'Pesantren' told to change values on women
'Pesantren' told to change values on women
Hera Diani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Most Islamic boarding schools or pesantren are more than just
educational institutions -- they are also community drop-in
centers and citizen's advice bureaus, which can offer a range of
services from marriage counseling to drug rehabilitation.
But some people say many pesantren, with their strong emphasis
on tradition, are yet to properly serve and protect women.
Gender equality at pesantren is often seen as a "Western
ideology", which many clerics believe is against Islamic
teachings.
However, some women are out to change this. On Tuesday, the
Puan Amal Hayati Muslim women's organization along with the
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) held a one-day seminar to
discuss how pesantren could play a greater role in promoting
gender equality.
Experts and activists told the forum that Islamic schools
should be able to empower people and protect and support women
who fall victims to violence and discrimination.
Anisah Mahfudz, representing the Malang branch of Puan Amal
Hayati, said that pesantren should reconsider their
communications and social functions. Women's emancipation, an
increasing reality in modern day life, was also not against
Islamic teachings, she said.
"Pesantren holds on to the doctrine that women's place is in
the domestic arena. That has to change."
Instead of holding to views strictly based on Islamic
jurisprudence, which were literal and textual, Anisah said
pesantren should take a more contextual approach.
"They have to be more open to dialog from the wider public.
Their functions as public-service institutions must be improved.
Pesantren should not be places to learn about a religion without
concern for its environment," she said.
Established by former first lady Shinta Nuriyah Abdurrahman
Wahid, Puan Amal Hayati has been active in promoting religious
interpretations that are more women-friendly and encourage equal
rights.
The organization has even reinterpreted a bastion of
traditional patriarchal scripture, better known as the Kitab
Kuning (yellow book), which is widely used by pesantren in
Indonesia.
Shinta said the most resistance to the group's ideas came from
the younger clerics, many of whom supported the idea of polygamy
over monogamy.
"They only understand the issue of polygamy partially, and
very textually. They don't want to see the real conditions; the
context. Most older clerics are more open to our arguments," she
said.
The Sidogiri group of schools in Pasuruan, East Java, were
typical of this kind of thinking, Shinta said.
Another obstacle, she said, came from the girls at the Islamic
schools, who often were highly submissive and adamant patriarchal
teachings were the true ones.
Shinta said the number of young women continuing their
education to higher levels had begun decreasing in Indonesia,
with more women getting married not long after they hit puberty.
"Very few women have been enlightened. However, even these
women who graduate from university surrender to the original
culture once they get back to their families or communities."
Abdullah Moqsith Ghozali, an activist with the Liberal Islam
Network (JIL) and a scholar of Islamic jurisprudence at the Wahid
Institute, noted the Kitab Kuning had taken 13 centuries of
editing, reinterpretation and rewriting to get to its current
form.
"So, the renewal of its contents cannot be done instantly. It
takes time," he said.
Biased gender interpretations did not exist only in scripture
but also in people's minds, ritual and tradition -- all things
which took a collective effort to reform, he said.
He believed many of the younger clerics' fundamentalist views
came from the Middle East countries where they had studied at
university.
"A pesantren is like a small kingdom. It's the individual
realm of the cleric, and we need to understand this to penetrate
these institutions," Moqsith said.