CHAPTER 8


Civilization on Trial

“I’m taking you to a dalang,” Rasy beamed. “You know, the famous Indonesian puppet masters.” He was obviously pleased to have me back in Bandung. “There’s a very important one in town tonight.”

He drove me on his scooter through parts of his city I did not know existed, through sections filled with traditional Javanese kampong houses, which looked like a poor person’s version of tiny tile-roofed temples. Gone were the stately Dutch Colonial mansions and office buildings I had grown to expect. The people were obviously poor, yet they bore themselves with great pride. They wore threadbare but clean batik sarongs, brightly colored blouses, and wide-brimmed straw hats. Everywhere we went we were greeted with smiles and laughter. When we stopped, children rushed up to touch me and feel the fabric of my jeans. One little girl stuck a fragrant frangipani blossom in my hair.

We parked the scooter near a sidewalk theater where several hundred people were gathered, some standing, others sitting in portable chairs. The night was clear and beautiful. Although we were in the heart of the oldest section of Bandung, there were no streetlights, so the stars sparkled over our heads. The air was filled with the aromas of wood fires, peanuts, and cloves.

Rasy disappeared into the crowd and soon returned with many of the young people I had met at the coffeehouse. They offered me hot tea, little cakes, and satay, tiny bits of meat cooked in peanut oil. I must have hesitated before accepting the latter, because one of the women pointed at a small fire. “Very fresh meat,” she laughed. “Just cooked.”

Then the music started — the hauntingly magical sounds of the gamalong, an instrument that conjures images of temple bells.

“The dalang plays all the music by himself,” Rasy whispered. “He also works all the puppets and speaks their voices, several languages. We’ll translate for you.”

It was a remarkable performance, combining traditional legends with current events. I would later learn that the dalang is a shaman who does his work in trance. He had more than a hundred puppets and spoke for each in a different voice. It was a night I will never forget, and one that has influenced the rest of my life.

After completing a classic selection from the ancient texts of the Ramayana, the dalang produced a puppet of Richard Nixon, complete with the distinctive long nose and sagging jowls. The US president was dressed like Uncle Sam, in a stars-and-stripes top hat and tails. He was accompanied by another puppet, which wore a three-piece pin-striped suit. The second puppet carried in one hand a bucket decorated with dollar signs. He used his free hand to wave an American flag over Nixon’s head in the manner of a slave fanning a master.

A map of the Middle and Far East appeared behind the two, the various countries hanging from hooks in their respective positions. Nixon immediately approached the map, lifted Vietnam off its hook, and thrust it to his mouth. He shouted something that was translated as “Bitter! Rubbish. We don’t need any more of this!” Then he tossed it into the bucket and proceeded to do the same with other countries.

I was surprised, however, to see that his next selections did not include the domino nations of Southeast Asia. Rather, they were all Middle Eastern countries — Palestine, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. After that, he turned to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Each time, the Nixon doll screamed out some epithet before dropping the country into his bucket, and in every instance, his vituperative words were anti-Islamic: “Muslim dogs,” “Mohammad’s monsters,” and “Islamic devils.”

The crowd became very excited, the tension mounting with each new addition to the bucket. They seemed torn between fits of laughter, shock, and rage. At times, I sensed they took offense at the puppeteer’s language. I also felt intimidated; I stood out in this crowd, taller than the rest, and I worried that they might direct their anger at me. Then Nixon said something that made my scalp tingle when Rasy translated it.

“Give this one to the World Bank. See what it can do to make us some money off Indonesia.” He lifted Indonesia from the map and moved to drop it into the bucket, but just at that moment another puppet leaped out of the shadows. This puppet represented an Indonesian man, dressed in batik shirt and khaki slacks, and he wore a sign with his name clearly printed on it.

“A popular Bandung politician,” Rasy explained.

This puppet literally flew between Nixon and Bucket Man and held up his hand.

“Stop!” he shouted. “Indonesia is sovereign.”

The crowd burst into applause. Then Bucket Man lifted his flag and thrust it like a spear into the Indonesian, who staggered and died a most dramatic death. The audience members booed, hooted, screamed, and shook their fists. Nixon and Bucket Man stood there, looking out at us. They bowed and left the stage.

