KOMARUDDIN HIDAYAT

Live and let live

If he wasn’t an academic sparring with language, Professor Komaruddin Hidayat would make a fine boxer.

Not because the Rector of the State Islamic University (UIN) in Jakarta would be landing knockout blows. Instead he’d be deflecting punches, sidestepping wild swings and never letting his opponents get close enough for an upper cut.

Example: He supports pluralism. So how does his position fit with the fatwa (prohibition) on pluralism issued by the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI – Council of Indonesian Islamic Scholars)?

“The MUI has a different understanding of pluralism. I look at it in terms of sociology and anthropology. Maybe they consider it theologically.”

Try again: What’s the solution to the problem of Ahmadiyah (the sect under attack for claiming to be Islamic)?

“The government should take action. The police should give them protection.”

Try yet again: At a formal seminar he didn’t use the traditional assalam alaikum (peace be unto you) to address an audience dominated by Muslims.

“Assalam alaikum is just a cultural greeting. You can spread peace through behavior, such as smiling and being friendly.”

So would it be right to label him a liberal Muslim, along with people like prominent activist Ulil Abshar Abdalla from the Liberal Islamic Network (JIL).

“You can call me a rational Muslim.”

Does this mean he’s opposed to JIL?

“It’s just a group, and so small. I appreciate that it’s good for intellectual exercises, but nothing else. It has so few followers. It’s difficult to be successful without government support.”

State-funding backs Dr Komaruddin’s university of 22,000 students. He reckons UIN is the finest tertiary institution of its kind in the Republic, and well positioned to create bonds with its counterparts elsewhere.

“We want to conduct research with Western campuses so staff and students can better understand Southeast Asian Islam, as opposed to Islam from the Middle East,” he said.

“We want to build ties based on education, business and good neighbourliness’, explaining Islam as a sociological and historical phenomenon.”

This was one of the reasons Mas Komar (as he’s known) has been in New Zealand with two colleagues. They’ve been presenting the rational face of Islam and hopefully to eclipse the image of tiger-eyed fundamentalists tugging their wispy beards as they demonise everything that’s not Muslim.

On the surface it’s a grand idea, but in discussions with Professor Paul Morris, head of Inter-Religious Understanding at Wellington’s Victoria University it became clear there’s a major obstacle to overcome.

Universities in NZ and many other Western countries teach religious studies, but not specific religions. Graduates do not have the qualifications to get leadership roles in mosques, churches or temples. A taxpayer-funded university like UIN could not exist in NZ.

The separation of religion and State would not have surprised Mas Komar because he’s filled his passport with inky stamps from more than 40 countries.

While many have been nations with Muslim majorities, others have been Western democracies where religion if of little importance.

Globetrotting as an ambassador-at-large for tolerant Islam would have seemed an unlikely career for the third of eight children born in Magelang, Central Java, 57 years ago.

His dad was a soldier, but that was a career the bright lad didn’t favor, and his parents didn’t push.

“My father was quite liberal, a good man,” Mas Komar said. “It was serendipity that put me into the academic life.

“I was sent to the cheapest and closest village pesantren (Islamic boarding school) where I was influenced by a very wonderful teacher. He told us that we had the right to enjoy life, and the good life is Islam. We should be vice-generals of God.

“He taught us about the dignity of human beings, the need for life-long learning and to live decently. God has given us heads to think, hearts to feel and hands to do good things.

“It’s death that creates religion, that makes life meaningful. If you don’t believe in an afterlife then there’s no incentive to do good.

“Everyone wants truth, beauty, peace and goodness. These are values implanted in us by God.”

After doing well at school the inspired student moved to Jakarta and the institution he now heads. Here he gained his first degree (in Islamic education) and then applied for an overseas scholarship.

He was successful (“by accident”) and headed to Turkey where he completed a doctorate in Western philosophy. Back home he returned to the UIN and in 1990 became a professor. Four years ago he was elected rector.

