Will Gus Dur keep his presidency?
By Susan Sim
JOMBANG, East Java: For all the erratic, incidental nature of his leadership, two things have always anchored President Abdurrahman Wahid.
These are his ability to inspire the love and admiration of his people, against the historical legacies of former presidents Soeharto and Sukarno, and the sense of destiny bestowed only upon those who straddle both the spiritual and the physical worlds.
Both could crest today, or collide.
If he declares a state of emergency at dusk, as he has threatened to, and the state's highest legislative powers move to sack him -- as they have promised to -- will Indonesian Islam's revered holy leaders come to his defense?
Will his millions of followers, with no earthly tolerance for legal mumbo-jumbo, rise in his name?
Or will the prospect of his own instant political death deter him from pushing the hot button marked "emergency rule" that will trigger the Indonesian equivalent of a political meltdown?
Indonesia and the world remain on tenterhooks, even though some of the answers to these questions should be obvious enough, testimony both to his capricious willfulness and general fear of the legendary Indonesian tolerance and genius for compromise.
Add to that either the awe or incredulity of the mysticism that seems to surround those reared in the pesantren (Islamic boarding school) tradition, like Gus Dur and some of his more resolute followers.
A Javanese pesantren is like a small kingdom, and its kyai, the absolute source of power and authority.
Usually the wealthiest landowners and most politically-aware elites in the rural areas where most of these schools are located, kyai are often the pivotal decision-makers in any Javanese village, their ability to project their influence growing in tandem with the depth of their religious knowledge.
That is the textbook definition, one that keeps village boys flocking to the pesantren at age 13 or 18, to be the santri (students) of an influential kyai, in the hope of some day earning enough merit and wealth to open their own school.
It is a tradition that guides Gus Dur, the scion of Java's most powerful kyai family for most of the 20th century.
He too wants the blessings of the kyai now at the pinnacle of the hierarchy; hence his constant pilgrimages to East Java, to seek affirmation from Kyai Langitan, the current No 1, and to pray at the tombs of dead seers.
But can he borrow their collective authority to shore up his own flagging political legitimacy by, for instance, having 5,000 kyai stand by him in Jakarta on Sunday, as his supporters plan?
To show Indonesians that God is still on his side even though the last time he announced he was lodging a protest with God, he lost what was then his most effective political weapon, the late Attorney-General Baharuddin Lopa, to a mysterious heart attack in the Holy Land?
Yet it is no secret that the only kyai ready to spring to his defense are those whom local journalists have dubbed the "rapid deployment force kyai", the lesser-known teachers hoping to win their 15 minutes of fame by speaking up for him when the heavyweights will not.
The pejabat kyai -- those who hold positions in the 40-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama movement Gus Dur used to head -- mainly still toe the official line: Gus Dur has done no wrong and should not be ousted.
But even the head of NU's East Java branch, Ali Maschan Moesa, finds refuge only in being cryptic when asked how far NU followers are prepared to go to keep their spiritual leader on the throne.
His mantra to every question in a recent interview: "We don't know how angry the people will be if Gus Dur is impeached. There will be trouble, at high cost to Indonesia."
In a sense, he is right. As a relatively young NU official who inherited the post as much for his own learning as because he is eligible as the son of a kyai, he has confided in friends that he cannot control some of the more zealous NU groups.
Such as those grouped under Pesantren Metal in Pasuruan, a halfway house for repentant criminals and convicts whose language of the streets Ali Maschan cannot speak.
Will NU followers like them fight for Gus Dur if he is impeached? "Yes," says Hasyim Wahid, one of the President's brothers, who says he can speak the language of those who understand only coercive power.
"If they believe he's their protector as the pariah of society. And Gus Dur is a political pariah now. They relate to him as underdogs who have to stick together."
Indeed the ones who, it seems, are not sticking too closely by Gus Dur now are his own family, including brothers Hasyim and Salahuddin, and uncle Kyai Yusuf Hasyim, who now runs Pesantren Tebuireng, the famous religious school in Jombang, East Java, founded by Gus Dur's grandfather.
"Gus Dur didn't ask for my support when he decided to be President," the uncle tells The Straits Times at his pesantren in Jombang. "He won't ask for my support now."
NU followers may well feel pride in Gus Dur as President, but many are also disappointed in him. "His acts are difficult to understand," he says, scoffing at how easily he can disprove Gus Dur's warnings of provinces seceding.
God, he adds, teaches all not to hanker for material goods or power. One's fate is best left in His hands.
The family skepticism is telling.
Although his daughters and some favorite nephews now control access to the President, and one or two siblings have gained control of questionable but lucrative businesses, Gus Dur has also alienated many others in the extended pesantren families who can claim some kinship through inter-marriage.
But the NU movement as a whole is not ready to abandon him yet. Not unless they have a better alternative leader to root for.
Yet for all his encouragement of dissent, Gus Dur persists in believing in the existence of a silent majority, out there just waiting to be mustered like lambs into a potent force capable of frightening off 700 lawmakers.
They should have no qualms rooting for him because he has spent all of his presidency trying to score points with them.
Why else would he have made fighting the corruption and nepotism of Soeharto's New Order the main, if not the only, plank of his government?
For all their flaws, the leaders before Gus Dur -- Sukarno and Soeharto -- built up the Indonesian nation and state.
Almost as if he feels dwarfed by their achievements, and the hold they still have on the national psyche, Gus Dur has been cloaking himself in the mantle of Sukarno while portraying his enemies as the dark forces of Soeharto Inc.
It is an ironic montage: He steals the legacy of his rival, Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri, daughter of Sukarno, and lumps her with all those parasitic elites who grew fat under Soeharto's largess and now seek to impeach him under the pretext of democratic engagement because he has his Attorney-General after them.
Still, the picture somehow sells among Indonesians of all classes -- their veneration of their charismatic founding president and their loathing of the man who stole his throne, yet gave them some 20 years of unprecedented, if ruthless, stability, are inseparable.
Gus Dur's legacy will be that of a transitional presidency. But to be successful, he needs not only to help Indonesians transcend what everyone calls the "trauma of the past", but also show them there is a better way ahead.
He cannot merely impose on the goodwill of his people, on their sense of fair play, and hope that common sense will prevail.
With the messy transition he has bequeathed them, it is hard to expect the mythic millions to wage a class war for him that could destroy their own livelihood. Especially when it is obvious that having the freedom to whine and protest changes nothing.
The same old corrupt mayors and district chiefs of Soeharto Inc still control the levers of local government throughout much of Indonesia.
Is it any wonder many outside Jakarta consider national politics irrelevant?
The efforts of their President to evade political death by hook or by crook impress them not. "Anybody can be President," is the common response of Indonesians.
What will Gus Dur have achieved by dusk today if he declares a suspended emergency rule he cannot hope to ever impose?
Or if, as his brother Hasyim predicts, he decides to go banter with his favorite comedians at the appointed hour while 700 legislators sit in suspense in Parliament building?
The furor in either case is inevitable. And the countdown to Aug. 1 continues.
The rest of Indonesia will lumber on, oblivious.
The Straits Times / Asia News Network