3 x 20 = 60 + 10 = 70

Three Score Years and Ten - that's the traditional span of life  and Syukur Alhamdulillah I've reached  that magic number.  Considering that my side of the family has a history of premature deaths through two generations (there was Khamis my mother's brother who died  in his mid-30s, and my youngest brother Mustakim who passed away at 33 - both died very suddenly),  my elder sister Maznah and my younger brother Mustapha and of course AsH have managed to get through to their late 60s.

Observers of the cycles of human life - from foetus to old age - have various ways of allocating the times of our life. The 12 Stage Cycle places me at Mature Adulthood (50-80) where one is supposed to be well established and contributing to the betterment of society.  I may sound precocious but I think I did most of that by the time I was  35.  

According to the BBC KS2 scheme, there are only six cycles of life -  foetus, baby, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age.  Notice that half of those cycles take up only the first 12 years of life.  The 8-Stage Cycle places me at the bottom, with the Ageing Adult, those from 60 onwards.

My favourite observer  is William Shakespeare.   In the play "As You Like It" (Act II, Scene VII), he defines the "Seven Ages of Man":

The world's a stage, 

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and entrances.

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages.  At first, the infant,

Mewling and puking ..........

............................................................................

.........................   Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

I suppose Shakespeare could not see into the 20th and 21st centuries, where the last scene of all  starts from a much younger age, where humankind have become childish, peevish and oblivious of their selfishness and arrogance - even though they still have their teeth, good eyesight and voracious appetite for everything! 

And that brings me to a very revealing sighting of our humankind, particularly our Malay-Muslims.  We were in transit at Abu Dhabi bound for Kuala Lumpur.  There were many pilgrims returning home to Malaysia after their Umrah.  As usual, we all had to be strictly checked for security before getting to our boarding gates.  I had almost finished plonking my hand luggage, handbag, coat, laptop into the trays when this Malay lady dressed in a white telekung pushed herself in front of me to grab the tray that was meant for my laptop. I was taken aback and even more so when the Security Officer, an Arab, ticked her off and told her to "Sabar!".   Well that stopped her in her tracks but this was hardly good for the reputation of Malay-Muslims ( and a woman at that!) in the eyes of the Arabs,  a  people that our Malays are working so hard to imitate and emulate!

Alas, it did not end there.  As the spouse was walking towards the electronic security door, another pilgrim in her telekung stepped in front of him, and snapped  "Excuse me!" with an inflection and intonation that said "Move over " and not "Would you mind if I ...?"  This was no kampung macik/kakak from some small town like Parit Botak in Johor.  This was one helluva street-savvy, educated Malay who knows how to get what she wants (especially now that she's done her Umrah).  And both of these Malay-Muslim women were younger than us!

But we live and learn even though we're now way past our live-by date.

On a happy note we got home to Setiawangsa and caught up with our family, neighbours, our crazy cats and the resident mosquitoes as well.  But this was the crowning glory.  In our garden, waiting for us were  ...

.......  our banana tree and .......

......  our papaya tree laden with Allah's bounty.

Talking about age is mostly a game of number crunching - more relevant is what we do with our lives while we're still alive and kicking.  After I lost my beloved brother Akim in 1982, each morning when I wake up to the sky, be it grey in Leicester or sunny in Malaysia, I thank the Supreme Being for giving me this pleasure.   Each new day is a bonus ... and that's how I perceive life - and old age.

Two of Us - On Our Way Home.

Our good friend Jack has been over on most recent Saturday evenings to watch a very interesting TV programme on "Wild China".  We would share a small supper and after the programme, Jack and spouse would  depart to the latter's study where the two of them would go surfing YouTube for Opera songs,  not the fluffy modern singers like  Katherine Jenkins and Il Divo but the ones from the 30s, 40s and 50s like Amelita Galli-Curci and  a younger Maria Callas.     In the process they discovered a fabulous young tenor from the US called Lawrence Brownlee - Jack, an expert on classical singing, reckons he's the best singer around at the moment.....better than Luciano Pavarotti.

At about 11 pm we would walk Jack back to his house which is just 5-10 minutes away.  Before the three of us became old and decrepit it would have taken us just short of 5 minutes !!

Last Saturday, on our way home from Jack's, we bumped into our former neighbour and friend Doug.  He was walking home alone from Barry's house (about 20 minutes distance from his own house).   The time was nearly a quarter to midnight!   He was just as shocked as we were to meet up so late.  We told him of our trip back to KL and there was a hint of disappointment in his voice when he expressed his regret that we had shared only one get-together since we got back to Leicester.  You see, we had arranged for Doug to pop over for dinner five weeks ago.  But we, especially AsH, had a nasty infection for three weeks and everything had to be put on the back burner including our planned  return at the end of  January.

We got back home, we pondered and we agreed that despite our imminent journey we must have Doug over for a meal.  And we did just that two days ago.  And Doug was so pleased to share the meal and the time.  And we walked him home as well !

Douglas Holly and we went back a long way, since the mid 1980s.  He was then a lecturer at the University of Leicester School of Education.  I had applied to do my Masters at the School of Ed in 1983 when I was about to end my teaching contract in Brunei.  I waited and waited in vain for a reply from them.  Finally I had to call upon my former Geography Tutor who was teaching in Leicester University to make an inquiry.  He got in touch with his 'mature student' Frank Moule who knew a lecturer from the School of Education.  That lecturer was Doug Holly.

