How the Pendulum Swings from Newspaper Adverts to Misguided Lunacy in Malaysia

As I type this, I am listening to Radio Klasik FM which is playing Maly songs from yesteryears.  Songs from the 40s, 50s and 60s, those days when Malaysia was just finding its footing to form a new nation and later groping its way towards becoming a young independent nation with many ethnic groups where there was once, before the colonial age, an almost homogenous population.  I say alsmost because records show that in some places, particularly in the trading ports like Melaka, we were cosmopolitan even before the Westerners came.  IN fact, it was the cosmopolitan nature of these places that allowed them to some, meddle with local politics and later colonize the land. 

These songs sometimes allude to the movies from which they came.  Movies that depicted a different age.  Movies that depicted a time when the local population was heavily influenced by Western norms.  It was a time when it could be said that we had lost sight of who we are or were.  The Malays were and are said to be staunchly Malay but this was a time when there were Malays in beer advertisements (see below). 

I recently presented a paper at an international conference on life-long learning.  My paper examined the development of the concept of belajar or learning in Malay.  In writing that paper, I found that while it is true that the Islamic staunchness of the Malays dates back centuries, it is also true to say that in some ways we were not that strict followers of the religion in the first place.  This line of thinking however would digress us from the present topic. 

After the independence, we began to rediscover our roots and among these was our roots as Muslims: the age of Islamic revivalism.  Signs began to show.  The hijab began to be a common thing back in the 70s.  Islam began to become more institutionized and soon we began to see the appearance of institutions that made the practice of Islam easier and more organized.  One such institution was the Tabung Haji (Pilgrimage Bank) which was both a bank and a travel agent. Performing the pilgrimage to Mecca became easier.  People who would not have been able to make the journey could now look forward to performing it after several years of organized savings with the institution. 

Religious schools became modernized.  Where they were once loosely organized pondok schools, some of these schools are now teaching religion and preparing the students for modern disciplines.  Today, it is not that uncommon to find professionals who can recite the Quran with the best Qaris and debate of theology with the best religious teachers.  These however are the elites, relatively. 

In many ways, the ignorance of that plagued our forefathers at around the pre-indpendence days, are still here to plague us.  Today, I saw two instances of these but unlike news in those days, these sad reminders of our ignorance came via the most post-modern of communication tools, Facebook.  

There were two instances but both of them included digitized images of dogs. Unfortunately I could only put one up here. Can't seem to get the other one right. 

I would love to comment and lament the misguided overzealousness of these people. I would very much like to remind them that the image of something does not carry the same physical properties of the thing itself and it is these physical properties that render them haram. I am certain that someone will try to argue against my tirade by saying that the image of a nude woman is also haram.  To this, I would have to say that it is only true because the image of female nudity, or male nudity if he is of that orientation, is deemed to be forbidden because they evoke sexual desires due to the innate propensity of the male mind towards anything sexual no matter how perverted it may be.  I would then have to wonder as to the nature said person’s perversion if the image of the canine evokes similar desires.  I would love to but I shall not for this argument can only lead to a rapid descent into the depth of the gutters of the mind and manners.

So, perhaps, I shall lament and restrict myself to hypothetical arguments.