BALI'S BACK, BUT NO THANKS TO JAKARTA

Back in Jakarta, fatter and with sun burnt shoulders that seem about ripe to start peeling away at any moment, but hey I'm feeling energized and yet a bit deflated about being back at the same time; I've just returned from a few days in Bali.

Bali still appears to be on most South East Asian travellers' itineraries even after all the years of commercialism and mass tourism and the bombings that tried to destroy it all, and yet I guess it's a kind of testament to the so called Island of the Gods that it still seems to conjure up, for some people at least, exotic connotations that way surpass the reality of aggressive hawkers and massage girls, cheap tourist trinkets and bars that promise BLOODY COLD BEER, not to mention the 100% mark up on hotel rates and air fares during the Labaran holiday period.

So there I was back in the throng of some old haunts from my backpacking days; the Poppies Gangs and Jl Legion as well as enjoying those Balinese experiences that are still pleasantly unique; sunning and swimming while watching a local ceremony being performed on a secluded little beach on the Bukit Peninsula (see the snaps below!) and stocking up on some decent reading material from the good range of second hand books at the excellent and friendly Ganesha Bookshop in Ubud (a sure sign that the tourists are coming through again!) and I realized that despite the almost complete tourist orientated commercialization (or annihilation, some might say) of the place, Bali is still one of those destinations that has its definite appeal.





I've been a few times over the years, but the last time was a couple of months after the 2002 bombings. The place was, naturally, devoid of tourists and the store and restaurant owners were desperate, barely making a living, and many local folk were unable to hide their bitterness. The Balinese resentment, which was always there, against their Jakarta government, which they feel feeds off their island with its unique culture and architecture, using it as the icon for the Indonesian tourist industry, was then at its height due to the fact that the Bali bombers and their evil associates were from Java, but today, especially during the mass Labaran migration of the urban Javanese upper class, fleeing from that annual hellish prospect of having to (god forbid!) do basic household chores themselves, without maids, Bali seems to be back to how it was before and the repeated terrorist attacks of the past four years have been paralled by cheap domestic air fares; opening up local tourism and perhaps replacing those foreign tourists who are reluctant to return.

It's easy to forget the menace of terrorism while stuck in the Kuta area night time traffic (the Jakarta macet comes to Bali too during Labaran!) caused by the lines of Kijangs of arriving holiday makers from Jakarta (the B's) and Surabuya (the L's) and seeing all the happy revellers enjoying themselves in the multitude of new night spots that have sprung up. The Bali bombing memorial, which stands opposite the site of what was once The Sari Club, is a sober reminder of the night of October 12, 2002, located in the middle of an area which epitomizes touristy tackiness and holiday fun. The barren and abandoned sites of The Sari club and Paddys, where I, in times past, spent a few drunken nights of oblivion, seem like strangely unutilized space in the heart of Kuta, perhaps ready for some new development, but it'll be some time before the spirits of those 202 people, murdered in cold blood are appeased enough by the regular placing of flowers, wreaths and offerings in remembrance, to allow some entertainment entrepreneurs to once again develop the sites. I struggle to try to and conjure up any memories of those two places as they once were.



The Bali tragedy is remembered as a kind of Australian 9/11 on foreign soil; due to the 89 Australians killed, but there were also 38 Indonesians killed and 25 people from my country; the UK, murdered along with citizens of virtually every country that you come across when holidaying in Bali.

My sister and her then boyfriend (now husband) were in Bali at the time to attend the wedding of a university friend and as the news broke that night of the bombings; members of the very merry wedding party decided to go from their hotel in Jimbaran Bay to the hospitals to give blood, which they joked on the way; was by that stage 90% alcohol, but any joking and feelings of merriment soon evaporated as they arrived at the hospital to be confronted by horrendous scenes of severely burnt and maimed bodies, those still conscious; sobbing and crying out; not just because of their own physical pain but for the unknown fate of their friends or partners or because of the massive blast induced confusion of still trying to comprehend what had just happened to them. Blood was taken by local and foreign doctors; some of the latter were holiday makers themselves, called in to help from an evening of drinking and relaxation, to treat and perform, in some cases, life saving surgery on bodies severely damaged beyond belief.

