Lances greased with pork fat 2 2 In 1635 the ruler of Makassar ordered the king of Gélgél, the then effective ruler of Bali, to convert to Islam or face war. To which the Balinese answer was that they had an army of seventy thousand men ready and waiting ‘with lances greased with pork fat ’ (Wessels 1923: 438-39). In the event this measure did not prove necessary. A massive fleet of Muslim forces from different parts of Indonesia had gathered in South Sulawesi to launch a jihad against Bali. The concentration of troops was too good an opportunity for the Dutch East India Company to ignore and they attacked and effectively destroyed the invasion force before it could set off. Bali was saved so that it could enjoy its fate as an iconic tourist paradise. Thereafter Bali became part of the Republic of Indonesia when the latter declared Independence in 1948. And Balinese were among the active fighters for that independence. Economically, for years Bali has been the province with fastest rate of
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