After an urge from a brother in Islam (now my husband) to read Totto-Chan: Gadis Kecil di Tepi Jendela years back, I finally had my hands on the book. Since it was a translated text from Japanese to Bahasa Melayu and the translation I must say being done literally, it was quite boring to begin with. Yet I convinced myself to read it to the end and I am glad I did.
The text was an autobiography and written in 1982, obviously an old text and translated and published in Bahasa Melayu in 1989. When it had brought a revise or perhaps a revolution in the Japanese education system I perceive it, perhaps, in a different light. Without arguing that what was written in the book on how children should be educated especially young children was sincerely true and enlightening, I found that the system really had long been outlined in Islam in child education.
The school built by Kobayashi was nothing like our fully equipped schools nowadays but it was far more inviting than ours. He built his Tomoe Gakuen from used train coaches as its clasrooms, the gate was from wild trees and there were an assembly hall where they ate, had public speaking training and met, a pool and a farm where each of the student had a tree. Children were given confidence by inculcating positive values about themselves for example Kobayashi told Totto-chan that she should always know that she is a good girl when in her former school she was thought as nuisance, awkward and trouble for every teacher. No teacher can listen or answer her like Kobayashi had. He spent four hours listening to her. He asked her,
"What do you heve to tell?" and she went on and on... and he listened interestingly!
In Tomoe Gakuen children were asked to wear old clothes so that they would not hesitate to explore without worrying about their beautiful clothes. Another aim was to banish the barrier between the rich and the poor. Children were allowed to solve given problem according to their own arrangements; there was no specific 1, 2, 3 steps and the teachers were ever ready to help.
Each and every games or culture in Tomoe Gakuen were carefully tailored by Kobayashi to build certain conciousness in the children character. He taught them to concentrate by teaching them rhytmic body lesson, he taught them to eat balance diet by emphasising that each child must have one food from the hill and one food from the sea during lunch time and he made the effort to check everyone's food container; if anyone missed any of the food, Tomoe Gakuen will provide it. He taught them to be considerate about other people's feelings and to learn from a knowledgeable person about something. Islam taught us:
Before thee, also the apostles We sent were but men, to whom We granted inspiration: iF ye realise this not, ask of those who possess the Message (al-Anbiya': 7)
For instance he brought a gardener to teach the children about plants and planting. Of course that gardener bore neither certificate nor qualification to certain extand but he mustered gardening like the back of his hands. He was rich with experiences and had had years and years of hands on training in plants and planting. Hence he was the best to teach compared to anyone else. Kobayashi treated his students as friends and spoke freely to them maturely without compromising on their child psychological needs.
All that Kobayashi had done came from his firm principle that humans were doomed when they did not use their eyes to see, ears to hear and minds to think. This is the exact verse that Allah used in verse 179 Surah al-A'raaf:
Many are Jinns and men have we made for Hell: They have hearts wherewith they understand not, eyes wherewith they see not, and ears wherewith they heard not. They are like cattle, -nay more misguided: for they are heedless (of warning).
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Where Has Creativity Gone?
Advertisements, especially those on television have long been a powerful tool to convince consumer into buying a product or a service. We used to have good television commercials such as the one by Peugeot showing how great a Peugeot car is without a single model. None! It only showed how every car in the street backed off and those in the parking lots shivered just because the Peugeot was passing by. That advertisement was really focusing on the car alone and on its best qualities.
Peel Fresh used to make refreshing television commercials. It showed each of a family member grabbing a glass of Peel Fresh juice according to their liking. The young ones picking up a glass of blackcurrant juice, the teenagers went for orange juice and the elders chose apple. They were happy and joyful, feeling refreshed after the drink. And the tag line was ‘If you want any fresher, peel it yourself’.
Now there is nothing to look forward in a television commercial. All of them come down to only one point, sexual appeal. It revolves only around the intimate relationship between a man and a woman. It doesn’t vary at all. From a diaper commercial showing a baby boy not feeling confident with his diaper until a baby girl introduces him to the brand she is using, up to an Islamic banking advertisement that ends up with a guy picking a star, turns it into a diamond, put it on a ring and proposes to his girlfriend.