And then it happened again a few years later. We all remember those gruesome photographs of the heads and limbs of the suicide bombers who entered restaurants in Bali last year and blew them up. I guess anyone now sitting in a busy restaurant or bar in Bali, as I was; enjoying a dinner and a few cold beers might look around and ask what is there to stop another deluded and brainwashed psychopath from walking into the joint with a bomb and blowing the place to smithereens?

Now I don't want to write another piece from the prospective of a foreigner living in a country with one of world's most corrupt police forces and judiciaries or bang on about officers working, yes I know, for a pittance, in Indonesia's anti terrorism division who might be tempted to allow vehicles to pass inspection points for small bribes, but you ask any Balinese what they think about their Jakarta government's decision to refuse to outlaw Jemaah Islamiyah; the organization widely believed to be behind the Bali bombings as well as others; such as the Jakarta Marriott, Australian embassy and various church bombings over the years, or their opinion of the police who are able to devote considerable time and energy to extorting money from people but seem to be able to do very little to deter security threats, as the repeated bombings in Bali and Jakarta have shown. The ordinary Balinese certainly don't feel that these opinions are exclusively those of arrogant and belligerent foreigners who want to tell Indonesia what to do.

Both Presidents Megawati and SBY claimed and claim to take a firm stand against terrorism but those words only came after one of these attacks occurred. Remember that token Vice President bloke; Hamzah Haz; a friend and sympathizer of Abu Bashir Bakr, who publicly denied the presence of any terrorist groups in Indonesia, despite being given reliable intelligence warnings to the contrary pre Bali 2002? Or how about Indonesia's current Vice President; Jusuf Kalla's excuse for not doing anything about Jemaah Islamiyah: "if we have never recognized the existence or the organization, how can we disband it?". Like many things in Indonesian politics, this kind of nonchelance is confusing and creates the perception of a lack of clear government position and opinion on these issues and no doubt contributes to a variety of conspiracy theories as to who exactly was involved and why.

I sincerely hope that foreign and local tourists continue to come in their droves to Bali to spend their currencies in the bars, restaurants, shops and tourist spots but it seems a shame that the Jakarta government should get their lion's share of the tourism industry takings, directly or indirectly, considering their recent and insensitive decisions to free and reduce sentences for Islamic militants; jailed for the Bali bombings to..er..mark the end of the Islamic fasting month and their refusal to outlaw Jemaah Islamiyah along with the release of the smug Abu Bakar Bashir, in a blaze of cheers, applause and publicity, after just 25 months in jail for giving his blessing to the mass murder of civilians and holiday makers. Incidently; while there may be no direct evidence, or shall we say nobody has bothered to find any, to link Bashir to these various bombings, this is the guy, who after all, has vowed to overthrow every Indonesian government since Suharto, so isn't that reason enough to break up Jemaah Islamiyah even if you ignore the fact that much of the world and even The United Nations have listed it as a terrorist organization, making it illegal for people to provide financial and other support. Anyway, don't think this is just more rhetoric from another foreigner in Indonesia, just ask any Balinese taxi driver and they'll tell you the same thing...

WHAT WOMEN WANT

Much ado about the differing tastes for the fairer sex has erupted on the so called Indonesian bloggersphere recently. It all started over a week ago when a Jakarta based columnist, I'm assuming rather naively, wrote on a blog post that his Indonesian "friend's view of a beautiful woman is that of a fair-skinned one, who has the look of a financially independent, educated, and classy lady" contrasting with "an Indonesian woman with a dark complexion, buck teeth, and a high forehead typically found among remote mountain villagers in Java" who "for an Asian man...surely look like maids" but are apparently what "foreign (white) men" are "attracted to".

