In Mindanao, war shatters the Ramadan
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“When entire communities get displaced by war, how are you going to celebrate Ramadan?” she asked. “Ramadan completely loses its meaning. Foremost in your mind, when you’re in an evacuation center, is how to survive, where to look for food, or to keep yourself from being harassed, or get hit by a bomb,” she said.
In Saudi Arabia, which is considered the center of the Islamic world, there are laws that reduce the working hours of workers during Ramadan. Instead of being expected to report to work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., for instance, Muslim workers are allowed to report from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to lighten the burden while they’re fasting, Lidasan said.
But nothing of the sort is happening in Basilan. “They (the military) are supposed to be running after the Abu Sayyaf but when they drop those bombs, they hit the communities,” Lidasan said. Constant threat for their lives and the fear of being driven away from their homes are conditions that are very “strenuous” for persons who are supposed to refuse food and water the whole day, she said. “They’re supposed to avoid tension because they’ll develop headaches while they are fasting if they don’t.”
Instead, communities with increased military presence were worried that a bomb could fall any time and hit them, Lidasan said. There used to be a sort of “undeclared truce” between the government troops and the MILF rebels during the Ramadan in the past but it’s not happening anymore, she said.
She described the continued operations against the Abu Sayyaf in MILF territories as signs of “Islamophobia” among the military leadership and seemed to be designed to harass and alienate Muslims from the rest of the people. “As if, they want to tell the world, it’s completely natural to conduct an all-out war against Muslims during Ramadan,” she said. “Isn’t that a subtle way of demonizing the Muslim faith?”
Lidasan said she was also puzzled why government troops who were supposed to be running after the Abu Sayyaf were entering the MILF areas. Baguindan, for instance, has been known as an MILF area, which government had already rid of Abu Sayyaf cells years before. “MILF is a very religious group that observes all the tenets of Islam,” she said. “But how can they have peace of minds when they’re constantly on the run? How about the Moro integrees (the former members of the Moro National Liberation Front who have been integrated to the armed forces), how can they observe Ramadan when the government requires them to conduct military operations?” she asked.
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