Yule Love Saturnalia

Welcome to the Golden Age, or at least the celebration of it, called Saturnalia.  According to Roman myth, and the much older traditions on which it was based, Saturn ruled over a period when humans lived in eternal bliss, food literally dripped off the trees and things were generally pretty darned good.

From the viewpoint of the Northern Hemisphere, the Sun reaches its lowest point in the southern sky and on 21 December.  At this point, winter begins and the Sun appears to "die" for three days, as it ceases to move in any direction north or south relative to the horizon.

On 25 December, the Sun is "reborn," as it begins its months-long trip northward again, culminating in the Summer Solstice on 21 July.  As the Sun "dies," the original King of the Gods - Saturn - once again takes control of the Heavens and for a brief time, the Golden Age returns.

Saturnalia was marked by the suspension of social norms.  Wild parties ensued, with people exchanging gifts, slaves being treated like house guests, and lavish feasts that sought to recreate the Golden Age of plenty.  People disguised as Cronus/Saturn, with great white beards, would tote sacks of gifts around, tossing goodies to random children as a good luck token, since any one of the children could be the young New Year in disguise.  Special lamps were lit all night to provide the light that the dying Sun could not.

As the Roman empires spread into northern Europe, aspects of the Germanic winter festival, called Yuletide, were added to Saturnalia.  Evergreen trees symbolizing Eternal Life were cut down and set up in public areas, decorated with candles and glittery glass objects to catch and reflect the light.  Groups of people would wander around singing traditional Yule songs.  Special Yule logs coated with cobalt, copper and other minerals were tossed on bonfires to add multi-colored flames to the festivities.  Feasts eventually centered around roasted boar, a favorite of the Germanic people.

The festivities ended on 25 December, with the birth of the Sun.  The 12 days of feasting and partying gave way to the somber reality of winter, as they retreated indoors for the next three months, until the resurrection of life in the spring.

Saturnalia would then give way to the Feast of Janus, the two-faced god of thresholds, who stood on the dividing line between inner and outer, past and future.  Old man Cronus would surrender to the infant Sun, now slowly rising again in the sky.  Darkness and death would eventually become light and life once again.

The festival was so wildly popular that the emperor Constantine could not stop it in favor of his new christian religion.  Instead, the birth of the Sun became the birth of the Son.  The plethora of Roman and Germanic gods were replaced with a single deity and a Christian veneer was cast over the proceedings.

Vestiges remained and proved hard to squelch.  Old man Cronus became Santa Claus, Yule songs were replaced with Christmas carols and the evergreen trees - symbols of Eternal Life - took on more symbolic roles.  The festival proved so popular and enduring that two thousand years later it has become a global event marked with gift-giving and sparkly decorations, and even here in the tropics and in the Southern Hemisphere, the imagery of snow cannot be extricated from the celebration.

The next time someone tells you that Christmas is a sober holiday celebrating the birth of the Son, you can say with certainty that it is actually synonymous with wild parties and extravagant feasts, and that the New Year celebration is the one that is supposed to be a sullen and somber reflection on the passing of time, things lost and things to come.

In the meantime, I'll have another mug of eggnog, hold the egg, and would you mind carving off another chunk of roast boar for me?

Clearing The Air

It's 2:30 in the morning and the bone-head idiots who think they are doing a public service by marching through the neighborhood beating drums to wake everyone up for the big meal before fasting begins at dawn are doing their level best to make me lose my cool.

I am all for folks having their religions.  I have no problem with it.  But there are some Islamic traditions that predate alarm clocks and cell phones with programmable alerts that just annoy the stuffing out of us non-Muslims.

Take for instance the very old tradition of calling the prayer time from the minarets.  It was great up until electricity became widely available.  Here in Indonesia, the mosques use public address systems that are invariably turned to 11 on a scale of 10, and the cantors have no idea how to use a microphone.  Consequently, they place the mic practically inside their mouths and the result is horribly distorted sound.  Add to that the fact that many of the cantors are quite old and their singing voices (to use the term loosely) have long since gone the way of fingernails on chalkboards.

