The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Getting strident over Nazi-themed cafe in Bandung Posted: 20 Jul 2013 06:03 PM PDT From a painting hung high on a blood-red wall, Adolf Hitler peers down on young students eating schnitzel and slurping German beer in Indonesia's Nazi-themed cafe. The SoldatenKaffee ("The Soldiers' Cafe") opened its doors in the western Javanese city of Bandung in 2011, named after the popular hangout for soldiers in Germany and occupied Paris during World War II. Eerier than the gas mask canisters and battle flags bearing swastikas is the more than two years' silence that has followed the cafe's grand launch. When the cafe opened no one voiced offence at the waiters and guests dressed as Nazi soldiers -- the Holocaust is weak on the radar in Indonesia, home to the world's biggest Muslim population, where the Jewish community numbers a mere 20 people. But a recent report about SoldatenKaffee in the English-language Jakarta Globe newspaper triggered angry responses online and prompted Bandung deputy mayor Ayi Vivananda to summon the owner for a meeting. "We need to ask him first in detail what his real intentions are. But what is clear is that Bandung city will not allow anyone here inciting racial hatred," he said on Thursday. The cafe's creator and owner, Henry Mulyana, said he did not intend to bring back memories of the Holocaust but was not surprised to be branded a "bad guy". "I don't idolise Hitler, I simply adore the soldiers' paraphernalia," Mulyana, a Christian who likes playing with air rifles, told AFP at the cafe. His collection is on display for diners and includes a water canteen, bayonet, goggles and a lantern, most of them bought online. "The ones with swastikas on them are worth more," he said. The restaurant had only ever received positive press before the recent exposure in English-language media and receives a regular stream of customers. "We're living in Indonesia and Indonesians weren't tortured in the Holocaust, so we don't really care," said mining company employee Arya Setya, eating a plate of spaghetti at the cafe with his girlfriend. But now that news of the cafe's existence has reached a wider audience, it has sparked outrage among Jewish communities in other parts of the world. "The Simon Wiesenthal Center is reaching out to senior Indonesian diplomats to express on behalf of our 400,000 members and victims of the Nazi Holocaust our outrage and disgust," Rabbi Abraham Cooper, from the Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights group, told AFP by email. "We expect that all appropriate measures will be taken to close down this business celebrating a genocidal ideology that at its core denigrates people of colour and all non-Aryans," he wrote. Under Indonesian law, anyone who deliberately shows hatred towards others based on race or ethnicity can be jailed for up to five years. But such vilification usually goes unchecked, with hardline Muslim groups carrying out violent attacks on religious minorities with near impunity in recent years. Mulyana said that his cafe has also attracted Western guests, including Germans, with one photographed on its Facebook page wearing a red swastika T-shirt along with several Indonesians in the same clothes. He revealed he plans to set up an even bigger cafe on the resort island of Bali, which attracts throngs of foreign tourists each year. "I'll certainly display Hitler's image, as well as Winston Churchill's, and paraphernalia from American and Japanese soldiers from World War II," he said. His cafe could not contrast more deeply with attitudes in Europe, where several countries have criminalised the promotion of Nazi ideology and the denial of the Holocaust. While Mulyana does not deny the Holocaust happened, he said making the tragedy taboo was hypocritical. "If we want to speak up about humanity, why don't they stop wars in this world now, like in Afghanistan? War always claims so many lives," he said. However, when contacted by AFP on Saturday Mulyana said he had decided to close down the cafe temporarily, refusing to give further details. Indonesia, where 90 percent of the population of 240 million identify themselves as Muslim, does not recognise Judaism among its six official religions. The country has no diplomatic relations with Israel and vocally advocates for the state of Palestine, although it has quietly engaged in economic and military ties. Today just one synagogue exists in the country, in the city of Manado. A century-old synagogue in the city of Surabaya was shut down by extremists protesting against the 2008-9 war in Gaza. Other Indonesians in Manado are believed to have Jewish roots, some hiding their heritage for safety fears. A lack of sensitivity towards the Holocaust has also been shown in other parts of Asia. Thailand's prestigious Chulalongkorn University was forced to apologise on Monday after its students created a mural