V I S I T / / W W W . I I A S .

ETTER 2}/ n s * i t u t e f o r A s ‘ 0 °

P.O. BOX 9515 , 2300 RA L E I D E N , T H E N ET H E R L A N D S, T E LE P H O N E: + 3 1 - 7 1 - 5 2 7 22 27, T EL E F A X: + 3 1 - 7 1 - 5 2 7 41 62, E - MA I L : I I A S N E W S @ R U L L E T . L e i d e n U n i v . N L

P u b lic a tio n l A s i a n A r t I V a c a n c y ■ In te rn e t « A g e n d a

G E N E R A L N E WS

On 22 June 2000,Henk SchulteNordholt wasinstalled as theHAS ExtraordinaryChair in AsianHistory at the

Erasmus University, Rotterdam.Two excerpts from his oration,

‘A State o f Violence’, are presentedw ith an interview by Marieke Brand.

- ( P-3)★

Peter Ho reports onthe research done by the

Environmental Policy Groupo f Wageningen University toaddress the lack o f expertiseand education in environmental

studies in East Asia. - (p.4]

T H E M ER E L A T I O N S

B E T W E E N M O D E R NI N D I A N A N DI N D O N E S I A N

H I N D U I S M

Martin Ramstedt, guest editor,sees Indonesian Hindus turning

to India for reasons o fstrengthening their positions

against hegemonic IndonesianIslam as well as

Christianity. Throughthis issue’s theme he

hopes to stimulate thedebate on this

rapprochement.

C E N T R A L A S I A

Two giant Buddhas, hewn out o frock in the Bamiyan valley,

Afghanistan, are barely survivingthe hostile onslaughts o f warfare

and iconoclasm over past centuriesto the present. Jet van Kriekendescribes their p light w ith in

the context o f the aims o f the Societyfor the Preservation o f Afghanistan’s

Cultural Heritage. .aiiÉÉ

Scholars o f anthropometric historyseek to quantify trends in physicalmeasures o f health and economicwell-being, notably height and

weight. A report on research beingdone at Flinders University on ananthropometric history o f Indiawritten by Ralph Shlomowitz.

-Jp.22]

17 O 22

S O U T H E A S T A S I A

THÉ BRITISH LIBRARY

The International DunhuangProject (IDP) has been developinga database that provides digitalimages, catalogue information,

and on-line access to catalogues.An article by Sam van Schaik. - (p.15]

S O U T H A S I A

In Nepal, where lines o fcommunication are lim ited andunreliable, the decentralized and

low maintenance nature o fthe Internet is an advantage.

Mark Turin discusses New DigitalMedia in Nepal. - (p. 17)

THEME:MODERNHINDUISME

Frits Staal discusses a recent‘breakthrough’ in Vedic

Studies that assignsa reasonably accuratelocation in space andtime to the numerous

schools o f the Vedasthat formillennia

seemed to besuspended in

air. - (p.2o)

The town o f Vigan in thePhilippines has an architectural

wealth that no other town or cityin the country can match. AndrewSymon writes about this Unesco

World Heritage Site. - (p. 24)★

Malaysia’s Minister ofFinancedeclared the financial crisis over.

Domestic auto sales started to showthe recovery. Yuri Sadoi reports onher research into the internationalcompetitiveness o f the Malaysian

automobile industry and the key toits further development. - (P.25J

★In an article by Matthew IsaacCohen, the author relates hisexperiences during a recent

pilgrimage he made to the sacredmountain o f Gunung Ciremai in

West Java, Indonesia, w ith memberso f an association o f Brai mystics,a goverment Cultural Inspector,

and a number o f young ‘mountainclimbers’, -(p.27)

E A S T A S I A

Although widely considered proofthat the peace process is movingahead, family reunions and high-

level talks were nothing newbetween North and South Korea.

Tim Beal presents his analysis o f theimpact o f the Korean Summit that

took place last June in ‘Milestones o fPeace and Reconciliation’. - (p.2pj

i tAs part o f the

celebrations o fthe 400-year

relationshipbetween the

Netherlandsand Japan,

Leiden playedhost to

‘Voices from Japan’,an international symposium

on contemporary art and discourse.K itty Zijlmans reports on the

activities and discussions. - (p.36)

Pink PagesH A S N E WS

The pth Seminar o fthe International Association

for Tibetan Studies.

41

PAATI Conference ‘Audiences,Patrons and Performers’

29 O 36

ESF ASI A C O M M I T T E EOn 15 - 16 June 2000,

the Full Committee ofthe ESF-AC convened in Madrid.

Abstracts ofESF AC-sponsoredworkshops for 2001.

48

A L L I A N C E N E WSTheEIAS in Brussels joins

the Strategic Alliance.

52

Republik Indochaos, Harsono, 1998(from a series offive etchings).

An exhibition o f ‘protest art’from Indonesia marks how

Museum Nusantara in Delft,the Netherlands, aims to inform

visitors about recent developmentsin Indonesian culture.

Helena Spanjaard discusses‘Reformasi Indonesia’, -(p .38]

37 O 39

S H O R T N E WSICAS 2 + SEALG

53

I NT E R N A T I ON A LCONFERENCE AGENDA

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

I N D E X I I A S N 23

IIA S N E W S L E T T E R N ? 23October zooo

56 pages

■ E DI TORI AL OFFI CEVisiting address: Nonnensteeg 1-3, Leiden

Mailing address: IIAS, P.O. Box 9515,2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands

Telephone: +31-71-527 22 27T ele fa x: +31-71-52741 6z

E-mail: iiasnews@rullet.leidenuniv.nlHttp://www.iias.nl

■ EDI TORI AL STAFFEditor - Elzeline van der Hoek

Co-Editor - Tanja ChuteCentral Asia Editor - Ingrid NooijensSouth Asia Editor - Netty Bonouvrié

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East Asia 0apan) Editor - Margarita WinkelEast Asia (Korea) Editor - Koen De Ceuster

English Language Editor - RosemaryRobsort-McKillop

Guest Editor - Martin Ramstedt

■ C O R R E S P O N D E N T SAnn Beard (A AS , Ann Arbor)

Robert Cribb (Australia Correspondent)Leo Douw (Qjaoxiang Programme]

Marieke te Booij (ESF Asia Committee)Leo Schmidt (EU, Brussels)

Mario Rutten (CASA, Amsterdam)Ratna Saptati

(Changing Labour Relations in Asia, CLARA)Willem Vogelsang

(Research School CNWS, Leiden)The GATE Foundation (Asian Art)

■ C O N T R I B U T O R SS. Theodore Baskaran. Sanjoy

Bhattacharya, Eric Baye, Tim Beal, Victorvan Bijlert, Henk Blezet, Marieke Brand,Gwynn Campbell, Matthew Isaac Cohen,Chen-kuo Lin, Heidi Dahles, Frangoise

'Nalini' Delvoye, Stéphane A. Dudoignon,Brian Durrans, Jacob Eyferth, Ananta

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Director's noteThe Asia Europe Foundation

T h e A sia E u ro p e F o u n d a t io n (ASEF) w as fo u n d e d in 1997 in S in g a p o re a f te r th e f ir s t ASEM (AsiaE u ro p e M e e tin g ) h a d ta k e n p lace in B an g k o k in 1996. B o th ASEF a n d ASEM w ere b ra in c h i ld re n o fth e S in g a p o re a n s a n d w e s h o u ld a p p la u d th e m o n th e s e s tra te g ic a lly im p o r ta n t in itia tiv e s . G o hC h o k T o n g la u n c h e d th e id ea o f a n A sia -E u ro p e M e e tin g , I b e lieve , in O c to b e r 1994 d u r in g a v is itto F ran ce in re a c tio n to th e E u ro p e a n U n io n ’s aw a k e n e d in te r e s t in Asia as ex p re ssed in th e i r AsiaS tra teg y P a p e r (July 1994). ASEF w as o n e o f th e f ir s t s te p s in th e ASEM p ro cess to b e rea lized .S in g a p o re su g g e s te d th a t a fo u n d a t io n b e e s ta b lis h e d to ‘e n h a n c e b e t te r m u tu a l u n d e r s ta n d in gb e tw e e n A sia a n d E u ro p e th r o u g h g re a te r in te l le c tu a l , c u l tu ra l a n d p e o p le - to -p e o p le ex ch an g es’.

* v.

■ By WIM S T OK HO F

fp his has been re-worded on the ASEF webI site to: ‘promoting engagement between

A . civil societies of Asia and Europe and mu­tual understanding between the two regions’.France, understanding the significance of such afoundation was the first European country to

pledge US$ 1 million as seed money. Other countries fol­lowed, some faster than others, some more generous; one re-fused to pay.1 Quite predictably, a Singaporean, Tommy Koh,was appointed as Executive Director and the position of theDeputy Executive Director was occupied by a Frenchman,Pierre Barroux. Key members of the management were re­cruited: for Intellectual Exchange, Duncan Jackman (UK); forPeople-to-People Exchange, Ulrich Niemann (Germany); forCultural Exchange, Cai Rongsheng (ERC); and for Public Af­fairs, Peggy Kek (Singapore).

It is, of course, too early to make an assessment of theASEM process.2 Significant, however, is that a new transre-gional platform for dialogue has been established and thattwo summits were held. ASEM also survived the Asian Eco­nomic Crisis, although, it appears that the momentum is noteasy to maintain after Bangkok. The London meeting wasconsidered a success since it gave ample attention to the AsiaCrisis. Concrete successes are not always immediately evi­dent. Numerous ministerial and senior official meetingshave been organized, however, seldomly showing very tangi­ble results. The ASEM process is clearly designed as an exer­cise, which focuses on fostering political dialogue and on re­inforcing economic co-operation.

Enhancement of co-operation in ‘other areas' such as cul­ture, education and research is clearly interpreted as a pe­ripheral course, only of importance in so far as these areas areinstrumental in reaching the political and economic objec­tives. Looking back, we can say that the ASEM initiative hastriggered a more intensive dialogue between the two re­gions. This indeed is a crucial aspect of the process. On theother hand, apart from a few projects not sensitive in nature,such as the Investment Promotion Action Plan (IPAP), theAsia-Europe Technology Centre (AETC), the Trade Facilita­tion Action Plan (TFAP), and the Asia-Europe Foundation(ASEF), it continues to be a free-wheeling, informal, i.e. non­committal and unfocused undertaking. The so much laudedinformality of the ASEM process (considered to be one of itskey characteristics) has, in my opinion, been induced bynothing less than a fear for institutionalization, a processwhich could mean a loss of (part of] sovereign decision-mak­ing powers and uncontrolled increase of spending. Indeed, itis this very ‘informality’ that is ASEM’s weakest point. Agree­ments and commitments should be synonymous in practice

1 and, as such, are meant to be followed through to a conclu­sion; they should be contracts and consequently be binding.

Lucky decisionIn my opinion, the establishment of ASEF was, in fact, a

lucky decision of the Asian and European countries. Forcedto come up with something tangible and of a non-sensitivenature, it stood to reason that first action be undertaken inthe ‘other areas’ and the Foundation seemed an easy solu-

j tion. This may explain the hasty manner in which the man­date for the Foundation was drawn up in the Dublin Princi­ples.

ASEF turned out to be a serendipitous beehive. Its directorand staff have done an awful lot of work to stimulate the val­ues debate, cultural co-operation, people-to-people contacts.It has shown manifold efforts to awaken and strengthendeeper mutual understanding and tolerance. ASEF, in fact,tried to implement the recommendations of the Venice-AsiaForum, ‘The Message of Venice’, and I believe that the Foun­dation - despite an inceptive phase hampered by the want ofclear, long-term vision and preliminary groundwork, as well

as having a board consisting of people with a predominantlydiplomatic background - has made the right choices.

It opted for a myriad of activities, a kaleidoscopic set ofevents, such as an Asia-Europe young artists’ painting com­petition, an Asia-Europe classroom exhibition, an ASEF cul­tural managers training seminar, EMU road shows, a meet­ing of deans of business schools, a human rights and humanresponsibilities colloquium, a summer school for journalists,meetings for publishers, a workshop on labour relations inAsia and Europe, a summer school for undergraduates, andmany more. All these events actually have one basic deep-level objective; creating mutual awareness between Asiansand Europeans.

More effectiveIn certain circles, ASEF has been criticized for its lack of

scope, the absence of a clear long-term perspective, and agood business plan where vision is translated into effectiveinstruments and accountable actions. I only partly agreewith this criticism. When it started, ASEM was very much anad hoc event. ASEF, in the beginning, was perhaps somewhatinfluenced by that situation and it took quite some time togive it some substance and direction. It turned out, however,to be much more effective than many of the low-politics pro­jects created in the political and economic areas of ASEM.

We should commend Tommy Koh and his staff for whatthey achieved. They did more for the ASEM process than rea­sonably could be expected given their vague marching or­ders. If the average person in Europe or Asia has heard ofASEM anno 2000, this is certainly due to the enthusiasm andrestless efforts of the people at no. 1 Nassim Hill. Most of theseconded staff members will leave ASEF now, since theirthree-year tenure has ended. At this juncture, it might be agood idea to re-think the ASEF concept and its aims. A moreopen governing board, less rooted in departments of foreignaffairs and more associated with other levels of society, couldmake the Foundation more acceptable and interesting forthe average Asian and European. A more focused and tightlyorganized programme, less diverse, based on a long-termperspective seems necessary for their second phase. Needlessto say, the IIAS is convinced that education, training, and re­search - completely underestimated areas in ASEM - shouldbecome principal themes in ASEF in the future. ■

1 Greece didn’t promise a penny and consequently didn’t pay;Italy pledged US$ 1 million but, according to the 1998-1999report, has not yet contributed; the Republic ofKorea hashalved its originally pledged amount ofUS$ 1.5 million toUS$ 750,000 in 1999; quite interestingly, the UK reduced itsoriginal pledge ofUS$ 1.12 million to a meagre US$ 330,000(see the 1998-1999 report). Needless to say, the EuropeanCommission pledged, by far, the largest contributions:US$ 4.1 million (all data are based on ASEF’s 1997-1998 and1998-1999 annual reports; the 1999-2000 report is still inproduction). According to ASEF’s 1998-1999 report, the totalamount pledged by the Asian and European countries wasUS$ 21,507,000 (the amount received was only US$ 12,232433).This figure differs from the total pledged amount mentionedin the 1997-1998 report where a higher figure is mentioned:US$ 22,047,000.

2 It is interesting to note that in the Memorandum ofUnderstanding in the Asia-Europe Foundation, adopted bythe ASEM Foreign Ministers at their meeting on 15 February1997, ample attention is given to issues such as purpose;means ofinterest and functions; membership; legal capacity;governance; accounting and administration, but that noparagraph on evaluation procedures has been included.

Professor Wim Stokhof is Director o f the International Institute

for Asian Studies, Leiden/Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

E-mail: iias@rulleLleidenuniv.nl

%

M A S

The International Institute for AsianStudies is a postdoctoral research centrebased in Leiden and Amsterdam.The mainobjective of the IIAS is to encourage Asian

Studies in the Humanities and the SocialSciences (the Social Sciences and

Humanities: ranging from Linguistics andAnthropology to Political Science, Law,

Environmental and Developmental studies)and to promote national and internationalco-operation in these fietds.The IIAS wasestablished in 1993 on the initiative of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts andSciences, Leiden University, the

Universiteit van Amsterdam, and the VrijeUniversiteit van Amsterdam. It is financed

mainly by the Netherlands Ministry ofEducation, Culture, and Sciences.

Based in the Netherlands, the Instituteacts as an (inter)national mediator,

bringing various parties together for theenhancement of Asian Studies. In keeping

with the Netherlands’ tradition oftransferring goods and ideas, the HAS

works as a clearing-house of knowledgeand information.This entails activities such

as providing information services,constructing an international network, and

setting up international co-operativeprojects and research programmes. In this

way the IIAS functions as a window onEurope for non-Europeans and

contributes to the cultural rapprochementbetween Asia and Europe.

Research fellows at a post-PhD level aretemporarily employed by or affiliated to

the Institute, either within the frameworkof a collaborative research programme, oron an individual basis.The IIAS organizesseminars, workshops, and conferences,

publishes a newsletter (circulationapproximately 22,000 copies) and hasestablished a database which contains

information about researchers andcurrent research in the field of Asian

Studies within Europe and worldwide.A Guide to Asian Studies in Europe,

a printed version of parts of this databasewas published in 1998. The Institute alsohas its own server and Internet site towhich a growing number of institutes

related to Asian Studies is linked.

Since 1994 the IIAS has been appointedto run the Secretariat of the European

Science Foundation Asia Committee(Strasbourg).Together with this

Committee the HAS shares the objectiveof improving the international co­

operation in the field of Asian Studies(additional information

can be acquired at the IIAS).

In 1997 the Strategic Alliance wasestablished: an international co-operation

between the Nordic Institute of AsianStudies (NIAS), Copenhagen, and the IIAS.

The Institute of Asian Affairs (IFA),Hamburg, joined the Alliance in 1998.The Strategic Alliance was set up to

enhance research on (contemporary) Asiaand to create networks in Asia and

Europe with academic and non-academicinstitutions and actors.

Upon the initiative of the IIAS, and in closeco-operation with NIAS, the Programme

for Europe-Asia Research Linkages(PEARL) was established in Seoul in

October 1998. It is a network ofresearchers from Asia and Europe, i.e.

from the ASEM (Asia-Europe Meetings)member countries, representing leadingAsian and European Studies institutes.

PEARL believes that promotion of Asia-Europe research co-operation oughtto be an integral part of the ASEM

dynamics.The IIAS provides theSecretariat for PEARL.

Z • IIAS n e w s l e t t e r N?2 3 • O c t o b e r 2 0 0 0

G E N E R A L N E W S

A STATE OF V I O L E N C E(EXCERPTS):

Colonial crimeOfficial sources are inclined to conceal

colonial violence. These sources, however,occasionally display openings throughwhich one can suddenly see a different re­ality. An example Is an unsolicited report,submitted to the colonial government bythe tobacco planter C. Amand in 1872,that caused considerable unrest amongcolonial officials. W ith this report, Amanddenied the prevailing colonial picture ofthe Javanese peasant community as a ‘pal­ladium of peace' by depicting a world inwhich cattle theft, extortion, opium smug­gling, violence, and especially intimidationwere daily phenomena. The most impor­tant actors in this regard appeared to bethe so-called jagos. Literally, jago means‘cock’ and the term not only refers to aculture in which masculinity, fighting skills,and magically achieved power are empha­sized, but also to a new category of localstrongmen who, operating in the shade ofthe official colonial government during thenineteenth century, in fact controlled theJavanese countryside.

As Amand tells us,‘On Java, the occupa­tion of the thief is bound to the local insti­tutions which provide a vocation to many,for some an opportunity to invest money,and, conversely, the thieves offer advan­tages to their protectors.’ To this he addsthat ‘no village leader considers his villageto be complete, nor in order, if it does not,at least, have one thief, ore even several, allof whom are under the command of theoldest and wisest thief, called a jago'

Vain attempts were made in Batavia tobring the credibility of this report intodoubt, whereas efforts to keep it from thepublic were quite successful. The messagewas indeed shocking: the entire construc­tion of the colonial government on Javawas based, in fact, on an extensive net­work of rural crime, largely due to the in­ability of the official Javanese governingbody to control all of java. For this reason,it was forced to bring the so-called localstrongmen into their service, in exchangefor which these jagos were free to carryout their own criminal activities.

Jagos were no noble bandits who stolefrom the rich and gave to the poor, andneither did they form a remnant of an oldand decaying culture. Rather, they were theproduct of a new colonial relationship. Acomparison with the emergence of themafia in Sicily during the same periodshows that, in both cases, we are dealingwith a stagnating process of state forma­tion through which a new group of bro­kers in violence could emerge. These bro­kers were in service of the rural and colo­nial elite and generally operated againstthe rest of the population. On Java, crimeand the state were largely formed and re­inforced by each other. Apparently thecolonial state was not able to control thecrime that it had helped to create. Hereagain, we come across an important colo­nial heritage that was to play a dangerousrole in post-colonial Indonesia.

Decolonizationo f Indonesian historiographyThe rough outline of the genealogy of

violence I have provided here shows howthe concubinage of a repressive colonialstate and local crime has produced poorlyraised children. In accordance with colo­nial tradition, these militias were never of­ficially recognized, but they determinedand, to a large extent, still determine thepublic appearance of post-colonial Indone­sian politics.The violence and fear have yetto find a place in official Indonesian historybooks, where the rigid continuation of acolonial perspective Is evident.

In his recent book, Seeing Like a State,James Scott shows how state institutionshave attempted to reduce complex realities into clearly arranged ideas in order tocontrol society. Such simplifications causea great deal of local and particular knowl­edge to be lost.1 Although Scott does notdeal with this directly, national historiogra­phy is pre-eminently an activity which

Henk Schulte Nordholt:

A State of ViolenceOn zz June zooo, Henk Schulte Nordholt was installed as theHAS Extraordinary Chair in Asian History at the Erasmus Uni­versity, Rotterdam. Two excerpts from his oration text, ‘A Stateof Violence’, are presented here together with an interviewmade with him shortly after the event.

IBy MARI EKE BRAND

n jo u r oration you de­scribe a strong link of con­tinuity stretching from

the colonial period to theNew Order regime of Soehar-to and indeed to the present

day. Is the history of Indonesia really thiscoherent?

Well, I exaggerated a little b it tomake my point, because a lo t o f em-3 has is is currently laid on the vio-ence in present-day Indonesia. And

for Indonesians, the masskillings o f the 1960s are the startingpoint o f a ll violence that came after­wards. But I th ink that in order tounderstand structured patterns o f vi­olence, you must look further back intim e to the colonial period. That iswhy I emphasized this violent natureo f colonial rule, because it is not onlyIndonesian historiography that needsto be decolonized, but Dutch h istori­ography as well. Colonial violence as astructural phenomenon is taboo inDutch historiography. A lo t o f Dutchpeople seem to believe that the In ­donesians liked Dutch presence inthe Netherlands Indies. This is sim­ply a myth!

You show that local colonial rule wassustained by developing a symbiosis withpetty crime. Doyou also seeparallels with the presentday in this respect?

Nowadays, in Indone­sia, when thieves arecaught, people k ill them.People do not rely on thepolice, they do not trustthem. They ju s t go afterthe crim inals and chopthem to pieces, literally.They say: ‘We learnedfrom the New Order thatwhen there is a problem,you can solve it by usingviolence, and now we doit ourselves’. This im ­plies the decentraliza­tion and privatization o fviolence. But the linkage betweengovernment and crime goes back tothe late nineteenth century when itwas the cheapest solution availablefor a colonial system to keep societyunder control. I make a comparisonbetween Java and Sicily at the samemoment in time, and the sim ilaritiesare striking. Therefore, there is noth­ing Javanese about the local crim i­nals, although they were called Ja^oand so on. You can only understandthe system by comparing it w ith thesame kind o f system in Italy, wherethe process o f state form ation wassomewhat halfway. This gave thelocal population the impression thatthe state was more or less run bycrooks, and they were probably right.This is something you w ill never read

Professor Henk Schulte Nordholtdelivered his inaugural lecture

on 22June 2000

in colonial reports, there you see avery civilized image o f the state. Onlybecause the system was not perfect dothese kinds o f reports enter by acci­dent. Once you see this, you can findother traces as well in the colonial re­ports. There is a very strong continu­ity between the late colonial state andthe New Order state, as both usedcrim inals to get things done. And thisis also the way power structures areorganized today. Politics and thefigh t for prominence are now done inthe streets, no longer in the parlia­ment I am afraid.

Henk Schulte Nordholt (r) enters the roomw ith Professor P.W.C. Akkermans,

Rector o f Erasmus University, Rotterdam

You write that Indonesians need a newhistoriography with which the variousgroups of people in Indonesian society canidentify.

Yes. What you see now in the actualpost-New Order period is the emer­gence o f ethnic, regional, and re li­gious conflicts. I am very worriedabout the fate o f the nation in In­donesia after so many years o f dicta­torship. I th ink that a shared sense o fbelonging to a nation can keep In ­donesia together. Moreover, thissense o f nationhood can, ultim ately,help to overcome the bloody conflictswe see today. As Ben Anderson says,nationalism is directed towards thefuture. But the narrative that givesdirection to the future has to do w iththe past; i t tells people where they

come from, and what they share. Thisshould be a story that includes thevictims, in the same way as the histo­ry o f Europe should include the vic­tims o f that history. Therefore, thehistory o f Indonesia should includethe killings o f ’65. As long as this isnot the case, it is not a true historyw ith which people can identify.

How doyou locate these killings withinthegenealogy of violence thatyou trace inIndonesian history?

A great deal o f what happened inthat period in Indonesia has been de­scribed and analysed very well, for ex­ample by Jeff Robinson in The DarkSide of Paradise. Nevertheless, I ams till puzzled by how many peoplewere actually killed. In certain partso f Bali, Java, and Sumatra really thou­sands and thousands o f people werekilled. A t a certain moment, the PKI[Communist Party] was totally dis­mantled and the m ilita ry could havetaken over power, but the violencewent on and on. For me, the only wayto make sense o f this extraordinaryviolence is by viewing it as a ritua l o fpurification, or a ritua l cleansing. InIndonesia, this violence marked theestablishment o f a regime o f fear thatparallels the regime o f fear that theDutch established at the beginningo f the twentieth century through theviolent expansion o f colonial rule. Fora very long time, people rememberedthis violence and, although there wasa ‘rule o f order’, i t was basically b u iltupon the fear o f the colonial guns andviolence. A sim ilar situation arose in

the 1960s: after the masskillings, the people werereally afraid o f the state.

Has the Chair in Rotter­dam and the writing of thisoration influencedyour un­derstanding of the history ofIndonesia in a specific way?

Most o f a ll it gave methe opportunity to marchthrough time, from thenineteenth century towards the twentieth andback again. The Chair inRotterdam is at the De­partment o f Societal His­tory, where comparisonsare extremely important.

So, in Rotterdam, I gave a course onmass killings in Indonesia and Cam­bodia and made use o f much moregeneral literature on genocide andthe Holocaust. I am getting more fa­m ilia r w ith this comparative ap­proach and o f dealing w ith very spe­cific situations, and I like that verymuch. ■

streamlines the complex and multidimensional narratives about the past by erasinglarge parts of these stories. Indeed, nation­al historiography is the officially approvedsimplification o f the past. The birthplace ofthis conventional historiography was thenation-state which took shape in thecourse of the nineteenth century in Eu­rope. Based on data from official archives,the account of the birth, growth, and flour­ishing of ‘the fatherland’ was told. In thisregard, colonial history formed a sort ofoverseas appendix to the national epic andtold the story of the establishment anddevelopment of the Dutch Indies, orrather,Tropical Holland.

Following decolonization, nationalisthistorians in the former colonies adheredprimarily to patterns founded by colonialhistorians, but embraced a different moralapproach; colonial ‘development’ became‘exploitation’ and ‘religious fanatics’ be­came 'nationalist freedom fighters.’ Thenew national history consecutively out­lined the story of the nation in terms of agrand pre-colonial civilization which al­ready contained the essence of the nation­al identity, the heroic struggle againstwestern imperialism, the martyrdom fol­lowing colonial exploitation, the subse­quent national awakening, the struggle forfreedom, and, finally, the heavily fought bat­tles for national independence.2 Duringthe New Order, a closing chapter wasadded which tells how the nation fell preyto internal discord, how it was saved justin time by Soeharto, and how he then ledthe country to lasting development andpermanent stability and opened the doorto the end o f history. It is a pitiful historywhich remembers only official heroes andis silent about the thousands of victims.Colonial as well as nationalist historiansput forward this perspective and, there­fore. centralize the primacy of the state.They show little interest in comparisonswith other regions o r in themes which donot serve the interests of the state. In­donesia is no exception in this regard, aspolitical violence and the silence of historyis a common phenomenon in many post­colonial societies in Asia as well as inAfrica, and is therefore best understood ina comparative way.

In a certain sense, Indonesians are mo­mentarily ‘a people without history.' Sincehis fall, Soeharto’s version of history is nolonger credible, but an alternative has notyet emerged. Indeed, fifty-five years afterindependence, Indonesia still has to decol­onize its own historiography. In March ofthis year. President Abdurrahman Wahidbroke an important taboo in this respectby making a public appeal for investiga­tions of the murders in 1965 and ‘66, andalso offered an apology for the role thatthe militias of his own organization hadplayed.3

It will be interesting to see whether anew Indonesian historiography will suc­ceed in liberating itself from the interests,perspective, and conceptual framework ofthe state.An important question in this re­gard is whether there is still anything leftof the nation after so many years of statedomination.The concept of a plural nationis - with economic recovery - perhaps theonly approach the nation state can take toprotect itself from disintegrating religious,ethnic, regional, and criminal violence, andto promote democracy. Although such anation is in the first place heading for acommon future, a new national historymust, however, provide the accompanyingstory in which the diversity of the countryis honoured and room is made for the vic­tims. No small responsibility rests upon In­donesian historians to tell this story.

Marieke Brand teaches anthropology atthe University of Amsterdam.E-mail: brand@pscw.uva.nl

James Scott, Seeing like a State. How certainschemes to improve the human condition havefailed. New Haven/London:Yale UniversityPress ( 1998).Anthony Reid.'The Nationalist Quest fo r anIndonesian Past,' in Anthony Reid and DavidMarr (eds), Perceptions o f the Past in SoutheastAsia, pp 281-99. Singapore: HeinemannEducational Books (1979).Kompas 15-3-2000; Siar News Service17-3-2000. From this, i t appears that offeringapologies does n o t close the past, but makesit accessible.

O c to b e r 2000 • I IA S N E W S L E T T E R 1SIP2 3 • 3

G E N E R A L N E WSW A G E N I N G E N U N I V E R S I T Y , T HE N E T H E R L A N D S

Asia's Environmental Crisis?The 1Environmental Research Network Asia (ERNA]

By PETER HO AND TUUR MOL

R esearchProject over the past deca­

des, East Asia haswitnessed an eco­

nomic boom with a qua­drupling of real per capitaincome, a ten-year in­

crease in life expectancy, and a drop ofapproximately twenty per cent in thepopulation living in absolute poverty.The rapid economic growth in coun­tries such as Thailand, Indonesia, andMalaysia has been accompanied by asharp increase in environmental de­gradation. Moreover, the reform ofcentrally planned economies to mar­ket economies has triggered what wasominously referred to as the ‘environ­mental crisis’, including a range ofproblems from industrial pollution tothe destruction of natural resources.For example, taking up one-fifth ofthe world population, China will havea crucial negative impact on theworld’s environment. The heavy de­pendence of the Chinese on coal tofuel their fast-growing economy hasbeen a major concern to policy makersaround the globe. At present, the Peo­ple’s Republic ranks second in aggre­gate national discharges of carbondioxide (behind the United States).Projection models generally suggestthat within the next couple of decadesChina is likely to surpass the UnitedStates as the leading national emitterof carbon dioxide, posing a majorthreat to the global climate.

■

The H uangshan M ounta ins in A nhu i Province, China. An enchanting scenery,yet already threatened by the hazardouseffects o f tourism and urbanization.

However, in contrast to other de­veloping regions, East Asia has donemuch to tackle environmental prob­lems. For example, energy subsidieson petrol, diesel, and electric powerhave gradually been phased out en­hancing a more rational use of ener­gy resources. In addition, manycountries have proclaimed an im­pressive body of environmental lawsand policies. Yet, two features set theEast Asian region apart from the restof the world: a higher populationdensity exposing more people to en­vironmental risks, and a rapid expan­sion of environmental degradation -triggered off by the economic growth- that co-exists with an institutional

B O O K S R E C E I V E D

Akemine, Akiko, Yukio Saito, Naoki Tajima and Ritsuko TakakusagiCATALOG OF ENGLISH PUBLICATIONSPUBLISHED BY THE INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPINGECONOMIES 1995-1999Chiba: Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External TradeOrganization, 2000,352 pp ISBN 4-258-16034-2

Bunt, Gary R.VIRTUALLY ISLAMICCOMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION AND CYBERISLAMIC ENVIRONMENTSCardiff: University ofWaies Press, 2000 189 pp ISBN 0-7083-161 1-5

Centre d’Études mongoles en sibériennesJEUX RITUELSParis: Centre d’Études mongoles en sibériennes, no 30-31,2000,456 ppISBN 2-252-03300-2. illustrated

Groupe de Recherche 122 du CNRS EHESSLA TRANSMISSION DU SAVOIR DANS LE MONDEMUSULMAN PERIPHERIQUEParis: Lettre d'lnformation no. 19, Programme de RecherchesInterdisciplinaires sur Ie Monde Musulman Peripherique, December 1999;26 pp (no ISBN) French and English

Koh, Tommy and Marcel van der Linden (eds)LABOUR RELATIONS IN ASIA AND EUROPESingapore: Asia-Europe Foundation, an ASEF Monograph, 2000. 121 pp,(no ISBN)

Verna, VidhuJUSTICE, EQUALITY AND COMMUNITYAN ESSAY IN MARXIST POLITICAL THEORYNew Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000, 220 pp ISBN 81-7036-848-0 (India).0-7619-9379-7 (US)

structure which is not yet up to thetask confronting it.

The environmental problems inmany of East Asia’s ‘Newly Industri­alizing Countries’ relate to a weaklegal structure, insecure propertyrights, and an inefficient and ineffec­tive government apparatus. To exac­erbate this, government policies areoften flawed in their problem per­ceptions and policy concepts. Closelyresembling the policies adopted inthe West during the 1960s and 1970s,current environmental policy in Asiais generally predicated upon an com-mand-and-control approach. Com-mand-and-control policies are fre­quently haunted by the spectre ofimplementation failure because ofthe limited attention paid to eco­nomic efficiency and policy integra­tion. This has led to a wide variety ofproblems, such as pollution displace­ment (e.g. bringing down water pol­lution easily leads to an intensifica­tion of air or soil pollution) and theemergence of conflicting proceduresand requirements facing polluters.Lastly, a source of scholarly and pub­lic concern is the limited scope al­lowed civil society and environmen­tal movements in some East Asiancountries.

Key recommendations for environ­mental policy reform focus on insti­tutional strengthening and theadoption of market-based policymeasures, such as tradable emissionpermits, price policies, and pollutiontaxes. A major shortcoming in ad­dressing these problems is the lack ofexpertise and education in environ­mental studies in East Asia. In re­sponse to requests from variousAsian research institutes, the Envi­ronmental Policy Group of Wagenin-gen University has launched and isplanning various co-operative pro­jects to bridge this gap.

One of the projects is called ‘Re­search and Education for Industryand Environment in Vietnam’ (RE­FINE). This project is scheduled torun from 1997 until 2001 and is fund­ed by the Dutch Ministry of Develop­ment Co-operation. The main coun­terpart is Van Lang University in

HoChiMinh City. The research fo­cuses on ‘Industrial Transformation’in the rural and peri-urban area (‘In­dustrial Transformation’ refers tothe theoretical corpus on the reformof production and consumptionchains towards ecological sustain­ability and economic viability).

The project activities include:Teaching aimed at an improvementin the current BSc curriculum andthe development of a new MSc in en-

A major shortcoming

in addressing

these problems is

the lack o f expertise

and education in

environmental studies

in East Asia.

vironmental policy and manage­ment. Vietnamese university staffmembers are being trained to enablethem to take over the courses initial­ly taught by Dutch staff in the fu­ture. New text books are being devel­oped tailored to the needs of the Viet­namese partners. In addition, twelvescholarships have been made avail­able for an MSc in EnvironmentalSciences in The Netherlands. Researchfocusing on the management of in­dustrial zones, on pollution controlof (small-scale) agro-industries (tex­tile, paper, and tapioca), and on in­dustrial and household solid wastemanagement. The research is being

carried out by senior staff of Wa-geningen and Van Lang Universitiesand three Vietnamese PhD candi­dates. Institution building, such as theestablishment of a library, funds foroffice equipment, the laboratory andother facilities, and for the setting upof a publication series and a nationalnewsletter. A follow-up project forREFINE has been formulated andsubmitted for funding.

Over the years, the EnvironmentalPolicy Group has built up a regionalnetwork on environmental policy re­search in Asia with five projects initi­ated and planned in China, Vietnam,Thailand, and Malaysia. The focus ofresearch currently encompasses is­sues of environmental social move­ments, international trade and envi­ronment (WTO/ASEAN), ecologicalmodernization (sociological theorieson the institutional changes thatsafeguard ecologically sustainableeconomic growth), and industrialecology (the notion that productionis an integrated whole in which theoutput and discharge of one industrycan be recycled or re-used to form theinput of the other). Another part ofthe research is devoted to rural andperi-urban society including studieson environmental policy complianceby small-scale rural industries (theChina Township and Village Indus­trial Enterprise or TVIE project fund­ed by the KNAW), land tenure andsoil erosion (land policy and admin­istration in China), and natural re­source management (desertificationand deforestation in China). In viewof the scale of environmental prob­lems in East Asia, it is the explicit in­tention of the Environmental PolicyGroup to substantiate the ‘Environ­mental Research Network Asia’(ERNA) ensuring it is solidly estab­lished for the future. This effort willnot only include research projects,but also the organization of interna­tional conferences and seminars, theprovision of short-term consultan­cies, and the establishment of an AsiaEnvironmental Newsletter for whichfuture contributions will be highlywelcomed. ■

Please send views and comments to:PETER HOLecturer at the Environmental Policy Group orTUUR MOLHead of the Environmental Policy Group

Department of Social SciencesWageningen UniversityHollandseweg I6706 KN WageningenThe NetherlandsTel:+31-317-483 310Fax:+31-317-483 990E-mail: peter.ho@alg.swg.wau.nl ortuur.mol@alg.swg.wau.nlHttp://www.sls.wageningen-ur.nl/swg/es

4 ■ H A S N E W S L E T T E R N ? 2 3 • October 2 0 0 0

8 >• 9 MAY 2 0 0 0B E R L I N , G E R M A N Y

Religions and ToleranceOn 8 and 9 May 2000, the symposium ‘Religions and Tolerance’was held in Potsdam and Berlin. It was convened in the frame­work o f the Year o f Japan in Germany by the Japanese-GermanCentre Berlin in co-operation with the Centre o f the ModernOrient, the Moses Mendelssohn Centre Potsdam, theUrasenke Foundation, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.All the speakers were specially invited.

By MARTIN RAMSTEDT

n recent years, theJapanese-German Cen­tre Berlin QGCB), has

established itself as amajor promoter of a moreprofound intercultural di­

alogue which transcends the bound­aries of straightforward Japanese-German dialogue. The symposium‘Religions and Tolerance was con­vened in order to discuss from anemic point of view the potentials forand limits to tolerance in each worldreligion as well as in Shintoism,which served as a representative of‘animisf religions.

The papers were presented in Ger­man, Japanese, or English and weresimultaneously translated into allthe three languages. The symposiumwas opened in the state chancelleryof Potsdam by the Leader of the Fed­eral German State of Brandenburg,Dr Manfred Stolpe, and the JapaneseAmbassador, Kume Kunisada. DrStolpe recalled the spirit of tolerancewhich crystallized in the history ofPrussia during the reign ofFriedrich-Wilhelm I (1640-1688) andFriedrich II (1740-1786). Friedrich-Wilhem I invited the French Hu­guenots who were being persecutedin their home country to settle downin his realm, thereby allowing thecountry to profit greatly profitingfrom their skills. Pointing out theeconomic gain resulting from theGreat Elector’s tolerant act, Stolpemay have been alluding to the cur­rent plans for the introduction of aGerman ‘green card’, e.g. for Indiancomputer specialists, which has re-ignited xenophobia in Germany.Friedrich II instituted freedom ofconscience, mediated between thevarious Christian churches in the in­terests of the state, and even allowedmore scope to the large RomanCatholic minority. His royal toler­ance, however, did not include theJews. The definition of tolerance of­fered by Ambassador Kume met withgeneral enthusiasm: in Japan, hesaid, tolerance is understood to be acombination of openness and gen­erosity. The programme in Potsdamwas concluded by the demonstrationof a Japanese tea ceremony led by DrSen Soshitsu XV, the Grand Master ofthe Urasenke Chado tradition, offer­ing the four virtues Wa (harmony),Kei (respect), Set (purity), and Jaku(quietude) as universal principles forinter-personal, inter-cultural, andinter-religious communication. DrSen had been a kamikaze-pilot duringWorld War II, whose life had beenspared by the ‘timely’ Japanese capit­ulation. The moral value of thevirtues of his chado school notwith­

standing, it was a pity that Dr Sencould only find words of sorrow forhis dead comrades and not for thevictims of the intolerance of the for­mer Japanese regime.

The paper sessions, hosted by theJGCB in Berlin, were opened by theGeneral Secretary, Volker Klein, alawyer. He pointed out the limits oftolerance in the German Constitu­tion which grants every citizen ab­solute freedom of conscience and be­lief, but restricts the freedom to ex­press an opinion when this might vi­olate the principles of democracy.The subsequent speaker, the formerJapanese ambassador, Cato Tisati,expressed his sorrow regarding theinhumanity of World War II as wellas the recent atrocities in SoutheastEurope caused by national chauvin­ism. In order to overcome the in­creasing threat to world peacecaused by the growing distance be­tween the different cultures, he sug­gested looking for a common groundwhere each culture can retain itsidentity while respecting that of theOther. This symposium would be avaluable opportunity to assess howthe exploration of avenues of toler­ance within each religious traditioncan help to reach this goal. This cau­tious expression of hope was under­scored by Prof. Wolf Lepenies, the di­rector of the Wissenschaftskolleg zuBerlin, who warned against leavingout the important zones of conflictbetween the various traditions.

Shared ideasThe first session was devoted to re­

flection on avenues of tolerancewithin Christianity. Prof. WolfgangHuber, Bishop of the LutheranChurch of Berlin-Brandenburg,began with the observation that theneed for tolerance is born from intol­erance. He then turned to the pre­sent rise in Hindu fundamentalismin contemporary India which endan­gers the co-existence of Hinduismand Islam and restrains the develop­ment of local Christianity. Withinthe history of Christianity itself, hesaid, concepts of tolerance only de­veloped after the emergence ofProtestant sects. This view was con­tested by the Lutheran theologianProf Christoph Markschies (Univer­sity of Jena) who indicated earlierconcepts of tolerance which hadevolved out of medieval scholasti­cism. Most valuable of these wasHuber’s distinction between activeand passive tolerance. The firstwould entail acknowledgement ofthe dignity of every human being in­stead of the mere sufferance of otherpeople.

The second session explored in­stances of tolerance within Islam. The

speaker, Prof. Muhammad KhalidMasud, a Muslim scholar from Pak­istan who is currently Academic Di­rector of the International Institutefor the Study of Islam in the ModernWorld in Leiden, the Netherlands, in­troduced himself as a believing Mus­lim who considers the Koran to be ahistorical rather than a normativetext. Having attributed dogmatic ab­solutism to sectarian developmentswithin Islam, he emphasized the factthat Muslims have displayed intoler­ant or violent behaviour towards ad­herents of deviant beliefs in situa­tions in which they have had tostruggle for political or economicpower. He then introduced the audi­ence to a wide range of contemporaryMuslim intellectuals who have ar­gued in favour of political pluralismon the basis of religious pluralism.Masud himself recommended thatshared ideas among religions can bestressed in order to overcome the vio­lence between religions. When deli­cately defining the limits of tolerancein the contemporary Muslim world,Prof. Gudrun Kramer (Free Universi­ty Berlin) was careful to emphasizethe fact that during its history Islamhas exhibited a much higher rate oftolerance than Christianity.

The first day of the symposiumconcluded with words of apprecia­tion and encouragement by Ger­many’s former president, Dr Richardvon Weizsacker, who is renowned forhis promotion of inter-cultural dia­logue, ethical awareness, and toler­ance.

‘ThinHinduism’The second day of the symposium

commenced with the session on Ju­daism. Prof. Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich,the Honorary Vice-President of B’naiB’rith in Europe (Switzerland), re­minded the audience that Jews havenot had much chance to behave intol­erantly towards people of other con­victions because, until recently, theydid not have their own state andhence not enough political power topursue such behaviour effectively.Side-stepping problems of tolerancein contemporary Israel, Ehrlich saidthat the issue of tolerance has gener­ally presented itself to Jews in such away that it is they who have been inneed of it. The lower echelons of theLutheran Church, for instance, stillcontinue their discriminatory rhe­toric against Judaism in spite of thenew rhetoric of tolerance promotedby their superiors. When contemplat­ing the possibilities for tolerancewithin the doctrine of Judaism,Ehrlich concluded that the concept ofmonotheism would clearly set a limit.This would, of course, also apply tothe other two monotheistic religions,Islam and Christianity. When ProfMasud asked how religious Jews dealwith the problem of atheism, Prof.Ehrlich replied that because of thecommon stigmatization of Jewishpeople by their environment, evenatheist Jews could not escape theirJewish identity. Hence, there is a

strong sense for the necessity of atleast a minimum of solidarity amongboth religious and atheist Jews.

The task of assessing Hinduism wasassigned to Prof Sudipta Kaviraj(School for Oriental and African Stud­ies, London), a political scientist.Looking at the rise of Hindu funda­mentalism, he stated that Hindu re­form movements like the BrahmoSamaj and its like were instrumentalin homogenizing the plethora of casteand tribe specific orthopraxies ofIndia. In doing so they prepared theway for the evolution of a kind of‘thin religion’ which could then beused by Hindu fundamentalists as a‘national’ ideology that supposedlytranscends caste and ethnic bound­aries. Therefore we have the seemingparadox that there is now a depletion

... shared ideas among

religions can be stressed

in order to overcome

the violence between

religions.

of religion (i.e. the traditional ortho­praxies) in private life, while the im­portance of religion (i.e. ‘thin Hin­duism’) in public life is increasing.Prof. Kaviraj’s explanation was com­petently complemented by Prof Em.Heinrich von Stietencron (Institute ofIndology and Comparative Studies ofReligion, Tübingen).

The fifth session was dedicated toShintoism which was represented bytwo Shinto priests: Prof. Sonoda Mi­noru (Kyoto University), priest of theChichibu Shrine, and Katayama Fu-mihiko MD (Medical UniversityTokyo), priest of the Shinjuku Shrine.In pre-Meji Japan, they stated, indige­nous Shintoism and the foreign reli­gion of Buddhism co-existed in a kindof ritual and spiritual symbiosis. Thiswas possible, they argued, becauseMahayana-Buddhism actively pro­motes syncretism. The crunch camewith the Meji restoration in 1868which dissolved the symbiosis of Bud­dhism and Shintoism and the pow-ers-that-be turned the latter into anational cult. After World War II,Shintoism was finally freed from statecontrol. Since then, Buddhism andShintoism have partly re-establishedtheir former relationship. Today, ap­proximately sixty per cent of theJapanese population participates inthe rites at the Shinto shrines of theirlocal guardian deities, while relyingon the Buddhist temples for the fu­neral arrangements for their de­ceased.

Passive toleranceThe last session explored three dif­

ferent modes of active tolerance inthe dialogue between Buddhism andChristianity. Prof. Yagi Seiichi (ToinUniversity,Yokohama), a Christian

theologian who has renounced theclaim of Christianity to absolutetruth and who has also practisedBuddhist meditation, introduced hissyncretistic approach which he hasderived from what he calls the inter­face or intersection between Bud­dhism and Christianity. He claimsthat the intersection between Chris­tianity and Buddhism lies in whatBuddhists call ‘realized Buddha-na-ture’ and Christians ‘Christ wholives in me’. Yagi defined both expe­riences as being essentially one. Hisown term for them was ‘Self-ego’which he equated with both MasterRyomin Akizuki’s term ‘individuumqua transindividuum’ and Master Eck-hart’s concept o f‘the unity betweenGod and man in action (and not inessence)’ (Wirkenseinheit).

Prof Ueda Shizuteru (Universityof Kyoto), the representative of Bud­dhism, was much more cautious inhis own approach. Stating thatChristianity focuses upon the per­sonality of Christ as the link to tran­scendentalism, whereas Buddhismconcentrates on the all-encompass­ing, open space. Ueda then suggest­ed defining common tasks to be usedas stepping-stones for bridging thedifferences between Buddhism andChristianity.

An intermediate position wastaken by the Lutheran theologianProf Theo Sundermeier (Universityof Heidelberg) who has contributedto the field of interculturalhermeneutics. Starting out with anassessment of the potential for dia­logue in the different schools of Bud­dhism, he criticized Hinayana Bud­dhists for only discussing the issueof religious truth with those non-Buddhists who are dissatisfied withtheir own religion. They wouldnever question their own religioustenets nor would they formulatethem in such a way that a commonground could be established be­tween themselves and Christians.Forgetting to mention the aggres­sive Christian attempts to convertHinayana Buddhists, for instance, inSri Lanka in colonial times, he thenlauded the relatively open attitudeof many Mahayana Buddhists. Hedid find fault with what he calledtheir inclusive approach towardsother religions, the soteriologicalvalue of which would be acknowl­edged only on the basis of parallelsbetween them and Mahayana Bud­dhism. Sundermeier himself hasstudied Buddhist meditation whichhe recommends as a means to deep­en one’s own faith.

Prof. Zwi Werblowsky (HebrewUniversity, Jerusalem) a renownedscholar of comparative religion, wasgiven the difficult task of drawingthe strands together to conclude thesymposium. In view of the persistentinstances of intolerance, especiallyamong adherents of the monotheis­tic religions, in Israel as well, and theenormous difficulties to be faced inreconciling monotheism with otherforms of spirituality, let alone athe­ism, he proceeded to rehabilitate‘passive tolerance’, i.e. the mere suf­ferance of difference, as a more real­istic goal on the path towardsachieving tolerance. ■

Dr M artin R am stedt is an ESF / Alliance

fellow and is stationed at the HAS in Leiden.E-mail: mramstedt@rullet.leidenuniv.nl

October zooo • i ias n e w s l e t t e r TC23 • 5

G E N E R A L N E WS1 5 ► 1 7 M A R C H 2 0 0 0B O N N U N I V E R S I T Y , G E R M A N Y

Demography & Value ChangeThe aim o f the conference entitled ‘Demographic Develop­ments and Value Change in Contemporary Industrial Soci­eties: East Asian and Western societies in comparative perspec­tives’ was to analyse demographic and value change in their in­terrelatedness in one particular country and to discuss the re­sults from a comparative perspective.

MORE ESF ASIACOMMITTEE NEWS

The conferences ‘Demographic

■ By AXEL KLEI N

TL y r odemization isl \ / I no longer con-

JL V JL sidered to be asingle process inevitablyleading to the stage thatWestern industrial na­

tions have reached. Instead, nowadaysmany different forms of moderniza­tion, temporal and spatial, are beingstressed. But even though there areremarkable differences between earli­er and present theories on moderniza­tion one striking similarity still re­mains: notwithstanding their hugeeconomic and social achievements,East Asian countries are hardly everincluded in the research and con­struction of sociological theories onmodernity. This neglect has producedtwo simplified pictures: develop-

I ments in East Asia are either consid­ered to be a mere following-in-the-footsteps of the West or, conversely, tothe contrary, are interpreted to exem­plify the continuity of timeless Asianstructures in a modern guise. By chal­lenging both views, it was the aim ofthe conference to analyse demograph­ic developments and value change intheir interrelatedness in one particu­lar country and to discuss the resultsfrom a comparative perspective.

On the whole, the contributionsconfirmed that there are generaltrends in demography and valuechanges that can he observed in everyindustrialized country, although tim­ing, scope, and impact do differ. Fer­tility, for instance, resumed its de­cline during the latter half of the1960s in most Western countries onlyto be followed by East Asian nations

about ten years later. A change inmarriage behaviour rather than a re­duction in the family size seems to bethe major factor behind this change.In turn, the trend towards later ornon-marriage is related to value andattitudinal changes among women,who no longer take their establishedgender role of home-making forgranted. This fits into the general pic­ture of a pluralization of life-styles inall countries, although with higherrates of cohabitation and single-par­ent families its degree still seems to behigher in Western societies. Thesechanges generated a controversy overthe question of whether to remainsingle is to be interpreted positively asan indicator of individualism andself-actualization, as most Westerncontributors did, or, as M. Yamadaput it in his paper, negatively as a signof parasitic attitudes toward societyand the family.

Teenage fe r t i l i tyThe latter shows that many speak­

ers and discussants also stressed thecontinuing importance of country-

specific peculiarities. Regarding fer­tility trends, the problem of sex-spe-cific induced abortions in the Repub­lic of Korea, the observance of ‘good’or ‘bad’ years for giving birth accord­ing to the specific sign of the zodiacthroughout all of East Asia, but espe­cially in Taiwan, a high prevalence ofextramarital and teenage fertility inthe US, or the topic of extremely highrates of women remaining childlessin Germany were taken up. Turningto values and attitudes, the minor roleof religion or a still quite positive atti­tude toward marriage and familialold-age-care in Japan in contrast toWestern patterns were emphasized.In Japan, too, a shift from con-formistic to a combination of idealis­tic, individualistic, and hedonisticvalues started from the late 15170s, andhas even accelerated in pace duringthe recent economic crisis.

In a nutshell, the conference didproduce results which confirmed theassumption of an ongoing modern­ization process that is common to allcounties in its general features, but ishighly modified when it comes to de-

Developments and Value Change inContemporary Industrial Societies','Interpreting Asian Cultures in Museums',and 'Brokers of Capital and Knowledge’reported on these pages were all selectedfor funding by the ESF Asia Committee in1999/2000. Please turn to the Pink Pagesfor an overview of the workshopsselected in the round of 2000/2001.

On page 47 you will also find anadvertisement for ESF Asia CommitteeResearch Travel Grants.

tail. A publication with all papers isscheduled to be brought out by au­tum n 2000 in the series JapanArchivedited by the Department of ModernJapanese Studies, Bonn University.Not resting solely in publications theresults will also form an importantbasis for an ongoing research projecton ‘Social Attitudes and Structuresduring the Modernization Process:Japan on its way toward a new moder­nity?’ carried out at the same depart­ment. It remains to be seen whetherthe general conclusions of the confer­ence also apply to other aspects of so­ciety in particular. ■

Dr Axel Klein, University o f Bonn.E-mail: axel.klein@uni-bonn.de

1 5 ► 1 7 M A R C H 2 0 0 0

T H E B R I T I S H M U S E U M D E P A R T M E N T OF E T H N O G R A P H Y , U N I T E D K I N G D O M

Interpreting AsianCultures in MuseumsThe Workshop was above all thought-provoking and facilitatedlively exchanges among delegates. We have since received manypositive comments from those who attended. Presentations byan international panel o f speakers were o f a high standard andengaged the attention o f the audience, while the range o f dele­gates provided the basis for stimulating discussions which willbe developed further over the coming months. The administra­tion o f the Workshop proceeded smoothly.

■ By BRI AN DU RRANS , SARA P I MP ANE A U & SARAH POSEY

e are especial!grateful to th

M \ T y ESF Asia Com> I mittee for supporting

I this initiative. In accordance with the funding

requirements, the income was spenessentially on the speakers’ visit tcLondon and on publicity materials1The overall quality of the papers wa:outstanding and much commentecupon both during and after th(event2; delegates also praised the cov­erage of the Workshop. We are grate­ful to the speakers for their valuablecontributions and for their willing­ness to challenge their own assump­tions, and to the discussants whcsuccessfully steered the discussions.

The themes outlined in the pro­posal were taken up in a variety olways, but one delegate felt that therewere not enough Asian curators pre­senting papers; yet, as planned andthanks to our sponsors, half thespeakers were from Asian countries.

This criticism highlights one of themost important themes which notonly emerged from the content of thepapers and discussions but was alsoillustrated in the speakers’ approach­es: the constraining influence of the Jhistory of museums as Western insti­tutions.

The historical and social context ofmuseum collections of Asian materi­al was an overarching theme, focus­ing on its crucial impact on the con­tent of the collections, on displays,and on the work of curators. This wasparticularly the case in presentationson collections in the US (Watson,Kendall, Bronson, Taylor], Russia(Taksami), and Japan (InagaJ and onthe creation of new galleries on Asia(Kendall, Durrans, Taylor], It was alsoaddressed by all in relation to widerimplications for definitions o f ‘art’and ‘ethnographic’ collections andhad parallels in discussions on tradi­tion as a shifting concept (Jain,Pruess, Hout, Cate],

D iscrepancyThe political and curatorial choices

involved in creating successful dis­plays in multicultural contexts werediscussed in the context of Singapore(Tan, Lee] and the UK (Durrans].These themes were in turn related tothe role of Asian curators presentingcollections to Asian and non-Asianaudiences (Barbosa, Bronson, Hem-met, Zhou, Tagieva, Babanazarova,Alimbay, Roon], There are more andmore Asian curators in and outsideAsia and that the Workshop includedso many Asian speakers was criticallyimportant. Consultation was per­ceived by all to be a positive back­ground to the creation of displays.However, this topic also provokedone of the most vigorous debates. Onthe one hand, were those who per­ceived input by members of the cul­ture concerned as one way to moveaway from the Western concept of amuseum; on the other, were thosewho emphasized the discrepancy be­tween the age of the collections (thebulk of which was often collected atthe end of the nineteenth or earlytwentieth centuries] and currentknowledge about these objects in therelevant culture, highlighting bycontrast the importance and author­ity of curatorial research.

Interest in the Workshop and theissues it raised was reflected in thevariety and number of delegates: pro­

fessionals and students in the field ofmuseums, but also artists, represen­tatives from community organiza­tions, designers and othersL Breaksbetween presentations allowed livelyinformal discussions and active net­working, and feedback has beenunanimous in expressing the dele­gates’ appreciation of these opportu­nities.

Relatively few delegates from out­side the museum field participated in

[ the discussions; this was explained bysome in terms of the overwhelmingmuseum perspective in the presenta­tions and the large number of dele­gates. Although many of their com­ments were voiced in informal discus­sions, we hope this constituency willbe better represented in an e-mail dis­cussion group which has been set up(http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/asia-in-museums/], in order that theseviews can also be represented in thecontents of the publication. This e-mail discussion will not only encour-

j age authors to tackle some of the spe­cific themes of the Workshop in more

I detail, but also elaborate upon and ex­tend the discussions into the future.

Despite the problems raised by afew late cancellations, we are verypleased with the way in which theWorkshop proceeded over the threedays: presentations were well re­ceived; the discussions were dynam­ic; and the atmosphere during thebreaks friendly and lively. However,in anticipation of the conclusions ofindependent reports, we also felt thata number of issues which had beenset out in the proposal were not ad­dressed adequately (in particular therole of performing art in comple­menting conventional displays].These aspects will be developed inthe e-mail discussion and will criti­cally inform the outcome of the pub­lication. From a proposal for a three-day event, the Workshop has become

a first step: it has sparked off timelydiscussions which will be pursuedover the coming months; some par­ticipant institutions have already in­cluded several of the ideas discussedin their programme; and, in responseto popular demand, plans for futuresessions are already in progress.

1 Financial support for the Workshopwas provided by the European ScienceFoundation Asia Committee (see at­tached), the Wenner Gren Foundationfor Anthropological Research (speak­ers from Third World countries only;drinks for closing reception; hospital­ity for speakers), and the Asian Mar­keting Group (food for closing recep­tion).

