Pornography and the sheikh (Part 2)
Apart from Sheikh al-Hadi's stress on modernisation and development of Malay and Islamic studies, his views on women were also radically different from that of the traditionalists and conservatives of the time. (1)
He argued in defence of women's education and equal rights, and constantly brought up the topic of women's welfare in his magazine, al-Ikhwan as well as the two novels which he wrote, Hikayat Faridah Hanum and Hikayat Puteri Nurul'ain .
Though most of us have not heard of either of these texts, copies of them do exist in the libraries if one looks for them hard enough. What is even more interesting was the storm of protest and outrage that was stirred as soon as they were published.
The Hikayat Faridah Hanum (otherwise known as Setia Ashek Kepada Ma'ashoknya - The Fidelity of the Lover to Her Beloved) revolves around the character of Faridah Hanum, a young Malay woman who was forced to marry her own cousin at her family's request.
Her family chose to ignore the fact that she had fallen in love with another man, Shafik Effendi. Faridah is forced to undergo the marriage but remains faithful to her beloved by refusing to consummate her marriage.
In the end, both of the lovers are united despite the obstacles placed before them by their families and society. Read in the light of today's present realities, the storyline itself may seem tame and even dull in comparison. But one must remember that during its time, the Hikayat Faridah Hanum was the first of its kind.
The novel Hikayat Faridah Hanum was perhaps the first piece of modern Malay literature to feature a woman as its central character. What is more, the character of Faridah Hanum herself is one that is endowed with personality, agency and purpose.
She is not some passive subject who merely reacts to the environment around her. In the novel Syed Sheikh al-Hadi was laying great stress on the need for individual rights and freedom of choice. Faridah Hanum herself stands for al-Hadi's ideal of the modern progressive Muslim who is not bound by custom or tradition and capable of exercising rational agency while remaining true to his/her religion and moral values.
But what was really scandalous at the time was the fact that Syed Sheikh al-Hadi had also painted a portrait of a Malay-Muslim woman who had a sexual will and a sexual life of her own. The fact that she consciously and deliberately foils the advances of her own husband (in order to be able to consummate her affair with her lover) meant that she was a woman who was choosing her sexual partner on her own terms.
It is clear that for al-Hadi a woman's body was her right and her possession, and that no man had the right to force himself on her. Faridah Hanum's great 'crime' (if you could call it that) was that she wanted to choose her own lover and that she demanded the right to enjoy her sexual relations with him on terms that were of her own choosing.
Her defiance of her first husband (who was forced on her by her family and society) takes the form of sexual resistance - something that was regarded as taboo then (and now, for that matter).
Syed Sheikh al-Hadi's novel was widely scandalised by the conservatives of the time. The Hikayat Faridah Hanum was condemned as 'licentious' and even 'pornographic' and 'obscene' by the traditional Ulama, for the simple reason that it featured episodes where the heroine was in close proximity ( khalwat ) with another man (Shafik Effendi) who was not her relative.
The Ulama claimed that Sheikh al-Hadi had opened the floodgates for immorality and decadence to come flooding through, and that young Malay-Muslims (and the young women in particular) would be misguided by his ideas.
Nonetheless, in his work Syed Sheikh al-Hadi presented Faridah Hanum as a Muslim woman who was capable of making moral decisions on her own and was thus the embodiment of rational Islam itself.
Love and porn
That the Hikayat Faridah Hanum could have been condemned as pornographic during its time is proof that society's moral values are relative and that they evolve and change over the passage of time.
Today, most of us would probably lump it together with the run-of-the-mill ' Mills and Boons ' genre of literature for adolescents. But at that time the Hikayat itself was referred to as 'that pornographic book' which deserved to be consigned to the flames.
The real and lasting impact of the text however, is that it raised crucial questions about our relationship to our bodies, our sexuality and our sexual relations with others.
For despite the barbed and malicious condemnations that were heaped on him, Sheikh al-Hadi's great service to society was to raise questions that it did not dare ask of itself.
The root of the conundrum is this: Do we regard sexuality as something sinful and dirty or something that is essentially pure and good? Is sexuality a matter for the private individual or is it a concern of society at large? At what point is the invisible line between the public and the private sphere drawn?
These questions remain of crucial importance for us today, living as we do in an age of thought police and 'morality squads' who are given the legal (and moral) right to spy on us behind bushes with infra-red cameras and binoculars.
We need to ask such questions at a time when the state is clearly using sexuality (or rather the charge of sexual misconduct) as an excuse to come into our houses late at night to check on our private behaviour.
We need to raise these issues at a time when public censure (more often than not mobilised on the basis of popular fears and prejudices) is being used to demonise certain gender groupings and gender minorities in the country.
It is clear that in Syed Sheikh al-Hadi's writings, sexuality is a private affair for the individuals concerned only. And it is private because for him at the root of sexuality lies love - in whatever form - which is grounded in ethics and the ethical relation with the Other.
That is why Faridah Hanum does not allow herself to have sex with her husband as a 'matter-of-fact' routine of married life. She resists him and withholds herself because she treasures and values her sexuality and her sexual life enough to reserve it for the man she truly loves. Her consummation of her relationship with her true lover is therefore sexual and emotional at the same time.
