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The ‘stupid-goddess’-izing of women and Pancasila
Even in the Reform era, the Islamization of Indonesian society has been a covert effort to set up a caliphate state, with a kind of Islamic "ibuism".
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Shades of diversity: A child participates in a coloring contest held to commemorate the birth of Pancasila in Teras Pancasila subdistrict in Tangerang, Banten on June 1, 2022. (Antara/Fauzan)
W
hat is it about June that four of Indonesia’s presidents – the first, second, third and seventh – were born this month? Sukarno (1901-1970), was born on June 6, Soeharto (1921-2008) on June 8, BJ Habibie (1936-2019) on June 25, and Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (1961- ) on June 21.
Could it have anything to do with the fact that June 1, 1945 was the birth of Pancasila, our national foundational philosophy, and June is considered Pancasila month?
Many like to call Pancasila an ideology, but the five sila (principles) are more like ideals or values and a benchmark of our political ethics. They are: 1) belief in One God, 2) a just and civilized humanity, 3) the unity of Indonesia, 4) democracy guided by deliberations among representatives and 5) social justice.
According to Franz Magnis Suseno, a Jesuit priest and philosopher, Pancasila is an ideology that is capable of solving the challenges of a pluralistic nation, uniting various ethnicities, cultures and beliefs in Indonesia.
Can it also solve the issue of gender equality? This is the theme of a chapter I wrote for an anthology called Mythos Pancasila, initiated by Berthold Damshäuser, an Indonesian literature German professor at Bonn University, to be published next month by Regiospectra Verlag Berlin.
Why would an Indonesian literature professor be interested in compiling a book of 10 essays on Pancasila in German? Initially he had written about the language used in Pancasila, which he thought was a masterpiece. But then he and the co-editor for the Mythos anthology, Wolfgang Brehm, decided it would be a great idea to produce a book “that not only provides a general introduction to Pancasila, but also gives new answers to the question of what it is all about and what its essence, function and meaning are”.
I was asked to contribute a chapter. I said I would write on women, especially since the majority of contributors are men and none of them were writing about women or gender.
