A NEW YEAR WISH

2019 To-Do List:  Reform religion

God the Father by Cima da Conegliano, painted 1510-17. Over a third of UK Christians believe God is male

 
The white-robed minister who dispatched my teenage younger brother was caught off-guard by our mother’s furious blast.

The luckless dog-collared fellow had told her Neil, who’d died from a misdiagnosed brain tumor (‘take an aspirin and lie down’), had gone to ‘a better place’.  In reality he’d just entered the crematorium’s furnace.

‘How do you know?’ she screamed and repeated her question with even more force while Dad tried to lead her away from gawping grievers.  The chaplain, who should have had an answer for this basic question, hurried back to his sanctuary.

Mother was right; I’d started to ask the same thing having reached ‘the age of discretion’ and been confirmed into the Anglican Church.

For a while I thought of studying to be a minister and charming congregations with my knockout sermons and wise counsel.  I went on a church camp and thought the thunder outside meant I had a calling. 

Having been reasonably well educated I should have remembered it was shock waves caused by a thermal expansion following lightning. Science eclipsing the occult.

Instead I prayed as instructed but found it hard to focus; there were girls in the group and coming from an all-boys school meant mixing closely with these strange beguiling beings for the first time. 

Unbidden lascivious thoughts elbowed out my pleas for wisdom, which we’d been assured would be effective.

They weren’t, so doubt flooded the void between sessions of what used to be called ‘self abuse’ and which would drive us blind.  In the adolescent tussle between carnality and Christianity the body wins, hands down.

Ah, the lies.  If the churches in the west are to pull back disillusioned worshippers they need to be honest and say, as the funeral minister should have replied:  ‘We don’t know, Mrs Graham. What do you think? This is what I believe based on the evidence’.

There’s little enough; only three known references to Jesus outside the scriptures.  One is false, another probably so, leaving just one brief mention of the crucifixion in a Roman administration inventory.

None of the gospel writers knew the man.  They were writing decades after his death and relying on stories passed down by word of mouth and embellished along the way.  I know because for a few years I worked as a daily newspaper reporter, often covering courts.

Here defendants, prosecutors and witnesses, all under oath, often gave strikingly different interpretations of events.

Not all could have been malicious liars; they offered truths as they remembered them; the white car from the left though police claimed it was black and from the right.  The rain was intense, but the weather bureau said the night was dry.  An old man was driving – no, a young woman.

I could now not report with any accuracy events I saw so long ago; if I had to rely on the recall of others then the accounts would be even more fictional.

I’ve also worked alongside translators moving stories from Indonesian into English, wrestling with multiple definitions in almost every paragraph.  Language isn’t mathematics – there’s no precision.

Bits of the New Testament were written in Hebrew and Aramaic, which Jesus probably used.  It’s the language of the Palestine Jews.  Cue:  Irony.

Later the texts were translated into Greek, then Latin and eventually English, much to the fury of the priests who wanted the words kept out of the minds of ordinary folk who might then read and think for themselves, corrupting the Beatitudes with platitudes: 

Don’t start revolting; just accept your wretched lot on this world Your reward waits after you’ve died in agony from poverty, illness and being exploited – and if you’re a woman, giving birth every year.

God forbid – but he didn’t.

Translator John Wycliffe was excommunicated, and William Tyndale – responsible for the first printed English Bible - was executed in 1536 for heresy.    If there’s a Christian light here it must be obscured by the smoke and flames from Tyndale’s burning.

Fundamentalists say none of this matters because God has steered every penman’s hand - a claim also made by Muslims with the Koran.  This conveniently shuts down dissent and extinguishes questions.   The real word here is ‘censorship’.

If the title page includes the credit ‘By God’ then the deity is a dreadful writer.  She, he or it never read back their composition; they ignored the contradictions, illogicalities and absurdities and wouldn’t get past the subs’ desk with most sentences. 

Then there’s so much cruelty, prejudice and hatred it would be deleted by Facebook bots.  Not a book for disturbed minds.

A few stories are cute and worth the telling.  Curiously alike versions crop up in other cultures with slightly different settings, the heroes and protagonists having other names, but still doing similar smart and stupid things to win and lose love, fame and fortune – then using magic to get out of tricky spots.

No GPS, so stars move to provide the birthplace coordinates.  A Jewish shepherd finds his girl already in the family way though he hadn’t even got into her pants. 

Instead of showing her the stable door he accepts her explanation that angels got there first – as they do - and remains the perfect hubby.  Joseph should be consecrated Saint of Cuckolds. 

Believe that and you’ll believe everything that Donald Trump says about himself.

The kid grows up in a carpenter’s workshop.  That’s great – the common touch. Sores on the palms, splinters under the fingernails – we can relate.  The sweet scent of sweat and sawdust in the toga folds. 

Any brothers or sisters?  And where’s Mum? She’s already done her duties and been erased.  Can’t allow JC to have soft filial feelings. .

Chiseling is a worthy activity and once mastered gives time for the mind to wander, to note the injustices of living under Roman rule and consider the alternatives. 

A woodworker can be as good a philosopher as any other – though that cut against the grain for the Jewish clergy.  They briefly gathered round the young improver when they thought he might help front rebellion against the colonialists.

But first he had to be promoted to be a lord, a king, with a bloodline back to the ancient Jewish rulers just to give him the credibility among the snobs. 

Messiahs don’t wear chippies’ smocks and clumsy clogs. Forget your family, son, it’s holding you back, smothering your potential.

Have we got big plans for you! Step into the Executive Lounge, meet your personal assistant. He’s got connections among the high priests so can watch your back should things get awkward.

You’ll like him. A gentleman, though fond of silver.  Name’s Judas.

Miracles?  Pull the other one; a lad boring it up the hypocrites wouldn’t be acceptable to the ordinary folk.  They demanded seers with supernatural skills.  So the stories were ‘improved’.  JC had to feed multitudes, walk on water, cure the blind and do a bit more party conjuring to earn the right prophet status for the times.

