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REVIEWS of the overflow has already appeared in a special issue of South East Asia Research in 2009. Rachel V. Harrison and Peter A. Jackson, Much of the weight of the first task, editors, The Ambiguous Allure of the tracing the encounter with the farang, West: Traces of the Colonial in Thailand. falls on Pattana Kitiarsa. He takes Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Edward Said’s famous proposition Press and Cornell University Southeast that the West constructed the Oriental Asia Program, 2010, xxiii + 268 pages. to suit Western purposes, and flips Hardbound: isbn 978-962-209-121-4; it over as Occidentalism, the Thai paperbound: isbn 978-962-209-123-8 construction of “the West” to suit Thai purposes. In mid Ayutthaya, the This ambitious book with its aptly Siamese elite found farang useful as alliterative title has at least a trio of craftsmen and engineers, but boorish agendas. First, to examine “the Thai as missionaries. In late Ayutthaya, encounter with the farang, and all that the farang disappeared and were not it constitutes,” especially over the last missed. But from the second quarter of century and a half. Second, to bring the nineteenth century, they could not Thailand into postcolonial theory which be avoided. The elite then selectively is enjoying great popularity in cultural adopted things and techniques from the studies syllabi in Western universities. farang, both in order to fend them off, And third, in order to enable the second and in order to present themselves as objective, to dispose of the mantra of more modern and thus more special than Siam/Thailand “never being colonized” the rest of the population. However, this as the basis of a larger claim that the succeeded only in the short term. Soon country’s history and culture are unique. fascination with the West spread beyond In a sense, the book is an answer to two the elite to new people who found that questions posed by Benedict Anderson adventures in the West or just in Western thirty-two years ago. The first was the thinking helped to release them from the mocking query, “What damn good is strictures of their own society. In the this country—you can’t compare it last generation, the situation has been with anything.” The second was his transformed again with many more impish thinking-aloud whether avoiding resident farang, easy access to global colonialism was such a good thing, media, and proliferation of mixed-race given the result. luk-khreung offspring. Now everyone That’s a long time to wait for answers. wears a (fake) Armani T-shirt and It’s also a lot of agendas for a modestly supports Manchester United, and the sized book. But the task of such a easy familiarity with the outside world volume is to provoke, not to prove. The has become part of a leveling trend in project involved several more writers the culture which the old elite finds so than are captured in this volume. Some hard to accept.

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Thongchai Winichakul adds that Some of these commentators are one of the enduring ways to deal with reluctant to attribute their ideas to the West has been to concede Western Foucault because they are not sure superiority in material culture, but to they understand the original. The Thai assert Thai or Asian superiority in matters translation of discourse as wathakam, a spiritual. This strategy can be traced word that bears little lexical resemblance from Chaophraya Thiphakorawong’s to the original, broke free and became writings in the mid-nineteenth century widely popular among journalists and through to the latest soap operas. Other others who have only an inkling of its contributors note a similar strategy to origin and original meaning. The vignette welcome Western values and institutions illustrates Thongchai’s proposition, “In in the public sphere, but deny their Thailand ‘The West’ is in fact always relevance to the private and intimate the Thai-ized West.” worlds of family and community. May Adadol Ingawanij and Richard The other articles on this theme Lowell MacDonald review the celebra- are more like vignettes, chosen not tion of Apichatpong Weerasethakul on because they are typical, but because the international film-festival circuit. they illustrate the frontiers of the They suggest he was lionized by relationship. avant garde American cineastes, who Thanes Wongyannava wonders why were bitterly opposed to Hollywood’s Foucault, and especially his concept of domination, precisely because his work discourse, should have enjoyed such is so quirky and so non-commercial. éclat in the Thai academy. After all, As a result of this lionization outside things French and things philosophical Thailand, he became “a national figure are usually given a wide berth. Thanes whose creative efforts are nonetheless first slyly proposes that this popularity considered irrelevant to Thai public came about because Thai academics life.” They raise the fear that he will be love anything American, and Foucault converted into a symbol of national pride, was popular in America. He then points totally smothering the transgressive and out that Foucault is the most historical provocative content of his films. Since of the postmodern theorists and the Thai the article was written, Apichatpong’s academy has cherry-picked his middle story has moved onwards and upwards, and most historical period, conforming and the result has rather belied the with a taste for history rather than authors’ fears. Increased fame with abstract theory. Moreover, Thanes the Palme d’Or has made him more shows that very little of Foucault’s disturbing and less manageable for the work has been translated into Thai, cultural police. His story fits another and most Thai scholars have relied on theme running through the book—of the Thai commentators, particularly Thanes outside world as a resource for evading himself, who have filtered Foucault’s authoritarianism in various guises. work through a Thai consciousness.

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Rachel Harrison reviews the role The various contributors argue of the outside world in Thai films, that the mantra of Siam “avoiding especially in the aftermath of the colonialism” is misleading in two ways. financial crisis of 1997. Film directors First, Siam was very well integrated into expressed fear of globalization in many colonial trade, and unavoidably part of ways—from the bombastic nationalism a colonially dominated world. Second, of historical epics through to the quirky Siam’s own court elite enthusiastically intimacies of Monrak Transistor. played the role of colonial rulers, Harrison concentrates especially on two importing institutions from neighboring films. In February, the director portrays colonized states to strengthen their globalization as a threat to Thai identity own dominance. While this argument by having the principal characters lose is now quite mainstream, Tamara Loos memory, passport, and eventually lives pushes it a bit further by showing how in New York. Subtle stuff. In Siamese the Siamese went toe-to-toe with the Renaissance the characters time-travel British in the contest to control the mid between the present and the era of peninsula. high colonialism, and are able to save Five of the chapters address this Thailand from utter colonial domination. theme, but fail to agree on the crucial Harrison points out that the director has point of how to characterize the process chosen a distinctly farang-looking in words. Peter Jackson and Rachel luk khreung for the female lead, and Harrison prefer “semi-colonialism” concludes “the need to repel the Other because of continuities with earlier is intricately interwoven with the desire usage of this term. Loos thinks the for the Other, with its allure and with semi- prefix weakens the term and the wish to incorporate it into the Thai undersells how truly colonial the Thai self.” elite was. Michael Herzfeld pushes Of course this batch of essays leaves for “crypto-colonialism” but wins whole continents of the encounter with few votes. “Internal colonialism” and the West uncovered. Readers eager for “quasi-colonialism” are mentioned in more on this theme can go to South East passing. Asia Research 2009 for Thanes on Thais The purpose of putting colonialism eating spaghetti, Thak Chaloemtiarana into Thailand and Thailand into on adaptations of the late Victorian colonialism—apart from alignment with novel, Sud Chonchirdsin on selective academic fashions—is squarely political. borrowing in the Fifth Reign, Thanapol The boast of avoiding colonialism and Limapichart on the early development of the claims to national uniqueness are a public sphere, and Thanet Aphornsuvan pillars of conservative nationalism. It’s on Thai reactions to missionaries. But no coincidence that Anderson asked in truth, the editors seem much less his two provocative questions during interested in the allure of the farang than the intense conservative reaction of in the allure of postcolonial studies. the late 1970s, and that this book

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 242 Reviews of answers comes against a similar backdrop. Only Loos, Herzfeld, and Thongchai explicitly address this political dimension. Thongchai suggests how a specter of “domination by the West,” especially within the realm of knowledge, is an increasingly prominent and insidious part of conservative nationalism. Herzfeld points to colonial legacies which almost invisibly underlie structures and practices of authoritarianism. Loos points out how colonial practices and mentalities have continued to underlie Bangkok’s handling of the Muslim south for more than a century. The editors wisely refrain from drawing any broad conclusions from the collected articles. The book is a landmark in Thai studies. Its various articles will serve as idea-starters for projects of many kinds.

Chris Baker

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Johan Fischer, Proper Islamic The focus of Fischer’s study is Consumption: Shopping among the a number of Malay middle-class Malays in Modern Malaysia. NIAS families living in the suburbs of Monographs 113, Nordic Institute of Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur. The Asian Studies. Copenhagen: NIAS anthropology of suburbia in Southeast Press, 2008. xix+258 pp. Hardbound: Asia lags far behind the anthropology isbn 978-87-7694-059-1; paperbound: of village society, so Fischer’s attention isbn 978-87-7694-060-7 to suburban life in Malaysia is another novel and welcome feature of the book. Of the thousands of scholarly articles The suburban middle-class family is and books and academic seminars the focus of anxieties about the effects that have been devoted to the study of consumption and official measures of Islam in Southeast Asia in recent designed to overcome these anxieties. years, attention has focused mostly on For Fischer, the suburbs are designed so issues concerning religious revivalism, that “families can turn in on themselves politics, education, history, law, gender, as the primary model of social and morality, finance and economics, and moral identification”. Moreover it is of course, extremism and terrorism. It in the suburbs where space is ordered is surprising, therefore, that much less into “manageable and exploitable attention has been given to the activity form”, and where government planners that most Southeast Asian Muslims, have the greatest opportunity to create like their counterparts in other religions, what Fischer calls the “new national spend an ever-increasing amount of Malaysian family” (p. 11). their time doing today: shopping and Underlying the book’s central consuming. This activity is the subject of argument is the tension between Johan Fischer’s original study of Islam consumption and religious piety. The and consumerism in Malaysia. much-discussed Islamic revival that Fischer began conducting his has taken place in Malaysia since the fieldwork in 2001 shortly after the 1970s is contemporaneous with the September 11 attacks in the US. The country’s rapid economic growth as one event, he acknowledges, changed the of Southeast Asia’s “tiger economies” political, religious, economic, and and the development of a consumer even consumption context in which his society. In most developing countries fieldwork was carried out, as Muslim (not just Muslim ones) the materialism groups called for a boycott of American that is the unavoidable product of products. A large part of his fieldwork capitalist economic development tends data is drawn from interviews with to be regarded as an obstacle to spiritual Malay informants, of varying incomes fulfillment. Moreover, a significant and degrees of religious piety, in which proportion of the products and services Fischer probes their consumption that become available for consumption, practices. thanks to the opening up of the economy,

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 244 Reviews are “foreign”, raising issues not only Malaysians consume. The result is the of economic nationalism, but also, at “halalization” of consumption, where a deeper level, of purity and pollution. the new and the foreign are domesticated Consumption thus becomes an activity and approved for consumption by Malay that various parties seek to regulate, consumers in such a way that they can among them political and religious be assured (by the state) that they are authorities. The central question that conforming to “proper Islamic practice”. Fischer seeks to address in the book is, While halal food requires certification “why and how has the question of Malays’ by state institutions like JAKIM (the proper Islamic consumption become a Islamic Development Department of key concern for state nationalism in Malaysia), halalization in the broader Malaysia over the last three decades?” context is promoted by a host of state and (p. 32). private enterprises. Indeed, commodities Consumption tends to be regarded almost become “non-commodities” as a sphere outside of state control. (p. 75) via this process of halalization, It is often conceived, particularly in since they are thereby rendered part Western economies, as the sphere of the religious realm, rather than the where individuals may seek and find secular, material world of Western self-realization. Yet Fischer clearly capitalism which is at least potentially shows that in the case of Malaysia the haram (“forbidden” to Muslims). state has a ubiquitous presence in its Fischer argues that the “invisible hand” citizens’ consumption practices, and of “millennial capitalism” in Malaysia indeed, these practices constitute a form is, in effect, provided by the state and of submission to a state agenda. Islam. The process of halalization allows Fischer argues that the principal means Malays to safely engage in “patriotic by which the state regulates consumption shopping for the state” (p. 39). among the Malays is through the The effects of halalization are mobilization of the Islamic concept of not confined “merely” to Malays’ halal—that which is permitted in Islam. consumption of commodities but also The central argument of Fischer’s book help constitute their very ethnic identity is that, as a result of the “nationalization as Malays. If “you are what you eat” of Islam” in Malaysia under the auspices (or more broadly, “you are what you of the state, the notion of halal has consume”), then the regulation of been transformed into something much consumption represents a powerful greater, encompassing not just food means of controlling identity. Fischer but a wide array of commodities and argues that the new practices of lifestyles including dress, housing and consumption have “largely displaced interior decoration, even the type of more traditional forms of reverence car one drives. “State national Islam” tied to Islam and Malay rulers” (p. 39) provides the government with a powerful that formerly provided much of the discursive tool to regulate the way substance of Malay identity. Halalization

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 Reviews 245 is a way in which the state can police the boundaries of Malay ethnicity by using religious sanction to prevent Malays from consuming what is deemed “un- Malay” or “un-Islamic” according to Malaysia’s “ethnicized” version of Islam. Malay ethnicity is thus performed through state-mediated patterns of consumption. Or as Fischer puts it, “The state aggressively engages in a re- conceptualization of consumption that envisions the amalgamation of Malay ethnicity, consumption practices and Islam”. This book intends to make a theoretical contribution to the scholarly literature on consumption in Asia. Some readers will be distracted by the liberal use of theoretical jargon that derives from the outer reaches of cultural studies. A more readable book could indeed have been written, shorn of such theoretical excesses. Yet if the reader is willing to plough through occasional paragraphs of admittedly challenging jargon, it will be well worth the effort required to gain the many original and important insights that Fischer makes into consumption and religion in Malaysia.

