Week of spending and sharing

Department stores and almost all other retail outlets across the country have been ringing up record sales during the past two weeks as people gear up to celebrate the Idul Fitri holidays next week.

Bus companies, the state railways, ferry services between Java and Sumatra and airlines have been fully booked by people who want to join the annual exodus from Jakarta, which is popularly known as mudik -- the tradition of spending the annual Idul Fitri holidays at one's home village. Hotels in Bali and resort areas around Jakarta have also been reserved by well-off families from Jakarta. Bookings for outbound travel to Singapore, Hong Kong and China have also been on the rise.

While the exodus has yet to reach its peak on Friday and Saturday, the eve of Idul Fitri, there is already heavy traffic along Java's main highways and those to the Merak ferry port crossing between Java and the Sumatra islands. Long lines of would-be Idul Fitri revelers have been seen at bus and railway stations. Similar scenes, though on a smaller scale, have also been taking place in many other provincial cities as people return to their home towns.

This is the time of the year when Muslims in urban areas will try, whatever their circumstances, to spend several days in their rural hometowns, taking time out with their relatives, sharing their material affluence and experiences in the cities and showing off the fruits of their labor.

So important is mudik to many people that company employees and civil servants often risk being dismissed or harshly disciplined for taking extra days off if they are not given leave longer than the two-day official holidays usually allotted for the Idul Fitri celebrations.

The government has rightly decided to give civil servants the entire next week off to allow Idul Fitri holidaymakers to better enjoy their vacation. Most companies' leave policies are also in line with the government's because managers realize commercial activities will anyway be severely restricted as banks stay shut over the break.

Mudik is so inseparable from Idul Fitri that anything that obstructs people's enjoyment of it, official or otherwise, is likely to trigger a big backlash. No wonder most companies, even those in dire financial straits, always go all-out to provide Idul Fitri allowances so as to enable their employees to celebrate holidays back home.

Fortunately, this year there has not yet been a single case of industrial action related to the allowances. Past experiences have taught employers that the matter is too sensitive to be ignored.

The 20-day-old President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's United Indonesia Development Cabinet also is fully aware of the importance of Idul Fitri celebrations and an orderly, peaceful mudik. Ensuring adequate supplies of basic necessities and general consumer goods at fairly stable prices and that the transport network runs without hitches has been at the top of the Cabinet's agenda during recent days.

Idul Fitri with its mudik tradition is also the time of the year when many well-off families in Jakarta, deprived of the help of their maids, travel overseas or conduct a mudik of sorts to Bali or resort areas around Jakarta and Bandung.

And for the people who stay in Jakarta, next week will be a rare occasion in the year to enjoy a quiet city with easily flowing traffic as the exodus temporarily cuts down the city's population by up to one-third.

All this movement shows significant progress in the country's process of being increasingly transformed from a basically agricultural, rural-based economy into a modern, urban-based one. This in turn enriches the celebration of Idul Fitri and mudik with cultural, social and economic dimensions, in addition to their religious and spiritual meanings.

The practice of buying presents for the Idul Fitri celebrations and during the week-long holiday invariably generates a high market demand for goods and services, thereby further boosting private consumption, which after the 1997 economic crisis has been one of the two locomotives of the economy. In fact, sales for Idul Fitri celebrations alone usually account for almost 50 percent of the annual turnovers of department stores.

The exodus from urban centers to the villages also serves to enhance the redistribution of income as city folk share their earnings with relatives and at the same time inject a strong dose of purchasing power into the rural economy.

Outsiders may shake their heads observing how people, in defiance of simple logic, should struggle to such lengths and often go through so much pains only to spend a few days in their home villages. But given the many positive dimensions of the custom this is a tradition that is worthy of being sustained in spite of the heavily challenging logistics.