I can't believe I'm typing it, but here is a gamelan version of a 1979 Gang of four tune "Not Great Men," which is basically a tune about how the powerful have hegemony over the telling of history.
Here's a version of that tune, a remake GOF did:
or you can check out the lyrics:
Not Great Men
No weak men in the books at home
The strong men who have made the world
History lives on the books at home
The books at home
It's not made by great men
It's not made by great men
It's not made by great men
It's not made by great men
The past lives on in your front room
The poor still weak the rich still rule
History lives in the books at home
The books at home
It's not made by great men
It's not made by great men
It's not made by great men
It's not made by great men
The past lives in the books at home
No weak men in the books at home
History lives in the books at home
The books at home
It's not made by great men
It's not made by great men
It's not made by great men
It's not made by great men
Now here's the gamelan version. How the heck did they choose this to cover?
Showing posts with label indonesia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indonesia. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Monday, July 19, 2010
Indonesian Muslims have been 'praying in wrong direction'
In retrospect, this should have been discovered sooner:
CNN
Indonesian Muslims 'praying in wrong direction'
By Andy Saputra, CNN
Jakarta, Indonesia (CNN) -- Indonesian Muslims have been praying in the wrong direction, the country's highest Islamic authority has said.
The Indonesian Ulema Council told the country's Muslim populace in March to turn west when they offered their daily prayers. Muslims are supposed to face the Kaaba, the religion's most sacred site in the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
At the time, the council said that the direction of Kaaba from Indonesia laid to the west.
Turns out, it didn't. Africa did.
So, on Friday, the council issued a new edict: face northwest.
"After the first fatwa (edict) a few months ago that stated that the praying direction is west, we have announced that the correct direction for praying is indeed northwest, and we have issued a new fatwa (edict) to correct it," said Ma'ruf Amin, the head of fatwa division in the Indonesian Ulema Council.
"This is important because facing west will mean that people were facing Africa when they pray," he said.
Amin said the new edict does not mean that mosques in the country will need to be torn down. "They (those praying inside) just need to adjust their praying direction slightly," he said.
Some residents of the world's most populous Muslim country took the change in stride.
"I don't really worry about the praying direction," said Riza Irwansyah, an office worker in Jakarta. "The important thing is I prayed to Allah and I believe He will listen, no matter which way I'm facing."
CNN
Indonesian Muslims 'praying in wrong direction'
By Andy Saputra, CNN
Jakarta, Indonesia (CNN) -- Indonesian Muslims have been praying in the wrong direction, the country's highest Islamic authority has said.
The Indonesian Ulema Council told the country's Muslim populace in March to turn west when they offered their daily prayers. Muslims are supposed to face the Kaaba, the religion's most sacred site in the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
At the time, the council said that the direction of Kaaba from Indonesia laid to the west.
Turns out, it didn't. Africa did.
So, on Friday, the council issued a new edict: face northwest.
"After the first fatwa (edict) a few months ago that stated that the praying direction is west, we have announced that the correct direction for praying is indeed northwest, and we have issued a new fatwa (edict) to correct it," said Ma'ruf Amin, the head of fatwa division in the Indonesian Ulema Council.
"This is important because facing west will mean that people were facing Africa when they pray," he said.
Amin said the new edict does not mean that mosques in the country will need to be torn down. "They (those praying inside) just need to adjust their praying direction slightly," he said.
Some residents of the world's most populous Muslim country took the change in stride.
"I don't really worry about the praying direction," said Riza Irwansyah, an office worker in Jakarta. "The important thing is I prayed to Allah and I believe He will listen, no matter which way I'm facing."
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Torajans of Sulawesi (Indonesia) live to die
LA Times
The Torajans of Sulawesi live to die
After decades of planning for their funerals, the dead wait months, even years, for their last rites while relatives negotiate arrangements for the perfect send-off.
By Paul Watson
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
6:44 PM PDT, August 13, 2008
BUNTU KALANDO, INDONESIA — The last king of Toraja was 93 when he took his final breath in July 2003. Five years later, he's still part of the family, quietly residing in a small room in his former palace, shaded by two red parasols decorated with colored beads and gold fringe.
By Torajan tradition, he isn't really dead. He's just sick. The late monarch won't be gone for good until he has been laid to rest with traditional rites featuring the slaughter of scores of water buffaloes, at least one of them a rare spotted specimen.
The unhurried passage from this world to the next isn't reserved for former rulers. It is central to the culture of Torajans, an ethnic group in southern Sulawesi island whose customs are a hybrid of ancient tribal traditions and Protestant Christianity.
