October 14 2003

CULTURAL CRINGE  (see also Lost Horizons)
 

This weekend's Bali bombing commemoration has upset the island's Hindu elders, who say the gods will not be pleased

HAS there been a cultural miscue on this weekend's Bali bomb commemoration?

For all the myriad evocations of Balinese culture in the ceremony by organisers in Indonesia and Canberra, both the venue, the massive Garuda Wisnu Kencana monument, and the fact that its taking place at all are anything but "typically Balinese".

While Javanese and Western society honor the dead with ongoing rituals, some of Bali's Hindu elders complain such practices are almost taboo in their culture. The cleansing ceremony a month after the bombings, they say, purified Bali of evil, despatching souls to eternal peace. This weekend's ceremony will just upset their souls from eternity.

And then there's the venue itself. GWK is a Balinese Mt Rushmore, conceived in Suharto's time to lure tourists to the driest part of the island, but more to neighbour son Tommy's now abandoned resort, Pecatu Graha. Millions of litres of water are piped into GWK and its fountains, draining Bali's rice-growing water table. Ironically, the Wisnu it honors is Bali's most deified god, for water. Ordinary Balinese care little for GWK, an embarrassing white elephant Jakarta is desperate to justify, with its $200m cost and backhanders paid to local cronies, some tried for corruption.

Adding insult to injury, GWK's restaurant, Memedi, means devil in Balinese, with black magic implications. It would be as if a some solemn Anzac memorial took place at Old Sydney Town because it was "truly Australian", or as Australian-Balinese culture guru Made Wijaya puts it, "opening an exorcism juice bar inside the Sistine Chapel". - ERIC ELLIS