Projek Dialog

A Muslim, A Lutheran

Islam Christian Translated from “Seorang Muslim, Seorang Lutheran“, written by Faisal Tehrani. Originally published by Malaysiakini on 27 January 2014. Translation by Yana Rizal.   Awaiting the break of dawn, for the train to depart for Copenhagen at 9:27am, on coach 72 seat 22, Mads Kjoergard (pronounced as “Mas”, with a silent D) urged me not to sleep. “You have your morning prayers don’t you?” this Lutheran reminded me. “Yes that’s compulsory, but not staying up at night. The Aarhus seagulls sleep too, don’t they?” I quipped. He shook his head and laughed, “They fly from Greenland, through the ice and land in Jutland. When it’s time to go home, I’ll accompany you, Asian seagull. We may only meet again in another 11 years!” I knew Mads Kjoergard from almost 30 years ago. It started as a pen pal program initiated by my English teacher at Jalan Dato Palembang Primary School. The late Mr Joseph Savari Naidu paired me up with a Danish kid to improve my English. The rest of them had young Australians, Britons, Americans, or Canadians, but I had a rare friend. Many were disconnected along the way. Of course it was hard for a twelve-year-old to write a letter every month. But we managed to keep the friendship beyond three decades. Since the era of post offices to cyber-cafes, to laptops and now Android gadgets, thanks to Facebook, a Muslim and a Lutheran could now continue this great friendship. We travelled together in Phuket eleven years ago, each of us still looking for a suitable academic field back then. This time we meet again, united by a single word; humanity. Mads Kjoergard is now a lecturer at Aarhus University, Denmark in the field of 17th and 18th century French philosophy. He has become an incredibly handsome ginger-blond Scandinavian; short stubble and spiky hair, pale skin with dimples and blue-green eyes. He still wears a size 30 pants, while I have doubled. He dreamed of marrying an Asian woman; “Malay, Thai, or Japanese.” But his fate was with an Estonian woman who also struggled with French history, specialising in the French Revolution. Danish Muslims 8 Years After the Cartoon Incident A week ago after a 7-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur, a 10 hour transit in Dubai and another 7 hour flight to Copenhagen; fatigued, drowsy, and listless, I missed the express train and had to get on the cross-country coach for 5 hours; I arrived in Mads’s port city of freezing winds that stabbed through your spine at below zero. Now as academics we can work together, and I was an associate member of the “Negotiating Human Rights” group, based in Aarhus. Aarhus University was celebrated since 1997 when it produced two Nobel laureates, Professor Jens Christian Skou in chemistry and Professor Dale T Mortensen who happened to teach at the university when he received the award in 2010. Since then great scholars have come to call, among others the literary theorist Terry Eagleton, and sociologist Robert Putnam; both of whom were visiting scholars. On Thursday, I lectured on “Malay Orature and Human Rights” as my contribution to the group in a small seminar. This latest project is also to fill in my FRGS research grant at the National University of Malaysia (UKM). Between the cups of bitter hot coffee, the cool breeze that clenched on your nerves, carrot cake and chocolate croissant we would talk about human rights. This group comprises of multidisciplinary scholars and in spite of the variances, we had to link our fields of expertise with human rights. Last Saturday, when Mads Kjoergard accompanied me to find books in the middle of Aarhus and to change some kroner in Banegardspladsen, I asked about the development of Islam since 2005, when twelve cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad were published in the Jyllands-Posten magazine. “About a year ago, an extremist group organized an anti-Islamic demonstration in this city of Aarhus. Very provocative. When they, the right-wingers chose our peaceful city; many here were angered. Muslims are a small minority in Aarhus. There was a counter-demonstration to protest against the instigators.” “They targeted more than a thousand demonstrators from all over Europe and Scandinavia. The ones who came were less than a hundred, and they were clamouring among themselves to claim the right to freely condemn the dignity and honour of other religions.” Mads began. He gazed at me, I gazed back. In my eyes there was Mads, but slowly it turned into the faces right-wing extremists – radical cultural relativists – in my homeland, these are the mighty and bound Muslims, forced by a narrow interpretation of religion. “Human rights is used to suppress human rights.” I mused, and then I remembered the words of Professor Sten Schaumburg Muller in our morning chat, “Yes, human rights in Europe and America is practiced differently, tell us how you want to do it but don’t use rights as an excuse to deny the rights of others, that is no longer human rights.”   