2 These comments were made by dele­gates over the three days of the Work­shop, in the letters of thanks manyhave sent since then, and in the four­teen per cent level of response to thequestionnaire handed out at theWorkshop.

3 A total of 124 (including speakers) par­ticipants attended the workshop withbetween seventy and eighty people oneach day. Forty per cent of delegateswho attended were from museums,seventeen per cent from universities.

Nine-and-a-half per cent wereAsians from Asia, 23,5 per cent wereUK-based Asians, 47 per cent UK ingeneral (excluding UK-based Asians),14,5 per cent from Europe, and 5,5 percent from the US. ■

Dr Brian Durrans, Deputy Keeper / AsianCollections, Ms Sara Pimpaneau, Curator /

Europe, Middle East, Central Asia, andMs Sarah Posey, Asia Research o f TheBritish Museum Department o f Ethnographywere the co-organizers o f this workshop.E-mail: b.durrans@british-museum.ac.ukE-mail discussion group: http://www.mail-

base.ac.uk/lists/asia-in-museums/

6 ■ h a s n e w s l e t t e r N?23 • October 2000

G E N E R A L N E WS

8 > - 1 0 MA Y 2 0 0 0A M S T E R D A M , T H E N E T H E R L A N D S

Brokers of Capitaland KnowledgeThe scientific objectives o f this workshop were closely relatedto the theme of the WOTRO-fimded multidisciplinary re­search programme ‘Brokers o f Capital and Knowledge: Pro­ducer services and social mobility in provincial Asia, 1960-2000’. In the spirit o f this research programme, the workshopgenerated a debate on the ways in which processes o f globaleconomic restructuring affect social mobility in Asian provin­cial cities. The combination o f disciplines, o f contemporaryand historical research, o f in-depth and contextualizing theo­retical studies, and o f inter-regional comparisons enhancedthe participants’ understanding o f both processes o f socialmobility in modern Asia and the debate on producer services.

By HEI DI DAHLES

sia’s economic boomof the last decades is. reshaping Asian so­

cieties. In unprecedentedways, global economic in­tegration, widening com­

munication networks, and govern­ment policies supportive of privateenterprise are changing opportunitiesfor accumulating wealth, status, andpower, and redefine the avenues of so­cial mobility. This process is accompa­nied by the development, throughoutprovincial Asia, of highly sophisticat­ed producer services enterprises (suchas banking, insurance, accountancy,consultancy, law firms, and businessschools) which provide access to re­sources required for a profitable con­nection to the wider world. Much ofthe discussion on this ‘affluent Asia’ isdominated by political scientists andeconomists who trace changes in thedistribution of capital and power onthe national level, and by anthropolo­gists who study local effects of entre­preneurial and technological change.

The workshop focused on the keyrole played by these producer servicesin channelling the widening access ofprovincial societies to markets, capi­tal, and commercial knowledge, andthus in shaping new business arenasand new patterns of social mobility.Geographically, the emphasis was onurban areas in Asia in general and onAsian provincial cities that are centresof commercial and industrial expan­sion in particular.

Specifically the workshopaddressed:1. The central role of the producer ser­

vices enterprises as brokers of capi­tal, knowledge, and commercialconnections, which may contributein vital ways to the rise of new en­trepreneurial categories or thedemise of existing ones, or both;

2. Opportunities for social mobilitywithin the expanding services sec­tor itself, which may contribute tothe development of new profes­sional classes in provincial societies.Assessing the role of the producer

services as gate-keepers governing ac­cess to fundamental resources such as

2 2 >• 2 3 MA Y 2 0 0 0A M S T E R D A M , T H E N E T H E R L A N D S

PREBASPlatform for Researchon Business in Asia

By SI KKO VI SSCHER

t this first meetingof PREBAS, a groupof PhD candidates

met to discuss theirwork-in-progress onmatters concerning busi­

ness in Asia. The initiative is a directspin-off from the seventh Nordic-European Workshop in AdvancedAsian Studies (NEWAS), organized inApril this year by the Nordic Insti­tute for Asian Studies (NIAS) and theCentre for Asian Studies Amster-dam/Amsterdam School for SocialScience Research (CASA/ASSR). Atthis meeting (reported on in the HASNewsletter No. 22, p. 41), one of thepossible thematic clusters was con­

stituted by candidates working oncontemporary business issues inVietnam, Indonesia, India and Singa­pore. Themes and characteristicsconnecting their projects includedthe attention they paid to networksand the strategic behaviour of busi­nessmen, as well as an interest in theembeddedness of business in widersocial and political arenas.

While the participants were verycontent with and stimulated by thequalified academic support from theinternational team of scholars atNEWAS, the idea was mooted thatthe communication between PhDcandidates should be maintainedand the exchange of ideas andmethodological approaches shouldbe deepened in a follow-up meeting.

land, capital, labour, and knowledgedemands an understanding of themanifold institutions and networksactive in Asian cities under variouspolitical and economic regimes. It iswithin this context that the social im­pact of (apparently) new opportuni­ties must be placed. Knowledge, likethe more tangible bases of produc­tion, must also be seen as a scarce re­source, the control of which can gen­erate both power and wealth.

Access to such knowledge is influ­enced by existing power structures,but its successful use also depends onthe capacity for fast and flexible re­sponse to changing circumstances.Access to these resources is funda­mental in deciding ‘who gets what’,but increasingly international mar­kets impose new disciplines and re­ward new skills.

The major points of discussion arebriefly listed below:1. The concept o f ‘producer services’

is at the basis of the research pro­gramme. For the time being wesettled for a working definition:‘Producer services are those ser­vices invested into businesses asdistinct from services consumedby end-consumers’. Producer ser­vices are, however, not necessarilyinvolved in brokerage and, viceversa, brokers are not necessarily‘business services’. The result ofthis debate is that the researchgroup has to carefully reconsiderdefinitions of producer services,business services, advanced pro­ducer services, brokers and broker­age, and entrepreneurship.

2. Related to the provincial focus ofthe programme, the question wasraised whether there are still anyprovincial brokers left in this glob­alizing world. It seems that in con­temporary Asia processes of insti­tutionalization and democratiza­tion have diminished the role ofgatekeepers. Some participantsmade the point that provinces areleft without power and funds, and

When CASA/ASSR agreed to supportthe follow-up by providing the in­frastructure to hold it, and when atravel grant from the Centre for De­velopment Research (CDR) in Copen­hagen allowed two Danish re­searchers to attend, there was noth­ing to stop inaugural PREBAS work­shop could take place.

The core of the workshop consist­ed of seven PhD candidates, five ofthe original NEWAS participantsand two additional Dutch re­searchers. From the staff ofCASA/ASSR, Dr Mario Rutten sat inon all sessions, providing usefulcomments and insights, while DrBert Schijf shared his expertise dur­ing the session on the methodologyof network research. Although mod­est in size, the informal but inten­sive set-up of the meeting was con­ducive to in-depth discussions onthe individual projects as well as toquestions of methodology, theory,and research angles.

As the disciplines represented atthe workshop included anthropolo­gy, geography, history, and sociolo­gy, a wide array of angles and fociwas only to be expected. Indeed, pro­jects ranged from zooming in on in­dividual companies and specific

therefore lose power to the centrallevel. Other participants pointedout that centralization createspower niches for gatekieepers. In­stead of imagining brokers as au­tonomous, new people, it is morelikely that in Asia we are dealingwith members of established elitesdefending their positions. In thisdiscussion the old/new dichotomyremained unresolved. Related tothis was the issue whether brokerscan be regarded as entrepreneurs.

3. Related to the old/new dichotomywas the debate about the regionalfocus. To study social mobility inAsia, a more fertile ground wouldbe the provincial or the metropoli­tan arena. Generally speaking,those who believe that the role ofintermediary is most probablytaken by newly emerging elitestend to shift their attention to themetropoles where ‘exciting’ trans­formations seem to happen. Thosewho believe that old power holdersmaintain their positions are moreinclined to focus on provincialcities as the power bases of the oldelites.

4. Another central concept in the re­search programme is the conceptof‘middle classes’. As became clearin the discussion, this concept isclosely intertwined with notionsof dynamism, transformation, andinnovation. The issue was raisedthat ‘middle classes’ in Asia do notnecessarily generate or propagatechange, but may as yet attempt toconsolidate established positionsand power relations. ‘New’ groupsaspiring to the status of ‘middleclass’ may be more reluctant tochange once they have reached thisstatus than the ruling classes.Therefore, the projects in the pro­gramme require a thorough analy­sis of the concept o f‘middle class­es’ in their situational context.

5. The aspect of gender is as yet ne­glected in the research pro­gramme. The issue that should beraised is to what extent social mo­

commercial or manufacturing sec­tors, to the attention paid to a geo­graphical location of business andorganizations representing localbusiness communities at home andabroad. Despite this variety in rangeand approach, many fields ofinterestand research hypotheses could becausally linked to a number of keyconcepts. The concepts indicated inthe discussions included: entrepre­neurship, the social and politicalembeddedness of business, manag­ing of risk through strategy, the roleof culture in business behaviour andthe importance of the state as a facil­itator and regulator for, and at timesa competitor to, private enterprise.

As a point of departure for the ses­sion on the methodological ap­proaches to and operationalizationof business research, one paper,‘Practising New Economic Geogra­phies? Some Methodological Consid­erations’ (Paper presented at theRSG-IBG Annual Conference, Brigh­ton, Universtiy of Sussex, 4-7 January2000), by Dr Henry Wai-chungYeung of the National University ofSingapore, was circulated in advance.It provided a methodological base­line from the field of economic geog­raphy which then served as a start­

bility generated by economic re­structuring is not only class relat­ed but also gender-related mobili­ty. At a more general level thequestion should be raised how eco­nomic restructuring affects estab­lished gender relations.

6. An important issue raised in manycontributions was the role of thestate. First of all, the state as actordeserves more attention in the re­search programme. As was shownin the papers, the state strongly af­fects the ways in which economicrestructuring impacts upon socialmobility. ‘Strong’ or ‘weak’ states,centralized or fragmented statepower, create different conditionsfor new elites to emerge and pros­per or old elites to maintain oreven strengthen their position.Therefore, concepts like ‘state for­mation’ and ‘power relations’should be among the central ana­lytical concepts of the researchprogramme.

F o llo w -u pA selection of papers presented at

the workshop will be published ei­ther in an edited volume or in acade­mic journals. The brokers researchgroup is planning a major conferencein 2003 to present the results of thedifferent projects of the research pro­gramme and to invite critical com­ments of knowledgeable colleaguesworking in adjacent fields. The re­search group intend to invite thescholars who attended the ESF work­shop again to discuss the progress ofthe programme and reconsidermajor points of discussion that wereraised in the workshop. ■

The workshop was funded by the ESFAsia Committee and WOTRO.

Dr Heidi Dahles is Assistant Professor atthe Department o f Culture, Organization, andManagement, Free University o f Amsterdam.E-mail: h.dahles@scw.vu.nl

ing point for a wider, multi-discipli­nary discussion. The participantsgained valuable comparative knowl­edge from each other’s approachesand benefited from the input of thestaff members.

As many of the researchers in thisinitial group of PREBAS enthusiastswill be busy conducting their field­work, PREBAS II, to be held in thesecond half of 2001, promises to beanother interesting and fruitfulmeeting. The initiators of PREBASaspire to expand this research plat­form and therefore invite PhD can­didates working on projects pertain­ing to business in Asia to participatein future meetings and initiatives.Apart from regular workshops, weenvisage the possibility ofjoint pub­lications on specific themes or geo­graphical locations. Future activitieswill be announced in this newslet­ter. Do not hesitate to contact Pepijnvan de Port (pvandeport@pscw.uva.nl)

j or Sikko Visscher (visscher@pscw.uva.nl) for more information. ■

Sikko Visscher is affiliated with the Centrefor Asian Studies Amsterdam and is currentlycompleting a dissertation on the history ofthe Singapore Chinese Chamber of Com­merce. E-mail: visscher@pscw.uva.nl

October 2000 • has n e w s l e t t e r n ?23 • 7

T H E ME

Modern H induism

RelationsBetween Hindusin M odern Indonesiaand IndiaIn order to appreciate the relations between Hindus in modemIndia and Indonesia, we have to recall the fact that 'Hinduism’was unknown in the archipelago until European orientalistsand theosophists (see Herman de Tollenaere’s article in thistheme issue) projected it onto Old Javanese and Balinese cul­ture. It was in the nineteenth century, at a time when Europeanorientalists were constmcting ‘Hinduism’ as a ‘world religion’together with their Brahmin informants in India, that British,Dutch, and German scholars discovered traces o f ancient Indi­an ‘Hinduism’ and Buddhism in the Old Javanese literature, inthe newly discovered temple mins in Java and Bali as well as inthe contemporary Balinese culture. In the West, Bali came to beknown as the ‘last Hindu enclave in the archipelago’, whereasthe Balinese on their part had hitherto regarded themselves asthe heirs o f the Old Javanese empire o f Majapahit and its cul­ture, and had not even known the term ‘Hindu’.

■ By MARTI N RAMS TE DT

T" "Then Bali was% A / conquered by theV V Dutch between

1846 and 1908, colonial ori­entalists started to thor­oughly investigate the Ba­

linese literary and religious traditionas a blurred mirror of ancient India.While the various descent groups inBali traced their origin back to differ­ent ancestral priests and noblemenoriginating from ancient Java, Euro- jpean scholars reconstructed a sup- jposed Indian invasion and subsequentconquest of various locations in thearchipelago from approximately thefourth to the ninth century AD, in­cluding ancient Java and - perhaps -Bali. This scholarly model, proposed toexplain the dissemination of Indianinfluence in the Indoensian archipel­ago, has come to be known as theksatriya-theory. With increasingknowledge about the sophisticated yetidiosyncratic ‘Hindu’ and Buddhist at-

3

\ rifer.-Y?

— *

A\

chitecture of ancient Java that showedconsiderable independence from Indi­an prototypes, and with the absence ofdefinite proof of Indian colonies in thearchipelago, scholars began to ques­tion the ksatriya-theory modelled afterthe dissemination of Dutch influencein the archipelago. They now consid­ered the possibility of a peaceful dis­semination of Indian influencethrough Indian merchants. Thismodel has come to be known as the so-called vaisya-theory. A more sophisti­cated elaboration of this theory wasproposed by Van Leur. It credited thepre-Indianized archipelago with high­ly developed chiefdoms or petty king­doms that had established trade rela­tions with Indian counterparts ontheir own initiative. The leaders ofthese precursors of early-state societiesin Indonesia were supposed to have in­vited Indian Brahmins and Buddhistpriests to their courts in order to up­grade the administration of their na­tive polities as well as to provide themwith a new religious legitimacy.

Aqnifiotra performed a t the Yayasan Bali Homa Yajna Veda Poshana Ashram,led by the pemangku (temple priest) Wayan Nilon Batan. (Also see photo p.9)

The history of the early Indianiza-tion of the archipelago has still notbeen fully elucidated. It is, however,safe to assume that Indians had set­tled in Indonesia but had not neces­sarily come as conquerors. With theIslamization of India and SoutheastAsia, large-scale cultural contactswith non-Islamic Indian civilizationwere severed. Yet economic relationswith both northern as well as south­ern Indians of various backgroundshave continued through the agesuntil modern times (see also Silvia Vi-gnato's article). It is interesting tonote that once European scholars haddiscovered traces of Indian influencein the Old Javanese literature andtemple ruins as well as in ‘the lastHindu enclave’ Bali, some Indianscholars started to turn their gaze toJava and Bali too. One of them wasAnanda K. Coomaraswamy who hadfully embraced the so-called ksatriya-theory when writing on Indian andIndonesian art in a book published inGermany in 1927. Was it that he wasjust influenced by the dominatingparadigm of the day or was it theevolving Indian chauvinism that leadhim to speak about Indian coloniza­tion without any shade of doubt? Wecannot tell for sure, but it felt strangefor me to see how members of the In­dian upper class, Indian administra­tors, Indian Hindu leaders, intellectu­als and artists, whom I have inter­viewed both in India as well as in In­donesia throughout the last threeyears, persistently echoed the ksatriya-theory when reflecting on the devel­opment of Hinduism in Indonesia. AnIndian professor in Bombay is cur­rently trying to raise funds - so farunsuccessfully - for a project similarto that undertaken by Thor Heyerdalto prove the trans-pacific migrationby the ancestors of the native SouthAmericans. The Indian professor onhis part wants to rebuild a ship fromthe time of the South Indian CholaDynasty and send it on its voyage toSumatra to foster the theory of aChola invasion. It seemed a strangecoincidence that when I proposed apaper on ‘Hinduism in Modern In­donesia’ for the recent QuinquennialCongress of the International Associa­tion for the History of Religion in jDurban, the conveners placed it in apanel on ‘the Hindu diaspora’.

Elitist notionWhile colonial orientalists praised

Bali as a storehouse of ancient Indiansurvivals, and theosophists acknowl­edged its culture as an offspring of theAryan invasion, Muslim and Christianmissionaries claimed that the reli­gious practices of the islanders wereneither ‘Hindu’ nor ‘religion’. Notdisputing the fact that the social hier­archy of the Balinese (a derivation ofthe Indian ‘caste’ or rather vama sys­tem), the literary tradition of theirBrahmin priests and some of their re- jligious practices were indeed remnantof ancient India, the missionariesclassified the elaborate ritual system

of the majority as native ‘animism’(adat) on the grounds that it differedwidely from the Hindu practices incontemporary India. This criticism,the influence of theosophy, and thevisit of the widely known Indian poetRabindranath Tagore to Java and Baliin 1927 inspired some Balinese intel­lectuals to scrutinize the ‘Hindu-ness’of their tradition. Several religious re­form organizations were formed withthe goal to purify, to foster, and tosafeguard the ‘Balinese Hindu reli­gion’. The progressive organizationstried to rid Balinese culture from ob­solete customs not in conformitywith a notion o f‘Hinduism’ that wasvery much inspired by RabindranathTagore, whose father, DevendranathTagore, had been comrad-in-spiritu-al-arms of Rammohun Roy, thefounder of the Brahmo Samaj. The con­servative organizations tended tocling to an elitist notion o f ‘BalineseHinduism’ that was still very muchtraditionally Balinese and less ‘Neo-Hinduized’. In some respects, it wasmuch more compatible with Dutchcolonial theosophy than with Indianreform movements.

Immediately after World War II,many Indonesian nationalists - mostof whom were Javanese along with acomparatively small number of Bali­nese - felt greatly inspired by India’s

In spite of the Treaty

of Friendship...

the relationship

between the two

countries be$an to

deteriorate

achievement of independence. More­over, India was fervently supportingIndonesia’s own struggle for indepen­dence. When in 1950, the unitary In­donesian nation state had finally ob­tained international recognition, In­dian Prime Minister Nehru was thefirst head of state of a foreign countryto visit free and independent Indone­sia. In spite of the Treaty of (‘unalter­able’) Friendship that was signed ayear later, the relationship betweenthe two countries began to deterio­rate when Krishna Menon replacedthe able and amiable Sir Benegal Rauas the leader of the Indian delegationof the Afro-Asia group within theUnited Nations. The late Ide AnakAgung Gde Agung, one of Indonesia’sdistinguished diplomats, attributedthe growing mistrust against India toMenon’s ‘arrogance and impatiencein dealing with the other delegates’.The situation was aggravated by

8 • HAS n e w s l e t t e r W 2 3 • October 2000

Nehru’s paternalistic behaviour dur­ing the Bandung Conference of 1955.When Nehru’s claim to the leadershipof the non-aligned countries clashedwith Soekarno’s own aspiration, theforeign policies of the two countriesbecame increasingly irreconcilable. Inthe context of the violent Indian-Chi-nese border dispute, the emergence ofthe so-called Jakarta-Beijing axis dur­ing the late 1950s did not help tobridge the growing rift. Official rela­tions had deteriorated to a point of noreturn when India was supportingMalaysia against Soekarno’s ‘crushMalaysia’ policy and Indonesia wasgrowing close to Pakistan.

Relations with India were, however,retained in Bali where people hadbeen forced to align themselves with a‘world religion’ due the religious poli­cy of the new Indonesian state. TheIndonesian Ministry of Religion hadclassified the religious practices andbeliefs of the Balinese as ‘native cur­rents of belief [aliran kepercayaati) - aeuphemism of‘animism’ - as opposedto ‘religion’ [agama]’. Only monothe­istic ‘world religions’ were acknowl­edged as agama, which was why ini­tially only Islam, Protestantism, andCatholicism were represented by theMinistry. Since Indonesia is not a sec­ular country - the Indonesian Consti­tution is based on the ‘Belief in theOne, Almighty God’ (Ketuhanan YangMafia Esa) -, every citizen had to be­come a member of an acknowledgedreligious community. Hence, Bali wasdeclared to become a target for Mus­lim and Christian prosyletization.The Balinese responded by announc­ing their island as an ‘AutonomousReligious Area’ and turning to Indiato reformulate their religious beliefsin accordance with the requirementsof the Ministry of Religion. At the be­ginning of the 1950s, the Arya Samajsent the Indian scholar Narendra DevPandit Shastri to Bali who took a Bali­nese wife and settled permanentlythere. Other Indian scholars and reli­gious teachers came to Bali on short-term visits. Besides, some Balinesewent to India to study at the Shanti-niketan Vishva Bharaty University,founded by Tagore, the BenaresHindu University, and Raghu Vira’sInternational Academy of Indian Cul­ture. Direct and indirect contactswere established with the GandhiPeace Foundation (see also my articlebelow), the Divine Life Society ofSwami Shivananda, and the Ramakr-ishna Mission.

'Neo-Hinduism’In a joint effort, the leaders of sever­

al Balinese religious reform organiza­tions, Pandit Shastri, the Balinesewho had returned from their studiesin India, and a Dutch turned Indone­sian orientalist, Roelof Goris, succeed­ed in formulating a new Balinese the­ology both along the lines of Indian‘Neo-Hinduism’ (V. Stietencron) aswell as in conformity of the requiredmonotheism of the Indonesian insti­tution. While Indian-Indonesian for- i ^

M O D E R N H I N D U I S M

eign relations were continuously de­teriorating, ‘Hinduism’ was finallyacknowledged as ‘one of the religionsadhered to by the Indonesian people’between 1958 an 1962. Three factorsfacilitated the official recognition: (1)the growing irritation on the part ofSukarno with the separatist and Is­lamist Darul Islam movement; (2) thefact that many members of the circlearound Sukarno were influenced bytheosophy; and (3) the coincidencethat Soekarno’s mother was Balinese.Strangely, the newly establishedParisadha Hindu Dharma, sole repre­sentative organ of the IndonesianHindu community modelled after theIndian parisad, did not include PanditShastri, who was to be further mar­ginalized as time went on. He contin­ued to exert some influence, though,through a book on Hindu Dharma forwhich he also received an award of theBirla Foundation in India.

During Soeharto’s ‘new order’regime, relations with India normal­ized, even though India had lobbiedin vain to have South Asia included

1993, several travel agencies in Balihave organized annual pilgrimages toIndia.

Having lost its main trade partner,the Soviet Union, in 1989 India hasbeen increasingly orienting itself to­wards the Asia-Pacific market, asChristophe Jaffrelot has recentlypointed out in a paper. Since 1995, theIndian Council for Cultural Relations(ICCR) has annually provided tenscholarships for Indonesians to studyIndian culture at an Indian universi­ty. These scholarships were exclusive­ly given to Indonesian Hindus whohave studied Indian philosophy,Hindi, and Sanskrit in Dehli, Agra, orother Indian cities. The ICCR has fur­thermore donated complete sets ofVedantic literature to two Balinesetemples. Besides, Indian expatriatesworking in Indonesia like, for in­stance, the general manager of the Ba­linese Oberoy Hotel, have been spon­soring the building of Hindu templesand the publication of Hindu litera­ture in Indonesia as well as providinggrants for underprivileged members

Indian Thought inthe Dutch IndiesThe Theosophical Society

W ayan Nilon Batan performing Agnihotra.

within ASEAN. However, since Soe-harto discouraged identification witha transnational religious communitythat would hamper the developmentof a strong national identity, contactsbetween Indonesian and Indian Hin­dus remained relatively limited untilthe 1980s. By then, the rapid modern­ization of Indonesian society and theincreasing intellectualization of theofficially prescribed Indonesian reli­gions had gradually undermined tra­ditional spirituality on one hand, andraised the need for a new kind of spir­ituality on the other hand, especiallyamong the urbanized modern middleclass. Among the Indonesian Hinducommunity, more and more peoplestarted to get interested in new Indi­an spiritual movements like the HareKrishna movement, the Satya Sai Babamovement, Ananda Marga, BrahmaKumaris, Shri Shri Ravi Shankar, andOsho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh). Be­sides, the ‘New Age’ culture was be­ginning to make an inroad into theJavanese and Chinese community.When Soeharto started to court theMuslim community at the end of the1980s in order to increase mass sup­port for his regime, the rapid Is-lamization of public discourse lead toserious disadvantages of the minorityreligions in Indonesia. In response tothe official promotion of a modernMuslim Indonesian identity, Hinduswere beginning to develop a strongersense of being part of a transnationalreligious community, looking toIndia for inspiration how to be a mod­ern Hindu in a modern world. Since

of the Hindu community outside Balito study Hinduism at one of Indone­sia’s Hindu colleges.

In October 2000 the Indian Ambas­sador to Indonesia, the Balinese Gov­ernor and other Balinese and Indiansliving in Indonesiajointly establishedthe Foundation for Balinese-IndianBrotherhood (Yayasan PersaudaraanBali-India) in Denpasar and a HinduStudy Centre at the UmversitasUdayana. In November 2000 a delega­tion of Balinese Brahmin priests willvisit India on the invitation of the In­dian government. A meeting with theShankaracarya of Kanchipuram hasalso been arranged for this occasion. Itis planned that the Shankaracaryawill then repay the visit of the Bali­nese priests at the beginning of nextyear. This will then be the first timethat a Shankaracarya has left the sa­cred soil of India. ■

By HERMAN DE TOLLENAERE

R esearchProject

To what extent did the Theosophical Society (TS) disseminateIndian thought to the Dutch Indies (1880-1942)? Before weembark on this topic, we need to clarify three points first:(1) what is theosophy, and what is the Theosophical Society;(2) what influence did the TS have in the Dutch Indies; and(3) how much did theosophy actually represent Indian thought?

should not try to credit the few Indianmembers of the TS living in theDutch Indies with any significant in­fluence in the local TS lodges, let alonein the politics of the Dutch Indies. Ge­ographically, membership was con­centrated on Java. Socially, most In­donesian members were Javanesearistocrats, so-called pnyayi, and onlya few of the ‘natives’ were West Suma­tran and Balinese noblemen.

One influential theosophist was amember of the Volksraad [i.e. thelargely powerless colonial ‘parlia­ment’] and a political theorist, RadenMas Soetatmo Soeriokoesoemo (1888-1924). He was also a member of thePaku Alam princely dynasty of Yo-gyakarta. Rejecting all-Indonesiannationalism, Marxism, Islam, andWestern democracy alike, Soetatmoadvocated instead an aristocratic,spiritual, ‘Javanese’ nationalism. Hisideas on spirituality, however, wererooted in a European theosophist in­terpretation of Indian religion, espe­cially the Indian caste system. Liketheosophists in other countries de­fending social hierarchies perceived asunder threat, he equated all-Indone­sian nationalism, Marxism and West­ern democracy with the sudra whomhe saw as incapable of acquiring thewise esoteric insight of their social su­periors. Soetatmo’s name and some ofhis ideas resurfaced in General Soe­harto’s post-1965 ‘New Order’ regime,even though Soetatmo’s narrow ‘Ja­vanese’ brand of nationalism had bythen ceased to be a viable ideologicaloption.

Dr M artin R am stedt is an ESF I Alliance

fellow and is stationed at the HAS in Leiden.

E-mail: mramstedt@rullet.leidenuniv.nl

hat is theoso­phy? In a widersense, people call

various attempts withindifferent religions to getknowledge of God, or of

‘higher worlds’, ‘theosophy’. Withregard to Indonesian Islam, thismight also include the Sufi tradition.Here, however, we discuss ‘theosophy’in a narrow sense, i.e. the ideas pro­moted by the Theosophical Society aswell as ideas outside the direct frame­work of the TS, but clearly influencedby it, whether it is acknowledged ornot. Within the circles of the TS,theosophy is synonymous with ‘Di­vine Wisdom’.

The TS was founded in 1875 in NewYork by sixteen people, including theinitiator, the Russian Madame Hele­na Petrovna Blavatsky, and the presi­dent, the American Col. Henry Olcott.Its immediate aim was to promote thestudy of how to evoke nature spiritsby the supposedly magical propertiesof the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.In 1879, Blavatsky and Olcott estab­lished themselves and their society inIndia. Since 1883, the headquarters ofthe TS are in Adyar near Madras. In1907, the English Annie Besant suc­ceeded Olcott as president, and int934, Besant herself was succeeded byher compatriot George Arundale.

TS influence inthe Duthc IndiesBetween 1880 and 1883 the German

Baron von Tengnagell founded thefirst TS lodge in Java. It soon fell apart,though. Twenty years later, the TS be­came more successful in the DutchIndies, also influencing the social andpolitical life outside their immediatemembership. The monthly ‘Theo­sofisch Maandblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië’ was published (in the Dutchlanguage) from July 1901 onwards. In1903, already five lodges existed inJava. All their officials were Dutch, ex­cept for one Javanese aristocrat. In1930, membership had risen to itshighest level ever: 2090 people, 1006 ofwhom were ‘European’. These Euro­peans were mainly Dutch who madeup nearly a half per cent of all theDutch in the Dutch Indies, the high­est proportion of theosophists any­where in the world! Eight hundredand sevety-six members were ‘Native’(Indonesian), and 208 members were‘Foreign Oriental’ as most Asians ofnon-Indonesian ancestry were catego­rized. Probably about 190 of themwere Chinese and approximatelytwenty of them were Indian. One

How much did theosophyactually represent Indianthought?In Indonesia, just like in other

countries, early twentieth centuryviews on India were much more influ­enced by theosophy than one mightexpect. Though the geographical andideological links of theosophy withIndia are evident, it did not originatein India nor were its leaders of thepre-1942 period Indian. In order to as­sess how theosophy disseminated In­dian thought to the Dutch Indies, wewill have to look at how theosophistsrepresented and mediated influencesfrom Indian literature, politics, andreligion.

Quite a few Indian intellectuals andartists in British India were influencedby theosophy. One of them was the fa­mous poet Rabindranath Tagore, whovisited Java and Bali, where he waswell received by both Javanese andHindu-Balinese intellectuals, in 1927.The content of political discussions inIndia as far as it consisted of topics

discussed also among the members ofthe Indian lodges, i.e. especially the is­sues connected with the fight for in­dependence controversely debated byGandhi and Annie Besant, oftenraised the interest of the theosophistsin the Dutch Indies, too. The (mainlyDutch) theosophists commenting onthese issues in writing, sided withMrs Besant who reasoned against acomplete break with the British Em­pire, whereas Gandhi or even moreanti-colonialist Indian opponentstook a much more radical stance. The(Dutch) theosophists like Govern­ment Secretary A. Vreede backed uptheir position by claiming that theDutch Indies were not as advanced asIndia. Like Mrs Besant, they basedtheir political ideas on theosophicaldoctrines. In Annie Besant’s religiouswritings, for instance, India had acentral significance for the ‘Aryanrace’, of which the highest achieve­ment so far was the British Empire. Inthe Dutch Indies, former AssistentResident and theosophist C.A.H. vonWolzogen Kiihr spoke about themythical ancient Indian colonizersbringing Indian civilization to the In­donesian islands as ‘Aryan’ predeces­sors and precedents of present ‘AryanDutch. To the Javanese priyayi,theosophists described India as thehistorical origin of their relative priv­ileges as they supposedly descendedfrom the earlier Aryan invasion of thearchipelago.

The majority religion in Indonesiain the Dutch Indies was - as it is now -Islam. Historically, Muslim tradersfrom Gujerat had been instrumentalin spreading their faith in the archi­pelago. No Indian Muslim influence,however, was mediated by the TSsince there were practically no Mus­lim members in India. Indian Hinduviews of theosophy differed widely,ranging from praise to criticism. Oneprominent Hindu critic, SwamiVivekananda, called theosophy ‘thisIndian grafting of American Spiritu­alism - with only a few Sanskrit wordstaking the place of spiritualistic jar­gon’. He saw a general tendency out­side India - which held true also forthe Dutch Indies - to form an imageof India, and Hinduism, for that mat­ter, through the mediation of theoso­phy, and claimed: ‘Hindus... do notstand in need of dead ghosts of Rus­sians and Americans!’

In 1911, Indian representatives ofHinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrian­ism, and Islam wrote to the newspa­per ‘The Hindu’ that while, in theory,adherents of any religion could jointhe TS and continue to practise theirfaiths, in fact they were obliged toadopt a collection of doctrines andideas inconsistent with any of them.The theosophist C.W. Leadbeater onhis part said: ‘you must not take it forgranted when you meet with any of

Continued on page 10 ^

October 2000 • i i as n e w s l e t t e r n?23 • 9

M O D E R N H I N D U I S Mj F Continued from page 9

INDIAN THOUGHT INTHE DUTCH INDIESBy Herman de Tollenaere

our theosophical terms, in Hindu orBuddhist books, that they mean ex­actly the same thing. Very often theydo not.’

Examining the doctrines of theoso­phy and of the authentic Indian reli­gions, important differences becomeapparent; e.g., in concepts like cakra(misspelt as ‘chakra’]. In the Indianyoga philosophy, a cakra is an imagi­nary point used to facilitate concen­tration on Hindu deities. However, inthe view of a theosophist like Lead-beater, well known in the Dutch In­dies both as a lecturer and from hiswritings, a ‘chakra’ became a really ex­istent ‘thing’, albeit ‘etheric’. Thisview, by the way, persists, like otheraspects of theosophy, in many West­ern New Age movements of today.Another example is the Sanskrit wordakasha signifying ‘space’. In theoso­phy it is used in the compositum‘Akasha chronicle’ which signifies asupposed cosmic record, stored on theso-called ‘etherical plane’, of the pastand the future accessible to the para-normally gifted, but not to mere his­torians or futurologists. The ‘Akashachronicle’, however, is no Indian con­cept. Jorg Wichmann, who scruti­nized the various theosophical doc-tries in detail, opposed the theosophi­cal concept of the ‘seven principles inman’ to the five or six substantiallydifferent ‘principles’ in Hinduism. Healso explained that the theosophical

notion of karma is more philosophi­cally ‘idealist’ than Indian concepts ofkarma. How about reincarnation, thedoctrine which would eventually be­come central to Blavatsky’s thinking?Before she went to India, she rarelymentioned the concept, if at all. Fromthe fact that it became so prominentin her later writings does, however,not follow that it retained all its origi­nal connotations. Reincarnation intheosophy supposes teleology or evo­lution in the cosmos, which contra­dicts the cyclical notion of time with­in Hinduism, or Indian philosophyfor that matter. Another differencebetween theosophy and Indian phi­losophy, especially Hinduism, is thatin theosophy, human souls will al­ways reincarnate as humans, andnever as animals. Thus, Wichmann isright to conclude that, in spite of thefact that Indian ideas did influencetheosophy, its real ‘roots’ are not Indi­an, but Western spiritualism as wellas evolutionism. One may add thattheosophists’ views on miracles werealso closer to the Christian than to theHindu tradition.

Hence, I may conclude that theTheosophical Society, which wasquite influential in the Dutch Indies,especially among the Dutch colonialadministrators as well as the Javanesenobility [priyayi], did disseminate In­dian thought to the archipelago, al­beit in a highly idiosyncretic, corrupt­ed and ‘Westernized’ form. ■

By ANANTA KUMAR GIRI

Dr Herman de Tollenaere lives in

The Hague in The Netherlands.

R esearchProject

long with sub-so­cietal political mo­bilization within

the realm of religion, wealso witness ethical andspiritual mobilization in

the direction of a more inclusive eth­ical awareness, struggle for a digni­fied society, and practical spirituali­ty - a mobilization which transcendsthe familiar boundaries of the out­sider and the insider, good and evil.But ethical mobilization here is not

Indonesiansof Indian Origin

By SILVIA VIGNATO

R esearchProject s ince the Indonesian

Bureau of Statisticsdoes not publish any

data on either ethnic back­ground or religious affilia­tion of Indonesian citi­

zens, the exact number of ethnic Indi­ans who are Indonesian nationals is, atleast to my knowledge, unknown.Most Indonesians ofethnic Indian ori­gin live in the province of NorthSumatra where I have conducted in­tense fieldwork in connection withmy docteral thesis dedicated to thetopic of ‘Hinduism among the Karoand the Tamils of North Sumatra’.Many Indians had emigrated toMedan and its hinterland when thelarge plantations were founded byWestern corporations (e.g. ‘Good Year’)in the late-nineteenth century. Oth­ers, especially the Sindhis, had come toIndonesia, both to North Sumatra andto Jakarta, after India’s partition. TheIndonesians of Indian origin, howev­er, do not make a very close-knitgroup. In North Sumatra, they consistof southern Indians (about fifteenthousand Tamils) as well as northernIndians (approximately five thousandSikhs and presumably around fiftySindhis). This highly heterogeneous

group is further divided along caste aswell as occupational lines. Hence, it isdivided on the basis of Indian lan­guage, caste, property, and rites. Astrong feeling of loss of origins,though, is shared by all.

Most Indonesians of Tamil andSikh origin have never set their footon Indian soil and never will. Theymainly, but not exclusively, keep tothemselves as a community, becausetheir religion keeps them from inter­marrying with the locals. They nei­ther read nor write Tamil or Gujeratiwhich they, however, speak. They ig­nore all that makes India a state, i.e.Indian history, modern Indianhabits, schooling in either the Hindior English language, etc. Only twosources of knowledge about the landof their forefathers are available tothe largest part of the two communi­ties: fading stories told and retold byfour generations and Hindi filmswhich they watch both on rentedvideo tapes and on Indonesian televi­sion. My own fieldwork was exclu­sively concerned with the Tamils andthe Sindhis, since it dealt with thedevelopment of Hinduism in NorthSumatra. For the Tamils, ‘India’ is amigrants’ image of rural Tamil Naduoriginating from the time before1945. When mediated through the

Globalization ofHinduismSwadhyaya in 'EnglandandSaiBaba

Globalization o f religion and varieties o f religious and spiritu­al movem ents are signs o f our times. This includes global dif­fusion o f both political and fundam entalist movements aswell as ethical socio-religious movements and spiritual m obi­lizations. For some scholars, in a globalized world, religiousm obilization can only take the form o f political m obilization,which is m ost effective at a sub-societal level since, in a demys­tified, post-traditional and post-metaphysical world, it is dif-ficult to have public influence on religion at the level o f an en­tire society concerned, not to speak o f the entire world. Butm obilization taking place in the field o f religion in the con­temporary, globalizing world is not only political and sub-so­cietal, but also ethico-spiritual, transsocial, and transnational.

just doing good for the other butalso developing oneself, making one­self a servant of God and a work ofart for creating beautiful and just re­lationships in society.1 Ethical mobi­lization includes an aesthetic mobi­lization of self for appropriate self­development, self-fashioning andself-cultivation.2

The globalization of Hinduism atthe contemporary juncture, while in­volving the globalization of a muchmore militant Hinduism such asVisva Hindu Panshad (VHP) and Ros-triya Swayam Sevak Sangha (RSS),whose activities are widespread in acountry like England, also includesthe spreading of initiatives such asSwadhyaya which embodies an ethi­cal, aesthetic and spiritual mobiliza­tion. The same is also true of the workof the Sai Baba movement in Bali,which owes its inspiration to the life,mission and work of Satya Sai Babaand the movement which followshim in India. In Bali, while providinga constructive critique of, and alterna­tive to, the highly ritualized adat reli­gion which is the customary religionof the land, the Sai Baba movementalso provides an alternative to thestate sponsored agama Hinduism,which has become part of a bureau­cratic state and whose ethical agendalacks a dimension of depth and self­development. As Leo Howe tells us:'...devotees of Sai Baba, while valuingtheir Balinese identity in some con­texts’ are also striving for a more glob­al and deeper identity: ‘This newidentity is about the individual in theworld or more precisely the individ­ual in his or her specific relationshipto the universal God. It is an identitybased on the essential self deep withinone. Experienced and dedicated devo­tees frequently speak about improv­ing and developing themselves. Overtime their nascent identity progres­sively takes on a specific shape. It ismolded by the change in lifestyle thatmembers undergo. '1

The Swadhyaya initiative in Eng­land and the Sai Baba movement inBali both have a history of abouttwenty years in their respective coun­tries. Swadhyaya came to England in1978 and Sai Baba to Bali in 1981. Letus begin with the vision and dynam­ics of Swadhyaya. Swadhyaya is a socio­

Hindi films, ‘India’ is perceived as amodern society where Hinduism,pop songs and popular dances as wellas modern notions of ‘love’ play amajor role. The few rich members ofthe community who have been toIndia, and who still have relationsthere, basically go there either forhealth care, considered better andcheaper than in Indonesia, or for veryofficial religious matters, for in­stance, when they tried to establishcontacts with the ShankaracharyaMadam of Kanchipuram. It was avery partial experience they broughthome, though.

The feeling of loss is strongeramong the Sindhis who first had toescape from the newly founded Pak­istan and then from India as well(mainly from Bombay). But becausethey still belong to a transnationalSindhi trade organization, the head­quarters of which are largely basedin Bombay, and because they travelwithin the whole Sindhi world dias­pora, their image of India is based onexperience and hence more concretethan the Tamils’ notion of India.

Though the time of emigrationbecomes a more distant past foreveryone, India has recently becomecloser due to better economic rela­tions and a general improvement ofcommunication. Thus, the Indone­sians of Indian origin in NorthSumatra now begin to mix more, notonly among themselves, but alsowith economic partners and with re­ligious institutions in India. ■

Silvia Vignato, CNRS

E-mail: silvig@compuserve.com

spiritual initiative in self-develop­ment and social transformation inIndia. It started with the spiritual dis­courses of its main source of inspira­tion, Pandurang Shastri Athavale,who is called Dadajee, which meanselder brother, and after silent work invillages in Gujarat for thirty years, ittook a socially active turn in thebuilding of many prayogas for self-de­velopment such as the communityworship centre and community farm­ing. Bfiaktiphen is the foundationalprayoga or experiment of Swadhyayawhere the participants go to meet in­terested people near and far withoutany expectations. Swadhyaya in Eng­land emerged from the pioneeringBhaktipheri that Swadhyayees fromBombay, the co-ordinating headquar­ters of Swadhyaya, had undertaken inLondon and Leicester. The GujaratiHindus of England - Swadhyaya has itmost active base in Gujarat in India -many of whom had earlier come fromEast Africa, started taking part in this

Children are subjectedto derisive comments:‘O h ,you r religion has

monkey God andElephant G od /

unfolding movement. They also start­ed doing intense Bhaktipheri and thismade Swadhyaya spread. In this initialphase, Swadhyayees were listening tothe audio cassettes of Dadajee in theSwadhyaya kendra. But then came thephase of video cassettes and on Sun­days, the day of the Swadhyaya Kendra,Swadhyayees began to attend Dadajee’svideo prabacharta as an act of worship.This is similar to the way the follow­ers of Sai Baba participate in the Bha-jan meetings in India, which is forthem an act of worship.4

Social serviceSome of the participants of Swad­

hyaya in England had also participat­ed in the Bhajan mandalis of Satya SaiBaba in East Africa, but they foundjust attending Bhajarts inadequate forfulfilling their desire for more con­crete social action. Swadhyaya’s prac­tice of devotional labour or shramah-hakti, where participants join andshare their labour and time togetherwith a spirit of devotion, providedthem with an alternative. There aredifferent projects for the offer ofshramabhakti in India compared withthose in England. But three unique

I O • has n e w s l e t t e r TsC23 • October 2000

M O D E R N H I N D U I S M

projects of Swadhyaya in England are:Sneha Care (A Care of Affection), EikyaUtpadan [Production of Unity) andPoonarn Milan (Meeting on the FullMoon Day). Sneha Care is a day carecentre, which is a prayo^a of Swad-fvyaya for the Swadhyayees of London,to take care of the elderly at the feet ofGod. They take part in this activity fortheir own self-development. Thewhole day care centre is run on thebasis of the shramabhakti of the partic­ipants. For instance, the care workersare devotional volunteers. The same istrue of those who drive the van to pickup and to drop off the clients. TheSwadhyaya Sneha Care Centre runs inEast London and is catering to fivelocal authorities. Those who work inthe kitchen are also Swadhyaya volun­teers. The volunteers are called pujamor worshippers. The day care centreneeds ten pujaris everyday, but thereare sixty to seventy people in Londonready to render their shramabhakti.Some of them have to drive for hoursto join the day care centre. The centreis managed by Hemanta Bhai andBhiru Behen who are professional careworkers working with the social wel­fare system of the UK. Since other careworkers are not professionallytrained, they are given training in hy­giene and in the maintenance ofclient-confidentiality.

Earlier the day care centre was run­ning three days a week, but now it isrunning two days a week as it hasmoved to a new community centre.There is a growing demand for thisservice of Sneha Care from the peopleof the Asian community as the main­stream social service system of the UKis not sensitive to the cultural worldof the Asians. Says Hemanta Bhai:‘The centre charges a fee of 35 poundsper person per day to the local author­ities, which is much less compared toother private contractors. The objec­tive here is not to make money but toprovide a model to the local societyand toprovide a platform for theSwadhyayees where they practise giv­ing their prime time.’ Eikya Utpadana,or production of unity, is anotherprayo^a of Swadhyaya. In this, thewomen participants of Swadhyayameet around an activity such aspreparing food together. In theHindu families in England, even if itis not an extended family, if there ismore than one woman in the house itbecomes difficult for them to agree onthe food item to prepare. The Swad-hyaya prayoga of Eikya Utpadana helpsthem to produce unity amongwomen in the household as well as inthe larger society. Another prayoga, orexperiment, is the Poonam Milan ormeeting on the full moon day. In this,women meet on the full moon dayjust to be in the company of otherwomen.

Peter Beyer argues that in the glob­alized world pure religion comes at adiscount, and religion seeking to in­fluence believers, as well as have awider public influence, has to be ap­plied. In Swadhyaya we see many ap­plied activities of religion though,unlike Beyer’s presupposition, theseactivities are not only immanent,they also embody a vibrant link withthe Transcendent in the form of prac­tical spirituality. Yo^eswara Krishi isanother applied or practical project ofSwadhyaya in which Swadhyayees comeand offer their devotional labour inthe field of agriculture. Whatever is

produced from this becomes the im­personal wealth which is shared withthe needy members of the communi­ty as a gift from God.

When Swadhyaya began in Englandthere was a feeling of uncertainty onthe part of the participants as towhether they would be able to go toanother person’s house without priorappointment as part of Bhaktipheri.But encouraged by Dadajee, Swad-hyayees started doing it. Now, theyalso undertake Bhaktipheri in distanttowns. For example, Swadhyayeesfrom East London go in Bhaktipheri toNottingham, and those from Leices­ter, to Cambridge. They go in Bhak-tiphen once a month for one weekend.For them to leave their work and tojoin in Bhaktipheri requires a greatdeal of preparation, but through thisthey learn to develop themselves andto live for others and God. Swadhyayaprovides the participants frameworksfor creative identity formation. Thisis especially true of the younger gen­eration. Living in English society,both in the school as well as in thewider society, they are asked ques­tions about their religion. Children

Churches to templesIn both London and Leicester, RSS

and VHP also work. While the partici­pants of sakhas of RRS appreciate therole of Swadhyaya, they complain thatSwadhyaya does not fight with thosewho attack Hindus and does not doenough to save culture. In a discussionon this held in Nottingham duringmy visit, one Swadhyayee activist toldthe sakha activist: 'While by culturesakha means the culture of the landand has a territorial notion of culture,Swadhyaya has a much wider notion ofculture which is Vedic. Protection andnurturance of this culture requiressilent cultural work.’ Swadhyaya fur­ther argues that Hindu culture cannotbe saved by building temples. Hindusin England seem to be taking satisfac­tion in the fact that they are buyingchurches to build temples as many ofthe churches are suffering from theproblem of low attendance. Swadhyay­ees warn the builders of temples that ifthey do not make religion a practicaland spiritual quest in the life of theparticipants, then temples would havethe same fate as the mainline church­es in the West.

nese temples, and commercial facili­ties’7. Followers of Sai Baba in Bali alsocondemn competitive ritual display,gambling, cock-fighting and theslaughtering and eating of animals,all of which are central to local adatreligion’. They also provide an alter­native to the orthodoxy and hierarchyof both the adat and the a^ama reli­gions. Though the Sai Baba move­ment in India bears the mark of classand caste, Bali it is relatively egalitari­an. It ‘provides the unique combina­tion of a personal and loving relation­ship with a loving God together witha relatively egalitarian theology andsocial organization which help main­tain the struggle against the inequali­ties embedded in Balinese institu­tions.’8

There seems to have taken placesome shift in globalization of the SaiBaba movement. The Sai Baba move­ment in India is much more con­trolled by hierarchies of caste andclass than it is in Bali.9 Under theweight of hierarchical social and reli­gious institutions, the Balinese haveprobably interpreted the universalmessage of love of Sai Baba in a much

Balinese shrine with poster o f Sai Baba

are subjected to quite derisive com­ments in the school: ‘Oh, your reli­gion has monkey God (referring toHamman] and Elephant God (refer­ring to Ganesh).’ Swadhyaya teachesthe participants about the symbolicmeaning of such Gods, as well asabout the scientific basis of religiousrituals. In the context of a coming of apost-traditionalist rationality andglobalization, Giddens argues thatfollowers of religion are required tojustify their beliefs, in an implicitway at least, both to themselves andto others.’8 Swadhyaya is confrontedwith such a question of justification,but its response is not confined onlyto a rational reconstruction of reli­gious ritual but includes experimentsin practical spirituality, pray05as ofself-development, and holding thehands of the other. Here justificationis much more than Habermasian ra­tional argumentation and applica­tion, which is divorced from a tran­scendental inspiration of love andpractice in these experiments, whileembodying a critique of scholasticreason is much more than rationalstrategies ofBourdieu.6

Swadhyaya is engaged in a con­structive critique and reconstructionof Hinduism. Bhaktiphen is a socialforce in Swadhyaya. The Sai Babamovement in Bali is also engaged in acritique and reconstruction of boththe ritualistic Hinduism of Bali - theadat religion - and its more formal­ized agama religion. Working in Balisince 1981, it has centres in manytowns and, though it does not haveany formal membership, five to sixthousand people regularly attend themeetings. While in adat religion, to bea member of the temple congregationone has to pay a membership fee, inthe devotional Hinduism of the SaiBaba movement there is no such re­quirement for payment of fees. Thecentres on the other hand, have botheducational programmes in which re­ligious education is imparted as wellas community development pro­grammes for the spiritual develop­ment of the participants. As Howetells us: ‘Members make charitabledonations (money, materials, labour)to help others whether these are fol­lowers or not. They also help to cleanand renovate hospitals, schools, Bali-

more radical manner than what wasperhaps intended. Though Bhajan is akey activity in both the Sai Babamovement in India and Bali, in Balisocial outreach programmes in whichthere is voluntary sharing of not onlyresources but also time and labourseems to be more common. But thisvoluntary sharing of time and labourseems a minuscule gesture in com­parison with its intensity, scale andprimacy in Swadhyaya. In Swadhyaya,devotional travel and sharing of devo­tional labour is a foundational activi­ty. The Sai Baba initiative in Bali canreflect on the need to create moreplatforms of sharing of devotionallabour, and through this generate re­sources for community development.Though the community developmentactivities in the Sai Baba movementare supported by the donations of par­ticipants, it would carry the egoistictraces of the giver but for the spiritualdevelopment of the participants andfor the realization of a more dignifiedequality. It is important that the ac­tivities are not run on the patronageof the rich clients. In the Swadhyayamovement in both England and

India, the rich participants do nothave a determining voice. This is pos­sible because the primary source ofwealth in Swadhyaya is not money (ei­ther the state grant or donation fromprivate philanthropists) but time andlabour which are deployed with aspirit of Bhakri in several initiativesthat generate well-being, such asSneha Care and Yogeswara Krisht. Thedeployment of devotional labour andthe sharing of time in these initiativescreate wealth which, ia tum , is spenton the amelioration of suffering inthe community and on undertakingnew community development pro­grammes, The Sai Baba initiative con­siders making devotional labour a keyingredient in its devotional engage­ment. It also rethinks the primacy itaccords to miracles by having a dia­logue with Swadhyaya, which does nothave any faith in miracles and has anintellectual and rational approach toreligious practice and ritual. At thesame time, the Swadhyaya movementin India and England can learn fromthe Sai Baba initiative in Bali, the wayand the extent to which it has beenable to overcome the hierarchy ofcaste. Though in its rhetoric and cer­tain domain of its practice, Swadhyayahas been able to overcome the distinc­tions of caste, caste hierarchy stillposes a major challenge to the socio­spiritual movement of Swadhyaya. ■

Notes1 Cf Ananta K. Giri, ‘The Calling of

an Ethics ofServanthoood,’ Journalof Indian Council of PhilosophicalResearch 1998; Michel Foucault, Careof the SelffNew York: Pantheon, 1986);and Eliane Scarry, On Beauty andBeing Just (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1999).

2 Cf Ananta K. Giri, ‘The Calling of anEthics o f Servanthoood,’ Journal ofIndian Council o f PhilosophicalResearch 1998; Michel Foucault,Care o f the Self (New York: Pantheon,1986); and Eliane Scarry, On Beautyand Being Just (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1999).

3 Leo Howe, Sai Baba in Bali: Identity,Social Conflict and the Politics ofReligious Truth (Dept, o f SocialAnthropology, University ofCambridge: Paper, 1999, p.28.

4 Cf Lawrence A. Babb, RedemptiveEncounters: Three Modern Styles inthe Hindu Tradition (Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press, 1987).

5 Giddens (op. cit., 1999), p. 45.6 Cf J urgen Habermas, J ustification

and Application (Cambridge:Polity Press, 1993); Pierre Bourdieu,Pascalian Meditations (Cambridge:Polity Press, 2000).

7 Howe (op. cit, 1999).8 Howe (op. cit., 1999).9 Babb (op. cit, 1987).

Dr Ananta Kumar Giri works atMadras Institute o f Development Studies,

Chennai, India.

October 2000 • i i as n e w s l e t t e r 14923 • 1 1

M O D E R N H I N D U I S M

bu Gedong and Prof!Bagus, as they are moreintimately called, have

as much in common asthey differ in age, inlifestyle, and in viewpoint.

They are both members of the tradi­tional Balinese nobility, albeit nothigh nobility. They both received athorough Western education. Theyboth set out early on a quest for un­derstanding their religious traditionin a broader context. They both havebeen stronlgy influenced by classicalmodern Indian Hindu thinkers sincelong before this became commonamong contemporary IndonesianHindu intellectuals. They have re­peatedly joined forces in co-foundinga couple of religious organizations,i.e. the Forum Pemerfiati Hindu DharmaIndonesia (‘Forum for the Concern ofthe Hindu Religion’) and the ForumPenyadaran Dharma (‘Forum for theAwareness of Dharma’), that wereformed to strengthen and to safe-

Ibu Gedong B ago andProf. I Gusti Ngurah Bagus

guard the Hindu religion vis-a-vischallenges from outside as well asfrom within the Hindu community.Last but not least, they both havebeen elected as members of the In­donesian Parliament (Majelis Perwaki-lan Rakyat), representing the Indone­sian Hindu community in the post-Soeharto political process.

Ibu Gedong, however, belongs tothe first generation of Balinese I(Hindu) intellectuals who receivedtheir school education in the pre-war period. She has been very muchinfluenced by Christianity throughher former Dutch mentor, a Christ­ian philosopher of religion, in whosefamily she stayed while attending aHollandsch-lnlandsch School (‘DutchSchool for Natives') in Yogyakarta.

This article is basedon interviews with

Ibu Gedong Bagoes Okaand Prof. I Gusti NgurahBagus, which I conducted

in October, 1999,and in July 2000, as wellas on various writings

which testify tothe influence o f modem

Indian Hinduism in the lifeand thinking o f these twoprominent Balinese Hindu

intellectuals.

By MARTI N RAMS TE DT

After prolonged private studies ofthe Christian scriptures and theChristian spiritual tradition, she wasable to reconcile her Hindu-Balinesetradition with the inspirations shehas gained from her encounter withChristianity by discovering theteachings of Mahatma Gandhi and,to a lesser extent, those of SwamiVivekananda as her life inspiration.She has ever since dedicated a con­siderable part of her life to socialwork, applying the teachings ofGandhi and Swami Vivekananda tocircumstances in Bali and Java whereshe has founded altogether threeGandhi Ashram. Eleven years youngerthan Ibu Gedong, Prof Bagus fin­ished his school education in the for­mative years of the Indonesian na­

tion state. Having been influencedby theosophy through his father, heturned to study Balinese literature,linguistics, Asian philosophy, as wellas anthropology in Yogyakarta,Jakarta, and Leiden. Given his specialfield of interest, it might not be sur­prising that he felt especially drawnto the teachings of RabindranathTagore and Sarvepalli Radhakrish-nan. As professor of anthropology atBali’s state university (UniversitasUdayana), he has continuously con­cerned himself with the actual aswell as the philosophical problemsof the cultural and religious changein Bali. Recently, he began to advo­cate a closer cultural co-operationwith relevant Indian institutions.The following paragraphes will in­troduce both Ibu Gedong as well asProf Ngurah Bagus in a more de­tailed manner, focusing on theiropinion on contemporary Indian-In-donesian relations. ■

Gedong Baboes Oka* T ^ orn seventy-nine years ago to a1 ^ modern-minded father and a

J i j more conservative mother, IbuGedong Bagoes Oka was sent as oneof four Balinese girls to a Holland­sch-lnlandsch School (‘Dutch Schoolfor Natives’) in Yogyakarta. Duringthe eight years of her attendance, shestayed in the family of Prof. JohanesHerman Bavinck, professor of theolo­gy at the College of Christian Theolo­gy in Yogyakarta. Her new Christiansurroundings confronted her withnew spiritual, ethical, and democrat­ic values that challenged her ownfeudal and orthopractic BalineseHindu tradition. Like all Balinese re­formers of both the colonial andpost-colonial period, she came to theconclusion that the Hindu religionin Bali was very much influenced byBalinese local culture, called adat,overburdened by a complex ritualsystem, stifled by a strict caste hier­archy, and lacking in spiritual depth.She continued her education at aChristian college for higher educa­tion and subsequently taught at aChristian school in Bogor. In 1941,Ibu Gedong returned to Bali to teachat a higher secondary school (SekolahLanjutan Atas) in Singaraja and tobecome its headmistress later. Dur­ing the struggle for Indonesian inde­pendence as well as in the formativeyear of the new Indonesian nationstate, she fought for a strong role ofreligion within the new Indonesiansociety. In her husband, the late IGusti Bagoes Oka, she had found aninspiring and supportive spiritualcompanion with whom she shared agrowing enthusiasm for the teach­ings of Gandhi. From this fulfilling

marriage, six sons were born. Aftershe had obtained her bachelor degree(Sarjana Muda) at the UniversitasUdayana in Bali’s capital Denpasar in1964, she taught English at the Facul­ty of Lettres (Fakultas Sastra) be­tween 1965 and 1972. During that pe­riod, her activities started to get amuch more spiritual focus, leadingto the foundation of the Yayasan BaliSanti Sena (‘The Balinese PeaceFront’) in 1970.

