The 21st of April marks Kartini Day which celebrates the life of Raden Ajeng Kartini. The young javanese woman pioneered Indonesian women's rights and brought global attention to Indonesia by questioning religious practices, advocating continued education for women in Indonesia. and through . A collection of her correspondence with European feminists and news papers was published as Letters of a Javanese Princess.
Raden Ayu Kartini was born on the 21st of April 1879 to an aristocratic family while Java was under the colonial rule of the Dutch East Indies. She was the fifth of eleven children in a family with a strong intellectual tradition; her grandfather became a Regency Chief at 25 and her older brother was an accomplished linguist.
R.A. Kartini's family allowed her to attend school where she learnt to speak fluent Dutch, an unusual accomplishment for Javanese women at the time. However when she turned 12 she was secluded at home to prepare for marriage, a common practice among Javanese nobility.
During her seclusion, Kartini corresponded with prominent Dutch females, including Rosa Abendanon with whom she became very close. Through her correspondence she acquired books, newspapers and European magazines which fueled her interest in European feminist thinking.
She began to send contributions to Dutch press which were published. R.A. Kartini's concerns were not limited to the emancipation of women, she saw that the struggle for women to obtain their freedom, autonomy and legal equality was part of a wider movement for Indonesian Independence.
Despite her forward thinking Kartini's parents arranged for her to be married to Raden Adipati Joyodiningrat, the Regency Chief of Rembang, who already had three wives. This was against Kartini's wishes, however she acquiesced to appease her ailing father. Fortunately her husband respected her intelligence and encouraged her to establish a school for women in the east porch of the Rembang Regency Office complex.
R.A. Kartini expressed a desire to continue her studies in Europe and several of her pen pals worked towards this, however her plans to study in the Netherlands were transmuted into plans to move to Batavia and become a teacher there. In her letters, R.A. Kartini also mentions plans to write a book. However at the age of 25, shortly after giving birth to a son, Kartini dies perhaps from complications.
Also following her death Mr J. H. Abendanon, the Minister for Culture, Religion and Industry in the East Indies, collected and published the letters that Kartini had sent to her friends in Europe. The book, titled Door Duisternis tot Licht (Out of Dark Comes Light) was published in 1911. It went through five editions and was translated into English under the title Letters of a Javanese Princess.
In her letters, Raden Adjeng Kartini writes about Indonesian social conditions in the early 20th century, particularly the condition women. Kartini's letters express a hope for support from overseas and depicts the sufferings of Javanese women fettered by tradition, unable to study, secluded and obliged to participate in polygamous marriages.
Raden Adjeng Kartini also critiqued religious practices, questioning the obligatory memorization of Quran without an obligation to actually understand it. She also expressed the view that the world would be more peaceful if there was no religion to provide reasons for disagreements, discord and offence. She wrote "Religion must guard us against committing sins, but more often, sins are committed in the name of religion" Kartini objets to religion which justified polygamy. For Kartini, the suffering of Javanese women reached a pinnacle when the world was reduced to the walls of their houses and they were prepared for polygamous marriage.
The publication of R.A. Kartini's letters attracted interest in the Netherlands and Kartini's ideas began to change the way the Dutch viewed native women in Java. Her ideas also provided inspiration for prominent figures in the fight for Indonesia's independence. In 1964, President Sukarno declared R.A. Kartini's birth date, April 21st, 'Kartini Day' - a national holiday. Cheers for the info Wikipedia!
