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Popular Music (2008) Volume 27/3. Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press, pp. 367–392doi:10.1017/S0261143008102185 Printed in the United Kingdom

‘Dance drills, faith spills’: Islam,body politics, and popular musicin post-Suharto Indonesia1

ANDREW N. WEINTRAUBDepartment of Music, University of Pittsburgh, 4337 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USAE-mail: [email protected]

AbstractIn February 2003, a woman’s body became the focal point for public debates about religiousauthority, freedom of expression, women’s rights, and the future of Indonesia’s politicalleadership. At the centre of these debates was Inul Daratista, a twenty-four-year-old popularmusic singer/dancer from East Java, whose dancing was described as ‘pornographic’ and thereforeharam, forbidden by Islam. In this essay, I describe how and why Inul’s dancing body became acentral symbol in debates about religion, culture and politics in the years following the fall ofIndonesian ex-president Suharto in 1998. In the highly mediated sphere of popular culture,‘Inulmania’ contributed to a new dialogic space where conflicting ideological positions could beexpressed and debated. Inul’s body became a stage for a variety of cultural actors to try out or‘rehearse’ an emergent democracy in post-Suharto Indonesia. A case study of popular performerInul Daratista illuminates contemporary ‘body politics’, in which human bodies invested withdiverse meanings and values have powerful implications for discourses about Islam, pornography,women’s bodies, state/civil relations in Indonesia, and changing forms of media.

A report of a man raping a girl after watching Inul dance is evidence that the way she dances isnot fit for public viewing. (Amidhan, leader of The Indonesian Council of Ulamas [MajelisUlama Indonesia, or MUI])2

Corrupt individuals in Indonesia are not subject to condemnation, so it’s inconceivable that Inulwould be. (Abdurrahman Wahid [Gus Dur], former president of Indonesia and former leaderof Indonesia’s largest Muslim political organisation [Nahdlatul Ulama, or NU])3

What happened to Inul represents violence toward women. She was censored for expressingherself. (Saparinah Sadli, Chairperson of the National Commission of Women [KomisiNasional Perempuan, or Komnas Perempuan])4

If even one artist is silenced, the rest of us have to defend her. (Ratna Sarumpaet, theatre artistand activist)5

Why was I singled out? There are lots of singers whose dance movements are more vulgar andsexy than mine! (Singer/dancer Inul Daratista, personal communication, 16 November 2006)

IntroductionIn February 2003, a woman’s body became the focal point for public debates aboutreligious authority, freedom of expression, women’s rights, and the future ofIndonesia’s political leadership. At the centre of these debates was Inul Daratista, a

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twenty-four-year-old popular music singer/dancer from East Java, whose dancingwas described as ‘pornographic’ and therefore haram, forbidden by Islam. Inul’s stageshows and performative discourse emphasise a style of dancing she calls goyangngebor ( the ‘drilling dance’), ‘gyration of the hips at break-neck speed that somepeople have likened to a tornado’ (Asmarani 2003).6 IslamOnline.Net, an Internet sitefor education about Islam, described ‘a video clip . . . [that] depicts Inul scantilydressed and dancing in a suggestive and erotic fashion in front of an eager audience ofIndonesian men’ (Mahmood 2003).

The Indonesian Council of Ulamas (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, or MUI) declaredthat her dancing and costume were circumscribed by its fatwa (edict) against pornog-raphy (Walsh/Pelahihari 2003) and the local MUI chapter in Surakarta urged localpolice to block performances by Inul in their town (Rosyid 2003). In March 2003,Majelis Mujahidin, a coalition of Islamic groups centred in Yogyakarta, protestedabout a television show that she appeared in called Duet Maut ( ‘Deadly Duet’) statingthat the show excites men to commit immoral acts and encourages pre-marital sex(Ant/Ati 2003).7 In May 2003, music superstar and Muslim prosleytiser Rhoma Iramacalled a virtual, but not enforceable, ban on her, stating that she was degrading Islam(Effendi 2003).8

Public statements by MUI clerics, Islamic groups, and Rhoma Irama ignited ahuge debate in the popular print media among politicians, religious leaders, femi-nists, intellectuals, celebrities, fans, and even doctors, who warned female fans not totry the dangerous drilling move at home without warming up properly (Sari 2003).Reports in the popular press noted that the media storm surrounding Inul wasdiverting attention away from Indonesia’s social problems – corruption among politi-cal and religious leaders, civil wars in Aceh and Irian Jaya, abuses against women,and deep-rooted poverty (Asy’arie 2003).9 One author noted that attacks on Inul’sposterior deflected attention away from the asses that occupied the political seats inthe government.10

As suggested by the previous statement, popular cultural practices may reflect acollective desire by disempowered masses to escape the mundane and repressiveconditions of their everyday lives. One might also argue that Indonesia’s cultureindustry was at work to manipulate Inul’s largely underclass audience of femaledomestic labourers and factory workers into believing that they too could achieveInul’s transformation from a poor villager (‘orang desa’) into a modern urban celeb-rity (‘artis’ ), a story that was narrated persistently in print tabloids as well as intelevision dramas of the period.11

Yet, the discourse surrounding Inul’s dancing body does not suggest a narrativeof escape or manipulation. On the contrary, ‘Inulmania’ acted like a lightning rod forigniting popular debates about gender, class, religion and power.12 Inul gave rise to asocial discourse in which the artistic practice of an individual singer/dancer was usedas a forum to express opinions about a wide range of social and cultural issues. Itwould be difficult to think of a cultural symbol that attracted more passionate andpublic debate, more pro and contra positions among such a wide spectrum ofIndonesians in early 2003 than Inul’s swinging derriere. As cultural critic, poet andIslamic leader Emha Ainun Nadjib famously pronounced, ‘Inul’s rear end is ourcollective face’ (Emha 2003). In addition to hundreds of reports and commentariesthat appeared in Indonesian newspapers, magazines, tabloids, radio programmesand television broadcasts, the story was distributed widely by media outlets in HongKong, Australia, Singapore, the United States and Europe.13 Inul and her drilling

368 Andrew N. Weintraub



dance had become a ‘phenomenon’, cleverly termed ‘Fenom-Inul’ (Faruk and Salam2003, pp. 27–31).

In this essay, I describe how and why Inul’s dancing body became a centralsymbol in debates about religion, culture and politics in the years following the fall ofSuharto.14 In order to understand Inul’s performative body as a contested arena ofvalue and valuation at this particular historical moment, I will describe the ‘distinc-tive logics of change and forms of valorization characteristic of . . . musical practices,as these are disseminated through their respective cultural communities and institu-tional sites’ (Straw 1991, p. 369). Within this context, the Inul phenomenon became a‘contact zone of activities and representations’ involving ‘intersubjective clashes’among cultural actors (Feld 2000, p. 154). A case study of popular performer InulDaratista illuminates contemporary ‘body politics’, the ‘inherently political nature ofsymbols and practices surrounding the body politic and the human body’ (Ong andPeletz 1995, p. 6).

As a field of cultural production, human bodies are invested with conflictingmeanings and values. Human bodies represent arenas of struggle over meaning, andthese struggles have important ideological stakes. Localised case studies enable us tothink about body politics in widely divergent settings, challenge them, and ultimatelystrengthen our own politics around them. In this essay, I address the followingquestions: What factors enabled Islam, the body politic and a woman’s body to begrouped together in the popular imagination at this particular historical juncture? Inthis case, what was potentially so dangerous about a woman’s body that led to itscensure? And how was it possible to mount such a public ‘pro-drilling’ stance withina predominantly Muslim country known for its strict state control over culturalproduction and mass media?