The writer proceeded to, rather uncomfortably for the reader, explain that the reasons for these respective preferences are rooted in the pre Industrial Revolution and then elaborated on why Asian societies and Western men have these skin preferences in a style that was mildly reminiscent of Mein Kamf; when Adolf Hitler, in a similar vein, clinically explained his reasoning as to why an Aryan was superior to a person of another race.

And then it all kicked off on a variety of fronts involving UI students, indignant bules et al; discussing the possibility of cosmetic surgery for high foreheads, comments about rich people with bucked teeth, the merits of Ponds cream for making skin whiter, the deformed toes of Indonesian peasants which apparently can spread wider than normal due to centuries of working in rice fields (didn't know that!), the definite advantages of shagging pembantu type women and a ton of general malicious abuse...in short; a long and in parts; quite amusing thread, which is still going on.

But apart from the rather unflattering description of rural Javanese women, this guy is of course right about the general attitude to skin colour in Asia, but obviously not in his assumptions about the opposite sex preferences of the male species, of which he (I'm only guessing from the photo) is a member of. But we know all this; we've all seen those urban broads, getting out of a car or crossing the street and grabbing whatever they have in their hand at the time and frantically holding it up to their face to try and block out that evil sun or the guaranteed pleasure of having a swimming pool to yourself, apart from the brats and their salaried full time mothers (sorry, that's nannies), in an apartment or a hotel until dusk, when, like in Salem's Lot, the Mums emerge, confident that the months and accumulated expense of cosmetic skin treatment and usage of this Ponds stuff won't be destroyed by an unwelcome lash of those darkening ultra violet rays. On the other hand, note the success of franchises such as The Tanning Shop in countries like England, which do a roaring trade for those women with pale complexions (and beautiful elocution) typically found among remote villagers in Essex who strive to achieve that bronzed South Beach J Lo type look for dismal Friday nights in Romford.

But what the rather asinine article and its author confirmed was that Asian society always focuses solely on what men like. This I think is the real issue here because Asian societies tend to focus on the man's prospective on most things, and nobody discusses what kind of men, physically, Asian women like.

Traditionally, Indonesian women, for example, were supposed to be virgins on their wedding night, perhaps so that they didn't know if their husbands were any good in the sack or how their dick size measured up, and husbands are still vetted by their prospective wife's family after careful scrutiny of their family background and financial status and a women's opinion of their physical appearance and attractiveness is irrelevant. In the past (pre Fitness First); recent Indonesian brides were often complemented by their in laws on the fact that their husbands were getting fat after marriage because it meant that they were taking good care of their man in the kitchen but no one gave a shit what the poor Mrs thought about having this admirable expanding mid section going down on her in the bedroom.

So why didn't this guy and his coffee sipping friend in Plaza Indonesia ask why these said young Indonesian women like craggy faced, aged, pot bellied Western men, for example, if we're going to pick stereotypes. OK, the answer is, you may say, money or the perception of having some in a currency that gets a lot of rupiah back when it's changed over, but not all Indonesian women who have Western partners are those who have been picked up in the bars of Blok M, Jalan Jaksa or wherever. We've already been informed in lengthy and sometimes gruesome detail, courtesy of all the incessant blogging recently, what kind of women both Asian and Western men like and don't like but what I want to know is what kind of men, physically, do Indonesian women in like?

DRUGS AND CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY AIN"T WHAT THEY USED TO BE...

Don't you just love it when Grandpa shakes his head, disapprovingly, about things not being the way they used to be back in the good old days.

Keith Richards; the legendary sixty something guitarist from The Rolling Stones, has complained about drugs today, telling the London based Q magazine; "the quality's gone down. All they do is try and take the high out of everything. I don't like the way drugs now are working on your brain area instead of just through the blood stream."

Not that I would dare question the world's undisputed connoisseur par excellence of narcotics, but I thought that drugs were more powerful today and therefore more dangerous or at least that's what people of Richards' and Bill Clinton's generation usually say to justify their own drug use back in the '60's and '70's but warn younger generations against it when they, themselves, became responsible senior citizens.

