Scraps of Hope in Banda Aceh

Front matter

Marjaana Jauhola

HELSINKI a U P nr UNIVERSITY Pro et core

Gendered Urban Politics in the Aceh Peace Process

Contents

List of Illustrations List of Videos Acknowledgements

Introduction: No More - Re-Centring the Subalterns of the Aceh Peace Process

De-Centring the Masculinist Peace Mediation MoU poetry Outline of the Argument

Chapter 1: Stumbling Scholarship: Reversing Research Praxis of Everyday Subjectivities

1.1. Researched Subjects and Postcolonial Paranoias 1.2. On Everyday Subjectivities: Feminism, Islam, Agency and Freedom 1.3. Methods for Decolonisation / Reversal of Research Praxis

1.4. From Street Ethnography to Film Production, and Visual Representations

1.4.1. Multi-Sited Ethnography (2012-2016) 1.4.2. On Documentary Video Production 1.4.3. Teasing Out a Coherent Story

1.5. Beyond Fables and Peace Brands

Chapter 2: Kota Madani (Civilised City) and the Struggle to Define Ideal Womanhood

2.1. City in Transition and the Rise of Sharia Populism

2.2. Governance of Gender and Sexual Politics: Colonial (Dis)Continuities?

2.3. Kota Madani - Towards a ‘Civilised Islamic City’ 2.4. Bunda’s Advice: Paradise Awaits Nasihat bunda - Mother’ advice 2.5. Guidance towards Ideal Womanhood through State Structures vii

2.6. Contestation of the Public Sphere and Islamic Women’s Respectability 2.7. Paradise Awaits, for Whom?

Chapter 3: ‘Because You Are a Woman’: Resisting a Single Story

3.1. Smile that Hides Sorrow?

3.2. Stranger in Her Own Village

3.3. Solving Problems Like a Man

3.4. Cursed by the Second Wife

3.5. Grandmother Really Understood Me 3.6. What to Do If No Children Are Mine? 3.7. Smile as a Self-Care?

Chapter 4: Subjugated Post-Conflict Masculinities: From Premanisme to Sufism

4.1. The Many Faces of Masculinities 4.2. The Long Journey from 1976 to 2016 4.3. Premanisme and Conflict Presence in the Post-Conflict City

4.4. Subjugated Non-Violent Masculinities - Oral Transmission of ‘Kitab Mujarabat

4.5. Ilmu Bodoh - Healing as an Alternative Political Economy?

Chapter 5: Chaotic Pavements: Punk/Metal Scene Keeping the Traumas of the City Open

5.1. Bastard Illiza and Punks’ Politics of Repression in Banda Aceh 5.2. Our Wounds: Keeping the Tsunami Trauma Open 5.3. Rhizomatic Homes across the Indonesian Archipelago 5.4. Justice - Studying Up the Rule of Law 5.4.1. Chronology of the Rex Incident 5.4.2. The Trial

5.4.3. Written by Yudi Bolong at Tsunami Museum Banda Aceh, 26 May 2014

5.4.4, Marjaana’ Reflection on Gendered Everydays of Ethnography 5.5. Chronic - Changing Dimensions through Metal 5.6. Difference Is Not a War

Chapter 6: Queer Community and Care: Being and Belonging in the Verandah of Mecca

6.1. ‘Queering Peace’ in Aceh? Reflecting on Theory and Methodology 6.2. Queer Aceh

129 135 138 139 140 149

151 154 156 159

161 167

6.3. The LGBTI Activist City

6.4. Becoming Tomboi and Transman in Aceh

6.5. Poetic Expressions of Love, Intimacy and Care

6.6. Knowledge as Violence: Strategy to “Wipe Out’ LGBTI from Aceh 6.7. Precarious Queer Virtuality

6.8. Negotiating Dignity and Safety with Local and Global Human Rights Defenders

6.9. From Queering to Dig, Dag, Dug - Feeling of a Heartbeat Chapter 7: The Political Economy of the PET Bottle

7.1. In Search of Piety through Bottled Water 7.2. History and Context 7.3. Bottle Recycling Centre

7.4. Street Economics: From an Internally Conflict-Displaced Preman Economy to Social Rafting

7.5. Commodification of Water in a Middle-Class Family 7.6. From Shadows of Political Economy to Seeking Just Futures

Conclusions: Centring Ilmu Bodoh Foolish Knowledge,

Changing the Way in Which Gendered Peace Is Conceptualised?