Inulmania articulates with the shifting ground of politics, religion and mediathat occurred after the fall of Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998. I begin by arguingthat new technologies for recording music videos, and novel ways of distributingthem, allowed Inul’s ‘product’ to circulate. Efforts to ban Inul in 2003 were part of aresidual New Order culture of censorship carried out by conservative Islamic organi-sations. The very public and multifaceted backlash against those New Order-likeforces emerged within an expanded mediascape after the fall of Suharto.15 In thiscontext, Inul’s body became a stage for a variety of cultural actors – from the mostliberal to the most conservative – to try out or ‘rehearse’ an emergent democracy inpost-Suharto Indonesia. I map out the social struggles played out over Inul’s body andthe ideological stakes that these struggles engendered. Examples of many differentforms of dance on the island of Java illustrate the fact that women’s dancing bodieshave been the object of governmental monitoring and Muslim condemnation since thecreation of the Indonesian nation-state. These dance forms, along with commentariesby Inul’s fans and other female singers, provide a cultural historical context thatdemonstrates the power of women’s bodies in public performance.

Inul DaratistaInulmania is the story of Inul Daratista (Ainur or Ainul Rokhimah, b. 1979), a femalesinger who grew up in Pasuruan, East Java, Indonesia. She began her career singingAmerican pop and rock ‘n’ roll as a teenager before switching to dangdut, a form ofIndonesian popular music. Dangdut – named onomatopoeically for the music’scharacteristic drum sounds ‘dang’ followed by ‘dut’ – is arguably Indonesia’s most

‘Dance drills, faith spills’ 369



popular music, heard blaring out of speakers in stores, restaurants, and all forms ofpublic transportation. In the 1990s, among all genres of Indonesian music, about35 per cent of record sales were dangdut (Sen and Hill 2000, p. 170). Indonesia’subiquitous music is also Indonesia’s most hybrid, blending Indonesian lyrics withinstruments, rhythms, melodies, and electronic production techniques from Indianfilm music, Malay and middle-Eastern popular music, American disco, English popand rock, and Latin dance music (Frederick 1982; Yampolsky 1991; Pioquinto 1995;Lockard 1998; Pioquinto 1998; Spiller 2001; Wallach 2002). Inul’s idols includedangdut singer Rita Sugiarto, pop Indonesia singer Paramitha Rusady, as well asAmerican/Latina pop superstars Shakira and Jennifer Lopez (Loriel 2003) (seeFigure 1).

During the genre’s formational period in the early 1970s, Rhoma Irama popu-larised dangdut through recordings and live concerts, attended by mostly underclassurban male youth audiences. Dangdut’s lyrics expressed themes of everyday life,love, social criticism against class inequality, and Islamic messages (Frederick 1982).In live concerts, the performers sometimes danced in comic or sexually suggestiveways, while mostly male audiences danced themselves into ‘a state where they [were]unaware of their surroundings, free of self-consciousness and inhibition’ (Yampolsky1991, p. 1). Munif Bahasuan, one of dangdut’s leading composers, noted that dangduthas always been synonymous with dance, especially goyang, the swaying and eroti-cised movement of the hips, waist and buttocks (Lok/Xar 2003). Goyang is not onlythe movement of the body, but it is a natural and unconscious reaction to dangdut’sdistinctive drum rhythm, as indicated by the lyrics to one of Rhoma Irama’s songsentitled ‘Terajana’: ‘Because it’s so enjoyable, without even realising it/my rear endbegins to sway, and I feel like singing’ (Karena asyikna aku, hingga tak kusadari/Pinggul bergoyang-goyang, rasa ingin berdendang).

Since the early 1990s, and particularly since the fall of ex-president Suharto in1998, commercial television has played a dominant role in boosting dangdut’snational popularity. Dangdut programming, including music videos, quiz shows,comedy programmes, and contests, proliferated during the 1990s. Television moveddangdut from the streets, food stalls and buses into the home, creating new socialspaces for the reception of dangdut. The market for dangdut expanded beyond liveperformance, attended by mostly males, to televised performance watched by femalesin the home. Dangdut extended its reach into middle-class living rooms and the genrebegan to shed its previous image as ‘backward’ (kampungan).

As the popularity of dangdut grew, musicians created new musical subgenrestargeted to different ethnic groups in Indonesia. For example, the subgenre‘pong-dut’ incorporates a type of Sundanese drumming from West Java calledjaipongan, and ‘saluang dangdut’ blends dangdut rhythms with the Minangkabauflute (saluang) of west Sumatra. These shifts in the representation, meaning and valueof dangdut, signified by dangdut’s popularity with people from different gender,class, and ethnic identities, increased dangdut’s national presence and forced Islamicauthorities as well as politicians to take notice.

Mediating InulUnder Suharto’s New Order regime (1966–1998), information was rigidly controlledand opposing viewpoints squelched. For example, the Suharto regime controlled thepress by restricting the number of press licences, by revoking licences seemingly at




Figure 1. Inul, at the launching of her television series, 6 June 2003 [TEMPO/Santirta M;K15A/356/2003; 20030620].




random, and by creating an aura of self-censorship through fear and intimidation.Suharto’s resignation in May 1998 initially paved the way for a more liberal andexpanded mediascape that allowed the possibility for expressing divergent ideologi-cal positions in the public sphere. For example, in 1999, then-president Habibieratified a new Press Law (40/1999) that removed restrictions on publishing. Byderegulating the press, and easing the process for creating new publications, thenumber of print media publications mushroomed. In the year after the fall of Suharto,718 new media licences were granted by the government, as compared to 289 grantedduring the first fifty-three years of the country’s existence.16 The press was still subjectto strict state government control; however, deregulation was a sign that the countrywas moving toward a more liberal public sphere with the potential for broadening thescope of representation.

Previous to the creation of commercial television in 1989, the state-run televisionnetwork TVRI held a monopoly on television. The state television network instrumen-talised television as a tool to create an ‘audience-as-nation’ (Kitley 2000, p. 3).Imposed from above, the nation-building process via television was largely directedtoward the middle classes and elites. Programming neglected or directly suppressedthe musical tastes of the underclass, including dangdut.17 Private commercial stationswere licensed in the late 1980s. Ownership of the stations was still in the hands ofSuharto family members or cronies, and subject to government constraints, butratings drove all programming decisions. As the president of commercial stationTransTV told me, ‘Our motto is ‘‘don’t ever produce a program that can’t be sold’’ ’( Ishadi SK, personal communication, 7 November 2006). In contrast to the statetelevision network, commercial television caters to popular taste. Entertainmentconstitutes approximately 75 per cent of programming ( ibid. ). Dangdut, a commercialform of popular entertainment, has flourished under these cultural and economicconditions.

How did Inul, a local entertainer in the eastern part of the island of Java, come tothe attention of television producers based in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia inthe western part of Java? In addition to a wildly successful commercial recordingindustry, dangdut also enjoys regional popularity in live performances at weddings,circumcisions, and other events hosted by individuals or community groups. Duringthe mid- to late-1990s, some of these live events were recorded by people withcamcorders. Oftentimes these recordings were commissioned by the hosts of theevents for the purpose of selling them after the show. The recordings were then editedand transferred to the new Video Compact Disc (VCD) technology. VCD is a digitalmovie format introduced by Philips and Sony in 1993 that never became successfulin North America. But it became extremely popular in Indonesia and other parts ofAsia. The VCD market developed with the introduction of cheap VCD machines,which could be bought for less than US$10 in electronics marketplaces in Indonesia.VCDs circulated widely as non-registered commercial recordings outside the state-regulated commercial economy of recorded music.

VCDs emphasise dangdut’s hip-swaying dance – goyang – and Inul’s dancingbody was well suited to the medium. The sale and distribution of these VCDs boostedInul’s popularity, even though she had not made a single recording with one of themajor commercial recording companies in Indonesia. It was estimated that severalmillion copies of her VCD had sold before she was offered a recording contract. VCDsof Inul’s performance circulated widely throughout Indonesia, as well as othercountries including Malaysia, Japan, Hong Kong and Holland. The Surabaya branch




of national television station TransTV broadcast one of her performances for localaudiences in 2003. After seeing spectators’ positive reaction to Inul’s performance onthe local television station in Surabaya, producers brought her into the studio torecord and broadcast those performances on television stations in Jakarta (Asmarani2003).

