in the environmental and bureaucratic mess.
Not all outsiders bemoan their inabilities to assist. Bambang Adrian Wenzel is a regular visitor from Malang. He's neither a geologist nor a desk jockey, but he's doing what he can to make a difference – as an artist.
He's sketched the faces of scores of children, emotionally crippled by a disaster that's already displaced an estimated 25,000 people. They've lost their homes, land, jobs, places of worship and schools.
It's a distressing environment. Many have also abandoned hope as the promises of help drown in the slime. The reality has been caught by Bambang in the kids' doleful eyes, disconnected from the carefree youth they were enjoying before they were prematurely forced into adulthood, trapped by the agonies of a problem they didn't cause.
"They're the innocent victims who have lost so much – including their childhood," Bambang said. "I first went to Porong last year with two artist friends from Jakarta.
"We decided that I should keep returning and drawing. Later this year we'll have an exhibition and sale in Jakarta where people will get a better chance to understand what's happening here in East Java.
"All the proceeds will be used to buy books for the children so they can keep learning. We certainly won't be handing out cash to officials."
For Bambang books are as important as canvases and brushes. He draws much of his inspiration from the Greek philosophers with Plato a favorite source.
"I'm interested in the ideas of democracy and human rights. Art is an offering to God and humanity," he said.
Bambang was born into a half Chinese, half Madurese family in the Java east coast town of Banyuwangi almost 50 years ago. After a short spell of formal art studies in Surabaya he moved to Malang "because it's a cultural city with a good artistic environment."
Since then he's maintained himself as a professional artist – a rare feat in an economy where there's little surplus cash for unconventional artworks. He's done this without having to compromise his time with other work, or corrupt his creativity by mass-producing touristy pictures.
The problem in keeping the rupiah river running is that much of his art doesn't fit neatly into the much-favored horses-galloping-in-surf or colorful-fishing-boats-in-harbor genres.
Nor does it meet the overseas visitor demand for soft-hue paintings of languid Balinese beauties. These are the standard lines that have kept his famous cousin, artist Huang Fong, well employed for the past half century by satisfying tourist fantasies of life in the tropics.
"I don't want to do this sort of work," Bambang said. "I'm trying to give more meaning to life. I mostly sell to collectors in America and Jakarta. I've exhibited in Australia and China, and Jakarta galleries handle my work.
"I enter a few exhibitions; I'm currently being shown in the traveling show A Beautiful Death that's been touring Bali and Java. But there's not a lot of interest in my art in Indonesia."
Probably because it's enigmatic, sometimes disturbing and wouldn't fit easily on the wall of a lounge where visitors are invited to relax. It's clear his Chinese antecedents are slowly pushing themselves into the foreground as his work moves from simple to complex and now includes oriental symbols.
A good example is a large picture (few of Bambang's paintings would fit in a Mercedes, though you'd need to be in that class to afford his art), of a broody hen, two freshly hatched chicks peeping from her fluffed-up feathers.
At first glance it's an image of warmth and security. Then you notice the tiny McDonalds logo reflected in the chicken's eye. This theme gets a more brutal treatment when the faces of beautiful women are eliminated in hardedge brush strokes that suddenly run out of paint – like TV images electronically smudged to mask the faces of the guilty or innocent.
Now he's working in multi-media, using slabs of stone to give a three-dimensional effect. He's much influenced by the confrontationist Lithuanian-Polish poster artist Stasys Eidrigevicius.
There are many Javanese cultural icons in his art, and images drawn from the old Buddhist-Hindu temples that surround Malang. These are mixed with religious symbols (he's a Catholic) and social commentary. He blends realism and the abstract.
One installation has a series of blurred monochrome photographs showing sacred texts surrounding a bright multicolored in-focus shot of a shopping mall. He's used this as a stimulant for discussions on the way religion and culture are being drowned by the neon-lit lure of materialism.
"During the Suharto era I felt constrained," he said. "It was difficult to express myself freely. I couldn't develop my creativity and had to be careful, particularly because I'm part Chinese and it would not have been wise to include that part of my culture in my paintings. Now I feel free. I'm learning Mandarin and I sign my art with my Chinese name.
"I could probably make more money overseas, but here I feel in touch with the environment that I love so much. I'm not money oriented. I believe that if you're an artist and serious about your work, good fortune will come to you."
