Dawn Over the Equator (Monica Felton on the Second Gerwani Congress, 1954)

=== [PDF page 1] === ) No. F/R ATS, S40 444 A dwelling in Sumatra. The number of Sables indicates how* many families live in the house. Dawn Over the Equator The palace, set back behind green lawns, and with the sky above it a pale, limpid, cloud-flecked blue, was whiter even than the clouds: small, but exquisitely proportioned, with the wide flight of marble steps leading the eyes upwards to the colonnade whose Pillars seemed, in the brilliant light, as fragile and crystalline as spun sugar. Between the columns and along the flight of steps were sreat urns filled with flowering shrubs, and the women who climbed the steps looked like flowers, too, slender and very graceful in their quiet-toned sarongs worn beneath silk blouses of rainbow brightness, orange, mauve, green, lemon, blue, pink and scarlet. The Second Congress of the Indonesian Women’s Movement had ended two days earlier, and now the leading members of the movement, whose vigorous words ‘amd actions during the Past week had been in such striking contrast to their fragile delicacy of appearance, had been invited, along with their foreign guests, to meet the head of the Indonesian Republic, President Sukarno, and his wife, at the palace which had once been the focal point from ‘which Dutch imperial rule had radiated out from Java to the remotest islands of an empire that stretched 10 by Monica Felton, Vice-President of the W.1.D.F., Delegate to the Congress of Indonesian Women thirteen hundred miles from east to west and more than eight hundred miles from north to south. The President, after conératulating Ger wani [the Indonesian women’s organisation] on the success of the Congress, went on t speak. “In a country which is seeking,” he said; “to realize full national independence, the development of a powerful women’s movement is of the greatest importance, both in raising the status of women themselves and in helping in the fight for independence. No country can be free unless its ‘women are also free, and women who fight for their rights as women and for the defence of children are not fighting only for themselves, but for men, too, sr?! We begain to talk of some of the problems which face Indonesia today. “You must understand,” the President remarked to Mrs. Dickie, who had come from Australia to represent the Union of Australian Women at the Congress, “that when we insist that West Irian — or Western New Guinea as you call it in Australia — is an essential part of the Indonesian Republic this does not mean that we Shall ever claim any right over the rest of New Guinea, and I hope that you ‘will tell that to the Australian people Dutch a logic the on | probat and na Indone war. Indo its wea its mas of poor togethe distant gates w babies village. interva at the | a crect placed cared 1 babies they a them \ after t} most o of men In In especia the fact andas out the nesia aggress armed are atte ment a ant res welcon against an unf 9ortant unders! in nos the cor first G: mext yo whole ( The « would contain mone, t which i recogni all wor how to + Now the Coun: === [PDF page 2] === Zeople when you return. West Irian was a part of the old ‘Dutch empire in the East Indies, and for that reason it is a logical part of the Indonesian Republic. But that is not the only reason why we claim it. The Dutch, as you have probably already heard, have three important military and naval bases there, and as long as those forces remain Indonesia itself can never feel free from the threat of war. am Indonesia is a very rich country, but, since so much of its Wealth is still being drained away by those who ‘were its masters in the past, it is still almost wholly a country of poor people. Great sacrifices had been needed to bring together, not only from Java and Sumatra but from distant islands, the three hundred and forty-nine delegates who attended the Congress. Many had brought their babies with them, since there was nobody im their own villages with whom they could be left, and during an interval on the opening day I slipped round to the room at the back of the Congress hall that had been turned into a creche. Most of the babies were asleep on mattresses placed along the floor, and they looked chubby and welliT cared for.. “Yes,” one of the mothers said to me, “our ~ babies are usually beautiful and healthy — but only until they are about a year old. When the time comes to wean them we usually can’t afford the food they need, and after that they start getting sick, and even if they live most of them don’t get a chance to grow up into the sort of men and women they ought to be.” In Indonesia, as in Europe, the people, and perhaps especially the women, are waking to a clear realization of the fact that peace and a better life must be won together, and a sense of this realization could be recognized throughout the discussions at the Congress. And peace in Indonesia today means not only security from extemal aggression, but security from armed bandits, financed and armed from anti-republican Dutch and other sources, who are attempting, to undermine the authority of the government and to terrorize the people. One of the most important resolutions passed by the Congress enthusiastically welcomed the firm measures taken by the government against the conspirators and unged that there should be an unflagging effort to liquidate the Gangs. But it is important that people in other parts of the world should understand that these gangs, horrible as their deeds are, In no sense represent an organized body of opinion. On the contrary, preparations are being made for Indonesia’s first General Election, which will take place in April of mext year, and one of the most interesting debates in the whole Congress was concerned with election preparations. The delegates were unanimously of the opinion that it would be a mistake for the women’s movement, which contains members of different political parties and of mone, to run their own candidates, But the movement, which already has eighty thousand members, could, it was recognized, play a very important part in ensuring that all women registered as voters, that they were shown how to avoid both intimidating and misleading propa- ** New Guinea is a territory entrusted to the administration of the Australian Federal Government by the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations, to which Australia must give a yearly accounting. The request for West Irlan to be made a part of the Indonesian Republic is a legitimate one. ganda, and that support was given to those parties pledged to secure the pratical realization of full political, social and economic rights for women. The Congress resolution dealing with the elections called on all members of Gerwani to take an active part in the elections, and there was no doubt of the deep interest aroused. The elections will be a crucial step in the development of the movement towards full freedom for the Indonesian people, and the active work of preparation for the elections will, at the same time, strengthen the women’s movement itself and add very much to its influence. For though, on paper, Indonesian women enjoy full political rights this is far from being so in practice. In general, as the Congress Resolution on Democratic Rights shows, political liberties are being restricted by the prohibition of demonstrations, limitations on the rights of public meeting, police investigations into the lives of political workers, and the arrest of activists. The Resolution protested against these measures and expressed the hope that the government would adhere to its declared policy of allowing the development of fuller democratic rights. The Congress Resolution demanding a marriage law, applicable to the whole of Indonesia, which would give women completely equal rights in family relationships was carried after a debate in which many different views were expressed — one delegate going so far as to demand that if girls were allowed to marry at sixteen they should also, since their legal status was that of women, be given a vote at the same age, It was impressive to see, on this and other issues, how delegates with the most! divergent opinions succeeded, as a result of discussion and debate, in reaching agreed and reasonable compromises, hammering out a policy which is undoubtedly going to bear fruit im a great strengthening both of the size and the influence of the women’s movement. In every discussion, too, the influence of the W.I.D.F. as a force truly representative of the women of the world, made itself felt, The Declaration on Women’s Rights adopted at the Copenhagen Congress had, it became evident, a sharp and personal meaning for every delegate — and mot in an abstract way, but as a concrete and practical expression of the aspirations of the delegates themselves and the women they represented. It was moving and wonderful — if I may conclude on a personal note — to be received everywhere as the representative of the Federation, to be imvited to join in all the debates, to be accepted, mot as a stranger from the other side of the world, but as a sister, as a member of the great family of ‘women who are striving to build a better life for all women everywhere. And mever, in all my experience have I attended a congress in which warm and spontaneous human feeling, wit, dum, seriousness of purpose and practical commonsense were so harmoniously balanced. The women of Indonesia have, as I have indicated, a difficult and very responsible task in front of them, but they have a courage, a determination and a vision which deserves our admiration, and a strength of purpose which is the surest guarantee of success. The future belongs to them and to their children, and they ‘will know how to use it.