As the late Christopher Hitchens wrote:  If God can perform miracles why isn’t he intervening in the refugee camps, the war zones, the famines and particularly Palestine where the Christian story started? 

Silence.

Today the charlatan prophets should be spelled profits; they need flashy cars and jewelry to show they’re genuine.  Going around like Gandhi in a loincloth doesn’t fill the collection plates and widows preparing their wills get turned off.

So does the image of 12 brown and bearded blokes wandering around and stirring crowds. Didn’t they have jobs?  Who was looking after Joe’s workshop? The fellow must have been getting old and not so sure of his levels.  The stepson should have been there.

No dole in those days, so how did the gang get bread?  Can’t do the loaves-and-fishes every time the lads get hungry.  If they rocked up in our suburb we’d call Border Force, then shoot smartphone videos and share. That would spread the gospel: Seven billion ‘likes’.

Maybe the disciple dozen were all gays with indulgent Mums giving regular allowances to keep them away from Dad.  If not, where were the ladies they loved, and were loved in return? 

And the kiddies they fathered?  No condoms so it would have been coitus interruptus with a failure rate equal to past peace plans for the Middle East.

Any decent author would have assigned some speaking parts to the women seeing that he’d also been their creator. The only other explanation for their absence is that the misogynist editors cut out the fair sex every time God took a kip.

Sir Lloyd Geering, New Zealand’s most treasured theologian, reckons the bones of Jesus still lie in Palestine.  Floating into the clouds might have satisfied the masses that’d been told the world was flat, Galilee the center and heaven just out of sight.

But it convinces no one who’s followed NASA’s New Horizons probe on its 6.5 billion kilometer journey past Ultima Thule.

When Muhammad died of natural causes (so no test of faith required), he also headed for heaven, but in a neat piece of one-upmanship and theatre, rode a white horse.  A stallion, of course; the man was a general with many wives so a gelding wouldn’t have been right.

Who wants ‘eternal life’?  Do we sit around plucking harps and singing praise?  Sounds like a celestial North Korea. Or can we fall in love, read books, learn more, study at the University of Heaven (hope Google Search is available) and get useful jobs?  That doesn’t seem to be part of the package.

So why not just dump the myths and the magics, make the most of what we have here, and get back to the basics which endure?

About two thousand years ago a young guy with radical notions for the time, was seen to be a threat, so had to be eliminated.

Nothing new here – rewriting facts happens every day in politics and businesses.  Right now, as you read this sentence, those pushing discomforting ideas – like global warming – are ignored, discredited and persecuted. 

Here in Indonesia we’re told the personable Sandiaga Uno, running mate for Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, is really more humble holyman than suave super-rich business tycoon, and raised in a Islamic boarding school.  Wrong – the Catholics got him first. Then George Washington Uni.

Back to Jesus, with his homespun notions of love and tolerance; he applied his teachings, turned the other cheek and forgave his persecutors.

That’s an admirable formula for living decently.  It’s also bloody difficult.  Literally.  Imagine absolving the brutes hammering nails through your hands and feet, then thrusting a spear into your guts.

Which is why professional Christians choose the well-lit paved freeway for their souls’ journey, not the dark jungle trails, mountain paths and desert tracks where moral questions lurk, ready to leap out and confront.

Meanwhile the rotten rich churches, with their pederast priests and pastors still stamp a mortgage on faith, fraudulently claiming insights beyond our reach.  Their hypocrisy goes back to the moment in Gethsemane when JC told Peter to sheath his sword as the arresting soldiers arrived.

A pacifist, hallelujah! Pity the Crusaders forgot this story when they set out to slaughter Muslims in the 11^th to 13^th centuries and convert the heathen.  Embrace the cross or die – did JC say that? And we used to sing ‘Onward Christian soldiers’.  Catchy tune, evil lyrics.

Jump a few epochs of grossly unchristian behavior to the Inquisition of 1633. Galileo Galilei reckoned the earth circled the sun, and not the other way around as stated by the infallibles. 

It took the Vatican 350 years to grudgingly concede he was right. Their reluctance is understandable.  If the incense swingers had got this observable fact so spectacularly wrong then their faith foundations were going to be undermined by every new discovery.

And so it came to pass.

Galilei reportedly said: ‘I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use’.

What a sterling quote to damn the phonies’ unholy hides, their bigotry, their rank immorality, their betrayal of sacred oaths, their discrimination, greed, arrogance and ill-gotten opulence. 

If you really want to follow Christ sell your fine their fine churches and sacristies, your cathedrals and monasteries, give all to the poor, lead simple lives, shop in Good Sammies, preach in parks and paddocks with everyone, whatever their creed, color and sexual tastes.

Tell them how you know of ‘a better place’.

Why not try this in 2019?  Show you’re fair dinkum by living your mentor’s message, brilliant in its simplicity:

Do to others what you’d want them to do to you.

All this is too serious, so let’s end with a joke: 

After years of squabbling over authenticity, a Muslim cleric, a Rabbi and a Jesuit decide to write to God and ask which is the genuine religion. 

Surprisingly God replies and starts the letter with the greeting Assalamu'alaikum. ‘See’, says the overjoyed Imam – ‘God is Muslim!’

‘Wrong,’ interrupts the Jew – ‘you ignored the valediction. It’s Shalom.’

‘Ha! He signs it God SJ’, responds the Jesuit, ‘so he’s clearly Catholic. Anyway we’d better read the letter.  It’s too short; I expected something like the 184,600-word New Testament.’

‘Disappointing, I agree,’ says the Muslim.  ‘It should equal the 77,429 words in the Koran.’

“Certainly nothing less than the 419,687 words in the Hebrew Bible,’ complains the Rabbi – ‘but let’s check.  Good Lord, only six words’:

Why don’t you all work together?

