Friday, March 18, 2011

Extreme Weather


            I apologize for not posting anything for sometime.  I have been busy trying to take care of a bunch of little things that pop up from time to time.  In addition, we have our friends, Mark, Mary and Karen living in Jakarta now.  Mary came to work at USAID.  So we have been helping them get settled, though they probably know a lot  more about Jakarta and Indonesia than we could possibly teach or show them since Mark and Mary had previously lived in Indonesia for over seven (?) years.  Indeed, they find my pathetic struggle to express myself in bahasa Indonesia quite amusing, and they love to laugh and joke with the Indonesians as I attempt to express myself like a three year old.
            In any event, my bahasa teacher is late in arriving today, so I thought I would take the time to enter a quick post.  Irene suggest this morning I should write about the weather, if I can't think of anything else to write about.  That may have been a joke, but if so, it was a typical Dutch dry humor, and Indonesia is anything but dry right now.

            With the horrific earthquake in Japan recently, we have been more focused this past week on the Southeast Asian tropical weather.  We are starting to come out of the rainy season so we actually see some blue skies during part of the day (as opposed to a white cloud covered day), and the days are getting warmer (averaging mid to upper 80s).  But Jakarta weather is never particularly predictable or stable.  One minute it can be beautiful and sunny, the next dark and stormy.  I do not know why that is, or rather how this functions, but weather can be very localized here.  In other words, you can have a huge rainstorm in one area of the city, dumping several inches of rain in the course of twenty or thirty minutes, and another part of the city will remain completely sunny and dry.
            Last Tuesday I was driving down to pick up Miles from school, when we drove into a huge rainstorm.  The street quickly filled up with an average of six inches of standing (or flowing water), and up to a foot in various dips and gullies.  Lucky for you I had my new phone which also has a camera.  Unlucky for you, I still shake like a leaf because of my tremor, so not all of these shots are fuzzy due exclusively to the atmospheric conditions.  As cars drove through the street they would push a wall of water creating waves about six inches high that would break over the sidewalk and wash into the stores along the road.  A couple of motorcycles stalled out in the middle of the street because of the water.  But after twenty minutes the rain stopped and the water all drained into the open  storm sewers along the road and everyone proceeded as though it were no big deal.  When we got to Miles’ school, about 8 kilometers away, it was evident that it did not rain except for a few sprinkles in that area of town.  Indeed, it did not rain at all to the north near the Embassy, about 12 kilometers from our house.

   

 


            Last Wednesday however the area near the embassy and the area up to about three kilometers from our house, was hit hard by a huge windstorm which blew down big old trees about two feet in diameter.  It blew down a couple of large billboard sized signs in downtown Jakarta.  It took out electrical wires, and it blew the roof off a hotel rooftop bar.  There was some wind further south where we live and further still where Miles goes to school, but nothing of significance.  However, as a result of the wind, it took Irene two hours to travel the 12 or 15 kilometers to our home from the Embassy.  It was a hellish commute, but as Irene commented, it could have been worse.  At least she was not the Embassy driver who after dropping off all the embassy workers in this neighborhood  had to turn around and drive back downtown to drop off the van, and then probably drive another dozen or so kilometers to her home.
            As I said, I do not know why we have such localized weather, but we have very intense weather in a very short span of time in a very small localized area.  As a result, it is difficult to maintain certain infrastructures in this City.  Streets that are subject to this type of flooding are also subject to being washed away.  Indeed I remember driving along one particularly bumpy road in the middle of the city and complaining to my traveling companion about the city streets, and she replied that this particular street had been repaved only six months ago, but that a series of heavy rains had washed it out.  But rains and winds are not the only thing that Indonesians need to worry about.  When we were traveling through Yogyakarta in January, we got stuck in a horrible traffic jam outside the city.  I could not understand why traffic had ground to a halt, particularly since traffic had not been that heavy and the weather was nice.  However, after about a half hour of inching along, I could see the problem and our driver explained the problem.  The small town/village we were driving through evidently was battered the night before by a cold lava flow. 
            As you can see from these pictures the area was devastated.  Our driver explained to us that this was lava that had erupted from the mountain the previous night.  
                    Our driver kept on saying that this was lava that had come from the mountain the night before.  Now, I could not understand what he meant when he said that this was lava from the mountain, because there was no volcanic eruption from any active volcano in the region the night before.  If there had been, we would have known it, and if there had and it had brought this hot volcanic lava, there would have been a lot more destruction.  However, what I think we were seeing was the old volcanic ash, mud and rock that had washed down from Mt. Merapi, which had been active a few months before.  I think this volcanic mud had collected up the mountain and then broke loose in the preceding night's heavy rain storm and surged down with the force of a ruptured dam.  You can see in the photographs the huge boulders carried down by this cold mud flow.  It came down with such force that it essentially re-directed the pre-existing streams and rivers and plowed down jungled forests.  It covered the road in a strip about 100-150 meters wide, which I guess was the width of the river it created.  When the heavy equipment cleared the road, it piled the mud and rocks along the side of the road about 12-15 feet high.   This is the damage that a not extraordinary rain can cause.
          As you know, Indonesia sits on the fault lines of several different tectonic plates within what is known as the Ring of Fire, making it highly susceptible to volcanos and earthquakes.  Indonesia is currently in the process of designing and building its first nuclear power plants.  With the recent Japanese catastrophe, there has been new debate about the reasonableness of this plan.  Unfortunately, the head of Indonesia's nuclear regulatory commission is a die hard nuclear power advocate and is determined to press forward with the plan.  Note:  one planned plant is to be built (possibly) at the base of an active volcano.  Although Indonesia has an internationally known reputation for construction graft and cutting corners, the agency head claims that Indonesia can build a reactor to withstand an earthquake, tsunami or volcano.  He claims that Indonesia can construct better and stronger nuclear power plants than the Japanese and that Indonesians need not worry.  He wants to proceed.  All I can say is I hope it rains on his parade.  But we will be long gone before any power plant gets operational in this country.
           In the immediate future for us, we will be traveling.  Next week we go to the States for two and a half weeks to visit friends and family.  No more postings until April.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Java Jazz Festival 2011