Glossary

A Note on the Sources of the Chapters

Index

171 173 176 180 184

189 190 193

193 197 201

210 212 214

225 231 243 271 273

List of Illustrations

Image 1: Helsinki MoU handshake used in the peace mediation white paper in 2010. 10 Image 2: Map of Banda Aceh. 33 Image 3: Film poster with Illiza. 68 Image 4: Tupperware sales exhibition at Taman Sari. T9 Image 5: Hajj event - dance/karaoke. 76 Image 6: HT’s Women and Shariah Campaign phases. 79 Image 7: Illiza bastard. 130 Image 8: Gig advertisement from 2014. 158 Image 9: Instagram post by Mayor Illiza in 2016. 181 Image 10: Suggested video effect for Coaching to be strong

transman video. 186 Image 11: Plastic cup recycling in Banda Aceh. 194

Image 12: Implementation of Sharia Islam results in guidance, managing waste and ultimate blessing. 202

List of Videos

Video 1: Scraps of Hope Aceh teaser (02:23).

Video 2: Poetic resistance I: whose peace is this? (05:07). Video 3: MoU Helsinki: reclaiming back history (16:52).

Video 4: Shari’a and visions for peace: blueprint for just and equal Islamic law (10:29).

Video 5: Poetic resistance II: because you are a woman (03:20). Video 6: Smile that hides sorrow (08:19).

Video 7: Solving nikah siri - unregistered marriage (09:46). Video 8: A good mother (07:37).

Video 9: From ex-combatant to Sufi healer 1-3 (08:21).

Video 10: From ex-combatant to Sufi healer 1-3 (05:55). Video 11: From ex-combatant to Sufi healer 1-3 (05:44).

Video 12: Totaliter: penjara pemikiran/prison of thoughts (02:12).

Video 13: Coaching to be strong transman (05:59).

Video 14: Don't be angry (03:19).

Video 15: Dreamcatcher (06:24).

Acknowledgements

This book and the accompanied video documentaries would have not been possible without the support of a number of people over the past eight years, some going way beyond that, all the way to early 2000s at the Peace Station in Helsinki and dialogue with Acehnese human rights defenders.

First of all, I want to thank all those Acehnese who allowed the project team and me to enter your homes and lives - I have a deep gratitude of having gained insights that led research towards appreciating Ilmu Bodoh, subaltern theorising on peace. On behalf of all of us who have formed the Scraps of Hope team during these years, we sincerely hope that we can live up to your expectations of this journey. Any representational biases and mistakes are solely ours.

I also want to thank all the Acehnese counterpart organisations and their staff members, directors, researchers, lecturers and, most importantly, administrative staff members facilitating the paper bureaucracy related to foreign researcher visits in Aceh between the years 2012 and 2018. These institutions are the International Centre for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies (ICAIOS), the University of Malikussaleh (UNIMAL) and the Islamic State University Ar-Raniry (UIN). My special gratitude goes to the staff of the Embassy of Republic of Indonesia in Helsinki and in particular the Ambassador of Indonesia in Finland, H. E. Wiwiek Setyawati Firman, for facilitating the filming permissions for 2015, and taking part in the University of Helsinki Think Corner Talk - Poetry - Dance ZUBAIDAH DJOHAR: BUILDING A BOAT IN A PARADISE - FEMINIST LITERATURE THAT RESISTS FORGETTING xii Scraps of Hope in Banda Aceh evening in November 2017. The Scraps of Hope team, daring to dream of a media-embedded, peer-reviewed monograph already in 2015, we truly were ahead of the times! Thank you Seija Hirstio, Ariyuki Suzuki, Päivi Nikkilä, and Riitta Koikkalainen and Jukka Turunen for being part of Scraps of Hope! My gratitude for all the hard work by Rahmat in Aceh for essential logistics and additional camerawork in recordings in December 2015. Evi Sugianty (ICAIOS) and Mifta Sugesti - your professionalism in going through interview and video recordings, providing transcripts, translations and detailed comments on the draft videos, has provided deepened perspectives to ethnographic moments that could otherwise go unnoticed.

My sincere thanks to poet, trainer, researcher and friend Ibed, Zubaidah Djohar and a colleague at UNIMAL campus Nanda Amalia, and all her colleagues who invited me to their classes in 2012. A special thank you to the Creative Minority student group for initiating the creative writing workshops leading to Zubaidah Djohar’s edited book Dalam Keriput Yang Tak Usang: Suara Pemuda Dan Jalan Panjang Perdamaian Aceh and similarly, all the voluntary effort that went into writing, editing and publishing the book Bisu yang Bersuara, collection of writings of female survivors of violence in the midst of peace in Aceh after the initial joint writing workshop organized in August 2018. Similarly, the whole of the Generasi-Generasi Damai - Peace Generations video team in both Aceh led by Davi Mashury and recordings completed by Susanna Hast in Helsinki. My gratitude also to the Vantaa Art Museum (Artsi) staff, Let’s Speak Peace exhibition curator Jani Leinonen, and President Tarja Halonen, artist Sasha Huber and journalist Abdirahim “‘Husw’ Hussein for your valuable contribution to conceptualising peace.

