NU Affirms Serving the Community, Will Not Be Involved in Power Struggle

JAKARTA, KOMPAS – The General Chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama KH Yahya Cholil Staquf emphasized that Nahdlatul Ulama or NU should not involve itself or compete for power in the government. NU exists as an organization that serves, assists, and dedicates itself to the people. Therefore, regardless of who the government leader is, NU will support existing programs ranging from welfare, education, health, to the economy for the benefit of the community.

This was conveyed by Yahya during the Asta Cita Sarasehan event from the perspective of NU scholars at The Sultan Hotel & Residence Jakarta, Tuesday (4/1/2025). Present at the event were, among others, Minister of Religious Affairs Nasaruddin Umar, Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Abdul Mu'ti, and Minister of Social Affairs Saifullah Yusuf. The scholars' sarasehan event was also packaged with three-panel discussions featuring various speakers from academia, scholars, and practitioners.

The first panel discussion was themed "Collaboration for Strengthening Highly Competitive Human Resources Towards a Golden Indonesia," the second panel with the theme "Sustainable Economic Development by Maximizing Local Potential Focused on Downstreaming, Industrialization, Economic Equity, and Public Welfare." The theme of the final panel discussion was "Strengthening the Pancasila Ideology and Enhancing the National Defense System Towards a Just and Prosperous Indonesian Society Without Corruption."

Yahya emphasized that NU must not be involved or engage itself in collective entities such as power competitions in politics. Involvement in political competitions is feared to be dangerous for the continuity of the nation and the state, as NU has now developed into a very large and extensive environment and culture in Indonesia.

"Nahdlatul Ulama must not be allowed to grow, let alone be deliberately encouraged to consolidate as a political identity, it must not be allowed," said Yahya.

Since its inception, Nahdlatul Ulama was born out of the desire to bring benefits to all. Therefore, NU's position must be as an organization that serves, assists, and dedicates itself to the people.

According to Yahya, NU always supports anyone who has a vision and mission to bring benefits to the people, including the government. Regardless of who the president is in each period of administration, NU believes that the main goal is to build welfare for the people.

Firmly, Yahya stated that NU fully supports Asta Cita from President Prabowo Subianto. Providing welfare, education, health, and economy is indeed the responsibility of the government, but NU still wants to play a role in realizing it.

"NU has fundamental values to serve, to provide service, to devote to the community. NU was born out of the desire to strive to bring benefits to the community, to the people," said Yahya.

Yahya also invited clerics at various levels to better understand President Prabowo's Astacita. Therefore, this clerics' discussion is an important momentum to strengthen the synergy between clerics and the government in a joint effort to realize a more advanced, just, and prosperous Indonesia for all people.

"NU's position is to provide itself so that this vision is in accordance with what is desired. So it is important for the ulama to understand better about this Astacita and what PBNU can do," said Yahya.

Vice Chancellor of Nahdlatul Ulama University Surabaya Kacung Marijan said, the state must be present to improve the quality of life of the community. The state must be a driver, but the state also cannot ignore the role of the community or the private sector.

Often when there is a problem related to school or health, then the state is not present, then there is always a community or organization involved to solve the problem. Therefore, realizing the welfare of all requires collaboration between the state, society, and community groups such as NU, Muhammadiyah, and the Catholic community.

"Well, the collaboration between the state, market, and community is important. In Indonesia, there is NU and Muhammadiyah which have a big focus on education and health. Meanwhile, NU is not very strong in the economic sector as recorded by the Kompas survey a few days ago," said Kacung.

Minister of Religion Nasaruddin Umar said that being a cleric in a modern society like today is not easy or as simple as being a cleric in the past. Today's clerics must have the ability to digest various kinds of problems that are present as realities in society.

"So, being a cleric in modern society is not easy. It is not as simple as being a cleric in the past, the references were the Qur'an, the hadith, the clerics were complete, but not now," said Nasaruddin.

For this reason, to become a cleric, it is not enough to be supported only by textual intelligence, but one must be able to actualize that textual intelligence in the wisdom of understanding contextual reality.

"Other wisdoms are needed, especially local wisdom, universal wisdom is also an inseparable part for us to understand. Thus, that is what becomes the reference for scholars who can exist in the future," said Nasaruddin.

Nasaruddin invited scholars not only to refer to the definition of truth that has existed so far, but must be enriched with new patterns that are also developing in society. The validity of a truth is also not sufficiently tested with the theories of truth itself, but needs to be complemented by other intelligence or other wisdom.

"If not, then disappointment will haunt us, an example of that disappointment is that we are sometimes faced with a reality that is actually not intellectually valid, not very strong legally and formally religiously, but how come it wins, but how come it exists in society," said Nasaruddin.