The dead wait months, even years, for their last rites while relatives negotiate funeral arrangements, everything from the right timing to allow mourners to travel long distances, to where they will stay and who will feed them.
Corpses used to be dried with herbal elixirs and smoldering fires, but the old ways have largely died out, replaced by washtub embalming fluid made with formaldehyde.
A village mortician schooled in the old ways gave the late king's body the royal treatment with natural preservatives. It took more than 320 yards of cloth to wrap his mummy, a simple task compared with the long negotiations and complex preparations for his funeral.
"Torajans are very sensitive about this because the funeral is our last honor," said Eddy Sambolinggi, the youngest son of the last king, Puang Sambolinggi. "Everything has to be carefully planned."
In many ways, Torajans spend a lifetime preparing for their demise, saving for the essentials, such as their burial clothes and bamboo shelters for guests. They also have to budget for funeral donations to other families, while pampering and fattening up water buffaloes for sacrifice.
"Torajans," Sambolinggi, 56, said cheerfully, "they live to die."
It has taken his family five years to agree on a send-off befitting Puang Sambolinggi, which is now planned for October. The farewell is shaping up to be the last grand funeral in Torajan history, the final chapter of a royal history that dates back centuries.
Sambolinggi's reign saw the death of an ancient dynasty in Tana Toraja, or the Land of Toraja. He held the throne for only a year until, just days after Japan surrendered in August 1945, Indonesia declared independence from the Dutch and abolished tribal monarchies. But tribal tradition lives on.
Anthropologists believe Torajans are descended from voyagers who sailed from southern China as early as 3,000 BC. Though Christianity and the modern world have worn away at tradition, ancient beliefs called aluk to dolo, or the way of the ancestors, still guide many Torajans, especially when someone dies.
Legend says the design of their homes, called tongkonan, came from heaven. The wood-framed buildings face north, toward the land of the creator. The dead are always placed in a room at the back so they can face south, where the ancestors live in heaven.
The houses' bamboo roofs are shaped like boats, with a high bow and stern, which some believe honor the vessels their ancestors sailed to Sulawesi. The homes' central pillars are decorated with a row of horns from water buffaloes slaughtered at family funerals.
A good buffalo is a Torajan status symbol, and people go through life pleased that their burials won't be rushed, leaving mourners time to find the cash for fine specimens to slaughter. The donations required for a royal funeral give Torajans more than the usual pause.
"We have to wait until the whole family is ready," Sambolinggi said. "For instance, there's me and my siblings. Perhaps I am able to contribute a number of buffaloes, while my siblings still have to wait and save some money. We all have to agree, because for this funeral the number we're talking about isn't small."
Up to 80 buffaloes will be sacrificed in front of tens of thousands of mourners. Just counting relatives, Sambolinggi said, there will be 100,000 guests, many of whom will journey hundreds of miles.
Family members have also dickered over whether the body will be buried next to the late king's father or mother, Sambolinggi added.
Until the plans are settled, and relatives bid their final farewells, the late king, wrapped in cloth and encased in a wooden coffin, lies in repose just up the stairs from his youngest son's private museum of old spears, beaded dresses and other tribal artifacts. Sambolinggi regularly talks to his father, not in a way anyone else could hear, he said, but silently, from his heart.
"For the past five years, he's been with us, sleeping upstairs," Sambolinggi said. "We still prepare his place at the dining table. And for instance, if we go to the capital city, we have a big feast, and we save some for him."
When the king died, in the normal sense of the word, his son called in an undertaker to make a mummy of him the old-fashioned way, without embalming fluid.
The mortician died soon after, taking some of the secrets of Torajan mummification to his grave. But Sambolinggi watched him closely at work, and his memory preserves a vivid remnant of a centuries-old ritual.
His father's corpse was cleansed with tea mixed with warm water and soap chopped into little pieces. Then the mortician poured about three bottles of vinegar, a little at a time, down the late king's throat.
A small rope, used to tie a water buffalo by the nose, was retrieved from the ground where it had fallen in the animal's pen, cut into pieces and sprinkled on the body so that the tether could go with him to heaven. Then the corpse was wrapped in cloth, tightly bound in three places with coconut fronds.
"After that, there was a little magic," Sambolinggi said. "The man who performed the ritual put a black stone pot, like a cooking pot, in the corner of the room. He told us not to touch it, and warned that if we did, the body would be damaged."
A week later, Sambolinggi smelled a foul odor, which he suspected was wafting from his father's body. He quickly summoned the undertaker.
"He checked and said that it was not the body that smelled bad, but there were many other dead persons' spirits around," Sambolinggi recalled. "He asked me if I'd heard any banging sounds on the door lately, and I said yes. "
Spirits had come knocking, the mortician said, and his magic chased them off. The smell, and apparently the ghosts, never came back. Any lingering doubts Sambolinggi had about the wisdom of Torajan tradition vanished with them.
