Indonesia: The politics of bare
flesh By Desi Anwar
BALI - The Balinese are calling it the
third Bali bomb, threatening to frighten even more
foreign tourists away from their beaches.
A proposed bill on pornography
currently under deliberation by Indonesia's parliament
could be the coup de grace for the island's
tourism industry - already in the death throes after
a second bomb attack that targeted tourists
(in October 2005) and recent fears over
the uncontrolled spread of the bird-flu virus,
according to Tjokorda Oka Sukawati, head of Bali's
Hotel and Restaurant Association.
Hotels,
restaurants and souvenir shops are slashing prices to
compete for the
continually dwindling number of tourists. Many vendors
are closing down and contemplating going back to
till the land, says Tjokorda. The proposed pornography
ban - which would make kissing and baring
flesh in public punishable by possible jail terms
and fines reaching into the millions of rupiah
- threatens to drive sunbathers to neighboring
countries' beaches at a time when Bali's
tourism industry is already deep in the doldrums.
Economics aside, the
proposed anti-pornography law and its oddly named
companion the "anti-pornoaction" bill vie to push
modern, moderate Indonesia in the direction of the
many repressive regimes seen in the Middle East.
The bill is generating a wave of popular
resistance from women who see the bill as a further
violation of their already limited rights. More broadly,
the proposed legislation threatens the harmony of
a predominantly Muslim nation that has
historically celebrated its unity in diversity.
The bill also threatens to undermine Indonesia's
hard-won democracy and new laws aimed at
protecting freedom of expression.
The porn
law threatens to criminalize various actions that
by their very nature are subject to interpretation
and would necessarily result in arbitrary
enforcement. For example, showing one's buttocks
in public can get you two to six years in jail,
though for some reason showing your genitals or
breasts is less of an offense, earning you only
one to five years in the clink.
For
masturbating in public, you can get two to 10
years behind bars, which incidentally is an
offense viewed only slightly less seriously than
pedophilia, a crime that carries three to 10 years
in jail. That's on par with moving one's body
erotically in public, which to some legislative
minds might incite sexual arousal and other moral
depravities.
Why Indonesia's legislators
are expending their valuable time to deliberate
the proposed legislation, particularly considering
that the laws on the books regulating public
decency, domestic violence and other sexual
offenses are still in need of better enforcement,
is mind-boggling. Syafriansyah, a legislator with
the Muslim PPP (United Development Party), has
said the country's morality is in decline and
hence the people need to be controlled to make
sure that the nation doesn't go collectively to
hell. The unnerving subtext is that prominent
members of certain Muslim parties are trying to
use the proposed legislation as a beachhead for
pushing forward their broader political agenda of
implementing Sharia law nationwide.
Aceh,
whose special autonomy status allows it to impose
its own brand of sharia law, which includes the
use of public lashings, publicly parading alleged
prostitutes and casting judgment on women's
attire, is the model these legislators aspire to.
In several urban areas, such as the regency of
Tangerang on the outskirts of Jakarta, some local
governments have taken advantage of their new
regional autonomy to arbitrarily force women to
wear head scarves and stay home at night or risk
being charged with soliciting.
Increasingly these Muslim politicians are
obsessed with issues of morality rather than
delivering on their electoral promises of cleaning
up corruption and creating a more just and
equitable society - the issues that got them
elected in the first place. Now that questions of
morality have entered the national agenda in the
shape of an anti-pornography bill, it looks as if
the central government also is keen to impose
these narrow sectarian values on the entire nation
- which could stoke ethnic, religious and cultural
tensions across the archipelago.
From
Papua, where normal clothing consists of penis
sheaths and grass skirts, to Bali, where the
baring of the flesh is an integral part of its
cultural traditions reflected in dances,
paintings, sculptures and even religious worship,
to Java, where female traditional costumes such as
the kebaya are designed to enhance a
woman's curves rather than hide them, Indonesia is
a testimony to a pluralist society that celebrates
its beauty and art in all its different
manifestations.
To force a
restrictive style of clothing, where women cannot show
their hair, arms and legs or move about in a manner
that might provoke lust in men, not only violates
Indonesia's basic laws and cultural character, but
threatens to undermine the greater regional
autonomy and grass roots democracy-promoting
policies the government is meant to be
implementing.
The secessionists in Papua
see this as another form of central government
arrogance and another reason to opt out of the
republic. Banners protesting the anti-pornography
bill in Bali are already calling for the Hindu
island's independence. At the same time, other
non-Muslim Indonesians are wondering how they
fit into all of this discussion.
The
Asian financial crisis hit Indonesia particularly
hard, and many people are looking to the
government to find ways to improve the economy and
up the national standard of living. Many wonder
why parliamentarians instead are dedicating so
much time and national resource to a cause that
appears to be a distinct move away from
pluralistic democracy and toward the
authoritarianism seen in many Middle Eastern
countries.
In practicality, it would be
difficult to impose this kind of law short of
assigning moral police across this archipelago of
more than 17,000 islands and 215 million people.
Most of the local arts and entertainment would
have to be banned as nearly all of the traditional
dances figure sensual movements and bare shoulders
of some sort, not to mention hiding away
paintings, sculptures and all kinds of traditional
art works that pertain to fertility and physical
beauty. Women would conceivably be forced to stay
at home as they fear being mistaken for a
prostitute or arrested for showing too much flesh.
The bill's hugely adverse impact would be as much
social as it would be economic.
Supporters
of the bill, who often decry the country's trend
toward liberalization as kowtowing to the
degenerate West, might be wondering why they have
encountered so much popular resistance. Past
efforts to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state
have been launched and failed. As a full-fledged
representative democracy, parties that campaigned
on fundamentalist platforms performed poorly
during the last round of presidential and
parliamentary elections. And if those that were
elected prioritize anti-pornography legislation
over improving the overall national good, they
could find themselves out of jobs after the next
polls.
Desi Anwar is a
Jakarta-based television and print journalist.
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