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Life Histories, Identity and Crises of Authority in Southeast Asia

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Life Histories, Identity and Crises of Authority in Southeast Asia > Research & Reports Indonesian army captures resistance fighters, East Timor, early 1990s shows how the Burmese civilian gov- ernment of 1948-62, then the military after 1962, failed to domesticate Shan, Karen, Chin and Kachin identities and to effectively dismantle, or absorb, ‘reservoirs of violence’ in its upland regions. Focusing on interwoven individual narratives may help integrate theories from political science with lived reality and the agency and tactics that shape events. They also suggest that South- east Asian states are far less prisoners of the past than approaches that focus on embedded culture and political structures imply. The way the state has dealt with crises and groups with com- peting identities has been critical. In Photo by Jill Jolliffe Jill by Photo times of relative success – as in Malaysia and Singapore, and during the 1970s-80s Indonesian New Order – each state pursued its methods to close Life histories, identity and crises spaces available to selected alternative identities: those of, for example, regionalists, communists and western- style liberal democrats. Yet each went of authority in Southeast Asia to considerable lengths to integrate more manageable potential opponents Southeast Asia is a region afflicted by crises in authority; recent historiography seems to – on a communal basis through the at the group and/or individual level. Research > agree on little else. Life histories can show that points of contention, and so resolution, Alliance and later Barisan Nasional. Sin- The best place to see how this com- Southeast Asia often rest on questions of identity – particularly on a sense of injustice which crystallizes gapore opposed virtually all alternative petition between state strategies and identities in opposition to the state, fuelling demands for autonomy, influence, power and forms of narrative – communist, radi- alternative identities has played out resources. cal, and communal. From 1959 to at may turn out to be at the level of indi- least the 1980s, the People’s Action viduals: of the life story. < By Karl A. Hack party Masjumi when the latter had by the creation of reservoirs of violence Party (PAP) required released detainees influence in Jakarta. But once Masjumi in 1942-45 (armed Chinese supported to renounce their former allegiances. References ecent literature including Colom- was out of power, Achehnese tried to by rural squatters) and how events Singapore also scaled back the influ- - Brown, David (1994) The State and Ethnic Rbijn and Lindblad’s Roots of Vio- leverage influence through revolt. In affected their sense of identity. Thus ence of the Chinese language. English Politics in Southeast Asia. London: Rout- lence in Indonesia suggests that ‘reser- this model, it is not ‘reservoirs of vio- support for communism rose and fell was made the compulsory language of ledge voirs of violence’ are critical in lence’ so much as entrenched styles of with the formation of the multiracial education, and children were obliged - Chin, C.C. and Hack, Karl (2004) Dia- explaining conflict in Southeast Asia. politics that have made crises endemic Alliance Party in 1952, the May 1969 by the 1980s to learn a second ‘mother logues with Chin Peng. Singapore: Singa- Enforcers – panglima, jagos, militias, over much of Southeast Asia. racial riots in Kuala Lumpur, and the tongue’. pore University Press retainers attached to local power-hold- By contrast, Reynaldo Ileto has com- government’s subsequent favouring of If integrating identities, or allowing - Colombijn, Freek and Lindblad, J. ers persist from the colonial period. plained that ideas of clientelism can Malays. them space to express themselves – for Thomas, eds. (2002) Roots of Violence in Colombijn and Lindblad’s thesis mir- reduce even Filipino anti-Japanese instance by allowing schooling and Indonesia. Leiden: KITLV rors the historiography for South Asia fighters to the status of clients blindly State responses media in different languages – seems - Ileto, Reynaldo (1999) Knowing America’s emphasizing the weakness of the Raj, following elites. All idealism is lost, and Chin Peng’s story focuses our atten- vital to avoid crises, how has Singapore Colony: A Hundred Years from the Philip- able to function only by tolerating and Asians are orientalised as the victims tion on government policies for man- managed to minimize problems since pine War. University of Hawai’i at Manoa: co-opting local power brokers and of neo-feudal, underdeveloped politics. aging ethnic and national identities. 