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CounterPunch
October
26, 2002
Bali Mon Amour
by ILIJA TROJANOW
In the aftermath of the bomb attack on a disco
in Kuta Beach, Bali a number of journalists wrote about the loss
of innocence in that exotic isle. They must have been overcome
by another spasm of the historical myopia that afflicts the scribes
of today. Maybe they received their information from Colin McPhee's
best-selling account of his enjoyable stay on this island, called
A House In Bali: "In the afternoon and evening Bali
grew unreal, lavish and theatrical like an old-fashioned opera
scenery." This was as much an invention as the earlier perception
of Bali, defined by the colonial invasion and onslaught which
began in 1846. "The Balinese are fierce, savage, perfidious
and bellicose people, loath to do any work, and so they dislike
agriculture," a Dutch visitor had written some hundred years
earlier. Only after conquering and domesticating these 'bellicose
savages', a task completed in 1908, did the Dutch authorities
and other Westerners start to appreciate the locals and their
culture. Less than a generation after Dutch troops had massacred
4000 locals in a puputan, a fight to the death, Bali was
on its way to becoming a major tourist destination, marketed
as a gem of purity and innocence, of beauty and delicacy.
By initially attracting the glitterati
of the Western metropolitan centres glamorous people like
Noel Coward and Charlie Chaplin as well as other aristocrats,
artists (among them musician Colin McPhee) and actors the
island established itself as the site of paradisiacal innocence
in the tropics. Several Hollywood films were shot (Bali, The
Last Paradise!), several best-sellers set in Bali were written.
Any cruise liner worth its dime would include this fabulous island
on its itinerary. By the '50s, Bali was a dominant image of South
Sea Romanticism, as if created by Rousseau and Gauguin and choreographed
by promotional experts from New York. Many fell for the fake
charm. Even an intelligent and reflective man like Pandit Nehru,
first Prime Minister of India, was lured into calling Bali the
"Dawn of the World".
This packaging remained intact, even
after Independence. Now Bali was the Indonesian candidate for
Paradise, a role that fit snuggly into the nationalistic designs
of the two successive ruling generals, Soekarno and Soeharto.
However, Soeharto made life difficult for the ad agencies when,
in the aftermath of his coup in 1965, around 50,000-100,000 supposedly
Communist Balinese were massacred by their brethren. The '70s
saw the advent of mass tourism: the untouched beaches were transformed
into clearing houses for the escapist dreams of Australians,
Americans and West Europeans. Hotels still advertise with slogans
like: "Paradise hasn't changed for thousands of years, except
to get better." Or: "Paradise begins and ends in Bali.
Bali's greatest asset are the Balinese themselves, a serene,
harmonious people, spiritual in a pure and delightful way."
Little wonder that Bali's culture became
a reflection of the image of tourism agencies. Merchants, hotel
owners and artists have a common interest to preserve this profitable,
streamlined culture, which reliably offers what the visitors
expect. "Nobody on Bali could seriously think to challenge
the idea of Balinese culture. Even those people who oppose tourism
and see themselves as defenders of tradition are supporters of
the idea," writes anthropologist Adrian Vickers. Even if
this culture were to perish, one would take its death mask and
use it as long as the sweet grimace on the mask conjures the
image of an idyll for the innumerable tourists. As far back as
1971, a World Bank expert came to the conclusion that Bali's
cultural expressions would soon disappear. But he was not unduly
worried: "Bali can still retain its romantic image and be
thought of as a green and sumptuous garden."
The true history of this Garden of Eden
was, however, human, all too human. In the 17th century, Bali
was an important exporter of slaves, who were shipped not only
to the different ports of the Indian Ocean, but all the way to
South Africa and beyond, to the Caribbean. Business boomed, until
the first complaints found their way to the Indonesian Archipelago.
Seemingly without reason, the Balinese slaves had run 'amuk'.
They had even dared to seize a whole ship and to maroon the crew
what humanity, though: instead of throwing the slavers
into the sea, the Balinese had dropped them ashore! The Dutch
East India Company continued to receive so many complaints, that
they forbade the import of Balinese slaves in 1688, in an ordinance
whose language is reminiscent of the EU decision to restrict
the import of English beef. The term amuk initially referred
to a highly ritualised form of confrontation between clans, in
which the two best warriors fought one another without any restraint.
For Balinese society had never been peaceful or idyllic. A multitude
of greedy princes sought reassertion in small but bloody skirmishes.
The court literature is full of romantic war legends, which describe
in hyperbolic detail how the corpses of the enemy were heaped
up in mountains, how the flowing blood formed an ocean. There
were too many masters and too many wars.
This historical excursus has, of course,
no bearing on the gruesome inhumanity of the recent crime, but
it does put it into perspective. The violence of terrorism is
not the Original Sin, but the latest in a series of horrors perpetuated
on this beautiful island. The murderous bomb blast did not destroy
the innocence of Bali, it damaged a successful trademark.
Ilija Trojanow is a German novelist, and Special Correspondent
for the Suddeutsche Zeitung, and currently lives in Bombay (India).
Trojanow can be reached at: ilija@bom5.vsnl.net.in
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