Gus Dur 'well equipped' to lead Indonesia to democracy
Gus Dur 'well equipped' to lead Indonesia to democracy
JAKARTA (JP): President Abdurrahman Wahid, who became
president last October, is totally different compared to his
predecessors. Known for his "consistency in his inconsistency",
as one political observer put it, as well as his controversial
statements when he was chairman of the largest Muslim
organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), he seems to have retained
this attitude as President.
The nation, seemingly unprepared to have such a person as its
fourth president, is having a difficult time understanding him,
while the world community seems to be more than delighted.
To better understand this fascinating new President of
Indonesia, whose nickname Gus Dur is as famous, The Jakarta Post
talked to Greg Barton PhD, who is Gus Dur's authorized
biographer.
Barton, who is an expert on liberal Islam in Indonesia and who
started writing the biography three-and-a-half years ago, said:
"If you asked me even in October whether Gus Dur would become a
president, I would have said it was possible, but not likely."
Now that Gus Dur is the president, Barton, who is also a
senior lecturer at Deakin University, Australia, will be
scampering to finish his book -- which will probably bear the
famous nickname as its title. The book is due out in September.
Apart from Gus Dur the person, Barton also talks about Vice
President Megawati Soekarnoputri and the various challenges
facing Gus Dur's administration.
Question: Gus Dur has often been in the center of controversy
because of his surprising statements, the latest one being the
Feb. 23 announcement that a stage-one security alert had been
declared in Jakarta. How do you suppose to understand a person
like him?
Answer: We need to look at the broader context. The current
situation in Indonesia is extraordinary, and I think it should be
said extraordinarily good given the expectations of a few years
ago. But the challenges facing the government and the President
are also extraordinary. I think we all agree that this is the
best man for the job. One of the reasons why he is the best man
for the job is because he is not an ordinary person. He is
remarkably courageous, has remarkable vision, remarkable
intellectual capacity and a deep understanding of democratic
principles and of the way in which society should do reform and
liberalize, a deep sense of the need of greater tolerance and
justice in the society.
To use Gus Dur's own language, I think it is fair to say he is
somewhat eccentric, he is not the average, and part of that
eccentricity is that there are a lot of paradoxes about Gus Dur.
But actually the paradoxes came as the result, it is not
something which is mysterious but it is a reminder to us that we
can't be too simplistic or too quick to sum things up.
Could you be more specific about these paradoxes?
One of the paradoxes of Gus Dur is that those who have read
his writings or have been present when he is speaking --
particularly lately as president -- would agree that he is a
master communicator. When you read his words on page, they are
very clever, very well-crafted and the content is strong. And
when he is speaking in person he communicates quite amazingly
well and he suits his communication to his audiences. But
ironically, one of his weaknesses is that he sometimes
miscommunicates.
I think the example of the highest level of security alert was
a miscommunication.
What actually happened?
My understanding is that the police were concerned about some
demonstrations and so they were in a state of readiness. He said
"Good, it is good to be in such a state of readiness because you
are always prepared," but then it was interpreted as a red alert
and in the broad sense that includes the military as well. In
fact it was not the military, it was just the police. And it was
nothing very dramatic. In trying to explain it was nothing
dramatic, I think actually he miscommunicated.
What can we learn from this mistake?
First it is clear from such things that you know he is a human
being who can make mistakes. But very often we underestimate him,
so we more often than not underestimate him. It is not that he
can't be wrong. He can be wrong sometimes.
But with many other statements he appears to be very careless
about making often very carefully calculated statements. For
example, I'm inclined to believe that his reference the other
week to Feisal Tanjung (that the former Armed Forces commander
was involved in the violent takeover of the Indonesian Democratic
Party headquarters on July 27, 1996) was intentional.
He was trying to see what sort of reaction he would get. And
also in his dealings with Wiranto, he had a very clear end point
in mind. He wanted to avoid confrontation, he wanted to try and
win over an enemy and avoid bitterness as far as possible, both
for Gen. Wiranto and for TNI. But he was prepared to be flexible
about the best way to proceed each day.
What was his purpose in mentioning Feisal?