(First published in The Jakarta Post 13 June 07)
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">Link
The pain of Porong seems never-ending. Transport routes have been damaged and traffic disrupted, but the East Java village drowned by the continuously erupting Lapindo mud volcano has taken the biggest hit.
Though the villagers' problems haven't been resolved their plight doesn't pass unnoticed. There's a regular parade of impotent officials, gawkers and picture snappers, tut-tuting about the unstoppable outflow of gas and grime, and the anguish of the unfortunates caught in the environmental and bureaucratic mess.
Not all outsiders bemoan their inabilities to assist. Bambang Adrian Wenzel is a regular visitor from Malang. He's neither a geologist nor a desk jockey, but he's doing what he can to make a difference – as an artist.
He's sketched the faces of scores of children, emotionally crippled by a disaster that's already displaced an estimated 25,000 people. They've lost their homes, land, jobs, places of worship and schools.
It's a distressing environment. Many have also abandoned hope as the promises of help drown in the slime. The reality has been caught by Bambang in the kids' doleful eyes, disconnected from the carefree youth they were enjoying before they were prematurely forced into adulthood, trapped by the agonies of a problem they didn't cause.
"They're the innocent victims who have lost so much – including their childhood," Bambang said. "I first went to Porong last year with two artist friends from Jakarta.
"We decided that I should keep returning and drawing. Later this year we'll have an exhibition and sale in Jakarta where people will get a better chance to understand what's happening here in East Java.
"All the proceeds will be used to buy books for the children so they can keep learning. We certainly won't be handing out cash to officials."
For Bambang books are as important as canvases and brushes. He draws much of his inspiration from the Greek philosophers with Plato a favorite source.
"I'm interested in the ideas of democracy and human rights. Art is an offering to God and humanity," he said.
Bambang was born into a half Chinese, half Madurese family in the Java east coast town of Banyuwangi almost 50 years ago. After a short spell of formal art studies in Surabaya he moved to Malang "because it's a cultural city with a good artistic environment."
Since then he's maintained himself as a professional artist – a rare feat in an economy where there's little surplus cash for unconventional artworks. He's done this without having to compromise his time with other work, or corrupt his creativity by mass-producing touristy pictures.
The problem in keeping the rupiah river running is that much of his art doesn't fit neatly into the much-favored horses-galloping-in-surf or colorful-fishing-boats-in-harbor genres.
Nor does it meet the overseas visitor demand for soft-hue paintings of languid Balinese beauties. These are the standard lines that have kept his famous cousin, artist Huang Fong, well employed for the past half century by satisfying tourist fantasies of life in the tropics.
"I don't want to do this sort of work," Bambang said. "I'm trying to give more meaning to life. I mostly sell to collectors in America and Jakarta. I've exhibited in Australia and China, and Jakarta galleries handle my work.
"I enter a few exhibitions; I'm currently being shown in the traveling show A Beautiful Death that's been touring Bali and Java. But there's not a lot of interest in my art in Indonesia."
Probably because it's enigmatic, sometimes disturbing and wouldn't fit easily on the wall of a lounge where visitors are invited to relax. It's clear his Chinese antecedents are slowly pushing themselves into the foreground as his work moves from simple to complex and now includes oriental symbols.
A good example is a large picture (few of Bambang's paintings would fit in a Mercedes, though you'd need to be in that class to afford his art), of a broody hen, two freshly hatched chicks peeping from her fluffed-up feathers.
At first glance it's an image of warmth and security. Then you notice the tiny McDonalds logo reflected in the chicken's eye. This theme gets a more brutal treatment when the faces of beautiful women are eliminated in hardedge brush strokes that suddenly run out of paint – like TV images electronically smudged to mask the faces of the guilty or innocent.
Now he's working in multi-media, using slabs of stone to give a three-dimensional effect. He's much influenced by the confrontationist Lithuanian-Polish poster artist Stasys Eidrigevicius.
There are many Javanese cultural icons in his art, and images drawn from the old Buddhist-Hindu temples that surround Malang. These are mixed with religious symbols (he's a Catholic) and social commentary. He blends realism and the abstract.
One installation has a series of blurred monochrome photographs showing sacred texts surrounding a bright multicolored in-focus shot of a shopping mall. He's used this as a stimulant for discussions on the way religion and culture are being drowned by the neon-lit lure of materialism.
"During the Suharto era I felt constrained," he said. "It was difficult to express myself freely. I couldn't develop my creativity and had to be careful, particularly because I'm part Chinese and it would not have been wise to include that part of my culture in my paintings. Now I feel free. I'm learning Mandarin and I sign my art with my Chinese name.
