Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

iiAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows© The Nippon FoundationFirst published in July 2009All right reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, nowknown or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writingfrom The Nippon Foundation Fellowships for the Asian Public Intellectuals.A PDF version of this book is available online at http://www.api-fellowships.orgPrinted by: ABENO PRINTING CO., LTD.180, 182, 184, 186 Soi Chok Chai Jong Jumreon, Rama III Bang Phong Phang, Yannawa, Bangkok 10120Tel: 66-2-2295-0022 Fax: 66-2-2294-0176Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

iiiCONTENTSAbout the BookAcknowledgementsThe ContributorsviviiiixI. WELCOME SPEECH xiiYOHEI SASAKAWA, Chairman of The Nippon FoundationII. KEYNOTE ADDRESSxivIn Search of Asian Public IntellectualsEDILBERTO DE JESUS, Director, Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO)III. OVERVIEWEncounters of Asian Transformations: Variations on the ThemeCZARINA SALOMA-AKPEDONU, Workshop DirectorxixIV. PAPERSCIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESPolitics and Timber in Malaysia 1AKIKO MORISHITAPolitical Institutions and Opposition Forces in Malaysia: The Political Process of the 7Official Secrets Act and the National Economic Consultative CouncilAYAME SUZUKIThe Discourse of the Islamic State and Islamic Law in Malaysia 16KAMARUZZAMAN BUSTAMAM-AHMADPERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEFrom Charity to Social Investments and Social Justice: A Study of 26Philanthropic Institutions in IndonesiaJOSE (JOSIE) M. FERNANDEZSocial Impact of Japanese Private-Sector Projects on Local People in the Philippines 36and MalaysiaHOZUE HATAEPolicies and Victim Services in Disaster Management: Lessons Learned from Indonesia, 43Japan and ThailandHERU SUSETYOINTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYRevaluing Javanese Court Dances (Srimpi and Bedhaya) within the Current Social and 53Cultural ContextMICHI TOMIOKATransforming Thinking Transgressing Borders 61JOTHI (JO) KUKATHASTransmission, Pedagogy and Education: A Critical Study of Asian Traditional Music 70Cultures in Post-Colonial and Post-Modern Times in Thailand and IndonesiaRAMÓN PAGAYON SANTOSAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

ivTheater Chronicles: Lessons in Theater Documentation from Traditional and 79Contemporary Theater Practices in Thailand and IndonesiaGLECY C. ATIENZABLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONSExploring Islamic Movements among Filipino Muslim Urbanities in the Quiapo Area: 87A Sociological Study of the Impact of Modernization and Urban LifeMOKHAMMAD YAHYAFluid Boundaries: Toward a People-Centered Approach to Border Issues in 95North SulawesiDJORINA VELASCOThe History of Tomorrow: The Discourse of Science and the Imagination of the 103Future in Asian Science FictionsALWIN C. AGUIRREREFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONBones in Tansu—Family Secrets 112YOSHIKO SHIMADACultural Attitudes to Animals in Southeast Asia: Human-Animal Relations as a 117Dimension of Cultural Identity Formation and DynamicsMYFEL JOSEPH PALUGANarrating the Nation: Modern Historical Representations of Identity in Indonesian Film 128ISKANDAR SHARIFUDDIN BIN MOHD. SAIDReconsideration of Local Identity through Performing Arts in the Era of 138Otonomi DaerahKAORI FUSHIKISPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONTransformations in Agrarian Livelihood and the Sustainable Agriculture Movement 145under GlobalizationSUPA YAIMUANGActions of Non-State Groups in Southeast Asia: Origins, Driving Forces and Networks 154I KETUT GUNAWANGlobalization, Influence and Resistance: Cinematic Representations and Cinematic 164Experience in Japan and ThailandKRISNADI YULIAWAN SAPTADIThe Politics of Representation and Consumption: Spirituality in Japan from the 172Perspective of a ThaiSING SUWANNAKIJSpiritual Hunger and the Consumption of Spirituality in Japan 179(or: Whilst I Searched for My Soul in a Soulless Metropolis…)MOHD. NAGUIB RAZAKCOLLAGES OF BETTERMENTA Study of Communication Campaign Processes on the Issue of Community Rights to 187Biodiversity Resources in the PhilippinesVARINTHRA KAIYOURAWONG BOONCHAIAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

V. APPENDICESCultivation of Transformative Leadership in Civil Society and the Co-Creation of 197the Energy Field for Democratization in AsiaCHAIWAT THIRAPANTUInforming Governance? Sustainability Reporting in Indonesia and the Philippines 205ADNAN A. HEZRIRedefining the Asian Space: A Comparative View of Evolving Street Culture and 214Pedestrian Space Development in Bandung, Bangkok and ManilaIDERLINA MATEO-BABIANOAcademic Lifeworlds, the Social Sciences and Deep Democracy in Thailand and 224the PhilippinesSHARAAD KUTTANAppendix I: Workshop Schedule 232Appendix II: Workshop Participants 234Appendix III: Abstracts of Papers 240VI. CONTACT DETAILS 250vAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

viABOUT THE BOOKAsian Transformations in Action, is a collection of papers by the 2006/2007 Asian Public Intellectuals (API)Fellows. The twenty-seven papers that comprise the book cover key areas such as heritage, identity, change andconflict; engaging modernity; religion, gender, and art; changing lifestyles and health; the state, development andglobalization; empowering the poor and the vulnerable; and social justice, human rights, and civil society. APIpublications can be downloaded at http://www.api-fellowships.org.The API Fellowships ProgramAs Asia enters the 21 st century, it faces political, economic, and social challenges that transcend national boundaries.To meet these challenges, the region needs a pool of intellectuals willing to be active in the public sphere whocan articulate common concerns and propose creative solutions. Recognizing that opportunities for intellectualexchange are currently limited by institutional, linguistic, and cultural parameters, The Nippon Foundation (TNF)launched the Asian Public Intellectuals (API) Fellowships Program in July 2000. The Program’s primary aim is topromote mutual learning among Asian public intellectuals and contribute to the growth of wider public spaces inwhich effective responses to regional needs can be generated.The API Fellowships Program is open to academics, researchers, media professionals, artists, creative writers, nongovernmentalorganization (NGO) activists, social workers, public servants and others with moral authority whoare committed to working for the betterment of society by applying their professional knowledge, wisdom andexperience. The Program is designed to stimulate the creation of a pool of such intellectuals in the region.The API Fellowships Program set three main themes as follows:• Changing identities and their social, historical , and cultural contexts;• Reflections on the human condition and the quest for social justice; and• The current structure of globalization and possible alternatives.Within these themes, the Fellows are required to:• Propose and carry out research and/or professional activities in a participating country or countries other thantheir native country or country of residence;• Conduct research and/or professional activities in compliance with a schedule accepted by the SelectionCommittee;• Attend the API Workshop to exchange results of their research and/or professional activities with other Fellows;• Disseminate their findings and results to a wider audience; and• Pursue a deeper knowledge of each other, and hence of the region.Post Fellowship Program/ActivitiesIn its tenth year since its inception, the API Fellowships Program nowadays stresses the continuing commitmentof API Fellows who have completed their initial fellowship activities. Through furthering collaboration betweenFellows, the Program hopes to build and promote the API Community, which is comprised of over 250 APIFellows. The following initiatives are now being carried out through the Post Fellowship Programs:1) Regional Committee and Regional ProjectThe API Community has selected ten Fellows as representatives to the Regional Committee (RC) to promoteactivities which are critical for the region, cross-disciplinary in nature, trans-border in scope, and multi-level inapproach, recognizing the inter-linkages of locality, nation, and region. The RC aims to foster a greater regionalconsciousness by promoting relationships among cultures, societies, traditions and so forth by initiating or endorsingcollaborative activities, and by confronting public issues with discernment, integrity and commitment. The RCinitially focused on the launch of the Regional Project.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

The Regional Project, entitled “Community-Based Initiatives toward Human-Ecological Balance,” was launchedin November 2008 as a joint effort that mobilized the entire API Community. The project will last three years,involving five sites in the region: Biwako (Japan), Batanes (Philippines), Khiriwong (Thailand), Tasik Chini(Malaysia) and Kalicode (Indonesia). In conducting the Regional Project, the API Community is guided by thevalues of social relevance, public-policy advocacy, network building, creativity, transparency and accountability.2) API-Salzburg Global Seminar CollaborationThe Salzburg Global Seminar was founded in 1947 by three graduate students at Harvard University as a meansto bringing together young Europeans and Americans from countries recently at war to engage in intellectualdialogue.In the 60 years since its establishment, the Salzburg Global Seminar has evolved and expanded both the breadth ofcountries from which its participants come as well as the issues that serve as the focus of its programs. To date, morethan 25,000 individuals from more than 150 countries have attended Seminar sessions.In an effort to flow with the tide of globalization, the Salzburg Global Seminar decided to reach out beyond Europeand the US, to Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In so doing, the Seminar found the API Fellowships Program tobe a good quality pool of intellectuals in Asia and began planning a new partnership. As a result, a new schemewhereby selected API Fellows (up to ten Fellows per year) attend the Seminar was created. This collaborativescheme provides opportunities for API Fellows to expand their intellectual capacity by exposing themselves toworld intellectual leaders and to convey to a wider audience the messages and voices of Asia.viiThe Nippon FoundationThe Nippon Foundation (TNF) is an independent, non-profit, grant making organization that was founded in1962. It supports projects both in Japan and overseas. It funds activities in three areas: domestic social welfareand volunteer support; maritime research and development; and overseas cooperative assistance. It works withother non-profit organizations, governments, non-governmental organizations and international organizations.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

viiiACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe API Coordinating Institution secretariat team at the Institute of Asian Studies (IAS), Chulalongkorn University,oversaw the publication of this book and wishes to express its sincere appreciation to the following people:The API Fellows, for their invaluable contribution in writing the papers that comprise the book;Czarina Saloma-Akpedonu, the 6 th API Regional Workshop Director, who guided the Fellows in their preparationof the papers/presentation materials and substantively edited the papers;Tatsuya Tanami and Michiko Taki of The Nippon Foundation for their advice;The API Program Directors, Program Coordinators and Program Assistants for their valuable input andcooperation;Rebecca Sooksom, who handled most of the technical editing with great patience and dedication; andRia Rivera, for the layout work and assistance in proof-reading.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

ixTHE CONTRIBUTORS(in alphabetical order according to names as they are spelt, updated information of 2009.)A snapshot of the contributors in their own words is provided here.AHMAD HEZRI ADNAN is a Research Fellow in the Institute for Environment & Development (LESTARI)of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. His area of specialization is environmental policy analysis focusing on thetheoretical and practical aspects of sustainable development. He holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the AustralianNational University.AKIKO MORISHITA is a postdoctoral research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University, Japan. She completed her doctoraldegree in area studies at Kyoto University. She has been researching the issue of politics and natural resources(especially forest and mineral resources) in Indonesia and Malaysia.ALWIN C. AGUIRRE teaches Popular Culture and Gender, Sexuality and Literature at the University ofthe Philippines in Diliman. His current interests are science fiction studies and cultural studies of science andtechnology. He is primarily a fictionist. His short stories have been published in various anthologies and recognizedby major literary awards in the country.AYAME SUZUKI is a Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. She is currently doingher postdoctoral research at the Graduate Research Institute of Policy Science in Tokyo. She earned her Ph.D.(International Relations) from the University of Tokyo, and has written on issues such as political regimes, sovereignstate systems, and Malaysian politics.CHAIWAT THIRAPANTU is President of the Civicnet Institute in Thailand. He is a long-time advocate of civilsociety, working and collaborating with various sectors including academia, government, business and NGOs. Hepursues the idea of creating a fair and liberal society.DJORINA VELASCO is a sociologist by training and an activist at heart. A former researcher at the Institutefor Popular Democracy and lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the Ateneo deManila University, she has written on Philippine politics and social movements, as well as democratization anddevelopment issues in Southeast Asia. Her current interests lie in critiques of neo-institutionalism and neo-liberalgovernmentality.GLECY C. ATIENZA is a full professor at the University of the Philippines-Diliman where she teaches creativewriting, Philippine theater and Philippine Literature. She is currently working with her community and schoolbased theater network in developing new plays and popularizing theater research and documentation.HERU SUSETYO is a permanent faculty member and researcher at the Faculty of Law, University of Indonesia,Depok, West Java, Indonesia, and also a human rights attorney at the Indonesian Center for Legal and HumanRights Advocacy (PAHAM). He graduated from the University of Indonesia, Depok Indonesia (Bachelor of Lawand Master of Social Work) and from Northwestern Law School, Chicago, USA (Master of International HumanRights Law). He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Human Rights and Peace Studies at Mahidol University,Nakorn Pathom, Thailand. He has carried out numerous researches and published numerous articles on humanrights, social legislation, and Islamic Law.HOZUE HATAE is a researcher/campaigner for Friends of the Earth Japan. She is mainly based in the Philippines,and has been working on the issue of environmental and social problems caused by Japanese-funded projectsabroad, together with local peoples’ organizations.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xIDERLINA MATEO-BABIANO is a practicing architect, urban planner and pedestrian transport consultant inthe Philippines. She is a walking advocate and is studying Asia’s street culture to be able to derive more effectivespaces for all street users.ISKANDAR SHARIFUDDIN BIN MOHD. SAID is a writer and filmmaker working in Malaysia and regionally.His video art was screened at the prestigious Sydney Biennale. He is currently working on a feature film and adocumentary in Indonesia.JO KUKATHAS is a director-writer and an actor. She is the Artistic Director of The Instant Café TheatreCompany, Malaysia, best known for its political satire. She is interested in issues of art and society and cross-culturalcollaboration. She co-created the multi-lingual Malaysian Japanese collaboration The Island in Between (2000). Sheis also a member of Lohan Journey, an Asian theatre collaboration network which created Hotel Grand Asia (Tokyo,2004), spawning other collaborations/artistic and intellectual exchanges. Furthermore, she directed M! The Operablending Asian and Western theatre and music influences (2006). With her company, she collaborated with theMalay theatre company, Alternative Stage, and the Chinese theatre collective, Pentas Project, on the intra-culturalmulti-lingual Break-ing-Ji-Poh-Ka-Si-Pe-Cah.JOSIE M. FERNANDEZ’s vision is social justice, equality and freedom for all. She is a social activist, independentresearcher and writer. She is currently Managing Director of Philanthropy Asia. She was Regional Director forAsia Pacific for Consumers International, founder President of Education and Research Association for ConsumersMalaysia and has served the Malaysian government, too.KAMARUZZAMAN BUSTAMAM-AHMAD is currently pursuing his Ph.D. on Sociology and Anthropologyin La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. His academic interests include discourses of Islamic Studies inSoutheast Asia. He has taught Islamic Studies and Islam in Southeast Asia, both in Thailand and Indonesia.KAORI FUSHIKI is an ethnomusicologist and musician. She specializes in Indonesian performing arts such asmusic and dance. Through analyses of music and its social contexts, she is trying to find the identity of the peopleand the philosophy of the arts. She is currently a Lecturer at Toho College of Music and an assistant in the MusicResearch Center, Faculty of Music, Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku).KETUT GUNAWAN, who completed his Ph.D. at the University of Bonn, Germany, is currently a lecturer andresearcher at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Mulawarman University, Samarinda, Indonesia. His maininterests are political science, military politics, and ethnic and natural resource conflicts.KRISNADI YULIAWAN SAPTADI is a journalist. He has written on Indonesian politics, social issues, culture,and art. Film and cinema is one of his main interests. He is founder and now editor in chief of www.rumahfilm.org, a website for Indonesian and International cinema.MICHI TOMIOKA is a Ph.D. candidate at Osaka City University and studies the development and transformationof Javanese Court dance. She was an auditor at the Indonesian College of Arts (STSI, now ISI) Surakarta for fiveyears. During the stay, she mastered 12 Javanese Court dances: srimpi and bedhaya in full version, and began heractivities to preserve them as Indonesian art heritage, such as open rehearsals, recordings and stage performanceswith STSI instructors. In addition, she produces dance choreography based on Javanese traditional dance, andevents of cultural exchanges between Japan and Indonesia.MOHD NAGUIB RAZAK is an independent documentary filmmaker with experience producing and directingfor the National Geographic Channel and the Discovery Channel, as well as producing his own experimentalpersonal documentary films for international film festivals, with a particular emphasis on questions of values, socialevolution, humanity and spirituality, man amongst nature, the plurality of perception and the singularity of truth.MOKHAMMAD YAHYA is a lecturer at the Islamic University of Malang in Indonesia and a Ph.D. candidate inPolitics at the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University in Australia. His area of interest is PoliticalIslam and Islamic movements in Southeast Asia.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

MYFEL JOSEPH PALUGA is a faculty member and chairperson of the Department of Social Sciences, Universityof the Philippines-Mindanao. He finished his MA Anthropology in UP-Diliman and AB History in Mindanao StateUniversity-General Santos City. He is a member of the Anthropological Association of the Philippines (UGAT)and actively engages in indigenous peoples and Mindanao-related issues through the Solidarity Action Group forIndigenous Peoples (SAGIP). He has done research into Philippine macaque ecology and behavior, human-animalrelations, and various aspects of Mindanao/Philippine studies.RAMON PAGAYON SANTOS is a composer, conductor and musicologist. He is a University Professor Emeritusat the University of the Philippines College of Music, Executive Director of the UP Center for Ethnomusicology,and President of the Musicological Society of the Philippines. Santos has done extensive study on contemporarymusic in the Philippines and Asia, as well as the musical traditions of various cultural communities in the Philippines,China, and Southeast Asia.SHARAAD KUTTAN is Program Coordinator at the Malaysian Institute for Development and Asian Studies(MiDAS) at University College Sedaya International. His current interest is in Asian intellectual history.SING SUWANNAKIJ is a freelance researcher and writer, as well as enthusiastic translator. He has been workingon the issues of refugees, migrant workers, labor and social movement, and religions, while attempting to mix, andmove beyond, his background in the social sciences (political science, international relations, sociology, developmentstudies) and NGO work, with his interests in literature, languages, art, photography, music and film.SUPA YAIMUANG is an NGO worker, currently director of the Sustainable Agriculture Foundation (Thailand).She has been working with Thai small-scale farmers on the issues of sustainable agriculture and biodiversity, beenactively involved in policy campaigning on rural and farmer issues, researched social welfare for the poor (farmersand communities), and served as a committee member and consultant to NGOs and farmers’ groups.VARINTHRA KAIYOURAWONG BOONCHAI is the assistant researcher at the Faculty of Political Science,Chulalongkorn University. She was the coordinator of the Project for Research and Development TraditionalMedicine Knowledge Protection Act at The National Institute of Thai Traditional Medicine, Department ofMedical Service, Ministry of Public Health. She also joined the Thai Human Rights in Global Perspective ResearchProject and Community Rights Education Research Project at the Local Development Institute as the regionalcoordinator and the information officer.YOSHIKO SHIMADA is an independent artist. Her photo-based etchings and installations are shown in variousmuseums and galleries in Asia and Europe. Her subjects are gender, war, and personal and public memories. She isa part of the Prime Minister’s Initiative (UK) 2008-2010 project with Kingston University in London.xiAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xiiWELCOME SPEECHYohei SasakawaChairman of The Nippon FoundationHonorable Professor Dr. Edilberto C. de Jesus,Director of the Southeast Asian Ministers of EducationOrganization, Father Antonio Samson, S. J. Presidentof Ateneo de Davao University, ladies and gentlemen,Thank you for taking part today in the 6 th APIWorkshop. I would like to extend a warm welcome tothe sixth group of API Fellows, who have completedtheir projects.The first API Workshop was held on Cebu Island, andwas attended by President Corazon Aquino. This yearwe have returned to the Philippines. I offer my sincerethanks to Dr. Jose Cruz of Ateneo de Manila Universityand all the people who have worked so hard to organizethis workshop here in Davao.Asia has a long history of exchange involving people,goods and information. Consider Japan and thePhilippines. Many of you will know that large numbersof Japanese immigrated to Davao at the beginning ofthe 20 th century. They were received warmly by thelocal people, and worked alongside them to develop thelocal abaca industry.Going back much further, history tells us that groups ofJapanese traders called wako reached the Philippines inthe 16 th century, establishing settlements in Luzon.In the 19 th century, the Filipino national hero Jose Rizalspent time in Japan, and saw for himself the momentouschanges of the Meiji Restoration. More than 100 yearslater, the existence of the Rizal Society of Japan showshe still has many admirers in my country. Though notmany people know about it, there is even a statue ofRizal in the center of Tokyo, in Hibiya Park.Another Filipino revolutionary who went to Japanwas Mariano Ponce. He lived in Yokohama as therepresentative of the First Philippine Republic. Whilein Japan he had contact with many Japanese politicalleaders, as well as with Sun Yat-sen, who was then inexile. Sun Yat-sen went on to establish the Republic ofChina and is often referred to as the father of modernChina.Through his friends in Japan, Ponce obtained weaponsfor the Philippines’ fight for independence fromthe United States. Unfortunately, the ship carryingthe weapons sank off China and never reached theirdestination.These stories exhibit the trust and friendship amongpeople who shared a common cause of nation-buildingin the region at that time. Later, there would be the sadexperience of the Pacific War between Japan and thePhilippines. Today, however, our relationship is basedon mutual trust. We are witnessing a dramatic increasein the mobility of people, goods and information.I have been speaking of historical figures from Japanand the Philippines for a reason. They provide examplesof our mutual understanding and cooperation. This iswhat API is all about, and why it is needed.Today Asia faces a dichotomy between two mutuallyexclusive trends. The first is very positive. This is therise of the middle classes, as a result of economicdevelopment in each country. The middle classeshave been educated to a high level, and have attaineda measure of employment and income. This is leadingto the development of an Asian-style middle-classconsciousness that transcends borders and culturaltraditions. The middle classes have a common awarenessof issues such as democracy, development, growth andeducation. They also share common values with regardto popular culture such as music, movies, manga andanimation.But there is another trend, one toward confrontation.The confrontation between the haves and have-notsas social disparities grow. The confrontation basedon race and religion. And the confrontation over thedistribution of resources. We find such conflict righthere on Mindanao.Given this dichotomy, actions are needed to build peaceand promote further development. On the one hand,efforts are needed to enrich people’s lives. On the other,something must be done to resolve confrontations anddisputes. But as we all know, there are limits to whatthe state can do to resolve these issues. Moreover, manyAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xiiiare common to nations around the world. There arecountless examples of problems that go beyond borders,and of communities in different countries that face thesame problems.To deal with these difficulties, it is necessary tostrengthen the network of people in the region whoknow each other well, who can learn from each other,and who can freely express their ideas in order to findsolutions.promote original research and hands-on activities thatwill increasingly contribute to the development ofAsian society. At the same time, I hope your influencewill extend beyond this region, and that you grow into abody that will transmit Asia’s voice to the world. Thankyou.API was created precisely to answer this need. It aimsto build a new intellectual community in the region byidentifying intellectual leaders, like yourselves, with astrong sense of mission to contribute to the public good.These intellectual leaders are given the opportunity totravel to other parts of Asia, learn from their neighborsand take part in exchange with others with a commongrasp of the issues. The aim is for them to cooperate,enriching people’s lives and devising specific solutionsto the problems confronting us all.A number of different intellectual networks exist inAsia. However, until API, there had never been such abroadly-based network of public intellectuals, consistingof bureaucrats, NGO activists, artists, journalists andthe like.At the API Workshop in Phuket, I called on Fellows toaim at transforming the API Community into a thinktankand a do-tank for the development of Asia, one thatwould draw together public intellectuals from acrossborders, bring in wisdom and experience, and developnew methods to solve problems. Since then, two yearshave passed. In that time, I have been delighted by theprogress that has been made. Workshops have beenheld in different countries, regional committees havebeen formed, and preparations have been advancingfor an initial regional workshop, with the environmentas its theme. I sincerely hope this will lead to concreteaction. This is the task of those who make up the APICommunity.In conclusion, I would like to recall the words of formerPresident Corazon Aquino at the first API workshop:She said, “My fervent hope is that, through this evergrowingpool of Asian public intellectuals, Asia’suniqueness and complexity can be preserved, and itsmany voices magnified and heard around the world, aswe join the often confusing and dehumanizing tide ofglobalization.”For my part, I hope that the API Community, throughthe participation and effort of all its members, willAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xivIN SEARCH OF ASIAN PUBLIC INTELLECTUALSEdilberto de JesusDirector, Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO)Dean Joey Cruz, Fr. Antonio Samson, Mr. YoheiSasakawa, API Fellows, Distinguished Guests, Ladiesand Gentlemen:I must begin by congratulating the API Fellowsgathered here tonight for the 6 th API Workshop. I hadbeen involved with API Fellowships Program in thePhilippines from its inception and I do have some ideaof the work it takes to win a fellowship and then todeliver on the award.Defining APIIt is on the issue of scope and themes that I wouldlike to offer some thoughts tonight. What is the scopeof our concept of “public intellectuals” and what areour expectations from them? I have participated insome extended discussions in Manila on the issueof determining who could be considered “publicintellectuals” from whom we could accept researchproposals. I would suppose that the programs in theother countries also wrestled with this issue, which isfundamental in determining who can be considered forthe award.The Intellectual and AcademeThe term “intellectual” naturally led us to focus onfaculty in universities, particularly since the awards weremeant to support an activity that required research.Some observers have warned, however, that publicintellectuals constitute an endangered specie, a vanishingbreed—because those capable of playing that role havefled to, or been captured by, academe. Obviously, thisis a critique that comes from those disenchanted withwhat they see in universities.These critics see professors engaged in teaching asmainly concerned with the process of transferring thenotes in their binders to the notes in the binders of theirstudents. Those engaged in research, on the other hand,dedicate themselves to producing studies that few willread, fewer will understand and virtually no one will useor remember. Except, perhaps, those professors who willcopy notes from the studies into their binders so thatstudents can then reproduce them in their binders.These are clearly stereotypes that are not really new.But other concerns are new and relate to the trendtowards the corporate management of universities. Thishas imposed, among other things, a more rigorous jobanalysis and assessment of faculty performance and amore sustained monitoring process. Oxford Donshave been fighting to protect their control of academicaffairs against appointed managers. At NorthamptonUniversity in the UK recently, the vice-chancellorpresided over a review that froze the salaries of 40% ofthe faculty, because the affected professors had fewermanagement responsibilities.In both the UK and the US, there has been a trendtowards hiring both teaching and research faculty onfixed contract arrangements, without the possibility ofpursuing a tenure track. There have also been proposalsto give significant weight in the approvals process to thebenefits that can be expected from research projects.Certainly, faculty have to submit to performanceevaluation, but they also have a right to a process thatis appropriate, transparent and fair. The demand thatresearch proposals be subjected to a cost-benefit analysiswould not be so onerous or objectionable, as long as thebenefits are not excessively weighted towards financialreturns and a reasonable time-frame to achieve them isprovided. Otherwise, research in the social sciences andthe humanities would face difficulty getting fundingsupport.Universities have also become more dependent onsupport from external stakeholders, including theprivate business sector. Both administration and facultybecome thereby also more vulnerable to pressures onthe research directions they pursue and the policypositions they advocate. They suffer from the samevulnerability, where their budget entirely depends onyearly appropriations by the state.Some quarters would maintain that academic institutionshave no business taking policy or political positions.In 2001, I was serving on the board of an associationof universities. In one meeting, at the height of thecontroversy over the alleged involvement of PresidentJoseph Estrada in illegal gambling, I noted the eloquentAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xvsilence maintained by academe on the issue. Individualuniversities, including my own, had spoken out. Butthe sector as a whole had remained quiet, when allkinds of other associations—of businessmen, lawyers,accountants, retired soldiers, religious bodies, and civilsociety groups had voiced their demand, if not for theresignation of the president, at least for a thorough andtransparent investigation of the charges.A ranking official of another university questionedthe propriety of joining the fray, pointing out that theassociation, even in 1986, did not involve itself in theprotests against Marcos. What stunned me then wasthe evident pride taken in that precedent. At a crucialpoint in the country’s history, when the nation stoodbalanced on a razor’s edge between the reconsolidationof dictatorship and the reemergence of democracy,seclusion in the ivory tower was proudly proclaimedas the correct course of action. Equally appalling wasthe suggestion by another person that the school headsshould just allow, perhaps even encourage the studentsto join in the protest actions against Estrada, but shouldprudently stay on the sidelines themselves.Last year, at a meeting of university presidents inBangkok, I had the pleasure of talking to MargaretA. McKenna, president of Lesley University inCambridge, Massachusetts. I had not met her before,but I had written her some months earlier to expressmy appreciation for a piece she had published in theBoston Globe (13 January 2006), entitled the “Silencingof College Presidents.”In that contribution, she pointed out that, in the 19 thcentury, moral leadership was preeminently a roleexpected of the college president; many of them taughtthe school’s course on moral philosophy and ethics. In the20 th century, some presidents distinguished themselvesfor providing this moral leadership in periods of crises.Despite the risk of provoking public controversy,presidents like Theodore Hesburgh of Notre Dameor Kingman Brewster of Yale University, spoke outon the moral issues in the United States of their day:race, poverty, and the Vietnam War. The challenges, asBrewster explained, were striking a “deliberate balanceof judgment” about what say, seeking “how to avoidexcessive exploitation of the presidential office, and howto avoid being a moral eunuch on a morally anguishedcampus.”McKenna warned that 9/11 and the War against Terrorhad made the questioning of established governmentline more dangerous; dissent was likely to be deemedunpatriotic. She believed that, for this reason, collegepresidents have tended to focus on their administrativejobs and to shy away from larger national issues.The danger McKenna sees in the U.S. also looms inour region. If academic bureaucratization and thefinancial vulnerability of many universities make eventheir presidents reluctant to speak out on public issues,are universities likely to provide a secure platform forpublic intellectuals? From whom, then, if not from theirleaders, can students learn the kind of civic engagementwe hope they will practice? It is the example of moralleadership, exercised at the highest levels, that empowersthe university community to fulfill its responsibility toseek the Truth and to speak Truth to Power.Media and “Punditry”The media is the other sector that logically should offersuitable candidates for the Public Intellectuals program.The work of journalists requires intellectual effort andinvolves a measure of research, mainly along the linesof oral history, but sometimes also demanding archivalinvestigation. But media has become, as universities arebecoming, Big Business. Where the media operationsform part of a corporate conglomerate, the danger ofcapture by the special interests of the owners becomesmagnified.The emergence of television journalism has raised newproblems. Television puts a premium on presentation,not necessarily intellectual skills. Indeed, sometimesnot even presentation skills, but good looks. Eventhe industry jokes about their “talking heads,” whichmust be perfectly coifed. With good looks, TV hostsonly require literacy to read the cues on camera, oftenprepared by researchers paid a measly fraction of whatthe anchor receives.It is, perhaps, this debasing of media journalism that hasturned the term “pundit” into a derogatory description.But the term had been more respectable. The originalIndian word “pandit,” from which it is derived,referred to a learned person, a scholar or teacher versedin Sanskrit and Hindu law, religion and philosophy.British judges in India in the 18 th and 19 th centuries,who knew little of Hindu customs and oral traditions,employed them as court advisers. Until about the mid-1860’s, the legal structure actually carried a post fora law officer designated as the Pundit of the SupremeCourt to counsel British judges on points of Hindulaw.Pundit later came to mean an expert in a field whopronounced authoritative views in the media on his orAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xviher area of expertise. Journalists would solicit quotesor sound-bites from their favorite pundits to addcredibility and heft to their reports. In time, punditsacquired their own shows, or journalists, taking the roleof news anchors or talk-show hosts, began to qualify aspundits themselves—which contributed to blurring thedistinction between the expert and the journalist. Byvirtue of presence in the media, the journalist gainedrecognition as an expert and the expert had to adjustto become more accessible to the mass media audience.Jean Bethke Elshtain, a board member of the Institutefor Advanced Studies at Princeton University, noted therisk: as time goes on, the public intellectual may becomemore and more public and less and less intellectual.Perhaps, inevitably, the pundit became associated withpeople pushing vested interests, a particular ideology orpolitical platform. I think our public intellectuals woulddo well to shun the pundit label.But punditry is an important element in definingthe purposes of the API Fellowships Program. In themost fundamental definition, public intellectuals mustacquire at least two qualifications: a level of disciplinaryexpertise and the ability to communicate their field to abroader audience beyond the field. They raise their valuewhen they can clarify the meaning of developments intheir specific fields and their connections with otherfields. They perform an even more useful role whenthey can provide the public with insights into theimplications of the academic work done in their fieldson related areas of study.Some public intellectuals, because of the credibility andthe prominence they establish in their own fields, becomeinfluential sources of views on other fields. Einsteinmade his mark in physics. After gaining internationalprominence for his work in the discipline, he receivedand accepted invitations to speak on religion, education,ethics, philosophy, and world politics. Unless one is anEinstein, however, there are clearly risks in venturingbeyond one’s area of expertise.Part of the mission of the API Fellowships Programwould be to support promising public intellectuals tomove up this hierarchy of roles from communicator toprophet. Presumably, the process of moving up meansreaching a progressively growing public. Ironically, ICTtechnology, which should logically facilitate the reachto a bigger audience, also makes it possible to containthe information flow.Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that nationalnewspapers have been losing their readers. More peopleare getting their news from radio and television. Andnational political news, the mainstay for newspapersof national record, is losing reader interest, except,possibly, during crisis conditions.The variety of publications available in bookstoresand newsstands, on the other hand, has expandedtremendously. These materials cater to specific interestsor demographic groups. There are magazines for theteen-agers and the elderly and pregnant women; forthose interested in cosmetics or cuisine; gardeningor guns; motorcars or movies; travel or technology.There are magazines that cover sports, and even morespecialized publications that focus on specific sportingevents or even individual teams.Those who want to pursue their special interests beyondthe weekly or monthly publications can surf the webfor relevant blogs. Two points, I think, deserve noting.First, only a relatively small sector of society would havethe education and the money to access these specializedsources of information. Second, these privileged fewhave complete control over the information they wouldlike to see.We look for the public intellectuals to play a rolein shaping the culture of society towards desirablestandards (though, of course, we can debate what thesestandards should be). But, especially, in the developingcountries, they often stand at some distance from themass of the population, which is mainly concerned withmaking a living. At the same time, their reach to theeducated, moneyed class is completely contingent onthe access it permits to them.Imagined Communities and the Concept of AsiaThe national audience appears to be shrinking. Societyis being balkanized, fragmented into a multiplicity ofinterest groups that can selectively focus on anythingthey choose, from aviation to Zen. Each group canconstruct a virtual, self-contained community that canfilter out of its radar screen anything extraneous to itsconcerns. The Boston baseball club that recently wonthe World Series speaks of a Red Sox Nation, whosegeographical reach does indeed appear to span theAmerican continent and beyond; it has a significantfollowing in Japan, because of its star Japanese pitcher.It is a “nation” with a wide reach, but a narrowly limitedfocus.The mention of geography leads me to the third elementin the Asian Public Intellectuals Program. The Fellowsgathered here today clearly do not represent all of Asia.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xviiIt is reasonable and necessary, of course, to imposeadministrative and budgetary limits on the scope of theprogram. But it may be useful to reflect on our conceptand understanding of Asia. Does the geographical tagimply that our public intellectuals should preferablyfocus on Asian issues or address mainly an Asianaudience? And how do we identify these?Even the issue of which countries comprise Asia is notso easy to determine anymore, if you consider all theclusters that describe themselves as Asian. I am sure wecan all identify the ten members of ASEAN. Perhaps,you know that SEAMEO is ASEAN plus One, withthe addition of Timor Leste. Perhaps, some of you canalso describe the coverage of the club for Asia PacificEconomic Cooperation (APEC).The term Asia-Pacific is interesting. It can be understoodto mean a group larger than Asia, including boththe countries on the Asian continent and the islandcountries of the Pacific Ocean. Grammatically, it canalso be correctly interpreted as limiting membership tocountries on the Asian land mass that have access to thePacific. APEC takes the narrower definition; UNESCOthe expanded view. But last year, the AustralianMinistry of Education and Training convened aconference of Asia-Pacific Education Ministers, andthe intended territorial scope appears even bigger thanthat of UNESCO, extending from Turkey in the westto the Pacific Islands in the east, with Brazil enjoyingObserver status.I will concede your familiarity with these groups. But Ibelieve I can safely bet the house against anyone namingthe countries that can participate in the Asian Gamesand those that can receive financial assistance fromthe Asian Development Bank. I will even offer a hint:APEC has 21 members; the Asian Games fielded teamsfrom 42 countries; ADB includes 48 Asian membercountries.I think we now all accept that nations and their claimednational territories are political and psychologicalconstructs. In Benedict Anderson’s memorable phrase,nations are “imagined communities.” Their boundariesare determined by historical accident, established bythe vision and aggressiveness of leaders, the fortunes ofwar and the incompetence or brilliance of contendingdiplomats.One of the first things we learned, as students of SoutheastAsian history, was the World War II provenance of theterm—Lord Louis Mountbatten had established theheadquarters of his Southeast Asia Command in Kandyin Ceylon or Sri Lanka. Despite once bearing the nameand its historical and contemporary religious links withBurma and Thailand, Sri Lanka remains outside anygrouping of Southeast Asian countries.The concept of nations as imagined communitieshas equal relevance to both Europe and Asia. SomeEuropean weather maps reportedly end abruptly atnational borders; these would not be very helpfulto meteorologists. Somewhat similar is the practicefollowed by some countries of changing the names oftyphoons once they enter national territories. In ourtime, it seems the essential solidity of topography andterrain has melted and become reduced to fluid lineson maps drawn by military and political strategists toserve national interests and ambitions. Geopolitics hastrumped Geography.Until recently, we have been able to depend ongeographical origins as a reliable indicator of identity.But intermarriage, migration and, in general, themobility that technology has made possible, have madebirthplace and ethnicity less decisive cultural markers.We can no longer presume that the ethnic Asians weencounter in the United States, Europe and Australianecessarily speak Asian languages. And even whenthey do, their primary political allegiance lies with thecountry where they live. Increasingly we have to thinkin terms of hyphenated identities: Filipino-American,or Dutch-Indonesian, or Thai-German, and so forth.Still, the hyphenated population, though it may beincreasing, remains small. Indeed, the process ofintegrating them into the imagined community oftheir adopted nation is one of the complex problems towhich globalization has given prominence. Despite therise of multinational institutions, the emergence of aglobal market and the expansion of the world-wide web,which defies national boundaries, the predicted demiseof nation-states remains only a distant possibility.The emergence of the European Union had at one timesuggested that regional associations might pave the wayfor an inclusive and cohesive political institution biggerthan the nation-state. But the opposition to the EUconstitution in France and the Netherlands has appliedthe brakes on the movement towards a stronger politicalunion.The SEAMEO ministers of education and ASEANitself have been pushing for a program to promote astronger sense of ASEAN-ness and a more cohesiveSoutheast Asian socio-cultural community. But none ofthe member countries see this advocacy as in any wayAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xviiireplacing or even weakening the ties between citizenand country.Identity in a Globalized WorldI have ventured to suggest that the terms of the APIFellowships Program—Asian Public Intellectuals—require periodic review because perspectives onintellectuals, the public and Asia are not immutablyengraved in stone. The review would help ensure thatthe program remains relevant over time.Many papers on the agenda for this workshopreflect upon the issue of globalization, its meaning,consequences and implications, and the related themesof identities and boundaries. A number also deal withhow these issues emerge in popular culture.Here we have an artist’s testimony to a man’srootedness in the land of his birth, of his people, of hisculture in a time of global, ideological confrontation.I hope it serves to add a dimension and a color to thetheme of boundaries, culture and identity in an age ofglobalization that many of you have been exploring inyour work.My best wishes for a stimulating and fruitful meeting.Thank you and good evening.E.C. de Jesus25 November 2007Let me end with a small example, a kind of case study, ofhow these issues may interconnect. Some of you may befamiliar with “Chess,” not the game, but a musical playbased on the game. One of the best known songs startswith the line: “One night in Bangkok makes a hard manhumble.” The plot revolves around the rivalry betweenan American and a Russian chess grandmaster duringthe period of the Cold War, and their common struggleto balance their love of the game to which they havededicated their lives and their personal relationships.At one point, the Russian realizes that he has fallenin love with his American rival’s manager/girl friend,and he entertains thoughts of defecting to the capitalistWest. He expresses the dilemma he feels in the songentitled “Anthem”.No man, no madnessThough their sad power may prevailCan possess, conquer my country’s heartThey rise to fail.She is eternalLong before nations’ lines were drawnWhen no flags flew, when no armies stoodMy land was bornAnd you ask me why I love herThrough wars, death and despairShe is the constantWe who don’t care.And you wonder will I leave her—but how?I cross over borders, but I’m still there now.How can I leave her?Where would I start?Let man’s petty nations tear themselves apartMy land’s only borders lieAround my heart.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xixOVERVIEWCzarina Saloma-Akpedonu, Workshop Director6 th Workshop of the API Fellowships ProgramENCOUNTERS OF ASIAN TRANSFORMATIONS:VARIATIONS ON THE THEMEThe papers in this collection carry an important andcentral agenda: to understand the social transformationsin Asia as these are taking place. Like the sociologistBruno Latour who proposes that one should “studyscience in action and not ready-made science,” the2006/2007 API Fellows studied social and culturaltransformations in-the-making and by doing so couldarrive at an understanding before these become facts,blackboxed and taken for granted.In the study of Asian metamorphosis, Latour’s ideameans investigating and analyzing the social conditionsfrom which transformative actions emerge, the mediumand practices of social transformation and the outcomeswhich both constitute and reproduce the conditionsand structures bearing such actions. Such is the natureof the perpetual metamorphosis of Asia.API Fellows are able to study social and culturaltransformations in action by having the privilege ofobserving, reflecting on and analyzing Asian societiesfor a prolonged period of time. This period of time,which allows a space for cultivating both knowledge forunderstanding and knowledge for action, is becomingrare in an age of speed and multiple tasking. The bodyof knowledge and insights that API Fellows collectivelybuild is refined by the comparative optics of viewingone’s own society in relation to another and vice versa,since they study a society other than their own. 1Each paper sheds light, on a continuum of degreesof focus, on the contexts and processes of socialtransformations in Asia, and on the origins andconsequences of these transformations as they are takingplace. These transformations may happen graduallyas society and its various parts constantly search forequilibrium. At other times, transformations occurin the form of contestations and tensions that suggestuneven and partial outcomes. Two sets of works by APIFellows can be viewed as offering an insight into thenature and dynamics of the circles of power and thegreat portion of goodwill residing in society. Anotherset can be regarded as contributing to the understandingof the dynamics of social transformations, particularlythe intermingling of continuity and discontinuity,the blurring or reintegration of boundaries, and therefiguring of identities and futures. Finally, there is a setof works that can be considered as collages of bettermentand the specificities of globalization. 2Circles of power and counterbalancesThe different types of social honor that society bestowsto different groups of people hint that more people ofdiversified backgrounds can participate in the traditionalspheres of power—politics, religion and economy. AkikoMorishita’s examination of the political longevity of theChief Minister of a Malaysian state shows one exampleof how political and economic power is bestowed bysociety and how the political culture perpetuates thegrasp of those who lay hold of power and impedes theascent of others into circles of power.Ayame Suzuki’s study on the rise and fall of oppositionforces in Malaysia illustrates how influential individualsfrom the professional, educational, cultural and religioussectors can potentially counterbalance the dominanteconomic and political elite. She highlights a new aspectof counterbalancing, achieved by engendering theperception that legal boundaries have not been pushedand that deliberative channels for interest articulationexist, which resulted in some members of the oppositionnot remaining opposed to the government.In his engagement of a sample of Muslim and non-Muslim interpretations of Islam’s place in politics inMalaysia, Kamaruzzaman Bustamam-Ahmad suggeststhat definitions of rights and laws by the political elitemust take into account the interpretations of thosefor whom it speaks. He shows how an appreciation ofthese differences is vital to understanding the fractiousdebates about the nature of the secular state and theIslamic state.Persistent problems, promising solutions andbeneficencePersistent problems of poverty and social inequalityhave generated promising solutions. Josie M. FernandezAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xxpresents some reformulations of philanthropywhich have led to the idea of social investments asreplacement for charity work. To make the point thatphilanthropy is bound to particular social, politicaland economic conditions, she focuses on examplesof Islamic institutional philanthropy in Indonesia,which is comprised of various acts of giving freely orobligatorily.However, proffered solutions should be carefullyexamined, as Hozue Hatae has done on Japaneseprivate-sector development projects in Malaysia and thePhilippines, for their capabilities to help communitiesand to respond to their unintended consequences. Bystudying three of these projects, she is able to provideus a glimpse of how “‘sustainable development’ has, inmany cases, turned out to be destructive developmentfor local people.”The gleaning of important lessons from best-intentionactions is also a theme that Heru Susetyo shares withHatae. Susetyo describes the inevitable differences incapabilities across countries and localities in providingfor the basic needs of victims of disasters. His accountof the disaster management systems of Japan, Indonesiaand Thailand is instructive of the twin facts that whilemost disasters are impossible to prevent, humanbeings can either magnify or diminish their costs, andthat survival and recovery favor those who are bestprepared.Intermingling of continuity and discontinuitySome societies discard or neglect their traditional cultureas others try to protect themselves from the invasion ofthe modern and the new. Michi Tomioka, Jo Kukathas,Ramon Santos and Glecy Atienza direct attention tovarious groups’ efforts to find a balance between the oldways and the new.Tomioka shows how traditions are invented—thecontraction of time in Javanese court dances is anexample—and how the previous form can be restoredto its rightful place. The warm reception of her stagingof the full version of the dances shows that since “[a]rtistic values can be limited or changed according tosocial and cultural contexts… [i]t would be effectivefor cultural communities to revalue and reconsiderthe results of former art projects in search of their ownroots, historical memory and cultural identity.”Kukathas’s reflections on the theater, particularly thenoh, unmask many of the ironies that accompanytransformations in the arts. Among these: that manytraditional art forms cease to be a voice for those in thefringes “once they occupy the privileged position of aclassical or state form,” and that “those who seek to freezetradition forget that tradition is evolving.” A nationaliststance that seeks to foster a society’s uniqueness andauthenticity, she suggests, is more detrimental thanbeneficial as it leads to the stratification of that society’sarts forms.One important aspect in the translation of the old intocontemporary times and spaces is the transmission ofknowledge from one generation to another. Atienzaprovides a glimpse into how Indonesian and Thai artiststhemselves have developed a theater documentationsystem where the preservation and transformation oftraditional theater practices undergo a “process of criticalinterpretation and re-interpretation.” She identifies thecreation of a collective theater memory, developed byartists’ engagement of communities in the productionand performance of theater, as the core of this system.Santos presents the traditional and indigenous waysof preserving and transmitting musical arts andthe formalized institutional structures for doing soin contemporary Indonesia and Thailand. Sinceinstitutional and formal modes of transmission andlearning are likely to dominate the present times, Santos,like Atienza, underlines the artists’ ennobling role to“effect a balance between what is lost and what is gainedand accordingly exercise their power and imagination…to determine the parameters of change through whichand by which they can exercise the license to create andinnovate, in the process of sustaining, perpetuating andenhancing tradition.”Blurred borders and social integrationsThe experiences of boundary-crossing hybrid formspresent themselves as a fertile ground of study.Hybridization, which refers to the combination ofvarious cultural elements, is closely linked to theforming of an identity. Mokhammad Yahya’s andDjorina Velasco’s respective studies of Southern FilipinoMuslims in Metro Manila and the Indonesian side ofthe Indonesian-Philippine border illustrate a form ofhybridization where previous cultural and geographicconnections become blurred by combinations of newsymbols, signs, practices and localities.Yahya chronicles a form of hybridization amongFilipino Muslim urbanites: their “rhetoricallyfundamentalist but pragmatic and moderate approachto an Islamic state” bears the imprint of the enclavecharacter of their urban settlement that allowed themAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xxito retain their identity but at the same time respondto features of a predominantly Christian urbanlife. These social realities are difficult to reduce intoconceptual frameworks. Velasco shows this to be thecase of the current frameworks used in understandingthe issues in borderzones. One framework’s lack ofrecognition of problems is prologue to the search forsolutions. Another’s uncritical problematization of thephenomenon colors all the initiatives aimed at solvingthe perceived problem. It is time, she points out, for apeople-centered perspective on the borderzone.Alwin Aguirre’s presentation of Indonesian andJapanese science fictionists’ alter-conceptions of sociallife acknowledges a form of hybridization in theimagination of social life that results from the interfacebetween science and technology and the social world.His discussion of science fiction focuses on the extentto which hybrid imaginations of the future depart fromthe Western tradition of science fiction and insteadadvance visions of tomorrow that truly reflect an Asianagenda for alternative life.Refiguration of identities and futures in times oftransformationImages and texts reconstruct the social reality that theyrepresent and in doing so contribute to social processes,including the construction of identity and meaning.Yoshiko Shimada’s interactive art project which sheconducted in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesiademonstrates how the unmasking of refigured identitiesin a changing world can proceed as a consciousengagement of the private and public binary. Throughthe exercise of unveiling public secrets, she providesan example of how art can fulfill a cathartic role whilesociety awaits structural changes that take longer torealize.Myfel Joseph Paluga offers insights into how humansocieties construct their identities by selectively reservinga space for animals in their social life. As society changesand as animal-relating practices change with it, Palugasuggests putting everyday phenomena under scientificscrutiny to “calibrate traditional views and practices tothe actual lives of…animals.”Iskandar Sharifuddin Bin Mohd. Said and KaoriFushiki show that the reconstitution of social identitycan be motivated by the project of nation-building orof marking one’s society as distinct and different fromothers. Iskandar Sharifuddin Bin Mohd. Said detailshow the state, through films, manufactures the factsof the nation and how films lending themselves in thisexercise do not only serve the state or any organizedpower. A film that inspires discussion long after itsscreening allows the audience to manufacture factsthemselves. Cultural politics and its many forms isalso the subject of Fushiki’s examination of a recentsurge in the promotion of “Balineseness” through theperforming arts. Her work portrays the tensions createdby this movement: on the one hand, it instills a pride oftradition and of place; on the other, it breeds stultifyingethnocentrism.Specificities of globalizationGlobalization may be viewed as the convergenttransformation of particular entities (e.g., continents,nations, villages, companies, organizations, individuals).Supa Yaimuang contributes to an understanding ofglobalization as a lived and contextual experience bylooking at Indonesian and Japanese farmers’ response tochanges that are underway in the agricultural sector: thesustainable agricultural movement. Her documentationof sustainable production and consumption methodscharacterizes the sustainable agricultural system as arecognition of the wisdom of the past.I Ketut Gunawan’s work generates a deeper appreciationof globalization as an overarching reality for nonstateterror groups in Southeast Asia, particularly inIndonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. These groups,he points out, have built networks, including virtualones, which spill over national territorial boundaries infurtherance of their goals.Krisnadi Yuliawan Saptadi contributes to anunderstanding of globalization through its workings incinema wherein “the nature of film production is reallydifficult to keep within one country because creativitycannot be kept within one country’s boundaries.” Heshows that cinematic representation and experience inJapan and Thailand are dialogues with Hollywood, inwhich the resistance to Hollywood’s “domination” is ada capo theme and the Asianization of cinema is a robustproject. Sing Suwannakij likewise offers his thoughts ona paradox case of the globalization of representation:what one knows about Japanese spirituality goes througha Western sieve and can differ from what the Japaneseactually perceive and practice; yet, the ensuing reality ismore complex as these representations are consumed bythe locals themselves.Mohd. Naguib Razak joins Suwannakij in attempts “todiscover, unravel and understand spirituality in Japan’smaterial utopia,” an insoluble condition of spiritualityand materialism that arises both from Japan’s endogenousAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xxiisequences of social change and from its encounters withthe world outside. The questions that Naguib drawsfrom the absence of spirituality, especially among theyoung, locate the question of reality as represented by afilmmaker within another question, often rarely asked:how does this reality affect the filmmaker?Collages of bettermentIn the following works, investigations of sociallife look into the furtherance, enhancement andrectification of engagements with society’s political andeconomic systems and state mechanisms. VarinthraKaiyourawong’s study of a non-governmentalorganization’s communication campaign to promotecommunity rights to biodiversity resources shows hownew political and economic conditions have pushedcivil society, which relies on tested strategies based oncommunication and community development, to adapttheir actions to the “signs of the times.” Civil society hasbecome sensitive to indigenous and traditional wisdomand to new, innovative systems of knowledge. Therefinement of civil society is also Chaiwat Thirapantu’sconcern as he examines the idea of transformativeleadership anchored on self-cultivation in Indonesia,Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. He argues thatcivil society organizations will be more effective if theyare led by transformative leaders who are able to providea space for communities to exchange ideas and nurturesocial relationships.heritage of Southeast Asia, and the promise of theintellectual’s reflexive and instrumental role before anextra-academic audience.It is in challenging facts, blackboxes, and taken-forgrantedrealities that public intellectuals contribute tothe shaping of their own society’s alternative futures.The comparative optics resulting from a study of asociety other than one’s own ensures that this pursuitof possibilities for the future is tempered with the twinpursuits of being in harmony with other societies and incompetition with them. These twin goals would inspireinnovation and transformative action in varying ways.The papers in this collection provide a glimpse intothe process of researching Asia’s multiple realities.One can, and perhaps only should, begin with aninitial idea of the phenomenon one is interested in. Itis the encounter with reality that should lead one to afuller understanding of it. It is the collective hope ofAPI Fellows that in sharing this fuller understandingof reality, they will move those individuals whosedecisions affect the lives of ordinary people to find waysto guarantee that transformations will not favor onlya few, and move those ordinary people who are thecentral actors in the transformation of Asia to celebrateand, at the same time, feel the seriousness of their greatrole in it.Ahmad Hezri Bin Adnan’s work in Indonesia and thePhilippines addresses the hazards and risks created byscientific and industrial advances and state-sanctionedactivities, and raises questions as to what extent thestate can monitor itself through sustainability indicatorsystems vis-à-vis the price of progress. This is because, ashe shows, the usefulness of such systems depends largelyon whether or not they are used to inform policy andgovernance.Iderlina Mateo-Babiano grounds the theme ofbetterment on the issue of regenerating urban streetlife and rescuing cities from the imminent threat ofbecoming part of the geography of nowhere. Her studyof the streetscapes of Bandung, Bangkok and Manila,highlights the advantages of using a user-centeredapproach, one that focuses on the needs of pedestrians,in street management strategies.In a study of the institutional location of academics andintellectuals in Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailandand in discerning his own role as an API Fellow, SharaadKuttan, emphasizes the importance of the intellectualAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

xxiiiABOUT THE WORKSHOPThe 6 th API Workshop was held in Davao, onMindanao Island in the Philippines, from 25-29November 2007. The general flow of the Workshop,comprised mainly of eight parallel sessions of paperpresentations, followed a chautauqua, a set of talks orlectures. While the imagery should in no way be fullyassociated with the great body of factual informationrelating to chautauquas, it was offered as a heuristicdevice for grasping the power of the workshop. Justas lectures are the mainstay of the chautauqua, thepaper presentations were chautauquas in themselves.Twenty-seven API Fellows punctuated narratives ofAsian transformations with numerous philosophical,artistic, and social scientific analyses and insights.Many readers would have encountered the concept ofchautauqua through Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Artof Motorcycle Maintenance.” Pirsig’s novel, writtenin 1974, describes a motorbike journey across theUnited States by the narrator and his son.Pirsig, or rather the motor biker, gives lectures inhis head. Sometimes, the lecture appears in the formof conversation with the son and/or the couple theybefriended. In all instances, the reader is the thirdperson on the motorbike. In the API Workshop, theparticipants went on a motorbike trip—with manythird persons on the motorbike.Who were these third persons on the motorbike?Indeed, who was the audience of the API chautauqua?Since the API is about Fellows studying a societyother than one’s own, the workshop’s immediateaudience was: individuals who come from the societybeing studied by another; and individuals who comefrom the same society of the Fellow studying a societyother than one’s own.The other person on the motorbike, the otherimportant audience, was composed of the students ofthe Ateneo de Davao University. In the “API Hour,”selected Fellows visited five classes of the Ateneo deDavao University where they shared insights fromtheir explorations of Asian transformations.Aside from being characterized by lectures, chautauquashave one other characteristic. They are itinerant. Intheir original form, chautauquas brought educationand culture to remote places. In Pirsig’s book, themotorbikers travel across the United States. In theAPI chautauqua, the presentations allowed workshopparticipants to travel to and across Indonesia, Japan,Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.The API chautauqua also allowed travel acrossMindanao through “Mindanao Talk” with Fr. AlbertAlejo, S.J., Executive Director of the MindanawonInitiatives for Cultural Dialogue of the Ateneo deDavao University. Actual travelling was also donewith a visit to local settings, namely the PhilippineEagle Center and Eden Nature Park, where issuesrelated to environmental conservation and indigenouscommunities manifest themselves.NOTES1This comparative optics is further enriched by that factthat most Fellows in this cohort (19 out of 28, or 68%)pursued multi-sited research.2The presentation of papers in this book of proceedingsvaries slightly from the thematic assignment of papersand sessions in the Workshop. For the originalWorkshop program, please see Appendix I.Czarina Saloma-Akpedonu obtained her doctorate inSociology from Universität Bielefeld in Germany, herM.A. in Population Science from Peking Universityin the People’s Republic of China and her B.A. inSociology from the University of the Philippines.She is Associate Professor and concurrently Chair ofthe Department of Sociology and Anthropology andDirector of the Institute of Philippine Culture of theAteneo de Manila University. Named “OutstandingYoung Scientist” by the Philippine National Academyof Science and Technology in 2007, she is the authorof “Possible Worlds in Impossible Spaces: Globality,Knowledge, Gender and Information Technology inthe Philippines” (Ateneo de Manila University Press,2006) and co-author of “Casa Boholana: Meanings ofAncestral Houses” (Ateneo de Manila University Press,forthcoming).Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 1POLITICS AND TIMBER IN MALAYSIAAkiko MorishitaIntroductionThis paper will focus on politics and the timber businessin a forest-rich state in Malaysia. 1 Around 66.1 percent(8.22 million hectares) of the total land of the state iscategorized as forest area, and as much as 60.0 percent ofthe forest has been sold as logging concessions (Brown2001). The state government budget largely depends onthe forest revenue, especially since the timber boom of1979 and the end of the nation-wide recession of thelate 1980s. Forest revenue made up 14.6 percent of thegovernment budget revenue in 1965, 21.1 percent in1970, 17.7 percent in 1980, 21.2 percent in 1985, 50.3percent in 1989 and 44.4 percent in 1995 (see Graph 1). 2The political conditions in the Malaysian state,which I argue in this paper, are much different fromthose in Kalimantan. Here, the state Chief Ministerhas retained his strong political influence for morethan 25 years. He has also held the position of StateMinister of Resource Planning since 1985, which hasthe authority to issue forest concessions. Furthermore,he is the president of the local Muslim-based party ofthe state coalition government. 5 I begin by outlininghow the Chief Minister has concentrated strongpolitical power into his hands, emphasizing his politicalcleverness in establishing political equilibrium amongleading politicians representing other ruling parties andethnic groups, and in gaining the federal support thatstrengthens his power in the state government. I thenfocus on one of the prominent local timber businesspeople to describe how business success largely dependson political patronage in this state. In conclusion, Idiscuss possible future changes in the political conditionsof this state.Managing the federal-state relationship and interpartypoliticsGraph 1: State Forest Revenue(Percentage of Total Revenue of the State Government)The Malaysian federal government has officially givengreat autonomy to the state government, including theentire control over forest concessions. 3 In this sense,the state’s autonomy level is much higher than that ofneighboring Indonesia, where the central governmenttransferred the authority to issue logging concessions ofup to 10,000 hectares to local governments as part ofthe process of decentralization after the fall of Soeharto. 4Indonesia’s decentralization and the subsequentimplementation of the direct election system for localgovernment heads (i.e., governor, mayor, district head)led to collusions and/or severe competition amongpoliticians, bureaucrats and business people at both thenational and local levels for the control of local politicaland economic interests. For example, in Kalimantan(the Indonesian territory of Borneo), national andlocal elites compete in particular over the control offorest concessions and mineral resources such as coal(Morishita 2006).Malaysian political institutions centralize power in thehands of the state government in local administration.In the hierarchical administrative system, localadministrators below the state level are all appointed:the Resident at the divisional level, 6 the District Officerat the district level, and the Administrative Officers atthe sub-district level. Village heads are also appointedby the government. There is no elected body except thestate legislative assembly. Members of the local authoritybodies (i.e., city/municipal/district councils) are allnominated by the state government. They comprise ofParliament members, state assemblymen and women,party politicians, government officers, business peopleand leaders of social organizations who are favored bythe government. It is, therefore, crucial for those seekingpolitical power over the state to gain the top positions inthe state government which controls all political levels,ranging from the state capital to the division, district,sub-district and village.In the eyes of the law, the Yang di-Pertua Negeri(Governor) and the Chief Minister are the mostAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

2CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESsignificant positions in the state government. Thegovernor is the formal head of the state, appointedby the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King). He has theright to appoint the Chief Minister and other stateministers from the state legislative assembly, basedon the assembly’s composition. However, in the stateunder study, these positions were actually decided innegotiations among the state’s ruling coalition parties.The federal government easily intervened and played adecisive role in the negotiations since the componentparties of the state coalition government were oftenunable to unite because of ethnic differences, personalrivalries and disputes over political alliances. In thissituation, the president of a Muslim-based party in theruling coalition has assumed the office of Chief Ministersince 1970 largely owing to backup from the federalgovernment and he, instead of the nominal governor,has controlled the state government.This paper focuses on the present Chief Minister (1981to the present), who was born to a local Muslim familyin 1936. His first occupation was in the judiciary aftergraduating from an Australian university in 1960.Along with his uncle, he became one of the prominentleaders of the Muslim-based party in the state coalitiongovernment of the 1960s. In 1963, he was appointedas state Minister of Communication and Works andthen Minister of Development and Forestry in 1966.He was, however, dismissed from the post in 1967because a non-Muslim based party dominant in thegovernment coalition at the time feared his party’sgrowing influence, backed by the federal government,over the state Cabinet. Afterwards, he was appointed toa federal ministry with the help of his uncle, who heldthe office of federal Minister of Lands and Mines.In 1970, his uncle assumed the office of Chief Ministerwith backup from then Prime Minister Abdul RazakHussein despite his long absence from state politicsdue to his federal ministership. In other words, hismarginalization in state politics by being placed in thefederal government resulted in him gaining a strongconnection with the national political leader, who hadan unofficial but significant influence over the selectionof state Chief Minister. After taking office, his uncle,however, failed to maintain a harmonious relationshipwith the other parties in the coalition government andthe electorate as a result of too great an accumulationof power and wealth in his hands and the neglect ofother communities in terms of the allocation of politicaland economic interests. He was also at enmity withHussein Onn, the successor to Abdul Razak as PrimeMinister, since Hussein regarded him as corrupt andas an ally of his predecessor. The Chief Minister arguedwith the federal government over a plot to overthrowhim and to engineer the state’s secession from Malaysia.Hussein Onn then effectively forced the Chief Ministerout from office and replaced him with his nephew, whowas Minister of Federal Territory at that time (Brown2001).The current Chief Minister succeeded in strikinga political balance among the leading politiciansrepresenting other government parties and ethnic groupsthrough the allocation of executive positions. While heheld the most important and profitable positions in thestate Cabinet (i.e., Chief Minister, Minister of Finance,Minister of Planning and Resource Management—thesuccessor of the Minister of Resource Planning), hedistributed other important positions to the other partyleaders to firm up political patronage. In the 2006Cabinet inauguration, for example, the non-Muslimdeputy president of the Chief Minister’s party and thepresident of the Chinese-based party, whose daughtermarried the Chief Minister’s son, were reappointedas Deputy Chief Ministers; the president of the non-Muslim-based party as Minister of Land Development;the president of another non-Muslim-based party asMinister of Social Development and Urbanization; anda Muslim senior politician as Minister of Housing.During the term of the current Chief Minister, the stateruling coalition parties steadily won the great majorityof seats in both state and general elections throughvarious ways. They include: vote-buying, the allocationof campaign funds only to the government parties’candidates, the establishment of new constituencies sothat the seats of the government parties would increase,the adoption of a ballot-counting system to obtain adetailed breakdown of the voting results of each village,the commitment to infrastructure building in returnfor supporting government parties in rural areas, theacceptance of an opposition party into the governingcoalition after the elections, and so forth. All federalparliamentarians elected from the state governmentparties in general elections have supported the nationalcoalition government (Barisan Nasional, BN) and thePrime Minister. The federal government, thus, does notinterfere with the Chief Minister as long as the statecoalition government provides crucial votes to keep thenational BN in power (Brown 2001).The legitimacy of the Chief Minister’s rule has beenaffirmed by the achievement of economic development.The state GDP progressively grew from 3,488 millionringgit in 1980 to 5,291 million ringgit in 1985, to 6,558million ringgit in 1990 and to 9,629 million ringgit in1995. A decline in the poverty rate has accompaniedAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 3the rise in GDP. The ratio of households below theofficial poverty line has been reduced from 64.4 percentin 1970 to 47.7 percent in 1979, 31.3 percent in 1985,21.0 percent in 1990 and to 17.0 percent in 1995 (seeGraph 2). Those statistical outputs, whether they aretrue or not, have been used as proof of his successfuladministration.Graph 2: State Poverty Rates, 1970-1997(% of households below the official poverty line)Two issues, however, could undermine the ChiefMinister’s rule. Firstly, his family business andinvolvement in corruption have been allegedly reportedby some independent media groups. It is reported that hisfamily corporation has received numerous governmentcontracts for infrastructure building and accumulatedgreat wealth (Aliran 2004). Another report also saysthat he has received a multi-million ringgit contractfrom Japanese timber shipping companies in exchangefor his connivance in their tax evasion. Secondly, aland issue has arisen since the government projects offorestry and plantation development began to exploitindigenous peoples’ customary lands. The land issuehad in fact already emerged during the colonial periodbut the ongoing commercial logging and recent hugeoil palm plantation developments are accelerating thepenetration into indigenous peoples’ living spaces andlives in rural areas. Grievances and protests againstthese development projects are not taken seriously andare sometimes suppressed violently by the government.These issues have eroded public confidence in the ChiefMinister’s administration and the government. Thispublic distrust can cause serious damage to the presentpolitical system in the long term.Collusion between politics and businessWhile accumulating wealth through his familybusiness, the Chief Minister established patron-clientrelationships with powerful business people in the statethrough the allocation of forest concessions and loggingcontracts. Most concessions were awarded to his family,relatives, friends and political associates, and then weresubcontracted to local timber companies close to theChief Minister’s family and/or his associates (Brown2001). In these situations, five main powerful businessgroups have grown nationally and even internationally.All of them are family corporations founded by localChinese. How did they make a link with the ChiefMinister and become successful in business? Thefollowing part will focus on one of these companies,which was the biggest among them but has recentlybeen overtaken in size by another company. 7 It willdemonstrate how local business people with a logginginterest depend on patronage from the Chief Ministerand his political associates.The company’s founder, Tan (a pseudonym), was theeighth richest person in Malaysia and the 746 th richestperson in the world in 2006 (Forbes 2006). 8 Hispersonal net worth was said to be more than two billionringgit (USD800 million) in 1995 (Malaysia Business1995). How has he achieved such a great success andwhy was his company overtaken by another companyrecently?Tan was born to a poor family in a district capitalin the state in 1935. He is the second generation ofFoochows who migrated to the district in the early1900s. After graduating from a local high school, hetook a correspondence course with a Chinese universityand also began his career at his uncle’s timber company.In 1975, he set up his own company along with hisbrothers. The company started as a timber contractorin his hometown and now operates as far away asNew Zealand, central Africa, Papua New Guinea,Vanuatu and Russia. Other than timber exports andtimber processing, his business has also expanded tocover finance, media, information technology, mining,aquaculture, oil palm plantation, trading and propertydevelopment (Malaysia Business 1995).Tan experienced political hardships during his earlybusiness days. In the early 1970s, he was jailed bythe Chief Minister at the time on a charge of beinga communist (Brown 2001). His hometown, whichis also his business hub and where the majority ofthe population is Chinese, was the base for localcommunists from the 1960s to the mid-1970s. Ascommunists used the forest as their safe area, loggingcontractors had to give assistance to the communists inorder to be allowed to continue to work in their area ofoperation. After being released, Tan tried to creep intothe Chief Minister’s favor, even making a special trip toTaiwan to serve as his golf umbrella-holder. The ChiefMinister, however, continued to abuse his relationshipwith Tan. The Chief Minister, for example, suspendedAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

4CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESTan’s federal senatorship, despite it being promised toTan by the then Secretary General of the Chinese-basedparty, Gan (a pseudonym), who is a Foochow politicianand shares a hometown with Tan, in exchange for abribe (Brown 2001).In 1981, the Chief Minister stepped down and hisnephew assumed the position. Tan moved quickly tobuild up new political connections not only at the statelevel but also at the federal level this time. Top nationaland local politicians and their family members becameboard members in Tan’s listed company. They includeda brother of the new Chief Minister, a former federalChief of Defense Force, and a former federal Attorney-General. In 1987, Tan also purchased a 34 percent sharein a company, the other shares of which are owned bya senior local politician who is former state Ministerof Environment and Tourism and owns huge loggingconcession tracts in the eastern part of the state (Brown2001; Colchester 1994; Malaysia Business 1995).Under the new Chief Minister’s administration, Tan’spolitical ally, Gan, became the president of the Chinesebasedparty, and was also appointed as Deputy ChiefMinister in 1994. Tan’s younger brother was thenappointed as Senator in 1995. In order to make furtherpolitical connections at the federal level, Tan alsoestablished a company in Kuala Lumpur in partnershipwith a son of the Prime Minister at the time. In 1992,Tan split off 15 percent of the company to anothercompany in which the Prime Minister’s sons were soleshareholders and directors. Other share allocations wentto several politicians of the United Malays NationalOrganization (UMNO), the Malay-based party of thenational coalition government (Brown 2001).Tan’s company in Kuala Lumpur, however, failed tomake profits and his family members resigned fromthe company board in 1994. After Tan’s withdrawalfrom the partnership, the Prime Minister’s son broughta lawsuit against him. Tan tried to arrange a meetingwith the Prime Minister with the help of Gan, an oldmedical school classmate of the Prime Minister. ThePrime Minister, however, refused to meet with Tan. It isalso said that federal Inland Revenue Service agents weresent to raid the headquarters of Tan’s company (Brown2001). Tan’s attempt to make a strong connection withthe top national politician then broke down.Tan’s political links have further withered away sinceGan stepped down as the president of the Chinesebasedparty after his defeat in the 1996 election. A newparty president was selected who also became DeputyChief Minister. His daughter married a son of theChief Minister. The new Deputy Chief Minister alsoheld the office of Minister of Industrial Developmentand Minister of Modernization of Agriculture. It islikely that this was the time when Tan’s company wasovertaken by another local timber company, the ownerof which has close links with the Chief Minister and thenew Deputy Chief Minister. Furthermore, another localChinese businessman, Kiong (a pseudonym), began togain economic strength rapidly in the early 1990s. Hewent into not only the timber industry but also nontimberbusinesses such as chemical and constructioncompanies in partnerships with the Chief Ministerand a former federal Minister of Finance. Kiong alsoobtained the trust of Prime Minister through his veryquick completion of construction projects, includinga five-star hotel on a popular Malaysian resort island.Kiong conflicted with Gan over the gigantic damproject in the state and was behind the latter’s defeat inthe 1996 election (Brown 2001).While being upstaged by other local Chinese businesspeople, Tan became active and influential in the timberindustry in other countries, particularly Russia andPapua New Guinea. His company has been operatingin the Russian Far East since 1997 when it acquiredthe rights to harvest 305,000 hectares of state forest.In Papua New Guinea, his company is said to havemade close connections with national and localpoliticians through bribery, including a former DeputyPrime Minister, the Minister for Internal Security, aprovincial Governor and two Parliament members,and as a result succeeded in gaining control of closeto 50 percent of country’s log exports. Although thecompany’s international operations have been accusedof deforestation and illegal logging by Greenpeace andother international NGO groups, it is likely that Tan canmore easily conduct legal and illegal timber operationsin collusion with politicians in those countries than inMalaysia where his political connections have becomeweak at both the federal and state levels.Through the story of Tan, it is obvious that local businesspeople, especially in the timber sector, totally dependon political patronage and cannot be independenteven with their great financial ability. In addition, toppoliticians can exercise police power as a political meansof weakening their business partners if they becomeinsubordinate or intimidating. Under those conditions,it is likely that local business people in this forest-richstate in Malaysia prefer to expand their business overseaswhere it is much easier to bribe politicians for businessfavors than in their own country.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 5ConclusionIn the forest-rich state in Malaysia, business successlargely depends on political patronage under the strongrule of the Chief Minister. The major external andinternal factors of the present Chief Minister’s longtimecontrol over the state can be summarized as follows: Asexternal factors, the national BN parties (i.e., UMNO,the Chinese-based party MCA, the Indian-based partyMIC) have not come into this state so they have to relyon the state government parties for gaining BN-supportseats in Parliament. Hence, the federal governmentsupports and will not interfere with the Chief Ministeras long as the state coalition government delivers crucialvotes to maintain the national BN in power. Moreover,the Chief Minister is nominated from among theparty leaders of the state governing coalition, so thefederal government can easily intervene in the processof negotiation among the party leaders in order to putits favorite forward as Chief Minister. All these factorsindicate that the state’s politics are ultimately influencedby the federal government.As internal factors, the Chief Minister has succeededin striking a political ethnic balance in terms of theallocation of political interests by giving the offices ofstate ministers to leading politicians representing variousethnic groups while he holds the most important andprofitable positions in the Cabinet. Another significantissue regarding control in the state is winning generaland state elections. The government parties havesucceeded in maintaining a majority of seats in electionsthrough various methods such as vote-buying, theestablishment of new constituencies, commitments toinfrastructure building in rural areas, and so on. Underthese conditions, the Chief Minister concentratedpolitical power in his hands and established the politicobusinesspatronage systems through the reallocation oftimber interests so that powerful local business peopledepended on him for their business success.Are there any possible changes in political conditions inthis state? The Chief Minister is already over 70 yearsold and has a health problem that will force him toretire in the near future. Since political power is muchtoo concentrated on him and no other local politician isequal to his political skills at reading and manipulatingthe federal and state political situations, the futurecompetition for the office of Chief Minister may leadto severe and persistent disputes and reorganizationsof power among major party leaders. The federalgovernment will then play a crucial rule in the processof negotiation among local politicians. Hence, politicalinstability at the federal level will create even greaterconfusion in competition over political power in thisstate.NOTES1 I cannot mention the name of the state and the ChiefMinister for security reasons. For the same reasons, somereferences which I used are not on the reference list.2The reasons for the 1975 and 1985-86 decline in forestrevenues need to be examined carefully in furtherresearch.3Actually, the autonomy in the forestry sector, which thefederal government granted to the state government, isnot absolute since the federal government keeps manyways to control the state government. For example, federalagencies such as the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency,tax departments and even the environment departmentcould be used to put pressure on the state government.The state examined in this paper has been able to keepthe forestry land autonomy because the Chief Ministerhas been able to satisfy federal leaders in power by givingthem some shares of the forestry interests.4The Indonesian central government, however, abolished theright of local governments to issue logging concessions in2002 because of the over-issuance of concessions by localgovernment heads.5The Malay- (and Muslim-) based party of the nationalcoalition government, the United Malays NationalOrganization (UMNO), does not have a branch in thisstate.6The divisional administrative system was formed only inthis state in Malaysia.7Please see Brown (2001) for details about these five timbercompanies and their political networks.8Please see Forbes and .REFERENCESNewspapers and magazinesColchester, Marcus. “Malaysian Loggers Come Out of theWoodwork: Timber Boom drives Malaysian Companies ontothe Stock Exchange.” Forest Peoples Programme 26 September1994.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

6CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESAnon. “A Tale of Timber.” Malaysia Business. 1 July 1995.Anon. “How About Auditing Bigger Fish Instead?” AliranMonthly. 2004: 2.Internet sourcesForbes. Malaysia’s 40 Richest. 2006. Forbes. 9 July 2007..Books and papersBrown, David Walter. “Why Governments Fail to CaptureEconomic Rent: The Unofficial Appropriation of Rain ForestRent by Rulers in Insular Southeast Asia Between 1970 and1999.” Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Washington, 2001..Morishita, Akiko. “Soeharto Taisei Hokaigo no IndonesiaChiho Seiji: Nishi, Chubu, Higashi Kalimantan no rikenwo nigirunowa douitta hitotachi ka [Local Politics in Post-Soeharto Indonesia: Who Controls Local Resources in West,Central, and East Kalimantan?].” Ph.D. Dissertation. KyotoUniversity, 2006.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 7POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND OPPOSITION FORCES INMALAYSIA: THE POLITICAL PROCESS OF THE OFFICIAL SECRETSACT AND THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC CONSULTATIVE COUNCILAyame SuzukiIntroductionMalaysia’s political regime is often referred to as“soft authoritarianism” (Means 1996), “semiauthoritarianism”(Ottaway 2003), or “semi-democracy”(Case 1993), because it restricts political rights orfreedoms, but yet it has periodically held competitiveelections. Unlike many other non-democratic countries,the so-called “Third Wave” did not trigger a regimetransition in Malaysia. On the one hand, previousstudies have tried to explain the endurance of Malaysia’spolitical regime by arguing that the oppositionforces—an aggregate of pro-democratic or pro-liberalagents—do not grow because civil society is dividedby ethnic cleavages, and the middle class or capitalistsare too dependent on the state to have incentives tooverturn the established government (Crouch 1996,242; Ottaway 2003, 161-89). On the other, workswritten after the Reformasi (Reform) movement in1999 assert the incremental tendency of oppositionforces by emphasizing the liberal and democratic natureof the middle class (Abdul Rahman 2002) and thedevelopment of cooperation among nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs) (Weiss 2006).However, neither explanation grasps the actual dynamicsof the opposition forces and, hence, the dynamics of theregime. Indeed, the size of the opposition forces waxesand wanes rather than remaining static or incremental.This study explains the dynamics of the opposition forcesby focusing on people’s perception of their opportunitiesfor interest articulation and their attitude towardspolitical institutions, both of which are determined bythe nature of the political institutions. Here, “politicalinstitution” specifically denotes legislation thatrestricts political rights and its implementation, while“deliberative institutions” are alternative channels forinterest articulation. The main resources were Hansard(the official record of Parliamentary proceedings),newspapers, and interviews with key persons.The study consists of three sections. The first sectionexamines the political process and implementation ofthe Official Secrets (Amendment) Act, 1986 (OSA), 1which restricts freedom of information and speech. Thissection shows how the political institution determinespeople’s perceptions and attitudes and thus, the sizeof the opposition forces, and vice versa—the latter’sinfluence on the former. This section depicts thedynamic interaction between the opposition forces andthe political institution.The second section deals with the National EconomicConsultative Council (NECC), a deliberativeinstitution for economic policymaking—an alternativechannel for interest articulation that complemented therestricted political freedom and hence affected the sizeof opposition forces.In conclusion, the study argues that the incentive ofactors to challenge the existing political institution andadd their strength to the opposition forces depends ontheir perceived opportunities for interest articulation.• People’s perception of opportunitiesfor interest articulation• People’s attitude towards politicalinstitutions• Size of opposition forces• Political institutions• Legislation and implementation oflaws restricting political rights• Deliberative institutionsFigure 1: Framework of the study.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

8CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESThese opportunities are regulated by laws that restrictpolitical rights and are complemented by alternativechannels. The above findings will be captured in atentative model of the dynamics of opposition forcesand political freedom in Malaysia.Official Secrets (Amendment) Act, 1986In 1986, the Official Secrets (Amendment) Act wasenacted. This section depicts the political process of itslegislation, which included not only the governmentand the governing parties but also the oppositionparties and civil society; the rule-abiding nature of itsimplementation; and the dynamics of the oppositionforces.Political process of legislationThe background for the Official Secrets (Amendment)Act was the deepening of the government-privatesector relationship that resulted from a privatizationpolicy and the “Malaysia Incorporated” concept thatwas introduced in 1983. Paralleling this developmentwas an increase in citizens’ awareness of the state ofthe government’s economic management that resultedfrom the foreign media coverage of the mismanagementof public companies and corrupt practices of ministers.Cabinet documents related to this area of concern andinformation related to the tender award of a governmentproject, above all, came under public scrutiny, resultingin the leaking of related documents.The government became vigilant about the media,arguing that freedom of the press should be restrictedfor the sake of peace and economic development (NewStraits Times [NST], March 10, 1986). In March 1986,the government tabled the OSA amendment bill, whichestablished mandatory jail sentences to discourage theleaking of official secrets, including documents aboutthe government tender award.The amendment generated severe opposition fromthe National Union of Journalists (NUJ); the BarCouncil; trade unions, including the Malaysia TradeUnions Congress (MTUC) and the Congress ofUnions of Employees in the Public and Civil Services(CUEPACS); NGOs such as Aliran KesedaranNegara (National Consciousness Movement, Aliran),the Federation of Consumers’ Associations, and theUnited Chinese School Committees’ Association;and opposition parties such as the Democratic ActionParty (DAP). Even actors that were rather close tothe government opposed the amendment, such as theOrganization of Newspaper Editors (ONE), and theparties of the governing coalition Barisan Nasional(National Front, BN) such as Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia(Malaysian People’s Movement, Gerakan) and theMalaysian Chinese Association (MCA) (NST, March17, 18, 23, 25, 29, April 2, 3, 1986; Star, March 13,20, 30, 1986).The reasons for the opposition were two-fold. First, themandatory jail sentence was too harsh and deprived thejudiciary of its discretion to decide sentences. Second,the amendment did not stipulate a definition of “officialsecrets” (NST, March 8, 17, 23, 25, 28, 1986). By thistime, a definition of the term had been given by thecourt: “Government must surely have the undoubtedright to decide what information it would keep from thepublic. Such information would be official secrets…”(MLJ 1980, 293). It is understandable that peopleopposed an amendment that might land them in jailfor leaking any document classified at the whim of thegovernment as “official secrets.”Such widespread opposition, together with its ownconcern about the coming election, forced thegovernment to review the bill (NST, April 4, 5, 1986).In October 1986, the public saw a new bill with thefollowing provisions: (1) “official secrets” are (i) Cabinetdocuments; (ii) State Executive Council documents;(iii) documents concerning national security, defenseand international relations; (iv) documents concerningfederal-state relations; (v) advice, suggestions andrecommendations on the governance and functionof the government; (vi) documents concerning thenational economy, such as currency, budget proposal,and foreign investment; and (vii) documents relatedto tender awards (Schedule); (2) the Minister may, byorder published in the Gazette, change the items inSchedule (§2A); (3) the Minister’s decision to certifycertain documents as “official secrets” cannot bechallenged in courts (§16A); and, (4) mandatory jailsentences for offenders.Three categories of actors had distinct attitudes about thebill. Actors in the first category required the liberalizationof the OSA under the banner of Freedom of Information.For example, the Bar Council and NUJ called for thewithdrawal of the bill, because the definition of “officialsecrets” was too wide, the minister’s power to certify acertain document as “secret” was beyond judicial review,and the mandatory jail sentences deprived the judiciaryof its discretion (NST, October 29, November 7, 1986).This line of thought was shared by the trade unions,NGOs, academic societies, and opposition parties suchas the Democratic Action Party (DAP) (NST, October28, November 10, 14, 20, 22, 23, December 12, 1986;Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 9Star, October 26, 1986). Actors in this category laterorganized a movement called “Campaign for Freedomof Information,” which demanded that a Freedom ofInformation Act be legislated (NST, November 20, 22,1986). One factor that brought about such a successfulliberalization movement was that the Bar Council,Aliran, and the DAP effectively represented the issue as ageneral concern of the public at large by contextualizingthe OSA bill as a violation of the principles of liberaldemocracy, such as access to information, accountability,and judicial review.In the second category were the then prime minister(PM), Mahathir Mohamed, and other ministers whoadvocated the necessity of the bill. Among them, PMMahathir was adamant about the first group, sayingthat the government would not hear the voices of the“minority” (NST, November 17, 1986).In spite of the PM’s stand, another amendment appearedin December. This was solely because of the combinedpressure from the actors in the first and third categories.Among the latter were factions of governing parties,such as the MCA, Gerakan, the Malaysian IndianCongress, and the BN Back Benchers Club (BBC),business groups including the Associated ChineseChambers of Commerce and Industry (ACCCIM), andthe Organization of Newspaper Editors (NST, October31, November 10, 17, 19, 1986; Star, November 7, 9,14, 19, 1986). These actors expressed their oppositionto specific provisions such as those that concernedmandatory jail sentences, §2A, and Schedule, aboveall, because they included documents about tenderawards as “official secrets.” Actors such as ACCCIMand BBC tried to persuade the government throughdirect dialogue (Nanyang Siang Pau [NSP], November26, 1986; NST, November 25, 26, 1986). It shouldbe noted that the ideas of the first category actors wereconveyed by the BBC to the PM in the course of theirdialogue (NST, November 13, 1986).The direct and indirect consultation among the actorsfrom the three categories resulted in the followingrevisions: (1) the number of items in the Schedulewas reduced to three, leaving cabinet documents,State Executive Council documents, and documentsconcerning national security, defense and internationalrelations as “official secrets”; (2) a new provision, §2C,which stipulated the minister’s power to declassify“official secrets,” was inserted; and (3) other provisions,such as §2A, §16A and various provisions aboutmandatory jail sentences, were left intact.The government explained the rationale for the newbill: (1) the government had reduced the definition of“official secrets,” responding to the people’s opposition;(2) the executive power to classify information as“official secrets” would not be abused; (3) judicialreview of the minister’s decision was not necessarybecause the legislature, which had electoral legitimacy,and the executive responsible for it should supersedethe judiciary, which was a non-elected branch; and(4) mandatory jail sentences were the only deterrenceagainst the leaking of official secrets, considering thecompetition among the mass media (Penyata RasmiParlimen Dewan rakyat [PRPDR] 1986, 6078-96).The liberal camp criticized the above arguments,maintaining that the bill violated the fundamentalliberty of the people. For example, the DAP arguedthat information related to national security should bethe only “official secrets,” the executive power given by§2A violated the legislative power of parliament, theprinciple of separation of power was violated under§16A, and provisions for mandatory jail sentencesdeprived the judiciary of its discretion (PRPDR1986, 6092-6137; 6171-81; 6181-99). Other liberalactors, such as the NUJ, MTUC, CUEPACS, the BarCouncil, and Aliran, supported the same arguments(NST, November 4, 7, 8, December 8, 10, 1986; Star,December 8, 23, 1986).However, the third bill was supported and acquiescedto by the BN and business groups. The governingparties supported the bill mainly because it reducedthe definition of “official secrets” and presumablybecause it deleted the documents related to governmenttender awards, the most controversial item, while someparties expressed their concern that §2A might allowthe minister to arbitrarily classify any documents as“official secrets” (PRPDR 1986, 6145-5l; 56-61; 81-9;NST, December 4, 1986). Some business groups fromvarious ethnic communities in Kuala Lumpur formedthe “Action Group to Uphold Democratic Principles”and expressed their support for the bill, while ACCCIMdeclined to take stern action other than to adopt aresolution urging the government to withdraw the OSAin the general assembly (NST, December 22, 1986;NSP, December 16, 1986).As a result of the attitude of BN and business groups,the size of the combined opposition forces diminished,in spite of the liberal camp’s call for a furtheramendment.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

10CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESImplementation of the OSA and its rule-abidingapplicationFour points should be noted about the implementationof the Official Secrets Act. First, there was a case in whicha member of an opposition party, Parti Keadilan Rakyat(the National Justice Party), was arrested in 2000 forpossessing and communicating a report about the Anti-Corruption Agency’s investigation into two ministers,which was said to have been classified “official secrets.”The accused was acquitted in 2004 (NST, January15, 2000; April 9, 16, 2004). Second, the disclosureof “official secrets” has been practiced in such casesas controversial national development projects (NST,April 22, 23, 1987). Third, the minister’s power under§2A has not been exercised, and Schedule has remainedunchanged. Finally, the Act has been applied in somedeliberative processes. For example, the EducationAct of 1996, regulating educational matters such asthe status of vernacular schools, was drafted throughdeliberation under the protection of the OSA becausethe matter was considered to be “explosive” (Star,October 9, 1995). The NECC, which will be discussedbelow, is another example.As a whole, the implementation of the OSA has notbeen as authoritarian or abusive as was expected. Rather,the Act was implemented in a “rule-abiding” manner.Dynamics of the opposition forcesThe OSA was enacted as a result of competition anddeliberations among several actors. These included: (1)opposition parties and NGOs that demanded liberallegislation; (2) the government which tried to protect“official secrets” for the sake of the smooth functioningof economic projects; and, (3) the governing parties andbusiness groups that tried to secure access to informationthat had relevance to their interests and prevent abuseof the Act by the government.The restriction of political freedom imposed by thefirst and second bills resulted in an increase in thesize of opposition forces, as the first and third actorscooperated. The opposition forces grew until thegovernment was forced to relax some provisions.However, momentum was lost when the governingparties and business groups no longer had an incentiveto urge liberalization after they perceived their right toknow—especially information about tender awards—had been guaranteed.Unlike the governing parties and business groups,those in the first category—opposition parties andNGOs—are still, today, requiring revisions of the OSA(NST, August 27, October 4, 1992; Star, February 2,September 14, 2001, August 2, 2002, November 9,2005; FOI n.d.). However, the opposition forces havenot gained momentum because of the rule-abidingnature of the implementation of the OSA, in whichfew people have fallen victim to arbitrary control. Theacceptance of the NECC, a deliberative institution, onthe part of the governing parties and business groupshas also prevented the opposition forces from growing.Deliberative institutions: Alternative channels forpolitical articulationIn 1989, the National Economic Consultative Council,consisting of the government, political parties, businessgroups, trade unions, professional bodies, and NGOs,was formed to discuss economic policies to replace theNew Economic Policy (NEP). This section argues thatthe BN parties and business groups found the NECC aneffective alternative channel for political articulation.Background and formation process of the NECCThe NEP, which was formulated in 1971, had twoobjectives, namely, the eradication of poverty regardlessof ethnicity and the restructuring of society orcorrecting the imbalances between the less advantagedBumiputras (Malays and other indigenous groups)and non-Bumiputras (Chinese and Indians). Therestructuring policy, including the enactment of theIndustrial Co-ordination Act (ICA) that regulated thedistribution of corporate wealth among ethnic groupsand set a numerical target of 30% equity ownership forBumiputra, was rather controversial.Seeking deregulation and liberalization, Chineseassociations, such as the MCA, Gerakan, and theACCCIM, suggested the formation of the NECC tosecure their influence over policy making, in spite oftheir numerically weak position as an ethnic minority(Star, May 13, 1987, November 27, 1988; NSP,September 12, November 26, 1988). The idea wasaccepted by the government, for it expected that theNECC might achieve a consensus on the future policywhile avoiding the political conflict that might resultfrom free competition. The idea was also welcomed bysuch actors as trade unions who had scant opportunityfor interest representation (Star, February 10, 1991).Was the NECC an effective alternative channel?To show that the preferences of the governing partiesand business groups were well reflected in the policy,Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 11the policy preferences of the relevant actors, the NECCReport, and the Outline Perspective Plan II (OPP II)—the new long-term economic plan document—will beexamined.The policy preferences of the groups and individualscan be plotted on an X-Y chart, with the “principleof distribution” on the Y-axis and the “principle ofthe government’s intervention” on the X-axis. Theupper end represents distribution based on a “meritand-needsapproach,” which rejected distributionbased on ethnicity and quantitative quotas for specificethnic groups as had been the case under the NEP, butadvocated distribution based on economic standards forthe purpose of human resource development (HRD)instead. In contrast, the bottom represents an “ethnicbasedapproach,” which assumed that the economicimbalances among ethnic groups should be the mainfocus. On the left side of the X-axis is a “liberal and openeconomic policy” that embraced rapid growth led bythe private sector with liberalization and deregulation asthe main thrusts of economic policy. On the right side,on the other hand, is a “protective and progressive”policy featuring caution about a liberal economy andexpected government intervention for distributionpurposes, such as the protection of small and mediumindustries (SMIs), poor laborers, and consumers frombig or foreign interests.Based upon the above X-Y chart, four categoriesof groups with distinct policy preferences are to beelaborated below.(i) Protective-progressive/Merit-and–needs approach:The first quadrant represents the ideas of Chineseassociations and a leading economist and NECCmember, Professor K.S. Jomo, who pointed out theadverse effects of liberalization and privatization onlocal and small interests (Kua 1990, 60-1; Jomo 1989,106-7; Jomo 1994, 69). Second, these organizationsasserted that the rights of laborers and a minimumwage should be guaranteed, as this would result in thecreation of effective demands (Kua 1990, 57-8, 109;Jomo 1989, 105-6).(ii) Liberal/Merit-and-needs approach: The MCA,ACCCIM, National Chambers of Commerce andIndustry (NCCI), and Gerakan, which took a ratherambiguous position, asserted four points (Kok et al.1990; Yeoh 1992; Mohd. Ramli 1989; PGRM 1984).They believed, first, that liberalization, deregulations,and privatization should proceed. Second, distributionshould be achieved through a trickle-down effectrather than through the introduction of a minimumwage. Third, the effort to correct ethnic imbalancesshould be based not on a numerical quota, such asthe government tender award and control of equityownership, but on quality enhancements such as thedevelopment of Bumiputra entrepreneurs to increasetheir competitiveness. Finally, a policy for povertyeradication regardless of ethnicity should be pursued.(iii) Liberal/Ethnic distribution: The second quadrantis represented by PM Mahathir who advocated thatderegulation, liberalization and privatization shouldbe pursued (Mahathir 1991). Second, although thepurpose of social restructuring needed to continue, thequota system should eventually be abolished, and thequality of ownership, rather than quantity, should begiven due emphasis (Star, June 19, October 31, 1990).(iv) Protective-progressive/Ethnic distribution: Membersof the United Malays National Organization (UMNO),a BN party representing the interests of Malays, preferredgovernment intervention for the purpose of raising theireconomic standards. This would be achieved by settingnumerical targets for tender awards of privatizationprojects and equity capital in the corporate sector (NST,October 29, 1988; Star, October 28, 30, 1988, June 22,1991). Semangat-46 (S46), the former UMNO factionled by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, argued that the twoobjectives of NEP should continue, and the conditionof foreign equity participation should be tightened(NST, July 27, 1989, February 5, 1990).NECC reportThe NECC report, which was compiled as the“consensus” of the members, mostly reflected the“liberal/merit-and-needs” idea, while partiallyincorporating some of the ideas of the other camps.As for government intervention, the NECC reportstates that rapid economic growth led by the privatesector should be the foundation of the new policy. Thereport recommends the further relaxation of foreignand domestic capital and privatization (NECC 1991,391). It states that the government “need not interveneinto economy for the purpose of correcting imbalances(e.g., among ethnic groups),” except for the purpose ofeliminating discrimination or of training and education(NECC, 316). It also argues that “legislation” (i.e.,ICA) will be used to correct ethnic imbalances,although not through the regulation of individualcompanies but at sector levels (NECC 1991, 324). Thereport also recommends that labor laws be amended toenhance workers’ right of association, while suggestingthat tripartite cooperation among the government,Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

12CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESemployer, and employee be a “public policy (dasarawam)” (NECC 1991, 366-7).To address the distributive objectives, the reportrecommends that poverty eradication regardless ofethnicity should be emphasized (NECC 1991, 286).Although it acknowledges that a “merit-and-needsapproach may not be used for the groups that are leftbehind because of social and historical factors,” it alsostates that an “ethnic approach be abolished as soon asthe gap between ethnic groups is corrected” (NECC1991, 303). It also suggests that the distributioneffort should be aimed at HRD rather than the directdistribution of wealth (NECC 1991, 293).As a whole, the NECC report recommends liberalization,privatization and deregulation, with temporaryregulation for the purpose of correcting imbalancesamong ethnic groups. It also recommends a merit-andneedsapproach, while admitting the temporary use ofan ethnic approach only in terms of human resourcedevelopment.Outline Perspective PlanOPP II was drafted with the consideration of variousproposals, including the NECC report (OPP II, 1.02).Providing “growth with equity” as its main target, thedocument states that the guidelines for foreign and localinvestment for the promotion of exports will be relaxedand that privatization will proceed to realize export-ledeconomic growth by the private sector (OPP II, 1.59,1.65, 1.76, 3.41, 4.64). The government, accordingto the document, will limit its intervention to areaswhere the “market cannot effectively function” and willimplement two policies, namely, poverty eradicationregardless of ethnicity and the restructuring of society(OPP II, 3.41). The document does not mention therights of laborers or minimum wages.Apparently, the OPP II places more stress on therestructuring of society than on the merit-and-needsapproach (poverty eradication). However, in a drasticchange from the NEP, it does not set a specific timeframe for the restructuring of equity capital so thatthe policy will be implemented in a flexible manner.It emphasizes quality enhancements such as thedevelopment of Bumiputra entrepreneurs, rather thanoutright wealth distribution based on quantitativetargets (OPP II, 4.40).Unlike the NECC report, the OPP II emphasizes socialrestructuring as a target of its distribution policy andlegitimizes government intervention for this purpose.However, the two documents do share such basic ideasas economic growth by liberalization and deregulation,and emphasize quality enhancement and HRD ratherthan quantitative targets and the direct distribution ofwealth.IIMerit-and-Needs ApproachILiberalProgressive/ProtectiveIIIEthnic-based approachIVNECC RecommendationsOPP IIFigure 2: An image of policy preferences / NECC Report / OPP II.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 13Actors’ perceptions of and attitudes towards the NECCThe S46 scoffed that OPP II was a plan for businesspeople, and actors in the first quadrant labeled theNECC undemocratic and the OPP II as paying “lipserviceto politically less sensitive concerns” (Star, June19, 1991; Kua 1990, 3; Jomo 1994, 49-50). On theopposite side, actors that fall into the second quadrantpraised the OPP II because it promoted economicgrowth led by the private sector in a liberal environmentand changed the approach to social restructuring (Star,June 18, 19, 20, 1991). These actors believed thatmany of their views and the NECC recommendationshad been incorporated into the OPP II. UMNOalso supported the OPP II because it set a target fordeveloping Bumiputra entrepreneurs (Star, June 22,1991).The NECC provided the above actors with opportunitiesto have their interests reflected in the policy. Thisexplains their acceptance of the non-liberal politicalinstitution and, hence, the slowing down of oppositionforces.Conclusion: Implication for regime dynamicsThe above findings are captured in Figure 2. There is aninteraction with a time lag between the two variables,namely political freedom and the size of oppositionforces, which draws a clockwise trajectory. As thegovernment decided to restrict the political freedomof the people, the size of the opposition increased (theenactment of the first and second OSA bills—trajectoriesrepresented by arrows 1 and 2), until the oppositionmovement successfully forced the government to take aturn towards liberalization, which move was followedby a decrease in the size of the opposition to “O” (thethird OSA bill—arrows 3 and 4). The size of theopposition has remained in stasis at “O,” because thelevel of restriction has not varied in the course of theimplementation.The enactment of the Freedom of Information Act(FOI) can be achieved only when the trajectory shiftsto the upper right (the ideal trajectory). However, aslong as deliberative institutions, such as the NECC, areperceived to be effective channels of interest articulationby many actors (e.g., the BN parties, businesscommunities), such a shift is not likely to occur.Contrary to expectations, middle and capitalist classesare not as conservative as are alleged, and neither iscivil society so divided. In fact, their cooperation, orthe synchronization of the movements by respectiveactors, actually resulted in the amendments to theOSA. However, the above picture also dismissesthe assumption of the incremental tendency of theopposition forces. Rather, the size of the oppositionforces, which determines the prospect for institutionalreform and regime change, is in dynamic interactionwith people’s perceptions of and attitudes towardsthe political institution and the nature of the politicalinstitution.A scenario for liberalization, based on the above model,is as follows. A serious abuse of the OSA gives rise toan opposition movement (arrow 1), while many actorsfind the deliberative institution ineffective, bringingabout a shift in the trajectory to the ideal one, resultingin endurable opposition (arrow 5), which eventuallySize of opposition forces25301Actual dynamics of opposition forcesIdeal dynamics of opposition forcesFigure 3: Dynamics of opposition forces and political freedom.4OSA 1 & 2 OSA3 FOIPolitical freedomAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

14CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESleads to the enactment of the Freedom of InformationAct. In other words, pro-liberal movements succeedwhen more people face authoritative control and anineffective deliberative framework.We may be able to think of another way than astraightforward liberalization, which may follow sucha gloomy development. For example, broadeningand deepening the deliberation processes and gradualinstitutional reform through deliberation amongvarious actors may be realistic, as is exemplified by theBar Council’s successful effort for legal reform throughdeliberation with the government, which resulted in anamendment to the Legal Profession Act in 2003.NOTES1The original OSA was enacted in 1972.REFERENCESBooks and articlesAbdul Rahman Embong. State-led Modernization and the NewMiddle Class in Malaysia. New York: Palgrave, 2002.Case, William. “Semi-Democracy in Malaysia: Withstandingthe Pressures for Regime Change.” Pacific Affairs 66.2 (1993):183-205.Crouch, Harold. Government and Society in Malaysia. Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1996.Jomo, K.S. Beyond 1990: Considerations for a New NationalDevelopment Strategy. Kuala Lumpur: Institute of AdvancedStudies, University of Malaya, 1989.________. U-Turn? Malaysian Economic Development Policyafter 1990. Townsville: James Cook University of NorthQueensland, 1994.Kok Wee Kiat, Ling Liong Sik, Fong Chan Onn, Chua JuiMeng, and Michael Yeoh. The Malaysian Challenges in the1990s—Strategies for Growth and Development, Selangor:Pelanduk Publications, MCA, 1990.Kua Kia Soong. Ed. Framework for an Alternative MalaysianEconomic Policy. Kuala Lumpur: The Resource and ResearchCentre, Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, 1990.Means, Gordon. “Soft Authoritarianism in Malaysia andSingapore.” Journal of Democracy 7.1 (1996): 103-17.Ottaway, Marina. Democracy Challenged. Washington:Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003.Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (PGRM). NEP Selepas 1990?The National Economic Policy-1990 and Beyond. Pulau Pinang:Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, 1984.Weiss, Meredith. Protest and Possibilities: Civil Society andCoalitions for Political Change in Malaysia. Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 2006.Government publicationsPenyata Rasmi Parlimen Dewan Rakyat (PRPDR). December5, 1986.National Economic Consultative Council (NECC). LaporanMajlis Perundingan Ekonomi Negara, 1991.Malaysia, The Second Outline Perspective Plan 1991-2000,1991 (OPP II).Conference speeches and papersFong Chan Onn. “NECC Report and the NDP: Reflectionsof Multi-Ethnic Understanding?” MCA National Seminar onNECC & NDAP. 25 August 1991, Kuala Lumpur.Yeoh Poh Seng. Ed. “A Review of the Third BumiputeraEconomic Congress Resolutions and Their Implications onFuture Policy Formulation.” Report of Malaysian ChineseEconomic Congress. 18-19 August 1992 , Kuala Lumpur.Mahathir Mohamad. “The Way Forward.” February 28,1991. Malaysian Business Council.Mohd. Ramli Kushairi. “New Directions for the Post-1990Economic Policy.” National Chamber of Commerce &Industry of Malaysia and Malaysian Institute of EconomicResearch. National Conference on Post-1990 EconomicPolicy: New Directions for Post-1990 Economic Policy. 31 stJuly - 1 st August, 1989, Kuala Lumpur.Newspapers and magazinesNanyang Siang Pau: 26 November 1986; 16 December 1986;12 September 1988; 26 November 1988New Straits Times: 8, 10, 17, 18, 23, 25, 28, 29 March 1986;28, 29, 31 October 1986; 4, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 22,23, 25, 26 November 1986; 4, 8, 10, 12, 22 December 1986;2, 3, 4, 5 April 1986; 22, 23 April 1987; 29 October 1988;27 July 1989; 5 February 1990; 27 August 1992; 4 October1992; 15 January 2000Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 15The Star: 13, 20, 30 March 1986; 12 September 1986; 26October 1986; 7, 9, 14, 19, 26 November 1986; 8, 16,23 December 1986; 13 May 1987; 28, 30 October 1988;27 November 1988; 19 June 1990; 31 October 1990; 10February 1991; 18, 19, 20, 22 June 1991; 9 October 1995;2 February 2001; 14 September 2001; 2 August 2002; 9November 2005Other sourcesLim Kit Siang v. Public Prosecutor (1980) 1 Malayan LawJournal, 293. (MLJ)No More Secrets. Freedom of Information (FOI) Campaign.N.p.: n.p., n.d.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

16CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESTHE DISCOURSE OF THE ISLAMIC STATE AND ISLAMIC LAW INMALAYSIAKamaruzzaman Bustamam-AhmadIntroductionThis chapter aims to describe the issue of Islamic stateand Islamic law in Malaysia. Many believe that theestablishment of an Islamic state and the implementationof Islamic law are the goal of Islamic movements inSoutheast Asia. The movement’s drive to establish anIslamic caliphate may have been influenced by externaland internal factors. Externally, this movement is seenas the impact of Islamic Revivalism (Kebangkitan Islam),which spread from the Middle East to Southeast Asia inthe 1970s. Internally, the issue of an Islamic caliphate isa cultural, historical, sociological and political dynamicof Muslim interpretations of Islamic teachings. Thisstudy focuses on Malaysia as an example of a Muslimcountry in Southeast Asia, regarding the debate onIslamic state and Islamic law.During my field work in Malaysia, I collected varioustypes of data as part of my research project. First, Iexamined the Malaysian Constitution from its earlybeginnings with the draft by the Reid Commission inorder to understand whether Malaysia was intended tobe defined as an ‘Islamic State.’ Second, I approachedthe issue of identity among Malays. I interviewedMalays in several states in Malaysia (Selangor, KualaLumpur, Penang, Kedah, Kuala Trengganu, Kelantanand Perak). I tried to gain an inside perspective fromgrassroots Malaysian Muslims regarding what it meansfor them to be Muslim. I received some interestinganswers from them, such as that Muslims tended tofollow the government’s rules. The Constitution hasexplained the position of Islam in Malaysia. Someof my respondents were concerned that the issue ofan Islamic state and Islamic law in Malaysia couldlead to a misunderstanding between Muslims andnon-Muslims. Non-Muslims preferred to claim thatMalaysia is a secular state in the sense that every singlereligion can play a major role in Malaysia. It is thereforeinappropriate to urge Malaysia to be established as anIslamic state. I also did an ethnographic study on oneIslamic movement in Malaysia, Jamâ‘ah Tabligh. I wentout among them (khurûj) while they preached Islamto Malays in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. In-depthinterviews were conducted among members of Jamâ‘ahTablîgh at Sri Petaling, Bandar Baru Bangi and MasjidJamek market. Besides this, I attended the regionalmeeting of Jamâ‘ah Tablîgh at the Sri Petaling mosque.The goal of this meeting was to understand and evaluatethe situation of the organization in two states, Selangorand Kuala Lumpur.I chose different groups and methods of conductingresearch in this study because I wanted to see howthe concepts of an Islamic state and Islamic lawwere interpreted by Malaysians. By doing this, Icould add some important issues that show trendsamong Malaysians who approach the issues througha substantive and formalistic approach. The legacyof Malaysia as a multiethnic country has led to theproblem of Islam as a contested and reconstructedreligion in the country. In other words, I assume thatthere is no single consensus among Malaysians aboutwhat an Islamic state and Islamic law in the countryare and how they should be established. At the sametime, the government also has its own interpretationof the process of Islamization in many aspects amongcitizens. Thus, this study seeks to investigate the currentportrait of one controversial issue as part of the processof Islamic resurgence in Southeast Asia in general.Understanding the Islamic State and Islamic LawMany Muslim scholars have explained the natureof an Islamic state. This topic is studied in Islamicpolitical science (siyâsah syar‘iyyah) as part of Islamicjurisprudence or Islamic law (fiqh al-Islâm). In Islamicsources, an Islamic state can be defined in Arabic terms,such as a daulah (state), bani (dynasty), hukûmiyyah(government), sulthân (kingdom), khilafât (state) andimâmah (leadership) (Hilmi 1998; Ahmed 1988).Nevertheless, the meaning of state in Arabic is daulah,which can be classified into three levels: a federal state(al-daulah al-ittihâdiyyah), a legal state (al-daulah alqanûniyyah)and a welfare state (al-daulah ar-rafâhiyyah)(Badawi 1993, 408).It is likely that there is no term for Islamic state in Islamicclassical sources, even in the most authoritative books(kitâbs) on Islamic political science (Siyâsah Shar’îyah)written by al-Mawardi (1966) and Abi Ya’la (1992).These books look at how to administer a governmentAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 17when there are Muslim and non-Muslim communities.The books also discuss what kind of rights people whoare administered by a Muslim ruler have under Islamiclaw. On the other hand, Ali Abd al-Raziq (1998, 32),an ulama from Egypt who was labeled an infidel (kafîr)due to his ideas about secularization in Islam, claimsin his book al-Islâm wa Ushûl Hukm (1972) that “theGlorious Qur’an supports the view that the Prophet,peace upon him, had nothing to do with political kingship,Qur’anic verses are in agreement that his heavenly workdid got go beyond the Message, which is free of allmeanings of authority.”However, there is an argument that the state in Islamcan be approached by rooting the concept of daulah asenunciated in the al-Qur’an in how it was first practicedby the Prophet Muhammad through his establishmentof a state in his era at Madinah. Jastaniah has identifiedsome characteristics of Muhammad as a Prophet of Islamand a leader of Muslims and non-Muslims in religiousand secular affairs. It is also reported that the ProphetMuhammad promulgated the al-Dustûr al-Madînah(Constitution of Madînah), which contains forty-sevenarticles. There are many lessons on the establishmentof a state from this constitution. First, the people ofMadinah came from many tribes, ancestries, culturesand religion. Second, this constitution aimed to organizeMuslims and non-Muslims in one state under a Muslimruler (the Prophet Muhammad) through brotherhood.Third, the state safeguarded freedom for all religions inMadinah city. Fourth, all citizens were equal under theConstitution (Sukarja 1995, 191-4).The issue of the Islamic state was discussed in Islamicdiscourse during the 20 th century when Muslimkingdoms were in decline, not only in the Middle Eastbut also in Southeast Asia. Regarding the reasons forthis decline, Hefner (2000, 3) says that “the first hasbeen the diffusion of democratic ideas to disparatepeoples and cultures around the world. The second isthe turn of the millennium that has seen the forcefulreappearance of ethnic and religious issues in publicaffairs.” He also maintains that “the end of the twentiethcentury demonstrated convincingly that high modernistreports of the demise of religion and ethnicity were…premature” (Hefner 2000, 3). To respond to this trend,three groups of Islamic political thought arose regardingthe issue of the relationship between Islam and thestate. The first is the conservative group of peoplewho want to integrate Islam and the state because,according to this paradigm, Islam provides an Islamicsocial system from the al-Qur’an and Sunnah (prophets’tradition). This group is divided into two sections: thetraditionalist group that believes that Muslims shouldfollow the classical Islamic political tradition and thesecond, fundamentalist group that is eager to returnto the al-Qur’an and Sunnah totally, with no roomfor the ijtihâd (Islamic legal reasoning). It seems theybelieve that the Ijtihâd gate (insidâd bâb al-Ijtihâd) isclosed for Muslims. In Federspiel’s (2001, ix) words“…fundamentalists …rejected the secular concept ofthe nation-state and called for the establishment of astate and society structured to implement its conceptsof Islamic values.”The second group is the modernists. Deliar Noermaintains that the modernists recognize only theQur’an and Hadîts as the basic sources of their ideasand thought. They propose that “the gate of ijtihâd isstill open and rejected the idea of taqlid” (Noer 1985,120; Noer 1973). In Southeast Asia, in countries likeIndonesia, Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam, thisgroup played a major role after World War II in theestablishment of state blue prints. Historically, thisgroup came from the Islamic reformist movementduring the colonial era. They were named the kaummuda (young generation), who promoted reformistideas from the Middle East in opposition to the kaumtua (old generation), who maintained traditional Islamwithin Muslim society. The proposal of this group isthat Muslims may have certain rules or concepts onthe establishment of an [Islamic] state, but they arepermitted to adapt other systems such Western ideas onpolitical affairs. Kurzman (2002, 4) maintains that “thismovement was the self-conscious adoption of ‘modern’values—that is, values…associated with the modernworld, especially rationality, science, constitutionalismand certain forms of human equality.”The third group is the secularists who argue that Islamand the state should be separated. This group is alsocalled liberal Islam. In Islamic political thought, theseparation of religion and politics was promoted byKemal Ataturk of Turkey, ‘Ali Abd Raziq of Egypt andSoekarno of Indonesia. Suffice it to say that emergingnation-states among Muslim countries were influencedby secularist ideas (Smith 1970, 97-6).In last decade, there are many types of Muslim countrieswhich fall in the above categories. Choudhury (1993,95-6) has categorized Muslim countries by governance.First, there some Muslim states like Afghanistan, Iran,Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Sudan which designatethemselves as Islamic states. Second, there are the vastmajority of Muslim countries which do not claim to beIslamic states; there are references to Islam sometimesin a form such as ‘state religion.’ These countries aregoverned mainly by Western legal codes but in personalAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

18CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESmatters such as marriage, inheritance etc., Islamic lawor syarî‘ah is implemented. Third, there are a very fewMuslim countries which prefer to have a ‘secular state’on the pattern of the Western concept of the separationof politics and religion. J.N.D Anderson, in his IslamicLaw in the Modern World, classifies the legal systems ofthe Muslim world today: (1) those that still considerthe sharî‘ah as the fundamental law and still practiceit to a certain extent in their countries; (2) those thathave abandoned the sharî‘ah and become secular; (3)those have reached some compromise between thesestwo position (Anderson 1959, 83).It is interesting to look at various definitions of Islamiclaw. Joseph Schacht, for example, defines this law as:The epitome of Islamic thought, the most typicalmanifestation of the Islamic way of life, the coreand kernel of Islam itself. The very term fiqh,‘knowledge’, shows that early Islam regardedknowledge of the sacred law as the knowledge parexcellence (Schacht 1964, 1).The terms fiqh and sharî‘ah have similar meanings. Fiqhis used in the literal sense to mean “understanding” (alfahm).Basically, the meaning of the term fiqh is usuallysimilar to words such as ‘ilm (knowledge) and kalâm(theology). The term ‘ilm has the same meaning, andin the era of the Prophet there appears to have beenno difference between the two terms. According toNyazee, “as sophistication crept in, the term ‘ilm cameto be applied in a narrow sense to mean knowledge thatcomes through report, that is, traditions: hadith andathar. The term fiqh….came to be used exclusively fora knowledge of the law” (Nyazee 1994, 21). Thus theterms ‘ilm and fiqh were separated when specializationin law and tradition came into existence toward the endof the first century of Hijrah.Furthermore, the terms kalâm and fiqh were notseparated until the time of al-Ma’mun (d.218 A.H.).Fiqh previously had embraced both theologicalproblems and legal issues. That is why Abu Hanifah(d. 150 A.H.) defined fiqh as “ma‘rîfah al-nafs mâ lahâwa mâ ‘alayhâ (understanding the self in terms of one’srights and duties)” (Dahlan 1997, 333). This meansthat fiqh concerns understanding Muslims’ rights andobligations. However, when the Mu‘tazilah (an Islamictheology group) began to use the term kalâm for theirteaching, the term fiqh came to be restricted to thecorpus of Islamic law. This differentiation has seriousimplications for the study of Islamic law.There are many definitions of fiqh. Abdul WahhabKhalaf (1978, 11) defines fiqh as: “al-‘ilm bi ak-ahkâmal-sharî‘ah al-‘amâliyyah al-muktasib min adillatihâ altafshiliyyah(the knowledge of the legal rules pertainingto conduct that have been derived from specificevidence).” Khallaf also highlights another definitionof fiqh as: “majmû‘ât al-ahkâm al-sharî‘ah al-‘amâliyyahal-mustafadah min adillatihâ al-tafshiliyyah (thecompilation of the legal rules pertaining to conductthat have been derived from specific evidence)” (1978,12). It can also be defined as a “statement concerningthe understanding of the speaker of the meaning of hisspeech” (‘ibârah ‘an fahmi gharadhî al-mutakallimunmin kalamihi) (Minhaji 2001, 94). It is perhaps safeto say that fiqh is the finding of Islamic law from themain sources (Qur’an and Sunna) through ijtihâd. Theperson who looks at the law is called mujtahid and thisprocess is termed ijtihâd. Finally, the finding of thisactivity is called fiqh al-Islamî or Islamic law (al-ahkâmal-Islâmiyyah).The term sharî‘ah means the source of drinking water.For Arabic people, sharî‘ah means religion, ath-tharîqahal-mustaqimah (the right way), and an-nusûs almuqaddas(sacred texts) from the Qur’an and Sunnah(Dahlan 1997, 335). Schacht says that sharî‘ah is “thesacred law of Islam.” He goes further, saying that, “It isan all-embracing body of religious duties, the totality ofAllah’s commands that regulate the life of every Muslimin all aspects; it consists of ordinances regarding worshipand ritual, as well as political and (in the narrow sense)legal rules” (Schacht 1964, 1).In other cases, scholars differentiate between shariahand fiqh. First, while sharî‘ah comes from Allah, fiqhis the product of human interpretation. Second,there is only one sharî‘ah, while fiqh implies diversity.Third, sharî‘ah is very authoritative while fiqh is veryliberal, since it is a human product. Fourth, sharî‘ahis not subject to change; on the contrary, fiqh facesmany changes through socio-cultural dynamics. Fifthand finally, shari’ah is idealistic while fiqh is realistic.To clarify, I mean to say that Islamic law is fiqh, notshari’ah. In this context, fiqh as human interpretationhas produced Islamic law or the Islamic legal system.There are at least four types of Islamic legal literature:kutûb al-fiqhiyyah (books on Islamic jurisprudence),decrees of the Islamic courts, the laws and regulationsof Muslim countries and fatwa (legal pronouncementsof jurisconsult) (Mudzhar 1998, 80).Discourse of Islamic State and Islamic Law inMalaysiaIn this section I will discuss the interpretation ofAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 19Muslims and non-Muslims on the issues of an Islamicstate and Islamic law in Malaysia. Before I examine thisdiscussion, it is worth pointing out that the need forthe establishment of an Islamic state in Malaysia is stilldebatable, since there is a debate on what the natureof Islamic state is. It is widely known that there is noexample of an Islamic state, so it can be said that thisdebate is likely to urge the implementation of Islamiclaw in the country. In this context, it can be said that theSoutheast Asian states that have a Muslim majority—Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam—also applyIslamic law. Historically, sharī‘ah was implementedin conjunction with local customary law (adat) and/or colonial law. In addition, customary law includedcertain aspects of Buddhist and Hindu traditions, whichhad arrived several centuries earlier. In the thirteenthcentury, Islam came to Southeast Asia and Islamizedthe local traditions. Islamic law developed within theregion and was practiced in certain socio-culturalpoliticalsituations. It was important in unifying theIslamic kingdoms in Southeast Asia (see Bustamam-Ahmad 2007). In fact, the issue of an Islamic state islikely the issue of the implementation of Islamic law.In addition, it safe to say that the reason for Muslims tohave an ‘Islamic state’ can be linked to the fact that theirhistorical accounts show that this law was implementedbefore the colonial era. However, as we shall see in thissection, Muslims in Malaysia do not have a single voicein what they mean by Islamic law.I am Muslim and I am MalaysianWhen I conducted my field work in Kuala Lumpur,I interviewed some respondents on what it means tobe Malay and Malaysian in Malaysia. These are someresponses:I come from Johor and work in Kuala Lumpur ata Governmental Office. My parents are Javanese.I speak Javanese with them. But I am Malaysian,because I was born in Malaysia. I speak Malaywith my kids and English with my colleagues atthe office.A 42-year old Malay-JavaneseWhat Malay do you mean? Our Prime Ministeris not Malay. Mahathir is Indian, even thoughhe never declared himself as Indian. We Indianshave problems with the Malays in Malaysia. Wemade them second class before independence, andnow we are second class behind them even if weare Muslim. We have the same God. We have thesame prophet. We go the same Mosque. We readthe same Holy Book. We vote for the same partyin the election.A 65-year old Indian-MalayI am Malay, because I was born in Malaysia before1957. I speak Malay, and I can also speak Tamil,Urdu, English. At the same time, my family isMuslim. So, we are Malay. When I have problems,I cannot go to UMNO, due to the fact that I amIndian. When I visited the Indian Party, theyrejected me because I am Malay and asked me toreport my problem to UMNO.A 53-year old Pakistani-MalayI would like to start this debate with these statementsfrom respondents. During the time I was in the field,I saw that one of problems of Islam in Malaysia islikely to be linked with identity. What I mean is whatis Islamic teaching being implemented for in Malaysia?How is the concept of Malayness understood amongMalaysians? The problem of identity has been discussedamong scholars, not only in regards to socio-ethnoreligiousissues, but also in political affairs (Nagata1985, 305-11). This shows that in the establishment ofan Islamic state as proposed by Muslim-Malaysians, theproblem of identity could also be a crucial issue, at leastamong my respondents. During my fieldwork I alwaysheard first, “we are Chinese,” “we are Malay,” “we areIndian,” and then “we are Malaysians.” I was unlikelyto hear “we are Muslim” first, then “we are Malaysians,”because most people intended to show their ethnicidentity,since it may lead to discrimination, hegemony,and marginalization (see Muzaffar 2006, 21-36). It isno mistake when Joel S. Kahn (2006, xv) says:I have been disturbed by the high level of racism,patriarchy and exclusion that continues to exist atall levels of Malaysian society, a consequence of thehegemony of a particular nationalist narrative ofMalay indignity.Thus, in the debate on an Islamic state in Malaysia,non-Muslims and Muslims who oppose an Islamic staterefer to the Malaysian constitution. Meanwhile, theMuslims who urge the implementation of an Islamicstate in Malaysia go back to the context of Malaysianhistory where there were Islamic Kingdoms and theimplementation of Islamic law for the Malay people.Article 3 (1) of the Federal Constitution of Malaysiastates that: “Islam is the religion of the Federation; butother religions may be practiced in peace and harmonyin any part of the Federation.” This article does not implythat the Federation is an Islamic State. Besides this, Iwould like to quote some statements that say Malaysiadid not become an Islamic state after independence.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

20CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESFirst, The White Paper on the Constitutional Proposalsfor the Federation of Malaya: “…there has beenincluded in the proposed Federal Constitution thatIslam is the religion of the Federation. This will [gnaw]away the present position of the Federation as a secularstate.” Second, the statement of Prime Minister TunkuAbdul Rahman in 1958: “I would like to make it clearthat this country is not an Islamic State as it is generallyunderstood, we merely provide that Islam shall be theofficial religion of the State.”It is clear that Malaysia is not an Islamic state, butMuslims practice Islamic law according to sharî‘ah.However, the issue of an Islamic state has created muchdebate among the elites in Malaysia, especially when thePAS asserted that Malaysia is an Islamic state. It alsoproposed the implementation of Islamic law throughthe achievement of political power at the federal level.This party was established by groups of Malay ‘Ulamâ(religious scholars of Islam) on 24 November 1951 asthe Persatuan Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) or Pan-MalayaIslamic Party (PMPI) which was later altered to theParti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) in 1972 (Isa 2001, 3).Zaleha (2006, 45) writes that the “PAS committeditself to parliamentary democracy and participatedin the general election gaining support mainly fromrural Malays in the northern Malay states of Kelantan,Terengganu, Kedah and Perlis.”Kelantan: Islamic State in Muslim StateKelantan can be as example of how an Islamic stateis, where one can say that there is no serious tensionbetween Muslims and non-Muslims (Winzeler 1985).During my trip to this state I saw that on Friday noon,when it is time for Jum’ah prayer, the shops, cafes andsupermarkets were closed until this prayer was finishedat the Masjid Muhammadi. Most of women werewearing jilbab (head coverings) in every place, eventhe female cashiers at supermarkets owned by Chinesebusinessman. The receptionist said to me that Kelantanis a Bandaraya Islam (Islamic city), not an Islamic state.At this point, I was surprised to an advertisement forDIGI, since the message was written in Arabic scriptand the models were two women who were wearingIslamic dress, something I could not find in other statesin Malaysia. When I was in Kuala Lumpur I tried tofind this picture in the city, but I was unable to. Whatsurprised me was that the language was not Arabic butJawi, and meant ‘wide coverage’ (Liputan Luas), one ofDIGI’s marketing slogans. In fact, for many buildingsin Kelantan, most of sign boards were written in Jawiscript, including Chinese owned shops. The Jawi scripthas been quite widely introduced among Muslim Malaysin Northern Malaysia, Southern Thailand and Aceh inIndonesia, especially for the santri (students) at pondok,pesantren, surau and dayah (van Bruinessen 1999).When I was in Kedah I bought some kitabs (Islamicbooks) that were written in Jawi script. Because Kedahdoes not promote itself as an Islamic state in Malaysia,I did not see any Jawi script on the many streets andcorners. The Jawi script in these kitabs was published byulama from Pattani (Thailand) and printed in Penang.Furthermore, the experience of the PAS in controllingKelantan has been a serious motivation for this party toestablish an Islamic state in Malaysia. When I clarifiedthis with one of the PAS’s Research Directors, ZulkifliAhmad, he said that an Islamic state means justice forevery citizen. The PAS had used a wrong strategy in theelection, because they promoted an Islamic state andmost Malaysians do not understand what an Islamicstate is. I would like to quote his statements:The Islamic state is just a concept. This leads usinto a misunderstanding on the concept of Islamic,even among the Islamic movement. It seemsto them that when there is the promotion of anIslamic state, it will marginalize non-Muslims.So, it is safe to say that an Islamic state is how toform the government. When we talk about what isIslamic government, you named it Daulah Islam,Negara Islam, Islamic state. …al-ibrah musammâwa laisa bi ism (in fact, a thing is valued for itssubstance, not from the name). The name can bechanged, but the substance is the soul. What is inIslam is the soul.His answer on the nature of Islamic state is almostidentical to the definition raised by the Head of thePAS Consultative Council, Dato’ Nik Aziz Nik Mat,on the notion of the Islamic state: “What we (the PAS)want is a country which observes the teachings of GODand the Prophet. That’s all. Whatever you want to callAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 21it…an Islamic state, Malaysia or Kelantan, do it by allmeans. The name is not important.”According to PAS documents that contain a briefexplanation of the Islamic state:“The Islamic state bases its legislation on the lawof the Almighty Who is Most Gracious and MostMerciful. …The Islamic state is an ideal statecherished and longed for by all who love peaceand true justice. The true Islamic state is a statewhich is peaceful and prosperous while receivingthe pleasure of Allah the Almighty. When peace iscombined with forgiveness from Allah, true peacewill result (PAS, 18).Islam Hadhari (Islamic Civilization)The PAS’s promotion of the Islamic state in its formaldocuments has led to a crucial debate in Malaysia inwhich the PAS is opposed not only by non-Muslims,but also by Muslims who tend to accept Malaysia assecular state. The PAS consists of individuals who wantto establish an Islamic state and implement fully Islamiclaw in Malaysia. This group comes from political partiesor Islamic movements that include Malaysian NGOs.They express their voices through political actionthrough the parliament or elections by urging othersto vote for a truly Islamic party that can establish anIslamic state in the country. Looking at this group, wecan say that the discourse of the Islamic state and Islamiclaw in Malaysia is a socio-political issue in the politicalarena. Soon after the PAS published the preamble of theIslamic state, many elites responded (discussed below) tothis in their speeches and media.The fact that Malaysia is being governed by Malays orMuslims can be a reason that Malaysia is an Islamic state.Besides this, Muslims can practice Islamic teachingsin their daily life according to sharî‘ah. This group ismade up of government bureaucrats who confidentlyview Malaysia as an Islamic state because it is governedby Islamic values. Abdul Hamid Othman, ex-PrimeMinister’s Department spokesperson, said that “werecognize [Malaysia] as an Islamic state as it is ruledby Muslims and the Muslims under their rule haveobtained peace and tranquility.” Before this, MustafaMuhamed, head of UMNO Information, maintained,“PAS has not given a detailed explanation of the Islamicstate concept as it is afraid of losing the support of theChinese and Indian communities.”On 18 June 2002, Mahathir went so far as to say thatMalaysia is an Islamic fundamentalist state and can beproud of that fact. The Malaysian government’s policies,he said, abide with the fundamental teachings of Islam.He acknowledged that his views would shock many inthe West “because they consider a fundamentalist to besomeone who is violent and did all kinds of bad things.”But he said this perception was wrong, and it was notnecessarily a bad thing to be a fundamentalist. MahathirMohammad had declared Malaysia as an “Islamic State”in early July 2001 in his address at the Conventionof the Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition inKuala Lumpur. He also made a similar statement inhis address at the Gerakan Party Annual DelegatesConference in Kuala Lumpur on 29 September 2001.To fulfil this statement, the Malaysian government triedto elucidate a concept that was quite different from thePAS’s demands. The Party has also duly promoted theIslamic state concept in Malaysia since its emergenceup until today.In 2002, a committee of ulama and intellectuals tried todiscuss Islam Hadhari. The objective of this discussionwas to find a direction to integrate an Islamic stateand Malaysian civilization. JAKIM (the Departmentof Islamic Development of Malaysia) also started toexplore the direction of Islam Hadhari. Before this year,JAKIM was only concerned with Muslim civil servantsin Malaysia (Salleh 2005, 55). Until 2002, there hadbeen no serious attempt by the Malaysian governmentto place Islam Hadhari as the main issue in the state andthe National Front’s manifesto.To respond to this issue, the government has promotedthe idea of “Islam Hadhari,” which was announcedby the Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi, during aspeech in 2004. In this year, Abdullah Ahmad Badawiannounced the concept of Islam Hadhari in his speechat the 55th UMNO general assembly (Badawi, 2005).He spoke about Islam Hadhari and the need for aglobally competitive Malay community. He stated that“Islam Hadhari is complete and comprehensive, withan emphasis on the development of the economy andcivilization, capable of building Malay competitiveness.”He also mentioned that Islam Hadhari was an approachthat emphasized development that was consistent withthe tenets of Islam and focused on enhancing qualityof life. Furthermore, he suggested that Islam Hadhariwas an effort to bring the Ummah back to basics,back to the fundamentals, as prescribed in the Qur’anand the Hadith that together form the foundation ofIslamic civilization. This definition is similar to theneo-modernism that was promoted by Fazlur Rahman,a leading Islamic scholar from Chicago University,in the 1980s. Thus, Islam Hadhari is a new name forneo-modernism in Islamic thought. This interpretationAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

22CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCEStries to open the gate of ijtihâd among Muslims in thecontemporary era through combining classical Islamicscholarship and Islamic civilization with modern, orWestern ideas, and analytical methods (Barton 1995,7).I have discussed this issue elsewhere where I arguedthat Islam Hadhari can be divided into three issues. Thefirst issue is that Islam Hadhari is one mode of Islamicthought in Southeast Asia. However, when I tracedback the mode of Islamic thought in Southeast Asia,I found that Islam Hadhari is similar to the conceptof Islam Peradaban (Islamic Civilization) that waspromoted by Nurcholish Madjid or the idea of IslamRasional (Rational Islam), one of the ideas from HarunNasution, an Islamic thinker in Indonesia. The secondissue with Islam Hadhari is that this mode of thoughtforms a political agenda in Malaysia, where the BarisanNasional intends to challenge the mode of Islamicthought promoted by the PAS. It is interesting to notethat Islam Hadhari became a political formula in 2003-2004 to fight with opposition parties. The third issueis the fact that Islam Hadhari is an idea to counter theissue of the Islamic state that was promoted by thePAS. However, most of the Islamic institutions arepromoting Islam Hadhari as a new way of interpretingIslam. It seems that Islam Hadhari has become a tool todevelop Malaysia in the image of true Islam.Non-MuslimsThis group is made up of those who are against theconcept of an Islamic state and the need to expandIslamic law. This group is composed of non-Muslimswho see that an Islamic state will be a threat to them,especially the implementation of Islamic criminal law(hudud). They also fear that freedom of religion willbe undermined in Malaysia. Non-Muslim communityleaders actively oppose the idea that Malaysia is anIslamic state. They worry that this is not an appropriateidea, as Malaysia is a pluralistic and multiethnic state,especially the idea as promoted by the PAS in the media.The DAP (Democratic Action Party), as a member ofthe Barisan Alternative, published a Media Statementon 28 June 2001 to challenge the intentions of the PASto promote an Islamic state in Malaysia, stating:As DAP leaders had stressed at the BarisanAlternative Leadership Dialogue on June 16, 2001,the Barisan Alternative must address and respectlegitimate opposition to the establishment of anIslamic State in Malaysia, not because of anti-Islam sentiments but because an Islamic state inmulti-racial and multi-religious Malaysia is notcompatible with parliamentary democracy, powersharing in a plural society, human rights andindividual freedoms, women’s rights and socialtolerance (Siang 2001, 85).Lim Kit Siang (2001, 85) proposes that “…not asingle Barisan Alternative leader made mention of theIslamic state issue because the coming-together of thefour opposition parties had nothing to with Islamicstate but represented an unprecedented oppositioneffort to break the Barisan Nasional political hegemonyto restore justice, freedom, democracy and goodgovernance in Malaysia.” As result, the DAP escapedtheir commitment with the BA in September 2001due to the Islamic state issue. It is interesting to notethat the DAP is also against the concept of an Islamicstate as promoted by Mahathir Mohammad on 29September 2002 and has launched the slogan, “Say Noto 929” (Liow 2005, 922). This party has also criticizedthe MCA, a Chinese party in BN collaboration withUMNO, because this party promotes an Islamic state. Iwould argue that the fear of an Islamic state within theDAP leads their ethnic-oriented political movement.To comment on this debate, Farish Noor (2001, 11)writes “…till today non-Muslims react with fear andapprehension whenever they hear the term “IslamicState” mentioned…In practically every contemporarycase where the project of an Islamic State has beenattempted, it has led to the strengthening of religiousand cultural boundaries.”Islamic Missionaries: Jamâ‘ah TablighIn Malaysia, there is an Islamic movement that attemptsto promote Islamic communities based on Islamicteachings (al-Qur’an and Hadits). During my fieldwork, I involved myself with this Islamic group, whichis called the Jamâ‘ah Tabligh. However, group membersdo not declare that they want to establish an Islamic statein Malaysia. In addition, Jomo and Shabery (1992), forexample, maintain that Jamâ‘ah Tablîgh is an informal,unregistered missionary movement. Many argue thatJamâ‘ah Tablîgh is not a political organization anddoes not support the government programs. However,some maintain that this movement plays a major rolein the political arena, even if it is unregistered. I visitedtheir mosque at Sri Petaling and attended some of theirmeetings with them in Bandar Baru Bangi. I also wentout with them (Ar. Khurûj) to do the da’wa, one of theiractivities of going to the mosque to pray together.In Malaysia, Jamâ‘ah Tabligh was introduced byMaulana Abdul Malik Madani, who came to Singaporeand Selangor in 1952 as a representative of his markâzAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 23(headquarters) at Nizamuddin (Abdullah 1997, 78).Initially, the Jamâ‘ah Tabligh received support intowns with large Indian Muslim communities, such asPenang, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. More recently,with the resurgence of Islamic missionary activities,the Jamâ‘ah Tabligh has succeeded in penetrating theMalay community, even in villages (Jomo and Shabery1992, 81). In the 1970s, the Jamâ‘ah Tabligh startedto recruit Malay people as members. The first groupthey approached was Ustaz Ashaari Haji Muhammad, aleader of Darul Arqam, and his followers. Ustaz AshaariHaji Muhammad joined Jamâ‘ah Tabligh. He made ajourney with his followers as Jamâ‘ah Tabligh membersto Singapore for ten days (Abdullah 1997, 79). Theyadopted the Tradition of Muhammad as their guideand identity as Muslims (Seng 2005, 9). Accordingto Nagata (1980, 922), “like Darul Arqam, Tablighis fundamentalist in orientation: through dakwah,it aims to both revive and clarify the basic teachingsof the Koran, and to show their relevance to modernsociety.” In addition, Syed Serajul Islam (2005, 119)maintains that “they started going around the countryby preaching the message of Islam. They held informaltalks to the people asking them to return to the truepath of Islam.”The Tablighists start their activities from the mosque orsurau. To fulfill the aim of self reform, it is compulsoryfor Tablighists to go out (khurûj) for a certain periodof time such as four months, forty days, ten days, orthree days. In obeying this takaza (command), everykarkun (Tablighist) should sacrifice his/her self, timeand money in the path of Allah. During the khurûj, akarkun is recommended to not discuss political issues orsomething that could lead them to earn less of a rewardfrom Allah. One Tablighist said that if every Muslimperforms shalat (prayer) in the mosque, there is no needto have an Islamic state, because an Islamic state willnot appear without prayers at the Mosque. Therefore, itis unnecessary for us to discuss the issue of Islamic stateif we do not perform shalat. The teachings of Tablighplace a greater emphasis on prayer in congregation(jamâ‘ah). Maulana Muhammad Zakariyya, one themost authoritative ulama from India who wrote abook on Fadhâil Amal, a book that is always readafter shalat, says that shalat is the most important ofall forms of worship and the foremost item to bereckoned with on the Day of Judgment. He also quotesone of hadits from the Prophet Muhammad, “shalatis the only line of demarcation between kufr (infidels)and Islam (believers).” To do this, karkun invite localMuslims to go to the mosque to shalat jama’ah (prayerin congregation). During this practice, Tablighists areasked to leave their ego or angriness behind them,especially when the local people reject their invitationwith rudeness. Tablighists believe that if people rejectjoining their program at the mosque, it is because theMuslims have not achieved hidayah (guidance fromAllâh). So, according to the Tablighists, every one whodoes not perform shalat can be grouped as Muslimswithout hidâyah. Besides doing khuruj, the Tablighalso hold Malam Markaz every Saturday night at SriPetaling. The most important aim of this ritual is totalk about the power of Allah by saying, “La Ilâ ha illâAllâh (there is no God, except Allah)” in every Muslimcircumstance of life. In a Tablighist’s words, “We meetto talk about imân (faith).” These meetings are attendedby more than four thousand Tablighists. I came to mybelief that this is an Islamic group that tends not topromote an Islamic state and is only concerned with thequality of faith of every single Muslim in Malaysia.ConclusionTo conclude this paper, I would like to highlight someimportant points. First, Malaysians have a problem withthe issue of identity among themselves in terms of whatit means to be Malaysian and Malay or another ethnicbackground. This problem leads to the problem ofperception on what kind of Islam could be implementedin Malaysia as a secular state. Second, it is interestingto emphasize that Malaysia is a secular state. However,in the last two decades the government has promotedIslam as a tool of development. At the same time, theIslamic parties are still eager to have Malaysia become afully Islamic state by implementing Islamic law for allMuslims in Malaysia. Third, the debate on an Islamicstate has led different groups of Malaysians to formtheir own interpretation of this concept. So far, thisinvestigation has provided a brief portrayal of Muslimand non-Muslim interpretations of what an Islamic stateis. Fourth, the Malaysian government also plays a majorrole in promoting this country as an Islamic state, andthe current Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi, is tryingto fulfill this concept by suggesting the concept of IslamHadhari. This paper has showed that Islamic Hadhariis being utilized in many Malaysian governmental andnon-governmental sectors. It would be interesting to dofurther research in this country on how the problem ofseparation between state and religion in the mirror ofpluralism plays out at the grassroots level.REFERENCESAbdullah, Abdul Rahman Haji. Pemikiran Islam Di Malaysia:Sejarah Dan Aliran. Bandung: Gema Insani Press, 1997.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

24CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESAhmed, Manzooruddin. Al-Nazhariyyah Al-Siyâsah Al-Islâmiyyah Fî Al-‘Ashr Al-Hadîts: Al-Nazhariyyah Al-Tatbîq.Pakistan: Jamî’ad al-Dirasât al-Islâmiyyah, 1988.al-Mawardî, Abî al-Hasan ‘Alî ibn Muhammad ibn Hablibal-Bashri al-Baghdadî. Al-Ahkâm Al-Sulthâniyyah. Beyrouth:Dâr al-Fikr, 1966.al-Raziq, ‘Ali ‘Abd. “Message Not Government, Religion NotState.” Liberal Islam: A Source Book. Ed. Charles Kurzman.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998: 29-36.al-Râziq, ‘Ali ‘Abd. Al-Islâm Wa Ushûl Al-Hukm. Beyrouth:Al-Mua’sasah al-‘Arabiyyah Lil Dirâsât wa al-Nasyr, 1972.Anderson, J.N.D. Islamic Law in the Modern World. London:Imprint, 1959.Badawi, A. Zaki. A Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Beyrouth:Librairies Du Liban, 1993.Badawi, Abdullah Ahmad. “Lonjakan Perkara Bangsa.” 55 thUMNO General Assembly, 2005.Barton, Greg. Gagasan Islam Liberal Di Indonesia: PemikiranNeo-Modernisme Nurcholish Madjid, Djohan Effendi, AhmadWahib, Dan Abdurrahman Wahid. Trans. Nanang Tahqiq.Jakarta: Paramadina, 1999.________. “Neo-Modernism: A Vital Synthesis ofTraditionalist and Modernist Islamic Thought in Indonesia.”Studia Islamika 2.3 (1995): 1-75.Bruinessen, Martin van. Kitab Kuning, Pesantren, and Tarekat:Tradisi-Tradisi Islam Di Indonesia. Bandung: Mizan, 1999.Bustamam-Ahmad, Kamaruzzaman. “From IslamicRevivalism to Islamic Radicalism in Southeast Asia: A Caseof Malaysia.” Culture, Identity and Religion in Southeast Asia.Ed. Alistair D.B. Cook. Newcastle: Cambridge ScholarsPublishing, 2007: 69-87.Choudhury, G.W. Islam and the Modern Muslim World.Kuala Lumpur: WHS Publications Sdn Bhd, 1993.Dahlan, Abdul Azis, et al. Eds. Ensiklopedi Hukum Islam.Jakarta: Ichtiar van Hoeve. 1997.Federspiel, Howard. Islam and Ideology in the EmergingIndonesian State: The Persatuan Islam (Persis), 1923 to 1957.Leiden: Brill, 2001.Hefner, Robert. Civil Islam: Muslim and Democratizations inIndonesia. Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2000.Hassan, Sharifah Zaleha Syed. “Political Islam in Malaysia:The Rise and Fall of Al Arqam.” Asian Cultural Studies15.Special Issue (2006): 43-55.Hilmi, Mustafa. Nidhâm Al-Khilâfah Bayn Ahl Al-Sunnah WaAl-Syi’ah. Iskandariyyah: Dar al-Da’wah, 1988.Isa, Nasharuddin Mat. The Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS):Ideology, Policy, Struggle and Vision Towards the NewMillennium. Kuala Lumpur: PAS, 2001.Jastaniah, Abdul Aziz Saddiq. “The Islamic State in Light ofthe Qur’an and Sunnah.” 1982.Jomo, K.S. and Ahmad Shabery. “Malaysia’s IslamicMovement.” Fragmented Vision: Culture and Politics inContemporary Malaysia. Eds. Kahn, Joel and Francis Loh KohWah. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992: 79-105.Kahn, Joel S. Other Malays: Nationalism and Cosmopolitanismin the Modern Malay World. Singapore: Singapore UniversityPress, 2006.Khallaf, Abdul Wahhab. ‘Ilm Ushûl al-Fiqh. Beirut: Dar al-Qalam, 1978.Kurzman, Charles. “Introduction: The Modernist IslamicMovement.” Modernist Islam, 1840-1940: A Sourcebook. Ed.Charles Kurzman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002:3-27.Liow, Joseph. “The Politics behind Malaysia’s EleventhGeneral Election.” Asian Survey 45.6 (2005): 907-30.Mudzhar, Muhammad Atho. “Social History Approach toIslamic Law,” Al-Jâmi’ah 61 (1998): 78-88.Muzaffar, Chandra. “Political Marginalization in Malaysia.”Indian Communities in Southeast Asia. Eds. K.S. Sandhu andA. Mani. Singapore: ISEAS, 2006: 211-36.Nagata, Judith. “Religious Ideology and Social Change: TheIslamic Revival in Malaysia.” Pacific Affairs 53.3 (1980): 405-39.________. “What Is a Malay? Situational Selections of EthnicIdentity in a Plural Society.” Readings on Islam in SoutheastAsia. Eds. Ahmad Ibrahim, Sharon Siddique and YasminHussain. Singapore: ISEAS, 1985: 305-11.“Nik Aziz Defines Islamic State Concept.” News Straits Times4 August 2001, 2 ed.: 2.Noer, Deliar. “The Development and Nature of ModernistAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 25Movement in Indonesia.” Readings on Islam in Southeast Asia.Eds. Ahmad Ibrahim, Sharon Siddique and Yasmin Hussain.Singapore: ISEAS, 1985: 117-22.________. The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia,1900-1942. London: Oxford University Press, 1973.Noor, Farish A. “Nation of Islamic Should Include, Not Bar.”New Straits Times 21 July 2001: 11.Nyazee, Imran Ahsan Khan, Theories of Islamic Law: TheMethodology of Ijtihâd. Pakistan: International Institute ofIslamic Thought and Islamic Research Institute, 1994.PAS, The Islamic Party of Malaysia. The Islamic StateDocument. Selangor: Markaz Tarbiyah PAS Pusat, n.d.“Pas Should Explain Concept of Islamic State It Wishes toForm.” New Straits Times 1 August 2001, 3.Salleh, Muhammad Syukri. “Islam Hadhari Dari PerspektifPembangunan Berteraskan Islam.” Pemikir 39 & 40 (2005):53-88.Schacht, Joseph. An Introduction to Islamic Law. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1964.Seng, Ann Wan. Al-Arqam Di Sebalik Tabir. Selangor:Penerbit Universiti Malaya, 2005.Siang, Lim Kit. Ba & Islamic State. Selangor: DAP, 2001.________. “Islamic State Not in Ba Manifesto.” Ba andIslamic State. Petaling Jaya: DAP, 2001.Smith, Donald Eugene. Religion and Political Development.Boston: Little Brown, 1970.Sukarja, Ahmad. Piagam Madinah Dan Undang-UndangDasar 1945. Jakarta: UI Press, 1995.Ya’lâ, Abî. Al-Ahkâm Al-Sulthâniyyah. Beyrouth: Dâr al-Fikr,1992.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

26 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEFROM CHARITY TO SOCIAL INVESTMENTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE:A STUDY OF PHILANTHROPIC INSTITUTIONS IN INDONESIAJosie M. FernandezIntroductionThe word ‘philanthropy,’ derived from the Greek phillen(to love) and anthropos (human), means “the expressionof love to human beings.” Nadarajah (in Josie M. F.and Abdul Rahim 2002) defines philanthropy froma sociological perspective as an expression of oursympathetic/compassionate sense borne out of oursociability and directed at those in need of help. RobertL. Payton stresses the definition of philanthropy inthe sense of organizational or collective action, wherephilanthropy is not an individual action but a collectiveaction carried out by or through organizations orinstitutions (in Josie M. F and Abdul Rahim 2002). Itis seen as forms of social interventions to help eradicatepoverty, provide access to basic needs such as healthand education, promote global peace and security andconserve the environment. There is a growing belief thatgovernments alone cannot meet and sustain the needsof their people.This study shows that philanthropy in Indonesia isprofoundly driven by religion, cosmological practices,community sustainability and political changes. Thecase studies in this paper underscore the fact that thephilanthropic activities of a society reflect the cultural,social, economic and political conditions of particularperiods. The religious constructions of philanthropyhave a powerful resonance that manifest themselves inthe patterns of giving.Islamic philanthropy was introduced in Indonesia withthe advent of Islam in the Malay Archipelago in the15 th century. Islam places great importance on caringfor others through various forms of giving such as zakat,which is obligatory, and infak, sedekah and wakaf, whichare voluntary. Through Islamic philanthropy, Muslimshelp the poor and the needy meet their religiousobligations (Bamualim et al. 2006).Since the arrival of Islam in Indonesia, mosques andpesantrens (traditional Islamic schools) have practicedIslamic philanthropy. The mosques and pesantrensbecame centers for education and dakwah (Islamicpropagation) (Bamualim et al. 2006). It was, however,not institutionalized until the early 20 th centurywhen Muhammadiyah, an Islamic social organizationfounded in 1912, established a zakat collection centerto raise funds and disburse them to the poor. Today,Muhammadiyah runs thousands of schools, dozens ofuniversities and hospitals and hundreds of orphanagesthrough grassroots support. However, due to inadequateresources, Muhammadiyah also accepts governmentsubsidies (Bamualim et al. 2006).The move to institutionalize Islamic philanthropy was intandem with developments taking place throughout theIslamic world at that time. It was a response by Muslimcommunities towards the development of scienceand technology, secularization and modernization.It was an acknowledgement of the inadequacies ofIslamic institutions in responding to the challengesof modernity. The Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII)Yogyakarta established Badan Wakaf UII in 1948to respond to these challenges. The Pondok ModernGontor pesantren established in 1926 has kept pacewith modernity but the growth of institutionalizedphilanthropy for social change has been slow. Islamicphilanthropy has remained largely traditional andtherefore charity oriented (i.e., providing services to thepoor and the needy) (Bamualim et al. 2006).Catholic philanthropy began to take root in Indonesiain the 1800s. Elements of charity, social investment andsocial justice shaped Catholic philanthropy. Schools,hospitals and orphanages were built and managedthrough donations from Catholics. With democracyand human rights as the fundamentals of social justice,the Catholic Church became an active participant inthe struggle for independence from colonial rule inIndonesia (Yayasan Kehati and INRISE 2006).Likewise, philanthropic giving has long been a part ofHinduism, which came to Indonesia around the 2ndcentury. The Pania Fund in Indonesia, made up ofcollections from Hindu temples, is used for the needsof the poor. The Saraswati Foundation underscores theneed for education of youth.Buddhism reached the shores of Indonesia during therule of Sriwijaya. Dana, the Buddhist form of giving,is practiced through support for the poor. For example,Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE27the Tzu Chi Merit Society provided humanitarian aidfor the building of homes in Aceh after the tsunamidisaster in 2004.FindingsIn the last two decades, changes have been taking placein the philanthropic terrain in Indonesia:• A new paradigm to mobilize indigenous resourcesthrough organized philanthropy is shaping the fieldof philanthropy;• The development of social justice philanthropyis evident;• The pluriformity of philanthropy needs to berecognized;• The centrality of religion and culture in theexpansion of philanthropy is profound;• The role of corporate social responsibility (CSR)in addressing economic disparities through theestablishment of philanthropic foundations isimportant;• The issue of the sustainability of Indonesia,through putting into practice the principlesof sustainable development, cuts across allphilanthropic endeavors;• There is an absence of any work on thecosmological values linked to philanthropyand cosmology-cum-economy societies in theIndonesian context;• Absent too are studies on community orhorizontal forms of philanthropy; and• The indicators used for social justice philanthropyare access to basic needs, capacity building,education, health, environmental conservation andachieving the Millennium Development Goals by2015.The TrendsThe findings indicate two major trends in thefield of philanthropy in Indonesia. These are: theinstitutionalization of giving and the growth of entitiesthat focus on social justice rather than on charity.Institutionalized philanthropyModern philanthropy is highly institutionalized in thatresources are mobilized for grant-making, which goesthrough various stages such as identifying prospectivebeneficiaries and intermediaries. Wealthy individualsand families have established grant-making foundationsto enhance the efficacy of their contributions.These foundations are serviced by many supportingorganizations, such as research institutions and centersof excellence.Philanthropy in Asia has not attained this level ofinstitutionalization. However, the growth of thecivil society movement is changing the structure ofphilanthropy in Asia. The dependency on foreign aid,which will diminish as Indonesia develops, has alsotriggered the need to develop indigenous philanthropy.A study in 2000 by the Public Interest Research andAdvocacy Center (PIRAC) showed a high level of givingamong Indonesians. Almost all of those interviewed(96%) stated they had given donations either in theform of cash, goods or time and energy. Increasingly,organizations are being established for Indonesians tochannel their contributions. The study noted “that thefinancial potential of the Muslim community to raisezakat, infak and sedekah funds total around IDR20trillion annually. Around 98 percent of all Muslims inIndonesia donate cash, food, or their own time. Eventhose with an average income equivalent to less than onethousand US dollars per annum give donations. For acountry in which Muslims constitute almost 90 percentof a population of over 220 million, the potentialof Islamic philanthropy is obviously huge. A largeproportion of the population (110 million) still lives onless than USD2 a day and realizing this potential is allthe more important” (Bamualim et al. 2006).Social justice philanthropyThe concept of social justice philanthropy (SJP) wasfirst developed in the United States by the NationalCommittee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Itis “the practice of making contributions to non-profitorganizations that work for structural change andincrease the opportunity of those who are less well offpolitically, economically and socially” (Saidi 2006).The goal of SJP is the creation of social justice, whichtheoretically involves:“addressing basic needs, redistribution of power,transformation of values in favor of diversity(e.g., race, gender), strong community capacity,and public participation in decision making.Traditional philanthropy does not address basicneeds nor does it contribute to the transformationof values, including prejudices on race and gender.Traditional philanthropy may redistribute powerand improve capacity but it is unclear who makesdecisions, to whom power is redistributed andwhose capacity is built. From the SJP perspective,social services do not eradicate the root causes ofAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

28CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCESsocial injustice.” (Saidi 2006)In Indonesia, the emergence of social justice philanthropycan be traced to religious philanthropy based on Islamand Christianity (i.e., missionary work). Before theMuhammadiyah, it was the Christian missionarymovement that built schools, hospitals and orphanagesin many Indonesian cities. Muhammadiyah emulatedthis Christian expression of philanthropy. However,dakwah and missionary forms of philanthropic activitiesat the turn of the 20 th century did not respond to thecauses of poverty and alienation (Bamualim et al.2006).It was the development of civil society organizations(CSOs) in the 1970s that brought a shift from traditionalphilanthropy to social justice philanthropy. Poverty,marginalization, environmental degradation, violationsof labor and human rights, gender discrimination andlimited democratization and restrictions on citizenscreated the space for advocacy. However, advocacyCSOs in Indonesia are generally not recipients oftraditional philanthropy.Institutions such as Eco Pesantren Darut Tauhid,Dompet Dhuafa Republika Foundation, the IndonesianBiodiversity Foundation (Kehati), Yayasan Wisnu, andTransparency International Indonesia are pursuingthe goals of social justice philanthropy through theiractivities. The programs of these philanthropy-relatedorganizations reflect their efforts to find solutions tothe deep-rooted problems of Indonesia today, suchas poverty, environmental degradation, lack of accessto education and health, redistribution of resources,corruption and peoples’ empowerment throughparticipation. The diverse programmatic activitiesof these institutions are set to transform Indonesiansocieties in urban and rural areas.Indeed, social justice philanthropy is a battleground fora range of issues that impacted Indonesian society duringthe twenty years of the New Order Regime (1968-1998).The struggles for freedom, people’s participation andempowerment stifled by the oppression of the Suhartoera began to influence the development of philanthropyin the 1990s. The financial crisis of 1997 precipitated thefall of Suharto in 1998 and resulted in the birth of “anawakening era for CSOs.” A new spirit of philanthropywas triggered by creating “a momentum for a societywhich has enjoyed a long tradition of philanthropicgiving to move from spontaneous giving to one basedin understanding the need for more sustainable effortsto help others to help themselves” (Bamualim et al.2006).The Case StudiesThe following case studies, developed through keyinformant interviews, focus group discussions, andreview of secondary materials, underscore the twomajor trends of philanthropy in Indonesia discussedabove. The strategies engaged by the organizations toinstitutionalize giving towards social justice are basedon factors of religion, culture, community, borderlessgiving, growth of corporate social responsibilityconcerns and civil society advocacy.Category 1: The pluriformity of philanthropyOne of the significant findings of the study is thepluriformity of philanthropy in Indonesia. It is thispluriformity that has constructed an ethos that enablesIndonesians to embrace philanthropic orientations basedon religions: Islam, Christianity, Hindu, Buddhism andcosmological practices. In 2007, Indonesia celebrated60 years of independence from Dutch colonial rule“on the heels of national polemic on issues concerningliberalism, pluralism and secularism” (Jakarta Post,February, 2007).Several CSO leaders interviewed for the study expressedthat the pluralism Indonesia is proud of is under threat.However, the following case studies mirror the diversityand pluralism of Indonesia. The featured institutionsuse a mix of strategies to develop their institutionalcapacity to sustain their philanthropic work. These arederiving resources from religious giving, communitycontributions, volunteerism, corporate contributions,and transnational giving.• Eco Pesantren Daarut TauhidThe Eco Pesantren (EP), established in 2006 byAbdullah Gymnastiar (the founder of Daarut Tauhid),is a model for the social transformation of villagesplagued by persistent problems of poverty, inequalities,environmental destruction, politics and corruption.Located in Cigugur Girang Village, Parongpong,Bandung, EP is “science in action.”Dr. Budi Faisal, an architect cum academic cumgovernment officer trained in Indonesia, the US andAustralia, is leading the team that is transformingthe model into a reality. The principles guiding thetransformation of this village are rooted in Islamic andsustainable development values.The financial resources for the building of the EP arewakaf contributions. Wakaf are the earliest forms ofIslamic philanthropic endowments. Wakaf can comeAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

CIRCLES OF POWER AND COUNTERBALANCES 29from both Muslims and non-Muslims. The wakafcontributions are only for the initial building of the EPas it is envisioned to eventually become a self-sustainingmodel for villages. A donor who contributes IDR75,000receives a certificate for the purchase of a piece of wakafland. However, Dr. Budi points out, “All wakaf belongsto God. EP has taken precautions to ensure no onewill ever sell the assets of EP.” Strict adherence to theprinciples of transparency and accountability in regardsto wakaf donations are observed. The amount of wakafdonations collected is announced daily on radio.The EP addresses the devastating consequences of theexploitation of non-renewable resources, the use ofagricultural chemicals, unbridled urbanization and thelack of access to education and economic self-reliance.The importance of economic activities is visible. At theEP model farms, 48 farmers are growing vegetables thathave a higher market value than conventional produce.The EP markets the produce directly to supermarketsand other outlets. The farmers are guaranteed aminimum income to address fluctuations in prices andthe impact of weather patterns. Interestingly, thesefarmers cited economic benefit as the first reason fortheir participation in the EP activities.The EP model is ecologically friendly and upholdssustainable development principles. It is designed tobe self-sustaining in food and energy and produce zerowaste. Santris (students of pesantrens) receive a holisticeducation in agriculture, Islamic knowledge, science,technology, Islamic values, entrepreneurship andleadership. The integrated education system emphasizeshow to love nature and is intended to build the spiritualand social capital of villages. It is hoped that after theygraduate from the EP, the students will go to rural areasand work with local villagers to empower a village andmake it less dependent on the cities.• Dompet Dhuafa (DD)Dompet Dhuafa (DD), founded on 2 July 1993, isa successful model for zakat collection through theadoption of modern management principles andstrategies—organizational development, transparencyand accountability. DD is one of several like-mindedinstitutions that mobilize and manage IndonesianMuslim community resources, specifically for thezakat, infak and sadaqah (ZIS), which are all formsof charitable giving in Islam (Saidi 2006). DD wasinitially a sister institution of the Republika. In 2001,DD separated from being managed by Republika andassumed greater organizational independence. The ZISresources are managed optimally with professionalism,transparency and accountability.DD’s vision and mission are captured in its logo, whichcontains a picture of a hook, and its motto,“Whoever is unable to fish needs to be providedwith a place to fish from. When the fishing placeis available, he needs to know if there are any fishout there. When there are fish out there, the anglerneeds to be protected from being pushed aside bythose with more experience and more fish hooks.”The main programs of DD are health services, education(including an international school for selected poor malestudents), economic development, human resourcedevelopment, charity and natural disasters response.Its major sources of funding are domestic and includeearned income service fees (0.5 percent), corporatecontributions (0.5 percent) and public donations (99percent). DD’s marketing and fundraising strategies,such as using the media and celebrities, have beenvery successful. Rahmat Riyadi, the President of DD,says: “DD’s success is not a reflection of its successfulfundraising but its success in gaining public trust.”• Yayasan WisnuThe Yayasan Wisnu (YW) was founded in 1990 inBali by Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Buddhistsof different ethnic origins (e.g., Chinese, Javanese,Manado, Balinese). YW takes its name from tri hitakrana, the Hindu triad of Brahma, the Creator; Wisnu,the Conserver; and Siva, the Renewer. Its vision is to bea “catalyst for change through sustainable developmentprinciples for a better quality of life for the Balinese.”YW’s office in Seminyak Kuta stands on land donatedby the family of one of its founders and current director,Made Suaranath. The office was designed by anotherfounder, Popo Danes, an international award-winningarchitect.The initial programs of Yayasan Wisnu focused on wastemanagement and recycling. In Bali, the hotels generatedmuch waste that was dumped indiscriminately. YW wassuccessful in developing recycling models and facilitiesthat are now managed by others.As some of the founders, staff and project participants ofYayasan Wisnu began to express a need for a shift in itsfocus, a three-day consultation on the future directionsof YW was held in 2003 with the founding Board, staffand various stakeholders. The consensus was that the realproblem of development is the paradigm of top-downinterventions. “When a culture and its practices arestill alive, the process is different from urban planningconcepts of the West,” says Suaranath. The meetingAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

30 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEdecided that YW then takes the path of communityempowerment to address the challenges of modernityand globalization that have some serious consequencesfor Balinese communities. This includes the loss ofthousands of hectares of fertile agricultural land to hoteldevelopment and the loss of fishing grounds and coralreefs have affected the livelihood of communities.Thus, YW focuses on sustainable development andconsumption in the villages of Nusa Ceningan, KiadanPelaga, Duku Sibetan and Tenganan. Balancing life, therelationship between human beings, the environmentand social justice are fundamentals that embody theconcept of sustainability. Community organizingincludes the participatory mapping of natural resources,human resources and cultural practices before a projectis initiated. For example, the concept of subak, whichrefers to the equal sharing of water resources, containsa great deal of wisdom. Through the subak system,conflicts over resources are avoided in these villages.For basic needs, mensyukun—cherish what you have—is encouraged. Community empowerment also involvesbuilding the capacity of the community.The main projects in the villages are ecotourism, thebenefits of which go directly to the communities; incomegenerating projects such as coffee growing in Pelaga;the development of micro-hydro projects in Pelaga andTenganan; the production of wine from salak and thestrengthening of existing cooperative practices like thesubak. The villagers manage these projects voluntarilyand the funds go directly to them. Networking andbarter trade are encouraged among the villages. Thevillage of Pelaga provides coffee for Tenganan, which inturn barters rice and coconuts.YW is a slim CSO with six staff. Board members arevolunteers and work on the community projects withoutany financial remuneration. Staff such as Atiek, Dannyand Gede pointed out it is their love for communityand the environment that motivates them to work inYW.“Yayasan Wisnu belongs to the community. One day,the board will come from the community,” said BoardMembers Suarnath and Agung Putradhyna.• Yayasan Kayon-BaliIndividuals can make a difference in small ways intheir own locality through volunteerism, sharing ofknowledge and expertise. This was pointed out byAgung, Wes and Gede during our discussion in thebeautiful hamlet of Marga.Nine individuals from various backgrounds—architecture, law, engineering, mechanics, literatureand accounting—founded Yayasan Kayon (YK) on24 February 1999. Kayon stands for piKiran, karYauntuk harmOni lingkungaN (thought, speech anddeeds for environmental harmony). The goals of YKare to promote an understanding of the concept ofsustainability and to incorporate it in the daily livesof children and farmers in the village of Marga, to usemathematics, physics and biology to respond to localneeds and to promote an understanding of pluralismand intercultural relations.YK’s programs for children consist of basic computerlearning, English, electronics and local culture. Thechildren’s courses are conducted through study groupsnamed mengapet and inspired by the Balinese calendarTika. The activities for farmers are run through SekheManyi (rice harvesters group). The programs promotealternative energy and appropriate farming technology.Organic farming, biogas development and a revolvingmicrocredit fund for animal husbandry are beinginitiated.The home of Agung Putradhyna, one of KY’s founders,is used as the learning center for children. All activitiesare run by volunteers.Category 2: Corporate social responsibility philanthropyPhilanthropy and social responsibility go beyond charityand welfare. Today, corporations are contributingto numerous causes such as education, achieving theUN Millennium Development Goals, communitydevelopment, the environment and rehabilitation aftermajor disasters.• Eka Tjipta FoundationThe Eka Tjipta Foundation (ETF) is a family foundationfounded on 17 March 2006 by the Eka Tjipta Widjajafamily (of the Sinarmas conglomerate). The foundation ismanaged through an endowment fund from the Widjajafamily. Its vision and mission statement is: “Enhancequality of life, welfare and foster self-supporting societyby providing a sustainable contribution through variousprograms that are economically viable, socially equitableand environmentally sustainable.”While ETF’s activities focus on sustainable development,its business unit is committed to good governance,respect for the environment, human rights, fair laborpractices, consumer protection and community andsocietal development. The foundation believes that,for a stable Indonesia, economic disparities must beAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE31addressed and environmental protection must takecenter stage in the development process. This, statesETF, can be achieved through education and alternativeenergy empowerment projects. The programs of thefoundation reflect these beliefs.Economics for Life projects have been launched in tenhigh schools in Mojokerto, East Java). To promote theconcept of biofuel, students have participated in themass planting of Jatropha trees. The ETF likewise rebuiltfive elementary schools destroyed by a devastatingearthquake in Yogyakarta in 2006. It also supportedworkshops on global warming and climate change inthe lead-up to the UN conference on global warming inDecember 2007 in Bali.• The Sampoerna FoundationPutera Sampoerna and his company, PT H. M.Sampoerna, wanted to return something to Indonesia,which had given them so much. Putera Sampoernafound his call in education. Together with othershareholders of PT H. M. Sampoerna, he foundedthe Sampoerna Foundation, which has partnershiparrangements within Indonesia and other ASEANcountries, and whose operations are managed by 150staff members.Support for education was seen as a neutral andnon-partisan strategy in the context of philanthropyand politics. The foundation focuses on providingscholarships for students to pursue tertiary educationas well as for teachers who want to pursue graduatestudies. As less than 50 percent of teachers in Indonesiaare qualified, the foundation established a TeacherTraining Institute to enhance the quality of teachers.The Foundation has also launched various managementprograms to produce people of caliber for businesses.• Como Shambala Estate at Begawan Giri/ComoFoundationThe Como Shambala at Begawan Giri is no ordinaryhotel or resort. Built on a 23 acre site overlooking theAyung River in Ubud, Bali, it is a place for nourishingthe spirit and achieving holistic health. The guests arecelebrities and the well-heeled.The resort is owned by Christina Ong, a Singaporetycoon and hotelier. It is not a conventional cement andbrick hotel. Nature around it is intact. A natural springrevered for its healing properties, the Source, is locatedwithin the resort.Como Shambala’s corporate social responsibility beginswith the conservation of nature. No trees are cut. Shouldone fall, it is turned into compost. The roofs of the villasand suites are made from traditional ylang ylang roofing.All food served is organic.As the area was purchased from villagers, at leastone family member in the village where the resort islocated, is guaranteed lifetime employment with theresort. It also recognizes that villages are cohesivereligious communities. The villagers worship in templeswithin the area of the hotel. It supports local culturethrough financial assistance for music and ceremonies.A kindergarten for the village children is run by thestaff of the resort. Water harvested from the spring issupplied to homes in seven villages.The Como Foundation (CF) prioritizes women andgirls. Education, healthcare and skills development forneedy women and girls from around the world receivesupport from CF.• Bali Hati FoundationThe Bali Hati Foundation (BHF) is another exampleof transnational philanthropy as donations are alsoreceived from overseas. It is a non-profit foundationestablished in February 1997 to promote the educationand social welfare of the people of Bali. “Hati” meansheart in Indonesian, and the name suggests that theheart, the beauty of Bali, is its people. Its foundersare Frank Olgvary, Christiana Reimandos and KetutArnaya. It provides services that build the capacity ofneedy Balinese children and adults to improve theirquality of life. It operates a spa, the profits of whichsupport the schools.The projects of the Bali Hati Foundation are varied andare designed to enable young Indonesians to realize theirindividual and social potential. It creates an environmentwhere love and concern, combined with educationaland social initiatives, can achieve not only the spiritualand intellectual growth of individuals but can ultimatelybring about fundamental changes in the economic andsocial life of Balinese villagers. Community service bythe students upon the completion of any course ofstudy is viewed as fundamental to achieving this goal.Although the Bali Hati Foundation recognizes the closeinterrelationship of spiritual, intellectual and materialachievement, it is in no way associated with any religiousfoundation, sect or denomination and has no politicalaffiliation. Its programs are open to all without religiousor gender biases.Among its major projects are the Bali Hati ElementarySchool, Bali Hati Community Education Program,and a mobile clinic. The clinic project began in 2003Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

32 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEthrough donations from the Swiss government andSAFM Radio, Adelaide, Australia. From 2003 to2006, the clinic provided dental care and treatment,general health examinations and PAP smears at variouslocations, including orphanages and elementary schools,in nine Bali regencies.In August 2005, BHF was selected as the best nonprofitfoundation in Bali by the government. It was alsonamed the “number one” foundation in Indonesia.Category 3: Grant-making foundationsGrant-making foundations raise funds which areutilized to provide grants to NGOs.• Kehati—The Indonesian Biodiversity FoundationKehati, established in 1994 in Jakarta, has the distinctionof being the first grant-making NGO in Indonesia. Itsinitial funding support came from the United States ofAmerica in the form of an endowment grant. Annually,Kehati is able to allocate six percent of the value ofthe endowment fund for the implementation of itsprograms. Kehati currently receives funding from bothdomestic and international sources.Its mission includes supporting biological diversityconservation and the sustainable utilization of biologicalresources; empowering communities and otherstakeholders in biological diversity conservation; andsupporting the development, enactment and adoptionof policies to secure the conservation and sustainableutilization of biological resources. Its program areasare education and training, institution building,environmental conservation, community development,research, advocacy, publications and public information,and emergency and disaster relief.Kehati places a great emphasis on building the capacityof communities to enable them to be economicallyself-reliant, with local knowledge forming the basisof conservation and economic activities. Indonesia’sbiological diversity is its strength. For example, followingthe financial crisis of 1997, the prices of medicinesskyrocketed and many died from lack of access tomedicines. A solution was found in Madura, once thecradle of Indonesian herbal medicine. Kehati revivedits tradition of producing herbal cures. Pesantrens,health centers and universities have been successfullyparticipating in this project for the last seven years.Category 4: Community/horizontal philanthropyCommunity forms of philanthropic activities are stillstrong in Bali. In the villages of Kiadan Pelaga andTenganan, pluralistic collectivism and seka (to be one)principles have sustained a social structure deeplyrooted in Balinese cosmology. Most activities areundertaken in groups. The banjar (village) is steepedin the desa adat (village customs) and are regarded askin-like communities. Adat institutions provide theorganizational base for a balance between individualand collective interests and good. Tenth centuryBalinese inscriptions make references to banjar putus(obligatory ceremonial contributions) and banjar sukaduka(mutual help in joy and sorrow). The sharing ofagricultural resources, water and irrigation throughsubak (cooperative or village customary organizations),equity in development projects, collective cremations,group preparations, and participation in celebrationsand ceremonies, environmental conservation andthe sale of land and negotiations with the state are allpremised on adat structures (Warren 1995). Theseconcepts have been sustained in Kiadan Pelaga andTenganan where the banjar functions as the conduit forritual, social, economic and administrative activities.The egalitarian codes in village structures have beeninstrumental in the implementation of all projectsinitiated by Yayasan Wisnu. YW facilitates itscommunity programs through the adat institutions.The labor required for implementing projects iscommunity-based and voluntary. One empoweringactivity is mapping of the village territory/resources bythe community. Says Komang Suarasa, a young manfrom Tenganan, “It took us a year to map 940 hectaresof our village. I know and understand my land now. Iam proud of that.”Both Tenganan and Kiadan Pelaga bear testimonythat strong communities and leadership are central tosustaining villages. The adat rules protect biodiversityto keep the balance. “If you lose biodiversity, everythingcollapses,” say the villagers.Tenganan is proud that it has sustained and protectedone of Indonesia’s oldest villages through the strictenforcement of adat rules. Any villager who cuts treesin the forest suffers the severe punishment of beingbanished from the village. The forest in Tenganan isabundant with fruits, nuts, herbs, flora and fauna. As awater catchment area, it provides water to many villages.“The strong leadership and strict enforcement of adathave kept away state interference and hoteliers,” statesI.M. Sadr, a former dinas head and respected opinionleader of Tenganan.Meanwhile, Kiadan Pelaga is a showcase for the naturalAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE33farming of coffee, which is carried out through subak,the village cooperative. The village is also a watercatchment area, where the underground water forms ariver which flows down to Southern Bali. “We have strictrules on the conservation of bamboo planted from thetime of our ancestors,” emphasizes Pak Juta, the villagehead. Bamboo prevents erosion; hence, indiscriminateharvesting of bamboo is not permitted.Category 5: Advocacy philanthropy“The notion that philanthropy, to retain itscharacter, must remain non-controversial representsa fundamental misunderstanding of the institution,which not only prevents its historical development, butalso destroys its essential values. The most traditional ofcharitable purposes ordinarily require the acquisition,development and dissemination of information andideas and they are not rendered the less charitablebecause such information or ideas are disputable anddisputed.” (Albert M. Sachs in Rabinowitz 1990)The critical role of institutions in the developmentof policies, advocacy for social justice and equity andsystemic change require philanthropic support. Thewords of Albert M. Sachs affirm this.• Transparency International IndonesiaTransparency International Indonesia (TII) is a civilsociety organization established in October 2000 as partof global efforts to eliminate corruption and promotetransparency and accountability in government, businessand civil society. It is governed through voluntaryassociation by a Board of Directors and a SupervisoryBoard. TII’s projects extend to seventeen regions whereit has regional and field offices.TII’s main strategic programs and projects focus onadvocacy, policy changes and public education. Researchand capacity building for communities, governmentofficials and businesses on issues related to corruption aresome of its priorities. Corruption Perception Surveys inthirty-two cities in Indonesia are an important tool forpolicy advocacy and public education. Building islandsof integrity through Integrity Pacts is another strategicintervention in the battle against corruption. Otherareas of work are political party financing, tax reforms,CSR, extractive industries and tax reforms. Publicationsof research findings and guidebooks strengthen TII’sadvocacy and capacity building activities. A major TIIproject is the monitoring of the rehabilitation of Acehfollowing the devastation of it in the Asian tsunami.“One organization alone cannot fight deep-rootedcorruption. Coalition building is important,” says RizalMalik. TII participates actively in several coalitionsstriving for policy reforms for greater transparency andaccountability in government and business to achievesocial justice, a central element in achieving sustainabledevelopment.Category 6: Philanthropy-support organizationsResearch institutions and associations play effectiveroles in the growth of indigenous philanthropy andthe quality of philanthropic efforts. In Indonesia, thePublic Interest Research and Advocacy Center andthe Center for the Study of Religion and Culture atUniversiti Islam Negara have undertaken surveys andstudies on patterns of giving in Indonesia and on wellknown indigenous philanthropy institutions.The recently established Philanthropy Associationof Indonesia likewise undertakes research, advocatesfor policies to spur growth in the philanthropy fieldand promotes national, regional and internationalnetworking.The Asia Pacific office for the UN MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDG) at the United NationsDevelopment Programme in Jakarta is also pivotal increating awareness on CSR and the need for Indonesiato achieve the goals by 2015.ConclusionThis paper attempts to bring a better understandingof the pluriformity of philanthropy in the modernera in Indonesia, the most populous Islamic nation inthe world. The philanthropic institutions examinedin the study are transforming charity, rooted inreligious, cosmological and community values, intosocial investments such as the eradication of poverty,education, advocacy, environmental protection andsustainable development. Corporate philanthropyis likewise emerging as an important contributor todevelopment in Indonesia. However, there are manychallenges to the institutionalization of philanthropy.These are:• Transforming and creating more professionallymanagedphilanthropic institutions to enhancegiving and serving;• Finding solutions to prevent the loss of landto development and the loss of communitiesthat sustain traditional and cultural forms ofphilanthropy;• Confronting perceptions on the purpose ofAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

34 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEIslamic philanthropy to remove misunderstandingon the role of pesantrens (e.g., that they are notbreeding grounds for terrorism as depicted in theWestern media);• Achieving the MDGs for Indonesia by 2015with support from philanthropic foundations forpoverty alleviation programs;• Mobilizing support for advocacy for socialjustice from corporate philanthropic foundationsis crucial for strengthening civil society;• Preventing money laundering throughphilanthropy to reduce corruption;• Addressing the threats to pluralism, liberalismand secularism through philanthropic support;• Sourcing support for research oncosmological philanthropic practices in Bali fora better understanding of the pluriformity ofphilanthropy;• Creating information channels for networkingbetween grant-making foundations and indigenousphilanthropy organizations;• Developing policies (e.g. on taxation) to spur thegrowth of philanthropic institutions; and• Harnessing pluralism in philanthropy forstrengthening democracy, tolerance, peace andsustainability in Asia.These challenges raise questions that I hope otherscholars will pursue more fully.REFERENCESAnonymous. Muslim Philanthropy. Potential and Reality ofZakat in Indonesia. Jakarta: Piramedia, 2005. (Survey Resultsin Ten Cities)Agung Prihatna, Andy, et al. Caring and Sharing, Pattern ofGiving in Indonesian Society. Piramedia, 2005. (Results of aSurvey in Eleven Cities: 2000 and 2004)Bamualim, Chaider, Scott Cheyne, Dick van der Meij andIrfan Abubakar. Islamic Philanthropy & Social Development.Jakarta: Center for Study of Religion and Culture (CSRC),State Islamic University, 2006.Jakarta Post, February, 2007Josie M. F and Abdul Rahim Ibrahim. A Giving Society? TheState of Philanthropy in Malaysia. Penang: Penerbit UniversitiSains Malaysia, 2002Rabinowitz, Alan. Social Change Philanthropy in America.Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 1990.Saidi, Zaim. Social Justice Philanthropy in Indonesia. Jakarta:Piramedia, 2006.Warren, Carol. Adat and Dinas: Balinese Communities in theIndonesian State. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1995.Yayasan Kehati and Institut Riset Sosial dan Ekonomi(INRISE). Pola Interaski Kedermawanan Sosial KelompokParokial dan Kategorial Keuskupan Agung Jakarta danKeuskapan Agung Semarang. Jakarta: Yayasan Kehati andINRISE, 2006.In addition to the above references, the followingworks were consulted in the preparation of thispaperAzyumardi Azra. Berderma Untuk Semua. Jakarta: PenerbitTERAJU, 2003.Faisal, Budi. Decentralization and Spatial Planning in Indonesia(Phd.Thesis). University of Melbourne, 2003.Eiseman, Fred, Jr. Bali. Sekala and Niskala. Indonesia:Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd., 2004.Hefner, Robert W. Civil Islam. Muslims and Democratizationin Indonesia. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000.Ilchman, Warren F., et al. Philanthropy in the World’sTraditions. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1998.Kurnianingsih, Ambarwati. Jaringan Ekowisata Desa:Tradisionalisasi Dirforang Bali di Tengah Modernisasi (Thesis).Universitas Gajah Mada Yogyakarta, 2004.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSI am grateful to the following individuals who gave andassisted with interviews, provided materials and assistanceduring my stay in Indonesia:H. E. Erna Witoler, UN Ambassador for MDGs in Asia /Pacific, Board Member, Philanthropy Association ofIndonesiaZaim Saidi, Director, Public Interest Research and AdvocacyCenterRika Anggarani, Board Member, Philanthropy Association ofIndonesiaTimothy Lesmana, Executive Director, Eka TjiptaFoundationAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE35Charles Wiriawan, Programme Manager, Eka TjiptaFoundationChaider S. Bamualim, Director, Centre for the Study ofReligion and Culture, University Islam NegaraDr. Irfan Abu Bakar, Coordinator for the Peace and ResolutionUnit, Centre for the Study of Religion and Islam, UniversityIslam NegaraSapto Handoyo Sakti, Marketing and CommunicationsDirector, Sampoerna FoundationDr. Budi Faisal, Head, Eco-Pesantren Daarut Tauhid,BandungAli Wafa Afif, Research/Development, Eco-Pesantren, DaarutTauhid, BandungHusen, Agriculture Coordinator, and 17 farmers, Eco-Pesantren, Daarut Tauhid, BandungH. Abdullah Gymnastiar, Founder/Chairman, DaarutTauhid, BandungJim Hoesterey, Ph.D. Researcher, Department ofAnthropology, University of WisconsinPutra Gede, Community Organizer, MargaPak Juta Subak, Head, Desa PelagaPak Japa, Village Head, Desa PelagaKomang Suarasa, Community Organiser, Desa PelagaMichael J. Stevens, General Manager, Comos ShambhalaEstate AT Begawan GiriKetut Nuryasa, Chairman of Putri, Bali Tourism BoardHira Jhamtani, Bali Organic AssociationRizal Malik, Secretary General, Transparency International,IndonesiaRezeki Wibowo, Deputy Director, Transparency International,IndonesiaHenny and Adhi Kustida, Project Officers, TransparencyInternational, IndonesiaIsmat Hadad, Executive Director, Biodiversity FoundationSantris: Agus, Ulun, Yudi, Zainal, Dadang, Jajang, Nanokand Heru (Eco-Pesantren Daarut Tauhid)Dadi Iskandar, Chairman, Local Council, Desa CigugurGirang, PangsorTedda Kusuma, Secretary, Local Council, Desa CigugurGirang, PangsorMade Suarnatha, Founder/Director, Yayasan Wisnu, BaliAtiek Ambarwati K., Programme Manager, Yayasan WisnuDanny and Gede, Project Coordinators, Yayasan WisnuAgung Putradhyana, Founder, Yayasan Kayon Marga; BoardMember, Yayasan WisnuI Nyoman Sadra, Desa Tenganan Gedong Gandhi AshramKetut Nick Darsana, Programme Manager, Yayasan BaliHati, UbudGede and Wajan Su, Farmers, Desa Pelaga, BaliChok Savitri, Writer / Board Member, Yayasan WisnuKadek Agus Suwesnawa, Independent Artist/Activist, UbudAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

36 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCESOCIAL IMPACT OF JAPANESE PRIVATE-SECTOR PROJECTSON LOCAL PEOPLE IN THE PHILIPPINES AND MALAYSIAHozue HataeIntroduction“Sustainable development” has been the mainstreammindset of development projects since 1992 whenthe World Environmental Summit was held in Rio deJaneiro. The concept is derived from the challenge of howwe can dissolve the conflicts between “development”and “the environment” for our lives to be sustainable.In this light, various actors, such as multinationalcorporations and financiers, have set up “self-imposedcontrol” and social responsibility policies which takeinto account environmental and social aspects.Japanese campanies have done the same. Currently,more Japanese corporations are engaged in developmentprojects abroad, especially in Asia. They have beenfocusing on large-scale infrastructure projects, suchas dams, irrigation systems and power plants, andextractive industry projects, such as oil, gas and mining.These projects are supposed to attain “sustainabledevelopment” with their own “self-imposed control”and social responsibility policies.However, these controls and policies have still beenunable to prevent significant social impacts resultingfrom these large-scale development projects. The localpeople who live near the projects still suffer from losingtheir homes, livelihoods and traditional ways of life. It isdifficult to say that “sustainable development” has beensuccessfully achieved.Objectives and significance of the studyThe research aims to reflect on the reasons for the abovementionedsituation and make some recommendationsfor the attainment of genuine “sustainable development”for local people. Japan currently plays a vital role indevelopment projects in Asia as investor, financier andimplementor and will certainly seek new opportunitiesfor development projects abroad in the future. Thus,it is important to make recommendations about goodpractices for Japanese campanies to secure social justiceand genuine development for local people.MethodologyIntensive interviews with local people affected by threeJapanese private-sector projects were conducted inorder to identify:(1) What kinds of social impact local people areconcerned about;(2) How the meaningful participation of theaffected people was secured in the planning,implementation and/or monitoring processesrelated to the social issues; and(3) Whether the project proponents couldsuccessfully prevent or mitigate social impact.Findings: Illustrations from three casesThree Japanese private-sector projects show how largescaledevelopment projects could possibly turn intodestructive ones for local communities and highlightthe challenges in achieving “genuine development” forlocal communities. These cases are presented below. 1Case study 1: Coral Bay Nickel Project in thePhilippinesThe Rio Tuba Nickel Mining Company (RTNMC) hasbeen operating an open-pit mine situated in BarangayRio Tuba in the municipality of Bataraza in the southernpart of the province of Palawan since 1975. After thirtyyears of open pit mining, the RTNMC entered intoa partnership with Coral Bay Nickel Corporation(CBNC) to put up a Hydrometallurgical ProcessingPlant (HPP) in order to recover nickel and cobalt fromthe low-grade ore that forms a mountain of mine wastesfrom the original nickel mining activity. The majorcomponents of the HPP project include a hydrogensulfide facility, a limestone quarry and tailings dams.The HPP was constructed within the existing miningarea of the RTNMC with an investment of USD150million and started its operations in 2005. There iscurrently an expansion plan to construct another HPP,with the second plant next to the existing HPP.The project owner is the joint venture CBNC, composedof three Japanese companies, Sumitomo Metal MiningAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE37Co., Ltd. (54% of capital input), Mitsui & Co., Ltd.(18%), and Sojitz Corporation (18%) and the RioTuba Nickel Mining Corporation (10%).Destruction of indigenous people’s life and cultureThe proposed limestone quarrying operation wasexpected to cover some 13 hectares and the limestoneextraction activity necessitates the removal of theforest cover over the limestone hill. More than thirtyfamilies of the Pala’wan indigenous community havelong occupied the land forming part of the proposedlimestone quarry site and have asserted their ancestralrights over their domain. The Pala’wan are concernedabout the possibility that the Gotok River couldbe blocked by rubble and debris resulting from thequarrying operations and that this source of water,reliable even during times of drought, might be affected.The removal of a significant portion of the forest coveralso threatens the agricultural production system(kaingin) of the Pala’wan.Pollution and ill effects on healthThe HPP uses chemicals during its purification processesthat include a 98 percent concentration of sulfuricacid, methanol and hydrogen sulfide. There should beimmediate treatment options discussed for this sulfurwaste, as sulfur oxide emissions are dangerous pollutantsthat cause acid rain. The inefficiency of tailings damsin preventing toxic leakage is another concern as thereis the possibility that the tailings will contaminate thesurrounding groundwater.The HPP project has currently given rise to varioushealth concerns in the host communites, including:(a) an outbreak of skin lesions among residents (mostlychildren) of the village of Tagdalungon, situated nearthe HPP’s sulfuric acid unloading site; (b) chroniccoughs and headaches among residents of the barangayssurrounding the HPP; and (c) the pungent odoremanating from the HPP.Consultations and local people’s participation in thedecision-making processLocal non-governmental organizations (NGO)networks in Palawan showed their concerns about theHPP project before the construction work commenced.Local residents, together with the Pala’wan communityfrom the 11 affected villages surrounding the HPP, alsovoiced their opposition to the project, especially duringthe construction period. They submitted a series ofpetition letters to the Department of Environment andNatural Resources (DENR), stating their concerns aboutthe HPP project and demanding the cancellation of theEnvironmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) that hadbeen issued by the DENR. The number of signatures onthe petitions finally reached a total of 5,346 individualsin early 2003. A series of mass demonstrations by thecommunities was also carried out.Local NGOs filed a petition in the 17 th Division Courtof Appeals in August 2003 since the DENR had issuedan ECC without the Free and Prior Informed Consent(FPIC) of those directly affected by the project, thePala’wan indigenous people, which is a violation ofthe Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA, or RepublicAct No. 8371). However, a notice of decision from theCourt of Appeals dismissing the filed petition was issuedafter only one month. In October 2003, a local legalassistance NGO submitted a motion for reconsiderationat the Supreme Court on behalf of local NGOs statingthe violations of the CBNC/RTNMC and the graveabuse of discretion on the part of the Secretary of theDENR when he issued the ECC to the HPP project.This was likewise dismissed.Although the proponent failed to secure the “SocialAcceptability” and “Free and Prior Informed Consent”requirements under the IPRA law and the PhilippineEnvironment Impact Statement (EIS) System, theconstruction still pushed through and was completedin 2005. In a desperate attempt to comply with thesocial acceptability requirements under existing laws inthe Philippines, the proponent secured the signaturesof tribal chieftains representing various indigenouscommunities in Bataraza. These signatures, togetherwith those of other community groups and localofficials, were attached to their EIS report. The mannerby which such signatures were secured, however, ishighly questionable, considering that only the tribalchieftains signed the petition that was prepared forthem by the proponent’s associate, and there were nocommunity meetings called for before such petition wasmade. Some residents were made to sign attendancesheets that were passed off as endorsement of or consentto the proposed project.Japanese proponents’ performanceCBNC, together with the RTNMC, has been boastingof responsible mining by launching the PhP95 million“Social Development and Mangement Project (SDMP)2004-2009” in order to assist the development of thehost community (i.e., the 11 villages affected by theHPP). The components of the SDMP include education(e.g., scholarships), infrastructures and facilities (e.g.,building village facilities), livelihood programs (e.g.,Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

38 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEprovision of handtractors) and social services (e.g.,quarterly medical outreach). These projects have beenconducted at the community level. Many affected villageheads(Barangay Captains) admitted that the initiativesthat the CBNC, together with the RTNMC, is doingfor the host community show a great improvement incomparison to what the RTNMC had done by itselfbefore CBNC came into this area for the HPP project.The people, however, voiced numerous complaints,such as the following:“When I went to the quarterly medical outreach,I could only get several tablets of paracetamol. Thetransportation cost to get to the venue was moreexpensive than what I could get there.”“We are now suffering from chronic headaches andcoughing. The medicine they provided in the quarterlymedical outreach is not for these.”“Most of the students who obtained scholarships arethe children of village or tribal officials.”“It seems that the handtractor was provided to thecommunity. But I am not sure about it. The tribalchieftain might be using it by himself.”Since the proponent planned the SDMP without anyconsultation with or participation by the people in thebeneficiary communities, it eventually failed to meetthe local people’s demands. Furthermore, the SDMPhas been of benefit to some local political leaders, suchas village-heads and tribal chieftains, and their closesupporters. Meanwhile, there are certainly groups whohave not enjoyed the benefits of the SDMP. As a result,the SDMP has led to a split within the community andhas increasingly marginalized the people who are not inthe mainstream of local politics.Case study 2: Mindanao Coal-fired Power PlantProject in the PhilippinesThe 210 Megawatt Mindanao Coal-fired Power Plant isan Independent Power Producer (IPP) project aimed atsettling the allegedly imminent power shortage in 2006in Mindanao. It is owned by Steag State Power Inc.(SPI), a joint venture of a Filipino company and theSteag AG of Germany, which supplied the technologyand technical expertise in building the plant. The projectcost was USD300 million. The plant was constructedin the municipality of Villanueva, Misamis Oriental,which is 25 kilometers outside Cagayan de Oro City. Itis located inside the 3,000-hectare Phividec IndustrialEstate-Misamis Oriental (PIE-MO) where there aremany people who make their living through agricultureand fishing. The project proceeded as scheduled and theSPI started its commercial operations in 2006.While the implementor is the SPI led by the Steag AG,the Japanese consortium of Sojitsu and Kawasaki HeavyIndustries won the order for boilers, turbines and otherequipment.Health hazards and environmental damageLocal people are concerned about health hazards causedby the air pollution they encounter throughout thelength of their life span due to plant emissions suchas total suspended particles (TSP), nitrogen oxide(NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). Another concernwas the high possibility that the power plant wouldalso contribute to hazardous environmental damagedue to high levels of mercury and other heavy metals(e.g., arsenic, chromium, lead) in the effluents. Despitequestions being raised by the local people, the topic oftoxic heavy metals was never addressed in the publicconsultations.Involuntary resettlementSome 130 households, most of whom were landlessfarmers in the PIE-MO, were relocated out of theplant site. There is a big question of whether or notthe compensation scheme for such resettlement willimprove or at least restore their living standards. Forexample, the compensation standard for demolishedstructures in the relocation packages of the responsiblegovernmental agency, PHIVIDEC, is 10 percent ofthe appraisal value of a structure to be demolished.This does not meet international standards, such as theWorld Bank Operational Policy 4.12, which stipulatesthat the depreciation of structures and assets should notbe taken into account. The people were provided onlya disturbance fee amounting to PhP6,000.00. Some ofthe families were provided a house in the resettlementsite that has a mere area of 54 square meters.These resettled people were promised “priority ofemployment” in the project. Some people, however,were refused due to their age or lack of sufficienteducation. The people who were not supportive of thecurrent presiding local politician also had difficultyaccessing job opportunities. Even though some peoplewere employed, they were fired after a few months anddid not receive permanent or regular employment. Afterthe construction phase, a great deal fewer local peoplehave been employed.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE39Viable alternativesLocal NGO groups stressed that the coal-fired plant isnot the most sustainable energy option for the region.They pointed out alternatives that are more economicallyand ecologically sound, such as renewable energysources and the rehabilitation of existing hydroelectricpower plants. Their proposal, however, was neitherdiscussed in the EIS nor during consultations, and wasnot incorporated into the project plan.Consultations and local people’s participation in thedecision-making processThe local NGOs and people’s organizations (POs)raised their concerns through various ways, such aspetition letters and protest actions. However, the EISdefined the affected people as those who reside in anarea within a two-kilometer radius from the stack anda distance of six kilometers along the coastline startingat the mouth of Tagoloan River. Although the localgroups pointed out that it is necessary to investigatethe effects of the coal-fired plant on the environment,agricultural products, fishery and the people in a widerrange than that considered in the EIS, they were definedas outsiders or non-affected people who had no right toparticipate in the planning process of the project. Localgroups were unsuccessful in trying to obtain a copyof the EIS from the relevant Philippine governmentagencies.It is obvious that the relocated people were notprovided with the opportunity to participate in makingthe resettlement plans. They were presented with theexisting relocation package, called the Memorandumof Agreement between Province of Misamis Orientaland PHIVIDEC Industrial Authority, in 1995. Noconsultation about their options regarding the formof compensation, for example, land or monetarycompensation, took place.There were also insufficient opportunities for affectedlocal residents and local NGOs to participate in theplanning, implementation and monitoring of the SocialDevelopment Plan of the SPI, which was only issued inEnglish, a language that is difficult for most of the localresidents to understand.Japanese proponents’ performanceSPI initiated its Social Development Plan as stated inits website: “Mindful of its social responsibility towardsits host communities as well as the areas nearby, thecompany has developed a comprehensive communitydevelopment program that is responsive to the needsof the communities’ constituents and aims towardsustainability and self-sufficiency.” Several incomegeneratinglivelihood projects have been launched, suchas a food catering project, a handcrafted cards project,a chair making project and a demo-farm agriculturalproject.None of these livelihood projects, however, hassucceeded in providing a main source of income forthe people. Many residents who think that a livelihoodprogram is not enough to restore their living standardhave not participated in these programs. For example,the relocated people in the resettlement sites qualify tobe provided with 200 square meters of land per familyin the 1.4-hectare demo-farm, which is only enough toserve as a sideline livelihood. As a result, only four out of32 qualified families are still engaging in the demo-farmprogram. Some have chosen instead to return to theiroriginal residence where they can find more agriculturalland for their livelihoods. A series of medical missionshave also been conducted in collaboration with agenciesof government units. However, many residents failed toenjoy the medical services since they were busy makingtheir living.Case Study 3: Broga Incinerator Project in MalaysiaA 1,500-ton mega-incinerator, touted as the world’slargest incinerator and costing RM1.5 billion, wasproposed in Broga as part of the government’s plan foran integrated solid waste management system. It wassupposed to process 1,200 tons of trash a day fromthe metropolitan areas of Kuala Lumpur (KL) andSelangor. At the same time, a sanitary landfill was alsoplanned in Broga, adjacent to the proposed incinerator,to bury the fly-ash produced in the burning process ofthe incinerator. The project implementor, the Ministryof Housing and Local Government, prepared a DetailedEnvironmental Impact Assessment (DEIA) on theincinerator project and the Department of Environment(DOE) approved the DEIA. Despite this green lightto go on with the project, the government officiallyannounced that the project had been “ditamatkan”(cancelled) in July 2007.Japan-based Ebara Corporation won the contract tobuild the incinerator proposed in Broga through aninternational bidding process.Main concerns of local peopleHealth and environmental hazards by toxic emissionsThe incinerator project garnered opposition from someAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

40 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEresidents as they were of the view that pollutants inthe form of dioxins, heavy metals and ash from theincinerator plant would be hazardous to public safety,health and livelihood. The residents were worried thattheir daily life could be affected with the setting up ofthe incinerator and that the emissions of toxic gases andheavy metals from such plants could be the cause ofcancer and other diseases in the long term.Impact on water catchments in the areaThe incinerator site sat on a part of a forest reserve servingas a water catchment area, which supplies tributaryrivers (Sungai Takali and Sungai Seringgit) that runinto the Sungai Semenyih from which the JenderamWater Intake supplies drinking water to more than 333residential areas that consist of millions of householdsin KL and Selangor. The people were concerned thatthe site could reduce the water catchment potential ofthe area and affect the safety of the drinking water if thetoxic ash containment system fails.No intensive arguments on existing alternative plansOther cheaper and safer alternatives are definitelyavailable. However, before properly considering thecomparison of an incinerator with the overall wastemanagement plan, the government decided on theincinerator project as the immediate and prioritizedsolution.Consultations and local people’s participation in thedecision-making processMost people learned about the decision to locate theincinerator project site in Broga from the newspaperson 22 November 2002. Since then, the local peoplewho were concerned about the adverse impact of theproject tried various channels to raise the matter andengage with the authorities through dialogue. Uponrealizing that no response could be expected from thelocal elected representatives of the state, the residentssought the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia(SHAKAM)’s intervention. The Commission arrangedfor a dialogue between the authorities and residents inBroga on 30 January 2003. However, a second dialogueon 24 April 2003 was cancelled.Meanwhile, the authorities sometimes called meetingsin response to local people’s requests and also voluntarilyheld several briefings at the local level before the termsof reference (TOR), or the scoping phase, for the DEIAwas determined. However, these meetings were notsuccessful because the government did not allow theparticipants to ask questions, and even asked them tofurnish their names and whom they were representing.This was what happened at a briefing on 6 April 2003.Furthermore, the people who opposed the project weresometimes told that all the briefings were closed-door.In fact, during a briefing on 22 March 2003, they werechased out of the venue in Semenyih and were told notto create trouble there.As a whole, the local people were unable to have theirquestions answered or obtain much information. Infact, the DEIA report on August 2003 itself stated inthe section on Concerns Raised: “About 80 percent(of the local people) want more information.” Theinformation that the authorities provided was mostly onthe positive sides of the project, such as its use of cleanand sophisticated technology.The final decision of the government was thecancellation of the project, which was long demandedby the local residents’ group who were opposing theincinerator. However, it is still difficult to say that thepeople’s participation in decisionmaking process for theincinerator project in Broga was fully secured. Theirparticipation in the decisionmaking process was stilllimited as the government did not provide the venueto discuss people’s concerns with full informationdisclosure at the right timing. 2Japanese proponents’ performanceThe people in Malaysia easily learned through theInternet and other sources that Ebara Corporation hasone of the worst operational records for incinerator plantsin Japan. The credibility of Ebara was highly questionedby the local people, and the local residents’ group wentto the office of Ebara Environmental EngineeringMalaysia to meet with Ebara’s top management inDecember 2004. However, Ebara’s management refusedto meet with them and only received their letter outsidethe building. After that visit, no further response fromEbara Corporation was given.Ebara boasted that its latest invention, fluidized-bedgasification and ash-melting technology, promotes zeroemissions. This reflects the company’s main selling pointof sustainable development and environmentally-friendlywaste management. The Ebara Corporation also has itsown “self-imposed control” policy on environmentalaspects, or its “Environmental Policy.” Accordingto the policy, its basic stance to solve environmentalissues is by “developing technology and products” thatwill “contribute toward the conservation of the globalenvironment and the formation of a recycling-basedAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE41society through business activities.” However, thereis no social nor human rights aspect to that policy,let alone the recognition of the basic human right toknow. It surely lacks the concepts of transparency andaccountability to the local people concerned.Conclusions/ImplicationsThe local people in these case studies are aware of theprospective social impact of the projects and try to raisetheir concerns through various channels. Meanwhile,project proponents are usually declared to beresponsible for the environmental and social aspects oftheir own projects. They are making efforts to providesome income-generation projects, medical services andeducational assistance for the host communities underthe name of corporate social responsibility (CSR).It seems, however, difficult to say that these projectsare attaining “sustainable development” for the localpeople. On the contrary, it is unquestionable that thereare local people whose suffering has increased due tothe negative impact of these projects. The CSR effortsin these case studies fail to properly benefit the affectedpeople or effectively mitigate the impact on local people.The CSR projects appear to the affected people to becorporate public relations or green-wash techniques inorder to avert public attention from the negative impactof the projects.The social impact or problems caused by developmentprojects are not unintended consequences, but arepredictable, avoidable and mitigatable if the proponentssincerely take into account the voice of local peopleand the human right of local people to decide thedevelopment plan for themselves.The common problems in the attitude of theimplementors are summarized as follows:(1) Failure to properly assess social and environmentalimpacts prior to approvalAs we could see in Case Studies 1 and 2, proponentsfailed to adequately assess the project’s social impactprior to project approval, disregarding the informationprovided by the local people. This failure resulted inimpacts far beyond what were originally predicted,destroying the lives of many local people.(2) Inadequate needs and options assessmentAs we could see in Case Studies 2 and 3, proponentsfailed to undertake an adequate needs and optionsassessments prior to project approval and tended to befixed on proceeding with their proposed project optionbefore any consultation with local people.(3) Failure to release adequate information to local peopleAs we could see in all of the case studies, proponentsfailed to release adequate and well-balanced informationto the affected communities and the public. In manycases, proponents simply provided information on thepositive side or regarding the benefits of the project, butgave no information on the negative side or possibledamage to the local society.(4) Failure to ensure proper consultation with the localaffected peopleFurther, as we could see in Case Studies 1 and 2,project proponents failed to involve the affectedcommunities in decisionmaking. This resulted in theprojects proceeding without the proper involvementor participation of affected communities. Vocal peoplewere sometimes labelled outsiders and removed fromthe list of stakeholders. Even though the concernsthat the local people took up were listened to anddocumented, such as in public consultations and inmeeting minutes, those concerns were not incorporatedinto the decisionmaking process, or the proposedproject plans were hardly changed.RecommendationsSupposedly “sustainable development” has in manycases turned out to be destructive development for localpeople. All of us, as well as Japanese project proponents,seriously need to seek the attainment of genuine“sustainable development” for local people so that thesepeople can meet their basic needs under the name ofdevelopment.All of us should be aware that there are still people whoare negatively affected, even though the proponentsprovide and conduct CSR programs for the community.It is necessary that the public, especially Japanese, keepsmonitoring the performance of Japanese proponentsabroad.Japanese proponents should respect the human rightsof local people, including those who are likely tobe negatively affected, in decisionmaking related toproposed projects. More concretely, the followingrecommendations to Japanese proponents can bemade:(1) Before deciding to proceed with any project,Japanese proponents should avoid influencing the localdecisionmaking process through which local peoplecan thoroughly discuss their needs and their options inAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

42 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEdeveloping their community. Such public consultationsor hearing processes should take a long time in order toproperly assess a community’s needs, such as its needfor mining developments, energy services and wastedisposal systems, and fully analyze the different optionsfor meeting those needs. The proponents should notengage in any construction activity during this period.(2) It is important that Japanese proponents should besufficiently accountable to local people as well as to theJapanese public. They should provide adequate writteninformation upon the request of the local people, inthe manner and language best understandable to thelocals, so that they can properly discuss whether or notthe proposed project will be the best option to meettheir needs. The proponents could also actively havedialogues directly with local residents/NGOs who havebrought up concerns and opinions.(3) Japanese proponents should carefully take intoaccount the political and cultural background in eachsociety where the implementors engage in their projects,by conducting social and cultural impact studies withrelevant experts before the approval of any project. Someaffected communities, especially indigenous people’sgroups, have their own traditional decisionmakingprocess. Local politics can sometimes be one of the bigfactors that hinder affected people from benefiting froma project.(4) The human rights situation around project areas,especially the state of the freedom of expression, mustbe closely studied when Japanese proponents propose aproject. The project should not be pushed through if thelocal people are significantly hindered from expressingtheir opposition to the project, or if the meaningfulparticipation of local people is not secured. In thePhilippines, a spate of extra-judicial killings/enforceddisappearances has occured, whereby people opposingdevelopment projects are labeled as terrorists and someof them have become victims of political killings.In Malaysia, the Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA), apreventive detention law under which any person maybe detained by the police for up to 60 days without trialfor an act that allegedly threatens the security of thecountry or any part thereof, has been consistently usedagainst people who criticize the government and defendhuman rights and has suppressed opposition and opendebate.following documents:1. Ehara Corporation. Environmental Policy. September2007 .2. GAIA South, Inc. Environmental Impact Statementfor the Hydrometallurgical Processing Plant Project inBataraza, Palawan. July 2001.3. Hatch Associates (Philippines), Inc. EnvironmentalImpact Statement for 210 MW (net) Mindanao CoalfiredPower Plant in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental.January 2002.4. Perunding Utama Sdn Bhd. Detailed EnvironmentalImpact Assessment for Proposed Thermal TreatmentPlant for Solid Waste Management at Beroga, MukimSemenyih, Daerah, Hulu Langat, Selangor DarulEhsan. August 2003.5. Perunding Utama Sdn Bhd. Addendum to DetailedEIA Report, Detailed Environmental Impact Assessmentfor Proposed Thermal Treatment Plant for Solid WasteManagement at Beroga, Mukim Semenyih, Daerah,Hulu Langat, Selangor Darul Ehsan. March 2005.6. Steag State Power Inc. Social Development Plan.September 2007 .2In fact, in the author’s interview on 13 July 2007 after theofficial announcement of the cancellation of the megaincinerator,an officer of the newly established Departmentof National Solid Waste Management shared his viewthat the government decision had not been because of thelocal people’s protest but rather because of the financialand economic aspects. The project in Broga is expected tocost another RM200 million per year to operate. Manyexperts have estimated that the cost of burning everytonne of rubbish could be as high as RM240 compared toonly RM25 per ton for the current landfill method.NOTES1 The case studies were also drawn from a review of theAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE43POLICIES AND VICTIM SERVICES IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT:LESSONS LEARNED FROM INDONESIA, JAPAN AND THAILANDHeru Susetyo“Most disasters cannot be prevented completely, but some disasterscan be reduced to the minimum.” (Yamakawa 1990)“Not all the injustice accompanying the tsunami can be blamedon Mother Nature.” (Bangkok Post Editorial, 23 December2006)IntroductionA disaster can be defined as a “serious disruption of thefunctioning of a society causing widespread human,material, financial and environmental losses whichexceed the ability of the society to cope using its ownresources,” (PNDCC 1996) or “a sudden or greatmisfortune or calamity, or a sudden calamitous eventproducing great material damage, loss and distress”(Dejoras 1997).Natural disasters roughly fall into three broad groupings:geological events, triggered by the internal workings ofour planet, meteorological events, caused by variations inglobal weather patterns and biological disasters, resultingfrom the actions of living agents such as diseases orinsect pests. They can occur separately or together, andare generally, although not always, unrelated. Naturaldisasters are also known as “acts of God” becausethey can strike with little or no warning and withoutany apparent direct human involvement (Coenraads2006).Another form of disaster is a technological disasteror technological accident. The Philippine DisasterManagement System (1996) distinguishes naturaldisasters from technological accidents and emergenciesthat threaten human life, property and the community asa whole. However, technological accidents are relativelypreventable. They can be foreseen and intervened inby using human knowledge and skills. Examples oftechnological accidents are transportation accidents,industrial accidents, construction accidents, hazardousmaterial accidents, animal and plantation accidents,epidemics and fires.This paper describes policies and victim services relatedto disaster management in Indonesia by comparingthem with the policies and victim services presentlyused in Japan and Thailand. The data were collected byconducting field research in Japan (four months) andThailand (two months and one week) and also libraryresearch.The field research in Japan was carried out in Kobe(Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake Memorial), OsakaUniversity, the Kyoto area (Kyoto University andDisaster Preparedness Museum), the Tokyo area, Mito(Tokiwa International Victimology Institute), and theNiigata area (Niigata prefecture office and Ojiya city,the area most affected by the Niigata earthquake inOctober 2004). Data were collected through visits toNGO offices and museums, participation in seminars,and interviews with experts. The research in Japan washosted by the Disaster Prevention Research Institute ofKyoto University, Uji—Kyoto under the supervision ofProf. Norio Maki.The research in Thailand was carried out in the Bangkokarea and in Southern Thailand (Krabi, Phuket andPhang Nga). Data were collected through expert andkey informant interviews, site visits and visits to NGOsand relevant government agencies and participation inconferences. Phuket and Phang Nga were among theareas most affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami inDecember 2004. The research in Thailand was facilitatedby the Institute of Asian Studies, ChulalongkornUniversity in Bangkok.Disaster Management CycleMost incidents are broken into four phases: mitigation,planning, response and recovery. Preparedness affectseach of these phases and has deep roots in the firsttwo: mitigation and planning (Morrisey 2004).Preparedness is any activity taken in advance of anemergency that develops operational capabilities andfacilitates an effective response when a disaster eventoccurs. It involves actions to establish and sustain thedetermined levels of response necessary to executea full range of incident management operations.Preparedness is implemented through a continuous andsystematic process of planning, training, equipping,exercising, evaluating and taking action to correct andmitigate. Paper planning is an excellent componentof preparedness; however, without deliberate practiceAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

44 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEPlanningTrainingEquippingTHE PREPAREDNESSLIFE CYCLEMitigationEvaluationExerciseFigure 1: Diagram of the preparedness life cycle (Walsh 2005).and feedback with error correction and remediation,preparedness activities will not be as efficient as theycould be (Walsh 2005).Mitigation is any activity taken to eliminate or reducethe degree of long-term risk to human life and propertyfrom natural and human-made hazards (Morrisey 2004).It refers to activities, planning or codes developmentthat lessen the severity of an incident. These actionsmay occur before or during an incident and may be theresult of lessons learned from previous or similar events.Mitigation activities are an important element ofpreparedness. They provide a critical foundation acrossthe incident management spectrum, from prevention toresponse and recovery.Response is any action taken immediately before, duringor directly after a disaster event to save lives, minimizedamage to property and enhance the effectiveness ofrecovery.Recovery involves short-term activities undertaken toreturn vital life-support systems to minimum operatingstandards and long-term activities undertaken to returnconditions back to normal.Policies and victim services in Indonesia’s disastermanagementIndonesia is a disaster-prone country. Vitchek (2007)writes that Indonesia has replaced Bangladesh and Indiaas the most disaster-prone nation on earth. For instance,whenever the word “Indonesia” appears on the list ofheadlines on the Internet site Yahoo News, chancesare that another enormous—and often unnecessary—tragedy has occurred on one of the islands of thissprawling archipelago. Airplanes disappear or slide offrunways, ferries sink or simply break apart on the highseas, trains crash or get derailed, landslides take cartonlikehouses into ravines, earthquakes and tidal wavesswallow up coastal cities and villages and forest firesfrom Sumatra create smoke that chokes huge areas ofSoutheast Asia.The scope of disasters is on a scale so vast that theycannot be discounted simply as the nation’s bad luckor as the wrath of the gods or nature. Some of thedisasters that have struck Indonesia are human-made,many are preventable, and in all cases, the possibilityexists of reducing the human toll. Vitchek (2007)underlines that earthquakes alone do not kill people.Poor construction of houses and buildings are theculprits, together with the lack of preventive measuresand preventive education.The number of victims and other losses that results fromdisasters in Indonesia, either human-made or natural, isquite tremendous. Since December 2004, Indonesia haslost some 200,000 people in various disasters, excludingautomobile accidents, ethnic-religious conflicts andconflict between the state and the people. Indeed, manyIndonesians are experiencing lives as dangerous andhazardous as those in war-torn parts of the world. Onclose scrutiny it becomes obvious that people die due toalmost non-existent efforts to prevent the loss of life anddue to a lack of basic education.Ferries are sinking not “because of high winds andwaves;” they are sinking because they are overcrowdedand badly maintained or, more precisely, because theyare allowed to be overcrowded and badly maintained.Everything is for sale, even the safety of passengers.Companies care only about their profits, whilegovernment inspectors are mainly interested in bribes.The Indonesian airline industry has one of the worstsafety records in the world. Since 1997, at least 666people have died in eight major airplane crashes inIndonesia. On average, a deadly train accident occursevery six days in Indonesia, many caused by the lackof gates at its 8,000 level crossings. More than 80people die per day on Indonesian roads, mostly dueto the terrible state of the infrastructure and poor lawenforcement(Vitchek 2007).The Indonesian Parliament enacted the DisasterManagement Act (Undang-Undang PenanggulanganBencana No. 24/ 2007) on 29 March 2007. Prior tothis newly enacted bill, the existing regulations fordisaster management were Presidential Decree No. 3,2001 on the National Coordinating Board on DisasterManagement and Refugee Handling (Badan KoordinasiNasional Penanggulangan Bencana dan PenangananPengungsi), Presidential Decree No. 111, 2001 on theamendment of Presidential Decree No. 3, 2001 andthe National Coordinating Board Secretary Decreeon Common Guidance in Disaster Management andRefugee Handling.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE45In accordance with the guidance issued by theNational Coordinating Board (through the NationalCoordinating Board Secretary Decree No. 2, 2001),Indonesia’s grand strategies in coping with disaster andrefugee problems are as follows: (1) emergency responsephase, (2) empowerment phase, (3) reconciliationphase, and (4) relocation phase. The measures to handlerefugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs) are asfollows: (1) emergency/search and rescue, (2) datacollecting, (3) emergency assistance, and (4) people’sinvolvement.According to Puji Pujiono, former director of the UNOffice for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs(OCHA) in Kobe, more effective management ofdisasters would significantly improve human security inIndonesia. 1 To this end, a coherent policy frameworkwith more effective downstream implementation wouldbe a prerequisite. The existing disaster managementpolicy framework is fragmented and scattered, outdatedand lacking in coherence. Devastation from a stringof major calamities in combination with the dawningof new democracy, local autonomy, and regional/international frameworks compel a paradigmatic shiftin the disaster management policy framework.Furthermore, based on my own observations whilejoining volunteering activities to assist Aceh tsunamivictims from December 2004 to January 2005 andYogyakarta earthquake victims in June 2006, thevictim services program in Indonesia is unorganized,unintegrated and not well-planned. Besides the factthat before 2007 Indonesia did not have the DisasterManagement Act, the prevailing disaster managementpolicies before 2007 were not adequate to cope withdisaster response activities. Badan Koordinasi NasionalPenanggulangan Bencana dan Penanganan Pengungsi(National Coordinating Board for Disaster Managementand Refugee Handling), which coordinates disastermanagement and has branches in all provinces andregencies in Indonesia, could not integrate andcoordinate the disaster countermeasures since theBoard was equipped with only limited jurisdiction,had poor facilities, was understaffed, had a low budgetand had unclear policies. Therefore, when a disasteroccurred, the victim service providers and caregivers,either coming from the common people, NGOs, orgovernment bodies, ran their activities on their ownwithout coordination among one another.Polices and victim services in Japan’s disastermanagementJapan is located in the circum-Pacific mobile zonewhere seismic and volcanic activities occur constantly.Although the country covers only 0.25 percent of theland area on the planet, the number of earthquakesand the distribution of active volcanoes is quite high.Also, because of its geographical, topographical andmeteorological conditions, the country is subject tofrequent disasters such as typhoons, torrential rains andheavy snow.In Japan there is much damage to lives and propertydue to natural disasters every year. Up until the 1950s,there were numerous large typhoons or large-scaleearthquakes which claimed the lives of more than1,000 people (Suzuki 2006). However, due to theprogress of countermeasures such as the promotionof national land conservation projects, improvementsin weather forecasting technologies, the completionof disaster information communication systems andthe preparation of disaster management systems, thenumber of deaths and missing due to natural disastersshows a declining tendency.When a disaster occurs, it is important for localresidents to take the initiative in performing urgentlyrequired activities such as fighting fires, fighting floods,search and rescue and evacuation in order to helpdisaster management activities proceed smoothly. Forthis reason, residents aware of the need for solidarityin community establish local voluntary disastermanagement organizations. These organizations preparematerials and machinery in the region, and practicedisaster management drills, among others. As of April2001, about 57.9 percent of the households wereparticipating in local voluntary disaster managementorganizations.Various groups, including the Japan Red Cross Society,work as volunteers. To encourage these groups,the national government and local governmentspromote the preparation of a learning environment bydisseminating pertinent information through publicrelations, education and the preparation of an activitybase.Disaster management drills are conducted in orderto confirm and verify the capability of the disastermanagement system of each organization to smoothlycarry out the required activities should a disasteroccur. In the case of an emergency, national and localgovernments must immediately collect and analyzeinformation on the state and scale of the damage andexchange this information with relevant persons andorganizations. After this, a system for executing a disasteremergency response is established. The contents of theAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

46 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEdisaster emergency response include providing advice ondirections regarding evacuation, fighting fires, rescuingvictims, securing emergency transportation, emergencyrecovery of public facilities and other activities.In municipalities and prefectures where a disaster hasactually occurred, disaster emergency responses suchas establishing a headquarters for emergency measuresare conducted by the municipal and prefecturalgovernments with the full mobilization of their resources.Furthermore, at the time of a large-scale disaster, thegovernments may establish a Headquarters for MajorDisaster Management (headed by the Minister of Statefor Disaster Management) or Headquarters for UrgentNATIONAL LEVELPrime MinisterCentral DisasterManagement CouncilDesignatedAdministrative OrganDesignated PublicCorporationsFormulation and executionof disaster management plan,comprehensive coordinationFormulation and promotion ofthe execution of the basic disastermanagement planFormulation and execution of thedisaster management operation planPREFECTURAL LEVELGovernorFormulation and executionof disaster management plan,comprehensive coordinationPrefectural DisasterManagement CouncilDesignated LocalAdministrative OrgansDesignated Local PublicCorporationsMUNICIPAL LEVELMayors of Cities,Towns and VillagesMunicipal DisasterManagement CouncilRESIDENTS LEVELFormulation and promotion of theexecution of the regional disastermanagement planFormulation and execution ofdisaster management planFormulation and promotingexecution of the regional disastermanagement planTable 1: Disaster management in Japan (Suzuki, 2006)Disaster Management (headed by the Prime Minister)and promote emergency measures.The director generals of each ministry and agency gatherat the Prime Minister’s official residence immediatelyafter a disaster occurs. Utilizing the informationcollected from pertinent organizations and images ofthe disaster-stricken area provided by a helicopter froma related ministry or agency such as the Defense Agencyor the National Police Agency, the damage is estimatedusing the Early Evaluation System (EES). With thisinformation, it is possible for the members to betterunderstand the damage, which is then analyzed andimmediately reported to the Prime Minister so that abasic policy can be decided promptly. In the case oflarge-scale disasters that exceed the response capabilitiesof the local government, wide-scale support for a disasteremergency response from the National Police Agency,the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, and/or theJapan Coast Guard is available and, according to requestsfrom the prefectural governor, Self-Defense Forces canbe dispatched for emergency response activities. Thereare also instances in which the government establishesan On-Site Disaster Management Headquarters at theactual site of the disaster by dispatching a governmentalinvestigation team to the stricken area in order to obtainmore detailed information so that prompt measures aretaken.According to Koji Suzuki, director of the AsianDisaster Reduction Center (ADRC) in Kobe, disastermanagement in Japan before 1959 was relatively poor. 2The turning point in Japanese disaster managementbegan in 1959 when Japan experienced the Ise-WanTyphoon around the Nagoya area. This was an epochmakingturning point since the typhoon triggeredenormous changes in Japan’s disaster management,from a response-oriented approach to a preventiveapproach and from an individual approach to acomprehensive multi-sectoral approach. After thisincident, the government, along with private agencies,started to invest in disaster reduction.In 1961, Japan enacted the Disaster CountermeasuresBasic Act, which introduced some elements asfollows: (i) establishment of a Disaster ManagementCouncil with national, prefectural and municipal levelorganization in a multi-sectoral coordination body;(ii) establishment of a Disaster Management Plan atthe national, prefectural, and municipal levels; (iii)establishment of an ad-hoc headquarters for emergencyresponse as a multi-sectoral body in case of emergency;and (iv) stipulation that the government must issue anAnnual Government Official Report (White Paper)on Disaster Countermeasures, to be submitted to theDiet. The White Paper on Disaster Management is anobligation of the Disaster Countermeasures Basic Act(since 1963). It describes countermeasures taken by theGovernment, is edited annually by the Cabinet office,and has about 6,000 copies sold every year.As a follow up to such measures, the governmentAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE47Year Disaster Management Act Disaster Management Plans and Systems1880 Provision and Saving Act for Natural Disasters Establishment of the Seismological Society of Japan1884 Start of the Department of the Interior Land SurveyorWeather Reports1896 River Act1897 Erosion Control ActForest Act1899 Disaster Preparation Funds Special Account Act1908 Flood Prevention Association Act1911 Flood Control Expenditure Funds Special Account Act1925 Establishment of the Earthquake Research Institute, TokyoImperial University1941 Establishment of the Tsunami Warning Organization1947 Disaster Relief ActFire Organization Act1948 Fire Service Act Establishment of the Ministry of ConstructionEstablishment of the Board of Inquiry for Prevention ofDamage from Earthquakes1949 Flood Control Act1950 Temporary Measures Act for Subsidizing Recovery Projectsfor Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Facilities Damageddue to Disasters1951 Act concerning National Treasury Share of Expenses forRecovery Projects for Public Civil Engineering FacilitiesDamage due to DisastersEstablishment of the Kyoto University Disaster PreventionResearch Institute1952 Meteorological Service Act Establishment of national fire-fighting headquarters1955 Temporary Measures Act for Financing Farmers,Forestrymen and Fishermen Suffering from NaturalDisasters1956 Seashore Act Establishment of the Japan Meteorological Agency1958 Landslide Prevention Act1960 Soil Conservation and Flood Control Urgent Measures Act Establishment of the Ministry of Home Affairs Fire andDisaster Management Agency1961 Disaster Countermeasures Basic Act Designation of Disaster Management Day1962 Act for Special Countermeasures for Heavy Snowfall AreasAct Concerning Special Financial Support to Deal withDesignated Disasters of Extreme SeverityEstablishment of the Central Disaster Management Council1963 Formulation of Basic Disaster Management PlanEstablishment of the National Research Institute for EarthScience and Disaster Prevention1964 River Act (revised) Geodesy Council’s Proposition on Earthquake Prediction1966 Act for Earthquake Insurance1969 Act Concerning Prevention of Steep Slope CollapseDisaster1970 Marine Pollution Prevention Act1972 Act Concerning Special Financial Support for PromotingGroup Relocation for Disaster MitigationEstablishment of the Coordinating Committee forEarthquake Prediction1973 Act Concerning Improvements, etc., or Refugees, etc. in Proposition for Volcanic Eruption Prediction PlanVicinal Areas of Active Volcanoes (revised by the Act onSpecial Measures for Active Volcanoes in 1978)Act for the Payment of Solatia for DisastersTable 2: Japanese progress in disaster management laws and systemsAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

48 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEarranged public awareness activities by introducingDisaster Management Day every 1 September, incommemoration of the day of Great Kanto Earthquakein 1923 (as a result of a Cabinet agreement in 1960),Disaster Management Week, every 30 August to 5September (as a result of a Cabinet agreement in 1982),disaster management drills, disaster managementseminars, disaster management fairs and so on.The Comprehensive Disaster Management Drill wasintroduced in 1971. The main objective of this drill isto confirm and verify the disaster management systemsand training. All government bodies, as well as privatecompanies, disaster management organizations andresidents, take part in this drill. The Prime Minister alsoattends this drill. The number of participants in the drillin 2005 was around 1.9 million people.Public awareness activities include a DisasterManagement Poster Contest. Children and young adultsmay join this contest. In 2005, 8,435 applications weresent from all over Japan. The prize-winning posters areused for awareness-raising activities.However, Prof. Tomohide Atsumi from OsakaUniversity has noted that the real turning point forJapanese disaster management at the present time wasthe Kobe earthquake on 17 January 1995. 3 This massiveearthquake, which killed 6,433 people, collapsed123,000 houses and buildings and displaced 316,000people, triggered a tremendous disaster response aswell as ignited a great deal of volunteerism. About 1.2million people volunteered themselves to assist thevictims of the Kobe earthquake and helped the recoveryof the city. The Niigata earthquake in October 2004was the second turning point for volunteer activities inJapan. People from all over Japan came to Ojiya City inNiigate Prefecture to help the victims. They took leavefrom their jobs and studies or came to the area regularlyfor several months.Prof. Toshio Sugiman from Kyoto University supportedthis rough observation by stating that since 1995,volunteering activities have became more popular inJapan, and the government positively responded to thistrend by enacting a Volunteering and Disasters Actimmediately after 1995, which established a volunteers’center in affected areas. 4The Japanese Red Cross is among the most prominentnon-profit organizations (NPO) and non-governmentalorganizations (NGO) that seriously pay attention to andtirelessly carry out emergency response programs forthe victims of disasters, especially earthquake victims.This agency has also equipped itself with supportingfacilities, emergency tools, hospitals and even bloodcenters. Therefore, it will always be ready to cope withunexpected future disasters at any time. 5Besides the Japanese Red Cross, other NPOs and localpeople have also played an important role in assistingearthquake victims, particularly in the aftermath of theKobe earthquake in 1995 and the Niigata earthquakein 2004. Rescue Stock Yard, a Nagoya-based NPO,and the Tokyo-based Shanti Volunteers Association areamong the notable Japanese NPOs dealing with disastervictims and disaster preparedness. However somevolunteers simply jumped into disaster-affected areas bythemselves, without engaging with any agencies. 6In line with disaster management countermeasuresis disaster mitigation education. Disaster mitigationeducation is unequivocally classified as one significantpart of disaster preparedness. For the case of earthquakemitigation education in Japan, public educationfor earthquake preparedness is provided in Japanin various forms, starting with the school curricula,exercises in evacuation and fire prevention, mutualhelp, collective cooperation, experiencing shaking inearthquake simulators and booklets and documentaryfilm dissemination.There are many disaster mitigation training centersdesignated to the public nationwide (shimin bousaisenta) as well as fire museums (belonging to firefighteragencies) which also provide self-help training incoping with disasters. However, the most importantdisaster studies center remains the Great Hanshin AwajiMemorial, a museum and training center establishedin 2002 commemorating the Kobe earthquake of 17January 1995. 7Policies and victim services in Thailand’s disastermanagementNatural hazards or natural disasters that frequentlyoccur in Thailand are droughts, earthquakes,epidemics, floods, landslides, waves/surges, wild firesand windstorms (WCDR Report 2006). The massiveearthquake that triggered a tsunami on 26 December2004 was among the most severe disasters in Thailandfor centuries. The catastrophic incident devastated407 villages in six southwestern provinces, namelyPhuket, Trang, Phang Nga, Krabi, Ranong and Satun.The tsunami took almost 8,000 lives and caused totalfinancial losses of USD2 billion.Right after the tsunami waves ebbed, relief activitieswere immediately and continuously activated. It isAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE49widely accepted that Thailand government agencies ledeffective relief efforts and responded immediately onthe day the tsunami struck. As a consequence, Thailandachieved rapid success in its relief operation within afew months. The key factors in the effectiveness of therelief response can be delineated as follows: (i) synergy ofThai people from all walks of life in providing all kindsof assistance to their suffering fellow residents; (ii) closeand integrated collaboration and cooperation amongcivilians, the military, the police, NGOs, charitablefoundations and civil defence volunteers, among others;and (iii) an influx of endless support and humanitarianassistance from the international community throughvarious organizations (DDPM 2005; WCDR Report2006).The Royal Thai Government, the private sector andNGOs have continuously launched activities to enhancelivelihoods and rebuild the environments of the affectedpeople and areas following the initial phase of rescue andhumanitarian relief. The Thai Red Cross was consideredthe most important non-governmental agency thatprovided emergency assistance to the victims shortlyafter the tsunami took place. 8Other measures taken by the government and NGOsincluded providing a compensation scheme for theaffected communities and conducting Disaster VictimsIdentification (DVI). These measures were quiteimportant since many of the victims could not easilybe identifed (for instance, undocumented Burmesemigrant workers). 9 Another important measure was thebuilding of temporary housing for internally displacedpersons in Phang Nga and Phuket, the two most affectedareas of the 2004 tsunami, which was managed by thegovernment as well as NGOs. 10The victim services provided in Phang Nga and Phuketprovinces also embraced legal assistance. The tsunamitook land and houses as well as lives and, in some cases,made land ownership unclear. The borders between onepiece of land and another were blurred, and this ledto disputes among villagers as well as disputes betweenvillagers and new investors 11 . Fortunately, a couple ofhuman rights NGOs (e.g., Thai Lawyers Association,TACDB) worked to help local people resolve theirland problems. The NGOs facilitated local people toorganize and defend themselves before a Thai districtcourt. 12Besides emergency response programs, many agencies inThailand have also introduced and conducted disasterpreparedness activities so as to reduce vulnerability andincrease resilience in the tsunami-hit communities.The international community, NGOs and the UnitedNations mechanisms also continue to endlessly supportThailand in these humanitarian assistance activities.Disaster preparedness activities include the following:(1) introduction of community-based disaster riskmanagement; (2) establishment of a National DisasterWarning Center (including an early warning systemand a tsunami early warning tower); and (3) raising ofpublic awareness through disaster prevention educationand a Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Academy(DPMA), organized by the Thailand Department ofDisaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) (DDPM2006) 13 .The Civil Defence Act of 1997 classifies disastersinto three categories: (1) human-made and naturaldisasters; (2) disasters resulting from air raids duringwartime; and (3) disasters resulting from sabotage orterrorist attacks. The disaster management system inThailand is mainly based on the Civil Defence Actof 1979 and the Civil Defence Plan of 2002. TheNational Civil Defence Committee (NCDC) is themain policy making body. On 2 October 2002, theThai government enacted the Bureaucrat Reform Act of2002, whereby the Department of Disaster Preventionand Mitigation (DDPM) came into existence under theumbrella of the Ministry of Interior. This departmentwas also designated to shoulder the responsibility forthe country’s disaster management and thus replacedthe former Civil Defence Division as the NationalCivil Defence Committee Secretariat (WCDR Report2006).Among the tasks of the DDPM are the following: (1)formulate policies and guidelines and set up criteria fordisaster management; (2) study, analyze, research anddevelop prevention, warning and disaster mitigationsystems; (3) develop an information technology systemfor disaster prevention, warning and mitigation; (4)mobilize people’s participation in establishing disasterprevention and mitigation; (5) create people’s awarenessand preparedness in disaster prevention and mitigation;(6) arrange trainings and exercises in disaster preventionand mitigation, the rehabilitation of devastated areasand providing assistance to victims as stated by law; (7)promote, support and carry out disaster prevention andmitigation activities, provide assistance to victims andrehabilitate devastated areas; (8) direct and coordinatethe operation of assisting victims and rehabilitatingthe areas devastated by large-scale or high magnitudedisasters; (9) coordinate assistance with both internaland international organizations in disaster prevention,mitigation and rehabilitation; and (10) perform anyother functions stated in law as the Department’sAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

