Assistant Professor of History, Faculty of Humanities, Chiang Mai University, Zou Kunyi
The Land of the Monsoon: The Fragmentation and Rebirth of Modern Southeast Asia, by Michael Vattijotius, translated by Zhang Xinfang, Shanghai People's Publishing House, May 2021, 352 pp. 59.00
Southeast Asia seems to be a land of strong exoticism in the eyes of Western scholars and many people to this day, and every country where the monsoon travels has mysterious, bizarre and strongly attractive aspects that need to be understood. Michael Watijotis's book has such ambitions, as a former journalist and conflict mediator who has worked in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand for a long time and finally settled in Singapore, Michael tries to interpret the various fragmentations and social conflicts that have occurred and are taking place in this land from his own perspective. Is more than three decades of intimate contact enough to take Michael from the West out of the "gaze of the other" and stand inward in Southeast Asian society?
The translator's translation of the title fits the atmosphere of the opening chapter very well: although the book focuses on the political, social, and religious conflicts and contradictions that exist in the modern and contemporary societies of various Southeast Asian countries, the introduction begins with a highly narrative text, describing the exotic imagination of Southeast Asia, allowing the reader to quickly enter the scene. So "The Land of the Monsoon" seems to have nothing to do with the original text," but it is cleverly handled—the tone of the book is critical and even a little decadent and helpless, but it is all hidden under the mysterious and romantic coconut-style beach and the endless verdant vegetation and rice paddies. The subtitle, "Fragmentation and Rebirth," also better encapsulates the book's two themes, namely, that after a large description of power and conflict, the author also offers his own vision for the future of Southeast Asia. It can be said that the translation of the title also adds a lot to the book.
The shackles of power: a system of support that cannot be escaped
Most of the eleven countries in Southeast Asia today unconsciously fall into two regions, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos in the Indochina Peninsula, and Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia and Timor-Leste, which has not yet had a long history, in the Malay Archipelago (also known as Maritime Southeast Asia). Among them, Malaysia's geographical location is more special, because part of it is located in the southeast Asian mainland. These countries have different traditional influences, different religious beliefs, and different experiences when modern colonialism spread throughout Southeast Asia, but michael, the author of this book, tries to find common points in the differences in regional environment and cultural background, and analyzes and proves them one by one, which is a very courageous point of the author.
The map, the regional map of Southeast Asia, can be more clearly separated into two large blocks, land and sea.
The question raised by the political ills of Southeast Asia runs through the first part of the book, namely, "Why has so much capital and output been unable to promote social or economic equality, justice, and freedom?" Beginning with the end of the decolonization process at the end of World War II, Southeast Asian countries gradually established their own independent governments, and the economies of Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia developed rapidly during the Cold War. In Michael's view, however, there is hardly any country that has established a democratic government that truly empowers people to express their political demands and pursue the public interest. Even Singapore, which has been recognized by the world as a highly economically developed social system, has never set an example in politics. The reason for this is that in the eight chapters of the first part, Michael makes no secret of his dissatisfaction with the profound negative impact of the system of support in Southeast Asia. Because of the system of support, politics and shopping malls are all nepotism, people are more accustomed to obeying and loyal to the leaders of their own circles or factions than to the system itself, and maintaining relations itself has far exceeded the principle of doing things according to the system.