Sex here is something to be taken seriously and treated with respect, but 'respect' in this sense is not understood in terms of close-mindedness and prudishness.
It is clear that Faridah Hanum not only loves her beloved, she also desires him. Sexual desire and emotional attraction therefore go hand in hand in Sheikh al-Hadi's novel, and the sexual act is seen as a means of expressing that emotional longing.
Titillate and excite
Now if pornography has become such a 'problem' in Malaysia today, we need to ask why this is the case. If so many Malaysians have become consumers of porn, it may well be because a lot of Malaysians happen to enjoy it.
And if porn is enjoyable, then one could say that it is because that is what it is meant to do in the first place. Pornography is meant to titillate and excite, in the same way that deserts are meant to taste delicious and medicine is meant to cure you. But it must be remembered that pornography also has its limitations, and that we should not delude ourselves with it.
That Malaysians have become passive and idle consumers of porn is hardly a surprise today considering that we have become passive and idle consumers of junk in general.
Our 'miraculous economic development' has merely led to the creation of a junk-food culture that is painfully evident in the food we eat, the awful movies we watch, the boring commercial music we listen to and the plastic featureless architecture we construct and inhabit.
So why should it surprise anyone that so much porn is being consumed in the country, considering the fact that this lazy and overweight nation is already living out a vicarious existence glued before the TV set and watching hours of inane nonsense every single day anyway? If porn is a form of vicarious entertainment, so is everything else on TV anyway.
He argued in defence of women's education and equal rights, and constantly brought up the topic of women's welfare in his magazine, al-Ikhwan as well as the two novels which he wrote, Hikayat Faridah Hanum and Hikayat Puteri Nurul'ain.
Though most of us have not heard of either of these texts, copies of them do exist in the libraries if one looks for them hard enough. What is even more interesting was the storm of protest and outrage that was stirred as soon as they were published.
The Hikayat Faridah Hanum (otherwise known as Setia Ashek Kepada Ma'ashoknya - The Fidelity of the Lover to Her Beloved) revolves around the character of Faridah Hanum, a young Malay woman who was forced to marry her own cousin at her family's request.
Her family chose to ignore the fact that she had fallen in love with another man, Shafik Effendi. Faridah is forced to undergo the marriage but remains faithful to her beloved by refusing to consummate her marriage.
In the end, both of the lovers are united despite the obstacles placed before them by their families and society. Read in the light of today's present realities, the storyline itself may seem tame and even dull in comparison. But one must remember that during its time, the Hikayat Faridah Hanum was the first of its kind.
The novel Hikayat Faridah Hanum was perhaps the first piece of modern Malay literature to feature a woman as its central character. What is more, the character of Faridah Hanum herself is one that is endowed with personality, agency and purpose.
She is not some passive subject who merely reacts to the environment around her. In the novel Syed Sheikh al-Hadi was laying great stress on the need for individual rights and freedom of choice. Faridah Hanum herself stands for al-Hadi's ideal of the modern progressive Muslim who is not bound by custom or tradition and capable of exercising rational agency while remaining true to his/her religion and moral values.
But what was really scandalous at the time was the fact that Syed Sheikh al-Hadi had also painted a portrait of a Malay-Muslim woman who had a sexual will and a sexual life of her own. The fact that she consciously and deliberately foils the advances of her own husband (in order to be able to consummate her affair with her lover) meant that she was a woman who was choosing her sexual partner on her own terms.
It is clear that for al-Hadi a woman's body was her right and her possession, and that no man had the right to force himself on her. Faridah Hanum's great 'crime' (if you could call it that) was that she wanted to choose her own lover and that she demanded the right to enjoy her sexual relations with him on terms that were of her own choosing.
Her defiance of her first husband (who was forced on her by her family and society) takes the form of sexual resistance - something that was regarded as taboo then (and now, for that matter).
Syed Sheikh al-Hadi's novel was widely scandalised by the conservatives of the time. The Hikayat Faridah Hanum was condemned as 'licentious' and even 'pornographic' and 'obscene' by the traditional Ulama, for the simple reason that it featured episodes where the heroine was in close proximity (khalwat) with another man (Shafik Effendi) who was not her relative.
The Ulama claimed that Sheikh al-Hadi had opened the floodgates for immorality and decadence to come flooding through, and that young Malay-Muslims (and the young women in particular) would be misguided by his ideas.
Nonetheless, in his work Syed Sheikh al-Hadi presented Faridah Hanum as a Muslim woman who was capable of making moral decisions on her own and was thus the embodiment of rational Islam itself.
Love and porn
That the Hikayat Faridah Hanum could have been condemned as pornographic during its time is proof that society's moral values are relative and that they evolve and change over the passage of time.
Today, most of us would probably lump it together with the run-of-the-mill 'Mills and Boons' genre of literature for adolescents. But at that time the Hikayat itself was referred to as 'that pornographic book' which deserved to be consigned to the flames.
The real and lasting impact of the text however, is that it raised crucial questions about our relationship to our bodies, our sexuality and our sexual relations with others.
For despite the barbed and malicious condemnations that were heaped on him, Sheikh al-Hadi's great service to society was to raise questions that it did not dare ask of itself.
The root of the conundrum is this: Do we regard sexuality as something sinful and dirty or something that is essentially pure and good? Is sexuality a matter for the private individual or is it a concern of society at large? At what point is the invisible line between the public and the private sphere drawn?
These questions remain of crucial importance for us today, living as we do in an age of thought police and 'morality squads' who are given the legal (and moral) right to spy on us behind bushes with infra-red cameras and binoculars.
We need to ask such questions at a time when the state is clearly using sexuality (or rather the charge of sexual misconduct) as an excuse to come into our houses late at night to check on our private behaviour.
We need to raise these issues at a time when public censure (more often than not mobilised on the basis of popular fears and prejudices) is being used to demonise certain gender groupings and gender minorities in the country.
It is clear that in Syed Sheikh al-Hadi's writings, sexuality is a private affair for the individuals concerned only. And it is private because for him at the root of sexuality lies love - in whatever form - which is grounded in ethics and the ethical relation with the Other.
That is why Faridah Hanum does not allow herself to have sex with her husband as a 'matter-of-fact' routine of married life. She resists him and withholds herself because she treasures and values her sexuality and her sexual life enough to reserve it for the man she truly loves. Her consummation of her relationship with her true lover is therefore sexual and emotional at the same time.
Sex here is something to be taken seriously and treated with respect, but 'respect' in this sense is not understood in terms of close-mindedness and prudishness.
It is clear that Faridah Hanum not only loves her beloved, she also desires him. Sexual desire and emotional attraction therefore go hand in hand in Sheikh al-Hadi's novel, and the sexual act is seen as a means of expressing that emotional longing.
Titillate and excite
Now if pornography has become such a 'problem' in Malaysia today, we need to ask why this is the case. If so many Malaysians have become consumers of porn, it may well be because a lot of Malaysians happen to enjoy it.
And if porn is enjoyable, then one could say that it is because that is what it is meant to do in the first place. Pornography is meant to titillate and excite, in the same way that deserts are meant to taste delicious and medicine is meant to cure you. But it must be remembered that pornography also has its limitations, and that we should not delude ourselves with it.
That Malaysians have become passive and idle consumers of porn is hardly a surprise today considering that we have become passive and idle consumers of junk in general.
Our 'miraculous economic development' has merely led to the creation of a junk-food culture that is painfully evident in the food we eat, the awful movies we watch, the boring commercial music we listen to and the plastic featureless architecture we construct and inhabit.
So why should it surprise anyone that so much porn is being consumed in the country, considering the fact that this lazy and overweight nation is already living out a vicarious existence glued before the TV set and watching hours of inane nonsense every single day anyway? If porn is a form of vicarious entertainment, so is everything else on TV anyway.
The fantasies of porn are just as far removed from reality as the fantasies we get on regular TV on a daily basis. (Anyone who disagrees on this point should tell me how 'Xena the Warrior Princess' can have relevance to our daily lives, particularly when we are stuck in one of KL's famous traffic jams).
But the worst thing about all our media fantasies - be they sexual ones or not - is that they draw us further and further away from the realities of human life and interpersonal contact that is so vital to our very being as human subjects.
The danger of porn is that it allows us to slip into fantasies instead of allowing us to turn our own fantasies into reality. In the same way that nerds who watch those action movies end up living out their fantasies in their heads and not in real life, porn takes away our ability to dream and fantasise and instead translates it into a market-oriented pre-packed and industrially-produced commodity instead.
A society that cannot go beyond porn is therefore a society that has failed to evolve. It is a society that cannot transcend the physical act of sex in order to reach the higher plane of sensuality and the erotic. It is a society that does not see that sex and sexuality is the way to love for and communion with the Other.
This was the root of the problem that Syed Sheikh al-Hadi was trying to address, albeit in a somewhat simplistic and naive way (by today's standards). What he was trying to show was that as rational, sentient and moral beings we have the right to be aware of our bodies and to enjoy them.
Moreover, as moral and rational beings we also have an ethical responsibility to our partners in our sexual relations with them. To want pleasure for ourselves also entails the responsibility to give pleasure to the Other as well. Making love therefore is a physical but also moral act, and there is a complex ethics of relationship with the Other at work during the act itself.
But how can any of this get off the ground if, as a society and as individuals, we are still at a stage where we cannot differentiate between sex and love, sex and eroticism, sex and sensuality?
As long as we can no longer see the differences between these categories, then I would argue that as a community we are suffering from a deep emotional and psychological crisis that goes beyond mere questions of epistemology. And that is a far greater problem that our so-called 'moral guardians' of society have chosen to ignore altogether.
Endnotes:
1) See: Lenore Manderson, Women, Politics and Change: The Kaum Ibu Umno of Malaysia 1945-1972. East Asian Social Studies Monographs Series, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980. (Pp. 20-21).
