As reported in the Bali Discovery News, residents of Kuta’s 13 banjars decided to take matters into their own hands last week in regards to the ongoing problems that the area has been having with noise pollution, rowdiness and crime. After waiting for authorities to take action in reigning in local nightspots that often stay open all night and feature ear-splitting music and loud and obnoxious drunk locals and tourists wandering the streets, hundreds of residents forced nightspots staying open past the 2:00 a.m. closing time that residents have demanded to close. In response to these citizen actions, the Badung Tourism Office admitted that they have been remiss in enforcing a closing time on bars and clubs, but would do so in the near future.
While I no longer hang out in Kuta, I was down there on a Saturday night last year and found the scene rather amusing – I wouldn’t have found it so amusing, however, if I was living down there – with hundreds of drunken tourists and a few locals dancing in the streets, beers in hand and dressed as if they were on the beach. A far cry from the days when I would go down to Kuta with a few Balinese friends to see what the nightlife scene was like in Kuta. Back in those days, the streets were dead by 2 a.m. But obviously things have changed.
So, bad news for the drunks and partygoers, good news for local residents and hotel guests who would like to get some sleep at night.
The larger issue here though – one that has been on my mind for a while and gets a lot of play in the local press by Balinese cultural figures – is how far is Bali willing to go in accommodating itself to tourist development. Bali has become overly dependent on tourism for income and some Balinese authorities seem willing to let the overdevelopment of the southern tourist strip develop without any plans or restrictions in order to continue to rake in the cash. Opposed to this are an increasing number of Balinese who have serious concerns about what the unrestricted focus on tourism is doing to Balinese culture. It’s going to be interesting to see how all this plays out in the near future. While the fear that Balinese culture will crumble under the assault of foreign influence has been voiced since the 1930s, there are now close to 4 million residents (many from other islands in Indonesia) and another 2.5 million tourists co-existing on an island that can maybe comfortably accommodate half that number.
It is already clear that development here has gone far beyond what the infrastructure is capable of handling. Issues with electricity, traffic and water are the main problems in this area. Governor Pastika said the other day that trash, traffic and corruption are negatively affecting Bali’s image as a tourist haven. It might be better to consider how these problems are affecting the Balinese themselves. It seems that if the government won’t take serious action, the residents of Bali may just have to force the issue themselves.
