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News
A nation in peril


Photo
Illustration by Mike Padilla
By Keren G. Raz
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, August 4, 2004
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BALI - Here in Bali, there's a song I hear at least twice a day. The chorus goes like this: Life here is hard since the Bali bombings. Since the Americans stopped coming, life is so hard.

Forget B.C. and A.D.; people describe time here in terms of B.B., before the bombings, and A.B., after the bombings.

The bomb that went off on October 12, 2002, in a nightclub in the island's clubbing district, killed 202 people and has become a watershed moment in Balinese history.

Everyone marks their lives by the difference between A.B. and B.B.

In 2001 B.B., a father of three who makes beautiful hand-painted wooden birds had enough business to lay the foundation of his new home.

Three years later, he can't afford the roof.

After the bombings, the tourists disappeared, he said, and so did business.

A woman who works in my office took me on a drive to a town in Bali well-known for its handicrafts.

In the time B.B., crates used to line the streets, waiting to be picked up and exported.

Now, not a single box can be seen.

In 2004 A.B., a woman cornered me on the beach to guilt me into visiting her shop.

Business has been slow, she said, pointing out the low numbers of people enjoying the sunset.

Come to my shop, I need business, she said.

Photo
Keren G. Raz
Columnist

Her cry is the song of woe in paradise.

If only you could hear it.

But you can't when you're in the states, and that's precisely the problem.

Although the Japanese are filling the tour buses, the Europeans are back on the beach and the Australians are packing the nightclubs, the most important tourist group is missing: the Americans.

I rafted down the Ayung River and biked down the volcano this weekend with large groups of Europeans and Japanese.

I didn't meet a single American.

Two years ago, a bomb went off, and we're still too afraid to enjoy a place rated as one of the top travel destinations in the world.

What is it with Americans and paranoia these days?

It seems there are too many color-coded terror alerts and outdated travel warnings blinding us.

We come from a history of people who braved the wilderness and ventured into unchartered territory, yet we seem content to travel the well-worn path and stay within our own borders, even when it only promises to hurt us more.

We even have our own song that reemphasizes our fear.

Here's our chorus:

We're in a post-Sept. 11 world where nothing is the same. The world is no longer safe for us.

The problem is that by allowing the fear to take over and keep us locked between the Pacific and the Atlantic, we're only going to make the world less safe.

The isolation will only increase unless we take charge of our fear.

Case in point:

Indonesia recently decided to slap a $25 visa fee on all foreigners even though it promises to cripple the tourism industry, which creates 80 percent of its jobs.

Why?

According to one of the circulating rumors, it was begun by the minister of justice and human rights.

On a trip to Australia, the minister was forced to remove his shoes. Angered by the search, he returned to Indonesia hating all foreigners.

It's one thing to do what we must to secure ourselves. It's another thing to forget that every action we take, every trip we avoid, has an effect on other people.

Imagine what would have happened to New York if people refused to travel or do business there after Sept. 11.

Bali is still the paradise we imagine with the beaches, the jungle and the five-star resorts.

But look into the homes of the people who live here, and you'll see the missing roofs and the extreme poverty that signal there's trouble in paradise.

Without the American tourists, the people here are getting poorer and poorer, and the song of frustration is getting louder and louder.

Stay away from this island, and there will be consequences.

Isolation in a globalized world never brings about any good; it only breeds mistrust and alienation.

Is that what we want in our post-Sept. 11 world?

Keren G. Raz is a political science and English senior. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.



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