Hiréka Éric: Indonesian women and nudity

Some Indonesians are not careful enough when they say nudity is not part of Indonesian culture. Those saying that women, in the name of 'Indonesian culture', are meant to cover parts of their bodies (e.g. hair, shoulders, arms, breasts, etc.) and thus must be legislated in statutory law are perhaps ignorant of local histories and cultures. And worse is when they take the term 'Indonesian culture' as a massive, monolithic entity shared uniformly from Aceh to Papua.

Perhaps it is the idea of religion, not culture, that they actually bear in mind; specifically Islamic teachings implemented in a formalist and patriarchal way, feminists would say. This way, are we saying that religion is not compatible with culture? Well, no religion is born and develops in void. It's always living in a cultural milieu and it always forms and is formed by its adherents. Abrahamic religions, 'exported' by traders and missionaries to Nusantara archipelago centuries ago, had first of all to compromise with the already-religious communities. Some were successful in changing people's cultural behaviour and some weren't.

And here we are in the 21st century, still with vast cultural diversity and increasing assertion of group identity. I believe there's nothing wrong in interpreting human body, particularly that of woman, according to one's own religion. But it's always wrong to point your fingers to any woman and say, 'You're immoral because of your exposed body.' And it's also wrong to pass a law telling how women should or should not dress in public. The latter group should be reminded, 'Indonesian culture' is a plural noun.

Images were taken from the Internet, depicting women from different parts of Indonesia.