'Last paradise' reflects on its development path

'Last paradise' reflects on its development path

By I Wayan Juniartha.

DENPASAR, Bali (JP) Several noted figures have urged the
people and government of Bali to take the province's 42nd
anniversary as an opportunity to reflect on and contemplate the
path of development that the "last paradise" has taken.

"Are we really going in the right direction, and at a correct
speed," prominent social activist Prof. Dr. LK Suryani asked
rhetorically.

She lamented that the uncontrolled development process had
destroyed most of Bali's limited ecological resources.

Consequently, the harmonious and balanced relationship between
man and nature was also being distracted. For the island and
people that for centuries put nature -- be it in the form of
water, forest, mountain, land, lake or river -- in a respected
place, the present condition is disturbingly ironic, she
commented.

"We have built hundreds of hotels with thousands of rooms and
by doing that we have transformed our beloved Bali into one
infertile and barren island," she said, adding that every year at
least 1,000 hectares of rice fields were transformed into housing
complexes and industrial or tourism facilities.

To avoid total ecological destruction, Suryani asked the
government to stop the development of hotels, resorts or any
other large-scale tourism facilities. The government should also
immediately make a clear, ecologically aware and well-balanced
blueprint for Bali's development, she said.

"The blueprint would dictate which areas in Bali will be a
center for tourism, housing or business, and which areas will be
left untouched. This blueprint must be backed up with strong and
unbiased law enforcement," she said.

Unfortunately, strong law enforcement is a rare trait in
Bali's administration. A well-known cartoonist, Jango Paramartha,
noted that most zoning violations either went unpunished or just
unnoticed. A similar thing has also taken place in a different
field.

"Big capitalists are storming our villages. Modern minimarkets
and stores are opening in villages, putting our own entrepreneurs
out of business. That must be a violation of some regulations,
isn't it? Yet the government just sits there and does nothing,"
he said.

Another of Bali's major problems, Suryani said, was the
seemingly unending flow of unskilled Javanese and Lombok workers
and laborers into Bali. In some cases, it has caused racial
tension between the Balinese and non-Balinese.

"It is grossly unfair that the government has persuaded
jobless Balinese to migrate to Kalimantan or Sulawesi, while
jobless non-Balinese keep entering Bali freely," she said.

Suryani, who is also well-known as a respected Balinese-style
meditation guru with thousands of disciples abroad, also
regretted the fact that more and more Balinese were succumbing to
the materialistic trappings of modern civilization. Drugs,
alcohol and prostitution have become a common phenomenon among
the Balinese youth. Money and material gain have become the new
mantra for some of Balinese's middle class.

"Even in temples many people compete in spending as much money
as possible to hold the most extravagant ceremony, instead of
concentrating on the purity of their own heart," she said.

Suryani openly expressed her longing for the "old" Bali, an
island of peace and serenity.

A prominent scholar, Prof. Dr. I Made Bandem, shared a similar
yearning. Yet he underlined that it did not mean that he wanted
Bali to be thrown back to the 1930s.

"I don't want to hold Bali back. Yet every development and
every modernization must take the Tri Hita Karana principles into
account," he said, referring to the age-old wisdom of a
harmonious relationship between man and God, fellow men and
nature.

A cultural concept and insight, which were supposed to be the
basic foundation of Bali's development, are somehow gradually
vanishing from policymakers' awareness, Bandem said.

Suryani, Jango, and Bandem did not pretend to be able to
present all the facts and problems, or have a solution to them.
But they believe the problems are real and need immediate action.

"This is the responsibility we, as Balinese, must proudly
take," Bandem said.

There is no better day than an anniversary to make amends with
our past mistakes, and to start going in a new direction.