{"id":27890,"date":"2006-04-14T08:07:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-14T08:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/?p=27890"},"modified":"2024-03-14T13:37:45","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T05:37:45","slug":"where-muftis-fear-to-tread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/artikel\/2006\/04\/where-muftis-fear-to-tread\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Muftis Fear to Tread"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Gubra<\/em> raises\na whole pile of socio-religio issues — some may even consider it somewhat\noverburdened — and in a heavily censored society, you really want to credit\nYasmin Ahmad for using narrow windows of opportunities to test the limits of\nnational and social discourse, even if some viewers may come away confronted\nand uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the character of the\nmuezzin, on his way to the mosque, pats a three-legged dog on the head. Some\nwill argue that the Qur’an expressly prohibits dog-touching, but others will\ntell you that there isn’t a single reference to the dog being haram anywhere in\nthe Qur’an, and that there are differences of opinion within the various\nschools of jurisprudence and thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interpretations aside though, the\ntesting of this limit was refreshingly confronting. Dog-patting is not\nsomething one usually associates with the general Malaysian Muslim, what more a\nman with a kopiah and a kain pelikat on his way to the mosque to perform the\nazan (call to prayer).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some may wonder:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. If the muezzin was from some strange mazhab or deviant group;<\/li>
  2. If he practises samak (ritual cleansing) after touching the dog;<\/li>
  3. If it was a bit frivolous and unIslamic of the filmmaker to even depict this in the first place.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    But the bottom line is that it\nchallenges the viewer, and challenges perceptions of Muslims as homogenous,\nwhether filmmaker or film character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Mind you, I wonder if the muezzin\nand his wife, who have a warm friendship with two sex workers in the kampung\n(one who later discovers she is HIV positive), may not be characters out of a\nSurabaya or Jogjakarta context rather than a kampung in Perak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Perhaps I am still stung by the\nsuggestion by a certain Malaysian mufti that people living with HIV and AIDS\nought to be left to rot on an island — so the kind and thoughtful muezzin and\nhis wife seem like idealised fiction. I know of religious community leaders in\nIndonesia who live in ‘red light’ areas and unless approached and requested, do\nnot preach nor teach rituals of religion. Instead, they make it their\n‘religion’ to assist sex workers and their families to survive, lead safer\nlives and explore various employment options. But, I guess one shouldn’t\ncompletely write off the possibility that such a muezzin might actually exist\nin Perak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There are several other moments that\nstraddle idealism and Malaysian reality. For example, when Jason’s mother\nscreams at her cantankerous low-kong in the hospital ward because he can’t seem\nto survive a day without babi in his diet, the Muslim family at the next bed\nrespond very endearingly — which is nice and I wish (hope?) that this does\nhappen. But, in a country where non-Muslim school-kids are told by their\nteachers to not bring pork in their own lunchboxes because it offends Muslims\n(but won’t think twice that beef rendang might offend Hindus), I almost had the\nfeeling the Muslim family would want to be shifted to another ward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There are moments in Gubra<\/em> which you can’t help but compare\nit with (sorry bout this!) a Petronas ad and wonder whether if it wasn’t\nslightly forced and out of place, like when the Chinese patient and Malay patient\ncommiserate the death of a mutual Indian acquaintance. And there are characters\nand plots that are almost too nice and neat, like the muezzin and his wife, who\nare sweet to the point of being too perfect, as well as the lives of the sex\nworkers they come in contact with — one who mends her ways and wants to be\ncloser to her religion again while the other who is just trying to save up\nmoney faces a tragic end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It may well be the filmmaker’s take\non life — who is to say? — but it may also well be the concession that a\nfilmmaker in Malaysia feels she needs to make in order to push the limits on\nother issues, in particular on ethnicity and religion, which would otherwise\nperhaps never see the light of day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There are several other issues that\nyou could expect to make past the censors — even some of the sexual innuendos\nwhich suggest sex outside of marriage. But I kept wondering how the dog scene\ngot through; and even ‘babi’ did not get bleeped out or replaced with the\nArabic ‘khinzir’. And this from folks who have historically made it their\nbusiness to, amongst other things, guard ‘Muslim sensitivities’. Each\n‘controversial’ issue that made it unscathed felt like a small victory for the\nfreedom of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Like the scene in church — that\nleft quite an imprint, not because I’ve not seen the inside of a Malaysian\nchurch, but because it’s not really something you often see in Malaysian —\nwhat more Malay — films. If at all. That the scene is beautifully interlaced\nwith another scene of two Muslim women saying a doa makes it even more\npoignant, because the prayer from both shots could’ve almost been said in\nsynchrony, such is the similarity in both prayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Makes you wonder then what it is\nabout the inside of a church that is so offensive to sensitivities that we\nrarely get to view the pulpit or the pew. Like an unspoken mantra, we’ve come\nto normalise this in our psyche, that somehow that<\/em> kind of depiction would crack muhibbah Malaysia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It struck me then that there are two\nways of exerting political hegemony of belief and thought — either by a direct\nimposition of your own belief and rituals, or by rendering other belief systems\ninvisible. And questioning the invisibility seems to sometimes come at a cost\nas well — just ask the Kelana Jaya MCA MP who was ‘visited’ and threatened by\n50 UMNO Youth members from his constituency for raising ‘sensitive’ issues. So\nmost of us just internalise this state of affairs and say no more because this\nmight cause some other chaps to run amok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But if we are gunning for a muhibbah\nMalaysia, then it has to be built on a social consciousness that affords\nvisibility to all belief systems and identities, where all of us get to ask the\ntough questions without being intimidated for doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Granted, Gubra<\/em> doesn’t go so far so as to deconstruct the intertwining of\nMalay and Islam which forms the unfortunate bedrock of Malaysian identity\npolitics, but it raises the potential for discourse by providing an effective\nplatform for the many other bits and bobs that are too often hidden away in the\n‘too sensitive’ basket. And you really have to give it that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    ~~~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Toni Kasim’s fantasy of Malaysia is a place where no one else is allowed to comment on the colour of her seluar dalam — or who she gets to peel them off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    First Published: 14.04.2006 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Gubra raises a whole pile of socio-religio issues — some may even consider it somewhat overburdened — and in a heavily censored society, you really want to credit Yasmin Ahmad for using narrow windows of opportunities to test the limits of national and social discourse, even if some viewers may come away confronted and uncomfortable. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":3,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7758,7765,7770,7767,7769,7775,7774],"tags":[4365,712,501,223,4364,628,621,3926,500,502,49,521],"language":[7785],"writer":[7943],"class_list":["post-27890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artikel","category-penapisan","category-budaya","category-filem","category-politik","category-agama","category-ulasan","tag-aids","tag-censorship","tag-culture","tag-film","tag-hiv","tag-islam","tag-malay","tag-malaysia","tag-politics","tag-religion","tag-review","tag-yasmin-ahmad","language-inggeris","writer-toni-kasim-ms"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27890"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39236,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27890\/revisions\/39236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27890"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27890"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}