Hijab Construction in Social Media: Literature Study Study on Hijab Representation in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand

Abstract

ountries that have the most Muslim population have different views regarding the use of Hijab. This is shown from the results of a 2013 survey that in countries with the majority of Muslims surveyed generally have different views regarding the rights of women to wear the hijab in public spaces (Forum Pew Research on Religion & Public Life, 2018). PEW Research chose three countries in Southeast Asia, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand as a search for information about the views of Muslims in Southeast Asia. This is because the total population of Muslims in these countries more than other countries in Southeast Asia. Each country has a different history regarding the use of Hijab. First, Indonesia as a country with a majority Muslim population before the New Order era in the mid-1980s, had a ban on female students wearing headscarves in public schools; but two decades later, a number of provinces in Indonesia introduced Sharia law which imposed penalties for female students who did not wear the hijab (Heryanto, 2018: p. 45). Second, Malaysian women in the 1990s believed wearing Hijab or hijab was their choice; but the current situation they must wear the hijab if their male guardian (father, husband, or son) insists. Many educated and urban Malay Muslims embrace increasingly conservative sharia principles and moral codes for their public and personal behavior and for family life (Sloane-White, 2018). Third, although not a country with a Muslim majority, Thailand has entered the ranks of countries with the largest Muslim population in Southeast Asia. In its history during the initial implementation of Thai modernization, the aspect of clothing became a very important issue due to the 1938 Rathaniyom Policy (Thai Cultural Policy), which prohibits Thais from wearing clothing with traditional features. The Thai South Malays are not allowed to wear clothes that express traditional Malay culture such as sarongs, bamboo shirts, turbans, hats and hijabs (Lyndon, Zakaria, AM, CR, & MS, 2015). But this time is different because the government considers that women who wear the hijab are not banned because it is easily supervised by the government of the country. Because of differences in the formation of the hijab phenomenon, researchers aim to see how the use of hijab from research that has been done in the three countries. In this study utilizing research journals focused on the phenomenon of hijab in the three countries that are the subject of this study. Because the three countries are part of the majority of the Muslim population in Southeast Asia