Patrick Jory

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Michael Hitchcock, Victor T. King, and planes disgorged growing numbers Michael Parnwell, editors, Tourism in of, first, groups of tourists, and then Southeast Asia: Challenges and New individual tourists. By the 2000s, the Directions. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, hunger for the new resulted in tourism’s 2009; 368 pp. Hardbound: isbn 978-87- spreading its tentacles into the back- 7694-033-1; paperbound: isbn 978-87- of-beyond, through homestays, “eco- 7694-034-8 tours”, and adventure tourism. It seemed that no place was safe from foreign For more than a century, tourism intrusion. was a luxury confined to the affluent The business brought riches to few. They cruised around the world’s burgeoning economies, especially major ports but seldom strayed into the those countries with few other earning countryside except to visit picturesque opportunities; in many instances, it monuments. That all changed in the became their leading foreign revenue 1960s. Rising incomes and low-cost earner. The emphasis, however, was on jetliners put foreign travel within the increasing the visitor numbers and little means of middle-income vacationers, thought was given to its sustainability or making it possible for them to relax in to its impact on traditional ways, social foreign climes. inequities, or the damage it wrought on Soon jaded by European attractions, the country’s social fabric. they ventured into Asia, Africa, and Moreover, it had a dark side. Southeast South America. Ostensibly journeying Asia witnessed the creation of sex tours to savor the delights of the exotic, instead (including pedophiles), the introduction they relaxed, dined, and shopped. The of drugs and promiscuity, and the earliest mass tourists in Southeast Asia eroding of the very cultural values it were American soldiers on five-day was supposed to showcase and which “R’n’R” (rest and recreation) escapes visitors had come to see. In tandem with from the hell of the Indochina wars. the increasing numbers of arrivals came Word of the region’s attractions and a rising discontent, especially among the amenities soon spread and by the 1970s, young who viewed the foreigners’ sexy, couples and, later, families began jetting affluent lifestyles as more appealing to regional cities and beaches. By the than the pedestrian pursuits of farm 1990s, they had penetrated the rural labor and the dreariness of traditional areas in search of new diversions. culture and lifestyles. For Southeast Asian nations, the The boom also witnessed the growing boom was a godsend. It seemed ideal, intrusion of foreigners into formerly a business from which anyone could pristine areas, and the flow of profits, profit, from nations with beautiful not to rural villagers but to city-based monuments to those with little more firms. Locals saw only a rising cost than arresting countryside. Bungalows of living and the loss of agricultural morphed into high-rise hotels as jet land. At the same time, countries

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 Reviews 247 which had pegged their prosperity to The book’s primary value lies in its tourism learned to their dismay that it case studies that comprise the bulk of was subject to economic fluctuations, the text. They are vignettes of societies civil disturbances, natural disasters, in transition, rather than a discussion of pandemics, rising travel prices, and tourism as the title suggests, but they becoming a terrorist target. A string of are perhaps the book’s most valuable discouraging incidents since the turn of contributions. These simple sociological the century has given pause for thought treatises reveal elements of cultures and to the wisdom of placing all eggs in the cultural collisions. Among the standouts tourism basket. are the following. The failure of the public to foresee Shinji Yamashita’s “Southeast Asian the direction that tourism was going Tourism from a Japanese Perspective” may suggest, simply, that no one was looks at the Japanese view of the rest looking. Also, those within the industry of Asia, focusing, in particular, on Bali seeking greater profits may not have which Japanese regard as an escape been interested in deducing that, like from the drudgery of “salaryman” life rampant consumerism on a finite planet, to the “paradise” of simpler times. More the search for new and exotic locations of the Japanese mindset is revealed would eventually exhaust itself. Perhaps than of Bali itself, but the insights are little else can be expected from a valuable. business that calls itself an “industry” In “From Kebalian to Ajeg Bali: and reduces gorgeous scenery, peoples, Tourism and Balinese Identity in the and lifestyles to “products”. Tourism’s Aftermath of the Kuta Bombing”, role in the increasing complexity and Michel Picard also discusses Bali but interconnectedness of the world is the in terms of its “Balineseness” and the issue that this book confronts. history of its relations with its overlord, The book under review seeks to Indonesia. He takes a penetrating look at address some of the above concerns. the Balinese desire to define itself and A collection of 3 overviews and 13 offers some original thoughts on the essays, it updates a 1993 work of the success and pitfalls of that endeavor. It same title and by the same editors. The makes for engaging reading. new edition seeks to expand upon the Heidi Dahles’s “Romance and Sex subject and reflect the changing times Tourism” expands on the usual sex and nature of the business. As such, it tourism discussions to ask what each falls short of its goal. Tourism is such a of the partners in these liaisons actually vast and complex subject, and extends seeks from his/her encounters. As such, to such a wide range of nations with it explores new and valuable territory differing religions, social structures, and presents a picture far more nuanced development levels, and lifestyles, that than the normal treatise. reduction to concrete statements may In a similar vein, Yuk Wah Chan’s be impossible. “Cultural and Gender Politics in China–

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Vietnam Border Tourism” veers from a At best, their opinions seem to have straightforward study of Chinese male been formed from a great distance sex-tourists and the Vietnamese women rather than to display the same level who service them to an examination of of intimacy with a culture that is traditional female Vietnamese values evident in the case studies. Perhaps the and expectations. While it does not difficulty lies in the attempt to corral shed a great deal of light on the trade, widely divergent information into other than providing numbers, it nicely an ordered whole. Complicating the contrasts the attitudes of the respective matter at times, the writing borders on parties, placing the age-old antagonism turgid—the reader struggles not to page- between the two nations in a new turn in exasperation when encountering light. a particularly obvious observation; Perhaps the most comprehensive although, to be fair, many statements study of tourism’s direction is that of may be obvious only to those who live Laos by David Harrison and Steven in the region. The following (from p. 51) Shippani. From their chapter Laos is but one of dozens of examples: emerges as one of Southeast Asia’s “Overall then there are different kinds more successful nations in managing of tourism and tourists with different its tourism. Had the theme of the rest of priorities, and shifting perceptions of the essays been founded on its excellent tourist sites; the character of destinations model, the book might better have lived and host cultures also vary as do up to its title. the power relationships between the The three overviews by the editors are different actors contesting a tourist the most difficult to wade through. Their space.” approach is academic and their writing The tediousness is also compounded is freighted with meaningless verbiage by a tendency to use 10 nouns or that contributes little to unraveling and adjectives in place of 1. Another of many addressing a problem, serving only examples follows here (from p. 28): to trephine the reader’s skull through “Our literature survey has highlighted repeated blows. For example (from p. a number of recurring themes and 29): perspectives that have tended to map out “Debates about the industry’s impact the field of tourism studies on Southeast and sustainability, and actions that follow Asia, as elsewhere, during this period. on from these debates, are constrained These include globalization, identity, by a silo-like [sic] separation of strands image-making, representation, tradition, and components, disciplines and commodification, massification [sic], discourses; the analytical fragmentation, promotion and policy-making.” particularization and reductionism of In short, the reader may want complex, dynamic, interdependent to treat the book as a collection of systems, and processes.” anthropological and sociological essays,

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 Reviews 249 skipping past the first two and the final chapters to concentrate on the meat of the text, which is enlightening and presents in a capsule account some of the problems—without solutions—to the tourism conundrum as a whole.

Steve Van Beek

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Maryvelma O’Neil, Bangkok: A Cultural of King Mongkut’s daily routine but and Literary History. Oxford: Signal again no source; such a pity. Books, 2008. 248 pp. Paperbound: isbn As for facts, well... Several times 978-1-904955-39-9 we are told that La Loubère was an Abbé, and in one instance the error is Yet another book, some might say, on compounded by calling him the Jesuit Bangkok, but this has certainly made Abbé de La Loubère—a terminological an effort to be different, with copious contradiction of the first water, since extracts from examples of contemporary a Jesuit by definition is not an Abbé. Thai literature, and therefore lives up to (Mrs O’Neil, with her manifestly close its subtitle. Piedmontese connections, should know It starts off with a glowing foreword that.) La Loubère sported no title, and by Sumet Jumsai, who claims that some was just Monsieur de …, gentleman. considered Molière’s “principal Oriental One might well question why we have character in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Part One, Chapter 1 devoted to Sukhothai was actually based on Kosa Pan”—too and Ayutthaya; they are both irrelevant bad that the play was written and and inaccurate. The French embassy performed in 1670, sixteen years before led by Chaumont did not present Louis anyone in Europe heard about or saw XIV’s letter to Phra Narai in Lopburi but Kosa Pan. (One might also point out that on 18 October 1685 in the palace in the the cargo of the 1680 mission to France capital Ayutthaya. There is no genuine did not include rhinoceros—none could “fragmentary account” by Kosa Pan be found when the mission was about to describing his reception at Versailles, leave—but baby elephants.) though there is one of his arrival in Brest. He rightly stresses that “this is not Taksin is said to be “the only member an academic history book”, meaning, of his dynasty”; an example of sloppy presumably, that facts can be approximate, English—by definition a dynasty is a and in practice the author does not have line of hereditary rulers. to give references. This reviewer found On page 77 (not 79–80 as the index the lack of clearly indicated sources the has it) we learn “An Englishman most exasperating thing about the book: named Frederick A. Neale, who was a “A British traveller reaching Bangkok in [freelance] British naval officer, first 1865 thought he saw a mirage city…” came upon Bangkok in 1852”. Not so. Who? Source? We are not told. “An His book about his stay in Siam was English writer confirmed…”; “in 1835 a published in London in 1852, but he steamer carrying an American writer…” first arrived in Bangkok in 1840, as he Who? Where to? “‘We mould [cities] in tells us in his book. By page 210 he has our image’ Jonathan Rabin writes”; who been transmogrified into “the American is he, and if he is important enough to writer F. A. Neale… [who] entitled his quote, where did he write this? Silence. memoirs Consul in Paradise (1852)”. Pages 19–20 have a fascinating account O’Neil is muddling Neale’s work with

