Water lillies with plastic water bottle cap, Ubud, Bali.

Plastic debris, Iron Cove, Sydney

Well, how wrong I was.

Last Tuesday night my son invited me to a screening of Bag It, at the Avoca Cinema. Some years ago I developed a learning object called ‘Our rubbish pile: reduce your pile’. There’s a short overview on the ‘A School for Now and The Future’ wiki, so, at first the thought of a 78 minute documentary on plastic bags seemed might be a bit of a yawn.  Afterall I consider myself very well informed about the whole issue of plastics in the environment.

Bag It was not only engaging, but I was presented with both new information and information that I found quite disturbing, despite being a reasonably informed consumer with a commitment to the basic principles of sustainability:

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

Enveloped in plastic

I’m for ever looking at the recycling numbers and only accepting plastic packaging that I can recycle, yet so often I’m tricked. Recently when I took delivery of an elliptical trainer, I was dismayed at the volume of polystyrene foam packed around the equipment. It took me weeks to gradually send it all out through regular garbage collections. Where it went I couldn’t bear analysing too deeply. Sometimes I find myself at the supermarket without one of my shopping bags and I accept plastic bags, much against my better judgement. Somehow I don’t think I’m entirely alone in the plastic maze. Bag It doesn’t allow for such laziness and avoidance, it confronts the consumer with the reality of the plastic packaged world that we’ve slowly allowed to envelope us.

Bag It Intro from Suzan Beraza on Vimeo.

Bag It addresses five principle issues:

1. Bag politics
2. Single use disposables
3. Waste + recycling
4. Ocean health/marine debris
5. Human health

It also comes with a website that offers educators a wide variety of curriculum resources including links to:

Waste Free Lunches  - a guide to starting waste-free lunch program at your school or place of employment

The Vinyl School – sources of PVC in the school environment.

PVC University – a tool kit for addressing the PVC problem in educational institutions

The Bag It website offers the following advice on:

1. Carry reusable shopping bags

Whether you’re shopping for groceries, clothes or electronics, be sure to bring along the reusable bag(s) of your choice. Keep them in your car so you don’t forget to use them. We recommend the Chico Bag—small enough to fit in your pocket or purse!

2. Give up bottled water

By drinking your water from a glass jar or a reusable bottle, you can help reduce the environmental costs associated with producing bottled water and save money while you’re at it. Unlike bottle water, the quality of your tap water is regularly monitored by your city. Click here to learn more about your local tap water supply.

3. Say no to plastic produce bags

Bagging your produce is generally unnecessary. If you do want a separate bag for produce, cloth options are available. Some alternatives are EcoBags, Acme produce bags or making your own from old t-shirts.

4. Buy from bulk bins

You can find almost all dry foods, as well as some personal care products, from bulk bins. If you can’t find bulk bins in your neighborhood, you can still buy non-perishable goods in large packages, which will decrease the amount of plastic used.

5. Make your own seltzer

When it comes to carbonated drinks, you can avoid high intakes of high fructose corn syrup AND the need for purchasing disposable bottles by making your own seltzer. We recommend adding a splash of juice to your homemade soda to create a delicious bubbly drink. Kids love it!

6. Pack food in reusable containers

Bring reusable containers to restaurants to take home your leftovers. Ask the butcher or deli server at your grocery store to package your food in your reusable container. Use them to pack your lunch, and don’t forget to carry along reusable utensils. We love these containers from LunchBots and Life Without Plastic.

7. Choose milk in returnable glass bottles   (I don’t think we have this option where I live in Australia)

Many communities have local dairies that provide milk in returnable glass bottles rather than plastic or plastic-coated cardboard. All cardboard milk containers are coated inside and out with plastic, not wax. Check out local dairies in your area to see if this is offered, or ask them to start a co-op.

8. Use bar soap and shampoo

Make the change from liquid to bar! Try Lush shampoo bar, Chagrin Valley shampoo bars, Burt’s Bees, or J.R. Liggett’s Old Fashioned shampoo bar.

9. Choose lotions and lip-balms in plastic free containers

Organic Essence is packaging its body lotions in compostable cardboard jars and its lip balms in ingenious cardboard tubes that squeeze from the end. There are also lotion bars and lip balms and glosses that come in glass or metal containers. Or you can even make your own products.

10. Make sure your personal care products are phthalate-free 

Phthalates, which are plasticizers, have become standard as additives to scented products because they help fragrances last longer. But research has shown reasons to be concerned about the impact of phthalates on our health . Use this list to find phthalate-free products.

Some of the above 10 options refer to products that are specific to the USA, but there will be Australian alternatives.

Informing ourselves

The Bag It website also offers us a most comprehensive guide to a list of readings:

Plastic Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too
by Beth Terry

Paper or Plastic
by Dan Imhoff

Garbage Land
by Elizabeth Royte

Bottlemania
by Elizabeth Royte

The Story of Stuff
by Annie Leonard

The World is Blue
by Sylvia Earle

Cradle to Cradle/Rethinking the Way We Make Things
by William McDonough & Michael Braungart

Slow Death by Rubber Duck
by Rick Smith & Bruce Laurie

The Eye of the Albatross
by Carl Safina

Plastic Soup
by Jesse Goossens

Running the Numbers
by Chris Jordan

Get your own copy of the documentary

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Back and shoulders of Poseidon's torso in the British Museum

Pectorals and abdomen from Poseidon's torso in New Acropolis Museum

After the opening of the New Acropolis Museum Hitchens was adamant that the British Museum (BM) could no longer sustain their long standing objection to reunification, based on the old argument that there was nowhere in Athens to house the Parthenon Marbles. Of course the BM has developed a litany of arguments over the years.

The BM’s Board of Trustees now insist that:

It is often incorrectly reported that the British Museum argues that the sculptures in their collection should remain in London because there is nowhere to house them in Greece and that the Greek authorities cannot look after them. Now that the new museum is opening these arguments are redundant.

Neither of these claims is true, the British Museum does not argue this.

Stephen Fry has also been moved to take up the cause and, in his latest blog post, has published an excellent essay on the matter of reunification titled A Modest Proposal, in which he addresses some of the other arguments.

