Jakarta, Oct 14 (Antara) - The Sumatran province of Bengkulu is celebrating the arrival of the Islamic New Year 1437 Hegira on the first day of the Islamic month of Muharram on Wednesday with a ten day religious ritual and cultural festival.
Bengkulu governor Junaidi Hamsyah, who opened the annual Tabot Festival 2015 on Tuesday night, said he expected it to attract more tourists, including foreign visitors, to the province.
"The Tabot festival has become a tradition and an identity symbol of Bengkulu province," the governor said.
The festival, starting from Wednesday, 1st Muharram or the first month of the Islamic calendar, will last for ten days. It has a strong religious nuance, linked to the murder of a grandchild of Prophet Muhammad in the Karbala desert in Iraq.
The infamous tragedy of Karbala is remembered by all Muslims on the tenth day of the Islamic month of Muharram as the saddest day in the history of Islam.
The Karbala massacre is notoriously known for being one of the darkest and saddest days in Islamic history.
On the tenth day of the sacred Islamic month of Muharram, in the year 61 A.H., approximately 50 years after the death of Prophet Muhammad, his grandson Imam Hussein was martyred along with all the members of his family, including women and children.
Nowadays, the tragedy is annually observed in Bengkulu with what is called 'Tabot Festival.' It is a traditional ceremony of the Bengkulu community to commemorate the heroic history and the demise of Hussein bin Ali bin Abi Thalib during the battle in Karbala desert against the forces of Ubaidillah bin Zaid on the tenth of Muharram 61 Hegira (681 A.H.).
The festival was first held in Bengkulu to observe this tragic episode in history by Syekh Burhanuddin, who was known as Imam Senggolo, in 1685. Seikh Burhanuddin or Imam Senggolo was married to a daughter of a Bengkulu family. Their children, grand children and descendants, who are known as the Tabot Family, have ever since observed the Tabot ritual in Bengkulu.
Therefore, the local government has declared the Tabot festival as an annual event for the province.
Opening the Tabot festival this year on Tuesday night, the Benkulu governor called on the people to take active part in promoting the event in order to attract more foreign and domestic tourists to Bengkulu.
The Tabot Festival 2015 will be held for ten days from October 14, 2015 to October 23, 2015, centered at Tugu Square, Kampung Village, Bengkulu City.
The festival will present various traditional arts and contests such as percussion music, regional dances, patriotic songs and others.
The annual festival will also be enlivened with exhibitions of flagship and creative economic products from Bengkulu and from various other provinces in the country.
Head of Bengkulu's Tourism Service Rudi Perdana said the festival, themed "Ritual Enchantment in Cultural Diversity," is an effort to introduce various local wisdom-based cultures, tourism and creative economy products.
"This event is expected to jack up foreign and local tourist arrivals in Bengkulu," he said.
The Tourism Ministry has expressed its readiness to provide assistance in promoting Bengkulu's Tabot Festival as a ten-day annual agenda which presents arts and cultural festivals.
Deputy for Development and Marketing of the Ministry of Tourism Esti Reko Astuti, while addressing the people at the opening ceremony of the festival on Tuesday night, said promotional efforts have played a great role in increasing the number of foreign and domestic tourist arrivals in Bengkulu.
"We are ready to provide assistance in promoting this festival in an effort to support the progress of Bengkulu's tourism destinations," she said.
She said that the Tobot Festival with its religious nuance needed to be preserved and made one of the main tourism attractions of Bengkulu. The Tourism Ministry senior official said the festival committee needs to dig up the regional values of Bengkulu to attract tourists.
During the Tabot Festival in 2014, a total of 900 foreign tourists and 300 thousand domestic visitors were recorded as having attended the festival.
Bengkulu Governor Junaidi Hamsyah said the social media is also expected to help promote the festival.
He said social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter were effective means of promoting Festival Tabor.
"Social media has a great influence in promoting the festival at a very cheap cost but effectively," the governor said on Wednesday, adding that by using social media networks, everyone can contribute through their respective accounts.
Besides that, the local government of Bengkulu is also proposing to UNESCO to consider the Tabot Festival as Bengkulu's recognized intangible cultural heritage.
The head of Cultural Affairs of Bengkulu's Tourism Service, Abdul Karim, said on the sidelines of the event that the Tabot Festival had become a part of the culture of the people of Bengkulu.
Karim said that intangible cultural heritage can be in the form of tradition, arts, oral expression like language, knowledge, skills, scientific items and artifacts.
This year, he said, the local government of Bengkulu has proposed 131 items to be registered as part of its intangible cultural heritage.***4***
(T.A014/A/BESSR/A/Yosep) 14-10-2015 21:00:51 |
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar