In order to
Commemorate of 114th International
Women's Day
We
commemorate the 114th International Women's Day March 8 in 2024 amid the general
elections which has in various ways, taken away the right to elect and be
elected which belongs to the women of the peasantry, the working class, the professionals,
the low-level workers as well as millions of informal and precarious women
workers in urban and rural areas. Indonesian women are again forced to become
pillars holding up half the sky that still belongs to the semi-colonial and semi-feudal
system that is currently threatened with imminent collapse under a chronic
crisis that continues to worsen day by day. Women's voices are manipulated
through election after election to support new policies, regulations and
decisions that will always multiply the oppression and exploitation of women
themselves. Prabowo Subianto, the so-called ‘provisional victor’ of the
election based on the quick count of the Indonesian General Election Commission
(KPU), was the main military element of Suharto's New Order Regime which lasted
for 32 years. Not only that, he also took part in strengthening Joko Widodo's US
puppet regime in his second term as Joko Widodo’s Minister of Defense for the semi-colonial
and semi-feudal system! SERUNI resolutely opposes any and all undemocratic
elections, especially so for women, and from now on prepares itself to face the
US puppet regime that oppresses women which will soon be Joko Widodo’s
successor.
We
also commemorate the 114th International Women’s Day in the midst of
an acute imperialist crisis marked by a brutal and deadly war of aggression by
Israeli Zionists supported by the United States and NATO against the
Palestinian nation and people. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were murdered
by the Zionist regime, majority of them unarmed women and children. Hundreds of
thousands of others became refugees without any guarantee of safety, without
food and drink, health services, and safe and adequate housing. Tens of
thousands of other Palestinian women are also held hostage within Israeli
prisons, under constant threat of sexual violence. Lasting peace in Palestine
can only occur if the Zionist occupation is finally defeated alongside the
domination of United States imperialism, both can only be defeated through the
unity of the oppressed and exploited people throughout the world.
SERUNI
also condemns the deaths and violence against women and children during
Russia's prolonged war on Ukraine due to the provocation and support of the
United States and its NATO allies for its Ukrainian puppet regime. The people
of Palestine, Russia and Ukraine as well as the people of various countries who
are taking part in the war against the domination of imperialism not only need
humanitarian assistance and won’t be satisfied with a false sense of peace, but
they needed a genuine international solidarity and lasting peace which can only
be won by an anti-imperialist liberation movement that is strengthened by the
unity of oppressed and exploited peoples in the world.
Since
the commemoration of International Women's Day on March 8th, 2023,
the imperialist puppet government's active efforts to coopt the commemoration
have intensified, and will include the 114th International Women’s Day
commemoration. SERUNI as a women's organization that fights for the liberation
of Indonesian women by resolving the fundamental problems of Indonesian women,
emphasizes that no matter how weak the strength of the democratic women and its
movement, calls on all oppressed and exploited people in Indonesia to fight
together so that the International Women’s Day remains under the ownership of
the people, and does not fall under the domination of the oppressing and
exploiting class, both in Indonesia and throughout the world, who in every way tries
to show itself as the fighter for women's liberation. They only commemorate
International Women's Day on March 8th in order to prevent the spread of national
democratic ideas and struggles that will fundamentally change the multi-layered
oppression and exploitation of women. The commemoration they held was for the
liberation of women of the ruling reactionary classes themselves, not for women
workers and peasants, professionals and other lowly workers in rural and urban
areas. In fact, the commemoration they held was only to reaffirm the new limits
of "women's liberation" which were and were not permitted by
imperialism and the semi-colonial and semi-feudal system in Indonesia. In
short, the International Women’s Day commemoration by the Indonesian Government
through the Ministry of Women's and Children's Empowerment only serves to
emphasize that the ideal of women's complete liberation from the male
patriarchal system and various forms of discrimination due to religion and
society is irrelevant and just a utopia!
Since
Clara Zetkin, the founder of the German proletarian movement in 1910 proposed
International Women's Day to be celebrated on March 8th at the
Second International Conference of Socialist Women, until now the world has
only inherited two experiences of fundamental liberation for women in the
world, namely Russia after the victory of the Great October Revolution of
1917-1956 and China since 1949-1976. After that, imperialism and all variants
of backward systems of power in semi-colonial countries returned the status of
women back under the domination of the patriarchal system of men, under which
women suffered various kinds of discrimination and violence along with all the
domestic work that was considered inherent to them from birth.
