Identity in Crossroad Civilisations
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Publications Series Civilisations Identity in Crossroad Ethnicity,Edited Volumes 8 Ethnicity, Nationa- Erich Kolig is a retired New Zealand social anthropologist and former visiting professor of Cultural Anthropology at Vienna University. Vivienne SM. Angeles is assistant professor in the Identity in Crossroad Department of Religion at La Salle University. NationalismSam Wong is a lecturer in the School of Earth and and lism and Globalism in Environment at the University of Leeds. Civilisations Kolig | Angeles | Wong (eds.) Kolig | Angeles Wong Based on multi-disciplinary studies conducted in Asia Ethnicity, Nationalism and (India, Bhutan, China, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, New Zealand), this volume on Identity in Crossroad Globalism in Asia Civilisations: Ethnicity, Nationalism and Globalism in Asia demonstrates how identity is defined, negotiated and Edited by conceptualised in response to increasing globalisation Erich Kolig, Vivienne SM. Angeles and Sam Wong in the region. Asian expressions of identity reflect, in many ways, their adaptability to the changing economic, political and social climates and at the same time question Samuel Huntington’s popular yet controversial thesis on the clash of civilisations. This book also engages Benedict Anderson’s idea of ‘imagined communities’ and shows how its operation impacts on both community and individual identity in an environment that is increasingly characterised by border crossings and transnationalism. Contemporary Asian realities, as examined in the essays, demonstrate the need to rethink previous notions of identity and nationalism. )3". 9 789089 641274 www.aup.nl ISBN 978 90 8964 127 4 Identity in Crossroad Civilisations Publications Series General Editor Paul van der Velde Publications Officer Martina van den Haak Editorial Board Wim Boot (Leiden University); Jennifer Holdaway (Social Science Research Coun- cil); Christopher A. Reed (The Ohio State University); Anand A. Yang (Director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and Chair of International Studies at the University of Washington); Guobin Yang (Barnard College, Colum- bia University) The ICAS Publications Series consists of Monographs and Edited Volumes. The Series takes a multidisciplinary approach to issues of interregional and multilat- eral importance for Asia in a global context. The Series aims to stimulate dialo- gue amongst scholars and civil society groups at the local, regional and interna- tional levels. The International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) was founded in 1997. Its main goals are to transcend the boundaries between disciplines, between nations studied, and between the geographic origins of the Asia scholars involved. ICAS has grown into the largest biennial Asia studies event covering all subjects of Asia studies. So far five editions of ICAS have been held respectively in Leiden (1998), Berlin (2001), Singapore (2003), Shanghai (2005) and Kuala Lumpur (2007). ICAS 6 will be held in Daejeon (South Korea) from 6-9 August 2009. In 2001 the ICAS secretariat was founded which guarantees the continuity of the ICAS process. In 2004 the ICAS Book Prize (IBP) was established in order to cre- ate by way of a global competition both an international focus for publications on Asia while at the same time increasing their visibility worldwide. Also in 2005 the ICAS Publications Series were established. For more information: www.icassecretariat.org Identity in Crossroad Civilisations Ethnicity, Nationalism and Globalism in Asia Edited by Erich Kolig, Vivienne SM. Angeles and Sam Wong Publications Series Edited Volumes 8 Cover design: JB&A raster grafisch ontwerp, Westland Layout: The DocWorkers, Almere ISBN 978 90 8964 127 4 e-ISBN 978 90 4851 051 1 NUR 761 © ICAS / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2009 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright re- served above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or in- troduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Table of Contents List of Tables and Plates 7 1 Introduction: Crossroad Civilisations and Bricolage Identities 9 Erich Kolig, Sam Wong, Vivienne SM. Angeles 2 Asia and the Global World: Identities, Values, Rights 21 Elena Asciutti 3 Creating ‘Malaysians’: A Case Study of an Urban kampung in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia 43 Toru Ueda 4 Ethnic Mosaic and the Cultural Nationalism of Bhutan 55 Rup Kumar Barman 5 Religion and Cultural Nationalism: Socio-Political Dynamism of Communal Violence in India 65 Sali Augustine 6 Is Identity Clash Inevitable? Identity and Network Building amongst Mainland Chinese Migrants in Hong Kong 85 Sam Wong 7 Socio-Economic Crisis and Its Consequences on a Little Known Tribal Community in West Bengal, India 97 Samar Kumar Biswas 8 Post-Colonialism, Globalism, Nativism: Reinventing English in a Post-Colonial Space 115 Krishna Sen 9 Occidentalism and Asian Middle-Class Identities: Notes