Not Because of the Mosque’s Domes Since the madness of the cartoon incident insulting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005, Copenhagen will build two more mosques in the city. One for the Sunni community, and the other for the Shiites. Since all 80 thousand of the Shiites are not considered Muslims by a small group of intolerant Salafis, they too want their own mosque complete with minarets and domes. There are protests against the construction of these mosques. The Sunni mosque is feared to become the new hotbed of Salafis who are estranged to the local culture, not to mention its Qatari funding, further fuelling the prejudices of the Danish public. While the Shiite mosque is protested by atheist Iranian immigrants and refugees who feel that there is an intervention from Qom. The Sunni mosque located in Nørrebroitu will have a 20 meter tower. The complex is 6,800 square meters in total, covering a domed prayer area, a restaurant, a theatre, classes, offices, a service center for the elderly, a kindergarten, and a children’s playground. The frustrations of the Danish society are not for the domes or the minarets. I myself pointed out to Mads that without these domes and minarets, a mosque can still function. In fact, a mosque should blend in its local culture so as not to be suspicious. Mads looked at me, “If the domes and minarets are not the signs of Islam, then what is the sign of Islam?” I insisted through a hoarse voice against the cold wind blowing in my face, “The sign of Islam is in its moral values. Prophet Muhammad was sent to reinforce moral perfection.” “He came not to give exclusive rights to Muslims, that just by uttering the Shahadah they are now guaranteed security in the afterlife and attain heaven while the rest are condemned to hell.” But Mads interjected, “The suspicion is also founded because the former emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani funds it.” I know it’s a large sum, 150 million kroner. This opens up a multitude of questions, among others whether the Islam that will be taught in this mosque is Salafi Islam, thus reaffirming the cultural relativism that will widen the gap between the Danes and their strong Lutheran-Viking identity, and the Muslims who want to be more Arabic or Turkish than Muslim. The Danish concern is the Dansk Islamisk Råd (Danish Islamic Council), that is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood who still read Sayyid Qutb in the land of Tivoli. Sunni Shia Repulsion Becomes Anger The same thing has happened in the Shiite community, where the Imam Ali mosque located in Vibevej will have two 32-meter-high towers with an area of 2,000 square meters. Rumor has it that it is financed by the Iranian government, although it is khumus funds (Islamic tax) channelled through the World Ahlul Bayt Foundation. Although the Shiites are known for their indigenization skills (absorbing local culture in their way of life), that ability is now weakening as they are too busy competing with the Salafis in a show of who is more Islamic, in their towers, domes, robes and rosary beads. The teachings of the Prophet’s lineage that is their pride, are embedded in the Mafatih Jinan that they lull themselves to sleep with, but have never emerged in their daily lives. The thorn in the wounds is not the mosque nor the Prophet’s cartoons, but it is the attitude of the Muslims be it Sunni or Shiite who refuse to interact or initiate the 3A formula of adaptation, accommodation and acculturation to their new place. They forget they are no longer from Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon or Iran. That is now reduced to a place of birth. Islam is a religion, but it must live and breathe in various environments using the 3A method. This is the special feature of Islam, which has been killed over a hundred years ago by the Wahhabis and has since spread around the world. Worse still is when Muslims clash, fight and wrestle (and there are shooting incidents) among fellow Sunnis (eg between an Arab and a Turk, or Somali) or between Sunni and Shiite (aggravated by the crisis in Syria). The consequences are fatal, and the Danish public are in disgust, loathing, disturbed and eventually angered. Cartoons insulting the Prophet Muhammad transgress the Danish culture of humour, it is a manifestation of sentiments on their side. It is not about how left or middle-leaning Helle Thorning-Schmidt is, nor how right or extreme Carl Christian Ebbesen is. Both are Danish leaders who must politicise and debate the issue of Islam and its followers for their survival. This is about Denmark, a welfare state that provides doles for the unemployed. Now, the community in Denmark is asking why their taxes should be taken away from them to finance these live leeches like the Muslims in Denmark who are ungrateful? Muslims are treated equally and are given equal welfare but then they shit everywhere with their quarrels and wrestling and fighting among themselves and blaming each other. As