It was Eve's fault, Sir.

On a recent trip to Yogyakarta I found myself contemplating the limpid pools of Taman Sari, the water palace where from his balcony the Sultan would watch his harem disporting themselves semi-naked in the pool. As the mood took him, he would toss a flower into  the throng, and the lucky girl who caught it would be invited to the Sultan's quarters.

This led me to ponder the furore here about a new law currently being discussed by the Indonesian parliament to curb pornography (RUU anti-pornografi dan pornoaksi). The law was originally proposed to tackle the perception that Indonesia's young folk are being swept along in a tide of western decadence and thus losing touch with the traditional Indonesian values of modesty and morality.  In fact, the central theme of the law is quite sensible, as it seeks to define what is acceptable in Indonesian society, particularly in the media.  However, as the law has progressed it has been hijacked by the conservative Muslim caucus, and in the process has churned up many of the bizarre contradictions that make this country so interesting.

The law, as currently proposed, would not only control media depictions of the human body, but would also punish what it considers to be 'pornographic acts'.  These 'acts' would include revealing certain parts of the body in public, including the navel or the shoulders, so bikinis are definitely out, and so are crop tops.  Kissing in public, even between married couples, will be banned (though frankly I have never seen any couples show mutual affection in public, so this may be unnecessary).  The punishment proposed for people moving their bodies 'erotically' in public is a jail term of between two and ten years and a hefty fine.  This is designed to stop the popular practice of dancing to 'dangdut' music in a way that in the west would be considered rather innocuous, but here the sheer brazenness of the hip rotation and the amplitude of the bottom shaking is enough to stir the passions of even the most devout.

This law has stirred up quite a lot of resistance.  The Balinese point out that the law will be the final nail in the coffin of the beleaguered tourism industry, as Australian tourists are unlikely to enjoy being arrested for cavorting on Kuta beach in bikinis.  There has been serious talk of Bali breaking away from the Indonesian Republic if the law is passed, which would be a cataclysmic blow to the concept of Indonesian unity.  However, this is not just about accommodating westerners.  Balinese national dress is sufficiently revealing to fall foul of the law, and the traditional practice in more remote areas of Bali for women to walk around topless (ironically a practice that started to fade away when buttoned-up westerners arrived on the island) would fall foul.  You can just imagine what the penis-gourd wearing Dani tribes of Papua are thinking...

Happily, this whole debate has forced the sometimes rather arrogant Jakarta politicians to acknowledge that Indonesia is more diverse than a small hard core group of Muslim clerics would perhaps wish.  Even most Muslims have no time for this law, seeing it as part of the malign neo-Wahhabist puritanical influence that may play well in the Arabian desert but is frankly potty when transplanted to the tropics.   For instance, the town of Tangerang has been criticised for a new by-law that bans prostitution by saying 'any person whose attitude or actions draw suspicion, giving rise to the opinion that are prostitutes, are not allowed on public streets'.  In effect, this means that single women waiting for a bus, eating alone at a foodstall or just staying alone in a hotel room can be arrested and charged purely on the basis that it is illegal to 'arouse suspicion' of being a prostitute, and you may be found guilty even if there is no actual evidence that you are a prostitute.   This is clearly just a wheeze by the clerics to prevent women from walking round without a chaperone. It is inimical to human rights and is in fact in breach of the Indonesian constitution.

A very good article by a woman journalist in Jakarta points out that these laws punish the tempter in order to help the tempted keep their thoughts pure.  She argues that the anti-pornography law assumes that all men are sex-crazed lunatics, and that all women are immoral wenches bent on the sole purpose of distracting good Muslim men from their proper devotions.  She also points out the disturbing fact that the law will put child abuse and rape on the same level as 'lewd dancing', as if the entirely subjective impact of the latter can in any way have equivalence with the universal unacceptability of the former.

It is interesting to speculate on what would happen in other predominately Muslim countries if a female journalist described the devout framers of a morality law as 'dirty-minded gusset sniffing lawmakers', as this lady does in her article.  This is a positive sign that contrary to its image, pluralism and diversity in Indonesia is alive and well and shaking its booty.

Comments

[Nina]

See...?! It's amazing what you can discover about dear ol' Yogyakarta when you leave the alcohol-filled confines of one of its hotel rooms, innit...?!

[Maya]

Hi Lucretius Plan, I'm new here, but I've been visiting your blog for about a few weeks now. First, I'd like to salute both of you for leaving behind what was comfortable in Britain and for volunteering in one of the most "isolated" "under-developped" village of Flores, Indonesia.

I'm an Indonesian myself who live in France for the last two years and had lived in the U.S. for another 10yrs before that. I've been away from Indonesia, and I've been recently wanting, more than ever before, to go back to my roots. Since I've opened my Indonesian Fair Trade boutique in France, I've been in touch closely with what Indonesia can offer in a different but positive way.

I have "found" you when I was searching more for Fair Trade network in Indonesia through an expat's blog, Jakartass. Since, I've been featuring you once in my blog as part of my "Indonesia Week" two weeks ago, as positive role models in Indonesia. Now I think it's time for me to comment here and 'introduce' myself :-)

Anyways, I found your blog well-written, well-documented, and well presented on top of being a wonderful blog in sharing your visions, actions, volunteerism and personal views on things. Congratulations and bravo for both of you :-)

I'm also interested in your work with Fair Trade Network there. I'd like to support you in this movement. I'd like to keep in touch and exchange info for sure on how I can help.

This post is the best post from all similar posts in indonesian blogs I've read so far on what's going on around subject of pornography law that's going on now :-) Thanks for a good write-up.

Good luck and best wishes for all your actions...

Sincerely,
Maya.