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).