The “Allah” case in Malaysia

 

Paint bomb against the Virgin Mary in Kota Tinggi

 

Recently Malaysia has been at the centre of another controversy. After the fatwa against Yoga (in which it was suggested that Muslims were better to abstain from it), the sentence against Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno (who was condemned to strokes of an “Islamic” cane), and the severed cow heads left on an area awaiting the construction of a Hindu temple, today churches, and other non-Muslim places of worship, have been torched over the issue of whether non-Malay Muslims, and in particular Christians, can use the word ‘Allah’. The Malay government, controlled by UMNO, clearly supports the opinion that “Allah” is, at least linguistically, a Malay Muslim theo-semiotic possession, despite the word being Arabic. Yet to understand the present situation we need to look at how Muslim Malaysians make sense of their social political identity within the country.

New book: Faith, Ideology and Fear-Muslim Identities Within and Beyond Prisons

I am pleased to inform you that my book ‘Faith, Ideology, and Fear: Muslim Identities Within and Beyond Prisons‘, published by Continuum, is now available. This book is based on my 4-year-research both within UK prisons as well as outside them. I have written about the research itself before. You can find the book both in bookstores as well as Internet sellers such as Amazon.com. Unfortunately, as many academic books today, the publisher has decided to issue first the hardback and consider a paperback only in the case that, after one year, the book has sold enough. So, if you are interested in reading it, and you cannot afford the price, ask the librarian at your university or public library to acquire it (there is also an electronic copy which is cheeper). Below I shall offer a summary of the chapters. If you wish, you can read the full Introduction on my personal website.

Selling lives: Rohingyas face deportation from Bangladesh

In any course of sociological theory we will meet Marx. Certainly his theory of society and economy seems, today, part of history. Yet Marx’s analysis of ‘commodity’ has still some interesting aspects worth of thinking over. This is even truer in the case when instead of objects, the commodities are actually people; or better a people. I have written before about the forgotten Rohingya, highlighting their inhuman condition in Burma (Myanmar) and Bangladesh,  as well as their status of  the “gypsies” of Asia.

Obama’s ‘ideological utopianism’

Palestinian child in his home

Obama’s speeches are becoming a classic, no less than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, for those studying English, at least in Japan. Certainly, after eight years of Bushisms, Obama’s words sound like Shakespeare. Hence, few would have complained if the Nobel committee would have awarded him the Nobel in literature. Notwithstanding that,  in listening to Barack Obama’s 36-minute Nobel lecture we may wonder whether a mistake has been made and if the President was supposed to receive the Nobel in Philosophy for his contribution to contemporary Sophism instead of Peace. Indeed, if Barack Obama should be compared to somebody for his Laureate Speech, it would certainly not be Martin Luther King or Gandhi, but perhaps rather  John Lennon.

Plutocracy of blood? Afghanistan post-election

How much blood has been spilled in Afghanistan? It is very difficult to say; official estimates speak of an improbable 12,000 to a more probable, but still conservative, 32,000 casualties. Of these deaths, the “insurgents” of various affiliations (so not only the Taliban) would have been responsible, according to very conservative statistics, for almost a sixth. Certainly, as repugnant as they may be, the suicide bombers and road-side bombs as well as the Taliban’s punitive and revenge killings cannot be compared to the 30000lb air-bombs dropped by NATO.  

Official Webpage and Cardiff University Honorary Position

Dear all, I am pleased to inform you that I have now an official webpage at my domain  www.marranci.net. My blog remains here at wordpress.com,  at my webpage you can find a link to it and you can also subscribe to the feed if you wish. The website will be updated regularly, particularly the multimedia section, in which you can find photos, audio and video podcasts, some including presentations at seminars and conferences. In the publications section you can find the links to not only the book or article, but also – when available – to the text or part of it (some of which can be downloaded). Among other things, you can follow my calender of events where I will post events of interest in my field of research and, of course, where I am going to present my research.

Moderate in extremism: Malaysia, the rattan cane, and the Muslim model

While in London in 2000, I met an Afghan man, in full Pasthun Afghan attire, who proudly told me that he was a Taliban. During the cold war, the Taliban were, for the UK and US, the heroic mujahidin who fought the Red Devil, the atheist communist USSR. Some, during the 1980s, were welcomed to the west to escape persecution or recruit volunteers for their training camps, which were US and UK supported.The man in London claimed to be among those who reached the UK in the 1980s. When we met, the Taliban had established their Islamic republic and, following their own version of Shariah, implemented one of the most (albeit contradictory and corrupt) brutal regimes that Muslim countries had ever known.

Coming Back soon

Dear all,

as many of you may have noticed, I have not posted here for a while and I have to say that I am not so happy with an average of one post per month.

Yet, I have been particularly busy during these few months, both conducting research as well as writing and presenting papers.

So,  I am glad to announce that very soon I will publish a new post and I will try to commit myself, despite the many commitments, to at least a post per-week.

meanwhile, if you are in Singapore on the 13th of October, and wish to know more about my current research in Southeast Asia, you are very welcome to attend this event below