The Pathologization of the Muslim mind

In 1974, when I was in lower sixth form, I read a book on the oppression of black Americans. The exact title of the book escapes me. But the message there stays.

One of the ways, White America oppresses the black Americans is to categorize them as mentally dysfunctional individuals. The American dominated institutions then could justify actions to incarcerate blacks in mental institutions.

This was the classic version of psychological sweeping of the problem under the carpet.

Official white America doesn't have to deal with mentally dysfunctional people- they just lock them away.

The pathologization of minds continues today. In our society, Muslims who hold steadfast to the insistence that Allah be used exclusively by Muslims are regarded as mentally dysfunctional, emotional, their arguments flawed etc. they are assigned as bigots, narrow minded, diffident as opposed to confident.

I don't accuse those who elect to support the free usage of Allah as emotional. or bigoted. I did however, classify those liberated Muslims who advocate its liberal use as salon Muslims, Bolshevik believers etc only as a description that the views they champion, are particularistic as opposed to universal. Their views are particular to them and their like minded fraternity. Certainly I believe their views are not shared by the majority of Muslims here in Malaysia.

By extolling this elitist view, what are we doing actually? We see comments on blogs peppered with things like, " how we wish there are many people like you Pete, or how we wish there are many who think like Marina. "

Well, I have heard some people say- Marina's views as regards religion are eclectic because she synthesizes them from the many husbands she has had.

Cruel, but maybe some truth there.

We unwittingly perpetuate the colonizing of our own non-Western-mind. The idea that this Allah issue has caused the Muslims to be traumatized and dysfunctional leads to the perception, that Malays who are emotional and narrow minded are under qualified and lack capacity for self-government. We have seen that actually when commentators come in and say, if this is the way, Malays handle the issue, this country will go the Pakistan way, the Zimbabwe way.

The only way to avoid that is to adopt the liberal way, extol the thinking of salon Muslims, Bolshevik believers and so forth. We are asked to be mindful of what others say and so forth. Be nice to them, so that others are nice to us. Where shall this kind of thinking eventually lead to?

The construction of populations as traumatized and dysfunctional, is leading to their disqualification from self-government.

Calling us dysfunctional and narrow minded Malay Muslims and the fact that spokespersons for the enlightened chattering classes would even think that such words could be touted as acceptable demonstrates the elite supremacist commoditisation of the average Malay. That categorization is a legacy of a colonized mentality that has transformed itself, into a cultural mainstay that proudly links the liberated Muslim minds to acceptable mainstream Western and modern thinking.