Muhammadiyah's Social-National Responsibility
Since its founding, Muhammadiyah has been inseparable from social-national responsibility and efforts to lift communities out of poverty. In carrying out this responsibility, Muhammadiyah’s charitable enterprises (AUM) have been developed mainly in education and health through collaboration with voluntary social work or philanthropy.
Improving the social, economic and cultural quality of life of communities as a result of AUM activities in an area is part of fulfilling national and humanitarian responsibility. The contribution of AUM to poverty alleviation is more convincing if supported by data from research reports. Furthermore, the contribution to poverty reduction would be more effective if organised as a national movement in a programmatic way.
Such a programme could be carried out, among other things, through scholarships for poor citizens using an active outreach approach, rather than waiting until students are at risk of being unable to pay school or university fees. In this way, the number of poor citizens, around 30 million, could be reduced every year.
Freeing the nation’s citizens from the grip of poverty is one of the empirical indicators of the achievement of Muhammadiyah’s goal, namely upholding and promoting Islam so that a truly Islamic society is realised. The explanation of the 1970 Muqaddimah AD and the 1965 Muhammadiyah Personality doctrine state that widespread welfare, goodness and happiness of the nation’s citizens are indications of the achievement of the organisation’s goals.
To ensure national and humanitarian contributions, financial governance of AUM needs to be developed, especially in basic education up to higher education. This is an activity that nationally involves trillions of rupiah every year. The collaborative mutual assistance funds from parents, students and education stakeholders form the basis of cross-subsidised education financing for underprivileged citizens.
In addition to allocating collaborative mutual assistance funds for scholarships for underprivileged citizens, the new financial governance could also programme standardisation of decent salaries for teachers, lecturers, staff and educators. Thus, expansion of school and campus construction in remote, underdeveloped and poorest areas could be carried out with organisational standards as a quality guarantee, especially for learning on Al-Islam and Kemuhammadiyahan.
Besides LAZISMU scholarships, cross-subsidised scholarships are also implemented. For example, in medical student admissions at 10 Muhammadiyah-Aisyiyah higher education institutions, 2.5 percent of the average 200 new students per institution per year are recruited from poor citizens from the poorest, most underdeveloped and isolated areas. The 2.5 percent scholarship for new students is partly a contribution from the other 97.5 percent of new students. From this, around 50 new medical students from poor citizens could be recruited nationally each year.
A similar pattern could be applied to all study programmes at more than 100 Muhammadiyah-Aisyiyah higher education institutions nationwide. Nationally, new students at these institutions are estimated to reach an average of 500,000 people per year. From this, 12,500 new students from underprivileged citizens could be recruited each year.
Considering the impact on poverty reduction, scholarships for poor citizens could be focused on study programmes that offer better job prospects. Meanwhile, students with a GPA of 3 or above are given further scholarships for master’s and doctoral degrees so they can later work as lecturers. Recruitment of poor citizens at primary and secondary levels could be carried out in a similar way.
Poverty is a consequence of social injustice, as well as failure of personal adaptation in responding to problems of community life. Poor health and low educational participation as causes of poverty were among the triggers for the birth of Muhammadiyah in 1912. From this, Kiai Dahlan developed a compassion-based movement for empowering underprivileged citizens as a critique of European modernism.
Kiai Ahmad Dahlan was deeply concerned to see Muslims as the majority of the nation’s citizens who were poor, sickly, poorly educated, trapped in colonialism and fatalistic resignation. Muslims were divided into various groups that each felt they were the most correct while negating others, accusing each other of being infidels.
In this context, Kiai Ahmad Dahlan developed actions to enlighten citizens about their fate and future. Based on Islamic belief, Kiai Dahlan encouraged Muslims to understand correctly and properly the teachings they embraced. In this way, Muslims could meet their needs and develop their lives independently, free from dependence on structural poverty that hinders progress.
Furthermore, Kiai Ahmad Dahlan advised every Muslim to adorn themselves with two main qualities. First, the quality of a student; always open to learning from anyone and anywhere. Second, the quality of a teacher; always ready to spread knowledge to anyone and anywhere. Based on these two main qualities, social action was developed so that all citizens understand Islam from the holy book and the Prophet’s traditions. Friday and holiday sermons were delivered in Javanese or Malay. The Qur’an was translated into Javanese or Malay. Schools were established through mutual assistance and voluntary social philanthropy according to each citizen’s ability.
Every citizen was encouraged to donate what they had. Some donated their pavilions, provided accommodation or meals.