Recounting, What It’s All About

Sitting in snowy London, making my way back to Chicago.

My six month internship with the United Nations Office of the Recovery Coordinator has finally come to an end. It’s been a real learning experience, with ups and downs, trials of my commitment to the industry of development and maybe a few tribulations of my altruistic, if not naive beliefs as to how to make the world a better place and improve the quality of life for everyone. Altogether though, it has been very rewarding on various fronts and I am leaving with a great breadth of knowledge about a career in development,  Acehnese society, the complexities of conflict and disaster recovery, Indonesia and the Asian continent, the world at large and, of course, myself.

The Solution Exchange project that I have been devoted to for the past 4 months has taught me so much, and we can only hope that it has that affect on the development community and decision makers of Indonesia.  A few weeks ago a response came in to the Gender Community that reminded me why this is worth it – what it’s all about – and I would like to share it with you and hope that it swells you with optimism the way it did me and my colleagues at SE.

This is how it works – a community member writes in with an issue and question looking for responses from the rest of the community in the form of advice, experiences, contacts etc. The mechanisms that make SE unique, and not just another mail group, is that because we are dealing with very heated topics, in an ultra sensitive environment with a diverse membership, we ‘moderate’ the responses. This means we work with the authors and respondents to ’sensitive’ their written contributions as well as do extra research to support the contributions with documents, links, and other useful resources. ‘Whole Answers’ I like to call them.

Anyway, to the point – here is the ‘Query’, or the question, put to the Gender Community and one response that has affectionately been named ‘The Amazing Response’ around the office. It’s lengthy, but if you take the time to skim through it’s very touching. Enjoy.

Query:

My name is Rinie, a female political activist from a nationally-based political party. I am very happy to find this online forum discussing gender and women’s issues, particularly in the Acehnese context. I have followed the discussion on the first query and it gave me a greater interest in women’s issues, specifically women and politics.

We will conduct the 2009 election in April and I will run for the ”Member of Parliament”  position at the national level representing the Aceh region. I am creating a campaign strategy that focuses on women and gender issues. I believe that the campaign period is an important time to explore and socialize women’s issues in the context of the election. Therefore, it is important to design an educative campaign to carry out women’s rights issues. Additionally, I am preparing a political agenda that accommodates women’s rights.

Indeed, I understand the importance of being aware of the specific Aceh context in designing a gender-responsive campaign program. To this end, I need advice from all members of Gender Community, which political activists could raise. Specifically,

1. What are the major issues affecting women’s rights in Aceh, and what could be some strategic entry points to address them?  Could there be synergies with existing gender programs that could be built on?

2. Also, could you share any experiences or advice about ways to use the political campaign as a vehicle to educate the community on women’ rights?

I hope that members of the forum can share their thoughts and experiences about this issue. The replies will be useful for all political activists for creating pro women’s rights agendas in the context of the 2009 election.

Thank you very much.

With warmest regards,

Rinie

A Female Political Activist

Banda Aceh

Response:

Greetings!

My name is Fitriwita, a female parliament candidate of the National Front Party (http://www.partaibarnas.org). I run for this position from the electoral region of Bogor I, Central Bogor, West Java. I am very glad to read Nila Wardani’s response in this gender forum. Using this opportunity, let me share experiences and information related to the topic on enhancing women’s rights in the context of the election.

Since the Commission of Election issued the List of Parliament Candidates (http://www.kpu-kotabogor.com/dct/6PBN.htm), I have started implementing a number of agendas to introduce myself to my potential political supporters. I present my political visions and mission as parliament candidate and my agendas if I am elected as a member of parliament. I have been doing home visits and engaging with people at the community levels. So far, I have visited 17 destinations that are part of my electoral region in district Bogor (Central Bogor and East Bogor). I also displayed my home openly to make it easier for people to know and understand me, my family and my team work. I have formed a regional based Coordinator Team. Currently, the Team consists of 26 people from 18 villages in Central Bogor and East Bogor. They give inputs and advice based on the real problems of their communities. Almost for two months now, I  have mingled with people at the community levels, women and men, to learn together about democracy and appreciation for diversities and differences. I facilitated the establishment of a youth organization called “Karya Muda” to mediate their interests and instigate participation in solving social problems around them. In the mean time, this organization is working on strengthening social sensitivity among potential participating groups, including those from governmental institutions. This is an example of their positive initiative to participate in overcoming any social problems. Indeed, this initiative hasn’t got a positive response from governmental bodies.