“I think I should go,” I said to Rasy.

He placed a hand protectively around my shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said. “They have nothing against you personally.” I wasn’t so sure.

Later we all retired to the coffeehouse. Rasy and the others assured me that they had not been informed ahead of time about the Nixon–World Bank skit. “You never know what to expect from that puppeteer,” one of the young men observed.

I wondered aloud whether this had been staged in my honor. Someone laughed and said I had a very big ego. “Typical of Americans,” he added, patting my back congenially.

“Indonesians are very conscious of politics,” the man in the chair beside me said. “Don’t Americans go to shows like this?”

A sharp university student, an English major, sat across the table from me. “But you do work for the World Bank, don’t you?” she asked.

I told her that my current assignment was for the Asian Development Bank and the United States Agency for International Development.

“Aren’t they really all the same?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Isn’t it like the play tonight showed? Doesn’t your government look at Indonesia and other countries as though we are just a bunch of . . .” She searched for the word.

“Grapes,” one of her friends coached.

“Exactly. A bunch of grapes. You can pick and choose. Keep England. Eat China. And throw away Indonesia.”

“After you’ve taken all our oil,” another woman added.

I tried to defend myself but was not at all up to the task. I wanted to take pride in the fact that I had come to this part of town and had stayed to watch the entire anti-US performance, which I might have construed as a personal assault. I wanted them to see the courage of what I had done, wanted them to know that I was the only member of my team who had bothered to learn Bahasa or had any desire to take in their culture, and wanted to point out that I was the sole foreigner attending this production. But I decided it would be more prudent not to mention any of this. Instead, I tried to refocus the conversation. I asked them why they thought the dalang had singled out Muslim countries, except for Vietnam.

The English student laughed at this. “Because that’s the plan.”

“Vietnam is just a holding action,” one of the men interjected, “like Holland was for the Nazis. A stepping-stone.”

“The real target,” the woman continued, “is the Muslim world.”

I could not let this go unanswered. “Surely,” I protested, “you can’t believe that the United States is anti-Islamic.”

“Oh no?” she asked. “Since when? You need to read one of your own historians — a Brit named Toynbee. Back in the fifties he predicted that the real war in the next century would not be between Communists and capitalists, but between Christians and Muslims.”¹

“Arnold Toynbee said that?” I was stunned.

“Yes. Read Civilization on Trial and The World and the West.”

“But why should there be such animosity between Muslims and Christians?” I asked.

Looks were exchanged around the table. They appeared to find it hard to believe that I could ask such a foolish question.

“Because,” she said slowly, as though addressing someone slow-witted or hard of hearing, “the West — especially its leader, the US — is determined to take control of all the world, to become the greatest empire in history. It has already gotten very close to succeeding. The Soviet Union currently stands in its way, but the Soviets will not endure. Toynbee could see that. They have no religion, no faith, no substance behind their ideology. History demonstrates that faith — soul, a belief in higher powers — is essential. We Muslims have it. We have it more than anyone else in the world, even more than the Christians. So we wait. We grow strong.”

“We will take our time,” one of the men chimed in, “and then like a snake we will strike.”

“What a horrible thought!” I could barely contain myself. “What can we do to change this?”

The English major looked me directly in the eyes. “Stop being so greedy,” she said, “and so selfish. Realize that there is more to the world than your big houses and fancy stores. People are starving and you worry about oil for your cars. Babies are dying of thirst and you search the fashion magazines for the latest styles. Nations like ours are drowning in poverty, but your people don’t even hear our cries for help. You shut your ears to the voices of those who try to tell you these things. You label them radicals or Communists. You must open your hearts to the poor and downtrodden, instead of driving them further into poverty and servitude. There’s not much time left. If you don’t change, you’re doomed.”

Several days later the popular Bandung politician, whose puppet stood up to Nixon and was impaled by Bucket Man, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver.

Soon after that, I headed home.

Ann and I met in Paris to attempt a reconciliation. However, we continued to quarrel. On our next to last day, she asked if I’d had an affair. When I confessed, she said she had suspected it all along. We spent many hours sitting on a bench, looking at the Seine and talking. By the time we boarded our flight we had come to the conclusion that our long history of anger and resentment was too large an obstacle and that we should live apart.