Empathy and Myopia: How Malaysians No Longer Understand One Another
By Farish A. Noor ~ July 14th, 2009. Filed under: TOM_Main.
Malaysia is once again landed with yet another predictable mini-controversy (as there are too many controversies at the moment, this one has been relegated somewhat) involving a report that was purported written by two Muslims for the magazine al-Islam. The report was written by the two Muslims who claimed that their intention was to investigate the allegations that Muslims were being converted to Christianity in the country, but the cause of the controversy lies in the fact that the two writers chose to pretend to be Christians and took part in Christian rituals of worship in the Church. For many Christians the most offensive aspect of the investigation lay in the claim that the writers took part in the rituals without revealing who they were, and that they consumed the holy wafer/bread of Christ, then spat it out, and photographed the remnants of what they had consumed later.
Now of course this begs the obvious question: How would Muslims had reacted if some non-Muslim journalists had done the equivalent; to enter a mosque, take part in rituals, photographed them, and then published the report in some journal?
In response to the clamour of complaints that have been issued, the authorities now claim that the two writers will be investigated, and if found guilty of carrying out acts detrimental to public order may even be imprisoned. This would not, however, address the key issue which is this: Have levels of emphathy and understanding in Malaysian society dropped to such an extent that someone could even contemplate doing such a thing without considering its wider impact on society and the consequences to others and themselves? Could the writers of the article not even consider the potential offence that they might have caused by assuming a fake identity only to take part in rituals they did not believe in; and did they not realise that this might have been seen as outrageous by others?
Empathy - the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another, no matter how different that other person is - and to share the pain, joy, hopes and aspirations of others is one of the variable factors that hold societies together. An alienated society that does not communicate with the various streams that flow within the broader mainstream is a society that is in danger of losing tough with itself and growing more fragmented and alienated in time. That is the juncture that we have reached in Malaysia, despite talks of national unity and one-ness.
Here again we need to look back to the structural and institutional factors that may account for this lack of empathy among Malaysians.
For a start, a quick look at our urban landscape will tell us that the shared public spaces that ought to mark out the contours of our public domain are rapidly deminishing. Our public parks and playgrounds are being replaced by shopping malls and condomeniums, and the shared spaces where young Malaysians may meet, interract and form lasting childhood friendships are being lost and eroded in time.
To compound matters further, our manifold multi-streamed educational system that still allows for different vernacular streams has also eroded the shared public domain where young Malaysians can meet and interact across the divide of ethnicity and language. Is it a surprise that some Muslims can walk into a Church to write a report as was done by the two writers today? After all, when we look at the social landscape of Malaysia at the moment there is precious little in terms of space where genuine inter-ethnic communication (and by this I mean meaningful communication, not ordering a pizza) can take place. The absence of a national educational system for all means that young Malaysians are growing up in not one but several Malaysias that are growing apart. I would not be surprised if the two writers were themselves from such a background, and had had little contact with non-Muslims in their lives.
This absence of a shared public domain where there is the recognition of different subjectivities is one of the factors that is compounding the problem of nation-building and that is why we as a nation remain fragmented and unable to empathise with one another. And in case Malaysia’s Christians are so offended by the article that was written for al-Islam (which it was, in this writer’s opinion) then they should spare a thought for the Muslim minorities who live among us too, such as the Shias and Ahmadis who have for decades now been branded apostates, deviants, heretics and outsiders within. I was informed recently that in our school exams today Malaysian Muslim children are even asked to identify the groups that are considered devaints/apostates, in a systematic and institutionalised manner of generating a sense of alienation and radical difference with others.
If this is the sort of social and educational landscape that we now inhabit and have to work with/in, how can there be the sort of empathy that is required for citizens to recognise the common humanity they share with others? Worse still in the present-day context of Malaysia, such strategies of deliberate Othering and alienation have become institutionalised by and through the educational process, as in the case of the exam questions for Muslim kids who are told to identify other Muslims as outsiders and deviants against the norm.
