Did we, as ummah, or Muslim community, pass the test of Ramadan this year?

Looking at the events of recent weeks, especially media headlines and the most shared news on the internet, we have not just seen many hungry people persevering through their fast, but also a lot of angry people.

Whatever happened to restraint — in action, speech and thoughts — a chief virtue that supposedly comes with fasting, during the holy month of Ramadan?

When Ramadan started on May 6, we all assumed — or hoped — that the political tensions that followed the April 17 general elections would ease, and that we would quickly bury the hatchet, particularly our competing leaders and politicians.

Admittedly, we saw some of the most brutal verbal exchanges during the election campaigns, thanks primarily to the widespread use of the internet.

Brutal though the words may have been, but this year’s election was largely peaceful — that is, until May 21, when the General Elections Commission (KPU) announced the results of the simultaneous presidential and legislative elections. Over the next two days, violence erupted in the streets of Central Jakarta near the KPU and the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu).

Restraint went out of the window for these two days as protesters clashed with police, resulting in eight deaths and hundreds of injured. The protests were noisy but peaceful during the day, but turned violent at night, when several protesters refused to comply with the police order to disperse according to the law saying that all street protests must cease at 6 p.m.

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