Indonesia and Thailand are the two countries that the authors write about the most, on the one hand, because he has worked or studied in both countries for a long time, in addition to being stationed as a senior journalist, a large part of Michael's doctoral dissertation was completed in Chiang Mai. On the other hand, the author has an emotional entanglement in these two places, the so-called deep responsibility of love, so the description of the political shortcomings and social darkness of the two countries shows the meaning of hating iron and steel. In the author's writing, the two countries have many similarities, and this similarity can even be further extended to other countries in Southeast Asia. At the beginning of the text, the author proposes that in Thai culture, face represents everything, so once confrontation and conflict occur, avoiding talking will be the way many people choose. Similarly, in his view, Indonesia "is, as I have found in Thailand, the problem is not only to avoid conflict to preserve face, but also to use fear and coercion to suppress conflict." This made me wonder if Michael was involved in East Asian culture, or how well he understood it, after all, he had been stationed in Hong Kong for a long time as editor-in-chief of the Far Eastern Economic Review. Compared with the deep-rooted face culture of East Asia, China, Japan, and South Korea, southeast Asians in my study are relatively more self-centered and less concerned about the eyes of those around them. Because of the long history of political change and the lack of large-scale unified centralization, the local ideas and acquaintance societies that prevail in East Asia, especially in China, have not taken firm root in Southeast Asia. The displacement of individuals and small families is something that can happen at any time and will be allowed by extended families, and the tolerance of outsiders can be seen from the fact that the Chinese were able to survive and multiply on a large scale in Southeast Asian countries since the end of the nineteenth century to the deep roots. Even Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia, which had large-scale Chinese exclusion incidents, and Malaysia, which later used policies to suppress Chinese development, had to admit that it was precisely because of the tolerance of society and the strong compatibility in culture that early Chinese immigrants were able to develop and grow.
The premise of face value is that public opinion can cause enough pressure and influence on people, especially in the small circle of people who look up and don't look down. But because of the mobility of people in Southeast Asian societies, the effect that public opinion can cause has little effect. For example, former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Yingluck brothers and sisters, who were ousted by the military government, lived in exile with great taste. Various festivals and special occasions share their good life on Facebook or Twitter with thai supporters in Thailand, flying to Hong Kong to meet their children, going shopping in Zurich, and of course, enjoying the world of drunken fans in Dubai most of the time. These are roughly incomprehensible from the perspective of East Asia, which is deeply influenced by the culture of face. After all, the overthrow of the organized government and the helplessness to avoid other places can be said to be a "faceless" thing, and the corresponding word "exile" of the Chinese has indicated the attitude towards this experience. Even the Thaksin brothers and sisters of Teochew ancestry did not show a dignified appearance at all, and the example of people in high positions reflected in the entire Thai and even Southeast Asian society, it is difficult to convince the reader that this is a "face society".
Former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Yingluck shared on Facebook in May this year with his brother former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra a photo of tasting durian from his hometown, which received more than 5,100 likes.
But Michael's subsequent interpretation of Southeast Asia as well as a humane society is much more powerful, that is, the system of support that he focuses on criticizing. From the famous giants of the political shopping mall to the daily life of ordinary people, it is impossible to escape the procedure of "finding a relationship". The way to rise in politics is not that you are good enough or do something practical to benefit one party, but that you have relatives in this system, who are willing to appoint people they know well to better control their power and be more easily obeyed. This cycle is reflected in the highest organs of power in several countries: presidents of the Philippines and Indonesia come and go in several families, and it is not new for women to inherit their father's business or stepmother's office. For example, the father of former Indonesian President Megawati is the powerful Sukarno, and the father of former Philippine President Arroyo is also former President Ostado, and after the assassination of former opposition leader Benigno Aquino, his wife and son have successively served as the president of the Philippines, and the Thai Thaksin brothers and sisters have also become prime ministers. The family tradition in politics is also common in the West, with the Kennedy family before and the Bush father and son nearby. But in the author's view, the supreme leaders of southeast Asian countries who eventually came to power were often not strong enough to support their position, and it was the aura of personal background and the people's instinctive support for the leaders of their factions in the general environment that enabled them to win seemingly democratic elections. That is to say, these people will often be pushed to the front of the stage by the people who have been promoted by their own fathers and become the leaders of a party, so their election is logical. After being elected, they can continue to take care of the descendants of those who have surrounded themselves in power, thus forming an entangled and inseparable relationship with their own family and going back and forth from generation to generation. Democracy, on the other hand, is weak and useless in this model of humanistic political behavior, with little impact on the administration of justice, which in turn hinders people's trust in modern institutions.
