By Nuning Hallett** 

Activism among women in mixed-marriages gained media attention as they advocated an amendment to the Citizenship bill in 2005 and 2006. In spite of the recognition, not too many people are aware that the idea to push for a discourse on citizenship in Indonesia was originally founded among a transnational network of Indonesian women living abroad. A long process of transnational activism brought them to the point of advocacy for the amendment. This article will discuss the uniqueness of their activism and show how it had reconstructed their identity and sense of belonging. It is important to bring this activism into discussion since Indonesian women marrying foreign-national men are frequently judged as non-nationalists.

The contemporary theory of migration claims that migration does not necessarily imply a complete break from the homeland; rather, migrants live in and inhabit two worlds simultaneously. The migrant is always living between the country of origin and country of migration. Within this context, Indonesian women in mixed-marriages who live abroad live in a new country and in their homeland at the same time. Even though most adopt a new nationality, they still maintain close contact and give close attention to their Indonesian families, fellows, even Indonesian news and events. As migrants from a communal society, they also develop their own networks/communities as well as individual relationships based on cultural and national commonality.

In 2000, Aneke, a woman from Bandung who married a French man and moved to the south part of France, initiated a mailing list called INDO-MC for Indonesians in mixed-marriages from around the world. Shortly thereafter, 800 members registered but only 30 of the women members lived in Indonesia. The conversations in the mailing list centered mainly around their love-hate relationship with Indonesia as they experienced derogation—most of them were accused of being women with “wajah pembantu” (having a maid face)—as well as the disappointment of unequal treatment from the government. The year 2001 was a turning point for the organization that saw the mailing list transform into Internet-based activism. This was prompted when one of the members suggested the idea of applying dual citizenship to the children of mixed marriages after she attended a forum in Berkeley, California where the Indonesian Ambassador to the United States discussed the possibility of applying dual citizenship for economic purposes. A year later, the idea crystallized and was presented in Indonesia accompanied by a proposal and petition signed by 2000 people.

This proposal and petition inspired women in transnational marriages living in Indonesia. Srikandi, the existing mixed-marriage organization in Indonesia, was inspired to take further political action. It also inspired others to contribute to the advocacy by forming their own organizations. At the end of 2002 APAB, an alliance of Indonesian women married to foreigners and foreign women married to Indonesians, was formed. In 2005, Melati World Wide, another virtual group of Indonesian women married to foreigners was formed in Italy. At the end of 2005, KPC Melati was formed in Jakarta. The latter gained media exposure and trust from the Indonesian government to socialize the newly amended citizenship bill in 2006.

The members of INDO-MC find political meaning in the social space and landscapes they occupy by linking together through various means with Indonesia and their country of settlement. Some members who hold new citizenship confessed that changing their passport was not an easy decision to make but they did it because they did not have enough protection as Indonesian citizens compared to the protections and rights that came with their new citizenship. Their preference for the new country was also related to their experience with the characteristics of the new society like orderliness, the convenience of civil services, and a generous welfare system. This led some of them to dream of replicating these things in Indonesia. For them, the “ideal” life in the new land inspired them to take social and political action like fundraising for educating the poor, helping with disasters, even proposing an amendment to the citizenship and immigration laws in Indonesia from a distance. Even though they claimed their new land as their “home”, the desire to contribute to a better Indonesia still strongly existed. This was reflected in the establishment of charity organizations by the former members of INDO-MC such as the Annisa Foundation based in London and Padi Nusantara based in San Francisco which is concerned with education and supports schooling for underprivileged children.

It is also interesting to note that Julie, a former INDO-MC president who founded Melati World Wide, volunteered to socialize new Indonesian electoral policies in 2009 to Indonesian nationals living in Italy, while she no longer kept Indonesian nationality. Rima, who was an active fund-raiser for advocacy of the amendment to the citizenship law, recently received an honor as the one of the 25 Most Influential Asian-Americans in Georgia (U.S.A.) given by the Georgia Asian Times. The GA Times described the honorees as “…individuals (who) have provided a positive contribution to the community while enhancing the Asian image overall”.

The simultaneous life lived between Indonesia and the new country in these individual women and the way they used the Internet to form a network has added new meaning to the definition of transnational activism which is related to long distance nationalism. For these women, the conventional notion of citizenship became ambiguous since they were not really tied legally to Indonesia. In fact, they were literally excluded as citizens in Indonesia, yet they still acted as citizens. Most of their contributions to the home country such as becoming unofficial cultural ambassador, contributing to education, socializing Indonesian policy abroad, even instigating new policies in Indonesia may not have affected their life and their legal status. Their satisfaction was found in the effort to create meaningful progress in the space they call home as they imagined it could be. []

 **Ph.D. student in Global Gender Studies at The State University of New York at Buffalo

 Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/03/07/transnational-activism-among-women-mixed-marriages.html