50 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEtasks or as assigned by the Ministry of Interior or theCabinet. 14The DDPM also has regional centers (i.e., DisasterPrevention and Mitigation Regional Centers) locatedin twelve cities and Disaster Prevention and MitigationProvincial Offices in 75 provinces nationwide.Other important bodies in Thailand’s disastermanagement are the National Civil Defense Committee(NCDC) and the National Safety Council of Thailand(NSCT). The NCDC coordinates all activities relevantto civil defence and disaster management and performsall functions relevant to disaster management atthe national level, while the NSCT is responsiblefor managing human-made disasters such as trafficaccidents, chemical accidents, occupational accidents,accidents in homes and public venues, fires and subwaytunnel construction accidents, as well as consideringmeasures to prevent fires in high-rise buildings andaccidents during subway tunnel construction andproviding safety education.According to a WCDR report (2006), Thailand isnow prioritizing some measures in its disaster riskmanagement, as follows: (1) public awareness andeducation; (2) early warning system; (3) internationaldisaster management; (4) effective damage assesment;(5) community-centered approach; (6) preventiveapproaches; (7) prevention; (8) public participation;(9) unity management; (10) efficient management;(11) human resource development; and (12) livelihoodrehabilitation.The Civil Defense Secretariat is responsible foridentifying disaster prevention measure and policiesand monitoring the National Civil Defense Plan. ThisPlan serves as the master plan for all agencies concerned,and provides guidelines for the formulation of theoperational plans of agencies responsible for disastermanagement.Furthermore, Thailand also has some projects on disasterreduction, namely: (1) One Tambon (sub-district)One Search and Rescue Team (OTOS); (2) disastermanagement training for managers, practitioners, localgovernment officers and others through the DDPM’sDisaster Prevention and Mitigation Academies(DPMA), which are situated in six different campuses,namely Chiang Mai, Phitsanulok, Khon Khaen,Phuket, Prachinburi and Songkhla; and (3) educationfor disaster-preparedness in primary schools.Summary and conclusionPolicies in disaster management are part of disasterpreparedness, while victim services are part of disasterresponse. Both of them are among the most importantand inseparable parts in the disaster managementcycle.Indonesia does have disaster management policies.Moreover, it has just enacted a new Disaster ManagementAct in March 2007. However, the policies, as well asmeasures taken so far, are far from perfect. Indonesiastill needs integrative policies and measures to cope withits various disaster-related problems. The newly enactedbill is really a blessing, but is not enough.Policy alone is not enough. It might be best treatedas a basis for disaster management, yet, it must alsobe subsequently supported by measures taken bygovernment, civil society, private companies andother stakeholders who work together to mitigate thedisaster and strengthen disaster preparedness in a morecooperative and integrative way.According to Vitchek (2007), Indonesia is poor, but itcertainly has the capacity to protect some of its mostvulnerable citizens. The main problem is a lack ofpolitical will and a system whose priorities lie elsewhere.The failure to deal with the problems of natural andhuman-made disasters is rooted in the combination ofthe dominance of the calculus of profit and the system’scorruption.The natural disaster victim services programs in thethree countries vary due to their own preparednessand policies. Generally, no agency in the abovecountries is really well prepared for disasters since thenature of disasters is that they are unpreventable andunpredictable. However, Japan is slightly better offsince the country has equipped its disaster managementsystem with adequate policies and preparedness. Also,its people and government have been quick to learnfrom previous disasters so that they can provide theservices adequately.Thailand’s disaster victim services program is as poorlyfunded as Indonesia’s. Moreover, the country is nota disaster-prone country compared to Japan andIndonesia. However, Thailand has also already equippedits disaster management system with relatively adequatepolicies and established many disaster preparednesscenters and victim service groups all over Thailand.Japan and Thailand have radically learned from theirAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE51natural disasters by introducing adequate disastercountermeasures, including disaster policies, disasterresponses and disaster preparedness. That similar radicallearning has taken place in Indonesia in the aftermath ofmassive disasters—such as the earthquake and tsunamiin December 2004—is still open to question.In the absence of an integrative package of disasterpolicies and disaster victim services, the Indonesianpeople are really in danger. The government doesrespond to disasters by providing relief and enactingpolicies. However, those measures seem to be a formof “bureaucrative survival” and not a real product ofradical and systematic learning. The coping capacity ofthe people remains low.What should the Indonesian disaster management policybe? Indonesia, surely has its own unique geographical andsociopolitical characteristics that make it different fromthe other two countries. However, disaster managementelsewhere, either as a theory or practice, has its ownstandard and similarities. Therefore, it is not too lateto learn from other countries’ experiences and followinternational standards without ignoring local valuesand capacities. A more integrative, comprehensive andcommunity-based disaster management is among thethings that should be achieved in Indonesian disastermanagement.Furthermore, the next thing to do is to shift the mindsetand paradigm in dealing with disaster management. PujiPujiono (2007) mentioned that at least four componentsof the paradigm shift should be incorporated, namely:“From emergency response to disaster risk reduction; fromcentralistic to local autonomy, from relief to basic rights,andfrom government centric to participatory.”NOTES1Interview with Puji Pujiono, Kobe, 22 November 2006.2Interview with Koji Suzuki at ADRC, Kobe, 22 August2006.3Interview with Prof. Tomohide Atsumi at Osaka University,9 November 2006.4 Interview with Prof. Toshio Sugiman at Kyoto University,22 October 2006.5 Data from interviews and observations at the JapaneseRed Cross in Kobe (Hyogo Chapter) on 22 September2006 and Japanese Red Cross Headquarters in Tokyo, 8October 2006.6 Data from an interview with Prof. Toshio Sugiman ofKyoto University and Prof. Tomohide Atsumi of OsakaUniversity and a site visit to the Shanti VolunteerAssociation in Tokyo and temporary shelter for Niigatavictims in Ojiya City, Niigata. Significant informationwas also provided by Kiyoko Itagaki and Ozaki-san,a nurse and victim assistant from Gunma prefecture,respectively, and by some students at Niigata University,Niigata City.7 Based on participatory observations carried out in KyotoShimin Bousai Senta, 3 September 2006, and the TokyoFirefighter Museum in Ikebukuro and Shinjuku, 7-8September 2006.8Data provided by the Thai Red Cross in Bangkok on 17January 2007.9Data given by the Thai Action Committee for Democracyin Burma, a human rights NGO working for democracyin Burma in January 2007. In the aftermath of the2004 tsunami, they took part in identifying the victims,particularly undocumented Burmese migrant workerswho worked along the seaside in Ranong, Phang Nga,Phuket and Krabi provinces.10 Data provided by the CODI (Community OrganizationsDevelopment Institution), a semi-autonomous Thaigovernment agency; data also obtained by a site visit toBan Nai Rai village, Ban Nam Ken village and Phuketbeach.11 The problem of land ownership in the aftermath of the2004 tsunami could be observed in Ban Nai Rai village inPhang Nga province. Investors found this place suitablefor building a beach resort.12 Based on interviews and observations in Ban Nai RaiVillage, 23-24 January 2008.13 The tsunami early warning towers were installed along thesouthwestern coast of Thailand, particularly in PhangNga and Phuket, based on direct observation done bythe researcher and information provided by an officerat the Phuket Department of Disaster Prevention andMitigation in Phuket, 24 January 2007.14 Data provided by a high-ranking officer of the ThailandDepartment of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation inBangkok, January 2007.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

52 PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCEREFERENCESCoenraads, Robert. Natural Disaster. New South Wales:Millennium Publishing House, 2006.Dejoras, Fortunato M. Disaster Preparedness: A Primer.Manila: Lagat Ambakan Publishing, 1997.Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation ofThailand (DDPM). Earthquake/Tsunami Victims Relief Efforts.Bangkok: Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation,2005.Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation ofThailand. (DDPM) Handbook. Bangkok: Department ofDisaster Prevention and Mitigation, 2006.Suzuki, Koji. Disaster Management in Japan. Kobe, AsianDisaster Reduction Center, 2006.Vitchek, Andre. “Indonesia: Natural Disaster or MassMurder?” International Herald Tribune and Financial Times12 February 2007.Walsh, Donald W., et. al. National Incident ManagementSystem, Principles and Practice. Boston: Jones and BartlettPublishers, 2005.World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR). ThailandCountry Report. WCDR, 2006.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY53REVALUING JAVANESE COURT DANCES (SRIMPI AND BEDHAYA)WITHIN THE CURRENT SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTMichi TomiokaIntroductionSrimpi 1 (see Photo 1) and Bedhaya 2 (see Photo 2),ritual dances of the Karaton Surakarta Hadiningrat (theSurakarta Court), were first permitted to be performedfor the public as part of a national project called PusatKesenian Jawa Tengah (PKJT, Art Center of CentralJava) in the 1970s. Both of these court dances haveexperienced many changes or innovations since then. 3Photo 1: Srimpi (cf. Appendix)(ASKI, the Indonesian Academy of Arts) Surakarta.Combined, these two organizations are often calledPKJT-ASKI. ASKI Surakarta was later upgraded as theSekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia (STSI, the IndonesianCollege of Arts) Surakarta in 1988 and then the InstitutSeni Indonesia (ISI Surakarta, the Indonesian Instituteof Arts) in 2006. 5Surakarta Court dance was in decline due to a lack ofdancers when the PKJT project began (Pamardi 2002).Although the court dances were still regarded as thesource of Javanese traditional dance, Humardani didnot preserve them as they had been. Instead, he thoughtit more important to innovate with the former arts inaccordance with the changing times and encouragedparticipants to produce pemadatan (contracted) versionsof court dances after reviving them (Tomioka 2005a).He did not merely shorten the duration of theperformances but also transformed many other elementsof the dance and the music, applying the concept ofperforming arts from the modernized West to Javanesecourt dances (Tomioka 2005a). He included onlypemadatan versions in the ASKI curriculum, so that thefull versions of revived dance compositions were nottaught in the course of study.Vital changes established in the PKJT project are: (1)pemadatan (contraction of time), shortening the durationof the performance to one fourth of the original length(fifteen minutes); (2) faster tempo and more dynamicchanges to the tempo than was traditionally the custom;and (3) synchronized movement as in corps de ballet 6(group dancing in ballet).Photo 2: Bedhaya (cf. Appendix)The project was started in 1970 under the first fiveyearplan of the new president, Suharto, in order torevive traditional arts and culture, and lasted for threeperiods (1970-1983). There were many activities in thePKJT project, not only for the court arts, but also forfolklore arts and contemporary arts. The project wasled by Gendhon Humardani (1923-1983), 4 who wasalso the head of the Akademi Seni Karawitan IndonesiaAccording to interviews with many dancers of PKJT/ASKI from those days, these contractions andtransformations were successful in attracting publicnotice in the 1970s in Central Java, and they were veryproud of that fact (Tomioka 2005b, 39). However, SalMurgiyanto criticized the PKJT performance in Jakartain 1979, saying that the ten-minute srimpi pemadatanwas terlampau tergesa (too rushed), and that theyneeded a good chief who could deal with traditionalmaterials (Murgiyanto 1993). The transformations ofthe traditional customs made by the PKJT project wereAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

54 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYless appreciated in the metropolitan context, wheremany different cultural identities coexist.About 40 years have passed since the beginning ofthe PKJT, and about 25 years since the death ofHumardani, but it seems that no remarkable changesor innovations have occurred in Surakarta regardingJavanese traditional dance. 7 This is, in my opinion,mostly because practitioners have missed the startingpoint/origin of Javanese traditional dance, which wouldconfirm their cultural identity in this modern era ofglobalization. My guess is also supported by the factthat Sardono W. Kusumo and Sal Murgiyanto haveadvocated seeking their own “cultural roots” as theguiding principle of the Graduate School of the STSISurakarta (Tomioka 2005b) that was established in2000.Many elements transformed by the PKJT project thatare essential to Javanese court dance have the potentialto acquire new meaning in contemporary social andcultural contexts.Circle of time and contraction of timeHere I have to add an explanation on the traditionalcustoms of the court dances before the 1970s. In theirfull versions, srimpi and bedhaya performances last fromforty to sixty minutes for the dance proper, with fiveto seven minutes for each entrance and exit. About anhour-long performance of a certain dance or musicalcomposition was quite normal in the former days;for example, Sardono W. Kusumo performed a fiftyfiveminute court dance in the 1950s (Kusumo 2002,103).Javanese traditional dance has a circular structure, andthe dance is launched and ended by a mangenjali (prayerwith palms joined together) movement with the dancerssitting on the floor. Dance movements, formationsand music structures are related to one another. Onemusical structure is repeated a certain number of timesand then followed by another musical structure. Asthe music goes on, various kinds of movements arerepeated and developed in symmetrical formations,through which harmony or balance and a meditativeatmosphere are gradually generated. The dance makestime feel luxurious as performers as well as members ofthe audience become enraptured by it.Moreover, in Javanese courts where alus (elegant)behavior is highly appreciated, fast tempos and dynamicor drastic changes in the tempo are regarded as kasar(rough), and an artificial/unnatural movement is notappreciated. According to Bambang Busur, the phrasekembang tiba (flowers falling down to the earth) refersto the movements in Javanese dance. The term meansdancers have their own timing of movement like theflowers of a tree that fall down to the earth one byone, whereas the synchronized movements of dancersare compared to the flowers falling down all at once(Tomioka 2005a). In this way, Javanese court dance hasa circle of time in which the changes progress graduallyfor a certain length of time until the dance returns tothe beginning.To contract the full version into one fourth or one halfis, in other words, to reduce the number of repetitionsor circles, and economizes on the amount of timetraditionally used. Humardani also transformed thequality of time. Dance criticism by Humardani onballet (Humardani 1961) shows how he was movedby the Western performing arts, in which time flowsstraight to the climax. A linear flow of time is generatedby fast and dynamic changes of tempo, synchronizedmovements of corp de ballet and formations appropriatedfor proscenium theaters (Tomioka 2005a). All theseelements make visible changes. If movements aresynchronized among the dancers, changing fromone movement to another is more visible than themovements of kembang tiba. If the formations are alwayssymmetrical and balanced among all the dancers, thereseem to be no visible changes at a glance.Humardani introduced the concept of a linear flow oftime to Javanese court dance. All things considered, heintended to make Javanese court dance fully attractiveto an audience that liked the stage or show performancesof Western countries (Tomioka 2005b), and thatcontraction of time was the doorway to realizing thisintention.Here in my project, I wanted to revalue the essentialelements of Javanese court dance by representing courtdance performances in their full version, from whichIndonesian artists will be able to revive their historicalmemory, restore the wholeness of their experience, andrevalue their own cultural identity.MethodologyIn this project, I made a music recording (CD) and adocumentary video (VCD/DVD) of live performancesof “Srimpi Gondokusumo” and “Bedhaya Pangkur” withthe performances having the following elements: (1)they show the full version of the dances; (2) they areperformed in the classical tempo; and (3) they maintaineach dancer’s wiletan (individual style). These mediaAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY55will be of practical use not only for dancers to learnand analyze choreographies but also for researchersof related areas of study to know what Javanese courtdances are really like.I chose “Srimpi Gondokusumo” and “Bedhaya Pangkur”out of ten Srimpi and two Bedhaya 8 because I found thatboth have experienced more drastic changes than theother pieces in the PKJT project and, in addition, wewere unable to find any other source on these materialsexcept Mrs. Sri Sutjiati Djoko Soehardjo.The late Mrs. Sri Sutjiati Djoko Soehardjo (1933-2006), who was an instructor at the Sekolah MenengahKarawitan Indonesia (SMKI, the Indonesian HighSchool of Arts) Surakarta from 1956 until her retirementin 1994, was our primary source for this project. Sheparticipated in reviving the Srimpi and Bedhaya dancesin the PKJT project. It is to be deeply regretted that shepassed away on 8 November 2006, a few weeks beforethe first performance of this project.ParticipantsFor dances, I selected those who had participated inthe PKJT project in the 1970s and the early 1980s(and therefore were the transition generation), hadlearned under the primary source, were still active asprofessionals and had differing careers or backgrounds.Different from the case of dancers, I appointed gamelangroups in which professionals, senior amateurs or semiamateursand young musicians aiming to be professionalswere mixed together. I preferred to give opportunitiesto those who had never experienced Srimpi and Bedhayadances for as much as an hour in their full version. Theirmusical performance was accordingly not as complete asthat of a professional group, but good enough to expressthe rasa (feeling, sense) of court dances.OccasionsI performed Srimpi Gondokusumo at the pendopo(traditional hall for Javanese ceremonies and dances)of the Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan Indoensia (SMKN8or SMKI) Surakarta in November 2006 (see Appendix)as part of a regular event called “Pentas Nemlikuran,”which has been held there on every 26 th night sinceMarch 2003. This event was already famous amongfans of Javanese traditional dance, so that we expected alarge audience without any publicity effort.The “Bedhaya Pangkur” was performed at the arenatheater of the Taman Budaya Jawa Tengah (TBJT,the Art Center of the province of Central Java) (seeAppendix). This time, we produced an independentdance event with stage directions. It is usually difficultto attract ordinary people to the TBJT, 9 but we metthe press and tried to appeal to the larger public inSurakarta and its outskirts.As for the “Srimpi Gondokusumo” performance inJakarta (see Appendix), we held a discussion betweenthe dancers and the audience just after the danceperformance. We gave out information about theevent mainly to university students who majored inperforming arts at IKJ, Universitas Negeri Jakarta (UNJ,a teachers’ college), as well as members of Javanesedance groups in Jakarta.Performance outside the courtAs I mentioned above, I did not involve court performersnor did I perform the project at the court. This is becauseSrimpi and Bedhaya dances 10 have already become partof Indonesia’s social heritage since they were opened tothe public in the national project. The Surakarta Courthas also inherited Srimpi and Bedhaya under the courtsystem, which really owed much to the PKJT project.I followed the advice of ISI Surakarta and asked forpermission for the performances, although some saidthere was no need to do this because the court danceshave been formally opened to the public. This is verytrue, but I did it to show our respect for the court, andasked the court to make offerings 11 and prayers beforeeach performance.FindingsResponses to my initiative varied from one group tothe other. It reflects the changing and diversification ofcultural contexts since the PKJT era.Response from dancers and musiciansDancers and musicians had concerns about comingup with a full version of the dances. However, somedancers felt a little uncomfortable at the same timebecause I asked them not to follow the PKJT customs.I understood that this was certainly difficult for thosewho had experienced the strict training of the PKJTproject regarding details.In contrast, music instructors were more cooperativeand involved students from an educational point ofview. I was very pleased to hear from Suraji, the musicdirector of the Srimpi Gondokusumo performance, thatthey would like to inspect the results of past researchesAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

56 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY(e.g., Martopangrawit’s 1976 work). They reconsideredtheir habit of gamelan playing since the PKJT period andthis project showed another approach to court dancesand another way to socialize art activities, accordingto Danis Sugiyanto, the music director of the BedhayaPangkur performance.Production members from the performance venuesin Surakarta and Jakarta actively supported myproject. There was, however, a member of the “PentasNemlikuran” committee who did not agree with myproposal, saying that an hour performance was too longand that there was no need for my performance becausethey had shown the Srimpi Gondokusumo in pemadatanversion before. This reflects the common PKJT point ofview and they were challenged by my idea.Response from the mass mediaIn order to publicize the Bedhaya Pangkur performance,I met the press with the help of MATaYA arts andheritage (an organization that promotes social activitiesof the arts), so that it was reported in many newspapers(see Appendix 3). The MATaYA staff and journalistshighly appreciated that we intended to produce thecourt dance performance for the public outside thecourt.In August 2007, I appeared on “Kick Andy,” a MetroTV show on a nationwide network (see Appendix 3)and talked about my project to revive court dances.I emphasized the necessity to pay more attention toJavanese court dances in their full version as part of theIndonesian heritage because these choreographies wereno less excellent than other dances in the world.The episode was titled “Kami Juga Cinta Indonesia” (WeAlso Love Indonesia) under the theme of nationalism inIndonesia. 12 Andy (the host of the talk show) said theepisode provoked a remarkable response from viewersvia telephone or e-mail and the audience rating washigh. One of the directors of the Ministry of Cultureand Tourism sent a cell phone text message to meregarding the show that said, “Mempunyai dampakpositif terhadap peningkatan apresiasi penonton terhadaptarian kuno yg jarang dipentaskan di masyarakat” (It hada positive impact in raising appreciation for old dancesthat are seldom performed for the public.) I receivedmany other responses along the theme that Indonesianswere ashamed of not knowing much about their ownhistory or culture.Response from audiences of performancesMost of the ISI Surakarta instructors who had participatedin the PKJT project still believe that performing Srimpiand Bedhaya dances in their full version are too long,boring and monotonous for audiences. However,even those who had no preliminary knowledge aboutJavanese dance could appreciate the performances, asthe following comments show.An acupuncturist who watched Srimpi Gondokusumoin Surakarta (see Appendix) said, “I could enjoy thedance by rocking myself to the music and movementsof dancers. I did not feel bored at all for an hour. Frommy point of view as an acupuncturist, the movementsin the Javanese court dance make the audience as well asthe dancers relaxed and meditative, and are, thus, goodfor health.”Many audience members reported that they did notmind that the dancers of the Bedhaya Pangkur werealready stout and middle-aged, once they starteddancing.The Bedhaya performance was attended by as manyas 300 people to full capacity, in spite of heavy rain.According to an article appearing in the Suara Merdekaon 30 June 2007 (see Appendix), some attendees couldnot enter the theater so they watched the performanceon monitors outside. I was surprised to find that manyin the audience were not acquainted with me, the otherparticipants or MATaYA staff. They seemed to havegotten news of the performance through newspapers,mailing lists or by word of mouth.A Japanese attendee who watched the SrimpiGondokusumo in Jakarta (see Appendix) said, “I did notfeel bored at all. I felt as if I had been transported to thecolonial age and had met court dancers at that time.”A person who watched another Surakarta danceperformance that lasted forty minutes in Jakarta a fewdays before our Srimpi performance said, “When I sawthe former, I felt forty minutes was too long and got verytired, even though the dancers were young and beautiful.It was because they lacked rehearsals and concentration.But this time, I felt an hour passed by very quickly andwas enchanted by the elegant movements.”DiscussionMany people took an interest in my concept ofperforming the court dances “outside” the court. Myapproach to the court dances was different from thatAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY57of the PKJT project; I focused people’s eyes on the fullversions of the court dances. Ordinary people couldbe enchanted by these full versions if performers wereskilled and well rehearsed, and the performance waspresented in full seriousness. The audience did not onlysee the physical, superficial beauty of the dancers butperceived their inner beauty, elegant movements andmeditative atmosphere, which moreover called Javaneseculture and history to mind throughout the wholeexpression.There were also a number of effects on the performers:(1) the dancers and musicians became more absorbedin their performance of the full version as time wentby, which created a meditative atmosphere; (2) theclassical tempo of the music was comfortable for theperformers (as well as the audience) because it was anatural tempo for breathing; (3) each mature dancerwas free to express her own wiletan, unlike in the PKJTstyle, which strictly demanded that dancers move in asynchronized way. Through this freedom of expression,the performers could feel satisfaction in completing anhour-long performance as if it were a ritual ceremony.In this way, both the performers and the audienceexperienced another dimension of time and space andderived a kind of satisfaction that could not be attainedthrough performing or watching performances of thecontracted as well as the transformed versions of courtdances.Court dances in their full versions, therefore, stillcontain much potential under current circumstances.Nevertheless, there are few dancers or organizationsthat are aware of them in Surakarta. Some dancers feelit is difficult to leave behind the customs that wereimplanted during the PKJT era.Generally speaking, the performing arts in Indonesiahave developed under the art policies of the governmentin relation to tourism or to the creation of a nationalculture. They have, therefore, been developed for urgent,practical use. PKJT was also started under the art policyof the government in the 1970s, and Humardani’sinnovations were suitable under that policy. It is truethat the pemadatan of the Srimpi or Bedhaya dancesexpanded the range of traditional dances. However, itis also true that the idea, fixed since the PKJT period,that the Srimpi or Bedhaya dances in their full versionsare too long and boring has prevented the public fromappreciating higher arts or admiring their own cultureand history.Artistic values can be limited or changed accordingto social and cultural contexts, such as customs,preconceptions, government art policies or influencesfrom foreign countries and so on. It would be effectivefor cultural communities to revalue and spontaneouslyreconsider the results of former art projects in searchof their own roots, historical memory and culturalidentity.NOTES1A kind of Javanese court dance performed by four females.2A kind of Javanese court dance performed by nine females.3See Rustopo 1990, Chapter IV, on the PKJT- ASKI andthe role of Gendhon Humardani.4 He was a younger brother of Sudjono Humardani, a privateassistant to President Suharto.5See http://www.isi-ska.ac.id/sejarah/sejarah.htm.6Humardani himself used the term corps de ballet to meangroup dancing in Javanese dance (Humardani 1970).7 R. Supanggah, the head of the Graduate School of theISI Surakarta, criticized Humardani’s pupils on theirpassiveness and lack of initiative (Supanggah 2003).8Martopangrawit could gather ten Srimpi and ten Bedhayamusic compositions (Martopangrawit 1976), but most ofthe Bedhaya choreographies were out of use at that time,according to Sri Sutjiati Djoko Soehardjo.9The PKJT project was ended with the foundation of theTBJT in 1983. The TBJT supports arts innovation andcreation so that it is sometimes regarded as standing apartfrom ordinary people.10 Here we do not take the Bedhaya Ketawang intoconsideration, which is still the monopoly of the SurakartaCourt for its coronation anniversary. Martopangrawit(1976) does not include this in his publications.11 Ketan Biru and Nasi Uduk.12The Republic of Indonesia commemorates its independenceday every 17 th of August.REFERENCESHumardani, Gendhon. “Menonton Ballet di Covent Garden1961 kesan-kesan.” 1961. Gendhon Humardani Pemikiran &Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

58 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYKritiknya. Surakarta: STSI Press Surakarta, 1991: 80-86.Humardani, Gendhon. “Sendratari Ramayana PrambananGaya Lama—Keberadaannya dalam Perkembangan TariKita.” 1970. Gendhon Humardani Pemikiran & Kritiknya.Surakarta: STSI Press Surakarta, 1991: 98-118.Kusumo, Sardono W. “Hanuman, Tarzan, danPithecanthropus Erectus.” Jurnal Seni pertunjukan IndonesiaXI (2001/2002): 97-114.Martopangrawit. Data-Data Sindenan Bedaya Dan SrimpiKraton Surakarta. Proyek Akademi Kesenian Jawa Tengah diSurakarta. Jakarta: Departmen Pendidikan Dan Kebudayaan(Kode Program No.09502.3604.2305.03), 1976.Murgiyanto, Sal. “Gondokusumo, Bedaya La-La dan lainlain.”1979. Ketika Cahaya Merah Memudar—Sebuah KritikTari. Jakarta: CV Deviri Ganan, 1993:76-78.Pamardi, Silvester. “Surakarta Style Dance: From Palacetowards Outside Wall.” Trans. Tomioka, Michi and SumioFukami. Intercultural Studies 26 (2002):101-121.Rustopo. Gendhon Humardani (1923-1983): Arsitek danPelaksana Pembangunan Kehidupan Seni Tradisi Jawa yangModern Mengindonesia Suatu Biofrafi. Master’s thesis. GajahMada University, 1990.Sedyawati, Edi. Ed. “Performing Arts.” Indonesian Heritage.Vol.8. Singapore: Archipelago Press, 1999.Supanggah, Rahayu. “Sasanamulya: Janin Jamak yangTunggal.” Seni Dalam Berbagai Wacana Mengenang—20tahun kepergian Gendhon Humardani. Surakarta: ProgramPendidikan Pascasarjana STSI Surakarta, 2003:383-403.Tomioka, Michi-a. “Influence of Western Dance on JavaneseTraditional Dance: On the case of PKJT Project in Surakartain the 1970s.” Japanese Journal for Comparative Studies ofDance 11.1(2005): 46-58.Tomioka Michi-b. Who Promoted the Creativity of Arts? TheCase of Javanese Dance of Surakarta Style. Master’s thesis.Osaka City University, 2005APPENDIX: Products and outputs of this project1 Srimpi performances1-1 “Srimpi Gondokusumo” / music CDDate: 20 November 2006Place: The pendopo (Javanese traditional hall) of “Garasi SeniBenowo”, BenowoProducer: Michi TomiokaMusic Director: Suraji (ISI Surakarta)Instructors: Suraji, Sukamso, Hadi Boediono, Supardi,Rusdiyantoro (ISI Surakarta)Musicians (Instrument: Name):“Maju Mawas” and “Mijil Laras” groups from “GarasiSeni Benowo”, Benowo Rebab: Suraji*/ Kendhang:Hadi Boediono*/ Gender Barung: Sukamso*/Gender Panerus: Rudi Triyatmaka / Bonang Barung:Singgih Sri Cundhananik / Bonang Penerus: Suradi /Slenthem: Haryono FN / Demung: Nurochman, Paidi/ Saron Barung: Parjan, Tutiyarso, Bejo Hermanto,Sandi / Saron Penerus: Rossidiq Wahid H / Kethuk,Kempyang,Kenong: Sugimin*/ Gong: Kuat*/ Gambang:Sulardi / Siter, keplok alok: Sriyanto / Suling, keplokalok: Supardi*/ Swarawati: Pujiyani, Dewi Widayati,Imra’atul / Wiraswara: Rusdiyantoro*, Samin, Sarmadi,SartKeprak Player: S.Pamardi (ISI Surakarta)Engineer: Iwan Onone (Studio 19, ISI Surakarta)Description: Twenty-six musicians consisting of seven ISISurakarta instructors (names highlighted with an asterisk onthe list above), nine elder amateurs / semi-amateurs and tenISI Surakarta students or alumni/alumnae were involved inthe project. All the instructors and senior members residearound Benowo. Garasi Seni Benowo, located in the houseof R. Supanggah, the head of the Graduate School of ISISurakarta in Benowo, has become a center of gamelan activitiesin Surakarta. These two groups hold regular rehearsals twicea week which are often attended by students for advancedstudies.1-2 “Srimpi Gondokusumo” / video CDDate: 26 November 2006Place: The pendopo SMKN8/SMKI Surakarta, SurakartaDocument Type: Live performanceRehearsal Period: 28 August - 25 November 2006Producer, Artistic Director, Dance Director:Michi TomiokaDancers (Position: Name):batak: Michi Tomioka / gulu: Sri Setyoasih, dada:Saryuni Padminingsih, buncit: Hadawiyah EndahUtami (ISI Surakarta)Costume Director: Hartoyo (ISI Surakarta and the SurakartaCourt)Costume: Dodot AlitHair Style: Bangun TulakMusic Director: Suraji (ISI Surakarta)Musicians: “Maju Mawas” and “Mijil Laras” from the GarasiSeni Benowo, BenowoLighting/Sound: The production team of “PentasNemlikuran”Video Works: Esha, Chris (Studio 19, ISI Surakarta)Photographer: Heru Santoso (Studio 19, ISI Surakarta)Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY59Offerings: 26 November 2006 Ketan Biru and Nasi Udukfrom the Surakarta CourtDescription: This performance was held as part of “PentasNemlikuran.” We performed first, while the secondperformance was a “Bedhaya Babar Layar”, a Bedhaya danceof the Yogyakarta Court which was revived by ISI Yogyakartaunder the supervision of Prof. Dr. Hermien.1-3 “Srimpi Gondokusumo” / video DVDDate: 26 August 2007Place: The Teater Luwes, Institut Kesenian Jakarta (IKJ)Document Type: Live Performance and discussionRehearsal Period: t8- 21 August 2007Producer, Artistic Director, Dance Director:Michi TomiokaDancers:batak: Michi Tomioka / gulu: Sri Setyoasih, dada:Saryuni Padminingsih, buncit: Hadawiyah EndahUtami (ISI Surakarta)Costume Director: Hartoyo (ISI Surakarta & the SurakartaCourt)Costume Assistant: Budiarti (ISI Surakarta)Costume: Dodot KerembrehanHair Style: Bangun TulakMusic: 1-1 “Srimpi Gondokusumo” / music CD (78minutes)Lighting/Sound: Production team of the Teater Luwes(Representative: Trisapto, Fakultas Seni Pertunjukan, Facultyof Performing Arts, IKJ)Video Works: Hari Sinthu (Fakultas Film dan Televisi, IKJ)Photographer: Priadi Soefjanto (Fakultas Film dan Televisi,IKJ)Cosponsor: Fakultas Seni Pertunjukan, IKJDonors: Mrs. Pia Alisjahbana, Mr.Bondan WinarnoSpecial Thanks:Nungki Kusumastuti (Fakultas Seni Pertunjukan, IKJ)MATaYA arts & heritagePerformance date: 21 August 2007 Ketan Biru and NasiUduk from the Surakarta CourtDescription: This was an independent performance which wasfollowed by a discussion between the dancers and audiencewith Nungki Kusumastuti as moderator.2 Bedhaya performances2-1 Bedhaya Pangkur / music CD (1:05:58)Recording: 25 June 2007At Studio 19, ISI SurakartaProducer: Michi TomiokaMusic Director: Danis Sugiyanto (ISI Surakarta)Instructors: Danis Sugiyanto, Supardi, Darsono (ISISurakarta)Musicians:“Marsudi Renaning Manah”, Kemlayan, SurakartaRebab: Danis Sugiyanto*/ Kendhang: Hadi Boediono*/Penuntung, Suling: Supardi*/ Gender Barung: BambangSasadara / Gender Panerus: Prasadiyanto */ BonangBarung: Agus Raharjo* / Bonang Penerus: SylvieChantriaux / Slenthem: Krishono / Demung: JokoDaryanto / Saron Barung: Sudarto, Iskandar, Tugimin/ Saron Penerus: Suyoto / Kethuk, Kempyan: Ardi /Kenong: Suparto / Gong: Suradi / Gambang: SigitHermono* / Swarawati: Mulyati, Nanik DH, Eka,Wida / Wiraswara: Darsono*,Wahyono, Sapto, AgusPrasetyo, Dwi HandakaKeprak Player: Bambang Tri Atmadja (ISI Yogyakarta)Engineer: Iwan Onone (Studio 19, ISI Surakarta)Description: Twenty-six musicians consisting of seven ISISurakarta instructors/musical staff (names highlighted withan asterisk on the list above), 11 amateurs/semi-amateursand eight ISI Surakarta students or alumni/alumnae whoreside around the area were involved in the project. Thisgroup was founded in 1938 in Kemlayan where many courtmusicians lived, and has come into action again since 2000under Danis Sugiyanto at the studio of Sardono W Kusumo.Now this group holds regular rehearsals twice a week at CakraHomestay, Kemlayan which are often attended by students,including foreigners.2-2 Bedhaya Pangkur / video DVDDate: 28 June 2007, 19:30 door open, 20:00 startPlace: The Teater Arena, Taman Budaya Jawa Tengah(TBJT), SurakartaDocument Type: Live performanceRehearsal Period: 13 April - 25 June 2007Producer, Artistic Director, Dance Director:Michi TomiokaDancers (Position: Name)batak: Michi Tomioka / gulu: Rusini, dada: SriSetyoasih, buncit: Hadawiyah Endah Utami, endelweton: Tantin Sri Marwanti, endel ajek: Ninik MuryaniSutrangi, apit ngarep: Saryuni Padminingsih (ISISurakarta) / apit beri: Priyati Umiyatun (SMKN8Surakarta) / apit menang: Indah Nuraini (ISIYogyakarta)Costume Director: Hartoyo (ISI Surakarta and the SurakartaCourt)Costume Assistant: Dwi Maryani, Dewi Kristiyanti (ISISurakarta)Costume: Dodot AgungHair Style: Bangun TulakMusic Director: Danis Sugiyanto (ISI Surakarta)Musicians: “Marsudi Renaning Manah”, Kemlayan,SurakartaLighting / Sound: Hengki, S, Rivai (TBJT)Coordinator: Jatmiko (TBJT)Video Works: Esha, Chris (Studio 19, ISI Surakarta)Photographer: Heru Santoso (Studio 19, ISI Surakarta)Cosponsor: TBJTAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

60 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYPerformance dates: 11 May 2007 Ketan Biru from theSurakarta Court / for the opening of rehearsals28 June 2007 Ketan Biru and Nasi Uduk from the SurakartaCourtDescription: This performance was held as an independentproduction. After the doors opened, we offered a gendhingbonang (instrumental music) performance, “Babar Layar,” for15-20 minutes, while waiting for attendants.3 Publicity in the mass media26 June 2007- KOMPAS Cyber Media “Negeriku—Mahasiswi Jepang GelarTari Bedhaya Pangkur”, http:// www.kompascommunity.com/index.php?fuseaction=home.detail&id=34221&section=119- KOMPAS “Pergelaran Tari Bedhaya Pangkur”- SOLOPOS “Tari Bedhaya Pangkur akan disuguhkan dengankosep asli”- The Daily Jakarta Shimbun (Japanese) “penari asal dariJepang Michi Tomioka mengali tari Keraton klasik, pentasdi Solo tgl.28”- Ria FM (radio) “Selamat Pagi Surakarta” 07:00-07:1027 June 2007- SUARA MERDEKA “Bahasa Kagok Penari Jawa Itu”- Jawa Pos Radar Solo “Michi Tomioka, Tertantang PadukanTari Jepang-Indonesia”http://www.jawapos.com/index.php?act=detail_radar&id=165442&c=108”28 June 2007- KOMPAS “—Kesenian—Ketika Penari Asal Jepang BerlatihMenari...”http://www.kompas.com/kompas-cetak/0706/28/jateng/55492.htm”- KORAN TEMPO “Tari Keraton Solo Dikonservasikan”12 July 2007- SOLOPOS Kridha (Javanese) “Michi Tomioka asli Jepangwasis mbeksa”August 2007- Reader’s Digest Indonesia (a monthly magazine) “Klik!Sembilan Wanita…”16 August 2007- Metro TV, “Kick Andy” (talk show, nationwide network)Episode: “Kami Juga Cinta Indonesia” (We Also LoveIndonesia)Broadcast: Thursday, 16 August 2007, 22:05-23:05Re broadcast: Sunday, 19 August 2007, 15:05-16:0524 August 2007The Daily Jakarta Shimbun (Japanese), “Srimpi Performanceof the Surakarta Court Style”29 August 2007Suara Pembaruan, “Pentas Tari Srimpi Gondokusumo Dari Soloke Jakarta oleh Michi Tomioka,” http://www.suarapembaruan.com/News/2007/08/27/index.html31 August 2007The Daily Jakarta Shimbun (Japanese), “The first performanceat IKJ of the reconstruction of traditional dance by a Javanesedancer, Michi Tomioka”4 PublicationsTomioka Michi. “Ringkasan Sejarah Tari Srimpi dan Bedhayadi Luar Tembok Keraton.” (Outline of the history of Srimpiand Bedhaya dances from the court toward outside wall).Brochure of the performance titled “Retrospeksi IWANTIRTA, Tanding Gendhing (A Battle of Wits).” Jakarta: PTGelar Nusantara, 2007.29 June 2007- Wawasan “—Pertunjukan ‘tari Bedhaya Pangku’’ di TBSsemalam—Merekonstruksi kembali karya PB IV dan PB VIII”30 June 2007- MEDIA INDONESIA “Tari ‘Bedhaya Pangkur’ ” (onlyphoto)- KOMPAS “Tari Bedhaya Pangkur” (only photo)- SOLOPOS “Saat keaslian Bedhaya Pangkur kembali hadir”http://www.solopos.com/rubrik.php?ct=2007-07-01%2002:00:05- SUARA MERDEKA “Sukses, Pentas Bedhaya Pangkur”5 July 2007- SOLOPOS Kridha (Javanese) “Bedhaya Pangkur Kababaring TBS”Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY61TRANSFORMING THINKING, TRANSGRESSING BORDERSJo KukathasIntroductionA year spent in Indonesia and Japan exploring traditionaland contemporary theater allowed me to witness theways in which artists and intellectuals transgress andtransform their traditions. A study of these theatersmade it obvious that these transgressions are nothingnew and that globalization, far from homogenizing thearts, can make them dynamic.However, the artist is often pitted against a nationalhistorical narrative that seeks to fix, not transgress,borders. It is in the lively skirmish between art andauthority that the artist has to find a dynamic balance.Authority and artists come in many forms; sometimesthey are one and the same, and it is here that theskirmish intensifies as artists contest the not-so-naturalevolution of art and society.In examining the artist as a transforming/transgressingagent, I have chosen to focus on Japan and in particularthe tradition of noh. But first a quote from an oldglobalist:The pursuit of reason and rejection of traditionalismare so brilliantly patent as to be above the needof argument. If traditionalism were proper, theprophets would merely have followed their eldersand not come with new messages.Akbar the Great, IndiaFrom traditional to contemporary: A surveyStart with tradition but don’t end there.Goenawan Mohamed, Indonesian poetNoh and Ulysses S GrantOne of the first non-Japanese ever to see a noh playwas Ulysses S Grant. It was 1879 and he was on aglobal good will journey. His flustered hosts in Tokyo,uncertain how to entertain him, asked the great nohactor Hosho Kuro to perform. To his hosts’ surprise,Grant did not fall asleep. Instead, it is recorded thatafter the performance he turned to them and said: “Youmust preserve this.”Grant was not to know that at the time the fate of nohwas hanging in the balance. Noh had been intimatelyassociated with the shogunate since the 14 th centurywhen the samurai lord Yoshimitsu took a shine to thebeautiful young actor Zeami Motokiyo—later calledthe father of noh, famous as its greatest theorist andplaywright. Under this military court patronage andremoved from its folk roots, noh took on the remoteesoteric features one associates with it today.However, in 1868, ten years before Grant’s visit,the shogunate was overthrown, and with the Meijirestoration and its mania for all things modern, thetraditional arts had fallen into disfavor. Noh wasbranded pre-modern and most of the old noh familiesdisbanded. However, Grant urged that the art form bepreserved “and the recommendations of so distinguisheda visitor were not lightly to be dismissed in those days ofuncritical respect for all things foreign” (Keene 1957).Simultaneously, a delegation sent to study European arthad witnessed opera and concluded that, as noh ratherresembled opera, it might be worth saving after all. Nohwas preserved and its status as a “classical” art after theEuropean model was affirmed. Noh was adopted by theMeiji government as a national representation of Japanand “Japanese-ness.”Ironically, it was the global gaze of Ulysses S Grant andothers that was an essential factor to noh’s survival. Nohwas “preserved” and monitored. Only five schools wereallowed to open, and the strict iemoto or headmastersystem meant that noh was carefully controlled bothfrom within and without.Noh and contemporary Japanese artists and audiencesSo did noh survive to have any meaning to ordinaryJapanese? Or has consumerist makudonarudo 1 cultureleft them dulled to more metaphysical desires? Ibelieve contemporary artists and audiences continue toexplore and respond to noh, not as an act of resistanceto “globalization” but out of a desire to explore analternative discourse to the present day’s dominant viewof human existence. Japanese audiences, while nervousof noh, respond deeply to its cultural signifiers 2 .Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

62 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYWatching noh theater makes us appreciate that noteverything is as it seems. It is a meditation on theinvisible and unseen. In fast-moving, consumeristJapan, such meditations are regarded as providing animportant balance, a time-out from the world rushingpast outside the theater. In noh, the actor is oftenmasked, heavily dressed, his/her movements minimal.Often the actor is completely still: what Zeami callssenu hima—a void/rapture of time and space in whichthe actor stands doing nothing but shows his/her way ofbeing, completely inhibited. The audience must workto see past the surface to the hidden worlds of loss,suffering and longings of the heart.What then are we observing? It is that one thing that wealways desire to see but cannot see: the movement of thehuman soul. Noh can provoke in its viewers powerfulemotions of empathy beyond what we see on stage.This power that noh has is something contemporaryJapanese artists are still profoundly aware of and itinvigorates the works of contemporary artists as diverseas anime director Miyazaki to theater director OkamotoAkira.Spirited AwaySurprisingly for a blockbuster, Miyazaki’s Spirited Awayoffers a bleak vision of Japan. The vulnerability of theJapanese identity is clear. The bubble has burst, leavingabandoned theme parks and mindless consumers.Pollution from materialism has created filthy rivers andpeople are pigs or foul smelling. The gods are offended.The bathhouse of the gods is the bulwark against uglymaterialism but even this faces a battle from pollutingforces within and without. Its only hope lies in its youngheroine, Chihiro.Miyazaki warns that “in this borderless age… a manwithout history or a people that forgot its past willhave no choice but to disappear in a shimmer of light”(Napier 2006). Chihiro is in danger of that.Her quest, therefore, is for cultural recovery/rehabilitation. She must rediscover and reincorporateelements of purity, endurance, self-sacrifice—valueshistorically regarded as traditionally Japanese—in orderto rescue her parents, now sadly turned into pigs.The young girl or shojo has another, deeper, culturalresonance in Japan 3 . Only she can turn her parentsback from pigs to humans. Only she can restore thelost boy, Haku, back to his true identity as a river god.Most significant is her encounter with the mysteriousStink God. In bathing him she discovers a thorn in hisside. She pulls the thorn, which turns out to be a bicyclehandlebar, which is in turn connected to other junk.She pulls, the pieces untangle and the Stink God isrevealed to be a River Spirit finally free of the pollutionof modern life. He wears the most sacred and ancientnoh mask—the old man or okina.The use of the noh mask in this popular film makes itclear that even ordinary Japanese who have never seena noh performance see noh as embodying somethingsacred and deeply spiritual: something worth rescuing,recollecting, re-encountering. Under the stink issomething sacred. That the river is sacred is quicklyunderstood as part of everyday Shinto doctrine whichsees the potential for sacredness in all things.Shojo, Miko, Shinto and the origins of Japanese theaterThe image of the girl as shaman is crucial in Japanesecultural tradition. In the Shinto religion, shrine maidens,miko, had an important function as mediators with thegods, restoring balance and harmony. Significantly, thestory of the origins of Japanese theater comes from astory of one such miko. Zeami, in narrating the sacredorigins of noh, recalls a mythical event.The sun deity Amaterasu, attacked by her brother, thestorm god Susano’o, goes into hiding and the world isplunged into darkness. The entreaties of the gods cannotmove her. The clever young goddess, Ama no Uzume,overturns a tub near her cave’s entrance and dancesjoyfully on it, eventually exposing her breasts and liftingher skirts in a bawdy display. The gods convulse withlaughter and, hearing this, the curious Amaterasu islured out. Thus, through performance, light returns tothe world. Balance is restored.Zeami’s story conveys the magic powers of dance andtheater: exorcism and trance as well as obscenity andlaughter must converge in order to avert evil and bringrenewal to the world.The idea of balance or ki is still central in Japan andan acceptance of the invisible in Japan is apparenteverywhere. Thus, while many Japanese may deny anyreligiosity, their sense of the spiritual nature of things iswidely accepted, as is obvious by the small shrines thatdot the landscape, the plethora of hedgehogs, raccoondogs and foxes and the porcelain cats that wave theirpaws at you from every sushi restaurant. In SpiritedAway, the Stink God’s true form is revealed because ofthe concern of the inhabitants of the bathhouse—or theconcern of ordinary folk.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY63Performance as release and harmonyOn the level of myth, this episode’s structure ofmisidentification followed by the revelation of his truenature is typical of many archetypal myths concerninga disguised god.However, it is also the dramaturgy of noh theater. Innoh theater, especially mugen or dream noh, the poorboatman or the mad woman in the first half of the playreveals him/herself in the second half as a true, morepowerful transformed self. The dead can speak, notbecause they are not dead but because they are merelyhidden or transformed. The performer or shaman allowsthem to reveal their true selves.In this sense, noh theater is a purification rite and itsperformance is an exercise in recognition and correctidentification that allows release and harmony,recognition and joy. The goddess is lured out of hercave. Once you can see past the form, the invisiblereveals its true nature. Within everyone is somethingsacred. “Even the head of a sardine can be god.” 4 This isa deeply subversive and democratic concept.Moreover, in noh theater it is the dead, thosewithout authority—those without historical or socialdominance, who have lost the war—who are given theright to tell their story and recall their version of events.Noh privileges not the victor but the voiceless and theinvisible. All noh plays put the deceased and voicelessfirmly in the centre of the narrative.However, the irony of many traditional art formsis that once they occupy the privileged position ofa classical or state form, they no longer clearly playthis role. The privileging of form over philosophycreates a rigid, unchanging art form that is used bythe state to give validity to their position as guardiansof these forms and of society. It no longer speaks forthe voiceless and invisible in contemporary society.Business and tourism benefit, too, from this fixed formand tradition is seen as something to be protected fromoutside threats—globalization, modernity and evencontemporary art—which may attempt to change theform and content of such traditions and make them less“Japanese” and therefore less easily feminized, availableand consumable.The louche origins of kabukiIn this paper I would like to offer the suggestionthat threats to traditional culture in Japan, Indonesiaand elsewhere do not come from globalization andmodernity except insofar as that modernization haschanged humanity itself and insofar as globalization haschanged the dominant discourse.Rather, I would like to examine the threats from thosewell-meaning folk who seek to preserve. Those who seekto freeze and control culture in order to validate someother, often nationalist, agenda often lay the blame atglobalization’s door. They regard culture and the arts asa “moral resource” and want to lift it to lofty heights,forgetting the low, often mischievous, origins of theateras well as its complex, syncretic history.Those who want to preserve tradition as something tobe consumed like a national dish forget the sacred andspiritual origins of dance and theater. Those who seek tofreeze tradition forget that tradition is evolving. For itsevolution to continue, it must die and be reborn. The roleof the state has often been to preserve “the vanishing” inorder to make claims of cultural authenticity, hegemonyand superiority while the contemporary artist seeks tocritique and to destroy in order to create a new disorder.This tension is an ongoing historical one of resistanceand refusal and out of this new theaters are made.A brief look at the origins and history of kabukiillustrates this. According to tradition, kabuki wasfounded in 1603 by another Shinto priestess—Okuni.It acquired the defamatory name kabuki, meaning “toincline” or “bend,” as these women transgressed socialboundaries. From its “prostitute kabuki” origins, kabukiactors were social outcasts, “beggars of the riverbed.”Although fiercely suppressed by the shogunate, kabukiwas the artistic means by which commoners couldexpress their suppressed emotions under such restrictivesocial conditions. In this way, kabuki was contemporarytheater.Kabuki borrowed shamelessly from bunraku noh,kyogen, popular ballads, fiction and legends. Whenwomen were forbidden to perform, kabuki perfectedthe art of the male impersonator or onnagata. Whateverchallenges were thrown up, the lively, open art formcalled kabuki adapted to and adopted them to ensure itssurvival. The arrival of Western boats and Western artintroduced perspective to kabuki sets as well as changesin make-up and props. Stories, too, changed with newcharacters ranging from foreign sailors to Jesuit priests.People flocked to the kabuki theater to catch up on thelatest trends and fashions as well as the latest gossip andstories affecting the community.Today in the classical preserved world of kabuki, theword kabuki is written with the Chinese charactersAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

64 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYand is often explained as meaning ka for “song,” bu for“dance” and ki for “skill.” Its original meaning of “bent,”with its attendant connotations of wild, outlandish andeccentric, is all but forgotten.Globalization as bogeymanAs for the bogeyman known as globalization, Sen hasmade various spirited defenses of globalization insistingthat while “globalization has been instrumental inshaping the world… by a persistent movement ofgoods, people, techniques and ideas it has shaped thehistory of the world” (Sen 2005).One has only to look at masks and gigaku dance in Japanto be able to trace its origins to China. The Buddhistphilosophies underpinning noh came to Japan fromIndia via China and Korea. The wayang kulit of Javaowes its heritage to the stories of the epic Mahabharataof India and the philosophy of the nine Wali or Sufisaints, as well as local stories and animistic beliefs. Thenature of art and culture in both Indonesia and Japanhas been essentially syncretic despite various attemptsthroughout history to “close the doors” or controlforeign influences.It is a misdiagnosis to claim that the globalization ofideas and practices has to be resisted because it entailssome dreaded Westernization 5 . The peril of this claim isthat it incites parochial tendencies, ignores history andcan lead dangerously to ethnic pride and a false sense ofan immutable identity.Given the global interactions throughout historyit can also cause non-Western societies to shootthemselves in the foot—even in their preciouscultural foot (Sen 2005).However, the wholesale rejection of global influencesfrom either East or West is neither possible nor necessary.For culture to be vibrant and alive, it has to meet thechallenges of modernization. Protected and nurtured ina hermetically sealed environment, it loses its purposeand will die.Identity as choiceThe artist’s understanding of culture, I would argue, isultimately syncretic, universalist, humanist, pluralistand evolving. The contemporary artist seeks to preserveby changing and in so doing preserves not form butmetaphysics, with all its subversions intact.The nationalist stance, in contrast, is conservative,frequently concerned with notions of unified identityand the authentic. It is concerned with preserving courtand classical traditions, seeing those traditions as morerepresentative of state culture.This creates notions of a cultural hierarchy in whichcertain art forms are regarded as more worthy. The folkarts, more robust in accreting modernity, are regardedas vulgar and low art, not representative of nationalcultural values and, therefore, national identity. Theseare notions I would hotly contest.Those who advocate the need to “salvage” traditions,who often use the discourse of the “vanishing,” do notsee their desire to “recover” or “discover” their identityas a choice. They do not see tradition as somethingchangeable and alive. Rather “increasingly such nostalgicyearnings often lead to a sense of noblesse oblige on thepart of the speaker, who feels the obligation to revive orrenew the imagined glory of the past” (Pattita 2002).This view that a person’s identity is something s/hedetects rather than one s/he determines lies at the heartof the ongoing historical struggle. Some claim thatidentity is a matter of discovery, others that identityis a matter of choice. The globalist may well be moreinclined to believe in identity as choice, feeling that shehas a choice about her beliefs, associations and attitudesand that she must take responsibility for what is chosen.The nationalist hopes that by burrowing deeper withinhis own cultural context he will discover his more“authentic self.” This is a deeply troublesome concept .MetapatternsIt is clear from examining Miyazawa’s popular film thatthere are metapatterns that exist which make traditionalcultures still resonant. Theater director Tadashi Suzukibelieves that, while only a limited number of peoplewatch noh theater, it continues to have some realityin Japan because the past is closer to the modernJapanese to whom, as a people, the vast disruptionsbrought about by secularization have come relativelyrecently [sic in the Meiji era]. He feels that Japan iscloser to the model of a communal society than a highlyindividualistic one. Therefore, Japanese audiences havesome ability to sense the beauty and significance thatnoh possesses that point to the transcendent. The factthat otherworldly and supernatural stories are readilybelieved suggests that certain implicit ties exist to theseolder ways of thinking. Noh is a historical form but theunderlying pattern of thinking behind it and the beliefsystem that governs it still exist.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY65The Meiji RestorationThe Meiji Restoration opened Japan to the outsideworld after centuries of isolation. Faced with theseexciting new challenges, people responded differently.Eager to discover their new global identity, the Japaneseeven began chopping down their once beloved cherrytrees to make Western-style furniture.The government’s massive push towards bunmei kaika(civilization and enlightenment) extended deeply intothe cultural realm. The cultural, economic, and politicalchanges altered the traditional theaters and challengedthe Japanese conception of theater.Bereft of shogun patronage, noh found new patronagein a government eager to have a classical art form afterthe Western tradition. Attempts were made to reformkabuki but this new kabuki was not a success andkabuki itself began to crystallize into its modern form.Like noh, it reinvented itself into a classical tradition inorder to survive.A new theater emerged to take its place. Shingeki (NewTheater) decided to completely rupture from traditionalforms and base its theater solely on Western models ofacting and playwriting, privileging drama or spokentext over the traditional theater of movement, danceand song. In 1923, the Tsukiji Shogekijo (Tsukiji LittleTheater) sought a complete break with tradition and washugely influential in the evolution of modern Japanesedrama as we know it today.Shingeki’s emphasis on theatrical realism and naturalism,as well as its leftist politics, represented a rupture with anda rejection of not only the theatrical past but the entirecultural heritage of Japan. Significantly, the rejectionwas not of the form that traditional theater took—thestylized spectacle of kabuki or the quiet movement ofnoh—but what was considered its essence.Traditional theater was no longer seen as somethingthat could change society or contribute to its greatergood. Metaphysics and mysticism were on their wayout. Rationality, empirical observation and causalitywere on their way in.The modern emphasis was on rationality, nottranscendence or spirituality. Traditional Asian theaters,grounded as they are in Buddhist, Hindu, animist orSufi beliefs, take as their root the belief in nothingness.Western theater, however, based as it is on an Aristoteliandialectic, puts humans in the center. Embracing Westernforms of theater and education meant seeing the worldin a very different way. Knowledge was regarded as theprovince of the mind and faith or beliefs were held to beinnately unprove-able and so inferior.The empiricism so beloved of the mainstream of Westernthinkers was what changed theater. This dominant viewof human existence was the most powerful globalizinginfluence of the 19 th century.The pattern of modern humans is to resolutely turnaway from precisely those experiences that hold anopportunity to open up the soul and to move beyondrationality; “the kind of transcendental pilgrimageroute offered by the ritual of the noh world by this wayof thinking would find deep obstacles to acceptance”(Rimer 1997).ModernizationNewly modern Japan rapidly became a newly militarizedJapan and in the pre-war period moved politically to theright. Tradition was hijacked for a nationalist agendaof promoting a golden age of Japanese culture. Afterthe war, noh and kabuki were in disgrace and accusedof serving a feudal agenda. However, they were soonrestored to their positions as National Treasures duein large part to the sympathetic insistence of Americancurator/bureaucrats in Japan. In becoming NationalTreasures, they were once again set apart from theevolving historical narrative.However, contemporary artists continued to contest theJapan under American Occupation. The riots in 1967following the ratification of the American involvementin Japanese politics (AMPO) were a demonstrationagainst the increasing Americanization of Japanesepolitics and culture.Angura—A return of the godsA new theater movement, termed underground orangura, sought to re-establish contact with a lost“Japanese-ness” and pre-modern culture. It advocated areturn of tradition and “a return of the gods” to theater.These theater artists attempted to blend traditionaland modern theater with largely leftist politics. Onlyvaguely knowledgeable about traditional theater, theynevertheless felt an impulse to return the sacred to thetheater (Tsuno 1970).David Goodman argues that this “return of the gods”was an attempt to make a bridge to Japan’s cultural pastand a need to reconnect with the “bedrock of Japaneseculture” (Goodman 1997). The angura movementAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

66 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYsought to rethink and transgress the borders of modernJapan, not by embracing the preserved forms of noh andkabuki found in the national theaters but their sacredand shamanic origins.Hijikata Tatsumi, the founder of the post war Japanesedance form, butoh, rejected his ballet training andreturned to the mud and earth of his village in northernJapan to discover the Japanese body that came from thatsame earth stripped of the artifice of centuries of courttradition. His dance of darkness had a profound impacton the young creators of the angura movement. At thesame time, his partnership with contemporary dancerKazuo Ohno created work that drew on both darknessand light. Both had experienced first hand the horrorsof the Pacific war. Hijikata danced “with my dead sisterin one half of my body.” Ohno had the memory of hisyounger sister dying of hunger in his arms.They returned the dead to their rightful place on theJapanese stage and this communion with the deadand this giving voice and movement to those whohad suffered horribly was a powerful return to themetaphysics of noh theater.At the same time, Ohno’s Christian beliefs wereapparent, as were his globalist interests. His seminalwork Remembering La Argentine, a tribute to theArgentinean singer/dancer, was hugely influential,expressing empathy to a person of a culture andtradition across the globe. Nationalism was rejected. Inplaying that role, Kazuo Ohno was transformed into LaArgentine and the universalist, humanist nature of artwas revealed.When Nietzsche called for the establishment of ametaphysical theater capable of healing the existentialproblems of his time, he provoked a revolution inWestern theater, prompting people like Yeats, Artaud,Brecht, Genet and Ionesco to make a new theater.They responded by borrowing from ballet and opera,scrutinizing accounts of myths and rituals in traditionalsocieties, and ransacking the theater traditions of Asia(Karampetsos 1995).In the 1960s, contemporary Japanese theater wasgrappling with the same existential problems and theangura movement’s return to investigate the pre-modernwas a natural response to a global malaise. However,because of the rupture between traditional theaterand shingeki, many of those in the angura movementhad little knowledge of traditional theater. Some intraditional theater attempted to cross the divide.The 1960s saw pioneering work between traditionaland contemporary artists. There were casualties—KanzeHideo was expelled from noh for his involvement inleftist angura theater—but a movement had begun 7 .The global reach of Western scholarship did much topromote the understanding of the role of traditionaltheater. Stern criticism of modern theater arose. Thisimpulse came not only from Japan—it was a globaltheater phenomenon. No longer was the drama orspoken word seen as the central element in theater, withthe actor merely an embodiment of the playwright’svoice. This was concurrent to theater movements inEurope where the Living Theater movement was seekinga new form by questioning the nature and purpose ofart as entertainment for consumers. Theater traditionswere being questioned on a global level. During thisprocess of questioning, the essential structure oftraditional theater such as noh and kabuki, especially theperformance style and concept of the body, became thecenter of attention. Western theater makers flocked toJapan to watch traditional performing arts. Shingeki hadbroken with tradition, insisting, “Don’t dance, move.Don’t sing, tell. (Odoru na ugoke. Utau na, katare.)”Now this was questioned. Theater was recognized againas the body dancing in space and the voice singing.Samuel Beckett wrote that his plays were written to be“sung.” Zeami’s treatises to actors, his 14 th century FushiKaden, had advocated the same thing. Beckett was a hitin Japan. The global movement of people and ideas wasapparent and enriching.Contemporary TheaterIn Sumbawa Donggo owns a horseIn Jakarta Donggo buys a bicycleAjip Rosidi, Indonesian PoetContemporary theater makers in Japan today continueto seek a balance between their modernity and theirtradition. Setagaya Public Theater was founded byangura stalwarts, Black Tent’s Makoto Sato and MatsuiKentaro, to be a theater that would seek to restore thebalance in Japanese theater by reconnecting to thebedrock of Japanese tradition. One Setagaya program,the Contemporary Noh Series, invites establishedplaywrights to interpret anew noh theater. This seriesattempts to go beyond the form of noh to its dramaturgyand metaphysics.Elsewhere, playwright Sakate Yoji, who did his thesison Zeami, owns to not being as interested in Zeami’stheories of performance as his stories. However, his playsall contain ghostly elements. Sakate’s most famous play,Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY67Epitaph for a Whale, has been commented on for itsnoh-like elements and Sakate’s bare minimalist staginghas more in common with the noh stage than with thewestern proscenium.Others drew not on the stories but the metaphysics.Director Ota Shogo turned more deeply to the formand spirit of noh in his “silent plays,” Water Station,Earth Station, and Wind Station. A stalwart of theangura movement, Ota created pieces of non-verbaltheater that startled audiences everywhere. In WaterStation, a single pipe in the middle of the stage providesa focal point for transients who move slowly acrossthe stage. The slow movements of the actors allow usto see the tiny movements of their soul as they stop torefresh themselves, playing out their huge dilemmas ofgrief, hopelessness, joy and despair in small series ofmovements or kata. Using ordinary actors, Ota usedthe form of noh to explore human desires and storiesbut told the complex stories not through words butthrough the use of space and time.In the early 1980s, playwright-director Hirata Oriza,reacting against both the Western shingeki playscriptsas well as the noisiness of the kabuki-inspiredangura “tradition,” made a new kind of theater whichcritics dubbed Quiet Theater. Hirata prefers the termcolloquial theater as his characters, again played by nontraditionalactors, speak a natural, everyday, colloquialJapanese. He acknowledges the direct influence of nohin his work. By making his action and conversationminimalist, he hoped audiences would go beyond whatis being said on stage to what is hidden.Through dramatic construction, theater gives form tothe minute oscillations within the individual who doesnot notice or does not want to notice what is happeningaround him. Traditionally as a medium, theater hasserved the function of providing the illusion of seeingreality. However, today, from the far end of the universeto the inner workings of the human body, there isnothing that we cannot observe anymore as long as ithas tangible shape. Yes there is still one thing that wecannot but desire to see. That is the movement of thehuman soul (Poulton 2006).Returning to Point Zero: Okamoto AkiraFinally, the work of Okamoto Akira and his companyRen’niku Kobo has been profound. Central to hiswork has been his concern with the place of noh incontemporary theater. His Contemporary Noh Series isa return to the metaphysics of traditional theater. Hislong relationship with such artists as the late noh mastersKanze Hisao and Kanze Hideo and the buto dancerKazuo Ohno and his own belief in the importance ofseeking new forms of theatrical expression has led himto cross a multiplicity of borders.Pushing the borders of experimental, avant garde andessential theater, he crossed the borders separatingcontemporary theater, noh, buto and dance. Centralto the work is that they “never assume the theatricalframework or structure as given or established.” Rather,they begin at “Point Zero” by “radically questioning”their work and “treat the whole production process asproblematic from a bottoms up perspective” (Okamoto2007).While acknowledging that theater has an amusementand entertainment aspect, Okamoto feels that “thelack of questioning of the principle of entertainmentas a goal inevitably leads to theater experienced as arigidified habit.” More significantly, he says, it alienatestheater from both its past and its future and removes itfrom its external environment, thus turning theater intolittle more than a present experience. “Theater centeredupon the entertainment principle ends in circular selfrepetition and eventually declines” (Okamoto 2007).Acknowledging this problem led Ren’niku Kobo torealize that while they had to remain focused on noh,they had to constantly demand of themselves how torelate and combine their work with pre-modern theaterand traditional culture. It also led them to collaboratewith both traditional and contemporary artists froma variety of disciplines, including sound, light andmultimedia, adhering firmly to the belief that theater isessentially a pluralistic art form and one that “developsbetween audience and actors” (Grotowski 1997).Okamoto’s company sees tradition, not as a dead form,but one that continues to evolve in the bodies of actors,theater makers and audience members.His deep relationship with various traditional performershas allowed experimentation of a very profound order.In his contemporary noh play Mu (Void), he workedwith two masters of their art—butoh dancer Ohno andnoh master Kanze Hideo. He used texts from threesources, the noh play of the secret old woman NohObasute, Beckett’s drama Rockaby and contemporarypoet Naka Taro.The Noh Obasute deals with the topic of taking oldpeople to the mountain and throwing them away.For Japan’s rapidly aging population, this is a storyrich in cruel metaphor. In the first half, following thedramaturgy of the noh performance, we see a brokenAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

68 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYdown old woman, cruelly cast out into a void. However,in the second half she is transformed. We see past thebroken exterior to the story within and magically we seethe young woman within the old frame.In the performance, we see the apparition of the spiritof the old woman. She is dead but, as with all nohcharacters, she is not dead but merely transformed.Time is not linear but circular. Death does not come asthe end. Instead, she is assimilated with the moonshine,showing a transparent, innocent, dancing figure as aresult.What we see is what Zeami calls senu hima—a void/rapture of time and space in which the actor standsdoing nothing but shows his way of being, completelyuninhibited. In the body of Ohno, in the gutturalearthy chanting of Kanze, in the otherworldly sound ofthe Japanese flute and in the emptiness of the noh-likestage, time and space are transcended: time slows, spaceexpands and the stage contains the universal.By contrast, in Beckett’s Rockaby, aging is theprelude to death. Death will come as an abrupt andempty conclusion. Confined to her rocking chairmanipulated by an unseen hand an old woman,played by a contemporary Japanese actress, babbles.Okamoto (2007) describes aging in modern times as“complete loneliness and is the meaninglessness andempty conclusion of modern times revealing the depthsof vanity.” Both are part of the tradition of modernJapan.Traditional theater: Restoring the deadLike their traditional theater forebears, contemporaryJapanese plays often feature ghosts or the dead. In someway the Angura movement precipitated not so much areturn of the gods but a return of the dead to primacyon the stage. Sam Shepard, the American playwrightwhose works are peppered with ghosts, finds his workmore easily accepted by Japanese audiences thancontemporary American ones who are discomfited bythe dead cohabiting so readily on stage with the living.Traditional theater in Asia and indeed elsewhere is oftenabout conjuring the dead and it is this negotiation withthe dead that is the heart of the shamanic tradition. Ibelieve it is this tradition where the border between thetraditional and contemporary artist will be transgressedand transformed many times over in a multitude of waysallowing release, recognition and joy. Contemporarytheatre too prides itself on providing a voice for thosemade voiceless by contemporary society and politics.ConclusionIn exploring truths as they are revealed to us from anolder belief system, perhaps we can travel some wayfrom the depths of our current vanity which holds fastto its belief in the self-evident. Traditional theater hasmuch to offer, not in the way of form but in a way ofseeing, perceiving and understanding: it seeks to see theinvisible as much as the visible: it is a way of seeingthat is at once humanist and universalist, not nationalistand essentialist. It has a relationship with the past thatgoes beyond the historical. It must, therefore, be leftto evolve and meet the challenges of modernity. In thewords of Indonesian poet and theater maker GoenawanMohamed, “Start with tradition but don’t end there.”Or, like Chihiro, we may be apt to disappear in ashimmer of light or, worse still, find ourselves inhabitingan abandoned theme park filled with the detritus ofcultural scenarios (Napier 2007).NOTES1MacDonald’s.2It is said that modern Japanese audiences are somewhatembarrassed by the strangeness of noh or kyogen in themodern world. But they sense in these theaters a link,however tenuous, connecting them with a part of theircultural heritage, and in the end they feel rather lonelywithout them. Sabaka Junko makes this analogy: acontemporary audience is like the husband in the kyogenplay The Sickle (Kamabara) who cannot get along with hiswife but, having failed to kill himself and the relationship,he returns home distressed and upset but relieved athaving the comforts of a familiar home and marriage.3See 10 th century Genji Monogatari.4Japanese proverb.5 Globalization is, moreover, not simply a western export.Thus, a whole-hearted embrace of Arab culture inIndonesia, for example, with its claims that this constitutesa more authentic (more Muslim) identity can similarlylead to a false sense of identity with onion-shaped mosquesreplacing more diverse structures and the ubiquitousjilbab replacing a larger variety of head coverings. It isa movement towards what Goenawan Mohamed (2001)terms “Al Identity.”6The problem, of course, lies with issues of what constitutesauthenticity and the “real.” Traditional culture isoften feminized. The feminized country is valued forAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY69her beauty and purity, which must be preserved anddefended. Traditional symbols of Japan are flattered byforeign authors: “The most artistic people in the world;”“Nothing is ugly in the humblest Japanese home;” “Noother nation even understands so well how to make a cup,a tray, even a kettle, a thing of beauty.” This flatteringview from the outside is then adopted to sell Japan bothto locals and foreigners. The relationship to tradition thenbecomes one of consumption and there is a great dangerin structurally positioning art as a consumable objectagainst the consuming power of the West—whether thatconsuming power is tourists, heritage organizations such asUNESCO or well meaning curators intent on preservingart forms. A defense of preserving Japan’s traditional pastoften depends on locating Japan in the past as innocent,young, feminine and consumable. The quandary is thatdefenders of culture become through their objectificationof that culture complicit with its subordination, leadingto what Rey Chow has called “the ugliest double bind inthe history of imperialism” (Quoted in Pham 1999).7 Kabuki, too, is evolving today. Youthful Kabuki superstarShido Nakamura’s latest kabuki offered audiences aflashier, faster version including a grand finale in whicha police car burst onstage through a back door. “Whenkabuki is taken abroad, it’s always taken as somethingtraditional and grand,” says Shido “I’d like to showpeople it’s a living thing.” Says 27-year-old Misaho Sato,“I never thought I’d be caught dead at a kabuki play. ButI’m definitely coming back” (Newsweek 2007).REFERENCESGeorge, David. “Re-orientations: The Sound of Two HandsClapping.” Fensham, Rachel and Peter Eckersall. Eds. Dis/orientations: Cultural Praxis in Theater: Asia, Pacific, Australia.Monash Theater Papers I. Clayton, Australia: Centre forDrama and Theatre Studies, Monash University, 1999.Napier, Susan. “Matter out of Place: Carnival, Containmentand Cultural Recovery in Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away.” Journalof Japanese Studies 32.2 (2006): 287-310. Newsweek. GrandKabuki. Oct 6 2006.Okamaoto, Akira. The Actor’s Body in No and ContemporaryTheatre—On the Work of Ren’niku Kobo. Unpublished Paper,2007Patitta Chalermpow Koanatakool. “Thai Middle Class Practiceand Consumption of Traditional Dance.” Local Culture andthe ‘New Asia’: The State, Culture and Capitalism in SoutheastAsia. C.J.W.-L. Wee. Ed. Singapore: ISEAS, 2002: 217-241.Pham, P.L. “On the Edge of the Orient: EnglishRepresentations of Japan Circa 1895-1910.” Japanese Studies19.2 (1999): 163-181.Poulton, Cody. “The Rhetoric of the Real.” Modern JapaneseTheatre and Performance. Jortner, David, Keiko McDonald,and Kevin Wetmore, Jr. Eds. Lanham, Maryland: LexingtonBooks, 2006: 17-32.Rimer, J. Thomas. “Contemporary Audiences and thePilgrimage to No.” No and Kyogen in the Contemporary World.Brandon, James. Ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,1997.Sen, Amartya. The Argumentative Indian. New York: Farrar,Straus and Giroux, 2005.Tsuno, Kaitaro. “Biwa and Beatles: An Invitation toModern Japanese Theatre.” Concerned Theatre Japan SpecialIntroductory Issue (1970): 6-12.Goodman, David. Japanese Drama and Culture in the 1960’s:The Return of the Gods. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997.Grotowski, L. A. “The Grotowski Sourcebook.” The GrotowskiSourcebook. Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford. Eds.London: Routledge, 1997.Karampetsos, E.D. The Theatre of Healing. New York: PeterLang Publishing, New York, 1996.Mishima, Yukio. Five Modern No Plays. Trans. DonaldKeene. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957.Mohamad, Goenawan. Catatan Pinggir 5. Jakarta: Graffiti,2001.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

70 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYTRANSMISSION, PEDAGOGY AND EDUCATION: A CRITICALSTUDY OF ASIAN TRADITIONAL MUSIC CULTURES IN POST-COLONIAL AND POST-MODERN TIMES IN THAILAND ANDINDONESIARamón Pagayon SantosIntroduction and General FrameworkIn the post-colonial era, traditional musical expressionsas a primary source of cultural identity for peoplesand communities in Asia face new challenges asthey continue to evolve under changing social andinstitutional conditions. This new era in Asian musicallife is characterized by infrastructure building bynation-states for self-determination, globalization andhigh technology.The present study 1 formulates a broad perspectiveon the transmission and teaching of Asian musicaltraditions and repertoires as they reflect changingpedagogical concepts, strategies and techniques thathave been brought about by Western colonization.The adoption and transformative application of thesestrategies and techniques by local educators andmodern culture bearers, premised on sustaining thecontinuity of traditional musical practices as a sourceof cultural identity and a sense of selfhood, may beviewed as both a direct reaction and a creative responseto the challenges and dynamics of change, whethersocial, political, economic, or religious. The thrust tobuild modern societies was characterized by redefiningand reconfiguring social practices in communitylife towards achieving political stability, economicprosperity and the legitimacy of one’s membership inthe “civilized” international community. It is in theissue of the transmission of traditional cultures that onecan fully appreciate the tension and even confusion thatchanges in social values and institutions have created inreconciling the cultural significance of traditional lifeand expressive practices with the legacy of the colonialera.Institutionalization of pedagogy and moderneducation: Formal structures, standards and literacyThe establishment of formal educational institutions 2in Southeast Asia, deriving mainly from the overallliteracy agenda of the colonial regimes, later providedthe principal instrument for the development ofprofessionally productive citizenries in modernizingnation-states (Department of Education 1994). As aprescriptive instrument, each set of curricular offeringsembodies each institution’s vision, not only of the kindof graduates that it expects to produce, but also of thelatter’s role in a changing society, as well as the roleof the institution itself in contributing to the culturaland economic development of its region and the entirenation (see Fry 2002). Partly on this account, culturalpractices have been re-taxonomized into, for example,“classical” forms as practiced in Royal Courts andtemples and “secularized” forms for public consumptionvis-à-vis folk rituals involving elements that includespirit possession and trance. 3 Consequently, traditionalrepertoires also have to be fitted into the curricularstructures whose parameters are partly defined by timeallotments between practical, theoretical and extraartisticcourse requirements, replacing the almostunbounded and flexible schema of traditional pedagogythat “authorizes” the traditional master to teach onlywhat his disciples are capable of learning. Under theseconditions, modern education has produced two typesof artists: 1) academic artists and formally trainedexperts, many of whom have extended their academicexperience abroad and gained substantive materialbenefits; and 2) village-bred artists who developedtheir expertise through direct participation in villagetraditions and who identify themselves as “natural”artists.The tension between pedagogy and learning in thepast and at the present time is even more dramaticallyfelt in the dynamics of learning between oral andwritten methodologies (i.e., the use of notation). 4Today, the growing reliance of students on writing inall aspects of modern education has greatly affectedaural memory, bringing about a diminishing sense ofextemporality and aptitude for variation that are partof the “unwritten” canons and creative mechanism intraditional performance practice. Moreover, moderneducation has imposed a greater burden on masterartists who have to adjust to the literate process ofmusic education, including the learning of the solfasystem. They are subjected to institutional systemsof accreditation of teaching competence, academiccertificates and revalidation of their orally-acquiredknowledge according to the tenets of modern highereducation as pre-requisites to teaching in institutionsof higher learning. For this reason, the master artistsAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY71have had to suffer through the academic drudgery(oftentimes under the advisorship of their own formerpupils or disciples with master’s and doctorate degreesin ethnomusicology or music education), a case ofexperts relearning what they already know and are verygood at. 5Ethnomusicology serves as another form of modernizingthe entire domain of traditional arts education. InIndonesia, ethnomusicology has become a traditionin itself, having been implanted by pioneers of thediscipline such as Jaap Kunst and Mantle Hood, whoadopted Indonesia as a prime study area and sourceof early exotic specimens of non-Western musiccomparative inquiry.The eventual “importation” of masters and artists,especially from Java and Bali, to teach and earn graduatedegrees in Western institutions of learning developeda new breed of experts. Except for a few committedscholars 6 who produce a substantive number of academicwritings and publications, local ethnomusicology differsfrom Western practice in that it is primarily concernedwith acquiring the tools for the study of differentmusical cultures and the acquisition of knowledge andskills in Western music theory, notation, transcriptionand research methodology.Ethnomusicology graduates abound in Indonesiatoday but because of the lack of practical employment,graduates end up with other occupations (e.g., playingand arranging popular Western music for entertainmentand the music industry, conducting choral groups,playing the organ in church). A more substantivereason for performing artists, whether in the field ofdance or karawitan (musical performing arts) to takeup ethnomusicology is the goal of earning advanceddegrees abroad since ethnomusicology is the only viablearea by which orally-trained artists in native music canstudy at Western institutions of higher learning.Innovation, creative exploration and compositionInnovation in a wider sense is an imperative responseto social changes. Such latter-day changes are easilytraceable to the advent and influence of Western cultureon the local way of life, secularization of expressiveforms, notion of public entertainment and concerts,sense of individualism, modern technology and itsapplication in the arts, and the commercialization ofthe arts in the context of popular culture. The idea ofthe public audience has shifted the power from theartist influencing the taste and cultural orientationof his community to the modern audience who now“commands” “market trends and tastes” that artistsshould cater to, even at the expense of altering thestylistic and aesthetic essentialities of his/her musicalpractice.Such dynamics are no more clearly underscored thanby the innovations and, sometimes revolutionary,inventions of individual artists. The blind khaen(reed mouth organ) player Sompat Simpla, 47, fromWang Hai village in Borabu, Northeastern Thailand,revolutionized the playing of the khaen, while molam(vocal repartee from Northeast Thailand) artist RatreeSriwilai (pronounced Seewilai), 54, has become apopular icon for her “invention” of the molam xing,a fast and popular version of the classic molam khlon,performed complete with a troupe of mini-skirteddancing girls. Among the Karo Batak, the name of JasaTarigan is very well known for having introduced theelectronic keyboard into “traditional” Batak music.Although functioning mainly for modern publicentertainment, electronic technology and other moderndevices have been adopted to facilitate learning. The useof recording devices in the classroom has effectivelyaddressed the limited time allotment for each class periodas well as the time a master has to teach each individualstudent. Some teachers have devised audio-visual kitswith prescribed lessons, such as the queen of molam xing,Ratree Sriwilai, who devised her own “distance learning”strategies by producing learning kits containing VCDsand written instructional materials. 7 RamkhamhaengUniversity is an open university that uses television andsatellite technology to teach around 600,000 studentsall over Thailand. Recently, the University acquired theservices of master musician Somsak Ketukanchan todesign a program of distance education for the musicalarts, which could substantially replace the notion andpractice of individual discipleship and apprenticeship infavor of highly impersonal, wholesale mass education.CompositionIn today’s arts education, emphasis has been placed oncreativity as part of the over-all strategy of modernizingartistic productions. In Southeast Asia, creation in thetraditional practice covers various notions such as the:a) composition of new songs (either melody alone ormelody and text) and or texts; b) re-creation of songsthrough the variation and improvisation of songsand/or texts; c) incorporation of Western tunes intotraditional forms (e.g., “Jingle Bells” played on gamelan(Indonesian gong-chime ensemble) instruments); andd) integration of all musically-related elements andaspects—Western and non-Western theory, notation,Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

72 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYperformance technique, electronic technology andinnovation—in the manufacture of instruments, amongothers.Kreasi baruThe concept of composition as an individual creativeact is considered to have been sown in Indonesia in the1950s, with special reference to the contributions of PakJokro, who composed many gendhing (compositions) 8with lyrics on contemporary issues, and institutionalizedthe formal teaching of traditional repertories in thevillages (modernesasi desa).Today, the repertoire called kreasi baru (new creations)has become a standard nomenclature in the Indonesianart world. According to Sumaryono, 9 this new repertoiremay even be subdivided into three sub-categories,especially applicable to the modern dance tradition (tari):1) revitalization or restoration of old forms generallyreferred to as kreasi baru (in music, new compositionsin the old forms could also be considered under thiscategory); 2) seni moderen, referring to the productionof pieces applying the creative freedom developed inthe West (e.g., pieces by Martha Graham, 20 th centuryprinciples in Western music); and 3) kontemporer,meaning new experiments and avant-gardism based ontraditional arts. The latter refers to the “avant-garde”works produced by karawitan artists who modernize thetraditional performance practice by reconfiguring thegamelan ensemble, integrating instruments from othercultures, including the West, and adopting and fusingelements from such major traditional styles as those fromBali, Yogyakarta, or Sunda, as well as Western music.This movement has also evolved a new compositionalprocess, a semi-oral, collective procedure, in whichperformers of an ensemble, whether purely musical orwith other artistic media, develop the final form of apiece through continuous “rehearsals.” The dichotomybetween composers trained in the West, writing scoresand pieces of music that adopt ideas and elements fromtraditional repertoires, and the “karawitan composers”who adopt the oral process as their point of trajectory, 10has fomented ideological tension, in spite of the factthat both “camps” are in reality partly the result of thelarger influence of Western theory and practice.Preserving indigenous pedagogy in moderneducationCognizant of the dialectic, if not dialogic, differencebetween traditional pedagogy and modern education,institutions and their faculties have been exploring areasby which a compromise could be achieved between thetwo learning ideologies. Some of the principal strategiesare:• The employment of master artists in classrooms.Whether they do actual teaching or simply lendtheir iconic presence, master artists visibly affectthe attitudes and behavior of students. 11• Reviving orality through literate strategies.Although repertoires are introduced in writtennotation, students are required to commit them tomemory.• Team teaching as a replication of communallearning. The concepts of communal learningand team teaching have been adopted as a classstrategy, ideally consisting of five teachers to a classof 10 to 15 students, allowing semi-individualizedmonitoring, although not all schools are able tobear the cost implication. 12• Sourcing the villages. In schools that do notprovide for hiring master artists in the regularprogram, individual professors include field workin their course requirements, sometimes leadingto a state of discipleship with the masters on thestudents’ own time. To preserve the aesthetic linkbetween modern institutions and traditional villagecommunities, the Indonesian Institute of the Arts(ISI) Solo requires each graduating student topresent his/her terminal project, the graduationexamination-recital, in his/her home village wherethe jury consists of both faculty from the homeinstitution and masters from the student’s ownvillage.Threats, new initiatives and institutional safeguardsCommodification of culture; performance as professionAs commonly perceived, the impact of outsideinfluences (e.g., entertainment, economy, religion,technology) is viewed as the principal threat thatundermines the essentialities and the aesthetic,theoretical, and pedagogical integrity of the expressivetraditions of a particular country or society. With thepressures of globalization, Thailand and Indonesia,branded as “developing” together with other SoutheastAsian nation-states, have consciously measuredtheir development as members of the internationalcommunity in economic terms. The commercializationof traditional music and the arts has become a partof the modernizing landscape all over Southeast Asia.Hotels, restaurants, shopping malls, and other publicvenues in Indonesia, including temples and palaces, arenow providing venues for traditional performing arts asa commodity to foreign visitors just like the symphonyAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY73orchestra concerts and ballet, which metropolitan areaslike Bangkok and Jakarta have also been promotingas emblems of modern urban life. The infusion of theelement of entertainment into traditional events such asweddings, anniversaries and even funerals has createdopportunities for artists. Many students and graduatesof arts academies and vocational high schools haveorganized performing groups like the sanggar 13 so thatthey could join the ranks of other wage earners in themodernizing social environment. As traditional artistsbecome part of the professional community, the artforms themselves have undergone drastic changes intheir aesthetic and intrinsic functional value. Longrituals in Bali have been shortened by their conversioninto public performances where they have been fittedinto tourism packages, including even cremationceremonies. 14 In the sanghiyang ritual of the kecak inBali, the very time of the spirit possession can practicallybe predicted in terms of minutes.Music as business and industryThe proliferation of music business programs inleading universities in Thailand is the result of newgovernment directives specifying that each program inhigher education must justify itself by ensuring that thegraduates will earn a living from these specializations.For this reason, music business as a study programor course content in tertiary schools has becomepart of the overall arts curriculum. The incipience ofresearch on developing and mass producing traditionalinstruments can now be observed, as in the effortsof Piyapan Santawisook, Assistant to the Presidentof Mahasarakham University, who has a privatelaboratory-factory just outside the university. Thethrust to produce highly professional individuals whocan contribute to the material progress of the nationcould reach some radical limits. Mass production ofphin (three-string tear-shaped lute from the Northeast)and wot (circular panpipe) can be found in a factory inKentong village in Khon Kaen province, being run bytwo young entrepreneurs, owner-artist-managers Decha,21, a recording artist, and his older sister PennapaChasanguan, 24, who is taking an MBA course to honeher business sense. In Thaksin University in SouthernThailand, a proposal has been submitted to transformthe Music Department into a “College of ProfessionalMusic” under the concept that all programs must leadtowards professional careers in music 15 (Dansakoon2006).At the Mahidol University College of Music, Dr. SukreeCharoensook has added studies in music technologyand music business to the curriculum. Because of itsnatural affinity with income generation and commercialentertainment, popular music in all its forms, includingthe study of molam xing, is a principal feature of themusic business curricula. Mahidol University also hasthe most financially successful ventures in the field ofmusic education. It operates extension schools of musiccalled “Music Campuses for the General Public” 16situated in three different shopping centers, each branchcatering to the different middle-income brackets thatpatronize these malls. 17Vocational schoolsParallel to the proliferation of programs and courses inmusic business in Thailand is the restructuring of thearts high schools in Indonesia into vocational trainingcenters under the new political dispensation andeducational reform. From their status as arts academies,arts high schools have been reformatted and renamedSekolah Menengga Kejuruan Indonesia (SMKI), 18with a total of eight such centers all over the country.Quoting from the information sheet of SMKI inBantul, Yogyakarta, the State Performing Arts “teachesstudents to have abilities and skills in performing artsrequired by entertainment and art industry.” 19 Oneof the social roles of the vocational schools is to findor identify potential employment for their graduatesand to forge linkages with commercial establishments.The highly pro-active SMKI in Yogyakarta lists itslinkages with Hotel Jayakarta and Hotel Mutiaraand dance sanggars (community-based performinggroups) such as PLT Bagong Kussdihardja, Didik NiniThowok Entertainment, as well as the Radio RepublikIndonesia, Radio Swasta di DIY, and Televisi RepublikIndonesia.The arts have also always been considered an integralprogram for schools for the disabled, especially theblind. In Chiang Mai, the Northern School for theBlind of Her Royal Highness the Queen’s Patronagehas an active music program. 20 However, the musicprogram is more of an elective rather than a regularpart of the general curriculum. In North Sumatra, theVocational School Center for the Blind (Yapentra) inTanjung Morawa recently started music instructionon Batak music. Most of the instruction in music iscentered on areas that can be useful for earning a livingin the entertainment industry: drums, guitar, violin,trumpet and piano. These are offered together withother skills such as carpentry and massage, which arecompulsory for all visually impaired students.The advent of new communication media and thecommodification of artistic productions as modernAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

74 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYentertainment is particularly identified with the youthor what is essentially the future citizenry of the nationalpolity. Threats from outside and inside of Indonesia’scurrent system of governance have spawned new reactivestrategies from the artistic and cultural communities.They have devised alternative methodologies ineducation and organized national and internationalevents, all directed towards challenging and matchingthe temperament of today’s youth, as well as promotingsolidarity among artists and instilling a nationalconsciousness for culture and the arts. Targeting theapathy of youth towards traditional cultural practices,Endo Suanda, one of the major artist-educatorstoday, established LPSN (Lembaga Pendidikan SeniNusantara) with the vision of not only revitalizing aknowledge and appreciation of their cultural heritageamong high school students, but also a feeling ofpride. LPSN produces teaching materials (e.g., books,monographs, and audiovisual kits), conducts workshopsand regularly visits the schools to monitor the progressof both schools and teachers who have adopted this newstrategy. To date, the project, which began in 2002, hasestablished twelve regional centers on all major islandsin Indonesia, accredited some 1,000 teachers andreached some 100,000 students (Lembaga PendidikanSeni Nusantara 2006, Gombloh 2007).Institutional safeguardsIn spite of the changes in the value and relevanceof traditional expressive cultures in modern life,institutional mechanisms either remain in place orare being established in order to preserve traditionalpractices as living emblems of a society’s culturalheritage. These mechanisms, both humanly evolvedand nature-induced, may be viewed as functioning assafeguards in the conservation of the essential integrityof the traditional expressive cultures.The Khru cultureAbiding respect for one’s teacher and master isembodied in the wai khru, 21 an annual ceremonyhonoring the master as well as an occasion for formallyinitiating young people to a life of discipleship, almostlike taking a vow to aspire for mastery of one’s musicalskills. The wai khru ceremony in Thailand 22 is indicativenot only of the respect and reverence for the teacher inany productive endeavor, but also respect for what hasbeen learned.The Royal CourtsThe royal courts, whether politically active or not, serveas a de facto conserver of the cultural traditions, beingthemselves part of such traditions. Performers who areprivileged to be members of the palace ensembles arewell versed in traditional practices, especially the ritesand ceremonies. In Thailand, the royal family’s supportof culture and the arts is particularly notable in thatKing Bhumipol is a practicing musician-composerand Princess Sirindhorn is a fine khaen performer.In Indonesia, the royal court ceremonies are closelyintegrated with religious rites. In modern times, thecourts also provide the venues and facilities for publicperformances. What is perhaps a more significant role ofthe courts lies in their symbolic presence, continuouslyserving as a living mechanism in keeping alive thespiritual and social significance of the artistic traditionsperformed under their auspices. Many of the masterswho are members of the court artistic groups also teachin academic institutions and their choice disciples getthe opportunity to apprentice with them, eventuallybecoming court musicians themselves (see Hari 2007).The family and pedagogic dynastiesThe family tradition remains a strong factor in the socialfabric of Southeast Asian peoples. As an institution,it also serves as a mechanism in the transmission oftraditional values, knowledge, and cultural identity.In the course of the research, many artists traced theirlifework to their parents and earlier ancestry. SamangJiangkan, 55, a molam master, first learned the artfrom his uncle because his father could not send himto school among nine children. Surasak Pimsen fromKhon Kaen, who plays several instruments such asthe khlui (recorder) and phin, grew up in a family ofmusicians and was reared by his father, Buen Pimsen, amolam teacher. In Gyanyar, the most famous gamelanfactory, Sidha Karya, traces its existence through some500 years of family history of gamelan manufacturing.The present generation of lecturers in arts schools andinstitutes are mostly children of master village artists.The pedalangan tradition itself in Central Java is tracedback to the Mataram Kingdom that later became theKingdom of Karto Suro, and its proliferation to otherparts of Indonesia is believed to have branched out fromone extended family tree. 23Thus, the concept of family does not only refer toimmediate kinship among members of a household butto extended family units, clans and artistic dynasties.The pedagogic dynasty in Thai classical music isan interesting, if not intriguing illustration: 24 thepresent generation of teachers, whether in academicor informal educational settings, traces their artisticlineage to pedagogic dynasties. In general, thereAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY75are about four or five schools (i.e., groups, stables,dynasties) distinguished from one another not only interms of style (e.g., variational techniques), repertoireand aesthetics, among others, but also by ideologicaldifferences. Such differences are fueled by a strong senseof competition and the pursuit of social, if not artistic,prominence, and are closely identified with legendarymasters and founding patriarchs. 25 The phenomenonof the pedagogic dynasty could also be extended to theinstitutional dynasty in Indonesia, where the two oldestarts institutions, ISI Solo and ISI Yogyakarta havespawned most of the teaching forces in the traditionalperforming arts in the entire nation, whether in artshigh schools (sekolah menangga) or in arts colleges,institutes, and universities.Empowerment of traditional resources through awards andcompetitionsThe system of rewards, ranging from the national artistaward 26 to special awards and citations from the RoyalFamily are sources of prestige as well as social andartistic capital, including employment in institutionsof higher learning and the procurement of disciples.Competitions as validating strategies in the communitylikewise serve various purposes: as a rite of passagethat can transform winning participants from beingordinary musicians to bearers of cultural emblems, oras a short-cut to earning prestige certificates withouthaving to go through a formal educational curriculum.In competitions, participants are usually identified withthe masters who groomed and trained them or to theschool in which the students are enrolled. 27Institutional mechanismsNational governments have established cultural centersto house cultural agencies and promote culturalactivities. The Taman Budaya in Solo, 28 a sprawlinglandscape of finely and artistically built structures,houses several offices, including an audio-visual library.It has all possible venues—pendopos (performancepavilions), arena-like open theaters, an indoor theater,an art gallery, rehearsal halls equipped with gamelan,and other musical and extra-musical facilities. Variousinterest groups, especially those conducting workshopsfor children, use these facilities for free. Anotherinstitutional mechanism is the presence of foreignfunding agencies such as the Asia Society in Bangkokand the Ford Foundation in Indonesia, and theprograms and projects that they fund in cooperationwith local individuals or institutions. The latter hasgiven substantial assistance to educational projectsincluding the LPSN of Endo Suanda, UPI research, theproduction of teaching materials and the RevitalizationProgram of Universitas Sumatera Utara, headed byRhitaony Hutajulu (Hutajulu 2006).The seasonal cycleThe continuing power of the seasonal cycle of livingwhere both religion and nature dictate the boundariesof human existence and societal participation provideanother factor in the perpetuation of traditional musicalpractices. The major religions of Buddhism, Islam andHinduism are permanent sources of commemorativeactivities such as the Mawlid and the Buddhist Lent,which require musical performances and other forms ofartistic expression.The artists, the community and the schoolsConsciousness for identity and, on the part of the artists,the pride and passion for what they are doing and theirspiritual rewards even without the material motivationconstitute an intangible force in ensuring the perpetuityof traditional cultural expressions. The likes of SudjitDuryapranit, Unlan Hongtong and Damrong Chaipatin Thailand open and offer their houses as virtualschools for village youth. In Indonesia, newly emergedartist icons with high academic and social standing (e.g.,Rahayu Supangga, 29 I Wayan Dibia, Pak Jokro) providevenues for artists to perform and sustain the traditionalarts. They have actually joined the ranks of art patrons,who range from members of the Royal Household towealthy families. Such individual commitments are aresult of the sense of community that remains strong inboth Indonesia and Thailand, reflected in great part inthe communal nature of their performing arts media,especially the musical arts. There are regular communityprograms such as the Pendidikan Kahasajatraan Kluwarta(PKK) or Education Family Welfare Organizationprogram activities for women towards the acquisitionof useful skills. The cooperation between artists andcommunity extends to the local system. A number ofthese schools share a deep concern for the preservationof traditional arts, such as Mekar Arum High Schoolin Cinunuk Cileunyi in Bandung regency, which offersarts education in its three-year high school program andtakes pride in garnering major prizes in regional andnational competitions for young artists.Postlude/PreludeThe transmission of traditional expressive cultures is abroad arena in which modern infrastructures of learninghave generally been superimposed on traditionalmethodologies of pedagogy, whether exercised as aAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

76 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYconscious strategy of sustaining tradition or practiced aspart of a larger socio-cultural template in the course ofhuman life in Southeast Asia. Looking at the larger issueof transmission, one may argue a theory of differencebetween interventional acculturation and evolutionaryenculturation with reference to the cultural historyof Southeast Asian peoples in the last 500 years. Inthis regard, the present study offers a much moreopen-ended view not only of the highly complextransformative nature of cultural transmission, but alsothe multi-dimensionality of the entire phenomenon inwhich individuals and institutions interact with extraterritorialinfluences. From one perspective, such aspectsas belief systems and modes of worship, gender, familyorganization, the community and political governancehave emerged in the course of the present inquiry asboth agents of change and institutional safeguardsin sustaining and preserving the essentialities of theexpressive traditions.From another standpoint, the economic agencies ofthe times have brought about a dramatic shift in thevaluation as well as the utilization of the artistic productvis-à-vis the new institutions of learning that have nowbeen tasked with developing a new resource, capableof converting an intangible patrimony to materiallyprofitable productions. In this regard, human resources,artists and culture bearers, as well as modern institutionsof learning, become the focal point as the ultimaterepository of power and the main instrument by whichcanons of transmission and learning may be ideated,formulated, transformed and practiced.Institutional and formal modes of transmission andlearning are predictably going to be the way of thefuture. Change, however, exacts sacrifices and evenloss, as well as gains and profits on the part of the largerdomain of tradition. It shall, therefore, depend on theartists themselves to effect a balance between what is lostand what is gained and accordingly exercise their powerand imagination in using the institutional machineriesto determine the parameters of change through whichand by which they can exercise the license to create andinnovate, in the process of sustaining, perpetuating andenhancing tradition.NOTES1Data were gathered from study visits to the main regionsof Thailand (North, Northeast, Central and South) andthe major provinces of Indonesia (Jakarta, West Java(Bandung), North Sumatra, Central Java (Solo andYogyakarta) and Bali); meetings were held with more thana hundred principal consultants and visits were made tomore than 50 institutions and communities during thefour and a half months of field study.2In the formalization of teaching and learning traditional artsand culture, three types of institutions of higher learningproviding professional arts education have evolved: 1) thearts institute; 2) the teacher training institution and/oruniversity; and 3) the academic university.3Many of these folk rituals have also become spectator events,performed at fairs and other tourist and commercialvenues.4 Notation came into the learning process in the musicalcultures of both Indonesia and Thailand in the late 19thand early 20th centuries, initially introduced and inducedby Western missionaries and pioneering scholars whoseinterest ranged from purely historical documentationto scholarly study and the cultural preservation of localmusical repertoires (see Miller 1992, Seelig 1932, Sontong1973, Lenasawat 1992, Diya 2006).5 Some institutions have found faster solutions to thisproblem by awarding honorary degrees, such as anhonorary baccalaureate degree, as in the case of pi-nora(double-reed instrument used in nora) master Kuan Yokby the Rajabhat University in Songkhla. The RajabhatUniversity in Chiang Mai has also awarded DamrongChaipet, 74, a master drum artist and drum maker fromBan To village, an honorary master’s degree, as was UnlanHongton, a master artist in sung (4-string rounded boxlute from Northern Thailand), pi (free-reed bamboo pipe)and so (vocal repartee from Northern Thailand) from thevillage of Chiang Dao.6Many of these scholars have studied abroad such as I MdeBandem, Endo Suanda, Sumaryono, Waridi, SantosaSowerlan, Bambang Sunarto, among others. See Sunarto2007 as an illustration of scientific writing.7See Sriwilai 1994.8There is no exact equivalent in the Western music system.The ghending is in the form of a basic melodic formula ora song that serves as the nuclear material for performancesby a gamelan ensemble.9Interview with Sumaryono conducted on 3 May 2007 inYogyakarta.10 In spite of major efforts such as festivals of modern art(including the hosting of the 1999 Asian ComposersLeague Festival in Solo and Yogyakarta) to reconcileAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY77the activities of the leading personalities from the twocamps, practitioners of these two highly distinct creativestreams have yet to find a common ground in promotingIndonesian contemporary music.11 Masters such as Pluang Chairatsami at the KalasinDramatic Arts College or Chalerm Maungpraesri of theDramatic Arts College (Bunditpatanasilpa Institute) inBangkok who are employed by formal institutions arerequired to do nothing much but correct and commentwhile the direct teaching is done by instructors.12Such teaching methodologies make the academic operationof these schools a very expensive enterprise. At SMKISolo, there are 180 students and 74 teachers, which givesa high teacher-student ratio of 2.43 students per teacher.13 The sanggars are groups that have been organized underthe broad motivation of preserving traditional culture,especially of the community that they represent or arebased in. What is significant in the sanggar movementis the required presence of master artists who teachand guide the members and act as artistic advisers oreven leaders. The sanggars, although not organized forcommercial purposes, could be invited or commissionedto perform for special events such as fairs and other specialpublic performances.14 The cremation ceremony is not only done when someonedies: bodies are first buried and only cremated on theappropriate dates determined by local elders. Thus, hotelsand tourism offices are able to advertise cremation eventsin advance; the cremations consist of a procession towardsthe beach and setting the body on a watercraft that is seton fire and pushed out to the sea.15 In the proposed curriculum, traditional folk music has beenexcluded in the study areas for the reason that performersof folk traditions earn their living from other activitiessuch as farming, fishing, craft and other “non-musical”occupations.16 The courses run for 12 meetings, ranging between 25 to55 minutes per meeting depending on the number ofpersons in a class. A certificate of completion is givenafter a student successfully passes an examination in eachcourse. The ages of the students in this extension programrange from primary school age to 70. Because there are nofixed music programs in the primary schools, the schoolprovides the instructions that many middle-class familiesnow consider part of the total cultivation of their childrenas modern-day citizens.17 The first school was established some ten years ago inthe Seri Department Store in the east side of Bangkok,followed by the second, established eight years ago in theCentral Department Store.18 Historically, the SMKIs were originally founded as“konservatori,” and later changed to Sekolah MenanggaKarawitan Indonesia in 1976. In 1997, the change ofthe letter “K” from Karawitan (musical arts) to Kejuruan(skills) represented a big ideological shift in its educationalpurpose and social significance.19 This transformation dismayed many leaders in the artsworld, who themselves graduated from these institutionswhen their mission was still based on the developmentof future artists. Such names as Rahayu Supangga, AlSuwardi and H. Soetarno are a few of the long list ofillustrious artists now representing and nurturing thecultural and artistic life of the nation.20 The school has a regular pop band to play at appreciationprograms for school patrons and sponsors. The Directress,Mrs. Pikul Leosiripong, who assumed the Directorshipin 2001, introduced the training in “massage” as wellas music because, before, the blind had only two waysof earning a living—one was to sell lottery tickets andthe other was to beg as musicians. She was the first tointroduce Thai instruments and recruited the presentteacher through her husband, Dr. Prasit Leosiripong, aretired professor of musicology at Rajabhat University.21 The culture of the khru (master-teacher) and its principalmanifestation in the wai khru is practiced in the differentfields of endeavor in which skills are transmitted fromthe master to his/her pupil or disciple. Thus, traditional“crafts” such as massage, carpentry, healing andinstrument making are areas where the transmissionalprocess through pedagogy is considered of high social, ifnot sacred, value.22 While the materiality of respect for teachers is manifestedin the Thai wai khru, respect for the wisdom transmittedby teachers and elders is likewise strongly felt amongcontemporary Indonesian artists in an informal and lessovert manner.23 According to Sri Raharjo who belongs to this family,the entire pedalangan tribe is connected to the family ofRahayu Supangga.24 As told by Surasak Chamnongsam and ManopWisuttipat.25 These schools include: 1) School of Banglam Pu, now headedby master Somchai Duryapranit and Sudjid, which tracesAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

78 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYits pedagogical lineage to Praya Sano (b. 1866); 2) BanMai School now headed by Samran Kerdphon (b. 1926)and which traces its lineage to Chang Wangtua (1881);3) School of Luang Pradit (b. 1881), being now nurturedby a foundation established by his niece, Malinee Sagarik;4) School of Praya Prasan, also a famous master, whostudied with Choi, the blind father of Praya Sano; and5) School of Mo Plumpricha, formerly very influential,which recruited the finest players to staff its group andschool and vies with Banglam Pu for prestige.26 National artists enjoy a lifetime salary from thegovernment.27 Although they do not join these competitions (eventhough they are open to any age or social sector), masterartists stake their reputation as masters when they fieldtheir wards as competitors. A teacher’s credentials are notonly enhanced by the number of students but also by thenumber of trophies and awards students have won.28 The first Taman Budaya to be established and laterreplicated in Bandung, Jakarta and Bali.29 Since most of these artists are also active in bothperformance and creative work, one could view thisnew phenomenon as an effort to maintain a reservoirof traditional knowledge that provides the fundamentalingredients for artistic experimentation.of North Sumatra Traditional Music (1 January 2007 - 31December 2008). Bali. 2006.Lembaga Pendidikan Seni Nusantara. Selamat TahunBaru (Happy New Year) 2007. Calendar. Jakarta: LembagaPendidikan Seni Nusantara. 2006.Lenasawat, Rîchat. Thai Notation Book 4. Sakon Nakhorn:Rajabhat, 1992.Miller, Terry. “The Theory and Practice of Thai MusicalNotations.” Ethnomusicology 36 (1992): 197-221.Seelig, Paul. Siamese Music Collection. Bandung: EditionMatatani Bandoeng N.O.J., 1932.Sontong. Collection of Compositions by Luang Pradit inCommemoration of 200 Years of Bangkok. 1973.Sriwilai, Ratree. Hi. My Name is Ratree. Trans. JohnnyOlsen.1994.Sunarto, Bambang. Musico-Artistics Science (Main Disciplineon Ethno-Music Studies). Trans. Solo. 2007.Sutton, R. Anderson, Endo Suanda, and Sean Williams.“Java.” The Garland of World Music: Southeast Asia. New Yorkand London: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1998, 263-728.REFERENCESDansakoon, Nopporn. College of Professional Music: A ProgramProposal. Trans. Nopporn Dansakoon. Songkhla: ThaksinUniversity: 2006.Department of Education and Culture. Culture Building andDevelopment. Pamphlet. Jakarta: Department of Educationand Culture, 1994.Diya, Wayan. Gendhing Murni Gendhing, Materi BelajarMengajar MNP II / Bali, SM. GENAP 2006-2007 (Materialfor Studying Teaching MNP II / Bali, 2006-2007), KSP FSPIKJ. Syllabus. Jakarta: Institute Kesenian Jakarta, 2006.Fry, Gerald W. Synthesis Report: From Crisis to Opportunity,the Challenges of Educational Reform in Thailand. Bangkok:Office of the National Education Commission and the AsianDevelopment Bank, 2002.Hari, Kurniawan. “A Javanese Palace Celebrates Its 250thAnniversary.” The Jakarta Post 25 Mar. 2007.Hutajulu, Rithaony. Proposal for Revitalization ProgramAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY79THEATER CHRONICLES: LESSONS IN THEATER DOCUMENTATIONFROM TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY THEATER PRACTICESIN THAILAND AND INDONESIAGlecy C. AtienzaIntroductionThis four-month study focused on two areas—Bangkokin Thailand and Solo City or Surakarta in Central Java,Indonesia. Data gathering was primarily done throughobservation, watching performances and rehearsals,as well as interviews and informal conversations withartists from different groups. Libraries and museumswere also visited as sources of initial readings aboutthe local theater forms. In Thailand, interviews wereconducted with a total of 64 traditional/contemporaryartists-directors, writers, musicians and puppeteers; threetheater critics/researchers; and five museum/archivesspecialists and art curriculum specialists. Furthermore,10 rehearsals, five classes on traditional theater and 10performances were attended and 12 performance areas,four libraries and four museums were visited. In SoloCity, interviews were conducted with a total of 35artists; 15 performances and performance rehearsalsand three theater criticism sessions were attended; andthree libraries, two temples and six performance venueswere visited.“Creating” theater in Thailand and IndonesiaTheater’s “live” quality has worked towards itsconservation and transformation. Primarily, theater hasbeen kept alive through continuous performances. Ithas also been preserved through icons, popular imagesand physical monuments. Institutions such as museumsand libraries have served as repositories of theaterartifacts. Private collections of individuals and homeswith theatrical motifs have also helped in creating livingmonuments to theater practices.The practice of passing on the art of theater fromone generation to another has kept the tradition alivewhile innovations have enriched the role of theater incontemporary life. Theater is “created” through variouslevels of engagements, with the artist at the core of thecreative experience and the audience, social institutionsand society in general as participants and partners in thecreative process. Artists have evolved various ways andpractices of documenting and preserving their theaterpractices. Each approach has its own strengths andis closely related to the nature of artistic practice andknowledge dissemination that the artists employ.Institutionalizing theaterIn Thailand, the conservation and preservation of theaterpractices have been done through state-institutionalizedprograms to keep traditional theater performances of themost revered and popular theater form, the Ramayana,a part of people’s daily life. Theater practice is markedand supported by the decisive role of the state ininstitutionalizing traditional theater forms such as theRamayana to symbolize the state. Ramayana characterscan be seen in almost every corner of the country—fromofficial logos to street designs and key chains. Schoolsinstill in young artist-students the importance ofcontinuing the tradition of the Ramayana, while masterartist-teachers have dignified the form by giving muchcredence to learning the tradition before exploringinnovations to the form.The Ramayana, one of the world’s most loved epicstories, has been one of the main sources of traditionaltheater performances in Thailand and Indonesia. Itsopenness to re-interpretation in regional texts andoral tradition has found its way into the Ramakienand reflects the various concerns of people at differentplaces and in different times. The Ramayana’s traditionof many different tellings has paved the way for thecreation of various versions.The Ramakien, the Thai version of the classic Ramayanastory from India, has been the source for theatricalperformances presented for the royal audience, as wellas for the audiences who frequent the National Theaterand the famous Sala Chaleurmkrung in downtownBangkok. Ramakien places much importance on therole of the white monkey army leader Hanuman,who helped save Sita from the evil Ravana. The Thaiversion supports Paula Richman’s observation thatthe Ramayana has been adapted by Asian culturesto suit their cultural needs. The dance theater piece“Hanuman” has been playing for years in the localtheaters and various versions of this play have beendone by government-supported institutions such as theBangkok College of Dramatic Arts. Performers, whoinclude actor-dancers and musicians, have been trainedAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

80 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYfrom their teenage years to their college years to performparticular roles in the play. At the Bangkok College ofDramatic Arts, for example, a bachelor’s degree courseis offered for students who want to specialize in therole of Hanuman. The actor-dancers learn the classicalmovements of the character, including the nuances andattitudes of the dance form, the verses that go with themovement, and the music and songs that accompanyit. Pictures and notations of traditional dance forms,developed as the basic language of the Ramayana dance,has helped in preserving the Ramayana. According tomaster teacher-artist and master Hanuman dancerAjahn Prusit Rungkaew, the actor-dancers learn themovements of the character Hanuman, first as partof the monkey army until they progress and learnthe more complex and demanding role of Hanuman.Students also have a handbook on the rudiments ofthe different dance forms performed by the characters,complete with pictures and illustrations of the formand body position of each dance step, instruments andcorresponding props and costumes that go with therole. Through textbooks written by master teachersfrom the Bangkok College of Dramatic Arts, the statesupportedinstitution for learning dramatic arts, thebasic dance alphabet has been notated through picturesand illustrations. Master teachers like Ajahn AkomSayakom, who have been recognized by no less thanHis Majesty the King, and Ajahn Prusit Rungkaew arefeatured in the handbook together with other masterteachers in the college. Textbooks on other traditionaltheater forms such as the manora dance theater are usedto guide the students through their training. Accordingto master manora dancer-teacher Ajahn ThummanitNikomrat of the Prince of Songkhla University ofSouthern Thailand, the publication of these books wasfunded by the Queen through the Prince of SongkhlaUniversity.Training programs for students have been gearedtowards creating master artists who will eventuallyteach their craft to younger generations. Students whoenroll in the program start out as regular students whohave been drawn into the program by their desire to begood artists. Eventually, they imbibe the orientation oflearning the craft and become culture bearers of theirartistic heritage. Master teachers treat their students likemembers of their families, taking care of their artisticdevelopment as well as their personal lives. Studentartists learn their art from the traditions set by theirmaster which the masters also learned from the masterartists of previous generations. Students are taughtto write down their experiences as well as learn theirmovements and verses by heart. The more advancedstudents are sent to do performances at meetings ofgovernment officials. Master teachers and performersof the National Theater are mostly graduates of theBangkok College of Dramatic Arts. Other senior artistsbecome performance managers, handlers of props andtechnical equipment or costume mistresses like AjahnAurapin Isarangkura of the National Theater. Otherstate universities teach theater and other related arts.Srinakharinwirot University has a theater program andmusic department which handles theater performancesand music programs, with many of the master teacherscoming from the Bangkok College of Dramatic Arts.Master teachers of Srinakharinwirot University alsoconduct mentoring for their artist-students. Many ofthem learn their craft from master teachers as in the caseof Ajahn Surasak Paidam, who trained under a nationalartist for music for free while rendering services forhim on his farm. Other training institutions, like theschool handled by Ajahn Vic Chimplee in the southernpart of Bangkok, train youngsters from as young as agethree to age twelve to perform the children’s versionof the Ramayana. Other theater forms such as likay(improvised poetic joust based on the Ramayana)and lakhon chantree (poetic narrative in honor of thegods, an innovation of the Ramayana story) have beensupported through the patronage of the King and thecommunity. Puppet plays such as nang yai and nangtalung (traditional shadow puppet theater forms) havebeen promoted through the state’s tourism program.Some researchers, like Ajahn Anan Narkkong ofMahidol University and a musician from Petchaburiprovince, observe that theater forms such as the nangyai and nang talung are sometimes shown during thedaytime, a practice that runs counter to the traditionaluse of shadows created during night time as a venuefor people to convene and enjoy a puppet show. Theduration of the performance has also been shortenedto accommodate the schedule of tourist packages thatinclude the shadow puppets as one of their touristdestinations along with a visit to the floating marketand other local handicrafts. This practice has altered theconcept of the shadow puppets and has greatly affectedthe aesthetic quality of the play.As a fitting support to the Ramakien, the performancearea of the National Theater has been designed toaccommodate scenes from it. A portion of the stagearea’s left side has a ramp-like elevation from thedownstage area to the upstage area to accommodate thechariot scene of the Ramakien, according to the Directorof the National Theater, Mr. Yongyut Waiprip. Thebackstage area has provisions to accommodate sets forthe performance. Although the traditional platform isused for the performances, the number of performers,costumes and props demands a large performance area;Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY81thus, the wings of the stage are comparatively large.Aside from schools, families have also been institutionalbases in sustaining the life of theater. Many artistscome from families of artists and have been broughtup in the art environment. Ajahn Rewadee Sayakom,who is a master in the performance of the male rolesin the squad drill scenes of Hanuman and author ofa handbook on the art of Thai dance, is the daughterof Ajahn Akom Sayakom. Ajahn Akom Sayakom hasbeen recognized by the King through the wai khruceremonies. The ceremony is performed for a masterartist who has exhibited excellence in the practiceof his/her craft. Many other artist teachers from theSrinakarinwirot University belong to families of artists,as well. Families of artists can also be found in othertraditional theater forms such as likay, as well as the noraor manora dance found in the southern part of Thailandand lakhon chantree, performed by traditional artists inPetchaburi province in Central Thailand. In the case oflikay performing troupes, families are evolved as troupesdevelop filial relationships with their co-actors.In addition to the help from schools and families inproviding venues for training and learning for artists,other institutions have helped create markers of theaterin Thai society. Massive statues of the main charactersof the Ramayana stories lord over the Wat Phra Kaewtemple, also known as the Temple of the EmeraldBuddha. Wat Phra Kaew also houses massive Ramayanamurals, which have been carefully preserved usingtraditional paints and materials according to MadameSukanya Kamthakrae, head of the mural restorationproject. Conservation and restoration teams, composedof conservation scientists headed by Dr. ChirapornSuranyanark, conduct restoration projects for theaterartifacts such as puppets books and publications.Librarians at Thammasat University have expendedmuch effort in raising funds to rehabilitate books thathave been damaged through time using the technologyof book paper reconstruction using “sa” (mulberry)paper. The National Theater uses the age-old technologyof sun and air to preserve costumes. Boxes have beendesigned to house special masks used for performances.It is, however, important to mention that although thedisplays in the puppet museum section at the NationalMuseum were plentiful, they were poorly annotated.Contemporary theater groups and artists have initiatedthe development of new forms to veer away fromthe traditional Ramayana in an effort to explore newapproaches to dramaturgy. While state-supportedinstitutions have preserved and conserved theirtraditional theater practice through the help of thegovernment, contemporary theater groups have createdavenues for performances such as festivals, small cafeperformances in the Bang Lampoo area and public parksto make their mark in the theater scene. Contemporaryartists such as Nut Nualpang, Nikorn Saetang andKamron Gunitilaka have taken pains to document theirwork through video. The Bangkok Theatre Season, themost recent of which was held in November 2006,was a showcase of new works by young artists rangingfrom works of well-known contemporary artists toexperiments of budding artists and performanceexhibitions of traditional theater such as the manoradance. A number of contemporary artists have takenthe initiative in writing re-interpretations of traditionalforms. Pichert Klunchung’s writings chronicle thesources of dance and movement motifs from traditionaldance forms, tracing their roots to the natural imagesof flora and fauna in Thailand and the deep reverenceof the people for their King, whom they believe to bethe reincarnation of the god Rama. He notes, though,that he may find it hard to have his book publishedsince it runs against traditional concepts of dance andtheater form. Other contemporary artists like Kage andSineenadh Keitprapai, both from the Crescent MoonTheater company, have kept journals and illustrations oftheir preparations for productions. Kage, a butoh artistand director, chronicles his preparations and thoughtprocesses through his personal collection of illustrationsand sketches while brainstorming about his production.Sineenahd Keitprapai, on the other hand, keeps acollection of journals and drawing booklets containingher verses, sketches and notes of her preparations forroles that she has performed. Her notes make her awareof her development as an actor and help her identifyareas for improvement.Individual artists have also taken pains to keepdocuments and archival materials about their work.National Artist for Likay, Boonlert Najpanich, has acollection of musical instruments and scripts that hewrote in his personal museum in his house. He saidthat it has always been his practice to keep notes of hisexperiences by keeping a file of his works so that he isable to share them with younger people who want tolearn the art of likay. While providing jobs for artists,he also keeps the interest in likay alive by trainingyoung students. Musician Ajarn Manop Wissuttipat ofSrinakharinwirot University has written a book aboutThai music notation and hopes to translate his workinto English. Other members of the faculties of schoolsand universities are also driven to write about their workas artist-teachers through journal articles and researchreports, which they are required to submit regularly.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

