Ramadan is coming to an end tonight, but for Indonesia, this has been a month filled with incidents rather than the peace and calm we tend to associate with the Islamic holy month. The past 30 days have been anything but peaceful. Just browse through the headlines of this newspaper in the last four weeks.
Nature for one decided to defy natural laws. Endless rains in August, supposedly the peak of the dry season, caught many people off guard and caused massive floods. Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra woke up from a 400-year slumber to belch out smoke and ashes and send tens of thousands of people on its slopes to seek refuge.
But there were also the man-made incidents that defied the holy nature of Ramadan. The nation was rudely awakened by a spate of armed robberies in major urban centers. In South Sulawesi and South Sumatra, police became the targets of angry mobs because of their poor handling of criminal cases. It is a dangerous situation when police come to be seen by the people as predators rather than protectors
The Islamic message of peace in Ramadan was also lost when mobs, using the banner of Islam, attacked a Christian congregation in Bekasi near Jakarta, and again when a minister, who supposedly should protect the freedom of all religions announced his plan to ban the Ahmadiyah, a sect with more than 200,000 followers. Religious intolerance reared its ugly head at the wrong time of the year.
The Ramadan month also saw warmongers enjoying public platforms provided by TV stations as they beat their drum against Malaysia, and as protesters got away with harassing the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta over an issue that was clearly the domain of diplomacy.
And then there was the controversy over the government’s handling of corruption cases, including its decision to give unnecessarily generous remissions as Independence Day gifts to convicted corruptors, a move that effectively took the sting out of the antigraft campaign, thus turning corruption into a seriously profitable venture.
In the final week of Ramadan we have seen the annual hustle and bustle, as millions of city folk joined the exodus to rural areas to celebrate Eid in their home villages. An annual ritual, the government’s ineptitude and incompetence was again on clear public display through its poor management of logistics as each year exodus crowds have multiplied beyond the capacity of failing infrastructure.
In the absence of sufficient affordable and convenient modes of transportation, millions of the revelers this year are traveling home on motorcycles for hours, putting their lives at considerable risk.
Newspaper headlines in the past month suggest an Indonesia that is struggling with many challenges, irrespective of Ramadan, or perhaps in spite of it.
Barring unforeseen circumstances, we can all hope for real peace, or at least some respite, in the next few days when economic and political activities wind down as the nation celebrates Eid. With half of Jakarta’s population out of town at least those who remain can enjoy the city without the traffic congestion.
This may be a good time for self-reflection and contemplation on the real meaning of Ramadan and the ensuing Eid “day of victory”.
Eid Mubarak.