Now one could describe  Doug as an old-fashioned liberal - his political stand  would be very much to the left of centre.  He went to see the lecturer-in-charge of Admissions to find out what had happened to my application.  It seemed that this lecturer Dr RK  had chucked my application to the bottom of the pile, simply because it had come from Brunei!  Doug then called upon Morag Carsch who was in charge of one of the courses I was applying for.  They both looked through my 'suitability' and they both advised Dr RK that I should be given a 'yes' reply soon - before I  'relocated' to another University.  I did Doug and Morag proud because I became one out of two students to gain a Distinction in the M.Ed course.  And I did enjoy bumping into Dr. RK whenever  I could - just to gloat.

After the spouse and I got married we visited Doug at his little terrace house at Oxford Avenue.  We liked the cosiness of the Avenue  (and Doug!).   So sometime during late 1986 we bought No 10 Oxford Avenue and we moved in.    I could not think of a better and happier place to live in - our neighbours and the neighbourhood  were just perfect.  Today, sadly, as with most things, it has all changed - for the worse.

We were neighbours for 19 years.  We got on because on many political and social issues we had a lot in common.  However at the height of the protest over Salman Rushdie's  "Satanic Verses" in 1989, we discovered a chink in our relationship.  We could hear on that summer's day in 1989 loud protests against "Satanic Verses" and Salman Rushdie coming over from nearby Victoria Park.  In summer, most of us kept our front doors open.  From Doug's door we heard him shouting angrily against the protests from the Park.  His one sentence  "After all we've done for them!" shocked us.  "Them" referred to the Muslims!  And this came from someone who saw himself as a broad-minded liberal and a vocal supporter of multi-culturalism.

This made me realise that the white man's liberalism, anti-racism  and broadmindedness are really skin-deep. When it comes to Islam and Muslims, that entrenched hostility and insecurity which fills their religion, literature, history and  culture floats up to the surface - even for someone like Doug who sees himself as an atheist.

We decided we had to square this circle with Doug.  We went over to his house and had a civilized discussion about freedom of expression, about the pathological phobia of the West against Islam and Muslims and what we thought of Salman Rushdie the Wog, the darling of British culture and of the literati. It did not break our friendship - we were sensible, thinking adults and were willing to listen to each other.

That incident - and what I saw and heard in later years - pushed me to read and learn even more, especially about Christianity and Western history and culture.

Just after we got married, my father-in-law Professor  K.M. Buchanan posted me a little pamphlet ( from Wales where he was staying)  about what the West owed to the Arabs - in the field of mathematics,  philosophy, architecture, medicine etc. etc.   It was an eye-opener for me.  It only told me how ignorant I had been about the world , about my Muslim world.  I began my own journey into this world and the western Christian world starting with books by Edward Said , Noam Chomsky - and  V.G. Kiernan's "European Empires from Conquest to Collapse (1815-1960)."  For these discoveries I have to thank my father-in-law Keith and his son.

After that little fracas with Doug I articulated my frustration in a long essay about the context of the  "Satanic Verses" issue which I still store in my files.  I wrote a letter of protest to The Independent which was of course heavily edited.

From then until today,  my inquiry and my learning have not ended  The maverick and rebel in me became even more consolidated and tenacious.

As for Doug and us, our friendship grew stronger with the years.  We have a lot of respect for him.  He remains committed to CND, Friends of the Earth and the local Community Committee.  He has lived alone for as long as we've known him.  He has his family who keep in touch with him especially for Birthdays and Christmas but he leaves them very much to themselves and makes sure that he doesn't become a burden to them.  He is a keen solo traveller, has been round the world sans the frills and luxury, goes to the gym and takes a long walk in the English countryside  ( usually ending at the local Pub) every week - and he loves my cooking!

And Doug is 84 years old.

This has turned out to be a long posting when all I wanted to write was about our trip back to KL - arriving InsyaAllah on Friday 21 February - just a day short of my 70th birthday.

"You and I have memories - longer than the road that stretches out ahead."

 Anak si Hamid and Son of Buchanan have travelled a long way - physically and metaphorically - together,  and with people like Doug Holly and Jack Marlowe as inspiration we hope to do a lot more, InsyaAllah.

Y I S S - The Way They Were

The last posting I did on Sekolah Menengah Yusof Ishak or Yusof Ishak Secondary School was on  5 November 2013.
Read :  http://anaksihamid.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/darihal-rokok-road-to-sekolah-menengah.html


Here's the next part - belated - but better late than never.

It began with how I was trained  - to be an accredited teacher - notwithstanding the advice given to me by the Che'Gu in the Ministry of Education!  There was no Institute of Education then.  It was just the Teachers' Training College - where they produced Primary School teachers ( with O Levels),  Lower Secondary School teachers ( with A Levels) for all the language streams.  Graduates were given a one-year, part-time, in-service training  - with one difference. There was no provision for Malay Stream Graduate teachers.  One can understand why by checking - for instance -   the number of Singapore Malays who were bonded by the Special Malay Teaching Bursary in this Convocation Programme of 1967.  There were only three of us.

So I embarked on my professional training as a teacher  from May 1967 to April 1968.  This Certificate ensured that I could be let loose in YISS or any school in the Republic of Singapore.

But for me, there was one problem.  For Group V (Classroom Teaching) nobody came to supervise me in the classroom until just before the Professional Examination.  Why?  As there was no provision for training graduates to teach in the Malay medium, I did my training in the English medium.  Of course no lecturer could supervise my classroom teaching because I was teaching in Malay!  So I was left on my own, dutifully writing and preparing my Lesson Notes waiting for a Supervisor.  I attended my lectures in the afternoon (after teaching in the morning), wrote my essays, did my Examination - albeit with a bit of ponteng now and then to Orchard Road and the Lido Cinema.  Then someone must have noticed that Maznoor binte Abdul Hamid had not been supervised for her teaching practice - at all!!  So towards the end of the school term, the Director of Teacher Training (Malay Section) at the TTC came to 'supervise' me.  Well, there was nowt to supervise because the school examination was just over and we were just minding the kids with quizzes and games.  Nevertheless, I had to make a 'show' of teaching  my students who were puzzled at what was going on.  He  checked my Lesson Notes of the last few months and then he left.

