March

On March 3, 2018 (yesterday, as of this posting), I attended Women’s March Jakarta 2018, the long-anticipated sequel to last year’s Women’s March Jakarta 2017.

Here’s a quick rundown: the participants gathered in front of Sari Pan Pacific Hotel. At 8 AM (-ish), we were ushered into a formation and marched along the main road towards the Taman Aspirasi near the Monumen Nasional. There was already a stage and sound system set up by the time we arrived. We gathered around the stage, watched some artistic performances (some songs, some poetry, some dancing), and listened to some speeches and exhortations (?) about feminism and women’s rights. By 11.30 AM (-ish, again), the sky had gotten dark and started to drip, and – by coincidence or not – the event was closed with a few bullet statements from the organisers.¹

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As far as I can tell, the event was rather well-organised. The first thing I saw after I had parked my car was a van from PMI (Palang Merah Indonesia – the Indonesian Red Cross). The next thing I saw was a policeman. After that I saw some of the marchers, and then a street peddler, and after that I saw my phone, which went on for a while. But I digress. My point was that the organisers had evidently provided the tank players and the healer players, and as any online multiplayer gamer knows, if you’ve got those roles filled, it’s no trouble at all to find people willing to fill the DPS role.

And fill them we did. There’s talk on Twitter that some 2000 marchers participated, although I reserve some skepticism regarding that number. The great thing about these marchers, if I do say so myself, is that we were very docile and compliant. “Please stay in the marked area for the march!” We stayed. “Lift up your signs and posters!” We lifted. “Please gather around the stage!” We gathered. It speaks to how much we trusted the organisers, how like-minded we were. We knew each other. We knew why we were there.

Or did we?

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With moments and movements like this (political, I mean), criticism is inevitable. Which is good! Everything should be open to criticism. But it doesn’t follow, though, that all criticism is helpful, wholesome, or even valid. And from what I’ve seen (which is admittedly not a lot), most of the criticism leveled at Women’s March Jakarta 2018 isn’t really worth your time. They’re not really criticizing the movement, but particular problematic posters. And of course there were problematic posters. There was one accusing all (?) K-pop non-fans of racism (a silly generalization), and another one saying “Pedophiles should die”.²

(As for myself, I saw a participant yelling quite loudly about socialism and, I think, anarchism. I mean, I do support their right to speak for whatever they believe in, and socialism and anarchism are far from sins in my view, but I do wonder if they weren’t hijacking the march and making it about themselves. Maybe organise a march of your own for it, mate, if you’ve got the guts.)

But those were anecdotal. They don’t necessarily represent the march as a whole. No, the only criticism to the movement I find worth considering came from Hans David³ on Twitter regarding the language used in the march.

The march used English extensively. I cannot confidently say that they were the majority, but there were a lot of posters in English. In the speeches and the artistic performances as well, English was used liberally and comfortably. I know that English is often more concise and catchy than bahasa Indonesia. I’m using English right now for that reason, mostly! I’m saying that it is not wrong to use English. But since communication takes more than one side, it does raise questions about who made the signs and speeches, and for whom they were made.

The first question is easy: the march attendees largely came from Jakarta’s middle class. Obviously. That’s probably a big reason why the event was on a Saturday! If the march was on, say, Wednesday, no one would come. The weekend is when the work ends, and we can do things we actually want to. We, the economically somewhat stable, passably English-using, technologically savvy (for common everyday use) people of the city.

The second part, however, is where things get … interesting. Whatever the reason we say: conciseness, poetry, sophistication; it ultimately comes down to the fact that, for our purposes, English was just more comfortable to use. But our comfort means nothing to the person we talk to if they don’t understand English.

***

This, then, is the criticism: who did we march for? Who were our messages for? If they were for the common men on the streets where we held our march, why were they mostly in English? The fact that there were signs in bahasa Indonesia and people who made the effort to use bahasa Indonesia in their signs is a mark against the less accessible English posters. That is, if they had been for the common men’s benefit.

Maybe they hadn’t been! The signs may have been only for the sake of the sign-maker, in the same way that the way a woman dresses is for her own pleasure. But if that were the case, then I wonder why we had to be disruptive. And we were disruptive. During the march, we blocked traffic in a section of the road, creating a queue at least ten cars long. It was annoying for the motorists, certainly. The ones in the cars and motorcycles, they don’t care about the march. They just want to get on with their journey and their life. So it was understandable that there was some heckling and honking and even, in the case of one motorist, a vigorously enacted thumbs-down gesture. It should have been an opportunity for the people in the congestion to read the posters and for us to spark awareness and thoughts. But I’m not sure that that’s what happened.

