July 3, 2009
Head Scarf Emerges as Indonesia Political Symbol
A campaign poster showing Mufidah Kalla, left, and Rugaya Wiranto, wives of
candidates.
A stall in Jakarta selling Muslim head scarves, known
in Indonesia as jilbabs. Sales are booming in the country,
where women
traditionally went unveiled.
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
JAKARTA, Indonesia — The three parties competing in Indonesia’s presidential
election next week have plastered this city with campaign billboards and
posters depicting, predictably, their presidential and vice presidential
choices looking self-confident.
But one party, Golkar, has also put up posters of the candidates’ wives next to
their husbands, posing demurely and wearing Muslim head scarves known here as
jilbabs. The wives recently went on a jilbab shopping spree in one of Jakarta’s
largest markets, and published a book together titled “Devout Wives of Future
Leaders.”
Most polls suggest that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of the Democratic
Party will be re-elected in next Wednesday’s vote, after running a smooth
campaign based on his economic policies and a popular anticorruption drive.
Despite television debates, the personality-driven campaigns have focused
little on differences over policies or ideas, except regarding the wearing of
the jilbab.
It is perhaps not surprising that the jilbab, the Islamic style of dress in
which a woman covers her head and neck, has become an issue in a presidential
campaign this year. Jilbab sales have been booming for three years across a
country where women have traditionally gone unveiled, and where the meaning of
wearing the jilbab — or not wearing one — remains fluid. The issue also cuts to
a central, unresolved debate in Indonesia’s decade-old democracy: the role of
Islam in politics.
“It’s the first time that the jilbab has become an issue in a presidential
campaign in Indonesia,” said Siti Musdah Mulia, a professor of Islamic studies
at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University here and a leading proponent of
women’s rights. “There are so many more important issues that should be
addressed in the campaign,” said Ms. Mulia, who has worn a jilbab for eight
years. “Why this one?”
But it would not be the first time that politicians tried to co-opt religious
symbols to win votes. The ruckus over the jilbab began a few months ago when
Mr. Yudhoyono, whose wife, Kristiani Herawati, does not wear a jilbab, and Vice
President Jusuf Kalla, whose wife, Mufidah, does, decided not to run together
again.
The president selected as his new vice presidential running mate a respected
central banker, Boediono, whose wife, Herawati, goes unveiled. Mr. Kalla, in
turn, decided to run for president as the Golkar Party’s standard-bearer and
picked as his No. 2 a retired general, Wiranto, whose wife, Rugaya, is veiled.
(Many Indonesians go by only one name.)
Perhaps sensing an opening as it trailed in the polls, the Golkar Party soon
put up posters of the veiled wives. With the news media in tow, the wives went
shopping together for jilbabs at Tanah Abang, the city’s largest textile
market, where the general’s wife was known as a regular, but Mr. Kalla’s wife
was not.
Golkar Party officials rejected accusations by the president’s party that they
were trying to exploit Islam for politics; they also denied having anything to
do with the recent distribution of leaflets that stated, falsely, that
Boediono’s wife was not Muslim, but Roman Catholic.
President Yudhoyono was also getting pressure from a current coalition ally,
the Prosperous Justice Party, the country’s largest Islamic party. A party
leader said that members were gravitating toward the Golkar candidates because
of their jilbab-wearing wives.
The country’s Islamic parties have core supporters that are coveted by the
major parties, though the Islamic parties have failed to make inroads among
mainstream voters. In fact, in April’s parliamentary elections, they suffered a
steep drop in support compared with five years ago, a decline interpreted as
mainstream voters’ rejection of Islam in politics.
Neng Dara Affiah, an official at Nahdlatul Ulama, the country’s largest Islamic
organization, which espouses moderate Islam, said the fight over the meaning of
wearing the jilbab was taking place between “fundamentalists” and
“progressives.”
The fundamentalists are trying to force women to wear the jilbab as an act of
submission, and had already done so in various municipalities across the
Indonesian archipelago in recent years, Ms. Neng said. For the progressives,
she said, wearing the jilbab was an expression of a woman’s right.
“For women in Indonesia, whether they want to wear the jilbab or not is their
choice,” said Ms. Neng, who started wearing one five years ago. “It shouldn’t
be political.”
Despite being the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia does not have
a tradition of Islamic dress. Most Indonesian women started wearing the jilbab
in the last decade, after the fall in 1998 of President Suharto, who had kept a
close grip on Islamic groups.
Fashion and clothing industry experts said the number of women wearing jilbabs
rose sharply in the past three years, for reasons of religion, fashion or
something undefined.
“If you ask 10 different women why they’re wearing jilbab, you’ll get 10
different answers,” said Jetti R. Hadi, the editor in chief of Noor, a magazine
specializing in Muslim fashion, which features jilbab-clad models on its cover.
“You cannot assume that because a woman is wearing a jilbab, she’s a good
Muslim.”
At Tanah Abang, the market where the political wives shopped for jilbabs, many
small shop owners had recently switched from selling Western clothes to jilbabs
to capitalize on the boom. One shop owner, Syafnir, 53, said 7 of his 15
relatives working in the market had begun to sell jilbabs in the past two
years. He himself now has two stores; the second opened just two months ago.
Asked whether faith was fueling the boom, he shook his head emphatically.
Fashion was, he said, an answer echoed by others in the market.
Deni Sartika, 36, who was shopping with her mother and young daughter, all
three of them veiled, said she started wearing a jilbab in 1991, long before
most Indonesian women did. She was a member of the Prosperous Justice Party,
the Islamic party that supports President Yudhoyono.
Ms. Deni said she would vote for Mr. Yudhoyono and his vice president even
though their wives did not wear jilbabs.
“I’m looking at the candidates themselves instead of their wives,” she said,
before adding, “but we’d be happy if the wives wore jilbabs.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/world/asia/03jilbab.html?ref=asia
Copyright 2009
The New York Times Company
