Changing images of teachers and 'kyai'

Changing images of teachers and 'kyai'

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Do you have stereotype images of occupations or
professions? Have the stereotypes changed over time? Mine have.

My first stereotype was of teachers, because I had always
wanted to become one. My early image was that of an intellectual
or learned person. A teacher was a "he", and not a "she".
Teachers were also noble in my image, role models.

The way they dressed, whether in traditional Javanese or
"western" attire, was always neat and meticulous. And the way
they talked! My Javanese teachers spoke impeccable Javanese, and
my Indonesian teachers who taught me Dutch also spoke perfectly.

The Javanese say the word guru (teacher) is an acronym of bisa
digugu lan ditiru (a person you can trust and follow), which
reinforced this image. Later, my desire to become a teacher was
further strengthened by a friend's father who said to me, "If you
want to be rich, you must go into business. But if you want to be
happy, enter the teaching profession."

The most drastic change in this image occurred when a senior
colleague whom I respected very much gave me the following
advice, "Don't ever let people know that you are a teacher."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because outside the teaching community teachers are looked
upon as persons who want to teach everybody else. The stereotype
out there is that teachers are pedantic or priggish ... And the
most pedantic teacher is one who wants to teach his own wife
about everything. Just look around you, and forget for a while
your idealized image about teachers, and you will see ugly images
about teachers."

I began to look at teachers around me with detachment, and I
began to see ugly representatives of the teaching profession. The
ugliest were those who did not master their subject matter. They
wasted time by talking incoherently about concepts they did not
really understand -- they were only mouthing words and phrases.

And this kind of teacher can be found at every level of
education, from elementary to higher education. They are ugly not
only because they are repulsively boring, but because first and
foremost they are destroying the students' minds.

My second stereotype was that of kyai (Islamic clerics),
because my grandfather was one. My parents and other people said
he was well known in his area; so much so that his grandchildren
and children of his nephews and nieces have formed, after his
death, a clan association named after him.

The early image I had about kyai was formed not only by my
grandfather, but also by other kyai whom my grandfather
frequently visited before he became sickly.

Whenever he visited another kyai he always tried to take me
with him. I had to sit cross-legged on the bare floor all the
while my grandfather and his friend engaged in a seemingly very
interesting discussion.

This usually started at 9 p.m. -- after the late evening
prayer -- and lasted until about 1 or 2 a.m. One can imagine how
much I suffered in those sessions. But while I was awake I did
manage to learn a few things about religious life. These visits
lasted until I could no longer afford to see him during holidays,
because of the deteriorating situation during the Japanese
occupation.

The image I had was that kyai were very serious all the time.
They seldom laughed heartily and might smiled infrequently. They
never cracked jokes and they always spoke in earnest.

This is perhaps because I did not really understand what my
grandfather was discussing with his colleagues. The only times I
understood him was when he was having sessions with his
disciples. This was mostly done in the evening, in his mosque
across from the house.

He always asked me to come along, and asked me to sit at his
left side, facing his disciples. These were moments when I
learned most about Islam and the Islamic way of life.

Kyai are rich people. That was how I imagined them early in my
life. My grandfather had much fertile land, tended by his
disciples. He had also many cows, water buffaloes and sheep which
also taken care of by his disciples.

He had horses, which, according to stories, he loved more than
he did his second wife, my step-grandmother. He never borrowed,
and never asked for donations from anyone. This image of kyai
being prosperous was rekindled every time we visited other
clerics.

Each one of them seemed to live in a big house with a big
veranda (pendopo), and a large front yard.

At that time I never met a kyai who spoke any foreign language
besides Quranic Arabic. My impression was that kyai and Dutch-
educated intellectuals lived in two separate worlds. They did not
mix. My grandfather admired Bung Karno and Bung Hatta (Indonesian
founding fathers Soekarno and Muhammad Hatta) but that was all.
And I think that was also the case with other kyai like my
grandfather.

Later I discovered that certain kyai and certain Dutch-
educated intellectuals did admire each other, but there was no
direct interaction between the two groups.

It was only through participation in national political
movements that encounters between the two groups was established.
But among the kyai such encounters were limited to kyai with
national stature. Local kyai like my grandfather were never
involved in this kind of "Islam - West" political dialog.

I think it was in the 1970s that my image of kyai began to
change. I began to see that there were kyai who were quite open-
minded toward ideas coming from the "modern", non-kyai community.

But it was not until 1982, when I opened my office at the
Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) for dialog with religious
leaders that I began to see "new varieties" of kyai.

Until then I could not imagine kyai who cracked jokes, who
loves poetry and painting, and who resorted to biochemistry in
their efforts to define accurately what "purity of water" really
meant.

This kind of "modernization" was very important for pesantren
(Islamic boarding school) communities. I still remember quite
vividly how repugnant I felt when I had to perform wudlu
(cleansing oneself before prayers) from a river where human waste
was floating. When I had to rinse my mouth from this stream I
almost vomited. This happened twice, first in Martapura, South
Kalimantan, and later in a village near Borobudur.

On the basis of experiences like these it has become crystal
clear to me that kyai who attempted this kind of "modernization"
must have gone through very painful cultural journeys in their
life.

Still later, I became acutely aware of the enormous changes
that have taken place in pesantren and among kyai when I met
young clerics who were studying abroad, in New York, Chicago, Los
Angeles, Montreal, London, Leiden, and Hamburg, among others.

I could not imagine how the world of kyai would look after 20
more years. Certainly by that time there would no longer be kyai
who abused the trust of their people (umat).

There would no longer be kyai who indiscriminately married
women wanting a child fathered by a kyai they admire. I know from
personal experience that it is very hard to resist this kind of
temptation. Although I have never been a kyai, merely a secular
intellectual, I was offered such "honor" and "privilege" twice in
my life.

For a moment I hesitated; and I felt guilty because of that
hesitation. Arriving home, I immediately told my wife what
happened.

I think, though, that in the future a true kyai worthy of the
distinction would have no difficulty declining such "offers"
without the slightest hesitation.

I hope I am right in imagining this kind of future ...