Arahmaiani Broke a Plate

Arahmaiani

Just yesterday I read up on Indonesian artist, Arahmaiani. I have a feeling that she may be the most relevant and important artist I will ever come to discover. What blew my mind about her was reading about her ‘Breaking Words’ performance at Satu Kali in Kuala Lumpur. She invited her audience to write words that had either positive or negative meanings to them on plates. She wrote ‘Allah’ on a plate and smashed all the plates up against the wall. One of the audience members reported her to the police and they responded. She later received threats from people who wanted to harm her and “drink her blood.” What savagery.

What I thought was brilliant about it was that it invoked so many feelings in people, mostly anger and shock but all she did was smash a plate. It was just a plate.

“Of course if you analyse the work iconographically, what (Arahmaiani was) doing was returning Islam to its iconoclastic roots. The word itself was not the important thing—the origins of Islam are based on the breaking of the idol.”

- Ray Langenbach

Ray Langenbach is right. There is nothing in Islam that says “do not write Allah’s name on a plate and break it” but Islam does discourage idolatry. God and his prophets are not allowed to have a face because it allows opportunity for misinterpretation. According to Greek traditions, the tradition of smashing plates in its earliest form, was “an ancient custom of ritually “killing” the ceramic vessels used for feasts commemorating the dead. The voluntary breaking of plates, which is a type of controlled loss, may also have helped participants in dealing with the deaths of their loved ones, a loss which they could not control.” [source]

To my knowledge, this Greek tradition was not correlated with Arahmaini’s performance but when interpreted as such, I believe that it gives a very powerful and poignant message about how people are constantly trying to understand God and they cannot. So she smashed the plate in letting go, in accepting a “controlled loss” over truly understanding the purpose of God.

If only religious people and fundamentalists of all backgrounds understood this – that you can learn and pray all you want but we will never know till the end. There’s no good in shooting, hitting, killing or getting angry at one another because of the unknown face of God. God does not give sermons. People give sermons.

I feel safer knowing that there is someone like Arahmaiani standing guard for those of us who dispute religious fundamentalism. I strongly believe that fundamentalist Muslims in Malaysia tend to bully everyone else who is not them. They oppress art, ban films, art shows, musical performances and want to remove any form of expressiveness because if it is unfamiliar, it is deemed unIslamic and it should not be the way. It makes so many people unhappy. Have they never heard of whirling dervishes? They’re beautiful! Islam is supposed to be an intellectual and informed religion but this over-protectiveness over people’s thoughts is unhealthy, hurtful and barbaric. It makes the country an unsavoury place to visit even if majority of the country are still easygoing, friendly and liberal people.

It is easy for fundamentalists to recruit moderate Muslims because we all share the same fear of God but the violence and distrust for other people that comes with it is not right. It has made it unsafe and unwelcoming for people to practice religion because fundamentalists recruit people through fear. They call it the power of God but I’m more afraid of a God that will make people hurt other people over menial acts than a God that will likely send me to a heaven or hell. God may be merciful or wrathful but it’s the religious fundamentalists of all kinds that I’m afraid of. It’s scary knowing that innocent people are not going to be able to seek amnesty especially from governments who have strong religious ties. How far will the extent go, that human beings will police other human beings on ‘God’s behalf’?

I commend Arahmaiani and her courageous works which dispute religious repression. I myself, am thankful for her.

~ by starranise on November 9, 2009.