Road trip: It’s a wrap
My short sojourn as a location manager for the Malaysian segment of a regional documentary was quite a reflective experience. I had expected it to be hectic, but I did not expect my trip have me question my role, my individuality as a Muslim. March 18, 2005 was also a momentous day for me (personally) and that kicked off the trip.
Mitra Media Komunika was an Indonesian production house, and Yuli Yismartono, an editor at Tempo magazine, had contacted me, asking if I wanted to be part of the team that was travelling around the region to film Muslims in Southeast Asia.
The documentary would investigate five countries, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, The Philippines and finally Indonesia. ‘Living Faith’ (the working title for now) is an exploration of Muslims at work, play and home, questioning themselves as Muslims. Malaysia was the second leg of the shoot.
To say that both the crew and I had multiple discourses on religion and Southeast Asia would not be true: we were too tired from all the running around, and trying not to kill the hired drivers that drove us to all our engagements. Apart from this little incident that demonstrated our language differences, it was all work:
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“Gee! (Gee was one of the crazy drivers we had) Gee! Putar mobil lagi! Nanti pantat mobil kemek!” (Turn the van around, you’ll wreck the back of the van!)
It’s not always that you can shock a hardened film crew member that’s been there, done that.
Green paddy fields and rainbows
The shoot was conducted in KL, Terengganu and Melaka, and overall it was a success, in the sense that we got the sound-bites we wanted. And much as I do not want to knock the project, and the team for giving me the chance to work with them, I felt some unease.
Everything was just too clean.
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The objective of the documentary was to provide viewers a positive image of Islam and Muslims. Muslims in Southeast Asia are very different to Muslims in other countries, such as the UK. And we all know that Islam and its believers are having a bad cred these days. Non-Muslims are reverting to Islam at great speed in the Western world, and yet we’re lepers in the eyes of Westerners.
Thing was, two weeks before the shoot I had watched a screening of A New Life in a New Land: The Muslim Experience in Canada, hosted by the Canadian Embassy at the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia.
It was a case of déjà vu: again the same feeling of dissatisfaction. Yes, we have one or two problems, but really, it’s a happy happy world we live in. Yippee yi yay.
It’s become a PR exercise for Muslims to prove to the world that Islam and Muslims are not such fearsome entities. As a Muslim, I too do not want other people to think that we’re crazy militants that carry Uzi guns as handbags. (Though the very idea may be up John Galliano’s alley, no?)
Yet my friends and I - from the conservative to liberal - always question the validity of such programmes. At the end of the screening at IAMM, Z, an old friend, grumbled that “… it looked too easy, living there. What about racism? The hardship? How the young handled peer pressure?”
Our subjects were varied in personality and occupation. All were educated and had minds of their own. Yet everyone was diplomatic. If there were any grouses aired on-air, they were expressed in layers or dropped immediately. Predictably, once filming was over, the real truth came out. Yes, they’re proud and happy that they are Muslims. Yet there were frustrations of being Muslim in Malaysia.
How they wanted an Islamic country, but not in the way it was being proposed now. How little tolerance was shown not only to non-Muslims, but also to Muslims. That we had issues that needed to be aired, but we couldn’t, because we could get into serious trouble and there went our ricebowls.
Is it any wonder that we have become experts in leading double lives? At work, at school, even with peers, we have been advised to never discuss politics, race and religion. At least I was told this when I was growing up.
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And of course with religion, any religion for the matter, if one is uneducated about it, not only will one risk getting his head scalped, but one will also be branded a fool. Yet if we are not open to discussions and agreeing to disagree with each other, how are we to know anything about our faith? We grew up on a diet of obeying our elders. That worked when we were children.
We’ve grown up now.
One of the questions raised during the interviews was the interpretation of the Quran. A’s view of the Holy Book may differ from B’s. Whose interpretation is correct?
“Then one must refer to an ulama, a well-versed teacher of the Quran,” one of our interviewees answered.
If one is lucky to have Datuk Mokhtar Syafie, Ustaz Uthman El-Muhammady, Dr Fatma Al Zaharah and so forth as a teacher, one’s pretty much set for life. If you get a half-baked cleric who picked teachings from here, there and combined them with his interpretation of the Good Book, it’s no wonder we have cults, would be assassins and very confused Muslims. And I’ve heard of some strange interpretations that defied logic in my time.
Let’s go fishing
We met with a few fishermen in Marang one morning. Since the tsunami disaster, catching fish was even more of a trial. The sea had been rough ever since, and the pickings were slim. There had been a few deaths over the last month.
They laughed when we asked if life had changed since Barisan Nasional won back Terengganu.
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“PAS ke Umno, sama je,” they said. It didn’t matter who ruled the state, life and the people would always stay the same. The young would leave and forget who they were. It was the way of the world.
“These kids, the moment they wake up, they turn on the computer and that’s it for them. They don’t even care about their families, what more prayers.”
“You should be here when it’s fasting month. Before you really felt it was bulan puasa, but now, it’s like a carnival. During the day you hear music instead of people reciting the Quran out loud, and in the evenings, instead of rushing to the mosque, people are milling about, looking for food to break fast. It’s a party.”
“Aku ni sedap je cakap. Aku sendiri tok sembahyang, puasa!” one of the younger fishermen laughed. (I myself don’t even pray or fast!)
