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Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 |
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‘Islam attracts the disillusioned’ |
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By Johnna Villaviray, Senior Reporter (Second of three parts) Joey Ledesma lived a good life. A member of Manila’s moneyed elite, he lives in a mansion in Greenhills and teaches economics at La Salle University. His uncle is an ambassador whose connections have opened the door to job opportunities. Still, Ledesma chose to complicate his life two years ago by becoming a Muslim. “I used to be very nationalistic. But not anymore, because I’m more Muslim now and Islam transcends ethnicity,” explained Ledesma, who now answers to the name Yousuf. Ledesma became enamored with how Muslims stick to what the prophets practiced centuries ago, unlike he says how modern Christians improvised in their worship. After a few sessions, he reverted. Becoming a Muslim was the best decision he ever made, he says, despite the nagging of his mother and wife who are hostile toward his newfound brothers. Ledesma and his brothers credit the spread of Islam today to Divine Predestination, i.e., Allah chose this time for the faith to spread. Police Senior Supt. Rodolfo Mendoza has a less profound, but more practical, explanation: social disappointment. “Filipinos are fond of searching for new horizons and are naturally very religious. It’s no surprise that they’re turning to religion to escape the disappointments of this life,” said Mendoza, who has studied terrorist groups since the mid-1990s. He believes the country has become the breeding ground for Islamic radicals because of widespread poverty and injustice and the failure of institutions to deal with these problems. Mendoza said Balik Islam does not fall into a specific age group or social status, because disappointment at the state of the country’s affairs is not limited to any class or education level. “But it’s also associated with poverty, people are giving up.” he said. “[Religion] is like a magnetic pole that attracts the poor.” Islam, like Christianity and most other religions, is heavy with the promise of paradise in the afterlife. According to the Koran, a good Muslim will be rewarded after death with a huge marble palace and virgins and young boys to attend to him. The promise of paradise in the afterlife after much suffering during this life draws many would-be reverts. Mendoza and Balik Islam differ on why Filipinos revert, but they agree that the quest for purity is a great attraction for many would-be reverts. The reverts are disgusted with the open patronage of violence and sexuality in secular society. “If we were under a true Islamic government, we wouldn’t be complaining of the crime or corruption or poverty. All of that is addressed by the Koran,” Santos said. The first Islamic preachers here were from the Middle East. The reverts eventually took over when authorities cracked down on foreigners because of their association, real or imagined, with Muslim radicals overseas. The Islamic Call and Guidance-Philippines (iscag) has about 16 preachers spread over the traditionally Catholic Luzon and Visayas. Iscag alone recorded a total 1,387 reverts since 2000 to June this year. One preacher in Masbate reported that 24 locals reverted this September. Iscag is one of 78 Muslim organizations accredited by the Office of Muslim Affairs (OMA) as of November 2001. Most of these organizations listed da’wah, or propagation, as their primary objective. The most effective and active in da’wah, it seems, are Balik Islam. Santos says this is because they speak with the background of other, more popular, religions. Zamzamin Ampatuan, OMA chief, acknowledges that reverts tend to have more credibility to non-Muslims because they are more fiery about the faith. “The outlandish propagation could also reflect a deeper commitment to understand the faith. Those born into Islam are more sober toward the faith because we’ve had more time [to digest its teachings],” he said. Preaching Islam can be as informal as going to a market or street corner and speaking to the crowd from a microphone. Other means are more structured. The madrasahs, or Koranic schools, are where Muslims teach their children or others willing to learn about Islam. OMA records place the number of madrasahs nationwide at 1,890. More than 800 of the madrasahs are in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (armm). There are 19 schools in Metro Manila, 48 in Ilocos, Cagayan Valley and Central Luzon, 65 in Southern Tagalog and Bicol, 70 in Western Visayas, Central Visayas and Eastern Visayas, 126 in Western Mindanao and Northern Mindanao, and 480 in Mindanao. At least 35 of the madrasahs offer secular education and are accredited with the Department of Education. One of these is the iscag school in Dasmariñas, Cavite, which has 112 pupils enrolled from kindergarten 1 to Grade 6. It started with 34 pre-elementary students in 1999. But a madrasah could also be less structured. Iscag’s Nooh Caparino said an imam could gather the local children or anyone willing under a tree and that would already be a madrasah. There is no way of monitoring how many of these informal schools are in operation, because they could be organized and disbanded easily. Balik Islam’s activeness in da’wah was what triggered suspicion that the groups are being used as fronts for terrorist operations, or at least as an avenue for laundering money used to finance training and the acquisition of weapons, ammunition and bomb-making paraphernalia. It isn’t just the authorities who are suspicious of the activities of the Muslims. Ledesma said his mother is still uncomfortable allowing his brothers full access to their Greenhills home. “My mother was asked once what a madrasah was, and she said it was where children go to become terrorists,” he said. Ledesma added that his wife is so allergic to Muslims that she spanks their five-year-old son whenever the boy shows interest in Islam. The boy’s experience is a stark example of how difficult it is to be a Muslim in a predominantly Catholic country. Besides the many required rituals, Muslims must also live with distrust and animosity from strangers to the faith. Still, they stick to their religion, believing that they will be rewarded in the afterlife. (Concluded tomorrow) |