I don't know. I mean it is speculation. One of the reasons he
could say such a thing could be to see who comes out in support
of Feisal, and that would be an indication of the level of
support he has in society, and in TNI in particular. And
evidently no one was willing to support Feisal, which I think was
confirmation that he had a green light to move ahead.
Meaning that Gus Dur is very clever?
Yes, he is very easy to underestimate. It is very important to
avoid cliches or to be too simplistic. But nevertheless, when
speaking about Gus Dur I think it is helpful to make reference to
something that is very meaningful, such as the wayang kulit
(Javanese shadow puppet) stories. And clearly of all the
characters in wayang kulit stories, the person that is most like
Gus Dur is Semar. That I think is a helpful way to understanding
who Gus Dur is. In other words he is not the person that appears
on the surface.
Semar is from the wayang kulit stories which are Hindu
Buddhist, but you find a parallel kind of wisdom in tasawuf and
sufi (mysticism in Islam) stories in Indonesia, but also around
the world. The recurrent theme in sufism is that the hero is the
one who looks least likely, and often it is a way that tests our
wisdom and maturity by presenting us with what appears on the
surface to be unimportant and seeing how we respond to it. It is
certainly his style, his style is completely unpretentious. So
behind that very ordinary facade, which appears very easygoing,
full of jokes and even sometimes can seem slightly too relaxed,
is actually a very sharp mind working to a game plan.
Nevertheless, there are concerns that there are people around
him who act as "whisperers".
There are a few things that we should recognize about that.
First it is important to look at the context. I think if we want
to be objective in journalistic reporting we need to acknowledge
the contextual factors. Now when a paper like Republika makes a
statement, it is important to know that Republika has certain
party political affiliation, and it would appear to me in this
case that the reporting in Republika was driven by party
political considerations.
It is possible that there are some sort of distortion
occurring deliberately. That's the first thing to recognize about
events of the couple of past weeks. So party political factors,
which is OK and fair enough in democracy in that there has to be
competition, we need to be honest. And also there is more
sinister distortion of the news from time to time. Not always,
but it does happen from time to time. It is important to
recognize another context of the democratic environment which is
emerging. Democracy is essentially about competition.
When somebody becomes a head of state, particularly in a
presidential system, or even the prime minister in the UK or
Australia, by definition they are partisan, and they have to have
people around them who belong to their party who will support
them. But the current situation is even more than that. It is a
period of regime change which means that not only do you need to
have your party in a position of strength, you need to be sure
the people you have immediately around you can be relied upon
absolutely. And it appears that there are many political changes
that have to be pushed through which will not be popular.
What will it entail?
Many long-term civil servants fully understand that the whole
world is now changing. This is not uniquely Indonesian, it is
true around the world. But nevertheless, the changes have to be
made. Some people are resisting and so the head of state needs a
reliable team. Even without the factor of a regime change, you
look at a stable democracy like America, no one would suggest
that a new American president should not bring in his own team of
people.
And that's true for Gus Dur as well. It would be most strange
if he didn't choose people he could rely upon. We all know that
the circumstances were such that he had to accept a Cabinet which
was much more of a compromise than anyone wanted, but it was
forced upon him by the inevitability of the situation.
So with that in mind, over the next few months we should
expect him to consolidate his position as much as possible and
build up a strong team. There is another fact that needs to be
understood too. Gus Dur is a very strong minded individual who is
used to doing things by himself. So newspaper reports that
suggest that one person whispering in his ear can change his mind
not only represents a misunderstanding of democracy, but
misunderstanding of Gus Dur. It is not so easy to get him to do
something just by whispering in his ear. It also ignores another
factor; that is that he has literally, if you spell it out,
hundreds of people from all walks of life who feed back
information to him and his basic approach is to balance all the
information he gets.
But how could such determination to deal with Gen. Wiranto in
a certain way, for instance, be turned around 180 degrees in 12
hours? This only added confusion to an already unstable society.
How do you explain it and will this kind of thing continue for
four or five years?
We need to pull back and look at the broad context again. I
think there is a tendency here in Indonesia to imagine what we
are seeing is really sui generis (one of a kind) and that it is
only happening in Indonesia. This arises partly because there is
virtually no one in public life today who has good recollections
of living in a democratic period, because if you are in public
life and were active in 1956, today you would obviously be very
much older.