Apart from teaching and touring the world, Mas Komar is an occasional commentator in the mass media promoting his friendly and benign brand of Islam.

“”It’s no longer relevant to talk about conflict between Christianity and Islam,” he said. “Good religion means being a good citizen.

“We don’t like the aggression of global capitalism, but democracy and Islam are compatible. Marginalized Muslims get the benefit of democracy because they can get close to local decision makers.

“The problems we’ve had in Indonesia have not been created by democracy, but by the poor quality of politicians and failure of the political process.

“I’m an optimist. The people (voters) are getting wiser and more selective in evaluating candidates. A lot of lessons have been learned, but I think it will take three more elections to grow the maturity to evaluate politicians.

“The issue is this: How do we articulate the way to behave in a modern state, and how do we manage?

“Don’t make religion part of the problem, but the solution. Religion can solve the problems of society, and Indonesia could be a model, a world leader.

“My philosophy is live and let live. Life is a game. We can live together in a pluralist society.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 25 November 2010)

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IDA FALKNER-HEAD

Have stethoscope, will travel Duncan Graham 2009

Young Indonesians keen to travel and earn a good salary should consider nursing, providing they have the calling to care, according to Ida Zuraida Falkner-Head

“However you must be able to speak and understand English at a high level, keep studying and be prepared to learn about Western culture,” she said. “This means getting out and mixing with foreigners.

“You’ve got to build your knowledge of medical practices overseas or you won’t get work outside Indonesia. But if you’re good and qualified you can work just about anywhere.”

This is the message that Ms Head, a registered nurse in general nursing and obstetrics, regularly delivers to nursing students on return visits to her homeland from her present base in Hamilton, New Zealand.

NZ relies on overseas labor to maintain its healthcare services more than any other nation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Many caregivers come from the Philippines, South Africa and Fiji – so far few from Indonesia.

This is a situation Ms Head would like to change because she believes Indonesian nurses are good at caring. Qualified nurses have to pass stringent English tests to practise, even if they’ve come from English-speaking countries. (See sidebar.)

Before taking her present job at the Eventhorpe Rest Home and Hospital where she is a ward sister, Ms Head has worked and studied in Europe, the US, the Middle East, Australia and Indonesia.

She was born in Palembang, South Sumatra and wasn’t keen on entering her father’s business as a commodities trader. Her mother wanted her to be a midwife, but the young Ida had broader ambitions and trained in Jakarta in general nursing.

“As a child I really wanted to travel,” she said. “So I used to dig holes in the garden hoping that I might be able to get overseas that way.”

For a while she worked in the private sector, travelling the region with the SOS Indonesia medical care agency specialising in servicing multinational companies. Keen to improve her skills she went to the US where she studied nursing management at California State University in Los Angeles, and later to Austria where she focussed on oncology and emergency medicine.

At SOS she frequently met Westerners working in Indonesia for international companies. One was Welshman Adrian Falkner-Head, a consulting civil engineer whose job meant he was constantly travelling.

The couple married and the energetic Ida, instead of being the passive partner, found her skills much in demand wherever her husband’s career led.

Her husband died 12 years ago and since then Ms Head has spent most of her time in NZ. But she regularly returns to Jakarta where she owns a house, using every opportunity to persuade young Indonesians to set high goals for themselves.

Not all want to hear. A group of nursing students from Brawijaya University in Malang who attended one of her lectures commented afterwards that they liked the idea of high wages and good conditions overseas. However they weren’t so keen on working for the higher qualifications required, particularly building their English skills.

The general attitude seemed to be that a few seminars at university and getting a basic degree was a big enough load to get them into the workforce without undertaking further studies.

Like civil aviation, English is the international language of the top hospitals in the world, including Saudi Arabia. You’re unlikely to last long in an emergency ward if you press the surgeon a scalpel when he or she asks you to dress the scapula.

“Nursing practices in Indonesia can be quite different from those in Western countries,” Ms Head said.

