The latest
PETRONAS festive
advertisement predictably continues their expected mushiness. This time
elderly men in an old folks’ home are adopted by an employee for a
Deepavali day out, complete with climbing up Batu Caves, beautiful
vistas of Malaysian mountains, a durian pit stop and a festive family
meal. As always, viewers have reacted positively, touched to tears by
the sweet relationships on show.
But there is something different about this advertisement. The
elephant in the room has not gone unnoticed. The group celebrating
Deepavali consists of a young Indian woman, 2 elderly Indian men and
their Chinese friend. Malays are conspicuously absent from the
celebrations.
The only Malay we see is a young lady behind the counter at a gas
station. She is friendly and tolerantly amused by the old men’s antics,
but she is not included. She is not their friend and she is working on a
religious holiday not her own. In fact, there are no Malay residents at
the old folks’ home either (because, of course, no Malay would abandon
their parents, right?).
The reason for this is all too obvious for those of us who have lived
through the changes in Malaysian society since the 1980s. Despite all
the talk and pride in being a multi-religious, multi-ethnic nation,
Malays have increasingly been segregated and even self-segregated
themselves from taking part in the lives of other races, especially
anything remotely religious.
Perhaps the producers of this Deepavali advertisement were being
intentionally subversive. More likely, they have, instead, internalised
the inter-religious rules hardening in our society today, rules that
would never countenance a Malay in a temple, much less being blessed
with
pottu on the forehead by an Indian priest.
Self-segregation
The media is very sensitive to these written and unwritten rules that
they judiciously self-censor. A Malaysian director told of a Censorship
Board staff, unofficially informing him that had he made his movie
about non-Malays, he would have had no trouble getting certified. But
with Malay characters, the officials were uncomfortable even when
nothing in the broadcast guidelines would rule out the fairly innocuous
plot.
And so Malay movies are now reduced to gangsters,
hantu (ghost) and virginal
ustazahs who
fall in love with their rapists. We still deify those wonderful P.
Ramlee movies with their social commentaries running through the
slapstick comedies and the overwrought dramas, but we are no longer
allowed to make them.
Like many Malaysians, I grew up with unthinking acceptance of open
houses with all races eating together, celebrating each other’s
festivals. In fact I grew up in Penang, dancing behind the Thaipusam
parade, going to churches for weddings, crying loudly at Chinese
funerals (admittedly for money) and
lepaking (loafing) at the Thai temple grounds because their gardens are lovely and the Buddhist priests were friendly.
But now all these things have become problematic – a minefield of
nervous non-Muslims worried that invitations to meals would be rebuffed
as their cutlery would be deemed ‘unclean’ and nervous Muslims afraid of
raids, arrests, social opprobrium and legal harangues simply for
entering a church or temple, working for non-Muslims, allowing another
faith to worship in a
surau or caring for dogs.
Analogues to the Inquisition?
It reminds me of a ‘funny’ period in European history. To my mind,
Malaysia is now showing all the signs of becoming medieval Spain.
Perhaps there’s a thing or two we can learn from a brief comparison.
Under Muslim rule and early post-Muslim Christian rule, Andalusian
kingdoms were often models of tolerance where cultures were shared and
different religions could live side-by-side in relative peace and
harmony.
And they were not completely separated communities; despite
maintaining their own identities and rituals, they interacted richly,
creating a flowering of culture, arts and science. Most famously, Greek
science and philosophy flowed into Europe through this channel, an
effort that involved Muslims, Christians and Jews.
There were hybrid foods, art forms, institutions and culture.
Christians under Muslim rule read scripture and chanted liturgy in
Arabic, not Latin. Muslims still read the Bible and Torah side-by-side
with the Quran. Jewish synagogues had Quranic verses on its walls.
Consider this example: A legendary Christian king died a saint and
his tomb was inscribed with 4 languages representing his multi-religious
subjects. 5 generations later, his great-great-grandson, another
Christian king would employ the best Muslim artisans in the land to
upgrade the palace in Seville, replete with inscriptions referring to
the “Sultan” and invoking Allah, including over the front entrance. And
everyone from every religious group, in every language, competed to
write the best poetry!
