the long way round

Actor Ewen McGreggor and his less famous actor friend Charley Boorman rode their motorcycles around the world two years ago and filmed it. They rode from London through Europe into Russia, Mongolia, Kazakstan, and Siberia. They flew across the Bering Straits into Anchorage and rode from there through Canada and the US until they reached Manhattan. They filmed it and it aired on cable last year, few saw it. I am recomending it as a rental, for no other reason than it is interesting, and more importantly, because the apprehension they feel about this undertaking, the anxiety, the excitement, the fear, the loneliness, the sense of mission all reflect what's going on inside my head these days. As I watched it, it struck chord after chord. In Mongolia, they ate local cuisine (sheep and cow testacles). Everywhere they were helped by kind locals who were as curious about them as they were about the peoples and lands they were encountering. Is this what lies ahead? I hope so.

As I read Indonesia's history, I am struck by the sheer number of foreigners who have travelled to these islands, by the cosmopolitan history of the port cities. What did it take, what kind of person boarded a ship and sailed across the world to work in a land with a climate unfamiliar, and disease for which they received no immunization? The desperate and adventurous, I suppose. Who goes these days? The privileged mostly, but those of the privileged who must feel a need for something more in their lives--I am projecting.

There were three strains of Indonesian nationalism in the early twentieth century: Islamic, Marxist, and National Unity (i.e. nationalism for it's own sake). The Islamic anti-colonialists desiried a land that was part of a pan Islamic movement/world. The Marxists were by definition, internationalists. Those who wanted a united Indonesia above all else won out, led by Sukarno who advocated a unity between all three groups, but said that Marxism and Islam must be subordinate to liberartion and unity. That's where modern Indonesia began. That's the aim of it's strong central government. The Marxists are mostly gone now, or at least silent. The Islamist elements work on the fringe, or so it would seem, but they have support. I'll understand all of this better someday, and I'll write about it then.

Oh yes, soon this blog will contain pictures. Won't that be lovely?