IN most sermons at mosques, attendees are often reminded that believers often feel sad when the holy month of Ramadan comes to an end.

I feel this way too – I personally enjoy the journey one has to go through during Ramadan aside from the hunger and thirst: the two most superficial but obvious aspects of fasting during the holy month.

Many are often surprised that I actually fast. Yes, I confess, I am not the most pious of persons but that does not make me less of a believer.

I’m just a slacker because I am a Generation X-er after all – the generation most informed by the ennui of a pre-internet world. Nonetheless, I am a believer and I don’t have to prove to anyone but God that I am for God knows the very depths of my intentions and motives.

I often wonder, aside from my rather “liberal” (not my choice of word but one often used to describe Malays like me) approach and attitude towards culture, especially food and beverages.

This attitude, honestly, is informed by my own reading, understanding and interpretations which eventually form my own logical conclusions to how I live my life. I never impose and I don’t appreciate being imposed upon.

It’s also interesting that in diverse and cosmopolitan Malaysia, we inadvertently find ourselves at some point in our lives as Malaysians being the sole representative of your ethnicity or religion when in the company of others.

How many times have you been asked about your collective identity’s attitudes or sets of beliefs over lunch when you are the sole representative of your group?

I enjoy such situations if they come my way because I use these as an opportunity to debunk and demystify tropes and stereotypes about the group of people I officially represent: Malays and Muslims.

I also often add another one: being human. I use this to flip the question back to the group and hopefully make them ponder what it really means being “human”. A perplexing and “deep” question which I find worrying that most people don’t ponder about.

Philosophical inquiry ought to be at the core of any believer – not just blind acceptance of tenets and rules.

To have a philosophical inquiry into any set of beliefs is not a repudiation of the tenets and rules, in fact it’s the exact opposite: it reveals that one is engaged, curious, and wishes to know more.

To me, one’s faith supersedes any organised or formal institution that purportedly “represents” a faith. One of the sites of this inquiry is to question and scrutinise common cultures often associated with any religious festivity.

A common culture in Malaysia during the fasting month is Ramadan buffets, which is to me the anti-thesis of what the holy month represents.

Yes, we love our food (we are still the fattest nation in the region) and we embrace the varied delicacies borne out of the various cultures and beliefs that we have as a nation.

However, Ramadan buffets are the emblems of Malaysian consumerism that I feel we’ve failed to think about critically when relating to the faith.

I often have very differing opinions with a lot of mainstream religious leaders – especially those who love to point their fingers at people – but I read one article a couple of weeks back quoting a religious state leader which echoes my longstanding personal opinion on Ramadan buffets.

Now that Ramadan is over and most have avenged their lost Hari Raya celebrations of the past two years – my hometown of Bandar Baru Bangi has been gridlocked in the town centre on weekends for the whole Ramadan month because of Hari Raya shopping madness – maybe we can reflect and have some clarity and maybe improve ourselves next round.

If one feasts during Ramadan, then one fails in exercising the moderation that the holy month entails.

Plus, Hari Raya Aidilfitri – I prefer calling it this because I am Malaysian, not an Arab – loses its significance as a celebratory occasion of overcoming one’s battle against temptation throughout the holy month.

Now it seems we just feast throughout Ramadan AND Hari Raya Aidilfitri – where’s the moderation in that?

And it’s not just the food – it’s the shopping for this year’s matching Raya clothes or the latest trend (most of these designs are ugly to me, sorry).

If one has the means, especially these types who love to flaunt it, why not share some to the needy?

Don’t follow suit on how our dealers (a.k.a. leaders) always go to umrah non-stop (yeah, I know they have a lot of sins and atone constantly they must), they aren’t the best examples of moderation and humility.

This is where my ongoing argument about how consumerism is at the heart of Malaysia’s spiritual and materialistic woes. We waste a lot of resources on consuming things that we want but don’t need.

This is the bane of Malaysia’s economic progress in the past 30-40 years. It’s made us the America of the region (Singapore is the Switzerland in my books). We’ve become a materialistic lot, chasing the shiniest and latest gadgets or the biggest food spread we can lay our guts on.

So, let us reflect on our consumption habits and think about what we really need and what we really desire. They are mutually exclusive. – May 6, 2022.

* 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.