The Discourse of Submissiveness to God in the Pandemic Time through “BURDAH KELILING”

Abstract

Burdah Keliling” is an activity in which people of a village walking around the village, led by an ustad or kyai (local religious teacher) while chanting “Sholawat Burdah”. Shalawat burdah is one of shalawat or singing praising Muhammad SAW which is  very popular among Indonesian muslim community especially in the rural areas. The lyrics or material of shalawat is religious and the texts are devotional. This paper aims at explaining the discourse of Burdah Keliling as a cultural approach of mitigation of the pandemic Covid-19. The specific question raised in this paper: how is the discourse of submissiveness to God represented through “Burdah Keliling.”  This is a qualitative method, using observation, and online interview. The observation takes the online news media, and online  interview aims to reveal the experience and opinion of the persons involved in the activity of Burdah Keliling.  The writers argue that the cultural activity of Burdah keliling has played important roles in building people’s well-being psychologically. In the pandemic time nowadays, people need an activity that nurture them psychologically so that they can avoid stress and pressure due to the pandemic. The analysis is done through Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis. The study shows that “burdah keliling” is very meaningful for the people involved in the activity. This activity means to express people’s submissiveness, surrender to Allah SWT, so that avoiding them from panic and stress due to the pandemic of covid-19 rampaging across the country.