\u00a0zakat fitrah<\/em>\u00a0at the end of Ramadan tell us that we have to share a part of our wealth with the poor.<\/p>\nThe fasting and additional prayers asked of Muslims during Ramadan are intended to sharpen our characters, not just by encouraging piety, but also by making us more thankful, patient and tolerant. In short, the observances of Ramadan seek to make better people out of all of us \u2013 to carry us through for the next 11 months.<\/p>\n
Idul Fitri is indeed a day of victory after a trying month of fasting, but we may have taken this celebration and even the entire month of Ramadan to the extreme by indulging ourselves with endless feasts.<\/p>\n
We have accepted without question the contradictions of Ramadan in Indonesia. The time of the year when we should be eating less is the time of the year when the monthly inflation rate is at one of its highest because of rising food prices. The other highest month is December, indicating how commerce has also taken over Christmas in predominantly Muslim Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Ramadan and the month before and after it have become a time when we spend more money on food because of the feasts that we hold with relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbors \u2013 with essentially everybody we know. This is true with most city folks.<\/p>\n
Typically, we have lunch or dinner get-togethers before Ramadan comes; then we have iftar (breaking-of-the-fast meals) during Ramadan and still more meals on Idul Fitri. Thereafter,\u00a0halal bihalal<\/em>\u00a0gatherings can last for another month. These tend to involve banquets of no small scale.<\/p>\nThe higher you are on the social ladder, the busier you are with these gatherings. Many people see their waistline increase around Ramadan. Diets begin as soon as the celebrations are over.<\/p>\n
Even religious sermons have become commercialized. Many of these gatherings, particularly for iftar, seem incomplete without bringing in the most celebrated preacher in town at the cost of millions of rupiah for a 30-minute rehashed speech.<\/p>\n
Another Idul Fitri tradition that has gotten out of control is\u00a0mudik,<\/em>\u00a0when city folk hit the road to return to their hometowns. The exodus creates kilometers of congestion on roads leading out of Jakarta and other big cities, as well as massive jams at airports and railway stations.<\/p>\nThis mass movement of people was the government\u2019s doing. About a decade ago, it extended the national Idul Fitri holiday from two days to, typically, between a week and 10 days, including the weekends, taking the extra days off people\u2019s annual holiday entitlements.<\/p>\n
Arguably, this commercialization and the growth of\u00a0mudik<\/em>\u00a0have been good for the economy. The quarterly gross domestic product usually shows a small uptick as a result of spending during Ramadan.\u00a0Mudik<\/em>\u00a0resuscitates the rural economy as city folk shower villages with money and gifts, helping to partially address the huge urban-rural wealth imbalance.<\/p>\nBut surely these trips and financial transfers could be done at any time of the year now because of the greater ease of travel and the increasing convenience of financial technology. They don\u2019t have to coincide with Ramadan or Idul Fitri to the point of clouding the spirit of the occasions.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve already gone through the month of Ramadan accepting the various social restrictions imposed on us because of COVID-19. There is no reason to think that we cannot celebrate Idul Fitri this weekend. It\u2019s simply that we are celebrating it differently, probably for the better.<\/p>\n
Whatever we think of COVID-19, the pandemic has been a reality check for our faith and our lives.<\/p>\n
Happy Idul Fitri.<\/p>\n
The Jakarta Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Endy Bayuni, May 23, 2020 This year, Muslims in Indonesia are celebrating the end of Ramadan in a totally different fashion from the way we know and have been doing for years. COVID-19 and the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) that come with it are preventing many of us from making the usual trips to visit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9904"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9904"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9951,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9904\/revisions\/9951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}