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W. A. R. Wood’s memoirs, published specific to the capital; even in remote in 1965, and has also succeeded in villages one is woken at 5.30 AM by changing the nationality of both authors. blaring canned music preceding the pu Yet her bibliography, here given the less yai ban’s announcements and/or canned academic heading “Further Reading”, sermons from the village temple. get both texts right. This confusion is There is no mention of the Bangkok careless to a degree. electricity service in the good old days of Throughout there is a tiresome the early 1960s, when brownouts were journalistic need to put labels on people; constant. This improved greatly during so we have, among more recent souls, the decade. But even then the traffic “writer William Warren” and “ art critic was awful, and getting a telephone a Michael Wright” . major hurdle. One general point correctly discussed O’Neil rightly stresses the explosive early on is the fact that Bangkok was growth of the capital. Fifty years ago, essentially a Chinese city. Almost every the capital was estimated to have a visitor or resident has commented on population of 3 million. In 2010 it this. Sit (or more likely stand) in the is expected to top 15 million—the Skytrain today and observe the faces; “primate city” indeed, perhaps doing few are pure Thai. But one thing little more than reflecting the high that has changed is the status of the degree of administrative centralisation. Chinese; when this reviewer first came But with the capital sinking, as one to Bangkok in 1960, most servants Alistair Shearer (who, for once, is not were Chinese; now the Sino-Thai, if labelled a writer, art critic or whatever) rich enough, have Thai, or, if failing has it, in “the ancient swamp of Asia”, such means, Lao or Burmese servants. and sea levels rising, one wonders how The Chinese indeed “are everything long this primacy can endure and what and everywhere”, or at least were. That plans, if any, have been made to counter said, there is an awful lot here about those problems. Chinatown and New Road, which are Go to the Bang Na end of the Skytrain almost irrelevant ghettoes in the modern line at the end of a working day and see capital. the struggling masses trying to reach Another striking feature about the their homes; Bangkok then appears a capital is “the constant din”. This is miracle of individual organisation. not specific to the capital but worse This review has rather emphasised in it. Go into any supermarket, in the the inadequacies of the book up to now. capital or out of it, and you will have To be fair, one should point out that the four, five or more different sources of description of the Thonburi temples competing electronic sound, nearly all is excellent and makes one want to with thumping bass, presumably with return to visit them. But this reviewer no one listening to any one of them. In would love to know the source of the other words, noise is a national trait, not statement that Wat Arun is built on a

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 252 Reviews floating foundation. This seems a very “to protect them from being jostled by advanced technique for its early date. women”. This is another example of It was certainly built on piles, but that inaccurate language use. The women do hardly makes the foundation floating. all they can to avoid touching the monks; Inevitably most of the textual sources to say they “jostle” implies actively are from farang. O’Neil tries to break the rough-handling. mould by quoting from Mishima. Surely Silpa Bhirasri gets good coverage, but Chinese visitors must have recorded surprisingly the gallery in Soi Attakarn their impressions, or were they all coolie Prasit, which was the precursor of class immigrants about to climb the the new art centre at Mabunkhrong, socio-economic ladder? She also digs is not mentioned at all, though his out a Russian diplomat, Kalymkow, at spirit was there. Of course, we get the the end of the 19th century and his fears Jim Thompson treatment. The Siam of having to work in the “theatrical Society does not make it, apart from scenery” around him; full marks for expecting to be at the receiving end of a research here. But he does not make the bequest. Nor does Suan Pakkard Palace. “Further Reading” section, alas… Vimanmek gets a five-word aside. But To vary the diet, O’Neil includes the Oriental gets a full fourteen-page several, sometimes extensive quotes coverage, though half a century ago it from Thai sources. This represents a was not the “in” place, which was the departure from prevailing volumes newly constructed and government- that attempt to describe the city, but owned Erawan, appreciated then more again the lack of sources means that for the cream cakes in its tearoom than one cannot follow up those often well- its shrine. chosen snippets. Presumably Ankham But the carelessness over facts is Kalayanapongs should be Angkarn. worrying: if one thing is wrong, then Three temples on the Bangkok side perhaps the whole lot is wrong? Here are selected for close description, and is one further example requiring no the “Erewan [sic] shrine” is thrown in specialist knowledge of Bangkok or to complement them. Wat Borworniwes anything in it: Rama VII, we are told, is only mentioned for its farang seen in “was the last man on earth to exercise murals. Wat Benjamabophit is mentioned royal absolutism”. This is nonsense; only in relation to Kukrit’s funeral. The what about until recently the rulers pretty Wat Ratchbopitr does not make of Nepal and Bhutan, and even now it. Lesotho? Sex in the city is dealt with sensibly, The book comes with a map that in a matter-of-fact way, neither ignored claims to show greater Bangkok but in nor hyped. The joys of water travel are fact only has the city core. The photos there; but it is not true that monks are are all very dark, as though Bangkok in a special section of the express boat were in a permanent pre-monsoon

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 Reviews 253 penumbra; they have no captions, but are placed near the object they are meant to illustrate. In short, this offering, excellent in intent, fails to make the grade for accuracy, or in its referencing. Readers of books like this are justified in expecting reference details, and there is nothing wrong with throwing in a few footnotes. (Here, though, the author may have been hamstrung by the requirements of the series in which the book appears.) There is, though, too much good material here to dismiss it out of hand; a second radically revised and corrected edition is needed. But when dealing with a city of such enormous variety and coping with its recent phenomenal growth, it is never going to be easy to satisfy all tastes or expectations.

Michael Smithies

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Chang Noi, Jungle Book: Thailand’s themselves facing frank comment about Politics, Moral Panic, and Plunder, Thai public life, especially its seamier 1996–2008. Chiang Mai: Silkworm and more manipulative aspects. Late in Books, 2009. 256 pp. Paperbound: isbn the book, outraged at the extrajudicial 978-974-9511-63-3 killings of supposed drug dealers, Chang Noi opines that it is not the rule of law This book consists of a selection of but the law of the jungle that has allowed more than five dozen columns published the murderers to escape prosecution. in The Nation from 1996, the beginning Indeed, the cover of the book displays of the end of the economic boom, ‘Tiger in Tropical Storm (Surprise!)’, a until mid-2008. A new constitution painting by Henri Rousseau. The striped came into force in 1997 that created predator is shown creeping through a strong, elected executive, a space the lush green foliage with its fangs that was soon occupied by Thaksin bared and a paw on the back of Little Shinawatra who led his Thai Rak Elephant (Chang Noi). Possibly Little Thai party to two successful national Elephant is charmed and will escape elections. Thaksin’s government became the lawsuits pursuing it. We learn in the destabilized by street protests instigated book that as the financial crisis unfolded by the People’s Alliance for Democracy in 1997 and Chavalit Yongchaiyudh’s (PAD) in 2005 and continued in 2006. political fortunes deteriorated, his wife In a move that took the country by was advised by a fortune teller to avert surprise, the military launched a coup disaster by carrying a toy elephant. in September 2006, dissolved the The columns are arranged by topic parliament, and commenced writing around the jungle theme. ‘Fauna’ yet another constitution that came into offers thumbnails of the shift from the force in 2007. The fiery populist politics godfathers of old to the rich plutocrats conducted by the PAD, the toppling of who dominate politics today. ‘Monks two governments, the occupation of and Gangsters in Thai Politics’ (1997) in Government House in late 2008, and this section is arguably the most concise the closure of Bangkok’s two airports in and profound four pages ever written December of that year fall outside the about Thai leadership. ‘Feeding Habits’, book’s purview. featuring Chang Noi’s corruption This background is helpful, because curve, is about scandals and money the pseudonymous Chang Noi does not politics. ‘Water and Trees’ follows the intend to explain these larger events that campaigns against the construction made Thailand headline news around of dams and laments the degradation the world. Instead, the columns delve to the environment resulting from into what was happening behind the the failure to assess the social and news. While readers may recognise economic value of forests. ‘Culture Kipling overtones in the book’s title, in and Custom’ is a mixed bag of smart fact as they turn the pages they will find analyses of nationalism provoked by

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 Reviews 255 external controls in response to the Chang Noi does not have much faith that 1997 financial crisis, censorship of the Thai parties express the popular will in royal biography and the use of English any effective way. in public discourse. ‘Birds, Bees, and The Democrats had a chance to remake Beasts’ exposes the hypocrisy and moral Thai politics when they came to power panic that has accompanied the rise of in 1997, but they failed to recognize sexual explicitness in public culture. that the boom in the 1980s and early ‘Tooth and Claw’ relates some of the 1990s had created new social groups more spectacular political murders in that had irrevocably changed the Thai Thailand’s modern history. ‘Lords of social order. The huge rural population the Jungle’, the last section, registers had become more politically savvy, and Chang Noi’s despair at the depths the middle class began to clamour for to which Thai politics have fallen. more say in the political process. The Authoritarianism, suppression and unmet demand for a new politics laid exclusion are the distinctive features the foundations for the rise of populism of politics in the 2000s. Some of the and the demagoguery of the PAD, book’s most polemical discussions are which is not a party but a movement. to be found in the final pages. The most successful party of recent Chang Noi declares that rather times, Thai Rak Thai headed by Thaksin than deal with the big topics directly, Shinawatra with his powerful media the columns will identify significant businesses, operated like a political but scarcely noticed changes in Thai cartel by brooking no opposition, society and its view of itself. So-called pushing rivals to the sidelines, and sensitive topics are deftly handled redistributing resources and profits by the techniques of a ventriloquist. among its members. Not to be missed Critical perspectives are put into the are ‘How to Buy a Country’ (2000) mouths of others such as the social and ‘How to Sell a Country’ (2006). critic Sulak Sivaraksa, the sometimes ‘Bulldog on a Leash, or Another Nail in banned Fa Dieo Kan magazine, and Democracy’s Coffin’ (2008) highlights characters in mock dialogues. But the PAD’s visceral nationalism, middle- what is Chang Noi’s own view of Thai class membership, and contempt for politics and society? For one thing, rural people. specific ministries, departments, and Does Chang Noi have good peripheral offices rather than an abstract ‘state’ vision? Does it miss anything as it or ‘bureaucracy’ are held accountable stomps around in the jungle or up a hill for mismanaged or failed policies. For for a broader view of the landscape? another, there is surprisingly little about The landscape is mostly the cityscape, political parties, because they do not although from time to time Chang Noi explain the dynamics of Thai politics. does venture out of the capital into In contrast to many farang and Thai the provinces. In ‘Drinking with Mr. political scientists, it would seem that Progress’ (2001) Chang Noi is in the

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 256 Reviews countryside sampling illicit moonshine, Limthongkul attracts such widespread but the discussion quickly swings support need look no further than the back to the centre, and we are again wry, astute and passionate columns in the world of cartels and monopoly reproduced in this book. capitalism as Mr. Progress squeezes out the competition, minimises tax, and Craig J. Reynolds streamlines production to reduce costs. Except in a few instances, the book views the countryside is a side trip on the way to the largest primate city in the world where all the action takes place. ‘Politics and the Stars’ (2007) reports that two generals and the wife of a third visited a shrine in the northern city of Chiang Mai after the September 2006 coup in search of an assessment of the coup group’s political fortunes. There is not that much about formal religion in the columns, but spiritism and animism catch Chang Noi’s sharp eye as does the influential astrologer and spirit medium, Varin Buaviratlert. Most politicians are gamblers who need to hedge their bets, so astrology and other forms of divination are essential in a book about Thai politics. The partisan and violent politics that beset Thailand today have their roots in earlier periods. Chang Noi traces those roots back to 1932 and the end of the absolute monarchy. The crude pragmatism and egotism that characterise Thai society are explained in part by ‘the heavy legacy of absolutism and dictatorship in the society’s history’ (p. 196). Readers puzzled as to why the policies and actions of government during the prime ministership of Thaksin Shinawatra caused such resentment, or why fear of the countryside and the peasantry preached by the PAD’s Sondhi

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Ann Danaiya Usher, Thai Forestry: A of teak exploitation, industrial plantation Critical History. Chiang Mai: Silkworm development and forest conservation Books, 2009. 248 pp. Paperbound: isbn in Thailand. She even takes me back 978-974-9511-73-2 to my alma mater, the Albert-Ludwigs- Universität in Freiburg, Germany, where During a recent field trip to the Khao the first forestry faculty was founded Phaeng Ma Community Forest, Nakorn in 1787. Ratchasima Province, I came across Scientific forestry puts foresters a uniformed person in camouflaged and timber production at the center of fatigues in the visitor and information forest management. For almost two center. I asked our guide why soldiers centuries, little consideration was given were stationed in their forest. With a to environmental “services” that natural slight smile in his face, he replied that forests provide, such as biodiversity, the fellow was a forest ranger and not and the role of local people who often a soldier. depend on forests for timber, food and I guess I should have known better. medicine. As taught in Freiburg and Wasn’t it in Central Europe where other central European universities, it scientific forestry originated and had a tremendous influence on forest foresters in a number of countries were management across the globe. It reached called “forest police”? While today they Thailand even before the Royal Forest are not called forest police anymore, Department was established in 1896. they still wield substantial powers. But it Through some historical peculiarities, is an interesting historical development Denmark also put its mark on state that explains why state forestry in many forestry in Thailand, while the American countries, including Thailand, is what vision of “conservation without people” it is today—forest management that deeply marked the country’s strategies has timber production as its overriding and actions to conserve whatever is left objective and is at odds, to put it mildly, of its once mighty forests. While it led with local people living in and around to a thriving forest industry until the forests. logging ban was imposed in Thailand in In Thai Forestry: A Critical History, 1989, it deprived people of the resources Ann Danaiya Usher provides a thorough they need for their daily survival. analysis and fascinating account of more We learn all of this in 188 pages than 100 years of state forestry. She digs of text written in very accessible deep when she catapults the reader back language, which makes it at times in time to the origin of scientific forestry difficult to put the book down. If you to explain contemporary issues, failings really want to understand the current and conflicts in Thailand’s forests and dilemma in Thailand’s forests, you need among its stakeholders. She leaves to understand the underlying causes few stones unturned to illustrate the of different perspectives on forest scientific basis and historical beginnings management and how it all began,

