Since the 1960s, the concept of civil religion has informed a great number of scholarly works exploring the relationship between religion and nationalism in the west — and beyond. It is therefore not surprising that the concept also informed seminal works on Buddhism and politics in Thailand. In recent years, however, the concept appears to have fallen out of fashion within Thai Studies and perhaps Southeast Asian Studies more broadly. This article surveys and critically discusses the widely diverging and confusing ways in which the concept of civil religion has been used in the study of Thai history and politics. It then seeks to demonstrate the continued relevance and analytical utility of civil religion, understood as a particular kind of nationalism, according to which the state should accommodate or actively encourage and support religious pluralism by developing ideological and institutional links with multiple religious communities. In Thailand, the dominant form of civil-religious nationalism is ‘cosmopolitan royalism’, which positions the king as the leading patron and protector of religions (plural). The final section of the article illustrates how this conception of civil religion might inform both the study of Thai intellectual history and the study of contemporary political contestation.
This article looks at the opium economy and the opium regime in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British Burma, focusing particularly on the Burma–China and Burma–Siam borderlands. It explores British responses to complaints from China, as well as Siam, regarding the smuggling of opium from Burma in the very decades — the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s — when the world was moving towards regulation and prohibition. It explains how and why the British Burma government failed to curb both the cultivation of poppy in Burma's uplands and the smuggling of opium to/from neighbouring China and Siam. The colonial government frequently sought to explain away why so little had been achieved and why opium continued to find its way across the border (e.g., from Kengtung state to Siam). Rather than taking these facts at face value, this article reveals the potent relationship between borderlands, smuggling, and state-making, while linking this finding to ideas about Zomia and establishing what was distinctive about the Burma–China–Siam borderland compared with others in the British Empire in Asia.
The Vietnamese Communist Party adopted a rigid Maoist-model to foment class struggle to eradicate all traces of ‘feudalism’ and ‘capitalism’ across the northern countryside during the 1950s. The mass campaign began in late 1952 then ended abruptly in late 1956 due to the violent chaos it unleashed. A growing body of critical scholarship exists on this campaign; however, the importance of the final step in the campaign's model remains largely overlooked — namely, the ‘reorganisation’ of local Party cells, the goal of which was to extend Party control, especially in areas only recently liberated from French colonial rule. Lengthy, detailed, and confessional in nature, the reports present not only the mobilisation team's achievements, but also include extensive discussions of the failures arising from the team's efforts to assess, purify, and then consolidate the cells. The analysis focuses the ‘story-telling devices’ the report authors used to frame these outcomes. The findings contribute not only to the critical historiography of the tumultuous period, but also the emerging sub-field of failure studies.
This article critically engages with ‘apolitical warriors’ as a conceptual tool for understanding how Gurkhas and their families are discursively embedded in political discourses. The analysis offered will shed light on the limited scholarly attention given to the implications of this soldiering community's ‘impartial’ and ‘martial’ identity in shaping ideas of (non-)belonging within Southeast Asia. By focusing on remembrances, this article draws out how a nation's past is produced vis-à-vis commemorative events and, within this context, it comparatively examines how Gurkhas, as military migrants, are remembered and represented during ceremonies held at, for example, the Gurkha Cemetery in Ipoh, Malaysia and the Kranji War Cemetery in Singapore. A central question involves evaluating the role of historical memory in informing the extent to which the Gurkha community is incorporated within the national narratives of countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei. Herein, I argue that their perceived apolitical tenor has long served a dual purpose which, in turn, forms the axis of their ambivalent belonging. While Gurkhas are celebrated as foreign warriors reputed for their invaluable contribution to these nations, they are excluded through policy measures that rule out the prospect of citizenship and govern their status as transient migrants.
