READING Contemporary Indonesian Muslim Women

Reading Contemporary Indonesian Reading Contemporary Publications Series Monographs 3 Reading Representation, Writers Muslim Women Representation, Contemporary Indonesian Muslim IdentityDiah Ariani Arimbi lectures in English literature at the and Identity and Religion Airlangga University in Surabaya, Indonesia. Women Writers Diah Ariani Arimbi While women and Islam are common themes in Indonesian literature, writings about woman and Representation, Identity and their Islamic identity are rare. Reading Contemporary Indonesian Muslim Women Writers: Representation, Religion of Muslim Women in Identity and Religion of Muslim Women in Indonesian Fiction looks at the work of four contemporary Indonesian Fiction Indonesian Muslim women writers: Titis Basino P.I., Ratna Indraswari Ibrahim, Abidah El Kalieqy and Helvy Tiana Rosa. The book examines how gender is Diah Ariani Arimbi constructed and in turn constructs the identity, roles and status of Muslim women in Indonesia and how such relations are portrayed in fiction, covering issues of authenticity, representation and power, intertwined in a variety of aesthetic forms and narrative structures. This book is an investigation of how the work of these Indonesian Muslim women narrative writers has sustained, challenged, worked and re-worked the perceptions of Muslim women, their roles and status in Islamic societies. 9 789089 640895 www.aup.nl ISBN 978 90 8964 089 5 Reading Contemporary Indonesian Muslim Women Writers Publications Series General Editor Paul van der Velde Publications Officer Martina van den Haak Editorial Board Wim Boot (Leiden University); Jennifer Holdaway (Social Science Research Coun- cil); Christopher A. Reed (Ohio State Faculty); Anand A. Yang (Director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and Chair of International Stu- dies at the University of Washington); Guobin Yang (Barnard College, Columbia University) The ICAS Publications Series consists of Monographs and Edited Volumes. The Series takes a multidisciplinary approach to issues of interregional and multilat- eral importance for Asia in a global context. The Series aims to stimulate dialo- gue amongst scholars and civil society groups at the local, regional and international levels. The International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) was founded in 1997. Its main goals are to transcend the boundaries between disciplines, between nations studied, and between the geographic origins of the Asia scholars involved. ICAS has grown into the largest biennial Asia studies event covering all subjects of Asia studies. So far five editions of ICAS have been held respectively in Leiden (1998), Berlin (2001), Singapore (2003), Shanghai (2005) and Kuala Lumpur (2007). ICAS 6 will be held in Daejeon (South Korea) from 6-9 August 2009. In 2001 the ICAS secretariat was founded which guarantees the continuity of the ICAS process. In 2004 the ICAS Book Prize (IBP) was established in order to cre- ate by way of a global competition both an international focus for publications on Asia while at the same time increasing their visibility worldwide. Also in 2005 the ICAS Publications Series were established. For more information: www.icassecretariat.org Reading Contemporary Indonesian Muslim Women Writers Representation, Identity and Religion of Muslim Women in Indonesian Fiction Diah Ariani Arimbi Publications Series Monographs 3 Cover design: JB&A raster grafisch ontwerp, Westland Layout: The DocWorkers, Almere ISBN 978 90 8964 089 5 e-ISBN 978 90 4850 816 7 NUR 745 / 761 © ICAS / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2009 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or in- troduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Brother, this is for you! In loving memory of Bismoko Yunus Indirawan (1968-2007): a brother, a best friend and an inspiration Table of Contents Acknowledgements 9 Introduction 11 Reading Women Reading Writings: Feminist Literary Criticism at Stake 14 The Politics of Literature 15 Between Facts and Fiction: The Problematic Images of Women in Fiction 17 Constructing/Reconstructing Women: Women Reading/Writing Women 20 Identity Politics 22 A Gaze of Her Own: Authority and Subject Position(s) 23 From Private to Public 24 1 Contemporary Issues of Women and Islam in Muslim Societies 27 Reinterpretation of the Qur’an 31 Social Reforms 32 The Politics of the Veil 34 Legal Reforms 41 Educational Reforms 44 Theorising Islamic Feminism 47 Common Ground, Different Contexts 51 2 Gender Issues and Islam in Contemporary Indonesia 55 The Need for New Qur’anic Interpretations 66 Muslim Women in the Eyes of the Law: Their Rights in Private Spheres 68 Jilbab: Between the Politics of Identity and Body Politics 71 Indonesian Islamic Feminisms 73 3 Women Writers in the Indonesian Literary Tradition 75 Women Writers and Popular Fictions of the 1970s-1980s 75 The Pendulum of the Millennium: Liberation of