Sex Education, Not “Sex Parties”: Protesting Valentine’s Day In Indonesia

February 20, 2013 By

In recent months, Indonesia has been appearing in the Asian media every time there is a non-Muslim celebration. I first noticed this with the debates on wishing “Merry Christmas” by Muslims to Christians, on Christians holding Christmas mass, and the accounts of violence done to churches in December 2012. A few weeks ago, the same debates were repeated on the occasion of Imlek, or Chinese New Year, on the mistaken basis of it being a Buddhist tradition, even though it is a national holiday. Now, the latest controversy — which repeats itself each February — is Valentine’s Day, deemed a ”foreign” and “infidel celebration”, and an excuse for teenagers to engage in premarital sex.

Several groups in particular prominently voiced their opposition to Valentine’s Day: Nadhlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s biggest orthodox Muslim organisation; the hardline Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam or FPI), and the Indonesian Council of Ulema (Majlis Ulema Indonesia or MUI), a clerical body that includes the previous groups among others. This year, government officials and clerics from various cities  called for boycotts, and in response, students (even those from elementary schools, which shocked some readers) from several cities and islands across Indonesia organised Valentine’s Day protests on 13 February.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture/Society, Events Tagged With: , , , ,

Trans and Muslim: Portraying the Lives of Warias in Indonesia

September 20, 2012 By

I recently came across a short movie on the life of transsexual Muslims in Indonesia. In the last few years, MMW has covered a few different stories in terms of LGBT activism in Indonesia: issues concerning transgender and transsexual communities, the challenges faced by lesbians and the attempts to bring LGTBQ issues to the public sphere.

Yet there are things to watch, along with our reading!

The Warias: Indonesia’s Transsexual Muslims is a short documentary that presents the lives of Indonesian transsexuals, or warias, as they are called. In this film Hannah Brooks visits an Islamic school for transsexuals. The star of the film is Maryani, a 50-year-old transsexual who owns a beauty salon and runs the Senin-Kamis School for waria from the back of the beauty salon.  In addition to her involvement with the trans community and her job, Maryani raises her adopted daughter on her own.

Maryani’s story is one of challenges. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Film Tagged With: , , ,

Maryam Talks Back

September 3, 2012 By

This post was written by guest contributor Sya.

At the beginning of Ramadan this year, a KONY2012-like video started making rounds on social media. It gave a twist to the white saviour trope with a dash of neo-colonial religio-cultural imperialism and condescension.

I’m referring to #SaveMaryam, an initiative from Mercy Mission Worldwide to raise awareness about Muslims converting to Christianity in Indonesia. In the campaign video, Maryam is a 16 year-old Indonesian who converts to Christianity because the support from a Samaritan helpline and the love from her newly-converted Christian friends help her overcome problems at home. The convincing proselytisation of Christian missionaries who mimic Islamic practices and words, spreading their messages far and wide through TV channels, are contrasted with her alleged lack of access to Islamic knowledge in Indonesia, supposedly only through Friday sermons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DrskbDaw3A

But why is Maryam, even as a symbol of an “entire generation of Indonesians,” yet another Muslim woman who needs to be saved by the West? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Video, Web Tagged With: , ,

Between Worlds: Jilbab and Transgender in Indonesia

February 1, 2011 By

It is a scene that wouldn’t be unfamiliar in France or Belgium: a woman’s hijab is snatched away by strangers on the street from her head despite her protest. She is told she shouldn’t wear it, or rather, she has no right to because her wearing it mocks other women and femininity itself. But it is not an episode of Islamophobic rage that is recounted by Shuniyya Rumaha Haiibalah, but an incident in her native Indonesia that would later become the title of her best-selling memoir, Jangan lepas jilbabku! (Please do not remove my jilbab!)

Haiibalah is Muslim and transgender. The hostile reactions from other women and men towards her decision to wear the jilbab (hijab) in public was based on the belief of the irreconcilability of being waria* (transgender) and expressing religiosity in the gender of choice.

While other waria do not mix gender identity with religious identity (as the video above shows, some transwomen dress as men in places of worship), women like Haiibalah attend prayers at the mosque alongside other cis-gender women much to disapproval of some, particularly those who argue that physical contact with Haiibalah’s biologically male body can render another woman’s prayers annulled.

