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Friday, May 30, 2003An interview with Dr. Farish A. Noor Dr Farish A Noor to me is one of the true Malay intellectual of our time. After reading many of his articles and his latest offering, a collection of essays called: ‘The Other Malaysia’, I am convinced of his erudition and his moral authority to speak about the topics he care to discuss. I wanted to ask many tricky questions to Farish, an affable interview subject, concerning his take on Malaysia’s subaltern history, the controversies surrounding him and among others, about the causes of the resurgence of conservatism in many Arabic country. Here are his responses: 1. Farish, why did you choose to write on Malaysia’s subaltern history? I am a political scientist by training as well as a philosopher of language. I was interested in history since school days, but from the beginning I never understood why Malaysian history seemed so biased and one-sided. Later on I studied the history of western colonisation and realised that British colonial history on Malaysia was also equally myopic and one-sided. The contribution of Malay history was totally marginalised and distorted as was the image of Islam and Muslim history in Malaysia. Since then I have been writing to write a comprehensive history of Malaysia that is inclusive and which covers all aspects of Malaysia's past. This is necessary because the role of other communities and agents have been totally neglected and left out. The role of non-Malays, women and the ordinary working people have hardly been mentioned. A nation requires a historical narrative as that is one of things that binds the national community together, creating what Ben Anderson called the 'imagined community' that is the national body. But when the history of a nation is limited and exclusive, many other constituent parts of that national community will feel alienated and left out. That in turn prevents a nation from coming together. That may also explain why Malaysia today is still experiencing a crisis of identity. We simply do not know who we are. If you were a young non-Malay woman, for instance, where is your place in this society? The history books give no room for people like these. 2. I noticed in many occasions, the messages that you had tried to send across just didn’t get through. Some were even misinterpreted and taken out of context. How do you plan to overcome this challenge in the future? Misinterpretation is normal in language. Language is diachronic and dynamic, it evolves and it changes. The nature of language is that it is made up of general terms as they cannot be a perfect language where every word corresponds to only one specific object, so miscommunication is inevitable. In such cases, one simply has to go on, keep trying to communicate and persevere. But on many occasions I have been deliberately taken out of context and my words distorted. Now that is something else altogether. Here we encounter malicious characters who simply want to twist your words to discredit or abuse you. In such cases one has to engage even more strongly, but never give up or give in. These are the discursive strategies used by those who want to silence alternative voices and who cannot tolerate differences of opinion. One has to engage with them too, but be careful of their dirty tactics and intentions. But even in cases of confrontations like this, the adab of difference and tolerance must be paramount. We cannot respond to slander and fitnah with more slander and fitnah: two wrongs do not make a right. 3. Do you think Malaysians in general are not yet prepared to question the indisputable position of the government? Are we still afraid to voice out our opinions? Or are he hindered from doing so? What do you reckon are the obstacles? Lets be frank. This is still an authoritarian state and that is why people are scared. but people must understand that the way out of this is by not internalising the culture of fear that has become the norm in our society. Most of the time the absence of dialogue and critical debate in Malaysia is due to the pervasive culture of fear that Malaysians have internalised within ourselves, beginning from school. I remember at school I was always getting into trouble. In form five I nearly got expelled from my school (St Johns) because I spoke about racism in Malaysia for the school speech contest. The teachers told me it was a sensitive subject and they wanted to ban me from speaking. So it starts from there: our teachers, parents, family, are our role models. Having elders who are cowed by fear and prejudice can only distort the minds of the young and turn them into conformist individuals later on. Today we are just a society of passive consumers. Even the Islamists who call for jihad against the US still go to McDonalds and think, live, consume like Americans! We have become a joke of a society, a nation of cowards with big dreams but small abilities. 