'Warung' as a place for reconciliation<\/p>\n
By Degung Santikarma<\/p>\n
DENPASAR, Bali (JP): As evening approaches a village in the
\nsouth of Bali, the routine begins. The soft tones of cowbells
\nfill the narrow lanes as the animals are led back to their pens.
\nFarmers exchange friendly greetings as they pass each other on
\nthe way home from their rice fields.<\/p>\n
The laughter of children bathing in the river is broken by the
\nsound of their mothers calling them to eat their supper. And at
\nthe local warung, a small food stall lined with wooden benches
\nand filled with the savory smell of cooking food and the sharp
\ntang of betel nut, a woman begins to prepare for the night's
\nbusiness.<\/p>\n
Soon, after the hoes and sickles have been hung back up on
\ntheir hooks and the sweat washed off the hard-working bodies of
\nthe farmers, the warung will be filled with people gathered to
\neat, to drink and to discuss.<\/p>\n
This peaceful rural scene might, at first glance, seem to
\nconfirm the idyllic images of simple community life that fill the
\ntypical tourist brochures advertising Bali's traditional culture.<\/p>\n
Yet in this warung each evening, as the talk rises and flows
\nin a heated stream of opinions, the stereotypical image of the
\nBalinese as a passive, polite, apolitical people whose only aim
\nin life is to roll out a soft welcome mat for their foreign
\nguests becomes just a little more cracked and tarnished.<\/p>\n
The naive peasant immortalized by the colonial painters of the
\nMooi Indies school and by the picture perfect postcards sold in
\nthe shopping galleries of the plush hotels turns out, in fact, to
\nbe a skilled political orator.<\/p>\n
Those who fill the small space of the warung this evening are
\nconvening in their own kind of seminar on the topic of political
\nviolence, translated into the idioms of their everyday life. The
\ntalk turns from crop failures, to the rising price of fertilizer,
\nto the land of their ancestors that has been sold for a
\nnonnegotiable price to a tourist developer looking to turn a
\nnearby stretch of grassy green hill into a prize-winning golf
\ncourse.<\/p>\n
They tell tales of their problems paying for medicine for
\ntheir children, and of their wives falling ill after using the
\ncontraceptives recommended by the government family planning
\nprogram.<\/p>\n
They speak of their difficulties in obtaining all the personal
\ndocuments mandated by the bureaucracy -- an identity card, a
\nfamily card, a driver's license, and the infamous \"clean
\nenvironment letter\", certifying that oneself and one's family are
\nfree from involvement in the tragic events of 1965, when Bali's
\nrivers ran red with the blood of purported members of the
\nIndonesian Communist Party.<\/p>\n
While the warung might appear to be a quaint remnant of those
\nbygone days before the Balinese started building restaurants and
\nnightclubs to cater to the tastes of tourists, this particular
\nwarung is, in fact, a product of a history that goes unmentioned
\nin most tourist guidebooks and that, until recently, was
\ndangerous to discuss in Indonesia's public meetings or mass
\nmedia.<\/p>\n
For the popularity of this place is not merely a result of a
\nstrategic location or the excellence of the arak (palm liquor)
\nand coffee it serves. Many a customer is also drawn to the
\nspecial charisma possessed by its owner.<\/p>\n
This woman, although she is already in her 60s, still bears
\nthe signs of the stunning beauty that made her famous in her
\nyouth. Her skin is still soft, her body still slim, her smile
\nstill full of enigmatic promise, she flirts with the patrons,
\nmaking jokes full of teasing innuendo.<\/p>\n
Seeing her laugh as she serves the men who are gathered around
\nthe scarred wooden tables, one would never guess that this woman
\nis a widow, a victim of the violence of 1965. According to the
\nlocal gossip, she was once known as the \"flower of the village\",
\nwith a silvery singing voice and a swaying walk that drew suitors
\nfrom near and far to her door.<\/p>\n
Finally, one local farmer won her heart. But her happiness was
\nshort lived. One night, as the heavy rains of the monsoon season
\nbattered her small house, a group of men came to pick up her
\nhusband.<\/p>\n
She never saw their faces, but as they drove away she
\nrecognized the voice of one man whose love she had rejected in
\nthe past. Her husband never returned, but the man with the
\nfamiliar voice has been, ever since that night, a loyal customer
\nof the small warung that she opened to support herself in her
\nwidowhood.<\/p>\n
Tonight at the warung, the patrons begin to debate the meaning
\nof the just past Oct. 21, already immortalized as Kemis Kelabu or
\nAsh Thursday, when smoke blanketed Bali after supporters of
\nMegawati Soekarnoputri, angered by her failure to rise to the
\ncountry's number one post, burned tires, tree trunks, cars and
\nbuildings in protest.<\/p>\n
For many, this outpouring of violence evoked the events of
\nmore than 30 years ago, when gangs ran rampant across the island,
\nleaving a trail of blood and broken families. Their tongues
\nuntied by the smooth potency of the home-made brew and the
\nrelaxing atmosphere the owner of the warung provides, their talk
\nturns to the past.<\/p>\n
One elderly man, well known as a former thug who took a number
\nof lives during the violence of 1965, begins to speak about his
\nrole in the killings. He still cannot understand, he says, what
\nmade him so willing to murder. He says he was just following
\norders, but he says his actions still haunt him.<\/p>\n
Before he nods off in a drunken sleep in the corner of the
\nwarung, he utters one last comment: \"Ius gumi\" he says in
\nBalinese, \"The world turned to chaos.\"<\/p>\n
Sukarno, the founding father of Indonesia, once said that the
\nIndonesian revolution began in the nation's many warung. As a
\nself-proclaimed populist, Sukarno was willing to see the masses
\n-- those \"little people\" who toiled as traders, farmers or
\nfishermen in villages far removed from the presidential palace,
\nthe parliament, the courts or the universities -- as capable of
\ncreating meaningful social change.<\/p>\n
The fate of the country, Sukarno felt, was too important to be
\nleft solely in the hands of the elite. In the village warung, the
\nfarmers gather, far from the ringing of portable phones, free
\nfrom the pressures to possess the perfectly printed business card
\nor the latest designer watch that plague their urban compatriots
\nwining and dining in the cafes.<\/p>\n
And the warung provides not just a place to gossip, or a
\nrelaxing retreat from worldly cares. It also -- without the need
\nto form an organizing committee or a national commission --
\noffers a space to restore collective memory and ask for
\nforgiveness.<\/p>\n
Lacking formal schooling, the warung's customers are
\nnonetheless educating themselves politically, debating their
\npresent, planning their future and beginning to remember their
\npast. In this village, at least, the warung offers a small space
\nto start a reconciliation.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/warung-as-a-place-for-reconciliation-1447893297",
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