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 258 Reviews which Ms. Usher provides very well fourth rotations, but to damage to forest in her engaging writing. Without this ecosystems due to acid rain. But if you background knowledge on the origin dig deep then there is always the risk of forestry and focus on producing of getting some facts not exactly right. timber, you can easily draw the wrong This should not distract from the value conclusions, such as that there is no basis of the contribution that Ms. Usher has for the way Thai foresters and protected- made to the discourse on Thai forestry. area managers go about their work. Is the book actually on “Thai forestry” The title announces the critical nature as the title proclaims? In my opinion, of Ms. Usher’s account. Without doubt, it is on Thai state forestry. While we not everyone will agree with her. She read much about the struggles of forest- counters potential dissent with a very dependent people, community forestry thorough analysis that is dotted also with or the management of forests by local critical voices from within the forestry people receives little attention. It is only administration. There is no doubt that discussed in the forward-looking section many well-intentioned individuals work of the last six pages of the book. in the various government departments Thai forests are exclusively under dealing with forestry in Thailand. But the jurisdiction of the Royal Forest bureaucracies are extremely hard to Department; the National Park, Wildlife change and it takes a crisis or the death and Plant Conservation Department; and of an honest forester such as Sueb the Department for Marine and Coastal Nakhasathien to provide the impetus for Resources. However, local communities rethinking or a change in policy. have been using and managing forests In 1994, Nancy Peluso provided a near their homes for centuries. Around historical account of forestry on the 20 million people are considered to be island of Java in Indonesia. I always forest-dependent in Thailand. They are thought that this was a must-read. Ms. estimated to harvest approximately THB Usher’s book falls into the same category, 1–4 million worth of forest products per so I can recommend it very strongly as a village per year. Almost 11,000 villages must-read for those working in forestry are managing community forests and in Thailand and beyond. In fact, it makes more than 5,000 villages have registered an excellent read even for those who do their community forestry programs, not work in forestry. covering an area of 1.2 million rai (or Those who know me are expecting 196,667 hectares). some critical thoughts. I have two, with While such local forest management the first one being of a minor nature. In provides benefits to rural communities a few instances, Ms. Usher gets things and indigenous peoples, it also helps slightly incorrect. For example, the to conserve biodiversity and enhances German term Waldsterben, or forest carbon stocks, important in the global death, does not refer to forest growth fight against climate change. Tens of underperforming in second, third or millions of rural people throughout

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Asia are managing forests—their role could have received more attention by Ms. Usher. I am sure I am not alone with this request. For example, Elinor Ostrom, who last year won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, also spoke out against the dangers of a top- down approach to REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) during the Conference of Parties 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December of last year. “Far more effective are approaches that gain the trust of forest communities, respect their rights, and involve them in forest use and monitoring, practices that are positively associated with maintenance of forest density.” Many others, including my former colleagues at the Center for People and Forests (RECOFTC), have echoed her sentiments. However, if you want to know why this is not the case in Thailand—yet—you need to indulge in reading Thai Forestry: A Critical History.

Thomas Enters

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Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker, continues to play a role from afar. Their Thaksin. 2nd ed. Chiang Mai: Silkworm absorbing narrative is necessarily a Books, 2009. x+422 pp. Paperbound: courageous undertaking, as the object of isbn 978-974-9511-79-4 the authors’ critique is still very much alive and kicking. It deserves to be No personality has so transfixed the read by all those who have an interest attention of the Thai public over the in the enigmatic personality who, more course of the past decade as Thaksin than any other over the course of the Shinawatra, a self-made billionaire past decade, has shaped Thailand’s who entered the political arena in the ongoing struggle towards participatory mid-1990s ultimately to attain and then democracy. lose the premiership amidst a rising Throughout the volume, Pasuk tide of political polarization and public and Baker pursue two themes. One scandal. Despite his ouster from office summarizes the course of Thaksin’s in September 2006 followed by his flight rise to power and the backlash that into exile as a fugitive from justice in culminated in his downfall. The other October 2008, Thaksin continues to cast examines the broader political and a long shadow over the Thai political economic context that shaped the course scene. His gripping story continues of his venture to reshape the Thai body to dominate the Thai news media and politic. As the book is titled “Thaksin” popular imagination with nearly daily and not “Thailand’s Recent Political accounts of new twists and turns in the History,” I shall here focus on the thread ongoing contest for control of Thailand’s of Thaksin’s biography. That is a bit of political soul. More than perhaps any a problem because Thaksin the person, biography in Thai history, the saga as distinct from Thaksin the politician, of Thaksin’s precipitous rise and fall tends to get submerged in the book’s resonates as a morality tale comparing torrent of information on recent Thai Thai norms of political behavior with political currents. global standards of ethical conduct in Stylistically, the book is evocative public office. of Bob Woodward’s acclaimed “instant As an accomplished duo of close histories” of recent US presidencies. observers of the Thai political and Like Woodward, Pasuk and Baker economic scene, Pasuk Phongpaichit present the flow of recent Thai political and Chris Baker have in this eponymous developments centering on Thaksin as volume performed a valuable service in a seamless narrative compressed into a distilling the convoluted tale of Thaksin’s fact-filled exposition that races along at rise and fall for an international audience. an unrelenting pace. Unlike Woodward, More than that, they have provided an however, their presentation is not replete authoritative account of Thailand’s with first-hand interviews, human- current political crisis, the mounting interest anecdotes, and presumptions sectarian conflict in which Thaksin of “decent intentions”. Instead, their

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 Reviews 261 account consists in large measure of a ascent to business success and political distillation of news reports appearing power. Born in 1949 into a prosperous in the Thai press supplemented by an Chiangmai family with Hakka Chinese assortment of recent academic studies. roots, he was a canny striver from the As a result, the book occupies a place start, graduating at the top of his class somewhere between journalism and at the Police Academy, gaining a PhD in scholarship. criminal law at a US university, marrying The volume under review is a into a notable police-connected family, considerably extended version—a so- serving in the police while dabbling called second edition—of a book of the in a computer leasing business, and same title published in 2004. Review in 1987 resigning from the police to of a second edition would ordinarily devote his energies fully to building demand comparison with the first. In his fortune through the cultivation of the present case that is not an issue. political connections and acquisition of Called a new edition, the book actually government concessions (i. e., monopoly reproduces in Part One the original text stakes) in the telecommunications essentially unchanged and then carries industry. The politics of the concessions- the narrative forward with an entirely granting racket inevitably lured him into new Part Two. That division, split at the Thai political arena. In 1994 he 2004—the high point in Thaksin’s gained the post of foreign minister, and political career—quite appropriately then he rose to heightened prominence traces first Thaksin’s rise, and then as a deputy prime minister shortly before his fall. With the continuing flow of the financial panic of 1997. Somehow, reportage featuring Thaksin since the he weathered the crisis well, possibly publication of the second edition—his through judicious hedging based on unremitting instigation of the Thai inside information, and so his wealth political opposition, his disruptive continued to grow while many others intervention in Thai-Cambodian fell by the wayside. relations, his losses from the Dubai In mid-1998 Thaksin founded the financial collapse, the impending Thai Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT). Initially court judgment concerning his frozen welcomed as a departure from factional assets—can a third edition of the Thaksin politics, TRT’s diverse constituency saga be far distant? Or perhaps it can soon came to be dominated by big be argued that this second edition was business. To counter that negative issued prematurely, that it should have perception Thaksin courted the rural vote been delayed at least until the watershed with a dramatic platform of spending court decision on Thaksin’s assets. programs addressing issues of particular The essentials of Thaksin’s career concern to the rural masses. Though can be extracted from the densely that electioneering gambit threatened packed text as follows. Part One to drain the government’s budgetary recounts Thaksin’s origins and his reserves, Thaksin’s charismatic

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 262 Reviews leadership, campaign promises, and disappearance of lottery revenues, the old-style machine politics allowed corruption charges against Thaksin and TRT to win the election handsomely, his regime climaxed in January 2006 and he was installed as prime minister following the sale of Thaksin’s flagship in 2001. His first term in office company, Shin Corp, under exceedingly focused on basic economic, social, and dubious circumstances. In the ensuing political reforms, with corporate-style chaos, Thaksin dissolved Parliament and management serving as a talismanic called new elections, which were duly means to achieving his objectives. invalidated by the courts on technical Accompanying those reforms was a grounds. rapid slide to one-party dominance, The government’s increasingly tenuous growing nepotism, and the mutation authority culminated in September of the old-style money politics into a 2006 in a military coup while Thaksin new big-money politics, accompanied was overseas. Rather than return to by a massive flow of benefits to the Thailand, he and his family remained increasingly diversified Shinawatra overseas, where he orchestrated a family commercial empire. campaign of harassment against the Part Two provides an equally fact- coup group and its confederates. In the packed narrative detailing Thaksin’s following months various court cases precipitous descent over the five years against Thaksin, family members, and since 2004. The process started with close associates were pursued with a the estrangement of many of Thaksin’s vengeance. In early 2008 Thaksin and allies in the face of his increasingly his wife finally returned to Thailand, authoritarian responses while his search but then in the midst of accelerated for a reliable constituency lured him court proceedings on various corruption towards an equally strident populism. charges they fled the country a second The tactic worked, and he was re- time. Later that year, Thaksin was elected to office in early 2005 with a found guilty in absentia of abuse of resounding majority, but at the cost of power and sentenced to two years in rising sectional and sectoral animosities. jail, making him a fugitive from Thai That victory mobilized a conservative justice. In exile, he suffered the further backlash that eventually crystallized indignities of revocation of several visas, into a formal government inquiry. After withdrawal of his diplomatic passport, preliminary corruption investigations significant shrinkage of his financial concerning the setting up of Bangkok’s worth, and divorce from his wife of 36 new international airport, share ramping years. Subsequent events in Thailand, on the Bangkok stock exchange, the centering on a dangerous escalation of distribution of rubber seedlings to civil disorder, saw him play the spoiler’s smallholders, the purchase of computers role of distant agitator. And there, as of for government agencies, the building early 2009, the narrative ends. of tenements for slum dwellers, and the

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Missing from Pasuk and Baker’s was impossible to separate his quest otherwise excellent exposition of for greater power to effect social and Thaksin’s rise and fall is the human- economic change from his quest for interest dimension of investigative greater power to make money” (p. 356). journalism, the personal anecdotes With that characterization, Thaksin’s and psychological insights that, as personal drama takes on the trappings of in Woodward’s “instant histories,” a Faustian parable, pursuing an ageless, serve to vitalize the protagonist’s life universal theme: struggle and ultimately help explain his behavior. In tracing the course of Mephistopheles— Thaksin’s actions and the events that Two functions would he pleasantly they precipitated, the book reveals much combine, about his career in public affairs, but In fact he thought his notion very fine: it never really gets inside his skin to To govern, and indulge his appetite. analyze the compulsions and impulses that make him tick—his moral grounding Faust— (or lack thereof), his considerable A woeful error. He who has to hold personal charm, his Machiavellian Command of men must have a leader’s craftiness, his overweening self- mind, esteem, his bewildering choices of Joy in authority, lofty will and bold, allies and adversaries, his equally A will not by the common herd raveled relations with the Crown, his divined, seemingly unquenchable thirst for To trusted ears he tells his quiet intent, wealth and power (and for vengeance And this is done — to nations’ when thwarted), and so forth. wonderment. The book concludes with a summary So stands he high, supreme, and so interpretation of the contemporary obeyed, Thai political crisis, in which Thaksin The noblest still. Indulgence must is portrayed in the incongruous role degrade. of self-proclaimed champion of the oppressed—“a super-rich tycoon calling — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [1832], for revolution” (p. 362). Here finally Faust, Part II, Act IV. the authors reveal something of their personal opinions, referring to Thaksin as “a man of no real principle, ethical Edward Van Roy or political” (p. 354), stating that “Thaksin’s project was built around a fatal confusion. . . Throughout his career, politics and profit-making were entwined around one another like a pair of copulating snakes. . . It

