Nidah Kirani and Me

This post is not really intended to be a sort of book review since it’s more like a reflection upon my own life and choices, in which somehow I find similarity with those of the character of the book I’m about to discuss. So, it’s written from a viewpoint of a person whose life story resembles in some way with the character.

Nidah Kirani is the character of the once (and still) controversial Tuhan Izinkan Aku Menjadi Pelacur: Memoar Luka Seorang Muslimah, meaning “God, let me be a whore: a muslimah’s memoir of agony,” written by an Indonesian author Muhidin M. Dahlan. Since it was first published, the book has been a wide controversy particularly among Indonesian Muslim activists. And even by reading the very title, the reason for the controversy can be easily guessed; the idea of divinity meets the idea of depravity in a way that the latter is deliberately chosen to clash with the previous. No wonder, as far as I know, the author is often verbally assaulted and even accused of being infidel for the book.

Nidah’s preliminary touch with Islamic movement starts when she studies in a university. There’s a kind of chastity and naiveté in her character that somehow easily plunges her into the idea of pursuing benevolence suggested by muslim activists in her campus. She changes her habit that she’s now an obedient girl who’s struggling to obey God’s rule and avoid what He (I always find difficulty to find the suitable pronoun for God. I mean, ‘He’? Forgive my brutal curiosity, but is God masculine? God, are You? ^^) prohibits as the proof of her total devotion towards Him. She industriously follows the morning religion lecture in a mosque and commits on the practice of Islam. She finds peace as she’s now feeling that she’s on the right path.

Later on, some people introduce her into the idea of being united in a group to gain the victory of Islam, or in that case to form the Islamic Nation. Islam is the truth, that people have to follow it, and the idea of Islamic nation just seems make sense. The idea just enthralls her that she follows what she’s told vigorously. It even makes her change her appearance drastically from a girl wearing ordinary medium-sized headscarf into the large dark-colored hijab that makes people stare at her. But she’s steadfast and therefore ignores them. From this point on, she even gets much much more vigorous to improve her piety: she often does fasting and praying and leads a modest life.

Basically, she tends to be critical by asking questions on the things she disagrees or things she's simply curious about: why she's not allowed to know the entire members of the group and that many things are kept as a secret by the upper-level structure. But sometimes she represses and is even made to repress them with the thought that stating dissenting opinions just shows that she’s not loyal. Then, weird things in the group seem to always bother her, as the fact that they don't vigorously do pious things as she does, or that they seem to lack the knowledge of why they join the group. They're just persuaded with the idea of 'dakwah,' 'jihad,' and Islamic nation without really knowing why or how. She’s gradually disappointed with their behavior that doesn’t represent a Muslim activist’s proper spirituality but she's still encouraging herself with the thought that she has to hold on as the proof of her faithfulness.

Until one day, she has to come face to face with the fact that she’s left behind and that the whole things are just fake. She’s being chased by police because they suspect her of being involved in a group that’s likely to endanger the national integration. But the Islamic group she expects would help her doesn’t even seem to care. She’s still trying to hold on, but finally all her disappointment culminate that altogether with several friends, she decides to escape from the post, a very dangerous action to do ever since she once heard that those who betray the group will have to be death-sentenced.

She runs and hides with heart full of terror. Her faith starts declining. She’s Eve being thrown away from the peaceful heaven into the dry, scorching desert that doesn’t provide her any protection and even gives her unquenchable thirst and painful loneliness. She starts protesting God why she has to suffer all of these after all she’s done. She’s hiding in a rent room, avoiding contact with as much people. No more praying, no more closeness to God, only the emptiness and absurd feeling remain. She even tries drugs a friend offers her and lives a street life. After the decline, her fate just gets miserable. Under great depression, a man she thinks can be her friend takes advantage of her, abuses her, and just leaves her behind. After this one man, come the next several men who do the same thing, men living in hypocrisy and treat women as mere object to satisfy their needs. She’s finally involved in free sex she does deliberately as her protest towards God who seems to have left her after all the devotion she’s done. She chooses the darkness way as a prostitute as her protest towards both God and men.

After reading the summary above, it’s easy to see why the book invites protest from a great number of audiences. They say this book is a subtle persuasion of liberalism, even Marxism and provokes the discredit towards Islamic groups. It just simplifies the matter, I think. I myself tend to regard it as a reflection that one’s struggle towards her existence mostly takes her to the most bitter and painful experience. It’s also a lesson that following something as taken for granted without consciousness is likely to get yourself drowned and lost among purposeless mass. They persuade you with those grand ideas but repress your questions because they might endanger the establishment. In the end, it's absurd. People gather in a group, say a political affiliation or a jamaah, but without proper reasoning. I'm not saying that it's wrong to be a part of such a group. It's just that when truth is forced upon you (subtly or obviously) without any proper intellectual process and it's final, and then your presence is just taken advantage of for, say a political interest, what's the sense of it all? Didn’t Kierkegaard say, “It’s only after the individual acquired an ethical outlook that there can be any suggestion of really joining together. Otherwise, the association of individuals who are themselves weak is just as disgusting and harmful as the marriage of children.”

As I’ve mentioned, this writing is a reflection on my own life as Nidah is so much reminiscent of myself. In my struggle to seek the sense of my being (to be ‘authentic,’ a fellow loner^^ said), I was once one of those who believed that the way towards benevolence was obedience. I had my own way of bargaining my position in the group when I disagreed, of course, but eventually I gave in to the friendship bond and particularly the way people seemed to stereotype girls clad in hijab like me. Moreover, political interest was always in the air when you’re involved in the campus activism. I realized I should break such an assumption and made them see me as an individual, but instead of walking bravely in such a choice, I hid myself behind the ‘security’ of being a part of a group. I conformed and just followed what I was told. My story is not as much pain and wound as Nidah’s. I admit I once came to such a depression and just felt like I was left behind in a total loneliness. I felt purposeless. I felt my devotion was absurd because I was there among those people (I’m still regarding as very good friends) but I just didn’t know why and if it was the truth. The whole interpretation on Islam that just seemed final and not fluid always made me question. The way I had to see people in a dichotomy of Muslim-infidel, insider-outsider, pious-scoundrel was just so tiring. And I just followed obediently all instructed to me, as many people around me.

But I tried to break free and took the cost. Maybe I'm just luckier than Nidah. When I came to a despair culmination, I quickly made a leap to a different perspective in seeing the sense of my being and my relationship with the divine power. Maybe I just used to see God, as I had always been told, as the outer distant subject who puts rules, reward, and punishment and that I just have to be obedient towards Him; a kind of confrontational religiosity (confrontation-interiority, typology proposed by Berger in ‘The Other Side of God’). Then I made a leap and started to believe that He’s just much closer than my own mind and soul. He’s the Beneficent, the One who loves, so I love. I love my life with all the pain and sorrow and loneliness. I love those who are different, those who don’t treat me well. So, here I am, in a state I know never final but I’m grateful about. I’m glad with my encounter with the Maiyah Sufism gathering that just affirms me. I’m glad for all good people who give me support and appreciate me the way I am.

It’s not that the author was once a mentor in a writing community I used to join that I don’t give negative comments on the book (though as a matter of fact I’ve only met him once^^). But maybe it’s because the book is valuable in the way it makes you reflect on your own life.