The Story of Musa

[A. G. Maisey]

The post below has absolutely nothing at all to do with keris.

I am posting it here because I feel that it may help some people who are not very familiar with the grassroots of Indonesian society to come to a better understanding of that society.

If you have no interest in gaining such an understanding, read no further.




His name was Musa.

He was left at the front door of a Pentecostal orphanage in a small town in West Bali. He was only a few days old when they found him, probably the child of a couple with more children than they could already support, or a single mother. There is no social security system in Indonesia, so what can you do if you cannot support your child?

The orphanage already had too many children to look after, so one more was one more too many. There was no room. One of the local ministers, a woman named Ketut took the baby home with her. She already had two daughters, and even though the family budget was constantly strained she knew that God would provide, so the baby went home with her, and they called him Musa.

Ketut and her husband Tino tried to raise Musa as their own child, but there was always a feeling in Musa that they were harder and more remote with him than they were with the two girls. This was a strict Pentecostal household, so religion was served up, along with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There was a lot of Old Testament righteousness, and self-righteousness, in Musa's upbringing. But he accepted this, and came to believe that this was the way in which life should be lived.

When Musa was 16 years old he learnt from a friend that he was not really the son of Ketut and Tino. This shook him, and turned his world upside down. He asked Ketut and Tino who his real parents were, and they had no answer. He had been left at the orphanage, and nobody knew who his real mother and father were. Musa now realised why it was that he was treated differently to his sisters. He felt that he was unwelcome in the house of the people whom he had believed were his parents, so he ran away to stay at a friend's house.

Tino went looking for him, and brought him home. But it wasn't long before he ran away again. He found he could no longer accept the constant preaching combined with the feeling of discrimination that he felt.

Tino went looking for him a second time, brought him home a second time, and the frequency and intensity of the preaching increased.

Musa left home a third time, and this time he became involved with some of the louts and layabouts of the town. It wasn't long before he was seen drunk, and his name was associated with some minor thefts. Nothing was proven, the police were never involved, but still, he was no longer regarded as a good boy. Because of his anti-social behavior he was expelled from his technical college only a couple of months before his final examination. This was a pity, as in spite of his troubled history, Musa was not a bad student.

Tino eventually caught up with Musa, and brought him home a third time. He was given penance in the form of more prayers and an increased work load, but there was no softening of Tino and Ketut's attitude towards him, rather they became more harsh, and he was told that if he left home again he would be disowned and need no longer consider himself to be their son.

Well, Musa didn't last very long in this even more harsh situation, and once again he ran away.

True to their word, Tino and Ketut removed him from their lives and denied his existence.

Years passed and Musa continued to live with various of his friends, he continued to associate with the only people who would accept him on equal terms, the village louts, he continued to exist from day to day on what he could scrounge, beg, borrow or steal. To his credit, he did try to find a job, but what jobs are there in a small town for somebody with a bad reputation and no qualifications? He had no money to try his luck in Den Pasar. He was stuck where he was. No home. No job. No prospects for the future. No hope.

Gradually he came to a realisation of his situation. He knew that the only way forward was to go backwards. He was no longer a teenage boy lost in an emotional storm, he was young man who knew that if he didn't turn things around pretty quickly he would not survive. He had never been involved in any really criminal activity, petty thefts of food or enough money to buy food were the worst things he had ever done. The police were not interested in him. The various levels of town administration were not interested in him. He was just one of the blemishes on God's perfection that must be accepted in the interests of a balanced world.

So Musa returned to his home and asked his parents if they could forgive him his errors, and once again allow him to be a part of the family. He promised to follow their direction in all things, to do whatever they asked of him, if only they would accept him back into the family. Tino and Ketut rejected him, and told him that he had had his chance, that there would be no more chances.

Musa walked away with his rejection, and approached a neighbour of his parents. He explained his situation, and the neighbour, who had known Musa since he was a child gave him a place to sleep, and food to eat.

Musa approached his parents two more times, finally begging to be accepted back into the family.

These good Pentecostal church people were firm in their rejection of him and told him that he must make his own way with no assistance from them, and that they could no longer consider him their son.

For some days after this Musa returned every day to sit in front of his former home, looking inside and waiting for Tino and Ketut, his parents, to soften their attitude just a little and at least speak with him. They resolutely ignored him.

Last Sunday Musa sat in front of his parents home for three hours.

Tino and Ketut came and went on Church business and social business. They did not even nod in Musa's direction. It was as if they had never heard the parable of the Prodigal Son.

That evening Musa returned to the home of the neighbour who had given him shelter. He wrote letters to his friends and to his parents.

Then he drank a bottle of rat poison.

He was 23 years old.

That was the short sad life of Musa, an orphan from West Bali.

But this story does not end here. Musa's parents who rejected him in life, would not accept his body after he had died. It required the combined pressure of all levels of the local administration, the police force, and the church to force them to accept the body of Musa and give him burial. Finally they bowed to the pressure, accepted Musa's body and buried him. But they insisted that the burial take place after ten o'clock at night.

This is a story that is repeated in many forms and in many places.

It is a story that is never heard by the tourists in Sanur and Legian. It is a story that would go unknown and unnoticed by the businessmen in their Mercedes Benz' on the way to the ferry at Gilimanuk. It is a story that would not even rate a two paragraph mention in the local newspaper.

But it is a story that those of us who think we might like to understand the culture of Indonesia should know, and take note of. Not everything in Indonesia, not everything in Bali, the Island of the Gods, is quite as it may be presented in the travel books and tourist brochures.

This is a true story. I heard it yesterday, and since I heard it I have not stopped grieving for the poor lost boy who was Musa. Perhaps some of you who read this might like to offer a prayer for Musa to your God.