##

AN ISLAND UNLIKE ANY OTHER

Making it in Madura

The Madurese are famously holy.  The roads on their small island off the north coast of East Java are notoriously holey.  Neither fact should be a reason to avoid a visit.  Duncan Graham reports:

When the grand Suramadu bridge crossing the Straits of Madura opened in 2009, politicians  queued up to predict the start of a boom for the 160-kilometer long island which till then had been best known for exporting its inhabitants.

Less than four million survive on Madura, the majority around the capital Sumenep in the east – a pleasant, slow city of wide streets, closed shops and little traffic, dominated by a sulfur-colored mosque.

However more than ten million Madurese live elsewhere in Indonesia, driven from their ancestral homes by poverty and a lack of fertile land.

With the men chasing rupiah across the archipelago, the necessary manual labor has become women’s breakback, as Duriah, 30, rationalized while pulling weeds:  “If I don’t work, where will I get money?”  She farmed alone, no companions to chat and break the monotony.

The 5.4 kilometer cable-stayed bridge, the longest in the Republic, is symmetrical and spectacular.  The Rp 4.5 trillion [US$ 445 million at the time] price tag was justified by reasoning that industry in Surabaya was running out of space so manufacturers would relocate if access wasn’t hampered by a cumbersome ferry.

Some over-the-top commentators forecast Madura could be the next Bali. Maybe for the pious abstainers, but for those whose idea of a holiday is doing things in Kuta you wouldn’t do at home, then strike Madura off your bucket list right now.

Madura is for the hardy and adventurous happy with Indonesian food and facilities, inquisitive about its culture, wondering over its convoluted history.

The Madurese are supposedly forever ready to unsheaf a kris in a quarrel – but most want to pull out a camera. Foreign visitors are so rare even shop staff seek selfies of a white-skinned customer. If stares disturb deflect with information about yourself.  There’s no hostility, just curiosity as to why anyone would come when so many want to go.

It’s not just the terrain that’s dry; if there are restaurants selling alcohol they keep a subterranean profile. Bathing in the many delightful beaches wearing anything less than a shapeless full body covering is not recommended – unless you are a man. 

The island has knock-out potential, particularly in craft.  The batik home industries using natural dyes offer luscious designs of such originality and color that you want to buy them all because they surpass anything from the factories in Surabaya.

Finding the right handicrafts can also be rewarding, though there are limited attempts at quality control.  The plumage theme common on old carvings has been replicated on children’s trams that wander slowly around Sumenep’s central town square, but await an entrepreneur to make this a notable symbol.

The local government has some funny ideas about promoting tourism; its two poorly-stocked shops won’t sell some artefacts because they’re ‘to display, not for you to buy’.  So where can we purchase?  ‘Don’t know.’

[The answer is the village of Karduluk, about 40 minutes drive south of Sumenep on the road back to Suramadu; don’t blink or you’ll miss it.]

The standout contrast is the Sumenep museum and kraton where the guides are enthusiastic, knowledgeable and funny.  Here’s one of their tales:

The concubines’ bathing pool was painted yellow till past president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited. Officials feared he’d be annoyed by the color of his rival Golkar party, so added blue to represent his Democratic Party. 

Madu means ‘honey’ and some etymologists reason this relates to the island’s famous jamu, herbal mixtures to ward off ills.  Yet hives are rare.

If the factories, container terminals and other mega-businesses have moved across the shallow brown sea, their presence is well hidden.  As a Ministry of Public Works report trying to explain a lack of progress noted, the Madurese are ‘very sensitive people and may not be very tolerant in [sic] anything.

‘The Madurese have their own culture that is strongly rooted in Islamic values with three pillars of leadership: Bapa and Ebuh [father and mother], kyai [religious teacher], and rato [government].

‘The Madurese demand that the decision making in the development process should involve

these three pillars. On the other hand, Eastern Java is inhabited by Javanese which is [sic] industrialized and modernized.’

The cliché ‘off the beaten track’ does not apply, because some sections of the north-west coast road have yet to be beaten, let alone surfaced.  Madurese artisans erect stunning minarets soaring heavenwards, but earthly horizontal construction seems a skill too far.  The regular roadblocks of youths jangling tins are not to raise cash for asphalt but to build more mosques.

The route wanders through villages lacking space for morning markets.  So vegetable buyers and sellers take over the road, goat traders prosper and visitors go nowhere. The dangers here are not the jagged limestone rubber-rippers but squashing a farmer’s tomatoes under a tire, or her outstretched foot.

If your travel arrangements include packing impatience and keeping to a schedule, go elsewhere. However if you share the 19^th century Scottish poet Robert Louis Stevenson’s belief that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive, then Madura is marvellous.

The pleasures come in places like Makam Agung, a pre-Islamic cemetery with royal family graves dating back to 1413. Here rests Pragalbo [died 1531], the king who apparently converted to Islam on his deathbed so his subjects discarded Hindu-Buddhism.

Unlike cultural sites in East Java where authorities have ‘beautified’ the location with trim hedges, straight paths and barbed wire fences, Makam Agung’s splendid decay, its rotting and rusting signs, are so genuine the sacredness is tangible.

In the distance the gleaming white and blue dome of the mosque at Arosbaya shimmers in the heat.  Here passing motorbikes don’t rattle – they purr, the sound soaked up by the humidity.  Mongooses dart across clearings.  Swallows sweep the shadows where insects seek safety.

Doves coo in the centuries old banyan trees leaning together for support like a couple in their dotage. The eight-point sun symbol of the Majapahit Empire is here, along with Arabic calligraphy. The mossy walls are crumbling, the gravestones sinking into the space once filled by the Cakrangingrats regents, their loved ones and descendants.

The headstone shrouds create columns of ghosts. This is how it should be – dust to dust in serenity.

Caretaker and kyai Nari, 70, said villagers fearful of spirits moved away, leaving the graveyard an island in a sea of paddy.

