Karlina Leksono has courage of convictions

A demonstration at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle by women protesting the rising price of milk ultimately led to a packed courtroom, and an intense public debate. The center of attention among the three women arrested was astronomer Karlina Leksono, who talked to The Jakarta Post last week.

JAKARTA (JP): It was a defining moment. Karlina Leksono had been given a poem by her high school science teacher, something which was to change her life.

It described the yearning of a young girl to discover the true nature of the universe in the brilliant stars of the night sky. Karlina, who had spent many nights doing the same, says she "found herself" in this poem, and it was at this moment she knew where her future lay.

Seventeen years ago, Karlina, 40, became the country's first woman astronomer.

Recently, the mantle of controversy descended on Karlina, as the woman known as a quiet scientist suddenly appeared in a street protest.

On Feb. 23, Karlina, together with her colleague at the feminist magazine Jurnal Perempuan (where Karlina is deputy chief editor), Gadis Arivia, organized and participated in a peaceful demonstration of women, protesting the skyrocketing price of milk.

Karlina, gently spoken and with a warmth of manner completely devoid of the strident tones often associated by people here with feminist activists, says she acted as a woman who is a mother and housewife, as well as a scientist.

"I have never been in a demonstration before, but I felt I was acting as a housewife. But a scientist cannot become a scientist if she only accepts reality passively; she has the responsibility of constructing or creating the reality. The goal of the scientist's work is working for a better society, creating a better humanity.

"And when the time comes for you to fight for that, then you have to fight."

In the vein of the groundbreaking action taken in January by a group of 19 political scientists at the National Institute of Science (LIPI), who published a letter calling for reform as a result of the economic crisis, Karlina's actions constitute an end to the decades of long silence of civil servants.

As a researcher in astrophysics working at the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT), Karlina is expected to support the policies of the government.

But Karlina believes her actions arose from her role as a mother and a woman, not as a public servant.

"In Indonesia, women take a traditional domestic role and this situation directly affects the domestic scene and so it concerns women. It's a time when women have to start to speak.

"At that time we had not heard anything from students, we had no one who would speak for us. We felt a responsibility because women are generally voiceless. We could not rely on anybody else to be our voice, we had to do it ourselves."

Whether Karlina realizes it or not, her status and professional reputation gave the demonstration a credibility and force that would have been absent without her.

It made it impossible for critics and detractors to dismiss the women involved in this unprecedented action as either ardent feminist activists or mere housewives.

On the contrary, the incident aroused suspicion.

"When the police questioned us, they kept saying there must be something behind this, (they could not accept that we were) just concerned mothers," Karlina says. "They didn't know that to do with us. This was the first time in more than 30 years that women had done something like this."

The unforgettable and powerful image of the three women -- Karlina, Gadis and Wilasih Noviana -- sitting in court, each holding flowers, as they awaited their trial, graced the front pages of national newspapers.

This graphic juxtaposition of the humility and dignity of Karlina and her colleagues with the knowledge that they faced criminal charges was greatly affecting to outsiders. "Letters to the editor" columns in various newspapers reflected public support and concern for their plight.

As the 11th of 13 children born to an Indonesian father and a Dutch mother, Karlina is accustomed to working hard to achieve her goals.

But her life, she says, has been blessed with a wealth of opportunity and an abundance of role models and mentors.

"I had two brothers and 10 sisters, but we all had the same opportunities. My mother always spoilt the boys but they were outnumbered. The girls became the center, and it was the girls who always had the power.

"I remember I read a book when I was 8 or 9 about Madame Curie. At that moment I wanted to be like her. I wanted to be a scientist. I told my father, and he created the atmosphere that made it possible."

Her mother, Karlina says, "taught me to think openly and to argue if I did not agree, even with my mother and father, and that is not very normal here".

Karlina says another deep influence came from her secondary school teachers.

"They inspired me in my work in physics and natural science. One particular teacher gave me books on science and poetry (including the poem above). He influenced me very much and he did not stop caring about me after I left school."

But from an early age, Karlina had learned to take responsibility for her own future -- by selling oranges.

"While I was studying for my first degree, I paid for my fees by tutoring high school students. Even from the beginning when I was in secondary school, I had to help pay. We lived in the country (Sukabumi, West Java) and we had an orange grove.

"We had to take 20 oranges each day to sell on the streets to pay for our bus ride home from school. The trip was seven kilometers up a steep hill. I had to work for what I wanted. It wasn't going to just happen, I had to make it happen."

A clarity of purpose, and a determination to succeed despite the obstacles, put her in good stead for her career.

"I took my undergraduate degree in astronomy at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), which is a very masculine place. Of the 1,200 students only 200 were women, and in my department I was the only woman student in my year. I lived in a very male atmosphere.

"Sometimes they said to me I had a male brain, not a female brain, which I thought was very unfair. But you are lucky if you are the only woman because the men will support you. If there are more women, you are more of a threat."

This could also be a double-edged sword.

"Sometimes it was thought I achieved what I did because the men supported me. I remember I had an opportunity to go to Australia to observe (work being done there) and many of my colleagues said, 'of course you got this because you are the only woman.'"

In fact, says Karlina, it was "because I was the only one who had published work in a European journal".

She adds she was often lonely, not only because she was the only woman "but also because astronomy is a very lonely subject and it was not easy to speak to people about this".

A fundamental shift in attitude occurred when Karlina began studying philosophy, earning her master's in the subject from the University of Indonesia in 1994.

This attraction to the more contemplative and abstract disciplines, she says, has changed how she sees the world and her role in it.

"These last five years after I studied philosophy I felt a metamorphosis in the way I looked at my own life, how I looked at problems and their solutions, how I looked at the world. It gave me courage."

Karlina reflects she used be "a very nice girl".

"Even if I did not agree I would express it nicely in a very subtle way, but I think I have changed. Now I have the courage to say what I have to say."

Children have also had a huge impact on Karlina's life, specifically in what she sees are the important issues.

"You become a lot more responsible, not only for your own children but for all children. I realize our children are not ours, they are the children of the universe. A mother can give her love in an abstract way, it is a universal love.

"When we talk about children we talk about the future of the universe..."

In addition to her career at BPPT and her work at Jurnal Perempuan, Karlina is a mother of two children and the wife of a university academic who is also a journalist.

Every hour of every day is precious for working mothers, and Karlina is forced to survive on four hours sleep a night.

Her keen intellect seems to be more than matched by her prodigious capacity for hard work.

Four years ago she decided to start lecturing at the University of Indonesia in philosophy of science and environmental philosophy.

Karlina labels her opportunities "luxurious", and which should be shared with others.

"I have experienced a very luxurious world ..., being able to study and go to university and to study astronomy. So I thought I cannot just enjoy this for myself.

"I love science very much and I really think people should know more about the world... And this is a responsibility I feel deep inside myself. I think the world is so unbelievably beautiful and it is not by coincidence we are here, and I want people to appreciate this."

Of the demonstration, Karlina insists: "This was a moral action. It came from deep inside our conscience. We did not do what they charged us with doing, which was to form a parade."

The women maintain their innocence and have refused to pay the token fine of Rp 2,250.

"What they are trying to tell us is, 'even if this is your moral conscience, just do not try to do what you are doing'."

For Karlina and the other women, the protest is now beyond the issue of skyrocketing prices of milk.

"It is now a matter of justice, a matter of free speech," she says.