This, then, is the root of our problem today and the revelation of the report in al-Islam is just the tip of the iceberg. If we are worried about the impact that such reports may have on inter-religious understanding in the country, we ought to be more worried about the social environment that produced such reporting in the first place, and which sustains the readership of such divisive material. We are, in short, in a mess.
July 14th, 2009 at 19:52
I am a citizen journalist and I have made a video about this issue. Can I share the link of the video available on Malaysiakini.tv?
http://www.malaysiakini.tv/video/17392/police-report-against-al-islam.html
July 15th, 2009 at 03:49
It is typical of over zealous Malay mentality.
July 15th, 2009 at 03:59
Save the best for the last. “We are, in short, in a mess.” When there are still legal battle with regards to use the word ALLAH, now this two super hero’s have done the ultimate stunt. Forget about empathy, where is the common sense? Where are the Pemuda UMNO, PAS and the rest to stand by this two clowns? Will they will ever voice out anything at all? Pure, genuine hipocracy. Indeed we are in mess.
July 15th, 2009 at 04:58
To Lilian,
Thanks for sharing the video. I feel that I must apologise for the rudeness of my two co-religionist from the al-Islam magazine. May God forgive them for what they know not.
As a Malaysian (malay and muslim) abroad I have attended mass and evensongs in churches throughout europe (plus one arab country) during my stay and travels. I find the experience spiritually uplifting - the psalms and the prayers after that. It is for that one god after all. Of course, I do not take communion at the altar because I don’t believe in that, nor do I make the sign of the cross; but I say amen to prayers for god’s mercy and world peace.
Pity that Malaysians are so alienated from each other’s lives that should I decide to attend a church service in my own homeland, my faith would deemed to be suspect and worse I may be thought to be spying for the religious zealots.
Perhaps the first step to stop this rot is for the disparate religious groups to visit each other’s places of worship. In the UK, as part of Religious Education classes, mosques, churches, gurdwaras, temples open their doors to school children of all faiths and none.
But I am sure some half-baked ulama would say that this is introducing young and almost invariably muslim children to deviant practices and the self-serving mob will cheer.
July 15th, 2009 at 08:04
Do you blame the two reporters of Al Islam? How can you when Al Islam has to compete with the UMNO led BN government supported UMNO owned Utusan Malaysia?
Utusan Malaysia is not an “Islam agenda” newspaper. But it trashes everything that is non Malay and non Islam. There has not even been a breather nor a word of censure.
Al Islam is self financed I presume and just like any of the trash magazines that you see, or the news papers that there are, like The Sun or News of the World in the UK, and the trash magazines that have to come up with absolute rubbish to sell themselves, Al Islam is doing just that. If at all there has to be some semblance of acceptable conduct, Al Islam and the two reporters will find it in these trash magazines and their reporters. I suppose they might redeem themselves by citing that if these trash magazines can do what they do, so can they! And by so doing relegate their own agenda and objective to trash!
So far, only the police are investigating. But whatever has happened to the Home Ministry which has issued them the license? They do not have to wait for a police report to censure them! After all I do not think when they issued the letter to the Catholic Herald it was supported by any investigation made by the police!
As for these two writers, his editors and those who support what they did are concerned, all I can tell them is to think of how it feels for all of us who have gone through the rituals of getting confirmed first before we partake in holy communion. If it is so hard to imagine, just imagine this, I walk into a mosque with some pork meat in my pocket!!
July 15th, 2009 at 08:14
Farish,
As a Malay, sometimes all these “Malayness” really gets to me. We are told that we are supposedly very cultured and polite people. To a certain extent its true, but this Malayness also allows us to be very blind.
Think about it. Pigs are unclean animals to Malays. (I use Malays because this mentality is uncommon to other Muslims). So anything to do with pigs are “censored”. In fact pork sellers are hidden away so they are not seen, unless you go to large wet markets. But we conveniently forget about other races. Its ok for Hindus to see our cow carcasses. How about vegetarians ? How can Malays expect other races to understand us when we just turn a blind eye to what is just ?
