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Porn bill potential threat to tourism
The much debated pornography bill may hurt Bali's tourism if it is passed, posing the risk of possible violent conflicts while a degradation of Balinese culture further reduces the island's attractiveness, experts said Monday
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The much debated pornography bill may hurt Bali's tourism if it is passed, posing the risk of possible violent conflicts while a degradation of Balinese culture further reduces the island's attractiveness, experts said Monday.
The bill, currently in draft form at the House of Representatives, defines pornography as acts that incite sexual desire.
Experts see this as contentious, because the island's revealing women's traditional dress, as well as its tolerance for tourists to dress in bikinis, could be viewed as pornographic according to the bill.
"The island's tourism will clearly suffer should the House pass the bill," Ngurah Wijaya, head of the Bali Tourism Board, told The Jakarta Post.
He said the board, an independent private organization comprising nine tourism organizations on the island, was not as concerned with potential commercial losses as with the possible cultural degradation stemming from the bill.
"This country has hundreds of cultural values. It would be boring to equalize all these culture under a single definition," Wijaya said.
Gede Nurjaya, head of the Bali Tourism Agency, said the passing of the bill would put Bali's tourism industry under threat of a possible violent conflict.
He said a recent demonstration against the bill at the Regional Representatives Council office in Denpasar signaled a significant resistance toward the bill.
He expressed concern there would be clashes with parties having vested interests in the passing of the bill.
Nurjaya's concern is not without merit.
In 2006, when the bill was first proposed, a hard-line Islamic group called the Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI) issued a legal summons to then governor Made Dewa Beratha, a vocal opponent of the bill, following the latter's threat to secede from Indonesia if the bill was passed.
The meeting never took place but in a series of interviews after the summons, MMI official Fauzan Al Anshori made the remark, "How about if we just blow it all up?" in reference to the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings that killed more than 230 people, most of whom were foreigners.
Nurjaya said the island's tourism industry would suffer immensely if a violent conflict took place.
"In that case, I really don't know what we can do," he said.
Proponents of the bill claim the draft does not aim to regulate culture or dress codes, but simply to define pornography in pursuance of a more "civilized" country.
Bagus Sudibya, a tourism expert, acknowledged the moral stance behind the bill's inception, but warned against hidden agendas in the process to pass it into law.
He said these included politicians attempting to curry favor with conservatives by supporting the bill, or Islamic fundamentalists attempting to push the country closer to adopting sharia laws.
Bagus said the bill should focus on defining explicit pornography designed to arouse sexual desire or exploit women, and not condemn artwork depicting nudity.
"Many of Bali's trademark attractions are in close connection with its arts, which occasionally depicts women in the nude," he said.
"I don't agree with shows that explicitly try to arouse sexual desire, but the government must really be careful in differentiating those from the arts," he said.
