Defensive or offensive dining? Halal dining practices among Malay Muslim Singaporeans and their effects on integration

Abstract

Anthropologists and sociologists have, in recent years, paid attention to different aspects of halal food production and consumption. However, very few studies have focussed on the impact that halal food, its certification and halal dining practice have on socialisation, particularly for Muslims living in multicultural societies in Southeast Asia. Nasir and Pereira’s study (2008) is one of these exceptions. They studied the attitudes of Singaporean Malay Muslims towards halal food as well as the strategies they adopt when forced to share nonhalal dining environments. These authors have described such strategies as ‘defensive dining’ and have argued that, through them, Muslims in Singapore are able to fully partake in the multicultural life of the city state as well as integrate within the mainstream, mainly Chinese, society. This article discusses how my observations and fieldwork raise some questions about such overtly positive conclusions. Indeed, I suggest that to understand the impact that such ‘dining strategies’ may have on the integration of Singaporean Malay Muslims, we should not only observe the Malay Muslims’ viewpoint but also consider the impact such practices have on non‐Muslims, in particular the Chinese majority, as well as the role that stereotypes have in Singapore.

Global Halal: Meat, Money, and Religion

“…Marranci, rather, examines the realities of Halal reception amongst Singapore's Chinese majority and unearths a substrate of stereotypes, anxieties, and paranoia. Typified by its managerial diversity and historically uneasy attempts to "integrate" and "accommodate" its Malay Muslim populations (who remain within the nation, but separate from it), Lee Kwan Yew's pleas for "less strict" Muslim dietary habits and a more fluid Halal reflect the stance of the Chinese majority, some of whom have also indicated their failed attempts at sharing food with Singaporean Malays ( [72], p. 86). Eating habits thus constitute an important symbolic dimension in measurement of national integration.…”

“…We felt that there was no need to eat separately, but we tolerated it. These kinds of things make you wonder how they can be part of any group other than their own ( [72], p. 91).…”

“…Class does play a role in the dining strategy with elites who discretely do what they can to remain Halal while being careful not to offend. For less educated Malay Muslims, the threat of contamination is imbricated within a constellation of race, ethnicity, and nation readily; threat of contamination is extended to entire populations of peoples, most specifically, Chinese "Satanic Pigs" ( [72], pp. 92-93).…”

“…It is as if they told us that we are dirty'…his is only one of several examples with very similar dynamics. There is a particular concern among many Malay mothers that their children may be exposed to non-Halal food or that their food may be otherwise contaminated, mainly by pork residues on objects or utensils ( [72], p. 90). 6 Being "careful" is not enough and the choice to allow your child to play at the home of a non-Muslim is also an issue of "credence", but one that lacks the proper certification methods.…”

“…In respecting one religious taboo, a series of other secular social taboos are violated. Hence, in the adult world, as Marranci further elaborates, such practices carry over to a host of other techniques that confound the quest for cosmopolitan forms of syncreticism and potentially inflict forms of moral and personal injury: bringing one's own food to parties and dinners despite efforts to provide Halal or non-pork and alcohol-free products by the host; abstaining from food altogether; refusing, even in the case of the same gender, to shake hands for fear of contamination; refusing to drink from glasses at the homes of non-Muslims or requiring plastic disposable utensils ( [72], p. 91).…”