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Alexandra Kent and David Chandler, 1975 and 1979? As Judy Ledgerwood editors, People of Virtue: Reconfiguring argues in her essay in this volume, ‘If Religion, Power and Moral Order in you ask a rural Khmer about Buddhism Cambodia Today. NIAS Studies in Asian today you are likely to get the reply that Topics 43, Nordic Institute of Asian Buddhism is much the same as it was Studies. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, before war and revolution devastated 2009. xvii+323 pp. Hardbound: isbn their country. What is different today, 978-87-7694-036-2; paperbound: isbn they will say, is the morality of the 978-87-7694-037-9 people, their inability to live according to the tenets of Buddhism’ (p. 147). A number of distinguished Cambodia This view fits with the cyclical view scholars met in a conference at Varberg, of history of past Khmer society as Sweden in October 2005. They included alternating light and dark, of periods the historians Alain Forest, David of prosperity and harmony interrupted Chandler and Penny Edwards, the by periods of destruction. Thus, for religious specialist Anne Hansen, and the example, Cambodia slipped into a dark anthropologists Judy Ledgerwood, Eve age in the late 1770s from which it did Zucker, John Marston and Alexandra not emerge until after the coronation Kent. The Venerable Khy Sovanratana of Ang Duong in 1848. Eve Zucker’s of the Sangha Council of Cambodia contribution draws attention to a 19th spoke at the gathering, along with Heng century Khmer poem analyzed in David Monychena of the non-governmental Chandler’s ‘Songs at the Edge of the organization (NGO) Buddhism for Forest’ which deals with the problems Development and the Cambodian of the ‘rescuing of civilization from academic and education specialist Heng the clutches of chaos, the restoration of Sreang. The participants’ concerns moral order, and the attempt to smooth included, as Kent and Chandler state over the rupture with that order’s past’ in their introduction to this volume of (p. 195). Whether such earlier upheavals essays that grew out of the conference, were on the scale of the cataclysm that questions of ‘how community may hit Cambodia in the 1970s is a moot be repaired after violent conflict, how point, but the Buddhist religion was able religion and politics are interwoven and to act as a cement for moral order and how moral order and historical change reconstruction, and provide an ethical impact upon one another’ (p. 1). Given compass for the people’s lives in times of the melancholy fact that so many other turmoil. Today, as this volume suggests, countries today are victims of war, the institutions of Buddhism themselves instability and violence, these questions have been dented; the sangha ‘has yet to have broader, global significance. recover both morally and intellectually How much changed irrevocably in after the years of repression’ (p. 11), and Cambodia as a result of the violence and many village elders have lost either their upheaval of the Pol Pot years between authority or their virtue (pp. 195–212).

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As the contributors note, the period embargo, and even helped resuscitate of ‘Democratic Kampuchea’ has been the Khmers Rouges. closely scrutinized by scholars. The Cambodia thus emerged from the ‘killing fields’ are the subject of countless chaos of the 1970s and 1980s as a books and documentary films. In 1970, shattered society. That is the point of the country was sucked into the Viet departure of this intriguing book. How, Nam War and subjected to destructive ask the authors, can such a traumatized forces much deadlier than the Thai and society heal itself? How can it come Vietnamese armies which had ravaged to terms with and cope with such a the land in preceding centuries. The civil bloody interlude? Moreover, life for war that broke out after the National most Cambodians today remains harsh, Assembly deposed Prince Sihanouk was even as the threat of war recedes into the fought with pitiless savagery on all sides. past. Most Khmers are powerless before Between the coup and early 1973, the new forces that threaten to turn their United States dropped almost 540,000 world upside down, buffeted between tons of bombs on the countryside the waves of modernity and tradition, with catastrophic effects. If the war- seeking a solid bottom on which to weary Cambodian people thought the place their feet. Market liberalism and victory of the Khmers Rouges in April globalization might promise to be ‘a 1975 would bring peace and national rising tide that lifts all boats’ towards reconciliation, their hopes were dashed prosperity, but most Cambodians remain as Pol Pot’s shadowy Angkar turned poor in what remains one of the world’s the country into one huge prison farm. poorest countries, and such materialist The removal of the Pol Pot regime by dogmas cannot provide a moral bedrock the Vietnamese with the invasion of for a society. The poor are also the Christmas Day 1978 was a liberation victims of widespread corruption and from a regime perhaps best described abuse of power, social evils which are as a ‘thanatocracy’. Yet the incoming both the product and the cause of a People’s Republic of Kampuchea widespread moral vacuum. With secular found that the destruction of the Pol remedies discredited, many Khmers Pot regime did not automatically lend it look to religion as the only force capable legitimacy in the eyes of the Cambodian of regenerating their society. However, people; indeed the discredited Khmers there is a problem here. As Kent and Rouges were able to capitalize on Chandler put it, the Buddhist sangha the government’s ties with Viet Nam ‘has yet to recover both morally and in order to give themselves some intellectually from years of repression’ legitimacy. Sadly, too, in what amounted (p.11). to a tragic coda to the Cold War, many Yet the tenor of this book is cautiously Western and ASEAN nations refused optimistic. As Heng Sreang points out, to recognize the new regime, subjected modernist monks now play an active Cambodia to a diplomatic, aid and trade part in reformist politics: a role that has

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 266 Reviews often brought them into sharp conflict of Cambodians. In the past, as Alain with the government as most notably in Forest puts it: ‘It is no exaggeration 1998 when monks were assaulted, fired to say that Khmer Buddhism has on and shocked with electric batons for survived because of popular consent their part in peaceful demonstrations. and popular initiatives (and the strong Such actions have also brought them interdependence between the faithful into conflict with the Cambodian and the monks)…’ As a result, he Buddhist Supreme Patriarch. Mindful continues, ‘Buddhism was the only real, of the past political role of the sangha, ensuring, unifying factor in this divided Heng Sreang reminds us of the actions and desolate country’ (p. 24). Religion is of Hem Chieu and other leading monks still deeply rooted in Cambodian culture who triggered the country’s movement and Buddhism, as Alex Hinton notes, for national independence from the has ‘provided a way of coping with the French back in 1942. In 2006, too, 50 past through meditation and concepts of monks joined a 50-kilometre march for forgiveness and letting go of anger’ (p. freedom of expression and non-violence 76). Thus, there are grounds to hope that which was organized by the Alliance for the old Cambodian adage will continue Freedom of Expression in Cambodia, to hold true: (loosely translated) ‘the a coalition of 28 NGOs. As Heng country of the Khmers will never die’. argues, ‘the sangha is inevitably drawn into the Cambodian political arena’. John Tully While there is a danger of politicians attempting to co-opt them for their own sometimes questionable ends, monks ‘could be a constructive force for the improvement and reconstruction of the social well-being and political life of the country’ (pp. 249, 251). As Khy Sovanratana notes, however, that would require improvements in the religious and secular education of monks so that they would be better able to advise and guide. While the effects of the bloody and disruptive past still weigh heavily, as Christine Nissen argues in the concluding essay, ‘it may be inappropriate to speak of a moral breakdown’ in Cambodian society (p. 287). The ubiquitous corruption in Cambodian public life is not socially accepted by the majority

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Caroline Hughes, D e p e n d e n t the one of Timor Leste in the context of Communities: Aid and Politics in the Cold War. In this context it is crucial Cambodia and East Timor. Southeast for analysis of aid and dependence to Asia Program, Cornell University. identify in either case which side was Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, favored by the powers that be; i. e., the 2009. 265 pp. Hardbound: isbn 978-0- West (in political matters) or the North 87727-778-1; paperbound: isbn 978-0- (in economic matters) which control 87727-748-4. the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions and the spigot of aid. Caroline Hughes, professor of In Cambodia, the West clearly governance at Murdoch University, is favored the resistance forces, even if a well-established Cambodia specialist they included the Khmer Rouge, over and has written, apart from the present the People’s Republic of Kampuchea volume under review and other titles, (PRK) that was established after the The Political Economy of Cambodia’s Vietnamese intervention in 1979. Lavish Transition, 1991–2001. This book, aid was bestowed on the former in their Dependent Communities: Aid and refugee camps, while Cambodia under Politics in Cambodia and East Timor, the PRK was isolated politically and makes an important contribution to economically. the little-researched area of linkages In Timor Leste, the case was not between the politics of massive so clear. When the Suharto regime in international intervention in national Indonesia, a staunch ally of the West, and local political arenas, and the invaded the country using the obviously subsequent politics of aid-dependent leftist Frente Revolucionaria de Timor development. Leste Indepenente (FRETILIN) with The comparison between Cambodia the excuse of fighting communism, and Timor Leste is particularly appropriate the United States tacitly approved as both those countries experienced that invasion even though the United massive international interventions Nations had never recognized Indonesian in the wake of disastrous Cold-War– sovereignty over Timor Leste. However, induced civil war. Subsequently, both subsequent large-scale human rights of them received massive inflows of abuses by the Suharto regime in Timor aid. For Cambodia, that aid equaled Leste, including the killing of an 112.6 percent of its national budget, estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people a level exceeded only in Afghanistan. during the subsequent two decades, The level of aid to Cambodia continues tilted the support of the West in favor unabated today. Timor Leste similarly of the resistance forces. became heavily aid-dependent after its Hughes compares the experiences of 1999 turmoil. the large-scale peacekeeping operations Chapter II compares the decades of deployed by the United Nations in both disastrous civil wars in Cambodia with Cambodia and Timor Leste. Those

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 268 Reviews interventions shared the common provincial authorities were evacuated characteristic of some form of executive along with 300,000 Timorese, UNTAET power not usually present in United actually became the government and had Nations peacekeeping operations. In the cabinet ministers along with Timorese. case of Cambodia, those powers were After independence had been achieved quite limited; in Timor Leste, they were in 2002, it was replaced by the United much more intrusive. Nations Mission of Support to East The United Nations Transitional Timor (UNMISET), which continued Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) to provide executive support until its immediately left Cambodia after the mandate ended in 2005. However, in successful elections and a new royal the following year of 2006, when the government had been established in political situation once more became 1993. Thereupon a totally new aid volatile, the new and larger United picture emerged, dominated by bilateral Nations Integrated Mission of Timor donors and the UN family of agencies Leste (UNMIT) was established with a plus the Asian Development Bank, mandate until 2010. the World Bank and the International Most of the book under review is Monetary Fund. devoted to a comparative analysis of two UNTAC accorded legitimate status to issues: (a) the international policies that all four warring factions, including the focused on rebuilding state institutions Khmer Rouge. All of them, including to accommodate the global market; the de facto government of PRK (later and (b) the dilemmas of politicians renamed State of Cambodia [SOC]), in Cambodia and Timor Leste who were reduced to being “existing struggled to satisfy both wealthy foreign administrative structures” which benefactors and constituents at home. UNTAC was supposed to control—an Hughes’s critical attitude towards impossible job. How could a handful international polices generally known of international officers control a as the “Washington Consensus” was bureaucracy that had been in power for applied to the political rather than 11 years? The present reviewer, as the economic effects of independence. UNTAC-appointed “shadow governor” Timor Leste became heavily aid- of Siemreap, observed this anomaly dependent following 1999, due not only firsthand in attempting to administer to the destruction wrought by departing the SOC, with its well-established Indonesian armed forces, but as well due bureaucracy, with the help of a few to the effects on the Timorese economy others who didn’t speak Cambodian. after being suddenly wrenched from the Unlike UNTAC, the United Nations Indonesian economy. Sadly, however, Transitional Authority in East Timor after the external threat of human rights (UNTAET) had real executive powers. abuses had disappeared, donors simply Because Timor Leste had never been lost interest in the plight of the country. a country and because the Indonesian Thus the first Timorese government had

