Lauren or Lo. she/her or they/them. queer genderquestioning dyadic asian-american femme. 22. minnesota. infj. i like eating chocolate. [if you know me irl and have found this pls let me know who you are!]
Rise of identity politics could mean more violence.
Michael Vatikiotis charts the dangerous rise of identity politics and increased chances of violence across the region.
Southeast Asiaâs diverse peoples have coexisted more or less peacefully for centuries using traditional forms of cultural accommodation and modern forms of segregation imposed from outside.
Both have been loosely defined as forms of pluralism â a term that denotes the ability of people of different ethnic groups and faiths to live side-by side, even if separately.
Of late, however, these established patterns of social tolerance and stability have been subject to strain. Across the region, conflicts between different groups of people with long traditions of peaceful coexistence are increasingly common.
Just in the past year, Christian communities that never had problems with neighbouring Muslims saw their churches burned in Indonesia; Muslims who have lived and worked as citizens in Buddhist majority Myanmar were deprived of the right to vote or sit in parliament. In Malaysia, Christians were told they couldnât use the Malay word for God and non-Muslims are finding themselves increasingly subject to conservative Muslim restraints on behavior.
The problem is that pluralism, with its comforting notion of togetherness even without integration, is being replaced by identity politics, where lines of race and religion are clearly drawn and used as battle lines to secure and protect political power. This in turn is generating tension, and at times violence.
The implications of this unravelling of pluralism for stability in Southeast Asia are grave. The probability of violent ethnic and religious conflict along communal fault lines increases; the opportunities for radicals to sow religiously inspired hatred and spread violent extremism proliferate.
Most of the nation states in Southeast Asia allow freedom of worship and recognise ethnic diversity to varying degrees.
Indonesia with its Muslim majority guarantees freedom of faith in the constitution, as does Malaysia. Both countries avoided embracing Islamic statehood to avoid alienating non-Muslims. Similarly, Thailand is a majority Buddhist nation, but provides legal and constitutional guarantees for freedom of religion.
Worryingly these legal and constitutional safeguards are being steadily eroded.
In Indonesia, the constitutional right to freedom of worship is countered in many places by bureaucratic injunctions on establishing places of worship. In Malaysia, there are concerted efforts to impose the criminal code under Islamic Sharia Law.
Bills recently passed by the Myanmar parliament will likely make it illegal for a Muslim to take more than one wife, for a Buddhist to convert to Islam and greatly curb interfaith marriage.
Ethnic diversity is officially embraced and celebrated in all the nation states of Southeast Asia, but the practical arrangements often involve degrees of inequality and prejudice.
Unity and diversity underpins the basis of the state in Indonesia, but it was only in the past two decades that ethnic Chinese won the right to officially use the Chinese language and form their own social and political associations.
Malaysia has long had ethnically defined political parties, but the Indian and Chinese minorities are not accorded the same economic privileges as the Muslim Malay majority. Thailand defines all of its citizens as Thais speaking Thai.
Some space is given to Muslim Malays and hill tribe minorities to speak their languages and follow their customs, but administrative and political autonomy is denied to the Malays of the Deep South, which is the key driver of a violent conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people in the past decade.
Vietnam and Laos have battled their highland minorities but of late reached accommodation with them and introduced more tolerant policies. Myanmar recognises 135 different ethnic groups, but does not recognise the Muslim Rohingya of Rakhine State who are stateless.
The opening of political space and broadening of popular sovereignty accompanying slow moving reform across the region has had a mixed impact on levels of tolerance and integration.
Democracy and decentralisation has tended to sharpen the boundaries of faith and identity rather than blur them. This is perhaps because political parties appeal to issues of race and religion to garner votes rather than presenting platforms based on inclusive social and economic development.
In the recent Myanmar election, for example, a radical Buddhist nationalist movement, Ma Ba Tha, promoted the military backed ruling party using anti-Muslim rhetoric.