His father's remains probably will be sealed in a royal tomb carved out of the nearby Suaya cliff, where his brother-in-law's coffin was laid to rest July 15, just as dozens of royals have been through the centuries, including the late king's ancestors.
Like wide-eyed marionettes gathering dust on a puppeteer's shelf, life-size wooden dolls representing the dead stare down from balconies outside their tombs. Relatives look up to greet them when they bring offerings, such as cigarettes, palm wine or bottled water, that they carefully set on small tables at the bottom of the cliff.
Because Torajans take their obligations to the dead so seriously, parents who can't afford to donate a pig, let alone a buffalo, for sacrifice at a funeral often pledge a kind of IOU, which their children must fulfill to maintain the family honor.
With the funeral season running from June to October, the driest months of the year, sacrificial debts can quickly add up. An ordinary black water buffalo costs at least $5,500, a heavy price for Torajans, most of whom are rice farmers. (A shortage of the finest spotted buffaloes has driven the price up 25% over last year, to almost $14,000.)
And then there are taxes they must pay on each head of livestock delivered for sacrifice: $16 for a buffalo, $9 for a pig. Custom demands a minimum of six buffaloes be slaughtered at each funeral, but competition for status usually pushes the number higher.
Funerals have become so expensive that many young Torajans are moving away to cities, or even other countries such as Malaysia, in search of better jobs so they can keep up with the demands as relatives die. An estimated 450,000 people live in Tana Toraja, and 200,000 others have left the region.
A Torajan funeral doesn't have to be fit for a king to be costly. More than 7,000 mourners attended a three-day ceremony last month for Augustina Tambing, the wife of a primary school principal. Half a year after her death, they gathered to see her off to heaven with the sacrifice of eight water buffaloes and more than 150 squealing pigs.
Yohanes Rumeri, chief of Buntu Masakke village, sat behind a plywood counter at the entrance to the funeral, with a ledger and a bottle of correction fluid, recording each donor's name, the animal they delivered and the tax they paid.
The money would be shared among the regional government, the local church and the village administration, the chief said.
"Honestly, it is a burden," said Tambing's daughter Yatti Parassa, 45. "But this is our family. We are still close because we've been attending funerals for ages. So we're not going to lose the family ties. Our families live far apart, but for this event, they all come together."
Tambing, 68, died Jan. 13 after 49 years of marriage to her husband, Izak Rigu Parassa. She bore him seven children, who watched along with 20 grandchildren and a great-grandchild as butchers led buffaloes by their tethers into the funeral, and with a theatrical slash of a long knife, slit each animal's throat.
Just across from the skinned carcasses lying in coagulating pools of blood, Tambing's family formed a choir. As a gentle rain fell, they wept and sang, "Jesus comes into the world, Jesus comes to help the sick."
Her 71-year-old husband sat nearby, pinching the bridge of his nose in silent prayer, exhausted after a long goodbye to the love of his life. He took comfort in the thought that she was still with him, watching her own funeral.
"I think she is pleased," he said, with a broad, toothless smile.
paul.watson@latimes.com
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Indonesian Muslim Rock Star
Rock Star Rattles Radical Islam
Popular Indonesian Singer Woos Youths With Songs of Peace and Romance
By Rebecca U. Cho
Religion News Service
Saturday, October 7, 2006; B09
To the millions of Indonesian youths who sell out his concerts, Ahmad Dhani is a superstar who has commanded the nation's rock scene for more than a decade.
But the charismatic leader of Dewa, one of Indonesia's top bands, isn't just any entertainer crooning about the heartaches of romantic love. Dhani is an ambassador for peace, using his music to lead Indonesia's youth away from radical Islam.
This week, the Muslim rocker was in the United States to share his message of religious tolerance with an entirely different audience: top U.S. government and military leaders at a national conference on homeland defense.
Dhani, 34, says attacking the ideology that motivates terrorists is the key to suppressing radical Islam.
With a longtime acquaintance, former Indonesian president Abdurraham Wahid, Dhani spoke to the group on Tuesday about a long-term strategy to combat religious extremism.
"The countries in the West cannot be disengaged from the Muslim world," Dhani said in an interview before his speech. "Building up the values of tolerance is critical in Indonesia and the Muslim world in order to defeat terrorism."
The 2006 National Homeland Defense Foundation Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., ran through Thursday. Other speakers at the conference included Frances Fragos Townsend, homeland security adviser to President Bush, and George W. Foresman, undersecretary for preparedness at the Department of Homeland Security.
