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  • Balinese women between tradition and colonial legacy

    Balinese women between tradition and colonial legacy

    By Sanne Breimer

    What motivates a Balinese man to study the only ancient lontar, palm-leaf manuscript that focuses on the role of women in society? I Wayan Juliana is a Balinese scholar who wrote his PhD thesis on Stri Sasana; Stri is the Javanese word for woman or wife, and Sasana means rules and guidance. Juliana’s general interest in manuscripts, as intellectual records of the past, led him to study Stri Sasana—one of the few Balinese language texts about women. 

    Where the Javanese wrote a lot about women, mostly in the context of palace life and kings, Balinese lontars focus more on different aspects of ordinary life, from spiritual topics to administrative ones, like how to conduct financial transactions between two people.

    At first, Juliana thought that the Stri Sasana was about how to be a good woman. The first half of the text has information about how women can take care of themselves. It is about balancing life, caring for the body and face, and finding a good day to do a beauty treatment. For self-care to refill the inner beauty, it has to be based on the Balinese calendar, which combines a lunar calendar with complex astrological and agricultural cycles. 

    While I am speaking with Juliana, lecturer and writer Sonia Piscayanti translates the conversation. It allows checking how much she still follows the old manuscript. For her self-care moments, she does not seek the perfect date. Not all parts of the lontar are still relevant today.  

    The second part of the manuscript talks about practices such as polygamy (“madu” in Balinese language) and how a woman needs to be good to her husband, even if he has multiple wives. It describes how wives should follow his (sexual) desire: there is an obligation to follow the husband’s words, just as a girl would follow her parents.

    Juliana realized after a long analysis of the Stri Sasana that the prescriptions are less about being a good woman and more about attempts to control a woman. He still sees aspects of that in today’s society, in which patriarchy is strongly rooted. 

    Small revolutions from within

    One of Singaraja Literary Festival’s missions is to gain new perspectives on old texts. The lontar manuscripts are not absolute; the Balinese do not have to follow them 100%. In the old times, lontar was known as a literary text, not as the law. But an older generation now refers to lontar regularly, even though they might not have ever read it. Juliana sees researching the scripts as a gateway to discussing the position of Balinese women. Sonia, who is in her forties, adds, “Our generation needs to read it, research it, and open up the discussion.” The younger generation was not allowed to study the text before, but now it is. 

    Balinese women carry many burdens and obligations, and in the village, they even face a double burden both domestically and financially. Juliana says that Balinese society has not found a way yet to change the system. It is so strong that it is almost unthinkable to change it, unless through “small revolutions” from within.

    One of the reasons why change is difficult is that matriarchs keep supporting the system. Mothers-in-law want their daughter-in-law to obey their son. Sonia recognizes the pressure from her husband’s village. She is asked to visit more often and take her duty as a wife seriously, and it is sometimes hard to explain to them that she has teaching to do at university. It does not matter if women have academic titles. Her husband, Made Adnyana Ole, joins the conversation and explains: “They are not viewed for their skills; they are seen as just women, born to do certain things.”

    If it were just for patriarchy, things would be easier, but in Bali, there is a complex mix of paternal structure, religion, and customs. The role of ancestorship is important, not just from an idea that you should do what your grandparents did, but as rooted in religion. In Balinese Hinduism, children follow the lineage and clan of their biological father, and the male members of the family are given higher importance in continuing the ancestral lineage. If the Balinese want to change it, they believe that maybe the family will be cursed.

    “It’s not about logic,” as Sonia says. Religion is different from customs, although cultural rules are more highly respected, and religion can be interpreted differently from one village to another. If a woman wants a divorce, she can fight for her children to the highest court, but that court will eventually obey local laws. And so, to change anything, every single person needs to agree, including the ancestors and the gods.

    When Sonia wrote an essay in 2017 about the fact that Balinese women are not free, she was cursed online and threatened. And so instead, she created a small revolution:
    “I made theater ABOUT it, I did research ABOUT it,” she explains. Addressing these topics through art, metaphorically, leads to seeing things more nuanced than in the past. There has been some change already for Balinese women; some now work as managers in hotels, and Sonia has many female colleagues in university, but as for changing the patriarchal lineage, that is not possible (yet).

    Folktales as a tool to reflect

    Juliana re-read the Stri Sasana lontar more than 20 times and found new things in it continuously. He is always looking for specific quotes to write down and read again. One that stood out for him is about equality, it is used in traditional Vedic and lontar literature, and goes something like:

    “Marriage is the same as taking care of a cow; you need to walk in synchronicity, with the same rhythm, and carry the same amount of burden.”

    Cattle racing monument, Banyuasri, Singaraja, Bali, 2009. Wikimedia Commons.

    Sonia’s daughter, Putik, age 18, engages in the discussion and shows me a picture of two oxen pulling a single cart. If one animal pulls harder, walks faster, or refuses to carry the weight, the cart veers off course or flips over. It translates to handling a household together, with the pressure divided between two people, not just carried by one. Stri Sasana teaches that a husband and wife are not independent entities but must move forward together in perfect alignment to maintain balance.