I’ve been meaning to write something further on this issue for a while now.  Christopher Hitchens’ passing, Stephen Fry’s article, and the fact that the school holidays have begun and I’ve time to think about more than teaching has motivated me to begin.

Arguments for all seasons

The BM has a well developed habit of presenting arguments for all seasons.  These are easy enough to find on the Museum’s website.  In recent years the Museum has been asserting that it should retain the Parthenon Marbles because in London they are best placed to show their contribution the world’s historical development, or at least that of the Western world. One expression of this argument, apparently no longer on the BM website, read:

They are displayed in purpose-built galleries seen every year by some six million visitors, free of charge. The Museum is committed to display and interpret its collections, communicating to a world audience and providing an international context where cultures can be experienced by all, and contrasted across time and place.

The Parthenon Marbles on display in the British Museum

As Stephen Fry points out, such arguments are somewhat self serving, but they are also only partial truths. While the British Museum might retain a free entry policy, the Marbles are widely merchandised, so too is the controversy surrounding them.  When I last looked at the BM’s website they had a copy of the horse’s head from Selene’s Chariot on sale for £1650, a copy of a Parthenon frieze fragment for £225 and then there are the books and finally the audio tours, all part of the merchandising of the Parthenon Marbles.

The price of the reproduction of Selene's horse has increased since I took this shot in 2009

Returning to the BM’s website while writing this post I found yet another iteration of the arguments. The site now claims that:

The British Museum exists to tell the story of cultural achievement throughout the world, from the dawn of human history over two million years ago until the present day. The Museum is a unique resource for the world: the breadth and depth of its collection allows a world public to re-examine cultural identities and explore the complex network of interconnected human cultures.

Within the context of this unparalleled collection, the Parthenon sculptures are an important representation of ancient Athenian civilisation. Each year millions of visitors, free of charge, admire the artistry of the sculptures and gain insights on how ancient Greece influenced- and was influenced by- the other civilisations that it encountered.

There was a time when the Museum offered the argument that its ‘acquisition’ of the Marbles was a product  of the 18th-century ‘Enlightenment’, whereby culture was seen to transcend national boundaries.

It’s easy to understand just how the museum board’s logic might work. The Marbles are a jewel in the British Museum’s collection, an acknowledgement historic importance of Hellenic culture, in particular the Parthenon, something so important that the Museum’s building reflects many of its architectural features.

The facade of the British Museum, Russell Square, London

An imperial taxonomy

The Marbles themselves form of part of an extensive collection of artefacts acquired in an era when Britannia’s sons embarked on European fact finding tours that were to richly transform the architecture of the imperial city, its provincial satellites and numerous urban centres in the colonies and dominions. Of course it wasn’t only Hellenic architectural forms that contributed to this transformation, even though they were seminal. Such early cultural tourism introduced ideas several other major European cultural centres.  So Britain’s imperial reach disseminated British interpretations of a range of European architectural forms to the furthest margins of the Empire.

Collections such as those of the British Museum are not merely an accumulation of European artefacts they are also the product of an assiduous gathering of materials from Empire. They are an extension of the process begun by Britannia’s sons in Europe, a selection of ideas and objects that appealed at the time. By it’s very nature the BM’s collection is suffused with an antiquated imperial logic. When the British Museum and the BBC offer us A History of the World in 100 Objects, they are offering us a collection of artefacts refracted through the lens of an imperial taxonomy. Sadly for the BM, there are huge numbers of people in the world that just don’t see things quite that way, observing the world and its history through lenses with an entirely different refractive index.

One of the great advantages of digital media is the ease with which one can cross reference stories.  This really came home to me this afternoon.  I was following up stories on the Murray Darling Basin from Google Alerts and came across a piece from Liz Hannan entitled Newsmaker: The Murray Darling Basin. It was a superficial but interesting piece on the river system.  It added little to the current discussion, but was an easy read after a hard day at work.

Top Environmental Articles

Glancing across to the lefthand column I noticed the heading Top Environmental Articles.  Leading the list was an article with the title Sydney’s coldest start to summer in 50 years, by James Robertson. The article was given additional gravity with links to satellite image, radar and Sydney weather statistics.  It was also supported by a video.

My immediate reaction was of course it’s a La Nina year and, with global warming such a significant feature of the planet’s weather and climate, rainy conditions are bound to occur in temperate eastern coastal regions like Sydney.  Any informed high school geography student should be able to recognise that such a headline is catchy but misleading. They should be able to explain that it’s been cool because it’s been wet this last 5 days or so.

Even so, I thought I’d better read the article to see what was being written.

The article led with these two paragraphs.

It’s shaping up to be the coldest start to summer in more than 50 years.

If forecasts prove accurate – and Sydney stays below 23 degrees until Wednesday – it will be the coldest first week of summer since 1960. It’s already the coldest in 44 years, Josh Fisher, a senior meteorologist at Weatherzone, said.

Well this will certainly stir the climate debate po, I thought. On the face of it, such a story could well amount to yet another layer in the sceptical arguments about self-serving scientists who, in pursuit of research grants, ply us with scientific arguments that planet is warming.  If it’s the coldest in 44 years then once again here’s potential evidence that those scientists have something to hide.

Now I’m not saying this was the writer’s intention but his lack of balance, by omission, was marked. Perhaps in saying this I seem to be pedantic, but as I said at the outset one of the great advantages of digital media is the ease with which one can cross reference stories.  A little basic research quickly shed more light on the story.

The BOMsite tells the complete story

Flicking over to the the Australian Bureau of Meteorology site, the BOMsite as I like to call it, quickly added another dimension to the matter.  I’ll quote the relevant comments from the BOMsite in full:

Sydney Observatory Hill recorded an average maximum temperature of 25.2 °C during November, 1.6 °C above the historical average, with above average temperatures throughout the city. Temperatures were particularly warm in the first half of the month, with five consecutive days above 28 °C at Observatory Hill between the 6th and 10th, the first time in November since 1966. Three days reached 30 °C during the month, above average for November (2 days), reaching 37.2 °C on the 14th. Temperatures cooled during a rainfall event towards the end of the month, with maximums of just 18.3 °C on the 23rd and 24th.