Dhani says Dewa appeals to a broad fan base not only because of the band's catchy melodies and energetic onstage performances, but also because its music reaches out to the people of Indonesia on a spiritual level. At the heart of Dewa's songs is a message of peace among all religions that promotes a harmonious, moderate Islam.
Also, of course, "we're handsome guys," Dhani joked through a translator during a phone interview from his home in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country.
References to the Koran are woven into one of Dewa's most popular songs, "Laskar Cinta," or "Warriors of Love." Dahni said he wrote the lyrics to beckon his fans into a loving Islam.
"Hey there, all you lovers of peace," the song goes. "Watch out, watch out and be on guard -- for lost souls, anger twisting their hearts, for lost souls, poisoned by ignorance and hate. . . . Warriors of Love, teach the mystical science of love, for only love is the eternal truth and the shining path for all God's children everywhere in the world."
As a teenager, Dhani dropped out of a school that embraced Wahhabism, a strictly traditional Islamic sect, to begin Dewa. The group quickly became one of the most popular rock bands in Indonesia.
The November 2004 release of the album "Laskar Cinta" marked a turn in Dhani's music from love songs toward direct denunciation of radical Islam and its spread in Indonesia. Dhani said he credits the change to his spiritual journey in Sufism, a mystical, moderate form of Islam.
The album's title was a play on Laskar Jihad, or Holy War Warriors, an Indonesian militant group possibly linked to al-Qaeda. Dhani's outspoken campaign to fight militant ideologies drew the attention of Islamic radicals. After some extremist groups started calling him an enemy of Islam, Dhani went into hiding with his wife, Indonesian pop star Maia, and their children.
Despite the furor created by their music, Dhani and his group emerged in December with a new song, also with the title "Laskar Cinta," that soared to No. 1 on Indonesian radio and MTV Asia. "Laskar Cinta" is the first track in Dewa's latest album, "Republic of Love."
Dewa's first English-language version of its music is set for international release in 2007.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Popular Indonesian Singer Woos Youths With Songs of Peace and Romance
By Rebecca U. Cho
Religion News Service
Saturday, October 7, 2006; B09
To the millions of Indonesian youths who sell out his concerts, Ahmad Dhani is a superstar who has commanded the nation's rock scene for more than a decade.
But the charismatic leader of Dewa, one of Indonesia's top bands, isn't just any entertainer crooning about the heartaches of romantic love. Dhani is an ambassador for peace, using his music to lead Indonesia's youth away from radical Islam.
This week, the Muslim rocker was in the United States to share his message of religious tolerance with an entirely different audience: top U.S. government and military leaders at a national conference on homeland defense.
Dhani, 34, says attacking the ideology that motivates terrorists is the key to suppressing radical Islam.
With a longtime acquaintance, former Indonesian president Abdurraham Wahid, Dhani spoke to the group on Tuesday about a long-term strategy to combat religious extremism.
"The countries in the West cannot be disengaged from the Muslim world," Dhani said in an interview before his speech. "Building up the values of tolerance is critical in Indonesia and the Muslim world in order to defeat terrorism."
The 2006 National Homeland Defense Foundation Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., ran through Thursday. Other speakers at the conference included Frances Fragos Townsend, homeland security adviser to President Bush, and George W. Foresman, undersecretary for preparedness at the Department of Homeland Security.
Dhani says Dewa appeals to a broad fan base not only because of the band's catchy melodies and energetic onstage performances, but also because its music reaches out to the people of Indonesia on a spiritual level. At the heart of Dewa's songs is a message of peace among all religions that promotes a harmonious, moderate Islam.
Also, of course, "we're handsome guys," Dhani joked through a translator during a phone interview from his home in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country.
References to the Koran are woven into one of Dewa's most popular songs, "Laskar Cinta," or "Warriors of Love." Dahni said he wrote the lyrics to beckon his fans into a loving Islam.
"Hey there, all you lovers of peace," the song goes. "Watch out, watch out and be on guard -- for lost souls, anger twisting their hearts, for lost souls, poisoned by ignorance and hate. . . . Warriors of Love, teach the mystical science of love, for only love is the eternal truth and the shining path for all God's children everywhere in the world."
As a teenager, Dhani dropped out of a school that embraced Wahhabism, a strictly traditional Islamic sect, to begin Dewa. The group quickly became one of the most popular rock bands in Indonesia.
The November 2004 release of the album "Laskar Cinta" marked a turn in Dhani's music from love songs toward direct denunciation of radical Islam and its spread in Indonesia. Dhani said he credits the change to his spiritual journey in Sufism, a mystical, moderate form of Islam.
