Balinese must exorcise their real demons

Balinese must exorcise their real demons

I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali

Many Balinese were speechless when a series of violent
communal clashes occurred on the evening of the celebration of
the Saka new year, known as Nyepi, or Day of Silence.

Some blamed it on excessive consumption of alcohol, others
hastily claimed it was the work of malevolent outside forces --
those venomous provocateurs who want to destabilize Bali.

Yet most Balinese were humiliated: Nyepi, which this year fell
on April 13, is supposed to be a day during which the Balinese
Hindu followers intensify their contemplative efforts to find
peace and harmony.

In Abiansemal district, some 40 kilometers north of Denpasar,
a brawl between the villagers of Blahkiuh and Gerana resulted in
four wounded victims, three damaged buildings and eight
motorbikes and three cars which were either damaged or burned.

In the resort area of Nusa Dua, some 35 kilometers southeast
of Denpasar, brawls among people of the Bualu area against those
from Tanjung Benoa left several buildings severely damaged, and
three motorbikes were torched. Similar clashes also took place in
the Jimbaran area and the Singapadu area.

Most clashes were triggered by disputes involving local
drunken youths. The spats quickly turned into fistfights, and in
no time hundreds of people, heavily armed with blunt and sharp
weapons, poured down the streets to defend their villages.

Yet, labeling the clashes as the outcome of drunken youths'
brawls which turned ugly, or as the results of some dark
conspiracy by those who wanted to destroy Bali's image as a safe
tourist destination, are not only dangerous, but also
irresponsible attempts.

Such a frame of mind would not provide the Balinese with the
correct causes and nature of the clashes, thus enabling them to
find the correct cure. It would also lure people to shift the
blame elsewhere: Provocateurs, Javanese migrant workers, or the
military, instead of admitting the clashes as the results of
their own selfish arrogance and ignorance.

By failing to identify the roots of the clashes, and by
shifting the blame, the Balinese refuse to accept responsibility
for their own actions, and will be doomed to repeat the same
mistake. Even larger clashes could take place.

The Balinese must learn to be humble, which is very difficult
since all those tourism brochures, and most of the early
anthropological studies, have depicted the island as a paradise,
and its people as sweet, friendly, charming, honest,
artistic and very religious.

This stance has been amplified a thousand times both by
outsiders and local intellectuals that somehow many Balinese now
firmly believe that their religion and culture are the loftiest
of all.

Being humble requires an ability to proudly state that the
Balinese Hindu religious traditions and social customs are rich
and majestic; and it also means the ability to courageously admit
the flaws and mistakes of those traditions and customs.

The huge gap between the teachings of the scriptures and their
implementation in daily life is one major flaw.

The of Tri Hita Karana dictates, among others, human's deep
reverence and harmonious relations with Nature. This teaching is
repeatedly quoted by Balinese Hindus to underscore their
religion's advanced view on environmental issues.

Yet most do not feel guilty about tossing their garbage in the
river. Bureaucrats keep allowing the construction of tourist
mega-projects that excessively consume and threaten the
sustainability of the island's natural resources.

Another example involves the Hindu teaching of Ahimsa
(compassionate non-violence). Yet traditional village
institutions such as the Banjar and Desa Adat, generally deal
with dissenting members by resorting to violence, torching their
houses or expelling them from the village altogether.

The case of the late Ni Nengah Prapti, who died at 70 on
March 26, is the most current example of the traditional
institutions' inability to practice Ahimsa.

The Banjar (traditional hamlet) Lebah in Susut village, Bangli
regency, where Prapti and her family had resided, refused to
allow Prapti's cremation ceremony to take place, since her family
had resigned from the hamlet's membership.

Now, some 25 days after her death, Prapti's body is still
lying on a bed in her family compound. Numerous similar cases
have been taking place all over Bali.

The most striking example are the violent clashes on that
Nyepi eve. Here is a religion that advocates silent
contemplation, modesty, tolerance and self-restraint, but its
religious figures are either turning their heads away from, or
simply condoning, the widespread alcoholic abuse, gambling and
unfounded prejudice toward other ethnicities and religions from
the younger people.

What the Balinese have here is a failure to transform the
"heavy" -- philosophically and contextually laden -- text of the
scriptures into reality. Yet any efforts to that end must first
deal with two major obstacles.

First, the division among the Hindu's elite thinkers. The feud
between the "traditionalists" and "modernists" has intensified
over the past year, and has reached a critical level with both
sides trying to mobilize grass-roots supporters.

Any effort to transform or interpret the scriptural texts will
certainly need help from the elite thinkers. And unless they
reach some common ground, any hope towards transformation will
evaporate. The feud instead poses the possibility of another
series of violent conflicts among supporters of those camps.

The second obstacle lies in the nature of the Balinese
religious traditions, customs, and scriptures. Developed and
shaped under the heavy influence of the rice-growing culture,
they have formed the social, religious and political fabric
influential in the traditional institutions as characterized by
their agrarian, feudal, communal and conservative paradigm.

Those paradigms worked relatively well in the past. But, with
Bali losing around 3,000 hectares of paddy field per year, and
tourism quickly replacing farming as the main source of income,
and with the rise of upper and middle classes born from lower
caste families, those paradigms have disintegrated at a speed
that many could not havethe imagined beforehand.

Ill-equipped to face such influential changes, many of those
institutions suddenly find themselves at odds with various
issues, such as gender inequality, the increase in migrant
workers, the conversion of more Balinese to other religions, or
the reluctance of many Balinese Hindu followers' to thoroughly
abide by all the old customs and traditions.

So, besides the need to transform or interpret their
teachings, the Balinese also need to redefine some basic
principles that have guided their traditional institutions for
hundreds of years. Otherwise, those institutions will simply
cease to exist, or will become an endless "pain in the neck".

The island still cannot leave its glorious ancient past, while
it is heavily tempted by, and desperately wanting to
embrace, the modern future.

An island engulfed by dilemma, and thus paradox.

It will take much courage to enact all those changes. It needs
a joint effort from all Balinese Hindu followers. Failure to do
so will sink the island even deeper into the abyss of spiraling
violence, intolerance, self-delusion and eventually, self-
destruction.

The recent conflicts are just a piece of a much bigger puzzle
of social, religious and political problems. And, hopefully,
during Nyepi a few days ago, the Balinese Hindu followers have
finally found the clarity of mind to tackle the problem right at
its core, to grab the supreme demon, Demon of Self-Delusion and
kick him out for good.