The average minimum temperature was 17.8 °C, 2.2 °C above the historical average and the 3rd warmest on record, following 2009 and 1914, and the second warmest on record at Sydney Airport. Nights were warmer than average throughout the city, particularly during the middle of the month, reaching 24.2 °C at Observatory Hill on the 10th. This was the equal 3rd warmest November day on record and the warmest since 24.8 °C on November 14 1967. Only four nights dipped below 15 °C during the month, reaching 13.8 °C on the 3rd, only the 8th time on record with no colder nights.

So what this boils down to is this.  November 2011 was characterised by:

• the wettest conditions since 2007
• the third warmest average minimum temperatures on record
• Equal third warmest night on record.
• Above average maximum temperatures.

I guess in one sense the SMH article was right, summer according to some begins on 1 December and it’s certainly been wet and cool since then.  Unfortunately, like so much of the media commentary on weather and climate the objective is to attract readers, sell advertising and, by default, tell only part of the story. It’s time the SMH improved the quality of its environmental journalism.

This past week I attended the premier of Pria Viswalingam’s latest documentary Decadence: Decline of the Western World. I wasn’t disappointed. Although I’m broadly familiar with Pria’s basic thesis on the decline of the western world and share most of his views, I was still surprised by this extraordinary treatment.

Pria explores and lays bare much that a thoughtful observer would undeniably find cause for concern about a system that has passed it peak achievements. His critique, while damming in parts, is not a demolition of the Western way of life, rather it’s a call for attention to an approach that is slowly losing it’s democratic base; becoming numbed by secularism; streaming its educational approaches conferring the best on a few; mismanaging its financial systems; generating alarming inequities in the distribution of income; and creating an impulsive commodified cultural response that leaves its citizens stranded in consummerism.

Making a feature film length documentary is a challenging and daring task and Pria has clearly succeeded. He brings us a powerful work that easily holds an audience for the entire duration. His brilliant writing and beautiful imagery are the keys. They held my attention even when I realised that I’d heard some of it before, in one or more of our many discussions over the years. For the converted such as me there was still much to learn. For a younger generation of Westerners I’m hoping that this will be a major wake-up call.

The pre-publicity succinctly captures the approach when it informs us that Decadence recalls what we now take for granted – values that made the West the world’s pre-eminent civilisation for more than 300 years. But throughout history all civilisations rise and fall. Many a pundit has predicted the West’s demise but now we appear to have the evidence. Decadence asks whether it realises what it’s losing. It may even be a call to arms . . .

Decadence opened at the Roseville Cinema on 1 December, and will open at the Nova Carlton Cinemas on 8 december. Check for times and DON’T MISS IT.

PANDORA, is Australia’s Web Archive, a growing collection of Australian online publications, established initially by the National Library of Australia in 1996, and now built in collaboration with nine other Australian libraries and cultural collecting organisations.

This is the text of a paper I wrote some years ago for the NSW Geography Teachers Association (NSWGTA) Conference. It comes with an accompanying PowerPoint presentation available at the NSWGTA website.

This paper was also published in the International Schools Journal, edited by Caroline Ellwood. Until recently I’ve had it flagged as a page on my blog. I’ve moving it here to make space for other pages.

I’m publishing it again here because a friend in Indonesia, Nita Noor, has asked me to give her a copy  This arose because of a link to the International crisis Group’s new report Indonesia: Nordin Top’s Support Base that Nita sent me.  Both Nita and I were volunteers in the aftermath of the 2002 bombings in Kuta Bali which resulted in more than 202 deaths.

Caroline Ellwood lost a son, Jonathon, in the bombing. Recently I was fortunate enough to meet this remarkably loving and generous woman in the UK, where she lives. I also had an opportunity to visit Jonathon’s grave, lying peacefully by his family church in Aldbury, UK.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

One October night in Bali

October nights in Bali can be most pleasant.  The cooler winds from the south east have begun to lose both their strength and their chilly edge as Australia warms up.  Temperatures in the evening can sit around 24°C with barely a breath of air, the humidity comfortably low.

The night of 12 October, 2002, was just such a night.  It was a night full of happy and enthusiastic conversation.

Two thunderous rumbles broke the conversation.  While thunder is common enough on this small island, with its dramatic relief, there was something unusual about this. Conversation paused, no one commented, then quite naturally we resumed our discussion.  It was an animated discourse on issues of environmental management around the margins of Bali’s large national park.

My day had been spent examining beach profiles along the island’s east coast so sleep was welcome that night.  I was a little sunburned but very optimistic about the future of field study activities in Bali and Indonesia.

My mobile phone rang at about 6.00am, it was my wife.  The news from Australia was the worst news I could imagine.  A bomb blast in Kuta, perhaps as many as 12 dead, unknown numbers of injured.

As our small group of volunteers set out from Ubud, later that morning, bound for Sanglah Hospital in Denpasar, the reality that lay ahead was far graver than any of us could imagine. Throughout the next four days many were asking “Why?”, but this was, for the time being, overshadowed by the imperative to deal with the consequences of this act of terror.  It consumed almost all of our energy.

Examining the impact of this event on Bali reveals two things most clearly. First, the economic impacts of terrorism are more acutely felt in the developing world.  Secondly, the response to terrorism in Bali reflected cultural values that differ from those of the of the developed secular world.

The nexus between Terrorism and Poverty

After the bombing of the World Trade Centre, James D Wolfenston, then President of the World bank commented that,

Careful research tells us that civil wars have often resulted not so much from ethnic diversity, the usual scapegoat, as from a mix of factors, of which, it must be recognized, poverty is a central ingredient. And conflict-ridden countries in turn become safe havens for terrorists.

