The 'tudung' affair: Principles and wisdom

Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Many in Indonesia were shocked this week to read that two very young Singaporean girls in elementary school were suspended by the government in the city-state for wearing a headscarf or tudung to school.

Most here could not fathom the fuss when seeing the picture of the innocent seven-year-olds embroiled in a national controversy which they themselves do not understand.

The Singapore government has suspended Nurul Nasihah and Siti Farwizah from school until they comply with the uniform regulations in public school.

Another girl also faces suspension if she fails to comply soon.

The Singapore government, obsessed with its admirable record of social and religious harmony, maintains that allowing such exemptions would underscore religious and racial differences.

They maintain that uniforms unify children. Headscarves would only differentiate Muslim students from their peers.

The government has also said that if the parents did not like it they could file a complaint with the courts.

Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong has also been quick to rebuke any foreign comments on the matter, stressing that race and religious relations in Singapore are matters for Singaporeans, not foreigners.

While it would be presumptuous to lecture one's neighbor on issues of social harmony, the events remind us of Indonesia's own experience throughout much of the 1980s.

There were lengthy battles between parents and students on the one side, versus schoolmasters and officials on the other.

One persisted in clinging to what they believed was a practice of their personal faith, while the other adamant about strictly maintaining the rules.

It was not until 1991 that the Ministry of Education issued a ruling that allowed for "special" attire to be worn in accordance with one's faith in public schools, as long as the color and type generally conformed with the school uniform.

Then head of the Indonesian Ulama Council, Hasan Basri, after the issuance of the ruling, commented on the uniform issue, a prudent remark which a decade later is no less astute: "(This) is not about a matter of principles, this about being wise."

In essence what he was saying was, it should not simply be a question of right or wrong and obeying rules, but how the fundamental issues of faith should be reconciled in a secular society.

An underlying issue, which Indonesians are experiencing, is whether the individual traits which make up a heterogeneous society can be celebrated, appreciated and even extolled without upsetting the delicate communal balance.

For over three decades Indonesia chose to bury much of its plurality by trying to create a uniform society.

Societal problems were simply considered resolved once the strong arm of the state stepped in with an enforced solution.

What Indonesians suddenly found in the post-Soeharto era, is that problems forcibly swept under the carpet do not get resolved but decay into potential unrest. The fact that material wants are temporarily satisfied only serves to prolong this guise.

Societies are not cut from the same cloth. They are a mosaic. A plethora which does not conform to a common pattern.

But the formula for harmony is not then summarily painting everything with the same brush. Differences have to be shown so we can appreciate and understand them.

True harmony and equality can only be fulfilled if we can highlight these differences -- racial and religious -- and show that each have a right to co-exist.

It will not be easy, in fact, it will be very painful.

But that is the price that Indonesia, after years of neglect, has to now pay to construct a new fluid paradigm of democracy and pluralism.

The state's monopoly on righteousness will have to change. There is no longer an absolute yardstick for right or wrong.

Only the norms and values which can be challenged, questioned and debated will survive.

Even the rule of law is not an injunction to blind obedience to a set of dictums.

The rule of law does not mean that any action can be approved or condemned just because a legislative or executive authority happens to pass a law about them.

The search for justice is not merely resolved through the courts. In fundamental societal issues the search for objectivity is done by taking into equal account all parties and engaging in debate or discourse.

This is an advanced stage of democracy, one that is most difficult yet necessary. The old values of democracy which act as a girder for the "tyranny of the majority" no longer apply.

In consequence, it does mean an almost perpetual state of "conflict", but one that does not degrade into physical antagonism.

The alternative is regressing into a dogmatic hegemony in which society is purposely conditioned to accept despotic confines in which change can only be effected by a certain few.

In the case of the tudung affair, maybe one side is being too extreme while the other too rigid.

This issue will not go away, even if the courts make a ruling.

Wisdom, in this context the willingness to compromise, to find the most acceptable course of action, is needed.