Gus Dur's art of war

Gus Dur's art of war

By Susanto Pudjomartono

JAKARTA (JP): There is no doubt about it -- last weekend's
battle between President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid and the
majority of factions in the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR)
was a battle of wits, which should be recorded in detail in the
annals of Indonesian history.

Never before have we been able to witness such a blow-to-blow
fight, in which each and every move met a counter move, creating
tension and confusion to both parties.

There is also no doubt that in that battle the Gus Dur camp
was more tricky and sometimes the more devious and deceptive in
its maneuvers, trying to find every single weakness in their
opponent's defenses and using every possible legal loophole,
thereby creating an impression that any means was justified.

A battle between the state's executive power and the
legislature is quite a common occurrence in any democratic
country. But the unusual manner in which Gus Dur fought to cling
on to his presidency makes it worthwhile examining.

Many people -- friends and foes alike -- are baffled, to the
point of being mystified, as to why Gus Dur resorted to the use
of such undemocratic tactics to defend himself. He has repeatedly
threatened to bring millions of his loyal supporters from East
Java to Jakarta to "occupy" the parliament building to stop the
MPR special session from convening, thus thwarting any attempt to
impeach and oust him.

He has put pressure on the Attorney General to investigate and
arrest a number of business tycoons -- indeed a popular move to
win the people's hearts, but at the same time, as he has made
clear, to have some of his political foes investigated and, if
need be, detained as well.

He has tried unsuccessfully to sack and replace generals of
the Armed Forces (TNI), whom he considered to have disobeyed him.
To a certain point, he has been more successful putting a trusted
man as acting police chief -- a move that prompted the Assembly
to call a special session.

The national police force is assigned to secure the MPR
session. By having his man in the top job, Gus Dur may have
thought that he had a strategic ally who could help him in the
event that he needed one.

These tactics have raised a lot of eyebrows. There seems to be
no logic in them. Some observers are at a loss and have come to
the conclusion that Gus Dur has been practicing Chinese "drunken
master" movements, so unpredictable have his tactics become.

Gus Dur is no doubt a master of deception. Sometimes, people
have believed that he was bluffing, but who could be sure that in
what seemed like nothing there was actually something?

Judging from the way he governs -- where an absence of a sense
of reality is obvious -- one can be misled to conclude that even
in defending his presidency Gus Dur has no clear-cut strategy.

On the contrary, he certainly has one and it can be described
in only one sentence: fight to the bitter end. This includes
threats, disinformation, misinterpretation, devide et impera
(divide and rule) tactics -- anything. In short, the end
justifies the means.

Although trying to understand Gus Dur's logic in his present
state of mind is a near impossible task, one can guess, or try to
decipher, how his mind is working.

Gus Dur somehow believes that he has been unfairly and cruelly
victimized. He perceives that he has been legitimately elected as
president, possibly with some kind of divine intervention or even
in a divine grand design. And suddenly, long before his term in
office has come to its natural end, those same people who had
supported his nomination to begin with are now turning against
him and are even trying to oust him. He believes that the DPR has
tyrannized him and now Megawati has also abandoned him. In short,
his former friends are conspiring to topple him.

Hence, Gus Dur sees that he has every right not only to defend
himself and his rightly-earned presidential seat, but also to
launch a counter attack against his "enemies" and possibly also
to take revenge on them. His outburst weeks ago that he would
unseat Amien Rais as the Assembly speaker if he should manage to
hold on to his presidency is proof of this reasoning.

Thus, Gus Dur sees himself as being at war. He believes he is
fighting to defend his rights. As for his strategy, he relies,
not on the western strategies of Clausewitz, Liddle Hart or
Patton, but of a totally different school.

No one denies that Gus Dur is a very intelligent and
intellectual man. He devoured books of different kinds, the way
he eats his favorite peanuts. He has a photographic memory, which
explains why even now, when he can no longer read, he is
sometimes still capable of delivering high quality speeches with
correct quotations.

Among the many books he read in his younger days were silat or
kungfu novels. On a number of occasions and in a number of recent
conversations he fondly recalls his favorite stories. Several
times he has likened himself to the character in those kungfu
novels.

For example, several months ago he said that he was like Kwee
Cing who mastered the Hang Liong Sip Pat Ciang (Eighteen Moves to
Conquer the Dragon). "I am using only a few moves, but look, my
enemies are already in confusion, aren't they?".

Through reading kungfu novels Gus Dur learned about Musashi
and Sun Tzu, the famous Japanese and Chinese strategist. Anyone
who reads the lines of Sun Tzu's Art of War, for example, cannot
help but draw a parallel between the book and Gus Dur's tactics:

"Use anger to throw them into disarray, use humility to make
them haughty. Tire them by flight, cause division among them.
Attack when they are unprepared, make your move when they do not
expect it.

"Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be
extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness.
Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate."

It is also through kungfu novels that Gus Dur learned about
the famous "Thirty-Six Strategies of Ancient China". Take one,
for example: "Clamor in the East, Attack in the West. Spread
misleading information about your intentions, or make false
suggestions in order to induce the opponent to concentrate his
defenses on one front and thereby leave another front vulnerable
to attack".

Here is another: "Make something out of nothing. Create a
false idea in the mind of the opponent and fix it in his mind as
a reality. In particular, this means that you convey the
impression that you have what you do not, to the end that you may
appear formidable and thus actually obtain a level of security
that you had not enjoyed before".

Many of us sometimes think that Gus Dur is out of his mind.
Could this be a trick?

One of the 36 strategies says: "Feign madness but keep your
balance: Hide behind the mask of a fool, a drunk, or a madman to
create confusion about your intentions and motivations. Lure your
opponent into underestimating your ability, until, overconfident,
he drops his guard. Then you may attack".

We have learned about the strategy of sowing discord when Gus
Dur, a few weeks ago, started to befriend Rahmawati, the younger
sister of Megawati, to have her start to criticize her older
sister.

What if all else fails? The last of the 36 strategies
stipulates retreat: "When your side is losing, there remain only
three choices: surrender, compromise, or escape.

"Surrender is complete defeat, compromise is half-defeat, but
escape is not defeat. As long as you are not defeated, you still
have a chance."

Does this mean that we will see a prolonged fight, even if the
Assembly does impeach Gus Dur?

The writer is Chief Editor of The Jakarta Post.