Klik Untuk Mendengarkan dan menyimak Syair Thoriqoh Tanpo Waton Gus Dur 1.NGAWITI INGSUN NGLARAS SYI’IRAN # KELAWAN MUJI MARANG PENGERAN KANG PARING ROHMAT LAN KENIKMATAN # RINO WENGINE TANPO PITUNGAN (saya mengawali tembang syiir + dengan memuji kepada Tuhan) (yang telah memberi rahmat dan kenikmatan + siang dan malam tanpa terhitung)
2.DUH BOLO KONCO PRIO WANITO # AJO MUNG NGAJI SYARE’AT BLOKO GUR PINTER DONGENG NULIS LAN MOCO # TEMBE MBURINE BAKAL SANGSORO (Duhai rekan semua pria dan wanita + janganlah cuma belajar ilmu syare'at saja) (cuma pintar mendongeng, menulis dan membaca + nanti akhirnya akan sengsara)
3.AKEH KANG APAL QURAN HADITSE # SENENG NGAFIRKE MARANG LIYANE KAFIRE DEWE DAK DIGATEKKE # YEN ISIH KOTOR ATI AKALE (Banyak yang hafal ayat qur'an dan hadits + tapi suka mengkafirkan orang lain) (kafirnya sendiri tak pernah diperhatikan + begitulah kalau masih kotor hati dan akalnya)
4.GAMPANG KABUJUK NAFSU ANGKORO # ING PEPAHESE GEBYARE DUNYO IRI LAN MERI SUGIHE TONGGO # MULO ATINE PETENG LAN NISTO (dia mudah terbujuk nafsu angkara + yang menjadi perhiasan keindahan dunia) (suka iri dan dengan terhadap kekayaan tetangga + maka hatinya menjadi gelap dan nista)
5.AYO SUDULUR JO NGLALEKAKE # WAJIBE NGAJI SAK PRANATANE NGGO NGANDELAKE IMAN TAUHIDE # BAGUSE SANGU MULYO MATINE (marilah saudara2, jangan sampe melupakan + kewajiban mengaji dan tata caranya) (untuk menebalkan iman dan tauhid + bekal yang indah dan akan mulia saat meninggal)
6.KANG ARAN SHOLEH BAGUS ATINE # KERONO MAPAN SARI NGILMUNE LAKU THORIQOT LAN MA’RIFATE # UGO HAKEKOT MANJING RASANE (yang dinamakan sholeh itu baik hatinya + karena sudah mapan sari ilmunya) (menempuh thariqot dan ma'rifat + serta hakekat masuk ke alam rasa)
7.ALQUR’AN QODIM WAHYU MINULYO # TANPO TINULIS ISO DIWOCO IKU WEJANGAN GURU WASKITO # DEN TANCEPAKE ING NJERO DODO (al-Qur'an itu qodim wahyu yg termuliakan + tanpa ditulispun akan bisa dibaca) (itu adalah petunjuk guru yg waskita + yang di tancapkan ke dalam dada)
8.KUMANTHIL ATI LAN PIKIRAN # MRASUK ING BADAN KABEH JEROAN MUKJIZAT ROSUL DADI PEDOMAN # MINONGKO DALAN MANJINGE IMAN (melekat pada hati dan pikiran + merasuk ke badan dan semua di dalam) (mukjizat rasul menjadi pedoman + menjadi jalan masuknya iman)
9.KELAWAN ALLOH KANG MOHO SUCI # KUDU RANGKULAN RINO LAN WENGI DITIRAKATI DIRIYADHOHI # DZIKIR LAN SULUK JO NGANTI LALI (dengan Alloh Yang Maha Suci + kita harus berangkulan siang dan malam) (ditirakati, diriyadlohi + dzikir dan suluk jangan sampai dilupakan)
10.URIPE AYEM RUMONGSO AMAN # DUNUNGE ROSO TONDO YEN IMAN SABAR NARIMO NAJAN PAS-PASAN # KABEH TINAKDIR SAKING PENGERAN (hidup akan tentram dan merasa aman + tempat rasa sebagai tanda iman) (sabar menerima walaupun pas-pasan + semua ditakdirkan oleh Tuhan)
11.KELAWAN KONCO DULUR LAN TONGGO # KANG PODO RUKUN OJO GAE SIO IKU SUNAHE RASUL KANG MULYO # NABI MUHAMMAD PANUTAN KITO (dengan rekan, saudara dan tetangga + haruslah kita rukun jangan menyia-nyiakan) (itu sunnah rasul yang mulia + Nabi Muhammad yang menjadi panutan)
12.AYO NGLAKONI SEKABEHANE # ALLOH KANG BAKAL NGANGKAT DRAJATE SENAJAN ASHOR TOTO DHOHIRE # ANANGING MULYO MAQOM DRAJATE (mari menjalankan semuanya + Alloh yang akan mengangkat derajat) (meskipun lahirnya terlihat rendah + tetapi tingkat derajatnya sangat mulia)
13.LAMUN PASLASTRO ING PUNGKASANE # ORA KESASAR ROH LAN SUKMANE DEN GADANG ALLOH SWARGO MANGGONE # UTUH MAYYITE UGO ULESE (kalaupun nanti meninggal di akhirnya + ruh dan sukmanya tidak akan tersesat) (akan diandalkan oleh Alloh sebagai penghuni surga + mayyit dan kafannya akan tetap utuh)
First there was the shock and disbelief. We heard the news of Gus Dur's passing away from two telephone calls my friends received as we were heading home from a routine work day. We immediately swung the car around in the direction of the Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital in the absence of immediate information as to where his whereabouts. It turned out we were correct in our guess. So often had we rushed to his hospital bed in recent years and so often had we been greeted by Gus Dur's infallible wit, that I was hoping against hope the bad news was a mistake.
Unfortunately it was true, and as I stepped down from the car we were besieged by reporters and klieg lights of television and photographers. For the first time I was uncomfortable with the media attention. This was a private moment, I thought, and I had nothing to say. Several black-dressed guards came out from nowhere and escorted us through endless hallways until we were rushed into the small bed with a scene that will be forever etched in my memory. Gus Dur in a shapeless mass under deep cover, his family devastated by the family tragedy. Four of the staunchest women totally helpless with the loss of the man who issues and accepts love so easily and elegantly.
Then there was the sadness as the realization crept in. We had to find within us acceptance of the inevitable, and that was made easier by looking at the big picture. Gus Dur often says that length of life is irrelevant compared to the continuity of mission. I began to realize it is very true, as he is gone but he is leaving us with a true legacy
He had less than two years in the office of presidency when he was ousted by a political cabal. Had he been more realistic in his politics, he could easily have survived a full term or more. But I witnessed how uncompromising he was. His position is so clear that it did not take much of an effort for me to support his consistently. I personally listened to overtures from Golkar who had what they called a "win-win" situation whereby GD would maintain the presidency but share power with political parties. But Gus Dur explained that compromise would make all his efforts pointless. His quest for pluralism, democracy and clean government urgently calls for consistency. That is the path that he chose, respecting the people’s call for clarity above expediency.
President Abdurrahman Wahid had an unsuccessful presidency but he has successfully established national values of tolerance and equality that today define democracy in Indonesia. His values have lived on. The things we are praised now for being. The pluralism that has become the showcase items for Indonesia attracts laudatory comments from all over the world. he notion that Chinese descendants and other minorities are equal, their holidays being celebrated, and original names no longer required to be substituted by those acceptable to the majority. the religious tolerance that bring us fantastic Christmas carols in the malls of a predominantly Muslim country are all the fruits grown from seedlings Gus Dur planted in his presidency of 1999-2001.
It became clear as President Wahid faced a recalcitrant parliament and big political money to resist tough anti-corruption measures that Gus Dur faced a sharp choice in mid-2001. Work on a political coalition to sustain his presidency, or stay on track with true grit and keep the reformist agenda clear. The rest is history. In the face of forbidding political odds the president replaced Marzuki Darusman with Baharuddin Lopa as Attorney General. Darusman is a well-regarded man with more than a modicum of reformist intent, but the cabinet needed to speed up the arrest of major corrupt people. Baharuddin Lopa was chosen, a man as fearless as was clean. The nation was shocked when Lopa died in a trip overseas less than a month in the top. He was replaced by Marsillam Simandjuntak, favored since the beginning as a tough reformer with top qualifications. He served an equally short time, a little more than a month, as Gus Dur’s political defenses crumbled when it was clear he would not cave in to demands for compromise.
