Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking 1945 to 1965 (McGregor, 2016)

McGregor, K. (2016). *Indonesian women and anti-imperial activism and thinking, 1945–1965* [Introductory essay]. In *Women and social movements in modern empires since 1820*. Alexander Street. PDF: 02 Secondary Sources/2.1 Gerwani, Women's Movements and Gender/McGregor (2016) - Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking 1945 to 1965.pdf PDF PAGES 1 to 23 of 23. Text from the PDF text layer where present, otherwise Tesseract OCR (ind+eng); OCR errors remain. === [PDF page 1] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 By Katharine McGregor, University of Melbourne August 2016 Introduction In this essay I provide some general context for understanding Indonesian women's anti-imperial activism from the 1940s to mid 1960s and introduce the document collection covering Indonesian women and empire. In section one of the essay, entitled "defining anti-imperial activism," I explain my working definition of antiimperial activism and why the documents in this collection focus on the first twenty years after Indonesia's formal independence. In section two of the essay, entitled "introducing Gerwani (the Indonesian Women's Movement) and the WIDF (Women's International Democratic Federation)," I discuss the two organizations that produced and published the documents included in the database. In section three, entitled "introducing the sources," I outline the types of documents included in the database relating to Indonesian women. In the fourth section of the essay, entitled "examples of anti-imperial thinking and related activism" I use examples from the documents to highlight the kinds of anti-imperial activism that the women of Gerwani engaged in and how they worked together with women across the world for these causes. This section analyses the themes of "decolonization and new international alliances"; "women's work and economic imperialism"; "women's resistance to military imperialism"; and the promotion of the idea of "modern revolutionary women." Throughout the essay, readers are introduced to some key Gerwani activists. In section five of the essay, entitled "an afterword: the destruction of the Indonesian left," I conclude by providing some information about the tragic and violent demise of Gerwani and the broader consequences for the women's movement in Indonesia. I also trace WIDF protests against the military-led attacks on the women of Gerwani. Readers should note, as explained below, that the broader women's organization Gerwani, Gerakan Wanita Indonesia (the Indonesian Women's Movement) first began under the name Gerwis Gerakan Wanita Sadar (The Movement for Politically Aware Women) in 1950. For this reason there are references in the essay to both related organizations depending on the time period addressed. Readers wanting to know more about Indonesian political history, the history of the Indonesian women's movement and related transnational activism may consult the annotated bibliography of related secondary sources. 1. Defining anti-imperial activism The aim of Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820 is to include analyses of the "activities, contributions and accomplishments of women in the global history of empires and postcolonial societies since 1820." The database aims to survey women's diverse roles within empires as both agents of empires and https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 1/23 === [PDF page 2] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 opponents of empire. So how does this apply to the context of Indonesia? The political entity today known as Indonesia was very much a product of Dutch colonialism. Indonesia is made up of thirteen thousand islands and around 200 or more distinct ethnic groups. The Dutch initiated contact with these islands during the seventeenth century in the form of trade through the Dutch East Indies Company. The Company largely traded in spices. Following the Dutch East Indies Company's demise in 1799 the Dutch formally established the colony of the Netherlands East Indies. They used the labor and resources of local people to extract raw materials such as rubber and tin, and products in demand by Europeans such as spices, tobacco, tea, coffee and coconut. The Dutch relied on a system of indirect governance ruling through local sultans and engaging local elites in the lower branches of the colonial civil service. What this meant was that in addition to Dutch men who held the highest positions in the colonial bureaucracy, local elite men often were also agents of colonialism.[1] Dutch women also served as colonial agents in their prescribed roles as moral exemplars and the standard bearers of so-called Dutch standards of living and decorum.[2] The Dutch system of colonial governance and certain groups of Dutch people also, however, contributed in different ways to opposition to colonialism.[3] Firstly, the Dutch ruled the territory of the Netherlands East Indies as a unified whole, through one system of government. This contributed to shared experiences across the local population, including the sense that the Dutch treated the local people as inferior. It was this sentiment that fueled a growing sense of being one Indonesian people. From the early twentieth century, a nationalist movement developed. Ideological opposition to colonialism also evolved through the influence of communism. Communist ideas were introduced to Indonesia by Dutch socialists in the early twentieth century. The Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) was created in 1920. Indonesian communists opposed Dutch colonialism on the basis that through Dutch international capitalism, locals were being exploited in the same fashion as the proletariat in capitalist societies. The Communist Party was crushed by the Dutch colonial government following the 1926/27 rebellions and did not resurface until the Pacific War. From the early twentieth century, accompanying a turn towards a more "ethical" approach to local people, the colonial government tried to promote a greater emphasis on schooling for girls. As a result, a small number of elite local women were given Western education. This exposed them to new ideas and also to the critiques that some Dutch women were making of gender relations in the Netherlands. One of the most famous outcomes of increased interaction between educated Dutch and Indonesian women are the letters of Raden Ajeng Kartini (1879-1904), written to her Dutch feminist friends. Kartini began a critique of both colonialism and feudalism from a women's point of view by writing to Dutch women abroad in their language. She was an advocate for girls' education and critiqued forms of gender-based discrimination in elite Javanese society, including the practice of confining girls to their homes during puberty until marriage, and the broader practices of child marriage and polygamy. Beyond this, she also critiqued other aspects of feudal and colonial culture that contributed to the repression of local people.[4] Kartini was forced by her father to marry a man who already had a wife, and she died giving birth to her first child. Her ideas became famous through the publication of her letters.[5] It was women of the Indonesian elites who received an education, and who launched a women's movement in the early twentieth century.[6] They organized along diverse lines including representation from Muslim and Christian organizations as well as secular political organizations. Islam is the majority religion in Indonesia. In 1928 Indonesian women held their first national congress, which focused on improving education for girls and improving women's legal position especially with regards to marriage. These issues remained central to Indonesian women's activism throughout the twentieth century. A defining moment in Indonesian history was the declaration of independence on 17 August 1945. This declaration by the nationalist leaders Sukarno and Muhammad Hatta took place in the closing days of the Japanese Occupation (1942-1945). Despite the declaration of independence, Indonesians were forced into a fouryear armed struggle against the Dutch who, with Allied support, attempted to retake their former colony. A number of women's organizations formed an alliance in the federation, the Indonesian Women's Congress https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 2/23 === [PDF page 3] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 (Kowani, Kongres Wanita Indonesia) in 1946 in an attempt to unify their movement and make it more effective in advocating for independence and women's rights. Indonesian women played critical roles in the struggle and for this they were rewarded with the right to vote in 1948. Reflecting this activism, the 1945 Constitution promised women equal rights to men. In practice, however, Indonesian women did not enjoy equal rights to men in many areas, especially marriage and work. The independence struggle ended in 1949 with the signing of the Round Table Conference Agreements. Although 1949 represented the formal end to Dutch political control over most of the territory, Dutch economic influence persisted. Economically, the terms of the agreements were extremely harsh for the fledgling Republic, including the responsibility to pay for most debts of the Netherlands Indies and the provision for the continuation of Dutch businesses in Indonesia.[7] Dutch dominance of the economy was overwhelming with 60% of exports in 1950 produced by eight Dutch firms, of which 50% were controlled by four firms.[8] Under these circumstances, combined with poor economic management and high military spending, the Indonesian economy faltered by the early 1960s, producing real hardships for poorer Indonesians. The Round Table Agreements also allowed the Dutch to continue to control Western New Guinea. In the period after 1949, Indonesians on the political left in particular critiqued the agreements as a case of treachery by Republican leaders, which had left the country in a "semi colonial and semi-feudal state."[9] Apart from continuing Dutch influence over Indonesia, Indonesians on the political left were also concerned about increasing American influence over the Republic, which they described in terms of an imperialist threat (see below). Indonesian decolonization took place precisely as the global Cold War was escalating. For this reason, the United States took a firm interest in developments in Indonesia especially due to its rich resources, its strategic location in terms of military access to the region of Southeast Asia and its geographic position across major shipping routes. The United States government intervened in Indonesian politics on multiple occasions. Firstly, the United States government attempted to bring Indonesia into its sphere of influence via the San Francisco Agreement, negotiations concerning Mutual Security Aid and the Technical Cooperation Act. The San Francisco Agreement of September 1951, signed by Japan and forty-eight other nations, brought the American Occupation of Japan to an end, but was also used to co-opt new security partners to counter communism.