Barce guards Banten's cultural legacy
ulta Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang, Banten
His name is especially familiar among the Banten community, who regard him as the leader of modern-day debus, Banten's most treasured cultural heritage with its blend of mysticism and martial arts.
Not only that, Tubagus Barce Banten is also a respected spiritual healer who, believers say, is able to cure diseases that modern medicine cannot.
His debus prowess has also enabled him to rub elbows with Jakarta's political elite, who consult him as a "spiritual adviser". Of course, he will not publicly mention the names of his VIP clients, although he has pictures of himself with them in his living room.
He says senior Army and police officers, as well as government officials, come to him for "private consultations" or "alternative healing" after conventional medicine fails.
To sustain good relations with all of his clients, Barce stays away from political parties, although he remains active in martial arts organizations.
Abah Barce (Grandpa Barce), as the grandfather of seven is usually referred to, is an important player in the preservation of debus, which he promotes as far away as the United States, Australia, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Spain and the Netherlands.
"Dutch is the foreign country which most appreciates debus, which was practiced during the war of independence (in the 1940s)," he says.
In appreciation of his debus skills, Amsterdam University awarded Barce an honorary doctorate in 1985, while he was on tour in the Netherlands.
Barce says that debus has nothing to do with magic, as many people believe.
"Magic is musyrik (taboo under Islamic teachings)," he says. "Debus originates from Allah, and the same art was used by Islamic propagators in the past."
In the past, debus was performed during the paddy harvest. Today, it is performed on special occasions such as public holidays.
Barce is a debus master, as he demonstrated on May 24, 2003, when he was inaugurated as chairman of the Banten branch of the Indonesian Paranormal Association in Tigaraksa, Tangerang.
It was a freak show: He cut his tongue with a knife, walked on water, stabbed himself in the neck, pierced his stomach, punctured his eye with an arrow. He also crushed a stone with his head, set himself on fire and cut a water melon on his neck with a machete.
He recalls that his father, Tb. Damroh, named him after a colonial Dutch officer that spared Damroh from a death sentence given him for independence activities.
The officer ordered that Damroh, himself a debus master, be pardoned after he cured the Dutchman of an ailment that modern medicine had been unable to treat.
"I was born as soon as my father was pardoned and I was named after the Dutch officer to whom my father owed his life," he told The Jakarta Post.
Barce Banten learned the art of debus from his father. As part of his efforts to preserve this cultural legacy, he founded the martial arts group Laskar Islam Banten (LIB) in 1999.
LIB, he says, works in partnership with the Army, police and the local government.
"Its mission is to help keep law and order," he says.
Born in 1940 in Rangkas Bitung in Lebak regency, Banten, Barce was awarded a medal by the central government last year.
After finishing junior high school in Banten, he continued his studies at the Tebu Ireng Islamic boarding school in Jombang, East Java. In 1965, he married Sukalilah binti Sukari, with whom he has six children.
"I only studied for about six months at Tebu Ireng. I escaped and lived on the street in Jakarta and Banten," said Barce, who also chairs the Movement for the Defense of the People's Mandate and Banten's Judo-Karate-Silat Association.
Even though his clients include those in positions of power in the military and bureaucracy, he keeps his modest house in Keduagung village open to anyone in need of help.
Barce also has been named president director of an alternative hospital project under construction in Tigaraksa village, Tangerang. The Rp 10-billion project is the first of its kind in Indonesia.