Our common goal must be to eradicate poverty, to promote inclusion and social justice, to bring the marginalized into the mainstream of the global economy and society. [i]

This understanding of the spread of terrorism was echoed by Philippines President Gloria Arroyo when she said:

“It is evil that causes terrorism but the evil needs to spread its ideology as a mass base and the best breeding ground is poverty” [ii]

She went on the stress the importance of inclusion adding,

“Even as the terrorists seek to make this a religious war, we must seek to make it an occasion for understanding one another’s different cultures, we must have broader inter-faith dialogue and we are doing that institutionally in the Philippines” [iii]

In testimony before the US House International Relations Committee E. Anthony Wayne, former Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs said:

“. . . It is the Administration’s position that poverty, weak institutions, and corruption can make states vulnerable to terrorist networks. In many nations, poverty remains chronic and desperate. Half the world’s people still live on less than the equivalent of $2 a day. This divide between wealth and poverty, between opportunity and misery, is far more than a challenge to our compassion. Persistent poverty and oppression can spread despair across an entire nation, and they can turn nations of great potential into recruiting grounds for terrorists..”[iv]

For others the nexus between poverty and terrorism is not as clear cut.  Several studies quite correctly challenge simple causal associations between terrorism and poverty. [v] Robert Pape in his work Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism [vi] offers a scholarly analysis of the underlying causes of suicide terrorism. According to Pape:

“ what nearly all suicide attacks have in common is a secular strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists view as their homeland.  This has been a major – or central goal – of every suicide terrorist campaign from Lebanon to Israel to Chechnya to Sri lanka.  Religion is rarely the root of the cause, although it is often used as a recruiting tool in the service of the broader strategic objective.” [vii]

Pape argues that poverty is a poor explanation for suicide terrorism.  While he is no doubt correct in arguing against such a simple causal association, his work suffers in two respects.  First, he fails to recognise that poverty itself is a constellation of factors that lead to reduced opportunities and exclusion from power.  Secondly in relying on GNP per capita as his measure of poverty he uses far too simple an instrument, He apparently overlooks distribution of income in both a social and a spatial sense.  Nonetheless his fundamental contention that suicide terrorism is about expelling invaders from lands that are presumed to be occupied, whether by the USA, by Israel, by Singhalese, by Russians, by Indians and so forth, has merit.

Pape’s resarch allows us to see terrorism in a multi causal sense, in which poverty and exclusion are important contributors.

In poor areas the absence of educational infrastructure can provide an opening for extremist views.  In Pakistan, for example, extremist Madrassas, Islamic schools, gave birth to the Taliban; in poor parts of Java extreme views have been cultivated within some Pesantren. [viii]

While the antecedents of terrorism draw on a variety of ideological rationalizations, poverty and civil conflict play a major role in the development of the conditions necessary to foster and harbour terrorism.  Osama bin Laden was based in the Sudan and then in Afghanistan where social, political and economic disorder afforded him maximum freedom.

Facilitated by the process of globalisation terrorism can now assume a global reach.  Employing the energies and desperation of the poor it enlists the tools of globalisation such as:  rapid global transport; computerization; the internet; mobile phones, digital imaging; electronic funds transfer; and, the efficient global dissemination of information and expertise.

Targets and impacts of terrorism

It’s the developed world that’s most often the main target for terrorism, but the direct targets, often the so called ‘soft targets’, can be in the developing world.  Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippnes and Yemen have all sustained terrorist attacks since 2000.

The logic behind this trend in terrorism is exposed in terrorism risk models[ix] which assume that rational terrorists will tend to substitute lesser, softer targets for the harder more well defended targets.  This approach is succinctly explained by the CIA accordingly:

“as security is increased around government and military facilities, terrorists are seeking out softer targets that provide opportunities for mass casualties.”[x]

The World Trade Center (WTC) attack on 11 September, 2001, generated profound economic shock waves.  A direct attack on the developed world, it delayed global economic recovery but the economic effects were felt most acutely in the developing world.

In October 2001 the World Bank warned that the world’s poor would get poorer as economic growth in the developing world was retarded by the WTC bombing.  At the time Wolfensohn noted that while the immediate human toll of the bombing was obvious enough, there were serious implications for the developing world.  He said:

We estimate that tens of thousands more children will die worldwide and about 10 million more people are likely to be living below the poverty line of $1 a day because of the terrorist attacks [xi]

Such outcomes were attributed to depressed world trade, tourism and commodities prices as well as investors’ reduced appetite for risk.[xii] . James Wolfensohn also commented that:

We’ve seen the human toll the recent attacks wrought in the U.S. . . .But there is another human toll that is largely unseen and one that will be felt in all parts of the developing world, especially Africa. [xiii]

Within the developed world wealth permits a more diverse array of counter terrorism strategies.  In London measures were adopted in response to the IRA bombing campaign that began to transform the very functional heart of the city.  In general simple strategies range from removing garbage bins to establishing security precincts.   New engineering and architectural solutions also form a part of the developed world’s response. Surveillance and security have been stepped up particularly in air transport.  New statutory solutions, sometimes running counter to Common Law presumptions of innocent passage, are being enacted.  The responses are numerous and sometimes expensive.

Indonesian Impacts

Indonesia, particularly Bali, following the bombing of October 2002, demonstrates the differential impact of terrorism on the developing world.

The immediate impact of the bombings is well documented.  The most often quoted death toll is 202 people (figure 1) with a similar number injured.  Victims sustained severe burns, and other blast injuries.  Many who survived the initial blast died of their injuries soon after, others survived only to die sometimes weeks later. Sanglah Hospital was seriously overtaxed.  Fortunately Australia’s response was swift and highly effective evacuating casualties to Australia.  Such was the severity of the injuries, and so great were the numbers injured, that victims had to be distributed throughout the Australian hospital system.  They were transported to all states and territories except the ACT and Tasmania.

Apart from the immediate impact of the bombing, impacts were felt throughout Indonesia in all aspects of life: economic; social; educational; and, cultural.  Nowhere was the impact greater than on the island of Bali.

figure 1

Numbers of Indonesians killed

We will never know just how many Indonesians died in the blast and in subsequent months. The severity of the blast was such that simple methods of identification were impossible in many cases.  DNA analysis and forensic dentistry were only useful where it was possible to locate living relatives or dental records.  While this may be relatively easy in the developed world, it is a far from simple task in the developing world. Up to almost 12 months later bodies and body parts remained unidentified.