[10] Without the public's knowledge, the Sukiman Cabinet had signed the San Francisco Agreement and was negotiating an agreement under the Mutual Security Act to formalize American technical, financial and military aid in return for fighting communism. However, in February 1952 when these negotiations were exposed, the Sukiman Cabinet in its entirety stepped down, after being accused of compromising Indonesian sovereignty and neutrality.[11] The next Indonesian government, the Wilopo Cabinet, rejected aid from the Mutual Security Act. Instead, it reached an agreement in 1953 for only technical and economic aid to be provided, with military aid being on the basis of reimbursement, rather than a grant from Technical Cooperation Administration (usually reserved for neutralist countries like Burma and India).[12] Secondly, the United States government covertly supported a series of regional rebellions in the 1950s in an effort to destabilize the leadership of the increasingly assertive President Sukarno. These outer island rebellions led by military figures in alliance with the Indonesian Socialist Party and the Muslim party Masyumi proposed an alternative government known as the PRRI (Pemerintah Revolusioner Republik Indonesia, Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia).[13] Thirdly, the United States government kept a firm watch on the development of the PKI and related organizations and at that same time gave its support to anti-communist groups in society including senior army officials.[14] The United States government firmly opposed the PKI and related organizations precisely because of their anti-imperial activism, and particularly their labor-based activism, which included demands for better conditions for workers.[15] Despite American designs on Indonesia, President Sukarno (1949-1966) adopted an independent foreign policy. He was a radical nationalist who came to prominence during the 1920s, due to his ability to unite Indonesians against the Dutch. He rejected the second-class status that he saw the Dutch gave to local people and focused on https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 3/23 === [PDF page 4] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 instilling pride in Indonesians.[16] He was imprisoned by the Dutch and exiled to a remote island from 1933 to1942. Following formal independence, he continued his nation-building efforts and advocated a prominent place for the peoples of Asia and Africa, as newly independent countries, in world politics. The strongest expression of this thinking was the Asia-Africa Conference of 1955 held in Bandung, Indonesia, in which he and other leaders outlined a policy of non-alignment with the two Cold War superpowers.[17] At this conference, in his famous speech "Let a New Asia and Africa be Born," Sukarno described colonialism as having a "modern dress in the form of economic control" in addition to intellectual control.[18] He wanted these new countries to be able to chart their own way in the world as equal political players. Sukarno remained a central Indonesian ideologue influencing the form and content of Indonesian politics until his downfall beginning in late 1965 and sealed in 1966 with the formal transfer of power to Major General Suharto. Because of the large size of the PKI, with 3 million members and a further 22 million members of closely aligned organizations, communist countries looked to Indonesia as a potential ally. Sukarno increasingly backed the PKI from the early 1960s as an important political force alongside the army and religious groups. Because of the strength of the PKI and his support for the party, he was courted by and formed close relationships with Soviet and Chinese leaders. He managed to secure large amounts of Russian aid, but Indonesian relations with the Soviets cooled after Indonesia sided with China following the Sino-Soviet split of 1960.[19] This section of the cluster focuses on documents from the period 1945 to 1965, because of the intense ongoing decolonization process in Indonesia during these years and Indonesian efforts to resist what they saw as multiple forms of imperialism. Critiques of economic, political and cultural imperialism were particularly acute in this period, due to the prominent political activism of Indonesians on the political left who connected Indonesian struggles to global political struggles. These critiques were silenced with the violent repression of the Indonesian Left commencing in 1965. The army and civilian anti-communists murdered half a million people and imprisoned hundreds of thousands more without trial.[20] The Indonesian army leadership that directed this campaign of violence, subsequently took a prominent role in the so-called New Order regime and moved to depoliticize society. Anti-communism became one of the core ideological foundations of the regime. 2. Introducing Gerwani (the Indonesian Women's Movement) and the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) As noted above, the history of women's anti-imperial activism began in the late 19th century. This collection only covers anti-imperial activism in the period 1945-1965. Furthermore, it focuses only on activism by women within or closely connected to the organization, the Indonesian Women's Movement (Gerwani, Gerakan Wanita Indonesia). Gerwani was the most active anti-imperial women's organization in this period at home and abroad. Gerwani was a secular left-wing women's organization that brought together Indonesian women with a range of commitments to nationalism, feminism and socialism. The women who joined this organization had resisted the Dutch back in the late colonial era, the Japanese during the short occupation, and the Dutch again during the independence struggle between 1945 and 1949. Gerwani began under the name The Movement for Politically Aware Women (Gerakan Wanita Sadar, Gerwis) in 1950. Originally it only had a middle-class educated membership.[21] At its 1954 congress, Gerwis changed its name to Gerwani to reflect a broadening of the organization's reach and its transformation to becoming a mass movement (25121kenang-kenangkongresgerwis).[22] From 1954 onwards, membership was open to all female Indonesian citizens aged 16 and above. Members had to follow Gerwani guidelines, programs and organizational decisions; pay a joining fee and on-going fees; attend meetings and courses; and implement organizational directives.[23] To attract a mass base they offered support to poorer working women in the form of setting up kindergartens, running co-operatives, conducting literacy campaigns and training women as leaders. Gerwani's efforts to work with and co-opt poorer working women distinguished them from other women's organizations. They increasingly turned to campaigning for women's labor rights, and for the achievement of full Indonesian independence and socialism leading to a self-held perception that they were "the vanguard of the women's movement."[24] Furthermore, they campaigned against price rises and for peace, linking war to a https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 4/23 === [PDF page 5] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 curtailment of women's rights. Gerwani women were at the forefront of protests against imperialism in Indonesia in the form of continuing foreign intervention, foreign dominance of the economy, and the failure of the Dutch to relinquish the territory of Western New Guinea. Due largely to their efforts to address the needs of and politicize women, Gerwani experienced rapid growth from 100,000 members in 1957 to 700,000 in 1960 to 1.5 million members in 1963, with branches in every province of Indonesia and sub branches in forty percent of villages.[25] They strongly supported women's activism and the employment of women. At the same time, like other women's organizations, Gerwani remained committed to the idea of kodrat or women's essential biological functions and duties. They clashed, however, with some Muslim women's groups over their advocacy for ending the practice of polygamy in Indonesia because of sensitivity to challenging a practice that some believed was endorsed in the Islamic holy book, the Koran. Two Indonesian thinkers were important sources of influence on Gerwani. These were the nationalist leader and later president Sukarno, and the early Indonesian feminist Kartini. In 1947, during the Indonesian independence struggle, Sukarno published a book entitled Sarinah: The Duty of Women in the Struggle for the Indonesian Republic based on seminars he gave to women during the struggle.[26] The book was dedicated to Sarinah, the domestic worker who had helped raise Sukarno.[27] In this book Sukarno used the character Sarinah to reference the low-income, overworked indigenous Indonesian women who had to labor all day long outside their homes, trying to earn what they could to support their families, and then returning home to household chores. Although Sukarno praised well-known European and American women feminist writers, suffragettes, doctors, teachers etc. as models of the progressive woman, he was nevertheless very critical of the European/Western feminist movement. He accused them of being so engrossed in promoting the equality of women with men that they disregarded everything else, like local cultures and circumstances. Indonesian women by contrast were supposed to be the upholders of culture and part of the overall Indonesian defence against Westernization/imperialism. In the book Sarinah Sukarno advocated equal rights for Indonesian women, but this was conditional on acknowledgement of Indonesian women's kodrat as wives and mothers, and as Indonesian citizens. He framed Indonesian women's participation in the revolution and in the eventual implementation of socialism, as essential to the Republic of Indonesia's success.[28] It is essential to understand this book because Gerwani members used it as a guide for their movement.[29] Moreover, during the period of Guided Democracy (1959-1965) it was compulsory for Indonesians to reference the ideas of the Indonesian President who by then was dubbed the "Great Leader of the Revolution." As members of a new post-colonial nation, Indonesian women were concerned to promote a sense of a uniquely Indonesian identity as a form of resistance to cultural imperialism. For this purpose, they also turned to the ideas of Kartini, who was dubbed Indonesia's first feminist and sometimes also its first nationalist thinker, as a source of inspiration. Indonesian discourses about what ideas Kartini represented varied according to the political context and the people who wrote about her.[30] Gerwani members emphasized Kartini's struggle to improve the place of women in local society and her anti-colonial position. When narrating the story of the Indonesian women's movement, for example, they always began with the story of Kartini, thus suggesting that her ideals continued to propel the movement (see below). One of Gerwani's stated goals as an organization was to continue the struggle of Indonesian women as pioneered by Kartini.