Depressing stories about religious intolerance often surface during Ramadan in Indonesia, so it’s nice to be reminded about the everyday acts of interfaith harmony that so often go unnoticed over the shouts of the small but vocal minority of the population that seek to spread hate during the Holy Month.
One example of such tolerance comes in the form of a viral Facebook post this week, which contains screenshots of a chat between an online motorcycle taxi driver and his customer.
https://www.facebook.com/natierauf/posts/10213513474220889
The screenshots, which has been shared over 20,000 times as of this afternoon, were first posted by a motorcycle taxi driver named Rauf Nouvo on May 7. His tale begins with a customer named Agnes Claudia ordering a pizza from Pizza Hut using the food delivery feature of a ride-hailing app. Using the app’s chat function, she told the Rauf that he was welcome to keep the pizza, which she had already paid for, and take it home to share with his family for iftar (breaking fast during Ramadan).
Rauf seemed taken aback at first, but was soon able to see that she was being serious. He then asked her if he could share the pizza with fellow drivers instead, to which she says yes as she “only wanted to share goodness during the fasting month.”
Rauf then thanked Agnes and wished her blessed fasting during Ramadan, to which she replied she doesn’t actually observe the Islamic holy month because she’s Catholic.
Fulfilling Agnes’ request, Rauf bought the pizza, a photo of which can be seen in the post above.
The story has gone incredibly viral in Indonesia over the past few days, being shared on social media thousands of times and being picked up by plenty of mainstream media outlets as well.
Agnes has also posted on Facebook to express her surprise that her simple act of giving became so viral.
https://www.facebook.com/agnes.claudia.9/posts/10217158027374222
Rauf and Agnes’ story serves as a reminder of how beautiful religious tolerance can be in Indonesia’s pluralistic society. The comments to this tweet that shared the story, for example, have become a place where many more Indonesians have shared their own anecdotes about giving during Ramadan.
https://twitter.com/ayarakina/status/1126116153825251329
Yesterday and today I have been teaching privately for the first time. And in these two days I was given food to take home [for iftar] by my student’s mother. She is Catholic.
https://twitter.com/ayamgepuks/status/1126499383787147264
During last year’s Ramadan I hailed a GrabCar to drop off orphans to an iftar event. The driver was super nice even though we were stuck in a traffic jam and one of the kids threw up. When we arrived he did not want to be paid, he said the money can be for them (the orphans). There are many good people.
And this tweet sums up how we feel about this story:
https://twitter.com/Niken_fhr/status/1126145347024089088
So heartwarming. Indonesia is so beautiful if people don’t judge others by their religion. The people are good.
