Archive for category Farish Noor
Revisiting the Spin of Malaysia and Indonesia as ‘Moderate’ Muslim states
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor, Islam on Tuesday, 3 November 2009
By Farish A. Noor November 2nd, 2009.
It is now ‘moderate’ season once again when the leaders of the developed Western world are on the lookout for moderate Muslim states and leaders to engage in dialogue with as strategic, economic and political allies and partners.
Needless to say, the leaders and governments of the Muslim world are equally pleased with this open invitation, particularly from the White House, and there are plenty of Muslim leaders and governments that are prepared to bend over backwards to accommodate the demands of the man who is currently residing in the White House too.
On top of that it ought to be noted that the honour of being anointed as a ‘moderate Muslim’ leader is something that most Muslim leaders today would wish for and cherish above all else, cognisant of the fact that such an anointment would be followed by a blanket support of their own domestic policies at home as well as lashings of economic, political and military support to boot. Read the rest of this entry »
Injecting Reason Back Into Indonesia-Malaysia Relations
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor, Foreign on Thursday, 10 September 2009
By Farish A. Noor
It would appear as if Reason and Rationality have gone on holiday in Southeast Asia recently: In Malaysia a group of angry residents who wished to protest against the construction of a Hindu temple in their neighborhood decided to demonstrate their anger by marching to the government offices in Selangor with a severed cow’s head, a gesture that was guaranteed to offend the sensibility of pious Hindus who regard the cow as a sacred animal. In Indonesia a misunderstanding over a tourism ad commissioned from a non-Malaysian company has angered scores of Indonesians, simply because it mistakenly featured a scene from a Balinese pendet dance which the Indonesians regard as being exclusively theirs: The net result being a new round of anti-Malaysian protests leading to local vigilante groups harrassing tourists in Jakarta and going out into the streets to ’sweep’ the country of Malaysians.
In both Malaysia and Indonesia, tempers seem to be rising out of control and for all the wrong reasons. Making matters worse is the fact that in both countries these mob actions are neither accidental nor unavoidable. Mobs do not form themselves and move into the streets for no reason; vigilante groups do not miraculously form themselves out of this air without funding and political support.
Read the rest of this entry »
Punishing the Body or the Person? Why Some Cannot Accept Physical Punishments
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor on Friday, 28 August 2009
By Farish A. Noor
In his book ‘Torture and Modernity: Self, Society and State in Modern Iran’ (1994), the scholar Darius Rejali looks at how the processes of torture and punishment have evolved over the centuries in Iran, from the period of the Qajar dynasty all the way to the regime of the Shah and the Islamic Revolutionary government. He makes one interesting and important observation which remains relevant to all of those who are concerned about the use of corporal punishment and torture by modern states today: that corporal punishment dates back to the medieval era where the popular perception of punishment was that it was a public spectacle that ought to be enacted upon the body of the individual, and not the subject him/herself.
In this respect, the modes of torture and punishment that were used in pre-modern Iran were no different from the modes of punishment that were used in China, India, Africa or Europe. Throughout the world during the pre-modern era the popular understanding of punishment was that it was meant to be a form of public humiliation, operating through the mode of public violence, that was intended to compel the guilty to repent and alter his/her ways through the threat of violence and force. Hence we see how in medieval Europe, Asia and the Arab world the modes of public punishment were all equally gory and bloody: Heads were chopped off, bodies were impaled, whipped, burned, branded, broken, quartered and sliced to pieces. Most of these punishments were carried out in public, ostensibly as a ‘lesson’ to others. But as many modern psychologists have pointed out, these public spectacles of violence also served the voyeuristic inclination of those who relished the sight of bodies being violated in public, and were thus also forms of bizarre public pornography.
Read the rest of this entry »
So who has ‘Misunderstood’ the ISA?
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor, ISA on Saturday, 1 August 2009
By Farish A. Noor
It is now being claimed by some that the Internal Security Act has been ‘misunderstood’ by a significant section of the Malaysian public, and if only they can be made to ‘understand’ it they would come to realise that it is after all a good tool that ought to be kept in the coffers of the state.
That such a claim can be made today is interesting, for at least it makes the concession that there are enough Malaysians out there who reject the manifold uses and abuses of the ISA so as to warrant the call to have it abolished, or at least so radically revised that it cannot be abused further. However we are left with the question: Who, exactly, has ‘misunderstood’ the ISA? The Malaysian public or the politicians who run the country?
Read the rest of this entry »
Politics, Power and the Violence of History
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor, Islam on Thursday, 30 July 2009
By Farish A Noor
The guillotine, it ought to be remembered, was originally conceived of as a safe, clean, efficient and ironically ‘humane’ method of murdering people when it was first introduced. Dubbed the ‘revolutionary razor’ when it was first used to execute the enemies of the state at the outset of the French revolution, it was seen as an improvement and advancement from the age of neo-feudal rule where the despotism of the King of France was manifest in the macabre and gruesome spectacles of public violence that were enacted in the kingdom against those who were seen as the enemies of the regime.
In time however it is clear that even this mode of public execution has been inscribed with negativity and regarded as a brutal way for the state to express its power in the public domain. Robbespiere, Danton, Saint-Just were all victims of the same mode of state violence that they had originally supported and promoted, and it is ironic that Robbespiere and his contemporaries met their end at the same guillotine that they had used to execute their enemies earlier.
