Coming to Indonesia, I would be defending the choice of women to wear a hijab in any case. That has not changed, I still believe that if a woman wants to wear a hijab, she should, whenever and wherever she pleases. The argument of choice however was changed. Apart for exemptions, before coming here, I would say that it is the choice of the woman herself to wear the hijab (at least in democratic countries, like Indonesia). After living here for a while I have come to realize that it is actually a choice only in exemptions.
First of all, I think that there is one occasion when it is absolutely not acceptable for a female to be wearing a hijab and that is when she is a child or even a baby. I have seen so many two year olds running around with hijabs on their heads and I can never stop feeling appalled by it. In a conversation I had as to why, they told me that it is for training. You train, as a parent, your girl, to get used to the hijab and then when she comes to an age when she can make her own choices, she decides whether she wants to continue wearing it or not. I do understand that this might not be the reasoning for everyone, but that was the one I got. It is ridiculous that there are parents that feel that they need to train their kids in such regards. You are forcing a child to hide themselves, you are intentionally taking away from them the ability to play or run around as they want and you are clearly making them suffer in the heat, for what? To train them like their upbringing is some sort of moral experiment? If parents want their children to truly choose whether or not they want to wear a hijab, then they should give them the information and actually let them choose!
That brings another issue as well. Why do we only choose to train girl this way? Yeah, of course boys are also trained in praying or learning the Quran but it is mostly girls in every religion or society, that we feel we should reform somehow. It is girls that should always be the responsible, pure ones, while boys can go play around. I understand that this attitude is slowly changing, in some areas faster than others, but it is sickening to see such bland examples of unfair treatment towards girls. So, even though no one asked, I will say that I don’t agree with little girls wearing hijabs in any context and no excuse can change my mind, because that’s all they are, excuses. The reality is that girls wear hijabs because some parents feel that they should grow up with a stronger sense of purity, cause you know «boys will be boys». Well girls will be girls too and that means absolutely nothing.
The matter of choice it a general issue in this subject. First of all, a lot of things we believe that we are choosing, we are really not. Do you think for example, shaving your legs is a choice? It seems logical that it should be right? You choose to buy a razor and you choose to use it, so it makes sense that it was a choice. But if tomorrow you didn’t have the social pressure of having shaved legs, then would you still do it? And if this is true for something purely cosmetic, then how can it not be true for something with moral and ethical implications like wearing a hijab? I mean a hardcore fan of determinism would say that nothing really is a choice, but maybe this is taking it a tad too far. But except for that, my main issue didn’t come from the lack of conscious choice, but more from the realization that some women who were wearing the hijab did not really know why.
I met many young Indonesians, who were wearing the hijab on their everyday life. When I was asking them a question, that as an ignorant non-religious person did not know, like what are you celebrating in Eid al-Fitr, they did not really know to answer. They would also frequently mention that they are such bad Muslims or they do not really care a lot for their religion. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, if the only people that were allowed to identify as Christians, were the ones actually having read and knew the Bible, then in Greece we would probably have five. But I always got this question whenever they said that: «Why are you wearing the Hijab then?». If you are not that much interested in the religion then why are you wearing an extra piece of clothing? I never asked that of course, it might have been too offensive or sensitive of a question to ask. My question still stands however, why are women wearing that if not for religious purposes?
Of course I am not that oblivious not to understand that religion and society are moving hand in hand. If you grow up in a society were everyone is wearing a hijab and you are raised with the idea that this is the right thing to do, of course you will wear it too, even if you don’t care about the religion as much. That goes back to the question of choice of course, since if you just grow up knowing something as right, yes you are going to do it no matter what. Again, everyone, everywhere does that with everything, even if it is with superstitions like knocking on wood. But at least people should have the curiosity to know why, right? I shave my legs and I don’t like, but I know that I am doing it to please some societal standards, so why are women wearing hijabs when the reason is not religious? Do they know the societal pressure or they just convince themselves that it is because they want to? I am not of course here to pretend that I am superior for partly understanding my own lack of choice and open anyone’s eyes to it. I am, myself, wondering how much we understand this lack of choice, especially in serious matters like this one.
Of course, I still believe that any woman has a right to wear or not wear a Hijab and no one should take that away from them. A choice or not, in the end it is for her to decide what she wants to do with her body in any context. Feminism is all about choice and let’s not all pretend that we haven’t done things just to please some stupid standards. I also know that I am not part of this community, I am an outsider trying to pick in and understand. Naturally, I do understand that Muslim women very much differ from place to place and cannot be painted with a single brush. What I have realized, however, living here is, of course, that wearing a Hijab is not a choice (but again many thing aren’t, so that’s not the issue), but also got me wondering in why is it still a thing? Trying to phrase the next sentence as carefully as possible, I want to say, that in my, as biased as everyone’s, opinion, a hijab is still a sign of oppression and indoctrination in religion. That doesn’t mean that women, if they want to, shouldn’t wear it, but it might mean that maybe we should talk about this part of religion. The part, in almost every religion, when men and women are often not treated equal, because of a passage or of an interpretation. Of course religions are thousands years old, they are going to be sexist, but how are we adapting today? In the end I know that this is a controversial topic, but it is okay, we should still be talking about it.
The Indonesian Chronicles 