While there may have been many other singers in the past with trademark dancemoves that were just as sexually provocative, they were never recorded and their‘product’ was never circulated, especially on national television. Producers in Jakartaquickly realised the potential of Inul as a commodity to increase ratings and sellproducts. In this case, the commercial non-registered VCD industry was used by themainstream industry to develop talent, a kind of ‘minor league’, to audition andrecruit regional acts for national production. This new system of recording, distribut-ing and marketing brought new kinds of performance to the mainstream. Whenrecordings of Inul’s eroticised movements appeared on national television, the effectwas thrilling for fans and infuriating for conservative Islamic leaders.

Inul’s image and sound

Inul came to the attention of local television producers in east Java via pirated VCDsof her performances recorded at private parties. However, television producers feltthat she was too eroticised for television, and so they persuaded her to develop a newstyle of performing. Even so, TV producers had to be aware of the camera angles:

If the camera angle is off by just a little bit, it can give an erotic impression. Frontal shots are toosuggestive. If we have a naughty cameraman who shoots from a low angle, that’s even worse.Those are the things I have to be aware of. (Lok/Xar 2003)

These two styles of performance – one performed at parties and one for televisedbroadcast – differed in terms of costume, dance movements, and interaction with theaudience, as discussed in the following section.

At parties, Inul appeared outdoors on a stage constructed specifically for theevent. She generally sang solo accompanied by her six-piece band, whose membersstood in one line across the back of the stage. Her outfits were colourful, tight andrevealing. The audience for this type of show generally consisted of primarily malesaged fifteen to thirty-five, who were standing in front of the stage. Some of themdanced alone or together in pairs, while others watched her and the band. It wascommon for men to come on stage and dance with her. The atmosphere was lively andloud.

In televised concerts, Inul appeared on a large stage in a studio, often ac-companied by a group of choreographed dancers. The band stood to one side, andcould only be seen when the camera trained its view on them. Trans TV producerIshadi described her image and stage performance as follows:

Trans TV produced several programs starring Inul in 2003. At that time, all the stations werecompeting for her. But Trans TV programs aimed to be elegant because we targeted the A-Baudience [defined by income]. Inul was made more elegant with the help of elite choreogra-phers and designers like Aji Notonegoro and Robby Tumewu.

The audience at these broadcasts was made up of well-dressed middle-class menand women, and included people in their forties and fifties. Women wearingjilbab (Muslim head scarves) were shown in the audience, which sat during theperformance and appeared orderly. Occasionally, a man who was not one of the




choreogaphed dancers would come on stage and dance with Inul, but these wereplanned beforehand.

In both contexts, Inul maintained a strong sexualised presence not only in termsof her body movements but her vocal presentation and vocal patter to the audience.These elements became a fixed part of her act. For example, it was expected that shewould perform her signature tune entitled ‘Inul’s Dance’ ( ‘Goyang Inul’), in whichshe refers to herself in the third person as she prepares the audience for what they areabout to experience:18

Para penonton bapak-bapak ibu-ibusemuanya

To the audience, respected men andwomen and everyone present

Jangan heran kalau Inul sedang goyang Don’t be surprised when Inul dancesRada panas agak sexy . . . maafkanlah. . .

It’s a bit hot and sexy . . . you’ll have toexcuse me in advance . . .

Despite possible objections by respected elders, male or female, or anyone else inthe audience, she asks forgiveness for dancing in her own ‘hot and sexy’ way. But shedoes not make excuses for ‘Inul’s Dance’. The word ‘maafkanlah’ is a command:‘excuse me!’ She introduces herself as a strong determined woman who will do whatshe wants. Further, it is simply who she is. As she sings in the following verse,‘dangdut without dance is like vegetables without salt’. Similarly, ‘Inul’s Dance’ is apublic expression of her natural sexuality. The public expression of a woman’ssexuality, as well as her strong determination, angered her primarily male critics andexcited her primarily female fans.

The music of Inul

Critics have argued that Inul was nothing special because there were many otherperformers in small villages throughout Java who performed highly eroticised dancemovements in public clubs and at outdoor parties. In relation to the field of femaleperformers, Inul was simply another village dancing girl with a trademark hook (inthis case, ‘the drilling dance’). Comparisons between Inul, who reached a nationalaudience, and performers who would never achieve exposure outside their geo-graphic localities, suggests that only the most talented and innovative performers,however defined, would be singled out for inclusion in national media. This positionignores the process of mediatisation, which frames the mediatised subject in newrelationships to its audience, and introduces the possibility for creating new meaningssurrounding the subject. As discussed earlier, Inul developed different styles ofperformance, depending on the type of performance. Inul the singer/dancer cannotbe separated from Inul the media image. For example, when Inul entered the tele-visual realm of performance, her recording company commissioned new songs.Composer Endang Kurnia (b. 1958) explains his initial contact with Inul:

I had seen VCD’s of her performing at parties in Surabaya. Everyone said ‘she’s doing thisoutrageous dance!’ Then I got a call from Blackboard (recording company) who said that theywere writing up a contract for someone named Inul in Surabaya and they wanted me tocontribute songs for her album. This is before the controversy arose. I supported Inul becauseshe had so much potential and she was so popular with the people. I knew she would becomea phenomenon. God gave her the talent to dance, and her voice is not that bad either. Good forher!




It would be more fruitful to compare Inul with other dangdut singers whodominated the genre. Compared to the pouting, coquettish sound of female dangdutsingers who had appeared on television in the 1990s, Inul’s singing was punctuated bysexualised screams, grimaces, gasps and yelps. The style of music associated withthose singers was closely aligned with light pop. Inul’s singing, on the other hand, wasbacked by a powerful rock backbeat and screaming guitar parts. Endang Kurniacomposed Inul’s two biggest hit songs – ‘Inul’s Dance’ ( ‘Goyang Inul’) and ‘Shakenup’ ( ‘Kocok-kocok’). A protege of Rhoma Irama, Kurnia’s style blends dangdut, rockand Sundanese music.19 Rock elements include effects-driven electric guitar, slappedelectric bass, and rock rhythmic backbeat played on a drum kit. The songs feature fasttempos, alternating sections of rock and dangdut rhythms, power chords, soaringrock guitar solos à la van Halen, and punctuating rhythmic breaks. Sundaneseelements include sections that make references to jaipongan dance and Sundanesesuling (bamboo flute).

‘Kocok-kocok’ ( ‘Shaken Up’)

The lyrics of ‘Kocok-kocok’ are delivered from the perspective of a woman whoknows what she wants from her lover: honesty, loyalty, stability, love and attention.She does not want to be one of many lovers waiting her turn in an unstable relation-ship with an insensitive man.

‘Kocok-kocok’Ku tak mau cintaku dikocok-kocok,ah,

I don’t want you to play with my heart

Ku tak ingin sayangku dikocok-kocok, I don’t want to be played,Seperti arisan nunggu giliran, Like a game, awaiting my turn,Aduh aduh aduh aduh aduh . . . Manatahan!

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh . . . I can’t take it!

Yang ku mau cintamu hanya padaku, I just want your love to be for me,Yang ku ingin sayangmu satuuntukku,

I just want your love only for me,

Tiada yang lain cinta yang lain. There is no other one, no other love.Aduh aduh aduh aduh aduh . . . takmau ahh

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh . . . I don’t want it, Ahhh!

Dikocok-kocok, 3X Shake, shake, shake,Bila arisan dikocok-kocok. Like a game, shaken up.Sudah pasti menang, You’ve won,Tapi nunggu giliran. But wait your turn.Tapi cinta dan sayangku, But my love and affection,Ku tak mau tak mau, I don’t want it, don’t want it,Otak mau tak mau, I don’t want it, don’t want it,Dikocok-kocok ah, Shake, shake, shake,Dikocok-kocok, Shake, shake, shake,Ku tak mau cintaku, I don’t want my loveDikocok-kocok. Shaken up.

[interlude]




Disayang-sayang, LovedDimanja-manja, Spoiled,Aku mau I wantJadi pacarmu, jadi kasihmu, ho, To be your girlfriend, to be your lover.

Tetapi bila dikocok-kocok But if you want to play withCintaku, My love,Ogah ah ogah aku tak mau, ho. No, no, I don’t want it.

Cinta bukan untuk mainan, Love is not a game,Ku tak mau disamakan dengan arisan, I won’t be played like a game,Dikocok-kocok baru keluar . . . ah! Shake it up, and then it comes out!

