'Private Tarzan' and Jakarta's women warriors

'Private Tarzan' and Jakarta's women warriors

By Sumono Mustoffa

JAKARTA: They called her "Tarzan" - this slim teen-age Indonesian girl, hefting a rifle, in olive green uniform, blending into an all-male squad, except for the braided hair the military cap couldn't conceal.

In today's "gender-equal" world, on the threshold of the third millennium, there's nothing remarkable about a platoon sergeant berating troopers - "Private Tarzan" included.

But this was East Java in 1949. And when I saw "Private Tarzan" then, the country was seething in armed conflict against the Dutch colonial government. She had, I learned only later, I figured in all the firefights her squad figured in.

Then, there was the Laskyar Wanita. That's Bahasa for Women's Troops.

Composed mostly of volunteers, "Laskyar" preceded formation of women corps, integrated into the military and the police in the mid-1950s. They served without pay, caught in the revolutionary fervor to be free.

Parallel to these women troopers were those who battled with brains, pen, organizing skill and sheer grit.

One of the better known is S.K. Trimurti - journalist, politician, dissident, now in her 80s. Her battle for Indonesian liberation led to having deliver her son, while in a Dutch prison.

Others were exiled, by the colonial government, to malaria- infested jails at Digul in Irian Jaya; Soekanesih from West Java; Sitti Raja of Sumatra and Soeglem from Central Java. Hundreds have been forgotten.

These are half-remembered roots from where "Women Power" suddenly surged into at the Hotel Indonesia roundabout last October.

TV monitors and newspaper cameras, clustered there, suddenly filled with images of women protectors and their banners. "Women Are Biggest Losers in Violence", read one. Another demanded: "Stop Violence".

The chants, no doubt, reached members of what was once a rubberstamp Supreme Consultative Council. They were billeted at the hotel, preparing to rewrite Indonesia's policies and chose a president.

After all, a woman, Megawati Soekarnoputri, was to become vice-president of this male-dominated nation.

But women's power, in Indonesia, is most potent when it is applied silently - in local organizations.

Probably, the most economically influential has been the Women's Family Welfare Circle (Pendidikan Kesejahetran Keluraga) or PKK.

Prof. Widjoyo Nitisastro, the economist who shepherded the infusion of modest capital into women's groups, admits to being surprised at its success, at least until the early 1990s.

The subsidy started at Rp 200,000 per village every year in 1969. Women projects caused this to rise up to six million by 1995.

Health and family planning organizations provide, even up to now, the most extensive network for women in Indonesia.

Ironically, Indonesia has not been able to document, in books, film and other medium, the history, achievements of the problem of its women.

Until this gap is filled, only partial glimpses of the venerable S.K. Trimurti and "Private Tarzan" tells the story of those who, in Mao's words, "hold up half of the sky".

-- DEPTHnews