Showcasing an Indonesian intellectual
How to get the golden egg without disturbing the hen?
This was a typical conundrum posed by Indonesia’s
fourth President the late Abdurrahman Wahid.
Better known as Gus Dur, he was one of this nation’s most prominent
theologians, a committed democrat and lover of metaphors.
One of the eggs was reform and a return to the more
accepting indigenous Islam. This needed
to be secured without arousing the wrath of the broody bird, the rigid Saudi
form known as Wahhabism then becoming popular.
Gus Dur died in late 2009 aged 69. Before entering politics he was head of
Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the biggest Islamic organization in the world.
His 19 months as President between 1999 and 2001 were
chaotic after the fall of the long time dictator and former army general
Soeharto.
Gus Dur was a bad economist, a lousy administrator, a decent
humanist and a good social reformer. He lost the top job after being threatened
with impeachment.
There aren’t too many NU members who don’t have an anecdote
about their former leader. Apart from
being a religious scholar the polymath was also a passionate soccer fan and
all-round funny man with a sackful of jokes. He used these to start meetings
and defuse tensions:
A Madurese was caught ignoring a sign banning pedicabs. ‘I
saw the picture Sir,’ he told the policeman, ‘but it showed an empty becak;
mine had a passenger.’
“You're stupid. Can't you read the words under the picture?’
‘No Sir. If I could read I’d be a clever man like you.’
One of Gus Dur’s favorite verses from the Koran reads: ‘I
have made you nations and tribes so that you may know one another’, a robust
rebuff to the parochialism preached by today’s separatists.
He wrote essays and newspaper articles till restricted by
loss of sight; these were always in Indonesian though he was a self-taught
polyglot.
Now the Gusdurians, the young followers of his liberal
thinking, have offered some selected works to a wider audience. Seven translators have put 13 of his essays
into English as Gus Dur on Religion, Democracy and Peace.
Behind the book are the NGOs Infid (International
Forum on Indonesian Development) and Yayasan Lembaga Kajian Islam dan Sosial
(Islamic and Social Studies Institute).
The ambition of giving their hero’s wisdoms to the world is
fine, and the book important, offering many stimulating observations. But sadly
it will get rejected by some potential buyers put off by sloppy English, even
on the back cover blurb:
‘Not much people know that Gus Dur wrote many reliable and
high quality articles … (he) does not simply rejects negative ideas about
Islam, he also proposes and advocates positive ideas about on the other hand.’
We get the gist; Gus Dur’s fans will read this book anyway
and forgive the errors, but this is 2018 and the public expects English of the
quality they find in this newspaper.
The uncommitted curious will put it back on the shelf. Two
proof readers are listed in the credits. I doubt they read the book.
However the rest of us should, if only to lift our spirits,
to remind us of the complex diversity of Islam, a faith so often portrayed in
the West as violent and intolerant.
Gus Dur was an eclectic reader as confident with the holy
books of other faiths as with his own, often quoting the Bible. In 1985 - when Soeharto’s authoritarian New
Order government was at its peak – the cleric gave a sermon about the ‘Revival
of Islamic Civilization’ and asked ‘is it happening?’
His conclusion was positive - though this was before urgers
for a caliphate donned suicide vests and rode into crowds: ‘The richness of
(Islam’s) heritage from its deep perception on (sic) a true place for
humanity in life, to its great tolerance make a strong base for the Muslims to
sail through the revival process.’
These are qualities we need now.
Gus Dur’s second daughter Yenny is a prominent public figure
helping maintain her Dad’s legacy. But at the moment there’s a dearth of
dynamic elders from outside the family offering the world a counter view to the
ugliness of demonstrations against those of other faiths.
Into the gap have jumped the myopic polemicists.
What might Gus Dur have said to supporters of the so-called Reuni
2/12 in December? If true to form he would have condemned their celebration
of getting the ethnic-Chinese Christian former Governor of Jakarta, Basuki
‘Ahok’ Tjahaja Purnama, jailed for blasphemy.
This law has been erased from the statutes of most modern
nations; it’s better covered by prohibitions on individuals deliberately and
maliciously causing egregious offence, and not just against faith.
The black-banner wavers around Monas have struck fear into
the hearts of Indonesia’s
minorities and dismayed the Republic’s foreign friends – something Gus Dur
would have opposed with conviction.
He wasn’t just a thinker – he physically confronted crazed
mobs who’d fired churches.
His essay The Republic
of Earth in Heaven:
Another side of religious motives within social movements, written 35 years
ago is apposite today. He warns of ‘an
endless process of fragmentation … diversity sacrificed to revolution’.
The revival he sought was not through terror, but the art,
literature, architecture and learning that once enriched the world, making
Islam universally admired.
Gus Dur on Religion, Democracy and Peace
Gading Publishing, Yogyakarta,
2018
142 pages
(First published in The Jakarta Post J Plus 23 March 2019)
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