Worse than that, our new commercials lack moral values and ethics. There is a commercial in which a husband commented on how rude the current newspaper vendor is compared to the last one and the wife only responded that ‘time has changed and people are advancing’. Later when the mother commented on the new look of the newspaper, the husband quotes his wife. There is nothing wrong with the tag line but what was associated to it. Does it mean that when time has changed and people are advancing then it is alright to be rude?
A detergent commercial non-verbally had suggested that stealing is not a bad behavior as long as you did not get caught just because the owner is an old man and he cannot see you clearly because your shirt is so white that he is not able to differentiate you from the white sheet on the line.
Another commercial shamelessly showed a foreplay by a couple when the lady tied her husband eyes with a necktie and asked him to guess what she was going to feed him. He peeped and in returns, she showed him her mother’s picture for him to kiss. This is an insult and beyond courtesy especially for us in the east.
Many other commercials that we have today are erotic and sensual. We have commercials on condoms and other sensual products showed in a very direct way. What has happened to creativity? I believe our creative directors can do better than that.
We must bear in mind that television is not only watched by the adults. We have children watching as well and mind you they probably are the die-hard fans of television. If we keep on showing these low morality and unethical what will this children start thinking and how will they react in the future?
Commercials should sell a product, not exploit the model least the society. If producers are confident enough with their product, they will have given enough information to the creative director and the responsible creative director will work solely around the product creatively and not move outside the locus that there is no apparent connection between the commercial and the product.
Peel Fresh used to make refreshing television commercials. It showed each of a family member grabbing a glass of Peel Fresh juice according to their liking. The young ones picking up a glass of blackcurrant juice, the teenagers went for orange juice and the elders chose apple. They were happy and joyful, feeling refreshed after the drink. And the tag line was ‘If you want any fresher, peel it yourself’.
Now there is nothing to look forward in a television commercial. All of them come down to only one point, sexual appeal. It revolves only around the intimate relationship between a man and a woman. It doesn’t vary at all. From a diaper commercial showing a baby boy not feeling confident with his diaper until a baby girl introduces him to the brand she is using, up to an Islamic banking advertisement that ends up with a guy picking a star, turns it into a diamond, put it on a ring and proposes to his girlfriend.
Worse than that, our new commercials lack moral values and ethics. There is a commercial in which a husband commented on how rude the current newspaper vendor is compared to the last one and the wife only responded that ‘time has changed and people are advancing’. Later when the mother commented on the new look of the newspaper, the husband quotes his wife. There is nothing wrong with the tag line but what was associated to it. Does it mean that when time has changed and people are advancing then it is alright to be rude?
A detergent commercial non-verbally had suggested that stealing is not a bad behavior as long as you did not get caught just because the owner is an old man and he cannot see you clearly because your shirt is so white that he is not able to differentiate you from the white sheet on the line.
Another commercial shamelessly showed a foreplay by a couple when the lady tied her husband eyes with a necktie and asked him to guess what she was going to feed him. He peeped and in returns, she showed him her mother’s picture for him to kiss. This is an insult and beyond courtesy especially for us in the east.
Many other commercials that we have today are erotic and sensual. We have commercials on condoms and other sensual products showed in a very direct way. What has happened to creativity? I believe our creative directors can do better than that.
We must bear in mind that television is not only watched by the adults. We have children watching as well and mind you they probably are the die-hard fans of television. If we keep on showing these low morality and unethical what will this children start thinking and how will they react in the future?
Commercials should sell a product, not exploit the model least the society. If producers are confident enough with their product, they will have given enough information to the creative director and the responsible creative director will work solely around the product creatively and not move outside the locus that there is no apparent connection between the commercial and the product.
First: Get the Concept Right
The majority of men, 54%, think about sex everyday or several times a day according to Kinsey Institute’s study in 2007 while 43% of men think about sex a few times per month or a few times per week and 4% of men think about sex less than once a week. Mind you there are numerous factors that can make a man sexually attracted to a woman. It can go way beyond a perfectly sculpted-like body shape. It can be a woman’s sense, the way she pronounces a certain word, her voice, the tone of her voice, the way she moves and the list goes on an on even to how a women bites an apple does!
