Kartini shed light on women

Of course, most Indonesians will remember April for the elections. For the majority of Indonesian women, however, the month of April, the beginning of spring in Europe and elsewhere, is closely associated with Raden Ajeng Kartini from Rembang, Central Java, who during her brief life fought for the right of women to get an education equal to men.

April 21 is remembered by the nation as a festive occasion when women and girls wear the traditional kebaya dress in memory of Kartini.

Kartini's progressive ideas and ideals can be found in her memoirs, originally written in Dutch during the colonial period and translated into many languages, under the Dutch title Door duisternis tot licht (From darkness to light).

My point this time is not to comment on Kartini's achievements (how many women have visited her grave in Rembang, near Semarang?), but to talk about how Indonesian women can still look up to Kartini as a national heroine.

Anyone passing along Taman Suropati on Jl. Imam Bonjol can see a small statue of Kartini. I hate to say that the statue has been rendered too small in view of her service to the nation and does not go with the surroundings. It would have been more appropriate to place the statue in an office building rather than outside.

I hereby plead for a bigger Kartini statue the size of the statue of the late General Sudirman recently erected by the Jakarta administration.

Politics was not the game Kartini was playing in the 19th century. She only wanted women to unite to make progress from the darkness to the light, especially in education. Were she still been alive, I am sure Kartini would not be too happy with the fact that the daughters of one of the founders of the Republic, Sukarno, are unwilling to join forces to form one strong women's organization for the cause of all of the women of this country. Instead, they compete fiercely by means of different political parties under different names with identical ideologies.

GANDHI SUKARDI, Jakarta