When around 200,000 people took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur in mid 2015 to call for investigation of a government corruption scandal, the government said the protest movement, known as âBersihâ, wasnât representative because most of the protestors were Indian and Chinese. A government-backed counter protest stirred up racial tension prompting the Chinese ambassador to visit Kuala Lumpurâs Chinatown area and call for tolerance.
This erosion of pluralism doesnât just risk the outbreak of violent conflict; it also obstructs the development of mature democratic societies where citizens have equal opportunities.
The disenfranchisement of around one million Rohingya in Myanmar stands out, but there are growing concerns about the future for ethnic Chinese and Indians in Malaysia, who find themselves increasingly marginalised and unable to contribute fully to their nationâs development. Many are simply leaving as a result. Intermarriage with Malays, though not illegal, involves obligatory conversion to Islam.
More alarming is the polarisation along religious lines.
Southeast Asiaâs 600 million people are roughly equally divided between Theravada Buddhists and primarily Sunni Muslims. The mass movement of Muslim Rohingya out of Rakhine State â an estimated 70,000 have left in the past two years â could herald an alarming trend towards migration to escape the threat of sectarian violence. The recent attacks on Christian churches in Aceh Singkil displaced close to 10,000 people in a matter of weeks.
Segregation is common in areas affected by religious tension. A vicious religious conflict in Indonesiaâs Maluku province, which ended in 2001, has left Christians and Muslims living apart. As a result fear and prejudice prevails. In the aftermath of the Aceh Singkil church burnings in October, it took some effort by community leaders in Maluku to halt a Christian backlash against Muslims.
Is there a way to stop this deterioration of the plural fabric of Southeast Asian societies? Is a sectarian, segregated future avoidable?
The original definition of pluralism is derived from the work of a British colonial official John Furnivall. He observed members of different ethnic communities artificially thrown together by the colonial economy âmixing but not combiningâ in the market places of Rangoon and Jakarta.
âEach group holds by its own religion, its own culture and language, its own ideas and ways,â Furnivall wrote. âAs individuals they meet, but only in the marketplace in buying and selling. There is a plural society, with different sections of the community living side by side, within the same political unit.â
The colonial powers used strict lines of racial division to control exploited populations, thus bequeathing the region disintegrated societies at the birth of modern nationhood. Modern Malaysia and Myanmar remain prisoners of this colonial legacy of pluralism, which helps explain some of the contemporary social pathology and how it is manipulated.
It remains all too easy for aspiring power holders to tug on these arcane social strictures to cement their grip on power.
The Malays in Malaysia are constantly being told by their leaders that they are threatened by non-Malay races, that they must seek protection from their government â just as the colonial rulers offered privilege and protection to the Malays to keep them from bonding with Chinese and Indian labourers and questioning the colonial order. This is very much old pluralism in a new guise.
But there is another, modern meaning of pluralism, that has more positive implications for social integration. This assumes that the democratic process creates a better understanding between different communities by empowering them at the ballot box thus ensuring their interests are heard and represented.
There is no doubt for example that the Muslim Moro of Mindanao in the southern Philippines have grown less restive and feel they have more dignity after being granted a form of autonomy that allows them to elect their own Governor, as in the Indonesian province of Aceh, where the former Free Aceh Movement now leads an autonomous elected government.
Perhaps the best way to preserve the peace and ensure prosperity in a region so defined by diversity is to promote the new definition of pluralism at the expense of the old. Togetherness and a common sense of national identity needs to replace notions of divide and rule as well as exploitation instilled by colonial systems of rule.
However, pluralistic politics needs the modern tools and institutions of democracy to prevent political parties and their leaders seeking refuge in the cloistered catacombs of identity. This means that political parties need inclusive programs; election campaigns need strict codes of conduct, and leaders need to represent all their people, not just some
As for the situation today: sadly if John Furnivall were alive, he would recognise many of the characteristics of pluralism as he first defined it in the 1930s.