In
the most advanced capitalist industrial country, the United States, the fate of
women is similar but not the entirely the same as the fate of women in backward
agrarian countries such as Indonesia. Domestication, wage discrimination, and
commercialization of women are intensive. Likewise, Western European countries
merely ‘liberated’ women in their liberal systems as commodities and
instruments for multiplying the birth of NEW VALUE from their commodities and
finance capital.
Even
though we have commemorated International Women’s Day for the 114th time, Mao
Tse Tung's expression, the leader of China's proletarian women's liberation
movement, "Women Hold Up Half the Sky", only applies very
artificially in Indonesia. In Indonesia it is difficult to find those who do
not praise, glorify women and claim to protect them with all their might.
However, violence against women and children has reached another level of
insanity throughout the year of 2023 in various forms that are difficult to
accept. Sadistic murders after being raped and other forms of extreme sexual
violence, physical torture of women and children without reason, rampant sales
of women for prostitution and sexual commodification, various forms of overt
commercialization of women to multiply profits from capitalist merchandise,
supported by the fact that 24% of Indonesian women are used as spearheads of
product sales.
The
strong patriarchal system of male power, the semi-colonial and semi-feudal
system, has given men special privileges, especially husbands, as legislators
and judges, even making husbands, uncles, and older brothers as policemen and
soldiers to scrutinize women. As a result, the patriarchal system of male power
has succeeded in educating male children who claim to be the servant of their
mothers while they still allow and even defend their fathers who openly
domesticate their mothers, even using various forms of violence to enforce this
domestication!
Women's
lack of freedom in the economic aspect is the basis for women losing their
political and cultural freedom. Only a handful of Indonesian women, those who
are part of the ruling reactionary class, enjoy economic freedom and ultimately
enjoy political and cultural freedom by oppressing and eliminating the freedom
of millions of other women in rural and urban areas. The 2022 Central
Statistics Agency figures show that only 0.78 percent of women are in
leadership positions in various jobs.
The
number of landless women and those don’t take part in agricultural work side by
side with men in rural areas continues to increase. Both because of the crisis
within the agricultural economic system based on exportable commodities such as
palm oil and because of the chronic cultural crisis which is getting worse. Central
Statistics Agency figures shows that only 15.88% of the 44 million plots of
land are under the ownership of women and only 24% of women work in the
agricultural and plantation sectors. In a class society like Indonesia, women
in rural areas can only liberate themselves, even though they are limited, if
they own land and take part in work side by side with men. Work that is based
on the principle that women have the right to receive the same share of
production results or wages for each job as men. In large numbers, women who do
not own property in rural areas become commodities in cheap labor export
schemes to various countries such as Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and other Arab
countries, Malaysia, Australia, Korea and Taiwan. They are referred to as
migrant workers.
The
number of women who do not work in agricultural and industrial production is
increasingly greater than the number of women who work. The types of work
available to women are increasingly inferior and make it easier for women to
become objects of various forms of physical and sexual violence. There are
still very large numbers of women who are deprived of their basic rights to
cheap and quality education and health, especially in remote areas, where
national minorities and poor settler-farmers reside in Indonesia's forests.
The
chronic crisis, oppression and exploitation of women cannot be ended by any
normative means, including through the general elections. Over and over again,
new policies, regulations and decisions were born after dozens of elections in
Indonesia since 1955. All these policies, regulations and decisions has in fact
deepened the crisis for women economically, politically and culturally.
In
the face of such crisis, SERUNI remains steadfast in its stance that Indonesian
women shall be free in line with the liberation of the Indonesian nation and
people from the semi-colonial and semi-feudal system. The system of patriarchal
male power can only disappear fundamentally if the domination of imperialism,
feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism disappears from Indonesia. The entire
national democratic struggle for liberation can only begin by winning the
genuine LAND REFORM in the countryside as a way to pave the way for national
industrialization, the genuine guarantor of women's liberation.
Indonesian
women must be the pillars holding up half the sky for a new, freer, democratic
and more advanced system that must be fought for in Indonesia and the entire
world. She must no longer holds up half the sky of a semi-colonialism and
semi-feudalism, a wretched system that will collapse and be absolved!
Happy
144th International Women’s Day,
Defeat
imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism
Long live to Indonesian Women!
The oppressed and exploited people of Indonesia, unite!!
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