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Some Research Notes on Living Conditions and Perceptions Among Indonesian Students in Cairo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Mona Abaza
Mona Abaza
Affiliation:
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
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Extract

In recent years, North-South patterns of domination and neo-colonialism have occupied the field of social studies. One can argue that theories of modernization such as Lerner's The Passing of Traditional Society bear a certain similarity with dependency theories. Although these later writers formed their theories as a critique of modernizing theories, both perspectives are similar in that they analyze “traditional” or underdeveloped societies from a North-South point of view. Thus, if modernizing theories were criticized by neo-Marxists and Marxists alike as “ethnocentric” because they ignored non-Western types of development and praised Western history as an ideal type and a global model, in the discourse of dependency theories, the North was more than ever present in shaping and influencing the underdevelopment of the South. The impoverishment of the South was analyzed as a direct result of the enrichment of the industrialized North. Although diametrically opposite in ideological aims, these two theoretical perspectives share a common denominator in that they accept the predominance of Western culture and analyze the reaction of the Third World in relation to it. In other words, they both implied that all dynamics originate, and move mainly from the North. This paper will attempt to take a different perspective by looking into the different patterns of exchange on the South-South axis. In analyzing a particular set of networks and cultural exchange which was established through religious scholarship, this paper attempts to follow up Roffs study on “Indonesian and Malay Students in Cairo in the 1920s”. It will shed some light on the significance of al-Azhar in particular, and Cairo in general, as a centre of religious learning which attracts until today students from all over the Muslim world.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , September 1991 , pp. 347 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1991

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References

1 The field work for this study was undertaken during the period of March-September 1988, and April 1989 in Cairo. Narrative interviews have been conducted among 40 Indonesian students in Cairo. I have also conducted interviews among employees of the Indonesian Embassy in Cairo and old Indonesian Azharites. During the period of February-March 1989, interviews with Indonesian Muslim scholars and al-Azhar alumni were undertaken in Jakarta and Jogjakarta. I am thankful to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for the award of a research grant for two years and to Professor Hans-Dieter Evers for valuable suggestions. My gratitude goes to Dr. Sharon Siddique from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore for many valuable comments and extensive reading of an earlier draft on Indonesian students in Cairo. I would also like to thank the anonymous reader of this article for the valuable comments.

2 Lerner, Daniel, The Passing of Traditional Society (New York: Free Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

3 See Amin, S., Imperialism and Unequal Development (England: Harvester Press, 1977)Google Scholar, Furtado, C., Development and Underdevelopment (USA, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971)Google Scholar, Frank, A.G., Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

4 See Turner, Bryan S., Weber and Islam (London: Routledge Paul and Kegan Paul, 1974), p. 161Google ScholarPubMed.

5 Roff, W.R., “Indonesian and Malay Students in Cairo in the 1920s”, Indonesia, no. 9 (1970): 73–87Google Scholar.

6 For more details see my “Cultural Exchange and Muslim Education: Indonesian Students in Cairo” (Ph.D. diss., University of Bielefeld, Germany, 1990)Google Scholar.

7 Kedutaan Besar Republik Indonesia, 1 April 1987 (Indonesian Embassy in Cairo, 1 April 1987).

8 al-Azhar al-Sharif, Majma' al-Buhuth al-Islamiyya, Tarikhuhu wa tattawuruhu (The Council of Islamic Research of al-Azhar, its history and evolution) [Cairo: Wizarat al-awqaf wa shu'un al-Azhar, The Ministry of Awqaf (Endowments) and al-Azhar Affairs, 1983], pp. 131–33Google Scholar.

9 For instance, the foundation of the ministry of religious affairs in Indonesia saw the light under the hand of returning Azharites. The returning Middle East graduates seemed to occupy teaching functions in many Islamic universities, and pesantrens in Indonesia.

10 Raymond, André, Les Grandes Villes Arabes à L'Epoque Ottomane (Paris: Sinbad, 1985), p. 80Google Scholar.

11 al-Azhar tarikhuhu wa tatawuruhu (The al-Azhar, its History and Evolution) (Cairo: The Ministry of Awqaf and Azhar Affairs, 1964), p. 179Google Scholar.

12 Al-Shinnawi, Abdel Aziz Moh., al-Azhar jami'an wa jami'a (al-Azhar Mosque and University) (Cairo: Maktabat al-Anglo al-Misriyyah, 1983), p. 242Google Scholar.

