An interview with Soe Tjen
Marching by Zara Majidpour
Soe Tjen Marching was born in Indonesia. She is a feminist,
academic, writer and a composer of avant-garde in Indonesia. I recently conducted an interview with Soe
Tjen Marching and I asked her the following questions about herself and her work.
ZM: You are a composer but
you have PhD in Asian and women’s studies. Why do you have qualifications in
two completely unrelated fields?
STM: I loved music since I was young. And I loved creating sounds out of anything. My parents were quite poor when I was young (my father was imprisoned and tortured by the second President of Indonesia, Soeharto, because he was a leftist and all of our property were confiscated). So, they had to start from zero. I was born after my father was out of the prison. But my parents were fighters, so in the end, they managed to do quite well, despite all the restrictions we had to face. Only when I was 10 years old, my father bought us an inexpensive piano. Then, I started learning but I wasn't a good player. I think because I am too stubborn and have an independent mind, I would rather create the sound I wanted to hear rather than merely obeying the notes other people had written. So, I started composing music for fun, until I met a composition teacher. But mainly, for music, I have been an autodidact.
I guess, the desire to think independently has made me questions a
lot of things in Indonesia, including women's rights. There is a strong
relation between my being a composer and a feminist. Women, who decided to
learn music, mostly end up becoming players.
Why? Because players mainly take
the passive part. As players, most of
them have to obey the demands of composers.
Who make them so? The voice and
prejudice of the past are consciously and unconsciously are often still
dominant. Women who try to succeed in the world dominated by men, are often
discouraged. It was also this negative
perspective on women which forced Clara Schumann to be satisfied with being a
pianist who often played the works of her own husband, Robert Schumann. She herself liked composing music – in her
own words: “Composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that
surpasses the joy of creation”. However, her “low self-esteem” made her write
in her diary: “A woman must not wish to compose -- there never was one able to
do it”.
So, my music and my writing are both channels
of my rebellion. For me, they are often inseparable.
ZM: On your twitter
page you wrote: God? If you want me to believe in your God, you'd
better know that there are thousands of formal gods in the world. So, which
God? Is being an atheist a big deal in a country like Indonesia
with an 85 percent Muslim population?
STM: I would rather not
define myself as an atheist. I am prepared to believe in God, if there is a
strong evidence of it. However, so far,
I have not been convinced. So, I refuse
to believe in things which have no evidence yet.
What I am really opposed to at the moment, is how the belief in
God is used for commercial values and to oppress women. In this way, it is somehow similar to the
belief in Santa Claus. People sell it to
make money. Both can be quite
patriarchal as well – the image of an old wise man does not go with my feminist
ideas. If I have children, I will not
make them believe in God or Santa Claus.
There will be no Santa Claus or the like in my house!
Being a non-believer is hard, while in Indonesia, you must have a
religion. On your ID card, you must put your religion down and I think
this is discrimination. What about people with no religion?
Usually, the believers can criticize or stigmatize the
non-believers whenever and whatever they want. However, when the non-believers
criticize the believers or religion(s), people will get furious and even
threaten us. Some of them threatened to sue us, some even sent some physical
threats as well. I have received several
threats, but the most disappointing one, came from someone I thought of as a
good friend. This was very-very
disappointing for me. But at the same
time, all of my experience has made me stronger and tougher.
I am lucky in a way, because I live overseas, although my mind is often still in Indonesia. I still have really good friends there, very loyal friends who disagree with my ideas but still love me and I have a project in Indonesia. But I think I can do a lot as well, from outside of the country. And I also consider myself lucky, because my husband is supportive of my ideas.
ZM: Fighting for women’s
right has a history in Indonesia, for instance an organization like Gerwani was
founded in 1950 and it had over 650,000 members in 1957. What are
the major problems that women in Indonesia face?
STM: Actually, in the past women’s rights in Southeast Asia were far
better than the counterpart in Europe.
Women in Java, for instance, had financial power. Javanese women were in control of the money
in the family, for instance (they ruled the roost). In terms of sexuality, Indonesia used to be
more liberal too. For instance, in the
Indonesian archipelago, gender restrictions have not always been
clear-cut. Several critics have noted
that during the Dutch colonialism, the people of the archipelago were sexually
lax compared with the then Puritan Europeans.
In his book Indonesian Fertility
Behaviours before the Transition: Searching for Hints in the Historical Record
, Terence Hull, for instance, states that Westerners who came to Southeast Asia
in the 18th and 19th centuries considered sexual practices there to be very
“loose”[i].
