Cultural Clashes

In the absence of Indcoup who, lucky bugger, can afford a couple of week's offblog in Bali, I think it's important to highlight yet another case of mad Malaysian mullahs. Mullah, incidentally, is a term of respect for Islamic teachers, but the religious police in Ipoh, Malaysia (who) detained a Muslim singer and her band, accusing her of baring too much flesh during a recent performance at a nightclub certainly aren't deserving of any.

Siti Noor Idayu Abd Moin's sleeveless white top exposed a triangle of skin on her back, prompting officials to charge her with "revealing her body" and "promoting vice". This was after they'd breathalised her twice, for zero results, and suggested that the money she earned working in the outlet was duit haram (illicit money) and that her parents, children and future generations would all be tainted for using such money.

In other words, these are thought police.

Unspun, a Malaysian resident here, and Nuraina A Samad, a Muslim lady born in Singapore who challenges the notion of a man's world, both have a photo of Siti which will probably not titillate these gentlemen as they've got their own collection to drool over.


"When I was in the department's headquarters ... my pictures were taken again and again," Siti told Kuala Lumpur's New Straits Times. "When I asked why they needed so many shots they said: 'It's procedure.' Really? I think I was being singled out."

Rainforest World Music Festival 2007

Elsewhere in Malaysia there is a festival next weekend that is sure to upset the uptight gentlemen of Ipoh. Musicians from as far apart as the UK, Afghanistan, Poland and Peru will be performing at the Sarawak Cultural Village in Kuching,

If you love the rich variety of music that we are capable of making, from Tuvan throat singers to English skifflers to the bamboo music of the Kelapang Kelabit upstream forest group, then grab your tickets now and mentally thumb your nose at the idlers of Ipoh.

Labels: bigotry, music

 

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  Sunday Best

Sir Salmon Rushedby continues to stir up controversy. His vindictive autobiographical novel which has only been read by two people, his editor and himself, sold out in London last week.

I went to the flagship Waterstone's in Piccadilly, the biggest bookshop in Britain, and asked for a copy of The Satanic Verses, one of the most famous novels - and certainly the most infamous - in the modern English canon.

Predictably, there were no copies of The Satanic Verses on sale. The stock, I was told, had sold out. 'They've been buying loads,' an assistant explained. How many is loads? Her answer was four copies. 'That constitutes loads?' 'Whatever,' came her helpful reply. It's that kind of personal touch one misses in internet shopping.

In the UK mass media he is famous for having had 4 wives. In literary circles he is famous for having sold the most copies of an unread book, an ambition shared by quite a few smug literary types. That Devilish Dirges is perceived as an attack on a religion is really of no consequence. It is really an attack on those blinkered naysayers whose dogma does not allow dissent.

Apart from Buddhist priests who dress down, most acolytes of other religions have to dress up in order to disguise the their paucity of their religious arguments.

Ninjanes
Finally, I think we should all take note of the views of an objective visitor to the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum, near Cincinnati in the Good Ol' US of A. This cost a mere $27 million and took a bit longer to build than God took to create the world. He (or was it she?), presumably without the technological marvels we have today, such as cement mixers and handphones, took just six days to create His (or Her?) master/mistress piece. It wasn't 7 days, of course, because the 7th was a Sunday, His (Her?) day of rest. Or was it a Friday because s/he was Jewish or Muslim?

I would give you a link to the museum's website but our surrogate visitor gives a very thorough guided tour.

What about those silly “scientists” who say dinosaurs were long gone by the time of humans? Here, we see two paleontologists coming up with different conclusions. The wise white paleontologist doesn’t need that whole “carbon-dating” bullshit, for he only needs the Bible to tell him how old these fossils are. Meanwhile, the Asian paleontologist uses all that so-called “logic”, “reason” and “scientific method” to come to the ridiculous conclusion that these fossils are from many millions of years ago. Whatever, Confucius! Put down those science books and pick up the Bible, that’s all you need to get to the truth!

Ah men to that. And women too.

Labels: bigotry

 

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¶ 11:00 am |

  The Gong Show

A couple of days ago I had a mild go at the British Honours system.

