DEDE OETOMO is coordinator of Gaya Nusantara, a national gay rights group in Indonesia. He is currently visiting Australia and will address the Indonesian Solidarity Dinner at the Resistance Centre in Sydney on February 19 (details below). Last month, Oetomo spoke to Green Left Weekly's JILL HICKSON.
Oetomo explained that while there are gay men, lesbians and transgender people in Indonesia, the Indonesian state and religious institutions pretend that they do not exist. The fact that homosexuality is kept "underground" makes it difficult for some people to express their sexuality.
"I was influenced by the gay liberation movement in the west", Oetomo explained. "My family is westernised bourgeois, and that exposed me to the ideas of gay liberation. I did postgraduate work in the United States, and that influenced me to come out in the early 1980s in the way western gay academics would.
"I come from a family where we tend to be journalists, missionaries or involved in social activities. It took less than a year after I came out for my family to accept me. They said it would be good for me to help other people who don't know that there is life for gay men and lesbians in Indonesia."
Oetomo pointed out that while some people "have been able to find their niche in society where they can express their sexuality, others who cannot are suffering".
Consensual homosexual acts between adults are not a crime under Indonesian law, Oetomo explained. "The problem that people face is the 'heterosexism' of Indonesian society. You have to be married and have a family ... Some people can avoid it by going away from their family, never coming back or just coming back for holidays. Many others have to live within heterosexual marriages whether they want to or not."
Oetomo told Green Left Weekly that at first he wrote letters defending gay rights to newspapers, then short articles under a pen-name and then in his own name. "I was urged by some of my family and friends to publish a newsletter ... staring from that, it became an organisation."
"The first impetus was to respond to people's needs", Oetomo said. "People who needed to get in touch with each other, to express themselves in writing, ask questions and to learn about themselves. So initially Gaya Nusantara was a rather mild social service-oriented movement."
The group was founded in 1987, although since 1982 there had been other smaller organisations. It began with a group in Surabaya and in Yogyakarta. Now there are 20.
"We try to create what is lacking in the heterosexist family. Often it is just in the form of creating a safe space for people to gather. Gaya Nusantara puts people in contact with each other. We publish a magazine and run a national hotline. We get a lot of correspondence with people from different parts of the country. We try to coordinate a network wherever people can be urged to organise."
The only form of state repression directed specifically against gays is censorship, Oetomo explained. "It's not as bad as in other countries like India where people have to deal with the law and physical repression."
The sense Indonesians now have that they have some freedom to express themselves, following the fall of dictator Suharto, has also had an impact on gay men, lesbians and transgender people. "More people are coming out to their friends, writing in the media about gay and lesbian issues, even if under pseudonyms."
It has also taken the form of participation in wider gatherings. A women's congress in Yogyakarta in December had lesbian and sex worker delegates. Oetomo added that the burgeoning gay rights movement and the democracy movement "have always gone hand in hand".
Oetomo told Green Left Weekly that sex workers, "especially the female sex workers, face repression from state ideology and from the armed forces who run the sex business areas. With the general radicalisation of the urban poor and working class, they will join in political activity. Sex workers took part in demonstrations and rallies in May [that brought down Suharto] and against the Habibie regime in November."
Many transgender people are from urban poor or working-class backgrounds, Oetomo added, "so we can expect that they will also take part in the politicisation.
"Gaya Nusantara will be trying to politicise them in association with other political forces that are willing to work together. So far, only the People's Democratic Party has expressed open support for gay and lesbian liberation and works with us, but we hope that there will be other forces as well."
Oetomo added that many gay men are active in the democracy movement but have not come out. "We need to bring up the issue of sexual preference in general in discussion, and I'm sure people will come out."
Dede Oetomo will be in Sydney in February for the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. The Indonesian Solidarity Dinner with him on February 19 will be held at 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale at 7.30pm. Phone 9690 1977.