The range of phenomena that can be applied to the region of the world known as Southeast Asia can be used in arguments both for and against the concept of Southeast Asia as a unity - hence the difficulty in establishing which factors support the argument for a distinct regional entity and which factors preclude it. For this reason it becomes necessary to single out the phenomena that create disunity in a region, so that I can discern what it is about the region that defines it as a separate and unique entity.
So what are the parameters for defining the boundaries of a region? Aside from being a cartographic convenience, Southeast Asia has evolved along mixed ethnic and sociocultural lines. Southeast Asia is a melting pot in so far as it has by virtue of geographical features, drawn people inward from the north - the Chines and from the east - Indians into territories largely occupied by an Australoid race of people indigenous to those territories.
Rather than viewing Southeast Asia as a section of the world that has been subdivided into the smaller sections that we recognise today as nation states it can be seen - from a historical perspective - that nation states are arbitrary and fleeting and that Southeast Asia is a region that has an always will be in a state of continual cultural and ethnic flux and as such is better perceived as a series of overlapping circles within circles in which there exists a central core that is centered on the Straits of Malacca - body of water separating the Malaysian Peninsula from the Island of Sumatra and widely considered to have provided the region of Suutheast Asia with a common heritage based on commerce and trade.
Circles within circles can also be regions with their own unique characteristics. It is a framework largely applicable to those areas that have history of movement with regard to people, currency, culture and religion across borders - such as one would find in Southeast Asia, Europe or the Middle East. It does not apply to those communities that exist on the very fringes of a geographic region and that are isolated from the rest of the world either by land or sea or by an inhospitable climate or interior.
Regionalism, like globalism, is a very general term. Not all the ASEAN states, for example, can be contained within the circle radiating out from the Straits of Malacca. The Norther parts of Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Burma fall within orbits that radiate out from countries that are not technically part of Southeast Asia. On that note it might be useful to consider this question of which circle a community is part of - in terms of what it is not as opposed to what it is.
Regionalism like globalisation is in some ways an oversimplification of historical processes. On the subject of globalisation Dirlik ( 2001) makes the point that 'not only are large parts of the world left out in the process, the processes appear as pathways in networks of one kind or another that leave untouched or reduce to marginality significant surfaces of what is implied by a terms such as global. The global is by no means descriptive of the whole - at its most abstractly discursive, it may refer to anything other than local.
The phenomena that support the the view that Southeast Asia is a unity are geographical factors and by extension, ethnic and commercial. The phenomena that sets communities apart in the region - in the circles within circles are those that divide people and hinder the flow of communication - religion, language and politics.
With regard to the religious traditions found in Southeast Asia, the fact that there are four of them make it impossible to consider Southeast Asia in terms of a unified entity. While Islam is the dominant religion in Indonesia and Malaysia it is also prevalent in the Southern Philippines, which is dominated by Christianity. Theravada Buddhism prevails in mainland southeast Asia where Islam - with the exception of Southern Thailand - is almost non existent. Hinduism continues to flourish in some parts of Southeast Asia, which further adds to the eclectic mix of religious life among the peoples of the region. In the light of this religious diversity there is absolutely no way that religion can be considered as a unifying force for the peoples of Southeast Asia.
On the subject of language, there are hundreds of different languages spoken in Southeast Asia. Many of the states that make up ASEAN - Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia and the Philippines have their own languages. Indonesia and Malay, for example, belong to the Austronesian language family which extends across the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific and includes Malagasy, Javanese, Balinese, Tagalog and Maori. ( Quinn 2001)
For centuries Malay has been the language spoken by the people who live on either side of the Straits of Malacca. Malay, as a consequence, became the language of commerce in Southeast Asia. It also functioned as a court language and it was evidently the language of the Sumatran empire of Sriwija that flourished between the 9th and 14th centuries.
With regard to the phenomena that support the argument for the unity of Southeast Asia I find myself confronting a paradox of perplexing proportions. A very good case can be made in support for the idea that Southeast Asia is a cohesive region on the basis of geography and by extension trade and commerce. The Straits of Malacca has been a crossroads and a trading center for people from the north ( China) and the South (India). It is located in the middle of the region which we recognize today as being Southeast Asia and as such has drawn people, wealth and knowledge into it, as opposed to out of it, for millennia.
