Week of spending and sharing

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.