After serving as Indonesia’s first female president from 2001 to 2004, Megawati Sukarnoputri remains one of Indonesia’s most influential politicians. However, Indonesian rhetoric in general and Megawati’s rhetoric in particular have been largely inaccessible to Western rhetorical scholarship because of barriers in language and culture. This essay extends scholarly access to Megawati’s rhetoric by transcribing, translating, and evaluating key portions of her May 27, 2014 address at the Rakernas Partai Nasdem (National Democratic Parties Convention). Contextualized within the Indonesian political- rhetorical situation, Megawati’s rhetoric embodies the necessity of paradox for negotiating identity as a powerful woman within a historically androcentric system.

What dynamics govern the "reclamation" of contested terms? Applying Burke's notion of terministic screens illuminates the reclamation efforts surrounding contested—terms "Black" and "queer," both historically derogatory (and therefore discouraged) and now broadly reclaimed (and acceptable). In such reclamations, redemptive in—nature, the derogatory term is portrayed not as false but as misunderstood. But the reclamation movements surrounding "nigger" and "faggot" have been restricted,—i.e., acceptable only for in-group use (and mockingly directing attention to their derogatory history). Various reclamation narratives challenge the semantic binary—of derogation and reclamation: they indicate not "successes" or "failures" but different styles of reclamation.