“I have eleven generations of my family buried here,” he said. “There are many stories about this place. Once three men tried to cut down a tree.  They went home and suddenly died. Snakes emerge at night, but I’m not afraid.”

Nor should visitors be fearful of the bronze-chested fishermen; if they weren’t hauling nets they’d be in Jakarta advertising cologne on TV, intimidating actors whose only claim to being macho is through splashing water on their designer stubble.

No need to preen in Batumarmar where Real Men prefer to show off their boats, painting swirling multi-colored images on prows and sterns. Yet these are working craft, catching tonnes of tiny fish to be dried on the docks. 

Wandering and chatting, discovering places the guide books haven’t found and the government hasn’t touched, learning how different are the lives of the Madurese from other Indonesians and how few know of the world beyond though it’s there on the horizon - these are the visitor’s rewards.

(First published in J-Plus, a supplement of The Jakarta Post, 31 May 2015)

NZ ARTIST EMBRACES ISLAM, INDONESIA

Indonesian influence in Kiwi art © Duncan Graham 2008

In 2001 an ageing wanderer was on his way back to New Zealand. He’d been following a band around Europe and found himself with time to spare in Singapore.

Neville McPherson thought he’d pop across and have a quick look at Indonesia; nothing serious, maybe pick up a souvenir or two, just in and out. Other travelers had spoken warmly about the country, and not just in climatic terms. Like many Kiwis McPherson knew next to nothing about the archipelagic republic hidden on the far side of big, protective Australia. Why not take a peep?

The moment he exited the airbridge at Soekarno-Hatta the reserved teacher from a dusty rural town north of Wellington was tumbled into a totally new and troubling world, quite unlike anything he’d ever experienced.

“I thought Jakarta was a cowboy town, just full on,” he said. “The reckless behavior on the roads, the lack of discipline, the overcrowding and the way people took their lives in their hands was too much.

“I couldn’t cope with the place for more than two days so headed out of the city. It was still overwhelming, but the hill towns were a bit more manageable. I arrived in Bogor and it was there that I fell in love with the country.” Indeed he did, even to the point of becoming a Muslim after long talks with the locals in backpacking hostels.

Back in NZ he hit 60 and decided there were other things to do in life apart from pushing formulae and equations to fidgeting kids. As a young man he’d had yearnings to be an artist and had studied art at teachers’ college. But that was no way to go if he wanted to keep a loaf in the larder and maintain his family. So he buried his ambitions behind the blackboard and bided his time.

He’d done a few big timber sculptures using a chainsaw, including public commissions, but wanted to refine and minimalize his work. The first taste of Indonesia offered inspiration, but how to access the mysteries?

McPherson applied for a job teaching English in Medan, didn’t like the “characterless town” so after six months moved to Pekanbaru, the cleaner 17th century capital of Riau Province.

He stayed for 18 months and took time to tour Bali and other cultural centers, “not to work but to soak it all in”. In Yogya he discovered batik and is currently toying with ideas on incorporating designs popular for printing cloth in the cap batik style that uses metal stamps dipped in waxes.

Now McPherson is back in his homeland and has just held his first exhibition in central Wellington of woodwork and woodcuts where he tries to blend Maori, Western and Islamic images. His newfound faith, which he follows diligently with regular visits to the city’s only mosque, has constrained his artistic expression.

“As a Muslim I can draw abstracts and plants, but I’m not supposed to portray
humans or animals,” he said. “That’s been difficult and I’ve cheated a bit. When
it comes to judgment day maybe I’ll be sent to hell.” This last line was
delivered with a chuckle. His other failing is a reluctance to spread the faith,
as required in Islam.

“I was a bit of a wedding-and-wake Christian before I converted. Like most Kiwis I have a relaxed view of religion. I don’t want to bother others about faith, but maybe I’m making amends through my Islamic ideas and helping people get a better understanding.”

But if he is, the images are subtle indeed. McPherson admits he’s still experimenting with form rather than design, pushing boundaries. He’s planning a bigger work with an inscription from the Koran in Arabic across a hint of NZ’s dramatic landscapes and the curly and curvy symbols found in Maori culture.

McPherson says he has no Maori heritage though he does have Maori cousins.
The traditional designs, also found in Polynesia, include fishhooks, circles, fern fronds and dolphins – causing more problems for an artist following Islam. Some of the patterns share similarities with the calligraphy of Arabic.

Wellington is a city of half a million people with around 3,000 Muslims. McPherson said only five Westerners are regulars at the mosque. There are about 3000 Indonesians in the country with maybe ten per cent in the capital; many are Christian or Buddhist. McPherson hinted at problems with his family accepting his change of beliefs, but no difficulties from others.

In NZ culture, faith is personal and private. It’s considered impolite to ask a person’s religion. There are no identity cards. Although founded as a Christian country and mainly Protestant, recent surveys show the nation is becoming more secular.

Although seen as a curio in Indonesia, McPherson said he was treated with friendship and tolerance. He had problems in only one mosque where a woman lifted the curtain dividing the sexes to gawk at the white-bearded newcomer. She then alerted others that the bule (Westerner) was not praying in the right way, much to his embarrassment. “I didn’t go back to that mosque,” he added dryly.

“Islam is an accepting faith,” McPherson said. “I like the communal life and values. Christianity can be quite judgmental, setting up lots of targets, aspiring to affluence and one-upmanship.”

McPherson says Islam is “gentle” – an opinion quite at odds with much of the Western media where the attitudes and actions of the fundamentalists have hard set the image in a concrete of prejudice. The 61 year old doesn’t see it that way because it hasn’t been his experience.

“I hope that in the future I’ll be able to exhibit in a mosque,” he said. “I like to think that my art will help enlighten people about Islam. I want to return to Indonesia and look again at the tiles and decorations of the mosques for inspiration – and to learn more.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post, 14 May 2008)

##

BRUNEI TOURISM

NO CHAINSAWS OR CUTTING COMMENTS IN THE ABODE OF PEACE © Duncan Graham 2007

The official website of the Brunei government currently claims the country is hoping to attract one million visitors, doubling the previous year's arrivals. The problem is that the announcement is dated 2000.

