Why a Booktrail?
2000s: Life in Java among the rice fields and volcanoes. Then war comes…
A Shadow Falls: In the Heart of Java
What you need to know before your trail
Andrew Beatty lived with his family for two and a half years in a village in East Java. When he arrived, he was entranced by a strange and sensual way of life, an unusual tolerance of diversity. Mysticism, Islamic piety and animism coexisted peacefully; the ancient traditions of the shadow play, of spirit beliefs and were-tigers seemed set to endure. Java appeared a model for our strife-ridden world, a recipe for multiculturalism.
But a harsh and puritanical Islamism, fed by modern uncertainties, was driving young women to wear the veil and young men to renounce the old rituals. The mosque loudspeakers grew strident, cultural boundaries sharpened. As a wave of witch-killings shook the countryside, Beatty and his family began to feel like vulnerable outsiders.
Travel Guide
Travel BookTrail style to Java
Bayu – The small village they live in before all the trouble starts.
“Java 1992, close to Islam’s eastern frontier. A few islands along , the archipelago runs out and there is only one ocean, and beyond that, the West. Indonesia may have the world’s largest Muslim population (over 200 million), mosques dating from the fourteenth century, modern, Saudi-financed Islamic institutes, ancient Sufi lodges ad innumerable madrasahs, ye six centuries after he first conversions, distance from the Holy Land still couldn’t. Javanese soil retains its own scared character , its rich, feminized fertility, its reigning goddess”
It’s not just the geography but the state of mind, the religions, the belief systems, the history that really shines through. It might be a smallish island but it has a wide range of history,culture and more, It has stood at the centre of world changes for many years.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: A Shadow Falls: In the Heart of Java
Destination: Java Author/guide: Andrew Beatty Departure Time: 1990s
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