Buried Secrets of the Balinese Coast

Beneath Bali’s image as a tranquil paradise lies a history that has never been fully confronted. In the 1960s, anti-communist purges killed tens of thousands on the island, a trauma later buried—sometimes literally—beneath hotels, resorts, and beach clubs as tourism became a strategy of forgetting. In this episode, we explore how economic development helped enforce a culture of silence, why survivors have lived for decades with fear and social amnesia, and what it means when human remains still surface during construction. The story exposes a stark tension between memory and marketing, asking how a place celebrated for peace learned to live atop unresolved violence.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/world/asia/bali-indonesia-communist-massacres.html