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Stop! In the name of love
Do you remember Stop! In the Name of Love, the 1965 hit single by Diana Ross and the Supremes? It’s about a woman who discovers her man is two-timing her
D
o you remember Stop! In the Name of Love, the 1965 hit single by Diana Ross and the Supremes? It’s about a woman who discovers her man is two-timing her. She implores him to stop, “in the name of love … before you break my heart”.
It seems that the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI, Front Pembela Islam), have a new take on this song. The difference is that it’s not love but violence, and what they’re breaking is not hearts, but other people’s rights, not to mention the law – and it looks like neither love or anything else can stop them!
In fact, their most recent target was a three-day human rights training workshop for waria (transgender people) held in Depok last Friday (April 30, 2010). The event was organized by the National Human Rights Commission, a government agency, and was part of a routine program educating various social groups about human rights. Dozens of violent FPI members stormed the hotel where the workshop was being held, invoking the name of God, destroying property and assaulting participants.
The commission had to stop the event and moved it to their headquarters in Central Jakarta.
Bizarrely, that evening it was the public order officers of Depok Municipality who stopped the waria pageant. Hello? Whose side are they on anyway?
The Depok attack followed in the footsteps of an even more aggressive assault on the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Association (ILGA) conference in Surabaya on March 26-28 this year (http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/mn8fXAD1Ao). The aggressors were from the Unity Front of the Community of Islam (FPUI), an ad hoc coalition of seven conservative groups, including the FPI, the increasingly hardline Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and Hizbut Tahrir. FPUI thugs forced themselves into the Oval Hotel where the conference was held, and occupied it —including participants rooms!
Incidents such as these always leave me scratching my head for many reasons. Why, for example, are hardliners so threatened by alternative sexualities when homosexuality is a standard, even institutionalized, feature of many Islamic boarding schools? And why are these white-robed, skull-capped men so freaked out by waria?
They are a common, even traditional feature of Indonesian society, and unlike the FPI, they have never caused harm to anyone.
Perhaps the hardliners have been watching Ali Saleem, a.k.a. Begum Nawazish Ali, a transgender talk-show host who is also Pakistan’s biggest TV star (http://www.youtube.co/watch?v=d1Z4m1HxUoA&feature=related). You see, it’s not just gender that Pakistan’s Dame Edna is bending, but social and political taboos as well. Dame Edna is famous for being the hostess-with-the-mostess, with a sharp political edge.
Despite the controversies, s/he’s admired and respected by the general public for her/his honesty and courage. Saleem is a man who dresses as a woman — and a beautiful and glamorous one at that.
But despite his/her double identity, Saleem is far from double-faced. On the contrary, s/he’s open about sexuality, political views, likes and dislikes — and is blatantly frank about hating hypocrisy.
Not surprisingly, the then president, Pervez Musharraf, opposed the show, and it was eventually taken off air. Not for long though: offers came from across the border and Begum, a follow-up show with Indian celebrities, aired 26 episodes. Saleem has since claimed s/he wants to bring peace and harmony between India and Pakistan. S/he says what s/he likes most about India is its democracy, and I’m sure s/he secretly wishes his/her own country could be more like India in this respect.
Now, who would you choose? A transgender person such as Ali Saleem who has integrity and ideals — and is funny — or hypocrites such as the hardliner thugs who commit violent, criminal and very unfunny acts? A no-brainer, huh?
In fact, Indonesia’s Religious Affairs Ministry has already named the FPI as one of 70 “misguided” Muslim sects, and they and similar organizations routinely use violence in ways that are clearly prohibited by Indonesian criminal law. Despite this, our police typically drag their feet, and sometimes do nothing when these gangs break the law. Why?
The usual answer is that the police prefer to protect their backsides rather than have a run-in with mobs of violent bullies. Understandable if you are a single cop at the scene perhaps, but they aren’t the only ones routinely buckling under.
It now appears to be the default position of the Indonesian state: legislature, executive and judiciary. Just look at the Constitutional Court for example, which recently upheld the pornography and blasphemy laws, and granted the petition of Muslim political parties to strike out affirmative action provisions of the election law.
I am perplexed as to why this cowardly attitude prevails, given that political Islam is in steady decline in Indonesia, as national election results repeatedly show. Poor performance at the polls perhaps explains the desperate, clutching-at-straws behavior of Muslim hardliners, who know deep down inside they’re losing, and feel bully-boy tactics are the only leverage they have left. But why do state authorities — even the President — constantly roll over to them?
Could it possibly be because they’re two of a kind? Many of our political leaders and state authorities are just as hypocritical and uncaring about the people as religious hardliners, and as patriarchal. Do they secretly agree with them?
In any case, Muslim radicals and government officials alike clearly know very, very little about human rights. That’s why I’m going to suggest to the human rights commission that next time it gives them priority in human rights training!
And why not give our votes instead to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender persons? Not all LGBT people push the boundaries as Ali Saleem does (or are as talented!) but because persecution and discrimination so often comes with being “different”, they do know a lot about human rights.
That’s why, like Saleem, they are often good advocates for democracy. They only want to live in peace, be accepted for who they are, and the last thing they want is to provoke social antipathy.
Sounds good to me!
Maybe their campaign song could be borrowed from The Supremes: “Stop! In the name of love …”
The writer (www.juliasuryakusuma.com) is the author of Julia’s Jihad.