      This past Friday Irene and I went to the Java Jazz Festival in Jakarta.  http://web.javajazzfestival.com/2011/.    It was three days long, Friday, Saturday and Sunday with over 150 different acts spanning jazz, pop, folk, rock and hip hop, though the emphasis was still on jazz.  However, the most popular acts were Santana and George Benson.  We could not possibly see all of the acts because they were performing in ten different venues simultaneously.  Thus you had to pick and chose whom you wanted to see.  While we saw a number of different local musicians performing an array of hip hop and pop jazz on several different stages while we were waiting to buy a program or purchase a festival credit card (another story entirely), we went there with the intent to see maybe six different acts.  We wanted to see a Javanese group simply known as  Iwan Hasan, Andien, Mery & Enggar Chamber Jazz at 6:30 pm.  Then we hoped to see Fareed Haque a sometime classical and sometime jazz guitarist at 7:30.  But we most wanted to see Maurice Brown at 8:30 pm and then Roy Hardgrove at 10:30 pm.  Then, we figured, if we could stay up that late, we would finish up with Roberta Gambarini  beginning around midnight.  We had arranged for Miles to sleep over at a friend's house, so we were all set for a late night out.
      I left our house around 3:45 pm to drive down to the Embassy to pick up Irene.  That took about an hour and fifteen minutes.  Then it took about another hour to get to the festival.  All in all, it took almost 2.5 hours to travel 23 kilometers.  Not too bad.  We were making good time.  We got through the doors at about a quarter to six and thought we might be able to walk around and hear some of the other acts before we went to the Chamber Jazz concert, but I couldn't figure out where all of the different performance outlets were so we decided to buy a  program.  But you could not do that with cash (it was only $2.50).  You had to do it with the special festival pre-paid credit card.  So we got in line to purchase the credit card.  Or rather, Irene got in line, while I wandered around trying to find the venue where Iwan Hasan would be performing.  I was directed to four different locations by four different people, all of whom were consistent about one thing: they were all wrong and hadn't the foggiest idea where the venue was.  But Indonesians always want to be helpful, and would not want to embarrass themselves by not being able to provide you helpful advice, so they did not embarrass themselves.  Meanwhile, Irene stood in line for about an hour to purchase the card.  Eventually, I found the venue where the Chamber Jazz was supposed to perform around 6:45.  Luckily, they were running late.  But there was also a booth where you could purchase the credit cards that had only about two dozen people waiting.  I stood in line and called Irene and we both got to the head of the line around the same time, so I let her purchase the card, while I went in to hear Iwan and Co. begin.  By that time both Irene and I were in a foul mood and thinking this may have been a mistake.  But then things changed when we started to listen to the music.
    Andien, the lead singer of the group is very popular in the big cities of Indonesia and has several very well received pop hits which get a good bit of air play on the radio.  Iwan Hasan was the leader of a rather influential experimental rock group back in the 90s.  Now he has turned his attention more to jazz and traditional javanese folk music.  The instrumentation was guitar (Iwan), vocals (Andien), Tuba and Piano.  While it was not New York class jazz, it was very good and well done.  And I enjoyed them a lot, but I have to admit that I enjoyed even more the Javanese music.  It definitely had some jazz influences over the traditional javanese music, and I think Iwan, who does all of the writing and arranging, could have expanded it a little more.  But, it was still very good, and Irene and I both agreed that this alone was worth the price of admission (only $35.00).  On one song, Iwan played a guitar he modified with staples and paper clips to make it sound like a gamelon orchestra.  On another song he played an instrument I had never seen before (not in any gamelan orchestras or anywhere else).  It was a combination of deep body guitar and harp.  It had about twenty strings.  Six strings were over a long neck fret board like on a guitar and the other strings strung like a harp which were plucked like a Zither.  It had a beautiful sound and the song he played on it was equally beautiful.  Instead of the piano, the pianist played a children's air keyboard.  This is an instrument that kids play at Miles' school to learn a little keyboard.  It is a key board of no more than one and a half or two octaves that you blow into through a hose.  It has the sound of a thin accordion.  I have to admit that since listening to Dave Douglas' group, Three Leg Torso, Pink Martini, countless tango quartets, and a Japenese jazz quarter that employ the accordion, I have grown quite fond of this instrument.  And I was shocked and pleased by what I heard this woman produce from this tiny instrument which I had previously  always considered nothing more than a toy and a miserable excuse for a musical instrument.  I am now excited for Miles to pick up this instrument.
     After the Chamber Jazz concert, Irene and I sat at a small cafe and had a couple of cappacinos in order to fuel us up for the rest of the evening.  There we unfortunately had to sit through several Indonesian DJs do their electronic hip hop.  Definately wanna be's for something that was happening in New York about fifteen years ago, and which was really just an extension of what some stand up comedians were experimenting with their microphones thirty years ago.  After fighting to get our bill and pay, we left to catch some Fareed Haque.  Fareed, however, was doing his power fusion thing.  Translation:  overly amplified bass drums and guitar hammering away at three chord mollys.  We were just about ready to walk after ten minutes, when Fareed did a short unamplified classical piece.  We stayed for that, then when the amplifier was turned back up, we walked, and headed over to hear Maurice Brown.
     Maurice is a young up and coming trumpeter that I was really looking forward to hearing.  I had never seen him previously but I was impressed with his music and particularly liked his music video, Tick Tock.  Maurice did not disappoint.  He is a great musician.  He had a great band.  And he is a good performer.  Maurice is like a modern hip hop Louis Armstrong or Louis Prima.  He knows how to visually engage the audience and build up excitement.  He will mug to the audience.  Spin his trumpet likes some marching band kid on ecstacy.  And do these little hip hop moves. This guy is definately a musician you want to see in person.  All I could think while listening and watching him was how much I wish Miles could have seen this.  I started Miles on trumpet earlier this year.  Now we are starting to play simple songs.  And his music teacher learned that he plays (this is still a bit of a stretch of the definition "plays") the trumpet and now wants him to be the back up horn section for the elementary school choir's rendition of Chuck Berry's Rock and Roll Music (which the teacher mistakenly attributed to the Beatles).  So, I thought Miles could pick up on some of Maurice's moves.
      So, okay after Maurice Brown, I was thoroughly content.  We could have left the festival then and there and I would have been happy.  But Roy Hardgrove was playing in 20 minutes, and so we headed on over to that auditorium.  I've always liked Roy.  He is a good solid trumpeter, who writes and plays great music.  I have never thought of him as particularly innovative or outstanding, but I do own several of his cds and believe he deserves a greater audience.  For any of you people that are fans of Chris Botti, I can only say- grow up.  Listen to some real trumpeters out there.  Start listening to Roy Hardgrove.  Listen to Enrico Rava.  Listen to Terrance Blanchard.  Wynton Marsalis is good, you can listen to him, but he is a little too infatuated with himself at times.  Anyone of these other trumpeters can match him and subtlely blow him away.  You want a good trumpeter with chops?  Listen to John Marshall a musician with whom I went to High School.  John has been living and playing in Europe for the past ten years because Americans are more interested in hearing watered down or popped up jazz in the form of Chris Botti rather than a mainstream jazz musician like John Marshall.  Or, if you prefer, go back in time and listen to Clifford Brown, Kenny Dorham, Freddy Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, Booker Little, and . . . don't get me started.
      Right now I am listening to Roy Hardgrove, who is proving himself to me to be a consumate musician.  He does not need to grandstand.  He does not need to hog the spot light.  He knows how to be a leader and lead his band through the music.  I am very impressed.  I have not heard Roy for several years and he has definately grown and matured.  Tonight he has advanced several steps in my estimation.  It was a flawless set that seamlessly built in excitement.  The musicianship of his band members was incredible and he let them play effortlessly.  Roy did perform a solo ballad on flugelhorn, which had that quiet understated quality that balanced techique with a spare open musicality.  I swear, if I could have, I would have hugged him.
      When Roy finished up his set, it was after midnight, and this old man and his darling young wife were exhausted but also enervated by the music.  Nevertheless, we decided to bail on Roberta Gambarini.  I like her very much.  But it ws very late and we had just heard some very excellent music.  Roberta had come with (I considered) a second tier trio and I did not want to be disappointed.  There was a very good possibility that Roy Hardgrove would join her on a couple of tunes, but maybe not, and I decided that I would rather be disappointed by not hearing her rather than disappointed by what I heard.  We decided to go home.  It was, for us, very late.  We are accustomed to getting up at 5:00 am.  By the time we finally got home it was after 1:00 am.
    I would have raced back there Saturday night for another evening (both Maurice and Roy were again playing) but Irene had previously invited people over for dinner and so I look forward to next year.