In the time when Islam was new to the Arabs, they still held on to the practice of going to relieved themselves either in the late night or early in the morning before the breaking of a dawn. During that time, if a woman was a slave, she was nothing more than a chair or other households in her master’s home. Thus she was never respected and any man who was sexually aroused would simply attack her and satisfied his needs. Unfortunately sometimes the women that were attacked were not slaves, they were independent. Moreover after the arrival of Islam, Muslims were forbidden from any out-of-wedlock relationships. Thus Allah sent down the verse first from surah al-Ahzab verse 59:
O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
This came after the first restriction from speaking too complacently in the same surah verse 32 and 33. Hence the regulation of hijaab was sent down by Allah so that women were not looked at as a sex symbol. Hijaab was never meant to cover a woman’s feminity but her sexuality. It was not a symbol her being owned like in the Judeo-Christianity; a woman was asked to put on her head scarf after she was married as a symbol of her uphelding her husband while the husband upheld the Church!
Currently we can see many women making a decision to put on their hijaab. From a nobody on the street to public figures such as popular celebrities wide ranging from actresses, singers, news anchors, program hostess up to our lady ministers. There are many announcements being made on how and why they put on the hijaab. This is indeed a positive turn we have long waited. Unfortunately there are slight misconception between covering one’s hair and covering one’s awrah (forbidden parts of body from being seen by others).
The awrah of a woman is her whole body save her face and her hands up to her wrists. From this stems the compulsion of hijaab by Allah in Surah an-Nur verse 31:
And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O you Believers! You turn altogether toward Allah, that you may attain Bliss.
We must first understand the reason of this compulsion and why did Allah send this verses to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Woman as herself is very attractive to men. Thus the idea of hijaab was not to confine women but to protect them so as to enable them to walk freely without being looked at lewdly by men who have bad intentions towards women as well as to gain respect for themselves. The concept of hijaab does not stop at covering one’s hair; it goes deeper and further than that.
Covering one’s awrah should protect oneself from being insulted. As for clothing is concern, the clothes must cover the whole body except the face and hands up to the wrists, the head cover must be extended to cover the breasts, the attire must be loose and doesn’t show a woman’s shape or curves, the fabric used must be thick enough not to expose the skin colour and the colour must be decent and not too attractive to others like bright orange or red, there should not be any ornaments that can draw attention like bangles with bells or glittering embroidery on the clothes and the women should not put on too much perfume that will draw men’s attention towards them.
Then it extended to the way of conduct. A woman should not speak with melancholia or soften her voice in allurement. She should speak politely and at the tone that is sufficient to her audience. She should not move around in such a way that men find her sexy.
In short, the dress code for women in Islam is that she should be different from men so that when you see her you need not think twice as to whether or not she is a woman or a Muslim and secondly the dress and her way of conduct included, should not make her sexy.
The scenario today however is very off-polar from what Islam has long out-lined. Women really do not put on a hijaab. They only cover their hair. Thus we have many women putting on a sheer scarf on their hair where the front hair is protruding from the scarf, some put on a bonnet-like hair covers with floral knitting, some put on gypsy-like scarf where their earrings are purposely let out to be seen, many do not cover their bosoms, they put on almost transparent kaftan and wear a tight body-wrapping singlet inside. Those who were shy before putting on ‘hijaab’ now dare to move and sway their body in front of their thousands audience saying that they feel more confident now than ever, wrongly using the statement that a hijaab actually frees a woman instead of confining her. Yes a hijaab frees a woman but not that kind of cheap freedom! Some even go too far as giggling and caressing their body in front of audience until it is nothing different from a woman on the street that is subjected to prostitution.
The lack of knowledge, understanding and responsibilities toward hijaab have made women nowadays being insulted even when they have put on their head coverings because these women are only covering their hair and nor their awrah as a hijaab is really meant to be. Thus it is timely for us to take a step back and look deeply into the fundamental concept of a hijaab with a crystal clear mind. Henceforth we should practice what has been ordained by Allah with our sincerest heart that He will accept our submission to His law not to any fashion call or trend setting.
