OTRAS PROPUESTAS METODOLÓGICAS QUE APORTAN A LA

This research project looked and analysed the context of the Timoroan in his or her national identity without making a gender (woman-man, feminine-masculine) distinction between the Timoroan-male and the Timoroan-female and his or her perspectives on national identity in Timor-Leste. In an attempt to make this study as gender balanced; an attempt was made to interview as many female as male Timoroan respondents and to give equal response time in particular during the focus group interviews. In the end slightly more male respondents were interviewed than female respondents but this was mostly circumstantial.

As someone who is from a fairly gender-neutral Timoroan family and works in a newspaper in Timor-Leste with a well-defined gender policy and who helped develop the gender policy; I am particularly aware of gender realities in the country from a male-person perspective. When discussing gender, in that gender refers to both males and females, the discussion is directed immediately to issues affecting women. Even though I have an

Page | 154 understanding and appreciation of the reality faced by Timoroan women in what concerns gender issues, in particular violence towards Timoroan women and unequal access to education for example, I cannot make claims about the specific feelings of Timoroan women in Timor-Leste given I am not a Timoroan woman.

Nevertheless a general scan of the literature on gender, in particular the situation for women in Timor-Leste, reflects the negative experiences of Timoroan women in regards to gender inequality contemporarily. Member of Parliament and war veteran Maria Paixao and former president of the Women in Parliament Group (Grupu Mulher Parlamentar Timor- Leste/GMPTL), in 2009 stated that it is ‘Patriarchal systems and male-biased traditional power structures within our society that impede women’s leadership and equal participation

in decision-making’ (Niner, 2011, p. 418). Thus, according to the senior women’s’

representative and a leader in Timor-Leste, women face many challenges including those that prevent equal participation of women in decision making and women suffer violence by men. Statistics32 of cases of abuse and violence towards women are high and highlight the importance of greater gender equality awareness raising and institutional and structural change to ensure greater gender equality in Timor-Leste.

The only question this research asked that could elicit any type of response useful for gender analysis at the national or supra-level was whether the respondents felt in terms of their national identity if there were some Timoroan or who are more, or less, Timoroan than others. The question was asked neutrally without any particular reference to gender identification so as not to elicit or guide respondents towards a possible type of answer. None of the female respondents in their answers reflected that being a Timoroan-woman made them feel less Timoroan. Conversely none of the male respondents felt being a Timoroan- man made them feel more or less of a Timoroan at the national level.

The standard answer from all the respondents, female and male, was that at the national identity level, there was no difference between Timoroan. The two extracts of answers below from female respondents R13 [JB] and R6 [FD] illustrate the types of answers given to the question.

32 _{Statistics were purposefully left out because even though there is statistical data available} on the prevalence of gender based violence in Timor-Leste, presenting such data here would require a longer explanation and analysis of the data within a Timorese cultural and social context. This is not the context of this research project even though there is a need to look at statistical data in context in Timor-Leste. This could be the topic of future research.

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[EB]: But all Timoroan when we talk about Timor Oan national identity are really the same, or are some Timoroan more Timor than other Timor Oan or are all Timor Oan the same, as national identity, speaking about national identity?

[JB]: I feel born in Timor the identity is the same, despite showing off but you are still Timor. We can say this because we are of the same generation, born the same, each the same. Often I say like this, you can show off as much as you like but you are still Ema Timor. You can change your hair from curly to straight but you are still Timor all the same.

[FD]: I feel all Timor Oan are the same, because we are all together as Timor Oan.

Perhaps if a specific question had been asked about how respondents feel about national identity as a female or as a male it would have generated more specific answers. I acknowledge though this is one of the limitations of this study.

In many respects both historical and contemporary accounts illustrate Timoroan women as strong and resilient and who have always had an active participatory role in society and politics. Timoroan women organized into a political movement emerged at the same time as the first East Timorese political movements emerged after a group of Timoroan student activists returned to Timor-Leste in the 1970s from Portugal and Mozambique. The OPMT (Organização Popular da Mulher Timorense/Popular Organisation of Timorese Women), representing Timoroan women organised into a political movement and as the women’s branch of political party FRETILIN was established on 28 August1975. Rosa ‘Muki’ Bonaparte was a member of FRETILIN’s Central Committee and Secretary General of OPMT in her famous speech, described the objectives of OPMT. Her vision for OPMT was to enable women to take part in the FRETILIN revolution and to triumph which would then lead to the liberation of the Timor woman whom for her was a victim of double exploitation. The Timor woman was both a victim of traditional conceptions and of colonial conceptions. For Bonaparte, her ultimate aim was to make the Timor woman an active participant of political life so that as political actors women could then liberate themselves from their inferior status in both traditional and colonial society. Her means was the revolution being led by FRETILIN to create a new society. The creation of OPMT had two objectives; ‘First to participate directly in the struggle against colonialism and second to fight in every way the violent discrimination that Timorese women have suffered in colonial society’ (Bonaparte, 1975, p. 7).