That was how I cleared the Group V - Classroom Teaching for my Certificate-in Education.  No wonder  the Che'Gu at the Ministry showed me the "Rokok".

As for the part of teaching in Malay,  I shall try to summarise my agony and grief in teaching Ilmu Hisab, Ilmu Alam, Tawarikh and Karangan during my first year of teaching.  I was given Menengah Satu to teach -  children from the Southern Islands.  Normally Menengah Satu classes would be in the afternoon but they were given a concession because of where they lived.

Here they are - my unforgettable first class.

I reckoned they had a lot more to teach me than I could teach them.

Read :  http://anaksihamid.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/my-lovely-island-kids-shame-about.html
Read :  http://anaksihamid.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/how-we-laughed-away-hours.html

I think I now have to clarify my situation about teaching in Malay.  Firstly, I'm an anak Melayu through and through.  I have not deigned or  'forgotten' how to speak my mother-tongue.  But that does not mean I am automatically qualified to teach various academic school subjects in a Malay secondary school.  As teachers, we know that it is more difficult to teach young children.  You need the right technique and to choose the right words to put across simple terminologies like suhu, tekanan udara, sistem pentadbiran, tamaddun, angka pecahan (fraction), segitiga, segitiga tepat, segitiga duasama etc. etc - especially for my Menengah Satu charges.


How did I survive ( if I did ) my first year?  Well, every weekend my Abah and I would spend hours translating and preparing my Geography, History and Mathematics lesson for the week.  We would have at our disposal the English-Malay Dictionaries prepared by DBP.  We had to look for the right terms to use as well as construct the right sentences to frame the lesson.  I guess I really earned and deserved that $700 salary!.

But one little faux pas I have to mention.  Our Senior Teacher for the Malay medium was Che'Gu Shukur - a gentle hardworking teacher of the old school.  He was passing my class one morning.  He then called me over to the door.  He corrected me - ever so gently and kindly and quietly that the word 'river' was spelled as sungai and not sungei.  I did feel stupid and I thanked Che'Gu Shukur for putting me right.  You see, my English language textbooks spelled it with and  'e'  and not an  'a'.  The colonials spelled it  the way they pronounced it.  I wonder if that Che'Gu in the Ministry knew about that problem before he suggested the word  "Rokok" to me.  Compared to our refined Che'Gu Shukur, this bureaucrat was too clever by half!

Just for laughs:  This was how my use of Malay - as my mother tongue, my medium of teaching and a requirement for confirmation in the Civil Service - became slightly entangled.  Even though I was considered 'good' enough to teach in Malay in a secondary school I still had to be certificated with this piece of paper.

What level does this certificate identify with?

Standard One  ' approximates that of Primary Six in Government Malay Primary School'.

All in all, my qualification for teaching academic subjects in Malay in a Malay Secondary School ranged from P7 ( for my 'O' Levels)  and  a pass at the level of Primary Six in a Malay Government School !!

I now think I will really need that "Rokok" from the Ministry's CheGu !

There are so many stories and experiences I could recall  in my seven years at Sekolah Menengah Yusof  Ishak.  But we old people have to be careful not to natter on too much about the past.  But bear with me these few samples.  I have a higher estimation of Che'Gu Shukur - an older generation of Malay teachers- than I have of those of my peer group and those a little younger than him.  Because I was a woman and (I will not hesitate to state this) because of my qualification,  many of the male (and female) Che'Gurus did not regard me as their 'cup of tea'.  I was almost an anathema to them.

It's ironic that the non-Malay English medium teachers in YISS did not harbour such a hang-up over their younger male and female graduate teachers.

In those days, schools were not provided with Overhead Projectors.  Maps had to be drawn on the blackboards - especially special maps that were not available in the Malay textbooks.  In the Geography Room, I drew a map of  the Industrial Region of the Ruhr Valley  (for my Menengah Empat students), which took up less than a quarter of the board.  I left a courteous note asking that the map remained on the board as I had four classes of Geography to teach.  The very next day, I discovered it had been erased by someone, a colleague from the afternoon session!

 Examination questions which had been discussed and chosen by a panel of teachers were leaked to students - so that the teachers concerned would look good when their classes gained top marks and many passes.

I embarrassed my poor Abah when I asked him the meaning of a word that my colleagues were bandying about during recess time in the Canteen. Each time they said this word, they looked at me!  This word was part of another teacher's name.  Abah bit his lower lip and said , "That word refers to a man's private part."

From then on, I would sit away from these Malay male colleagues in the School Canteen whenever I could.

One Saturday, during an  ECA  period, I went across to this Malay girl who was crying by the staircase.  She told me her father was ill in Malacca and she had no money to pay for her fare.  So I gave her $30 to help her out.  (I was then earning about $23 a day.)   In another instance, I offered a monthly allowance of $20  for two years, to my  student, Ang S.C. ( from Pulau Semakau ) when he started his 'A'Levels at National Junior College.  I had taught him for 4 years in YISS and he came from a needy family.  I thought my little contribution could at least subsidise his bus fare from Old Jurong Road where he lived to the NJC at Bukit Timah.

I found out later from my students that the crying 15 year-old had actually used the $30 to run away with her boyfriend!  Ang S.C. did write once or twice to thank me for the monthly Money Order.  I heard later that he had joined a Christian Group in NJC.