So, I am sorry none of you were able to attend the Java Jazz Festival 2011.  However, I did find some selections on You tube, so that you can get a taste of what we heard.  Enjoy.
  
Iwan Hasan, Andien, Mery & Enggar:
Is you my Baby?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMsjR6VM9RQ 
Javanese Suite  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95gKeMgG6Kg
Iwan Hasan playing the guitar harp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0veqxahAK6A

Fareeq Hasan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgJKTjTFnnA

Maurice Brown:
Tick Tock  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isSSJ48byaI
Misunderstood  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTsLwDBgyP0

Roy Hardgrove:
I Remember Clifford [Brown] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9zQzAAWgd4
Invitation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8fIBUMvY0o
Soulful  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW4CCWDAcHw

Roy Hardgrove and Maurice Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=morwoBGXmL8

Roy Hardgrove and Roberta Gambarini
La Puerta http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z0kqoUBRmc
Everytime we say goodbye http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quVtw0Pkgek
Roy and Roberta doing their best Dizzy and Ella  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRwxBTLV1T4

Saturday, March 5, 2011

IntoleRANT


Please note:  I have decided to put aside the travelogue for a while (I was getting bored with it) and decided to write about something that has been gnawing away at me for some weeks now concerning current events here in Indonesia.  A word of warning to the faint of heart.  This will devolve into a rant, and strain the point that I am trying to make.  As a matter of fact, if you discover what that point is, please let me know, because I think I may have lost it somewhere along the way.  Oh, and sorry, no pictures.  If you want you can find them on YouTube.

I don’t know whether the US papers or newsfeeds have picked up on these stories, but a story that is getting a lot of press in Indonesia and creating a large public debate is the story of the deathly attacks of members of the Ahmadiyah religion.
Earlier this past month an angry mob of about 1500 men attacked and destroyed a local man's home, which served as the mosque and local headquarters of the Ahmadiyah in West Java, not too far from Jakarta.  During the course of the attack, three men, who were devotees of the Ahmadiyah religion, were dragged from the house, beaten with sticks and killed.  Five others were severely beaten and hospitalized in critical condition, and the remaining people, including women and children, narrowly escaped, after fleeing the onslaught.  The house was pulled down and destroyed and a car was burned.  The whole incident was captured on video by both participants and onlookers and much of the video was subsequently posted on you tube, including some rather horrifying footage of two men being dragged naked along the street and beaten with wooden bats.  At the time of the beating (and the filming), the victims may already have been dead it is hard to tell.  Nevertheless the video is horrifying and disgusting.  Indeed, one cannot even see it on youtube unless you register and certify that you are over 18. 
Two days later, two Christian Churches were burned in Central Java by militant Muslims in reaction to what they believed was a lenient sentence handed down to a Christian Indonesian after he defamed and may have defaced a Mosque during the course of a long standing dispute with the Mosque over the blaring of morning prayers through an amplification system.  The mob was upset because the man (who had no prior record and was a local merchant) was sentenced to only five years in prison.