[31] The women of Gerwani were, however, not just concerned about domestic politics. They followed international political developments intensely and sought to make connections with like-minded women across the world. Gerwani members were concerned with women's and children's rights around the world, and with other global struggles such as ending colonialism and imperialism in Algeria and Vietnam, banning atomic and nuclear bombs and halting the trend of re-militarization of Germany and Japan in the 1950s and 1960s. One means by which they publicized their domestic struggles and learned about other women's struggles was through their membership in the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF). https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 5/23 === [PDF page 6] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 WIDF was established at an international congress of women in Paris in late November 1945, a conference attended by over 800 women from diverse class backgrounds and 41 different countries. The founders espoused four key principles: anti-fascism, lasting peace, women's rights and better conditions for children.[32] They were concerned about the negative effects war had on both women and children. From very early on this organization also actively supported decolonization struggles because of the links they saw between colonialism and the exploitation of women's labor.[33] Indonesian women made the first connection to the WIDF via the Indonesian Women's Congress (Kowani, Kongres Wanita Indonesia). As we shall see below, the Kowani leadership requested to become a member of the WIDF in 1946, during the independence struggle, because of the WIDF's support for ending colonialism. How Kowani women first learnt about the WIDF is not yet clear. Gerwis, which was a member of the broader organization Kowani, took over this membership in its founding year of 1950.[34] The WIDF no doubt appealed to Gerwis because of its active response to global political developments. From 1950 until the early 1960s, the relationship between Gerwis (as of 1954, Gerwani) and the WIDF intensified. Several Indonesian women (Sudjinah, Sulami, Darmini, Suwarti Bintang Suradi, Maasje Siwi) served on the WIDF secretariat in East Berlin for periods of one to two years. Some of these women contributed articles to the monthly WIDF publication, Women of the Whole World (WOWW) (1951–1991). In addition, many more Indonesian women participated in WIDF congresses and in the congresses of member organizations around the world, thus exposing them to travel, further political activism, and ideas of importance to their struggle for women's rights. At the same time, they learned of other women's struggles and made connections between Indonesian and global patterns in terms of how imperialism and patriarchal cultures affected them. Ever since the pioneering work of Dutch scholar Saskia Wieringa, which examined the history of Gerwani and their violent demise,[35] there have been an increasing number of studies on Gerwani focusing mostly on the military repression these women suffered.[36] Apart from these works, there are also passing references to the organization in studies of the broader Indonesian women's movement.[37] The full scope of the activism of these women has not yet, however, been researched in detail.[38] This is in part due to the tendency to focus only on national histories, but also due to the destruction of the Indonesian Left and an emphasis on survivors of the political violence as victims without political histories.[39] By examining the theme of Indonesian women's antiimperialist thinking and activism across the sources of both Gerwani and the WIDF, we can learn more about how Indonesian women's anti-imperialist activism shaped and was shaped by the larger transnational women's anti-imperialist movement. 3. Introducing the Sources The documents included in this database were collected in the course of researching Indonesian women's leftwing transnational political activism between 1945 and 1965. They almost exclusively relate to the largest leftaligned Indonesian women's organization the Indonesian Women's Movement, Gerwani. This includes sources in Bahasa Indonesia originally written for members of this organization and for a broader Indonesian readership. I obtained these Congress documents and other publications from libraries across the world. Copies of the Gerwani circular Kartini's Flame, Api Kartini (1959-1965) were sourced from Monash University Library (Melbourne, Australia). Other important sources in Bahasa Indonesia relating to this organization that are not included in the database are the published memoirs of the two Gerwani leaders Sulami and Sudjinah, which can be accessed via interlibrary loan from the National Library of Australia.[40] Because of the violent attack on members of Gerwani commencing in September 1965, and its subsequent banning in Indonesia, it is difficult to find complete records of this organization anywhere in the world. In Indonesia, for example, there is almost no trace of Gerwani in the National Archives due to a continuing climate of strong anti-communism and the ongoing ban on communism in Indonesia. Most studies to date of this organization have therefore had to rely strongly on oral history methods. The database also includes sources in English written by and or about members of Gerwani for an international audience. The English-language sources were produced by the transnational women's organization, the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) with whom Gerwani leaders shared close connections. Amongst the https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 6/23 === [PDF page 7] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 WIDF sources included in this collection are specific radio press and information bulletin articles copied from the WIDF archive files of the International Institute of Social History, located in Amsterdam. Gerwani women sent short articles to these bulletins as a way of updating women across the world about the progress of their struggles. Many of the WIDF Congress Reports to which Indonesian women contributed are available via the database, Women and Social Movements International. The database also includes many relevant articles by or about Indonesian women featured in the WIDF magazine, Women of the Whole World, available at the International Institute of Social History and other libraries across the world. WOWW was published monthly from 1951 onwards, in English, German, French, Russian, Spanish and occasionally in Arabic. It was sold through annual subscriptions to individuals and member organizations in a wide-range of countries including, Australia, Burma, China, Egypt, Great Britain, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy and Japan.[41] As the mouthpiece of the WIDF, this publication promotes the activism of both the WIDF and of its member organizations. The magazine was an important way of spreading information about the global political struggles that different women faced and encouraging related activism. Across WOWW there was sustained attention to women's anti-war activism, their anti-imperialist activism, and their advocacy for women's rights in their own countries and via the WIDF's international conferences.[42] Reflecting the diverse global membership of the WIDF, and its early support for decolonization struggles, this included extensive coverage of women from countries across the decolonizing world.[43] According to Francisca de Haan, WOWW functioned as an "imagined community for progressive women worldwide."[44] One unnamed contributor to the magazine suggested that for Western women WOWW was an antidote to attempts to depoliticize and domesticate women in the post-war era.[45] The socialist orientation of the WIDF is very clear in the publication, as evidenced by ongoing praise for the achievements of women in the Soviet Union and China in particular. Like all sources they need to be understood alongside the political context of their creation. The journal Api Kartini served a similar function for the organization Gerwani. Gerwani activists faced a significant obstacle in promoting their political ideas on paper, due to high rates of illiteracy. To overcome this obstacle, they organized small reading sessions in which around ten people could listen to an activist read an edition of Api Kartini out loud (25136woww1960no6onapikartini: 29). There was a direct link between the WIDF and one of the key editors of Api Kartini. Sudjinah, who was a journalist and representative for the WIDF in East Berlin, who returned to Indonesia in 1958.[46] She worked as an assistant editor to Api Kartini and was possibly involved in its founding the year after her return to Indonesia in 1959. Although Api Kartini had a domestic orientation and was mostly concerned with reporting the activities of Indonesian women, its content seems to have been influenced by that of Women of the Whole World. It covered similar global political developments and related activism. In summary these are the sources included in the database Document Type Language Abstracts Provided Gerwis/Gerwani Congress and Bahasa Indonesia Yes other Reports Gerwani Basic Rules Bahasa Indonesia Yes Articles from the key Gerwani Bahasa Indonesia Yes publication, Api Kartini Select WIDF Information Bulletin and Radio Press English Yes Bulletin Articles Select articles from the WIDF magazine Women of the Whole English Yes World https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 7/23 === [PDF page 8] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 No. Many of these speeches are included Links to select speeches from in WIDF Congress Gerwis/Gerwani Documents within the English representatives at WIDF Women and Social Congresses Movements International (WASI) database. 4. Examples of Anti-Imperial Thinking and Related Activism A number of central themes emerge from the documents included in the database, which illustrate Indonesian women's anti-imperial thinking and activism. I will discuss specific documents (with embedded links to the documents) as examples of these themes, providing a detailed guide to the kinds of sources included in this section of the database. A. Decolonization and New International Alliances Indonesian women first established contact with the WIDF in 1946 through a request from Kowani to join the organization on the basis of a shared commitment to peace (25067WIDFinfobulletin1947). They were primarily seeking international support for the fledgling Republic of Indonesia. At this stage, Indonesian republicans were one year into the decolonization war with the Netherlands. Early interaction between the WIDF and Kowani in the form of letters and reports published by the WIDF in their information bulletins and the actions they took reveal how the WIDF and its member organizations offered support to women engaged in decolonization struggles. Late in 1947, for example, Kowani reported on the devastating effects of Dutch attacks on the Republic. At the same time, however, they praised the efforts of Dutch women in WIDF member organization, the Nederlandse Vrouwenbeweging (NVB), to protest the Dutch government's decision to send troops to Indonesia. NVB members were also petitioning the UN Security Council to put an end to the Dutch campaign. In response the WIDF called on all national branches to "carry out an energetic campaign against this colonial war which brings death and devastation to a people whose only crime is to want to be free" (25068WIDFinfobulletin1947). These documents give a sense of why the WIDF was an attractive organization for women in the colonized world. One reason the WIDF encouraged decolonization was because of the connections that its members made between imperialism and the denial of rights to women. In 1947, the WIDF sponsored a commission to study these precise effects on the women of Asia and Africa, focusing on labor exploitation, living conditions, the women's movement and women's limited education and political rights.