Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES
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http://englishkyoto-seas.org/ View the table of contents for this issue: http://englishkyoto-seas.org/2012/08/vol-1-no-2-of-southeast-asian-studies-now- available-online-2/ Subscriptions: http://englishkyoto-seas.org/mailing-list/ For permissions, please send an e-mail to: [email protected] Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES Vol. 1, No. 2 August 2012 CONTENTS Articles Anthony MILNER “Identity Monarchy”: Interrogating Heritage for a Divided Malaysia .............................................................................(191) Janet HOSKINS A Posthumous Return from Exile: The Legacy of an Anticolonial Religious Leader in Today’s Vietnam ..............................................(213) Andreas NEEFF Fostering Incentive-Based Policies and Partnerships for Integrated Watershed Management in the Southeast Asian Uplands ..............(247) SOONN Chuan Yean Hidden Transcripts from “Below” in Rural Politics of the Philippines: Interpreting the Janus-facedness of Patron-Client Ties and Tulongg (Help) ..............................................................................(273) Minako Jen Singapore’s Prescription for Successful Control of Transnational YOSHIKAWAA Emerging Infectious Diseases ..........................................................(301) Book Reviews John Clifford HOLT Michael K. Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer, eds. Buddhist Warfare. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, 272 p. ..........................(333) Salvador Santino F. Agustin Martin Rodriguez. Governing the Other: Exploring REGILME Jr. the Discourse of Democracy in a Multiverse of Reason. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2009, 234 p. ........................................................................................(336) LOH Kah Seng Ross King. Reading Bangkok. Singapore: NUS Press, 2011, 272 p. ........................................................................................(339) Jafar Peter A. Jackson, ed. Queer Bangkok: 21st Century Market, Media, SURYOMENGGOLO and Rights. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011, xi+308 p. ..................................................................................(341) Claire EDINGTON Andrew Goss. The Floracrats: State-Sponsored Science and the Failure of the Enlightenment in Indonesia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2011, 264 p. ...................................(346) Nurfadzilah YAHAYA Daromir Rudnyckyj. Spiritual Economies: Islam, Globalization, and the Afterlife of Development. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010, 304 p. ........................................................................................(349) Vanessa LAMB François Molle, Tira Foran and Mira Käkönen, eds. Contested Waterscapes in the Mekong Region: Hydropower, Livelihoods and Governance. London: Earthscan Publications Ltd., 2009, xviii+426 p. ..............................................................................(352) Steven Philip Shirley Hsiao-Li Sun. Population Policy and Reproduction in Singapore: KRAMER Making Future Citizens. London and New York: Routledge, 2011, 208 p. ........................................................................................(355) “Identity Monarchy”: Interrogating Heritage for a Divided Malaysia Anthony Milner* Malaysia, it has been observed, is currently experiencing a “revival” of “Malay kingship” with the growing importance of “proactive and participating constitutional rulers.” In fact, modern Malaysia has since independence been characterized by monarchy—by a multiplicity of Rulers and elaborate royal ceremony and hierarchy —as well as by its “plural society.” But the modern monarchs—though they have never become quite “constitutional Rulers”—cannot be seen as merely “traditional,” because the institution of monarchy was transformed in a fundamental way during the British colonial period. Monarchy continues to be an underexamined feature of the Malaysian polity, and when it is discussed there is a tendency to focus on issues of power and to neglect its sociocultural role. One pre-colonial dimension of monarchy that continues to be significant today—though in a manner less psychologically profound than before—is its identity-giving role. The principal concern of this article is to deter- mine—through a process of hermeneutic retrieval—if this role is merely relevant to the Malay community, or does it possess more inclusive possibilities? Are the Rulers of Malaysia essentially “Malay Rulers” or has the institution a nation-building potential that has so far not been fully utilized? The question is important for a country that many see as becoming increasingly divided. Keywords: monarchy, identity monarchy, Malay