That's not the only sign that Brunei isn't really in top gear despite the rhetoric. An e-mail to the tourist bureau seeking an interview with a spokesperson was bounced because the mailbox hadn't been emptied.

A visit to the office during advertised opening hours found the place shut.

All this sounds negative, but in fact it's a plus for those who want a relaxed crowd-free holiday. Make the most of the quiet because the tiny Sultanate at the top of the island of Borneo and hemmed in by the Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah, has much to offer that's easily accessible.

Not so much in the capital Bandar Seri Begawan, usually known as BSB and where the attractions will take no more than a day or two to explore – but in the country.

For although Brunei (properly named Brunei Darussalam) covers less than 6,000 square kilometers split between two sections, most is the sort of jungle you won't see elsewhere without a lot of tedious tramping. While Indonesian farmers in Kalimantan have been slashing and burning the forest to make a living, the people of Brunei haven't needed to plunder to survive.

Reserves are really that, and the rattle and rasp of chainsaws can't be heard above the honking of rare and endangered proboscis monkeys.

This means that much of the country has been left in its natural state – or as natural as any Southeast Asian environment can be that was first occupied by our ancestors maybe 35,000 years ago.

Apart from greed there are few pressures to exploit. Certainly not population: The rugged east section, known as Temburong, has only about 10,000 inhabitants, the rest of the nation around 350,000.

For Brunei is an oil-rich state, as the tabloid cliché goes, so blessed by an abundance of fossil fuels that education and health care are almost free, basic commodities are subsidized and most public services are high quality. The ruling elite doesn't do so badly either. (See sidebar.)

Brunei is a compact, uncrowded and affluent nation, with good roads, disciplined traffic, an English feel and all the necessary infrastructure to make edgy visitors feel at ease. You can drink the tap water and not worry about malaria.

Most locals are well educated and high-level English is widely used. For almost a century Brunei was a British protectorate and the signs still remain, though often eclipsed by Arabic.

Although strictly Islam, with a more hard-line adherence than experienced in Indonesia and the west coast states of Malaysia, this is no sanctuary for terrorists. An attempted coup 45 years ago was put down by troops from Singapore, and if there are any dissidents left, they're keeping quiet.

Brunei Darussalam translates as the 'abode of peace' – which is certainly true if 'peace' means inaction backed by social control.

So visitors should feel safe and relaxed – provided they follow the rules. These include respect for royalty, no politics and no boozing. Or holding hands in public if you're a Muslim without a marriage certificate.

Loudmouth republicans advocating democracy are advised to keep away, and if you can't do without a regular sundowner then you'll have to bring it yourself and sip in secrecy.

There's one other minor offput – local attitudes. Brunei needs to borrow the TV campaign used by Singapore a few years ago. This had the sour features of a rubber-cheeked Chinaman being slowly transformed into a smiling Celestial as the voice-over instructed locals to be nice to visitors.

For financial, not moral reasons. Friendly faces mean satisfied customers, said the script – and shoppers are more likely to spend big when confronted by a grin, not a grimace.

The people of Brunei certainly aren't rude, or so sour as the folk in Singapore used to be – they're just indifferent. Which probably comes from living in a worry-free society awash with money.

Not surprisingly this has led to complacency. Don't expect the streets to be bustling at daybreak as they are in Indonesia; why bother to rise early when there's someone else to get the day going and do the menial tasks?

The saving situation is that many of these workers come from a few hundred kilometers to the south; once you meet expats from the Archipelago your day will brighten. The good times I've had in Brunei have been with Indonesians who know the best scuttlebutt, the cheap eateries and the secret spots you won't find in the guide books.

There's a lively underclass in Brunei made up of guest workers retailing some grand gossip about the scenes behind the well-polished respectability that the tourist authorities won't let on – even if they ever open their doors.

HOW TO GET THERE – WHERE TO GO.

It takes little more than a two-hour flight from Surabaya or Jakarta, with Royal Brunei the main carrier. Flights are regular and often full of Indonesian maids seeking Brunei bucks. Meaning cash, of course.

The local dollar is on a par with Singapore, with most shops happy to use either currency.

Indonesian citizens, and some other favored folk, can get a fee-free 14-day visa. Other nationals have to buy a B $10 (Rp 50,000) visa on arrival.

There are some basic hotels with room prices starting around B$40 (Rp 220,000) a night. These are clean and functional, but don't supply the matey service you'd get in Jakarta – unless the staff are fresh from Indonesia. Like Australian hotels they seem to be run more for the convenience of the employees than the guests. Maybe it's different at the Sheraton.

Because the locals are so well off few need public transport. On one visit I hired a bicycle to get around, collecting the sort of stares normally used at a police arrest scene. A foreigner without a Mercedes? Unbelievable. If there'd been a reporter on site I'd have made Page One as the weirdo of the week.

There is a bus service, but you could b standing for a long time. Metered taxis are available, but few. BSB can, and should, be explored on foot and on the river where the high-speed water taxis (also known as flying coffins) are a lot of fun and fumes.

They're also the best way to see Kampung Ayer close up and peer at the locals at their ablutions. This is the village on stilts above the dirty waters of the Brunei and Kedayan rivers. Use sunscreen by the liter – Brunei boils.

In the distance and above the spindly-legged shacks of 25,000 souls rises the splendid home of the sultan, His Majesty Paduka Seri Baginda Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah.

With a title like that there's no way commoners can get a gander at his personal goings-on. This is claimed to be the biggest residential palace in the world. Betty Windsor has to make do with a street name.

Better to settle for the Omar Ali Saifuddien mosque, a mightily impressive architectural triumph. It's a pity that these creative draftspeople didn't exercise their HB pencils on the drab shopping centers and apartment blocks once they'd topped off the turrets at the Big M where all that glisters really is gold.