All these sound very much like "Meludah ke Langit".  But there were also wonderful people like Che'Gu Ayesha Bevee and Sim Loo Lee.  Ayesha is seated to the extreme left, front row, Loo Lee is fifth from the right and  Che'Gu Syukur is seated eighth from left.

In 1972, after 5 years,  I cleared my bond with the Singapore Government's Public Service Commission.  With my dear good friend Loo Lee - in 1974 - we headed west for London to further our studies.  But that took some doing for me - that's another story which will only bring up too much bile.

SELAMAT TAHUN BARU

That would be our greetings for Chinese New Year to our family-friends - who just happened to be Chinese.

 These are friends like Seng Teow (the taukeh of the little kedai in  Kampung Abu Kassim), Ah Bok  (Abah's wonder-mechanic), Gemok (the taukeh of the timber shop) and Seng (the driver of the lorry that brought my Abah and colleagues to their work place at Nee Soon).  Then there's Kedai Ah Chwee.  To learn more about them,   Read:  http://anaksihamid.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/tuberculosis-teapot-and-tears-csh.html

But Tahun Baru is not Tahun Baru without Uncle Joe Nee, Auntie Nelly and family.

The children are from left to right:  Rosie (my age), Pauline, Ah Pet (Patrick) and Bobok (Robert)

We would get a tray full of goodies every year without fail.  The four of us would demolish them within two days and then unashamedly hop over to their house and get more from Auntie Nelly and Tah Chi ( Auntie Nelly's mother).  At times, one of us kids would join Uncle Joe Nee, Auntie Nelly and their kids on  Tahun Baru visits to their friends and relatives.  What fun it was - filling up our bellies with cakes, and cookies and our pockets with little ang pow packets!  The packets were made up of gloriously red squares which were wrapped up so neatly with the dosh inside.  Of course when I got home and showed off my loot, Mak would take over and declare that it's to be shared with the other three .. YUCKS!

We often say of friends: "they live just across the road" - like Zarina and Ken and family at Setiawangsa.  But our Uncle and Auntie were unique - they were just across the river, the Sungai Nipah.  Whenever Mak wanted us to deliver food to them, one of us - usually me - would make the crossing.  Rosie or Bobok would do the same for us, from the other side.

Within the green box  our house is marked  brown and Uncle Joe Nee's is pink.  I have added the river (in blue) in the map.

My sister Maznah, bless her cotton socks, kept and treasured her Autograph books.  And these gems from Uncle Joe Nee and Auntie Nelly - I have managed to scan.

From Uncle Tan Joe Nee

From Auntie Nelly Ang

Our two families were very close friends and I regret very much that we have lost touch.  I blame it entirely on us, the kids.  When we moved out to Jalan Mas Kuning and  Johor Baru and especially when my mum got older, from her mid-50s,  she often mentioned her wish to meet up with Nelly and Joe Nee.  Of course she would need our help, but we were always "too busy" !

We grew up with Selamat Tahun Baru for our Chinese brethren - not Khong Hee Fatt Choy or Gong Xi Fa Cai.

That was the Golden Age - an Age of good and honourable people, like I described in my posting on Tuberculosis, Teapot and Tears.  But you may say, we old people always romanticise the past.  That may be so, but at least we have that to keep a warm glow in our hearts.

 Much later - when I became an adult and a teacher at Jurong Secondary School, Singapore - I could hope for (and re-live a little) the way we were  and should be with these Rainbow Kids.

The mixed - salad kids circa late 1970s.

If only .......

SELAMAT TAHUN BARU - as I would greet Auntie Nelly, Uncle Joe Nee, Rosie, Bobok, Ah Pet, Pauline, Ah Chwee, Ah Seng, Kerani, Seng Teow, Ah Bok, Seng ............

WHAT 'S IN A WORD? The Context of the "Allah Controversy" - The Final Part

This concludes Iain Buchanan's article from the previous posting:

(3)  The Malaysian Connection.  In a country as diverse as Malaysia, the use of culturally or religiously charged words is especially problematic.  After all, words are never neutral, they mean what we want them to mean.  So the intention behind the word is all-important - especially in such sensitive (and strategic) concerns as bible translation.  And especially in a context which involves so many known points of potential conflict - whether religious, ethnic, rural-urban, or regional; a context in which disparities  may interact and interweave in the most complex of ways: as evident, for example, in the status of East Malaysian Christian bumiputeras in a Muslim-majority federation.

Within this context, the Christian campaign for the use of the word "Allah", especially within a Malay language context, is unfortunate - in a number of highly sensitive ways, it stands as a metaphor for dissent and division, rather than tolerance and coexistence.  And it conforms to an evangelical message that too often seems hostile to Islam and Muslims, and (at the very least) designed to alienate Christians from non-Christians in a multi-cultural country.  This can be seen at two levels: first, in the highly ambiguous usage of the word, and second, in the political context of the campaign (including the relationship between Malays and non-Malays, and the relationship between Peninsular and East Malaysia).

Perhaps, given this dire state of affairs, there are a number of steps that evangelicals can take to restore a degree of confidence in their honour - and in their role as partner in the task of nation-building.

They can begin by restraining the zealots.   In modern evangelicalism, much of the zealotry revolves around people like C. Peter Wagner.    And in Malaysia (as elsewhere) the influence of C. Peter Wagner and his ilk is strong and growing - in large churches (of various denominations) such as Metro Tabernacle, Grace Assembly, City Harvest,  Sidang Injil Borneo (SIB), and Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC), in an increasing number of smaller churches both in Peninsular and East Malaysia, and across a wide range of "secular" activities (such as business, education, and entertainment) - evangelization, it is worth remembering, is not just a matter of church prayers.