depicting Hitler among comic book superheroes during graduation celebrations. And in 2006, an Indian restaurateur outraged the country's small Jewish community by opening "Hitler's Cross". He was forced to change the name days later. Historian Asvi Warman Adam from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences blames Indonesia's education system and schools for a lack of awareness about the Holocaust and world wars. "We don't hear a lot of criticism against the Nazis and fascism in Indonesia," Adam said. "Hitler's book 'Mein Kampf' is banned in many countries, but it's freely distributed here. It's translated into Indonesian and is quite often sold out," he said. He said the school curriculum was focused on national history and trying to legitimise Indonesia's 32-year Suharto dictatorship, which saw the slaughter of at least 500,000 communists, Chinese and alleged sympathisers. Islamic hardliners, who are the most vocal when it comes to blasphemy against Islam, are unlikely to make any noise about the cafe, Adam said. "But if a Jewish-themed cafe opened, they would most likely stage a protest," he said. – AFP, July 21, 2013. - AFP |
| Posted: 19 Jul 2013 08:41 PM PDT It is probably the last thing you would expect to come across in the capital of the Islamic republic of Iran: a polo club, more commonly associated with the aristocracy. Nestling in the foothills of the Alborz mountains on the southeastern edge of heavily polluted Tehran, the Qasr-e Firouze Chowgan Club is surrounded by greenery and shielded from view by a military camp. Qasr-e Firouze is Farsi for the Turquoise Palace and chowgan means polo - a game the Iranians say originated in Persia more than two millennia ago. To back the claim, they point to drawings dating from the time of Darius I (522-486 BC) in which a horseman is depicted holding a long mallet in one hand. Today, more than three decades after the Islamic revolution toppled the shah, polo is still played in Iran. On one sunny and clear day, ambassadors, wealthy amateurs and officials rubbed shoulders in a crowd of around 500 people who watched four teams play in a charity tournament to raise funds for a diabetes association. "We organise matches and tournaments almost every week," the deputy head of the national Iranian Polo Federation, Mohammad Ali Bigham, told AFP. The polo enthusiast and player boasted that his federation has 150 accredited members, both men and women -- despite the strict Islamic dress code imposed on the women. Tradition says that the game was exported from ancient Persia first to Constantinople or modern-day Istanbul, before later drifting east to the plains of Afghanistan and then to Tibet where chowgan became known as "pulu". And the rest is history. Chowgan-pulu spread to India where it was adopted by the Raj and the British drew up a new set of rules for the game they simply called polo. Abbas the Great For Iranians, the historic central city of Isfahan is the cradle of modern-day polo. During the 16th century, the Safavid shah Abbas the Great, famed for the architectural marvels built in Isfahan, ordered the construction of a huge polo field in Naqsh-e Jahan Square in the city centre so he could watch players from a terrace in his palace. Over the centuries polo in Iran was a game reserved for the military elite, royal court officials and the aristocracy. After the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the shah, the game was banned. But it was rehabilitated in the 1990s, and a national polo federation soon saw the light of day. The rebirth of polo in Iran was largely due to a countrywide growth in a sense of "Iranian identity" along with the support it received from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who encourages all sports deemed to have Iranian roots. "In the Islamic republic, it is better not to say that polo is the sport of the nobility. The authorities encourage the game because it was born in Iran," said one polo enthusiast, who asked not to be identified. A large poster of Khamenei towers over the field at the polo club, bearing a clear message that urges Iranians to engage in "sports that are homegrown such as polo which is Iranian". But third-generation polo player Amir Ali Zolfaghari, 39, says "the game is not yet accessible to everyone". "Like for horseback riding, you need money to buy and maintain a horse, and to purchase the equipment," said Zolfaghari, whose father and grandfather also played polo. But he notes that the federation has been very active. "The federation is doing everything it can to attract young people. It provides horses and equipment for beginners," Zolfaghari said. "We have managed to set up four or five clubs in order to improve the standing of the national team, and I hope that in four or five years we will reach a good level," and attract more players, he said. – AFP, July 20, 2013. |
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