‘Kocok-kocok’ works on many interpretive levels. It can be a song about shakinga container that holds numbers in a weekly lottery and social gathering attended bywomen (arisan). The number comes out of its container and reveals the winner of thecontest. It can also refer to the instability or shakiness that a woman is feeling abouther relationship with a man who has many lovers. Another interpretation, suggestedby the last line in the song, is the shaking of a man’s penis as he ejaculates. When Iasked composer Endang Kurnia about this interpretation, he responsed:

Fine, if you want to see it that way. That’s the nature of commercial music. It can be interpretedin different ways. It can be the shaking of the arisan. It can mean my feelings of love that I don’twant shaken up. The scream at the end was also my idea, and if you want to associate that withsomething ‘porno’, then go ahead. There are many interpretations and that makes it appeal tolots of different people.

The climax comes at the end of the song as Inul screams. Another possiblereading is that this scream may be the woman’s orgasm after she has been shaken upduring sexual intercourse. Songs have many possible meanings, and these multiplemeanings give dangdut the potential for appealing to a larger audience of consumers.

The song structure, with number of measures in parentheses, is as follows:

Intro (23)[A(16)–A#(13) –B(23) –interlude(20) –C(37)][A#(13) –B(23) –interlude(20) –C#(37)]A#(6+ )

‘Kocok-kocok’ song map20




‘Kocok-kocok’ is characterised by uneven phrase lengths and sections. The songstructure consists of an introduction followed by the body of the song (A–B–interlude–C) which is essentially repeated, and followed by a short concludingsection that refers back to the A section. The body of the song does not repeat exactly(the A section is missing in the second iteration), which adds to the excitement of thesong. The unusual phrase lengths of each individual section give the piece a sense ofurgency and instability. The unusual phrase lengths force the sections to jut up againsteach other, creating a thrusting propulsive effect.

Inul, Islam, and the New OrderA full account of Islam, the state and society in Indonesia is beyond the scope of thisessay.21 The following section introduces key religious groups and individuals thatparticipated in the public discourse about Inul.22 In the majority Islamic nation, withsome 88 per cent of the total population of 220 million people, there is a tremendousdiversity of opinions regarding the place of Islam in Indonesian politics and society.There was no singular Islamic position toward Inul, just as there is no united Islamicposition toward a variety of other issues, such as whether to allow a woman to bepresident, or whether to implement shari’a (Islamic law). Moderate and liberalIslamic groups tended to support Inul whereas the hard-line groups tended to take astance against her. But as we shall see, these ideological positions crystallised overtime in response to opposing positions, and within the political context of the period.

The intersection between Islam and state politics has been a point of contentionsince Indonesian independence in 1945. Suharto’s policy was to depoliticise Islam andindividualise dissent (Woodward 2001, p. 29; Bruinessen 2002, p. 6), but he had manycritics who wanted Islam more fully incorporated into the state. Since the late 1980s,Islam began to play a more significant role in Indonesian politics. During the late1980s, Suharto began to court his critics by creating ICMI, the Indonesian Associationof Indonesian Intellectuals (Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim se-Indonesia), a state-sponsored religious apparatus made up of Muslim reformers and bureaucrats thatwas formed to help deliver political support for Suharto (Liddle 1996). The years1985–1990 were characterised by ‘the creation of many new links of patronage, linkingthe kiai [religious leaders] (and allied businessmen) with the local governmentapparatus’ (Bruinessen 2002, p. 8). Public and private observance of Islam increasedwith support from the Suharto regime. Religious courts were given equal jurisdictionon certain matters; the ban on wearing jilbab (head scarves) was lifted in publicschools; and banks with a basis on shari’a (Islamic law) were allowed to form. Afterthe fall of Suharto, due to new electoral laws, nearly one third of the newly formedpolitical parties claimed close ties to Islamic ideology or Islamic organisations. How-ever, these parties were not united, nor were they particularly effective. Political Islamdoes not have one political agenda, but is simply characterised by the accommodationof ‘Muslim’ values in politics (Baswedan 2004).

The incorporation of Islam into state politics was not supported by all sectors ofIslamic leadership. During the 1980s, Muslim intellectuals created a democracy move-ment based on religious and cultural pluralism that was not directed towards seekingformal state support of Islamic values. Anthropologist Robert Hefner has calledthis movement ‘civil Islam’ (Hefner 2000). Its base of support was located in civilinstitutions including community groups and NGOs. Civil Islam (sometimes called‘cultural Islam’) advocates a more liberal form of Islam in step with contemporary life




on issues including democratisation, religious pluralism, and gender equality. Propo-nents of a democratic and pluralistic civil Islam generally supported Inul, includingAbdurrahman Wahid [Gus Dur], former president of Indonesia and former leader ofIndonesia’s largest Muslim political organisation Nahdlatul Ulama, or NU.

A class of ‘radical Islam’ gained ascendance during the 1980s. These groups haveattracted much attention in mass media, although their numbers are radically dis-proportionate to the attention they have received. The goal of radical Islam is to createa Muslim state based on the implementation of Islamic law. In 1993, Jemaah Islamiyah(JI) was formed to establish an Islamic state through militancy (Jones 2003; Fealy andHooker 2006). Its leaders had been active in the mujahidin war against the SovietUnion in Afghanistan during the 1980s (ICG 2002). They have launched attacks onchurches and nightclubs, including the attack on a Bali nightclub in 2002 that killed202 people. Other groups including Laskar Jihad (formed in 2000) and Front PembelaIslam (formed in 1998) have raised the banner of what they perceive to be anincreasingly immoral society as the target of their ire. These groups took a strongposition against Inul.

In this shifting sphere of media, politics and religion, several Muslim organisa-tions and individuals spoke out strongly against Inul. However, the MUI, a by-product of the New Order, was the most vocal Muslim organisation. The MUI wasformed in 1975 by the New Order government ‘to translate government policy[regarding Islam] into a language that the ummah understands’.23 The purpose of theMUI was to mobilise support among Muslims for the government’s developmentpolicies ( ibid. ). Its founders were university-educated, urban, and close to the centresof power.

The MUI does not serve military and security interests directly, but it has apolitical function ( ibid. ).24 The MUI operates through fatwa, authoritative opinions,which, in the New Order, legitimised government policies ( ibid. ). Fatwa have beenissued against liberal Islamic thought, religious pluralism, inter-faith marriage, andwomen leading prayers attended by men. The MUI invoked fatwa number U-287(2001), a fatwa pertaining to pornography to condemn Inul. In addition to forbiddingsexual acts outside marriage, fatwa number U-287 forbids women to publicly showparts of the body other than the face, palms of the hand, and bottom of the foot. It alsoforbids tight clothes that reveal the curves of a female’s body, the use of cosmetics, andvocal sounds or words that increase men’s sexual desires (Majelis Ulama Indonesia2001).

Although Suharto had been forced from power in 1998, the culture of censorshipthat had existed during the thirty-two-year reign of Suharto did not suddenly dis-appear. Censorship of Inul was carried out within a residual atmosphere of NewOrder authoritarianism and patriarchy. Fundamentalist voices were encouraged by apublic discourse about freedom of speech, and amplified through the expandedmediascape of the post-Suharto period. Ulil Abshar-Abdalla, a defender of free speechwho has been castigated for his own liberal views of Islam, stated that ‘the desire toeliminate something that is considered ‘‘different’’ is still deeply rooted’, referring tothe Suharto regime . . . ‘it used to be the government [doing the censoring], and nowit’s the people themselves’ (Cikini 2003). The expression and acceptance of differencewould be dramatised in the case of Inul.

News of the MUI’s condemnation spread rapidly in the popular print media andseveral other groups supported the MUI decision. In May 2003, the anti-pornographygroup Forum Komunikasi Masyarakat Antipornografi dan Pornoaksi (FKMAPP)




staged a protest against the television stations SCTV and Trans TV. Shouting ‘Don’tpoison our youth with pornography’, and ‘Wipe out the exploitation of navels,behinds and breasts on TV’, and ‘Dance drills, faith spills’, about a thousand peoplewere reported to have demonstrated against the broadcast of two shows starring Inul( ‘SCTV dan Trans . . .’ 2003) (see Figure 2).