But Wagner and his friends don't have a monopoly on zealotry.  As active players in a global movement, Malaysia's NECF (National Evangelical Christian Fellowship) itself may sit beside some very dubious bedfellows - like Brother Yun, leader of the Back to Jerusalem Movement, who claims that his efforts may cost over 10,000 martyrs to the cause of evangelizing the Muslim world.  In 2005, Brother Yun's recruitment visit to Malaysia was enthusiastically sponsored - and later defended- by the NECF.   In addition, Brother Yun's main Western promoter, the missionary Paul Hattaway, now teaches in the Malaysian School of Cross-cultural Mission.
See:  www.necf.org.my/newsmaster.cfm?&menuid=2&action=view/retrieveid=579
See:  www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/april/5.84.html?start=2

If zealots are to be controlled (and trust between religious communities restored) it is people like Wagner and his cohorts, and Brother Yun, who need to be reined in.  Not, in the first instance, by the authorities.  No: above all, it is such people's co-religionists, their fellow-Christians, who need to take steps, in full public view, to clear the air.  After all, Muslims are constantly being urged to banish the zealots from their own stables; so this is not much to ask.  Perhaps, then, Muslims can begin to feel that there is nothing suspicious  about the use (by Christians of any persuasion) of any particular word.

Secondly, it may be politic for Christians to admit that non-Christians do have reasonable grounds for doubting their good intentions.  And this applies across all denominations, whether avowedly "evangelical" or not.   For in Christianity, more than any other religion, the line between what is evangelical and what is not is extremely (and often wilfully) blurred.  And furthermore, as the present situation shows, evangelical fervour can be a very cooperative virtue - uniting Catholic and Protestant, "evangelical" and "mainline", on matters of common strategic interest (such as the use of the word "Allah").  It may be wiser to show a little more tact, and a little more humility - rather than to hammer on about "victimhood", "state persecution", and "abuse of human rights".

For the reality is, in global terms, and in Malaysian terms, Christians are not victims.  That is not to say that many Christians, (or Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists) are not victims.  It is to say that, in terms of wealth, happiness, and personal safety, Malaysian Christians are certainly no worse off than their co-religionists in the West - whatever their mullahs try to suggest to the contrary.

And in this whole tangled debate, this is perhaps the most important fact of all.

WHAT'S IN A WORD? The Context of the "Allah Controversy"

There is no shame in not knowing, the shame lies in not finding out.  (Russian Proverb)

Many, many moons ago Iain Buchanan was my Geography Tutor at Singapore University.  Of course we had to write essays for him to read, analyze, scrutinize and assess.  We anticipated with anxiety Mr Buchanan's report and criticisms when our papers were returned.  We would always find about 5-6 lines of  comment - that is if you write a reasonably thoughtful essay!!

Now the shoe is on the other foot.  I've cornered him into writing AsH an essay on a very complex and fraught issue in an equally complex and fraught nation.

                                                  ==========================================

                             WHAT'S IN A WORD ?
  
               The context of the "Allah Controversy"

                               by  Iain  Buchanan

If the tussle over the word "Allah" teaches us anything, it is that words have great power for both good and harm - especially in the matter of religious faith.   Christian evangelicals certainly know this, which is why (among other things) the Christian Word Industry is as enormous and as well-funded as it is.   Evangelicals have been translating the Bible into native languages for centuries, so when it comes to manipulating words, they know only too well what they are doing.   Unfortunately, such people also have a lengthy track record of destroying (and at the very least subverting) non-Christian cultures - and using deception in the process.  So, in the wider world, it is understandable that non-Christians are suspicious of Christians when the words they use seem to be of ambiguous intent.

In the global media, the Malaysian authorities are naturally at something of a disadvantage: after all, the Christian freedom to worship is an especially glamorous issue at the moment, and there are plenty of big guns wanting a piece of the action.    So maybe we need to stand back and look at the issue a little more holistically.

In such issues, context is all-important.  Three elements of context seem especially significant here: first, the wider evangelical concern with "non-Christian" words - let's call it the "Christian Word" industry: second, the particular matter of evangelizing Muslims (and the use of the word "Allah"); and third the special complexities of the Malaysian case.  

(1)  The Christian Word industry.  Evangelicals, by definition, have a subversive agenda:  they seek to change how the rest of the world thinks and acts, to assert the hegemony of their own beliefs - and to do this at all costs, in whatever way feasible, through deception if necessary.

Indeed, deception is intrinsic to the evangelization process. It has to be, simply because people will always resist having their most fundamental beliefs destroyed.  And so to overcome this problem, among the many thousands of cultures that they target, evangelicals devised an elaborate programme of approach, penetration, and persuasion - in which deception is justified in terms of divine calling.

See:   www.motherjones.com/politics/2002/05/stealth-crusade 

And in this crusade to change the world, evangelicals have a particularly potent weapon: they control the language of the entire campaign - they write it, translate it, manipulate it, publish, print, and distribute it on a global scale across every culture there is to be reached and through every tongue and every medium there is to be exploited.  In particular, they have scoured the world's  cultures, languages, and dialects for every local word, every metaphor, every expression, of "God", "Jesus the Son of God", "the Holy Ghost", "Mary",  and any other useable device which will help them to penetrate a target people.

