A

picture of a smiling Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid dominated the giant red backdrop on a big stage in Jakarta during the celebration of Imlek or Chinese New Year on Sunday evening.

While most Chinese Indonesians celebrated the coming of the New Year of the tiger with family and friends, a group called the Multicultural Society held an event to award former president Abdurrahman Wahid with an important Chinese title.

The society’s chairman Lieus Sungkharisma said the title, “Sheng Ren” or “Sheng Djin”, was a Chinese tradition to bestow the highest honor to a special person.

“Gus Dur deserves the title because of his eternal commitment to pluralism, equality, solidarity and religious tolerance, not only for Indonesia, but also for the world,” he said.

Gus Dur, a Muslim cleric and a Javanese, died on Dec. 31 last year, but his spirit of pluralism was entrenched deep inside the hearts of millions of Chinese Indonesians.

“Eleven years ago, it would have been impossible for us to celebrate Imlek [Lunar Chinese New Year] as lively as we do now.

“It’s all because of Gus Dur,” Lieus said at the podium, followed by the applause of hundreds of Chinese.

He said this year’s Chinese New Year was the first without Gus Dur.

“We feel different. We miss him very much,” he said.

A number of prominent figures also attended the celebration and gave their testimonials about Gus Dur.

The figures included Gus Dur’s daughter, Inayah Wulandari Wahid, Constitutional Court chief and former defense minister during Gus Dur’s administration, Mahfud M.D., noted economist and executive director of the NGO Partnership Governance Reform, Harbrinderjit Singh Dillon, noted Catholic priest Franz Magnis-Suseno, political observer George Junus Aditjondro and Gus Dur’s close friend and chairman of the Indonesian Museum Record (Muri), Jaya Suprana.

“Gus Dur was absolutely a super person, his thoughts were extraordinary.

“We Christians, who previously stood as underdogs in this country, are very grateful to Gus Dur who fought so boldly against discrimination,” Franz said.

Jaya Suprana, an ethnic Chinese, said Gus Dur’s effort had affected him personally.

“After Gus Dur broke the discrimination wall against the Chinese, I often forget that I am a Chinese.

“Because of Gus Dur, I feel equal to other Indonesians from any other ethnicity,” he said.

A participant, Rudi Sera, said that he had experienced hard times prior to Gus Dur’s administration.

“In the past, it was hard to deal with any administrative business matters with government officials, even simple things such as getting an ID card or a passport,” he said.