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.