Nahdlatul Ulama and the Struggle for Power within Islam and Politics in Indonesia

5. Reformasi and Khittah '26

152 Nahdlatul Ulama and the Struggle for Power 5 Reformasi and Khittah ’26 T his chapter takes a closer look at the response to NU’s return to politics and Abdurrahman Wahid’s rise to the presidency on the part of (1) NU’s 30th National Congress (Muktamar); (2) the PBNU and other official NU bodies; (3) Wahid himself; and (4) NU’s civil society activists. While NU continued to display the pluralism and complexity that had been its defining characteristics for many decades, to some extent one may observe a weakening of the civil society rhetoric and values promoted before Wahid became president. Especially in the case of the civil society activists, we see a return of the age-old modernist–traditionalist themes. THE RESPONSE OF THE 30TH MUKTAMAR In November 1999, one month after Wahid’s rise to the presidency, NU held its 30th Muktamar at the Hidayatul Mubtadi’in pesantren in Lirboyo, East Java. This was a pivotal point in contemporary NU history, not only because delegates would elect a replacement for Wahid, who had led NU for the past 15 years, but also because NU would have to make a decision 152 Reformasi and Khittah ’26 153 that concerned its own identity. That is, it would have to decide whether to continue to implement Khittah ’26 and permit its members to be active in any political party, or formally endorse PKB as NU’s only party. The latter would in effect signify a return to a political identity for NU. In the months leading up to the Muktamar, this issue was discussed at various seminars and preliminary meetings. Discussions on Khittah ’26 before the Muktamar From July to September 1999, the PBNU held a series of seven seminars around the country to seek public input on topics that would be dealt with at the Muktamar. The topics covered were the role of women in Islam; the 1999 elections; strategic planning; Islam and democracy; economic issues; cultural issues; and civil society building.1 After each seminar, PBNU committee members were supposed to incorporate the results of the debate into a set of recommendations on each topic, to be discussed and approved at the Muktamar. But in reality, I found little evidence that the range of views expressed at the seminars were integrated into the Planning Committee’s final list of recommendations, which were produced almost entirely behind closed doors by a handful of members. The Planning Committee did, however, publish pocket-sized booklets summarizing seminar proceedings and distribute them widely in both NU and non-NU circles, adding to the appearance of a publicly driven discourse. One could argue that these booklets had a wider distribution and generated more discussion than the formal results of the Muktamar, so that in the end, the publicly driven discourse was perhaps the more influential. Two of the pre-congress seminars dealt, albeit indirectly, with the issue of Khittah ’26. The first, called ‘NU after the 1999 Elections: Organizational Perspectives’, was held in Jakarta on 31 July and 1 August 1999. At this seminar KH Muchid Muzadi, a member of the Syuriah and one of the architects of Khittah ’26, argued against any change to the original guidelines but suggested that an official interpretation of the decision should be endorsed by the upcoming Muktamar (Muzadi 1999). This was interpreted by many at the seminar as opening the door for a ‘rewriting’ of Khittah ’26, a position not endorsed by all present. Susi Tosari Wijaya, a deputy chair of Muslimat NU and PPP leader, objected that no official interpretation was necessary because Muslimat NU’s programs were already operating effectively within the current understanding of Khittah ’26. She reiterated Muslimat NU’s position that 154 Nahdlatul Ulama and the Struggle for Power under Khittah ’26, the PBNU could not endorse any particular political party (see Chapter 4). Muzadi responded by saying that the problem with NU was that its autonomous bodies wanted to go off in their own direction, independently of the PBNU. ‘We have to establish who is the king (rojo) of NU’, he retorted. The second seminar, ‘Empowering Civil Society’, was held in Yogyakarta on 4–5 September 1999. The three senior NU figures on the Khittah ’26 panel, Said Aqil Siradj, Hussein Muhammad and PBNU deputy chair Mustofa Zuhad, dealt only with the religious and economic aspects of Khittah ’26, studiously avoiding any reference to its political...