The Gobels : A historical and sosioeconomic reflection Fachry Ali  ;   One of the founders of the Institute for the Study and Advancement of Business Ethics; He attended Chuo University’s conferring of doctorate honoris causa degree on Rachmat Gobel upon the latter’s invitation

JAKARTA POST, 12 April 2014

                                      

                                                                                         

                                                             

Last March, I witnessed the awarding of a doctorate honoris causa degree to Indonesian businessman Rachmat Gobel by Chuo University in Tokyo. I thought it was a kind of a “courtesy party” to deepen relations between the university and the Japanese-related electronic company pioneered by his father Thayeb Muhammad Gobel (1930-1984). But I was wrong. Why? Starting in 1885 as the Igirisu Horitsu Gakko (the English Law School), this university imposes high standards when granting degrees. The award proposal could only be realized with the unanimous approval of 1,000 of its lecturers. For the last half century, only 12 notables were eligible, including then secretary-general of the United Nations Koffi Anan. I recall an early 1940s Gorontalo teenager who was running behind a sado (carriage) as far as 7 kilometers to his school. It belonged to his friend but the father of his friend would not allow him to get in the cart. The teenager was Thayeb Muhammad Gobel, the father of Rachmat Gobel. I heard this story from novelist Ramadhan KH. A further study on Gorontalo history gives it deeper meaning. First, it features that the teenage Thayebu (a nickname of Thayeb) was less fortune in terms of material. Although his father bequeathed a large budel (family land inheritance), it had no impact on him. The divorce of his parents had resulted in leaving him and his sister under the tutelage of their matji (aunt) who possessed no adat (customary) rights on the budel. Thayebu then was belittled, even just to ride his friend father’s sado. Second, it reflects a strong determination to change the “clan” (the Gobel) history. The hierarchy of Gorontalo’s social structure was shaped more by clan access into Dutch modern educational system. For their ancestors had taken timihipo (to keep a distance and be non-cooperative) with the Dutch, the Gobel escaped from the Dutch of modern educational system. While the other Gorontalo clans Monoarfa, Yassin, Katili, Dungga and the like had sprawled on the public stage, until 1960s the position of Gobel remained unseen. Thayebu’s running behind his friend’s sado was a struggle, for his shoulder burdened with symbolic weight: The Gobel’s effort to seek a respected place within the bunch of other Gorontalo’s clans. His achievement in the field of education was not spectacular. He graduated from the Sawering Gading senior high school (SMA) in Makassar after Gorontalo’s junior high school (SMP). It was only after several decades that Thayebu managed to gain his university diploma from Jayabaya University in Jakarta. Yet, his ancestry’s timihipo continued to symbolically whip him. Thereby, another way had to be pursued: business activity by employing strategic ideas, including diplomacy and the politics of nationalism. When, in 1954, Thayebu established PT Transistor Radio Mfg. Co., the extreme power grid shortage prompted him to bring the idea of advancing the nationwide transistor radio project to president Sukarno. Thayebu explained that due to the power shortage; the president’s speeches could not reach the people in the rural and mountainous areas. It was the transistor radio that could make the president’s speeches heard. Thayeb’s idea was granted Sukarno’s support. This shows us that doing business is an implementation of idea beyond the limits of cost and benefit. In this way, the produced product is a meta-commodity: a value-contained item rather than merely a traded one. It was this idea that brought Thayebu to a well-known Japanese electronic industrialist, Konosuke Matsushita, in late 1950s. To the latter, Thayebu did not propose a business program. Instead, a specific plan to help his newly independent country through industrialization. This more reflected a confluence of nationalism ideas rather than a technical business activity. The fruition of these two industrialists’ meeting was PT National Gobel in 1970. But, even eight years prior to its establishment, Thayebu had distributed 10,000 TV sets to the nation, precisely at the time of Sukarno’s nationalism politics as this country hosted the 1962 Asian Games. Though a plain commodity, these TV sets served as a meta-commodity. With them, Sukarno flaunted to the international public that technologically, Indonesia was a promising country. Thayebu indeed defines himself as a nation fighter. In his eighth PT National Gobel Anniversary speech in 1978, he stressed: “A businessman must at the same time act as a fighter for his nation.” In the Gorontalo context, Thayebu’s industrial achievement soon redeemed the historical effect of timihipo. Through this achievement, Gobel had been standing on par with other respected clans that made Thayebu eligible to receive ilomato the highest of adat — Gorontalo’s cultural award. He also presented a distinct picture of “a nation-based businessman”. This contradicts the picture of Paul Kennedy. In his Preparing the Twenty-First Century (1994) speech, he described the multinational businessman who was “less attached to the particular interest and value[s] of his [their] country of origin”. Thayebu shows the opposite characteristic; that his business reflects the nation’s interests. Thayebu-Matsushita business cooperation, thus, deepened the two nations’ connection they respectively represented. This monumental legacy automatically worked as a particular budel for Rachmat, as he did not need to start from scratch. But his burden was not lighter. Although he escapes from the timihipo historical whipping, Rachmat’s burden transformed into a new one: The threatening possibility of his father’s budel disclosure and the end of Indonesia-Japan relations. Could Rachmat act as more than just as a lucky successor? For the 44 years since its establishment, National Gobel (now Panasonic Manufacturing Indonesia) has shown no signs of declining. Instead, it is experiencing an upward trend. Rachmat’s performance, thus, stands on his father’s formulated business philosophy: The Banana Tree Principle. A banana tree never lets itself dies before growing a new generation. And in the context of timihipo, Rachmat has not only succeeded in maintaining the respected position of Gobel, but also increasing its “glory”. Since 1997 up until 2013, he received dozens of achievements. Gaining his Chuo University Bachelor of Arts degree in science in 1987, Rachmat was awarded a doctorate honoris causa degree from Takushoku University in 2000. Rachmat pushes for the further advancement of Indonesia-Japan relations. This is vividly characterized, besides acting as the leader of several Japan-related organizations, with the presence of Japan’s former prime minister Yasuo Fukuda’s son in a Rachmat’s factory visit at the fringe of Tokyo. His father’s budel has taught Rachmat many ways to strengthen Indonesia-Japan relations. The Chuo University’s doctorate honoris causa degree, thus, could be seen as a “global version” of the ilomato, symbolic of Rachmat’s extra-creative handling of the budel. ●