Category: Article

Ramadhan in the UK

Published on by Izza DinillahLeave a comment

Finally, after thousands of reblogs (lebaaay), I got my urge to write back. I’m going to write in English now – again, finally after some mixed language entries, LOL. So, according to the theme nowadays for Muslims all around the world, I will write about Ramadhan.

This year’s Ramadhan is quite different for me, and probably my family as well. Why? Because we are separated! I am fasting here in the UK, my sister is fasting in Thailand and my parents are in Indonesia. Well, but I am grateful because I can have this kind of new experience to fast alone, far from home. Yeay! Anyway… how’s Ramadhan in the UK?

First of all, Ramadhan is Ramadhan. I mean, wherever you are, the essence will always be the same. So, although UK is not a Muslim-majority country, Muslim people here still fast and try to be close to Allah more than any other months (well, as long as I know). If you look at the mosques here, it’s almost the same with mosques in Indonesia. They have different kinds of programs for Ramadhan, they also provide ifthar and held tarawih prayer. The point is that in Muslim community, Ramadhan is still Ramadhan and we do what we usually do in Ramadhan with no difference (actually, this year’s Ramadhan must be better than the previous one!).

BUT, again as a non Muslim-majority country, Ramadhan here is different than Ramadhan back in my country, Indonesia. What’s different? LOTS! LOL. I am exaggerating. Okay, here’s the differences…

1. This year’s Ramadhan is in the middle of summer. Yes, you’re right! If you live in tropical areas, you may not experience the seasonal different which affect like your whole daily life. In here, in this Ramadhan, we fast in the middle of the summer in the UK and as we have to fast from the sunrise until the sunset, we have like around 19 hours to fast. Is it difficult? Well, if you think about it you will think that it is. However, if you do it… it’s not that bad, really… It is manageable.

2. As Ramadhan is in the middle of summer, it is HOT in here. It’s not like super hot as in Indonesia. At least I’m not that thirsty. But it is still hot. The temperature nowadays is more to over 20 degrees Celsius. If you’re Indonesian and live in Indonesia, you may think that WOW, that’s not hot. But trust me, when you spend months in the UK, over 15 degrees Celsius can feel really really hot.

3. Again, related to summer, the night time is very short. We have around 5 hours of night time that we have to use to pray and be close to Allah. Yes, I heard that we have to spend the most of our Ramadhan night to pray. So, within 5 hours you have sooooo many things to do from ifthar until suhoor. I personally choose not to sleep at night because I’m afraid I’ll sleepover. LOL. I don’t want to miss suhoor because it’s a barakah time and I want to pray Qiyamullail. So, in these past few days, I didn’t sleep at night and I slept later during the day. Your daily life literally flipped around! It is quite easy for me because I don’t really have to work everyday, but if you are working in the UK with like certain office hour… I don’t know what to do. Haha

4. The atmosphere.  Of course, different place has different atmosphere. As not so many Muslims in here (well, comparing to Indonesia), the Ramadhan atmosphere isn’t really obvious. People live their life as usual, there’s no difference with any other months. It’s neither positive or negative as I don’t really care about it but sometimes I miss the Ramadhan atmosphere in Indonesia. Anyway, it’s rather out of context but it is nice that this year, Channel4 have a special Ramadhan program everyday (Ramadhan reflection) and every week (Ramadhan in UK). So, at least we still have Ramadhan TV programs here. LOL (no Para Pencari Tuhan, though)

5. I am alone. This is personally about me. If you’re in the UK with your family then it’ll be alright. For me, I live alone here so I have to fast and arrange my Ramadhan alone (poor me, wkwkwk). For me, I am still getting used to the way I have to arrange my Ramadhan by myself. You know, life is so much easier in Indonesia regarding Ramadhan. I mean, in terms of food and you needs. You can just buy things anywhere, whenever. People even open their restaurants for suhoor. What a life! Here, you have to arrange it by yourself. I have to cook, think what to eat, think what to do and when I have to do that. I’ve learned a lot. I am lucky though because someone just moved in to my house and she is a Muslim. It’s nice to have someone around during ifthar and suhoor because our ifthar is at around 9.30 when everyone’s already having their night out or ready to sleep (I don’t think they’re asleep though) and the suhoor is at 1.30 because Subuh time is at 2.30 when people are asleep or still drunk in bars. Plus, I also have some Indonesian friends here so I can still come over and get together with them.

That’s pretty much all, I think – except the fact that we cannot have the ‘Ramadhan foods’ like in Indonesia (well, we can if we want to cook it by ourselves which… I don’t). See, Ramadhan is still Ramadhan, in whatever situation you are. What we, well I, have to do is to make the most of it; strive to conquer (caelah bahasanyaa) all obstacles to be a fully taqwa person at the end. Insha Allah.

Happy Ramadhan, everyone! Taqabbalallah! 🙂

Jul 13, 2013

What’s Next?

Published on by Izza DinillahLeave a comment

So, this morning I had my last Student Staff Committee meeting. And at the end of the meeting I realised that this really is going to be over soon. Oh no! It’s been a great year, really.

