The document discusses the role of women in Indonesia's transition to democracy following the 1998 fall of authoritarian leader Suharto. It notes that women played a pioneering role in early protests and helped awaken civil society. However, it also discusses how women's issues were later sidelined by larger political conflicts. It analyzes the rise of local conservative Islamic laws (perdas) following decentralization that targeted and restricted women, such as dress codes and limits on travel and work. While the central government could strike down non-compliant perdas, it often refrained due to political considerations, showing the continuation of "politics as usual." The perdas counter Indonesia's democratization and strip away newly gained rights and freedoms

1. WOMEN AND HUMAN
RIGHTS UNDER ISLAM
University of South Carolina
GENDER & HUMAN RIGHTS
IN INDONESIA
By
Muhamad Yogi

2. WOMEN IN THE REFORM ERA
IN INDONESIA (1998-2007)
Lecture 3

3. The End of 32 Years
Authoritarian Rule
• May 21, 1998 Suharto stepped down, ending 32 years of
authoritarian, military dominated-rule
• Opened up Pandora’s box of New Order: illusion of Indonesia’s
development paradigm, ‘bubble economy’ dependent of
foreign loans, monopoly, collusion corruption, nepotism (KKN)
• Indonesia plummeted further into ‘kristal’ (krisis total, total
crisis) - political, economic, moral, which had preceded the
Suharto’s ouster
• May riots, peak of anarchy: mass destruction, arson, looting,
rampages, and rape of Chinese women
• Emergence of new civil society groupings: political, religious,
student and women > opening up of democratic space

4. Women as Pioneers of
Democratization
• Suara Ibu Peduli (SIP), Voice of Concerned Mothers: the first, held
demonstration Feb. 23, 1998, at Hotel Indonesia roundabout,
demanding economic and political reforms, moved by concern for
soaring prices, social unrest, and rise in violence
• Participants: university lecturers, activists, intellectuals and
housewives, playing on state ibuism model to legitimise their action
• Timing: bold, held during week-long ban on demonstrations before
parliamentary session to elect a ‘new’ president
• Historical: the first time in 32 years a women’s group taken to streets
in protest of the government, and first of any civil society group

5. Awakening of Civil Society’s
Political Consciousness
• Other civil society groups followed: professionals, Muslim, civil
servants, students, business people, housewives, and other middle-
class groups who had otherwise been complacent or inert. No day
without demonstrations!
• Increase in number of NGOs and social organisations
• Political parties: mushroomed uncontrollably (including Partai
Perempuan Indonesia, Indonesian Women Party), a reflection of
strong desire to participate in a more liberal and open arena, as well
as to access political power previously denied in New Order.
• Political parties viewed ambivalently, perceived as reflecting narrow,
selfish interests, even extremism; power, not people-oriented

6. Short and Long Term Issues
• Short term: Habibie’s (former VP) presidency, Suharto family &
cronies, eliminating KKN, role of military, legitimacy of government
• Long term: deeply entrenched economic crisis, reviewing
development policies, making institutional changes, doing away with
the dual-function of the military, breathing new life into economic,
political and legal spheres, creating bureaucratic efficiency, changing
the electoral system, formation of true political party system,
creating a free press, redressing the ethnic economic balance,
reaffirming religious tolerance, liberalization of the education
system, legal reform, decentralization of the economy, political
power and government, and a greater decision-making role for
women

7. Change in Balance of
Forces & Political Powers
• Considerable weakening of state power, in particular, the
executive branch, and legislature become dominant branch
• Weakening of military power, rise of civil society and religious
groups
• Decentralization and regional autonomy

8. Women as conspicuous political
participants
• In the transitional period between New Order and the Reform Era, in
formal political and state structures: Megawati Sukarnoputri as first
woman party leader (PDI-P - Indonesian Nationalist Party) and symbol
of opposition to the wrongs of unrestrained executive power; Siti
Hardiyanti Rukmana (Tutut, Suharto’s daughter) as most influential
leader in Golkar and as a cabinet minister (Social Affairs); first
woman faction leader in parliament; first woman deputy speaker of
the MPR (People’s Consultative Assembly); and first woman
agriculture minister
• Women more influential, occupying senior positions in economic and
political portfolios

9. Women as conspicuous…
• In civil society: SIP (Voice of Concerned Mothers), Women’s Coalition
for Justice and Democracy (founded May 18, 1999, more overtly
political than SIP), women’s NGOs, lawyers, and individual activists
(academics, scholars, journalists, artists, writers).
• Gained legitimacy from their role as protectors of the moral and
social order
• In first 6 months of 1998, protested against state violence, dwifungsi,
soaring prices of basic commodities and against state-sanctioned
religious & ethnic intolerance
• Staged demonstrations, organised inter-faith prayers, issuing political
statements and analysis, arrested for political activism, established
new political organisations, and strong advocates of political reform
in President Habibie’s transitional government

