An island of gods – and demons

Australia has declared next Sunday a "national day of mourning". We, of course, join in the prayers for Australia’s dead: Of the close to 200 who died in last Saturday’s bomb blasts in Bali, most were Australians. Thirty of the horribly burned bodies have been recognized as Aussies, the rest of the charred and mangled corpses, it’s reported, have thus far not been identified. The fact is that 140 Australians are "missing".

Most of those who died in those bomb explosions in Kuta town were obviously young. Our old friend Seth Mydans of The New York Times, who covered the Philippines years ago and witnessed the sunset of the Marcos regime, batted out one of the most poignant stories out of Bali. In his dispatch published yesterday, Mydans wrote: "‘Identity unknown’, reads a handwritten sign posted on a wall of Bali’s largest hospital.

"Then comes a description so vivid that it is almost impossible to see the carefree young woman dancing late into the night just before the bomb went off.

"‘Girl in intensive care, about five feet two inches,’ states the sign. ‘Freckled fair skin, Caucasian, eyes green-brown, slim build, with colored hair (reddish brown), curly. She has a purplish belly-button ring. She is in a coma’.

"‘If you think you may know who she is, please report to the information desk’.

"Written in another hand across the bottom of the sign, in large capital letters, are the words, ‘Already dead.’

"Here in Bali, an island whose name is synonymous with tranquility and other-worldly beauty," said Mydans, "the victims were mostly young travelers in the morning of their lives.

"In two packed nightclubs, they were joined, in their last dance, in a celebration of youth, energy and sheer joy. When the first, smaller explosion struck, some revelers thought it was a fireworks display and kept on dancing. When the second, moments later, knocked them to the floor and covered them with a blanket of flames, more than 180 died and about 300 were wounded."

Seth must, in invoking that painful phrase about the young dancers who perished in that treacherous rain of fire having been snuffed out "in the morning of their lives", recalled what India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said to his lifetime, the first time he arrived in Bali for a visit. Nehru had exclaimed that "Bali is the morning of the world!"

It’s now sunset in Bali. Ironically, I remember, we used to marvel at that magical isle’s most glorious sunsets – from Kuta Beach.

* * *

I saw Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard yesterday being badgered by questions from an anchorman of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The BBC newscaster asked him whether the terrorists who planted those bombs were getting back at Australia because his government had been too hard on Islamic extremists, too supportive of America, and whether Australians were now going to turn in full fury on all Muslims in their midst.

I think Howard, in his measured and dignified manner, answered very well in that interview. He pointed out that appeasing terrorists, history has shown, in fact emboldens them – or words to that effect. (Not possessing an eidetic memory, I draw from what I remember.) He said that Australians are a tolerant and open-hearted people, and there would be no backlash against Muslims, only against Muslim extremism. He said that Australia and the US were embarked on a war against terrorism, not against Islam.

While I’m not sure Howard can guarantee that angry mobs of diggers, ockers and larrikins won’t pounce on Muslims — rage is a mindless thing – I believe that Aussies have no call to reproach their government or themselves. They’ve acquitted themselves honorably and courageously, if not always wisely in the past two eventful decades. They went to the rescue of the East Timorese without cavil or fear of the consequences. They’ve stood fast on principle on many forums and "fronts" in the world. Sure, they can be wrongheaded and irritating on occasion. But this time, what they’re suffering are the wounds of the brave.

Three years ago, if you’d asked me, I’d never have classified John Howard as a charismatic or dynamic leader. Somehow he seemed too plain-John to jibe with the rollicking image of the Land of Oz, where Waltzin’ Matilda was the undeclared national anthem. But he grows on you. And now, I realize, Aussies are fortunate to have a strong, if stolid, hand on the wheel.

Howard is right. You don’t appease or kowtow to terrorists, or extremists and militants of whatever religious fanatic fringe or ideology. You fight them at every turn at whatever cost. The reason we don’t seem to be winning is because we’re never resolute in attack or counter-attack. Even when we’ve got the upperhand, and our forces are within grasp of victory, we're the ones who stop and call for "peace talks".

Look at those stalled "peace talks" with the Communist New People’s Army and the National Democratic Front. A recent poll showed that 90 percent of Filipinos surveyed were against resuming such peace talks. The Communists sneer that they won’t resume such peace talks. The GMA government’s unrepented peaceniks bleat that they want to re-start peace talks. What nonsense is this?

We already know what the murderous NPA and CPP want: They want us to surrender. Sanamagan! What a gaggle of wimps we have whispering into the ear of the President. No wonder she’s confused. We can admire GMA’s energy, her tireless plodding on. Yet much of this effort is negated because she’s influenced by the flattery and importuning of the wrong people.

I’m not claiming that a dumbkopf like myself has the answers. But common sense is always a good guide, even in matters of state, or times of emergency.

* * *

It’s now been established that the still unknown mass-murderers who planted those bombs – whether Jamah Islamiyah, al-Qaeda, or some other fundamental terrorist group — used C-4.

They chose their target well. The explosion devastated not only the row of nightclubs and tourist spots and the hapless foreign revelers inside – but grievously harmed Indonesia itself. True, tourism accounts for only three percent of Indonesia's gross domestic product, while 12 percent is provided by oil revenues. But Indonesia’s image and investment picture have been badly damaged.

Moreover, President Megawati Sukarnoputri and her government will now have to crack down on suspected Islamic groups, like the JI, etc., risking a religious backlash in the earth’s largest Muslim nation, where 87 percent of 210 million Indonesians profess Islam. (Indeed, the biggest Muslim populations are in Asia, not the Middle East. Pakistan, with 150 million Muslims comes second. Third comes India, with a Muslim population — in a nation of one billion people — approaching the same number. Then Bangladesh.)

