The Comfort of Eid without Firecrackers and Fireworks

Bondowoso (ANTARA) - Eid al-Fitr in Indonesia, also known as Lebaran, is often accompanied by various local traditions, including the habit of lighting firecrackers or fireworks. Lighting firecrackers and fireworks is part of the local Lebaran tradition in Indonesia, although its origins are suspected to be an assimilation from Chinese community culture. The emergence of competition amid the festivity of Lebaran leads society to often compete in lighting firecrackers and fireworks with high explosive power and louder sounds. Besides causing discomfort due to deafening ears and startling those who hear them, the tradition of lighting firecrackers and fireworks not infrequently results in fatalities. In addition to consumers, namely the public using firecracker and fireworks products, fatalities also often affect producers, especially on a home-scale production. Several cases of firecracker and fireworks production that cause loud explosions, leading to several houses being destroyed. These explosions often also injure firecracker producers and the community around the production houses, not infrequently causing fatalities. The police apparatus, which represents the presence of the state to maintain security and order in society, has issued a ban on the production and lighting of firecrackers and fireworks, especially ahead of and during Lebaran. Even the ulama, who are tasked with safeguarding the morals of the Muslim community, have issued a fatwa that lighting firecrackers or fireworks is haram, let alone producing them. Nevertheless, society does not immediately abandon that dangerous tradition, namely lighting and making firecrackers or fireworks. The Muslim community does not respond to the police ban and the ulama’s fatwa in the same way as they do to laws on theft, alcoholic beverages, and others. The sound of firecrackers on takbiran nights and on the day itself, namely after the Eid prayer, does not entirely disappear from the reality of Lebaran celebrations in our society.