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 Reviews 269 to focus on Timorese vulnerability to and therefore beyond the purview of compassion fatigue. The elites focused donors, distributing it through a shadow on “branding” Timor Leste as a nation state of patronage networks that linked for “prudence”; In other words, East the party, the bureaucracy, and the Timor had to advertise for and solicit military ever more tightly as time went aid. Hence, the author asserts, in Timor by. Their leeway has expanded recently Leste, the political leaders discretion with two new sources of funds: the of action was minimal. The finances People’s Republic of China as a source of the government were transparent of aid and investment, and oil reserves for all to see and the bureaucracy was from the Gulf of Thailand. organized to prevent misappropriation Secondly, the government retains its of funds entrusted to a generally clean maneuverability in an aid-dependent administration. context because Hun Sen, after having Cambodia, on the other hand, never consolidated power in 1998 and beyond, had to beg for aid. Throughout the post- has achieved a degree of moral authority conflict period, until today, donors have in the eyes of the donors because what he continued to provide massive aid to the is doing appears to them to be working. country. Hughes describes the feeling of Hughes does not commit the folly of mutual distrust that developed between other Western writers on Cambodia, the donors and Hun Sen, who reemerged of engaging in Hun Sen bashing. as the only strongman after 1998. In For instance, unlike the conventional this context, the donors channeled the wisdom of such writers, she did not bulk of their aid through the growing label the clashes of 5–6 July 1997 as a numbers and power of Western non- coup d’état by Hun Sen, rather calling governmental organizations (NGOs) it the outbreak of hostilities. She argues and to the Cambodian government that Prince Norodom Ranariddh, co- through project aid, rather than program premier with Hun Sen and his adversary, aid, leaving the government with little decried his own lack of power and leverage or control over such aid. Often was attempting to build up his party’s project aid goes to pay fat-cat foreign military forces. Ironically, the donors “experts” fantastic salaries so that the were relieved that the destabilizing era money mostly goes right back to the of having two premiers ended in 1998, host country. even if the winner Hun Sen was not At the receiving end, the ability of their favorite. Hun Sen and the Cambodian People’s Thirdly, the Cambodian government’s Party (CPP) to flout donor demands for ability to resist pressure for reform “conditionality” was a fascinating story has resulted from the demobilizing which Hughes attributes to three factors: tactics of donors themselves with firstly, Cambodian politicians simply respect to Cambodian civil society. The removed a large proportion of the de donors supported the establishment of facto government budget from the books civil society including labor unions,

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 270 Reviews among other groups, but have left these in the rural areas giving speeches at organizations weakly defended against inauguration ceremonies of projects government tactics that include violence associated with himself, including many and the prohibition of protest marches. schools bearing his name. Chapter VIII, the last, analyses the The story of Timor Leste reveals key question of whether a dependent an entirely different picture. Hughes’s community which emerges from an act analysis is helped by detailed interviews of international intervention to end a war in two villages, Laleila and Tibar. The can offer ordinary people a meaningful village interviewees drew comparisons framework within which to imagine between the post-independence era their own citizenship and organize and the Indonesian era, remarking the participation. Based on Hughes’s sense of isolation that had come with personal fieldwork in Cambodia from independence. Government intended 1996 to 2003 and in Timor Leste in to promote local control, as opposed to 2005, the analysis provides new insights facilitating broader national or regional into the problem. control; that in fact encouraged political In Cambodia at the end of the 1990s, fragmentation, particularly since local the CPP succeeded in maintaining the persons had no opportunity to provide loyalty of the people, particularly in input in planning and thereby assert rural areas. Two factors that helped some control over the selection and the CPP contributed to the success designs of the projects to be funded. of the decentralization process. The Hughes observes that the FRETILIN first was the election of commune government of 2002–2007 in Timor councils in 2002, which resulted in an Leste more closely resembled that of the overwhelming CPP victory. The CPP Cambodian resistance, the FUNCINPEC retained control of the councils which and its allies, rather than the CPP; they had held since 1980. Second although they did not receive lavish aid was the expansion of a village-based like the resistance in Cambodia. Most participatory development program of the FRETILIN central committee called SEILA (“Foundation Stone”), members who survived Indonesia’s that had been operating successfully 25-year occupation had spent the in the northwestern provinces, to the war in exile. When FRETILIN exiles whole country. The UNDP executed returned they found that their views the Cambodia Area Rehabilitation on the question of nationhood were and Regeneration Project (CARERE), significantly out of step with those which was the forerunner of SEILA, of resistance forces at home. Hughes in the whole country. SEILA involves emphasizes that the return of FRETILIN provincial development committees exiles to Timor Leste and their accession to support capital investment projects to power put two contrasting forms of proposed by communities. Finally nationalism on a collision course. For Hun Sen himself is forever present those of the 1970s resistance movement,

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 Reviews 271 the “Indonesianization” of Timor Leste was to be resisted, as it represented oppression and “de-culturization”. They demanded that aspects of Portuguese culture including the Portuguese language be adopted. The Timorese who had stayed in country, on the other hand, insisted that independence also meant rejecting Portuguese colonialism and language in favor of Tetum, which everybody spoke. Hughes’s book is highly recommended for general readers and a must for those interested in post-conflict countries.

Benny Widyono

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Grant Evans, The Last Century of So, first to the book. To begin with, Lao Royalty: A Documentary History. there is an intriguing ambiguity in the Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2009. title that is carried through into the 443 pp. 523 photos. Hardbound: isbn content. The ‘last century’ of Lao royalty 978-974-9511-66-4 has at least three possible meanings. Since the Lao monarchy came to an end This large, beautifully produced and in 1975 when King Sisavang Vatthana lavishly illustrated book brings to life abdicated, and this volume purports to the all-but-forgotten Lao monarchy be ‘a documentary history’, the most through more than 500 photographs obvious reading would be that the ‘last and dozens of descriptions, reports, century’ refers to the period from 1875 letters and interviews with surviving to 1975. Since the book begins with members of the former royal family. the return in 1888 of King Ounkham to The photographs have been assiduously Luang Phrabang after it had been sacked collected over several years, and many the previous year by Tai and Chinese of the documents have been translated bandits, the ‘last’ century would actually from French and Lao by their compiler. cover just a ‘short’ century from 1888 To set the context for the photographs to 1975. Or the last century could refer and documents, Grant Evans provides to Lao royalty during the twentieth a longish introduction. Apart from its century, which is what it is mostly about. value to historians and anyone interested Or the last century could date from the in the history of Laos, the book should book’s publication, extended to cover appeal immensely to the worldwide Lao the ‘long’ century from 1888 to the diaspora, nostalgic for the kingdom they present. This last alternative is not as once knew. unlikely as would at first appear, since An anthropologist turned historian, Evans includes a recent interview with Evans is one of the finest scholars the pretender to the Lao throne, whom he working on Laos today, with several describes as being ‘in waiting’, and ends books to his name. He is particularly with an account of how commemorative interested in how cultural and religious rituals are performed for the royal family symbols and rituals are constructed to this day. and used for political ends; on the face The book is divided into 16 sections, of it, this book reflects those interests. arranged in part chronologically and His presentation, however, invites a in part thematically. They begin with number of questions. This brief review the transfer of sovereignty over Lao concentrates on just two. The first is: territories east of the Mekong from Siam what sort of message does this book to France, as seen through colonialist have for a reader? The second is: how French eyes, followed by two sections is a reader to understand the historical covering the ‘Main Palace’ during role of the monarchy in Laos? the reign of King Sisavang Vong (1885–1959; reigned 1904–1959),

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 Reviews 273 and the ‘Front Palace’ personified by on Prince Boun Oum) and Xiang Prince Phetsarath (1890–1959). These Khuang, and to the political activities two institutions refer to the king and of the princely half-brothers, Souvanna the ouparat or viceroy, a position that Phouma and Souphanouvong. King Chulalongkorn abolished in Siam, Four sections follow whose rationale but which lived on in Luang Phrabang seems to be that they reveal the in an hereditary form until 1920, personalities and activities of kings and when Phetsarath’s father died. It then princes in a positive light. One section is lapsed, only to be resuscitated in 1941 devoted entirely to the art of embroidery when Phetsarath was appointed to the in gold thread, apparently singled out position. because it is traditionally performed by The political pas de deux of Sisavang the ladies of the extended royal family. Vong and Phetsarath was critical in Other arts wholly or partly dependent shaping the future of Laos during the on royal patronage are ignored, such as turbulent years from the Japanese coup Lao classical dance, puppetry, sculpture, de force of March 1945 until the country wood carving and the decorative arts obtained full independence from France as applied in the royal monasteries and in October 1953. Evans devotes a section the palace. to this period when the monarchy was One section is devoted to the important challenged by the nationalist Lao Issara, ritual and religious role of the monarchy, led by Phetsarath. The relationship the disappearance of which Evans, the between the two men is discussed later anthropologist, clearly regrets. And the in this review. Suffice it here to note that reader can sympathise, in comparing while Phetsarath declared the unification the New Year ceremonies of 1953 of Laos as an independent state, the king described by Henri Deydier with what favoured the return of the French. remains of them today in the Lao The next section, subtitled ‘The People’s Democratic Republic (PDR). Making of a National Monarchy’, is Next come royal portraits presented in devoted to royal travels, both internally the form of interviews by Evans of five and internationally, which Evans members of the royal family, including interprets as having established the Prince Soulivong, grandson of King legitimacy of the king as head of state Sisavang Vatthana and pretender to the in the eyes of all Lao. The following Lao throne; and royal weddings, which section covers the rule of King Sisavang Evans presents as nationally unifying Vatthana (subtitled ‘Ruling through public spectacles. While the interviews Righteousness’). This subtitle, like that (some of which could have been edited) of the previous section, is indicative of reveal the homely side of the Luang the sympathetic treatment Evans accords Phrabang monarchy, the weddings the monarchy throughout the book. displayed both wealth and status—as Subsequent sections are devoted to the most Lao weddings do. royal families of Champasak (focusing

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The two brief concluding sections tell he admits this is unlikely. the story of the imprisonment and death There is, however, a downside to of King Sisavang Vatthana, his only monarchy that Evans does not examine, queen (his father had had 11) Khamphui, which has to do with how the example and Crown Prince Vong Savang at the of hereditary privilege reinforces social hands of the new communist rulers, who status and hierarchy and so limits refused for years to admit they were (or even prevents) social mobility. dead; and the revival of commemorative This was certainly the case in Laos, rituals for King Sisavang Vong in Luang where the heads powerful aristocratic Phrabang, and their performance by families monopolised political power, members of the royal family in France. mostly for their own benefit and at the The future of the Lao monarchy is thus expense of the nation. King Sisavang permitted to remain open. Vatthana might admonish them for The reader certainly comes away corruption and be frugal in his own from this book with a more rounded habits, but he also endorsed their picture of the Lao royal families, from activities by presenting them with noble their personal lives (no whiff of scandal titles. The very existence of monarchy noted, except that some failed to marry underwrote their hereditary position in ethnic Lao spouses) to their ritual a firmly entrenched social hierarchy, obligations and their political roles, which the unscrupulous and greedy which they performed with dignity. were able to exploit. Furthermore, in In his introduction Evans absolves the a hierarchical society the relationship Lao monarchy of virtually all criticism between monarchy and democracy is (though to be fair, not all of the often problematic. Recall that to relegate documents he includes are entirely monarchy to a purely constitutional role laudatory). No character flaws or political took centuries in England. misjudgements are discussed. Criticism There is, by the way, a justification by the Lao Issara of the political role for having a king as head of state in played by Sisavang Vatthana, when he a Theravada Buddhist country, which was Crown Prince, is brushed aside with Evans does not make explicitly, but the help of political theory: it is difficult which is implied by his focus on ritual to be a crown prince (as Charles Windsor and religion. Through the concept of would probably agree). Corruption karma, Buddhism accepts that human on the part of Prince Boun Oum is beings are not born equal: some have mentioned to be quickly passed over. more advantages than others because Evans emphasises rather the significant they are more advanced along the ritual role monarchy played in Lao universal path towards Enlightenment. culture and religion. The reader may The social circumstances of rebirth be forgiven for concluding that Evans reflect this, as does social status, which would be happy to see Laos revert to a is accorded to monks and families constitutional monarchy—even though wealthy enough to make considerable

