For eight days in Nov 2000, when I was a senior writer and columnist of the Chinese-language Sin Chew Jit Poh , I was invited to visit Muscat, the Sultanate of Oman in the Arabian Peninsula. The modern and progressive Muslim-predominated country was celebrating its 30th national day which it calls Renaissance Day.
Besides the truly memorable experiences of having luncheon and observing the grand military tatoo staged by the Sultans Armed Forces (SAF) of Oman with His Majesty Sultan Qaboo, a truly enlightening conversation with a very articulate Muslim female journalist from Turkey still remains in my heart and mind.
It took place in the Muscat Sheraton Hotel where most of the foreign ( vis-a-vis Oman) journalists and diplomats were housed.
During dinner on the second evening after our arrival, I asked her why she wore a tudung (Islamic head scarf) in the desert, despite her European tertiary education in law and literature. She replied that it is part of her religious tradition as well as a personal moral choice.
Dont you feel hot wearing the tudung in the desert? , I continued, resorting to an utilitarian argument.
She asked: James, dont you feel hot wearing American-made jeans and Western suit in the desert?
Everyone at the table burst into laughter. A middle-aged Japanese journalist added: I saw some African and Indian government leaders also wearing Western suits and neckties in their tropical countries under the equator!
I told them that my Levis jean was probably not made in the United States, but in Thailand or Kepong, a suburb in Kuala Lumpur, well-known for producing cheap made in America jeans.
Afterwards, we continued to enjoy our conversation on other more practical and in-depth topics like the Japanese economy, European integration, Middle Eastern politics, the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and of course, the Anwar Ibrahim saga.
Mutual respect
Indeed, if all of us are more self-aware and self-reflective of our respective cultural traditions and religious identities which somehow contain certain irrational elements, the room for mutual respect, understanding, empathy and solidarity on more substantive issues inside hearts and minds will be enlarged.
Although all of us strive to be rational, there is no perfectly rational human being in this earthly world yet.
Probably, a fully rational world is scary because we might all become highly intelligent but morally become moronic robots without the feeling of love, mercy, compassion, empathy, sympathy, solidarity and respect for the dead, weak, injured, oppressed and the poor.
Seen from a perfectly utilitarian perspective, female Muslims wearing tudung in Singapore or male Muslims wearing jubah (Islamic attire) in Malaysia, is just as irrational as Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Indian Defence Minister George Fernandez or the problematic Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, donning Western suits and neckties under the blistering sun.
They are just adopting foreign cultures and tastes like some Muslims in Malaysia, Singapore, India and Zimbabwe. The only difference is the source — Western European or Arabian.
Observations on a broader intellectual and spiritual horizon will certainly reveal that not all people who wear head gear, head scarves and veils are reactionary or potential terrorists.
The late Mother Teresa, for example, was respected and loved not only by Christians, but also Muslims, Hindu, Sikhs and people of other faiths or belief-systems.
On the contrary, Adolf Hitler and his secularly psychopathic followers and supporters like propaganda chief Dr Joseph Gobbels, police chief Heinrich Himmler and air force chief Hermann Goring wore Western suits, coats and neckties just like Mahathir, Lee, Fernandez and Mugabe.
Perhaps, by not covering their heads with turbans and veils, too much oxygen had gone into the skulls of Adolf Hitler and comrades, making their brain hyper-modern to the extent that what was right and wrong was measured in quantifiable, tangible and empirical efficiency based purely on visible cost and benefit, like how to kill more communists, Jews, trade unionists, Catholic and Lutheran opposition, liberals, homosexuals, Western agents with fewer rounds of bullets and minimal poison gas.
Inside not outside
The point is whatever we wear or not wear, modernity, progress, faiths and knowledge, etc., actually reside inside our skulls and behind our breasts.
Thus, while it is unacceptable for religious extremists to impose, through the coercive powers and organs of the state, their dress codes on others, it is equally unreasonable for secular extremists to apply social and political pressure on others to wear only American or pseudo-American jeans, Western suits, coats and neckties.
Malaysians must not only demand freedom from religious dogmatists, but also from secular extremists.
As Anwar Ibrahim taught many of different faiths to see through the external forms of rites and rituals, Mahathir and Lee must also teach their followers and supporters to appreciate the internal substance inside the skulls and behind the breasts of those who wear head gears, head scarves and veils — like Mother Teresa.
JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia . Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew , he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.