    Several Balinese folktales allow people to discuss inequality and responsibility, as a tool to reflect on daily life. Ole and Juliana mention Cupak Gerantang, a tale about two brothers, of which Cupak is the selfish, greedy, and lazy one, and Gerantang is the hardworking and diligent one. One day, when their mother leaves the house and asks them to clean, Gerantang does all the work, and Cupak takes the credit. It is a moral lesson about greed and jealousy versus diligence and good character. According to Sonia, read through a gender lens, this can resonate with the experience of many Balinese women who perform a disproportionate share of domestic and ritual work while receiving less recognition than men.

    The men come up with another story, about I Sugih and I Tiwas, the rich and the poor. A poor woman asks a rich relative for food, just one grain of rice. But Sugih says she cannot get it. Tiwas then goes to the forest where she encounters a golden deer, and comes back with a fortune. Now the rich person wants to get gifts from the deer also, and copies what the poor woman did. But instead of gold, she receives poop or insects, and dies from poison. She gets punished for her greed. 

    Just as Sonia challenges norms through research, writing, and theatre, folktales also address issues that cannot be spoken about directly. The gender equality discussion in Bali is currently one of the biggest topics in Balinese media, Ole says, and old texts might offer new insights into the conversation. According to him, the problem is that Bali glorifies its strict norms, as if they are part of Bali’s identity. Tourists think the culture is amazing, and the colonial legacy has taught how Bali is supposed to be taken care of to preserve the image of a tropical holiday destination. “That thinking comes from the Dutch,” Ole says.

    The controlled narrative of Bali

    Juliana and Ole mention Ubud — widely considered as the island’s spiritual and cultural heart — as the role model of this identity, where everything is created as a performance. Bali needs to be seen as the reality it is now, not the glorification that the Dutch created. Ole explains how journalists self-censored themselves for a long time, to prevent talking badly about Bali. They would even come up with slogans about how safe it is to live here. The government would get mad about reporting that possibly ruined the image of Bali. If it impacted the stability of Bali as a holiday destination, the permission to broadcast or publish could be taken away. For a long time, under Suharto’s three-decade-long regime (1967-1998), the government controlled the narrative of Bali. When that changed after the Reformasi in 1998, the impact of overtourism became visible. “Journalists gained more freedom to criticize government and business interests and could finally scrutinize mass tourism,” Ole explains. 

    Stories about Bali — including those in journalism — were for a long time framed in moral terms: the good versus the bad. Relating to the karma idea, when you do something bad, something bad will happen to you. Instead of focusing on structural causes of problems, such as business interests or government policies, the stories emphasized individual behavior and its consequences. 

    Just like tourism issues became a matter of individual bad actors rather than development errors, gender problems also focus on women doing good or bad things rather than patriarchal structures underneath. As Sonia describes: “A good Balinese woman does not criticize, protest, or even raise her voice. She is someone who maintains harmony and behaves according to accepted norms.” 

    From left to right: with Kadek Sonia Piscayanti, I Wayan Juliana, and Made Ole Adnyana
    Sonia’s daughter Putik translates the rest of the conversation.

  • In decolonial journalism, small questions are fundamental

    In decolonial journalism, small questions are fundamental

    Rolando Vazquez Melken was a guest speaker in the fifth Writing for Transformation course and answered questions from participants about decolonial theory in the context of storytelling and journalism. He is Professor of Post/Decolonial Theories and Literatures, with a focus on the Global South at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.  Rolando’s words are carried by me, Sanne Breimer. I have tried to listen carefully, and the following excerpts are based on my notes from the session.

    Image credits: “Gloria Anzaldúa” by Angela Yarber

    The question of “who?”

    How to apply the theory to professions outside of academia? A first thing to do, Rolando says, would be to locate the institution you’re working for geohistorically, along the lines of colonial history. Once you do that, you will see that its position isn’t neutral.

    Rolando:

    “In the structure of a university, for example, the colonial hierarchy with its dominant positionality in colonial order is reproduced. The people in the highest positions in Dutch universities are white and from a high class, and you will find the triangle of discrimination when you see the people doing the cooking and the cleaning.” 

    We need to begin with positioning ourselves and not replicate the same system we are fighting against; that consciousness is fundamental. The work of Catherine Walsh and Arturo Escobar about centering the question of “Who?” is recommended:

    • Who is doing the work?
    • For whom are you doing that work?
    • With whom are you doing that work?

    Once you apply these questions to journalism, you start to see that journalism shouldn’t be about people but with people. As a journalist, you should ask yourself what grants you the privilege to carry the voices of other people, and how is your story giving back to the community and not being extractive? 

    It’s about dignity, too. Decolonial theory is an ethical and political project; if you’re not working towards justice, you’re not doing decoloniality, Rolando emphasizes.

    Even if you think your work is decolonial, it can still reinforce privilege and extraction, for example, in the context of art, when Western institutions exhibit work from the majority world for a predominantly white audience. You could apply this to journalism, too. Some of the organizations that do the real decolonial work don’t mention the word decolonial.