However, it is not easy to conduct these agendas. I encountered a number of challenges. Gender based biases are one of the biggest obstacles. As a female candidate, it is usually only the women who pay serious attention to my political programs, while men’s groups often times close their eyes when I present my visions and mission as a parliament candidate. Hence, I view that female parliament candidates have to work hard to convince them by showing our capacity and integrity. A traditional view that “men are leaders over women” still overwhelms gender perspectives of the people and presents hard challenges in our work a female parliament candidates. Furthermore, money politics in our political habits is another big problem for parliament candidates who want to be consistent in delivering “good politics.” I believe that female candidates have a key role in working on throwing money politics out from our political arenas by using political campaigns to build political integrity, especially among women’s groups.

I understand that a real problem living in our society are the needs of food. In fact, politicians and parliament candidates often manipulate this situation to operate negative political campaigns, including money politics. They give people cash or a package of food, an instant program that does not necessarily solve the substantial problem. It is important that as female parliament candidates, we utilize the event of the election to educate people and protect them from such political traps. Of course, this is a huge challenge that requires hard work and strong commitment to awaken people’s political integrity so that they have self defense and control of the custom of money politics.

I’m used to living with the dilemma of keeping my idealism and feeling guilty when I look at people’s situation of living under poverty and lack of food. I try supporting them in building political integrity and self defense mechanisms against negative political movements like money politics because this is a lasting contribution. In this regard, it is my view that a priority agenda in the context of the election is a campaign for economic independence by establishing small businesses and developing public infrastructures and facilities.

It is not rare that I face a fit-and-comply situation trapping me to follow the norms of money politics. I just work hard on keeping my commitment to appreciate our humanity as human beings. I do learn not to be manipulated by a vested political interest from politicians who use the power of money to buy people’s voices. I have a principle that as a female parliament candidate, “I have to be a role model for my political constituents in terms of political integrity. I have to honor them before I insist they honor me.” In this context, it is invaluable that female parliament candidates are required to remind their female fellows not to follow negative political campaigns.

Another challenging obstacle is the tendency of using religious teachings and activities as political campaigns to attract people’s sympathy. I experienced this situation when I once conducted socialization, I was advised to go to religious circles and use them to introduce my political visions and missions as a parliament candidate. I strongly rejected this idea since I did not want to “manipulate” my religion for the sake of my political goals. It is necessary that parliament candidates have to open themselves honestly, both good and bad sides, in front of their supporters. Using religious attributes in a political campaign will possibly hide our real identity as politicians. I do not agree with the tendency of mixing political interests with religious teachings and practices; politics should be separated from religion.

Furthermore, as a parliament candidate, I need to use my own capacity to convince my political constituents. I do not agree with the way some politicians attach themselves to a big-name/figure to boom the numbers of political supporters. I want people to vote for me because in their eyes I have qualifications as a member of parliament. It is important for us as female parliament candidates to use the event of the election as a medium of public education to contagiously spread integrity in our political stages. My point here is that the effort of changing people’s mind-set toward good political habits has to begin with ourselves. The bravery of expressing this idea in public spaces, including in this forum, is part of a political contract; hence, people could control my actions and behaviors during the campaign periods and my assignment as a parliament member if I am finally elected.

This is all the information and experience that I can share with members of this forum for now. I hope it is useful, particularly for the fellow female parliament candidates, including those in Aceh, who are working hard not only to be elected, but, more importantly, to build a more democratic political culture in our beloved country.

Thank you very much,

Fitriwita

The National Guard Party

Bogor, West Java