Near misfortunes transform Siti Hartati

Near misfortunes transform Siti Hartati

By Yogita Tahil Rahmani

JAKARTA (JP): Siti Hartati Murdaya, founder, owner and chief
executive officer of the widely diversified Cipta Cakra Murdaya
group, is now devoting most of her time to social activities in
the name of Buddhism.

Staff at her office say Siti Hartati rarely wants to discuss
business. She prefers to deal with the many social projects she
is involved in, mostly in her capacity as a member of the
Indonesian Buddhist Organization (Walubi).

These projects have included a weekly program to distribute
food packages to the poor in and around Jakarta, and a massive
campaign to organize free medical services, including surgery,
for less fortunate people.

Having successfully built a business empire with her husband,
the 53-year Siti Hartati is undergoing a transformation.

She attributes this change to one misfortune and another near
misfortune in business, or what she aptly describes as karma.

Two years ago, the company lost out in a bid for a US$1.2
billion power plant project after spending $2 million on research
and lobbying for foreign investors and securing a World Bank
loan. She lost the deal to a business group politically connected
to then president Soeharto.

The second was a cement factory project in Sulawesi.

The company had spent millions of dollars on research, but she
then decided to delay her participation in the project when she
took time off to learn more about Buddhism and its structured
organizations in Taiwan, under the guidance of Master Chen Yen.

That, in hindsight, spared her company from a major disaster
for, when the economy crashed last year, the project got shelved
and the other investors lost $60 million each.

"That was the turning point in my life," Siti Hartati said.

Technically, Siti Hartati Murdaya is still the CEO of the
business group, the business of which includes trading and
contracting, infrastructure and engineering, shoes and apparel,
wood-based products, agribusiness, property, cement and
computers.

She also serves as a member of the Supreme Advisory Council
(DPA) and is actively taking part in Walubi's campaigns for the
Buddhist community in Indonesia and in promoting harmonious
relations between people of different faiths.

Her roles in the DPA and Walubi are not without controversy.
She was widely criticized, even labeled "antireformist" for her
TV appearance last year when she said student demonstrations were
causing anxiety to many mothers around the country.

Her first venture into business was in the 1960s when she
almost single-handedly built a sawmill factory in Semarang. She
then got married to Murdaya Widyawimarta, a trader she met during
the course of running her business.

She moved to Jakarta to follow her husband and raise her
family, leaving the management of the business to her partner.
The company went bankrupt.

She did not regret her decision to put family before business.
"Parents need to know when their children need them and when they
don't. I knew I had taken care of my kids to the best of my
ability. They have grown up to be fine people ... I love them,"
she said of Meta, Prashna, Karuna and OPK, all currently studying
in the United States.

She began building her new business empire with her husband in
1983 and the group expanded to its present size.

But the economic crisis is taking its toll on her business.
From a $1.1 billion turnover in 1997, she expects only between
$700 million to $800 million this year for the entire group.

"The situation is unbelievable these days. I am just lucky, my
group does not have debts it cannot repay," she said.

"It's my karma. I did good. This good shields me from the bad
fate that may become my lot in my next life."

Playing the role of both a social activist and a hardball
player in the business world, Siti believes that it is solely her
religion that helped her grow as, as she puts it, a complete
woman.

The following is an excerpt from a recent interview at her
office.

Question: You came from a fairly well-off family and claimed
to receive all the financial comfort any child could wish for.
When did things start to become difficult?

Answer: I don't remember the exact year... but things between
my mother and father became really bad. They fought all the time.
They separated. I chose to live with my mother. My father, who
had his girlfriend living with him, had a big house and was a
very rich man in Japan. But my mother lived here.

Q: What is your most distinct memory of learning about the
Buddha?

A: When things were not peaceful at home with my mother as well,
my grandfather asked me to live with him and my grandmother. My
grandmother died when I turned 14, and this Bhikku (monk) came
one day and he was performing these rituals for the dead.

I asked what would happen if I died. He said that at some
point I would come back to the world, and would probably come
across people I loved in this life.

I learned about Gautama Buddha's life story around that time,
from a monk. When the monk died, I learned how to control the
process of my mind from his teacher.

The process of the mind is so dynamic. We can get trapped to
committing ourselves to doing something that we should not be
doing. When it becomes really negative, we act on that process.
Killing, stealing, raping ... everything stems from that process.

Q: Why the belief in karma?

A: It's something that happens naturally. When we do something
bad to someone, automatically that person will hate us. That is
karma. If we keep on doing bad, we end up in debt with too many
bad deeds. If it becomes uncontrollable, and we die, we end up
paying for those deeds in our next life.

When did Buddhism get you to act on what you wanted to do with
your wealth?

Once, three or four years ago, I visited my children who were
studying in the U.S. There, I came across a guru who taught me
with greater depth about the Mahayana (a main stream of Buddhism)
and meditation.

With those teachings, I felt, now, where should I go? I was
feeling lonely. I felt that I had to give to the vihara (temple),
the monks and the poor. I worked this way for some time, but I
felt everything was being done without structure.

Nothing that was being done could be done at a quicker pace
and could reach a greater crowd. Every day, I got involved in
social work, but there was no concept.

Q: When did you start organizing your religious and social
activities?

A: About three and a half years ago, there was this person who
came from the Tzu-Chi Buddhist organization in Taiwan. He said he
was finding it difficult to get people in Indonesia to help with
building such an organization here. They invited me to Taiwan.

There, I met Master Chen Yen, and the organization that had
existed only in my dreams until then.

I swiftly became a disciple of this master, who founded and
ran the organization for the last 30 years. I absorbed everything
like a sponge.

I mainly learned the programs of helping starvation victims.
In that one year, I visited Taiwan about eight or nine times.

Q: Some of your employees have said that you are almost fanatic
about relating your activities to a black book, but they are
unaware of its contents. What does this black book contain?

A: (Opening the book, Siti points to her writings). These are the
teachings of the Buddha, which, if I forget, I have to remind
myself again and again.

One of the greatest sins in Buddhism is delusion. Why? It's
like wearing rose-tinted glasses. Everything around you is
terrible, but with those glasses, everything seems fine.

Before you know it, everything around you has deteriorated,
and while others had time to face reality and deal with the
situation, you are caught in it.

It has been said that, among many other things, all your
initial social work was to win the Golkar Party more votes?

Soeharto's family never really liked us. Yes, we knew each
other. Of course, the former first family were supportive of my
religious movement.

When it comes down to voting, then there were only three choices.

There was no way I was voting for the United Development Party
(PPP) as it was dominantly Muslim. People within the Indonesian
Democratic Party (PDI) were always fighting among themselves. So,
that left us with Golkar.

I was invited mainly to attend religious seminars, as the
party considered me the head of the Indonesian Buddhist
Organization.

And I attended. I do not want anybody to think us Buddhists or
Chinese in general as just arrogant businesspeople.

The reason I say the family did not like us is because they
were against us in business, and simply because I never went into
any joint-venture project with them.

Q: It has been said that all this social activity is just to get
more people to convert to Buddhism?

A: Religion is karma. It cannot be forced. If a person wants to
force someone into another religion, but it is not his karma to
enter it, he won't. If he is fated to join, it will happen.

Besides, you think it's easy to take care of the seven million
Buddhists in Indonesia. We don't even have a fully fledged
organization to accommodate more Buddhists.