[47] In 1949 they then held a conference in Peking called the Conference of the Women of Asia devoted to the united commitment of women to national independence.[48] Very early in the post-war era, the WIDF thus encouraged transnational solidarity for decolonization struggles. Indonesian women sought to use international contacts across the WIDF to share information about the ongoing challenges posed by decolonization. In particular, they reported to the WIDF about the effects of the unfavorable terms of Indonesian independence that were dictated during the 1949 Round Table Agreements. Indonesian women contributed an anonymous report to the WIDF magazine, Women of the Whole World in 1952. Entitled "The Women of Indonesia," the report noted that the 1945 Constitution guaranteed equal rights for men and women, yet since the signing of the 1949 Round Table Agreement and the increasing intervention of the United States in Indonesia "equality exists only on paper." The author described the Round Table agreements as legalizing "the exploitation of the country's wealth by foreign capital," claiming that a flood of foreign imports and capital had forced local businesses to close down. She also listed recent agreements signed with the United https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 8/23 === [PDF page 9] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 States, such as the San Francisco Agreement and the negotiations which took place concerning the Mutual Security Convention. She interpreted these as signs that Indonesia was being co-opted by the United States. Representatives of Gerwis/Gerwani cemented new alliances through participation in the WIDF's many congresses and council meetings. Throughout 1950-1965, they contributed reports to these congresses and also listened to the reports of women from different countries. They invited women from other countries to attend their congresses. In 1954, Darmini from Gerwis reported that WIDF delegates from the Netherlands, Australia, the Soviet Union and Britain had attended Gerwis's national congress (25078MISSDARMINI, 25084womenwritetous and 25121kenang-kenangkongresgerwani). The Dutch delegate's trip was made possible by fund-raising amongst those sympathetic to the Indonesians in the Netherlands (25080Dutch- Indonesiasolidarity). Dutch women from the NVB sold soap inscribed with the words "for peace and friendship between Indonesian and Dutch women," as well as a pair of interlaced hands, a tulip and a rice plant. In 1957, Mrs Madelena Rossi, a vice-president of the WIDF and Mrs. Zeinat Djedaoui of Egypt attended Gerwani's third congress in Solo (central Java) (25106thebirthofthewomen'smovement). In 1960, in recognition of the close relations between Gerwani and the WIDF, Indonesia was chosen as the host country for a WIDF council meeting (25014melihat). Indonesian women were also invited by other WIDF member organizations to visit their countries, especially after the WIDF's major congresses. In 1959, Gerwani representative Sulami attended the national congress of the Italian women's federation, Unione Donne Italiane, UDI (25034wanititalia). In 1960, a Gerwani delegation visited the Soviet Union (25020persahabatan). In 1961, a delegation visited North Korea and reported on the women's movement in that country (25040NorthKorea). In 1964, Gerwani leader Kartinah visited the People's Republic of China (25065wanitadinegeri). In addition to these reciprocal visits, Gerwani's Vice-President Mrs. Mudigdio made a more direct acknowledgement of the sources of influence of the WIDF and its member organizations on Gerwani. In 1958 at the WIDF Vienna conference, she stated: In following our aims in our own country, we always maintain our links with and learn from the experiences of women's movements in other countries. We receive women's publications from several countries and there is much material in them which we can use to improve our organizational work. In particular, we adapt our work to the directives and the policy of the WIDF (See plenary speeches of Mrs Mudigdio 1958 in WASI 916108:90). This did not, however, mean that the women of Gerwani blindly followed the directives of the WIDF. They also sought to educate women within the international women's movement about their particular circumstances. In their interactions with women from across the world, Indonesian women corrected international perceptions about their society and outlined the realities of life for most Indonesian people as members of a society that was still in the process of decolonization. In March 1957, Gerwani leader Sudjinah, who also served in the WIDF secretariat in East Berlin, wrote an article for WOWW entitled "Indonesia: for a better future for our children: letter to an unknown friend" (25094: FORABETTERFUTURE): Dear Friend Perhaps you have read something about "the country of a thousand islands" in South East Asia, which is called Indonesia and have formed in your mind a picture of the life of its people. I hope yours is not an impression so often gained from books written in comfortable hotels by tourists, who describe a paradise--a life of ease and beauty under the shade of palm trees, surrounded by dancing girls and singing children scattering flowers. Especially is the beautiful island of Bali held up to Europeans as the romantic ideal--where living is a joy and the trees are forever green... But the reality is different. (25094: 16) https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 9/23 === [PDF page 10] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 Speaking perhaps more directly to European or Western audiences with limited experiences of Indonesia, apart from touristic images, Sudjinah tried to correct any orientalist preconceptions. She explained why Indonesia was "a magnet for Western imperialists." She lamented the conditions of Indonesian independence agreed to at the 1949 Round Table conference, especially the continuing "foreign monopoly" over capital investments. She wrote in an emotive style: "It was in these conditions, out of the inheritance of poverty and misery of the long dark colonial years, that the republic had to move forward, step-by-step, facing many difficulties internal and external" (25094: 16). She noted the problem of serious malnourishment and illiteracy amongst children and the fact that many parents could not afford to send them to school and instead the children had to work. There were children roaming the streets as beggars or working as shoe cleaners. She thus tried to convey the daily lasting legacies of colonialism and the continuance of imperial interests in Indonesia. B. Women's Work and Economic Imperialism One important characteristic of the politics of WIDF members was that they embraced what Francisca de Haan called "left feminism," meaning they critiqued the sources of women's oppression, as well as wider structures of power that underpinned repression.[49] Delegates at the 1953 WIDF Copenhagen Congress, for example, keenly articulated the links between women's work and economic imperialism. Indonesian women also made similar connections. By 1953, with the end of fighting in the Korean War, Indonesia experienced an economic downturn due to the cessation of American stockpiling of Indonesian raw materials and continuing high debt repayments to the Netherlands. Women workers especially felt the brunt of this downturn. In her report to the WIDF 1953 Copenhagen Congress, Sumampouw-Lapian, President of the Women's Union of Minahasa, spoke of rising unemployment for women in factories, plantations and other sites of work (see Sumampouw Lapian in the 1953 WIDF Copenhagen Congress WASI 1631987). She believed many national enterprises were forced to close down "because they could not compete with imported goods, especially textiles, 75% of the textile industries in Indonesia are closed down, and 80% of these workers are women. They are still the first victims of dismissal" (WASI 1631987: 223). She linked Indonesian poverty to liberal trade regulations. Furthermore, she reported that women's wages were only 80% of men's, regulations on maternity leave were not observed, there was chronic illness amongst workers and the state budget for health was only 3.5 %, whereas the military budget was 39%. She concluded her submission noting "war preparations bring poverty and unemployment. High budgets for military expenditure take away health and education for children" (WASI 1631987: 224). Here she connected economic hardship and inadequate rights for women with global militarism. At the same time, she critiqued militarism at home in the form of a large army budget. The high budget reflected the Indonesian army's political influence due to its role in the struggle against the Dutch and its resistance to an army rationalization in 1952. [50] The themes in her report of economic exploitation, the developing Cold War, and of the detriments of high defense spending mirrored those of the broader Copenhagen Congress. The congress resulted in two documents entitled "Appeal to Women of the Whole World" [LINK], and "Declaration of the Rights of Women" both of which also connected the Cold War to a curtailment of women's rights. The Appeal demanded "an armistice be signed on a just basis and that the cessation of hostilities in Korea be followed by a just and lasting peace'; an end to the wars in progress in Vietnam and Malaya; a peaceful settlement of the German, Austrian and Japanese questions (a reference to the occupation and re-militarization of Japan and West Germany, and the joint Allied occupation of Austria); an end to colonial and foreign domination; support for people struggling for independence; and the equality of all races. The Appeal called for a peace pact between the five great powers as a way to prevent poverty through warrelated spending. It urged all women to call on their governments to ban "all weapons of mass destruction."