Another copy on Bali.

Toko Buku review 2014: BALI CHRONICLES BY WILLARD A. HANNA

In 1902, Bali’s very first tourist, Heer van Kol, a member of the Dutch parliament, visited the island as a fact-finder at his own expense. Armed with a giant four-fold passport, this indefatigable and discriminating traveler explored unknown regions with a retinue of pack ponies, servants, porters, interpreters, camping equipment and furnishings. He interviewed rajas, colonial officials and military commanders, collected detailed information on religion, art, agriculture, slavery, cremation and taxation. Upon his return to Holland, Kol wrote a massive 826-page travel account of his journey (unfortunately only available in Dutch).

This turn of the century tour is just one of a number of entertaining and gracefully written accounts from Bali Chronicles, a wonderful collection of historical essays by an accomplished Indonesian scholar who has authored a dozen books on S.E. affairs. The book was originally published as a series of field reports in the single volume Bali Profile: People, Events, Circumstances 1001-1976, a title that gives more of an idea of its contents. The current edition is an updated reprint with a new foreword.

This academically inclined reader is chronologically divided into 14 historical periods spanning the entire period since the beginning of the island’s recorded history with chapter on “Western Intruders (Pre-1800),” “Monopoly and Sovereignty, Plunder and Salvage (1830-1843),” “Evolution of a Colonial Empire (1849-1900)” and “Euphoria and Trauma (1930-1955).” Whatever era you dip into, in whatever facet of interest, you’re likely to come across a lively interpretation of the temper of the times.

The author takes great relish writing about how key controversial personalities from both East and West interact with each other in various humorous and ludicrous situations and how their decisions affected the island and its people. Ranging from humane and visionary to evil and self-serving, each of the characters has in one way or the other loomed large in Bali’s history. We get a good sense of the motives, the attitudes of foreign traders, troopers, regents, missionaries, slavers, celebrities or whoever else he introduces. Among them is the knowledgeable and humane Dutch Controleur Schwarz and the tourism pioneer Morzer Bruyns; the warlike raja Djelantik of north Bali and the former Bali governor I Gusti Bagus Oka.

Though the book lacks footnotes and is hobbled as a research tool by the absence of an index, the author used primary and verifiable sources complete with the bad spelling found in the original sources. Some accounts, where relevant, are backed up with statistical and social information.

In his sketches of modern historical events and important personages, believing that the Europeans brought moral and social progress, Hanna presents largely a nostalgic, positive and liberal view of the Dutch administration of the island. “Life in Bali in the 1930s was agreeable not only for affluent foreigners but also for the Balinese,” he writes. Apparently, the author did not take into account how life in the 1930s was characterized by poverty and hardship.

Some of the information is inevitably dated. For example, the last section on Balinese religion and culture is rife with stereotypical summaries that need freshening up. In spite of this minor detraction, the compilation is still a useful and pithy source of information on Balinese society, customs, religion and ceremonial life that still applies to this day – the function of priests, the protocols of court life, observations and commentary about Balinese art, architecture, painting, carving, etc. The convoluted histories and intense competition for land and power between the rajas can be hard to follow and at time as tiresome as reading of the complicated intrigues of the Medici family or the Hapsburg monarchs in European history.

Some odd facts that you might not be aware of:

*Marshal William Daendels, the Dutch Governor- General of Java, on behalf of the French and with the help of Balinese rajas, made repeated attempts to recruit Balinese soldiers and slaves to help fight Napoleon’s battles in Europe.

*Contrary to what conventional wisdom would have you believe, post-war Dutch colonials deserve more credit than they’ve received for putting Bali back on the road to recovery after the war, achieving a higher degree of success than anywhere else in Indonesia. Starting in 1948, they brought in food, clothing, medicines; opened schools, repaired roads and irrigation systems, restored service in clinics and hospitals, and even began exporting rice.

*Even though he was half-Balinese, Sukarno was not loved by the Balinese. Hanna presents a blistering portrait of the first president of the republic, describing him as a debauched megalomaniac whom the Balinese held in contempt. As Hanna writes, he built his residence above a sacred bath, imperiously called command performances anywhere and everywhere of actors, musicians and dancers, debauched young girls at private parties and had pigs and dogs shot so as not to give offence to fastidious Muslim visitors.

*Hanna’s acute distress at the numbers of tourists visiting Bali at mere 300,000 seems quaint and strange today when numbers of tourists have topped eight million at the expense of the island’s ecology. The writer shares the same solution for Bali’s perennial problem, i.e. that tourism is the chief means of providing support for its populace and that Bali should serve as a model of success for other islands, and even nations, to emulate.

Vintage black and white photos from as far back as 1865 inform the text – old engravings from Raffles’s History of Java; ships of the “First Fleet” to the Indies in 1595; two female slaves posing mesmerized in a studio; a Brahmana in hand-loomed songket; liege lords and court scribes dressed in full court regalia; Dutch residents and Dutch cavalry on the move before the puputan; scenes of tourists and cockfighting from the 1920s; bare breasted girls and legong dancers from the 1930s; photos from the post-independence period.

An insightful introduction by Adrian Vickers, a professor of history at the University of Sydney, places the book in the context of the impact of the West and tourism are currently having on the island. This capsule cultural and social history, bringing an eye-opening new perspective to the island’s deep and complex past over the last millennium, is one of the best historical collections ever written about Bali.

Bali Chronicles by Willard A. Hanna, Foreword, Introduction by Adrian Vickers, Periplus Editions 2004, ISBN 978-0-7946-0707-4, paperback, black & white photos and engravings, bibliography, 287 pages. Available for Rp230,000 at Ganesha and Periplus bookstores.

For any publishers interested in having one of their books considered for review in Toko Buku, please contact: pakbill2003@yahoo.com

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