Jakarta Globe, Dyah
Ayu Pitaloka, August 4, 2013
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| Buddhist members of the Vihara Sanggar Suci temple in Malang, East Java, have been opening their doors to serve up meals for Muslims to break their fast during the month of Ramadan for the past 15 years. (JG Photo/Dyah Ayu Pitaloka) |
Tineke
paced back and forth as she looked at her watch. “It’s now 5 p.m., and the food
has yet to come,” the middle-aged woman said, her restlessness shown by her
frown and shortness of breath.
She was not
the only one waiting anxiously for the food to arrive. Eight other women were
also standing by and keeping themselves busy by arranging tables into rows,
laying down tablecloths and stacking empty plates.
Tineke and
the other women were preparing a mass iftar event for some 200 hungry Muslims
who were eager to break their fast.
But while
the women had volunteered and financed the event for Muslims who were not
fortunate enough to buy a decent meal or who did not have time to prepare
anything, they won’t be fasting this Ramadan.
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| (JG Photo/Dyah Ayu Pitaloka) |
Winantea
Listiahadi, the temple’s head clergyman and the drive’s initiator, is a humble,
elderly man with grey hair who likes to wear simple clothes — a plain white
T-shirt and a pair of old, worn, faded black trousers.
He
recounted how he started the drive. It was 1998 and the Asian financial crisis
was at its height. Businesses were forced to close, jobs were lost and people
were going to bed hungry.
The crisis
was so severe it paved the way for the resignation of former president Suharto,
a powerful, iron-fisted leader who reigned for 32 years. But it also gave way
to friction, ethnic violence and tensions. That year, 850 kilometers away in
Jakarta, people of Chinese descent like Winantea were targeted, murdered and
raped, their homes, stores and factories burned.
But
Winantea couldn’t care less.
What he saw
at the time were victims of the financial crisis, people who had little money
to break their fast. And he felt compelled to do something about it.
Winantea
said he first contacted members of Metta, a women’s group from the temple, to
enlist their help.
“The
following day we staged our first fast-breaking event,” he explained.
When the
drive kicked off, Winantea and the group served 80 people. But word spread and
the number grew to 300, with people coming from the city of Malang to the
neighboring district of Jombang. As the number of visitors soared so did the
Buddhist community’s drive to lend a hand or provide financial support.
“We started
handing out packed meals, visiting them directly. But we realized that people
were asking for two to three packs to keep for later so we opened our doors and
invited them [to the temple]. That way more people could be served. If they
want more they can have another go but after everyone else has had their
share,” Winantea said.
The sun was
slowly fading and the time to break the fast was just around the corner. A
minivan pulled up by the side of the temple, to everyone’s relief. Inside were
pots of mutton curry, the meal for the day, ordered from a distant restaurant.
The women
wasted no time carrying the heavy pots filled with the stew inside. Tineke
swiftly readied the serving bowls, filling them up with the curry as people
began queuing up in one long line, snaking out to the nearby streets.
Winantea
and the women from Metta ensure that the meals vary each day to keep visitors
from getting bored.
They also
make sure that the meals are halal, choosing to buy food from restaurants
serving halal food rather than preparing their own meals to hand out to
visitors.
The
volunteers are even willing to help and reach out even if it’s not in line with
their own beliefs.
“I am a
vegetarian,” the Buddhist monk said.
“If I
served them with pecel [vegetables with peanut sauce], they can buy it
themselves. It wouldn’t be special for those with low income. This is my way of
helping them. So I gladly sacrifice my vegetarianism.”
Winantea
said previous items on the menu included rawon (beef stew with soy sauce), soto
(soup) or satay .
“If you
want more you can head to that table over there. There are also biscuits after
you finish your meal,” Tineke shouted to the visitors who had lined up with
empty plates in their hands.
Tineke
swooped up a ladle full of mutton, pouring it into people’s plates as they
moved their way up the long queue.
The call to
prayer filled the air, a signal that the day’s fasting was over, preceded by a
loud series of drumming from a nearby mosque. One by one the hundreds of people
who were there began to down the hot tea served and to eat their first meal for
the day.
In a matter
of minutes the meals were finished, leaving stacks of dirty plates placed at
one corner of the garage waiting to be cleaned. At another corner there sits a
plastic bag filled with used plastic spoons and cups and colorful food
wrappers.
“The food
is great here,” said Karyadi, a man from a neighboring subdistrict who came
with his wife and grandson.
“I have
been coming here since the first day of fasting and will do so until the
fasting month ends.”
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| (JG Photo/Dyah Ayu Pitaloka) |
Last year,
the Setara Institute, an advocacy group, recorded 579 cases of religious
violence.
Less than
100 kilometers north of Malang, on the island of Madura, an entire Shia
community was attacked and driven away from their homes by radical Sunnis, the
predominant Muslim group in Indonesia. In Jakarta, a terrorist cell plotted an
attack against a Buddhist temple in retaliation for the killings of Rohingya
Muslims in Myanmar.
While the
temple’s food drive remains an example of how religious tolerance still has a
place in Indonesia and can bridge a widening divide between religions, Winantea
said the volunteers’ only intention was to do good without any other agenda or
goals in mind.
“We never
bothered to check whether they are indeed fasting or not, whether they can
afford to buy meals for themselves or not. Everyone is welcome,” he
explained.
“I don’t
even know for how long we will keep doing this. It’s all about showing
compassion. We just let it flow.”
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