82 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYContemporary artists, who have very little or no supportfrom the government, have taken the initiative to recordtheir own experiences, though raw and unorganized, inan effort to keep track of their work. Video recordingshave been made to record their works and theirrehearsal process; diaries have been continuously filledwith personal illustrations of an artist’s travails. Onmost occasions, contemporary theater groups give outbrochures and handouts or create websites about theirplays. Much of this work has been supported throughthe personal funds of the actors. Indeed, younger artistslike Pradit Prasartthong of the Makhampon TheaterGroup; Kamron Gunitilaka, Thepsiri Monsukpa, Kageand Sineenadh Keitprapai of the Crescent Moon TheaterCompany; and Nikorn Saetang of 8 x 8 Playhouse haveasserted the creation of new forms of theater to createvenues of negotiation among the different sectors ofsociety. While traditional theater dwells on the classicalstories of royalty, contemporary theater tackles issuessuch as identity, unresolved historical crimes such as theThammasat student massacres in the mid-1970s, genderissues, education and poverty. Through experimentalplays, books and documentary films, traditional theaterhas been re-evaluated and challenging issues havebeen tackled in an effort to negotiate the relevance oftradition to contemporary life.The National Library houses theater reviews that havebeen published in various journals and magazines sincethe 1970s. International research institutions suchas the Special Program for Archeology and Fine Arts(SPAFA) and the Siam Society Library have maintainedjournals and magazines featuring traditional theaterexperiences. Scholars have been assigned to do researchon contemporary groups’ efforts to enliven the theaterscene. Scripts and write-ups about artists still have to besystematized and collected. The Princess Maha ChakriSirindhorn Anthropology Center is an example of aninstitution that houses a rich collection of materialsabout the traditional shadow puppet theater andpublishes books and journals about traditional theaterforms; however, a number of materials about theater,especially those that are oral and improvised in nature,still need to be documented.Recently, a group of critics has initiated a research projecton the state of the arts in Thailand entitled, “Criticism asan Intellectual Force in Contemporary Society.” Underthe leadership of well-respected literary scholar andcritic Chetana Nagavajara several areas of art, includingtheater, were studied using various theater reviews andfocus group discussions to abstract the status of theater inThailand. The discussions observed that classical theaterin Thailand is basically created by the Royal Court;thus, the trend of contemporary artists since the 1970sis the direction of “art for the oppressed.” In addition tothis, theater critics have initiated discussions to elicit afeedback mechanism for artists. Kamron Gunitilaka hasshared experiences in inviting theater critics to watchplays and discuss their comments after the show. Thesame is true for the performances of Pichert Klunchungand Nikorn Saetang for B-floor Theater. Theaterreviews have been frequently published in newspapers;theater students have made theater practices the topicof their researches and inquiries, signifying a clearinterest in the theater. Critics from major dailies havealso sought discussions with contemporary artistshoping to create a venue for exchange and criticismamong artists and the viewing public. Theater artistswho are also members of academia, like Prof. PornratDamhrung of Chulalongkorn University and ParichatJungwiwittanaporn of Thammasat University andSrinakharinwirot University, have engaged studentsand scholars in monitoring the development of theaterthrough scholarly activities. Much work, however,remains to be done in developing a clear theatercriticism process and practice. Theater criticism hasnot yet been institutionalized as a practice since, as onecritic says, Thai society is not very open to the idea ofcriticism. The idea of making theater practice an area ofdiscourse is a far cry from the usual treatment of theateras an institutional practice in reverence of the King andthe gods. Much work remains to be done in creating aclear-cut interest by putting together materials for thedevelopment of theater resources in Thailand. Whilea number of foreign scholars have taken an interestin writing about Thai traditional theater experiences,traditional and contemporary artists have yet to developa consciousness in writing their own narratives andkeeping track of their artistic legacies.Evolving theater as a community forceLike theater in Thailand, the practice of theater inIndonesia has been sustained through continuousperformances by various artists and individuals. In SoloCity or Surakarta City, performances are teeming withartists who are very open about sharing their experienceswith their community. Wayang performances are part ofthe people’s daily life, whether as formal performancesor as venues for engagement with the community.The institutionalization of the wayang kulit as aUNESCO-designated Masterpiece of the Oral andIntangible Heritage of Humanity stems from the factthat wayang kulit is part of the people’s collectivememory. Although many younger dalang (wayangkulit master puppeteers) complain about the youngerAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY83generation’s disinterest in wayang kulit performances,wayang kulit remains one of the most important featuresof theater in Indonesia.Institutional support through government-fundedagencies like libraries and museums helps in storingpublished materials and archival materials abouttheater. The National Library, for example, housescopies of books in Bahasa Indonesia, English and otherlanguages featuring various forms of theater. Close to adozen journals on theater publish research by scholars.The Institute Kasenian Jakarta houses copies of scriptsfrom the 1970s to the present, as well as copies of videorecordings of performances done in their theater. TheMuseum Nacional and the Wayang Museum in oldJakarta has a collection of various wayang on display.The documentation and annotation of the wayangcollection has been limited to titles and dates. Libraries,particularly the Institute Seni Indonesia (ISI) Centrallibrary, have a rich collection of materials abouttraditional theater practices with several copies of books,journals and scripts about the wayang kulit, with periodscovering the ancient manuscripts. These have beentranslated into various languages and forms of scriptsto make them intelligible to the uninitiated. Hundredsof photographs are also available in the library archivesand the cultural center office. Listings are updated andwell sourced. Librarians are trained in the field of libraryscience but most of them have not been initiated intothe practice of theater, aside from their being membersof the art community of Surakarta. Libraries have nospecial methods for materials conservation except forcomputerized monitoring of borrowing and lendingprocedures. There are no programs for informationdissemination or the participation of artists in theenrichment and development of theater resource centers.Scripts of various theater forms such as the wayang kulithave been reproduced by photocopying for the use ofinterested students and researchers.The museum at the Surakarta Kraton is poorly lit andpoorly documented; artifacts on display lack sufficientupgrading, preservation and conservation methods. Nospecial programs for the care and proper documentationof the artifacts on site are being implemented. A specialcollection of old Javanese manuscripts can be found inthe museum although strict procedures are observedin order to access the material. Streets have also beenmarked with statues of important characters from theRamayana and Mahabharata epics.Schools play an important role in preserving thetraditional theater form. The Institute Kasenian Jakartaoffers courses in traditional dance and theater formsas well as courses for music and the visual arts. In ISI-Surakarta, courses are offered specializing in the wayang,dance and music. A theater department has yet to bedeveloped, although there are three departments forthe performing arts which have earned for Solo the tagof being the “Center for the Performing Arts.” At thePedalangan (wayang department), master puppeteerstrain their students in the art and history of puppetry, aswell as the music, verses and puppet-making skills thatgo with it. Students are trained to create improvisedstories based on well-known folk tales derived from theMahabharata and spend most of the time integratingthese with pressing issues. Characters are stereotypicaland represent virtues and qualities, which the audienceloves. The skill of the dalang can be seen in his masterfulweaving of popular characters and situations withcurrent issues in a mix of wit and humorous situations.These narrations last for several hours, some extendinguntil the wee hours of the morning. Thus, the dalangmust know how to keep his audience’s attention throughhis comical situations, exciting voice changes and hismasterful flipping and manipulation of the puppets.Dalangs have a special way of keeping track of their theaterpractice. Bapak Purbo Asmoro, in his late 40s, houses hiswayang in a compound complete with a wayang stage.In his personal collection are undocumented pictures,handwritten manuscripts of wayang kulit stories that hewrote when he was still a student and wooden chestscontaining centuries-old wayang of different charactersin excellent condition. His hand daggers, which are themarkers of a dalang, are on display in his personal glassmuseum. His house can be easily identified as that of adalang, with walls, doors and glass windows decoratedwith glass etchings of scenes from the Ramayana andMahabharata. Another artist, musician Bapak Suranto,who comes from a generation of dalangs intimates thathis family’s wayang tradition is kept intact throughintermarriage within the family. Thus, families preservetheir theater practices by passing on the legacy of theircraft to their children or nearest kin. Photographs aremostly kept in family albums. Most of the pictures arenot annotated, are of poor quality and were taken bynon-professional photographers, most of the time theirwives or children, using instant cameras. Photographcopies were simply kept in recycled plastic bags withfew of them being labeled or captioned. Annotationsare done orally while the pictures are being viewed byan interested party.Another dalang, Bapak Suyanto, performs the wayanghere and abroad. He has been well supported by foreignfunding agencies in pursuing his studies and writingabout his work through papers which he shares withAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

84 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYhis colleagues. He has also taught his children the artof manipulating puppets as he hopes to develop thetradition in his family. Master wayang maker BapakBambang trains students in the art of making puppets,not only by teaching them the rudiments of makingthe puppet but also the process of conceptualizing andcreating distinct qualities for familiar puppet characters.He has written his dissertation on the conceptualizationprocess of puppets for the wayang, integrating hisexposure to Muslim culture and his Catholic religion inhis motifs. In Butuh village, south of Surakarta, a villageknown for crafting wayang puppets for their livelihood,the skill is shared by members of the community andtransferred from one generation to the next as a sourceof livelihood for the family. Business seems good asevidenced by the quality of houses that families havebeen able to put up through their wayang business.Traditional wayang artists who perform the wayangkulit also need to study traditional dance movements asthese are also the source of the movements made by thepuppets in the wayang kulit. The same movement canbe seen in the dance numbers performed in the wayangorang (literally “human puppets”); thus, traditionaland contemporary performers share the same skills inmounting a production. A number of contemporaryartists make video documentations of their performancesand works, others keep records of their scripts, andothers write books and undertake higher educationstudies in order to write theoretical papers and studiesof their work. Eko Subriyanto, one of the more popularcontemporary artists, has trained in traditional danceunder Bapak Pramardi of the ISI Surakarta and MbakEly Lutan of Jakarta. His performances center onevolving new themes and metaphors which commenton contemporary issues. Invitations to festivals,exhibitions and work abroad have provided the impetusfor contemporary artists like him to film their worksso that they maybe screened by international festivalcommittees for possible inclusion in arts festivals.Mugiyono Kasido, a leading dance theater artist, takesvideos to document his work during rehearsals so thathe can monitor the extent of the work that has beenachieved in his rehearsals and performances; likewise,the videos also serve as samplers for festivals and otherart events which can open opportunities for sharingand income generation for the artists, who rely on theirartistic work for artistic and personal sustenance. SlametGundono, one of the more popular dramatists, drawsfrom traditional metaphors and transforms them intocontemporary theater pieces which he puts into videoform. Dalang Enthus Susmono draws from traditionalwayang and infuses contemporary characters into hispuppets. He makes it a point to write about his worksand takes video recordings of his performances.Most of the teachers of the ISI started their artisticcareer at an early age. They realize how important itis to have a formal education so that they can betterunderstand their craft. Most artists become teachers andcreate teaching modules and materials for their studentsand protégées. They are also required to write abouttheir work and provide the library with copies of theirpapers. Their being teachers at the ISI is a clear synthesisof their experience as artists. A number of books havebeen written to raise the practice of the wayang intotheory. Samples of these include Pakeliran Seni: WayangPurwa (2007) by Dr. Slamet Suparno, which deals withthe philosophy and dynamics of the wayang, and theBuku Petunjuk Praktikum Pakeliran Gaya Surakarta, ahandbook on the principles of the wayang kulit preparedby the faculty of the Pedalangan of ISI-Surakarta. Videorecordings of performances of faculty members of thePedalangan are also made available for researchers.At the ISI-Surakarta, wayang kulit performances arecollected and kept by a team of videographers. Thevideo library of the Wisma Seni (Cultural Center) alsohouses a collection of video recordings in Betamax and/or VCD format on performances held at the WismaSeni campus. Most of these recordings are in Javaneseor Bahasa and well-annotated by the staff.Theater criticism and sharing of comments aboutartists’ work facilitates the artists’ need for feedbackand validation. Venues for this exchange range fromsimple and friendly exchanges of ideas over tea toformal discussions in scheduled meetings attended byinterested artists. The more formal criticism sessionsare recorded by the local videographers. Performancereviews are also published in the local language althoughthere are limited publications for this in Surakarta. Anumber of books by foreign researchers have also beenwritten about the wayang. Central Javanese culture hasbeen a favorite topic for a number of Western culturalresearchers and anthropologists. Local researchers havealso taken an interest in writing about their own cultureand relating this to their craft as artists. Well-knownartists such as Sardono and Lutan regularly conductresearch among local communities to enhance theircreative work and engage the communities in artisticactivities.Pendopo or large performance halls are availableon the ISI-Surakarta grounds and provide a goodperformance venue for artists who would like to sharetheir experiments with the public. Rehearsals andperformances can be viewed for free and have thusbecome venues for exchange and interactions amongAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY85artists and the viewing public. Other venues are availablein the main town center, such as the Wayang Museum,which features ketoprak performances, comical skitssimilar to the vaudeville, and wayang wong/wayangorang for free. Shows which have been sponsored bypoliticians even provide packed meals to their audience.Although government support can be found in thesetting up of institutions and cultural centers for theformal study and documentation of the theater formssuch as the wayang kulit, the communities’ unwaveringinterest in the production and performance of livedances, musical ensembles and dance dramas marksthe city’s collective action to preserve and developtheir traditional theater form. Aside from traditionalperformances, innovations by wayang artists who havebeen trained in the traditional mode are plenty. Theseartists are very open to sharing their experiments withother artists in the community as a way of enrichingand validating their artistic craft.Towards a repository of people’s theater memoryTheater documentation has been shaped by the role oftheater and theater artists. Thai society has been keenabout using theater to maintain the royal hierarchy;critical views about Thai society from contemporaryartists have resulted in the development of alternativetheater forms as a reaction to the state-definedtraditional forms. In Central Java, colonial historyhas taught lessons on the value of a well-maintainedculture. With the decline of monarchic rule, the artistshave realized the potent role of culture in preserving apeople’s identity. The transformation of courtly dancesand performances into people’s art has realized the roleof culture in shaping a people’s identity.The lack of a systematic theater documentation andtheater resource center among theater artists with a richtheater practice seemed unlikely at first. However, afterlooking at the theater practices of artists in Thailandand Indonesia, it was quite understandable not to findone. Theater practice is indeed a live endeavor andmost theater artists create to address pressing issuesof the time with very little concern about the need tosave the experience for posterity. The idea of leaving amark among the audience is achieved when an excellentperformance is appreciated by the audience. The idea ofpreserving is done through the continuous creation ofexcellent community theater experiences which remainin the hearts of the people. Theater documentation isthe creation of a repository of people’s theater memorywhere the continuity of traditional theater practices andthe discontinuity of tradition through innovations incontemporary theater forms are compiled through theprocess of critical interpretation and re-interpretation.The theater artists’ propensity for adaptation andinnovation of theater forms to suit the particular needsof the time and intent has defined an aesthetic quality ofAsian theater. Improvisation as a key quality for artisticcreation has created a demand for artists to identify theanatomy of their artistic creation as part of the requisitesof theater documentation.The artists’ continuous efforts towards artistic excellenceTheater artists’ untiring efforts to achieve the best artisticendeavors motivate them to monitor their work, conductresearch, rehearse, identify areas for improvement andraise their practice to a theoretical level. The artists layclaim to an intangible process through the act of criticalinterpretation by sifting through their experiences andpassing on the lessons of their craft to the next generation.Through personal diaries, rehearsal videos and informalsharing sessions with co-artists and experience papers,the pursuit for artistic excellence has been put to thefore as an important requisite in marking an importantartistic contribution. The artists’ continuous clamorfor audiences to validate their work highlights theirconscious recognition of the audience’s role in creatinga people’s theater memory. The audience’s validationof an excellent artistic experience offered by the artistillustrates the audience’s critical participation in creatingmarkers of artistic excellence.Institutionalizing community engagement in creatingmarkers of artistic excellenceCommunity engagement in creating markers ofexcellence may vary from simple attendance ofperformances and direct feedback expressed by clappingand comments after each performance to formalsessions of criticism and evaluation and publication ofreviews and academic papers by the artists’ themselvesor by scholars and critics who have been trained todocument live creative processes of artists. Schools maybe considered one of the best repositories of a people’stheater memory. Training is one of the artists’ best meansof marking artistic experiences as theater artists are ableto note down their experiences, not only through booksand articles but most especially through the success ofsucceeding generations who take on their role as artistsand bearers of the cultural heritage that they have triedto enrich. Aside from schools, other social institutionshave been mobilized in creating repositories of theatermemory. Museums, libraries, and urban planners canbe engaged in collecting artifacts and innovating ways ofpreserving artifacts using local materials and technology.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

86 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYGovernment and non-government agencies have usedvarious ways of recognizing efforts for continuousartistic excellence through awards, exhibitions andpromotional programs.The books and works of Western scholars have markedthe face of traditional forms so that the world mayunderstand their theater forms. However, the richrepository of materials written in the native languageremains a challenge to any scholar interested inlearning about a people’s culture and identity. The useof the native language as a foremost quality of theaterpreservation should be recognized. This distinct markof the native language in artistic experiences embodiesthe soul of a cultural experience as it serves to protect apeople’s experience while it distinguishes the work fromall other works of art.At the core of theater documentation is the theaterartist who engages his community in various layers ofinvolvement in creating a people’s collective theatermemory. There is a need for the theater artist to identifythe potentials of various forms of documentation, in thesame way as we try to understand how each part of ourbody works. A people’s theater memory identifies theparticipation of various segments of society in processinga social concern through validation, reiteration orpresentation of alternatives for change. By engaging thecommunity in creating a people’s repository of theatermemory, theater is further redefined from being a venuefor entertainment to being an opportunity for learningand experimentation for social change. The theaterartist should go beyond the challenges of continuouscreation of excellent artistic works and write their ownartistic legacies.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS87EXPLORING ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS AMONG FILIPINO MUSLIMURBANITES IN THE QUIAPO AREA: A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OFTHE IMPACT OF MODERNIZATION AND URBAN LIFEMokhammad YahyaIntroductionCenturies of struggle against foreign colonizers—Spain,Japan and the USA—account for the articulation of astrong desire for the union of religion and politics inthe discourses of Filipino Muslims (Moros 1 ) throughouthistory. Living as a sovereign and independent peopleunder a sultanate system of government without anyforeign powers to subordinate them have made Morosproud of their freedom.Unjust economic and political policies and treatmentof marginalized Muslims in Mindanao have driventhem to seek self-determination and an independentBangsamoro state. In the liberation movements that haveevolved, Filipino Muslims have inevitably used religion(Islam) as their motivation or even the underlyingideology of their struggle. This fact explains why at thelevel of rhetoric, political Islam or the union of religionand politics in an Islamic state figures significantly inthe consciousness of Muslims, even those now living inthe urbanized environment of Quiapo. It would seemfrom this study that the discourse and categories ofthe Muslim liberation movements in Mindanao havefiltered into the consciousness and rhetoric of ordinaryFilipino Muslims.The literature in the sociology of religion definesfundamentalism as a type of religiosity that is anamalgam of religion and politics (see, for example,Kurzman 2000 and Armstrong 2000). The MoroNational Liberation Front (MNLF), Moro IslamicLiberation Front (MILF), Abu Sayyaf, and other Muslimmovements in the Philippines all advocate the fusionof religion and politics in varying degrees. Since theidea of secularization remains alien among the FilipinoMuslims in this study, their religiosity at a discursiveor rhetorical level essentially shares the fundamentalistpremises of Muslims in other parts of the world. Theirvision of an ideal future society is of Islam and the stateas one, a theocracy where God’s laws govern and wherethe 3-D formula, Din-Dawlah-Dunya (Religion-TheState-The World), prevails.The economic problems in Mindanao have pushed someMoros to migrate to Metro Manila for a “better life.” Themove away from the Muslim heartland in Mindanao isexpected to result in a change of behavior among the ruralmigrants. Contact with strangers is seen as a potentialsource of cultural shock, as unfamiliar environmentsdisturb homogeneous ideals. The migrants learn notonly to tolerate the attitude and customs of otherpeople, but also to accept insecurity and instability asa normal state of the world. These characteristics couldpotentially work together to increase the incidence ofwhat Wirth (1938) called “the pathological condition,”including personal disorganization, mental breakdown,suicide, delinquency, crime, corruption, and disorder.The same contact could also eventually result insecularization or liberalization, as contact with peoplefrom different religious persuasions demands greaterreligious tolerance.Another factor that could mediate the way FilipinoMuslims in Metro Manila would think and act vis-àvisIslam is the loosening of kinship ties. Communalsolidarity is replaced by a more rational type ofsolidarity, the kind that Durkheim (1964) called“organic solidarity.” The close-knit community in ruralsurroundings is changed in an urban setting, tendingto individualize experiences. It is important to note,however, that these changes may be counteracted byprocesses that enhance primordial identities.The case of the Philippines and urban Muslims inQuiapo is a good example of how tensions betweenindividuation and secularization, on the one hand,and solidarity around religion and increasing religiousfundamentalism, on the other, are played out. This studyaims to describe the forms of Islamic fundamentalismamong selected urban-based Filipino Muslims and thefactors that have shaped them in the context of thehistorical and social evolution of the Muslim community.It probes the level of Islamic fundamentalism amongMuslim Filipinos in the Quiapo area and obtains awide range of information through in-depth interviews,direct observation, and secondary data collection.Key informants included Muslim clerics (imam andustadzs), Muslim scholars, MILF/MNLF members,Muslim youth organization representatives, members ofJama’ah Tabligh, Syabab, Syiah and Wahabism (whichare described later in the text), barangay captains,Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

88 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYgovernment employees, factory workers, politicians,professionals, traders, and representatives of nongovernmentorganizations (NGOs). Two sets of keyinformants were interviewed for the study: twenty keyinformants from Marawi City to provide informationon migration and on fundamentalist ideas being carriedby movements or translated into everyday life, andeighty key informants living in Muslim communitieswithin the Quiapo area. Contextual information wasalso drawn from Christians based on their position andknowledge of issues concerning Muslims in Quiapo.Secondary data included materials from various officesin the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao(ARMM), the Office of Muslim Affairs (OMA), andseveral libraries in Mindanao and Metro Manila.Exploring the plight and worldview of Muslim urbanitescould help enhance the capability of the government,Filipino Christians and those of other faiths to deal withMuslim minorities in Metro Manila and in Mindanaoin the spirit of greater pluralism.Quiapo’s Muslim communities: A demographicsketchOf the four Muslim settlements in Metro Manila (i.e.,Quiapo, Taguig, Tandang Sora, and Baclaran), Quiapois by far the largest, most centrally located and mostcommercial. In particular, the study was confined totwo barangays (villages) namely, Barangay 383 andBarangay 384, which surround the Golden Mosqueand the Islamic Center, because they reflect the stronginfluence of both the mosque and the market onthe community. Technically, the Islamic Center orBarangay 648 is not in Quiapo but in San Miguel. Itis, however, adjacent geographically to Quiapo, andmany Muslims from the Islamic Center conduct theirbusinesses in Quiapo, spending long hours there andintermingling with residents. Thus, for purposes of thisresearch, the Quiapo area encompasses San Miguel. Theintermingling of a vibrant market or secular life with anequally powerful religious life around a major mosquemade the Quiapo situation a good site for research.Barangays 383 and 384, which host Muslimcommunities, are also the site of the “Barter Trade” area,a trading center for pirated VCDs and DVDs. Knownas the “Rajah Sulaiman Market” before the 1980s, theBarter Trade area is located in the busy Quinta publicmarket under the Quezon Bridge. Barangay 384 withits Golden Mosque has a female barangay captain. Ithas a total population of 15,000 with 3,000 households(NSO 1990) although the barangay captain claimsthere is a much larger population than that shown inthe census figures. The majority of the Muslims, whomake up a third of the population of this barangay,engage in business activities ranging from running halalfood restaurants to selling pearls, jewelry, carpets, andpirated VCDs and DVDs. The jama’ah (congregation)of the Golden Mosque is mainly from this barangay. Incontrast, Barangay 383, with a smaller population of5,000 people and 2,000 households, is only ten percentMuslim, partly explaining why the barangay captain isa non-Muslim. Despite their small number, however,Muslims from this barangay as well as from Barangay384 dominate the trade in VCDs and DVDs in the“Barter Trade.” The daughter of the Barter Trade’smanager claimed that about 110 of the 115 VCD/DVD stalls were owned by Muslims.In the Islamic Center, which is located in Barangay648, San Miguel, the total population is 32,000 with3,000 households in 1990. According to the barangaycaptain, Muslims constitute a majority here withonly two percent of the population Christian. Eightypercent of the population is Maranaos and 18 percent isTausug, Maguindanao, and Yakan. The majority of thepopulation is working in the trading sector. The Islamiccharacter in this Muslim community is more apparentthan elsewhere in Metro Manila.In general, there are two clusters of Muslim groupsamong the key informants: one formed around theaspirations and struggles of political movements andanother around emerging schools of thought. The firstcluster consists of groups influenced by or formerlyassociated with either the MNLF or the MILF. 2 Thesecond cluster consists of adherents to Shiah, Tabligh,Syabab, Wahabism, and Balik Islam (Christianconverts), and ordinary Moros. The differences amongthese clusters can be understood in the context of threetypes of Filipino Muslim struggle: armed struggle,collaboration with the Philippine government, andapolitical movements. The first and second types areoperating politically while the third type is primarily astruggle in the cultural realm on an individual level. Thegradual development of these three types of movementsseems to suggest that the greater concern is how toimprove the material lives of Muslims rather than thetheological mission of establishing an Islamic state.Forms of Islamic fundamentalism among urbanMuslims in QuiapoInterviews and informal group discussions reveal acommon aspiration: that Islam and the state should befused and Shariah 3 be implemented to ensure a moreprosperous Muslim society in the Philippines. All keyAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY89informants agree that Islam offers solutions to all theproblems of Filipino Muslims. They are quite passionateabout their advocacy for an Islamic state. The languageand aspirations of leading Islamic fundamentalistmovements in the world have filtered into theconsciousness of the ordinary Muslims interviewed.At the discursive or rhetorical level, the Muslimsinterviewed manifest the fundamental characteristicsof Islamic fundamentalism as mentioned by Salvatore(1998): the view that Islam will solve individual andsocial problems (Islam huwa al-hall), making it necessaryto fuse religion (Islam) and the state.In practice, however, key informants differ in theirviews of how to achieve the goal of an Islamic state.In a sense, the fundamentalist rhetoric on an Islamicstate is associated with different approaches dependingon the ideological tendency or school of thought of therespondent. The worldwide interest in fundamentalismis due to its political implications in terms of the strugglefor control over the state. However, for the Muslimpolitical movements in Mindanao, the call to arms inthe context of the historical struggle of the Moros is putas a “jihad’s call” to defend communities threatened byvarious actions of the Philippine government. It is a callfor the preservation of the religious and cultural valuesof Filipino Muslims, as well. The three observed formsof Islamic fundamentalism are summarized below.Armed struggleThis form of Islamic fundamentalism wants to establishan Islamic state based on the belief that Muslims in thePhilippines will only prosper through the establishmentof an Islamic state. To be independent from thePhilippine government is considered a religious duty.Based on their history of being free as Bangsamoro andtheir experience of unjust treatment by the Philippinegovernment, they consider armed struggle to be just.This kind of fundamentalism can be seen from the earlystage of the MNLF-MILF movement.Although there are some admirers and former membersof the MILF or the MNLF among the key informants,none admitted to advocating armed struggle, that is,to a political, economic and military approach towardthe achievement of an Islamic state in response to thestrong reaction of the Philippine government againstdemands for an independent Bangsamoro state. Thiskind of fundamentalism was gradually given up due tothe realization that this idea may be utopic.Involvement with the Philippine governmentKey informants see the formation of an Islamic stateeither as a possibility under an autonomous Muslimregion within the Republic of the Philippines or a futurepossibility when, with an increase in the number ofMuslims in the country, the Islamic way of life becomesingrained in other parts of the Philippines.About ten percent of the key informants were oncemembers of the MNLF or are supporters. Followingthe MNLF position, they consider the establishment ofan independent Bangsamoro Islamic state too idealistic,if not utopian. Under prevailing circumstances, criticalcollaboration with the Republic of the Philippines isseen as the most realistic option, given the historicalstruggles of Filipino Muslims. The creation of ARMM(Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao) is thefocus of the movement.Although the MNLF and its sympathizers among theQuiapo key informants have chosen to participate inthe governance of the ARMM, their idea of Islamicpolitics remains unchanged. The view that Islamcannot be separated from the state is still the politicalprinciple they believe in. The creation of the ARMMis viewed as a means to be autonomous, allowing theMuslims in the region to live in accordance with theirway of life, culture and, at the highest possible level,with the Shariah, the Islamic law. The difference inviews between the Mindanao Muslims, on the oneside, and the Philippine Government, on the other,on the legal framework that would govern the ARMMhas been a source of political conflict in recent years.Nevertheless, key informants in Quiapo think that theimplementation of the Shariah can be applied rationallyand gradually within the framework of ARMM,considering that a significant number of Christians alsolive in the Bangsamoro homeland.Cultural struggleThe influence on Muslims in Quiapo of an emergingapolitical movement that emphasizes a culturaland peaceful struggle toward an Islamic state is animportant finding of this study because it qualifies theirfundamentalist tendencies. If Islamic fundamentalismis defined as the intensification of Islamic religiosity onindividual and societal levels, this third movement is anindividual and inward-oriented religious intensification.Because of its focus on the individual, the movementis apparently apolitical and its implicit approach topolitics appears moderate.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

90 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYSet against the armed conflict and unstable politicalsituation in the South, the poverty of Muslims and thelack of job opportunities for them, this inward religiousintensification seems to attract adherents because it isa form of escape from the difficult life in the South.In the city, the increasing number of adherents to thismovement may be explained by alienation and theloss of a sense of brotherhood or communality as theconstant bombardment by the materialist media haspushed Muslims to seek a more spiritual, peaceful andsecure life.The group that seems to have the biggest number ofadherents within this emerging movement is the Jama’ahTabligh (Community of Mission). Although this groupstill believes that there should be no separation betweenreligion and the state, its idea of an Islamic state is nolonger understood within the framework of a nationstateand the political struggle to establish it, butthrough religious intensification (Islamic awakening)and preaching (Tabligh). The more intense a person isin his religiosity and the more Filipinos are convertedto Islam through the missionary zeal of Muslim‘evangelists,’ the closer the Philippines will come tothe creation of an Islamic society. If the MILF and theMNLF are operating politically, the form of Islamicfundamentalism represented by the Tabligh is primarilya struggle in the cultural realm.Filipino Muslims’ movement: A sociologicalperspectiveThe political struggle of Filipino Muslims representedby the MILF and the MNLF and the cultural struggle ofthe Tabligh can be discussed from different sociologicalperspectives. Although the MILF and the MNLF areIslam-inspired, they share some of the assumptions ofsocial structuralist theories which consider the socialstructure, particularly the economic structure, as themost significant determinant of technical, social, andcultural change. The parallelisms between the MNLF/MILF experience and social structuralism are notsurprising. MNLF Chairman Nur Misuari’s outlook asthe founder of the MNLF (from which the MILF split)was influenced by the nationalist struggle and activismin the University of the Philippines in the 1960s.In contrast, the emerging movement represented bythe Jama’ah Tabligh more closely resembles EmileDurkheim’s interpretation of the change process.In Durkheim’s theory (Durkheim1893/1964), thesequence of transformation is from change in thecultural structure to change in the social structureand eventually to the technical structure. By culturalstructure, Durkheim means forms of collectivesentiments or social values. These sentiments are thefundamental basis of social integration and cohesion,transcending and changing the material relationshipsfound in society.The religious content of the Tabligh Islamic renewalmovement constitutes the collective sentiments that themembers of the new movement hope will eventuallychange the political and economic structure ofPhilippine society into an Islamic society. In particular,the collective sentiment based on the Islamic faith(iman) can be seen in the internal structure of theummah (Muslim community). The imam and the largercontext of the “jama’ah” or “ummah” derive from thevalue system of tawhid.Religious intensification to strengthen the iman basedon the tawhid has been continuously made by theJama’ah Tabligh. The jama’ah or ummah is a communitythat creates, internally or externally, an institutionalsystem with its own authority: the ustdaz or imamleadership within the Islamic school (ma’had) and itsstudents. This community structure evolved out of thenormative value system, which became the reference forestablishing its social institutions. On this normativelevel, the ummah is an ideal entity or an imagined realityconstituted by Islamic values. Out of the imagined idealgrew the concept of ummah wahidah (oneness of theIslamic community/society) based on the Islamic valuesystem. Once the value-based internal structure of theummah is established through the conversion of moreFilipinos to Islam, followers of Jama’ah Tabligh believethat the technical structure (the Islamic society/Islamicstate) will be formed easily and peacefully.In contrast, the Shiah community did not raise theissue of the Islamic state since this school of thought isassociated internationally with the intention to establish“God’s government” on earth through an Islamic state,following the example of the Iranian Islamic Revolution.This could be due to their position as a minority groupwithin the marginalized Muslim community in thelarger Philippine context. Key informants claim thatit is too idealistic to think of an Islamic state in thePhilippines.Similarly, members of the other group, Syabab, assertthat a greater focus on educating Filipino Muslims andpropagating Islamic teachings among non-Muslimsis more significant than an outright political strugglefor territorial control. In Quiapo, the members ofthis group have devoted themselves to education byestablishing the New Horizon Islamic School in PasigAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY91City and operating a madrasah (a place where learning/teaching is done) in the Golden Mosque. Informaldiscussions with this group reveal their preference forcultural struggle over armed struggle. As a consequence,they do not see as necessary the separation of FilipinoMuslims from the Philippine Republic.Of all the schools of thought represented in Quiapo,the puritan group is closest to the ideal type of Islamicfundamentalism as portrayed in the literature. IslamicPuritanism was introduced to the Philippines by theFilipino alumni of universities in the Middle East,particularly those in Saudi Arabia. It is apparent thatWahabism, the official Islamic school of thought in SaudiArabia, has influenced this group. The Islamic Puritans inQuiapo seem to be successful in making fundamentalistritualism (e.g., prohibition of maulid nabi 4 celebration)replace traditional Islam. In the first place, they holdgood positions in the religious sphere (i.e., as ustadz,imam). Secondly, traditionalist Islam is generally weakin the Philippines as seen from a comparison of the caseof Quiapo and the Philippines with the Indonesian case.In the Philippines, traditionalist Islamic institutionsappear to lack power and influence and there seems tobe a dearth of Muslim scholars in the country.Although there are educated Filipino Muslimprofessionals, this group does not seem to be particularlyknowledgeable about Islam. Some key informants whoare professionals say they are unable to spend muchtime studying their religion although they do pray agreat deal. Although selected Quiapo Muslims showedtheir fundamentalist tendencies at the rhetorical level,in practice they have tended to be more pragmatic, asreflected in their moderate position on an Islamic state.The social and political realities in the Philippines seemto have a greater influence on the formation of politicalIslam among Quiapo Muslims than theology.Absence of Islamic liberalismWhile Gellner (1992) is right in saying that the clashbetween High Islam (legal-esoteric type) and LowIslam (mystical-esoteric type) generally creates religiousfundamentalism, it has also produced a moderate oreven liberal Islam. Indonesia provides an example ofthe birth of moderate and liberal Islam. The multicentricauthority structure in the Philippines, whichtends to weaken centralized religious and administrativeleadership, allows for various and, therefore, potentiallyliberal interpretations of a fundamentalist Islamic futureand the strategies towards it. However, the absence ofa centralized religious organization with a high level ofIslamic scholarship in the country has prevented thedevelopment of a countermovement that would havetempered conservatism among Filipino Muslims. Bothtraditionalist Muslims and puritan fundamentalistMuslims tend to be theologically conservative. Themore liberal elements of Islamic theology that are foundin Indonesia and Malaysia do not seem to be significantin Quiapo and in the Philippines.As mentioned previously, there is no group thatserves to balance Islamic thought in Quiapo or in thePhilippines towards a more liberal ideological position.The traditionalist Muslims, who like their Malayneighbors are Sufi-oriented and tend to be politicallymoderate, are weak both in power and knowledge, sothat they cannot resist the fundamentalist influencesthat make the theology of Islam in the Philippinespuritan, conservative, and literalist. Key informantsassert that educated Muslim professionals tend to havea weak foundation in Islamic theology and do not haveenough knowledge to balance the conservative type ofIslam.This situation is very different from Indonesia where theconservative and puritan type of Islam is counterbalancedby the Nahdatul Ulama’ (NU), a strong traditionalistand pluralist political and religious force.Ethic over esotericIdeologically, the emphasis on Shari’ah in the religiouslife of Muslim Filipinos shows the ethical characterof Islam in Quiapo and the Philippines. As an ethicalreligion, Islam is the guardian of law and order in society,in contrast to a salvation religion which emphasizesindividual salvation. Key informants, and probablyFilipino Muslims in general, put more emphasis onthe norms or ethics of religion, while in many Malayinhabitedregions, the esoteric aspects are emphasized.It is observed, for instance, that the mystical element ispredominant in Java so that a reformist movement suchas the Muhammadiyah is influenced by Sufi teachings.The lack of esoteric, contemplative, and mysticaldimensions in the Philippine Muslim community maybe due to the long history of wars, most significantlythe wars against Spanish colonial expansion. Because ofthis, Islam has taken a more utilitarian character and hasbecome a normative guide for groups that are directlyor indirectly at war with external forces.The predominantly normative elements of Islam inthe absence of opportunities to develop individualorientedsalvation strategies could explain why there isa lack of integration between fundamentalist goals, onthe one hand, and the more pragmatic and moderateAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

92 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYpolitical ideology and more tolerant and pluralistattitude, on the other. The inconsistency between theaims of different movements to achieve an independentIslamic state and their acceptance of the continuingsovereignty of the Philippine Republic shows that thereal aims of Filipino Islamic movements are intendedto improve the material life of Muslims rather thanto advance the theological mission of establishing anindependent Islamic state. It is only recently with therise of schools of thought influenced by the Shiah 5 inIran, Ikhwanul Muslimim (Muslim Brotherhood) inEgypt, Hizbut Tahrir (Liberation Party) and so forththat theology is beginning to motivate actions for thefuture. Interestingly, the theologically inspired schools,some of which have revolutionary roots, seem to assumethe position of political moderation when transplantedto Philippine soil.Factors of Islamic fundamentalism among Muslimurbanites in the Quiapo areaWhat factors shaped the rhetorical fundamentalism butpragmatic and moderate perspective on an Islamic stateof key informants? First, the rhetoric was formed bycenturies of Bangsamoro struggle against colonialism andby the continuing political and economic imbalancesin Mindanao, in general, and in Muslim Mindanao,in particular. The discourse on a more desirable futurewhere religion and the state are one in implementingthe “Divine Law” seems to be in the consciousness ofordinary Filipino Muslims.The discourse on the goal of establishing an Islamicstate is also a way of maintaining the ethno-culturalidentity of Quiapo Muslims against the onslaught ofthe Christian majority ideology and the modernizing/secularizing tendencies of urban life. Gowing (1979)makes this point when he said that the Islamic idealummah and the concepts of dar al-Islam (the abode ofIslam in which Islam is the official religion) and dar alharb(the land of the enemy) are ways of maintainingthe psychological identity of Muslim Filipinos.Second, the orientation of key informants toward theimagined community of Muslim Mindanao is anotherfactor that reinforces the fundamentalist ideal of anIslamic state. It seems that living in Metro Manila hashardly influenced their aspiration for the future. Thus,although there is a separation between religious valuesand economic activities among the traders interviewedin Quiapo, the idea of secularization has no room in theirnormative statements about Islam. When traders wereasked about the apparent dominance of their marketactivities and the observable neglect of religious values,they admit that they do not perform rituals as often asthey should. They emphasize, however, that they do notmiss the weekly Mosque service. They also say that theirengagement in business does not mean that they areneglecting their Islamic hopes and duties but that theymerely adapting to the demands of survival in the city.Third, the Mindanao-orientation of key informants ismaintained because the Quiapo Muslim communitylives as an enclave in Metro Manila. Most of the keyinformants do not engage in more intimate contact withother cultures outside the Muslim ethnic groups. Exceptfor the traders, many of them need not interact withnon-Muslims. Thus, their sense of communality andreligiosity is well preserved with lifestyles that revolvearound the mosque. These mosques serve as excellentplaces to rest, meet, and entertain kinfolk. They havebecome community centers. Although key informantsclaim that there are marked differences between therural-religious culture of the South and the more urbansecularculture operating in Quiapo, the mosque hasbeen a critical factor for ummah integration. Indeed,many transitory people traveling from and to the Southstay in the barangay in order to be close to the mosqueand to their own relatives. It is a safety net for Muslimswho have lost their old world in the South.Fourth, apart from limited interaction with peopleoutside the Muslim enclave in Quiapo, the communitycenterednessof Muslims is another reason why city lifehas not diminished the value they give to a future Islamicstate. Every community is an autonomous body, withits own central administrative and religious leadership,which coexists with other groups within the communitythat provide for the various needs of residents. Exceptfor traders, a member of the community need not spendsignificant time outside Quiapo to satisfy social andreligious needs.This coexistence of various groups accounts for arelatively multi-centric organization. This explains why,despite the shared fundamentalist aspiration regardinga future Islamic state, key informants differ in how theyperceive this state and the strategies to attain it. Thismulti-centric tendency, which seems to be the verynature of the Muslim community in the Philippines,makes the Filipino ummah different from that found inneighboring Indonesia and Malaysia. The absence of anation-wide sense of ummah is due not only to ethnicdifferences and the minority position of Islam in thePhilippines but also to historical experiences. Even inareas in Mindanao where Muslims constitute a majority,the history of the Sultanate shows a tendency towards awider distribution of power. Among the Maranaos, forAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY93example, there are many power holders credited withthe titles of sultan and datu (Gowing 1979).Probable effects of urban and city life on Islamicfundamentalism in QuiapoThe effects of urban life can be summarized as follows:it is observable from conversations with traders thatliving as a Muslim in the thriving Quiapo market hasled to an interpretation of Islam that combines theiracceptance of the spirit of capitalism, individual piety,and external manifestations. Some of the traders haveconstructed their lives in such a way that personalpiety and religiosity expressed by the attendance inthe mosque are considered vital to the success of theirbusinesses.It is, however, also observable that the market hasmuddied the religiosity of some of the Muslimsinterviewed. Seven out of ten key informants rarelygo to the Mosque during weekdays although mostof them, if not all, are present on weekends. Theirinformal conversations with the researcher also centeredon market activities with very little reference to God.Their lives seem more secularized; that is, their businessactivities were obviously separate from their religiosity.Economic interests seem to speak more loudly thanreligious laws and morals. However, even if marketlife and the pragmatic attitude that accompanies itseems to undermine the religiosity of some of the keyinformants, the fundamentalist rhetoric (e.g., theocracy,anti-democracy, literalism) seems to maintain a stronghold among them.Toennies (1963) and Simmel (1951) emphasize theindividualist character of urbanites. Louis Wirth (n.d.)further added that urbanites are impersonal and donot have deep emotional ties because of the process ofsocial isolation. These ideas are observable in Quiapobut the individuating effects of city life seem to beinsignificant. Gans (1970) and Fisher (1984) seem tobe correct in the view that the process of social isolationis not experienced by ethnic villagers like the Muslimcommunity in Quiapo because they are able to live inself-contained ethnic communities with deep communaland emotional ties. The mosques have become socialcenters and serve as a mechanism for ummah integration.Furthermore, the creation of a comprehensive structurelike the Jama’ah and its growing influence continuesthe historically rooted tradition of a religious-civilsociety (dar al-Islam). The Jama’ah is a defense againstthe secular and materialist lifestyle of Metro Manilathat could pull apart the very fabric of the religiousand social institutions of the migrant population. TheJama’ah provides the members with communal andreligious solidarity. The Jama’ah, as well as other Islamicschools of thought, reinforce the role of religion as anintegrative force uniting the Quiapo community. Forindividuals, religion provides a reinforcement againstthe anomic quality of urban life. Culturally, it providesa link between rural-traditional-agrarian values andurban-modern-industrial worldviews. Socially, it givesback a sense of belonging to an otherwise diasporiccommunity.ImplicationsThis study was limited to the Quiapo area. It will,therefore, be useful to explore other Muslim areas suchas Taguig, Tandang Sora, or Baclaran where the marketis not as central as in Quiapo. Such studies can shedmore light on the worldview of urban-based FilipinoMuslims in their everyday surroundings.As a final word, this study has shown that eventhough Islamic fundamentalism has appeared on therhetorical level, in practice selected Muslims in theQuiapo area are politically moderate. Muslims are justas peace-loving, moderate, and tolerant of pluralismas most Filipinos. My interviews show that most, ifnot all, of my key informants accept the sovereigntyof the Philippine Republic despite their hope for anindependent Bangsamoro Republic in a distant future.Although they express their hopes for an Islamic state,some of them pragmatically speak of the impossibilityof achieving it in the Philippines and are slowly leavingthe idea behind. Given this, it is imperative for thePhilippine government and society to treat Muslimsfairly and with respect.NOTES1 The term “Moro” is identified with Muslims in thePhilippines. It is more than just a signifier of religion orethnicity. The term represents the fight against colonizationby forces outside the Philippines and from within thecountry. In contrast, the term “Filipino” was a labelapplied to Spaniards born in the Philippines indicatingtheir allegiance or subservience to Spain. For this reason,Saleh Jubair (1997) made a fine distinction between thetwo terms when he wrote that while “Filipino” was thechild of colonialism, “Moro” was the offspring of anticolonialism.2The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) is a politicalorganization in the southern part of the Philippines,organized in the early 1970s by Nur Misuari with theAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

94 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYintention of creating an independent “Moro Nation.” Thisled to the Islamic insurgency in the Philippines. Seekingan end to the hostilities, the Philippine governmentdecided to hold peace talks in 1976. Unfortunately, bothsides were unable to settle on an agreement so hostilitiescontinued for the next two decades. As the hostilitiescontinued, the group began to suffer from internalfactionalism. Disagreements between moderates andconservatives arose after the reluctance of the MNLF tohold a violent insurgency. The more conservative MoroIslamic Liberation Front (MILF) was formed in 1981when Salamat Hashem and his followers broke off fromthe MNLF. The basic difference between MNLF andMILF is that MNLF is more opened, nationalist orientedwhile MILF is less opened, Islamist oriented and stillstrongly believe in the struggle of an independent BangsaMoro. For further study on these groups see Gowing(1979), Gutierrez (1999) and Jubair (1997).3Sharia (Islamic Law) is the body of Islamic religious law. Theterm means “way or path to the water source.” The sourceof Islamic law is al-Quran and Hadits (Muhammadantradition). Sharia deals with many aspects of day-to-daylife, including politics, economics, banking, business,contracts, family, sexuality, hygiene, and social issues.4Mawlid Nabi is an Arabic term for the “Birth of the Prophet.It is a term used to refer to the observance of the birthdayof the Islamic prophet Muhammad which occurs in Rabi’al-awwal, the third month in the Islamic calendar.5Shi’a is the second largest denomination of Islam, after SunniIslam. Shi’a Muslims, though a minority in the Muslimworld, constitute the majority of the populations in Iran,Azerbaijan, Bahrain, and Iraq, as well as a plurality inLebanon. The Shi’a adheres to the Qur’an and teachingsof the final Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, and in contrastto Sunni Muslims, believe that the prophet’s family, theAhl al-Bayt (the People of the House), including hisdescendants known as Imams, have special spiritual andpolitical rule over the community.REFERENCESBrace Jovanovich, 1984.Gans, Herbert. Urbanism as Ways of Life: Reevaluation ofDefinitions in Neighborhood, City, and Metropolis. RobertGutman and David Popenoe. Eds. New York: RandomHouse, 1970.Gellner, Ernest. Postmodernism, Reason and Religion. London:Routledge, 1992.Gowing, Peter Gordon. Muslim Filipinos: Heritage andHorizon. Quezon City: New Day Publisher, 1979.Gutierrez, Eric. “The Re-Imagination of Bangsamoro.” Rebels,Warlords, and Ulama: A Reader on Muslim Separatism andthe War in the Southern Philippines. Kristina Gaerlan andMara Stankovitch. Eds. Quezon City: Institute for PopularDemocracy, 1999: 312.Jubair, Saleh. A Nation under Endless Tyranny. Lahore: IslamicResearch Academy Mansoorah, 1997.Kurzman, Charles. Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook. London:Oxford Univ. Press, 1998.Mousolli, Ahmad. Ed. Islamic Fundamentalism: Myths andRealities. London: Ithaca Press, 1998.Salvatore, Armando. “Discursive Contentions in Islamic Terms:Fundamentalism versus Liberalism?” Islamic Fundamentalism:Myths and Realities. Ahmad Mousolli. Ed. London: IthacaPress, 1998.Simmel, George. “The Metropolis and Mental Life.” Reader inUrban Sociology. Paul Hatt and Albert Reiss, Jr. Eds. Illinois:The Free Press, 1951.Toennies, Ferdinand. Community and Society. 1887. NewYork: Harper & Row, 1963.Wirth, Louis. “Urbanism as a Way of Life.” Reader in UrbanSociology. Paul Hatt and Albert Reiss, Jr. Eds. Illinois: TheFree Press, 1951: 195.Armstrong, Karen. The Battle for God. New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 2000.Berger, Peter. Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilitiesof Religious Affirmation. New York: Anchor Press, 1979.Durkheim, Emile. The Division Labor in Society. 1893. NewYork: Free Press, 1964.Fischer, Claude. The Urban Experience. New York: HarcourtAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS95FLUID BOUNDARIES: TOWARD A PEOPLE-CENTERED APPROACHTO BORDER ISSUES IN NORTH SULAWESIDjorina VelascoIntroductionThe border area where the national territories ofIndonesia and the Philippines blend into one another isa border that cannot be seen. Like any maritime border,it is a border continually washed away by unboundstreams of water and shifting ocean floors. It is a bordernot realized by physical markers—not a fence or wall,nor a river or a mountain range—but by the acts ofborder agents who patrol the waters that connect, ratherthan transect, insular Southeast Asia and its people.Indeed, the exact border coordinates have not beenofficially defined nor bilaterally agreed upon. It is, inevery sense of the word, a fluid border.This fluidity is an inescapable reality that conditionssocial processes that come to the fore in borderzones,especially the construction of identities. Drawing on fieldexperiences on the Indonesian side of the Indonesian-Philippine border in North Sulawesi, this paperexplores the issues and problems of identity formationin the borderzone. This is its first aim. A second aim isto develop a more people-centered perspective of “reallife” issues in borderzones that addresses some of theinadequacies of predominant approaches.My discussion is divided into four parts. The first sectionreviews common perspectives on borders and picks upsome theoretical threads to frame the discussion. Thesecond section explores the history and geography ofmy research area, while the third section problematizesthe social construction of identities in the borderzone.A concluding section presents proposals towards amore people-centered approach in understanding andaddressing border issues.Problems and possibilitiesBorders are a subject matter in a range of arenas. Itis a topic that occupies politicians and bureaucrats,economists and entrepreneurs, scholars and activists,law enforcers and lawless elements alike. As divergentas these voices may be, a discernible pattern is thatdiscussions on borders are invariably couched in termsof problems and possibilities.To law enforcement agents, borders present headaches.As marketplaces for contraband, escape routes forcriminals and rebels, and passageways for the illegal trafficof people, animals and goods—borders are a real testof states’ sovereignty. Borders cut through neighboringjurisdictions, creating sliced spaces where the power ofone state ends and the power of another begins. Who/what may be illegal on one side of the border finds asafe haven on the other side. Borders reveal the limitsof a regime, but also protect it from undesirable outsideforces. For this reason, they are sites of inclusion andexclusion, of sanction and surveillance. It is this kind ofthinking that underlies what is commonly known as the“security approach” to border issues, which essentiallyconsists of zealously guarding a nation’s territorialintegrity and economic resources.By contrast, internationalists of various stripes approachborders from a different set of assumptions. Toadvocates of (inter)regional integration, borders are fastlosing their significance. What is stressed is the imageryof the “global village” made possible through rapidadvances in travel and communication technology, aswell as the advancement of a globalizing informationbasedeconomy based on de-territorialized exchanges.Nations and regions are seen to be moving towardsa “borderless world” of exciting new possibilities andcreative solutions to transnational challenges.From a more bottom-up orientation, yet another set ofproblems and possibilities arise.Here borders are problematic where they seek to encasehuman activity and aspirations. Rarely do we find states’borders neatly hemmed. In most parts of the world,international borders are arbitrary, if not artificial,partitions. They are vestiges of colonial domination and“old-style” geopolitics that divide people of commondescent and homeland. In this sense, borders representrepressive control mechanisms of the center reigning incentrifugal movements at the margins.The other side of the coin is that precisely becauseborders are arbitrary, they are not sacrosanct. Thus,where there are borders, there is also resistance—Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

96 BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONSwhether violent or quiet, organized or non-sensational.Seen from this perspective, “borderzones serve as akind of laboratory for creative forms of local agency”(Amster 2005, 23). People in borderzones are hailed asskillful manipulators of passports and other badges ofidentity. Such forms of subterfuge allow people to takeadvantage of their interstitial position, for instance, byacquiring unofficial dual citizenship or circumventingcustoms agents in their cross-border dealings. Bordershere become a “malleable resource” (Amster 2005, 39)to people. In more than one study, the empoweringpotential of border-crossing is highlighted (see, forexample, Kusakabe and Zin Mar Oo 2004, Horstman2005 and Tsuneda 2006). Cross-border mobility oftenallows female border-crossers to step out of the repressivegender relations in their home village and acquire newsocial roles as traders and breadwinners.Against this background, it is possible to identify at leasttwo broad streams in the scholarship of borders.One stream places emphasis on the crossing ofborders, the activities and processes that take placein borderzones. In these cultural studies, bordercrossingbecomes an occasion for performance. Peoplewho move around borderlands take on various rolesreflecting their changing hybrid identities. They switchbetween languages, identity cards and social status intransversing political boundaries. Borders here becomea metaphor for experimentation and the explorationof difference, for transcending prescribed categories ofbelonging.The other stream in the scholarship on borders dealswith the notions of territoriality and space. It examinesthe consequences—both stated and unintended—ofliving in a world divided by borders: the politics ofdrawing and securing borders or, as the case may be,the possibility of the (selective) opening of borders.Here we see how borders are concrete manifestationsof state power. National borders are more than justlines on a map or demarcations in the physical world;they are “political constructs, imagined projections ofterritorial power” (Baud and Van Schendel 1997, 211).Territoriality is “a ‘spatial strategy’ which uses territoryand borders to control, classify and communicate—toexpress and implement relationships of power, whetherbenign or malign, peaceful or violent” (Anderson 2002,27).In today’s world, borders have become an accepted,taken-for-granted reality. We hardly question theirexistence. However, Anderson (2002, 27) asks us to takea step back and reflect on the flip side of territoriality:“While giving greater tangibility to power relationships,it de-personalizes and reifies them, obscuring thesources and relations of power. It sharpens conflict andgenerates further conflict as its assertion encouragesrival territorialities in a ‘space-filling process’.”Seen in this light, border-crossing is less an occasionfor celebration than cause for concern. Harrowingrefugee accounts from across the globe attest to this.Cunningham (2004, 345), thus, reminds us that “formuch of the world’s mobile population, the experienceof transnational interconnection entails rivers and oceansto be crossed (often in unsafe and overcrowded vessels),electrified fences guarded by border controls, stretches ofisolated desert, or the interrogation cell in the basementof a port of entry. As such, borders can be regarded asenactments of power on our globe, diagnostic of howthe apparatus of rule unfolds in a global landscape.” Theimage of globalization as an unstoppable, free flowingphenomenon is, thus, difficult to sustain. Therefore,even as nations are said to be moving closer together inthis age of increasing global interconnections, bordersare far from being anachronistic markers of possession.Borders remain highly functional barriers for keepingundesirable elements at bay.I revisit the underlying assumptions of the security aswell as cultural approaches to borders toward the endof this essay. This study, thus, begins by tracing thehistorical context of the Indonesian-Philippine borderarea, mindful of the possibilities of creative resistance,problems in policing partitions and attendant issues ofpower outlined above. The next section delves into thehistory and present-day situation of Nusa Utara, thenorthern islands where the Indonesian sea shades offinto Philippine waters.Nusa Utara: Islands in betweenThe island regencies of Sangihe and Talaud constitutethe northernmost tip of the vast Indonesian archipelago.These territories are composed of about 132 islands, outof which only 39 are populated. Combined, the regenciesencompass an area of about 47,320 square kilometers,95 percent of which is sea. The hilly topography of theislands does not lend itself to large-scale cultivation.On the main islands, there are neither industries norplantations, only smallholder cultivation of copra, rootcrops, vegetables, cloves and other agricultural products.Fisheries are another important livelihood. A smallerpercentage of the population makes a living fromtrading goods to fill the needs of the local population ofless than 300,000 souls.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS97Indeed, the defining feature of Sangihe and Talaudis their location: isolated and left behind. Thisdescription, terisolasi dan tertinggal in Indonesian, isa buzzword among both local public servants and thegeneral populace. Yet, this was not always the case.The islands were once an important “relay ground” forworld trade during the “Age of Commerce” (Hayase2007, 81). Indeed, the history of Sangihe and Talaudin early modern times is intertwined with that of thesultanates of Ternate, Maguindanao and Sulu, as wellas Chinese traders and European explorers, missionariesand colonizers.Local society was made up of scattered autonomouschiefdoms (kedatuan) and petty kingdoms (kerajaan)without any over-arching power structure. Chinesetraders first became active in the region in the 15 thcentury. The first Europeans to reach the shores ofSangihe in 1521 belonged to the Spanish expeditionoriginally commanded by Ferdinand Magellan.Having lost their captain in the Battle of Mactan, thefleet set sail to the Spice Islands, making a pit stop atSangihe. The Portuguese soon got into the picture aswell, developing a trade route from Ternate to Borneovia Sulu and the Sangihe islands by 1526. Due to itslocation, Sangihe gained in strategic importance, beinga “natural guidepost” (Ulaen 2003, 37) for seafarersengaged in the profitable spice trade.Catholic missionary work in the area also commenced,as the Spanish established their base in Manila and builtrelations with a handful of Sangirese rajas. On the otherhand, a number of rajas chose to align themselves withTernate. The kingdom of Kandahe on the main islandof Sangihe, by contrast, was Islamized by Sulu andmaintained close relations with the Buayan sultanate ofMindanao. The kingdom even established outposts onthe islands of Balut and Sarangani (Hayase 2007, 87).However, co-existence among the various kingdomsof different creeds was far from peaceful, as alliancesshifted and tensions often flared.For centuries, many Sangirese lived on the south coastof Mindanao and the Davao Gulf region or shuttledbetween islands. There were no clear boundariesthen between Sangihe and Mindanao (Ulaen 2003,48; Hayase 2007, 93). However, as Maguindanaoconsolidated its power under the leadership of SultanKudarat in the first half of the 17 th century, the Sangiresewere forced to subordinate themselves to his rule. Withthe decline of Maguindanao in the 19 th century, Sulugained political and economic preeminence not just as atrading post for forest and marine products for Chinesemarkets, but also as a center for the slave trade. Piratesfrom Sulu regularly raided parts of Sangihe and Talaudto capture slaves (Ulaen 2003, 37; Hayase 2007, 93).Meanwhile, with the ascendancy of the Dutch EastIndia Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie orVOC) in the region and the subsequent withdrawal ofthe Spanish and Portuguese, Sangihe and Talaud wereincreasingly drawn into the Dutch ambit. By 1677,the Noordereilanden were included in the VOC map,as the Dutch entered into agreements with the rajasand datus of Sangihe. Catholicism was banned, and anumber of faithful migrated to Manila (Hayase 2007,89). By 1825, Sangihe and Talaud were placed underthe provincial administration of Manado, renderingtraditional leadership obsolete. The colonial period,thus, sealed the fate of Sangihe and Talaud, makingit a unitary administrative entity at the fringes of theDutch domain. This presented a significant break fromits past, where the islands had represented a complexconstellation of kingdoms with linkages across the busytraffic zone of the Sulawesi-Sulu Sea. This effectivelytransformed Sangihe and Talaud from a trade zoneIsland LifeBoating on Tinakareng IslandAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

98 BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONSto a borderzone (Ulaen 2003, 49). Needless to say,local people were not consulted or made part of thisprocess and only had a poor appreciation of thesetransformations.It is, therefore, not surprising that the flow of people toand from Mindanao never ceased through the centuries,especially among those engaged in barter trade. Withthe changing direction of the winds, it is said that eachmonsoon season encouraged people to travel betweenislands to find new trading opportunities and evenfuture spouses. There are numerous legends and royalgenealogies that attest to these exogamous practices(Hayase, Non and Ulaen 1999; Tiu 2005). It is due tothis history of migration and intermarriage, trade linksand religious ties, that anthropologist and historian AlexUlaen likens the islands of the Sulawesi-Sulu Sea to anentity such as the Mediterranean, a contiguous area ofland and sea with common socio-cultural traits.Cullamar (1998, 19) interviewed Sangirese settlers onthe Philippine islands of Balut and Sarangani who recallthat those who arrived before 1935 thought the virginislands were theirs by virtue of occupation. Indeed,there were no signs to warn them that they had enteredinto “foreign” territory, as immigration laws were onlyintroduced when the Philippines and Indonesia becameindependent republics. Crossing the border withoutproper papers only became a crime in the second half ofthe twentieth century.As the Philippine frontier around General Santos wasopened, there was a great demand for labor in theagricultural and fisheries sectors. Migrant workersfrom Nusa Utara, fleeing the political and economicinstability on the Indonesian side in the 1950s dueto rebellions and unrest, filled this need. While somesettled in Mindanao permanently and raised theirfamilies there (Tiu, undated), others chose to commuteback and forth.Since neither the Indonesian nor Philippinegovernment was able to regulate this “illegal” flow, theBorder Crossing Agreement of 1956 was institutedin the context of the repatriation and/or legalizationof overstaying visitors. Successive guidelines, jointdirectives, agreements and amendments have sinceexpanded and constricted opportunities for habitualborder-crossers through the years. These regulationsallow residents of the Indonesian-Philippine borderarea, as defined, to obtain border crossing cards (inlieu of passports) that allow them to travel to the otherside of the border for up to 59 days for the purposesof family visits, religious worship and pleasure. Fishingcrew members are given 29 days. Individuals are allowedto bring with them USD250 worth of goods for crossbordertrade, families are granted USD1,000.The reality, however, is that these amounts are oftenexceeded. In such cases, traders must negotiate overadditional levies with border-crossing officers atdesignated border crossing stations on both sides of theborder. Sometimes, people prefer to bypass these stationsaltogether and pass through the border “illegally.” Thisnot only makes their journeys more cost-efficient, butalso shortens travel time, since the Indonesian bordercrossing stations on the islands of Marore, Miangas andTarakan are quite remote and inaccessible. Fishermenwho “illegally” sell their catch across the border arereferred to as “strikers.” Another problem is that theborder trade is only allowed among residents of theofficially defined immediate border area, consisting ofthe sparsely populated outer islands. Goods bound formarkets on the main island are therefore brought inclandestinely.By all indications, the Sangihe and Talaud islandcluster as a whole is not a prosperous region. Povertyis exacerbated by the lack of adequate transportationand communication infrastructure and poor socialservices. Crops are prone to pests; many coral reefsand mangrove forests are damaged. The area is alsovulnerable to natural disasters. Any cross-border tradetaking place—both legal and illegal—is not animatedby profit, but survival. Whether traded “legally” or“illegally,” there is no difference in the assortment ofgoods. For the most part, goods brought in from thePhilippines, such as rubber slippers, kitchenware andnylon sleeping mats as well as alcoholic beverages andCoca-Cola, fill the everyday needs of people. Fishingequipment and materials for the upkeep of outriggermotorboats (bangka in Filipino) are also almostexclusively sourced from the Philippines. Fish, copraand Indonesian laundry detergent are the top “export”products to the Philippine market.Admittedly, there have been cases of Filipinos gettingcaught for smuggling firearms and fake dollar billsand engaging in illegal mining across the border. Theconnivance of Indonesian law enforcement officials insmuggling activities remains much harder to prove.Nevertheless, accomplices in these crimes are outsiders,not people of the borderzone. The same is true forsuspected terrorist movements. Nusa Utara is far frombeing a terrorist hotbed—as my informants from allwalks of life emphasized.In this regard, it is important to understand the relativeAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS99location of Sangihe and Talaud within the Indonesianarchipelago. These northern island kabupaten are themost peripheral within the province of North Sulawesi,not just in terms of distance, but also in terms ofdevelopment and infrastructure. Provincial politics isdominated by the Minahasa ethnic group and people inthe capital of Manado often look down on orang pulau(“island people”) from the north—the irony being thatMinahasans themselves also feel marginalized withintheir country. Nusa Utara is therefore twice removedfrom the nerve center of the Indonesian nation. Thesituation is even worse for the remote northernmostislands in the immediate border area. A concretemanifestation of this marginalization is that the largefish processing plants (among these are subsidiaries ofPhilippine companies) are located in North Sulawesi’spremier port city of Bitung. The jobs and revenuescreated, therefore, do not benefit the people in theborderzone where the fish are caught.This marginalization extends to government structures,processes and mindsets as well. For example, to encourageeconomic development, the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East-Asia-Growth-Area (BIMP-EAGA) wassigned into existence in 1994 and is experiencing renewedenthusiasm after some growing pains. Informants fromlocal government units in Sangihe, however, are not tooimpressed by this initiative since they are not includedin the structure that formulates BIMP-EAGA’sprograms and strategies. Their interests are supposedto be represented by the provincial and national-levelofficials who sit in the meetings. The Sangihe regency,therefore, prefers to forge local-to-local linkages withPhilippine counterparts from Sarangani province andGeneral Santos City. The local government and localbranches of national agencies based in Tahuna also havesubstantive suggestions on amending legal frameworksfor cross-border trade, yet there are no venues for themto be heard by decision-makers in Jakarta.intersection of various variables is, of course, a truism,especially in borderzones, where lines of ethnicity andpolitical loyalties are far from self-evident. Throughoutthis research, what struck me was not so much identitiesin themselves—the way people feel, think and talk aboutthemselves—but the specific contexts in which givenidentities are generated, strengthened and weakened.This can be illustrated by the story of Miangas.With a total population of 982 people, life on Miangasis simple. There are no telephones, no cellular sites,no television antennae, no stores nor eateries. Fishingand copra are the main sources of livelihood. FromMiangas, Cape San Agustin in Davao Oriental can bereached in three hours by pump boat. By contrast, ittakes three days to reach the main island of Sulawesiaboard a passenger ferry that ploughs the route everyfortnight. Most of the adults, frequent border crossers,speak Visaya and/or Tagalog and tune into Philippineradio every day. Many are agricultural migrant workersin Southern Mindanao. Locals interchangeably refer totheir home as Isla de las Palmas—its Spanish name datingback to colonial times. Like many other outer islands inthe sprawling Indonesian archipelago, Miangas rarelymakes waves. An unprecedented expression of dissentin May 2005, however, put Miangas on the map.The trigger was the death of Miangas Village SecretaryJhonlyi Awala, who succumbed to injuries he receivedat the hands of the Chief of Police of Miangas. Thelatter reportedly lost his temper when he encounteredthe drunk Awala on a Monday afternoon and beatIn this section we have seen how the present-dayisolation of Sangihe and Talaud is a product of recenthistory and state policies. We have also seen that thetraditional inter-coastal movement of people has beencarried over to present times. As legal scholar ImmanuelMakahanap explained to me: “Laws cannot stop thenatural flow of people who have developed bonds withother islands over hundreds of years.” It is in the nextsection that we look into the formation of identitiesamong local populations.Identities in contextThat identities are fluid constructs, contingent on theBorder Crossing Station MiangasAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

100 BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONShim. With no adequate medical treatment available onthe island, Awala died in the arms of his relatives andneighbors the same night. Agitated villagers kept vigilall night outside the residence of the sub-district head,threatening to set a fire if their calls for justice werenot heard. The next day, the Talaud bupati (regent)arrived to prevent the situation from escalating. Abouttwo hundred people, dressed in black, mobilized toexpress their outrage at the senseless death and theiracute neglect by the Indonesian state. They lowered theIndonesian flag at the Miangas pier and greeted the localgovernment delegation by waving a Philippine flag.In shock, Indonesian authorities wasted no time inwooing back the island population. Sacks of rice,assorted medicines and sports equipment were doledout almost immediately. Two years after the incident,the once sleepy island is awash with governmentprojects: the pier is upgraded, a warehouse constructed,and there is even talk of developing an airstrip to bringMiangas closer to the world. A piped water supply wascompleted in early 2006 and the first street light put uplater that year. A residence for a village doctor has beenbuilt, although there is still no word when s/he will setup practice. A terminal building and marketplace addto the picture—yet without the steady flow of peopleand goods, these remain unused (Velasco 2007). Thecentral government may have instituted a full-fledgedprogram to develop Indonesia’s outer islands in themeantime, but without adequate consultation with thelocal people, assistance does not always correspond tothe needs on the ground.Nonetheless, the Philippine flag has long been returnedto its rightful place at the Philippine Border CrossingStation on the island and locals are proud to point outthe progress when receiving newcomers. Mr. YoppyLuppa, the harbor master of Miangas, explains that “thepeople of Miangas feel close to the Philippines. But weare also scared of the war in Mindanao. We do not wantto go there.”In the case of Miangas, the remote location has bredpragmatists rather than rebels. Poverty and the lack ofopportunities force them to be practical and resourceful.They are not interested in talking about whether theyfeel more “Indonesian” or “Filipino.” What mattersmore to them is that their grievances are being heardand taken seriously. In Miangas, as elsewhere in NusaUtara, people prefer local identities to national ones,such as orang Miangas, orang Talaud or orang Sangir.They are just too far removed from the centers of thenation to participate meaningfully in provincial, letalone national, life.Similarly, being able to speak two to three languages,including Visaya and/or Tagalog, is not a “big deal” tothem, because it has “always” been that way in theirseafaring-trading culture. Having relatives both inDavao and Bitung is “normal” on the island, where theintercoastal movement of people is a way of life. No oneraises an eyebrow at “undocumented” Filipinos marriedto locals on the islands. It would certainly seem strangeto them if an academic came to them to “celebrate”their “hybridity.”The same is true for thirty-something Adrian (not hisreal name) and others like him whom I befriendedin Manado. Born to a Filipino father and a Sangiresemother in Davao, he keeps his “mixed” identitya secret. Since his birth certificate states that he is“Filipino,” he has no Indonesian identity card nor avalid visa and passport. Yet he has lived, studied andworked “illegally” in Manado for more than 20 yearsand knows no other “home.” Ironically, Adrian is acard-bearing member of the nationalist IndonesianDemocratic Party and has run for local office in thepast! As a stateless nationalist, as it were, he defies manynorms. Yet, the constant fear of being discovered is nojoke at all. Adrian’s circumvention of Indonesian lawsis not an act of mischief. For him, it is the only wayhe can continue the life he has built for himself in his“motherland.”ConclusionIn the main body of this essay, I portrayed thehistory and current issues in the Indonesia-Philippineborderzone. At this point, I would like to make mycritique of predominant border frameworks moreexplicit by relating it to questions of statehood.In conclusion, I point to a more people-centeredperspective in understanding and addressing the needsof local populations in the borderzone at hand.As seen above, my interaction with people in theborderzone has led me to question the centrality ofidentity and cultural flows in much of social sciencestoday. A major problem with the cultural approach toborder issues is that it obfuscates the need to remedyconditions that place local populations at a disadvantage.Rather than hailing border-crossers as subversive,itinerant subjects, I have, therefore, sought to refocusattention on the structural conditions of poverty andmarginality that necessitate the circumventing of officialrules in the Indonesian-Philippine borderzone.What the cultural approach lacks in problemorientation,the security approach more than makesAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS 101up for. This orientation trains its sight on identifyingand sanctioning the wayward, those who violate theboundaries and sanctity of the nation-state. However,the security approach is also one-sided, in that it turnsa blind eye to people’s traditional life-worlds. Thesecurity framework simply leaves historical linkagesand the fluid nature of the border unproblematized.Instead, the state’s security apparatus focuses on whatI classify as ‘second order’ problems in the borderzone:undocumented migration, illegal fishing, and smuggling.The shortcoming of this approach is that even though itmay target the “big fish” involved in transnational crime,oftentimes it victimizes the poor and marginalized whoare unable to defend themselves.A common example here is the profitable fishingoperations that are orchestrated from General Santosand Sarangani in Mindanao, which employ fishermen(no women) of Sangirese origin or mixed Sangirese-Philippine parentage who reside in Mindanao. Theybring with them local knowledge of the fishing groundsand are able to “blend in” once the fishing vesseltransverses to the Indonesian side in search of swarms ofprized tuna and other fish. A common modus operandi isto have two captains and two flags (one Indonesian, oneFilipino) that are conveniently interchanged, dependingon which side of the border they are on at a given time.This way, the operators are able to avoid getting caughtfor poaching in foreign waters and fishing withouta permit. However, if their cover fails and a vessel iscaught by Indonesian navy patrols, the crew is left toits own devices. Sometimes, such cases are “settled”on the spot by paying bribes. Other times, the crewis apprehended and languishes in a detention centerfor many months before repatriation procedures arecompleted. Ship owners and operators often shrug offpersonal responsibility and have disinterested Indonesianagents represent the crew members. Circumstances areaggravated when fishermen are unable to prove theirOutrigger boats on Tinakareng Islandidentities and citizenship is difficult to ascertain. ThePhilippine consulate in Manado is the only agency thathelps these detainees.I have thought long and hard about a question posed byone of my advisers in Manado, Rignolda Djamaluddin:“Are people tricking the state or is the state tricking thepeople?” The poignancy lies in the fact that transgressorsin the borderzone at hand are not “big time” gangsters,just ordinary people following their traditional lifestyleof fishing and inter-island trade. They do not “trick” thestate out of malice or for big profits. Some of us maysecretly applaud the skillful mice in this cat-and-mousegame. However, we should not forget that it is the catthat sets the rules of the game.Here it must be stressed that borders in themselvesare not “irrelevant” to people. For centuries, peoplein Sulawesi and Mindanao-Sulu have, in fact, takenadvantage of differentials across localities in order totrade commodities, exchange marine technology andenrich their lives. Problems arise when ordinary peopleeking out a living become victims of a border regimeinsensitive to their needs and intentions.Perhaps the biggest trick the state is playing on the peopleis its attempt to project itself as an omnipotent, infallibleentity—the irony being, of course, that the state’ssovereignty is compromised by its own state personnel,either through active connivance in or tolerance of“unlawful” practices. What people experience is not therule of law, but the rule of inconsistency. This is also onereason people feel ambiguous about the ‘maintenance’of the border, which, to begin with, is an imposed realityin their lives and a barrier to their aspirations.From the people’s perspective, then, we may askourselves: Given that the Indonesian-Philippine borderis not about to dissolve into thin air anytime soon, canAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

102 BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONSborders actually become a resource for communitydevelopment? How can the borderzone rise from itsascribed “backwater” status to become a venue forexchange and sharing?There is no dearth of imagination on this subject. Thepeople of North Sulawesi have many suggestions. I wasoften approached by parents who want to send theirchildren to learn English in the Philippines or peopleinquiring about hospitals across the border. Anotheridea articulated is that of setting up information andtraining centers along the border for citizens of bothcountries, where people can receive social services andinput on fishing and livelihood opportunities. Whatis therefore needed is not necessarily more centralgovernment-intervention, but an enabling environmentthat empowers people to act on their own initiativesand seek opportunities across the Sulawesi-Sulu Seawithout fear of sanction.REFERENCESAmster, Matthew H. “The Rhetoric of the State: Dependencyand Control in the Malaysian-Indonesian Borderland.”Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 12 (2005): 23-43.Anderson, James. “Questions of Democracy, Territorialityand Globalization.” Transnational Democracy: Political Spacesand Border Crossings. Anderson, James. Ed. London and NewYork: Routledge, 2002.Baud, Michiel and Willem Van Schendel. “Toward aComparative History of Borderlands.” Journal of WorldHistory 8.2 (1997): 211-242.Cullamar, Evelyn Tan. “Migrations across the Sulawesi Sea.”Proceedings of the Symposium Human Flow and Creationof New Cultures in Southeast Asia. Tokyo: Institute for theStudy of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1998.Southeast Asia. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila UniversityPress, 2007.Horstmann, Alexander. “Dual Ethnic Minorities and theLocal Reworking of Citizenship at the Thailand-MalaysianBorder.” CIBR Working Papers in Border Studies WP02-3,2002. .Kusakabe, Kyoko and Zin Mar Oo. “Gender and Power atthe Burmese Border.” CIBR Working Papers in Border StudiesWP04-3, 2004. .Shiraishi, Takashi and Alex J. Ulaen. “The Traffic ZoneReconsidered: Menado-Sangihe /Talaud-Mindanao.”Dynamics Studies on the Everyday Life and ResourcesManagement in Maritime World Wallacea. Kyoto: Center forSoutheast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, 2004.Tiu, Macario D. Davao: Reconstructing History from Textand Memory. Davao City: Ateneo de Davao University andMindanao Coalition of Development NGOs, 2005.Tiu, Macario D. “Personal Accounts of Indonesian Migrantsin Davao and Cotabato.” Undated Research Report. .Tsuneda, Michiko. “Gendered Crossings: Gender andMigration in Muslim Communities in Thailand’s SouthernBorder Region.” Kyoto Review, 2006 .Ulaen, Alex J. Nusa Utara—Dari Lintasan Niaga Ke DaerahPerbatasan. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 2003.Velasco, Djorina. “Between Manado and Davao: How theIndonesian Island of Miangas is Making Use of its PhilippinesTies.” Newsbreak 12 February 2007.Cunningham, Hilary. “Nations Rebound? Crossing Bordersin a Gated Globe.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture andPower 1 (2004): 329-350.Hayase, Shinzo, Domingo M. Non, and Alex J. Ulaen. SilsilahTarsilas (Genealogies and Historical Narratives in SaranganiBay and Davao Gulf Regions, South Mindanao, Philippines,andSangihe and Talaud Islands, North Sulawesi, Indonesia). KyotoUniversity: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1999.Hayase, Shinzo. Mindanao Ethno-history Beyond Nations:Maguindanao, Sangir and Bagobo Societies in East MaritimeAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS 103THE HISTORY OF TOMORROW: THE DISCOURSE OF SCIENCEAND THE IMAGINATION OF THE FUTURE IN ASIAN SCIENCEFICTIONSAlwin C. AguirreIntroductionScience fiction (scifi) is undoubtedly a Westernproduct. After all, as many science fiction scholarscontend, it is a by-product of modernization in theWest. The history of science fiction in the West, muchlike the definition of the genre, is, as it seems, a matterof polemics. However, it is a widely accepted notionthat science fiction as we know it today had its boomin the 20 th century. Having said this, it is of absolutenecessity to give some clarity as to the definition ofscience fiction on which observations and claims in thispaper are founded. Though not one absolute meaningof science fiction is readily at hand, the research used avery general (somewhat open and broad) definition ofscience fiction: a narrative where science and technologyand their imagined permutations is a sine qua non, anabsolute essential and not just a fashionable adornmentor a tangential element.Science fiction beyond the West, then, can be consideredas an imported cultural product if we accept theperception that it is a Western original. However, evenif it is an indubitable fact that, outside the West, a stapleform of science fiction is that which is local translationsof Western works, especially during the incipient stagesof its non-Western readership, in due time, sciencefiction, a supposedly alien creature (as alien as its mostpopular characters perhaps), has been thoroughlydigested by populations who were enchanted by it andaccepted it as their own. This appropriation is now byfar an insistence for its originality in the culture whereit is thriving or where it is extant, while at the same timeproclaiming a dialogic existence with its progenitors.This has resulted in an ancestry which is not limitedto the ‘originally imported’ science fiction works of theWest, but extends all the way to the fantastical narrativesof the culture’s own traditional literature.Wu Dingbo and Patrick Murphy argue in their studyof science fiction in China that fiction originates frommyths and legends, and science fiction, as a prose genre,is no exception (1989, 8). They further uphold the ideathat ancient myths stand as the ancestors of sciencefiction, which will allow us to see the modern genre ofwriting as rooted in the literary heritage of a culture thatcelebrates narratives of imagination. Although in China,Western science fiction gained an advantageous positiondue to a more pragmatic and programmatic purpose, anemphasis on a history of fantastic literature can shed lighton a continuous fascination with anything imaginary,such as science fiction (Dingbo and Murphy 1989, 9).This will point us to the observation that although ofWestern origin, the wide acceptance of science fictionas a cultural product in many non-Western countriesis augmented by a native cultural landscape teemingwith images and narratives as spectacular and fantasticalas interplanetary voyages and alien abductions, albeitworded in a different modality.Indeed, Isaac Asimov, one of the elders of the sciencefiction world, clearly spelled out the similarity in purposeand difference in framework of science fiction writingand other literatures of the fantastic that are of ancientorigin. Asimov (1981, 80) contends that science fictionand ancient myths and legends fulfill our satisfaction forlonging and wonder. However, myths and legends aredrawn from a Universe ruled by gods and demons whilescience fiction is set against a backdrop of a Universethat is controlled by unswerving and impersonal lawsof nature.Judging from this seemingly simple proposition, thedifference that places science fiction on firm groundas the literary form that surely reflects the ethos ofthe modern times can easily be detected. However,the apparent dichotomizing definition of the genreleads us to a more highly discursive debate as to whatconstitutes legitimate truth and knowledge in this era(by the gods or demons or by impersonal and strictnatural laws). Further expanding our inquiry to thedirection of the political, we are prompted to ask whatform of power exists and who wields it so that certainforms of knowledge are privileged over others and sometruths are deified while others are simply and easilydesecrated.It is quite fortunate that science fiction as the mainsubject of interest in this study possesses an element thatcan be considered as one of the most powerful disciplinesand institutions of knowledge formation of moderntimes—science. Science is what clearly separates us fromAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

104 BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONSthe past and what apparently is setting us up for thefuture. Scientia, the Latin root of ‘science’ which means‘knowledge’, seems to give us a sudden understandingof what is truly meant by the word. However, anyattempt at definition is resolved only through aninherent conflict, and this continuous puzzlement willonly make us arrive at a more complex interweaving ofideas—one that is existent but is not usually noticed oris deliberately avoided. We almost always view scienceas just a particular mode of inquiry that producesknowledge and prides itself in empirical evidence andpositivism. This leads to a claim of championing a valuefreeand objective stance in the pursuit of knowledge.However one insists on the dimension of science asan arena of power relations, an aspect of science thatis incontrovertible but highly inconspicuous, it is stillseen as the bearer of truth and as the truth so that being‘scientific’ is tantamount to being ‘trustworthy.’ Inview of this conceptual association, it is of consequencethat the preeminence of science as the defining modeof knowledge formation of our time leads up to theeradication of other approaches to understanding theworld, approaches that at face value might seem to becontradictory to the tenets of Western paradigms of theproject of science even if these approaches still hold trueor are continuously significant to the communities thatchoose to keep them.It is along this line of analysis that we read the followingtexts of Japanese and Indonesian science fiction (intranslation). 1 The analysis examines the discourse ofscience in the aforementioned texts and attempts tomake explicit the political field within which science as adiscipline thrives and science as an institution persists, afacet that is commonly ignored whenever we accept it asa monolithic signifier of truth and progress. This projectalso aims to discuss the images of the future embeddedin the texts and the intersecting issues continually facedby the periphery as the world rolls along this track toprogress.Brief background of Japanese and Indonesian sciencefictionAccording to Robert Matthew (1989), science fictionin Japan had its origins in the Meiji era (1868-1912),a period of modernization following Western modelsof development. With the rapid development andchange being experienced by society and the people,the literature during this period consequently reflectedthis transformation. With the influence coming fromthe West, not only were paradigms of developmentimbibed by Japanese society, but also its literary form.This fascination with the West led to the appreciationby Japanese readers of adventure stories by Jules Verne,for example, whose works were immediately translatedinto Nihongo soon after their initial publication.Takayuki Tatsumi (in Seed 2005, 328) further dividesscience fiction in Japan into categories according to thegeneration foremost writers of the genre belong to. Heoffers us the following periodization: 21.2.3.4.5.“The First Generation Writers,” the formativefigures of the 1960s, who were deeply influencedby the Anglo-American science fiction (SF) of the1950s;“The Second Generation Writers” of the 1970s,who positively assimilated the New Wave of thelate 1960s and the early 1970s;“The Third Generation Writers,” from the 1980s,who are mostly contemporaries of the Anglo-American post-New Wave/pre-Cyberpunkwriters;“The Fourth Generation Writers” (late 1980s-1990s) who take for granted the postmodernmodes of Cyberpunk, cyborg feminism and “Yaoipoetics” [the Japanese equivalent of the taste forK/S (Kirk/Spock) fiction and Slash Fiction]; andA fifth generation of writers whose range cannotbe wholly portrayed just yet but are sometimesnicknamed “JSF” writers who made their debut atthe turn of the century.Indonesian science fiction, on the other hand, stands ona different plane compared to its Japanese counterpart.Although it is much too early to provide any definitivestatement regarding science fiction in Indonesia just bylooking at the texts gathered, it is worth taking note thatbased on available materials in various locations suchas bookstores, libraries, comic shops and video stores,there is a smaller number of Indonesian science fictionin various media relative to the amount of materialsgathered in Japan. Perhaps it is not being overly hasty toclaim that, by sheer volume, Indonesian science fictionlacks in popularity. 3It is also interesting to consider that some of the materialssuch as Supernova (2001) and Cokelat Postmortem(2005), which are generally described as science fictionin popular listings like websites or blog site discussions,may be considered as similar to the kind of incipientscience fiction writing seen in Japan. This statementis due to the fact that some materials may have beenclassified as science fiction because they contain ‘sciencefictionish’ elements, perhaps in the form of scientificterminologies, scientific principles or scientific facts,but do not necessarily create the critical topology ofAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS 105a narrative. In other words, some ‘science’ is presentbut the manner in which it is utilized is not really andactually a requirement for the story to live or die.Opposing oppositions, dissecting dichotomies: Thediscourse of science and technology in Asian sciencefictionsFor this particular discussion, I opt to focus on threeJapanese science fiction texts and three Indonesianscience fiction texts. The Japanese materials includeKobo Abe’s Inter Ice Age 4 (1970), Hagio Moto andher manga (Japanese comic books and cartoons) TheyWere Eleven (1976), and Masamune Shirow’s Ghost inthe Shell (1991). For the Indonesian texts, we will focuson a television situation comedy entitled Lorong Waktu(Time Tunnel) produced by Demi Gisela CitronSinema in 2003, 4 Ronny Fredilla’s Transpondex (2006),and the first volume of an Indonesian manga calledInside: My Best Friends (2006) by Altis Studio.The general conceptual framework centers on theblurring of boundaries that once were definitiveassertions of fragmented and even antagonisticrelationships between disciplines and particularworldviews. Through discourse analysis, we attempt toexamine the representation of science and technology(ST) in these texts and make palpable the political in ourconstructed relationship with science and technology,especially highlighting the skepticism toward pervasivediscursive binary oppositions that view science as truthand others as myth.Science and spirituality/religionIt seems odd that a text supposedly espousing scienceto form its trope self-permeates elements that couldbe considered counter or contradictory to its masterframework. Science and spirituality, so it seems, aretwo opposing poles: one utterly into the rational andempirical while the other slipping into the unknownand mystical. However, one cannot be more real thanthe other.This is Ghost in the Shell’s (GitS henceforth) propositionas it delivers an exhilarating, action-packed, hi-tech storyabout a world where physical and national boundariesare dissolved through cyberspace, and cyborg assassinsand AIs abound. GitS is about the encounters of oneMajor Motoko Kusanagi who stands as the leader ofa group of top government security agents who arecalled upon by Aramaki, the Chief Security Police ofSection 9, to resolve cases involving ghost hacking,assassinations and other gruesome and heinous crimescommitted for—as it turns out in the end of every stakeout—political,economic and no less personal gains.There is frequent mention of the subject ‘ghost’ that issometimes referred to by the words ‘spirit’, ‘life force’,‘being’ and ‘life.’ It is worth noting that the maindriving force of the plot is the underlying question ofthe definition of ‘being’ as a living entity different frommachines, such as robots, which are highly mechanical,or the androids who, though highly intelligent, arenevertheless inevitably lacking the element of spirit orghost.Perhaps the chapter that finally reveals the characterof the Puppeteer is the single most significant partthat is of particular interest to our purpose, not tomention that it is also the climax of the whole novelafter many deadly encounters of the team with minor,establishing events. The Puppeteer is a strange ‘form’or ‘formlessness,’ perhaps stranger than the ‘ghost’construct because it is beyond discussion of the ghostas spirit. It is actually a discourse on the very essence of‘life’ and affords us some critique of the powerful socialstructures that dictate who or what has the right to lifeor the reality of life.Let us for a moment indulge the Puppeteer in a recitalof its take on life, being, self and spirituality, each timecalling on the discourse of science combined withreligiosity and Western and Eastern philosophies. ThePuppeteer’s profound litany: 5…Gravity and a strong mutual interaction, etc.,continually divide components creating protonsand nuclei creating atoms…Cells and organismsin individual life forms… Multiple species inecosystems…The universe we know is only one outof 2 n ! It’s made up of a combination of 2 m ! kinds!The values of n and m appear to continue infinitelybut we don’t know for certain…Following are lines that appear to be an ecumenicalassemblage of various Western and Eastern spirituality—an amalgamation of philosophies for the purpose ofmore holistically explaining the Puppeteer’s (text’s)conviction and analysis of life itself. It is worth recallingthat this near conclusion of the Puppeteer’s treatisestarted with his mustering of scientific reasoning:The secrets of the Kabbala, the Norse myths, theChinese myths, the tree of wisdom in Eden, thetree of life, the world tree…These are all worthyof being called amenomi-bashira, or “the pillarof heaven”…It’s the system in the universe thatAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

106 BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONSchannelers—in every era, culture, and every race ofpeople—have traditionally accessed…This disbelief in the absolute separation of scienceand spirituality is also manifest in the Indonesian scifitelevision program Lorong Waktu, albeit in a mannerthat specifically banishes the long-standing dividebetween science and religion.The plot centers on the character of Haji Husinwho takes care of a masjid (mosque) and a couple ofpersonalities with an obscure past. It also features anendearing child character, Zidane, and his adventuresin time travel with the others. Originally shown duringthe Ramadhan of 2003, the narrative, aside from beinggoverned by the science fictional essential (i.e., timemachine), is inspired by the teachings of Islam such thateach adventure that the characters take on must have amoral consistent with the doctrines of the faith. Aimedat capturing the Indonesian family as its main audience,the wholesome series was intentionally created to be arich lode of life lessons derived from Islamic teachings.Dedi Mizwar, who conceptualized and produced theprogram, emphasizes this conceptual scheme in the story.In an interview, he conveyed that the main inspirationfor creating the program was to make people realize thatscience and religion (i.e., Islam) are not fundamentallyopposed to each other. Science and religion, he furtherasserts, are in fact complements.Science and mythIndonesian scifi’s insistence, as with the case of LorongWaktu, on the necessary interconnection of science andreligion is easily comprehensible if we take as a reliablebasis for such an assertion the country’s essential bondwith Islam as one major facet of its identity formation.This can also be said regarding Japanese scifi’s facilityfor fusing science with spirituality. However, asidefrom the fact that traditional Shinto philosophy, forexample, creates an easy path for such sensibility, itis indispensable to recognize that Japan’s history ofscience and technology has a constructedness that issomewhat different from the West, although the Westwas its most influential source of modern science andtechnology. Sakuma Shozan, said to be the leader ofJapan’s modernization, advocated in the Tokugawaperiod (1603-1867) the slogan, “Japanese morals andWestern arts,” which paved the way for a dual culturalstructure: the acceptance of Western science andtechnology (especially in the Meiji restoration) whilerecognizing the value of reinforcing its own homegrownphilosophy, morals and culture (Chamarik andGoonatilake 1994, 316).This melding of local and foreign consciousness can alsobe the one probable reason why Japanese scifi yet againdefies with ease one clearly established dichotomy thatattempts to delineate the difference between credibleand incredible claims to truth. We can read suchdiscourse in the manga, They Were Eleven, which tellsthe story of ten examinees from different territories(countries and planets) aboard an abandoned ship, freefloatingin space, who, for their final exam, are tasked tosurvive a 53-day period and return back to Earth safely.As it were, the assignment is serious enough for the tenyoungsters who are supposedly among the best in thebatch. However, the greater difficulty resides in anothercomplicating, yet simple, mathematical problem: thereis one too many on-board.Setting aside this mystery for now, we venture to focuson one of the ten characters by the name of Nuum,from the planet Inudo, and his proclamation of abelief system that his civilization holds dearly. Thisexposition is prompted by an astronomical event thatconcerns an unexpected encounter with a planet’s sunthat proves to be of fatal consequence. Nuum, uponlearning of this occurrence announces, “According tomy country’s astrology...the overlapping celestial bodiesare a foreshadowing of the worst possible circumstances.We will probably meet our ruin before the 53 daysare up” (Hagio 1996, 111). The mere mention of theterm ‘astrology’ instantly elicits negative reactions fromhis co-examinees, who view Nuum’s convictions assuperstitious fabulations. Doubts are raised as to thetruth of the statements from a creature that seems tohave an obscure and mystical take on a clearly scientificastronomical phenomenon. Then again, we hear Nuumfurther illumine us of his country’s claim to truth,which, needless to say, is scientific truth, “The positionsof the planets and stars determine the seasons, and theseasons in turn determine the cycle of life… life anddeath. This is fate. Astrology is a science that has beendeveloped on my planet through the study of nature”(Hagio 1996, 112-113).We have to be mindful of the multi-cultural (andinterplanetary) backdrop that drives the story. Thecharacters are from different countries of various planetswith different worldviews. This is redolent of SandraHarding’s (2006, 31-49) contention for the opennessthat science should have in creating different systems ofknowledge due to the fact that cultures and changes inthem shape sciences. Furthermore, the argumentationthat ensued from Nuum’s declaration of his planet’sscientific beliefs can be read as a problematization of theAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS 107demarcation of truth and myth in science. Often, withthe blessing of scientific consciousness, we are likelyto believe that as a modern people we ought to leavebehind things of the past that include beliefs that areunfounded in any competent evidence—myths. Thisalmost-always-ready antipathy is what is actually beingconflicted in the Indonesian novel Transpondex—a taleabout a teenage girl’s adventure into the future to lookfor and save her father who was actually the inventor ofthe time travel device dubbed the ‘transpondex.’The elaboration of the divide between science and mythas truth and fantasy (respectively) lies in the depictionof the future in the story as a historical possibility. Thisfuture, as made clearer by the events, is undoubtedlyrooted in the past. There is no argument in that exceptfor an interesting detail in the plot of novel—the futureIndonesia is inhabited by characters from the epicMahabharata (e.g., Pendawa), which is considered (just)a mythological tradition. The unequivocal dismantlingof the barrier that separates truth and myth is furthercompounded by the introduction of actual historicalpersonalities into this future scenario. The mainantagonist in the story, who is revealed only toward theend, is easily recognizable as Hitler, who even has athis disposal a ‘swastika inspired’ superhuman fightingtechnique.A central understanding that we may achieve fromreading the text in this light is that myth is not aliento science. The arena of knowledge and truth-creationis not immune to containing age-old beliefs that needdiscarding in favor of new ones. As once held scientificprinciples become refuted and new ones based onmore present scientific advances arrive, the scientificcommunity is driven to change its worldview. ZiauddinSardar (2000, 28-29), in discussing how scientificprinciples can be outmoded as advanced by Kuhn inThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), assertsthat even the scientific method as an idealized processupon which much of science’s claim to objectivity anduniversalism is based is just a mirage-myth.Science as politicsLaura Nader (1996), an anthropologist, claims thatmuch about science is taken for granted, such as itsbounded and autonomous nature, its homogeneity, itsWesternism and its messianic spirit, and often we do notsee it as connoting an institutional setting. This is alsothe tenor of Kuhn’s (1962, 5-6) evaluation of sciencefrom the perspective of a professional historian whereinhe looks at science not as the objective and disinteresteddiscipline it purports to be but as a dogmatic set ofpractices that is also self-promoting and self-fulfilling. 6Kobo Abe’s Inter Ice Age 4 depicts exactly how sciencedoes not exist in a vacuum but in a wider context ofconcrete human and institutional relationships. It isabout a scientist, Dr. Katsumi, whose view of scienceseems to be ‘science for science’s sake.’ He is one whoperfectly embodies the distancing of the self from theobject of study, a conviction that will lead to his tragicfate as the story unfolds. Dr. Katsumi heads a researchlab that monitors and perfects a forecasting machinenamed ‘Moscow I,’ which was consequently upgradedto ‘Moscow II’. During this time, when the polar icecaps have begun to melt, a secret and illegal group ofscientists with the backing of private corporationsand certain government institutions have begun work(without Dr. Katsumi’s knowledge) on a scheme topreserve terrestrial life through the biological mutationof animals and even human beings (acquired throughaborted human fetuses). The ultimate goal of the projectis to create an underwater nation that will survive thedestruction of Japan.Two things in the story immediately lead us to theunderstanding that science can never be value-free.First, science as an institution is defined and delimitedby hierarchy and bureaucracy as effectively representedby the conspiracy against Dr. Katsumi. This involvesthe complicity of the lab, research institutions, privatecorporations and the government. Second, the useof science and technology as a tool for various forcesto reinforce their goals is portrayed by the squabbleinitiated by the USA when Dr. Katsumi’s forecastingmachine, having been fed with basic information,predicts the triumph of communism. The Americangovernment’s gush of vitriol stems from its position asa political rival—at least prior to 1991—of the SovietUnion, as the other superpower. In the story, we witnessclaims by the USA redolent of Cold War rhetoric: “the[present] course of the Soviet Union is to attempt tothreaten the liberty of men and jeopardize internationalfriendship by betraying their own claims for peacefulcoexistence.” 7Johan Galtung and Robert Jungk (1970), in acritique of the then emerging field of study known as‘futurism,’ warned against the impending hegemonyover the visualization of the future that serves only theinterests of power groups by employing the expertiseof governmental departments, military establishmentsand large corporations. This political dimension ofscience and technology often overlooked by the averageindividual (as the consumer of science and technology)is cleverly insinuated in Inside: My Best Friends (Vol.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

108 BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS1) by Altis Studio. The manga-inspired text revolvesaround the story of three friends who become involvedin the development and use of newly developed hi-techfuture weapons in the form of battle suits.Political overtones with specific reference to adeveloping country’s dependence on foreign scienceand technology can be observed in the text. Lookingclosely at the panel introducing the second chapter, wecan see in the background the name of the institutionthat develops these powerful weapons. Realizingwhat the name supposedly pertains to, CEDAR (UNCenter for Research and Defense Facility), readersare not only given information as to what Indonesianbody or establishment may possibly have the capacityin the future to utilize such a level of scientific andtechnological advancement, but are also made privyto the present-day (or, probable future) scenario of adeveloping nation’s continued dependence on foreign(Western) science and technology transfer.Future imperfect, past forward: Imagining the futurein Asian science fictionsWe have seen that Asian scifi is not non-existent, thoughthe literary form is largely seen as a Western culturalproduct. We have noted how necessary it is that wetake a look at how Asian scifis construct and engagea discourse of science that may provide a more criticalview vis-à-vis the hegemonic positioning of Westernistscience in a global setting. By way of a reminder, this sortof discussion on ST in fictive narratives is not unique toAsian scifi. Many Western and various science fictiontexts of post-colonial character are tackling the sameissues and presenting readers the same possible arenafor dialogue. However, focusing on the texts from Asiaaffords us the opportunity to appreciate the same issuesand engage in this dialogue with the particularities ofthe community’s diverse experiences (e.g., as colonialsubjects engaging with past colonizers, as developingnations co-existing with industrialized neighbors, asmodern states that still cherish traditional sensibilities)as our backdrop or foreground. At this point, aside fromthe critical look bestowed upon ST, it is also significantto examine the constructions of the future in Asian scifisto see if they challenge or fortify visions of tomorrowthat thrive in the status quo of today.This is especially important in the context of the ThirdWorld—largely seen as too backward and unindustrializedto cultivate in itself a culture of scientific and futuristicimaginings. However, it is also this very characteristicof technological delay and scientific disenfranchisementthat warrants ample attention to existing articulationsof power relations revolving around the interplay ofscience and technology, development, politics, themilitary and economy, and society and culture.By this time, it is unwise to deny the overbearingsignificance of science and technology in the macroandmicro-spheres of human life. As we have seenin the aforementioned scifi texts from Japan andIndonesia, the future seems to be constructed under theoverhanging aegis of science and technology (i.e., spaceexplorations, cyborgs and AIs, hi-tech battle suits, timemachines, genetic manipulation). From this viewpoint,we can almost taste the future as techno-scientificand definitely picture it as ‘techno-idyllic.’ 8 However,it is also dangerous to overindulge in the unexaminedacceptance of everything that science and moderntechnology offer us as if to say that they are all that weneed in forging a path to tomorrow.This warning is best given voice by the same scifi textsthat, along with the techno-idyllic landscape, envisionthe future as also replete with oppressive anti-humanand sub-human value systems. In the anthology entitledAdministrator (1974) by Mayumura Taku for example,individuals are transformed into mere machines, muchlike robots, by training them to be emotionless andexpressionless—a prerequisite to being unbiased in thetreatment of colonists (called ‘Terrans’ who wish to liveon colonized planets) and the natives of the planets.Aside from a highly significant commentary oncolonization, imperialism and the ethnocentrism ofhuman beings, the ‘Administrator System,’ the mainmetaphor and central image in the narrative, serves asa critique and foreboding about bureaucracy and thereduction of the individual into a mere ‘function’ ofa system where robots (machines) are increasinglydepended upon in various aspects of daily processes inthe forefront of public transactions.This seemingly dystopic depiction of the future dueto the uncritical effluence of technology is especiallycommon in the Japanese texts included in the study.This does not necessarily mean that the Indonesian textsdo not engage in such issues or themes as we can see inits commentary on the pitfalls of advanced technologyin, for example, the novel Lost in Teleporter by TrinaBarmawi, which tells the story of a man who loses hisnose in a ‘teleportation machine’ in the desire to get toBandung (a city in Indonesia) the fastest possible way.This is also not to say that a portrayal of a symbioticrelationship with technology is not to be found in thesaid Japanese texts. It is better to say, in fact, that theJapanese scifi reveals a contradiction when visualizingAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS 109a future eventually tied to science and technology.The highly observed ability of the Japanese to absorbtechnology and feel a sense of intimacy with it 9 isactually manifest in many scifi materials. For example,in the manga Chobits by Clamp, personal computers inthe future have really lived up to the term ‘personal’since they have become humanoid companions,dubbed ‘persocoms,’ that each person can possibly haveand choose to have over ‘real’ people. Standing in sheeropposition to Chobits’ benevolent and often servilepersocoms is a dark and pessimistic imagining of afuture beset with man-made humanoid cyborgs and AIsgone berserk, such as the anime Parasite Dolls by KazutoNakazawa, in which androids develop unforeseenglitches akin to irrational, even psychotic behavior thatproves to be a threat to their human companions.It is fair enough to say, judging from the materialsincluded in the study, that Indonesian scifi is notsimilar to the Japanese texts in its level of depicting ahighly techno-idyllic future. However, in the scifis ofIndonesia, the representation of the future as history isallowed more prominence.It is interesting to note that many of the Indonesiantexts are preoccupied with the theme of time travel. 10Lorong Waktu featured a time machine, PertualanganErasmus portrays the tale of a child, Erasmus, andhis journey to the future to meet a dictator and hisnamesake only to find out that the despot is actuallyhis alter-self, and Transpondex brings us yet again tothe future of Indonesia that serves as the juncture forthe mythical characters of the Mahabharata and actualhistorical figures. The interest in time travel perhapsgoes beyond a penchant for recycling scifi clichés butimplicates the very cliché in a particular utility thatencourages a more conscious political and ideologicalengagement or confrontation with personal andshared histories that are constantly reviewed, revisitedand revised. Through the aforementioned texts, webear witness to the ineluctable bond between historyas past (even as we concern ourselves) with history asfuture—be it an articulation of faith and its wider roleas a catalyst of social, political and cultural change andbringer of hope, or the intersection of the personaland social in self-actualization and the realization ofa destiny, or the assertion of indigenous cosmologicalnarratives in a largely restrictive dominant purview ofcertain legitimizing institutions of knowledge.This re-articulation of marginalized views of the future asnot solely techno-idyllic but also historically consciouscould be the conceptual foundation that shores upanother representation of the future that is youth. Inboth the Japanese and Indonesian texts, the youngergeneration is usually represented as the rightful ownerof the future. From Zidane in Lorong Waktu and theteenage techno-geniuses of Inside to the highly evolvedbattle suit pilot Amuro Ray in Gundam and the kids whochoose to stay in the ruins of a once-exalted modern cityof Aphrodite, they prompt us to revise our understandingof the future as circumscribed by materiality and insteadsee it as a new breed of consciousness that will inheritthe earth. Transcending the innate emptiness of a tabularasa, to represent the future as youth is to invoke at oncea fresh and open but at the same time an informed andevolved consciousness that is prepared to go beyond thelimits and traps of outmoded ways of understandingthe world and generating knowledge (see for example,how in the series Mobile Suit Gundam by YoshiyukiTomino, a story about space colonies and mobile battlesuits, the quotidian routine of space exploration triggersan evolution of consciousness and sensibility unboundby a tiresome terrestrial domain).Perhaps, one of the greatest problematics that theproblematization of Asian scifi brings is the extentto which it reinforces or challenges the images andimaginations of science, technology and the future thathave been constructed by the (dominant) West. We havealways been fascinated by the spectacle that science andtechnology may bring to tomorrow. Now is the time toquestion the imagination created by the domination ofcertain ideological formations. Japanese and Indonesianscience fiction as discussed above certainly proclaim thevital role of acknowledging that an active relation withscience and technology is not the sole entitlement ofthe West. From a post-colonial take on science andtechnology, it is beckoning the developing and non-Western world to challenge a prefigured subjectivityof scientific and technological subjugation, and todismantle the confinements of (our own) imaginings.NOTES1For a listing of the titles of the texts included in the study,please refer to the Appendix.2Takayuki Tatsumi’s full discussion on the science fictionalityof Asia can be found in the article entitled “Japanese andAsian Science Fiction” in Seed (Ed.) (2005).3This statement should not be construed as accurate by anyscientific measure. It stems from general observations Imade while gathering materials in the country. Thoughby no means can it be accepted as a statistical truth,the observation is actually supported by local scholars,Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

110 BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONSresearchers and friends who almost always proclaimedthat there is no science fiction in Indonesia.4 The discussion of Lorong Waktu as the principal text in thepaper is based on an interview with the creator of theprogram, Dedi Mizwar, who is also a well-known andrespected film actor and producer in Indonesia. Since thetelevision program was aired in 2003, I did not have thechance to view it myself and thus sought the next bestthing—to gather insights from the maker of the programhimself.5It is important to remember at this point that the Puppeteer’sentire thesis is presented as a long and continuousdeclamation that vividly reflects the transition from a veryscientific paradigm to a more philosophical and spiritualinvocation. This clearly demonstrates the dissolution ofthe barrier separating science and spirituality. It is best tosee the manga itself to gain the insight of the Puppeteer’sprofound words in its entirety.6In Kuhn’s discussion, the dogmatic set of practices that isalso self-fulfilling as a defining characteristic is especiallytrue for what he terms as ‘normal science.’7Moreover, the USA government demands that the currentfuturology project be abandoned as it proves to exert anobtrusive brutality on the consciousness of those whohear of the machine’s predictions. To complete the entirepassage: “We consider the Moscow II to be a violenceagainst the mind; we advise its early abandonmentand revocation. In the event our statement shouldgo unheeded, we are prepared to petition the UnitedNations” (Abe 2004, 14).8I am indebted to Georgi Shakhnazarov for this concept.In his discussion of the field of ‘futurology’ as fiasco,Shakhnazarov (1982, 15-18) espouses this term to meanthat most futuristic scenarios attempt to firm science andtechnology as omnipotent and the sole determinantsof social development. Furthermore, he contends thatfuturology as a field is slanted in favor of the scientifictechnicalrevolution that paves the way to technicalsolutions of all social concerns.9 Compared to American and European workers, forexample, who have often opposed the introduction ofnew technology, such as robots, that they see as possiblythreatening them with unemployment, in Japan’sautomobile factories, by stark contrast, each robot is calledby a pet name (Chamarik and Goonatilake 1994, 313).10 There are two possible explanations for this. First, timetravel is a staple in general science fiction texts. Wecannot fault any writer of science fiction who choosesto rehash the particular trope. Second, this one we oweto Mas Cahyo Pamungkas of the Indonesia Institute ofSciences (LIPI). In a discussion on Asian science fictionswhere I first presented this reading of Indonesian sciencefiction texts, he proposed that the preoccupation of thesenarratives with time travel could be traced to a particularstory where Muhammad the prophet travelled from theearth to the heavens and back in just one day.REFERENCESAbe, Kobo. Inter Ice Age 4. Trans. E. Dale Saunders. Singapore:Tuttle, 2004.Asimov, Isaac. Asimov on Science Fiction. NY: AVON Books,1981.Chamarik, Saneh and Susantha Goonatilake. Eds.Technological Independence: The Asian Experience. Japan:UNU Press, 1994.Dingbo, Wu and Patrick Murphy. Eds. Science Fiction fromChina. NY: Greenwood Press, 1989.Galtung, Johan and Robert Jungk. “Postscript: A Warningand a Hope.” Mankind 2000. Eds. Jungk, Robert and JohanGaltung. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1970.Hagio, Moto. “They Were Eleven.” Four Shojo Stories. Trans.Matt Thorn. Canada: Viz Graphics, 1996.Harding, Sandra. Science and Social Inequality: Feminist andPostcolonial Issues. USA: University of Illinois Press, 2006.Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.Matthew, Robert. Japanese Science Fiction: A View of aChanging Society. UK: Routledge, 1989.Nader, Laura. Ed. Naked Science: Anthropological Inquiry intoBoundaries, Power and Knowledge. NY: Routledge, 1996.Sardar, Ziauddin. Thomas Kuhn and the Science Wars. NY:Totem Books, 2000.Seed, David. Ed. A Companion to Science Fiction. UK:Blackwell, 2005.Shakhnazarov, Georgi. Futurology Fiasco: A Critical Studyof Non-Marxists Concepts of How Society Develops. Moscow:Progress Publishers, 1982.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS 111APPENDIX: List of science fiction materials includedin the studyJapaneseNovelsAbe, Kobo. Inter Ice Age 4. Trans. E. Dale Saunders. Singapore:Tuttle, 2004.Masaki, Yamada. Aphrodite. Trans. Daniel Jackson. Japan:Kurodahan Press, 2004.Taku, Mayumura. Administrator. Trans. Daniel Jackson.Japan: Kurodahan Press, 2004.Tomino, Yoshiyuki. Mobile Suit Gundam. Trans. Frederik L.Schodt. Berkley: Stone Bridge Press, 2004.AnthologiesApostolou, John and Martin H. Greenberg. Eds. The BestJapanese Science Fiction. NY: Barricade Books Inc, 1997.Mariko Ohara. “Girl.” Monkey Brain Sushi: New Tastes inJapanese Fiction. Ed. Alfred Birnbaum. New York: Kodansha,1991.Shinichi, Hoshi. The Capricious Robot. Trans. RobertMatthew. Japan: Kodansha, 1966.Tsutsui, Yasutaka. Portraits of Eight Families. Trans. AdamKabat. Japan: Kodansha, 1989.Tsutsui, Yasutaka. Salmonella Men on Planet Porno. Trans.Andrew Driver. UK: Alma Books, 2006.IndonesianNovelsBarmawi, Trina (2005) Lost in Teleporter. Kisah Cinta Abadke-22. Jakarta: Penerbit PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama.Fredila, Ronny (2006) Transpondex. Mesin Cinta LintasWaktu. Jakarta: Gagas Media.Indriati, Etty (2005) Cokelat Postmortem. Jkt: Gramedia.Leonard, Baron (2006) Digitarium. Indonesia: PT AndalKrida Nusantara.Lestari, Dewi (2001) Supernova. Bandung: Truedee Books.Magistra, Fatia N. (2006) Pertualangan Erasmus. Yogyakarta:Pinus.Manga/Comic bookAltis Studio (2006) Inside: My Best Friends Vol. 1. Jkt: AltisStudio.Sequen: Rujukan Seni Cergam Vol. 1 No. 1-4TV seriesLorong Waktu. Director: Dedi Mizwar. Demi Gisela CitronSinema, 2003.MangaHagio, Moto. A, A’. Trans. Matt Thorn. CA: VizCommunications, 1997.Hagio, Moto. “They Were Eleven.” Four Shojo Stories. Trans.Matt Thorn. Canada: Viz Graphics, 1996.Sato, Shio. “The Changeling.” Four Shojo Stories. Trans. MattThorn. Canada: Viz Graphics, 1996.Shirow, Masamune. Ghost in the Shell. Trans. Frederick L.Schodt. Japan: Kodansha, 1991.Tezuka, Osamu. Metropolis. Trans. Kumar Siva Subaramanian.Canada: Dark Horse Comics, 2003.AnimeAkira. Directors: Katsuhiro Otomo and Izo Hashimoto.Based on manga by Katsuhiro Otomo. Producers: RyoheiSuzuki and Shunzo Kato, 1988.Chobits. Director: Morio Asaka. Based on manga by Clamp.Madhouse, 2002. Akira. Directors: Katsuhiro Otomo and IzoHashimoto. Based on manga by Katsuhiro Otomo. Producers:Ryohei Suzuki and Shunzo Kato, 1988.Parasite Dolls. Director: Kazuto Nakazawa and YoshinagaNaoyuki. Anime International Company, 2003.The Royal Space Force. Director: Hiroyuki Yamada. Producers:Hiroaki Inoue and Hirohiko Sueyoshi, 1987.Film (non-anime)Avalon. Director: Mamoru Oshii. Bandai, 2001.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