A commonly quoted figure is that 38 Indonesians were killed, at least 20 of these were Balinese. It’s hard to be certain.  There is a view amongst people who worked on the relief effort and the aid program that followed, myself included, that the number of Indonesians killed has been underestimated.  Without going into the grim details we do know that identification of the dead was a protracted and difficult exercise that depended on DNA matching, forensic dentistry and fingerprinting.  The success of these techniques is greated where records can be easily accessed and where the absence of peole is noted and recorded. We are certain that some Indonesians went home after the bombing and subsequetly died of their injuries.  It also seems possible that others from the informal sector such as beggars, street vendors and sex workers who may have been working in the area might not have been counted.

Impact on tourism in Indonesia and Bali

Before the bombing tourism contributed more than US$5 billion annually to Indonesia’s GDP, it was second only to Oil and gas exports as a foreign exchange earner.  In Bali domestic and international tourism was the province’s major foreign income earner.  Tourism provided 58,000 jobs and about 20% of the island’s population was directly dependent on the tourism sector. It contributed 60% to 70% of the value of Bali’s economy.  Tourism had been responsible for significant growth in household income.  It had stimulated substantial internal migration as workers from other provinces, particularly East Java and Lombok, sought work in Bali.

The globalisation of the Balinese economy through tourism can be seen in the percentage employment by sector.  Compared with Indonesia there are less people in agriculture and more people in manufacturing (clothing), construction, trade restaurants and hotels, financial services and public administration and services.

Table 1

Up to 1997 tourist arrivals in Bali were growing steadily at around 12 – 15 % per annum, from 34,147 in 1971 to 1,306,316 in 1997 (about 25% of all foreign arrivals in Indonesia) .  This growth faltered in the late 1990s beginning with the Asian Economic Crisis in 1997 then the political turmoil in Indonesia associated with the fall of the Suharto regime and the riots of 1998.  The impact of these events was so substantial that it can be clearly seen in figure 2 Visitor arrivals: Indonesia – 1990 to 2002.

figure 2 – Source: Indonesia Culture and Tourism [xv]

With the WTC bombing (9/11) growth slowed. National receipts from Tourism in 1999/00 grew by 22.1% but declined by 5.9% in 2000/01. [xvi] , despite this the impact of 9/11 had been largely overcome by May 2002.  At this time there were about 16% of Indonesians on or below the poverty line but in Bali, this was only 4%. [xvii]

Figure 3

Tourism demand slumped dramatically following the Bali bombing. In September 2002 direct international visitor arrivals to Bali stood at 150,747.  In November it dropped to 31,498 arrivals (figure 3).  There was a slight up turn in December 2003.  Unfortunately the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak took its toll on the years tourism figures. Indonesia’s Central Statistics Agency spokesperson Sudarti Surbakti observed recently that:

“The decline is a continued impact of various shocks occurring in late 2002 and early-to-mid 2003; Bali bombings, SARS outbreak and (fear of retaliation here over) the U.S.’s invasion of Iraq”. [xix]

Between October 2002 and May 2003 incomes in Bali declined by an average of 43%.[xx]
In Indonesia as a whole tourism revenues declined by less than 10%, from USD4.3 billion in 2002 to USD4 billion in 2003.

To gain a sense of the economic impact of the bombings on Bali it is first necessary to look at the administrative structures operating.

First, the Province of Bali is divided into 8 sub-provinces or Kabupaten. Tourism occurs within all Kabupaten but it tends to be concentrated in four, Karangasem, Ginyar, Badung and Buleleng.

Between October 2002 and May 2003 income in local government areas dependent on tourism fell by the following amounts:

A Summary of the Economic and Social impacts on Bali **

Table 2

Even though tourist arrivals have begun to increase, there is less tourism from Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Europe.  The Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean markets have been an important source of new tourist arrivals.  Anecdotally, it seems that there has been a shift away from smaller locally owned and operated tourist accommodation, and local tourism services, in many areas such as Kuta, Legian and Ubud.  There is also likely to have been a similar trend in all of the other 18 declared tourism development areas.  These changes are associated with a decline in the numbers of FITs (Free Independent Travellers) and a relative increase in package tourists.

In 2002, 71 percent of the poor in Bali depended on agriculture.  The impact of the bombing on the poor depends on the extent to which they provided services to tourism.  It is likely that the number of Balinese people now on or below the poverty line has increased..

Economic impacts on neighbouring provinces

In neighbouring Lombok, a poorer island than Bali but not as totally integrated with the tourism economy, those areas affected reported average income declines of around 50%. There was also a reduction in opportunities for the export of handicrafts. There were also reduced opportunities for migrant workers.

In East Java “ . . . there was little impact at the provincial level in macroeconomic terms, but impacts were more severe in certain villages and districts that have strong economic linkages to Bali including trade and migrant labor silver and wood industries in Pasuruan, granite and metal producers in Tulungagung, and wood and bamboo producers in Banyuwangi all experienced more than 50% reductions in turnover.”[xxi]

The Cultural Impact on Bali

There are many unique cultures in the developing world, all are losing some of their uniqueness in the face of globalisation.  Evidence of cultural integration and the homogenization of landscapes is widespread in the developing world, Bali is no exception.

Terrorism’s arrival in Bali is an aspect of processes of globalisation.  It has had an impact on Balinese culture but responses to it have also reflected the uniqueness of Balinese culture.

On the whole developed countries have well developed general and mental health facilities, this is not the case in Bali.  Also, while the secular nature of much culture in the developed world enables people to regard terrorism in a manner that is separate from their own individual actions, this is not necessarily the case in Bali.

Many Balinese people believed that the bombing was a form of divine retribution[xxii].  Such views are directly related to Balinese culture and religion.  The Balinese belief in karma pala, the law of cause and effect leads directly to an understanding of the bombing as divine retribution. Balinese psychiatrist, Dr Benny Thong, describes this belief in John Darling’s film The Healing of Bali[xxiii]:

“Balinese always try to be polite to guests.  They are the owners of this island and they did something wrong.  That’s why when you go out everywhere in Bali people say ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry’, because they haven’t been able to take care of the guests.