Most people today, including those in public life, have had no
personal experience, at least as adults, of what life is like in
a democracy. So there is a lot of false expectation and
misunderstanding.
I think people would be very surprised if they spent some time
in Berlin or in Washington DC or Canberra or wherever to find
that in fact here in these stable democracies there are many of
the same complaints in parliaments that we think are somehow
unique to what is happening here at the moment.
You look at any figure in public life. For example, an
American like Allan Greenspan. It is hard to imagine a more sober
and careful individual. Every so often he says something which
sets the market fluttering, right? Because it is a natural
phenomenon of democracy that things are analyzed or over
analyzed, particularly when it comes to the stock market and the
economy and everything else.
Even in the most viable economic system you always have these
fluctuations. So, I think not only in that sense this will
continue as long as Gus Dur is president, but it is the nature of
democracy that we are now entering into an open system where
there is much more transparent flows of information. Part of that
issue is, in a sense, greater instability.
People may have been accustomed to so-called stability of the
previous regime ...
One of the virtues of authoritarianism is that a kind of
stability comes from control. It is not a virtue that we want to
preserve, but it does mean that we get a bit of a shock when we
enter into a more democratic period which suddenly we find to be
apparently strange and there are all sorts of contradictory
information. So no matter who is president, there is going to be
this element.
Perhaps there are some personal aspects ...
It is true there are some personal aspects to Gus Dur, and I
don't doubt he will be able to change as he becomes more
experience at being a president. I mean, whoever became president
would be on a very steep learning curve. And of course Gus Dur is
the unexpected candidate. He suddenly became president and, of
course, one personal struggle for him at the moment is his
blindness. So if you put all the circumstances together it is a
remarkable situation. He is obviously somebody who is learning
very fast on the job. So we can expect nothing, except that he
will learn and the style will be modified a bit over time.
For him, personally, I think also his team of staffers will
get more experience as individuals, and so a more stable
situation will emerge through the course of this year. But at the
end of the day I think Gus dur will still be Gus dur, so there
will be some element about his character which we might find
surprising, maybe even frustrating. I think this is important to
understand. Yes, we have to criticize and give him feedback, and
his friends and those who are close enough have to do this in
order to encourage what is possible. But we also have to accept
we have been extraordinarily fortunate to get such a man to
handle things at this difficult point in time.
Why do you think he is most suited to be president at this
particular point in time?
He is very well equipped to handle difficult circumstances
that most people would fail to face. But when we receive him, we
get a packet, one complete set, and like Roosevelt or Churchill,
what you get is not entirely what you want. There are personality
traits, this is true of every leader. There is no perfect leader.
It applies to whether you are talking about a Nelson Mandela or
an outstanding figure like Mother Theresa, or an outstanding
president like Roosevelt. There is always going to be something
that, ideally, you would try and change. I think we have to
accept to some extend that Gus Dur is going to be Gus Dur and he
is going always to have this rather surprising style.
What do you mean by "when we receive him we get a packet?"
What I mean is the very element which makes Gus Dur more able
to deal with this current situation, transition and recent
change. Also, I mean it is another side of the element, the same
element that sometimes causes frustrations. For example, it
appears as if he is prepared to sacrifice his overall big picture
plan for some momentary development. This appeared to be the case
with Wiranto. But I think it is fair to say in the case of
Wiranto, and in the case of Gus Dur's full career track record,
including his period in NU before this, most of the time, the
passage of time reveals what he was doing and more often than not
it proves him right.
Because it's often not apparent. At the time he is doing
something, but what exactly is he trying to do I think we can now
see. With respect to Wiranto, that he was carefully, over many
months -- beginning with the appointment of Wiranto to a civilian
ministerial post -- working at a way of getting Wiranto to one
side, because that was important for reform in the military. And
in the final weeks he was trying to encourage Wiranto to resign
on his own choice. In the end, he had to confront him and push a
little bit harder, but even then he tried to soften the blow.
Part of this negotiation is to push and then to pull back. It is
like a clever athlete, whether it is silat or kung fu, boxing or
some such kind of competitive sports, to be predictable is not
always a good strategy. Sometimes it is good to do something he
has done and catch an enemy off-guard. And this he does this very
often.
One print media describes his strategy as "confuse and rule"
in place of divide and rule.
