Conclusion

Despite some restraints on women’s public appearance due to the implementation of Islamic law, Acehnese women have demonstrated that they have been able to manoeuvre to advance women’s interests.

The interaction of local women activists with those from outside Aceh has been influential in introducing new discourses among local women activists. Despite this, local women activists are still struggling to come to terms with how they should promote equality. This is not only because of resistance from the conservative religious communities, but also because their own encounters with these issues are still relatively recent. However, as the process continues, Acehnese activists will be able to direct their struggles more effectively.

All these developments have happened alongside the political democratization of Aceh, which has offered women activists greater opportunity to participate in the public sphere, as can be seen from the increasing influence they have on local politics. By working with the legislature and religious leaders, women activists have continued to advance women’s interests, as has been demonstrated by JPUK’s activities. As followers of Islam, local women activists in Aceh acknowledge that their gender activism is based on Islamic teachings and the Acehnese adat (customs), and they therefore seek a more familiar discourse within which to locate their activities.

The next chapter offers a case study of one local women’s NGO in Aceh and its key members, to illustrate these points.

Notes

1 Beckwith (2000, 435) acknowledges that there have been no major conceptual frameworks that can be used to define women’s movements. In her article, she shows how scholars have defined them in different ways.

2 III Article 3 (d) of Law No. 44/1999 provides that the Ulama have roles in forming and deliberating the local regulation. This point is to reinstate the ‘specialness’ of Aceh and reinstate the former roles of Ulama.

3 The Law No. 18/2001 on the Special Autonomy for the Province of Aceh Special Region on the Province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam was ratified by the Indonesian president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, on 9 August 2001. The Law allows the transfer of power and resources from the central to the provincial government. It allows Aceh to receive more revenues from the economic activities of its natural resources. Aceh is also given the autonomy to run its internal affairs to redesign local government in line with local tradition. The central government is only responsible for Aceh’s foreign political relations, external defence and monetary affairs. For more on the Autonomy Law, see ICG Report (2001) and Miller (2004).

4 At the national level, during the period of 1999–2004 the representation of women at the national parliament or DPR RI was only 9 per cent. The total representation of women from all DPRD throughout Indonesia was 350 out of 10,250. See http://wri.or.id/files/Representasi_05_BAB-2.pdf.

5 The six women members of parliament represented Golkar Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN), the Star and Crescent Party or Bulan Bintang, the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle) and the Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (United Development Party).

6 Syarifah was speaking on a seminar organized by the Women’s Research Institute in Jakarta on 9 March 2005. The seminar was organized to discuss women’s representation in local parliament in Aceh.

7 All Qanun enacted by the local government of Aceh can be viewed at the Aceh Provincial website: www.acehprov.go.id.

8 Prior to the promulgation of LOGA, legislative responsibility was largely in the hands of the military and National Executive. LOGA gives the local legislature more responsibility and it mainly concerns three major issues: revenue allocation, the establishment of local political parties, and independent candidates (UNDP Report 2006).

9 All of the information in this section was mostly gathered from JPUK’s minutes of meetings and its reports, since its establishment in 2004. Copies on file with the author.

10 BRR is the official Indonesian government bureau with responsibility for the process of the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Aceh in the post-tsunami period. BRR gender policy has been developed in recognition of the need to identify effective ways to integrate gender-responsive actions in the process of rehabilitation and reconstruction and to support the Aceh and Nias local governments and the government of Indonesia’s efforts to ensure gender equality within this process (BRR Policy Strategy 2006).

11 Almost half of the staff at this Bureau were killed by the tsunami. This prompted the Governor’s Office to move staff from other departments to the women’s bureau without them having the necessary background on women’s issues. On the other hand, the devastation hugely affected women’s lives, which needed immediate attention. It was based on these considerations that international institutions supported the creation of GWG.

12 For more accounts on the role of Musdah Mulia in introducing gender equality, see Robinson (2007), Budiman (2008) and Bowen (2003).

13 Blackburn (2004, 14) observed that in other places in Indonesia, she also found a resistance among Indonesian women towards the term ‘feminism’, because it is seen as having Western connotations.

14 Rizvi et al. (1999, 14) argue that ‘female circumcision’ has no place in Islam, and it is restricted to only a few Muslim countries. They argue that female circumcision is a social custom rather than a religious practice. In Indonesia, female circumcision remains part of the wider debate within Islam. Feillard and Natsir (1998) argued that female circumcision among Indonesian Muslims remains surrounded by a certain amount of secrecy but it is also minimized as purely a symbolic gesture. Feillard and Natsir (1998, 337) have demonstrated that compared to other Muslim ethnic groups in Indonesia, female circumcision in Aceh is considered a secret matter.

15 Irwandi Yusuf was a former spokesperson of GAM. He was elected as Governor of Aceh in the first democratic election for local leadership in Aceh on 11 December 2006. Together with Muhammad Nazar, now the Deputy Governor, they won 40 per cent of the votes (Reid 2006, xiv). This election was the first in Indonesia where non-party candidates were allowed to compete.

16 It was reported that Lailisma was not appointed because she could not fulfil the administrative requirements. By law, a government body has to be headed by government officials who have already reached a certain level within the hierarchy of employment. This has been one of the issues that women activists have been trying to address for some time, because it is difficult to find women in Aceh who have reached high levels in the bureaucracy. Women activists argue that the lived experience of Acehnese women and the political situation during the conflict had prevented many women from pursuing higher education and participating in public life.

17 It is common in Aceh and elsewhere in Indonesia that a person is called only by her/his first name.

18 Kamaruzzaman is referring to Surah Al-Hujurat (13), which says ‘O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other).

19 Kyai is a Javanese term used for Ulama or religious leaders. Mostly they lead pesantren, or traditional Islamic boarding schools in Java.

20 See the Charter at: http://piagamhakperempuanaceh.org/en/Default.aspx.

21 Professor Michael Leigh at the University of Melbourne is the Director of ARTI. The ARTI office in Banda Aceh is situated around the Darussalam complex, where two major universities are located, namely, IAIN AR-Raniry and University Syiah Kuala.

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