Lets talk about dogs. Young Malay children are taught from young to throw stones at neighbourhood dogs. I’ll compare this to a little story. Many years ago in Ipoh, my Indian Muslim aunt, she used to have a dog. Why ? She said the dog turned up hungry and she fed it. They are all God’s creatures she said. Remember the story of the prostitute and the dog ? Same principle.
The point is, Malays have a very wrapped view of what is Islam. They forget, even before God spoke to our Prophet Muhammad, he was very well known as a good, honest and just man. We Malays think that being a Muslim makes us good, honest and just - no matter what wrong we do !
So I am not surprised about what happened here. As my dad says, respect is given and taken and thus earned.
AK.
July 15th, 2009 at 09:24
I really do not see how we are going to out of this mess. Malaysian leadership at all levels cultivates generations of ‘yes-men’ and opportunists. As an artist, the only microcosm of hope that I see and the only area where I have any influence at all, is with young dancers of ASWARA whose curriculum makes them learn about each other, value, respect and celebrate their differences.
I have to believe that this can, albeit as tiny and insignificant as it may be, make a change one day.
I want to help build the ‘other Malaysia’. Kudos to the Farishes and the Zaids!!
July 15th, 2009 at 09:49
The magazine & its writers are obviously products of the alienation, divide&rule, prejudiced policies we have had in our society for decades. When a certain quarter is given a favoured status for this long, the members will actually believe that whatever they do for what they think is for their own good, is always righteous & true. They do not spare a thought for others as the policies propogated by the powers that be, preaches the same genre of thoughts.
To these poor & deprived souls, only they are important & the rest of us are not. Besides they know they can & will get away with this despicable act because the authorities will not go after them as the authorities themselves pursue the same ideals. Believe you me, only some feeble attempts will be seen to be made to appease the complaints. There will be no real empathy or sincerity in actually pursuing the right way.
You can’t change the mind-sets of these sick people. They are in real need of enlightenment but as long as they do no know this, they will continue to exist & cause problems with the ‘blessings’ of the government.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:20
“How would Muslims had reacted if some non-Muslim journalists had done the equivalent; to enter a mosque, take part in rituals, photographed them, and then published the report in some journal?”
I reckon they will burn some places of worship. kill some of the followers of that religion and place a few million ringgit on the head of the enemies.
Salman Rusdie comes to mind.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:42
These things happen only between Christians and Muslims with their age old suspicison of each other as imported from the Middle East. This is not a problem that Malaysia alone can resolve.
July 15th, 2009 at 12:04
““How would Muslims had reacted if some non-Muslim journalists had done the equivalent; to enter a mosque, take part in rituals, photographed them, and then published the report in some journal?””
It has been done. By National Geographic on Mecca, by millions of mosque visitors. Unlike churches where Sundays are the day, mosques open 24 hours, in theory (they are locked sometimes to prevent thefts).
What’s the fuss about investigative journalism? It’s not like these two are doing doing anything illegal. If anything, they discover what’s actually happening at the churches, and report back to the readers. Win-win.
July 15th, 2009 at 13:35
Peace be unto you all my friends! im Christian, as i have gone through every comments and ideas as well as suggestions jotted here, i found out that the two Al-Islam magazine’s writers are most likely motivated by gain for fame and fortune and furthermore hatred towards Christians/non-moslem. that’s my observation. and i agree with Ida’s suggestion that we can start implementing educational programs that allows educational trips by schools and students to visits churches/mosques/temples or whatever to have a clear understandings on other religions. But in Malaysia, i don’t think that will work well. the Political figure themselves commented differently then how can the tail(muslims populations) will not follow?
and i disagree with Sam’s statements on the reactions from non-Muslim of what they had done. i think you are too obsessed with the hatred of those action in the foreign countries, don’t you? normally our Malaysian Moslem are too sensitive and emotional over what has happened outside and brought that to Malaysia.
i would like to suggest, everything can be done unless the government controlled by Moslem’s majority Ministers stop their discriminations. that’s for sure. i always following the development of religio-political situation of our country, and i found out that discrimination on religious-political matters related to non-moslem citizen are very much existed in every sectors and phases of government agencies. So how are we going to solve religious-political chaos and tensions when leaders themselves started it?
