THE old man, dressed in white, sat pensively on the veranda of the mushalla (small mosque) of the Court of Kanoman in Cirebon, West Java, waiting for isya the evening prayer. His name is Sobari, a 50-year-old guardian and imam of the mosque. Why was he lost in thought? “I haven’t had a meal since morning,” he said.

Sobari had not eaten not because he was fasting. There was simply no food to eat. In normal times, Sobari who is o