In the time when Islam was new to the Arabs, they still held on to the practice of going to relieved themselves either in the late night or early in the morning before the breaking of a dawn. During that time, if a woman was a slave, she was nothing more than a chair or other households in her master’s home. Thus she was never respected and any man who was sexually aroused would simply attack her and satisfied his needs. Unfortunately sometimes the women that were attacked were not slaves, they were independent. Moreover after the arrival of Islam, Muslims were forbidden from any out-of-wedlock relationships. Thus Allah sent down the verse first from surah al-Ahzab verse 59:
O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
This came after the first restriction from speaking too complacently in the same surah verse 32 and 33. Hence the regulation of hijaab was sent down by Allah so that women were not looked at as a sex symbol. Hijaab was never meant to cover a woman’s feminity but her sexuality. It was not a symbol her being owned like in the Judeo-Christianity; a woman was asked to put on her head scarf after she was married as a symbol of her uphelding her husband while the husband upheld the Church!
Currently we can see many women making a decision to put on their hijaab. From a nobody on the street to public figures such as popular celebrities wide ranging from actresses, singers, news anchors, program hostess up to our lady ministers. There are many announcements being made on how and why they put on the hijaab. This is indeed a positive turn we have long waited. Unfortunately there are slight misconception between covering one’s hair and covering one’s awrah (forbidden parts of body from being seen by others).
The awrah of a woman is her whole body save her face and her hands up to her wrists. From this stems the compulsion of hijaab by Allah in Surah an-Nur verse 31:
And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O you Believers! You turn altogether toward Allah, that you may attain Bliss.
We must first understand the reason of this compulsion and why did Allah send this verses to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Woman as herself is very attractive to men. Thus the idea of hijaab was not to confine women but to protect them so as to enable them to walk freely without being looked at lewdly by men who have bad intentions towards women as well as to gain respect for themselves. The concept of hijaab does not stop at covering one’s hair; it goes deeper and further than that.
Covering one’s awrah should protect oneself from being insulted. As for clothing is concern, the clothes must cover the whole body except the face and hands up to the wrists, the head cover must be extended to cover the breasts, the attire must be loose and doesn’t show a woman’s shape or curves, the fabric used must be thick enough not to expose the skin colour and the colour must be decent and not too attractive to others like bright orange or red, there should not be any ornaments that can draw attention like bangles with bells or glittering embroidery on the clothes and the women should not put on too much perfume that will draw men’s attention towards them.
Then it extended to the way of conduct. A woman should not speak with melancholia or soften her voice in allurement. She should speak politely and at the tone that is sufficient to her audience. She should not move around in such a way that men find her sexy.
In short, the dress code for women in Islam is that she should be different from men so that when you see her you need not think twice as to whether or not she is a woman or a Muslim and secondly the dress and her way of conduct included, should not make her sexy.
The scenario today however is very off-polar from what Islam has long out-lined. Women really do not put on a hijaab. They only cover their hair. Thus we have many women putting on a sheer scarf on their hair where the front hair is protruding from the scarf, some put on a bonnet-like hair covers with floral knitting, some put on gypsy-like scarf where their earrings are purposely let out to be seen, many do not cover their bosoms, they put on almost transparent kaftan and wear a tight body-wrapping singlet inside. Those who were shy before putting on ‘hijaab’ now dare to move and sway their body in front of their thousands audience saying that they feel more confident now than ever, wrongly using the statement that a hijaab actually frees a woman instead of confining her. Yes a hijaab frees a woman but not that kind of cheap freedom! Some even go too far as giggling and caressing their body in front of audience until it is nothing different from a woman on the street that is subjected to prostitution.
The lack of knowledge, understanding and responsibilities toward hijaab have made women nowadays being insulted even when they have put on their head coverings because these women are only covering their hair and nor their awrah as a hijaab is really meant to be. Thus it is timely for us to take a step back and look deeply into the fundamental concept of a hijaab with a crystal clear mind. Henceforth we should practice what has been ordained by Allah with our sincerest heart that He will accept our submission to His law not to any fashion call or trend setting.
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