Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: PERSONAL RESTLESSNESS

VS LESBIANS’ STORIES

A. Background of the Study

“Hey, what are you going to research for your thesis?” “I am doing research on lesbian in Indonesian and Western Literature.” “Why do you bother conducting research on lesbian literature?Who is actually the lesbian? The object of research or you yourself, as the researcher?” I was shocked when someone asked me those questions. I was so surprised at listening and responding to these comments. Should I also be considered as lesbian because of my interest in studying lesbian literature? I opened this paragraph by delivering a personal story of what happened to me when someone asked me about the topic of my thesis. He automatically thought that I was a lesbian, because I chose lesbian literature for my thesis topic. Why is it that when someone does not know all the facts, they easily make unwise judgment without confirming the information first? This example I personally experienced shows that if we do not understand we will be mistaken. Thus, we should seek information, try to understand others to avoid misunderstanding among each others and try to understand so that others will not mistake us too. In October 2009, I was sitting in fear because of my decision to join a Queer Film Festival. A shorter name for the Queer Film Festival is Q-Film. Q- Film is a film festival organized by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender LGBT activists to communicate their way of life to others outside of their 2 community. We were in a large comfortable building in one of universities in Yogyakarta. It was around 8 pm. When we were ready to watch the film scheduled by the committee, one of the committee members stood up be fore us. She delivered a short speech to remind the audiences that this festival could be under attack due to its content. Thus, she pointed out the location of the emergency exits in case any sign of danger were to appear. The committee had already been informed that the militant group; Islamic Defenders Front FPI = Front Pembela Islam , the Islamic fundamentalist group in Indonesia would come to stop this program. And there could be a possibility they could use violence and attack any of us who were at that place at that time. How ironic it is to live around people and a majority society who are quick to label and judge somebody else, without truly knowing what the essential issues are. At that time, I was questioning myself. What if that night I had gotten injured or perhaps even died only because of watching a QLGBT movie for the sake of my research? I know that the FPI is notorious for its violence and anarchies actions. We were watching the movie when suddenly one of the committee interrupted to announce and apologize that we could not continue the program, since the FPI was about to come. For this reason, the committee decided to end the Q-Film Festival earlier to avoid being attacked by the FPI, which could harm all of us. So, the Q-Film Festival ended abruptly without a closing statement or ceremony, with the exception of a word of thank from the MC for coming that night. Then, the audiences left the room through the emergency exits in a rush, but calmly. The doors led to the ground floor and on to the parking area. I can still 3 feel my fear from that night. The last information I got in that night was that after all those in the audiences left the university, the committee members had to hide themselves in a hotel. The FPI’s attack was failed because they could not find either the participants or the committees of this festival. I grew up in the environment which people consider and label themselves as “normal.” During my 22 years, I personally have had no homosexual experience. However, since I have been here in Yogyakarta and far away from my family and my “normal” life environment in Jambi, I have met homosexual people, interacted with them and even made friends with them. I try to learn about them so that I can understand them and their way of life. Many of them have had a more difficult life than most heterosexuals. Moreover, I propose it is not sufficient information to only know lesbian and the issue of lesbianism only from their daily life. I choose to learn them from other mediums, thus from literary perspective, as well. Literature gives a space for people to voice out their true options and ideas when they do not feel they can voice it due to societal norms in their daily lives. Through literature we can speak unspoken things without any fear. It was in 2010 when I was introduced to lesbian literature. In those days when I began to research lesbian literary work, many questions came into my mind, because it was really new experience for me. What does it actually mean to be a lesbian? How can a woman fall in love with another woman? Why are there women who love women, as if there are no more men to love? Why do so many people hate lesbians? Should lesbian sexual desire be denied? Why are they considered to be people who are mentally handicapped, abnormal, evil, immoral, 4 etc? Why are they not accepted in their society or even among their own family? Why should lesbians get married with men if they love women emotionally and sexually? How can a married woman with children still be able to have sexual experiences with another woman? Why is love and sexual desire to the same sex considered to be evil and sinful? Is it wrong and a mistake if a woman loves another woman? Then, if it is so, should they be punished? Who should punish them? God? Society? The State? Nature? Or who? So, the only idea that came into my mind then was: “Wow Human sexuality is not as simple as I thought. It is really complex”. The existence of homosexual people in