Unit Questions

1. Do writers think alike?

As for Dina Zaman, she is very much in different from other ordinary writer. She brings on fresh issues about Islam in Malaysia in different perspective and some of the issues are regarding faith of Muslim. She tries to understand how ordinary Malaysian Muslims viewed their faith and country. Dina Zaman is also a person who has been thinking out of the box. She dare to writes about something that the public will consider as explicit. Some issues that the society will not discussed it publicly such as religious, woman underestimation, homosexual activities, sex and relationship. She has been observing people right from the beginning before she started writing. Dina Zaman actually writing about the voices of Muslims that wanting to be heard and it is important for the society to hear them. Her writing is interesting and it will attract many people to read her work and encourage them to think out of box. Dina believes that it is the time for young Malaysians not only learn to think for themselves but write for themselves. Dina also thinks that by reading literature only people will encounters different cultures and learns tolerance while building moral fibre.

2. What shape the minds of MLIE writers?

Studying abroad has opened the eye of most MLIE writers. They have developed a new perspective about their country and the society. Most MLIE writers has develop their thinking to a new level and they have become more open minded to discuss about those sensitive issues. MLIE writers who have been studying overseas may have absorbed the foreign country’s culture and in addition to that, they are thinking in about something in larger scope and different view point. For example, Dina Zaman; she has been studying in Japan and Soviet Union before she went back to Malaysia and lived with her grandparents in rural Terengganu. She took degree course in Mass Communication at Western Michigan University. She did an MA in Creative Writing in Lancaster. She soon had a large number of followers who amused by her writing and delighted by the humour she wrote. After being in overseas for some quite time, travelling and talking to fellow Muslims, the idea of writing “I am Muslim” has come to her. Nowadays Dina Zaman has become a powerful female voice for moderate Islam in the country.