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April 21, 2007 - The Woman Role for Glorious Indonesia
The National Integration Movement (NIM) national discussion this month was conducted on Kartini Day, April 21,2007, at 16.00 o’clock West Indonesian Time in One Earth Ciawi. The discussion theme was the woman role for the development of glorious Indonesian with Prof. Drl Musdah Mulia and Nia Syarifudin as the speakers. The Moderator was Muhammad Dian Martin.
Prof. Dr. Mudsdah Mulia is the general secretary of ICRP (Indonesian conference on Religion and Peace) who has just received International Women of Courage Award from American government (USA), who was given directly by the state secretary (Minister of Foreign Affair) USA Condoleezza Rice in Washington DC, last March 7, 2007. And Nia Syarifudin comes from Woman Voice Empowerment Movement (GPSP) and one of the founders of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika National Alliance (ANBTI).
In the Archipelago tradition, as what Mr. Anand Krishna had said, women were the Shakti (Energy). Without Shakti, there was no life. In Al’ Quran we have An-Nisah letter (woman) but we didn’t have Ibnu letter (boy). In accordance to Biology, women (XX) can live without Y chromosome, but man (XY) can’t live without chromosome X. That was the biological proof. It was proved that women’s strength to live was higher that a man. In the real life, there were more women that lived as widows than those men as widowers. This opinion was ended with “Amin” by Nia Syarifudin who said that if a wife lost his husband, the first thing she would do, was taking over the responsibility to be the breadwinner for the children and family. But when a husband lost his wife the first thing he would think of, was who was going to take care of him and his children? This answer was given by Ms. Nia as the answer to the question of why there were more widows than widowers.
As the first speaker Nia Syarifudin started by explaining about ANBTI. It was a movement from the communities that were disturbed by the effort to make the daily life of the societies uniform. And when it had touched the culture, the unity of the nation was threatened. ANBTI included Non Government Organizations, cultural communities, woman empowerment, and others.
As woman activist, Ms. Nia herself liked to use the word “perempuan” from Per-Empu-an, it was wiser than the word “wanita”. According to her, in some matters, women were better than men, for example women’s life were longer than men. Other reason was the balance of small and big brain in women did happen because women liked to look at small things that were specific and detail. So the cure of women from the stroke is better than men who were just depended on the big brain.
The reality in Indonesia according to Human Development Index (HDI) that was reported by United Nation Development Program (UNDP), the women population in Indonesia now was fewer than the men because of the number of death mother in the time of giving birth was the highest in Asia and the biggest ten in the world.
Discrimination of woman in Indonesia was still happened. For example (1) the tradition that woman must take care of the house or woman had to speak slowly and softly in all condition. (2). In education field, if the education fund was limited the daughter must give in to the son. If a scholarship was received by a married woman, a permission from her husband must be gotten by the wife. It was the same when a married woman and a mother studied; she sometimes must stop the education for the family sake. (3) In economical sector, according to the last survey, the income that a woman got, was 60% of the man income for the same duration of work time and position. Adding with the Central Statistic Bureau mistake in collecting the data of the economic doer in a family. If a family, in which the wife sold cookies or fried banana, the Central Statistic Bureau would put the wife in the data as a housewife so statistically so few women that had role in economical sectors. But in reality it was not like that. (4) the woman participation in politic in Indonesia was only 11% in Indonesian legislative assembly and 22 % assembly at province. (5) In the health sector the rate of death mother after giving birth was high because of bad nutrient, anemia and abortion. Abortion was done by housewives because they had too many children. East Nusa Tenggara was the highest rank of death mothers after give birth in Indonesia. In the Old Order the contraception was cheap or even they got for free, but now the price was expensive and the ability of people to buy it was decreased because of economic condition.
Anti Pornography and Porno action bill was born from Indonesian women movement that felt there was discrimination and criminal action towards women’s body. When the bill began touching how a woman must dress, the bill became a threat for Indonesian cultural diversity and it would also threat the unity of Republic Indonesia. The problems in Indonesia, according to her, appeared because the patriarchal culture (cultural domination of man)
As the second speaker, Ms. Musdah Mulia commented that to overcome the problems for this nation, it was needed men and women that had high spirituality not just formal religion. In several counseling session she found that domestic violence happened to the wives of religion leaders.
When she was small, she commemorated Kartini Day by wearing “kebaya and hair bun” But when she started to read Kartini’s letters and writings in Dutch (Door Duistermis tot Licht, After Darkness comes Light), she startled because some part of what R.A. Kartini had written, was not written in Indonesian Language (translated by Armin Pane , man of letters). The part was when Kartini wrote about her spiritual experience and consciousness. Mr. Anand Krishna, who had read the book in English agreed with her.
