JP/ 7/kartini

----------------------------------------------------------------- Today Indonesians commemorate the 110th birthday of their foremost pioneer for women's rights, R.A. Kartini. In the following article writer Carla Bianpoen recounts theologian Th. Sumartana's recent discussion on an aspect of the heroine's personality which is not commonly known. ------------------------------------------------------------------

Kartini looked to religions for world harmony

By Carla Bianpoen

JAKARTA (JP): Much has been written and said about Raden Adjeng Kartini, the national heroine who died at 25, and, for many, a symbol of women's emancipation.

Born in 1879, she lived at a time when Dutch power on Java was well-established.

She was the daughter of the Jepara regent, who was part of the Dutch administration, and therefore she was privileged and allowed to enter an elementary school for Dutch children.

It was here that Kartini first recognized the differences between traditional rules and western thought.

Her letters to Dutch friends, and articles written in De Locomotief, a Dutch newspaper, are the most remarkable evidence of the young woman's comparably modern views, especially considering she was born and raised in the tradition of the Javanese nobility.

Her letters have been translated worldwide, her intelligence praised, and her linguistic abilities lauded. Each year her birthday on April 21 is commemorated nationwide.

But not much attention has been paid to Kartini's views on religion, which were discussed recently by Indonesian theologian, Sumartana.

His remarks came in light of a series of lectures organized at the Dutch Cultural Center to commemorate 400 years of Dutch- Indonesian "encounters" in 1995.

Explaining that Kartini was a part of the belief system in her society, Sumartana described several instances in which Kartini was inspired by the tones of traditional music and by mystique, including spiritism and occultism.

"What greatly touched my heart were the melodies of the gamelan. I was taken back into past times ..." Kartini also went to see a clairvoyant to address the question of her attending school in Holland.

She then wrote to her close friend Mrs. Abendanon, "Perhaps you will consider this amusing and laughable and would expect us not to believe such nonsense. But how could this person who had never seen me know exactly who I was? She pictured my appearance and character."

Although Kartini believed in spirits, occultism, and mystique, she was still a devout Moslem.

"There is no God but God," Sumartana quoted from a letter she wrote in 1902 to a friend, Nellie van der Kol.

"We say this as an Islamic community," Kartini added, "...together we are all believers, monotheists; God is the Lord, Creator of the universe."

To Dr. Adriani, a philologist in Central Sulawesi, she conveyed that she and he actually believed in the same God, the only difference being in the name.

"The one you call God, we call Allah," she said. Her views of God then were quite universal.

Her contacts with friends who adhered to religions other than Islam provoked a serious search to blend the beliefs of her friends' religions with her own.

"Oh, Lord," she lamented in a letter to Stella Zeehandelaar in l899, "at times I think how wonderful it would have been if there was never any religion.

"For religion, which should unify all humankind, has for centuries become the cause of quarrel and division, and of horrible bloodletting."

Nevertheless she was convinced of the unity of God and the brotherhood of mankind in which God gave religions as a blessing.

Sumartana emphasized that Kartini had no specific knowledge on religion, including Islam.

Deeply influenced by syncretism prevalent in Java, he said her syncretism was not dogmatic, but resembles an "ethical syncretism."

He explained that she did not intend to create a new religious doctrine mixing various religious dogmas unified into one system of teaching.

Arguing against Mrs. Abendanon's belief that only the Christian religion was able to bring humans to genuine truth, she wrote, "It is not religion that has no love, but rather human beings that ruin everything that was originally beautiful and holy.

"As far as I can see, the religion that is most lovely and most holy is love. And to be able to live according to that sublime command, must one absolutely become a Christian?

"Buddhists, Brahmins, Jews, Muslims, even those who worship idols can live with pure love."

First person

Kartini's conviction in religious pluralism was unshakable. "I do not care which religion is followed by any person or people," she wrote to Dr. Adriani in 1903. Children of God are in every religion, they are found among every people."

According to Sumartana, Kartini is the first person in Java to have started an interreligious dialog, in this case with the Dutch.

During the time when Kartini wrote her letters, there were no records of any other religious thinker on Java attempting such dialog.

Sumartana said that in her time, Kartini was often misunderstood by Islamic teachers, and was sometimes considered an enemy of Islam.

Among Christian missionaries, her thoughts were never mentioned, let alone valued. Asked how her views would be perceived today, Sumartana avoided answering.

The concept of Pancasila, the state philosophy developed long after Kartini's lifetime, parallels her views in more ways than one.

Her views on religion are recognizable in three of the five principles of Pancasila: belief in one God, a just and civilized humanism and social justice for all Indonesian people.

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