4. Thanks to your deconstructive approach to discuss about our political histrionics, I am now more aware of my past than before. However, I am quite sure not many people share my opinion. What do you say to this? I think understanding our past is critical to knowing who we are today. Understanding our past also means treating our past with respect and tolerance. What scares me the most is the way Malaysia, like many post colonial societies, is destroying its past so fast everyday. By doing so we lose our historical anchor and historical compass. A nation that does not know its past does not know where it came from, and so will not know where it is going too. 5. Do you sincerely think Malaysia is a ‘progressive’ Islamic country. Better still, what is the real definition of a progressive Islamic country? Has this country been able to provide exemplary Muslim leadership? I think this country has shown strong leadership, certainly stronger than many other crony Arab states. This is important for two reasons: 1.The Arab Muslims still labour under a superiority complex, thinking that they only are real Muslims and the rest of us are lesser imitations. It is high time they realise that the Malay Muslims are the majority in the world. Today Malay is the biggest linguistic group in the Muslim world, followed by Urdu/Hindi and only after that the Arab speakers.2.The second reason is that I think the Malay archipelago can chart a new trajectory for Muslim development worldwide. Both Malaysia and Indonesia are plural societies that have accommodated cultural, ethnic and racial differences. The Arab societies remain homogenous in comparison. Here in ASEAN we have adapted our normative experiences of Islam to suit the realities around us. This is something many other Muslim countries have not done. As for whether our model of government is Islamic, I think this is more ambiguous. We have spent billions of dollars on the state's Islamisation program, but where is the result? Building mosques all over the place is not the only proof of being Islamic. Islam is also about good governance, just economics, democracy and the rule of law. What kind of Islamic state has a law like the ISA? I think as far as Islamic ethics and principles are concerned, we still have a long way to go. 6. How did you react to the systematic vilification of you after you allegedly denigrated and demeaned Islam by the Persatuan Ulama Malaysia (The Malaysian Religious Scholars Association) and 7 other organizations. What was your response when they rejected the idea of a dialogue concerning the matter (with you and with 5 other individuals concerned). Dialogue is necessary all the time. It is only through dialogue that we encounter difference and only through that that we really understand ourselves. I was sad when the PUM rejected the chance for dialogue, but thankfully my other Islamism comrades and friends offered me a forum to defend my position. I was particularly thankful to the ABIM Movement, JUST, and certain Ulama like Ustaz Uthman al-Muhammady who came to my defense and let me explain myself. Groups like ABIM are important today because they are proof that Islamist organisations can also be civil society organisations and they will defend civic culture when it is under threat. I did not expect everyone to agree with me or like what I said, but at least hear what I have to say first before attacking me! I even received death threats and abuse. One Friday I was even spat at a mosque when I went for Jemaah prayers. I felt very depressed then, thinking of how low we Muslims have come, to hate each other like that for no real reason... But having said that, I would like to point out that I bear no malice against the PUM or even PAS who attacked me then. I understand that they did what they did under good faith and they were doing what they thought was right. I respect their sincerity even though I think their methods were over-the-top. After the dialogue at ABIM, some PUM members even came to me and said that they understood me better. It proves that dialogue can help resolve our differences and we need not think of each other in terms of 'friends’ and 'enemies'. I reject such oppositional dialectics because it is destructive, divisive and fundamentally un-Islamic. Islam always seeks reconciliation and we must never abandon our Islamic adab when it comes to situations like these. 7. It is quite clear if we care to look into the past, Islam has a rich tradition of critical thinking and discourse. However, it seems that many Islamic countries have grown increasingly conservative over the years. This has contributed to the rise of Ulama with conservative outlook and who are engaged in strict hermeneutics. What say you? Two important points: 1. It must be remembered that some of the most progressive intellectuals and scholars in Islamic history were themselves Ulama. In Malaysia we need to read the works of famous reformist Ulama like Syed Sheikh al-Hady and Sheikh Tahir Jalaluddin. They were the Krum Mud Ulama of their time and they were the first to raise issues like the need for ijtihad, critical thinking, the rights of women, etc. So we must never think of all Ulama as being the same. Historically the great Muslim intellectuals like al-Ghazali, ibn Khaldun, ibn Rush were also Ulama - they were also the pioneers of the rational intellectual tradition in Islam, and the founders of modern social sciences. Today in Malaysia we still have Ulama like Ustaz Uthman al-Muhamaddy who are trying to defend and promote this rational tradition in an Islamic context. Ustaz Uthman is one of the few Ulama who has been trying to promote the studies of Ibn Khaldun in Malaysia, for instance. 