many countries remains a controversial issue. They remain a minority community due to their sexual orientation, not belonging to the common or majority sexual orientation heterosexual, they automatically get classified with negative images and stereotypes. They are treated with injustice by society and even from the political powers. Their tendency to have and express emotional and biological desire toward the same sex is considered as abnormal. Society labels them with a variety of stigmata or labels, such as abnormal, ill, sinful, dirty, evil, dangerous and other labels. It is sad to see such discrimination, since all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, or gender identity, should be able to enjoy the full range of human rights without exception or exclusion from society. Yet, until today homosexual people, especially lesbians, often get discrimination, such as social, law, political, and cultural even religious discrimination. 5 For example, in Indonesia there is no law that exists to protect Indonesia citizens from discrimination or harassment on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBT people often suffer cruelty by the hands of the police but it is hard to document due to victims refusing to give statements because of their sexuality. Many LGBT people are often arrested, detained or charged due to their sexual orientation and sometimes without clear reasons. In addition gays in jails are sexually abused due to their sexual orientation, and often do not report it due to being traumatized and fear of being sent back to prison to suffer further abuse. 1 In America, gay and lesbian still face many kinds of discrimination until today, for example in military, in obtaining jobs and housing, in using public facilities hotels and taverns, in areas of family law right to marry, retain custody of their children, adopt children, or provide foster care, as victims of police harassment and violent hate crimes, and in AIDS-related discrimination. 2 Lesbians are under attack through violent crimes, physical and psychological abuse, sexual violence. These can occur at homes, schools, workplaces, in places of worship or in the neighborhood. We can see from the media that this is a global issue. Sexual orientation or gender identity that is outside of mainstream society leads to the discrimination of these individuals in the form of bias, abuse, violence, imprisonment, torture, or even execution. It is shocking to know that people are being killed because of their sexual orientation or gender expression. 1 Laurent Erick, Sexuality and Human Rights, Journal of Homosexuality 40. 34 2001: 163– 225. 2 Laurent Erick, “Sexuality and Human Rights”: 163-225. 6 In Indonesia, lesbianism seems to become public. At first, lesbians tried as much as possible to hide their true identity, but now they come together in a forum or organizations so that everyone is able to know about their existence. On April 19, 1981 a lesbian couple, Jessie 25 and Bonnie 22 ‘came out of the closet’ by holding their marriage in a Pub located in Blok M district, Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta and their ceremony was attended by 120 guests. 3 Today there are more than 30 LGBT organizations that spread over 21 big cities in Indonesia, such as Jakarta, Manado, Makasar, Balik Papan, Pekan Baru, Lampung, Medan, Banda Aceh, etc. Therefore, many activists, not only homosexuals but also heterosexual activists are still attempting to get equal rights for homosexuals. Moreover, lesbians face double oppression from society; first because they are women and second because of their sexual orientation. A variety of efforts is focusing on lesbian and human rights in order to obtain the right to get married and protected by law as heterosexual people do. The efforts come in the form of campaigns, demonstrations, discussions and seminars, festivals. Also lesbian groups are widespread on facebook and other internet sites, such as SepociKopi and ReadTheseLips. These lesbian websites have become one of the objects of research for this study. However, many activists find their struggle has not been successful enough because there is no immediate impact on lesbians and their rights. Thus a new revolution of promoting this struggle is done through published literature. 3 Sri Agustine, “Rahasia Sunyi; Gerakan Lesbian Di Indonesia” , Jurnal Perempuan 58, 2008 : 63 7 Literature is being used as medium to express this struggle. All these ways are not done simply to show their rebellion to societal norms but because the lesbians desire to be accepted and treated equally. They dream of a society where they are protected from any kind of violence and discrimination against them due to their sexual orientation. In the frame of literature, as commonly literary piece being functioned, many lesbian authors or even non-lesbian authors also use literature as medium to express their experiences about lesbianism and its world. These authors use literary work to bring forth the issue of homosexual. There are many literary works written to express their feelings mostly focused on the emotion of sadness, anger, hope and dream. Their literature also demonstrates the problems and conflicts they experienced in their social environment. Their writing is in various forms such as poetry, short story, and complete novels. Some of their central themes are related to identity, feminism, politics, culture, and abuse. Their bigger dream of these authors is to bring this ‘marginalzied world’ and its issues to the surface and view of main stream society. Their purposes are to end the injustices and discrimination through the writing of literary works. Their mission is to fight the rights of homosexuals in order that they may be treated equally and considered normal, both socially and politically. As stated by Manaf 4 that the option of being silence, which is expected to provide security and comfort for lesbian women turn out to provide no protection. It can be seen from the attitudes and discriminatory actions against lesbians, such as 4 Kamila Manaf, Pelangi Perempuan Kumpulan Cerpen dan Puisi Lesbian Muda, Yogyakarta: Institut Pelangi Perempuan, 2008, p. 8. 