Banned

Bali is a spectacularly beautiful place, and in retrospect, I’m really glad that I idled my time away in the northern bit of the island. I swam, walked, read, contemplated and ate. On the subject of eating, the last two days, I did my best to ingest as much pork and gin and tonic as I could, knowing that I was coming to Aceh, in northern Sumatra, where Islamic Sharia law has been in force since 2003. Certainly there was a promise of more interesting people to meet in a place so off the beaten track. Bali was certainly a wasteland in that respect.

Nevertheless, on the minibus ride back to Kuta in the south, in anticipation of my flight out, I did chance on meeting an intriguing young man named Xin, from the People’s Republic of China. We immediately struck up a conversation, where it was revealed that he was currently finishing a doctorate in Chemistry, with a specialization in medical imaging, at no less than Oxford University in the UK. Suffice it to say that this chap was a Class A intellectual, with a broad knowledge of world and cultural affairs and issues, and the nonstop conversation was nothing short of fascinating. He shed quite a lot of light on the inner workings of the People’s Republic and the Communist Party, especially on the subject of factionalism in the latter. By the time the bus ride was over, we had decided to share a room for the night, whereby on the morrow, I would catch my early morning flight to Banda Aceh, via Yogyakarta, Jakarta and Medan.

I’m also glad I only spent a day in Kuta, and doubly glad that it was with the cerebral Xin. Kuta is just a pale imitation of Pattaya, Thailand, which is not a compliment. That said, I have gotten more of a sense that Indonesia truly is a fantastically diverse and sprawling archipelago, as Bali seems to come closer to the Southeast Asian norm in many other respects as well, in contrast to dirty and bustling Jakarta, and certainly to Islamic Aceh.

After a day of flying on Air Whatever, by nightfall I had arrived in Banda Aceh. The billboard just after the airport announced that Sharia law was in effect, sporting pictures of a man and woman dressed in clothing that didn’t appear all that suitable for the equatorial climate. Nevertheless the drive into town showed me that it was still very much Indonesia, with national banks and other such flagship brands and institutions.

For many years, a rebel movement called GAM fought the Jakarta government for separation from Indonesia and the imposition of Islamic law. One definitely gets the sense that people in Aceh are more pious by culture. In any event, travel in Aceh was, until very recently, not exactly recommended. Hence, my spontaneous and harebrained notion to come here in the first place. The civil war ended with the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, the third anniversary of which is right around the corner at the time of writing. Aceh was doubly devastated, as the epicenter of the underwater earthquake that caused the tidal waves. First it was flattened; then what remained was washed away. In the devastating aftermath, the GAM rebels sued for peace. The Jakarta government, under the admirable President Bambang Susilo Yudhyono, magnanimously granted far-reaching autonomy, which included Sharia law, within an Indonesian context.

The first thing I noticed was that there was construction everywhere. Nevertheless, like the other Tsunami sites I have visited, like Phuket, the Andamans and Kanyakumari, there were no remaining outward signs that such a disaster had occurred. It will be interesting to see the outlying areas. In any case, NGOs have flooded the province, and as a result, prices are more than what one would expect for an area with this level of economic development.

I was also looking to see how many women were actually in veils. In the airport, there were a number without. I went for dinner at Pizza Hut, which I belated remembered, is always a mistake. Aside from the rather disappointing fare, all the women staff were veiled, seemingly as part of their pandering uniform. And certainly all the female patrons were veiled. Again, knowing Indonesia as I do, it strikes me more as a cultural norm rather an imposition by the authorities. There is supposed to be a Chinese restaurant in town that discretely serves beer. I bet they have pork, too. I wonder, though actually doubt, that ingesting such banned items will lead to my arm being chopped off.

And since we’re on the subject of banned items, being the subversive dissenter that I am, the book I have been reading since Bali is banned in its native Vietnam, my next destination. As such, I am diligently plowing through the 700 pages, in French translation, of Duong Thu Huong’s No Man’s Land (Terre des Oublis). On returning from the forest one day, Miên, is shocked to find the man she had married fourteen years previously, and whom she thought killed in combat, has returned. However, in the meantime, Miên has remarried a wealthy landowner and businessman, which whom she has a child. But Bôn, the communist veteran, reclaims his wife. Under pressure from the community, Miên returns to her first husband, to live in despair and poverty. The book has some pretty damning metaphorical commentaries regarding the authorities, but is engaging throughout, with some piercing insight into the characters of men, women, human sexuality, and the contrasts between the peasant and bourgeois mentalities. Food is also amply described and used as a literary device, and in such a way that I am eagerly anticipating my upcoming culinary experiences in Vietnam. Interestingly, Ms. Duong was a member of the Communist Party, before being expelled for some of her earlier works. Only since 2006 has she resided full time in France.

The war had an impact on Vietnam and its society to an extent that is impossible to enumerate in these few lines, if at all. I plan to visit the war museums and memorials in Saigon, come what may. America is reeling to this day from that spunky country that left the Empire with egg on its face.

Iraq is the Vietnam of this generation. The country’s leaders willfully misled the people, getting it into a mortal embrace with a tar baby. Nearly obliterating America’s credibility abroad, perhaps the good that has come out of this morass is that it has shaken people out of their usual complacency, improbably turfing out the Republicans in 2006 from Congress. It also seems likely that the Democrats will recapture the White House in 2008, in a groundswell of disgust for the misguided direction that the country has been led in.

On that note, it is good to see that the Democratic primaries are actually shaping up to be a real competition, rather than a coronation of Hillary. For the record, I want to see Barack Obama take the nomination and the Presidency. He is a uniter, and not a divider. He has lived and traveled abroad and can heal America’s image through actions based on well-grounded understanding of the actual facts, rather than prejudice and conjecture. He is the face that America has truly become. If he stands by his principles, and doesn’t cave into vested interests, certainly a tall order, he could be a leader of historical dimensions. One can hope and pray. One can also campaign and get out the vote.