In 1974, Ibu Gedong translated theEnglish biography of MahatmaGandhi into Indonesian, which waspublished a year later, i.e. in 1975. Ayear later she founded the AshramGandhi Sand Dasa in the village ofCandidasa, situated at Bali's east-coast, and dedicated the greater partof her time to manage its affairs. Ac­tivities in the ashram were geared topractical purposes. School educationwas provided for orphans and chil­dren from poor families. Work pro­jects in the spirit ofsvadeshi were de­signed to improve the local agricul­ture on the basis of the traditionalknowledge for which Bali is famous.The ashram does not only educate Ba­linese children but is also open toforeigners of all walks of life andfrom various religious backgroundswho want to deepen their spiritualunderstanding in contemplative sur­roundings. The daily religious prac­tice in the ashram consists of com­mon prayer and chanting,yoga , med­itation, and a simplified form of theVedic fire ritual, the agmhotra. Thestudents have the chance to listen tospiritual lectures and are encouragedto study the sacred literature in thelibrary of the ashram individually.

Ibu Gedong advocates a highly re­formed, democratic, and tolerantpractice of Hinduism that she sees asa kind of eternal and universal reli­gion (sananta dharma) based on theIndian Veda and Vedanta, yet compat­ible with other true spiritual revela­tions such as the Christian gospel orthe Islamic Alquran. In Bali, she hasrelentlessly tried to acquaint peoplewith a less ritualistic but more spiri­tual religious practice without, how­ever, condemning the Balinese ritualtradition as such, as younger andmore radical Hindu intellectualshave done. Not surprisingly, hermodernist and decidedly Gandhiannotion of Hindu Dharma has not onlyinspired praise but has raised alsocriticism, especially on the part ofBalinese conservatives such as thetraditional Brahmin priests (IdaPedanda).

While pursuing her responsibili­ties at the Ashram Gandhi Santi Dasa,Ibu Gedong was still occasionallyteaching English at the UniversitasUdayana as well as lecturing on spir­

itual topics both within Indonesia aswell as abroad. Her work has takenher frequently to India, where sheregularly participates in seminarsand other events organized by theGandhi Peace Foundation. In 1994she received the International BajajAward from the Bajaj Foundation inBombay for continuously spreadingthe ideas of Mahatma Gandhi. In1996, she established the Ashram BaliGandhi Vidyapith in Denpasar, anashram that was specially designed toeducate students at the local univer­sities in the thinking of Gandhi.Since she has been able to influencemore and more educated membersof the Balinese urban youth, repre­sentatives of other persuasions havetried to damage her spiritual author­ity by pointing to her insufficienteducation in the Sanskrit language.More recently, Ibu Gedong instigat­ed the foundation of another ashramin Yogyakarta, where she has follow­ers not only among the local Hinducommunity but also among Muslimand Christian Javanese. Always pro­

f iAMnm/VIVEKANANP

ibu Gedong Bagoes Oka at her ashram in Denpasar.

actively fighting for inter-religiousharmony and understanding, shehas been able to develop constructiverelations with open-minded Chris­tians such as Dr Thomas Sumartana,Head of the Insdtut DIAN/ Interfidei,dedicated to the promotion of inter­religious discourse in Indonesia, orthe pastor and Christian intellectualDr Eka Darmaputera.

Being one of the first Balinesewomen who received a higherschool education, Ibu Gedong hasalso contributed to the emancipa­tion of women in Bali through herfoundations Yayasan Kosala Wanita(‘Foundation for the Developmentof Women’) and Yayasan Kesejahter-aan Perempuan (Foundation for theWelfare of Women’), pleading for ageneral secondary school educationfor women and for the use of naturalmedicine and yo g a as a kind ofcheap, yet effective preventive medi­cine available to everybody. She her­self lives as a strict vegetarian, bas­ing her lifestyle on the Gandhianprinciples of ‘non-violence’ and to‘live simple so that others can sim­ply live’. These principles she hasalso vigourously defended in herYayasan Perkumpulan PemberantasanTuberkulose Indonesia (‘Foundationfor Fighting Tuberculosis’) and onvarious other occasions, for examplewhen taking part in the World Con­ference on Religion and Peace. In Oc­tober 1999 her achievements werecrowned with her election as amember of the Indonesian Parlia­ment under the leadership of Presi­dent Abdulrahman Wahid and Vice-President Megawati Soekarnoputri.Besides her parliamentary duties,she continues to translate Englishcollections of the sayings of Gandhiinto Indonesian. ■

1 2 • h a s n e w s l e t t e r W 2 3 • October 2000

M O D E R N H I N D U I S M

Prof. I Gusti N g Bag usf n 1932, Prof! Dr I Gusti NgurahI Bagus was born into the family

of the former feudal overlord ofa small village near Denpasar. Sincehis grandfather had wasted the fam­ily wealth on gambling and women,his father had to make a living as ateacher at the local volksschool (‘ele­mentary school’). When his fatherstopped working in order to concen­trate on the study of religion andtheosophy, Prof. Bagus’ mother wasforced to trade in local commoditiesto provide for the education of theirchildren. From 1938 to 1944, Prof.Bagus attended elementary school,first in his village and later in Den­pasar. During the turbulent years of1945 and 1946, schools were closed,and Prof. Bagus had to stay at home.He became very close to his fatherwho had by now focused his sole at­tention on the study of religion andtheosophy, immersing himself inthe classical Balinese religious textspreserved in the palmleaf (lontar)manuscripts of the family as well asin the collection of theosophicalbooks he had been able to acquire.Prof. Bagus recalls growing up witha foto of Krishnamurti hanging onthe wall of his fathers pavilion. Inthose days, his father liked to discussthe life and teachings of Jesus and Je-sajah with two Christian friends.Often, his father would read him

passages from the palmleaf manu­scripts, while Prof. Bagus himselfalso enjoyed reading about Chinesereligion.

In 1946, Prof. Bagus continued hiseducation at a Dutch secondaryschool in Denpasar. Beside his for­mal schooling, he studied classicalBalinese texts with the Brahminpriest (nabe) of his family. In 1950, hewas sent to Yogyakarta in order toattend a Catholic school. In Yo­gyakarta, he also visited some theo­sophical lodges, which had a strongleaning towards Buddhism, andstarted to study theosophy more sys­tematically. In the library of theSonobudoyo Museum, he spenthours reading books on Indian phi­losophy. After one year, he changedfrom the Catholic school to a stateschool due to growing religious con­flicts with his Catholic teacher. In1953, he entered the Gadhah MadaUniversity in Yogyakarta and en­rolled in Eastern literature. A yearlater he switched to the study of an­thropology and linguistics, privatelyreading Albert Schweizer, Radhakr-ishnan, and the Indian Bhagavad^itaformerly unknown in Bali. In 1956,he went on a grant to the UniversitasIndonesia (UI) in Jakarta to studyunder the well known anthropolo­gists Prof Alaar and Prof. Koent-jaraningrat. At the same university,

Guest 'EditorMartin RamstedtMartin Ramstedt was bom in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in1 9 6 Z . In München he studied Indian Studies, Prehistory, Psy­chology, and Folklore Studies, majored in Ethnology, and spe­cialized on Indonesia. Already in 1981 he had taken up playingthe Balinese gamelan which roused his interest for Bali. Hismaster thesis, which he published in several articles, dealtwith the influence o f Indonesian cultural policy on the devel­opment o f the performing arts in Bali. For his PhD on theworld view and legitimacy o f rule in pre-colonial Bali he stud­ied with Balinese priests, priest puppeteers, and artists. Later,he again turned to the present, to modem Indonesia, and tothe study o f Hinduism which enabled him to look beyondBali. He added South Sulawesi, Java, and, recently, India to hisscope. In the autumn o f this year he is travelling to Sumatraand Kalimantan for an investigation o f Hindu communitiesthere. For the last three years Martin Ramstedt has been work­ing at the HAS, with funding from the ESF Asia Committee, towrite his ‘Habilitation’ (professorial thesis).

"Y ts strong ability toI adapt and reinvent it-

self under difficultcircumstances made In­donesian ‘Hinduism’ aninteresting topic for Mar­

tin Ramstedt. ‘Hinduism has a diffi­cult status in Indonesia. The so-called“religions of heaven”, based on divinerevelations, such as Islam and Chris­tianity, have discriminated againstethnic religions that are supposedlyman-made and rooted in local tradi­tion. Some of these ethnic religionswere classified as currents of Indone­sian Hinduism between 1958 and1980. During Bali’s colonization be­tween 1849 and 1908, Christians andMuslims alike sniffed their noses atthe Balinese who, to their minds, had

a fellow Balinese, Ida Bagus Mantra,who had graduated from the Shanti-niketan Vishva Bharaty Universityin India, founded by RabindranathTagore, was continuing his studiesin a related field. In their free time,both men instigated other Balinesestudents to study the Hindu religiontogether. Having graduated from UI,Prof. Bagus returned to Bali wherehe conducted fieldwork on varioustopics such as the Balinese ritual sys­tem, the impact of tourism on Bali­nese society and culture, the historyof an early Balinese religious reformorganization as well as Balinese folk­lore. After he had spent two years atthe University of Leiden from 1971 to1973, he wrote his dissertation on asocio-linguistic aspect of the Bali­nese language. Since 1983, he hasworked as professor of anthropologyat the Universitas Udayana in Den­pasar, gaining a reputation as a Bali­nese homme de lettre of internationalstatus.

In response to what he frequentlydescribes as the growing Islamizationof Indonesian society, Prof. Bagusstarted to become an activist on be­half of the Hindu religion in the be­ginning of the 1990’s. In 1991, he con­vened a seminar at the Bali BeachHotel in order to discuss strategiesonhow to forestall any further dero­gatory remarks about Hinduism onthe part of Muslim Indonesians suchas those made in the tabloid IKRA. In1995, he joined the first Bali-widedemonstration against the Bali Nir-

Prof. I Gusti Ngurah Bagus

vana Beach Resort, a hotel complexbuilt by successful Sumatran Muslimentrepreneurs, the Bhakrie brothers,which desecrated the sacred groundaround the famous temple Tanah Lot.Having distinguished himself as aspokesman for democracy and thepreservation of local culture, ProfBagus was elected as a member of theIndonesian Parliament during the in­terregnum of ex-President Habibie.In 1999, he initiated the establish­ment of the Forum for the Awarenessof Dharma (Forum Penyadaran Dhar-ma), and increasingly talked aboutHindutva in connection with the con­temporary Indonesian Hindu move­ment.

Dr Martin Ramstedt

no religion, a term which they re­served exclusively for monotheistictraditions. They even denied themthe status of being “Hindu” whileEuropean orientalists praised Bali tobe “the last Hindu enclave" in thewhole archipelago. Later, the Indone­sian government pursued to rational­ize the religiosity of the people to pre­pare them for modernity. Magic,trance, and other local traditionswere to be ignored.’

‘For these reasons, the Balinese hadto officially reformulate their theolo­gy in the 1950s. From their pantheonof gods, they chose one AlmightyGod, classifying the rest as relative as­pects of God, akin to the Muslim andChristian angels. Rituals were stan­dardized, a new emphasis was laid on

reading texts. The Bhahagavad Gita, apreviously unknown text, becameone of the Holy Books of IndonesianHinduism that copied much fromneo-Hinduism in India. This Sanskri-tized version of “Hindu” religiositystood in fact in great contrast to thefolk Hinduism that had long existedin Bali. Previously, India had not beena reference point for Balinese identi­ty-’

‘Members of other ethnic groupsfollowed the example of the Balinesewhen having a “religion” became im­perative under Soeharto’s anti-Com-munist regime, seeking recognitionfor their local religions as “Hindusects”. The Balinese, however, havemonopolized important positions inthe supra-local Hindu bureaucracy.This bureaucracy has been the domi­nant representative of Hinduism inIndonesia until now. The Indonesianor even Balinese Hindu community isnow far from unified. With liberal­ization and ‘democracy’ Balinese havetried to disempower the Hindu bu­reaucracy as the only decision-makerconcerning religious affairs. Some af­fluent Balinese and Javanese have

Prof Bagus has visited India sever­al times. In 1999, he was part of a Ba­linese delegation that was invited bythe Indian government to talk aboutcloser cultural cooperation betweenBali and India. At the moment, he isbusy lobbying for the establishmentof a Hindu Centre dedicated to theprotection of the status of Hinduismwithin Indonesian society and thedevelopment of the human resourceswithin the national Hindu commu­nity. Prof Bagus cannot be describedas a religious or spiritual leader likeIbu Gedong. He is an intellectualHindu activist striving to prepare theHindu community for the challengescaused by being a religious minorityin contemporary Indonesia. As anacademic, he tries to promote a ratio­nalized, modern form of Hinduism,the practice of which he likes to seefirmly rooted in a profound knowl­edge of Indian philosophy still un­common among Indonesian Hindus.In order to promote the study of In­dian philosophy, he has recentlypublished writings of Swami Vive-kananda, Rabindranath Tagore andSarvepalli Radhakrishnan in the In­donesian language. However, as ananthropologist, he cannot endorsethe substitution of Balinese religiouspractices by forms of religious serviceimported from modern India. Hence,he has witnessed the growing popu­larity of the Hare Krishna and theSatya Sai Baba movement in Bali with

turned to India for guidance, express­ing themselves against animal sacri­fice and propagating vegetarianism.Hare Krishna, Ananda Marga, Tran­scendental Meditation, Brahma Ku-maris, Shri Shri Ravi Shankar, and,most of all, Sai Baba have gained con­siderable ground. On the other hand,some influential people are againstIndian influence. They say that theBalinese tradition is unique andshould not be hegemonized by India.’

Martin Ramstedt sees IndonesianHindus turning to India for reasonsof strengthening their positionsagainst hegemonic Indonesian Islamas well as Christianity. Through thisissue’s theme he hopes to stimulatethe debate on this rapprochement.The Indianization of Southeast Asiahas often been described for the peri­od from the beginning of this era tothe fifteenth century, but modem re­lations have largely been neglected.After the dissolution of the SovietUnion in 1989 India lost its maintrading partner. India then shiftedfocus to the Asia Pacific and tried toestablish better relations with Eastand Southeast Asia on the basis of acommon Hindu-Buddhist heritage.Most Indians do not know about In­donesian Hinduism though, butthere is an increase in awareness onthe part of different Indian institu­tions. Due to his increasing influencein Indonesia, and Southeast Asia ingeneral for that matter, Sai Baba is acase in point.' Ramstedt has visitedthe ashram of Sai Baba in Putta-parthy, India, where he found severalboob on Sai Baba’s preaching in theIndonesian language as well as otherreferences to both the Balinese andJavanese culture. Alternatively, moreand more boob on Indian Hinduismare appearing in Indonesia while

reserve.

Hare Krishna ashram, Sai StudyGroups, and Yoga centres have beenset up in Bali and Java, and Balinesetravel agencies have organized annu­al pilgrimages to India since 1993-’

‘The future of Indonesian Hin­duism will be determined by a grow­ing orientation towards Indian Hin­duism, boosted by the increasing is­lamization of the Indonesian society.This in turn may lead to an increas­ing fragmentation of the already di­versified community. Christianiza­tion is threatening Hindu communi­ties in South Sulawesi and NorthSumatra. Since they are economicallyand education-wise lagging behind,converting to Christianity oftenmeans moving upwards socially andeconomically. Moreover, traditional­ists among the “Hindu” communi­ties tend to reject the reformation oflocal religion, hence preventing In­donesian Hinduism to become a vi­able medium of modernisation forthe marginalised communities. Be­cause the traditional rituals relatedto the agricultural cycle cost bothtime and money, “Hindus” increas­ingly turn to less costly forms of reli­gious practice. In South Sulawesi andNorth Sumatra, this often meansconversion to Christianity. In Baliand Java, however, this trend has en­couraged the boom of Indian spiritu­al movements.’

After completing his Habilitationentitled Diversity in Peril? ‘Hinduism’ inModem Indonesia in 2001, MartinRamstedt would like to look furtherinto Indonesian Studies by concen­trating on avenues of tolerance with­in Indonesian Islam. ‘To understandcontemporary Indonesia, it is imper­ative to tackle the question of reli­gious pluralism and tolerance’ hesays. - (EvdH) ■

October 2000 • has n e w s l e t t e r n ?23 • 1 3

R E G I O N A L N E W S

Central A F G H A N I S T A N • K A Z A K H S T A N

K Y R G Y Z S T A N • M O N G O L I A

T A J I K I S T A N • T I B E T

T U R K M E N I S T A N • U Z B E K I S T A N

XI NJ I A N G - U Y G U R

The Buddhas of BamiyanChallenged witnesseso f Afghanistan s forgotten past

By JET VAN KRIEKEN

I H I I W Ü 1[ I

At a symposium last April on the occasion o f the 75th anniver­sary o f the Kern Institute in Leiden, Dr P. Verhagen empha­sized the importance o f manuscripts from Afghanistan for theunderstanding and study o f early Buddhism. He told the audi­ence that, during the last decade, many o f these kinds o f man­uscripts had shown up in the Western world. Quite a numberare in the hands o f the Schoyen collection in Norway. Perhapsfor the audience it was an interesting statement, but for me itwas quite a shock.

source of information. Thisis why illegal digging, whichmay cause the destruction ofunknown contents of histor­ical significance, is all themore regrettable.

Buddhism was introducedinto this area in the thirdcentury B.C. by the Mauryanemperor Ashoka. It foundfertile soil in the formerGandhara province [nowa­days, East Afghanistan andNorth Pakistan) around thefirst and second centuriesA.D. under the rule of thegreat Kushan ruler Kanish-ka. At that time, Afghanistanlay at the heart of the SilkRoute, as everybody travel­ling over land from East toWest had no option but tojourney through it. Along itsroads passed silk from China,delicate glassware from Alex­andria, bronze statues fromRome, and beautifully deco­rated ivories from India.These kinds of objects havebeen excavated in Afghan­istan.

Accompanying the caravans of pre­cious goods, Buddhist monks cameand went, teaching their religionalong the route. From this very part ofthe world Buddhism established itselfover the centuries in China, Korea,Japan, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, andMongolia.

In the early centuries of the Christ­ian era, Eastern Afghanistan was fullof lively Buddhist monasteries, stupasand monks. In this rich and peacefulclimate, a new art form emerged: theart of Gandhara, bearing the samename as the province in which it ap­peared. The origin of this art is a mat­ter of debate, but Hellenistic influ­ence was strong. During this period,the earliest Buddha images in humanform also evolved in this Kushan/Sakaarea. Some scholars, like A. Foucher,argued that this transformation wasengendered by the influence of Greekexamples, but this assumption is alsoconstantly being challenged.

Two monumental BuddhasIn this Buddhist richness of inspi­

ration, two masterpieces were pro­duced which stand out head andshoulders above the others, the Bud­dhas of Bamiyan. These two giantBuddhas (55 m. and 38 m. high, re­spectively) stand in the beautifulBamiyan valley, situated 230 km NW

lived in Peshawar, halfan hour from theAfghan border, during

the years 1993-1995. Thistown, the capital of theNorthwest Frontier Pro­

vince of Pakistan, has quite a few Bud­dhist monuments itself Most of theWesterners working in Peshawar wereinvolved with refugees who were flee­ing the devastating war in Afghan­istan. Only a handful were concernedabout the plight of the cultural her­itage of Afghanistan. Monumentswere being neglected, if not badlydamaged by the war, historic sites hadbeen and were still being illegally ex­cavated and, most importantly, theKabul Museum, which houses an im­portant collection, was being dam­aged and plundered. Many artefactswere leaving the country illegally.Nancy Dupree, an expert with manyrelations with Afghans ‘in the field’and who is now working for ACBAR-/ARIC in Peshawar, has played a majorrole in trying to stop the destruction.Together, we decided to set up the So­ciety for the Preservation of Afghan­istan’s Cultural Heritage (SPACH) inSeptember 1994. One of the aims ofSPACH is to raise awareness withinthe country and abroad about theplight of Afghanistan’s cultural her­itage and to stop the destruction,plunder, and illegal sales of Afghanartefacts. Hence, the shock I just men­tioned that was caused by an ‘inno­cent’ remark and, therefore, the rele­vance of SPACH.

Buddhism in AfghanistanAfghanistan is a country with a

very rich, fairly complicated, history.Because of its mountainous terrain, itwas often on the borders of differentempires and has played a part in ahost of different era’s. Although an­cient texts about the region exist,their interpretations give rise to someheated discussions. As most of the ob­jects known from this area were pro­duced by excavations, archaeologicalfindings are an extremely important

gtyjg

v ' W f

The By Buddha o f Bam iyan in the early 1990sfro m SPACH collection)

of Kabul at an altitude of 2500 metres.The caravans on the Silk Route invari­ably made a stop in this valley. It wasone of the major Buddhist centresfrom the second century up to thetime that Islam entered the valley inthe ninth century.

The two statues were hewn out ofthe rock (estimates of dates vary, butmost probably around the fourth andfifth centuries A.D.). They were cov­ered with a mud and straw mixture tomodel the expression of the face, thehands and the folds of the robes. Thiswas then plastered and, finally, theywere painted: the smaller Buddhablue, the larger one red, with theirhands and faces gold. They must havebeen quite impressive for monks trav­elling through the harsh surround­ing landscape, who finally reachedthe beautiful valley with the peacefulBuddhas making the gesture of reas­surance.

The features of the Buddhas havedisappeared. During the centuriesthey have probably been assailed byiconoclasts. The idea behind the de­struction was to take away the soul ofthe hated image by obliterating, or atleast deforming, the head and hands.Although there is no firm evidencethe Buddhas were subjected to icono-clasm, this fate was certainly metedout to the frescoes surrounding theBuddhas, namely the numerous reli­gious places and monk’s cells alsohewn out of the rock and coveredwith beautiful paintings. The faces inthese were destroyed by one of themany groups of invaders who havepassed that way.

The Buddhas, at once so impres­sive and yet so vulnerable, have sur­

vived the hostile onslaughtsover the centuries. Even so,they are still at risk. In themid-1990s, the space at thefeet of the bigger Buddhawas being used as an am­m unition dump by one ofthe warring factions. It waspractical: it was an easily de-fendable, dry position. Whowould dare to attack it? Oneshot might blow this giantup. But on the other hand,who would care? This imagecould be regarded as an idol,and human and animal de­pictions are forbidden byIslam. So it was worth tak­ing the risk.

SPACHBased in Islamabad/Pesha-

war, SPACH was, of course,greatly concerned about thefate of the Buddha. In 1997, aTaliban commander trying totake over the valley stated hewould blow up the Buddhasthe moment the valley fellinto his hands. After interna­tional protests, the Talibanhigh command in Kandahar

denied they would harm the Buddhasand promised to do their best to pro­tect Afghan cultural heritage. ButSPACH was not fully satisfied andasked the leader of the Hezb-e Wahdatparty, under whose authority was thecommander who controlled the dump(at the foot of the Buddha), to ensurethe removal of the ammunition. Henot only agreed, but a General Officefor the Preservation of Historical Sitesin Hazarajat was even established.

The valley has been in the hands ofthe Taliban since the autumn of 1998.In spite of all the efforts, statementsand promises between the Taliban andSPACH negotiators, it was around thattime that the head and part of theshoulders of the smaller Buddha wereblown off partly by a rocket, partly byexplosives. Even worse, the infamousTaliban commander who threatenedto damage the Buddhas in the firstplace had succeeded in drilling holesin the head of the bigger Buddha with

the aim of inserting dynamite into theholes. He appears to have been stoppedat the last moment by the Taliban gov­ernor of the Bamiyan Valley, withwhom SPACH was in contact. Themost recent damage has been theburning of tires just above the mouthof the big Buddha, so his entire face isnow blackened. Apparently, the com­mander concerned has recently beenarrested. It seems, nevertheless, a mir­acle that these incredible Buddhashave more or less survived in a countryin which they have become strangerswho were not able to flee.

Initially, SPACH’s major concernwas not the Buddhas, but the KabulMuseum. Between 1992 (after the fallof Najibullah) and 1996, the museumwas damaged and plundered. Al­though the attacks were aimed at theMinistry of Defence, located oppositethe museum, many rockets missedtheir target and hence hit and dam­aged the museum. After years of nego­tiating with the different factions,SPACH has succeeded in getting per­mission to move the remaining arte­facts to a safer place in Kabul. They arebeing watched over by guards withKalashnikovs.

SPACH is likewise trying to trace ob­jects illegally exported from the KabulMuseum and, if possible, to purchasethem and eventually to give them backto the museum when the situation inthe country is stable. A controversialactivity indeed because, although theaim is to save the artefacts for thecountry, it might have the effect ofstimulating the illegal digging andplundering. Nevertheless, the Interna­tional Council of Museums (ICOM)gave SPACH the green light on this,provided that the items will indeed begiven back to the museum. In order tocollect as much information as possi­ble about the area, SPACH has beenbuilding up a network of people whoare experts on, or interested in,Afghanistan’s cultural heritage specif­ically. This is also the reason that aphoto collection is being set up: tokeep their memory alive. SPACH is fi­nancially supported by donationsfrom various governments and indi­viduals. It is backed by Unesco, ICOM,and the International Blue ShieldCommittee, with which there is inten­sive contact. The most important goalis to raise awareness of the plight ofthe cultural heritage of Afghanistan,especially among the Afghans them­selves. As an Afghan friend once said:interest in Afghanistan’s past giveshope for Afghanistan’s future. ■

For more information, contactSPACH H.Q. ISLAMABAD

c/o P.O. Box 2713, Islamabad, PakistanE-mail: spach@comsats.net.pkor:

SPACHc/o Nassaulaan 292341 EC OegstgeestThe NetherlandsE-mail: vkrieken@xs4all.nl

1 4 • h a s n e w s l e t t e r 19323 • October 2000

C E N T R A L A S I A

A Mt» I/ + U * /•* /< #

i ' t l M Q B N M lfrV y *~+ €»«■'!*>■■< O " * '— »<— — Q u - fAn Online DigitalDatabase of TibetanWoodslipsIn th e b eg in n in g o f the tw en tieth century, great num bers o f tional co-operation, will eventuallyancient m anuscripts were b rou ght to Europe from th e old Silk allow anybody to have access to high-Road o f Central Asia by archaeological explorers and adventur- quality images of all of these manu-ers from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Sweden. More scripts, wherever the original manu-recently, C hinese archaeologists have uncovered yet m ore scripts happen to be kept. Besides pro­m anuscripts from th e region. The scattered w ritten and artis- viding digital images, the IDP data-tic records o f the m any civilizations w hich flourished at differ- base, which went on-line in 1998,ent tim es in Central Asia were dispersed am ong th e m useum sand libraries o f these countries.

illf INTERNATIONAL DUNHUANG PRBJfcU

W I? * 8 ? is fli^ iM ia i^ a B iS ia s ia sa

Physical Details for IOL Tib N 5-41Stein w t» t o M .l.xlx.006

Stein 2nd ennediHnnStee w here found: MiranFort

DbetanMS o r Pnrteedform woodsllpSize (cm) 12-3 * 1-6Microfilm’

M anuscript Number: IOL Tib N 541

A d d C a ta lo g u eExisting C ata logue TextsAuthor Prent**, * RC atalogue Reference Francke slipsCatalogue NumberManuscript «um ber & Section IOL Tib N 5 4 1 /A

Author Thomas, F.W,Catalogue Reference rhw nas slipsi^ ta lo g u e Number U 6 SManuscript Number 8 Secfion IOL Tib N 5 4 1/A.

fp;:JUL * * ■

T■ By SAM VAN SCHAIK

he largest and best-known, single cacheof Central Asian

manuscripts is that discov­ered in a walled-up libraryin the monastic cave com­

plex of Dunhuang (although otherlarge collections of manuscripts havebeen excavated from other sites on theSilk Road). The manuscripts come in avariety of forms, scrolls, pothis, boundbooks, and wooden documents. Theyare written, and occasionally printed,in many languages, including Sanskrit,Chinese, Tibetan, Khotanese, Tangut,and Uighur. Most of them date fromwithin the first millennium AD.

The International Dunhuang Pro­ject (IDP) was established in 1993 fol­lowing a meeting of conservatorsfrom all over the world to promotethe study and preservation of manu­scripts and printed documents fromDunhuang and other Central Asiansites through international co-opera­tion. The principle aim of IDP is tobring together these various collec­tions in the form of a digital imagedatabase, which, through interna-

i SÊÊLm

B O O K S R E C E I V E D

Amineh, Mehdi Parvizi

TOWARDS THE CONTROLOF OIL RESOURCES IN THE CASPIAN REGIONMünster: Lit verlag, 1999, 248 pp, ISBN 0-312-22863-5 pb

Berg, Helma van den (ed.)STUDIES IN CAUCASIAN LINGUISTICSSELECTED PAPERS OF THE EIGHTH CAUCASIANCOLLOQUIUMLeiden: Research School CNWS, 1999,295 pp, ISBN 90-5789-029-1

Buescher, Hartm ut and Tdrab Tulku

CATALOGUE OF TIBETAN MANUSCRIPTSAND XYLOGRAPHS, VOLS. 1 & 2Richmond, Surrey: NIAS/ Curzon Publications, 2000, 1048 pp,ISBN 0-7007-1330-1, illustrated, English & Tibetan

Kahn, Paul (adaptation)

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE MONGOLSTHE ORIGIN OF CHINGIS KHAN(An adaptation of theYüan Ch'ao Pi Shih based primarily on the Englishtranslation by Francis Woodman Cleaves)Boston: Cheng & Tsui Company, 1998:201 pp, ISBN 0-88727-299-1 pb

Meyer, Karl £. and Shareen Blair Brysac

THE RACE FOR EMPIRE IN CENTRAL ASIAAND THE GREAT GAMEWashington DC: Counterpoint, 1999.642 pp, [no ISBN], illustrated

Spengen.Wim vonTIBETAN BORDER WORLDSA GEOHISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF TRADE AND TRADERSLondon and New York: Kegan Paul International, 2000;307 pp, ISBN 0-7103-0592-3 hb

gives detailed catalogue informationabout the manuscripts, and also al­lows on-line access to the cataloguesalready produced by scholars, whichare now generally out of print. Thedatabase has so far concentrated onthe collection of the British Library,though IDP centres will be estab­lished at other institutions later thisyear.

The British Library collection of an­cient Silk Road manuscripts, one ofthe largest in the world, was mainlythe work of one man, Sir Aurel Stein(1862-1943). Stein led four expeditionsinto Central Asia, the first in 1900,bringing back over 30,000 manuscriptitems. The largest proportion of theseare Chinese, and the second largest,Tibetan. The Tibetan manuscriptsdate from the relatively brief period ofTibetan domination in Central Asialasting from the seventh to the ninthcentury AD. A great many of thesecame from the library cave in Dun­huang, but a significant number wasfound at other ancient Silk Road sites,such as the fort of Miran in the LopNor desert. The Dunhuang Tibetantexts are predominantly Buddhist,while those from other sites are most­ly secular documents.

Tibetan woodslipsAbout 2,300 of the Tibetan manu­

scripts are woodslips, messages writ­ten in ink on thin pieces of wood, amaterial much more readily availablein desert settlements than paper. InJuly 1999, Tsuguhito Takeuchi, pro­fessor of linguistics at Kobe Universi­ty, Japan, and Sam van Schaik at theBritish Library, began the work of cre­ating a complete on-line catalogueand digital image database of theBritish Library’s collection of Tibetanwoodslips, as a part of the IDP on-linedatabase.

Most o f the Tibetan woodslips arefrom two ancient forts, outposts ofthe Tibetan Empire, in Miran andMazar-Tagh. Written in the Old Ti­betan language, they are an invalu­able source for linguists. But their in­

A screen shot o f the IDP database running online, showing a woodslip

culture, both military and civilian, ofthis early period. The military mes­sages include orders sent out to troopsin the field, as well as reports sentback, relating the results of expedi­tionary marches and battles. Some at­test to the hardships of military life inthe desert, reporting deaths fromstarvation, with pleas for food to besent, and sickness, which may havebeen brought on by the extreme coldencountered on winter expeditions.

The majority of the messages arenot about military subjects, however,but are concerned with the day-to-day running of a community. Thereare many petitions sent to officialsasking for a cause to be heard or forclemency in implementing a penalsentence. Legal documents report thesentencing of criminals, and minorcontracts set out the terms of com­merce in crops, animals, and land.Medical documents contain lists ofsymptoms with a request for a pre­scription, or the prescription itselfAmongst all these messages, one findsthe names of Tibetans from all sociallevels, names which were largely todisappear in Tibet after this period asBuddhist names became more andmore common.

The woodslips also reveal some­thing of the religious life of these out­post towns. Monks, referred to as bandhe, are often amongst those namedin a document, while a few woodslips,including one amulet made frompaper, leather, and wood, carryprayers, dharams or mantras. Otherwooden documents attest to a thriv­ing system of ritual activity whichwas not Buddhist in origin but con­nected to the pre-Buddhist religion ofTibet, usually called Bon. These docu­ments, which often refer to Bon gods(bon Iba), are generally concerned withdivination, although some seem todescribe other kinds of ceremonies,such as the burial of the dead.

Very little is known of Tibetan cul­ture in this early period and, becauseof the paucity of documents from thistime in Tibet itself, the British Li

terest extends beyond this, for they brary’s collection of Tibetan w ood-jprovide an insight into the Tibetan ! slips is an extremely important source |

Tillemans.Tom J.F,SCRIPTURE, LOGIC AND LANGUAGEESSAYS ON DHARMAKIRTI AND HIS TIBETAN SUCCESSORSBoston:Wisdom Publications, 1999,319 pp, ISBN 0-86171-156-4

Tulku, TarabA BRIEF HISTORY OF TIBETAN ACADEMIC DEGREESIN BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHYCopenhagen: NIAS Publishing in association with the Royal Library,Copenhagen, 2000, 36 pp, ISBN 87-87062-8S-2

for research into the period. So far,digital images and basic catalogue in­formation have been made availableon-line for half of the collection, overa thousand woodslips. Digitally en­hanced images have been added forthose woodslips so faded that theyhave become illegible to the nakedeye.

The IDP database (http://idp.bl.uk)is an active resource for scholarship,and all interested scholars are invitedto visit and to add their own readings,opinions, or other information to thedatabase, which they may also dowhile online. ■

Sam van Schaik specializes in Tibetan Bud­

dhism and works for the International Dun­

huang Project at the British Library.

Email: sam.vanschaik@bl.uk

paTIBETOLOGICALCOLLECTIONS &ARCHIVES SERIES

This article on the Online Digital Databaseof Tibetan Woodslipts, written by Sam vanSchaik, is the third contribution to a seriesdevoted to important projects on cata­loguing, 'computerization' (inputting andscanning), editing, and translation of impor­tant Tibetan language text-collections andarchives. In these Tibetological and Ar­chives Series various colleagues briefly pre­sent their initiatives to a larger public, orupdate the scholarly world on the progressof their already well-established projects.Some are high-profile projects, of which atleast Tibetologists will generally be aware,yet some may also be less well known.Nevertheless, I trust that it will be useful tobe informed or updated on all these initia­tives and 1 also hope that the projects pre­sented will profit from the exposure andthe response that this coverage will engen­der. If you are interested in any of the pro­jects described, feel free to contact the au­thor of the article. In case you would liketo introduce your own (planned) work inthe field, please contact the editors of theHAS Newsletter or the author of this in­troduction. We should very much like toencourage our contributors to keep us in­formed on the progress of their projectsby regular updates.

The next contribution in this series willbe by Dr E. Gene Smith on the TibetanStudies Research Center in Cambridge.Massachusetts.

Map o f the Silk Road, showing the sites o f Miran and Mazar-Ta^h

HENK BLEZER

Research fellow HAS

E-mail: blezer@rulletleidenuniv.nl

October 2000 • i i a s n e w s l e t t e r >4?23 • 1 5

C E N T R A L A S I A■

The van ManenCollectionIn HAS Newsletter 19, Professor Yang Enhong wrote about thelife and work o f Johan van Manen (1877-1943). For the Kern In­stitute Library, where his books, Tibetan blockprints and man­uscripts are kept, her stim ulating article gave a new impulse tothe ongoing classification work o f his unpublished papers.

■ By HA N N A 'T HART

~r ohan (M.A.J.) van Ma-I nen was born in Nij-I megen, the Nether-

J lands. As a youngtheosophist and a keenreader of religious texts

he went to Adyar (TheosophicalHeadquarters near Madras) andworked there as an assistant librarianfrom 1914 to 1916. In order to studyTibetan culture at its source, hestayed at Ghoom (Darjeeling District,1916-1918), learning Tibetan underthe guidance of the monks of GhoomMonastery. Settling in Calcutta from1919 onwards, he worked mainly asthe general secretary of the AsiaticSociety of Bengal until his early re­tirement in 1939.

His extensive collections met agood fate. After his death, they werecarefully handled and sent to Europewhere they were acquired and cata­logued by Leiden University. Thebooks found an appropriate place inthe Kern Institute, as did the block-prints and manuscripts (Tibetan andLepcha), while his Tibetan objectsare kept in the National Museum ofEthnology, Leiden. His papers, un­fortunately, were less well off; hav­ing been handled over and overagain, they lost their coherent order.Not very logically divided betweenthe two institutions, they werenumbered in one, the museum, andleft to lie in the other. A preliminarydescription of the Kern Instituteportion was made only in 1994,whereupon it appeared that the col­

lection contained numerous hand­written Tibetan texts, both tran­scripts from classical texts and origi­nal modern writings.

Johan van Manen and his helpersused to keep the unpublished docu­ments in ‘flat files' (e.g. The RapidFile, from Higginbotham’s, Madrasand Bangalore), chapters being heldtogether by paperclips. The textswere written with black ink onfoolscap-sized paper with water­mark, e.g. Reichsadlerpapier. On theback of the file, a rough indication ofthe contents was written. On thedocuments themselves an often ex­tensive title was noted, a descriptionof the original, the date of transcrib­ing and correction, and by whom thework had been done. As a protectionagainst damage by insects, neemleaves were scattered between thepages.

By 2000, the collection had becomerather dusty and rusty. The black inkhas eaten away the paper in placesand a number of pages have becomequite brittle. The Van Manen mater­ial has been presented for conserva­tion in the ‘Metamorfoze’ project, aneffort of the Netherlands Royal Li­brary to conserve internationallyvaluable collections being kept inDutch libraries. It is hoped that thiswork may start in 2001. While wait-

Nomadic CivilizationsAt the initiative o f Unesco and with the support o f its DirectorGeneral, Mr Federico Mayor, the International Institute forthe Study o f Nom adic Civilizations (IISNC) was established byan agreement concluded on 16 September 1998, between thegovernments o f Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, M ongo­lia, and Turkey.

■ By J. TSOLMON

or thousands of1-^ years nomads have

inhabited vast ex­panses of the world. No­madic societies have de­vised forms of culture that

have been particularly suited to theirenvironment and conditions of mo­bility, as well as to the demands andpossibilities of their way of life. Theyhave made an undeniable contribu­tion to the development of differenttechniques for manipulating landand sea for their use, creating originaland sometimes unique civilizations.Today, in numerous regions of theworld, nomadic populations are facedwith crucial challenges to their cur­rent existence, future viability, andespecially to their cultural identity.Many are suffering from the declineof their traditional social structuresand poverty from marginalization.

The idea for an international insti­tute to study nomadic civilizationshad germinated during the Nomadexpedition in Mongolia that Unescoorganized in 1992 as part of the SilkRoads Project. Unesco confirmed therecommendation in 1993. It wasstrongly felt that the right time hadarrived for the international com­munity to make a significant effortto deal with these matters in accor­dance with the possibilities and re­quirements of contemporary acade­mic and scientific research; there­fore, with assistance from Unesco,the Institute came into being.

The first General Assembly washeld in Ulaanbaatar on 16-17 Sep­tember, 1998. The representative ofTurkey was elected President of theGeneral Assembly, Prof JacquesLegrand from France was electedChairman of the Academic Council,and Prof. B. Enkhtuvshin from Mon­golia was elected Director of IISNC.The second session of the AcademicCouncil and General Assembly of theIISNC were held on 16-17 Decemberof 1999, in Ulaanbaatar. Prof. B.Enkhtuvshin presented a report onthe activities of the IISNC during theperiod of October 1998 to December1999. During the second AcademicCouncil meeting, Prof. Ihsam Sezalfrom Turkey was elected Deputy Di­rector of the IISNC. Both the Acade­mic Council and General Assemblymeetings gave rise to very fruitfuldiscussions among the members andwere seen to be very successful, as ev­ident in the excellent resolutionsthat were approved and in the adop­tion of a good Programme of Activi­ties for 2000-2001.

The International Symposium onNomads and the Use of PasturesToday took place on 13-14 December1999 in Ulaanbaatar. Over rwo-hun-dred local and foreign scholars par­ticipated in this symposium, and ofthe ninety papers presented duringthe symposium, 28 were from elevendifferent countries, certainly a signof the excellent organization of thisevent.

The International Symposium onNomads and Use of Pastures Today

was divided into two separatethemes, namely: ‘Nomadic Life andCivilizations’ and ‘Tradition andModernization’. In the first thematicsession of the Symposium, forty pa­pers were presented that discussednomadic ways of life and traditions,historical heritage, civilization, andmany other important issues con­cerning the different types of no­mads which exist in the world. Forexample, the president of the Mon­golian Academy of Sciences, B.Chadraa, presented a very interest­ing paper entitled ‘Model of theMongolian Herder’s Family in the21st century', and Professor JuhaJanhunen from Finland spoke on‘Problems of Nomadic Languages’.

Thirty-nine papers were presentedin the second thematic session inwhich crucial problems were dis­cussed on a number of issues, in­cluding: pasture; tolls of animal hus­bandry; methodological aspects ofimproving pasture feed; effects ofclimatic changes on animal produc­tivity; suitable ecological land forthe pastoral animal; ecological as­sessment of natural pasture; as wellas methods for sustainable develop­ment of the pastoral livestock. TheInternational Symposium provided amultidisciplinary forum for the dis­cussion of some the most urgentquestions pertaining to Nomads re­garding lifestyle. It aimed to pro­mote understanding and apprecia­tion of links between the past, pre­sent and future, while preservingand conserving the unique tangibleand intangible cultural heritage, useof pastures, and management as weface the edge of the 21st century. ■

J.Tsolmon is Co-ordinator o f the IISNC.E-mail: nomci\rts@magicnet.mn

l 6 • IIAS n e w s l e t t e r N? 2 3 • O ctober 2000

■ ■ ■■ ■ ■■ ■ ■■ ■ ■

ing for the thorough phase to begin,a half-year subsidy from the IIAS todescribe the collection enabled me toproceed with simple conservationwork, such as removing the rusty ob­jects and putting each document in aseparate folder. The documents arerestored as well as possible to theiroriginal sequences and numbered. Asimple description is being made sothat, with a search list, the collectioncan be rendered reasonably accessi­ble.

Book copyingCollecting was an important aim

in van Manen’s life, and his posses­sions included Tibetan art andethnographic objects, blockprints,and Tibetan and Lepcha manu­scripts. Transcription of texts inother collections was also an impor­tant means by which he collected.When in Ghoom, van Manen suc­cessfully sought the collaboration ofTibetan informants to teach himspoken and written Tibetan. Pre­sumably the collecting and tran­scribing work had already started atthat stage. Phun-tshogs Lung-rtogs,affectionately called iGe-rgan(‘tutor’), contributed his traditionalTibetan book copying skills. He hadbeen educated as a scribe at the DalaiLama’s book copying office at Lhasa.In accordance with this tradition,copies in van Manen’s collection re­ceived a date of copying, date andinitials of checking, and informationon the original from which the workhad been done.

Apart from the regular manu­scripts and the more extensiveworks, which were bound in 37 vol­umes, the unbound papers containroughly 125 Tibetan documents ofvarying lengths. What are the textsabout? Apart from transcripts fromseveral other collections and indexesto the blockprints, there are a fewcopies from longhand (dbu-med)manuscripts into the better readibledbu-can; there are traditional trans­lations from the Sanskrit into Ti­betan, and philosophical and gram­matical treatises. Some rarities arethe seven illustrated folios on theiconography of a Tibetan protectivedeity, which deserve publication.

In addition to his interest in clas­sical texts, van Manen collected con­temporary Tibetan folklore, onlypart of which was published. A spe­cial category consists of the autobi­ographies written by his Tibetanfriends-cum-teachers, which havenow been published by PeterRichardus. Around 1918, when stillin Ghoom, van Manen received aninteresting example of Tibetan liter­ary folklore. K.S. Paul, now wellknown for his autobiography, wrotea poem on the first World War in thetraditional style (ka-bshad), each linestarting with a subsequent syllablefrom the Tibetan alphabet (see illus­tration). Compositions of this genreare full of allusions, hints, and satire.

Through his position at the AsiaticSociety, and his active role in Calcut­ta’s cultural life, van Manen acted asa source of information and supportfor travellers and scholars workingon Tibetan subjects. Numerous firsteditions of travel books on Tibet inhis library remind us of that aspectof his personality. Another such tes­timony was found with regard to anearly manuscript version of W.Y.

A-B-C OF THE GREATWAR IN THE WESTKA* It is four years since the terrible

great war began.KHA Those sweet-mouth, black-heart

Germans, who are living devils,GA W hen shall we hear the words

They are defeated?’NGA May our British Government obtain

speedy victory.CA May this great iron-wall-like British

GovernmentCHA Spread like the watery ocean.JA May this robber-filled German

EmpireNYA Dry up like a fish dying for want of

water.TA The palm tree is, indeed, very high.THA Yet in the end it has to pass under

the axe.DA Now, o ye evil race, called

Germans,NA Do not rejoice, boasting of riches

and power.PA You will be bent like a crooked

cane tree.PHA The fruit of having caused others

senseless hurtBA You will be obliged to eat like

depending hoar frost.MA W hen the righteous mind of God,

with a m other’s love,TSA Shall probe you to the coreTSHA You shall fall into hot fire and have

to weep.DZA W hen the German Empire will split

up in partsWA Then the time will come that you

will have to fly like foxes.ZHA You Ka-hi-zer, who are like a blind

man,ZA ‘Though the food be sweet, one

should not be a glutton’,HA Slowly ponder over this.YA You shall have to wander, leaving all,

alone.RA If you shake your horns often at

othersLA Your life will set like the sun over

the mountain pass.SHA O butcher-born Ka-hi-zer,SA May we hear you have fallen down.HA May this British Government,

free from deceit,A May it gain victory, o God.

O God, may Emperor Jor-jiSpeedily obtain victory!Hurray, blessings on the Royal banner!

W ritten by the humble inhabitantof Ghum-pahar, Karma Santan Paul

*These syllables form the Tibetan alphabet

Evans-Wentz’s Tibetan Book of theDead, in which there was a long let­ter from the author, dated 17 June,1925, asking Van Manen for his com­ments and corrections.

Johan van Manen belonged to ageneration which believed in thespiritual fraternity of all ‘nations’. Itwas his personal conviction thatonly through an academic knowl­edge of cultures might this ‘brother­hood of mankind’ be realized. For Ti-betologists, who may benefit fromthe wealth of material that vanManen collected, this is a fortunatething. ■

References- Peter Richardus, The Dutch Orientalist

Johan van Manen: His life and work.Leiden: Kern Institute, 1989(Kern Institute miscellanea. 3).

- Tibetan Lives: Three HimalayanAutobiographies, ed. by PeterRichardus; with a historicalforeword by Alex McKay.Richmond: Curzon Press, 1998.

H anna’t Hart is a staff member o f theKern Institute Library, Leiden UniversityE-mail: kernlib@rullet.leidenuniv.nl

R E G I O N A L N E WS

SouthAsia

i _j A / /TVB A N G L A D E S H • B H U T A N

I N D I A • NE P AL

P A K I S T A N • SRI L A N K A

From Ojffset to onlineNew DigitalMedia in NepalIn ‘HAS Newsletter z i’ (February 2000), Thomas de Bruijnmade some interesting observations in his article on SouthAsian Internet-based media, or, as he so aptly put it, post­modern publishing’. Many o f the features o f the online pub­lishing revolution he discusses, such as the importance of‘portals’ for channelling both information and users, and theimportance o f reaching South Asians living abroad, have par­ticular applicability to Nepal.

By MARK TURIN

s a form of innova­tive technology, oneof the most intrigu­

ing features of the Internetis that it requires relativelylittle new infrastructure in

order to function. For a country likeNepal, where lines of communication(postal system, roads, etc.) are limitedand unreliable, the decentralized andlow maintenance nature of the Inter­net is an advantage. The suitability ofthe WWW as a new mode of communi­cation for Nepal has been shown bythe speed at which writers, journalists,and academics have em­braced electronic mail. Onmore than one occasion Ihave met senior scholars inNepal who were surprised tofind that some of their col­leagues in Europe had nei­ther Internet access nor e-mail. There are, however, ob­vious explanations for whaton the surface appears to be atechnological paradox. First,whilst European academicsmight have been content with a fax ora registered letter (knowing that bothwould arrive), in Nepal the prohibitivecost of international telephone callstogether with the unreliability of thepostal system left the field open for afast, cheap, and reliable form of com­munication, a niche which has beenfilled by e-mail. Second, the obsoleteand user-unfriendly computers thatWestern academics have battled withhas made many users wary of adoptingyet another new operating system.Once again, this is not the case inNepal where the first computer many

I people set their eyes on is a Windowsmachine with a high-speed modem.

Nepal’s relatively late involvementwith the computer revolution, then,has had two rather unexpected ad-

j vantages. First, the more recent in­troduction of computers to Nepal ac-

| counts for the absence of obsoleteI hardware in government depart­

ments and private businesses. Sec­

ond, in contrast to the wariness ex­hibited by some Western profession­als, most English-speaking, literateNepalis have shown only enthusiasmfor cheap and instant global commu­nication as offered by the Internet.

Ownership of computers in Nepalis still, of course, limited to theurban, educated, and fairly well-offminority in the country. Apart fromprivate ownership, however, manymore people now have access to Inter­net technology, largely thanks tocommunications kiosks all overNepal which previously providedonly phone and fax facilities but havenow added e-mail to their list of ser-

SOME LINKS TO NEPALI MEDIA- http://www.nepalnews.com- http://www.south-asia.com- http://www.info-nepal.com- http://www.newslookmag.com- http://www.nepalhomepage.com

/dir/news/news.html- http://jhunix.hcfjhu.edu/-deschene/sinhas/- http://iias.leidenuniv.nl/host/himalaya

vices. In Europe, web access and pri­vate ownership of computers go in­creasingly hand-in-hand (ever morepeople are buying home PCs andcyber cafés are largely frequented bypeople on the move), but this is notthe case in Nepal. Students, publish­ers, and individuals working in thetrekking and tourism industries maynot be able to afford their own com­puters, but they can afford to makeuse of them. Low expense and easy ac­cess, together with free web-based e-mail services, are features of Internetcommunication which have encour­aged urban, middle-class Nepalis toparticipate in previously impenetra­ble global networks.

Nepali-lan^ua^e HTMLOne of the most web-effected areas

of information dispersal in Nepal isthe media. The ‘revolution’ and newConstitution of 1990, brought aboutby the actions of the Movement for

the Restoration of Democracy,marked a genuine watershed in thehistory of Nepal, not least for theprint media. Over the last decade,many daily, weekly and monthlynewspapers, magazines, and journalshave been established or resurrected(some were previously banned).Whilst increased literacy and greaterpolitical awareness have been primemovers in the growth of print media,the traditional obstacles of printingcost and physical distribution havenot yet been overcome. Partly in re­sponse to these challenges, manynewspapers have created websites inthe past five years. These home pagesdiffer in quality and breadth, rangingfrom cursory overviews of the publi­cation, with excerpts of a lead storyand some contact information, towell-archived, interactive sites withidentical content to the printed phys­ical copy. The potential font problem(Nepali uses a slightly modified De-vanagari) has been resolved by stan­dardizing the fonts used in onlineNepali-language HTML and by mak­ing them downloadable and free.Opinion letters and other commentscan now be submitted through thehome pages of the publication or bye-mail to the editors, leading to amuch higher rate of feedback on arti­cles and features.

As a direct result of these changes,the Internet rather than the nationalarchives in Kathmandu may now bethe first port of call when searching

for specific information.Whilst some of the more es­tablished academic publica­tions of Nepal do not yethave their own dedicatedwebsites, these journals canbe found in libraries all overthe world. Newer publica­tions, however, do have siteswhere the contents of previ­ous volumes as well as sub­mission guidelines are avail­able. The real changes, how­

ever, have not been in the field of spe­cialist journals but rather in newsmedia. Daily updates, keyword searchfacilities, and good archiving meanthat online information takes on akind of ‘permanence’ previously notassociated with newsprint. At pre­sent, most online newspapers andmagazines in Nepal have back issuesdating back a few years, and onewould hope that these archives maysoon be extended further to includeelectronic copies of older and unavail­able issues.

The digital revolution has also hada major impact on the lives of Nepalisliving abroad. As the number of expa­triate Nepalis grows, so too does theirsocial and economic importance backhome. Whilst some choose to settle intheir host countries, many do even­tually return to Nepal after years ofstudy or work abroad. For many expa­triate Nepalis, Internet-based com­munication is a key element in their

contact with their home country. In­ternet news sites, free web-based tele­phone services to America (such as di-alpad.com) and cheap e-mail have cutdown the cost and increased the fre­quency of communication withfriends and family in Nepal. Havingmade good use of the new technolo­gies during their time abroad, itcomes as no surprise to learn thatWestern-educated, English-speakingand computer-literate Nepalis re­turning to Nepal have capitalized onthe possibilities of Internet entrepre­neurship. Whilst conventional com­munication technologies (telephoneand television) are still state-con­trolled, Internet Services Providers(ISPs) have been largely left to theirown devices. One direct result of thisfreedom has been fierce competitionbetween the different ISPs in Nepal to

secure customers and provide techni­cal support.

As a new technology, then, the In­ternet seems well suited to Nepal.The past few years have seen an im­pressive growth in Internet use andweb-based information dispersal inthe country, and there is good reasonto believe that the pace will only pickup in the years to come. ■

Mark Turin is workingm \ on a grammar ofThangmi,

a Tibeto-Burman languagespoken in Nepal, and isthe webmaster of

the Himalayan Languages Projectat Leiden University.E-mail: markturin@compuserve.com

I » -«PI 2 d

A ’ S

B O O K S R E C E I V E D

mmm

piAssayag, Jackie and Giles Tarabout (eds)LA POSSESSION EN ASIE DU SUDPAROLE, CORPS, TERRITOIRE / POSSESSION IN SOUTHASIA: SPEECH, BODY, TERRITORYParis: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sodales Unité, 1999,447 pp.ISBN 2-7132-1332-0 pb, ISSN 0339-1744, French and English, illustrated

Bonnan, Jean-ClaudeJUGEMENTS DU TRIBUNAL DE LA CHAUDRIE DEPONDICHÉRY 1766-1817, VOLS I IIInstitut Francais de Pondichéry, 1999,963 pp, ISSN 0073-8352

Grimal, FranpoisLE COMMENTAIRE DE HARIHARA SUR LEMALATIMADHAVE DE BHAVABHÜTIInstitut Francais de Pondichéry, 1999, SOO pp. ISSN 0073-8352

Hart, George L. and Hank Heifetz (transl. and eds)THE FOUR HUNDRED SONGS OF WAR AND WISDOMAN ANTHOLOGY OF POEMS FROM CLASSICAL TAMIL THEPÜRANANURUNew York: Columbia University Press, 2000,397 pp. ISBN 0-231 - 11562-8 hb

Joshi, Manoj et al.KARGILTHE CRISIS AND ITS IMPLICATIONSNehru Memorial Museum and Library, 1999, 109 pp ISBN 81-87614-00-5

Kumar, NitaLESSONS FROM SCHOOLSTHE HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN BANARASLondon: Sage Publications, 2000, 232 pp., ISBN 0-7619-9377-0 hb

Lieten, G.K. and Ravi SrivastavaUNEQUAL PARTNERSPOWER RELATIONS, DEVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENTIN UTTAR PRADESHNew Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999, 297 pp ISBN 0-7619-9289-8 US hb,81-7036-750-6 India hb

Madhav M. Deshpande (transcription and editing)MILINDAPANHA-ATTHAKATHABY THATON MINGUN ZETAWUN SAYADAW ALIASU NARADA MAHATHREATokyo:The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1999,431 ppISBN 4-906267-42-4, transliterated Pali (originally in Burmese writing)

Ramirez, PhilippeDE LA DISPARITION DES CHEFSUNE ANTHROPOLOGY POLITIQUE NÉPALAISEParis: CNRS Éditions, 2000, 370 pp. ISBN 2-271 -05716-7 pb, French

Ray, Nirbed and Amitabha GhoshSEDENTARY GAMES OF INDIACalcutta:The Asiatic Society, 1999,220 pp, no ISBN, illustrated

October 2000 • has n e w s l e t t e r >1923 • 1 7

S O U T H A S I A

■*'*» HH I , 1 III III II I 'I

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Pholographic prints at the Kern Institute Leiden

A Glimpse of Simlaaround 1900Simla, situated in the Western Himalayas and at present capi­tal o f the Himachal Pradesh state, was the most famous hill-station in colonial India. Between 1864 and 1939 it was the of­ficial ‘summer capital’ o f British India, which raised this smalltown from the status o f a mere pleasure resort to a powerfulcommunity from which the government o f the Raj was con­ducted between April and October.

By GERDA THEUNS- DE BOER

ResearchProject

he Kern Institutepossesses twenty ex­cellent full-plate

photographs of Simlahill-station around 1900.Besides the beauty of the

Himalayan scenery, the predomi­nant motif of the photos shows theefforts of the British to create a Simlain the mould of a wealthy English-European design. Simla had to be­come a place where the heat of theplains could be forgotten, where of­ficials would be more productive,and physical and mental healthshould be restored by the over­whelming sphere o f ‘home’, of Eng-lishness: English country houses,English gardens, the Club, the Eng­lish renaissance-style of the Vicere­gal Lodge, a spired Anglican church...

Let us plunge into history andlook for the story behind photo­graph 240 taken by - most probably -the commercial photographic firmJohnston & Hoffmann, entitled: Ar­rival of the Mail Tonga at the PostOffice. Although the scene is not un­known to the photographic world,there are two reasons that made mechoose this photograph. Firstly, theprint shows the most characteristicpart of the so-called Mall, the mainthoroughfare in Simla. The group ofbuildings shown, - the post officeand a block known as the ‘bankbuildings’ - became a sort of land­mark for Simla. Secondly, althoughidentically entitled and numbered,

the Kern Institute photograph is notthe same photograph as the onepublished by Pat Barr & RayDesmond in their book on Simla(page 59). The print shown is slightlyearlier and has much more contrast,partly thanks to the touching up ac­tivities of the photographer. Let ustake a tour through the photo.

