Archive for August, 2005

Let Them Speak

Thursday, August 11th, 2005

I really like the message delivered. It is the truth about the learning and thinking culture of us Malaysians, especially Malays!! Please do read through. Maybe we can do something about it, for our childrens generation. It’s sad, really..

Let them speak By MARINA MAHATHIR

I’ve always thought that Malaysians are disinclined towards self-reflection and analysis. Why this should be so could probably be blamed on an education system that does not encourage independent thinking and questioning, as well as a dislike for confronting anything unpleasant. This is all very well if you never have to face it for yourself. But lately I’ve been in situations where I’ve had to witness this and you want to just curl up in embarrassment.

First I was at an overseas conference where a Malaysian government official was presenting a paper on a subject that was controversial and has few supporters in the international community. I was surprised that he had accepted the invitation to speak in the first place but having done so, I thought he must have worked out a convincing argument. To the utter bemusement of everybody, he presented a paper more suited to a high school student than a senior government official. Not only was it devoid of any scientific justification, it bore no logic at all.

It made me realise that some officials must live in an insular world where they have no idea what the rest of the world thinks and therefore naively present arguments that they don’t even realise will not hold water among well-informed people. Then they are shocked at the strong reaction they get. Now if they can then respond by presenting cogent reasons for their viewpoint, they might have saved a modicum of respect. But instead they simply give up and refuse to take the challenge of engaging in a debate. Everybody is then left dissatisfied.

I thought this was just an aberration until I witnessed the same inability to read an audience and present an intelligent analysis of a situation from an even more senior official. Perhaps when we are used to an uninformed unquestioning audience, we tend to underestimate the intelligence of every one we face. It wouldn’t have alarmed me, if I thought that there was a new generation of Malaysians who could be different.

So I went to a seminar hoping to listen to more interesting viewpoints. I did find some but not from anyone I didn’t already know. In a panel where university lecturers spoke and students asked questions and ventured opinions, I was struck by how some supposedly highly-qualified academicians had the same inability to provide a rational analysis of real situations and instead resorted to vague generalisations and illogic. Unsurprisingly the students were no better, asking unoriginal questions and spouting well-worn phrases that elicited applause from their own crowd. Not a single student asked any questions which were at all provocative or revealed some real thinking.

I suppose we should not blame our students’ lack of thinking skills when people who don’t have them either are teaching them. (And I know it isn’t just me saying this; some visiting academicians have embarrassingly mentioned the same thing). Students are also not going to stand up and say anything different for fear of attracting derision both from their lecturers and their peers. This is not a country that values original thinking and difference much after all.

The sad thing is, when you get young people by themselves, away from adults that they depend on, they can be very different. They can express opinions that don’t imitate others and you can appeal to their common sense and inherent goodness. But how much opportunity do we give young people to do this safely and without attracting some sort of punishment?

Yet if we expect the next generation to compete on an international level, we have to nurture their ability to speak and stand up for themselves. The types that I’ve been listening to will only be laughed at overseas. I know what I speak of. As a young university student overseas, I was shocked to find that not only did people have vastly different opinions than me, they were more than willing to tell me exactly why I was wrong. The first few times I would retreat wounded into my room and cry with frustration at my own inability to defend my views. I also wondered how much of my views were in fact my own or just regurgitation of someone else’s. In time I got better at thinking out issues and putting across my opinion. I also learnt that it isn’t the end of the world if everybody disagreed with you.

We have to do something concrete about nurturing the thinking skills of our young people because otherwise they will not survive in the larger world. For a start we could be more stringent about the intellectual abilities of those who teach them. We can also create an environment that would be safe and encouraging for our young people to express themselves. Only then can we hold our heads high wherever we are.

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Just Say No!

Thursday, August 4th, 2005

Say No!

