Of Allah and small things

This was something I wrote for BFM's digital magazine Bside, which is available as a free download.

It is close to nine PM that he finally steps into the supermarket to buy his groceries.

As he ambles down the aisle, he sees that the tin of milk formula, already fitted with an anti-theft clip, has gone up a couple of cents again.

The recent petrol-hike has already cost him 20% extra, while time spent parked on the road grows ever longer as Kuala Lumpur becomes home to more jobseekers from all over the country.

 His sense of powerlessness grows as he scrolls through the news in the queue at the cashier:  another murder, another robbery. No one cares if your house is burgled because you’re not a datuk. Your relatives don’t ever seem to be off social media, a proper job is hard to find for them, hopefully they will be able to snag some government jobs soon; and look, the minorities are saying more things. They’re so much more confident and vocal now, demanding this and that when they’ve already got so much more than the Malays.

This is the great Bumiputera life. All your life you’ve been told that Malaysia is Tanah Melayu. That the fruits of this land, its harvests are yours, yet everything remains out of reach to you; the comfortable house, the better car, the happier life. Ads and commercials show so many things you want, but you see only the Chinese, those pendatang, driving that foreign car, entering into that gated community with the stately town-houses. You are a spectator to riches no matter how hard you work.

Thank god, Alhamdulillah, you’re a muslim. Allah rewards the believers in the hereafter. Let the kafirs enjoy this brief earthly paradise.

It may seem out of place to begin a piece on the ‘Allah’ issue with this anecdote, but it serves to illustrate the context the dissatisfaction is emerging from. The controversy surrounding the use of the word ‘Allah’ may, upon cursory glance, seem like a question for the theologians (especially those of the comparative/interfaith persuasions) but I have a feeling that, in Malaysia, it is really not about religion, but about a lot of the many small things that happen around us every day.

And let’s not kid ourselves, to really understand the Allah issue, you really have to understand how a large section of the Malays think.

Unfortunately, whether out of inability or just general disinterest, few real attempts have been made to understand why there is, among the Malay community, such an unease over the use of the word by non-muslims.

To be fair (and hedge against a permanent seat in hell) I will have to admit, theologically speaking, that there are merits in the arguments put forth by the supporters and opponents of the ‘Allah’ ban.

That may sound like a cop-out for you ideal-minded latte sippers out there, but Islamic jurisprudence, being what it is , has always had these instances of contradictory opinions on a wide range of issues. That Muslim thought and practices are wide and diverse is not just a cheery slogan on the side of a London bus, but a fact of history. Scholars and thinkers have throughout the history of Islam tried to make sense of the Qur’an and the Hadith (primary sources for the majority of Muslims) to the best of their abilities, crafting fatwas based upon precedents, reason, philosophy, local circumstance, and sometimes superstitions, political expediency, and whim.

These are among the many elements that have melded together to make Islam such a rich tapestry of human thought and civilisation, but it has also been the spark of violent strife and conflict.

Sometimes, Muslims are accepting and open to different ideas and opinions, but there are also times when Muslim communities have found it difficult to agree with people with different beliefs, Muslim or non-Muslim.

This second scenario is something we are familiar with in this modern age of daily bombings, sectarian violence, and state-sponsored witch-hunts that appear in the news every day, in countries as known for their poverty and dysfunction as they are for violence.

Sure we’re not Somalia today, but we have to realise how hard things have become for the average Malaysian: for the clerk in her kaleidoscopic baju kurung down in Finance, for the abang dispatch who’s been slipping in and out of traffic for the past fifteen years, for the polytechnic grad answering phone calls in a call centre at 3 in the morning, figuring out how to make his share of rent for his rumah sardin this month.

As you can probably grasp from the ethnic makeup of our population, many of those struggling today are Malays. They are not simple stereotypes of lackadaisical ineptitude, but are human beings with their own set of complexes that need to be understood if a real solution is something we are interested in.

Religious identity, to name one crucial example, has become such a pillar of what it means to be Malay in the 21^st century.  There is a strong sense of pride that comes from being a Muslim, to be members of a global (and heavenly) community with a rich history and the Quranic ‘best of nations’.

With few other things to be proud of, and a future that grows bleaker with each passing day, it is not a stretch to understand why this pride in being Muslim is jealously guarded. It does not seem like it’s a rational pride, which makes arguments on matters related to it difficult, but it has to be addressed somehow before Malaysia becomes another one of those ‘Muslim nations’, and we start seeing local equivalents of Boko Harams or Al-Shababs.

Because as we have seen, all it takes it a small spark to start a raging fire.

we thought it was real

thought I'd share this final reflection piece for my pop music course. This is an opinion piece and in no way researched, so rip into it!
 

My early teens in Kuala Lumpur coincided with the explosion of Malaysian hip-hop and R&B in Malaysia.The early 2000s were a time where groups like Too Phat and VE ruled the airwaves, kids dressed in baggy t-shirts and baseball caps, and trying to sound black with our ‘Yo!’s, ‘Homies’, and ‘dawgs’.

Too Phat, a rap duo, was the biggest thing at the time. Too Phat’s phenomenal success wasn’t the first time rap appeared in the Malaysian market. They had predecessors and tracks by Tupac, Biggie Smalls, Will Smith and co were already common on English radio stations. What Too Phat managed to do was crossover into the mainstream Malay market with a track that sampled a popular Malay singer with English rap lyrics.
Authenticity was never an issue in those days. Malaysian rap had at its centre a core of middle class youths. We were children of anglophile parents, raised on a steady diet of American culture. What America listened to, we listened to, and considered it ours.This was mimicry at its best.

