T

he bottles emptied, the flutes clinked and the fireworks shot up. Except for jittery Americans on the brink of the fiscal cliff, it seems like the world partied like there’s an unlimited tomorrow now that we all have, umm, dodged the Mayan bullet.

Except for the family of the 23-year-old medical student who’d been savagely raped and beaten on a bus in New Delhi, by six men, on Sunday Dec. 16. After fighting for dear life through a series of surgeries, including last-resort attempts in Singapore, the young woman died before New Year’s Eve.

Like the rest of the world, I read about it on the news. The difference is, I guess, I’d just come from a day full of celebration. It hit me in the gut to realize that while I was enjoying a sumptuous birthday dinner, surrounded by loved ones and pretty presents, somewhere in another part of the world a young woman was gang-raped, beaten by iron bars and thrown naked on to a dark street to die. The fact that she was traveling on an upscale, supposedly safer, bus, added irony to the injury.

Thousands of protesters have since marched through the streets of Delhi, where annually cases of rape number 550, and in a country where females suffer gender bias to the point of becoming “missing women”, a phenomenon once illustrated by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. When the rape victim’s body arrived from Singapore, Delhi came almost to a standstill with throngs of mourning people. The suspects have now been charged with murder and face the death penalty. I’m all for the rule of law, but I seriously wouldn’t object if the six men were thrown alive to a pack of hungry Bengal tigers.

What happens when the law is written in a way that implies how a woman carries her body around is a legal source of lewd thought or sinful acts? And I mean more than just some careless remark like “miniskirts trigger rape”, as blurted out by former Jakarta governor Fauzi Bowo. The mayor of Lhokseumawe in eastern Aceh, not too far from my Dad’s hometown, is signing a bylaw to forbid women from straddling a motorcycle, permitting them only to sit sideways, on the grounds that women spreading their legs in public, even to mount a motorcycle properly or ride on it safely, is sinful and not in accordance with Acehnese values.

I don’t have the slightest idea about which Acehnese values the mayor was babbling. What I and history know is that during the long period when Elizabeth I ruled the British Empire, the Aceh Kingdom also had four female, fully-fledged sultans reigning on its throne. This is the same kingdom that also sent out a female admiral, the admirable Keumala Hayati with her kelewang (a traditional sword) commanding a much smaller Acehnese fleet to chase away a Portuguese armada, and whose name has been bestowed on the port in the province’s capital Banda Aceh. The same kingdom that about a century later produced noblewoman Cut Nya’ Dhien who led male guerillas, more so after her husband was slain, to fight off Dutch colonialists for decades in dense jungles, and while half-blind and in her seventies when captured was still agile enough to stab her traitor general with the rencong (thin, razor-like blade) she always tucked in her gold-plated belt.

Acehnese often take pride on the fact that unlike many local monarchies who came together to form the state of Indonesia Aceh had never been colonized, so I want to take this opportunity to remind Lhokseumawe Mayor Suaidi Yahya, just in case he slept through history class in school, that a large part of that historical fact was accomplished by strong, brave women who proudly straddled their horses and galloped ahead to fight off much bigger, better armed foreign colonialists. Forget Sumatran tigers, I’d just love to bring Admiral Keumala Hayati and Cut Nya’ Dhien back alive and have Mayor Suaidi Yahya explain to them that why in 2013, when humankind has made it to the Moon and Mars, Lhokseumawe women now can only hitch motorcycle rides sideways.

Yet as much as I’d love to see how kelewang-and-rencong-carrying, horse-riding, female Acehnese ancient heroes responded to the dimwit mayor, I’d love more to hear what Acehnese women are saying about this issue. It’s sad to note that while the Indonesian Twitterati, some of whom are Acehnese, has been enraged about the issue for the past couple of days, Twitter accounts representing Acehnese and Lhokseumawe society have generally been quiet. I remember from trips to Aceh how intrinsic the motorcycle is as a mode of transportation—ridden freely by women of all ages to school, market, clinic or work. Now if they can’t straddle, it means they can’t ride on their own — they have to hitch a ride, sitting sideways — do Lhokseumawe women realize that it means limiting their mobility, one step closer to, God forbid, chaining them at home? What’s next, a bylaw to instruct Acehnese women how to swing their legs while walking?

A poster in one of the Delhi marches stuck in my mind. It said “Don’t stop your daughter from going out; teach your son how to behave.” So let me say this to my Acehnese brethren, “Don’t stop your daughter from straddling a motorcycle; teach your son not to straddle women’s freedom and bodies against their will. Teach them history. ”

Happy New Year, everyone.

Lynda Ibrahim is a Jakarta-based writer and consultant, with a penchant for purple, pussycats and pop culture.