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International Muslims in Paradise by
Alexander Boldizar Bali is an island of peace and
prosperity in a sea of Muslim fundamentalism. But the price of paradise is
eternal vigilance.
A few years before the world went mad, Ketut had a
Javanese girlfriend, a Muslim. As their relationship ripened, she became sad.
"It's a shame I can't marry you," she would sigh.
| | Alexander
Boldizar is a Canadian writer living in Indonesia.
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There was no need to ask what the obstacle was. Although a liberal Muslim, she
had made it clear that he was an infidel, a Balinese Hindu, and unless he changed
they had no future. "Would a Muslim man ever change to the religion of his
wife?" Ketut asked. "Of course not," she answered. "Islam is the true
religion. And I will not become Hindu." Ketut thought about the problem
for a few days. He could give up a thousand years of Hindu ancestry, he thought.
But not for Islam. Anything but Islam. The "vile, long-haired princes of Bali" as
the Islamic Javanese had called his people nearly 600 years ago, had fought
against the spread of Islam to the shores of paradise since that time. Islam was
brought to Indonesia by Arab traders, gained a foothold in Sumatra in the 13th
century, spread to the coastal areas of Java, then eroded the great Hindu kingdom
of Majapahit in the early 16th century. But the aristocracy of the Majapahit, the
priests, jurists, artists, artisans, painters, sculptors, architects, goldsmiths,
gongsmiths, writers, and dancers were for the most part unwilling to accept
Islamization. They fled to Bali and the protection of King Waturrenggong.
King Waturrenggong had "lionhearted courage, incomparable daring, and magical
powers" in battle. An incarnation of Wisnu, he unified the aristocracy with the
people and built a military bulwark against Islam. His high priest and teacher,
the Just-Arrived-Magic-Powerful-High-Priest Nirartha, another refugee from Java,
redesigned the temple system in Bali so that each village had its own temples;
this forged a closer bond between the people and their Hindu gods, a bond unlike
that in any other Hindu kingdom, and one which Islam would find difficult to
sever, despite 600 years of pressure. It was this exodus of devoted Hindus and
the fear of Islam that created in Bali the paradise that Western tourists have
been admiring since 1597, when Captain de Houtman, the first Dutch explorer to
the area, arrived and many of his men mutinied; refusing to leave the island that
was so beautiful, where women bathed nude in the rivers, where the king's chariot
was pulled by white buffaloes and his retinue was made up of 50 dwarves whose
bodies had been bent to resemble kris (traditional dagger) handles. The
historic hatred of Islam by the Balinese is one of the reasons Ketut admired his
girl, that she had been willing to come here from Java on her own, to risk
ancient racism in order to enjoy the much higher standard of living and greater
freedoms that Bali offers in comparison to the other islands of Indonesia.
"Very well," he said after a few days of thinking, "let's both become
Buddhist." No, she had answered. Nor Jewish, Jainist, or Zoroastrian. Not
even to Christianity, which to Ketut seemed very similar to Islam, especially in
its need to proselytize and spread. It was Islam or nothing.
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| In 1906, the Balinese
royalty burned their own palaces, then, wearing their finest jewelry and waving
golden swords, they followed the rajah and priests out against the modern weapons
of the Dutch. |
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So Ketut ended the relationship, but without acrimony. He had seen too many
Muslim daughters in Bali pulled along the pavement, their fathers dragging them
by the hair, beating them senseless, outraged at their dating an infidel. It is
difficult to be strong in the face of such a pedigree. There are some
Muslims now in Bali. Bali is part of Indonesia, after all, and Indonesia is 90%
Muslim. They come legally despite local objections, though they are at times
subject to vandalism and random attacks by young Balinese. "I see her in
the village sometimes," Ketut said. "She is the fourth wife of a Muslim man. He
lives in another city and rarely sees her or their child. And I think she is very
unhappy, but she wears the veil now and has become much more fanatical."
And Ketut is again unhappy about fanatical Muslims. He runs an Internet café
and a tourist agency now, and over 1.3 million tourists have cancelled Indonesian
holidays since the Laskar Jihad, the Islamic Defenders Front, and other radical
Islamic groups in Java (supplied by Osama bin Laden with money, men, and arms)
began rioting and threatening to "sweep" all Westerners out of Indonesia.
Villages in Bali have put their traditional guards on alert, the Balinese
People's Council has promised to fight any hostile Javanese, and the Balinese
have staged large demonstrations against any "sweeps." They are not alone in
this, of course. In Muslim Jakarta, areas dependent on tourism have also set up
neighborhood militias to defend tourists against sweeps, and have already
repulsed one group of radicals attempting to do mischief. Tourist arrivals
have declined sharply all over Indonesia, but at least in Bali this is largely a
problem with perception, the difference between being inside and outside. The
22,791 foreign visitors in Bali as of Oct. 7 are not moving up their departure
plans, although their families, governments, and media all seem to be calling for
them to come home and risk anthrax attacks rather than stay in Indonesia.
