Kebaya vs hijab: Questioning Indonesian identity

Dancing in style: Women from the #SelasaBerkebaya (KebayaTuesdays) movement dance at an MRT station in Jakarta last year. The movement considers the traditional blouse a part of Indonesian identity and encourages women to wear it for regular activities, not just parties and official occasions. — JP/ANN

ON Thursday, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, hosted a Kebaya Festival, reportedly involving 2,000 women. It followed limited displays of women deliberately wearing kebaya in their daily activities, to assert their Indonesian identity including that of many who voluntarily wear the hijab.

The trend of wearing the hijab (or jilbab as it is known in Indonesia) in the republic most probably started to become more visible around the mid-1990s, soon after the regulation that allows students to wear religious clothing was issued on Feb 16, 1991. Earlier, relatively few wore it following the influence of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Before this, although there was no formal ban on the hijab, the government’s 1982 regulation stated there should be stricter standards for national school uniforms, leading school authorities to ban the hijab. Several students, such as in Jember, East Java, were threatened or even expelled for refusing to take off their hijab. Some friends of mine were threatened with expulsion from school, not for wearing the hijab but for wearing skirts considered too short.