Documentary film emphasizes benevolence of Islam

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

In the wake of the terrorist attack on the twin towers on Sept. 11, blamed on a small number of jihadists, Muslims around the world suddenly took on the new duty of explaining to the world that Islam is a benevolent religion.

When the tenets of Islam were hijacked to meet the violent objectives of a small cabal, it was left to the larger community of peace-loving Muslims to preach to the world -- the suspecting Western world in particular -- that followers of Islam were not individuals bent on destroying the West.

Among the latest offerings in a campaign to teach the West about the benevolent nature of Islam is Muslims in Southeast Asia, a documentary film about how Islam has been lived for generations by millions of people in the "periphery" of the Muslim world that is Southeast Asia.

The documentary travels across Southeast Asian countries, from Muslim enclaves in Pattani in the southern part of Thailand to Mindanao in the southern Philippines, seeking out the true nature of Islam by interviewing figures that range from influential Muslim figures such as former minister and currently member of the Thai parliament Surin Pitsuwan to an unknown female cab driver in Singapore.

It travels deep into the heart Southeast Asia to find places where Muslims are peace-loving, economically-empowered, tolerant and respectful of women.

The film, which was given a limited screening earlier last week, starts its journey with how pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) and mosques, instead of becoming the training ground for jihadist terrorists, provide comfort and a spiritual home for most Muslims.

A young Singaporean boy, Mohammad Izuddeen, interviewed in the documentary, says delightfully that not a day in his life passes without his reading the Koran as it has formed an inalienable part of his childhood life, the way playing games and going to school have, too.

From that point, the film progresses by visiting exotic places with picturesque scenes of towering minarets -- and veiled women walking past a group of supposedly non-Muslims.

In between the travel, clips of interviews with influential Muslim figures are inserted on Islam's predilection for peace and tolerance. Among figures interviewed are Pitsuwan, Brig. Gen. Ben Dolorfino, a high-ranking military officer in Mindanao, and Azyumardi Azra of the Jakarta-based State Islamic University, on Islam's predilection for peace and tolerance.

One of the most memorable scenes from the film, a clip of an interview with a Singaporean woman cab driver, was conceived with a single objective of showing that men and women stand on equal terms in a Muslim community.

The film also delves at length into the role that has been played by Indonesia's largest and second-largest Muslim organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, to propagate tolerance.

Scriptwriter Yuli Ismartono told The Jakarta Post that the film took six months to complete and would soon hit the small screen in some Southeast Asian countries.

She said that there was possibility of airing the film on Malaysia's TV3, Manila's ABS-CBN and Bangkok's MCOT TV. The film producer struck a deal with local news channel Metro TV for broadcasting during the Idul Fitri holiday on Nov. 3 and Nov. 4.

Copies of the film will soon be dispatched to the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute, the United States-Indonesia Society (USINDO) and a number of institutions in Australia.

"With this film, we hope that the rest of the world will not adopt a mistaken perception about Islam in Indonesia and Southeast Asia as it is rooted in an indigenous tradition different to that from the Middle East," Yuli said.

For Yuli, a senior journalist with Tempo newsweekly, Muslims in Southeast Asia marks her first foray into documentary filmmaking.

Asia and Southeast Asia in particular, however, is familiar territory for her: As a correspondent for Tempo, she has covered wars in Cambodia and Srilanka, drugs in the Golden Triangle, the student uprising in Myanmar and the Soviet exit from Afghanistan.