This is actually a sign of the gods.  You did something wrong.  Look for it and repair it.” [xxiv]

One common view expressed was that development on the island had been too fast and too uncoordinated.  This view suggests that the development had not been in accord with the doctrine of Tri Hita Karana. This is a Sanskrit, term meaning that the basis of human welfare and security comes only through humans having harmonious relationships with God, with fellow human beings and with the environment.

Again in Darling’s film the temple priest Mangku Sekenan, is very clear about this when he says:

“I think we were at fault in not having taken enough care of the natural environment, which is an insult to the gods.  The gods are angry.  They are no longer protecting us so we are more vulnerable to our enemies.” [xxv]

Another Balinese psychiatrist, Dr Luh Ketut Suryani, who was most active in grief counselling after the bombing was reported as welcoming the subsequent decline in mass tourism and its destructive foreign influences, including prostitution, pedophilia, drugs and gambling, as a chance for Bali to correct its direction.[xxvi]

Shortly after the bombing, on 26 October, 2002, a representative of Parum Samigita Kuta representing the banjar, village councils, of Kuta, Legian and Seminyak, made the following comments to a news conference.

“Please, we beg you, talk only of the good which can come of this. Talk of how we can reconcile our ‘apparent’ differences. Talk of how we can bring empathy and love into everybody’s lives.

The overwhelming scenes of love and compassion at Sanglah Hospital show us the way forward into the future. If we hate our brothers and sisters we are lost in Kali Yuga.”[xxvii]

In Balinese understanding The term kali yuga, refers to the Hindu notion of the present times. Also known as the “age of iron”; or an age of materialism and ignorance.  It is believed that at the end of the Kali Yuga, this world will be destroyed and cleansed, with a new era of peace and enlightenment beginning.

These sentiments are, this notion of valuing the good, emphasising love and compassion are consistent with the Balinese world view of seeking to balance out evil deeds with those inspired by love, overcoming adharma[xxviii] with dharma[xxix].

It is significant that there was no retribution exacted on Bali’s minority Muslim community.  This is not to say that it remained outside the realms of possibility but that highesdt Ba;linese ethics prevailed.

Russell Darnley OAM

[i] http://www1.worldbank.org/devoutreach/fall01/special.asp

[ii] From Demaria, A Arroyo links terrorism to poverty  -

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/10/29/phili.arroyo

October 29, 2001 Posted: 10:44 AM EST (1544 GMT)

[iii] ibid

[iv] 9/11 Commission Report Recommendations. E. Anthony Wayne, Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business AffairsTestimony before the House International Relations Committee Washington, DC August 19, 2004

http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/rm/35784.htm

[v] Mallaby, S Poverty causes terror? Either way, aid works The International Herald Tribune. Tuesday, May 21, 2002 http://www.iht.com/articles/58280.html

[vi] Pape, R. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Torrorism.Scribe Publications Pty Ltd. Carlton North, VIC. 2005. ppx.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Both terms Madrassa and Pesantren refer to Islamic schools, usually boarding schools, that have traditionally provided education for the poor.  Within Indonesia these institutions have provided a very valuable service to the rural poor and are not, in general, extremist organizations.

[ix] Risk Management Solutions – the RMSTM U.S.Terrorism Risk Model. http://www.rms.com/publications/terrorism_risk_modeling.pdf

[x] op cit.pp.6

[xi] BBC News Monday, 1 October, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1573858.stm

[xii] Source: Bloomberg New Report on statement by World Bank President James Wolfensohn http://www.detnews.com/2001/business/0110/02/c04-308069.htm

[xiii] ibid

[xiv] Bali Beyond the Tragedy – Impact and Challenges for Tourism-led Development in Indonesia. Conflict Prevention and Recovery Programmes, UNDP Indonesia. pp. i

http://www.undp.or.id/programme/conflict/documents/bali%20beyond%20the%20tragedy_en.pdf

[xv] http://www.budpar.go.id/statistik.html?catid=Visitor+Arrival&idstat=T-1

[xvi] Op cit. The Healing of Bali.

[xvii] Bali Beyond the Tragedy.  Op cit pp. 6. Source: National Socio-Economic Survey (SUSENAS) 2002 and BPS Regional Accounts.

[xviii] op cit pp. ii

[xix] http://www.budpar.go.id/news.html?id_news=0402040001

[xx] Bali Beyond the Tragedy.  Op cit pp. ii

[xxi] Bali Beyond the Tragedy.  Op cit pp. iii

[xxii] Radio National Breakfast. 23/10/2002
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/brkfast/stories/s708499.htm

[xxiii] The Healing of Bali.  Directed and Produced by John Darling.  50 mins. PG. Distributed by Ronin Films PO Box 1005 Civic Square ACT 2608.  http://www.roninfilms.com.au email: orders@roninfilms.com.au

[xxiv] Op cit. The Healing of Bali.

[xxv] Op cit. The Healing of Bali.

[xxvi] ibid

[xxvii] Now We Move Forward! – Sekarang Kita Maju! Address by Asana Viebeke L. Kuta Desa Adat. Parum Samigita.  In the authors personal collection of documents.  The term kali yuga, refers to the Hindu notion of the present times. Also known as the “age of iron”; or an age of materialism and ignorance.  It is believed that at the end of the Kali Yuga, this world will be destroyed and cleansed, with a new era of peace and enlightenment beginning.

[xxviii] Absence of righteousness and the presence of evil and irreligion

[xxix] righteous, good, positive, holy

Posting this I noticed that at least one link wasn’t loading.  It was written a few years ago so I would expect some links will point to urls that no longer exist.  If you’re having trouble sourcing things, please get in touch with me and I’ll try and up date the link(s).

Europolitics, the European Affairs daily reports today that the “ . . . European Investment Bank (EIB), the Ile-de-France and Paris transport companies (STIF and RATP) and entities of the French banking group BPCE (Caisse d’Epargne Île-de-France, Caisse d’Epargne Rhône Alpes, Crédit Foncier de France, Natixis and Ingepar) have just signed a €378 million leasing contract to finance the new Ile-de-France tramways (lines T3, T5, T6, T7 and T8).”