It must be remembered that Southeast Asia for most of its history was sparsely populated. Today the region has a population in excess of 500 million. Less that one hundred years ago, the population was about 80 million. Hirschman(2001) Hence it can be deduced that on the basis of population growth alone the region has undergone a rapid period of acculturation given that much of its growth has been due to the continued influx of people from China and India. Likewise the emergence of nation states is a very recent development so in a sense it seems a bit short sighted to view these states as separate entities with their own cultural identities. It makes far more sense to view the region as a whole, albeit one without clear borders. Emmerson ( 1984) argues 'the crystallization of Southeast Asia into a set of nation states enabled agreement on the terms of the boundaries but inhibited the holism needed to change a cartographic convenience into an entity with an identity internal to itself'.
I would argue that the modern nation state in Southeast Asia is just as amorphous and ill defined as the region as a a whole and therefore for practical purposes, it is more expedient to look at the bigger picture from a broad historical, geographic and ethnic framework to get an idea of what it is about Southeast Asia that gives it an identity 'internal to itself'.
In conclusion it is my contention that Southeast Asia is a region with distinctive characteristics that will persist as an entity regardless of what happens to national and international boundaries and regional and global politics. As Emmerson states so succinctly "Southeast Asia is a reality that exists independently of its name".
Bibliography
Emmerson D K Southeast Asia? What's in a name?: Journal of Southeast Asian Studies XV(1)March 1984.
Hirschmann C Population and Society in Twentieth-Century Southeast Asia. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 25(2)1994.
Jackson Peter A Mapping Poststructuralism's borders: The case for Poststructuralist Area Studies, SOJOURN, Vol.18(1) April 2003
Quinn G The Learners Dictionary of Today's Indonesia, Allen and Unwin NSW 2001
Reid A A Saucer Model of Southeast Asian Identity, Southeast Asian Journal of Science 27(1) 1999
Skinner G W Creolized Chinese Societies in Southeast Asia, Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese. Edited by Anthony Reid and Kristine Alilunas Rodgers, Published by ASAA in association with Allen and Unwin, NSW 1996.
Tarling N Southeast Asia: A Modern History, Oxford University Press 2001
Wolters O W Southeast Asia as a Southeast Asian Field of Study, Indonesia, 58, 1994
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Chief Seattles Speech
I put this here because it sums up my own despair about our planet and those who seek to control it.
CHIEF SEATTLE SPEAKS
In 1854 the Great White Chief in Washington, President Franklin Pierce, made an offer for a large area of Indian land and promised a reservation, for the Indian People. This is the full text of Chief Seattle's reply to the offer.
How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.
The white man's dead forgot the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red. man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horses the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crest, the juices in the meadows the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.
So when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we will be his children. So we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and the rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghastly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people; The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children. If we sell you our land you must remember and teach your children that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you must from now on give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.
We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers' graves and his children birthright is forgotten. He treats his mother the earth and his brother the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.
I do not know. Our ways are different from your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.
There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insects wings. But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleansed by rain or scented with the pine cone.
The air is precious to the red man. For all things share the same breath: the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white men, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land you must remember that the air is precious to us. That the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow's flowers.
So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept I will make one condition. The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.
I am savage and I do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.
What is a man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die of a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.
You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend cannot be exempt from the common destiny We may be brothers after all. We shall see. One thing we know which the white man may one day discover - our God is the same God. You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land but you cannot. He is the God of man and his compassion is equal for the red man and the white. This earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt upon its Creator. The Whites, too, shall pass; perhaps sooner than other tribes. Contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.
But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man. That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted out by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.
CHIEF SEATTLE SPEAKS
In 1854 the Great White Chief in Washington, President Franklin Pierce, made an offer for a large area of Indian land and promised a reservation, for the Indian People. This is the full text of Chief Seattle's reply to the offer.
How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.
The white man's dead forgot the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red. man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horses the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crest, the juices in the meadows the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.
So when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we will be his children. So we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and the rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghastly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people; The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children. If we sell you our land you must remember and teach your children that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you must from now on give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.
We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers' graves and his children birthright is forgotten. He treats his mother the earth and his brother the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.
I do not know. Our ways are different from your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.
There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insects wings. But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleansed by rain or scented with the pine cone.
The air is precious to the red man. For all things share the same breath: the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white men, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land you must remember that the air is precious to us. That the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow's flowers.