Mail tongaTo the left, we see the General Post

Office, built in the 1880s in the so-called neo-Tudor style. In front of itstands the mail tonga, a two­wheeled covered cart drawn by acouple of ponies, designed to trans­port mail and, if the weight and bulkof the local and parcel mail wouldpermit, of passengers. The tonga ser­vice was given the official seal of ap­proval in 1881, with the establish­ment of a monopoly on the road bythe government. The mail servicehad a very good reputation and wascalled the finest wheel posting ser­vice in the world. The ponies wereselected Kabuli entires and also itsdrivers were, according to E.J. Buck,‘a class of men apart, who throughstorm and rain, torrents and hill-slides, hail, and snow carried HisMajesty’s mails often at the risk oftheir lives’. Simla was at that time byno means easy to reach. It is nowhard to believe that all goods andpeople - the Viceroy (Lord Curzon],the heads of state, and other state of­ficials, all with their extensive en­tourages - had to ascend the moun­tains over that same famous artery:

a widened but still unpaved cart-road. From John Murray’s Handbook

fo r Travellers m India, Burma and Cey­lon, London 1898, we know that ittook the mail tonga drivers seven toeight hours to cover the 58 miles be­tween Kalka, the nearest train sta­tion and Simla. The drivers frequent­ly blew their horns which was essen­tial as the tonga constantly had topass strings of mules and carts. Pas­sengers (fare: 25 rs] using the frontseat were advised to wear close-fit­ting goggles or veils, to protect theireyes from particles of stone or metal!There was just one stop - at Solon -for a lunch-break.

The tonga mail service stopped bythe end of 1903, when the Kalka-Simla railway was opened to publictraffic. The line was regarded a tri­umph of engineering skill, rising ina steep gradient from Kalka, at 640m, to Simla railway station at 2,060m. To cover the 95 kilometres dis­tance between both stations stilltook six hours, as 103 tunnels, 800bridges, and 900 bends, partly re­versed, had to be negotiated.

Bank b u ild in g sThe block of open-fronted tim­

bered premises, beginning a little bitto the left of the mail tonga, wasknown as the ‘Bank Buildings’ (1895),although not all the enterprises werebanks. The far left part (barely visi­ble) housed the Punjab BankingCompany. Next to it was the photo­graphic firm Johnston and Hoff­mann, which had started in Calcuttaand later opened branches in Simlaand Quetta. This portion of thebuilding was later occupied by Mr E.Clarke, draper. The firm name of thecentral portion is unfortunately notlegible. Next to it is the firm ofMessrs Ranken & Co., civil and mili­tary tailors. The white, half-tim-

Victor van BijlertBengal Studies Page EditorVictor van Bijlert’s involvement in Indian languages and phi­losophy goes back to adolescence. It began as a hobby at agefourteen and developed, by age sixteen, to a stage at which hewas learning Sanskrit on his own, translating texts with theuse o f a dictionary. Today his interests have broadened to non-Westem concepts o f modernity in philosophy, literature, egal­itarianism, human rights and self-empowerment. After severalyears o f teaching Bengali language and Indian philosophy inthe Netherlands, he recently assumed a research and teachingposition at the Indian Institute o f Management, Calcutta.With the Bengal Studies Page o f the HAS Newsletter, Victorhopes to promote the study o f Bengal in Europe in terms o f itsmodern aspects.

Simla’s official Mail Tonga around 1900. Inventoty number P-042/56, Silver Gelatin Developing Out Paper, 21 x 29,5 cm

rom the beginningof his universitystudies, in which

he specialized in Sanskrit,Greek and Indian philos­ophy, Hindi, Tibetan, and

cultural history, he was alreadygravitating towards what has be­come his present interest in moder­nity. In 1987, Victor defended hisPhD dissertation. The Buddha as aValid Means o f Cognition.

Your PhD was not about m odernity.Arc there connections between theexperience o f writing jxmr thesis andwharyou’re doing now?

I was already interested in Bengaliliterature in 1975, but back thenI couldn’t study it until I’d donethree years of Hindi. While studyingHindi I also actually got more inter­ested in Indian philosophy andthat’s why I turned in that direction.

Indeed, my dissertation was noton anything modern... but whenI was finishing the manuscript,I stumbled on William Radice’s ex-

bered building to the right burneddown later and was replaced by astone building. Between the pineswe can see the spires of ChristChurch, where the Mall terminatedin an open space, called the Ridge.Here was the official rikshaw stand.Rikshaws were very common inSimla since there were only threecarriages permitted on the Mall,these of the Viceroy, the Comman­der-in-chief, and the Lieutenant-Governer of the Punjab. On the farright we see the side wall of theTown Hall.

There are many colonial buildingsleft in present-day Simla. What wasonce the Viceregal Lodge houses an­other HAS: the Indian Institute ofAdvanced Study! ■

ReferencesBar, Pat and Ray DesmondSimla, A Hill Station in British IndiaThe Scholar Press: London 1978Buck, Edward J.Simla Past and PresentBombay: The Times Press, 1925,second edition

Drs Gerda T h eu n s-d e B oer is an art

historian and Project Manager o f the

Photographic Database on Asian Art and

Archaeology, Kern Institute, Leiden University.

E-mail:Theuns@Rullet.Leidenuniv.nl

Victor van Bijlert

cellent and fresh English transla­tions of Tagore’s poems. When I readthat I thought, ‘This is somethingI should also do. I will and shall beable to do this.’ I felt that WilliamRadice was the first to set a very highstandard for the translation ofTagore’s poems. In 1996, my transla­tion ofTagore’s G ita li was published.This was the first time a competevolume of Tagore was translatedinto Dutch and, if I may say so my­self, it was a very good one.

But in 1985, my wife, who is Ben­gali, came to the Netherlands for thefirst time, and that’s the real originof my Bengal Studies interest, ofcourse. As opposed to the grammarand theory I learned in university,she actually taught me spoken Ben­gali. She was an excellent teacher.

How woulcfyou describeBengal Studies?

It is often described as area studies,but I prefer to call it - like they havein England - cultural studies. This in­cludes popular and literary culturesand the sociology of that literary cul­ture. I mean, why would you nothave an academic study of Bengaliliterature, or Bengali films or songsor visual arts? You have it, for in­stance, in English. Yet, somehow, inorder to defend it, one always has tolink it somehow either to develop­ment aid, or larger political issues. Ithas to be argued that one studies itas part of something else. But you re­ally don’t do that with English. I al­ways felt that Bengal Studies couldand should be something like a mul­tidisciplinary study of the develop­ment of Bengali modernity that in­cludes all these things [i.e. political,social, religious, cultural issues). I’mnot intruding on development stud­ies, I just don’t think that oneshould necessarily argue it only fromthat point of view. In the same sense,

l 8 • has n e w s l e t t e r NS23 • October 2000

S O U T H A S I A

Bengal and modernity should alwaysbe seen in connection with the restof South Asia, and not as an isolatedarea.

Within Indian Studies, it is oftenargued that Bengali is only a provin­cial language, one of the fifteen Indi­an languages, but not the major lan­guage. It’s always very difficult tosay, ‘but look, this is also the nation­al language of a nation state, albeit asmall nation state’. There are aboutfour to five hundred million speak­ers of Hindi at the most, and oftenit’s not their mother tongue, but asecond tongue. There are two hun­dred fifty million Bengali speakers.So we’re not really talking about asmall language.

It should also be said that BengalStudies are not terribly well funded.[It’s continuation in Europe] is verymuch due to the devotion of variousscholars. Sometimes they are noteven appointed for Bengal Studiesbut for something else.

Why is the Bengal Studies Pagean importatit/eature in the HASNewsletter?

It has become quite an interestingfeature of the HAS Newsletter, Ithink, and, as far as I know, it’s theonly one of its kind. It was initiallythought to be a kind of forum, theonly forum that was available forscholars in Europe that is part of alarger framework [of Asian Studiesresearch news]. There are, for in­stance, new and sometimes impor­tant books on Bengal - let’s say thesheer fact that there exist more thanone translation of an important Ben­gali novel, for example. The BengalStudies Page would be an idealforum either to ask whether thereare other translations or just to in­form an interested public aboutsome important publications thathave come to light.

What are your plans/or the BengalStudies Page?

Ultimately, it might be nice if itcould become the starting point of akind of journal on Bengal Studies,Bengal Cultural Studies, or IndianCultural Studies, Because that’s still,more or less, what I have in mindand this is a sort of summary of that.However, as opposed to journal for­mat, the informality of the HASNewsletter enables one sometimesto write very small contributions. [Interms of the articles,] I do have to saythat it’s still difficult to get a largevariety of contributions. Often onegets something sent on the two orthree major Bengali writers - alwayson Tagore. I feel that one cannot ig­nore that, but it would be nice ifthere would be something elsesometimes. I am very happy that vanSchendel has asked me to review hisbook on the Chittagong Hill Traas,for example. I would actually likesome more varied publications, andwhat I also hope for is to get otherpeople so far that they would bestimulated to consider writingsomething for this page - on the vi­sual arts, for example - or if otherscould break a little bit through thetraditional disciplinary traditions,even those within Bengal Studies. -(TC) ■

New Publications in Bengal StudiesThe C\utta$on$ Hill Tracts:Living in a Borderland

Peasant Revolts and DemocraticStruggles in India

he Chittagong HillTracts in the south­eastern part of pre­

sent-day Bangladesh arehome to about twelve dif­ferent peoples, of which

the are the Chakmas and the Mar-mas. Not much seems to be knownabout any of these peoples. Inhabit­ing the hills and mountains in theSoutheast, on the borders withBurma and in the Northeast on theIndian state of Assam, they remainedrelatively untouched by the civiliza­tions of the plains. Linguisticallyand culturally the peoples of theChittagong Hill Tracts are said to be­long to the westernmost part ofSoutheast Asia rather than SouthAsia. British colonial administrationregarded them as primitive andunimportant. This view remainedlargely unaltered even after inde­pendence in 15147, when the HillTracts became part of East Pakistan.

In the introduction to their bookWillem van Schendel, WolfgangMey, and Aditya Kumar Dewan al­ready state that the ‘region remainshidden behind a curtain of igno­rance’. These three authors, all spe­cialists in the field, deserve credit forhaving lifted this curtain and show­ing the Chittagong Hill Tract peo­ples through more than four hun­dred photographs, covering the peri­od from the 1860s to the 1970s. Mostof these pictures were taken for pri­vate purposes and thus never formedpart of any official colonial docu­mentation. They have the impact ofa first direct encounter. In the ab­sence of much written records of theHill Tract peoples, the authors offerthis volume as a primary historicalsource.

chapter. As the region was seen asperipheral in British-India and sub­sequently in Pakistan and Bangla­desh, its history neither formed partof the ‘great’ history of the civilizingmission of imperialism, nor thestruggle for independence, nor thelanguage movement and the war ofindependence from West Pakistan.At best the Hill Tract peoples wereseen as irrelevant, and at worst as in­surgents or traitors. Thus the HillTract people found themselves, andin many ways still do today, in whatcan be legitimately called a subal­tern position. According to the au­thors a ‘reintergration’ of their sub­alternness into a redefined main­stream history of the Bangladeshination ‘requires historians to over­come “nationalist” ideologies towhich they have so long been sub­servient’ (p 300]. The authors pleadfor a history-writing that allowsother voices to be heard besides themainstream Bengali - Bangladeshione. Collecting ‘information andmaking it publicly available is oneway of giving voice to ideas, perspec­tives, and interests of ordinary peo­ple who have been marginalized orsilenced’ (p 302). The authors haveremarkably succeeded in the taskthey had set themselves. [VvB] ■

- Schendel, Willem van, Wolfgang Mey,and Aditya Kumar DewanThe Chittagong Hill Tracts:Living in a BorderlandBangkok: White Lotus Press, 2000,VIII + 325 pp, ISBN 974-8434-98-2

riginally, SuprakashRoy’s Bengali workon peasant revolts

and anti-colonial democra-tic struggles: Bharater Kr-ishak Bidroha O Ganatamnk

Sangrnm [1966) was much longer. TheEnglish version contains the transla­tion of the chapters dealing with peas­ant rebellions in the eastern part ofIndia in the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies. Five rebellions are analysedin these chapters: the Sannyasi revolt(1763-1800], the Chakma rebellion[1776-1787] in the Chittagong HillTracts, the Indigo cultivators’ struggle(1830-1848], the Wahabi rebellion (1831)and the Santhal rebellion (1855-1857].

Roy was an avowed Marxist andwrote his work from that perspective.Nowadays, Marxist historiographyhas not only gone out of fashion, it isoften looked upon with a patronizingsmile. There are methodological andideological problems with classicalMarxist historiography. The greatestcriticism one could level against it isits schematic and eschatological viewof history. Roy wrote this book longbefore post-modernist rereadings ofMarxism had come to the fore. This iswhy, at times, his interpretationssound like official party-doctrine. Forinstance, he firmly believed in therevolutionary leadership of the work­ing class. To the extent that agrarianuprisings were not led by the workingclass, they would fail.

A classic in Bengali, Roy’s bookopened up space for subaltern histori­ography long before the actual school

of that name had come into existencein the early 1980s. In fact, the book it­self was a source of inspiration in theearly 1970s, when militant agrarianstruggles reached a peak as ParthaChatterjee writes in the foreword tothe translation (p. 8]. According toChatterjee, Roy’s importance todaylies in the fact that he is an ‘exampleof politically committed scholarship’(p. 10]. Roy’s work in English transla­tion will ‘establish him better withinthe history of modem Indian histori­ography’.

Roy’s work will be of great interestfor historians of colonialism and re­sistance to colonialism, because thebook examines grassroot-level formsof resistance to the state and its hege­mony long before urban anticolonialnationalism began to challenge colo­nial rule.

The translator Dr Rita Banerjee hasdone her best to do justice to the orig­inal. In his Bengali original, Supra­kash Roy quoted from English worksbut in his own Bengali translation.Rita Banerjee has correctly identifiedmost of these sources and quotedthem in their original form in Eng­lish. In footnotes she gives the refer­ences wherever possible. (VvB] ■

Roy, Suprakash (Translated fromBengali by Rita Banerjee)Peasant Revolts and DemocraticStruggles in IndiaDelhi: International Centre forBengal Studies, 239 ppISBN 81-85972-61-7

The authors have taken greatpains to compile their book. Thephotographs were selected from overfifty collections scattered over theglobe. The book contains more thantwenty chapters. Every chapter dealswith a separate theme such as ‘map­ping a region’, ‘the colonial over-lords’, ‘religions of the hills’, ‘gettingaround’, and ‘lifestyles’. The verylucid text gives a lot of backgroundinformation on the photographswhich are presented subjectwisechapter by chapter. The combinationof the images and the text are an im­portant attempt to write the cultur­al and political history of the region,while focusing on the everyday lifeof the people involved.

The authors clarify their historio­graphical allegiances in the last

Rabindranath Tagore in Germanyk

Four responses to a cultural iconne may well won­der: ‘Why anotherbook on Tagore?'

This study by MartinKampchen is, however,not only an extremely

readable and interesting book, it alsofills a gap in our knowledge aboutthe Tagore phenomenon in Europebetween the two world wars. Thisvolume is a follow-up of Kampchen searlier book Rabindranath Tagore andGermany: A documentation (Calcutta:Max Mueller Bhavan 1991). In thepresent study Kampchen documentsthe encounter between Tagore andfour German intellectuals: countHermann Keyserling, the personalfriend, Kurt Wolff who published

E R T l S t ’.

Tagore in Germany, Helene Meyer-Franck, the translator, and HeinrichMeyer-Benfey, the literary inter­preter of Tagore. In presenting theTagore encounter through these per­sonal contacts, Kampchen actuallywrites a most engaging piece of in­tellectual and cultural history of therecent past when Europe was thehub of a colonial world system. TheTagore mania in Germany duringthe Weimar republic was not only amajor mass media event, it also re­vealed the deep anguish and searchfor ultimate meaning in Germany.Tagore and indeed the ‘East’ weresupposed to provide this meaning.In this book Kampchen shows uswhat sensitive German intellectualswere looking for in Tagore and whythey promoted him and his writings.(VvB] ■

- Kampchen, M artinRabindranath Tagore in Germany:Four responses to a cultural iconShimla: Indian Institu te o f AdvancedStudy, Rashtrapati Nivas, 1999128 pp, ISBN 81-85952-71-X

C o n trib u tio n s to th is BengalS tud ies page as w ell as

suggestions can be s e n t onpaper, disc o r th ro u g h e-m ail

w ith th e n am e and th e add ressof th e c o n tr ib u to r to th e

follow ing add ress:

DR VICTOR A.VAN BIJLERT

M anagem en t C e n tre fo rH um an Values

Indian In s titu te ofM anagem en t C a lc u tta

D iam ond H a rb o r R oad .JokaP.O .Box I67S7

C a lc u tta 700027. IndiaE-mail:

vav an b ijle rt@ h o tm ail.co m

October 2000 • i ias n e w s l e t t e r TC23 • 1 $

S O U T H A S I A

W ^3 3^ | } fm s L *

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SQUARES, OBLONGS, AND TRIANGLES

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M O U N T A IN S

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By FRITS STAAL

R esearchProject R:

A Breakthroughin Vedic StudiesThe Vedas, often considered mythology, abound in concreteinformation which, taken in conjunction with their language,enables scientists to determine the movements o f speakers ofIndo-Aryan (IA] towards and into South Asia. This has beenthe subject o f several recent workshops o f which the results arenow being published. A first volume contains the Proceedingso f an International Vedic Workshop at Harvard in June, 1989.Another reflects a similar seminar on Aryan and Non-Aryan inSouth Asia at the University o f Michigan, Ann Arbor, October1 9 96 . The results o f the Second International Vedic Workshop,at Kyoto in 1999, are forthcoming. The third will be held atLeiden in 2002 (May 29-June 2).

How did Karkandhu get into theRigveda? No language is pure andthat applies not only to names.Kuiper wrote in 1991 that Vedic Stud­ies would not make headway unlesssomeone was prepared to stick outhis neck. He listed 383 Rigvedic wordsthat ‘have little or no chance of beingof Indo-European origin.’ He comput­ed that these words constitute five orsix per cent of the Rigvedic vocabu­lary, later reduced to four per cent onthe basis of a more accurate databasecount of the total number of Rigvedicwords. Not a large number, but notwithout significance.

It is not obvious that the languageof the Rigveda is IA and that IA is IE.These statements derive from twohundred years of research and an ac­cumulation of facts. The relationshipbetween languages resides in themost basic parts of the vocabulary:numerals (Sanskrit sapta, Greek hepta,Latin septem, English seven,...), bodyparts (pada, pedon, pedis, foot], com­mon verbs (ash, esti, is), conjugationsand declensions (Sanskrit agms,agnim, agmbhyas; Latin ignis, ignem,iambus). Syntax is illustrated in J.P.Mallory's In Search o f the Indo-Euro­peans (1989) by Rigveda 1.32.1: indrasyanu viriyani pravocam is similar in

igveda 1.112.6 tellsus that the Asvins,divine young men

who travel through space,regarded with favour acertain Karkandhu. One

need not know much Sanskrit tosense that Karkandhu is not Vedic orSanskrit but can it be proved? It is notenough to fail to find an etymologyfrom Indo-Aryan (IA), the languagefamily of which the language of theRigveda is the earliest well-knownmember; or from Indo-European (IE),the larger family to which IA belongs.There must be structural reasons, i.e.,criteria from morphology or ‘form,’phonology or ‘sound’, and syntax or‘sentence structure.’ F.B.J. Kuipershowed that an etymology forKarkandhu is not merely unavailablebut impossible. It cannot be analysedas kar-kandhu, a common reduplica­tion in IE but following differentrules (Sanskrit: di-dhiti ‘inspiration’or ci-kirsha ‘intention to do’). Besides,kandhu does not have the structure ofan IE verbal root. Nor can we analyse:kark-andhu because no derivationalform andhu occurs in any IA or IEword.

structure to ‘Of Indra I shall now pro­claim the heroic deeds’ and means thesame. The nu is the same as Greek,Old Irish, Lithuanian, and Old Eng­lish nu, modern English now. Indra’sviryam are English virile deeds fromLatin vir ‘man.’ Pra vocam ‘proclaim,’literally ‘speak forth,' is related toLatin pro ‘forth’ and voco ‘I call.’ Eng­lish provoke has the same formthough the meaning is different. Prois common in Greek/Latin/French/English protect, provide, etc. Vac andvoc- correspond to Latin vox, Frenchvoix, English voice, vocal, vociferous.Thousands of such facts and thesound laws that relate them to eachother determine the place of IA with­in IE. Where do the Vedic facts comefrom?

Oral traditionThe Vedas are known in exact detail

by brahmins who maintain theirVedic tradition orally and recite Vedicmantras during rituals. Ritualists andreciters do not and need not know the

meaning of most of the mantras theyrecite; but they know their preciseform along with accents and modes ofrecitation that incorporate a goodmeasure of linguistic analysis. With­out this millennial preservation,modern scholars would have no man­uscripts to collect or texts to edit sinceboth depend upon the oral traditionwhich is more trustworthy than anywritten word.

Michael Witzel combined informa­tion on Vedic dialects with an abun­dance of apparently meaninglessVedic facts (e.g. on the direction ofrivers) which acquired significanceonce they were put together. I call theresult a breakthrough because it assignsa reasonably accurate location in spaceand time to the numerous schools ofthe Vedas that for millennia seemed tobe suspended in air. Witzel’s recon-

A *U r a l s

struction begins with the Rigvedic eraof Eastern Afghanistan and the Panjab(ca 1900-1200 BC). The Rigveda as weknow it was collected later when thesocio-political centre shifted to Ku-ruksetra, northwest of modern Delhi.The Kuru period of Middle Vedic sawthe composition of most of the otherthree Vedas and early Brahmanas. LateVedic texts, like the first Upanisads,were composed ca 700-450 BC in theeastern kingdoms of Kosala and Vide-ha. During this long development,upward mobility (‘Sanskritization’)combined with the increasing domi­nance of brahmana-ksatriya alliances.The barley cultivation of Rigvedic pas-toralism was replaced by rice (SunitiKumar Chatterji derived Hindi cawalfrom Tibeto-Burman). Finally, a Vediccanon was orally established.

The linguistic picture of northernSouth Asia in prehistoric times, saysWitzel, is as least as complex as that ofmodern India. He has identified somethree hundred words that are demon­strably Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic (such

I N D O - E U R O P E A N HORSE C H A R I O T S

SANCHI GATEWAY

Some o f the earliest representations in Indian art o f horse-drawn chariotswith spoked wheels are fou n d on the ga tew a ys o f the Great Stupa at Sanchi.

Unlike the otherworldly stupa, these gateways portray the joys o f terrestrial lifein which kings and brahmins played an important part.

A millennium earlier, the Vedas abound with information about horses andchariots although the still earlier Indus Civilization did not know either.Horses (along with camels) are f ir s t attested to archeologically in South Asia

ca 1700 BC at Pirak, below the Bolan Pass. Vestiges o f horse-drawn chariots havebeen Jound west o f the southern Urals ca 2000 BC; and to their east, later.It is likely that they came to South Asia from the north by w ay o f speakers

o f the Indo-Iranian sub-fam ily o f Indo-European (IE) languages

APPROXIMATE MOVEMENTS OF EARLY INDO-ARYAN (IA)

A n a t o l i a n

Hi t t i t e

W e s t e rIn d o - A r y a n

K u r u

T H E F O U R V E D A SRV = R I G V E D AYV = YAJ ü RVE DAS V = S A MA V E D AAV = A T H A R V A V E D A

GRAPHIC: D6 K R H fT / IP / 2000

East o f the CaspianSea, Indo-Iranian split into two branches:Indo-Aryan (IA) and Iranian.Further south, these nom ads met with citizens o f the "Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological

Complex' (BMAC: 1900-1500 BC) who used bricb to construct fo rtified towns and temples with/tre altars.

20 • h a s n e w s l e t t e r N?23 • October 2000

S O U T H A S I A

as Munda), Tibeto-Burman, that be­long to families of which only isolatedmembers survive (e.g. Burushaski inthe Hunza area of Pakistan or Nahaliin Central India) or that are extinct. Ifwords resist explanation but exhibit aparticular linguistic structure, lin­guists postulate a substrate language. Itmay be used to test general ideas aboutwhat might have influenced SouthAsia - for example, a ‘West Asianwheat-barley-goat-cattle-sheep com­plex’ and/or a ‘Southeast Asian rice-water-buffalo-chicken complex.’ Sub­strate languages are as common as di­nosaurs.

Wilhelm Rau, whose work helpedpave the way for the present synthesis,shows in the first volume under re­view that the term grama referred inearly Vedic to a train of herdsmen,roaming about with cattle, ox-carts,and chariots in quest of fresh pasturesand booty. Subsequently it came to de­note a temporary camp for such atrain, made ofbamboo-poles and reed-mats that could be quickly assembled.Grama denotes ‘village’ for the firsttime in late Vedic. R.N. Dandekar,nestor of Vedic scholars, associatingVaruna with Bactria and Indra withthe Panjab, explains how Rigvedic dualdeities such as Indra-Varunau mayhave been created to bridge the gap be­tween poets, priests/warriors and localcults. Madhav Deshpande, who hadearlier demonstrated the importanceof bilingualism in the Vedic period,shows that ‘Arya/Anarya’ are not eth­nic terms but express claims to moral,social, and spiritual status, tending to­ward exclusion in legal texts and epics,but inclusion and transformationamong jains and Buddhists. Knownfor his work on the Indus Civilizationand archaeology as well as the Samave-da (often neglected but not in thesevolumes because of a substantial con­tribution by Masato Fujii), Asko Par-pola argues that the composers of theRigveda are descendents of a secondwave of LA speakers who competedwith the Dasa of the first. Rau hadshown that the Rigveda describes Dasaforts with circular and often multiple

walls. Viktor Sarianidi and others hadexcavated precisely such fortifiedstructures in the ‘Bactrian-MargianaArcheological Complex’ (BMAC) of1900-1500 BC in the steppes around theOxus.

Asian ContactsI have long been interested in Vedic

istaka which refers to bricks fromwhich ritual altars are constructed or‘piled’. An Iranian cognate is istya.These IA words cannot be explainedfrom IE and Witzel suspected long agothat they come from a lost BMAC sub­strate language. He has now addedwords for camel, donkey, mustard,hemp, and terms of material cultureassociated with agriculture and brick-built settlements. More are listed in‘Substrate Languages in Old Indo-Aryan' in the Electrontcjoumal o f VedicStudies of September 1999 (edited byWitzel at: www.shore.net/-india/ejvs).Some left traces in Chinese, Tibetan, orAltaic. Alexander Lubotsky has recent­ly found others, including terms ofVedic ritual. The BMAC substrate lan­guage is coming into its own.

Witzel’s footnote on the language ofthe Indus Civilization (now expandedinto The Languages o f Harappa, forth­coming) points out that all ancientIndo-Iranian, Dravidian, Austro-Asiat-ic, or Tibeto-Burman languages, plusseveral isolates and substrates, are pos­sible candidates. The only candidatethat has been seriously studied, withnegative result, is Dravidian. The rea­sons are that the Dravidian family oflanguages is large, well known, andthere is a comprehensive etymologicaldictionary by Burrow and Emeneau,just as there is one for Indo-Aryan byMayrhofer. No such aids exists forAustro-Asiatic though H.-J. Pinnowhas worked on comparative Munda(Kharia, Santali, Mundari, Korku, etc.).Austro-Asiatic languages includeKhmer, Mon, Vietnamese, Khasi,Khmu, and about 75 others in South-east Asia. The Sino-Tibetan family con­sists of Tibeto-Burman and Chinese.James Matisoff and his colleagues inthe Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary

ADiTi: South Asian DanceADiTi is the National Organization for South Asian Dance inBritain and has been in existence since 1989. It was set up by adancers-led initiative with support from the Arts Council ofEngland whose aim was ‘to develop an infrastructure withinwhich the forms o f South Asian dance can flourish andthrough which we can ensure South Asian dance moves fromthe margins to the mainstream o f British cultural life’.

Short News A eA.DiTi is a unique or­ganization and one

_ _,which plays a major% £ role in the development of

j South Asian dance in Brit­ain. It is a membership or­

ganization but its work, services, andactivities have always benefited theSouth Asian dance profession as awhole. It has a strong reputation forbeing the focal point for individualsand groups involved with and inter­ested in South Asian dance and pro­vides an umbrella of support as well asan important information service.ADiTi has created links with HigherEducation Institutions and Universi­ties through courses, such as theSouth Asian Dance in Schools Certifi­cate, which was run in conjunctionwith Middlesex University. Our pub­lications include a comprehensive Di­rectory of South Asian Dancers andMusicians, with information onvenues and promoters.

More recently, ADiTi has begunworking closely with the RoehamptonInstitute in London, where a research

project on South Asian Dance inBritain, funded by the LeverhulmeTrust, will be running for two yearsfrom July 1999-

ADiTi’s major contribution is thenew magazine extrADiTion of whichthe previous avatar was the newsletterADiTi News. The first issue of the mag­azine came out in September 1999.With more pages, a brand new design,exciting contributions from dancers,scholars, and educationalists, ourmagazine is the voice of the SouthAsian dance profession in the UK. It al­lows South Asian dancers to keep intouch and be aware of initiatives andevents around the country, helping tobreak the isolation that dancers mayfeeL It is a forum for the profession toair their views on a variety of perti­nent topics and it is also an importanteducational tool.

One of ADiTi’s aims for the Millen­nium is to create links with SouthAsian dancers outside the UK. Themagazine should also be their voice.South Asian dancers in Britain areeager to know about what their col­

leagues are doing in the rest of Europe.There is much to leam from each oth­ers experience and the magazine pro­vides an opportunity to establish anon-going relationship and debate, ex-trADiTion lists events and pro­grammes around the country. Wewould welcome news of perfor­mances, conferences, and relevantevents happening outside Britain. Themagazine publishes reviews on per­formances in the UK, but we are veryinterested in what goes on interna­tionally and would be happy to receivereviews (and longer pieces) of eventsthat are taking place elsewhere.

ADiTi’s members receive the maga­zine free of charge and are entitled to anumber ofdiscounts and various ben­efits. The magazine is also available tonon-members by subscription or onsale at various bookshops. ■

Anyone interested in finding out more about

us, subscribing to extrADiTion or contributing

to the magazine, please contactSHANTI NAGARAJAH, DIRECTORCLARE HOLLAND-MARTZOS,ADMINISTRATOR

ADiTi, National Organization o f South

Asian Dance, 3rd Floor Oldebourne House

46/47 Chancery Lane

London WC2A /JB, United Kingdom

Tel: + 44-207-831 S28B

Fax:+44-207-831 52 99E-mail: aditi@globalnetco.uk

and Thesaurus (STEDT) project at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, havebeen working on an etymological dic­tionary since 1987. In Tibeto-Burman,there are about 250 languages in ninesubgroups. Important languages be­sides Tibetan and Burmese are Jingpho(Kachin), Lushai, Manipuri (Meithei),Newari, and Lepcha.

Two final questions about the break­through: (1) Does it have implicationsbeyond Vedic? and (2) Is it final? Theanswer to (x) is Yes. The new Vedic

dates are consistent with those of theearliest known IE: Anatolian lan­guages such as Hittite, preserved onmore than five thousand clay tabletsin perhaps as many as thirty thousandfragments, spanning the period of1650-1200 BC. The date of Greek re­mains controversial but there is some­thing else the three regions have incommon: the IE languages came fromelsewhere and induced bilingualism.

The answer to (2) is No. Science isnever final for new facts and argu-

A N D BRI CK A L T A R S FROM B A C T R I A

RECONSTRUCTION OF TOGOLOK-21 DHISNYA ALTARS

ALTARS FROM PIRAK

IA speakers trekked down ju rth e r into Afghanistan and Iran. Followingin their wake, Iranian speakers acted as a wedge, driving a few Indo-

Aiyans even further west and the majority across the Kltyber andBolan Passes into the Indus Valley. The latfergroup composed

the Rigveda between 1700 and 1200 BC. Slightly later and further east,the Yajurveda pays much a ttention to the construction o faltars frombricks. T hat these were inspired by BMAC constructions is likely jo r

several reasons. First, the Vedic word for brick is not IE but comes fromthe BMAC (see m ain text). Second, the simple Vedic Dhisnya hearths

resemble a ltars excavated a t Pirak, the latter even more Mondrianesquc.

Third, Vedicgeometry is sim ilar to the Greek. Unlike contemporaryChinese geometry, or more ancient forms developed in Mesopotamia, Vedo-Greekgeometiy was inspired by ritual and transmitted orally through ritual

performances. M any Greekgeometers came from Anatolia (Asia Minor;where Indo-Aryan had been introduced before 1400 BC. H ittite clay-tables

carry names of Vedic deities and a treatise on horse-training uses Indo-Aryan numerals and terms for horse and horse-related activities.

These connections may account/or the correspondences between Euclid’sElements and Yajurveda treatises on geometry.

merits will change its course. Of theAnatolian tablets that were coveredwith soil and dust a century ago, morethan a hundred volumes have nowbeen published and some are translat­ed. The Harappan inscriptions havebeen published and computerized alsobut no one is able to read them. Theirdecipherment, the discovery of otherearly languages, or something elsecould totally change the picture.

Words are not things and languagedoes not depict reality in a straightfor­ward manner. English is used in manyparts of the world and for all kinds ofpurposes. Languages spread not be­cause of invasions but through con­tacts between people. Readers of thesebooks should keep such facts in mind.

■R eferences

- Witzel, Michael (ed.)Inside the Texts/Beyond the Texts:New approaches to the study of the VedasCambridge: Department of Sanskritand Indian Studies, HarvardUniversity, (Harvard Oriental Series,Opera Minora, V0I.2), 1997

- Bronkhorst, Johannes, andMadhav M. Deshpande (eds)Aryan and Non-Aiyatt in South Asia:Evidence, interpretation and ideologyCambridge: Department of Sanskritand Indian Studies, HarvardUniversity; (Harvard Oriental Series,Opera Minora, V0I.3), 1999

A MORE EXTENSIVE VERSION OF THIS REVIEW WASPUBLISHED IN T H E B O O K R E V I E W (NEW DELHI) OFJAN.-FEB. 2000. THE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE NEW I AMGRATEFUL TO JAMES A MATISOFF, E. GENE SMITH,RUGGERO STEFANINI. LESLIE THREATTE. JOANNAWILLIAMS AND MICHAEL WITZEL FOR INFORMA­TION O N TIBETO-BURMAN, AUSTRO-ASIATIC. HIT­TITE, GREEK, SANCHI AND INDO-ARYAN.

Professor Frits Stool is Professor Emeritus

o f Philosophy and o f South Asian Studies at

the University o f California, Berkeley,E-mail: jfstaal@socrates.berkeley.edu

October zoo0 • i ias n e w s l e t t e r tsi?23 • 2. X

S O U T H A S I A

Height andHealth inIndian HistoryScholars o f anthropometric history seek to quantify trends inphysical measures o f health and economic well-being, notablyheight and weight. These trends are then explained in terms o fchanging nutritional intake and changing incidence o f dis­ease. What follows is an outline o f research at Flinders Univer­sity on an anthropometric history o f India.

By RALPH SHLOMOWITZ

I H B H iol°gists have shownj jT S iH that although the

J L J explanation for the( l ) I observed variability inV'2*'Vj heights of a population at

any point in time is partlygenetic and partly environmental,changes in average heights over timeare mainly due to environmental fac­tors, such as changes in the nutrition­al status of mothers and their chil­dren and changes in the incidence ofdisease (as childhood morbidity canstunt growth). It is also well recog­nized that improvements in nutri­

tion and the declining incidence ofdisease during the past century havebrought about a secular increase inaverage height and the earlier matu­ration of children (so that their finaladult height is reached earlier) inmany populations.

During the past two decades, alarge number of historians have in­vestigated the potential of data onheight to illuminate trends inhealth and economic well-being inmany countries. They have usedtime-series data to trace the secularand cyclical patterns of averageheights, and they have used cross-section data to show the variation in

average height by region and socialclass. Up to the present, the focus ofthis research effort has been on thevarious populations of Europeancountries and the free and slave pop­ulations of North American and theCaribbean. In India, however, an­thropologists have focused on usingheight and other anthropometric ev­idence to investigate the physicaldifferences among India’s varioussocial groups: castes, religions, andtribes. These scholars have not madea systematic attempt to investigatewhether there has been a secularchange in Indian heights over thepast two centuries.

My research group at FlindersUniversity has attempted to help fillthis gap in the literature. We expandthe body of evidence available toevaluate Indian heights by drawingupon the previously untapped emi­grant passes of Indian indenturedworkers who were measured at Cal­cutta and Madras as they departedfor Mauritius, Natal, the Caribbean,and Fiji. Hundreds of thousands ofworkers were measured between1842 and 1916, and these measure­ments were recorded on emigrantpasses. Most of these original docu­ments are extant, deposited in thenational or provincial archives ofMauritius, Fiji, Natal, Trinidad, andJamaica. Up to the present, we havecomputerized information on the

height, age, sex, region of origin, andsocial group (caste, religion, or tribe)of over eighty thousand of theseworkers. We have also computerizedthe published individual-level dataof more recent anthropometric sur­veys: 2,835 individuals in the UnitedProvinces in 1941; 3,240 individualsin Begal in 1945; and 47,835 individu­als in the All-India AnthropometricSurvey of the 1960s.

Chest sizeAn important feature of our re­

search is the investigation of possi­ble biases in our body of evidence onindentured workers such as the pos­sibility that recruiting authoritiesmay have employed a minimumheight restriction. Two types of evi­dence, however, suggest that a mini­mum height restriction was notused: (1) the extant lists of recruitinginstructions given to recruitingagents and surgeons indicate thatchest size, not height, was used as anindicator of physical ability to workon overseas sugar-cane plantations;and (2) our investigation of the sta­tistical properties of the height dis­tributions show no shortfall of ob­servations in the lower tail of thedistributions. We have also em­ployed statistical procedures to eval­uate the degree of accuracy of the in­formation on age and height, and wehave investigated the problem of

The Roja Muthiah Research LibraryA private archive in IndiaFounded in 1994, the Roja Muthiah Research Library (RMRL)exists to provide research materials and facilities for studentso f South Indian Studies in a variety o f fields spanning the hu­manities and the social sciences. The library’s main objectivesare to preserve, catalogue and expand the collection o f RojaMuthiah who, during his lifetime, built one o f the world’sfinest private libraries o f Tamil publications.

By S. THEODORE BASKARAN

M f J . .I I * • ■■ ■ ■■ ■■*

An eccentric biblio­phile, Roja Muthi­ah, who started his

life as a painter of signs,spent much of his family’sfortune collecting every

scrap of published literature he couldfind in Tamil, his native language. Hebegan his collection in 1950 at his vil­lage Kottaiyur, located at the mostsouthern point of India. When he diedin 1992, the collection consisted of100,000 rare books, journals and news­papers, and thousands of clippings.

The subjects range from indige­nous medicine, religion, folklore, cin­ema, drama, women’s studies, andpopular music. The collection in­cludes other printed matter such astheatre handbills, film songbooks,wedding invitations and private let­ters. The various ages of the materialsin the collection span a period ofmore than 150 years, the earliest ex­ample being a work published in1804. Therefore, it is considered aunique reflection of Tamil culture,which is concentrated in the south­ern Indian state ofTamilnadu.

The University of Chicago spon­sored the project to found a researchlibrary, in collaboration with MOZHI,

an Indian trust for resource develop­ment in language and culture basedin Madras. In 1994, a library contain­ing all his collections was opened inMadras.

During 1995, preliminary elec­tronic catalogue records were cre­ated for all the titles in the libraryand microfilming facilities, for pur­poses of preserving texts, were in op­eration. So far, at least 47,000 titleshave been catalogued and 10,000 vol­umes have been preserved on micro­film, and the corresponding cata­loguing records will be enhancedwith full descriptive data.

Now, fourteen professional librari­ans staff the library and eight para-professionals work there to preserve,catalogue and guide readers at theRMRL. The equipment includes:eight networked computers linked toa RMRL database, all programmedwith the capability to display Indianscript and have access to the internet;a scanner; compact discs containingall the available electronic records oftitles at the Library of Congress. Inaddition, a fully equipped repro­graphics facility includes three mi­crofilm cameras, a film duplicator, afilm processor and equipment for as­sessing the quality of microfilm.

i art1 fSntn.

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Examples of research materials from the Roja Muthiah Research Library.

The library participates in projectsin collaboration with the TamilnaduGovernment Archives and theMaraimalai Adigal Library, a privatelibrary with a collection of rare books.Titles are taken from these collectionsand microfilmed at the RMRL.

In a major innovation, the RMRLhas adapted technologies developedby the Centre for Development of Ad­vanced Computing in Pune, India, inorder to create machine-readable cat­alogue records conforming to inter­national standards. The system is ca­pable of generating a variety of cata­logue outputs to meet differentneeds. In the RMRL catalogue, data

for Tamil items are entered in Tamilscript. The system in use at the RMRLcan display and print the catalogue ineither Tamil or in Roman script. Datais automatically transliterated intothe Roman script both for display andprinting out. Catalogue records creat­ed at the RMRL can be loaded intomajor international systems, includ­ing that of the Online Computer Li­brary Centre (OCLC), the largest bib­liographic database in the world. ■

S. Theodore Baskaran, Director RMRL

E-mail: rmrl@vsni.com

Http://www.lib.uchicago.edu.liblndo/Sources-

BySubject/SouthAsia/rmrl.html

sample selection bias. One such biasrelates to the variability of averageheight by recruitment conditions.We show that in times of famine inIndia, recruiting was made easierand so taller Indians were obtained,while in good times, it was more dif­ficult for recruiters to meet theirquotas and so shorter recruits wereobtained.

Our major findings are that therewere substantial differences in aver­age height by caste: ‘higher’ casteswere taller than the lower’ castesand these differences have persistedinto the post-Independence period;there were relatively small differ­ences in average height between in­dividuals born in states such asUttar Pradesh and Madras; and therewas no secular increase in Indianheights during the past two cen­turies.

In extensions of our project, wehave investigated the height of over­seas Indian populations in Fiji andthe Caribbean: overseas Indians aremuch taller than their progenitorpopulations in India. The increasedheight is undoubtedly due to im­proved nutrition and the more be­nign disease environments of Fijiand the Caribbean. We have also in­vestigated the sex differences in av­erage height: the ratio of male to fe­male height is much higher inNorth than South India, probably re­flecting the greater discriminationagainst female children in NorthIndia in access to food and medicalcare.

Our most recent research is fo­cused on using data on height andweight in what is called the ‘bodymass index’ (weight in kilograms di­vided by the square of height in me­ters) to gain a more sensitive indica­tor of health: whereas adult height isdependent on the cumulative im­pact of environmental conditionsduring the period of growth, weightis an indicator of more recent envi­ronmental conditions. We find thatthere was a substantial widening inthe gap between the body massindex of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ castegroups between the 1880s and the1960s. The absence of a secular in­crease in height and the increase ininequality (as shown by our bodymass index data) provide support forthose historians who have arguedthat British rule did not benefit thehealth and economic well-being ofthe Indian population as a whole,and that the lower strata of Indiansociety were made worse off ■

References- Brennan, Lance, John McDonald,

and Ralph ShlomowitzThe H eights and Economic W ell-Beingo f North Indians under British RuleIn Social Science History,18:2 (Summer 1994), pp 271-307

- Brennan, Lance, John McDonald,and Ralph ShlomowitzTowards an Anthropometric Historyo f Indians under Brittsh RuleIn Research in Economic History,17(1997), PP 185-146

jgWWIifc. Dr Ralph Shlomowitzwas a Senior Visiting Fellow

W L at HAS from June to July 2000

He can be reached at Flinders

University, GPO Box 2 100,

Adelaide 5 0 0 1,Australia.

E-mail: ralph.shlomowitz@flinders.edu.au

2 2 • h a s n e w s l e t t e r N?23 • O ctober 2000

R E G I O N A L N E WS

SoutheastAsia

B R U N E I • M Y A N M A R • C A M B O D I A

I N D O N E S I A • L A O S • M A L A Y S I A

T H E P H I L I P P I N E S • S I N G A P O R E

T H A I L A N D • V I E T N A M

10 ► 1 4 JULY 2 0 0 0QUEZON CI TY, THE PHI LI PPI NES

The Sixth In ternationalPhilippine StudiesConferenceFrom i o to 14 July zooo, the Sixth International PhilippineStudies Conference was held in Quezon City. Initiated in 1978with a conference in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and followed bysimilar conventions in Hawaii in 1981, Quezon City (1989),Canberra (1992), and Honolulu (1996 ) , the Sixth Conferencehas now established a firm pattern o f alternating conferencesin one o f the five continents and the Philippines.

By OTTO VAN DEN MUIJZENBERG

he conference wasT organized under theauspices of the Phi-

, \ lippine Studies Associa-■ta-;.. I tion under the presidency

of Dr Isagani Cruz. Thekeynote speaker, Dr Bienvenido F. Ne-bres, president of Ateneo de ManilaUniversity, situated the scientificwork to be done in the conferencewithin the context of a rapidly global­izing world driven by rapidly chang­ing technological possibilities. In hisview, there is no other option forcountries than to be involved in theprocess, but the conditions underwhich this takes place can be influ­enced. Signalling a remarkable andpositive shift in the attitude of Fil­ipinos towards new as opposed to oldtechnology, he pleaded for thoroughand adequate educational develop­ment to prevent technology from justbeing imposed upon the Filipino peo­ple from the outside, as well as to pre­vent the much-dreaded falling-outprocess of cyber illiterates. Seen in thiscontext, Philippine Studies could andshould serve as a tool for enabling theFilipinos to co-determine the formunder which globalization works outin their country.

Forty-four panels in parallel ses­sions amply filled the three days ofthe conference in the strict sense.Speaking of numbers: the panels av­eraged four papers each, thus a totalof 171 papers had to be ‘processed’,147 of which were prepared by Fil­ipinos. Among the foreign groups,the Americans were the most nu­merous, followed by the Japanese.The numerical dominance of Fil­ipino presenters, admittedly encour­aged by the fact that the conferencewas situated in their own country,confirms the overall development ofthe field of Philippine Studies. Start­ed as an intellectual quest mainly byforeigners, it has now, to a large ex­tent, ‘come home’.

The overall theme of the confer­ence was ‘ Turns of the Centuries:The Philippines in 1900 and 2000’,which proved to be broad enough atitle to accommodate many themesand approaches, while, at the sametime, alerting the writers and audi­ence to think in a long-term perspec­tive. The majority of the papers couldbe grouped under the social sciencesand humanities, but several panelspresented work on an interdiscipli­nary basis involving natural sciences,architecture, the performing arts,and practical politics, as well.

After the many occasions of cele­brating and studying the PhilippineRevolution of 1896 and its aftermathleading to the First Republic and theAmerican occupation, it was no sur­prise that several panels continued todiscuss such themes as the war forfreedom, the unfinished revolution,and local heroes. More contemporaryrebellions and local wars receivedample attention; as did the ongoingstruggle towards a more equitabledistribution of life chances in society.In former conferences, poverty andclass issues received much attention;although attention to such issueswas not absent here, this conferenceshowed a clear shift of interest to­wards the gender issue. With sevenpanels and papers in various otherpanels, no one could complain thatgender dimensions of culture, poli­tics, environmental and broad devel­opment issues, or even ‘the body’,were neglected. This last subject, apost-modernist development, earneda separate panel, thus confirming theemergence of a new specialization.

JihadWhereas it is difficult to speak of a

simple process for increasing women’semancipation in the real world, thefact that the numbers of Filipinosoutside their country are increasing- a ‘Filipino diaspora’ - is undeni­

able. Its importance was reflected ina considerable number of papers dis­cussing manifold aspects of thismassive migration, including theemergence of a second generationand concomitant problems of inte­gration and identity formation. Atthe same time, Philippine society it­self has been confronted with immi­gration of foreigners, in particularChinese, Indians, and refugeeswhich raises questions about inte­gration, assimilation, multicultural-ism, and the like.

Socio-cultural diversity and con­flicts within the Philippine state werediscussed and, in some cases, hotlydebated. One day after the proclama­tion of a jihad by the leader of the

Muslim Islamic Liberation Front, ahastily organized special panel on thewar in Mindanao and Sulu drew mas­sive and, at times, emotional atten­tion. Among other contemporary ‘bigproblems’ of Philippine society, sev­eral panels addressed the ways inwhich Philippine society and politicscome to terms with the technologicaldevelopments of the past few decades.A recurring concern was that an evensharper division in society could de­velop on the basis of the ‘cyber-revo­lution’ because the Philippine educa­tional system would prepare youngpeople insufficiently for keeping upwith the developments.

Not unexpectedly, several papersaddressed changing relations be­tween the Philippines and major eco­nomic players in the world, in partic­ular the US and Japan. It was striking,however, that most of them wereconcerned with past relations of atleast one generation ago, while con­temporary developments were onlydebated in a special forum. Literatureand the performing arts, always pre­sent in the conference and oftengeared towards investigating topicsthat can be summarized under theterm ‘socio-political relevance’, weresomewhat less noticeable than be­fore, at least in the official pro­gramme.

One of the frustrating aspects ofattending a large conference is, ofcourse, that one cannot attend all oreven most of the panels and conse­quently one can hardly do justice tothe rich variety of topics discussed.In three ‘state-of-the art’ panels, asummary of Philippine Studies re­search in five continents was given.The discussions about theoreticaland methodological standing of‘Philippine Studies’ raised the cru­cial question about whether the fieldcould survive without becoming in­ternational and comparative.

As suggested by the title, the focusof the Sixth Conference was on thetwentieth century, and, largely, par­ticipants kept their period limited tothat century, which was differentfrom former occasions where re­search on the Spanish colonial peri­od was more present.

A well-organized conference, itdrew widespread appreciation fromits Filipino and foreign participants.The next conference was announcedto take place in the Netherlands in2004. ■

O tto van den Muijzenberg, is attached tothe University o f Amsterdam and to the Cen­tre for Asian Studies in Amsterdam (CASA).E-mail: vandenmuijzenberg@pscw.uva.nl

6 JULY 2 0 0 0UNI VERSITY OF MELBOURNE, AUSTRALI A

Thailand UpdateConference

By CRAIG J. REYNOLDS

he Promotion ofThai Studies inAustralia’ was the

sixth Thailand Updatesince 1991 when the Na­tional Thai Studies Centre

(NTSC) was founded. The Centre wasinitially supported by a grant fromthe Commonwealth government topromote and co-ordinate Thai Studiesin Australia with special attention toinstruction in Thai language. In con­junction with the Thai Studies pro­gramme at the Australian NationalUniversity, home of the NTSC, theCentre has produced language mate­rials, data papers, and an occasionalnewsletter. It also maintains a data­base of expertise keyed in as name, in­stitution, research and teachingfields, and contact details.

On this occasion, speakers fromuniversities, the public sector, and thebusiness world convened to suggest

sentatives from the Department ofForeign Affairs and Trade, the Depart­ment of Defence, and the Departmentof Employment and Youth Affairsspoke about the needs of their respec­tive departments. A session on ‘WhatBusiness Wants from Thai Studies?’was particularly lively, with severalbusiness consultants sharing their ex­periences in advising foreign businesspeople on how to operate in Thailand.It was quite clear that some businesspeople had to be persuaded that theyneeded to be sensitive to culturalmatters if they were to do businesssuccessfully.

Academics from around the coun­try (Canberra, Sydney, Townsville inQueensland, as well as Melbourne)addressed problems in their respec­tive disciplines. Many universitieshave strong links with Thai universi­ties, in science and agriculture as wellas in the humanities and social sci­ences. The basic problem with lan­guage instruction is that Thai is a‘small enrolment language’ whenways to increase public awareness of „ „

the importance of Thailand. Repre- compared to such languages as Japan­

ese and Indonesian, and universityadministrators are not enthusiasticabout funding programmes that at­tract small enrolments.

There was a general consensus thatthe NTSC should actively pursue itsrole as a national co-ordinator ofThaiStudies and as a resource for thosewanting to encourage the study ofThailand especially in the tertiary sec­tor. The meeting felt there was a needfor better Australian media coverageofThailand and for the media to makemore use of Australian expertisewhen seeking comment rather thanrelying on foreign experts who do nothave an Australian perspective.

Last year’s Update focused on theimpact of the Asian financial crisis onthe Thai economy. The suggestion fornext year’s Update was that it shouldfocus on defence and strategic issues.

The National Thai Studies Centrein co-operation with the Faculty ofAsian Studies and the Research Schoolof Pacific and Asian Studies of theAustralian National University alsoorganized a two-day ‘mini-confer­ence’ in Thai Studies, Research onThailand in the 1990s, which tookplace on 18-19 August 2000 in Canber­ra. Postgraduate and honours stu­dents as well as academic staff fromaround the country contributed pa­pers on a wide range of topics. ■

Dr Craig j. ReynoldsAustralian National UniversityInquiries: ntsc@anu.edu.au

O ctober zooo • h a s n e w s l e t t e r NS23 • 2 . 3

S O U T H E A S T A S I A

Vigan SummonsPhilippines Memories

By ANDREW SYMON

R esearchProject s:

‘...He could im agine Vigan again, Ciudad Fernandina - regalcity o f the north, the repository o f wealth as only Ilokano in­dustry and commerce could amass it; Vigan, anointed domaino f power and learning, o f grace and beauty and all the pleni­tude o f blessings that are bestowed on those who commandedin the name o f God and o f the Spanish realm.’

Vigan (and San Augustine Church]differ from the other Unesco sites inthat they are an expression of Euro­pean influence on the history ofSoutheast Asia. In contrast, the otherplaces are testimonies to the indige­nous cultures of Asia, although notsimply of one people as each culturein Southeast Asia has been influ­enced by others, particularly byChina from the north and India fromthe west. Vigan, Unesco says, repre­sents a wider fusion of influences: ‘Itsarchitecture reflects the coming to­gether of cultural elements fromelsewhere in the Philippines andfrom China with those of Europe tocreate a unique culture and town-scape without parallel anywhere inEast and Southeast Asia.’

|o writes Filipino nov-. elist, Frank Sionil Jose,"about Vigan, founded

by the Spanish in 1575and the third oldest townin the Philippines. Today,

a sense of that earlier age describedby Jose in his novel, Dusk, stilllingers in Vigan. The town, on thewest coast of Luzon, a day’s drivenorth of Manila, is the only place inthe Philippines where architectureand planning of earlier centurieshave not been destroyed either byWorld War II, or the more recent on­slaught of concrete, bitumen, andmotor vehicles, or a combination ofthe two.

Forgotten and languishing formuch of the twentieth century, incontrast to its prominence in Spanishcolonial times, Vigan is now findingthat its years of stagnation have leftit with an architectural wealth thatno other town or city in the Philip­pines can match and the chance fornew prosperity through tourism.Vigan is, says the United Nations Ed­ucational Scientific and Cultural Or­ganisation (Unesco), ‘the best-pre­served example of a planned Spanishcolonial town in Asia.’

•Vigan’s distinctive charac­ter and the importance ofpreserving it from neglectand pressures of moderniza­tion, are now internationallyrecognized. In December1999, Vigan was made a Un­esco World Heritage Site,joining the famous sites inSoutheast Asia such as theBorubudur stupa in Java, theold cities of Angkor in Cam­bodia and Sukhothai inThailand, and the formerseat of Vietnamese emperorsin Hue.

Elsewhere in the Philip­pines, there are architectur­al legacies of the Spanish pe­riod, but not complete townsas in the case of Vigan. While Manila,the capital, does retain the thickwalls and fortresses surrounding theold city, Tntramuros,’ within itswalls, almost all of the originalbuildings were levelled in fightingbetween the Japanese and Americansin 1945. One of the few unharmed isthe San Augustine Church, begun in1599, added to and rebuilt over thecenturies, and also a Unesco WorldHeritage Site. Efforts are being madeto re-create the past within Intra-muros and replicas of old buildingshave been constructed. But only inVigan is there an entire urbanprecinct of eighteenth andteenth and early twentieth centurybuildings.

Stamp o f SpainVigan lies four hundred kilome­

tres north of Manila on a narrowplain along the west coast of islandof Luzon, hemmed in by the sharplyrising wall of the Cordillera ranges.Situated on a large delta island cre­ated by the Abra River flowing downfrom the mountains to the sea, itwas here, more than four hundredyears ago, that Spanish conquista­dor, Juan de Salcedo, grandson of the

Street view o f Vigan

first Spanish governor of the Philip­pines, Miguel de Legazpi, and ahandful of followers declared Lu­zon’s northern lands a province ofthe Spanish Crown and Papal Cross.This was just a few years after thefounding of Cebu and Manila, andseventy years after navigator, Ferdi­nand Magellan, claimed the Philip­pines archipelago for Spain in 1521.

The delta was already settled andfarmed by Ilokano people, the Fil­ipino ethnic group making the plaintheir home, and it was established asan important trading point betweenthem and Chinese and possibly

nine- Japanese merchants before the Span­ish. The Ilokano greeted Salcedowith little hostility apparently, de­

spite his mission to expand Spanishrule and the Roman Catholic faith.The northeast corner of the delta in­land where the river splits was laterchosen as the site for a town andnamed after the son of Philip II ofSpain, Ferdinand. Soon more com­monly known as Vigan, it was to bethe centre of government, religion,and commerce in northern Luzonfor the next three centuries.

The initial stamp of Spain can beseen in town planning. Vigan’s twosquares, pivoting around a baroqueeighteenth century church and belltower, and grid pattern of streets,lined with large nineteenth centuryhouses, follow a sixteenth centuryplan decreed by Philip II ofSpain in his Lay de las Indias.All new towns in the Ameri­cas and the Philippines wereto be laid out in an orderedway.

Running south from thesquares are narrow streetslined almost entirely withtwo-storey houses builtfrom the early 1800s to theearly 1900s by well-to-domerchant and land-owningfamilies. They were largely a‘mestizo’ class of mixed Fil­ipino, Chinese, and Spanish ____ancestry, who made their moneyfrom trade in indigo dye, locallywoven cotton fabrics, tobacco, rice,corn, and gold, profiting in the eigh­teenth century especially from thegalleon trade between the Philip­

pines and Mexico.Vigan grew until about

the middle of the nineteenthcentury or so when its popu­lation reached a plateau. Lifefor the town ran on smooth­ly enough for the comingdecades, but in the early

§ twentieth century the town< fell into a slow declineCO

g which continued up untilI recent years. Vigan did not

become a large twentieth£ century city and regional§ centre in the way that Cebuy did in the south. There areö several reasons: Vigan as aI government and church

centre was no longer respon­sible for such a large area asmore provinces and dioceses

were created; better road communi­cations with Manila meant otherlarge towns did not need a secondarycentre but could deal with Manila di­rectly; and Vigan lacked a deep waterport to deal with bigger trade vol­umes, relying on a port at the mouthof a river that became increasinglyblocked with silt.

Fate smiled on Vigan though inWorld War II, keeping the town fromthe destruction experienced by Mani­la. Vigan escaped, so the story goes,because of a Japanese officer’s concernfor his local common-law wife andchildren. In one version, the Japanesesoldiers were preparing to burn thetown before the advancing Americanswhen the officer went to a local priest

and asked him to take care of his wifeand children. The priest said he wouldbut advised that if the town were de­stroyed, then local people would seekrevenge and want to harm his wifeand children. As a result, the Japaneseleft without torching Vigan. In an­other version, the Japanese were se­cretly leaving the town and the offreeragain sought the priests’ help. In thisstory, the priest took care of the wifeand children and then through linkswith Filipino guerrillas told theAmericans of the plan and in this wayprevented the Americans bombingthe town on the assumption that theJapanese were still there.

