IIAS | P.O. Box 9515 | 2300 RA Leiden | The Netherlands | T +31-71-527 22 27 | F +31-71-527 41 62 | [email protected] | www.iias.nl <Theme: Afghanistan: Picking up the Pieces Eight researchers assess what’s lost, recovered, and revived of Afghanistan’s cultural inheritance. 27 page 8-16 March 2002 | the IIAS newsletter is published by the IIAS and is available free of charge ¶ ¶ Enhancing EU’s Partnerships with Asia: p. 32 p. New stu- New ¶ pp 62-63 pp p. 51 p. asks Shalina Shar- Shalina asks , the Fifth European Fifth the , [3] [1] Never the Twain 7 Shall Meet? that shows how cultural and religious and cultural how shows that Forum > Adapting Kipling to a Globalized World [6] when he arrived in the Netherlands and had and Netherlands the in arrived he when [7] 15 October 2001 More than 100 years ago, in The Ballad of East and West, the British poet Kipling wrote a line of verse which In the first instalment of her series on “Asia in “Asia on series her of instalment first the In International Conference Agenda, Conference International ¶ Leiden, would subsequently enter the English language almost as a cliché: “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never ¶ p.5 The Netherlands the twain shall meet.” p. 57 p. uch has changed since then. Empires have crashed to But the biggest change of all, the change that has and is M the ground. The horror and upheaval of world wars - touching more lives than even the world wars did, is the phe- two very hot and one ice-cold - have come and gone. With the nomenon known as globalization. recent criminal acts in America we have, in a nightmarish Of course, there is nothing new about globalization. What Masayuki Sato interviews Peter Chen-main Wang Wang Chen-main Peter interviews Sato Masayuki Institutional News: ABIA Chair transferred to Sri Lanka, Sri to transferred Chair ABIA News: Institutional way, come full circle: The Ballad of East and West is set in the is new about this `second wave’ of globalization is not the ¶ vicious and war-torn Afghanistan of 1892. ideas which underpin it - belief in free trade, open markets, private ownership, property rights, and capitalism - but its p. 44 p. scope, driven in large part by the technological progress that has been made in the intervening 100 years. Not only is glob- alization now reaching into a vastly greater number of coun- , but makes one wonder whether the opening up of Laos is proceeding too quickly, asserts quickly, too proceeding is Laos of up opening the whether wonder one makes but , Gerda Theuns-de Boer writes about Isidore van Kinsbergen and his photographs. his and Kinsbergen van Isidore about writes Boer Theuns-de Gerda [5] tries, it is also reaching into vastly greater areas of our lives. Alisa Eimen discusses a play about women in Iran in women about play a discusses Eimen Alisa The ESF Asia Committee after 2001, after Committee Asia ESF The [4] ¶ Increase in trade, coupled with the revolution that has ¶ taken place in transport, means the peoples of the world are p. 54 p. > In this edition this In > coming into greater contact with each other than ever before. A serendipitous sojourn was in store for Thomas Cooper Thomas for store in was sojourn serendipitous A p.37 ¶ In many cases (although sadly not all) this greater expo- sure to each other’s cultures and societies has led to greater p.43 dialogue and understanding. It has even brought some sem- blance of stability and prosperity to areas where there was none before. , Mona Abaza shows how admiration for Japan was already expressed in reformist Arab writings in the nineteenth cen- nineteenth the in writings Arab reformist in expressed already was Japan for admiration how shows Abaza Mona , However, it would be naïve to say that globalization has [2] is an overwhelming publication overwhelming an is been an unalloyed blessing. I am referring not just to the fact Commissioner Chris important though it is - that the globalization that has trans- 123456 “What do we really know of the historical experience of different communities of Asians living in Britain?” in living Asians of communities different of experience historical the of know really we do “What “As a painter he produced the most, as an opera singer he moved many a heart, as a photographer her earned the most, and as and most, the earned her photographer a as heart, a many moved he singer opera an as most, the produced he painter a “As ¶ Patten delivering the formed the lives of many, has still left too many marooned ¶ > Asian art & cultures & art Asian > IIAS Annual Lecture in in poverty. I am also noting the way that many of the prob- p.19 p.23 Atlas of Laos of Atlas the Academy Building lems governments now face have also globalized, in the sense the Eyes of Arabs” of Eyes the dents for