Where's the Fun?

I met up with my niece to go to the mall the other day and, as she came straight from school, she was wearing her school uniform. I am used to seeing her in tank tops and shorts so the sight of her in a long grey skirt that went down to the tips of her shoes was a little perturbing to say the least. Obviously I’m behind times. Apparently high school girls’ uniforms are like that these days – long skirts that cover up every inch of their innocent schoolgirl flesh below the knees.

Perhaps the modest apparel is to prevent lusty glances from hormonal male teenage schoolmates or be less tempting to lascivious male teachers? My niece’s response was pragmatic. So they could charge more for the uniform because it uses up more material. Besides, her younger sister, a prepubescent twelve year old, also has to wear similarly long skirts to school. It is the regulation now for state schools: long skirts for junior and senior high school girls.

Well, I thought, this is news to me indeed! I asked them if they have trouble running around the schoolyard or perhaps when catching the bus? They claimed to have got used to it. Besides, according to them, they always carry in their bags their change of clothing for when they leave the school grounds. Clothes that I’m quite relieved are far from being conservative and a lot more fun for them to wear.

On the same note, giving a talk before some students at the country’s most prestigious university Universitas Indonesia, recently, I could not help noticing something that I found equally if not more disturbing: the majority of the female students were wearing headscarves. Not even pretty ones in bright colours or with flowers on them. But drab and plain ones that are more fitting for jaded and disillusioned widows somewhat tired of life rather than fresh faced young adults about to embark on their lives.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t see anything wrong with women donning headscarves. Many of my friends do so and for a variety of reasons best known to themselves, including their advancing years (colouring those grey hairs becoming more and more of a bother); the request of their husbands; because it’s the in thing to do; to make up for a sinful past; a brush with death; because they went on a hajj pilgrimage and want to announce their newfound piety; they are afraid to die and go to hell unless they pass themselves off as a good woman in the eyes of God. Or simply because they’ve turned religious because they’ve reached that certain age when one’s concern is preparing for the next life and come to terms with mortality.

I also read somewhere there’s a growing conservatism in this country, with most Islamic teachers showing preference for sharia laws, gender segregation, hand chopping punishment for thieves and separation from other religions over pluralism, tolerance and inclusion. This is not surprising in an environment with little education and limited exposure to the outside world as is the great part of this country and where poverty and insularity create distrust to the present system, disillusionment about life or just fear and suspicion towards anything different and outside their comfort zone.

But conservatism in educated and smart young people still or barely out of their teens with their lives ahead of them? Why surely the brains of these youths are still spongy and thirsty for new knowledge and experience not ossified with diminished capacity for thinking and imagination. Surely they haven’t walked the earth long enough to form hard opinion or set belief about life and its meaning? Surely they are still at an age when they are groping with new ideas rather than adopting preconceived ones? When their urge is to carve their own identity not follow a prescribed one? When their words should be questions of why and how as opposed to answers of because and therefore?

Certainly I welcome some form of conservatism. There is nothing more pathetic for instance than a woman baring her midriff, piercing her nose and sporting a skimpy tank top when she’s close to forty or a middle aged man for that matter! But conservatism at an age when one should be having fun, discovering about life, finding one’s own identity and wanting to look and be different especially from the parents, not to mention making mistakes if only in order to learn from them, I find somewhat tragic.

Where after all is the fun and joy of growing up, of experimenting, of becoming wiser if one already has a fixed notion and firm conviction of one’s own identity and belief?

So it was with relief when I received an email from another niece who is at college. Attached were some recent photos of her with a rather strange haircut and thick black eyeliners. ‘Do you like my new Mohawk?’ she said. I smiled with approval. ‘Cool.’ I wrote back. At least she’s still normal. (Tempo English)