A quizzical view of Bali's mystique

A quizzical view of Bali's mystique

Bali: Cultural Tourism and Touristic Culture

By Michel Picard

Archipelago Press, Singapore

1996, 231 pp.

JAKARTA (JP): Bali's wondrous culture and the fawning
attention paid it by outsiders have been both boon and bane.

Venerated as the ultimate cultural object of desire and
scrutinized by anthropology's leading lights such as Margaret
Mead and Ruth Benedict, Bali is today the exotic wanderlust for
thousands of tourists from distant shores.

Through it all, the prized showcase has threatened to topple
from its pedestal, or so the naysayers would have us believe. Yet
this pessimism over Bali's cultural fragility is nothing new,
Michel Picard writes in this formidably researched and engrossing
examination of Bali's development as a touristic culture.

Ironically, it was the Dutch who first sounded the warning
bells of impending destruction of Balinese culture as it
affronted outside forces. Bali was one of the last parts of the
archipelago to fall to the Dutch (only Aceh held out longer) and
they quickly realized they had a jewel in their possession.

The colonial administration began to research and record this
cultural treasure as it simultaneously set about to use it for
its own vested agenda. Picard writes that the Balinese, like the
ugly duckling which has never received a compliment in its life,
were rendered self-conscious at the admiration bestowed upon what
they considered simply part and parcel of life.

The Dutch held up the mirror of recognition to the Balinese,
suddenly making them aware that everything they themselves
considered mundane aspects of their daily living -- religion,
harmony with nature -- were revered by others as unique and
beautiful.

Of course, the Dutch were not merely impartial colonial
altruists bent on preserving this little outpost of culture for
the world. The Hindu religion on the island presented a bulwark
against the growing tide of Islamic-influenced nationalism
sweeping Sumatra and Java, and fitted nicely into the Dutch plan
to divide and conquer. The colonists nurtured an intellectual
Balinese native class who assumed the role of cultivating and
guarding this precious cultural identity.

Tourist arrivals were just a trickle during the 1920s owing to
almost nonexistent infrastructure and accommodation. But word on
Bali's temptations were already getting out and the adventurous
found their way to the island; there were 1,429 tourist arrivals
in 1929 compared to just 213 five years earlier.

Foreign artists such as Walter Spies and Rudolf Bonnet became
part of a growing expatriate community in the 1930s. They set up
workshops for local Balinese artists and started them on the road
to commercializing the traditional arts. Mead and other
anthropologists, including the Mexican illustrator Miguel
Covarrubias, brought back grainy films and photographs touting
this seemingly untouched corner of the world.

Tourist promotional efforts were stepped up during the decade,
all created with a soft, enticing focus. One 1939 tourist poster,
accompanied by the blurb See Bali, featured a dusky bare-breasted
maiden posed against an inviting tropical backdrop. Bali was so
well known by the 1940s that it was featured in one of the Bob
Hope-Bing Crosby Road movies, albeit on a Hollywood sound stage.

World War II and the ensuing war for independence decimated
the fledgling tourist facilities already in place and the
island's artistic community. The new republic had more pressing
issues to worry about in the 1950s and early 1960s than
developing its tourist amenities. But by 1969, the pristine
vistas of many developing nations, including Indonesia, were
recognized as viable means to gain valuable foreign currency for
development projects.

Through the mid-1970s, Bali's basic infrastructure still made
it a rough trip for all but the hardy willing to forsake creature
comforts for a few weeks of going native. Bali was a must see on
the hippy trail of young travelers in search of cheap drugs and
spiritual enlightenment (one of the many plates and illustrations
throughout the book includes a stern graph showing appropriate
and inappropriate clothing for visiting a government office).

Widespread electrification of the island that same decade and
the central government's decision to wean the country off its
dependence on oil exports changed all that. Bali, with its
reputation preceding it, became the showcase for the development
of tourism within the archipelago, just as it was during the
Dutch administration.

Picard draws other parallels between the shaping of Bali's
touristic culture today and under colonialism. The plans for
holding up this wonder to the rest of the world, presenting the
Bali that should be seen, are drawn up by the powers that be,
with the Balinese administrators left to put it into action. They
are the bureaucratic descendants of the intellectual class which
ran the show for the colonists.

Is Bali headed down the path to ruin and destruction in the
onslaught of package tourists, sweeping development and
increasing commercialization? Mead, writing in 1978, believed as
much, claiming that Christianity, Islam and industrialization
would strip away at the core of Balinese Hinduism and reduce it
to a sideshow for tourist consumption.

Picard's verdict is more equivocal. While there is no doubt
that outside cultural influences do impinge on the existing
culture, he believes the Balinese are skilled at maintaining
boundaries between the sacred aspects of their culture and the
profane forays from outside.

He uses the metaphor of a tree to represent Balinese culture,
with the roots as religion, the trunk as traditional customary
order, and fruits as its works of art. The trunk has inevitably
withered under foreign onslaught, Picard believes, but the roots
and fruit have prospered through tender nurturing.

But long-term forecasts on upheaval within Balinese culture
are inevitably inconclusive. Colonialism started "Balinizing
Bali" nearly 100 years ago, but the most pronounced developments
have only come within the past quarter century. It still remains
to be seen whether the tree can withstand changes in its cultural
climate in the next millennium.

-- Bruce Emond