112 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONBONES IN TANSU — FAMILY SECRETSYoshiko ShimadaIntroductionMy art project, “Bones in Tansu—Family Secrets,”originally started in Tokyo in 2004. It travelled toKorea in 2005, and with the API fellowship, I wasable to conduct it in Metro Manila, Chiang Mai andYogyakarta. The project was comprised of an installation,a workshop and a discussion in each country. Theinstallation consisted of a tansu (chest of drawers) anda writing booth. Each drawer contained a secret anda piece of artwork. The audience was encouraged topeek into the drawers and to write their own secretsand put these secrets into a box. I checked the box everyday and made new artworks based on the secrets. Theinstallation period lasted from two to four weeks. Afterthis period, I conducted a talk and discussion with theaudience. I also conducted workshops to share andfurther understand these secrets.The objective of this project was to provide a safe arenafor the silenced to express their experiences and sharethese with others in public without risking their privacy.Creating this space was the ultimate purpose of thisproject. This was not, however, a tool for sociologicalresearch. For research purposes, this installation wasnot wide-ranging enough and not verifiable. Thus, theaudience was not the subject of a research project, butwas an essential participant and collaborator in thisart project. Through their secrets, I could make someassessment of their society, an assessment that wasshared and discussed with the audience through theworkshops.The significance of this project, therefore, did not liein providing answers to the problems. Rather, it layin empowering the audience and in encouraging itsmembers to relate to and empathize with each other.This installation served to erase the border between thepublic and private spheres and to make the audienceaware that their private and familial problems are notjust personal, but also political.The project was realized in Metro Manila at theUniversity of the Philippines in Diliman (UP Diliman)from 1 August to 15 September 2006, at the ChiangMai University (CMU) Art Museum in February 2007and at the Cemeti Art House in Yogyakarta in July2007.FindingsThere are some particular issues which interest eachlocal audience. In the beginning of each new location,I presented the secrets from the previous region. In thePhilippines, I put secrets from Japan and Korea into thedrawers. The audience reacted strongly to some of thesecrets. However, I do not intend to essentialize theseproblems to a particular region since they existed inthe previous region. Still, I want to know the reasonsbehind this strong reaction to particular issues ineach site. There are some secrets that appear only in acertain site. For example, political affiliation appearsas secrets only in Manila. On the one hand, this couldindicate that there are more political problems in thePhilippines. On the other, it could indicate that thereis greater disillusionment or apathy toward anythingpolitical in other countries. Moreover, it may be thecase that there is more oppression or self-censorshipagainst political expressions in other countries. Thereis no one reading of these particularities and I am nottrying to find one conclusion. My purpose is to presenteach region’s particularities and provide some insightsso they can be shared and empathized with by peopleoutside the region. The following pages present some ofthese issues and findings.Metro ManilaThe venue for the installation was the Faculty Center ofUP Diliman where there is a great deal of faculty andstudent traffic. I collected altogether over 250 secrets.Most were written by students and 90 percent werein English. From previous installations in Tokyo andSeoul, I realized that the audience reacted to certainsecrets already provided in the drawers. For example,in the case of Metro Manila, many reacted very stronglyto a secret from Korea about incestuous sexual abuseagainst children. As a result, an overwhelming number,about 40 percent of all secrets, were about child abuse.I discussed this with students in three lectures andasked them to write papers about it. Some wrote thatthe reason behind this is alcohol or substance abuse byAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 113parents, housing inadequacy (i.e., a whole family forcedto sleep in one room), and insufficient education forboth parents and children. Others said that there arean increasing number of families with absent parents,as parents working abroad leave their children in thecare of relatives or older children. Without parentalprotection, the children left behind are exposed toabusers within their household. Many think that themain reason for this domestic abuse is overwhelmingpoverty caused by local and global inequality and thegovernment’s inability to support its own citizens.I also think that one of the reasons why there was suchan overwhelming reaction to this particular issue is thatthere is more awareness of domestic violence and childabuse and wider media coverage in the Philippines. Inother words, people are aware that this abuse has a name.In 1994, in Japan, there was no record of domesticchild abuse at all. When my artist friend tried to getinformation from the Japanese Ministry of Health,the officials there said that domestic violence and childabuse did not exist in Japan as there was no record,and that the term “domestic violence” was a “foreign”concept. In contrast, awareness of this problem amongyoung people is very high in the Philippines. However,because of the family structure and perhaps religion, itis still difficult to speak out about such experiences. Thisproject provided victims with an opportunity to relievethemselves of their burden.I was very fortunate to have befriended Alma Quinto,a well-known Filipina artist who participated in theYokohama Triennale in Japan in 2005. When she wasin Yokohama, I collaborated with her in organizingworkshops on domestic child abuse and trauma. Shehad been working with sexually abused girls at anorganization called Create Responsive Infants By Sharing(C.R.I.B.S.) in Manila for over ten years. C.R.I.B.S. isa non-profit institution that houses abandoned infantsand abused girls between the age of six and seventeen.With Alma’s help, I conducted a workshop with childrenat C.R.I.B.S. This was to further understand the issueof abuse by interacting with the victims themselves andalso to try to provide some help towards their recoveryprocess through art making.The C.R.I.B.S. workshop’s main purpose was toempower the girls; therefore, the whole process wasdecided collectively. I came up with the idea of makinga pinata and smashing it up. A pinata is a children’s toyof Spanish-Mexican origin. It is a colorful papier-mâchédoll filled with candies. At parties, children smash it upwith sticks. I have noticed that some institutions forabused children try very hard to exclude any indicationof violence from the children’s environment. To mymind, this “protective” method seems to rigidly solidifytheir identity as that of victims. While some protectionmay be necessary, I think outbursts of violence and theexperience of power in a controlled environment willenhance the children’s self-esteem. Moreover, I alsosimply wanted to have fun with the girls.I suggested making a “Monster” pinata and that the girlsmake drawings of a monster, which could be somethingfrom their past experiences or their inner selves or purefantasy. Then we showed each other these drawingsand made up a unified image of a monster. With helpfrom UP students, we made the basic structure of apinata with papier-mâché, which the girls then painted.I put secrets of child abuse cut into small pieces likeconfetti and candies inside the monster. On the day ofthe smashing, the girls dressed up in their best (theywanted to dress as super women) and sang a song fromthe Philippine version of the TV series Wonder Woman.The girls then smashed up the monster and tore it open.Afterwards, we discussed how they felt about it. Manysaid it was a great deal of fun and also felt that it wasempowering.Another aspect very particular to the Philippines aresecrets about political affiliation. There are manystudents who kept their membership in or sympathy forthe Communist Party of the Philippines a secret fromtheir families. Unlike in Japan, the Communist Party isbanned in the country and crackdowns on students onthe UP campus are prevalent. While I was there, onefemale student with a video camera was abducted bya special police force unit and later released. An uncleof my friend was gunned down during his politicalcampaign. Thus, the threat is very visible and real.However, even in this difficult situation, there are alsobrave and encouraging secrets. Several participants saidtheir secret is that they want to become doctors, teachers,or volunteer workers to help deprived people, ratherthan carry on the family businesses and make money.This social awareness and eagerness to do somethingto improve their society is not found once in Japanamong the more than 1,000 secrets I gathered there,and was also rarely found in other countries. This maybe because of the location (i.e., UP Diliman is a stateuniversity) but, compared to other countries’ politicalapathy, the young students’ compassion and interest inthe socially marginalized in the Philippines seem to bevery strong.Chiang MaiHere, the venue of the installation was the Chiang MaiAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

114 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONUniversity Art Museum. Chiang Mai University has anextensive campus and a very strong fine arts departmentthat is reflected in the CMU Art Museum, which is verylarge for a university and is as large as many municipalmuseums in Japan. The installation was held in arelatively small room on the first floor. While trafficwas not as frequent as it is in Manila, the museum isvisited by the general public and many tourists so theaudience for the installation was more diverse. Beforethe show, some people from Thailand told me thatThais are very shy and would not reveal their secretsto strangers, the same thing I was told before the firstinstallation in Tokyo. However, I collected over 1,000secrets in one museum show in Tokyo alone. Althoughthe number of secrets collected here was lower thanin Manila, the percentage of participants from theaudience who wrote these secrets was about the same.I received 80 secrets altogether, after which I had aseries of discussions with students from Chiang MaiUniversity and local artists. Of all the secrets collected,the common thread was about the closeness of familyrelationships and its burden. Parent-child relationshipsseem co-dependent on economic, social and emotionalfactors. Some students suggested that this reflects aregional characteristic of the northern rural Thais, wheretraditional family values are stronger as compared to thebig city of Bangkok.After some discussions with art students, CMU studentsexpressed an interest in creating artwork from otherpeople’s secrets. One student said: “Before, I thoughtartists were to express themselves. But now I realize thatartists can empathize with other people’s pain in theartwork.” Much of the art education here seems to becentered on the rather romantic, 19 th century Westernidea of art as the product of some genius artist whoexpresses his inner emotions, or pure aesthetics, removedfrom society. For most art students, the participation ofthe audience in creating artwork was unthinkable. I wasvery much moved by the CMU art students’ empathyand willingness to internalize and create art from otherpeople’s pain and sadness. Six students completed smalldrawings and collages, after which I interviewed themon video about what they were thinking in the processof art making. Finally, I exhibited their work togetherwith mine in new drawers in Indonesia.One of those interviewed was an art student who saidthat the secret that affected him most was one in whicha man was mistakenly arrested and imprisoned by thepolice. Later this person became a lawyer in order tohelp those who are wrongly accused. That student madean abstract black drawing.“I did this drawing and kept working on it again andagain. It was like a catharsis of letting go of the effectof the secret I read. I kept on drawing until I felt fine,getting rid of the fear I felt from the secret.”“Normally when I make an art work, it comes frommy inner feelings or my own experiences. This timeit was different. I was affected by the suffering ofanother. It was a new experience for me.”From his words, it is apparent that art and art makingis a tool for both empathy towards and recovery fromtrauma, which is not necessarily the artist’s own.YogyakartaOn my next stop, I performed the project at theCemeti Art House in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Unlikeall previous cases, the Cemeti has no affiliation with anacademic institution. It started as an artist-run gallery ofcontemporary Indonesian art, founded about 25 yearsago by Mella Jaarsma and Nindityo Adipurmono, twointernationally well-known artists. The house is one ofthe most respected art institutions in Yogyakarta, wherecontemporary art and artists seem to be thriving. TheCemeti certainly has been the center of much artisticand political energy in Yogyakarta. It provides a galleryand office space as well as residential quarters for artists,and is now hosting a residency program with ArtoteekDen Haag in the Netherlands. The residency program,LANDING SOON, is a three-year exchange programwhich provides two spaces for artists from The Hagueand one space for an artist from Indonesia for periodof time.Most people who came to the installation, apart fromthe general public, were artists. Over time, I collectedabout 80 secrets, after which I conducted one roundof talks with artists that was attended by over 40people. This was followed by a very vigorous discussion.Interestingly, almost all of the secrets collected at theCemeti have one common theme, namely sex. Sexualrelationships and sexuality in general seem to be theparticipant’s main secrets from their families. Manysaid that this was due to religious beliefs as, unlike theother countries where I had previously conducted thisproject, Indonesia is overwhelmingly an Islamic nation.Young people’s sexual activity seems to be stronglycontrolled by society. This does not mean that the youngare sexually inactive, but rather that their activities andfeelings need to be hidden from authority inside andoutside the family.One female participant suggested that many writersAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 115might have been women. Although many in the audiencewere indeed female, there were very few female artistsor art students. While I spent some time at a local artacademy and went to art performance events, I met onlya few female art students. One internationally knownfemale Indonesian artist, who is self-taught, said thatthere is still unspoken discrimination against womenin Indonesian art institutions. There seem to be feweropportunities and little encouragement for women toexpress themselves in an artistic form. Therefore, whenthey come across an opportunity to speak out in publicwithout fear of sanctions, they pour out their mostpersonal secrets.Another issue that came up in the discussion is theabsence of current socio-political topics in thesesecrets. One discussant said that perhaps this is due tothe young generation’s apathy to anything political.In the 1990s, when there was political turmoil andthe student movement in Indonesia was very strong,artistic expressions were also predominantly concernedwith social and political issues. After several changes ingovernments, the younger generation now seems to bemore concerned with their personal relationships. Oneolder artist at the discussion said that now most of themiddle-class youth in urban areas are turning a blindeye to the suffering of people in deprived regions.Indeed, when I spoke with young art students, theypreferred talking about famous Japanese pop artistsand comics rather than about victims of the recentearthquake, floods, poverty and corruption. This is,however, not a particularly Indonesian phenomenon.The commercialization of art and globally marketedpopular culture are spreading all over the world, whichis precisely the reason why I started this project in Japanin the first place. For over ten years now, I have beencreating art works that directly deal with issues of conflictand history. However, in recent years, it has becomeincreasingly difficult to communicate with youth, whoseem to have very little interest in or knowledge aboutJapan’s recent history. They seem more concernedabout their daily lives and relationships with their smallcircle of friends and family. I want them to realize thattheir personal issues and grievances can be related tosocial structures and political issues, including history.Acknowledging and sharing the pains of the personalcan be a strong political action.The absence of real political issues and the prevalence ofpersonal, sexual issues in the secrets collected, therefore,do not mean that there is little political awareness inIndonesia. Providing this little space to breathe andrelease the personal can lead to the acknowledgementof these voices that have not previously been heard, andthe finding of relevance for their experiences. Perhapsthis kind of “sexual politics” can lead to change in thereal political structure.After completing the project in three countries (inaddition to Japan and Korea), my findings share thefollowing similarities:1.2.3.There is much violence and oppression hiddenbehind the façade of seemingly harmonious “Asianfamily values.” In each country, the majority offamily secrets pertain to domestic violence, sexualabuse and other suffering caused by a strict familystructure.The ones suffering and silenced are mostly womenand young people. Although the secrets were writtenanonymously, I deduced the writers’ gender andage group from the writing style and language. Thesocial structure they live in forces them to remainquiet; thus, their problems become internalized.The above problems arise from a lack of education,gender inequality, poverty, religious dogmatism,and changing value systems. The last one seems tobe particularly prevalent in the Asian region, wheremodernization, globalization and capitalizationhave been occurring at a very rapid pace, andleaving huge gaps between male and female, youngand old, rich and poor, and urban and rural people.Social inequality seems to be getting worse, andthe oppressed and weak are becoming increasinglysidelined and ignored.Conclusions and ImplicationsThe original purpose of this project was to create a safespace in which the public and the personal could meetanonymously. In such a space, personal problems arerecognized and empathized with by the public and theircauses politicized. However, now that I possess over2,000 secrets, I believe I have some kind of responsibilityto develop the project further to seek out the possiblerole art can play in the actual recovery process. Whileon the one hand, there is a definite need to change thesocial structures that cause these problems, on the other,there is an immediate need to help those who sufferfrom them. Some of the secrets I collected are indeeddesperate cries for help. Changing social structures is along-term goal, but empowering the victims, throughart, is a more urgent need.The workshop I conducted with girls at C.R.I.B.S.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

116 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONin Manila is one example of how art can intervene tosupport the process of recovery. There, I was fortunateto be able to collaborate with Alma Quinto, a Filipinaartist, as well as with caregivers and administrators whohave been working with sexually abused girls for yearsand built trusting relationships with them. It is essentialto establish trust between artists, therapists and sufferersin order for this kind of art project to succeed. Beginningwith the planning process, it should be collaborative;otherwise, it will just be another exploitation of thesufferers as objects in the name of art. Also, it shoulddiffer from so-called “art therapy” where, in most cases,artists instruct the victims to create some artwork fromtheir experiences. While it is not without merit, I thinkit often leaves the sufferers remaining in their victimhood.It is not enough to merely recount their pastexperiences, it should give them a new meaning andsignificance and provide a way to recognize and recoverfrom them. It is also important to design such a projectas an “open” rather than a “closed” one. Of course theprivacy and safety of the victims should be the priority,but public participation and interaction is a vital partin order to elevate personal problems to social ones.From my past experiences, “closed” art projects mayhelp solidify a certain group identity and provide safety,but they often deteriorate into self-pity and internalpower struggles. Controlled “open” projects enable realempowerment to all participants through collaborationand interaction.In the future, I would like to develop a new art projectbased on the findings of this project and hope to bringit to the same regions I visited this time. I would alsolike to report my findings back home in Japan, wherefamily-related social problems have become more visibleof late, but where public awareness and the politicizationof these causes are still underdeveloped.End words: “The personal is the political”This is a famous feminist thesis, which I believe is stillrelevant. This whole project is an embodiment of thisthesis. There are many oppressed people who remainvoiceless and are made to blame themselves and to resignthemselves to their “destiny.” Sharing, empathizing andcollectively seeking justice and recovery is not just aneed of feminists, but a universal need. I hope my artproject can contribute to this effort in the future.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 117CULTURAL ATTITUDES TO ANIMALS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA:HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONS AS A DIMENSION OF CULTURALIDENTITY FORMATION AND DYNAMICSMyfel Joseph PalugaBanga man ug tadyaw kon singkion sila,/Dayag nga madaut angbanga, dili ba? …[When an earthen jar and a large stonewarevessel are struck together,/The earthen jar will certainly break,won’t it?...]—Emiliano Batiancila, “Lawa-Lawa” [SpiderWeb] (1938)IntroductionImaginative markers between humans and animals areseen in the everyday moves of a language. This pointwas driven home to me, one day, in the flow of a casualconversation in the gria (priestly house) of the ratu(traditional chief) in Sangeh village (Bali), where mywife and I stayed. Recalling that the watchdog barkedalmost regularly at two or three o’clock early eachmorning, usually waking me up, I asked the question ofwhether ‘Browny garap’ (‘the dog Browny works’) was agood sentence. I was then beginning to pick up bits ofworking Balinese phrases. A quick ‘no’ was the response,coupled by some laughter. Browny makan (eats), theratu inserted a point, joining the conversation whileironing his clothes. Eating, not working, is Browny’smain activity and garap (work) is only for humans. Iagain got a ‘no’ when I mentioned that dogs also ‘work’by actively guarding the gria every night. However,after a brief silence, someone said, ‘Sapi garap, yeah,okay,’ (the cow works) resulting in some merriment tothe household to what appeared like an insight.Some basic life-acts, reflected in a language, certainlyserve as distinctions in the divide between humansand animals. In the everyday lives of people, there aremundane practices that show ‘us humans’ busily puttingup markers of distinctions, and therefore identifications,from ‘them animals.’ The ‘animal’ seems to constantlyre-insert itself via the backdoor every time one opensthe front door to announce ‘the human’ and its properlimits. How this taken-for-granted dialectic betweenhumans and animals is played in Southeast Asiancontexts, both in ordinary talk or in broad historicalpatterns, is the interest of this paper.SitesThe descriptions and reflections in this paper were madepossible by a series of fieldwork that we undertookin the Philippines 1 (mountain settlements of Mt.Apo, Mindanao) and outside, in Java (Depok), Bali(Denpasar and Sangeh), and parts of southern (SuratThani and Nakhon Sri Thammarat), central (Bangkokand Lopburi), and northern (Chiang Dao) Thailand. 2ObjectivesThe paper presents ethnographic and ethologicaldescriptions on selected aspects of human-animalrelations in Southeast Asia, specifically in Indonesia,Thailand, and the Philippines. A sampling of theseanimal-relating practices and attitudes, happening invarying ecological and cultural contexts, shows theextent of diversity Southeast Asians have woven as aresult of their long-term interactions with nonhumananimals. The modes of interaction are both complexand patterned. While we cannot give a single unifyinglabel to the phenomena, we cannot also discount thebroad themes that emerge in these dynamic practices.This paper wants to highlight both the dynamics andpatterns in human-animal relations and pinpoint, asemerging from such relations, aspects that are explicitlylinked to notions of identities.SignificanceA basic premise of this paper, one that it wants toendorse as a way of seeing, is to look at the ethnographicand ethological descriptive bits as constitutive elementsin the formation of how we construe ourselves—aswell-marked and bounded “human” entities—as welive in a wider, more-than-human world. Whether realor imagined, animals figure well in the making of ourdaily lives and self-understandings in this interwovenworld of life-forms. More than being actively political,every identity-making act is part of daily existence. Itis, in philosophical terms, flatly ontological, a basicand everyday question on the ‘who’ and the ‘what’:one that is always already-there and, without muchfanfare, constantly re-asserted and re-figured in ourdaily transactions in, and with, the world. While notbeing able to give full flesh to a demanding claim, thispaper might be significant in opening up and exploringon this note—animals and identities—in a SoutheastAsian context. 3Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

118 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONMethodologyWe did a combination of library research, fieldethnography, animal behavior observations (ethology),surveys and interviews. Photography, videodocumentation, recorded interviews and groupdiscussions were also utilized. We were helped byBalinese and Thai interpreters in most of our interviewsand also by competent individuals, mostly academebased,in the development of our survey instruments, inthe actual conducting of the survey, and in the analysis ofresults. 4 While the main source for the study’s findingsare taken from fieldwork in the sites mentioned above,comparative library information from other areas ofAsia are cited when relevant.FindingsThe complex and ambivalent ways in which SoutheastAsians relate to animals can readily be observed inthe case of monkeys. Monkeys are variously feared,venerated, hated, displayed, disciplined, respected, madeas resources for moralizing, given a sacred space, plus ahost of more ambivalent emotions. 5 Some ethnographicbits from Bali highlight these aspects. Feared: whilewalking with a Balinese mother and her son beside atroop of feeding monkeys in Sangeh Monkey Forest,both of them kept mentioning takut (fear) as their feelingfor the monkey, with the mother even commentingon how I had the nerve to follow them almost everyday; the local pawang bojog (monkey tamer) is alwaysfirst described as one who, while not having ‘fear’ ofthe monkeys, is the one ‘feared’ by the monkeys.Venerated or shown venerating: images of monkeys andtheir leader Hanuman can be found in many templesculptures and paintings; some monkey-figures are alsodepicted as making their own veneration gestures, asin a praying position; their constant association withthe sacred forests also made them “sacred monkeys” tosome folk and tourist imaginations. Hated: both directobservation during our fieldwork and reports by otherobservers found cases in which monkeys roving faroutside of the sacred forest grounds are shot at or stonedby angry farmers for disturbing their fields. Displayed:in various artworks as pop figures; as traveling monkeyperformersin topeng monyet (monkey performances)shows that one could encounter sometimes in the streetsof Denpasar; in one priestly compound in Sangeh, I sawa tied-by-rope pet monkey eagerly shown to us whenwe happened to visit the household. These ambivalentemotions in relating to monkeys can also be found inThailand and in the Philippines.enduring patterns observable, from Bali to Mindanao tosouthern and central Thailand. One broad pattern seenin these diverse contexts is the propensity of monkeys toactively assert themselves, and by their trainability andadaptability, to find niches, or to be forced into them,in the expanding spaces of humans. This is displayed intheir insertion into various aspects of the everyday lifeof the people: as performers in pedestrian topeng monyetin the streets of Denpasar and varied places of Java,as obyek pariwisata (tourist objects) in many “monkeyforests” of Bali and sacred temples of Thailand, as“working monkeys” in the coconut fields of Sumatraand south Thailand, as agricultural “pests” dwelling inthe margins of mountainous settlements of Mindanao,or as conservation targets in the mangrove areas of SuratThani.Image of the Hanuman monkey riding on snakeFrom the Korn Collection printed in Hooykaas (1980)Monkey images in a Balinesemagico-mystic healing bookIn Nala (2006)Through all these, however, there are broad andAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 119Patterns and structures in human-animal relationsI would like to underline at least six general andenduring patterns that could be observed in humananimalrelations in Southeast Asia, which might evenapply beyond this region: (1) the role of domestication(after a long prehistory of hunting-gathering life), theresulting rise of agricultural village patches hedging onforests, and the emergence of enduring dichotomies thathave shaping effects on the lives of humans and animals:wild/tame, forest/village, ‘beastly animals’/‘humanehumans’ (a kind of post-neolithic pattern in humananimalrelations); (2) the adaptability of monkeys inexploiting the changing and increasingly constrainedlandscapes of the region (this could also be true of manyother animals, the crows of Japan being a celebratedexample); (3) the divergent effects on animals broughtabout by the expanding eco-tourism industry andglobalizing forces, as dramatized by the case of Bangkokstreet dogs and the obyek pariwisata monkeys of Bali;(4) over-conservation, the making of animal pests, andother unwanted by-products of some cultural practicesand/or human-dominated ecosystems; (5) the divergingkinds of animals given central importance in differentcognitive domains; and (6) (as an exploratory point)the interaction of several factors (e.g., tourist-villagescompared to non-touristic ones; city versus village) inshaping perceptions of animals. The main data to begiven here will touch on the results of the conductedsurvey.(1) Enduring dichotomies from the neolithic period andpost-domestication practicesThais have the sat pa/sat liang dichotomy to register thewild/tame binary, and this has variations in almost allgroups in Southeast Asia. This binary cannot be seenamong most surviving hunter-gatherer peoples of today, 6suggesting its emergence when humans entered theNeolithic Period and took seriously the growing path ofdomestication. Two consequences have since resultedfrom that point onward: (a) non-domesticated animals 7began to be construed as ‘beastly’ and ‘aggressive,’ 8partly as a result of simply their being not-tamed, andpartly as a result of ecological logic: some ‘wild animals’(like monkeys) are attracted to forage near the marginsof settled villages where crops and fruit-bearing treesare in great concentration; thus began the ‘naturalconflict’ between farmers and ‘pest animals;’ 9 (b) asknowledge of selective breeding increased, as a centraltool in domestication, there also resulted the growingpropensity of humans to selectively transform animalsbeyond the needs of sustenance. A result of this trendcan now be seen in the shaping of ‘sport animals’ likethe region-wide sabung (cockfighting), the southernThai wua chon (bull-fighting), and the Thai ‘fightingfish.’ The extent of reshaping that Southeast Asians havedone to these organisms, mental and physical, cannotbe over-emphasized. An interesting scientific study,for example, shows the hyper-aggressive behavior ofThai-breed fighting fishes compared to their ancestralspecies. 10(2) Adaptability of monkeys and other animals inimprovising ways of living in human-dominatedecosystems 11Udayana University-based primatologists havedocumented diverse forest patches, mostly with templesand thus considered sacred, which have been exploitedby monkeys (fascicularis macaques) as their territories.In Sangeh, the 10-12 hectares of dipterocarp forest, aSangeh Monkey Forest (Perimeter line of the Dipterocarp Forest is superimposed)Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

120 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONsacred ground, also became home to about six or seventroops of monkeys, which we were able to document.In the relatively more natural settings of Mt. Apo, aten-hectare area is only fit for one troop, which isstrongly territorial and prevents other troops fromentering its vicinities. The Sangeh macaques managedto accommodate each other, the six eager troops, intaking advantage of the rationed food from the people(financed by tourism earnings) by evolving a kind offluid territoriality. In such an emergent design, thehierarchy of troops cycles (the stronger troop first, thenthe second, and so on) in sequence, from the first tothe last hour of the day, in taking their share of thefood placed in the feeding area. 12 At the biogeographiclevel, an interesting long-term collaborative study ofboth Balinese and non-Balinese primatologists suggeststhat for hundreds of years, Balinese macaques have beenexploiting the “mosaic of riparian forest” carved outby Balinese farmers over the last few millennia. Thesepatches are now counted at almost fifty in the mostrecent inventory. Macaques inhabiting these areas,mostly associated also with temples and shrines, existin “fairly high density.” Religious protection from theseareas, the recent emphasis on tourism, and the increasedprovisioning of tourism monkeys have even acceleratedtheir growth. 13A close study of how monkeys in differing contexts(in Lopburi, in Mt. Apo, in Surat Thani’s mangroveareas) show diverse strategies of living would itself formanother paper. A quite dramatic case might be given as aparadigmatic example. Carrion crows in Sendai, Japan 14harvest walnuts each autumn and place them in frontof cars stopping at traffic signals. When the cars move,the nuts are crushed, and the birds fly down to eat thenutritious nutmeats. The city crows’ food niche hasexpanded, perhaps due to less availability of naturallyeatennuts, to those that are unbreakable by their beaks.The solution lies itself in the context of urbanity.(3) Globalizing forces, eco-tourism, and the disciplining ofanimals by modularizing their spacesIt is quite eye-opening to see the strong contrasts whenone reads the many European travelers’ accounts ofSoutheast Asia even up to the early 20 th century. Theyalways noticed the many animals—dogs, chickens,pigs, and transport animals—allowed to freely roam thepublic spaces, in both villages and cities. As modernityand its modular and sanitizing ethos strengthened itsgrip on public administrators, animal spaces becamesubjected to strict regulation and regimentation. Adramatic case can be seen when hundreds, perhapsthousands, of street dogs in Bangkok were rounded upand transferred to the city’s margins to clean the city ofeye-sores during the APEC meeting of 2003. The same“cleaning” of street dogs also happens in Bali whenAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 121national dignitaries from Jakarta take a tour of the place.Some Balinese were also considering Islamic sensibilitiesagainst dogs. In New Israel, Mt. Apo, and even in Bali,some villagers seem to have given themselves warrant tostone or shoot monkeys who have ‘strayed’ out of theirallowed spaces.(4) Over-conservation and other unwanted by-products ofsome traditional practices or emerging patterns in humandominatedecosystemsThis is seen in the following cases: (a) the superabundance,even approaching the level of being field pests, of wildpigs in an area of non-pork-eating Malaysia; 15 (b) thefast-growing population and quite obese monkeys oftourist-swarmed temples in Sangeh (Bali) and Lopburi(Thailand); (c) aggression and assaults on tourists bymonkeys, who might have developed “bad habits” intouristic settings; 16 and (d) the occurrence of the world’sfirst reported case of monkey-to-human “simian foamyvirus” (SFV) transmission in Bali (although such viraltransmission is asymptomatic). 17(5) Different kinds of animals given central importance indifferent cognitive domains and practicesAn example can be seen when we compare animalimages in folk stories and illustrations of animals foundin magico-mystical practices. In Bali, snakes or dragonspredominate in magical illustrations while monkeyspredominate in folk narratives. 18 Two points might bederived from these facts: (a) that valuations given toanimals could be domain-specific (i.e., a given animalis highly valued in one domain, like in oral narratives,but not so much in another domain, like in visualizingpractices); (b) both story-telling and magico-mysticalvaluations of animals might not necessarily translateto ecology-oriented conservationist valuation as thismight be another cognitive domain. These cognitivepatterns, 19 in tandem with changing social conditions,might be the reason why snakes or other culturallypotentanimal images are assigned symbolic powers buttheir counterparts in real life could just as well be overexploitedas other ordinary animals. 20(6) Interaction of several factors in shaping perceptions ofanimalsThe relevant highlights of the survey include thefollowing: 21 (a) a distinctively high rating on the sacred(duwe) status of monkeys in Sangeh as comparedto its neighboring villages (or to the city of Kuta). 22This suggests the important role of specific social andeconomic settings within Bali in shaping perceptionsof animals (Sangeh is traditionally famous for its“monkey forest” and has economically benefitted fromits monkey-forest ecotourism setting); (b) respect (forAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

122 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONmonkeys or other animals) was not necessarily linked toperceptions of similarity (with humans). Sangeh folksgave high ratings for monkeys as being ‘sacred’ but gavelow ratings for the ideas that ‘they are kin,’ ‘protectorsof humans,’ and that their ‘lives are similar to humans;’(c) a mixed attitude exists among local people (rangingfrom hesitancy to some degree of agreement) withregard to the ‘destructive’ practices of monkeys. Beingheld as sacred does not make the monkeys socially‘innocent’ in local people’s eyes; and (d) animals werenot given equal cultural and religious high-marks.Monkeys, for example, are given higher ratings forreligious importance than dogs or birds.Human-animal relations and the weaving ofidentitiesAs mentioned earlier, the “animal” figures as thedemarcation boundary for identifying the “human.”This seems to be a basic denominator in the formationof ‘human’ identity, with the ‘animal’ as the contrastiveother. There are, however, other aspects that linkanimals with identity-making practices in SoutheastAsia as shown in at least three cases below: (1) the roleof monkeys in shaping the identity of places; (2) theimportant and traditional role of the ‘animal-tamer’ inmany areas of Southeast Asia: the pawang bojog of Bali,or the magic-imputed Indonesian pawang in general,the fuek ling (monkey tamer/trainer) of Surat Thani,and the elephant mahout of northern and northeastThailand; and, (3) (as an exploratory point, resultingfrom the survey) the role of gender, caste and othersociocultural dimensions in shaping the dynamics ofthe human/animal divide in language use and cognitivecategories.(1) Animals and the identity of placesSome places in Southeast Asia are associated withDisplaying the winning bird (Bird-singing contest insouthernThailand)animals. Quite prominent are areas within Hindu-Buddhist spheres 23 where some places are associatedwith the animal characters of the Ramayana or otherfolk narratives. For example: (a) Lopburi, in itsfounding mythology, is the land given to the loyalfighting monkeys of the Ramayana, thus ‘embeddingthe story in its landscape;’ 24 (b) Surat Thani’s iconicimage in most state-funded tourist flyers, maps andleaflets, promoting it as the place where coconut-pickinglin kang monkeys (nemestrina macaques) are found; (c)Sangeh’s changing image and function as reflected in itspopular name-in-use, from temple-centered Bukit Sarito tourist-object, monkey-centered “Monkey Forest.”These symbolic animal associations are sometimesgiven actualization by protecting real animals found inthe areas (fascicularis monkeys of Lopburi and Sangeh;nemestrina monkeys of Surat Thani; snakes, bats, andbirds in different areas of Bali). In due time, tourismhas further strengthened these animal links as thecenterpieces of local attractions. No one would thinkof Sangeh of Bali, for example, without mentioning itssacred forest and its monkeys.(2) The ‘animal tamer’ person has a traditional and stillcontinuingrole in many Southeast Asian societiesAn enduring and important village figure in SoutheastAsia is the “animal tamer or trainer.” 25 Whether as birdsingingtrainer, monkey tamer, or as a specialist of otheranimals, the social role of the “animal tamer” is stillbeing asserted in these times of advancing modernityin so-called “traditional societies.” The pawang bojogof Sangeh is illustrative of this case. His recognizedexpertise in ‘taming’ and ‘disciplining’ monkeys whoare ‘fierce’ or ‘naughty’ has been taken advantage of byprimatologists doing research there and by veterinariansperiodically checking the monkeys of Sangeh. Thepawang is the one called for by the veterinarian to get asick or dead monkey from the protective troop. He hasalso guided researchers in identifying troop location andhas shared information on various aspects of monkeybehavior. Scientists working on elephant conservationin northern Thailand, on the other hand, have beengreatly dependent on mahouts and their indigenousknowledge of animal behavior and techniques in tamingelephants.(3) Sociocultural factors affecting the linguistic andcognitive structure of the human/animal divideExploratory sociocultural patterns include the following:(a) Balinese, compared to Indonesian and Filipino (orEnglish), strongly encodes the human-animal divide inits use of language; lexical dissimilarity when talkingabout humans and talking about animals might indicatea higher tendency in Balinese culture to emphasize theAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 123by humans; (3) animal rights activists, however, shouldalso factor into their discourses the important role ofthe cultural and socio-economic forces shaping humananimalrelations. For example, there is really the need togo beyond a simplified construal of the “rights” of thenonhuman animals by first understanding the complexforces shaping human-animal relations in the variedcontexts of Southeast Asia.Temple monkeys (Central Thailand)dissimilarities between humans and animals; (b) villagers(mostly farmers), compared to university graduatestudents, make a stronger divide between humans andanimals in language use, suggesting the importance ofsocio-economic factors in shaping cultural/linguisticpatterns; (c) gender and caste factors are also importantin influencing such patterns—for example, categoriesthat are given importance in the human/animal dividediffer between sexes and castes.Conclusion and recommendationsThere are interesting continuities in the ways SoutheastAsians relate traditionally to animals that are stillobservable in the present. Selected animals, likemonkeys and elephants, have been assigned specialplaces in the social and cognitive domains of variousareas of the region. These animal presences are evenexaggerated and symbolically dramatized with theadvent of state sponsorship and global tourism. Whileperhaps showcasing environmentalist views, buffered bysome eco-friendly aspects of Hindu-Buddhism, thereare also not-so-animal-friendly by-products in presentanimal-relating practices, as they interact with the widerforces of a changing world. In diverse issues relating tohuman-animal relations, a proper appreciation of thescientific ethos might be needed to calibrate traditionalviews and practices to the actual lives of presentanimals. The following points might be considered:(1) an intervention to alleviate the quality of life ofculturally-protected animals (e.g., temple monkeys)should be informed by balancing religious sentimentswith scientific assessments. In the case of monkeys, forexample, the culling or transferring of excess troops toforests might be considered for areas where monkeytroops are overpopulated; (2) many of the relevantproposals of animal rights groups should be openlyconsidered, as some of them are quite humane andpractical, like the neutering of street dogs abandonedI will end, however, on a more philosophical note. Thepaper has highlighted some complex patterns in humananimalrelations in Southeast Asia. Shown are narrativebitsabout ‘our’ lives and identities that go beyondthe humans-among-ourselves stories, recognizing theordinary but important roles of animals in many facetsof social life. One need not be in Sangeh or Lopburi,places that dramatically showcase the social role ofanimals, to see that the everyday lives of humans, andtheir varying constructions of self, are interwoven withthe lives of nonhuman animals. Visioning an alternativeworld needs the knowledge brought by a closer studyof the complex relations humans have with animals, asactive, sometimes irritating, always necessary, agents ofnature.NOTES1See Paluga (2006) for a brief overview of the general themesin human-animal relations in Makilala, Mt. Apo.2My wife and I have been conducting intermittent fieldworkand visits in Mt. Apo, mostly to study macaques, since thelate 1990s; we extended these field studies late last year upto the middle of this year in Indonesia and Thailand. Thefieldwork in Indonesia and Thailand was conducted from16 November 2006 to 20 May 2007, a total of about sixmonths—104 days in Indonesia and 81 days in Thailand.In Bali, we stayed in the village of Sangeh for one-anda-halfmonths (25 December 2006 to 9 February 2007)to do ethological observations on Balinese macaques atthe Sangeh Monkey Forest and to do village surveys andinterviews on human attitudes to monkeys and otheranimals. We also conducted field and ocular visits inareas with animals held to be sacred (e.g., birds, snakes,monkeys, bats) that also have developed into touristattractions: at Uluwatu, Tanah Lot, Alas Kedaton, Petulu,Ubud Monkey Forest and Goa Lawah. In Thailand,we stayed for some weeks (1 March to 20 May 2007)to do field observations and conduct interviews mostlyin tambon (administrative unit) Klong Noi, Ban TongTuang, Surat Thani province, and at some tambon withinand near Tasala City, Nakhon Sri Thamarat province.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

124 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION3While listing interesting and varied bits of human-animalrelations in different areas of Southeast Asia, the paperwants to constantly pose or insinuate this point: whatif these practices are not merely casual effects but, moreimportantly, are part of the many intrinsic causes in howwe spontaneously identify ourselves? What if, instead ofanimals being simply utilities and spectacles, we are moredependent on them, materially and imaginatively, thanwe would credit, in our everyday construction of ‘us’ asa stable ‘we’?4 The linguistic aspects of the paper benefited much fromconsulting with a senior linguist in Udayana University(Dr. I.G.M. Sutjaja). Direct and indirect help from acolleague in the Computer Science and MathematicsDepartment (the late Dr. N. Navarrete) of UP-Mindanaosupplemented my knowledge in the shaping and analysisof some quantitative approaches. We gained background,central, and supplemental information for the study in themany libraries of Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok)and Walailak University (Tasala City) and in the personallibraries of kind individuals. We also acquired relevantmaterials from various bookstores of the two countries.5See also the ethnographic observations of Wheatley (1999)on the treatment of Balinese monkeys by differentpeople.6Bird-David (1990) gives a capsule idea of the ways “gathererhunters”relate to the forest and its “giving environment,”one dominated by concepts like “forest as parents,”“nature as ancestors,” and the human beings in thevillage as “siblings.” (See also, along this line, the study ofSeitz (2007) on the attitudes to animals among Borneanhunter-gatherers, and also the full-length ethnography ofBrightman on hunter-prey relations among the Crees.)Also, the earliest and widely-distributed category for“world,” “territory,” or a demarcated space in archipelagicSoutheast Asian and Oceanic contexts, the concept ofbanua/vanua, could encompass both the cultivated andnon-cultivated/forested areas and also both humans andnonhumans (i.e., plants and animals). Berkes, Kislalioglu,Folke and Gadgil (1998) consider banua/vanua asreferring to a wider notion of “land” as both the physicaland the “living environment” or the “ecosystem.” In theAustronesian context, the historical reconstruction ofSalazar (2006) places the category banua as a concept thatpredates the emergence of “chiefdom” societies. Whilethe Austronesians, with their banua and related concepts,are already neolithic, the fact that these concepts were inplace during the earliest period of settlement formationmight suggest their close link to a pre-neolithic, “givingenvironment” worldview. This is quite a contrast with thesucceeding neolithic stance of increasingly emphasizingthe demarcation between the realms of the cultivated(e.g., village and its domesticates) and the non-cultivated(e.g., forest and its animals). Settled villagers who practicecultivation and, at the same time, still rely to some extenton gathering and hunting, lie midway between classichunter-gatherers and full-time farmers. This midwaymode is most probably the condition of the earliestAustronesians living in their banua-world. Conceptionsof the world that are dominant in the hunting-gatheringmode of living, like the banua view, would still survive inthe neolithic and post-neolithic modes if only in a moretoned down version.7 The importance given by neolithic, Southeast Asian peoplesto their domesticates might be seen in the study of Blust(2002) on the faunal terms in Austronesian languages.He makes the interesting observation (p. 91) that whilethere is no generic term for ‘animal’ in both the Proto-Austronesian and Proto-Malayo-Polynesian languages,the Proto-Western-Malayo-Polynesian (e.g., Indonesianand the Philippine languages) has a generic term for‘domesticated animal’ (ayam). One could, for example,see the domesticated/forest distinction in the Malay(h)ayam, ‘domestic fowl’ with the ayam hutan or ayamalas (forest fowl), or the Bisaya ihalas/binuhi (wild/domesticated) distinction which is also true in manyPhilippine languages.8 Higham (1996) presents what I think is the earliestarchaeological depiction, in an East Asian, Bronze Agecontext (southern China, south of Lake Dian), of animalsrepresented as “fierce” and “predatory.” A decoration ona piece of forearm armor (p. 169) depicts various animalsbiting, fighting or chasing each other. Another artifact(p. 168) is in the form of a sacrificial table in the shapeof a domesticated cow attacked, on its hindquarters, bya leaping tiger. Wood remains from the principal site(Lijiashan cemetery) have been carbon-dated to 830-400 BC. The villages that created these artifacts are atthe chiefdom level of political complexity. Historically,chiefdoms are also sociopolitical forms that marked thebeginning, or at least predominance, of systematic intervillageattacks and warfare. Chiefly warriors, in variouscontexts, have appropriated animal figures (as tigersor birds of prey, for example) in construing themselvesduring warfare.9 See the diverse people-wildlife conflicts in case studiesedited by Knight (2000). See also Paluga (2006) for thecase of human-monkey conflict in the Philippine setting.Terweil (1989) also gives an apt observation in the Thaicontext, in his definitive study of travelers’ accounts of19 th century Thailand. His point is worth quoting atlength here:Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 125Our travelers saw pioneer farming settlers who fearedbeing trampled by herds of wild elephants, who could beattacked by crocodiles and who had to battle with largeflocks of wild birds in order to grow their crops. Suchbattles continued throughout the nineteenth and intothe twentieth century, and gradually they were all “won.”The rhinoceros, the crocodile, the tiger, monkeys, birdsand elephants all had to give way (pp. 256-257).10 Thais have been breeding Bettas (domesticated fightingfish) for “cockfight-like contests” for hundreds of years.Verbeek, Iwamoto and Murakami (2007) provide acareful study of the aggressiveness of these fishes. Theycite (p. 75) the claim of Thai breeders that Betta splendensspecies are selectively bred for fighting by discarding losersand allowing winners to breed, resulting in “significantlymore aggressive” strains of fighting fishes than either thewild-type or the domesticated veiltail variety. The authors’careful testing of such folk observation give the followingrelevant result (p. 80), among others: “We were able toconfirm our prediction that domesticated B. splendensmales of the short-finned plakat variety are significantlymore aggressive than wild-type B. splendens.”11See Western (2001) for a broader presentation of theconcept of “human dominated ecosystems” and adescription of the ecological patterns of such ecosystems.12 The hypothesis for a temporally ‘fluid territory’ of theSangeh macaques could be formally stated as follows:There is a daily temporal/hourly cycling of troops in theoccupation of the central space and the choice time/s ofthe area; the front area is better, where the tourists usuallystay longer and where the feeding areas are located. Thereis an interesting relation between time (sequential patternof events; for example, number of tourists per given timein a constant area, plus the rhythm of tourist flows in aday), space and group hierarchy. Both time and space aredeterminants or important conditions for the formationof group hierarchy, but time (t1>t2>t3,…) has a moreordering role, in a finer scale, in group hierarchy thanspace. Spatial hierarchy seems to be simple, just s1>si,where i=~1; monkey groups occupying s1 is orderedbased on variable t, where each group [g1,g2,g3,...] getsthe following time slots at s1 [g1=t1,g2=t2,g3=t3,…] andare thus arranged, g1>g2>g3,…13See Fuentes, et al. (unpublished) for the report on the landusepattern of Bali and its exploitation by macaques.14 Marzluff and Angell (2005, 73) cite the “locale-specificuse of automobile traffic to open nuts by carrion crows(Corvus corone)” and frame the discussion of this behaviorin a wider context of long-enduring human-raven/crowecological interactions.15Ickes (2001, 688) presents a “supranormal pig density” inthe Pasoh Forest Reserve (Negeri Sembilan, PeninsularMalaysia) due to “the combination of an absence offeline predators and an abundant food supply from thesurrounding agricultural plantations.” While the authoronly mentions (a) the extinction of natural predators(tigers and leopards) and (b) the abundant year-roundfood supply of African oil palm fruits from plantationsbordering the reserve as the causes of this ecologicalcondition, the non-pork-eating context of IslamizedMalaysia might also be added as a dimension.16 See the study of Wheatley and Putra (1994, 323)showing monkey aggression as “positively reinforced byfood rewards” by both the local folks and non-Balinesetourists. A classic case is when monkeys steal objects fromvisitors and tourists (I experienced this myself when myeyeglasses were grabbed by a monkey at Ulu Watu) andsome people offer the target monkeys some food hopingto divert them from the stolen objects. In the long-run,monkeys are ‘taught’ to associate tourist objects with easyaccess to food. In the study of Wheatley and Putra (1994,324), “the vigor of monkey aggression corresponds withthe quality and quantity of tourist food.”17 See Jones-Engel et al. (forthcoming) for the full Balinesereport of macaque to human transmission of the SFV, thefirst such report in a global context.18Based on frequency counts of animal images in Hooykaas(1980) and animal characters in folk narratives in Eiseman(2002) and Sutjaja (2005).19See the study of Wessing (2006) for an interesting folklorestudy of animal symbols and their structure in SoutheastAsia.20 Here is an assessment (Whitten, Soeriaatmadja and Afiff1996), perhaps too strong, of this divergence of symbolicand material treatments of animals. I will quote it atlength:It has been argued that the inclusion of animals asessential elements of dance, literature, and ceremoniesdemonstrates that people and nature are all part of thesame whole, and that animals are often more appreciatedby the gods than are people. This is attractive and in linewith the alluring doctrines of New Age philosophy andreligion, but normal animals are scarcely to be seen in anyof the important positions in Javanese or Balinese arts.Ganesha (the goblin-like, elephant-headed god), Barong(the ‘well-meaning’ but fearsome-looking lion), GarudaAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

126 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION(the humanoid, golden sun-bird, mount of Vishnu,enemy of Naga the serpent), Hanuman (the humanoidMonkey King who conquers Rawana for Rama), Raksasa(the devilish monster with long fangs), Naga (the dragonserpent), and hosts of other weird beasts are depictedand revered but this has not resulted in any noticeablerespect for earthly animals or their habitats (pp. 680-681,emphasis added).Given that there are places like monkey forests whichbecame havens for macaques (who are also construed,sometimes, as representatives of Hanuman), thisassessment appears too harsh. However, the point seemscorrect in its present, general pattern.21Based on survey results from Bali.22 This qualifies the view given by Wheatley (1999) that givesthe impression that monkeys are held to be sacred in Baliin general.23 Brockington (1998) has done an impressive study of“wildlife” figuring in the Mahabharata and RamayanaSanskrit texts. In his assessment (p. 417), “the frequencyof mention of wildlife of all kinds suggests that attitudesto the natural world were on the whole positive.”Brockington also notes (p. 418) that the kinds of animalsmentioned in the Hindu sacred texts are “considerable.”Wild animals mentioned include lions, bears, monkeys,jackals, boar, wolves, hyenas, porcupines, rhinoceroses,mongooses, hares, rats or mice, leopards, various birds,snakes and other reptiles and fish and other water creatures.It looks like a textual zoo and demands comparison withthe monotheistic texts of the Bible and the Koran. Inthe monotheistic tradition, the “ark of Noah,” with itsdescription as full of so many animals to be saved fromthe great flood from God, has captured the imagination ofdifferent millenarian religious groups in the Philippines.24Terweil (1989, 225) encourages the systematic studying ofthis phenomenon of traditional stories, like the Ramayana,which have become ‘embedded in the landscape.’ In theimagination of local people, these stories are not “meremetaphor, but perceived as actuality.” He mentionsanother story which is quite similar to the planet-widebattle of Ramayana, this time involving another animal,the buffalo. Outside Bangkok is a village named SisaKrabu’e (cf. Filipino, karabao/kalabaw), or “BuffaloHead,” because “it was here that the head of the buffaloThorapha had landed after Thoraphi had hurled it away”(p. 255).25See Skeat’s (1984) magisterial work on the Southeast Asianpractices of “magic” for a wide view of the connectionbetween magic, magicians, animal tamers, and animals.REFERENCESBird-David, Nurit. “The Giving Environment: AnotherPerspective on the Economic System of Gatherer-Hunters.”Current Anthropology 31.2 (April 1990): 189-196.Berkes, Fikret, Mina Kislalioglu, Carl Folke and MadhavGadgil. “Exploring the Basic Ecological Unit: Ecosystem-LikeConcepts in Traditional Societies.” Ecosystems 1.5 (September-October 1998): 409-415.Blust, Robert. “The History of Faunal Terms in AustronesianLanguages.” Oceanic Linguistics 41.1 (June 2002): 89-139.Brightman, Robert. Grateful Prey. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1993.Brockington, John. The Sanskrit Epics. Leiden: Brill, 1998.Jones-Engel, Lisa, Gregory Engel, Michael Schillaci, AidaRompis, Artha Putra, Komang Gde Suaryana, AgustinFuentes, Brigitte Beer, Sarah Hicks, Robert White, BrendaWilson and Jonathan Allan. Primate to Human RetroviralTransmission in Asia. (Prepared manuscript for journalpublication kindly provided me by one of the authors, Dr.Aida Rompis.)Eiseman, Fred, Jr. Traditional Balinese Stories. No publisherinformation, 2002.Fuentes, Agustin, Aida Rompis, Arta Putra, N.L. Watiniasih, I.N. Suartha, I.G. Soma, I. N. Wandia and I.D.K. Harya Putra.Balinese Macaque Project Report 1998-2001. Unpublishedreport. (Prepared manuscript for publication kindly providedme by one of the authors, Dr. Aida Rompis.)Higham, Charles. The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia. New York:Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1996.Hooykaas, Christian. Tovenarij op Bali: Magische tekeningenuit twee Leidse collecties Bijeengebracht en toegelicht. Amsterdam:Meulenhoff Nederland, 1980.Ickes, Kalan. “Hyper-abundance of Native Wild Pigs (Susscrofa) in a Lowland Dipterocarp Rain Forest of PeninsularMalaysia.” Biotropica 33.4 (December 2001): 682-690.Knight, John. Ed. Natural Enemies: People-wildlife Conflicts inAnthropological Perspective. London: Routledge, 2000.Marzluff, John and Tony Angell. “Cultural Coevolution: Howthe Human Bond with Crows and Ravens Extends Theoryand Raises New Questions.” Journal of Ecological Anthropology9 (2005): 69-75.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 127Nala, N. Askara Bali Dalam Usada. Surabaya: Paramita,2006.Paluga, Myfel Joseph. Managing the Mountain and the Monkeys:Philippine Millenarian Movement and the Local Dynamics ofCommunity-based Wildlife Management in Mt. Apo NaturalPark (Mindanao, Philippines). Paper presentation at the 2006Biennial Global Conference, International Association for theStudy of Common Property (IASCP), Bali, Indonesia, 19-23June 2006. Salazar, Zeus. Ang Pilipinong Banua/Banwa sa MundongMelano-Polynesiano. Quezon City: Palimbagan ng Lahi,2006.Seitz, Stefan. “Game, Pets, and Animal Husbandry amongPenan and Punan Groups.” Beyond the Green Myth: Hunter-Gatherers of Borneo in the Twenty-First Century. Eds. Peter G.Sorcombe and Bernard Sellato. Copenhagen: Nordic Instituteof Asian Studies, 2007. 177-191.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe following individuals and institutions extended theirhelp in various phases of this study: Dr. Yekti Maunati (ourresearch host in Indonesia), Dr. Agung Suryawan Wiranatha(Research Center for Culture and Tourism, UdayanaUniversity, our research host in Bali), Prof. I Wayan Redig,Dr. Harya Putra, Dr. I Gusti Made Sutjaja, Dr. Aida LouiseTenden Rompis, Mr. Eka Darmadi, Bendesa Adat Ida BagusDipayana (Geriya Megelung Sangeh), Mr. Olarn Ongla,Ms. Kokaew Wongphan, and the Institute of Asian Studies,Chulalongkorn University (our research host in Thailand); myhome institution, University of the Philippines Mindanao,for freely allowing my research leave for the period coveredby the API Fellowship; and also, the Office of the VicePresident for Academic Affairs, University of the Philippines,for supporting my extended researches on Mindanao culturalattitudes to animals.Skeat, Walter William. Malay Magic. Singapore: OxfordUniversity Press, 1984.Sutjaja, I Gusti Made. Balinese Tales. Denpasar: Lotus WidyaSuari, 2005.Terweil, B. J. Through Travellers’ Eyes. Bangkok: EditionsDuang Kamol, 1989.Verbeek, Peter, Toshitaka Iwamoto and Noboru Murakami.“Differences in Aggression between Wild-type andDomesticated Fighting Fish are Context Dependent.” AnimalBehaviour 73 (2007): 75-83.Wessing, Robert. “Symbolic Animals in the Land between theWaters.” Asian Folklore Studies 65 (2006): 205-239.Western, David. “Human-dominated Ecosystems and FutureEvolution.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesof the United States of America 98.10 (May 8, 2001): 5458-5465.Wheatley, Bruce. The Sacred Monkeys of Bali. Illinois:Waveland Press, Inc., 1999.Wheatley, Bruce and D.K. Harya Putra. “Biting the Handthat FeedsYou: Monkeys and Tourists in Balinese MonkeyForests.” Tropical Biodiversity 2.2 (1994): 317-327.Whitten, Tony, Roehayat Emon Soeriaatmadja, and SurayaAfiff. The Ecology of Java and Bali. Singapore: PeriplusEditions, 1996.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

128 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONNARRATING THE NATION: MODERN HISTORICALREPRESENTATIONS OF IDENTITY IN INDONESIAN FILMIskandar Sharifuddin bin Mohd. SaidSight/Site And NationThe location for cinema is sight. Everything else comesafterwards and at the same time, in the same space. Inthe cinema, time plays out its scenarios from the fieldsof war to narrow alleyways in small towns, from ruralto urban, tradition to modernity, without the audiencehaving to leave their seats. If we never had to travel, it isbecause film has taken us there, where we have been andwhere we are going, in and through time, a durationthat Victor Burgin has described as “imbricated” oroverlapping time. What takes us there, while we arehere, in the comfort zone of the darkened cinemahall, close to a half awakened/dream state is narrative,structure and organization. It organizes and structuresus, the subject, via our perception of the object/screen.It is also in this sense that cinema is sight and sitespecific. The implication here is the spatial continuumfrom screen/site of visuals to mental/sight of visuality—from screening space to mental space. It is here thatideologies play out their images, and it is also in thissense that space is never neutral and that most thingsare already mediated, if not life itself.The screen presents us with a space unlike but similarto other places that we have encountered in reality,recognized and imagined as image yet never been to,but perhaps close to a place we can call home, countryor nation. It is through the mimesis of realism, that weencounter image as reality and reality as image, as a cycleof reproduction and representation. Put in another way,as a member of the audience, I am the origin and thedestination in the cycle of representation of the imageand its narration.Seen in this light, another dimension can be addedin the way that we can view narrative, especially inthe context of its operations as ideological constructsand their operations within the concept of spatialrelationships. No longer can we think of ideology asa concept out there, separated from the subject as an“instrument of domination wielded by one section ofa society and imposed upon another” (Burgin 1997)but shifted to a broader and deeper dimension where“ideology was now conceived of in terms of a space ofrepresentations that the subjects inhabit, a limitless spacethat the desiring subject negotiates by predominantlyunconscious transactions” (Burgin 1997). J.L. Beller,in discussing the cinematic technology and Vertov’swork, says that the Russian filmmaker “takes the imageas a technology for ‘the organization of the audiencewith organized material’ effectively grasping cinema as asocial machine for engineering the socius” (Beller 2002,71) and thereby rendering “objects and images as socialrelations” where “viewers do not encounter the technoimaginaryonly on the screen, its logic is already insidethem” describing “the enfolding of the image into thesocial fabric” (Beller 2002, 71).In this sense the site for cinema is sight and the sight forcinema is site, the bodied self, the subject. The humanbody is the interface between the object and its image.Everything in this paper that can be imagined andvisualized begins from this space, from the relationshipof screen and self, self and screen.In looking and reading cinema in the context of thenarrating of nation, it seems to me hazardous not toengage in the ideas and theories governing space andspatial relationships, in the ordering and organizingof principles behind those two terms. The nationoften referred to as the nation space points to itsamorphousness, its ether-like quality, that is less aboutits objectness that can be grasped and apprehended thanabout its qualities as ideas, myths and symbols that arearticulated through spatial categories and territories,via cultural texts—print media, novels, art, films etc.—across textual and spatial boundaries. It is in this waythat we can begin to traverse, engage in, map out andbegin to understand some of the ways and elements thatreveal their constructions and imaginings.Space invites categorization, territorialization,demarcations and borders—mapping in various formsand guises—in defining the nation. Those formscan manifest themselves through social and culturalpractices that draw lines of inclusion and exclusion,thereby turning space into place. They originate fromthe body and the body’s engagement through the livedenvironment, via language and the senses—the nose,ears and eyes. In the cinema the eyes have priority:Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 129The current metaphor of landscape as the inscapeof national identity emphasizes the quality of light,the question of social visibility, the power of the eyeto naturalize the rhetoric of national affiliation andits forms of collective expression (Bhabha 1994).Film—DissemiNationWhile the West and China and Japan in the Easthave had their history in the birth, construction andestablishment of the idea of nationhood, proclaimingthe death of nationalism once they had gained theirbrand of modernism, the rest of the world is stillcoming to terms with these ideas in the aftermath ofcolonialism, whose inherited problems are still coursingthrough the body politic, whether in border claimsand disputes, or intra-ethnic rivalries over territoriescarved out and established from the landing of the firstEuropean. The idea of the nation as Foucault has termedit is a “discursive formation” and therefore perpetuallya work in progress. It has no fixity, and territories andborders are constructs of historical contingency thatdefy more than they define, including ethnicity, raceand religion. What characterizes a nation is becomingmore important as groups, communities and ethnicitiesin Indonesia, from Maluku to Aceh, became more vocalafter Suharto’s downfall and the advent of Reformasiand ushered in a new era of relative democratic freedomof expression. Not least of these freedoms is the rise intwo areas of Indonesia’s social, political and cultural life:the voicing out of ethnic identity, challenging the unityof nationhood, and the use and spread of media forms,in particular films and video, concomitant with theawareness of those new found freedoms of expressionin promoting issues and contestations of histories thatwere otherwise marginalized.This paper attempts to look at films and their constituentelements and constructions in narrating the nation. Thebirth of nations, always filled with trauma, violence andwars, has invariably been part of almost every nation’shistory, as it defines itself around the idea of coherence.As one of the earliest writers on the question ofnationalism puts it, “Unity is always effected by meansof brutality” (Renan 1990).What is a nation and what is nationalism and whatare its field, perimeters and definitions, can fill pagesbeyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it for me to saythat Benedict Anderson has already given us a brilliantaccount on nationalism and its constituent ideas inhis book, Imagined Communities. His view that thespace and time of the modern nation is embodiedin the narrative culture of the novel and print mediacould extend to include the narratives of most media,including films.Towards this end, this paper looks at two Indonesianfilms of the war genre, Darah dan Doa (The Long March)(1950) and Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI (The Treasonof the September 30 Movement and the IndonesianCommunist Party) (1984), which have been identifiedas representative of this genre. Many of the films sharesimilar themes, and many elements act as recurringmotifs expressing abiding concerns and expressions,signifying main tenets in their visual and narrativeconstructions.Beginning / Ending—Birth / DeathThe scene on the screen opens on a vast landscapesomewhere in Java. Two ranking officers are lookingthrough a pair of binoculars. Adam, the more martialcharacter complete with a songkok-like military headgear,passes the viewing equipment to the more casual of ourtwo heroes, Sudarto or Darto, as they survey the scenebelow from their vantage point higher up. Althoughthe camera frames them in a ¾ angle, the subsequentviews of several shots of the landscape from wide toclose, showing soldiers in formation and scramblingacross the terrain, as if from Darto’s point of view/povshot, is in fact framed for and privileges the audience.The audience, to borrow Althusser’s terminology,is “hailed” or “interpellated” to enter the viewingprocess whose sightline is at odds with Darto’s, butclearly signalling and consigning them their space andfunction, emplacing them as witness in the narration ofa historic struggle across the heartland. Darto does notand cannot see what they can, as we see a slight worrycast over his face and by crossing their sightlines, theyare in fact signaled that Darto’s eyesight fails him, asa revolutionary and a soldier, as the film makes clearfurther into the story.Adam sees with his own eyes and he speaks more thanDarto who is merely looking via the “viewing aid” ofthe binoculars. Of the two, Darto is slightly a step lowerin the frame, but as officers they are both at higherground, while their men are scrambling through therough terrain down below, and the audience privilegedin relation to their spatial relationship.Here all spaces have been signaled and demarcated, andpeople have been consigned, in their places (class) andin their spaces, image-cinema screen (object), imagementalscreen (subject), in the words of Michelle Sipein her essay, space as means of social control, framingit as masculine practice, for “controlled visibility andAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

130 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONthe discrete separation of individuals and the spaces thatdefine them” (Sipe 2004, 94).What Darto is also looking at is himself, at the endingof the film, hence the slight shadow of worry across hisface. He has already seen his own death, at the handsof the audience. In film language and revolution, 24frames per second, cinematic time is not a mystery.It is compressed and imbricated and, for the colonialsubject Darto, split at the borders of cinematic spaceand country, between past and present, death is theonly outcome and mode of being. The nation cannotaccept those that are in between. If Adam is the sacrificethat defines nation, Darto is the sacrifice because hedefies nation.The romantic individualist Darto sees his own demiseat the film’s ending. From the heights of nationalconsciousness in the Javanese highlands to the depths ofthe urban interior, he returns to his small quarters. Hesits down to open his journal, when a shadowy figurefrom a dark corner of the room, brandishing a gun, callsout, asking Darto if he remembers him, giving himself aname. Darto replies that he does not remember. Dartolooks at his journal and we see a montage sequence ofexcerpts of key moments from the film superimposedover the journal’s pages. Accompanying these images isSukarno’s speech.The camera frames the scene for the audience’s pointof view. The assassin is at the extreme edge of frame inshadow so that there is an uninterrupted view of thescene. The framing closes onto Darto while he addressesthe audience. We hear a gunshot as he grabs his chest.This direct relationship to the audience mirrors theopening. The audience has participated and assentedto killing, execution style, of a hero who has failed therevolution, the national struggle.Darto’s bloodied hand falls on the empty page of thejournal. Nothing is written, only blood stains at thejournal’s edges where the beginnings of an entry inhand-writing is seen, representing an unfinished life, asDarto says in his dying breath, “Jangan di ulang lagi,biar aku saja.” (Do not follow my example, let me bethe only one.)Here Darto’s sin is as much in failing martial idealsfor nationalist ends as it is for not remembering hisorders. The empty page in the journal is as much aboutcommitting to memory events in one’s life as it is to fillempty spaces for nationalist text. In this instance thepage will be filled by the audience, the revolutionariesand the people, as testified by the series of penultimateshots depicting his old comrades around his funeral, (afinal communion with the people, achieving only indeath what he could not achieve in life) and low angleshots of soldiers marching straight into the camera.Time needs commemoration and symbols as sacrifices,as Timothy Brennan has said, “Nationalism largelyextended and modernized (although it did not replace)‘religious imaginings’, taking on religion’s concern withdeath, continuity and the desire for origins.”It is in Darto’s open unfinished and blank journal thatthe audience is also invited to write the nation anew.From death and rebirth in the cycle of continuity, andfrom history’s example of every revolutionary society’simpulse to begin anew, from the flight from Medina,the Muslim Hijerah, to Mao’s Long March, to thelong March in this film across Java, from the fall of theBastille to the Khmer Rouge’s announcement of yearzero. This remembering by forgetting is the ritual ofrenewal or, put another way, “this zero point or startingpoint is what allows ritual repetition, the ritualisationof memory, celebration, commemoration—in short allthose forms of magical behaviour signifying defeat ofthe irreversibility of time,” (Debray 1997, 51) invariablycarried out in the collective spaces of the imagination,from grand to daily rituals in the mass ceremony of thecinema to the celebration of meaningful sites and sacreddates.Here death is tantamount to suicide, and in the extendedspatial continuum between the audience and Darto, itis a collective purging. Even as he falls, his back is to theaudience, as an admission of guilt, turning in on his ownnarcissism in turning his back to the masses, the peoplein the audience; his execution and death are an exampleto and lesson for the body politic. If his self sacrificeis of a higher order, it is only to differentiate from thedeath and sacrifices of Adam and Widya and countlessothers in the nationalist struggle, in that, where theirsis at the mimetic level of realist representation, Darto’sis at the level of our/his engagement with the text itself.Not only is he split between borders of territories, ofthe interior landscape of the self, but also of cinematicspace and screen space, between the representation ofreality and representation itself. He is the image thatis sacrificed in the writing and re-imaginings of thenation, with the blank journal as an open invitationto the audience to re-write, re-imagine. Thus the filminscribes the audience into the narrative, and asks theaudience to re-inscribe the text of national imaginings,film amongst other media as part of the accumulationsof sacred text, in the national longing for form.If space, time and memory are the frameworks throughAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 131and in which the text for national and ideological formsare written, then what exactly is that text and how arethey articulated and how do they engage with subjectsin culture and society?For answers to these questions we turn our attentionto my readings of the two films mentioned that signify,inter-text and articulate the nation. Darah dan Doawas made in 1950 by Usmar Ismail, who is consideredto be the father of Indonesian films. The other isPengkhianatan G30S/PKI made by Ariffin C. Noer in1982.Darah dan Doa is a black and white film recounting theIndonesian struggle against the Dutch colonizers in theirwar of independence. It tells the story of two heroes,both officers leading their unit, volunteers and homelesscivilians in a long march, through the treacherous andembattled countryside of their homeland, Java. Itbasically narrates the birth of a nation, and is a primeexample of the genre of “war films” that underpins theconstruction of nation and identity, and in this respectit is a good representation of the collective historical“memory” of the nation. The second is a feature filmre-enacting, in a quasi-documentary mode, the eventssurrounding the night of 1 October 1965, when seven ofIndonesia’s army chiefs were kidnapped and murderedat Lubang Buaya.My research and readings places this film as pivotal inthe film’s (re)construction of history and its enlistmentof documentary codes and conventions in signifying itsstatus and authority on historical truth, and its blurringof the borders between fiction and documentaryas symptomatic of trauma and terror. These filmsconstruct nation and history as a narrative exercise inmyth making.The themes of birth and death and executions, in Darahdan Doa of a father at the hands of his son, while inG30S between internal political rivalries, the forcesrepresenting the father of Indonesian IndependenceSukarno and the sons of the nation. Love is shownin relationships between men and women, filial andfamilial relationships. These aspects of contestationsfind their expressions in different spaces and variousforms, where rivalries manifest themselves as the “enemywithin” of post-revolutionary struggle as much as thosethat betray the military projection of itself as the family,the patriarch and guardian of nationalist ideals from thefields of the Javanese countryside to the interior spacesof the domestic.These events and markings, the gravesites for the warriorsin Darah and the burial hole for the murdered generalsin G30S, mark the land in the rituals of commemorationof sacred places and in the remembering of sacreddates.Concomitant with these themes, in much of these warfilms, is the theme of writing, from notes and journalsto letters of officialdom. This binary oppositioncharacterizes these films, delineating oppositions anddemarcations of power between the public and thepersonal.Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI is a film produced underorders from Gen. Suharto himself. In many ways, theconstruction of nationalist ideology in Darah dan Doafinds its logic and trajectory in the events of 1965,on the night of 30 September, and the subsequenttrauma of political cleansing that spread throughoutIndonesia in its aftermath. There are no less than fivediffering accounts of the events, of which Suharto’sis the officially endorsed and accepted version for thenational polity. The film claims to re-enact history andis thereby a “truthful” account of that night, completewith newspaper clippings, authoritative voice-overs anddocumentary footages of national mourning at the endas evidence of its veracity.The film proper begins in the ailing Sukarno’s bedroomat his palace in Bogor. The first person to be introducedis D.N. Aidit, leader of the Indonesian CommunistParty and his assistant, as they await doctors from thePeople’s Republic of China who arrive to administeracupuncture on the sick president. The first realdialogue to be heard is in Mandarin. The structuringof shots and the ordering of scenes in a discontinuousmanner disorganizes spatial continuity around theabsence of the president’s sick body, which is shown ina series of extreme close-ups accentuating the emptinessin the palace as a symbol of the space of the nationwhile suggesting an absence of power in the president’sbody as the body politic, already threatening to befilled by D.N. Aidit and the Chinese doctors. In fact,the close ups of needles puncturing the president’sbody already suggests the introduction of somethingphysically and culturally alien associated with Aidit andthe doctors from the People’s Republic, all of whom arecommunists.In this cavernous empty palace filled with paintings andstatues of women, where the president is seen alone athis huge desk surrounded by books from Mao to Lenin,the heart of the nation is being drained by corruptinginfluences while a herd of deer, robust and majestic, arerunning in the palace grounds outside, suggesting thatAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

132 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONreal power lies elsewhere.If the setting suggests a power vacuum, everything fromhere onwards in the film, with its concentration onAidit and his plotters, stains their actions as originatingby association from the palace.The final scene shows Nasution’s injured youngestdaughter lying alone in her cot-like hospital bed, theyoungest victim, recalling Sukarno lying alone in hisbed from the opening scene, except here she comesafter images of the people in national mourning. Thenation’s hopes and dreams lies in the balance betweenlife and death, in the fragile body of a little girl, but if, asthe scene in front of her father’s painting suggests, she isnot a pejuang or warrior, it is precisely because her timewill come at the end of the film where death will be thebintang (star) that confirms her status as a pejuang.The nation spaceSpace constructed in binary oppositions allows fora unity under realist representation and seamlesslinear temporality as logical conclusions and closure,articulating spatial continuities towards a horizon ofthe ideal, of mythic homeland and future struggles aseternal. The presence of bodies within these spaces thatsignify a fullness and plenitude points to an absence of“other,” bodies, lives, and alternatives in social, politicaland cultural existences in other spaces consigned tothe edges of the map, from the abandoned hut in thecountryside to the cardboard shelters in urban areas.Where directors choose to depict and present landscapein their films, they do so by signaling the “condition ofpossibility” for the “masculine production of landscapeand its practices of feminine enclosure” (Sipe 2004,92).The narrating of the nation and its ideology mapsout its struggles in public spaces, where duty, honorand sacrifice take precedent, denying the private andthe personal, which turns space into place. Individualstruggles are firmly located within the larger contextof the nation, the revolution and public life as epicspectacle, where actions and dialogues play out theirtropes for national consciousness.Land needs markers to turn space into place, albeit stillwithin the larger agenda of nationalist public sites. It isfor this reason, too, that Connie’s father’s grave cannotbe contained within a Javanese landscape but is givena europeanised backdrop, lest the lines of patriarchalorigination are confused for Javanese ones so that otherdeaths can find and sow their seeds of meaning andmetaphor as historical markers of blood and sacrificefor nationalist soil. It is no accident that the first imageof the start of the soldiers’ march across Java begins atBorobodur in a long ontological line, from the executionof the treacherous father by the dutiful son, to thegravesites of Adam and Widya of their union in death,to the grave of Lubang Buaya and the aftermath of itsreaping in the mass missing graveyards of thousandsacross the Indonesian landscape.As has been discussed in this paper, this binary inthe divisions of rural and urban landscapes, betweeninteriors and exteriors, sets the scenario for futurestruggles, from nationalism to militarism, that findtheir conclusion in the exercise of power and controlof the nation’s domain in the struggle for the interiordomestic spaces in G30S.Where paintings in Darah are utilized to referenceand demarcate land and territory as significations fordivisions in ideological struggle as spatial constructs, inG30S paintings specifically signal the limits of spatialencounters as conditions in the organization of gender,hierarchy and power.Two particular scenes and sequences articulate theway in which gender contains and defines space, inthe way that landscape politics or, for our purposes,space and its management can show “how masculineforms of landscape… have produced the corollary offeminine enclosure, whether symbolic, social, physicalor architectural” and in the way they frame “their accessto space, that either expand or exceed the confines of thedomestic sphere,” and help actively shape “a range ofcultural, national and institutional spaces and, perhapsmost consequentially, the more spatially diverse andfluid spheres of intellectual” (Sipe 2004, 92) and culturalthought and in what ways they produce meaning andcontribute to national ideological agenda.In the opening sequences of G30S, where Sukarnolies bedridden attended by Aidit and the CommunistChinese doctors, in ten to eleven shot sequences, theleaving and entering of each frame shows paintingsof clothed and half clad Javanese women in various“feminine” poses on the walls, as well as naked femininebusts and statues in shots where Sukarno is reading athis desk.As mentioned earlier, the palace symbolizes the heartof the nation, the body politic is ailing, and power isbeing drained while Aidit and the communists areintroducing foreign elements into Sukarno’s bodyvia acupuncture, so that draining is a consequenceAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 133of women (his legendary sexual energy). That thewomen are objectified, framed in static timeless posesas paintings on the walls, defines the limits of spatialenclosure normally attributed to feminine and domesticspaces, reminding and highlighting to the audiencethe absence of any physical presence of the nurturingand caring woman and thereby the productivity of thefamily, which is consistently contrasted by the generalswho were kidnapped later on in the film while in thebosom of feminized domestic and (re)productive spaces(the bedroom), effectively linking “the containment ofwomen to the gendering of space” (Sipe 2004, 94).Sukarno’s palace is signified as an absence, as thedisembodied presence of women and the symbolicpower of the nation, signaling it as the measure of allother spaces.If the nation space in Darah is the exterior spaces,and the interiors are duplicitous, in G30S the exteriorsymbolizes anarchy as it is overrun by youths andthe forces of the Indonesian women’s organizationcadres known as Gerwani, while the interiors from thepresidential palace to the secret backrooms and officesof the communist plotters, the homes of generals andtheir officers become the site of struggle for the nationspace. Ninety percent of the film is played out withininteriors.In G30S the nation is in the home and the countrysideis filled with instability and perversions. “Here thehousehold is a conduit, where concepts of landscapeenter the domestic space, reshaping it as well as theexterior world that the home is ostensibly definedagainst” (Sipe 2004, 95). If it is in this sense that if themilitary is associated with land and territories, then itsinfiltration into feminine spaces needs to be re-orientedand re-anchored for martial purposes and that wassignaled early before the kidnapping sequences. Beforethe long seamless edited sequences of the kidnappingsof the seven generals begin, as one of its main scenes,the film introduces the audience to the daughter of theleading general, Nasution, where space is signaled andarticulated unmistakably within the terms of power andgender.The sacred space of the military can never directlymirror hers or any woman’s, as the painting diminishesher role and woman’s as a mere reflection in the mirror,and as a space about to be infiltrated and taken overby military struggle as a space for the nation. Whatthis play or reconfiguration in spatial relationshipspronounces/announces is that while the painting takeson dominant position, the traditional domestic spaceof the feminine as embodied by mother, daughter andmaid exists as merely a reflection, and diminished asone where woman’s role is confined to herself as areflection and representation of masculine authority.This demarcation and articulation of spatial categoriesis necessary to clear the path, to revise female space inorder to assert and augment male and military poweras they perform their active engagement within thedomestic spaces in the battles to come. The little girl’sfantasy needs to be corrected, reoriented in front of themirror.What the painting also articulates is the all-dominantand pervasive presence of the father and the military,even when he is not home, as that around which thecenter of family as the sacred institution revolves. Thisis underlined as the daughter and her sister run outsideat their father’s return to greet him, where the camerapositions our view from the curtained window of theliving room, so as to announce his male authority aspervasive/belonging to the exterior though his voicereverberates from the interior space of the living room,where the home “functions as the site of infiltration ofexternal, patriarchal conceptions of space, resources,time, work and leisure producing the privacy andindividuality crucial to middle class identity, feminineand masculine” (Sipe 2004, 95). However, in G30S,the home as nation space for ideological struggle needsto transform domestic space as the embodiment ofmasculinity.The image of women connects these spaces. I wouldgo so far as to posit that the acknowledgement of themilitary’s version of the events, as a recognition of its ownphallocentric nature, is tied to its need around LubangBuaya to falsely report Gerwani’s (the Indonesianwomen’s movement’s) perverted display of its power bydismembering and severing some of the generals’ bodiesand sexual organs, which were disseminated in thepublic arena. This threat to the male body/politic fromthe “uses” of women as sexual signifiers in Sukarno’spalace as draining his sexual power and male powerneeds to be re-oriented to women as signifiers of theproductivity of the family at the heart of the nation inGeneral Nasution’s home within masculine space. It isonly then that at the end scene, the little girl’s life cantake on the burden and weight of the whole nation as ithangs in a hospital cot between life and death, so thatalthough death is her star that mirror’s her fathers, as apejuang, as fantasy in front of the vanity mirror, the realstar to match and add to her father General Nasution’schest is the death of spaces for women, lest like Gerwani,they may embody their independent spaces aroundthe w/hole of history at Lubang Buaya. To put theseAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

134 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONconnections into their signifying context, landscape inthis sense, as space, and to signify its context:“landscapes become a process of reflexivity, ofidentity and inter-subjectivity. Their ‘character’ isconstructed by the subject herself from numerous‘things,’ and her own encounter, physically,with bits of landscape. These become engaged asfragments of a wider everyday visual culture, ‘there,’though her embodied and reflexively-embodiedencounter may be most significant. Materialfeatures so encountered are rendered meaningfulthrough our personal engagement with them.What emerges is a geography of spatialization:a process. Understood in this way, landscape,space and place are never ontologically given butdeveloped through practices, discursively graspedin an embodied way. The subject in landscape isspacing, practicing, producing, doing things in andwith space.” (Crouch and Malm 2004, 255)That space is that of our embodying of locations, physicalas well as mental, and this space is discursively practicedin the cinema, although engaged as representations,as image, visuality is central in the mental process viathe ocular, as site for the human subjects’ engagementwith space and its representation. It is here space andits representation is thereby “performed in a processof flows, where combinations of memory, action andmeaning” such as ideological constructs “are complexand performed together” (Crouch and Malm 2004,254).What both scenes articulate are the power relations atwork in the gendering of space as social and politicalconstructs. Sukarno’s palace is the highest signifier ofpower bereft and denied of women, and the martialinfiltration re-claims and re-defines the domestic andfeminized space as its very heart, the reproductive spaceof the nation for ideological struggle.Other spacesIf Darah is the birth of the nation, where the presentreconfigures the past to an eternal future repetition,what its constituents point to is the construction ofits (history’s) own logic; its positive projections ofnationalist ideals in its own image, and its negativebetween the cuts, the spaces beyond the frame, and theimages that it denies and represses in the organization ofnarrating the nation, as a violence that would re-surfacearound the w/hole of “Lubang Buaya” (in the events reconstructed)in G30S. What G30S shows are the strainsthat held the contradictions in the narrating of nationto its breaking point and its resultant violence.The elements and organizing principles drawn out inDarah had to be harnessed and shifted in perspectiveand narrative structure. They were re-aligned in severalways: the inversion of space as the site for political andmilitary struggle from the public spaces of the countrysideto the interior of domestic spaces, partly because thekidnappings happened in the generals’ homes, attestingto historical veracity, but more importantly it indicatesthe effects of and need for authoritarian infiltration andcontrol of all spaces that requires containment via thepolicing of the limits and demarcations of those spaces,between the private, domestic and public, betweengender, class and hierarchy, ethnicities, groups andcommunities, that make up the nation.Romancing the nationThis is of course taken to its logical conclusion andrealized in “G30S” where battles were fought in theinteriors of the domestic realm. Darto is no ordinaryhero. As anti-hero he fails to possess his object of desire,“whether she becomes synonymous with the land, as sheoften does, or with the ‘naturally’ submissive and lovingraces and classes that the hero will elevate through hisaffection, woman is what he must possess in order toachieve harmony and legitimacy” (Sommer 1990, 85).The land shelters the soldiers and military from theenemy, and Widya is the nurse and woman who rescuesthe old injured woman in the field.In Indonesian films, nation building and romance gohand in hand; love is productivity.Writing the nationIn several Indonesian films, scriptural metaphorsconsistently play a part in writing the nation, inauthorizing its narrative around the visible and invisiblespaces of love, emotion, duty orders and administration,and demarcating borders between the personal and thepublic.In the films Pedjuang, Enam Djam di Djogja, LewatDjam Malam, Embun and others, writing in officialletters, orders and reports is highly visible, whereas notesof love and of a personal nature are hidden, silenced orcryptic. Private wishes and desires must be sublimatedto national sacrifice and duty, for the nation.The printed word is linked to power and personalwritings threaten the authority of institutionalizedspace and its organizing procedures in demarcating theAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 135private and the public. What this reveals is the potentialfor the personal and the subjective to be a source fordisruption.The image of writing seems to prescribe oppositions inthe act and uses of writing as power relations in narratingthe nation. Writing is prescribed and sanction towardsadministrative and authoritative uses that legitimizepower and its implementations. These themes areconsistent in the films viewed and mentioned above;the existing binary between writing as private individualand public acts, endorsing and realizing as fact theIndonesian paper trails of bureaucratic machinery.Personal writing interjects and interrupts the flow ofnational intent: the machinery of information andadministration. The personal has to be sacrificed, if notsubsumed, for the good of the nation.Writing the personal isolates oneself from the publicexpression of nation as narration. What this infersin Darah is the division not only as writing, but thatthe act of writing comes under the scrutiny and theguiding principles prescribed by national ideology.What at another level is exposed from a differentangle, as Benjamin emphasizes in the new rise in printcapitalism, it is confrontational and problematic as thisnew machinery and form of writing distinguishes itselffrom storytelling, bringing about a crises in storytelling(the personal experience) where “this new form ofcommunication is information” (Brennan 1990, 55).The scenario points to the inclusive aspect of nationalideology’s need to keep track of language, media andcommunication, because as Brennan reveals in a 1980UNESCO report, “It has become increasingly clear thatthe effects of intellectual and cultural dependence areas serious as those of political subjection or economicdependence. There can be no genuine, effectiveindependence without the communication resourcesneeded to safeguard it…a nation whose mass media areunder foreign domination cannot claim to be a nation”(Brennan 1990, 60).If we replace the word writers with filmmakers, DorisSommer makes the point that “the writers wereencouraged both by the need to fill in a history thatwould increase the legitimacy of the emerging nationand the opportunity to direct that history to a futureideal” (Sommer 1990, 76). This history was undermarching orders, in Indonesia’s case meaning itsmilitary and martial concepts of the national polity. Itis therefore instructive that the scene of writing is alsothe scene of interrogation, confession, assassinationand death, leading to Darto’s funeral and the soldiersmarching in victory.Thus writing is a “consciously produced and necessarilyviolent filler for a world full of gaps,” (Sommer 1990, 79)where although the film seems to invite the audience towrite, it also denies in death and closure, and if writinginvites a future, that future is already prescribed, notonly in filmic closure (Darto’s death and funeral) butby nationalist martial ideals.These acts in writing propose to guide and controlcommunication as a homogenizing force, in the needfor reconciliation, of difference of language, et cetera,which was merely a consolidation of forces in thetransitory period (a fragile time) towards founding andbuilding a nation.Contradiction surfaces and becomes prophetic,showing the structures at work and the authorities’fears. In proposing that writing should be containedto the private spheres, this very act of writing andreading emerges later under the Orde Baru as the veryspace for disruptive acts, whether hidden sub-textuallyin the novel, as a form of narrating the dissenting andalternative voices of the nation, to their fragmentedpamphleteering calls of resistance across campuses.New places and independent spacesWhat the contemporary generation of filmmakers isdoing is re-claiming and re-covering the spaces whichdefined their lives and practices historically, and theirlived moments and experiences within the community.We cannot talk of nation without consideration ofsocial spaces and their relationship to representationand lived realities, without considering spatial politicsand their constituencies and productivities.If representation has any meaning for nation and identity,and if it has any part in forming ideological constructs,it is that they are constant shifting processes in thecontestation of spaces that can only be derived by realistrepresentations as mythological forms, whose currentstatus is being actively and progressively challenged bythe young, whose subject matter reveals a response torepressed and hidden histories, whose recovery can onlyoriginate within their own subjectivities, as private andpersonal that would counter reigning discourses andrepresentations as public histories and national myths.These fragmented and isolated perspectives within theproliferation of narratives in the current media-scapeattests to previous authoritarian demarcation andAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

136 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONfragmenting of individuals and community, ironicallyre-emerging as individual voices cut off for three decadesfrom any continuity from groups, community and theidea of nation. They show up the stitchings of the fragileand porous entities of the nation state. In many waysthe post-65 containment, and at times brutal repressionof communities, sowed the seeds for the military’s andSuharto’s own downfall, precisely in the ways that itfeared (but could not foresee) in its own narrativizingof its identities, territories and borders, hidden by itsown obsession with the w/hole of history at LubangBuaya, of the communist specters and the PKI, and allforms of potential dissent, driving “other” voices andalternatives and resistances underground. This createdthe conditions of their own nightmares as in Darah danDoa and G30S for the enemy within, the nationalisttext.Yayan and Rudi’s form of video-making aims at acounter-hegemonic struggle at the level of practice,which goes beyond the frame of representations.What needs to be studied and understood is the entireprocess, right up to the screening and reception of thefinal product, as in what forms of dissemination theirworks take on and in what kinds of context. This, inother words, is to continue and translate the constructsin this paper, looking at in what ways they engage in theirfilm/video-making process spatially across communities,territories, language and cultural borders.Their form of video-making engages and defines theirpractice as instilling political and social awareness withthe issues which are localized, and in their workshopsthis form of engagement circumscribes and prescribesfilmmaking as political, and in so doing by raisingthe awareness in the process of addressing their issuesvia technology transforms the communities selfrepresentation.This form of empowerment that reachesout to the dispossessed, the marginalized and theforgotten, re-invigorates their practice and opens upthe practice of video making at many levels, redefiningand establishing new modes and forms of address. Theytranslate and transform the term inter-disciplinaryof cultural theory into, to cite Irit Rogoff “not assurrounding a chosen object with numerous modes ofscientific enquiry, but rather as a constitution of a newobject of knowledge” (Rogoff 2002) and practice.The current expansion and development in theIndonesian independent video/filmmaking scene has itsown hierarchy of which the kinds of practice that Rudiand Yayan are engaged in put them at the periphery ofthe scene.Their practices contrast but also translate and findmeeting points between theory and practice, betweentextuality and actuality, on the ground practice innarrating the nation. Looking at Rudi’s and Yayan’sworks reveals an aesthetic and practice removed fromthe totalizing force of the nation’s cultural expressions.They also reveal in their subject matter in the post-Suhartocontemporary scene a practice which aligns itself to theissues and ethics of representation in the matrix of intranational,inter and across communities and identities,those from the urban ghettoes to the peripheries andborders, where they “evoke the ambivalent margin ofthe nation space. To reveal such, a margin is in thefirst instance, to contest claims to cultural supremacy”(Bhabha 1990, 4). That they work at the most generallevel, if not under or “in-between” boundaries of race,religion, cultures and communities and those elementsthat constitutes the narratives of nation, describing thisprocess of hybridity as incorporating “new” people, orre-representing others “in relation to the body politic,”generating other sites of meaning that fall outsidethe cultural authority’s orbit, “and inevitably in thepolitical process, producing unmanned sites of politicalantagonism and unpredictable forces for politicalrepresentation” (Bhabha 1990, 4).It is in this respect that Rudi’s and Yayan’s workcan be seen to engage and highlight in their textualengagement and material practices the spaces in whichthe nation is written and re-presented, where to invokeBhabha’s insightful thoughts when he says “The ‘other’is never outside or beyond us; it emerges forcefullywithin cultural discourse, when we think we speakmost intimately and indigenously ‘between ourselves’”(Bhabha 1990, 4) highlighting authority and power’sneed to contain the narrativizing of the nation into lessof a fracturing and splintering entity but more towards asingular homogenizing force. It provides in some ways,important modes of operation, in answering Bhabha’squestion, “What kind of cultural space is the nationwith its transgressive boundaries and ‘interruptive’interiority?”This reading and analysis of culturally mediated textsand their productivities needs to be seen in this lightand in the light of ground practice.ConclusionsFilms and our relationship to films require engagementand our understanding of their narrative constructionsand organizing principles via our practices in space,the human subject as the location for the destinationAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 137and origination, as a site for meaning/and themaking of meaning; the way they frame their imageas representations and their human subjects withintheir purview in forming, shaping the ideologicallyconstructed human subject as members of groups,ethnicities, communities that make up the nation. It is ingrasping/analyzing the articulations of the relationshipbetween film and the social fabric that we can beginto unlock and understand our place in the processes ofsocial and political transformations, and in so doingactively participate and contribute, to re-imagine andre-make the texts and practices of the nation, thattends toward dominant modes of expression that limitand contain the human subject in it’s homogenizingideological grip.Alternative cultural expressions and practices can aid inre-defining and re-drawing cultural lines and bordersand their demarcations, to expand their territories asinclusive of differences and diversities towards an open,equitable and just society and its representations.They provide for opportunities of a discursiveand processual engagement across textual, filmicrepresentations as much as real physical ones, to createless exclusionary spaces and more cultural dialoguesacross borders. Culture and film thereby becomesa means of projecting and transforming social andpolitical conditions—in their representations as text aswell as practice.In other words, as an example in Yayan Wiludiharjo’spractice, the film only really begins where it ends, wherethe subject does not stop at the screen either as textualengagement or practice, but is taken further extendingas a continuum, from cinematic space to public spacesacross village halls, campuses and community networks,via discussions, talks, reconciliation and action. It isin this sense that I mean when I speak about film ascrossing and transgressing textual and cultural borders,spaces and practices, to re-imagine and realize spatialpolitics as a necessary engagement in cultural politics.Beller, Jonathan. “KINO-I, KINO-WORLD. Notes on theCinematic Mode of Production.” Ed. Mirzoeff, Nicholas. TheVisual Culture Reader. London: Routledge, 2002.Bhabha, Homi. “Dissemination: Time, Narrative and theMargins of the Modern Nation.” Ed. Bhabha, Homi. Nationand Narration. London: Routledge, 1990.Brennan, Timothy. “The National Longing for Form.” Ed.Bhabha, Homi. Nation and Narration. London: Routledge,1990.Burgin, Victor. In/Different Spaces—Place and Memory inVisual Culture. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1996.Crouch, D. and C. Malm. “Landscape Practice, LandscapeResearch: An Essay in Gentle Politics.” Eds. Dorrian, Markand Gillian Rose. Deterritorialisations— Revisioning Landscapesand Politics. London: Black Dog Publishing, 2004.Debray, Regis. “Marxism and the National Question.” NewLeft Review 105.Sept.-Oct. (1977): 27.Renan, Ernest. “What is a Nation?” Ed. Bhabha, Homi.Nation and Narration. London: Routledge, 1990.Rogoff, Irit. “Studying Visual Culture” Ed. Mirzoeff, Nicholas.The Visual Culture Reader. London: Routledge, 2002.Sipe, Michelle. “Landscape Aesthetics and the Inscaping ofClass in Women’s Nineteenth Century Literature.” Eds.Dorrian, Mark and Gillian Rose. Deterritorialisations—Revisioning Landscapes and Politics. London: Black DogPublishing, 2004Sommer, Doris. “Irresistible Romance: The FoundationalFictions of Latin America.” Ed. Bhabha, Homi. Nation andNarration. London: Routledge, 1990.Textual engagement, filmmaking and screening becomeprocesses within and without spatial territories andborders, across lived spaces and embodied places ascultural practice.REFERENCESAnderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on theOrigin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso Editions.1985 [1983].Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

138 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONRECONSIDERATION OF LOCAL IDENTITY THROUGHPERFORMING ARTS IN THE ERA OF OTONOMI DAERAHKaori FushikiIntroductionThis study looks at the case of Bali in the use ofperforming arts as a means of representing local identity.“Bali” represents an ethnic, religious and culturalminority within the domestic situation of a nation-state,the Republic of Indonesia. It has historically needed toinsist on its own local identity within this nation-stateand, in later years, this tendency has been strengthened.After 2000, the enactment of local autonomy (OtonomiDaerah) brought with it the tendency to adhere to thepublic opinion of Balinese society and was accompaniedby radical cultural activities.It was against this background that this research wasdone. Data were gathered through participation inand support of cultural activities, data analysis andinterviews. I carried out secondary data analysisto gain clarity about Bali’s educational system andcultural politics. I interviewed some people to clarifythe discourse of “Ajeg Bali.” The focus of the study oncultural practice was mainly the artists of performingarts. I thus observed and assisted in some performingarts competitions. My field research was mainly done inthe Kotamadya Denpasar area. This area is a center ofBalinese society where most of the Balinese local massmedia is based. Many institutes producing religiousleaders, intellectuals and artists are concentrated inthis area. It seems that the formation of public opinionis easily seen here. In this city, what kind of ideas doindividuals who engage in performing arts for a livinghave? Moreover, since the emergence of public opinionsupportive of the performing arts depends on how theyare brought to the public and by whom, how does thischange the performing arts themselves and the customsof the people?Local identity of Bali: “Ajeg Bali”With the arrival of mass tourism in the 1970s,Balinese society achieved a great deal of development.However, the turning point came in the latter halfof the 1990s. The scenery and the aspects of the“traditions” that formed the image of “Bali,” whichwere the resources that created tourism, were lost due tolifestyle changes especially associated with urbanizationand modernization. The Balinese image was furtherassaulted by the decrease in the number of tourists in1995, the Asian economic crisis in 1997, the change ofgovernment in 1998 and the political confusion thatfollowed. These events resulted in a high inflation rate,bankruptcy of hotels and restaurants, a sharp decrease inthe number of group tour visitors, a decrease in people’sactual income and increased hardship for the Balinese.This caused a sense of impending crisis in conventionalBali society, which was dependent on tourism. Thissense of crises produced the tendency among thepeople, through the mass media, to reconsider theirideas of “self.” In particular, when the authority of theBali state government was greatly expanded in 2000,a tendency to insist on local identity through culturalactivities spread out into the district societies.What is “the quality of Bali/Balineseness” (Picard2005, 112)? The word which I encountered in 2000to show Balineseness was kebalian. However, in lateryears, the keyword changed to Ajeg Bali. It is said thatthe concept of Ajeg Bali was coined in May 2002 bySatria Naradha, the president of a Balinese newspaper,the Bali Post (Darma Putra 2004, 316). This conceptspread throughout Balinese society instantly whenthe Bali Post Company launched Bali TV and held abig campaign about it. The concept called Ajeg Bali iscaptured as follows:Ever since the October 2002 Bali bombings andthe subsequent trials of Islamic radicals, manyBalinese have turned from talking about ‘BaliLestari’ or ‘Preserved Bali’ to calling for ‘Ajeg Bali.’‘Ajeg’ is a Balinese word meaning hard or stable orfixed. ... ‘Ajeg’ implies a certain tough new culturalconservation (Degung Santikarma 2003, 14).... Ajeg Bali bukanlah sebuah konsep yang stangan,melainkan sebuah upaya pembaruan terus-menerusyang dilakukan secara sadar oleh manusia Bali untukmenjaga identitas, ruang serta proses budayanya agartidak jatuh di bawah penaklukan hegemoni budayaglobal (Anonymous 2004, 46).[…constant innovation being practiced consciouslyby the Balinese makes an effort at following theiridentity because it is not conquered by the globalAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 139cultural hegemony (translated by Fushiki).]“Suatu gerakan ideologis untuk menjaga kehidupansosial budaya Bali agar tetap eksis sekaligus kokohmenghadapi tantangan internal dan eksternal”(Putra Darma 2005, 316).[An ideological activity that is going to protectthe social and cultural life of Bali for its eternaland solid existence when faced with internal andexternal challenges (translated by Fushiki).]ajeg: a new protectionist ethos in the discourses onBalinese cultural identity (Noszlopy 2005, 179).This discourse has been readjusted and reframedfor the 21 st century by academics, local governmentand the mass media, specifically the Bali Post, asthe discourse of Ajeg Bali. Ajeg Bali, a Bali that is“upstanding,” “stable” and culturally autonomous,follows in the wake of the correct practice of adat(Noszlopy 2005, 180-181).What is real the meaning of Ajeg Bali? Before a truemeaning of Ajeg Bali could be arrived at, the opinionof leaders has extended the keyword in the mass media.The word was received by the people and practicedwithout being doubted. The concept of Ajeg Bali hasnow become “something one has to do as ‘Balinese.’”It is only in the last few years that Ajeg Bali has becomea popular ethos with the local people. Many culturalactivities are done as representations of the Ajeg Balimovement. It is also related to the religious ethos oraesthetics, especially with Agama Hindu (Hinduism).How do artists respond to Ajeg Bali? A few yearsago, they did not recognize the concept of Ajeg Bali.Nowadays, artists who are highly educated want totalk about Ajeg Bali themselves and want to put it intopractice. This is an interesting phenomenon. Life withthe local identity/ethos of “Ajeg Bali” was introducednot only by intellectuals but also by artists, especiallytraditional gamelan 1 players. When they play gamelansin some rituals that society wants to perform, theysuggest the most “suitable” gamelan for the ritual. Theability to make suggestions comes from the knowledgebrought about by their higher educational attainment.They sometimes change the social behavior in a local sitelike a desa (village). In these places, very local behaviorsometimes replaces the standard, mainstream style.In addition to the situation detailed above, problemswith Ajeg Bali complicate local politics. Many culturalevents concerned with Ajeg Bali are organized bylocal governments. In my research, I followed someperforming arts lomba (competitions). Sometimes thecompetition became a transactional stage for politicalpowers where who received the honor from the lombawas more important than artistic representation. Theprincipal political interest within a desa is the one whoparticipates in the dance, music and other things, andno one notices what is important in the piece or itsaesthetics. In this situation, there are certain criteria forentering the competition, but these no longer considerethos or aesthetics.The contribution of ISI to Balinese performing artsInstitut Seni Indonesia-Denpasar or ISI-Denpasar(Indonesian Arts Institute in Denpasar) is one of thenational universities of the arts and music. Most of thepeople who take an academic role or form the politicalnucleus of the current Balinese performing arts scenegraduated from this university. This university wasestablished as a vocational school of Balinese traditionalarts and has now become an institute of Indonesianarts. In the era of the academy, this university had itsgraduates perform surveys of the local performing arts,and these reports became a basic, important recordabout contemporary Balinese arts in those days. Afterbecoming STSI-Denpasar (Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia-Denpasar), the university functioned as an institutionthat mainly produced artists creating performing arts.Many graduation works were produced and a publicexamination was held every year. Now the Institute issending out highly educated artists who give guidanceto younger generations of artists.Graduates’ creations and social evaluations of/reactions tothe InstituteI analyzed the trend in graduation performancesand tried to investigate how this trend was tied tosocial changes. The reason for this analysis was that Iexpected the university to have played a role in the AjegBali movement. From 1988 to the mid-1990s, manystudents who majored in karawitan (traditional music)at STSI-Denpasar chose theater sendratari (seni dramatari, dance drama) for their graduation performances.Then, starting in the mid-1990s, many students didtheir graduation performances as dance pieces. Thenfrom 2000 onward, many students did their graduationpieces not in the karawitan style but in the konser(modern concert) style. This implies that not only hasthe karawitan style been abandoned but that the piecesdo not “use” traditional gamelan instruments. I wasvery surprised by this result, because the Institute is acenter for the study of traditional music, but many of itsstudents no longer use the karawitan style. This situationAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

140 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONis far removed from social reality. Furthermore, Isometimes heard “there is no social concern within ISI-Denpasar because they cannot do anything” as a socialvoice. Some cassettes recorded by STSI-Denpasar orISI-Denpasar that are already on the market are said tofeature the wrong way of playing gamelans, especially inthe traditional pieces. Many old, non-formally educatedgamelan players complain about this. However, theserecordings are still broadcast in the Balinese mass mediaand have become popular works. Also, some studentsin ISI-Denpasar cannot judge the lomba of traditionalgamelan well. Because of their poor judgment, manypeople complain of the lack of fairness and problemsarise within the committee.Female gamelan activitiesVillage-based women’s gamelan groups are usuallycalled Gong PKK. There are a number of methods bywhich the members of the group are selected or thegroups are formed. It is not only women but also menwho are concerned with the establishment of a group.There are three ways of forming a group. The first typecan be called a “selected members” group. Members ofthe group are selected by men in the community andare expected to bring honor to the group or to becomean example to their children. One who wants to jointhe group but does not have the ability cannot beselected for the group. The second type can be calleda “mixed members” group. Members of the group aresometimes selected to bring honor to the group orselected because of the status of the husband or the wifein society. However, if anyone wants to join the group,the request is not rejected. The third type can be calleda “true lovers” group. Members are not selected fromany specific type of people; anyone who wants to join iswelcomed to the group.A showcase of Ajeg BaliThe gamelan activities of the women are not a traditionalphenomenon. However, the wearing of pakaian adat(traditional clothes) is almost a duty. This shows thatthe gamelan is clearly customary. In the ngaya (offeringof the gamelan play to the gods) at the pura (temple), thewomen wear their traditional Balinese clothes and say aprayer to the gods before a performance. They receiveholy water from a priest and then play the gamelan. Thedonning of traditional clothes, the offering of prayer,the receipt of the holy water and the performance of thegamelan are the indexes of their practice of Ajeg Bali.Therefore, the dedication performance in the templebecomes a big event in their village. The image ofwomen who are good wives and mothers, who protecttheir tradition well and practice Ajeg Bali, is a source ofpride not only for women but also for men. Moreover,the lomba of the gamelan has similar importance to thengaya. Winning a high prize in lomba brings great honorto the village. Therefore, lomba are held for gamelanplaying in various classes such as those for women,children and youth. In the case of women’s gamelan,it was after the 1980s that lomba were first held. Afterthe Ajeg Bali movement began, the lomba became morepopular. Currently, not only women but also meneagerly promote the gamelan activities of women.Identity of womenTraditionally, women are not expected to performartistic activities in society, except for girls’ dances.Married women are only expected to have the role of thekeeper of the family properties and to make offerings totheir gods and ancestors. They are expected to followtheir husbands. However, women’s relatively low socialstatus has been a hot topic recently, with some womenwanting to improve their status. In the study sites, thereare two attitudes towards women. At one site, womenare making efforts to raise their status, while at theother site, women want to maintain traditional femaleroles and images. These two attitudes separate womeninto two groups. One is the group that joins, supportsor approves of the female gamelan activities. Whenthey hold a ngaya, they get the chance to participateas gamelan players wearing their special costumes. Theother group criticizes female gamelan activities. Theyinsist that the gamelan activities are men’s work and notsuitable for women.Children’s gamelan activitiesIn many cases, the establishment of children’s gamelanis deeply connected to the parents’ request. Children’sgamelan activities have an educational purpose.However, a more interesting phenomenon is the viewingof the practice of the gamelan as social education. Insome areas where public morals have been corrupted,parents want to keep their children away from socialproblems like prostitution and the drug trade, amongothers, with the lessons of Ajeg Bali. Of course, there arecases of children’s gamelan groups that are establishedbecause of the children’s aspiration. However, becauseof the problems of expense, instruments and facilities,it is difficult to start the lessons in a banjar (a regionalassociation). When the group is approved by a banjar,they can practice the gamelan at the bale banjar (banjarassembly hall). If they are not approved, the groupcannot use the bale banjar. In this case, children’sgamelan activities are done within the context of aAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 141private gamelan group called sanggar.Education, ngaya, TV programs and competitionBecause of the parents’ educational aims, children’sgamelan activities have certain peculiarities. The parentsrequire their children to pray to the gods at the templebefore they start their lessons. They are required togive a “Hindu” greeting to the instructor and towear the pakaian adat during the lessons. The parentsbelieve that this is one way to learn Ajeg Bali. Theywant their children to learn “Balinese” culture in the“Balinese” way in a “Balinese” setting as “Balinese.” Theproclamation of this result, the children’s attainment of“Balineseness,” is usually performed as a ngaya. A ngayais the most suitable chance to show the result of theirdaily activities to the village. To show it outside of theirvillage, the parents would arrange to have the children’sperformance filmed for a TV program, with children’s“Balinese” activities on TV becoming popular, especiallyin Bali-TV. 2 However, a lomba will attract the mostpeople. Schools send participants as representatives ofa local school and community. Schoolteachers pick outthe brilliant students in their school to form groupsthat will participate in the competition. A prize bringsgreat honor to the school, the local community, andthe children. For this reason, parents and schools needthe best instructors to give children the best learningenvironment. However, the participation of schoolsin gamelan activities causes friction with the localgamelan group. The main problem is the selection ofa representative. The selection is done by teacherswho often do not know the details of gamelan playingtechniques and the characteristics of the group. Thiscreates a feeling of unfairness and causes stiff relations.Putting children with different levels of technical skillstogether also creates some problems. The parents of theselected children pay for the expenses for lessons andspecial clothes for the competition since there is nosupport from the school. However, the school, whichcollects the prize money, does not reimburse the parentsfor the expenses. This causes dissatisfaction amongparents.Beleganjur competitions and youth gamelanactivitiesBeleganjur is a type of Balinese gamelan usually used forreligious ceremonies to exorcise evil spirits. Usually, it isplayed by the youth. It is a form of creative gamelan andnew creations of the beleganjur are very popular. Whena lomba for beleganjur is planned, the local communitybecomes excited about the competition. It can alsobe said that the competition of gamelan beleganjur isa political event. Many of the members of the groupsare chosen by and supported by the Desa Dinas (villageadministrators). The beleganjur competition is, therefore,a battle of the villages. The beleganjur competitionthat I studied was held in September 2006 as a part ofLomba Karana Teruna Teruni (Competition of YouthGroups in the Village Society). It was also done as a partof a commemorative event of a hundred years after the“Puputan Badung” (the historical mass suicide in BadungKingdom, Bali). The Desa Dinas that I studied made aneffort to participate in the competition to bring honorto the village or to not be disgraced by other villages bythe lack of preparation. It was of utmost importance forthe Desa to participate in the competition.Process for the competition, criteria and the performanceThe meeting to organize participation in a lombais usually done six months before the competition.However, the village I studied was late in makingpreparations and had the meeting only one monthbefore. At the meeting, the village mayor and thegovernment officials selected a composer to create a newpiece for the competition. Then, the selection of thegamelan players took two weeks. Practices, therefore,started only two weeks before the competition. Becauseof the lack of time, the piece was made simple andshort, just long enough for the competition’s criteria.However, there was fear that their participation mightcause the composer and players shame so they initiallywanted to drop out of the competition. However,because the delegate of the youth association wantedto bring himself honor and have his participation feereturned, he approved the participation of the groupwithout the agreement of the others. After the decisionto participate, the group practiced every day. BecauseBalinese gamelans do not use the notation traditionally,it was difficult for the selected members to memorizethe composition. The piece was completed only one daybefore the competition.Every competition has clear criteria. This beleganjurcompetition had its clear criteria outlined in its officialdocuments. Many elements of Ajeg Bali are included inthe criteria and the published theme was itself related toAjeg Bali. 3 The competition’s theme was classic storiesand the composition’s topic had to be chosen fromthe Ramayana, Mahabharata, Sutasoma or Tantri. Thework’s composition was to express a theme of greatness,bravery, humor, loyalty and virtue within a length of sixto eight minutes along the chosen story line in the styleof Sendratari. The instrumentation was to be traditionaland typical, and the number of each musical instrumentwas pre-determined. Combinations of various musicalAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

142 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONinstruments used in recent creations were not acceptable.The players and supporting members were required towear clothes used for courtesy or ritual. They also couldnot use tools that did not have an element of tradition.The “traditional” spear, the ornaments of a traditionalmotif based on a wayang puppet (shadow puppet), abarong (sacred animal) and a rangda (widow) wererecommended. The competition piece was made inaccordance with the criteria and was checked severaltimes for adherence to the criteria. A few days beforethe competition, the village officials invited the judgesand supervisors to a rehearsal to receive their guidance.At the competition, this guidance was reflected in thepiece.The group that I studied held a rehearsal five days beforethe competition. The rehearsal was done in the puraand the members came in simple traditional clothes.The judge and supervisors also came on stage wearingtraditional clothes and received a polite receptionfrom the village officials. On the competition day, allmembers gathered at the temple wearing “Balinese”costumes and prayed to the gods for success. After theperformance, they went back to the temple and ate ameal with pork 4 together. Components of Ajeg Bali inthis activity include pura, traditional clothes, prayer atpura and eating pork.Prosperity and popularity of non-traditionalperforming artsAs traditional Balinese gamelans prosper, non-Balineseperforming arts are also gaining popularity in Balinesesociety. An example is PSR (Pekan Seni Remaja,Youth Arts Week) which is sponsored by DenpasarCity. PSR, once comprised of various competitions,including athletics, between junior high and highschool students, has now mainly become a synthesiscompetition of cultural activities. Furthermore, an artfestival for kindergarten and primary schoolchildrencame to be held at the same time. These competitionsare generally divided into two branches: traditional andnon-traditional. Various gamelans, “classical” dancing,chanting of Balinese poetry, Balinese literature andBalinese painting are classified in the traditional section.The non-traditional section includes modern drama,paduan suara (chorus), Pop Bali, and so on. A newcreation in the traditional style is thought as traditionalbecause the “invention of tradition” is an ordinaryfeature in this society. In 2007, all competitions weredone under the theme of Ajeg Bali. The non-traditionalsection uses the Indonesian language and not onlyBalinese, and many people of other ethnic originsparticipate in these competitions.Paduan SuaraPaduan suara is a mixed chorus. According to Putu Setia(1986), students’ choirs were popular in Balinese societyin the 1980s, and their popularity continues to this day,especially among high school students. It seems that thedifference between the situation in the 1980s and now isthat in the 1980s, choir performances were broadcast bythe Balinese mass media while nowadays, they are not.The songs that are used in competition are Lagu CintaTanah Air (patriotic) Indonesian songs and songs thatwere popular in Bali in the 1960s. Other songs are choirpieces arranged by composers who learned Westernmusic such as Ismail Marzuki and Iskandar, and popmusic arrangements by Ngrah Arjana or A. A. MadeCakra which form a set piece. Students are obliged tosing one of these and to choose two other pieces from aset selected by the committee. The conductor was chosenfrom among the students of the school, but the piano(an electric keyboard) accompaniment was arranged bythe committee. The singers wear their school uniformsand sing with gestures. The choral competitions arevery exciting. Sometimes battles among supporters takeplace in the halls.These competitions are a suggestive phenomenon. Onthe one hand, the Ajeg Bali movement is radical, but onthe other hand, other cultural performances are acceptedby the local society, as well. In my view, this situationshows the centripetal forces for modernization. Nontraditionalperforming arts reflect the image of modernitysuch as western style music, Indonesian language andschool uniforms. For this reason, competitions in nontraditionalperforming arts continue to be more popularthan traditional ones.Pop Bali: Ajeg Bali-ized non-traditional performing artsPop Bali, a form of popular music sung in Balineselanguage and fused with musical elements such as theBalinese gamelan, recently became widely popular. 5Before the last decade, Pop Bali was thought to be oldfashionedmusic. Many young people did not want tolisten to and sing Pop Bali because of its old-fashionedstyle. However, this changed in 2000 when Pop Baliwas identified as one of the components of Ajeg Bali.The musical style was enriched. There arose styles ofMandarin, Banyuwangian, alternative, rap, rock andothers. Many singers became popular and many youngpeople became supporters of the singers or the band.For a few years after 2000, the pop competition in thePSR was done by performing Indonesian pop songs andinternational pop songs in English. However, nowadays,the pop competition is done by performing “Balinese”Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 143pop songs and the participants wear traditional clothesto be Ajeg Bali. Because of their popularity, there aremany private pop competitions now. The competitionshave become popular shows. Sometimes the popcompetitions banish the “traditional” ones. In one ofthe cases I observed, the traditional kendang (drum)competition was forced out of the competition hallbecause the pop competition took so long. The popcompetition had more than a hundred participantsbut the traditional kendang competition only hadtwelve participants. There were few spectators forthe kendang competition because the stage was set ina school classroom. In contrast, the stage for the PopBali competition was built in a courtyard with richdecorations. This reflects the status of the Balinese localidentity. Traditional competitions are thought of asadhering to Balinese origins, and hence are importantones, but actually the Balinese want to be modernand suited to their times. Traditional competitions,therefore, are not as popular as the pop competitions.Conclusion: Performing arts and the reconsiderationof local identityAs I have shown above, the performing arts in local“Balinese” society are deeply concerned with people’sexpectations. Many activities are related to people’srelationships in society, including the expectation ofsocial honor and economic profit, among others. Theaesthetic criteria of the performing arts are not consideredby ordinary people. However, they are very proud to doAjeg Bali through the “Balinese” performing arts. Thefigures of the new “Bali” include not only “traditional”“Balinese” performing arts but also new “Balinese”performances like Pop Bali. This situation shows thatthe “Balinese” performing arts and their activities havebecome part of the social identity of “Bali.” Intellectualsmade the discourse of Ajeg Bali in the local mass media,while government officials spread and expanded it andset up Ajeg Bali events. And the people do it. This seemsto be one of the ways of doing Ajeg Bali.However, who really wants Ajeg Bali? In KotamadyaDenpasar, it was the people who worked in the localgovernment system, including the mayor, who gainedhonor and profit from the system. Many concernedpeople, like intellectuals, government officials and artists,met with the mayor to lobby for support to “cultural”activities such as the performing arts by appealing to acrisis of local identity and proposing the practice of AjegBali. It may be said that Ajeg Bali becomes a kind of“mantra” in Balinese society, as Ari Dwipayana (2005:14) points out. It may also be said that today’s Ajeg Balisituation is sometimes “too much” for the Balinese andothers in the Balinese local society. There is the fear thatit will become too ethnocentric, with too much AjegBali causing awkward relations with neighbors who arenot “Balinese.”To reconsider the problem of local identity, I want toshow two points of view. First, there is the viewpointof the national political situation. From this point, wecan sometimes see the radical Ajeg Bali movement,which seems to be linking with the Parisada (Hinducouncil) which gives people guidance for daily lifeand which was already disunited through the religiousact and a difference of opinion for “Balineseness.”This has resulted in changes to customs, rituals andthe performing arts. Furthermore, we can see publicopinion and public acts as political tools, such as theuse of performing arts from the Beleganjur in the Ritualof the One Hundred Years of “Puputan Badung.” Thismeans that the performing arts have been politicizedin this context. Moreover, others in Balinese societyalready feel a change in the social atmosphere. Actually,through the activities of daily customs/performing arts,social rejection of the non-“Balinese” elements in thecommunity has already occurred.Second, there is the smaller regional viewpoint. Thereis a crisis in the specificity of the regional, village wayof representing “Bali.” Nowadays, customs in dailyvillage life and models of rituals and performing artsare changing rapidly. There is already discordancebetween conservative village people and reformers insome cases.In short, there is a need to reconsider the concept oflocal identity. This process will cause social uneaseand unstable social conditions because of its politicalcharacter. It is necessary to pay attention to the easy,hasty movements that use the local identity.Why has the sympathy to expressions of the localidentity such as Ajeg Bali become a political topic? Itis because the performing arts, which are performed asrepresentations of the local identity, can become toolsof agitation by power holders and people who want toprofit from the situation. I think there is a problem inthe relationship between academic intellectuals, those inthe mass media, artists and local politicians, especially atthe village level. To clarify the problem and the system,we have to investigate the views and activities of localpoliticians. However, I had no time or opportunity tostudy this phenomenon. It still remains as the next issueto be studied.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

