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The Newsletter | No.78 | Autumn 2017 The Sultan’s Unresolved Disputes Welcome to Pocket Watch in Southeast Asia Art in Myanmar! Louis Zweers Sampa Kundu Fukuoka Asian Art Museum The Study | 10 The Review | 24 The Portrait | 56 theNewsletter Encouraging knowledge and enhancing the study of Asia 78 Politics and Society in and SocietyPolitics in Contemporary Cambodia SINCE THE FALL OF THE KHMER ROUGE REGIME in 1979 Cambodian politics has been dominated by Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). Profits of the widespread marketisation of natural resources, cheap labour and foreign investment are distributed among the elite of Cambodia’s patrimonial society, whilst the majority of the population remains bereft of the advantages of economic growth. Taken together, the contributions to the Focus of this issue reveal a political modus operandi that has facilitated the CPP’s domination, but which now provokes an increasing challenge to this hegemony. Kul (58) is a farmer and community activist; here she stands on logs that were once the forest where she lived since her childhood. Kul was forcibly evicted from her land by the government, who sold it to foreign companies to grow sugarcane and rubber, ultimately benefitting politicians and military. Photo by David Rengel. 2 | The Newsletter | No.78 | Autumn 2017 Contents Politics and Society in Contemporary Cambodia 3 From the Director Introduction 29-31 SPECIAL FEATURE Since the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 Cambodian politics has been 4-6 ICAS10 – A reflection dominated by Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People’s Party Paul van der Velde (CPP). Hun Sen’s rise has complemented the emergence of a tight-knit elite who have come to dominate and characterise Cambodia as a patrimonial society. THE STUDY 7 A worldwide hunt for Dutch sources on The profits of the widespread marketisation of Cambodia’s natural resources, early-modern India and Sri Lanka cheap labour and foreign investment are distributed within this elite, whilst the Gijs Kruijtzer and Lennart Bes 8-9 The Robert Hart Photographic Collection majority of the population remains bereft of the advantages of economic growth. at Queen’s University Belfast In the Focus of this issue guest editors Michiel Verver and Jake Wieczorek Emma Reisz and Aglaia De Angeli 10 The sultan’s pocket watch: a case of Japanese explore the extent and nature of the CPP’s fingerprint on different societal wartime robbery spheres. Taken together, the contributions here reveal a political modus operandi, Louis Zweers 11 Graphically Indian: storying the inauspicious in the context of a politics that has facilitated the CPP’s domination, but which (for now) now provokes an increasing challenge to this hegemony. E. Dawson Varughese THE REGION 12-14 News from Australia and the Pacific 15-17 News from Southeast Asia 18-19 News from Northeast Asia 20-22 China Connections THE REVIEW 23 Inventing the performing arts Joost Coté 24 Bandits and the State Robert Antony 24-25 Unresolved Disputes in Southeast Asia Sampa Kundu 25 In Search of the Bengal Famine of 1943 Shubhneet Kaushik 26 Cambodia Votes Ronald Bruce St John 26 Democracy, State Elites, and Islamist Activists 32-33 38-39 in Indonesia Sarah Milne investigates resistance and counter Jean-Christophe Diepart contrasts the fortunes Sirojuddin Arif resistance to the state supported Areng Valley Dam of the Cambodian peasantry in the upland and project. What happens when monks, expats, local lowland regions and the subsequent effects of state 27 New reviews on newbooks.asia villagers and NGOs coalesce in a movement of policy, including the state sponsored economic 28 New titles on newbooks.asia localised civil resistance to the environmental impact land concessions, on peasant land tenure and of development? food security. THE FOCUS 34-35 40-41 29-43 Politics and Society in Contemporary Cambodia Jake Wieczorek examines the role of lawmaking Michiel Verver’s research uncovers the differing Guest Editors: Michiel Verver and Jake Wieczorek in the CPP’s latest moves to consolidate power experiences of Cambodia’s elite inner circle of against a backdrop of growing civil society unrest well-connected business tycoons and those on the and international resistance ahead of the 2018 outside, the small to medium enterprises looking national elections. to grow in the Cambodian market. THE NETWORK 46-47 Humanities across Borders: Asia and Africa in the World 36 42 48 SEA Junction Heidi Dahles takes focus on the development path Gea Wijers analyses prospects for Cambodia’s of Cambodia’s education sector as the nation moves entrepreneurs, asking the question whether Patrick McCormick forward economically, addressing and reflecting conditions in the Cambodian economy have been 49-52 Reports upon the challenges of managing education in met for new entrepreneurs to flourish. 