Muhammadiyah Youth to win back reformist credentials

Harry Bhaskara, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya

Muhammadiyah Youth (the youth wing of Muhammadiyah) carries a huge burden on its back: the venerable name of Muhammadiyah, the second largest Muslim organization in the country.

Muhammadiyah Youth also carries another burden: how to live up to the reputation for reform that its parent organization built up over the years.

When its founder, the revered kyai (Muslim preacher) Achmad Dahlan, set the organization up in 1912, he startled the public by introducing Western education into the organization, then an anathema to a nation struggling to free itself from Dutch colonialism.

The third burden is the youth adjective, which suggests vitality and vigor.

Today, these burdens seem to have multiplied as the reform movement started in 1998 seems to have run aground. People are wondering, where has Muhammadiyah's spirit of reform gone?

The four-day congress of the youth wing, which ended here on Wednesday, failed to exude any spirit of reform, with its leaders seemingly too preoccupied with power struggles.

Rizal Sukma, a young leader of the Jakarta-based Muhammadiyah central board, said the reform spirit had long disappeared.

"Muhammadiyah is suffering from obesity. It is too fat. It has difficulties moving," he said of the parent organization.

Muhammadiyah has become a victim if its own success, especially in building schools and hospitals, and so has the youth wing, Rizal said at the congress venue, the Asrama Haji in Sukolilo, Central Surabaya.

Participants were talking yesterday about regional leaders going around the rooms of the chairmanship candidates every now and then, apparently trying to influence the election. These kind of activities continued throughout the night right up till dawn.

Abdul Mukti of Central Java won the election on Wednesday, beating Suyoto of East Java by a slim margin.

Among the usual campaign handouts circulating at the congress was a declarations signed by ten regional leaders, and an appeal for candor from the Muhammadiyah Students' Association.

The declaration brought into the light of day questionable past practices of Muhammadiyah Youth, including abuses of power. It quoted a report from Gatra magazine about the suspended shrimp plantation venture it was involved in with the Ansor youth organization. Ansor is affiliated to the biggest Muslim socio- religious organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama.

It says the case was only the tip of an iceberg of dubious practices in the organization.

The regional leaders also criticized the congress for being too remote from the common people's problems.

"The meager intellectual contribution given to remedying the nation's ills at the congress is indicative of Muhammadiyah Youth's surrender to the temptation of short-term political goals," it says.

While refusing to say so in the open, senior leaders of the youth wing quietly expressed their fears about the lack of new ways of doing things in the organization and the preoccupation of its leaders in jockeying for power.

With an eye on the 2004 election, the major political parties are vying to win over younger voters.

A participant at the congress said Muhammadiyah Youth could adopt a more reformist stance.

"I think our colleagues in NU are more reformist today," said Masykur Ikhsan, referring to the biggest Islamic organization in the country, Nahdlatul Ulama.

Part of the reason was the lack of cultural bonds among Muhammadiyah members, he said.

The NU's youth wing members were known to be involved in a variety of social and intellectual activities, including book publishing and charitable work.

Rizal said that Muhammadiyah and the NU were reversing their roles.

"In the past, Muhammadiyah was known as a reformist organization while the NU was more traditionalist," he said, "but now they are changing places."