Think about this and when we want to write about any religious movement in this coutry, ask a simple question to ourselve first: “Am i writing this for the good of all?” or only for my own gain? i still remember, many Malay-Moslem Malaysian Motivational Speakers in TV, talking about “Paradigm shift/Anjakan Paradigma” thinking outside the box..so what does that mean?
May God bless all..better not to fight others but fight with yourown self! do it!
July 15th, 2009 at 13:43
you..know sometimes i got angry..when thinking about this. in my place here, many of my relatives are divorcee and applying for the clearance of moslem’s religion’s letter in their IC but were rejected. then what? eventhough they brought their IC to the YBs, they also cannot do anything. so who are powerful and discriminate who here?
STOP DISCRIMINATION AND HEAL THE WORLD BECAUSE WE ALL ARE NOT LIVING IN THIS WORLD ALONE. NOT ONLY ONE RACE BUT MANY RACES, RELIGIONS, TRIBES, MAXIMS, TRADITIONS ETC.
July 15th, 2009 at 13:47
Yes. Malaysian no longer understands each other.
I was a civil servant. In the 70s and 80s my family used to celebrate festivals with the other races, happily. However, in the late 80s thing have changed; the muslim colleges refused to visit our house but we continue to visit them during their festival – the reason, they were told that our food preparation and utensils are non-halal, although they were sure the food laid out was halal as in previous years. Year after year it was a one- way traffic; we visited them, they can’t visit us. In the end we stopped visiting them too as we were feeling more and more unwelcome.
My brother who was with a bank related to me how Malaysian no longer understands each other at the office. He mentioned that around the same time the muslim staff demanded and the management acceded that the staff canteen be separated into two sections, muslim and non- muslim using two sets of utensils. They also demanded to hold meeting in Bahasa instead of English but was turned down by the management.
Look at the youths today. They are totally separated from each other in almost all aspects. What harmony we see in media are propaganda and political make-up.
July 15th, 2009 at 17:37
Elk - FYI, non muslims are not allowed to go to Mecca - and that’s to whole city not just a mosque IN a city!This is the only religion in the world where non-believers are barred from an entire city! Even the Vatican, which is legally a country allows non christians to enter and leave as they please! So yes, this type of investigative work will understandably seem offensive to Christians since if a Christian( or any other non-muslim) were to enter Mecca, they would go to jail for 6 months-1 year and then be deported to their home country.
And yes, Mr Gonzales, I’ve been to one of Aswara’s performances in KL and I was definately impressed with the “culture/religious blindness” in the dances in this part of our country called W.Malaysia where it’s become so entrenched to be just the opposite. Congratulations and keep up the good work and hope that the powers that be continue to give you the autonomy to continue in this direction.
July 15th, 2009 at 23:30
It is sad when 2 so called journalists from some publication desecrate a Catholic Church and participate in a ritual meant only for Catholics. It is sacrligious and blasphemous for these 2 journalists to receive Holy Communion and then spit the wafers and photograph them. It is even sadder that the magazine they work for considered it appropriate to publish their story and photgraphs of the desecrated hosts. As a believer I shudder to think how dangerously they provoke the wrath of God. Right thinking Muslims ( and I dare say they are in the majority ) would condemn such acts. The Government should move swiftly and punish these miscreants so that Catholics will know that there is no tolrance within Government for such acts of hatred and intolerance.
Malaysian Catholic
July 16th, 2009 at 00:50
I dont agree with you Sham. I am a Malaysian based in Middle East now and trust me I dont see any arab’s walking into a Church (yes, there is a church in my place and I am not in KSA). Furthemore, the number of Christians in this region (mostly expat’s have enough tolerence for all Islamic stunts by the Shia’s and the Sunnis and the both have enough respect to allow these group to practice their religion
July 16th, 2009 at 13:07
As a Muslim, I would ask Christian and my fellow Muslims to pray for us. Is as Farish suggested, this was done by a non muslim in a mosque all hell would have broken loose at this’disrespect’. We need prayers by everyone for God to give an understanding of what is the essence of our religions-love of god and love incredibly of all our fellow men.
