TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsWomen still victims of ideological conflict
This is the time for any forms of authority, be it academic or religious, to genuinely listen to the voices of Indonesian women.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Activists protest Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University's ban on the 'niqab' on March 8. (Antara/Andreas Fitri Atmoko)
C
ontroversy was rife when Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University (UIN) in Yogyakarta recently conducted a disciplinary crackdown on female students who wore the niqab (face veil) on campus. This disciplinary policy involved mandatory “guidance” for these students given by lecturers to niqabi students, and a “radicalism test” that would be administered to them to differentiate between those who are already radicalized and those who are yet to be.
The rector of UIN Sunan Kalijaga, Yudian Wahyudi, said this policy was needed to neutralize the influence of “radical ideologies” that are incompatible with the soul of “Indonesian Islam”. However, where Yudian sees a normal reaction toward the growth of radical ideologies on campus, I see yet another form of systemic oppression of women’s bodies stemming from the ongoing ideological conflict over the identity of “Indonesian Islam”.
Eventually the rector revoked the policy.
While any form of radical interpretation of Islam should be rejected, patriarchal control over a woman’s body as in the case of the niqab ban is similarly intolerable. The prohibition constitutes a coercive-misogynistic narrative that UIN Sunan Kalijaga imposes on its female niqabi students.
