The gov would of course like to generalize anyone who brings up the tudung issue as trying to ‘sow discord’ or raising ‘divisive’ matters.
In fact, anyone who brought the matter up will be painted as a hardliner, extremist and radical etc.
It’s a red herring. It wants the people to overlook its appalling discriminatory practices against certain segment of the community.
Masagos should slam his own gov for continuing to divide and discriminate the citizen. Not shoot down those who try to bring positive changes to the nation.
If he, Masagos can’t help to solve the long standing issue, the best he could do is not to hinder.
This week, when WP MP Muhammad Faisal spoke up against the ban on the wearing of tudung in certain occupations here, PAP Minister Masagos Zulkifli rebuked him for “subtly and frequently needling” the Malay community with this issue.
Minister Masagos said that Parliament is not the the platform to discuss such issues. He further implied that MP Faisal is sowing discord and disrupting Singapore’s racial and religious harmony.
According to the Election Dept, which comes directly under the purview of PM Lee, the GRC system was “established in 1988 to ensure that the minority racial communities in Singapore will always be represented in Parliament”.
WP MP Faisal was the minority GRC candidate elected by Aljunied residents to ensure that their Malay community will be represented in Parliament.
So, when MP Faisal is talking about issues related to the Malay community, how is he sowing discord? And why can’t he bring minority issues up in Parliament?
How is he supposed to “represent” minority racial communities in Parliament? By keeping his mouth shut and not talking about any minority issues in Parliament?
That being the case, why are we having GRCs in the first place?
Are we not sick already of the way certain issues are debated in Parliament? The raising of the perennial ‘tudung issue’ has become some kind of weird tussle for legitimacy–as representative of minority rights– between WP MP Faisal Manap and PAP MP Masagos Zulkifli. Masagos seems to be an advocate for closed-door, behind-the-scenes deliberations, which is another name for elite governance. (Who gets invited to these sessions? How do we know that the supposedly representative committee that is assembled is not a rigged public?) Faisal believes that public debate is important, and seems to have more faith in ordinary Singaporeans being able to think through an issue that involves religious freedom, secularism and occupational requirements.
Of course, in all the rhetoric about how an issue is ‘sensitive’ or ‘divisive’, one avoids addressing the issue altogether. So let’s start from the beginning. Some Muslim women wear the hijab in public. It is important to note that this does not only consist of a head-covering but also clothes which conceal the whole body with the exception of the face and hands. This is an important point because any modification of uniforms to accommodate the hijab will mean introducing long sleeves and long pants to replace short sleeves and skirts.
Why do they wear the hijab in public? If you live in the US and watch nothing but Fox News, you would think that it is because they were pressured to do so by their brothers and fathers, who believe that a woman’s modesty is a commodity to be perpetually guarded. But if you live in Singapore, you will know that there is a high degree of autonomy practised by those Muslim women who choose to wear a hijab. And two of the reasons often cited might be counterintuitive to those who think of the hijab as some kind of patriarchal constraint: comfort and freedom.
‘Comfort’ does not only mean physical comfort, but also the psychological and spiritual comfort that one feels by doing something which one thinks is consonant with one’s religious teachings. (And here we must also make space for women who are equally comfortable with *not* wearing the hijab, because they don’t think it is dissonant with religious teachings.) And ‘freedom’ is often freedom from the kinds of gazes and judgments that seek to objectify a woman’s body—from the way her hair is styled, to the tanlines on her shoulders, to the hair on her arms or legs. It is a way, for some people, of unplugging from pernicious body standards, or a gentle request that one is evaluated on the basis of something other than mere appearance.
The picture is of course a lot more complex than above. Why is it that young, single women wearing the hijab can sometimes signal that they are suitable prospects in the marriage market, or at least advertise for the kinds of partners they seek? (Clue: not the abang-abang havoc.) And why do some hijab-wearing women wear make-up if the aim is to deflect male attention? An answer would be: because they are not nuns. The interesting thing about the hijab is that it occupies a space of reconciliation between the clerical and the worldly. We associate the wearing of headdresses with those who have taken clerical vows, such as nuns with their wimples. Veiling is often a strategy to retreat from the social and secular, and to concentrate on self-cultivation.
