Meulaboh residents on Ujung Karang beach. While the provinvial government welcomes tourism, townspeople want tourists to conform to local laws and values.-- The Straits Times, Singapore
Meulaboh, one of the hardest hit areas in Aceh, wants to encourage tourism — but not just your typical beach tourism.
MEULABOH’S recovery from the 2004 tsunami has seen its economy improve, young people flock to its university and now, resort-owners come a-knocking.
After all, the drive from Banda Aceh to Meulaboh, with long stretches of undisturbed white sandy beaches, is scenic. Investors are lured by its tourism potential but residents have resisted.
“We do not want this town to be transformed into the next Bali, with tourists in skimpy clothing, because we still want to uphold our Syariah law,” says Ridhwan Syah, a hotel manager whose hotel reports any unmarried couples to the Syariah police.
District chief Alaidinsyah says he has been in serious talks with at least two investors keen on building beach resorts. “Opening resorts is an attractive option to raise Meulaboh’s economy and we are open to it,” he says. “But how do we socialise tourists to respect the dress codes and norms?”
That is the challenge the port town now faces as its recovery heightens the desire to open up to tourism, while at the same time, to preserve its cultural and religious traditions.
Parts of Syariah law are strictly practiced here as part of a special autonomy granted Aceh in a 2005 peace deal that ended a three-decade long bloody conflict that killed 30,000.
It allows a special unit of the Syariah police known as the Wilayatul Hisbah to conduct frequent raids on acts deemed criminal under Syariah law, such as unmarried couples seen in close proximity and women wearing tight pants or without a headscarf.
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