So much of Western culture (including pop music which owes much to
the invention of the Spanish guitar), science and philosophy has roots
in this lively, vibrant, multicultural Spain.
But the tide turned. By the time Ferdinand and Isabel conquered Granada, the Spanish Inquisition was already underway. The
Reconquista,
as the slow takeover of Spain by Christian kings was branded, involved
sporadic forced conversions of Jews and Muslims as well as threats of
exile should these communities not convert. Unsurprisingly, these forced
conversions created great anxiety as to the nature of the faith held by
the new Christians.
This, in turn, powered the Spanish Inquisition. With jurisdiction
only over Christians, the activities of the Inquisition
disproportionately concentrated on the
Conversos and
Moriscos as Christian Jews and ex-Muslims were respectively called.
Of course, this reaction is understandable in the framework of what
was happening: If you are forced to convert (by threat of death or
expulsion), it would only be reasonable for anyone to suspect that your
newfound faith was less than sincere.
And there is a related anxiety – if Christians are not allowed to
convert to any other religion (i.e. your faith is forced upon you), then
in some ways, even the religion of the majority is suspect.
So a society is created of Christians who cannot change faith
surrounded by possibly ‘fake Christians’ who have been forced to
convert. And all these Christians are under the jurisdiction of the
Inquisition, an authority that tortures and even kills Christians for
not being true Christians.
So any association with non-Christians or even new Christians becomes
problematic, carrying with it the always present possibility of
straying. Since the religious sincerity of everyone is in doubt, then
any activity, no matter how innocent, can be deemed a real threat.
Neighbours started accusing neighbours over the smallest things. Any
slight deviation from the norm or even previously accepted practices
became suspect. One man was dragged before the Inquisitors for greeting a
long time Jewish friend who was walking in an annual Jewish religious
procession, something he had done unmolested all his life. But now, this
simple act of friendship, became the basis for him to be denounced to
the Inquisition. His Jewish friend, the so-called source of
“corruption”, however, cannot be prosecuted because the Inquisition can
only go after Christians.
The psychology of inquisition
There are lessons to be learned from my brief example. Malaysia too
has a religious majority that is not allowed to convert. They are
governed by special religious institutions with non-democratic authority
over all aspects of the private lives with the authority to fine,
imprison and even beat them. Sound familiar yet?
We can see how a similar psychological implications from the
Inquisition would follow. If Muslims are not allowed to convert (i.e.
your faith is forced upon you), then their faith must be fragile,
suspect even, ready to fall at the slightest whisper.
And thus you see the anxiety in Muslim communities. Any contact with
non-Muslims would, of course, be dangerous to this delicate faith.
Reading the papers, you would think the danger of
murtad (apostasy) is ever present. You cannot allow Muslims to do anything for fear of
murtad!
So you have a lady who cares for dogs being interrogated for fear
that she is insulting Islam. You have a Muslim woman working for a
bookstore owned by non-Muslims arrested for selling a not-yet banned
book because the authorities have no jurisdiction over non-Muslims. And
you have the Government-sanctioned witch hunt on Shias as a deviant and
devious cult.
The
Kalimah Allah case is particularly telling. You have
another religion, Christianity, wanting to use the term “Allah” to refer
to God in its Bible in a country where “Allah” is synonymous with the
Islamic religion. Logically, it would be the Christians who might be
confused, and thus “accidentally” be attracted to Islam or some such.
But instead you have the successful legal argument that it will confuse the Muslims instead, and thus
menggegar iman (shake/challenge the faith) or, in other words, could lead to
murtad.
Why is the Muslim faith deemed the more fragile, more in need of
protection? Aren’t we told all the time how superior this faith is, this
faith of the majority and political elites? If it is so superior, why
is it that our confusion is considered so inevitable compared to people
of other faiths? Are you saying there is actually something wrong with
our faith, something so close to the surface that the mere use of an
Arabic word that means God by Christians will reveal all and thus turn
us away from Islam in droves?