[51] https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 10/23 === [PDF page 11] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 The Appeal contained generalized messages, but also some very specific references to struggles evolving in the context of the Cold War, and competition for spheres of influence with an emphasis on critiquing the United States and European powers such as France and Britain and their attempts to resume colonization in the formerly occupied territories of Indochina and Malaya. The second major document of the congress was the Declaration on the Rights of Women (accessible in WASM International at dorpid=1631990 )which included a demand from women of the seventy countries represented, for a radical change and improvement in the political and legal position of women in these countries, including equal pay for equal work; women's right to work; access to child care; and rights to political representation.[52] The Declaration linked war with the curtailment of women's and children's rights. The declaration and the appeal provided a validation of many of the causes espoused by Gerwis and assisted the organization to lobby both the government and Indonesian women to support women's rights and peace. In her contribution to the 1954 WIDF executive meeting, Gerwis representative Darmini detailed how Gerwis had promoted the declaration in public meetings and provincial congresses across the different islands of Indonesia and through publications for Gerwis branches (25078MISSDARMINI). She reported that Indonesian women had held a meeting to express solidarity with Vietnam and were preparing to participate in a national peace congress in January 1954, as well as campaigning "to oppose the military treaties with America, and the remilitarization of Japan." Gerwis women were thus connecting Indonesian struggles with those of women around the world and at the same time supporting those overseas struggles. The women of Gerwani continued to make connections between the conditions for working women and imperialism. In 1957, Suwarti Bintang Suradi, who served on the Gerwani executive and on the WIDF secretariat, reported to the WIDF on the discrimination that working Indonesian women faced: "It is very difficult for Indonesian working mothers--one can even say impossible--to undertake jobs or accept transfers to jobs in other places other than the family residence without running the risk of a split in the family" (25134WIDFinfobulletinsuwarti1957: 27). In addition, she reported that many men were unwilling to work under women and in foreign-owned companies married women were categorized separately and employed for only half a day with no entitlement to health insurance or other benefits. In this report, she thus tied women's working conditions to "imperial interests," but also stressed the barriers Indonesian women faced in changing societal attitudes toward women as workers. Patriarchal values, according to which men were viewed as the head of the family, persisted locally and in the culture of foreign companies. One victory in the field of women's rights was the 1957 ratification of the ILO (International Labor Organisation) Convention 100 on equal pay for equal work. Indonesia was one of the first countries to ratify this convention.[53] This did not, however, mean the decision was immediately or universally implemented. As the most vocal advocates of women's labor rights in Indonesia, Gerwani leaders were able to exchange ideas and information with women abroad on their struggles in this area. Meanwhile at home their campaigns for labor rights for women were not as widely supported across the broader women's movement. They were also able to go further in their critiques of patriarchal values in Indonesian when writing to international audiences. At home, for example, there was sensitivity amongst members of Muslim religious organisations to critiques of polygamy, which some Muslims believed was accepted in Islam. Amongst Indonesian women's organizations Gerwani paid the most attention to women farmers as workers. They also tried to encourage the WIDF to give more weight to considering the position of peasant women. At the 1958 Vienna Congress of WIDF, the Gerwani leader Mudigdo argued that discrimination against women still existed in colonial and dependent countries and also in advanced countries where, for example, women were not allowed to own property, yet "the discrimination in one country differs from that in another according to the situation in each country" (WASI 1636676: 66-69). She reasoned that for women in colonial and dependent countries it was the women peasants who experienced the most discrimination. In her view, claims for equal wages for equal work so far had focused on women workers not peasants. Here, she was most likely signalling the more informal and seasonal nature of plantation work, which made it very difficult to enforce national labor laws. Mudigdo reminded conference participants that peasant women had the highest illiteracy rates. She https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 11/23 === [PDF page 12] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 proposed a future WIDF seminar on women peasants and the formulation of a draft law that women in different countries could use to improve the rights of peasant women. Her critique mirrored the ideals of Gerwani and their on-going work amongst peasant women to help them achieve better working conditions and increased literacy.[54] In 1961, Gerwani organized a national seminar for women farmers. The seminar was in part a response to the 1960 agrarian land reform law, which restricted the amount of land that one family, foreigners or local rulers, could own. The intention of the new law was to redistribute excess landholdings to landless peasants with compensation to be paid by the government and then by the peasants over time.[55] The main outcomes of the seminar, to which representatives from different villages were sent, were commitments to carry out land reform and to improve the lives of women farmers (25127seminarnasionalwanitatani). An article in Api Kartini profiled one of the seminar participants, Djenab, highlighting her oppression by landowners, her poverty and her positive impressions of the seminar. The article, however, also leaned towards suggesting that middle-class women needed to guide peasant women to understand their own circumstances. Despite the genuine support Gerwani extended to women farmers, this kind of thinking led to criticism from farmers and villagers of Gerwani's "moralistic and didactic stance."[56] Gerwani members were the subject of even more resentment from landowners, however, because of their participation in attempts to help peasants take land, following the slow implementation of land reform. C. Women's Resistance to Military Imperialism As decolonization wars unfolded in Asia and Africa, Indonesian women extended their support to the women affected by those conflicts. The decolonization wars in Vietnam (1945-1975) and Algeria (1954-1962) in particular received strong attention through the WIDF.[57] Indonesian women joined in campaigns of solidarity for these women. At the same time, they continued to reject ongoing American interventions in Indonesia and to advocate for the complete decolonization of Indonesia, meaning the so-called "return" of Western New Guinea. A striking feature of Gerwani's activism is the links they made between developments in Indonesia and emerging global imperialist trends. Mudigdo, Vice-President of Gerwani, for example, made the following comments at the 1958 WIDF Vienna Congress. She noted that the timing of the congress was critical, because of the "dangerous moment in international affairs when peace is threatened." She wrote: The majority of men and women in the world, including those of Asia and Africa, desire peaceful coexistence, as laid down in the principle of the Bandung conference. But the instigators of war are still indulging in aggressive acts, as they did in Egypt during the Suez Canal conflict, and in Algeria, where the people are fighting for their liberation and where the heroine, Djamila Bouhired, has become the symbol of their fight. The same pattern has been followed in other African countries and also in Indonesia too, where they are interfering in our internal affairs (WASI 916108:90). Mudigdo demonstrated an acute awareness of world affairs and how the Cold War and imperialism were continuing to affect the countries of Asia and Africa. Following Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, British, French and Israeli troops attempted unsuccessfully to invade Egypt. The Algerian struggle for independence from the French was also intensifying in the same period. It was in this context that the Algerian student Djamila Bouhired, bombed a café killing 11 French civilians and was sentenced to death for doing so, thus becoming a symbol of the Algerian struggle. Mudigdo's awareness of events in Egypt and Algeria is also possibly connected to a strong sense of Indonesian solidarity with other majority Muslim populations. Mudigdo's reference to intervention in Indonesian politics was related to the discovery of foreign support for the PRRI (Pemerintah Revolusioner Republik Indonesia, Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia). The rebellion, led by local Sumatran military commanders, proclaimed a counter-government in Bukitinggi, Sumatra, in February 1958. The CIA provided weapons, bomber planes, 15 pilots and air drops of supplies to the rebels. https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 12/23 === [PDF page 13] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 Taiwan and the Philippines also provided similar aid to the PRRI. A month before the WIDF Vienna Congress, the Indonesian government had exposed the CIA's role in the PRRI rebellion, following the capture of an American bomber pilot Allen Pope.[58] In response, Mudigdo noted that "the intervention of the USA, the Philippines and Taiwan cannot be covered up" (WASI 916108: 91). In parallel with the Algerian emphasis on women fighters, Gerwani also reported to the WIDF on how women had worked "shoulder to shoulder with men" to directly oppose foreign intervention in Indonesia. Throughout the operation to suppress the PRRI, they had collected and delivered supplies and set up public kitchens to feed the armed forces and others who were fighting the rebels. In West Sumatra, they had demonstrated against rebel groups and some women had been shot, burnt alive or abused by the rebels while carrying out this work. (25140 WIDFinfobulletin10(1958). In this report, Gerwani highlighted women's bravery and heroism, thus projecting an image of what Wieringa has described as "militant motherhood."