Bali's peaceful reputation suffers blow ahead of 2000

By Degung Santikarma

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): With the end of the second millennium fast approaching, anxieties have arisen over just what the new era will bring.

In the West, fears that a "millennium bug" or "Y2K virus" might infest electronic infrastructure, freezing computer frameworks upon which so many everyday activities have come to depend, have made many determined to seek a peaceful destination to mark the passing of the old year.

By booking a seat on a plane to paradise, these travelers are hoping to escape their worries in a place that offers enjoyment, ease and, above all, safety. And Bali has promised to please.

Advertising its unique cultural heritage, nurtured over thousands of years of marginalization from the main road of modernity, the Island of the Gods has guaranteed a heavenly haven far removed from the centers of commerce and confusion in New York, London, Paris or Tokyo; a serene spot to celebrate, where world-weary guests can usher in the new epoch in laid-back island style.

To tempt the foreign traveler, Bali has pledged to provide a mouth-watering mix: modernity minus the possibility of contemporary chaos, tradition improved to include five-star facilities, all spiced up with a good dose of exotic allure. But in Bali, many locals have become apprehensive of the millennium as well.

Talk has it that the turn of the new year 2000 will be a moment when the world hangs in the balance, poised between the possibility of Kali Yuga (an era of chaos) and Kertha Yuga (an era of prosperity).

The signs, people say, will be easy to read. If the equilibrium tips toward turmoil, the normal order of things will be reversed. One village woman explained philosophically, "In the Kali Yuga age, humans will be born with teeth instead of the animals, and women will be the ones to ask men to marry them."

And if the third millennium brings not disorder but the dawn of a new abundance? Those omens will be even simpler to observe. The Balinese, whose income from tourism suffered a severe blow from ongoing political and economic turmoil during 1999, will receive a new shot of prosperity when the island's millennium festivities bring an expected influx of revelers and their riches.

But last Thursday, the image of Bali as a safe haven free from worldly worries, where a peaceful, gentle, nature-loving people stand ready to welcome their foreign guests and their foreign exchange, suffered a severe blow.

Feeling the ill effects of a virus more deadly than the millennium bug, the virus known as KKN (corruption, collusion and nepotism), that infiltrated the island under the New Order, many Balinese were hanging their hopes for healing on the curative powers rumored to be possessed by Megawati Soekarnoputri. But when last Wednesday saw their chosen candidate fail to capture enough votes to rise to Indonesia's number one spot, Bali's balance between chaos and order began to slip. By Thursday afternoon, Bali's teeth were bared.

Denpasar soon became covered with a blanket of acrid smoke, as masses poured into the streets burning tires and shouting that no matter what the rest of the nation might think, Megawati was the president of Bali.

Young men armed with chain saws cut down trees, turning the roads into an obstacle course of fire and fallen foliage, freezing all traffic and leaving thousands without electricity or telephone services.

Others poured into the downtown district, burning and smashing government offices and raiding department stores, grabbing computers, radios, cordless telephones, T-shirts and any other modern marvel light enough to be carried on the shoulders of the swarming crowds.

The millennium, it seemed, had arrived early to the island once called "the morning of the world".

Yet, even before the rubble had been cleared, the broken tree limbs burned and the stain of burnt rubber scrubbed off the sidewalks, travel agents and tourism officials were already declaring that everything was back to normal -- just another day in paradise.

Cultural observers even began to weave a tangled logic that laid the blame for the outburst at the feet of mysterious outsiders. Respected Professor of Psychiatry and oft-quoted cultural commentator Prof. Dr. Luh Ketut Suryani explained to a reporter for Bali Post, the island's daily Indonesian-language newspaper, "If the Balinese get mad, they are certain to release their anger without harming other people materially."

She went on to explain that because the Balinese are deep believers in the Hindu law of karmapala, which holds that one's actions, good or bad, are sure to rebound upon their instigators in this life or the next, they could not possibly have been responsible for the destruction. A Balinese, she claimed, would rather go hungry than steal something belonging to someone else.

What's more, she continued, Thursday's rampage had none of the hallmarks of Balinese style. When Balinese protest, Suryani said, they do it with art.

And indeed Bali still remains sketched with the aesthetic evidence of last week's performance. Fractured trees cast stark silhouettes against the sky. Broken glass and twisted wires still remain scattered across many a downtown street. And a number of Bali's urban population are now displaying their sense of style by sporting the latest fashion trends: new blue jeans and millennium festival T-shirts once exhibited on the racks of clothing stores that have now been turned into refined heaps of rubble. But this new art movement seems not to have inspired the kind of critical reflection that usually accompanies aesthetic performances in Bali.

Before the culture mavens could reach a consensus on precisely what genre of artistic expression last week's exhibition represented -- social realism, surrealism or perhaps a new postmodern primitivism -- the reviews have concluded that last week's show was an anomaly, sure to never be repeated.

All that remains to close the curtains on the unfortunate events is to clean up the streets, rewire telephone and electrical lines and hope that the Western audience chose that moment to go out to the lobby for some refreshments.

For if the foreign ticket holders were watching too closely, they just may make other reservations for the big millennium bash, in a place where a love story is playing, not the latest real-life action-adventure reel.