Overpaid, Oversexed, Over Here

(First published in Bali Advertiser, June 16, 2010)

“I against my brother, I and my brother against our cousin, I, my brother and our cousin against the neighbors, all of us against the foreigner.”
                                                                          – Bedouin proverb

Some ideas should die at inception – Donald Trump’s comb-over, any Pamela Anderson movie, using large concrete balls to plug up a mud volcano – and it is often difficult to understand why some concepts too cornball to survive serious scrutiny, actually do.

Indonesia’s own most recent one – in a long line of grand beauts – is the still-not-dead idea of requiring foreign men wanting to marry Indonesian women to pay a “security guarantee” of 500 million rupiah ($55,000). A further stipulation in the proposed marriage reform law that contains this clause is that the deposit would apply only if the bride is a Muslim woman, and not if she is Christian, Buddhist or Hindu. If a couple is still together after 10 years, they can claim back the money as joint property; if they divorce or the husband leaves, the money goes to the woman.

This enlightened idea – promoted by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Islamic clerics as protection for women and their children from “foreign” men that might abandon them – is destined to be voted on by parliament by the end of the year, according to a May 31 Agence France-Presse story.

Once one has done laughing at the sheer ludicrousness of the proposal, though, the thought has to come: They won’t actually go through with this insanity, will they?

Here is a paragraph from a Reuters news story after the country’s anti-porn bill was passed in 2008: “The anti-porn bill was pushed by a small group of Islamist parties in predominantly Muslim, but officially secular, Indonesia. Minority groups, especially Christians and Hindus, said the bill was a threat to artistic, religious, and cultural freedom. But despite big protests in Jakarta, Bali and Papua, the bill was eventually passed by parliament.”

That is, there is every possibility this bill will pass into law, and then we’ll have some real fun with all sorts of unintended consequences. The fallback position for most Western man-Muslim woman marriages in Southeast Asia has always been for the man to convert, even if only nominally. Will Indonesian Muslim women now start converting to other religions for the sake of “foreign” love and to save their men the dosh? Will couples resort to “living in sin” or going overseas for marriage, in both instances giving the women and any children from the unions less protection than they would have had otherwise?

Over the next few months running up to any vote, there is going to be a growing realization – as there was with the anti-porn bill – that the bill’s sponsors are going to keep trying to push it through, that they won’t desist, and that no politician or media pundit is going to be able do anything to dissuade them.

And as with the anti-porn bill, the elected members of parliament are going to be too afraid to be seen going against anything supported by the religious authorities, all notions of secularism aside.

Now, let’s not fault the bill’s supporters purely on religious grounds. Every society and religion in the world has always tried to protect its women from the real or perceived depredations of foreign men. Think not only of the Brits and Australians and their attitude toward the American “Yanks” during World War II, but of traditional resistance to most marriages that cross religious, racial or national lines.

Even during the 90s, my brother – an American working for an oil company in Perth, Australia – still ran into the charge that he was “stealing our women” when he was dating his current wife, and likely any Caucasian man anywhere in Asia is familiar with the sentiment in one form or another. It isn’t then a prejudice that is restricted to Muslim clerics holed up in their pesantrens.

The real question here is where do the clerics get the idea that all “foreign” men, almost surely code for Caucasian males, have large wads of cash lying around? Have they never met a starving Jakarta-based English teacher whose only hope after paying the rent and other monthlies is that he’ll have enough left over for a couple of weekend Bintangs? Or how about the freelance writer trying to make ends meet editing corporate communication material and writing cheap advertorials for the country’s glossies?

There is such a naked combination of ignorance and greed revealed in the proposed law, one would think that soon the adults will show up and this particular item would be removed from the bill.

They won’t, and it won’t, so, quick, call your wedding planners and matchmakers before the cost of love soars.

Copyright © 2010 Lee Roy LeRoi