As I said, you can see it in many sports. For example, leaving
aside the martial arts, a game like singles tennis. It is not
necessarily the most powerful player who wins, sometimes a more
intelligent and experienced player can outwit his opponent by
doing the unexpected. So if you are playing from the backline
play, you place the ball on the net and catch him off-guard. And
I think that is what is happening in his final negotiation with
Wiranto. And most of the time with Gus Dur this is the case. He
is a very skillful political operator. Sometimes he makes
mistakes.
I think it is fair to describe Gus Dur as somebody who is an
idealist in his religious conviction and his vision, but also a
realist. So you can call him an realist idealist. The idealist
guides the big picture strategy and the realism guides his
day-to-day tactics. So he is quite prepared to say OK, I push as
hard as I can, now I withdraw for a while and then push again
later on. I think in the case of Wiranto, I don't know, I'm just
speculating, but what appears to have happened is that he
decided, having reflected on it and checked his information, "now
is the time to push to finish it off, because if I pull back now
it's not going to give any result".
Who do you think the people are who win his ear?
There is no single person. Certainly there is no single,
perfect individuals who have a monopoly over his ears. In fact,
he deliberately wants a wide range of information sources. One of
the reasons he travels so much, certainly domestically, is to get
lots of feedback. He is somebody who enjoys mixing with people as
an extrovert, he likes company, he likes engaging in
conversation. Often a conversation with him is very relaxed and
full of jokes. But he also has various intents, in terms of
trying to get some feedback. So he gets feedback from all
sources.
Now clearly there are people who are close to him whom he
trusts very much, but it doesn't mean that he always agrees with
them. For example, one of the closest ministers to Gus Dur is Pak
Alwi (Shihab, the foreign minister), but I think you will find
both Pak Alwi and Gus Dur will say that sometimes Gus Dur will
take the position of conflict with Pak Alwi. He might even argue,
as he often says: "Well, Pak Alwi is not experience at being
Menlu (foreign minister). He is an academic from divinity school,
so of course he is in a learning period." He is not and he
imposes his own opinion. So even the ministers closest to him can
disagree with him. He is a very individual thinker.
All of his life he has done things by himself with great
independence and he is not about to be swayed just by the odd
whisper in his ear.
How do you see Gus Dur as a leader?
There is another paradox about Gus Dur. I think as a leader he
is extremely gifted and he has a very fine political instinct,
but I would also argue that he is not a good administrator. And
in certain respects he is not a good manager, but paradoxically
he is an extremely good leader. In other words, he is good at the
big picture. He is good at strategizing, he is also good in
inspiring people and winning their confidence and bringing them
with him. He is very good at winning over his enemies.
For example, it is hard to imagine anyone else as leader could
reform as quickly and as successfully with the least
confrontation possible with TNI as Gus Dur has done. It has been
remarkably effective because he has not confronted TNI. He said,
"Look, I do honestly believe that most of you are on my side and
wanted the way I am going, so why don't we work together and help
each other?"
It has been an extremely good leadership, but his lack of
managerial administrative strength is also obvious. I think it
would be unrealistic to expect him to be perfect in every
respect. So clearly over the coming months, ideally there would
be some consolidation in his team so that what is lacking in him
as an individual will be made up for with individuals who have
complementary strengths.
What do you think are Gus Dur's priorities?
The broad picture is, he wants to create a just and fair
society in which economic development is ongoing so that it is
possible to then argue for a more equitable share. He wants to
generate wealth and wants it shared equally, he wants the rule of
law to be applied, both on paper and right down to the local
level and practice.
There should be a society in which no one has to fear a judge
or a police officer or military officer. That's his vision, and
he would argue that it is what an Islamic society really is.
Whether you happen to be Christian or Muslim or Hindu, this is
his vision.
How can this be achieved?
To achieve that he has a game plan, and the first element in
this is reform in the military, because if military elements
become upset they can spoil everything. But if they are won over,
as is happening now, not only would they be happy, but local and
international investors would feel comfortable and that would
make thing easier to look at restoring the economy. Without
restoring the economy, it would not be possible to move ahead
with reform. But for reform to occur, proper and full
implementation of rule of law would be necessary so that people
would know there was justice.
