Arguably, our community appears to always be grappling with the issue of how and where to put thing in its proper place. This absence of wisdom, which is indeed difficult to achieve without proper and true knowledge, yields injustice which consequently is manifest in almost every single dimension of our social, political, cultural and even religious life. This phenomenon is happening at almost every level of our society, from the highest to the lowest. We have been witnessing, time and again, that recognition and acknowledgement in return for ‘good deeds’ have been accorded to the ‘wrong’ people. The justification has been that-they have contributed immensely to the betterment of the society, bringing honour to the nation, have purportedly changed the way people perceive us, and have made the country proud of their achievements. So this land and its people are obliged to ‘reciprocate’ in kind.
Of course, we must not deny their contributions and sacrifice. Imagine those who scaled the world’s highest peak, navigated the freezing North Pole, or sailed around the globe, each with limited tools under extreme conditions. Turn to those who with every drop of sweat, tears and blood have excelled in competitive sport events. Look at the performers in the entertainment industry and those who are enthusiastically trying to break into showbusiness. All these risk takers know that at the end of the day, some lucky successful contender among them will be rewarded profusely. It’s true that they have contributed in making the society happier; that they have made Malaysia better known to the world. But we must also be concerned that such recognition is disproportionately excessive, marginalizing a ‘more essential segment of the community.’ Obviously, recognition of the aforementioned nature has been granted more for achievements in sport and entertainment. Thus the highest accolades have always been given to sportsmen/women, artists, actors, actresses, and singers. The lavish monetary and material rewards are unbelievable. The enormous coverage by the media fraternity has turned them into ‘stars’ and ‘idols’ almost overnight, setting them up as public figures and ‘role models.’ As promotion continues at full throttle from all fronts, the society becomes more well acquainted with the names of these celebrities, subtly appealing to them and suddenly they idolize these people and place them dear to their hearts, not realizing its detrimental impact on society’s younger generations.
Judging from the degree of seriousness and incessant efforts taken by various parties to promote entertainment shows, and to hail their “high achievers,” it is safe to say that we appear to be nurturing a culture of hedonism, a belief in pleasure as the highest good and mankind’s proper and most important aim in life. Just look around us. We have been bombarded, through electronic and printing media, with hundreds of TV programmes and countless entertainment publications, not to mention other various means via ICT advancement. In addition to that, from time to time, big leisure events are being organized by able commercial companies whose main target is to multiply profits. As a result, the mind and soul of the community are narrowly focused on this variety of enjoyable stuff almost to the point of obsession.
What is more saddening, in this domain of entertainment, its promoters are trying to give more credentials to such amusement activities by ‘adopting’ some academic terms and practices. For example, they are now using the term ‘journal’, which is normally used for periodicals of learned contributions in the academic world, to depict daily activities of a bunch of novices in a learning music programme. On many different occasions, they reward the high performers on the so-called stage of fame by holding a sort of graduation day resembling that of an academic convocation normally held as auspicious ceremonies at universities, as if all those raw singers obtained something really meaningful for their intellectual or spiritual enhancement. In reality, the only thing they would have acquired are information and skills, not knowledge in the real sense of the word. All these do not augur well with justice. In fact they basically reflect injustice, i.e., putting things in places they do not belong. These examples may be regarded as attempts to bring knowledge into disrepute.
Contrary to all the attention directed at those artists, look at the ‘fate’ of our scholars, intellectuals, and thinkers. A number of authoritative and charismatic people have always been sidelined. How many of us know Pendeta Za’ba, Prof. Ahmad Ibrahim, Prof Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, etc? If we look into the annals of our history and unveil its treasures, perhaps many would consider luminaries like Hamzah Fansuri, Nuruddin Raniri, Yusuf Singkel, as aliens from the outer space-never heard their names! Yet, these are the people who contributed more dynamically and meaningfully to the people. In fact, they are the ones who gave us our identity today through their untiring missionary and scholarly works. These scholars, old and new, are the ones who teach the ignorant and guiding them. They are the real ‘stars,’ ‘idols,’ and ‘role models’ of our life, they are the ‘more essential segment of the community,’ not those fakes like sportsmen or artists who are, generally speaking, not well informed in reference to knowledge. Stars in previous civilizations have been greatly useful as guides for travelers on land and sailors navigating by sea. Those stars kept people on the right path in order that they reach their destination without going astray. The duty of guiding and leading may only be done by those with authoritative knowledge, and not vice versa. That is why the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) says that his companions are like stars, whose knowledge and upright character later generations should emulate and seek guidance from.
But what kind of recognition and acknowledgement are being afforded and accorded to our contemporary scholars? Recognition and appreciation to these men of letters, are hardly supported by the ruling authorities, corporate leaders, let alone the general masses. The most we can mention perhaps are the various academic Chairs established by our public universities, the Tokoh Maal Hijrah and the National Laureate awards. Sadly, among those who were entrusted with power, for reasons only known best to them, abolished and destroyed the Distinguished al-Ghazali Chair established at one of Malaysia foremost tertiary institutions years ago. And in contrast to all sorts of promotions and publicity extended to sportsmen and artists, what kind of recognition is given to the recipients of the Tokoh Maal Hijrah award, for example? Their ideas and thoughts have never been properly studied, analyzed and disseminated to the public to enhance an understanding of certain things, to bring mankind to the new heights of progress and development. The media players must think of this more seriously in future.
Despite all the claims that we are an educated, civilized and some even claim that they have tremendous passion for knowledge, there are those who do things detrimental to knowledge itself. Whatever it is, it reflects that justice in terms of knowledge as far as our society is concerned is still very much non existent. The persisting problem for the society is the problem of knowledge. Ignorance and confusion, even on fundamental matters, is astonishing.
It is apparent that our community pays extravagant attention to amusement and leisure. Most people, especially the youth, adour and idolize entertainment figures. In the process, they expose themselves to possible moral problems. If they grow up in this environment unchecked, gradually they will lose a genuine interest for knowledge and respect for scholars. Instead of receiving guidance from the rightful ulama’, they will go to the false ulama’. This will lead to dire consequences. Since it is still not to late to rectify the situation, let us ponder on a saying by Edmund Burke, an 18th century British statesman and political philosopher: “The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is to have good men [and women] doing nothing.” Adolf Hitler came to terrorize the world assisted by the silence of intellectuals who could have spoken out, but did not, or prevented from doing so.