Analysis | Forget Indonesia’s loud male Islamists. Instagram’s female Muslim influencers do politics disguised as a selfie

Many Indonesian women have a hefty yet subtle political presence on social media and use less overt methods to carry their messages to the masses

Millennial influencers blend online posts about personal interests and style with calls for mobilisation on social issues

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Muslim women show their ink-stained fingers after voting in Jakarta. Photo: AP

Published: 12:00pm, 21 May 2019Updated: 3:52pm, 21 May 2019

Indonesia’s young Muslim women are rarely thought of as political actors even though there is a large and increasing number of millennial female politicians.

Instead, it is young, urban men who have often caught the public’s attention with their street politics and Islamist groups, eager for their beliefs to be reflected in policy.

But the numbers tell a different story: of the 1,415 millennial legislative candidates in the country’s elections this April, some 816 – more than half – were female.

And away from the legislature, many young Muslim women have a hefty yet subtle political presence on social media. A study of six Instagram profiles – three belonging to devout Muslim influencers and three to groups they are affiliated with – has revealed the extent of online socio-political expression by women in the run-up to last month’s polls. Indonesia is the app’s largest market in the Asia-Pacific region, and seven in 10 users in the country are between the ages of 18 and 34. It is particularly popular with women.

Many young Muslim women have a hefty yet subtle political presence on social media. Photo: AFP

The three groups, Hijabers Community, Ukhti Sally and Peduli Jilbab, are among those on Instagram that promote Muslim values such as wearing the hijab. Hijabers as of last year had eight chapters in Indonesian cities, 4,000 registered members and 111,000 followers on Instagram. It was founded by fashion designers Dian Pelangi and Ghaida Tsurayya. Dian has 4.9 million followers on Instagram while Ghaida, with 435,000 followers, is the daughter of Aa Gym, or Abdullah Gymnastiar, a popular cleric who supported Prabowo Subianto in his presidential bid this year.