144 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONNOTES1 Gamelan are Indonesian/Malaysian traditional musicalensembles. Many of them are bronze gong-chimeorchestras, although some use bamboo, wood, steel,among others, instead of bronze.Setia, Putu. Mendebat Bali. Denpasar: Manikgeni, 2002.Setia, Putu. Menggugat Bali. Jakarta: Grafiti, 1986.2 This TV channel was established by a local newspapercompany, the Bali Post, in 2002.3 The theme of 2006 is as follows: Through the examinationof our culture, we will improve the creativity of the younggeneration while realizing a unity that is aimed at peaceand Ajeg Bali (Melalui Nilai-Nilai Budaya Kita TingkatkanKreativitas Generasi Buda Dalam Mewujudkan KesatuanMenuju Kedamaian dan Ajeg Bali).4 Sometimes the act of eating pork becomes the marker of“non-Muslim=Balinese.” So through this act, some peoplediscriminate against others in being Balinese.5 Pop Bali is performed by the Balinese to show their“Balineseness” in plural languages. It was in the 1970s thatPop Bali was commercialized and appeared in the marketas so-called popular music by the recording media.REFERENCESAnonymous. Ajeg Bali, Sebuah Cita-cita. [Denpasar]: BaliPost, 2003.Ari Dwipayana, AA. GN. “Bali: Surga Bertepi Kekerasan.”in Sandyakalaning Tanah Dewata: Suara Perlawanan danPelenyapan. Yogyakarta: Kepel, 2005.Darma Putra, I Nyoman. “Plitik Lagu Pop Bali.” in PolitikKebudayaan dan Identitas Etnik. Eds. I Wayan Ardika andDarma Putra. n.p.: Fakultas Sastra Universitas Udayana danBalimangsi Press, 2004.Degung Santikarma. “Bali Erect.” Latitudes…6˚++ Above to11˚ Below the Equator. 34(Nov 2003): 12-17.Noszlopy, Loura. “Bazaar, Big Kites and Other Boys’ Things:Distinctions of Gender and Tradition in Balinese YouthCulture.” Australian Journal of Anthropology 16/2(Aug 2005):179-197.Picard, Michel. “Otonomi daerah in Bali: The Call for SpecialAutonomy Status in the Name of Kebalian.” Regionalismin Post-Suharto Indonesia. Eds. Maribeth Erb, PriyambudiSulistiyanto and Carole Faucher. New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 145TRANSFORMATIONS IN AGRARIAN LIVELIHOOD ANDTHE SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE MOVEMENT UNDERGLOBALIZATIONSupa YaimuangIntroductionThe dynamic transformation of agriculture in manycountries around the globe has been actively occurringunder globalization. Globalization has created powerfuleconomic, political, social and cultural ties acrossborders (Singh 2007). After the Second World War,the development of economic ties became the majortheme in global integration as international trade andinvestment were enhanced and production technologygreatly improved in line with the growth of transnationalcorporations (TNCs). Information technology hassignificantly speeded up this integration, especially inthe flow of money and investment, labor, production,information and culture.Within the context of globalization, the global economyhas been accelerated by the ideology of neoliberalism.Neoliberalism, which developed from capitalism, isdefined as trade liberalization in terms of goods, servicesand capital, allowing them to flow across borders withoutstate control, leading to rapid economic growth (Janyapes2000). In this context, TNCs have gained greaterpower in economic negotiations that have includedderegulation, privatization, trade stabilization andliberalization. Meanwhile, international organizationslike the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the WorldBank and the World Trade Organization (WTO) haveplayed important roles in gearing up this economictransformation.Consequently, agricultural transformation has inevitablymoved forward under several bilateral and multilateraltrade agreements. These trade agreements have beenmade between developed countries, in which agricultureis highly subsidized, and developing countries, which arepoor. The concept of trade liberalization considers thatfree trade will bring about competent trade competitionand efficient production. It has been implemented bymany international organizations as a method of povertyreduction. As a result, farmers’ ways of life have beentransformed and small-scale farmers have inevitably hadto adjust to the context of globalization. As an alternativeto these changes, sustainable agriculture is proposedby the agricultural community. It was conceived as aresponse to the impact of the Green Revolution.The objective of my study was to understand changesin the agricultural sector and the creation of farmers’alternatives in the development of sustainableagriculture in Japan and Indonesia. In Japan, this studyfocused on farmers’ livelihoods and farmers’ groups inthe prefectures of Mie, Saitama, Fukuoka, Hiroshima,Hokkaido and Yamagata. These farmers are involved inthe development of sustainable agriculture includingthe issue of farmer-consumer linkages, as well as relatedpolicy issues. In Indonesia, the study was conducted inrice-based communities in Wonogiri District, CentralJava and Ngawi District, Eastern Java. The study focusedon the impact of trade liberalization and the formationof the communities’ alternatives based on local cultureand biodiversity. The study was conducted at twolevels. At the policy level, data were gathered through aliterature review and interviews with local state officials.On the issue of sustainable agriculture and communities’alternatives, the study was focused at the communitylevel. Data were gathered through interviews withfamily members and members of community groups,NGO staff and university academics. Participation invarious activities such as meetings, seminars and onfarmvisits also generated data.Agricultural change: Political, economic and socialcontextAgricultural change in the two countries has beencaused by changes in their political, economic andsocial systems. These include the change to adopt asystem of capitalism, which in Japan took place after theSecond World War. In Indonesia, after independencein 1945, the country declared itself a democracy andlaunched a land reform program. Japan moved towardsindustrialization while Indonesia was still in the stageof nation building, adopting capitalism in 1967. Aftera land reform program, the farmers in both countriesbecome small farmers. In Japan, the average landholding per family is one hectare except in Hokkaido. 1Meanwhile, in Indonesia, the average land holding isonly 0.35 hectare. On the island of Java, where theland is fertile and suitable for farming and hence, thepopulation relatively dense, the average land holdingis only 0.25 hectare. In Japan, the farm population isdecreasing. In 2005, 1.96 million families were farmersAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

146 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONout of a total population of 127.8 million people. InIndonesia, the majority are farmers. In 2003, there were25.4 million farm families, making up 56 percent of thetotal population.The most important agricultural change in the twocountries was the Green Revolution. The GreenRevolution transformed the pattern of agriculture fromtraditional farming (which used human and animal laborand was very nature-dependent) to modern agriculture.This form of modern agriculture required the use ofchemicals and new technologies, including improvedseeds and animal breeds. High Yielding Varieties whichrequired the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticideswere developed. Farmers had to depend on these externalinputs produced by agribusiness companies. Before theGreen Revolution era, Indonesia had more than 8,000native rice varieties (Brookfield and Byron 1967). By1988, 74 percent of these native rice varieties had beenlost (WRI 1998). Native rice varieties were replaced byhigh yielding varieties promoted by the governmentwith support programs such as input subsidies. In 1984,Indonesia achieved food self-sufficiency but the countryfaced environmental problems as a result of agriculturalchemical use. Soil and water were contaminated; pestproblems spread as pests grew resistant to chemicals.The volume of production stabilized and then beganto decrease due to environmental changes. Japan alsofaced environmental and chemical contaminationproblems. Western influence had entered Japan sincethe Meiji reign; at that time, Japan adopted moderntechnology and external inputs in its agriculture.Experimental research on agriculture was introduced,although it required many years to be applied in theJapanese context. After the Second World War, therewas an increase in chemical use in order to meet thecountry’s needs for food self-sufficiency. Japan began toexperience environmental problems in 1965, which isthe same period during which Indonesia adopted GreenRevolution technology in its agricultural sector.Changes in agriculture under globalizationAgriculture in both countries is confronting problemsfrom trade liberalization. Both multilateral and bilateralagreements are moving Japan and Indonesia towardsliberalized economies. The Uruguay Round of theGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 2affected the Indonesian agricultural sector. In addition,under regional agreements that have been made,such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation(APEC), domestic support from the government tothe agricultural sector has been abolished. The role ofthe government in the rice trade has been reduced. Thegovernment has had to change its policies and allow theprivate sector to expand its role in trading; this was beendone together with the reduction of export and importtariffs. For example, import tariffs on agricultural itemswere reduced to five percent in 1999. The process oftariff reduction began in the early 1990s and, even asIndonesia was confronted with economic problems in1998-99, the country still had to follow its internationalagreements. As the country faced economic problems,it had to borrow money from the IMF and the WorldBank. The loan came along with conditions that forcedIndonesia to adopt free trade policies.Japan also faced strong pressure to open its country upto free trade agreements and reduce its import tariffs. In1990, Japan had to reduce its tariffs on oranges and beefand, in 1993, on rice. It has had to abolish domesticsupport for agriculture. As a result, it has adapted itslaws to follow the terms of international agreements. In1999, Japan declared the Basic Law on Food, Agricultureand Rural Areas to replace the Basic Agriculture Lawof 1961. The new law addressed production efficiency,increased competitiveness and food security. The detailsof how this change has impacted the agricultural sectorare outlined below:1. Food self-sufficiency and trade competitionThere is no exemption for a developed country likeJapan nor for a developing country like Indonesia. Aftersigning free trade agreements, both faced problems dueto decreased food self-sufficiency. In Japan, food selfsufficiencydecreased and the role of the agriculturalsector declined after the Second World War. Japan hasto depend on imported food. This is because the countrybecame an industrialized country. Free trade shouldbenefit net-food importing countries like Japan but theratio of the nation’s food self-sufficiency has declined:Japan’s food self-sufficiency was 48 percent in 1990,but declined to 43 percent in 1995 and 40 percent in2000. At present, Japan imports food such as bananas,mangoes, chicken, shrimp, beef and vegetables. Morethan 60 percent of its imports come from the USA,Australia, China and Thailand. The domestic price ofagricultural products has likewise decreased. Since thebeginning of trade liberalization, with the importation oforanges and vegetables from China, domestic vegetableproducers have suffered since they cannot compete withcheaper Chinese vegetables.Indonesia faced economic problems in 1997-1998,and with them, problems of food insecurity andpoverty. In 1999, the number of poor increased to 23percent. Indonesia imported 5.8 million metric tonsAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 147of rice in 1998, 4.2 million metric tons in 1999 andtwo million metric tons in 2003 (Sidik 2004). Rice hasbecome a food security issue for Indonesia. In 2004,the government prohibited the importation of riceduring the harvesting season and charged an import taxIDR430/kg. At present, Indonesia imports many kindsof food such as soybean, sugar, fruit, meat, milk andcotton. When these products are imported, the domesticprice goes down and farmers suffer. At the same time,the government is unable to launch a domestic supportprogram because of Agreement on Agriculture under theWTO. Although Indonesia is an agricultural country, itis dependent on imports. Thus, it will face the problemof food insecurity over the long term.The study of rice-based communities, such as the case ofPucangan community and the community network inNgawi District and Setrorejo community in WonogiriDistrict, found that farmers’ cost of production hasincreased. However, the price of domestic rice hasremained low as it has to compete with the low priceof imported rice. Indonesia imports rice from America,Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and Myanmar, and becauseof the free trade agreement within the ASEAN and theWTO, this rice import is tax-free. This brings downthe price of rice from these countries, and Indonesianfarmers end up selling their rice at a very low price. Atthe same time, the prices of other goods such as cookingoil, clothing, gasoline and education-related expenseshave gone up; therefore, farmers do not earn enoughincome and become indebted. Many have to work atother jobs, as laborers or furniture makers, for example,or migrate to work in town. Woman farmers have alsobeen affected by the economic problems and their rolehas changed. Like the men, they also have to migrate tothe towns or to other countries. Most of the women wholeave the country work as housekeepers in the MiddleEast or Malaysia, or as workers in the service sector orin factories in Jakarta and other large Indonesian cities.In some villages, almost the only people left livingthere are old men and children. During the economiccrisis, landless people also faced difficulties in findingjobs. Although the government has a program to helpthe poor by selling rice at a cheap price, there is notenough of this rice to meet the demand. In some cases,children have had to leave school since their parentscould not afford to pay their school fees. Some landlessfarmers rent land and have to share their produce withthe landowner or pay the rent in cash. This furtherincreases the cost of production for these farmers. Landownership is a problem for farmers in Indonesia, andthe government had a policy for land reform since the1960s but access to land is still a big problem. Manyfarmers have reflected that the government shouldlaunch a policy to protect small farmers. The nationaland international policies for trade liberalization weremade without the people’s participation in the decisionmaking processes.2. Changes to agri-food production and the trading systemChanges in farming patterns since the Green Revolutionand changes in government policies in response to freetrade have resulted in changes in the national productionstructure. In Japan, the government prioritizes farmswith areas larger than four hectares; meanwhile, mostsmall farmers own only one hectare, except in Hokkaido.The government still supports small farmers living onmountains where small parcels of land cannot be easilycombined to support agribusiness. However, the trendfor Japanese agriculture is to become large scale andfor agribusiness to play a more important role. Smallfarmers in Japan are now mobilized and have adaptedtheir production patterns by combining land parcelsor setting up production groups or companies. In thefuture, this pattern will multiply. Farmers may changetheir relationship to a joint venture and draw salariesas in the case of a business firm. Some farmers maysurvive, especially those living in areas where parcels ofland cannot be combined and those who establish selfhelpsystems within the family or group by practicingsustainable agriculture. The principal farmer group thatmay survive is the group that receives support in theform of direct payments on five major crops, namelysoybeans, wheat, barley, beets and Irish potatoes. In2006, other items being supported by the governmenthave been added, such as vegetables, fruit and animalproducts.In Indonesia, the government launched a policy toincrease rice production for the nation’s food security.Normally, farmers rely on external inputs such as chemicalfertilizers, pesticides, improved animal breeds and plantseeds, and technology. After the implementation offree trade, trading in agricultural inputs has becomeeasier and the traders’ business is booming. Whiletrading small farmers’ rice is a problem, the businessfirms, especially large scale ones, play a greater role. Anagribusiness company, a joint venture between Thaiand Indonesian entities, produces maize seed. There isanother company, a joint venture between Indonesianand Dutch entities, that produces vegetable seed andfruit seedlings. Meanwhile, the promotion of palmoil is under the control of Indonesian and Malaysiancompanies. For poultry, although farmers raise nativechickens, 75 percent of poultry is produced by a Thaicompany. As the structure of food production changed,the trade system also changed. Some goods are underthe supervision of the Indonesian government, suchAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

148 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONas wheat, rice and soybeans, but the government hasallowed the private sector to trade these commoditiesand changed the law to support private sector trading.The country also faces a cooking oil shortage as theprice of cooking oil went up due to the production ofpalm oil for export to meet the demand for biofuel. Theprivate sector does not pay attention to the domesticdemand since exporting palm oil is more profitable.This situation has led to a domestic food problem. Afterthe introduction of free trade in 2001, Indonesian foodimports were valued at USD2.9 billion; in 2002 thisincreased to USD3.3 billion, 30 percent of which wasprocessed food and beverages. The volume of importsfrom the USA was 25 percent or USD809 millionout of the total value. The food business will probablyexpand further since Indonesian consumers mainlyconsume non-local food.3. Intellectual property rightsUnder the WTO agreement, intellectual property rightshave been applied to agricultural products. In Indonesiaand Japan, laws have been amended and new lawshave been passed that pay more attention to breeders’rights than farmers’ rights. The concept of intellectualproperty rights is based on capitalism, which considerseverything to be a commodity. This law was developedfrom the system of copyrights for industrial products.The industrial sector is, however, different from theagricultural sector, which is considered in many placesto be characterized by a culture of helping one anotherand sharing of seeds and knowledge. In agriculturalsocieties, seed is not a commodity but can be exchangedand shared among farmers. In this way, seed geneticdiversity has increased. Although society changed andfarmers began to buy seeds from the market, nobody haddominant control over the seeds. However, the systemof intellectual property rights has changed the structureof agriculture and converted common property intoindividual property.In Japan, the government passed the 2002 IntellectualProperty Basic Law and launched a policy touse intellectual property rights to create efficientcompetitiveness for agriculture and the food industry.The government promotes the innovation of newtechnology, including new varieties of plants that areto be used in production and the food industry. It hasdeveloped regional brands and strictly controls violationsof the patenting system for imported products that areproduced without permission from the breeder. Theregional brand and patent system will result in a highcost of inputs. It can also be used as trade barrier.In Indonesia, the country passed laws and amendedsome laws on this issue, particularly the Plant VarietyProtection Law. The Plant Variety Protection Law waspassed in 2000 and has created complications for theagricultural sector, as well as increasing conflicts. Forexample, an agribusiness company involved in maizeseed production sued farmers in East Java for sellingmaize seed and using breeding technology belongingto the company. The farmers were arrested and sent tocourt and a guilty verdict was handed down. This casereflects the trend where a more dominant control overgenetic resources will prevent farmers from having accessto seed. The monopoly control over seed will increasethe price of seed and this will no doubt add to farmers’expenses. In addition, the development of technologyhas so far been directed towards the development andpromotion of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).GMO technology will decrease farmers’ self-reliance.Moreover, the law does not recognize farmers’ rightsover native seeds and animal breeds. The new laws notonly reflect the changes in agricultural technology, theyalso change the culture from self-reliance based on smallfarmers’ system of exchange and sharing to a system oftrading (i.e., buying and selling).Sustainable agriculture: Paradigm of self-relianceand farmers’ freedomThe paradigm of sustainable agriculture is the paradigmof self-reliance and farmers’ freedom. Sustainableagriculture emerged from farmers’ adaptations inresponse to corporate control over mainstreamagriculture. Sustainable agriculture includes the conceptof environmental protection, since the environment ispart of farmers’ capital. The use of external, non-localinputs increases the cost of production and makesfarmers dependent on them. Sustainable agriculture isnot only a set of techniques for non-chemical agriculturebut also includes the concept of farmers’ self-relianceand struggle for survival.Sustainable agriculture has many forms in accordancewith each ecosystem in which it is found. In Japan,farmers practice natural farming; this system wasderived from the traditional way of farming butintegrated with new innovations. The pattern of organicfarming developed later. In Indonesia, sustainableagriculture refers to a system of traditional naturalfarming or Integrated Pest Management (IPM), whichhas developed into organic farming. These systems weredeveloped based on farmers’ experiences in the twocountries. This study found that sustainable agricultureis dynamic and plays many important roles, detailed asfollows:Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 1491. Conservation of agrarian culture and food self-relianceSmall farmers who practice sustainable agriculture inJapan acknowledged that the idea of conserving localfood culture comes from family farm productionwhich aims at food self-sufficiency for the farm family.Sustainable agriculture is practiced for the purpose offood self-sufficiency in good quality, pesticide-free food,while at the same time conserving the environment,soil and water. Thus, sustainable agriculture providesfood security, with the surplus for sale as income forthe family. Families practicing sustainable agriculturemay process food from the materials found on thefarm. For example, Mr. Furuno processes some freshproducts, such as duck or vegetables, into local food.Mr. Shimpei makes sembe (local bread) from rice, whileMr. Kitahara, a Hokkaido producer of organic onions,produces an onion-based salad dressing. Based onfamily consumption, sustainable agriculture productionhas to be diverse and plant and animal production mustbe integrated. What is produced will depend on thesize of families and the family’s demands for food andincome.Indonesian farmers also practice sustainable agriculturein rice-based communities. The traditional culture ofthe farming community, where farmers produce mainlyfor household consumption, still exists. Althoughfarmers grow rice two or three times in a year, theyalso grow many other kinds of crops. They normallydivide their land into a plot to grow cassava, chiliesand peanuts, and in some plots, they grow fruit trees.They also raise animals in their backyards. This patternwas adapted from the traditional farming practicesof farmers in Ngawi District, East Java. The farmersof Wonogiri District, Central Java, practice a systemof growing multi-purpose trees mixed with peanuts,soybean, maize and cassava. The system is designedbased on the local eco-system and the limitation ofwater shortages in rice farming. In some villages, thefarmers grow many local varieties of beans. They alsohave good cultivation plans. Because of the limited sizeof their land holdings, they grow many kinds of plantsboth at the same time and at different times. In this way,farmers have food for consumption all year round. Thisagricultural pattern is designed to respond to their ownfamily’s needs. They are able to produce enough foodfor consumption and to provide some income fromthe farm. This can be considered the rural economy ofsmall farmers. This system is the basis of food securityfor the family and the community. This study foundthat the community produces a surplus of food and thatfarmers also have a system of storing rice for the nextseason, and have other food crops for consumption,such as corn and potatoes. This is the cultural practicein all communities. These communities have enoughfood and they are part of an economic system that usesboth cash and rice. They divide their produce into threeparts, one for the family’s consumption, one part forbuilding social capital and the third part for sale. Themain problem that these Indonesian farmers faced isincome insecurity.2. Establishment of a local food systemFarmers practicing sustainable agriculture set upactivities that link themselves with consumers or developlocal markets. These systems take many forms. Farmersand consumers in Japan have created an interesting andinnovative local food system. It is called the teikei 3 systemwhich takes the form of a direct relationship betweenfarmers and consumers. This system allows farmersto produce food and send it directly to consumers.The consumers learn and understand the productionpatterns, and support the producers. Communicationis important. The producers provide informationabout their produce for each week and share storiesabout the limited number of products. Sometimes,there are suggestions on food processing. Some groupsorganize activities for consumers. For example, in Mieprefecture, farmers groups organize miso-making forurban housewife groups. In some areas, they have asystem of product exchange, such as trading vegetablesfor soybean starch that one of the farmers interviewed,Mr. Kaneko, uses to make compost. Farmers alsodevelop delivery services on their own or through aservice company. On special occasions, farmers maysend small gifts to the consumers with whom they havea relationship. Mr. Shimpei, for example, sends a smallbag of sticky rice.Cooperatives are another way of managing productionand establishing a relationship with consumers. Thefarmers sell their organic products to a distributioncenter, such as the network of the Ainou KaiDistribution Center. There are many cooperatives inthe network, and these are found in Osaka, Nagoyaand at Ainou Kai. At Nagoya Center, the farmers setup the cooperative because, at the initial stage, farmersfaced marketing problems since their organic productslooked bad compared to products grown with agrochemicals.Consumers did not want to buy organicproducts. The farmers, through their cooperativeactivities, provided consumers with information onorganic production and create a better understandingof the system. Other cooperative systems have beenorganized by consumers, while some cooperativesmobilize themselves as small cooperatives to sell organicproducts and environmental protection goods, such asthe case of Green Co-op in Fukuoka prefecture. OtherAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

150 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONcooperatives are established to support sustainableagriculture systems and environmental protection,such as the Seikatsu Club, which was established in1968 and has 26 branches nationwide. The SanchukoClub has two shops in Fukuoka. There is also a groupcalled Hyakusho Yakai (1977) that wants to conservethe environment in cooperation with producers inpromoting organic farming. This consumer cooperativeacts as a link between producers and consumers. Theyhave a home delivery service and also deliver productsto the representative of the consumers’ group. Theyhave also organized educational and welfare activitiesfor mothers and children, as well as the elderly. In thelate 1990s, they also developed a certification body thatis still being used.In Indonesia, the system is different. Productionmanagement is done by the community through thelocal market. Consumers consume local food madefrom products from the farm. For example, the farmersof Boto community make tempeh from soybeanwrapped with teak leaves collected from the farm. Thisprocess allows farmers to make use of all the materialsfound on the farm and, in turn, provides cash forthe family. Some also process Koro beans, which area native bean, or sell fresh Koro at the local market.In addition, farmers try to develop the local marketthrough group mobilization. The members of YayasanDuta Awam process maize into animal feed and sell itto the animal-raising group. Some have also developeda local market for native rice and processed herbs andsell directly to consumers. For the past few years, localNGOs have organized themselves as a network calledAliance Organic Indonesia and established the Biocert,a certification body to certify organic products. Thetarget of the sustainable agriculture movement inIndonesia is to establish a market system that farmerscan easily access and within which they can receive a fairprice for their products.Sustainable agriculture under globalizationMainstream globalization, with its concepts of freetrade and consumerism, has had an impact on thedevelopment of sustainable agriculture. Farmershave to confront the changes in the whole society. InJapan, consumers are aware of chemical-free productsand this made a way for organic farming to exist asan alternative. It is a good example because there hasbeen a great shift from conventional to organic farms.However, the change is based more on fashion ratherthan on a real need; therefore, sometimes the movementcreated confusion among consumers. As a result,organic certification was needed. However, certificationdoes not support organic farmers but rather serves toallow the consumer to distinguish between organic andconventional products while the farmers have to bearthe burden of paying the certification fee. In Indonesia,the system of certification has just started but there is aneed for the movement to learn from other countries.There are a great deal of organic and natural productsin the market. With consumers’ awareness, consumercooperatives and distribution centers may facechanges as they have to deal with the issue of productstandardization, which will replace the consumerproducerlinkage system. They have to adapt and tryto set up a certification system for their consumers.Furthermore, there have been changes in consumerbehavior due to the impact of globalization such as apreference for home delivery, especially in the big citiessuch as Tokyo. The cooperatives may need to improvetheir member systems or they may have to workwith consumers. There is a question of whether thecooperatives need to work with consumers alone or ifthey may have to work and establish relationships withproducers as well, as in the concept of sanchoku 4 or theteikei system. Another question is concerned with theexpansion of the cooperatives from small-scale to largescale,and how can they can conserve their identity inselling local food if, as a large-scale cooperative, theyhave to sell non-local products as well.The changes in government policies, especiallyon domestic support and the role of the JapaneseAgricultural Cooperative Association (JA), may affectmedium-scale cooperatives. At present, there is aneed to use JA to buy products from farmers in largevolumes. Green cooperatives buy from JA in lowervolumes. However, if cooperatives have to change theirsystems, green cooperatives may require more capital tobuy products directly; thus, there is a need to managethe relationship and management system among thesecooperatives.In Indonesia, sustainable agriculture has developedfrom traditional farming; some of the products are soldat both local and regular markets. The regular marketis not a place where farmers can easily go and sell theirproducts. The development of consumer and producerlinkages is still at the early stage. They are now tryingto develop a local market based on local conditions.The complications of globalization and free tradeaffect Indonesian farmers who have to deal with moreissues starting from the basic rights over their naturalresources, genetic resources, and market access, as wellas the issue of farmers’ participation at the policy level.The issue of food sovereignty becomes crucial as calledAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 151for by small farmers and civil society. The appeal forfood sovereignty is not only being heard in Indonesiabut is happening in many countries. The main demandis to recognize farmers’ rights to natural resources andto preserve a food base of food production and marketaccess, and a local economy where all farmers havethe freedom to set up their own food production anddistribution system.The link with partners in societyThe need to seek alternatives in organic farming andthe link with consumers has led to the development ofnew relationships and social activities. There are linksbetween organic growers groups and consumers suchas the Rainbow Plan Project, which mutually managesgarbage, or the Hiroshima Group, whose memberstogether protect the environment. There are otherrelationships established by people such as the networkof the Asian Farmer Exchange Center, consistingof farmers and city dwellers working together, or awomen’s group called We 21 at Kanagawa, wherethey have opened a recycling shop and donate part ofthe money to support development work in Asia andAfrica. A group called Kurume in Fukuoka prefecturewas formed, with members working as volunteers andsending support to African countries. In fact, thesegroups have coordinated with local governments andpeople’s organizations in many countries.In Indonesia, cooperation between farmers’ group,NGOs and academics has existed for a decade, and hasdeveloped into a social movement to address people’sproblems. The development of a local plan under thejoint cooperation of NGOs, GOs and farmers or researchand experimentation on bio-fertilizer or organic farmingtechniques are the starting points for civil society toaddress the agricultural sector’s problems. However,sustainable agriculture has not received support fromthe government. Social relationships are forming underthe framework of building a peaceful and just society.This is one social movement among many which fightsagainst the globalization current.Conclusions: Agricultural methods in the globalcontext—different conceptions and ideologiesThe free trade system has brought about significantchanges for small-scale farmers in both countries.As a result, the food sovereignty of the two nationshas not only been decreased but has also become lesssecure, particularly under the current global energycrisis. Agricultural areas have been turned into energyresources regardless of the consequences of globalwarming. It is most likely that the agricultural sectors ofthese two countries will increasingly become large-scaleor industrial. Small-scale farmers have been pushedaside physically, economically and culturally. Foodproduction is no longer limited by borders. Economicmarketing in the context of globalization has created aborderless system across the globe, regardless of the typeof food, monetary system, trade, society or culture.Within such transformations, an alternative hasdeveloped and grown up against globalization, whichfocuses on materialism, while abandoning spiritualvalues and concern for the environment. Alternativeschemes have been initiated such as natural farming inJapan and traditional agriculture in Indonesia that havebecome modern-day organic farming. These systemsoppose globalization and create social alternatives. Inreference to global and national changes, Fukuoka-san(1987), the Japanese farmer, clearly stated his opinionabout agricultural and social methods in his book, TheOne Straw Revolution: “An ultimate goal of agricultureis not growing crops but building up human fertility.”As we are unable to separate any parts of our lives, if wemodify our agricultural methods, then we alter our foodand social character, as well as our values. Sustainable ororganic farming has linked humans to the environment,not to mention the connections that have grown amonglocal communities. The eagerness of Japanese andIndonesian consumers to consume organic food grownusing sustainable methods reflects how they have turnedtheir ways of life back to nature. The teikei system is aneffort to build up a direct connection between producersand consumers, that is, an attempt to create a new socialrelationship between farmers and consumers throughorganic products. Similarly, the Rainbow Schemeinitiated in Nagai, Yamagata prefecture builds up arelationship between urban people and farmers withina common society. These alternatives have improvedcommon knowledge among organic farmers in termsof harnessing lunar and seasonal cycles. Traditionalknowledge has been refurbished through a commonprocess. This has revealed an effort to systematicallydevelop agricultural alternatives by focusing not onlyon production but thoroughly combining productionwith its surroundings. For instance, Indonesian farmershave kept up their agricultural traditions such as theritual to worship Mother Rice. Thus, while some ritualshave already been modified, others still exist in someform.The applicationLike Indonesia, Thailand is an agricultural country.Small farmers in Thailand face the same problems as theAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

152 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONsmall farmers in Japan and Indonesia. Thai farmers havealso adapted to globalization and formed a sustainableagriculture movement. The lessons learned by the twocountries included in this study in terms of nationalpolicies and experiences of small farmers in preservingtheir livelihood can be adapted to strengthen thesustainable agriculture movement in Thailand. Theseare:1. Market access for small farmers. The main lessonslearned from Japan concern the establishment of adirect relationship between producers and consumersand the cooperative system as the mechanism to create abetter understanding with consumers. The main lessonlearned from Indonesia regarding establishing a networkbetween producers and consumers is the concept thatthe producer is also a consumer. For example, thereis a relationship between the corn growing group anddairy farmers. Consumers are not only middle-classcity dwellers but also farmers who produce differentproducts; this can be a market space for small farmers.This concept includes the community culture of foodsecurity and the strong culture of local food and localmarkets (including retailers). These systems can beadapted to create a diversity of markets that can easilybe accessed by farmers and consumers. Thai farmers canlearn from these systems and develop their own marketspaces that will strengthen the self-reliance and freedomof Thai farmers.2. Policy monitoring on changes in the agriculturalsector and food system in Thailand. This is significantfor national self-reliance on food. This study foundthat self-reliance on food in both countries decreasedbecause of economic integration under the conceptof neoliberalism. The integration of markets andproduction processes, including intellectual propertyrights, supports transnational company more than smallfarmers. The case of palm oil for biofuel in Indonesia hascreated a shortage of cooking oil and led to a food crisisbecause it has created a conflict within the agriculturalsector about its role in producing food and its role inproducing biofuels. Decision-making about this rolerests with the business firms. The case of the corn farmersin Indonesia who were arrested under the intellectualproperty rights system reflects the neglect of farmers’rights. Policy monitoring should be implemented atboth the national and international levels.3. The establishment of relationships and the exchangeof information, knowledge, and farmer’s local wisdomthrough groups or civil society are important. Thesegroups will stimulate the movement of the agriculturalsector towards self-reliance and freedom. They will alsoimprove social values. This kind of relationship hasbeen established in some places such as the link betweenJapanese farmers and Thai farmers facilitated by theRainbow Plan Project. There is a sharing of lessonslearned on the issue of local markets. This relationshipshould be expanded and developed towards the goal offostering social justice and a peaceful society.NOTES1 Hokkaido is considered to be very different from otherparts of Japan. In the land reform program after theSecond World War, a farmer could have a maximum of12 hectares.2 The Uruguay Round, the third phase of the GATTfrom 1986-1994, extended the agreement fully to newareas such as intellectual property, services, capital andagriculture. Out of this round the WTO was born.3The teikei system is a Japanese direct distribution systemfor agricultural products. It focuses on the direct mutualrelationship between farmers and consumers.4 Sanchoku is a cooperative which provides the agriculturalproduct directly to the consumers. It is characterized bydirect transaction or direct buying routes from producers toconsumers. Sanchoku is seen as a way of guaranteeing thesafety of products for members and also the informationexchange between producers and cooperative members.REFERENCESBrookfield, Harold and Yvonne Byron. Southeast Asia’sEnvironmental Future: The Search for Sustainability. Tokyo,New York: United Nations University Press, and KualaLumpur: Oxford University Press, 1993.Consumer Co-operative Institute of Japan. “Sanchoku at theCrossroads.” CCIJ News. September 2004.Fuglie, Keith. Private Investment in Agricultural Research andInternational Technology Transfer in Asia. USA: Departmentof Agriculture, Economic Research Service United States,2001.Fukuoka, Masanobu. The One Straw Revolution. Trans. RossanaTositrakul. Bangkok: Komol Keemthong Foundation, 1987.Furusawa, Koyu. “Teikei: Partnership between Farmers andConsumers.” ILEIA Newsletter March 1994.ICCARD. “Agrarian Reform and Rural Development inIndonesia.” ICCARD Country Report 2006. .Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 153Janyapes, Chanida. “Globalization and the Myths ofNeoliberalism.” Focus on the Global South Newsletter February2000. .Kobayashi, Hiroaki. Effects of Trade Liberalization onAgriculture in Japan: Institutional and Structural Aspects.Tokyo: Japan International Research Center for AgricultureScience, 1998.Masayoshi, Okano. Japanese Certification System for OrganicProducts. Ainou Kai, Mieken: Japan, 2006.Ministry of Agriculture. Annual Report on Food, Agricultureand Rural areas in Japan, FY 2005, 2006. Tokyo: JapanMinistry of Agriculture, 2006.Piriyarangsan Sangsit and Pongpaijit Pasuk. Globalizationand Thai Society and Economy. Bangkok: Center of PoliticalEconomics, Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University,1995.Sidik, Mulyo. “Indonesia Rice Policy in View of TradeLiberalization.” Paper presented at FAO Rice Conference,Rome, Italy, 12-13 February 2004.Singh, Kawaljit. Questioning Globalization. Trans. PipopUdomitthipong. Ed. Surat Horachaikul. Bangkok: Centerfor Social Development Studies, Faculty of Political Science,Chulalongkorn University, 2007.Suparmoko, M. “The Impact of the WTO Agreement onAgriculture in the Rice Sector.” Paper presented at UNEPWorkshop on Integrated Assessment of the WTO Agreementon Agriculture in the Rice Sector, Geneva, 2002.Thrupp, Lori Ann. Cultivating Diversity: Agro Biodiversity andFood Security. Washington DC: World Resources Institute,1998.Watchawalkhu, Siriporn. Trade Liberalization and theAdjustment of Japanese Farmers and the Role of the Government.Bangkok: Japan Watch Project, 2005.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

154 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONACTIONS OF NON-STATE GROUPS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: ORIGINS,DRIVING FORCES AND NETWORKSI Ketut GunawanIntroductionThis work centers on non-state groups’ actions in theform of terrorism and/or insurgency utilizing terrortactics in Southeast Asia. These actions potentiallyundermine a transformative Asia that shows promise inmoving forward into its political maturity and socioeconomicadvancement and threaten the very basicsof human security in the region. To deal with suchthreats or problems, one should better understand thenature of such groups’ actions. In doing so, this researchsheds light on their actions in three religiously distinctcountries, namely Indonesia (predominantly Muslim),the Philippines (predominantly Catholic) and Thailand(predominantly Buddhist).The main objectives of this work are, first, to betterunderstand the origins and driving forces of theseactions and the networks built by the perpetrators,and second, to identify the historical, structural andideological roots of the problems. The significance ofthis work is, first, it can be used as an entry point to dealwith the issues highlighted, second, it can promote theincreased use of non-conventional approaches (nonmilitaryapproaches) in solving the problems, and third,it can promote religious tolerance in building a morepeaceful society.This study applies a qualitative analysis to data obtainedthrough in-depth interviews, personal communications,focus group discussions and library research. While theanalysis of the Philippine and Thai cases is mainly basedon the data collected during fieldwork in Manila andMindanao (Zamboanga, Basilan, Davao, Cotabato)and Bangkok and the Thai southernmost provinces(Pattani, Yala, Naratiwat, Songkla, Satun), respectively,the analysis of the Indonesian case is based on myacademic observations of the case, library research andcontent analysis of related documents. The findings arepresented as a comparative study.Conceptual frameworkNon-state groups’ actions are defined as actions by nonstateactors. Categories of non-state groups’ actionsvary widely, from peaceful demonstrations and streetconfrontations against the state security apparatusto insurgencies and terrorism. This work focuses onterrorism and insurgency utilizing terror tactics. Whileinsurgency can be easily understood as a non-stategroup’s action, terrorism in fact can be grouped intotwo main categories, namely state terrorism and nonstateterrorism. State terrorism is beyond the discussionof this study.There are over one hundred definitions of terrorismproposed by experts and governments (Schmidt andJongman in Malik 2001), and attempts to find a singleuniversal definition have “been long and painful and[are] now living a separate life of [their] own.” Theyhave come “to resemble the quest for the Holy Grail”(Malik 2001, vii). This particularly becomes problematicwhen it is related to independence struggles, guerillamovements or insurgencies, as described in theconundrum, “one state’s ‘terrorist’ is another state’s‘freedom fighter,’” (UNODC nd) “one person’s terroristis another person’s freedom fighter,” (Primoratz 2004,xi) or “what one’s enemies do is terrorism, what onedoes oneself is not” (Kronenwetter 2004, 14).One important clue to define terrorism, as Primoratz(2004, xii) suggested, is that one should “seek a definitionthat does not define terrorism in terms of the agent,nor in terms of the agent’s ultimate goal” but “shouldfocus on what is done and what the immediate pointof doing it is, and put to one side the identity of theagent and their ultimate and allegedly justifying aim.”In this line, Ricolfi (2005, 80) distinguishes betweenterror attacks “which have civilian targets” and guerrillaattacks “which have military targets.” Therefore, it iswrong to say that all insurgents’ violent acts regardlessof the type of the violence are not terror attacks (e.g.,the terrorising of innocent civilians by insurgents). Inthe same line, not all violent acts carried out by terroristorganizations can be categorized as terrorism (e.g.,certain violent robberies committed by certain terroristorganizations).The discourse on violent actions was dominated bygrievance theories until the late 1990s. This is becausegrievance “is not only much more functional externally,it is also more satisfying personally” (Collier 2000,Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 15592). As has been widely recognized, the success ofcertain movements (e.g., collective actions, rebellions)relies heavily on the support of individuals as well ascommunities. By “disseminating” grievances, themovement can recruit supporters more cheaply. Hence,“even where the rationale at the top of the organizationis essentially greed, the actual discourse may be entirelydominated by grievance” (Collier 2000, 92). In relationto terrorism and insurgency utilising terror tactics,Stern observed some types of exposed grievances such asalienation, humiliation, demographic shifts, historicalwrongs and claims over territory (Stern 2003).However, grievance theory collides with Olson’s theoryon the phenomenon of free-riders in a situation ofcollective action (Olson 1971). Since justice is a publicgood (Collier 2000), the movement will face the problemof free-riding. Collier is evocative of the fact that “eventhough everyone is agreed that rebellion is desirable, it iseven more attractive if the costs are borne only by othersand the success of rebellion will not be dependent uponthe participation of any one individual” (Collier 1999).Thus, grievance-based factors are insufficient to driverebellions or collective violence in most cases. This is thecase due to “the non-excludability of the consumptionof justice” (Collier 1999).In view of these problems, Collier looked at theimportant role of economic motives. In order tounderline the contrast to the grievance theory, he calledthis theory “greed theory.” He suggested that it is greedor the economic motive of certain parties that drives aconflict. The greed theory is also regarded as capableof embracing the above problems. As Collier foundby means of empirical cases, the true cause of violentconflicts is “not the loud discourse of grievance, but thesilent force of greed.” In his study of worldwide rebellioncases, he found that “greed considerably outperformsgrievance” (Collier and Hoeffler 2001). In summarizingher case studies of terrorism and insurgency usingterror tactics, Stern (2003, xix) maintained that whatsurprised her most in her research was the “discoverythat the slogans sometimes mask not only fear andhumiliation, but also greed—greed for political power,land or money.”Such approaches are useful when analyzing terrorism andinsurgency using terror tactics. However, there are somecuriosities left concerning the use of such approachesin explaining such terror attacks as suicide bombingsin Indonesia. Hence, this research also attempts to gobeyond these two contending perspectives.Terror attacks and their origins in Indonesia, thePhilippines and ThailandIndonesia, with a total population of 208.8 million in2005, is a Muslim-majority country where Muslimsmake up 87.2 percent of the total population, Christians,6.2 percent; Catholics, 3.3 percent; Hindus, 2.2percent; and Buddhists, 1.1 percent (BPS 2005). ThePhilippines is a Catholic-majority country with a totalpopulation of 76.5 million in 2000, where 84.2 percentof its people are affiliated with the Roman CatholicChurch, 5.4 percent with Protestant denominations,4.6 percent with Islam, 2.6 percent with the PhilippineIndependence Church, 2.3 percent with Iglesia niKristo and 2.2 percent with others (including animism)(Abinales and Amoroso 2005). Thailand’s population ispredominantly Buddhist, numbering to 95 percent ofthe total population of 60.9 million in 2000. Muslimsmake up 4.5 percent of the total population and the restare Christians, Hindus and Sikhs (Abuza 2003).These three countries have experienced numerousterror attacks or terror related actions in the recent past.Some of the attacks in Indonesia were the attacks on16 churches across Indonesia on Chrismas Eve, 2000,resulting in 16 people dead and over 100 injured; theso-called Bali bombing I on October 12, 2002, resultingin 202 people dead and 317 injured; the MarriottHotel attack on August 5, 2002, killing 14 people andinjuring 132 persons; the Australian Embassy attack onSeptember 9, 2004, killing 11 people and injuring tensof others; and the so-called Bali bombing II on October1, 2005, killing 23 people and injuring 148 others.In the Philippines, some of the attacks were a grenadeattack in Zamboanga that killed two female Americanmissionaries; bomb attacks in 1993 targeting amissionary ship, the MV Doules, in Zamboanga;Zamboanga airport, and Catholic churches, injuringseveral people; the kidnapping of three Spanish nunsand a priest in 1994; the kidnapping of 52 teachersand students in Tumahubong, Basilan, in which twoteachers were beheaded; the Sipadan kidnapping of19 foreigners and two Filipinos; the kidnapping of tenWestern journalists (mostly Germans); the kidnappingof three French journalists in 2000; the kidnapping ofthree Americans and 17 Filipinos at Dos Palmas Resort(Palawan) on May 27, 2001; the SuperFerry 14 bombingin 2004 that killed 118 people and injured hundredsof others; and the Makati, Davao and General Santosbombings in February 2005 that killed 13 people andinjured 140 others.Some of the attacks in Thailand were the attack on threeAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

156 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONBuddhist monks and novices on January 24, 2004, inwhich two were killed; bomb attacks on August 22,2004 in Yala, injuring 13 people and damaging morethan 30 vehicles; the assassination of 95 village headmenand assistant headmen (Buddhists and Muslims) bymilitants from January to June 2005; bomb attacksat a hotel, a restaurant and convenience stores on July14, 2005, injuring 17 Buddhists and Muslims; theattacks on schools and teachers in 2004-2007, in which71 teachers (including Muslims) were killed, morethan 100 teachers were injured, and 170 schools wereburned down; the attack on a commuter van on March14, 2007, where eight Buddhist passengers were shotto death at close range, execution-style; the killing oftwo Muslim men by militants in a drive-by shootingon April 14, 2007; the assassination of a 29-year oldMuslim (a local government official) in Naratiwat onJune 22, 2007; and the killing of a Muslim vendor inhis pick-up truck by militants on August 13, 2007.There is no doubt that such non-state groups’ actionswere terrorism, terror attacks, or terror related actionsas they systematically and/or repeatedly killed orintimidated civilians and spread fear among thecommunities.From a historical perspective, such attacks are notisolated or independent events. They have their ownhistorical traits. The groups’ actions in Indonesiastemmed from the passions of its members to establishan Islamic state of Indonesia, which was first promotedby Kartosuwiryo in 1936. (Kartosuwiryo laterestablished Darul Islam (DI) in 1947, Tentara IslamIndonesia (Indonesian Islamic Army, TII) in 1948, andNegara Islam Indonesia (Indonesian Islamic State, NII)in 1949.) The recent attacks were contributed to by therise of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which vowed to establishsuch a perceived ideal state. In fact, JI was establisheddue to a rift in the DI/NII leadership between AbdullahSungkar, the founder of JI, and Ajengan Masduki.In its development, it had a shared ideology with AlQaeda and turned its target to American interests. Inthe Philippine case, terrorism is rooted in the historicaldisputes concerning the forced incorporation of theMoro Sultanates into the Philippine state. The riseof the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), which was foundedby Abdurajak Janjalani (a former member of MNLF,or the Moro National Liberation Front), has highlycontributed to these attacks. In its development, theASG had a link with Al Qaeda operatives and becamenotorious for its kidnapping-for-ransom activities,particularly against Westerners. As for the Thai case, theissue is similar to that of the Philippines, namely theforced incorporation of the former Sultanate of Pattaniinto the Thai state. In the recent terror attacks, thecentral figure is Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Koordinasi(National Revolution Front-Coordinate, BRN-C),particularly its mobile combat unit known as RundaKumpulan Kecil (RKK, or small patrol unit). BRN-Chas a loose, cell-based network with a broader newgeneration of village-based separatist militants whocalled themselves Pejuang Kemerdekaan Patani (PattaniFreedom Fighters), whom local people refer to by thegeneric term “pejuangs” (freedom fighters). While RKKalso belongs to the pejuangs, not all pejuangs are themembers of BRN-C. It is also important to note thatnot all pejuangs attack civilians.In short, the Philippine and Thai cases have a sharedhistorical origin centering on the issue of regaining their“occupied” land. This is totally different from that ofIndonesia, which originated from a strong passion toestablish a perceived ideal state.Indonesia The Philippines ThailandUS invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq,where many Muslims have been killedIsrael’s occupation of Palestine, wheremany Muslims have been killed andare living in miseryGrievance on secular state ofIndonesiaPerceived suppression of Islamicmovements to establish an Islamicstate and/or sharia lawGrievances on perceivedChristianization and againstChristians in the communal-religiousconflictsGrievance on the suppressionof Bangsamoro identity (e.g.,transmigration program,Filipinization)State-treatment of Muslims (e.g.,Jabidah) and injusticeGrievance on secular state of thePhilippines, particularly in MindanaoNatural resource exploitation inMindanao (ancestral domains)Perceived discrimination andmarginalization in economicdevelopmentGrievance on the suppression ofethnic Malay identity (e.g., language/education policies, Thainization)Injustice towards and state-treatmentof Muslims (e.g., Krue Se, Tak Bai)Grievance on secular state ofThailand, particularly in thesouthernmost provincesNatural resource exploitation in thesouthernmost provincesPerceived discrimination andmarginalization in economicdevelopmentTable 1: Rough ranking of main grievances in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 157The driving forcesThe driving forces of such terror attacks or terror-relatedactions in the researched countries could be highlightedfrom two contending perspectives: grievances vs. greed.These contending perspectives, however, insufficientlyexplain such phenomena. Therefore, the papergoes beyond these two contending perspectives byhighlighting perpetrators’ ideology of volence.The grievance issueThe findings reveal that terrorism, terror attacks, or terrorrelated actions in these three countries (Indonesia, thePhilippines and Thailand) were driven by grievances.Table 1 compares the groups’ main grievances.The grievances listed below and the attacks as notedhave a religious dimension in each of these countries.Although in the Indonesian case the current topgrievance is anti-American sentiment, there is stilla strong religious dimension. Such grievances alongwith the origins of the problems (the historical origin)become the root causes of terrorism and terror attacks,consisting of both historical and structural roots. Theexistence of these root causes implies the existence ofgaps between the state and the community and betweentwo different communities.It seems that addressing some of these grievances isbeyond the authority or capability of the respectivegovernments (e.g., the issues of the US and Israel’spolicies and actions in the Indonesian case). Some ofthem are certainly opposed by the existing governments(e.g., the conversion of the secular state to an Islamicstate in Indonesia, the establishment of independentIslamic states in the Philippines and Thailand). Therest could be discussed. As experienced in the past, thegroups may provide concessions if the governments arealso willing to give some. Thus, there is a space to dealwith the existing gaps, at least to improve the situation.Civil society could play an imperative role in bridgingthe gaps.IndonesiaThe PhilippinesMoney funnelled by Al Qaeda to JIMoney funnelled by Al Qaeda to the ASGAl Qaeda to Hambali (I) = USD30,000Jamal Khalifa to ASG = PhP160,000Al Qaeda to Hambali (II) = USD100,000Jamal Khalifa to ASG = PhP6,000,000Al Qaeda to JI (1995) = IDR250 millionAl Qaeda to ASG = Est. USD3,000,000Al Qaeda to JI (1997) = IDR400 millionAl Qaeda to JI (2000) = IDR700 millionIn-country fundraisingOmar al-Faruq to JI = USD200,000a. Main Kidnappings:M Jabarah to JI = USD70,000Sipadan kidnapping = at least USD10,000,000Hambali was captured with USD70,000Ten journalists kidnapping = USD25,000Three journalists kidnapping = Est. USD5,500,000In-country fundraisingPalawan kidnapping = at least USD330,000 (forJewellery shop robbery in Serang (Banten) = IDR6million and 4.5 kg of goldGracia Burnham’s release) + PhP5million (for Kimberly Jao Uy’s release)Lippo bank robbery in Medan = IDR113 millionLocal government’s fund robbery in Poso = IDR490 million b. OthersJewellery shop robbery in Pasar Tua (Palu) = n/aExtortion, blackmail = n/aJewellery shop robbery in Monginsidi (Palu) = n/aTaxing businesspeople, farmers, teachers, among othersMarijuana cultivation & sale of shabu = n/aExpendituresBali bombing I = Est. IDR80 millionExpendituresJW Marriot bombing = Est. IDR80 millionNew teenage recruits in Basilan = PhP5,000/ personAustralian embassy bombing = Est. IDR80 millionNew recruits in Jolo/Sulu = PhP50,000/personOthers = n/aOthers = n/aNotes: (1) n/a = data not available(2) The currency at that time was about Rp 10,000 and PhP42 to the US dollar in Indonesia and the Philippines respectively.Table 2: Terror financing in Indonesia and the Philippines.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

158 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONThe greed/economic issueA terrorism expert, Gunaratna, maintains that “moneyis the terrorist’s lifeblood” (Time Asia 2003). This is notan exaggeration in the JI and ASG cases of Indonesiaand the Philippines, respectively, as Table 2 shows.Some of JI’s funds mentioned in the table below may beoverlapping while others are untraceable. However, it isclear that huge amounts of money were funneled by alQaeda to JI. With such flows of money, Time Asia (2003)argues that Al Qaeda was subcontracting its “projects”to JI. To raise more funds, JI also carried out in-countryfundraising activities through robberies, as seen in Table2. In total, regional intelligence officials estimatedthat “at one point in 2002 Hambali had as much asUSD500,000” (Time Asia 2003). The “business” sizeof JI was, however, outnumbered by that of the ASG.While JI ran a hundred thousand dollar “business,” theASG ran a multi-million dollar “business,” drawingfrom foreign sources (e.g., Al Qaeda), kidnappings, drugtrafficking, extortion, blackmail and taxing peasants,fishermen, coconut growers, businessmen and teachers(Ressa 2003; Bale 2003).A Filipino journalist maintained that “the Abu Sayyafbegan making money from everyone—starting withjournalists. I saw the learning curve and the greed ofthe Abu Sayyaf grow” (Ressa 2003, 113). One defectorfrom the ASG, Ahmad Sampang (a pseudonym),maintained that during its formative years, the ASGreceived a great deal of support from foreign sources.“Even our uniforms came from abroad. We were evenissued bulletproof vests,” said Sampang. He admittedthat in the past the ASG members kidnapped peoplebecause they did not have enough money to buy arms,bullets and food. Realising that the group’s orientationlater changed, Sampang left the ASG. He said, “I leftbecause the group lost its original reason for being. Theactivities were…for personal gratification. We abductedpeople…for money” (in Torres Jr. 2001, 41). He left theASG in December 1998; thus, he recognized this changein orientation before a series of high profile kidnappingsin 2000-2001. An American woman, Gracia Burnham,who was kidnapped on May 27, 2001 and spent morethan a year in the ASG’s hands, observed that “thebottom line was money” in the ASG kidnappings (inRessa 2003, 111; see also Burnham 2003).In the Thai case, there are only intelligence reportsmentioning that “the southern Thailand insurgentsare being funded by the Saudi Arabia-based Islamicfundamentalist Wahhabi movement.” (World PoliticsWatch 2007) Another report says an association ofThai students in Indonesia (PMPIT) “takes care ofthe finances of the insurgency” through its fundraisingactivities overseas (Bangkok Post 2007). However, thereis no hard evidence on the exact amount of moneyused to finance the terror attacks. What is clear, byassessing their use of cars and motorcycles as bombcarriers, their constant supply of explosives, weapons,and bullets, and the commando-style training coursesthey have received in the jungle and plantations, is thatthey certainly need funds. In one case, a professionalbomb maker confessed that he had been chargingthe militants THB2,000-5,000 per bomb from 2004until his capture in July 2007 (The Strait Times 2007).The availability of funds can also be inferred from thestatement of Patani United Liberation Organization(PULO) leaders (in Malaysia and Sweden) who offereda bounty of THB90,000 (USD2,250) to those whokilled any governors or prominent officials of Pattani,Yala and Naratiwat (Gunaratna, Acharya and Chua2005, 83). In addition, BRN-C has five units, and oneof them is the economic and financial affairs unit whosemain task is to collect and manage funds.In short, money plays an important role for the ASG andJI in carrying out their operations. It is not exaggeratingto say that money is the lifeblood for their activities.The difference is that while the ASG wrapped theirsilent force of greed within the discourse of grievance,JI seemed to use the money for its operations and forthe costs of its members’ personal living. In the Thaicase, it is certain that they need funds to finance theiroperations. Whether the funds are also used for livingcosts are unclear.Disrupting the financial networks of terror financing isthe responsibility of the state. If the perpetrators of theviolence are full-time “workers” in resorting to violence,it is also the state’s responsibility to bring jobs, and it isthe responsibility of civil society to carry out economicempowerment to ensure that local people do not needto rely on terror “projects” to cover their living costs.Beyond greed and grievance: The ideology of violenceWhen the field coordinator of the Bali Bombing I,Imam Samudra, mentioned that JI employed suicidebombers, no one believed his statement as it had neverhappened before. As time passed, it was clear from theforensic evidence that the bombings were carried outby two suicide bombers. This announcement shockedmany government officials, analysts, observers, expertsand religious leaders. Later, suicide bombings inIndonesia turned into something usual, as seen in thefollowing table.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 159Date Targets Suicide bombers Location Victims12 October 2002 Bar, Night Club(Bali Bombing I)Feri (aka Isa) Paddy’s Club, Bali 202 people dead,317 injuredIqbalSari Club, Bali5 August 2003 Hotel Asmar Latin Sani J.W. Marriott Hotel,Jakarta9 September 2004 Embassy Heri Golun Australian Embassy,Jakarta1 October 2005 Café(Bali Bombing II)Misno (aka Wisnuaka Yanto)It is interesting to understand what is driving theseactions. This can be traced from Imam Samudra’sstatement after he received a death sentence. The SydneyMorning Herald reported the case of Imam Samudra:Sentenced to death for his role in the nightclubattack in October 2002 by the Al-Qaeda-linkedJemaah Islamiah terror network that killed 202people, he said he does not fear facing a firingsquad. ‘It’s the key to paradise, everything willbe very, very nice,’ he told Sydney radio station2UE from his prison cell in remarks broadcastyesterday. He believed paradise held the promiseof 72 virgins for single men, but only 23 if a manBenega Café, BaliM. Salik Firdaus Nyoman Café, BaliAyib Hidayat R’Ajas Café, BaliTable 3: Suicide bombers in Indonesia.14 people dead,132 injured11 people dead,tens injured23 people dead,148 woundedhad been married on earth, as he has. ‘We kill toget peace,’ said Samudra, adding that his messageto the United States and Australia—which lost 88citizens in the Bali bombing—was ‘I win.’ (SydneyMorning Herald 2004)The research identified a number of other forces thatdrive JI, ASG and RKK (and some other new generationinsurgents) to carry out terror attacks or terror-relatedactions in Indonesia, the Phlippines and Thailand,respectively, which are summarised in Table 4.The ideology of violence is an important driving force.It has been used to justify the terror attacks or violentJI (Indonesia) ASG (The Philippines) RKK and others (Thailand)Ideology of violenceViolent Jihadism:- Global (primary)- Local (secondary)Takfir (excommunication, enemizingperceived infidels):- America and its allies- Non-believers (particularlyChristians)- The existing (secular)government- Believers (certain Muslims whoare believed to undermine thereligion and its perceived idealpractices)Violent Jihadism:- Local (primary)- Global (secondary)Takfir (excommunication, enemizingperceived infidels):- The existing (secular)government- Non-believers (particularlyCatholics)- America and its allies- Believers (some Muslimswho betray, oppose or donot support the struggle)Violent Jihadism:- LocalTakfir (excommunication, enemizingperceived infidels):- The existing (secular) government- Non-believers (particularlyBuddhists)- Believers (Muslims whocollaborate or work for thegovernment [munafik/hypocrite]and betray, oppose ornot cooperate in the struggle[murtad/apostate])Incentive ExpectationDying as a martyr Dying as a martyr Dying as a syahid (martyr)Going to paradise Dying as a holy warrior Dying as Wira Shuhada (army ofmartyrdom)“Dear my brother and wife, Godwilling, when you see this recordingI’ll already be in heaven.”Getting married or become abridegroom (in heaven)Marrying 72 virgins for a single man(23 for a married man)“Ride on a white horse to heavenwhen […] die”Going to heaven“When martyrs are killed, they arenot dead but alive next to God.”“They [the munafiks] will not bewelcomed in heaven.”Marrying 72 virginsTable 4: The ideology of violence in the researched countries.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

160 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONacts of these organizations. In this ideology, there aretwo interconnected notions used by such groups (i.e.,JI, ASG, RKK), namely violent jihadism and takfir(enemizing perceived infidels, thereby rendering themlegitimate targets). If these groups only used one ofthese notions (i.e., the former), it would not lead toterror attacks, as jihad fi sabillillah (jihad in the pathof God) is allowed only in a declared war against thecombatants. If the latter (takfir) is incorporated into theformer, the target becomes mostly civilians. Moreover,in the views of the militants, the incentives they believethey will receive in the after-life for their actions areinstrumental in providing their motivation.It is interesting to note that Muslims can also becomethe targets of terrorism. This work, however, finds adifferent treatment of them by the groups under study.In the Indonesian case, the groups target Muslimswho are believed to be undermining the religion. JIoperatives, for instance, targeted Ulil Abshar Abdalla(an activist of the Liberal Islam Network, JIL) and evenMegawati Soekarnoputri (before she was President) forassassination, but these plans failed to be realized forvarious reasons. Imam Samudra tried to avoid Muslimcasualties; but if they got killed in the blast it wasconsidered to be their destinies, like collateral damage.He even apologized to the families of Muslim casualtiesin the 2002 Bali bombing (Samudra 2004). However,the ensuing bombings by JI continued to kill manyMuslims.The ASG under Abdurajak Janjalani was known forprotecting and helping Muslims. After his death andwhen Abu Sabaya threatened Christians and urgedMuslims to remove all crosses in Basilan, a formerASG member, Ahmad Sampang, said, “It is not rightanymore… If only Abdurajak was still alive, he would notallow it. Innocent Muslims will be affected” (in TorresJr 2001, 39). The ASG under Khadaffy Janjalani alsoprotected Muslims by, for instance, releasing Muslimswho were kidnapped by mistake (e.g., in the kidnappingof 52 teachers and students in Tumahubong, Basilan,in March 2000). However, they would try to kill thedefectors (perceived traitors) of the ASG; Sampangconfessed that at one time Abu Sabaya’s group went tohis house and tried to kill him, but that “I was able toescape” (in Torres Jr 2001, 42). The ASG also hated theMuslim Congressman Abdulgani “Gerry” Salapudin, aformer MNLF Commander. Sampang said, in the past,“He did not help us. We asked him once to give us atleast a few sacks of rice. But he failed us. We cannot killhim because he has a lot of armed men” (in Torres Jr2001, 39-42).The Thai case is, however, totally different. While JI andthe ASG mostly try to avoid Muslim casualties (if theyoccur, they are considered collateral damage), the newgeneration of insurgents in Thailand has intentionallytargeted many Muslims who work for the government,oppose their deeds and ideology or do not cooperatewith them. This has contributed to the fact that betweenJanuary 2004 and August 2006, more Muslims thanBuddhists were killed in the recent violence and terrorattacks in Thailand. One of the ideological explanationsfor this phenomenon can be found in a captureddocument entitled Berjihad di Pattani (Waging Jihadin Pattani).The majority of Muslims in Thailand, the Philippinesand Indonesia, are, however, moderate. They, includingreligious leaders, do not agree with the deeds and theideology used by JI, the ASG and RKK to justify theirterror attacks or violent acts.The networks: Actual and virtual networksThe networks can be distinguished into actual networksand virtual networks. An actual network can be dividedinto an internal network and an external network.The actual networks of such groups in Indonesia, thePhilippines and Thailand are summarised in Table 5.Another type of network—the virtual network—hasplayed a considerable role in the JI case. Discouragementsto commit terror attacks have been carried out by manyIndonesian religious leaders. Abu Bakar Baa’syir evenreleased a “fatwa”: “Don’t do bombing in Indonesia.”However, according to one security analyst, NoorHuda Ismail, “his ‘fatwa’ discouraging violence inIndonesia has not been well received by fringe youngand impassioned jihadi recruits. Young jihadists haveinstead turned to the Internet to download fatwas frommainly Middle Eastern jihadists, including fatwas fromthe late Jordanian-born Zarqawi and a jailed SaudiArabian cleric, Al Maqdisi” (Ismail 2007).The International Crisis Group (ICG) has notedthat since the 2002 Bali bombing, the terror groupsin Indonesia have reached the third generation andat present are not necessarily under JI’s structuralcommands. Abdullah Sonata, for instance, denied hismembership with JI. He instead declared himself andhis cohort as “mujahid freelance” (freelance mujahidin),meaning their movement is leaderless or under aleaderless organization. One former member of JI fromCentral Java confirmed that Sonata was not a member ofJI. It is also interesting to note that “about 18 ‘mujahidfreelance’ have been under detention” (Tempo 2005).Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 1611. Internal networks Intra-organisational links In-country linksa. JI (Indonesia) Wakalah (district-based organisation)I Surakar-ta, Wakalah II West Java,Wakalah III Central Java, WakalahIV East Java, Wakalah V SouthernSumatra, Wakalah VI Northern Sumatra,Cell in Sulawesi, Cell in Malaysia,Cell in Mindanao, Cell in Singapore,Cell in Cambodiab. ASG (thePhilippines)How did a leaderless movement build its network?Besides through personal contacts and friendships, therole of the virtual network is of importance. In fact, twoof the Sonata group’s members are Internet savvy, andwere tasked—besides to communicate with Dulmatinin the Philippines via email—to communicate with theworld via websites. By tracing the JI case, there is alsono doubt that Imam Samudra was Internet-minded. Hespent a great deal of his time surfing jihadi websites andchatted with persons who have the same views as him.After the Bali bombing, he extensively communicatedwith other JI members via email and monitored thepost-Bali bombing case via websites. He was capturedwith his laptop and the investigators found materialfor his future website claiming responsibility for theBali attacks, expressing his violent ideology, stating13 reasons for the attack and warning America and itsallies concerning future attacks (see Adisaputra 2006;Samudra 2004). Two JI-linked lecturers from Semarang(Central Java), Agung Prabowo and Agung Setiadi, alsomade a website (www.anshar.net) for Noordin M. Topp,which was used to post their ideology of violence andnews of Noordin’s activities as well as to communicatewith other jihadists. In jail, Iman Samudra was also ableBasilan-based ASG (KhaddafiJanjalani), Jolo-based ASG(Commander Robot), MaguindanaobasedASG, ASG lost commandsc. RKK (Thailand) BRN-C (parent organisation), Pemuda(youth wing of BRN-C), Pejuangs(BRN-C’s loose network with broadervillage-based insurgents)2. External networks Types of linksNgruki Network,Kompak, LaskarJundullah, NII, freelancemujahidMNLF lost command,Moro Islamic LiberationFront (MILF) lostcommand (Pentagongroup)GMIP, Pusaka, Bersatu,PULO/New PULO,Jamaah Salafia. JI-Al Qaeda Financial network, personal network, training (Afghanistan; Poso,Indonesiab. JI-ASG Personal network, training (the Armed Forces of the Philippinesestimated that more than two dozen JI members had been workingwith the ASG in Basilan and Sulu)c. JI-RKK No hard evidence. JI attempted to build cells in Thailand,but there is no evidence on the existence of an active JI cell inSouthern Thailand. Some RKK operatives are reportedly trained inBandung and Medan by Indonesian militants (not necessarily byJI members). A Thai Students Association in Indonesia (PMIPIT)is reported to play a role in overseas fundraising and in facilitatingthe training and recruitment of RKK operatives and other militantinsurgents.d. ASG-Al Qaeda Financial network, personal network, training (Afghanistan;Basilan, the Philippines)e. RKK-ASG/Al Qaeda No evidenceTable 5: Actual networks in the researched countriesto communicate with other jihadists, as well as withAgung Prabowo and Agung Setiadi, and posted hisviews on www.anshar.net via a laptop smuggled to him.This shows that members of this group have built andused virtual networks to communicate with the worldfor their cause.The ineffectiveness of the discouragements by religiousleaders and their choice to trust the Internet shows howeffective the Internet is in sustaining the movement.The improved technology of the Internet to hide certainmessages and its easy access means it will continue tobe used to build and maintain the JI network as wellas to nurture its ideology. Because of this, “this may bepart of the explanation for how in the last seven yearsJI has shown resilience as a clandestine organizationand demonstrated an ability to adapt to internal riftsand crackdowns by the authorities” (Ismail 2007). Theeasy use and access of Internet material, as one jihadistmaintained, means that “the sprawling and anarchicnature of the web makes it easy to operate: Just put upa site, run it until it is closed down, and then put itup again somewhere else” (Ismail 2007). Thus, even ifthe organizations of JI and other terror groups couldAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

162 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONbe tracked down by security and intelligence officials,leaderless jihadists could still find their own way tofurther their goals through the virtual network.With this kind of network, the terror groups can easilybuild communities that resemble what Ben Andersoncalled “imagined communities.” However, the“imagined communities” here are not related to a senseof ethnicity, but a sense of religiosity where the ideologyof violence is used to cement the concerns of thesecommunities. This kind of network is more difficult todeal with compared to an actual network as its drive islocated in the minds of individuals. This is a challengeto civil societies advocating peace or to those who workfor a more peaceful world.ConclusionWhile Asia has promisingly transformed itself towardpolitical maturity and/or economic advancement, itfaces imminent threats that could undermine its currentand future advancements, either locally or regionally.One of the threats is non-state groups’ actions in theform of terrorism or terror attacks. Indonesia, thePhilippines, and Thailand are countries in SoutheastAsia that have suffered from such actions.Such non-state groups’ actions have their own origins.In the Philippine and Thai cases, they have originatedfrom a dispute about claimed areas (those of theSultanate of Sulu/Maguindanao and the Sultanate ofPattani, respectively). Insurgencies attempting to regainthe perceived lost areas and create an independentstate have led to the emergence of groups that useterror tactics to further their goals. In the Indonesiancase, terrorism has originated from a strong passionto establish a perceived ideal state. The recent lethalattacks, however, are strongly related to US policies andactions in world politics.The grievance approach is insufficient to explainthe phenomenon of these non-state groups’ actions.The greed explanation also has some limitations inexplaining the phenomenon. Alternatively, the ideologyof violence has considerably contributed to these actionsin the researched countries.While the group’s actual network is vulnerable to thestate security apparatus, the virtual network is moreresilient since the core force in this network lies in theminds of individuals, cemented with a shared ideologyof violence. The use of this type of network has beenobserved in the Indonesian case. In the future, thenetwork could contribute to the establishment of awider, leaderless movement with its own “imaginedcommunities.” It is not exaggerating, therefore, to saythat the members of such “imagined communities”could carry out independent terror attacks withoutthe command of, or being tied to, certain actualorganizations.Due to the complexity of the issues, multi-dimensionalefforts should be carried out to overcome the problems.The use of non-conventional approaches (i.e., nonmilitaryapproaches) should be given emphasis,particularly through investments in education,economic empowerment and the promotion of religioustolerance.REFERENCESAbuza, Zachary. Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible ofTerror. Boulder, London: Lynne Rienner Publisher, 2003.Abinales, Patricio and Donna Amoroso. State and Society inthe Philippines. Pasig City, Philippines: 2005.Adisaputra, Asep. Imam Samudra Berjihad. Jakarta: PTIK,2006.Bale, Jeffrey. The Abu Sayyaf Group in its Philippine andInternational Contexts: A Profile and WMD Threat Assessment.Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program,Monterey Institute of International Studies, December2003, (accessed onFebruary 15, 2007).Barreveld, Dirk J. Terrorism in the Philippines. San Jose, NewYork, Lincoln, Shanghai: Writers Club Press, 2001.Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS). Indonesian Statistics, Jakarta,2005.Burnham, Gracia, with Dean Merrill. In the Presence of MyEnemies. Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.,2003.Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler. Justice-Seeking and Loot-Seeking in Civil War. Washington DC: The World Bank,February 17, 1999.Collier, Paul. “Doing Well Out of War: An EconomicPerspective.” Eds. Berdal, Mats and David Malone. Greed andGrievance: Economic Agenda in Civil Wars. Ottawa: LynneRienner Publisher, 2000, 91-112.Gunaratna, Rohan, Arabinda Acharya, and Sabrinda Chua.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 163Conflict and Terrorism in Southern Thailand. Singapore:Marshall Cavendish Academic, 2005.Ismail, Noor Huda. “When Jihadists Go Online.” TheJakarta Post, 2 July 2007. (accessed on August 12, 2007).Tempo, 17-23 October 2005World Politics Watch, 7 April 2007Kronenwetter, Michael. Terrorism: A Guide to Events andDocuments. Westport, London: Greenwood Press, 2002.Malik, Omar. Enough of the Definition of Terrorism! London:Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2001.Olson, Mancur. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goodsand Theory of Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1971.Primoratz, Igor. “Introduction.” Ed. Primoratz, Igor.Terrorism: The Philosophical Issues. New York. PalgraveMacmillan, 2004.Ressa, Maria. Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of Al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia. NewYork, London, Toronto, Sydney: Free Press, 2003.Ricolfi, Lica. “Palestinian, 1981-2003.” Ed. Gambetta,Diego. Making Sense of Suicide Missions. New York: OxfordUniversity Press Inc., 2005, 77-130.Samudra, Imam. Aku Melawan Teroris! [I Fight the Terrorist!]Solo: Jazera, 2004.Stern, Jessica. Why Religious Militants Kill: Terror in the Nameof God. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2003.Torres Jr., Jose. Into the Mountain: Hostaged by the Abu Sayyap.Quezon City: Claretian Publication, 2001.United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).Terrorism Definitions. (accessed on November 10,2006>.Newspapers, MagazinesBangkok Post, 7 April 2007The Strait Times, 18 July 2007The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), 15 April 2004Time Asia (online), 5 October 2003; 6 October 2003Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

164 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONGLOBALIZATION, INFLUENCE AND RESISTANCE: CINEMATICREPRESENTATIONS AND EXPERIENCE IN JAPAN AND THAILANDKrisnadi Yuliawan SaptadiIntroductionBen Okri, a Nigerian writer, once said that if anyonewants to conquer a nation, first they have to invade theirstories. Sometimes, when we talk about globalization,many people believe that Hollywood, with all itsblockbusters, has already done exactly what Okri said.As Wim Wenders, a famous German film director,once said to his fellow Germans, “The Americans havecolonized our subconscious.”The feelings represented in Okri’s and Wenders’statements are the reason why Hollywood is oftencriticized for overwhelming global audiences with“American culture.” In the eyes of the world, Hollywoodis America. It represents not only the glamour ofAmerican movie stars, but also their “soft power”—what many see as the cultural imperialism—of theworld’s lone superpower.It is a fact that although Hollywood produces only a smallfraction of the world’s feature films, it garners about 75percent of theatrical motion picture revenues and evenmore of the video rentals and purchases. Moreover,despite some twists and turns in individual years,the long-term trend has clearly favored Hollywood’sincreasing domination. Hollywood’s proportion of theworld market is double what it was in 1990, while theEuropean film industry is one-ninth of the size it was in1945. Further, in Western Europe in 1985, 41 percentof the film tickets purchased were for Hollywood films;by 1995, however, the figure was 75 percent.Starting in 2000, Hollywood films generally hadgreater box office sales outside the United States thanat home. Eighteen such films took in over USD100million internationally, a total not matched by anyfilm produced outside the United States. While therewas an interloper in 2001 (the Japan animated filmSpirited Away took in over USD200 million), it was theexception that proved the rule, as the top 10 films at thebox office in 2001 were all Hollywood products. Theglobal situation in years after was no different.Historically, Asian markets have not been verysignificant for Hollywood. They have not generatedas much revenue for the studios as have European andLatin American markets. However, this began to changein the 1980s and especially the 1990s. Nowadays,Hollywood movies take about 96 percent of box officereceipts in Taiwan, about 78 percent in Thailand andabout 65 percent in Japan.A number of factors have contributed to the growthof Asian film markets and to Hollywood’s increasingdomination of them. Trade liberalization has allowedmany more Hollywood movies to come into Asiantheaters, and economic growth has given more people themeans to see them. The building of modern multiplexeshas dramatically increased the number of venues forfilm exhibition, while the privatization of televisionand the development of new distribution technologiessuch as video, cable and satellite have created whole newmarkets for film beyond the theatres.While the distribution-exhibition sectors of Asianfilm industries have welcomed this market expansion,the production sectors have not always been soenthusiastic, insofar as multiplexes and the newhome-based entertainment outlets tend to fill up withHollywood films. Hollywood’s economic, institutionaland political power gives it a competitive advantage thatfew industries in the world can match: only Hollywoodcan afford to spend USD200 million on a single film;only Hollywood has the global distribution networkand publication powers that can get its movies intotheaters worldwide; and only Hollywood has the USgovernment behind it, pushing to open foreign marketseven further.As markets around the world expanded and as Hollywoodclaimed a bigger and bigger portion, the logical thinghappened: Hollywood studios began to earn more oftheir money outside of the US than they did inside.From the 1950s through the 1970s, Hollywood earnedabout 30 percent of its money overseas. That percentagebegan to climb in the 1980s and today the averagestudio production earns well over 50 percent of itsrevenue abroad. That number is expected to grow overtime, with some industry figures predicting the foreignshare of box office earnings could rise to 80 percentwithin the next 20 years. This means that Hollywood isAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 165becoming an export industry, making movies primarilyfor people who live outside the United States.Asia is Hollywood’s fastest growing regional market.Some analysts predict that within 20 years Asia could beresponsible for as much as 60 percent of Hollywood’sbox-office revenue. No wonder that the American filmindustry now sees the growing markets of Asia as itsnext great frontier. In the pursuit of the two billion-plusviewers of Asia, Hollywood is expanding its embraceto include actors from Hong Kong, scripts from SouthKorea or Japan and also production facilities in Chinaor Thailand. Perhaps nothing indicates globalizationas much as the growing ties between the Asian andAmerican film industries.However, is it only Hollywoodization that is happeningin Asia? How about an Asianization of films? We can,of course, ask questions about influences among filmcultures in Asia. Nowadays, as people travel betweencountries pretty much like they traveled between citiesin the old days, Asian people and Asian films also travel.As neighboring countries, ties between Asian countriesare supposed to be stronger than ties between Asiancountries and Hollywood. However, in the field ofcinema, is this the case?With this Asian Public Intellectual Fellowship, Iproposed a project to see how globalization works in thefield of cinema. I wanted to see globalization throughcinematic representations and cinematic experience inJapan and Thailand.JapanDuring my stay in Japan in October 2006, the 19 thTokyo International Film Festival was being held. Thisis one of the major, if not the most important, filmfestivals in Japan. This festival has a famous competitionsection where many international films compete to bethe best. However, already for three consecutive years,the programmer of this festival also holds a specialsection that is called “Japanese Eyes,” in which s/heselects and screens the best Japanese films producedeach year.What was really interesting for me was when, at theend of the festival, out of 13 films that were selected byYoshi Yatabe, the Japanese Eyes Programming Director,The Cats of Mirikitani was picked as the best film in thiscategory. This was not only interesting because The Catsof Mirikitani was the only documentary film shown inthe Japanese Eyes section that year, but also because ofthe production nature of this film.The Cats of Mirikitani can hardly be described as aJapanese film in a traditional sense of production. Thedirector of this documentary is Linda Hattendorf, anOhio-born New York film editor who has been workingin the New York documentary community for morethan a decade. This film is a directorial debut for her.Lucid Dreaming Inc., the company which produced thisfilm, is also not a Japanese company, but American.The subject of this film, Jimmy Mirikitani, can bedubbed as Japanese because his parents were Japanese.However, Mirikitani is not a Japanese citizen. He wasnot even born in Japan, but in Sacramento, America.Mirikitani is a Japanese-American. All of the events inthis documentary were shot and took place in America.The city of New York is the ultimate landscape of thisdocumentary.Jimmy Mirikitani was a street painter who was all of asudden noticed by Linda Hattendorf when she walkedin the freezing cold streets of Manhattan on the firstday of 2001. When Hattendorf saw him, Mirikitaniwas sleeping under many layers of clothing in front ofa grocery store. An intimate, yet strange relationshipbegan between Hattendorf and this 80-year old homelessman when she agreed to “buy” one of his drawings inexchange for taking a photograph of him, which wasthe payment he requested.Starting with that first encounter, Hattendorfdocumented their relationship with her video camera.The result, The Cats of Mirikitani, is no doubt a treasureof personal filmmaking. Slowly, in a very subtle way,The Cats brings in the fact that Jimmy Mirikitani is avery unique and special person. As quickly revealedby an examination of his art, Mirikitani was held in aJapanese internment camp during the Second WorldWar, as a part of the anti-Japanese campaign after theattack on Pearl Harbor.The strong message and relevance of Jimmy Mirikitani’sexperiences is thrown into shocking relief when, aboutnine months after Hattendorf began recording, theevents of 9/11 took place. That evening, Hattendorffound Mirikitani alone in the toxic cloud that had takenover lower Manhattan. Feeling worried, Hattendorfasked him to come home with her. Surprisingly,Mirikitani, who up to that point had refused virtuallyall assistance being offered to him, agreed.This film, which started with the awkward relationshipbetween Hattendorf and Mirikitani, develops a great,unspoken affection at this point. With Hattendorf’shelp, Mirikitani, who was very bitter about his life andAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

166 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONhis experiences in the internment camp, slowly madepeace with his past life.Maybe everyone will agree that watching The Cats ofMirikitani is a privilege. The hidden message of thisfilm is very strong: connecting every prejudice that isaffecting the world after 9/11 with an experience of avictim of such prejudice during the Second World War.I witnessed the loudest applause at the end of The Catsof Mirikitani screening, far louder than for any otherfilm included in the Japanese Eyes Category at the 19 thTokyo International Film Festival that I watched.In term of quality, I know no one will question thejudgment of the jury when they picked The Cats ofMirikitani as the best Japanese film at the TokyoInternational Film Festival 2006. However, for me,one interesting question still comes up: is The Cats ofMirikitani really a Japanese film? Does the fact thatThe Cats of Mirikitani falls in a Japanese film categorytell us about something more than just a simple filmcategorization?Yes, Masa Yoshikawa, the producer of this filmis Japanese. He had previously worked on manyproductions for the Tokyo Broadcasting Systemand NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). KeikoDeguchi, the editor of The Cats of Mirikitani, is alsoJapanese. However, both of them are now based inNew York. Yoshikawa has written and produced manyfeature films and American television programs, whileDeguchi has edited many big American feature films,including Steven Shainberg’s recent narrative featureFur.So, why can The Cats of Mirikitani easily be categorizedas a Japanese film? Is it because the hidden narrativein this film tells the deep feelings of the victimizedJapanese under American domination? Or is it because,nowadays, the nature of film production is really difficultto keep within one national boundary? For a long time,questions about national cinema were not easy to defineor answer. Film theorists agreed that national cinemais a term used to describe the films associated with aspecific country. However, its meaning is still beingdebated by film scholars and critics.For the industry, it is easier. National cinema isdetermined by the place that provides the capitalirrespective of where the films are made or thenationalities of the directors. For the industry, a film issometimes just a number on a balance sheet. However,cases like The Cats of Mirikitani call this definition intoquestion, as well.Jimmy Choi, in his paper Is National Cinema Mr.MacGuffin?, suggested we look into the artifact, or thefilm itself, to find out what elements in the film textconstitute national cinema. Borrowing a term fromWalter Benjamin, Choi wrote that national cinema hasan “aura.” It is not just any “aura;” it is an aura thatbespeaks a national identity. In films, it embodies thelanguage spoken, the nationalities of the protagonists,the dress, the setting, the locale, the music and manydifferent elements that Choi call cultural icons. Togive the “aura,” many of these elements have to acttogether.Choi also acknowledged that this “aura” is somethingyou can feel when it is there but is hard to fully explain.Maybe this is the case in The Cats of Mirikitani.However, being international is not something new forJapanese cinema. Some say that, in Japanese history,cinema was always international before it was national.The first films to be exhibited in Japan were producedabroad while the first Japanese productions dependedon foreign-made equipment and advisors. Even thespread of cinema as a key element in early Japanese massculture during the Taisho and Showa period can be saidto be a result not of Japanese traditions but of vernacularmodifications of industrial and textual practicesdeveloped by Hollywood studios in the 1910s.Starting with that introductory phase, a big culture ofcinema-going slowly arose in Japan and the Japanesefilm industry grew stronger and larger. As an industry,we can say that the Japanese film industry was copyingHollywood’s success. Its studio system and star systemwas similar to Hollywood’s. At one point, in the 1950s,the Japanese film industry reached its peak and producedabout 650 films a year; at that time, this was even morethan what was produced in the United States.While the influence of Hollywood’s modes ofproduction deeply penetrated the Japanese movieindustry, Japanese cinema provided a different imageinternationally. Since the 1950s, great directors likeKenji Misoguchi, Yasuhiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawaburst onto the international stage and became darlingsof world cinema. Some of them, like Misoguchi, weresometimes slow to be recognized, and only known longafter their productive years, but all of them definitelychanged the way people saw Japanese cinema.Masterpieces by Misoguchi, Ozu and Kurosawa suddenlyprovided fascinating alternatives to crude Hollywoodspectacles with their insipid narratives. Thanks to them,suddenly Japan became Western cinema’s “privilegedother.” Rashomon, Sansho Dayu and Tokyo Story wereAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 167celebrated because these Japanese films purveyed serioushumanist themes in a style derived from a deep artisticheritage.After the Ozu, Misoguchi and Kurosawa era, Japanintroduced Shohei Imamura, Nagisa Oshima and theirgeneration to the world. This new generation expressedthemselves with greater freedom by tackling subjects thatwere more social and violent. Despite the differences,Imamura and Oshima still impressed world viewerswith their vivid and pure forms, which were mysteriousand challenging but always identifiably “Japanese.”All of these famous Japanese directors became livingproof of an old formula that to be truly international, acinema must first be truly national.Despite the international success of these famousdirectors, success was never theirs at the local box office.These directors, whose films had what internationalexperts called strong “local” flavor, never becamenumber one in the local box office records. Hollywoodmovies took over. Even though the Japanese filmindustry always considered itself one of the strongest inthe world (with an average production of three hundredfilms every year, it comes number three after India andthe United States), it could not deter the Hollywoodinvasion.The 1970s was the start of the decline in the Japanesemovie industry. Falling attendance rates combinedwith an economic downturn dealt a sharp blow tothe Japanese industry. The major distributors—Toho,Toei and Shochiku—made money only by filling theircinemas with foreign films or animation. Slowly, Japanbecame Hollywood’s single most profitable exportmarket.During these hard times, only Japanese animation,more popularly known as Anime, could still challengeHollywood domination. Since the 1980s, names fromthe Anime World, such as Hayao Miyazaki, MamoruOshii and Satoshi Kon, have been shaping the Japanesefilm industry. We can always say that Anime is one formof resistance to Hollywood domination, because Animehas distinct Japanese expressions, portrays Japaneseproblems and is executed in a very Japanese style.Aside from the Anime world, in those times it was verydifficult for new film directors to break into a majorstudio network because, to put it simply, the studiosbrushed aside the newcomers. Fortunately, starting inthe 1990s, several young Japanese filmmakers employedtheir creative energy to try to put up a resistance toHollywood domination. These young filmmakers havegiven new life to Japan’s battered film industry.At that time, these filmmakers were all between 20 and40 years old, and produced their films with extremelylimited resources. In Japan, one of the world’s mostexpensive countries to live in, this sometimes meantthat these directors also worked in television, advertisingor cartoons, and held down several jobs to make endsmeet.Interestingly, all of these new Japanese filmmakerstended to focus on social and psychological themes, likedelinquency and senseless crime, which mirrored theconfusion and malaise of a generation that had rejectedthe old ambitions of getting rich, blind loyalty to one’semployer and social harmony. Without access to majordistribution networks, they made films in a ghetto of artcinemas where competition was fierce: this new genrecould never earn much money.Financing the productions was also a nightmare forthem. With budgets ranging from USD100,000 to amillion dollars, most often they had to go into debt toget the film started. One of these directors is ShinyaTsukamoto. Making fantasy films in the tradition of theFrenchman Georges Melies, Tsukamoto was director,cameraman, set designer, actor and producer all rolledinto one. It is said that it took Tsukamoto eight monthsto make Bullet Ballet, his seventh film, whose streetscenes were largely shot clandestinely.Another name is Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who started hiscareer by making film noir on 16 mm or video, eventhough since the beginning, he infused his workswith a surprisingly philosophical dimension. Two ofKurosawa’s major works, Eyes of the Spider and SerpentPath (1998), were shot one after the other, each intwo weeks, with the same crew and the same actors.The same plot of revenge, however, is handled verydifferently in the two cases.Takeshi Miike is another director in this generation.His work, despite seeming too violent, is highlyregarded and has many cult-followers internationally.Another name is Akihihiko Shiota, who made a coupleof erotic films before his remarkable Moonlight Whispersin 1999, which follows three children growing up in acity suburb and cost less than USD200,000 to make.This young filmmaker, whose later more popular workswere categorized as “Japan New Wave of the 1990s,”really loved experimenting.This new generation of directors made their filmswithout any thought for the big studio networks.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

168 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONLook at Hirokazu Kore-Eda, who directed WonderfulLife. For Wonderful Life, Kore-Eda, who was trainedin documentary production, sent his assistants out ona five-month mission to capture on video “the bestmemories” of about five hundred elderly people. Helooked at the rushes, did the casting and then contactedthose he had chosen to appear in the film.Or look at Aoyama Shinji. His feature Eureka, deals witha recurrent theme in 1990s Japanese cinema—that of anew life, a transition to an alternative state of existencefollowing a traumatic experience. It shows three people,a man and two children, who have escaped from abloody hostage-taking episode and struggle throughoutthe film to find their way out of a maze of misfortune.Last but not least, I have to mention Takeshi Kitano,who played an essential role as “big brother” to this newgeneration of filmmakers.All of these new generation directors from the 1990swere celebrated internationally with many award andprizes, but did they change Hollywood dominationlocally? No. Look at Takeshi Kitano, for example. Hiscompany, Office Kitano, produced a steady stream ofindependent films, but this company made most of itsmoney by selling movies to television. The Japanesebox office was still not too generous with this talentedfilmmaker.My travel to several cities in Japan during my fellowshiprevealed how strong the Hollywood presence is in localcinema. As I met with people, I noticed that theirknowledge about Hollywood films, actors or directorswas much better than their knowledge about all of“the new wave of the 1990s” directors. I had similarexperiences, not only in the big cities, but even inmedium-sized cities like Yamagata.For me, this is interesting, because a Japan ExternalTrade Organization (JETRO) report said that theJapanese film industry entered a steady recovery phasein 2004. JETRO is convinced that constant increases inmovie attendance and box office revenue indicate thatfull recovery is underway. In 2004, box-office revenueswere split 62.5 percent for foreign films and 37.5 percentfor Japanese films. After so many years of Hollywooddomination, even this small share is considered a signof Japanese films’ promising future.Another optimistic figure came up in the Japan Timesnewspaper. Japan Times journalist Yoshio Kakeoreported that, in the first quarter of 2007, Japanesefilms outperformed Hollywood because, for the firsttime in 21 years, Japanese films held more than 50percent of the market share. Therefore, if the JETROand Japan Times numbers are true, how can we explainthe “unpopularity” of Japanese directors?We have to look closely at those optimistic numbers. Yes,it is true that Japanese films have started gaining a biggerattendance lately. However, as I mentioned earlier, theJapanese films that are receiving a large attendance aredifferent than the ones that receive many awards frominternational film festivals. The Japanese films that areattracting many viewers mainly do not came from all ofthose challenging directors I mentioned earlier.Anime, as always, is the most popular film genre inJapan. Then came a genre that has lately been calledJ-horror. Hits like Hideo Tanaka’s Ringu and anotherJapanese horror movie Ju-on are the record holders atthe local box office. Other popular genres are action andteen flicks. Interestingly, except maybe for the Anime, allof those hits have one thing in common: they somehowmimic Hollywood in terms of narrative structure.Most commercially successful Japanese films are notconcerned with the exploration of national themes andstyles. Like Hollywood films, their basic formal concernis merely story telling or narrative. Stories are routinelydesigned along a precise temporal dimension and spatiallines: look at successful films such as Bayside Shakedown2 or Always—Sanchome no Yuhi (Always—Sunset on theThird Street).Even though these films can beat Hollywood blockbustersin term of box office revenues, we can say that bothfilms fall strongly into Hollywood conventions. It isnot that those films were bad. Aside from its successin commercial distribution, Always, for example, wasawarded with 12 prizes at the annual Japanese filmawards. However, watching this film will take you toplaces where Hollywood films have gone before.Always has very good computer graphic special effects,almost perfect. However, in the words of Japanese filmcritic Kenichi Okubo when we talked about this film,“the depiction of emotions by the characters in Alwayswas hardly Japanese.” If watched carefully, we will findthat Always is very disciplined in following Hollywoodnarrative conventions, like the simple balance-destructionresolvestructure that makes audiences passive.As a result, despite the recent “revival” in the local boxoffice, Japanese films still suffer defeat from Hollywood.Look at the case of the J-horror blockbuster Ringu. Thesuccess of this Hideo Nakata’s film made Hollywoodoffer him a contract for a Hollywood remake. ManyAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 169critics agree that The Ring, Hollywood’s remake ofRingu, was not as good as the original. However, inJapan, this remake film brought in more revenues thanthe original!Unfortunately, even though the directors from the“Japan new wave of the 1990s” are still workingand have made many films, their films are hardlyas influential as before. It seems that they are onlycontinuing on with what they have already achieved.In one interview, Aaron Gerouw, a Japanese film expertfrom Yale University, agreed that there is nothing asgood as “generation 1990s” in recent Japanese films.According to Gerouw, Japanese films desperately neednew blood.Fortunately, independent films are always strongin Japan, and became even stronger when digitalmoviemaking became more popular. This is a placewhere another resistance to Hollywood dominationcould emerge. This independent mode of production,which is free from big studio, marketing-driven product,has also made international collaboration easier. TheCats of Mirikitani is one such case.With a small crew, and collaboration between anAmerican-woman director and several of her Japanesefriends, The Cats of Mirikitani breaks many conventions.It is still considered a Japanese film, even though it tellsa non-Japanese story in a non-Japanese land. While TheCats is “only” a documentary, it can also easily competewith big budget production films and win a prestigiousaward.The Cats of Mirikitani also provides evidence that,nowadays, the nature of film production is reallydifficult to keep within one country because creativitycannot be kept within one country’s boundaries. InJapan, there is a big trend in international collaboration,especially within the far eastern countries. Look at howTakeshi Kitano’s production company helps nurturesome of the best talent from China. Kitano’s companyis a major force behind many of Jia Zangke’s awardwinning films.Korea is also starting to influence Japanese filmsmore and more. There is a “booming” interest aboutKorean movies in Japan, inspired by the smash-hit TVdrama Fuyu no Sonata (Winter Sonata). Some Koreanblockbusters have also been remade into Japaneseversions. Another interesting fact is the rise of Koreanfilm distribution in Japan. By 2004, Korean moviesbecome the second biggest foreign movies in Japan,replacing French movies.Maybe in the future, these trends in Asian collaborationwill broaden the old boundaries into new boundaries.As noted by Kurosawa Kiyoshi, one of the directorsfrom the “Japan new wave of the 1990s,” when beinginterviewed: “After 1998, I was traveling to many filmfestivals around the world. I made films that wereusually dubbed J-films (Japanese films), but all in thosefestivals, my films fell into the Asian-film category.Even Iranian films are mentioned in one breath withmy films.”ThailandAs in Japan, Hollywood also dominates the Thai filmindustry. In 2000, Hollywood movies took in about78 percent of the box office receipts in Thailand. Thisis of course, inviting “resistance.” When interviewed,Wisit Sasanatieng, director of Tears of the Black Tiger,the first Thai film to be officially selected for the CannesFilm Festival in 2001, said in a very resistant voice,“Globalization tries to make the world the same asAmerica.”In this kind of world, Wisit admits he is always searchingfor a Thai influence when he makes films. “We mustuse our traditional culture as a weapon to fight back.Don’t let Hollywood steal our culture,” he said. Thatis why Wisit’s films always seem to pay homage to oldThai films, especially some of those directed by RastanaPestonji, a Persian who was once dubbed the “Father ofThai films.”In Tears of the Black Tiger, for example, he cast SonbatiMedhanee as one of his main actors to play a tough,Charles Bronson-style leader of mountain bandits.Sonbati was one of Pestonji’s actor, and also a starwhose name is recorded in the Guinness Book of Recordsbecause he starred in six hundred feature films. Whenchoosing Sonbati, Wisit Sasanatieng also wanted tobe proud of what many call as the golden age of Thaicinema.Long before Hollywood domination, the period of the1960s and the early 1970s can be considered the goldenage of Thai films. At that period, the Thai film industrycould produce almost two hundred films a year. Notonly did the film studios enjoy booming revenues fromtheir action flicks, melodramas, horror or teen movies,this period also saw a group of intellectuals enter the filmindustry and make so-called “socially critical cinema.”These young and energetic intellectuals, who came fromuniversities, political movements or journalism, usedfilmmaking as a medium to present their sociopoliticalAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

170 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONviews. Their social concerns were triggered by twoimportant political events: the student uprising on14 October 1973 and the attack on demonstratingstudents on 6 October 1976. These intellectual-directorfilms are still considered classics and are some of themost important films in Thai history.Some of these films are Dr. Karn (1973), The Angel(1974), The Citizen (1977) and The Gunman (1983) byPrince Chatrichalerm Yukol, Mountain People (1979)and Son of the Northeast (1982) by Vichit Kunavuthi,The Angel of Bar 21 (1978), The Story of Namphu (1984)and Butterfly and Flower (1985) by Euthana Mukdasanit,and On the Fringe of Society (1980) by Manob Udemdej.However, history tells that these socially critical filmsdid not “fit” with the nature of Thai society.Censorship prevented Thai directors from attemptingany controversial or political films. When SurasriPhatum made Country Teacher (1978), depicting socialinjustice in 1970s, he was forced to escape a clampdownby the authorities by temporarily hiding away in theforests of northern Thai. In the 1980s, when EuthanaMukdasanit attempted to depict the political terrorismof 1932, his project was never given permission by theauthorities.Starting in 1985, Thai cinema experienced another typeof film: a flood of teen flicks. The teen flick genre wasso popular that even Prince Chatreechalerm Yukol, adirector from the social commentary era, eventuallymade two teen films. As a result, when later facing theflood of Hollywood blockbusters, Thai film could hardlysurvive. With low quality movies, Thai films could onlyattract audiences in remote rural areas of Thailand.When, in 1993, the Thai government was forced by theAmerican government to reduce its tariffs on importedfilms, the number of American films being shown inThailand increased. This Hollywood invasion grew evenmore potent when Thailand’s Entertainment TheatresNetwork and the Hong Kong/Australian-based GoldenVillage established EGV, Thailand’s first multiplextheater.In this context of Hollywood’s strong domination, WisitSasanatieng and his generation emerged as challengers.The turning point for this new generation of Thai filmswas when Pen-Ek Ratanaruang launched his directorialdebut Fun Bar Karaoke in 1997. This movie wasfollowed by Nonzee Nimibutr’s feature debut DangBailey and the Young Gangster. Later, Pen-Ek becamefamous because his films won many awards abroad, andNonzee because his movies broke many Thai box officerecords.After his directorial debut, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang madeSixtynine (1999), Monrak Transistor (2002), Last Lifein the Universe (2003), Invisible Waves (2006), and Ploy(2007). Monrak Transistor opened as the Thai debut inCannes’ Directors Fortnight, Last Life in the Universein Venice, and Invisible Waves in Berlin’s competition.All of his works gave him a reputation as one of thefew Thai auteurs with anti-narrative structures andexperimental cinematography.Different from Pen-Ek, Nonzee Nimitbutr’s successlies in box-office revenues. After Dang Bailey and YoungGangsters (1997), he made Nang Nak (1999) a horrormovie that was adapted from the well-known legend of afemale ghost who refuses to accept her death and insistson spending life with her husband. Both of them brokeall previous Thai box office records. After that, Nonzeemade two films, Jan Dara (2001) and Baytong (2003),which were more personal, not visual heavyweights andwithout big box office revenues.Another name in this generation is YongyootThongkongtoon. His directorial debut Iron Ladies(2000) expanded the borders of Thai cinema fromfestival circuits to international commercial markets.Unfortunately, this generation of directors, can onlychallenge Hollywood in a small way. Yes, NonzeeNimibutr and Yongyoot Thongkongtoon can havetheir share of box-office revenues. Their films can evenbeat Hollywood blockbusters. However, unlike Wisitor Pen-Ek, their narratives are not that different fromthe enemy: Hollywood. When watching a short uncutversion of Nonzee’s newest film, Queen of Lakansuka, Ifeel like I was watching another Pirates of the Caribbeanmovie.As a whole, the birth of this 1997 generation has beenunable to change the face of the Thai film industry.The majority of annual releases are still occupied withpopular genres like action, slapstick and horror. Themost recent popular movies like Ong Bak: The MuayThai Warrior or even Prince Chatreechalerm’s KingNaresuan all borrow Hollywood narratives with Thaiflavor only as an addition.In an interview, when asked to describe the current statusof the Thai film industry, Pen-Ek said, “The problemis Thai films over the past 10 years have been crap. Itwas better before. Now, Thai cinema lacks originality.”For Pen-Ek, most Thai films are marketing-driven andmarket-oriented. “There are so few directors here. Mostdirectors do not even have a voice because all of theirworks are defined by marketing officers,” Pen-Ek said.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 171However, another “resistance” is taking place withinthe Thai film community. The Thai Film Foundation,for example, has held an annual Thai Short Film andVideo Festival since 1997. Many talented directors areborn through this festival. However, if we talk aboutThai alternative filmmakers, no other name is worthmentioning than Apichatpong Weerasethakul.countries are also developing. In Thailand, interestingly,the independent-alternative filmmakers are also usingglobalization as a way to make their voices heard.Almost unknown, Apichatpong became an overnightlegend when in 2004 he brought his film, TropicalMalady, to the official competition in Cannes and won aSpecial Jury Prize. In 2006, his Syndromes and a Centurywas also the first Thai film to compete in Venice. Agraduate of filmmaking studies from the Art Institute ofChicago, Apitchapong brings his own approach to film,and is sometimes dubbed the most genuine filmmakerin the world. His well-known trademarks are fragmentsof images and sound, an anti-narrative structure andexperimentation with exotic elements.Aphichatpong is not alone in this independentalternative cinema. There are other important indiefigures including Aditya Assarat, Uruphong Raksasad,Pimpaka Tohveera and Mingmongkol Sonakul. LikeAphichatpong, Uruphong Raksasad is also a very giftedfilmmaker. His nine-shorts-collection compiled intoone feature, The Stories from the North, is a challenge toalmost every feature film convention.Realistically, except for Apitchatpong, who can alwaysrequest foreign funds, these indie-alternative filmmakersstill suffer from a lack of financial support and cinematiclimitations. Therefore, despite their stubborn resistance,it is really hard to say if, except for Apitchatpong andfew other names, Thai independent filmmakers willbring an alternative approach to developing Thai filmculture.ConclusionMy travels in Japan and Thailand showed me thedepth of Hollywood’s influence over both countries’film industries. However, during that time, I also feltthat Hollywood’s “domination” has made traditionalcultures or the cultures of other nations start to questiontheir identity. This has led to resistance, in many waysand forms. In cinema, some of this “resistance” can beeasily traced, but some are difficult to see.Yet, globalization is not only about Hollywood.Thailand and Japan are also affected by the tide ofcinema globalization. In the case of Japan, Asianinfluences prevail strongly. Korean films have becomefashionable, while collaborations between East AsianAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

172 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONTHE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION AND CONSUMPTION:SPIRITUALITY IN JAPAN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A THAISing SuwannakijINTRODUCTION: Chasing reality, shift of focusFrom my research experience, I learned what is almosta life truth: that there is always a chasm between realityand one’s understanding of reality. My primary interestwas Buddhism and, before the actual research, I naïvelythought, gathered from books I read, that Japan wasprimarily a Buddhist country, and that perhaps I couldstudy it in comparison with Thailand. This is what Iwrote in the proposal to the API:While still in monkhood in the Theravadatradition, I was intrigued and greatly inspired bythe teachings and characteristics of Mahayana andZen Buddhism, as well as their forerunner, Taoism.In particular, I am fascinated by the emphasis onquietism, simplicity, minimalist way of living, andmore importantly, their down-to-earth, natural,and ordinary approach to truth in everyday life, asopposed to text-based hierarchical, rigid, yet highlyarbitrarily interpreted, complex phases to attain thegreat Enlightenment in the Theravada tradition.The fascinating aesthetical virtue of wabi-sabi,for example, runs counter to the celebration ofpermanent and grandiose construction of symbolicmaterials.Although I also wrote that Zen and Taoism “…themselves have been conceptualized, institutionalized,and broken into often-contending sects and schools,and later, in the context of Globalization, repackagedand commodified,” indicating that somehow I wasalready cautious of the danger of the over-idealizedimage of another culture, this was just a bookish levelof caution. After arriving in Japan, I found in myselfcountless ‘misunderstandings’ or misconceptions aboutJapanese society and its spirituality, which shall beoutlined below. Doubtless, to correct these is certainlythe purpose of research, which should bring aboutmore understanding, trying to get as close as possibleto reality. I then set myself, in the first few months,the task of covering the existing literature on Japanesespirituality as much as possible. At the same time, I alsotried to get to know people, talk to them and makefriends, bearing in mind that natural interviews cantake place at any time.As a result, I learned more about Japan and Japanesereligions. For instance, I learned that the present stateof Japanese spirituality is typically segregated andcompartmentalized into different beliefs, and varioussects and schools within even one belief system,comprising a plethora of religiosity, with greatly diversefeatures of teaching, ritual and practice, althoughcertain similar patterns also exist. Take Buddhism, forinstance: there are the sects of Shingon, Tendai, Zen(which is sub-divided mainly into Rinzai and Soto),Pure-land (or Jodo, with a (dis-)affiliation of Jodoshinshu)and Nichiren (split off into Nichiren-shoshuand its modern next of kin, Soka Gakkai, etc.), amongothers. All these are further liquefied in their details,and yet have solidified into new religious organizations.To give one example, one of the people I met was thehead of a new Buddhist organization based aroundTendai teachings, yet it does not belong to the Tendaisect. The actual practice of Buddhism is tied with localtemples, which are usually run like a family business,and ie (the household system) further breaks downthe specificity and diversity of the religion. A friend ofmine kindly pointed out that Buddhism and Shintoismcould hardly be separated before the official segregationin the Meiji period. This is not to mention some of theshinshukyo or New Religions which often draw and fuseinspiration, worldviews, concepts, ideas, rituals andpractices from various major religions. The notoriousAum Shinrikyo, for instance, encompasses the teachingof three major Buddhist schools, Theravada, Mahayanaand Vajarayana, but also includes some elements ofHinduism (note the word aum), and Christianity (thebelief in the apocalypse, also the group has changed itsname to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet),and the practice of Chinese gymnastics and yoga. Toconfuse things even more, I learned that not a fewreligious followers belong to more than one sect atany time, or change from one to another after some‘trial period’ to see if the faith can offer solutions totheir problems (Reader 1991). Meanwhile, among thenon-believers, or so they claimed to me, which seemto be the majority of the people I encountered, thecelebration of many traditions around yearly events,such as the Buddhist-related bon festival, Christmasor visiting Shinto shrines during the New Year,seems to be a perfectly normal practice, without anyAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 173contradictory feelings about observing many faiths.All these are to briefly illustrate how, when one takes acloser look, Japanese spirituality can vary and diversifygreatly, defying any simple classification, whether interms of organizations, locality, teachings or practices.Down to the individual level, one still has to discernthe differences from one person to another even withinthe same faith, and even within one person at differenttimes.Considering this, the gap between the reality and whatI had in mind earlier seemed to widen even further.Even after I was already in the research site, it took mea long time to make heads or tails of what was going onin the complex Japanese spiritual landscape. I alreadythought at that time that to compare it with Buddhismin Thailand was beyond any possibility. When I startedto be able to grasp a vague understanding of it, I stillencountered something ‘deviating’ from the picture Ihad, but it remained hazy. It seemed to me that I couldonly ever chase reality 1 because the more I tried to graspit, the more it eluded me; the chasm mentioned abovecould never be filled.However, this does not mean that we should not try tostudy anything, but that we also need to bear in mindthe limitedness of our perceptions. This opened up thequestion of how I should proceed with my research.To find similarities between the religious practices ofthe two countries risked the over-glossing and oversimplificationof a complicated reality. To descend intothe minute details of the diversity would be an endlesstask. Even specialists who can speak the language andhave been in the country for a long time still strugglewith it. The task would have overburdened my capacityand limited time frame. Apparently, a shift of focus wasnecessary.Certainly, I could easily discard my earlier‘misunderstandings’ and try to elaborate what is ‘true’of spirituality in Japan, collecting and quoting at lengthwhat specialists have said about it, and present it here.However, I came to notice the significance of thismisperception. Firstly, I asked, why is there such a starkdifference between reality and its representation? In mycase, why did I think that Japan was primarily a Zencountry while in reality there are people who have norelation whatsoever with Zen, or have absolutely no ideaabout it? Certainly, there are many factors involved; myignorance must share part of the blame, but beyond thatthere was the issue of how, in other countries, Japan andits spirituality are represented, mainly through printmedia, but also through other kinds of pop culture,especially visual mediums, including films, mangaand animation (think about Studio Gibli’s animationmovies). In Thailand, for instance, most of the bookson Japanese religion are translated from English, withembedded Western perspectives and preoccupations, butare usually treated as natural. The famous works on Zenby Thomas Merton, for instance, are based principallyon the comparison between Zen and Christianity, butare translated into Thai without this caution. Even sucha pioneer in translating, sparking off discussion, andpopularizing Zen Buddhism in Thailand from the 1970sonwards as the late Buddhadasa Bikkhu seemed not tobe overly concerned on this point. The Western viewof the East, in a rather romanticized, Orientalism-likefashion, is definitely in the working, and the discourseon Zen which has been massively popularized since the1960s in the West is not an exception. However, I shallalso show below that this politics of representation is byno means a case of the last century, but was occurringalready much earlier, with a particular emphasis on thevisual, scientific bias.Secondly, it is a representation that competes with realityto replace reality. Representation is not necessarilya ‘wrong’ or ‘mis’-conception but “representationshave a strong built-in tendency to self-naturalization,to offering themselves as if what they represented wasthe definitive truth of the matter… representationsdefine worlds, subjectivities, identities, and so on”(Pendergrast 2000). This means that nothing can beclassified easily as false or true, if the person believes thatit is true. In anthropology, researchers often encountersituations where the time-line in the memory of theinformer is ‘distorted.’ Nationalistic discourse is usuallya ‘distorted’ version in the eyes of revisionist academics,but a majority of the population in a country stillbelieves that it is the natural, absolute truth about theirhistory. Therefore, we must also, instead of merelyattacking representation as illusion, consider and analyzehow the process of representing works. In my case study,the representation of Zen in Western countries is alsore-introduced and adopted by the local Japanese, wholook at themselves as such, calling to mind the processthat Harumi Befu calls auto-Orientalism (Befu 2001). 2However, this ‘looking at oneself through the eyes ofothers’ (Dubois 1989) in a recent context differs fromany previous eras on the point that it usually occurs inthe form of consumption, especially among those whoare susceptible to the flows of images, ideas, perspectivesand information in the globalized, consumerist society.Having laid out my groundings for an argument, Iwill present my findings by dividing them into twomain interrelated themes—the representation and theconsumption of Japanese spirituality.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

174 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONRepresentationWhen one is not satisfied with the situation one is in,it is easy for that person to idealize another situation,another society or culture, as being beautiful, morebeautiful than the one s/he is in. Buddhism in general,and Zen in particular, was often idealized as offeringa worldview that goes beyond the limitedness of thelogical/rational Western mind and/or the predicamentsof Western society and values. David Loy, for instance,writes that Buddhism emphasizes “…the centrality ofhumans in a godless cosmos and neither looks to anyexternal being or power for their respective solutionsto the problem of existence” (Loy 1998). While thisis certainly inconsistent with the actuality of everydaypractice of Thailand, Japan and most other societieswhere the Buddha is widely regarded as similar to agod who will come to save believers in times of trouble,this kind of ideational image and representation exerteda significant influence on the generations who weredisoriented and dissatisfied with the Western way oflife and society and looked elsewhere for inspiration,especially the new romantic ‘hippie’ movement of the1960s in the US and Europe whose impression ofBuddhism largely stemmed from writings by, amongothers, Alan Watts, D.T. Suzuki and Philip Kapleau,and produced such work as Jack Kerouac’s TheDharma Bum. Much of the representation of Japanesespirituality, particularly Zen, in Thailand today can alsotrace its derivation, without much change in debate orargument, from this period of romanticization, as it waslargely mediated through translations of the literaturewritten by and through Western perspectives, ratherthan arriving directly into the country.However, studying this in Japan itself offers quite adifferent outlook. Instead of being a thing of the East—a distinctive worldview and entity quite foreign andapart from the West—Buddhism was brought closerto its Western counterpart, Christianity, and becamegreatly rationalized when it came into contact with thescientific ethos at the onset of modernity. Centuriesbefore the 1960s, representations of Buddhism in the eyeof Westerners also took place, 3 but rather in a negativeway, as something native and backward, as opposedto science-based Western modernity. In Japan, beforethe clear shift of paradigm to wholeheartedly adopt themodern worldview and pursue modern national goalsduring the Meiji era, there was a watershed period ofclashes of ideals and ideas in the Edo era. Being Chineseand adopting Confucian values was an archetype for theJapanese for a long time, and it was still very much so inthe Edo era. Despite its seclusion and a ban on travel,a close tie, imaginative if not physical, still remainedbetween the Japanese and Chinese; for instance, as lateas 1802, Hishiya Heishichi, a Nagoya textile merchant,in his travel journal, Tsukushikikou (A Kyuushuu TravelJournal), wrote, “The scenery in Nagasaki Harborwas like a Chinese landscape painting, and I felt as ifmy boat was in the midst of it all.” Actually, HishiyaHeishichi’s attraction to Chinese Nagasaki was thedriving force behind his visit. Although there were alsoattempts to define unique ‘Japanese-ness’ by such earlyNativist (kokugaku) writers as Motoori Norinaga (18 thCentury)—the forerunner of 19 th and 20 th -centuryJapanese nationalism and Nihonjinron (theoriesabout unique Japanese-ness)—the Other at that timefrom which the Self of Japanese tried to differ waspredominantly Chinese.The wind turned towards the West, significantly theUS, with the arrival of the Black Ships of CommodoreMatthew Perry, who forced the opening of Japanwith the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. Althoughchange was arguably already under way long before thatyear, as contact with Westerners, their technologies andtheir entrenched scientific mindset could still be founddespite the official isolation—exemplified by TachibanaNankei (1753-1805), a medical doctor and traveler, whoexclaimed when he encountered the Dutch microscopethat “the precision of a microscope… exceeds eventhe Buddhas’ eyes” (Screech 1996)—it was after theMeiji Restoration that frenzied catch-up with Westernmodernity in every aspect and fabric of society tookplace full-scale. In the spiritual realm, this led to therise in prominence of people like Inoue Enryo (1858-1919) who advocated the exorcism of superstition fromBuddhism (resulting in him being given the nickname‘Dr. Monster’). By doing so, as Josephson (2006) argues,he helped bring Buddhism closer to being a ‘religion’—aterm that had a different meaning in Japanese before—with Christianity as a model or prototype. In otherwords, Buddhism was previously not a ‘religion,’ in themodern sense of the word, but when it became one:More than a mere word game, this change ofstatus would profoundly transform Buddhism.It would lead to sect restructuring, radical reconceptualizationof doctrine, and even a newterm to refer to the tradition – a shift from thepre-modern norm “Buddhist Law” (buppo 仏 法 )to the contemporary “Buddhist teachings” (bukkyo仏 教 ) (Josephson 2006).A similar trend can also be witnessed around the sametime in Siam/Thailand if we look at, for example, thewritings of Kum Bunnag who argued in 1867:Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 175…what we call the deity coming to be born onearth that we see floating in the air must actuallybe some kind of animal which can fly up high, justlike the snake or fish swimming in the sea. As forthe rays of light… is actually a meteorite, whichwherever it falls will burst a glowing light around(Tippakarawongse Mahakosadibbhadee 1867).As a result, Buddhism has become formalized andrationalized, with a scientific worldview permeating thefabric and order of things of the Buddhist cosmos. Agood example would be the belief in the existence ofthe Buddha Amida’s Pure Land, thought to be locatedin the ‘West,’ a purely symbolic belief referring to thesunset of this life. However, with the new geographicalknowledge that came with the Western-style globe,many simple believers were confused. Today, manyThais also believe that nibbana is a place or a space toreach for or to go to, often associated with the imageof the universe as scientifically constructed. Spiritualitywas made modern in its essence so that it could easily bereferred to or incorporated into other modern discoursesemerging around the same time, such as the building upof the modern nation-state, as can be witnessed in thecases of Japanese State Shintoism, Bushido, HachimanDaibutsu and the Thai nationalist ideology of Nation-Religion-Monarchy. This transformation usually tookplace in the center of a nation where contact withthe West was immense, but the process was usuallyinconsistent in more distant areas, such as Okinawa orChiang Mai, whose spirituality and spiritual worldviewsvaried, although imposition of the central culture alsooccurred, often with violence.ConsumptionAs Clifford Geertz (1973) observes, the more youlearn about another culture, the less foreign, and themore normal it becomes. The more we study aboutJapanese spirituality and its development, the less exoticor romantic it becomes. It is like everything else thatmoves with time and operates within an ever-changingsocio-historical context. However, during the researchperiod, I also came to realize that it did not matterhow much I knew that that kind of image was only aversion of a representation of a reality, which was noteven necessarily a reality itself, although there were stillmany people who were ready or would like to believe inthat image. To say that they were wrong and I was rightwas simply to hold a certain academic arrogance and,more importantly, to be ignorant of another importantphenomenon that was emerging.Therefore, the investigation into the history of Japanesespirituality stopped at that point, and, towards the endof the research period, I set out the task to visit as manyof the temples that offered zazen meditation sessions tolay people as possible. Heeding Foucault’s warning that“discourse must not be referred to the distant presence ofthe origin, but treated as and when it occurs” (Foucault1972), I thought that these temples would be theplace where this reluctant state of constructing oneselfthrough the image represented by others would actuallytake place. Perhaps this half-baked representation-cumrealitywould be best summarized by a simple commentfrom a person I befriended with in one of these sessions:“I come to try Zen meditation because I want to knowwhy Westerners are so interested in it.” On anotheroccasion, I found a similar incongruity when I cameacross a book of collected English-language haikupoems translated into Japanese by a Japanese collectorwho mentioned:I was born, grew up, and have always lived in Japan,but I’ve never read a haiku until I read TenementLandscape by Paul David Mena. For me, readingEnglish language haiku is a pleasurable meditation.Why? I found Paul’s haiku to be surely haiku. Itreveals the deep haiku mind, but at the same time,it presents a very contemporary and openmindedview. So I was greatly moved by it. (Daikoku inMena 2001)This search for one’s self, one’s own identity, may recallthe characteristics and development of theories of theuniqueness of the Japanese (Nihonjinron), as well asits Nativist and nationalist precursors. Yet, the currentphenomenon departs from the previous ones in that itis not directly linked with the idea of being a Japanesesubject of the government or the nation (although theprospect that this can be resorted to in the future cannotbe ruled out as a rise of right-wing sentiment is beingseen), but involves mediation through the mass mediaand the consumption of its images in a personalized,individualistic way. For example, at the end of eachzazen session in one temple, all the newcomers wereasked to introduce themselves and to tell how theycame to know about the place. The majority of thepeople—who, to my surprise, were young people fromaround the age of university student to early thirties—said that they learned about it from the Internet (seeFigure 1). Only one person, a middle-aged woman,reported that she saw it in a newspaper column. Othersources included TV programs, which made one ofthe temples I visited very popular, magazines, some ofwhich you could pick up for free at train stations, anddirect advertisements made by the temples themselves(see Figure 2). In the urban context, the sense of sharingAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