In the process - and for a total of 7,000 linguistic groups and 10,000 cultures - evangelicals have built up huge data-bases of political, socio-cultural, economic, religious and linguistic intelligence.  For religious faith, after all, is a complex matter, deeply rooted in all aspects of being.  It is not simply semantics.  ( www.joshuaproject.net )

Not surprisingly, the evangelicals' "Christian Word" industry is enormous.  It comprises thousands of corporate and church bodies.  It is worth many billions of dollars, employs millions, and has the world's most advanced technology ( and sharpest corporate managers ) at its disposal.  It connects, seamlessly, Western corporate finance, advanced military grade telecommunications, neighbourhood churches in Texas (or KL),

tribal village missionaries in the Himalayas (or Borneo),  Bible publishers in China, University linguistics departments, and a hundred other activities.  It is everything from the tract in a hotel drawer to the solar-powered Bible pack in the Bangla Desh borderlands.  You take on the Christian Word industry at your peril.

See: http://haughherald.org/2011/03/28/4th-wave
(click link and go to "Accelerating Bible translation wit....."at bottom left hand).

        

See: www.economist.com/news/china/21574529-china-has-become-one-largest-producers-bibles-world-beginning-was

See:  www.sil.org/resources/search/contributor/hurlbut-hope-m



(2)  Evangelizing Muslims.  The Christian Word industry serves a number of very strategic and very clearly defined objectives.  One of the most important of these is the subversion of Islam.  Of course, being in control of the language, the evangelicals would not put it quite like this - at least not in public, and certainly not amongst Muslims.  Most evangelical public speakers, and most evangelical NGOs would vehemently deny such a motive.  They would prefer the rubric of "mutual respect"  and "peaceful coexistence", dressed in the emollient phrase, the smiling assurance, the earnest plea; they would prefer to disarm the opposition with words.  The record shows a rather different picture.

For decades, the evangelical movement has been engaged in an energetic and systematic campaign to undermine both Islam's spiritual power and its political influence.  From the 1970s, Western Christians launched what was effectively a second reformation of the global church.  The Lausanne Movement, strongly inspired by Billy Graham, Fuller Seminary, and groups like World Vision, set up a series of  "consultations" on key evangelical concerns, including the mechanics of culturally  "contextualizing"  the gospel, and the business of Muslim evangelization.

The Muslims were dealt with most comprehensively in the 1978 Conference on Muslim Evangelization, co-sponsored by Fuller College (and its offshoot the US Center for World Mission)  and World Vision, and held in the Glen Eyrie headquarters of The Navigators.  The official account of this conference ( www.lausanne.org/en/documents/lops/75-lop-4html ), of course stressed mutual respect and friendly persuasion.  But the subversive intent was abundantly clear.

For the next thirty-five years, the West directed a combination of "hard" and "soft" power against the Muslim world, and the evangelicals' strategic interest in the matter grew accordingly.  This interest is both profound and globally articulated, as two recent developments - the launching of Operation Samaria from Nigeria and the re-invigorated Back to Jerusalem Movement from China - amply demonstrate.

Read: www.lausanneworldpulse.com/worldreports/361?pg=all
Read: asiaharvest.org/wp-content/themes/asia/docs/newsletters/99-May2009-BacktoJerusalem.pdf

Christianity (of western origin),  Chinese Christian Church and their potential(?) harvest of Malay- Muslim children.

These are just two examples of a well-coordinated push against Islam, promoted by a cross-section of Christian denominations ( from Catholic to Pentecostalist ), and defined by a mix of evangelical fervour, political imperative, and wholesale deceit.  Key to the entire process is the work of thousands of "Insider Movements", operating within the theory of the "C1-C6 Contextualization Scale".

C1 - C4 Contextualization Scale.  Malaysia would be included in C1 and C2 and C3.

C5 -C6 Contextualization Scale

See: http://www.ijfm.org/PDFs_IJFM/21_4_PDFs/Key_Insider_Higgins.pdf
See: www.stfrancismagazine.info/ja/images/pdf//6PhilBoureSFM5-5.pdf
See: www.xenos.org/ministries/crossroads/OnlineJournal/issue1/contextu.htm

It would be naive to pretend that  Muslim evangelization is not a vital concern for Christian evangelicals  And it would be naive to believe that the evangelical use of Islamic or Arab terms is rooted solely in some local expediency.  There will always be a wider socio-cultural, and political,  context for the definition of such words.  So, in the present context, when Christians use a word like "Allah", do they  mean what Muslims mean by the term - in all its theological complexity, with all its cultural and political ramifications?  No, of course they don't.  They mean something that is theologically very different -  not least in its association with the various Prophets (which, after all, is what so distinguishes Islam and Christianity); they also mean something with very particular cultural and political connotations.  And crucially, they can mean various things: from God the Creator to the Devil himself.

Theologians, anthropologists, and linguists will argue endlessly over such matters, no doubt.  But the meaning of a word is all-important - certainly more than its form or sound.  After all, we can be sure that the Kadazan word for God ( "Kinorohingan") meant very different things to a pre-Christian villager and to a convert reading the word in the Kadazan Bible - which, let's face it, is anchored in a totally different cultural world to the pre-Christian village, whatever evangelical "contextualizers" seek to pretend to the contrary.

It is the same with the word "Allah".  Do evangelical Christians really mean what Muslims mean by the word?  Of course not: if they did, there would be no need for evangelism.  For one thing, there is more than a world of difference between the Oneness of the Muslim Allah and the Trinity of the Christian God.  But there is more to it than this.  Consider the words of one of evangelical Christianity's most influential leaders.

In his definition of "Allah",  C. Peter Wagner is categoric:  Allah, he says, is "a high-ranking demonic spirit who has come to steal, to kill, and to destroy."
Read:  www.chpponline.blogspot.co.uk/2007/05/c-peter-wagner-some-thoughts-on-iraq.html

"Allah," says Wagner, "is the proper name of a spirit being .... he is no more God than is Wormwood or Beelzebub or Apollyon or Shiva or Baal or Lucifer.  All of them are beings created by God, but who ended up agents of Darkness, just as Satan did."

