Any woman can become president: Scholars

Any woman can become president: Scholars

JAKARTA (JP): The recent motion by a group of Moslem clerics
to stipulate that the president of Indonesia be male and Moslem
had political overtones to it, and discriminated against not only
women, but also people of other faiths, scholars said.

"By asking about a woman's chance (at presidency), we're also
asking about the chance of a non-Moslem becoming president," said
Fajrul Falaakh, a lecturer at Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada
University, in a public debate about women leaders here on
Wednesday.

"So, a non-Moslem woman would be doubly oppressed," he
reasoned. Citing Abdurrahman Wahid of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU),
Fajrul pointed out that the constitution, and the principle of
egalitarianism embraced by Indonesia, did not give preference to
Moslem males becoming president.

Other speakers taking part in the debate were former religious
affairs minister Quraish Shihab, Musdah Mulia, a researcher at
the Ministry of Religious Affairs, A. Hussein Muhammad, manager
of Darut Tafsir Pesantren (Islamic boarding school) in Cirebon,
Said Aqiel Al-Munawwar and Azyumardi Azra of Syarif Hidayatullah
State Institute of Islamic Studies, and Said Aqiel Siradj of
Nahdlatul Ulama. The moderator was Syafiq Hasyim of the
Association for Community and Pesantren Development.

The debate's spring board was the recent Indonesian Moslem
Congress, where a group of clerics recommended that the president
and vice president be male Moslems.

Some critics have already said that the stance was a
deliberate maneuver against popular politician Megawati
Soekarnoputri, who chairs a faction of the splintered Indonesian
Democratic Party (PDI). Others called it sexist, and against
women's political emancipation.

Quraish, who was minister for two months during Soeharto's
last term as president earlier this year, said that the discourse
on the matter should be focused on maslahat, or the benefit for
the community. The presidency is a political position, and it is
the result of a general election that decides whether a person's
appointment would bring common good, he said.

Musdah, who was among only 132 women participants, out of a
total 2,000 people, at the Nov. 3 to Nov. 8 Moslem congress,
described the convention as not only having political overtones,
but was also, at some points, dominated by a few misogynistic
thinkers.

She said that the question of women leadership was discussed
by two commissions in the Moslem congress, namely the Commission
of Religious Affairs and the Commission of Social and Political
Affairs.

Musdah, who joined the religious affairs commission, said
heated debates evolved from two bands -- one supported women
leaders as long as they were skillful and qualified, while the
other group was adamant that women cannot become leaders.

"The first group was appeased only after the second group
explained that the current situation is indeed not the ideal time
for Moslems to support women leadership (because) Megawati, who
not all Moslems support, was the only candidate on the list of
potential leaders," she said in her paper.

"But there's nothing in Islam that prevents women from
becoming leaders, nor are there any instructions (for the
community) to have a woman leader. It's the Moslem community
themselves who should reach consensus and decide," she said.

"Besides, the issue should not be confined to the question of
Megawati only, but (should discuss) the reality that more than
half of Indonesia's population are women," she said.

Musdah described how the religious affairs commission
eventually agreed to recognize the two conflicting stances, and
urged the congress' organizer, the Indonesian Council of Ulemas,
to convene and issue an edict on the matter.

She conceded that the showstealer, however, was the social and
political commission, which recommended that "for now, only
Moslem males can become president and vice president."

The mass media splashed this recommendation across their
headlines, she lamented, and ignored the results of the other
commission.

Hussein Muhammad explored the possibility that the Koranic
verses' stipulations regarding women in roles of leadership were
contextual and sociological, and said that women's subordination
to men was born out of a patriarchal civilization.

"In such a community, women are not given the chance to
actualize themselves in strategic positions," he said. (swe)