Making sense of Gus Dur and the Nahdlatul Ulama
By Santi WE Soekanto
JAKARTA (JP): Covering the recent congress of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) was as memorable an experience as being plunged into a deep river when one can't swim.
One would need to be quite detached to see that NU, the largest Moslem organization here with more than 28 million followers, is a picture of paradox. Its members' plurality went beyond ethnic diversity and serves either as an explanation for many of those paradoxes or as a factor baffling to anyone not on the inside.
This is an organization whose members value independence very highly and are wary of external pressures, and yet seem to blindly accept the decisions of their kyai (leaders) concerning crucial matters such as chairmanship.
Established in 1926, this is an organization whose members can have heated debates and criticize one another strongly, and then call their opponents "my brother" and eat and joke together amicably.
This is also an organization that vowed to establish financial independence by operating cooperatives in its pesantren (boarding schools), but then let Minister of Cooperatives Subiakto Tjakrawerdaya speak about economic development efforts to a relatively empty hall while the participants chose to wait outside and take pictures of one another.
"NU said it wanted to establish concrete programs to improve its followers' welfare, but it neglected one of the most concrete programs discussed in this congress," was the criticism of one foreign media reporter covering the congress.
This is an organization that forswore politics a decade ago and pledged to return to being a religious and social movement, and then engaged in political ploys which could have come out of a political guru's strategy book.
This is also an organization whose leader, Abdurrahman Wahid, broke his promise not to run for another term. He then re-entered the arena in order "to save it from politicking ulemas" and became embroiled in divisive political intrigues and maneuvers.
However, nowhere did these paradoxes appear more markedly than in the election process of Abdurrahman, who is more popularly known as Gus Dur. This was an arena where everybody became actors playing their parts; the ulemas, government officials, students, even some members of the mass media.
The ulemas used the congress to dress-down Gus Dur for allegedly staging a one-man show in his leadership of the organization during his previous two terms. Yet it was these same ulemas who addressed him as waliullah (representative of Allah) and "battled" to have him re-elected.
When their candidate appeared to be on the brink of losing, they prayed fervently, hands reaching upward, apparently for divine help so that the election would turn in their favor. And then, in private, they made Gus Dur the butt of their jokes.
These ulemas protested some of his controversial moves, including his visit to, and subsequent suggestion that Indonesia establish diplomatic ties with, Israel.
And then, in the congress, they circulated leaflets calling him a symbol of resistance against "external pressures", in obvious reference to the efforts of some government officials' to divert the proceedings of the elections into a certain candidate's favor.
These baffling facts hit one right in the face and one couldn't help but feeling that either one had to be an insider, a very clever analyst, or an enemy of the organization to make sense of those paradoxes. Even armed with a political scientist's analysis and a stack of literature for references, watching how the congress progressed could leave one feeling inept.
What's interesting was the fact that these NU followers, most of whom were from rural areas throughout Indonesia, defied any attempts to be portrayed as simple and understandable.
For instance, some ulemas scoffed and poohed when, minutes after Gus Dur was re-elected, reporters besieged a respected political analyst, Fachry Ali, for his comments on the elections.
"That know-it-all...what does he know about us?" the ulemas said of the analyst who had written numerous articles on NU in various publications.
A student and NU member stared The Jakarta Post's reporter down, ignoring questions about why NU members detested Gus Dur's moves and then adulated him, and said, "You're not from NU, are you? Then you wouldn't understand."
For someone who is not very well-versed in NU history, I thought I had no choice but to find some simple framework with which to view the organization. A symbol would be adequate, perhaps, and it was found in a scene shortly after Gus Dur was announced the winner in the "democratic" contest against his fiercest competitor, Abu Hasan.
His poor eye-sight troubling him, Gus Dur entered the huge room with his hands reaching out in front of him, half-carried and half-guided by hands into his supporters' embrace.
The man who walked as if he was blind then took his seat, and, within minutes, turned the wildly clapping, noisy crowd into an orderly group of Moslem leaders by leading them chant the shalawat badar, Islamic praises of Prophet Muhammad and Islam's past heroes.
"There it is, the explanation for the enigma, the symbol of this organization...a charisma which turns this plural, diverse group into one voice," someone said.
But nothing in this overly-simple thinking could help me understand this paradox: how can an organization so characterized with obedience and loyalty toward its leaders be so democratic at the same time?
Perhaps the better way to understand NU is by seeing the traditional, religious movement as something which is under a constant process of change.
Social changes in the 1970s, including the introduction of "secular" schools, as opposed to the traditional pesantren, into its fold, have caused the organization to undergo massive sociological and ideological changes.
The nahdliyin (NU followers) began to see how crucial it was to "modernize" itself and expose their children to various educational opportunities. And after the 1980s, the NU discovered a growing number of young intellectuals within it ready, as scholar Nurcholish Madjid once put it, to bring even more changes into it.
This was among the reasons why the ulemas, when discussing contemporary issues in the congress, did not only use their standard guidebooks of religious edicts, usually called as kitab kuning (literally "yellow books"), but also other references, including scientists.
Perhaps, it is this change that could explain the unique relation that NU has with Gus Dur. The elder generations of kyai respected this controversial leader's lineage with the founder of the organization, his grandfather K.H. Hasjim Asjhari.
On the other hand, the younger generations who are trained in "secular" colleges, are mesmerized with his bold ideas and daring moves, and his refusal to be tamed by external pressures. In short, for some of the younger NU generations, Gus Dur is indeed a symbol of resistance.
Though this explanation may now seem sufficient to help understand Gus Dur and NU, a number of questions remain, including: how will the organization deal with the growing number of egalitarian youths, who broke with the old tradition of sami'na waatha'na (to hear is to obey), and have started to become highly critical of their seniors?
These younger people, gradually inching towards the decision- making positions within NU, were responsible for a number of moves which were uncharacteristic of NU. For instance, they protested some of the kyai for their political inclinations and for various displays of dependence on the government.
How can NU respond to their clamor for greater democracy within the organization without crushing their budding independence?
How can NU retain its good, old characteristics like the tradition of "forgive and forget", loyalty and solidarity, and acquire new features such as a love for democracy and critical minds?
NU is now undergoing a very rapid transformation, and it needs all of its resources to weather the accompanying difficulties. Hence the call by some political observers for Gus Dur to embrace his "foes", including Abu Hasan, and include them in his leadership of the organization.