🇮🇩 A new Eid precedes a New Normal

Hello friends!

It feels a bit trite to start with ‘well it’s been a crazy few weeks’ since it has been for anyone. I’ve just started a new job which has the added benefit of keeping me off the internet all day but the downside of being totally exhausting. Going ahead, the premium newsletter will be moved to Wednesdays and other pieces, including the original pieces, will arrive in inboxes Monday and Fridays.

It’s all part of that ‘new normal’, a phrase that is impossible to escape. That said, few governments have taken to the term with such gusto as Indonesian governments. The ‘new normal’ period is in the beginning stages now and is hoped to revive the economy and dodge the worst of predictions.

New normal began with a decidedly un-normal event: the celebrations of Eid, under COVID-19 restrictions. This week would ordinarily be the slow return to work and public life — the true ‘normal’ — but not this year.

Isyana Artharini, one of my fave writers in Jakarta and the brains behind the new Bottle Episodes Substack, is with us today to reflect on Eid, the pandemic and what is normal.

Please share far and wide!

Erin Cook

Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque before social distancing (c/o Flickr user Portable Soul)

Normally, the day would start with waking up early and trying to be the first person in the house to use the bathroom. Eid prayers would begin at 7 am. Everyone must be ready before then so we'd have enough time to walk in a leisurely pace to the nearest prayer location, which usually would take place in an open field at the centre of our housing complex. 

Anyone who’s waiting for their turn would have to make themselves useful by searching for some old newspapers (a task that's proving to be more difficult each year as we move more toward digital media rather than physical subscription) so we can put it underneath our prayer mats to avoid them getting wet from the morning grass. 

As we walked, we'd see other families going the same way. The newness of their clothes — the vibrant colours, the stark whiteness — is evident. The sound of takbir from the loudspeaker normally would have been ceaseless since 13 hours ago, when Ramadan officially ended. In the morning, in between the takbir, we’d also hear a request for people to walk faster as the prayer would soon start.The sight of the open field during Eid prayer, no matter where I am in Indonesia or how old I was, never changed. On the women's side, there were always babies and toddlers in their cute outfit holding balloons that their parents bought from a seller nearby. It is very much likely that a baby (or two or three) would start crying as soon as the prayer starts. The mothers would almost always quit mid-praying in order to comfort their children. Of course, I never knew if this was ever an occurrence in the men’s section. Donation boxes made out of instant noodles carton packaging wrapped in brown paper would be handed out and passed from one person to the next until it reached the end of the row where it will be collected. Every year, I’d worry if the selected speaker for the after-prayer sermon would say anything remotely hateful toward other religions. I remember a year where I can’t stand what was being said from the pulpit that I decided to get up and went home ahead of everyone else.  This year, everyone in my mother’s house still needs to get up early. But I don’t even need to put on a sandal to get to the prayer location, I just need to go downstairs to the living room. My brother in law, the only adult male in the house, has the unenviable task to be the imam, to lead our prayer that morning. In normal Eid time, as soon as we finish this morning ritual, we'd race home, we’d pack our Eid breakfast to eat in the car on the way to Depok, a suburb of Jakarta where our eldest living relative lives, as early as we can to avoid the traffic jam. Despite the fact that we've not spent a minute more than necessary before leaving the house, a lot of other people are already ahead of us, and the toll road is almost always already crowded with cars. News reports and photos often show the marvel that is an empty Jakarta during Eid, it’s because that’s not where most families lived. The traffic jam in the suburbs around the capital during this time is enough to make me wonder if family ties are worth all the trouble. Going to where my grandaunt lives would take probably an hour, going back from there would take twice as long. We would all be sweating in our nice clothes. No matter how hard we cranked the AC, it won’t get any cooler because it’s just too hot outside and we’re already in the freeway for far too long. If I’m bored looking at my phone, to fill the time, I’d alternately stare at the car's cupholder or the infinite rows of Avanza and Xenia outside while saying to myself, ‘We only have to do this once a year’.

We'd arrive back home sometime around 3 or 4 pm where everyone would retreat to their respective air-conditioned rooms to decompress and took a well-deserved long nap. We’ll wake up just before early dinner time and heat the rendang and ketupat while still in an after-nap daze.This year, at 10 am, we're already finished with two family conference calls and about to start our third. It's a welcomed change of pace, but without the handshake or the small talk, it doesn’t really feel like Eid. This day was supposed to be a culmination where two of our biggest culture (food and family) merged. During family gatherings, people know enough to tiptoe around sensitive subjects to show a united front. Bad blood and political differences got reset to zero. Instead, we’re catching up on the mundane life facts; where the cousins worked and what it is actually they do, how old the nieces and nephews are, while the singletons would (over)prepare themselves to anticipate getting asked about when are they getting married when in reality the aunts and uncles wouldn’t care that much, though the young married couples will definitely be asked if they’re already planning to have a baby or if they’re trying for a second or a third child.At least before, despite the awkwardness, the small talks are the kinds that can be conjured out of thin air just from being at the same place, from experiencing the same heat or drowsiness, or from eating the same good food. In Zoom, just being able to see each other on our screens is not enough, we really have to dig deep for conversations, even when what we get are merely talking point scraps.  On TV, we’d usually see news reports about how cars with ‘B’, the Jakarta license plate, created gridlocks in other cities, such as in Yogyakarta or Bandung. Going back to hometown or ‘mudik’ is a big holiday moment for families as well as a time to recharge. No matter how much Eid has been commodified, during ‘mudik’, there are still plenty of genuine moments of reconnecting with your roots to be had. And at the end of the season, which usually lasts for about a week, those cars would return to Jakarta. Its passengers, refreshed and renewed by strengthened social cohesion that is rife with cultural meanings and importance, are ready to start going back to work or school again. In the before time, the end of the Eid holiday means that everything would be roaring back to life, returning to normal. Obviously, there wouldn’t be any of that after this Eid. Instead, we’re being prepared, if not forced, to enter the New Normal, where, for the moment, it seems that we will be sending kids back to school or people back to their workplace without a clear explanation about the scientifically-based health safety protocols that will be put in place to keep us safe. So far, the most important thing we know is that there will be a total of 340,000 soldiers and police officers deployed to warn people to social distance and wear a mask in public. 

Apparently, just as much as we have to figure out on our own how to safely do Eid in the midst of a pandemic, now we still have to think some more on what we can do to keep ourselves safe ahead of the New Normal, and if it is not already too late.