The third powerful voice of Islam belonged to dangdut superstar Rhoma Irama,who has a rich and complicated history with Islamic politics and Suharto’s New Orderregime. During the 1980s, when Rhoma Irama aligned himself with the IslamicOpposition Party (PPP) against the regime of Suharto, he was banned from perform-ing on the state-run television station TVRI. Certain songs were banned by thegovernment and cassettes were removed from stores. Dangdut became a symbol ofresistance against the New Order military regime (Heryanto quoted in Barraud 2003).By the mid-1980s, as Islam began to liberalise, politicians began endorsing themusic and building alliances with dangdut performers to gather popular support.Reconstructed and appropriated, dangdut was subsequently courted by governmentofficials as the music of the New Order, the music that State Secretary Moerdionocalled ‘very Indonesian’ (Sen and Hill 2000, p. 175). In the 1990s, a period when Islamwas publicly embraced by Suharto, Rhoma Irama built an alliance with the NewOrder.

As president of the Association of Melayu Musicians of Indonesia (PersatuanArtis Musik Melayu Indonesia, or PAMMI), Rhoma Irama spoke out against Inul. Inhis speech calling for a ban on Inul’s performances, Rhoma Irama reported a caseof a man who said that he raped a woman after watching her perform on a VCD(Gunawan 2003, p. 41). His statements echoed the fatwa issued by the MUI: ‘Inul’sdrilling dance (goyang ngebor Inul), break dance (goyang patah), goyang ngecor

Figure 2. An anti-Inul protest: ‘Inul is the mother of immorality’, Jakarta, 12 June 2003 [TEMPO/Santirta M; K15A/474/2003; 20030627].




(another type of eroticised dance), body-shaking dance (goyang nggeter), are allcategorised as inappropriate ways of showing a woman’s body in public (aurat qubro)and cannot be tolerated’ (Hamdani et al. 2004). Rhoma Irama’s statements echoedthose by Muslim organisations in Indonesia which have been traditionally opposed toeroticised female cultural forms that are so prevalent throughout Java and Sumatra.These forms have been viewed as dangerous ‘because their overt sexuality is thoughtto lead men astray, destroying marriages and resulting in fights or sometimes evenmurder’ (Lysloff 2001/2002, p. 4; Weintraub 2004, pp. 57–8). It is important to notethat the majority of Inul’s fans are women (Inul Daratista, personal communication,16 November 2006). Further, there were no investigations, no newspaper stories, nofatwas, and no sanctions against the alleged rapists or the men buying and watchingthe videos. As Inul noted:

If one uses his brain I think he can differentiate between music, sexuality, and religion. Ifsomeone arrives at a show to see, for example, Shakira’s tight pants, sexy midriff, and eroticbody movements, then his thoughts will automatically be drawn to sex. It’s not that women aresuch a threat to society. It’s because of wrong-headed politics and the mis-use of religion thatwomen have been blamed for society’s problems. (personal communication, 16 November2006)

The patriarchal and authoritarian stance of Rhoma Irama – the ‘King of Dangdut’ –and the threat of a fatwa against Inul did not gain much support outside thefundamentalist Islamic community. Rather, subsequent press commentaries quicklyturned against Rhoma Irama’s attempt to blame the victim. In response to the actionsand statements of these conservative Muslim groups and individuals, a number ofopposing positions emerged.

A poll in the news magazine Tempo reported that 78 per cent of its readers,mostly middle class, were against banning her performances. Women’s rights groupsrejected the notion that this was a case of exploitation, commodification, degradationor victimisation of women. On the contrary, the National Commission againstViolence to Women (Komnas Perempuan) stated that Inul had suffered psychologicaltrauma in the name of religion (Abhiseka 2003). Women’s rights activist, author andplaywright Ratna Sarumpaet, whose play Marsinah Menggugat ( ‘Marsinah’s Accusa-tion’) about the murder of labour activist Marsinah had been banned in 1997, arguedthat Inul’s case was about freedom of expression (Cikini 2003). In response to RhomaIrama’s claims about a causal relationship between Inul and rape, Saparinah Sadli ofthe National Commission of Women noted that it was not Inul, but rather the inabilityof the legal system to protect women that led to the increase in rape cases and violenceagainst women (Nmp 2003).25

As news about the case spread, other actors added their voices to the unfoldingdrama. Conflicting interpretations of Inul represent these divergent perspectives onmorality in Islam. Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) defended Inul against the funda-mentalist branches of Islam. Gus Dur’s affiliation lies with NU, an organisation thatadvocates a pluralist democratic form of Islam dedicated to human rights, socialjustice and minority rights. The former president correctly stated that Inul couldnot have single-handedly destroyed Indonesia’s moral fabric because it ‘had alreadybeen torn apart by corrupt politicians during the New Order. . . . Bending to theircensorship demands signals a return to the New Order’ (Burrel 2003).

During a performance tour in Kalimantan, Inul was invited to meet with GuruIjai, a charismatic and nationally respected religious teacher. He announced to his




followers that he considered Inul his adopted child (anak angkat). It was reported that‘he instructed and prayed: ‘‘I hope that Inul will enter heaven. Ignore the slanderousgossip and whatever else might happen. Keep pressing ahead because you arepursuing your livelihood’’ ’.26

The expanded role of a popular music singer came about in an environment ofpolitical instability represented by shifting national leadership and an upcomingelection in 2004 in which Islamic leaders and politicians were struggling for support.Despite calls by MUI Secretary Ichwan Syam, who stated ‘Don’t allow Inul to partici-pate in the upcoming 2004 election campaign’ (Tma/Ant 2003), political partiesseized on Inul’s popularity to draw potential voters to their rallies. Since the 1970s,dangdut had been used to gather crowds at political rallies, despite the fact that themajority of people did not vote, and the elections were not conducted fairly. Politi-cians used the condemnation of Inul by conservative Islamic political groups to drawsupport to their own liberal positions. In a very public and well-photographeddisplay, Taufiq Kiemas, the husband of then-president Megawati and a member ofparliament (Fraksi PDI-P), hugged Inul on a concert stage in February, infuriatingmembers of conservative Muslim groups.

Inulmania attracted the attention of the international press – a Time Asia storyand a National Public Radio programme (US) appeared in March 2003 – as well as theworld of international finance.27 In an article titled ‘Indonesia’s hip-shaking diva is agood omen’, Australian reporter William Pesek Jr argued that the controversy sur-rounding Inul represents ‘the workings of democracy and free expression takinghold’; the backlash against her is a test of Indonesia’s maturity as a nation, ‘an oppor-tunity for investors to gauge the extent to which religious fervor is spreading – orretreating . . .’ (Pesek 2003). Inulmania was constructed as a barometer to measure thesecurity of international business interests where a pro-Inul stance might stimulateforeign investment and an anti-Inul stance might scare investors away.

What are we to make of the local, national and international attention to Inul andthe variety of positions that Inulmania generated? Inul came to represent a positionoppositional to New Order authoritarianism and conservative Muslim leadership,which had been growing steadily under the New Order. However, it was only afterthe fall of the New Order, within a climate of freedom of expression encouraged bynew media, that she came to play a key role. Popular print media crystallised into twooppositional positions, characterised as Inulfluenza, a virus from outside Indonesiathat threatens to infect the moral society (similar to arguments made in the popularprint media about AIDS) and Inulviton, an energising internal force that invigoratesthe body politic.28 Conservative Islamic groups and Rhoma Irama advocated prohi-bition in order to stem the spread of Inulfluenza. Women’s rights groups, artists,intellectuals, fans, moderate Islamic groups, and politicians hoping to rally supportfrom an increasingly energised populace called for a continuous stream of Inulviton.However, as we shall see from the following discussion, Inulmania gave rise to amuch wider range of interpretations by ordinary people.