The hijab then affords a compromise between a spiritual turning-inward and a projection of a public self, and in a sense speaks of that lack of distinction, in Islam, between a ‘person of God’ and a ‘person of the world’. (Something outsiders sometimes have difficulty understanding, when many religions have a separation between the clergy and lay believers). And this is why this particular religious garb also manifests itself as fashion, in an explosion of colour and styles.
There have been concerns about how the wearing of the hijab was never as widespread ‘in the past’, and how its ubiquitousness is hence a sign of growing conservatism, and even worse, separatism. Well, in that past, a woman’s place was believed to be the domestic sphere, where husbands were supposed to be sole breadwinners and women were expected to stay at home and raise children. However, over time, more women were receiving education and entering the workforce in larger numbers than before, in working environments often far from their homes.
In that navigation between traditional gender roles and modern economic pressures, the hijab afforded some women an unprecedented measure of mobility. Rather than being a manifestation of conservatism, the hijab was these women’s answer to conservatism, a response to the voices of elders insisting that the home is the only safe place for women, their fears about ‘improper’ interactions in work environments. It was a form of negotiation with modernity and again, a way of being free. While the primary reason often cited by women for wearing the hijab is a religious one, it’s also useful to look at its sociological dimensions.
I realise only too acutely that I stand accused of speaking on behalf of women who wear the hijab. (And I apologise if it’s yet another tiresome case of men seeming like authorities on what women want to wear.) The choice to wear (or not wear) it is a deeply personal one, and there is something coarse about subjecting such choices to any form of scrutiny. But I really feel that we need to counter those prevalent modes of thinking that sees the hijab as a tool of patriarchal oppression, or as segregationist rejection of mainstream clothing norms, or as fierce assertion of a resurgent Islamic identity.
There are women among our fellow citizens who choose to wear the hijab when they are out in public, or in their working environments. It makes them feel comfortable, secure, peaceful and at ease with themselves. What can we do, as a multicultural, multireligious society, to respect that choice and ensure their wellbeing?
Facebook post from SDP ex chairman Jufri Mahmood.
(Translated from Malay in original post)
I thought as a Muslim Minister, you would be more understanding of the aspirations of the Muslimahs in this issue.
I thought you would give more hope and have more opportunities to convince the Government that this is a very important issue to the very community you are representing.
I thought you are more devout than the colleagues and friends in your little group.
Never would I have thought that you had a knife all along, and you stabbed us in the back.
You are truly manipulative.
How could you!
KUSANGKA SEBAGAI SEORANG MENTERI BERAGAMA ISLAM KAU LEBIH MEMAHAMI ASPIRASI KAUM HAWA KITA DALAM ISU INI.
KUSANGKA KAU AKAN MENCERAHKAN LAGI PELUANG UNTUK MEYAKINKAN PEMERINTAH TENTANG PENTINGNYA ISU INI KEPADA MASYARAKAT YANG KAU SEPATUTNYA MEWAKALI.
KUSANGKA KAU LEBIH WARAK DARI RAKAN-RAKAN DALAM KELOMPOKMU.
SEDIKIT TAK KU SANGKA KAU BAWA BERSAMAMU SEBILAH PISAU DAN MENIKAMKU DARI BELAKANG.
KAU SUNGGUH UNSANGKARABLE.
SAMPAI HATIMU!
The Minister for Environment and Water Resources, Masagos Zulkifli, has lashed out at Workers’ Party Member of Parliament, Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap, for raising “divisive” issues in the House.
At the heart of Mr Masagos’ concerns is how the constant airing of such “sensitive” issues would “stir the community.”
The minister said “there is a right time, a right place and right way” to discuss such matters.
“The way to make progress is gradually and quietly, working under the radar to strengthen mutual trust and understanding among Singaporeans, so that we can move forward step by step,” he said.
The minister’s criticism came after Mr Faisal’s latest parliamentary question asking for the Government to allow Muslim nurses and uniformed officers to wear the tudung (a Muslim headscarf) at work.
