A show of immaturity?

This country has been called a place where anything can happen, although many things are impossible. In Indonesia, so the notion goes, one can see both possibility and impossibility at work. What could probably never happen in other countries, can occur here from time to time, or even become routine matters. For example, the fact that the freedoms of expression and association are regarded as alien here, whereas in most other countries they are taken as a mater of course.

Not far removed from this play between the possible and impossible, is the trend toward disunity among the leaders of political organizations, or other major social bodies, particularly in the run-up to their national congresses.

It seems that only Golkar, the dominant political grouping, has managed to avoid the internal squabbling that has more than once plunged other political entities and organizations into crises that linger long after their congresses are over.

Another phenomenon observable in this connection is that every time a major organization plans to hold a congress, the authorities are always asked whether they are backing a particular candidate for leadership. Although the answer is always negative, the tendency to ask such a question and the way the people in power have answered it always give the impression that there has been intervention into congress activities -- covert or open -- by the authorities.

Such a situation is quite lamentable, if not pathetic. It was, therefore, extremely irritating when this question was recently asked in relation to next month's congress of Muhammadiyah, the country's largest and oldest social and educational organization. The reason the question seems so out of place is that in the past Muhammadiyah has enjoyed complete freedom to elect its own leaders or to decide its own policy.

The same freedom will apparently be implemented during the coming congress in Banda Aceh, a provincial capital city, some 2,000 kilometers northwest of Jakarta. This privilege enjoyed by Muhammadiyah seems to have roots in its success at avoiding politics and in its ability to maintain harmonious relations with Indonesian heads of state. President Sukarno was a Muhammadiyah teacher during his four years of exile in Bengkulu before World War II and President Soeharto's primary education was at a Muhammadiyah school in Central Java.

It is against this backdrop of historical reality, that it is quite disconcerting to watch the unattractive show of disharmony and unhealthy rivalry among the people who will be vying for the leadership of Muhammadiyah in the coming congress. The organizations' senior activists have been waging war against each other in the nation's news media. And anonymous statements assaulting one or another of the candidates have been circulating widely among the organization's membership.

The fracas seems to have been made possible by the absence of a charismatic leader among them. The last great leader, and perhaps one of the most respectable men among them, was A.R. Fachruddin, who passed away recently at the age of 79. The contenders for the future leadership now consist mostly of academicians and younger activists.

But whatever the situation may be, there is no good reason for them to become embroiled in such ugly bickering, which appears neither erudite nor Islamic.

What a modern organization like Muhammadiyah needs now is leaders with a deep knowledge of Islam who have a deep respect for the virtues of maturity, tolerance, patience and the wisdom of statesmanship.

Because Muhammadiyah has held 33 congresses peacefully since its establishment in 1912, every thinking Indonesian expects the organization's would-be leaders to restrain themselves from being carried away by emotion because it is in just such a situation that outsiders are likely to jump in to create even more difficulties.

Muhammadiyah, which has rendered so much for the nation, is the last organization the people would want to see experiencing the disgusting ordeal of a power struggle at its national congress.