Women, power and performanceInul’s performative body did not spring out of thin air, but is grounded in long-heldcultural traditions of women’s dance in Indonesia. Viewed from a culturalist position,it is possible to situate Inul’s body within a long history of women, power andperforming arts. Western studies of women in Southeast Asian societies have




frequently shown that women enjoy relatively ‘high status’, particularly in compari-son with women in Indian and Chinese societies (Errington 1990, p. 1). Scholars ofIndonesia have pointed to the notion of bilateral kinship, which results in male andfemale children being equally valued; complimentarity of men’s and women’s work;the downplaying of sexual differentiation; and the fact that women control money.Women’s power in Indonesia is also historically connected to women in the perform-ing arts. For example, female singers in the gamelan tradition of central Java areconsidered to be ampuh, spiritually powerful (Sutton 1984, p. 128; Cooper 2000,pp. 609–44; Cooper 2004, pp. 531–56). Javanese tayuban dancers are an integral partof spirit shrine rituals, village purification, and fertility rites (Hefner 1987), andSundanese ronggeng are traditionally linked to harvest rites and the rice goddess DewiSri (Foley 1989). A woman’s traditional dance called geol is used as a spiritual offeringto a goddess of fertility in Banyuwangi. In performance, women demonstrate theirpower to attract males (Sutton 1984; Foley 1989; Weintraub 2004).29

Following Ong and Peletz, gender identities are not fixed, but belong to ‘a fluid,contingent process, characterised by contestation, ambivalence, and change . . . withinthe interlocking ideological and material contexts of a dynamic, modernizing region’(Ong and Peletz 1995, p. 1). These performing arts traditions have articulated with theshifting political and economic terrain upon which women’s bodies move (anddance) in local contemporary contexts. Inul was not the first dancer to be the object ofregional and national censorship. In several cases, government censorship had beenused in attempts to control women’s powerful dancing bodies. Ronggeng – the singer/dancer/entertainer – were allegedly banned in West Java after Independence,whereas performance practices of sinden (female singers in the gamelan ensemble)were monitored and regulated during the 1950s and 1960s (Foley 1979; Weintraub2004). Under the influence of Muhammadiyah reformists and the Muslim politicalparty Masyumi, village officials banned tayuban in Pasuruan, Probolinggo andMalang (Hefner 1987, p. 91). Jaipongan, a genre that combined village styles withdisco, modern dance and martial arts, led to debates about it being banned (Miller andWilliams 1998, p. 93). ‘Weepy’ songs sung by women with lyrics that mentionedabusive husbands, infidelity and divorce were banned during the 1980s (Yampolsky1989).

Striking parallels can be drawn between Inul’s performance practice andtayuban, a cultural practice that has angered Muslim reformists for decades because ofits non-Muslim associations; ritual meals and blessings; serving of alcohol; perceptionof dancers (tledhek) as prostitutes; and men dancing with women.30 Inul comes fromPasuruan, a region of East Java where tayuban was widely practised. Pasuruan alsohas a reputation as the most powerful stronghold of Nahdlatul Ulama on the island ofJava (Hefner 2000, p. xiii ). Like the East Javanese tledhek, Inul sings and dances toearn money. The stage demeanour of both tledhek and Inul is flirtatious, enticing,teasing and sexual. Performance settings in both cases are boisterous, loud, hot andexcited. The rapid movement of the hips, a rudimentary form of the drilling move, iscommon to tayuban. The description of body posture and movements used in thengremo section of the dance, as described by Robert Hefner, could easily be appliedto Inul: bold stance, swinging arms, and strong foot pounding (Hefner 1987) (seeFigure 3).

On stage, female dangdut performers often dance with men, who are ofteninebriated. Female dangdut performers, like tledhek, believe that inserting susuk intotheir skin will enhance their power to attract males (Sutton 1984, p. 130; Spiller 2001).




Further, in both dangdut and tayuban, women participate as audience members,evaluating dancers and enjoying the festival atmosphere of dance parties.31 Femaledangdut singers are ‘owned by the people’ ( ‘milik masyarakat’), much like thetledhek is considered every man’s property (Elvy Sukaesih, personal communication,20 July 2005).

What is remarkable about Inul is that her singing and dancing are unexceptional.Compared to other singers, as one fan states, ‘She dresses as other artists commonlydo’ (Wahyudi 2003). Her performances are erotic, but restrained (Heryanto quoted inBarraud 2003). And contemporary entertainers use their bodies in more sexuallyprovocative ways, including Anisa Bahar, known for her own eroticised trademarkmove called ‘patah-patah’.32 Commentators have noted that some female dancers inHindi films wear less, and move in more sexually provocative ways. Music critic BreRedana stated that ‘you could find so many Inuls in any small town in East or CentralJava.33 The drilling move was simply her trademark, a distinctive hook, that set herapart from others. Inul herself was perhaps as surprised as anyone: she had beendoing the dance for years. Suddenly, she was appearing on television and magazinecovers and selling out elite concert venues.

Interpreting InulSo what did Inul do for fans? FX Rudy Gunawan writes that responses to Inul rangedfrom ‘amazement, laughter, embarrassment, and anger’ (Gunawan 2003). Statementsgathered in the popular press do not indicate simple homologies between a culturaltext and the meaning of that text, but rather signify the (highly diversified) waysin which actors describe and experience aesthetic pleasure (Hennion 2003, p. 82).

Figure 3. Inul, striking a typical dance pose [TEMPO/Imam Sukamto; K17A/129/2003; 20030820].




However, at least two trends are identifiable. In true Indonesian-language fashion,people created plesetan (play on words) that shows not only the depth of feeling thatInul had created, but also the playful and political response to Inul’s fame. Peoplecreate plesetan by altering the meaning of a common acronym, typically those usedfor naming official Indonesian institutions. The letters of the acronym are made tocorrespond to new words, and the resultant meaning makes the original meaningsound ridiculous and also produces a humorous commentary on a current situation.For example, BII (Bank Internasional Indonesia, the International Bank of Indonesia)became ‘Bangsa Inal Inul’, ‘The Country of Inal Inul’; ‘Inal Inul’ refers to theswaying of one’s behind from left to right while walking (Faruk and Salam 2003,pp. 31–2). RI (Republic of Indonesia) became ‘Republik Inul’, the ‘Republic of Inul’.PesantrenOnline.com, which advertises itself as an Internet site for IndonesianMuslims, mentions the following: FPI (Front Pembela Islam, the Organisation toDefend Islam) became ‘Front Pembela Inul’, the ‘Organisation to Defend Inul’,whereas JI (Jemaah Islamiah, the Islamic Fundamentalist Group) became ‘JemaahInul’, the ‘Inul Fundamentalist Group’ (Yahya 2003). Names of US governmentagencies were a favourite target as well: FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) became‘Fantasi Bokong Inul’, ‘Fantasising about Inul’s Rear’, and CIA (Central IntelligenceAgency) became ‘Cintailah Inul apa Adanya’, ‘Love Inul no matter what’ (Yudhono2003). Quite apart from subverting the original meaning of the phrase, pleasureemerges from the invention of the new phrases themselves as well as the act of voicingthem. There is pleasure in the humorous connection between the newly createdphrase and the original meaning of the term. And Inul’s fans enjoyed fantasisingabout a ‘Republic of Inul’ and an ‘Organisation to Defend Inul’ against her detractors.Plesetan, representing multiple responses by people about what Inul means tothem, had political implications. Plesetan, in this case, challenge the monolithic andmoralistic interpretation of Inul issued by MUI and other conservative Muslimorganisations and individuals.