I am glad that I can be a part of the SSC because I know that I can contribute for my programme. We don’t really have many problems as we are in our master degree and we don’t really attend classes that much. We go to class, do our assignment and dissertation and that’s about it. But it’s been great. We have our study group and the tutors (well, most of them) are helpful. The way the department runs the programme is improving throughout the year. Sadly the master students still cannot get their own room. It’s difficult to arrange meetings when we don’t have permanent place.

Anyway, we had to reflect at the end of the meeting about the positives and negatives of our experience as master students in Hull. I think they mostly are positives. We kind of had no difficulty in solving our problems, really. The programme directors also asked about the assessment methods (what a coincidence that I just talked about it with Erwin two days ago) and I think the department will go to a more varied assessment methods throughout the year for master programme. Hopefully. It’s kind of boring doing tons of essays in a year. Haha.

Well, it really is going to end. The questions now is, what’s next? What’s next, Za? What are you going to do? It’s gonna haunt me all the way until I am sure about what I am going to do after I hand in my dissertation. WHAT’S NEXT?

Jul 05, 2013

Sometimes you were close to someone and felt like you understand that person. But when you meet that person again, he/she turns out to be a totally different person who you don’t recognize anymore.

On the other hand, you can meet a person who used to be a stranger but it feels like that person has been there the whole time.

Jun 24, 2013

If I Have a Child

Published on by Izza DinillahLeave a comment

Son, be a good student. Learn diligently and get good scores so that you can be a teacher, a doctor… If you don’t, you’ll just be a cleaner.

 

I heard this from my friend’s story last night. That is a typical advice given by a father to his son. It does not sound strange, it sounds perfectly logic. However, is it really not strange? Because I think, when I really pay attention to the words, it is strange. Why should the son be a good student to be a teacher or a doctor? Can someone be a teacher or a doctor without being a good student? Or, can someone, although he is a good student, still ends up in a blue collar job?

I think, what that sentence represents is the common society belief, that education or being educated leads to a better job. It obviously has a logical explanation because better jobs require higher qualification. My question is what if the kid does not want to be a teacher or a doctor and wants to be a carpenter instead? Does that mean he cannot be a good student? Or what if the question is swapped? I remember one of my students who hated school and learning so that he decided to be a cleaner because he does not have to learn to be one. There is something not right here.

I think people have short-translated education as a pathway for job, and job only. I am not denying that one’s chance to have a good job increases if he has higher level of ‘education’. What is education anyway? I do not think education is the correct term here. Yes, higher level of schooling but not education. Education should not be understood shallowly because then it will lose its essence. If people see education only as a mean to get a better life in the future ‘money wise’, then education can be replaced by many things.

Education as economic tool will not survive. For example, since I was in high school there has been a trend in Indonesia that students are encouraged to cheat during the national exam. Not all teachers or even all schools do this but it exists. Once students have their high school diploma, their chance of getting a job is higher. My friend also told me that in Nigeria, once a person can earn enough money, education is not that important, especially among girls. Moreover, especially in developing countries where the ethics of education has not been wholly understood, people can pay for their higher education diploma so that they do not have to attend university to get the diploma. What a shame. Education has been translated to paper document and money.

In my opinion, people should go back, trace the root of the meaning of education so that they are not being manipulated by people who control education. In order to understand education, one may also need to unattached it from schooling as school according to Dewey (2004) is an environment to facilitate education and therefore it should not exceed education itself. It should not replace the meaning of education. Education comes from Latin word educare which means to nourish (Gingell & Winch, 2008). Historically, as Dewey (2004) explained, education is used to bridge the understanding gap between older members of society and the younger member of society so that the society exists in the future.

Education contains broad meaning for me. It does not only have something to do with economy but with life as a whole. It is not only about individual but also about society. Reflecting on this and looking at the beginning sentences on top of this text, if I have a child, I will say: Son, be educated so that you can grow to be whatever you want, whatever you think will be good for you and your society. 

May 28, 2013

Pursue of Happiness

Published on by Izza DinillahLeave a comment

A few months ago I had a discussion with a friend. He asked me what my life purpose is. Wow, I have never really thought about it. The first thing comes to mind for an answer was to be beneficial for myself, others, and my environment. My friend told me that my answer was not adequate because it was a normative answer. Yes, I agree. My answer was what my culture and religion suggest to be the life purpose of human. Anyone in my culture and religion can answer the same thing. What my friend asked me was what my life purpose is, a specific purpose only for me. Well, I gave it a thought and I cannot disagree with my friend. Although I am not an existentialist, I believe that everyone is unique and humans have free will to choose and direct their life. Having a life purpose and free will are the characters of human.

Do people realise that children are given uniform information about life purpose? They are given the same explanation about the preferred life style: getting higher education degree, working in a multinational company or white collar job, owning assets to ensure their economic welfare, and by achieving those stuffs they will live happily ever after. First of all, there is no such a thing like living happily ever after because human will die eventually. More importantly, whose preferred life style is that? Do all people want that kind of life? In a sense, education contributes to the distribution of that way of life; education which according to Orr (1994) focuses only on personal benefit and intellectuality, abandoning feeling and sense of humanity.

