Juggling dual cultural identities

(NST) Chinese Muslim researcher Rosey Wang Ma opens up about the identity dilemma faced by her community in Malaysia, writes SUZIEANA UDA NAGU

IT was past 5pm and Datuk Mustafa Ma had not performed his Asar prayers.

As Ma had time to kill before his flight to Kuala Lumpur, he headed for the surau at the Penang International Airport to pray.

There, a man stopped him and pointed to a sign next door.

“Toilet is that way,” said the man, oblivious of the fact that Ma is Muslim-born, had performed the Hajj and is president of the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association.

In Malaysia, being Muslim is constitutionally associated with being Malay.

Chinese Muslims, with shared cultural traditions and religion with the Chinese and Malays, can be a catalyst for nation-building.

Ma’s distinct Chinese features had made the man at the surau to assume that he was non-Muslim.
“It is not apparent to most Malaysians that a person who does not look, speak, dress or act (like a) Malay might be Muslim,” says Rosey Wang Ma, who recently graduated from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia with a doctoral degree.

The above incident is one of many examples of identity dilemma faced by Chinese Muslims in Malaysia — whether converts or born into the religion — captured in Wang Ma’s doctoral thesis Negotiating Identities: Hui, The Chinese Muslims.

The thesis examines the identity construction and evolution of the Hui — Chinese Muslims in China — in countries outside China such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

It also includes a special study of the identity dilemma of the Chinese Muslims in Malaysia.

“Through a multi-layered process extending more than a millennium, they have defined, redefined and reconstructed various aspects of their cultural, political and social identities to survive in the vastly assimilative China,” says Wang Ma, a Muslim since birth.

The study also exposes the tension that exists between Chinese Muslims in Malaysia and the Malays as well as the non-Muslim Chinese.
“Malaysia is a country where ethnicity is entwined with religion.

And Chinese Muslims belong to the ethnicity of one community (the Chinese) while professing the religion of another (the Malays).

“Although they have one foot in each ethnic group, the Chinese Muslims find themselves marginalised by both,” says Wang Ma, who grew up in Turkey and has resided in Malaysia since 1973.

 

Wang Ma is vocal in her thesis but the mother of six was not always comfortable discussing openly about the Chinese Muslims’ struggle for acceptance.

Without the study, the larger community will never understand the Chinese Muslims, says Rosey Wang Ma

“I once thought it was something private that did not need to be shared with others.

But I realised later how important it is to open up because (without the study), the larger community will never understand the Chinese Muslims,” she says.

Until now little is known about this community.
According to the Malaysian 2000 census, there are 57,211 Chinese Muslims throughout the country.

It is believed that Chinese Muslims have had a presence in Malaysia as early as the 13th century.

They came to the Malay World from different regions in China, spurred on by various reasons.

They comprised traders, missionaries and officials; victims who fled from the Qing government’s persecution; imported labourers during European colonial times; and those who wanted to escape poverty, famine, and the chaos of the civil war in the early 1900s.

Over the years, some have assimilated into the Malay culture and assumed Malay identity as a result of interracial marriages.

Others, on the other hand, had abandoned Islam after marrying non-Muslim Chinese.

“Descendants of this group — which can be found in Penang, Ipoh, Malacca and Johor — may not even realise their great-grandparents were Muslims,” says Wang Ma.

However, mixed marriages over the years have also produced a steady stream of Muslim converts among Malaysian Chinese.

For the Chinese Muslims in Malaysia, juggling their dual identity is a constant battle.

Most are torn between keeping to their ancestral culture and proving their devotion to Islam.

Conversations Wang Ma had with Chinese Muslims reveal that practising the Chinese culture raises suspicions among Malay Muslims, who “tend to measure devotion to Islam based on how much a non-Malay Muslim adapts to the Malay culture”.

“The more the person adapts, the better a Muslim he is assumed to be,” says Wang Ma.

On the other hand, internalising this “Malayness” and demonstrating Islamic piety can alienate Chinese Muslims from their own ethnic group.

While living in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Wang Ma had gone to the local market to buy slaughtered chicken.

“I had got along well with a chicken seller, who is Chinese, and had even bantered with him in Mandarin.

However, his friendly demeanour turned hostile the moment Wang Ma requested that the seller’s Muslim worker slaughter the chicken.

“His attitude changed.

Never mind that I spoke better Chinese than he did and had Chinese culture deeply ingrained in me,” she says.

The strong reaction, Wang Ma believes, stems from erroneous knowledge of Islam.
“To some, being Muslim is equivalent to becoming Malay.

Many Malaysian Chinese refer to Islam as Malay jiao (Malay religion).

“Some parents believe that once their children become Muslims, they will not be able to carry their surname or allowed to perform certain rituals at their parents’ funeral,” she adds.

These examples perpetuate the belief that there is a dichotomy between being Muslim and Chinese.

Yet the Hui in China and Malaysia have proven that it is possible to “negotiate the dual cultural identities with the demand of changing times and political social environment without compromising their faith”.

The key to overcoming the identity dilemma among Chinese Muslims is to be knowledgeable and confident about both their ethnic heritage and Muslim faith.

The Chinese Muslims — with shared cultural traditions and religion with the Chinese and Malays — could be a catalyst for nation-building.

“They must assert their role in leading the creation of a recognisable and acknowledged Chinese Muslim identity within the Malaysian social context,” says Wang Ma.

The key to overcoming identity dilemma among Chinese Muslims is to be knowledgeable and confident about their ethnic heritage and Muslim faith.