Indonesia is primarily a Muslim country.  Islam is the dominant religion, and  Indonesia is home to more Muslims than any other country in the world.  However, Indonesia is also a Republic founded upon a Constitution in 1945, as conceived by Sukarno.  Embodied within that Constitution is the concept of  Pancasila or the five principles:  believe in one God; a just and civilized humanity; the unity of Indonesia; a democratic government; guided by social principal of social justice for all people.   Sukarno has written that while drafting the new Indonesian constitution, he and the other drafters had been particularly influenced by the American Constitution.  The official slogan of the nation is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika Unity in Diversity.  There is no state religion, but there are five officially recognized religions.
One would think that based on these bedrock principals that there would be a strong and unified condemnation of the acts of violence perpetrated against the Ahmadiya.  There has not.  Indonesia is divided into 33 governing provinces.  Recently three of those provinces:  two on the Island of Java and one on the Island of Sulawesi, have implemented rules prohibiting Ahmadiya from professing their faith.  In central Java, Ahmadiya may not attend their mosques; they must remove all signs from their mosques; and they may not openly preach their religious tenets.  The current President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, aka SBY condemned the violence shortly after it occurred, but recently had some of his ministers meet with demonstrators who had marched down the streets of Jakarta seeking a ban and expulsion of all Ahmadiya from Indonesia.  The Indonesian parliament is examining why the police in West Java were not more pro-active in trying to stop the riots and murder, but they are not coming out to condemn the actions of the militants.
The attack on the Ahmadiyah was led by extreme militant Muslims and is indicative of a long standing animosity against the Ahmadiya.  The Ahmadiya is a small religious faith that began in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  It is a fractional group of Muslims who believe that their founder was either a prophet or messiah.  They believe in the tenants of Islam and consider themselves Muslims, and observe all Muslim customs.  But many Muslims find the Ahmadiya to be heretics and blasphemers of Mohammed  because Islam teaches that Mohammed was the last prophet of God and there can be no other prophets after Mohammed. Thus they find the Ahmadiya to be an affront to Mohammed and Islam and they are particularly galled by the fact that the Ahmadiya profess to be Muslims.  Essentially it would be no different than if there was a Christian religion whose adherents claim that they are Christians, but who also profess and believe that their founder was the second re-incarnation of Jesus Christ, and further argued that if there is any discrepancy between the teachings of Jesus Christ and their founder, then people should accept the teachings of their founder over the teachings of Jesus Christ because he came later and came to correct the misconceptions that people held after the death of Jesus Christ.
This is not an easy subject for many Indonesians to deal with.  Most of the Indonesians I have spoken to about these incidents condemn the acts of violence, but half as many are also troubled by the religious tenants of the Ahmadiya.  When I challenge them about this, and ask what harm does the Ahmadiya do to you and/or Islam?  They can provide no good answer and it is clear they do not wish to talk about it.  However, when I read the online chat sites that discuss Ahmadiya, I can also see the schism between the moderate and the fanatic Muslim and the discourse is never productive.
At the same time Indonesians are struggling over the religious issues, political issues, and violence associated with Ahmadiya in Indonesia, the Indonesian government has put on trial Abu Bakar Bashir (also Abubakar Ba'asyir, Abdus Somad, and Ustad Abu ("Teacher Abu").  Bashir is an Indonesian Muslim cleric and leader of the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council (MMI).  He ostensibly runs the Al-Mukmin boarding school in Ngruki, Central Java which he co-founded with Abdullah Sungkar in 1972, wherein the students essentially learn to memorize the Qu’ran and demonize modern western civilization.   Bashir was in exile in Malaysia for 17 years during the secular New Order administration of the President of Indonesia Suharto, after he had crossed swords with Suharto by urging the implementation of Sharia law.  He has a strong following amongst the fanatical religious right, who wish to drag Indonesia into the Arab world of the 9th Century.  And he is ready to take up sword and defend Islam from all crusaders from that time forward.  I have a hard time understanding how he can believe or rationalize much of what he preaches, particularly in light of the fact that the 9th Century Arab world was a relative oasis of philosophy, reason and science compared to the dark ages of Europe.   Nevertheless Bashir also claimes that the U.S. and Israel were behind the Bali bombings of 2002 (not the fanatical extremists who admitted particpating in the bombing), which killed hundreds of tourists, through the detonation of a micro nuclear weapon created by the CIA.
On March 3, 2005, Bashir was found guilty of conspiracy over the 2002 Bali attacks, but was found not guilty of the charges surrounding the 2003 bombing of a Marriott Hotel here in Jakarta. He was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment.  On 17 August 2005, as part of the tradition of remissions for Indonesia's Independence Day, Bashir's jail term was cut by 4 months and 15 days. On 14 June 2006, to cheers from his supporters waiting outside, Abu Bakar Bashir was released, having served 25+ months in Jakarta's Cipinang prison, where he held court and coordinated the publication of a commemorative book with his release. About forty bodyguards in uniform black jackets linked arms to escort Bashir through chanting crowds and admirers.  On December 21, 2006, Bashir's conviction was overturned by Indonesia's Supreme Court. 
However, on 13 December, 2010, Indonesian police again charged Bashir with involvement in planning acts of terror and military training in Aceh. The new charges against him of inciting others to commit terrorism, carries the death penalty.   Bashir has denied the charges as well as denied the legitimacy of the Court.  He has claimed that the only law is God’s law and only God can sit in judgment. The 2nd Trial of Abu Bakar Bashir is presently under way at the General District Court of South Jakarta about two miles from Miles’ school.  The trial only occurs two days a week, but because of multiple demonstrations for and against Bashir, with its concommitant threats of huge traffic jams and of course terrorist acts, the school posts daily emails messaages as to whether the school will have to let out early.  They are concerned for the safety of the kids.
The other day Bashir released a statement from his jail cell that Ahmadiya posed a greater threat to the lives and safety of Muslims than the communist party and that the Government must disband Ahmadiya, or else the government must step down to allow a new order.  He has encouraged all of his followers to take up arms against the Ahmadiya.
  Because such intolerance and violence is now often ascribed as a uniquely Muslim quality, I thought I would take a look at the American historical record on this type of issue.  I am sure there are plenty of examples of similar religious intolerance in America; however, I am not a historian or particularly knowledgable of either Religious or American history.  Thus, I simply looked at the first example that sprang to my mind:  America and the Church of the Latter Day Saints aka the Mormons.   Most of what I have written below was culled from my understanding of the LDS from the late 70s when I permitted some Mormons to proselytize to me in exchange for a copy of the Book of Mormon and a chance to have a private tour of the Mormon Temple outside Washington, D.C.  Most of the facts, dates, and history recited below was the result of my use of that wonderful, though rather suspect fountain of knowledge, Wikipedia.   If you wish to check my facts, a word of caution on Wikipedia:  most of the articles appear to be heavily edited by LDS members.  As a result, I tried to fact check Wikipedia with other sources, or against other Wikipedia articles that did not directly discuss the LDS.