“For example here in NZ we don’t have to worry about the cost of treatment. If we want to order more dressings or drugs the registered nurse’s primary and only considerations are the medical needs of the patient. This makes a nurse’s life much less stressful.

“The other issue is the patient’s ability to pay. In Indonesia one of the first questions asked of an incoming patient is ‘where’s your deposit?’

“In NZ we don’t care if you have money or not, only how we can make you better.”

Like many Western countries NZ has a universal health care scheme funded through taxation. This runs alongside a private medical system catering for people with their own health insurance.

But the level of care is the same whether the hospital is private or government. The main issues are the waiting lists in the government system for patients to see specialists or have non-essential surgery.

Ms Head (“I find the double-barrel surname too awkward for everyday use”) said she preferred to work in small hospitals where there was a more friendly and intimate atmosphere. Although the hospital where she currently works is almost 30 years old it’s been designed to look more like a private home with pictures on the walls, cheerful furnishings, a minimum of signs and few tiled walls.

It specialises in rehabilitation and palliative care and is located in a quiet suburban street to diminish the institutional atmosphere that makes many hospitals intimidating fortresses of doom.

“The other difference is in the culture,” she said. “In Indonesia the doctor is the boss, but elsewhere doctors and nurses work as equals, in partnership to ensure that the one and only issue is the care of the patient.

“Doctors show respect for nurses here and we are given a lot of responsibility. The pay is good and we get extra if we have to come in if there’s an emergency on our days off.”

(A mid range nurse earns about NZ$ 60,000 a year (about Rp 35 million a month) though specialist nurses can receive a third more.)

“However there are no short cuts,” she said. “Apart from high level language we must continuously upgrade our skills. In Western nursing you can’t just depend on your original basic training.

“Every year I have to renew my practising certificate and I’m always undertaking extra training, internally and externally. Even though I’m 55 and have been nursing all my working life I don’t find this a burden. I think it’s essential.”

(Sidebar)

Check before you fly

Indonesian nurses thinking of working overseas should do their own research to check whether their qualifications are acceptable and do this before applying to migrate.

Most Western nations have their own compulsory national registration systems and websites.

In NZ the authority is the Nursing Council – www.nursingcouncil.org.nz

People giving migration advice must be registered by the government. See www.iaa.govt.nz

Overseas trained nurses must have studied for at least four years in an accredited school of nursing and must be able to score 7.0 in each band of the IELTS examination. (International English Language Testing System.) This is a tough test - higher than the university entry requirement of 6.0.

Getting registered doesn’t mean the applicant will automatically get a job.

In some cases overseas-trained nurses have had to work as lower-paid caregivers while they build their skills.

A particular problem facing Indonesian nurses has been the lack of a national registration scheme.

(First published in The Jakarta Post 30 Sept 09)

SURYA DHARMA RE-EDUCATES INDONESIA

Loving to learn: Mr Change Agent’s dream © Duncan Graham 2009

If job descriptions were written honestly, Dr Surya Dharma’s would read like this:

· Change Indonesian culture, with particular relevance to Java, so formal education is embraced as a life-long journey of learning, not something to be endured just to get a certificate for a job.
· Lift the status of teachers so the best and most incandescent school leavers compete to study education rather than business management.
· Turn Indonesian schools into humming, pulsing places where students clamor for entrance and thrive in a knowledge-rich, welcoming environment.

“I suppose I am a social engineer, and yes, it is a big task,” said Surya, catching breath during an international tour seeking the help of foreign governments, universities and schools to upgrade Indonesian education.

“I don’t know if it can be achieved in my lifetime (he’s 55 and looks robust enough) – but I hope so. We started this ten-year program in 2005 and so far it’s going well.”

Surya, the director of human resources in the Indonesian Education Ministry and chair of the ASEAN Leaders’ Roundtable Discussions, has the task of overseeing what amounts to an education revolution of massive proportions.

His qualifications make him ideal for the job of Mr Change Agent. He has a Masters degree in public policy and management from Pittsburgh University in the US, and a PhD in education policy and management from the same campus.

