Nusantara

Arrival in Kuala Lumpur’s airport. The acrid smog bound concretium still supports Frangi Pangi trees but it cannot be for long: fires lit by the property developers to clear the land for monoculture palm oil production beyond the Klang Valley are the given reason. Breathing is difficult. Asthma prevalent. Temperatures increasing. Rain decreasing. Riba, usury, is the real cause as it devours the hearts and lands of Nusantara. Agricultural profit must be exponential to offset the land-development loans. Youths in shorts and t-shirts followed by their wives in black bags and eye slits. Crowds of Umra travellers. In Malaysia there is a waiting time of up to 12 years to go on Hajj: deposits are made into the bank, accrue to the desired amount and then hey presto the door opens. There is of course a fast-track version for an exorbitant sum which effectively overcomes the state-bank monopoly.
The Jawi Malay written in the modified Arabic script outlawed by the British colonialists is being cautiously revived.
Then Singapore. Prohibitions rule in this fine-city: the streets are free of litter; the marble floors of the financial institutions and the pavements outside are free of chewing gum; spitting too is taboo. A sandwich board at the corner of the Muslim Heritage Quarter warns in spontaneous chalked writing of the theft of a bicycle in the area; the mega-crimes of the down-town economics hub go largely unnoticed. Enforced racial quotas ensure the housing blocks have an integrated population. Tamils, Indians, Chinese, Malay are bound in harmony by a state-taught English as their first tongue, with the mother tongue a quaint second. By tacit convention no Muslims are permitted in the air-force or navy. The first leader of this very new state saw parallels to the other very new state in the middle east, surrounded as it was by Muslim territories.
The Marina Bay Sands casino is only open to the natives on payment of a hefty supplement. To protect them from throwing themselves of the landscaped rooftop when they lose? The Chinese through trade have long since taken over this city-state, just as they have taken over Indonesia, Malaysia and many other territories of Nusantara. The Chinese Muslims of Singapore were impressed by the BBC report of the sending in of the black-hooded American-led strike force to airlift the 34 tons of Ukranian gold to Fort Knox – no bank notes for them! and hacking the central banks’ computers for computerized would not have yielded anything but electronic impulses.
Nuh Habib, the Wali around whose tomb the central highway was diverted, brought baraka by his words to the people and places he encountered. If he entered the market place, trade increased.
On to Indonesia, to Yogyakarta. During a talk at the Angkatan Madrassa in the village of Kaliurang in the foothills of the Merapi volcano the fitya-tulaab were more attentive than the Muhammadiyah University students at the conference the next day on Trade and Gold. The latter were too sophisticated for simple listening and had their smart phones to deal with in the lecture theatre.
The Malioboro mall owned jointly by the Sultan of Jogjakarta and a Chinese partner houses a darkling wood and concrete shack the width of three car-spaces in the underground car park. A reminder of the Mawlana Muhammad Ali mosque – whose founder had brought Islam to Singapore – which stood in the way of a proposed banking high rise: the land was bought by the bank and the mosque moved underground. Above, the shops and coffee houses peopled by the young credit card generation, the girls with stylishly imposing full head scarves above and tight-fitting crotch-revealing leggings beneath.
The nearby Borobudur buddhist temple complex is an important element in the establishing of Buddhism as the global religion of choice, as an appendage to capitalism which shall not cause it trouble, a passive condemnation of the arms trade without stopping its activity. Unesco is pouring huge funds into it. The prime minister came with hundreds of outriders to inaugurate a new tourist project, the quickest way to ensure the introduction of premium-quality kufr.
The adhan is still to be heard everywhere. The paper money is full of zeros: 100,000 rupiah buy a couple of coffees and a cake. Not so long ago one rupiah bought three kilos of rice. And after Suharto and the introduction of democracy, the Chinese are now close to ruling Indonesia democratically rather than by means of their de facto trading stranglehold.