Fasting while in economic hardship

JAKARTA (JP): The fasting month of Ramadhan is here again and Muslims are welcoming it with joy. Most Indonesians see the Muslim holy month as a time when social conditions and solidarity change for the better.

However, in general it depends on how you see it. To the average person, the coming of Ramadhan is marked by the onslaught of old women from rural areas hitting Jakarta's streets to beg. They come here complete with "tour operators", who make the most of the women's poverty to exploit urban citizens' sense of solidarity. Muslims are urged to show more solidarity especially during Ramadhan, so why not take advantage of people's benevolence?

Many foreigners sincerely want to sympathize with the people of this nation at this time of year and witness how they implement their religious duties under the dire economic hardships they face.

And goodness knows we need all the sympathy we can get since the world knows our country is on the brink of bankruptcy.

Isn't it Indonesia that is burdened with the largest foreign debt the in world? We are so poor that we have shamelessly exported the world's greatest number of female workers. It all happened because we let Soeharto, the most heartless tyrant in the world who was the second longest serving dictator after Cuba's Fidel Castro, rule us for more than three decades.

When this smiling general stepped down in 1998, he left behind political and economic chaos. Indonesia was dubbed the world's third most corrupt regime, and Soeharto's children and cronies were reported to be among Asia's most wealthiest people. And two years after he stepped down, people are still suffering from the calamity he created.

Now how about our current President? If hearing is believing, Gus Dur is not corrupt, and during this holy month we should therefore pray to God Almighty that He will discourage him from sampling the forbidden fruit. Also we should ask God to make him stop producing confusing statements and forging strange relationships with convicts or suspects of corruption because our people have had enough of his inconceivable acts.

I also think his fanatic defenders need to rest during Ramadhan so that they have time to repent for the sins they have committed in defending the "saint". Islam discourages its followers from profane talk, much less telling lies.

Our grassroots people appear to be extremely patient, despite all the chaos created by Soeharto, and they can still welcome Ramadhan with a sense of devotion. They are still happy to hear the air vibrate with the humming of prayers and the recitation to glorify the name of Allah. In this holy month they feel as if they can see the color of the air they breath.

By abstaining from food and drink from dawn to sunset, Muslims are expected to feel the hunger of the poor, whose number in Indonesia has sharply increased. But can the destitute people feel any more hungry since they have already done without for so long? This is what makes Indonesia -- like some African countries, perhaps -- very special.

At least most of our poor can be grateful to the Almighty because they can still fast much more peacefully than their brethren in the restive provinces of Aceh and Maluku, where they listen to Koran recitals amid the hissing sounds of bullets. Or than the former flamboyant prince of Soeharto's "Kingdom of Cendana" who is being hunted by law enforcers around the clock.

Another show of solidarity in this holy month is the tradition of some rich people -- and many are those who enjoyed high positions in the old regime -- who open their houses to everyone to break the fast. This is a positive sign of solidarity, but a friend of mine, knowing I'm well-versed in Islamic law, asked me, "Is it halal (allowed by Islamic law) to eat the food from the table of a kleptomaniac veteran?"

I said: "How can you deem someone corrupt without any strong evidence?"

He said the typical host of an open house always flaunts his fortune, which everyone doubts he could have accumulate on his salary, not even in a 100 years. "And mind you, our corrupt officials are professional artists who know the art of disguising their mentality and how to make people accept that they are extremely wealthy and not ask any bold questions".

The man then mentioned an acquaintance of his, a social worker who lives in a provincial capital. He runs an orphanage housing 120 orphans. One year during Ramadhan my friend saw him bending over backwards to feed the poor children and provide them with new clothes for Idul Fitri, the post-fasting festivity, forgetting his own children at home. On the last day of Ramadhan that year, this high-minded man burst into tears because he found that two orphans did not get new clothes because there were not enough for everyone at the orphanage.

-- Thayeb Ibnu Sabil