Conservation-inspiredrejuvenationToday, the good fortune in 1945,

and, ironically, the years of decline af­terwards, have left intact an architec­tural past that may now rejuvenatethe town. ‘If we preserve the houses,people will come and the money willcome,’ says the chairman of the local

Street view of Vigan

residents’ home protection group,Bong Donato. ‘Vigan is nothing with­out these old houses.’

It is tourism that can justify devot­ing money to conservation for a townand its surrounding villages orbarangay, where many poor familiesamong the municipality’s 45,000 pop­ulation (9,000 in Vigan town itself]continue to live. There is a developingagenda to expand and improve healthfacilities, schools, water supply, roads,and other services.

The historic houses themselves,numbering nearly two hundred, arein various states of repair with somebeing well restored, and in severalcases turned into guest-houses. Atthe other end of the spectrum, thereare those that have been left derelictas families moved to Manila in the1950s, 60s, and 70s, still owning theproperties but losing interest inmaintaining them. Apart from ne­glect, another threat is a growinglevel of traffic in and around the his­torical area. Not only is this a matterof spoiling the ambience, it can alsoresult in physical damage to the oldbuildings, juddered by the constantvibration of traffic along narrowstreets.

Encouraging awareness of the im­portance of the houses has been thelocal owners’ association, the SaveVigan Ancestral Homes Association(SVAHAI). The association which wasformed in 1992 has battled hard. Ithas pushed for government to assistin their preservation and promotedthe idea of nomination of Vigan as aUnesco World Heritage Site. Nowwith an activist and young mayor,Eva Marie Medina, herself a trainedarchitect, combined with the Unescolisting and the obligations that that

imposes on the Philippines govern­ment to protect the site, momentumfor restoration and protection ofVigan should increase. Recently, thelocal council passed a new ordinancelaying down guidelines for homerestoration and development in thetown. But it will take some leadershipto win all homeowners over to theirside. As Bong Donato says, somehomeowners have regarded the ideaof local regulations for building de­velopment, use, and maintenanceconsistent with heritage goals asreminiscent of the martial law days ofthe former President Marcos in the1970s. ‘People have to be reassuredthey have not lost their freedom. Itwill take a few years to educate thehomeowners,’ Donato says.

Tourism itself can be a double-edged sword as inappropriate tourismcan result in degradation and the cor­ruption of sites and their presenta­tion in ways not true to their history.Vigan should not find itself, as onehomeowner says, with a string of

Spanish ‘tapas’ bars and fla­menco music. Another dan-

* ger is the concentration ofg the financial benefits of1 tourism in the hands of a8 few. Vigan must spread thez benefits to its outlying vil-2 lages, otherwise they will re-2 sent efforts to preserve ar-| chitectural heritage, seeings it as the province only of8 town dwellers, descended£ from the wealthy mestizo

class which Sionil Jose de­scribes as living so different­ly from the Ilocano villagers

a century ago. There are already signs,however, of ways village people maybenefit from heritage tourism. De­mand for local crafts, such as pottery,brick- and tile-making, furniture,and weaving, are rising as houses arerestored and the numbers of touristsvisiting Vigan increase.

Work is now underway to combineheritage preservation with widersocio-economic development. Anurban master plan for local and high­er levels of government is being pre­pared, funded by the Philippines andSpanish Governments. This is toguide not only architectural preser­vation and tourism, but also widertown infrastructure development. Asarchitect, Fatima Rabang-Alonzo, co­project team leader, says, ‘It is notjust a matter of restoring long rows ofhouses but revitalizing the wholetown.’

Tourism and development, as im­portant as they are, are only parts ofthe reason to protect Vigan’s histori­cal character says Rabang-Alonzo, alocally born Ilokano. ‘A place withouta history is like a man without mem­ory,’ she says. ‘We can go back to thepast and gather inspiration. We canrecognize the works of our localbuilders. The people who built thehouses were not Spanish, they werelocal people. We admire their ingenu­ity and the sacrifice they put into it,especially for the church. They werebuilders and artisans.’ ■

Andrew Symon is an Aus-tralian journalist who has beenworking in Asia since 1992.

t . 1He is currently a Singapore-based editor for the UK

i t Financial Times Group.E-mail: andrew.symon@padfic.net.sg

2 4 • h a s n e w s l e t t e r “NB23 • October 2 0 0 0

S O U T H E A S T A S I A

George Town at a Historic CrossroadsWith one o f the largest collections o f historic buidings in Asia,George Town, the capital city o f Penang, Malaysia, is becomingincreasingly recognized as a major urban heritage site in Asia.The historic seaport, with a colonial history dating back to1786, was a meeting place for migrants from China, India, Ara­bia, Europe, and the Indonesian Archipelago. Cultural com­munities live in distinct neighbourhoods, practise their re­spective religious traditions and specialized occupations, yetroutinely trade and interact with one another.

The Trust is currently collaboratingwith the Penang State Government,consumer groups, and tenant groupsto formulate strategies for urban re­habilitation and social housing.

As a result of the Penang HeritageTrust’s efforts, George Town InnerCity has been listed as one of theworld’s one hundred Most Endan­gered Sites by the New York-basedphilanthropic organization, theWorld Monuments Fund. This listingrecognizes George Town as one of theworld’s irreplaceable cultural trea­sures that is in danger of irreversibledestruction. The Penang State Gov­ernment is also pursuing a nomina­tion to Unesco’s world heritage list-

By KHOO SALMA NASUTION

or generations thedescendants of theseoriginal migrants

have lived in inner cityneighbourhoods protect­ed by a long-standing

Rent Control Act. At the turn of thenew millennium, however, the RentControl Act was repealed exposingthousands of tenants to the threat ofexorbitant rental hikes and evictions.With the population moving out ofthe inner city, more and more pre-Second World War properties are be­coming vulnerable to dereliction andthe developer’s axe.

The Penang Heritage Trust, a non-profit organization that has beenchampioning the preservation of her­itage buildings for more than tenyears, has to address even greaterchallenges now. Immediate issuesconcerning inner city housing andtenants’ livelihood also need to bedealt with as long-term issues, suchas heritage protection and communi­ty participation in urban planning.

Academic attention has been at­tracted. Well-known anthropologistssuch as Penang-based Professor WazirKarim and York University’s ProfessorJudith Nagata are assisting in docu­menting the oral histories of rapidlydisintegrating urban communities.As part of her University of Hull PhDresearch, Gwynn Jenkins, compiledinformation about distressed tenants,

which later became a critical resourceto state authorities.

In the last few years the Trust hasreceived students from various uni­versities and institutions. SumatraHeritage Trust interns helped to or­ganize workshops which rekindledhistorical ties between the communi­ty in Acheen Street, Penang, and itsSumatran counterparts. Interns fromthe University of South Australia car­ried out a survey of tourist percep­tions of Chulia Street, where century-old budget hotels and sailors’ barshave now become a resort for LonelyPlanet-type backpackers. Under theASA programme sponsored by theCarl-Duisberg Society, German in­terns surveyed how young local peo­ple would feel about living in theinner city and how housing condi­tions could be improved.

Community participationThe community that lives and

works around the city’s two historicmosques took part in a series of work­shops and consultations organized bythe Penang Heritage Trust as part of ayear-long project sponsored by Un­esco’s LEAP programme on integratedcommunity development and cultur­al heritage site preservation. ‘Com­munity Participation in Waqf Revital­ization’ promoted Muslim urban her­itage and w a q f (religious endowment]as community resources.

The nationalization of waqf duringthe colonial era had led to the derelic­

tion of much of the waqf heritage dueto poor management by the state reli­gious bureaucracy. Many stakehold­ers felt it was time to revert to pro­moting a stronger community role inmanaging waqf according to Islamiclaw. The rights of poor, elderly ten­ants who are being evicted as a resultof Rent Control Repeal, to qualify forcharity housing was repeatedly as­serted. The Muslim women’s groupsmobilized in the face of threats totheir neighbourhood market, whilethe inner city Muslim youth beganorganizing their own cultural andrecreational activities, such as a recentclean-up of a historic cemetery thathad been turned into an illegal dumpsite.

By researching and describing her­itage sites, handling visitor inquiries,and conducting heritage tours, theTrust has significantly helped to de­velop cultural tourism in the state.Recently, it published a souveniralbum promoting the local heritagesites that were used as locations in theHollywood film ‘Anna and The King'.One Council member gives tours ofPenang’s most distinguished privateheritage site, the Cheong Fatt TzeMansion. This was the favouritehome of a migrant who rose from ragsto become the greatest Nanyang in­dustrialist of his era.

The Trust has become a significantimportant local institution, with her­itage work providing an importantavenue for women’s development.

MalaysiaSkill Jormation inthe auto parts industryAt the end o f February zooo, Malaysia’s Minister of Finance de­clared that the financial crisis in Malaysia was over. Domesticautomobile sales started to show the recovery. Next, because ofthe small domestic market, exports had to be increased to enjoyscale merits. The automobile industry o f Malaysia has, untilnow, not yet reached the level o f international competitiveness.The key to its further development is skilled manpower.

By YURI SADOI

R esearchProject TL h

he automobile in­dustry in Malaysia

has developed thanksto domestic car projects. Inthe late 15170s, in order topromote a more solid

manufacturing base, the Malaysiangovernment took the initiative to in­vest in the automobile industry. Theautomobile industry has developed toa considerable extent and it enjoys taxbenefits and protective tariffs for do­mestically produced cars. Bumiputraauto parts makers were nurtured assuppliers for the domestic cars. Thetwo domestic cars, Proton and Produa,now collectively command eighty percent of the local passenger car market.

In truth, the protection hinderedthe further development of the sup­porting industry. The local manufac­turing base did not develop as was

initially planned. At present, the au­tomobile industry, though makingprogress, still suffers from a lack ofquality and high prices. Low qualityand high costs of production arelargely due to the high dependence onimports.

Malaysia, as well as other SoutheastAsian countries, did nor have as muchsuccess in developing value-added in­dustries. Malaysia in particular hasincreased exports in manufacturing,but these have tended to be low invalue. Technology makes it possibleto switch to higher value-added in­dustries. Industrialized countrieshave been able to build new plantsthat produce higher value-addedproducts and design production engi­neering, and install necessary ma­chinery in plants. Countries withoutthese technical capabilities, however,have to import practically everythingto start production.

After two decades of domesticatingauto parts production, local produc­tion has increased. Production countsas domestic when the final part is as­sembled in Malaysia, even if morethan seventy per cent of all parts arestill imported. Why does the produc­tion of parts still lag behind inMalaysia?

One of the problems is a lack ofskilled workers and technicians. Autoparts production needs a wide rangeof production techniques, which inturn require many types and levels ofskilled workers. The shortage ofskilled workers in Malaysia can be at­tributed to the following four factors:(1] insufficient government support;(2] employers’ lukewarm attitudes; (3]unfavourable skill environment; and(4) weak individual interests.

1. Realizing the importance of skilledworkers, the Malaysian govern­ment has been emphasizing skill |formation by increasing the num­ber of technical schools, introduc­ing a skill certification system, andgiving a tax incentive to companieswhich undertake training for theiremployees. Although Malaysia isundertaking various skill upgrad­ing programmes, its efforts are in­sufficient towards solving the ab­solute shortage of skilled workersand technicians. The problem liesnot only in the number; a lack ofcertain kinds and levels of skillsform a serious bottleneck, especial­ly with regard to the advancedskilled workers.

2. The employers’ lukewarm attitudetoward investing in their employees

are mainly due to two factors: (a) alow rate of return, and [b] a lack ofcompetitive pressure. A low rate ofreturn on manpower investment isdue to the high turnover rate ofworkers. For employers, it is notvital to upgrade their workers be­cause domestic cars are highly pro­tected from import competition andbumiputra parts makers receive gov­ernment aid. They benefit from na­tionalization projects and face littlecompetition in the domestic mar­ket. They do not feel the competitivepressure to upgrade workers.

3. For Malaysia, a late starter in in­dustrialization, advanced tech­nologies were easily available fromdeveloped countries. It did notmake serious efforts towards build­ing the technological base for inno­vation and adaptation. From theinitial stage onwards, Malaysia re­lied on advanced machinery. Evensmall parts makers installed state-of-the-art machinery. As a result,the machinery of parts makers is asmodern as that in Korea or inJapan, if not more so. However,most of these factories were builtby foreign companies applying theso-called 'turn-key system’: readyto start production upon turningthe key. It was an effective way tostart operation and to maintain thequality of products. With little ex­perience in parts production andwith few experienced workers, themodern skill-replacing machinerywas often the best guarantee for asmooth operation.But advanced machinery hinders

skill formation. The Computer Nu-

Apart from its two full-time femalestaff members, the Trust’s ten-mem­ber council includes six women - aprofessional conservationist, an an­thropologist, a history teacher of,a tourist guide, an accountant, and awriter. These women now regularlydeal with politicians, government bu­reaucracy, and the media, organizesite visits, and provide advice onhousing repairs.

Not surprisingly, the Trust is dom­inated by an English-educated localelite. However, it is well enough en­sconced in the inner city to be net­working with urban minorities, ten­ants groups, and other communityorganizations. More importantly, thekey activists represent a good cross-section of religious and ethnic identi­ties, fluent in several languages. Theyoften find themselves handling pro­jects as diverse as the colonial gover­nor’s residence, Suffolk House, aHainanese sailor’s lodging house,a Cantonese carpenter’s guild temple,an Indian Muslim mosque, or an Arabpilgrim broker’s cottage. ■

For further information, please contact:

THE PENANG HERITAGE TRUST26-A Stewart Lane, 10200 PenangTel./fax: +60-4-264 2631E-mail: phtrust@po.jaring.myHttp://www.pht.org.my

Khoo Salma Nasution is Hon. Secretary o f

the Penang Heritage Trust

meric Control (CNC) machines usedfor parts production are somethinglike a black box, programmed with awide range of experiences skilledworkers may have. Once sealed in theblack box, these become invisible forthe workers who have never experi­enced the transition process frommanual machines to CNC. If Malaysiais satisfied with the present situation,only operators who faithfully followthe manual are needed. However, ifMalaysian parts makers try to pro­duce more value-added products,they will have to master skills that arenow performed by machines.4. One of the essential elements for

skill formation is the individualworker’s attitude toward skill up-grading. In general, workers in Ma­laysia pay less attention to precisionand are less motivated for skill ac­quisition than their counterpartsin other industrialized countries.Another important factor in ac­counting for slow skill formation inMalaysia is the fact that Malaysianworkers are fairly satisfied withtheir lives.Being a protected industry in

Malaysian cars and parts productionhas not yet faced much competitivepressure. Lowering protective mea­sures and allowing greater exposureto international competition willstrengthen skill formation activitiesin Malaysia and will influence furtherdevelopment in the Malaysian autoindustry. ■

Dr Yuri Sadoi is an affiliated fellow at HAS

(Mitsubishi Motors Corporation).

E-mail: ysadoi@rullet.leidenuniv.nl

October 2000 • has n e w s l e t t e r *023 • 2 . 5

S O U T H E A S T A S I A

Cultural Diversity andConstruction of PolityThe processes o f decolonization, which have transformed theformer Dutch, French, and British colonies in Southeast Asiainto independent nation-states during the second half o f thetwentieth century, have entailed the emergence o f particularideologies in which the cultural specificity, deemed to be charac­teristic o f each o f these nation states, is expressed. Such ideolo­gies articulate the way in which the relations between the citi­zens and the state, as well as those between the various ethnic-cultural groups and the state to which they belong, are concep­tualized. They also affect the position which each nation statetakes in international and transnational forums and the dis­course in which such positions are expressed and legitimized.

■ By JOSEPHUS D.M. PLATENKAMP

R esearchProject

ayThe ideologies inquestion are theoutcome of com­

plex historical and ongo­ing processes of interac­tion. On the one hand,

since none of the Southeast Asianstates encompass a single culturallyand linguistically homogeneous soci­ety, the cultural specificity that is pre­sented as characteristic of a given ‘na­tional’ ideology in itself tends to re­flect representations originating inthe cultural repertoire of various soci­eties situated within the borders ofthe state. On the other hand, perhapsmore than in any other part of the

world, representations about the poli­ty in relation to society in SoutheastAsia have been modelled partly onideas and values originating fromIndia, the Muslim-Arab world, impe­rial China, and colonial Europe. Thetransformations which such foreignideas and values have undergone inthe course of their incorporation intopre-existing local systems of repre­sentations also continue to character­ize contemporary processes of incor­poration.

The latter concerns above all thediverse ways in which representa­tions about the desirability of a freemarket economy and the interna­

tional communication of goods, ser­vices, and information, of parlia­mentary democracy as the supremeform of legitimate government, andof the inviolability of human rightsare incorporated into the system ofrepresentations of each nation state.Depending on the position accordedsuch ‘universal’ representations inthe ‘national’ ideologies, the formertend to be assigned a particular, cul­turally specific value that does notnecessarily coincide with the valueswhich are attributed to such repre­sentations in the ideological systemsof the Western world.

To research these culturally specif­ic configurations of ideas, values,and practices, in terms of whichSoutheast Asian societies conceptu­alize themselves as nation states (orother forms of polity) and representthemselves as such towards theirown members and other societiesand states, in December 19951 theDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaftestablished the Research Group ‘Cul­tural Diversity and the Constructionof the Polity in Southeast Asia: Con­tinuity, discontinuity, transforma­tion’ at the Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitat Münster. In this group

social anthropologists, political sci­entists, historians, and philologists -some of the latter attached to theUniversities of Cologne and Leiden -address the above-mentioned re­search problem, as this manifests it­self at different levels of the socio­political order (i.e. state, district, sul­tanate / principality, or village) andin different periods of time, in In­donesia and Laos. Additional re­search is scheduled to be conductedon Vietnam and Thailand, as well ason Chinese historical sources per­taining to these regions.

The research project is envisaged asan instrument to allow for an inter­disciplinary and comparative analy­sis by regions of the contemporaryconfigurations of the representationsof society and the polity in SoutheastAsia, and of the (supra-) regional andhistorical transformations whichhave resulted in these configura­tions. In view of this overall aim, thesample for comparison has been se­lected in such a manner as to reflectas much as is feasible of the histori­cal, linguistic, and cultural complex­ity of the Southeast Asian region as awhole. Hence speakers of differentlanguage families (Sino-Tibetan, Tai,Mon-Khmer, Austronesian) who ad­here to different religious traditions(local religions, Hindu-Buddhism,Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism,Christianity), and whose societieshave been part of different colonialempires (Netherlands East Indies,French Indochina) - or not (Thai­

land) - and of different types of re­gional polities (sultanates, rajadoms,Muang-principalities, among others)are included in the sample for com­parison. It is expected that this com­parative analysis of regions will pro­vide insights into both the culturallyspecific representations of societyand the polity of each nation-stateexamined and in the configurationsof representations characteristic ofthe Southeast Asian region as awhole. ■

The Research Group can be contacted at:

RESEARCH GROUP SOUTHEASTASIA

Secretariat: Ms Birgit Luig, MAInstitute of EthnologyStudtstrasse 2 148149 MünsterGermanyTel:+49-251-92 401 16Fax:+49-251-92 401-13E-mail: rgsa@uni-muenster.de

Josephus D.M. Platenkamp is Professor

o f Social Anthropology and chairman o f the

Research Group Cultural Diversity and theConstruction of the Polity in SoutheastAsia: Continuity, discontinuity, transforma­tion at the the Westfalische Wilhelms-Univer-

sitat Munster, Germany.

E-mail: platenk@uni-muenster.de

MOST-IndonesiaNational SecretariatManagement o f socialtransform ation in IndonesiaSince 1 pp6 Indonesia has been interested in the Unesco initia­tive Management o f Social Transformation (MOST). AlthoughIndonesia was not yet listed as a member, it sent a delegationto the second assembly o f MOST-Unesco in Paris to present itsplans for activities in Indonesia. On the brink o f the third mil­lennium, Indonesia formally joined the MOST-Unesco pro­gramme. MOST-Unesco Indonesia was constituted.

f:or two reasons In­donesia considers theexistence of Manage­

ment of Social Transfor­mation (MOST) extreme­ly important.

Firstly, the third millennium willbring about rapid changes both inthe modernization of technology, incommunity structure, and in politi­cal, economic, historical, and cultur­al organizations. A social transfor­mation management system needsto be developed within the Indone­sian community to anticipate suchchanges.

Secondly, in this rapidly globaliz­ing world, Indonesia finds itself in atransit area, which is fragmentedand open and susceptible to influ­ences from outside. These influenceshave both positive and negative ef­fects. It is necessary for Indonesia to

anticipate future trends and towiden its network to include coun­tries both in the developed and inthe developing world. To give an ex­ample, by deeply analysing theprocesses of transformation of thecontemporary Indonesian commu­nity and by working together withother countries, Indonesia can sus­tain the growth of the country aswell as prepare for a role equal tothat of developed countries.

Objectivesr. To promote the existence and ac­

tivities of the Management of So­cial Transformation (MOST)-Un-esco Indonesia and to gather in­formation MOST-Unesco activi­ties going on in the world.

2. To conduct comparative studieson Management of Social Trans­formation in several countries.

Indonesian MostProgrammes

1. Inviting several members of Most-Unesco and experts who haveexperience with Most in othercountries;

2. Conducting interdisciplinaryresearch on Most in Indonesia andin several countries;

3. Assisting research institutes andgiving advice for solutions inSoutheast Asian countries;

4. Exchanging research informationand experts with other relevantinstitutes;

5. Building up collaboration andnetworking amongst Most-Unesco Indonesia and Most-Unesco in other countries;

Themes1. Management of changes in

multicultural and multi-ethnicsocieties;

2. Cities as areas of accelerated socialtransformation;

3. Coping locally and regionallywith economic, technological andenvironmental transformations.

Foci o f Concern:- Migration of Ethnic Groups- National Integration and Social

Conflict- The Middle Class, Class Structure- Social Change and Civil Society- Planning and Development of

the Urban Areas- Youth and Gender in the Urban

Areas- Poverty and Unemployment- Land Use and Social

Environmental Issues- The Problem of Social

Transportation in theAgglomerate Cities

- Multiculturalism andCulture/Urban Culture

- Spatial and Social Policies- Management Institution and

Organization- Politics and Democratization- Rural-Urban Linkages- Global and Local Relations

O rganizationana managementThe Management of Social Trans-

formation-Unesco is jointly orga­nized and managed by The Indone­sian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) andthe Unesco Office, Jakarta. LIPI is re­sponsible for research, symposia,and information exchange whileUnesco is responsible for organiza­tional matters, such as financialmanagement and/or organization ofworkshops and training.

The core s ta ff fo r the initialtwo-year period o f secretariat

- Chairman: Arjuno Brojonegoro, MA- Seaetaiy: Sophie Muzwar, MA- Secretary: Dr Riwanto Tirtosudarmo

The members are: Dr Raldi HendroKoestoer, Dr Iwan Gardono, Dr HaryoMartodihardjo, Dr Henny Warsilah,DEA, and Dr Irwan Abdullah.

Sponsorship and SourcesThe initial two-year funding of

the National Secretariat MOST Un-esco-Indonesia is provided by theSecretariat of the Management of So­cial Transformation-Unesco, locatedin Paris, France. In addition, severalpotential financial sources would bewelcome. ■

For General Correspondence

and Management:

UNESCO OFFICE JAKARTAJalan M.H.ThamrinJakarta 10002, IndonesiaTel:+62-21-3 14 1308Fax: +62-21-315 0382E-mail: a.inagaki@unesco.org orn.auriat@unesco.org

For Research and Information Exchange:

National Secretariat

MANAGEMENT OF SOCIALTRANSFORMATION (MOST)UNESCO-INDONESIA

GedungWydiagraha-sixth floorJalan Gatot Subroto 10Jakarta 12190, IndonesiaTel./fax:+62-21-570 1232E-mail: mostjkt@hotmail.com orpmblipi@indo.net.id

For more information:

INSTITUT ALAM DAN TAMADUNMELAYU (ATMA)

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, MalaysiaTel: +60-3-825 0929Fax: +60-3-825 4698E-mail: pghatma@pkrisc.cc.ukm.myHttp://www.atma.ukm.my

2 6 • has n e w s l e t t e r iv|?23 • October 2000

S O U T H E A S T A S I A

A Mystic Journey to Mount Ciremai

■ By MATTHEW ISAAC COHEN

The rise o f fundamentalist Middle-Eastern style Islam hasdrawn attention away from the co-presence o f older styles of‘traditional’ or ‘folk’ Islam in Indonesia. A recent pilgrimage Itook to the sacred mountain o f Gunung Ciremai in West Javawith members o f an association o f Brai mystics, a Cultural In­spector, and a number o f young ‘mountain climbers testifiedto the enduring power o f local beliefs and practices.

commemorations of ancestors) andthe major annual celebrations held atthe ancestral cemetery ofTrusmi andthe royal cemetery of Astana GunungJati. Nurul Islam was, for example, se­lected by the Cultural Section for anall-West Java arts festival in 1992. Thisartistic frame was officialized in 1995,when the Nurul Iman ensemble ofBayalangu was invited to participatein the national Istiqlal Festival of Is­lamic art.

R esearchProject B may represent

the oldest variant ofIslam practised in

the Indonesian archipel­ago, mixing Sufic and in­digenous Javanese prac­

tices and beliefs. Referred to variouslyas santn biraht, santn brahi, wong dulbirhai, and santri dulguyermg biraht, itspractitioners feature in nineteenthcentury Dutch and Javanese writingas exotic objects of entertainment andderision. Devotees were castigated fortheir variance with Islamic norms andsupposedly loose morality; P.J. Vethcalled them ‘the scum of Javanese soci­ety.’ Historical sources describe thecentral practice of dzikir - the Arabicterm for remembrance of God s name- observed by mixed-sex singing ofArabic and Javanese devotional texts,coupled in the past with ecstatic danc-ing.

The distribution of Brai societies inJava today is largely limited to thecoastal regencies of Indramayu, Cire-bon, and Brebes. A 1921 report de­scribes a network of Brai associations,with weekly meetings drawing partic­ipants from a number of villages tothe houses of head gurus. This net­work has attrophied; there is current­ly no supra-village structure. Bayalan­gu remains the most famous centrefor Brai activity; a schism in the early1990s resulted in two associations. The‘original’ association is known asNurul Iman, with about thirty maleand female members (most over fifty),including a hereditary kiyai as nomi­nal head and an imam who leads ritualand organizational activities.

Bayalangu devotees speak of theirall-night chanting, clapping, anddrumming as religious devotion. Incontrast, Brai is considered by Cire-bon’s Cultural Section as an art form,largely because Brai associations usepercussion instruments [kendhang andterbang) and perform publically atboth small-scale unjungan (graveyard

P i l g r i m a g eThe practice of making a pilgrimage

to Mount Ciremai was revived circa1970, after an abeyance of some thirtyyears because of to the Japanese occu­pation, the Darul Islam revolt, andeconomic hardship. None of the pil­grims had made the pilgrimage be­fore. They drew on oral tradition andrelated rites to construct a new pil­grimage form, and have been tinker­ing with the structure ever since.

Traditionalists among the Bayalan­gu pilgrims say that to maximize thepilgrimage’s blessings, one must walkbare-foot from Bayalangu to the peakof the mountain and back. Economicprosperity, however, has allowed theBrai association to charter vans andbusses - which in turn has made thepilgrimage open to a larger public andfacilitated visits to a number of sacredsites ‘on the way’ to Ciremai. The de­parture date was set by Dakila, whohad replaced Warsad as imam, and thedecision to allow non-group membersto accompany us on the pilgrimagewas his too. I was initially dismayed atseeing this ‘sacred’ event become aleisure activity for the dozen or so(male) teenagers and youths, includ­ing one ‘heavy metal' youth sporting aswastika patch. These young mencalled themselves ‘mountain clim­bers’ (in Indonesian) to distinguishthemselves from the pilgrims; theirequipment (a portable stove, back­packs, tarps, sleeping bags) showed

that they were from a different class,with different outlooks. I was alsonot pleased that the subdistrict Cul­tural Inspector (a Department of Ed­ucation and Culture employee) hadbeen invited.

The journey began early in themorning with incense, the display offood offerings, a hurried ritual meal,and incantations at the bale. Two ofthe society’s cloth-wrapped ritual ob­jects - a signal gong (beri) and a curvedblade (bayan) - were collected for thejourney. (The musical instrumentswere left behind.) Everyone thenclimbed into the bus and we made thesacred-site rounds: the Cipanas hotsprings (where Dakila splashed thepilgrims and ‘mountain climbers’with sulphuric water), Trusmi, As­tana, and Plangon. At each site, per­mission was asked from the ancestors,prayers and incantations uttered,hymns sung, and small sums of cashwere presented to shrine caretakers.

We arrived late in the afternoon atthe house of the former village head­man of Cibuntu, in the foothills ofMount Ciremai. No groups other thanBayalangu’s Brai association climbsCiremai from this departure point. Itis a very hard climb, involving cuttinga path through rainforest for much ofthe ascent. The Cibuntu start is clearlynot determined by convenience, but isrelated to the megalithic and Hinduremains found in the vicinity. Afterobtaining the necessary permits fromlocal authorities, and examining someof the remains, we spent the night atthe house of the former village head­man, Cibuntu, an old friend of theBayalangu devotees. On television,President Habibie exhorted the peopleof East Timor to choose autonomyover independence. A slapstick come­dy that followed attracted more view­ers.

We departed on foot before sunrise,accompanied by two Cibuntu guides.Local men forage for rattan and hunton the slope of Ciremai, but they donot ordinarily ascend to its peak. Theydo possess ‘forest sense’ though, andcompasses. The first part of the climbwas on a footpath used by locals fortheir foraging activities. We then metup with logging roads, and spectacu­lar views of the mountain. At severalpoints, we stopped and presented of-

At the foothills of Mount Ciremai. Those with backpacks are the ‘mountain climbers'; the rest are mostly Brat devotees.

ferings and prayers at stone remains.(The cigarettes and cash left behindwere unceremoniously pocketed byour guides.) Stories circulated of previ­ous climbs. We were reminded not tourinate on the ground, as this was sa­cred space, and provided with plasticbags for our excretions. A tale was told(more than once) of an unnamedclimber who had mistaken a bag offluid hanging from a tree for iced tea.All of us, including the ‘mountainclimbers,’ observed the pollutiontaboo. After a mid-morning meal,most of the elderly female members,and some of the elderly men, turnedback before the climb became toosteep. This had been previously decid­ed, though they were plainly sad.

Around mid-day, the Cultural In­spector began to complain of pain inhis joints, and requested that we stop.He was in good physical condition (hehad been a sports inspector before hiscurrent appointment), but sufferedfrom arthritis, aggravated by theclimbing and chilly air. His pain be­came unbearable, and we were forcedto cease the day’s climb and set upcamp, more than two hours short ofthe level field that had been the day’sdestination. Some quietly suggestedthat we leave the Cultural Inspectorbehind, but they were overruled. Wespent the night on an incline, huddledaround a fire. Nobody slept soundly.

The next morning, we continuedour ascent, hacking our way throughdense forest and climbing under andover brambles. The Cultural Inspec­tor’s pain increased, and by the timewe reached the level field, he could gono further. We ended up leaving himthere by himself (despite his protests)and continued our slow progress.

The peak of Ciremai is a treeless pin­nacle covered in long grass, cut offfrom the world by swirling clouds. Aburst of adrenaline hit me during thefinal struggle to the top, pulling my­self up, clutching the grass, hand overhand, breathless but exhilarated, col­lapsing at the rim of the cauldron. TheBrai devotees sung a praise-song. Oneof the ‘mountain climbers’ knew theIslamic call for prayer, and was en­couraged by Dakila to stand upon acraggy overhang and cry it out: AllahuAkbar!

Most of the climbers then descend­ed into the cauldron by way of a nar­row chute. People bathed in an ice-cold pool of water in the cauldron.(Nobody could remain immersed formore than a few seconds.) The pool’sWater of Life - ‘tasting like coconutwater or Sprite’ - was collected in plas­tic bottles, and bits of sulphur werepicked up from the cauldron floor.

Finally, after all the climbers had re-ascended to the rim, a fitting incanta­tion [jog tumurun...] was sung and webegan our descent: half-running, half-flying down the mountain. In a fewhours, we were at the level plain tocollect the Cultural Inspector andhave a late lunch, consuming whatfood we had left. On the way down,the Cultural Inspector's arthritic painincreased. Initially walking with acrutch, he eventually had to be car­ried. Darkness descended, our guidescould not pick out our path, and weset up camp. The next morning was

The call for prayeratop Mount Ciremai.

long in coming. There was little waterand practically no food left. My ownsupply of bottled water exhausted, jsome Brai devotees kindly supplied jme with Water of Life to prevent dehy­dration. We arrived at Cibuntu atmid-day, slowed down by the crippled ]Cultural Inspector. Dakila, the Cul- |tural Inspector, most of the ‘mountain jclimbers,’ and I got a ride home with |the former headman (who had busi­ness to attend to nearby). I discovered jthat East Timor had voted for inde­pendence. The rest of the group wait­ed for a bus.

AfterthoughtsThis was the first time that the Cul­

tural Inspector, a number of the‘mountain climbers,’ and I hadclimbed a mountain. It was also thefirst time that any of us had spentsuch an intense period of time beingwith the Brai society. The Cultural In­spector does not like to speak aboutwhat happened at Ciremai; he is per­haps embarrassed by his frailty incomparison to the Brai devotees, someof whom are septuagenarians but insuperb shape because of their farmingwork. Certainly, it provided him (andme) with a new view of and respect forthe devotees. Warsad used to likenBrai devotees to Semar, the agelessclown-servant of Wayang Kulit, whogoes wherever his masters require,charging up and down mountains ifneed be. It is not easy being Semar, ef­facing self in mystical union. Climb­ing Ciremai made me trust others,stretching the physical limits of thepossible and the acceptable. (I do notordinarily drink water from openpools.) I perceived the ‘mountainclimbers' being recruited via the pil­grimage; one sung the call to prayer,all observed the pollution taboo,heard Brai stories, were splashed withspring water, and sat respectfully dur­ing Brai chanting. All are young now,and ‘wild.’ But most of Bayalangu’sdevotees joined the society as elders.Some ‘mountain climbers’ might oneday join too, attracted by the pilgrim­age and like practices and beliefs moreconcrete and vivid than normativeIslam, and the performative thrill ofdrumming, clapping, and singing de­votional songs. This is one future forIndonesians and Indonesia: aware ofthe past, flexible, egalitarian, and non­exclusive. My wife and I were neverasked about our ‘religious affiliation’when we were initiated as Brai devo­tees. I

Dr M atthew Isaac Cohenis a research fellow for the

PAATI program m e at HAS.

E-mail:

mcohen@ rullet.leidenuniv.nl

October 2000 • i ias n e w s l e t t e r >^23 ■ 2 . 7

S O U T H E A S T A S I A

3 >- S J U L Y 2 0 0 0B E R L I N , G E R M A N Y

Conflicts and Violencein IndonesiaFrom 3 to 5 July zooo the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies,at H um boldt University in Berlin organized an internationalconference on the subject Conflict and Violence in Indonesia.Fifteen guests from Indonesia, Australia, Great Britain, theNetherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden and about sixtyscientists and students from Germany participated. Persistentviolent conflicts since the fall o f Soeharto are indubitably areason why the conference attracted such great interest. Therewere z6 contributions that can be divided into four main top­ics, namely general considerations, case studies, cultural as­pects o f violence, and conflict regulation.

■ By I NGRID WESSEL AND GEORGI A WIMHÖFER

1he Head of the Com­mission for MissingPersons and Victims

of Violence (KONTRAS),Munir (Indonesia), ana­lysed the main factors that

have triggered violence under the NewOrder and subsequent governmentsand made a distinction between differ­ent types of state violence and collec­tive violence. Freek Colombijn (theNetherlands) looked at the specifics ofviolence in Indonesia. He linked therole of cultural and social organiza­tions with general explanations of vio­lence and dealt with amok and head­

hunting as cultural specifics, but alsolisted forms of violence that are of ageneral character and not limited to In­donesia. John Sidel (United Kingdom)explained mass violence at the end ofthe twentieth century in terms of a‘moral economy’, considering variousfactors such as state intervention, reli­gion, and a population disadvantagedin the fields of economy and education.Ingrid Wessel (Berlin) dealt with stateviolence under the New Order duringthe 1990s, characterizing Soeharto'srule as based on direct and indirectforms of violence, underlining the ruleof the military and militias in sup-

( A d v e r t i s e m e n t )

Max-Planck-Institute forSocial Anthropology Haiie<Saaie>

MAX PLANCK-CESELI.SCHAFT

Our Institute offers two postdoctoral staff positions for the following projectswithin the temporary project group “Legal Pluralism”:

1. Transnational dimensions o f legal pluralismThe project focuses on the social and economic significance of transnational andinternational law and governmental and non-governmental organisations for therights, legal relations and social practices of individuals and social groups as wellas for decision making processes at local level.

2. Legal Pluralism, religion and social cohesionThe project focuses on the significance of different constellations of plural legalsystems for the emergence and change of societal bonds, processes of exclusionand inclusion and access to common goods. Special attention shall be given to therole of religion and religious law.

Both projects should make a contribution to the theoretical understanding ofplural legal systems and their consequences for social action.

The positions are intended for scholars who already have a proven record in legalanthropological research. Each position is for 3 years initially (possible extensionto 5 years) and offers excellent opportunities to do field research. In addition to agood salary (fixed according to age and experience according to the BAT/O-scale)resources are available for field trips, equipment, research assistants, library andadministrative services, computer support, and conference travel.

The project group “Legal Pluralism" at the Max-Planck Institute for Social Anthro­pology studies the emergence and social significance of complex normativesystems at small-scale local, national and transnational levels. The research isdirected at the interdependences and hybridization of traditional customary,religious, national and international law. Special attention will be given to socio­economic and political problems such as the management of conflicts and partici­pation in political decision making as well as social (in)security and natural resour­ce management. These themes will be studies in the context of processes ofglobalisation and the resulting changing relations between state and society. Theresearch is primarily comparatively oriented, but particular attention will be givento developments in South and Southeast Asia.

The Max Planck Institute is striving to raise the proportion of female members ofstaff. Women are therefore explicitly encouraged to apply. Equally qualified candi­dates with severe disabilities will be given priority.

Applications (which, if desired, will be handled confidentially) are to be sentwithin 3 weeks to:

Max-Planck-Institute forSocial AnthropologyPersonnel AdminstrationPO Box 11 03 51D-06017 Halle/Saale

For further informations, please contact:Prof. Franz von Benda-Beckmann, e-mail: fbenda@eth.mpg.deProf. Keebet von Benda-Beckmann, e-mail: kbenda@eth.mpg.deOur homepage: http://www.eth.mpg.de

pressing the opposrion. Andreas Ufen(Hamburg) described the New Order asa polycratic system of various domi­nant groups. Robert Cribb (Australia)questioned the seriousness of the sta­tistics of victims of mass murder underthe New Order (1965) and of the vio­lence in East Timor, demanding a care­ful treatment of the estimated num­bers of victims.

Regional scenarios of violence werethe second main focus of this confer­ence. George Aditjondro (Indonesia/Australia) analysed the political econ­omy on the Moluccas linking it to thepolitical elite in Jakarta which is saidto instrumentalize ethno-religioustensions in the Moluccas. SusanneSchröter (Mainz) focused on the emer­gence of a Christian identity in East­ern Indonesia. Benny Giay (Indonesia)described the Indonesian politics ofviolence imposed on West Papua toexplain the independence movementin this region. Ariffadillah (Indone-sia/Cologne) spoke on recent develop­ments in Aceh where an agreementbetween the government and the FreeAceh Movement has not succeeded inputting a stop to violent military at­tacks. Against the background of de­velopments in West Kalimantan from1967 to 1999, Mary Somers Heidhues(Berlin) described the violent clashesbetween Dayaks and Madurese in1997. Peter Carey (United Kingdom)reported on interviews that he hadconducted with traumatized femalerefugees from East Timor in Portugal.

Georgia Wimhöfer (Berlin) lookedat the role of students in 1998 andpointed out their weaknesses andstrengths. Kees van Dijk (the Nether­lands) elaborated on the creation ofsecurity groups (Satgas) after Soehar-to’s resignation. Yusiu Liem (Cologne)evaluated 33 years of Soeharto policiestowards the Chinese minority. FarishNoor (Malaysia/Berlin) discussed con­flicts between the Malaysian govern­ment and the Islamic opposition in1997-1999.

C u ltu ra l aspectsDias Pradadimara (Indonesia) spoke

about the Indonesian understandingof spontaneous collective violence inthe streets between 1997 and 1999. Heconcluded that these deeds were ini­tially interpreted as ‘uncontrolled be­haviour’, later as ‘understandableacts’ born of economic necessity, andwere recently described as ‘acts of pu­rification’ of Islam and of a ‘taintedIndonesian culture’, thus justifyingviolence. Nils Bubandt (Denmark) ex­amined violence in the North Moluc­cas from various angles, including theway it is depicted in the media, the re­naissance or the ja^o tradition (localleaders), the dominant position of re­ligion in identifying communities,and the interpretation of violence as asign of an approaching apocalypse.

Anna Greta Nilsson Hoadley (Swe­den) showed that Indonesian litera­ture had brought up violations of

B O O K S R E C E I V E D

lillffillTfl Antweiler, ChristophURBANE RATIONALITATFINE STADTETHNOLOGISCHE STUDIE ZU UJUNGPANDANG (MAKASSAR), INDONESIENBerlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 2000,499 pp ISBN 3-496-02692-8

Dahm, Bernhard and Roderich PtakSÜDOSASIEN-HANDBUCHGESCHICHTE, GESELLSCHAFT, POLITIK, W1RTSCHAFT,KULTURMünchemVerlag C.H., 1999, 684 pp ISBN 3-406-45313-9

Doan Van PhucTU VUNG CAC PHUONG NGU EDE(LEXIQUE DES DIALECTES EDE)Universite Nationale de Ha Noi/École Fran^aise d’Extrême-Orient, 1999167 pp, French

Eder, James F.A GENERATION LATERHOUSEHOLD STRATEGIES AND ECONOMIC CHANGEIN THE RURAL PHILIPPINESHonolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999, 19 1 ppISBN 0-8248-2213-7 pb. 0-8248-2153-X hb.maps

Houtman, GustoafMENTAL CULTURE IN BURMESE CRISIS POLITICSAUNG SAN SUU KYI AND THE NATIONAL LEAGUE FORDEMOCRACYTokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia andAfrica, 1999,392 pp ISBN 4-87297-748-3

Klokke, A.H. (ed. and transl.)TRADITIONAL MEDICINE AMONG THE NGAJU DAYAKIN CENTRAL KALIMANTANTHE 1935 WRITINGS OF A FORMER NGAJU DAYAK PRIESTPhillips, ME: Borneo Research Council, 1998, 314 pp ISBNO-9629568-7-2

Massard-Vincent Josiane and Simonne Pauwels (eds)D'UN NOM A L'AUTRE EN ASIE DU SUD-ESTAPPROCHES ETHNOLOGIQUESParis: Editions Karthala, 1999,318 pp ISBN 2-86537-951-5

Office of the National Culture CommissionPHRA APHAI MANIThailand: Office of the National Culture Commission, 1999, 172 ppISBN 974-7102-50-1,illustrated

Pompe, SebastiaanDE INDONESISCHE ALGEMENE VERKIEZINGEN 1999KITLV Uitgeverij, 1999,290 pp ISBN 90-6718-154-4

Smyth, David (ed.)THE CANON IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN LITERATURESLITERATURES OF BURMA, CAMBODIA, LAOS, MALAYSIA,THE PHILIPPINES, THAILAND, AND VIETNAMRichmond: Curzon Press, 2000, 273 pp ISBN 0-7007-1090-6

Tiwon, SylviaBREAKING THE SPELLCOLONIALISM AND LITERARY RENAISSANCEIN INDONESIALeiden, Department of Languages and Cultures of South-east Asiaand Oceania (Semaian 18), 1999,235 pp ISNN 90-73084-19-9

human rights, even though the offi­cial Indonesian reading of historyommitted or falsified facts concern­ing state violence in the aftermath of1965/66. Tanja Hohe (Miinster/Dar-win) evaluated the reception of theUN mission to East Timor by the localpopulation. Urte Undine Froemming(Berlin) characterized the symbolicsignificance of volcanoes that hasbeen perceived and interpreted in dif­ferent ways by the Indonesian gov­ernment and by the opposition.

Anja Jetschke (Freiburg) spoke onthe general development of humanrights in Indonesia since the begin­ning of the 1990s. Paulo Gorjao (Bel­gium) compared developments inSouth Africa and Indonesia, conclud­

ing that in Indonesia, too, a Truth andReconciliation Commission couldhelp to overcome crimes of the pastand consolidate democracy.

Most of the presentations dealtwith violence in Indonesia in the re­cent past and at the present time. Thedifferent approaches to the topic of vi­olence in Indonesia led to a very com­plex picture. Most papers will be pub­lished in English language by Abera,Hamburg, probably by the end of theyear 2000. ■

Ingrid Wessel and Georgia Wimhöfer,Humboldt University Berlin.E-mails: ingrid.wessel@rz.hu-berlin.de andgeorgia.wimhoefer@rz.hu-berlin.de

2.8 • h a s n e w s l e t t e r N ? 2 3 • October 2000

R E G I O N A L N E WS

EastAsia

LY

y

„V

4

C H I N A

J A P A N

K O R E A

M A C A O

T A I W A N

evertheless, thefamily reunionswere visible proof

that the peace process ismoving ahead. This signof progress is vitally im­

portant, because hopes have beendashed before. There have been familyreunions and high-level talks in thepast, but little has been achieved. Willthis time lead, in Kim Dae-jung sphrase, to the waters of prosperity fill­ing the Han and Taedong Rivers orwill it be, as Aidan Foster-Carter sug­gested last year, another ‘GroundhogDay’ scenario, where things go ‘roundand ‘round, changing but never re­solving?

However, this time is different fortwo reasons. The first is the obviousone that the June summit in Py­ongyang, and promises of rapproche­ment, political and economic co-oper-ation, and progress towards reunifica­tion have been very publicly endorsedby the leaders of both sides, who haveunequivocally displayed their com­mitment. In Korean political culturethis carries a lot of weight. We havenever got to this stage before.

The second reason is more compli­cated and revolves around the basichypothesis that all the leading players- North and South Korea, the US,Japan, China and Russia - have an in­terest in supporting rapprochementas outlined by the summit. This doesnot mean that all political forces inthose countries are in favour - farfrom it - but that, for the moment atleast, the dominant forces are. Thepublic commitment of Kim Dae-jungand Kim Jong II is built upon thisfoundation and whilst we should notunderestimate the personal commit­ment, certainly of Kim DJ and per­haps of Kim JI, that would not have

Milestonesof Peace andReconciliationThe moving scenes oflong separated families being briefly re­united, then separated again, marked a poignant milestone onthe road to peace and reconciliation on the Korean peninsula.The family reunions were, for most Koreans, the first tangibleresults o f the June summit in Pyongyang between the leadersof the two Koreas. This perception was not quite correct, inthat the highly successful debut o f the North Korean ForeignMinister, Paek Nam Sun, at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)meeting in Bangkok at the end o f July was an importantachievement in what has become a ‘de facto joint offensive ofPresident Kim Dae-jung and Chairman Kim Jong II to estab­lish diplomatic relations between the Democratic People’s Re­public o f Korea (DPRKJ and those allies o f the Republic ofKorea (ROK) who have yet to do so.

gotten very far without the develop­ment of circumstances conducive torapprochement.

All Korean politicians claim to becommitted to working for reunifica­tion and, although there are reportsfrom the South that young people areshowing little interest in joining withthe North, it is clear that the issue ofdivision and the goal of unity remainin the forefront of public conscious­ness, especially this year. Until recent­ly, the conditions of reunificationwere, of course, contested betweenNorth and South but now the leadersof both sides appear to be edging to­wards an understanding.

At the time of the July 4 statementin 1972, both Koreas were secure in de­fence but the DPRK was, by accounts,economically ahead of the ROK. Bythe time of the 1991/2 prime minister­ial meetings, the DPRK was slippinginto crisis and, whilst now it is recov­ering, it is immensely weaker acrossthe board than the ROK. However, ifthe DPRK has long since given upthoughts of taking over the South (de­spite the assertions from outside tothe contrary] so too has the ROK givenup a desire to swallow the North. TheGerman example put paid to that.From the point of view of the domi­nating side, the costs were enormousand Kim Dae-jung, amongst others,has shown he is well aware of that.From the perspective of the weakerside, especially the ten to fifteen per­cent of the country who are identifiedwith the regime or are in positions ofauthority or have skills that will be­come inadequate, the prospects insuch a reunified country are dim.Moreover, whilst in Germany state-to-state relations were frosty, in Koreathere has been a fratricidal civil warbetween the two sides and therewould be pressures for revenge andretribution.

A

T ••• •*

yDancers greeting the crowds in Pyongyang.

If neither side can contemplate tak­ing over the other or being taken over,but the imperative of reunificationremains, then a living together anddeveloping of co-operation is logical.From the point of view of the North,the rapprochement is of huge impor­tance. The DPRK needs to restore itseconomy and, most crucially, to in­crease its earning of foreign exchangegreatly. Rapprochement with theSouth is vital, for reasons of direct eco­nomic co-operation, for access to in­ternational loans, and for the knock-on effect of removing U.S. sanctionsand getting Japanese reparations. Theeconomic attractions for the South arefar less, but still substantial.

However, it would be a mistake tosee this as all a one-way business. TheROK has the economic and militaryedge, but the DPRK has the card ofKorean nationalism. This gives itstrength vis-a-vis the South and itsother adversaries and also providesthe regime with legitimacy and re­silience. It has often been argued thatthe parlous economic situation would‘bring North Korea to the negotiatingtable'; however, the opposite has hap­pened. It is the beginnings of eco­nomic recovery and a confidence thatthe worst is over, that powerful ene­mies had been faced down and forcedto negotiate, that led Kim Jong II tothe June summit.

The great change in DPRK strategyover the last year has been a turningaway from its traditional insistencethat its main negotiations were withthe United States, to a focus on Seoul.There are a number of possible rea­sons for this, but the key seems tohave been that Kim Jong II was per­suaded that Kim Dae-jung’s ‘sun­shine policy’ was more than a trickand offered real opportunities forachieving what must be his two mainobjects - the survival and securityfrom outside threat of the DPRK, andthe restoration of its economy.

One crucial aspect was Seoul’s en­couragement for its allies to establishrelations with Pyongyang. Italy’srecognition in January 2000 and Aus­tralia’s re-establishment of relationsin May, ties with the Philippines andadmission to the ASEAN RegionalForum, and the subsequent agree­ments with Canada and New Zealand,owed much to Seoul’s support. Itseems that Pyongyang decided, quiterightly, that all other relations at themoment turned on the relationshipwith Kim Dae-jung.

Kim Dae-jung is clearly pivotal inthe whole business. Not merely hashis ‘sunshine policy’ brought about aclimate for rapprochement, but it hasbecome the centre-point of his politi­cal life. It has been suggested that heis in the running for a Nobel peaceprize (along with Kim Jong II) ifthings go well. Certainly, it would bereasonable to assume that he willwant to go down in history as theman who brought about the reunifi­cation of his country, so he will devotehimself to making the summit work.He also has a commitment to democ­racy and a track record that few couldmatch, and progress in deepeningSouth Korean democracy will dependcrucially on relations with the North.Rescinding of the National SecurityLaw will be the touchstone of that.Moreover, the setback in the Aprilelections left relations with the Northas one of the few areas where Kim DJhas a relatively free hand. He has towatch his back because, although thesummit has in theory bipartisan sup­port, the opposition Grand NationalParty has lost no opportunity to scorepoints. Nevertheless, as president,Kim has a special role to play and it isclear he will use that.

All this is reinforced by the recep­tion he received in Pyongyang, theConfucian deference shown to him byKim Jong U, and the personal rapportthe two seem to have established. The

momentum of the June summit hasbeen kept up in a series of high-leveltalks, family reunions, repatriation ofpolitical prisoners, forthcoming re-joining of the railway systems, devel­oping economic ties, and variousother milestones that give a real senseof progress towards peace and recon­ciliation.

Nevertheless, there are manythings that could go wrong, andmany covert forces that would like tobring that about. It is important,therefore, that the process receives asmuch support as possible from theoutside world. In particular, the Euro­pean Union and its constituent coun­tries should join with Italy in speedilyestablishing diplomatic relationswith the DPRK and developing aidand business relations. ■

- This is an updated and reduced versionof a paper entitled ‘Summit of HighHopes’ which introduced the SpecialSupplement on Korea in the NewZealand Journal of Asian Studies,Vol 2 No 1, June 2000. Details of thejournal may be found at the websiteof the NZ Asian Studies Society(http://www.nzasia.waikato.ac.nz/).The original paper, and others onNorth Korea, along with links todocuments and press stories, canbe found at:Http://www.vuw.acnz/-caplabtb/dprk/index.html.

- For economic developments see TimBeal, The Waters of Prosperity will fillthe Han and Taedong Rivers, NZjournal of Asian Studies, June 2000,pp. 287-319; also at:Http://www.vuw.ac.nz/-caplabtb/dprk/index.html.

I D r Tim Beal is Senior Lec-rarer at the School o f Busi-

} ness and Public Manage­ment, Victoria University ofWellington, New Zealand.Email: tim.beal@vuw.ac.n z

October 2 0 0 0 • HAS NEWSLETTER NS 23 • 2 . 9

E A S T A S I A

A Collection o f Essays onModernization andReligion in South Korea

By ROALD MALIANGKAY

vmmm

Since the late nineteenth century, when the Japanese brokedown the Confixcian institution in Korea in order to facilitatetheir colonization o f the country, patriotism and nationalismhave fuelled the religious activities o f Koreans. The Japanesemade great efforts to force-feed Shintoism and to revitalizeBuddhism, but these proved largely ineffective and servedmainly to kindle the fire o f those religions that they hopedwould lose popular support. After the liberation, Protes­tantism and Confucianism surfaced as major forces. The for­mer has continued to grow steadily, sometimes managing todepend on filial piety, commonly considered a Confucian con­cept, to gain members. Meanwhile, Confucianism, perhapsprimarily a set o f traditional values rather than a spiritual reli­gion, has adopted hybrid forms and could, arguably, count thesurviving business conglomerates, ‘chaeböl’, among its tem­ples o f worship. The fact that these institutions also serve asicons o f capitalism to the almost exclusively middle-class ur­banites, a significant proportion o f which is Protestant, showshow, to some extent, Confucianism and Protestantism havecome to be interdependent.

aimed at studying the relationshipbetween religion and modernizationin contemporary Korea. The largenumber of papers - seventeen intotal - is categorized into five chap­ters, the first and largest of which is‘Religion and Modernization inSouth Korea’. This chapter is perhapsthe most valuable part of the collec­tion as it deals with the developmentof value systems and socio-politicalfactors in Korea from a clearly de­fined, predominantly Euro-centricviewpoint. The authors apply thetheoretical frameworks of Marx andEngels, Weber and Durkheim to thesocial and religious developments inKorea and eschews too many conclu­sive judgements or predictions re­garding Korean society. Unfortu­nately, however, in the opening arti­cle, authors Jens Jetzkowitz andMatthias König are clearly bound tothe limited number of sources onthe history of Korean religion inEnglish. This is somewhat of a let­down in what is otherwise a very in­teresting summary of where theoryand practice meet in terms of socialand religious developments in twen­tieth-century Korea.

The second chapter, ‘Shamanismand Folk Religion’, mainly dealswith shamanism. After a brief sum­mary of the main characteristics ofthe different folk religions by LeeJoung-Jae, Gritt Maria Klinkham-mer looks at the practice of shaman­ism in contemporary Korea. Shefinds that the status of the predomi­nantly female shamans remains low,despite their great presence in thecity (p.128). Based, in part, on her

* t present, the sym-Z \ biosis is the popular

L Asubject of debate.Protestantism, for exam­ple, should theoreticallybe more applicable to re­

cent trends of globalization andgrowing individualism than Confu­cianism. Yet, the reality appears toattest that it is still Confucian valuesthat often form the pillars of theirorganization, and subsequentlyleave the behavioural scope ofchurch members to be defined byboth Confucian values and the bible,and thus seemingly with little con­tradiction. Moreover, as the in caseof the other two major religions inKorea, shamanism and Buddhism,followers often show both a greatsense of nationalist pride and agrowing interest in missionary ac­tivities and commercialism. The rea­sons being what they may, the suc­cess of Korea’s religions obviouslydoes not lie in their homogeneityvis-a-vis each other. Korean religionsremain composites, rather than op­posites.

The monograph Modernisierungund Religion in Südkorea: Studiënzur Multireligiositat in einer ostasi-atischen Gesellschaft includes pa­pers from a myriad of disciplines.They all address the complexity ofSouth Korean religious life at pre­sent and show how the religions areadapting to the quickly changing so­cial and religious climate. The vol­ume is the result of a series of fieldtrips performed in 1996 and 1997

B O O K R E C E I V E D

fPratt, Keith and Richard Rutt, additional material by James Hoare

KOREA\J A HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL DICTIONARY

r IPSurrey: Curzon Press, 1999, 568 pp.

e m ISBN 0-7007-0464-7 hb, 0-7007-0463-9 pb, illustrated

d

own experiences in Seoul and Taegu,she concludes that the great interestin shamanism in recent years lies ina need to deal with the ‘rationalskepticism’ of Korea’s highly indus­trialized society (p.i3o). Cha Ok, onthe other hand, looks at why womenare such a major force in religion inKorea. The primary merit of herpaper lies in her account of howsome shamans explain specific ritu­als. Her own narrative, however,contains many unsubstantiatedjudgements, and most of the an­swers she promises in her introduc­tion are not given.

Buddhism and ConfucianismIn the third chapter, ‘Present De­

velopments in Buddhism and Confu­cianism’, Karl-Fritz Daiber providesan interesting insight into the orga­nization of Buddhism at present.Without using the word evangelism(p.152), Daiber argues that organiza­tion behind Buddhist activities isstrong and that increasingly moreencouragement is being given topromotional activities. In comparingthe structure of Buddhism and Con-

... but the many

weaknesses may lead

to frustration rather

than debate.

fucianism - only here it is noted thatthe concept of Confucianism as a re­ligion is debatable (p.158) - he findsthat the activities of both religionsreflect a need to counter the growingcompetition from the Christianchurch (pp. 159-160). Choe Chong-Sok further examines the process ofmodernization within Buddhism.He places the beginning of the mod­ernization of Buddhism in 1895,when the Japanese reformed theCfioson law that forbade monks toenter the city. Choe believes that therenaissance of Buddhism in Koreawould not have taken place withoutthe enormous influence of Japan(p.171) since it was they who forcedKorea to open its doors to the Westand broke down the Confucian insti­tution. He notes, however, that theensuing Christian missionary activi­ties were also an important source ofinspiration. In the final paper of thischapter, Michael Pye examines thedevelopment and organizationalstructure of Won Buddhism, a reli­gious movement that began in theearly twentieth century and has sincegrown rapidly to become one of Kore­an Buddhism’s main institutions.