The tale of the guillotine is an apt reminder of the historical impasse that Muslim societies are in today, and how the dream of political Islam is now Read the rest of this entry »
Arresting the Slide in Our Public Institutions
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Crime, Farish Noor, Good Governance on Wednesday, 22 July 2009
By Farish A. Noor
The term ‘Asubhabhavana’ is familiar with many historians of Buddhist theology by now, for it refers to a meditative mode of introspection that has become ritual practice over the centuries. In layman’s terms, Asubhabhavana refers to the simple process of self-reflection and mental back-tracking where one contemplates the manifold paths, steps and mis-steps that were taken to get us to where we are today; prompting the simple yet direct question: “Why have I become what I am today, and what were the mistakes that I made that continue to hurt me now?”
As it is with individual subjectivities, so is it with states, governments and institutions. For when we look at the process of historical development and decline of so many post-colonial societies we also need to ask what were the steps and mis-steps that were taken to get them to their present state of degeneration and decline?
A case in point is the recent one in Malaysia, where a young political assistant to the DAP opposition party was found dead under the most suspicious of circumstances. The young man had been summoned by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to its offices in order to answer some questions related to allegations of corrupt political practice. The next time anyone sees him, he is found lying dead on the rooftop of the building next door. Needless to say the fact that the young man may have died while under MACC custody begs the immediate and obvious questions: How did he die, and why? This is the burning question that has brought Malaysians of all walks of life, across the political divide, together. Already the same question is being asked even by the component parties of the BN ruling coalition, and prominent BN leaders have likewise called for an enquiry into what happened that day at the MACC office.
Read the rest of this entry »
Governance between Idealism and Realism
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor, Pakatan Rakyat on Wednesday, 22 July 2009
By Farish A Noor
Malaysia-watchers would have noticed by now that cracks have begun to appear in the opposition People’s Alliance (Pakatan Rakyat) and that recent events have given some cause for worry. Notably, public spats and open rows among PR leaders in state assemblies have not given us any reason to be confident about the coalition’s future, and at the rate that the PR is going today one is not surprised to hear much speculation about the impending fall of two more state assemblies. There are, understandably, many reasons for these rows to have come into the public domain – though none of these reasons could justify such acrimonious and self-defeating displays by public politicians whom we expect to behave with more decorum and professionalism.
One of the reasons, we are told, is the constant bickering and demands that are coming from the business community – predominantly in Selangor and Penang – who feel that their earlier support for the Pakatan should now be reciprocated by the handing out of lucrative development projects and other perks and bonuses that come with political sponsorship and patronage. This, however, is precisely the root of the malaise to Malaysian politics, and was one of the primary reasons why the vote swing in March 2008 was as strong and vocal as it was.
It is known to many in the business world and corporate sector that the mode of governance in Selangor has changed: Calls for transparency and accountability have been met with a more stringent form of quality control and hands-on management. Contracts have to be tendered for openly, and the accounting has to be visibly cleaner and more transparent. Likewise the very nature of the development contracts have changed as well, with environmentally-dangerous forms of development (such as hillside development) put on hold for the moment.
Read the rest of this entry »
Empathy and Myopia: How Malaysians No Longer Understand One Another
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor, Religion on Wednesday, 15 July 2009
By Farish A. Noor
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?
Read the rest of this entry »
“You Are Not Qualified To Interpret my Religious Text”: How to Respond to Attempts to Close the Public Domain- Part 3
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor, Islam on Friday, 26 June 2009
By Farish A. Noor
These days we often hear the accusation that someone or another is doing something nasty by interpreting a book or text out of context. The common refrain that follows goes something like this: “Who are you to interpret our holy book on your own without the guidance of our supreme religious elders who are so knowledgeable in scriptural knowledge that your own petty knowledge is like that of a gnat’s in comparison?” From this bombastic salvo there usually follows the same train of accusations and slander, which include the following: Muslim/Christian/Buddhist/Hindu feminists are simply reading and re-reading the holy scriptures with their own agendas in mind; that they are engaged in wilful and unregulated interpretation that goes against orthodoxy, etc.
Before we deal with the political nature and consequences of such accusations, let us return to the original premise and deconstruct it a bit. Read the rest of this entry »
“You Are Not Qualified To Talk My Religion”: How to Respond to Attempts to Close the Public Domain- Part 2
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor, Islam on Thursday, 18 June 2009
By Farish A. Noor
If I were to tell someone that I don’t like Satay, loathe batik shirts and cant stand keroncong music, does it follow from that that I hate Malay culture in toto? Now one would have to be deliberately and consciously paralysingly stupid to believe that, by assuming that the rejection of some aspects of normative culture amounts to a total rejection of an entire culture as well. If that is the case with culture, then why cant we see that the same rule applies to talk of religion as well?
I raise this point because it has become ever so trendy in Malaysia these days to assume that any rejection, critical questioning or even debate over some normative aspects of religious epiphenomena amounts to a total rejection of the religion per se. This arises because of the unscrupulous manner in which some religiously-conservative individuals have erroneously equated the normative aspect of religiosity with the dogmatic aspect of religion in general. The two spheres, however, are distinct and should remain so.
This explains in part why groups such as Malaysia’s Sisters in Islam have been in the limelight for so many years, and why this group of Muslim feminists have been attacked again and again, and accused of being anti-Islamic. The fact however is that Sisters in Islam (SIS) Read the rest of this entry »
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the Farish Noor category.
Kit Siang Online
