(Welcome remarks, “Seminar on Islam, Modernization and Reform in Indonesia: Parallelism and Context in the Philippines” held at UP-ISSI, Diliman, Quezon City, 27 June 2024.)
QUEZON CITY (MindaNews / 15 July)—Bismillaahir rahmaanir raheem. Assalaamu alaykum wa rahmatu l-llaahi wa barakaatuh.
Good morning everyone.
Today, we are fortunate to have with us two new friends from UIN Imam Bonjol University in Padang, Indonesia.
This morning, I already had the hint that when they arrived, they would be wearing batik. So, I thought I also have to wear my batik.
As I checked my closet, I realized that I have many batik both short and long sleeves—around 15 of them, even higher in number than my regular clothes.
Why do I have many batik clothes? It is because we have many Indonesian friends including a few of our Indonesian students both living here in the Philippines and those in Indonesia. Whenever they’d visit us in the University, they would bring us gifts, mostly batik clothes.
Batik is an iconic symbol of Indonesia and has gained resonance and following in many countries in Southeast Asia. It speaks of what is popularly known as “Unity and Diversity,” which is the cardinal principle of the Pancasila—the ideology of the Republic of Indonesia. It is the idea behind the rich tradition of multiculturalism in that country.
The tradition of cultural pluralism in Southeast Asia has long melted into our relation between the Philippines and Indonesia for years if not centuries. We have precisely conceptualized this seminar to re-ignite our interest on the historic relation between our two countries and others precisely because this tradition has shaped us Filipinos, as Indonesians, as Malaysians and so on.
A case in point—a story I could hardly forget was, in my younger years as an academic, I was fortunate to be invited to the International Conference of Muslim Scholars held in Jakarta. It was organized by Muhammadiyyah, although attended also by Nahdatul Ulama. These are two major religious organizations in Indonesia—sometimes they are competing and oftentimes uniting on many issues.
During that conference, I was made to sit in a session together with Gus Dur or Abdulrahman Wahid. As you know, he was the former President of Indonesia. He was also an academic. He was blind. I introduced myself to him. I said: “I am Julkipli Wadi from the University of the Philippines.”
Then, he immediately responded: “How is Carmen Abubakar” (our former dean of UP-IIS)? “How is Michael Mastura? How is Asiri Abubakar?” They are our senior scholars in the ’80s and ’90s who’d established ties with Indonesian scholars and other academics in Southeast Asia.
That is how close the likes of Gus Dur to UP some years ago. For years, we continued to build such relations. Early this year, for instance, I was in UIN Jakarta whose former assistant rector now serves as new rector of IIIU or Universitas Islam International Indonesia. He was with us in the Philippines a number of times to do research.
When we held a webinar with our visitors a few weeks ago, we agreed to start our academic and research collaboration with their lecture today. We might as well see some parallel experiences, albeit in varying contexts in the Philippines.
I hope today’s engagement would just be the beginning of our interactions. Hopefully, it would cascade into more collaboration in terms of research, faculty and student exchanges and other areas of collaboration between our two universities.
Even this morning when they were having their coffee at the Dean’s Office, I was already bragging to them: “You really have to come back and by that time we will be hosting you in the new building of UP Institute of Islamic Studies.” It is to energize the interest of our two visitors and other scholars from Indonesia to engage with us not only today but in the future as well.
I hope we will have a fruitful discussion. It’s very rare that we can have friends from Indonesia who are willing to fly despite their tight schedules; they arrive this morning direct from the airport while our session is getting prepared. Hence, I thought we have to give them coffee first with some boiled eggs and pandesal.
Thank you very much.
[MindaViews is an opinion section of MindaNews. Julkipli Wadi is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of the Philippines.]