a result, the governments in Scandinavian countries are left confounded because it is clear that the Muslims they’ve helped have failed to maintain unity, love to fight and do not appreciate the kindness, opportunities and advantages they are given. Not only are the first generation Muslims not working because of old age (they have no mastery of the local language), the second and third generations refuse to socialise and are not ready to be among the Danes who are majority Lutheran. It is not fiction to say that many young Muslims in Denmark are lazy to learn, aspire only to sleep with Danish girls, and only Muslim girls seem to be capable, diligent and successful in school. They go to university and eventually marry the young Muslim men who are good for nothing, and did not even finish high school. As the wife is more educated, there will be problems of the wife working while the husband concentrates in the mosque to become “good Salafis”. Domestic crises will erupt frequently, divorce rates will skyrocket, children will be caught across cultures, thus the same cycle continues among Muslims with no end. There is no will to change. The Flourishing of Islam Doudou Diene, special rapporteur of the UNCHR felt that the publication of the Prophet’s cartoons was rooted in racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and incompetence by the government of Denmark in conflict management. But introspection among the Muslims themselves is needed more than the comments favouring such. Indeed, Islam is flourishing in Scandinavia. In Sweden for example, empathy for the Muslims is growing, albeit slowly. If the laws in Scandinavia seem to interfere with Islamic traditions, such as prohibitions against circumcision, the veil, or parenting, then there must be something wrong with the practitioners themselves and the real story is hidden or exaggerated in the media. This is because civil rights for people like Mads Kjoergard is very high. They verily testify, that I, he and you are humans first, and identity (whether religious, gender, or sexual preference) is of a secondary nature. This allows them to see people as people, and not as Muslims or Hindus or Lutherans, they see “human first” not because of the colour of their skin and hair, nor their place of origin. But of course there are pre-conditions, Mads has to sacrifice a little of himself to tolerate and accept the Muslims who are very strange, but why don’t Muslims want to do the same so there is peace between them? Why do Muslims in Denmark have to act like heaven is only theirs? As Mads Kjoergard says, Muslims have to be responsible and sane, and they need to accept the reality that they now live in a new environment. That morning Mads embraced me tightly. Feeling his heart beat against mine. His eyes grew watery. Perhaps it was the cold gust of wind in his beautiful eyes. Maybe he was really sad because God knows when we’ll meet again. He whispered to me, “Don’t lose, do not get killed… we want to change the world.” Mads took a package out from his bag and handed it to me. “What’s this?” “A present.” He replied briefly. As I sank in the chair at coach 72, staring at Mads out the window, there is a deep sense of melancholy. The world can be so crazy out there. But we’re just a pair of really sane friends. A Muslim, and a Lutheran; human. As the train passed by the large windmills and villages that have started to snow on the way to Copenhagen, I unwrapped the gift from Mads; a Quran with Danish translation. I gazed outside. The skies were dark and murky. A seagull swoops from the lowlands. There is a river whose flow runs frozen. There’s a tear when sobs are broken.

]]>

Whalebone & Crabshell

crab001_web Illustrations by Sharon Chin[/caption] Whalebone & Crabshell by Zedeck Siew This is how our land is laid: Firstly, the domains of the Sultan — may God ever extend his years — the groves and fertile paddy-lands; the ports and isles and cities, where spice is sold and timber traded; mosques full of devotees; loyal citizens talking in civilised tongues. O our Sultan, may he reign safe upon the throne! And then, the sea, full of bounty — but also of pirates, submerged giants, ghosts of wind and water; playground of the Lordly Dragon, and the great spirit Root-of-Creation, who lives in the navel of the ocean — O grand Mother Ocean, who is female, therefore occasionally chained but never tamed. And then there are the inlands and the uplands: in the jungle interior, upriver, full of hidden primates and uncivilised peoples. Indeed, to be an inlander is to live lawlessly, as a fugitive from the Sultan’s justice — and uplanders are all revolutionaries and deviants anyway; they practice schismatic rites and prostrate themselves before idols. O God save us! ~ Our Sultan — God save him — in his thirty-third year, having crushed the rebellion of his admirals, decided to demonstrate his piety by bringing order to all benighted places. Thus the headwaters were choked with barges, and armies bore into