Poet unlocks a puzzle -
AWARD-winning South African poet Gabeba Baderoon’s first book Regarding Muslims — From Slavery to Post Apartheid, tells an interesting story of Malays.
Born in Port Elizabeth and raised in Cape Town, Baderoon said that, considering the state of the world today, she agrees with anti-apartheid activist and scholar Moulana Farid Esack, who said Muslims in South Africa are the most fortunate in the world.
Regarding Muslims reveals South Africa’s complex relationship with its Muslim communities from the period of slavery to the present day. Baderoon argues that the 350-year archive of images of Muslims is central to understanding the formation of our concepts of race, sexuality and belonging.
“This is explored by looking at a uniquely South African archive — from curse words to hertzoggie biscuits to newspapers to paintings to contemporary fiction and poetry by Rustum Kozain, Shaida Kazie Ali and Malika Ndlovu, among others.
“The book addresses a puzzle: how can we understand the plethora of certain kinds of images of Muslims — visually appealing and often picturesque, indicating a familiarity and long history — and yet also the easy recourse to an anachronistic international discourse about Islam during moments of crisis?” she said.
The book contrasts the themes of extremism and alienation that dominate western portrayals of Muslims. Regarding
Muslims, Baderoon said, argues that the South African experience of being a secular democratic state with a diverse, visible and engaged Muslim minority holds important lessons for the rest of the world.
“It took me a while to recognise I was surrounded by a kind of puzzle hidden in plain sight: why do we pay so little attention to our slave past when our popular culture is filled with images of placid and appealing ‘Malays’ that recall this period?
“I was prompted by the images of Muslims that appeared in the front pages of newspapers with the Pagad events in 1996 — as violent and alienated — and
The book examines larger questions of how to understand our history
decided to explore the history that might explain this trajectory from the placid to the unsettling. The wealth of brilliant writing and visual art on Muslim life since 1994 has also been an inspiration.”
Baderoon has a doctorate in English from the University of Cape Town, and teaches women’s studies and African and African American studies at Pennsylvania State University in the US.
She said the way in which Islam is practised by descendants of enslaved people has been profoundly affected by slavery.
The resonances of the word “Malay” (meaning Muslim) was evident from practices related to food, hospitality and prayer, to the meanings invested in the landscape — since the period of slavery Malays have been holding prayer meetings at the burial places of prominent leaders.
“The book is careful not to abstract Muslims from their deeply embedded place in South Africa and refuses to create a picture of separate and exoticised outsiders.
“Instead, it examines larger questions of how to understand our national history and why slavery has come to be so underplayed in our conception of our past.
“It does so by exploring the portrayal of Muslims through a range of texts, from postcards to cookbooks, and ends with the complex vision of Islam conveyed by artists and writers in the post-apartheid period.”
Baderoon, who sees herself as South African, moved to the US in 2003 after she married— but dreams of returning home one day.