Farish A. Noor: After Bali, can we still live with our modern Myths?

Writing against the current of popular opinion these days is an
unceasing struggle against the current of stale cliches and
platitudes. Immediately after the recent bombings on the Indonesian
island of Bali the familiar refrains were heard: `destruction of the
paradise island', `loss of a tourist haven', etc, etc. While it is
true that Bali has indeed been seen (and sold) as a tourists'
paradise, we forget that the island has a darker side to its history.
The Question: Why is it in Bali?

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After Bali, can we still live with our modern Myths?

By Farish A. Noor


Writing against the current of popular opinion these days is an
unceasing struggle against the current of stale cliches and
platitudes. Immediately after the recent bombings on the Indonesian
island of Bali the familiar refrains were heard: `destruction of the
paradise island', `loss of a tourist haven', etc, etc. While it is
true that Bali has indeed been seen (and sold) as a tourists'
paradise, we forget that the island has a darker side to its history.

Bali, like the rest of Southeast Asia, inherits at best a troubled
past. The 1950s and 1960s witnessed some of the bloodiest conflict
ever seen in Southeast Asia. The Vietnam war led to the deaths of
millions, and contributed to the destabilisation of the region as a
whole. The capitals of Southeast Asian countries like Bangkok and
Manila became known as flesh pots where brothels and bars flourished
to keep America's soldiers entertained while they were on leave. The
support of Western governments also meant that pro-Western dictators
including Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and General Soeharto of
Indonesia were allowed to rule the roost with impunity.

Indonesia was one country where the battle for the hearts and minds
of the people was fought in earnest. Following a failed coup by the
Indonesian communists in 1965, the right-wing nationalists of the
country, with the active support of the Indonesian army, began a
nation-wide purge that led to the massacre of hundreds of thousands.
Bali, the island paradise visited by millions of tourists every year,
was not spared. Across the island right-wing mobs, with the support
of the army and local officials, went hunting for leftists to maim
and murder.

Bali was later sold as a tourist paradise; an idyllic retreat that
was a sanctuary from the troubles of the world, like some modern-day
consumerist Shangri-La of infinite promise. But the myth of Bali
rings hollow when contrasted to the realities of Indonesia and the
rest of Southeast Asia.

Which brings us to the present. And life in present-day Indonesia is
depressingly hard for many.

Should it be proven that religious militants were indeed responsible
for last week's attack on Bali, it would certainly not come as news
to the Indonesians themselves. Indonesia's brush with religiously
inspired militants goes all the way back to the 1960s. During the
anti-Communist purge of 1965, right-wing religious movements –
including Muslim, Christian and even Hindu ones – were allowed to
destroy the offices and homes of leftist sympathisers. The mobs that
burned down the offices of the Indonesian Communist party, and who
killed suspected Communists all over the country, were given a free
hand by the security forces who conveniently looked the other way. No-
one raised questions about the potential danger of politicised
religion then.

In the late 1970s a mysterious group calling itself the Komando Jihad
appeared. The Komando Jihad was the first group of its kind. Its
members were from the disaffected youth of the big cities, notably
Jakarta. In 1981 it staged the country's first ever hijacking of a
plane when it took control of a Garuda Airlines DC-9. The hijackers
were caught and many of them killed by the Indonesian security
forces, but word soon got out that the very same group had been under
the control of maverick elements within the Indonesian army itself.

Two decades on, the spectre of clandestine militant groups still
haunts the country. In the late 1990s groups like Laskar Jihad
emerged, making the headlines when they sent their hot-headed members
to fight a holy war against the Christians in Ambon in the Moluccan
islands. Following Washington's declaration of the global `war on
terror' the Indonesian government felt compelled to come down hard on
groups like Laskar Jihad, but not before its leader embarrassed the
government by stating to the press that his organisation had been
supported by elements in the Indonesian army all along...

So Indonesians can be forgiven if they seem less than convinced about
the stories they hear and read about the Jama'ah Islamiyah and the
Bali bombings. For a nation brought low by the East Asian economic
crisis of 1997, the Bali bombing of 2002, the Jakarta bombings of
2003 and 2004, and the tsunami of last year; there are other bread-
and-butter issues to consider.

The violence we see in Indonesia today is the culmination of a grand
experiment that has gone disastrously wrong. For nearly three decades
the dictators of Southeast Asia were supported by their Western
allies as long as they remained on the right side: the Western bloc.
Tarted up as she was, Bali was and remained a painted mask for many.
For carefree foreign tourists with money and time to spend, a trip to
Indonesia meant a holiday in Bali, with perhaps a few hours of
waiting in the Jakarta airport lobby along the way. The realities of
life in other parts of the country: from the terrible atrocities that
were being conducted in East Timor and West Papua, to the crackdown
on democratic opposition groups in the country's universities and
inner cities were kept at bay. Bali was not merely a tranquil oasis
in Indonesia; it became an asylum from the realities of Indonesia
under military law as well.

The blasts in Bali have tore off that mask and laid bare the
realities of this country of two hundred and forty million souls.
Indonesia remains a country in search of its destiny and its struggle
towards democracy remains a difficult and painful one. The myth of
Bali was a distraction that averted our eyes from the complexities
and painful realities of the country itself, and for too long it
served as a convenient diversion for those who preferred to entertain
the polite fiction that life is a bed of roses.

Can we, living in the turbulent world we live in today, still
entertain the myth of a tropical paradise that is removed from the
rest of the world? If we have grown wise enough to know that `free
trade' is never free; that `holy causes' have been used to justify
the unholiest of crimes; and that fantasies are just a form of
escapism; then perhaps we should all grow up and see through the mask
of Bali, to realise that behind the smile of the Balinese waiter is
the simple desire to live a dignified life, without remaining forever
on his knees to serve the whims of rich tourists with too much money
on their hands. Perhaps in the wake of the Bali bombing the ones who
should really be asking these questions are the tourists themselves.

If the myth of Bali has been irreparably shattered, then whose myth
was it in the first place? No, there are no safe havens in this world
of ours, and perhaps the human race is not entitled to a little piece
of paradise on earth after all.