"I could probably make more money overseas, but here I feel in touch with the environment that I love so much. I'm not money oriented. I believe that if you're an artist and serious about your work, good fortune will come to you."
(First published in The Jakarta Post 13 June 07)
##
">Link
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
VOICES OF ISLAM
BRIDGING THE RAVINE OF HATE © Duncan Graham 2007
Voices of Islam in Southeast Asia.
Ed: Greg Fealy and Virginia Hooker
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore
540 pages
Let not your hatred of others cause you to act unjustly against them. The Koran.
Despite this injunction, a minority of Muslims believes they have divine licence to kill unbelievers. The hurt they've done has been far greater than the destruction of people and property within the blast zones of their evildoing.
Their actions have turned the West against Islam. Hatred has nurtured hatred to the point where a Christian political leader in Australia – once the Land of the Fair Go - is now calling for a ban on Muslim migrants and getting good support.
Many Muslims seem indifferent. Religion is not a popularity contest. Who cares what others think?
Anwar Ibrahim, former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, does: "Never in Islam's history have the actions of so few of its followers caused the religion and its community of believers to be such an abomination in the eyes of others."
Ibrahim's unequivocal condemnation is rare. The standard dismissal put forward by moderate Muslims and Western politicians keen to hose down sectarian rage is that the fundamentalists are fringe dwellers, unrepresentative of the majority.
Islam, the apologists say, means 'peace' and 'submission', while 'jihad' refers to the struggle within, not a holy war. Moslems are tolerant and compassionate, and can live alongside those of other faiths.
That reasoning is now running thin, for too many prominent Muslims are saying the opposite. When Australians think Islam, they see Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the alleged eminence grise of violent jihad. His views were broadcast on television and have been reproduced in this book:
"Allah has divided humanity into two segments, namely the followers of Allah and the followers of Satan …we would rather die than follow that which you worship. We do not want to cooperate … we reject all your beliefs, we reject all your ideologies, we reject all of your teachings that are associated with social issues, economics or beliefs.
"Between you and us there will forever be a ravine of hate and we will be enemies until you follow Allah's law."
Distressful – though allowable in a democracy. But there needs to be counter-views delivered by influential Muslims who are prepared to trash such gross intolerance with moral and theological force. Not too many find the courage, leaving the field to the loonies.
Faced with this sort of rhetoric, backed by media images of white-clad 'holy warriors' waving fists, shouting slogans and acting with impunity, no wonder shallow thinkers equate Islam with terror with Indonesia.
How can that 'ravine of hate' ever be bridged? Certainly not by bland words and soothing comments that are at odds with reality.
Voices of Islam in Southeast Asia doesn't go soft on the hard issues, as the quotes above show. Although it has been compiled from academic research backed by Australian government funds, this is not the transcript of a multi-faith love-in where handpicked moderates make motherhood statements, then pose for happy-snaps.
The subtitle is A Contemporary Sourcebook, so don't expect a cover-to-cover read. This isn't a Karen Armstrong history of the faith. It's a collection of texts (many little known or previously unavailable in English) with commentaries.
This is the volume to turn to when you need facts and opinions about Islam in this geographical area, and ideas to feed critical thinking. It's not for those concrete minds that already know that their way to salvation is the one and only path.
Although there are chapters on Cambodia, Vietnam and other countries in the region with Muslim populations, the emphasis is on Indonesia and Malaysia.
It's a book for those with a lust for learning, who want to hear all sides of an issue and who are fluent in English. It also has an excellent glossary, useful because so many terms are Arabic.
If you're looking for signs of hope – or words that bolster your prejudices - they're all here. The index has only two references to love, but many more to war and terror. Maybe an examination of Christian fundamentalism in the US would glean similar results.
The great issue in the 19th century was the separation of church and state, now a pillar of Western society. For those who can't understand why others would think differently, read Greg Fealy's chapter on Islam, State and Governance.
Gender issues are prominent in modern Western debate. For the reader seeking proof that Islam values men above women there's an excellent section by academic Sally White. This examines tracts – mostly written by men - on how women should behave and manage 'the harmonious family'.
But as the commentaries reveal, these proscriptions should be read against analyses of the texts that are used to uphold the oppression. The principal verse is 'men are the leaders of women' - but other translations aren't so rigid, claiming the critical word is ''maintainers'.