According to the book that he had read when he was 11 years, Kartini was very critical towards her religion teachers, who just asked her to memorized Al-Quran verses without explaining the meaning of them and also taught to keep the women secluded. So little Kartini refused to learn religion until Jepara regent (Kartini’s parents) asked Ki Syailandrat (Romo Kiai) from Rembang to teach religion to Kartini.
Because of Kartini Ki Syailandrat translated Al-Fatihah in Javenese so the Javeneses understood Arab language and the meaning of Al-Fatihah. Romo Kiai gave the first translation for a wedding gift on Kartini’s wedding with Rembang regent RM. Joyodiningrat.
The issues that Kartini had raised in her writings were very relevant today. For example : (1) The problem of class difference according to social status to get equal education. (2) Fight for the human right that connected with women reproductive health.
Answering some questions from the participants, Ms. Musdah hoped that the socialization of equality for man and woman started from the family. All this time we got used to capitalist opinion about the job definition, which was work to get money, so household work was not consider as job. We also thought that woman was a moral colonizer so it must be made rules to avoid it. It must be prevented because man or woman must be seen from the same value or base values of humanity and not from normative side and more over not from the physical side.
Equality in gender must be connected with the nature of man, so there should be the equality in treatment for man and woman. Gender construction must be built using spiritual foundation based on cultural, tradition and religion foundation. In Arabic tradition for example the woman must serve her husband in bed but the other things like taking care of the household or even breast-feeding the baby was not her responsibility. That was why Saudi Arabia imported maids to help the men to take care of the household.
Some time ago, Quraisy Shihab was forbidden to publish a book about jilbab “vail”. In 1994, Ms. Musdah went to Cairo-Egypt and studied about some opinion about jilbab. In fact there were so many different opinions from Middle East religion leader, and also from the world about jilbab. She realized that there was no one with absolute interpretation. Religion must be faced with critical thought and good logical reasoning.
For the Closing, Mr. Anand Krishna expressed his worried about our nation condition at the moment. Before he came to this discussion, he watched a talk show in TV and saw a party apprentice that didn’t realize that Indonesia had become a victim of patriarchy system. We were like a frog that was put in a pan full of water and slowly the pan was heated. We would dye without knowing that we had a choice to get out from the situation now.
Our condition today was like the condition of Chinese people. After thousand of students were killed in a night in Tianemen Square, there was no more fight from the people towards the repressive action of their government. The Falun Gong prisoners’ organs were sold by their government. A lot of the miners didn’t get their wages until months later so they couldn’t even buy meat once a week. Whereas their country had an economic wonder improvement. No one protested. There was a research, which said that after 7 years in a suppressed condition a man would not feel being suppressed anymore. That was the condition of Indonesia now.
People from the grass root didn’t care anymore about their suppression. They focused on the religion that was taught in a narrow way. Whereas the first 300 years from the glory Islam happened before hadists were compiled. During Prophets Muhammad life with Khadijah there was no hadist, but 2,5 years of living with Aisyah there were so many hadists . Was there anyone who questioned it? Islam was so confident to open itself including learning from other countries, like studying “0” (zero) from Indian Astrology and then from Arab it was spread to Europe. Islam and Arabic tradition was not only in Mekkah and Saudi Arabia but also in Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon and others. There were more Moslem intellectuals who were open-minded than in Saudi Arabia who were narrow-minded. Don’t take Islam just from Saudi Arabia.
The conditions of Indonesian students were more apprehensive. They supposed to be the nation pillars and had a critical thought but they followed narrow mindedness because inability to understand other languages, especially English. They didn’t realize that they were fooled to be used as economical and political interests of the rulers and religion leaders. So don’t feel amazed that in Manokwari, Papua or in Menado appeared Christian regional regulation. And there were Hindus regional regulation in Bali. That was supported by one of the president candidate from the last election. Don’t let Indonesia separated into 5 nations before the year of 2020 as predicted by an American research.
In the letters that were written by R.A Kartini, they consisted the critical thought and spirit and also the restlessness of a human being ( don’t look from the woman’s view) to see her and surrounding conditions, which were not fair and not acted in humanitarian way. We must bring this restlessness home to think about it. (Isti/ajb)
April 11, 2007
NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM IN THE FRAMEWORK OF NIM BIRTHDAY
This world is one family. God’s face was everywhere, when we talked peace initiative, this peace initiative must be realized by appreciation toward each other to appreciate differences and shortcoming. Base on that we can build equality (Anand Krishna).
Not even one month after the renovation, the building was still in a mess, it was still smelled the paint, the building was still empty, and there were no chairs. We heard a rumor about the officials that made us difficult to breath because there were so many furniture industries needed a job and our officials sweetly gave the job to other country, asked why? The chairs for the building were still ordered from China.
