I’m so sorry! On the ritual known as Halal Bihalal

Today I shook hands with or hugged 700 students and about forty adults, and told them all that I was sorry.

Granted, I didn’t do anything specifically cruel to any one of them, but I apologized in the event that I had. To tell the truth I know very little about this tradition except that it’s a Muslim one, and it happens every year following Ramadan and Idul Fitri (the week-long celebration at the end of Ramadan: food and presents, not entirely unlike Christmas). So at my school all the students formed intricate groups and rows, and depending on their grouping, walked past every faculty and staff member and issued reciprocal apologies.

The funny thing: this didn’t strike me as a particularly sad rite; I think I noticed two or three people tearing up, but I actually spent the whole time smiling, to the point that I had a sore jaw. Really, Halal Bihalal is a way to purge yourself of any sins or simply unkindnesses you’ve committed, whether deliberate or not, just by admitting your fallibility and giving others the power to absolve you. One teacher actually told me “I’m sorry, both physically and mentally.” It’s extremely humbling to become practically prostrate in front of 750 or so people and apologize, and it’s almost like a tonic for the spirit.

The longer I’m in Indonesia, the more I realize how much of Islam I respect and love. I really don’t think Westerners can grasp this unless they live in an Islamic society. There’s very little I find constraining about being a woman in Indonesia, although this probably has more to do with the fact that I’m an outsider. But really, men are respectful to me 90% of the time, I don’t feel particularly constrained by the “culturally-sensitive dress code,” and I have never once feared for my safety. Never once. And moreover, the vast majority of Muslim Indonesians are extremely moral, law-abiding, kind, generous, self-sacrificing people, not religious zealots plotting to do off with the next group of Westerners. Far from it. Christians plundered, raped, slaughtered, and forced conversions from countless tribal groups and non-Western societies, in Latin and South America, all over Africa and parts of the Middle East, and yet in America we seem to have forgotten this. Now only Muslims are the religious murderers. Think again.

I guess I feel the need to write this mildly caustic blog entry because I need to remind myself how my expectations of Indonesia and its reality have differed. I expected to spend the year always on edge, forever on the brink of committing some irrevocable clothing sin, facing constant sexual harassment, wondering if someone would decide they were going to follow me, kidnap me and hold me for ransom (hey, it happened in Aceh recently!). But it turns out I’ve had such a relaxing year so far that I now have completely clear skin, I seldom if ever have the stress tummy-aches that plagued me in America, and hell, I’m not even homesick. At least once a day I find myself shaking my head in amazement at the wonder that is Indonesia.