Anyway, this old geezer (Richards) has been the subject of more stories and urban myths than there are cracks on his face and my personal favourite dates back to when General Motors were sponsoring a Rolling Stones tour back in the day. The world's largest automakers were terrified that Richards, who was at the height of his monkey on the back dependency, would overdose and die under the GM logo causing a PR nightmare for the American corporate institution. Consequently; a series of black suited GM executives would reguarly show up at Richards' hotel suite with a stash of checked and approved highest quality heroin, just to make sure that The Human Riff was getting only the finest brown sugar available, thus ensuring that he would survive the tour. Now you don't see that kind of corporate responsibility from big business anymore...

THE FILTHY RICH AND THE FURY

'Twas Wednesday morning, stuck in another dismal macet due to the sudden close of the tol road and as I squirmed in my frustration and boredom, I was temporarily relieved from the stagnant misery by a surprising and delightfully aggressive VIEW POINT article in The Jakarta Post entitled 'Yet another big fat Jakarta wedding'. I've long given up my usual traffic jam activity of gazing at the endless lines of cars, for as far as the eye can see, and calculating roughly how much money I'm looking at on the road in the form of expensive, spanking new vehicles while my poor taxi driver tells me that he can't afford his family on his one million rupiah a month take home pay (on a good month that is), after driving for fourteen hours a day. Anyway, back to this article in what is normally a five minute morning toilet read; The Jak Post, by Julia Suryakusuma, it was a real refresher. She started off having a go at posh Jakarta weddings and then preceded to furiously trash a recent keluarga Soeharto wedding, at which, according to the piece, each of the two hundred high profile guests in attendance received a stemmed rose wrapped in money. As the writer pointed out; a rather tasteless welcome gift but perhaps this was a private in joke "fuck you" statement on behalf of the family to all their critics. In a rising tirade of anger that seemed to boil right off the page, she lashed out at the Indonesian public calling them "a bunch of spineless, cowardly, pusillanimous, opportunistic, gutless, lily-livered people" for being indifferent to and even celebrating the mammonesque wedding party. Wow! I don't recall reading such welcome vitriol in The Jak Post for quite some time. I don't really care one way or the other about these people and their expensive parties but I can sympathize with Ms Suryakusuma's sentiment; I mean it's only been eight years since the old man went, the economic crisis continues (for most) and since 1998, that family have committed serious crimes and have been exposed in international bribery scandals, not to mention the alleged ill-gotten $15 billion, that a mere slice of would have gone a long way to help the recent victims of the tsunami, earthquake and current Sidoarjo mess, but where is the public disgrace that most ordinary Indonesians apparently seem to fear so much ? These days the Soehartos are treated like celebrities, with cozy, fawning interviews and glamorous profiles in the pop media. Ms Suryakusuma is clearly very angry about this wedding party that she describes as a "tasteless, vulgar, crass, insensitive, disgraceful display at a time when the country is still reeling from various crises", but if it makes her feel any better, perhaps the money for the bash didn't come from the years of local looting but came from saving the hard earned 16.5 million pound bribe that Tutut (the handsome young groom's Mum) got from Alvis, the tank manufacturer in Coventry, England, several years ago to secure a sale of FV101 Scorpion tanks to the Indonesian government, which were then used to kill people in East Timor and Aceh, but were never paid for and cost the British taxpayer, through the UK government's Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD), 93 million quid. Nice article though, and let's hope that The Jak Post can get some more local writers with Julia's keyboard fury to brighten up what is usually a rather dreary daily read. NB: Being a bit of an oaf; I had to double check the meaning of pusillanimous and it's basically a synonym for all the other highly unflattering adjectives used in the same sentence and on a further note; there is a pusillanimous.blogspot.com entitled "All about credit cards" by a blogger in Albany, New York. Might have to Bookmark that one...