I'm not a rabid republican, but I do feel that the monarchy is an outmoded institution and that its various offshoots should be less remote from the populace. They are a clan cult of celebrity with little relevance, a class apart from the lives of we lesser mortals. (One might say the same thing about most politicians in this country who enrich themselves at our expense whilst doing bugger all.)

The Independent newspaper has always opposed the British honours system. Efforts by the present Prime Minister to open up the nomination process have had little effect, and towards the top end of the scale no perceptible effect at all. The system remains one of mutual backslapping, where the great and the good patronise their own and senior civil servants are rewarded just for having attained a particular grade. It is a pernicious anachronism that has defied modernisation and should have been abolished long ago.

It is only right and proper that various worthy citizens should be recognised for their contributions to society, rather than, as I wrote earlier, for doing what they are paid to do. Although we may question choices, they are 'vetted' by juries of their peers in particular fields of endeavour. Eight committees make recommendations to a main committee which sifts, sort and vets before making recommendations to the Prime Minister. He then informs good Queen Bess in whose name, as the notional head of a non-existent empire, these awards are given.

Twice a year, New Year and the Queen's (official) Birthday in June, the names are announced, the press goes gaga over certain choices and thousands of 'ordinary' citizens quietly celebrate with their families that their honest toils have been recognised as being of societal benefit.

Naturally, the arts and sports awards receive the greatest publicity. Some honorees, such as Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith are really the 'Best of British'. Others, such as singer Joe Cocker who was awarded an OBE last week, leave one asking why him rather than, say, her. (I'm a big fan of Joe, incidentally, but that's an anecdote for another time.)

Twenty or so years ago, I spent three months in Ladakh, Kashmir and Rajastan in north-west India. One of the books I travelled with was Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, about children born on the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the precise moment of India's independence from Great Britain and Pakistan's formation.

It appears to be an allegory, spiced with satirical commentary, on the political course of modern India and the in-fighting of its various social and religious factions. It is an endlessly inventive book with a cheeky sense of humor and wild, exotic imagery, but it does not eschew somber moments.

I found the book of great value in helping to understand something about the land I was travelling through and its peoples; I also found the book to be dense and somewhat difficult to digest - definitely not a 'plane and train' read.

Some 18 years ago, his Satanic Verses was published. This was purportedly an attack on Islam so fundamentalist Muslims, who, of course, hadn't had the opportunity (or the literacy) to read the book, issued a fatwa, a death threat against Rushdie. But, as he told Time magazine, the book "isn't actually about Islam but about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay."

The sad irony, he said, "is that after working for five years to give voice and fictional flesh to the immigrant culture of which I myself am a member, I should see my book burned, largely unread, by the people it's about -- people who might find some pleasure and much recognition in its pages."

Inevitably, the book was banned here in Indonesia.

In 1989, Son no.1 and I travelled through Sulawesi and ended up for a night in Gorontalo. We met a retired doctor in a cafe and he invited us back to his house for breakfast. He told us that he had been sent to Sulawesi as a military man, part of a force intent on quelling a separatist movement. He had never, somewhat to his regret, been 'repatriated'. Amongst the other topics we discussed was Satanic Verses, which he said he wished he could read as he wanted to make up his own mind. I thought that was a brave statement to make in a Suhartoist and Muslim community.

Of course, he was right. That inflammatory statements are currently being made by Iranian and Pakistani envoys about the award of a knighthood to a novelist in another country, can only mean that there are severe problems within those countries and, whoopie, here's a tired old excuse to divert attention from them.

I cannot comment on the honour given to Rushdie; I don't have any of his books on my shelves and, as I said, I find his writing difficult to penetrate. Others are more able than I in assessing his contribution to literature.

The current controversy is as much about sovereignty as it is about culture. Britain professes to be a multi-cultural country. If it were to kowtow to ill-considered protests from other sovereign nations about someone deemed to have contributed to that multi-culturalism, then the world is much more dangerous for the rest of us.

Labels: bigotry, pluralism

 

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