These Malaysian adverts miss the point of Ramadan
The Islamic holy month is a time to connect with, not chastise, non-Muslims. This is lost to some in Malaysia's media
Malaysian Muslims buy food for Iftar, the evening meal when Muslims break their fast, at a market in Kuala Lumpur. Photograph: Chong Voon Chung/ Chong Voon Chung/XinHua/Xinhua Press/Corbis
To opt for a dry throat and a crooning gut when a mere phone call can get you a decent feast is nothing short of foolhardy. Yet millions of Muslims around the globe choose to do just that when they fast inRamadan.
Those with purchasing power must surely see this enforced austerity in a world of plenty as something akin to a warped practice: Why live like paupers when you can afford more?
In this very question also lies the spirit of Ramadan: empathy for the "other", or that which is different from one's self if we accept the definition provided by the German philosopher Hegel. By way of divine decree, Ramadan has come to denote a month where Muslims who can must not, an act that accords them a chance to feel for the have-nots.
Writing for the people's panel on fasting just a few days back, Guardian commenter Zarka Anwar describes Ramadan as "a time when beauty moulds in a Muslim's heart to remember the unfortunate".
It is a point that is lost to some in the Malaysian media. With about 60% of the nation's population professing Islam, the local broadcaster 8TV ran a trio of 30-seconds clips in the first week of Ramadan aimed at instructing its non-Muslim ethnic minorities about the etiquette of proper conduct appropriate to this Islamic holy month.
The advertisements feature a young Chinese woman behaving greedily, obnoxiously and wearing tight clothings at a Ramadan bazaar to the chagrin of the Muslim Malays around her. Rightly so, the racist undertone has caused a public uproar as multitudes registered their displeasure on the station's official Facebook page.
While the station retracted the advertisements within 48 hours of first screening them and issued a public apology, this episode is telling of the dominant interpretation among members of the Malay bourgeoisie there about the value of Ramadan.
Ending each advertisement is a condescendingly moralising message that puts the onus of betterment on the culturally "other" when the focus should be an improvement of the self. In one, non-Muslims are explicitly told: "Do not be loud or obnoxious." In another, it was: "Do not be greedy and eat in public."
Such a didactic view of Ramadan ignores the inclusive leanings of this holy month. Indeed, empathy for the other is not just theologically expressed through the act of fasting. It is also invoked in the injunction to pay the zakat al-fitr, or the obligatory Ramadan alms.
As spelled out in verse 9 :60 of the Qur'an, zakat proceeds are to be distributed to eight classes of people, or asnaf, that includes the destitute and poor, as well as travellers in need. This is normally done at the end of Ramadan.
Some Islamic theologians argue that these categories of zakat recipients should include non-Muslims. Embracing this interpretation is the UK-based international aid agency Islamic Relief, which dispenses zakat funds to non-Muslims in Africa.
Back in the 1980s, Indonesian theologian and politician Amien Rais even went as far as to suggest a radical form of tiered zakat, which taxes Muslims according to the salaries they draw. Rais argues that proceeds from this zakat should be invested in ventures that benefit all, specifying education as a priority area.
Such progressive interpretations signal that Muslims are to be charitable not just to the less fortunate, but also to the culturally other – an important nuance that the 8TV advertisements fail to capture.
Sadly though, Malaysian Muslim elites are not alone in their insularity. Even in neighbouring Singapore where Muslims make up about 15% of the cosmopolitan population, the official stance is that non-Muslims could not receive the zakat proceeds, even if they "fit into one of the asnaf".
Even though 8TV's advertisements run counter to the Ramadan spirit of hospitality, it is tenuous to read this episode as further proof of Islam's intolerance. Rather, this is a textbook example of how the humanistic elements of a rich religious tradition have been drowned by the contextual concerns of its practitioners.
More than spell out the exclusive nature of Islam, the advertisements are revelatory of the inability of Malaysia's ultra-Malay elites to overcome ethnic tensions with the minority Chinese. Ramadan or not, the advertisements suggest that their rose-tinted view of Malaysia is one coloured by race-tinted glasses.