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 Reviews 275 merit through donations to the Sangha. were not constitutional monarchs. Evans Kings stand at the apex of this merit- dates the constitutional monarchy in making social hierarchy, revered, as Laos from 23 April 1946, when King is the King of Thailand, for the merit Sisavang Vong was re-enthroned as made in previous lifetimes in order to be king at the behest of the Lao Issara, reborn into the royal family and become which had deposed him the previous king, as well as for the additional merit October. This event climaxed a made this time around. tumultuous year during which Lao All five Theravada Buddhist countries nationalism came of age. It was, of were once monarchies. Only Thailand course, encouraged by the French as a and Cambodia remain so, and the riposte to the ‘pan-Thai-ism’ emanating monarchy in Cambodia hardly inspires from Bangkok. Nationalist activities confidence in its longevity. Every took place mainly in Viang Chan, which reader, Lao or foreign, might have his by then had come to be included in the or her own view on whether the Lao protectorate of Luang Phrabang. The monarchy should be restored (as the court, however, was largely insulated Cambodian monarchy has been). While from these developments—until the Evans’s own views can only be guessed protectorate was brought to a sudden at, he presents such a favourable view end by the Japanese coup de force of of constitutional monarchy in Laos prior March 1945. The king was forced to to formation of the Lao PDR that to the declare independence, but he did so reader might reasonably detect a subtext not for Laos as a whole—only for the favouring its restoration. Kingdom of Luang Phrabang. The In reviewing the performance of the rest was administered by the Japanese Lao monarchy prior to 1975, The Last by right of conquest over the French Century of Lao Royalty presents history administration. in two forms. There are the documents, From his coronation in 1904, Sisavang carefully selected, and there is Evans’s Vong had had minimal contact with 40-page introduction, which presents central and southern Laos, whose his own interpretation of the political inhabitants overwhelmingly did not and cultural/religious activities of the recognise him as their king. Personally Lao monarchy. Of those two areas of conservative, in 1945 he was already activity, this review focuses on Evans’s 60 years old and set in his ways. Prince interpretation of the former, as it was the Phetsarath, then ouparat, was only five political decisions of Lao royalty (not years younger, but far more widely just the king, but other royal players too) travelled within the country and much that shaped the independent Kingdom more forward-looking and abreast of of Laos at key moments in its brief events. It was Phetsarath who led the history. Lao Issara to seize power after the Under the French, the kings of Luang Japanese surrender, and who proclaimed Phrabang had limited jurisdiction and the independence and unification of

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Laos. The king, already in contact with not only viewed Laos as a whole, the French in the form of Major (later but also understood much better both Colonel) Hans Imfeld (not Emfeld), the changes that were occurring and and clearly acting on French advice, the opportunities they offered. These thereupon dismissed Phetsarath as both differences in understanding were prime minister of the government of what motivated the two men to take Luang Phrabang and ouparat. the actions they did, not any personal Evans explains this clash between antagonism or competitiveness between the king, strongly supported by Crown them and their families. What ill-feeling Prince Sisavang Vatthana, and Prince there was later resulted from the king’s Phetsarath as an ‘unintended outcome response to Phetsarath’s proclamation of the half-way house political structure of Lao independence as a constitutional put in place in 1941’ when the Luang monarchy. The king did not have to Phrabang kingdom was extended to dismiss Phetsarath. He could have include the provinces of Haut Mékong, played a more ambiguous role. Instead Xiang Khuang, and most notably he aligned himself with the French. Viang Chan in compensation for the Evans takes to task my own argument, loss (temporary, as it turned out) of in my History of Laos (Cambridge Sayaboury to Thailand. He portrays the University Press, 1997), that the king king as doing what he thought best for missed another opportunity to raise the all Laos, given its weakness in the face leadership profile of the monarchy by of powerful expansionist neighbours. making Viang Chan his principal place And he plays down differences between of residence, which would have better Sisavang Vong and Phetsarath on the enabled him to serve as a symbol of grounds that the latter always wanted national unity, reduce the regionalism Laos to be a constitutional monarchy, of the south, and act as a restraining and so was never really opposed to the influence in case of political conflict. king. Evans rejects such criticism on the What this explanation glosses over grounds of the king’s age, which made is the failure of both the king and the him reluctant to move, that Luang equally conservative crown prince either Phrabang had ‘as much claim as to understand the forces of nationalism Vientiane to be the historical capital that the Second World War and its of the country’, and that the king had aftermath had unleashed, not only in important ritual functions to perform Laos but across the colonial world, or in Luang Phrabang. But his arguments to grasp the opportunities it offered to miss the point. Evans is forced to admit assume a leading role in the movement that maintaining Luang Phrabang as a for Lao independence—as Sihanouk separate royal capital did demonstrate ‘a did in Cambodia. Phetsarath, on the certain failure of political imagination’, other hand, as formerly the most senior but even for this he blames the Royal Lao civil servant under the French, Lao Government, not the monarchy. I

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 Reviews 277 still maintain, howeves, that a significant the modern Kingdom of Laos—both opportunity was lost for which the in his introduction and through the monarchy was most to blame, and this documents he has chosen. (I wonder, did was of a pattern with the failure of the French embassy share the positive the king to play any leadership role in American views that Evans includes?) achieving Lao independence. His purpose in writing the book is to Evans maintains that royal travels and restore the monarchy to its proper place weddings, plus fulfilling the crown’s in Lao history—a place that has been all constitutional and religious obligations, but erased in the political propaganda were enough to change the Luang that masquerades as history in the Lao Phrabang monarchy into widely loved PDR. It is unlikely that a documentary kings of Laos. I am not so sure. Sisavang history in English would have much Vong suffered from arthritis and did not impact in Laos (the Lao translation like to travel around the country. His son of Evans’s Short History of Laos has travelled more, both as crown prince a better chance of doing that); but the and king, but like his father preferred to photographs are now on record and remain in Luang Phrabang. I remember speak louder than foreign words in a watching him as king in the 1960s country whose proclaimed ideology is on some choreographed occasions. discredited and whose communist rulers He clearly lacked the common touch, have had no alternative but to revert to which Sihanouk and Phetsarath had, and nationalism—and have already gone always looked severe and unbending. He so far as to raise a statue to King Fa was received with respect, but not with Ngum, founder of the Lao kingdom of warmth or enthusiasm. In fact most rural Lan Xang! folk had little idea who he was or what Evans states that another purpose in he stood for, which worried the United compiling this book was to bring about States embassy. In 1970, in a document the ‘recovery of memory’. But just what included in this book, US Ambassador does that mean? Memory can only be G. McMurtrie Godley expressed his recovered in those who have all but doubts that the king or crown prince forgotten past experiences; it cannot could ever ‘provide the kind of national be recovered in those who have never identity that Asian monarchies such as experienced the events described. For the Thai or Japanese give’ (p. 212). The the next generation, the past must be king, he noted, was not outgoing and constructed anew, and that is the task had proved ‘inept’ in winning support in of historians. The Last Century of Lao southern Laos (where most people still Royalty goes some way towards filling a regarded Boun Oum as their ‘king’). significant gap in Lao history. However, Despite McMurthrie’s criticism, a definitive history of the Lao monarchy Evans presents a very positive picture still remains to be written—not least of the last (and only) two kings of because the Lao government refused

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Evans access to the royal archives, fact been written by Evans himself (as such is its continuing sensitivity to the is the one on Souphanouvong). But such monarchy. blemishes are few. Errors are few in this comprehensive In conclusion, this impressive book study (though former foreign minister presents a sympathetic (some might Quinim Pholsena was assassinated in say overly sympathetic) portrait of 1963, not in the ‘1950s’). Attentive the Lao monarchy. If the suspicion readers will find a few annoying remains that there is a subtext to be typographical errors, mostly among read into it, Evans has every right to French terms, where a couple of dozen his interpretation—as others have to additional accents need to be sprinkled differ in theirs. Constitutional monarchy around. Lao transliterations are not may or may not be a preferable form of always consistent (Phoui and Phouy, government for Laos, though the current for example, on page 11), but the book Lao ruling elite would certainly not must have been a challenging one to think so. Nonetheless, whatever may be edit. The index of photo credits does the reader’s view, the future of the Lao not list all photographs not taken by monarchy is a matter for the Lao people Evans himself, as it claims to. Who, for alone to decide. instance, took the wonderful series of photographs of the That Luang festival in Luang Phrabang in 1938? And it is not Martin Stuart-Fox always clear when ‘documents’ have in

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Søren Ivarsson, Creating Laos: The and more recently academics in related Making of a Lao Space between disciplines such as cultural studies have Indochina and Siam, 1860–1945. NIAS “relativized” culture by arguing that, Monographs 112, Nordic Institute of far from the preserve of the so-called Asia Studies. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, “civilized” few or leaders, culture is 2008. 250 pp. Hardbound: isbn 978-87- something that everyone has, and the 7694-022-5; paperbound: isbn 978-87- issue for analysis is to elucidate the 7694-023-2 patterns, meanings and discourses that inform not only high culture, but also Creating Laos is a delightful book. mass culture and indeed subaltern or It will be of interest to Lao-watchers oppositional cultural dialogues. Readers (both academics and informed looking for an historical account of readers), regional specialists and those cultural nationalism in this sense, of investigating the rise and consolidation the everyday, lived experience of Lao- of contemporary nation states. The ness, will not find it in this book. It is book deals with just a snippet of Lao very much about how “the Lao” were history, from 1860 to 1945. Ivarsson known by others and by leaders, rather sets out to understand the meaning than what they knew about themselves of “Laos” during this time: what was in these relationships. Nonetheless, the Laos as a territory, a people, an idea? book remains an excellent addition to He explains that his interest is in the literature, not least for its attention “cultural nationalism” rather than state to cultural aspects, and it will no doubt nationalism. His is not a history of spur more attention to cultural aspects in treaties or policies, but an account of an future historical research in the region. emerging and shifting cultural sense of Creating Laos begins with an nationhood. Ivarsson’s use of the concept examination of the idea of “Laos” of culture here is unusual: he appears to during the first phase of the colonial mean it in the sense of “high culture”, encounter. This topic is approached although he does not use this phrase. through an examination of French Ivarsson proceeds from a study of the colonial discourse, attempts by European records left by elites such as “historians, scientists to define a Lao race, and the lexicographers, artists and the like” (pp. use of history to argue that French 8ff.), educated and often urban people colonialism had recuperated a people who were engaged in often explicit and place fallen from a previous golden attempts to be opinion leaders and to age. This chapter illustrates decisively shape emerging conditions. He also that knowing Laos was not a matter of includes analysis of the written records simple observation, but of creating an left by French colonial officers and Thai object to then know. The second chapter authors as well as administrative maps. provides a very interesting account of Over the last century, anthropologists Laos through Thai eyes, particularly the

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 280 Reviews evolution of writings about the so-called elites that Ivarsson discusses to such “lost territories” among scholars and people? Were their ideas opposed, in school texts. Ivarsson puts forward adopted or transformed in such local the argument that Laos was a “non- interactions? Ivarsson’s innovative and country” from the Thai perspective at highly readable book proides a valuable this time (pp. 65ff.). The third chapter step towards considering these and other is the longest and also one of the most questions about the Lao past. interesting. It provides an account of how Lao nationalism was cultivated by Holly High the French (particularly in the period 1893–1940) through interventions such as road links between the major Mekong Valley towns, national histories and a national language. Ivarsson dwells on urban elite perspectives, remaining silent on the experiences of rural people, uplanders and minority groups. Nevertheless, the chapter sparkles with an entertaining and insightful use of fresh sources, such as the French civil servant who is quoted as describing Laos as “a blister on the foot of the peasants from Annam” (Marquet in Ivarsson, p. 106). Such arresting quotations are effective in persuading the reader of Ivarsson’s main argument: that Laos, in the form in which we encounter it today, was not a foregone conclusion. Rather, it was “created” — in sometimes unintended ways — through the tension between competing images and projects of what Laos was and what it could or should be. What remains to examine now is if and how these competing elite projects and images translated into everyday lives and experiences. Then, as now, most Lao lived in rural areas and were diverse in language, education and interest in urban politicking. Was there a “trickle-down” effect from the