Even though a kafir (unbeliever) I excited no concerns wandering around and meditating on the prayer hall's lush carpet to the hum of vacuum cleaners. That hasn't always been my experience in Indonesia.

Exploring outside BSB is not an easy DIY (do it yourself) tourist exercise. You won't be hassled; why bother flogging false Rolexes when the real ones are everywhere? Blondes won't get the hairy eyeball treatment from the leering lads, as in Indonesian bus stations. The main problem is being recognized as someone with a need to go somewhere.

If you want to see the sights in a hurry and some luxury best to take a tour. A three-hour countryside coach trip will cost US $40 (Rp 360,000) a person, taking a look at the oil refinery will double the bill. For an overnight trip to the national park set aside US $238 (Rp 2.2 million).

There's also a Brunei By Night tour. This comes with a guarantee that you'll get home stone-cold sober. This is categorically not a Soho or Kings Cross pub crawl.

For those with the time and tenacity it's best to negotiate with taxis (land and water). Consult the locals for the right price before bargaining.

Don't look to the English-language local rags for information – the Borneo Bulletin and Brunei Times. Both set high levels for blandness and are reminiscent of the Indonesian press under Soeharto. The local Tourism Board puts out a handy mag on what's on, but it's hard to find.

This is supposed to be the only country in the world that hasn't had an election since 1962. It would be a gutsy journalist who dared to ask about some members of the royal family's legendary squander of state riches overseas.

If you enjoy the accommodation and quiet, Brunei is also a good base for exploring Sarawak and Sabah (Malaysian Borneo). The attraction here is the Kinabalu National Park a World Heritage Site. The Royal Brunei airline (www.brueniair.com) has an office in central Jakarta with extra-cheery staff, and can organize bookings and arrange packages.

Assessment: Not bad for a cashed-up eco-minded couple's mid-life honeymoon if all they want is to be left alone.

(First published in The SundayPost 1 April 07)">Link

YEAR OF THE PIG

IT’S SWINISH AND FORBIDDEN - BUT IT’S BUSINESS © Duncan Graham 2007

Febroary 18 marks Imlek – the start of the Chinese New Year. This time it's the Year of the Pig. But despite the animal's 2007 status there's no porcine reprieve likely. Contributor Duncan Graham reports from Surabaya:

They die before dawn in a squealing, grunting slaughter to satisfy the tastes of Surabaya’s non-Muslim community.

Every night about 130 porkers go under the knife in the biggest abattoir in East Java, known as Potong Hewan (literally ‘cut animal’). It was built by the Dutch in 1927, run by the city government and is right in the heart of the old city, close to the Arab quarter.

“This is a traditional slaughterhouse using the old methods,” explained veterinarian Wiryadining who has studied meat processing systems in Western Australia

“It was built when this was the edge of the city. Don’t expect to see anything modern like power saws and continuous chains. There are no plans to upgrade.

“We’re only working at around 80 per cent capacity. It’s a sign of the economy – chicken and fish are cheap. Few can afford beef. Pork sales are almost all to the Chinese and that market is stable.

“The place isn’t hygienic by Western standards, but the system works well. Indonesians like their meat fresh – not frozen.”

Export standards do not apply. Wiryadining, one of two vets employed, said she and health inspectors regularly checked all animals and processes. The killing and cutting rooms are roofed and partially walled – sometimes with tiles. But they’re not fully enclosed. There are no cool rooms or chillers, so all slaughter has to be done at night.

This isn’t just to take advantage of the lower temperature; this is a kill-and-carry operation, with the carcases carted by pick-up or pedicab directly to city markets. The meat isn’t wrapped and seldom covered.

Twenty minutes after walking into the abattoir a dismembered steer can be bumping its way to a dawn butcher’s stall, its red meat quivering, the blood still seeping.

By 7 am the yards are being hosed down and last night’s partly digested meal of grain and grass is drying in the sun for sale as fertiliser. All the gore and offal, skin and flesh has been dispersed across the metropolis. Content cats preen themselves among the flies, anticipating nightfall and more gluttony.

In Indonesia nothing gets wasted. The bones are ground down for fertiliser, the blood processed for chicken food. Even cows’ snouts are sold for a Surabayan delicacy called rujak cingur.

The cattle are mainly from Madura Island. About 200 are processed six nights a week starting at midnight. They’re so domesticated and trusting that they walk into a black barn of blood-splattered stalls and clanking chains, then submit to their throats being slit while a prayer is intoned.

The practice in many other countries is to first shoot the beast in the head with a captive-bolt pistol – but that’s not an approved Islamic process.

The swine come from a village near the central East Java town of Kediri, about 130 kilometres southwest of Surabaya.

The less docile pigs are herded into a dead-end alleyway and stunned before meeting the knife. This is done by a heavy electric shock, delivered through a long two-pronged fork pushed over the animal’s ears. The skin is scraped free of bristles using hot water to open the pores before the beast is gutted.

“The area where we kill and dress the pigs is completely separate and walled off from the rest of the slaughterhouse,” said veterinarian Endra Wijaya. “There’s no possibility of contact and the men who work with pigs never touch goats or cattle.

“Nine of the ten slaughter men are Muslims – the other is Christian. There’s no problem – provided they don’t eat the meat.”

Commented Wiryadining: “Women don’t work in this industry in Indonesia. It’s against our culture to have men and women working together – it’s not safe for women. Butchering is a man’s job in Islam.”

(Sidebar)

PEARLS OF WISDOM ABOUT SWINE

Although pigs are unpopular in many parts of the archipelago there are at least 8 million in Indonesia, according to an Australian study on animal health.

The dislike is because of the prohibition in the Koran: “Forbidden to you are dead meat, blood and the flesh of the swine …”

The Bible has a similar warning in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy) where there’s a long list of the clean and unclean. In the latter group is anything without a split hoof. That includes rabbits and pigs.

