Celebrating Kartini's Legacy

Every 21 April, most Indonesians celebrate Kartini’s day in many different ways. At schools, it is celebrated by a flag hoisting ceremony followed by competitions focusing on females’ ability to perform domestic tasks, such as cooking and flower arrangement contests. Some women organizations also celebrate the day with similar contests, including fashion shows, parading women in traditional outfits from different parts of Indonesia. In some offices, such as banks, female employees are encouraged to wear traditional outfits (kebaya). A picture on the front page of Sunday’s Kompas showed that women exercised in kebaya to celebrate the life of an extraordinary woman who not only advocated the importance of education for Indonesians, but whose thoughts also had inspired the youth movement in 1908. Indonesians know who Kartini was, but let’s have a quick look why her life is given a significant meaning in Indonesian history.

Kartini was an avid reader and passionate writer. She continued to educate herself after dropping out from school by painting, reading newspapers and books. Due to her fluency in Dutch, she acquired a number of pen friends from the Netherlands, including Rosa Abendanon and Stella Zeehandelaar. She went to school until she was 12 years old, and during her schooling, she performed quite well in school. When she was 12 years old, as a part of the Javanese tradition among noble families, she did not continue her education and stayed at home until her hands were asked for marriage by the Regency Chief of Rembang, Raden Adipati Joyodiningrat. The marriage was of course arranged by her parents, and she complied with that decision to appease her ailing father.

Most of her letters expressed her disagreement in particular towards cultural practice in the Javanese society, which was considered as inhibiting women to participate in public domain. She also expressed her strong desire to see the world and contributed to the betterment of life, particularly among the ordinary people. At some point, her perception towards Javanese culture changed. She became more appreciative and tolerant, as her marriage granted her with a ‘blessing in disguise’. Her husband fully supported her idea to open a school for women. Support from her father and husband enabled her to achieve her dreams.

Kartini is considered as the pioneer of women emancipation in Indonesia. She, however, was more than a feminist figure. She was also a humanist whose love for fellow human beings and life had kept her spirit alive despite of the tradition that restrained her from achieving her goals and dreams. Her letters also expressed her thinking about inequality, not only gender related issues, but also between different races and socio-economic status.

Many people, however, forget that she was also an ordinary person, whose life, goals and dreams are shaped, influenced and determined by the social context and tradition during that period. She was strongly influenced by the European thinking through her passion in reading and her correspondence with her Dutch pen friends. Nevertheless, Kartini did not take Western ideas completely. She questioned, contested, challenged and came up with her own thoughts. Kartini even challenged her ustadzah when she asked her to read the Quran in Arabic. In one of her letters to Stella, Kartini questioned the obligation to read the Quran in Arabic, which she thought absurd given that no one understood the meaning of the Arabic words. She told Stella that it was almost impossible for her to love her religion (Islam) and practice it if she did not understand any words written in the Holy Quran.

She brought up this subject to Kyai Sholeh Darat, a prominent Islamic figure during that period, and her question inspired the Kyai to translate the Holy Quran into Javanese and gave the translated edition to Kartini as her wedding present.

In May 1964, Sukarno declared Kartini as a national heroine and decided that her birth date, 21 April, was a national day. This decision triggered a debate between people who were against and supported her. It was proposed that Kartini's Day should be celebrated in conjunction with the Indonesian Mothers Day, on 22 December, so that the choice of Kartini as a national heroine would not overshadow other women who, unlike Kartini, took up arms to oppose the colonial power. In contrast, those who recognised the significance of Kartini argued that not only was she a feminist who advocated the status of women in Indonesia, she was also a nationalist figure, with new ideas that later inspired the youth movement and struggle for independence.

There is nothing wrong with celebrating Kartini’s day by wearing kebaya and with cooking contests, as it is legitimate to have fun once a year (perhaps change cause probably you don’t mean to say people can have fun just once a year, but on more occasions) . However, by doing that we are actually undervaluing Kartini’s legacy. She did not only advocate the importance of education for women, but for all. She was not only concerned with women’s life, but also ordinary people’s.

In the Sunday Post, PT Kereta Api announced its plan to provide special treatment to the female passengers and employees to commemorate Kartini’s Day on Monday. This is something that should be appreciated, but why only one day? Millions of women travel in public transportation every day, get harassed by another passengers, and nothing can be done about that. If PT Kereta Api is really serious in celebrating the day, they should release a new policy that provides a number of special carriages for women.

It is nice to see female staff at the banks wearing kebaya, as they look beautiful in the traditional outfits, but more can be done than just looking beautiful. The bank’s executives could implement Kartini’s legacy by introducing a micro-credit scheme that is female friendly, particularly for small and medium enterprises. Grameen bank has been quite successful in empowering poor women in Bangladesh, and the micro-credit scheme has reached million poor families. There is hardly bad debt cases found in this bank, compared to the BLBI creditors in Indonesia, who still enjoy extravagant life style despite causing the country’s huge amount of loss and deficit.

In the meanwhile, there are hundred thousands of women migrant workers around the world desperately needing better protection from the government of Indonesia. There are many unresolved cases of physical and mental abuse to our migrant workers, and our consulate and embassies do not seem to be able to provide strong support and protection to them. There has been no firm action taken against the companies who send those workers abroad, which only reflects lack of willingness and action from the government’s side to protect our migrant workers. Pahlawan devisa is only an empty jargon, in which often those women come home without a single cent in their pockets. Some are even sent home dead, leaving the families confused and distressed.

There is nothing wrong with celebrating Kartini’s Day with fun and festivities, but it is also time to take more meaningful actions to implement her legacy. Yes, women have achieved a lot compared to Kartini and her sisters, but we also have a long way to go with gender equity, human rights and poverty alleviation issues.
Even though she had to stop her education at 12, Kartini still received tremendous support from her father and her husband to pursue her goals and dreams. To expose her with the outside world, her father took her to Batavia on business trips, and her husband fully backed her up when she started a school for women. These are good examples to show that Celebrating Kartini’s Day is not only women’s obligations, but also those for men.

Happy Kartini’s Day.