53 IIAS Research and Projects CPP Cambodia. 54-55 IIAS Fellowship Programme 43 37 Suppya Nut introduces the outcome of the Khmer Alvin Lim uses a combination of post-structural Dance Project, a collaborative, public project to give THE PORTRAIT identity theory and neopatrimonial theory to dissect voice to the community of the Khmer Royal Ballet, 56 Welcome to Art in Myanmar! the formation of and subsequent experience of the making possible the transmission of knowledge Fukuoka Asian Art Museum Cambodian political subject in its various guises of the centuries old traditional dance to future in the CPP era. generations. The Newsletter | No.78 | Autumn 2017 From the Director | 3 Championing academic freedom discussions one year earlier among a few individual scholars on the opportunity of boycotting ICAS and ICTS because the events would take place in military-run Thailand, we thought, instead, to offer a public platform for individuals whose life-long engagements demonstrated their commitment to uphold intellectual and public freedom in their country. We invited Dr Maria Serena Diokno, Dr Jon Ungpakorn and Dr Son Soubert, from respectively the Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia, countries where intellectual and political freedoms have been – and are being increasingly – violated. The speakers’ backgrounds or political inclinations differ; yet all three share the same quest for justice, dignity and democratic rights for their countrymen and women, including academic freedom. The ICAS Keynote Roundtable for which the three speakers were invited, was entitled ‘Upholding Democratic Values in Southeast Asia: Intellectual Freedom and Public Engagement’, and took place in the afternoon of 22 July 2017. It was attended by a large proportion of the ICAS participants. At the end of the event, the speakers were approached by a delegation of Bunongs – a small ethnic minority with its own language and beliefs located on the mountainous border between Vietnam and Cambodia. The Bunongs’ distress as a community dates from the war period. They are today being expelled from their ancestral lands to give way to commercial ventures such as industrial plantations or mining. The case of this community and the presence of its representatives at the roundtable attests of another form of freedom, less clearly articulated than that of This summer, two incidents reminded us that academic freedom, which we often take for granted, academic freedom, but that nonetheless is linked to the risk of the reduction of freedom of expression. Historians, can be curtailed or overtly restricted. The first incident was the absurd charge of ‘fomenting anthropologists, geographers, linguists and other academics have often become the last spokespersons or advocates illegal political assembly’ brought against our colleague Professor Chayan Vaddhanaphuti for these communities. This is also true for the numerous communities or groups that are being evicted from the from Chiang Mai University, along with four very young Thai academics, Chaipong Samnieng many inner-city areas of Asian cities or other marginalized communities like the Rohingyas in Burma. (PhD candidate), Teeramon Buangam (MA student), Nontawat Machai (undergraduate student), The current commercialization of higher education, with its logic of increased precariousness of academics, all from CMU, and Pakavadi Veerapaspong, an independent writer and translator. also contributes to the marginalization of these voices. We see how CUP, a beacon of academic excellence turned Philippe Peycam into a for-profit outlet, was ready to dispose of the secular intellectual trust put into it by thousands of scholars. We also see how the teaching of entire communities’ languages DR CHAYAN WAS ENTRUSTED by his university to oversee Asian studies journals, China Quarterly and The Journal Above: Dr Chayan and histories can be suppressed from curricula because the organization of two major international events in his of Asian Studies. The decision triggered considerable Vaddhanaphuti (left) these don’t attract enough students or funding, or because, home city last July: the 13th International Thai Studies international outcry, including among Chinese scholars. and Dr Philippe as was the case in Japan a few years ago, these do not stand Conference (ICTS) and the 10th International Convention As a result, CUP decided to reverse its decision. Meanwhile, Peycam (right) as ‘useful’ or marketable knowledge worth being supported of Asia Scholars (ICAS). Both events were unquestionably in the wake of the Chinese government’s increasing efforts to speaking at the by the state. As we well know, there are many ways