Looking at our Philippines, with Indonesia and Malaysia so proximate, we’re a Christian nation in a Muslim sea. (And we’ve got our own, very devout, Muslim minority.)

At this stage, who’s worried in our part of the world about Saddam Hussein? The only item of note is that, in last Tuesday’s comedy in Iraq, Saddam the Hero got 100 percent of the vote in a referendum in which he was the only candidate — and thereby got an extension of seven years to his 23 years of misrule. There was, naturally, a huge celebration, and much sabre-rattling and gun-waving against the United States. Sus, George "Dubya": Not only "the eyes of Texas" but the baleful eyes of Baghdad are upon you!

* * *

I mourn, too, for Bali. Never was an isle so enchanting in both myth and reality. Everytime I went there, I was caught up in its magic.

One of my most vivid memories of Bali was that of many years ago, when our group of foreign correspondents accompanied Cambodia’s Prince Norodom Sihanouk on an official visit to that island. He was greeted at the ceremonial grandstand with the sight of two groups of lissome maidens, swathed in gold, approaching him from both sides. Fifty came from the left, fifty from the right, to meet in graceful unison in front of the royal guest. They were doing the Pendet or temple dance, hypnotizing everyone with their grace and beauty.

And as they swayed the percussion of the gamelan gong punctuated each movement — each sway of the hips, each flutter of the hand. Pulsing with the rhythm, too, were rayong and trompong bells, musicians striking them in rows of thirteen, or ten, with wooden rods bound with cord, and the kendang drums.

Those who have heard the seductive strains of the Balinese gamelan gongs will be entranced forever.

The late President Sukarno (Megawati’s father) always reminded people that in a predominantly Javanese nation of Muslim faith, he was half-Balinese. (His mother came from Hindu Bali, thus teaching him, he would grin, religious open-mindedness. If you ask me, the old Bung’s religion was more attuned to the bed-chamber.)

In 1964, we sat behind Bung Karno in the grandstand in Jakarta – as he called himself (everybody’s big "brother") – on Merdeka Day in 1964 in front of the Istana Merdeka. This was the fateful August 17 of which Sukarno proclaimed that Indonesia was embarked on Tahun Vivere Pericoloso, "The Year of Living Dangerously". (Remember the subsequent movie?) We watched close to a million persons throng the square fronting the Palace – sitting, squatting or standing under the blazing sun – to hear their Great Leader of the Revolution speak. And he did, for almost three hours, while they interrupted him with applause 114 times. His speech was studded with the same clichés we had heard him use time and again, but his listeners greeted each workworn phrase as though it were a fresh revelation, breaking into chants of Hidup Bung Karno! (Long live Brother Sukarno!) at every sneering reference to the US, Britain, and Malaysia, and the recitation of the names of Bung Karno’s revolutionary comrades in arms – among them, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, Cheddi Jagan, Ho Chi Minh, and (you better believe it!) Diosdado Macapagal!

The same scene was reenacted a few days later in the Denpasar square (the capital town of Bali), which is located an hour and a half by air from Jakarta.

"On our flight over here," Sukarno told his listeners, "we passed over Semeru mountain – and I said to it: Hai, Semeru, you are our highest mountain – but our spirit is higher than you!" The crowed went wild. Sukarno trotted out his favorite punchline. "For a fighting nation," he declared, between clenched teeth, "there is no journey’s end!"

They must have heard this slogan many times before, but the packed masses appreciatively thundered: "Ganjang Imperialis! Ganjang Malaysia!" (Crush Imperialism! Crush Malaysia!)

* * *

As you can see, the names of the enemies may change – although one of them seems to be eternally the United States – but the anger and enthusiasm remain.

That speech, which went over so aptly in Jakarta, seemed, even in 1964, so out of place in tranquil Bali, where the rice terraces shimmered in emerald green, the Hindu temple bells tinkled in the breeze, the people moved to a different, more placid, and kindly rhythm.

Yet, Bali, for all its tranquility bespeaks the endless battle between Good and Evil. This is enshrined in the Hindu religion, which the last king of the once-powerful Majapahit empire brought there when he fled Solo and his domains in Central Java, harassed by the irresistible tide of militant Islam. With him he brought his retinue of warriors, priests, artists and courtiers. Religion suffuses everything in Bali. Agama Hindu, Bali’s religion, honors the gods and divine spirits, and the supreme god, Ida Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa and his 1,001 manifestations, who lives above the clouds at the top of Gunong Agung, the towering sacred mountain which soars 10,000 feet above the sea. When that sacred volcano erupted in 1960, the eruption took 1,600 lives, rendered 87,000 homeless and smothered much of the island in volcanic dust, still it is worshipped devoutly as "The Navel of the World".

The gods and the divine spirits of their ancestors are honored through worship – and dance. All those entrancing dances, from the Legong to the Ketjak "monkey" dance, are tributes to the gods, or else designed to propitiate the evil spirits, such as demons, witches and ghosts, who also throng the island. Behind the confidence in the Divine, lurks everyday paranoia over the vicious presence of demons, withces, and evil beings.

It is in Bali, that the Wayang kulit, the Indonesian shadow play, had its real flowering. For, after all, it is derived from the Hindu myths of Mother India — the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. In it, and in many of the dances like the Ketjak, Sita is rescued from the evil giant Ravama, by Rama, assisted by an army of monkeys led by their General, Hanuman; or there is the tale of the five heroic Pandawas (one of them, Arjuna) and their cousins, the Korawas, endlessly fighting for good against the forces of evil.

Good and evil, therefore, struggle with each other, always, on this paradise isle. Evil seems to have triumphed last Saturday, but on the morrow, who knows, Good will rebound.

I fervently pray that this will be Bali’s future.