Second, discourse among fans tended not to focus on the drilling move, nor eventhe quality of her stage act or singing, but the sentiments she evokes in fans when theywatch her perform. These sentiments tend to revolve around her ability to dance with‘energy’ ( ‘energi’). For example, Kartoyo, 21, an employee of the City Public OrderOffice (Dinas Ketenteraman dan Ketertiban) states that ‘. . . she can lift our spirits withher energetic and dynamic movements. Watching her perform, the stress of a fullworkday disappears’ (Wahyudi 2003). Nurjaya, 30, a motorcycle taxi (ojek) driver( ibid. ), insists that ‘. . . I see her as someone who motivates me. I feel more alert afterwatching her perform. For the poor, watching or listening to dangdut performancesis far more encouraging than listening to politicians or thinking about war’ ( ibid. ).Meriem, 45, who works as a manager at a star-rated hotel in Central Jakarta ( ibid. ),states that ‘I don’t get the impression that Inul is raunchy. I personally admire herpotential in dancing and singing’. In these descriptions, Inul’s stage presence soundsmore like an aerobic workout than a pornographic display. These statements point tothe context of live performance and energetic dance as the primary mode for under-standing Inul’s aesthetic practice, rather than the individual drilling move that hadbeen singled out in the press. The interpretation of the drilling dance as aerobic energydoes not point to the erotic nature of Inul’s performance, but it does not make excusesfor it either. Rather, she ‘lifts their spirits, motivates them, and encourages them’.Comments by fans suggest that they are participating with her rather than gazingat her.




Female dangdut singers that I interviewed in July 2005 were generally dismiss-ive of Inul’s artistic abilities, supportive of her commercial success (albeit somewhatmystified by it), and outraged at the censure heaped upon her by authoritarian andpatriarchal institutions and individuals. Ellya Khadam, who had hit records in the late1950s and is reportedly the first successful female recording artist to dance whilesinging, argued that ‘If there is a negative effect on spectators – male spectators – thenthey should turn off the TV! Look at something else!’ (Ellya Khadam, personalcommunication, 18 July 2005). Echoing statements by fans, she acknowledged thatInul’s drilling dance could be interpreted in a multiplicity of ways, and that it couldhave a variety of social effects, not all of them negative. Taking a broader view ofwomen’s performance, she argued that male spectators, not female singers, should beheld accountable for producing ‘negative effects’. Music and film star Elvy Sukaesih,the ‘Queen of Dangdut’, had been subject to similar kinds of censure at various pointsin her career. She noted that ‘when I first danced and sang in public in the 1960s, Iswayed my hips too! Inul is not that unusual, and there are far more erotic dangdutsingers, but, because of television, she has gotten the most attention’ (Elvy Sukaesih,personal communication, 20 July 2005). As if speaking directly to Rhoma Irama, herformer singing partner, she advised: ‘It’s like an oil lamp. Let the oil burn and it’ll burnout quickly. But throw more oil on the fire and the flames will spread like wildfire. Letit die out already!’ ( ibid. ). Elvy Sukaesih’s statements pointed to the expanded role ofmass media in producing the Inul ‘phenomenon’. But without the controversy involv-ing Rhoma Irama, and disseminated through television and popular print media, Inulwould not have been considered unique or interesting.

By late 2003, Inul had become a major player in the entertainment industry,winning three national awards from television station SCTV for best televisionartist (August) and one award from AMI (Anugerah Musik Indonesia) for bestdangdut album (October). Representations of Inul in the popular print mediachanged from controversial newcomer to established star. A feature article entitled‘Just like Madonna’ appeared in the middle-class women’s magazine Feminasignalling her acceptance as a seasoned entertainment figure. Biographical entriesappeared on websites dedicated to famous Indonesians such as Apa dan Siapa andTokohIndonesia.com. And a soap opera entitled ‘Why Inul?’ documented the contro-versies surrounding her performance, as well as her meteoric rise to the top.

Indeed, the controversy surrounding Inul began to fade in late 2003. This waspartly due to new broadcasting regulations, which had been introduced in 2002 (UUPenyiaran), but had only begun to come into play in late 2003 (Ishadi SK, personalcommunication, 8 November 2006). According to Inul, new regulations about per-forming on television had made it impossible for her to express herself maximally:

Musicians need to be able to express themselves on television. They must be able to performdance moves that are beautiful, and that do not transgress religious norms. If they are ableto do that, people will say, ‘wow, that’s an exciting program!’. (personal communication, 16November 2006)

Despite these new media regulations that restricted her televised performances, Inulreturned to the public sphere to promote greater freedom of expression for women. Ina photo shoot for Tempo magazine in 2005, she posed in a typical dance posture witha sign reading ‘sensor’ ( ‘censorship’) (see Figure 4).

In a playful way, she was calling attention to the politics of censorship that hadsurrounded her body since early 2003. The position of her body, and the smile on her




Figure 4. Inul, posing with a sign reading ‘Censorship’, Jakarta, 15 December 2005 [TEMPO/Ramdani; Digital Image; RD05121508; 20051215].




face, express her unwillingness to capitulate to the demands of her detractors. In effect,she was inviting them to ‘go ahead – censor this!’ Inul took a public stance againstIslamic fundamentalist groups that introduced the so-called ‘anti-pornography’ bill(RUU-APP) to the Indonesian Legislative Assembly (DPR Indonesia) in 2006. It isimportant to note that feminist groups were not involved in drafting this bill, which isless about pornography than it is about censorship of various kinds (Garcia 2007,p. 67). Under this bill, people would be banned from ‘disseminating, listening to,staging, or posting writings, sounds or recorded sounds, film or equivalent, songlyrics, poetry, pictures, photographs and/or paintings that exploit the attraction of thebody or body parts of a person dancing or moving in an erotic fashion’. Inul spoke outagainst the bill in a number of public forums, appearing with activists Rieke DiahPitaloka and Ratna Sarumpaet as well as former president Gus Dur. Demonstrations bythe organisation Forum Betawi Rembug (FBR), which protested in front of her homeand disrupted business in front of her karaoke club, have not deterred Inul fromperforming or publicly advocating for freedom of expression and women’s rights.

ConclusionWriting about Inul generated an extraordinary variety of perspectives on contempo-rary Indonesian society.34 In this essay, I have focused on the social and materialconditions that ground the construction of meaning within specific mediated contextsof cultural production. New methods of recording, distributing and promoting musicvideos resulted in wider representation of regional popular styles, including ‘live’recordings that were produced, distributed and sold outside the mainstream musiceconomy. VCD production and distribution created an alternative economy of musicthat was not regulated by the state, opening up the possibility for wider exposure andgreater freedom of expression.

Inul’s detractors argued that the drilling dance had crossed the lines of respect-able moral behaviour. Using the top-down rhetoric of the New Order, they arguedthat it was bad for youth and detrimental to the moral fabric of the nation-state. TheNew Order simply did not allow conditions that would make it possible for suchintense and widespread debate to develop. It was a residual culture of censorship,within the hands of the MUI and Rhoma Irama, that set into motion efforts to ban awoman’s dancing body.

But it was the fall of Suharto and subsequent changes in the sphere of politicsand religion that brought out these highly charged ideological positions. The topic ofIslamisation in Indonesia – including the creation of new Islamic political parties, therise of radical Islam, calls for an Islamic state, and the expression of religious identitiesin public – was too broad to deal with here. But I have summarised some of the maindebates that relate to media, censorship and women. The MUI issued a very NewOrder-like decree, but it was not supported by the central government. The drillingdance found hearty supporters among those groups typically silenced by the Suhartoregime: ordinary people, oppositional political groups, the press and intellectuals.Due to a more liberal press, politicians, women’s rights groups, moderate religiousleaders, and intellectuals seized on Inul to voice their own ideological positions. In thehighly mediated sphere of popular culture, Inulmania contributed to a new dialogicspace where conflicting ideological positions could be expressed and debated. AsIndonesia moved out from under the shadow of the Suharto era, Inul’s body becamea stage to act out rehearsals for democracy.




Inulmania came and went, but it performed serious cultural work. In this essay,I have emphasised the important ideological stakes of body politics. Bodies investedwith diverse meanings and values have powerful implications for, among otherthings, thinking about changing social relations of power. Inul’s body articulates theforms of power relations that emerged in the post-Suharto era and the implicationsthey have for discourses about Islam, pornography, women’s bodies, state-civilrelations in Indonesia, and changing forms of media. As I have described in this essay,the fall of Suharto set the stage for the transition to a more democratic Indonesia. Butwhat form would democracy take in a country that had been dominated by thethirty-two-year authoritarian regime of the New Order? Inul’s body participated in adiscourse about a whole range of issues that are crucial for a democratic polity:women’s rights, freedom of expression, and freedom of speech. Within a very con-centrated amount of time, hundreds of articles were written about the ‘drilling dance’,and what it could possibly mean within the shifting terrain of politics, religion andculture in Indonesia. She captured the imagination of millions of people at the local,national and international levels. As an icon of popular culture, Inul enabled peoplefrom a variety of subject positions to grapple with some of these issues and to formtheir own opinions about them. Inul’s body acts as a potent site for analysing theserehearsals for democracy, as well as debates within Islam over censorship, pornogra-phy, and violence against women. A simple drilling dance, perhaps, but one thatsignifies the desires, aspirations and will of people in shaping the body politic inpost-Suharto Indonesia.

