Finding it hard to say what he is

Kanis Dursin, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Call it an identity crisis but, at present, prominent Acehnese figure Hasballah Saad really has great difficulty in identifying what he is.

While he has yet to recover most of the bodies of 30 family members swept away by the unprecedented tsunami on Dec. 26, Hasballah says his education and teaching engagements have pushed him into his current predicament.

"My educational background is so confusing I cannot easily identify what I am," Hasballah told The Jakarta Post recently.

Hasballah, who now chairs the Tifa Foundation, a non- governmental organization that promotes human rights, democracy and civil society, graduated from Syia Kuala University in Banda Aceh as a guidance counselor in 1980.

Eight years later, he completed his masters at Bandung State University, West Java, also in guidance and counseling. For his doctorate, he studied population affairs and environmental education at Jakarta State University and graduated in 1999.

However, since he left former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid's Cabinet in August 2000, Hasballah has been giving lectures on human rights at Bandung State University, and environmental psychology and new issues on psychology at Jakarta State University.

"One of the problems I face now is that I want to get my professorship, but I don't know in what field -- psychology, the environment, human rights or whatever.

"I wear so many hats," said Hasballah, who is also a member of the National Commission on Human Rights in charge of migrant workers, farmers and fishermen.

Hasballah, who became a House of Representatives member only for 29 days and a Cabinet minister for just 10 months, said he had to continue giving lectures as his pension was inadequate to support his family of five.

"My pension as a former legislator is around Rp 240,000 per month, while that for a Cabinet minister is Rp 540,000. That is certainly not enough to live on in Jakarta," said the husband of Dharmawati, 46, and father of Sorayya, Alia and Nadya.

Born in Pidie regency in 1949, Hasballah, the second of six siblings, grew up in Banda Aceh, where he finished his university studies and lectured until 1992. He and his family moved to Jakarta in 1992 to pursue his academic studies at Jakarta State University.

Due to financial difficulties, however, he was unable to complete them until 1999, the same year he was elected a legislator to represent Pidie regency and appointed state minister for human rights.

"I was the first and last minister of human rights -- even if it was only for 10 months," said Hasballah, who lost his Cabinet position after his ministry was merged into the justice and human rights ministry in August 2000.

After he left the ministerial post, Hasballah returned to teaching engagements in universities. In 2002, he was elected a member of government-sanctioned human rights watchdog Komnas HAM.

Come the 2004 elections, Hasballah still avoided the political stage, allowing people to speculate that he had abandoned the National Mandate Party (PAN), which he helped establish in 1999.

"It's impossible for me to leave PAN: As I was one of the 50 figures who signed documents establishing the party, it would be unethical if I left it," said Hasballah, who was elected deputy secretary-general of the then General Elections Committee in 1999.

However, he admitted that he was less than happy with the behavior of some of his colleagues. "I'm not so happy with the behavior of my party. We had a very clear platform, but the behavior of ministers and legislators from my party and faction is disappointing," Hasballah lamented. He did not elaborate.

If Hasballah now visits Aceh almost every weekend, it is not only because he wants to visit orphanages, but also because he harbors a grand ambition -- to establish an Aceh cultural institute.

"There were too many losses -- not just family members or property, but our own culture," he said, adding that the institute, which aims to develop the cultural heritage of the Acehnese, would be launched on June 4.

Also attending the launch will be noted archaeologist Anthony Reid of the National University of Singapore, who will give a keynote speech. Some invitees from Jakarta include Jakarta Arts Institute rector Sudono W. Kusomo and its relatively young director, Garin Nugroho.

Hasballah said the planned institute would try to emulate Jakarta's Taman Ismail Marzuki -- complete with library, exhibition halls, research center, guest house, archaeology center and training center for young Acehnese artists.

He said he had directly conveyed his intention to former U.S. president Bill Clinton, a UN special envoy for the reconstruction of areas devastated by the Dec. 26 tsunami, and had submitted a proposal to him.

"Concentrating on physical reconstruction would simply turn Aceh into a somewhat westernized province without strong cultural foundations," said Hasballah.

He is also chairman of the Aceh Care Foundation, which currently supervises three orphanage centers in the troubled province.