When I first read this I wondered just why so many trams were required in such a small area.  Then I realised that my understanding of French administrative districts was a little naïve. Île-de-France is really most of the Paris metropolitan area with a population of around 11.7 million people.

Ille de France Tram/Train lines

The deal involves providing 107 sets of tramway vehicles on a leasing contract for the tramway amounting to €378 over 33 years.  It’s actually quite a good deal amounting to about  €1 per person per year for 33 years.

Delving further into the matter I found that four tram lines are inservice carrying 370000 passengers over a total of 41.4 kilometres each day through a total of 71 stations. Then, I realised that the distinction between train and tram was a little rubbery to say the least. T4 for example is a train tram line, which I think means light rail.

Trams or Light Rail carriages, from the T4 line

This image is from wikipedia commons

 Bendigo tramways theft

Then there was the sad piece from the Bendigo Advertiser about the ransacking of 5 heritage trams and the stealing of fittings from them. Two of them No’s 5 and 7 built in 1913 and 1917 respectively has rare and original controller handlers removed.

Bendigo Tramways Manager Jos Duivenvoorden  is reported as saying that:

“The controller handles share the story of each of these trams and have travelled the tracks to Eaglehawk, Golden Square and Spring Gully, used by every person who has ever driven them.”  He went on to say that “As scrap metal the objects are worth very little but they hold significant heritage value and we are extremely disappointed that anyone would steal such a valuable pieces of Bendigo’s history.”

Since there’s a Bendigo Swap Meet this weekend Bendigo Tramways has urged those attending to remain vigilant of heritage objects on sale.

Finally there was this wonderful collection of aerial tramway shots.  I still remember my first ride on one of these it was Grenoble’s telepherique.

Telepherique de Grenoble Bastille

There was a lot of other material flagged by Google Alerts but this was the pick.  Even then it required additional Internet research to establish the full context.

In the past much of the work produced by students has been substantnially the product of recycled secondary source materials gleaned from text books or reference books in the school library.  This year things have changed, thanks to Trove we’ve been able to delve into the archives of the Sydney Gazette. Of course the records from the Sydney Gazette begin in 1803, after Pemulwuy’s death, but the style of the newspaper and its preoccupations, not to mention the interesting spelling and syntax, give students an opportunity to work with details from that time.  Unfortunately there’s scant mention of Pemulwuy.

The Vietnam War

Another topic that I’ve just finished teaching, with a class from Year 10, is the Vietnam War. Several of my students were of Vietnamese background, their families migrating to Australia as refugees after the war. I remember the Vietnam War very well and am greatly relieved that as someone who turned 20 at a time when the Australian Government was conscripting young Australians to bolster its force in Vietnam, I didn’t end up there.

Australia’s involvement in the war was a pitiful affair, for Australian life and culture, for our political process and most of all for the Vietnamese.  At the time I was saddened that our military forces, having equipped themselves so well in the war against Fascism at Tobruk, Milne Bay, the Owen Stanley Ranges and Balikpapan, were being used to further questionable political ends. Conservative politicians, out of some misguided misconstruction of potential threats to Australia and the decision to use the ‘Red Menace’ as an electoral tool, engineered an invitation to the war from the South Vietnamese government.   The overwhelming win by the Holt Liberal Country Party coalition in 1966 was a stunning propaganda victory for them.

Opposition to the war in Vietnam was characterised as unpatriotic. The coalition’s success was a testimony to their skill in capturing and transforming Australian’s sense of themselves and their role as a global citizens.  The balanced approach to foreign policy initiated by the Curtin and Chifley Labor governments, in which Australia took a leading role initiating solutions to conflict through the United Nations, was cast aside and replaced with Holt’s demeaning slogan “All the way with LBJ”.

So naturally it’s always with some interest that I teach this topic.  Today after the conversation with my friend I just happened to delve into Twitter and came across the “1:1 Educators Daily” for Sunday 23 October, published by Tami Brass.  Today’s edition has 37 new spotters.  Trawling the digital articles it was with particular pleasure that I came across this great example of student work, and the possibilities that digital tools afford in the teaching of history, cited in a Twitter post by Meredith Stewart.  In this case the history of the Draft in the USA.  The work consists of a short video program posted on Vimeo by a student Laura Amatruto who simply interviewed some of the teachers at her school, who’d lived through the era.  The result is a most effective oral history.

Vietnam Draft Documentary from Laura Amatruto on Vimeo.

She made two critical and obvious points.  First, education is a state matter and as a nation we would benefit from a national languages curriculum.  Secondly, she explained that the top results in studies of Chinese language in Australia go to those who already speak a Chinese language.  Non-Chinese background students are opting out of the system.  This in itself isn’t a major problem as we are still producing competent Chinese language speakers. There is however a failure to engage and retain students of non-native speaker background in continuing studies of Chinese.

Of course there are wider problems with the teaching of Asian languages in Australia.  We can gain some insight into the popularity of Asian languages by examining enrolments in higher education institutions.  Enrolments in Asian language programs conducted by Australian institutions of higher education have been studied in surveys initiated by the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA), since 2001.  In their latest report Asian Languages Enrolments in Australian Higher Education 2008-9 Report commissioned by the Asian Studies Association of Australia, author A/Prof Anne McLaren, from the University of Melbourne, emphasised that:

• New programs have opened up in Chinese, and enrolments are up by about a third since 2001 but most new learners are of Asian background.
• Numbers in Indonesian have fallen dramatically since the early 2000s and a number of providers have terminated progams in Indonesian.
• Japanese has seen a modest increase in enrolments since 2001 and continues to have by far the largest number of enrolments of any Asian language.
• Enrolments in Arabic have more than doubled since 2001 from a small base.
• Korean and Vietnamese enrolments have grown quite strongly since the early 2000s but are offered in very few institutions.

The demise of Indonesian Language
Australia’s connection with Indonesia stretches back to the dawn of human settlement in the region.  Trade between Nusantara and Aboriginal nations was well established before the colonial period.  To traders from the north the Kimberley was known as Kayu Jawa and Arnhemland as Marege. Denise Russell from the University of Wollongong has published a short but comprehensive account of these connections in her online paper Aboriginal–Makassan interactions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in northern Australia and contemporary sea rights claims.  She shows the extent of the trade with this useful map.

