By looking at the title, I bet you would know that I am here to complicate stuff (again). Bear with my not-so-philosophical journey of seeking, not solutions to problems, not answers to questions, not even an offender for a crime; just some insights for a deep thought: an identity that can at any time be at the risk of getting lost.
One day around a month ago, I was sitting in the lobby of UCL Institute of Education (IoE). I was reading through my essay and making some final amendments before sending it through Turnitin, when a lady who was sitting beside me frankly asked me and another guy who sat at the corner a short but very precise question.
"What is good about being a student here?"
I took my hands off my keyboard, but my eyes weren't off the laptop screen. 'What an ironic question,' I thought to myself. I have a feeling that I did unconsciously gave myself a cynical smile, which I hope none of them would have actually realised. But.... Why did I say so?
I just lost my student card (ID) that morning before I left my flat. I gave up looking for it after I did a thorough search of my bedroom for more than half an hour, and since I was desperate to work on and finish my essay, my ID wasn't my priority at that time. So I was, 'a UCL student without the proof of being a UCL student', at that very moment.
Since the other guy was completely silent, I turned and looked at her. I told her that from my perspective, I love the fact that I have the chance to engage in practical experience, be it about my fieldwork and excavation or even my weekly practicals and tutorials. After answering her question of the degree that I am currently studying, I resumed my work.
Beep, beep, beep. My mind was working fast, thinking through her first question countless times. It has been so embedded in me, hence it is becoming sort of normative, for me to be a UCL student, to be an international student, to be a sponsored student; aka to be someone who has the privilege to further her studies in one of the top universities in the world. After all the hard times I had in uni, how many times have I been grateful for it - for being a student here? I bet it must be way much lesser than the amount of time I have been moaning about work, work and work.
A week ago, in one of my Anthropologies of Islam tutorial sessions, my tutor, Ashraf (Ash), asked me, (we were discussing on the topic of the concept of 'global ummah' among Muslims)
"How would you identify yourself, Hamizah? Would you talk about your nationality or would you identify yourself first as a Muslim?"
'That's a tough one', I thought to myself. As a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf, I can't run away from identifying myself as a Muslim. But if I am to identify myself on the basis of my own preference, I can't help saying that I look at both as equally important. I am a Muslim but I am a Malay, a Malaysian. I am a Malay Muslim. Despite the fact that I don't act like I am a 'perempuan Melayu terakhir', I have always been the person who really values tradition, and of course religion on the equal weight (if that isn't the case well at least I am trying to). But for sure, both have always been hugely influencing my whole life. Despite the individual characteristics that I do possess as a unique human being, both my religion and my culture are profoundly embedded in me, and had shaped the person I am now too. Maybe, I am expressing Islam in the Malay way, can I put it as such? hoho
Anyway, I got a replacement for my ID a week after I lost it. I have got, at least, an evident physical proof of identity. But a mental one...?
When somebody asked me where I am from, or when they were wondering if I am from Indonesia or if I am a Filipino, I can proudly say that I am from Malaysia, a Malaysian at heart! But ever since I studied here I can't recall any moment that I would candidly claim myself as a Muslim in spite of my evident appearance as one, which I would justify by the fact that I did have the fear of society's perception; the case of Islamophobia that might have emerged among people who view extremism and radicalisation as a Muslim problem. And, due to dispositional/behavioral and situational/experiential reasons too, I have always wanted to be a person who stays at neither of the extreme ends. I would prefer to be on the median, as average as possible. Nonetheless, as time flies, I am trying to appreciate my own religion more and more, thanks to my degree, and the openness of people around me, and things that I came across directly or indirectly.
I guess it's better to keep on trying to 'acknowledge' my own identity (to my own self) so that I would really uphold it inside of me, than walking around aimlessly 'feeling the light started to tremble and washing what I know out to sea' (hi OneRepublic hehe), and eventually losing myself at the end of the day.
So I say I would rather walk on the path of the 'recognition in progress', just to love myself a little bit more than I have always been, and to further appreciate the normative virtuous values that I might have failed to notice
...hopefully.... :)
Psssstttt...
Surprisingly, in my last lecture for Anthropologies of Islam which was a week after I have first written this post, Ash quoted an excerpt written by Stuart Hall in his work, 'Cultural Identity and Diaspora', which I found really relevant, at least to my own self,
'Cultural identities are the points of identifications, the unstable points of identification, which are made, within the discourses of history and culture...not an essence but a positioning... hence there is always a politics of identity, a politics of position, which has no absolute guarantee in an unproblematic, transcendental law of origin (1993:395).'
Sometimes..it's hard to look for our own identity too:(:(
ReplyDeleteWe're always evolving, remember? Getting to know ourselves is always part of the growing process...hope we're able to appreciate ourselves more while looking for our own identity :)
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