THIS Ramadan has been quite a rollercoaster ride if you’ve been glued to your electronic media devices.

I’ve always had a lingering suspicion that we’ve lost our grip on the true meaning of fasting in this holy month.

I’m not trying to get into a debate about the nature of “truth” but to contemplate what fasting means to each Muslim as opposed to some collective intent of the ummah, which is public knowledge and common sense.

Faith is personal. It is the internalisation of the principles of the faith that one professes. It is not for public display and showing off.

It is easy to show off: just reflect on Malaysia, especially how Malay-Muslim females were expected to present themselves 25 years ago.

There has been a great shift since to display religious piety, which has sparked profitable interest from the fashion industry.

Of course, mere physical appearance does not necessarily denote of “true” piety. Intent is paramount. One’s intent supersedes the act of prayer or any religious ritual. Get the intent wrong and you’re off the map.

Back to the noisy online digital present, it’s easy to get lost in the constant barrage of news. Doomscrolling exposes one’s own moral or ethical compass to often conflicting messages.

None of the news events such as the KK Mart boycott or Love Raya could have reached such epic proportions  in the old analogue media world of RTM1, RTM2, and print publications.

Scrutinise the people behind the two events and you will see the phenomenon for what it is: attention-seeking.

The-two main Malay Muslim male public figures involved in the two cases may seem to differ. One is probably out to gain quick and cheap political currency recklessly while the other is a narcissist or a self-promoter (I’m not sure if there’s a difference between the two), to judge by his track record.  They are both attention-seeking birds of the same feather using the digital medium to gain visibility regardless of the cultural sensitivities their behaviours trample on.

What can one do as a spectator to this self-serving charade? It’s easy to be swept into the online rumble and respond emotionally – and these issues are highly emotional – but some stepping back and reflection is required.

This leads me back to the spirit of Ramadan and fasting, something these two public figures seem to have overlooked, intentionally or not..

In her 2020 book “Digital Detox: The Politics of Disconnecting”, Professor Trine Syvertsen of University of Oslo recalls the first time she heard of the term “digital detox”. It was in 2010 in the book “The Winter of Our Disconnect” written by Susan Maushart.

Maushart wrote about her family’s self-imposed six months media fast. She wrote: “Our digital detox messed with our heads, our hearts, and our homework. It changed the way we ate and the way we slept, the way we ‘friended’, fought, planned, and played. It altered the very taste and texture of our family life. Hell, it even altered the mouthfeel. In the end, our family’s self-imposed exile from the Information Age changed our lives indelibly – and infinitely for the better.”

My response to the noise online is to take it in small doses and with a healthy pinch of salt.

It is easy to overreact to every piece of news that comes our way.

Why haven’t our religious gatekeepers addressed digital fasting? The usual response of banning, censoring or condemning has obviously failed.

So, why not change the tone on linking faith, spirituality with how we approach and respond to all things digital, in this case, how we respond to trending news?

Overreaction is a dangerous thing that swells just like flatulence. Be mindful of your news intake and digital diet.

It is a spiritual action, not just a pragmatic one because how you react and respond is a reflection of your values and reveals how much you actually understand your own faith. – April 5, 2024.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.