The influence of Protestantism onother religions is the primary topic ofthe fourth chapter, ‘Protestantismbetween Enculturation and Accul­turation’. The two main papers studythe affinity between Protestantismand shamanism, but the two unusu­al terms of the chapter’s title seemonly to apply to the first article. ChiIn-Gyw and Jens Jetzkowitz first con­centrate on the similarities betweenthe two religions' theoretical andspiritual aspects. They then look atthe importance of the populist Min-jung movement that became a forcein the 1980s. This movement hasboth Protestant and shaman influ­ences, yet seems to embrace not onlyindividualism but also humanism. Iwas hoping to find some words onthe role of Confucianism but, unfor­tunately, the authors chose not toaddress this issue. Daiber comparesthe services of the Protestant retreatsknown as kidowon with those ofKore-an shamans. Partly based on a num­ber of field studies, his conclusionfinds that the experiences of womenthere reveal a need for a service thatprovides an escape from everyday life,not only in terms of salvation, butalso in terms of the emotional andspiritual outlet it can give them.

United religionsIn the final chapter, ‘Traditions of

Multi-Religiousness and of a Dia­logue between Religions’, Woo Hai-Ran tries to find reasons behindKorea’s multi-religious society froma theoretical viewpoint. She exam­ines Korean plans for a united reli­gions organization, arguing that theposition of the state is consideredvital in determining the course ofthe relationship between religionsin Korea (p.268). The interest inopening a dialogue between reli­gions is epitomized by the activitiesof the Korean Christian Academy.Christoph Elsas examines the possi­ble reasons behind these. He believesthat the Academy’s 1965 decision toorganize a series of conferences forthis purpose may have come fromthe Christian concern with all as­pects of human life (pp. 274-275J.

The sheer number of topics dealtwith in this volume makes for ahighly useful bundle of ideas anddiscussion topics. Of course, not alltopics related to religion in contem­porary Korea can be covered in onevolume, but I was surprised to findthat the issues of nationalism andmodernity are practically ignored,and that the Minjung movementand its relationship with shaman­ism and other folk religions is givenlittle or no attention. Although theissues have already been explored ex­tensively in other publications, theirimportance cannot be denied andhave had an irrefutable effect on theperception and experience of reli­gions in twentieth-century Korea.Although the volume’s wide scopemay interest scholars from a widerange of fields, the absence of issuessuch as these leaves too many ques­tions left unanswered. In the intro­duction, the reader is warned thatthe primary aim is to bring up issuesfor discussion (p.12), but the manyweaknesses may lead to frustrationrather than debate. It is obvious thatany comprehensive study of reli­gious life in contemporary Korea re­quires a proper definition of terms

and scope, but the compilers (I re­frain from using the word ‘editors’)have decided to let the papers speakfor themselves, with varying degreesof success.

Dubious qualityAn example of the dubious quality

of some of the writing (and editing)is the unsubstantiated passage ‘itcannot be denied that there are dif­ferences between man and femaletemperaments and, in particular,that due to their particular bodilyexperiences women are more open toreligious experiences than men’(p.133). Other examples are the lackof a clear chronological line (pp. 51-57) and the use of pretentious titlesto insignificant sub-chapters (pp. 77-86). Another disadvantage of havingno clear style sheet is that the differ­ent romanizations lose much oftheir value and become a tediouspuzzle. References are too oftenomitted and, when they are given,names are sometimes misspelled (see[Kim Yölgyu] Kim Vel-Kyu, p.146) orgiven the wrong translation (Chong-shin munhwa yöriguwön [commonlyknown as Academy of Korean Stud­ies] becomes ‘Korean Mental Re­search Institute’, p.146). Lee Joung-Jae’s bibliography (p.X22) certainlyshould not have been printedunchecked. Not only are the namesof publishers missing, but Lee alsomanages to mix-up many romaniza-tion types in the same line. Mean­while, the two Walravens referred toin his list are in fact one person.

I believe that because of the lack ofdiscussion on specific issues and theabsence of proper editing, the valueof the volume is somewhat relativeto each paper, leaving its high priceunjustified. It is unlikely that eitherMarx or Engels, Weber or Durkheimever visited Korea, but the theoreti­cal approach of some of the papersadds a unique perspective to manyimportant current issues withinSouth Korea’s religious life. The vol­ume hence comprises a number ofinvaluable additions to the study ofKorea and of multi-religious soci­eties in general, once more empha­sizing that studies from a non-ori-entalist viewpoint can contributegreatly to the understanding of con­temporary Korean society. ■

Sigfried Keil, Jens Jetzkowitz andMatthias KönigMODERNISIERUNG UNDRELIGION IN SÜDKOREA:STUDIËN ZUR MULTI-RELIGIOSITAT IN EINEROSTASIATISCHENGESELLSCHAFT.

Bonn:Weltforum Verlagsgesellshaft fürPolitik und Auslandskunde mbH, 1998.ISBN 3-8039-0715-2,299 pp.

Dr Roald M aliangkay is a researcherat the Centre o f Korean Studies, Leiden.E-mail: r.h.maliangkay@let.leldenuniv.nl

3 0 • h a s n e w s l e t t e r >623 • October 2000

EAS T AS I A

8 ► 9 J U N E 2 0 0 0L E I D E N , T H E N E T H E R L A N D S

Yogacara Buddhism in ChinaOn 8-9 June zooo, the symposium on ‘Yogaclra Buddhism inChina’ was held at the International Institute for Asian Stud­ies at Leiden University. Convened by Chen-kuo Lin, this sym­posium gathered together scholars and Buddhologists fromTaiwan, Japan, America, Canada, Germany, Belgium, and theNetherlands to explore the literatures and doctrines ofYogacara Buddhism in China from its inception in the fifthcentury to its modern revival in the twentieth century.

By CHEN- KUO LIN

he theme of thesymposium, not in­appropriately, was a

triple one, the first one ofwhich was to study theYogacara texts translated

and collected in the Chinese Tripita-ka. Except for a few texts still extant inSanskrit, most Yogacara literature ispreserved in Chinese and Tibetantranslations, such as SamihinirmocanaSütra, Yqgacarabhümi, and Asanga’sMahayanasamgraha, to name but afew. Despite their availability, Chi­nese textual sources are often ignoredby scholars when Tibetan transla­tions are available for reconstructionand exegesis. Calling attention to thetextual value of Chinese sources wasone of purposes of this symposium.The second thematic focus was on thedevelopment of Yogacara Buddhismin China from its earliest stage (DilunMasters and Shelun Masters), the ‘Old'Yogacara School founded by Para­martha (499-569), up to the ‘New'Yogacara School founded by Xuan-zang (602-664) and Kuiji (632-682). Therevival of Yogacara Studies in theMing dynasty and early decades of theRepublican era should also not beoverlooked. The third and most inter­esting focus of the theme was the in­terchange between Yogacara andother Chinese indigenous Buddhistschools, such as Tian-tai, Hua-yan,Chan, and Pure Land.

Diversity o f approachesGiven these guidelines, the topics

of papers presented at the sympo­sium reflected a great diversity ofproblematic and methodological ap­proaches. In ‘Three Natures in theMahayanasamgraha, Leslie S. Kawa-mura pointed out the structural sim­ilarity between Asanga’s Mahaya­nasamgraha and Vasubandhu’s Tritn-sika. Both regard the Three-NatureTheory as the modus operandi by which

Pro/essor Kawamura (Calgary)

a student can realize the meaning ofvijnapti-matratd (information only),which is construed by Kawamura asa kind of mentalism. In Kawamura sinterpretation, Yogacara is concernedwith the ‘meaningful world’, butnot with the ‘ontological world’.What counts are the mental factorsin the processing of information.The ontological question of whether‘external objects do not exist’ or ‘theworld is nothing but an idea’ doesnot bother Yogacara. However, as wewill see later, the ontological ques­tion may not easily be dismissed.

Unhappy about some scholars,‘mainly from the Anglo-Saxon cul­tural sphere’, having challenged theYogacara ‘idealist’ ontology of‘noth­ing but cognition’ (vijnapti-matrata),in his paper entitled ‘On the Prob­lem of the External world in Cherywei shih lun’, Lambert Schmithausenvigorously argued that ‘the existenceof “extra-mental” material (or other)entities’ is rejected not only as ob-

Participants o f the conference Yogacara Buddhism tn Leiden

Schmithausen’s paper can be seen asone of the most significant responsesto the dispute initiated by Alex Way-man in the 1970s and espoused bymany scholars since, including DanLusthaus, who strongly challenged anon-idealist interpretation.

Instead of reacting to Schmit­hausen’s criticism, Dan Lusthausturned to the hermeneutic issue. In‘Notes on the Soteric Hermeneuticsof Asanga: Language, Samskaras, andAppropriation’, Lusthaus examinedAsanga’s Abhidharmasamuccaya andthe Mahayanasamgraha respectively,attempting to answer questions suchas ‘What are the cognitive conditionsat work in a hermeneutic act?’ and‘What happens when one reads orhears Buddhavacana?’ Using textualanalysis, Lusthaus pointed out that‘the teachings enter one’s own con­sciousness from outside, through themedium of language’. That is, a prac­titioner hears the teaching whichflows from the Purest Dharma-Dhatu (i.e., Purest Cognitive Field)correctly. As expected, a sort of anti-idealist stance is clearly demonstra­ble in Lusthaus’ hermeneutics.

In ‘Language and Consciousness inthe Samdhinirmocana Sütra’, Chen-kuo Lin elaborated on a Yogacaraphilosophy of language. The mainquestion for Lin was to clarify theontological status of the referent

ForFaramartha

language is employed

as a skilful but

arbitrary means

to negate all ideas

and all words.

by tracing two contrasting Yogacaraagendas: (1) critical phenomenologyof consciousness and (2) mystic un­derstanding of consciousness. Indrawing on the ‘unmediated experi­ence’, which is ineffable, Yogacara hasto face the questions: How is one toengage in the world of language?What is the function oflanguage? For

Professor Schmithausen (Hamburg).

jects of cognition but also as suchwithout any qualification. Althoughhe might not have the final word,

A tête-d-tête between Pro/essor Lin and Pro/essor Vetter

Pro/essor Chen-kuo Lin(convenor o f the conference]

(nimitta) by looking into the Con­sciousness and Three-Nature Theo­ries. Using SNS and the Viniscaya-samgrahanl of Yogacarabhümi asthe textual sources, Lin concludedthat nimitta is the perceived objectthat occurs as the effect of psycho-linguistic sediments.

The problem oflanguage also drewJohn Keenan’s attention. In hislengthy paper, ‘Critical and MysticYogacara Philosophy: Paramartha onlanguage’, Keenan provided a system­atic account of Yogacara philosophy

Paramartha, who was characterizedby Keenan as more religious and mys­tic, language is employed as a skilfulbut arbitrary means to negate allideas and all words. In reponse toKeenan’s presentation, Tilmann Vet­ter remarked that the ‘unmediatedexperience’, for example, of animals,should be differentiated from theBuddhist mystic ‘unmediated experi­ence’, which is always mediated di­alectically.

Chinese BuddhismIn Chinese Buddhism in general,

including Yogacara, the most influ­ential yet controversial figure is Para­martha. Following the interpretivecontext in modern scholarship, in‘The Yogacara Doctrine of Buddha-Nature: Paramartha vs. Fa-hsiangSchool’, Wing-cheuk Chan provided anew interpretation, and argued thatParamartha’s thought should be sep­arated from the Awakening ofFaith andtathagatagarbha thought. On the basisof the Fo-hsing lun, which is regardedas Paramartha’s work, Chan also ar­gued that neither Buddha-nature nor

amalavtjnana function as the (empiri­cal or transcendental) grounds of theworld. Accordingly, Paramartha is anon-idealist in contrast to the idealis­tic character displayed by Xuanzang.

When observing the historical de­velopment, no one can ignore theearly stages of Chinese Yogacarathought represented in the Dilun Shiand the Shelun Shi. In ‘Zhiyi’s (538-597) Reception, Interpretation, andCriticism of Dilun- and Shelun-Thoughts’, Hans Kantor used thetexts of Huiyuan (523-592) plus Dun-huang manuscripts to reconstruct thehistory and doctrines of early ChineseYogacara schools. He also stressed therole played by these early Yogacaracommentators in the shaping ofZhiyi’s Tiantai philosophy. The inter­action between Yogacara and Tiantaiwas clearly exposed.

Nabuyoshi Yamabe drew our atten­tion to another interaction betweenYogacara and the indigenous Bud­dhist Schools, namely Xuanzang sFaxiang School and Northern Chan.In ‘Yogacara Influence on the North­ern School of Chan Buddhism , Yam­abe subverted the stereotype of com­mon understanding that Xuanzang sYogacara Buddhism had little influ­ence on the later indigenous BuddhistSchools. By carefully analysing theYuanmmg lun and the Zhengzong lun,Yamabe concluded that there is astrong textual and doctrinal link be­tween Yogacara and the NorthernChan.

Huimin Bhikkhu shed light onmodern Chinese Yogacara scholar­ship. He introduced us to an interpre­tation of Yogacara thought from Yin-shun, the most prominent monk-scholar in Taiwan. In Huimin’s ‘Pra-titya-samutpada and Pratïtya-samut-panna Dharma-laksasa: The Essence ofYogacara thought from the viewpointof Venerable Yinshun’, the differentpositions adopted by Asanga and Va-subandhu can be explained by look­ing into their different interpreta­tions of‘causation’ and ‘the character­istics of causally arisen phenomena.

Lastly, in ‘Yogacara and Abhidhar-ma in China’, Charles Willemen pro­vided a brief, historical picture of theSarvastivada and the Sautrantika Ab-hidharmas as precedents to the rise ofthe Yogacara school. He summarizeda quite complicated historical contextinvolving many figures and doctrinesin India, Central Asia, and China.

ConclusionsAfter two days of in-depth discus­

sion, most participants agreed thatthis was a truly pioneering seminaron the study of Yogacara Buddhism.In general, this symposium wasfruitful and promising. It was fruit­ful because it contributed scholar­ship of a high standard to the studyof Yogacara Buddhism. It waspromising because a new land wasdiscovered. However, more effortneeds to be made. As Professor Kawa­mura proposed, a follow-up confer­ence on the same subject will takeplace at the University of Calgary,Canada, in two years’ time. ■

Professor Chen-kuo Linwas the European Chair o f Chinese Studiesuntil I August 2000 at the HAS, Leiden.E-mail: cklin@nccu.edu.tw

October 2000 • iias n e w s l e t t e r >«23 • 3 1

E A S T A S I A2 6 »■ 2 7 MAY 2 0 0 0B U D A P E S T , H U N G A R Y

The Past Decadeof Migration from ChinaMovement o f people from the People’s Republic o f China to Eu­rope and Asia has both increased in volume and become morediverse in terms o f channels in the last decade, and research onit has been done by a very diverse group o f people, from Ameri­can criminologists to Russian demographers. Most o f them hadnot heard about each other before this workshop. Our aim wasto bring them together in order to assemble disjointed andpartly unpublished pieces o f empirical knowledge for analysiswith the help o f renowned migration scholars. We were won­dering whether we could begin to paint a coherent picture o f a‘migration configuration’ that encompasses shifts betweencountries, roles and legal/illegal status chosen by migrants withexpediencies for social mobility in China, and policies o f gov­ernment agencies in China that influence such mobility.

By PAL NYl'RI A N D IGOR R. SAVELIEV

he workshop suc­ceeded in bringingtogether 37 anthro­

pologists, sociologists, de­mographers, political sci­entists, and economists, as

well as journalists, and governmentand NGO workers from fourteencountries. The diversity of the papers,discourses, and languages made acommon frame of analysis difficult.Nonetheless, common themes emer­ged from the papers. One of these isthe globalization of Chinese migra­tion, which includes several aspects.One aspect is the opening up of newmigration spaces from Eastern Eu­rope to Cambodia and Burma, and thecommercialization of migration bro­kerage networks resulting in in­creased intermigration between indi­vidual countries and regions. Anotheraspect is the increasing standardiza­tion of some modes of economic activ­ity and identity discourses, mainlythose tied to the People’s Republic ofChina. This has mitigated status andlifestyle differences between migrantsfollowing very different routes andpossessing different types of culturalcapital, making the previously rigidcategories o f‘student’, ‘illegal sweat­shop worker’, and ‘overseas Chinesebusinessman’ more mutually perme­able. On the other hand, this globalChinese migration stands in opposi­tion to, and sometimes conflict with,established, more stationary overseasChinese communities whose elitesfeel that their hard-earned economicand social stability, as well as their

control o f ‘Chineseness’ in the localcontext, is being threatened.

Another overarching theme wasformulated by Liu Xin in the form of aquestion: ‘What does travel mean tothe way a Chinese today sees himselfas a person?’ Most papers, explicitly orimplicitly, struggled with the ques­tion of whether the meaning of move­ment to different social subjects - tomigrants, non-migrants, elites, andstates - is different today from what ithad been. Papers by Edwards,Guerasimoff, and Thu no supportedthe view that the PRC government’spolicy is now lending legitimacy tothe ‘spatial hierarchy’ (Liu) generatedby travel, thus co-opting migrationinto an organizationally underpinneddiscourse of patriotism. This canmake spatial movement a sort ofshort cut to social movement in a lo­calized context.

The papers challenged severalwidespread assumptions on migra­

tion from China, including the popu­lar criminological view that migrantsmuggling is a criminal enterprisecontrolled by organized syndicates,that the centralized agency in pro­moting migration is increasingly im­puted to be the PRC, and that figurescited in Russian publications con­cerning ‘Chinese expansion’ into thefar east of the country are exaggerat­ed. China, Russia, and Japan, partici­pants argued, share a situation wherereporting and policies on Chinese mi­grants fall victim to conflicts of inter­est between various levels andbranches of government.

Despite such differentiated treat­ment of these issues, the papers, espe­cially in the last panel, emphasizedthe role of new migration in reinforc­ing the PRC’s state-sponsored dis­course of ‘Chineseness’. As Piekepointed out, the more dynamic Chi­nese living overseas become and thecloser ties they have with China, themore vital it is for Peking to pre-emptthe spilling over of subversive dis­courses among them into the domes­tic sphere by emphasizing a singlecollective identity. The treatment ofalternative identities and discoursesof truth constructed by various elitesand at the grassroots levels, includingreligious movements and opposition­ist political parties active among therank and file of migrants, was under­represented at the workshop, butPoisson’s paper offered a promisingbeginning.

We have contacted publishers witha proposal for a volume consisting ofselected papers along the conceptuallines of globalizing Chinese migra­tion and its changing meaning. ■

This workshop was organized by

Dr Pal Nyiri and Professor Igor R. Saveliev

and was sponsored by the European Science

Foundation Asia Committee and the

Economic and Social Research Council

Transnational Communities Programme.

Dr Pal Nyiri is a Senior Research Fellowat the University o f Oxford.

E-mail: nyirip@mail.matac.hu

Prof. Igor R. Saveliev is Associate Professor

at Niigata University.

E-mail: irs@human.ge.niigata-u.ac.jp

Participants o f the workshop

ch1na

B O O K S R E C E I V E D

Alleton.Viviane and Micheal Lackner (eds)

DE L'UN AU MULTIPLETRADUCTIONS DU CHINOISVERS LES LANGUES EUROPÉENNESParis: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de f Homme,1999, ISBN 2-7351-0768-X, English and French

Barmé, Ceremie R.

IN THE REDON CONTEMPORARY CHINESE CULTUREColumbia University Press, 1999, 5 12 pp, ISBN 0-231-10614-9, illustrated

Bary. Wm. Theodore de and Tu Weiming (eds)

CONFUCIANISM AND HUMAN RIGHTSColumbia University Press, 1998, 327 pp, ISBN 0-231-10936-9

Cheung, Sidney C.H. and Siumi Maria Tam

CULTURE AND SOCIETY OF HONG KONGA BIBLIOGRAPHYThe Chinese University of Hong Kong: Department of Anthropology,1999. lOOpp

Cutter, Robert Joe and William Cordon Crowell (transl., annotation, introduction)

EMPRESSES AND CONSORTSSELECTIONS FROM CHEN SHOU'S 'RECORDS OF THETHREE STATES' WITH PEI SONGZHI'S COMMENTARYHonolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999, 280 pp, ISBN 0-8248-1945-4 hb

Dillon, Michael

CHINA'S MUSLIM HUI COMMUNITYMIGRATION, SETTLEMENT AND SECTSRichmond: Curzon Press, 1999, 208 pp, ISBN 0-7007-1026-4

Fisac.Taciana and Steve Tsang, (eds)

CHINA EN TRANSICIÓNSOCIEDAD, CULTURA, POLITICA Y ECONOMfCABarcelona: Editions Bellaterra, 2000,439 pp, ISBN 84-7290-137-8, Spanish

Fong, Gilbert C.F.,(transl)

THE OTHER SHOREPLAYS BY GAO XINGJIANHong Kong:The Chinese University Press, 1999,269 pp, ISBN 962-201-862-9

Geense, Paul and Trees Pels

OPVOEDING IN CHINESE GEZINNEN IN NEDERLANDEEN PRAKTISCHE BENADERINGAssemVan Gorcum, 1998,213 pp, ISBN 90-232-3347-6, Dutch

Ghiglione.Anna

LA PENSÉE CHINOISE ANCIENNE ET L'ABSTRACTIONParis: Editions You-feng, 1999,303 pp, ISBN 2-84279-078-2, French

Haar, B.j. ter

THE WHITE LOTUS TEACHINGSIN CHINESE RELIGIOUS HISTORYHonolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999

Hsio, C.T., with an introduction by David Der-weiWang

A HISTORY OF MODERN CHINESE FICTIONBloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999, 726 pp,ISBN 0-2S3-2I311-8 pb,0-253-33477-2 hb, third edition

Jones, Charles Brewer

BUDDHISM IN TAIWANRELIGION AND THE STATE 1660-1990Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999,259 pp, ISBN 0-8248-2061-4 hb

Kampen, Thomas

MAO ZEDONG, ZHOU ENLAI AND THE EVOLUTION OFTHE CHINESE COMMUNIST LEADERSHIPCopenhagen S: NIAS Publishing, 2000, 144 pp,ISBN 87-87062-76-3 pb, 87-87062-80-1 hb, illustrated

Knapp, Ronald G.

CHINA'S LIVING HOUSESFOLK BELIEFS, SYMBOLS, AND HOUSEHOLDORNAMENTATIONHonolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999, 185 pp,ISBN 0-8248-2079-7, illustrated

Levy, André

CHINESE LITERATURE, ANCIENT AND CLASSICALBloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 168 pp,ISBN 0-253-33656-2 pb, translated by William H. Nienhauser.Jr.

Levy, Dore ].

IDEAL AND ACTUAL IN THE STORY OF THE STONEColumbia University Press, 1999, 231 pp, ISBN 0-231 - 11406-0

3 2 • h a s n e w s l e t t e r N?23 • O c t o b e r 2000

E A S T A S I A

BOOKS RECEIVED C H IN A (cont)

Li, Si-ming and Wing-shing TangCHINA'S RELIGIONS, POLITY & ECONOMYHong Kong: Chinese University Press. 2000,413 pp. ISBN 962-201-8S4-8,

illustrated

Li, XianglingCHINESE-DUTCH BUSINESS ASSOCIATIONSINSIGHTS FROM DISCOURSEAmsterdam: Rodopi, 1999, 219 pp, ISBN 90-420-0734-6

Lyell, William A. and Sarah Wei-ming Chen (transl.)BLADES OF GRASSTHE STORIES OF LAO SHEHonolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. 1999, 310 pp,ISBN 0-8248-1506-8 pb, 0-8248-1803-2 hb

china

5 >• 7 J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 0L E I D E N , T H E N E T H E R L A N D S

The Documentation and Research Center for Contemporary

China, Sinological Institute, Leiden University

P.O. Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands

China Information is an English-language, refereed academic journal

with an international readership, now in its fourteenth year of

publication, which focuses on recent developments in China,

Taiwan, Hong Kong and other Chinese Communities,

in the field of economics, politics, law, education and health,

environment, literature and the arts.Vol. XIV, No. I (2000) offers the following articles:

XroOIN

8oZCOCO

Sixth European Conference

Agriculture and RuralDevelopment in China

Reed, Bradley W.TALONS AND TEETHC O U N T Y CLERKS A N D RUNNERS 1N THE Q IN G D Y N A S TYStanford: Stanford University Press, 2000, 318 pp, ISBN 08047-3758-4

Rivkin, Laura (ed), with the help o f Mai Lee Chong andjovana ChaplinTHE DIRECTORY OF BRITISH ORGANIZATIONSWITH A CHINA INTERESTLondomThe Great Britain-China Centre, 1999, 170 pp.lSBN 0-9519448-2-7

Roth, Harold D.ORIGINAL TAOIN W A R D T R A IN IN G ( 'N E I-Y E H ') A N D THE F O U N D A TIO N S

OF TA O IS T M Y S TIC IS MColumbia University Press, 1999.275 pp.lSBN 0-231-11564-4 hb

Soso, MichaelVELVET BONDSTHE CHINESE FAM ILYCarmel,C A:N ew Life Center, 1999. 141 pp.lSBN 1-924931-00-7 pb,

illustrated

Vogels, Ria, Paul Geense and Edwin MartensDE MAATSCHAPPELIJKE POSITIE VAN CHINEZENIN NEDERLANDAssemVan Gorcum, 1999,253 pp. ISBN 90-232-3482-0, Dutch

( A d v e r t i s e m e n t )

The ECARDC network was set up in 1989 in order to facilitateexchange between European scholars and non-academic spe­cialists who work on different aspects o f Chinese rural devel­opment. Since the first meeting in Aarhus, ECARDC has beenconvened in Leiden, Giessen, Manchester, and Paris. In thefirst week o f January 2000, it was Leiden’s turn again. The con­ference was organized by D r E.B. Vermeer, Dr P.P.S. Ho, and J.Eyferth, all o f whom are from the Sinological Institute o f Lei­den University. Generous financial support was received fromthe Research School CNWS, the Royal Dutch Academy o f Sci­ences (KNAW), the International Institute for Asian Studies(HAS), the Leiden University Fund (LuF), the Foundation forthe Promotion o f Cultural Relations between the Netherlandsand China, and the Beijing Office o f the Ford Foundation.

WAR OR PEACE OVER TAIWAN?A FORUM DISCUSSIONThe forum centers on a proposal for truce in the TaiwanStrait by Lynn T. W hite III (“W ar or Peace over Taiwan?”),with commentaries by international specialists on thecross-Strait issue such as Lowell Dittmer, Jürgen Domes,Fran^oise Mengin, George W . Tsai, and Guogang W u.

RESEARCH ARTICLES“Competition and Complementarity: Township and VillageMines and the State Sector in China’s Coal Industry"

by Tim Wright

“The Four Wastelands Auction Policy: Removing theRural-Urban Divide or Launching Another Mass Campaign?The Case of Ningxia” by Peter Ho

“Modernizing Mainland China: PRC Films and Documenta­ries at the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, 1999”by Woei Lien Chong and Anne Sytske Keijser

PLUS REVIEWS OF MORE THAN 40 NEW BOOKS O N CONTEMPORARY CHINA

IN FO R M A TIO NPlease visit our website: http://www.letleidenuniv.nl/tcc/journalor contact us via:Fax: 31-71-5272526E-mail: docchin@let.leidenuniv.nl

By JACOB EYFERTH

he ECARDC func­tions as an openforum for people

interested in contempo­rary rural China, whatevertheir disciplinary and in ­

stitutional background. Apart fromuniversity scholars - agronomists,economists, sociologists, geographers,sinologists, and anthropologists - itaddresses people working in develop­ment agencies and Chinese state re­search institutes. The principal aimso f ECARDC are to provide, at two-yearly intervals, overviews o f recentdevelopments in rural China, and tobring together scholars who work indifferent countries, some o f whom donot previously know each other.ECARDC especially welcomes contri­butions by Chinese PhD studentsworking at European universities.

Forty-seven participants from Eu­rope, China, and Israel delivered 34papers on a wide range o f topics. Thethree conference days were dividedinto five panels: ‘Policies and Institu ­tions’, ‘Rural Economy’, ‘Agricultureand Animal Husbandry’, ‘Social D i­mensions o f Rural Change, and‘Rural Industrialization’. Bowing tothe pressure o f time, most panels hadto be split into two parallel sessions.

Like previous meetings, ECARDC 6was characterized by intense discus­sions in small groups, which went onin between and after the sessions. Theconference covered a wide range o ftopics, from irrigation agriculture inthe dry northwest o f China to com­mercial farm ing on the tropical islando f Hainan, and from village studies toan analysis o f national statistics. Thisconference saw a sh ift away from aprevious emphasis on the ‘local stateas the prime mover o f rural develop­ment, towards a more decentralized,m ultipolar view. Several trends werepointed out: administrative reformshave made local governments moreprofessional and accountable (Edin);private and public agencies are takingover functions previously fu lfille d bythe state (Pennarz); reforms o f proper­ty rights are disentangling local gov­ernments from the firm s they previ­

ously controlled; rural entrepreneursare emerging as a distinct social groupw ith a political agenda o f their own(Yep).

The idea o f the ‘state as businesscorporation’, typical o f the 1980s andearly 1990s, is not dead; T. Cannoneven argued that local power is be­coming more entrenched. In a paperon ‘the peasants’ (tax) burden’, Li Xi-ande showed that local governmentss till have considerable power which isoften used in ways detrimental to theinterests o f the rural population. Atthe same time, market forces havebroken down some o f the barrierserected under Maoism, most visiblyin the growing m obility o f the ruralpopulation (Murphy, Lai). The transi­tion from scarcity to oversupply inmany sectors also lim its the scope forrapid growth strategies o f the typethat characterized the 1980s and early1990s. The shadow o f world marketsloomed large in the background o fseveral papers (Zhang Xiaoyong, GuoJianchun, Tillm ann); China’s expect­ed admission to the World Trade Or­ganization w ill expose its inefficientagriculture to international competi­tion, w ith unpredictable conse­quences.

As China’s problems are becomingmore sim ilar to those o f other devel­oping countries, interest is sh ifting tosuch issues as gender equality (H.

Zhang, Y. Song), agricultural exten­sion (Wu), and the environment. Insix papers (Runnstrom and Brogaard,Ho, Pennarz, Sanders, Heggelund,Kirkby and Bradbury), the last topicformed one o f the main foci o f theconference. No unifying themeemerged in the final plenary discus­sion. There was a broad consensusthat rural China is becoming morecomplex and diverse, and that oldgeneralizations no longer apply. Poli­tics, which have long held centre-stage in the study o f rural China, have jreceded into the background as in ­creasingly more decisions are made inthe boardrooms o f enterprises or de- jvelopment agencies. At the sametime, the diffusion o f decision-mak­ing opens new spaces for genuine po­litica l disagreement and debate. Sev­eral participants stressed the need toidentify and analyse the diverse soci­etal interests that have emerged inthe 1990s. There was also a call forgreater theoretical sophistication in afield where much research is donesimply to catch up w ith rapid changesin the area o f study. Now that datacollection is less o f a problem, re­searchers should be able to devotemore time to analysis. The final hourso f the plenary session were devoted todiscussing plans for future meetingsand publication. Dr T. Cannon agreedto organize ECARDC 7 at GreenwichUniversity in 2002. The organizers o fECARDC 6 promised to see a selectiono f conference papers through to pub­lication. The firs t round o f editing iscurrently under way. After revisions,ten to fifteen papers w ill be selectedfor publication. The conference orga­nizers w ill approach publishers inAugust or September 2000. It is hopedthat the conference volume w ill ap­pear in 2001. ■

Jacob Eyferth is a PhD candidate and

researcher at the CNWS, Leiden.E-mail: j_eyferth@rullet.leidenuniv.nl

B O O K S R E C E I V E D

AFogel, Joshua A. (transl.)

JAPAN AND CHINAM U T U A L REPRESENTATIONS IN TH E M O DERN ERA

Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000,298 pp, ISBN 0-7007-1 120-1

Hell, Stefan

DER MAN DSC HUREI-KON FLIKTJAPAN, CHINA UND DER VÖLKERBUND 1931 BIS 1933

Universitas VerlagTübingen, 1999, German

The National Institute for Defense Studiesjapan

EAST ASIAN STRATEGIC REVIEW 2000Tokyo:The National Institute for Defense Studies Japan, 2000, 300 pp,

ISBN 4-939034-07-0, illustrated

October 2 0 0 0 • has new sletter N9 2 3 • 3 3

EAS T AS I A6 > 7 J U L Y 2 0 0 0A M S T E R D A M , T HE N E T H E R L A N D S

Health, Sexuality, andCivil Society in East AsiaThe conference brought together scholars who presented anddiscussed papers on sexual cultures, commercial sex work, andsexual risk in the AIDS era in the context o f East Asian societiesand tentative comparative lines with Southeast Asia. The confer­ence agenda emphasized a dialectical process in the analysis ofsexuality in the context o f culture: a transition undergone bysexual cultures through a set o f norms and values re-evaluatedaccording to social and economic changes, and a revival o f tradi­tional patterns. Nearly fifteen people presented papers. Thescholars hailed from China (3), Korea (1), Taiwan (1), France (2],Germany (1), and the Netherlands (4). The workshop includedyoung researchers as well as senior scholars. They brought outnew findings in the field o f sex and gender research in this spe­cific cultural area. Running through the papers, a proximitycomparison and a multidisciplinary perspective offered a wholerange o f material, working hypotheses, and tentative concludingremarks which were extensively discussed during the seminar.

By EVELYNE MICOLLIER

he workshop wasopened by ProfWim Stokhof, di­

rector of the HAS, and bythe convenor, Dr EvelyneMicollier, who reviewed

the research agenda. The seminar wasorganized into three panels and ineach panel tentative comparativelines between East and SoutheastAsian cultural contexts were drawn.

Three papers on Korea, China, andEast/Southeast Asia compared werepresented in the panel ‘Sexual Cul­tures’. This first panel clarified issuesrelated to sexuality: the roles of com­mercial sex work, of the kinship sys­

tem, of matrimonial strategies, ofgender in the family, and of genderedpower relations in society were em­phasized to offer a multi-layered un­derstanding of the building up ofsuch sexual cultures in transition.This panel also raised some questionsabout sexual identity and about thedialectical relationship between tra­ditional and new elements in the ide­ological and behavioural configura­tion of sexual cultures.

E. Micollier discussed the role of sexwork in the social construction of sex­uality using data and referencesdrawn mainly from the context ofChinese culture, with secondary in­formation from the Vietnamese or theKorean context. Her approach to sex

The conference in progress.

work was constructed upon one mainworking hypothesis, namely the rele­vance of cultural constraints by suchas those laid by Confucian ideas orTaoist lore, for the analysis of sexualcultures. However, the aim was not tooverestimate cultural factors at theexpense of social and economic ones,but rather to identify a whole range offactors involved in the social con­struction of sexuality. Finally, sexwork was shown to have a main struc­tural function, that of being at thecore of the ideological and behaviour­al configuration shaping sexual cul­tures.

H. ten Brummelhuis engaged inthe difficult task of drawing compara­tive lines between sexualities in Eastand Southeast Asia, a task he handledwith deep insight, drawing on hisbroad and deep knowledge of sexuali­ty in the context of culture. He hasbeen working with material fromThailand for the past ten years. Forthe purposes of the conference he

Euro-Japanese Sem inarSocial Economy in JapanEconomie et Humanisme is a non-govemmental, independentorganization founded sixty years ago. Its activities encompass­es a range o f socio-economic research in areas such as: urbandevelopment and environment, labour economics, and ethicso f economics, particularly with respect to Asia; publications;organization o f conferences; and participation to think-tanks.Economie et Humanisme is interested in stimulating mutualunderstanding between Asian and European societies throughsupporting exchanges o f views between actors/observers o fcomparable social and economic backgrounds, and raising im­portant social issues.

By ERIC BAYE

ollowing the firstEuro-Japanese Collo­quium (Lyon, 1997)1,

Economie et Humanismeorganized a three-dayseminar in Tokyo on the

theme of the social economy inJapan. It was jointly organized withthe Pacific Asia Resource Centre(PARC], with the support of the JapanFoundation. About forty Japaneseand European participants attendedto the event, among whom wereleaders of the Seikatsu Movement,experts from Sophia and MeijiGakuin Universities, representatives

from the PARC, the Japanese Con­sumers’ Co-operative Union, collec­tive workers’ unions, and farmers as­sociations. Among the European par­ticipants were experts from Greno­ble, Marburg and Padova Universi­ties, from the Social Economy Con­sortium (Oxford), the French CNRS,and Economie et Humanisme.

The seminar theme was based es­sentially on research experiencesconducted in the archipelago by theJapanese participants. The seminarenabled extremely active discussionsto take place between participantsfrom both professional and academiccircles. Aside from the clarificationof a number of concepts and terms,

discussions led to better under­standings of the gravity of the pre­sent crisis in this sector in Japan, aswell as of differences and similaritiesbetween the Japanese and Europeancontexts.

Proceedings of this workshop areavailable (English and French textsof papers originally in Japanese arenot yet available). Economie et Hu­manisme published the main Japan­ese contributions of the seminar in aspecial issue of its quarterly journal(no.349) focusing on Japan (Frenchonly). ■

The Colloquium was made possiblewith the support of the EuropeanCommission. The theme was therelationship between business andthree kinds of workers: youth,women, and foreign workers.

Further information:

Economie e t Humanisme14 rue Antoine Dumont

69 3 72 Lyon cedex 08

France

Tel:+33-4-7271 6666

Fax: +33-4-7869 8696

identified a few relevant questions forcomparisons in Asia, and in concen­trating on the themes of prostitution,marriage, and transgender, he pre­sented some structural and culturalexplanations.

The second panel was about com­mercial sex work: patterns and meth­ods of working and of commercial sexwork as a social phenomenon wereclosely related to drastic socio-eco­nomic changes occurring in Asia. Awhole range of cultural, social, eco­nomic, and environmental factorswere identified and discussedthroughout the paper presentations.

The first three papers of the panelwere based on recent case studies atthe local level in China that docu­mented the situation mainly in SouthChina in both the rural and urbancontexts. Liao Susu gathered data onsex work in rural communities inHainan and Guangxi, two provincesof China where the incidence of Sexu­ally Transmitted Diseases (STDs), in­cluding AIDS, is alarming, and wheresex work has now been clearly identi­fied as the main risk factor in propa­gating these diseases.

Zhao Pengfei discussed the issue ofsex trading in entertainment settingsin Shanghai. His main finding, basedon fieldwork data, was that women insuch establishments often resort tosex work and by doing so make them­selves vulnerable to STDs, and that in­travenous drug use is increasingamong sex workers - an importantfact considering that drug use and sexwork had not previously been linkedin reports of the Chinese context.

Pan Suiming tackled the difficulttask of evaluating the scale of the sexindustry in China using official fig­ures, sociological surveys, and ethno­graphic data for the purpose of hisunique study. He suggested that for abetter understanding of the socialstructure of the sex industry oneshould look at the vertical stratifica­tion of sex workers and the variouslayers of sexual services built uponthe client’s social class and status.Two other papers documented sexwork - one in the context of Japaneseculture and the other of Cambodia.

W. Lunsing investigated the actualsituation ofjapanese sex workers withregard to their occupation in relationto their agency, showing how they arecaught between choice and coercion.His study was based upon an anthro­

pological methodology using inter­views, participant observation, andwritten vernacular sources. A. Derksdiscussed commercial sex work inCambodia in relation to the relatedhistorical, juridical, structural, social,and cultural factors. She examinedthe working and living conditions ofprostitutes, as well as the personaland broader implications of sex workwithin society.

The third panel was concernedwith specific matters related to theHIV/AIDS issue and the social con­struction of sexual risk. The issues ofsex education, and State/NGOs col­laboration or tensions were ap­proached through the analysis oflocal AIDS campaigns. Hsu Mei-Ling's paper was based on local newsdiscourses about the AIDS epidemic.Her study aimed to examine how the‘Us/Others’ groups have been con­structed in the Taiwanese newsmedia addressing the HIV/AIDS-re-lated issues. She thus offered an orig­inal contribution to the study of thesocial construction of disease as a so­cial stigma in Taiwan.M.E. Blanc fo­cused on the issue of sex educationfor young Vietnamese in the contextof the HIV/AIDS epidemic analysingthe structural relations at work be­tween different local social sphereslike NGOs, schools, and families.

I. Wollfers offered a broader per­spective on sex work in the AIDS era,and emphasized how and which ne­gotiations were at work between offi­cial and unofficial spheres (focusingon ‘official discourses and policies’and ‘unofficial realities'). He drewcomparative lines between East andSoutheast Asia.

Finally, in the closing session, a re­cent documentary film on the topicof gender in Chinese cinema (direct­ed by S. Kwan, Hongkong, 1 gg6) wasshown to the audience, followed by aplenary discussion aimed at drawingtogether the main descriptive andtheoretical lines emphasized duringthe seminar. Most of the papers willbe revised and put together for abook. In addition to the conferencepapers, a few new papers will be inte­grated into the volume. ■

Dr Evelyne M icollier was, until I July

2000, an ESF I Alliance Fellow stationed at

the HAS Amsterdam branch office.

E-mail: micollier@pscw.uva.nl

Fax:+ 31-20-525 3658

Letter to the E ditorl e t t e r t ot h e E d i t o r R-ecently I read Dr

Evelyne Micollier’sarticle on ‘Qiqong

Groups and Civil Societyin P.R. China’, publishedin the IIAS Newsletter 22,

in which she states that religion inthe PRC ‘is still considered to be an“opium for the peope” by officialstrue to the consensual political line’.As someone who has done a greatdeal of research on Christianity andreligious policy in China during thelast ten years, I cannot see that thistheory still serves as the ‘consensualpolitical line’.

In her article she also mentionsthe ongoing process of re-evaluationof religion in the field of social sci­ences. In my opinion it was an out­come of precisely this process that

several years ago the theory o f‘reli­gion as opium’ was removed fromthe centre of the ‘consensual politi­cal line'. I would like to refer to amanuscript written by ProfessorZhuo Xinping, director of the Insti­tute of Studies in World Religions atthe Academy of Social Sciences inBeijing. The theme of his manu­script deals with the understandingof religion in contemporary China.Professor Zhuo shows that the theo­ry o f‘religion as opium for the peo­ple’ is but one of the various reli­gious theories and, moreover, it is atheory of the past. ■

MONI KA GAEN5 SBAUER

China Study Project

Hamburg, Germany - / 9 July 2000

3 4 ‘ I1AS n e w s l e t t e r W23 • October 2000

E A S T A S I A

| | > 13 J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 1L E I D E N , THE N E T H E R L A N D S

The First Hotei PublishingConference on Ukiyo-eA year after its frantic start as a professional publishing housededicated to producing books on Japanese art, culture, and so­ciety, Hotei Publishing, in close co-operation with the IIAS, ishosting a conference on Japanese prints and printmaking forthe first time. Two major themes have been selected in an at­tempt to contextualize this eighteenth- and nineteenth centu­ry Japanese art form that had such a profound influence on thedevelopment o f Western art in more detail.

Short News

By CHRIS UHLENBECK

he first theme is theeconomics of Japan-

__ ese print production.So far, this research areahas been paid virtually noattention, resulting in a

distorted view of the original nature ofprint production. The ‘Western’ im­pact on print production following theopening of Japan and the export ofprints to Europe and the United States,roughly from the t86os until the earlytwentieth century, was entirely differ­ent from the position of Japanesegraphic art during the eighteenth andearly nineteenth centuries. In the con­

21 > - 2 3 J U N E 2 0 0 0P ARI S , F RAN C E

ference we would like to highlight thesheer volume of print production, theeconomic rationale, seasonal aspects,specialization among publishers, tradeorganizations, and the organization ofpaper and pigment supply, etc.

Although very limited archival ma­terial is available, some well-in­formed guesses have been made aboutthe volume of the print editions. Hi­roshige’s famous first Tokaido series(1832-33) was such a success that thetotal number of impressions of eachdesign must have been as high astwenty thousand. This means thatthis series alone demanded the avail­ability of more than a million sheetsof hosho, the fine handmade mulberry

paper used in printing. In anothercase, the diary of the publisher re­vealed that eight thousand sets wereproduced of a series of fifty warriorprints by Kuniyoshi. From thesequantities, one can posit that a totalnumber of one hundred fifty millionimpressions of Japanese prints weremade, distributed, and sold over a pe­riod of just under one hundred fiftyyears. Of course, production was un­evenly spread: production during the1770s was unlikely to have been morethan two hundred thousand sheets ayear, but in the heydays of print-se­ries productions, the 1850s, the annu­al output was perhaps as high as fourto five million sheets. These tentativefigures do not even take into accountall the derivative productions such asdecorated papers, woodblock printedwrapping papers, games, toys, kitesand, last but not least, books.

All the sumptuary laws issued bythe Tokugawa shogunate to curtailand censor print production werecounter-productive. Publishers and

artists found imaginative solutionsaround the restrictions imposed. But,if the figures just surmised prove tobe accurate, the ‘failure’ of the gov­ernment to enforce its own laws maybe more easily understood. Serious re­strictions of print production mighthave had undesirable economic ef­fects.

We hope to shed some new light onthe issue of the relationship to the artas it developed and on that of thehighly complex and extended eco­nomic structure that supported it.

The second theme deals, once again,with an issue of contextualization.Here, we attempt to address the artis­tic circles in which the print designersmoved: What was the nature of thecontact between artists? Did theartists have influential literary con­tacts? Did they look at other forms ofart? Were artists working in paintingschools such as Nanga, Rinpa orMaruyama/Shijo admired and con­sidered to be a potential source of in­spiration? Or, to put it more bluntly:

With whom did Hiroshige go to thepub? Did the eternal pressure of thepublishers and the public lead to a lifeof single-minded hard work, churn­ing out designs at an ever greaterpace? Perhaps contributions to thissecond theme will lead to a more ac­curate description of the organizationof artistic life in Japan.

Conference, structureSeveral keynote speakers from

Japan, Canada, the United States, andEurope will address aspects of the twothemes broadly outlined above. Eachspeaker will first be presented withprepared questions from the discus­sants, after which the wider audiencemay participate in the discussions.The conference will last three daysand will include two excursions tomajor print exhibitions in theNetherlands. A full programme ofcollective meals and receptions isbeing prepared. ■

For full details, provisional programme,

registration forms, assistance with hotel

reservations, etc., please contact

HELENA HUISMANHotei PublishingZoeterwoudse Singel 56Leiden, the NetherlandsTel:+31-71-566 3190Fax:+31-71-566 3191E-mail: hhuisman@hotei-publishing.com

O rCHRIS UHLENBECK

E-mail: ukiyo@ xs4all.nl

( A d v e r t i s e m e n t )

Medicine in ChinaHealth techniques and social history

H o t e i

W ï f iTÏÏ lhingThe international workshop ‘Medicine in China: Health tech­niques and social history’ was held at the Fondation Hugot.This workshop was organized by the Centre d’Études sur laChine Moderne et Contemporaine, Centre National de laRecherche Scientifique/École des Hautes Études en SciencesSociales (Frederic Obringer and Franqoise Sabban), in associa­tion with the College de France (Pierre-Étienne Will) and theInstitut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales(Catherine Despeux).

- to give junior researchers thechance to become informed aboutthe most acute problematics;

- to publish a volume of conferenceproceedings, with a completebibliography.Without a shadow of a doubt, the

workshop produced the resultswhich were anticipated. A good gen­eral overview was given of the mostrecent research on the history ofmedicine in China. The papers on thefirst day, discussing medical histori­ography, showed some new ap­proaches, in particular the advoca­tion of the use of non-writtensources (pharmaceutical equipment,for example) and ofnon-technical lit­erature. Those presentations on thesecond and third days could be divid­ed into four main topics: the founda­tion of a tradition under the Han dy­nasty; health techniques, with spe­cial attention paid to pharmaceuticalprescriptions; the social and medicalreactions to famine; and health poli-

By FRÉDÉRIC OBRINGER

wenty-nine schol­ars from Asia, Eu­rope, North Ameri­

ca, and Australia partici­pated in the workshop.The scientific objectives

were the following:- to draw up a general view of,

firstly, the most recent research onthe history of medicine in China,the social and political responsesto illnesses and, in particular, toepidemics; and, secondly, of‘health techniques’, for instancepreventive and curativetechniques or dietetics from theperspective of the history oftechniques as well of the history ofmedicine;

- to show that the social history ofmedicine and the ‘internal history’of medicine are complementary;

- to promote internationalcollaboration;

cy in Late Imperial China.The presence of specialists in social

history as well as of historians ofmedicine with a more ‘technical’point of view clearly proved the im­portance of the contextualization,but also underlined the necessity fora very detailed reading of the sources.Another fruitful outcome was theparticipation of various colleagues(often as discussants) specialized inthe history of Western medicine. Be­cause of this, there were good com­parative discussions, and in a veryfriendly atmosphere.

Future plansA selection of the papers will be

published. The editors wish to con­struct more than a simple volume ofconference proceedings, but to builda real book. The quality of the paperswill help to realize this ambition. Itis also important that the volume bepublished within a decent timeframe. Finally, the different discus­sions during the workshop havesuggested that some great interna­tional projects with comparativecounterparts are now going to bepromoted. ■

Dr Frédéric Obringer is affiliated with the

Centre d ’Études sur la Chine Moderne et

Contemporaine in Paris, France.

E-maii:obringer@ehess.fr

books onJapanese art& culture

The Japonica Neerlandica series is nowexclusively available from Hotei Publishing

Two new titles have just appeared

A study into tlte thought o f KögyöD nis hi KakubanWith a translation ot his Gorin kttjimyö himitsushaku. (JN 7)by Henny van der VeereCloth, ISBN 90-74822-23-1. €61.40

Jnponius Tyrannus. The Japanesewarlord Oda Nobunaga reconsidered

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As the twig is bent....Essays in honour of Frits VosEdited by Erika de PoorterCloth, ISBN 90-5063-054-5, €29.55

Visit our website Zoeterwoudsesingel 56www.hotei-publishing.com 2313 EK Leiden, The Netherlandsfor information about Tel. 31 (0)71-5663190this excellent series Fax 31 (0)71-5663191and other publications info@hotei-publishing.COI11

October zoo0 • has n e w s l e t t e r W23 • 3 5

E A S T A S I A1 6 J U N E 2 0 0 0L E I D E N , T HE N E T H E R L A N D S

Voices from JapanThe international symposium, ‘Voices from Japan: Contempo­rary art and discourse in global perspective’, held at the Univer­sity o f Leiden, marked the launch o f the large, contemporaryJapanese art project, ‘Voices from Japan’, that featured at variouslocations in the city o f Leiden during the summer. ‘Voices fromJapan’ was part o f the celebration o f the Fourth Centenary o f therelationship between the Netherlands and Japan, which was en­thusiastically embraced in Leiden because o f the city’s centuries-long cultural and scholarly ties with Japan. While many o f thecelebrations were related to the historical exchanges, ‘Voicesfrom Japan’ focused on the art world o f Japan today, on the pro­duction o f art, and the art debate o f Japan within the frameworko f contemporary developments in a globalizing world. ‘Voicesfrom Japan’ was the result o f a unique collaboration between theMunicipal Museum De Lakenhal, the CBK Leiden - Centre forContemporary Art, and the Department o f Art History at theUniversity o f Leiden. The symposium was attended by a largeand diverse audience, and papers were presented by scholarsfrom Japan, England, and the Netherlands.

By KITTY ZI JLMANS

I ositioned in betweenY J the West and Asia,

J - contemporary art inJapan takes up a specialplace in the art world.Japanese art refers to both

contexts, and in both cases this is nei­ther self-evident nor unproblematic.The West regards Japan as being anEastern country with Western charac­teristics. Conversely, many Asiancountries view Japan as being West­ern but with a vague memory ofsomething Eastern. The Japanesethemselves are also ambiguous aboutthis and that is clearly reflected intheir art. Somewhere in the 19th cen­tury the arts from the East and theWest got interwoven. In the late nine­teenth century and in quite somedecades of the twentieth century,Japan firmly embraced the modernistart styles from the West, but at theend of the twentieth century it has,once again, turned to Asia. The West isno longer the role model for art but,being a economic superpower withinAsia, Japan like Korea is the odd manout and is, as such, regarded as ‘theOther’. Also, today more than ever,the West is looking with a fast-grow­ing interest at the art production ofJapan. More and more Japan is consid-

I

The ‘Meet the Kaki Tree’ plantingceremony a t the botanical gardens o fthe University o f Leiden. To the left o fTatsuo M iyajim a is Alexander Pech-tol d, Alderman o f Cultural Affairs fo rthe M unicipally o f Leiden.

Fumio Nanjo, curator o finternational contemporary art

exhibitions and lecturer in art historya t Keio University, Tokyo, pictured

here a t the symposium in Leiden.

ered the trend-setter that leads theWest in areas such as fashion, archi­tecture, technology, design, computergraphics, popular visual culture, pho­tography, and the new media. Thesymposium challenged ways to dis­cuss contemporary Japanese art with­out falling into the traps of oriental­ism, or Western universalism opposedto Japanese exceptionalism. Equallyimportant was the evaluation of howJapanese art has been ‘framed’ in arthistorical, art critical, and method­ological contexts.

Sym posium and discussionFumio Nanjo, well known curator

of international contemporary art ex­hibitions and lecturer in Art Historyat the Keio University, Tokyo, refutedthe assumption of the Western legacyin Japanese art. In his overview of 125years of Japanese art history, Nanjostated that although the Western in­fluence in Japanese art at the end ofthe nineteenth century was unmis­takable, a Japanese Modernism origi­nated which, since then, has knownan autonomous development keep­ing pace with Western modernism.

Other papers also reflected this lineof thinking. Marianne Brouwer, for­mer senior curator of sculpture at theMuseum Kröller-Müller (Otterlo, theNetherlands), dismissed notions of‘Japaneseness’ and Westernization asbeing biased. Living in Tokyo in the1960s, she expected to find ‘Japanese­

ness’ but instead encountered a radi­cal modernity that had little in com­mon with the standard Western ap­preciation of Japan. She made a cleardistinction between modernism (i.e.Western art) and modernity, whichrefers to a particular attitude in artwhich we find all over the world.

Another interesting point of viewwas stated by Fumihiro Nonomura,art and media critic and lecturer atthe Wako University in Tokyo, whodiscussed the problem of contempo­rary public art in an urban environ­ment. Public art is art in the city,meant for everybody. For Nonomura,the city parks and gardens are the ob­vious places for public art, for theyare the places where city dwellers canexperience the flow of time coming torest. Public art needs to create its ownspaces and, for this, it can revive theold, unique Japanese tradition of gar­dening and landscaping. From this anew art and art experience willevolve.

Meet the Kaki TreeAn art project that could easily be

seen as an example of Nonomura’spublic art was presented to us duringthe lunch break of the symposium byTatsuo Miyajima in his ‘Revive TimeKaki Tree’ Project. The point of depar­ture of this social art event is the Kakitree, which has amazingly survivedthe dropping of the atom bomb onNagasaki. With the close co-operationof a tree doctor, Miyajima has plantedcuttings from this tree, the Kaki TreeJuniors, in various places around theworld. The planting ceremonies, enti­tled ‘Meet the Kaki Tree’, are meant tostimulate exchanges with local artistsand the population and to organizeactivities with children who partici­pate in the ceremony. Children, afterall, are the future and the Junior KakiTree symbolizes the continuation oflife. The ‘Meet the Kaki Tree’ plantingceremony for the Leiden Kaki Tree Ju­nior took place in the botanical gar­dens of the University of Leiden,where the tree received its permanentplace.

The symposium was concludedwith a lively panel discussion on top­ics relating to earlier issues, such as: astradition/modernity;colonialism/territory; the problem ofhistory; the global/the local; place andspace; and centre/periphery. Thepanel included the abovementionedspeakers, as well as Deborah Cherry,professor of art history at the Univer­sity of Sussex, UK, Toshio Watanabe,professor of history of art and designat the Chelsea College of Art and De­sign London, and Sebastian Lopez, di­rector of the Gate Foundation, Ams­terdam. ■

- A special Dutch/English, full-colourissue of the magazine Decorum(Vol. XVIII, no. 2, July 2000)accompanies the exhibitions andsymposium (HFl 15,00).To order: CBK,Hooglandse Kerkgracht 19-212312 HS Leiden, The NetherlandsTel: +31-71-5165369/5338.

Professor Kitty ZiJImans is from the

Department o f Contemporary A rt History

and Theory at the University o f Leiden.

Her department is developing a profile

in world art studies.

E-mail: c.j.m.zijlmans@let.leidenuniv.nl

B O O K S R E C E I V E D

Reaudry-Samcynsky, Micheline and Chris M. Cook

JAPAN'S SYSTEM OF OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCEPROFILES IN PARTNERSHIP, NUMBER ONEOttawa: International Development Research Centre, 1999,226 pp,ISBN 0-88936-883-X

JaPan

Curtis, Gerald L.

THE LOGIC OF JAPANESE POLITICSLEADERS, INSTITUTIONS, AND THE LIMITS OF CHANGENew York: Columbia University Press, 1999,303 pp,ISBN0-231 - 10842-7 hb, 0-231-10843-5 pb

Gerhart, Karen M.

THE EYES OF POWERART AND EARLY TOKUGAWA AUTHORITYHonolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999,211 pp,ISBN 0-8248-2178-5 pb, 0-8248-2063-0 hb, illustrated

Hudson, Mark J.

RUINS OF IDENTITYETHNOGENESIS IN THE JAPANESE ISLANDSHonolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999, 323 pp,ISBN 0-8248-2156-4 pb, 0-8248-1930-6 hb, illustrated

Ishimitsu, Mahito (ed.j, translated, with introduction and notes byTeruko Craig

REMEMBERING AIZUTHE TESTAMENT OF SHIBA GOROHonolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999, 158 pp,ISBN 0-8248-2157-2 pb, 0-8248-2130-0 hb

Keisuke, Kinoshita

VIERUNDZWANZIG AUGENDREHBUCH NACH DEM GLEICHNAMINGEN ROMANVON TSUBOI SAKAEBerlin:Humboldt Universitat, 1998,90 pp, ISSN 1435-0351, German

Kress, Else

MEETING ONCE MOREINRÖ AND THEIR DESIGN DRAWINGSLeiden: Heinz Kaempfer Fund, 1999, 150 pp, ISBN 90-802069-1 - 1, illustrated

Nelson, John K.

ENDURING ENTITIESTHE GUISE OF SHINTO IN CONTEMPORARY JAPANHonolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000, 324 pp, ISBN 0-8248-2259-5,illustrated

Reader, Ian

RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN CONTEMPORARY JAPANTHE CASE OF AUM SHINRIKYORichmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000, 304 pp,ISBN 0-7007-1108-2 hb. ISBN 0-7007-1109-0 pb

Reigle Newland.Amy

TIME PRESENT AND TIME PASTIMAGES OF A FORGOTTEN MASTER,TOYOHARA KUNICHIKA 1835-1900Leiden: Hotel Publishing, 1999. 175 pp, ISBN 90-74822-08-1 I-8, illustrated

Schnell, Scott

THE ROUSING DRUMRITUAL PRACTICE IN A JAPANESE COMMUNITYHonolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999, 363 pp,ISBN 0-8248-2064-9 pb, 0-8248-2141-6 hb, illustrated

Stone, Jacqueline I.

