The Miss World dilemma
The upcoming grand finale of this year's Miss World contest, which is slated to take place Sunday in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, promises to be, if nothing else, a lively event. Apart from the record 89 contestants, hundreds of dancers and 60 decorated elephants will be among the distractions that will luster up the occasion. According to the organizers, 20,000 people are expected to attend the Miss World crowning ceremony. Even now, the hotel in which the contestants are staying is drawing a host of rich local visitors, its coffee shops packed with people trying to catch a glimpse of the beauties, reports say.
Unfortunately, all this pomp and splendor presents only one aspect of this first-ever Miss World contest to be staged in India. Another aspect is the tide of protests which have accompanied the run-up to the event. The planned event has so far made unlikely bedfellows of such extreme political groupings as the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which calls the event a "blot on Indian tradition", and the Communist Party of India, which regards the contest as degrading to women. The BJP has warned the contest organizers that opponents of the event would lay siege to the venue. Maoists guerrillas have vowed to bomb it. A woman's group calling itself the Mahila Jagran Samiti (Forum to Awaken Women) has threatened to upset the pageant by sending 15 volunteers to infiltrate the crowd and commit suicide by setting themselves ablaze. If all this sounds like empty threats, it may be noted that similar acts of protest and suicide have in fact already been committed by protesters recently.
In all this, it appears that the authorities are finding themselves stuck in a rather awkward position. Indian courts of justice, which have been handling a number of complaints from protesters attempting to block the event by legal means, have found no reasons to ban the contest. Thus, it appears that the Miss World event will proceed in Bangalore as planned, the specter of violence notwithstanding. The only task remaining for the authorities is to try to see to it that the least amount of trouble occurs by providing extra security measures.
All this, we believe, has a rather familiar ring to many Indonesians. Strong as the ancient Hindu influence may be in some parts of this country, modern Indonesia differs from modern India in numerous aspects, including those of culture and history. Nevertheless, similarities abound, one of them being the fact that both countries are at present finding themselves in the middle of a process of transition and adaptation to what is commonly known as globalization. For this, we believe, is at the core of the present controversy of the Miss World contest in India.
Whether we like it or not, it is a reality that in the world in which we live at present, an increasingly intensive exchange of cultures and values cannot be evaded. The problem for every developing country is how it must cope with these changes, considering the fact that every nation has its own cultural make- up and its own set of traditional values. No doubt, a great deal of wisdom and understanding is needed to get through the process safely and benefit from it. As the Indian example shows, this is not always an easy job to accomplish.
We in Indonesia may perhaps call ourselves fortunate to have been able to settle a similar problem without much difficulty, by banning beauty contests of the Miss World type altogether. But then perhaps in this country, the camps on both sides of the line may not be as sharply divided as in India, or it may be that most of us find issues of this particular kind not worth quarreling about. Whatever the case, we can only hope that the crowing of Miss World in Bangalore will not become a cause for grief among people in India.