The album's title was a play on Laskar Jihad, or Holy War Warriors, an Indonesian militant group possibly linked to al-Qaeda. Dhani's outspoken campaign to fight militant ideologies drew the attention of Islamic radicals. After some extremist groups started calling him an enemy of Islam, Dhani went into hiding with his wife, Indonesian pop star Maia, and their children.
Despite the furor created by their music, Dhani and his group emerged in December with a new song, also with the title "Laskar Cinta," that soared to No. 1 on Indonesian radio and MTV Asia. "Laskar Cinta" is the first track in Dewa's latest album, "Republic of Love."
Dewa's first English-language version of its music is set for international release in 2007.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Monday, June 05, 2006
Yogyakarta Wounded
NYT
June 6, 2006
Tourism Suffers in Indonesian City Caught Between Quake and Volcano
By PETER GELLING
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia, June 5 — In the southern part of this city a short street once alive with guest houses, restaurants, travel agencies and souvenir shops now sits quiet, with barely a soul to be found, just weeks before the onset of the tourist season.
The early morning earthquake on May 27 reduced the quaint street, Prawirotaman, to ruins. Throngs of half-awake, panicked tourists who were here that day and managed to survive relatively unharmed crawled out of rubble, wondering what to do and where to go.
The 15 guests at Hotel Prambanan, a two-story inn with about 30 rooms in the popular low-budget backpacking district, were all spared serious injury, as were the other visitors staying nearby.
"Blessed be to God that no one was hurt," said Jahyanto, 39, the manager of Hotel Prambanan, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. "They were confused and scared. I just tried to help them find the fastest way out of Yogyakarta."
Yogyakarta Province is the second most popular tourist destination in Indonesia, Bali being the first. Ancient temples, palaces and a vibrant artists' community draw hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists a year to this area. Tourism accounts for about 20 percent of the province's income and is second only to agriculture as a source of revenue.
Handicraft villages in Bantul, the hardest-hit district, supplied 40 percent of the souvenirs sold throughout Indonesia. Three thousand family kilns for pottery were destroyed in the quake, and most of the villages were nearly leveled.
On Monday, an official from Indonesia's Social Affairs Ministry announced that the death toll from the quake had been revised to 5,782 from 6,234, saying that some victims had been found alive and that others had been counted twice, The Associated Press reported.
Even before the quake, tourism here was threatened by fears of an eruption at Mount Merapi, just north of Yogyakarta. A marketing campaign to show tourists that Yogyakarta, 20 miles south of the volcano, is out of Merapi's reach began several weeks ago and included organized visits to the mountain's slopes.
Two days after the program began, and the first tourists arrived at Mount Merapi, the quake struck.
Yet tourism officials are optimistic that they can recover. Most of Yogyakarta's major tourist sites were undamaged and remain open, including the city's biggest draw, the Borobudur Buddhist temple, which is more than 1,000 years old and is a Unesco World Heritage site.
"Re-establishing the tourism industry here won't be easy," said Wiendu Nuryanti, secretary general of Yogyakarta's International Center for Culture and Tourism. "But we are working together with a lot of different agencies to help the tourism industry."
Along with local and national government officials, Ms. Nuryanti has created a task force to help rehabilitate tourism in Yogyakarta.
The office of the task force, the Java Crisis Tourism Media Center, is busy with volunteers collecting data on damaged tourist areas. Regular meetings are held to discuss strategies for recovery.
Indonesia's minister of culture and tourism, Jero Wacik, has already indicated that the government will provide subsidized loans to ruined businesses, and tax incentives for struggling hotels and tourist agencies.
Condroyono, the provincial director of tourism, said strategies were being developed to use the earthquake and volcano as a way of diversifying tourism. Though Javanese culture will always be the primary reason tourists come here, he said, there are plans for tours to areas of geological significance, like massive fissures in the Gudung Kidul district, caused by the quake, or the ash-stained slopes of Mount Merapi.
"There is the potential for a kind of adventure tourism here now," he said. Indeed, in the last few weeks a large number of domestic and foreign tourists have brushed aside danger, driving to evacuated areas to take pictures in front of Merapi.
Ms. Nuryanti said her task force planned a major campaign for Mount Merapi, trying to capitalize on the recent international news coverage. The volcano is an important symbol in Javanese culture. Its spirits are believed to protect the ancient kingdom of Yogyakarta, and the designs of many of the temples are modeled after the volcano's shape.
Mr. Condroyono admitted that it would be a long time before most potential tourists saw Yogyakarta as something other than a disaster area. "This will take a long time, more than two years probably, before tourism can start growing here again," he said.
