"Even the policemen wear flowers in their hair," I would say, as if that proved it.

In reality, though, it turns out Bali has had exactly as bloody³ and violent and oppressive a history as anywhere else on earth where human beings have ever lived. When the Javanese kings first immigrated⁴ here in the sixteenth century, they essentially⁵ established a feudal⁶ colony, with a strict caste system which--like all self-respecting caste systems--tended not to trouble itself with consideration for those at the bottom. The economy of early Bali was fueled by a lucrative⁷ slave trade (which not only preceded European participation⁸ in the international slave traffic by several centuries, but also outlived Europe's trafficking of human lives for a good long while). Internally, the island was constantly at war as rival kings staged attacks (complete with mass rape⁹ and murder) on their neighbors. Until the late nineteenth century, the Balinese had a reputation amongst traders and sailors for being vicious fighters. (The word amok, as in "running amok," is a Balinese word, describing a battle technique of suddenly going insanely wild against one's enemies in suicidal and bloody hand-to-hand combat; the Europeans were

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