Muslims, by definition, are damned:  "Those who do not believe in Jesus,"  says Wagner,  "including those who worship Allah, are destined to spend eternity in hell."
Read:  ojs.globalmissiology.org/index.php/english/article/view/65/193

And Dr Wagner sees his own role ( and that of his followers) as decisive in opposing such a state of affairs:  "God has (entrusted) to us the most challenging assignment ...... the Muslim people of the world, starting with the fifteen nations of the Arab Middle East ... Our sphere also includes the non-Arab Middle East, the Muslim nations outside the Middle East, and the Muslim Diaspora."

"God wants us to start governmentally, connecting with the apostles of the region ....  Once we have the apostles in place, we will then bring the intercessors and prophets into the inner circle, and we will end up with the spiritual core we need ... for retaking the dominion that is rightfully ours."
Read:  www.herescope.blogspot.co.uk/2005/11/c-peter-wagner-on-taking-dominion.html

Of course, not all evangelicals share Wagner's perspective. But a great many do: C. Peter Wagner is a man of enormous influence - and not only  amongst his own Pentecostalists.  Professor of Church Growth in Fuller College, Wagner was also head of the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization's Strategy Working Group.  As the process of Muslim evangelization evolved and accelerated, the role of C. Peter Wagner grew more influential - especially after 1990, when the emphasis on "spiritual warfare" took over much of the evangelical movement.  Indeed when Wagner opened his World Prayer Center in 1998, it was likened to "a spiritual version of the Pentagon", with Wagner himself playing the role of  "the Church's Norman Schwartzkopf."
Read:  www.deceptioninthechurch.com/wagnerquotes.html

As evangelicalism becomes ever more infected by the zealots of "spiritual warfare", Wagner and his lieutenants  (including Chuck Pierce and Cindy Jacobs) came to dominate much of the Christian agenda.  Wagner formed a clutch of institutions to frame his evangelizing effort  - Wagner Leadership Institute, Global Harvest Ministries (1991), World Prayer Center (1998), International Coalition of Apostles (1999), and Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders; just as significantly, he and his officers formed links with a wide range of other evangelical groups, usually with common ties to Fuller College, World Vision, and the Billy Graham network - and all firmly anchored to the Lausanne evangelical process.

In other words, Dr Wagner emerged as a kingpin in a diverse, tightly-organised, and global effort of subversion - directed from the heart of the evangelical movement, against all non-Western cultures, but especially against the Muslim world.  Above all, Wagner and his many acolytes and proxies shape much of the perception that Christians have of non-Christians - and define much of the language which expresses this.

So, what does this mean?  First and foremost, it means that in the hands of Christian evangelicals, words like "Allah" (or "surga" or "perintah" or "Kinorohingan") are not only convenient biblical devices - they are also potent cultural and political creatures, of variable meaning.  They ramify very tightly, and very significantly, with the social, cultural, and political context of their use.  And the evangelical mullahs know this.  Religious faith is a complex cultural matter; it is also an intricate (and very influential) political matter.  It would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise.  And it would be naive to imagine that, in many an evangelical context, words are not also used as weapons against their rightful owners.  After all, as Dave Cashin, Professor of Intercultural Studies at Columbia International University, said: "We must become Muslims to reach Muslims."

Herein lies the problem.  It is not so much a problem of semantics and etymology; it is a problem of intentionality, a problem of niat.  In the present dispute this seems to be the most important factor of all.  And it has to be said: when it comes to a clarity of intention, Christian evangelicals have a pretty bad track record.

( The third element of context :  The Malaysian Connection, will be posted tomorrow.)

The Camel and the Arab - a metaphor for the Allah Issue

One day, an Arab and his camel were crossing the desert.  Night came and the temperature became colder.  The Arab put up his tent and tied the camel to it, then went to sleep.  The temperature became slightly colder  and the camel asked the Arab if he could just put his nose in the tent to warm up.  The Arab agreed, but just his nose, because the tent was small and there was no room for two.

Christianity or rather  Roman Catholicism came to the Malay Peninsula with the invasion of the Muslim Sultanate of Malacca by Catholic Portugal in 1511.  In the late 1400s the Christian kingdoms of Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, the Netherlands were stretching their sea-legs across the Atlantic to the Americas, Africa, India, China and Japan and Southeast Asia  sniffing around and searching for spice and trade and souls to convert.  Portugal  became the foremost maritime power especially after Vasco da Gama's success in crossing the Cape of Good Hope with ... shhhh ...  the help of Muslim navigators who were familiar with the Indian Ocean and the east coast of Africa.

The Catholics, unlike the Protestants of later times made no bones about their agenda of  'saving' the souls of the pagans by converting them to Catholicism.  In fact St Francis Xavier - a co-founder of the powerful and influential Jesuits, heard of the Malay Archipelago ......

The Malay Peninsula and Sumatra from  a Portuguese map.  North is to the left of the image.

...........after the conquest of 1511  and decided to evangelize and harvest more souls from among the Malays in this region.

Extract from Story of Malaya by W.S. Morgan, 1956

Count  the number of Churches in  the Fortress of Malacca.  I note about five.

Statue of St Francis Xavier, patron saint of Catholic Missionaries, at St Paul's Church, Melaka.

If not for the imperial ambition of the Protestant Dutch, who, with the aid of Johor defeated the Portuguese in 1641, the Peninsula could have been  another Catholic success story like Goa and the Philippines.  Who knows?  We could have been  re-named Albuquerqia or San Francisca or DaGamaland???

The exploits of Catholic Portugal 

So, the camel's nose became warm and after a while the temperature went down even further.  The camel asked the Arab again if he could just put his forelegs in the tent because they were very cold.  The Arab reluctantly agreed - that the camel could only put his forelegs in and no more.