10. Initial advances
and achievement
• May Riots 1998: ironically the riots, which included the organised
rapes of Chinese women, added momentum to women’s political
activism (during crisis, increase in VAW, including domestic violence;
VAW systemically used by state to suppress separatism in Aceh,
Papua, E. Timor)
• Visit of Radhika Comaraswamy in 1998, UN Raporteur on Violence
against Women, leading to Formation of National Commission on
Violence against Women (set up by Presidential Decree under Habibie
administration)
• Raised awareness of women’s political rights (politically correct),
advocacy campaigns for women’s political participation, push for
women’s quotas in parties, parliament, state bodies

11. Women’s concerns sidelined
• Women’s concerns sidelined by ‘bigger’ socio-economic and
political issues, and power interests and competition
• Partly a carryover from past attitudes, but also because of
significant contemporary political issues: who would be new
leader, what would be basis of the state, role of Islam, should
Suharto be tried for past abuses, etc.
• First democratic elections in 1999: organisation of political
parties to contest in elections rose to national centre stage
• Parties - 180 plus created, 48 eligible for elections, heavily
dominated by men
• For PDI-P, having Megawati as party leader and striving to
make her president of R.I. was the women’s issue

12. Women sidelined…
• Women’s issues co-mingled with broader struggle for democracy
• Views of larger parties: democracy, with attendant equality before
law and human rights = solution to women’s problems
• Women’s issues used to suit other political interests. Many Islamic
parties opposed Megawati’s presidential bid: a woman could not be
president of an ‘Islamic’ country
• Underlying tension (the real issue): opposition of Islamic parties to
someone from secular-nationalist stream to the presidency. That
Mega was a woman, made it easier to construct the ‘political
arguments’ against her
• No unity among women, on top of conflicts between reform and
status-quo groups, and within reform groups, so women’s issues
slipped quietly away

13. Women’s Political Participation
• Historically underrepresented: involved in struggle for
independence, but then relegated back to ‘the kitchen’. In
New Order marginalised by state ideology and KKN (e.g.
parliamentary seats taken by wives and daughters of men in
power)
• In 1955, the only democratic election since 1999, in
Indonesia’s brief period of liberal democracy (1949-58),
women represented 2.9% of parliamentary candidates. In 1971,
4%…….. (check out more figures)

14. Will the real Islam stand up?
• 88% of people identify themselves as Muslim, but the streams of Islam
in Indonesia are many, dozens and more
• From Osama bin Laden look-alikes (in appearance as well as in
ideology and political goal, to JIL (Jaringan Islam Liberal, Network of
Liberal Muslims) who adopt a scholarly, intellectual, and liberal
interpretation of Islam; sufi (spiritualist) and syncretic
interpretations & practices
• Islamic political parties and mass organizations, some aiming for
Islamic state, others more inclusive
• Rise of feminist interpretations of the Quran: publications (books,
magazines), and organisations (mass and NGOs)
• Majority moderate, but growing trend in Arabization: wearing of
‘Muslim’ attire for both men (koko shirt, cap, beard) and women
(covered head to toe & headscarf) > fashion & identity

15. Countervailing Forces
• Conservative forces (traditional and religious) on the rise, claiming
their rights and determined not to let their chances slip out of their
yet again
• At same time, Indonesia had grown up with the world (one of the
positive aspects of globalisation and the information age), exposed to
notions of democracy, freedom of expression, human, gender and
sexual rights that came unfiltered through the media, cable TV,
internet, pop culture, consumerism, free trade, global activism,
group (e.g. NGOs) and personal relationships
• At end of New Order, the conflict between conservative and
progressive forces were already sharp, but in Reform Era, they
became even more clearly defined

16. Arenas of Conflict
• No longer focused in the arena of formal politics, although
fights between political parties and parliament also very
visible; also open debates in the press and law suits (?)
• The state bowed to societal forces and merely attempted to
arbitrate between interest groups
• Two case studies:
1. Perda: regional regulations
2. RUU APP

17. Identity Politics
• In the Reform Era, the notion of ‘national identity’ and the
authority of the state were shot, as ‘Suharto, family and
cronies were the state, and they were out.
• Deconstruction of power, social, political, economic
structures, and search for new meanings (ideologies and
beliefs) and negotiation of identities
• Remember: global context after 9/11, hegemony of the US,
terrorism & violence as expression of rampant anarchy
• Three main elements (to replace ‘national identity’):
ethnicity, religion, gender and their sexual components

18. Decentralisation and
Regional Autonomy
• Reformasi: a promise to unravel the New Order and the legacy
of state control. One of key mechanisms was the granting the
regions various levels of autonomy
• Buah simalakama (Catch 21), Pandora’s box or social
dynamics? A necessity but full of perils
• Three decades of repressed identities let out, exploded to the
fore. In the regions often they were primordial, conservative,
even reactionary
• Wave of regional elections up to 2005: brought some of most
radical changes Indonesia has experienced in decades

19. New and/or old?
• 219 local elections to date, some 40% resulted in the removal of old
incumbents and the rise of new elites
• New-but-old: these ‘new’ elites were in fact old elites redux, leaders
pushed to one side in the New Order, reasserting themselves three
decades later.
• Invariably make, and deriving their authority from traditional local
sources: adat ( traditional values/laws) and religion
• Legitimacy from conservative and socially-regressive value systems
linked to local identity
• In many regions these groups replacing the old Jakarta-endorsed
bureaucrats, most who had strong secular, nationalist bent, and some
level of commitment to a modernising agenda