Ksiarnawa’s building, The Art Center of Denpasar Bali, was the building that made the Balinese proud. Almost each year since 1978 a cultural event was performed and the event was an international event that was packed professionally and full of local culture with the theme of “ Bali Culture Party” This year the occasion would be conducted on March 2007, and the event was XXIX years old.
National Integration Movement (NIM) made a big event on its second birthday that was on April 11,2007. The event was from the people to the people with the theme of peace in a form of national symposium with the title of “ BALI PEACE INITIATIVE” the voice of peace from Bali for the safety of children of nation. The prominent figures that were hoped to come and would proclaimed the peace for the nation from Bali were the governor of Bali, Bali legislative Assembly, the leaders of Bali political parties, mass media leaders, businessmen from Bali.
The time showed 08.30 o’clock East Indonesian Time and the guests started to come. All people from the educators/students, cultural observers/artists, prominent figures, political parties, mass media, businessmen and even religion leaders like Ida Pedanda Made Gunung came there. Some important official couldn’t come because of a reason but it didn’t lessen the spirit of the mission and vision that was going to be said in the event.
Several real steps was done by National Integration Movement (NIM) in bringing love, peace and harmony into reality in several places in Indonesia such as Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Solo, Lampung, Semarang, Singaraja, Denpasar and some other places. The evens were people’s party (pesta rakyat)/peace campaign in all regions where there were NIM representatives once a week. Turning the Ground Zero to Ground for Peace, Love and Harmony every Saturday in Kuta, Bali and some other activities like national symposium that we did today in Denpasar Bali was also done in other places as said by Maya Safira Muhctar (NIM chairman) in the opening speech.
Bali meant Ba l(strength) that came from the readiness to be Bali, to sacrifice. The sacrifice was only done by the strong people and the timid people would not dare to do it. This spirit, the peace spirit, was the spirit that we wanted to develop. If it was allowed I wanted to quote Mahatma Gandhi. Ahimsa was not for timid people,
If your were a timid person and you followed ahimsa, it was better that you didn’t do Ahimsa, you should be bolt first. That was what Mr. Anand Krishna a humanist, nationalist and spiritualist cross religion who had written 90 books said as an advice from him.
Indonesia was on the stage of under siege on first degree plus, and it was showed in his 30-minute speech. The condition of this nation was very worrying at this moment. We didn’t have anything because all valuable assets were sold to cover the foreign loans and it made millions of Indonesian people suffered because they were under the poverty line.
Indonesia was destroyed from outside and also inside itself. So many foreign parties, which had interest in power and economic, tired every way to dig the nature resources of Indonesia. Not only the natural resources from the bowels of the earth such as fuel, gold, iron, water, sands, etc, but also something that was in the air such as frequency to communicate also eaten by them.
Did we realize this condition? A group of nation children who didn’t aware that they were used to destroy this nation would become potential weapons. Using religion and God argumentations, they were made as God’s massagers that went down to this Pertiwi Earth to saved us. The noble civilization inheritance from our ancestors was destroyed by saying that the inheritance was from ancient time and it must be put in a museum. The fashion and the culture from other country like Saudi Arabia, which was good accordance to Saudi Arabia nature and culture, were forced to enter this motherland with one word “faith”. In public schools in many regions in this country, we would be difficult to find the national uniform anymore. The same thing happened also in other places like hospitals, government offices. Aware it or not Arabisation had happened everywhere. Using that way our identity as child of nation was destroyed so we lost our faith and proud ness, so it would be dominated easily.
Indonesia needed Bali as the Peaceful lighthouse. Bali, which was not sleeping with just taken care of the tourism and ego conflicts between its Balinese. Bali, which aware of its identity as the heir of archipelago culture that was echoed again by Mr. Anand Krishna , a humanist, nationalist, spiritualist of cross religions, in several event to remind the role of Balinese ancestors for the sake of this nation and country.
Anti Pornography and Porno action Bill almost drowned our ancestor’s noble culture It could be stemmed by the Balinese by refusing the bill. This was a real proof of Bali noble action in keeping and defending our Motherland honor.
There was no room for unawareness, indifferent ness, stupidity and timidity inside ourselves in the name of Ahimsa. Sharp critics with developing solution were given by him. Appreciation was the keyword to create peace, without appreciation there would not happened peace and from that we could build equality. That was his advice that could be conveyed this morning.
This world is one family. We could see God’s face everywhere when we talked about peace initiative. This peace initiative must be realized by appreciating each other. Appreciated differences and shortcoming. Based on that we could build equality.
