Author: Hafiz Noor Shams

For the last few days, I’ve been out and about in some place south of Kuala Lumpur. Apart from falling off a bike in a very fashionable way and severely lacked the stamina I would like to have, I overheard a conversation between two Muslim Malay males, both were draped in Arabic dressing. The conversation was about westernized Malays. I wasn’t sure if they were talking about me in particular though I was wearing a Michigan cap, a cargo pant and a bright shirt while my mp3 player was valiantly trying to entertain me until it ran out of juice. And it died out exactly when the conversation started to get interesting. Before that, I didn’t eavesdrop on purpose – situation forced me to be where I was.

One of the two friends was lamenting on how the Malay society is rapidly being westernized at the expense of the Malay culture. The person went on further by stating sooner or later, Malay culture would die out with morality and god phrased out by burgers and pizzas, g-strings and bikinis.

The other one agreed and began lambasting how inferior western cultures and moral are compared to Islam’s. It was odd how they used the term Malay and Islamic culture interchangeably. Soon enough, as I followed the conversation quietly while tending to my cool wound, I realized that the Malay culture they were talking about was really Arabic. They made no distinction between Malay, Arab and Islam.

I rolled my eyes upon that discovery and felt how oxymoron the situation at hand was. They were talking about the Malays abandoning Malay culture while they themselves were wearing something not Malay but entirely Arabic. Thanks to that, hypocrites is the best noun to describe the two Arabized Malays. I think, they would grasp very well what the word munafiqun means.

I’m no sociologist but I learned long ago that culture is a way of life. It doesn’t matter how a person lives his or her life but however they choose to live it, it’s their choice and that’s their culture. In essence, they choose their culture and indeed, I choose my own.

I’m a Muslim Malay. At the same time, my culture is a hodgepodge of many cultures that I’ve had the luxury of interacting with. A hybrid culture if I may. Furthermore, I take that culture isn’t a static intangible thing. It changes and adapts to time, just like how many of us do. This is especially true to hybrid cultures.

As a result, I appreciate diversity and am no purist. While no purist, I do hate how English words are being imported with impunity into the Malay language (check also Hijacking Bahasa Melayu at theCicak). If George Orwell were a Malay, he would agree with me for he wrote that one should never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent in Politics and the English Language. But that is another topic to be harped at, at another time.

Due to my hybrid culture, I find the conversation mildly offensive. They were deriding part of my culture while turning a blind eye on their, through their other eye, sin. I would have offered my opinion to them about their clothing but with low stamina and knee in uncomfortable pain, I had no appetite for a potentially heated discussion on culture.

While giving the topic a thought, I realized that this hypocrisy is not exclusively the two Arabized fellows’ problem. This Arabization is spreading fast and affecting Malaysian culture. Look no farther than Putrajaya. Notice how Arabic the city actually is? Where is the Malay in it? The Chinese or the Indian in it? The Dayak or the Iban, the Minang, the Bugis? Where’s the Malaysian in it?

Then, look at PAS efforts to Arabize Terengganu and Kelantan. One time, I clearly remember that they banned wayang kulit, Mak Yong and other Malay heritage in the name of Islam. They even removed a giant turtle sculpture in Kuala Terengganu for the sake of Islam. As far as I care to remember, the sculpture was synonymous with Kuala Terengganu. A deduction – PAS banned the Malay culture and then encourages Arabic in place of cultural vacumn that PAS had created!

In reality, these Arabized Malays just hate everything that isn’t Arabic, including things that are Malay. Here, by no mean I’m deriding the Arabs. Arabic culture is part of me. If I were dismissing Arabic culture, I would be dismissing mine too and that wouldn’t be right. I’m merely debunking the two guys’ thinking and their kind.

I’m quite liberal on culture and hence, I don’t mind if one insists into living like the Arabs. I myself, at risk of redundancy, have said earlier that I choose my culture and one may choose his or her own too as I’ve chosen mine.

Nevertheless, if you are the two fellows whom deride other Malays as abandoning Malay culture in favor of western’s one, please take a look in a mirror. Before expressing that idea, please notice that you’re abandoning Malay for Arabic. Arabic culture is not Malay and Malay is not Arabic. Being a Muslim isn’t about being an Arab either.