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Women talk sharia law in film
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, is well-known for its moderate brand of Islam
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ndonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, is well-known for its moderate brand of Islam. Islamist hard-liners rarely gain sympathy or support from the majority of Indonesian Muslims. However, in recent years, as a result of a policy to decentralize power in the nation, more than half of Indonesia’s provinces have enacted sharia-based laws.
The implementation of Syariat Islam (sharia law) is not entirely a new issue. A number of regions in Indonesia aspired to enact sharia law long ago, especially those with predominantly Muslim populations, such as Aceh.
Prior to the enactment of Law No. 18/2001 on Special Autonomy for Aceh, the Aceh provincial administration had issued Local Government Regulation No. 5/2000 on the Implementation of sharia law.
Aceh was followed by other regions, including Tangerang and South Sulawesi. Six out of 24 regions in South Sulawesi have passed their own versions of sharia law. Indeed, since 2003, Bulukumba has passed four sharia-law based local regulations (Perda).
Furthermore, the regent there established 12 villages that adopted sharia law to act as examples for the rest of the region.
However, the implementation of sharia law cannot be described simply as a political-legal discourse, but also as an instrument of male dominance and order, meaning sharia law has profound consequences
for women.
We rarely hear the voice of women in decision making to adopt sharia law despite that regional adaptations of sharia law tend to predominately target female issues.
Studies have shown that when sharia law is first enacted in a region, the first regulations to be passed and enforced are on female dress code and freedom of women issues.
The reason why women are the target is because they represent a symbol of morality and power that authorities feel they must control to assert their own positions of power.
However, this year, the V Women Film Festival, which will be held from April 21-27 this year to coincide with Kartini Day celebrations, will comment on the issue of sharia law.
Since mainstream media tends to largely ignore female perspective, independent films and grass-roots communities find their own way to express their different voices by making short films and documentaries describing their daily struggles living under sharia law in regions such as Aceh and South Sulawesi.
Five short films about Syariat Islam grouped in the category “Perempuan and Syariat Islam” [Women and Sharia Law] will be a special focus of this year’s V Women Film Festival.
Three films are set in Aceh, one in South Sulawesi and another, interestingly, in Malaysia (directed by an Indonesian woman and a Malaysian woman).
The filmmakers feature broad-ranging styles and opposing views on the topic. Three short films titled Meuneunggui (Fashion), Bungong (Flower) and Bak Lon Kaloen (In My View) were made by Acehnese women who had no previous experience in filmmaking.
Under the Connexxscreen program, Ariani Djalal, the producer and her female teams, taught the directors to develop a story and shoot a film. The result is three original pieces depicting Acehnese views on sharia law.
Almost all of these films address sharia dress code and the role of sharia police (Wilayatul Hisbah).
Despite the implementation of sharia law, young Acehnese women still flout Aceh’s dress code by wearing skin-tight, hip-hugging jeans, which are frowned upon by Aceh’s Sharia police.
Since 2005, the police have patrolled the streets of Aceh; chasing chase down boys and especially girls dressed inappropriately, chiding men for cavorting with women in public and arresting drinkers of alcohol or gamblers.
These strong-arm tactics are largely criticized by the filmmakers. The films question the sharia police’s sole right to interpret sharia law.
The filmmakers also question Qanun, which defines Islamic law in Aceh as and governs over the region’s Islamic legal institutions such as the sharia courts and the sharia police. The films highlight uncertainty among the public on how Islamic law should develop in Aceh.
The fourth film comes from a collection titled Indonesian the Women’s Empowerment in Muslim Contexts team.
The film tells the story of a girl living in the Sulawesi countryside in a sharia village. The girl is sentenced to whipping by her family and leaders of the Muslim village in Padang, Bulukumba, South Sulawesi.
In the film, the girl questions some of her peers, both older and younger, about their opinions on whipping as a punishment. From the perspective of a Muslim woman, this film focuses on the various controversies concerning whipping as a punishment, such as that it does not conform with Indonesian law or the Islamic values that most Indonesian women grew up with.
This whipping case is also the theme of a recent film by Malaysian director Noorhayati Kaprawi and her Indonesian co-worker Ucu Agustin. The film Mencari Kartika (Search for Kartika) tells the story of a girl named Kartika, who is brought to trial at a sharia court for drinking beer. In Malaysian, which enacts sharia law, this conduct is considered detrimental to the morality and reputation of Muslim women.
The majority of the film listens to and debates many differing opinions about the case and about sharia law in general in Malaysia.
These five films demonstrated that there are many ways to interpret sharia law and that no one person or institution should have the sole right to interpret it.
These films highlight the importance of hearing the views and opinions of women who are subjected to sharia law.
The writer is a graduate in Cinema Studies, from the Film Department at the Jakarta Arts Institute. She works as guest curator for 2010 V Women Film.