[59] In addition to taking up the struggle against covert American intervention, Gerwani fully backed President Sukarno's campaign for the "return" of the territory of Western New Guinea to Indonesia. In 1957, the Indonesian government nationalized all Dutch companies in protest at the lack of any resolution on this issue via the United Nations. When in 1960 the Dutch sent a war ship (the Karel Doorman) to the disputed territory, this crisis in relations between the Netherlands and Indonesia escalated. In this context, Gerwani drew on its links with the WIDF to try to internationalize the Indonesian protest (25031setiakawan: 12). The WIDF responded by issuing the following statement: We condemn these maneuvers which constitute an aggressive provocation towards the people of Indonesia and which threaten peace in Southeast Asia. We are certain that the continuous struggle of the people of Indonesia will result in respect for their territorial integrity and create greater possibilities for progress and development in their homeland and for better lives for their children. We hope this statement will be forwarded by Indonesian women, who actively support women around the world (25031setiakawan: 12). As in in the 1940s, the Dutch Women's Movement (Nederlandse Vrouwenbeweging, NVB) again crossed the colonial divide and sent a letter of protest to the Dutch parliament and cabinet, reminding them of the Dutch military aggressions, the so-called "police actions," in the 1940s, in which many young Dutch men died. They organized petitions in the Netherlands amongst hundreds of workers. The Australian woman, Gloria Garton, who was president of the WIDF-aligned Union of Australian Women, also gave her full support for the campaign after visiting Indonesia in 1961 (2505GloriaGarton). The WIDF thus firmly supported the Western New Guinea campaign, and through its links with the WIDF Gerwani was able to rally increased support from member country organizations. Gerwani members continued to frame the issue of Western New Guinea (referred to also as West Irian and Irian Jaya) as an anti-imperialist struggle, and to speak out against foreign aggression and the negative impact of war, but there were increasing contradictions in their position. In 1961, it became clear that the Dutch were trying to prepare the territory for self rule. In response, Sukarno formed the Supreme Command for the Liberation of West Irian (Tri Komando Rakyat, Trikora) and began small-scale military incursions into the territory. The campaign also resulted in a dramatic increase in Indonesian military spending, reaching 75% of the state budget.[60] Despite earlier condemnation of high defense spending in Indonesia during the 1950s, reflecting the need to make new political bargains, Gerwani fully backed the campaign and by 1962 it was encouraging women to engage in military training to assist the campaign (25052mobilisasiumum). They did so at Sukarno's request, but also because they believed they would be granted more rights if they participated equally with men in this struggle.[61] This shows us how the women of Gerwani had to continually negotiate which struggles to support. Although President Sukarno and many Indonesians at the time viewed the return of Western New Guinea as part of the complete decolonization of Indonesia, the status of this territory remains disputed today. By October 1962 https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 13/23 === [PDF page 14] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 following United States and then United Nations pressure, and a so-called ballot conducted amongst a very select number of Papuans, the Dutch handed Western New Guinea over to UN supervision for a year. The territory was transferred to Indonesia in May 1963. There has been ongoing West Papuan resistance to Indonesian control from the 1970s onwards until the present day. Since that time the Indonesian military has violently repressed separatists and successive Indonesian governments have tightly controlled local politics.[62] D. Modern Revolutionary Women The women of Gerwani promoted themselves as vanguards of the women's movement and of the anti-imperialist movement in Indonesia. Due to the success of Gerwani at home in terms of a rapidly expanding membership, their work methods and campaigns attracted the attention of leaders in the WIDF. They also actively encouraged Indonesian women to be modern revolutionary women. The leadership and members of the WIDF were always interested in the progress of women's movements across the world. Because of the rapid growth in its membership, Gerwani was receiving increased attention from the WIDF. In November 1957, Geeta Mukherjee, an Indian representative on the WIDF secretariat in East Berlin, wrote a fascinating account of the work of Gerwani amongst peasant women. The account was based on her conversations with Suwarti Bintang Suradi. Suwarti worked together with Mukherjee in Berlin in the secretariat of the WIDF. The five-page account provided by Mukherjee was sent out to all WIDF member organizations in April 1958 with a cover letter from WIDF General Secretary Carmen Zanti (1958) noting that members should pay attention to the success of Gerwani (25128LetterfromCarmelZanti). The account begins with a sense of awe that by the time of Gerwani's August 1957 congress, they were one of the biggest women's organizations in Asia and Africa (with 662,460 followers). Mukherjee canvassed the work Gerwani did in the cities, towns and countryside, paying particular attention to how they attracted new followers. She noted that their largest following was amongst peasant and working women. Gerwani women went to the plantations and spoke to peasants about key issues for them like menstruation leave, maternity leave and harassment from plantation owners. Then they began to campaign on these issues together with the women to improve their situation and to educate them about their rights as workers. Mukherjee noted that Gerwani also focused on these women's family lives and problems relating to marriage, divorce and polygamy (which she explained to readers was a particular problem in this Muslim society). She noted Gerwani's role in campaigning to reform the marriage laws and in demanding greater representation of women in local government organizations that dealt directly with matters such as divorce and the abandonment of wives by husbands. Divorce and abandonment were chronic in the 1950s.[63] Mukherjee highlighted to members of the WIDF Gerwani's efforts to raise literacy levels among peasant women and to educate them on children's health, sanitation and a balanced diet. Recalling her conversation with Suwarti, Mukherjee noted that Gerwani relied on the goodwill of city-based women to go to the plantation areas for short periods of time to teach female workers to read and write. Many women then became cadres. Gerwani actively campaigned among teachers to appeal to them to go to village areas during their holidays to run literacy classes. They issued an appeal that everyone who could read or write should teach someone else. Gerwani also organized among middle-class women in cities, running other kinds of classes for these women like midwifery in addition to promoting their political ideas and mobilizing women for particular causes. The women of Gerwani also promoted the history and progress of their organization at home and abroad. In 1956, they provided an overview of their activities to the WIDF information bulletin (25071experiencesregardingco-operation). Sulami, who was one of several Vice Secretary-Generals of Gerwani from 1957 to 1965, and served on the WIDF secretariat in East Berlin from 1958–1960 and 1963–1964, was the most prolific Indonesian contributor to Women of the Whole World. In 1959, she profiled the history of the Indonesian women's movement in a three-part series, drawing attention to the many challenges Indonesian women had faced in the Dutch colonial period, throughout the Japanese Occupation and onto to the era of independence, charting how they had, in each period, struggled for women's rights (25103, 25104, 25106TheBirthandGrowthoftheWomen'sMovementI-III). In this account, Sulami highlighted the role of Kartini. https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 14/23 === [PDF page 15] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 In other articles for Women of the Whole World, Sulami (25101R.A.Kartini) continually referred to Kartini in a short biography and in fictional stories about Indonesian women that drew on Kartini's critiques to highlight the causes for which Gerwani stood. The fictional story "Minah" focused on a young woman who wanted to continue her education, but who was forced by her father to marry at the age of eleven (25108Minah). In the story, Minah negotiates with her future husband to only marry him if she can continue her education. Minah's actions mirror the spirit of Kartini who wanted desperately to continue her studies, but was forced by her father to marry young. In her second fictional story, "Seven girls," Sulami (25115SevenSisters) explored the predicament of seven Indonesian daughters of a wealthy Javanese businessman who, like Kartini, were not allowed to leave the home due to a traditional practice of seclusion: confining girls to the home from puberty until marriage. The daughters were also faced with the prospect of arranged marriages. The article critiqued the practices of sultans who traditionally kept many wives and concubines, and collected taxes for their colonial overlords, arguing that they were able to do so because people believed in their superiority. Sulami reflected: "That is the combination of feudalism and colonialism which gave women no rights, no freedom, no right to property and happiness." Sulami used these fictional accounts to alert the readers of this magazine to ongoing issues in Indonesia at that time concerning child marriage and limited rights for women to education and in marriage, issues that Gerwani and other women's organizations in Indonesia were working hard to tackle. These articles are important records of the struggles in which they engaged and of how they presented these struggles to women abroad. At the same time, Gerwani leaders looked back on their history for inspiration in order to promote ideas of how the modern revolutionary woman should behave. In 1960, Sulami contributed a photo essay entitled "Sarinah from Century to Century," featuring multiple images of modern Indonesian women to Api Kartini(25132ApiK1960: 18). In this article, Sulami referenced President Sukarno's ideas concerning the potential of every Indonesian woman by using the name Sarinah. The caption accompanying the photograph of women attending a conference noted that, "to achieve the full realization of their rights, women must be active in several activities. Thus it is important that there are often explanations/discussions of these issues in women's meetings" (25132ApiK1960: 18). This fitted in with Gerwani's strong emphasis on women being "social activists."