Mr Masagos also pointed out that Mr Faisal had previously raised other “potentially discordant” issues as well, such as halal kitchens in navy ships and the perceived discrimination of Malays in the Singapore Armed Forces.
In his response to the accusations from the minister, Mr Faisal said that as an elected MP, he had a right to raise issues of concerns from his community in Parliament.
He added that since he was elected in 2011, he had raised the tudung issue and asked for the Government to address it.
“How does that cause divisiveness and discord?” he asked.
Saying that Mr Faisal “does not need to intend to sow discord” in raising these issues, Mr Masagos said nevertheless by doing so, Mr Faisal has “subtly and frequently [brought] issues that are sensitive to the community, knowing (they are) not easy to resolve and cleverly turning it into a state versus religion issue.”
“These are all very dangerous moves,” the minister said.
“It leaves a feeling of (something) unresolved and unsolvable, and impatience that one day I believe will explode,” Mr Masagos said. “Is that what Mr Faisal wants?”
Mr Faisal had also raised the tudung issue in Parliament last month (March), where he said that “the Malay/Muslim community is also concerned about Muslim women being allowed to wear the tudung when serving in uniformed groups like the army, the Home team and nurses.”
“I sincerely hope that the Government can do something to address the concerns of the community,” he said.
The tudung issue has been raised several times by various quarters in recent years, including from PAP MPs.
In 2016, PAP MP for Jurong GRC, Rahayu Mahzam, also spoke on the matter in Parliament.
“One other thing that is constantly in the minds of our community is the tudung issue,” she told the House. “As a woman who wears tudung, I definitely hope that all women can pursue their career of choice. Hence, I hope this can be reviewed, and flexibility be given where possible, so that there will not be too many barriers for women to choose their own careers.”
Ms Rahayu also called for more open dialogues in such matters.
She said:
“Our efforts in encouraging racial and religious harmony can no longer be at a superficial level of attending each other’s cultural events. We should allow for space to talk about our identities, our religious practices such as the burning of incense paper, the wearing of the tudung, the playing of music during Thaipusam, for example. And there should be open dialogues as such conversations allow for better understanding of each other’s concerns.”
In 2015, PAP MP for Choa Chu Kang, Zaqy Mohammad, had talked about “the increase of religiosity and issues like the wearing of the tudung as part of a ‘new normal’ in governance and society in Singapore.” (See here.)
Mr Zaqy, along with Mr Faisal, had also called for the authorities “to provide more space for the discussion of identity and religion.” (See here.)
In 2013, the Suara Musyawarah committee, which is tasked to gather feedback from the Malay/Muslim community, said “that many girls coming out of madrasahs would work as nurses if they could wear the headscarf.”
“The reason given for not allowing this is that tudungs are not part of nurses’ uniforms,” the Straits Times reported then.
In his speech in 2015 at the Community Leaders’ Conference organised by OnePeople.sg, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that race and religion remain “difficult and sensitive” issues for any society.
He said while there is room for open discussion, it would be unwise to assume there is no need to be careful when dealing with such matters.
“We discuss things more openly now,” PM Lee said. “Even sensitive matters, we discuss openly in mixed groups and we speak candidly with one another from the heart. But it is very unwise to assume that we do not have to be careful, that we do not have to be sensitive when we are dealing with issues of race and religion.”
When interviewed about the issue in 2016, Mr Masagos was asked whether the government can be more flexible on allowing discussion of identity and religion, including the wearing of the tudung.
The minister said, “We may feel that the time is right for us to discuss it amongst ourselves or with the other races. But it can also easily lead us to open old wounds that can instigate riots, and we do not want this to happen.”
Religious matters, he said, belong in the domain of scholars who “not only possess deep knowledge, but they also practice and impart religion wisely.”
Noting that “some people like to interfere in such matters, especially if they can politicise it”, Mr Masagos added: “This will make a particular issue turn into something more complicated than what it was initially.”
Asked if there are any new developments in the discussion about the issues concerning religion, race or the wearing of the tudung, Mr Masagos replied:
“All matters pertaining to any religion are often discussed in the Cabinet and we do look at ways to lead society to be more open, more accepting. But we are careful in doing this.”