Jews also keep pig meat off the menu. It’s not kosher.

Modern Christians chomping over breakfasts of bacon, ham sandwich lunches and rabbit pie dinners rationalise that such rules, along with the Adam and Eve story are irrelevant in an age of reason.

But science has shown pig meat can be dangerous; it’s another nice but naughty food - deliciously and sinfully fatty and a contributor to heart disease. If not properly cooked the trichina parasites carried by pigs can invade your body.

“Spot on!” cry the purists of all faiths. “Our Holy Books knew what was right long before white-coated rationalists started squinting down microscopes.”

The film characters of Miss Piggy and Babe have no fan clubs in Indonesia. There can’t be too many citizens of the Republic who’ve been taught nursery rhymes and games about little pigs going to market, though some are alleged to be involved in pork barrelling and not a few averse to telling porkies.

For those unfamiliar with American and English slang, the first refers to using taxpayers’ money for political ends – the second is a euphemism for lying.

Pigs’ teeth are said to resist biodegrading, so some historians claim the arrival of Islam in the archipelago can be dated from the sudden absence of these remains in archaeological digs.

What’s a strict Muslim to do if starving and only pig meat is available? According to Muslim contacts the Koran is accommodating: If you’re driven to eat pork to stay alive (but don’t desire the meat) then Allah is forgiving and merciful.

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(First published in The JakartaPost 19 Feb 07)



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SOHEIB BENCHEIKH

ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY CAN CO-EXIST © Duncan Graham

French Muslim scholar Soheib Bencheikh, 45, has been touring Java giving speeches and meeting key people, including the Indonesian Ulemas’ Council (MUI). He was born in Saudi Arabia, lived in Algeria, studied in Egypt and now heads an Islamic teaching institute in Paris.

Bencheikh, the former Grand Mufti of Marseilles, became famous for supporting the ban on Islamic headscarves in France. Before giving a speech in Arabic to staff and students at Surabaya’s State Islamic University he spoke to Duncan Graham:

Isn’t Islam and democracy a contradiction? Doesn’t Islam say only God can be supreme, not the people?

Have you ever heard God speaking to you? He speaks through the people. He’s left a message to us that must be interpreted by us, the people. Men and women have their own understanding of that message.

Those who say Islam and democracy can’t co-exist don’t understand either term. There’s a great lack of knowledge.

To be a thinking person is to always be searching and constantly having doubts. How can an intelligent human have total belief in any faith?

They can’t. The 100 per cent believer doesn’t exist. Nor is there a 100 per cent atheist. Between the extremes of total belief and non-belief there are many positions – and these are constantly changing. Today you may have only a few doubts – tomorrow, many.

The real test for all theologians is to constantly interrogate the self.

Last year the MUI issued an edict against pluralism, liberalism and secularism. What’s your respnse?

They’re going backwards if they think they’re still living in a time when nations were separate and didn’t interact.

The idea that the state should be more Islamic is coming from history, not the holy texts.

A secular state protects minorities. If France didn’t have liacite (the law prohibiting the state recognising religion and now a core value in French culture) then Muslims would be at risk from the Catholic majority. This protects everyone – but many Moslems don’t understand the history of liacite.

A secular state also protects by keeping politics out of religion. Politicians try to use religion to further their personal interests. Without religion, political debate can be rational and free of dogma

Religion without politics attracts only those genuinely interested in faith – it liberates religion from the opportunists.

In Indonesia the majority follow Islam, and the state demands all belong to one of the government-approved religions.

We should not use force, but respect. There should be no pressure on the conscience - people should be free to choose or not choose.

All the more reason for a secular government to protect the minorities. Even here in Indonesia you have to be prepared to recognise that Islam is a minority religion in the world.

The reality is a future where there will be no single majority religion.

How do you respond to those who say the Koran is the word of God and cannot be questioned or tampered with in any way?

The book itself isn’t sacred – it’s the objective ideas within the text. When we talk about the book we have to think about the language that was used, the context, and the culture at the time – even the weather!

In Indonesia we’ve had a preacher jailed for leading prayers in Indonesian.

At the time of the Prophet there was no unified Arab language. The language used in the Koran was that of the Prophet’s tribe. From the very first Muslims were authorised to use their own languages.

Some say that although Muslims in Indonesia are in the majority they suffer from an inferiority complex.

Arab civilisation was once the highest in the world. It helped lead to the Renaissance in Europe. Now everything has moved to the West. Arab civilisation is finished! We need to be part of what’s happening in the West – either that or live in the nostalgia of the past.

It’s always easier to blame others for our problems rather than look into ourselves to see what’s wrong. We have to recognise that we don’t have a monopoly on ethics and morality.

If the light goes out in your room is it best to sit in the darkness, or ask your neighbors if you can share in their illumination, or fix the problem?

Export your Indonesian form of Islam to the world. Don’t try and import from the Arabs.

You have a moderate form of Islam here synthesised with other beliefs. We should not be afraid to express our ideologies, ask questions of ourselves and through such questioning, develop our thinking.

Modern Islam is sweeping away all traditions – that’s too easy and not convincing. The challenge is to go back to the Koranic text and apply new readings that are applicable today.

Islamic culture is brilliant! If you love others you want to share your culture with them – and we want to share.

Muslims were wrong to protest against Danes when cartoonists lampooned the Prophet.

This is what freedom of expression means. Even if people are mocking, at least they’re showing an interest in Islam and starting to recognise it as part of society.

Could you talk like this is Saudi Arabia?

Yes, because I’m not attacking Islam.

But you’re attacking some people’s ideas of Islam.

The people most disturbed by the idea of a secular state are politicians who try to maintain power by using Islam. These legislators are hypocrites. This power is temporal.

Islam is not the property of individuals – it’s a message to the world.

