Go Now!

And now complete with cinema verite pics... About Last Night (Friday).

Entertaining friends at home with curried prawn, barbecued chicken, (thanks, Murni) beer and tea... ending hell week with a first small but satisfying placement test for prospective students... music, laughter, a bad $2 movie with rather loud surround sound, especially with the distant air raid occupying a prominent spot high up on the decibel range at midnight.

But wait… volume dipped for a quiet scene and that distant air raid continued. A friend jumped to the window as if recognizing the footfalls of an unwanted guest coming up the steps, or perhaps, given the hour, like Cinderella knowing she’d missed her coach and it had already turned into a pumpkin. The guests all groaned.

It’s Ramadan, see. Midnight on a Friday, which made it national intimidating semi-violent parade day in neighborhoods with multiple nightspots. Out my window a river of SUVs moving down my street like an occupying army.



On the runners and back bumpers an infantry of immaculately white robed young men (peer through the tree).



Flanking the vehicles and filling the sidewalks a trotting foot cavalry of identically dressed vigilantes. On my side of the glass the exclamations of my guests (mostly Christian) revealed both fear and embarrassment. "Why do they do that?" "Those crazies." "I can’t go home now." "A taxi won’t come now."

With this description and the grainy pics snatched with flash while trying to keep a low profile on my fourth floor balcony, free associating with the KKK and cowering slave and former slave family minorities in recent US history is a piece of cake.



Come to think of it, I guess this police-supported (not to be confused with -controlled) operation explains why I saw a group of a couple hundred male worshipers on their mats in the middle of the street yesterday. Friday is the day only men visit mosques. It was packs of men "encouraging" everyone still in restaurants and cafes at midnight last night to go home. It also reminded me of the view from my tenth-floor balcony in Poland in February, 1989 when the police broke up a massive protest at the nearby technical college before it had even begun.

While if I’d been down there on the ground it would have felt seriously freaky, women in particular were fearful, and all were angry with the small mob. I don’t recall any real shoving, but given all the professions of peace about the religion, the intimidation tactics used could only be described as psychological violence. The mass parked itself at my intersection, and sent waves of white down the T-crossing street for fifteen minutes, before starting up again. They had done their job: the streets were dark when they left. As the police cars with their flashing lights passed my complex, signaling an end to my experience, they left behind them a small stationary force of non-white clad young men.



This is apparently a regular occurrence at this time of year, and felt a little like the accounts of far-right anti-abortion intimidation outside clinics in the US sound in US papers. I want to make it clear I don’t think anyone was at risk, despite the aura of menace about the whole thing. I was myself perfectly safe throughout, as my complex like all others is gated, locked, and staffed with several security guards, and I was up on the 4th floor. My guests were reacting to this scene in the end as if they were being kept inside by particularly nasty mosquitoes.

Given all this and the current bit of culture shock, I think I’m going to take Rio’s advice. The city goes completely dead and no one works or takes classes the week after Ramadan… so he told me to go to Bali, the one non-Muslim spot in the country, where the restaurants and resorts will all be open, and no Muslims will be there. Good dream for now.