Rulers, Malaysia, ideology, baseline knowledge, race paradigm, hermeneutic retrieval In the lead-up to dramatic protests in Kuala Lumpur on the week-end of July 9–10, 2011, the Malaysian King, Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin, Sultan of Terengganu, surprised some commentators by issuing a statement (a “Titah Khas”) that seemed to call on the Govern- ment as well as the Opposition to step back from open confrontation. He “urge[d] the government to carry out everything that is entrusted to it by the people in a just and wise manner. .” The royal statement was a surprise for those who take for granted that the monarch “rarely speaks . and those speeches or statements are written by the govern- * School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacifi c, Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T 0200, Australia e-mail: [email protected] Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, August 2012, pp. 191–212 191 ©Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University 192 A. MILNER ment of the day” (Malaysian Insider, November 4, 2011). Malaysia, it tends to be assumed, has an essentially “constitutional monarchy”—the Constitution (in the words of the standard text Politics and Government in Malaysia by Milne and Mauzy) “binds the King very strictly” and he must act on the “advice of the Ministers” just as the British Queen has to do (1978, 243, 37). But how confidently can we speak of a “Westminster monarch y” in Malaysia? How best can we describe the role of this monarchy? The question is not merely of constitutional importance. When we stand back to ask what characterizes Malaysia internationally today it is not only the country’s classically plural society. Monarchy—with the structure of prerogatives, ranks, ceremonies and social behavior that accompanies not one but nine Rulers—is also a striking feature. Striking, yes, but modern Malaysian monarchy has received very little attention in studies of Malaysian politics and society—certainly in comparison with the analytic handling of monarchy in Thailand (Peleggi 2002; McCargo 2005; Handley 2006). Is it time, it can be asked, to make greater effort to factor in Malaysian monarchy? A recently- published survey of the history of “Malay Kingship”—Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian’s Palace, Political Party and Powerr (2011)—presents a case for doing so, and for believing that the King’s July 2011 intervention is part of a larger pattern. Kobkua, who has written previ- ously on Thai kingship (2003), argues that there is at present a “socio-political revival” of “Malay kingship” (Kobkua 2011, xxii), with the growing importance of “proactive and participating constitutional rulers” (ibid., 391). She writes of a royal “rejection” of the idea of the “Westminster-style constitutional monarch” and the call for “another type of constitutional monarchy”—a monarchy that is “akin to the concept and practice of the Southeast Asian monarchy perfected by the Ruler of Thailand since the 1970s” (ibid., 408). Kobkua’s account, useful as it is, requires (in my view) certain qualifications. First, as I have spelt out in some detail elsewhere (Milner 2011c, 14–23), there is nothing really new about this royal activism. Rulers played a larger role than is often recognized in the process leading to Independence in 1957 (and the Independence Constitution), and have been active political players since that time—in certain cases attracting strong criticism (see, for example, Muaz 2009). They have exercised power and influence—but my second qualification is that Kobkua and others have been rather too focused on issues of power. The significance of monarchy—and the way that significance has changed over time—is of course a topic that reaches well beyond Malaysian studies, attracting cultural anthropologists and historians of ideas as well as political scientists. One lesson from this academic analysis is that a distinction needs to be made between royal power and monarchy’s socio-cultural role, and that it can be unwise to dismiss that role as something of merely antiquarian interest. Another important distinction is that between the indi- viduals who serve as monarchs and the institution itself. Some Rulers in Malaysia are “Identity Monarchy” 193 more popular than others; some have been more interventionist in the political process; several Sultans have been criticized for their business dealings or religious decisions rather than (or in addition to) their political initiatives. My concern in this article is with the institution of monarchy, and the possibilities it may offer. In Malaysia, where there is deep social division, an issue of importance is whether aspects of the institution’s socio-cultural role—dating back to pre-colonial history—have the potential to assist the building of a sense of national community. It is well known that