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)