2. Secondly, if Islam today seems conservative, it is because of the spread of the Wahabbi-Deobandi ideas thanks to the sponsorship of the Saudi regime, which is one of the most corrupt and discredited repressive regimes in the Muslim world. This Wahabbi-Deobandi alliance has led to the creation of the Taliban, and other regressive schools of thought. They have ignored the rationalist tradition and instead promoted conservative thinkers like Ibn Taymiyya and others. For me, this is a disaster for the Islamic intellectual tradition. These are the people who are telling us that Muslims do not need science and technology, that we might as well reject modernity and ride camels, etc. Its very, very sad and I fear for the future if this trend is not checked. 8. There are a few western scholars (including, if I’m not mistaken, Daniel Yergin, who wrote ‘The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power’) who believes that the excess associated with the oil wealth that flooded the Middle East was one of the causes of the resurgence of conservatism in many Arabic country. Why do you think prosperity causes these Islamic countries to resort to conservatism and shun away modernity? Prosperity in the Arab countries has merely helped the corrupt pro-American regimes keep hold on their power and destroy the opposition. But this will not last forever, because their own regimes are falling apart and their people are rising up. The entire Muslim world knows that the real people who control the Arab sheikhs and sultans of the oil-rich states are the Americans and Zionists of Israel. How long can you maintain this culture of repression? The Americans and Israelis propped up the Shah of Iran and even helped to set up his detested SAVAK secret police, but he still fell in 1979. 9. Moving on to a different mode, can you please tell us more about Nik Rashidin Nik Hussein’s contributions to the conservation of the Malay heritage, particularly in the art of Malay woodcarving? He was, without doubt, the greatest woodcarver of his generation. There is too much that needs to be said here, but a book which I wrote about the art of wood and Nik Rashiddin will be out later this year. In it there is also a essay on Nik Rashiddin by Eddin Khoo. 10. Some people would erroneously label you as being ‘westernized’ in projecting your thoughts and opinions (not as if there is anything wrong with that in the first place). But after reading a lot of your writings, I find that you are rather very ‘Melayu’. In fact, your knowledge in the Malay culture seems to surpass many Malays I know. I do suspect that there seems to be a collective amnesia amongst the Malays today. Many of them don’t even understand their own history prior to the arrival of Islam in the Malay Peninsula. What is your take on this? Should we teach our children about our gilded past? How important is our own history to us, or should we just move on? We will move on whether we like it or not, but our history is the one thing that we can take with us, pass to our future generations and hopefully be carried further. History is our wealth. A nation with no history is a nation with no standing, it is like a man with no shadow, no name. As for my 'Malayness', I consider myself a child of the Malay archipelago. My roots go back to Java, Sulawesi, Sumatra and Malacca. My family was the result of four generations of mixed marriages, with Javanese, Bugis, Indian, Portuguese and Dutch blood mixed together- and now my wife is French! I cannot help but be proud of this at times, and proud of being part of this race and culture which has been so mixed, diverse, tolerant and dynamic in the past. If we can recover some of that dynamism today, the Malays will be able to stand on their own two feet, recognise their place and standing in the world, know their value and worth, and wont have to depend on unjust policies like the NEP!! The Malays must learn to stand on their own two feet- the 'semangat mengembara' which made them a maritime people who traveled the world must be reactivated somehow. I have tried to do that by reminding them of their past. I only hope that someday some of them may realise and understand that, rather than abusing me for no reason. End. Dr. Farish A. Noor is currently holding a post at the Centre for Modern Orient Studies, Berlin. However, if you have questions concerning the above interview, please correspond with him personally him at the following e-mail address: korawa@hotmail.com posted by CoolSoulSmith a.k.a Rinci|ak ---------------------------
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