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*
Seven percent of all men are gay. But most Indonesians don’t want a lesbian or homosexual as their neighbour. Fifteen percent of all inhabitants is not Sunni in Indonesia. Yet almost one in every two Indonesians doesn’t like to have someone who adheres to a different religion in their neighbourhood.
Deviancy usually is frowned upon. Many, if not most people tend to be ill at ease in the company of men and women who are, look , think, behave different from themselves. Hippies made common middle class persons feel uncomfortable. Disabled people often run into fellow human beings trying to avoid them. Conservatives prefer to befriend conservatives rather than liberals. And vice versa. Most inhabitants of Amsterdam probably wouldn’t like their neighbour wearing a Niqab and most inhabitants of Bandar Aceh in all likelihood wouldn’t want lo live next to an atheist. It’s not easy to be Black out of Africa, Asian in Russia or Caucasian in Zimbabwe. Or Chinese in Indonesia. Majorities generally are not fond of minorities. Discrimination is in our veins. Not just in South-East Asia, but everywhere.
However condemning discrimination and supporting tolerance is an act of civilization. It’s a product of increasing prosperity, education and a global orientation. At the start it is an elitist hobby. Fragile. Even in countries where any discrimination by ethnic, religious, gender and other criteria has been outlawed. Yet in my opinion anti discriminatory laws and systematically cultivating cultures of tolerance is a public obligation.
However the situation in Indonesia is worrying. There is no real progress. In stead conditions seem to be deteriorating.
According to the LSI researchers, intolerance is up under SBY’s watch. Today one in every three well educated Indonesians ( at University level) and even two out of every three Indonesians who have a poor or even high school education, reject Shiites, Ahmadis and most of all homosexuals. Some 30% of the population even agree with religious based violence towards them. So, a huge minority of the archipelago´s population backs beating minorities into conformity. Poverty, ignorance, an absent state and aggressive religion make a rich ground for homophobia and other discomforts - especially in rural and poor parts of the country. No diversity. No unity. Demand respect, don’t offer respect. Just bully the deviant bastards into compliance with opinions, attitudes, habits and codes of the majority religion.
Christ!
Unfortunately deviant minorities can´t really rely on a state of law. Anti discrimination laws are not effective. Alleged causes are a weak state, indecisive leadership and poor law enforcement.
Neither can they hope for a systematically growing culture of tolerance. In reality it is like the ´Dancing procession of Echternach`; two steps forward and one step back. Or in this case : one step forward, two steps back. It’s no exception authorities get bribed to side with Sunni vigilantes who represent religious intolerance.
A dramatic U-turn is necessary. It’ obviously will be quite a challenge to the next government and to the informed, progressive part of society. Perhaps this JP editorial advice might be a bold and promising start: Gay Official? Why not?
* From The Muslim Times: Fostering Intolerance.
you know, we had a high-ranked (almost openly) gay official years ago.
@ triesti: See, once ,ore I underestimated RI’s progressiveness
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Amazing, actually I didn’t have a clue. Who was that fellow? In what position? Do you know what kind of public treatment he experienced? Did “almost openly” mean something like the old USa-policy “Don’t ask…”?
he was a minister actually.. there were scandals abroad involving his shenanigans during his tenure if I’m not mistaken. I think people suspected his orientation after that.. but of course it’d been denied.
when I just moved back, there were several men who I thought were gay, but somehow they told me about their GF/wife&kids. I still think they were on the down-low, as in using family as a cover of their gayness.
It’s an interesting post like “Gourami Fish From Thailand” written on my blog. Salam, Jerry !
@ Utomo: Gay Gourami Fish?
. I’ll check it out.
@ triesti: So there was no coming out?
I don’t reject them as person, but I don’t agree with their choice.
Because sometimes being lesbi or gay is not their choice, they just following trend and getting contaminated from surroundings.