Michael Vatikiotis is Asia Regional Director for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.
does anyone else feel like theyâre in this weird state of being on tumblr where you dont even know if youre genuinely enjoying the site anymore or if anyone here is actually paying attention to you as a person or just your presence in general and youre just floating in this odd in-between place, only coming on here solely out of habit???
Foreignersâ descriptions of coastal Malay states between circa A.D. 300 and A.D. 1500 often claimed that these states were ruled by foreign powers. Kedah, on the northwest coast, was generally said to be controlled by Funan, China, or Srivijaya, although other reports claimed that it was independent. More recent reports have often claimed India ruled Kedah during the early historic period. Historical and archaeological evidence indicates that early foreign visitors stayed at coastal centers, met primarily other foreigners, and were controlled by Malay officials. Geoarchaeological evidence indicates that many sites with foreign components that are located inland today were located at the coast, in a very different landscape, at the time in question. No evidence suggests foreign penetration of inland areas or control over the coastal centers.
This paper is concerned with the historical development of two supposedly dominant ethnic groups: the Javanese in Indonesia and the Malay in Malaysia. Malaysia and Indonesia constitute the core of the Malay world. Through reading the relevant historical and contemporary literature, this essay attempts to shed some light on the overlapping histories of these two cultural identities since long before the arrival of the Europeans. The two were part of the same fluid ethnic community prior to the arrival of the Europeans in this âland below the windsâ. The contest among the Europeans to control the region resulted in the parcelling of the region into separated colonial states, transforming the previously fluid and shifting ethnic boundaries into more rigid and exclusive ethnic identities. In the process of nation-formation in Malaysia, Malay-ness was consciously manipulated by the colonial and post-colonial elites to define and formulate the Malaysian state and its ideology. The Javanese, on the other hand, though demographically constituting the majority group in Indonesia, paradoxically melded into the political background as the first generation of Indonesian leaders moved toward a more trans-ethnic nationalism â Indonesian civic nationalism. Indeed, when comparing âethnicity and its related issuesâ in Malaysia and Indonesia, fundamental differences in the trajectories of their ânationalâ histories and political developments should not be overlooked.
Emissary from Langkasuka
Detail from a larger Chinese painting showing various emissaries to the Chinese court of Liang dynasty (502â587). Song Dynasty copy.Â
[Source]
Langkasukaâs an old kingdom located in Malaysia! It lasted from the 100s to the 1400s. Not bad for an empire.
And they also had queens, not just kings; in fact, one of the most prosperous periods in the dynasty was under four queens in a row. Ratu Hijau (âthe Green Queenâ) took the throne in 1584 after her brother was murdered, and was known as the Great Queen of Patani. She ruled for 32 years, after which her sister Ratu Biru (âthe Blue Queenâ) became Queen. Ratu Biru ruled for eight years, and was succeeded by a third sister, Ratu Ungu (âthe Purple Queenâ). After 11 years, Ratu Ungu died, and was succeeded by her daughter, Ratu Kuning, in 1635.
Those who misunderstand colonialism and its subsequent re-shaping of the world often ask what makes it so different from all the other conquests in history. What separates the British Empire from the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great? Why do North Africans resist French influence but not the regionâs prior Arabization? Why donât populations demand apologies from all their previous conquerors in an attempt to reconcile all that has been done to them?
To compare European colonial systems to the flow and ebb of prior conquests is to assume that all historical conquests relied on the same model of subjugation that defined European conquest: centralized and institutional racialization of peoples across the globe, in need of civilization (or the alternative, extermination), and whose histories could be described by constructed hierarchies. As it stands, such characterizations only framed the praxis of European colonization. Prior conquests, for all intents and purposes, were not borne out of globally racialized agendas that attempted to recourse history towards new definitions and categories, but typically out of fundamental desires for wealth, power, cultural or religious influence, and stability. Most conquerors also assimilated to the cultures of the lands they acquired rather than simply the reverse, and often the subsequent cultural exchange influenced both the habitus of the conquerer and the conquered.