Not only were people
of the archipelago more tolerant to sexual laxity, they were also more
accepting of gender ambiguities, as a Western historian observed of gender and
sexuality in Southeast Asia in the 1960s: “Basically, S.E. Asians are far more
tolerant of personality deviation, abnormality and disorder than we are”[ii]. Source: M.A. Jaspan. Traditional
Medical Theory in Southeast Asia, University of Hull, 1969, pp.22-23.
However, because of several influence, also
after the coming of religions, especially Christianity and Islam), the view of
sexuality changed. At the moment, I think there are several problems for
women. Mainly, it comes from patriarchal
values plus the fundamentalist tendencies of religions in Indonesia.
ZM: Indonesia has a reputation as a country with
moderate and religious tolerance but in recent years we have seen another
picture. Bomb explosions or threats by a radical Islamic group led
to the cancellation of the concert of an American artist. Do you
believe that radical Islam is rising in Indonesia?
STM: When we say “moderate”
and “tolerant” – these two words are always ambiguous. Moderate and tolerant to
what? And Indonesia, like any other countries,
is complex. The government can be
moderate and tolerant to certain things, but not to others. For instance, since Soeharto was in power,
there was hardly any toleration of atheism or Marxism.
At the moment, the Indonesian government seems to let
fundamentalist groups roam rather freely. Many believe that there is a strong
connection between these fundamentalist groups and the government. So, in a way, the government may not be a
fundamentalist Muslim, but they use these groups to be the bulldog, to attack
people who are too critical to the government.
In addition, there seems to be a lot of money invested to develop
fundamentalism in Indonesia. There are cheap books which encourage
fundamentalism, for instance. However,
agnostic, atheist and non-believers are also growing. These people are quite supportive of my
project. I have founded an organization,
which publishes magazine called Bhinneka and also administers several online
discussions. We try to promote pluralism
and critical thinking. We encourage
criticism, especially of topics which are considered “sacred”. Because when things are considered sacred,
they can usually be free of criticism, and this is dangerous. For this reason, we encourage criticism to
anything considered “sacred”. And because of this, we have received scolding
and so many stigmas as well.
We also have several Facebook groups, with a total member of
around 12,000. Not all the members agree
with what we are doing. Some of them hover around only to scold us. But I am used to it. I just keep going with my ideas, and I feel
that this is the only way for me. This
what makes me happy in life.
ZM: In Aceh, which is under
Sharia law, the Sharia police wilayatul hisbah are checking people’s, especially young girls and women,
private matters like their clothes, etc. As a feminist, why has
radical Islam become so powerful in Aceh?
STM: I am not an expert of Aceh,
I am afraid. But I think, this has a lot
to do with the growth of fundamentalist Muslims in Indonesia. During Soeharto, these fundamentalist Muslims
were repressed, because there was no freedom of expression then. After Soeharto stepped down, the
fundamentalist Muslims, the liberals, the feminists can voice out their
thoughts more freely. They are no longer
under so much scrutiny. But this is the
consequence of a democracy with no awareness of and respect to human rights or
equality. Now, fundamentalist Muslims
seem to go stronger. For instance, fundamentalist groups can just stop
discussions on topics they don’t agree with.
In Surabaya in 2010, I was involved in ILGA
(International Lesbian and Gay Association) Conference, and the fundamentalist
group came and threatened us. The police did not do much. They suggested us to
leave the hotel and cancel the conference. But this was not the worst. Several people from religious minorities have
been attacked, beaten up and even murdered.
For instance, in 2011, three Ahmadiyah people were killed. After pressures from activists, the
government finally took the murderers to court.
However, they only got 3-6 month imprisonment.
Now, compare this with the imprisonment of Alex Aan. He only stated his conviction as an atheist
on the internet. I think, expressing
your opinions or ideas on the internet is more civilized than yelling in the
street or voicing out your belief in a loudspeakers, like what several
religious people have done in Indonesia. However, what Alex Aan did was
apparently considered an offence, and he has been sentence to 2, 5 years. Can you see the difference?
This
interview was translated into Persian (Farsi) and published in Shahrzadnew website.
[i] Terence Hull. Indonesian
Fertility Behaviours before the Transition: Searching for Hints in the
Historical Record (Canberra : Australian National University
[ii] M.A. Jaspan. Traditional Medical Theory in Southeast Asia . University of Hull