20. Strengthening Local Support
• Local heroes want to differentiate themselves from the old
apparatchiks
• Strengthen local support by supporting or even leading local
agendas sponsored by conservative/religious groups
• Result: wave of attempts to introduce conservative
interpretations of adat and syariah-derived moral norms
through regional regulations (Perda - Peraturan Daerah) at the
provincial, district and sub-district levels
• Occurred mainly in Aceh, but social disruption not so
significant as many of the norms underpinning the new Qanon
(syariah-based laws) already internalised by the Acehnese

21. Hierarchy of Authority
of Laws
• Syariah: Gods law contained in Quran and the hadith
(traditions/ sayings of prophet)
• Fiqh/fikih: man-man interpretations of God’s law
• Qanun: Acehnese perda, application of norms made into
legislation, derived from fiqh, but also just governance laws
(municipal laws, dispute resolution, education, health, etc).
The term ‘qanun’ is derived from the Ottoman empire, which
had Jews, Christians and Muslims, and there were separate
laws for Muslims

22. Creeping Fiqhization
in the Regions
• New regulatory regimes clearly inspired by Muslim hard-liners
• Example:
1. drafting of Acehnese Qanun inspired by controversial and
controversial codes introduced by PAS (Partai islam Se-Malaysia),
rurally based, in Kelantan and Trengganu, poor backward rural states
2. Drafting of Islamic code for South Sulawesi in 2001, attended by
Abu Bakar Basyir, recently returned from Malaysia
• Defeat at national level: in 2002, proponents of Islamisation soundly
defeated in the MPR (parliament) to re-insert the ‘Jakarta Charter’
(obligation for Muslims to apply syariah) into the constitution, deleted
in 1945

23. Jakarta Charter
under the Radar
• Failure at national level pushes hardliners to renew efforts to
introduce legal grounds for syariah implementation at the
local level, with some success
• Implementation of perda in 42 districts in the regions of:
Padang (South Sumatra), Cianjur (West Java), Bulukumba
(South Sulawesi), Pamekasan (island of Madura, East Java),
Tangerang, etc
• Aim and target: to regulate behaviour as prescribed by ‘Islam’
• Women victimised the most

24. Perda:
some case studies
• Tangerang Morality Building: Tangerang, an industrial satelite
of Jakarta, passed draconian laws against prostitution and
drinking (except in 3 to 5-star hotels. By-laws No. 8/2005,
bans people in public places, from persuading or coercing,
either in words or gestures, acts of prostitution. Limits are
also imposed on hemlines, which forbid schoolgirls from
wearing skirts ending below the knees.
• The much publicized case of a pregnant woman, waiting to be
picked up by her husband, was arrested, and had to languish in
prison for 4 days until her husband came to pick her up
• Aceh: women having hair cut off for not wearing headscarf;
caned for being caught with a man not her husband, etc

25. Comments & criticism
against Perda
• Indra Pilliang (CSIS): A 2004 law gives central government the power
to squash perda if they contravened national laws or the Constitution,
but don’t because of fear of offending religious groups because they
need their electoral support and for fear of inflaming conflict
• Ryaas Rasyid (former regional autonomy minister): central govt should
be more active in enforcing the law and determining if the
regulations were illegal. Laws requiring women, even non-Muslims, to
wear headscarves, should be abolished
• Andi Yuliani Paris (National Mandate Party, Islamic party with secular
platform): regulations that divide religious groups will sharpen
conflict. A judicial review or class action could be filed against local
administrations

26. Central Government Stance
toward Perda
• Perda produced by local government according to regional
autonomy laws, except religious affairs (and foreign affairs)
• Ministry of Internal Affairs can strike out non-compliant perda,
and have done so on a number of occassions, but have not
done so with precisely the religious perda
• Rumour has it that Susilo Bambang Yudoyono hates the perda,
but doesn’t do anything about it because of fear of backlash
from Islamic constituency
• Politics as usual, just like in the New Order

27. Victimises & Targets Women
• Much of the perda restricts women’s behaviour and freedom
and even criminalises them:
1. Clothing: not allowed to wear clothes that reveal hair,
arms, thighs
2. Travel: cannot travel alone
3. Employment: cannot work at night
• In the same way that State Ibuism marginalised and oppressed
women, these local perdas produced by the local despots are
doing the same

28. Perda counter to
Democratization
• Irony: Reforms intended to give democracy and the right to a
voice to milliosn of people silenced for decades under Suharto,
may strip away the few rights they have
• Against pluralism: what about non-Muslims?
• Strips away freedom of ideas, expression and political
participation fought so hard for by the opponents of Suharto
• Regional conservatism not isolated Reflected in RUU APP - the
Anti-Pornography and Anti-Pornoaction Bill being debated in
DPR (People’s Representative Assembly)