* This article appears in the Harakah's latest edition. Found it very useful as "peringatan untuk kita semua yang mungkin terlupa". Happy reading.
by M.G.G. Pillai
Gluttony is not what one associates with Ramadhan. In Malaysia it is. One need not look far to see why. The 14 hours of fasting is seen as an imposition that must end with a banquet, to eat as much as one would not at other times, whatever it costs. Hotels find creative ways to encourage patrons to eat as much as they can as expensively as possible. And people do not break their fast alone. They bring along friends and bills of RM600 a day are common. One hotel offers a Ramadhan Special for RM400, for which you get a better-than-average room, the breaking of fast and the early morning repast before beginning it the next morning; another offers a Ramadhan buffet at RM75, though most charge RM50 each.
It is an occasion, as Islam requires, a time for reflexion, thanksgiving to Allah, strengthen one's faith by knowing what it is to suffer hunger pangs, that faith does not come easily. Instead it has become an excuse to flaunt one's wealth, or rather expense account, by turning it into a gastronomic festival. It is now an excuse to throw parties in the name of Islam, with a perfect reason to do so.
Those who cannot afford these astronomical prices are encouraged to gluttony by the smaller and less well-known establishments with a smaller selection and far cheaper. But make no mistake. They also offer gluttony as the main course. This is officially encouraged. When the Prime Minister and his cabinet break fast, it is to partake in a feast. The Pesta Ramadhan, which are a feature of the fasting month, sells mostly food. The stalls that open up during the month, usually illegally, come to sell food. Ramadhan is now an officially sanctioned licence to ignore the tenets of the faith, and pig at the dining table. An friend of 40 years, a retired civil servant, apologises for the "poor" fare at his table. "I was working then and could afford a better table", he said as if it explained everything.
In a sense, it does. Ramadhan in Malaysia is to show off one's usually ill-gotten wealth. When cabinet ministers, mentris besar. cabinet ministers and state executive councillors get an official allowance (for cabinet ministers, it was once RM10,000 for Hari Raya and for breaking fast, but it must be higher now) it encourages this nationwide chasing the tail to show one's importance. It is an arrogance of the newly rich, usually without working for it, that encourages this deliberate gluttony. Every need and desire is reduced to a value, and it is this that determines where one stands in society.
Malaysia is not alone in this. I first noticed this in Pakistan more than a decade ago. The very rich are very rich indeed, and gluttony at Ramadhan is one way they tell the world they are who they are. But they are strengthened by the civil servants and other denizens of the middle to upper classes in almost every society where this is all too prevalent. Walk into any diplomatic function in the sub-continent, and you find every one rushing for the food that it is soon picked so clean that the vultures would be jealous.
But is this how Malaysians break their fast? I saw a Malay labourer, his wife and child break fast with KFC fried chicken. It was cheaper than cooking at home. Stall food is cheap but one tends to eat too much and "I cannot afford that". In Malaysia, even amongst the poor, Ramadhan is linked to food, lots of it. But non-Malay Muslims break their fast differently: they eat a sweek fruit, if dates are unavailable or unaffordable, tea and a savoury. It is much later that they sit down to a modest meal. The Indonesian stops eating about midnight and fasts for about eighteen hours, breaks it with a light meal and eats nothing until midnight. The Indian Muslim generally is abstemious about his food during the fast.
Fasts like Ramadhan exist in every religions. The Christians have Lent. Hindus do fast before and during some festivals and always before and during a pilgrimage, the most common the 41-day milk-and-banana fast that devotees undertake pilgrimages. In the other religions, there is no licence to gluttony as we see amongst Muslims in Malaysia. The food served on feast days at temples, both Buddhist and Hindu, are for devotees and the poor.
One should therefore take fasts in one's stride. A religious observation should not be a licence for indolence. But it has become. One need look far to confirm this. Proffesional Malays behave as if obligations should not be met during Ramadhan, and often absent themselves, or turn up for work late. It is a national disease. This general tiredness, officially encouraged if not discouraged, makes it certain that work does not get done and mishaps aplenty. This is now so prevalent that little gets done during the month. It should not. But the government encourages this, by not making examples of those who blatantly flout it.
Somehow Malays in Malaysia believe that the forms of the Ramadhan fast is more important than observing it for what it is, as an article of faith. So, it was not surprising that a Malaysian brigadier and several senior officers of a Malaysian division in East Malaysia during Indonesia's confrontation were shot dead during their evening fast. The Koranic rules have exceptions when doing one's duty exceeds the rituals and forms of the religion. Nothing as dramatic has happened since in Malaysia. Nothing would. But does it need to? When millions of Muslims believe they should be compensated and allowed special rules when observing the requirements of their faith. But this is still no excuse for the annual gluttony at Ramadhan.
Ends
