In human parlance do these two words differ much, in their intended meanings? My question and reflection relates to how the American soul singer, Erkyah Badu was treated publicly, and thereby her dignity was denied for all the wrong reasons, in Malaysia. But, bless her heart, this lady was magnanimous enough to say that she bore no grudges against the information, communications and culture minister for cancelling her concert.
Maybe the government of Malaysia should also reimburse the organisers and her for the cancelled concert, with no legally justifiable reasons. At least, I am not aware of the same.
Wikipedia also tells me, “French sociologist Emile Durkheim considered that there existed a dichotomy between the sacred and the profane and this was the central characteristic of religion : ‘Religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden.’
“In Durkheim’s theory, the sacred represented the interests of the group, especially unity, which were embodied in sacred group symbols, or totems . The profane, on the other hand, involved mundane individual concerns. Durkheim explicitly stated that the dichotomy between the sacred and the profane was not equivalent to good and evil. The sacred could be good or evil and the profane could be either as well.”
My teacher SH Nasr often quotes the phrase, “A veil reveals as much as it hides!” It is just like knowledge and ignorance for example; both have the same root word, gnosis or knowledge with wisdom, and the only difference between them is the particular meaning implied in its accurate or wrong usage. It reveals or hides gnosis and ignosis .
My reflective question in this column to all Malaysians is: were we wrong in the way we hosted this young performer into Malaysia for her first-ever trip? After all we want to promote tourism and we are known to be a very hospitable people. Mariam Mokhtar also wrote in her latest column that International Day of Women falls on the March 8, and therefore my question to ourselves and Mariam is: Did we treat her with dignity and respect of an internationally acclaimed woman?
My contemplation of this question takes me to the story recorded in the New Testament, wherein the teachers of the religious law in Jesus time brought a lady they caught in adultery and asked him if they should stone her to death? The story is recorded that Jesus asked them a question in rebuttal: “Who will be the first to cast the stone?” or, the often quoted phrase, “let him who has not sinned cast the first stone!”
In Old Testament Jewish tradition, the person who makes and asserts the accusation must be the first to cast the first stone of judgment. It is recorded, after some time passed, that all the teachers of the religious law left the scene of investigation. And, after acknowledging their self-statements, Jesus pronounced to the lady, “Go and sin no more!”
Casting the first stone
In the Malaysian incident, our responsible minister declared her guilty and cast the first stone of judgment but also reported that the cabinet had agreed with him and cast the last stone. We killed her performance and the organisers have also cried foul; for cancelling the performance at the very last minute.
My question to the cabinet and the minister, under which law of the federation was this decision made? Who has such authority to cast the first stone and under which provision of the federal constitution was this cancellation made? What was her crime; other than our flirtatious interpretations of religious law? Is not our constitution the supreme law of this nation?
As Nasr states, knowledge and ignorance comes in many forms. But usually it is garbed in external form with little or no substance of a real spiritual nature. Allow me to use my limited understanding of Emile Durkheim’s definition in sociology to review and contemplate if the soul singer’s dignity was not denied under Malaysian constitutional provisions as well.
Under our cabinet portfolio and provisions, the particular minister is appointed and responsible for the promotion, development and sustainable maintenance of “information, communication and culture” within Malaysia. Therefore the closest application of the laws of the nation to this incident must be related to the preservation of these three responsibilities assigned to this minister.
Maybe his authority to cancel the concert “at the very last minute” comes under the “communications” or “culture” portfolio. Maybe it was his responsibility to protect and preserve “poor or bad content from being passed on as ‘truth’ or ‘information’ in Malaysia”.
Therefore, in consideration of all of the above, the concert was cancelled because she was “pictured in The Star newspaper” with a tattoo of the Arabic expression of the word for ‘Allah!’ The Star was not sponsoring the event either.
Photo sourced from 1973 movie
When truth was told; the photograph which reflected an actress painted with temporary body art was sourced from the 1973 movie, The Holy Mountain , directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky. In that movie the actress was depicted with many and different symbols of ‘God’ painted all over her body.
Therefore, my conclusion: we mixed information with misinformation and disinformation to allow one irresponsible minister to show his ignosis or lack of gnosis on this particular matter. I say, “shame on the minister and the cabinet on behalf of the ordinary and simple Malaysians”; and I say sorry and ask Badu to forgive us for this carelessness in our policy analysis and knee-jerk reactions to anything we think is sacred; even if it is profane to the intended user.
I am further reminded of the other idiocratic deputy minister’s ban on the word ‘Allah’ being used in Malay Bibles; which now appears like an equally ignoramus decision because of what I learned recently at a 400 year celebration of the original translation of the first Malay Bible by Dutch scholar Albert Cornelius Ruyl.
In his translation into Indonesian/Malay he chose the pre-Islamic word ‘Allah’ for his translation because the word ‘Tuhan’ specifically refers to the concept of the Lord-God and the second person of the trinity in Christian theology.
I also learned that one copy of this original Bible can be viewed in a museum in Germany, and that this was the first non-European translation of the Bible just one year after the King James Version was translated in England. It was the first translation even before any other Asian languages.
Therefore, we need to be less pretentious about these so-called “religious symbols” while claiming human ownership or poor stewardship of them. These are traditional values and symbols of a sacred past that belongs to the global community and should never the particularised or personalised in ownership by any individual group or persons. These possessions are what Emile Durkheim called the profane, almost by definition.
May God bless Malaysians to know the difference between knowledge and ignorance.
