Arief Budiman, a too-honest scholar

By Yenni Kwok

JAKARTA (JP): "Maybe I am too honest," Arief Budiman, a scholar known for his critical commentaries on social and political issues, said recently after learning his plan to go to Australia might be delayed by up to six months.

To obtain an Australian visa for his new job at Melbourne University, Arief had to list the serious diseases he has had. Many people would dismiss this, lie about illnesses they had had but recovered from.

Not Arief. The prodemocracy activist wrote he had tuberculosis in 1969. The consequence: he needs to find his lung X-ray from last year to compare with his most recent one to get the visa in time to go to Melbourne this month. If not, he will have to wait six months for a new X-ray.

When asked about the 56-year-old Arief, Leila Budiman, his wife of 29 years, said: "He never hides what is in his heart."

He also never hides what he believes in, namely democracy. This has cost him dearly on several occasions, including losing his job at Satya Wacana Christian University in Salatiga, Central Java.

The trouble began during a protest on the private university's campus in 1995. Students and faculty members demonstrated against the "unfair" election of a dean in which the candidate who polled the most votes was not appointed.

Arief, then a lecturer at the university, joined the protest in its later stages. He did not deny that the university could override the election results but he could not agree with the decision. He said: "University institutions have to be democratic."

The protest provoked great media and public attention; hordes of reporters descended on the campus, seeking his opinions. The focus on him, Arief believes, gave the university authorities the incorrect impression that he was the protest's leader. He was later fired.

"Arief was a martyr," said Nico L. Kana, a former colleague at the university.

Arief joked that as his salary was so low he did not experience too great a financial loss by being sacked. Since then he has supported himself mainly by writing for the media, including The Jakarta Post.

Following the dismissal Arief applied to both local and overseas universities for work. Last year Melbourne University offered him its Indonesian studies chair.

Controversy never seems to be far from Arief's life.

It started when he signed Manifesto Kebudayaan (the Cultural Manifesto) in 1962, to reject the communists' growing influence in the arts. His younger brother, the late Soe Hok Gie, was already a student activist, though Arief says they were not that close.

Protest

A psychology student at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, Arief joined the student protests against first president Sukarno's administration in 1966. After Hok Gie died in an accident on Mt. Semeru in East Java, his friends asked Arief to join more protests and take over his brother's role.

Thus began Arief's involvement in the anticorruption campaign. For protesting the establishment of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, a project initiated by the late First Lady Tien Soeharto, he was sent to prison for one month.

He was also among those who initiated a campaign to boycott the general elections, known here as Golput (from Golongan Putih, meaning "white group").

Arief's belief in democracy stems from the famous quote of British philosopher Lord Acton, "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Being of Chinese descent, he is particularly worried about the suppression and abuse of minorities. He trumpets democracy because "democracy protects people's rights."

Unrest

Arief is very concerned about the recent spate of unrest rocking the country and, in some cases, targeting Christians and Chinese. He believes the solution to the problems lies in democracy and freedom of expression.

There is a major "structural weakness", which he defines as the inability of state institutions to solve disputes fairly. They choose, instead, to resort to force.

"The lower class, mostly farmers and laborers, are the ones who have to face injustices. Poor farmers have their land taken. Laborers have their salaries cut," he said.

The few times they tried to organize themselves to demand their rights they were quickly crushed by the authorities, who branded them communists. However, if they turn their frustration into Moslem-oriented grievances, Arief believes, they escape the communist label.

Arief reckons that churches in Java are seen as the natural ground of the middle class and a substantial number of Chinese. Thus conflicts arising from socioeconomic disparity will often deteriorate into religious and ethnic violence.

Government officials have blamed the unrest on "intellectual actors.

Arief does not dismiss this explanation. However he also shares Moslem scholar Amien Rais' opinion that the structural weakness has made Indonesia as inflammable as a bed of dry grass.

Born Soe Hok Djien, Arief was given his Indonesian name in the mid-1960s by Leila, then his girlfriend, during the government's campaign to change Chinese names to Indonesian ones. Initially reluctant to change his original name, Arief was finally convinced to do so. He asked Leila to choose his new name.

Leila chose the West Sumatran Arief, which, like Djien means wise. Budiman means one who is virtuous.

When he learned the meaning of his name he felt it was too sloganistic and that he would have chosen something more simple if he had known the meaning when it was chosen.

His actions however appear to have reflected the hope Leila put in his name. Their gateless, bamboo-woven house in Salatiga is open to anyone.

His compassion has won the hearts of many people. Says Nico, "Everyone knows Arief, even the pedicab drivers."

And people take care of Arief and his family as much as he takes care of them. He was once intimidated after he protested the construction of a public officials' house on a fertile paddy field around his house. His neighbors quickly volunteered to guard his house for a few days.

"Arief is a democratic person, in both his actions and his words," said Goenawan Mohamad, a long-time friend and former editor of the banned Tempo.

"Arief is willing to hear people challenge his views and ideas, which he frankly acknowledges are influenced by Marxism and socialism," Goenawan said.

Arief will be missed when he leaves for Melbourne. "We need people like him here," Goenawan said.

Arief himself said he would not lose touch with Indonesia. "I will be traveling back and forth between Australia and Indonesia. I will still be active, only the place will be different."