 |
Muslims in South Africa are among the most fortunate in the world |
I have returned home from the US to enjoy the fast or pwasa with my family in Cape Town. This is a particularly blessed month for my family as my sister has just had her second baby, al-hamdu lillah (All praise be to Allah). Although we all take turns to cook, my family enjoys the meals made by my brother the most; he not only produces superb versions of the traditional cuisine of the Western Cape, but also Middle Eastern and Asian dishes for the buka (iftar) meals.
The fast is a time to relish home-cooked food, and, since the pwasa is a time of heightened importance of family, it is also a time to be invited to enjoy favourite dishes at the homes of the extended family and friends. There is much visiting and giving of gifts of food during the month of abstinence. The gifted cooks in Muslim families demonstrate their refined skills during this month and share this bounty with neighbours, both Muslim and Christian. Every day is concluded with a buka meal which often resembles a small feast.
Having returned to Cape Town from the US, two things struck me soon after my arrival: While in the US I said to a friend in New York City that I could feel I was not in South Africa because of the absence of Raymond Ackerman. Raymond Ackerman is the founder of Pick’ n Pay, a supermarket chain in South Africa whose branches and advertisements in Cape Town newspapers have for weeks had prominent signs wishing their Muslim customers a blessed Ramadan. This is also the case with other large food stores like Checkers and Woolworth stores. While in South Africa, Muslims constitute only 1.3 percent of the total population of the country, they are a visible and respected minority. This has been particularly evident since the fall of apartheid in 1994. In the US, I missed such acknowledgements of the commencement of the fast at this everyday level.
The other matter that caught my eye were the signs in restaurants in the large shopping malls that proclaimed their halal (permitted by Allah) status, and invited their Muslim customers to break the fast with offerings of dates, water, and fallooda, a milk and rose syrup drink popular in the Cape. A few years ago this would have been unthinkable, both because non-Muslim restaurants would not have demonstrated such sensitivity, and because, until recently, few Muslims broke their fast outside of their homes unless they were visiting family or friends.
Ramadan: Focusing on Islam and Muslims
I have noted the appearance on television of a program that caters specifically to Muslims by focusing on Islam during the last two weeks of the fast. The program starts at 4am, when Muslims are awake for the sahur (meal before fasting).
Newspapers and general-interest magazines publish articles on Muslim life and the nuances of Muslim women’s feelings about wearing a scarf. Muslim-owned newspapers such as Muslim Views and Al-Qalam provide smaller forums of news and debate.
The complexity of its place in a modern African democracy means that the Muslim community is reflected not only in traditional activities of charity, especially during Ramadan and at Labarang (`Eid), but also in addressing sensitive but urgent matters of health, education, and compassion in the face of HIV/Aids through groups such as Positive Muslims.
The Muslim radio stations Radio 786 and Voice of the Cape, with their impressive audience figures, have a significant impact on the Muslim community and also, increasingly, carry weight in representing debates within this community to other South Africans. The stations deliver community-oriented programming, and their Ramadan broadcasts include medical personnel addressing questions of health while fasting.
The Most Fortunate Minority
Such signals of the presence and acceptance of Muslim practices and traditions in the commercial life of Cape Town reflect the broader integration of Islam into the fabric of ordinary life. Many people wearing scarves and kufiyyas are in evidence in the streets and shops of the city. Maulana Farid Esack, the renowned anti-apartheid activist, asserts that in their freedom to practise their religion, Muslims in South Africa are among the most fortunate in the world. “Nowhere in the world are Muslims freer than in South Africa” concludes the Maulana.
Such freedom has been hard-fought and comes with deep responsibilities. Maulana Esack urges Muslims to resist a rigid and static view of “community” and “tradition,” pointing out that in the past, many Muslim activists who fought apartheid did so without the support of “traditional” sectors of the community.
There is a need to be responsive, creative, and sometimes critical of ourselves. Artists reflect the varied South African Muslims’ responses to their location, including the late Tatamkhulu Afrika, whose memoirs and poetry conveyed the faith, conviction, pain, and activism of a long life. The playwrights Malika Ndlovu and Nadia Davids in their work on Muslim women, and the poets Shabbir Banoobhai—who writes a new cycle of poems every Ramadan—and Rustum Kozain, whose award-winning poetry has exquisitely portrayed Cape Town and a complex view of Islam, are notable figures on the South African cultural map. Such writers uniquely convey South African visions of Muslim life that do not veer away from its pain, controversies, and responsibilities.
Reflecting on these perspectives of Ramadan in the Cape, from the kitchen door I hear the Adhan (call to Prayer) from two mosques, signalling the end of the fast for the day and echoed when I turn on the radio: I know that I am home.
|