However, if the war poets of old are to be trusted, there is one more, stronger reason why one might gather and march for a cause: for the person standing beside them. Maybe that's what the march was about. In the ninth hour of bombardment, when victory is little more than a pretty dream (or something like that) … it is our sisters and brothers on our side that keep us going. The simple fact that, yes, you are not alone. We are here, and we are in this together. Which is a perfectly fine sentiment … if only it weren’t for the fact that this was the second women’s march in Jakarta. Having “we’re here” as the core message is okay for a first-time gathering. But it’s been a year since the first. And it would be a pity if in the span of one year nothing much has changed.

But whoever said that a thing can only be about one thing? Maybe, probably, the march was about all of the reasons above. It was where we who call ourselves feminists, we who believe in equality for all, can gather and meet like-minded people, who each have their own purpose. Some people may have just started, and what they need most of all is to spectate and see the movement for themselves. Some may need comfort and assurance, and they can be thankful for the warm camaraderie. Some may have been here a while, and they guide the others, or shout their message from on high. All can be valid. The movement is not a monolith.

The march was the koinonia, if I’m permitted to use church lingo; the fellowship, which is quite important in a militant movement. And as every church needs reminding every week: this event is not the work. This is where you gather strength; this is where you remember your cause. Now go forth back into the world, and do good work for the cause.

***

Some final, personal thoughts: I am a cis male. I attended the march. I didn’t bring a poster, although it was recommended by the organisers. This is not just because I was too lazy to make one (although who can say, really). I didn’t make one because, while I did think of some slogans and demands about equality, I felt that, as one who is already privileged, it wasn’t my place to speak. That whatever I said would feel and be hollow. That women can and will say what I think, but better.

I am still in conflict about this. I feel like Mycroft Holmes in the 2016 Sherlock special episode, The Abominable Bride (SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!), who was (to those close to him) explicitly sympathetic towards the underground woman’s rights movement brewing in London. But he, one of the most influential persons in British government, didn’t do anything with his privilege in politics to help leverage the cause. Instead, he sits all day in a dark gentlemen’s club, stuffing his face, getting even more morbidly obese by the mouthful, calculating the days to his death.

Mycroft saw that the women needed to win. And I believe that women need to win. But I was afraid that to explicitly help women would be to diminish their role in their own liberation. I don’t know if I was right or wrong. But since I have privilege, and yet I was not moved to action, it is highly likely that it was cowardice, the fear of losing said privilege. Rather than risk being wrong, I chose to stay silent and support in indirect ways. It’s safe. It looks dignified. And as we’ve seen, it can be spun into some sort of benevolence, even. Yet, it still stinks of fear.

I didn’t go to the Women’s March Jakarta 2017 last year, even though I knew about it and vaguely wanted to. My not going was because I wasn't sure what the event was about, and therefore I wasn't sure why I should go. This year, I went, but I had nothing to say. I still wonder why exactly I came. But now, if I have to guess, I think it’s because I was – am – a coward, and I wanted to see what courage looked like.

What I saw looked something like this.

This was right before we started marching, which is why not so many signs were raised.

The two people in black were interpreters for those who required sign language. Wonderful.

Lala Karmela singing. Pretty good.

Yep.

Hannah Al Rashid doing a casual, bilingual speech.

I only took those few pictures. If you’re interested in more photos and commentary of the event, you should check out the official Twitter or Instagram account for the event, or the hashtags #womensmarchjkt and #womensmarchjakarta.

Thank you for reading!

1. Inexplicably, after that, Take On Me by a-ha started playing, so I went home rather hurriedly for fear of ending up as a monochromatic two-dimensional sketch of myself. Quite a great motivator, that.

2. It’s not the pedophilia – which is a paraphilia, a sexual attraction which is largely out of our control – but the statutory rape that should be punishable. And even then, capital punishment is still pretty dicey.

3. A journalist, @hansdavidian on Twitter – his account is locked, but you can always request to follow him if you want – I don't know him personally, but I follow him there, and the best impression I can make of him is that he would feel happy, maybe even honored, to be compared to Spider Jerusalem (go on, Google “Spider Jerusalem”. Read Transmetropolitan if you can!).