Say a little prayer

On Wednesday night, most Indonesian Muslims will throng mosques around the country for the taraweh prayers, kicking off the Ramadhan holy month. For the next 29 to 30 days, Muslims in the country will refrain from eating and drinking, and from indulging in worldly acts, such as sexual intercourse, from dawn to dusk.

To Muslims, Ramadhan is more a spiritual than a physical endurance test. The hunger and thirst sustained during the day are part and parcel of the exercise to restrain and purify one's self, and to defeat one's worldly emotions and desires. Prayers, lots of them, also make up for that drive to attain the highest spiritual experience. During Ramadhan, Muslims will pray beyond the obligatory five daily prayers; the nightly taraweh, which begins on Wednesday night, is one of them.

Ramadhan is as much an individual as well as a communal spiritual experience. While a person is on his or her own in refraining from worldly activities, he or she is conducting this in a family environment and in a community. The taraweh, held mostly at mosques, for example, symbolizes the communal nature of Ramadhan. Observed properly, Ramadhan should benefit the person as well as the community he or she lives in. Given that the majority of the population is Muslim, the month should also benefit Indonesia.

So much has happened in this country over the past year, both good and bad, giving us a lot to contemplate during our Ramadhan prayers. On the good side, we have succeeded in building a new government which was elected in a democratic process. Indonesia could not have picked a better president in Abdurrahman Wahid, a Muslim scholar with renowned commitments to democracy and human rights.

On the downside, violence still wreaks havoc in some parts of our country. Many of our countrymen and women, of all faiths, have fallen victim to these ugly unrests, some of which, sadly, originate from sectarian conflicts. Many people have lost their lives, others have lost their loved ones and their property. Across the country, many people continue to fall victim to the ravaging economic crisis, plunging them deeper into poverty; more and more are losing their jobs, their source of livelihood and their source of pride and self-respect.

Given the condition of our country, Ramadhan is therefore an appropriate and timely occasion for all of us to reflect on the past, and to amend the mistakes we have made. It is a good time to start building a better future, for ourselves, our families, and ultimately for our community and country. It is a time to renew our commitments as a religious person, and in turn to renew our commitments to strengthen our sense of community.

When we say our prayers during Ramadhan, we should say some for those victims of the crises and for those who are far less fortunate than ourselves. We should also pray for the country's leaders, upon whose shoulders fall the unenviable task of lifting this country out of its current predicament.

Since Muslims make up the majority of the population, we have to take the initiative to right every wrong found in this country. Muslims are expected to take the lead. The Ramadhan prayers must be an occasion for Muslims to seek divine guidance as we search for a way to build a better and more peaceful community.

Ramadhan indeed is a time for all Muslims to make peace with themselves, more so than with anything else. But there can be no peace of mind so long as the political and economic crises continue to tear our community and our country apart. There can be no real peace so long as people in this country continue to die violent and senseless deaths, so long as people continue to live in dire poverty, to lose their jobs, to go hungry and to become so desperate that they have to indulge in criminal acts.

A little prayer, when said together, could go a long way to bring peace to this country. A solemn prayer during Ramadhan could enlighten our community, and our leaders, and show the way to resolve the various problems and challenges that confront us.