The presidential term was just a planting season. The seeds had been cultivated long before that, when he exercised his values on a complex society using leadership positions less prominent than the presidency. When he was prematurely terminated from office he had already laid the strategic foundations for a pluralistic democracy. Lest we degrade ourselves into a personality cult, let it be emphasized in a resounding manner that the values Gus Dur stands for are embedded in our society. They are alive but dormant because of first of all suppression by previous regimes, and as that regime imploded an uncertainty among the good people still kept us from coming out with our true values, Pluralism, democracy, tolerance are the way of life of the majority in our society. They had been forced into inactive mode because of the compelling force of political pressure. But it took Gus Dur to bring those values out of deep freeze. Or in the words that Gus Dur used on the back cover of my book "No Regrets": We don't want a president like Gus Dur. We want Gus Dur as president.
People tend to focus on the political turbulence of Gus Dur's presidency to the degree that many miss the real story, which I call without hyperbole the story of Indonesia's awakening. But the results speak for themselves. Gus Dur gave up his presidency for the people, staying true to the moniker ‘People’s Presidency.’ He gave up the presidency for the ideals. He gave a life to his nation.
Wimar Witoelar is the writer of "No Regrets",
a personal account of his days as spokesman for President Abdurrahman Wahid
First there was the shock and disbelief. We heard the news of Gus Dur's passing away from two telephone calls my friends received as we were heading home from a routine work day. We immediately swung the car around in the direction of the Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital in the absence of immediate information as to where his whereabouts. It turned out we were correct in our guess. So often had we rushed to his hospital bed in recent years and so often had we been greeted by Gus Dur's infallible wit, that I was hoping against hope the bad news was a mistake.
Unfortunately it was true, and as I stepped down from the car we were besieged by reporters and klieg lights of television and photographers. For the first time I was uncomfortable with the media attention. This was a private moment, I thought, and I had nothing to say. Several black-dressed guards came out from nowhere and escorted us through endless hallways until we were rushed into the small bed with a scene that will be forever etched in my memory. Gus Dur in a shapeless mass under deep cover, his family devastated by the family tragedy. Four of the staunchest women totally helpless with the loss of the man who issues and accepts love so easily and elegantly.
Then there was the sadness as the realization crept in. We had to find within us acceptance of the inevitable, and that was made easier by looking at the big picture. Gus Dur often says that length of life is irrelevant compared to the continuity of mission. I began to realize it is very true, as he is gone but he is leaving us with a true legacy
He had less than two years in the office of presidency when he was ousted by a political cabal. Had he been more realistic in his politics, he could easily have survived a full term or more. But I witnessed how uncompromising he was. His position is so clear that it did not take much of an effort for me to support his consistently. I personally listened to overtures from Golkar who had what they called a "win-win" situation whereby GD would maintain the presidency but share power with political parties. But Gus Dur explained that compromise would make all his efforts pointless. His quest for pluralism, democracy and clean government urgently calls for consistency. That is the path that he chose, respecting the people’s call for clarity above expediency.
President Abdurrahman Wahid had an unsuccessful presidency but he has successfully established national values of tolerance and equality that today define democracy in Indonesia. His values have lived on. The things we are praised now for being. The pluralism that has become the showcase items for Indonesia attracts laudatory comments from all over the world. he notion that Chinese descendants and other minorities are equal, their holidays being celebrated, and original names no longer required to be substituted by those acceptable to the majority. the religious tolerance that bring us fantastic Christmas carols in the malls of a predominantly Muslim country are all the fruits grown from seedlings Gus Dur planted in his presidency of 1999-2001.
It became clear as President Wahid faced a recalcitrant parliament and big political money to resist tough anti-corruption measures that Gus Dur faced a sharp choice in mid-2001. Work on a political coalition to sustain his presidency, or stay on track with true grit and keep the reformist agenda clear. The rest is history. In the face of forbidding political odds the president replaced Marzuki Darusman with Baharuddin Lopa as Attorney General. Darusman is a well-regarded man with more than a modicum of reformist intent, but the cabinet needed to speed up the arrest of major corrupt people. Baharuddin Lopa was chosen, a man as fearless as was clean. The nation was shocked when Lopa died in a trip overseas less than a month in the top. He was replaced by Marsillam Simandjuntak, favored since the beginning as a tough reformer with top qualifications. He served an equally short time, a little more than a month, as Gus Dur’s political defenses crumbled when it was clear he would not cave in to demands for compromise.
The presidential term was just a planting season. The seeds had been cultivated long before that, when he exercised his values on a complex society using leadership positions less prominent than the presidency. When he was prematurely terminated from office he had already laid the strategic foundations for a pluralistic democracy. Lest we degrade ourselves into a personality cult, let it be emphasized in a resounding manner that the values Gus Dur stands for are embedded in our society. They are alive but dormant because of first of all suppression by previous regimes, and as that regime imploded an uncertainty among the good people still kept us from coming out with our true values, Pluralism, democracy, tolerance are the way of life of the majority in our society. They had been forced into inactive mode because of the compelling force of political pressure. But it took Gus Dur to bring those values out of deep freeze. Or in the words that Gus Dur used on the back cover of my book "No Regrets": We don't want a president like Gus Dur. We want Gus Dur as president.
People tend to focus on the political turbulence of Gus Dur's presidency to the degree that many miss the real story, which I call without hyperbole the story of Indonesia's awakening. But the results speak for themselves. Gus Dur gave up his presidency for the people, staying true to the moniker ‘People’s Presidency.’ He gave up the presidency for the ideals. He gave a life to his nation.
Different ... Gus Dur, nearly blind and so casual at a critical moment, will be buried in his hometown of Jombang. Photo: Reuters, AP
Abdurrahman Wahid steered Indonesia towards a democratic culture, recalls Lindsay Murdoch.
IT WAS a bizarre moment in Indonesia's history.
More than 100 army tanks had surrounded the presidential palace where the embattled president, Abdurrahman Wahid, was attempting to declare a state of emergency and suspend parliament, ignoring the fact that MPs had already voted to oust him from office.
As tensions rose on that steamy July night in 2001, Mr Wahid suddenly appeared under the arches on the palace's front balcony wearing shorts and sandals. He waved to a small crowd of supporters before aides persuaded him to return inside.
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Jakarta's conservative political elite were shocked: never had they expected an Islamic figure, let alone a president, to be so under-dressed in public.
Mr Wahid died on Wednesday night in a Jakarta hospital from complications of heart and kidney disorders after a long illness. He was 69.
The Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has declared a week of mourning and was to preside at a state funeral yesterday for Mr Wahid, who was fondly known as Gus Dur.
Mr Wahid, Indonesia's first democratically elected president, generated many controversies and stories in post-Soeharto Indonesia as cabinet ministers and presidential staff came and went and the government reeled from one crisis to another.
Taking office as Indonesia appeared to be on the brink of chaos, the nearly blind Mr Wahid, who had already suffered two strokes, pursued a punishing schedule of meetings across Indonesian and on frequent overseas trips.
He struggled to wind back the military's role in politics and to decentralise power to Indonesia's far flung provinces, including Irian Jaya, which he renamed Papua.
In one of his first interviews as president, Mr Wahid at times seemed unable to go on, as if he was too weary to speak. But as the Herald began to suspect he had fallen asleep behind the wooden table where he spent most of his days while in Jakarta, he suddenly appeared to awaken and answered questions with sharpness and good humour.
His term ended with his impeachment for alleged corruption for misappropriation of state funds, but he was never tried on criminal charges.
Mr Wahid claimed his impeachment was politically motivated by Soeharto-era figures who wanted to return to power.
While he was seen by many people as egotistical and self-absorbed, those close to him saw a generous and witty man who enjoyed being irreverent about Islamic traditions, even though he led Nahdlatul Ulama, a rural-based Islamic organisation with 40 million members.
He spoke out on behalf of the oppressed, including the country's Chinese and Christian minorities.
He went to East Timor to apologise for Indonesia's past crimes there.
Mr Wahid was a long-time supporter of Australia despite what he regarded as the Howard government's meddling role in East Timor gaining its independence.
In recent years he founded the Wahid Institute, which promotes moderate Islam and is headed by Yenni Wahid, one of three daughters and a former Herald journalist.
Ms Wahid, who won a Walkley Award in 1999 for her role in covering East Timor's vote for independence, collapsed after his death and left the hospital in a wheelchair, Jakarta media reported. Despite ill health, one of Mr Wahid's last public engagements was to see Yenni marry an influential political figure in October.
Wrapped in green, the traditional colour of Islam, Mr Wahid's body was flown yesterday to Jombang, his hometown in East Java, for the state funeral.
Lindsay Murdoch was the Herald correspondent in Jakarta when Abdurrahman Wahid ruled Indonesia.
