Is the ulema-intellectual dichotomy a valid issue?

Is the ulema-intellectual dichotomy a valid issue?

Mochtar Buchori, Jakarta

I am writing this article after it was officially announced
that Din Syamsudin was unanimously elected as the new chairman of
Muhammadiyah for the next five years (2005-2010). While writing
these lines, I am thinking of the debate that went on earlier at
the 45th Muhammadiyah congress, which was about whether
Muhammadiyah should be chaired by an ulema or by an intellectual.

What was the background of this debate?

During the chairmanships of Amien Rais and Syafiie Maarif --
two respectable scholars within the Indonesian academic community
-- Muhammadiyah was seen by some as being guarded and controlled
by intellectuals. This was perceived as not being in line with
tradition, viz that Muhammadiyah had always been guided and
nursed by ulema.

This tradition lasted for a fairly long period, from the
inception of Muhammadiyah in 1912 until 1994, when the then
chairman of the organization, Achmad Azhar Basyir, died before
completing his term. It was then that Amien Rais moved in to take
over the leadership, acting first as a caretaker chairman and
later on as the definitive chairman after being elected during
the organization's 43rd congress (1995) in Banda Aceh,

It was against this background that two groups with different
views and ideas concerning the Muhammadiyah chairmanship emerged
during the recent congress in Malang. These two groups were
competing against one another to promote their respective ideas
concerning the type of person that should lead the organization.

The group insisting that the new Muhammadiyah chairman should
be an ulema argued that, as long as the various defects in our
national life remained unabated, what the organization needed was
a leader with a clear vision of the road that must be followed to
correct the wrongs in our life and culture. Remedying our "sick"
society is basically a matter of amending our national
conscience. When it comes to this, ulema are better prepared than
intellectuals who, in general, are knowledgeable in interpreting
the meaning of values, but not in implanting them in the minds of
the people.

The group advocating an intellectual as the new chairman, on
the other hand, argued that the nation was engulfed in the
process of transformation, affecting the deepest layers of our
national life. Furthermore, they said our national life had been
influenced by significant global changes.

This transformation process imposes new demands and challenges
on the nation, one of them being the demand to reformulate the
role of religion in directing the process of our cultural
transformation. With this kind of situation, the nation,
Muhammadiyah included, needs a leader that thoroughly understands
the nature of our national transformation. Without this
understanding no leader can move the nation toward a less selfish
and more creative stance.

This kind of leadership can be provided only by intellectuals
with the kind knowledge, skills and wisdom acquired through
rigorous study with a broad spectrum. For this reason,
Muhammadiyah has to be put under the guardian of an intellectual
who can translate the mission of Muhammadiyah into action of
strategic significance for the rehabilitation of our current
national condition.

This intellectual divide is, in my understanding, based on
traditional stereotypes regarding ulema and intellectuals. In the
traditional view, the image of ulema is of clerics who deal
mainly with problems related to religious life. Ulema, in this
view, are always pictured as clerics whose style of thinking is
deductive and whose language is richly filled with religious
phrases in Arabic.

Intellectuals, on the other hand, are in the traditional view
portrayed as people who mainly pursue knowledge about life in
this world, whose language is sprinkled with phrases in one of
the Western languages or Japanese, and whose vocabulary is loaded
with technical terminology.

This is a comparison drawn on traditional stereotypes. I do
not think that this comparison is still true. So many fundamental
changes have taken place in the world and the lives of the ulema
that have gradually changed their physical appearance and their
intellectual makeup. On the side of the intellectuals, many
changes have also taken place, perhaps not as fundamental as the
ones occurring within the ulema community, but equally
significant nonetheless.

Young intellectuals are no longer confined to worldly problems
in their preoccupations. Many intellectuals have a sincere
interest in religious matters. This is because more and more
intellectuals have begun to realize the limitations of their
knowledge. When it comes to questions about wisdom in life they
are turning to history, philosophy, religion and theology. A
truly intellectual path!

The outcome of this transformation is that nowadays it is
difficult to draw a clear line between ulema and intellectuals.
Ulema are intellectuals in their own right, and intellectuals are
no longer indifferent toward religious matters. This being the
case, one can ask whether the real issue behind the election of
the new Muhammadiyah chairman is really anchored in the ulema-
intellectual dichotomy.

It is difficult for me to entirely believe it. The real issue
behind the quest for the top leadership is probably something
else. What this might be, outsiders like myself will never know,
and informed insiders will quite probably never reveal it.
Whatever it may be, I hope that the final outcome of the congress
will satisfy the political and cultural appetites of all within
the Muhammadiyah community. After all, the new chairman is in one
sense both an ulema and an intellectual.

May Muhammadiyah under its new leadership find its way to an
increasingly more meaningful existence in this era of tumultuous
transition.

The writer has a doctorate in education from Harvard
University.