Education is a tool for people; not only a certain group of people but all people. Therefore education has the obligation to facilitate people to achieve their life purpose, at least in my opinion. If educators, including those who have the power to make decision, agree with this, education may be understood differently. Education which is now regarded to be what Robinson (2012) called the producer of university professors because it pushes all children into one direction; can be regarded to be the facilitator of people’s different life purpose.

I think, this concept of education as a facilitator for people to achieve their life purpose puts back human in the centre of education. It respects human’s choice and gives a sense of power for people (Freire, 1973). It is the opposite of the reality of education now. Uniformity is spread all over the world as Colin (2011) showed similarity of national education system worldwide. In an extreme understanding, this kind of uniformity can be regarded as indoctrination which violates people’s autonomy (Gingell & Winch, 2008).

In my opinion, education should be able to help people to live their own unique life. It should go beyond material adequacy, it better be providing spiritual and emotional adequacy; by, as mentioned by Fairfield (2009), enabling people to give richer meanings to their lived experience. Education should also be made in a way that allows individual uniqueness to be celebrated and supports people to pursue their life purpose so that they will be content with happiness.

May 28, 2013

Humanising Human

Published on by Izza DinillahLeave a comment

As education means to nourish (Gingell & Winch, 2008), one question comes into my mind: Who does it nourish? The players in education are people, human beings. And human beings, at least in my opinion, should be treated as human. However, as education nowadays is seen as a tool in globalised world – mostly seen from the economic point of view (Ball, 2006), people are regarded to be economic-, instead of human-being in education. Look at the statements mentioned by government officials, such as Indonesian vice president, Boediono (2012) who wrote that the purpose of education is to produce people who are competent in the workplace so that the national income can be increased.

In order to meet the demand from the government as a response of globalisation in economic sense, schools as the most common educational institution act as human factories. In a movie called Waiting for Superman (2010), I saw a clear description of students, categorised and directed towards different path of education in order to meet the workforce and business demand based on their test scores and intelligence. It seems like students, human beings, are treated as objects that can be controlled and moved around.

In another explanation, Freire (2008) proposed the concept of banking education which treats students as containers of knowledge. Education in this perspective seems to act as bank that deposits knowledge. How weird is that? Education which supposed to be controlled by human in general acts as if it is human and students – the human beings – are treated as if they are some kind of jars – non living things. Of course education in reality is controlled by human but only those who have power but nonetheless those people hide behind the ‘innocence’ of education. Then again, one can conclude from this point of view that education is used by people in power to oppress young people as what Freire (1996) suggested. It is a tool for the government to oppress citizens in order to achieve better economic performance which again benefits certain groups of people.

In my opinion, education should be used to humanise human. Education can be used as a tool to liberate people from globalised world’s ‘slavery’ to be fully capable human beings. Students, young people, or people in general should be the owner of globalised world, not the workers in it. I believe that it is the ideal condition as it is explained in the Koran that humans are the ones who inherit the world. The word inherit contains a sense of ownership, control, and power over the object. In order to do this – humanising human – Freire (1973) suggested that education should make people aware that they have the power to face challenges of the world.

One can see a sense of human empowerment in the process of humanising human. People need not to be passive which dehumanising, the lowest form of defence mechanism believed in critical psychology. Instead, they need to be reflective, a restless act to pursue knowledge through invention (Freire, 1973) so that they can act appropriately. Education should be able to empower people or students maybe, and make them capable of being truly humans in the era of globalisation now. Education need to humanise human if not re-humanise human at this point.

May 28, 2013

What is this feeling?

Published on by Izza DinillahLeave a comment

This is NOT an affectionate text. If you know me well then you might have guessed. Haha!

I talked to my friend, Chysa, a few weeks ago. We were basically in the same situation and we felt the same thing. WE WERE BORED! Yes, we live in a small city in Yorkshire area and for city girls like us, it is different from the life we lived before. But still… we shouldn’t feel that bored.

It was not that we were bored because we have nothing to do. Believe me, we have loads to do. It was more emotional. We both felt like we didn’t feel enough emotion (if there is such a thing). See, if we are happy then we’re not that happy. If we are sad then we’re not that sad. If we’re angry then we’re not that angry. Why??

I suppose balance is the key for everything, right? And what I described before suppose to be balance, am I correct? Happy but not that happy; sad but not that sad… But is there such a thing called balance in terms of emotion? Can we be partially stimulated in our limbic system? Any neuropsychologist?? I wonder… (*brb reading neuro books)

Well, then a few days ago I read this article in the guardian. The writer described differences of the situation in the tube in London and New York. And guess what, the writer found that it is busier, louder, and I suppose more dynamic in New York. The tube is quiet, people are more self-absorbed with their own activities, and there were only a little human interaction in London.

Maybe it is a cultural thing, then? I mean, here in the UK people are more self-conscious, quiet, mannered (?) and therefore those who live in UK may not feel extreme emotion. It is my assumption, really. But hey, which one would you choose? Would you rather feel more extreme emotion even though it may not be always pleasant OR would you choose the so so situation?

I will definitely choose the one where I wouldn’t get bored.

May 21, 2013

“The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. the more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.”