the forest deeps. The hillside crops burned, the hillfolk bandits were slaughtered; the hidden valleys echoed with the screams of women and dying mercy-cries in throat-some languages. Finally all the hinterlands were pacified, and the inlanders captured; disarmed; rounded up; assembled together in a great field, where they knelt of their own accord, awestruck and shivering at the sight of the Sultan’s yellow-gold pavilion. So the Sultan turned to his advisors, saying: “O wise councillors, grant me your wisdom, in turn granted by God! What should be done with this rabble?” ~ And the Admiral, with his sickle-spear, said: “Slay them down to the youngest son, no mercy should be shown. Only then can we be sure!” But the Treasurer, with his pen and parchment, said: “There are a thousand families, times seven members on average, times five minutes per execution at the quickest, also accounting for the number of axes dulled, good trees felled to provide stakes, pints of blood that will poison the soil — no, my Sultan! It costs too much!” So the Vizier, whispering into the Sultan’s ear, said: “Exile these people, drive them to the sea/they will drown quickly! “What better fate for squatters, thieves who stole the interior/territories by right your patrimony?” “Oh yes sir, I’ve got a curse for that,” said the Holy Sorcerer. “They’ll never come back, sir, they’ll never set foot on dry earth again. It’s a simple spell.” ~ Therefore the Sultan — God bless him with wisdom — commanded eviction. And the traitors were given the rotting planks of their dissembled hovels, to use as rafts, and they were banished down the river, through the delta, and off and out to the open water. Some, swimming back to shore, found the tide turned against them; the harder they paddled, the farther the coast receded. Soon they tired, unable to fight the Sorcerer’s magical decree. And thus floated — tossed to and fro, a flotilla of sorry creatures, forsaken by both men and God. At first there was a storm. Torrential rain beating the waves down; thunder and flashing; they were soaked to the bone, and to the bones of their boats also. Many drowned. Afterwards they drifted. Becalmed for many days, their sweat dried into salt on their arms — a meagre wealth, salt without rice; they were rich only with hunger, and thirst, and heatstroke; filth and illness. Their shamans called for succour. But their idols were abandoned in the mountains, and too distant to hear. ~ Between them all there were nine coils of cord, and a single hook, previously used to fish in streams — and its owner, sensing his importance, said: “With my hook I will catch food. Hey, if you will owe me your lives, I should be leader!” But the man was mostly a catfisher; his skills did not apply where they were; anyway there were only beads and loose goose-feathers to use as bait. So he caught nothing. And during the night some ruffians came. They stabbed him with splintered stakes; in the morning they said: “We have the fishhook. Therefore: we should be leaders.” “Ho, hear us!” they said. “Our plan: segregation. Families first. Ours. And also: all who we see are strong. The weak: they should be sacrificed. We eat the meat off their limbs. Survival for the fittest!” Naturally, the others were dismayed. “Abomination!” the wise-women said. Together they flung the murderers bodily overboard. ~ [caption id="attachment_4786" align="aligncenter" width="456"] Illustrations by Sharon Chin Illustrations by Sharon Chin[/caption] Then they came to an island of pirates. And the pirates — dashing though misguided warriors, their costumes tied with red ribbons, their belts studded with sea-ivory – said: “These souls, fleeing the Sultan’s cruelty, sadly they cannot live with us. To live a life of piratical liberty, one must have sea-worth, able to court and cower before Mother Ocean.” “In their souls they are uplanders. They have hill-shaped hearts. They can neither read star-charts nor savour the taste of spray. They’re simply not made that way!” Having justified themselves, the pirates of the island prepared a care package — a barrel of beer; a netful of fish; twelve blankets, folded, lowered by crane onto the outcasts’ largest raft. Along with a letter, saying: “Ho there travellers! Unfortunately, you may not settle here. Sorry! Have these gifts, no strings attached, with our sympathies, and this whale-bone recorder,” — at which point a flute fell out of the unfolded page — “with which you might use to attract a dragon-spirit’s pity. Hopefully! Thank you. Please go.” ~ Past the island there was another storm, worse than the first. By now their vessels were broken, their drink-barrel empty; fish all gone; their blankets torn apart by fighting. With the lightning, some clambered onto their wives’ backs — and stretching their arms up, ate quick ends by electricity. Others, less lucky, fell into the foam — these were dragged under. Unable to swim, too weak to struggle, they drank their deaths slower. Among those who remained, their last