Jenny’s Pennies

Banda Aceh, capital of the Indonesian province Aceh, was one of the areas worst affected by the 2004 tsunami. CBC News now report that the tsunami has been used as a pretext for implementing harsh Sharia laws in the province. The tsunami is seen as God’s punishment for women being immoral:

When the thousands bodies of women were found after the tsunami, almost all of them were naked. The sarongs and nightgowns they would have been wearing in their homes the morning of the tsunami were ripped right off their bodies by the force of the water. But conservatives pointed at the naked bodies as examples of the immorality of Muslim women. They said that God punished Aceh because the women didn’t wear the jilbab, the Indonesian term for hijab or headscarf.

The water that hit Banda Aceh, at one point reached 50 metres high in the air, and it came with such force that entire homes and buildings were swept away. The conservatives refuse to accept that it was perhaps the force of the water that removed the women’s clothing. In their minds, or at least in their propaganda, there were hordes of immoral women roaming around somewhere on this Muslim island, naked in the streets.

In the centre of the city, local officials put up a poster of a naked woman’s body with a caption declaring that women caused the tsunami.

To make sure God doesn’t punish them again, the Achenese were told they had to become better Muslims. This has given the Sharia police a type of moral authority that few dare question. Things have become so dogmatic in the region that all musical concerts must take place during the day, so women aren’t strolling the city at night. All movie theatres have been shut down because men and women should not be sitting together in darkness.

The “this is gods punishment”-rhetoric is a familiar one, used by fundamentalists of all kinds. People’s fears and questions - why did this happen to us? why did my brother die, while I lived? will it happen again? - become a political opportunity, and is used to further the agenda.

Natasha Fatah writes in the CBC report:

Most people have difficulty accepting the current Sharia law, but they say the problem isn’t the religious aspect, it is the implementation. Almost everyone says that it will be impossible to remove Sharia from Aceh now, it is too deeply entrenched. The task now has to be to adapt it into something the people can live with.

For centuries Aceh has been called the veranda to Mecca, but the truth is the Acehnese don’t want a Saudi Sharia law, they want the pluralistic and moderate form of religious governance. Something more in line with the norms of an Islam that is uniquely Indonesian. An Islam that would allow men and women to enjoy a cup of coffee at Solong café together.

Aceh was the scene of one of Asias longest running conflicts, which left at least 15 000 people, most of them civilians, dead. The tsunami was actually something which helped galvanize the peace talks between the Indonesian government and the separatist GAM movement.

After suffering from a long-running conflict and surviving a terrible natural disaster, in which lives, homes and livelihoods were lost, the people, and especially the women, of Aceh are now subjects to religious zealots controlling their lives.

The situation in Burma is not getting any better, but the eyes of the world is no longer on the country. Reporters Without Borders report that the internet is still closely monitored and that the connections are deteriorating:

/…/ in a move to step up control of Internet cafés, owners have been required since January to keep the records of their clients’ online activity and deliver them each week to a special police unit at the department of information. At the same time, according to Irrawady, a publication produced by Burmese exiles in Thailand, “the Burmese regime’s network of informers are now focusing their attention on Internet cafés, which are replacing traditional teashops as places where people can discreetly share their views with others.”

Women’s eNews has a feature up about Shah Paung, one of the Irrawaddy’s reporters. She gets her stories smuggled out from Burma by a network of secret informants communicating largely via mobile phones. Shah Paung comes from the Karen people, which face heavy persecution in Burma. Systematic rapes is one of the weapons used by the military government against Karen women.

Press freedom and freedom of expression are nonexistent in Burma. According to Reporters Without Borders, internet café owner and blogger Nay Phone Latt has been detained for a month now, apparently for owning a video of a traditional Burmese play called “A-Nyeint” performed by the theatre company “Thu-Lay-Thi.” Its performances are currently banned in Burma. And the editor and the office manager of the weekly Myanmar Nation, Thet Zin and U Sein Win Maung, has been charged for the possession of documents relating to human rights in Burma.

The Burmese military government recently announced that it will hold a referendum on a new draft constitution in May. The opposition and the exile democratic movement are critical of the process. And they have reason to be: according to the referendum law, decree 5/96, any person who make speeches, issue statements or posters in opposition to the referendum face penalties of up to three years in prison and a fine of 100 000 kyat (about 77 USD). This Irrawaddy cartoon tells much about the “choice” that the Burmese people will have in May.

The media spotlight has turned elsewhere, but Amnesty International reminds us that human rights abuses continue in Burma. According to new research by AI, there have been 96 arrests since November 1st last year.

“Four months on from the violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, rather than stop its unlawful arrests the Myanmar government has actually accelerated them,” said Catherine Baber, director of Amnesty International Asia-Pacific programme. “The new arrests in December and January target people who have attempted to send evidence of the crackdown to the international community, clearly showing that the government’s chief priority is to silence its citizens who would hold them to account.”

Read the full report from Amnesty here (or here, in Swedish).

A couple of months ago, everyone seemed to care about Burma. I, like so many others, joined the Facebook group “Support the monk’s protest in Burma” (link, requires login) and on September 30th 2007, we were urged to wear a red shirt to show our support. Which I did (well, it was a scarf, since I don’t own a red shirt, but whatever), and many with me.
(I am really quite skeptical of this kind of activism, as shown on Facebook. It’s easy to put on a red shirt and to feel good about supporting a good cause, but does it really achieve anything? I don’t know. I think I will need to elaborate on the issue in another post.) Now people are leaving the Facebook group by the thousands. I really don’t know why I’m still in it either - I mean I don’t really do anything, but anyways. I was glad to see, however, when I checked in today, that there still seems to be events and activism taking place in support of Burma around the world.

Resources to check out:
Svenska Burmakommittén (The Swedish Burma Committee)
The Burma Campaign UK
TBCC: Thailand Burma Border Consortium This is a charity consortium consisting of NGOs from nine different countries. TBCC provides food, shelter and non food items to refugees and displaced people from Burma.