The Malay and his Religion- final part.

Another sore point for me. When a problem occurs in our society most Malay leaders points out the lack of religious education as the main cause. To me this is too simplistic and sometimes irrelevant. But the Malays in general can accept this line of reasoning, which doesn't requires THINKING. Anything bad that happen in society is blamed on the lack of religious education. We know that society's problems are very complex and cannot be solely attributed to religious factors. But the Malays seem to think that religion is everything, at least a large majority of them.

 

This appears as the great rationaliser for Malay Muslims. Whenever something calamitous befall them, they will blame the religion of Islam. At other times, religion is used to justify certain course of actions. These actions, made Malays unwittingly, as mere digits in the greater movement by anti Islamists to denigrate this great religion.

Two, by being unconscious accomplices in the Great Bash against Islam, Malays failed to realise that many of the social ills that befall them such as economic backwardness, poverty, social injustices, political conflicts- are the outcome of purely man-made follies. Nothing to do with religion. More with the application of Man and his brains upon life.

The unwanted outcome has been, Islam at the personal level and at the level of those in power, has been used as the instrument for explaining away personal and the State's shortcoming. And because of the overall submissiveness of the adherence of the religion to its tenets, people get away by using Islam as an excuse.

The inclination leads right into the thinking that Islam is to blame for everything and therefore deserve 'our' contempt and hostility. If Muslims don't correct this misconception, then we will lend credence to the false thesis by many western experts on the world of Islam, that there is nothing good about Islam. Yet, the ease by which Muslims resort to attribute anything calamitous befalling them as being the result, of them being not Islamic enough, has the curious effect of making it possible for any one to blame Islam the religion.

Our attitude will only encourage the fashionable thinking that Islam is nothing, but a religion sponsoring tendencies to violence, anger, anti-modernism etc. These views if not corrected, will only serve to entrench anti Islamic thinking.

Uncritical acceptance of such an interpretation of Islam, has made it possible for many to explain the Malay backwardness as attributable to their religion. Islam is often caricatured and dismissed condescendingly. For example, at the international levels, because of Islam being seen that way, it is permitted to abuse objectivity whenever "Islam" is the subject. Accordingly , this kind of thinking led to equally blind readiness to blame Islam for any negatives on Islamic people. Islamic people- says this kind of thinking, autosuggest themselves into poverty, backwardness, anti-modernism, close mindedness etc. In the end, Islam is identified as the sole explanation why the Islamic people are backward.

This almost knee-jerk readiness to blame Islam for every ill the world is facing- it's no longer confined to Muslims, but to the whole international community is both the cause and effect of why people's expectations are low, when it comes to discussions of "Islam".

But more insidious and damaging to Muslims, are the mischievous ideological fictions that experts of Islam used to hoodwink people especially following the aftermath of September 11. The international communities and by that I mean, mostly western democracies have also been able to use Islam as the bogeyman. Hence terrorism is readily accepted as a by product of Islam. Backwardness for example is a byword by which Islam is identified etc. Islam is eponymous with everything bad.

At the international level, what has this kind of thinking result in? probably, the worst result of this method is that it systematically convert whole nations and a whole world to embrace a highly aggressive and bellicose perception and interpretation of Islam. Such thinking has succeeded into turning Muslims into an enemy people, to be regarded collectively with contempt and scorn.

By subscribing to the thinking lamented by the Malay gentleman, has caused people into thinking of "Islam" as something to judge harshly, to dislike, and therefore to be on guard against. As it were, people tend to stuff this religion into a box labelled Dangerous—do not disturb.