From Denise Russell's online paper at http://lryb.aiatsis.gov.au/PDFs/aasj04.1_%20makassan.pdf

Given this extensive history, the Indonesian language has long been of particular interest to me.  Over the period 1984 to 2002 I travelled there many times as a field study centre manager, tourism product developer, location manager for film and television, consultant to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, market researcher and tourist.  These visits took me to 14 provinces from remote parts of West Papua, Kalimantan and the Mentawai islands, to Diplomatic and Ministerial meetings in Jakarta.  After a break following the first Bali Bombings of October, 2002, I’ve resumed regular travel to Indonesia.  My most recent trip was in January 2011, as readers of this blog will already know.

While I was back in Sydney, working on other projects in 2004 it was with more than passing interest that I read Louise Williams’ article, “We must learn more of our neighbour“  published in the Sydney Morning Herald’s September 11-12 weekend edition. She was most thorough in exploring Indonesia’s broad importance to Australia.  She correctly observed that the collapse in high school Indonesian-language enrolments was flowing on to universities.  Her excellent article moved me to write a letter to the editor stressing that, “The result is a deteriorating capacity to produce graduates equipped with the skills needed to sustain an effective engagement with our neighbour.”

I argued that the Australian Government needed to be far more active in rekindling and fostering the tools and understanding necessary to engage with this complex emergent democracy. A renewed commitment to Indonesian-language education was needed and could prove to be one highly effective strategy in combating the forces of extremism that sought to challenge and destabilise democratic processes in this region.

What I had in mind was that fluency in a language helped ensure an informed and mature understanding of developments along the archipelago, rather than monochromatic responses, based on ignorance that filtered out the histories, archipelagic inter-connectedness, subtleties, complexities and essentially secular nature of our large neighbour.

Watching The Year of Living Dangerously again the other day, I was reminded just how far the world and Indonesia has come, since those Cold War inscribed days. Yet amongst many Australians I still encounter basic fears of Indonesia, a low level paranoia in which it’s no longer the Communists or the militarists in Indonesia that are to be feared, but rather Islamist extremists.  This lack of capacity to view our neighbour accurately, through contemporary lenses, can be observed across the bilateral relationship.

I’m not certain what the role of this sub current is in Australian society and politics but I suspect it plays a role in the declining popularity of Indonesian studies, despite the renewed popularity of Bali as a tourist destination.

According to the ASAA report Indonesian was taught in 18 institutions of higher education in 2009, two less than listed in the 2008 report. The report goes on to observe that a number of institutions have ceased teaching Indonesian since the 2000s (Sunshine Coast, Wollongong, Curtin) or have minimal enrolments (UWS). It notes a decline in Indonesian enrolments of 12% in equivalent full-time load (EFTSL) from 2001 to 2005 with this trend continuing into the most recent survey period.

Amongst the 24 responding institutions in 2009, there was a total decline in enrolments from 324 EFTSL in 2001 to 220 in 2009, a fall of 32%.

Table 5 from the ASAA report is striking

Comparison of Chinese, Indonesian & Japanese total enrolments in EFTSU for 2001 and 2009 in 24 Australian universities.

We must invest to latch into the Asian Century
In response in part to the Federal Government’s announcement that former Treasury Secretary, Ken Henry, is to coordinate the preparation of a white paper on “Australia in the Asian Century”, to be considered by full cabinet in early 2012, today’s Australian carries an excellent article by Bernard Lane. He skilfully traverses the present problem quoting from the University of Melbourne’s Asian law expert Tim Lindsey who explains that:

Engagement with Asia requires skills.  This would seem to be self-evident but doesn’t seem to be recognised in government policy or the community.

Lane goes on to cite a 2010 Asia Education Foundation report which warned that:

On Current trends, Indonesian could be virtually extinct in language studies at Year 12 level by 2020. 

The same report underscore the fact that Indonesian is at crisis point, with Year 12 enrolments halved since 2000 to just 1100 students nationally.

Lane maps out some of the approaches adopted towards Asian languages indicating that:

A 2007 election promise from Kevin Rudd, the $62.4 million National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program (2008-12) aimed to double to 12 per cent the group of Year 12 students emerging with Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian or Korean by 2020. A month before Mr Rudd was removed as prime minister last year, he launched Asia Education Foundation reports showing reverses in Asian literacy at school that experts said NALSSP alone could not remedy.

Unfortunately at the end of June 2012 NALSSP runs out and without a commitment to continued funding for Asian languages, momentum will again be lost. Lane quotes  executive director of the Asia Education Foundation Kathe Kirby who says:

The money keeps on peaking and troughing, so you’re just building up momentum and expertise . . . and then the money falls away again

Ms Kirby observes that the Henry review can only make crystal clear the challenges ahead of us if we are going to equip our young people with the capabilities for the Asian century.

Looking on the bright side
The awarding of a National Teaching Fellowship to Prof David Hill from Murdoch University, by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, is some cause for optimism. as a first step Prof Hill has comprehensively described the problem of declining Indonesian language capacity.  His, however, task is to develop a national strategic plan for the advancement of Indonesian language in Australian universities.

In a discussion paper that he presented in February this year he quotes Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, from an address to the Australian Parliament in 2010:

I know of no other Western country where Bahasa Indonesia is widely taught in the school curriculum. I know of no other Western country with more Indonesianists in your governments, universities and think tanks.

While this is high praise from the President, Prof Hill observes, in part also quoting Australian Indonesianist Prof Jamie Mackie, that. . . as the pioneering generation of Indonesianist scholars – so praised by President Yudhoyono — retires, it is becoming clear that we are “living on past capital, in an area where new blood is crucial”.

The project has compiled an extensive media dossier on the matter of Asian languages in Australia which can be accessed here.  With initiative like this underway there is some basis for optimism.

I think in all of this discussion the the long term challenge is one of consistent policy settings and funding continuity. In the end the responsibility must remain with the Federal Government.