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Shigeharu Tanabe, editor, Imagining family and children in X location or Communities in Thailand: Ethnographic among Y people but in Thailand), Approaches. Chiang Mai: Mekong by Thanes Wongyannava; “The Sisa Press, 2008. viii+221 pp. Paperbound: Asoke Community [of the Santi Asoke isbn 978-974-133964-8 Buddhist reform sect] in Si Sa Ket Province”, by Kanoksak Kaewthep; Four of the six papers collected “The Ta-la-ku [Karen] Community together for this volume come from along the Thai Myanmar Border”, by a symposium attended by Japanese Kwanchewan Buadaeng; “Vendors and and Thai scholars and one Western Small Entrepreneurs in the Chiang Mai observer—Roger Goodman, Oxford Night Bazaar”, by Apinya Fuengfusakul; University’s Nissan Professor of Modern “Northern Thai Factory Women”, Japanese Studies. The meetings were by Kyonosuke Hirai; and, “HIV/ sponsored by the National Museum AIDS Self-Help Groups in Northern of Ethnology in Osaka in late 2003. Thailand”, by the editor himself. Only Professor Tanabe—esteemed, long- Dr. Kwanchewan’s contribution seems time scholar of Thai society and culture to represent an unbroken continuity and then working for the museum— from the research of decades past. convened the symposium. With the Gone, for the most part, are the backing of Otani University in Kyoto, old, finely wrought descriptions of where he now teaches, Tanabe was able traditional social institutions, most to bring the symposium papers (with two commonly based on long-time residence additions) into the public domain. in a single, more-often-than-not rural This book is no easy read and is community. For Roger Goodman (p. most unlikely to generate much passion 190), such studies offered “a very static beyond the ranks of academic social …view of … [society]”; their approach scientists. Nonetheless it is a significant was “relatively ahistorical and they work for two principal reasons: first, tended to treat societies as isolated because the four chapters by Thai units.” But is not Goodman here simply scholars provide an important insight repeating, mantra fashion, worn-out into the direction that some indigenous charges against mid-twentieth century ethnographic research in Thailand is now structural functionalism, rather than taking; and second, because the book offering a valid critique of ethnographic presents such a very different image of research in Thailand over the past the ethnographic enterprise than that of 60 years?—before that, there wasn’t yesteryear. (This reviewer intentionally much anyway. To refute Goodman’s avoids judgmental characterizations observation, so many anthropologists such as “better”, “more important” or of the senior generation who have “more interesting”.) worked in Thailand—scholars like Its six chapters consist of: “Family Barend Terwiel, S. J. Tambiah, Jeremy and Children in Thailand” (not Kemp, William Skinner (and there are a

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 282 Reviews host more)—have so readily and easily To return to Roger Goodman (p. 190): moved between ethnography and history “While the state and/or its agents (big in their publications. business, newspapers, the bureaucracy) Most of the earlier ethnographic-based can try to control the key cultural symbols works did indeed tend to focus—initially and legitimize their meanings, these will at least—on traditional socio-cultural always be susceptible to change. It is institutions and how they constrained this concept of change and challenge individual social behaviour and thought that is meant by invoking the active (again see Goodman on p. 191 of the form imagining … in the title of this work under review). Therefore, in so volume [emphasis added]”, in contrast far as the majority of the authors in this to Anderson’s use of the “passive form, book seek to demonstrate, in Goodman’s imagined” for his own book. words, “how the individual constructs, The volume, as noted earlier, is a changes, and legitimates the idea of hard read; but it has been admirably society”, Imagining Communities in edited and published by Mekong Press Thailand is welcome as an alternative (a subsidiary of Silkworm Books) perspective. of Chiang Mai, to whom, along with The theoretical position that holds the editor Professor Tanabe, we owe the chapters of this book together (and gratitude for making this collection provides also its title) represents an available in the public domain. adaptation of the ideas of American political scientist Benedict Anderson, Anthony R. Walker whose principal case study is Indonesia, to sub-national communities: the family (chapter 1), the religious sect (chapters 2 & 3), persons sharing a common occupation (chapters 4 & 5)—even a common ailment (chapter 6). Anderson defines a nation as a political community whose citizens “imagine” their common membership of a sovereign and limited entity, without the necessity (or even possibility) of interacting with one another on a day-to- day, face-to-face basis, as is (or, better, was) the situation in so many of the traditional communities that have been studied by social anthropologists—and, of course, it is the individual, not the collectivity (pace Durkheim) that does the imagining.

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Christophe Munier and Myint Aung, Taung with a colony of aggressive Burmese Buddhist Murals, Volume 1: monkeys that have reproduced there Epigraphic Corpus of the Powin Taung for generations. Added to this mix is Caves. Bangkok: White Lotus Press, an ever increasing number of devotees 2007. 524 pp. Paperbound: isbn 978- from Monywa and Mandalay, a journey 974-480-127-2 facilitated by a bridge spanning the Chindwin above Monywa. As donations The Powin Taung caves are a series have grown, so too have the number of of Buddhist rock-hewn excavations local shops and monasteries. near Mandalay, west of the Chindwin Munier and Myint Aung have River and about 30 kilometres from collaborated to produce this splendid the city of Monywa in Upper Burma. new monograph on Powin Taung, a There are roughly 500 caves, only 29 study that focuses on the hundreds of of which retain their mural paintings, Burmese explanatory captions placed with their original Burmese captions. beneath the horizontal registers of They are amply illustrated in this tome mural painting. Munier is a long-time by Christophe Munier and Myint Aung student of Burmese who has researched with nearly 400 black-and-white and the caves for many years, while Myint 90 colour photographs. According to Aung belongs to a select group of the authors, only a handful of dated, dedicated senior government officers painted inscriptions have been found, all who witnessed the decline of the belonging to the second half of the 18th Department of Archaeology during the century—the early Konbaung Period Ne Win era. Now semi-retired, Myint (1752–1885). The authors note that the Aung has devoted himself to scholarly style of much of the painting suggests, projects. however, that many of the caves were The disposition of the caves is completed in the first half of the 18th indicated on a handy site plan, with each century. excavation assigned a number. While Powin Taung has enjoyed a long the principal caves are known locally history in the secondary literature, noted by popular names, the new numbering perhaps first by Taw Sein Ko (1901) and system formulated here is likely to later more systematically by Charles become the standard. Duroiselle (1920) in an Annual Report, This volume follows upon the heels Archaeological Survey of India. The of another book on Powin Taung, by latter publication put the caves on the Anne-May Chew, issued by White Lotus map of significant sites, although Powin in 2005: The Cave-temples of Po Win Taung remained fairly inaccessible until Taung, Central Burma: Architecture, the early 1990s, largely because the area Sculpture and Murals. While the primary was off-limits to foreigners until then. focus of Munier and Myint Aung is the Lately, however, package-tour groups murals and the captions, the authors from abroad have come to share Powin perhaps should have explained in their

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 284 Reviews introduction how their study is dissimilar Jataka) and the Eight Great Victories. from the earlier one and whether their The list of last 10 jataka (pp. 93–94) was basic conclusions differ from Chew’s, taken from the Sri Lankan Pali canon, if at all. Chew, for example, refers to a while the order depicted in the caves number of dated 18th-century stone and follows the Burmese sequencing, which painted inscriptions that are omitted in is slightly different. (The same Burmese the volume under review (Chew, pp. system is found at Pagan and Thaton.) 14–17). Also, it is difficult to cross- For example, the Vidhura Jataka is No. reference the two books, since Chew 9 in the Burmese sequence but is No. 8 adopted only the popular names of the in the Sinhalese Pali version. There is caves, while Munier and Myint Aung no discussion of the Burmese ordering fashioned a new numbering system that which may confuse some readers who makes no reference to the popular names. are comparing the list of jataka to the (Pierre Pichard’s celebrated Inventory of sequencing found in the caves. Monuments at Pagan has, for example, Artists probably completed the murals a list of the old names used in Pe Maung before the captions were painted beneath Tin and Gordon H. Luce’s translation of the scenes on long, narrow, horizontal the Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings registers. The present reviewer has come of Burma [of 1923] which are cross- to this conclusion because the wording referenced with the numbering system of a number of inscriptions includes used in the Inventory). small and unusual details featured in Perhaps the most useful section of the the paintings. For example, the caption book is chapter 11 (‘Epigraphic corpus: beneath a depiction of Dipankara in Complete texts of the captioned murals cave No. 281 reads: ‘The Bodhisatta and their translations’), which takes Dipankara lives in Rammavati kingdom, up more than one third of the entire in the queen’s palace. The Indian volume (pp. 138–374). A ground plan gatekeeper is smoking. The Bodhisatta of each cave is presented, complete Dipankara leaves for the forest on an with invaluable diagrams of the inner elephant’ (p. 39). Since the episode of walls and the exact positions of the the Indian gatekeeper was not likely various subjects depicted in the murals. part of the Burmese religious text from All of the captions are presented in which the information was drawn, the Burmese characters, together with artists must have included extra elements English translations. Such raw data are that were later spotted by those applying certainly the most valuable part of this the captions. This reviewer’s tentative volume. conclusion hints at the flexibility that The subjects of the paintings were artists enjoyed—and is testimony to rather constant and included the 28 the need for recording such additional Buddhas, key episodes from the life of descriptions in the captions. Perhaps the Buddha, the Seven Weeks, and the future comparisons with other 18th- last 10 jataka tales (all but the Sama century painting can determine precisely

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010 Reviews 285 the ways in which the artists executed provincial work in the lower Chindwin their work. area or reflect styles or variants that Readers interested in Buddhist life flourished in the Ava-Amarapura area in the 18th century will find in the or the Pagan region. Powin Taung captions and paintings a treasure trove. straddles numerous contemporaneous For instance, depicted on the ceiling painting sites in proximity to the of cave No. 284 are the four legendary lower Chindwin, such as Aneint, Mau, stupas that enshrine the Buddha’s Yesago and Pakhangyi, many of which tooth relics, each identified by an Alexandra Green has done much to inscription. That their locations differ uncover. The authors state that much of somewhat from those of the relics in the the painting is pre-Konbaung, which is Glass Palace Chronicle is noteworthy. almost certain, but a closer probe of the Another example is a reference to the issue would have contributed to a better Eight Great Victories in one inscription, sense of how the site evolved throughout dated 1761, from another painting site the 18th century. in Upper Burma. These eight episodes The authors conclude by promising are ubiquitously represented together that three future volumes will be in 20th-century Burmese pagodas and devoted to ‘different styles, comparative the inscription is probably among the iconography, religious themes and daily earliest dated records of this theme; this life as portrayed in the murals from the set of eight was likely borrowed from late 17th to the mid-19th century’ (p. Sri Lanka at probably about this same 378). Many unresolved art-historical time. Such examples are just some of questions will surely be explored in the gems of information revealed by the the forthcoming works. The present texts beneath the paintings. volume with its meticulous recording While the captions are the focus of of the paintings and inscriptions at one the book, the volume contains a number important site should serve as a model of references to comparable murals for future projects. Indeed, this volume in Upper Burma in terms of style and is indispensible for those interested in iconography. Those observations, later Burmese painting. Art historians sprinkled throughout the book, might of Burma owe a substantial debt of have profitably been compiled in a gratitude to Munier and Myint Aung for single section where the broad topics of their contribution and to White Lotus chronology and styles in Upper Burma for publishing such a significant and could be viewed in a systematic fashion. pioneering study. Comparisons between the Powin Taung caves and securely dated murals in Donald A. Stadtner Upper Burma would help place the cave murals in a tighter context. Many questions remain, such as the extent to which the Powin Taung murals represent

Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 98, 2010