13 Kampung in Bahasa Indonesia means village. It also means area or quarter.

14 Egypt has been facing in the last 15 years an acute crisis of housing. The prices of flats have reached astronomical numbers, and they are becoming practically impossible for the middle class to afford. There exists a double system of renting flats in Egypt, empty ones which require high sums for just using the flat, or furnished flats with high monthly rents.

15 In 1961, the Nasser regime issued a law which led to the secularization of al-Azhar and the introduction of secular faculties. The Azhar was normalized vis-à-vis the national system and its certificates were standardized. This law recomposed and created new colleges, such as the College of Business Administration, Arabic Studies and Engineering. Another important achievement was al-Azhar girls' college which offers degrees in Islamic, Arabic and social studies, as well as technical subjects and European languages. The creation of the girls' college was indeed a pull factor for attracting females from different Southeast Asian countries. The majority of the Brunei students are, for instance, females.

16 According to an unofficial source the unmarried female students numbered 99. Due to the high rate of marriage among the students in Cairo many female students do not continue their studies and end up as housewives in Cairo.

17 Eccel, C.A., Egypt, Islam and Social Change: al-Azhar in Conflict and Accommodation (Berlin: Klaus Schawrz Verlag, 1984), p. 310Google Scholar.

18 One Feddan equals 4,200 square metres.

19 The Ministry of Awqaf (Endowments), 1964, pp. 546–47Google Scholar.

20 al-Wafd, 17 August 1987.

21 lal-Ahali, 8 August 1987.

22 The pesantren is the traditional religious boarding school in Indonesia. The kiai or kiyayi is the religious teacher and santri is the religious student.

23 Kedutaan Besar Republik Indonesia, 1 April 1987 (Indonesian Embassy in Cairo, 1 April 1987).

24 I am thankful to the anonymous reader of this paper for having raised this point.

25 Some students reported that they receive from shaikhs and relatives of the jawa community in Saudi Arabia, financial help for their stay in Cairo.

26 Roff, pp. 74–84.

27 For more details about the biography of Idris Marbawi see Roff, p. 70, n. 10. I have noticed that Marbawi became a kind of myth for many students in Cairo because he resided for a long period there. True or not some older students claimed that they knew him personally and went to visit him often.

28 I often observed, for instance, that the students refused to discuss the interpretative contradictions of texts in historical schools of Islamic learning. This evasion from the intricacies of Islamic history coincides with stressing the ritual and the rules of body behaviour in Islam. And also, for instance, as a female researcher some of the students who represented the hard fundamentalist line refused to see me. They are however a minority in the overall student population who showed great cooperation.

29 Here it is important to mention that in Egypt in recent years there appeared very different styles of the Islamic dress which were non-existent in the fifties and sixties. In the eighties it became a cross-class phenomenon. So, for instance, one can observe women who covered their head with a light cover and did not wear long loose robes but were dressed in modern under the knees dresses. Others covered the neck in a Turkish, but modern, manner with colourful fabric. There appeared also a phenomenon previously nonexistent in Egypt which is covering the face with a black thick veil and hands with gloves and only cutting two holes for the eyes, the large robes are usually in black, brown or gray colours. On the other hand, one can observe the phenomenon of very fashionable, expensive Islamic dresses, made with expensive cloth. This coincided with the appearance of fashionable Islamic shopping centres.

30 As a general observation, the Malaysians led a stricter routine in Cairo. They were more controlled by the embassy. Females, for instance, were not allowed to travel alone to Europe as one informant told me. They were also more secluded and, as I often heard, they refused to mingle with Indonesian girls who although adopting the Islamic attire, were dressed more colourfully and socialized with male Indonesians. In relation to this topic it would seem that the Islamic discourse in Malaysia seems to be much more strongly influenced by Egypt than in Indonesia.

31 An older Indonesian informant residing in Cairo for more than twenty years said jokingly that he travelled with the Indonesian delegation to Algeria. They were invited by Ben-Bella. Unfortunately, it was the time of the coup d'etat and a shift of power took place and Ben Bella was removed. The Indonesian delegation together with other delegations from developing countries were put in jail, but received good treatment according to this anonymous informant.

32 As an informant in Cairo told me. In fact it was not possible to check it empirically.

33 This would indeed require a study on its own. One has to here confess that due to the limited field research timing in Indonesia in addition to the wide geographical variations where one could find enclaves of Azharites (in Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Eastern Java), it has been impossible to clearly analyze the practical impact of Azharites in rural life and their current understanding in rejecting or absorbing the aspects of Arabic culture they acquired in the Middle East.

34 This applies to both Egypt and Indonesia.