8 beatings, forced to marry the opposite sex, even to the extreme of raping which all in the pretext of bringing their sexual orientation back to normal. In contrast, World Health Organization has stated that being a homosexual gay and lesbian is a normal and natural way of sexual expression. 5 Then Manaf continued to say that to the young Indonesian lesbians these bitter experiences and injustices are the reasons why they prefer to ‘stay in the closet’. Thus, voicing the sexual rights of lesbian should be equal with the rest of society so that they can have hope for a better life will not be stopped. Heroic activists usually do demonstrations through peaceful protesting. Some come to the House of Representatives to have dialogue with the government to gain support politically. Unlike the effort done by these activists, Institut Pelangi Perempuan Indonesian Youth Lesbian Centre, SepociKopi and ReadTheseLips use another strategy. It is by voicing those issues through the publishing of creative writings in the forms of poetry and short fictions written by young and adult lesbians. As mentioned earlier, the stories published in SepociKopi and ReadTheseLips as well as Institut Pelangi Perempuan Indonesian Youth Lesbian Centre are the object of this study. SepociKopi is an Indonesian independent online lesbian magazine. It was founded by two women who are concerned with the movement of lesbians, Alex and Laskmi. In January 2007, they based a web blog www.sepocikopi.blogspot.com. Early writings were merely personal opinions written in their spare time. But it developed until the ideas that were spawned critical and revolutionary to the Indonesian lesbian movement. These 5 Kamila Manaf, Pelangi Perempuan Kumpulan Cerpen dan Puisi Lesbian Muda, p. 8. 9 two women and their blog are now very influential. Their writings are followed by other lesbian writers who continually broaden the breadth of topics ranging from culture, lifestyle, and humanities. Their vision and mission is to inspire, reach out, educate, move the hearts of the general public to possitive feelings especially towards lesbians in order to improve their quality of life. They also have the desire to create a broad and boundless virtual world lesbian community; in order to inform like minded people of events, exchange of professional and acedemic knowledge. SepociKopi wants to kindle more interest and education through reading and writing trends, in the quality of the fields of information presented in this lesbian magazine. Meanwhile Institut Pelangi Perempuan Indonesian Youth Lesbian Centre collected the young lesbians’ writings and published it on 17 Mei 2008 in IDAHO celebration day International Day Againts Homophobia. These collections of poems and short stories were published to show the Indonesian young lesbians’ struggle to fight against homophobia and all discriminative actions done toward lesbians in Indonesia. Meanwhile, Read These Lips is different in that it is a collection of lesbian short writings and creative works that are published into e-anthologies. It is provided free of charge to all readers around the world. It is distributed via the internet rather than through brick-and-mortar stores because the internet is a medium that connects them more than any other in history and has the potential to reach places that traditional print media may not. They want their readers to be able to access their books anywhere and anytime. In spite of the availability of new media and the world wide web, lesbians in more than half the world are still 10 hard pressed to find affirming representations of their sexuality and their lifestyles. Read These Lips is part of a growing group of queer publishers and supporters who provide safe spaces for lesbians through literature. The presence of these writings as explained by Manaf is expected to be a media campaign. And at the same time to enrich Indonesian literature on lesbian issues which are still very few in number. These published works function not only as medium for them to deliver their daily life experience which usually create problems either within themselves, their family and society, but also to gain sympathy from the readers. It is also expected to be a better form of communication with their family: father, mother, brother, sister, Indonesian society and states; “Last but not least… our silence is not protecting us, and then we choose to speak up.” 6 Lesbian literature became a new issue in the 1990s. Popular lesbian- themed literature itself has appeared in Indonesia 25 years ago. Since that era there have been efforts by Indonesian authors to introduce the lesbian through literature. The effort of those Indonesian writers in introducing and voicing this sensitive world seems to be successful, if it is viewed from the response of Indonesian society. For example, the production of some lesbian films which are adopted from Indonesian novels which lesbians and their life become the themed centered. Also a lesbian main character won an award Adikarya IKAPI and the Jakarta Arts Council. The third champion Jakarta Arts Council in 2003, “Tabula Rasa”, set a lesbian character as one of the main characters. In 2005, the novel of lesbian’s 6 Kamila Manaf, Pelangi Perempuan Kumpulan Cerpen dan Puisi Lesbian Muda, p. 8. 