Gus Dur writes on subjects he knows best

Kiai Nyentrik Membela Pemerintah (An Eccentric Moslem Scholar in Defense of the Government)

By Abdurrahman Wahid

Introduction by Mohamad Sobary

LKIS, Yogyakarta, 1997

VI and 133 pages

Rp 10,000

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The essays in this book can be considered among the most significant rational adventures made by Moslem intellectual Abdurrahman Wahid, popularly known as Gus Dur, the leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, the nation's biggest Moslem organization.

They were originally published in the now banned Tempo newsweekly in the 1970s and 1980s, and Kompas daily in the 1990s. In reading the book, we are compelled to sociologically trace the inside-outs of the world of a Moslem intellectual, or kiai, and that of a Moslem boarding school (pesantren), plus the daily activities of both as imbued with religious significance.

One of Gus Dur's advantages over others doing special research on the subjects is that he knows them both so well. He is more familiar with the stuffy, "loquacious" aura of a boarding school as he has been part of it and fully savors the taste of its life.

The two are distinguishable yet inseparable. A Moslem boarding school without a learned scholar at its helm is just like a captainless ship, and really not worthy of bearing the title.

Kiai and pesantren refer connotatively and denotatively a tradition-imbued community with a traditional lifestyle, clinging tightly to religious values and faith, and having a full and contextual comprehension of religion.

What Gus Dur aims at in his writings can be perceived as a description of the reality of the Islamic boarding school community, previously hidden behind strict tradition, firm religious comprehension and a traditional lifestyle.

Gus Dur has opened the door to this otherwise restricted and narrow room, and he is thus letting everyone find a new way of comprehending religion. He deliberately avoids presenting the face of the subjects in a scientific, methodological and formalistic form and language. He talks about this subject in a smooth flow of description, revealing the religious attitude of the community, which most people have never glimpsed.

He is able to expose the innermost facets without running out of materials, owing to his own rich and profound adventures in that world. Add to this his noble origins, and Gus Dur is definitely the right person to serve as the chief spokesman of the boarding school community in affirming the principles of a social and religious life.

Take for example his piece on Muchit, an ulama from Jember, who is also an intellectual teaching at a state university in this city. Gus Dur dubs him eccentric. When meeting an "outsider", this intellectual is always ready to engage in an intellectual debate with his interlocutor, but when he is before members of his religious community he does not stray from his duty in leading them in religious prayers.

A Moslem boarding school community may be said to be one directly undergoing quite strong clashes, with fresh values developing in the general community owing to development. Not infrequently, these clashes lead to longer and more complicated debates.

This is because the new values are often no longer compatible with religious teachings or deeply rooted tradition of the boarding school community. Two examples, family planning and the law on matrimony, used to be subjects of long-winded polemics about how the religious community should respond to new trends.

Gus Dur describes these matters using personification and characterization of various kiai figures, many of whom he is acquainted with. The references he has of the life of an intellectual with all aspects of behavior and the life view, is a separate text. When Gus Dur conveys it in his pieces, it can get across a religious message stronger and more impressively than that conveyed through the approach of a particular discipline.

He spices up the message with humor and homespun wisdom. He details kiai Wahab Sulang of Rembang, a motorbike novice who nevertheless tried out a new motorcycle his wife received as a regional legislator.

He did not know how to use the brake, and instead tried to stop the motorbike by planting his feet. How could such a simple, artless man gain followers?

"Because this kiai with all his lifestyle and ordinariness has planted the seeds of concrete humanism based on his religious faith, while many people do often pit one against the other," writes Gus Dur.

M. Sobary in his foreword writes that in many respects Gus Dur's behavior is the legacy of the views and attitudes of the same scholars he discusses. Besides, the essays in this book reflect the wisdom, humor, honesty and piety of the scholars that Gus Dur has accurately perceived and then formulated in this essays.

This is where the strength of Gus Dur really lies. He can recount the life of a pesantren as Sobary described. His description shows that the writer masters various disciplines, or at least has an outstanding intellectual and religious wealth. It is in the simplicity of the stories which they can easily understand in which the serious and meticulous intellectual work if found.

This book can actually be used as a new means to understand Gus Dur's eccentric attitudes. Although no explicit connection is made, Gus Dur's attitude may well be crystallized from the lifestyle that he knows and describes here.

-- A. Wisnuhardana

The writer is a researcher at the Forum for Social and Humanistic Studies in Yogyakarta.