The death of Abdurrahman Wahid, widely known as Gus Dur, on 30 December 2009, has led to an outpouring of emotion, both within Indonesia and abroad. The grief at his passing has been most evident within Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the organisation he led for 15 years. Indeed, Gus Dur was NU’s most famous and controversial son. He had been its leading intellectual and reformer since the 1970s and had carved out a role as an advocate of change in national affairs that was without precedent in NU history. The pinnacle of his career, at least in terms of formal office, was his election as president of Indonesia in 1999, the only NU person to become head of state. Many in NU’s grassroots regarded him as a wali, a saint who was blessed by God and was closer to Him than normal mortals, and who possessed special powers of knowledge and insight. His funeral ceremony was attended by many thousands of grief-stricken NU members and within hours of his burial his grave had become a site of pilgrimage for his followers.
Judging by the many obituaries written by scholars and journalists since his death, NU people were not the only ones to cast Gus Dur in saintly terms. Understandably, obituarists have focused glowingly on the many achievements of his life and carefully refrained from touching on his shortcomings. They have applauded his role in promoting interfaith dialogue, political reform, human rights, religious liberalism and the arts. Some have, rather creatively, gone so far as to extol the successes of his presidency. Long-term admirers of Gus Dur, as well as many of his erstwhile detractors, have joined in proposing that he be honoured as a ‘national hero’, an initiative warmly welcomed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his government.
But amid all the superlatives and hagiography, there should also be a place for balanced reflection on Gus Dur’s life. Every public figure has failings and failures, as well as virtues and victories. Serious discussion of Gus Dur’s role is only possible if both positives and negatives are considered. He was unquestionably an outstanding figure in contemporary Indonesia, who exerted beneficial influence on many aspects of his nation’s life. But he was no saint. For all that he achieved in his rich and eventful life, he was also capable of reckless, wilful and unforgiving behaviour, which at times proved harmful to Indonesia and his beloved NU community, and which also sat oddly with the high-minded principles that he espoused.
Gus Dur’s public life was divided into two distinct periods, with the late 1990s as the watershed. There was a marked changed in his personality and outlook between the two periods, to which the strokes that he suffered in 1998 contributed heavily. It was in the earlier period that Gus Dur made his greatest mark and the latter period was one of misadventure, calamity and forsaking previous ideals.
Early prominence
Gus Dur was born in 1940 into East Java’s most powerful and prestigious family of traditional religious scholars. His grandfather, Hasyim Asy’ari, was the principal founder of NU, and his father, Wahid Hasyim, a highly respected minister in numerous governments of the late 1940s and early 1950s, before dying in a car accident in 1953. The then 12 year old Abdurrahman survived the accident unhurt but watched in distress the failed efforts to save his father’s life. He had the privileged education of a prominent ‘gus’ (the title given to sons of Islamic scholars), attending several of the best Islamic boarding schools in Java and receiving special tuition from senior teachers. Somewhat less commonly, he was also sent to state schools for a general education.
Gus Dur long admired Israel and was a member of Shimon Peres Center
for Peace
Greg Barton
Gus Dur had a sharp but restless intellect. He could quickly master difficult subjects in which he was interested but often neglected topics that he found mundane. His teachers, both in state and religious schools would frequently tell his family that he was a gifted child who lacked consistency and application. These would turn out to be hallmarks of his career: brilliance combined with errancy. He won a scholarship to al-Azhar, that most famous of Islamic universities, in Cairo in 1963, but by his own admission, he spent more time in cinemas and at the soccer than he did at lectures. He failed to complete his bachelor course there but eventually graduated in Arabic Studies from Baghdad University in 1970 and returned to Indonesia the following year.
Gus Dur began making his reputation as an intellectual and a religious and political reformer from the early 1970s. He became a popular columnist in print media Kompas, Tempo and Sinar Harapan. The sheer diversity of topics and approaches in these writings is remarkable. He could range with ease across historical, cultural, social, religious or sporting themes. His writing was always entertaining and thought-provoking, and at its best, utterly memorable. I recall one article that began as an historical account of the Abbasid caliphate in the eight and ninth centuries but turned into criticism of contemporary Muslims who regarded non-Islamic cultures as a threat. He argued that the greatness of the Abbasids lay in their embracing of other sources of learning and culture and thus he saw them as beacons of Islamic inclusiveness. His point was that Islam was at its best when it was open-minded and pluralistic. Aside from his writings, he also became active in NGO, intellectual and cultural circles. He possessed excellent English and Arabic and was often invited to speak at international seminars and conferences, whether in Indonesia or abroad.
Gus Dur also rose to prominence within NU, though he was never far from controversy. Soon after being made one of the secretaries of NU’s Religious Council in the late 1970s, he caused anger among conservative scholars by proposing that ‘tolerance’ become the sixth pillar of Islam. Many senior figures in NU at this time were ambivalent about Gus Dur. They were impressed by his creative mind and growing public stature and were also respectful of his blue-blood pedigree, but they were unsettled by his irreverence and unpredictability. Despite these misgivings, much of NU’s elite backed Gus Dur and other young activists in the early 1980s in their efforts to reform the organisation. Gus Dur was elected chairperson of the NU Central Board in 1984, a position he would hold till 1999. Under his leadership, NU withdrew from party politics and concentrated on broader community outreach and development. While Gus Dur was not the sole architect of this process, he was its public face and most eloquent advocate. He helped to transform NU from an inward-looking, conservative and politically stagnant organisation into a more progressive, intellectually open and strategically flexible movement.
Gus Dur was much more than an NU leader – he was one of the most articulate and daring proponents of liberal change in Indonesian politics and society
But Gus Dur was much more than an NU leader. Particularly in the 1980s and early 1990s, he was one the most articulate and daring proponents of liberal change in Indonesian politics and society. He tirelessly championed such causes as democratisation, human rights, religious tolerance, gender equality and free cultural expression. While he lacked the patience and discipline to write extended treatises (unlike his fellow reform-minded Muslim intellectual, Nurcholish Madjid), he understood better than most the impact of a pithy public statement or symbolic gesture in shaping community attitudes. For example, in the name of supporting Middle East peace, he travelled to Israel in 1994 to attend the signing of Jewish state’s treaty with Jordan, an act condemned by Indonesian Islamists. He demonstrated his commitment to religious pluralism by giving speeches in non-Muslim places of worship and sending NU paramilitary units to defend churches at risk of attack from vigilantes. He often spoke up when many other Muslim reformers thought it wiser to remain quiet, such as in 1990 when rampaging Muslim students ransacked the office of Monitor magazine after the editor had placed the Prophet Muhammad below himself on a popularity survey. Gus Dur denounced the students, saying they should use their minds, not their muscles, to express their grievances, and he openly criticised the regime’s later prosecution of the editor.
This characteristic outspokenness sometimes bordered on foolhardiness. Once, he described Suharto as ‘stupid’ in an interview with a foreign journalist. Before publishing the interview, the journalist rang Gus Dur to double check that he could include the word, and was breezily told: ‘Yes, of course. It’s about time someone said this!’ (Suharto was infuriated by the remark and almost succeeded in removing Gus Dur as NU chairperson in 1994.) Most of the time, though, Gus Dur was politically savvy in his relations with the regime. His election as NU chairperson in 1984 was supported by Suharto, and Gus Dur was, more often than not, wary of alienating the president. He accepted Suharto’s nomination of him to the People’s Consultative Assembly in 1988, even though it violated NU’s guidelines on political neutrality, and he made sure that NU leaders proved helpful to Golkar’s electoral interests. He once explained to me that he was involved in a ‘game of give and take’ with the regime: ‘I give it some of what it wants and this gives me space to push for reform.’
Gus Dur’s public persona as a tolerant, good-natured leader did not always reflect his behind-the-scenes behaviour during the 1980s and early 1990s. Many who worked with him on a regular basis found him difficult and frustrating. Particularly as NU chairperson, he was little interested in administration or due process and frequently made arbitrary or impulsive decisions. This especially irked those who had supported his rise to power and who wanted NU to become a modern, efficient organisation that provided reliable services to its millions of members. By the early 1990s, many of his erstwhile allies had either fallen out with him or quietly distanced themselves from his circle. Some found to their cost that Gus Dur could be a hardhearted adversary. Several NU executive members who crossed him in the 1980s were later subjected to his often withering pejorative humour and his penchant for calumnising opponents. He also frequently made outlandish claims against conservative Muslims, especially those holding strongly Islamist views, which he equated with sectarianism and fundamentalism. Indeed, he showed no tolerance for those whom he saw as intolerant, regularly vilifying them with claims that they encouraged religious violence and conspired against Indonesia’s secular political system.
The decline
From the mid 1990s, Gus Dur became more erratic and irascible. He flabbergasted his fellow NU leaders by tacitly endorsing Suharto’s daughter, Tutut, in the run up to 1997 election campaign and sharply censured younger NU activists who criticised his decision. He also admitted to his inner circle various unsavoury characters whom NU colleagues suspected were manipulating him. The two strokes that he suffered in January and September 1998 exacerbated his physical and mental decline. His eyesight, which had been deteriorating for many years, was now lost, though he continued to assert that he retained some vision and that various miracle treatments abroad would fully restore his sight. He had greatly reduced mobility and his temperament and intellectual functioning seemed impaired. He was much quicker to anger and his rebukes much harsher than before. His powers of oratory were also diminished; a fine, often uplifting speaker prior to 1998, his post-stroke addresses tended to be rambling and elliptical. Most notable of all was an unrestrained ambition and particularly a burning desire to become president.
The depth of Gus Dur’s determination was apparent in early 1999 when he began systematically undermining his close friend, Megawati Sukarnoputri, who was the presidential frontrunner. Echoing the objections of Islamist groups, he repeatedly told the press that the Muslim community, including his own NU members, would not accept a female president. He also regularly derided Megawati as lacking the intelligence and energy to be a good president, attacks which she regarded as outright betrayal. Women’s groups were shocked to see Gus Dur, a long-time advocate of gender rights within Islam, using such arguments. In the run-up to the presidential election in the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), Gus Dur campaigned constantly to stitch together a coalition capable of delivering majority support. He cultivated many Islamists and groups associated with the former regime he had previously criticised, promising them rewards should he be elected. It was, in one way, skilful and wily politics, but in another way contrary to many of the principles that he had long championed. He eventually defeated Megawati by 373 to 313 votes.
One senior diplomat emerged from a meeting with Gus Dur and told his staff he had ‘expected to meet Indonesia’s Nelson Mandela but instead had met a gossip monger’
Gus Dur’s presidency was chaotic. He began sacking ministers within months of taking office and would eventually replace 26 ministers in 21 months. Sometimes the manner of ministerial dismissals seemed as if it had been scripted by Monty Python. For example, he announced one afternoon in early February 2000 that General Wiranto was to be sacked as Defence Minister. He then reversed the decision later that evening, only to fire Wiranto again at the end of the month. Laksamana Sukardi and Jusuf Kalla were accused of corruption and removed from their portfolios without any evidence ever being produced against them. He routinely ridiculed his vice president Megawati in public and in formal meetings. Official visitors to the palace were often regaled with unflattering accounts of Megawati’s physical appearance or embarrassing aspects of her personal life – many of which would quickly make their way back to the vice president. One senior diplomat emerged from a meeting with Gus Dur and told his staff he had ‘expected to meet Indonesia’s Nelson Mandela but instead had met a gossip monger.’
Gus Dur’s approach to policy making was similarly disordered. He would often fall asleep during briefings and cabinet meetings and frequently forgot or reversed on a whim decisions previously made with ministers. He would regularly make pronouncements on the basis of information fed to him by unreliable friends and associates, even when this was diametrically opposed to official advice. His lack of discipline extended to his overseas visits. He quickly became the most travelled president in Indonesian history, making some 30 trips abroad, most of which yielded no discernable benefit. (Curtis Levi’s Midnight in Jakarta documentary captures the sometimes hilariously absurd aspects of Gus Dur’s peregrinations.) This pattern of leadership had a debilitating effect on the entire process of government.
Gus Dur with his daughter, Yenny
Greg Barton
Perhaps the most reprehensible part of Gus Dur’s presidency was the undemocratic measures he used to intimidate political foes and shore up his incumbency. He repeatedly warned his opponents that he would mobilise millions of NU members on to the streets of Jakarta in support of his presidency and was reluctant to condemn thuggish behaviour by NU activists towards his perceived opponents, particularly in modernist Muslim organisations such as Muhammadiyah. Almost his last decision as president on 22 July 2001 was to issue a presidential decree freezing parliament and the MPR in a bid to thwart moves to remove him. Most legal experts regarded the decree as unconstitutional. It was testimony to his depleted authority that the police and the armed forces disregarded his orders, as did most of the political elite. When the MPR dismissed him the next day, in a final act of self-inflicted indignity, he refused to vacate the palace, claiming his dismissal had been illegal. He was eventually persuaded by family and friends to leave several days later.
Gus Dur achievements as president were slight. Parliament became so antagonised by his administration that few important bills were passed; many of the legislative initiatives for which Gus Dur is given credit actually had their origins in the preceding Habibie presidency. He was magnanimous in his behaviour towards the East Timorese, and bravely apologised for Indonesian human rights abuses, fully aware this would be condemned by nationalists and the military at home. He also spoke out against the stigmatisation of former members of the Communist Party and their families and sought to lift restrictions upon them, despite fierce opposition from within the military and Islamic groups, and restored religious and cultural rights to the Chinese, including removing the ban on Confucianism. His sympathy for Papuan and Acehnese grievances and willingness to discuss concessions constituted an equally welcome change from the inflexibility of previous governments, though ultimately, he proved unable to furnish a framework for systematically addressing demands for greater autonomy.
The legacy
Embittered and defiant, Gus Dur spent much of the remaining eight years of his life fighting unedifying political battles. He sought to contest the 2004 presidential elections but fell foul of newly introduced and discriminatory health requirements that effectively excluded blind or physically disabled candidates. He increasingly came to treat the party that he had helped to found, the National Awakening Party (PKB), as a personal fiefdom, sacking or marginalising all who opposed him, freezing branches that he regarded as disloyal and intervening constantly in internal party decision making to ensure that favoured supporters won strategic positions or gained nomination to legislative seats in NU strongholds. Having dismissed three successive chairmen, he even went so far as to appoint his daughter, Yenny, as secretary general, despite her having no administrative experience. His actions were hard to square with his earlier denunciation of nepotistic and autocratic leadership cultures in NU. By the time of his death, he had left PKB a broken party, with many of its most talented cadres driven out and its electoral support languishing below 5 per cent. For a man who had sought to make the NU community into a bastion of democratic activity, Gus Dur’s leadership of PKB had proved an abject failure.
How, then, should we judge Gus Dur’s contribution to Indonesian life? It is tempting, so close to his death, to be generous and only acknowledge what a unique, liberal-minded, charming and iconoclastic figure he was. Equally at home in a traditional Islamic boarding school discussing medieval law texts in Arabic or speaking in English at an international conference on transformative Islam or human rights, he was one of the few Muslim intellectuals who was able to straddle different worlds with ease and have an impact in both. He changed the orientation and self-perception of NU, Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, and gave momentum and intellectual acuity to efforts to democratise and liberalise Indonesia during the Suharto years. He also enriched cultural and social discourses with his championing of visual and literary arts. But the final chapters of his career from the late 1990s have a tinge of tragedy about them. Ill health impaired his faculties and judgment, perhaps inducing him to dispense with ethical constraints in pursuit of the presidency. It also meant that he was far less capable of being a successful president than might have been the case if elected in the early 1990s. His failures as president and in the PKB were a regrettable end to a career that had, for the most part, been built on optimism, decency and the serving of public good.
Greg Fealy (greg.fealy@anu.edu.au) is a senior lecturer and fellow in the College of Asia and the Pacific at The Australian National University.
WHATEVER the time or place, Abdurrahman Wahid—Gus Dur, as everyone fondly called him—had a joke to tell. About his predecessors as Indonesia’s president: “Sukarno was mad about sex, Suharto was mad about money, Habibie was mad about technology, but me? I’m just mad!” About his removal from the presidency in 2001, when he was almost blind: “I need help to step up, let alone step down.” About losing power: “It’s nothing. I regret more that I lost 27 recordings of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.”
Visiting Tokyo, he was delighted when the prime minister congratulated him on his “erection”. For a Muslim ulama, or priest-scholar, his appetite for smut was remarkable. He had naughty jokes on his website, and was once reported to the police by conservative clerics for emphasising the raunchier bits of the Koran.
Joking was essential, he said, for a healthy mind. Villagers in Jombang in East Java remembered him, as a boy, tied to the flagpole in the front yard for some jest that had gone too far. Visitors to the house would find their shoelaces surreptitiously knotted together. Later on, it was sometimes hard to tell whether he was larking round or serious: as a narcoleptic, he would often lull journalists into a snooze and then snap to, razor-sharp, with the answer to their questions. Joking got him through the rigours of pesantren, rural Muslim boarding school, and certainly through the turmoil of his 21 months as president from 1999 to 2001. At the end, when his aides tried to restrain him, “It has affected me,” he complained. “Starting tomorrow, I will start telling jokes again.”
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Indonesia: Strike two against WahidMay 3rd 2001
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Indonesia
Abdurrahman Wahid
The drunken master
His eccentricity could be infuriating. But it usually hid a serious purpose. In sprawling Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, cramped under authoritarian rule for most of its existence, Mr Wahid was committed to pluralism, liberalism, democracy and tolerance. He promoted these principles in his columns in Prisma, Tempo and Kompas. More remarkably, he believed that they were also fundamental to his religion. “All too many Muslims”, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2005, “fail to grasp Islam.” “Right Islam” was not fanatical. It was tolerant, open and fair.
In time the NU, with its 40m members, became his own power base. He reformed it, as well as removing it, in 1984, from party politics, in order to focus its energies on raising the pesantren to the level of secular schools. Though a deep believer in mysticism and the spirit world, secularism never offended him. Selamat pagi, “Good morning”, did as well for him as the believer’s assalamu alaykum; both, as he pointed out, meant “Peace be to you”. He accepted the constitution’s doctrine of pancasila—national unity and social justice with freedom of religion—as a useful creed for fissiparous Indonesia. More surprisingly, he kept on cordial terms with Suharto, despite pushing against the strongman both as the hugely popular head of the NU and, from 1998, as leader of his own non-sectarian National Awakening party.
In 1999, in Indonesia’s first (indirect) presidential election, Mr Wahid comprehensively outmanoeuvred Megawati Sukarnoputri, who had in fact done better than he had at the polls. Though hobbled by strokes and blindness, he now grinned from ear to ear at the prospect of power. In short order, he invited outlawed dissidents and communists to see him at the palace; removed the ban against Chinese culture and language; talked to, and tried to make peace with, Aceh and West Papua, as part of a devolution of power away from “corrupt” Jakarta; dismantled Suharto’s press-curbing Ministry of Information, and the extortionist Ministry of Welfare; sacked General Wiranto, who had overseen atrocities in East Timor, and apologised to the East Timorese. He did not manage to control the army or set up diplomatic relations with Israel, but made it clear he wanted to.
The result was chaos. Mr Wahid, out of his depth and surrounded by enemies, soon lost control, and parliament removed him. But he had at least set standards for government accountability and openness in Indonesia, which helped democracy to grow. Even more valuably, he had shown the world a thoughtful, tolerant form of Islam. He saw himself as many characters: as Semar, the wise demigod-turned-jester of Javanese shadow-theatre, and as the “drunken master” of kung-fu films, expertly waddling in, in his cheap batik shirts, to bang heads together. But he was also the laughing Sufi of Islam’s mystical tradition, mad—or wise—before the undiscriminating inclusiveness of God.
Like many Indonesian names, "Abdurrahman Wahid" does not contain a family name. The name "Wahid" is patronymic. His popular nickname Gus Dur, is derifed from Gus, a common honorific for a son of kyai, from short-form of bagus ('handsome lads' in Javanese language[3]); and Dur, short-form of his name, Abdurrahman.
Abdurrahman ad-Dakhil Wahid was born on the fourth day of the eighth month of the Islamic calendar in 1940 in Jombang, East Java to Abdul Wahid Hasyim and Siti Solichah. This led to a belief that he was born on 4 August; instead, using the Islamic calendar to mark his birth date meant that he was actually born on 4 Sha'aban, equivalent to 7 September 1940. He was named after Abd ar-Rahman I of the Umayyad Caliphate who brought Islam to Spain and was thus nicknamed "ad-Dakhil" ("the conqueror"). His name is stylized in the traditional Arabic naming system as "Abdurrahman, son of Wahid".
He was the firstborn out of his five siblings, and Wahid was born into a very prestigious family in the East Java Muslim community. His paternal grandfather, Hasyim Asy'ari was the founder of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) while his maternal grandfather, Bisri Syansuri was the first Muslim educator to introduce classes for women.[4] Wahid's father, Wahid Hasyim, was involved in the Nationalist Movement and would go on to be Indonesia's first Minister of Religious Affairs.
In 1944, Wahid moved from Jombang to Jakarta where his father was involved with the Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims (Masyumi), an organization established by the Imperial Japanese Army which occupied Indonesia at the time. After the Indonesian Declaration of Independence on 17 August 1945, Wahid moved back to Jombang and remained there during the fight for independence from the Netherlands during the Indonesian National Revolution. At the end of the war in 1949, Wahid moved to Jakarta as his father had received appointment as Minister of Religious Affairs. Wahid went about his education in Jakarta, going to KRIS Primary School before moving to Matraman Perwari Primary School. Wahid was also encouraged to read non-Muslim books, magazines, and newspapers by his father to further broaden his horizons.[5] Wahid stayed in Jakarta with his family even after his father's removal as Minister of Religious Affairs in 1952. In April 1953, Wahid's father died after being involved in a car crash.
In 1954, Wahid began Junior High School. That year, he failed to graduate to the next year and was forced to repeat. His mother then made the decision to send Wahid to Yogyakarta to continue his education. In 1957, after graduating from Junior High School, Wahid moved to Magelang to begin Muslim Education at Pesantren (Muslim School) Tegalrejo. He completed the pesantren's course in two years instead of the usual four. In 1959, Wahid moved back to Jombang to Pesantren Tambakberas. There, while continuing his own education, Wahid also received his first job as a teacher and later on as headmaster of a madrasah affiliated with the Pesantren. Wahid also found employment as a journalist for magazines such as Horizon and Majalah Budaya Jaya.
In 1963, Wahid received a scholarship from the Ministry of Religious Affairs to study at Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. He left for Egypt in November 1963. Unable to provide evidence to certify that he spoke Arabic, Wahid was told when arriving that he would have to take a remedial class in the language before enrolling at the University's Higher Institute for Islamic and Arabic studies.
Instead of attending classes, Wahid spent 1964 enjoying life in Egypt; watching European and American movies as well indulging in his hobby of watching football. Wahid was also involved with the Association of Indonesian Students and became a journalist for the association's magazine. After passing the remedial Arabic examination, he finally began studies at the Higher Institute for Islamic and Arabic Studies in 1965, but was disappointed. He had already studied many of the texts offered at the Institute in Java and disapproved of the rote learning method used by the University.[6] Wahid attended Karachi Grammar School in Pakistan. In Egypt, Wahid found employment with the Indonesian Embassy. It was during his stint with the Embassy that coup attempt was launched by the 30 September Movement, which the Communist Party of Indonesia was accused of leading. With Army Stretegic Reserves commander Major General Suharto taking control of the situation in Jakarta, a crackdown against suspected communists was initiated. The Indonesian Embassy in Egypt was ordered to conduct an investigation into the political views of university students. This order was passed to Wahid, who was charged with writing the reports.[7]
Wahid's displeasure at the method of education and his work following the coup attempt distracted him from his studies. Wahid sought and received another scholarship at the University of Baghdad and moved to Iraq. There Wahid continued his involvement with the Association of Indonesian Students as well as with writing journalistic pieces to be read in Indonesia.
After completing his education at the University of Baghdad in 1970, Wahid went to the Netherlands to continue his education. Wahid wanted to attend Leiden University but was disappointed as there was little recognition for the studies that he had undertaken at the University of Baghdad. From the Netherlands, Wahid went to Germany and France before returning to Indonesia in 1971.
Wahid returned to Jakarta expecting that in a year's time, he would be abroad again to study at McGill University in Canada. He kept himself busy by joining the Institute for Economic and Social Research, Education and Information (LP3ES),[8] an organization which consisted of intellectuals with progressive Muslims and social-democratic views. LP3ES established the magazine Prisma and Wahid became one of the main contributors to the magazine. Whilst working as a contributor for LP3ES, Wahid also conducted tours to pesantrens and madrasahs across Java. It was a time when pesantren were desperate to gain state funding by adopting state-endorsed curricula and Wahid was concerned that the traditional values of the pesantren were being damaged because of this change. Wahid was also concerned with the poverty of the pesantren which he saw during his tours. At the same time as it was encouraging pesantren to adopt state-endorsed curricula, the Government was also encouraging pesantren as agents for change and to help assist the Government in the economic development of Indonesia. It was at this time that Wahid finally decided to drop plans for overseas studies in favor of promoting the development of the pesantren.
Wahid continued his career as a journalist, writing for the magazine Tempo and Kompas, a leading Indonesian newspaper. His articles were well-received and he began to develop a reputation as a social commentator. Wahid's popularity was such that at this time he was invited to give lectures and seminars, obliging him to travel back and forth between Jakarta and Jombang where he now lived with his family.
Despite having a successful career up to that point, Wahid still found it hard to make ends meet and he worked to earn extra income by selling peanuts and delivering ice to be used for his wife's Es Lilin (popsicle) business.[9] In 1974, Wahid found extra employment in Jombang as a Muslim Legal Studies teacher at Pesantren Tambakberas and soon developed a good reputation. A year later, Wahid added to his workload as a teacher of Kitab Al Hikam, a classical text of sufism.
In 1977, Wahid joined the Hasyim Asyari University as Dean of the Faculty of Islamic Beliefs and Practices. Again Wahid excelled in his job and the University wanted to Wahid to teach extra subjects such as pedagogy, sharia, and missiology. However, his excellence caused some resentment from within the ranks of university and Wahid was blocked from teaching the subjects. Whilst undertaking all these ventures Wahid also regularly delivered speeches during Ramadan to the Muslim community in Jombang.
Wahid's family background meant that sooner or later, he would be asked to play an active role in the running of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). This ran contrary to Wahid's aspirations of becoming a public intellectual and he had twice rejected offers to join the NU Religious Advisory Council. Nevertheless, Wahid finally chose to join the Council when his own grandfather, Bisri Syansuri gave him the third offer.[10] In taking this job, Wahid also made the decision to move from Jombang to Jakarta and to permanently reside there. As a member of the Religious Advisory Council, Wahid envisioned himself as a reformer of NU.
At this time, Wahid also had his first political experience. In the lead-up to the 1982 Legislative Elections, Wahid campaigned for the United Development Party (PPP), an Islamist Party which was formed as a result of a merger of four Islamist parties including NU. Wahid recalled that the Government actively disrupted PPP's campaigns by arresting people like himself.[11] However, Wahid was always able to secure his release, having developed connections in high places with the likes of General Benny Moerdani.
By this time, many[who?] viewed the NU as a stagnant organization. After careful discussion, the Religious Advisory Council finally formed a Team of Seven (which included Wahid) to tackle the issues of reform and to help revitalize the NU. For some members of the NU, reform in the organization involved a change of leadership. On 2 May 1982, a group of high-ranking NU officials met with NU Chairman Idham Chalid and asked for his resignation. Idham, who had guided the NU in the transition from Sukarno to Suharto resisted at first but bowed down to pressure. On 6 May 1982, Wahid heard of Idham's decision to resign and approached him saying that the demands being made for him to resign were unconstitutional. With urging from Wahid, Idham withdrew his resignation and Wahid, together with the Team of Seven was able to negotiate a compromise between Idham and those who had asked for his resignation.[12]
In 1983, Suharto was re-elected to a fourth term as President by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and began taking steps to establish the Pancasila state ideology as the sole basis for all organizations. From June 1983 to October 1983, Wahid was part of a team which was commissioned to prepare the NU's response to this issue. Wahid consulted texts such as the Quran and Sunnah for justification and finally, in October 1983, concluded that the NU should accept Pancasila as its ideology.[13] To further revitalize the NU, Wahid was also successful in securing its withdrawal from PPP and party politicsto allow it focus on social matters instead of hampering itself by being involved in politics.
[edit]Election to Chairmanship and first term as Chairman
Wahid's reforms had made him extremely popular within the ranks of NU. By the time of the 1984 National Congress, many began to state their intentions to nominate Wahid as the new Chairman of NU. Wahid accepted the nomination, provided that he had the power to choose who would be on his leadership team. Wahid was elected as the new Chairman of NU during the National Congress. However, his stipulation of choosing his own team was not honored. The last day of the Congress had begun with Wahid's list of team members being approved by high-ranking NU officials including outgoing Chairman Idham. Wahid had gone to the Committee in charge of running the Congress and handed in his list which was to be announced later. However, the Committee in question was against Idham and announced a totally different list of people. Wahid was outraged but was pressured to accept the changes made.[14]
Wahid's ascendancy to the NU Chairmanship was seen positively by Suharto and his New Order regime. Wahid's acceptance of Pancasila along with his moderate image won him favor among Government ranks. In 1985, Suharto made Wahid a Pancasila indoctrinator.[15] In 1987, Wahid showed further support for the regime by criticizing PPP in the lead-up to the 1987 Legislative Elections and further strengthening Suharto's Golkar Party. His reward came in the form of a membership of the MPR. Although he was viewed with favor by the regime, Wahid criticised the Government over the Kedung Ombo Dam project that was funded by the World Bank. Although this somewhat soured the cordial relationships that Wahid had with the Government, Suharto was still keen on getting political support from NU.
During his first term as Chairman of NU, Wahid focused on reform of the pesantren education system and was successful in increasing the quality of pesantren education system so that it can match up with secular schools.[16] In 1987, Wahid also set up study groups in Probolinggo, East Java to provide a forum for like-minded individuals within NU to discuss and provide interpretations to Muslim texts.[17] Critics accused Wahid of wishing to replace the Arabic Muslim greeting of "assalamualaikum" with the secular greeting of "selamat pagi", which means good morning in Indonesian.
[edit]Second term as Chairman and opposing the New Order
Wahid was re-elected to a second term as Chairman of NU at the 1989 National Congress. By this time, Suharto, embroiled in a political battle with ABRI began to ingratiate himself with the Muslim constituency so as to win their support. This venture reached a turning point in December 1990 with the formation of the Union of Indonesian Intellectual Muslims (ICMI). This organization was backed by Suharto, chaired by BJ Habibie and included Muslim intellectuals such as Amien Rais and Nurcholish Madjid as its members. In 1991, various members of ICMI asked Wahid to join. Wahid declined because he thought that ICMI encouraged sectarianism and that it was mainly a means by which Suharto manoeuvred to remain powerful.[18] In 1991, Wahid countered ICMI by forming the Democracy Forum, an organization which contained of 45 intellectuals from various religious and social communities. The organization was seen as a threat by the Government which moved to break up meetings held by the Democracy Forum during the run-up to the 1992 Legislative Elections approached.
In March 1992, Wahid planned to have a Great Assembly to celebrate the 66th anniversary of the founding of NU and to reiterate the organization's support for Pancasila. Wahid had planned for the event to be attended by at least one million NU members. However, Suharto moved to block the event, ordering policemen to turn back busloads of NU members as they arrived in Jakarta. Nevertheless, the event managed to attract 200,000 attendants. After the event, Wahid wrote a letter of protest to Suharto saying that NU had not been given a chance to display a brand of Islam that was open, fair, and tolerant.[19] During his second term as Chairman of NU, Wahid's liberal ideas had begun to turn many supporters sour. As Chairman, Wahid continued to push for inter-faith dialogue and even accepted an invitation to visit Israel in October 1994.[20]
[edit]Third term as Chairman and the lead-up to Reformasi
As the 1994 National Congress approached, Wahid nominated himself for a third term as Chairman. Hearing this, Suharto wanted to make sure that Wahid was not elected. In the weeks leading up to the Congress, Suharto's supporters, such as Habibie and Harmoko campaigned against Wahid's re-election. When it came time for the National Congress, the site for the Congress was tightly guarded by ABRI in an act of intimidation.[21] Despite this, and attempts to bribe NU members to vote against him, Wahid came through and was re-elected as NU Chairman for a third term. During this term, Wahid began to move closer towards a political alliance with Megawati Sukarnoputri from the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). Capitalizing on her father's legacy, Megawati had a lot of popularity and intended to put political and moral pressure on Suharto's regime. Wahid advised Megawati to be cautious and to avoid being nominated as President during the 1998 MPR General Session. Megawati ignored this advice and paid the price in July 1996 when her PDI headquarters were taken over by supporters of Government-backed PDI Chairman, Suryadi.
Seeing what happened to Megawati, Wahid thought that his best option now was to retreat politically by getting himself back in favor with the Government. In November 1996, Wahid and Suharto met for the first time since Wahid's re-election to the NU Chairmanship and this was followed over the next few months by meetings with various Government people who in 1994 had attempted to block Wahid's re-election.[22] At the same time however, Wahid kept his options for reform open and in December 1996, had a meeting with Amien Rais, an ICMI member who had grown critical of the Regime.
July 1997 saw the beginning of the Asian Financial Crisis. Suharto began to lose control of the situation and just as he was being pushed to step up the reform movement with Megawati and Amien, Wahid suffered a stroke in January 1998. From his bed in the hospital, Wahid continued to see the situation worsen with Suharto's re-election to a seventh term as President and the student protests which would turn into riots in May 1998 after the killing of four students at Trisakti University. On 19 May 1998, Wahid, together with eight prominent leaders from the Muslim community were summoned to Suharto's residence. Suharto presented the concept of a Reform Committee which he had begun to propose at the time. All nine rejected Suharto's offer to join the Reform Committee. Wahid maintained a more moderate stance with Suharto and called on the protesting to stop to see if Suharto was going to implement his promise.[23] This displeased Amien who was the most vocal out of Suharto's opposition at this time. Nevertheless, there was no stopping Suharto's fall and on 21 May 1998, he announced his resignation. Vice President Habibie now ascended to the Presidency.
One of the immediate effects of Suharto's fall was the formation of new political parties. Under Suharto's regime, political parties had been limited to just three; Golkar, PPP, and PDI. Now with his fall, new political parties were formed, the most prominent of which was Amien's National Mandate Party (PAN) and Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P). In June 1998, many from within the NU community began pressuring Wahid to form a new political party. Wahid did not warm up to the idea immediately, thinking that this would result in a political party which only catered to one religion and not willing to overrule his own decision to take NU out of politics. By July 1998 however, he began to warm up to the idea, thinking that establishing a political party was the only way to challenge the organizationally strong Golkar in an election. With that in mind, Wahid approved of the formation of PKB and became the Chairman of its Advisory Council with Matori Abdul Djalil as Party Chairman. Although it was clearly dominated by NU members, Wahid promoted PKB as a party that is non-sectarian and open to all members of society.
As opposition to the Government, Wahid, together with Megawati and Amien were willing to adopt a moderate stance towards Habibie's Government; preferring instead to wait for the 1999 Legislative Elections.[24] Nevertheless, in November 1998, in a meeting at his residence in the Jakarta suburb of Ciganjur, Wahid, together with Megawati, Amien, and Sultan Hamengkubuwono X reiterated their commitment to Reform. On 7 February 1999, PKB officially declared Wahid as their Presidential candidate.
Amien Rais and Abdurrahman Wahid converse during a session of the MPR.
In June 1999, Wahid's PKB entered the legislative elections. PKB won 12% of the votes with Megawati's PDI–P winning the legislative elections with 33% of the votes. With her party decisively winning the Legislative Elections, Megawati expected to win the Presidency against Habibie at the MPR General Session. However, PDI-P did not have complete majority and formed a loose alliance with PKB. In July however, Amien Rais would form the Central Axis, a coalition of Muslim parties.[25] The Central Axis then began to consider nominating Wahid as a third candidate in the Presidential race and PKB's commitment towards PDI-P began to waver.
In October 1999, the MPR convened and Wahid threw his support behind Amien who was elected as the Chairman of MPR. On 7 October 1999, Amien and the Central Axis, who now had PKB on their side, officially nominated Wahid as a Presidential Candidate.[26] On 19 October 1999, the MPR rejected Habibie's accountability speech and Habibie withdrew himself from the Presidential race. In the hours that followed, Akbar Tanjung, Chairman of Golkar and Head of the People's Representative Council (DPR) made it clear that Golkar would support Wahid in his bid for the Presidency. On 20 October 1999, the MPR convened and began electing for a new President. Wahid was then elected as Indonesia's fourth President with 373 votes to Megawati's 313 votes.[27]
Displeased that their candidate had not won the Presidency, Megawati's supporters began to riot and Wahid realized that for this to stop, Megawati had to be elected as Vice President. After convincing General Wiranto not to compete in the Vice Presidential elections and getting the PKB to support Megawati for this election, Wahid was successful in convincing the demoralized Megawati to compete. On the 21 October 1999, Megawati competed in the Vice Presidential election and defeated PPP's Hamzah Haz.
Wahid's first Cabinet, dubbed the National Unity Cabinet, was a Coalition Cabinet which consisted of members of various political parties: PDI-P, PKB, Golkar, PPP, PAN, and Justice Party (PK). Non-partisans and the TNI (Formerly known as ABRI) were also represented in the Cabinet. Wahid then went on to make two administrative reforms. The first administrative reform was to abolish the Ministry of Information, the Suharto regime's main weapon in controlling the media while the second administrative reform was to disband the Ministry of Welfare which had become corrupt and extortionist under the Suharto regime.[28]
After only a month in the National Unity Cabinet, Coordinating Minister of People's Welfare Hamzah Haz announced his resignation in November. There was suspicion that the resignation was brought about by Wahid's allegation that certain members of his Cabinet were involved in corruption while he was still in America.[28] Others suggested that Hamzah's resignation was because of displeasure towards Wahid's conciliatory stance towards Israel.[30]
Wahid's plan in Aceh was to give it a referendum. However, this referendum would be to decide on various modes of autonomy rather than to decide on independence like in East Timor. Wahid also wanted to adopt a softer stance towards Aceh by having less military personnel on the ground. On 30 December, Wahid visited Jayapura in the Province which was then known as Irian Jaya. During his visit, Wahid was successful in convincing West Papuan leaders that he was a force for change and even encouraged the use of the name Papua.[31]
In January, Wahid made another overseas trip to Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum and visited Saudi Arabia on the way back to Indonesia. In February, Wahid made another trip to Europe visiting the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. On the way back to Europe, Wahid also visited India, South Korea, Thailand, and Brunei. March saw Wahid visit East Timor. In April, Wahid visited South Africa en route to the G77 summit in Cuba before returning via Mexico City and Hong Kong. In June, Wahid once again visited America, Japan, and France with Iran, Pakistan, and Egypt as the new additions to the list of countries which he had visited.[32]
While he was travelling to Europe in February, Wahid began asking for the resignation of General Wiranto, who held the position of Coordinating Minister of Politics and Security. Wahid saw Wiranto both as an obstacle to his planned reform of the Military as well as being a liability to his Government with his alleged human rights abuses in East Timor.[33] When Wahid arrived back in Jakarta, Wiranto talked to him and seemed successful in convincing Wahid not to replace him. However, Wahid would change his mind and ask for his resignation. In April 2000, Wahid dismissed Minister of Industry and Trade Jusuf Kalla and Minister of State Owned Enterprises Laksamana Sukardi. The explanation that he gave was that the two were involved in corruption, although he never gave evidence to back it up.[34] This move soured Wahid's relations with Golkar and PDI-P.
In March 2000, Wahid's Government began to open negotiations with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Two months later, in May, the Government signed a memorandum of understanding with GAM to last until the beginning of 2001, by which time both signatories would have breached the agreement.[35]
In March 2000, Wahid suggested that the 1966 Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS) resolution on the banning of Marxism-Leninism be lifted.[36]
Wahid also moved to establish commercial relations with Israel, which aroused the ire of many Indonesian Muslim groups.[37] This was one issue that arose in the briefing given to a Palestinian parliamentary delegation in 2000 by Riddhi Awad, their ambassador to Indonesia. Another issue was Wahid's membership in the Shimon Peres Foundation. Both Wahid and his foreign minister Alwi Shihab took offense at the inaccurate portrayals of the Indonesian President, and Alwi called for the replacement of Awad.[38] However, Nurcholish Madjid pointed out that Wahid's personal neutrality toward the Israel-Palestine conflict should yield to the feelings of the "majority" of Indonesians, who support Palestine.[39]
Wahid has visited Israel six times. In an 2004 interview, he said, "I think there is a wrong perception that Islam is in disagreement with Israel. This is caused by Arab propaganda. We have to distinguish between Arabs and Islam. Some people in Indonesia claimed that I was a stooge for the West, but the fact that I am gaining in popularity all the time dispels this idea, and shows that this is the view of only a small minority of the elite. I always say that China and the Soviet Union have or had atheism as part of their constitution, but we have long-term relationships with both these countries. So then Israel has a reputation as a nation with a high regard for God and religion — there is then no reason we have to be against Israel."[40]
When he ascended to the Presidency, one of Wahid's goals was to reform the military and to take it out of its dominant socio-political role. In this venture, Wahid found an ally in Agus Wirahadikusumah who he made Commander of Kostrad in March. In July, Agus began uncovering a scandal involving Dharma Putra, a foundation with affiliations to Kostrad. Through Megawati, TNI members began pressuring Wahid to remove Agus. Wahid gave in to the pressure but then planned to have Agus appointed as the Army Chief of Staff to which TNI top brass responded by threatening to retire and Wahid once again bowed down to pressure.[41]
Wahid's relationship with the TNI deteriorated even further when in July it was revealed that Laskar Jihad had arrived in Maluku and was being armed by the TNI. Laskar Jihad, a radical Islamic militia had earlier in the year planned to go to Maluku and assist Muslims there in their communal conflict with the Christians. Wahid had ordered TNI to block Laskar Jihad from going to Maluku, but nevertheless they still made it to Maluku and they were then being armed with what turned out to be TNI weapons.[42]
2000 saw Wahid embroiled in two scandals which would damage his Presidency. In May, the State Logistics Agency (BULOG) reported that US$4 million were missing from its cash reserve. The missing cash was then attributed to Wahid's own masseur who had claimed that Wahid sent him to Bulog to collect the cash.[43] Although the money was returned, Wahid's opponents took the chance of accusing him of being involved in the scandal and of being aware of what his masseur was up to. At the same time, Wahid was also accused of keeping US$2 million for himself. The money was a donation by the Sultan of Brunei to provide assistance in Aceh. However, Wahid failed to account for the money.
[edit]2000 MPR Annual Session and Cabinet reshuffle
As the 2000 MPR Annual Session approached, Wahid's popularity with the people was still at a high and politically, allies such as Megawati, Akbar, and Amien were still willing to support Wahid despite the sacking of the ministers and the scandals which he had been involved in. At the same time however, they were asking questions of Wahid. At the 2000 MPR Annual Session, Wahid delivered a speech which was well received by a majority of the MPR members. During the speech, Wahid recognized his weakness as an administrator and said that he was going to delegate the day-to-day running of the Government to a Senior Minister.[44] The MPR members agreed but proposed that Megawati should be the one to receive the task from the President. At first the MPR planned to have this proposal adopted as a resolution but a Presidential Decision was seen as enough. On the 23rd August, Wahid announced a new Cabinet despite Megawati's insistence that the announcement was delayed. Megawati showed her displeasure by not showing up for the Cabinet announcement. The new Cabinet was smaller and consisted of more non-partisans. There were no Golkar members in this Cabinet.
In September, Wahid declared martial law in Maluku as the condition there continued to deteriorate. By now, it was evident that Laskar Jihad were being assisted by TNI members and it was also apparent that they were financed by Fuad Bawazier, the last Minister of Finance to have served under Suharto. During the same month, the West Papuans raised their Morning Star flag. Wahid's response was to allow the West Papuans to do this provided that the Morning Star flag was placed lower than the Indonesian flag.[45] For this, he was severely criticized by Megawati and Akbar. On 24 December 2000, there was Terrorist Attack directed against churches in Jakarta and in eight cities across Indonesia.
By the end of 2000, there were many within the political elite who were disillusioned with Wahid. The most obvious person who showed this disillusion was Amien who showed regret at supporting Wahid to the Presidency the previous year. Amien also attempted to rally opposition by encouraging Megawati and Akbar to flex their political muscles. Megawati surprisingly defended Wahid whilst Akbar preferred to wait for the 2004 Legislative Elections. At the end of November, 151 DPR members signed a petition calling for the impeachment of Wahid.[46]
In January, Wahid made the announcement that Chinese New Year was to become an optional holiday.[47] Wahid followed this up in February by lifting the ban on the display of Chinese characters and the imports of Chinese publications. In February, Wahid visited Northern Africa as well as Saudi Arabia to undertake the hajj pilgrimage.[48] Wahid made his last overseas visit in June 2001 when he visited Australia.
At a meeting with university rectors on 27 January 2001, Wahid commented on the possibility of Indonesia descending into anarchy. Wahid then made the suggestion that he may be forced to dissolve the DPR if that happened.[49] Although the meeting was off-the-record, it caused quite a stir and added to the fuel of the movement against him. On 1 February, the DPR met to issue a memorandum against Wahid. Two memorandums constitute an MPR Special Session where the impeachment and removal of a President would be legal. The vote was overwhelmingly for the memorandum and PKB members could only walk out in protest. The memorandum caused widespread protests by NU members. In East Java, NU members went around to Golkar's regional offices and thrashed it. In Jakarta, Wahid's opposition began accusing him of encouraging the protests. Wahid denied it and went to talk to the protesters at the town of Pasuruan; encouraging them to get off the streets.[50] Nevertheless, NU protesters continued to show their support for Wahid and in April, made the announcement that they were ready to defend and die for the President.
In March, Wahid tried to counter the opposition by moving against dissidents within his own Cabinet. Minister of Justice Yusril Ihza Mahendra was removed for making public his demands for the President's resignation while Minister of Forestry Nurmahmudi Ismail was also removed under the suspicion of channeling his department's funds to Wahid's opposition. In response to this, Megawati began to distance herself and did not show up for the inauguration of the Ministers' replacement. On 30 April, the DPR issued a second memorandum and on the next day called for an MPR Special Session to be held on 1 August.
By July, Wahid grew desperate and ordered Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security to declare a State of Emergency. Yudhoyono refused and Wahid removed him from his position. Finally on 20 July, Amien declared that the MPR Special Session will be brought forward to 23 July. TNI, having had a bad relationship with Wahid through his tenure as President, stationed 40,000 troops in Jakarta and placed tanks with their turrets pointing at the Presidential Palace in a show of force.[51] On 23 July, the MPR unanimously voted to impeach Wahid and to replace him with Megawati as President. Wahid continued to insist that he was the President and stayed for some days in the Presidential Palace, but eventually left the residence on 25 July for a trip overseas to the United States for health treatments.
After his impeachment, Wahid turned his eyes to Matori Abdul Djalil, who was the Chairman of PKB. Before the MPR Special Session, it was agreed upon that no PKB members would attend as a sign of solidarity. However, Matori insisted on attending because he was a Vice-Chairman of the MPR and participated in the impeachment process. Using his position as Chairman of the Advisory Council, Wahid sacked Matori as Chairman of PKB on 15 August 2001 and suspended him from Party activities before stripping Matori of Party membership in November.[52] On 14 January 2002, Matori held a Special National Congress attended by his supporters in PKB. The Special National Congress re-elected him to the position of PKB Chairman. Wahid countered this by holding his own PKB National Congress on 17 January, a day after Matori's Congress ended [53] The National Congress re-elected Wahid to the position of Chairman of the Advisory Council and elected Alwi Shihab as its Chairman. Wahid's PKB would be known as PKB Kuningan whilst Matori's PKB would be known as PKB Batutulis.
In April 2004, PKB participated in the 2004 Legislative Elections, winning 10.6% of the votes. For the 2004 Presidential Elections, in which the people will directly elect the President, PKB nominated Wahid as a Presidential Candidate. As a Presidential Candidate Wahid was required to go for a medical check-up before he was officially enlisted by the General Elections Commission (KPU) as a Presidential candidate. While other candidates such as Yudhoyono and Wiranto passed their respective tests, Wahid failed to do so and KPU refused to enlist him as a Presidential Candidate. Wahid then threw his support behind his brother, Solahuddin, who was the running mate of Wiranto. On 5 July 2004, Wiranto and Solahuddin were knocked out of the race after coming third to the pairs of Yudhoyono-Kalla and Megawati-Muzadi. For the run-off elections, held on 20 September 2004, Wahid declared himself as part of White Group (Golput) which meant that he would not be exercising his right to vote.
In August 2005, Wahid became one of the leaders of a political coalition called the United Awakened Archipelago (Koalisi Nusantara Bangkit Bersatu). Along with Try Sutrisno, Wiranto, Akbar Tanjung, and Megawati, this coalition criticized the policies of the Yudhoyono Government, specifically about the withdrawal of fuel subsidies which they argued would raise the price of fuel.
"Gus Dur" is the inspiration behind the Wahid Institute, a Jakarta-based nonprofit organization led by his daughter Yenni Wahid. He also served as patron, member of the board of directors and senior advisor to LibForAll ("Liberty for All") Foundation, whose mission it is to reduce religious extremism and discredit terrorism worldwide. Among numerous other writings, he is the author of a seminal article published in the Wall Street Journal on December 30, 2005 ("Right Islam vs. Wrong Islam") [54] in which he called on "people of good will of every faith and nation" to unite to defeat the ideology of religious hatred that underlies and animates terrorism. Wahid discussed his suspicions regarding the involvement of the Indonesian government and the TNI (Indonesia's armed forces) in the terrorist bombings on Bali, in an interview in the documentary Inside Indonesia's War on Terrorism which as aired by SBS Dateline on October 12, 2005.
In September 2006, Wahid said that he was ready to contest the 2009 Presidential Election [55] He confirmed this in March 2008, at a rally of his National Awakening Party (PKB) in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan.[56]
All religions insist on peace. From this we might think that the religious struggle for peace is simple ... but it is not. The deep problem is that people use religion wrongly in pursuit of victory and triumph. This sad fact then leads to conflict with people who have different beliefs.[57]
In a 2002 interview with Australian television program, "Foreign Correspondent", Wahid explained his respect for Israel and posed a challenging "correction" to be addressed by his fellow Muslims:
Israel believes in God. While we have a diplomatic relationship and recognizing diplomatically China and Russia, which are atheist states, then it's strange that we don't acknowledge Israel. This is the thing that we have to correct within Islam.[58]
Wahid was married to Sinta Nuriyah with whom he had four daughters: Alissa Qotrunnada Munawaroh, Zannuba Arifah Chafsoh (popularly known as Yenny Wahid), Annita Hayatunnufus, and Inayah Wulandari.[60]
In late December 2009 Wahid asked to be taken to visit Rembang (situated in Central Java) and Jombang despite his poor health. He had previously been admitted into a hospital just before he left Jakarta. During his visit to Rembang and Jombang his health worsened and Wahid was admitted into a hospital in Jombang on 24 December 2009. Following his return to Jakarta the next day, he was admitted into Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital in Central Jakarta in order to undergo dialysis.[61] He underwent dental surgery on 28 December after complaining of toothache.[62][63][64] Wahid died on 30 December at approximately 6:45 p.m. local time (UTC+7) after his condition deteriorated because of complications from kidney disorders, heart disease and diabetes. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited Wahid shortly before his death.[65][66][67] A state funeral was held for Wahid on 31 December, and flags were flown at half-staff for seven days.[68][69] He was buried next to the graves of his grandfather and parents at his birthplace, Jombang, East Java.[70]
