NU promotes high-level politics

Jakarta, NU Online
Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) as a social and religious organization is inseparable from political activity. Instead of intensifying practical politics, the country's largest Muslim organization has focused more on high-level politics.<>

Secretary general of the Central Board of NU KH Malik Madani told NU Online here on Tuesday (7/5), saying that the high-level politics "is the one requiring both morality and integrity that animates any practical political activity."

Kiai Madani said the practical politics was part of a power struggle or effort of winning parliamentary seats, adding that NU did not move in such practical political circles.

"NU does promote high-level politics (as-siyasatul ulya) as a necessary condition for political activity and the state. Because it could address the interests of the Indonesian people on such a scale rather than power politics," he said.

He said that the NU's high-level political ideas were agreed at the Ulema National Congress and the Large Conference of NU in, September 2012 in Pesantren Kempek, Cirebon, West Java.

In the Commission Meeting on Bahtsul Masa'il Diniyah Al-Waqi'iyyah (religious contemporary problems solving), NU clerics (kiai) took up a number of important contemporary problems, such as the management of the state wealth, the people welfare, corruption and death penalty for corruptors, the criteria for legislative and executive candidates, the case of bribery, and the management of tax.

The high-level politics, he said, was clearly the NU line of politics and "is needed by the people of Indonesia in the midst dominant political power, as-siyatud dunya.

Editor: Sudarto Murtaufiq