@ Ladyulia:I’m sorry this time and on this issue I disagree. To my best information our degree of manliness and femininity depends on our chromosomes, DNA, genes. Gay and lesbian people are born that way. Some extremely much so, some somewhere in between homosexuality and heterosexuality.Like bisexuals for instance. Actually just the way I happen to have been born to be male, white, one meter and seventy centimetres as an adult and heterosexual. It’s not a choice, it’s not a fashion, it’s chance, a random trick nature plays on us ( to believers of monotheistic religions: the Will of God).
Actually the only choice homosexuals have in homophobic environments is whether to live a life in truth ( as a homosexual) or live a life as a lie (cover up their nature by pretending to be straight – in all likelihood at the cost of their partners and children and their own integrity).
It is folly to expect tolerance and harmony, religious and otherwise, in a country where freedom of conscience and freedom of expression are not fully tolerated. It is folly to expect tolerance and harmony, religious and otherwise, among a people and culture where religion, scripture and ritual trump civic decency, reason and the law. Textbook case of rewarding X while hoping for Y. The sad harvest of decades of misguided, self-serving and discriminatory laws and practices. What exactly do you expect, really?
@ Mauricio: I admit it’s pretty easy to me at some 12000 kilometres distance, not to be overwhelmed by cynicism. Compared to people in the front-line it’s peanuts to advocate and believe in the rewarding outcome of ongoing dialogue with the sensible majority – or if necessary even with a sensible minority.
And living far away it’s also easy to keep desperation away. Especially since all Indonesian people I meet and know don’t fit the doomsday characteristics which obviously are part of your experiences.
So if it’s a folly to believe in and preach human rights and tolerance in RI, I guess it’s worth to be a fool. And on behalf of all those fools and all Indonesians with similar thoughts, attitudes and actions, I second all kinds of discussions – face to face and in writing- furthering these ideals. Otherwise the voice of reason perhaps could gradually be silenced by aggressive narrow-mindedness in the archipelago ( and elsewhere).
It’s not doomsday, but rather basic logic. Why are people surprised at the sad harvest as of late? It’s not like it’s unexpected or spurious. We are talking, after all, about religion, a corrupt and largely ineffective state, a deeply religious people, a lopsided religious majority and laws and regulations that often make a mockery of human decency (the blasphemy law, for example, that has abetted the violent repression of the Ahmadis and convictions of a Shia cleric for deviancy). The only surprise is that people are still surprised.
@ Mauricio: Facts are facts, but perceptions and interpretations are subjective. And I can’t but assess your and mine perceptions and interpretations ( perhaps even our “logic”) differ to some extent occasionally. Possibly partly because Indonesian facts often are fuzzy and obscure, partly I assume because of our different perspectives, maybe partly because of my relative ignorance and also partly because of our different positions on the optimism-pessimism continuum.
I would like to add that I’m convinced that these kind of differences make discussions worthwhile.
Meener, what I have said, “It’s folly to expect…” applies to all countries, not just Indonesia.
@Mauricio: Well Mauricio, hummm, okay…. But I’m supposed to be the grumpy old man, remember?
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[Tolerance, solidarity, human rights, equality, freedom - I'm not that naive I think the earthly paradise will ever be be established and be eternally. But those concepts definitely are the contours on the horizon worth trying to reach. While keeping in mind that every step forward at best creates a fragile equilibrium. As a matter of fact I lived through an age in which I experienced the horror of Nazism and the progressive blessing of social democracy as well the present set backs of neo-liberalism. I know it's possible to make progress while running the risk of regressing all the time. Life provides ammunition for both pessimists and optimists.-). ]
what dazzles me though, people seem tolerate transgender better than macho gays. maybe because they expect gay to be effeminate and flamboyant? (like the stereotypes in movies)
@ calvin: That definitely is puzzling to me. Transvestites and transsexuals – at least to my knowledge- are no less, rather more deviant than the average homosexual. In one way or another their occasional extravaganza obviously does fit better in Indonesian culture- and I really would like know know which way that is.
What’s more deviant? Sexual practices and predispositions that are innate and congenital, or religious sanctimony and demonizing?
@ Mauricio: The reasons why different societies ( and different individuals) give different answers to that question is an interesting subject for some sociological theses I guess
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