The wisdom of taxi drivers
If you want the sanest, most sage and also bonkers advice on love, life and religion, talk to a cab driver. They come in all shapes and sizes: you have the kohl-eyed drivers with serbans who can tickle your funny bone, you might come across a graduate driving a taxi because it’s more lucrative and of course an Indonesian immigrant trying very hard to pass off as a local, despite lapsing into Javanese as he careens his way through the traffic and asking you from time to time, the directions.
Taxi drivers are the same everywhere; they know the beat, the pulse of a city and empathise with the heart of a country. So they should, ferrying all sorts across town, cities and villages. While you can’t generalise the drivers, most of them are men (and women) that know what it means to eke a living in an unsure economy. Malaysian cab drivers can be the most ornery service providers in the world, but nothing’s perfect.
Almost 90 percent of the cab drivers that have brought me from point A to C and then Y have been Malay, and chatty. I don’t exercise the NEP when it comes to hailing cabs, but it’s rare that I get a non-Malay Muslim driver. And every one of them had something to say about the state of our country.
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Bang, Segambut boleh ke?
Today’s cabbie was about my age or slightly older. When he heard my Terengganu accent when I told him my destination, he was delighted. It’s been quite some time he heard the dialect, he said.
We talked about his past employment history: he was a personal assistant to a Datuk at one of the more established stock-broking houses in KL before he started a small business that inevitably failed. Driving a cab was a part-time job that in the end saved the day.
“You know, ‘dik (Little Sister), I wish I’m poor. When you’re poor, you lead a simple life: you work to live. No debts. You get up and go make some money and then you come home. You know of no other life. If you’re like me, stuck in the middle, you have debts. Pay for this, pay for that. And I certainly don’t want to be rich, because wealth brings another set of problems.”
Why is that?
“I’m not a perfect Muslim, kid. I do my best you know? But I get scared of the way our religion is handled nowadays. It’s an elite brand of Islam. And these people, they’re going to lead our country. This is what frightens me. As it is, we Malays are insecure and don’t even know ourselves as a race and people. The upper-class, what do they know? They only know an exclusive way of life. I’m including the kampong small-town boy made good too! They do well and they go up in life. Along the way, things change. Lifestyle. Tastes. It’s the order of things.”
“Will these people understand us? Will they understand how people like me appreciate the faith? Bukan abang nak stail Taliban (I don’t want a Taliban style of ruling the country)… Last week, I had this white guy, a professor, in my cab. He could speak Malay, in Kelantanese! He kept asking me everything about being Malay. Why we abolished Mak Yong. Is the Islam practised now the same as our ancestors? He asked me why during the tsunami tragedy, all we Malaysians did was to pose for pictures, holding fat mock-ups of cheques. He said true charity was not about photo opportunities.”
“I questioned myself after that: what kind of Malay and Muslim was I?”
It was only later when I reached my stop that I realised later that the driver identity plate on the dashboard was blank. The only thing visible was a name: Othman bin (this part seemed to have been erased or covered by White Out). We never discussed further what kind of Malay or Muslim he was.
I would never know his real name.
Kelas sejarah
It is apparent to me, after talking to these men, that there are two separate identities that need to be addressed: being Malay as opposed to being Muslim. If before, we took it for granted that we were indeed a favoured race – Malay equaled Muslim - now we are dissatisfied and frustrated. When I was a child, my mother bought me a religious comic that had one character that asked another character:
“Do you know why it’s great to be Malay?”
“Why?”
“Because Malays are Muslims. There are Arab Christians, Chinese Catholics, but all Malays are Muslims.”
Of course now we know better.
Islam arrived in Malaysia around the 13th century. Brought by Indian and Arab traders, Islam spread gradually as a monotheistic religion. The birth and rise of Malacca as a trading post and Sultanate advanced Islam’s presence in the region. Islam spread through not only teachings of missionaries, but also through inter-racial marriages between rulers and also their people.
From the little that I know of how Islam was practised then, it was a tool to forge dynasties and build empires. The wives of religious teachers slung a light selendang to cover their shoulders as they made their way into the marketplace, the rivers, wearing the sensual sarong. It is rare to find an artefact of one of these wives wearing the hijab. Very few Muslims managed to reach Mecca to perform their Hajj. Only the royals and wealthy were able to perform the Hajj, if they did so.
The resurgence of Islam came to light in the 1950s, when the Malays demanded independence from the British. With Islam exclusive to the Malays, and the fact that the Malays, once a marginialised group, were becoming a force to reckon with, the British government had a lot on their plate. Racial tensions were high as each fought for a place in a resource rich land.