Tempiklah Haji Hadi. (Haji Hadi’s going to scream).
Scenario
The drivers were having their usual teh tarik sessions at one of the rest stops we visited. It was a heated debate among them:
“I keep telling you, we won’t go far, we Malays. If it’s not for politics, we are gone. Our lives may have progressed but our minds have stalled. Look. Before we used to call our fathers ‘Ayah’, ‘Bapak’, now it’s ‘Papa’. Papa-mapa, terus papa kedana!” Wak hooted. (’Papa kedana’ means poor in Malay)
“We Malays,” Harry said, “we have too many secrets. We are not open, that’s why our brains are short-fused. So when it comes to religion, it’s a joke. We cannot resist temptation.”
“Aku ada cerita hantu, (I have a ghost story)” Gee piped, “I have this nephew that drives buses for a living, you know. One day, he saw a bajang on the road, terus gabra. He put on the Yassin tape, but it didn’t run away! He kept on rewinding and playing the tape, but it didn’t go away. Hantu tu tak takut Yassin! In the end, bajang tu boring, lari. Yang hancus, keset Yassin.” (The ghost was not deterred by the prayers. It ran off when it got bored, waiting. The tape ended up mangled.)
“What the f**k is your point?” Harry asked. Gee shrugged.
“And that is an example of the Malay mind,” Wak said to me. “Does this reflect ourselves as individuals, boys?”
The new generation
In another round of interviews with late twenties to thirty-something professionals, a more revealing set of responses was disclosed. Again, diplomacy and thoughtfulness ruled.
Two of the interviewees were in the media, one was an IT consultant and the other a landscape designer. The common grouse?
“Islam in Malaysia is judged on the physical, the superficial. What is seen is proof of your piety.”
The women commented on how their scarves, their hijabs were perceived by the non-hijabed world.
“People are always surprised that I speak and write fluent English, and that I am assertive. They think we scarved women are passive and stupid. That we are not capable, if not equal to them,” Najah Nasseri remarked.
Tengku Elida Bustaman, another interviewee, conceded, “It’s the same for my friends who have not taken to wearing the hijab yet. Nobody can believe these women are observant Muslims. This is just an example of how religion is practiced here. It is always the outward appearance that is important.”
Towards the end of the shoot, Fauwaz Abdul Aziz observed, “You know, you asked if Malaysia will change or see changes in the next five years. For the last 600 years, I’m sure our ancestors asked and worried about the same thing, and we’re still like this. I don’t think there will be any drastic changes in the landscape. At least, I don’t think so.”
Dang, I should be in politics
Let’s play with the demographics for a bit, shall we? Humour me for five minutes.
There are about 20 million Malaysians. Plus minus legal and illegal immigrants, okay, maybe there are about 22 to 25 million people living in Malaysia.
Now I don’t have the exact figures here, and I also flunked Modern and Additional Maths in school, but I think it’s safe to say that while there is a growing number of the rich - old school and the new rich - the number is still small. The middle-class is this much of the pie, and the rest of Malaysia (hereby known as ROM) is more than the two put together. (Now do you see why I failed Math gloriously? I can’t add.)
This particular group, ROM:
- Will they or are they supporting whichever governing party because they truly believe in the ideology, as in wanting a true Islamic state or secular country?
- They’re supporting A/B/C simply because they’re in power, so they might as well follow the leader?
- They support the ruling party or opposition because they’re so fed up with the goings-on in the disagreeable party, that it’s better to vote for the devil than the deep blue sea?
- They can’t be bothered. Politics and religion are the domain of politicians.
Then again, why worry, when assumingly, this group of Malaysians would not be bothered about what happens to the country as long as they have roofs over their heads, and are able to feed their families?
The newspapers on 28 March, 2005 quoted the Raja Muda of Perak Raja Dr Nazrin Shah’s plea for the Malays to stop belittling themselves. “When a race belittled itself, it emboldened others to humiliate it.”
True.
This pessimism isn’t good
I like listening to clever people, academics, clerics, even the teh tarik crew. But at the end of an encounter, I always think that what they say does not translate into real life. The academics approach the issue in an academic manner; the religious authorities approach the matter in their way; we all have our own assumptions, prejudices and judgment. We all live in our castles.
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Prior to the shoot, I had asked a few filmmakers and writers to participate in the documentary. One of them was malaysiakini contributor, Ruhayat X, who declined to take part as he felt it (the documentary) white-washed the issue of how Islam was practiced in Malaysia.
“Malaysia is not a tolerant country. That is why you have people like Amir Muhammad and co, working, creating, on the fringes…
“I’m not convinced we over here are more tolerant than the Arabs over there. Or that the Arabs are less tolerant than people over here. I suspect it is a false assumption; I’m sure there are loads of moderate Arabs, maybe more than there are moderate Malays in Malaysia. It’s just that their voices have been suppressed, just like it is here,” he replied in an e-mail.
I must admit this: listening to such pessimism among my peers and Muslims frightens me. So many complains, so many grouses, so many issues: is it any wonder why non-Muslims think we’re crazy? Soon this column will no longer be titled I am Muslim but I am Angry, Confused, Heartbroken and I Don’t Care.
We don’t seem to have much faith in ourselves.