In this kind of society where the system of support is prevalent, people are also accustomed to finding relationships in their lives. Michael mentioned that his Indonesian visa was once cancelled because he was too close to influential anti-government personnel, and the final solution was not through formal channels to appeal, but at a cocktail party to the then Indonesian defense minister pretending to be easy to complain, and finally the matter was resolved without a trace. Similarly, his experience of applying for a work visa in Thailand and not looking for a relationship at all, so that he repeatedly ran into a wall, surprised everyone around him, because almost everyone found a "shortcut". The author has indeed felt this in his life in Southeast Asia for many years, and the best way to solve the troubles in life is to "find acquaintances", because their rules and regulations are often vague and change at any time. The same visa application conditions are different every year, it is almost impossible to go to the immigration office on the same day to successfully process, but if you find an intermediary who has a relationship with the immigration office, it will be a green light; the same bank and the same foreigner to open an account, the staff on the same day may feel that it is OK, but because the materials are not enough to go the next day, another staff member will inform you that you do not meet the conditions at all. Make a call to a mid- to high-level acquaintance at the bank's headquarters in Bangkok, and after five minutes it's all settled, and you might even be invited to the VIP room. For so long, people have developed the habit of succumbing to unspoken rules outside of this explicit rule. Michael, on the other hand, pointed out that young people in such societies are repeatedly affected by Western democratic ideas, accumulating dissatisfaction with this ancient social ill, and such stubborn elite support has actually further nourished the hotbeds of corruption, resulting in the incompetence of the government. As a result, there have been several student democracy movements in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines since the 1970s, but they have all been eventually attacked or suppressed, and the old institutions still blossom in Southeast Asia.
In Michael's view, the drawbacks of the system of patronage apply not only to Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia, which he observed closely, but to most of Southeast Asia. For example, although Myanmar has finally ushered in its own democratically elected government after a long period of bloody and tearful struggles, the shadow of the military government is always shrouded, Michael expresses his doubts in the book, and the military coup in 2021 confirms his concerns. At the same time, Cambodia has always been a strongman politics after the Khmer Rouge, and Cambodia is actually the word of Prime Minister Hun Sen. When it comes to strongman politics, Michael also classifies Singapore as such, because Lee Kuan Yew has said on more than one occasion that Western democracy needs to be amended, but Singapore's perfect legal system and strict integrity requirements for government workers make the people satisfied with life and cover up the unmet political demands.
Regarding the criticism of the system of support and the various contradictions that have been brought about, Michael is meticulous and analytical, especially as a senior reporter of a well-known magazine, which also gives him many opportunities to contact the top level of the government, not completely from the periphery of the imagination. In his summary, the establishment of a Western-style democratic system is the fundamental antidote to all these problems, and the people need to grasp the opportunity to unite weak but ideologically advanced intellectuals to fight, and the main resistance to all this comes from the fact that the hard-line forces that hold great power will not let go easily. But is it really possible to move toward democracy at the pace of Western history? In today's Southeast Asian society, the system of support is indeed a chronic disease and has to be cured, but the method and rhythm may require new exploration. As Michael himself put it, "Once life is threatened, democracy becomes a secondary consideration". The first part is also a bit regrettable, in several Southeast Asian countries, especially Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar and Indonesia, women have played a very important role, which is also a projection of southeast Asian social context - the position of powerful and independent women is far ahead of the whole of Asia and the world. Michael only mentions that these women came to the stage because of their family background, but did not pay attention to the cultural and traditional roots illustrated by this phenomenon, which may not have a positive and far-reaching impact on the future direction of Southeast Asian society.