wise-woman was angry at the world and everything in it. Putting the bone flute to her lips, she stood with her back straight; her feet, each on a different log; a single note was what she played: Shrill, clear as a horn, louder than thunderous hammer-sounds. And she sang: “O lords of wind and water, heartless creatures! Torture us no longer! Take our lives, let us die, we offer ourselves! A sacrifice! We do not ask for mercy. Vengeance only!” There was no human reply — but a rumbling answer. An inhuman growl, a surging tremor from under-sea. ~ A sphere burst the surface: the size of a moon; black and smooth — not round, ovoid now, and mounted on a tower the colour of cream. An eyestalk, looking down. And another. And then claws: rising west and east, each pincer-point a mountain, big and blurry with distance. It was he who is called Root-of-Creation — old spirit, eldest of spawn — who’d heard the shaman’s summons. He is father of crabs, and all crabs come from him; he is the largest. Moving in the depths, his great weight makes the sea levels rise, and the tides. The exiles, witness to such a fearful sight, cowered in terror; and even their shaman, the brave, foolish woman — she waited there, expecting to be swallowed. Root-of-Creation held still for a while. The curve of his shell is the breadth of continents; and inasmuch as a country could look thoughtful, he took his time to deliberate. And, having decided, he picked them up, all of them, and he placed them upon his back. ~ Back to the first, to the Sultan’s domains — in the ports, in the cities, there were many whispers: That a great wave was coming; that it had wiped out the pirate-isles; that the far villages were swept away by flying swordfish, and merchant ships by constrictor-eels; that the mermaids were gone, strangled. And bird- and gull-flocks were seen flapping over the palace. They were fleeing. The Treasurer, with his abacus, his feet soaked in salt-water, tallied costs — “A thousand families with no homes, times seven members on average, times two silver pieces per head, bearing in mind the twenty warehouses damaged, the dozen docks destroyed, plus fifteen galleys shattered beyond repair.” The Admiral was not at court; the Vizier’s mansion was found vacant. Both had sought asylum in an enemy state. The Holy Sorcerer, water up to his waist, said: “I’ve got nothing, sir. Have you seen the size of that thing? That’s Root-of-Creation, the crab-god, he’s a top-level creature. Sir, none of my spells are anywhere near his tier.” ~ Therefore our Sultan — may God grant him speed to save his own skin — ordered for the capital to empty. And the citizenry obeyed, going bare-breasted through the flood; on their heads they carried babies, wicker-basketfuls of brass pieces, precious embroidery; they sat on floating bed-frames, paddling with hoes and ladles. But at the city gates traffic slowed and halted, for the palanquins of noble families took priority. So there was a crush, a panicked clamour. O God save us! In the portside districts, those few still left to see saw the surf draw away. By the piers, the long-ships settled at the bottom of the bay, and listed. And behind them, in the distance, inexorably approaching: Grand Mother Ocean, fashioned into a wall, many leagues wide and some leagues tall — Her insides darkened by some shadow, monstrous and crustacean; crowned with froth, topped with wreckage, ridden by rejoicing figures — Those terrible people, those uplanders! All criminals, wretched heathens, spiteful by nature; with feet cursed never to touch earth again — regaining their hillside homelands by drowning them, offering all lands to the sea. They have betrayed us! O God have mercy! [caption id="attachment_4785" align="aligncenter" width="477"]Illustrations by Sharon Chin Illustrations by Sharon Chin[/caption] ~~~ Notes:

  1. The term “uplander” is derived from James C Scott’s “The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia” (2009).
An anthropological study of Zomia – which encompasses the highlands of Indochina, Thailand, Burma, and Southwest China – the book describes how this region’s peoples have resisted the projects of the organised state societies that surround them.
  1. The crab-god Root-of-Creation is inspired by the following passage, quoted in Walter William Skeat’s “Malay Magic: Being An Introduction To The Folklore And Popular Religion Of The Malay Peninsula” (1900):
“The Pusat tasek, or Navel of the Seas, supposed to be a huge hole in the ocean bottom. In this hole there sits a gigantic crab which twice a day gets out in order to search for food. While he is sitting in the hole the waters of the ocean are unable to pour down into the under world, the whole of the aperture being filled and blocked by the crab’s bulk. The inflowing of the rivers into the sea during these periods are supposed to cause the rising of the tide, while the downpouring of the waters through the great hole when the crab is absent searching for food is supposed to cause the ebb.” ]]>