Selective policy, selective prejudice

Selective policy, selective prejudice

I am writing in reference to the article Legally yours: Legal
aspects of marrying out in the Nov. 5 edition of The Jakarta
Post. As an Indonesian woman married to a foreigner I am
concerned about and discriminated against by the unjust and self-
righteous policy which is applied to mixed marriages in
Indonesia. I am necessarily a victim of this policy's results,
like hundreds of thousands of other indigenous women who live
with their foreign husbands in Indonesia.

While Director General of Immigration M. Mudakir and other
immigration officials contend this so-called "selective
policy" is in line with the government's view of the husband as
the breadwinner of the family, this never can justify Indonesia's
discriminatory laws and regulations concerning cross-cultural
marriages.

It makes this policy rather more questionable, especially in
respect of its contribution to the benefit of our country and its
people. If we really want to understand why this selective policy
still persists in Indonesia, we simply have to ask the following
questions: Who are the real winners and beneficiaries in
upholding this obviously discriminatory policy against women? Who
benefits most from this policy? Is it really the poor people
of our country?

Readers may answer these questions by themselves. My husband,
an academic, is retired and lives on a pension. He built our
house here with his own money and he bears all the costs of our
livelihood by taking good care of his family. He even supports my
parents and some of my poor relatives, through his own goodwill
and as best he can. By building our house my husband gave work to
about 40 indigenous people for a period of 18 months; so he kept
alive about 40 families with his money. He pays the wages of our
pembantu (servants) and keeps alive their families by doing so.

But my husband has to bear all the costs for going out to
Singapore every six months to renew his social visa, and he also
pays the unjustifiably high immigration fees for its monthly
extension. The amount of money my husband has to pay for
extending his visa only for one month would keep alive an average
indigenous family for the same period of time.

And he is not alone in doing so. Hundreds of thousands of
foreigners who live in our country and are married to Indonesian
women are forced to do the same. They all are forced by our laws
and the selective policy to bear the same fate. All those
foreigners are considered and misused as the cash cows of our
nation -- and so are their wives and so are their children.

Even if the government has to take care of 202 million people,
as Mr. Mudakir's colleague Harsono Widodo said, I have the innate
right to request from you, Mr. Widodo, and from our government as
well, that it acknowledge and respect that I am also one of these
202 million. And there are some hundreds of thousands out there,
Mr. Widodo, who are Indonesians, like you, but who happen to be
married to foreigners. The only person who is taking care of me
and my family, like thousands of my fellow Indonesians, is my
foreign husband -- and not the government or immigration with its
selective policy.

What Indonesian women married to foreigners really need and
deserve as human beings are contemporary modern laws which
provide fair and human conditions for them and their families.
These laws should not only respect our very personal decision
about our choice of a marriage partner, but should not
discriminate against us for our decision.

I want to express my thanks to Mrs. Nursyahbani and all other
enlightened Indonesian lawyers who share her view. These people
have realized and spoken out about the fact that the current laws
concerning cross-cultural marriages, directly or indirectly, are
sexist and discriminatory.

KETUT ARIANIK

Denpasar, Bali