He wants to move to that, so reform of the military, trade and
investor confidence and systematic reform of the system so that
you can get rule of law is important. Associated with that is
setting up a democratic system with full checks and balances. So,
hopefully, in four and a half years, when Indonesians vote again,
there will be some substantial innovations of legislation. For
example, there might be the case of direct election of the
president.
Is there any other agenda?
There are some other problems that are very high priority that
need to be attended to as well. Specific cases like Aceh and the
Malukus which are very serious. He has been working very hard on
these things, mostly behind the scenes, and hopefully we might
see some signs before too long that progress has been made.
But against all of this there is the whole question of the
past. If we have a society which is just and democratic, open and
transparent, if there is checks and balances and so forth, that's
well and good, but there are a lots of unresolved issues from the
past.
I think one of the next initiatives which he will take is a
truth and reconciliation commission, because it is his judgment
and the judgment of many other people that the present judicial
system lacks the capacity, and also in many respects lacks the
quality, to properly handle all of the injustices of the past.
I think that well after Gus Dur's five-year term, if all
things go well he will be remembered as, to use Herb Feith's
phrase: a solidarity maker, somebody who consolidated and built
society, lay the foundation of a more democratic and proper
society. It is very likely that the president that comes after
him, the fifth president, may be a better administrator, a better
manager perhaps.
Whom do you think Gus Dur regards as his enemy?
Gus Dur is a curious individual because it is his natural
style, as far as he can, to avoid having enemies. And it is his
deliberate political strategy where possible to win over enemies
and make them either friends or partners, or at the very least
not permanently opposed to him. I think we can say this for the
military. He is trying very hard to negotiate in such a way that
it recognizes his achievements, gives the military a way out, a
face-saving way of stepping forward into reform rather than
becoming his enemy.
It is also a personal attribute of his not to hold grudges.
And related to that is the fact that he is very generous in his
relationships with people. People who let him down, he is
prepared to give a second, a third, fourth chance. Maybe some
people say he is too generous, but it is part of his makeup and
this is formed by his basic religious philosophy, which is that
all human beings are in a state of flux between evil on the one
hand, and goodness and justice and righteousness on the right
hand, and the important thing is to encourage the maturation of
the development of people. He is willing to give people the
chance to move ahead and develop.
Could you give some examples?
Specifically individuals like Amien Rais (speaker of the
People's Consultative Assembly) who occasionally appears as
friend and sometimes appears as a rival or appears to be
undermining him, he does not have a strong sense of antipathy
toward him. He is, for example, not angry with Amien or other
such people and he is willing to give him a chance. He will argue
that in the case of Amien, politically in certain respects he is
naive and he should be given a chance. So when you are talking
about an enemy, it is not someone in the obvious figures that you
might point to. I think it is better to make a further
distinction between political opposition and real enemies. If we
had a stable democracy there would need to be a good opposition
and just because they are in the opposition does not mean that
they are enemies.
Whom do you think would be a good opposition today?
His government will become increasingly a coalition of PKB,
part of PAN and PDI Perjuangan. And that means that most of
Golkar and a large section of PPP and a portion of PAN and most
of the Islamic parties, perhaps with the exception of the Justice
Party, will join an opposition. And that will be the face of the
opposition. Now that does not make them the enemy, it is just
opposition figures which is healthy in democracy.
And the enemies?
The enemies are the small minority of figures connected to the
previous regime and its past abuses, including some in the
military and some outside the military who were willing to use
any means to achieve their own personal means that included using
religion and religious sentiment for personal gain. So some
people who claim to represent a sort of conservative end of the
spectrum of Muslim command and some people who claim to be acting
on behalf of TNI but are probably acting on their own behalf have
shown themselves quite willing to act in a way which is without
regard to the good of the whole of society.
For example, we don't know the whole story concerning Aceh and
Maluku and it is important not to speculate too much because
there are real problems there. But with a case like the recent
violence in Lombok, there is strong circumstantial evidence to
suggest that there was some deliberate provocation. I think there
are other clear cases where that seems to be the case. The
Banyuwangi "ninja" (assassins dressed in black) killings, I think
were clearly not spontaneous.
