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Left Handers’ Day Survival of the adaptable in a right-handed world
A champ’s smile: Eight-year-old Zanwalad shows off a paper cutout he made using his preferred hand
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A champ’s smile: Eight-year-old Zanwalad shows off a paper cutout he made using his preferred hand.
It’s not easy being a southpaw in Indonesia, where the left hand is reserved for all things unclean.
Marked around the world on Aug. 13, Left Handers’ Day aims to spread understanding about the daily challenges lefties face.
In countries with fewer cultural issues associated with the left hand, left-handers make up around 10 percent of the population. In Indonesia, it’s anecdotally around 1 percent.
While the country’s leaders call for greater tolerance on complex issues such as religion, ethnicity and sexuality, left-handers continue to be stigmatized on an everyday basis.
Ira Qodariah is a mother of two who lives in Bogor, West Java, and works as a teacher in Jakarta. One of her young sons is left-handed while the other is right-handed.
She allowed them to establish their preferences naturally, and did not interfere when her eldest, 8-year-old Zanwalad, showed signs of a dominant left hand. Though she directs both sons at mealtimes, because “in Islam we have to use the right hand for eating”, Zanwalad uses the left for writing, cutting and sports.
Ira has seen an average proportion of left-handers through her work, which may be a result of the tolerant attitudes at her school.
“In my school, we are trained to ask the kids to use the hand they prefer. So we cannot push them like ‘OK, you have to use the right hand now’.”
She said it was a relatively new part of the methodology at her national-plus school. “But I don’t know what happens with other schools […] because the teachers didn’t have that kind of training,” she added.
Gerald Donovan, who has spent 16 years as a school leader in Indonesia, described seeing “as few as one in 100” left-handers compared with around 10 percent in the UK.
Echoing Ira, Donovan said: “I suspect that due to the perception of the left-hand being considered unclean [in Indonesia], left-handedness is sometimes discouraged — perhaps more so in the national [school] system. Left-handers would typically learn to do many things, especially eating, and perhaps even writing with their right hands.”
Nineteen-year-old Ardini Nur Hayati, who recently completed school in Bogor, has experienced discrimination firsthand. She was the only left-hander at her junior high school of 350 students, and one of two in senior high.
“When I was in […] school, I got bullied because I [used my] left hand,” she says.
After many minor incidents, one occasion escalated into violence.
“[A male student] pushed me, and after that I was so very angry, and I punched him […] until he fell down onto the floor and […] his nose was bleeding.”
While Ardini later apologized to the boy, a teacher who responded to the incident assured Ardini she could write with her preferred hand.
However, in another case, it was an educator who took issue with Ardini’s left-handedness.
“In senior high school […] my teacher said ‘You’re very bad because you write with the left hand’,” Ardini recalled.
“I already tried with my right hand, but it’s very difficult and the writing is so bad. I asked myself, ‘Why was I born with [a preference for] the left hand?’,” she said. “But I think it’s normal. It’s natural. It comes from God.”
When she began working at a laundry, she ironed with her left hand. But she was encouraged to change to the right, and over time, it became comfortable. She believes it is a matter of habit, and her left hand remains dominant for activities like writing and cooking.
Ira concurred, saying Zanwalad was able to adapt over time in terms of eating.
“He already got used to that. So automatically now, whenever he wants to eat he uses his right hand. No need to be reminded by us again.”
Meanwhile, even children whose left-handedness is accepted may struggle to receive adequate support.
Teachers may be unable to show young left-handed students how to correctly grip their pencil. University students face rows of right-handed desks. Objects like a computer mouse, bread knife, vegetable peeler, ring-binder or guitar present opportunities where left-handers must adapt.
Donovan cited a lack of specialized materials such as scissors and pens as among the challenges facing lefties.
Despite working in international schools where left-handers were supported, he said there could be difficulties accessing left-handed equipment, adding that it was hard to find supplies locally, and expensive to ship from overseas.
Children may thus lack both optimal resources and adequate role models. Ira listed playing musical instruments as among the activities her son struggled with when emulating right-handers.
“He often watches [his father] playing drums and he wants to copy him but he feels nervous because the […] cymbal has to be on the left […] and he has to reverse that. So he feels like ‘How can I do it?’”
“If there is a musician who is left-handed, I really respect that because they really have to try hard,” Ira said.
Reportedly, among highly creative or successful people, the proportion of lefties is in fact higher than usual. Many world leaders, entertainers and artists, and other high-achievers are natural southpaws; perhaps left-handedness plays a part in developing adaptable, resilient and determined people.
Maybe Indonesia has more lefties, but they are curbed by social pressure. Millions of people may therefore not be operating to their full potential. Accepting people’s natural handedness could not only increase productivity but also be a step toward the greater tolerance still needed for all marginalized groups.