ORIGINAL ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE TANS FORMATIONOF MEDIEVAL JAPANESE BUDDHISMHonolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999,544 pp,ISBN 0-8248-2026-6 hb

Ueda, Makoto

LIGHT VERSE FROM THE FLOATING WORLDAN ANTHOLOGY OF PREMODERN JAPANESE SENRYUNew York: Columbia University Press, 1999,273 pp,ISBN 0-231 - 11551 -2 pb, 0-231 - 11550-4 hb

Valles, Jesus Gonzalez

HISTORIA DE LA FILOSOFIA JAPONESAMadrid:Tecnos, 2000,562 pp, ISBN 84-309-3513-4, Spanish

3 6. • has n e w s l e t t e r 14923 • October 2000

The Artistsof the Tropics:The artists of the futureIt was the French artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) who had thisportentous dream, at the end o f the 19th century. Who couldever think that at the dawn of the 21st century his predictionwould come true? Last year, the Kunsthal Rotterdam organizedthe travelling exhibition ‘Magic and Modernism: Artists fromBali, 1928-1942’ that drew attention to a forgotten chapter inart history: Balinese Modernism. The artists representing thisintruiging movement had sunk into oblivion until their recentrediscovery, first by a select group o f collectors and since thenby a wider circle. The exhibition presented the Balinese mod­ernists at the intersection o f anthropology and modem art.Thanks to a contribution by the HAS, ‘Magic and Modernism:Artists from Bali, 1928-1942’ could be shown in the KunsthalRotterdam, Museum Puri Lukisan in Ubud (Bali), the Eras-mushuis in Jakarta, and the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden.

By WIM PUBES

p to the 1920s, Bali­nese art was tradi­tionally at the ser­

vice of decorating tem­ples, palaces and other of­ficial buildings. The

emergence of the Balinese modernistsis primarily due to two Europeanartists: Walter Spies (1880-1942), apainter, choreographer, writer andphotographer who settled on Bali in1927, and the Dutch artist RudolfBonnet (1895-1978)- Spies supplied theyoung, talented Balinese artists withbetter materials and with alterna­tives to traditional Hindu themeslike the ‘Ramanaya’ legends. As a re­sult, they began to portray their im­mediate surroundings - nature,hunting and daily village life. It wasSpies, especially, who infused the Ba­linese artists with the dramatic andmagical possibilities of painting anddrawing. Freed for the first time fromthe constraints of convention, Bali­nese artists explored their own imag­ination and creativity, myth, magic,and realities resulting in a transitionfrom applied art to Modern Art.

The distinguishing characteristicsof this Balinese modernism, notablyin the village of Batuan, are the com­pletely filled surfaces of the paint­ings, an almost total absence of per­spective and the careful rhythmicstylization ofgroups of trees, foliage,figures and rippling water. This ‘so­phisticated’ naive style is seen inFlemish medieval miniatures and

S iS ifc S t St.

Ida Bagus Ketut Soenia, (untitled),255 x 350 mm, private collection

the magical representations of Henri‘Le Douanier’ Rousseau.

Centres of art on Bali were concen­trated in three villages, each with itsown style and themes. Pictures fromthe village of Batuan are crowded:the representations fill the entiresurface, leaving no empty spacesanywhere. There are, however, plen­ty of open spaces in works fromUbud, which emphasize the humanfigure, while the coastal village ofSanur is known for its depictions ofall kinds of animals and also eroticscenes. Balinese artists rarely signedtheir work, which is partly why solittle attention was paid to them inart history for such a long time.

ParadiseIt was in 1906, relatively late, that

the traditional princely states cameunder Dutch administration, follow­ing three abortive attempts on the

A S I A N A R Tpart of the Dutch to gain control ofthe island in the 19th century. In the1920s and 1930s the unspoilt earthlyparadise of Bali became a meetingplace for the Western intellectualbeau monde. Writers, actors, andpainters were irresistibly drawn tothe mythical-sounding and hithertopractically isolated island. In 1917,Europeans were introduced to Bali, inthe galleries of the Amsterdamartists’ society Arti et Amicitiae. Pho­tographs taken by the German pho­tographer, Gregor Krause, gave theDutch their first sight of images theyhad only imagined from the novels ofLouis Couperus or Multatuli, but hadnever before actually seen. In addi­tion to Krause’s photographs therewas a large selection of drawings andetchings by the travelling artistW.O.). Nieuwenkamp (1874-1950).and numerous Balinese utensils, tex­tiles, sculptures and artefacts. Thisearly exhibition perpetuated themyth ofBali as a paradisiacal island ofbare breasts. Interest in things exoticand erotic reached its peak in the in­terbellum, with Josephine Baker andrampant Art Deco as eloquent exam­ples. The new vogue for travel to far-off places made Bah a popular desti­nation for the well-heeled tourist.

In the second half of the 1930s, thisI ferment of cross-cultural curiosity

and exchange reached a peak; astream of highly interested and dis­cerning visitors, such as musicians(Colin Macphee, Jaap Kunst andLeopold Stokowsky), anthropologists(Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead,Miguel Covarrubias, and Jane Belo),film-makers (Victor von Plessen andAndre Roosevelt), actors (CharlieChaplin and Noel Coward), authors(Vicky Baum), art-dealers (Rolf andHans Neuhaus, JAHoubolt andB.Preyer), a pharmacist (E.Schlager),and others encouraged the mod­ernists, directly or indirectly, to tran­scend all preconceptions of mass-pro­duced tourist art and to create workof magic and great quality. The mod­ernistic Balinese paintings, drawingsand wood sculptures found their wayto a steadily growing group of elitetourists who brought back theseartistic souvenirs to their homes inEurope and the United States. In thisway, the art from Bali was distributedworld-wide as a matter of course.

■mMi

I Resek, (untitled), watercolour, 320 x 500 mm, private collection

Ida Ba jus Putu Bentoel, Mythological Scene, 500 x 380 mm, private collection

Growing interestand depreciationThe interest in East Indian arts

and crafts grew, not just in theNetherlands but in Germany andFrance, as well. In the Dutch entriesto the various world exhibitions, at­tention was given to the agriculturalproducts from tropical Holland andto the arts and crafts of the colonies.After some occasional exhibitions, itwas not until 1927 that the firstmajor museum exhibition outsidethe Netherlands took place. In thatyear, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs,part of the Paris Louvre, mounted alarge overview of ‘L’Art Décoratifdans les Indes Néerlandaises’. Onshow were pieces from the MuséeGuimet, the Musée EthnographiqueTrocadéro and other French collec­tions, but also some works fromDutch collections. In 1928, parts ofthe private collection of W.O.J.

I Nieuwenkamp were shown in muse­ums in cities like Hagen, Munich,and, again, Paris.

In 1937, Spies, Bonnet, and a fewlocal artists founded ‘Pita Maha, anassociation that co-ordinated sales ac­tivities on behalf of its approximatelyone hundred fifty members. Again,exhibitions were held in the formerBatavia, Yogyakarta, The Hague (atPulchri Studio) and Amsterdam(Stedelijk Museum,1937). From thatpoint contemporary Balinese art wasintroduced in a cultural context anddistributed in an organized way.

The last few years have seen amounting interest in paintings madein Southeast Asia, particularly in the1920s. This interest is chiefly evi­denced in members of the new mon­eyed classes of the former colonies,who are trying to buy back their his­tory and culture with their fast earn­ings. Much of the art from the colo­nial past has been traditionally in thehands of private collectors in Europe,but is rapidly finding its way back toits land of origin via the recentlyopened Singapore and Jakarta branch­es of Sotheby’s and Christie's. In addi­tion to Indo-European artists like Le

j Mayeur, Spies, Bonnet, and Hofket,the names of Balinese artists such asIda Bagus Made, Anak Agung Gede So-brat, Anak Agung Gede Meregeg, andothers are becoming increasingly fa­miliar. The pre-war works are, by far,the most interesting: rare, refined,mystic, and of high aesthetic quality.

Further researchThe Balinese artists rarely signed or

annotated their work. Nor, surpris-ingly, did Spies and Bonnet encour­age them to follow this commonWestern practice, although theysigned most of their own work. It isall the more surprising in view ofBonnet’s tireless promotion of theBalinese modernists in Indonesia andbeyond. The result is that a work andits maker were seldom connected indirect and familiar ways. This mightbe the reason that the artists them­selves have only occasionally beenmentioned in art history. For exam­

ple, a well-known Dutch art-critic,painter and author, Kaspar Niehaus,devoted a whole chapter to Balinesemodernism in his important book‘Levende Nederlandsche Kunst’, Ams­terdam [1942], but only mentioned Jone modernist by name (I Reneh),and then only in a picture caption.

However, as many of the workswere annotated by contemporarypurchasers, dealers and gallerists,and are of such personal and distinc­tive character, a work often can beconnected to its maker by way of:- annotation, mostly on the reverse,

in a known hand, such as ofG.Bateson, R.Bonnet, or theNeuhaus brothers;

- annotation, mostly on the reverse,in an unknown hand, whether inBalinese, Bahasa Indonesia, Eng­lish, Dutch or German;

- attribution on the basis of com­parison with individualized work.This individualization is still a

continuing process. The book andCD-ROM that have been publishedwith the exhibition are intended toserve as a guide. Many works that arecurrently dubbed anonymous inmuseums and private collections Jcould be individualized by applyingthis procedure, so that these artistsare finally treated on equal termswith their Western colleagues. Thedetailed development of pre-war Ba- |linese modernist art remains a sub- Jject for further research. It is as Leo |Haks stated: ‘The pre-war Balinesemodernists deserve to be judged ontheir art-historical merit’. ■

- This article is based on the bookpublished concurrently with theexhibition: ‘Pre-War BalineseModernists 1928-1942: An additionalpa^e in history', with articles by FransHaks, Jop Ubbens, Dr Adrian Vickers,Leo Haks, and Guus Maris.

Wim Pijbes is directoro f the Kunsthal Rotterdam.E-mail: pijbes@kunsthal.nl

October 2000 • i i a s n e w s l e t t e r 1C 23 • 3 7

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-

THE GATE FOUNDAT I ON IS AN I NTERNATI ONAL ART

F OUNDAT I ON DEVOTED TO PROMOTI NG

I NTERCULTURAL EXCHANGE OF CONT E MP ORARY ART.

THE GATE F OUNDAT I ON AIMS TO STIMULATE

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERS TANDI NG OF

CONT E MP ORARY ART AND ARTI STS, EMPHASI ZI NG

NON- WESTERN AND MI GRANT CULTURES.

g I eF o u n d a t i o n

‘Reformasi Indonesia!'Protest art, 1995-2000Nowadays many ethnographic m useums fomd themselvesneeding to reconsider the display o f their collections. Usuallythese collections were assembled during colonial tim es. Theirpurpose was to inform the Western public about the differentculture o f the exotic ‘Other’. M useum Nusantara in Delft hasrecently changed its display o f the permanent collection o f In­donesian objects. The m useum now stresses the m utual cul­tural exchange between Indonesia and the Netherlands. Them useum has also set itse lf the goal o f inform ing visitors aboutrecent developments in Indonesian culture.

By HELENA SPANJAARD

0Asian Art n 9 June 2000, Mu­seum Nusantaraopened its most

recent exhibition, ‘Refor-masi Indonesia!’; a displayof'protest art’ produced by

twelve Indonesian contemporary art­ists. Around forty works [paintings,graphics, drawings, and objects) focuson the turbulent period of reformasi,the process of reforms in the political,social and economic field which havetaken place in Indonesia between 1995and 2000. The reformasi movement iselucidated in even more detail by il­lustrative posters, items of electionpropaganda, T-shirts, and newspaperclippings. The exhibition reveals thatunder a repressive regime, visualartists need to invent their own, secretlanguage. The twelve artists belong tothe post-Independence generation(thirty to fifty years old). They havestudied international modern art de­velopments, and want to claim theirplace in the international art world.Most of them live and work in bigcities: Jakarta, Bandung, or Yogyakartaon the island of Java. The selection ofthe works is based on the critical con­tent and the social involvement ofeach individual artist.

A rahm aian i:T ropica l "Elegy, 1998, charcoal.

To produce art that criticized theSoeharto regime was not without itsdangers. Artists could be jailed or findthemselves repressed in many ways.Therefore, Indonesian visual artistsdeveloped their own, often ‘hidden’language, full of subtle symbolism. Itwas only after 1998 that criticismcould be expressed openly.

The exhibition ‘Reformasi Indone­sia!’ demonstrates this change: fromthe indirect, often complicated sym­bolism in 1995 to the open and activeprotest in 2000. The main theme of theart works have remained the same: the

political and cultural manipulation ofthe Indonesian citizen during the 32years of the New Order government ofSoeharto.

W i l d p igThe first part o f the exhibition

stressed the dominance o f the Ja­vanese culture as one of the importantsources of corruption and stagnation.A huge oil painting, The Field o f Tensionbetween Reality and Illusion, by AstariRashid (1953) showed a seated aristo­cratic Javanese couple wearing tradi­tional clothing. Their acquiescent at­titude is in contrast to the clippingsfrom the daily newspapers that havebeen attached to the canvas under thelayer of paint. Dashed over the papers,red paint drips down, an allusion tothe eruption of violence in 1998. Be­tween the couple is a gorge throughwhich flows a river. The landscape isdivided in two: the left features themodern capital Jakarta, the right a tra­ditional Javanese village. A tree of lifeused in the shadow theatre (wayarykulit) has been placed in a niche abovethe landscape. This tree refers to theend of the old era and the beginning ofa new phase in Indonesian history.

A strong comment on the process ofreformasi could be seen in the series ofthree huge paintings of a wild pig byDjoko Pekik (1938), the oldest partici­pant of the exhibition. In the firstwork (1996), a massive black pig is seenat the forefront keeping its milk all foritself In the background, the skylineand the flyovers of Jakarta can be seen(symbols of the richness of Soehartoand his clan). Crowds of people aremoving slowly towards the pig. In thesecond work, Indonesia 1998, The WildPig Hunt, the situation has changed.

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The people have captured the pig andtied it to a bamboo pole. To the right, anumber of dancing figures are hold­ing a party, but further in the back­ground some older men are surveyingthe situation with a critical eye: thepig is not yet dead. Finally, in thethird work, Without Flowers or Telegramo f Condolence, Year 2000, the pig has be­come a corpse. Birds and flies pick theflesh from the carcass. A ravaged,burned-out landscape is the legacy ofthe Soeharto clan. In the backgroundthe luxurious apartment buildingsand motorways of Jakarta are visible.Pekik has made a statement about the

A gu n g K urniaw an:M orfo log ica l study, 1996, charcoal.

Djoko Pekik: Hunting the Wild Boar, Indonesia 1998, oil on canvas.

escalating contrast between the richand the poor. His paintings are a trib­ute to the ‘small people’, the Indone­sian rakyat, who are exploited by thegreed of those in power, symbolizedby the wild pig.

E m p t y chairsIn the second part of the exhibition,

the cruel manipulation of the indi­vidual by the state is expressed byAgung Kurniawan (1968), HanuraHosea (1966) and Tisna Sanjaya (1959).Their lugubrious drawings andgraphic works show ghostlike peoplewithout eyes or ears, people who aremoved as puppets by those in power.Empty chairs refer to a power vacuumsituation: who will be the next presi­dent?

Some Indonesian artists joined inthe student protests. Through instal­lations in exhibitions and perfor­mances, these artists expressed theircriticism of the Soeharto regime. In­donesian ‘protest art’ has had someprecedents: first during the colonialperiod, when Indonesian painterssupported the struggle for Indepen­dence (1945-1950). The second was atthe beginning of the 1970s when the‘New Indonesian Art Movement’ (Ger-akan Seni Rupa Baru) was founded.This movement supported the stu­dent protests against the governmentwhich took place in that same decade.Some members, like one of the

founders, Harsono, are still active.The last part of the exhibition

shows works by artists who are politi­cal activists as well. Arahmaiani (1961)and Harsono (1949) participated in thestudent demonstrations and observedthe riots that took place in May 1998.The chaotic situation in which plun­dering, arson, murder, and rape werethe order of the day inspired Arahma­iani to make a series of charcoal draw­ings with the title Tropical Elegy. Darksilhouettes watch passively whiletheir house is burns. A woman isthreatened with a knife. In New OrderW ayang, dead bodies are impaled on abamboo stake. The tree of life, used tosignal the beginning and the end of aWayary performance, has been placedin the middle. Above the tree, a seatedfigure with a necktie is in power. Atank is aiming its guns at the perfor­mance.

The agression and violence used bythe army and the police during May1998 have been portrayed by Harsonoin his series Republik Indochaos. Basedon the enlarged form of a hundred ru­piah postage stamp, these etchingsare a documentation of 13 and 14 May1998. Combining photographs, texts,and etching Harsono demonstrates aharsh reality: burning bodies, thearmy shooting, and the police withclubs beating up demonstrators. Aportrait of Soeharto bears a diagonalstamp with the text ‘expired’.

N e w doorsThe difficult position o f the Chinese

(Christian) minority in a country inwhich the majority of the people isMuslim has been touched on in Tip*Kingdom Come. In the work, a scream­ing Chinese woman is making thesign of the Cross to protect herselffrom evil. Harsono works togetherwith Roman Catholic priests in Jakar­ta trying to help the victims of racismand religious descrimination.

The purpose of the exhibition ‘Re­formasi Indonesia!’ is to demonstratethat contemporary Indonesian artistsare touching upon new subjects. Likethe Russian Glasnost, the Indonesianprocess of Reformasi has opened newdoors. Shocked by the growing vio­lence in Indonesian society, thesetwelve artists have expressed theirconcern about the future of Indonesia.They have examined the psychology ofthe country and its inhabitants. Thisopen search into corruption, powerand responsibility is new for a countrywhere artists were not free to criticizethe government.This protest art hasto be seen as a stepping stone towardsdemocracy in Indonesia. ■

Dr Helena Spanjaard curatedthe exhibition ‘Reformasi Indonesia!’E-mail: helena@spanjaard.net

3 8 • H A S N E W S L E T T E R N ?23 • October zo o 0

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ART COLLECTIONS.

AGENDA

2 0 0 0 >- F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 1

C H I N A

Red G ate G alleryLevel 3, China World HotelChina World Trade CenterI Jianguomen Wai, BeijingTel.:+86-10-6505 2266Fax:+86-10-6532 4804

Decem ber 2000 to February 2001Red Gate Gallery Winter/Spring Festival

Group Show

Shanghai A r t Museum325, West Nanjing Road, Shanghai

6 Decem ber - 16 Decem ber 2000Third Shanghai Biennial, part o f theShanghai A rt FestivalTheme of the Biennial ‘Shanghai Spirit’(or Haisang/Shanghai). Curators HouHanru andToshio Shimizu have selectedsome twenty foreign artists fo r this Bi­ennial. Concurrent with the exhibition,a symposium will be held involving lead­ing art historians, theorists, critics, cura­tors and artists from China and abroad.

FRANCE

M yrna Myers/ / rue de Beaune, 75007 ParisTel.:+ 33 -1-4 261 1108Fax:+33-1-3082 49/7Fax:+33-1-3082 4917E-mail: mmyersgal@aol.com

29 Septem ber - 2 Decem ber 2000Radiant Stones: Archaic Chinese jades

KOREA

N ational Museum ofC o ntem p orary A r t

58-1, Makkye-dongGwacheon-si, Gyeonggi-do (427-080)Tel.:+ 8 1-2 -2188-6000Fax: + 8 1 -2 -2188 -6123

I S ep tem ber- 5 N ovem ber 2000Ventures-Young Korean Artists Exhibitions2000:Towards the New MillenniumSixteen young artists at the forefrontof a new generation who express theiryouth and freedom.

7 Septem ber — 5 N ovem ber 2000Louise BourgeoisA retrospective of one of the greatestsculptors of the twentieth century, andthe winner, at the age of 88, of the Gold­en Lion at the 1999 Venice Biennial.

16 N ovem ber - 30 Decem ber 2000Artists o f the Year:Noh Sang-kyun & Lee Young-baeAn occasion to see Koreancontemporary art and its prospectsin an exhibition showcasing the worksof Noh Sang-kyun and Lee Young-bae.

U N I T E D STATESOF AMERICA

Estampesjaponaises: C h efs -d ’oeuvre des C ollections Baur, Geneva

MEXICO

Museo de la Ciudadde Mexico

Pino Suarez 30Centro HistóricoMexico CityTel.: + 914-5229936Fax: + 915-5223640

3 I August - 19 N ovem ber 2000Five Continents and One City.Third International Salon o f Painting.The curators Chris Dercon, GerardoMosquera, Fumio Nanjo, Olu Oguibe,V ictor Zamudio Taylor, and Marta Palauhave selected some th irty artists forthe Salon.

T H E N E T H E R L A N D S

RijksmuseumHobbemastraat 19PO Box 748881070 DN AmsterdamTel.:+31-20-6732121Fax: + 3 1-20-6798146

9 Septem ber 2000 - I I March 2001Royer's Chinese CabinetThe lawyer Jean Theodore Royer(1737-1807) assembled a largecollection of popular and unfamiliarChinese artefacts: porcelain,lacquerware, everyday objects,clothing, gouaches, and books.His w idow bequeathed the collectionto W illiam I, who gave it a place inthe Royal Cabinet o f Rare Objects,a precursor of the Rijksmuseum.

Thai A r t FoundationMinervalaan 3 11077 NL AmsterdamTel.:+31-20 670 0066Fax:+31-20-670 0918E-mail: thartfoundation@yahoo.co.uk

I 5 Septem ber - 28 O ctober 2000Thai Art 2000An overview of contemporary Thai art.Paintings, installations, computer graph­ics, and mixed media by eight youngartists, including Chatchai Puipia.

S IN G AP O RE

ART-2 G alleryThe Substation, 45 Armenian StreetSingapore I 79936Tel.:+ 6 5 -3 3 8 8 7 13Fax:+65-3388337

12 O ctober - 14 N ovem ber 2000Desmond Sim ‘NE0-NYA’Desmond Sim's new works with Per-anakan themes will be featured in thisshow. His figurative paintings describemoods and subtleties of local life culledfrom memory and observation.

Singapore A r t Museum71 Bras Basah RoadSingapore 189555Tel.:+65-3323215Fax:+65-2247919

16 August - 16 Decem berThe Landscape in Southeast Asian Art:Works o f the Singapore Art Museum Per­manent CollectionThe exhibition uses the theme of land­scapes to explore various spaces (geo­graphical and spiritual) and variousconcepts like nation, self and its identi­ty, in relation to these spaces. Featuringworks by local and Southeast Asianartists including Basuki Abdullah, Fer­nando Amorsolo, Georgette Chen, LimCheng Hoe.SyedThajudden.ApichaiPiromak and Hedi Hariyanto.

Singapore H is to ry Museum93 Stamford RoadSingapore 178897

until 31 D ecem ber 2000The Dioramas - A Visual History o fSingaporeTwenty dioramas visually trace thehistory and development of Singaporefrom a fishing village to a modernnation state.

until 31 Decem ber 2000The Jade house: Highlights from the HawPar Collection

S W IT Z E R LA N D

Baur Collection8 Rue Munier-Romilly, 1206 GenevaTel.:+41-22-346 1729Fax:+41-22-789 1845

3 O ctober - 26 N ovem ber 2000Estampes Japonaises:Chefs-d’oeuvre des Collections Baur

U N I T E D K I N G D O M

Asian C ivilizations Museum39 Armenian StreetSingapore 179941Tel.:+65-332 3015Fax: +65-883 0732

25 O ctober 2000 onwardsGlorious traditions o f Ancient Chinese

BronzesFrom the collections of Anthony &Susan Hardy and SzeYuangTang

Leave o ff your Noisy Anklett, 1730 Power and DesireSan Die^o Museum o f Art

until 2 January 2 001The Dating Game Calendars and Time

in AsiaCalendars are human interventionsto mark the passages of times. Besidesthe practical uses, a calendar reflectsa particular culture’s perception of timeand often acquires a sacred status.The Dating Game exhibition exploresa variety of Asian calendars.

until 14 January 2001Krishna - The Blue GodThis exhibition explores Krishnathrough a display of huge Kalamakaritextiles, paintings, and sculptures.

British L ibrary96 Euston Road, London N W I 2DBTel.: + 44 -1 71-4127111Fax:+44-171-4127268

8 N ovem ber 2000 onwardsI Arts o f Korea

Korean art and archaeology, rangingfrom the Neolithic period to the nine­teenth century

Decem ber 2000 - January 2 0 0 1Human Image (with objects includedfrom Oriental Antiques)

January - February 2 0 0 1Tibet: Life, myth, and art

until February 2001Islamic Works on Paper:Recent acquisitions

in IVABeaconsfield 22 Newport Street, VauxhallLondon SEl I 6AYTel.:+44 20 7729 96/6

7 O ctober - 19 N ovem ber 2000Drawing Space:Contemporary Indian drawingsAn exhibition of contemporary drawingsby three artists, all o f whom use thedrawn line as a device for negotiatingspace in ways that are self-empowering,exploring the complexity of making andexhibiting work in an increasingly globalcontext. Nazarene Mohammed, SheilaGouda and N.S. Harsha's practice en­compasses visual forms from the Westfiltered through an Indian sensibility.

The Art Agenda andcultural pages are produced by

The Gate Foundationin Amsterdam, the Netherlands.Please send all information aboutactivities and events relating to

Asian art and culture to:

BosePacia M odern508 W 26th Street, / I th FloorNew York, New York 10 0 0 1Tel.:+ 1-212-989 7074Fax: + 1-212-989 6982E-mail: Antenna00@hotmail.com

26 O ctober - 30 N ovem ber 2000Antenna is an installation by RinaBanerjee.The artist, born in Calcuttaand relocated to the United States,explores the personal, political, culturaland social effects of migration throughher installation using the antenna asa metaphor.

The Cleveland Museum of A r t11150 East BoulevardCleveland, Ohio 4 4 106

21 O ctober 2000 - 3 January 2001Yasuhiro Ishimoto Photographs:Traces o f MemoryThis selection of recent work concen­trates on his evocative, abstract studiesof clouds, leaves and footprints.

17 Dec. 2000 - I I February 2 0 0 1Fabric o f Enchantment: Indonesian batikfrom the North Coast o f JavaThe exhibition places batik made onthe north coast of Java from the lateeighteenth to the mid-twentieth centu­ry in an aesthetic, social, and historicalcontext.

H onolulu Academ y of A rts900 S. Beretania StreetHonolulu, Hawaii 96814-1495Te l:+ 1-808-532 8700Fax: + 1 -808-5328787

Continuing exhibitionTaisho chicMany of the early twentieth century artmovements, which originated in thewest such as Impressionism,Art Nou­veau, and A r t Deco, also affected themodern Japanese artist.This exhibitionhighlights Japanese works of art andeveryday items, which show moderndesign elements of the Taisho period(1912-1926).

T h e M etropo litan Museumof A r t

5th Avenue at 82nd StreetNew York NY 10028Tel.:+ 1-212-8795500Fax: + 1-212-5703879

until 14 January 2001The Year One:A rt o f the Ancient World East and WestAn exhibition of masterpieces fromthe museum’s collection that were pro­duced in the period just before andafter the Year One. The approximately150 works come from Western Europe,the Mediterranean, Africa, the MiddleEast, India, China, Southeast Asia, andthe Americas.The exhibition will high­light the interconnections that existedbetween many of these widely separat­ed parts of the world.

T h e San Diego Museumof A r t

502 park Avenue59th Street, San Diego, California

12 O ctober 2000 - 7 January 2 0 0 1Power and Desire: South Asian paintingsDrawn from one of the finest collec­tions of South Asian paintings in theUnited States, the more than seventypictures in this exhibition, created be­tween the sixteenth and nineteenthcenturies, are seen for the first timein twenty-five years.

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Asian A r t MuseumSan Francisco

Golden Gate Park, San FranciscoCalifornia 94118Tel.:+ 1-415-379-8801

25 O ctober 2000-14 January 2001Between the Thunder and the Rain:Chinese Paintings from the Opium Warto the Cultural Revolution (1840-1979)Featuring more than 120 works froma private Bay Area collection, the exhibi­tion offers a uncommon glimpse of tradi­tional Chinese paintings and calligraphiescreated between the end of OpiumWars and the Cultural Revelation.

October 2000 • h a s n e w s l e t t e r W 2 3 • 3 9

I N D E X MAS N E W S L E T T E R 23

FORUM

(Editorial Pa^e)- The Asia Europe Foundation.................................................2

(Modem Hinduism)- Relations between Hindus in Modern Indonesia

and India.................................................................................8

(East Asia)- Milestones of Peace and Reconciliation............................... 29

(Central Asia)- The van Manen Collection................................................. 16

(South Asia)- Photographic prints at the Kern Institute Leiden:

A Glimpse of Simla around 1900.........................................18- A Breakthrough in Vedic Studies.........................................20- Height and Health in Indian H istory................................22

(Southeast Asia)- Vigan Summons Philippines Memories............................ 24- Malaysia: Skill formation in the auto parts industry.........25- Cultural Diversity and Construction of Polity ..................2 6- A Mystic Journey to Mount Ciremai..................................27

PEOPLE

(General News)- Henk Schulte Nordholt: A state of violence.........................3

(Modem Hinduism)- Two Balinese Hindu Intellectuals:

Ibu Gedong Bagoes Oka and Prof. I Gusti Ngurah Bagus.. 12- Guest Editor: Martin Ramstedt.......................................... 13

(South Asia)- Victor van Bijlert: Bengal Studies Page Editor................... 18

INSTITUTIONAL NEWS

(Central Asia)- The Buddhas ofBamiyan: Challenged witnesses

of Afghanistan’s forgotten past............................................14- An Online Digital Database ofTibetan Woodslips..............15

Nomadic Civilizations..........................................................16

(South Asia)- The Roja Muthiah Research Library:

A private archive in Ind ia.....................................................22

(Southeast Asia)- George Town at a Historic Crossroads................................. 25- MOST-Indonesia National Secretariat................................. 26

(HAS News)- HAS Staff and Research..........................................................42- HAS Research Partners..........................................................43

REPORTS

(General News)- Religions and Tolerance..........................................................5- Demography & Value Change...............................................6- Interpreting Asian Cultures in Museums............................. 6- Brokers of Capital and Knowledge........................................7- PREBAS: Platform for Research on Business in Asia..............7

(SoutheostAsia)- The Sixth International Philippine Studies Conference . . . 23- Thailand Update Conference............................................... 23- Conflicts and Violence in Indonesia.....................................28

(East Asia)- Yogacara Buddhism in C hina............................................. 31- The Past Decade of Migration from China..........................32- Sixth European Conference:

Agriculture and Rural Development in China.....................33- Health. Sexuality, and Civil Society in East Asia................. 34- Euro-Japanese Seminar: Social Economy in Japan ..............34- Medicine in China:

Health techniques and social history...................................35- Voices from Japan.................................................................36

(HAS News)- The Ninth Seminar of the International Association

for Tibetan Studies...............................................................41- Slave Systems in Asia and the Indian Ocean........................44- Conference ‘Audiences, Patrons, and Performers’

a Great Success......................................................................45

PUBLICATIONS

I ASIAN ART

- The Artists of the Tropics: The artists of the future...........37- ‘Reformasi Indonesia!’ Protest art, 1995-2000..................... 38

VACANCIES

- Institute of Social Studies: One Part-time Post-doc...........44- Institute of Social Studies: One PhD Candidate................. 44

AGENDA

(HAS News)- Art Agenda............................................................................. 39- HAS Agenda........................................................................... 43- ESF Asia Committee Agenda.................................................47- EIAS Agenda..........................................................................52- International Conference Agenda........................................54

& 1 SHORT NEWS

- ADiTi: South Asian Dance...................................................21- The First Hotei Publishing Conference on Ukiyo-e.......... 35- ICAS 2: An invitation............................................................53- SEALG Conference 2000.......................................................53

INTERNET

(South Asia)- From offset to online: New Digital Media in Nepal...........17

LETTERS- Letter from Monika Geanssbauer.......................................34

(ESF Asia Committee News)- ESF Asia Committee News:

The full committee convened............................- European Associations for Asian Studies............- ESF Asia Committee Fellow................................- ESF Asia Committee Members............................- ESF Asia Committee Workshops in 2000............

(AilianceNews)- The EIAS in Brussels Joins the Strategic Alliance- The Strategic Alliance & the New Partner,

the EIAS (Brussels)................................................

RESEARCH PROJECTS

4646474748

52

53

(General News)- Asia’s Environmental Crisis?

The ‘Environmental Research Network Asia’ (ERNA).........4

(Modem Hind iusm)- Indian Thought in the Dutch Indies:

The Theosophical Society....................................................9- Indonesians of Indian Origin...............................................10- Globalization of Hinduism:

Swadhyaya in England and Sai Baba in Bali....................... 10

(General News)- Books Received General News.....................................

(Central Asia)- Books Received Central Asia.........................................

(South Asia)- Books Received South A sia..........................................- New Publications in Bengal Studies............................

(Southeast Asia)- Books Received Southeast Asia.....................................

(EastAsia)- A Collection of Essays on Modernization and Religion

in South Korea..............................................................- Book Received Korea.....................................................- Books Received China...................................................- Books Received East Asia..............................................- Books Received Japan...................................................

30

30

32

3336

¥

- Max-Planck-Institute for Social Anthropology ... ............ 28- China Information.......................... .............33

1 - Hotei Publishing.............................. .............35- Products and Services....................... ............ 43- ESF Asia Committee Research Travel Grants....... ............ 47- Lernout & Hauspie.......................... ............ 51- Cambridge University Press............ ............ 5<3- Ganesha Publishing......................... ............ 56

4 0 • has new sletter TsE23 ■ October 2000

H A S N E W S L E T T E R 2 3

Pink Panes i n s t i t u t i o n a l n e w s

HAS p-41 / Products & Services P-43 / ESF Asia Committee MA/ Alliance P-5* /

Short News P 53 / International Conference Agenda P-54

H A S N E WS2 4 > 3 0 J U N E 2 0 0 0

L E I D E N , T H E N E T H E R L A N D S

The Ninth Seminar of the InternationalAssociation for Tibetan Studies

The N in th Seminar of the International Association fo r T ibetan Studies was held in Leiden,the N etherlands, /to rn 24 to jo ju n e o f this year. Both the convener, Henk Blezer, and a participant,

Pen,g Wenbin, present their views on the conference below.

The Convener Reports

By HENK BLEZER

I he ninth seminar ofthe IATS has under-

.__ gone some changesin the format followed byits predecessors, the (de)-merits of which need to be

carefully considered. I encouragedparticipants to propose alternativeformats towards achieving a more fo­cused academic exchange, like panelsand round-table discussions. Fromthe 23 proposals, thirteen panel-likemeetings materialized. Half the pa­pers were presented in such special­ized gatherings. The great majority ofthe ‘panels’ turned out to be of veryfine quality and will have separateproceedings.

To enable participants to survive aweek-long intensive seminar of overtwo hundred academic presentations,1 attempted to create more ‘space inthe schedule by installing six to eightparallel sessions. As a result, the aver­age amount of papers went down toseven per room, per day. Each couldthen last 45 minutes (30+15), insteadof the usual ten of 30 minutes (20+10;for practical reasons the latter formatwas occasionally still preferred by or­ganizers oflarge [read: long] ‘panels’).

For this seminar we made extensiveuse of Internet web pages and an e-mail forum. All relevant informationand circulars were posted on the In­ternet (including much used on-lineregistration facilities). The IATS dis­cussion forum was designed to ac­commodate academic exchange out­side seminar time.

1 actively approached sponsors whohave a vested interest in the areas cov­ered to present their work and exper­tise to the scholarly community in aspecial non-academic and non-IATSsection of the programme. I under­stand that the opportunity to estab­lish relationships of mutual benefitduring the seminar was put to gooduse. Several other non-academic (andnon-political) organizations active inTibet and the Himalayas also present­ed their work and interests. This spe­cial section also featured a brief intro­duction to the Bon bKa’ 'gyar andbiTen 'gyur, which we have newly ac­

quired for the library of the Kern In­stitute in Leiden (with generous sub­ventions from the Gonda Fonds andthe HAS), and a preliminary report onthe Bon Virtual Library -- a more elab­orate report is scheduled for the IIASNewsletter 24 (in the Tibetolcyical Col­lections & Archives Series).

The cultural programme includedthree exhibitions: photographs per­taining to the areas covered in theseminar (Wim Isphording), paintingsinspired by Tantric Tibetan motifs(Lidie Bossen), and samples of the im­portant, but unfortunately not-so-widely-known, Johan van Manen Ti-betological collection in Leiden; fourworkshops: thanka painting (Thar-phen Lingtsang and Lakshmi Fran­sen), Mongolian mask-making (Suk-hee), Tibetan medicine (Tenzin Dakpaand Nel de Jong), and South Siberianthroat-singing (Gherman Popov); |several musical performances; and afilm-cycle on Tibet.

SPONSORS OF THE NINTHSEMINAR OF THE IATS

CNWS, Research School o f Asian, African, and

Amerindian Studies; Curzon Press; Eco-Himal

(Austria & Italy); Stichting Eco-operation;

Gonda Fonds (at KNAW); Ms. van Gulik;

Ms. Barbara Hines; Institute for Comparative

Research in Human Culture (Oslo, Norway);

International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS);

Netherlands Organization for Scientific

Research (N WO); Network for University

Co-operation Norway-Tibet (Oslo, Norway);

Oost-Europa Fonds (at Prins Bernhard

Cultuurfonds); Prins Claus Fonds;

Royal Dutch Academy o f Sciences (KNAW);

Trace Foundation.

By PENG WENBI N

Dr Samten Gyaltsen Karmay,ex-president o f the IATS addressed

the conference

ProceedingsBrill Academic Publishers are in­

terested in publishing the proceed­ings in the form of a series, whichwill include one or two large vol­umes of proceedings for papersfrom the (general) sessions. Thedeadline for submission is January20or. Articles for the separate panel-proceedings need to be submitted totheir respective panel organizers.Articles from sessions and panelsthat will become part of the generalproceedings need to be sent to theconvenor. A circular regarding theproceedings has been sent out inAugust 2000. ■

Henk Blezer was convenor o f the Ninth

Seminar o f the IATS and is an Independent

Research Fellow at the IIAS, Leiden.E-mail: blezer@rullet.leidenuniv.nl

Reception at the Leiden City Hall

ne thorny issue, asDr Henk Blezer,Convenor of the

Ninth Seminar, noted inhis preview of the organi­zational process (HAS

Newsletter 22), was to work out a con­ference format that could both con­tain a more focused academic ex­change, and yet retain the informalcharacter of the IATS seminars for dia­logue among the large number andlarge diversity of scholars. The organi­zational work in this direction wasnot simple-it involved strategic plan­ning to move beyond some perceivedboundaries of academic cultures, i.e.,the ‘European’ small expert meetingvs. the ‘American’ large-scale academ­ic convention. Needless to say, thesteady increase in the number of par­ticipants of the IATS seminars in re­cent years is an encouraging sign, re­flecting a dynamic growth in the fieldof Tibetan Studies as a whole. Thisyear, close to three hundred partici­pants attended the seminar in Leidenfor a week-long conference with overtwo hundred academic presentations.

As a first-time attendee of the IATSseminar series, I find it difficult tocomment on the organization of thisyear’s seminar as a whole. Yet, as apanel participant, I shared tremen­dous satisfaction with other panelistsregarding the way in which the pan­els had been arranged, particularlythe amount of time (30 + 15 = 45) allo­cated to each presenter this year. Theformat worked pretty well. It offeredmuch relaxation in the course of pre­senting papers and in subsequent dis­cussion and exchange with the audi­ence.

This focused and relaxed experiencewas, of course, comparable to those ofsmall, specialized gatherings, such as

A Participant's ViewWhat could be taken as a ‘successful and productive’ confer­ence certainly rests upon participants’ performances and co­operation. It also emerges, perhaps more importantly, as aproduct o f the organizer’s craftsmanship, namely, the ways inwhich he or she artfully handles various kinds o f ‘impossiblesto enhance the conference’s quality. A case in hand would bethe Ninth Seminar o f the International Association for Ti­betan Studies (IATS) held in Leiden in June this year.

the conference on the Tibetan pil­grimage, hosted by the HAS in Sep­tember 1996. My satisfaction with thisyear’s schedule also stemmed from itsjuxtaposition to those of the large-scale conventions I have attended inthe US, in particular, the annualmeetings of the Association for AsianStudies (AAS). Given the large numberof panels and participants (with morethan two hundred formal panels andtwo thousand attendees each yearover the past two years), the organiza­tional aspects of the AAS annual meet­ings have been indisputably impres­sive. Yet, at times, one does wish,however unrealistically, that thestringent timing policy (15+5=20) foreach panel presenter could be loos­ened up a bit to allow for a more re­laxed discussion and exchange.

Organizational issues aside, theNinth Seminar of the IATS alsobrought to light some on-going topi­cal or methodological expansions inthe field of Tibetology. I exploredthese academic advances through mylimited observation and some casualchatting with colleagues and friendsduring the seminar. Admittedly, eventhese limited experiences were notquite unbiased, but had been largelyfiltered through a vested interest inanthropological matters.

Remarkable trendWith its remarkable trend towards

multi-dimensional development inrecent years, the field ofTibetan Stud­ies could be better described as be­coming increasingly ‘discursive’. Re­search topics and the temporal andspatial framework underlying themare rapidly expanding. Although clas­sical textual scholarship, especiallythe study of ancient history, philoso-

Continued on page 44 f

October 2000 • has n e w s l e t t e r N?2 3 • 4 ^

I I A S N E W S

I n t e r n a t i o n a l

I n s t i t u t e

f o r As i an

S t u d i e s

H A S M A I N O F F I C E L E I D E N

/ r r * t i t u t e f o r A *

Visiting address:Nonnensteeg 1-3, l e i d e n

Postal Address:P.O. Box 9515

2300 RA LEIDEN

THE NETHERLANDS

Telephone: +31-71-527 22 27

T ele fax: +31-71-527 41 62

E-mail: iias@ rullet.leidenuniv.nl

Internet: h ttp ://w w w .iias.n l

Newsletter contributions:

iiasnews@ rullet.leidenuniv.nl

H A S B R A N C H O F F I C E A M S T E R D A M

Oost-Indisch Huis

Oude Hoogstraat 24

1012 CE Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Telephone: +31-20-525 36 57

T ele fax: +31-20-525 36 58

E-mail: iias@pscw.uva.nl

15 OCTOBER 2000HAS RESEARCH

15 OCTOBER 2 000 ► 15 FEBRUARY 2001

STAFFProf. W .A .L . Stokhof (Director)Drs S.A.M . Kuypers (Deputy Director)Drs M.T. te Booij (Executive Manager)J. Bruinsma (Secretary)D rsT.D . Chute (Co-Editor)Drs A.J.M. Doek (W W W )E.F.P. Haneveld (IT-Manager)Drs E.A.T. van der Hoek (Editor)I . 1 Gusti Made Karang-Hoogenboom

(Database Assistant)M .L.W . Luxembourg (Secretary)Drs H .M .van der Minne

(Secretary Branch Office Amsterdam)D r M.A.F. Rutten

(Co-ordinator Branch Office Amsterdam)J. S trem m elaar (Project Co-ordinator)

BOARDProf. F.A.M. Hiisken - Chairm an

(Nijmegen University)Prof. J.L. Blussé van Oud Alblas

(Leiden University)Prof. H .W . Bodewitz

(Leiden University)Prof. J.C. Breman

(University o f Amsterdam)Prof. A.J.M.W . Hagendoorn

(Utrecht University)Prof. M .M. van der Linden

(International Institute o f Social History)Prof. J.G. Oosten

(Research School CNWS, Leiden University)

ACADEMIC COMMITTEED r E.B. V erm eer - Chairm an

(Leiden University)Prof. B.Arps (Leiden University)D r I.S.A. Baud

(Universiteit van Amsterdam)D r G.K. Lieten

(Universiteit o f Amsterdam)D r P.J.M. Nas (Leiden University)Prof. C .l. Risseeuw (Leiden University)D r R.A. Rutten

(Universiteit o f Amsterdam)D r E.Touwen-Bouwsma

(NIOD, Amsterdam)

HAS EXTRAORDINARY CHAIRSProf. Hein Steinhauer (the Netherlands)

Special Chair at Nijmegen University,‘Ethnolinguistics with a focus on South­east Asia’/ September 1 9 9 8 - I September 2 0 0 1

Prof. Barend Terwiel(the Netherlands/Germany)Special chair at the Universiteit Leiden,‘Cultures of Mainland Southeast Asia'1 September 1 9 9 9 - I September 2002

Prof. Henk Schulte N ordholt(the Netherlands)Special chair at the Erasmus UniversityRotterdam,‘Asian History’I October 1 9 9 9 - I October 2003

INTERNATIONALREPRESENTATIVESProf. J.G. Vredenbregt

(jakarta, Indonesia)D r W.G.J. Remm elink

Japan-Netherlands Institute(Tokyo.Japan)

RESEARCH PROGRAMMESAND PROJECTS- ‘Dissemination of Religious Authority

in Twentieth century Indonesia'Programme Co-ordinators: Drs S.A.M.Kuypers, and Dr N.J.G. Kaptein

- ‘Transnational Society, Media andCitizenship'Executing body.ASSR; ProgrammeCo-ordinator: Prof. P. van der Veer

- CLARA:‘Changing Labour Relationsin Asia'Executing body:The International Instituteo f Social History - Amsterdam;Programme Co-ordinator: Dr R. Saptari

- PAATI:‘Performing Arts of Asia:Tradition and InnovatiomThe expressionof identity in a changing world'Programme Director: Dr W. van Zanten

- ABIA-Project: Key to South and South­east Asian A r t and Archaeology IndexProject Co-ordinator: Prof. K.R. van Kooij;Editors: Dr E.M. Raven and Drs H.l.Lasschuijt

One o f the most important policies o f theHAS is to share scholarly expertise by offeringuniversities and other research institutes theopportunity to benefit from the knowledge o fresident fellows. HAS fellows can be invited tolecture, participate in seminars, co-operateon research projects etc. The HAS is mostwilling to mediate in establishing contacts.Both national and international integration o fAsian Studies are very important objectives.

In 2000 the HAS wants to stress this co­operation between foreign researchers andthe Dutch field. With regard to the affiliatedfellowships, the HAS therefore offers tomediate in finding external Dutch funding,should the scholar have not yet found wayso f financing his/her visit to the Netherlands.For more information please see the HASfellowship application form.

At the moment, HAS fellowship applicationscan be sent in for affiliated fellowships only(no application deadline). I f any otherfellowships will become available, it will beannounced in the HAS Newsletter and on theInternet. For news about HAS fellowships,please see our website: http://www.iias.nl

The HAS distinguishes between ninecategories o f fellows:

1. RESEARCH FELLOWS(POST PHD)

a. individualb. attached to a programme, i.e.- ‘Performing Arts of Asia:Tradition and

innovation; the expression of identityin a changing world ’ (PAATI)

- ‘Changing Labour Relations in Asia'(CLARA), in collaboration with IISHAmsterdam

- ‘Dissemination of Religious Authorityin Twentieth century Indonesia'

- Transnational Society, Media andCitizenship'Research fellows are attached tothe International Institute for AsianStudies for three years maximum,carrying out independent researchand fieldwork, and organizing aninternational seminar.

2. SENIOR V IS IT IN G FELLOWS

The HAS offers senior scholars - uponinvitation - the possibility to engage inresearch work in the Netherlands.Theperiod can vary from one to threemonths.

3. PROFESSORIAL FELLOWS

The HAS assists in mediating betweenuniversities in the Netherlands andresearch institutes in Asia, invitingestablished scholars (minimumrequirement: assistant professor level) toshare their expertise with Dutch scholars,by being affiliated to Dutch universitiesfor a period of one to two years.

4. V IS IT IN G EXCHANGE FELLOWS

The HAS has signed several Memorandaof Understanding (MoU) with foreignresearch institutes, thus providingscholars with an opportunity toparticipate in international exchanges.

The Nordic Institute fo r Asian Studies(NIAS) in Copenhagen, the ShanghaiAcademy of Social Sciences (SASS).theAustralian National University (ANU), andthe Universitat W ien regularly sendscholars to the Netherlands to doresearch fo r a period from one to sixmonths. Contacts with many otherinstitutes promise to develop into a moreregular exchange in the near future.

5. AFFILIATED FELLOWS

The HAS can offer office facilities tofellows who have found their ownfinancial support and who would like todo research in the Netherlands for aparticular period.The HAS also offers tomediate in finding external Dutch funding,should the scholar have not yet foundways of financing his/her visit to theNetherlands.

6. ESF/ALLIANCE FELLOWS

Selected by the Asia Committee of theEuropean Science Foundation (ESF-AC),ESF/Alliance fellows are attached to theHAS, partly within the framework of andfinanced by the Strategic Alliance (IIAS-NIAS-IFA).

7. DUTCH SENIORS

Maximum two Dutch seniors per yearcan apply fo r this position of maximum 6months each at the HAS.A Dutch seniorshould have obtained a PhD degree morethan five years ago, and be academicallyvery productive.The stay at HAS (notabroad!) can be used for further research.Funds are made available to finance thetemporary replacement fo r teachingactivities of a senior at his/her homeuniversity.

8. NORDIC-NETHERLANDSRESEARCH FELLOWS

Nordic-Netherlands research fellowsare selected by the Strategic Alliance.Theduration of the fellowship is one o r twoyears maximum.

9. G O NDA FELLOWS

Gonda fellows are selected by theStichting J. Gonda Fund and are affiliatedto the IIAS.The period may vary from 1-3months.

Hereunder you will find, ordered byregion of speciality and in alphabeticalorder, the names and research topics ofall fellows working at the InternationalInstitute fo r Asian Studies. Mentioned arefurther: country of origin, period ofaffiliation, kind of fellowship, and, in caseof an affiliated fellowship, fundingsource/co-sponsor, if available.

GENERAL

D r Rajni Palriwala (India)The Impact of a Changing SocialWelfare System on Relations withinMarriage, Family, and Social Networksin the Netherlands and the PublicDebate on this Process', affiliatedfellow (IDPAD)I May 2000 - I December 2000

CENTRAL ASIA

D r H enk Blezer (the Netherlands)The'Bon'-O rig in of Tibetan BuddhistSpeculations Regarding a Post-MortemState Called ‘Reality as It Is” , individualresearch fellowUntil I November 2000

D r Alex Mckay (New Zealand)The History ofT ibet and the IndianHimalayas', affiliated fellow8 June 2000 - 8 September 2000

D r M. Alinejad (Iran), stationed at theAmsterdam Branch Office/ASSR

‘Mass Media, Social Movements, andReligion', research fellow within theprogramma 'Transnational Society,Media and Citizenship’I July 2000 - I July 2002

SOUTH ASIA

D r Hanne de Bruin (the Netherlands),stationed in Leiden and at the AmsterdamBranch Office

‘Kattaikkuttu and Natakam: SouthIndian theatre traditions in regionalperspective’, research fellow within theprogramme‘Performing Arts of Asia:Tradition and Innovation’ (PAATI)Until 15 July 2001

D r Kappadath Parameswara Kannan(India), stationed at the Amsterdam BranchOffice

‘Collective Care Arrangements amongWorkers and Non-W orkers in theInformal Sector’, affiliated fellowMay 2 0 0 1 (preliminary)

D r Prabhu Mohapatra (India)stationed in New Delhi

'Industrialisation and W ork Culture:Steel workers in Jamshedpur: 1950 —1990s', research fellow within theframework of the CLARA researchprogrammeI February 1 9 9 9 -3 1 January 2002

D r Shoma Munshi (India), stationed atthe Amsterdam Branch Office/ASSR

Transnational Alchemy: Producing theglobal consumer and diasporicidentities via contemporary visualmedia: India and the Gulf Area',research fellow within the programmaTransnational Society, Media andCitizenship'1 July 2000 - I July 2002

M r D m itri Olenev (Russia)‘Ancient Indian Theoretical Texts’,Gonda research guest4 November 2000 - 3 1 March 2 0 0 1

D r Nandini Sinha (India)‘Frontiers and Territories: Situating thetribal and pastoral peoples in thehistoric setting of Rajastan’, affiliatedfellow2 August 2 0 0 1 - 23 August 2001

D r Yaroslav Tarasyuk (Russia)‘Ancient and Medieval H istory of India,South Indian Epigraphy’, Gonda fellow28 August 2000 - 28 December 2000

D r Yaroslav Vassilkov (Russia)‘ Images of Fate in the Mahabharata’,Gonda fellow15 September 2000 - 31 January 2001

INSULAR SOUTHWEST ASIA

No HAS research fellows at this moment.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

Prof. Cynthia Bautista (Philippines)j stationed at the Amsterdam Branch Office

‘Changing International Discourses onDevelopment Research in the South’,Shell fellowI September 2000 - 3 1 December 2000

D r Colin Brown (Australia)‘A short H istory of Indonesia’,affiliated fellow15 August 2000 - I October 2000

D r M atthew Cohen (USA)The Shadow Puppet Theater ofGegesik, N orth West Java, Indonesia:Memory, tradition, and community’,research fellow within the frameworkof the programme‘Performing Arts ofAsia:Tradition and Innovation' (PAATI)1 January 1998 - I January 2001

D r Freek Colom bijn (the Netherlands),stationed in Leiden and at the AmsterdamBranch Office

The Road to Development: Access tonatural resources along the transportaxes of Riau Daratan (Indonesia), 1950-2000’, individual research fellowUntil I January 2002

Undang A. Darsa (Indonesia)‘Old Sundanese Literature’, researchguest (NW O)I August 2000 - 30 November 2000

D r Alessandra Iyer (Italy)‘Dance iconography in ancientIndonesia’, affiliated fellow15 October 2000 - 15 January 2000

D r Doris Jedamski (Germany)Madame Butterfly and the Scarlet

Pimpernel and their Metamorphosis inColonial Indonesia’, affiliated fellow(DFG)/ November 2000 - 15 January 2001

D r Ganganath Jha (India)‘New Political and Cultural Issues inASEAN’, affiliated fellow (IDPAD)26 September 2000 - 26 October 2000

D r M artin Ramstedt (Germany)‘Hindu Dharma Indonesia-The Hindu-movement in present-day Indonesia andits influence in relation to thedevelopment of the indigenous cultureof theToraja (AlukTodolo) in SouthSulawesi', ESF/Alliance fellowI December 1997 - 30 November 2000

D r Rosanne Rutten (The Netherlands)stationed at the Amsterdam Branch Office

‘Revolutionaries in the Community: riseand decline of the CPP-NPA in aPhilippine province, 1977- 1995’,Dutch senior fellow20 August 2000 - 20 February 2001

D r Edsel Sajor (Philippines, BrookersProgramme) Real Estate and ProducerServices in Cebu City, Philippines

I June 2000 — 1 June 2002

D r Reed W adley (USA)'The Ethnohistory of a BorderlandPeopleThe Iban in West Kalimantan,Indonesia', individual research fellow1 August 1998 - / August 2001

EAST ASIA

D r Yuri Sadoi (Japan)The Problems of the JapaneseAutomobile Production System in theDifferent Cultural Setting: the case ofthe Netherlands’, affiliated fellow(Mitsubishi Motors Corporation)1 September 1 9 9 9 - I September 2000

D r Hae-Kyung U m (Korea/UnitedKingdom)‘Performing Arts in Korea and theKorean Communities in China, theFormer Soviet Union and Japan’,research fellow within the frameworkof the programme‘Performing Arts ofAsiaTradition and Innovation’ (PAATI)/ January 1998 - I January 2001

D r Jeroen W iedenhof (the Netherlands)‘A Grammar of Mandarin’, Dutchsenior fellow1 February 2000 - I February 2001

4 2 • has n e w s l e t t e r TE23 • October 2000

MAS NEWS

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 0

21 S E P T E M B R E 2 0 0 0Amsterdam, The NetherlandsStart o/the IIAS/NIOD Sem inar series

'Southeast Asia Across Borders’Introductory Session ‘Nation and

Histoty in Southeast Asia'*SpeakerstRitth McVey and Takashi

Shiraishi (Kyoto U niversity)Contact address: Dr Peter Post

Nederlands Instituut voorOorlogs Documentatie

Herengracht 3801061 CJ AmsterdamThe Netherlands

Tel: +31-20-523 3800E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdocknaw.nl

O K T O B E R 2 0 0 0

11 O c t o b e r 2 0 0 0Leiden, The Netherlands

IIAS/UL Lecture: From the exotic andErotic to the Patriotic and Nostalgic:

C hattily Japanese Images o f the Pacificin P opular Song

Speaker: Don Niles(Director o f the Institute o f Papua New

Guinea Studies]Contact address: International

Institute for Asian StudiesP.0. Box 9515 2300 Leiden

The NetherlandsTel: +31-71-527 2227Fax: +31-71-527 41A2

E-mail: iias@rullet.leidenuniv.nl

11 O c t o b e r 2 0 0 0Berlin, GermanyAlliance Asia Update:

'T agun g des Asien-Paziftk Ausschussesder D eutschen Wirtsdta/t’

Organized by The Strategic Alliance(IFA, IIAS, NIAS, EIAS]

Contact address:The Institute of Asian Affairs

Rothenbaumchaussee 32D- 20148 Hamburg

GermanyTel: +49-40-443 001

Fax: +49-40-410 7945E-mail: ifahh@uni-hamburg.de

12 O c t o b e r 2 0 0 0Amsterdam, The NetherlandsSecond IIAS/NIOD Seminar Series:

Sino-Southeast Asian Studies: Towardan Alternative Paradigm*

Speaker: Dr Hong Liu (NUS]Contact address: Dr Peter Post

Nederlands Instituut voor OorlogsDocumentatie

Herengracht 3801061 CJ AmsterdamThe Netherlands

Tel: +31-20-523 3800E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

2 7 O c t o b e r 2 0 0 0Leiden, The Netherlands

HAS Annual Lecture:Asia and Western Dominance

- Retrospect and ProspectSpeaker: Pro/essorDeepak Kumar Lai

(University o f California)Contact address: International

Institute for Asian StudiesP.0. Box 9515 2300 Leiden

The NetherlandsTel: +31-71-527 2227Fax: +31-71-5274162

E-mail: iias@rullet.Ieidenuniv.nl

hasAgendA

Please check our website(hitp://iiasJeidenuniv,nl/iia$/

agenda.html)for any changes in the programme.