Bonaparte was highly educated and part of the group of few Timorese who had a chance to study outside of Timor in the 1960s. Together with two other women, Maria do Ceu and Guilhermina de Araujo, upon their return to Timor in the 1970s, brought with them

Page | 156 political and feminist ideas and applied them to the Timorese context. With other Timorese women including Maia Reis, Aicha Bassarawan, Dulce da Cruz and Isabel Lobato they founded OPMT, FRETILIN’s women’s wing. It was unfortunate that less than six months later, the Indonesian invasion took place and Timorese men, women and children were killed indiscriminately including Isabel Lobato, Rosa ‘Muki’ Bonaparte and many other OPMT members. It was after the invasion that OPMT penetrated into the countryside as part of the resistance movement (Cristalis & Scott, 2005, p. 28).

It is well documented that Timoroan women played an active role during the resistance period from 1974-1999 from being part of the establishment of the first political parties, to establishing women’s political movements and civil society organizations, to being directly engaged in armed combat, to undertaking espionage on the Indonesian regime, to acting as couriers of information and letters, to providing food and medicines to guerrilla fighters and tending to their wounds, sheltering combatants, and to actively speaking in international forums on the plight of Timor-Leste. These are just some of the instrumental roles played by women during the 24 years of resistance to the Indonesian occupation both within and outside Timor-Leste.

When addressing the role of women during the struggle for independence three particular publications are poignant because they contain the firsthand accounts and stories as told by Timoroan women, some of high profile and some others less known. All these testimonies more so than documenting the particular roles of women in the struggle, highlight the important role of women in Timorese society in particular in terms of resisting foreign occupation since Portuguese times until contemporary times.

The first such publication is Written with Blood, published by the Office for the

Promotion of Equality in the then Prime Minister’s Office of Timor-Leste (OPE, 2002).

Another book is Step by Step: Women of East Timor, Stories of Resistance and Survival

(Conway, 2010) documenting the stories of 14 Timoroan women activists, some of whom

have held Ministerial roles in the Timorese government but all of whom are still prominent

women’s rights activists. The third publication is entitled Secrecy: The Key to Independence

(Abrantes & Sequeira, 2012). This publication is important because as the title suggests, the work of these women was secret, with secrecy and imagination, being the crux of this thesis and the undertone of Timoroan resistance to foreign occupation.

On principle, I never expose my identity to other people or use my title. It is better that I have no title than to lose my country and it is better that I have no name than to have no title at all. A title is not for me to be famous, but I want

Page | 157 this country to have the title of independent Timor-Leste, to never have another

country rule over us. I thought about this when I was young. It was the fundamental principle for me and my heart.

‘Verónica das Dores’ (Maria Ximenes Guterres) (Abrantes & Sequeira, 2012, p. 55) After 1999, and since Timor-Leste gained independence in 2002, the rights of

Timoroan women were enshrined in the Constitution, in Article 17 whereby on equality

between women and men: Women and men shall have the same rights and duties in all areas of family, political, economic, social and cultural life (GoTL, 2002).

In 2003 Timor-Leste ratified the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The Law Against Domestic Violence was passed by the Timor-Leste Parliament in 2010 making domestic violence a public crime rather than a private or family crime. The 2004 Law on the Elections of the Suku Chiefs and the Local Suku Councils provided for quotas at the Sub-National level in that both men and women without discrimination may participate as candidates and be elected local Suku Chiefs and members of the Suku Council that is composed by the Suku Chief, the Chiefs of all villages in the suku, 2 women representatives, 2 youth (1 female and 1 male) representatives, and 1 elder. Changes to the 2006 Law on the Elections of the National Parliament, amended in 2011, in Article 13(3), on electoral lists, provided for a quota system in which 1 out of every group of 3 candidates must be a woman. After the 2012 National Parliament Election, 25 out of the 65 Members of Parliament are women, a ratio of 38.46% female to 61.54% male.

In 2007, after the election, the Office for the Promotion of Equality was transformed into a Secretariat of State for the Promotion of Equality. After the 2012 Election, the composition of the Fifth Constitutional Government included 2 female Ministers, 4 female Vice Ministers, and 4 female Secretaries of State responsible for a range of portfolios: finance, health, social solidarity, education, parliamentary affairs, and private sector promotion, promotion of equality, and arts and culture.

Thus in terms of the legal and policy framework it is more favourable than not (despite much more being needed) to there being greater gender equality in Timor-Leste. In many other respects there is greater gender sensitivity in the country. Equality and a strong women’s participatory approach are strong and important features of the gender narratives in Timor-Leste and have influenced how Timoroan men and women perceive gender issues.

Even in regards to a national vision, the national Strategic Development Plan (SDP) 2011-2030 makes it a vision, thus the intention of the State of Timor-Leste that by 2030 the

Page | 158 country will be a gender-fair society where human dignity and women’s rights are valued, protected and promoted by its laws and culture (GoTL, 2011, p. 50).