the TANAP programme arrive, programme TANAP the for dents The overcome. be can stereotyping ma. tury. tury. delight.” with most provided he impresario an the chance to examine the Van der Tuuk collection first hand. first collection Tuuk der Van the examine to chance the Chair for Chinese Studies, on his views on Christianity and the Marshall Plan in China. in Plan Marshall the and Christianity on views his on Studies, Chinese for Chair Loes Schenk-Sandberg in her review. review. her in Schenk-Sandberg Loes of Leiden University, that they do not respect national frontiers: international drugs Wim Vreeburg Wim 15 October 2001. trade, environmental degradation, global epidemics, cyber continued on page 3 > > Editorial A Word about the EC’s New Document, Europe and Asia: A Strategic Framework for fghanistan the focus of this of focus the fghanistan undly influenced its eventual its influenced undly e automobile industry in Europe in industry automobile e a late evening here at the IIAS up IIAS the at here evening late a s, among other things, the impact the things, other among s, ps more appropriately reflects the reflects appropriately more ps en De Ceuster, Stephan van Galen, van Stephan Ceuster, De en of inspiring energy and enthusiasm and energy inspiring of Enhanced Partnership ertain articles that defied our region- our defied that articles ertain The Commission has often stressed Asia’s importance for the EU – whether economically, Director’s politically or culturally, or in relation to regional and global challenges such as poverty, envi- note > ronmental degredation, or democracy and human rights. However, it is difficult to deny that Europe’s interest in Asia predominantly lies in the economic and political/strategic domains. For some time I have had the impression that everything not directly pertaining to these domains is considered subordinate to the Union’s main interests: money and influence. needed a facelift. We also took the opportunity to change to opportunity the took also We facelift. a needed By Wim Stokhof Asia in the coming decade, is defined objective is followed by what the EC vision from the Commission on Asia- as follows: “Strengthening the EU’s calls ‘concrete action points’ in the Europe relations. On their position in Newsletter his preference is already clearly political and economic presence across political, economic and social dimen- a tripolar world, more reflections on T demonstrated on the first page of the region (i.e. Asia), and raising it to a sions. They are intended to be relevant such an extremely complex and diverse the EC’s first communication Towards level commensurate with the growing for the region as a whole. region as Asia is, on the relations a New Asia Strategy published in 1994: weight of an enlarged EU” (2001:2). As I said, the proposed instruments between the states, considered to , we felt the felt we , “by the year 2000 one billion Asians In my opinion, this straightforward to implement the general objectives to belong to Asia and their growing inter- will have significant consumer spend- definition clearly illustrates the quin- achieve the core objective do not always dependence. ing power and of these, 400 million tessence of the Commission’s Asia seem the most appropriate. For Without going into the many more will have average disposable incomes Strategy; it seems to be drafted from a instance, enhancing the Union’s eco- points that need to be made, positive as as high, if not higher, than their Euro- Euro-centric point of view – the eco- nomic and political presence in the well as negative ones, I’ll restrict myself pean or US contemporaries” (1994:1). nomic and political/strategic interests region will not in certain countries eas- to two further important observations: Somewhat further on it is stated that of the Union prevail. Other dimensions ily combine with the Union’s intention The first concerns ASEAN (the Asso- “the Union needs as a matter of - for instance, the cultural domain - are to lobby for human rights and good ciation of Southeast Asian Nations). In urgency to strengthen its economic once again not mentioned at all. governance. the Commission’s recent communica- presence in Asia in order to maintain In order to achieve its core objective, Promoting the use of the Euro inter- tion, India, Japan, and China are given its leading role in the world economy. the Commission formulated a set of six nationally while, at the same time, pro- special emphasis; however, the South- This increase of the relative weight of general objectives and priorities. Unfor- moting the development of less pros- east Asian countries are lumped togeth- Asia in the world economy will consid- tunately, the paper is very brief in perous countries of the region will er.