Endnotes

1. ‘Dance drills, faith spills’ is a translation of‘Goyang Ngebor, Iman Bocor’, a slogan dis-played at a protest rally against popular musicsinger/dancer Inul Daratista ( ‘SCTV dan Trans. . .’ 2003). I am grateful to Ben Zimmer for help-ing me with the translation. Thanks also toPhilip Yampolsky, Sarah Weiss and AmrihWidodo for their comments on earlier drafts ofthis manuscript.

2. Nurbianto (2003). Amidhan is also a memberof The People’s Consultative Council (MajelisPermusyawaratan Rakyat, or MPR), and amember of The National Commission forHuman Rights (Komisi Nasional Hak AsasiManusia, or Komnas HAM).

3. Ant/jy (2003).4. Alwie et al. (2003).5. Cikini (2003).6. Inul has been dubbed ‘Ratu Ngebor’ ( ‘Queen of

the Drill’ ) and has even been pictured in a pub-licity shot holding an electric drill.

7. Majelis Mujahidin is based on the older DarulIslam and Laskar Jihad from the most puritanwing of the Islamic students’ movement. Bothare affiliated with transnational radical Islamicnetworks (Bruinessen 2002). Majelis Mujadihinadvocates enactment of the shari’a (Islamiclaw) at the regional level: suppression of ‘vice’,a ban on the sale of alcohol, forced veiling ofwomen, and restrictions on the movement ofwomen unaccompanied by a male protector( ibid. ). Their organisation is called the Front

for the Defence of Islam (FPI, Front PembelaIslam).

8. Rhoma Irama forbade her from singing any ofhis songs.

9. One example, cited in an article about Inul, re-ports on vice president Hamzah Haz’ extrava-gant pilgrimage to Mecca in 2003. Haz, theleader of the Muslim-based United Develop-ment Party (PPP), had already made the pil-grimage several times. Further, he broughtalong an entourage of over 100 people.

10. The article from news magazine Tempo is men-tioned in Ariel Heryanto’s ‘Indonesia di SelaKontroversi Inul Daratista’ (unpublished ms.).

11. See, for example, the television soap opera ‘WhyDoes it Have to be Inul’? ( ‘Kenapa Harus Inul?’)

12. Terms associated with Inul proliferated inthe popular print media including ‘Inulitas’,‘Inulisme’, ‘Inulogi’, ‘Inulist’, ‘Inulisasi’ and‘Inuliyah’, among others. In this paper, I willuse ‘Inulmania’.

13. For example, Hong Kong: Time Asia (24 March2003), South China Morning Post (26 February2003), Asia Times Online (10 May 2003);Australia: Australian Financial Review (28 May2003), Sydney Morning Herald (1 April 2003), TheAustralian (6 May 2003), Radio Australia (21April 2003); Singapore: Straits Times (9 March2003); the United States: Christian Science Moni-tor (csmonitor.com, World>Asia Pacific, 9 May2003), National Public Radio (All Things Consid-ered, 16 May 2003), The Economist (24 May 2003);




England (BBC News, 1 May 2003); and France:International Herald Tribune (14 May 2003).

14. My method consists of reading and interpretingpopular print media and academic publicationsas well as formal interviews and informal dis-cussions with dangdut artists, critics, mediapersonnel, and fans. Data for this paper arebased on a review of over 200 popular pressarticles published during January 2003 toAugust 2004, in Indonesia, Australia and theUS. Articles on Inul can be grouped into thefollowing four categories: newspapers andnews magazines; magazines; tabloids (music,film, and television); and media promotionalpublications. Inulmania has generated bookpublications including Faruk and AprinusSalam (2003); Gunawan (2003); and Darmeanan(2004).

15. The fall of Suharto pointed toward a new era ofmedia freedom characterised by a new presslaw (1999), granting of four new televisionlicenses (2001–2002), and expansion of radioand the Internet. However, media expansiondoes not necessarily translate into a democraticsociety. For example, ownership of televisionstations was largely in the hands of the state, theSuharto family and their associates (Sen 2002).

16. http://www.unesco.org/courier/2000_02/uk/connex/txt1.htm

17. For example, performances by dangdut super-star Rhoma Irama were banned from beingshown on state television during 1977–1988because his social commentary songs wereperceived to threaten the interests of the centralgovernment. More importantly, perhaps, wasRhoma Irama’s affiliation with the MuslimUnited Development Party (Partai PersatuanPembangunan, or PPP), and not the ruling gov-ernment party Golkar (Golongan Karya).

18. An Internet version of this song and video isavailable at the following URL: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkWWi1GgMX4> (ac-cessed 14 May 2008).

19. Endang Kurnia was trained in the traditionalSundanese art of wayang golek as a young boy.Many of his songs can be described as dangdutetnis because ethnic Sundanese elements arecentral. For example, he has composed songsentitled ‘Antara Karawang-Jakarta’, NengOdah’, ‘Sinden Jaipong’ and ‘Embah Dukun’,among others.

20. An Internet version of this song and video isavailable at the following URL: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THgFZel9ZYY> (ac-cessed 14 May 2008).

21. For recent accounts of Islam, the state, anddemocracy in Indonesia, see Woodward (1996);

Hefner (2000); Effendy (2004); Fealy andHooker (2006).

22. I have borrowed the framework for this sectionfrom Fealy and Hooker (2006, pp. 44–50). Seealso Doorn-Harder and Feener (2006).

23. The following data about the MUI are based onBruinessen (1990).

24. According to Bruinessen (1990), all major cur-rents of mainstream Islam were represented inMUI in 1990. But this appears not to be the casefifteen years later.

25. I am only reporting on women’s rights groupsthat took a position on Inul and were repre-sented in popular print media.

26. http://www.tokohindonesia.com/selebriti/artis/inul-daratista/index.shtml

27. Internet sources must be read carefully for accu-racy. Oftentimes, authors reproduce inaccurateinformation they have simply copied from onesource to another without carefully checkingthe facts beforehand. For example, ‘Daratista’ isoften mistranslated as ‘the girl with the breasts’(Walsh/Pelahihari 2003).

28. On SARS, see Yahya (2003). The terms ‘Inulflu-enza’ and ‘Inulviton’ are from Asikin (2003).

29. Of course, power to attract males sexually isnot the same thing as power to shape the legalsystem; run a company; or administer mediainstitutions, jobs held by men primarily.

30. For example, Muslim reformists in the 1970scalled for bans on tayuban.

31. The main elements that are present in femalesinging and dancing traditions and not presentin dangdut are: ( i ) the presentation of the dancescarf to selected male partners; and (ii ) the malecomic role (although this role is sometimesenacted by the emcee). Dangdut’s song lyricsare often narrative whereas lyrics for the oldervillage-based forms are based on pantun, four-line couplets.

32. The term ‘patah-patah’, literally ‘break-break’,is probably derived from the Indonesian ver-sion of break dancing, in which the quick andabrupt movements of the hips are timed withthe rhythmic breaks of the music.

33. One article states that ‘there are thousands ofother aspiring dangdut singers who may nevergo beyond the seedy bars and wedding parties,although their stage acts may just be as risque ashers’ (Walsh/Pelahihari 2003).

34. For example, Faruk and Aprinus Salam (2003,p. 6) identify ten perspectives: (a) sociology ofart; (b) cultural studies; (c) morality; (d) genderstudies; (e) political economy; (f) rationalismekomunikatif; (g) postmodernist; (h) physical; ( i )psychological; and (j) aesthetic.

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