176 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONa spiritual community is no longer fixed by physicalproximity, but is mediated through the impersonal massmedia so that one can come to these temples withoutknowing anyone beforehand, and when finished withthe business, one can leave them without knowinganyone, too.Figure 1: A piece of an internet news. The subtitle reads “thequiet boom”, referring to the popularity of meditation.is the opposite: to say that one has no religion is usuallytaken as strange or radical.However, even among those who participated in obviouslyreligious activities, the way they approachedspirituality was more diversified and personalized thanin previous eras. It involved more postmodern-stylemix-and-match, trial-and-error, and, in many cases,the de-stressing of a sensation-gatherer (Bauman 1997),perhaps an escape from what Hegel called ‘the unhappyconsciousness of modernity’ (Prendergast 2000) intoWalter Benjamin’s ‘the unconscious of the dreamingcollective’ (Buck-Morss 1989). Many seek spiritualityin order to elude problems in their personal life, family,workplace or relationship; a friend of mine told me thatshe started to believe in reincarnation after suffering severetrauma due to a break-up. However, she also triedmany things that have a spiritual element, especiallyNew Age health-related, healing treatments from zazen,yoga, spa massage, body-and-mind therapy and personalaura-reading, many of which combined scientificmethods and devices. Again, these trends seem to begenerated and popularized first in the West, employingancient Eastern beliefs and methods, before they spreadto the Eastern countries itself, most notably throughthe demand of the tourists to consume ‘things East,’making some Easterners proud of themselves along theway. However, as a consequence, these ‘things East,’ includingspirituality, have become a sign or a symbol tobe consumed without necessarily having a relationshipwith its traditional or original meaning; it has becomewhat Baudrillard calls ‘pure simulacrum.’ Two exampleswill suffice to illustrate this point: one is the traditionalsymbol of Zen’s sunnata or Voidness used asa substitute for a Roman alphabet “O” on the cover ofFigure 2: Advertisement on a train about a zazen retreat ata temple in Okayama. It reads: “Zazen & Vegetarian FoodTour.” The package price, 4,980 yen, includes bus fee, food andzazen session cost.At first, I was a little surprised to learn that, in Japan,it is almost politically correct for most of the peopleI met to claim that they are non-religious, althoughthey might actually practice otherwise. This might stemfrom many reasons; one might be the recent activitiesharmful to the public of some religious organizations orcults. Another might be that some people are well awareof the implanted historical and political meaning of religionand its usage during imperialism and war, anddeplore anything that has religious overtones. For example,when the writer Yukio Mishima built his house,he decorated it a style that he claimed to be ‘anti-Zen,’reflecting his post-war nihilistic attitude. In Thailand, itFigure 3: A Soto Zen booklet.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 177Figure 4: Image of the Buddha’s head on a music booklet.a booklet produced by a Soto Zen sect; another is thehead part of a Buddha image on the cover of the book,Japanese Club Groove Disc Guide (see Figures 3 and 4).Conclusion and ImplicationsBefore the research began, my basic thought was thatthere might be some lessons that could be learnedfrom the Japanese experience for Thailand, but manyJapanese monks I met told me that things were theother way around. Some even felt that JapaneseBuddhism had come to a cul-de-sac of materialismand, in fact, Thailand was still in a far better situation.Some Japanese temples drew inspiration from Socially-Engaged Buddhists in Thailand and tried to apply itto their communities. There are, in fact, a number ofindividuals who are working on this, trying to rescuespirituality from material corruption.I do agree with and respect such efforts. However, itmust be said that Socially-Engaged Buddhists are reallya minority in Thailand while the majority seems to bemoved by waves of modernization, Westernization,consumerism and globalization. Certainly, criticism onincreasingly materialistic religion has to be made but,in my opinion, there seems to be an unbridgeable gapbetween the two camps. My point is that to simplycondemn consumerism and materialism is not enough,but we must also understand its inner logic, how itworks in everyday life, as well as how it seeps into andtransforms spirituality. We must take into account howreligions are part and parcel with society and history,and when people’s way of living changes, religions arealso affected, both in form and content. If one wantsto subvert consumerism or other such illnesses, moreunderstanding about them is necessary first.What I argued in this paper, therefore, runs againstthe recently generally accepted dualist discourse thatputs the Global in distinctive opposition with theLocal, in which the latter is often seen as inferior,threatened and in need of being saved. While I amnot naïvely repudiating that such dualism does notexist or contending that the Local should not be saved,to simple-mindedly perceive and define ‘the Local’should be cautioned against: the problem does not liewith any locality but with our perception of it. In thedualist perspective, the Local is static, slow, sluggishand representing a good, former time—which ofteneasily becomes an object of glorification in nationalisticrhetoric or of romanticization in many versions oflocalism—set in opposition to the flux of the speedy andever-changing Global. My study, while employing theterms East/West and Global/Local, attempted to movebeyond simple conceptual antagonisms by illustratingthroughout the text that these binary identities are, infact, in relationship with each other and are closer toeach other than is usually thought, exemplified hereby the fact that Japanese spirituality was brought intoits present form by a comparison with its ‘Western’counterpart, and it is still constantly being constructedthrough this representation, which provides an avenuefor consumption. It shows how it is drawn into andbecomes a part of visual culture, fashionable trends andan Orientalism-like relationship. 4 Clarke (1997) showsthat the reversal (i.e., the influence of the ‘East’ onthe ‘West’) is also pervasive. At the same time, havingargued against fixed positions, I have postulated anotherimportant point in this essay, to prevent ourselves fromassuming the other extreme end of the spectrum, whichis to nihilistically claim that everything is just discoursesand nothing exists and ‘anything goes’: the binaryoppositions will not disappear just because we sayso. There is a constant construction, re-construction,affirmation, implementation and consumption ofthem in society which should not be ignored, althoughthey should not be accepted at face value either. Thisposition of not fully accepting or ignoring in criticism isimportant in charting concepts that are dangerous butnecessary.If, out of these, I am going to give perhaps any clearand practical recommendations, I would say that I donot have any for spiritual organizations, but may haveone that is directed more at lay persons, who are in themidst of consumerism, globalization and so on, andlooking at religions and spirituality as outsiders. Therecommendation would be to go back to where I startedthis essay, that we can never grasp reality but only chaseit, including the reality of religions. This does not meanthat we should not try to understand anything at all,but one conclusion we might come to only pushes usaway from approaching the same reality from otherAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

178 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONperspectives. In other words, we have to be careful ofthe limitedness of our perception, of what we consumeand believe. Only with this awareness of the limitationof the self can we allow Diversity—not only of physicalappearance, such as ethnicity as generally understood,but also diversity of the meanings of things—to trulyexist and operate.NOTES1I do not want to drop names here, but in order to confirmthat this is not just a personal imagining, but that someacademics have already taken it very seriously, I wouldlike to refer to Jacques Derrida, who coined the termdifférance to explain the process in which words, what wewrite, read, speak, always defer meaning—although myexperience here may be a simpler version of différance. InDerrida’s deconstruction, in which différance operates,to find a meaning of a concept/sign involves a process ofpointing beyond itself, of always referring to somethingelse, something different. The concept/sign is, therefore,never fully present, and its meaning is always deferred.Likewise, when I was in the field of research, I wouldhave liked to capture the reality of it. But all I found weremany versions of it, told by many people as they perceivedit. These multiple explanations of reality are endless, andthe reality (if there is one behind those explanations),thus, is always deferred. When I held to one version ofan explanation of reality, I pushed away other possibleversions. Realizing this, therefore, I was in a constant stateof “chasing reality.”2For the same reason as Note 1, I would like to refer hereto what Foucault calls the empirico-transcendentaldoublet—where one is in the reluctant state of being boththe subject and object of gazing (Foucault 1994).3 It should be noted that this representation and mixingacross cultures also took place long before the modernperiod and has continued to take place since then.4 It should be mentioned here that a kind of ‘internalOrientalism’ also exists, such as how the Japanese view,say, Okinawa or Thailand, and how Bangkokians viewother parts of Thailand, but this is beyond the scope ofthis paper.and the Arcades Project. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989.Clarke, John. Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter betweenAsian and Western Thought. London: Routledge, 1997.Derrida, Jacques. Positions. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1981.Du Bois, William E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. London:Penguin Classics, 1989.Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. London:Tavistock Publications, 1972.__________. The Order of Things. New York: Vintage Books,1994.Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York:Basic Books, 1973.Josephson, Jason. “When Buddhism Became a “Religion”:Religion and Superstition in the Writings of Inoue Enryo.”Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 33.1 (2006): 143-168.Loy, David. “Review of Nietzsche and Buddhism: A Studyin Nihilism and Ironic Affinities by R.G. Morrison.” AsianPhilosophy 8.2 (July 1998): 129-131.Mena, Paul. Tenement Landscapes. Trans. Kazue Daikoku.Tokyo: Happa-no-Kofu, 2001.Prendergast, Christopher. The Triangle of Representation. NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2000.Reader, Ian. Religion in Contemporary Japan. Honolulu:University of Hawaii Press, 1991.Screech, Timon. The Western Scientific Gaze and PopularImagery in Later Edo Japan: The Lens within the Heart.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Tippakarawongse Mahakosadibbhadee (Kum Bunnag),Chao Phraya. Nang Sue Sadang Kijjanukij [Note on VariousMatters]. 1867. Bangkok: Khurusapha, 2002.REFERENCESBauman, Zygmunt. Postmodernity and its Discontents.Cambridge: Polity, 1997.Befu, Harumi. Hegemony of Homogeneity. Melbourne: TransPacific Press, 2001.Buck-Morss, Susan. The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter BenjaminAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 179SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THE CONSUMPTION OF SPIRITUALITYIN JAPAN (OR: WHILST I SEARCHED FOR MY SOUL IN A SOULLESSMETROPOLIS…)Mohd Naguib RazakNote: This current version has been abridged and simplified bythe author from the original final paper in order to meet thepublication requirements of the Foundation.Shinjuku, TokyoSunday, April 27, 2008I stand here before a 10 th floor hotel window,looking down at the sea of grey concrete structuresbefore me.Of bland low-rise apartments and mundane officeblocks.Away from the soaring skyscrapers.Away from the suggestive lights of Kabukicho.I am here, back in Tokyo again.By myself, of my own volition and my own means.At the very heart of this soulless metropolis.Just six months earlier, I was in the midst of packingup and leaving Tokyo. I had depleted my entire grantfrom the fellowship and all my personal savings. And Iwas nowhere near understanding the subject matter Ihad chosen.I was totally numb and empty within myself. My projectin tatters.In the beginning…It began as a journey to discover, unravel and understand“Spirituality in Japan’s Material Utopia” as my themeand subject matter for a feature-length documentary filmwith an international audience in mind. Nevertheless,it soon became obvious that the funds and resourcesavailable at my disposal during this fellowship simplywould not allow me to produce such a film.Therefore, even before arriving in Japan, I had alreadyrecalibrated my plans to use this fellowship periodonly to discover, unravel and understand my themethoroughly and convincingly in order to then, lateron, produce a documentary film that was exceptional,insightful, fair and far-reaching on this subject-matter,upon a ‘second coming.’For better or for worse, I chose to be based in Tokyobecause of the vast number of contacts, resources andthe network of people I already had here. There was alsoalways something about Tokyo that kept me comingback to it again and again—like a journey to the cuttingedge of civilization, like standing on the precipice ofmega-modern madness, or enduring that final, mostremote mile of understanding about the nature of ourhumanity in this multi-faceted, multi-layered, multinuancedday and age. Tokyo is a place for all that.“Spirituality in Japan’s Material Utopia:” A ThematicDilemmaThis was the title I had arrived in Japan with. It was nodoubt a vast and daunting theme, but one that I feltconvinced enough to be inherently important, globallyrelevant and significantly far-reaching.But I had not yet really factored in the extremecomplexity of the situation in Japan surrounding thistheme in reality, beyond my own superficial estimationsand presumptive formulations.And so I quickly began to realize what an even moredaunting, dizzyingly complicated terrain this was for anuntrained non-scholar like me to navigate. Especiallywith the myriad of material to trawl through, from allsorts of sources, be they libraries, scholars, newspapers,television, journals, and local culture as well as popularculture. Plus a sizable amount of cultural, academic andmedia stereotyping to side step or at least be wary of.To take it all in, one would have to really consider thepolitics of modernization during the late 19 th CenturyMeiji Restoration; the repositioning of Shintoismto State Shintoism and the curbing of local and folkreligions or belief systems; the rise of militarism that ledAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

180 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONto Japan’s involvement in World War II; the disastrousend to Japan’s military campaign in World War II;the reversed policies of the American Occupation incountering rising Communist influence in Japan; thesocial efficacy of Buddhism in addressing the need forrites and rituals in certain stages of life; the emergenceof the New Religions, and then the New New Religions(yes, that’s right); culminating with the Sarin gas attackin Tokyo’s subway system by the religious cult group,Aum Shinrikyo; the negative image of religious cultsfollowing that incident; and the long list of text, contextand subtext just go on and on and on (to put it all verysimply).I realized quickly that I didn’t want my work to beoverwhelmed by so much historical baggage and aninconsequential amount of anecdotal detail. I did notwant to spend so much time setting up, explaining orclarifying the circumstances preceding or surroundingthis theme that I would be left with very little space tojudiciously and naturally develop and present my ownconclusions and perspectives.Nor was I interested in a study that had to be limitedby a specific geographical or situational parameter, norreliant upon some compact or useful angle, cliché orstereotype, nor an approach that would fragment thissubject-matter, even though I realized that it may rendersome to see this study as unsubstantive, ambiguous andnon-scientific.More than just for academic research or study, I wantedto tailor it according to the immediate and genuineconcerns of current society in Japan and the rest ofthe world, without creating another piece of ‘pseudo’social commentary geared merely for consumption anddistraction, or else for conspicuous social affirmation.These were just some of the considerations besettingmy mind during those early stages, whilst I descendedfurther into the shadowy valley of my first fullexperience of autumn and winter in Japan. I was still ina state of non-arrival, languishing out in the wildernessof misapprehension, misconception and misadventureover all that is spiritual and material within today’sJapan and Tokyo.This Soulless MetropolisUltimately here in Tokyo, we live in a metropolis overpopulatedwith people and material possessions, materialconduits and material distractions, but depopulated ofsouls.Or rather the souls of people everywhere are simplynowhere to be seen nor felt.Try scanning around on a subway train or whilstwalking a busy thoroughfare. The soul is just somethingyou never really see in public here in Tokyo, much,much more than in other major cities. It is perhaps acommonplace reality, given the discrepancy betweenthe tatemae, or public face, and the honne, or innerfeelings, in the daily life of the Japanese.This is not to say that everyone in Tokyo is in factwithout a soul.But simply, their souls are nowhere to be seen. Perhapstucked away carefully from common view, perhapstucked away so well that even they have forgotten whereto find them.I, for one, certainly forgot where I left or tucked awaymy soul at some point during my fellowship, and havebeen spending something like a year trying to coax itback into the centre of my existence.Every now and then, whilst living in a decent residentialarea, I could see how some foreigners would, for thebriefest moments, get excited upon seeing me—a fellowgaijin, or foreigner, in their non-touristic area—onlyto see them quickly switching back their expressionto something emotionless and blank as everyone elsearound them.Even foreigners here—besides tourists and other shorttermvisitors—are apprehensive about being out of stepand inappropriately behaved here in Tokyo. Myselfincluded.As a result, everyone lives within himself or herself—alone—emotionally and psychologically. Amongstpeople they may be, but they are always alone.The father is typically alone in his own role-playingobligations and career insecurities. The mother istypically alone in her never-ceasing obligations andresponsibilities, if not to her children, then to herneighbors and her social circle. The children maybe fortunate enough to have a sibling to share theirchildhood with—but ultimately each and every one ofthem must carve out his/her own niche in the worldeventually. They are taught very early in life not to bea burden on others nor to depend on others, and they,too, rapidly become alone.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 181Beyond a certain age, one is obliged to start ‘being anadult’ and fulfill one’s designated role, one’s promise orpotential in society, and from that time, one becomesemotionally ‘an island’ at the honne or inner level,having to conceal personal thoughts and feelings for thesake of maintaining social obligations and meeting thedemands of group cohesion.Physically and inter-personally though, at the tatemae orexterior level, one is never allowed the luxury of being ‘anisland,’ unless one has already been banished as a socialmisfit. Every action, gesture, utterance or movementbears consideration for others before oneself.Even on a train amongst strangers, entering a lift withpeople you have never ever seen before, in a crowdedcafé or narrow aisles in a convenient store, everyoneis always mindful of people around them, and beingconsciously and visibly mindful to the others, albeitwithout a single bit of genuine emotion given or takenin the exchange of gestures.‘Why smile when a grin will do?’In fact, to smile to strangers may be overdoing the‘tatemae’ somewhat, and may leave the other personuncomfortable or even suspicious about our intentions.Better just to offer a restrained grin, that’s it. Nice andsimple, nothing too expressive, nothing too committal,nothing out of the ordinary.Living in Tokyo, especially whenever I am out andabout in the ‘big, bad’ metropolis, I feel like my soul isredundant. Never is it engaged, never will it be requiredin order to navigate through my daily existence in this‘material utopia.’ I only need to be armed with a retinueof small gestures, such as nods, raising of the hands,small bows, stiffening the body when someone takes aseat next to me or enters a cramped lift next to me, etcetera.In fact, having my soul fully engaged on a daily basiswould often leave me mentally exhausted, overwhelmed,confused or depressed, so much so that it made moresense to shut off my sense of feeling and cease engagingmy soul when it was not in any way necessary orrequired.After awhile, the soul, feeling so neglected and divestedof interest, will gravitate towards items of materialpleasure, seeking out something nice to eat, some visualstimuli to consume or distract, a cool product to own,a new piece of cosmetic tool, a clothing statement, astylish place to be seen, a TV program to collectivelyhave half-hearted laughter with, an accessory that ‘fits’one’s image of oneself; oh, the possibilities go on andon and on.And so I became more and more of an isolated creaturein deep hunger for some compassion and some sense ofwarmth amongst people, finding satiation only in thetemporary release of material pleasure and comforts.Much Ado about NothingTill today, I have not been able to make my Japanesefriends truly understand what I had been going throughin Japan. They all kept echoing the same declaration ofincredulity, “But you have a Japanese wife with you!”I realize now that, in their eyes, I was more thanprivileged in my own situation. A spouse was in fact theonly person one could appropriately share one’s burdenwith, in principle. Not your friends, not even your bestfriends on most occasions, nor colleagues, nor one’srelatives, nor even one’s parents at times (depending onhow welcoming they are, in fact).For myself, as a Malay, a sense of compassion amongst alarger group or network of social allies is essential to ourgood state of mind, confidence and well-being.When my father passed away last year, I was touchedto see even long-forgotten friends and former workcolleagues show willingness to come out of their wayto attend my father’s funeral, even though they hadnever met him. It was simply a genuine, and strong,expression of regard, support and compassion for theirfellow brethren, even from amongst non-Malay andnon-Muslim friends and colleagues.Even some total strangers who had known my fathercame and approached me, opening up to me, expressingtheir deep and genuine sympathy for me, sometimeseven struggling to hold back the tears in front of me.These are but a handful of examples of how we often stepup to the plate and offer some gesture of compassionand love to soothe those we see in need, even when notcalled for and even when with strangers.I was saddened by the fact that hardly any of my Japanesefriends knew what to say to me (assuming that theyeven wanted to say anything to me) with regards to theloss of my father. Perhaps I cannot really judge them;perhaps it is not something that they even knew how torespond to appropriately. Perhaps it is not somethingthey would even bring up with a friend, in the mannerthat I did to them.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

182 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONAt the end of the day, the saddened honne (true feelingsprivately held) always remain locked away from publiceye, and the appropriate tatemae (public face) is all thatmatters within the sphere of social interaction. Noamount of compulsion for ninjo, or a sense of emotionor compassion, could ever override the incontestabledemands of the giri code of conduct—the obligation tothe group and community.Even though I may seem fortunate to at least have aJapanese wife to help me deal with all these problems,in fact, it was harder to deal with for that very reason.Because I have a Japanese wife, I was expected by everyoneelse to already know and understand comprehensivelymy way around the giri and the tatemae.To her credit, my wife had indeed been trying to helpme understand these rules and values of Japanese life.But what if I did not wish to, or did not agree to someof it, or if it was so much and too much against myown moral persuasion, my own moral code, my ownsensibilities?It is in fact really impossible for me to incorporate theserules and values without abdicating my own principlesand convictions without diminishing my own culturaland moral identity. What is the point then in me beingwho I am, to come here and investigate this society?My envy for my wife’s natural ability to adjust to theserequirements made me feel alienated from her. It allseemed so easy for her. Time and again, I found myselffeeling isolated and misunderstood, and feeling lessthan human within this society.Would North Be True?I lost my father on April 4 th , 2007 just seven weeksafter receiving news that he had been diagnosed withadvanced pancreatic cancer. I still cannot write thiswithout tears falling down around me. It never getseasier. You just learn to sidestep those things you knowwill trigger it. But to avoid the tears is to avoid everthinking about it, to avoid feeling something real aboutwhat it meant, or how it was, or where I am now. Andthe feeling is so raw.Lately, I have been remembering a song that the singersongwriter,Sting, wrote in coming to terms with thedeath of his own father. I find myself hanging on tothe words to this song because I cannot myself seem tofind my very own words. They just seem to melt awayevery time.The Deep Blue Sea of MeaninglessnessMuch of everything else after that remains a blur fromwhere I stand now. I cannot see back into that partof history without the rain of the year that has passedwelling up upon my eyes again.All I know is that I did try to give myself some timeoff and remained in Kuala Lumpur for a few moreweeks than originally planned. But I soon found myselfstruggling to contain my remorse. And so I decided toplunge myself into work and obligations there for acouple of weeks. Upon returning to Tokyo, I carried onvery much in similar vein.Suddenly, one day, just one plain and not-so-dramaticday, I found that I could not construct any sense ofmeaning for whatever thing I had set out to do. Nothinghad meaning anymore. No desire, no meaning. I couldnot carry on.I kept trying. I kept trying to deny within myself thatwhich I was feeling, or rather that state of unfeeling initself. I tried to force myself to keep going, to keep onpushing. I felt that this was simply too indulgent a thingfor me to do, too much of an escapist’s solution to mytroubles for my liking.But nothing mattered anymore.And all my work ground to a halt.Ramadhan had arrived just in the nick of time. I turnedto my religion for refuge and shelter.Started reading the Qur’an again. Chapter by chapter.Day after day. Night after night.It helped me stabilize myself emotionally and spiritually,but I could only find peace and calm within my home,or at best within the local area that I lived in.I could not bring myself to go out and meet people,whether working colleagues, old friends or people I hadto get in touch with for my work.It was a strange, strange feeling for me. I have hadanti-social tendencies before, and have always had adisinclination towards socializing in groups larger thantwo. But this time it was very different.I felt a deep irreplaceable, irretrievable hollowness withinme. I could not even begin to reason myself into meetingpeople, even when I had initiated them myself, or evenwhen I knew I was socially obligated to meet them.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 183Spiritual Hunger in JapanEven as late as mid-October 2007, well beyond the lastofficial day of my Fellowship (and whatever funds camealong with it), I was still bent towards making a finalstab at completing my work before time ran out, livingon funds I had set aside for our return to Malaysia.I found myself heading to Osaka again, to the city thathad shaped an early part of my father’s career when heserved as the Director of the Malaysian Pavilion at theWorld Expo ’70 there in Osaka. He had been in his 30sthen, just as I was during my two long spells in Japan.I had hoped and earnestly prayed that something of anencounter there would trigger me back to my sensesand awareness, and have me finding my way back intomy work.But as I stood before that famous Tower of the Sun, thatfamous tower I had seen so often during my childhoodfrom photographs of my father’s time there in Osaka,during which time I was left behind in Malaysia becauseI was still barely a year old then—I found nothing. I feltnothing.Just the sad blue sea of meaninglessness.For all the great resounding success I have had so manytimes before in snatching victory from the jaws ofdefeat, for all the times I have been so successful andeven excelled in working under the severe pressureof an imminent deadline or some against-sheer-oddssituation, I had absolutely no answer and no responsethis time. I was numb. Absolutely numb.I came back to Tokyo and to my wife, and told her,“It’s over. I’m finished. I’ve got nothing left that I cando here.”“Let’s go home.”I needed my home, I said to myself inside my heart.Home meant more than just a building, a place, a space,this time.Hence the abrupt response to the folks at the Foundation,and hence my absence from the API Workshop laterthat November.But then, even as I was busy packing up my things andpreparing to head back to Malaysia, and as I began tofeel a slight sense of relief and life flowing back into mein anticipation of heading back, I also began to feel atinge of sadness to be leaving Tokyo finally.I could not quite grasp what this sadness meant at thattime, but looking back now, I think I know.Once I had made the decision to leave Japan, I was notone with the people there anymore. I was not anothersardine in their tin can anymore, I was not another soulstruggling to swim in this metropolitan (miso) soup.Now, only now, could I finally feel detached fromthe state of being that pervaded every person’s life inTokyo.Then, and only then, I finally felt again what I usedto feel at the end of my previous long-stay in Tokyo:sadness… sadness for the people. Sadness… withoutany pity. Without any judgment. Without any feelingsof iniquity.But empathy. And brotherly affection. And also guilt—for taking the easy way out myself.Finally, finally, I had reached my point of arrival, forwhich I had long sought, just as I was about to abort,abandon ship and escape from Tokyo.I felt like Charlie Sheen’s character in Platoon as hewaited for his helicopter to take him home from hisblighted tour of duty in Vietnam. He was finished withVietnam but he still felt a strong sense of compassionfor his fellow unknowing soldiers just arriving by thesame helicopter that was about to take him home.Compassion that was beyond words. Compassion thatseeps through one’s eyes.Suddenly it all came together before me.I was taken back in time to my conversations andinterviews in 2002 from my earlier film on Tokyo,Glass Enclosure: Tokyo Invisible. I had sensed emptiness,then, within the young people I had spoken to. Theyhungered for another country to return to. Perhaps notphysically, but rather spiritually.A place they could escape to, that was in fact alwayshome. A spiritual hunger they had no name orconception of, even.When did home become just a place or a space onemerely laid a physical claim to? These young peoplewere yearning and aching for a home. A real home.Physical or spiritual. Social or emotional.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

184 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONNow that I was in fact going home, I had finally becomeaware of the state of the young in Japan.A spiritual hunger that drives them either to escapeor salve their emptiness. And so they consume andconsume, for satiation, sublimation or salvation, butstill they are hungry.And I am not talking about religion here. But somethingeven more primordial than that.Return to Tokyo, April 2008And so it was finally revealed to me that my return fromthis one-year Fellowship period was in fact just the endof the beginning, the hard-fought journey towardsunderstanding and revelation that I had sought fromthe beginning.I know now the angle or approach my documentary filmwill take. I will still be taking aim at Spirituality in Japanbut, to be more specific, I will focus on spirituality or theabsence of spirituality in contemporary Japanese society,especially amongst the young; the current “spiritualboom” in Japan; the role of ‘spiritual counselors’such as Hiroyuki Ehara and Kazuko Hosoki and theconsumption of spiritual experience; the meaning ofdeath, life and afterlife; and the growing numbers ofsuicide and parricide amongst the young; the incidenceof bullying, acute social withdrawal, depression andwrist-cutting as well as other social anomalies andpsycho-social disorders in Japan.My return to Tokyo this time in fact allowed me tore-contextualize my feelings, concerns, responses andmeditation on the metropolis, as well as to intellectuallyand emotionally engage with selected experts andactivists involved at the heart of my subject-matter inan honest, open-ended, exploratory, two-way dialogueand essentially test how accurate or even how naïvemy views and pre-conclusions might have been, andto gauge how ready I was to contemplate and addressthese issues in an effective, well-reasoned and wellempathizedmanner.I began by interviewing Professor Nobutaka Inoue,Head of the Institute for Japanese Culture & Classicsand a Professor of Shinto Studies at KokugakuinUniversity, who was also Host Professor for my entireFellowship period.Professor Inoue set the tone for the many revelations thatwere to come by stating emphatically, amongst otherthings, that there was a clear detachment or separationbetween the people responsible for the religiousenvironment in Japan and the people, especially theyounger generation, who actually need some form ofspiritual dimension, guidance and bearings within theircurrent everyday lives; that the religious environmenturgently needed significantly large effort in redefiningits roles within the context of the needs of the youngergeneration today; and furthermore, there was instead alack of genuine drive and initiative to understand thesituation of the young today amongst the people at thedecision-making level.This was followed by an interview with Ms. FumieKamitoh, a Psychotherapist/Mental Health Counselorand Director of the Child Protection Project withthe Tokyo English Life Line (TELL) CommunityCounseling Service, as well as a Mental HealthCounselor with a University in Tokyo.Ms. Kamitoh delivered a hammer-blow of reality whenshe confirmed that the desire for suicide, certainlyamongst those she has counseled, represented a totalannihilation of the self, rather than a ‘resetting,’ ‘rebooting’or ‘re-starting’ of the ‘program’ suggested bysome analysts citing the special influence of reincarnationbeliefs and a ‘multiple-life’ video-game mentality.Furthermore, it often had little social dimension, suchas a sign of protest or escapism or statement, as itmay be in other countries or previous generations inJapan; rather, today’s suicides, or the desire for suicideamongst younger people in Japan, are largely borne bya deep sense of nihilism or, at least to me, that sea ofmeaninglessness that I had described earlier.Next, I interviewed Mr. Yasuyuki Shimizu, Founderand Director of Life Link, a non profit organization(NPO) focusing on suicide prevention and suiciderecovery therapy.Mr. Shimizu, on the other hand, warned that one mustbe careful in reading too much into media reports onyouth suicide, since the highest percentage for suicidein Japan is still amongst middle-aged men, and thereports of youth suicide tend to be sensationalistic andrepetitive. Nevertheless, he affirmed that there wasindeed a disturbing trend, even though represented bysmall numbers, pointing towards a far more disturbedstate of the heart and mind amongst the youngergeneration, beyond what the general public is wellaware of.He lauded the opportunity ‘spiritual’ TV programs, suchas Ehara-san’s Aura no Izumi (the Fountain of Aura),Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 185offered in initiating dialogue or contemplation amongstthe younger generation, and hence becoming a possiblecatalyst for their spiritual or psychological maturation,but he also lamented the fickle and fleeting sense ofopportunism within the popular media in Japan, veryquick in embracing such ‘spiritual icons’ when it servestheir own interests well, and readily cutting them downto pieces when it becomes ‘obligatory’ upon them todo so later.This was followed by an interview with Professor NaokiKashio, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Lettersat Keio University, specializing in “Spirituality inContemporary Japan” and one of the initiators of thewebsite Spiritual Navigator.My discussion with Professor Kashio yielded a veryinteresting point for consideration when he underlinedthat as Japanese society continued to evolve throughthe Bubble Economy-period, and the post-Bubbleperiod, the giri (obligation to the group or community)aspect of society remained very much intact, whilst theninjo (a sense of emotion or compassion) aspect largelydiminished and disappeared, belying the fact that giriand ninjo were dual aspects that went hand-in-handtraditionally, so much so that they were often referredto in tandem as giri-ninjo.To which I labored the point, if giri is so inevitable assomething fundamental to the ‘Japanese way,’ whatabout ninjo then—was it not also so inevitable assomething fundamental to the ‘Japanese way’?Next, I interviewed Mr. Nouki Futagami, Founderand Director of New Start, an NPO focusing on therecovery of hikikomori (acute social withdrawal) andNEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training);and I also had a chance to attend one of New Start’snabe parties (like a steamboat or fondue party), where Imet and mingled with many who were recovering fromhikikomori.Talking to Mr. Futagami opened up a door to acompletely different, and ultimately sad and tragic,reality—that of the hikikomori. It is easy to dismissthem as weak-minded social escapists or the being partof the privileged curse of affluence, but the implications,I realize now, are much more devastating and outrightdisturbing to our sense of humanity.Mr. Futagami described how these young people havefallen into a state of ‘total absence of desire, hope orvolition,’ lost in a state of mental stasis, and how thisdisconnection can last for years, even beyond a decadeor so. And with more than a million people said to bein this state, is it not already a crisis of society? Whilehe was very emphatic about the positive results of themany initiatives and programs in New Start, as well asunderlining the government’s own extensive ‘outreach’programs in trying to return this million or so intothe local workforce, I was shocked to hear him admitthat these were all in fact programs for the ‘recovery orrehabilitation’ of the hikikomori, but there was hardlyany concerted nor significant effort to ‘prevent’ otheryoung people from sliding into this state of hikikomori,even now.I asked Futagami-san, “What happened here? Was ita case of someone leaving ‘a gate’ wide open, or was itmore like that there were ‘gates’ after ‘gates’ left open upto this point, and finally the last one was also breached?”He didn’t actually answer my question. He understoodmy point.I followed this up with an interview with ProfessorJohn Clammer from the United Nations University,who specializes in material culture and consumption inJapan.Professor Clammer affirmed the views similarlyexpressed by Professor Kashio, that while there issupposedly a “spiritual boom” right now in Japan,much of this boom, as reflected in TV programs such as“Aura no Izumi” and the nation-wide touring SpiritualConvention or SupiCon (with up to 60 conventionsheld across Japan throughout each year), is catering tomiddle-aged housewives searching for some meaning intheir lives after completing their chores of raising theirown children. But this “spiritual boom” is certainlynot speaking to, let alone reaching out to, the youngpeople so desperately in need of a spiritual dimensionwithin their lives or some sort of spiritual guidance ororientation.Finally, I rounded off all my interviews with a sessionwith Ms. Ritsuko Yamaguchi, Founder of MoodDisorder Association Japan, an NPO focusing on therecovery of people suffering from mood disorder anddepression.This last session with Ms. Yamaguchi was probablythe most heart wrenching and the most compellingof them all. Here I learned how there were in factmany filmmakers, especially documentary filmmakers,attending her mood disorder recovery programs. Someof them may be there to investigate depression andmood disorder, but many were seeking some sort of‘therapy’ for themselves.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

186 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONI reasoned with her that perhaps this was surprising,because, from where I stood, at least prior to my timein Japan, documentary filmmakers have always beenprivileged in being able to pursue a career that isrichly rewarding to their own sense of well-being andalso made them better exposed to the hidden truths,realities and challenges of life, and thus should be muchbetter equipped in coming to terms with it, but Ms.Yamaguchi clarified that, conversely, that made themeven more vulnerable, more susceptible and in dangerof over-exposure to the problems of society and theconflicts of their subjects’ inner psyche.She reported how a respectable documentary filmdirector from one of the biggest nationwide TV stationsin Japan had recently conducted a very comprehensivestudy of depression in Japan, through her organizationand some of her participants, and to her surprise shediscovered later that the TV station had decided againstscreening the director’s finished documentary film.He later took his own life, she told me.“Was it an act of protest or grievance of any sort? Orwas it out of a sense of hopelessness?” I asked her.It was hopelessness, she told me.This was like, indeed, yet another hammer-blow to myheart, since I, myself, had lost a Japanese documentaryfilmmaking friend and colleague to depression-drivensuicide in September last year; he was a very prominentand proactive documentary filmmaker as well assomeone with whom I shared mutual appreciation inone another’s work.I realized that sometimes people living on the frontlineof these social tragedies and insanities are the ones whoare at greater risk. So I wondered then how she couldherself cope with so much trauma with such regularityand such proximity, considering that she had just toldme about a patient of hers who, after some three years oftherapy under her watch and advice, had just committedsuicide three days prior to my interview with her.It was then that she revealed to me that she was a 9/11survivor in that a freak accident had forced her to cancelher confirmed ticket on the tragic and infamous United93 flight that perished on September 11, 2001. She saidit took the trauma of that experience and the feelingof guilt in causing another human being to die in herplace to ultimately give her the determination andcommitment to establish MDA Japan and to play a rolein society to help other people facing trauma and otherpsychological disorders.She said that we must all be prepared to give back tosociety if we wished ourselves to be saved and protected,be it from natural disaster, acts of terrorism or personalpsychological trauma.Although I could never compare my experience withthat of hers, nevertheless I could take some wisdomfrom her: that everything one goes through in life hasits own hidden meaning and purpose, and mine wasbecoming more and more tangible with every interviewand every stone unturned.“Is spirituality or the lack of it, then, the problem? Is it‘the’ problem?” I asked them all at the end.As I mentioned before, this was just the end of thebeginning of my journey into this theme. The middleis the making of the film, and the end will be therelationships and connections the film will make withthe people who will make up its audience.At every stage, there will be many bridges to be built,the bridges between myself and the people within myfilm during the making, and the bridges between thefilm and the audience in the end.In Conclusion…Sort of…I am suddenly drawn back to the memory of attendingthe nabe-party at New Start after my interview withFutagami-san. I was myself rather intimidated by thethought of meeting so many hikikomori, unsure of howto deal or interact with them, and insecure about myown awkwardness in group situations such as these.Little did I expect to see them boldly and ebullientlyapproaching me, sometimes even ‘cornering me’ just tohave some—often disjointed—conversation with me,at times in English, at times in Japanese, their thoughtsand logic not at all so polished but their genuinenessand sheer enthusiasm so touching and inspiring.I left the party rather late, filled with warmth andreal feelings, something that I felt once again severelydeprived of upon my return to Tokyo this time.‘I had a potful of human contact and emotion tonight,’I remember thinking to myself, ‘And I think and hope Igave back as much to some of them as I took.’Was I in need of it more, or were they?Interesting question.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 187A STUDY OF COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN PROCESSES ON THEISSUE OF COMMUNITY RIGHTS TO BIODIVERSITY RESOURCES INTHE PHILIPPINESVarinthra Kaiyourawong BoonchaiIntroductionGlobalization takes place in the form of the dominationof economic and cultural centers as well as in the protestsagainst the domination of marginalized cultures. It makespeople’s attempts to transcend sociocultural differencesmore difficult. Although local communities and farmersmake up the biggest subgroup of the population, thestate marginalizes local people and excludes them frommanaging biodiversity and local resources because localpeople have no power to mobilize. They have limitedchannels of communication and, therefore, cannotpush policies forward.Local people’s movements are asking for more rightsto manage local resources in order to conserve theirecological systems and strengthen their economicand social self-reliance. The experiences of nongovernmentorganizations (NGOs) in the Philippinesin communicating and establishing a dialogue amongcommunities to gain public acceptance of communities’rights and local wisdom paint a successful pictureof how grassroots people’s movements can createcommunication patterns that are able to transcendsociocultural and political differences. Their campaignson local rice varieties have successfully changed farmers’behavior from growing the high yielding rice varietiespromoted by state agencies, which are expensive sincethey require chemicals (e.g., fertilizer, pesticides) toachieve their high yield potential, to developing newvarieties from farmers’ own initiatives. It is, therefore,interesting to study how the NGOs in the Philippinescommunicate with farmers to create and develop theirown rice varieties.The objectives of my research are: 1) to study thecommunication strategies and patterns used by NGOsto promote farmers’ rights to biodiversity resources; 2)to study which social conditions and contexts are ableto transcend sociocultural and economic differences;3) to find out what conditions have contributed to thesuccess or failure of such communication campaigns;and 4) to find out the ways to apply these patterns ofcommunication campaigning to people’s movements inThailand. I chose the Southeast Asia Regional Initiativefor Community Empowerment (SEARICE) to be myhost organization because it is an NGO working on theissue of farmers’ rights to biodiversity resources in thePhilippines. It also has a vast experience in campaigningon this issue not only at the local and national levelsbut also at the international level. SEARICE workstowards a just democratic civil society that upholdspeople’s creative and sustainable utilization of naturalresources. It implements the Community BiodiversityDevelopment and Conservation and Biodiversity Useand Conservation in Asia Program (CBDC-BUCAP).My case study focused on the Biodiversity Developmentand Conservation (CBDC) program, a ten-year oldglobal program on plant genetic resources. CBDCevolved around formal-informal system partnerships,developing methodologies and undertaking researcheswhile organizing farmers into groups to secure theirseed supply system, improve their economic gains andbuild social and political spaces (SEARICE 2007). Iconducted a review of the literature written by SEARICEas well as other documents related to the issue. I alsoorganized key informant and group interviews of theorganizations’ campaign staff and representatives of thecampaign target groups, and observed communicationcampaign processes in the local areas. The study tooktwelve months.The Community Biodiversity Development andConservation (CBDC) Program—Bohol Project: Acase studySEARICE chose the towns of Bilar, Batuan, Carmenand Dagohoy in the province of Bohol as the Philippinesites of the Southeast Asian location for the CommunityBiodiversity Development and Conservation (CBDC)program because of the very low genetic diversity inthese towns when the project started in 1996.In 2001, SEARICE released a technical report regardingrice farming from the CBDC Bohol project. Thesocioeconomic survey, which included the barangaysof Campagao and Cansumbol in Bilar and Malitbog inDagohoy, showed that the rice situation is as follows:farmers have limited resources of land and capital. Thislack of resources, particularly capital, affects the netfarm income of farmers.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

188 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTThe report also recognized that farming is not onlythe simple conservation and utilization of resources.It requires the correct allocation of resources and thehelp of external forces in the environment. Farmersmake necessary observations about their immediatenatural resources, such as soil, labor and environmentalconditions, and then determine their actions. Whenthe country experiences a rice crisis, it inevitably resortsto importation. A rice shortage is both a politicaland an economic issue because it is a question ofthe government’s incapacity to provide the supportservices and infrastructure needed by rice farmers toproduce sufficient rice. Socioeconomic constraints,such as credit and input availability, are generallyconsidered the factors that slow down the acceptanceof sustainable agriculture. The need to maintain contactand communication with farmer-partners is essentialto monitoring farmers’ conversion from inorganic toorganic farming (Community Biodiversity Developmentand Conservation Program—Bohol Project 2001).Addressing the abovementioned factors, the generalobjectives of the Bohol Project were to enhance onfarmconservation, to develop plant genetic resources(PGR) through participatory varietal selection (PVS)/participatory plant breeding (PPB), to strengthenlocal seed supply systems, to mainstream supportfor farmer-led conservation, to develop PGR amongfarming communities, universities and formal researchinstitutions, to enhance gender equity in PGRconservation and development and to promote policyregulations to support farmer-led conservation anddevelopment of PGR (SEARICE 1995).The feedback of farmer-partners on the CBDC BoholProjectIn 2005, the CBDC Philippines (Bohol) Project yearendreport featured the project’s work on lowland riceresearch in plant genetic resources and conservation,development and use (PRG-CDU) in sevencommunities in Campagao, Cansumbol, Riversideand Zamora (Bilar), Poblacion Vieja (Batuan),Katipunan (Carmen) and Malitbog (Dagohoy). Therewere seven active people’s organizations, made up of116 members, from the partner communities of theproject. Of the 116 members, 66 percent were activeparticipants. Farmers were classified as active membersif they were practitioners of sustainable agriculture(SA)-organic farming, conducted on-farm researchand trials on participatory plant breeding (PPB) orparticipatory varietal selection (PVS), actively attendedand participated in the meetings and activities of theorganization and were also active in the mainstreamingactivities of the project, especially in the implementationof the season-long training at the PGR-farmers’ fieldschool in the province (SEARICE 2005).Various farmer-partners in Bohol, both men and womenwho have participated in the CBDC training programon traditional and organic farming techniques, providedfeedback about seed conservation and development.Some of their comments are shown below:“At the start, I did not believe that rice breeding couldbe done but I also like to try inventing. My breedingobjectives are to solve the problem of sourcing seedsand to develop a new variety suited to my field. I washappy when I heard that the harvest of farmers withwhom I shared my seeds increased using my developedvariety. Other groups which wanted to learn aboutbreeding have also invited me to share my knowledge.Other than that, I did not depend anymore on seedsdeveloped in laboratories.” (Gerardo Calamba fromCansumbol, Bilar, SEARICE 2002).“One of the things that gave me the inspiration tocreate a new variety is the dream to develop a newvariety from my own initiative and which I can leaveas a legacy to my family. It developed my self-confidenceto do things like this even though I am already old.Doing plant breeding and selection helped me a lot,especially in the economic aspect. I did not have tobuy seeds anymore. I was also able to sell my produce.It enabled me to help other farmers since it gave methe opportunity to share my knowledge in breeding...”(Ruperta D. Mangaya-ay from Zamora, Bilar,SEARICE 2005).These comments indicate that SEARICE uses theconcept of alternative development in implementingits project. The attributes of this alternative paradigmare: that it is need-oriented, endogenous, selfreliant,ecologically sound and based on structuraltransformations (i.e., self-management by thecommunity). Alternative development involves theimprovement of the knowledge, attitudes and skills ofdisadvantaged people to utilize, sustain and improve theproductivity of available resources (Kaewthep 2000). Ituses a human approach and recognizes that the peopleknow their own needs best. Therefore, the technician(in this case, SEARICE’s field staff) who believes inthis approach first spends his/her time learning theneeds and priorities of the people before introducingtechnologies for improvement. The initial act of thetechnician under this approach is to learn rather thanto teach. The ultimate objective of the technician is todevelop the knowledge, attitude and skills of the peopleAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 189toward self-reliance (Smolders 2006).In practice, the human approach is applied to theconcept of the farmers’ field school (FFS), one of theinitiatives that SEARICE has implemented. An FFSuses a learn-by-doing approach with farmer groups. Itteaches them to apply what they have learned throughthe program to develop new activities to gain greatercontrol over local conditions.The communication patterns of the CBDC BoholProjectIn this section, I analyze the communication patterns ofthe CBDC Bohol project in order to understand howSEARICE encourages farmers to accept the CBDCprogram and to change their behavior from growing therice varieties promoted by state agencies to their ownrice varieties and how it convinces the general publicto accept and support farmers’ rights. The results andanalysis are organized into: target groups; the message;and communication methods.Target groupsThere are four levels of communication in this project:the community, national, regional and internationallevels. At the community level, SEARICE’s field staffidentified farmers in the seven communities as theproject’s main target group. The strategy is to strengthencommunity management of community agriculturalresources and to increase farm productivity.At the national, regional and international levels, thereare many target groups: farmers in other communities,other NGOs/academics, political leaders and partnersin service delivery. The communication strategy is toincrease awareness and technical and policy advocacycapacity at the mainstream level for plant geneticresources conservation, development and use, andagricultural policy-related issues. The approachesimplemented at these levels are networking, lobbying,advocacy and collaboration.MessagesMessages deal with both technical issues and policyissues. The technical messages sent to farmer-partners atthe community level and other farmers consist of threeimportant components. The first is the conservationand continuous utilization of, for example, communityseed banks and home gardens. The second deals withdevelopment, such as selecting and actual breedingaccording to farmer’s own breeding objectives. The lastone includes sustainable agricultural practices such asorganic agriculture and integrated farming systems.These messages are vital to the main target group becausethey can actually apply the knowledge they gain.“I first learned about breeding when SEARICEentered our barangay in 1996. In that training, theytaught us how to breed rice, and when I went backto our barangay, I immediately tried rice breeding.Rice breeding helped a lot in my farming since I wasable to have my own variety adapted to my fieldconditions. It is not hard for me now to find seedsto be planted in my field. I was also able to sharemy knowledge and methods in breeding with otherfarmers. They recognized the seeds that I developedas those developed by a farmer-breeder.” (CisenioSalces from Campagao, Bilar, SEARICE 2002).To deal with policy issues, SEARICE set up apolicy and information unit. The unit is involved inlobbying, advocacy and networking on issues relatedto biotechnology, intellectual property rights (IPR),biodiversity and plant genetic resources at the national,regional and international levels (SEARICE 2007).The policy issues are focused on the protection andpromotion of farmers’ rights and other issues that affectfarmer-partners. The main point of spreading thesepolicy issues is to claim farmers’ relationship with theland and their right to conserve, develop and freely shareplant genetic resources, to market agricultural products,to access technology and knowledge and to have theright to participate in decision making (SEARICE1996).At the Regional Conference on Sustainable CommunitybasedInitiatives as Expressions of Farmers’ Rights heldon 18 October 2006 in Tagbilaran City, SEARICElaunched the Rice Festival Declaration SupportingFarmers’ Rights for Food Security. Following is anexcerpt from the Declaration which highlights policyconcerns:“… Concerned about the absence of legislation orpolicies in many countries in support of farmers’ rightsto seeds and sustainable community-based initiativesas a means to enhance food security and contributeto poverty alleviation, and conscious of the need toprovide a supportive policy environment to promotefood security and poverty alleviation…(Rice FestivalDeclaration Supporting Farmers’ Rights for FoodSecurity, 18 October 2006).Another example of how effective messages can inspiretarget groups to take action comes from the communityAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

190 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTregistry in CBDC Bohol. When farmer-partners fromthe Campagao Farmers’ Production and ResearchAssociation (CFPRA) in Bilar received information onthe Plant Variety Protection Act of 2002, they decidedto establish a community registry as the community’sway of asserting its control over and access to seedand other genetic resources (Community BiodiversityDevelopment and Conservation Program 2006).SEARICE has produced three publication formats forits messages. The first is handouts containing technicalmessages for farmers such as, “Enhancing Farmers’Role in Crop Development: Framework Informationfor Participatory Plant Breeding in Farmer FieldSchools.” The second is books and newsletters aboutpolicy issues, such as the SEARICE Review. The last isbooks and booklets summing up field work experiencesfrom the CBDC Program such as A Profile of FarmerBreeders in Bohol, and, Pathways to Participatory FarmerPlant Breeding: Stories and Reflections of the CommunityBiodiversity Development and Conservation Program.Communication methodsThe CBCD Bohol project prioritizes interpersonalcommunication as a method of communication at thecommunity level. This interpersonal communicationconsists of many channels: personal media, 1 specificmedia 2 such as seminars, trainings and exchange visits,as well as printed media and electronic media producedby SEARICE. One finding of the study is that the mosteffective communication method at the communitylevel is when field staff play their own role as personalmedia.The SEARICE information flow model features theinteraction of “sender” (field staff) and “receiver”(farmers) through interpersonal communication. Inthis model, the field staff members have two workingprocesses. The first process is reflection and the secondone is action. To communicate with farmers-partners,SEARICE staff then use a three-way communicationprocess. This model illustrates:1) Feeding, which refers to the source gatheringinformation about the problems, knowledge, attitudes,skills and practices of intended receivers. In practice,feeding is done through baseline surveys, focus groupdiscussions, training needs analyses and pretesting ofmaterials.2) Feed forward which refers to the source planning,packaging and delivering the messages to the receiver(s)through group and interpersonal communication.3) Feedback which refers to source gathering informationabout the receiver’s reactions to the information or thechannels. In practice, feedback is gathered throughmonitoring and evaluation (Mercado 1991).Data from six focus group discussions 3 show thatevery farmer accepted SEARICE as the/a communityorganizer. SEARICE gives a presentation that informsfarmers of PPB/PVS techniques that can minimizefarmer’s production expenses, teaches them to conserveand develop seeds, encourages basic organic farmingrather than conventional farming and empowers themto lobby the Department of Agriculture to supportfarmers’ organizations.Moreover, all the farmers acknowledged thatSEARICE’s role is different from that of governmentagents because the government promotes conventionalfarming while SEARICE promotes organic farming andsustainable agriculture. The Department of Agriculturegives synthetic chemicals to farmers without actuallyinspecting the fields while SEARICE uses ecologicalmaterials and continues to monitor its services.Government agents provide loans but rarely servicesfrom farm technicians.Thus, an important point is that farmer-partnersneed close monitoring in the implementation of newtechnology and other services. They want the techniciansor staff to be hardworking, smiling, friendly, supportiveand approachable. The field staff should, therefore,continue monitoring and know how to train the farmerswell. They should also never give up, even if the farmerpartnersare having difficulty with the new activities.Apart from personal media, SEARICE emphasizesspecific media such as trainings, meetings, policydiscussions, seminars, exchange visits and closemonitoring to communicate with farmer-partners.The communication methods create public spaces forfarmers to share their ideas and thus, claim their rightsand protect the public interests of their communities.The significant attributes in the communicationpatterns of SEARICE—especially at the communitylevel—are smallness of scale, interchange of senderreceiverroles, horizontality of communication anddeinstitutionalization.At the national, regional and international levels,SEARICE uses networking and collaboration with otherfarmers, NGOs and academics. Many activities at theselevels take the form of technical assistance and policydiscussions with different organizations. There has alsobeen the formation of a provincial farmers’ seed network.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 191The communication methods at the higher levels focuson group communication and publications, such asmeetings, launching events, seminars, demonstrationsof methods and printed media. The main purposes ofgroup communication are to create awareness, increaseknowledge and convince target groups to adopt theirpractices.For political leaders, policy advocacy and campaigns arethe most effective strategies. SEARICE’s staff regularlyattends committee hearings and lobby political leaderson the issue of farmers’ rights at the provincial level.They also had an initial discussion on farmers’ rightswith one of the Congressmen in the province and lobbyfor church support of farmers’ rights.Furthermore, SEARICE participates in and supportsCBDC’s regional and global policy and mainstreamingactivities. For instance, it participates in the meetingsof the regional partners and attends conferences andpolicy workshops for farmers at the regional level,contributes news to CBDC’s website and its globalvideo documentary, writes papers and reports toadvocate CBDC’s policies for global mainstreaming,and also participates in CBDC policy events andregional trainings.Communication methods at the regional level includemixed specific media and electronic media such aswebsites, video documentaries and publications. Theimportant point of communication at the regionaland international levels is to create “a community ofsentiment.” It means that SEARICE tries to createa group that imagines and feels things together byparticipating in regional partners’ meetings and theproduction of electronic media. These communicationmethods are not limited to the national level; they aretransnational. Using these channels, SEARICE and itspartners create communities in and of themselves fromdifferent landscapes that have a common ideoscape offarmers’ rights to biodiversity resources and move fromshared imagination to collective action. This media alsohas become massively globalized; that is, it is active acrosslarge and irregular transnational terrains (Appadurai1996). The table below summarizes the communicationpatterns being employed by SEARICE.The process of constructing the meaning of farmers’rights to biodiversity resourcesSocial movements are not just shaped by culture;they also shape and reshape it. Therefore, the processof meaning construction is one cultural strategy ofsocial movements for changing power relations andlegitimizing their identities. Symbols, values, meanings,icons, and beliefs are adapted and molded to suit themovement’s aim and frequently are injected into thebroader culture via institutionalization and routinization(Johnston and Klandermans 1995, 9).SEARICE has been constructing the meaning offarmers’ rights to biodiversity resources through threeprocesses: public discourses, persuasive communicationand consciousness-raising during episodes of collectiveaction.Strategy Target groups Messages CommunicationmethodsBehavior developmentcommunication(users/clients)Social mobilization/Behavior developmentcommunication(partners in thecommunity)AdvocacySocial mobilization(partners in servicedelivery)Farmer -partners• Men• Women• Other farmers• Other NGOs• Academics• Youth• Political leaders• Opinion leaders• NGOs• Media producers• Regional partnersTechnical• Conservation• Development• Sustainable agriculturalpracticesPolicy issues• Farmers’ rights• GMOs, hybrid rice• Intellectual propertyrights• Technical messages• Policy issues• Policy issues that affectfarmers• Technical messages• Policy issuesTable 1: Communication patterns of SEARICE.Interpersonalcommunication• Personal media• Specific media• Farmer field school• Training• Exchange visit• Meeting• Policy discussion• Seminar• Printed mediaGroup communication• Training• Exchange visit• Meeting, seminar• Participatory research• Collaboration• Lobbying• Seminars• Printed media• Orientation program• Seminar, joint events• Study tour, workshop• Printed /electronicmediaAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

192 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTPublic discoursesSEARICE collaborates and shares information onfarmers’ rights issues with NGOs, academics andother civic groups at the local, national, regional andinternational levels. It also campaigns on the discourse offarmers’ rights to biodiversity resources with the publicthrough public forums, platforms for the discussion ofrelevant issues, and websites. There are many signs andslogans referring to the farmers’ rights discourse suchas, “Make organic food as your medicine.” Althoughthis slogan does not directly refer to farmers’ rightsand biodiversity, “organic food” refers to farmers andbiodiversity, while “your medicine” reflects the valueof plant varieties which farmers give to consumers.Therefore, the farmers’ rights discourse is legitimized byfarmer practice and consumer acceptance. This is oneexample of various slogans through which SEARICEtries to communicate the meaning of farmers’ rights tobiodiversity resources with the general public.However, both SEARICE’s collaborations and itscampaigns are limited to people associated with itsprogram partners and do not include the general public.SEARICE rarely releases its issues to the mass media orforms links with other networks around different issues.Thus, it does not widen public discourse on farmers’rights as it lacks a diversity of networks to support itscampaigns.Persuasive communicationPersuasive communication refers to specificcommunication with target groups in order to changetheir actions through slogans, exhibitions, and farmerfield schools. One of the slogans that SEARICEcommunicates with farmers is, “The seed of rice isthe seed of life.” This slogan aims to redefine “rice” as“life.” It means that farmers’ right to their life cannot beseparated from farmers’ right to their rice.SEARICE has succeeded in convincing its target groupfarmers to develop their own rice varieties. The persuasivecommunication of SEARICE is a crucial process, notonly for local practice, but also for policy participation.However, it cannot continue to develop this processand to make the farmer network push forward its ownpolicy at the national level by creating signs, slogans andother symbolic actions to present the specific meaningof farmers’ rights to each crucial group.Consciousness-raising during episodes of collective actionCommunity participation in activities aimed atdeveloping seed varieties is used to construct themeaning of farmers’ rights and to raise farmers’consciousness. SEARICE has used personal media, adialogue process, focus groups, trainings, and farmerfield schools to develop the skills and analyticalpotential of farmers. The signs or slogans about farmers’rights always emphasize the importance of empoweringfarmers’ confidence, potential and rights to developbiodiversity resources, such as, “You can develop yourown varieties.” or “Farmers are breeders.”The findings also show that the direct communityparticipation process is effective but it is not enough towiden the initiative. SEARICE should collaborate withthe local mass media, such as local radio, as a channelfor broader social mobilization by employing a learningprocess and giving useful information about farmers’rights to biodiversity resources. Whenever farmers openmore learning spaces by themselves, they can developtheir own meaning and progressively practice theirrights.Conditions for communication successInitiatives require an enabling environment to registersuccess. The success of the CBDC Bohol Projectcan be traced to a conscious identification of projectcomponents, selection of farmer-partners, enhancementof their status, establishment of an administrativestructure and the development of support networks.Appropriate components of the CBDC Bohol ProjectThe identification of target audiences is necessary forthe selection of appropriate communication methodsand message and is vital for successful communication.SEARICE clarifies its target groups at the communityand mainstream levels. Then it plans to use theappropriate channels with each target audience. Everyactivity is also based on participation and the exchangeof ideas.“…all activities which we have implemented in theproject are a campaign. At the local level, our style ofcampaign is to work with farmers through farmer fieldschools (FFS), among others, so that farmer partnerscan observe actual examples, adapt knowledge andknow how to implement techniques on their farm.We also conducted FFS, seminars and conferenceworkshops with municipal agricultural officers. Atthe regional level, we organized consultations andworkshops to build networks. Since ten years ago,we already worked and campaigned together withsome groups of farmers, NGOs and local governmentAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 193officials. …Our farmer partners have shifted fromgrowing traditional varieties to developing their ownseeds… I think we have gained some victories...”(Interview, Alywin Darlen Arnejo, coordinator ofCBDC Bohol Project, 13 December 2006).The objectives and work plan of this project are toolsthat can solve the problems of farmer-partners. Themain impediments that keep farmers from acceptingthe technologies that SEARICE advocates are a lack ofaccess to superior genetic material, a narrowed geneticbase for the major crops in the community (few varietiesavailable, specific demand for traits that the seed marketcannot supply), a reduced number of crop speciesavailable to the community, limited individual skills tomanage genetic resources, and a lack of collaborativeefforts to manage plant genetic resources.Most of the technical/scientific activities, especiallyPPB/PVS, organic farming and farmer field schools, areconcrete activities that farmers can put to use on theirown farms. Moreover, SEARICE is a non-governmentalorganization that has worked and campaignedcontinuously on the issue of plant genetic resourcesand seed for ten years. SEARICE’s goals are to workwith every sector, including farmers, academics, civilsociety, businesses and government. For that reason,every sector is always welcome to any events, seminars,or campaigns that it organizes.Efficient organization administrationSEARICE has an efficient administration. Theorganizational structure has four parts: administrationand finance, information and communication, policyadvocacy and technical work. This structure is the keyto SEARICE’s success because each part has its ownwork plan and clear mechanisms. For this reason, thestaff in each part can deeply develop their specific skills.For example, the technical staff can concentrate on theirwork in the field without worrying about fundraisingand sending reports to the funding agency because theexecutive director and policy staff are responsible forthose tasks. Thus, the field staff can continue to workwith and closely monitor farmer-partners, while thepolicy staff can disseminate useful information to theirtarget group and closely monitor policy developments.Attitudes of farmer-partnersWhether the project fails or succeeds depends onthe attitudes of the farmers. The six focus groupdiscussions show that farmers accepted this projectbecause it taught them techniques they did not knowbefore. Furthermore, the new methods developedand strengthened farmers’ own abilities to breed newvarieties and minimize their expenses. Because thefarmers themselves see the usefulness of this project,they have changed from growing the rice varietiesthat the state agencies promote to planting traditionalvarieties that they have developed themselves.“Participatory plant breeding is useful because withit, we do not need to buy high-cost varieties of seed,and at the same time, we preserve the traditionalseed. The Farmer Field School imparts knowledgeabout sustainable agriculture.” (Participant of afocus group discussion with farmer-partners inCansumbol, Bilar, 6 December 2006).Status of farmer-partners in societyIn general, farmers are poor. When they decide toplant a specific variety, they must buy the seeds at themarket. Often, these seeds cost more than they canafford. Since SEARICE introduced organic farming tothem, farmers have been able to spend less than they didwith the conventional farming that the Department ofAgriculture promotes. Accordingly, they have shifted toorganic farming.Vast networksSEARICE has networks that push for the recognitionof farmers’ rights to biodiversity at many levels, such asa network of NGOs that work at the grassroots level,and an international people’s network that campaignsagainst free trade, genetically modified organisms(GMOs) and patents. Since 2001, the project has beenvery productive in terms of mainstreaming and policyadvocacy through linkages with other NGOs and POs.Collaborative activities undertaken with other civilsociety organizations have also been conducted. In2001, SEARICE provided orientation and training onsustainable agriculture development to the membersof the Wahig Sierra Bullones Irrigator’s Associationin Sierra Bullones, Bohol. Moreover, the MontevideoFarmers’ Association in Carmen, Bohol, through thePeoples Fair Trade and Action Center; the OmjonFarmers’ Association in Valencia, Bohol, throughthe Soil and Water Conservation Foundation; andthe Calangahan Farmers’ Association and KabasakenFarmers’ Association in Sagbayan, Bohol, through Feedthe Children, Inc., requested trainings on sustainableagriculture development, particularly participatory ricevariety development.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

194 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTConstraining conditions of the CBDC BoholProjectThough SEARICE has a great deal of networks withwhich to collaborate, it still lacks a strong campaignstrategy for constructing a public discourse. “Farmers’rights” is the key public discourse that SEARICEneeds to establish in the social cognition. However, itcannot do this alone; the many networks with whichit collaborates now are not broad enough to raise theawareness of people to accept the idea of farmers’ rights.In order to successfully create this public discourse,SEARICE should collaborate with other movementsand initiate social spaces for people from differentclasses, ethnicities, cultures and other identities tolearn about the value of biodiversity resources, localknowledge and farmers’ rights.SEARICE still does not have a clear strategy andmechanism for creating policy processes and policycontents. For this reason, it cannot create a strongpublic discourse that strengthens policy-making onfarmers’ rights and farmer participation at the nationallevel. In order to do that, it should facilitate a “thinktank” group for developing alternative policies andmonitoring current policies by collaborating withsocial science academics and science academics, publicintellectuals and activists who are interested in farmers’rights.A number of activities in the work plan were also notconducted due to lack of time, shortage of staff andevents such as the national elections (SEARICE 2004).A lack of interactive learning in community planningbetween policy and community level staff preventsSEARICE from working with farmers for advocacywork. Furthermore, a shortage of staff prevents it frommainstreaming and networking, from having a detailedmonitoring plan, and from projecting collaborations andother project events. However, effective communicationat the local level cannot be denied; it is a good exampleof the strides that communication campaigns in thePhilippines have made.Conclusion and recommendationsA number of lessons can be learned from the work ofSEARICE. A communication strategy or plan shouldbe devised at four levels: community, national, regionaland international. Human and participatory approachesare practiced at the community level while networkingand collaborative approaches are considered at thenational, regional and international levels.Participation is key for successful communicationand project success. The identification of targetaudiences is necessary for the selection of appropriatecommunication methods and messages. Interpersonalcommunication, using personal media and specificmedia, is likewise fundamental in communicatingwith the main audience at the community level. Atthe same time, group communication, using specificmedia such as seminars, meetings, publications andelectronic media, is to be used at the national, regionaland international levels.Moreover, the main message sent to the target groupsshould be focused on plant genetic resources andfarmers’ rights. It consists of technical and policymessages that provide useful knowledge to target groupsfor adaptation and actual practice at the communitylevel. Thus, campaigns on the concept of farmers’ rightsshould be done to build a public discourse; to persuadestrategic partners to practice the farmers’ rights concept,such as local practice and policy initiatives; and in theprocess of consciousness-raising, to create a learningprocess and spaces for practicing farmers’ rights at thegrassroots level.However, success at the community level does notnecessarily carry over to the mainstreaming levelbecause of staff constraints and the lack of a full-fledgedmonitoring plan.The findings indicate that SEARICE should, therefore,link community-managed initiatives with academicinstitutions, other non-governmental organizations,people’s organizations, the mass media and governmentagencies at the municipal level in order to widen theconcept of farmers’ rights. It should also create a publicspace for farmer’s voices by setting up a working groupto be directly responsible for lobbying, coordinatingand closely monitoring the plans that it makes withits program partners at the community level. Theworking group should be composed of both field staffand policy staff, who can share their ideas and sum uptheir experiences from both the field and policy arenasthrough mutual work and interactive learning.SEARICE should also channel information about policyissues that affect farmer-partners through local radiostations since radio is the medium of communicationmost easily accessible to farmers. Likewise, sendingprinted materials such as press releases and newslettersdirectly to local mass media and other change agentswill not only disseminate information but also informlisteners about important points that it wants tocommunicate. Finally, SEARICE should integrate bothAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 195mass media and personal channels if it wants to speedup the diffusion process at any level.NOTES1 Personal media means a person who is a sender in theinterpersonal and intergroup media systems. Personalmedia may be composed of leaders in a community andpersons from outside the community, such as specialistsfrom government agencies or NGOs.2 Specific media means media produced for specific contentand receivers. Specific media include the printed media,electronic media and activity media.3 Six focus group discussions were conducted: Malitbogon 22 November 2006, Riverside on 27 November2006, Zamora on 29 November 2006, Campagao on4 December 2006, Batuan on 5 December 2006, andCansumbol on 6 December 2006.4Farmers’ rights are rights arising from the past, present andfuture contributions of farmers in conserving, improvingand making available plant genetic resources, particularlythose in the centers of origin/diversity (InternationalUndertaking on Plant Genetic Resources, Resolution5/89, November 1989). Farmers’ rights consist of: rightsand relationship to land; rights to conserve, develop andfreely share plant genetic resources; rights to marketagricultural products; rights to technology and knowledge;rights to participate in decision-making; and other relatedrights (SEARICE Review, December, 1996).5Of the different types of media (e.g., television, radio,newspapers), the radio is the most accessible torespondents.REFERENCESAppadurai, Arjun. “Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensionsof Globalization.” Public Worlds. Vol. 1. Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1996.Community Biodiversity Development and ConservationProgram- Bohol Project. Farmers’ Evaluation and Selection ofRice Varieties in Three Selected Villages in Bilar and Dagohoy,Bohol, Philippines. Technical Report Series of CBDCSoutheast Asia Program. SEARICE, 2001.Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation(CBDC) Program. Pathways to Participatory Farmer PlantBreeding: Stories and Reflections of the Community BiodiversityDevelopment and Conservation Program. Manila: SEARICE,2006.Johnston, Hank and Bert Klandermans. Eds. “The CulturalAnalysis of Social Movements.” Social Movement and Culture.London: UCL Press Limited, 1995.Kaewthep, Kanjana. Media for Community. Bangkok: ThailandResearch Fund, 2000.Mercado, Cesar M. “Development CommunicationManagement.” J. Dev.Comm. 2.2 (Dec. 1991): pp.__.Smolders, H. Ed. Enhancing Farmers’ Role in Crop Development:Framework Information for Participatory Plant Breeding inFarmer Field Schools. PEDIGREA publication. Netherlands:Centre for Genetic Resources, 2006.Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for CommunityEmpowerment (SEARICE). Proposal of the CommunityBiodiversity Development and Conservation (CBDC) Program.Manila: CBDC Philippines (Bohol) Project, 1995.Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for CommunityEmpowerment (SEARICE). “What do farmers have to sayabout farmers’ rights?” SEARICE REVIEW Dec. 1996.Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for CommunityEmpowerment (SEARICE). Profile of Farmer-Breeders inBohol. Manila: Community Biodiversity Development andConservation (CBDC) Program, Nov. 2002.Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for CommunityEmpowerment (SEARICE). CBDC Bohol Project Assessment,January-June 2004. (unpublished)Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for CommunityEmpowerment (SEARICE). Women Farmer-Breeders. Manila:Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation(CBDC) Program, 2005.Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for CommunityEmpowerment (SEARICE). Community BiodiversityDevelopment and Conservation (CBDC) Program: CBDCPhilippines (Bohol) Project Mid-year Report for 2005 (January-June 2005). (unpublished)Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for CommunityEmpowerment (SEARICE). Community BiodiversityDevelopment and Conservation (CBDC) Program: CBDCPhilippines (Bohol) Project Year-end Report (July-December2005). (unpublished)Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for CommunityAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

196 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTEmpowerment (SEARICE). Frequently Asked Questionsabout Community Registry. Manila: Community BiodiversityDevelopment and Conservation (CBDC) Program, n.d.Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for CommunityEmpowerment (SEARICE). “Rice Festival DeclarationSupporting Farmers’ Rights for Food Security.” RegionalConference on Sustainable Community-based Initiatives asExpressions of Farmers’ Rights, October 18, 2006 at MetroCenter, Tagbilaran City, Philippines.SEARICE. SEARICE Website. 2007. .Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 197CULTIVATION OF TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP IN CIVILSOCIETY AND THE CO-CREATION OF THE ENERGY FIELD FORDEMOCRATIZATION IN ASIAChaiwat ThirapantuThe challenges of the 21 st century: Democracy incrisis and the roles of civil society movementsIn the 1930s and 1940s, many European and Americanscholars turned their attention to the crisis of democracythat followed the economic depression and the rise oftotalitarianism (Strang 2006). Since the fall of the BerlinWall at the end of 1989, people in Eastern Europe, inLatin America, in Asia and Africa have been throwingoff dictatorships and tyrannies. However, democracy,the political system that they are yearning for, cannotfulfill their hopes for a better life. Even in WesternEurope and the United States, people have turned theirbacks on their governments. Voter turnouts sink, publicdebates get nastier, and democracy seems stymied in theface of mounting multiple challenges. The problemsthat the world faced before the Second World War werenot as complex as those we face now.We live and work in an era of turbulence andchallenges. The winds of change sweeping the world—digitalization, globalization, migration, demographicshifts and terrorism, as well as the degradation of socialand natural capital—are giving rise to arenas of clashingforces. These clashing forces play out as tension betweenmultiple polarities: speed and sustainability, market andsociety, progress and conservation, global and local waysof organizing, and top-down and bottom-up leadership(Scharmer 2001). In the last decade, there have beenmany articles and books and media reports warning usabout the world’s crises. Otto Scharmer has summarizedthese very poignantly:“The crisis of our time is not just a crisis of asingle leader, organization, country or conflict.The crisis of our time reveals the dying of an oldsocial structure, and way of thinking, and old wayof institutionalizing and enacting collective socialforms” (Scharmer 2007).In the last decade, civil society has become a new “power”in the virtual and real world. The growth of socialforums and the anti-war movement represents whatsocial movement theorists call “political opportunitystructures,” a new framework within which individualscan participate in local and global debates. In particular,the social forums have become the institutionalizationof the newest social movements from so-called anticapitalistmovements to environmental, social andmigration concerns. Moreover, in many parts of theworld, civil society joins with the state and the businesssector as the key institutions that are trying to shapeglobalization and sustainable development.However, civil society also has its weaknesses, particularlyin Southeast Asia. There are diverse groups with widelyvarying agendas that occupy the space that can bedefined as civil society. There is no single viewpointbut rather multiple views, sometimes contradictory.After the tsunami, there were some voices talking aboutthe accountability and transparency of civil societyorganizations. The double challenge, then, is not topromote civil society per se but rather to strengthenthe parts of it that can enhance the quality of publicpolicy outcomes and help advance progressive values.In pursuing these aims, there is a first crucial step tocreate a positive change in the complex system of civilsociety networks and then weave these changes into thefabric of the modern world. This is the most crucial taskin building a community of committed and distributedleaders in civil society movements. My researchmethodology is a kind of action research that combinesthree dimensions of observer, namely, the first person,second person and third person.As the first person, I reflected on my tacit (intrinsic)knowledge from personal experiences in trainingaround five hundred change agents and local leaders inthe last seven years. Moreover, I have used my body toexperience the ki energy flows and the field of energythrough practicing aikido and Japanese calligraphy.Ki (energy in Japanese; qi in Chinese) is a thousandsyear-oldEastern concept that Yasuo Yuasa has tried toinvestigate in a scientific way. Yuasa (1993) has definedthe concept of ki-energy as “an energy unique to theliving human body that becomes manifest, while beingtransformed, at psychological, physiological and physicallevels of self-cultivation.” Self-cultivation in Japanese iscalled shugyou and refers to training the body. However,it also implies training, as human beings, the spirit ormind by training the body. This is the self-cultivationmethod, or mind-body training method. In other words,Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

198 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTshugyou carries the meaning of perfecting the humanspirit or enhancing one’s personality (Yuasa 1993).Ki energy is an energy unique to aikido and Japanesecalligraphy. Practitioners of aikido, a Japanese martialarts, regard their ultimate secret to be the unification ofmind, ki (energy) and body skill (power).The first person research is aimed at understanding theintangible factors of leadership performance. As a secondperson observer, I interviewed and had discussions withsome civic leaders and academics in three countries tocollect information and insights on how they have dealtwith leadership development issues. Finally, as a thirdperson observer, I studied documents on transformativeleadership in management science, new science andEastern traditional wisdom.Systemic change: Be the change you want to see inthe worldWe must change the way we changeIn his book, Hope is Not a Method, General Sullivan,Chief of Staff of the US Army, emphasized that to meetthe enormous challenges encountered in transformingthe post-Cold War army, we must not only change butwe must also change the way we change (Sullivan 1997).For me, it is an important message (notion) for theleaders in civil society organizations all over the world torethink their future work and lives because civil societyorganizations, particularly in Southeast Asia, are facingtremendous pressures from dramatic developments atboth the local and global levels. I have seen symptomsof stress and burn out or “inward resignation” in manyleaders and social workers who have worked longerthan 10 years. In Thailand, leading social, political andenvironmental activists are coming into their 50s andone is hardly able to find young promising leaders incivil society organizations. When I was in Manila inFebruary 2007 and had several conversations with manyPhilippine civic leaders, I found similar concerns. SixtoDonato Macasaet, executive director of the Caucus ofDevelopment NGO Networks (CODE), told me aboutCODE’s “nurturing program” to give encouragementto “the successor generations”—future leaders fromthe community of non-government organizations/peoples’ organizations. He is conscious that thecapacity building process still faces a long journey ofsupporting transformative leadership development.Meanwhile, in Indonesia the civic leaders have notseen the consequences of this dilemma. In comparisonto the civil society organizations in Thailand and thePhilippines, they are young. They are getting involvedin a huge pile of dynamic problems that they are tryingto solve. They lamented about heavy workloads, lossof their work-life balance and struggles with their dayto-daywork but did not know how to cope with themiddle- and long-term challenges facing Indonesiansociety. My conversations with Sutoro Eko, directorof the Institute for Research and Empowerment (IRE),and Poppy Winanti from Gadjah Mada University, whois an advisor of IRE, revealed the fundamental problemsof civil society organizations within Southeast Asiancountries. They have no time for the individual andcollective reflection that is the core process of learningcapability. They just learn to “react” to the problemsthey face but do not learn to “tune in” to the emergingfuture. From my personal experiences working in thisfield for more than 30 years, I am afraid that the coregroups of Indonesian civil society will repeat the samemistakes that we have made in Thailand over the lasttwo decades. In my opinion, the future of civil societyis in our hands when we commit to organizationalturnaround and energize ourselves, the leaders and theactivists. The basic rationale for civil society organizationsis that in a situation of complex and rapid change, onlythose that are flexible, innovative and productive willexcel. For this to happen, it is argued, organizationsneed to “discover how to tap people’s commitment andcapacity to learn at all levels” (Senge 2006).Transformational change begins with personaltransformationMost civil society organizations all over the world areestablished for noble purposes—to make their ownsocieties and the world a better place to live. It is atremendous achievement that needs transformationalchange, which is a process that intertwines the personal,the team, the organization and the society at large.It is a process of change that shifts the leaders insidethemselves as well as outside. Hence, transformativeleadership takes on important new meanings in leadingthe changes. In essence, the transformative leaders arethose building the new community or organizationand its capabilities. They are the ones “walking ahead,”regardless of their management position or hierarchicalauthority. Such leadership is inevitably collective(Kofman 2007). Transformative leadership can havemany faces or many names, such as servant leadership,authentic leadership or resonant leadership (Greenleaf2002). The idea of transformational leadership was firstdeveloped by James MacGregor Burns in 1978 and laterextended by others. He showed the contrast betweenthis type of leadership and traditional leadership thatwielded power in organizational hierarchies and workedin a top-down manner. For Burns, transformativeleadership occurs when one or more persons engageAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 199with others in such a way that leaders and followersraise one another to higher levels of motivation andmorality. Leaders and followers may be inseparable infunction, but they are not the same. The leader takes theinitiative in making the leader-led connection; it is theleader who creates the links that allow communicationand exchanges to take place (Burns 1979). Peter Senge’sdefinition of leadership can evoke a powerful image ofthe transformative leadership that we want to cultivate.Senge’s notion of leadership is the capacity of a humancommunity—people living and working together—tobring forth new realities. Leadership breathes life intothe enterprise, without which nothing truly emerges.Put another way, leadership is about tapping the energyto create—especially to create something that mattersdeeply (Senge 2002).Therefore, the cultivation of transformative leadershipstarts with our mind shift by changing our worldviewand paradigms. We must change the dominantworldview of the modern culture—the world as amachine. The Newtonian/Cartesian view sees theworld as comprised of separate things, particles, andof the relationship between them. Cause is separatefrom effect. Subject is separate from object, fact fromvalue. Relationships among things are linear, theybegin and they end (Wheatley 2006). The leaders mustcommit to a journey toward lifelong learning, meaningand exploring. Joseph Jaworski, founder of GeneronConsulting and author of the book, Synchronicity: TheInner Path of Leadership, has eloquently emphasized thepower of mind shift:“In this process of continuous learning, growth,and development, we undergo three fundamentalshifts of mind that set the stage for our becomingmore capable of participating in our unfoldingfuture. The first is a shift in the way we thinkabout the world. Instead of seeing the universeas mechanistic, fixed, and determined, we beginto see it as open, dynamic, and alive. The secondshift occurs when we come to understand thateverything else and that relationship is theorganizing principle of the universe. The third shiftoccurs in our understanding of commitment. It’snot, as I once thought, doing what ever it takes tomake things happen. It is rather, a willingness tolisten, yield, and respond to the inner voice thatguides us toward our destiny.When we follow our purpose and experiencethese fundamental shifts of mind, a sense of flowdevelops and we find ourselves in a coherent fieldof others who share our sense of purpose. We beginto see that with very small movements, at just theright time and place, all sorts of consequent actionsare brought into being. We start to notice that thepeople who come to us are the very ones we needin relationship to our commitment and the doorseems to open for us in ways that we could hardlyimagine” (Jaworski 1998).Some models of leadership buildingCharles Handy, a renowned business guru, was askedabout his experience in working with outstandingleaders from various organizations. What did he seeas the key attributes that make them successful? Heanswered, “The effective leaders that I have met are astrange combination of passionate human beings whocan communicate that passion to others and who at thesame time forcefully take risks.” This answer means thatleaders are born, not made. Handy argued that those areskills which cannot be learned from others and cannotbe taught, but are often the matter of finding oneselfin the right place (Handy 1997). I also share some partof his thoughts that extraordinary, great leaders suchas Gandhi, Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandelaare born, but ordinary, good leaders can be taught.However, in this paradoxical and complex world,one extraordinary, great leader would not succeedif s/he was the only heroic one to solve the world’swicked problems. S/he also needs a community oftransformative leaders that support and work with him/her. I must emphasize again that leadership cultivationinvolves both individuals and collectives.Despite crises and challenges in our societies, we cannotsimply wait for “born” leaders to appear. I believe thateffective leadership can be taught. There are manyexamples of leadership cultivation that we can studyand apply to our contexts in Southeast Asia.Across more than two decades, Ronald Heifetz andhis colleagues at Harvard University have pioneereda distinct, bold approach to learning and teachingleadership, created and practiced in a manner that isresponsive to the hunger for a new story about whatleadership means and the ways of learning it. Othertheorists and practitioners have explored a newunderstanding of leadership that more adequatelyhonors an interdependent, systemic awareness and theneed for significant shifts in perspective and practice(Parks 2005). The Center for Public Leadership hasoffered degree programs and executive programs. Itsexecutive programs are designed from one week toseveral weeks long.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

200 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTSenge and his colleagues have also facilitated theFoundation for Leadership workshop for more than 20years. The three-day program is based on the leadershipdevelopment process described in The Fifth Discipline bySenge. The purpose of this course is to explore sourcesof leadership (Scharmer 2001).A final example of leadership building is the leadershipproject of the Matsushita Institute of Government andManagement, which started in 1980. This Institute wasestablished by Konosuke Matsushita, the founder ofPanasonic, who spent seven billion yen from his privatefortune to promote leadership for the 21 st century. Iwill describe some details of the Matsushita Institute ofGovernment and Management (MIGM) because it isan interesting example of a servant leadership buildingprogram or transformative leadership cultivation,particularly in Asia. Here are some parts of Matsushita’sstatement:“In a world where complex and difficult problemsthreaten human society in unprecedented ways,a fundamental reevaluation of human naturehas become necessary. A rethinking, properlyconnected, would provide a deeper understandingof the relationship of all individuals to themselves,to community, to their nation, to the world, andto the environment around them. Only then canhumanity realize, for the first time ever, its fullpotential, with civilization advancing to a newand higher stage. But as I thought about thesegreat challenges and great opportunities, I realizedthat this search for a new philosophy of peaceand prosperity requires leaders of great vision andability who would be capable of implementingthese new ideals. Since so many of the world’s andJapan’s problems can be attributed to the lack ofa clear, future-oriented perspective and of a longterm national and global policy, it seemed to meurgently necessary to begin fostering talented andpromising young people capable of assuming theresponsibility for these great tasks. Surely, neitherthe world at large and Japan in particular havedone enough in this regard previously… For thesereasons, I decide to establish the Matsushita Schoolof Government and Management in order to givetalented young persons the opportunity to realizebetter futures for themselves, for Japan and for theworld…” (Matsushita 2007).In selecting associates for its three-year training course,the Institute seeks applicants who demonstrate fortitudein character, initiative and vision. Particularly, it seeksthose associates who demonstrate that they have a sunaomind, a Japanese concept referring to a mindset thatis capable of accepting life in a constructive way andis able to see things as they are without prejudice orpreconceived ideas. The three-year curriculum of MIGMis very intensive in cooperative research, global literacyskills and Japanese traditional culture (Matsushita2007). Finally, the associates should commit to fivevows:1) To realize heartfelt ambition;2) To have a spirit of independence and self-reliance;3) To learn from all things;4) To be on the cutting edge of a creative innovation;5) To have a deep-felt spirit of gratitude and cooperation(Matsushita 2007).In my interviews with alumni, I asked whether allalumni still keep the five vows in their work. Theanswer was that not all of them do; especially those whohave become politicians cannot maintain the vows. Thisdoes not surprise me at all, because leadership is not aone-time act in which you pass an exam and becomea graduate. Training courses are useful to learn newmethods and new skills, which should translate intoeveryday life; even an executive leader cannot solve“wicked problems” alone. Leaders still need to work aspart of a good team and learn together to create lastingchange. Transformative leadership is a life-long learningprocess done individually and collectively.Learning organizations or communities of practice as placesfor leadership cultivationIn an interview by Melvin McLeod (2001), Sengedescribed a learning organization as a community ofpractice. The concept of a community of practice refersto the process of social learning that occurs when peoplewho have a common interest in some subject or problemcollaborate over an extended period to share ideas, findsolutions, and build innovations. The term was first usedin 1991 by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, who usedit in relation to situated learning as part of an attempt“to rethink learning” at the Institute for Research andLearning. In 1998, Wenger extended the concept andapplied it to other contexts, including organizationalsettings. More recently, Communities of Practicehave become associated with knowledge managementas people have begun to see them as ways of buildingsocial capital, nurturing new knowledge, stimulatinginnovation or sharing existing tacit knowledge withinan organization. In The Fifth Discipline: The Art andPractice of the Learning Organization, Senge defineda learning organization as human beings cooperatingin dynamic systems that are in a state of continuousAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 201adaptation and improvement. According to him:“Real learning gets to the heart of what it means tobe human. Through learning we re-create ourselves.Through learning we become able to do somethingwe were never able to do. Through learning were-perceive the world and our relationship to it.Through learning we extend our capacity to create,to be part of the generative process of life. Thereis within each of us a deep hunger for this type oflearning” (Senge, 2006).For Senge, a learning organization or communityof practice is a place where people are committed topracticing collective cultivation or collective being. Heuses the term “cultivation” in this context to mean deepdevelopment, becoming a human being. Furthermore,for Senge there is no genuine cultivation withoutdiscipline (McLeod 2001). He emphasized the matter ofthe mastery of five basic disciplines to achieve the resultsparticipants want to see. They are: 1) system thinking;2) personal mastery; 3) mental models; 4) building ashared vision; and 5) team learning (Senge, 2006).System thinking is the conceptual cornerstone of thelearning organization approach. It is the discipline thatintegrates the others, fusing them into a coherent bodyof the theory and practice. System thinking is basedupon a growing body of theory about the behavior offeedback and complexity—the innate tendencies ofa system that lead to growth and stability over time.System theory’s ability to comprehend and address thewhole and to examine the interrelationship between theparts provides, for Senge, both the incentive and themeans to integrate the disciplines (Smith 2001).Personal mastery is the discipline that emphasizes thatorganizations learn only through individuals who learn.Individual learning does not guarantee organizationallearning, but without it no organizational learningoccurs. It goes beyond competence and skills, althoughit involves them. It goes beyond spiritual opening,although it involves spiritual growth. Personal masteryis the discipline of aspiration and involves formulatinga coherent picture of the results people most desire togain as individuals (their personal vision), of focusingour energies, of developing patience and seeing theircurrent reality objectively. Learning to cultivate thetension between vision and reality can expand people’scapacity to make better choices and to achieve more ofthe results that they have chosen (Smith 2001).The discipline of mental models starts with turning themirror inward: learning to unearth our internal picturesof the world, to bring them to the surface and holdthem rigorously to scrutiny. It also includes the abilityto carry on contemplative conversations that balanceinquiry and advocacy, where people expose their ownthinking effectively and make that thinking open tothe influence of others. If organizations are to developa capacity to work with mental models, then it will benecessary for people to learn new skills and develop neworientations, and for there to be institutional changesthat foster such change (Smith 2007).Building a shared vision is a collective discipline thatestablishes a focus on mutual purpose. Moreover, it isan important task of leadership to inspire and nourisha sense of commitment in organization by developingpictures of the future they seek to create. Such avision has the power to be uplifting and to encourageexperimentation and innovation (Smith 2007).Team learning is a discipline of group interaction.Through techniques like dialogue and skillful discussion,teams transform their collective thinking, learning tomobilize their energies and abilities that are greaterthan the sum of the individual member’s talents. Whendialogue is joined with system thinking, Senge (2006)argues, there is the possibility of creating language moresuited for dealing with complexity.All these disciplines are concerned with a shift of mindfrom seeing parts to seeing wholes, from seeing peopleas helpless reactors to seeing them as active participantsin shaping their reality, from reacting to the present tocreating the future.Furthermore, each discipline provides a vital dimension.Each is necessary to the others if organizations arelearning to connect people’s energies. In 2006, I usedthese five disciplines to create common core values fortwo business companies in Bangkok. We saw someshifts in people’s thinking and interacting that led toteam learning. I really do believe that these practices inthe work place can lead to the building of a “communityof commitment” because, without commitment, thechanges required will never take place.Implications: Self-cultivation and skilful facilitationfor the co-creation of the field of energyAn effective leader will have the capacity to use his or her“Self” as the vehicle—the blank canvas—for sensing,tuning into and bringing into presence that which s/he wants to emerge. William O’Brien, the former CEOof the Hannover Insurance Company, summarized hisexperiences in leading change as follows, “The successAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

202 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTof an intervention depends on the interior condition ofthe intervener.” In other words, the success of a tangiblemove in a particular situation depends on the Self of theintervener. Although the various Eastern and Westerntraditions of inner cultivation and development differ intheir beliefs and assumptions, they all focus on practiceas key for enhancing personal cultivation and spiritualgrowth (Scharmer 2007).In my action research, I began practicing aikido indojo (an aikido school) and also practiced Japanesecalligraphy to understand by direct experience how tocreate energy and connect my energy with other persons.Leadership is the capacity to take effective action withothers in full awareness of one’s impact on those others,whether individuals, communities, organizations andeven society. As I emphasized at the beginning ofthis paper, social and organizational transformationbegins with personal transformation—changing theperceptions, intentions and commitments of those whocan influence the future. In the last two decades, therehave been many examples of leaders being engagedin experiences that broaden worldviews, enhancereadiness to act with others and tap inner sources ofinspiration and motivation. Tom Atlee, founder of thenon-profit Co-Intelligence Institute, has articulated hispersonal journey in connecting the field of energies inhis writing, “Democracy and the Evolution of SocietalIntelligence.” He wrote, “I have experienced a fewrare groups where everyone’s a peer, where leadershipis shared, where a special kind of energy among themallows them to explore and solve problems together,successfully. I have watched people with very differentideas, backgrounds, aptitudes and knowledge usingthat diversity creatively. They come up with brilliantsolutions and proposals—better than any of them couldcome up with alone. The group seems more intelligentthan its individual members…I call these dynamics‘collective intelligence’—which manifests as ‘groupintelligence’ in groups and ‘societal intelligence’ inwhole societies” (Atlee 2007).To facilitate such collaborative action, leaders mustlearn to embody social technology skills. Nowadays,there are many methodologies that could be learnedand practiced, such as appreciative inquiry, open spacetechnology, future search, dynamic facilitation, theWorld Cafe and the U-Process. There are many reportsabout using these new social technologies for systemicchange. Here is an example:“The work in Zambia exemplifies that theU-process offers both a methodology to addresschallenges, as well as a way to learn how to makea shift in how we pay attention. The Zambia teamused the U-process to design the workshops, aswell as to affect the overall process” (Kaeufer andFlick 2007).I have used those social methodologies such ascommunity planning and city participatory planningto ignite and connect people’s energy since 1997. InJuly 2004, I organized and facilitated the first people’spolitical meeting, “Big Bang Bangkok,” with 1,000participants. We invited Bangkok residents to sharetheir concerns, find common goals and present theirviews to the candidates of the gubernatorial election.The meeting was a success. The people’s forum wasbroadcast live on cable TV and was televised on theevening news and reported in the newspapers the nextmorning. On 8-9 October 2005, I used the World Caféand appreciative inquiry methods for the facilitationof a “People’s Assembly” with 3,000 participants fromaround 60 provinces of Thailand. My intention was toshowcase a strategic dialogue between people’s politicsand partisan politics. This could open a chance for Thaisociety to start taking a journey on a road less traveledto a “new democracy,” as Tom Atlee put it in TheTao of Democracy (Thirapantu 2007). Unfortunately,we could not pursue the follow-up actions as we hadplanned because one month later a political turmoilstarted in Thailand that eventually triggered the 19September 2006 coup. All political and civil societywork has stopped for almost two years, but I thinkthat the “People’s Assembly” still has some impact onthe Democrat Party’s strategies. In the Bangkok Postnewspaper’s top stories on Monday, 23 July 2007,there was an article reporting that the Democrat Partyhad kick-started the electoral race with its first generalmeeting on Friday, 20 July, and held its first fundraisera day later. Television spots featured a confidentAbhisit Vejjajiva, the party leader, proclaiming thatthe party’s new agenda, “People First,” had been aired(Prateepchaikul 2007).I believe that civil society organizations will have moreimpact on the destiny of their own societies when they“transcend” themselves to become real human beingsand if the transformative leaders utilize the socialtechnologies mentioned above to convene conversationsthat result in vitalizing a community that knows whatit wants, a community with a vision and capacityfor revitalizing even governmental systems. This canresult either from communities taking the initiative toact on their own behalf or an ongoing representativeconstituency that knows what it wants and whichcannot be ignored.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 203Some years ago, civil society organizations in Japan,Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand started to payattention to cultivating transformative leadership as akey factor to foster and strengthen their movements.The learning processes in these four countries could befaster if their civil society leaders had opportunities toshare their working experiences and reflections togetherregularly.Rosa Zubizarreta has manifested this belief inenergetic words:“We need positive leadership of all kinds, beginningwith the ‘creative leadership’ that inspired us to offerthe seed of a compelling vision to the large whole.These visions can serve as ‘organizing principles’ thatdraw others in to work collectively on a commonproject for the benefit of all. Once a group hasconverged around a particular vision, ‘facilitativeleadership’ is needed to ensure that every voice isheard in a way that is not a cacophony of voices.We need to offer simple structures that encouragethe growth and engagement of all participants, sothat each person’s creativity can serve to benefit thewhole. In this manner, we create the conditionswhere a vision can live, grow, and be shared”(Zubizarreta 2007).REFERENCESAtlee, Tom. Democracy and the Evolution of SocietalIntelligence. 10 May 2007 .Burns, James McGregor. Leadership. New York: Harper &Row, 1979.Greenleaf, Robert. Servant Leadership: A Journey into theNature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. 25 th anniversary ed.New Jersey: Paulist Press, 2002.Handy, Charles. “The Search for Meaning: A Conversationwith Charles Handy by Charles Handy.” Leader to Leader 5(Summer 1997): 10.Kaeufer, Katrin and Judith Flick. “Cross-sectoral Leadershipfor Collective Action on HIV and AIDS in Zambia: Applyingfor U-process to Complex Societal Changes.” Reflection 8.2(2007): pp. __.Kofman, Fred and Peter Senge. Communities and Commitment:The Heart of Learning Organizations. Special Issue on theLearning Organization. 14 May 2007 .Jaworski, Joseph. Destiny and Leader. 1998. 3 June 2007.McLeod, Melvin. Changing How We Work Together.Shambhala Sun, January 2001: 29.Parks, Sharon Daloz. Leadership Can Be Taught: A BoldApproach for a Complex World. Boston: Harvard BusinessPress, 2005.Prateepchaikul, Veera. “Thaksin’s Long Shadow.” BangkokPost 23 July 2007. 23 July 2007 .Scharmer, Claus Otto. Illuminating the Blind Spot: Leadershipin Context of Emerging Worlds. With Brian Arthur, JonathanDay, Joseph Jaworski, Michael Jung, Ikujiro Nonaka, andPeter Senge. McKinsey-Society for Organizational Learning(SoL). Leadership Project (1999-2001. 2 May 2007 .Scharmer, Claus Otto. Illuminating the Blind Spot ofLeadership. 3 May 2007 .Scharmer, Claus Otto. Theory-U: Leading From the FutureIt Emerges, the Social Technology of Presencing. 20 July 2007.Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice ofthe Learning Organization. New York: Currency, 2006.Senge, Peter M. Leadership in Living Organizations: AnotherInsightful View of Leadership and Its Natural Emergence inCompanies. 28 October 2002. 15 July 2007 .Smith, Mark K. Peter Senge and the Learning Organization..Strang, Johan. Why Nordic Democracy? Positivism and theCrisis of Democracy in 1930s and 40s. October 2006. 30 June2007 .Sullivan, Gordon R. and Michael V. Harper. Hope is Not aMethod: What Business Can Learn from the US Army. NewYork: Broadway, 1997Thirapantu, Chaiwat. The People’s Assembly in Thailand:The Quest for Sustaining Energy for Social Change. Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

204 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTWheatley, Margaret. Leadership and the New Science:Discovering Order in Chaotic World. San Francisco: Berret-Koehler, 2006.Yuasa, Yasuo. The Body, Self-Cultivation and Ki-energy. NewYork: State University of New York Press, 1993.Zubizarreta, Rosa. Deepening Democracy: Awakening the Spiritof Our Shared Life Together. Collective Wisdom Initiative SeedPaper. 30 June 2007 .Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 205INFORMING GOVERNANCE? SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING ININDONESIA AND THE PHILIPPINESAdnan A. HezriBackground: governance and sustainabledevelopmentThe 21 st century has been dubbed the century of theenvironment because human economic activities havecaused unprecedented changes to global ecosystems(Lubchenco 1998). Concomitant with the globalenvironmental changes throughout the 20 th centuryare changes in society’s response to emerging ecologicalthreats (McNeill 2000; Simmons 1996). Two broadwaves of the institutionalization of environmentalpolicies can be identified (Janicke and Weidner1997). The first occurred in the late 1960s to early1970s. The second wave came in the aftermath of theBrundtland Report in 1987 and the Rio Conferencein 1992, bringing in its wake the worldwide spread ofnew or revised institutional arrangements for effectiveenvironmental protection, with its new focus on theconcept of sustainable development or sustainability(Kraft and Vig 1994).The two waves of institutionalization are different in termsof policy content and corresponding policy instruments.The policy content of the first wave can be seen as areaction to early forms of environmental threats. Eventhough predominantly driven by domestic policies, thefirst wave diffused internationally following the UnitedNations Conference on Human Environment, held inStockholm in 1972. The second wave, in contrast, wasa direct response to global ecological challenges, suchas biodiversity loss and climate change. Dovers (1997;c.f. Lafferty 2004) argues that these are sustainabilityproblems, ‘different in degree and in kind’ from thediscrete environmental threats that were characteristicof the first wave. Arguably, sustainability is a higherordersocial goal equivalent to democracy and justice.The number of policy instruments that governmentshave applied has been more pervasive in the second wavemainly to address the integrative logic of sustainabledevelopment, which is to combine environmental,social and economic factors and goals.The shift to multiple instruments is also characteristicof government reorganizing itself by engaging withother parties, suggesting the shift from government togovernance in tackling long-term goals for sustainability.Environmental governance is synonymous withinterventions aimed at changes in environment-relatedincentives, knowledge, institutions, decision makingand behaviors. More specifically, governance refersto the set of regulatory processes, mechanisms andorganizations through which political actors influenceenvironmental actions and outcomes. It includes theactions of the state and, in addition, encompasses actorssuch as civil society, businesses and NGOs. Governanceis, therefore, not the same as government (Rhodes1996).Indicators are important for decisionmaking andgovernance. With the purported aim of measuring andreporting on progress towards sustainable development,variants of sustainability indicator systems have beendeveloped by governments and civil societies spanningmultiple scales of governance (Parris and Kates 2003;Hezri and Dovers 2006). In theory, by integratinginformation from the environmental, social andeconomic domains and then feeding knowledge anddirection back to a correspondingly wide range ofpolicy sectors, sustainability indicator systems mayfacilitate cross-agency and portfolio policy connectivity.Additionally, information such as sustainabilityindicators, if appropriately designed and used, maymediate the connection between the state and civilsociety. In this regard, sustainability indicators assumethe role of a tool for social justice.Before the emergence of contemporary ideas ofsustainability, development indicators such as GrossDomestic Product (GDP) per capita and the HumanDevelopment Index (HDI) were used for measuringprogress, directing policy and allocating resources.Indicators are also intended to enhance transparency,accountability and democracy (Solesbury 2002).If made available in the public domain throughenhanced socialization (that is, by involving users in thedevelopment and use of indicator systems), they mayallow civil society to provide political feedback thatencourages decisionmakers to connect decisions to thecontents of the indicators. There is an expectation thatby opening up more communication channels throughthe development and use of indicators, we will establisha public sphere, an agora in which to discuss and workAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

206 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTtogether for the resolution of the very difficult issuesthat face us as societies. Implicitly, indicator systemsought to function as a policy instrument connectingscientific knowledge to a system of users.Uncertainty regarding the role of information in policymakingis not a theme unique to the sustainabilitydebate. The notion of adapting knowledge to theneeds of society, or the general relationship betweenknowledge and decision-making, dates back at least asfar as the time of the Ancient Greeks (Rich 1979). Theinformational contents of most knowledge systems,indicators included, are consistently subjected tomultiple interpretations in any modern society. Thisranges from absolute instrumental rational assumptionto the more volatile, power-based relational conceptssuch as secrecy, concealment and manipulation. Theunderlying question is how do we optimize publicpolicy decisions by basing them on accurate andadequate information?Despite the popularity of sustainability indicatorsystems, the understanding of how they are connectedto policy processes is still limited. Although thereexists a substantial body of literature on sustainabilityindicators, most of it is mainly technical with lesstreatment on the issues dealing with processes aroundindicator development (Hezri 2004). As sustainabilityhas been gradually integrated into public policy acrossthe world, there is a need for research that sees beyondthe production of sustainability indicators to theircommunication and reception in policy processes. Ofcentral concern is the question of what outputs andimpacts indicator-based assessments have had, or couldhave, on policy processes and associated social debates.Such a process-based perspective requires an analysisof the social and institutional basis of sustainabilityindicator systems (Hezri and Dovers 2006; Rosenstromand Kyllonen 2007).Research objectives and designAgainst this background, the paper provides a preliminaryexploration of this subject through two case studiesdrawn from primary and secondary data research usingsemi-structured interviews and documentary analysis.The two case studies are on the national sustainabilityindicator systems in Indonesia and the Philippines.The overall goal is to understand the dynamics of theinteraction of sustainability indicators with policysystems and processes. The objectives of this researchare four-pronged:• To understand the salient features of policy processesfor sustainable development in Indonesia and thePhilippines;• To review the attributes of the major nationalsustainability indicator systems and how they areshaped and utilized by the policy systems;• To investigate the extent and impact of sustainabilityindicator systems on policy processes throughpolicy learning; and• To compare the two case studies by contrastingsimilarities and differences.The study proceeded in three stages: the field study, thetwo singular case study syntheses and a multiple casesynthesis at the final stage of the research. The field studyfor both Indonesia and the Philippines took four monthseach. The first two months involved documentaryresearch and the identification of the key policycommunity in the area of sustainable development. Thefinal two months were used to interview key officials,practitioners and civil society representatives involvedin developing and using sustainability indicators.Policy processes for sustainable development inIndonesia and the PhilippinesBefore the East Asian economic crisis in 1998, Indonesiahad achieved remarkably rapid growth, povertyreduction and other forms of social development forseveral decades. This high growth, accompanied byunprecedented industrialization, high populationgrowth, structural transformation of the productionand consumption base and rapid urbanization, wasnot conducive to the attainment of the country’senvironmental sustainability. Sustainable developmentbecame a recognized public policy framework thattook into account socio-political, economic andenvironmental aspects to support the developmentof solutions to these pressing problems. A strategicarticulation of the challenges toward sustainabledevelopment for the country is found in an ‘advisory’document entitled The Agenda 21 Indonesia (StateMinistry for Environment 1997). Prior to its release inMarch 1997, the preparation of the eighteen-chapterreport took two years, with the involvement of 22national consultants who formed working groupscomprised of 1,000 government officials and membersof NGOs, academe, the private sector and the generalpublic. The document contains recommendations forsustainable development up to the year 2020 for eachsector of development. This was followed by the releaseof Sectoral Agenda 21 documents in 2000, covering themining, energy, housing, tourism and forestry sectors.These processes marked a shift from the hitherto formallegalisticapproach that gave sole responsibility to theAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 207state in environmental policymaking (Santoso 1999;Setiawan and Hadi 2007).Although Agenda 21 Indonesia started as a promisingapproach to envisioning a sustainable future, itsinstitutional and policy supports were not fullydeveloped. The 1998 economic crisis caused bothcivil society and the government to react to the moreurgent demand for national political reforms followingthe sociopolitical upheavals. As a result, the Agenda21 Indonesia document failed to be followed up withcredible commitments for institutional change. Thefollowing observation was made in an evaluation ofthe implementation of sustainable development inIndonesia:“Despite some achievements, the implementationof Agenda 21 was less than satisfactory and muchremains to be done. The implementation of Agenda21 in Indonesia is confronted with several problems,ranging from inadequate public and governmentawareness to lack of funding and inadequatepolitical will.” (Ministry of Environment 2003, 2)Many of the goals and programs in Agenda 21 Indonesiafound their way into a business-as-usual mode, largelyassimilated into existing planning mechanisms andprocesses. The implication of this is that the distinctionbetween separate environmental issues and sustainabilityproblems (which should be seen as integrative) couldnot be established. A further consequence of this is alack of facilitation of bird’s-eye-view monitoring andthe coordination of progress toward sustainability. Theabove notwithstanding, other indirect policy reformsare not contradictory to the principles of institutionalchange for sustainability. Apart from the twin processesof democratization and decentralization, a recentpolicy change to institutionalize Corporate SocialResponsibility principles is a step in the right directionin the spirit of sustainable development.In contrast to Indonesia, policy processes on sustainabledevelopment in the Philippines can be traced backto as early as the 1980s. The first concentrated movetowards sustainable development in the Philippinesbegan in 1987 with the drafting of the PhilippineStrategy for Sustainable Development (PSSD). A semigovernmentalbody, the Philippine Council forSustainable Development (PCSD), was created tochart environmental and sustainable developmentinitiatives in the country. The PCSD adopts theprinciples of consensus-building in their structure byinstitutionalising the participation of members of civilsociety as the counterparts of government representatives.A major product of this process is the formulation ofPhilippine Agenda 21 (PA21), a blueprint for sustainabledevelopment which was launched in 1996. PresidentRamos, in the foreword to the Philippine Agenda 21(PCSD 1996), considered sustainable development as“a matter of survival.” The PA21 strategy provides, forthe critical issues of sustainability for the next thirtyyears, implementation strategies as well as time boundqualitative and process-related targets in relation to theinstitutions involved. It adopts two-pronged strategiesto map out the action agenda, creating the enablingconditions to (a) assist the various stakeholders to buildtheir capacities towards sustainable development; and(b) direct efforts at conserving, managing, protectingand rehabilitating ecosystems.In contrast to Indonesia, whereby the strategy processeshad institutional grounding in the environmentdepartment with limited influences across government,the Philippines has taken a more strategic approach, asseen in the chairmanship of the PCSD. This council ischaired by the vice-chairman of the National EconomicDevelopment Authority (NEDA), which is also thedesignated lead government agency for PCSD. Thefacts that PCSD Secretariat is located within the NEDApremises and that national planning in the Philippineshas a high component of multi-sectoral integrationhave facilitated the work of the PCSD to introducethe sustainable development framework in nationalplanning. The PA21 case has provided a conceptualframework for integrating sustainability concerns inthe country’s medium- and long-term developmentplans. Through Memorandum Order Number 33,NEDA was directed to integrate the PA21 into theMedium-Term Philippine Development Plan 1993-1998(MTPDP), which is the master plan for developmentin the Philippines. The above notwithstanding, it wasargued in the report, From Rio to Manila: Ten YearsAfter An Assessment of Agenda 21 Implementation inthe Philippines, that although the extent and quality ofimplementation of the PA21 commitments appear tobe generally high, the impact of implementation hasbeen low.Indicator systems in Indonesia and the PhilippinesThis research is premised on the distinctiveness ofsustainability as opposed to discrete environmentalissues (see Dovers 1997; Lafferty 2004). A similar logicunderpins the view that the development of sustainabilityindicator systems involves a reorientation of the macroinformationsystem from discrete environmental issuesto sustainability. This would require the extension andintegration of environmental and social assessment,Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

208 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTmonitoring and planning that should be particularlystressed in connection with sustainability assessmentand reporting. Moreover, the evolutionary referencenecessitates societal willingness to change the policycontent from environment to sustainability, integratingmultiple perspectives by absorbing the logic ofintegration. As a distinct policy area but one comprisingmultiple sectors, values and perspectives, sustainabilitydemands a greater stock of information compared totraditional policy areas.However, it was quickly realized from the outset that thesustainability indicator systems that are used in practicein the Philippines and Indonesia are mostly propositional.Examples include sector-based indicator systems such asHousing and Environment Health Indicators (Philippines)and Forestry Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable ForestManagement (Indonesia), to name just two instances.Although these indicator systems contribute toward theunderstanding of sustainability, or more precisely informsustainability, they are not fully-fledged sustainabilityindicator systems. Within this context, the researchreported here examines ‘symptomatic’ indicator systemsfor sustainability, that is, emerging fragmented and nonholisticindicator systems that measure some aspects ofsustainability. Ceteris paribus, these indicator systemsshould in the long run contribute to the developmentof sustainability indicator systems that resonate withpolicy and societal decision-making.An indicator assessment that tries to measure theholistic notion of sustainability is the green accountingsystem. It allows analysis of the inherent trade-offsand interlinkages among the economic, social andenvironmental dimensions of sustainable development.Both Indonesia and the Philippines have experimentedwith variants of green accounting since the early1990s. In the Philippines, a pioneering work calledthe Natural Resource Accounting Project (ENRAP)began in 1991 with funding from the United StatesAgency for International Development (USAID). ThePhilippine Agenda 21 process developed the conceptfurther in 1994 by implementing a program calledIntegrated Environmental Management for SustainableDevelopment (IEMSD) to support efforts in theintegration of the environment in decision-making. Aparallel aim was to strengthen people’s participationand constituency-building for environmental policyadvocacy. Funded by the United Nations DevelopmentProgramme (UNDP), IEMSD has six sub-programsfocusing on formulating sustainability indicatorsthrough components such as Environment andNatural Resources Accounting (ENRA), SustainableDevelopment Models (SDM) and the Environment andNatural Resource (ENR) Database (Cabrido 1997).Similarly, there are empirical exercises that try to developa green accounting system specifically for Indonesia, orat least include Indonesia in their cross-country studies.The Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) andthe Ministry of Environment undertook similar stepsby conducting case studies in constructing a naturalresources account and estimating the Indonesian Eco-Domestic Product and Green GDP. The resourcescovered were timber, oil, gas, and coal, and the netpricemethod to calculate the depletion of resourceswas used. As in the Philippines, the construction of agreen accounting system for Indonesia was pioneeredby researchers from international organizations suchas the World Bank and the World Resources Institute.Funding provision from these external organizationshas the downside of difficulty in ensuring a capacityfor repeated measurement and monitoring beyond theproject timeline. Benefits to policy-making can onlyhappen when a green accounting system is maintained,tested and adjusted over time, allowing institutions tochange and adapt accordingly.Although highly desirable, an integrated environmentand development linkages measurement tool suchas green accounting requires high investment for itscomprehensive data requirement. Indicators need to beunderpinned by data. Data availability and their qualityvary greatly between policy sectors and countries. Asfar as the evidence goes from the two case studies,adequate basic data to support the development ofsustainability indicators is still a distant possibility.Moreover, data collection methodologies are frequentlyinconsistent. The Philippines’ participation in testing acore set of indicators under the auspices of the UnitedNations Commission for Sustainable Development(UNCSD) highlighted this data gap situation. Duringthis indicator testing process, the need for institutionalsupport to build agencies’ capabilities in data collection,compilation and analysis, along with training for thedevelopment of skills in the use of indicators, waspointed out.The collection of environment statistics is important toassess the current environmental problems of a countryand to make informed decisions about environmentalpolicies. The data gap problems faced by Indonesiaand the Philippines include inaccessible existing andunavailable information. While both nations have longhad statistical offices that monitor various aspects of theeconomy and society, most environmental statistics arelocked up in sectoral monitoring and reporting systems.The challenge is to develop sophisticated governmentalAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 209capabilities to collate and integrate information fromthe disparate sources. The integration of socio-economicinformation with environmental parameters began tobe addressed with the development of environmentalstatistics by the Central Statistics Bureau (BPS) inIndonesia and the National Statistical CoordinationBoard (NSCB) and National Statistics Office (NSO) inthe Philippines. BPS began publishing EnvironmentalStatistics Indonesia annually in 1982 while the NSCBissues the Philippines Compendium of EnvironmentStatistics (PCES) once every two years. The PCES was ajoint effort of the NSCB and other agencies representedin the six inter-agency technical working groups thatwere established to institutionalize environment statisticsin the Philippines. The formulation of the PhilippineFramework for the Development of Environment Statistics(PFDES) was undertaken to solve the inadequacy in thecollection and compilation of environment statistics.Although the approach undertaken to develop theseenvironmental statistics was rather conventional innature, it nevertheless takes advantage of existinginfrastructure and requires minimal new investment.Compared to the green accounting system describedabove, environmental statistics are often less integrativein the sense that they do not integrate nature-societyparameters.Important as environmental statistics may be fordecision-making, their utility is limited to the provisionof facts and figures. Absent in these environmentalstatistics publications are analyses of the interactionbetween human activities and environmental conditions.State-of-the-Environment Reporting (SoER) is theway many governments typically report on trends inbiophysical environmental parameters in relation tosocioeconomic indicators. This narrative reporting toolis used worldwide to describe human activities thatexert pressures on the environment, changing the qualityand quantity (the state) of natural resources. Humanmanagement responses to the changes include any formof organized behaviour that seeks to reduce, prevent orameliorate undesirable changes. Indonesia’s first Stateof the Environment Report was released in 2003 by theMinistry of Environment (KLH) in cooperation withthe Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).The aim of producing this document was to providea yearly overview of environmental conditions andsustainable development in Indonesia.Apart from government initiatives, internationalorganizations and civil society are also actively involvedin developing other forms of SoE reports. The WorldBank’s Environment Monitor series is a periodicreporting system that presents thematic reports whichvary among different years. Examples of past reportsinclude Philippine Environment Monitor 2000: GeneralEnvironment Trends and Indonesia EnvironmentMonitor 2003: Pollution Reduction. The WorldBank has also engaged in a more extensive SoE-typeanalysis of the prospect of sustainability in Indonesiawith the publication of Indonesia Environment andDevelopment Report 1994. In addition there are alsosnapshot and non-periodic SoE reports such as theCountry Environment Analysis for the Philippines 2005prepared by the Asian Development Bank. Apart fromthese official environmental reports, NGOs in bothcountries have also developed numerous unofficial SoEstatistics and sector profile indicators (for example, onbiodiversity, energy and human settlements), whichmay not necessarily tally with official figures.Both in Indonesia and the Philippines, the most policyrelevantindicator system with bearing on sustainability isthe Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Indicators.Governments globally have to abide by the MillenniumDeclaration, which is a commitment amongst a largenumber of developing and developed countries toachieve certain social development objectives. TheDeclaration’s operational targets and goals are madeexplicit in the MDG. Indonesia and Philippines, alongwith countries participating in the MDG effort, havedeclared a 25-year achievement plan, which will end in2015. The United Nations Secretariat and its specializedagencies and programs, as well as representatives of theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bankand the Organisation for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) have defined eight goals, 18targets and 48 indicators to measure progress towardsthe Millennium Development Goals. Among the eightgoals, Goal 7 is to ensure environmental sustainability,which includes three targets and eight indicators.Indonesia’s and the Philippines’ institutional responsesto the development and monitoring of the MDG areimpressive. Key development planning agencies, suchas the Philippines’ National Economic DevelopmentAuthority (NEDA) and Indonesia’s NationalDevelopment Planning Agency (BAPPENAS), areundertaking the development of national MDG withthe support of the United Nations DevelopmentProgramme (UNDP). National statistical agencies suchas BPS and NSCB are responsible for providing qualitystatistical information in the form of measurable,quantitative indicators in order to monitor Indonesia’sand the Philippines’ MDG targets achievement. MDGindicators have become an important reference indevelopment implementation in Indonesia, from theplanning phase as stated in the Medium-Term NationalAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