And even if 'leaders' remains, progressives argue it doesn't mean a man can regard housework as unimportant, for leadership includes 'love, protection, education, guidance and humane authority.'
So inevitably it all comes down to interpretation and the way we use the intellects God gave us. Religion defies easy understanding; it has multiple spokespeople, wise and unwise, offering infinite versions. It's unworthy of one-liners whether shouted by the self-styled Defenders of Islam or Christian Bible-thumping bigots.
Illustrating the complexity is a useful extract from an interview that goes to the heart of the matter.
It's between Terry Lane, a prominent Christian and one of Australian broadcasting's most perceptive journalists, and Zainah Anwar, from the Malaysian organization Sisters in Islam:
Lane: Do you mean that this (the Koran) is literally the revealed word of God?
Anwar: Yes, definitely.
Lane: You say 'Yes, definitely', but if I make a comparison between Islam and Christianity, Christianity only lost its ability to control the lives of women when that very notion of revealed truth was rejected.
Anwar: Well, you see there is a difference between what is revealed by God – and that is the words in the Qu'ran (Koran) that comes from God, … and what is human understanding of the word of God ... the human agency, the human intervention.
So coming full circle is the question – what human agency? The clerics (male) and the governments they influence. Indonesia is a highly religious society where regular public affirmations of faith are expected of politicians, and all citizens are required to follow an approved religion. Many find their identity through Islam.
The power of the clerics is obvious; alleged contraventions of the Constitution regarding the introduction of Sharia law in some districts have yet to be tackled by the national government. Law reforms proposed by leading Muslim women that will give women more freedom have not been introduced.
Though the insular graybeards still seem to control public debate on religion in Indonesia from their castles of dogma, other heads are now peeping above the parapet and from the pages of this book. They are brave indeed, risking the charge that they've been westernized.
Today that's a label almost as damning as the tag 'communist' used in the Soeharto era to crush dissent.
For all its faults the West is prepared to publish alternative views as Voices of Islam proves. Even Bali bomber Imam Samudra is given a good run and slanders himself neatly, proving there's no need to censor the extremists:
'I really am a troublesome demon who reeks of death. But don't misconstrue this; it doesn't mean that I'm an antichrist or paranoid. I'm just normal, you know.'
This book is a major and balanced contribution to the most important debate of our times. I hope it gets translated into Indonesian so it becomes more accessible.
(First published in The Sunday Post 10 June 07)
##
">Link
Voices of Islam in Southeast Asia.
Ed: Greg Fealy and Virginia Hooker
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore
540 pages
Let not your hatred of others cause you to act unjustly against them. The Koran.
Despite this injunction, a minority of Muslims believes they have divine licence to kill unbelievers. The hurt they've done has been far greater than the destruction of people and property within the blast zones of their evildoing.
Their actions have turned the West against Islam. Hatred has nurtured hatred to the point where a Christian political leader in Australia – once the Land of the Fair Go - is now calling for a ban on Muslim migrants and getting good support.
Many Muslims seem indifferent. Religion is not a popularity contest. Who cares what others think?
Anwar Ibrahim, former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, does: "Never in Islam's history have the actions of so few of its followers caused the religion and its community of believers to be such an abomination in the eyes of others."
Ibrahim's unequivocal condemnation is rare. The standard dismissal put forward by moderate Muslims and Western politicians keen to hose down sectarian rage is that the fundamentalists are fringe dwellers, unrepresentative of the majority.
Islam, the apologists say, means 'peace' and 'submission', while 'jihad' refers to the struggle within, not a holy war. Moslems are tolerant and compassionate, and can live alongside those of other faiths.
That reasoning is now running thin, for too many prominent Muslims are saying the opposite. When Australians think Islam, they see Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the alleged eminence grise of violent jihad. His views were broadcast on television and have been reproduced in this book:
"Allah has divided humanity into two segments, namely the followers of Allah and the followers of Satan …we would rather die than follow that which you worship. We do not want to cooperate … we reject all your beliefs, we reject all your ideologies, we reject all of your teachings that are associated with social issues, economics or beliefs.
"Between you and us there will forever be a ravine of hate and we will be enemies until you follow Allah's law."
Distressful – though allowable in a democracy. But there needs to be counter-views delivered by influential Muslims who are prepared to trash such gross intolerance with moral and theological force. Not too many find the courage, leaving the field to the loonies.
