Surfing
Indonesia, A search for the world's most perfect waves has for several years
been a recurrent guidebook for large amounts of surf tourists in Indonesia.
This type of book (there are several different and new editions but still very
much the same kind of guide) have great influence over how ”surf” tourists look to their
surroundings while traveling. This particular book, Surfing Indonesia, certainly
contains a lot of generalizations about Indonesia. For example a woefully
superficially reflected text by Rusty Miller on surfers as the world's first
Eco Tourists:
Twenty-five years ago (or more than 300 full moons past) the Australian
cinematographer Albie Falzon filmed two surfers riding large, perfectly
breaking waves at a spot near the sacred Bali-Hindu temple known as Uluwatu.
This 1972 icon film,
”Morning of the Earth”, included images of surfing and Bali’s animated culture
that soon attracted many surfers to this magical island. During the next two
decades increasing numbers of waveriders visited Bali, opened its doors to
people back home, and introduced the island to the international world of
surfing.
The first surfers to visit Bali – and later other parts of Indonesia –
were among the world’s first eco-tourists, a unique group of travelers who came
to Bali in search of its most sought-after natural resource, namely
high-quality surfing waves.
These surfers also found, however, that they soon became involved in
ongoing interpersonal relationships that developed over the years in this rare
and unique part of Indonesia. No government program has yet surpassed this
group in building direct “people-to-people” communications, in fostering
cultural exchanges and personal friendships, and even in helping to develop
small businesses/ economic opportunities. The direct result of these
contrasting cultures opening up and learning to respect each other has served
for a long time as a great example of what people can do for each other and –
by living example and extension – world peace.
The text
continues, but the basis for why those surfers should be called Eco Tourists is
not present or clear at all. This is rather an example of unreflective
romanticizing that gets a bit dangerous when it by the context claims to be
informative. It does not require a particularly deep research in Bali and
Indonesia's surf tourism to find out that there are a lot of injustice relations. What Rusty Miller is correct about is the connection with the demand
and supply of natural resources. The natural resources are not in this case oil
or various precious metals, but instead waves. Reefs that generate those surfing
waves and its nearby coastal areas have become something very sought after. In
these areas there are ongoing battles (the global tourism industry) over
interpretive precedence and land.