As if all of this isn't enough, each mosque in Jakarta does its own thing on its own time, so they all start at different times and add their own flourishes.  Multiply this by the fact that the mosques number about one for every 20 houses, and you have complete cacophony at ear-bleed amplification with voices slightly more harmonious than rutting bullfrogs.

Lest you think I have no right to criticize, then I point out that drum corps at 2:30am, followed shortly by every mosque for miles around starting the morning prayers, and I believe I have every right to answer.  Indeed, the inharmonious intrusion on my private space gives me cache to complain.

Most Westerners who have not had direct experience with large Islamic populations most likely have a Hollywood image of the calls to prayer: a lone figure silhouetted against the setting sun chanting with perfect pitch and clarity using his native voice.

The reality in most Islamic countries now is a centralized system of recordings that are broadcast simultaneously through the mosques.  However, in Indonesia, the reality is usually an elderly man with a poor voice using an ill-tuned PA system to belt out the calls at torturous volumes.  What's more, each competes with the dozens of others in any given area in completely mistimed and malpitched jumbles of sound.

It would be far more pleasing and far less intrusive if Indonesia, or at least Jakarta, adopted a more sensible system.  There is no reason why the mosques have to be so loud, or that they can't be wired to a centralized system using a voice that is melodious and soothing.

Given that one passes at least two mosques in a 100-yard dash, one need not fear that someone won't hear the call.  So turn down the speakers just a tad.  Also, most Muslims that I know now have cell phones programmed to give the call at the appropriate times using recorded voices of superior quality.  Furthermore, every TeeVee station in town broadcasts the evening call to prayer.  Why can't the entire city simply carry that recording in synchronized broadcasts?  And if each mosque insists on using its own cantor, is the PA system really necessary.  The aforementioned plethora of mosques across the city ensure that any human anywhere in town can hear at least one cantor at any given time without the use of speakers.

It is now 4:30am on Saturday morning and I can hear distinctly four separate mosques all doing different chants at the same time, each having begun at a slightly different time than the others.

To make the final point, it is bad enough that this din be broadcast via PA across the surrounding neighborhoods, but to stand directly in front of one of the mosques while this is going on is literally painful.  One has to yell to be heard by someone standing right next to them.  Is this really necessary?  Does this invite prayerfulness and contemplation?  Rather, I think it is frightening to young children and small animals, as well as doing everything possible to negate a contemplative mood.

I have no problem with Islam or its traditions.  When properly done, the calls to prayer are pleasing and inspiring.  They induce the appropriate mood and setting for prayer, even among those who do not follow the religion.  However, as it is currently practiced, it repulses and annoys.  It drives one away from peacefulness and calm to the point of distraction.

It's time to rethink the current system.  There is no need to do away with tradition, simply realize that there are enough mosques to ensure everyone hears without the need for a PA system.  Also, a centralized system broadcast in synch with a professional voice would seem to be a win-win situation for all concerned.

I can hear the usual hue and cry.  "This is an Islamic country," they always say.  I beg to differ.  The Indonesian constitution gives equal weight to four religions, of which Islam is only one.  A few slight concessions on everyone's part would lead to greater harmony on many different levels.  (Use headphones to listen to the recording and get the full effect)

Certainly, if your goal is to propagate the faith, it stands to reason that you don't want to frighten and annoy the prospects from the get-go.

And as for the over-zealous men with their drums at 2:30am, stow it.  This is a fine example of brass horns for beggars.  The devout who are fasting are fully motivated to use their alarms to wake up for the morning meal.  The rest of us prefer to sleep before a long day at the office or, more importantly, our day of rest.  Your calamitous revelry serves no purpose than to give excuse to be asinine.  I'm quite sure that the practice was necessary in the 15th century before electricity and wind-up clocks, but it is little more than an excuse for otherwise insignificant people to draw attention to themselves.  It is not religious fervor that compels you, but insecurity.

In short, raising Hell does not praise God.

Buah Si Malang Kama

There is a concept in Indonesian called "buah si malah kala." In English, it literally translates as "the fruit of the opposite outcome." The English equivalent is "damned if you do and damned if you don't." Another equivalent is "stuck between a rock and a hard place."