As you know the Church of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) was founded by Joseph Smith in about 1830 in upstate New York, after Mr. Smith discovered the golden plates containing the Book of Mormon half buried in the woods.  (note:  back in 1970, I was told that Joseph Smith discovered the tablet after talking to a white salamander.  The white salamander theory has since been attributed to a LDS historian/forger/blackmailer who died from a (self constructed) pipe bomb, and this person has been thoroughly discredited.  The white salamander is now officially off the books).  According to the Book of Mormon, the scripture of the Latter Day Saint movement was originally written in reformed Egyptian characters on plates of  gold by prophets living in the Western Hemisphere between 600 BC and AD 421.  Joseph Smith, Jr., whom I believe was functionally illiterate at the time but evidently divinely guided to read “reformed Egyptian”  first found the plates in the early 1820’s and then dictated a series of translations of the plates.  The first translation evidently got “ lost in the mail” when a devotee tried to take the translation to be authenticated, and initially Joseph Smith claimed to have lost the ability to “read” the plates, but after several years more, he regained his abilities and completed a second translation which he published as the Book of Mormon in 1830. 
Prior to this discovery of the golden plates, Joseph Smith had supported himself as an itinerant treasure hunter who travelled throughout New York and Pennsylvania claiming that he could find buried treasurer through the use of a “seer stone” he would place in a stove pipe hat.  Apparently  in 1826, he was tried in Chenango County, New York, for the crime of pretending to find lost treasure (which I think may have occurred between the time of the first and second translations).  However,  sometime after the angel Moroni appeared to him again to spur him on, Smith gave up treasure hunting and devoted full time and energy to the plates and the founding of his new religion.  Between 1830 and 1840 the LDS gained many converts as Joseph Smith led them from one territory to another in search of a promised land. 
This was also a time known in American history as the “Second Great Awakening” when a wave of religious revivalism swept our nation.    It was based on the Arminian[1] notion that every person could be saved through revivals. It enrolled millions of new members, and led to the formation of new denominations. Many converts believed that the Awakening heralded a new millennial age. The Second Great Awakening stimulated the establishment of many reform movements designed to remedy the evils of society before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.  It gave rise to the Baptists, Methodists and the Seventh Day Adventists, among many other religions.  Upstate New York was called the "Burned-over district" because of the numerous revivals that crisscrossed the region.  There would often be a large bonfire at the revival which would serve as a sort of early flood light, and staging area for the extinguishment of sins and the usual assortment of wickedness.  Evidently Joseph Smith got "fired" up enough to start a whole new religion.
Now starting a whole new religion with a pantheon of new angels, profits and such is never easy.  And most people do not take to easily to the establishment of a whole new religion.  And so, much like the Jews of the Old Testament, Joseph Smith found it necessary to take his people on an epic journey in search of a holy land where his people could live free of persecution.  For right from the start, he and his religious beliefs were mocked and scorned by many Americans.  First, the Mormons headed west from New York to Ohio.  There, he built his first church.  However, he did quite win over the hearts and minds of the local people to his religion for in 1832 he was tarred and feathered.  However, perhaps due to divine intervention, he was able to survive this horrific ordeal.  But unfortunately Joseph Smith also subsequently started to mix religion with capitalism, forming an unofficial bank for his followers which eventually went bankrupt.  He was not tarred and feathered, but he was sued (believe me that can sometimes be even more painful).  And so, he decided Ohio was no longer the New Jerusalem.  So he sent some of his other followers further west to establish Zion this time in Jackson County Missouri.  Tensions between Missourians and Mormons however mounted, though it is not clear to me whether this was as a result of the capitalist component of the Mormons or the religious tenants of LDS but things escalated to the point where Joseph Smith formed his own militia and the Governor of Missouri issued the "Extermination Order" aimed to expel all Mormons from Missouri.  Note:  the extermination order was not quite the same as the Nazi extermination order.  Its purpose was to drive all Mormons out of the territory, not necessarily exterminate the Mormons.  Neverteless, the extermination order was never formally rescinded (thus outlawing LDS) until 1976.
Although Smith  professed to hate violence, his experiences led him to believe that his faith's survival required greater militancy against anti-Mormons and Mormon traitors (funny what a little tar and feathers and State fiat can do to a guy).  With his knowledge and at least partial approval, Smith's followers formed a covert organization called the Danites which was designed to intimidate Mormon dissenters and oppose anti-Mormon militia units.  This eventually gave rise to the Mormon war of 1838.  During the “war” hundreds of people were killed on both sides of the ideological fence.  Frequently such deaths resulted from mismatched acts of violence or vengeance.  Eventually on November 1, 1838, the Mormons surrendered to 2,500 state troops, and agreed to forfeit their property and leave the state.  Joseph Smith was thrown into prison but he was eventually able to bribe his way out of prison after four months incarceration.  Smith then took his people to Illinois where he established the territory of Nauvoo.  There he built a large temple and established some of the more radical religious practices such as baptizing the dead and polygamy.  At the same time he continued to dabble in capitalism and politics.  He even ran for President of the United States in 1844.  But when that appeared to be a lost cause, he sought to separate Nauvoo from the United States and make it into a separate country.  As a result of his political actions probably more than his religious actions, Smith was arrested once again, along with his brother for treason.  But before he could be brought to trial, the good citizens of Illinois stormed the jail cell and murdered Joseph Smith and his brother.  Five people were eventually arrested and tried for the murder of Smith and his brother.  All the defendants were acquitted. 
Brigham Young then took over the LDS and led his people to the promised land in Utah.  Even after Mormons established a community hundreds of miles away in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847,  Mormon persecution continued.  But the Mormons  became more and more strident in their philosophy and militant in their actions.    The American government was alarmed by the semi-theocratic dominance of the Utah Territory under Brigham Young. While the Mormons believed in some of the principles of the American Constitution, Mormon political thought was strongly influenced by a concept dubbed "Theodemocracy." They associated it with their belief in the imminence of Christ's Second Coming. Although Mormons supported republican processes to elect ecclesiastical leaders into positions of secular power, their beliefs required subservience of civil government to church decree.  The America government and the Mormons became engaged in a struggle of power, politics and religion.  At that time, Utah was a federal territory and subject to federal laws,federal courts and federal officers.  However, many Mormons declared that they would recognize no law other than God’s law as determined by their priests.  As a result U.S. President James Buchanan sent one-third of the American standing army in 1857 to Utah to engage the Mormons in what what was to become known as the Utah War.