This article uses the career and writings of political philosopher Wu Teh-yao (1916-1994) to argue that Singapore in the 1970s–1980s embodied crucial aspects of conservatism as a modern, transnational ideological project in post-Second World War Asia. Wu opposed radicalism and was sceptical towards liberal democracy and Westernisation, all while promoting culture and tradition to legitimise a less-than-democratic political and social order. His worldview was shaped by a peripatetic life that spanned Asia and the United States and found expression in his propaganda work for the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, presidency of Tunghai University, and, above all, contributions to nation building in Singapore. Indeed, during this period, no intellectual lent as much discursive and administrative support, in English and Chinese, to legitimising authoritarianism and social conservatism in the city-state. Both intellectual biography and social history of ideology, the article explains how Singapore represented the realisation of what we typically call ‘Asian Values’ and was embedded within a wider conservative ideoscape. It questions the conventional temporality and genealogy of Asian Values, arguing that they did not simply flow downwards from upon high, but were also produced and circulated by figures who operated between the state and public.
Studies of the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) over the last dozen years or so have seen the rise to prominence of a new orthodoxy to explain its outcome. This new orthodoxy argues that population control under the Briggs Plan's resettlement programme (mid-1950 to mid-1952) became increasingly effective and was the principal reason that the Malayan Communist Party was forced to change policy by issuing the October 1951 Resolutions. These events, it is contended, turned the tide in the fighting and led to the government's eventual victory. Paying particular attention to the sources used, this analysis shows how the research of a wide range of scholars over the years since the end of the Emergency, challenges the core propositions of the new orthodoxy. The analysis also illustrates that the focus on the new orthodoxy has inhibited the examination of alternative explanations for the course and result of the Emergency, which could usefully be explored.
Until recently, scholars have generally neglected to examine the socialist inspirations of the Republic of Indonesia's most influential Islamic party, Masjumi (Partai Majelis Syuro Muslimin Indonesia, 1943–60) during Indonesia's parliamentary democracy period (1950–59). Drawing on books published by Masjumi politicians as well as an Indonesian translation of the Syrian Islamic socialist Mustafa al-Siba'i's Islamic Socialism (1949), this article explores how two prominent Masjumi members, Zainal Abidin Ahmad and Isa Anshary, drew on socialist ideas in forming their political visions for Indonesia, as part of a broader ongoing debate in the wider Muslim world. In contrast to popular perceptions of Indonesian political Islam today, as well as Cold War-centric characterisations of Islamic political parties, this article shows how Muslim democrats in 1950s Indonesia emphasised socio-economic justice and compassion in their articulations of political Islam.
This article examines the month-long epidemic outbreak of Asian Flu in 1957 in the Colony of Singapore that occurred as part of the larger 1957–58 Asian Flu Pandemic. The notably short duration of this epidemic outbreak in Singapore relative to the prolonged Asian Flu experience in other countries poses significant socio-historical intrigue. In response, this article constructs a socio-historical narrative of Singapore's societal response to the event, focusing specifically on the reactions of the state and the colony residents. Studying the social narratives that emerged from official and popular discourses, this article argues that Singapore's societal response to the epidemic outbreak bifurcated drastically between the state and the public as a result of different and contradictory perceptions of public health and epidemic severity. Owing to extenuating circumstances, state interventions were, overall, reactive and insufficient, permitting the Asian Flu's rapid spread in the colony. The public, however, sought active control over their epidemic fates, as they were driven by a mixture of fear, greed, and civic duty to self-medicate, profiteer, and provide aid to one another. Consulting an eclectic range of hitherto underutilised primary sources, the article constructs a compelling socio-historical narrative that furthers understanding of Singapore's state-society relations.
Theatres of memory: Industrial heritage of 20th century Singapore By Loh Kah Seng, Alex Tan Tiong Hee, Koh Keng We, Tan Teng Phee and Juria Toramae Singapore: Pagesetters, 2021. Pp. 321. Plates, Map, Notes, Index.
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Reciprocal mobilities: Indigeneity and imperialism in an eighteenth-century Philippine Borderland By Mark Dizon Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023. Pp. 259. Illustrations, Maps, Index.
Counter-Hispanization in the colonial Philippines: Literature, law, religion, and native custom By John D Blanco Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023. Pp. 355. Map, Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index.