Standing alone among the remains of his former business, Mr. Jahyanto, the hotel manager, said all he needed was a little money to start again. "Maybe it's a dream," he said. "But it is the dream of everyone on this street to rebuild and reopen our businesses."
June 6, 2006
Tourism Suffers in Indonesian City Caught Between Quake and Volcano
By PETER GELLING
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia, June 5 — In the southern part of this city a short street once alive with guest houses, restaurants, travel agencies and souvenir shops now sits quiet, with barely a soul to be found, just weeks before the onset of the tourist season.
The early morning earthquake on May 27 reduced the quaint street, Prawirotaman, to ruins. Throngs of half-awake, panicked tourists who were here that day and managed to survive relatively unharmed crawled out of rubble, wondering what to do and where to go.
The 15 guests at Hotel Prambanan, a two-story inn with about 30 rooms in the popular low-budget backpacking district, were all spared serious injury, as were the other visitors staying nearby.
"Blessed be to God that no one was hurt," said Jahyanto, 39, the manager of Hotel Prambanan, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. "They were confused and scared. I just tried to help them find the fastest way out of Yogyakarta."
Yogyakarta Province is the second most popular tourist destination in Indonesia, Bali being the first. Ancient temples, palaces and a vibrant artists' community draw hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists a year to this area. Tourism accounts for about 20 percent of the province's income and is second only to agriculture as a source of revenue.
Handicraft villages in Bantul, the hardest-hit district, supplied 40 percent of the souvenirs sold throughout Indonesia. Three thousand family kilns for pottery were destroyed in the quake, and most of the villages were nearly leveled.
On Monday, an official from Indonesia's Social Affairs Ministry announced that the death toll from the quake had been revised to 5,782 from 6,234, saying that some victims had been found alive and that others had been counted twice, The Associated Press reported.
Even before the quake, tourism here was threatened by fears of an eruption at Mount Merapi, just north of Yogyakarta. A marketing campaign to show tourists that Yogyakarta, 20 miles south of the volcano, is out of Merapi's reach began several weeks ago and included organized visits to the mountain's slopes.
Two days after the program began, and the first tourists arrived at Mount Merapi, the quake struck.
Yet tourism officials are optimistic that they can recover. Most of Yogyakarta's major tourist sites were undamaged and remain open, including the city's biggest draw, the Borobudur Buddhist temple, which is more than 1,000 years old and is a Unesco World Heritage site.
"Re-establishing the tourism industry here won't be easy," said Wiendu Nuryanti, secretary general of Yogyakarta's International Center for Culture and Tourism. "But we are working together with a lot of different agencies to help the tourism industry."
Along with local and national government officials, Ms. Nuryanti has created a task force to help rehabilitate tourism in Yogyakarta.
The office of the task force, the Java Crisis Tourism Media Center, is busy with volunteers collecting data on damaged tourist areas. Regular meetings are held to discuss strategies for recovery.
Indonesia's minister of culture and tourism, Jero Wacik, has already indicated that the government will provide subsidized loans to ruined businesses, and tax incentives for struggling hotels and tourist agencies.
Condroyono, the provincial director of tourism, said strategies were being developed to use the earthquake and volcano as a way of diversifying tourism. Though Javanese culture will always be the primary reason tourists come here, he said, there are plans for tours to areas of geological significance, like massive fissures in the Gudung Kidul district, caused by the quake, or the ash-stained slopes of Mount Merapi.
"There is the potential for a kind of adventure tourism here now," he said. Indeed, in the last few weeks a large number of domestic and foreign tourists have brushed aside danger, driving to evacuated areas to take pictures in front of Merapi.
Ms. Nuryanti said her task force planned a major campaign for Mount Merapi, trying to capitalize on the recent international news coverage. The volcano is an important symbol in Javanese culture. Its spirits are believed to protect the ancient kingdom of Yogyakarta, and the designs of many of the temples are modeled after the volcano's shape.
Mr. Condroyono admitted that it would be a long time before most potential tourists saw Yogyakarta as something other than a disaster area. "This will take a long time, more than two years probably, before tourism can start growing here again," he said.
Standing alone among the remains of his former business, Mr. Jahyanto, the hotel manager, said all he needed was a little money to start again. "Maybe it's a dream," he said. "But it is the dream of everyone on this street to rebuild and reopen our businesses."
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Earthquake Threatens Javanese Arts
I have been worrying about this since the quake:
New York Times
June 1, 2006
Quake Upsets the Cradle of Indonesian Culture
By PETER GELLING
KASONGAN, Indonesia, May 31 — Behind a painted sign on a sidewalk reading, "This is not an exhibition, it's a disaster," hundreds of traditional ceramic sculptures lie shattered beneath a collapsed roof.
