Today was start of our Seminars! Which means we have lesser time to prepare for our Charged (Due next week) Hooray!
Shah, Shena, Eja and Lin presented on Nadirah, which is one of our local Singaporean drama play. It was overall a good presentation, which has set the standards high enough for some of us (As Mr CK had mentioned). They gave us many insights to the play about racial and religion issues.
Interesting facts of Alfian Bin Sa'at
- 1977, Singaporean playwright
- Malay-muslim of Minang, Javanese and Hakka descent.
- "Enfant Terrible" > known for his provocative work.
- 'One Fierce Hour' 21poetries in first collection when he was 21.
- Short Stories, 'Corridor'.
- 2001, published 'A History of Amnesia'.
- Interests range from gender politics, to Malay identity, to strategies of resistance to censorship as well as hegemonising discourses.
- His plays written in English and Malay, have broad attention in SG and M'sia.
Synopsis of Play
A total of 10 scenes where a union of love goes against religious laws and pushes racial tensions. Nadira is facing a problem where her mother, a chinese muslim-peranakan divorcee, wants to marry Dr Robert Goh, a devout christian. She then engages into a conversation between her two friends, Maznah, who believes that everyone should pursue happiness and love, and Farouk, a devout muslim. These two friends provide a platform for voicing starkly different perspectives about marriage, religion and society.
'Nadirah' wrestles with highly charged issues of race and religion with an honesty that is rarely seen in politically correct in SG. Interestingly, Nadirah is a vice-president of inter-faith meetings and she could not solve her own problem. This play raises issues of interfaith marriage, minority races in SG, racial stereotypes, differences within the Malay community and what it really means to be an Asian, pluralistic society.
Activity: What if you are Sahirah or Farouk and they met up to talk?
This activity challenges us to persuade the other party to give up their thoughts and ideas. It is also fighting for our rights to believe in things we freely want to believe. This shows how complex our relationships are as human beings. Will love or faith prevail?
Themes
1. Evangelism/ Conversion of faith
There is this 99.6% that Farouk emphasized on. But really will this figure determine anything about the faith of muslims? That 0.4% is such a small percentage and he is already making a fuss. This shows how strong-headed he feels about being a Muslim and his refusal to give Sahirah up as a Muslim. Does that number show how great your faith is? Can faith even be measured?
It is also quite obvious that Alfian was trying to show how religions have the ability to break family ties. He even went to the extend of including death. Nadirah tells her mother when she dies, she would not be able to see her mother again.
Throughout the play, conversion is always constant. But it is interesting to see how Dr Robert deals with Farouk, whom he see as his younger self. It is some sort of a reflection and he totally understands how it felt like Farouk because of his past experience.
2. Social Stereotypes
What defines a person? is it by ethnicity or race or other categories? It does not mean that I bring a bible with me means I am holy. Same for muslims, does not mean that wearing a tudong is devout muslim.
3. Love VS Religion
There is also another issue of Divine love vs Human love. Is our love for God more than our love for human? what is the right balance? If we cannot human, how do we love God?
Reflection
I feel that this play made me realise how I stereotype muslims really by what they wear. After discussion, I knew that I was wrong about muslims wearing tudong are more devout. To really know if his or her faith well is to know that person from the inside out instead of judging from the outside, which we do very frequently. It is also true that how can we love God if we do not love human, which is a visible thing on earth. How can we ever balance our love life and happiness on earth with our faith in religion? I feel that it is more of racial and religion tolerance rather than racial harmony in SG.
Everyone is narrow-minded. No one is not narrow-minded. It is just to what kind of extent. A buddhist may say christians are narrow-minded but christians can also say the same thing towards the buddhist. We should not enforce or impose our religion to someone else because it is everyone's right to believe what they want. Who can determine our faith?
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