8degreesoflatitude

HECTOR’S DIARY

Titbits from his diet of worms

Ubud, Bali

Saturday, Apr. 7, 2018

IT should surprise, though of course it doesn’t, that Indonesia’s pique Islamist bother boots brotherhood, the FPI, has taken issue with a poem written nearly two decades ago and recently recited by Sukmawati Sukarnoputri. It laments the way Middle Eastern inspired (and funded) perceptions of Islamic religious probity are taking root in Indonesia and displacing archipelagic ways. Sukarnoputri is a high-profile collateral target – being the daughter of founding president Bung Sukarno – in the political war the FPI is waging against modernising Indonesia. They want her jailed for blasphemy, like the Christian former Jakarta governor Ahok, who foolishly made a political point and paid for it with two years in the pokey. Sukarnoputri has apologised and the moderate Islamic organisation the MUI suggests that this should be enough. It would be, for anyone but a hot head with a political agenda to prosecute.

Matters of dogma within faiths – all faiths, not just irredentist Islam – should be left to their adherents to adjudicate. They are no one else’s business. But many religions – Islam and Christianity are to the fore in this – are also very active social and political forces, and there, what they say and do is legitimately a matter of public interest. The FPI seeks to fully veil Indonesia in the cultural attire and social precepts of the Middle East. It is entitled to propose and promote such a policy. And it is for Indonesians as a whole to decide their response to this. It wants a more strongly Islamist president in the Istana Negara. That is also a political objective. Its street demonstrations fuelled by modest emoluments and nasi bungkus should be understood in that context. There is a presidential election in 2019.

Time may not be on the side of Indonesia’s hard-line Islamists, however. The modest reforms commenced in Saudi Arabia, where women have been given the green light to drive motor vehicles and cinemas have reopened, have already subtly changed the shape of the religious wave the FPI hoped would assist them in swamping the archipelago. The petrol dollars are also running out. Sharply curtailed largesse from Arabia and its littoral will surely follow. Indonesia rightly wants to be Indonesia – the leading power in South-east Asia. That is a nationalistic aim, which the Chinese will probably choose to support, though they will do so to advance China’s profit, not the Prophet. In that secular scenario, matters of religion are for the mosque, not the cabinet table.

In a Paddy

WE’RE enjoying a long weekend at Petulu, near Ubud, where the famous white herons live and wisely try to evade touristic cameras. One was in the rice field next to our lovely friend’s villa this morning, a lone forager by choice perhaps, or maybe it had argued with its mates and flocked off in a huff. It made a pretty picture in reflection in the recently planted water-field. Such images, prosaic though they may be, are good for the soul.

They help alleviate the irritation of hearing about events such as that which befell Ubud resident Darsih Gede this morning. Her two much-loved Bali dogs disappeared from her home, stolen by a person or persons unknown.

On the island of the Gods, there are a lot of devils.

Crocodile Rock

WE won’t be going along, sadly. There’s a probably an upper age limit for croc hunters and we’re sure we’re well past it. And anyway, they snap at you. But there’s a crocodile catching opportunity tomorrow night, which you can join for a fee, and which we heard about from Rex Sumner. The trip is out and back from Serangan, in Benoa Bay.

Among the many things you’re always told by those with cosy touristic stories to tell is that Bali doesn’t have Crocodylus porosus, the estuarine or saltwater crocodile. Magically, they are said to have created a special zone around Bali, which is otherwise right in the middle of their habitat range from Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean to the Marshall Islands in the North Pacific, and all points in between. They are reportedly no longer present in the city-state of Singapore (they don’t like crowds) and Thailand claims their absence too, though you wouldn’t want to bank on that. But of course, we know they’re here. People keep catching them in the riverine and tidewater mangrove environment that fringes Benoa Bay.  Apparently the biggest caught has been two metres long. That’s not so big, in salty terms. They’re the world’s largest reptilian predator, if left alone to live out their allotted lifespans without accident or human intervention, and have been recorded at more than five metres, as well as far out to sea.

It is also said, by some of those who say they know, that the Benoa mangrove croc community comprises former zoo inmates which escaped or were let out when their unpleasant prison became yet another victim of the White Elephant Syndrome that so afflicts business here. Perhaps. Or perhaps these poor dispossessed animals simply augmented an already existing population. South Bali is fairly densely populated, something that would have reduced endemic numbers over the years.

The capture program is designed to relocate the animals to natural habitats far away, where it is thought they will be happier and possibly better fed, and won’t worry the tourists and lead to further travel advisories from foreign governments. They are far from uncommon in Flores and West Timor, not to mention Raja Ampat and the Indonesian half of New Guinea. In Darwin, Australia, if you go sunbaking at the beach you’re likely to do so behind a croc-proof fence. Apparently that trumps them, but then, of course, they’re not Mexicans.

These are alligators, and elsewhere, but the message might be apt. It came to us from a keen spotter of idiocies.

Cake With All The Extras

LUHUT Binsar Pandjaitan, the coordinating minister for home affairs in the Jokowi cabinet, was in Bali recently, on a trip that was loosely connected with the proposed North Bali Airport, that on again, off again project that so excites the Bupati of Buleleng and others.

The northern airport is on, according to Minister Luhut, rather than off, which had been the preceding announcement from some other office at chaos central. Furthermore, the network of toll roads to connect the south with the north and the northwest would also proceed, along with expansion of Ngurah Rai International Airport in the south.

This box of expensive tricks was flourished, we’re sure, because there are provincial and districts elections this year, and the presidential election next year already referred to above, and naturally everyone wants to have their piece of the cake. Having got it, they’ll then eat it, or their friend will, and then they’ll want more.

It must be a very rich fruitcake indeed.

Chin-chin!