Who did this to our Bali?
Dewi Anggraeni. Indra, 2003. isbn 1 920 78708 9, rrp $24.95
In the wake of October 12 2002, little has changed in my little corner. I get an extra going over by security at Canberra airport and the temporary white fence girding Parliament House remains. We were called urgently to ‘be alert, not alarmed’. In the wake of the bombing the cries from Bali differed greatly from those in Canberra. Anggraeni notes at the scene of the bombing, amid the flowers, a poem that reads:
‘…God are you angry with us?
We know we have been made a lot of mistakes (sic),
We know we are often misguided,
God please forgive us…’
Anggraeni’s book is largely one of perspective. Where Australia saw the bombing as an event of diplomatic and political significance, for the Balinese the incident became a focus for mourning and symbolic of some spiritual retribution. The significant contribution by the international community to assisting Bali is also put into perspective. Whilst Australia helped bring to justice the perpetrators, the AU$4000 granted to Endang Isanik, whose husband Aris was killed in the blast, won’t go far in a home with no income earner and three young children. The second half of the book tracks the investigation and incarceration of the bombers, and differs significantly from the initial accounts, if not from the title.
Nathan Kensey
A History of the Devil: From the Middle Ages to the Present
Robert Muchembled. Blackwell Publishing Asia, 2003. isbn 0 745 62816 8, rrp $27.95
A History of the Devil dissects the popular image of the devil in Western culture over the last thousand years. This is the devil revealed in jokes and tales, in literature and art, in judicial proceedings and medical instruction, and, more recently, in comic strips and advertising. Robert Muchembled, Professor of History at the University of Paris XIII, uses these entrails to argue for a transformation in the European image of the devil in the Middle Ages. The image changes from Old Nick, a trickster, to the cloven hoofed Lord of the Sabbath who rules over the torment of sinners in hell. This latter devil was a force in the ‘civilising’ of Europe. Since the Enlightenment, however, there has been a trend to internalise the devil. The devil has become synonymous with desires that sometimes rule human beings. This is not necessarily the death knell for the devil’s influence