11 love story as the main element, “Jangan Beri Aku Narkoba Detik Terakhir” Don’t Give Me Drugs Last Seconds by Alberthiene Endah, was chosen by IKAPI Adikarya as the best teenage book. 7 Then the response to lesbian literature can also be said to have awakened the world of Indonesian cinema through the movie entitled “Detik Terakhir” was also created based on the novel “Jangan Beri Aku Narkoba Detik Terakhir”. In Indonesian literary world, there are some works in which lesbians and the issues of lesbians face appear in the form of short stories, for example a story written by Seno Gumira Ajidarma which was published in 1997, Dua Perempuan Dengan Hp-nya, and novels Kembang Kertas Ijinkan Aku Menjadi Lesbian 2007” by Eni Martini, Tabula Rasa 2003, Jangan Beri Aku Narkoba 2004, Garis Tepi Seorang Lesbian by HerlienaTiesn 2002, Suara Perih Perempuan Lesbian dan Kawin Bule by Putri Kartini 2003, Gerhana Kembar by Clara Ng 2007, Pelangi Perempuan Kumpulan Cerpen and Puisi Lesbian Muda Indonesia by Institut Pelangi Perempuan 2008 and among others. Short stories dealing with lesbian theme are interesting to be analyzed due to the fact that lesbians and gay have become controversial issues in many countries. Especially after knowing the real conditions of lesbians, it is interesting to do research on how lesbians are portrayed in the literary works. It is important to see what issues are pursued, how they struggle, how the lesbian are portrayed 7 Alex, “Wajah Novel-novel Lesbian di Indonesia”, 16 Agustus 2008 http:sepocikopi.blogspot.com 12 through literature, how they are focalized, etc. Homosexual, especially lesbian literary pieces, have different and unique features compare to other literary works. Lesbian literature is different because it usually shows the sexual orientation, injustice and discrimination issues they get from their environment. Besides, in English language short stories the authors openly reveal their identity even give their photo. It is different in Indonesian stories where some of the authors usually hide their true identity, by using pseudo name with no picture. However, the homosexual literature, especially lesbian literary writings, seem to be untouchable in the academic world. Neither in daily lives, such as seminars, schools, academic institutions, even in universities these literature works are not discussed. I personally have experienced the absence of our professors and lecturers in pursuing homosexual literary works. During my own studies in the undergraduate even in postgraduate, no gay or lesbian writings, such as novels, short stories, or poems are used in a class discussion. The similar situation also happens in America. Tyson tells us about uncomfortable atmosphere in her class when lesbian and gay writings are conducted, since the stigma attached to being thought as gay or lesbian is still quite strong in America today. Thus, some of her students may be unwilling to express anything on the subject until they see how the rest of their classmates respond. “As one of student told me, after signing out a number of books on lesbian and gay theory form the university library for a paper she was writing for my class, she wondered if the students who waited on her at the circulation desk thought she were non-straight, and to her embarrassment she found herself waiting to shout, “Hey, wait a minute; 13 I’m not a lesbian” 8 The situation experienced by this girl also happened to me as I have narrated at the very beginning of this chapter. Then, Tyson continues to explain that clearly in her college classrooms today, homosexuality is still considered as an uncomfortable topic of discussion. And there are some literature professors who simply avoid addressing lesbian and gay issues in college by not specifically devoting a study on lesbian and gay writers. Moreover, at many colleges, courses on gay and lesbian writers can be offered as “special topics”, but they do not always occur as regular courses offering for English department student. 9 Homosexual writing is also part of literary world and it is a reflection of society and cultural product, yet it is rarely discussed and therefore often neglected. Thus, the absence of some literary classes on the subject of homosexual or lesbian writers or themes reflects that this kind of literary piece directly or indirectly has been ignored by the practitioners of literature. Based on the reasons mentioned above, the reality of lesbians in the real world and also their appearance in literature, I decided to examine the portraits of lesbian in literary works. The idea of conducting this comparative study came after several readings on lesbian literary works. Therefore, using the Indonesian and English language short stories as the object of study was meant to find the portrayal of lesbians not only in Indonesia but also in the Western countries which are presented in the English language short stories. I analyze Indonesian lesbian short stories taken from Institut Pelangi Perempuan and SepociKopi, while the 8 Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today, New York: Routledge. TaylorFrancis Group: 2006, p.317. 9 Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today, p. 318. 14 English ones are taken form ReadTheseLips. I found even though these literary works are produced in different countries they have the same spirit, but at the same time, they also have a variety of distinct characteristics. Therefore, it is interesting to study the portrayal of lesbian through literary works since they represent the lesbian world. The issues varies, not only limited in sexual orientation and identity issues but also the issues dealing with the way lesbians view her feeling, the way they conduct their relationship and life, background of being a lesbian, problems and discrimination.

B. Scope of Study