Momentous women's congress rectifies history

Momentous women's congress rectifies history

By Debra H. Yatim

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Former minister of manpower, SK Trimurti, had
to use the service lift to take her upstairs for the one-day
seminar here under the theme: "Indonesian Women: Looking Toward
the Future Inspired by Aspirations of the Past". Bad knees
notwithstanding, the feisty 86-year-old decided she just had to
attend the session, which precluded the biggest congress of
Indonesian women in 70 years.

Some 550 women from 26 of Indonesia's 27 provinces came from
far and wide to attend the three-day convention ending Dec. 18.
And what a meeting it was.

First of all, a little over 100 more women turned up than the
450 that were registered. As it was already the holiday season in
Yogyakarta, arranging more rooms was no easy matter for the
committee.

Then there was the small matter of a (male) manager not being
used to having his premises taken over by 15 women organizers
clamoring for better service. The manager decided that if the
women were not going to listen to him, than he was putting his
foot down: There was to be no Congress Grand Opening at his
joint. He did not reckon with his superior, the owner, who just
happened to be a woman.

The grand opening went ahead in a toned-down manner, with
Sultana Hemas, the wife of the sultan of the special territory of
Yogyakarta, declaring it open with a gentle reminder that the
congress bear in mind the "lessons of history", the fact that our
foremothers never went out into the fray with a war cry against
their menfolk.

Well, since that was never the idea behind the congress in the
first place, the meeting went on full-steam ahead with the
aforementioned one-day seminar. And if anybody entered the room
expecting meek and mild Indonesian women saying their piece soft-
spokenly, they had another think coming up.

First on the agenda was a wizened old woman, bent under the
burden of her years -- and her oppression. Sulami was a victim of
the Soeharto regime. A member of the banned Gerakan Wanita
Indonesia (Gerwani), Sulami wrought a picture of active women
silenced under the pretext of national order.

Her presentation was discussed by Saskia E. Wieringa of The
Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Holland, who maintained
that "it is not by chance that women and their organization,
Gerwani, were singled out of the slander (created by Gen.
Soeharto to associate Communism with wild, perverse, sexually
loose women)".

This first session drew forth many opinions from the floor,
from comments by young women mulling over what it must have been
like to be active and then sliced down in the name of peace, to
demands by yet other women who wanted to know what the organizers
had in mind by bringing somebody from a long-silenced
organization into a national congress.

That was only the beginning. As the day wore on, and as the
congress proceedings began on the Tuesday, it was very apparent
that these were no quiet homemakers, content to let their menfolk
lead the way. These were women who knew exactly what they wanted,
and that was a definite say in every aspect of social and
political life.

And what did that encompass? No less than being agents of
change for women's rights and the matter of gender equality
across the board in Indonesian life. The congress members also
demanded the right to become a pressure group in Indonesian
politics, to become facilitators for women working toward
democratic change and to have a say in creating just laws more
accommodating to women.

After three long, hard days of discussion -- three days in
which a farewell party was actually canceled because the congress
members preferred to continue slogging at the working agenda --
finally at 5 a.m. on Friday, 18 Dec. a decision had been made.

Not a consensus, mind you, as is usually the case in
Indonesian public life. But an honest-to-goodness decision: that
instead of having an organization based on organizational
membership, the coalition which initiated the congress could be
made of individuals and institutions alike.

The other decision that was made was that the coalition would
be led by a presidium of 15, to cover the aspirations of groups
as different from each other as women farmers, fisherwomen,
laborers, female street children, the urban poor, the rural poor,
the elderly and infirm, professional women, sex workers,
lesbians, and students and women youths.

A tall order by any means, "but who is to say that women are
one species?" asked Myra Diarsi, one of the founding members of
the Indonesian Women's Coalition for Justice and Democracy, who
initiated the idea of the congress.

"The concerns of women encompass the concerns of all of
humanity, and should thus be addressed," maintained Myra, at a
discussion the next day held by the Law Faculty of Gadjah Mada
University to discuss Women, The Law and Politics.

The congress itself was inspired by the first all-Indonesian
Women's Congress held in 1928 when Indonesia had not even become
a country, but was still an archipelago under Dutch rule.

That first congress held from Dec. 22 to Dec. 25 inspired
Indonesians to commemorate Dec. 22 as the Day of Women's
Emergence. Through the years, the day was changed to Women's Day
(Hari Ibu), when schoolchildren from all over the archipelago ply
their mothers with flowers and poems in gratitude for all
mothers' sacrifices.

Not enough, the congress decided. This year, congress members
made the demand that Dec. 22 be returned to its original stature,
that of acknowledgement to Indonesian women's political
aspirations and their demand for a voice in public life.

"We like being mothers. But women cannot be defined by their
ability to give birth alone," said Zohra A. Baso from
Ujungpandang.

The congress was also colored by the fact that a group of
women, claiming to represent eight groups and organizations
staged a walkout on day three. Even though the steering committee
maintained that everything was good and fine, and a reaching of
consensus and one voice was never the goal of the congress, the
local media found it fodder for sensationalist reporting.

Women's Congress Colored by In-fighting screamed one newspaper
headline. "Why put 500 women in one room, when with only two you
can get enough fallout?" inquired another local newspaper.
Meanwhile, the national press in Jakarta saw fit to ignore the
whole meeting, deeming it not as important as two men in Jakarta
seeking a consensus to the shambles that the country is currently
heading for.

Even though the press missed the whole point so shoddily, the
fact remains that the remaining 500-or-so women found it
important enough to continue with their discourse.

"This is one of the very few times we have been allowed to say
our piece without anybody demanding we try reach a common
platform," said Yusan Yeblo of Irian Jaya. "And why should we? A
middle-class woman from Yogyakarta would have absolutely
different needs and aspirations from myself in Irian, while a
sister from West Kalimantan would need something different
again."

And hence ended a congress, the first all-women's congress
that allowed everybody to say whatever they wanted without
anybody attending to tell them to shut up.

As a little footnote: On day three a lone police officer came
and requested that the committee give him copies of all the
papers making their rounds to members of the congress. Because
very few women came with their ideas readily packaged, he went
away with a meager three papers: one by the officially stamped
Kowani condoned by the government, one by Saskia Wieringa already
published as a working paper in November 1996, and the last one
by SK Trimurti which she had already presented at some other
Woman's Day event in 1991.

The writer is a feminist based in Jakarta.

Window: This year, congress members made the demand that Dec.
22 be returned to its original stature, that of acknowledgement
to Indonesian women's political aspirations and their demand
for a voice in public life.