Bab 12 : BJ Habibie

B.J. Habibie

Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie is the third President of Indonesia. He was born on June 25, 1936 in Pare-Pare, South Sulawesi. He is the fourth of eight children in his family. His parents are Alwi Abdul Jalil Habibie and RA. Tuti Marini Puspowardojo. He spent his childhood in Pare-Pare. Since he was a kid, he has shown his integrity and persistent behaviour. At school, Habibie whose hobbies are riding horse and reading book is famous for his intelligence.

Habibie’s father passed away due to heart attack when he was in elementary school. After that, his mother sold their vehicle and house and then moved to Bandung. As a single parent, Habibie’s mother worked hard to afford her life with her children.

In 1954, after Habibie graduated from senior high school in Bandung, he continued his study to Bandung Institute of Technology. He did not finish his study at ITB because at the same time he got a scholarship from The Ministry of education and Culture of Indonesia to study in Germany. He remembered that Bung Karno had ever said about the importance of plane development for Indonesia, and then he decided to take aerospace engineering with aeroplane construction specialty at Rhein Westfalen Aachen Technische Hochschule (RWTH), an institute of technology in Germany.

Habibie studied hard to be success since he remembered how hard his mother worked for his life. Even, Habibie spent his time in holiday to earn extra money for buying books. When holiday ended, he did not do anything except studying. In 1960, he graduated with great score, almost perfect (9.5). With his education background, he applied at an industry company of train, named Firma Talbot.

After that, he continued his doctoral degree at Technische Hochschule Die Facultaet Fuer Maschinenwesen Aachean. In 1962, he got married with Hasri Ainun. She was a doctor and she followed his husband to Germany. Habibie and Ainun has two sons. They are Ilham Akbar dan Thareq Kemal. At that time, life got harder. He had to go to work in the early morning because he walked to the office to save more money. He went home in the evening and studied. He finished his doctoral degree in 1965 with perfect score (10).

In his life, Habibie has got many achievements and awards from Indonesia and other International institution. Before he fulfilled a call from President Soeharto and went back to Indonesia, he had worked at a leading aeroplane industry, MBB Gmbh, Germany. In Indonesia, Habibie had been the minister of Research and Technology for 20 years and led 10 governmental company of strategic industry. He was elected by society representative assembly as the Vice President of Indonesia. When the crisis happened in 1998 and President Soeharto was insisted to step down from his position, Habibie was assigned to replace President Soeharto to be the third President of Indonesia.

In 2012, the life of Habibie and how he met Ainun were filmed and got high rates for the inspirational story. Hasri Ainun passed away on May 22, 2010 in Ludwig Maximilians Universitat hospital, Klinikum, Muenchen, Germany. She suffered a cancer for a long time however she never told her husband, Habibie. It was known that she had cancer when she collapsed and had to be hospitalized. For Habibie, Ainun is everything. She is a great partner of life who had accompanied him to go through good and bad times in life.