Ajeg Bali: multiple meanings, diverse agendas

Abstract

Much has been written about discourses of kebalian or 'Balineseness'. Most such commentaries have focused on the nexus between religion, adat (custom), culture and tourism. Picard (1999: 21), for example, suggests that Balinese identity 'is the outcome of a process of semantic borrowing and conceptual recasting' that the Balinese have had to make 'in response to the colonization, the Indonesianization and the touristification of their island'. Vickers (1989) devotes about a third of his groundbreaking book on the 'creation' of Bali to the idea of image-making in and of Bali, not only by Europeans but also by the Balinese themselves.1 From colonial times through Suharto's New Order (1966-98) to post-Suharto reformasi, a consistent Balinese response to the 'colonization, Indonesianization and touristification' alluded to by Picard has been the development of strategies to defend the island from socalled external 'bad influences'. Traditional values have been drawn upon at critical moments, the rationale being that the revivification of old principles will restore balance and order. It is a process referred to by some as the 'retreat into ritual' (Couteau 2003). The reconstruction of the past is thus a time-honoured practice in Bali. Bali, who aimed to build a Balinese identity deemed suitable to be part of the Republic of Indonesia. He adopted a 'return to roots' approach that advocated a strengthening of Balinese religion by looking back to its Indian origins, and at the same time presented Balinese Hinduism to the world as a part of international Hinduism (Vickers 1989: 212). His politics made a great contribution to shaping the social and economic structure of the island as we now know it.The Kuta bombings of 12 October 2002 represented a defining moment for many Balinese. The media made much of the event as an important moment for Balinese to reflect on themselves: they must have done something very wrong to cause such a terrible calamity, bringing destruction and imbalance to the island. In such an atmosphere of desperation and uncertainty about the future, the only safe anchor is perceived to be the past, a past of traditional Hindu values based on culture and religion and which is able to re-establish the harmonious order in which mankind is One with the rest of the universe. Ajeg BaliA prominent feature of this post-bomb discourse on culture, religion and traditional values has been repeated allusions to and praise for the idea of ajeg, a phenomenon seen by some to be part of the revivification process alluded to above. The problem is that there is no consensus - Ajeg is the sacredness of Bali…Established right from the beginning, the foundation of that sacredness is connected to ancient literature, to the orientation: orientation towards the mountain and orientation towards the sea… to the environment… That's the key to Bali, in the past and also in the future.Wayan Sunarta (poet/artist/writer): Konsepnya sebenarnya dilontarkan oleh Bali Post...yang merasa kewajiban untuk menjaga Bali. Tapi sebenarnya ko...

Modern Performing Arts as a Reflection of Changing Balinese Identity∗

“…Beside tracing the development of modern performing arts in Bali, this paper aims to contribute to the scholarly discussion on Balinese identity, a topic that has remained pertinent in various disciplinary contexts including history (Schulte Nordholt 1992, 1994Creese 2000b), literature (Creese 2000a;Darma Putra 2003b), culture and tourism (Picard 1990(Picard , 1996, and sociology and anthropology (Pitana 1997;Howe 1999Howe , 2005Allen and Palermo 2005). Identity, as Stuart Hall (1997: 51) has suggested, is 'a "production", which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation'.…”

Balinese identity as tourist attraction

“…First, for a number of Balinese (and foreign) analysts, the slogan is really no more than an empty shell, a rhetorical device, to which public figures are just expected to pay lip service, and which appears moreover to mean different things to different people (Allen and Palermo, 2005).…”

The Political Economy of the Performing Arts in Contemporary Bali

“…Many contemporary accounts of the arts have either presented an image of the Balinese as self-consciously apolitical (MacRae 2003) or, through a narrow focus on repertoires, have illustrated the arts as a pure, bounded arena (see Ballinger and Dibia 2004;Bandem M. and de Boer F. 1981;Gold 2005;Herbst 1997;McGraw 2000;Tenzer 2000). My interest in the political lives of Balinese artists adds to a growing body of literature on the political economy of the performing arts in contemporary Bali (see Allen and Palermo 2005;Hough 2000;Noszlopy 2002;Warren 1998). I argue that the diverse meanings invested in the performing arts reflect changes in the state-civil nexus and transformations in the landscape of ethnic and religious relations in Indonesia.…”