LITMIR.BIZ

      Foreword

       Contemporary Balinese Dilemma

      This book relates the story of Bali, its rulers, its people, and its encounters, often traumatic, with the Western world. Spanning the entire period since the beginning of recorded island history, it gives intimations of the long-term sources of the contemporary crisis which now confronts the Balinese with the grim choice between economic decay in obscurity or cultural decadence on the floodlighted stage of international tourism.

      There already exists a wealth of literature on Balinese art and thought and the singularly beautiful Balinese way of life which often seems to outsiders like a lavishly costumed pageant continuously and merrily played out against a superbly scenic tropical backdrop. Except for several Balinese court chronicles, impenetrable to most foreigners, and a few other works, mainly in Dutch, by Western writers of the nineteenth or early twentieth century, there is almost nothing of any consequence with regard to Balinese history, economics, and politics, or the roots of the present dilemma. It is the aim, therefore, of this account to provide a background sketch of historic events, to trace the complications of domestic and international politics, to depict the changing economic scene, and to introduce the key characters, Balinese and Western, of the island drama of the last millennium as it now comes to an especially significant new climax. Since all else in Bali cues to the cultural tradition, there is also a chapter dealing with the basic conceptual elements of a life-outlook best described as Balinism.

      The exposure, however brief, may provide insight into the still living manifestations of a richly textured medievalism which is now threatened with extinction. Paradoxically and tragically, it is the very policy now being designed for the purpose of cultural conservation which poses the greatest threat. The plan is to promote “Cultural Tourism” as the one and only really promising new industry. Under this strange new device Bali now deliberately invites a late twentieth century invasion of jumbo-jet borne barbarians. The rather fanciful concept seems to be that flights of joy-seekers from overseas crave not just exoticism but also aestheticism and will generously pay the costs of Bali’s coming reincarnation as a prosperously modernized but still uniquely artistic island entity.

      Even by resort to more enlightened developmental planning it may already be much too late to revitalize an archaic system which is as anachronistic in the twentieth century as it was appropriate to the sixteenth and has been miraculously preserved almost intact through many previous disasters. Perhaps Cultural Tourism really will result in the transfusion of cash and the acquisition of skills which will enable the Balinese, guided in some esoteric manner by their own true genius, to survive and to flourish within a culture-centric society precariously perched on the rim of the materialistic world. The artistically endowed Balinese are now so economically impoverished, however, that they seem not indisposed to engage in a folklorical sort of exhibitionism in return for their visitors’ admission fees. A spectacle so transparently shabby can scarcely be expected to yield transcendental rewards.

      It lies just beyond the scope of this book to present any very extended analysis of Bali’s modern dilemma or any deeply reasoned forecast of the consequences of Cultural Tourism or any suggestion of alternatives. But the basic factors can be quickly identified. Up until about the year 1900 the island’s agricultural economy was able to support the masses of the Balinese people in such rustic affluence that they enjoyed the plenty and the leisure to indulge themselves fully in the elaborate and costly ceremonialism which is the island’s most distinctive characteristic. It also enabled a large class of highly privileged lay and religious rulers to create palaces, courts, and temples richly ornamented with works of astonishing artistry or craftsmanship. All this was possible because the land was and is wonderfully fertile; there is abundant rainfall; the climate allows for two or three food crops each year; the farmers are skillful and industrious; and Balinese agriculture, especially its rice culture, is the envy even of the ingenious Javanese. The ordinary Balinese, furthermore, is gifted with quite extraordinary powers of observing and representing the wonder and the mystery of the world about him; it is as though nature itself compels artistic self-expression.

      Since 1900 Balinese circumstances have altered quite drastically, not only because of the imposition island-wide of Dutch colonialism but also because of natural developments which long went almost unremarked. The population has at least doubled within this century, while land holdings have shrunk to less than one acre per family with the finest irrigated rice lands having to be divided and sub-divided. The rice crop is still abundant, but it is far from adequate to meet

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