And so it came to pass :  the entry of the camel's forelegs was not  unlike the Western-Christian foot at the Muslim-Malays'  door.  The Malay Archipelago became a huge prosperous playground for the Imperialists, both Catholics and Protestants.  "He who dares, wins" so to speak.  (This is the motto of the British SAS as well as Del Boy's - the cockney wideboy in my favourite comedy  " Fools and Horses").


So the camel moved in his forelegs.  They soon became warm.  After some time, the camel told the Arab that he had to put in his hind-legs or else he wouldn't be able to make the journey the next morning because his legs would be frozen. 

So,  the  encroachment of the the 'hind-legs' of the Christian West followed soon after.  And the imperial scenario expanded far, far beyond the agenda of the Catholic Spanish and Portuguese.  

That speaks volumes!!  From "The British Empire" by BBCtv Time-Life 

The Arab agreed.  But once the camel moved his hind-legs in, there was no more room in the tent for the Arab and the Arab was kicked out.

The moral of the story?  With the permitting of what seems like reasonable, innocuous acts, the door is flung wide open for larger, undesirable demands. 

The intrusion of the camel's hind-legs into the Arab's  tent is not much different from the insistence of  Christians in Malaysia to requisition the word Allah.  This could only lead to dissension and fractures in the fragile political structure.  Malaysia is not a homogeneous society.  It is made up of too many divisive elements created by the politics and machinations  of  the Imperial Christian West.  The tent is too small. The "Arab" made the mistake of succumbing to the camel's threats of  being "unable to make tomorrow's journey."  Malaysia must not and cannot comply like the Arab in the fable.  

                                            ===============================
As it stands, since 1786,  the camel from the West has got its  nose, forelegs and hind-legs firmly entrenched in the Malay Peninsula's tent.

It was not enough that Christians thrived and prospered in a Malay-Muslim domain.  Under the umbrella of the Christian Imperial Rulers, they had their way mapped out for them.  They could spread their gospel,  build their churches and Cathedrals and graveyards where they wanted.  Their Christian schools were generously endowed by the Colonial authorities.  Although they were in the minority, their festivals like Easter and Christmas were given equal billing with those of the majority Muslims.  Even Sunday, their Sabbath day, was gazetted as a the day off for each week so that they could attend  Mass and Services at  their Church.  As for the Muslims - especially in the Federated Malay States and Penang - well, they just had to sort out and make their own space and time for their 'Sabbath Day', for Friday Prayers! That, of course, is also the routine here for Muslims in Britain.  But then they are not the Bumis of Britain.  Britain has a Christian culture and Muslims do not make the majority of the population.  So Muslims in Britain had to go with the flow of British ways and purpose.  They do not, they cannot, challenge and claim the same  privileges that the non-Muslims enjoy in Malaysia. 

The adamant campaign for the appropriation of the Arab word for God is a very clever and subversive device to turn Christianity and Christians in Malaysia into victims.  This is but a  part of the grand design to spread the gospel ever more widely - and paint the Malay-Muslims into a corner at the same time.

During the era of Western  Imperialism,  Christian missionaries in Asia and Southeast Asia were almost always white men and women.  In those early days the white man  carried an aura of semi-divinity, power and respect in the eyes of the natives - the Tuan and Mem. Today, the tactics and strategy are changing.  Take this innocent little report from our Leicester Mercury in 1989. 

Note the part underlined in red.

Non-white recruits are now the "blue-eyed" messengers of the Gospel. They have the ability to merge easily into the catchment area of the evangelists and  unlike  White missionaries they do not stand out like  sore thumbs and their presence, whether overt or covert, don't set the alarm bells ringing.

In 1986 we came across this little gem in a Christian paper "Challenge Weekly"  in Wellington, New Zealand.

Mr Steve Oh, an evangelist and director of Asia World Mission was keen to encourage New Zealanders to spread the Christian message because  "it is possible under Malaysian law to evangelise, but it must be done sensitively".  Somehow I reckon their interpretation of 'sensitive' is more akin to surreptitious 

The 'sensitivity' referred to by Mr Steve Oh is not about respecting the Muslims and Islam. It's about selecting the right tactic  -  "I would strongly caution against cold turkey, cold contact street evangelism in Malaysia".  

I find it quite amusing that non-Malays in Malaysia who are not too keen on using Bahasa Malaysia in education and day-to-day communication are not averse to utilising it for their Christian tracts, pamphlets and the Bible itself.  One can see why.  There is Indonesia, a huge Malay-speaking world that is ready for the picking.

When the Catholics in Malaysia spearheaded the crusade for commandeering the Arab word Allah for their own,  I cannot help but reflect how Mr Steve Oh's 1986  statement about evangelising in Malaysia was in fact quite prophetic.  He cautioned evangelical groups to  'pay more attention to contextualising their evangelism' . 

Indeed, in an arena such as Southeast Asia, you can't find a better context than to appropriate the word "Allah" - which is at the very heart of  the terminology of  Islam and the Koran - with which to dress up Christian evangelizing.      And the evangelists know this very well.

Christian missionaries in the past have been very imaginative and creative in persuading and 'saving' pagans and non-believers for their cause.  Here's a fascinating example of how they turn the language of their target community to fit into their crusade.

The original caption of the above reads as "The Nigerian Pidgin (a Chinese corruption of "business") in this catechism was one of several Pidgin dialects used in converse with natives."

(The text of the fable was taken from the video by itsaperfectstory.  Thank you.)


Finally a little proverb.  A SOW MAY WHISTLE, THOUGH IT HAS AN ILL MOUTH FOR IT.