So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept I will make one condition. The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.
I am savage and I do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.
What is a man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die of a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.
You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend cannot be exempt from the common destiny We may be brothers after all. We shall see. One thing we know which the white man may one day discover - our God is the same God. You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land but you cannot. He is the God of man and his compassion is equal for the red man and the white. This earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt upon its Creator. The Whites, too, shall pass; perhaps sooner than other tribes. Contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.
But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man. That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted out by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.
The World Great and Small
I didn't write this, I am putting it here because I like it.
The World Great and Small
My brother is not my enemy. That is all the consolation that I have, If we had fought. If one of us had killed the other over the affairs of the great world, what difference would it have made to Abrogastes and Eugenius, to Theodosius, or to the gods?
Father once told me that we are like the barnacles on the hull of a ship and the ship is the great world of Caesars and empires and gods. We live in our own small world where what matters is more a matter of the hailstorm that flattened the crops and whether or not your belly is full. The events of the great world are as remote as the thoughts of the ships captain to the barnacles.
"But what if the ship is wrecked", I asked.
"Then we cling to some fragment large enough that we won't notice the difference."
"Do you believe we can?"
"No", he said.
The ship was wrecked a few years later. Those same Goths who fought for Theodosius at Aquilea turned on the empire. On their way to Rome they ransacked Grandfather Falco's estate. He met them at the door, sword in hand, on his head the old helmet he hadn't worn in fifty years. A Goth laughed and ran him through with a spear.
The barbarians left the city a hollow shell. Now though the Roman corpse may still be seated on the throne of the world, it is truly dead, its heart torn out, its limbs rotting in the sun.
I think of that old stoic epitaph. I do not exist. I existed. I do not exist. I care not. So it is with all things, even the world, even the gods.
So it is in the great world and in the small.
Extract from:
The Great World and the Small by Darrell Schweitzer
The World Great and Small
My brother is not my enemy. That is all the consolation that I have, If we had fought. If one of us had killed the other over the affairs of the great world, what difference would it have made to Abrogastes and Eugenius, to Theodosius, or to the gods?
Father once told me that we are like the barnacles on the hull of a ship and the ship is the great world of Caesars and empires and gods. We live in our own small world where what matters is more a matter of the hailstorm that flattened the crops and whether or not your belly is full. The events of the great world are as remote as the thoughts of the ships captain to the barnacles.
"But what if the ship is wrecked", I asked.
"Then we cling to some fragment large enough that we won't notice the difference."
"Do you believe we can?"
"No", he said.
The ship was wrecked a few years later. Those same Goths who fought for Theodosius at Aquilea turned on the empire. On their way to Rome they ransacked Grandfather Falco's estate. He met them at the door, sword in hand, on his head the old helmet he hadn't worn in fifty years. A Goth laughed and ran him through with a spear.
The barbarians left the city a hollow shell. Now though the Roman corpse may still be seated on the throne of the world, it is truly dead, its heart torn out, its limbs rotting in the sun.
I think of that old stoic epitaph. I do not exist. I existed. I do not exist. I care not. So it is with all things, even the world, even the gods.
So it is in the great world and in the small.
Extract from:
The Great World and the Small by Darrell Schweitzer
What is News?
Greetings fellow earthlings and earth visitors,
I am a fellow traveler on this lovely planet of ours and for some time I have been very concerned about certain events that have taken place. I have a background in journalism but I abandoned that some time ago because it is impossible to get any real news published these days. I have now taken it up again. My aim here is to investigate the really important issues that affect this planet and everything on it. I can do this because I am not beholden to the corporate executives who control the media. I aim to be objective in my analysis and reporting of events. This means I will not shy away from those subjects which usually elicit a conditioned slide response from those in the media and elsewhere.
Over and Out
I am a fellow traveler on this lovely planet of ours and for some time I have been very concerned about certain events that have taken place. I have a background in journalism but I abandoned that some time ago because it is impossible to get any real news published these days. I have now taken it up again. My aim here is to investigate the really important issues that affect this planet and everything on it. I can do this because I am not beholden to the corporate executives who control the media. I aim to be objective in my analysis and reporting of events. This means I will not shy away from those subjects which usually elicit a conditioned slide response from those in the media and elsewhere.
Over and Out
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