Chinese Lion Dance Banned in Indonesia's Aceh

Banda Aceh. Religious officials in Aceh have sparked yet another controversy, this time banning the barongsai , or traditional Chinese lion dance, from a cultural performance as part of commemorations leading up to the fifth anniversary of the 2004 tsunami that devastated the province.

The move is seen as a slap in the face to hundreds of Acehnese Buddhists of ethnic Chinese descent who had wanted to include the dance in their official remembrance ceremony on Sunday.

Yuswar, a member of the Buddhist commemoration committee, said plans to have nine barongsai groups from North Sumatra perform around Banda Aceh as part of events to mark the Dec. 26 disaster had to be canceled.

“ Barongsai has no religious elements. It’s just a cultural show,” he said, though he added that Chinese-Indonesians believed the dance had the power to calm the restless spirits of their relatives who died in the disaster.

Yuswar said the committee had obtained permits from the city’s mayor and police chief, but was rejected three times by the Aceh Religious Affairs Office.

“They argued that conditions in Aceh did not allow [ barongsai performances] yet,” Yuswar said. “But we weren’t told what they meant by ‘conditions.’ ”

A Rahman TB, head of the Religious Affairs Office, claimed the permit was not granted because the dance had never been performed in the province before and the Acehnese needed an introduction first.

“If the people don’t like it, what then?” he said. “It is for the sake of interfaith relations, between people of that religion and others. We can’t let Aceh be ruined, or sow seeds of conflict.”

Barongsai in Indonesia dates back to the 17th century, but the late dictator Suharto banned it and other Chinese cultural expressions in the wake of the 1965 coup attempt, allegedly led by Indonesian communists.

Former President Abdurrahman Wahid lifted the ban in 2000, allowing the barongsai to be performed publicly for the first time in decades.

Nasaruddin Umar, director general for Islamic religious guidance at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, said officials in Aceh should never have banned the performance, which he viewed as cultural, and promised to question those responsible.

Aceh has been embarrassed by a series of negative headlines this year, including a bylaw that allows stoning as capital punishment for adultery, a local ordinance banning tight-fitting clothes for women in one district and claims by a local cleric that the province’s representative to the Miss Indonesia beauty pageant had brought shame upon it.