Over at BolehTalk I asked Are Chinese Malaysian Muslims 2nd class Muslims?
It discusses (most) Malay perception that unless you're a Malay (with one 'exception') you aren't really quite a Muslim. It's their identification of Malays being Muslims and vice versa.
Mind you, not all Malays have such an ethnic-centric belief, as exemplified brilliantly by the Perlis Mufti Dr Mohd Asri, surely a leading light.
And what's that 'exception'? The Arabs of course.
Talking about the Arabs, I recall those 'perfect' Gulf Muslims and the way they had treated their Asian brethrens - though I do wonder whether I should even use the word 'brethrens', much as some Malays like to consider those Arabs as theirs.
I had blogged the following about 18 months ago - read & weep, you Arab-philes:
... the Kuwaiti Parliament heard one of its members, Walid Tabtabai, claiming that Allah sent the tsunami to punish the immoral and unjust. In other words, a case of azab-e-Ilahi or the wrath of God for the sins of those who were hit.
The poor Aceh-ese farmers and fishermen immoral and unjust?
Or as Tarek Fatah said “What sick mind could come up with this description? The Kuwaitis and Saudi Islamists lecturing the world about morality is an outrage. Or is it that in the eyes of most Kuwaitis and Saudis, the dead belonged to the despised underclass who live as fourth class citizens in the Gulf States. Dark skinned Indian, Sri Lankan, Indonesian; truck drivers, cooks and maids; all children of a lesser God in the eyes of these Islamists of the Gulf.”
I was so pissed off I dashed off a letter to malaysiakini titled Asian victims Children of a Lesser God
But when Katrina hit New Orleans, Kuwait who offered the tsunami victims two lousy US millions (which it subsequently and grudingly increased after much criticism from its own press) straightaway gave 500 US millions to the Americans – in the latter case, no evil sinner was discovered in the good ole USA.
Please read also Gulf States Viewpoints - Tsunami vs Hurricane and Kuwait's Aid to Asia & USA - A Tsunami of Difference.
Malaysia must be the only country on God's Earth where a Muslim convert is required to not only change their name to an Arabic one, but to tag on the "bin Abdullah" suffix. It's almost as if it were a conscious effort to label these people for easy identification.
ReplyDeleteAs a Muslim myself, I believe that God Almighty doesn't give two hoots about what someone's name is - what's most important is what's in their hearts, and their actions in this life. This labelling smacks of racism, in the name of (supposedly) religion. It's been instituted for no other benefit than for the 'original' Muslim/Malays (i.e. those born into the religion/race), to enable them to differentiate the newcomers to the religion/race.
Yes, there is this notion that someone embracing Islam in this country is also required to "masuk Melayu", especially if the convert is ethnically Chinese, albeit not so much anymore, compared to a decade ago. But I still do come across this from time to time.
The Indian Muslims face this less, perhaps because there is a longer "visual" history of Islam within the ethnic Indian community.
Not too long ago, I happened to know of an ethnic Chinese Muslim convert who was fiercely rebuked by his Malay/Muslim colleague, for even mentioning that he would be celebrating CNY, with words like "How could you even consider doing that! You are a Muslim now".
And this illustrates, at least to me, that compounding the deep-seated sub-conscious Malay/Islam link is the refusal of many Malays to see/experience beyond their own Malay-ness. It is only lately that a growing number of Malays realize Islam has flourished in China long before the faith even set foot on archipelago soil... for all practical purposes, they're still as Chinese as they come, to their credit. And as "Muslim" as Muslims can be.
"Kuwait who offered the tsunami victims two lousy US millions...gave 500 US millions to the Americans" The emir of kuwait owed his ar*ehole and everything else to the US. If not for them, kuwait would have been a province of iraq since 1991 and the emir would be polishing saddam's shoes today.
ReplyDeleteYes it does seem a sad feature of "Malay-ness" that one must also be Muslim, so anyone who becomes a Muslim in Malaysia must then, ipso facto, "become Malay" and adopt a Malay name and customs.
ReplyDeleteDo even the Arabs equate their ethnicity with their religion as much? Probably not, when one considers there are still significant populations of non-Muslim Arabs in the Middle East (e.g. Nestorians in Iraq, Copts in Egypt, Maronites in Lebanon and Syria). To be Arab does not mean to be Muslim. Never has, possibly never will.
So why this Malay obssession with being Muslim and vice versa?
and Christian Palestinians in Bethlehem, Palestine.
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