Faced with this sort of rhetoric, backed by media images of white-clad 'holy warriors' waving fists, shouting slogans and acting with impunity, no wonder shallow thinkers equate Islam with terror with Indonesia.
How can that 'ravine of hate' ever be bridged? Certainly not by bland words and soothing comments that are at odds with reality.
Voices of Islam in Southeast Asia doesn't go soft on the hard issues, as the quotes above show. Although it has been compiled from academic research backed by Australian government funds, this is not the transcript of a multi-faith love-in where handpicked moderates make motherhood statements, then pose for happy-snaps.
The subtitle is A Contemporary Sourcebook, so don't expect a cover-to-cover read. This isn't a Karen Armstrong history of the faith. It's a collection of texts (many little known or previously unavailable in English) with commentaries.
This is the volume to turn to when you need facts and opinions about Islam in this geographical area, and ideas to feed critical thinking. It's not for those concrete minds that already know that their way to salvation is the one and only path.
Although there are chapters on Cambodia, Vietnam and other countries in the region with Muslim populations, the emphasis is on Indonesia and Malaysia.
It's a book for those with a lust for learning, who want to hear all sides of an issue and who are fluent in English. It also has an excellent glossary, useful because so many terms are Arabic.
If you're looking for signs of hope – or words that bolster your prejudices - they're all here. The index has only two references to love, but many more to war and terror. Maybe an examination of Christian fundamentalism in the US would glean similar results.
The great issue in the 19th century was the separation of church and state, now a pillar of Western society. For those who can't understand why others would think differently, read Greg Fealy's chapter on Islam, State and Governance.
Gender issues are prominent in modern Western debate. For the reader seeking proof that Islam values men above women there's an excellent section by academic Sally White. This examines tracts – mostly written by men - on how women should behave and manage 'the harmonious family'.
But as the commentaries reveal, these proscriptions should be read against analyses of the texts that are used to uphold the oppression. The principal verse is 'men are the leaders of women' - but other translations aren't so rigid, claiming the critical word is ''maintainers'.
And even if 'leaders' remains, progressives argue it doesn't mean a man can regard housework as unimportant, for leadership includes 'love, protection, education, guidance and humane authority.'
So inevitably it all comes down to interpretation and the way we use the intellects God gave us. Religion defies easy understanding; it has multiple spokespeople, wise and unwise, offering infinite versions. It's unworthy of one-liners whether shouted by the self-styled Defenders of Islam or Christian Bible-thumping bigots.
Illustrating the complexity is a useful extract from an interview that goes to the heart of the matter.
It's between Terry Lane, a prominent Christian and one of Australian broadcasting's most perceptive journalists, and Zainah Anwar, from the Malaysian organization Sisters in Islam:
Lane: Do you mean that this (the Koran) is literally the revealed word of God?
Anwar: Yes, definitely.
Lane: You say 'Yes, definitely', but if I make a comparison between Islam and Christianity, Christianity only lost its ability to control the lives of women when that very notion of revealed truth was rejected.
Anwar: Well, you see there is a difference between what is revealed by God – and that is the words in the Qu'ran (Koran) that comes from God, … and what is human understanding of the word of God ... the human agency, the human intervention.
So coming full circle is the question – what human agency? The clerics (male) and the governments they influence. Indonesia is a highly religious society where regular public affirmations of faith are expected of politicians, and all citizens are required to follow an approved religion. Many find their identity through Islam.
The power of the clerics is obvious; alleged contraventions of the Constitution regarding the introduction of Sharia law in some districts have yet to be tackled by the national government. Law reforms proposed by leading Muslim women that will give women more freedom have not been introduced.
Though the insular graybeards still seem to control public debate on religion in Indonesia from their castles of dogma, other heads are now peeping above the parapet and from the pages of this book. They are brave indeed, risking the charge that they've been westernized.
Today that's a label almost as damning as the tag 'communist' used in the Soeharto era to crush dissent.
For all its faults the West is prepared to publish alternative views as Voices of Islam proves. Even Bali bomber Imam Samudra is given a good run and slanders himself neatly, proving there's no need to censor the extremists:
'I really am a troublesome demon who reeks of death. But don't misconstrue this; it doesn't mean that I'm an antichrist or paranoid. I'm just normal, you know.'
This book is a major and balanced contribution to the most important debate of our times. I hope it gets translated into Indonesian so it becomes more accessible.
(First published in The Sunday Post 10 June 07)
##
">Link
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