Jakarta, NU Onlline
Indonesia’s fourth president, the late Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, is among six people who will officially be recognized as national heroes this week – but the government says it will not confer the actual title on him until an unspecified “appropriate time.”
<>
The Social Affairs Ministry said in a statement issued on Saturday that President Joko Widodo had on Thursday had signed a decree recognizing the six individuals for their significant contributions to Indonesia’s development and lifetime devotion and struggle for the nation.
The new inductees will bring the list of official national heroes to 169; but while the families of five of the new batch have already been given a signed award from Joko in person, Gus Dur’s status as a national hero remains in bureaucratic limbo.
“Even though Gus Dur has received the title, the bestowal will have to wait for the appropriate time,” Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa said in the statement.
She did not say what the right time was, although earlier this year she indicated it might come before National Heroes Day, which falls this Tuesday.
Gus Dur, who was president from 1999 to 2001 and died in 2009, was best known for embracing pluralism, including his teachings of a tolerant interpretation of Islam.
The influential cleric, who also chaired Indonesia’s biggest Islamic organization, the 40-million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama, famously revoked a Suharto-era prohibition on the expression of Chinese culture and pushed to make the Chinese New Year a national observance.
This year’s other recipients of national hero status include Bernard Wilhelm Lapian, who led a civilian uprising against the Dutch attempt to retake Indonesia in 1946 following its declaration of independence a year earlier; I Gusti Ngurah Made Agung, a Balinese king who played a key role in the Puputan Badung War against the Dutch in 1906; and Ki Bagoes Hadikoesoemo who was a member of the committee that laid out the framework for the country’s 1945 Constitution. (masdar)