210 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTDevelopment Plan (RPJMN) to its implementation.Participation in the MDG, which require reportingagainst stated targets, could reveal many areas ofinformation irregularities. For instance, there is someuncertainty about the amount of forest cover in thePhilippines. Data from the Forest Management Bureau(FMB) indicate that 34 percent of forestland containssome form of forest cover but that forest cover hasbeen declining over the past ten years. In contrast, theNational Mapping and Resource Information Authority(NAMRIA) data indicate that 49 percent of the totalland area of the Philippines contains some sort of forestcover and that this percentage has been increasing inthe past several years. This is a case whereby indicatordevelopment forces improvement in the quality andprecision of existing data. Moreover, advocacy forthe MDG also comes from Houses of Congress andother sectors of society. For instance, the PhilippineSustainability Watch, a network of NGOs, providesfeedback and comments on the implementationperformance of the MDG targets in the Philippines.This is a case whereby an indicator system begins to havea significant impact on policy processes. The followingsection discusses this further.Uses and impact of sustainability indicator systemson policy processesDespite popular acceptance of sustainability as apolicy goal, the provision of data and statistics onenvironmental conditions is still lagging behind.Within this milieu, most of indicator systems discussedabove (except the MDG system) are still in their earlystages of development. In other words, case studies inIndonesia and the Philippines characterize situationswhereby institutional reporting for sustainability is stillembryonic.As pioneering policy experiments, indicator initiativesin these countries involve only minimal disseminationto and socialization among potential users. Thisnotwithstanding, a credible commitment, albeitonly through experimentation, to couple indicatordevelopment to a solid policy process is still absentin both countries. Although the Philippines hasinstitutionalized one of the most innovative processesfor sustainable development globally, the constructionof indicators has not been coupled effectively to itsAgenda 21 process. Efforts thus far still do not fulfil theintegrative logic for sustainable development. Withouta sustained effort to develop the capacity for empiricalbasedenvironmental policies, the sustainabilitydiscourse will remain issue-based and responses willcontinue to be formulated mainly along environmentallogic, fragmented and piecemeal. The onus is on bothgovernment and civil society to engage continuously indeveloping indicators that tell a story understandableto society at large. Examples elsewhere include thepromotion of the Genuine Progress Indicator byindependent organizations such as Redefining Progressin the USA and the Australia Institute in Australia.As for existing indicator systems in Indonesia and thePhilippines, there is a need to leverage the informationdeveloped within the science and policy domains tothe public domain as well. Findings from this researchindicate that without the substantial pre-testing andrevision of indicators, efforts to communicate withstakeholders and the public could be frustrated. Forexample, the inadequate socialization of users toIndonesia’s State of the Environment report throughworkshops and forums caused potential users, suchas environmental NGOs, to be suspicious of thechosen indicators as ‘only telling half-truth.’ Someinformants interviewed stated their preference forindicators provided by international organizations fortheir ‘neutral’ and ‘non-partisan’ values. Strategiesare, therefore, needed for better socialization anddissemination of indicators and sustainability indicatorsystems. This, however, has to take into account thespecificities of indicator programs. For highly technicalsystems such as green accounting, indicators aredeveloped by agency scientists and external consultantswith specialized expertise, who determine which datacollected by the department are sufficiently usefuland reliable to develop into standardized indicators.Therefore, the socialization of these indicator systemsis still inevitably limited to the circle of participatingscientists and government officials.For indicator systems that are confined withingovernment policy and science domains, the level ofawareness of these systems among potential users, be theyfrom civil society or industry stakeholders, is still low.The development of such governmental sustainabilityindicators reflects a lengthy process of agency scientistsand managers engaging in ‘knowledge selection’that yields concise, understandable presentations ofenvironmental data. Therefore, the correspondingimpact of indicator systems on policy processes inboth countries, if viewed from the framework ofpolicy learning (see Hezri 2004), constitutes mainlyinstrumental and government learning. This means thatonly selected government officials and participatingcivil society members will gain lessons about the efficacyof specific indicators or the suitability of institutionalarrangements related to indicator programmes. OneAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 211implication is that these indicators will be inaccessibleand incomprehensible to the general public. In thiscontext, it is unlikely that indicator development wouldenable social and political learning, whereby socialvalues and a normative understanding of sustainabilityare enhanced and empowered to move social actions.Within this context, the usefulness of a sustainabilityindicator system as a tool of governance follows thetraditional function of information in governance,that is, information is used to define and ‘control’ theemerging policy area of sustainability. With the guidinglogic of technical appraisal, indicators will be more usefulfor providing baseline information to guide governmentdecisions, and less as a tool for communicating withvarious stakeholders. In the Philippine case study,it seems plausible for NGOs to provide alternativeenvironmental statistics, albeit modest in sophisticationand quality. This raises the question of what is stoppingmore members of civil society from replicating such aninitiative.As with most developing countries in the world,Indonesia and the Philippines are still encumberedby the inadequacy of ecological data to developnational level indicators. Indicator systems demanda strengthened capacity in innovation systems andscientific infrastructure. At a basic level, this entailsan improvement in data acquisition and assimilation,especially the operating technology of data pooling,calibration and archiving. In theory, a strong sciencebase enables indicator development to reach theprocessing and application stages, transforming datatranslation and mediation into indicators amenablefor use. In policy systems such as Indonesia and thePhilippines, where the base of science is weak or at anearlier stage of development, the utility of indicators islimited to pointing to areas where more informationis needed, compromising the potential to steer actualpolicy change. As a result, the translation and mediationof sustainability indicators into a negotiation spacewhereby official information is debated and contestedby civil society are therefore negated. Due to the highinvestment needed in developing this capacity, nationalgovernments in cooperation with donor agencies arelikely to dominate efforts to develop indicators in thenear future. More severely, the existing trend couldpersist whereby governments dominate information andcivil society thrives on issues. International benchmarkswill continue to play a mediating role, with the MDGas an example.Conclusions and ImplicationsDisconnect and disjuncture are the hallmarks of moderngovernments. This is especially true for a relativelyyoung policy area such as sustainability. When theconceptual logic is still ambiguous, measurement willsuffer accordingly. In theory, liberal societies suchas Indonesia and the Philippines ought to be morereceptive to developing and using indicator systemscompared to a conservative society such as Malaysia (seeHezri 2005). The success of embedding sustainabilityindicator systems into the decision-making fabric iscontingent upon the nature of interactions between stateand society. The more liberal the nature of interactionis, the more possible it becomes for a sustainabilityindicator system to be a useful tool for governance; thatis, if indicators are made available in the public domain,they will allow civil society to provide political feedbackto decisions made by governments. Moreover, the twinprocesses of democratization and decentralization inboth countries offer further promises for the widespreaduse of sustainability indicator systems. These alone are,however, insufficient to effect significant changes inIndonesia and the Philippines as far as sustainabilitypolicies are concerned. Indeed, a policy-resonantindicator system is a function of robust science andcredible policy processes requiring a strong scientificunderpinning and a solid institutional basis. Thefollowing three strategies are imperative to promotingsustainability indicators as a tool for governance:1. The scientific infrastructure and innovation systemof both Indonesia and the Philippines should becontinuously developed. The existing technologicalcapacity in both countries to monitor the environmentusing tools such as remote sensing, geographicalinformation system (GIS) and modelling is stillunderdeveloped. The uptake of these technologiescould be enhanced not just by higher research anddevelopment (R&D) allocation, but also by couplingthem to long-term ecological monitoring initiativeswhich will provide appropriate data for indicatordevelopment. This strategy could pacify polemics arisingfrom a data-poor debate such as the present claim ofIndonesia being the world’s third largest net emitter ofcarbon dioxide;2. An unambiguous coercive government structure,be it formal or informal, is desirable to enableinformation and indicators to move across scales asneeded. Indonesia could emulate the Philippines inestablishing a coordinating agency/committee whichis not separated from the mainstream decision-makingprocess. To institutionalize indicator assessment, bothAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

212 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTgovernments could underpin sustainability reportingby providing a statutory basis, and connect indicatordevelopment to the budgetary allocation system andcore public administration bureaus. These steps couldbe the basis for incorporating sustainability indicatorsas an agenda in institutional politics; and3. A liberal interaction between the state and society isthe precondition for a more functional penetration ofindicators in public policy and governance. The policycommunity in Indonesia and the Philippines shouldactively release indicators into the public domainand to other branches of government including thelegislature and judiciary. This is the essence of indicatorsocialization. Information technology and the internetshould be utilized as key dissemination media. This hasto be complemented by the conventional mass mediadistribution of indicators. Furthermore, policy advocacyin both countries ought to be harmonized with theuse of indicators, so that policy debate becomes morequantitative.These strategies are only a guide, and hence shouldnot be treated as more than that. Their applicationin Indonesia and the Philippines should be advancedcarefully, based on a case-by-case examination. Thatnotwithstanding, adherence to these principles wouldsignificantly enhance the connectivity of indicatorsand policy, and hence its utility as a tool to informgovernance.REFERENCESCabrido, Candido. “Sustainable Development Indicators:Philippine Government Initiatives.” Sustainability Indicators:Report of the Project on Indicators for Sustainable Development,SCOPE 58. Eds. Moldan, Bedrich and Suzanne Bilharz.Chichester, U.K.: John Wiley and Sons, 1997: 344-351.Dovers, Stephen. “Sustainability: Demands on Policy.”Journal of Public Policy 16 (1997): 303-318.Hezri, Adnan. “Sustainability Indicators System and PolicyProcesses in Malaysia: A Framework for Utilisation andLearning.” Journal of Environmental Management 73 (2004):357-371.Hezri, Adnan. “Utilisation of Sustainability Indicators andImpact Through Policy Learning in the Malaysian PolicyProcesses.” Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy andManagement 7(2005): 575-595.Hezri, Adnan and Stephen Dovers. “Sustainability Indicators,Policy and Governance: Issues for Ecological Economics.”Ecological Economics 60(2006): 86-99.Janicke, Martin and Helmut Weidner. “Summary: GlobalEnvironmental Policy Learning.” National EnvironmentalPolicies: A Comparative Study of Capacity Building. Eds.Martin Janicke and Helmut Weidner. Berlin: Springer, 1997:299-313.Kraft, Michael and Norman Vig. “Environmental Policyfrom the 1970s to the 1990s: Continuity and Change.Environmental Policy in the 1990s: Toward a New Agenda.Eds. Norman Vig and Michael Kraft. Washington, D.C.:CQ Press, 1994: 81-99.Lafferty, William. Governance for Sustainable Development:The Challenge of Adapting Form to Function. Cheltenham,UK: Edward Elgar, 2004.Lubchenco, Jane. “Entering the Century of the Environment:A New Social Contract for Science.” Science 279 (1998): 491-497.McNeill, John. Something New Under the Sun: AnEnvironmental History of the Twentieth Century World.London: Penguin Books, 2000.Ministry of Environment. State of the Environment in Indonesiain 2002. Jakarta: Ministry of the Environment, 2003.Parris, Thomas and Robert Kates. “Characterising andMeasuring Sustainable Development.” Annual Review ofEnvironment and Resources 28 (2003): 559-586.PCSD. Philippine Agenda 21: National Agenda for SustainableDevelopment. Manila: Philippine Council for SustainableDevelopment, 1996.Rhodes, Rod. “The New Governance: Governing withoutGovernment.” Political Studies 44 (1996): 652-667.Rich, Robert. “The Pursuit of Knowledge.” Knowledge:Creation, Diffusion and Utilisation 1 (1979): 6-30.Rosenstrom, Ullä and Simo Kyllönen. “Impacts ofParticipatory Approach to Developing National LevelSustainable Development Indicators in Finland.” Journal ofEnvironmental Management 84 (2007): 282-298.Santoso, Purwo. “The Politics of Environmental Policy-Making in Indonesia: A Study of State Capacity, 1967-1994.”Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, London School of Economicsand Political Science, 1999.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 213Setiawan, Bakti and Sudharto Hadi. “Regional Autonomyand Local Resource Management in Indonesia.” Asia PacificViewpoint 48(2007): 72-84.Simmons, Ian. Changing the Face of the Earth: Culture,Environment, History. 2nd ed. London: Blackwell, 1996.Solesbury, William. “The Ascendancy of Evidence.” PlanningTheory & Practice 3 (2002): 90-96.State Ministry for Environment. Agenda 21 Indonesia:National Strategy for Sustainable Development. Jakarta: KantorMenteri Negara Lingkungan Hidup, 1997.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

214 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTREDEFINING THE ASIAN SPACE: A COMPARATIVE VIEWOF EVOLVING STREET CULTURE AND PEDESTRIAN SPACEDEVELOPMENT IN BANDUNG, BANGKOK AND MANILAIderlina Mateo-BabianoIntroductionAsian streets convey a sensorial experience distinct fromthe Western model. Traditional knowledge resultingfrom the environment and sociocultural histories isimprinted on how people use the streets and how thesestreets are formed. The veneration of nature spirits, asseen by the presence of street shrines along the sidewalks,is an Asian phenomenon reflective of animistic roots.Diverse activities such as street vending and hawkingadd to the thriving character of the sidewalk, imitatingthe diversity of the Asian forest and further enhancingthe pedestrian experience. However, from a transportviewpoint, the presence of these activities serves as abarrier to smooth pedestrian flow and contributes tothe deterioration of the street environment. Moreover,street use has also become a political issue whereinvendor presence has become a symbol of a city’s pooreconomy and, because of its unregulated characteristic,encourages irregular migrants. Streets are also beingblamed for hosting other negative activities such asbeing a haven for drugs and becoming a living spacefor the homeless.This study works within the premise that the traditionalknowledge systems that evolved throughout a city’shistory, starting from its forest beginnings to thestrong influence of acculturation, may provide a betterunderstanding of pedestrian street culture, and inparticular, how the amalgamation of cultures tangiblyshaped street configuration and contemporary streetuse, especially in Asian colonial cities. This may provideinputs to address pedestrian issues and the improvementof contemporary streets.ObjectivesThe objectives of the study are: (1) to examine thespatio-historical development of urban street spaceand pedestrian culture within three case cities:Bandung (Indonesia), Bangkok (Thailand) and Manila(Philippines); (2) to compare the influence of historicaltrends, with Bangkok having limited external influenceand Bandung and Manila representing colonial cities,and examine how these historical trends affected spacemorphology, street sociology and pedestrian psychology;and (3) to identify factors that influence local streetculture to further understand street morphogenesis, theinterplay of movement and non-movement behaviorand street space utilization.MethodologyThe study analyzed three case cities: Bandung,Bangkok and Manila. Bandung is a colonial city in amountainous, temperate zone; Manila is also a colonialcity but on a plain with a tropical, humid climate.Like Manila, Bangkok also developed on a plain witha tropical, humid climate but, unlike Bandung andManila, experienced only limited colonial influence.The study starts with the sociocultural perspective ofspatial use as a way of understanding Asian pedestriansand street use. It is descriptive, interpretative andempirical, utilizing culture to define the parameters thatsustain people’s use of the street environment. Datagathering was conducted through a review of historicalprecedents on street space use, an intensive review ofprimary and secondary resources, direct observationand street user questionnaire surveys. The aim was toprove that present space utilization is still a consequenceof and reflects the underlying pedestrian culture ofthe past. An extensive examination of streets focusingmainly on emergent pedestrian spaces, referring to bothmovement and non-movement, was conducted.Initially, three types of data collection activities wereimplemented in Bandung to examine street userbehavior: a pedestrian diary, an ocular inspection surveyand interviews. However, the low response rate of 15percent led to a major change in the research process.Instead, a street user need survey was developed utilizingthe analytic hierarchy process (AHP), which wasintroduced by Saaty (1980). AHP is a decision-makingtool and evaluation procedure that incorporates bothqualitative and quantitative factors. It has the advantageof reflecting the way people think and make decisionsby simplifying complex decision to a series of one-toonecomparisons. The survey’s goal was to elicit userresponse on what a positive pedestrian environment is.English and Thai versions of the survey instrument wereAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 215developed, which underwent pilot testing. Aware thatthis type of study poses the danger of oversimplificationand unwarranted generalizations, the author reiterateshere that these are inferential concepts and need toundergo more extensive empirical study.FindingsThe findings illustrate the results of the comparativeanalysis of Asian city streets to validate the influenceof the forest environment within their street spaces.Even with diverse historical trends and the influenceof acculturation, a deep and underlying parallelism onhow people utilize space gives rise to a distinctly Asianculture of space. The forest-based concept clarifiessociological similarities arising from the similarity inecological context that produced related socioculturaladaptations.Factors influencing Bandung, Bangkok and ManilaGeography and climate have a deep impact on people’sway-of-life and behavior. This section discusses variousenvironmental as well as sociocultural factors thatinfluenced the development of the three cities. TheAsian region’s tropical forest environment serves asan appropriate starting point in discussing the variousinfluences ranging from the physical and social contextto socio-cultural adaptations and settlement formation.Environmental factors: Climate, geography and ecosystemIn general, Southeast Asia is described as having diverseclimatic influences with a naturally dense forest cover,high biodiversity and riverine coastal movements.Bandung is the fourth largest city of Indonesia and thecapital of West Java. The southern portion is relativelyflat compared to its hilly northern counterpart (Siregar1990). Thus, typical developments are located in thelower valley. Bangkok lies adjacent to the Chao PhrayaRiver, which is considered the central artery of thewhole territory. The average altitude of Bangkok issignificantly low, and thus prone to flooding. Similarly,Manila lies on the flat plains of Luzon and developedon the shores of the Pasig River. In the three cities, theriver is considered a critical component in settlementdevelopment because it facilitates transportation,communication and trade with other areas (Blakemore1996). Moreover, socioeconomic and culturaldevelopment are linked with rivers and streams. TheCikapundung River runs north to south throughBandung, dividing the area into two geographicfeatures with only a single bridge to connect bothsides. The Chao Phraya River is known for its role asan initial point of development. In pre-colonial Manila,the Pasig River and the Canal de la Reina served as acommunication route and a distribution network forthe produce brought to the city from the provinces (DeViana 2001).Sociocultural adaptations: Thought development andacculturationIn the three case cities, the development of polytheisticreligious thought was highly influenced by the forestenvironment and indicates the closeness of religion tothe way of life of its inhabitants. Pre-colonial Indonesiaand the Philippines practiced animism with a strongemphasis on ancestor worship, while for the Thais,homage and respect was the key feature of their socialrelations as it is customary to pay their respects towardsthe land spirit (chao thi) of their homes (Askew n.d.).Polytheistic belief was present wherein an ordinaryperson perceived the natural world to be animated by avast array of deities who inhabited the trees, rivers andcaves (Andaya and Ishii 2000). However, acculturationin the region led to the introduction of Islam by Arabictraders in the 13th century. In the Philippines, asidefrom Islam, Catholicism was also introduced throughSpanish colonization. Ongoing trade with India andChina further shaped Southeast Asia’s socioculturallifestyle. The amalgamation of cultures contributes tothe evolution of distinct ways in which people utilizedtheir streets. This is further reflected in the contemporaryperiod in the ubiquitous presence of Chinese enclaves:Chinese Camp in Indonesia, Chinatown in Bangkokand Chinese Sangleys in Binondo, Manila.Morphological development in the case citiesThe section discusses the morphological developmentof the three case cities as a function of their forest-basedroots as well as the acculturation process that followed.Settlement formationThe oldest reference to Bandung was in 1488 whenit was the capital of the Kingdom of Pajajaran. Themajority of Bandung’s population has Sundanese roots,and the polytheistic beliefs of animism still dominatetheir present life cycle in congruence with their strongIslamic beliefs. Elements present in the Sundaneseurban residential quarter (kampung) include a watersource, open space (lapangan) serving as social venue forits inhabitants, and a rectangular house plan reflectingthe democratic characteristic of the village inhabitants(Salura 2006). The pre-Dutch sunda village consisted ofabout 40 families, usually related to each other. WhenAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

216 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTthe maximum number was achieved, another settlementwas developed in another area. This practice createdsporadic clusters distributed all over the Priangan region.There was a distinguishable absence of material culturewhile a very high oral culture was distinctly present(Affandy 2006). The lapangan served as the inhabitants’venue for socialization while the open square or alunalunbecame the starting point for major roads andhelped establish the town’s grid dimension. Kampungshave existed since the pre-colonial period. Thus, thecontemporary urban kampungs are reinterpretationsof the traditional village pattern (Geertz 1965) of pre-Dutch Indonesians. Similarly, the Philippine barangayreflects the traditional village morphology of precolonialPhilippine settlements.Bangkok was originally built in 1782 to succeedAyuthaya as the national capital. Most commonerslived on floating houses (phae) or houses on stilts inrivers or its tributary canals (Askew 1996) to adaptto the physical environment. Typical districts orneighborhoods (yarn) were often designated with aspecific function or community. However, Thailandlacks the colonial legacy common to its Southeast Asianneighbors, making it stand out from the rest.Bangkok and Manila are port towns. Both developedadjacent to bodies of water. Prehistoric Manila was athriving river settlement which took on a strassendorf(linear) form (Reed 1978), with the chieftain’s houseat the center serving as residential palace and venuefor other religio-socio-political activities of the village.Rivers, canals and other waterways served as distributionnetwork, public space, market and social space (Iwaken.d.).Historic districts in Asian cities may be described asconducive to walking as well as other non-motorizedtransport modes because of their intensive land use mixand compact quality. The typical density is pegged at100 to 250 people per hectare (Barter and Raad 2000)but could go as high as 600 persons per hectare in thecase of Indonesia (Diwisusanto 2006). Low to mediumrisestructures dictate the typical urban form, whereinwithin these enclaves it would be possible to experiencethe inhabitants’ local culture. An examination of aSundanese kampung in Bandung would show the lackof a restrictive social hierarchy among the inhabitants.Community members are considered part of one family.People flexibly adapt to the various changes happeningaround them.Colonial Bandung and ManilaIn 1919, the North Development Plan was developedand implemented in Bandung with the aim of creatinga wholly European district in a tropical country. It waseven called the prototype of an Indische colonial city.Greenery was an important characteristic in the newdevelopment (Soewarno n.d.). In Manila, segregationwas enforced during the colonial period with Spanishinhabitants living inside the walls (Intramuros) whilethe natives lived in the surrounding suburbs. This wasalso true in other colonial cities such as Bandung. Twoconcepts that physically influenced town building in thePhilippines were bajo de las campana wherein the indios(natives) were allowed to settle within hearing distanceof the church bells, thus defining settlement size, whilethe cuadricula, which was lifted from the Laws of theIndies, defined the urban form of the community coreas consisting of an open plaza with the principal streetslaid out on a grid pattern based from the four sides andcorners of the plaza.Development of access waysIn historic districts, access ways are narrow pathwayswhere only foot traffic can be accommodated. Amongthe three cities, Manila’s street network is the mostformal, with an original rectilinear plan reflecting astrong Castilian influence. In contrast, Bandung’s roadlayout, while originally formal, had to be adjusted toconform to the site’s mountainous topography whileBangkok’s first major road, the New Road, extendedsouth parallel to the river and was built on an oldelephant track.Bandung’s pre-colonial roads were not defined clearlyand almost all access paths were referred to as jalan.This term is still being used at present and may referto pathways, roads or streets (Siregar 1990). Accessways into kampungs were referred to as gang and differfrom the jalan because of their width and the type oftransport mode that can be accommodated. Gangs canonly accommodate pedestrians and motorcycles. Withinthe kampung, alleys fronting the houses are not onlyconsidered as access paths but also act as integrators thatbring together the inhabitants within the surroundingarea. The kampung became an extension of living space,a children’s play area, a meeting place and a utilityspace. Bangkok had virtually no roads during its firstone hundred years of existence and depended on thenetwork of waterways, creeks and klongs (canals), whichserved as both a distribution and communicationnetwork (Fisher 1971). The motive behind road buildingwas to accommodate the building of shophouses, whichAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 217proved advantageous in increasing trading activities. Atpresent, Bangkok’s sois are defined as areas where peoplelive. They recreate a village (Pichard-Bertaux 1999) andstill serve as a communication venue wherein a veryrich street life culture can be observed. Within Manila’sbarangays, alleys serve as living spaces, common spacesfor socialization and spillover spaces where they servevarious functions such a place to relax and sit and enjoyrecreational activities.Figure 1: The above photos show pathways along the differentenclaves: in Kampung Ciumbuleuit, Bandung where onlypedestrians are allowed access (left), in Manila which featureselevated wooden planks along esteros (right) and in Bangkok’ssoi where pedestrians are usually greeted with food stalls (center).The typical inner city dwellings are still present in thethree cities. Figure 1 shows three typical access pathswithin these settlements.Street culture in Bandung, Bangkok and ManilaThe historic parts of the cities of Bandung, Bangkokand Manila reflect strong traditional knowledgesystems, especially in the morphological developmentof their street space. These systems may providealternative insights that would reconnect urban designproposals with the cultural context so as to be able tospatially express localism. The section reiterates thatunderstanding the socio-cultural history and indigenousknowledge of a group is a prerequisite to improvingpedestrian transport policy and provision given that adifferent culture requires a different treatment of spaceto be able to match it with users’ needs and desires.History of walkingThe walking culture in Asia has a long history andan overview of transport development will prove itspresence. The walking period in Asian cities may bedefined as the period prior to motorization. The precolonialera and the early colonial period in bothIndonesia and the Philippines were characterizedby a predominantly walking society while the premodernizationperiod of Bangkok was a combination ofwater-based transport and walking, which influenced theurban pattern of the area. There was a limited numberof roads, which were usually narrow and unpaved.Town centers had compact urban structures with verydense, intensively mixed land use. The structures werelow-rise (two to three levels), dictating a pedestrianscale urban form. Building materials were made upof impermanent products such as wood, bamboo andpalm leaves, illustrating the impermanence of Asiantraditional structures. Residences in special quarterswere close to each other, located either along the towncenter or waterways. Travel distances were short. In the1970s, walking was still a major mode of transport formost of Asia (Barter and Raad 2000). The percent ofnon-motorized trips in select cities during the last twodecades of the 20th century shows that walking stillconstituted a large percentage of the overall trips inAsia (e.g., 40 percent in Jakarta, 20 percent in Manila)(Barter 2000). However, this percentage is slowlydecreasing because of efforts to increase motor vehicletraffic, a lack of pedestrian facilities and a worseningenvironment.Purpose of walkingWalking is considered the most basic mode oftransportation given that all travels usually start andend with a walking segment. However, similar toother modes, walking is a derived demand given thatthe decision to walk is highly motivated by achievinga purpose such as to get to a destination or to realizea goal.Walking may also be considered as a spiritual exercise.In some countries, such as Edo-period Japan, travelingwas only allowed if it was for the purpose of spiritualexercise, such as going on a pilgrimage to visit holyplaces, shrines and temples, oftentimes located inoutlying areas. In contemporary Manila, a tradition thathas been passed on is the religious procession, which isconducted through walking. The slow pace of walkingrelative to other modes (i.e., inside a vehicle) providestime to meditate, absorb and commune with one’ssurrounding environment. This increases the intimacyand involvement of the individual in relation to his/herenvirons and allows a person to become attuned to his/her humanity.Street space consumptionStreet users may be considered consumers of spaceas they undergo certain activities. Some of the mainmotivations to use streets include: (1) utilitarian—toAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

218 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTwork, to study; (2) economic—the need to pursueeconomic activities such as selling, buying, barteringand trading; (3) leisure—activities that contributeto ease and relaxation; (4) socio-cultural—enjoyingthe cultural assets along streets, whether intangible ortangible, such as street performances; (5) social—theneed to be with others such as meeting in a restaurantand chatting with a friend; and (6) personal needs—for example, to provide an outlet for one’s personalexpression.Street user behavior is complex and composed oftwo aspects, namely: movement and non-movement.Walking is considered movement behavior; someexamples of non-movement are waiting and resting.The concept of non-movement within Asian streetsgrew out of the realization that in order to providesustainable spaces, it is necessary to consider themultitude of behaviors exhibited by pedestrians as wellas other street users.The presence of a diverse group of street userscontributes to street liveliness. Asian pedestrians do notdifferentiate between public and private space, usingthe communal space as an extension of their livingarea, a venue for commerce and exchange and a placeto socialize. Also, there is a direct correlation betweenwalking and non-movement spaces. An area thatattracts high pedestrian volume usually has a greatertendency for non-movement activities. As such, theopportunity to increase sidewalk sustainability requiresthe reconsideration of non-movement activities in thedesign of such space.Non-movement conceptThe concept of non-movement, forwarded by Mateo-Babiano and Ieda (2005), has emerged theoreticallybased on the premise that streets serve not only asdistribution but also as communication networks.The latter refers to streets serving as a venue for thesocialization and interaction of inhabitants. It is furtherargued that non-movement space played a significantrole in the evolution of Asian space. Thus, it is withinthis premise that the perceived non-movement behaviorof Asian pedestrians is examined.To further examine this concept, the study collectedpedestrian diaries on September 2006 in Bandung;out of the 200 forms given out only 33 respondents or16.5 percent of the sample returned the forms. Thus,preliminary results do not allow generalizations. Therespondents were requested to record their daily walkingactivities starting from the time they left their residence.The average number of daily walk trips an individualunderwent in a day was six. Also, the results showed thatthose taking more than six trips in a day spent a longertime outside per walking trip. Since the study was takenduring the Ramadhan period, the distribution of dailywalking activity patterns of pedestrians, both movementand non-movement activities, did not reflect the regularpattern of pedestrian behavior. It is common duringthis period to start the day as early as three o’clock inthe morning.The study of non-movement behavior provides us withthe knowledge that Asian space is temporally-dictated.As such, it requires flexibility so as to accommodatevarious activities that are conducted at different timesof the day. For example, a tofu (tahu) vendor whosells his product in the mornings and stations himselfin front of the community commercial center mayoccupy the same space which in the late afternoonserves as neighborhood playground for the childrenand could be the venue for musical performances inthe evenings. The temporal segregation of activitiesand the vertical quality of Asian space should be oneof the main considerations in sidewalk design. As anexample, pocket-sized activity spaces should be placedstrategically along the sidewalk path. The space shouldbe versatile enough to accommodate a multitude ofactivities. The seemingly disorganized spatial qualityof Asian space is one of its unique characteristics thatis not encountered in most parts of Europe or theUnited States. Based on previous studies, the apparentdisarray actually contains a measurable hidden order(Rodin and Rodina 2000). Diversity comes fromthe influence of the forest environment wherein thecacophony of sounds, sights, smells, tastes and touchescan be experienced simultaneously within the Asianstreet space. The perception is further demonstratedby the presence of food vendors. The variety of foodsold in Indonesian street shops (warungs) and thePhilippine traditional restaurant (turo-turo) bringsforth a combination of visual, olfactory and gustatorysensations which compel passersby to taste their flavors.In most Southeast Asian cities, vending has becomean institution in itself, albeit informally. The presentapproach calling for their total removal from the streetshas never been effective and, therefore, can never bea favorable end solution. Furthermore, the pedestriansurvey shows the important role street vendors play notonly in economic terms but also at the cultural level. Acompromise between vending and regulating should bearrived at so as to define the locations most appropriatefor such activities as well as improving the aestheticquality of their presence. Regulation may take the formof permit issuance to allow certain complementaryAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 219activities to be conducted within a given radius of anactivity generator.Worth mentioning are the various street elementsthat have sociocultural roots. As an example, outdoorbenches (golodog) can only be found within Sundanesesettlements. This refers to a 50-cm bench connectedto the dwelling unit facing the alleyways where peoplecan sit and talk to each other. This defines the mainalleyway as opposed to the back alley. However, inurban kampungs where the majority of inhabitantsare Sundanese, the golodog is still present but hasbeen transformed into a terrace which uses a differentmaterial from the original wooden bench (i.e., ceramics)(Rahaju 2006). Although this type of element is notpresent within Javanese kampungs, there is, however,always a specific place provided for the social venueof its inhabitants such as the alun-alun, which servesas the local landmark and centralizing element for theJavanese kampung (Siregar 1990).Animistic reflections on the streetsThere are also various street practices that have animisticroots. Animism is the pre-colonial belief of most ofthe colonial cities in Southeast Asia. Animism wasborne out of the forest (Suzuki 1978). In Bangkok, itis often common to see street trees that have coloredrope-like fabric going around the trunks. The older thetree, the more of these fabrics going around it. Also,the presence of street shrines and spirit houses on ornear the sidewalk is said to reflect the reverence of thepresent owners towards the spirits who lived on theland. Some commercial establishments bring out foodin the morning to offer to the gods so that they will havehigher profits for the day. Also, some pedestrians bringout food and offer it to the increasing dog populationwithin metropolitan Bangkok. Thus, indigenousknowledge, both positive and negative, should beFigure 2: Spirit houses in Bangkok complete with flowers, incense,leis and food in the foreground.determined, considered and evaluated if the aim is tocreate a sustainable street space for its users. Figure 2shows images of spirit houses.The street market and the informal street cultureGiven that the typical Asian is a social individualwho does not go out alone and prefers to do activitiestogether with other people, the Asian street space istransformed into a destination itself, replete with eatingplaces, shopping venues and meeting areas. Within thecase cities, the presence of market places reflects thestrong Indic-Chinese influence that has evolved intoa distinctive pasar (bazaar) culture. In Bandung, fleamarkets and bazaars draw a large crowd, such as theregular Friday bazaar along Ganesha Street in Bandungthat has the mosque worshippers as its captive market.McGee (1967) writes that the highly compact anddensely populated commercial-residential precinctof Sampeng, which hosted the largest concentrationof Chinese-born people in Bangkok, reflected theindigenous Thai city and at the same time served as thegreat bazaar and provided a hierarchy of commodityand food markets.However, a major component in street spacesustainability is social equity. This refers to theaccessibility of the streets to all users such as pedestrians,the informal street economy and other street users.Often, and in various transport studies, informal streetusers are considered obstructions to pedestrian flow.However, their rampant presence in almost all streetssurveyed in Southeast Asia and how the correspondinggovernment deals with them deserves mentioning.As a matter of policy, and in the name of cleanlinessand beauty, street vendors are being cleared off ofthe sidewalks. However, this is often met with lowcompliance. Again, the concept of street takes on theWestern view that it is solely for movement. However,Asian streets do not only distribute people but serve asa market place and trading venue as well. This also hassociohistorical roots.The informal sector is comprised of those who undertakeactivities that do not pay taxes, do not submit regulargovernment reports, and at times, routinely violatecertain rules or law (Habito 2005). They are a significantpresence in most commercial areas. In more traditionaldistricts in the Philippines, they occupy the “fivefoot-way”contributing to a unique sidewalk culture.The streets become makeshift marketplaces where theinformal economy thrives. Vendors and hawkers displaytheir wares wherein buyers may use the art of barteringto purchase goods and services. Informal activitiesAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

220 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTcontinue to proliferate because of the ease of entry andreliance on indigenous resources, family ownership,small scale of operation, lack of regulation and locationwithin a competitive market (Bangasser 2000).Informal economy agglomerations are generally foundnear activity generators such as school entrances, in frontof shops and stores, churches, shopping malls, accesstowards train stations and at intersections. This providesthem the assurance of a steady flow of customers. Thetype of economic activity is dependent on the activitygenerator, usually complementing that enterprise.Snack food vendors are found outside universities andschools, fruit stand vendors are found outside malls, andflower vendors are found outside churches and otherplaces of worship. Most common goods sold by thesesidewalk peddlers and hawkers are consumables such asfood products. Within the central business districts, themost common stalls are shops providing lunch, snacksand drinks. Sometimes, tables and chairs complete theensemble creating a distinct street architecture, howeverinferior the materials used or shabby they may seem toonlookers. The inventive minds of these storeownersallow them to set up and take down these stalls withina few minutes. In the Philippines, the original vendorcart has evolved from the common wheeled woodenpushcart (kariton) to the converted bicycle. This shiftoccurred because of the mobility and flexibility of usingbicycles. In Bandung, one may be presented with amultitude of stalls from the fixed warungs along thesidewalks to the semi-ambulant and ambulant kakilima.Dago Street in Bandung has already banned sidewalkvending. However, daily observations conducted by theresearcher show a different reality. The vendors are stillpresent at a lower density; however, they do not vendon the sidewalks but are conveniently accommodatedat the front corner of the adjacent commercial shops,sometimes with their wares abutting the sidewalks. Thisis also true in Bangkok, where Monday is a ‘No VendingDay’ along Silom Road. Vendor resourcefulness onlytransfers the stalls from the main Silom Road to theintersecting soi where vending is not banned. Theseare socioeconomic and cultural realities that transportprofessionals have failed to consider but must be takeninto consideration, especially in the design of sidewalkspace within Asia.The need to satisfy pedestriansThe consideration of pedestrian needs is a significantprerequisite in the design of sustainable street spaces.The basic premise of the need-concept adopted fromthe area of consumer behavior is that pedestrians behavein a similar fashion to consumers as they utilize spacein a way comparable to consuming a product. Needsand values are the micro-level driving factors of humanbehavior (Vallacher et al. 1994), which are realizedthrough opportunities. The latter refers to productsor services that have the capacity to satisfy one’s needs(Jager 2000). In this case, opportunity refers to sidewalkattributes such as the ability to provide seamless travel,comfort and convenience, to name a few. These areparameters or attributes that would encourage userloyalty or sustain people’s use of the street environment.However, these factors do not influence choice butsupport or inhibit pedestrian decisions (Mumford1937). The pedestrian need-hierarchy resulted froman extensive literature review on effective pedestrianenvironments and was inspired by the human needstheory postulated by Maslow (1954) and Max-Neef(1992). The concept of pedestrian level of service(PLOS) (Fruin 1971) is defined as the elements thatattract potential users to the system (Vuchic 1981).At the base of these needs is the desire for movement(mobility). Aside from this, pedestrians have otherphysiological or psychological needs such as protection,ease, enjoyment, equity and identity. This illustrates thesix criteria and the attributes which would fulfill eachcriterion. The pedestrian need-hierarchy considers bothmovement and non-movement as contributory towardsincreasing pedestrian satisfaction.To define the six criteria: mobility refers to a walkingenvironment that allows barrier-free movement fromthe point of origin to the destination at a comfortablewalking speed with no or limited impedance and ensuresease in orienting oneself within the street network.Protection refers to the state of being free from dangeror injury while walking by limiting pedestrian-vehicleconflicts, providing provisions to ensure that accidentswill not happen. Ease refers to the quality that makesone feel emotionally and mentally secure, comfortableand stress-free while walking. Enjoyment or leisurerefers to the quality of the walking environment whichallows access to transport-disadvantaged persons(TDPs), allows equal opportunities for other activitiesbesides walking (e.g., sitting, chatting, eating), and doesnot limit sidewalk use to pedestrians but allows accessto other street users such as vendors and leisure walkers.This environment also creates venues for socializationand interaction. Equity refers to opportunities forself-expression, with the sidewalk serving as a venuefor socialization and interaction, providing ways ofenjoyment and leisure and adding vibrancy to theplace. Identity refers to elements that acknowledgesociocultural needs by creating venues for culturalactivities, producing a sense of place and encouraging afeeling of belonging amongst its users.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 221The author established a preliminary hierarchical orderwherein the base need would be movement basedon the premise that streets are used as distributionnetworks. The criteria can be divided into two, personaland social. Personal refers to individual needs whilesocial means population-level needs. Personal needsare near the base while social needs are found on theupper levels. The theoretical basis for this is that inorder to increase satisfaction, personal needs should beprovided for before population-level satisfaction can beaccommodated.The study then conducted a pedestrian survey inBangkok, Thailand and Manila, the Philippines toevaluate the order and relevance of the concept of thepedestrian need-hierarchy and the significance of eachcriterion. A total of 150 and 90 samples were collectedin Bangkok and Manila, respectively. A number ofalternatives were defined that would potentially fulfillthe six criteria. It was assumed that individuals tendto fulfill their personal needs before focusing on theirsocial or group needs, and that pedestrians usuallywalk to be able to fulfill the need for mobility. Thus,mobility was placed at the bottom of the hierarchy. Thisreflects that each criterion may be fulfilled by a numberof criteria while at the same time each alternative mayfulfill a single or more than one criterion.In general, the results show that the most frequentmode taken by the majority of the respondents waswalking. This may be due to the fact that any kind oftrip starts and ends with a walk trip. The respondentswere informed they should consider walking as amode if they covered a significant walking distance.In previous surveys, walking was often undercounted.The most common mode choice was followed bytricycle, public bus and private vehicle (e.g., car). Also,respondents were asked about their walk trip attributesreferring to the number of times they go out of theirbuilding to take a walk. The majority of respondentswent outside the building one to three times a day. Thepurpose most often cited was ‘to eat lunch,’ followed by‘doing some errands.’ Furthermore, those who went outwere asked if they stopped temporarily along the waybefore arriving at their destination. Almost half of thesample answered that they stopped while the other halfdid not. The reason most cited for stopping was ‘to buyfrom a sidewalk vendor.’ This reflects the high demandfor the informal sector. With respect to the perceptionof pedestrians on the hierarchical structure of the needhierarchy,the survey illustrated that mobility is not themost influential element in the decision to utilize streets.Instead, protection came out to be the main considerationreiterating the importance given towards physical safety.The criterion ‘equity’ surprisingly garnered a relativelyhigh score, specifically on giving importance to thepresence of other street users such as sidewalk vendors,while ‘enjoyment’ was the least important.Conclusions and implicationsSustainable street space should address the mobility,protection, equity, ease and identity needs of pedestriansand other street users. In Bangkok and Manila, themost important considerations are protection, ease andequity. The alternatives that could provide such needswere the following: adequate lighting, the installationof monitoring devices and police stands at intersectionswere determined to provide the highest satisfactionfor the need for protection and ease, while for equity,the provision of street vendor areas and encouragingstreet performances and street art displays came outas the most effective alternatives. However, this wasbased on people’s perceptions and preferences. Suchpreferences are not absolute and may be substituted formore effective ways of providing a specific pedestrianneed. The concept of mobility management was thenintroduced as a strategy for attaining sustainabilityin transport. In the sub-field of pedestrian transport,one strategy is to encourage a user-centered approachto space design and management so as to improvemobility. A user-centered approach refers to basingmanagement strategies on the needs and desires of usersand how these may be physically manifested. Thus, thispaper focused on pedestrians by considering their needs,discussing the spatial environment as dictated by therelationship of movement and non-movement withinthe pedestrian space and the street culture created bythe social interaction of the street users. This sharedknowledge and meaning is produced when individualsinteract in a common space (i.e., pedestrians, vendorsin an urban space). At a higher level, this interactionproduces a common culture that is transmitted, learnedand shared, thus evolving into a distinct heritage andsocial tradition. The sociocultural history of the streetsprovides a potential window to discover the pedestrianstreet culture of the past wherein the latter may provideus with design recommendations on contemporarystreet improvement so as to encourage more users toutilize a given space. Thus, discussion also focused onthe development of walking within the Asian contextas well as an overview on the vending culture that isrampant within Asian streets but is oftentimes ignored.In the Asian space, various policies should focustowards encouraging the revival of street culture as wellas the humanizing of streets within the Asian context.These may be gleaned from the previous sections suchas the golodog in the Sundanese kampung, creating socialAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

222 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTspaces, and recognizing the importance of the pasarculture, to name a few.One of the most important key points in this study isthe idea of a forest-based culture as a jump off pointin the design of sidewalks. The present morphologyof Asian settlements, especially within urban enclaves,allows for pedestrian-oriented developments. To givea few examples, pocket-sized intimate spaces shouldbe strategically provided along the sidewalk. Theirpresence signifies flexibility, encourages social contactsand maximizes interactions. The strategic placementof benches and the appropriation of vendor space onspecific points along the sidewalk encourage socialinteraction. Segregation is also necessary in order tomaximize space utilization. However, the segregationof activities should use psychological rather thanphysical compartmentalization to make it culturallyappropriate for Asian pedestrians. To minimizeanxiousness, an appropriate combination of activities,specifically at intersections, should be considered so asto allow a pertinent mix. Natural elements which mayserve as points of orientation and as sacred spaces aswell as provide cover become necessary given forestbased,animistic roots. Implementing a green sidewalkbecomes a viable option. The important role playedby vendors along sidewalks has been explicit and isfurther reinforced in this paper. Proper guidance andregulations should be in place at the national andlocal levels, allowing and allotting these vendors spacewhether within the bounds of public or private space.REFERENCESAndaya, Barbara Watson and Ishii Yoneo. “ReligiousDevelopment in Southeast Asia c.1500-1800.” The CambridgeHistory of Southeast Asia. Ed. Nicholas Tarling. UnitedKingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2000.Askew, Marc. “The Rise of the Moradok and the Declineof the Yarn: Heritage and Cultural Construction in UrbanThailand.” Sojourn 11.2 (1996):183-210.Askew, Marc. Bangkok Transformation of the Thai City, inCultural Identity and Urban Development in Southeast Asia:Interpretative Essays. n.d.Bangasser, P. “The ILO and the Informal Sector: AnInstitutional History.” Employment Paper 2000/9. 16 August2005. .Barter, Paul. “Urban Transport in Asia: Problems andProspects for High-Density Cities.” Asia-Pacific DevelopmentMonitor 2.1 (2000): 33-66.Barter, Paul and Tamim Raad. “The State of Asian UrbanTransport.” Taking Steps: A Community Action Guide toPeople-Centred, Equitable and Sustainable Transport. 2000.Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia and thePacific. 30 August 2006. .Berry, John, et al. Cross-cultural Psychology: Research andApplications. 2 nd Ed. Cambridge: University Press, 2002.Blakemore Robbie. History of Interior Design and Furniture:From Ancient Egypt to Nineteenth-Century Europe. New Jersey:John Wiley and Sons, 1996.De Viana, Lorelei. Three Centuries of Binondo Architecture1594-1898: A Socio-Historical Perspective. Manila: USTPublishing House, 2001.Fisher, Charles. Southeast Asia: A Social, Economic and PoliticalGeography. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1971.Fruin, John. Pedestrian Planning and Design. New York:Metropolitan Associations of Urban Designers andEnvironmental Planners, Inc., 1971.Geertz, Clifford. The Social History of an Indonesian Town.Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965.Habito, Cielito. “The Underground Economy and Jueteng.No Free Lunch.” Philippine Daily Inquirer 15 August 2005.Iwake, Yasunobu. Modernization of Water City, Bangkok—Adaptation to Modern Urban Space and Water Environment1890-1930. 14 December 2006. .Jager, Wander. Modelling Consumer Behaviour. UniversalPress: Netherlands, 2000. 9 April 2004. .Maslow, Abraham. Motivation and Personality. New York:Harper and Row, 1954.Mateo-Babiano, Iderlina and Hitorshi Ieda. “TheoreticalDiscourse on Sustainable Space Design: Towards Creatingand Sustaining Effective Sidewalks.” Business Strategy and theEnvironment 14 (2005): 269–271.Max-Neef, Manfred. “Development and Human Needs.”Real-life Economics: Understanding Wealth Creation. Londonand New York: Routledge, 1992.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 223McGee, Terry. The Southeast Asian City: A Social Geographyof the Primate Cities of Southeast Asia. London: G. Bell, 1967.Mumford, Lewis. “What is a City?” The City Reader. 2 nd ed.1937. Eds. Le Gates, R.T. and F. Stout. London and NewYork: Routledge, 2000.Pichard-Bertaux, Louise. “Bangkok Streets in Thai ShortStories.” Presented at the 7 th International Conference onThai Studies. Thai Literature, Modernity and the City.Amsterdam, 4-8 July 1999.Reed, Robert. Colonial Manila: The Context of HispanicUrbanism and Process of Morphogenesis. Berkeley, Los Angelesand London: University of California Press, 1978.Rodin, V. and E. Rodina. “The Fractal Dimension of Tokyo’sStreets.” Fractals 8.4(2000): 413-418.Saaty, Thomas. The Analytic Hierarchy Process: Planning,Priority Setting, Resource Allocation. McGraw-Hill, 1980.Siregar, S. Bandung—The Architecture of a City in Development,Urban Analysis of a Regional Capital as a Contribution to thePresent Debate on Indonesian Urbanity and ArchitecturalIdentity. Unpublished Thesis submitted as partial fulfillmentfor the degree of Doctorate in Architectural Sciences in theFaculty of Applied Sciences. Belgium: Katholieke UniversiteitLeuven, 1990.Soewarno, N. Adaptive Re-Use Building Historical District:Case study: Heritage the Factory Outlet. n.d. 01 August 2006..Suzuki, H. Shinrin no Shiko, Sabaku no Shiko (Ideas of theForest, Ideas of the Desert). Tokyo: NHK Books, 1978.Vallacher, Robin and Andrzej Nowak. “The Chaos in SocialPsychology.” Dynamical Systems in Social Psychology. Eds.Vallacher, Robin and Andrzej Nowak. San Diego: AcademicPress, Inc., 1994.Vuchic, Vukan. Urban Public Transportation. New Jersey:Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1981.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe author would also like to extend her grateful thanks to theable assistance of Dr. Heru Poerbo and the staff of the PusatStudi Urban Desain of the Institute Technology of Bandung,and Dr. Sorawit Narupiti and the staff of the TransportResearch Laboratory of Chulalongkorn University.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

224 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTACADEMIC LIFEWORLDS, THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND DEEPDEMOCRACY IN THAILAND AND THE PHILIPPINESSharaad KuttanIntroductionThe following essay is an expression of a journey,which is why the personal figures as prominently as thepolitical. I begin with a personal narrative but end witha section entitled “Six points of comparison,” which isa modest attempt to summarize my tentative findings.I conclude with a brief call for institutional support forthe documentation of Asia’s intellectual heritage which,I believe, The Nippon Foundation through the APIFellowships Program is well placed to encourage.As a preface, let me note that the generosity of spiritembodied in the API fellowship was crucial as it gaveme the space to think through the assumptions I hadmade when I first conceptualized my research proposal.As the program is not primarily geared to the productionof outputs and “deliverables,” Fellows like me are ableto invest time and energy in ways not often available inour adult working lives. My years as a graduate student,activist and researcher, while enriching, have also inmany ways de-limited the ways in which I approachquestions of society, culture and social change. It is clearthat the question of institutional structures is of centralimportance for us who have come through the APIprocess since institutions and institutional processesthat promote knowledge production but simultaneouslyconstrain the ability, both on the level of individualsand groups, to think “freely” are problematic. Theacceptance of self- reflexive critique is an on-goingprocess and I look forward to an opportunity toexplore the connection between institutional structuresand processes on the one hand and “creativity” and“freedom” on the other.An institutional critique is, in fact, the very objectof inquiry identified in my proposal title. The way Istructured the terms of the proposal, typical of socialscience inquiry, was to work on the hypothesis thata connection exists between ideas (social sciences),institutions (academics/universities) and social processes(substantive democracy/public culture). This wasnothing short of ambitious and perhaps impracticableconsidering the timeframe for preparation that Iactually had. Truth be told, the unstated model lurkingin the back of my mind was that of a doctoral candidateembarking on fieldwork. However, without the rigorouspreparation to which such candidates in the socialsciences are subjected to, was this model viable? Thosefamiliar with academic practices will understand thatthe questions that a doctoral candidate takes to the fieldare wrought through a process of deep and systematicreading, coupled with a dialogical process initiated ina structured institutional setting, peopled by seniorfaculty and contemporaries. In some serious sense, Ifound myself parachuted into my field with a vague ideaof what I wanted to achieve, much like a journalist whois rushed to a conflict-ridden city he is familiar withperhaps only as a mark on a map. Was this fatal to myproject or was it in fact productive in bringing about adifferent form and methodology of inquiry?To interject: it must be said that I suffer from a formof denial, a suppression of frameworks of knowledgethat are not institutionally validated. I have gatheredin my short but moderately adventurous life a range ofexperiences and, dare I say, feelings about the world ingeneral and my society in particular that neverthelessinformed the line of inquiry that I proposed. That Ifelt compelled to inflect the style of my proposal in asocial scientific manner was both a product of habit,institutional anxiety (that is, a desire for affirmationfrom the institutions I was going to interact with) and,most importantly, a lack of an alternative vocabulary.When I embarked on this trip last year—a year of livingin intellectual discomfort, I must add—the vocabularythat I thought most important for my project was asocial scientific one, consisting of concepts, theories andparadigms underscored by a sociological imaginary. Thiswas the ideational stuff of my two university degrees,the second of which, a Masters, was from a departmentof sociology and anthropology. I had an unquestionedbelief in the need for conceptual clarity and theoreticalrigor, and an almost naïve faith in Reason in public life.I do not think that I am unique in this; I share a beliefwith many that human welfare—expressed throughnotions of peace, stability, wealth, equality, democracy,beauty and truth—can be gained or apprehendedthrough genuine and informed dialogue. My hand onmy heart, I am a child of the Enlightenment, and clingto its promises as a baby to its mother’s breast.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 225Has my year of living in intellectual discomfort weanedme of this dependence? The simple answer is, no. DoI feel that a commitment to these values and modes ofbeing is still necessary? The simple answer is, yes. Then,what more? I ask myself.I caught sight of something other than what I waslooking for, almost at the periphery of my visual field.It is nothing of significance except perhaps to me,nothing new or novel. It is no mountain-top epiphany,and might strike others as rather prosaic and ordinary.Maybe it is something remembered that I had onceforgotten. It requires no drum roll and if I were to blurtit out now, it would probably flounder about, lookingas desperate and as tragic as sea-creatures on the deckof a fishing trawler. This is an image that one oftenglimpses on the Discovery Channel. Perhaps if I renderthe image poetically I just might be able to producean arresting image. This image could be productive ofa re-thinking, making it a counterpoint to this essay.Imagine a trawler, not of fish and edible crustaceans,but of ideas, a trawler tossed about on the high seas aftera successful catch; the once lively catch, now sorted andgraded, lies chilled in its hull.Perhaps this image does not work; it is too easy, anda touch whimsical. Besides, the deck of a trawler is noplace to set out an idea, especially not one so embeddedin my personal history. So I shall begin with a brief prehistory,keeping it as best I can from being an indulgentstory about my life.Singapore and Malaysia, a pre-historyWhen I was a young boy, I would rummage throughold photographs kept in the living room cabinet of mymaternal grandmother’s home in the border town ofJohor Bahru. (The town is so close to Singapore thatyou could almost hear the efficient and pragmatic gearsof government machinery hum, but JB, as we call it, isdecidedly Malaysian, the chaotic other to the unnervingneatness across the Straits of Johor.) The monochromesnaps—not sepia tinge—were like fragments of familymemories, kept rather unceremoniously in a box ratherthan laid out in chronological or thematic order in analbum. The one that struck me most and over whichmy child’s gaze lingered was that of my uncle, whom Iboth feared and adored for some unfathomable reason.He lay, almost reclining, in an “easy chair,” as they werecalled, surrounded by books. An unremarkable image,perhaps, except for the extraordinary fact that it wastaken in a prison cell in Singapore during the turbulentnationalist period of the late 1950s. From that, hissecond term in prison, my uncle produced what isconsidered a seminal analysis of colonial Malaya’seconomy. Since I had neither read the book nor did Iunderstand economics, the awe with which it held mewas clearly not that of intellectual understanding. If Ihad to name it now, I would identify it as a certain effectproduced by the image itself. A muddle of feelings andnotions: it was the sense of authority in the figure of myuncle, the authority of books (to which my mother wasdevoted and to which I later came to make a fetish ofas well), and the bewildering terror of prison and forcedconfinement. As I grew up and encountered a ‘mature’political vocabulary, I borrowed much of it to shoreup that image, propping it up with the then alreadyfaded romance of the socialist-nationalist struggle. Iwould be, from then forth, susceptible to misreadingimages regarding people, ideas and authority. (When Ifirst came to the Philippines, I thought how profoundit was for a nation to choose as its national hero a writerof novels. I found myself corrected on this later in mystay.)Fast-forward: I came of age in the Singapore of the1980s. While the political hegemony of the People’sAction Party had been almost unassailable for morethan a decade, the Parliament witnessed the entry of alone opposition figure at the beginning of that decade.Democratization, irrepressible as it seems to be, was onthe intellectual agenda and stayed on it until the massarrests of what we would now term civil society activistsin May 1987. What was this talk, this discourse, ofdemocracy? What was it informed by, when, in fact,the only competing ideology to the governing regimehad been all but eliminated? By the end of the 1970s,Singapore’s political Left had been erased—as Malaysia’shad been, with its specter last encountered in thehaunting echoes of China’s Cultural Revolution. Thiswas felt most poignantly in the mid-1970s in the worldtheater and the arts. Socialist Realism, as theory andpractice, had had its curtain call, forcibly or otherwise inthe Peninsula. Moreover, not only was there nothing toreplace it, but memories of it and traditions associatedwith it were assiduously erased.I told many Filipinos that I encountered in my sevenmonths there about how the Philippines emerged in myconsciousness as a place, as a society. For my generationin the mid-1980s in university in Singapore, at least, thestruggle against the Marcos dictatorship was probablythe most significant for the region, as the fall of theNew Order regime of Indonesia was for the late 1990s.Despite our lack of ideological moorings, the saga of theMarcos dictatorship had all the elements of high dramaand kept us glued to the radio and newspapers untilthe final twist. Unfortunately, the journalistic offeringsAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

226 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTwe consumed, so often caught up in the present andwithout space—in minutes or in column inches—rarelyhad the ability to communicate the deeper processesafoot. When the Marcoses were flown out of the coop,I was left with little understanding about the structureof Filipino society or its politics and culture beyondleading actors and the anonymous cast of thousands.It was also in the 1980s that the Filipino struggle fordemocracy came rippling onto Singaporean shores viatheater, almost a century after Jose Rizal disembarkedand visited the Botanic Gardens before continuing onto Europe. The “training” given to Singaporean theaterpractitioners laid the foundations for several formsof theater practice, one strain of which I would laterjoin. One particular production centered on the storyof a Filipino domestic worker and was particularlycompelling for its description of issues of class, genderand transmigration. This, and several other politicalproductions, became the subject of a sociological thesisI worked on in 1988. I had wanted to understand thepower of theater but ended up describing, and thusperhaps re-inscribing, the power of the state.In the midst of the trauma that many Singaporeansfelt following the mass arrests of 1987, I spent severalyears working with working-class children in aneducational project run by non-evangelical Christians,believing that no possibilities existed for challengingthe status quo in Singapore. Then, I saw no connectionbetween welfare work with the children and thediscourse of democratization that I was, in principle atleast, committed to. Welfare work to me was sociallynecessary, perhaps even personally rewarding, but itlacked the heroism that the struggle for Democracyseemed to demand. Working with delinquent childrenwas a challenge but only in the realm of the emotionaland, at a stretch, spiritual. These were not dimensions,or modes, of being that I associated with the concept ofdemocratization. This work—serious and demandingas it was—was decidedly “private,” not “public” in theway I understood the concept.I then abandoned what seemed to be the never-endingtrials that children encounter in their daily lives (andthe community of volunteers I worked with) to becomean advocate of “intellectual discourse” through a journalcalled Commentary. We sought and courted a public thatwe believed was out there in the “mass society” createdby the People’s Action Party. We labored to extend anopening provided for in the public sphere by the newdispensation of the incoming Prime Minister.We began without fully recognizing that the culture ofwriting for a “discerning public” and, equally, the cultureof reading were limited, having been diminished by asuccessful, if authoritarian, government. Cultivatingthe voice of our writers and a strategic tone for theuniversity-based journal was central to our politics.Without telling the entire story—one not without itsown public drama—suffice it to say that I learned tothink of the political landscape as a complex territory. Ibecame grudgingly aware of the role of society, and ofsocial conservatism in particular, in the authoritarianpractices of the states that I was most familiar with.Briefly, under our editorial leadership, the journal—which had a decade before been embroiled incontroversy—took on questions of “civil society” and“politics.” These themes served as the titles for oursecond and third collections of essays and discussions. Ifthere was a perception that the journal was challengingthe establishment, the government’s hand was in allprobability stayed by a very disciplined and academictone. However, neither our judiciously ellipticallanguage nor a strategic balancing of views could save ourfourth issue. (We even ran a letter that both criticizedthe journal’s liberal outlook while welcoming us as anintellectual interlocutor to the prevailing conservativeestablishment.)The issue centered on a controversy in the arts withthe attendant proscription of forum theater andperformance art. The former was a dialogical theaterpractice conceptualized by Marxist dramatist AugustoBoal as a radical critique of agitation-propagandatheater (in which I acted) and the later an energeticpractice in which the body, in all its presence andimmediacy, becomes the stage; both appeared to thestate as un-censorable forms and this, ultimately, madethem subversive. This was coupled with the fact thatthe government had already announced its desires todevelop the arts as a new industry. It was a convergenceof competing desires in which the state was determinedto come out on top.While committed to this form of engagement, I alsoharbored contempt for “elliptical speech” as cowardly,as evidence of the intellectual’s fear of “speaking truthto power.” With the controversy at its height, I soughta principled gesture and the editorial board choseto resign. (Singaporean writer Catherine Lim latereulogized the debacle as one of many signs that the newand avowedly “friendlier” regime was in fact unwillingto give up the substance of Lee Kuan Yew’s style ofgovernance.) I now think very differently about thatchoice and of elliptical speech.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 227It would seem to me now that there is a need for a varietyof forms of speech including the seemingly abstract andthose not immediately amenable for application to theproblems of the day. In many real ways, academics,concerned citizens and artists were trying to create avariety of publics, each with its own register, vocabularyand frames of reference.I returned to Malaysia and went to work in a newspaper,then involved myself in human rights activism andacademic work. Again, the challenges were fundamentallythe same; though the space available for open politicswas much wider, it was not immediately clear if therewas any depth to the public discourse surrounding orinforming this politics. One could reasonably ask ofboth the authoritarian administration and its detractorswhether they contributed to a deepening of publicculture. (They in turn might ask how “depth” is definedand, indeed, quantified.)I would like to make one brief reference to the questionof the media in Malaysia to underscore my concerns.The Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s reverberatedthroughout Malaysia’s then fast-paced economy aswell as in politics. Images of the anti-regime streetdemonstrations—known by its borrowed slogan ofreform, “Reformasi”—carried in the traditional mediawere then accompanied by the development of theso-called alternative media. Journalists and observersalike looked to the Internet as a new, perhaps evenrevolutionary, tool. These early assessments were toprove too exaggerated. In many respects, the new mediawas new only in respect to the forms of disseminationof “information” defined broadly. What remained thesame, however, was the quality of that information. Ifthere was potential for new relationships to be formedbetween the producers of information and its recipients,for new structures of knowledge production to becreated, something other than the Net had to comeinto play.One commentator astutely identified the problemwhen he complained about the character of Malaysianpolitical discourse. He said that opportunities to educatethe public (the “electorate,” more specifically) at publicrallies were being squandered because politiciansreplicated what we in Malaysia call “coffee shop talk.”This coffee shop talk—its fascination with rumor,‘insider’ knowledge, conspiracy theories and the like—was being disseminated in new ways and at new speedsbut it was “coffee shop talk” all the same. My friendsand I thought that the best way to address this problemwas to develop different strategies and ‘values’ in ourwebsite, titled “Saksi” which in the Malay languagemeans “witness.” We were not without our failings butthe general register of our site was in marked contrastto the partisan and polemical character of much thatpassed for “alternative” media then.I think one of the challenges that arose in those times ofheady political confrontation was to persuade ourselves,and others, that there is value in complexity, that onecan fashion a politics out of complex political andethical positions. This belief in the value of an analysisthat is adequate to the object in question—whether it isa politician, a political party or a socially disadvantagedgroup—is not a widely nor deeply held one in mycountry, I am afraid.Our website grew into a larger project with thedevelopment of a media NGO called the Center forIndependent Journalism. Together with an Indonesianmedia group, Radio68H, we developed a joint projectto circumvent the very tight regulations governingbroadcasting. Without getting into a rather nastynarrative about the many conflicts that erupted among“progressives” that I had the misfortune of being caughtin, suffice it to say that the project floundered on afundamental difference in the perception of the role ofthe media in times of crisis. One leading academic wentso far as to claim that even honest public criticism ofthe political was not to be encouraged, as this providedresources for the ruling party against the nascentdemocratic movement. His position was popular andin some respects intuitive. Its hazardous consequenceswould arise only later and could conceivably be dealtwith in the future. This is a debate that is never ending,perhaps.I edged back into academic work after the collapse ofthe Center’s radio project on a long-term group researchproject on the Malaysian electoral system. It proved thatacademics could respond to important issues but in amanner consistent with the specificities of their labor.(Our book—I contributed a chapter on civil societyinvolvement—has made a lasting contribution to thedebate on electoral reform in Malaysia.)For argument’s sake, let me make a sweepinggeneralization. Politics and the media share a similarpace and tone which contrasts markedly with art andacademia. Think of it as a spectrum with a variety ofpractices in each of these fields lying on various pointsof this line (or multiple lines—speed, tone, depth) andwith neither end of the spectrum defined in normativeterms, meaning I do not ascribe values to being fast, forexample. Does Malaysia have a full range of practicesthat gives expression to these terms? This is a questionAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

228 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTI took with me on my journey and which informed theconstruction of my proposal, but one that was decidedlyin the present.A year before I had been toying with another projectthat was more historically orientated. It arose fromthe general dissatisfaction with the quality of my ownquestions and frameworks. Browsing the shelves of anolder relative, I came quite by accident upon a book.Since I had browsed those same shelves for decades,it was clearly something in my own desire to see thatmade the book visible. What drew me to it was itstitle, embossed in faded gold lettering, The CulturalProblems of Malaysia in the Context of Southeast Asia.Out of the permafrost of a Malaysian suburb, I pulledout a fossil from the mid-1960s. The collection of essaysfrom a similarly titled conference was the product ofthe intellectual impulses of a visiting academic fromIndonesia, Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana (a man whose lifewould be worth a workshop or two). At that moment,I only recognized him as the author of a book I hadpicked up at a second-hand bookshop. My inquiriesinto the man, his milieus and the organizations hewas associated with led me into the 1950s and 1960s,a period which I had not, until then, considered ascrucial to my self-understanding. The question of howthe two decades following the end of the Second WorldWar shaped our consciousness remained on the backburner while I considered how best to shape my project.Needless to say, the year away provided me with a wayof seeing these two questions as intimately connected.In some respects, the historical project has come to seemto me to be much more urgent to attend to as materialsand, more crucially, people recede from the present.Quezon City, caught in a cycloneOne of the many of things one is likely to overlookwhen conceptualizing a research proposal (in thehumanities, at least) is the weather. I had checked up onsemester schedules and the like but I had no idea aboutthe annual season of cyclonic winds that come off thePacific Ocean and crash into the beautiful islands of thePhilippines. (I was blessed to survive the worst cycloneManila had suffered in over a decade.) In fact, I was notparticularly aware of the Pacific and its rim (home toChina and the USA) as a cultural and historical matrix.One of the most arresting images I came across while inthe Philippines was one produced by a French historian.It was quoted by a Filipino anthropologist in an essayabout the “Asian” character of Filipino culture(s). Thehistorian noted that the Philippines was the farthestpoint that Christianity had reached on its westwardjourney and the farthest point that Islam had reachedon its eastward journey. Not only did it alert me tothe need to read a great deal more about the journeyof cultures—languages, ideas, cuisine—that traversedthe archipelago but it more importantly shifted the veryframe in which I saw the country. While I had beento the Philippines on two previous occasions, I carrieda mental map that was very much like the map I hadon my wall of Southeast Asia: Indonesia and Burmaframing the left margin and the Philippines framing theright margin. There is little of the Pacific Ocean andwhat this essay spelled out for me was everything thatFilipinos share on that side of the globe, from flora andfauna to the Manila Galleon and US imperialism.My previous encounter with the Philippines—as ajournalist and as an NGO activist—was marked bya certain speed and lack of depth. I penned an article—entitled “Pinoy’s Complaint”—which recordedthe thoughts of many Filipinos I interviewed, frompolitical prisoners to activists. I had learned much butI was puzzled by the thwarted expectation that this wasanother Asian country and therefore essentially the sameas Malaysia. When it was not the same, I simply did nothave the frame to identify what this difference was.This inability to understand fully what I wasencountering dogged much of my time there. The moreI read, the more I felt I did not understand enough oradequately, and the more inhibited I became aboutasking questions. I felt that my questions were toobasic, something a primer on the Philippines wouldadequately address. Still I met with people and watchedmovies.One movie in particular struck me as incomprehensible,beautiful but “incomprehensible.” It was Lav Dias’Heremias. Nine and a half hours of landscape, emotionshalf articulated, buried deep and a protagonist, wholends his name to the movie, whose responses to a crisiscompletely baffled me. Prior to watching the movie Ihad the opportunity to ask the director what he wastrying to do with his movies and he said, “To showmy culture.” It was a question I had to ask but whoseanswer I did not have the resources to understand exceptin the most facile way. I then watched the movie andlater I read Rey Ileto’s history, Pasyon and Revolution,a history that was difficult for me to read but rewardedme later with a sense of a longer and deeper history ofFilipino culture. It revealed to me some things about theprotagonist I could previously not comprehend, like themeaning of his posture and his political imaginary. Theforeword to Ileto’s history notes that a dissatisfactionwith positivist social science coupled with a reading ofphilosophy helped him re-conceptualize this history.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 229I met Professor Ileto at a political science conferencein Zamboanga City but I was only able to secure thepromise of an interview in Singapore. I wanted tounderstand the process of re-thinking that he underwentwhile reading philosophy. I was not able to ask Dias ifhe had read Ileto’s history (and I am certain he has) butthe connection between the two works seemed to meto be that both work from a common understanding oftheir culture (in this case, perhaps low-land ChristianFilipino culture). One self-conscious attempt to quoteIleto’s work in film—“Indio Nacional”—succeededonly in establishing the filmmaker’s relationship to theiconic text rather than some common cultural pool.While I read the newspapers, particularly columns bysocial scientists, I was impressed by the consistency ofengagement but left a little cold by the form. I learnedmany facts about the country and its culture but Iwas less clear about how all this, presented to a localaudience, could affect any kind of cultural shift. Thiswas also true of my experiences in Thailand.Palawan, voyage to the peripheryThe typhoon that hit Manila coincided with a trip to auniversity in Palawan and my encounter with academicsat a state university. The ferry trip in the first month ofmy stay forced me to re-think the strategy and purposeof my research. I conducted long interviews with twovery senior academics (retired from the University of thePhilippines (UP) and the Ateneo de Manila University)and with younger faculty. I had come with a sense ofsome disquiet about my ability to use a social sciencediscourse as the pivot of my research. I had read thework of Cynthia Bautista and realized that it would takea profound familiarity with the many decades of Filipinosocial sciences—sociology, economics, psychology,etc.—to actually pull this off. In recognizing my ownlimitations in this regard, I thought that a focus on theterm “deep democracy” and the notion of public culturethat underscored it would be more realistic.What I did benefit from in the Philippines was thepublication of various histories of universities, withthose dealing specifically with the experience of theMarcos dictatorship being of particular interest. It tookme back to the 1970s, and at Ateneo’s library I was ableto begin a process of unearthing more histories. I foundthe journal Minerva, which detailed the discipliningof my own alma mater, the National University ofSingapore (then University of Singapore), and itsradical twin, Nanyang University. It helped me to beginto piece together the experiences of the region refractedthrough the struggles in and around the university andthe very idea of the university and the intellectual. Italso led me back to the regional journal Solidarity—which I only knew as it was fading—and an interviewwith its then editor F. Sionil Jose about the existenceof intellectual networks across the region. Intellectualslike Sulak Sivaraksa of Thailand were also part of thisnetwork and, as I dug deeper, it seemed to me that aforgotten history which underscores, perhaps silently,the contemporary situation, awaits unearthing.Six points of comparisonIn many ways, Malaysia is the yardstick by which Imeasured the Thai and Filipino experiences of bothdemocracy in its relation to the specific institutionof the university and the social actor broadly referredto as the intellectual. Here are some broad points ofcomparison that I noticed while conducting research.First, intellectuals are recognized as an importantvoice in the public sphere in both Thailand and in thePhilippines in ways that do not exist in Malaysia. Thisrecognition comes from many segments of society andis notable in the way the media often designate thecontributions of intellectuals. This is especially markedin Thailand.Second, a visible and vocal segment of academicssee themselves as public intellectuals and participatevigorously in the shaping of the public sphere. I foundthat this self-identification as architects in the draftingof future models of society—asking questions addressedto the means as well as the ends of society—verycompelling.Third, many academics in Malaysia have participatedin politics by becoming members of either the ruling oropposition political parties. A strategy of participating inthe political life of the nation as intellectuals is not oftenopted for. This is related to my first two observations.While in the Philippines, I was told, in half jest, thatpresidents of the UP often think they can run thecountry better than the politicians do. (The allegedinvolvement of the former UP President, FranciscoNemenzo, in the failed Oakwood Mutiny, the role ofhis “Blueprint” and his association with a leftist politicalgrouping, is a telling instance of direct involvement.)However, in Malaysia, while a few notable academicshave become leading lights in opposition politics, thereis nothing akin to the progressive or radical traditionof the UP. Pockets of progressive, pro-democraticacademics have emerged, such as the “Aliran” group inthe Science University of Malaysia (USM, Penang), butthese remain isolated instances.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

230 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTFourth, the successful developmental policies ofthe Malaysian government might be credited withabsorbing and institutionalizing some progressive forces.Unfortunately, the pro-indigenous race politics, whichin part led to the democratization of the universities,have led to some perverse consequences. One is theincreasing bureaucratization of state universities and therise of an academic class owing much to their politicalmasters. Their reason for being is to legitimize thecurrent order. The nationalist sentiments that animatedthe policy of deepening inclusivity have turned into arear-guard action of defending racial quotas and thepromotion of staff and students on criteria other thanmerit. Neither the Philippines nor Thailand seem toshare a similar history.Fifth, universities in the Philippines and Thailandserved in some measure and to varying degrees as sites ofresistance to dictatorship and repression. While all threecountries had politically volatile decades, by the 1970sthe Malaysian government had been able to stabilize thesituation. There have been several histories on the roleof universities in relation to the Marcos dictatorship,such as Down from the Hill about the Ateneo, whichserve as compelling tributes to the spirit of autonomyand commitment to democracy, though not withouttheir low moments.Sixth, state universities in Malaysia seem to lack a deeppedagogical philosophy and I found reading about thehistory of the Ateneo quite instructive on the needfor tertiary institutions to have such philosophicalfoundations. A diversity of pedagogies is also healthy.While I could not discern this dimension in the Thaisituation, it seemed much more marked in the Filipinocontext with a range from Catholic to secular discourseson the means and ends of education.A modest proposalWhat I see as a real possibility is the creation of anawareness of the intellectual heritage of Southeast Asiain the world, of the contests over the meaning and roleof the intellectual and the university as they engagedwith their newly independent nations. This debateneeds to be made contemporary and our program iswell placed to initiate one, not just for ourselves, butalso for the larger community. By broadening the termintellectual beyond the professional academic and at thesame time recognizing the importance of the “public”character of the university, this dialogue can help theregion to mobilize the cultural resources it will need tomove itself forward.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

232APPENDIX IWORKSHOP SCHEDULEThe Sixth Workshop of Asian Public IntellectualsDavao City, Philippines, 25-29 November 2007Day 1, Sunday, 25 November 20071700 - 1730 Registration1730 - 1800 Cocktail1800 - 1820 Group Photograph1820 - 1940 Opening Ceremony and DinnerWelcoming Speeches:Surichai Wun’Gaeo, Program Director of API Coordinating Institution;Fr. Jose M. Cruz, S.J., Director of API Partner Institution in the Philippines; andYohei Sasakawa, Chairman of The Nippon FoundationMC & Introduction of Keynote Speaker:Fr. Jose M. Cruz, S.J.Keynote Address:Edilberto de Jesus, Director of Southeast Asian Ministers ofEducation Organization (SEAMEO)“In Search of Asian Public Intellectuals”Dinner:Toast by Fr. Antonio Samson, S.J., President of Ateneo de DavaoDay 2, Monday, 26 November 20070830 - 1030 INTRODUCTION SESSIONModerator: Surichai Wun’GaeoOn API Fellowships Program and API Workshop: Tatsuya TanamiOverview of the Workshop: Czarina Saloma-AkpedonuIntroduction of Workshop Participants1030 - 1050 Coffee Break1050 - 1310 PARALLEL SESSION I: Intermingling of Continuity and DiscontinuityChair: Fr. Jose M. Cruz, S.J.Discussant: Danilo Francisco M. ReyesPARALLEL SESSION II: Specificities of GlobalizationChair: Koji TanakaDiscussant: Wataru Fujita1310 - 1410 Lunch Break1410 - 1610 PARALLEL SESSION III: Collages of Civil Society’s MediationsChair: Surichai Wun’GaeoDiscussant: Prangtip DaoruengPARALLEL SESSION IV: Circles of Power and CounterbalancesChair: Ragayah Haj. Mat ZinDiscussant: Fr. Jose Magadia, S.J.1610 - Coffee Break1900 - DinnerAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

233Day 3, Tuesday, 27 November 20070830 - 1030 PARALLEL SESSION V: Blurred Borders and Social IntegrationsChair: Taufik AbdullahDiscussant: Herry YogaswaraPARALLEL SESSION VI: Persistent Problems, Promising Solutions and BeneficenceChair: Mary RacelisDiscussant: Narumol Aphinives1030 - 1050 Coffee Break1050 - 1310 PARALLEL SESSION VII: Reconfiguration of Identities and Futures in Times of TransformationChair: Louie DavidDiscussant: Khoo Su Nin (Salma) NasutionPARALLEL SESSION VIII: Cultures as Ordinary and EverydayChair: Tatsuya TanamiDiscussant: Yeoh Seng Guan1310 - 1400 Lunch1400 - 1600 Mindanao Talk: Fr. Albert Alejo, S.J.1600 - Coffee Break1900 - DinnerDay 4, Wednesday, 28 November 20070830 - 1930 Field TripDay 5, Thursday, 29 November 20070900 - 1010 PLENARY DISCUSSION: Contexts and Processes of Social TransformationsChair: Muktasam1010 - 1030 Coffee Break1030 - 1210 PLENARY DISCUSSION: Origins and Consequences of Social TransformationsChair: Theresita V. AtienzaSYNTHESIS: Asian Transformations in ActionCzarina Saloma-Akpedonu1210 - 1330 Lunch1330 - 1430 Response from the Fellows: Reflections and ApplicationsModerator: Surichai Wun’Gaeo1430 - 1530 Closing Remarks: Tatsuya Tanami and Fr. Jose M. Cruz, S.J.1530 - 1550 Coffee Break1610 - 1730 API Hour1900 - 2100 Farewell Dinner / Cultural NightAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

234APPENDIX IIWORKSHOP PARTICIPANTSThe Sixth Workshop of Asian Public IntellectualsDavao City, Philippines, 25-29 November 2007(information at the time of participation)FELLOWSINDONESIAHERU SUSETYODeputy Dean for Academic Affairs, Faculty of Law, University of Indonusa Esa Unggul; Head, Legal Aids andHuman Rights CenterI KETUT GUNAWANVice Chairman, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Mulawarman UniversityKRISNADI YULIAWAN SAPTADIFilm Critic and Freelance JournalistMOKHAMMAD YAHYALecturer, Universitas Islam Negeri (UIN) Syarif HidayatullahJAPANAKIKO MORISHITAFellow, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies,Kyoto UniversityAYAME SUZUKIPost-doctorial Fellow, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of TokyoHOZUE HATAECampaigner, Development Finance and Environment Program, Friends of the Earth JapanKAORI FUSHIKIEducation/Research Assistant, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and MusicMICHI TOMIOKAPh.D. Candidate, Graduate School of Literature and Human Sciences, Osaka City UniversityYOSHIKO SHIMADAVisual ArtistMALAYSIAAHMAD HEZRI BIN ADNANResearch Fellow and Senior Lecturer, Institute of Environment & Development, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia(UKM)ISKANDAR SHARIFUDDIN BIN MOHD. SAIDIndependent Film DirectorAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

JOSIE M. FERNANDEZExecutive Council Member, Transparency International Malaysia; Advisor, Federation of Malaysia ConsumersAssociations; Director, Center for Advancement of PhilanthropyJYOTHI KUKATHASArtistic Director, The Instant Café’s Theater CompanySHARAAD KUTTANResearch Director and Associate Fellow, Institute of Malaysia and International Studies (IKMAS), UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)PHILIPPINESALWIN C. AGUIRREAssistant Professor, Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature, College of Arts and Letters, University ofthe Philippines, DilimanDJORINA R. VELASCOLecturer, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila UniversityGLECY C. ATIENZAProfessor and Chair, Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature, College of Arts and Letters, University ofthe Philippines, DilimanIDERLINA B. MATEO-BABIANOPedestrian Transport Consultant, DISENYOMYFEL JOSEPH D. PALUGAFaculty and Chair, Department of Social Sciences, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of thePhilippines-MindanaoRAMON P. SANTOSUniversity Professor Emeritus, Center for Ethnomusicology, University of the Philippines, DillimanTHAILANDCHAITHAWAT TULATHONEditorial Board Member, “Fah Deaw Kan” [Under the Same Sky] Publishing HouseCHAIWAT THIRAPANTUPresident, Civicnet InstituteKAMARUZZAMAN BUSTAMAM-AHMADLecturer, Regional Studies Program, Institute of Liberal Arts, Walailak UniversitySING SUWANNAKIJFellow, Center for Social Development Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn UniversitySUPA YAIMUANGDirector, Sustainable Agriculture Foundation (Thailand)VARINTHRA KAIYOURAWONGAssistant Researcher, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University235Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

236WORKSHOP DIRECTORCZARINA SALOMA-AKPEDONUChair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Loyola Schools; President, PhilippineSociological SocietyKEYNOTE SPEAKEREDILBERTO DE JESUSDirector, Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO)ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITYANTONIO SAMSON, S. J.PresidentALBERT ALEJO, S. J.Executive Director, Mindanawon InitiativeSESSION CONTRIBUTORSDANILO FRANCISCO M. REYESAssistant Professor, Department of English, Loyola School of Humanities, Ateneo de Manila UniversityHERRY YOGASWARAResearcher, Research Center for Population, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (PPT-LIPI)HENRY CHANHead, Department of Social and Community Studies, Sarawak Forestry CorporationJOHN HABAResearch Center for Regional Resources, The Indonesian Institute of SciencesJOSE CRUZ, S. J.Dean, School of Social Sciences, Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila UniversityJOSE MAGADIA, S. J.Director, Center for Community Services; Rector, Loyola House of Studies; Vice-Superior, Juniors andPhilosophers; Executive Director; Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs; Assistant Professor, Ateneode Manila UniversityKHOO SU NIN (SALMA) NASUTIONCoordinator, Lestari Heritage Network; Director, Areca BooksKOJI TANAKADirector, Center for Integrated Area Studies (CIAS), Kyoto UniversityLOUIE DAVIDAssociate Professor, Philosophy Department, Ateneo de Manila University; Editor, Budhi Journal; Faculty Member,University of the Philippines Socio-Anthropology Department; Member, Philippine Judicial Academy; FacultyMember, Ateneo School of LawAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

237MARY RACELISProfessorial Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Graduate School, University of the Philippines-DilimanMUKTASAM ABDURRAHMANLecturer, Faculty of Agriculture, University of MataramNARUMOL APHINIVESEnvironmental Education Researcher, Social Research Institute, Chulalongkorn UniversityPRANGTIP DAORUENGIndependent ResearcherRAGAYAH HAJ. MAT ZINProfessor and Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Malaysia and International Studies (IKMAS), UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)SURICHAI WUN’GAEODirector, Institute of Social Sciences, Chulalongkorn University; Director of Coordinating Institution, APIFellowships Program, Institute of Asian Studies, Chualongkorn UniversityTAUFIK ABDULLAHMember, Social Science Commission, Indonesian Academy of Science; Research Professor,The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)THERESITA V. ATIENZAAssociate Professor, College of Science, Polytechnic University of the Philippines; Senior Lecturer, School of Laborand Industrial Relations (SOLAIR), University of the Philippines, DilimanWATARU FUJITALecturer, Department of Multicultural World Studies, Konan Women’s UniversityYEOH SENG GUANSenior Lecturer and Honors Chair, School of Arts and Sciences, Monash University MalaysiaTHE NIPPON FOUNDATIONYOHEI SASAKAWAChairman; WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy EliminationTATSUYA TANAMIExecutive DirectorTADASHI MIYAZAKIAdvisorMICHIKO TAKIChief Manager, International Program DepartmentNATSUKO TOMINAGAPress Officer, Communication DepartmentKEIKO MORIPress Officer, Communication DepartmentAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

238KANAE HIRANOInterpreterINTERNATIONAL SELECTION COMMITTEE MEMBERSJOSE CRUZ, S. J.Dean, School of Social Sciences, Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila UniversityKOJI TANAKADirector, Center for Integrated Area Studies (CIAS), Kyoto UniversityMARY RACELISProfessorial Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Graduate School, University of the Philippines, DilimanRAGAYAH HAJ. MAT ZINProfessor and Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Malaysia and International Studies (IKMAS), UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)SURICHAI WUN’GAEODirector, Institute of Social Sciences, Chulalongkorn University; Director of Coordinating Institution, APIFellowship Program, Institute of Asian Studies, Chualongkorn UniversityTATSUYA TANAMIExecutive Director, The Nippon FoundationTAUFIK ABDULLAHMember, Social Science Commission, Indonesian Academy of Science; Research Professor,The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)PROGRAM COORDINATORSDOROTHY FERNANDEZ-ROBERTInstitute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)JOHN HABAResearch Center for Regional Resources, The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (PSDR-LIPI)MELISSA JAYME-LAOSchool of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila UniversityMICHIKO YOSHIDAInstitute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University (also for CI)NAOKO MAENOCenter for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto UniversityPROGRAM ASSISTANTS / STAFFSCHIARA M. DE CASTROSchool of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila UniversityAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

239NAPAT TANGAPIWUTInstitute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University (also for CI)ROSALINDA GATCHALIANSchool of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila UniversityRAPPORTEURSCHARLENE DIAZISABEL NAZARENOAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

240APPENDIX IIIABSTRACTS OF PAPERSCircles of power and counterbalancesPOLITICS AND TIMBER IN MALAYSIAAkiko MorishitaThis paper discusses who controls timber resources and how in a forest-rich state in Malaysia. The federalgovernment has given great autonomy to the state government, including the entire control over forestconcessions. Here, the state Chief Minister has retained his strong political influence for more than 25 years.Local entrepreneurs, especially those with timber interests, have to rely on his patronage for their businesssuccess. The paper examines how he has concentrated political power into his hands, how local business peoplehave made links with him and became successful in business, and what factors have brought the concentrationof power into the Chief Minister’s hands.POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND OPPOSITION FORCES INMALAYSIA: THE POLITICAL PROCESS OF THE OFFICIAL SECRETSACT AND THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC CONSULTATIVE COUNCILAyame SuzukiThe interaction between Malaysia’s political institutions and people’s perceptions of and attitudes towardsthese institutions are examined to explain the dynamics of opposition forces in Malaysia. The study focuseson a series of amendments to the Official Secrets Act (OSA) in 1986, which aimed to restrict the right toknow and freedom of speech. When the government drafted the restrictive OSA, various actors, includingopposition and governing parties, NGOs, business groups, and trade unions opposed the bill. The increasedopposition forced the government to relax some of the act’s provisions. This was followed in turn by adecrease in the size of the opposition when governing parties and business groups realized that the newlaw did not violate their opportunities for interest articulation. The diminished size of the opposition hasremained constant because of the law-abiding nature of the implementation of the OSA and because theNational Economic Consultative Council (NECC), a deliberative institution, provided business groups andgoverning parties with alternative channels for interest articulation. The findings of the study show how thecurrent non-liberal political institution came to be in force, how the institution thus established affected thesize of opposition forces, and why this institution has been maintained in spite of the persistent oppositionfrom pro-liberal actors.THE DISCOURSE OF THE ISLAMIC STATE AND ISLAMIC LAW INMALAYSIAKamaruzzaman Bustamam-AhmadThis paper discusses the debate on the Islamic State and Islamic law in Malaysia after the reformasi. It will arguethat this discourse can be seen through different Muslim and non-Muslim interpretations of Islam as a politicalsource in Malaysia. The Muslim voice in the state on this debate shows that their understanding of Islam followstheir interests in the political arena. However, in between these spectrums there are Muslim groups that act morelike a civil society rather than promoting an Islamic state and Islamic law in Malaysia. By doing ethnography withone Islamic missionary group in Malaysia, Jamâ‘ah Tablîgh, I argue that there is an Islamic movement that plays animportant role in disseminating Islamic teaching through ‘reform from below.’ In contrast, for non-Muslims, theissue of an Islamic state and Islamic law is to turn Malaysia into a theocratic state, which is against the constitutionand the context of Malaysia’s plural and multi-ethnic citizenry.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

Persistent problems, promising solutions and beneficenceFROM CHARITY TO SOCIAL INVESTMENTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE:A STUDY OF PHILANTHROPIC INSTITUTIONS IN INDONESIAJosie M. FernandezPhilanthropy is a complex social intervention phenomenon constituted by values and organizational andcommunity activities through an array of local, national and international institutions. It takes the forms ofvoluntary giving, voluntary service and voluntary association for the benefit of people and the environment.Charity provides immediate relief while philanthropy is a long-term commitment for building the capacityof people, facilitating social change and promoting global peace and security. In Indonesia, contemporaryphilanthropic practices are profoundly driven by religion, cosmological practices, social justice concerns and agrowing emphasis on corporate social responsibility. Philanthropy is conditioned, too, by the social, politicaland economic conditions of particular periods. The last two decades have seen tremendous growth in Islamicphilanthropy given the huge potential for Islamic obligatory giving and voluntary contributions, with institutionalphilanthropy on the rise. Indonesia has harnessed pluralism in philanthropy for strengthening diversity andaddressing socioeconomic needs.SOCIAL IMPACT OF JAPANESE PRIVATE-SECTOR PROJECTSON LOCAL PEOPLE IN THE PHILIPPINES AND MALAYSIAHozue HataeWhile the defects of public aid by the Japanese government, or Official Development Aid (ODA), have beendiscussed and criticized in many books and reports, Japanese private-sector projects which are also playing a largerole in the development initiatives in Asia have yet to be examined more closely. A great number of Japaneseprivate-sector projects have been found to have added up to more suffering in the lives of local people and madethem much poorer in the name of sustainable development. This report, mainly based on interviews with localpeople affected by three Japanese private-sector projects in the Philippines and Malaysia, considers the factors thathave turned sustainable development projects into destructive ones. One such factor is the failure of developers andinvestors to anticipate and avoid the social impact of projects by neglecting local peoples’ voices and concerns. Tohave genuine development for local people, it is necessary to respect and uphold the basic human rights of the localsaffected by the projects, including their right to determine their own plans for their community’s development.POLICIES AND VICTIM SERVICES IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT:LESSONS LEARNED FROM INDONESIA, JAPAN AND THAILANDHeru SusetyoAsia is a continent prone to disasters, both human-made and natural. Natural disasters occur frequently in Asiain various forms, from earthquakes in Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Japan; floods in Bangladesh and Vietnam;tsunamis in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka; and typhoons in Taiwan, to volcanic eruptions and landslides inthe Philippines. However, only a small number of Asian countries seriously pay attention to disaster management.One such country is Japan, which is one of the best countries equipped with natural disaster management andpolicies. Scholars believe that natural disasters are unavoidable since they are part of nature or God’s plan.However, the state has a strict obligation to mitigate or reduce risks/damages due to disaster by introducinga disaster preparedness program. Part of a disaster preparedness program is creating policies or laws relatedto disaster management which will serve as guidelines or grounds in dealing with the disaster managementprograms. Providing services for the victims as part of disaster response is also important in disaster management.This paper describes policies and victim services in natural disaster management based on fieldwork in Japan andThailand from August 2006-February 2007 to use for comparison in order to understand the current situationof Indonesian disaster management and polices. For Indonesia, the legislation and enactment of natural disastermanagement policies are among the country’s top priorities since it has been seriously affected by earthquakes,tsunamis, massive floods, landslides and fires for the past several decades.241Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

242Intermingling of continuity and discontinuityREVALUING JAVANESE COURT DANCES (SRIMPI AND BEDHAYA)WITHIN THE CURRENT SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTMichi TomiokaSurakarta Court dances were allowed to be performed for the public in the 1970s as part of a national project.The Indonesian people, however, did not preserve them as they had been and made shorter versions instead. Theythought it more important to innovate in accordance with the changing times. In this project, I tried to search forthe meaning of the full versions of court dances among the public under current circumstances by producing stageperformances and documenting these in videos and music recordings with the involvement of Indonesians. Theproject was highly appreciated by participants, audiences and the mass media. Performers found they could getmore absorbed in their playing and dancing as time passed, which then enchanted the audience. This proved thatthere is now every possibility that performing arts in their pre-innovation form, which was denied in the 1970s,can still appeal to the public. The value of the arts can be limited or changed according to social and culturalcontexts. Indonesian performing arts have been influenced largely by government art policy. It would be effectiveto spontaneously revalue and reconsider the results of former art projects in search of their own roots or demandby the public.TRANSFORMING THINKING, TRANSGRESSING BORDERSJo KukathasOur global civilization is a world heritage and not simply, as nationalists would have it, a collection of disparatelocal cultures. Persistent global movements of the curious and the entrepreneurial have often had a positive impacton culture, providing fresh challenges to artists and authority figures. These challenges have led to exploration andinnovation. Hundreds of years of isolation and a rift between traditional and contemporary theater engendered bythe Meiji Restoration has created a unique theater in Japan. However, artists in Japan come from a long traditionthat is cumulative, syncretic, pluralist and evolutionary. The challenge now lies in bridging the divide betweencontemporary and traditional art and balancing cultural recovery with a critiquing of tradition.TRANSMISSION, PEDAGOGY AND EDUCATION: A CRITICAL STUDYOF ASIAN TRADITIONAL MUSIC CULTURES IN POST-COLONIALAND POST-MODERN TIMES IN THAILAND AND INDONESIARamón Pagayon SantosAs a contribution to the discourse on changing identities and their social, historical and cultural contexts, this studywas undertaken to gain deeper insight into the transformative state of Asian expressive cultures as reflected in thecontemporary modes of the transmission of traditional artistic practices in Thailand and Indonesia. With referenceto the teaching and learning of the musical arts, this study investigates traditional and indigenous techniques ofknowledge transfer vis-à-vis the present formalized institutional structures for professional artistic training andeducation. While pursuing the initial assumption that orally transmitted practices are highly vulnerable against theoverpowering effect of formalized and literate teaching strategies in modern times, the study has found a much morecomplex phenomenon. It focuses on three major factors by which musical traditions and their essential expressiveand cultural properties could be either eroded and undermined or preserved and developed for future generationsthrough imaginative and creative negotiation and exploration. These three factors are: a) human resources; b)institutional agency; and c) the social environment.THEATER CHRONICLES: LESSONS IN THEATER DOCUMENTATIONFROM TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY THEATER PRACTICESIN THAILAND AND INDONESIAGlecy C. AtienzaThe task of interpreting the artistic craft and documenting the aesthetics of theater practice for posterity has remaineda challenge for artists. This study identifies concerns and practices in developing a theater documentation system fortraditional and contemporary theater practices from an artist’s point of view through observation of and interactionwith various artists, theater groups and theater institutions, and visits to libraries in Thailand and Indonesia. Itdiscusses the critical role of artist and artists’ interactions with the community in realizing theater documentation.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

Blurred borders and social integrationsEXPLORING ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS AMONG FILIPINO MUSLIMURBANITES IN THE QUIAPO AREA: A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OFTHE IMPACT OF MODERNIZATION AND URBAN LIFEMokhammad YahyaThe fusion of religion and politics, a key feature of Islamic fundamentalism, is very much a part of the aspirationsof Filipino Muslims, although they may differ in their positions on whether or not an independent nation (Bangsa)for Moros (Filipino Muslims) can actually be achieved and whether or not their goal can be reached only througharmed struggle. Clusters of Muslim groups in the Quiapo area have been formed around these aspirations and thestruggle of political movements, and around emerging schools of Islamic thought. The differences among theseclusters can be understood in the context of three types of Filipino Muslims’ struggle: armed struggle, collaborationwith the Philippine government, and an apolitical movement. The first and the second are operating politically atsocietal levels while the third type is primarily a struggle in the cultural realm at the individual level. The factorsthat have shaped the rhetorically fundamentalist but pragmatic and moderate approach to the Islamic state of asample of Filipino Muslim urbanites are: the experience of centuries of Bangsamoro struggle against colonialism andcontinuing political and economic imbalances; the enclave character of Quiapo and the mosques that have allowedMuslims living there to retain their ethno-cultural identity against the onslaught of the Christian majority ideology;the modernizing/secularizing tendencies of urban life; and an orientation toward the imagined community ofMuslims in the Philippines.FLUID BOUNDARIES: TOWARD A PEOPLE-CENTERED APPROACHTO BORDER ISSUES IN NORTH SULAWESIDjorina VelascoThis paper explores border issues on the Indonesian side of the Indonesian-Philippine border. It surfaces thecontestations between state and society over the maintenance of the border and the social construction of identities.It traces the history of the porous maritime border in order to contextualize contemporary problems relating to“illegal” cross-border flows. In so doing, it puts forward a critique of the predominant frameworks of understandingborder issues, namely, the security and cultural approaches, for not being sufficiently attuned to realities on theground, and proposes a more people-centered perspective in addressing the needs of border populations.THE HISTORY OF TOMORROW: THE DISCOURSE OF SCIENCEAND THE IMAGINATION OF THE FUTURE IN ASIAN SCIENCEFICTIONSAlwin C. AguirreThis study presents a reading of Japanese and Indonesian science fiction (in translation) in various media. Throughdiscourse analysis, we attempt to examine the representation of science and technology (ST) in these texts and, alongwith it, the representations of the future. We aim to make palpable the political in our constructed relationship withscience and technology, especially highlighting skepticism toward pervasive discursive binary oppositions betweenscience as truth and others as myth. At the risk of exposing an offhanded attitude, the texts as subject matter in thisproject are seen as repositories of both personal and shared psyche of particular societies and their members. Thoughseen as (just) fantastical and even frivolous at times, science fiction as a cultural product is a representation of thesentimental, ideological, theoretical and philosophical musings of a people’s inescapable interaction with ST. Forthe marginalized and oft-disregarded members of the “third world”, the significance of this extends to its continuedexistence as a sovereign and actively engaging agent and recipient of change.243Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

244Refiguration of identities and futures in times of transformationBONES IN TANSU — FAMILY SECRETSYoshiko ShimadaFrom an interactive art project which I conducted in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, I found underlyingproblems behind the façade of “family values” in Asia. Many secrets seem to be written by women and young people.The project provides those who are silenced a safe place to voice their experiences and share them anonymously withthe public. Through workshops and talks, I learned about the social, political, religious, geographical and historicalbackground of these problems. Furthermore, I interacted with some of the victims of these problems and conducteda workshop to seek the possibility of visual art as a tool for recovery from traumatic experiences. Some problems areparticular to the region/country; others seem to be more universal. However, regaining human dignity should be abasic and universal human need. I hope this project contributes to the effort of achieving this purpose.CULTURAL ATTITUDES TO ANIMALS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA:HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONS AS A DIMENSION OF CULTURALIDENTITY FORMATION AND DYNAMICSMyfel Joseph PalugaSamples of animal-relating practices and attitudes happening in varying ecological and cultural contexts in Indonesia,Thailand, and the Philippines show the extent of the diversity that Southeast Asians have woven as a result of theirlong-term interactions with nonhuman animals. The picture is both complex and patterned, so that although wecannot justifiably give a single unifying label to the phenomena, we cannot also discount the broad themes emergingout of the interactions. Monkeys, for example, are variously feared, venerated, and hated, but through all these, onealso observes their propensity to actively assert themselves and, by their trainability and adaptability, to find nichesdespite the expanding spaces of humans. There are also enduring dichotomies (e.g., forest/village, wild/tame) thatshape the attitudes of local people vis-à-vis animals. These patterns form the wide settings in which human-animalrelations play themselves out in Southeast Asia. The paper argues that human-animal relations, to varying degrees,are involved in the shaping of identities—as humans, as communities, or as selves. In these dynamics, the animalthreads might be explicitly evoked or may be only implicit in practice but always integrating these in our narrativesis important in forming a broader view of Southeast Asian realities.NARRATING THE NATION: MODERN HISTORICALREPRESENTATIONS OF IDENTITY IN INDONESIAN FILMIskandar Sharifuddin bin Mohd. SaidIndonesian films in the past tended towards a martial ideal in their depiction of the national struggle forIndependence. The first part of the paper will be devoted to the ideas surrounding the construction of the ideaof nation; this necessarily incorporates issues on identity and history and the manner and ways it is constructedtextually via the moving image, taking two feature films as examples. The principles or narrating the nation organizesitself towards a homogenous perspective. What this homogeneity excludes and denies are alternative histories, otherrepresentations and spaces of public memory that express the heterogeneous as an absence. And absence assumesfinding and recovering, as a beginning, a cycle of beginnings, as texts and practices that are engaged and defined viaspatial categories and thereby its articulations and contestations as spatial politics. My paper proposes to look at theconstruction of identity and the ideas of nation by way of textual analysis of filmic texts and ground practices andtheir articulations and narrating of the nation, across Indonesian films as culturally, socio-politically and historicallylocated.RECONSIDERATION OF LOCAL IDENTITY THROUGHPERFORMING ARTS IN THE ERA OF OTONOMI DAERAHKaori FushikiThis study attempts to indicate how people recognize and practice their local identity through the performingarts. It focuses on Bali in Indonesia, which is well-known for its flourishing performing arts. In recent years, aconcept, Ajeg Bali, has infiltrated Balinese society, and the number of people who want to practice performing artsas a representation of Ajeg Bali is increasing. The study, thus, surveys the concept of Ajeg Bali, which has becomeAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

the basis of local identity and examines people’s activities vis-à-vis the concept. The gamelan activities of women,children and youth, and two non-traditional performing arts are presented as examples. The study arrives at thefollowing conclusions: 1) the local identity is not yet firm and includes fluctuation and anxiety; 2) Ajeg Bali maybecome ethnocentric and create social tension; and 3) the performing arts, which are performed as representationsof the local identity, have become tools of agitation by those in power and are always deeply wrapped up inpolitics.245Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

246Specificities of globalizationTRANSFORMATIONS IN AGRARIAN LIVELIHOOD ANDTHE SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE MOVEMENT UNDERGLOBALIZATIONSupa YaimuangTrade liberalization has forced countries to open their territories to trade and competition. It has impacted theagricultural sector in terms of food self-sufficiency and caused changes to the agri-food systems in both developedcountries like Japan and developing countries like Indonesia. Small farmers have to confront huge changes;meanwhile, they are not allowed to participate in decisionmaking on national and international policies. However,there are concrete examples of farmers’ adaptation to the new situation based on their culture and through thedevelopment of community innovations such as the so-called” sustainable agriculture.” Sustainable agriculture,with its promise of self-sufficiency and freedom for small farmers, has been challenged by trade liberalization andconsumerism. However, the role of civil society has grown and is moving towards the sustainable developmentparadigm in creating a balance within global society. The movement has gone forward with people’s participationand cooperation within the nation and beyond national boundaries.ACTIONS OF NON-STATE GROUPS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: ORIGINS,DRIVING FORCES AND NETWORKSI Ketut GunawanThis paper discusses non-state groups’ actions related to terrorism or terror attacks in Southeast Asia with casestudies from Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. It highlights the groups’ origins, driving forces and networks.First, it shows that while the origins of such actions in the Philippine and Thai cases are traceable to disputedterritorial claims and have a strong link with insurgency, in the Indonesian case, terror actions have originatedfrom a strong passion to establish a perceived ideal state and are inspired by the goals and struggles of the insurgentgroup in the past. Second, greed and grievance approaches are not sufficient to explain such non-state groups’actions. The findings reveal that the ideology of violence contributes considerably to these groups’ actions in thesecountries. Third, the paper points out that groups have built their networks to sustain their movements and furthertheir goals. A stronger link is found between the groups in Indonesia and the Philippines, while in the Thai case,the group is seemingly still in its “formative years” of establishing links with organizations abroad, particularly thosein Indonesia. The evidence also shows that, besides utilizing its actual network, the Indonesian group in particularmobilizes a virtual network to sustain its movement. The virtual network is more resilient than the actual oneand, therefore, the threat of terrorism is still imminent. In dealing with the current problems and future threats,the use of a multi-dimensional approach is necessary, particularly through investments in education, economicempowerment and the promotion of religious tolerance.GLOBALIZATION, INFLUENCE AND RESISTANCE: CINEMATICREPRESENTATIONS AND EXPERIENCE IN JAPAN AND THAILANDKrisnadi Yuliawan SaptadiThe growing ties between the Asian and American film industries can be viewed as an indicator of globalization.While Hollywood has an increasing domination of Asian film markets, a growing Asianization of films is alsohappening. This study examines the complex relationship of cultural influence and resistance as shown in Japaneseand Thai cinematic creations and concludes that globalization of cinema is no longer only about Hollywood.THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION AND CONSUMPTION:SPIRITUALITY IN JAPAN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A THAISing SuwannakijI expand my topic to cover spirituality in general, instead of only Buddhism as in the pre-research proposal.This was due to my ‘misunderstanding’ that Japan is primarily a Buddhist country; soon after arriving in thecountry, I realized that the reality is much more complex. Buddhism is only one part of a plethora of Japanesespirituality. Delving into this complexity, and trying to understand it, is one point, but I chose to focus more on this‘misunderstanding,’ which was born out of the representation of Japanese religion outside of the country. I came tolearn later that much of what I knew about Japanese spirituality, especially Zen Buddhism, is represented throughAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

a certain Western perspective while what people perceive and practice in everyday life is another thing altogether.However, this represented image is also thrown back into reality and is equally consumed by local people, especiallythose who are susceptible to the flows of images, ideas, perspectives, and information in a globalized, consumeristsociety. Despite the fact that, after finishing the research, I was of the feeling that the characteristics of spirituality inJapan and Thailand could hardly be compared at all, this aspect of the representation and consumption of religionscan be witnessed in both Japan and Thailand alike.SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THE CONSUMPTION OF SPIRITUALITYIN JAPAN (OR: WHILST I SEARCHED FOR MY SOUL IN A SOULLESSMETROPOLIS…)Mohd Naguib RazakIn this final paper, Mohd Naguib Razak presents a personal account of the evolution of his investigation intoSpirituality in Japan’s Material Utopia, the unexpected problems and conflicts he encountered along the wayduring his one-year fellowship in Japan, the changing perspectives that emerged from his sense of frustration,isolation and dejection during this stay, the additional emotional crisis of losing his father within this period, hiseventual emotional recovery and renewed sense of perspective, insight and empathy, and finally, the fruitful resultsof his return to Tokyo in April 2008. The paper was conceived within the context of this whole experience beinga necessary interceding stage before embarking on the actual production of his documentary film on the sametheme.247Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

248Collages of bettermentA STUDY OF COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN PROCESSES ON THEISSUE OF COMMUNITY RIGHTS TO BIODIVERSITY RESOURCES INTHE PHILIPPINESVarinthra Kaiyourawong BoonchaiThis research aims to study the communication strategies and patterns of the Southeast Asia Regional Initiativefor Community Empowerment (SEARICE), a non-governmental organization in the Philippines, by focusing onits global Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation (CBDC) program. It also studies the socialconditions and contexts that transcend sociocultural and economic differences and identifies what conditionscontribute to the success and failure of such communication campaigns. The study indicates that a communicationstrategy has been devised at four levels: community, national, regional and international. Human and participatoryapproaches are practiced at the community level, while networking and collaborative approaches are considered atthe other levels. The main message sent to the target groups focuses on plant genetic resources and farmers’ rights.Interpersonal communication, using both personal media and specific media, is fundamental in communicatingwith the main audience at the community level. At the same time, group communication and specific media arethe communication methods used at the mainstream level. The identification of the target audience, participatoryapproaches and attitudes of farmers are the important conditions that contribute to the success of the project’scommunication campaigns, especially at the community level. However, a lack of interactive learning betweenpolicy and field staff, including the lack of a full-fledged monitoring plan, are constraining conditions that preventthe project from having a broad effect on the general public.CULTIVATION OF TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP IN CIVILSOCIETY AND THE CO-CREATION OF THE ENERGY FIELD FORDEMOCRATIZATION IN ASIAChaiwat ThirapantuCivil society organizations, particularly in Southeast Asia, are struggling to respond to today’s increasingly complexproblems: democratization, ecological destruction, migration, terrorism and social and cultural degradation. Theidea of transformative leadership has been presented and is receiving considerable attention as a means to copewith the challenges. During the last decade, various civil society organizations around East and Southeast Asia,including Japan, the Philippines and Thailand, have produced leadership training programs, addressing personalmastery processes to foster transformative leadership. In this context, this paper aims to examine the intrinsicfactors in which transformative leadership can engender social paradigm shift and co-create new and better realitiesfor society. To gain insights into this, I applied an action research approach based on three-levels of observation.First, from the first person perspective, I reflected on my tacit knowledge, which has been acquired through apersonal mastery process such as practicing aikido and Japanese calligraphy and conducting trainings for over fivehundred change agents and local leaders during the last seven years. As a second-person observer, I conductedinterviews and discussions with some civic leaders in three Southeast Asian countries to understand how thesescholars dealt with leadership development issues. Last, as a third-person observer, I studied some of the literatureon transformative leadership. The research shows that transformative leadership programs seem to fall short ofdelivering necessary leadership qualities, reflecting on the way in which they are not conducted to support collectivelearning communities. The next step, then, is to find the means to tap people’s commitment and to cultivate acommunity of committed leadership.INFORMING GOVERNANCE? SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING ININDONESIA AND THE PHILIPPINESAdnan A. HezriGovernance for sustainable development necessitates multiple flows of information. As natural resource andenvironmental management requires improved partnership between the state and civil society, information isneeded as a tool for social justice. One of the main informational policy instruments is a sustainability indicatorsystem. This paper presents a comparative case study of national sustainability indicator systems in Indonesia and thePhilippines. The overall goal is to understand the dynamics of the interaction of sustainability indicators with policysystems and processes. Evidence suggests that many of the goals enunciated in Indonesia’s sustainable developmentAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

strategy found their way into a business-as-usual mode, largely assimilated into existing planning mechanisms andprocesses. By contrast, the Philippine policy processes for sustainable development have been considered as one ofthe most innovative strategies by global standards. Despite popular acceptance of sustainability as a policy goal, theprovision of data and statistics on environmental conditions, however, still lags behind. Within this milieu, mostindicator systems are still in their early stages of development. At present, these indicator systems are only usefulfor government and civil society officials participating in their development. More strategic approaches are neededbefore these indicator systems can inform governance effectively.REDEFINING THE ASIAN SPACE: A COMPARATIVE VIEWOF EVOLVING STREET CULTURE AND PEDESTRIAN SPACEDEVELOPMENT IN BANDUNG, BANGKOK AND MANILAIderlina Mateo-BabianoAsian cities reflect a strong traditional knowledge distinct from their Western counterparts. This justifies the needto study a city’s local knowledge to serve as potential input for a better understanding of pedestrian behavior andstreet use. The study is an extensive examination of streets in Bandung (Indonesia), Bangkok (Thailand) and Manila(the Philippines) on morphology, street sociology and pedestrian behavior. It identifies factors that affect localstreet culture, including the influence of historical trends, to further understand street morphogenesis, the interplayof movement and non-movement behavior and street space utilization. Asian space use, being unique from itsWestern counterpart, must be treated accordingly; the insights derived from this study may provide the key towardsincreased street livability in Asia.ACADEMIC LIFEWORLDS, THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND DEEPDEMOCRACY IN THAILAND AND THE PHILIPPINESSharaad KuttanThis essay outlines the process which transformed an abstract academic proposal into a re-examination of personalas well as collective struggles over the notions of the “intellectual” in both its institutional and social settings. Itends with a call to document intellectuals’ histories as well as re-kindle the debates about the role of intellectualsand universities in society.249Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows

250Contact Details (as of May 2009)For further information about the API Fellowships Program, please visit www.api-fellowships.org or contact therespective country’s Partner Institution below.IndonesiaResearch Center for Regional Resources,Indonesian Institute of Sciences (PSDR-LIPI)Widya Graha, 9 th Floor, Jln. Jen. Gatot SubrotoNo.10, Jakarta 12170 IndonesiaContact Persons: John HabaYekti MaunatiTel: +62-21-526-5152 / 525-1542 ext. 680 / 737Fax: +62-21-526-5152 / 570-1232Email: darahkubiru@yahoo.comyektim@yahoo.comJapanCenter for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University46 Shimoadachi-cho, Yoshida, Sakyo-ku,Kyoto 606-8501 JapanContact Persons: Naoko MaenoMotoko KondoTel: +81-75-753-7348 / 7391Fax: +81-75-753-7350URL: http://www.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/api/Email: api@cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jpMalaysiaInstitute of Malaysian and International Studies(IKMAS)Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, MalaysiaContact Persons: Dorothy Fernandez-RobertNoraini DhiauddinTel: +60-3-8921-3576 / 3205Fax: +60-3-8926-9253 / 1022URL: http://www.ikmas.ukm.my/api/Email: drob@ukm.myainidee@ukm.myapifellowships@yahoo.comPhilippinesSchool of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila UniversityGround Floor, Center for Community Services (CCS)Building, Social Development ComplexAteneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, QuezonCity 1108 PhilippinesContact Persons: Isabel Consuelo A. NazarenoReina Rose A. PerezTel: +63-2-426-6001 ext. 5205Fax: +63-2-426-1279Email: inazareno_api@yahoo.comapi@admu.edu.phThailandInstitute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University3 rd Floor, Prajadhipok-Rambhai Barni Building,Chulalongkorn University, Phyathai Road, Bangkok10330 ThailandContact Persons: Michiko YoshidaShanya AttasillekhaNapat TangapiwutAkiko KuwajimaTel: +66-2-218-7422Fax: +66-2-652-5283URL: http://www.api-fellowships.orgEmail: api_fellowships@chula.ac.thThe Nippon FoundationInternational Program Department1-2-2 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-8404 JapanTel: +81-3-6229-5181 Fax: +81-3-6229-5180URL: http://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/eng/Email: api@ps.nippon-foundation.or.jpAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows