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2002-08-20 - 7:39 p.m. Was taking an escalator down Simei MRT station when in front of me... There was a Malay youth, wearing a jubah (long, usually white robe). With his wire-rimmed spectacles, he looked almost like a scholar from the Cairo Al-Azhar University (where a lot of licensed religious leaders--ulama--receive their education from). He also had a backpack, that was printed in green camouflage patterns. Very trendy-looking. 1) Despite the costume suggestive of a fundamentalist cleric, the bag frustrated attempts to stereotype the youth as such, being as it was a sign of something fashionable, in harmony with (secular) capitalist trends... 2) The sinister military material of the bag ignited almost immediately an association with Islam as a combative religion, and its lack of resemblance to any recognisable camouflage patterns (the design was more an improvisation on camouflage) hinted at something obscure, hidden, a private paramilitia... All I can say is, he was very difficult to read.
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