I have a friendly educational suggestion for Islamic-coalition organisations such as Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) and the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim) that are still in need of a platform to base their well-intentioned struggles. I am sure that these groups want the best from all Malaysians - to promote peaceful dialogue.

Of late the debate between ‘liberalism’ and ‘Islam’ seem to be raging; one I believe can be reframed to eliminate the dark aura of antagonism and chart a peaceful path through education.

In 2014, we are at a juncture wherein we cannot afford to waste precious national time to argue endlessly over religious permissibility of this or that such as whether one is allowed to visit another’s house of worship or to give a talk in it. We must come together to resolve these mundane issues of how knowledge and level of competency in cross-cultural and inter-religious understanding ought to be acquired.

Here is our present situation offering a unique predicament to nation-building, as I lamented recently on my Facebook status page:

MALAYSIANS...
BE AFRAID..
BE VERY AFRAID

you have arrived at a 30-million-strong-population juncture

if peace is not your strategy...
multiculturalism is not harnessed beautifully
a sense of malaysian-ness is not cultivated with deep honesty
politicians do not stop these fights that have gone off-tangent nauseatingly
education is not your top priority
safety of your citizens is not is only a lip service handled gleefuly
feeding, clothing, and housing the poor is not an agenda taken seriously
making sure race and religious bigotry is dealt with harshly and legally
the lost and dispossessed youth is not paid attention to educationally
the corrupt, the white collar robbers and the politician-thieves amongst you not put behind bars justifiably

the nation is going to go down the drain, definitely
as law and order breaks down
violence from race and religion rise with great intensity
and we shall all end up as hutus and tutsis
in a malaysian zimbabwe waiting for the powerful empires
to create peace and stability, in a new form of global slavery
as what happened to the pakistanis and the iraqis
or another thailand and myanmar we think will never be part
of our domino theory ... - ar

Teaching tolerance

How do we begin looking at possibilities in education, to arrive at a society better equipped to manage conflict that may escalate to dangerous levels especially in the area of religion?  

Malaysians students, blessed with tens of millions strong people of diverse faith and cultural belief systems, can benefit tremendously from this common practice in understanding others. I have used this assignment in every class on comparative philosophies/religions that I have taught. America is a wonderful place to teach these kinds of courses and to have ethnographic studies like this a part of the components of the evaluation/assessment.

But there is no reason why this should not work in Malaysia, if we are to be true to our calling as transcultural educators trying to help the next generation of our citizens to understand each others' practices, frame our understanding in a cognitive/intellectual way and in the process strengthen our  practices by enriching ourselves with the beauty of understanding multiple worldviews, through multiple ways of knowing, and through researching on the philological, philosophical, sociological, and phenomenological understanding of religions and cultural belief systems. It should be a beautiful learning experience. Here is a description:

II. HOUSE OF WORSHIP REPORT (15 pages excluding appendix), 3 per group

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: ‘From Scripture to Social Practice’

1. Choose a house of worship (church, temple, synagogue, masjid, etc) in New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia, etc. It must be one you have never been into.
2. Get in touch with the manager. Arrange for a visit.
3. Prepare an interview protocol (guided questions) that meet the needs of the research project. Understand the ethics of visiting (what to say, what to wear, do’s and don’ts, etc. We'll have a group session by believers of each faith we choose to research on)
4. Visit the site. Describe its appearance, location, visitors, inside and outside, and other physical features. Ask permission to take pictures.
5. Record the interview or take note of the main points of the interview.
6. Sit in a talk/sermon/khutbah, ritual, informal discussion, etc.
7. Meet with your group to analyse the data (interview, photos, descriptions, etc.).
8. Write the report. Use the MLA/APA style for citation.
9. Edit your group report till near perfection. Check the components. You will be graded as a group based on a rubric for Ethnographic Reports.
10. Discuss your experience in a group mini seminar.

I hope this suggestion for a curricular activity can be shared widely with educational institutions wishing to find peaceful solutions to religious misunderstandings. I hope organisations such as Isma and Jakim will take note. So will individuals such as Ridhuan Tee who have all the good intentions but all the wrong approaches.


DR AZLY RAHMAN, born in Singapore and grew up in Johor Baru, holds a Columbia University (New York City) doctorate in International Education Development and Masters degrees in four areas: Education, International Affairs, Peace Studies and Communication. He has taught more than 40 courses in six different departments and has written more than 350 analyses on Malaysia. His teaching experience in Malaysia and the United States spans over a wide range of subjects, from elementary to graduate education. He has edited and authored four books; Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present, Future (2009), Thesis on Cyberjaya: Hegemony and Utopianism in a Southeast Asian State (2012), The Allah Controversy and Other Essays on Malaysian Hypermodernity (2013), and the latest Dark Spring: Ideological Roots of Malaysia's GE-13 (2013). He currently resides in the United States. Twitter, blog.