Prayers to cleanse bomb site
2005-10-03 21:57
Jimbaran - Nuns, Muslim clerics and Buddhist leaders joined Hindu Balinese on Monday in a beachside ceremony to ritually cleanse the tourist district, which was shattered by weekend bombings.
Holidaymakers in bikinis strolled past along the shoreline as some 300 people took part in the colourful Hindu prayer rite, designed to remove any lingering fears and sadness and asked for future blessings.
Three Hindu high priests led the prayers, sitting cross-legged on a mat spread on the sand of Muhaya beach in Jimbaran, where packed restaurants were targeted by suicide bombers.
Nearby a yellow police ribbon flapped in the breeze, marking the section of beach where tragedy struck on Saturday night, claiming 19 lives along with the third attack further along the coast in Kuta.
Prayer to cleanse the place
A 15-member Balinese traditional brass orchestra provided a musical background to the prayers.
The serene sound of mantra recitals, interspersed with the rings of ritual bells, competed with the drone of airplanes landing or taking off from the nearby Ngurah Rai international airport and the slapping of incoming waves.
Made Lodra, the secretary of the local Banjar, the customary Balinese society unit, said: "This is a prayer to cleanse the place. We want to heal the sadness in this place, the sadness of the people.
"We also want to normalise the place so that the people can return to this place again, we are asking the gods to remove the anxiety and sadness among the people."
Multi-denominational congregation
A bamboo platform, where various offerings, fruits, cakes and flowers were laid out, separated the priests from the multi-denominational congregation.
Most were clad in sarongs, but there were also half a dozen Catholic nuns dressed in their grey and white habits.
One of those present, Sister Rosalia, said: "We came here to pray for the dead and we are also praying that the sick and injured will recover fast."
The nun said she hoped that the perpetrators of the attacks would repent and change their ways, and called on them to "please stop that".
Rizani Idsa Karnanda, the head of the Muslim faction of Bali's Inter-Religion Communication Forum, was also in the congregation.
Commercial quarter of Kuta
Karnanda said: "We are praying here, together with our brothers and sisters."
A similar ceremony had already been held near the third blast site in a busy commercial quarter of Kuta - a few kilometres north of Jimbaran. Bali was predominantly Hindu.
Despite mounting anger here for the latest attacks by suspected Islamic extremists, where once again most of the dead were locals, Muslims said they had not felt any anger directed at them.
Hasan Ali, the head of the Bali chapter of the Indonesian Council of Ulema, said: "We have been monitoring reaction closely and so far, we have no report of animosity or hostility towards our community."