By Farish A Noor
Do groups like the Jamaah Islamiyah represent the latest stage in the involvement of women in public political life? Or do they represent a step backwards in women`s struggle for equality and emancipation from the power structures and institutions of Patriarchy?
Since 2005 there have come to light many research findings about the role women play in radical conservative religious groups in Muslim countries such as Indonesia.
For instance Indonesia`s radical group, called the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), is known to have recruited women as members of the organisation, but more in the capacity of wives and mothers of the group members. Among the better-known women of the JI are Noralwizah Lee Abdullah, Munfiatun al Fitri and Mira Agustina, all of whom married into the movement and played key roles in supporting their fathers, husbands and sons, who were involved in numerous disturbances all over the Indonesian archipelago.
Of particular interest is the question of whether the active recruitment, training and involvement of women in underground religious organisations such as the JI signifies a further development of women and improvement of their status in the context of developing states like Indonesia.
The question is here being raised against the backdrop of a society where women have always been active actors and agents on the social and political level, and where significant strides have been taken in the cause of women`s emancipation, education and political empowerment. Do groups like the JI represent the latest stage in the involvement of women in public political life? Or do they represent a step backwards in women`s struggle for equality and emancipation from the power structures and institutions of Patriarchy?
There are practically no Islamist movements in Southeast Asia today — be they of the moderate, modernist, progressive, fundamentalist or even militant variety — from which women are absent or deliberately excluded from membership and participation. Every single major Islamic party in the political mainstream in Indonesia and Malaysia, including the Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) of Indonesia and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), boasts of having a women`s wing with thousands of members, all of who actively participate in the internal politics of their parties and go to the streets canvassing support during elections.
What holds true for the mainstream Islamist movements and parties of Southeast Asia also holds for the myriad of underground radical religio-political movements in the region, including the infamous Jamaah Islamiyah of Indonesia. Yet any attempt to understand the role of women in the myriad of religio-political movements in Indonesia and the wider Malay archipelago today has to begin from several important historical premises:
Firstly, it should be noted that Malay and Indonesian women have always played a prominent role in social life, in all areas ranging from culture to economics, religion to politics.
Secondly, even after Islam had arrived in the Malay archipelago and taken root in the Indonesian-Malay world, it was Islam that was adapted to suit the mores and norms of Indonesian-Malay society rather than the other way round — in other words, Islam was rendered local rather than having the impact of radically altering socio-cultural life in the archipelago.
Thirdly, it is a historical fact that Indonesian-Malay women`s development was in tandem with the societal development of Indonesian-Malay society, and that women`s participation in the evolution of Indonesian-Malay politics, economics and culture was practically taken for granted. As testimony to this, it should be noted that when Indonesia claimed its independence in 1945 and when Malaysia was finally granted its independence in 1957, women`s emancipation was taken as a matter of course and it was taken for granted that women would have the right to vote, the right to education, ownership of capital/property, and the right to participate in political life, etc.
The tradition of having Indonesian Muslim women in public political life extended well into the 19th and 20th centuries. During the 30-year Aceh war the region also put forth women fighters like Cut Nyak Dhien, Chuk Nyak Muetia, Pocut Baren and Pocuk Meurah Intan, who resisted the full impact of the Dutch imperial army. Indonesia is also unique in the fact that it boasts of being the home of Laksamana Keumalahayati, who was the admiral of the Aceh imperial navy and perhaps the only woman in the world who ever occupied such an important post in a nation`s maritime forces.
It should therefore come as no surprise to us today if the radical Islamist movements of Indonesia have likewise opened their doors to Indonesian Muslim women whom they consider as potential members, supporters and allies in their religio-political struggle.
In all the women who have joined the Jamaah Islamiyah like Noralwizah Lee Abdullah, Munfiatun al Fitri and Mira Agustina, we are confronted by a phenomenon that baffles social scientists and feminists alike: How and why do these women — many of whom happen to be well-educated, and with economic agency and capacity of their own — choose to marry men who are committed to a social reform project that is carried out through violent means and whose ultimate objective is the creation of a social order that would place women like them in a secondary position?
In the case of women like Mira Augustina and Munfiatun al Fitri, it is not even clear if emotional attachment figures at all in the marriages they contracted with their spouses, or if their marriages were merely instrumental alliances that served a larger political cause than their own.
Once married and integrated into groups like the JI, however, it is clear that these women play a pivotal role in cementing the movement together and maintaining links between the members and disparate cells that operate across the Indonesian archipelago and beyond. Through marriage links the JI has maintained its network that stretches to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and further afield to Pakistan, Egypt and the Arab world.
Women may be courted by the JI and even encouraged by the movement`s leaders to contribute to the jihad against the West, but it goes without saying that there will never be a female leader of the movement. Seen in this light and taking into consideration the secondary role prescribed to them in the organisation, it would be difficult to classify the women of the JI as `Muslim feminists` as defined in the typology of Muslim intellectuals like Amina Wadud.
The women of the Jamaah Islamiyah like Noralwizah Lee Abdullah, Munfiatun al Fitri and Mira Agustina, may be seen by some as `pioneers` in the entirely new phenomenon of religiously-inspired militancy and urban terrorism in Indonesia, but in their commitment to help their men tear down the structures of the secular Indonesian nation-state and to roll back the social, economic and political development of women in Indonesia they actually help to corrode, downplay and marginalise the significant contribution of former generations of Indonesian proto-feminists.
Dr Farish A Noor is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights activist, and one of the founders of the www.othermalaysia.org research site
Source: www.dailytimes.com (2 April 2007)