[64] Modern women were women engaged in the struggle to improve their position in society. The motivational purpose of such articles is made clearer in a 1960 article in Api Kartini entitled "An Effective History of Struggle," which traced Gerwani's activities and achievements during the ten years since its founding. Based on an interview with the chair of Gerwani, Umi Sardjono, the article reported that one of the ways Gerwani heightened the militancy of Indonesian women was to educate them about the history of the women's movement at home and abroad (25043sedjarahperdjuangan). Sardjono commented, however, that women still had "to protect their femininity in struggling for emancipation, meaning that as opposed to men they had a special responsibility towards their household to giving birth and looking after children" (25043:7). This careful framing of women's roles reflected Sardjono's awareness of critiques across broader Indonesian society of women who were seen to be too aggressive by crossing over into the supposedly male worlds of politics or certain kinds of work. This critique mirrors Sukarno's earlier concerns put forward in the book Sarinah, that Indonesian women should not fall into the trap of forgetting the context of their local cultures, meaning they should continue to uphold traditions concerning prescribed gender roles to safeguard "Indonesian culture." In addition to being assigned the role of guardians of Indonesian tradition, there were continuous attempts to coopt the women's movement to serve the needs of the PKI or President Sukarno. As Wieringa has outlined, there were related internal struggles between the feminist and socialist wings of the organization and a sense that, by the mid-1960s. Due to the heightened anti-imperialist campaign against Malaysia, Gerwani was increasingly prioritizing this campaign and mobilization for it at the expense of other issues that continued to affect women alone.[65] https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 15/23 === [PDF page 16] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 5. An Afterword: The Destruction of the Indonesian Left Gerwani as an organization met a tragic end in 1965, when the PKI and all leftist organizations such as Gerwani were targeted in a campaign of terror including murder, imprisonment, forced labor and on-going stigmatization. The destruction of the PKI began after the September 30th Movement, an armed movement that killed six military generals and one lieutenant. The corpses of the army men were duped into a disused well on the outskirts of Jakarta. The army, under the command of Major General Suharto, quickly suppressed the September 30th Movement and blamed the action on the PKI. In order to encourage anti-communist hysteria and to pave the way for a large-scale violent repression of any and all opposition, the army began to spread propaganda about the September 30th Movement, emphasizing Communist barbarity, as "evidenced" by the alleged mutilation of the generals' corpses, and the so-called debauchery of Gerwani women.[66] These women were accused of gouging out the eyes of the generals, mutilating their genitals and dancing naked around the well where the corpses had been found. Within days, Gerwani's headquarters in the capital city was attacked. Gerwani members were singled out for brutal treatment including widespread sexual violence and torture.[67] The destruction of Gerwani had several implications for the Indonesian women's movement. The gender ideology of Suharto's so-called "New Order" state was very conservative and largely constructed women as housewives and mothers. The government attempted to depoliticize the women's movement by purging and taking control of the umbrella women's organization, Kowani (Kongres Wanita Indonesia, Indonesian Women's Congress), which has survived from the independence struggle until today. In the late Sukarno era Kowani had been increasingly influenced by leftist women's organizations, but it too was purged of leftist influence after 1965. The military-dominated government focused on the goal of rapid economic development and viewed voluntary or low-paid female labor as necessary to achieve this goal.[68] In doing so, it worked closely with businesses to control and often repress labor-based activism. It was not until the 1990s that women activists began to take up issues affecting more marginalized Indonesian women, such as highly exploited domestic servants. Yet to this day, the women's movement has not reached the same scale or intensity of local and international activism achieved by the women of Gerwani. For Gerwani members, the 1965 repression was a terrifying experience that unfolded very quickly with little chance for the women targeted to call for help or rally international support.[69] The first response from the WIDF to the repression that I have been able to find was an appeal issued in June 1966. The head office of the WIDF in East Berlin issued the following appeal after a council meeting. The Appeal read: Tens of thousands of Indonesian women have been brutally murdered, languishing in prisons and concentration camps, exposed to torture and barbaric abuse. The senior officials and several thousand members of GERWANI, one of the WIDF affiliated organizations, were arrested, and we don't know where they are and what they must be suffering. In the course of events, while the whole of Indonesia was in the grip of fear and terror, and the country robbed of any democracy, GERWANI as well as other women's mass organizations were banned. Hundreds and thousands of families have been torn apart and live in grief (25135AppealforsolidarityWIDF1966). This document conveys the WIDF's response of horror at the attack on Gerwani, which the WIDF had viewed as a model progressive women's movement. It reveals the difficulty that organizations outside of Indonesia had in obtaining information about what exactly was going on. For members of Gerwani who were still on the run, it was extremely difficult to survive let alone communicate with people abroad. Presumably all communication from Gerwani to the WIDF was abruptly halted due to these difficulties. Consistent with its continual monitoring and protests against Western imperialism and the revival of militarism, the WIDF Council viewed this repression as part of a larger global pattern. In their appeal they explained: "The wave of terror unleashed by the Indonesian military reinforces the tensions in Southeast Asia and serves the aggressionist policy of American imperialism in this part of the world" (25135AppealforsolidarityWIDF1966). https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 16/23 === [PDF page 17] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 They called for the immediate release of GERWANI's members and functionaries who had been arbitrarily arrested and the restoration of the legality of all women's organizations, so that they can continue their activity in the interest of the state, women and children" (25135AppealforsolidarityWIDF1966). They focused on the ongoing detention without due process of Gerwani women as a violation of the basic human right to a fair trial. The WIDF council reminded its members of the joint struggle in which Indonesian women had engaged to improve the rights of women and children. It appealed to them "to raise their voices with us, so that this appeal will help end the suffering and grief of the women and people of Indonesia." As a follow-up to this appeal in 1968, the WIDF reported that it had sent a telegram to General Suharto in protest against the repression. By June 1969, they had yet to receive any news on the fate of imprisoned Gerwani members (WASI1460345 Report on the Activities of the WIDF 1969).[70] Many prominent Indonesian women such as the Gerwani leaders Mudigdo, Sudjinah, Sulami and Maasje Siwi who had regularly attended WIDF conferences were by then underground or in gaol. Sudjinah and Sulami who possibly had the strongest ties with the WIDF, for example, having worked in the East Berlin offices of the WIDF, went underground from October 1965 until early 1967.[71] They managed to evade arrest for two years by frequently moving between the houses of friends in their networks. During that period, they bravely produced leaflets supporting President Sukarno and challenging the military takeover. They were both arrested in 1967 and subsequently tortured during their temporary detention in an old Chinese school. They were then moved to Bukit Duri women's prison and subjected to a mock trial for subversion nine years after their arrest. They were detained for 16 and 17 years respectively.[72] Almost all the women mentioned in this survey, whom I have been able to trace, had ended up in Bukit Duri women's prison in Jakarta. The conditions in the women's prison were like those in most prisons of this period, terrible with insufficient rations and a lack of medicines.[73] Many prisoners died from malnutrition or disease. Sudjinah and Sulami, however, survived and managed to publish their memoirs before passing away in 2002 and 2007 respectively.[74] They were both involved in the campaign for redress for the 1965 violence, which to this day has not yet been achieved despite ongoing activism for this cause.[75] Endnotes 1. Heather Sutherland, The Making of a Bureaucratic Elite: The Colonial Transformation of the Javanese Priyayi (Singapore: Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) for the Asian Studies Association of Australia, 1979). Back to Text 2. Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 41-78. Back to Text 3. This paragraph draws on Robert Cribb and Colin Brown, Modern Indonesia: A History since 1945 (London: Longman, 1995), 5-12. Back to Text 4. See Kartini: The Complete Writings, 1898-1904, edited and translated by Joost Coté (Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2014). Back to Text 5. The letters were first published in Dutch, then subsequently published in English, Indonesian, Arabic, Japanese and French. See Danilyn Rutherford, "Unpacking a National Heroine: Two Kartini's and Their People," Indonesia 55 (1993): 23-40. Back to Text https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 17/23 === [PDF page 18] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 6. This paragraph draws on Susan Blackburn, Women and the State in Modern Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Back to Text 7. Alistair M. Taylor, Indonesian Independence and the United Nations (Westport: Greenwood Press Publishers, 2007), 240-263. Back to Text 8. Meek (1956) as quoted in Bruce Glassburner, "Economic policy making in Indonesia, 1950-57," Economic Development and Cultural Change 10, no.2 (1962): 19. Back to Text 9. Rex Mortimer, Indonesian Communism Under Sukarno: Ideology and Politics, 1959-1965 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1974), 44. Back to Text 10. Kimie Hara, "Rethinking the "Cold War" in the Asia-Pacific," Pacific Review 12, no. 4 (November 1999): 519. Back to Text 11. Andrew Roadnight, United States Policy Towards Indonesia in the Truman and Eisenhower Years (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2002), 92-97. Back to Text 12. Roadnight, United States Policy Towards Indonesia, 98. Back to Text 13. Audrey Kahin and George T. Kahin, Subversion as a Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia (New York: New Press, 1995). Back to Text 14. On the role of the US in courting anti-communists see Kahin and Kahin, Subversion as a Foreign Policy, 102-106, and Bradley R Simpson, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and US-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008). Back to Text 15. Hilmar