Gus Dur's role as nation's mentor

By Idris Kyrway

JAKARTA (JP): The National Awakening Party has made a u-turn by supporting Abdurrahman Wahid, also known as Gus Dur, for president, and no longer Megawati Sukarnoputri, leader of the winning party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI- P).

Wiranto cleverly kept his options open until Wednesday, when he was handpicked by Habibie. Megawati, now publicly accused of arrogance and complacency by disappointed supporters, continues her management-by-delegation through her close aides Kwik Kian Gie, Dimyati Hartono, Sutjipto, Sabam Sirait and a few street demonstrations.

Meanwhile, in The Jakarta Post Oct. 7 in the article Political disillusionment shadows presidential election, Goenawan Mohamad made a brilliant and inspired analysis worthy of a senior journalist. Although it is not at all certain whether "... Amien Rais (since he) could easily have become a president had he opted to chair a truly Islamic party rather than the more inclusive PAN (the Nation Mandate Party)", the rest of his statements do make sense.

Most of all with his plea for Gus Dur to keep his hands out of the hornets' nest of practical politicking and for Megawati to be chosen as president. His reasoning: "If she is not elected she will remain a mystical figure ... symbol of a victim", while the country must have a real leader.

A trusted mechanic, so to say, who is not afraid of putting his/her hands to the task personally if the wheels of government get punctured.

As for Gus Dur: he would remain a great man as the nation's mentor; those who remain outside the legislature and the bureaucracy need him more than does the political process.

If Gus Dur really joins the race for presidency, he can only lose. Maybe not the election but much of his integrity, much of the prestige he now enjoys, much of the huge moral power he has now to his credit.

All of this will quickly evaporate with the mess of East Timor, the Indonesian Military's (TNI) involvement in war crimes there and elsewhere, the UN's human rights investigation and the next specters of secession movements in Aceh and Irian.

Gus Dur's strength is not in realpolitik. His previous statements on the situation in Aceh, on the number of people supporting a referendum there, on the force of the separatist fighters in the province were rather stupid.

The same with his statement about the United Nations (UN) peace enforcers: "They're all wrong: the UN, the Australians, the Americans ..." With such statements Gus Dur has unwittingly allowed us to catch a glimpse of his darker sides: his arrogance, at least a certain degree of pedantry, maybe even be a growing megalomania. I would hate to see a great man like Gus Dur go down the political and moral drain, as will have happened to all his predecessors in the job.

The day he runs against Megawati, at least 34 percent of the population will turn their back on him as a traitor, someone who has broken his word to those who trusted him.

Before he agreed to run for the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) top post, Amien went to see him and to ask for his approval. Once he is king himself, Gus Dur will no longer be the kingmaker he is now, just a brutally lonely king forced to tackle all by himself the rotting apples his predecessors left him as their welcome present: Semanggi II 1999, Trisakti shootings, Semanggi I 1998, riot-rape-and-death squads allegedly under Prabowo in May 1998, the 1997 kidnapping of activists, the attack on PDI-P on July 27 1996, Santa Cruz 1991, Tanjung Priok 1984, Petrus mysterious killings in the early 1980s, Malari January 1974, G30S PKI and Supersemar, both in 1965, killing of journalist Udin and female activist Marsinah.

And that's just cleaning up the mess from the past. On top of that, there is the US$150 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund, the Bank Bali scandal and probably leaks in other banks still to come to the fore, nonexisting poverty alleviation policies, Balongan, Pertamina, a dreadful education system, the drug epidemic, foreign investment, an overcrowded, incompetent, corrupt bureaucracy where too many people earn too little to survive without bribes and extortion, the reeducation of TNI and the National Police (Polri) and overhauling the whole judicial system.

The MPR General Session heat one went well: a president-in- waiting, somewhere in the 21st century, at the head of the MPR; an experienced and now more humble Akbar Tandjung as chairman of the House of Representatives (DPR), the military in its political role not humiliated and astonishingly neutral so far.

It looks like the start of fair power-sharing. What is still missing is Megawati, as winner of the June 7 elections, as president. And the TNI/Polri bloc? If there is still a role for it, such as helping Megawati to her throne together with grateful Akbar's Golkar, there would still be the vice presidency.

Not for Wiranto, who has burned too many of his fingers, and who, anyhow, after having let pass the coup opportunities of May and November last year, would probably not settle for anything less than the top job; not for Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Subagyo Hadisiswoyo, who had to rescue his son from drug-sniffing police officers; not for a certain Gen. Widodo who readily agreed to play the overture to a plot to get the emergency law approved.

There is one man in the military, however, composed, above the ploys and the jumbles, untainted, and who managed despite all these qualities to get four stars as well: Lt. Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, chief of territorial affairs.

There is one more reason for Gus Dur to stay away from the fray and above the melee: the international and the Muslim context. No one dares to say or write it but the truth is that Gus Dur is not a man of presidential mien. Amid the pomp and circumstance of presidential protocol and glamour of solemn ceremonies, his looks and tics will not serve him well.

But as the nation's spiritual leader, as Goenawan Mohamad's guru bangsa (nation's mentor), they might even be an asset. The Muslim terrorists who blew up the World Trade Center in New York have their blind Egyptian imam, now languishing in an American jail. Palestine's Hamas movement has its blind and wheelchair- bound spiritual leader back after Netanyahu released him. Iran has been struggling, so far largely in vain, to get rid of the political omnipotence of its supremo ayatollahs, first Khomeini, now Khamenei.

Here in Indonesia, with Gus Dur in the role of guru bangsa, which fits him like a glove, we would have a chance to show the whole world, and not just to the West, that we can do much better than pepping up some lunatic bomber, invent religious fanaticism, or sponsor state terrorism.

For the first time in modern history, Islam, through an unexpected example from an unexpected corner of the world, would be able to show that Islam is intrinsically peaceful, moderate, engaged, modern.

This is Gus Dur's real calling, his truly exalted role: to be preeminently the exemplary ayatollah of the world's most populous Muslim country, not trapped in the fangs of instituted and corrupting power as in Iran, not abusing influence over easily incited youths, but elevated to the highest office of the most exacting standards of morality through the free will of Amien, Akbar, Megawati, Wiranto and their likes -- shored up by the respect of the population as a whole, including the Christians, the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Confucianists and even the nonbelievers.

The writer is a business consultant based in Jakarta.