1964? Rapid economic growth enabled Center for Philippine Studies, Occassion- ‘enforcers’. Chin Peng was defeated by ethnic divi- non-patrimonial benefits to be distrib- al Paper series No. 13. Geoffrey Robinson has further Life histories sions in Malaya (winning over Muslim uted to atomised individuals integrat- - Robinson, Geoffrey (2002) ‘The Fruitless refined the concept of ‘reservoirs of vio- Life histories have the potential to Malays proved difficult, while the mul- ed into the PAP’s narrative of meritoc- search for a smoking gun: Tracing the ori- lence’, showing that they persist across combine approaches in the historiog- tiracial Alliance provided an alternative racy. The PAP also sought feedback, gins of the violence in East Timor’, in times of relative peace. They pattern raphy. Personal narratives illustrate a funnel for Chinese identity) and by when fed directly to the party rather Columbijn and Lindblad, Roots of Violence. crises when they arise, but seldom ini- central aspect of crises of authority: that government action against ‘reservoirs than the media. This can be seen as a Leiden: KITLV, pp. 243-76 tiate them, as with the paramilitary vio- points of contention, and so resolution, of violence’ (rural Chinese were reset- form of ‘one-party democracy’ that - Robinson, Geoffrey (forthcoming) ‘Colo- lence that accompanied East Timor’s often rest on questions of identity, par- tled in tightly controlled New Villages). ensures individual and group aspira- nial Militias in East Timor from the Por- vote for independence in 1999. Politi- ticularly on a sense of injustice which Ultimately, the Alliance, through the tions are sifted and, to some extent, tuguese Period to Independence’, in Karl cally, specific militias were products of crystallizes identities in opposition to elite-led Malayan Chinese Association, met. Hack and Tobias Rettig, Colonial Armies in the Indonesian National Army (TNI) the state, fuelling demands for autono- Southeast Asia. London: RoutledgeCur- and the 1975-99 occupation. Opera- my, influence, access to power and zon. tionally, their ‘repertoires of violence’ resources. The violence after World War ‘Southeast Asian states are far less prisoners of the - Steinberg, David (1994) The Philippines: A followed traditions reaching back to Two was often about how to define post- past than approaches that focus on embedded culture Singular and Plural Place. Westview Press: seventeenth-eighteenth century liurai’s colonial identities, when groups who San Francisco (local chiefs) levies and their style of had achieved access to ‘reservoirs of vio- and political structures imply’ - Ward, Ian and Chin Peng (2003) Alias Chin combat. lence’ (by way of Japanese training and Peng. Singapore: Media Masters Another model that has been used to arms) entertained different ‘imagined offered Chinese a more effective How can we trace shifts in senses of - Chao Tzang Yawnghwe (1987) The Shan of explain Southeast Asian crises is neo- decolonisations’. avenue for expressing grievances and grievance and identity in relation to Burma: Memoirs of a life in Exile. Singa- patrimonialism: politics driven by Chin Peng, Secretary General of the winning concessions. The Malaysian states’ strategies for dealing with them? pore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies ‘cacique’ elites, ‘bossism’, and patron- Malayan Communist Party since 1947, strategy of accommodating ethnic One way is by interweaving personal client ties. This is David Steinberg’s is the subject of two recent books: Ian minority leaderships successfully neu- narratives – of rebels, government pro- Karl A. Hack is associate professor of histo- approach in his The Philippines: A Sin- Ward and Chin Peng, Alias Chin Peng tralized potentially oppositional identi- tagonists and others – to create a pic- ry at the National Institute of Education, gular and Plural Place and of key chap- and C.C. Chin and Karl Hack, Dialogues ties. ture not of Southeast Asian crises, but Nanyang Technological University, Singa- ters in David Brown’s The State and Eth- with Chin Peng. Chin Peng shows how Successful management of divergent of Southeast Asians in crises. For pore. His research interests include insur- nic Politics in South-East Asia. Brown Malayan Chinese had several identities identities can take different forms. Sin- instance, one can contrast the Chin gency, imperialism, decolonisation and post- uses the neo-patrimonial model to to choose from: overseas Chinese with gapore, like Malaysia, retained deten- Peng’s narrative with Burma’s Chao colonial relations in Southeast Asia; the argue that Southeast Asian polities rely traditional social beliefs, petty capital- tion without trial and exercised a poli- Tzang Yawnghe. Chao is a Shan prince, history of Singapore; and war and memory. on villagers’ support of local elites, and ists and emigrants, communists, cy of negating communist narratives who moved from Shan loyalty to post- He is currently organising a conference on local elites’ support
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