I started a joke, which started the whole world crying,
Till I finally died, which started the whole world living.
— From the Bee Gees’
“I Started a Joke”
Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid is outside Heaven waiting for his name to be called. He mingles with other religious leaders from Indonesia who did their part to promote piety among the people.
Then the calls start, but none of the religious leaders is included. Instead, unknown but familiar Indonesian-sounding names, including many obvious-sounding North Sumatrans and three-syllable single-name Javanese, are called up.
The religious leaders are puzzled and wonder what these commoners have done to get ahead of men and women who truly devoted their lives to God.
“Hey, I know that man,” a priest burst out. “He went to my church. Wasn’t he the one who drove his bus down a river in Jakarta?”
Gus Dur knows the answer, because this is one of the jokes he told more than once during his
lifetime.
“Those were Jakarta bus drivers. Their dangerous driving forced all their passengers to pray for safety.
Every day they made so many people suddenly remember God. So reckless were they that they even converted many non-believers.”
This was one of many on Gus Dur’s jokes that not only reflected his humorous side, but more importantly, the pluralist ideals he tried to teach Indonesians.
This joke tells us what he believed in: Your faith and many hours of prayer do not automatically guarantee you a spot in heaven. Anyone who can make others pious, including bus drivers, has a better claim than even the most dedicated of religious leaders.
Humor was very much part of Gus Dur’s act when he served as Indonesia’s fourth president from 1999 to 2001 and when he led the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) from 1984 to 1999. He showed that humor could be a far more effective means of conveying messages and ideas than long and boring speeches.
The jokes he told were not necessary original — many had been told by others before — but the fact that a president used jokes as part of the leadership style and communication with the people remains unique.
It was the informality of his leadership — a huge contrast to the imperial presidential style pursued by others before and after him — that made him memorable.
One of the highlights of Gus Dur’s presidency was when, barely three months into his presidency, he lashed out at members of the House of Representatives for attacking his policies, referring them as “a bunch kindergarten kids”.
Once on a trip to Europe, he announced his decision to dismiss Gen. Wiranto, then a powerful figure in the Indonesian Military, from the job of chief security minister. Many people thought it was a joke.
Wrong. He was dead serious.
In retrospect, Wiranto’s dismissal was a strategic move that effectively put the politically powerful and wayward military in its proper place once and for all, and restored civilian control over the country’s armed forces after more than 30 years.
Gus Dur’s famous expression Gitu aja kok repot (why all the fuss) may at times have been seen as making light of serious issues, but it put him in a marked contrast to the current political culture of turning just about everything into a big dispute.
On many spats over blasphemy, he came to the defense of free speech and stressed that, “God is strong enough and needs no protection.”
Gus Dur was a leader who was way ahead of his time. He was able to see the world beyond racial, cultural, ethnic and religious barriers when others were just beginning to talk about interfaith dialogue.
Like the lyrics to the famous Bee Gees song quoted above, his unorthodox style and jokes eventually alienated him from much of the nation, certainly from the political elite who impeached him and cut short his presidency to 19 months.
But it would be wrong to assume that the joke was on him.
The nation cried when he died on Dec. 30. They will cry even more when they realize his ideas and thoughts on pluralism were the best recipes they could ever hope for from a leader.
Gus Dur is probably smiling looking down on us. May his soul rest in peace.
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