Scholar Julia takes on patriarchal powers

Carla Bianpoen, Contributor/Jakarta

------------------------------- Sex, Power, Nation An Anthology of Writings 1979-2003 Julia I. Suryakusuma, Metafor Publishing, 2004 Rp 108,000 -------------------------------------

Amid speculation and anxiety about the next presidency and the nation's future, Julia Suryakusuma has launched an anthology of her writings in English published between 1979 and 2003, to mark her 50th birthday.

It is dedicated to a "new Indonesia".

Julia is Indonesia's most unique citizen: an outstanding writer, whose sociopolitical and cultural analyses cut through most of her articles spanning almost a quarter century. Her critical reflections on issues, written at a time when critical comments were considered dissident, testify to her daring and forward-looking spirit.

"Subconsciously, I have always been writing for the future," she states. "I'd like to think that when I write, I do not only inform, but perhaps also enlighten and change people's mind set by debunking, deconstructing and demystifying. I write to excite, provoke, touch and move."

Uniquely, Julia uses sexuality as a tool of analysis and to show the ills of state power, perhaps the first and only one to do so in such a fascinating, interdisciplinary manner.

She has worked as an independent scholar, researcher, editor and freelance writer for national and international media.

She has written about virtually every single event of importance and issues that stir society. It is therefore surprising that the ethnic clash involving Madurese migrants and indigenous Dayak tribesmen in West Kalimantan in early 2001, and the All-Aceh Women's Congress (2000), that managed to reach agreement among over 500 women representatives on a blueprint for peace in their troubled land, remain undocumented in her collection of writings.

Nevertheless, published at the juncture of historical and contemporary concerns, the anthology is enlightening, serious, intelligent and inspiring reading, mapping political events with sociological, psychological and cultural insight as well as the economic backlashes. Issues of national leadership, press freedom, labor and women remain relevant up to this day.

Titled Sex, Power, Nation, the collection of articles unravel the intricate relations and the power shared by sexuality and the state. Unusual in her views, Julia reveals the inner workings of the patriarchal ideology on the workings of the state, its institutions, its laws and regulations and the consequences for the status of women.

The book is divided into three sections that interrelate with each other, but each chapter stands as a noteworthy piece on its own.

Building a New Nation? includes nine articles, beginning with the stirring events during the 10 days in May 1998 just before and after Soeharto's resignation, and the euphoria of reformasi. Julia elaborates on why reformasi could not substantiate into greater change.

Sex and Power has nine articles dealing with the broader issues of ideology, the relationship between state and society, between men and women, as well as between the Indonesian domestic situation and the international context, highlighted from a pronounced gender dimension.

Literature, Exploration and Boundaries has two articles representing her oldest and her newest piece in the anthology. They explore how literature has been used both to control and liberate.

Highlights of the anthology include: SOS! Psyche in Crisis!, telling of the loss of soul of a people and nation, in which she elaborates about the five aspects of the Indonesian psyche: immature, fearful, powerless, irrational and having difficulty in managing ourselves; The Leaders We Deserve: Leaders as a reflection of the people; Sex and The Bureaucratic Position: The State Regulation of Sexuality; Bayoneting the Vagina: Militarism and Violence against Women, and State Ibuism: Appropriating and Distorting Womanhood in New Order Indonesia, as the underlying basis of all.

State Ibuism was Julia's thesis for her master's degree, which she gained in 1988. The treatise is a sharp critique on the systematic state domestication of women through such organizations as the Dharma Wanita (civil servants' wives organization) and the PKK (family welfare program). Here Julia voices her concern about the patriarchal ideology cutting through all layers of life and society.

"In line with the notion of the state as family, one could also call the predominant gender ideology as Bapak-Ibuism, encompassing the entire society, with Bapak as the primary source of power and Ibu as one of the mediums of this power," she wrote.

But it is in Sex and the Bureaucratic Position that she pinpoints the military as a main player in the ideological construction of patriarchy, "because of the influence of the notion of combat in the concept of manhood and justifications of male superiority in the social order".

In Bayoneting the Vagina, Julia sharpens her focus, saying that "violence against women [VAW] has its origins in a value system of sexist discrimination. VAW is therefore not an aberration, but a natural extension of a patriarchal belief system, which sees women as subordinate to men, and which gives the latter the right to control women."

Taking it a bit further, she writes "... militarism as an extreme form of patriarchy has seeped into the fiber of Indonesian society ..."

Julia's excellence in analyzing matters of social and political nature also makes itself felt in her essay on literary debates in Indonesia 1950-1965 and Lekra, the cultural body of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) at the time, and her broad review of the works of three young women writers.

For Indonesians, the articles compiled in this anthology bring back the turbulence that came along with the politics and politicking of that time, and the debilitating impact it had on people's (uncertain) lives.

They will also gain a deeper understanding of the reasons why things happened the way they did, as well as the intricate connections between patriarchy, the military and violence against women. It is hoped it will also induce the reader to rethink what has been culturally, socially and politically taken for granted.

For foreigners and those who were abroad at the time, the anthology presents a comprehensive view of recent history, filling in the gaps with in-depth information from an insider whose skills of expression are unmatched.