the Generation 2000 79 8 READING CONTEMPORARY INDONESIAN MUSLIM WOMEN WRITERS 4 Authors, Their Worlds and the Female Traditions 85 Titis Basino P.I. 86 Ratna Indraswari Ibrahim 90 Abidah El Khalieqy 94 Helvy Tiana Rosa 99 5 Representation, Identity and Religion: Images of Muslim Women, Their Lives and Struggles in Fiction (Part I) 107 Women and Their Married Lives in the Works of Titis Basino P.I. 113 Spiritual Love 114 Marriage: Perfect Sexual and Souls Union 116 Polygamy and Infidelity 118 Gender Hierarchy in the Narratives of Ratna Indraswati Ibrahim 126 Valuing the Price of Woman: Female Subjectivity, Identity and the Body 127 Delimitation and Definition of Female Identity 130 The In-between-ness 135 6 Representation, Identity and Religion: Images of Muslim Women, Their Lives and Struggles in Fiction (Part II) 143 Abidah El Khalieqy and Her Feminist Project 143 Muslim Women and Their Rights 143 Education Rights 144 Reproduction Rights 148 Gender-Based Violence: Domestic Violence 151 Geni Jora and the Global Woman 152 Education and Travel 154 Helvy Tiana Rosa and Her War Stories 158 Armed Conflicts, State Violence and Women 160 Exile versus Home 163 War in the Global World 168 Various Women, Various Lives, Various Identities 171 Readership and Reader’s Responses 172 Responses to Individual Writers 176 Conclusion 181 Notes 187 Bibliography 207 Index 219 Acknowledgements This book could not exist without the help of many people with whom I share my love, my life and my gratitude. Most importantly, I am very grateful to Associate Professor Jean Gelman Taylor, Dr. Rochayah Ma- chali, Dr. Keith Foulcher, and Dr. Jan Elliott for their tremendous help. I am also grateful to my family and friends for their endless support and prayers for my well-being. Many people have indeed contributed their best parts to enrich my life through their guidance, support and prayers. There are so many of them that I cannot possibly mention all their names. From the bottom of my heart I thank them for being there for me. I could not have done it without them. Introduction Women, gender and Islam will always be a contested sight because women’s locus in relation to Islam is problematic when their status is manifested through the eyes of practiced Islam. Various interpretations of Islam have managed to define, locate and perhaps entrap women in certain fixed categories. Amina Wadud and her attempts to break the hegemony of patriarchal fiqh is an example of the problematic female position in Islam. Her endeavour to be an imam, by leading a Friday prayer in New York, triggered strong controversy.1 The possibility of a woman leading prayer for a male and female congregation resulted in outbursts from Muslim leaders and Islamic scholars. However, whereas many religious authorities condemned her action, several others supported her. What Wadud had attempted to do clearly brings gender issues into focus as the idea of a female imam for a mixed gender congregation remains a controversial issue. Amina Wadud is not the only woman struggling to conduct new readings of the Islamic teachings. The 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian Muslim woman judge, has shown that Wadud is not working alone. Ebadi, the first Muslim Nobel Laureate woman from an Islamic state focuses on the congruence of the discourse of human rights and Islam and its demanded actions. Ebadi believes that her use of Islam as a strong support in articulating and advancing human rights is justified. She states: [the] divine book (the Qur’an) sees the mission of all prophets as that of inviting all human beings to uphold justice (...) The dis- criminatory plight of women in Islamic societies, whether in the sphere of civil law or in the realm of social, political and cultural justice, has its roots in the male-dominated culture prevailing in these societies, not in Islam.2 For Ebadi, fundamental human rights and Islam are interfaced. She ar- gues that Islam should promote and safeguard human’s rights for all mankind, irrespective of differences, be it race, gender, faith, national- ity or social status. She acknowledges that Islam has been at times his- torically misused and complicit in the perpetuation of discrimination. 12 READING CONTEMPORARY INDONESIAN MUSLIM WOMEN WRITERS In her work as a judge, lawyer, lecturer, writer and activist, Ebadi believes that Islam can be a close ally in promoting justice and equality. The number of discursive orientations in which women can locate their self-determined political and ideological goals has risen signifi- cantly within a variety of different social and cultural contexts without assuming a fixed or essential a priori understanding of what it means to be a woman. Muslim women’s movements across the Muslim world have also become a pivotal part in the global women’s movement. The internet and mobile phone created networks of transnational feminisms where exchanges and interflow of information take place.

Load more