Thus if the above outline of the legal and policy framework should ensure greater gender equality in Timor-Leste, statistics show violence and inequality against women, in particular poor rural women, are still prevalent in Timorese society. For Helen Hill (2012) this can partly be explained by the fact that even though in Timor-Leste women (in particular middle-class urban women) have experienced a higher degree of success in attaining their strategic needs including education, access to livelihoods and own income and a voice in politics that empowers them to change their circumstances vis-a-vis the men; on the other hand most Timorese women (especially poor rural women and including also other women living in more urban settings) have attained very few of their practical needs in the first instance; such as access to nutritious food, clothing, housing, access to medical services and basic education; and still lag behind as well vis-a-vis their more urban counterparts in being successful at attaining their strategic needs.

It is notable the SPD mentions Timor-Leste aims to be a gender-fair society by its laws and also by its culture. It is in regards to indigenous culture that the gender discourse takes an ideological turn and where points of contention emerge. Olandina Caeiro, a prominent Timoroan activist has been quoted as saying “I like my culture, but some things have to change” in the context of the traditional roles of Timoroan women (Cristalis & Scott, 2005). But which cultural ‘things’ exactly have to change?

For Anzaldúa (2007, pp. 38-39), dominant paradigms, predefined concepts that exist as unquestionable, unchallengeable, are transmitted to women through the culture. In her experience culture is made by those in power, men, and women transmit them. Nevertheless, the narrative of the sisterhood and the shared global oppression of women (Weedon, 1999, p. 159) need to be threaded sensitively to avoid over-generalisations that can be damaging to Timoroan indigenous culture and that can exacerbate or even create new polarities between the sexes and their views on gender.

Violence against women takes place and gender inequality exists in Timor-Leste, this is an assertion that can be safely generalised and contextualised to represent the experience of other women everywhere else in the world. Nevertheless, Niner (2011) correctly asserts that academics and more generally must be clearer about the role and status of women in Timor- Leste. Also how power and income was and is maintained by traditional relations or customary practices; and how this has or can be diminished or strengthened. And that this knowledge must include the negative effects of colonialism and occupation in the roles

Page | 159 occupied by women in Timoroan society. If evidence shows that in the nineteenth century, a significant proportion of reinos (traditional kingdoms) in Timor-Leste were ruled by a liu-rai feto (queen) (Kammen, 2012, pp. 149-173), does it then follow that Timoroan women have traditionally held greater power than thus far presumed? Determining through research how women were able to attain and maintain such power, but also how they came to lose is important. The results of such research can perhaps assist in making gender and power relations more equal in contemporary Timor-Leste.

Timoroan women need to develop an even greater political and social voice in

contemporary Timorese society. Some key examples of Timoroan women views on gender

and women’s issues in Timor-Leste exist such as the works of Milena Pires, a Timoroan activist and gender expert who is part of CEDAW (Committee for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) in New York and the work of Laura Abrantes, a Timoroan woman activist.

The gender narrative and discourse in Timor-Leste is actively developing but necessitates greater academic research in particular by Timoroan-woman researchers who can present viewpoints and analysis on the issue that may lead to changes to particular aspect of traditional culture that impede greater gender equality in Timor-Leste. Timoroan-women have tended to participate in women’s and gender research in Timor-Leste as interviewees and respondents rather than researchers and analysts themselves leaving mostly the analysis and conclusions to be done by non-Timoroan women which can partially explain why much of the gender narrative in Timor-Leste has been universalised rather than taking in a more local context.

In contemporary times, the revolution Rosa ‘Muki’ Bonaparte dreamt that would make the Timoroan women a political actor is now a reality, what is needed now is for the Timoroan woman to develop a stronger political voice with which to voice what changes are needed that will lead to a more equalitarian modern Timorese society. Perhaps Timoroan women need to be reminded and invoke the spirit of Bonaparte to guide them in this second part of the unfinished struggle for the Timoroan woman.

From my perspective as a male Timoroan the influential and strategic early work of Timoroan women such as Rosa ‘Muki’ Bonaparte has greatly influenced the attitude of Timoroan men, in particular in political leaders but more generally as well, towards contemporary narratives and views of Timor-Leste as a gender fairer society, whether this is the actual reality for all women and men or not.

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Further Remarks

This chapter attempted to discuss the concept of the socialisation process in the context of the Timoroan reality and worldview. The Timoroan as a collective-people have their own way of learning and teaching and ways of passing down of norms and behaviours that allow them to operate in society.

Despite close to 500 year of foreign occupation these indigenous systems of learning and socialisation happened concurrently and clandestinely to counter the systems of learning and teaching imposed on the Timoroan.

What is and comes naturally to the Timoroan but is still largely unknown or perhaps is left unacknowledged is that for almost half a millennium the Timoroan had to self-preserve through the learning and socialising of culture to mean a whole way of life, and protect indigenous culture from colonialism and forced integrationism.

At which point must stock be taken of what is being tried and achieved or not in contemporary times in Timor-Leste? Or will existing narratives about Timor-Leste continue to perpetuate old practices named differently and enveloped in good intentions i.e. civilisation-for-trade in 1512 and aid-for-trade in 2014 because the new nation-state is still