Hasballah says he cannot identify himself, anymore

Hasballah says he cannot identify himself, anymore

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.