I know this post might come across as insensitive at this point of time, when many classes from my batch have just received our (fairly abysmal) SS papers.

Or maybe you, like me, are sick of reading about the Tudung Issue. But these few pieces by Alfian Sa'at (yes, THE Alfian Sa'at, writer and playwright extraordinaire) are brilliant. They were taken from his blog, go read!

In the order they were posted:

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4:00 am - the bridge (excerpt)

No Muslims, and the followers of any other religion, are denied anything but the fullest scope to practise their faiths. … This is the only way for multi-cultural Singapore. The tudung and any other forms of religious adornment worn by Muslims anywhere, anytime, are nobody's business but theirs—except for schools…

Straits Times Editorial, 5 February 2002

Whenever Maslina was late, she would walk out of the toilet dripping wet, clutching a towel that was wrapped around her body. This was her way of telling me that she did not even have the time to dry herself. I watched as she took long, brisk strides to her bedroom, on tiptoe, to avoid leaving footprints of water on the floor.

“Are you late?” I asked. “Don’t run. You’ll slip.”

“I’m supposed to be at the interview at eleven. It’s ten thirty already!”

“I’ve ironed your clothes for you. Later I’ll give you money for a taxi.”

Maslina went into my bedroom, her face scowling, her hair soaked in clumps. I had prepared a white long-sleeved shirt for her, and black slacks. This was one of her two interview outfits. The other was a light green baju kurung. And then I heard her voice, suddenly rising, agitated.

“Mak, what about my tudung?”

“Your tudung?”

A sharp sigh from her. “You didn’t iron it?”

She didn’t wait for my answer, and stormed into her bedroom. I followed her and watched as she pulled scarves of various colours from her drawer and flung them behind her. It looked like a magic show that had gone very wrong.

“You don’t have to throw your tudung all over like this.” I bent over and started picking them up.

“Leave them. I’ll clear them when I come back.”

“Why must you lose your temper like this? What good does it do?”

“Mak, I have no time. Do you understand? I just asked you to help me, and you do this to me.”

“What did I do?”

Maslina had found a black tudung. She rushed back to my bedroom and switched on the iron. She had to wait for it to heat up. If she were ironing, she could have found a way for her temper to find its voice, through the hiss of the iron, its clank on the steel plate. That was usually the way she spoke to me when she was angry, always absorbed in a task that would prevent her from facing me. We were a family that could never look at one another in the eyes and raise our voices at the same time.

The iron clicked. Its orange indicator was an amber light that had broken her momentum. Maslina sighed. She looked at me, and her face had softened slightly, from frustration to self-pity.

“Mak. You know I always wear my tudung for interviews. What are you trying to do?”

“But your hair is so wet. You shouldn’t wear the tudung when your hair’s not completely dry yet. It’s not good for your hair.”

“It’s my hair, Mak. I can do whatever I want with it.” She had begun to spread the black tudung on the ironing board.

“You’re late,” I said. “Why don’t you just try not wearing it for today?”

“What?”

“Mas, you’ve been looking for a job for the past three months. All your friends have found jobs. You keep going for interviews and I see you getting so excited whenever your phone rings. You’re a graduate, Mas. Why is this happening? I don’t like to see you like this. I feel so sorry for you, but I can’t do anything.

“So you think my tudung is the problem?”

“Why don’t you just try not wearing it? For today.”

“Mak, you don’t put it on and take it off whenever it suits you.”

“Once you get the job, you can start wearing it again.”

“If they want me, it’s because I can do the job.”

“You show me all these advertisements where they’re asking for Chinese, Chinese, Chinese. We’re not living in Malaysia anymore.”

Mas went silent. And then she spoke, softly, although the edge in her voice was unmistakable.

“That’s not my fault, Mak.”

I watched as Maslina folded her scarf into half until it had become a triangle. She put on a dark blue skull-cap and draped the tudung over her head. She then fastened it with a silver brooch. It was something she had done countless times, but today she was staging it just for me.

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2:53 am - tudung interviews (5)

"4 still wearing tudung as deadline approaches: The Primary 1 girls face suspension if they don't stop wearing it to school by Friday; principals still trying to convince parents"

ST, Jan 30, 2002

Tudung Interview (5)

I had already bought
The standard blouse and skirt
For my daughter.

I told my husband it wasn’t
Plan B, but a sample,
For cross matching.
If we’re making this new set for her
We’d better make sure
We got the exact shade.

So I hunted for cloth in Arab Street,
Picked out
A dark cotton blue.
Made a skirt out of it,
Just longer than usual.

Until the very last moment
I waited for my husband
To change his mind,
The real school uniform
Holding its breath
In the cupboard.

My daughter never got round
To wearing it.
I think of it sometimes
Hanging in the dark
Like a kind of afterbirth
The unformed, stillborn twin
A ghost

Sucking on mothballs
As if they were sweets.

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5:44 am - tudung interviews (6)

Tudung Interview (6)

This kind of thing, so hard to say.
I want to say also, later they will ask
Who are you, what you know about
Other people’s belief? So this kind of thing
Like my father say, is better don’t say.

Not say not my business. Not say
I just look away, pretend don’t know,
Other people’s problem is not
My problem. The newspaper already
Say, in school you cannot stand out,

Because this kind of thing is called
Common space, correct or not?
Everyone wear the same, look
The same, so people treat you the same.
Chinese, Malay, Indian, no problem.

Not say cannot wear. You want
To wear can go to the religious school,
Still got this option, correct? Or else
You can go Malaysia, I never say
Go back, not like people over there

Always say to the Chinese, if you don’t like
The system here, you can go back to China.
In Malaysia, it’s your people everywhere.
Your sense is common sense, your space
Is common space. But don't say I say.

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6:16 am - tudung interviews (1)

Tudung Interview (1)

How can they say I have
Imposed my will
On my child?

There is only God’s will
And we who are the willing.

They say the girl
Is too young
To think for herself,
That she is a pawn
In her father’s hands,

As he himself is a pawn
In the hands of others—
To corner the king
On a board
Of black and white squares.

But He above sees more
Than two colours
Infinite the spectrum of His moves

Of which we understand
Only mercy and wrath.

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...Told you. He's awesome. And he was a CAP participant twice! I wish he'd gone for CAP last year, though. I was hoping we'd get to hear him speak :(