The way out of conflict: identity and the gap between great powers
The second part of the book is the author's exploration of the possible way out of the current situation in Southeast Asia, on the one hand, the potential threat posed by extremist religion to Southeast Asian politics is an urgent contradiction to be resolved, and on the other hand, in the dispute between major powers, how Southeast Asia actually lives itself, which is also an unavoidable topic. The first question, Michael's attitude, is undoubtedly more pessimistic, the constant regional conflicts make people more willing to go to religion to find refuge, and the expansion of religious power is also conducive to further consolidating the control of power by stubborn forces, and the two complement each other. The second question, Michael, believes that geopolitics has made it difficult for the United States to fully exert its strength in Southeast Asia.
Malaysia is the country most affected by extreme religion in the author's writing, due to the continuous expansion of religious forces in recent decades, the suppression of the Chinese has become increasingly serious, resulting in a rapid loss of talent and wealth. The New Economy Policy, which had been in place since the 1970s, had targeted the absolute economic superiority of the Chinese by requiring Malays to be at the top of all companies. Moreover, the long-term rule of "UMNO" has made the suppression of minorities in various aspects of politics and culture more and more obvious, Chinese schools are no longer allowed, and Chinese people are slowly being removed from the public service system. Eventually, the Chinese population dropped from 40 percent in the early days of independence to 25 percent now, of which the wealthy class either immigrated to the West, or avoided Singapore, which was the main chinese population, and high-tech talents also went to other countries and regions to seek a livelihood, in addition to Singapore, Taiwan is another major destination. Racial and religious segregation exacerbates social fragmentation, which does not bode well for a country, and former Prime Minister Najib's huge corruption scandal confirms the negative impact of this paranoid racial crackdown on the lack of a robust system of oversight. The author also expresses his own concern: Michael is certainly not optimistic about how a large amount of money from the Middle East has also flowed to Indonesia, once the freest and most liberal Islamic ethnic group in Southeast Asia, and what will happen to southeast Asia's future. Michael's observation and concern is not unreasonable, and the influence of extremist religions has spread across the globe over the years, and it is not limited to Southeast Asia. For the cultural, social and even economic development of a region, it is very likely to cause different degrees of obstruction. Moreover, the religious contradictions in Southeast Asia are no longer a spark, and the escalating conflict in southern Thailand in recent years is a microcosm of the entire Southeast Asia, because it happens to be a mixed area of Muslims and non-Muslims. Where to go and whether to eventually become a trend of fire is a variable in Southeast Asia in the next few years.
As for michael's mention of how to choose Southeast Asia under the cracks of the great powers, the author has another opinion. This area has long been under the dispute between various forces, except for the Japanese occupation period in World War II, which has a relatively strong tragic color, especially a Yunnan-Burma railway that has written the history of the blood and tears of the people of Southeast Asia, and most of the other times, although it cannot be said that it is easy to deal with the source, it is also easy to deal with. During the colonial period, Britain, France, Spain and later the United States all came here to share a piece of the pie, southeast Asia's rich spice and rubber resources and unique geographical advantages made several major powers unwilling to give in to the interests here, and this sword was even peaceful for decades, especially the colonial natives mostly adopted a cooperative attitude towards the colonial government in order to seek a better life. Therefore, even if the world's largest economy and political and military forces are not willing to let go of their influence in Southeast Asia, the countries in the region may not necessarily fall into an either-or dilemma, and they have not done much since ancient times to choose the phalanx, and they have not done well since ancient times. As mentioned earlier, in the "vast sandy beach covered with soft white coral sand" and next to the "swaying coconut trees" and on the "plains of layers of emerald vegetation", it is conceived that such a cheerful, optimistic, detached personality, focused on the present, they were once South Asians, Indochina, and East Indies. Regardless of religious beliefs, no matter the color of race, no matter language habits, since they have been imagined and shaped into a community of destiny by powerful external forces, then in the end, I hope that they can continue their strong vitality and bloom the colorful flower of life in this land full of romantic feelings blown by the monsoon wind.
Editor-in-Charge: Yu Shujuan