Soedjatmoko's wise lessons live on today

Soedjatmoko's wise lessons live on today

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Ten years ago today, Indonesia lost one of its
great sons, Soedjatmoko Saleh Mangoendiningrat, or Koko as he was
known by members of his family and those close to him. He died of
cardiac arrest while giving a lecture in Yogyakarta at a research
center founded by Amien Rais.

His friends remember him in many ways: as a diplomat, a
politician, an intellectual, a humanist, a moralist, etc. No
matter how people remember him, I think most look upon him as a
gentle person who, in the words of many of his friends, "would
not even hurt a fly".

I remember Soedjatmoko (Jan. 10, 1922 - Dec. 21, 1989) as a
mentor, a person who guided me in various aspects of my personal
growth. At the beginning of our personal relationship he guided
me in my early attempts to become a good teacher and
educationist. I was obsessed at the time with the idea of
becoming a clinical educationist, capable of designing and
implementing effective and flawless educational procedures. I was
eagerly studying methods of diagnosing learning difficulties,
their related therapeutic methods, and also methods of evaluating
their results, using both oral and written tests and
examinations. Under the guidance of one of my professors, I even
tried to develop a protocol for conducting oral examinations
"scientifically".

One day he asked me what I really wanted to be. I explained
what my ideal was. He paused for a moment, and then asked, "How
many people do you think you can help every time with your
refined methods? Fifteen, 10? Look, Buch (he always called me by
my last name) this country is full of people who badly need
education. There are millions of people who need a basic
grounding in education. As a teacher and educationist you are
facing a gigantic task. Unless we develop the right method of
providing relevant basic education to these people, we will
forever remain a backward country."

"The whole world," he continued, "is moving toward becoming a
learned society. We cannot afford to have a society full of
illiterate people, both literally illiterate and functionally
illiterate. You must change your priorities if you want to be an
educationist who will be noted in our history. Leave those
refined matters of clinical education to others, to your
colleagues who do not have either the interest or the capacity to
grasp the macroissues of our national education. If I know you
well, I think you will do our country a greater service if you
change your way of looking at and pondering our national
education."

This conversation took place in 1963, if I remember correctly.
From that time on, I slowly drifted away from the mainstream way
of looking at and thinking and talking about education. I became
estranged from my colleagues at the teachers training
institutions throughout the country, and also from the American
professors who were then consultants at such institutions. I felt
lonely in my own professional world, and I was gradually
attracted to other fields of academic inquiry. In the meantime,
Koko patiently guided me to canvass the wide range of literature
on the relationship between education and political and economic
development, and also on the cultural foundations of education.

Under his tutelage, I began to realize that if one wants to
think in fundamental terms about education one has to consciously
link it with its political aspects and its cultural foundations.
Only by doing this will one be able to make education part of the
cultural force that shapes the future of a country. Without
consciously linking education to politics and culture, education
will merely become an instrument of the ruling regime, and as
such can easily be abused politically.

At the beginning, I was quite skeptical about his ability to
think and talk meaningfully about education. I told myself, "What
does he know about education? He never studied education in his
entire life, and at best he will be able to discuss it in a
'commonsensical' way." It did not take long for me to realize
that I was wrong. It is true that he never discussed the
technical aspects of education, but he always touched upon the
essence of any educational issue that I brought up. He did this
by exploring the cultural basis of every issue I brought to his
attention.

It was on the basis of such dialogs and discussions that I was
less inclined to look upon Mas Koko -- which was how I always
referred to him -- as a politician. To me he was more a
culturalist. It is true that he had deep thoughts about politics
and political life, but in my opinion his entire attitude about
politics differed vastly from that of other politicians.

According to many people who knew him politically, he had the
capacity to become minister of foreign affairs or minister of
education and culture in any Cabinet in this country. Yet his
political path was such that he never became a minister. The
highest government post he ever held was ambassador to the United
States. And his highest academic post was rector of the United
Nations University in Tokyo.

As far as I can remember, he never grumbled about his
political misfortunes. At one time he told me that he felt
destined to become the Semar -- the regent-adviser to the late
Hamengkubuwono IX. He considered this an honor and his prime
duty. It was bad luck again, I think, that the late
Hamengkubuwono never had the opportunity to govern this country.
This is an indication to me that Soedjatmoko was not a politician
in the ordinary sense of the word. What politician aspires merely
to become a regent-adviser? Most politicians would not be happy
with the post of adviser. What most of them would like to achieve
is a position with real political power; a position with real
power to regulate others.

One of his pieces of advice that I will never forget was how
to guide the younger generations. He said: "You must give them a
dream, and light in them the fire of hope in such a way that they
will continuously chase that dream. You must realize, however,
that you can do this only if you know their language, if you can
communicate with them in their idiom. If you get stuck in the
idiom of your generation, you will never be able to inspire the
young and drive them toward an ideal that will eventually
rejuvenate the nation and the country."

When I began to know Soedjatmoko personally, I was still
living in Bandung. I went to Jakarta every month to deliver
translations to the office of Franklin Publication and to return
books I had borrowed from Soedjatmoko and borrow more books. At
one point he asked me to stay with his family whenever I came to
Jakarta. He let me sleep in the library adjacent to his study. In
this way I could browse through his library and discover books
which would broaden my views about education. Every time I
visited him we always stayed up late into the night talking. In
this way, without realizing it, I borrowed or took many of his
thoughts and applied them to my thinking about education.

Looking at the situation in our country today, I think that
many of his thoughts and ideas are still valid. One example was
his idea that a regional language and culture should not be
taught only to children from the region itself. According to him,
children from each region should be encouraged to study one or
two cultures and languages from other regions. This practice
would foster the feeling of one nation among the younger
generations, and in the long run would generate culture
pluralism and gradually reduce feelings of ethnic fundamentalism.

He was also a strong advocate of interreligious dialogs, which
he was sure would foster the feeling of religious brotherhood and
reduce religious tension. I think various unrest in the country
today could have been prevented if we had been able to generate a
national culture of pluralism reflecting the spirit of our
national motto, Unity in Diversity.

In retrospect, I can say that whatever I have become today is
very much due to the guidance and influence of the late
Soedjatmoko. I think that my decision to join a political party
in 1994 was also the product of a latent cultural force generated
within me by Soedjatmoko. At one time he said to me, "You must
learn how to read the trends in history. We will be able to
benefit from a historical trend only if we have the ability to
read the trend within a history in the making. Successful reform
is always the product of an insightful rendezvous with history."

Back in 1994, even before the Soeharto regime showed any signs
of collapse, I had the feeling that this country could be saved
from total bankruptcy only if we succeed in reviving and
restoring democracy. It was this lesson about "making a
rendezvous with history" that convinced me the existing situation
was indefensible, and that somehow a paramount change was coming.
I still remember vividly how some people avoided me because of
this "dramatic decision" I made.

Thank you, Mas Koko, for giving me the vision and the courage
to follow the vision. Rest in peace, and may God accord you your
rightful place at His side. Amen!

The writer is a member of the House of Representatives from
the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan).