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2002-03-27 - 1:21 a.m. Singapore's Tudung (Written for the BBC) Singapore is a small island city-state, located in Southeast Asia at the southern tip of the Malaysian Peninsular. It is also a young nation, having gained its Independence only 37 years ago, when it was booted out of the Federation of Malaysia due to irreconcilable political differences. Like any adolescent fretting over its diminutive stature, surrounded by bigger siblings like Malaysia and Indonesia, Singapore has its insecurities. One of the symptoms of these insecurities is its obsession with growth, primarily of the economic variety. And yet another is its constant worry over its public image. As much as Singapore wants to love what it sees in the mirror, it cannot do so without the world looking on in approval. How else to explain why Singapore constantly censures journalists, notably foreign ones, for writing articles which portray the country as a cane-wielding nanny-state? Of course the irony of reinforcing its image as a prickly, self-righteous state when it protests at any perceived 'misrepresentation' is lost on its leaders. The iron will in which Singapore prides itself on is matched only by how deficient it is in irony. When TIME magazine finally declared that Singapore was shedding its sterile image to become a place that could actually be fun, a beaming Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, proclaimed that 'in Singapore, we take our fun seriously', a statement which I found to be more chilling than comical. But this is not to say that Singapore's public relations machine has been entirely unsuccessful. One of Singapore's selling-points to both tourists and investors is its political stability, achieved despite a multi-racial makeup consisting of 77% Chinese, 14% Malays, 7% Indians and 1% Others. Racial riots are virtually-non-existent, and Singapore's racial diversity is evident in its tourist attractions, from the snake charmers and fortune-telling parrots of Little India, the joss-stick shops and thief markets of Chinatown, and the plastic flower shops and a Malay Village replica in Geylang Serai. Sometimes, however, there are suggestions that while Singapore's multiracial makeup is real, the reality of its multiracial condition is made up. Granted, there is harmony, but it is the sort that is cultivated by the promotion of tolerance. And tolerance, in most cases, is a failure in understanding. It means turning a blind eye to the mess caused by the Chinese burning joss paper on the pavements, or a deaf ear to the calls to prayer emanating from Muslim mosques five times a day. It is a harmony that is fragile because it espouses evasion rather than confrontation. And this is dangerous because evasion is often a retreat into cultural ghettoes. A recent case involves four Malay-Muslim fathers sending their six-year-old daughters to school in tudungs. The tudung is a head-dress worn by Muslim women, mainly for the sake of modesty, and it is important to note here that it does not consist of a veil. My mother, a 51 year-old woman, wears a tudung when she leaves the house, but my 21-year-old sister chooses not to. Even though the wearing of the tudung is an Islamic obligation, many Muslims in Singapore treat it as a matter of personal choice. This is not to say that secularism has eroded Islamic piety in Singapore. There is a Quranic line that reads, 'There is no compulsion in religion'. How I interpret this is that religion is a private affair between an individual and God, and nobody has a right to impose one's personal definition of this relationship onto others. In the 30-year gap between my sister and mother, there is time for my sister to redefine this private relationship as she sees fit. The issue of tudung-wearing to school ignited a furore in the press. Sikhs can wear turbans to school, so why is the tudung disallowed? How is the tudung a threat to other non-Muslim students? Malaysia, ever eager to play big brother to the Singapore Malays, accused the Singapore government of being anti-Islam and disrespecting human rights. The Singapore press exhorted the need to maintain schools as common spaces. This, of course, is another way of saying that differences should not be emphasised in schools. But this begs the question of whether differences are simply a function of dressing. Being a male Muslim, I will never have the chance to wear a tudung, but I don't need a headdress to symbolise my difference. I am Malay, and my own skin, a shade darker than the dominant Chinese, is my main garment. Only by gazing at this colour, and not by turning their eyes away and believing it is just a trick of light, can my fellow citizens treat me as an equal. We cannot fool ourselves into believing that we are all the same, and to buy into this naïve illusion will turn us into bigots who expect everyone else to share our thoughts and beliefs. The next logical step, after evasion, is exclusion. Much has been said about how women who wear tudungs in Singapore universities tend to be cliquish and isolationist, but not much has been said about how they might have been excluded by the majority who find their apparent difference forbidding. What kinds of sensitivities do these tudung-wearing women have? What politically-correct stances have to be maintained so as not to breach the forcefield apparently emanating from the tudung? The tudung, a symbol of modesty, has become a symbol of inscrutability. The tudung issue is indeed a complex one. As I have mentioned earlier, even among Singapore Muslims, there is no rigid stance which seeks punitive measures against those who do not wear the tudung. And one has to admit that there are Muslim women who wear their tudung, yet put on make-up, wear tight-fitting jeans or hold their boyfriends' hands in public. In cases like these, one questions if the wearing of the tudung is simply cosmetic, a false projection of piety. Singapore professes to adhere resolutely to meritocracy and social equality. This is the tudung that Singapore wears; the image it wants to project to the world. And yet the tudung issue shows it is not yet ready to commit itself wholeheartedly to a more faithful concept of multi-racialism. It betrays a certain amount of guardedness, and perhaps even hypocrisy. Singapore wants to be loved by the world, but this cannot happen unless it learns to love itself first, trust in itself, and embrace its multiple diversities.
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