And just like in Medieval Spain, it is the superior religion of the
majority that is deemed ever so close to corruption at all times,
especially from other religions.
So inevitable is this deviation, that a special body was set up for
centuries whose sole jurisdiction was prosecuting religious unorthodoxy,
and whose very existence actually ended up creating unorthodoxy out of
thin air. Hundreds of thousands of people were arrested.
It was extremely difficult to escape some form of torture,
humiliation and stripping of wealth, regardless of whether you were
found guilty or not, especially as torture was a form of interrogation,
not legal sanction.
The price of purity
So many familiar tropes from the Spanish Inquisition are being played
out in Malaysia now. Increasing hurdles for those who want to convert,
to “prove” their sincerity. The demonization of the other in terms of
being untrustworthy, betrayers and using money to grease their way to
domination.
A relentless burial of any historical references, cultural rituals or
identities that speak of traditional hybridity or syncretism. The
banning of books, films, dances etc. The battles over language and
liturgy.
The obsession with purity and so-called Bumiputera rights to define
the nation. The increasing rigidity of identity and its shallow
accoutrements (what you eat, what you wear, where you hang out, who you
talk to, where you go to school etc.). And the silencing of anyone who
dares to step out of line.
Just like the Spanish Inquisition, what we have in Malaysia is
actually a process of forced nationalisation. A rigid monolithic
monoculture nationalism. And religion is one of its most powerful
weapons.
Spain became a battlefield to redefine who was allowed to be a
Spaniard. Who counts? And the answer was racist, intolerant, harsh,
violent and extremely rigid. Those who did not fit, those who clung to
previous traditions – even in the tiniest of ways – were hounded,
tortured, expelled and killed.
The many hybrid cultures, the fluid identities and multifaceted
rituals had to make way for only one way of seeing the world. Yet this
worldview is non-traditional and (en)forced. Thus it is always insecure,
in danger of dissimulation at every turn. So eventually in Spain, when
someone is described as an expert curer of pork, it is actually a
euphemism for secret Jew.
Lessons for Malaysia
Don Quixote, the world’s first modern novel, beautifully
illustrates this act of collective forgetting, the erasing of history
and culture, of meaning itself.
The forced creation of a rigid Spanish identity was shown at every
turn to be a stubborn illusion. The book is a satire on the myths that
sustain a national identity. Dangerous myths that are no more than
tilting at windmills and serve to destroy culture and history. And all
based on a lie, a dream of a pure past.
Everywhere in the book are reminders of how this forgetting, this
rewriting, happens – the burning of books, over-demonstrations of
identity (Dulcinea, our mythologised Spanish heroine is “an expert
salter of pork”), the loss of languages, and how easily myths can be
constructed to become the basis for history.
In fact, the very idea of chivalry was probably derived from Arab influence. So even that most traditional Spanish trait – that
Don Quixote devotes his life to – is not “pure”.
As Maria Rosa Menocal writes of the book,
[f]orged in the bonfires of ideas, of books
and of people, was the illusory conceit that there could be a pure
national and religious identity, and yet this became the ultimate
religion everyone had to live with. …Don Quixote is thus in part a
postscript to the history of a first-rate place, the most poignant
lament over the loss of that universe, its last chapter, allusive,
ironic, bittersweet, quixotic.
The “first-rate place” she refers to is Spain before the Inquisition.
A time when cultures, languages and faiths mixed among the people as
easily as they mixed with each other.
Of course, it was not a utopia. There were conflicts, constantly
negotiated differences. But it allowed for those differences to not only
exist but shape society. A tolerance that was taken for granted. It was
unimaginable in those days that Spain would ever be a place of only one
people, one language and one rigidly defined version of only one
religion.
I truly hope I do not live to see the day when Malaysia’s
Don Quixote is written. It would probably be banned anyway.
