Sexual Oppression in Saman

I fucking hate writing papers. Especially when I am already in no mood to do school work. Fuck I still have exams and I feel so MALAS (Lazy). Ergh.

Anyways, the best thing for me to do is discuss my schoolwork in this post so I can find some sort of inspiration to complete this paper. Feel free to stop reading if you yourself are in no mood to listen to my literary discussions.

The book is called Saman by Ayu Utami an Indonesian writer. I'm supposed to do a report discussing one of the key themes she uses in the book. Now let me just say, this book is AWESOME. Again, I would like to express this: God I love Indonesians. The book is actually written in Indonesian, but I have the English version which my prof says isn't the same as the Indo version because the language is not as poetic or something. So I want the Indo version. But I don't know where the hell I am going to find it.

What's Saman about?

Well, it is told by many people for one. It's really all over the place when you read it. Almost confusing for some. But you get the sense that everything fits towards the end. However, the story ends strangely. I won't spoil it for you but, it's strange.

The book discusses the lives of these women who are Laila, Shakuntala, Cok and Yasmin. It's basically about them. But inside their story there is Saman, who was once a priest but soon after seeing the terrible living conditions became a leader of an NGO to save villagers of rural areas working in plantations from being exploited by the government. What the govenrment was doing was making them change the seeds they were originally planting to the ones the government wants without actually giving them any proper protection. All these girls (except Shakuntala) know Saman and have somehow helped him escape from the government to New York. He needed to escape because he was dubbed a communist (or something) and that he was trying to poison the minds of the rural villagers. Long story short, he manages to escape to New York.

But the point is, while all this is happening, there are other issues being touched by the author such as the sexual oppression that the women face. There are other issues but this is what I am focusing on.

As we all know, South East Asia isn't exactly big on the PDA (Public Display of Affection). Especially in a country like Malaysia and Indonesia, where it is majority Muslims, the idea of people kissing in public is like, WHOA. But HELLO! we all know we're doing it anyway. Or at least doing it discreetly. That's one thing I notice about the characters of this book. The way she describes it is like "yes, everyone is doing it and we all keep quiet about it". Its really like a secret club. When I say doing it I don't mean sex. I mean, just your basic innocent holding hands or kiss. You know, nothing big. I mean, sex is sex but the issue here is none of these things are EVER a public thing in Malaysia or Indonesia. And the fact that Ayu Utami wrote about all this is just, awesome.

All the female characters in this book are completely different from one another. We have Laila, who is completely loyal to her parents upbringing or rather under pressure by it which has got her to believe that your virginity is something you MUST save for your husband. This causes her to be sexually oppressed because she is surrounded by friends who have all done it and wants to do it but is afraid to disobey her parents, so she is torn. Like, totally. It got so bad that she decides to go to New York to break free from her parents and finally would be able to lose her virginity there. Isn't that weird? Well, truthfully its not. It's like, she can't do it in her own country because she knows off the consequences. She knows if people find out she will embarass her family and nobody will want her. How sad.

But this concept is true. I mean, it may not neccasarily be about virginity for some of you but I'm sure you have felt the need to escape your family who think so highly of you. You just want to fuck all the pressure and just get away and do whatever shit you always wanted to do without the worry of being judged.

Then there's Shakuntala. I like her character. She's insane! What you will see about her is that because she now lives in New York for many years, she feels free. Free to be bisexual. Free to fuck around and do whatever she pleases. Free from her family looking at her in dismay. She describes what her parents said to her when she was young and a virgin and it is exactly what Laila has in her mind only Shakuntala had the guts to actually rebel. Her parents had said “virginity is a woman’s gift to her husband. And virginity is like a nose: once you lose it, it can’t be replaced. So you must never give it away before you get married, because the you will be damaged goods.” But Shakuntala never believed in that shit. She said marriage was just a sealed agreement for monogamous prostitution or somewhere along those lines. But you see, she too was sexually opressed, and needed to come to New York to finally feel free from it.

The final character, is Yasmin. She didn't go to New York and escape. Yasmin represents everything the other two girls weren't. She is loyal to her parents no matter what and doesn't feel torn. She's married to her first boyfriend and is successful and rich. She pretty much has a good direction with her life. And yet, she too is sexually oppressed. Beyond that perfect life Yasmin chooses to commit adultry with Saman. I don't quite get why. But she keeps questioning herself and Saman whether she has commited a sin. She feels guilty and yet still wants to continue commiting it. Perhaps her life is too perfect she yearns for excitement. Perhaps in reality all this while she chose to live the "perfect" life so she could make her parents happy by becoming the role model that she should be. But in the end, she isn't as perfect after all. We see that in the end, the perfect ones are fucked up too. Sigh.

So to conclude, the existence of sexual oppression in this book is thoroughly obvious. And this issue is something to look at because in reality, the government of Indonesia has actually characterized what a "perfect" woman in Indonesia should be which is: a virgin until married, always loyal to her husband (even if he's an asshole) and able to balance the household matters at the same time. It's a tough job eh? Well, let me just say, to all you mothers who have done this for the past generations, YOU ROCK. I think the current generation has completely chnaged. With globalisation and all that western exposure we will no longer be able to be the woman they want us to be which I think is good. I think women today live in a fairer society. Okay that's not entirely true but it is definetly better. But yeah. I enjoyed this book very much.

Time to actually write the report.

Gah!