Beware, Bali. The white devil is among you and he means you no good. Do not mistake him for your average bule. He might not even be white. He ‘s just as likely to be from Jakarta or Singapore or China or Russia as he is America or Australia. But don’t be fooled. These are just disguises. The white devil never changes.
From its origins as a quaint surf destination in the 1970s, your island has been on a path of exponential growth. It’s reached tipping point in the last five years with scientists predicting an environmental catastrophe if development doesn’t slow down. But still it continues, spurred on most recently by the arrival of the wealthy global elite, the likes of Donald Trump, who is rumoured to be invested in the island’s latest big time development. In the west we have a name for these people. We invented them. They are the toxic byproduct of our broken system. We call them the one-percent, or in my case, the white devil. They represent one percent of the world’s population but control the vast majority of its wealth.
“In our democracy, 1% of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income … In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1% control 40% … [as a result] the top 1% have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99% live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1% eventually do learn. Too late,” wrote Joseph Stiglitz’s in the now famous Vanity Fair article, Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%
The white devil has come to take advantage of you, to deceive you with his false gods and promises. He will destroy your island. He already had his way with our world. We were not smart enough. We fell for his tricks, believed in his false gods and promises, and he took us for everything, fleeing in his private jet to who knows where. Now he has arrived in Bali.
The white devil is smart but the Balinese are smarter. Never was there a more observant race. You will find him out and when you do, don’t let go. Teach him a lesson. Teach him he is one of us. Teach him he is not a god amongst men. Teach him what it feels like to be human.
You will find him at the strange temples he builds, bigger than anything you could ever imagine. So big it will suck your little island dry, poisoning your ocean and rivers with its waste, destroying rice fields, destroying the subak. Scientists are predicting Bali will soon face a terminal clean water shortage. The pressure placed on the island’s fragile ecosystem by giant development projects and hotels is draining the island’s freshwater supply. More than half the island’s 400 rivers have already run dry and those that haven’t are clogged with the 11 000 cubic tonnes of waste that’s left uncollected on the streets of Bali each day. Property prices, meanwhile, continue to explode (they rose at the third highest rate in the world in 2013, equal with Dubai) and there’s no sign of development slowing down. When it’s all done you will look around and he will be gone. Nothing but the vapour of his private jet will remain. And it will be you who is left to pick up the pieces.
“I’ve never seen or heard of a place develop as fast as this,” says Jim Banks, the Australian-born Indonesian wave-hunter. Jim first arrived here in 1977, basing himself out of Bali as he launched search missions all around the archipelago. He was an early pioneer of Desert Point among dozens of waves around the archipelago and has spent the the last 30 years in Bali. He did leave for a brief period in the early nineties when the pace of development became too much for him, packing up his family and sailing for the Pacific in search of the new Bali. But he never found it and returned shortly after to open up a restaurant on the Bukit Peninsula as well as run the odd charter around the outer islands. The changes on Bali, while startling, are something he’s learned to accept. “These are the good old days. It’s only going to get worse. That’s what I keep telling myself and my friends. Enjoy it while you can because in ten years it ain’t gonna be like this,” he says.
Local surfing legend, Rizal Tanjung, has long been an advocate for the plight of Bali’s environment. “I don’t see anywhere in the world change like this. Maybe just Las Vegas and Bali can change this fast,” he says. Poor education, greedy developers and unscrupulous mega-corporations are eating his beloved island alive. “People just don’t know what kind of damage they are doing to just throw their trash on the ground or in the stream. And everything ends up in the ocean, like a big toilet bowl,” he says
What wealth is generated will be divvied up among a select few leaving you to squabble over the crumbs that fall from their table. This is the trick of his false god. He calls it rupiah and he will promise it to you but only he is allowed to worship it. No matter how much of it he gets, it’s never enough and he never feels better for having it. And so he collects and collects and collects. It’s all he knows, more and more, stealing, corrupting, manipulating, abusing. But there is only so much to go around. So his wealth guarantees your poverty, your struggle.
He needs to learn and you must teach him, Bali. When you find him, don’t let go. Teach him the value of life. Teach him the value of community. Teach him the value of spirituality. Teach him what it feels like to do something for the greater good. Teach him honesty, teach him humility, teach him art, music and culture. You are masters of it all.
Padang Padang Swell of Decade from Philipp Vasilev (Scotty) on Vimeo.