He has also had books published on academic achievement and performance management.

A career public servant he was handpicked for his present job after years in administration, policy and teaching.

Among Surya’s many responsibilities is doubling the salaries of the nation’s 2.7 million teachers to an average of Rp 5 million (US $500) a month, provided they upgrade their skills and attitudes.

This means they should then be able to concentrate on their day jobs without having to sizzle sate at roadside food stalls or sell mobile phone subs once classes are dismissed, just to put rice on the family table.

His task has been made easier by the truckloads of cash now being tipped into education. Under the Indonesian Constitution this is supposed to be 20 per cent of the national expenditure, a figure only reached in this year’s budget. Now there’s Rp 224 trillion (US $ 22 billion) available.

Surya and his colleagues have already been to China, Japan, Germany, Turkey, Singapore, Australia and Malaysia gleaning ideas and garnering support, and were heading to Korea after a brief stop in New Zealand.

On the Antipodean leg of his travels Surya was accompanied by two Jakarta State high school principals - Pono Fadlullah (School 70), and Harapan Situmorang (School 71).

They were invited to the NZ capital Wellington by the Indonesian ambassador Amris Hassan who has been pushing for better education ties between the two countries and particularly a memorandum of understanding. He’s also offered to pay for two top Kiwi teachers to visit Indonesia and pass on their skills.

“We have to improve the methodologies used by Indonesian teachers,” Surya said. “We want to create a new system that inspires all students so they really love to learn. We don’t want them to become bored and laze away their time in school.

“Many teachers will resist. These are the people who think that students are empty glasses into which they just pour some knowledge, little caring about the quality. Some even resort to corporal punishment. That cannot be tolerated

“Society is changing and so are standards. Teachers who meet the new expectations also have to be entrepreneurial.”

One of these new breed principals is the effervescent Pono who now gets Rp 10 million (US $1,000) a month for leading a school with 1,320 students. While in NZ he proved his worth by teaching two classes of Kiwi high school girls with skill and style, and was chuffed to learn his name in Maori translates as being true, valid and honest.

Despite his high status position in Indonesian society he had no worries about mixing it with the students at their level, singing Indonesian songs in a rich baritone and abandoning the traditional authoritarian teachers’ position behind a desk.

A major goal of the new Indonesian education policy is to have at least one high quality international school in every one of the nation’s 550 districts. Getting one computer in front of every 20 kids (the ratio is now one to 3,200) is another hope that can’t be done just by sending Bill Gates a handsome cheque.

What’s the point in having lots of laptops if there’s no electricity or Internet access, when classes are so big the teachers can’t recall names, and the first priority is to install enough toilets?

Another ambition is to have 30 per cent of school staff holding a masters degree from a certified university, and upgrade about 250,000 teachers a year. So far 600,000 have become super chalkies, and Surya is looking for international help to reach his goals by 2015.

“My message to other countries is this: Give us the opportunity to learn from your education systems and experience,” said Surya.

“The changes we’re trying to introduce have to start in the home with different attitudes towards education.

“Now we have decentralisation its up to parents to take a leading role in school management, and local government to select good principals and spend their budgets wisely. This carries some problems if regents, mayors and others appoint people for political reasons.”

Surya said that the standard parents’ complaints about education being too expensive had to be put into perspective. While primary schooling was free, costs like uniforms and transport had to be handled by local government, which should be working to eliminate disadvantage.

“In Indonesia there’s been a strong culture of authority in schools, as though the teacher knows everything. The students won’t challenge or ask questions for fear they might be considered ignorant.

“In western schools when the teacher asks for questions all the kids raise their hands.

“When I was studying in the US my daughter hated Fridays because that meant the weekend was approaching and she couldn’t attend school and see her teacher for two days.

“She looked forward to Mondays so she could get back to class. That’s a feeling I’d like all Indonesian students to enjoy.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post, 1 July 2009)

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