"Tak kenal, maka tak cinta," mused Abdul Rahman Kasim, citing a Malay proverb in explanation of why he is at the heart of efforts to reach out across the gulfs that separate Muslims from others in Malaysian society.
This proverb does not have a ready equivalent in English. But once you take the English admonition "Familiarity breeds contempt" to be this saying's diametric opposite, you may well get the drift of "Tak kenal, maka tak cinta."
Directly translating the Malay into English as "To know is to love" is too simplistic a rendition of the actual meaning of this Bahasa Malaysia apothegm. Malay culture is said to imbue one in such a way that feeling counts for more than thought. Therefore, to know is indeed to love.
Rahman, in tandem with PAS parliamentarian Mujahid Yusof Rawa, and a slew of party activists in Penang, has come to be known in interfaith circles in the north of the peninsula as bridge builders in a time of mounting anxiety about racial-cum-religious divisions in Malaysia.
"Our people are deeply polarised," said Rahman gravely, when interviewed in Penang earlier this week. "We must not allow our society to continue to be this way," he continued in a grave mien.
"We cannot allow a few powerful and influential people, for their selfish interests, to divide the rakyat. This is not the way forward for this country," said Rahman, 58, a heavy-set man with a gentle demeanour and even gentler voice, for all the gravity of the subject he was espousing.
Aide to Mujahid
Rahman, who is information chief of PAS Tasek Gelugor, has given diligent support to Mujahid in the last four years while the popular MP for Parit Buntar has toured churches and other places of worship, in the north, in pursuit of interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians, especially.
Although Mujahid has been his party's chief organiser and spokesperson for national unity, his effort at interfaith dialogue and collaboration has only received tepid support from within PAS and from without. Sometimes, according to Rahman, their push for finding common ground between Muslims and others strikes friends and critics as a quixotic endeavour.
"We have to push on because if we don't, matters will become worse. We cannot allow a few with bad intentions to dominate the discussion on race and religious relations," said Rahman.
It was Rahman who advised Mujahid to pay a sympathy visit to Sister Juliana Lim while she lay in a coma in Tuanku Jaafar Hospital in Seremban last month.
Juliana and an Infant Jesus confrere of hers were victims of an intruder who set upon them when the nuns got out of their car which they had just parked on the premises of the Church of the Visitation in the Negeri Sembilan capital before going to morning service at the parish on a weekday. Both were beaten senseless by an assailant wielding a helmet.
The incident became a national controversy because of speculation that the nuns were victims of a hate crime, given that tensions have been mounting between Muslims and Christians for the better part of the last five years over to the issue of the exclusivity or not of the term ‘Allah’ for God.
This speculation about the motive behind the crime waned when the vicinity's reputation as a hub of petty crime became evident as the days wore on. In the anxious lull in which torrid speculation jostled with the area's reputation for criminal infamy, Mujahid and Rahman obeyed one of those inspirations in which the heart unites with the mind to prompt a gesture of great panache.
They visited the gravely stricken Juliana in hospital after which Mujahid denounced the victims' assailant as "people without souls." Juliana died days later from her injuries, by which time feverish speculation about the incident had lost its sting, thanks to Mujahid's and Rahman's gesture of a visit.
Small steps
There wasn't much in Rahman's upbringing in Langkawi, where he was born and went to primary school, and at secondary school in Alor Setar that would help shed light on the spawning grounds of his quest to be bridge builder in our racially and religiously divided society.
Perhaps the fact that he was one of 14 children of a gardener father who after retirement from government service had Rahman, his eighth child, transferred to an elder sibling's care in Alor Setar. The older brother was a meter reader who supported Rahman through secondary school at Sultan Abdul Hamid College, famous stomping grounds of the best and brightest in the Kedah capital.
Rahman has had concern for the plight of others inserted into his marrow at an early age. This trait would flower further when he became a distributor of halal chicken in mainland Penang after a 10-year stint with the air traffic control at the RMAF airbase in Butterworth.
As a distributor of halal chicken at the wet market in Bagan Ajam and to restaurants in mainland Penang, Rahman had a sense of how uncomplicated the interaction between the races can be when it is simple economics at work.
It is the reason why he believes that all Malaysians can live together and work harmoniously with each other, provided the strident voices of bigotry are quieted. He says Malaysians have to know each other by mingling and working together. Towards that end, Mujahid and he have worked to hold gatherings and talks where religious leaders can interact and exchange views.
"These are small steps but they have to be taken for peace and goodwill to prevail among our people," said Rahman.
And if there are thorns and thistles along the way, he is ready to endure them for the sake of an ideal which is a nation at peace with its diversity.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for four decades now. He likes the profession because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.
This proverb does not have a ready equivalent in English. But once you take the English admonition "Familiarity breeds contempt" to be this saying's diametric opposite, you may well get the drift of "Tak kenal, maka tak cinta."
Directly translating the Malay into English as "To know is to love" is too simplistic a rendition of the actual meaning of this Bahasa Malaysia apothegm. Malay culture is said to imbue one in such a way that feeling counts for more than thought. Therefore, to know is indeed to love.
Rahman, in tandem with PAS parliamentarian Mujahid Yusof Rawa, and a slew of party activists in Penang, has come to be known in interfaith circles in the north of the peninsula as bridge builders in a time of mounting anxiety about racial-cum-religious divisions in Malaysia."Our people are deeply polarised," said Rahman gravely, when interviewed in Penang earlier this week. "We must not allow our society to continue to be this way," he continued in a grave mien.
"We cannot allow a few powerful and influential people, for their selfish interests, to divide the rakyat. This is not the way forward for this country," said Rahman, 58, a heavy-set man with a gentle demeanour and even gentler voice, for all the gravity of the subject he was espousing.
Aide to Mujahid
Rahman, who is information chief of PAS Tasek Gelugor, has given diligent support to Mujahid in the last four years while the popular MP for Parit Buntar has toured churches and other places of worship, in the north, in pursuit of interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians, especially.
Although Mujahid has been his party's chief organiser and spokesperson for national unity, his effort at interfaith dialogue and collaboration has only received tepid support from within PAS and from without. Sometimes, according to Rahman, their push for finding common ground between Muslims and others strikes friends and critics as a quixotic endeavour.
"We have to push on because if we don't, matters will become worse. We cannot allow a few with bad intentions to dominate the discussion on race and religious relations," said Rahman.
It was Rahman who advised Mujahid to pay a sympathy visit to Sister Juliana Lim while she lay in a coma in Tuanku Jaafar Hospital in Seremban last month.Juliana and an Infant Jesus confrere of hers were victims of an intruder who set upon them when the nuns got out of their car which they had just parked on the premises of the Church of the Visitation in the Negeri Sembilan capital before going to morning service at the parish on a weekday. Both were beaten senseless by an assailant wielding a helmet.
The incident became a national controversy because of speculation that the nuns were victims of a hate crime, given that tensions have been mounting between Muslims and Christians for the better part of the last five years over to the issue of the exclusivity or not of the term ‘Allah’ for God.
This speculation about the motive behind the crime waned when the vicinity's reputation as a hub of petty crime became evident as the days wore on. In the anxious lull in which torrid speculation jostled with the area's reputation for criminal infamy, Mujahid and Rahman obeyed one of those inspirations in which the heart unites with the mind to prompt a gesture of great panache.
They visited the gravely stricken Juliana in hospital after which Mujahid denounced the victims' assailant as "people without souls." Juliana died days later from her injuries, by which time feverish speculation about the incident had lost its sting, thanks to Mujahid's and Rahman's gesture of a visit.
Small steps
There wasn't much in Rahman's upbringing in Langkawi, where he was born and went to primary school, and at secondary school in Alor Setar that would help shed light on the spawning grounds of his quest to be bridge builder in our racially and religiously divided society.
Perhaps the fact that he was one of 14 children of a gardener father who after retirement from government service had Rahman, his eighth child, transferred to an elder sibling's care in Alor Setar. The older brother was a meter reader who supported Rahman through secondary school at Sultan Abdul Hamid College, famous stomping grounds of the best and brightest in the Kedah capital.
Rahman has had concern for the plight of others inserted into his marrow at an early age. This trait would flower further when he became a distributor of halal chicken in mainland Penang after a 10-year stint with the air traffic control at the RMAF airbase in Butterworth.
As a distributor of halal chicken at the wet market in Bagan Ajam and to restaurants in mainland Penang, Rahman had a sense of how uncomplicated the interaction between the races can be when it is simple economics at work.
It is the reason why he believes that all Malaysians can live together and work harmoniously with each other, provided the strident voices of bigotry are quieted. He says Malaysians have to know each other by mingling and working together. Towards that end, Mujahid and he have worked to hold gatherings and talks where religious leaders can interact and exchange views.
"These are small steps but they have to be taken for peace and goodwill to prevail among our people," said Rahman.
And if there are thorns and thistles along the way, he is ready to endure them for the sake of an ideal which is a nation at peace with its diversity.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for four decades now. He likes the profession because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.