Jangan lepas jilbabku! begins in 1997 when Haiibalah turns 16. The writer describes her gradual transition from male to female as eventful as the moment Indonesia regains its democracy at the end of Suharto’s dictatorial regime in 1998. She describes the kind of woman she wants to be: an ordinary woman, good-looking even without make-up, someone who wears the jilbab, independent, headstrong, and accepted. In school, Haiibalah is an active editor of the school’s Islamic magazine, and a popular student. Using her popularity and religious image as a social buffer, Haiibalah began experimenting with her appearance. She plucked her eyebrows into a pair of thin, arching crescents; suffice it to say, this led to other arched eyebrows. After being told that her eyebrows were seen as “inappropriate” for young men, Haiibalah went on to tackle what ostensibly is taboo: she, a transwoman, wearing a jilbab.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Books/Magazines, Culture/Society Tagged With: , , , , ,

Out of the Closet AND Public Life: Lesbians in Indonesia

October 21, 2010 By

Debates in the Muslim world regarding the LBGT community are rare, if not non-existent. However, Indonesia’s community has been raising its profile lately. With a legal system that does not criminalize homosexuality, the LBGT community may seem to face fewer challenges than communities in other countries.

However, even with the only Gay film festival in the Muslim world, the community still faces major challenges from religious groups in the country and negative social attitudes that are usually state-promoted. These sectors not only condemn the LGBT community’s private practices, but also all interactions with the public sphere. In addition, even when the state does not legally condemn same-sex relationships, this neither promotes tolerance, nor does it prevent provinces from applying Shari’ah law that is by definition anti-homosexual.

Lesbian women are some of the most affected members of the LBGT community in Indonesia. Lesbian women, as gay men, experience extreme social cohesion; however, they are usually more excluded from public life than men. In addition, they not only face the same challenges that heterosexual women face, but also suffer from sexuality-based stigmatization, discrimination, violence, etc.

Evelyn Blackwood explains that while gays and lesbians are usually considered to be “sick,” women suffer more religious and social stigmatization due to notions of femininity and motherhood. Although lesbian movements were able to flourish after the fall of Suharto’s regime, Islamic interpretations of femininity and female duties have driven lesbian women outside of the public sphere and have condemned them as “abnormal.”

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture/Society, Politics Tagged With: , , , ,

The Women of Indonesia’s Film Religi: Part II

June 10, 2010 By

Yesterday, we examined “the convert” and “the reformer,” two types of female characters in film religi. Today, we’ll examine three more:

The ideal

Image via Wikipedia.

Who: Aisha, the niqabi with beautiful eyes in Ayat-ayat cinta (2008) and Anna Althafunnisa, the studious Al-Azhar graduate in Ketika cinta bertasbih (When love is an act of devotion, 2009).

In most romantic dramas, we have the impossibly perfect female lead, which I will designate as “the ideal.” She is fresh in her twenties, conventionally beautiful, highly educated, adored by everyone, but rather boring. They are also the object of affection of equally religious and educated men. There is nothing to suggest that “the ideal” lacks in any way, although they briefly encounter conflict and anguish (polygamy in Ayat-ayat cinta, and AIDS in Ketika cinta bertasbih), which they will triumph over with the convenient help of their love interest.

The divorcee

Who: Anissa in Perempuan berkalung sorban (The woman in the headscarf, 2008) and Anna Althafunnisa in Ketika cinta bertasbih (2009)

Divorce is treated with sensitivity in film religi, but the implicit message that it is far from desirable, and only necessary under very extreme circumstances—like domestic abuse in Perempuan berkalung sorban, or a husband suffering from AIDS in Ketika cinta bertasbih. Although AIDS is treated as a marital disaster of gargantuan proportions, what is striking about the issue of divorce in film religi is it is initiated by the female lead, who successfully sets the terms in the relationship—particularly Anna in Ketika cinta bertasbih, who imposes a ban on her husband-to-be from taking another wife during their marriage.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Cinema, Culture/Society Tagged With: ,
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