Medan – The strength of Muhammadiyah to survive for more than a hundred years was no other than the quality of human resources, in this case especially for its cadres. Muhammadiyah cadres as the arrow for movements were the active and selected role models to determine the development of Muhammadiyah. The ups and downs of Muhammadiyah in the middle of competition with other movements and powers depended on the quality and the role of its cadres in many aspects of life.
That was the content of one of the papers submitted by the Chairman of Muhammadiyah Central Executive, HaedarNashir in the Pre 47thMuktamar Seminar, taking the theme of TransformasiIdeologiMuhammadiyah di tengahDinamikaUmatdanBangsa, which was held at Aula PascasarjanaUniversitasMuhammadiyah Sumatera Utama on Tuesday (04/28). Haedar stated that in some aspects, the existence and the role of religious, political, and professional Muhammadiyah cadres that was quite strong and filling many lines of life structure both in the government and other fields started to crumble and being overrun by cadres from other organizations.
Among the powers that were expected to play an important role for the future of Muhammadiyah were the Muhammadiyah religious leaders, especially tarjih religious leader. The development of life right now became more complex and multi-dimensional that it needed new perspectives and from multi-perspectives. There were many problems in religious aspect and they were related to other problems such as economy, politics, culture, health and other aspects of life that would need perspective from other field of study that transcended classical Islamic teachings.
Meanwhile, for political cadres, even though Muhammadiyah did not actively participate in practical political field, it still needed political support for the sake of da’wah purpose and to develop the country. Generally, there were two ways to be involved in political aspect. First, practical politics (power struggle, real politics) done by political parties outside Muhammadiyah. The second was national politics (moral politics, high politics) done by Muhammadiyah as an interest group. “Both ways need skilled political cadres who possess high moral values,” he explained.
The gateway to the government and to other life aspects in this modern era was as urgent as the importance of entering through professional route. Recently, the portion of professional personnel in the Cabinet tended to rise and it inclined more to the professionals from many field of study. However, it was possible that the spread cadres or Muhammadiyah members might naturally emerged and not “by design.” For now and for the future, it was important to plan and program this systematically. “Indeed, to become a good leader and political and professional cadres could not merely depend on the education and training; there was also a sense of talent and basic skills supported by experience. But, the fact also shows that if things were to be planned and programmed systematically, everything will run more smoothly and bound to succeed,” he reaffirmed. (mac)