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This is the end
Tough guy: Two of his mates, yet to be selected, will be featured on plates in a mosque and school
Tough guy: Two of his mates, yet to be selected, will be featured on plates in a mosque and school.
They're on death row with no hope of reprieve. Appeals for clemency to the courts ' even the President ' will certainly fail.
Yet the condemned spend their final days on good terms with their friendly jailers. They live well though their situation is dire.
Apart from sexual frustration there's no sign of rebellion or despair. This is what happens when the tribe fails to record the past and cannot imagine the future.
If only one or two could read the signs and remember, then the captives would surely rebel, smash down their cells and dash screaming into the streets.
There will be screaming when they finally realize their betrayal on Tuesday. The hands that groomed will then whet bright steel on the sidewalk and then, with a brief prayer, slice open the throbbing throat over a gore-soaked pit.
The Feast of Idul Adha, which falls on Oct. 15 this year, remembers Ibrahim's (Abraham) test of faith when asked to sacrifice his son. It is a story shared by Muslims, Christians and Jews. In the more secular West, it's just a myth; but in Indonesia, God's substitution of a ram for Ishmael (Isaac) is re-enacted every year.
It's also big business, with the benevolent rich buying animals whose meat is given to the poor. In Sawojajar, Malang, East Java, a pop-up market has appeared to satisfy the trade. Mostly it's billy goats and young bulls. Rams are rare in East Java. Religion can be flexible.
Indonesians have a reputation for animal cruelty. Two years ago live cattle exports from Australia were suddenly stopped after a public outcry when scenes of gratuitous brutality in Indonesian abattoirs were telecast.
The Indonesian government retaliated by banning imports. Beef prices rocketed and consumers suffered; few understood that in the West those walking on four legs also have rights.
These include a humane death, and by Australian standards the Indonesian ritual is unacceptable, even when done with care.
The animals are conscious (not stunned by shooting or electrocution) when knife saws flesh and clearly feel dreadful pain. They smell the execution ground and hear the terror, primitive and raw.
Yet the killing ' in the yard of a nearby mosque ' is conducted calmly, swiftly and efficiently. In the slaughters witnessed by this writer there's been no bashing or goading.
Squeamish Westerners would throw up their gluten-free muesli at the sight, but the tougher Indonesian kids come from afar and a different tradition to see the public butchering, learning more about anatomy than a year of schoolroom biology lessons.
Goat trader Poniti reckons 2013 will be a sell out. Since starting her business in 1996 she's noticed that odd years deliver the most profit.
She also knows that smart operators open early to display their wares, so she was the first to set up shop in Sawojajar, picking the best spot ahead of her four rivals.
Poniti has 88 billygoats and one ram under canvas, each daubed with the buyer's number. She had already taken 15 orders when The Jakarta Post visited. Another 100 of the animals are at home waiting for their transmigration orders once new yards are set up.
Prices range from Rp 1.5 million (US$130) to Rp 3 million depending on the animal's size and condition.
'I like the goats and feel a little sorry they're being sold for slaughter,' Poniti said.'But that's business. It's cost me Rp 10 million just to bring them from Sumbermanjing, [a two hour drive west] to here, lease the land and build the pens.
'The location's good, right among the houses and near the main roads.'
With her husband, Pardi, 50, and relatives to keep the stock fed and watered, Poniti, 42, camps with the goats to deter thieves. The family eats and sleeps alongside the pens, and uses a nearby tributary of the Kwansan River as bath and toilet.
The traders have set up opposite a primary school, so the yards have become a little zoo where homeward kids linger to giggle and gape at the animal antics.
The government has shut down access to Internet porn, but it can't legislate against beastly behavior. Anyone claiming same-sex pairings don't exist in nature hasn't visited a goat yard. When they're not eating or sleeping the randy males are desperately trying to mate with each other. Stockmen double as a vice and virtue squad by keeping tethers short.
Visitors are given the evil eye ' it's no surprise the devil is often portrayed as a goat. And if the liquid lascivious stare and quivering nostrils don't repel the odor will.
None of this disturbs Poniti. For her it's all the sweet smell of money.
He doesn't know it yet, but the chocolate-coated billy in row one will soon be feeding children in a local orphanage. Two of his mates, yet to be selected, will feature on plates in a mosque and school.
The buyer, Suyono, retired Forestry Ministry official, 66, brought his two-year old grandson, Mohammad Anom, to inspect the offerings and learn about life.
'Sometimes I go to the villages to buy goats because they're cheaper and there's more selection,' Suyono said. 'But these people will deliver and I can select without going away from home.
'I'm looking for big animals that are well covered and brawny.'
While grandpop chatted, toddler Mohammad made friends with the only sheep on offer, more lamb than Rambo.
The little woollen fellow responded gently. The child found him safe to pat. It was a touching scene, literally and metaphorically. So a good moment to leave this story before it all turns to blood and tears. As it will.
Photos by Duncam Graham