By Sobia Asrar **

Sometimes I wonder: What if I never knew what cable TV was? What if I never watched a movie? What if cyber-dating or Internet chatrooms were foreign to me? What if I had never heard music? Or read novels and fiction stories? Or knew the latest color trends or stylish dresses? Or lived in luxurious homes with big swimming pools? Or had lots of money? What if I were a girl living in a remote area with my family, with no connection to what the rest of us call the real world? You know, see no evil, hear no evil … do no evil, I guess. Heck, if you don’t know what wrong things are, you won’t do them, right? There’d be no temptation, no harm done. Easy as that.

But the fact is, I have seen these things and more, just like anyone else who doesn’t fit that description. There is temptation around me in all its grandeur, so much so that the line of distinction between good and bad has been blurred to the extent that evil is no longer evil and righteousness has all but vanished. This has become a world in which Satan reigns supreme in most lands; in fact, that remote place probably doesn’t even exist.

It has occurred to me often that perhaps those of our Ummah who have come before us were so righteous and God-fearing because these sort of contemporary ills were not present at their time. I consoled myself thinking that there was hardly any vice then; thus they were able to reach such a high level of piety. But who was I kidding? I failed to ask myself why there was no such prevalence of evil, the reason why hardly anybody took to the path of the immoral. I mean, come on, was I saying there were no adultery, drugs, homosexuality, music, corruption in the old times? That people didn’t know what it was? Of course not; everyone knew, but most, if not all, had the ability, the spirit to say “no.” I will not do wrong, I will not be tempted by Satan. And so, when evil is shunned, it ebbs away.

That’s what we need today, to not just jump on the bandwagon and say “no” to drugs, but all that accompanies it of vice. It’s when we take a stand, remember Allah, and resist temptation that He is pleased with us and rewards us accordingly. Consider that one of the seven types of people whom Allah will shade on the Day of Judgment is “a man who, when approached by a beautiful woman (for fornication), abstains and says ‘I fear Allah.’” Not a man who has never seen a beautiful woman, but a man who, in the face of temptation, remembers his Lord, fears Him, and says, “No, I will not be enticed.”

Now that I think of it, that’s exactly the point of being a monk. Seclusion provides them with peace and tranquility; not seeing the outside world gives them a desire to remain in a constant state of devotion to their beliefs. It becomes easier to worship when Satan is out and you’re in, oblivious to his mischief.

But is that the Islamic way? Our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and his Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) never cut themselves off from the rest of the world. They were not ascetic in their worship, yet were the best of Muslims and mankind to boot.

This is not to say that we should immerse ourselves in this world, practically daring our souls to know their limits and abstain from evil. It doesn’t work that way either. We all know that each of us has a Satan with him. Who knows when Satan will dominate our heart and sway us from the right path? The willpower to say “no” to iniquity can only be achieved by building up our iman so that our shaytans can no longer beautify evil for us; by constantly remembering Allah, crying to Him in repentance, reading the Qur’an, comprehending the reality of this fleeting world, recalling the devout lives of our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and his Companions, anticipating death, keeping the company of righteous people, attending religious gatherings, and, most of all, by beseeching Allah to grant us the resolve in faith needed to be able to defy Satan and his ways, supplicating with the oft-repeated du`aa’ of our Prophet: “O turner of hearts, make my heart steadfast on Your faith.”

To have it all and yet do the right thing—that, my brothers and sisters, is rare. To have cable TV and not surf lewd channels in spare time; to hear lovely voices singing with music and yet cover your ears, trying your best to get away; to own intriguing novels and not read romantic stories buried in the plot; to have a shapely body and not show it off with figure-hugging outfits; to have a gorgeous face and keep it covered with a veil; to have classmates who smoke, listen to music, and follow outrageous clothing fads and still stay as an outcast among them with pride in your Islamic ideals; to have an overfilled wallet and not squander it away —it is all rare, indeed, but all the more beloved to Allah.

The questions I have remain. But maybe I’ve found a partial answer: Lock Satan out, not necessarily by locking yourself in physically, but mentally and spiritually. That’s the key to bolting the gate of temptation.

** Sobia Asrar is a volunteer at the Youth Network at Islamonline.net. She can be contacted at youth_campaign@islamonline.net.

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