Muslims need to understand that the Shiites and Ismailis are NOT deviants but branches of the same tree. The Wahabbis have perpetuated these divisions for political not divine purposes.
July 16th, 2009 at 16:19
To Adbul Haleem
I beg to differ. Around 10 to 20 percent of Arabs are Christians. In the Levant the number may be higher and the in the Gulf the numbers are lower. Boutros Boutros-Ghali the UN Gen Sec is a Maronite Christian from Egypt. Tariq Aziz who was Saddam Hussein’s right hand man is of Greek Orthodox persuasion.
I attended an Orthodox wedding of my Arab friend in Jordan in a church which was built by the family generations ago. Staring at Amman’s skyline there are as many church spires and towers as there are mosques.
July 16th, 2009 at 19:36
ITs now been many more days since the police report. The deafening silence from the Home Ministry is deafening me.
In the meantime we have some Islamist bloggers sanctifying these actions of the journalists as ordained by the Quran itself, quoting chapter and verse. Whats amazing is their ignorance when they don’t seem to understand the specific violation that is a bother to Christians. That they went to church to spy is not an issue. I am surprised they did not report the fact that the church also customarily prays on a weekly basis for our Muslim King and Prime Minister. Maybe they may have something to comment about that…Maybe like all these Christian prayers for our Muslim King and Prime Minster said every Sunday might make them Murtad maybe without them knowing it. Come to think of it, that they frown upon the use of Allah, maybe a new fatwa should be issued forbidding Christian prayers for the well being of our Muslim King and Prime Minister maybe. That they don’t seem to understand that the matter of concern is the violation of the Eucharist seems lost to them. I can already imagine the reaction of some of my deceased church members who would be turning in their graves over this.
July 16th, 2009 at 19:41
If the government is serious about its ‘One Malaysia’ campaign, it should react and respond to the aforementioned controversy in all sincerity. After all, it would be in consistent with what they have been suggesting in many press conferences and press releases. In fact, they would then also take up the task of being more proactive so as to ensure similar issues would not arise again in the future. Or so I hope.
I feel that the root of the problem lies behind the clear lack of information about religions other than Islam in Malaysia.It certainly is not wrong to believe that the faith that one believes in is right. In fact, most faiths out there insists only theirs is the right path. What is wrong however is to belittle other faiths let alone demonise them.
Despite the fact that I attended a Methodist school (Sekolah Menengah Methodist), as a Muslim who spent most of my life in Malaysia, I certainly feel that I have had little or no exposure at all on the other main religions in Malaysia. My school was only Methodist by name. It did not as some would imagine preach Christianity in any way at any stage of my high school education. I feel that I should mention that before some fanatics burst out emotional comments about me not being true to my faith.
My point is, when people are left in the dark, they seek enlightenment. Sometimes, they obtain information from all the wrong sources which may lead to more serious complications further down the road. Like Paul Warren said, Al-Islam may just be doing it to sell magazines, but to an ignorant reader, fiction may be taken as fact which they would then preach to another ill-informed soul. What started out as suspicion towards the other faith may turn into hatred. And when you insert a few fanatics into the equation, you then have a really messy situation at hand.
I feel that the solution is certainly through education; early education. We should be willing to discuss religion out in the open. Opportunities should be given to other faiths to give proper introduction to themselves. Our kids should not be kept away from the knowledge about other religions and the potential conflicts between them. That would just be plain dumb since sooner or later they will have to deal with the issue anyway. More knowledge would mean that we will be able to handle the issue better. We can then appreciate the other religions and give them credit when its due.
More importantly, we can then bridge this one difference between us Malaysians and look at what we have in common instead of our differences.
July 22nd, 2009 at 13:00
Dear Elk,
Of course there is nothing wrong for a non-christian to enter a church or attend a worship service. What is not right is what the 2 super heroes did with the Host that we Catholics believe as the Body of Christ. Moreover the resulting article (if you can call it that) is definitely not investigative reporting. PLs…don’t disrespect other genuine journalists by calling these too clowns as journalists.