    The role of the editor

    The editor guarantees eligibility and formats. Academic texts are also for dissemination, and editors often edit out certain words that aren’t “normal” English. Decolonial academics push terms that the English language doesn’t know yet:

    • Decoloniality vs decolonization. The term decoloniality isn’t just about decolonization; it’s a much broader concept (explained in a previous newsletter) 
    • Knowledges vs knowledge. Decolonial academics speak about the plural because they believe there isn’t such a thing as one dominant knowledge; there are several knowledges existing next to each other. 
    • Earthlessness and worldlessness as new words, expressing the loss of earth and worlds by colonial erasure. 

    Professor Vazquez Melken mentions how decolonial writers like Maria Lugones and Gloria Wekker had difficulties sharing their work because of the dominant language that doesn’t incorporate the nuances they were talking about. He talks about the concept of “coming to voice” as a decolonial process of undoing erasure. Colonialism has caused suppression and erasure of many other knowledges by implementing one dominant culture and knowledge. 

    Storytellers have a task of listening to bring back the cultural archives that have been silenced. Instead of doing research, which in its traditional form is also extraction, journalists should listen. If you listen, you are receiving, not representing. 

    From byline to carryline

    As journalists, we don’t own the stories; we don’t become the author. When you listen, you receive and carry the story further. Decolonial storytelling is about challenging the dominant narrative and carrying critical perspectives without erasing the edges of storytelling. It’s about a critique of ecocide and eurocentrism, and implementing notions of ancestrality that the dominant narrative doesn’t recognize as truthful. 

    Storytellers can protect these narratives by receiving them and not dismissing them as inferior or exotic. Rolando points out that it’s a challenge and a long struggle to do so. How to listen to indigenous epistemologies that are not in text but in textiles and storytelling, for example? It means to challenge the validation of dominant structures, with English grammar that often erases characteristics. He mentions the essay How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua. A short excerpt:  

    “So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language.

    Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity – I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself. Until I can accept as legitimate Chicano Texas Spanish, Tex-Mex, and all the other languages I speak, I cannot accept the legitimacy of myself. Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate.

    I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent’s tongue – my woman’s voice, my sexual voice, my poet’s voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.”

    Anzaldua writes in Chicano English, a dialect of American English spoken primarily by Mexican Americans (sometimes known as Chicanos), which enables her to think differently, Rolando explains. He says that no author from the center, from New York, Paris, or Germany can think what she is thinking. We need to listen to the voices of those who have been dismissed and dignify them. 

    From representation to reception

    The privileged position is a narrow place, and to be in relation with others means humbling yourself. Native English speakers, for example, don’t assume a position of dominance but also don’t realize that non-native speakers have lost their ancestral or mother tongues and seek ways to express themselves through English. It’s an imperial language, but it also depends on how we use it. It makes you think about the grammar rules we apply rigorously, right? What if we shifted grammars and appreciated the space where mother tongues come through? 

    At the same time, in the context of the Netherlands, where the far-right leaning government wants to impose the Dutch language in universities, the English language becomes the space where interculturality happens and other archives can come into conversation.

    The function of decolonial journalism is not extraction but giving voice and taking the knowledge of people seriously, acknowledging that people have knowledge. You don’t need to add your voice to explain the story; you just need to listen. People know their own situation best, any group of women in any community will know already what is happening, so why not take them as sources of knowledge instead of writing about their experiences? 

    Rolando makes an interesting point about the paradigm of representation, which is colonial, too. Instead of the power of narrating a story, we should move from representation to reception, and to do that is to learn how to listen. As a storyteller, you have the capacity to receive the lives of others and transmit them. You don’t create a narrative, you’re not representing others. Instead, it’s a process of honouring what others tell you and listening to what has been erased. 

    From one to multiple journalisms

    One of the tasks of decoloniality is to humble yourself. Once you do that, you don’t want to take over anymore; you become “us” instead of “I,” and you will enable pluriformity to flourish. In storytelling, it means to let different realities and different truths exist next to each other. Instead of replicating the dominant narratives created by power and algorithm, you can use the dominant tools to ask yourself who you are honouring, who you are writing for, and what your stories mean to the people you write for. 

    These small questions, Rolando says, are the most powerful. If you’re a science journalist, for example, implementing decolonial theory in your work is not about questioning science that says two plus two equals four; it’s about the fact that global science isn’t geared towards healing the earth, it’s geared towards capitalism. The practice of decolonial journalism in this context is about the financing of science and the interest behind it, and the fact that it’s white patriarchal science. 

    You will start to see the modern colonial structure of science as supporting extraction. The more you heal the earth, the more human you are. The same applies to health: what is health, what is the idea of health, and when did the body emerge as a machine? When did we start being repaired or segmented? For some people, this approach to the body as an apparatus is violent and conflicting with their culture and beliefs. It’s not just about access to health services; it’s also about the notion of bodies and healing. Questions like that are fundamental to ask yourself when practicing decolonial journalism.