There was some spontaneous vendetta activity there, with some
vigilantes involved, but essentially it was a calculated cold-
blooded effort by individuals to manipulate for their own
purposes. And, of course, we saw something very bizarre and
tragic which occurred here in May 1998. There are many other
cases we can point to. So the people who are behind these things
are the real enemies of this government and of this president and
in fact of this society, I think.
Who are they?
It is important to be careful about how we speculate on their
names, and it is important to acknowledge that some of the
obvious suspects may in fact not be what they appear. They have
made full guise of devices used by other more benevolent forces.
For example I mentioned Amien, I don't think Amien really wants
to use Islam in a way which destabilizes the society, but some
people might try to use him. And I think we many not know the
full story about Wiranto. But there are clearly other people
associated with the former regime who affected in cold-bloodiness
and horrible way, who try to manipulate figures like Wiranto and
Amien.
Gus Dur once said that 90 percent of the TNI was behind him,
what do you think about this?
I am not an expert on the TNI. But I think with Gus Dur's
style, 90 percent is not a precise figure. It is a rough way of
saying that the majority of TNI is on his side. In very rough
terms, it is probably reasonable to expect that maybe 10 percent
of TNI is very proreform and 10 percent is antireform and 80
percent is not quite sure but can be taken one by the other. Gus
Dur's genius is to get the 80 percent, the sort of floating mass
if you like, to join with the reformists. And as I said, the
reference to Feisal Tanjung is a deliberate exercise in as you
say "flying a kite" to see what reaction it gets, to see whether
any lightning strikes the kite that is flying in the storm.
What do you think is Gus Dur's opinion of Megawati?
Last year Gus Dur got into trouble by talking about Megawati
and saying, "Well, you know, she is worthwhile, she is a nice
person, she is sincere, the people love her, but she is not too
bright." I think this is a very frank statement and probably
politically unwise and probably ungracious to Megawati. But the
important thing to recognize is that there is no personal
antipathy and there is a lot of personal respect, and I think
that Megawati herself has to be given credit for the gracious way
in which she became willing to be vice president. I think it was
not wise to talk about her being stupid, but behind that there is
the truth that it is better at this point for her to be vice
president. And even if people are not happy with her as vice
president, they should recognize that everybody can only perform
according to their ability, right? And according to what they are
capable of.
What role do you think she is going to play?
I think her big role now will be to ensure that PDI Perjuangan
develops into a strong party, which Megawati can afford. The next
thing to acknowledge is that up until now she has been
consistently courageous, she is willing to fight, she has kept
her forces together and stopped them from mengamuk (running
riot), which could easily happen, and she has been gracious about
her relationship with the President. And there has always been,
with momentary exception, a good personal relation between them.
So I don't think Gus Dur's assessment of Mega has changed, but
his affection for her is genuine and there has been differences
of opinion about proper strategies or whatever, and the important
thing is Megawati backs him up.
What do you think is Gus Dur's concept of power?
Gus Dur's concept of power is that, ultimately, if we were to
have a healthy attitude to the way we look at our lives as
individuals, and particularly as public figures, we need to
recognize that and at one point one needs to not to use the word
"religion". You need to have sort of high principles and to
recognize that whatever we achieved in this world would fairly
quickly be forgotten and lost and destroyed, particularly in
terms of personal benefit and personal interest. Also he is
clearly driven, as many people around the world are, by a sense
of providence that ultimately God is really in charge of the
universe. So in terms of power he believes that you are given
opportunities and you must make the best of them. And ideally it
should be for the common good, not just for the job. But of
course many people abuse this, others manage to rise above their
self-interest and to do a good job.
Gus Dur seems to enjoy his presidential seat. Do you think he
has in mind to go on to a second term?
He literally has not even talked about a second period. I
mean, after all, this is early days and the beginning of a very
difficult term of government with enormous challenges. There is a
lot of paradoxes, and a simplistic judgment can be very badly
wrong. He is possessed of an enormous amount of self-confidence,
but I don't believe he is egotistic in the normal, widely
understood sense.
He just happens to be an extraordinarily intelligent and
capable individual and he recognizes that. That doesn't make him
an egotist. I raised this point because he enjoys being
president. He gets a lot of satisfaction from being able to put
into practice things he straightened up for many years. But he is
not ambitious in the normal understanding of the word.
