SRI : GUS DUR STILL PRESIDEN

By KARIM RASLAN


Cutting a larger-than-life figure – humorous, witty, self-effacing and insightful – the late Gus Dur could never be boring, whether in a room with some friends or among a crowd of thousands.

ON THURSDAY last week the family of the late Indonesian cleric and statesman Abdurrahman Wahid (also known as Gus Dur) commemorated the 100th day of his passing at his hometown and resting place just outside the Javanese town of Jombang (also known as the City of Santri or Islamic scholars). According to news reports, thousands of mourners were in attendance, cramming the lanes surrounding the religious school (or pesantren) in Tebuireng set up by his grandfather, Hasyim Asyari, who later established the Nahdatul Ullama (NU) group in 1926 – now 40-million strong.

In life, Gus Dur was a peripatetic figure; constantly on the move. In fact, just weeks before his passing, he insisted on making a road-trip from Semarang to Jombang – a journey that takes five hours. His first stop was at Rembang, where a fellow Kiyai and long-time friend from his Al-Azhar days, Mustofa Bisri (or Gus Mus), presided over his own sizeable pesantren. Ploughing on despite being on dialysis at the time – and very weak – the ailing cleric headed off across the north Java plains. As his daughter Yenny, who has assumed his political mantle, explains, “My father knew every road and every railway line on Java. He’d been everywhere.“ He could describe to you exactly the next town, the next station and even which warung (stall) had the best food.” One could almost say that Gus Dur was saying goodbye to the people and places he loved.

Indeed, Gus Dur drew his immense energy from ordinary people – the wong cilik. Egalitarian and plural to the last, he fed off their enthusiasm, inspiring them in turn. Life for him was an endless flow of meetings, literally from dawn to dusk. He only needed four hours of sleep. Indeed, he was always on the go. Even when wheelchair-bound, Gus Dur was in perpetual motion – travelling, giving talks or calling on his fellow Kiyai’s in pesantrens all over Indonesia. When he did stop, Gus Dur cut a larger than life figure. Humorous, witty, self-effacing and insightful. His was a rare gift, of being able to both entertain and edify at the same time. Gus Dur could never be boring, whether in a room with some friends or among a crowd of thousands. The wong cilik, cut-off from the disdainful Jakarta elite, remember him best from these jaunts, rather than for his at times erratic and inconsistent behaviour.

It was with this final journey in mind that I set off last weekend, tracing his steps from Jogja to Jombang, where I hoped to visit his grave. I found myself traversing a landscape I’ve come to enjoy, even adore, though I will never understand Java like he did. Still, I drove through the rich, fertile plains surrounding Solo and Sragen. I eventually crossed the iconic Begawan Solo, skirting the mighty Gunung Lawu volcano, before veering off to Nganjuk, Caburan and Mojokerto. I passed endless expanses of freshly-harvested rice-stalks. Mature teak and fields of sugar cane were interspersed by densely packed villages. This was definitely Gus Dur country.

I finally reached Jombang after six hours. It had been seven years since my first visit. Back then, I came to write about its pesantren and thousands of students in the aftermath of the 2002 Bali bombings. Jombang had changed. It was noisier and more prosperous. The shops were refurbished and government buildings repainted. Tebuireng had also undergone a transformation.The small village where the pesantren was located was crowded with hundreds of visitors drawn by Gus Dur’s death. Indeed, in the stalls that crammed the lane, amid the refreshments, T-shirts and trinkets, were books extolling Gus Dur’s trademark humour.

Shuffling along, I joined the crowd heading to the cemetery. Stopping by the grave, I squatted quietly and read the Yassin prayer from the Koran. My Arabic is horrible and I’m sure people must have been wondering who this large, ungainly foreigner was. Nonetheless, I persevered because I wanted to pay my respects to a man I’d followed and listened to on many occasions. He didn’t know me but I knew him.

Later, as I was taking notes I struck up a conversation with a group of visitors – pilgrims really – from Bondowoso, some four hours to the East. I asked them why they had come so far. Mardianto, a forty-year-old journalist answered, “Gus Dur was a great teacher. He never discriminated between the rich or the poor. He defended the weak and lived with us. He was one of us.” Watching the hundreds of mourners trooping by and having seen the countless buses parked outside, I realised that Gus Dur – despite his short and tumultuous presidency, may well have been one of the most influential leaders the republic has ever seen. With his robust and easy-going manner, Gus Dur had touched people. They all felt they knew him, and vice-versa. He was both the former head of the Nahdatul Ullama as well as Semar, the wise-cracking joker-clown from the Wayang. In this, Gus Dur embodied the contradictions, or rather the stunning diversity of Java and Indonesia as a whole.

He saw the country in a way few could and, more importantly, the need for its citizens to feel at home regardless of their backgrounds. Unheralded and unappreciated by his people, Gus Dur shepherded the republic through its hour of need. His calm, unflappable countenance steadied Indonesia during the uncertain years of Reformasi. Plural and secular-minded, he stood like a bulwark against religious extremism and violence in a period of great tragedy and turmoil. As I set off from Jombang later, a thought that had been playing in my mind these last three months came back to me yet again. I wondered how different my own country, Malaysia, might have turned out if only Gus Dur had been born here.

[Catatan Alissa Wahid]