More than half the houses, shops and galleries lining this small street here were destroyed in the earthquake on Saturday and are littered with the broken remains of their owners' livelihoods. The hundreds of artists who live in Kasongan, a village in Bantul, the district hardest hit by the quake, have survived for generations by selling the pottery they make to tourists.
The region affected by the earthquake is part of the ancient kingdom of Yogyakarta, the cradle of Javanese art and culture, making it one of the most popular tourist destinations in Indonesia.
"I'm worried I will have nothing to give to my children now," said Buang, 50, who uses only one name. He has four adult offspring, all of whom worked in the family's shop.
His youngest son, Eno, who will spend Thursday, his 22nd birthday, looking after his injured mother and grandfather, was the only relative to escape the building that was the family's house and shop before it crashed down. In a panic, he followed the faint sounds of his mother's call for help, throwing aside pieces of brick wall. When he finally reached her, her face was bleeding heavily.
"I was scared and confused," Mr. Eno said. "There was so much happening. But all I could think of was reaching my family. My family is my treasure."
Mr. Eno dug everyone out, including his father, pinned beneath a fallen doorway. His cousin, however, who lived down the street, died instantly, with seven other people from this community of a few hundred people.
The Indonesian Social Welfare Ministry said nearly 6,000 people had died in the quake, which also left more than 130,000 homeless.
Mr. Eno's family, and five others, are sleeping in a tent. His mother, Gimah, 50, lies on the floor, recovering from a blow to her head. His grandfather, whose back is injured, is carried several times a day by neighbors to a nearby health clinic for observation.
Ms. Gimah comes from a long line of ceramic artists. She made most of the family's sculptures, while her children operated the store and her husband of more than 30 years supplied the materials.
In minutes on Saturday morning, the quake reduced all the family had worked for to waste.
"We have to start all over, like so many of the families here, from the beginning," Ms. Gimah said. Mr. Eno worried that the lack of tourists would prolong their despair.
In this region, thousands of shops make and sell handicrafts, traditional batik clothing, musical instruments and ceramic sculptures, many of them exported to the United States and Europe.
Performances of ancient Javanese shadow puppetry and gamelan orchestras — Indonesian musical ensembles with wind, string and percussion instruments — are frequent in Yogyakarta. Sophisticated galleries, teeming with collectors and contemporary exhibits, line its southern streets.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, many of these contemporary artists are mobilizing relief and offering their studios as temporary shelters. Others are trying to salvage mangled paintings from ruined workshops.
The Indonesian Art Institute in Yogyakarta, where famous artists regularly lecture and foreign students, many from the United States, come to study Indonesian art, had major structural damage. And 20 of its students died in the quake.
Nindityo Adipurnomo, curator of the internationally famous Cemeti Art House in Yogyakarta, has taken into his gallery nearly 20 neighbors whose houses were flattened. During the day, he drives to Bantul to deliver food and other supplies.
He said that many studios and galleries were damaged but that artists in the Yogyakarta area were trying to continue their work.
"It is important to keep busy, for artists to keep working and to continue displaying their art, it helps us to cope with what has happened," Mr. Adipurnomo said. He has decided to go ahead with an exhibition scheduled for next week in Jakarta.
Ki Timbul Hadiprayitno, a 73-year-old master puppeteer who lost his house, most of his puppets and all of his musical instruments, agreed. He is fully booked through August and has not canceled a single show.
Shadow puppetry is one of the oldest art forms in Indonesia. Its stories offer a glimpse into the layered philosophies of Javanese spiritualism, which includes elements of Hinduism and Islam. Many of the stories emphasize a philosophy of acceptance, known locally as pasrah.
"We can only just keep going," he said. "Bad luck, good luck, life, death, it is all God's will."
Mr. Hadiprayitno, who started performing in 1946 and regularly performed privately for Suharto, the former president, lives in Tegal Dowo, a village in Bantul that was almost leveled.
He lost three quarters of his finely detailed wooden puppets, some hundreds of years old, which depict everything from old-world kings and queens to monsters and clowns, and his two gamelan orchestras, which consist of several xylophones, hand drums, gongs and flutes.
"It is very hard for me to have lost my puppets," he said, sitting under a tarp outside his son's partly collapsed house, drawing on a crackling clove cigarette as minor aftershocks rumbled.
But he will find a way, he said, and will not postpone a coming performance in Bantul to celebrate the new harvest. The show is scheduled for Saturday — one week after the earthquake left his community in ruins.
