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Indonesian porn ban threatens ethnic traditions
 Wearing nothing but feathers and a long, tapering gourd jutting from his groin, Papuan tribesman Suroba says the Indonesian government cannot force him to wear pants. Suroba, who estimates his age in his sixties, remembers the last time the government launched a campaign to eradicate the penis gourd, known here as a koteka, in the 1970s. It was a dismal failure. "Back then we were wearing our traditional clothes, like the koteka, and we're still wearing them now," he said. The latest threat to the koteka, and traditions like it, is a new anti-pornography law passed in October by mostly Muslim lawmakers in the capital Jakarta, 3,500 kilometers (2,000 miles) away. The law, which criminalizes all works and "bodily movements" deemed obscene and capable of violating public morality, was pushed through by Islamic parties despite stiff opposition and years of rancorous debate. Opponents of the law say its definition of pornography is too broad and could threaten local traditions, from nude temple carvings on Hindu-majority Bali island to tribal dances and phallic totems on Papua, a vast territory of untouched forests and mountains on the western end of New Guinea island. Thousands of people on Bali have protested, and activists and politicians from Indonesia's far-flung non-Muslim regions, such as mainly Christian and animist Papua, have begun murmuring of civil disobedience. Ancient traditions In Kurulu, the koteka is an old tradition. The village sits in the remote Baliem valley, a fertile bowl carved out of the mountains running down Papua's spine that had no contact with the outside world until after World War II. The 370-year-old smoke-blackened mummy of one ancestor, Wimintok Mabel, which squats in the grass-roofed hut where the village men sleep, wears nothing but the remnants of a headdress, a necklace and a shattered koteka. But traditions here are slowly giving ground to modernity. Children and younger adults already wear Western clothes, and Suroba conceded he sometimes wears pants on cold nights. But it's the suggestion that outsiders can force locals to abandon their culture that raises hackles. Posted by: Fred 2008-12-10 |
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