Soviet Woman, 30 November 1964: 'Indonesia's Independence Day' (Kongres X Kowani)

=== [PDF page 1] === NOVEMBER 1— National Day of Struggle for the Independence of Algeria Zo hr Looks to the F u tu re By V I C T O R TSOPPI “They are lucky, they will never know all that.” Zohr looked down from the cliff as she spoke, at the small beach and lagoon where children were splashing merrily about. Day was drawing to a close. It was an unu sually cool summer day for Alge ria, a soft and quiet day. The great metropolis, the capital city, lay just beyond the bend in the road. “What.won’t they know, Zohr?” “Any of the things I was telling you about." Zohr,' petite and frail-looking, wearing thick-lensed glasses, lit a cigarette and seemed to drift off in thought to a place far, far away, far from the cafe where we had been sitting for the past hour, far from the children’s shouts and laughter, far from the lapping blue waves. that 1 absolutely had to cast my vote for the independence of my country in the referendum that was to be held on July 1st. They would certainly have managed without my vote, but I wanted so desperately to take part in this expression of my own Algeria’s will for lifelong, eternal freedom.” The war for Liberation was the first step towards emancipating the country’s women. “We proved tha-tj we, too, could fight, that we could be as unbend ing as our men, that we could con quer together with them,” Zohr con tinued. “We will never relinquish the equality we have won. Many women still hide their faces behind veils, following a tradition as old as the world, adhering to the will of their husbands or fathers. But they are the last of their kind. A. new generation of women is grow ing up, one that will work and study in the schools and universi ties. This generation is only fifteen or sixteen-years-old today. It is a happy generation, for our country has chosen socialism as its goal. At present there are still many unemployed men, but tomorrow we will build our own industries, agri culture will develop, there will be institutes of higher learning, and then the country will need every pair of working hands.” As I listened to Zohr Zerari I thought of her countrywomen now working alongside the men on lands taken from the French land lords, of those who are awaiting the nationalization of lands of the Algerian landlords. I recalled the long lines of widows, waiting to receive their pensions, the little shepherds trudging along the roads of the plains, and the lithe young girl on the rostrum at the Algerian Students’ Congress. I recalled that Algeria now has its first woman pilot, its first woman judge, its first women poets and painters. And then the most striking scene of all came to my mind, that of white islands in the dark human sea during the mass meetings held in Africa Square in the centre of the capital. Those white islands were groups of women dressed in their traditional white robes. Many covered their faces with white veils and stood separately from the men, as custom demanded, but when President Ben Bella proclaimed: “Long live free Algeria!”, “Long live peace!”, “Long live the social ist revolution!” their voices drowned out the thunder of applause as they rose in a never-to-be-forgotten sound, guttural yet high, like the cry of a strong, proud bird: “Free Algeria! Peace! Socialism!” The cry carried over the city and out to sea. Time will pass quickly, and wom an’s freedom, her equality with man in social life and in labour will be come the accepted way of life in socialist Algeria. Today more and more people are coming to under stand the full meaning of the words of Ahmed Ben Bella: “It would be a great mistake to try to build socialism without the participation of women on an equal footing with men. To deny this means to slow down the pace of the revolution!” “I have only been in the Soviet Union three months, but already I feel at home here,” said Madame Manai Sofian, wife of the Ambassador of, the Indonesian Republic, in an interview with our correspondent. “I have had occasion to visit Alma-Ata, Leningrad and Stavropol and was greatly impressed by these trips. There are Indonesian students studying in all the cities I visited, they have formed real friendships with Soviet youths and girls and are frequent guests in their homes. They all feel happy here. And I cannot tell you how pleased I was at seeing this.” Madame Sofian and I met at Friendship House in Moscow where people gathered to mark the nineteenth anniversary of the independent Republic of Indonesia. Among those present were actors and writers, teachers and workers, professors and students. Some of them have been to Indonesia and have seen the enthusiasm with which the Indonesian people are building their life, they have discovered first-hand their hospi tality and warmth and have brought back with them a lasting impression of the beauty of Indonesia. . Vladimir Valeiko, a representative of the youth organizations of the USSR, put it this way: “If you have once been to this country you can not help loving it for the rest of your life.” This past summer a group of Soviet women attended the 10th Con gress of the Federation of Indonesian Women’s Organizations. Nina Orlo va, Member of the Presidium of the Soviet Women’s Committee, told us about their trip. “We were impressed by the social consciousness of the Indonesian wom en. They attend various groups, they study and work, they like to sing Zohr was only silent for a mo ment. Yet in this short moment her life, told to me in brief, terse phrases, seemed to pass before my mind’s eye once again. Zohr was twenty years old when she was -arrested. She was in two prisons in Algeria and nn five pris ons in France. Zohr and her friends were tortured by French parachute troopers, who were a good match for the Gestapo’s worst sadists. Zohr was tried twice “for terrorist acts" against France—for carrying out the orders of the un derground organization, the Na tional Liberation Front. She was first sentenced to sixteen years in prison, then to life imprisonment. “There were hundreds and thou sands of girls like me,” she said. “Call me Malik, Jamila or Fatima and everything else remains the same, everything else will hold true. I returned to Algeria on the eve of July 1, 1962. I told myself INDONESIA’S IND delegation of the Soviet Women's Committee was invited to Indonesia by Madame Hurustiati civic and political leader of the country, to take part in th Subandrio, an outstanding sessions of the 10th Congress of Kowani, the Federation of Indonesian Women's Organizations. Our visit coincided with the state visit of Mr. J.M.A.H. Luns, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. As we rode through the streets of Djakarta I thought that many things the Dutch visitors would see in Indonesia today would surprise them. A new city is emerging on the site of the former Batavia, which the Dutch colonialists had built as a copy of Amsterdam with its narrow canals, forbidding stock market buildings and hovels for the Indonesians. Today Djakarta is a city of broad thoroughfares, large modern office buildings, spacious squares and fountains. The sports stadium built with the aid of the Soviet Union adds to the city's attractions. The crowning touch, the symbol of the new land and the new, free men that inhabit it, is the monument, in one of the main squares, of an Indonesian who has broken his chains of slavery. W e spent two weeks with our Indonesian friends, we came to know them better, we learned much about their life and their aims. This trip to this city was as wonderful, as unforgettable as my first trip to this beautiful country. I think I will be correct in saying that one cannot really understand a country or its people if one does not know about the status of its women. Many things became clear and nearer to us when we got to know our hosts better. No matter where we went, to Djakarta, Denpasar, Bandung or Djok jakarta, we met with the warm hospitality of ogr Indonesian friends. The Kowani Congress was held in the sports stadium. Several thousand women attended. The delicate white jasmine blossom, symbol of the wom-