This time the Mormons took the offensive.  They maintained their own militia in the Utah territories which would attack people whom they perceived to be a threat to their safety or welfare.  The attacks culminated on September 11, 1857 in the mass slaughter of a wagon train of emigrants.  The wagon train, which was composed almost entirely of families from Arkansas, was bound for California on a route that passed through the Utah territory.  The militia began an unprovoked attack on these families under the guise of an Indian raiding party.  The families pulled into a defensive circle and withstood the siege for several days.  Eventually running low on water and provisions, the emigrants allowed a party of militiamen to enter their camp who assured them of their safety and escorted them out of their hasty fortification. After walking a distance from the camp, the militiamen, with the help of auxiliary forces hiding nearby, attacked the emigrants. Intending to leave no witnesses of Mormon complicity in the attacks, and to prevent reprisals the perpetrators killed all the adults and older children (totaling about 120 men, women, and children). Only seventeen children, all younger than seven, were spared.
Mormons who participated in what was to become known as the "Mountain Meadows Massacre" felt justified in their actions as a result of the strident Mormon teachings during the 1850s.  By 1857, Mormon leaders taught that the Second Coming of Jesus was imminent, and that God would soon exact punishment against the United States for persecuting Mormons and martyring Joseph Smith, Jr., his brother Hyrum Smith, and all the others who were considered by Mormons to be prophets.  In their Endowment ceremony, faithful early Latter-day Saints took an Oath of vengeance against the murderers of the prophets.  As a result of this oath, several Mormon apostles and other leaders considered it their religious duty to kill the prophets' murderers if they ever came across them.  The sermons, blessings, and private counsel by Mormon leaders just before the Mountain Meadows massacre provided encouragement to private individuals to execute God's judgment against the wicked.
The “Utah war” may have started with a horrible atrocity, but it ended with a wimper.  After what became known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, few other deaths occurred and the political tide started to turn to the favor of the Mormons who were then seen as an embattled people fighting an oppressive government. (The Massacre did not hit the newspapers big time until twenty years later.)  Sam Houston, as well as other then famous Americans (? Texas not being a part of America at the time) opposed the federal action.  And in the end, like many an “American” war, this ended with no real resolution or change other than both sides agreeing to call it quits.  Buchannan agreed not to press charges against any Mormon for treason or insurrection in exchange for the Mormons agreeing not to try to secede from the Country.  In the end, the Utah War started a slow decline for Mormon isolation and power in Utah. The Latter-day Saints lost control of the executive branch and the federal district courts, but maintained political authority in the Territorial Legislature and the powerful probate courts. In 1869 the Transcontinental Railroad was completed, and soon large numbers of "Gentiles" arrived in Utah to stay. Despite this, complete federal dominance was slow in coming. Brigham Young maintained a "shadow government" for years, although "theodemocracy" in Utah gradually died out. Conflict between the Mormons and the federal government, particularly over the issue of polygamy, would continue for nearly 40 more years before Utah was finally made a state in 1896.  Subsequently, albeit slowly, the LDS has been fully accepted into American society.  Mitt Romney is more American than apple pie and Marriott a symbol of American corporate global strength.
Back in the late 70s and early 80s when I did some research into the Mormons I thought of them as the New World Israelites.  A people, united in the belief that they were chosen by God, persecuted by the people in power and driven across mountain and desert in search of the holy land.  What made them particularly American in my book was the fact that the myth of the Mormons was basically self created  in order to fit a pre-conceived archetype.   In other words they always thought of themselves as the New World Israelites and they played that role across the American stage.  Now, as I said before I am not a religious historian, and I am definitely not a Biblical scholar, so I cannot say whether the parallelisms that the Mormons drew with the Israelites were in any fashion justified, but now I find more parallelisms between the Mormons in American and the militant Muslims in Indonesia.  Perhaps, Joseph Smith was prescient and I should give him more credit than I have, for he himself saw the Mormons as being akin to the Muslims.  In October 1838 before a cheering crowd of Saints, Smith declared that in the event there were more attacks against Mormons, Mormons would establish their "religion by the sword" and that he, Joseph Smith, would be "a second Mohammed.”  Brigham Young, who wished to establish the State of Utah governed not by federal law but by the law of the priests of LDS foreshadowed the likes of Abu Bakar Bashir who seeks to establish Sharia Law as the law of the land here in Indonesia, and who urges his followers to begin by imposing Sharia Law in the distant provinces.
At the time of the Utah War in 1857, the United States of America was only 80 years old.  Today in this country, the Republic of Indonesia is only 66 years old.  Prior to its independence in 1945 Indonesia had been under the subjugation of the Japanese for four years, and prior to that it had been under the subjugation of the Dutch for over 300 years.  Prior to 1945, Indonesia did not have a single unifying language; instead, there were over 300 different native languages spoken in and amongst this archipelago of 17000 islands.  The official language of Indonesia, bahasa Indonesian is primarily based on a Malay language which was used primarily in Northeast Sumatra only.  It was chosen to be the unifying national language in 1929 and formally adopted when independence was declared in 1945.  Thus Indonesia does not have a long unifying National heritage.  It is a very new nation and struggling with trying to achieve a unified national philosophy.  For the first fifty years of this country’s existence, it had been under the dominion and control of two strong (some would state dictatorial) rulers:  Sukarno for essentially the first 20 years and then Suharto for the next thirty years.  Since 1998 Indonesia has had a democratically elected President (in pretty fair elections), but the country is being tugged every which way by the different interest groups and corrupt officials and judges.
For the past twenty years or more, the Muslim world has been engulfed in its own religious revivalism (not completely dissimilar to the revivalism that grip America in 1830) with the conservative hardliners moving to the forefront.  And this trend has not escaped Indonesia.  The conservative Muslims want Indonesia to become an Islamic state and wish to do away with the pluralism of Pancasila.  A lot of what is going on with the conservative Muslim parties and advocates is a political power struggle draped in the verbiage of religion.  Islam, as a religion is essentially 700 years younger than Christianity as a religion.  700 years ago Christianity was digging itself out of the middle ages and trying to cast off the cloak of the Inquisition. 
I say all of this not as an apologist for the atrocities perpetrated in the name of Islam, nor to equate one religion with another.  I am not trying to demonize the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Certainly, if members of the LDS did wrongful acts in the past as did men of other faiths, such acts should not be used to judge the acts, faith or deeds of people today.  I am not trying to provide an explanation or a rationale for the violence here in Indonesia.  I am not saying that we should not judge the actions of people who perpetrate violence against other people.  We are going to judge them, as we should.  We should and must make judgments about good and evil, right and wrong.  I guess the only thing I am saying here is that, while we should judge and condemn, we should not use such judgment as a basis for declaring our own superiority.  We are not superior.  We are not that different.
Indonesia is going through a fascinating period right now.  It must struggle with some huge decisions as to what it wants to be and how it wants to achieve those goals.  Indonesia must struggle on a daily basis with corrupt government officials a corrupt police force and a corrupt judiciary.  It has vast oil, mineral and natural resources which have been raped for hundreds of years and are still being raped today, resulting in tremendous environment damage and a huge dichotomy of wealth.  Its founding principal of unity in diversity is being sorely tested by fanatical or extreme religious groups.  It is a fascinating and horrifying time.  I am thankful my wife has provided me the opportunity to live through a small portion of it.  That’s the end of my rant.