The package tourists do worry some, because any true sweep would have to include
Bali, the Indonesian island that in 1937 was already described as overtouristed.
But expatriates living here are used to periodic flare-ups of instability and
apart from postponing trips to Java, few seem worried. They feel well-protected
by the Balinese.
| Fireballs of invisible
energy fly overhead, Islamic clerics put love spells on Balinese women to fall in
love with Muslims, and Balinese holy men rub the affected in pigs' blood to undo
the spell. |
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"If the Javanese come to sweep, we will make lawar out of them," says
Ketut, referring to a type of haggis made out of pork stomachs. Then smiling a
small smile, as if saying something not to be aired loudly, he adds, "Maybe it
would be good, maybe it would begin a war for independence." "But they
won't come," he sighs. "They are frightened. The Balinese are quiet, quiet until
they decide it is time for puputan. The Javanese remember this."
Puputan is a suicidal fight to the death, which historically has seemed
necessary once every 50 years or so. In 1906, the Balinese royalty burned their
own palaces, then, wearing their finest jewelry and waving golden swords, they
followed the rajah and priests out against the modern weapons of the Dutch. Four
thousand Balinese died in 1906 and a larger number in a similar puputan in
1945, again under the guns of the Dutch. It was only through Western
weaponry that Bali became part of Indonesia, and suicidal armies scare Muslims as
much as they do Westerners. Unlike radical Islam, however, in Bali it is not the
uneducated and used who become human bombs; it is the priests and leaders
themselves. And the battle between Bali and Islam that began 600 years
ago has never really been put to rest. It has merely moved to other dimensions.
Balinese medicine men continue to fight against Muslim medicine men from Java and
Lombok. Although Islam does not officially permit magic, curses are nevertheless
thrown back and forth over the narrow Bali Strait, fireballs of invisible energy
fly overhead, Islamic clerics put love spells on Balinese women to fall in love
with Muslims, and Balinese holy men rub the affected in pigs' blood to undo the
spell. The Balinese holy men often use pigs' blood against the Muslims, and the
Muslim holy men chant sentences from the Quran as magic mantras, while clutching
a small fetish or two. Islamic magic often includes poison and
teluh, says Empu Resi, a holy man in the village of Ubud. Teluh is
an attack by which whole daggers and saucepans are materialized into the stomachs
of enemies, who today have them removed with Western medical operations.
But despite the fearful teluh, the Balinese claim that in the war of magic
the Muslims have no chance. In Bali the other dimension, the dimension in which
the war has never stopped, is magic. In America the magic is Hollywood, the Bill
of Rights, capitalist greed, rational public discourse, and humanitarian aid.
These are what Osama bin Laden is really fighting over, not Palestine or Iraq.
Without the Soviet Union to fight the American magic, the air-conditioned magic
against which the rest of the world has no chance, the attack has become too
sharp. So Islam is hardening in its more visible dimensions. In Indonesia
this means that the Indonesian government doesn't clamp down on anti-Western
threats, that years of Islamic bias in all aspects of Indonesian public life have
become more and more institutionalized, and that Islamic political parties are
increasingly pressing for Shariah (Quranic Law) to become the law of Indonesia,
whether the subjects be Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, or Animist. But
sweeps would destroy the Balinese tourist economy, Shariah would subject the
Balinese to a religious system they despise, and the constant bias chafes. So
even while the old Balinese cannot imagine independence, many young men
increasingly want to bring the fight into the open. Ketut's friend, Made,
for example, has insomnia. He has found a cure, however. He says for the last few
years he cannot go to sleep until he finds a Javanese Muslim and gives him a good
punch. Then he can sleep. When there are too many young men of any stripe
or belief, nations go to war. Ketut and Made and other young Balinese
still think about King Waturrenggong and the
Just-Arrived-Magic-Powerful-High-Priest. They celebrate the latter's memory twice
a year. Muslims still think about Mohammed's war to take Mecca and destroy the
300-odd religions represented there before A.D. 623. It is only North America
that has a stunted sense of history, with anything predating World War II
classified as "ancient," and it is only the West that insists religion and
politics are separate issues. George W. Bush has said "you are either for
us or against us," and blindly called the war a "crusade." Osama bin Laden
agrees, countering that "you are either a believer or an infidel." In the
post-WTC world, in country after country, movements and complaints which had
seemed long buried are emerging back into the visible dimensions. Slowly, behind
the scenes, fault lines which go back thousands of years are beginning to show.
Even in paradise.
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