Outside of my Bahasa Indonesia class I read about the many common celebrations in Indonesia. I was very intrigued by some of these holidays and wrote this passage in Bahasa Indonesia:
Ada banyak perayaan di Indonesia! Saya berfikir bawhwa tradisi di ulang tahun adelah aneh dan menarik. Saya ingin mencoba! Saya bisa belajar lebih di Eid al-Fitr. Bagaimana mereka memilih tanggal di Eid al-Fitr? Saya berharap berbagi perayaan di Eid al-Fitr dengan orang-orang di Indonesia. Kartini’s Day (Hari di Kartini?) maksud wanita Indonesia adalah merdeka!
I was particularly intrigued by the concept of Kartini’s Day, which celebrates the independence of women in Indonesia. After doing some more research into the holiday, I learned a lot! Kartini’s Day is celebrated on April 21st every year, the birthday of RA Kartini (1879). After giving up a scholarship to marry, as per the Javanese custom, she established a school especially for Javanese girls. Previously, Javanese women did not go to school at all. At Kartini’s schools she taught based on a Western curriculum and did not discriminate based on social status. She challenged the idea that women ought only to be educated in how to be a housewife and mother.
Kartini’s Day celebrates the equality of opportunity between men and women in the modern era. It is typically celebrated by dressing up in ceremonial clothes and costumes, parades, and various competitions.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/B_NLfOmjWrA/?utm_source=ig_embed
This year, the corona virus prevented Kartini’s day to be celebrated as usual. A public broadcaster aired a special educational video for senior high school students to make up for the lack of public celebration. Their program ‘belajar dari rumah’, or study from home, was 30 minutes long and aired at 10 am. This shows the importance of this holiday for Indonesian culture. Even during a global crisis that barred public celebration, this public broadcaster found a way to celebrate some of the strong women of Indonesia’s history. Although I haven’t been able to find the actual program (and I probably wouldn’t be able to understand it anyways), I have read summaries of the program. It focused on two national heroines: Maria Walanda Maramis and Keumalahayati. Maria fought tirelessly to advance Indonesian women’s rights and conditions at the beginning of the 20th century, while Keumalahayati fought against Dutch imperialists in 1599. Maria’s efforts led to the Dutch allowing Indonesian women to vote for representatives in 1921, and universal suffrage was proclaimed in Indonesia with their independence in 1945. I find this a particularly interesting fact, because there is a frequent assumption (at least from Western cultures) that Islam populations typically suppress women. However, their timeline of gaining suffrage and other rights is very similar to that of the United States. Furthermore, they have an important national holiday to celebrate equality of men and women. If that exists in the U.S., I have never heard of it or celebrated it. Instead, in Indonesia the holiday was important enough that many people regretted the inability to publicly celebrate it and developed alternative methods to acknowledge its value.
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