So, what could possibly inspire me to talk about buah si malah kala?

How about the French ban on burqas and full-face scarves?

Let's start with what the buah si malah kala is. According to legend, there is a fruit that is forbidden (sound familiar?). If you pick the fruit, you must eat it, or your mother dies. If you don't eat it, your father dies. Talk about a conundrum. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Many people, in the West, argue that the whole face-scarf thing is completely foreign to the culture, not to mention that it hides potential terrorists from face-scanning technology. It must be banned in order to protect the public order and to ensure the safety of all citizens. Also, it represents a threat to Western culture from invading Muslim traditions, and we can't have that, can we?

To all of that, I call, "Bullshit."

I was raised in pre-Vatican II Catholic tradition, which required all women to cover their heads with a veil on Sunday. If you do a Google search on "catholic women wear veils," you will find a long list of muslim-related articles. If you do a Google search for "photos, bathing suits of the early 1900s," it gets all of two results, of which neither has anything to do with the topic. Looks to me like someone is systemactically trying to erase the past. It was not uncommon for women to wear veils in America in the 1960s, and photos of turn-of-the-century bathing suits should return thousands of sites.

Maybe we in the West don't want to remember that we weren't all that different just short time ago.

In dozens of cultures throughout the world, women's hair is considered erotic. Lord knows I find it very arousing. Men wear short hair because long hair is a sign of subservience. Someone can grab your hair and make you do something. Ergo, men like women to have long hair. Ergo, women wear veils to cover long hair so that they do not seave anyone but the people they expose their hair to.

When you think about it, a veil is empowering to a woman. It takes away the power of strangers to make her subservient. But feminist idiots see it as a form of slavery. I know both from my life as a catholic and from talking to women in Indonesia that the complete opposite is true. Many women here wear a "jilbab." Search for that on Google and it brings back over one hundred hits. The interesting thing is that men here don't make women wear jilbab, the women make the women wear them. They are covering their vulnerability, not submitting to male power.

In the same way, the women here wear full-body swimsuits that, quite frankly, are far more alluring than the real thing. Face it guys, air-brushed Playboy is much better than the saggy, wrinkly, blotchy, mole-covered reality. In the same way, the skin-tight Lycra from ankle to wrist to hoodie leave much more to the imagination than any Brazillian postage stamp ever would. It's all in the mind, in the end.

Here in Indonesia, many women wear the jilbab, but there are many more traditional women, known as ninjas, who wear the black, amorphous dress with the full head and face covered. My guess is that it gives the men bragging rights. After all, if you can't see his wife, he can say anything about her and it's true. Once she drops the veil, though, there's no mystery left. In other words, under the veil, every man married a 10.

So, what does this all come down to?

Simple. Let the women dress however they want to. In the West until 40 years ago, it wasn't much different, no matter how hard they are trying to cover that up now. The whole argument is specious. They want to claim that only terrorists cover their faces. Bullshit. It that is true, then why do US DEA, BATF and police cover their faces? Are they terrorists? I'll let you answer that question. But, while you are pondering that, the original definition of the word 'terrorism' meant abuse of government power, not individuals fighting it.

Every day, I get on an ojek (motorcyle taxi), and put on a helmet and mask to keep out the dirt and pollution. They sell them here on the street corner for a dollar. At home, I'd be arrested for trying to hide my face from scanning technology. Here, I'm just one of many trying to maintain respiratory health. Whose right? Me, of course.

governments are always afraid of what they can't see. Everything is a threat to their survival and propagation. Governements thrive on sucking the life out of their subjects and keeping the masses afraid of some boogyman that drives the masses home to Big Brother's bosom.

Gimme jilbabs and burqas. I prefer the mystery and the Eternal Dance.

And screw the overpaid, blood-sucking bastards. I'm tired of their charade. They are the terrorists, not the woman wearing a burqa. Cave-dwellers with cell phones and box cutters are not the problem. Para-military police with machine guns and licenses to kill are the problem. They can wear a mask and we all applaud. What is wrong with this picture?