In the late 19th century up to early 20th century, Kaum Muda, a group of like-minded Muslim thinkers and reformers, made their presence known by questioning, attacking and mooting advances to destroy non-Islamic practices and traditions such as the Malay arts, wedding ceremonies and shamanistic beliefs. (Interestingly, one way of championing this radicalism was to send their offspring to Western schools, so they could compete with non-Malays and the West.)
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And after that? Well, you know the rest of the story.
Fast forward to the Seventies. Malaysia was already an independent country; young, hopeful and full of promise. While university-bound Malays were being shipped off to Europe and America on government scholarships and partied a storm, getting degrees that were never heard of, another group of young Malays were influenced greatly by the developments in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Roaring Eighties had us going through a recession. The Nineties was good. So good that we still reminisce about the good ole’ days of bull runs, slush funds and the Crash. The 21st century saw us talking about angel investors, multimedia this, multimedia that, we were wired for success. The Dotcom Revolution went bust too.
Certainly the climate of being Malay has changed in the 21st century. For baby boomers, the changes have been more apparent over the last 10 years. If before, there were very few of us that raced through the corporate ladder and broke glass ceilings, it is becoming the norm to see stellar professionals in their 20s being groomed to take over conglomerates and lead the country. With this progress, it is said that there seems to be an elitist approach to Islam and race, though Islamists would argue that Islam in Malaysia is becoming more secular and ‘adjusted’ to fit in with the times.
On paper, we look good, babe.
In real life, are we screwed?
I need Neurofen
Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, one of the up-and-coming thinkers (niknazmi.com), summed it simply. While he has stressed that it is merely a personal opinion and not the Lord’s and Consitutional gospel, he has noted that “… the Malay equals Muslim thing is a very Malaysian thing.” The main reason is because constitutionally, no one can be a Malay without being a Muslim, although, curiously enough, one doesn’t have to be ethnically Malay to be constitutionally Malay.
Being a Muslim, he said, was pretty straightforward. Being Malay?
“Dato’ Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir wears bow ties almost all the time, is that still being a practicing Malay or not? And he is an Indian Muslim, not a Malay, ethnically. Yet he is a minister from Umno.
“So I guess that is how Islam has always been synonymous with being Malay in Malaysia. That is why people say ‘masuk Melayu’ when that has no religious substance whatsoever. One does not see this among the Arabs - after all Arab Christians are a minority in Iraq (e.g. Tariq Aziz), Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and so forth. These people use the same terms just like Muslims - Allah, Isa, which are Arabic. In Malaysia this has been frowned upon as confusing Muslims, because of the exclusivity which one equates Malay language and Islam. Indonesia - which does actually have people of the Malay stock who are Hindus or Christians, do not have the same perception as we do on Muslim equals Malay exclusivity either.”
To understand what it means to be Malay/Muslim/both would be to understand each individual’s background: his economic status. His familial culture and traditions. His language. His thoughts and dreams. What may work for a group may not be accepted by another. If among the rich there are already dissenting groups, what more the poor and middle class?
Perhaps that is why most Malay-Muslims do not seem bothered by the importance and urgency of it all. Life is too short, and too hard. Best to leave this to the politicians and the powers that be. I got a family to take care of.
Besides, what would taxi drivers know? They drive people around, not rule a country.
Let’s do the twist
Encik Syed was a cab driver I met on an assignment recently. I was a tad worried, when I saw him in the cab. He was a wizened old man; he resembled an antique lollipop and drove with turtle-like speed.
“Young girl, I tell you,” he croaked, “that tsunami tragedy was neraka kecil (small hell). Acheh tu serambi Mekah, ko tau tak? (Acheh is the Front Porch of Mecca you know?).
“Yet, we Malays, we don’t take that tragedy as a sign of doom. These days, the Malays are rude to the elders. Despite the tsunami, we still forget our manners. We are petty, malicious, envious, and over the top with our ways. This is like Hang Tuah’s days, young girl. You know Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat, right?
“I’ll tell you why we Malays are crazy: we love money. Heh heh, maybe it’s the politicians that are to blame, always lining their pockets,” he laughed.
“When I was a young man, I went to listen to the late Tun Razak talk… alaa.. tak ingat dah kat mana, Pakcik ni dah nyanyok, (I can’t remember where, I’m senile now) and he said this to us:
I don’t like the twist
I like go-go
Wah! Pening kita, apa la menteri ni cakap ni? (We had a headache understanding him) Crazy! But later we realised it was a metaphor for life. Why must we twist here, there and stay in the same spot? Better do the a-go-go, because we will move forward!”
What do you think of us as Muslims then, I asked.
“Only 30 percent of the Malays are true Muslims. Yang boleh pakai lah. Yang lain semua tak guna. (The rest are hopeless). You tell me, young girl, how can we be Muslims, when as Malays, we are rubbish?”