[1] Arminianism is a school of  thought within Protestant Christianity based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609) and his historic followers, the Remonstrants.  Arminianism holds to the following tenets:
*  Humans are naturally unable to make any effort towards salvation . They possess free will to accept or reject salvation.
*  Salvation is possible only by God's grace, which cannot be merited.
*  No works of human effort can cause or contribute to salvation
*  God's election is conditional on faith in the sacrifice and Lordship of Jesus Christ.
*  Christ's atonement was made on behalf of all people.
*  God allows his grace to be resisted by those who freely reject Christ.
*  Believers are able to resist sin but are not beyond the possibility of falling from grace through persistent, unrepented sin.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Prambanan and Borobudor

 
Borobudor


 
Prambanan
 




On January 12th and 13th Ralph, Miles and I went to Yogyakarta also known as Jogja, Yogya,  or Jogjakarta.  Yogya is in central Java and this city, along with its sister city Soho,  is commonly thought of as the heart and soul of Javanese Culture.   Yogya is the home of many small arts and industries such as batik, ballet, drama, music, poetry, and puppet shows. It is also famous as a centre for Indonesian higher education  with about 120 different universities and academies in the area and the seat of Gadjah Mada University, one of the three most prestigious universities in Indonesia. Yogyakarta is also a unique district in Indonesia in that a good portion of it is still presided over by a Sultan.  Yogyakarta was originally created as a kingdom in the 1750s and it has been governed by a member of the Sultan’s family ever since.  While in Yogya we visited the Sultan’s palace and listened to a gamelan orchestra.   We also toured some batik and silver factories and I purchased a number of Batik paintings produced by students at an art school.  But the biggest attractions of Yogja are the ancient Hindu temples of Prambanan and the ancient Buddhist temple of Borobudor.
Both Borobudor and Prambanan were built in the 9th century, almost contemporaneous to one another, but some people believe that the building of Borobudor was commenced before Prambanan around 800 AD and that Prambanan was erected in response to Borbudor.  But there are not many written contemporaneous histories of those times, if any, so a lot of this is conjecture.  Construction of Borobudor probably began in the  Srivijayan Empire during the Sailendra dynasty. The construction has been estimated to have taken 75 years to complete. There is confusion between Hindu and Buddhist rulers in Java around that time. The Sailendras were known as ardent followers of Lord Buddha, though stone inscriptions found at Sojomerto suggest they may have been Hindus.  In any event there were three major Buddhist temples constructed during that time within ten kilometers of one another and many Hindu temples also in and around that area.  Construction on Prambanan probably began around 850 AD, also during the Srivijayan Empire.   Borobodur and Prambanan are about 60 kilometers apart, and another smaller Buddhist temple is about 2 kilometers from Prambanan.

