Historical outpost os Islam survives on west coast of Bali

By Jean Couteau

DENPASAR (JP): Where it meets the horizon, the sea melts into the sky. At the shore, a yellowish liquid current exudes from the river mouth into the gaping ocean.

Aligned along the shore is a series of boats, streaked in blues, reds and yellows, each with an unusual miniature mosque atop their masts.

On the land beyond the shore, there is another mosque, with its arches and a shining dome, and the sound of Middle Eastern music blares from one of the coffee shops.

This landscape and atmosphere is found where one would least expect it -- the little-known Ijo Gading estuary in Loloan, Negara, the westernmost regency of Bali.

Think of this province, and images of rice fields, elaborate dances and rich religious ceremonies usually come to mind. An agrarian, Hindu society, which has, through an accident of fate, escaped the advance of Islam throughout most of the archipelago.

Part of Bali's image, and its connivance with the West, is indeed due to what it is not, in contrast to the perceived images of Islam as severe, monotheistic and impervious to influences.

It would be mistaken, though, to view Bali as insulated from its archipelagic, mainly Moslem surroundings, or in constant conflict with them.

The island has never been actually attacked by any of its Islamic neighbors. On the contrary, before the Dutch finally colonized the island in 1906-1908, it was Balinese rulers who launched numerous attacks on Blambangan to the west and Lombok to the east, and occupied them.

In Bali proper, Moslem mercenaries, traders and warfarers have long had privileged relations with the local rulers. They dealt in slaves, opium and weapons, and were therefore -- with the Chinese population -- essential intermediaries in the survival of Bali on its own terms.

In the course of time, some of these Moslems assimilated with the Balinese to the extent that they ended up as "Moslem ancestors", as in Pacung, for example.

Entire communities have survived and are now found all over the island, although mostly on the coastal areas or in the vicinity of the ancient courts, a reminder of their former roles.

Some speak Balinese and use Balinese names, such as in Pegayaman in northern Bali.

The most powerful and thoroughly Islamic are the Bugis communities, and the most important of these is at Loloan.

Like the Jews who fled the Romans after the fall of Jerusalem, it was the fall of Makassar in Sulawesi in 1656 which began the Bugis diaspora.

After Makasar's Sultan Hassanudin's defeat by the Dutch in 1656, his staunchest warriors, men of the sea, refused to surrender and simply sailed away with wives and children, opening settlements all over the region, from Johore in Malaysia to the coastal areas of Irian Jaya.

From these settlements, some of which turned into powerful sultanates, the Bugis controlled much of the interinsular trade for the next two centuries; pirates to some, traders to others and fighters for the truth to themselves.

The Moslems of the Loloan area made up, at least originally, the Balinese wing of this diaspora.

Until 30 years ago, the Bugis ships would sail up the lazy Ijo Gading River and anchor four kilometers from the island.

To the people of the area, this village, rather than the neighboring state capital of Negara, was long the "city" itself -- it is still called the "kampung" by the local inhabitants.

Some of its boats and sea captains would sail as far as Singapore or the Philippines, and the sons of the richest merchants were educated in Mecca.

Negara itself was an agrarian principality, holding sway over the local Balinese hinterland, but it almost never interfered in the affairs of its Moslem citizens. This was except to collect the syahbandar harbor dues, or to ask the local Bugis sailors for a hand in its wars with other principalities, especially with the powerful kingdom of Buleleng to the north.

With the arrival of the Dutch after the first Bali war (1846- 1849), trade expanded further, in particular with Java, for which Loloan was the main transit port.

The youth of the area had their hour of glory during the war of the country's independence (1945-1949), when they helped in the transfer of men and weapons from Java for the Balinese guerrillas.

It was only after the construction of the modern harbor of Gilimanuk that the role of Loloan dropped sharply.

Nowadays, no big ships from Loloan ply the high seas, and youths of the area have reverted to being, if anything, poor fishermen.

From an architectural and urban point of view, Loloan, now a specific Moslem quarter of the small city of Negara, is easily recognizable from its neighboring Balinese areas.

Adjacent to the nondescript houses of urban Indonesia, there are still many tall wooden stilt houses of Bugis origin.

Most women wear the traditional Bugis veil, and mature men the national peci hat, often an indicator of adherence to Islam.

Instead of Balinese, the people use their own dialect of Malay. Although of similar origin to Indonesian, it takes a few weeks for an Indonesian speaker to be able to understand it properly.

Jobs

Their art is similar to those of the larger Malay communities of the archipelago, a somewhat stern diversion from the art of offerings practiced by the ethnic Balinese.

The main problem for the people of Loloan is employment. Although the scions of proud merchant seamen, they have missed the modern urban and technical revolution the Chinese-Indonesians -- their erstwhile partners in trade -- have taken advantage of.

They have withdrawn into their ethnic and religious identity, thus preventing themselves from becoming active partners in the multiethnic Bali now in the making.

But while looking at the boats at anchor, visiting the nearby Crocodile Garden in Pengambengan, or joking with youths at the local tea stall, visitors should think of the seas and how they united the islands of modern Indonesia rather than separated them.