Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

20 MICHAEL PINCHES
series of hybridities drawn from various ethnic and national attachments (Hall
1992:310; Ang 1994) and constructed in relation to particular ethnic Others. Thus
in Thailand, Chan and Tong (1995) reject the commonly held view in the literature
that Thais with Chinese ancestry have simply been assimilated into Thai society,
but argue, nevertheless, that the Chineseness of the Sino-Thai has been
constructed within a broader national identity. While most Sino-Thais have grown
up speaking the national language, for example, Chinese culture and ancestry have
been celebrated in Thailand in recent years, largely in association with the rags-toriches
success stories of many Chinese entrepreneurs and the role they have
played in the country’s economic boom (Pasuk and Baker 1996:133—6).
It is possible that increased economic integration within the region, involving, in
part, growing co-operation between successful ethnic Chinese from different
countries, combined with the promulgation of Confucianist ideology, has produced
some diasporic re-Sinification. Yet the significance of even this possibility should
not be exaggerated, and it appears fanciful that Confucianism, or Chinese identity,
could develop as a triumphant, self-conscious ideology of economic success and
new-rich solidarity across Asia.
The cases of Singapore and Thailand underline the fact that Confucianism and
Chinese ethnicity are not the only peculiarly ‘Asian’ identities constructed around,
and by, the new rich. Thus, the expanding new rich Indian middle class has, in part,
come to express itself through the rise of Hindu nationalism, not only within India,
but also among Indian diasporic communities (Lakha). Similarly, the Malay and
pribumi (indigenous) Indonesian new-rich, in part, come to express themselves
through the rise of Islam in their countries. These attachments are not only defined
in relation to the West, but also to other rival attachments, and, as in the case of
Hindu nationalism, they draw boundaries within nation states, as well as between
them. Of particular importance has been the remaking of the region’s various
nationalisms. Several countries in Asia have not only become richer, but have
shifted from an officially sanctioned ethos of national austerity to one in which, to
quote Deng Xiaoping, ‘to get rich is glorious’ or, according to Heryanto on
Indonesia (Chapter 6), ‘it is cool to be rich’. Leading the drive to national prosperity
are the new rich, often possessed with feelings of national pride, sometimes
sanctified by a sense of religious mission.
While Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysia’s Dr Mahathir may join hands
in their advocacy of Asian Values, they cannot conceal the changing and often
conflictual identities that surround them. Within nationalist discourses through
much of Southeast Asia, the idea of a causal link between Chinese ethnicity and
enrichment arouses much ambivalence. It may be a matter for celebration; but it is
also central to much of the anti-Chinese sentiment that has characterised a number
of countries. In the Philippines, it is a commonplace view that the new rich are the
local Chinese, and, furthermore, that accumulating wealth through frugality and
enterprise is intrinsic to their ethnic makeup. While some non-Chinese Filipino
politicians and business people have applauded and sought to emulate these
qualities, others hold to a tradition that sees the Chinese as aliens, and their money