The Indonesian people have lost a great man in Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, but the minorities groups feel it much more. Indonesians owe a lot to Gus Dur, but whoever loves democracy, pluralism and equality in this country owes much more.
Some people mocked him for his physical disability, as he was almost totally blind for the last decades of his life, but what he did and thought was actually more precious than anything those with 20/20 vision could ever see. For the minorities, the blind man did more than anyone else. Although his physical health was being gnawed away at by illness, he became a true voice for the voiceless, and he never stopped until the end.
He spoke about religious tolerance, democracy, human and minority rights – topics that other people preferred to keep silent about. He countered Islamic radicalism and at the same time promoted a peaceful Islam to the world.
In his column “Tuhan Tidak Perlu Dibela” (God doesn’t need to be defended, 1982), Gus Dur wrote: “Everything that is considered harmful and an attack on Islam does not need to be responded to with anger; it’s better to react positively and constructively, because the truth of God will not degrade from anything apocryphal. If you think God exists because of your thoughts, you are an infidel. God does not need to be defended if someone attacks His existence, because He is great already.”
Gus Dur once criticized an edict from the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) that prohibited Muslims saying “Merry Christmas” to Christians and prohibited them attending non-Islamic religious celebrations. He also proposed replacing the greeting Assallamualaikum with "Selamat pagi" (good morning) because it’s nuance was more Indonesian. When Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses, Gus Dur opposed the death sentence (in absentia) from Iran, even though he was angered himself by the book, which he called an offence against Islam.
When he became the fourth president of Indonesia, he lifted the ban on Chinese-related celebrations and endorsed the Chinese New Year (Imlek), which, during Soeharto’s rule, had been prohibited. He promised to end discrimination against Chinese-Indonesians. He visited Pramoedya Ananta Toer, a noted novelist who was once imprisoned in Buru Island for his links to communists, in a symbolic apology by the government to communist-related victims. Even when he was no longer president, he offered himself as the defender of the Ahmadiyah, if the government insisted on dissolving the religious belief for going against mainstream Islam. He was indeed too brave, too crazy, as he once joked: “Our first president was crazy for women, our second president was crazy for money, our third president was just plain crazy and our fourth president makes everyone else crazy.” Gus Dur loved to make controversial statements without thinking about the consequences, as his remark “gitu aja kok repot” (why all the fuss?) always got him out of trouble.
We knew his presidency was actually an unexpected historical accident, but he was still too confident. Perhaps his overconfidence was related to his experience when he chaired Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) for three terms and the influence from an Islamic boarding school culture. Gus Dur managed the country as he managed NU. In NU, a respected cleric can do no wrong. He firmly upheld the truth as he believed, though he knew that someday he could be unseated.
Gus Dur may have been defeated in the political arena. However, as his name at birth, Abdurrahman Addakhil (Addakhil meaning “Conqueror”), shows, he had truly become a conqueror. It may be not for all people, but at least for those who love democracy and pluralism, for minorities who feel treated not as equal as others, and for the oppressed who do not get protection from anybody, even the ruling government.
Now many people have proposed that he be made a national hero. But no, he was not just a hero, he deserves more than that. Gus Dur accomplished his mission, though we honestly still need him. We will not see a man of his caliber afterward, but his spirit and thoughts remain among within us.
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Serpong, 2 January 2010
Titus J.
