Indonesia’s Bali Island Shuts Down for Hindu New Year

March 23, 2012


Denpasar. Shops were shuttered on Friday and many tourists stayed inside their hotels as the Indonesian holiday island of Bali closed down for a day to mark the Hindu new year.

More than 2,500 police dressed in traditional black-and-white batik sarongs guarded the island to ensure there was no activity in the streets on the day of reflection, known as Nyepi.

Bali’s international airport in Denpasar was also shut, with almost 300 flights cancelled over a 24-hour period.

Around 35,000 passengers normally fly into Denpasar each day, airport officials said.

Vehicles were not allowed on the streets, and TV and radio were cut off.

“Other than police, there is no one outside, nothing at all to do,” said Nyoman Sumaya, a receptionist at the beachfront Oberoi Hotel in the busy tourist district of Seminyak.

“We informed all our guests that they could not leave the hotel or even sit on the beach out front.”

Although Balinese Hindus make up only a small minority of Indonesia’s 240 million population, the vast majority of whom are Muslims, Nyepi is a public holiday across the archipelago. However, only Bali shuts down in this way.

The majority of Bali’s nearly 4 million population practice a local version of Hinduism, although there is also a small Muslim population on the island.

The holiday coincided with Islamic Friday prayers, which are typically projected through the streets over loudspeakers from mosques.

Police in the provincial capital Denpasar allowed the prayers to continue.

“But we call on worshippers performing Friday prayers to just attend the nearest mosque, so there is not too much activity in the streets,” said Bali police spokesman Hariadi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

On Thursday night, locals paraded effigies of demons known as ogoh-ogoh, before setting them alight to symbolise renewal and purification, but on Nyepi night, the island blacks out as lights must stay switched off.

Agence France-Presse


(as read in the JG)

Ik heb net een email uit Malang gekregen.
Daar zijn op vrijdag 23 maart de postkantoren gesloten vanwege Hari Raya Nyepi.
Dus niet alleen op Bali.

DK

On Day of Silence, Religious Tolerance Speaks Loud and Clear in Bali, Lombok


March 24, 2012,

Denpasar/Mataram. It was an unusual sight for anywhere in Indonesia: Muslim men arriving for Friday prayers in an atmosphere of complete silence, without the usual call to prayers blaring from the mosque loudspeakers.

But the fact that they were still allowed to go to mosque on a day when virtually all of predominantly Hindu Bali remained shuttered at home for the holy day of Nyepi was itself testament to the high degree of religious tolerance on the resort island, said Ketut Teneng, a spokesman for the provincial administration.

Although religious and administrative authorities are strict about people remaining at home during Nyepi, the Hindu Day of Silence, Teneng said Muslims were welcome to go to mosque, as long as they only walked there and did not turn on the mosques’ loudspeakers.

Some of the restrictions in place during the day include no lighting of fires or use of electrical appliances, no working or entertainment and no traveling.

“Two years ago Nyepi also fell on a Friday and we all got by fine,” Teneng said. “This just goes to show how tolerant Bali is.”

In keeping with the spirit of the day, the provincial chapter of the usually conservative Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) called on Muslims across Bali not to use mosque loudspeakers and to worship at home or at a musholla, or public prayer room, if there was no mosque within walking distance.

Friday noon prayers are mandatory for Muslim men and must be held in a mosque with at least 40 people present.

Cecep Subrata, who gave the Friday sermon at the musholla at the Aerowisata Sanur Beach Hotel to 23 worshipers, said he didn’t mind not going by the rules this one time.

“We support the MUI’s approval of holding the prayers in a musholla, because it’s better than not having Friday prayers at all,” said Cecep, who works at the hotel’s lobby shop.

On the neighboring resort island of Lombok, which is predominantly Muslim, people went about their activities as usual. However, there were several concessions made for the large Hindu minority in Mataram, the provincial capital, where roads in largely Hindu neighborhoods were closed off to vehicle traffic.

“During Nyepi every year the roads in this area are closed off out of respect for the Hindus there,” said Arif, a Muslim resident of the Cakranegara area.

Many stores across Mataram were also closed on Friday to allow Hindu workers to mark Nyepi, while food vendors turned off their jingles and music.

A day earlier, Lombok residents of all faiths turned out for the ritual parading of the ogoh-ogoh , giant papier-mache demons that are later burned to signify self-purification.

One hundred and twenty of the effigies were paraded around Mataram this year, down from 151 last year. Organizers attributed the decline to the increasing costs of making the ogoh-ogoh amid uncertainty about the upcoming subsidized fuel price hike.

While the ogoh-ogoh parade is a tradition brought over from Bali, Lombok Hindus also have their own pre-Nyepi celebration in the form of the perang api , or fire war.

This involves groups of youths throwing flaming balls of dried coconut husks at each other at sunset. Like the ogoh-ogoh, it is meant to signify self-purification through the medium of fire.


(also from the JG)