<3 to all those wonderful people who made the Helsinki GenderPeaceSecurity (GPS) research collective event Utopias of Peace in October 2017 possible: Carmen Baltzar, the Young Muslims and Resilience project, Rita Manchanda, Minna Seikkula, Susanna Hast, Judy Pasimio, Pieta Hyvarinen, Jasmina Amzil, Sophia Wekesa, Ruskeat Tytöt and student-led Feminist Collective. Likewise, the participants and organisers of the Peace Agreements +10 years - Women and Post-Conflict Realities - event that also made possible the Smolna talks with Professor Eka Srimulyani and Donna Swita. Thank you also to Associate Professor Mulki al-Sharmani at the University of Helsinki, and General Secretary Hannele Varsa at the Gender Equality Council for having facilited this rare visit from Aceh. My appreciation for the solidarities built at the event Black Women’s Voices and the Rise of Hate in Tiedekulma in January 2019. Thank you Silvana Bahia, Mariyam Abdulkarim, Bianca Benini, Monica Gathuo and Leonardo Custódio.

Reversing the ethnographic research praxis has also included exposing the yet-to-be written ethnography for discussion at more than 20 screening events throughout the years 2016 to 2019, including at the Tikkurila public library - the municipality of Vantaa’s pop-up space making the lesser-known town of the

Acknowledgements xiii

Aceh Peace Process connected to the peace-building effort and at Kilteri junior high school. And, of course, huge thanks go to students at the University of Helsinki, the University of Lausanne, Saint Louis University/Madrid Campus and the South Asian University in New Delhi in invited classes and seminars of International Relations, Gender and Development Studies, and Theology, where the ideas and videos have been discussed and debated between 2015 and 2019. Thanking you all for engaging with the research with your valuable and insightful perspectives! Thank you to Rahel Kuntz, Simona Rentea, Soumita Basu and Shweta Singh, Anja Nygren and Mulki Al-Sharmani and Katja Grekula for the invitations.

Thank you to Professor Eka Srimulyani (UIN Ar-Raniry) and emerging scholar Era Maida for the hundreds of hours’ worth of video conference calls to form a ‘female conspiracy’ and peer support network while working on other scholarly contributions. I also want to thank colleagues at the University of Helsinki in the Faculty of Social Sciences in Development Studies, especially Henni Alava, Minna Hakkarainen, Elina Oinas and Henri Onodera, and the Faculty of Arts in Gender Studies - especially Johanna Kantola, Nina Järviö and Aino- Maija Hiltunen; the feminist International Relations community in Finland, especially Saara Sarma, Tiina Vaittinen, Susanna Hast, Tiina Seppälä, Leena Vastapuu and Minna Lyytikäinen; and the wider networks of queer, postcolonial and anti-racist feminist gatherings around ISA and BISA, and the Feminist Peace Research Network. This research also led to pioneering course Vismeth (visual methods in social sciences/visual anthropology) developed collectively with my other visual-oriented and talented colleagues at the Faculty of Social Sciences: Kazu Ahmed, Andrea Butcher, Henri Onodera and Salla Sariola. Special thanks to director and teacher Jouko Aaltonen for all the coaching and support along the way of designing and running the course. Huge thank you for nurturing my writing and final touches to the excitingly new book format goes to copy editors Marie-Louise Karttunen and Sophie Rosinke, Pro et Contra book series Taru Haapala and Anna Kronlund, and Anna-Mari Vesterinen and Heta Björklund from Helsinki University Press.

Warmest thanks go to my dear friends and colleagues Leena Avonius and Emilia Palonen for the needed colleagual smoke saunas, drinks and dinners. Last but not least, I thank my families: in Finland, for believing in a first-generation scholar; and my second family in Zarpara, Kachchh in Gujarat for caring during the challenging COVID-19 lockdown months spent in 2020 at the farm, learning quilting and preparing the book manuscript for publishing. HIHI.

This research, the documentary video production and writing up the book has been made possible with the following research and video documentary funding: University of Helsinki Post-Doctoral Researcher funding (2013- 2014); Finnish Cultural Foundation funding (2015); and Academy of Finland Fellowship (2015-2020).