Farid, "Indonesia's Original Sin," Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 6, no. 1 (2005): 11. Back to Text 16. For a good biography of Sukarno see John Legge, Sukarno: A Political Biography (London: Penguin Press, 1972). Back to Text 17. Jamie Mackie, Bandung 1955: Non-alignment and Afro-Asian Solidarity (Singapore: Didier Millet, 2005). Back to Text 18. Sukarno, "Let a New Asia and Africa be Born," in Herbert Feith and Lance Castles, eds., Indonesian Political Thinking, 1945-1965 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970), 454-60. Back to Text 19. Simpson, Economists with Guns. Back to Text https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 18/23 === [PDF page 19] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 20. Introduction in Robert Cribb, ed., The Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966: Studies from Java and Bali (Clayton, Victoria: Monash Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, 1990). Back to Text 21. Saskia E. Wieringa, "Two Indonesian Women's Organizations: Gerwani and the PKK," Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 25 (1993): 18. Back to Text 22. DPP Gerwani, Kenang Kenangan Kongres Gerwis ke-2, 25-31 Maret 1954 (Jakarta: Pustaka Rakyat): 14-16. Back to Text 23. DPP Gerwani, Kenang Kenangan Kongres Gerwis: 43-44. Back to Text 24. Wieringa, Sexual Politics, 140. Back to Text 25. Donald Hindley, Communist Party of Indonesia 1951-1963 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), 201-8. Back to Text 26. Sukarno, Sarinah: Kewajiban Wanita dalam Perdjoangan Republik Indonesia (Sarinah: The Duty of Women in the Struggle for the Indonesian Republic) (Yogyakarta: Panitya Penerbit Buku-Buku Karangan Presiden Sukarno, Tjetakan ke3, 1963). Back to Text 27. Sukarno, Sarinah, 6. Back to Text 28. Sukarno, Sarinah, 311-329. Back to Text 29. Wieringa, "Two Indonesian Women's Organizations," 22. Back to Text 30. Rutherford, "Unpacking a National Heroine," 23-40. Back to Text 31. DPP Gerwani, Kenang-Kenangan Kongres Gerwis 1954: 49. Back to Text 32. Francisca de Haan, "Continuing Cold War Paradigms in Western Historiography of Transnational Women's Organizations: The Case of the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF)," Women's History Review 19, no. 4 (2010): 548. Back to Text 33. Katharine McGregor, "Opposing Colonialism: The Women's International Democratic Federation and Decolonisation Struggles in Vietnam and Algeria," Women's History Review, March 2016 and Elisabeth Armstrong, "Before Bandung: The Anti-Imperialist Women's Movement and the Women's International Democratic Federation," Signs, 14 (2), 305-331. Back to Text https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 19/23 === [PDF page 20] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 34. Elizabeth Martyn, The Women's Movement in Post-Colonial Indonesia: Gender and Nation in a New Democracy (London & New York: Routledge & Curzon, 2005), 157. Back to Text 35. Saskia Wieringa, Sexual Politics in Indonesia (Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). Back to Text 36. Diniah Hikmah, Gerwani Bukan PKI: Sebuah Gerakan Feminisme Terbesar di Indonesia (Gerwani was not the PKI: The Largest Feminist Movement in Indonesia) (Yogyakarta: Carasvati Books, 2007); Amuwarni Dwi Lestariningsih, Gerwani: Kisah Tapol Wanita di Kamp Plantungan (Gerwani: The Story of Female Political Prisoners at Plantungan Camp) (Jakarta: Kompas, 2011). Back to Text 37. Susan Blackburn, Women and the State in Modern Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Martyn, The Women's Movement in Post-Colonial Indonesia. Back to Text 38. Two exceptions are my papers which begin to trace this history. See Katharine McGregor, "The Cold War, Indonesian Women and the Global Anti-Imperialist Movement 1946-1965" in Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney & Fabio Lanza, eds., De-centering Cold War History: Local and Global Change (London & New York: Routledge, 2012) and Katharine E. McGregor, "Indonesian Women, the Women's International Democratic Federation and the Struggle for Women's Rights, 1946-1965," Indonesia and the Malay World 40 (117) (2012):193-208. Back to Text 39. Katharine E. McGregor, "Confronting the Past in Contemporary Indonesia: The Anti-communist Killings of 1965-66 and the Role of the Nahdlatul Ulama," Critical Asian Studies, 41 (2) (2009): 195-224. Back to Text 40. Sudjinah, Terempas Gelombang Pasang: Riwayat Wartawati dalam Penjara Orde Baru (Slammed by a Tidal Wave: The Story of Female Correspondents in the Prisons of the New Order) (Pustaka Utan Kayu, 2003); Sulami, Perempuan – Kebenaran – Penjara: Kisah Nyata Wanita Dipenjara 20 Tahun Karena Makar dan Subversi (Woman-Truth-Jail: The True Story of a Woman who was Imprisoned for 20 years on Account of being Accused of Treason and Subversion) (Jakarta: Cipta Karya, 1999). Back to Text 41. See the subscription add "Subscribe to Women of the Whole World," Women of the Whole World, 1958, No 9, Back to Text 42. A few examples of related coverage include "Women respond to the Japanese Women's Appeal against experiments with the H bomb and for a Ban on the Manufacture and Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction," WOWW, No 2 1955, p. 12; Simone Bertrand, "The Women of Asia and Africa Fight for Their Emancipation and for Peace," WOWW, 1954 No 9 pp. 3-4: "Vietnam's Women in the Fight for a Cease Fire" No 6 1954, WOWW, p. 12. Fahma Sadegh, "Iraqi Women Hold Their First Congress," WOWW, 1959, No 6, pp. 11-13. Back to Text 43. On the WIDF's support for decolonisation struggles see McGregor, "Opposing Colonialism." Back to Text 44. Francisca de Haan, "The Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF): History, Main Agenda, and Contributions, 1945-1991," Women and Social Movements Online Archive edited by Thomas Dublin and Kathryn Kish Sklar, October 2012: 14.[LINK] Back to Text https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 20/23 === [PDF page 21] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 45. "The Women's Democratic Press Helps to Link Thousands of Other Women with the Life of the Organisations," p. 17. Back to Text 46. Sudjinah, Terempas Gelombang Pasang. Back to Text 47. Women's International Democratic Federation, The Women of Asia and Africa (Budapest: Women's International Democratic Federation, 1948). See also Armstrong, "Before Bandung," pp. 311-313. Back to Text 48.British Woman in New China, Marian Ramelson's report on the Asian Women's Conference, Peking, 1949 (London: British Committee, Women's International Democratic Federation, n.d.): 6. Back to Text 49. De Haan, "Continuing Cold War Paradigms," 557. Back to Text 50. Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), 29. Back to Text 51. WIDF, "Appeal to Women of the Whole World," in World Congress of Women (Copenhagen June 5-10, 1953): Reports, Speeches (Extracts), Documents (Berlin: Women's International Democratic Federation, 1953): 252-253. Back to Text 52. WIDF, "Declaration on the Rights of Women," in World Congress of Women (Copenhagen June 5-10, 1953): Reports, Speeches (Extracts), Documents (Berlin: Women's International Democratic Federation, 1953): 254-55. Back to Text 53. Blackburn, Women and the State, 176. Back to Text 54. Blackburn, Women and the State, 178–81. Back to Text 55. Rex Mortimer, Indonesian Communism Under Sukarno, 285-286. Back to Text 56. Jay (1969) cited in Wieringa, Sexual Politics, 176. Back to Text 57. McGregor, "Opposing Colonialism." Back to Text 58. Baskara T. Wardaya, Indonesia Melawan Amerika: Konflik Perang Dingin 1953-1963 (Indonesia versus America: The Cold War Conflict 1953-1963) (Yogyakarta: Galang Press, 2008), 175-195. Back to Text 59. Wieringa, Sexual Politics, 232-75. Back to Text 60. Hindley (1964) as quoted in Wieringa, Sexual Politics, 281. Back to Text https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 21/23 === [PDF page 22] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 61. Wieringa, Sexual Politics, 173. Back to Text 62. See Richard Chauvel, "Constructing Papuan Nationalism: History, Ethnicity and Adaptation," East West Centre, Policy Studies No 14, 2005, available at http://www.eastwestcenter.org/fileadmin/stored/pdfs/PS014.pdf. Back to Text 63. Wieringa, Sexual Politics, 114. Back to Text 64. Wieringa, "Two Indonesian Women's Organizations," 22. Back to Text 65. See Wieringa, Sexual Politics, 170-181. Back to Text 66. The allegations of torture were unfounded. The autopsy report from their deaths is discussed in Ben Anderson (1987), "How Did the Generals Die?," Indonesia, 43: 109-134. For a detailed account of the gendered dimensions of this propaganda, see Wieringa, Sexual Politics. Back to Text 67. Annie Pohlman, Women, Sexual Violence and the Indonesian Killings of 1965-66 (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2015). Back to Text 68. Wieringa, "Two Indonesian Women's Organizations." Back to Text 69. In my initial research into the reaction of the WIDF to the Indonesian repression I did not find any signs of protest. See McGregor, "The Cold War, Indonesian Women and the Global Anti-Imperialist Movement 1946- 1965." Back to Text 70. Madame Cecile Hugel, WIDF Secretary, "Report on the Activities of the WIDF," Sixth WIDF Congress Helsinki, June 18, 1969, p. 8. This report noted that the WIDF included a copy of the telegram sent to President Suharto in the 18th issue of News in Brief in 1968. Document not yet cited. Back to Text 71. Sudjinah, Terempas Gelombang Pasang, 14-17. Back to Text 72. Sudjinah Terempas Gelombang Pasang. For more information on these women see Katharine McGregor and Vannessa Hearman, "The Challenges of Political Rehabilitation in Post New Order Indonesia: the Case of Gerwani (the Indonesian Women's Movement," Southeast Asia Research, 15, no. 3, (2007): 355-384. Back to Text 73. "Report on Conditions in Bukit Duri Women's Prison in Jakarta," File ASA 21 November 1971, Amnesty International Archives, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. Back to Text 74. Sudjinah, Terempas Gelombang Pasang and Sulami, Perempuan – Kebenaran – Penjara. Back to Text https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 22/23 === [PDF page 23] === 3/17/26, 9:40 PM Indonesian Women and Anti-Imperial Activism and Thinking, 1945-1965 75. For more on Sulami's early activism for the 1965 case, see Stanley, "Opening that Dark Page," Inside Indonesia, 63, July-Sept 2000 (http://www.insideindonesia.org/opening-that-dark-page). For some analysis of the work of the survivor organization YPKP (Yayasan Penelitian Korban Pembunuhan 1965-1966, Foundation for Research into Victims of the 1965-66 Killings), which Sulami co founded and which Sudjinah supported, see Katharine McGregor, "Mass Graves and Memory of the 1965-66 Killings" in Douglas Kammen and Katharine McGregor (eds.), in The Contours of Mass Violence in Indonesia, 1965-1968, (SEAP Series Singapore University Press, University of Hawaii Press and KITLV, Singapore), pp. 234-262. Back to Text Copyright © 2016, Kate McGregor https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3358387#search/sulami 23/23