Borobudor is the larger of the two, being a multi faceted but single large stupa in the form of a mandala with three distinct levels.  It has nine different platforms of which the lower six are square and the upper three are circular. 

Along the upper level (which has three concentric circles are a series of Stupas with a different Buddha in each one.Each Buddha is bigger than life size.  The lower level is filled with gargoyles and other intricate carvings.  The middle level has less three dimensional carvings and more bas relief, the top level has simply the Stupa. 
  The base is approximately 400 feet by 400 feet.  The lower level represents the world of desires, then the world of forms, and finally the upper most level is the world without forms. 
 



 
I believe this is Venus rising over Borobudor
 We got to Borobodur at 4:00 am in order to be there for the sun rise (much to Mile’s dismay).  There were not many willing to venture out at such an hour, so we avoided the throng of tourists and oleh oleh (souvenir) peddlers.  So you can see the temple at night and as the dawn arose. 
As dawn broke, I took a seat on the second level behind a row of sitting Buddhas who have been watching the sun rise for over one thousand years now. 
 Miles used this opportunity to catch up on his sleep.




On our way to Borobudor, we stopped by the Mendut Temple which lies about ten kilometers from Borobudor.


  It is much smaller, but still fairly impressive.  Next to the Mendut Temple is a Buddhist monastery where we found a few minutes of tranquility.            



Prambanan has not been restored as much as Borobudor has been restored.   Whereas Borobudor is a fairly complete restoration, only the largest shrines making up Prabanan have been restored.



The problem is that a good part of Prambanan has been looted and is missing.  Both temples are world heritage sites and were restored with international funds.  Prambanan was originally about the same size  if not larger than Borbobudor with three different levels and maybe a hundred different temples laid out in a square pattern.   The lower level was essentially a large square wall and elevated platform.  The next level consisted of approximately 224 small individual shrines.  The highest level had eight large shrines of which the three main shrines have been restored and a couple smaller ones.  The three main shrines, called Trimurti ("three forms"), are dedicated to the three gods: Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Keeper, and Shiva the Destroyer.  But the World Heritage fund will not restore something if it cannot be restored with more than 60 or 70% of the original materials, and there are not enough of the original blocks to do such a restoration, so this is the most that will be restored and the rest lay as so much rubble around the restored shrines.

Both Prambanan and Borobudor have been damages by recent volcano and earthquakes.  The top level of Borobudor was closed off to us as a result of the ash coverage from Mt. Merapi which erupted about four months prior to our visit.  Merapi covered the entirety of Borobudor in about three inches of volcanic ash.  It had all been cleaned away except for the top level which was still being cleaned.  Prambanan was hurt by an earthquake in 2007 which caused some of the top most part to fall off and caused extensive structural damage to Brahama’s temple.  As a result, we were not allowed into that temple.

Along the base of Prambanan is carved in bas relief the story of RamayanaKrishnayana scenes.  The carvings were carved after the stones were put in place.  You can see that because some of the carvings were left unfinished.  Apparently, for one reason or another, before Prambanan was finished, the King moved the seat of the empire from Yogyakarta to East Java.  Perhaps because of concerns surrounding the eruption of Mt. Merapi.
unfinished carving

  The Ramayana consists of 24,000 verses in seven books and 500 cantos  and tells the story of Rama (an incarnation of the Hindu preserver-God Vishnu), whose wife Sita is abducted by the demon king of Lanka, Ravana. Thematically, the epic explores the tenets of human existence and the concept of dharma.  The Indian tradition is unanimous in its agreement that the poem is the work of a single poet, the sage Valmiki, a contemporary of Rama and a peripheral actor in the epic drama.  However, historians are not necessarily of the same consensus.  The story's original version in Sanskrit is known as Valmiki Ramayana, dating to approximately the 5th to 4th century B.C.  (By contrast, historians believe Homer lived around 800 BC, so the Odyssey, which Miles and I just finished reading, would predate the Ramayana).   Rama is the hero of the tale. Portrayed as the seventh incarnation of the God Vishnu.  Sita is the beloved wife of Rama and the daughter of king Janaka. She is the incarnation of Goddess Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu. Sita is portrayed as the epitome of female purity and virtue. She follows her husband into exile and is abducted by Ravana. She is imprisoned on the island of Lanka until Rama rescues her by defeating the demon king Ravana. Later, she gives birth to Lava and Kusha, the heirs of Rama.  Hanuman the monkey king is portrayed as the eleventh incarnation of God Shiva who helps Rama rescue Sita.  Eventually they are re-united, but of course no good story has a happy ending.  Sita, for all her long suffering is eventually exiled by Rama, who is forced to choice between saving his people or saving Sita. 
Indonesia has adopted and modified the original Indian Ramayana to suit their needs.  The Javanese Ramayana is known as  Kakawin Ramayana.  Yogesvara Ramayana is attributed to the scribe Yogesvara circa 9th century AD (around the time Prambanan was first being built), who was employed in the court of the Medang in Central Java.  The Javanese Ramayana differs markedly from the original Hindu prototype and employs many Javanese principals. The 9th century Javanese Kakawin Ramayana has become the reference of Ramayana in the neighboring island of Bali and the source material for the endless Wayang Puppet shows as well as most traditional ballet stories.