There are some people who live and die on political
achievement. For him it is much more a take-it-or-leave-it
attitude. He can live without being president. He strongly
believes in the hand of God in terms of providence.
People might like to ride around in a Mercedes-Benz and to
live in a palace, to tour the world and eat fine food. But for
him he really would be equally happy living in his house in
Ciganjur, eating Warung Padang food and mixing with local
friends.
In retrospect, Gus Dur led the NU for 15 years. He may not
crave power, but he does not mind it. He even appears to like it.
As a political animal, he openly courted Tutut (Soeharto's oldest
daughter) in the 1997 general election. Now he is leading the
nation's reform. He believes in providence. And there are
mystical factors, like the Langitan (kyai) blessing, etc. What
kind of impact can all these things have on the nation?
I think it is important to understand a couple of issues here.
One issue is democracy. For better or for worse in a democratic
system, certain individuals have to make a better contribution
nowadays, and political leadership at the national level requires
a strong degree of self-confidence, a strong degree of vision.
We are not going to have good democracy here unless we have
good political parties. We won't have good political parties
unless we get good people involved, and that means that some of
the right, committed people from the NGO civil society sphere
have to go into political parties. It is not a dirty thing to be
politically active because if you don't have good people, bad
people will do it. So rather than bad people dominating the
system, let's encourage good people. I think, Gus dur is a
classic example. He is a genuine social activist and reformer,
but he has the right sort of personal quality and confidence to
directly be successful in this environment.
Those things should be seen as, rather than embarrassing
features of his personality, an example to be followed at least
by some people.
So don't be embarrassed about being a political animal. It
could be a very good thing. We have to be honest to mature. Of
course, the flip answer to it raises the question of the abuse of
power. Now, the way that democracy handles it is through checks
and balances. I think the important way to judge Gus Dur, let's
see what systematic reforms he brings in, and the extend that he
brings to strengthen democratic institutions. Then we will see
whether he leaves a lasting legacy.
Do you think there will be something like a Gus Durism legacy
after his term, judging from his very different approach as a
head of state?
This is one of the other paradoxes about Gus Dur which is
important to understand. In some ways it was easier to have
Sukarnoism because that was a particular approach to nationalism.
It would be much harder to have Gus Durism in that sense because
basically what he believes are universal values. So it's not
unique. And certainly from the Western point of view of today's
Christian heritage as well as Islamic heritage, some things are
parallel and common. And his approach to other things like
economics, international relations, there are some distinctive
features, but not as distinctive as Sukarno. It is much more
mainstream. But, of course, as an individual he is pretty much
unique, so it is very hard for anyone to be like him.
So I think that quite automatically the one unique Gus Durism,
in the sense that this is at a personal level, and in terms of
policy legacy and the changes in effect, is much less
idiosyncratic and much more universal in nature. Indonesian
society will hopefully end up more democratic, more transparent
if people have respect for differences, whether religious or
cultural or whatever. That the society always seems to build up
and develop, that will be his legacy.
So ironically, the legacy of this very unique individual would
be the establishment of the universally desired principles and
systems.
What do you think is the state of Gus Dur's health? The media
has often described him as being of frail health?
I think the word frail is much overused. I followed his
entourage through trips far too long and I felt very frail. If
you asked the Cabinet ministers and the journalists who joined
him on his foreign trips I think you would find a lot of people
experienced frailty.
In that sense, the least frail person on those trips was Gus
Dur himself. He has enormous stamina, by various means, by
switching off, like taking a catnap. He has enormous stamina.
I think it is also important to recognize that he is going
through a personal struggle with blindness and has not yet
adjusted to it.
Part of the reason people constantly talk about his frailness
is when the whole world, on the morning of Oct. 20, 1999, watched
him surrounded by adjutants and looking frail merely because he
is a man not yet accustomed to physically getting around unaided.
This miscommunicates, this misinforms. He is actually much more
robust than he appears.
He is a man who is approaching 60 who has had two strokes --
one serious -- and who needs to be concerned about his health.
But that applies to most other people of his generation. And as a
friend I am very much encouraged by his diet, his personal
security. His health is monitored much more closely now than ever
before. So I am not greatly anxious about it. Provided that he
takes a rest from time to time, then I don't think we need to
worry too much. (hbk/anr/mds/amd)