on Birthday Cakes in an Indian Context 133 Minna Säävälä 6 IDENTITY IN CROSSROAD CIVILISATIONS 10 Ode to ‘Personal Challenge’: Reconsidering Japanese Groupism and the Role of Beethoven’s Ninth in Catering to Socio-Cultural Needs 147 Eddy Y.L. Chang 11 Performing Cosmopolitan Clash and Collage: Krishen Jit’s Stagings of the ‘Stranger’ in Malaysia 173 Charlene Rajendran 12 Constructing Identity: Visual Expressions of Islam in the Predominantly Catholic Philippines 195 Vivienne SM. Angeles 13 Islam and Orientalism in New Zealand: The Challenges of Multiculturalism, Human Rights and National Security – and the Return of the Xenophobes 219 Erich Kolig Contributors 241 References 245 List of Tables and Plates List of Tables Table 3.1 Open House in 2003 (compiled by author from local newspaper) 46 Table 10.1 Number of performances of the Ninth by Tokyo Ro¯-on (1953-2000) 154 List of Plates Plate 3.1 Pamphlet for promoting tourism distributed by the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism. Five women from the main ethnic groups are represented 45 Plate 3.2 Notice board about Kaamatan organised at the national level 46 Plate 3.3 Special show (Persembahan khas)50 Plate 3.4 Playing gongs during unduk ngadau 50 Plate 10.1 Pamphlet for Suntory’s daiku in 2006 158 Plate 10.2 Five-thousand-singer daiku in 2008 (KSDUK 2008) 158 Plate 10.3 NHK’s guide to the Ninth: Let’s Sing Daiku 159 Plate 10.4 Japan Philharmonic Orchestra’s daiku 2007 poster 164 Plate 10.5 JAL’s Borderless Choir Daiku in 2007, sponsored by Tokyo FM 165 Plate 12.1 Map of the Philippines. Highlighted areas indicate places visited 197 Plate 12.2 Tubig Indangan mosque in the 1960s 202 Plate 12.3 Tubig Indangan mosque in 2004 203 Plate 12.4 Dome of Globo de Oro Mosque, Manila 205 Plate 12.5 Okkir art on protruding beam of a torogan (home of royalty) in Marawi area 206 Plate 12.6 Ninety Nine Names of Allah 208 Plate 12.7 BangsaMoro women 210 Plate 12.8 Maguindanao Muslim woman in traditional attire but with modern skirt design 211 Plate 12.9 Muslim home in the outskirts of Marawi City 214 1 Introduction: Crossroad Civilisations and Bricolage Identities Erich Kolig, Sam Wong, Vivienne SM. Angeles Globalisation seems to be taking an unexpected turn: the hegemon that has driven it so far appears to be weakening, succumbing to the com- petition emanating from elsewhere. The process of decentring of Eur- ope and North America is rapidly advancing, shifting the focus of eco- nomic and socio-political dynamic perceptibly ‘eastwards’. As the pathos of Western hegemonic reproduction withers, a new hegemon appears to be descending the cultural and technological birth canal. Combined with its traditional diligence and sheer force of numbers, if ‘Asia’ had the energy resources of the Middle East and the technologies and missionary zeal of the West, humankind would be speaking Man- darin by now instead of English,1 and Beijing would have the status of Washington DC or New York. It does not require excessive imagination to foresee that Asia would be the vortex of global civilisation drawing, in ever increasing circles, the rest of the world into its orbit. Somewhat belatedly, this is beginning to take shape now. It is unclear whether this is the consequence of the catastrophic decline of the Western hege- mon – as, for instance, Friedman (1994, 2006)2 has argued – or whether this is simply a phase in the cyclical development in which the cosmopolitical epicentre shifts from time to time with law-like in- evitability. However, as the West is gradually sliding into global eccentricity, it is important to realise that ‘Asia’ is far from being a coherent and homomorphous civilisation in any way comparable to ‘the West’; nor is it a series of internally integrated major civilisations such as Sino-Con- fucian, Malay, Japanese and Hindu-Indian, and their respective satellite civilisations. Cutting across this, there are the deep, traditional, cultural cleavages of religion, language and custom of a multitude of ethnici- ties. And then there are globally relevant fault lines, cleavages that Asia shares with the rest of the world and which are important in the for- mation of identity, and divide it internally. These dissect Asia in many ways, producing a richness, multi-chromatism and complexity that riv- als the dazzling best the world can offer elsewhere. This intricate and often baffling complexity questions Samuel Huntington’s concept of ‘ci- vilisation’3 which, though alluring in its splendid simplicity, reveals it- self to be largely fictitious, ignoring as it does the finer detail that is so 10 ERICH KOLIG, SAM WONG, VIVIENNE SM. ANGELES very important for the formation of people’s identity. The ‘Clash of Ci- vilizations and the Remaking of World Order’ turns out on closer in- spection to be rather less than macro-cosmic as the socio-political rea- lity falls into a confusing pastiche of cross-cutting, competing and con- flicting identities, political interests and social and cultural units, giving the lie to the vision of a profoundly and clearly segmented world order.