Rap and Hip-hop, only the latest in a long line of cultural products from Black America, began as a genuine response to the poverty and squalor of the inner cities. A tradition that began as social commentary about discrimination and hardship, hip-hop wasn’t only creative and entertaining, it was also a style of performance that allowed for greater provocation than its older cousins. It was also a style that was self-aware, and conscious of its surroundings, its goals, and actors.

Needless to say, Malaysian hip-hop wasn’t as socially potent. As a genre favoured by entitled youths, early Malaysian hip-hop occupied itself with conflicts of the heart and lifestyle portrayals. Too Phat’s Jezzebelle is one particularly amusing example:

She so fine I treat her so kind 'cause i was so blind
until I caught her humpin' wit' this old man from Oman
Oh my, it sure was sucky but I was lucky
to be Malique, who got more chicks than Kentucky

Malaysian hip-hop shared the same sound as its American cousins, down to the diction (East or West Coast, depending on the rapper’s preference). However, while NWA could rap ‘Straight Outta Compton’ and find audiences all over the globe, Malaysian hip-hop wasn’t able to find much success beyond the Anglo-centric centres of South East Asia.

In my opinion, this could be because Malaysian hip-hop could only be seen as a pale imitation of the genuine hip-hop. While an act like Jay-Z wrote and rapped based on his real experiences of drugs and guns in the projects, the Malaysian sound-a-like rapped about girls, clubs, and having a good time, something difficult to sell to audiences that didn’t care if a performer’s Malaysian.

By 2004, the tide had died down. As international success was proving too difficult to find, Malaysian hip-hop groups turned inward and became more vernacular. While their sound before was consciously ‘black’, groups then started to incorporate local rhythms and instruments. More importantly, they started to rap in their mother tongues.

This process of fusion continues to happen today as both performers and audiences mature. It may not be traditional hip-hop, and not traditional Malaysian music, but it’s an authentic development, and this time it’s ours.

Bacaan asing

petikan dari laman Ustaz Hazrizal:

THE AGE OF MUSLIM IGNORANCE

Pada saya, apa yang telah membelenggu Eropah di era itu, hal yang sama jugalah sedang membelenggu pemikiran umat Islam hari ini. Saya bimbang dengan pemikiran simplistik umat Islam di Malaysia hari ini. Jika Tok Wan di kampung, tentulah saya tidak bimbang. Tetapi yang menjadi kerisauan saya adalah tokoh-tokoh masyarakat, ahli politik dan Ulama sendiri.

Di era penghormatan orang ramai terhadap Ulama semakin terhakis, ramai Ulama yang dengan sendiri menambah sebab untuk mereka tidak dihormati.

Suatu ketika, kita beranggapan bahawa semua yang menentang Islam adalah Orientalis. Semua Orientalis adalah musuh Islam. Walaupun mungkin kita bahagikan Orientalis kepada Orientalis klasik, moden, dan pasca moden, namun kita beranggapan bahawa semua kelompok ini bekerja untuk menjayakan agenda penjajahan dan merancang untuk membinasakan Islam. Lantas kita gagal bersikap adil, dan seterusnya terhijab dari mengambil manfaat menerusi kajian Orientalis yang bermaksud baik seperti Arnold Toynbee.

Kita juga marah dengan Orientalis kerana menyalah tafsirkan Islam, bagaimana pula dengan jenayah kita menyalah tafsirkan Eropah? Apakah kita sudah menghasilkan terjemahan Islam terhadap Western Civilization? Orientalis gigih bekerja, dan kita hanya gigih menangkis, semata-mata.

Saya terkejut apabila mendapati ada di kalangan rakan saya yang belajar di Eropah tetapi menumpukan pembacaan tentang Orientalis kepada hasil karya orang Islam terhadap subjek tersebut. Tentunya pembacaan sedemikian rupa akan diwarnai oleh bahasa sacarstic, prejudis dan sinis yang merugikan. Sedangkan saya dan rakan-rakan di Malaysia, kami bertungkus lumus membaca tentang Orientalis berasaskan karya Orientalis sendiri, agar kami tidak bias, dan boleh membuat kesimpulan yang adil tentang mereka.

Kami menempuh kesukaran untuk mendapatkan bahan bacaan tentang Orientalis, dan jika ada terjual di Kinokuniya atau Borders, harganya menyeksa diri. Sedangkan mereka yang berada di Eropah tidak mengambil peluang daripada keberadaan mereka di sana, untuk mendalami isu ini dari sumbernya yang asli.

kalau berani, ia dibaca dengan ini: Ancaman Pembiusan Agama, tulisan Fathi Aris Omar.

[TAMBAHAN (10/5/2007): Kedua-dua artikel ini mengupas isu yang sama, iaitu perlunya berlaku adil terhadap kawan dan lawan, di dalam konteks penerimaan ilmu. Ia, pada hemat saya, sesuatu yang perlu diamalkan oleh setiap muslim.]

Ada baiknya jika diskusi di hujung artikel ini dibaca juga.

Mohon dijaga adab di dalam berpendapat.