For example, Sudanese intellectuals, regarding Arab influence in North Africa, argued that:
Afro-Arab integration in the North tended to be referred to as Arabization. To the extent that Arab symbols of identification, especially their language and religion, have been highlighted over and above their African equivalents, this characterization may be justified, but the process involved more give-and-take than the term âArabizationâ would adequately reflect. A significant degree of Africanization of the Arab element also took place. (x)
European colonization did not permit such give-and-take. There was no Native Americanization of British settlers in the Americas, no Indianization of British culture, no Africanization of Europe; instead there was a one way push towards the Europeanization of the colonies- a push that attempted to strip and eradicate whole cultures and peoples from their native identities.
Moreover, no other conquest in history received massive authority from virtually every part of society. While rulers in previous eras sanctioned their own expansion with or without popular support, European colonization was justified, reinforced, and encouraged by political figures, religious authorities, scientists, the intelligentsia, philosophers, artists, the working class, merchants, and more. Each social class in the otherwise stratified nation-state became a beneficiary to the fruits of colonialism and all unified to buttress its institutionalization with easy conscience. Academia and other discourse were dedicated to crafting fields of study that attempted to legitimize the dehumanization of global peoples, establish their inferiority to reflect European superiority, and subjugate the world to Social Darwinist ideologies through various modes of violence. The centrality and normalization of this method was unprecedented.Â
The resulting violence in native lands, then, was also unprecedented in history. No other era testifies to the systematic eradication of peoples and cultures by the bloody hands of European colonialists. No other era exhibits a collective continental culture that relied on terrorizing millions worldwide. No other era has killed more, exploited more, and glorified itself more than the era of European colonization.Â
This is why the resistance to the legacy of colonialism is so great and why Europe and America are so scrutinized and held responsible for their recent sins; sins that scathed Africa, Asia, and South America, and whose wounds are still bleeding. Indeed, this is also why European colonization is not comparable to other conquests of the past.
By utilising a large number of historical and literary sources in Chinese and European languages, this article discusses the spread of Burmese bells (penis inserts) to China between the late sixteenth and early twenty-first centuries, a topic that has hitherto been understudied. It details the social factors behind each phase of transmission, the Chinese adaptation of a Southeast Asian practice, and physical description of Burmese bells. The research provides a new perspective to Southeast Asian-Chinese interactions and stresses the Southeast Asian cultural influence on Chinese society and sexual behaviour. It also argues that aphrodisiacs, like other commodities, have a legitimate place in Asian history.
Sun Laichen. âBurmese Bells and Chinese Eroticism: Southeast Asiaâs Cultural Influence on China.â Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Jun., 2007), pp. 247-273. Print.
A very painful (I expect) and permanent version of ribbed condoms. Theyâre a series of little bells inserted under the skin in the penis, often in intricate designs. The idea was that if you were a really fancy man who liked to please the ladies, the bells would make sound when you walked, letting the ladies know.
The western/european anti-sex mindset is so pervasive that people donât realize that other places, sex was not only just fine, but celebrated as one more part of the awesome of being human. And not just for men, but for women. The goal of the bells, after all, is the womanâs pleasure, and the article cites women much preferring men whoâd taken that painful/permanent step.
The concept of these bells spread to other places in Southeast Asia, but itâs not like thatâs the only place youâll find that kind of women-first approach. I canât recall the specific culture in Africa, but there were several where a mandatory part of foreplay was either frottage or manipulation, by the man on the woman, so sheâd orgasm first. In other words, that the womanâs pleasure literally came first, and nothing could happen until she was happy.
Then again, until the european Reformation, it was commonly assumed that orgasm was required for pregnancy â on both partnersâ parts. Obviously this has ramifications for rape (âshe got pregnant, ergo, she enjoyed it, ergo, not rapeâ) but it also changes how people have marital sex, too. When people did want children, their mutual pleasure was a required element.
But yeah, those are Burmese bells. I suspect ribbed condoms are a great deal easier to use, though. :)
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