Today is the final Islamic sabbath before the end of Ramadan. This weekend the Muslims of the world celebrate Eid al-Fitr. You can with them the blessings of the holiday by saying “Eid Mubarak”.
As a non-Muslim I give some casual observations of what happens during Ramadan. Every year food becomes an issue. I know that when you are fasting all the daylight hours food is going to become a very personal issue. What I mean is how food becomes an issue in the media and in national economics. As the festival of Eid approaches it seems each year that the prices of certain foods increase. Producers looking for a boost in value manipulate supply, warning of dire shortages. This leads to panic buying and stockpiling and adds anxiety in what is already a stressful time. This year with the Russian-Ukraine conflict and the rise in fossil fuel prices the circumstances are being manipulated to gouge the market. The Indonesian government has placed a ban on export of Palm Oil to guarantee domestic supply. The result is an acute shortage in India. Let’s see next week if the shortage is real.
As with any major holiday traffic becomes a key focus of the media. Golden week in China, Diwali in India, Thanksgiving in the USA, Christmas in Europe. Islamic media this weekend is reporting on the traffic snarls and airport delays as millions of people travel home for the holiday.
What happens at Friday prayers! Not universally, but in certain areas, driven by certain Imams, crowds go into the mosque happily on a Friday and come out angry. Some of this translates into fundamentalist zeal for Islam. Several times in London I have found myself nervous of noisy crowds of clearly incited teenage boys emerging from Friday prayers. It makes me curious about what is being said to them in what is supposed to be a religious service for a faith that values peace. My brother lived in Jakarta for seven years in a Western compound. He noted that it was a feature of Friday evenings that from time to time a car would be damaged or someone would dump concrete blocks in the compound swimming pool. Always on a Friday evening and most acute towards the end of Ramadan.
Violence on the Temple Mount. It is an annual ritual that tensions rise at certain times in Jerusalem. This year Easter, Pesach and Ramadan all bumped up against each other. The Christians are blessed that the Romans did not crucify Jesus on the Temple Mount. They have Golgotha to themselves. But Orthodox Jews insist on exercising their “right” to visit the Temple Mount, especially at Pesach. In response Islamic Fundamentalists exercise their “rights” to the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque by lobbing rocks down onto the Jews worshipping at the Western Wall. They also lob the odd Molotov cocktail. In recent years they have succeeded in setting trees alight in the compound of the Mosques. When Jewish police attempt to keep order they are labelled as fascist oppressors. It is an annual shit show choreographed by blinkered fundamentalists of all persuasions. These are the people who give religion a bad name.
A lesson in Drawing; by Nizar Qabbani
My son places his paint box in front of me
and asks me to draw a bird for him.
Into the color gray I dip the brush
and draw a square with locks and bars.
Astonishment fills his eyes:
‘… But this is a prison, Father,
Don’t you know, how to draw a bird?’
And I tell him: ‘Son, forgive me.
I’ve forgotten the shapes of birds.’
My son puts the drawing book in front of me
and asks me to draw a wheatstalk.
I hold the pen
and draw a gun.
My son mocks my ignorance,
demanding,
‘Don’t you know, Father, the difference between a
wheatstalk and a gun?’
I tell him, ‘Son,
once I used to know the shapes of wheatstalks
the shape of the loaf
the shape of the rose.
But in this hardened time
the trees of the forest have joined
the militia men
and the rose wears dull fatigues.
In this time of armed wheatstalks
armed birds
armed culture
and armed religion
you can’t buy a loaf
without finding a gun inside
you can’t pluck a rose in the field
without its raising its thorns in your face
you can’t buy a book
that doesn’t explode between your fingers.’
My son sits at the edge of my bed
and asks me to recite a poem,
A tear falls from my eyes onto the pillow.
My son licks it up, astonished, saying:
‘But this is a tear, father, not a poem!’
And I tell him:
‘When you grow up, my son,
and read the diwan of Arabic poetry
you’ll discover that the word and the tear are twins
and the Arabic poem
is no more than a tear wept by writing fingers.’
My son lays down his pens, his crayon box in
front of me
and asks me to draw a homeland for him.
The brush trembles in my hands
and I sink, weeping.
-=o0o=-
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