New York Times
June 1, 2006
Quake Upsets the Cradle of Indonesian Culture
By PETER GELLING
KASONGAN, Indonesia, May 31 — Behind a painted sign on a sidewalk reading, "This is not an exhibition, it's a disaster," hundreds of traditional ceramic sculptures lie shattered beneath a collapsed roof.
More than half the houses, shops and galleries lining this small street here were destroyed in the earthquake on Saturday and are littered with the broken remains of their owners' livelihoods. The hundreds of artists who live in Kasongan, a village in Bantul, the district hardest hit by the quake, have survived for generations by selling the pottery they make to tourists.
The region affected by the earthquake is part of the ancient kingdom of Yogyakarta, the cradle of Javanese art and culture, making it one of the most popular tourist destinations in Indonesia.
"I'm worried I will have nothing to give to my children now," said Buang, 50, who uses only one name. He has four adult offspring, all of whom worked in the family's shop.
His youngest son, Eno, who will spend Thursday, his 22nd birthday, looking after his injured mother and grandfather, was the only relative to escape the building that was the family's house and shop before it crashed down. In a panic, he followed the faint sounds of his mother's call for help, throwing aside pieces of brick wall. When he finally reached her, her face was bleeding heavily.
"I was scared and confused," Mr. Eno said. "There was so much happening. But all I could think of was reaching my family. My family is my treasure."
Mr. Eno dug everyone out, including his father, pinned beneath a fallen doorway. His cousin, however, who lived down the street, died instantly, with seven other people from this community of a few hundred people.
The Indonesian Social Welfare Ministry said nearly 6,000 people had died in the quake, which also left more than 130,000 homeless.
Mr. Eno's family, and five others, are sleeping in a tent. His mother, Gimah, 50, lies on the floor, recovering from a blow to her head. His grandfather, whose back is injured, is carried several times a day by neighbors to a nearby health clinic for observation.
Ms. Gimah comes from a long line of ceramic artists. She made most of the family's sculptures, while her children operated the store and her husband of more than 30 years supplied the materials.
In minutes on Saturday morning, the quake reduced all the family had worked for to waste.
"We have to start all over, like so many of the families here, from the beginning," Ms. Gimah said. Mr. Eno worried that the lack of tourists would prolong their despair.
In this region, thousands of shops make and sell handicrafts, traditional batik clothing, musical instruments and ceramic sculptures, many of them exported to the United States and Europe.
Performances of ancient Javanese shadow puppetry and gamelan orchestras — Indonesian musical ensembles with wind, string and percussion instruments — are frequent in Yogyakarta. Sophisticated galleries, teeming with collectors and contemporary exhibits, line its southern streets.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, many of these contemporary artists are mobilizing relief and offering their studios as temporary shelters. Others are trying to salvage mangled paintings from ruined workshops.
The Indonesian Art Institute in Yogyakarta, where famous artists regularly lecture and foreign students, many from the United States, come to study Indonesian art, had major structural damage. And 20 of its students died in the quake.
Nindityo Adipurnomo, curator of the internationally famous Cemeti Art House in Yogyakarta, has taken into his gallery nearly 20 neighbors whose houses were flattened. During the day, he drives to Bantul to deliver food and other supplies.
He said that many studios and galleries were damaged but that artists in the Yogyakarta area were trying to continue their work.
"It is important to keep busy, for artists to keep working and to continue displaying their art, it helps us to cope with what has happened," Mr. Adipurnomo said. He has decided to go ahead with an exhibition scheduled for next week in Jakarta.
Ki Timbul Hadiprayitno, a 73-year-old master puppeteer who lost his house, most of his puppets and all of his musical instruments, agreed. He is fully booked through August and has not canceled a single show.
Shadow puppetry is one of the oldest art forms in Indonesia. Its stories offer a glimpse into the layered philosophies of Javanese spiritualism, which includes elements of Hinduism and Islam. Many of the stories emphasize a philosophy of acceptance, known locally as pasrah.
"We can only just keep going," he said. "Bad luck, good luck, life, death, it is all God's will."
Mr. Hadiprayitno, who started performing in 1946 and regularly performed privately for Suharto, the former president, lives in Tegal Dowo, a village in Bantul that was almost leveled.
He lost three quarters of his finely detailed wooden puppets, some hundreds of years old, which depict everything from old-world kings and queens to monsters and clowns, and his two gamelan orchestras, which consist of several xylophones, hand drums, gongs and flutes.
"It is very hard for me to have lost my puppets," he said, sitting under a tarp outside his son's partly collapsed house, drawing on a crackling clove cigarette as minor aftershocks rumbled.
But he will find a way, he said, and will not postpone a coming performance in Bantul to celebrate the new harvest. The show is scheduled for Saturday — one week after the earthquake left his community in ruins.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
