APRIL 15 — I was asked at a dinner recently why the Malays have become more conservative and religious in the last 20 years. My friend comes from an old Malay family, and was confused by his female relatives’ transformation.
Once upon a time, they wore tight baju kebayas. Today, they wear tudungs which covered their bosoms, and loose maxi dresses.
The women still laughed, but among themselves, as they relived their younger days as livewires of KL society.
We’ve discussed this often enough: among friends, in the media, at swish cocktails and forums. What’s there to say that has not been said before? There are many things about being Malay to miss — the traditional arts such as mak yong which are dying due to lack of interest among the young, and the shirk element which has put a stop to the art’s growth.
Watered-down wayang kulit performances are seen by very few Malaysians, and the few who have tend to have a keen interest in traditional performances.
Why are we becoming more religious?
We are becoming more religious because we want a solid identity. The Malays may feel that their ethnic race is beleaguered, hence the trump card: Islam.
But it is not just the Malays who tout their faith publicly. The Christians and Hindus, and the Orang Asal/Asli are as vocal. (The Buddhists are Zen). And every race and faith in Malaysia is feeling its vulnerability.
If our race is weak, then all we can depend on is our religion. What else does the average Malaysian have left, if not for his beliefs?
Religion is no longer personal but public. In Malaysia, anyone who’s an expert spouts theories and analyses on the faiths in this country.
“The issue of public religion is very much on everyone’s agenda,” states “The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere” (Judith Butler, Jurgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Cornel West, Edited by Eduardo Mendieta, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen).
Yesterday’s news which appeared in The Malaysian Insider is one example. The Church Council of Malaysia was making a stand not for the Christians only, but also “... for the full expression of every human being to seek, live and practise the faith inspired by their holy books.”
The politicisation of religions in Malaysia has compelled Malaysians to speak up for their rights to believe and be heard. Dissenting views among religious authorities on inter-faith engagement can be disheartening.
Is there room for a knock-down, no-holds-barred discussion among us concerning our faith?
Highly recommended, “The Role of Religion in the Public Sphere” [1] offers arguments and alternative viewpoints on how a plural, multi-ethnic society can engage with each other, as they face what they fear most.
"Cornel West, blues man in the life of the mind, jazzman in the world of ideas, challenges conceptions of public life limited to rational arguments, ethical consensus, and even cultural harmony.
"The secular need to hear the music of religion, he says, but also vice versa. Mutual understanding is achieved through empathy and imagination, learning the rhythm of each other’s dances and the tunes of each other’s songs.
"This sort of knowledge is tested in action, not in propositions; the capacity to understand each other is not derived from arguments. Of course, this partially prediscursive ability to understand each other may be the condition of good arguments in which participants feel they make progress toward knowledge.”
“West hopes for reconciliation and mutual understanding, but he doesn’t see religion offering this in a neat package. In the first place, he joins the others in this book in suggesting that we live in a multiplicity of different intellectual, cultural, and religious frameworks.
"We are called to find ways to relate well to each other, ideally to understand each other, but not to erase these differences. Indeed, participation in the public sphere offers not just collective benefits but also the personal good of existence enriched by greater ability to put oneself in the shoes of others.
"This is not simply an instrumental good conducive to potential agreement; it is valuable in itself. More than this, West insists that the Christian message (at least, and he doesn’t rule out similar messages from other traditions) is not simply a logic of equivalence — Rawlsian justice — but of a superabundance of love.
"Justice would be good, I think he is saying. It would be a big improvement. We should feel 'righteous indignation against injustice.' But in 'itself justice cannot be entirely definitive of the good.
“Perhaps most important, West calls on us to find resources within our traditions, including especially our various religious traditions, to disrupt harmonies that disguise underlying discord.
"He calls on us to bear witness to suffering (even when we do not yet know how to end it). He insists that prophetic religion has a place in the public sphere, for its very disruptions are calls to attention that make people see realities that make them uncomfortable.
"Calls to attention are not arguments or propositions that should be subjected to critique; they are performances of a different sort. Prophetic religion is neither consensus building nor simply dissent; it is a challenge to think and look and even smell (funky) anew; it is not a matter of gradual evolutionary progress but of urgency.
"The demand prophecy makes on us is not that of faith but that of truth — or, rather, potential truth, for the prophet articulates not only the evils at hand but the possibilities of a future in which we are damned for what we have done and a future in which we have the chance to do better.”
This is not a solely Malaysian phenomenon. In other parts of the world, faith is more macabre.
Somewhere in Brooklyn, New York, voodoo is alive and strong. The New York Times ran a feature on April 8, 2011.
“Long misunderstood and maligned in Western popular culture, voodoo has become a spiritual anchor in New York City’s vast Haitian community and in Haitian enclaves across the country as practitioners look for comfort after the devastating earthquake in the impoverished Caribbean nation last year.”
“... scholars stress that voodoo has played a central role in Haitian history, sustaining people who have endured oppressive governments, grinding poverty and natural calamities.”
This probably explains why we Malaysians have become more religious. It is not just that we want to meet our Maker, pure, but also to endure whatever we face here, in our present lives. Our faiths are our spiritual anchors, and damned we are if we are going to let them go.
[1] An excerpt from the afterword of the book can be found here.
* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.
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