Friday, April 27, 2007

SBY asks Muhammadiyah to help solve poverty

M. Taufiqurrahman and Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has asked the country's second largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, to help solve Indonesia's economic problems by tailoring a program that will focus on poverty eradication.

Yudhoyono said Thursday that although Muhammadiyah had been successful in providing health and education for a large portion of the country's population, its contribution to the Indonesian economy had been minuscule.

"We have to admit that the contribution of Muhammadiyah in helping the economy grow has been relatively modest compared with its contribution to social activities," Yudhoyono said, while addressing hundreds of Muhammadiyah members who gathered for an annual national meeting in Yogyakarta.

Yudhoyono called on the meeting's participants to develop concrete plans and help enact programs that would benefit the country's poor.

"I hope that participants in this meeting can come up with programs that can economically empower the poor so they can be freed from the scourge of global capitalism," Yudhoyono said.

The President said the lack of Muhammadiyah-developed economic programs was due in part to the absence of businesspeople in the organization's leadership structure.

"Leadership in Muhammadiyah has been controlled lately by bureaucrats, intellectuals, politicians and activists," he said.

Yudhoyono admitted, however, that Muhammadiyah has contributed significantly to improving the quality of human resources in Indonesia through its educational institutions and healthcare facilities.

Muhammadiyah currently owns 5,754 schools and manages several large Islamic universities throughout the country. The organization also runs hundreds of Indonesian medical clinics and hospitals.

The country's second largest Muslim organization after Nahdlatul Ulama, Muhammadiyah has some 30 million members. It was founded in Yogyakarta in November 1912 by Ahmad Dahlan, a Muslim scholar trained in Mecca.

The establishment of the organization, mostly by Muslim merchants in the sultanate town, was motivated by the spread of syncretism in the country, especially among the Javanese people.

Although it never officially formed a legitimate political wing, Muhammadiyah has been recognized as one of the country's main political forces with a number of its members having occupied ministerial posts in every administration, especially those relating to education and health.

Incumbent Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari and Minister for National Education Bambang Sudibyo are members of Muhammadiyah's executive board.

Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin has said the organization supports the application of a sharia-based economic system as part of efforts to resolve the country's current economic condition.

"This system has been applied in non-Muslim countries and I think it will be relevant for our country, which has a majority-Muslim population," Din said.

To meet that end, he added, the government should create a conducive environment for the application of the system.

Din also said that Muhammadiyah has thrown its weight behind the government's social welfare program, which has taken the form of, among other programs, free medical services for the poor.


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