Battered body of Kuta waiting for 'Ngaben' to lure tourists

Battered body of Kuta waiting for 'Ngaben' to lure tourists

By Rob Goodfellow

DENPASAR (JP): Some time between the early 1970s and the mid
1980s, the area around the Balinese seaside village of Kuta
Beach, from Bemo Corner to the coconut groves of Legian, reached
its zenith as a bottom of the market tourist destination. For
hippies, surfies, travelers and tourists, Kuta and Bali were
either "The Morning of the Earth", the perfect wave, or the
ultimate escape.

Together with a number of other points of reference on the
backpacker's list of "must see" destinations, Kuta offered some
of Indonesia's most inexpensive, uncomplicated and unpretentious
accommodation. It was the first port of call for young
Australians setting off on the well worn track across Southeast
Asia and it was the jumping off point for "travel weary"
Americans or Europeans on their way to Sydney. It was an
obligatory destination for a generation of young men and women
intent on "doing Asia".

Dramatic physical and social changes have transformed Kuta
Beach into something very different from the image so carefully
crafted by the tourist brochures. The development, or rather
decline, of Kuta into something of a tourist ghetto is a symptom
of cultural change. On a deeper level, it is a metaphor for the
whole of modern Indonesia, a society in which the trauma of
nearly 350 years of colonialism and exploitation of one form or
another has come home to roost.

It is extraordinary what sort of distorted image can be
conjured by a clever photographer. The tourist literature which
catalogs a whole range of hotels across Kuta and Legian depict
scenes of outstanding tranquility. The collage creates a mirage
of exclusive and luxurious opulence. While this may be true of
the inner sanctum of a small number of five star hotels, the
actual state of most budget losmens, and the reality of street
life in the back lanes is very different.

The slow equatorial rot, the piles of plastic, the overflowing
open drains, the mildewed ceilings, toilets that don't work,
rooms that smell of neglect and cat urine, the noise and danger
of speeding motorcycles, the thump of the empty discos, the
offensive outbursts of drunken Australians, the prostitutes,
petty drug dealers, bag snatchers, pickpockets, pimps and gigo
los, the thousand "Hey, you want transport?", the poisonous
clouds of diesel exhaust, the dust, the heat and humidity, the
unrelenting hordes of cheap watch sellers, the merciless hawkers
of poor quality "real silver" jewelry, the pathetic peddlers of
meaningless bric-a-brac, the sharp tongued street salesmen of
doubtful objects d'art, the relentless "hello mister" and "I lub
you" and the inevitable smutty curse rendered incomprehensible by
the use of Balinese or Javanese or Maduranese, remind one more of
the tormented subjects of a Hieronimus Boch painting than a taste
of the "last tropical paradise".

The hassled expression on the faces of the Smith children from
Sydney as they flee the hawkers like prey from a hunter, or the
heavily-hair-braided and severely-sunburnt semiotics of newly
married Mr. and Mrs. Munz from Dusseldorf, pathetically clutching
their abdomens while searching for the public toilet that doesn't
exist, begs the fundamental questions: When does the fun start?
Is the welcome drink now a poison chalice? At what point did the
free airport transfer make a terrible detour?

Obviously change in Kuta has been swift and relentless, even
brutal. Twenty years ago Legian was a coconut grove, now it is a
city. Billions of tourist dollars have siphoned through Bali
turning rice farmers into millionaires, petty merchants into
owners of conglomerates, irrevocably altering the social order.
Now everyone wants a piece of the action. And why not? In the
artificial world of mass tourism with its five nights package
(plus breakfast and welcome drink) for most ordinary Balinese is
at once highly visible yet practically unobtainable. This
relationship is now fruiting as frustration and violence.

In recent months there has been reports of heated verbal and
even physical confrontation as tourists and hawkers play out
their mutually created antipathy. The more aggressive the hawkers
the less likely they will make a sale. With diminishing business
comes an even more desperate approach, and so on.

The world is out that Kuta is no longer in. A sumptuous
platter of alternate exotic destinations is seductively offered
up to the budget tourist, promising other "last paradises" that
are "just like Bali (read Kuta) used to be".

On a superficial level Kuta's rise and fall is easy to
explain. As Denpasar-based anthropologist Degung Santikarma
explains, "you can imagine what agony goes through the mind of an
Indonesian wage laborer who earns Rp 3000 (A$1.20) a day when a
tourist pulls out a roll of bank notes equal to that same
person's entire years income, and then, just orders a cheese and
tomato jaffel. Consciously and subconsciously the aggressive
behavior of the hawkers is either their way of taking back some
control in a world that is out of control, or it is their own
private form of revenge."

Perhaps, like their fathers before them, a new generation of
colonized Indonesians are fighting a guerrilla action. However,
this time it is not against the Dutch but against the late 20th
century which has punched and brawled its way into their lives
like a violent drunk. Only now the fight is neither heroic nor
hopeful.

One of my Balinese friends, a high school teacher, reminded me
of the delicate balance of Kuta's high wire act.

"All it will take is a tidal wave, a major eruption of Mt.
Agung, a World recession, another Gulf War or national
instability and the whole circus will collapse. Then what will
the Kuta traders do? They will be back in the paddy with their
feet in the mud planting rice again!"

While this may be the case, this statement betrays a deeper
symptom of Indonesian modernity -- a weary acceptance of the way
things are, a perceived inability to confront change and make an
individual and moderating contribution to it. It shows a dullness
of spirit. Because of this, at least in Kuta Beach, there appears
to be none of the nationalistic idealism that inspired a previous
generation to confront European colonialism.

But, more relevant to Kuta's "hospitality industry", this
malaise is compounded by the fact that there is no contemporary
tradition of popular critical thinking. Most young Indonesians
have not been trained in lateral or independent analysis. There
is little initiative. Rather, everything is bapakism, an
officially encouraged paternalism which produces automatic
deference to a higher authority.

Bapakism ensures that decisions are rarely made. Even the most
minor concession to protocol is unthinkable. This results in
human "programming" rather then "training". No one can authorize
the fixing of the leaking toilet, replace the broken fan or alter
the breakfast menu to accommodate individual tastes. No one can
act outside of rigidly set parameters. Nothing can be done
without permission, a situation which frustrates Western tourists
who are accustomed to the cult of the individual and who cannot
appreciate the nuances of Indonesian social history and adjust
their expectations accordingly.

What then will keep the tourists coming back? Obviously the
owners of capital and the governments' central planners believe
that more five star hotels and elite tourism are the answer to
occupancy rates of around 40 percent or lower. This bizarre
reinvention of the cargo cult produces an unwanted commodity (in
this case luxury hotel rooms) and then patiently waits for the
customers that will never come, while, clearly, the greatest need
is for good one and two star accommodation, the sort that Kuta
Beach was well known for. And even when they do come the elite
tourists are easily frightened off. This was clearly seen with
the recent Bali cholera scare (Bali belly) that resulted in the
cancellation of thousands of Japanese bookings.

But with the appeal gone, the spirit broken, perhaps what the
battered body of Kuta is waiting for is ngaben, or ritual
cremation. Perhaps what Kuta needs is physical and spiritual
reincarnation. But for now I fear it is to be, alas, the late
great Kuta Beach.