(First published in The Jakarta Post 8 December 06)
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YUSMAN ROY

FIGHTING TO PRAY IN PEACE © Duncan Graham 2006

In 1517 in Europe, seven people were burned at the stake for teaching their children The Lord’s Prayer in English rather than Latin.

In 2005 in East Java, Muslim preacher Yusman Roy was jailed for two years for leading Islamic prayers in Indonesian rather than Arabic.

After remissions for good behavior an unbowed Roy is now a free man. He’s back at the Islamic school he runs with his wife Supartini at Lawang in East Java, still determined to keep praying in Indonesian.

“The problem with many Muslims in Indonesia is that they don’t think for themselves,” he told The Jakarta Post. “They just follow whatever the leader says.

“They stand in the mosque and mumble, but they don’t understand what the clerics are saying because they don’t know Arabic. What’s the problem with using Indonesian? God understands everything we think and say whatever the language.”

There’s little doubt the feisty Roy had been trying to pick a scrap with Islamic traditionalists, particularly the Indonesian Muslim Scholars’ Council (MUI), for some time. Not content to lie low in Lawang where he’s left alone by the locals, he published and distributed a little book on his philosophy.

No takers. He then spent Rp 10 million (US $1,100) on promoting a public meeting in Surabaya’s State Islamic University to debate the issue of bilingual prayers.

Not surprisingly the fundamentalists turned up and gave him hell. For them God’s instructions to Mohammed in Arabic had to be forcefully defended. “Why can’t we discuss these issues?” Roy asked. “There’s no commandment to use Arabic. We should debate, not fight.”

Yet ironically fighting had long been Roy’s job. The only son of a Catholic Dutch woman and a Muslim Javanese father who fathered 11 kids with four wives, Roy seems to have had a rocky childhood. He lets his guard down on most personal matters – though not his upbringing and schooling in Surabaya.

His ethnicity was clearly an issue; his Indonesian nationality was constantly challenged and he tended to give knuckle answers.

“I was naughty,” he said. “But I could fight. I like to fight. From the age of 16 I earned money by boxing – Rp 5,000 (US $5.50) a round. I was fast on my feet, a 60 kilo lightweight.” Aged 25, battered and with a broken nose, the pugilist quit the ring.

He then became a debt collector and a thumping success. If you found this young preman (street thug – and his term) leaning on your architrave calmly lighting a Dji Sam Soe you’d be paying up pronto. The tattoo on his rippling forearm of a thoroughly aroused stallion would mightily assist discovery of the mislaid wallet.

But Roy’s soul was on the ropes. What he was doing wasn’t morally right. He knew there was something else – yet it remained elusive. He sought God, but didn’t know where He resided. A come-and-go Catholic Roy looked for help among priests and found some answers.

Though not enough. His friends were Muslim. Slowly he made the transition to Islam but was lax in maintaining his religious obligations.

“It took me about 15 years before I became fully Muslim,” he said. “I read widely and thought a lot. I saw contradictions between what was written in the Holy Book and what people were saying and doing.

“I couldn’t understand Arabic and neither could my friends. The clerics were saying it doesn’t matter what you pray as long as it’s in Arabic. That’s wrong. We have to know what’s being said when we talk to God. ”

Soon after the Surabaya meeting in April last year the police called at his home. Friendly fellows all they asked if he’d like a lift to nearby Malang for a chat. “It was a trick,” he said. “When I got there they arrested me.”

They may have saved his life. While he was in Malang three truckloads of allegedly aggrieved men from the Islamic Defenders’ Front arrived at his school intent on God knows what, but left when they found him absent.

While accepting the truth of this proposition, Roy doesn’t like it. If he’d been murdered his bid for bilingual prayer would have caught public attention and reform in Islam might have been hastened. From zealotry to martyrdom.

He faced two charges - deviating from Islam in his teachings, and inciting hatred by challenging the clerics in the MUI who’d prohibited him from using Indonesian in prayer. He got verbal support from former president Abdurrahman Wahid, legal aid and publicity in Indonesia and overseas. Not enough. He was only acquitted on the first count.

At first life in jail was tough with many wanting to test their skills against the 50-year old former prizefighter. But instead of flexing the foaming stallion he showed a new tattoo on his right arm. This had the words Patience, Prayer and Emotional Control.

“What I did was right - I don’t regret going to jail,” Roy said. “I could not have done this without Supartini’s help.” She said she was proud of her husband and backed his beliefs.

With Roy behind bars she had to run the free school - known as Pondok I’Tikaf, Arabic for meditation - and its 300 students alone. Where did the money come from? “God provided,” she said. “All the other men in jail were criminals. My husband was the only person there for religious reasons.”

Despite fears the self appointed warriors of Islam will return the couple seem unperturbed, putting their safety in the hands of the same Deity their attackers would invoke. The home and school are at the end of a downhill street, above a ravine. The police have cut their phone lines to stop verbal threats, but there’s no security and no easy escape route.

“Prisoners and warders kept away from me at first, but later joined me,” said Roy. “I never went to the mosque because that made me angry.

“I’m not afraid of being charged again, but don’t expect it. It’s the government’s job to protect all citizens whatever their views, and I demand that protection.

“The government should be allowing space for public dialogue and I want to encourage that. The people who attack me don’t know right from wrong – they don’t understand the prayers in Arabic so they don’t pray properly. Quality matters.

“These people are losers. There are many terrorists in Islam – they’ve lost their way. They’ve become criminals and anarchists. Prayer is the foundation of Islam. When that collapses everything else goes down.

“This is what I believe. There’s a group in Indonesia that wants to keep Islam backward. This is a political issue. I’m angry at what they’ve done to me, but I forgive them.

“Many say they support me, but don’t help. I’m fighting this cause as a pioneer with my soul and property. It’s difficult being alone, but I’m sure God will protect me.

“I want my good name restored. I’m an Indonesian Muslim, not an Arab Muslim! Why would anyone want to stop me?

(First published in The Jakarta Post 22 Nov 06)
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