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Anger and sorrow filling the hearts of the Balinese

The sirens, screaming and chaos that immediately followed Saturday's three bomb blasts on Bali soon gave way to an uneasy quiet in many affected areas of the tourist island as people tried to make sense of what happened.

But in the subdistrict of Tuban, silence was broken by sounds of Balinese gamelan music at the first cremation ceremony for one of the 22 dead -- Gusti Ketut Sudana, 30, a waiter at the bombed restaurant in Kuta.

For his family and friends, the ceremony signaled the sending-off of Sudana's spirit to the next world and, for Hindu Balinese, the beginning of a new stage of cleansing and healing after the second terrorist attack on their island in three years.

"The ceremony is to cleanse the spirit," said Pande Pen, 70, a relative of the victim. "That is why we now all wear black. After this, we will sprinkle the dust into the sea, and then we will call back the spirit because it is already clean, and then we all wear white."

The Balinese Hindu cremation ceremony for Sudana, known as a Ngaben ceremony, will surely be followed by other ceremonies and rituals on the mostly Hindu island, as was done after the Oct. 12, 2002, blasts which left about 202 dead.

Peace rituals

While Sudana's family began the ceremony for their loved one, Hindu priests were already performing peace rituals at the site of the blast in Kuta to cleanse the area of evil spirits.

Balinese culture and traditions like these were credited with paving the way for a recovery of tourism on the island as well as a recovery of the Balinese people and a continuation of peaceful relations between the island's Hindus and Muslims after the 2002 attack, which was carried out by Islamic militants.

"Religions are ways, not destinations," said Pedande Made Gunung, a Hindu leader on Bali. "They are all my brothers."

But the anger expressed by some Balinese after Saturday's attack has caused some to fear that the peaceful transition away from tragedy after 2002 might not be the same this time around.

Mourners were dressed in black with brown scarves around their heads as they marched to Sudana's cremation site. All his relatives walked in front of his coffin, which was carried on the tops of the heads of about 30 men and draped in yellow because he wasn't married.

When they arrived at the pyre, women sat on the ground, gathered on one side, clutching hands under the scorching sun, and young men played gamelan on the other until the coffin was ready to be ignited.

But the peaceful ambience of the ceremony then changed to rage.

"I am very angry," Pande Pen said with tears in his eyes. "If I could, I would take justice into my own hands because I know that formal justice will take too long."

"If I could catch the perpetrators, those animals would be finished," he said.

Targeted

One reason is that some Balinese said they felt more targeted by the second attack. Fewer lives were lost, but most of the dead were Indonesians while the 2002 attack killed mostly foreigners.

A few went a step further and said it was an affront to their Hindu religion, citing the fact it came just before Wednesday's typically joyous festival of Galungan, which celebrates the victory of good or virtue over evil.

An anonymous text message reportedly circulated to cellphones on the island on Monday had encouraged Balinese to attack Muslims and destroy their homes.

"I can understand if some Balinese feel they were made as a target," Pedande Made Gunung said. "I will not get angry. I can't guarantee about other Balinese."

Al-Islam Hidayatullah is one of five Islamic boarding schools in Denpasar that felt some religious tension after the first attack. The school with 300 orphan students is located in the middle of a Hindu community.

"There were some suspicions on us after that bomb," said Abdullah Salim, 33, the head of Al-Islam Hidayatullah. "Our new teachers had to wait for about six months to get their local identification. It wasn't like that before."

Salim condemned the recent blasts, saying those at his school thought what the attackers did was horrible, but added that he feared more repercussions this time around.

"Bali lives from tourism. The attacks killed it, and that means our funds will be cut short, too," Salim said, adding that some of the school's money comes from Balinese Hindus.

"We all condemn this cruel act," he said. "None of us wanted this."

Pacifism

But not all Balinese expressed anger after the most recent attack, which also injured more than 100 people, and many still showed glimmers of the traditional Balinese pacifism, even amid the devastation.

"I am devastated, shocked and confused about his death," said Jero Sire Jampiran, Sudana's aunt, who stood by at the funeral with tears falling on her cheeks. "But I am not angry."
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