Introduction

The perception of Bali is influenced by numerousethnographic accounts that provide descriptions ofthis island and its population as peaceful,harmonious and apolitical. Among the most prominentof these accounts are Gregor Krause's 1920 narrativeof the local farmer who continued to plough hisfields while Balinese royalty were being eradicatedby colonial troops and ritual suicide (puputan), and – even moreinfluential – Gregory Bateson's equilibrium theory(1949) according to which transformations in Baliwere accepted only when they allow the localpopulation to maintain their traditional way oflife. The perception of Bali as a culture whereevery kind of social and political change isdismissed or balanced before it is able to endanger‘the last paradise’ retains its vitality up to thepresent day.

This one-dimensional perception of the Balinese culturewas challenged in particular by two scholars andtheir respective publications: Australiananthropologist Adrian Vickers’ Bali: A Paradise Created (1989) andCornellbased historian Geoffrey Robinson's The Dark Side of Paradise(1995). They made it clear that the image of Bali asa harmonious and peaceful culture is due to thesuppression of particular historical events. In thiscontext, both scholars refer explicitly to themassacres that followed the military coup on 30September 1965.

According to historical investigations, these massacresstarted in West Java and spread all over theIndonesian Republic, with the toll being among thehighest in Bali. It is estimated that between 80,000and 100,000 people – roughly five per cent of theisland's population – were killed (Vickers 1989: 285and Robinson 1995: 1). Nonetheless, these massacresdid not prevent a growing number of tourists fromflocking to the island. Against this background,Vickers concludes that these events were not able tothreaten the social perception of Bali as ‘IslandEden’ (Vickers 1989: 3), while Robinson goes evenfurther by adding that ‘the massacres of 1965-66produced no appreciable impact on academic discourseabout Bali’ (1995: 8).