I had relationship with you not because you were higher or lower that me but because we were equal. First appreciation, second equality and then we could build together. So at first appreciation, how could I appreciate someone who was a Hindus, if I had never learnt Hindu religion? How could I appreciate Islam if I had never learnt about Islam, etc? You couldn’t.
There was a Hindu man who was a little weird; he was criticized by the Moslems. “You worship image” Coincidently in that place there was calligraphy of Muhammad and Allah. This Hindu’s man took it and threw it to the ground. The Moslems were angry. The Hindu’s man asked, “ Why are you angry, this is just a written calligraphy. What is the difference with the statue that I worship.”
Signs and symbols, if I removed SBY and Kalla pictures and I threw them, I would be arrested directly and accused to be degradation. Let alone symbols, my father picture if someone threw it, I would be angry. We must appreciate each other, Hindu appreciated Islam , Islam appreciated Hindu, Christian appreciated Buddha, Buddha appreciated Christian, etc. We had to learn to appreciate, there were differences yes, if God wants, everybody can be born with pointed nose like me. But there were no one who would be Sharuk-Khan fans; no one would be a Madonna fan if everyone were Madonna. No we were created, as we were to be lively. There were roses, orchids and jasmines; the spirit of appreciation was what we needed.
All this time religion leaders praised the word of tolerance, appreciation, and others in front of their followers. But they forbid their followers even themselves to learn other religions. How could we appreciate each other as what Mr. Anand Krishna said?
Conflicts in the name of religion or even in the name of God very often happened in this world including in our country lately. Religion and God become a potential weapon to mobilize and burned the people emotion. It is very easy to be provoked by political leaders, religion leaders and religion institution. So freely and safely they fooled this region without any control and interference from the government and other institutions.
Was there any enlightenment interest for the soul of the followers that was done by them or was that only for the sake of money and power that they wanted. We didn’t know, we only knew that there were millions of “halal” stamps in the name of God representative , according to them, and it spread widely in the society since decades ago. Now even water must be stamped “halal” by them. Asked how much we had to pay for the stamp? Asked where the money went? Asked for whom was the money?
Guruji Anand Krishna restlessness to see our national condition that was worrying was explained openly in detail. Modestly He asked all political party to cooperate hand in hand to be one power to solve the problem of our nation. To PDIP as the national asset, which had specific character as nationalist party, he gave advice to reconsider PDIP intention to make Baitul Muslimin, if the aim was just to get popularity or even it had any other aim because it didn’t make sense. PDIP would loose its identity,” he said.
His special massage for parties that based on religion was to be alert of the foreign party (CIA) interference. He reminded us that M. Nasir had been betrayed by CIA. Furthermore he said that Indonesia had been predicted to be broken into 5 states. And each party that had interest had agreed on the share. The condition of this nation was very worrying.
We needed political parties that had insight not just running for chairs, if it wanted to be opposition, then be opposition and be the commissioner of this nation. If we saw what happened now, we would have seen that our nation was already ruin. We didn’t have anything else but we still got abundance of our natural. How much we still had, we didn’t know but the foreigners knew. Because of peace initiative , we must introspected ourselves today.
On this occasion, together with NIM 2nd birthday, Mr. Anand Krishna gave “I’m proud to be Indonesian” award to Mr. Made Mangku Pastika for his achievement when he was the Police Chief in Bali and he bravely revealed and caught the bombing doers in Bali. He also bravely fought against all things that was not in accordance to Balinese culture and he kept the noble values of the culture that was still relevant up till now. The award was received by his daughter who represented Mr. Mangku Pastika because he had to attend other event.
That morning, the peaceful voice, which was soft, polite but clear and stern, was echoed from Bali. The speakers who came were from political party like PDIP, Golkar, PKB, PPP, PKS, Democrat and Marhenisme, from mass media Mr. Putu Setia (Tempo & Raditya), Ms. Santy Sastra (Duta FM & Senior announcer) and businessman Mr. Gd. Ngr Wididana (Mr Oles), Ms Erlina, Kang Adiguna (Mama Leon) also echoed it. Mr. Gusti Putu Artha the member of Bali KPU who leaded the event, concluded several things from their oration . They were; peace as the definite requirement based on diversity and humanity. Peace could happen when the local economic was strong, building peace by going back to our nation cultural identity. Role model from the elite politics and prominent figures was the key because without that it was impossible for Bali to be the lighthouse of peace. The open dialog based on honesty, sincerely between political parties in building peace together must be increased. Active action of the mass media to build the spirit of peaceful voice. The media should not become the breaker tool but to be the unity tool. So what we were talking about would become an inspiration of peace from Bali and it would be echoed together.
Reported by Hadi Susanto
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