Unless otherwise mentioned,the contact address for conferences

organized by the HAS is:

HASP.O. Box 951 5

2300 RA LeidenThe Netherlands

Tel: +31-71-527 2227Fax: +31-71-527 4162

E-mail: iias@rullet.leidenuniv.nl

Also refer to the Agenda Asia, a data­base of Asian Studies conferences,

workshops, and seminars:http://www.iios.nl/gateway/newsi

agasialindex.html

2 6 - 2 8 O c t o b e r 2 0 0 0Trivandrum, India

CLARA Workshop‘DomesticServants and Mobility:Labour livelihoods and lifestyles'

1IAS/IISG/CLARA Research ProgrammeConveners: Dr Ratna Saptari (CLARA)

and Dr Annelies Moors (UvA).Contact address:

C/oCruqiusweg3i1019 AT Amsterdam

The NetherlandsTel: +31-20-668 5866Fax:+31-20-6654181

E-mail: Chlia@iisg.nlhttp://www.isg.nl/clara

N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 0

2 N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 0Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Third IIAS/NIOD SeminnrSeries:The Borderless South China Sea:A source o f national irredentism

Speaker: Stein Tennesson(University o f Oslo)*

Contact address: Dr Peter PostNederlands Instituut voor Oorlogs

DocumentatieHerengracht 380

1061 CJ AmsterdamThe Netherlands

Tel:+31-20-523 3800E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

23 N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 0Amsterdam, The NetherlandsFourth IIAS/NIOD SeminarSeries:Cities, Hinterlands and Peripheries:Changing economic geographies o fisland Southeast Asia, 1850-2000*

Speaker: Howard Dick('U niversity o f Melbourne]

Contact address: Dr Peter PostNederlands Instituut voor Oorlogs

DocumentatieHerengracht 380

1061 CJ AmsterdamThe Netherlands

Tel: +31-20-523 3800E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

2 7 - 2 9 N o v e m b e r 2000Bangkok, Thailand

From Factto Fiction:A history o f Thai-Myanmar relations

in cultural contextOrganized by ChulalongkomUniversity, Bangkok and HAS

Contact address:Supang Chantavanich, Director

Chulalongkom UniversityPhyatai Road

Bangkok, 10330Thailand

E-mail: supang.c@chula.ac.thHttp://www.ias / chula/ac/ th

D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 0

14 D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 0Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Fifth IIAS/NIOD SeminarSeries:Separatism and the Legitimacy o f

the N a tio n -S ta te in Southeast Asia:Anti-colonial and post-colonial

perspectives*SpeakerCliveJ. Christie

(University o f Hull)Contact address: Dr Peter Post

Nederlands Instituut voor OorlogsDocumentatie

Herengracht 3801061 CJ AmsterdamThe Netherlands

Tel: +31-20-523 3800E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 1

1 1 - 1 3 J a n u a r y 2 0 0 1Leiden, The Netherlands

Hotel Publishing/lIAS Conference:T h e f ir s t Hotei Publishing conference

011 Ukiyo-eContact address:Helena HuismanHotei Publishing

Zoeterwoudesingel 562313 EK Leiden

The NetherlandsTel:+31-71-566 3190Fax: +31-71-566 3191

E-mail:h.huisman@hotei-publishing.com

18 J a n u a r y 2 0 0 1Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Sixth IIAS/NIOD SeminarSeries:Japanese Business Networks in Southeast

Asia. 19005-19605*Speaker: Hiroshi Shimizu

(Aichi Shukutoku University)Contact address: Dr Peter Post

Nederlands Instituut voor OorlogsDocumentatie

Herengracht 3801061 CJ AmsterdamThe Netherlands

Tel:+31-20-523 3800E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 1

8 F e b r u a r y zooiAmsterdam, The NetherlandsSeventh IIAS/NIOD SeminarSeries:Royalties and Histories in Mainland

SoutheastAsiaSpeaker: Professor Barend-Jan Terwiel

(University o f Hamburg/IIAS)Contact address: Dr Peter Post

Nederlands Instituut voor OorlogsDocumentatie

Herengracht 3801061 CJ AmsterdamThe Netherlands

Tel: +31-20-523 3800E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

M A R C H 2 0 0 1

1 M a r c h 2 0 0 1Amsterdam, The NetherlandsEighth IIAS/NIOD Seminar Series:

Transnational Islam in Southeast AsiaSpeaker: Robert H efner

(Boston University)Contact address: Dr Peter Post

Nederlands Instituut voor OorlogsDocumentatie

Herengracht 3801061 CJ AmsterdamThe Netherlands

Tel: +31-20-523 3800E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

^PhxuincJtA6c

fPeAJuiceA,INFORMATION

CARRIERS

T a m a r i n d B o o k sBooks about Southeast Asia

P.O. Box 49217,Greensboro, NC 27419

United States of AmericaTel.:+33-6-852 1905Fax: +33-6-852 0750

E-mail: tamarind@greensboro.comHttp ://www.abebooks. com/

home/tamarind/

T h e OldB o o k r o o m

Out of print andantiquarian books

on Asia

Unit i , 54/60 Weedon CloseBelconnen.ACT 2617.Australia

Tel.:+6 1-2-6251 5191 (24 hours)Fax:+61-2-6251 5536

E-mail: books@OldBookroom.comHttp://www.OldBookroom.com

A r t h u rP r o b s t h a i n

O r i e n t a lB o o k s e l l e r s

41 Great Russell StreetLondon WC IB 3PL, United Kingdom

Tel./fax: +44-20-7636 1096E-maii: ms61 @soas.ac.uk

Http.7/oriental-african-books.com

We produce regular listsof new publications on China, Japan, Korea,South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia

and can send these on request.

HAS Research Partnershe HAS signedMemoranda of Un­derstanding (Mo-

Us) with research insti­tutes in the field of AsiaStudies all over the

world, in order to stimulate furtherco-operation in this field, and to im­prove the mobility of scholarsthrough the exchange of research fel­lows at a post-PhD level. The HAS me­diates in establishing contacts withthe Institute’s MoU partners.

The IIAS has signed MoUs with thefollowing institutions:x. Nordic Institute for Asian Studies

(NIAS), Copenhagen, Denmark2. East-West Center in Hawai’i

(EWC), USA3. Research School of Pacific and

Asian Studies of the AustralianNational University (RSPAS-ANU), Canberra, Australia

4. Division of Social Sciences andHumanities, IndonesianInstitute of Sciences (LIPI),Jakarta, Indonesia

5. Institut fiir Kultur undGeistesgeschichte Asiens derÖsterreichischen Akademie derWissenschaften, Vienna, Austria

6. Institute of Oriental Studies (IOS)of the Russian Academy ofSciences, Moscow, Russia

7. Vietnam National UniversityHanoi (VNU), Hanoi, Vietnam

8. University Grants Commission(UGC)/Ministry of Education ofPakistan, Islamabad, Pakistan

9. Shanghai Academy of SocialSciences (SASS), Shanghai,P.R. China

ïo.L’École Franchise d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), Paris, France

11. Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan,ROC

12. Korea Research Foundation(KRF), Seoul, Korea

13. National Science Coucil, Taipei,Taiwan, ROC

14. Mongolian Academy of Sciences,Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

15. Institut de Recherche sur le Sud-Est Asiatique, Aix-en-Provence,France

16. Bureau of International Cutural& Educational Relations, MOE,Taiwan, ROC

17. Centre d’Études et de RecherchesInternationales, Paris, France

18. University of Mauritius, Réduit,Mauritius and the MahatmaGandhi Institute, Moka,Mauritius

19. State Minister of Research andTechnology, Government ofIndonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia

20. University of the Philippines,Quezon City, the Philippines

October 2 0 0 0 • iias n e w s l e t t e r W 2 3 • 4 3

I I AS N E WS V A C A N C I E S1 8 > 2 0 MA Y 2 0 0 0A V I G N O N , F R A N C E

Slave Systems in Asiaand the Indian OceanThe workshop entitled Slave Systems in Asia and the IndianOcean: Their structure and change in the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries, was co-organized by CERINS, the HAS,and INALCO. It brought together some 35 scholars from thir­teen different countries (South Korea, Australia, India, Mauri­tius, South Africa, Tanzania, France, the Netherlands, Ger­many, Belgium, the UK, the USA, and Canada) to discuss formso f slavery and unfree labour in regions where European partic­ipation in the slave trade and ownership o f slaves was far lessthan in the Atlantic system, and where structures o f bondagewere far more varied and often more traditional and complex.

■ By GWYN CAMPBELL

r r l 0 facilitate the mainI aim of generating

X. comparative discus­sion and advance debate,the thirty-two papers pre­sented were submitted

beforehand and posted on a workshopweb site. This enabled all participantsto read relevant papers prior to theworkshop, obviating the need for au­thors to read their own papers pub­licly. Rather, for each session a discus­sant presented a thirty-minute com­parative critique of groups of paperslinked by region and theme.

Following a keynote introductoryaddress by Paul Lovejoy (York Univer­sity, Canada) sessions were held onthe following themes: Slavery andOther Forms of Unfree Labour (Rap­porteur: Suzanne Miers, Ohio Univer­sity, USA); East Africa (Rapporteur:Abdul Sheriff, Advisor, Principal Cu­rator, Zanzibar Museums, Tanzania);The Indian Sub-Continent (Rappor­teur: Dilip Simeon, Oxfam India); East

and Southeast Asia (Rapporteur:Hugh Clark, Ursinus College, PA);South Africa and the Indian Ocean Is­lands (Rapporteur: Gwyn Campbell,Université d’Avignon); Islam (Rappor­teur: William Clarence Smith, SOAS);Females & Children (Rapporteur: In-drani Chatterjee, Brown University,R.I); and The Meaning of Abolition(Rapporteur: Martin Klein, Universityof Toronto); The Indian Ocean/Asianand Atlantic Systems Compared (Rap­porteur: Joseph C. Miller, Universityof Virginia).

The core concern of the papers andsessions was the transformation ofsystems of bondage from the pre-Abolition to the post-Abolition era.Amongst the most striking issues topervade workshop discussions wereproblems of defining slavery, and ofusing concepts developed in the de­bate over the Atlantic system in theIndian Ocean-Asian context. Whilestrict adhesion to the legal conceptof nineteenth century slavery has ledto an under-valuation of the perpet­uation of forms of slavery into the

post-Abolition period in theAsia-In-dian Ocean region, there was consid­erable debate as to the boundariesbetween slavery per se and otherforms of bondage. Again, while theworkshop aimed in part to generatefrom regional case studies of slavesystems a general overview of struc­tures of slavery in the Asia-IndianOcean region, participants stressedthe need to beware of over-relianceupon concepts used in the Atlanticsystem, emphasizing the need toanalyse Asia-Indian Ocean bondagesystems with regard to their ownhistorical context.

Outside sessions, participants hadthe opportunity to informally pur­sue the debate whilst visiting Avi­gnon, European city of Culture inthe year 2000 and on the workshopouting to caves in the famousChateauneuf du Pape vineyards.

In overall terms, the workshop con­stituted a major contribution to­wards understanding slavery andother systems of servitude in the Asia-Indian Ocean regions. The papershave aroused some interest amongpublishers and it is envisgaed that apublication will be forthcoming. ■

Dr Gwyn Campbell, CERINS,University of Avignon.E-mail: gwyn.campbell@univ-avignon.fr

Outing atthe Archeon

(Alphen aande Rijn), where

‘East MeetsWest’

Continued from page 41

A PARTICIPANT'S VIEWBy Peng Wenbin

phy, religion, literature, and the like,continues to be ‘a firm foundation ofTibetological academic work’, therehas recently been a strong presence ofanthropological approaches in the Ti­betological field.

The panel on ‘Tibetan Social andCultural Revival in Amdo, Post-1980,’organized by Dr Toni Huber, better il­lustrates this point. Among the thir­teen panels at the seminar, this onewas, by far, the most comprehensiveof all. Focusing on contemporary is­sues, this panel investigated the cre­ative revitalization of Tibetan socialand cultural identity in the post-Maoreform period, traversing a largenumber of areas, such as religious re­vitalization, Tibetan schooling andlanguage education, artistic innova­tion, gender relations, Tibetan litera­ture and publishing, social organiza­tion, economic development, etc. Asone might have anticipated, the pan­elists’ presentations on these diverseareas were largely grounded upontheir specific fieldwork experiences.We were fortunate to listen to papers

of fine ethnographic quality. Thepanel was undoubtedly unique andfascinating in its ethnographic orien­tation.

As a final comment, I wish tenta­tively to explore an important per­spective taking shape in this and a fewother panels. Discussions of the socio­cultural revival in Amdo, local histo­ries in Kham, and on issues of self­presentation in the modern TibetanDiaspora (organized respectively byDrs Toni Huber, Lawrence Epstein,and Christaan Klieger) marked someconcerted efforts in recent Tibetologi­cal fields to expand our topical-cum-geographical attention to areas previ­ously conceived ‘peripheral’ to the‘core’ of Tibetan history and culture.Working on the axis of power, space

and identity, the ‘regional’ (Amdo orKham) and ‘Diaspora’ approaches,were built upon a set of inquiries con­cerning tradition and modernity, his­tory and culture, nationalism andethnicity. Such a critical interrogationwould be conducive to the ‘increas­ingly less essentialized approaches inthe field ofTibetology’, as Dr Epsteincommented. By bringing into focusthe plurality and diversity of the‘voices of the margins’, it helps unfixsome perceived homogeneity of Ti­betan culture and history. Differencesurely matters here. ■

Peng Wenbin is a PhD candidate atthe Department of Anthropology, UniversityofWashington in Seattle, Washington, USA.E-mail: peng@ti.washington.edu

The Institute of Social Studies, in collaboration with the CERES and ASSRResearch Schools and KITLV, will coordinate a four-year research project on

‘Coping with Economic Crisis in Indonesia: Comparative, Local and HistoricalDimensions'. The project is part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences’research programme ‘Indonesia in Transition’ under the Netheriands-lndonesia

Cooperation programme.The project is coordinated on the Indonesian sideby the Population Studies Centre, Gadjah Mada University.

The project explores Indonesia's contemporary crisis, and responses to it,in their comparative, local and historical dimensions as a window on morefundamental features of Indonesian social, economic and political change.It involves collaboration between various disciplines and between senior,mid-career and junior researchers from several universities and institutes

in Indonesia and the Netherlands.

The project focuses on five linked themes:(I) comparative study of crises and responses in modern Indonesian history

(1930s-1990s), (2) crisis and response as window on Indonesian economy andsociety in rural and urban areas, (3) small-scale enterprise and the ‘informal

sector’ in times of crisis: economic and social aspects of resilience andvulnerability, (4) changing constellations of resource conflict, institutions andrights, and (5) public services in times of crisis and reform: civil society andbureaucracy at local and intermediate levels. Where possible it will select

locations where research has already been undertaken in the pre-crisis years, inrural and urban locations of Java, South Sulawesi and West Sumatra.

The project seeks:

O n e p a r t - t im e Post -docThe post-doc position combines academic coordination and own research.

The ost-doc’s coordinating role (0.5 fte) will include maintenance of the project’sdatabase and bibliography, communication with the various collaborating

institutions and researchers, organization of project seminars and workshopsin the Netherlands and Indonesia, and management of project publications.The post-doc may propose an own research activity (0.2 fte) within any of

the project's research themes and regions as specified in the projectproposal (available on request); the research may involve contemporary

and/or historical analysis.

Requirements:A PhD in sociology/anthropology, economics, human geography or history;research experience in Indonesia and a working knowledge of Indonesian

language. Preference may be given to candidates with experience of (pre-crisis)field research in one of the project’s research regions.

Appointment:I January 2001 or as soon as possible thereafter; salaries and conditions

will follow Dutch university regulationsDuration: 4 Years

Location: For administrative convenience the position will be locatedin The Hague, at least for the 0.5 fte coordinating function.

O n e PhD C andidateTo undertake research on one or more urban communities, within

the framework of theme 2 above and with links also to one or more of the otherthemes.The PhD candidate will study employment, living conditions and copingstrategies of urban formal and informal sector workers and households under

the present crisis.The study may be carried out within the disciplinary frameworkof sociology/anthropology, human geography or development studies and will be

located in one or more urban sites in Java, South Sulawesi or West Sumatra.

Appointment:I January 2000 or as soon as possible thereafter; remuneration and conditions

will follow Dutch university regulations.Duration : 4 years

Location : One of the participating universities/institutes within the CERESor ASSR Research Schools, to be determined on the basis of the proposal

and allocation of promotorship.

Those interested to apply for either of these positions can contact the generalcoordinator of the project Professor Dr B.N.F. W hite

(E-mail: white@nias.knaw.nl or whiteb@iss.nl) or Drs. C. Boer(E-mail: Boerc@iss.nl, tel. +31-70-4260411) for a copy of the project document

and further information.

Applications (including a CV) should be sent before I D ecem ber 2000 to:Professor Dr B.N.F. W hite

Institute of Social StudiesPO Box 29776,2502 LT The Hague.The Netherlands.

Those applying from outside the Netherlands may apply by e-mail.

4 4 ‘ IIAS n e w s l e t t e r NS23 • October 2000

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2 3 ► 2 7 A U G U S T 2 0 0 0L E I D E N , T H E N E T H E R L A N D S

WimvanZfltitenaivwathe Opening Address ojth e Conference.

Conference ‘Audiences,Patrons, and Performers’A Great Success

Safe-rflf« Netty,'am.

Projector Colin Mackerras o fGriffith University (Australia)sPe?J<in g a t the p tm a y sesswnon Hybrid-Popular Theatre/Asian Diaspora’.

The conference ‘Audiences, Patrons and Performers in the Per­forming Arts o f Asia’ took place in Leiden, z j -27 August 2000,and included just over one hundred papers. It was greatly en­hanced by some video and CD-ROM presentations, perfor­mances, and workshops. The conference was co-organized bythe PAATI (Performing Arts in Asia; Tradition and Innovation),a research project at the IIAS, the European Foundation for Chi­nese Music Research (CHIME), and the University o f Leiden.

1. Hybrid and Popular Theatres inAsia (twenty papers); 2. Asian Diaspo-ras (eleven papers); 3. The CreativeProcess in Folk Music and MusicalRitual in Asia (eleven papers). Besidesthese core papers, there were severalpanels dealing with related topics.

The keynote address ‘The Perfor­mance Triangle: Whole or unholy?was delivered by Professor JamesBrandon. It was generally felt thatthe papers and discussions were of avery good quality. The results willappear in special issues of journalsand in two books.

On the first day the participants’registration took place to the accom­paniment of Chinese teahouse musicperformed by the ‘Yellow River en­semble from Paris. After the dinnerthe Surinamese-Javanese society ‘Go-tong-Rojong’ from Delfzijl, the

By WI M VAN ZANTEN

he conference ad­dressed the roles ofcontext and envi­

ronment: the audiences,the patrons who enablethe performing arts, the

sponsors who organize and supportthem, and the spaces and placeswhere they work and play. How dothese participants influence perfor­mances and performers, and how arethey influenced by them in turn?

The Asian ‘artists’ to be consideredrange from singers to storytellersand dancers, from puppeteers to ac­tors and musicians, from entertain­ers to ritualists and shamans. Thesethemes were highlighted in severalpanels, including ones focusing on:

Netherlands, performed a hobby­horse dance, Jaran Kepang, in whichthe dancers fell into trance. Perfor­mances also highlighted the otherevenings. Quite a few of the perform­ers (for instance, Vayu Naidu, JohnEmigh, Tran Quang Hai, Hugh Liv­ingston, Kalpana Raghuraman) alsogave workshops and presented excel­lent papers at the conference. Thiswas particularly gratifying, becausethe PAATI research project also triesto use participation or ‘learning byperforming’ for scientific research.

The possibilities 0fa follow-up con­ference were discussed. Dr SuraponeVirulrak offered to explore the possi­bilities to have the next conference atChulalongkorn University, Bangkok,Thailand in December 2002. ■

Some photographs taken duringthe registration for the conferencemay be found on the website:http://www.iias.nl/ oideion/general/audiences/contents/contents.html

More information: W i m v a n Z a n t e n (HAS-

PAATI) or F rank Kouwenhoven (CHIME)

E-mails: zanten@fsw.leidenuniv.nl,

chime@wxs.nl

t::%£***pro]'UHlvv'" ~SV”*-Don£t

workshop-

Membmo/Verem^

XsaranandKenikanfl. AuA5tttU8'VinSr u 4 j *.orÜ>of»“ftWOTK

Acehnese DawT'

Dtdilt fsjini Thowak

O c t o b e r 2000 • H A S N E W S L E T T E R N ? 2 3 • 4 5

THE ESF A S I A C O MMI T T E E NEWS

Asi a Commit teeE U R O P E A N S C I E N C E F O U N D A T I O N

ESF OFFICEI quai Lezay-Marnésia67080 Strasbourg CedexFranceTel:+33-388 76 71 51Fax:+33-388 37 05 32Http://www.esf.org

■ By SABINE A.M. KUYPERS& WIM STOKHOF

i A;IHfcni A far a great deal of de­liberation, ten pro­posals have been se­

lected. More detailed in­formation on each of theESF-sponsored workshops

planned for 2001 can be found in theESF Agenda and in the individual ab­stracts included in this issue of theHAS Newsletter. The name of the AsiaCommittee member who functions asobserver and trait d’union between theorganizers and the AC Secretariat ismentioned with each workshop list­ing in the ESF Agenda, as well as thenumber of the category to which theybelong. The AC will try to connect theconvenors of workshops having moreor less related topics in order to allow

THE ESFIN A NUTSHELL

The European Science Foundation(ESF) acts as a catalyst for thedevelopm ent of science by bringingtogeth er leading scientists andfunding agencies to debate, plan andim plem ent pan-European scientificand science policy initiatives.

The ESF is an association of m orethan sixty major national fundingagencies devoted to basic scientificresearch in over tw enty countries.It represents all scientific disciplines:physical and engineering sciences, lifeand environm ental sciences, medicalsciences, hum anities and socialsciences.T he Foundation assists itsM em ber O rganisations in two mainways: by bringing scientists togetherin its scientific program m es, networksand European research conferences,to work on topics o f com m onconcern; and through the joint studyo f issues o f strategic im portance inEuropean science policy.

The ESF maintains close relationswith other scientific institutionswithin and outside Europe. By itsactivities, the Foundation adds valueby co-operation and co-ordinationacross national frontiers andendeavours, offers expert scientificadvice on strategic issues, andprovides the European forum forfundam ental science.

ESF OFFICEMrs Marianne Yagoubi orMs Madelise BlumenroederI quai Lezay-Marnésia67080 Strasbourg Cedex, FranceTel:+33 388 767151Fax: +33 388 370532E-mail: mblumenroeder@esf.orgHttp://www.esf.org

SECRETARIAT OFTHE ESF ASIA COMMITTEE

International Institute for Asian Studiesatt. of: Drs Sabine A.M. Kuypersor Drs Marieke te BooijP.O.Box 9515,2300 RA LeidenThe NetherlandsTel:+31-71-527 22 27Fax:+31-71-527 4 1 62Http://www.iias.nl/esfac

ESF Asia Committee NewsThe F u l l Committee Convened

On 15-16 June 2000, the Full Com m ittee o f the ESF Asia Com­m ittee convened in Madrid. This time, one o f the main taskswas to discuss the preliminary assessment by its executivegroup o f the subm itted workshop proposals, which were re­ceived by the secretariat after a call for workshops waslaunched in December 1999. The Com m ittee decided to dis­cuss twenty-two proposals (the workshop proposals, whichwere pre-selected by the executive group, plus two additionalones, which in the opinion o f some members deserved moredetailed attention). Given the overall high quality o f theseproposals, it was decided not to allot six to eight grants, butten, and to downscale the maximum am ount per grant toFF 90,000.

them information about each other’splanned scientific gatherings.

-

Membership ChangesChristopher Howe, School of Ori­

ental and African Studies, was wel­comed as a new Committee member,

J as well as Joseph Kreiner, UniversitatBonn. Klaus Antoni had resignedfrom the Committee due to otherobligations. Every year the membersof the Executive Group are replacedfrom within the Full Committee. Al­though not an easy job, a certain bal­ance in terms of geographical anddisciplinary orientation was aimedfor. It was decided to replace Profes­sors Klaus Antoni, Rosa Maria Perezand Terry King by Professors JosephKreiner, Chistopher Howe andAlessandra Avanzini.

FinancesThe ESF secretary Mrs Marianne

Yagoubi informed the meeting thatNorway and Finland have raisedtheir yearly contributions and thatthe relevant research councils in Bel­gium are considering following suit.It was a general feeling among theAC members the Committee wasquite large and consequently expen­sive in terms of travel costs, the moreso given the limited funds available.It was however agreed that, apartfrom having a scientific significance,the Committee is of strategic impor­tance since it functions as the onlypan-European framework for AsianStudies (see also below).

Program m e Development &EurocoresThe committee welcomed the pro­

posal of the Executive Group tostimulate the development of newresearch programmes which couldemerge from AC-sponsored work­shops. Some of the workshop orga­nizers will be approached for this Jpurpose.

In this framework, the Committeegave serious attention to the newly |created ESF innovative scheme forpromoting research collaboration inEurope: the so-called Eurocores Pro­gramme. Eurocores is designed to

mobilize national funding to tackleissues that have a European-widerelevance and to stimulate greatercollaboration. In fact, it tries to im­plement ideas which were alreadylaunched some time ago in theframework of the Programme of Eu-rope-Asia Linkages (PEARL), a schemefor long-term collaborative researchon topics of common (i.e. Asia-Eu-rope) interest.

The Asia Committee has extensiveexperience in organizing and select­ing research projects in the field ofAsian Studies and it was decided toprepare a set of proposals for Euro­cores which will be submitted to theStanding Committee for the SocialSciences and the Standing Commit­tee for the Humanities. These pro­posals were partly selected from ear­lier successful AC Programmes:Changing Labour Relations in Asia(and Europe), and EnvironmentalLinkages. A third programme, Glob­alization and Small, DevelopedCountries in Asia and Europe, willalso be submitted. The memberswelcomed Eurocores as a new ESF in­strument. Different from the alreadyexisting ‘exploratory workshops’,the ‘a-la carte programmes’, and the‘ESF network programmes’ this ini­tiative could actually forge a supra­national level of collaborative re­search in Europe for a longer periodof time. It is somewhat unfortunate,but quite understandable, that Eu­rocores’ organization is limited toEuropean countries, but the topicsidentified are evidently of a wider,even universal nature. These in­clude: Clinic Trials; Public Health;Aspects of Environment and Health;Comparative Studies in the SocialSciences; Structure and Evolution ofOcean Margins; Man and Language;and Self-Organizing Nanostructuresin Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.

A short folder in which the appli­cation and decision procedures havebeen described can be obtained fromthe ESF headquarters in Strasbourgand on http://www.esf.org. Eric Ban­da, ESF’s Secretary General, hopes tohave the first Eurocores projects upand running by the end of 2000 (ESF

Annual Report 1999: page 6). Thisseems somewhat optimistic, consid­ering the complicated trajectory asindicated in the ESF’s handout.

T h ird Mandate PeriodThe meeting considered the exis­

tence and activities of the Asia Com­mittee (and its predecessor) of suchimportance as to deserve prolonga­tion in whatever form possible.Until now, the AC has been financedas an a-Ia carte programme and it re­ported to the Standing Committeesof the Humanities and the Social Sci­ences. Given the increasingly impor­tant role Asia plays in economic andpolitical relations, the study of con­temporary Asia should be intensi­fied. The more so since the EU andseveral European countries seem tohave lost interest in fostering theirrelations with Asia. The Asia Com­mittee believes that it holds aunique position and that it is theonly co-ordinating body for AsianStudies in Europe. It has earned re­spect in professional circles for its ac­tivities (exploratory workshops, fel­lowships, publications). It gave Eu­ropean Asian Studies a higher profileat various levels and in different cir­cles of society and it has been accept­ed in Asia and the USA as the repre­

sentative body covering Asian Stud­ies in Europe.

With regard to its plans for thethird mandate period, the meetingdecided to concentrate on youngpost-docs in Europe and Asia and toexpand its instruments. Summerschools, fellowships for exploratoryvisits to European and Asian centresof excellence for young post-docs,and master classes were consideredto be useful instruments to reachout to young, talented Asianists.

Members within the ESF frame­work likewise considered the pro­longation of the Asian Studies Pro­gramme urgent because, in thestatement of October 1999 in Beijingmade by the ministers for educationand research from Asia and Europe,it was declared that no concerted, in­stitutionalized ASEM action will betaken in the fields of education andresearch, and that these areas will beleft to existing bilateral contacts be­tween universities, scientific centres,and cultural institutions. ■

EUROPEAN A S S O C I A T I O N SFOR

ASI AN STUDI ES

ASSOCIATION FOR KOREANSTUDIES IN EUROPE, AKSE

Prof. Werner Sasse (President)E-mail:

or5a007@rrz.uni-hamburg.deSecretariat:

d o DrYoung-sook PakE-mail:

"Yp@soas.ac.ukhttp://www.dur.ac.uk/~dmuOrcp/aksepage.htm

EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION OFCHINESE STUDIES, EACS

Prof. Glen Dudbridge (President)E-mail:

glen.dudbridge@orinst.ox.ac.ukSecretariat:

d o Prof. Christian HenriotE-mail:

chenriot@ish-lyon.cnrs.frhttp://www.soas.ac.uk/eacs

EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION FORJAPANESE STUDIES, EAJS

Dr Peter Kornicki (President)E-mail:

pk 104@hermes.cam.ac.ukSecretariat:

do Prof.Werner PaschaE-mail:

eajs@uni-duisburg.dehttp://www.eajs.org/

EUROPEAN SOCIETY FORCENTRAL ASIA STUDIES, ESCAS

DrTuraj Atabaki (President)E-mail:

Turaj.Atabaki@let.uu.nlSecretariat:

d o Dr Gabriele Rasuly-PaleczekE-mail:

gabriele.rasuly@univie.ac.athttp://www.let.uu.nl/~escas/

EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION FORSOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES,EUROSEAS

Prof.Thommy Svensson (President)E-mail:

thommy.svensson@smvk.seSecretariat:

d o Prof. Peter BoomgaardE-mail:

EUROSEAS@rullet.leidenuniv.nlhttp://www.iias.nl/institutes/kitlv/euroseas.html

EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION FORSOUTH ASIAN STUDIES, EASAS

Prof. Dr Dieter Rothermund (President)E-mail:

ag5@vm.urz.uni-heidelberg.deSecretariat:

do Prof. Dirk KolffE-mail:

Kolff@rullet.leidenuniv.nl

4 6 ■ h a s n e w s l e t t e r W 2 3 • October 2000

ES F A S I A C O M M I T T E E N E W S

A gen d a

AgendAThe Committee selected 10 workshops[from a total o f 34 applications) whichwill enjoy its supportjö r 2000/2001.

The /allowing proposals received ESF ACfin a n c in g . Abstracts o f these workshops

are printed in these Pink Pages.For reports o f some o f the workshopsselected in 1999/2000, please turn to

pages 6,7,32, and 35.Other reports were published in issues 20,

21, or 22 or will appear in issue 24.

4 - 6 J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 1

Vienna, AustriaThe ‘Dark Side'o/Life in Asia and

the West - night-time and time to sleepMain organizer: Brigitte Steger

D epartm ent o f East Asian Studies,Japanese Studies

University ofViennaUnivetsitatscam pus AAKH,

H of 2, Spitalgasse 2-41090 Vienna, AustriaTel: +43-1-4277 43805Fax: +43-1-42779438

E-mail: brigitte.steger@ univie.ac.atCategory: {4) Value systems and

cultural heritageAC-member: Kreiner

2 1 - Z 3 M A R C H 2 0 0 1

Ivry-sur-Seine, FrancePatronage in Indo-Persian CultureMain organizer: Dr Franchise

‘N alin i’ DelvoyeMonde Iranien

C/o CNRS27 rue Paul Bert

94200 Ivry sur SeineFrance

Tel: +33-1-4954 z356Fax: +33-1-4954 2676

E-mail: Nalini.Delvoye@ehess.frCategory: {4) Value systems and

cultural heritageAC-member: Gaborieau

2 9 M A R C H - 1 A P R I L 2 0 0 1Nottingham (pending)

United KingdomPolitical Parties in South Asia:

Astantsation o f a Western Model?Main organizer: Prof. S.K. M itraD epartm ent o f Political Science

South Asia Institu teUniversity o f HeidelbergIm N euenheim er Feld 330

69120 HeidelbergGermany

Tel: +49-6221-548 921Fax: +49-6221-544 591

E-mail:subrata.m itra@ nottingham .ac.uk

Category: (8) ‘Asianisation’ o fpolitics, democracy and hum an

rightsAC-member: M artinussen

1 1 - 1 4 A P R I L 2 0 0 1

Kobe, JapanIm m igra tion tojapan EU and the USA

and thejapanese AbroadMain organizer: Prof. C. Peach

Oxford UniversityMansfield Road

Oxford, OX4 4DUUnited Kingdom

Tel: +44-1865-271919Fax: +44-1865-27 1923

E-mail: ceri.peach@geog.ox.ac.ukCategory: (2) Demographic change

AC-member: Fagerberg

1 3 - 1 5 A P R I L 2 0 0 1

Istanbul, TurkeyIntellectual and Spiritual Authorities in

20^ century Middle Eurasia. S ta tus,networks, discourse, strategies

Main organizer: D r StéphaneD udoignon

CNRS, UMR 7571 ProtasiCentre de Recherche sur 1’Asie

inférieure, le monde turc e t 1’espaceottom an

23, rue du Loess - Bat. 50F-67037 Strasbourg Cedex 02

FranceTel: +33-3-8810 6086Fax: +33-3-8810 6094

E-mail: dudoignon@ aol.comCategory: (4) Value systems and

cultural heritageAC-member: Gaborieau

MA Y 2001

Amsterdam, the NetherlandsLabour Migration and Socio-Economic

Change in Southeast and EastM ain organizer:

Dr Ratna Saptari (CLARA)IIAS/IISH

Cruquiusweg 331019 AT Amsterdam

The N etherlandsTel: +31-20-668 5866Fax: +31-20-665 4181

E-mail: Chlia@iisg.nlHttp://www.isg.nl/clara

Category: (5) Changing labourrelations in Asia

AC-member: Howe

2 3 - 2 7 MA Y 2 0 0 1Heidelberg, Germany

Modem Chinese Historiography andHistorical Thinking

M ain organizer: Dr Axel SchneiderInstitu te o f Chinese Studies

University o f HeidelbergAkademiestr. 4-869ii7H eidelberg

GermanyTel: + 49-6221-542 4 76Fax: +49-6221-542 439

E-mail:sws@ gw.sino.uni-heidelberg.deCategory: (4) Value systems and

cultural heritageAC-member: Standaert

6 - 7 J U N E 2 0 0 1

Hanoi, VietnamParticipatory Technology Development

and Local Knowledge/orSustamableLand use in Southeast Asia

M ain organizer:Prof. Franz Heidhues

Institu te o f Agricultural Economicsand Social Sciences in the Tropics

and SubtropicsUniversity o fH ohenheim (490 a)

70593 S tu ttgartGermany

Tel: +49-7t i -459 3934Fax: +49-711-459 3934

E-mail:heidhues@ uni-hohenheim .de

Category: (6) Knowledge systems,environm ent, in ternational

business operations, andtransm ission of technology

AC-member: Stokhof

1 5 - 1 6 J U N E 2 0 0 1

Cambridge, United KingdomImperialism, Medicine and South Asia:a socio-political perspective, 1800-1950

Main organizer: Dr SanjoyBhattacharya

12 Kirkby CloseM ilton Road

Cambridge CB4 1XPUnited Kingdom

Tel: +44-1223-47 44t>7Fax:+44-1223-474407

E-mail: joygeeta@ hotmail.comCategory: (1) Welfare systems and

models o f social securityAC-member: Perez

16 -18 A U G U S T U S 2 0 0 1Bergen, Norway

Asian Welfare Policy Responses tothe Crash o f 1997

Main organizer: Prof. Stein KuhnleD epartm ent o f Comparative Politics,

and Centre for Social ResearchUniversity o f Bergen

Christiesgt. 15N-5007 Bergen

NorwayTel: +47-5558 2175Fax: +47-5558 9425

E-mail: Stein.Kuhnle@isp.uib.noCategory: (1) Welfare systems and

models o f social securityAC-member: Breman

ESF ASIACOMMITTEE

FELLOW

Dr Martin Ramstedt (München)Stationed at: HAS, Leiden, the NetherlandsTopic: Hindu Dharma Indonesia -

The Hindu-Movement in Present-DayIndonesia and its Influence in Relationto the Development of the IndigenousCulture of theToraja (AhtkTodolo) inSouth Sulawesi

Period: December 1997 - December 2000

( A d v e r t i s e m e n t )

ESF ASIACOMMITTEE

MEMBERS

The Asia Committee consists of thefollowing members nominated by theirrespective National Research Councils:

- Prof. Alessandro Avanzini (Italy)- Prof. }an Breman (the Netherlands)- Prof. Jean-Luc D om enach (France)- Prof. Jan Fagerberg (Norway)- Prof. Marc Gaborieau (France)- Prof. Carl le Grand (Sweden)- Prof. Christopher Howe (United

Kingdom)- Prof.Terry King (Great Britain)- Prof. Josef Kreiner (Germany)- Prof. Reijo Luostarinen (Finland)- Prof. Wolfgang Marschall

(Switzerland)- Prof. John Martinussen (Denmark)- Prof. Rosa Maria Perez (Portugal)- Prof. Nicolas Standaert (Belgium)- Prof. Ernst Steinkeilner (Austria)- Prof. Wim Stokhof (the Netherlands)

(secretary)Prof.Thommy Svensson (Sweden)(chairman)

- Prof. Rudolf Wagner (Germany)

Observers are:- Prof.Taciana Fisac (Spain)- Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for

International Scholarly Exchange(Taiwan ROC)

j - Association for Asian Studies(USA)

- Academia Europaea,Prof. Jan Breman (the Netherlands)

ES F A S I A C O M M I T T E E R E S E A R C H T R A V E L G R A N T S

T H E A S I A C O M M I T T E E ( A C )

of the European Science Foundation (ESF) invitesapplications for research travel grants foroutstanding young researchers in Asian Studies.

The AC offers ten to twenty research travel grants forshort one month minimum visits abroad to youngresearchers in Asian Studies from ESF membercountries* for the year 2001.

The grants (€ 1,900 per person) are intended for1) PhD students in the Social Sciences andHumanities who are about to finish theirdissertations (no longer than one year prior tothe defense): and 2) holders of a PhD degree(obtained no longer than three years ago) inthe above-mentioned fields.

The grants are provided for scholars intending to visitacademic institutions in a country other than theirhome country. They are established to enable theapplicants to acquaint themselves with researchersand research environments of Asian Studies institutesin ESF member countries. Grants will be transferredat the conclusion of visits.

A P P L I C A T I Oshould be acco-

letter o f support by the (former) PhD supervisor, also indicatingthe (expected) defence date;

- Curriculum Vitae including a list o f publications.

A D D R E S S A N D D E A D L I N EThe proposals should be received by the ESF Asia Committee secretariatin Leiden by 1 January 2001 at th e latest. Proposals may be senteither th rough regular m ail or e-m ail only. Applications sent byfax will not be considered. Kindly note tha t the secretariat makes use ofuniversity postal services, therefore please allow an extra four days fordelivery.

F U R T H E R I N F O R M A T I O Nabout the Asia Committee may be obtained from the Internet:http://www.iias.nl/esfac or from the Committee’s secretariat:

ESF Asia C om m ittee Secretariatc/o International Institute for Asian Studies (HAS)P.O. Box 9515, Z300 RA Leiden, th e N etherlands.Tel: +31-71-527 22 27/ E-mail: iias@rullet.leidenuniv.nl(Fax: +31-71-527 4162)

* Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany,Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,Portugal, Slovenia, Spam, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

O c t o b e r 200 0 • i i a s n e w s l e t t e r n ? 2 3 • 4-7

ESF A S I A C O M M I T T E E NE WS

ESF Asia Committee Workshops in 2001The ESF Asia Committee hereunder presents all ten workshops that were selected for funding in 2001. All workshops are introduced through short abstracts

o f their proposals. Full reports o f these workshops will be published in upcoming issues o f the HAS Newsletter.

4 ► 6 J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 1V I E N N A , A U S T R I A

The 'Dark Side’ of life in Asia and theWest: Ni^ht-Time and the time to sleep

r I 1 his workshop willI generate theoreti-

JL cal and empiricalnotions based on the so­cial and cultural mean­ings of night-time and

the time to sleep. It is directed to­wards the time regime of common,everyday activities and how suchregimes come into being in general,and towards perceptions of the night,sleep and sleeping time in particular.Contributions to the workshop in­clude the following topics: dicen­trism in the social sciences, day-timesleep, sleep and fear, co-sleeping infamilies, rough sleeping, sleeping incombat troups, timing of sleep andthe night, representations of thenight, nightworkers, and deviant be­haviour at night in different Asianand European societies. All contribu­tions are based on empirical social re­search. The workshop aims to finddifferences and similarities between

cultures and historical periods whichare characterized by a strict attitudetowards the regulation of night-timeand sleep, on the one hand, and thosewhich are more flexible in these mat­ters, on the other hand. Furthermore,these findings will be interpretedwith relation to the distinction be­tween polychronic and monochronicoriented societies. An underlyingquestion is whether the strict cul­tures have a monochronic timeregime (i.e. are organized accordingro the clock), and whether tolerantcultures can be associated with poly-chronism (ie. whereby several tasksare performed simultaneously). Theparticipants will also address the hy­pothesis that sleeping cultures can becategorized as monophasic sleep cul­tures, siesta cultures (shorter night-time and socially regulated afternoonnap), and napping cultures (shorternight-time and individual day-timenaps).

Today, people around the globeclosely interrelate, and the co-ordina­tion of waking and sleeping has be­come a great challenge. An eight-hourmonophasic sleep regime at night,which has been propagated by the hy­giene movement in the West and inJapan, can no longer satisfy the eco­nomical and social requirements ofour globalized existence. This prob­lem, observed by representatives ofthe natural sciences, has resulted inthe establishment of a new discipline,namely, chronobiology, directed to­wards bodily rhythms. Yet, the waypeople organize their lives is of coursegreatly influenced by social, religiousand cultural forces. It is these forcesthat the workshop will address. ■

The Organizers- Ayukawa Jun, professor of

criminology (Kinjo Gakuin University,Nagoya);

- Lodewijk Brunt, professor o f urbansociology [University o f Amsterdam);

- Brigitte Steger, assistant professor ofJapanese Studies (University o f Vienna).

Contact Information:

PROFESSOR BRIGITTE STEGERE-mail: brigitte.steger@univie.ac.at

21 ► 2 3 M A R C H 2 0 0 1I V R Y - S U R - S E I N E , F R A N C E

Patronage in Indo-Versian Culturef I 1 he problem of pa-

| tronage by princesJL or more generally

by elites in medieval andearly modern societieshas received a great deal

of attention in a western Europeancontext, but has been less comprehen­sively dealt with in the Asian context.Of the extra-European societies of theperiod between the twelfth and thenineteenth centuries, specific workcertainly exists on Central Asia or onSouth Asia. The purpose of this work­shop thus would be to draw togethermuch work that has hitherto beenconducted in isolation into a moregeneral and interactive framework fordiscussion, which would go beyondart history and the history of architec­ture and look equally at the patronageof literature, music, as well as at otheraspects of material culture. We shallinsist on the historical specificity forthe context that the workshop covers,namely the centuries when an Indo-Persian cultural complex developed inSouth Asia, Central Asia, and Iran.

The period that the workshop en­deavours to cover, namely the twelfthto nineteenth centuries, occupies aspecial significance in the history ofAsia, as there developed a constant in­teraction at various levels betweenthe three important regions, namelyIranian plateau, Central Asia andSouth Asian subcontinent throughthe Persian matrix. Along with themovement of material productsthroughout the three areas, many

ideas and institutions, articulatedthrough the Persian language, beganto be held in common. The subconti­nent occupied a special position inthis process and attracted people fromdiverse streams, including the literatiand political elites.

To put the matter simply, this wasthe complex identified as Tndo-Per-sian’ where much ‘high’ cultural pro­duction had to be paid for, and this isthe most obvious aspect of patronage.But this is not where patronage be­gins or ends. Many of the works withwhich this workshop will be con­cerned were not commissioned, butrather presented to a patron or attrib­uted to an act of patronage, as a formof approval for the work.

With this workshop it is our inten­tion that the theme function as anentry into the larger question of themaking of Indo-Persian culturewhich, in fact, incorporates a study ofa shared heritage of a vast area of theCentral Asian, Iranian and subconti­nental regions. Our aim is to explorethe question further, in continuationof the findings from two conferenceson the theme of Indo-Persian Culturein 1992 (Paris) and 1994 (New Delhi).Proceedings of which have been pub­lished (New Delhi: Manohar, 1994,rpt. 1995, and 2000 respectively).

We see patronage as a mannerthrough which culture was producedhistorically in diverse domains. Forthis reason, we have invited Euro­pean, Asian, and American scholarswho specialize in history, literature,

fine arts, architecture, music, and thematerial culture of India, Iran andCentral Asia. We hope that this work­shop will not simply create condi­tions for dialogue between specialistsworking in different parts of theworld, but also raise questions con­cerning the dissemination and main­tenance of cultural values over hugegeographical and historical spaces. ■

The Organizers

France- Dr Francis Richard (Bibliothèque

Nationale, Paris),- Dr Yves Porter, (Universite’ A ix en

Provence-Marseille) and,- DrFranqoise'Nalini’Delvoye

(École Pratique des Hautes Études[EPHE], IVth Section, Paris)

India- Prof. Muzaffar Alam [Centrefor

Historical Studies [CHS]),JawaharlalN ehru University [JNU], New Delhi) and,

- Dr Sunil Kumar (Dept, o f Histoiy,University o f Delhi)

Contact Information:

Dr Francoise ‘N alini’ Delvoyedo Monde Iranian, CNRS

27, rue Paul Rert

94200 Ivry sur Seine

France

Tel:+33-1-49-604005

Fax: +33-1-45-219419

E-mail: iran@ivry.cnrs.fr

2 9 M A R C H >■ 1 A P R I L 2 0 0 1N O T T I N G H A M , U N I T E D K I N G D O M

Political Parties in South Asia:Asianization o f a Western model?

■ t aced with the ex-l -^ treme diversity

J - and polarizationof social and economiccleavages in South Asia,and the fragility of polit­

ical institutions, political parties - aWestern transplant on Asian soil -have performed their classic taskswith varying degrees of success. Thescholarly literature has often charac­terized the dominance of politicalparties and movements by specificfamilies, castes, tribes, and religiousleaders, as part of the process of mod­ernization. But the persistence ofthese ‘anomalies’ even five decadesafter decolonization makes it difficultto describe them as merely transition­al. Do these parties represent a phasein the evolution towards a universalmodel of party systems, or does theSouth Asian experience indicate a newmutant of the general model, draw­ing simultaneously on South Asiansociety and cultural modes of politicsand Western political processes andaspirations? Do the contemporarymodes of intermediation betweenstate and society represent enduringsolutions to the specific challenges ofcompetitive politics in the SouthAsian context, or are they temporallyspecific solutions to a political contextwhere social, economic, political, andecclesiastical changes have followedrather than preceded the organiza­tion of political parties? Based on anactor-oriented approach that takesthe agency of social forces seriously,

and drawing on the skills of politicaltheory, area specialists and compara­tive politics, the workshop will in­quire into these main paradoxes andpuzzles that characterize the politicalparties of South Asia.

With political parties as its empir­ical focus, the objective of this inter­national workshop is to analyse theforms of intermediation between thestate and society in South Asia. Lead­ing scholars of political parties ofSouth Asia, as well as those interest­ed in political theory and methods ofcomparison, have been invited fromSouth Asia, Europe, and the UnitedStates. English is the official lan­guage of the workshop. A limitedamount of financial aid is availableto facilitate the participation of post-graduate (MA, M.Phil./PhD) stu­dents. ■

Or^amziry Institutions:- South Asia Institute o f Heidelberg,

Germany; the Institute for Asia-Pacific Studies, Nottingham , UK;and the Centre for the Study ofDeveloping Societies, Delhi, India.

Contact Information:

PROFESSOR SUBRATA MITRAThe School of PoliticsThe University of NottinghamUniversity ParkNottingham NG7 2RD UKTel: +44-(0) I IS-951 4863Fax:+44 (0)1 I5-9SI 4859E-mail: subrata.mitra@nottingham.ac.uk

ESF Asia C om m ittee

ERRATUMThe editors o f the HAS Newsletter would like to point out an error which appearedin Newsletter z i . For the article entitled ‘Seminarfor Languages & Cultures o fCentral Asia', the name o f the author should read: Professor Michael Weiers,Director o f the Seminar for the Study o f Languages and Cultures o f Central Asia.E-mail: uppyoo@uni-bonn.de

4 8 • has n e w s l e t t e r NS23 • October 2000

ESF A S I A C O M M I T T E E N E WS

11 > 14 APRI L 2 0 0 1KOBE, JAPAN

13 ► IS APRI L 2 0 0 1I S TANBUL, TURKEY

Immigration tojapan, the EuropeanUnion and North America andthe Japanese Abroad

Intellectual and Spiritual Authorities in zo th century

f | he theme of them I symposium is in-

JL ternational labourmigration to Europe,Japan, and the USA. Theidea underlying the

workshop is that North America,Western Europe, and Japan havebeen the dominant regions of post­war economic expansion, yet theyhave experienced very different re­sponses in terms of labour migra­tion. While foreign-born labour con­stitutes about ten per cent of the USlabour force and about five per centin the European Union, in Japan itaccounts for only one-tenth per cent.At the same time, Japanese overseastrade and the creation of overseasmanufacturing capacity have led tothe creation of colonies of overseasJapanese managers, whose charac­teristics of settlement differ fromthose of many other transnationalcommunities.

The workshop will be held at theSt Catherine’s College (Oxford Uni-versityj of the Kobe Institute, Japan.This is a striking, modern buildinglocated on Rocco Mountain withwonderful vistas overlooking KobeCity and Osaka Bay. It was opened byhis Imperial Highness Prince Tomo-hito ofMikasa in 1991.

The workshop will beorganized around 3 themes:

x. The first theme will be an explo­ration of the reasons for the majorcontrasts between the levels ofimmigration experienced byJapan as compared with Europeand the USA.

2. The second theme will relate toForeigners in Japan.

3. The third theme will concern theJapanese abroad: the analysis ofold and new Japanese settlementsin Europe and the USA. ■

The Organizers:- The workshop is being jointly orga­

nized by Oxford University, England,and Kobe University, Japan. The Ox­ford organizers are Professor CeriPeach, professor of social geography,and Dr Roger Goodman, lecturer inthe social anthropology of Japan. TheJapanese organizers are ProfessorsKiyomitsu Kui and Nobuhiko Iwasakiof the Department of Sociology, KobeUniversity.

Contact Information:PROFESSOR CERI PEACH

Oxford University, School of GeographyMansfield Road, Oxford, 0X4 4DU,The United KingdomE-mail: ceri.peach@geog.ox.ac.uk

MAY 2 0 0 1AMS T E RDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

Labour Migration and Socio-Economic Change in Southeastand East Asia

T he aim of the—, - workshop is to

J _ bring togetherscholars who are work­ing on labour migrationand to explore the com­

monalities and diversities of struc­tures and experiences within a his­torical and comparative framework.Apart from providing a forum for in­tellectual exchange and taking stockof the state of research in this field, itis also hoped that the conference willprovide an opportunity for identify­ing core issues and areas for future re­search.

The focus will be on Southeast andEast Asia in particular because theseregions have been considered to bethe fastest growing economies andyet are currently experiencing a flux.The workshop will be divided intosix main sub-themes to allow formore systematic discussion. We areplanning to have these sub-themesbecome the core issues for future re­search conducted within the frame­work of a Europe-Asia collaborativeresearch programme.

Middle Eurasia: Status, networks, discourse, strategies

T he goal of the^ I workshop is to^ J_ make a cross-cul-* * tural analysis of the roles

of various categories ofintellectual and spiritual

authorities in the life of InnerEurasian societies during the twenti­eth century through the successiveexperiences of mass migration, accessto citizenship in multicultural states,revolutions, institutional commu­nism, mass repression and (re-)con-struction of national communities.

The populations concerned aremainly the Muslim Turkic-speakingcommunities dispatched as majori­ties or minorities between the east­ern bank of the Volga River, in theheart of the Russian Federation, andthe Chinese province of Gansu. Thewhole region has a long history of

The six sub-themes are:1. State Policies and the Structural

Framework of Migration2. Patterns of Migration and Labour

Markets: International and LocalDimensions

3. Labour Process and MigrantLabour

4. Migrant Households andNetworks in Sending andReceiving Communities

5. Nationalism, Social Movementsand Migrant Labour

6. Environment, Labour andMigration ■

Organizing Institutions- CLARA programme/ HAS - IISH,

Amsterdam- The Nordic Institute of Asian Studies,

Copenhagen- Scalabrini Migration Centre, Manila- Asian Research Centre for Migration,

Bangkok

Contort Information:DR RATNA SAPTARI

c/o International Institute of SocialHistory (IISH)Cruquiusweg 31, 10 19 AT AmsterdamThe Netherlands, E-mail: chlia@iisg.nlTel:+31-20-668 5866,Fax:+31-20-665 4181

ESF AsiaCommittee

W ■shops

23 ► 2 7 MAY 2 0 0 1HEI DELBERG, GERMANY

inter-penetrations and mutual con­flicts between ‘European’ and ‘Asiat­ic faiths and cultural systems, no­tably those upheld by Hanafi SunniIslam and Russian Orthodox Chris­tianity.

Since the mid-sixteenth century,European-born value systems werespread towards the east and southalong with the expansion of theRussian Empire. The co-existence ofthese systems and religions has oftenbeen problematic, especially be­tween Christians and Muslims. Arange of research questions relevantfor a global understanding of thepresent Inner Eurasian societies, in­cluding the Russian society itself,can be formulated on the basis ofthese considerations.

We will try, in particular, to seehow neighbouring religions andvalue systems react to each other,sometimes very rapidly, according tochanging political, economic and so­cial environments. We will also tryto understand how the status, theorganization, and the strategies ofthe intellectual and spiritual au­thorities (the guarantors of these re­ligions and value-systems) alsochange according to the same envi­ronments. Our chronological frame­work is the twentieth century, fromthe renewal of Orthodox missionaryactivity in the first decades of

Modern Chinese Historiographyand Historical Thinking

t 1 ^ he workshop willI focus on the devot­

ie JL opment of mod-■* ern Chinese historiogra­

phy and historical think­ing and its relation to

different types of memory in threepanels.

Historical thinking and the questfor identity, modernization in theWest led to a double-edged conceptof history: history as the progressiverealization of rationality, closelylinked to secularization, nation­building, and positivist science, andhistory as the historicization andrelativization of norms and values.Did these Western notions come todominate Chinese historiography?Are there modern Chinese historianswho tried to develop traditional his­toriography and adapt it to new con­texts?

The philosophical problems at theheart of these questions are those ofuniversality and particularity, andthe question of identity. Both a tele­ological and a cosmological concep­tion of history imply universal stan­dards, whereas history as historicityemphasizes particularity at the costof leading to moral relativism. Howdid Chinese historians react to thisdilemma? How did they relate toconcepts of world history?

Nicholas II’s reign, until the currentwar in Chechnia.

We will notably discuss the role ofbeliefs and values in the permanentconstruction of community identi­ties and state ideologies. In variousperiods of economic and social tran­sition, we will try to see whether eco­nomic growth promotes seculariza­tion, and how such a phenomenonmay lead to a loss of traditional val­ues. We will try to see how the rise ofvarious kinds of ethno-religious rad­icalisms - both Christian and Mus­lim - can be conditioned by the po­litical framework of a confessionalstate (like Imperial Russia or thepost-Soviet Russian Federation). Spe­cial attention will be devoted to therole played by the intellectual andspiritual authorities in these pro­

Forms and methods of historiog­raphy discussions on the nature ofearly Qing methodological changeshave long been central to our under­standing of traditional sources ofmodern Chinese historiography.This workshop will offer an oppor­tunity to try to deepen our under­standing of how discussions on his­toriographical methods are conduct­ed in China and, similarly, to probeissues associated with the formalstructures of historiography. Theauthority of historical knowledge isrelated to the way it is presented yet,in Chinese historiography, issues as­sociated with narrativity have re­ceived little attention. Research inthis field should lead to a deeper un­derstanding of how history is writ­ten in China and to a relativizationof theories on historiography, whichare still predominantly based onWestern experience.

The study of modern Chinese his­toriography has been focused on his­toriography as an academic disci­pline and official undertaking. Butwith the ongoing commercializa­tion, governments loose their capac­ity to dominate historiography. Inthis context, questions related tohistory and memory become impor­tant. Official historiography ex­cludes personal and collective mem­

cesses. I

Contact Information:DR STÉPHANE A. DUDOIGNON

Centre de recherche sur I’Asieintérieure, Ie monde turc et I’espaceOttoman23, rue du Loess-Bat. 50F-67037 Strasbourg, Cedex 02FranceFax:+33-3-88-106094E-mail: dudoignon@aol.com

ories, lacks concreteness and stressestheoretical explanation and evalua­tion. Unofficial histories stand outby the concreteness of their descrip­tions and the lack of theoretical ex­planation.

What is the relationship betweenindividual, communicative, and cul­tural memory, and official and non-official, academic and non-academicforms of history writing? How canwe explain the ambivalence withinacademic historiography towards el­ements of collective memory? Howand what kinds of sources do non­academic historians collect and howdo they work on them? ■

The Organizers:- Paul Cohen (Harvard University, USA)- Huang Chin-hsing (Academia Sinica,

Taiwan)- Liu Guisheng (Beijing University,

China)- Brian Moloughney (University of

Otago, New Zealand)- Axel Schneider (Heidelberg University,

Germany)- Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik

(Heidelberg University, Germany)

Contact Information:DR AXEL SCHNEIDER

Institute for Chinese StudiesUniversity of HeidelbergAkademiestrasse 4-869117 Heidelberg, GermanyE-mail: iw6@ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de

October 2000 • has n e w s l e t t e r NS23 • 4 9

ESF A S I A C O M M I T T E E N E W S6 ► 7 J U N E 2 0 0 1H A N O I , V I E T N A M

P a rtic ip a to ry TechnologyD evelopm ent and lo c a l Knowledge fo rSustainable la n d Use in Southeast Asia

M any interna-a I % / I tional cen-

JL V JL tres for agri­cultural research anddevelopment organiza­tions increasingly em­

phasize that technical innovations inthe agricultural sector o f developingcountries have to take into accountthe needs and priorities o f the endusers. Research and development pro­jects in Southeast Asia show a m ulti­tude o f approaches as to how the in­teraction between farmers and scien­tists can be enhanced. However, thediscussion about the practical impactand scientific value o f participatoryapproaches is still going .on. In theagricultural science community, anincreasing polarization between thepromoters o f participatory approach­es and the proponents o f convention­al research can be observed. Despitethe strong emphasis on participatoryapproaches, national and internation­al research organizations are still re­luctant to leave the research stationand to involve farmers in the plan­ning, design, implementation, and

evaluation o f on-farm and other re-| search activities. One o f the reasons

for the scientists’ hesitation is the[ widely spread view that research be­

yond the borders o f the research sta-[ tion is ‘non-scientific because agro-j ecological and other ‘disturbing’ pa-| rameters cannot be controlled. Be-| sides, there is growing concern that

the long-term effectiveness o f partici-J patory approaches is limited by social,

cultural, and institutional factors and| the lack o f an adequate methodology.

State agencies fear people’s participa-{ tion because the process would be less

controllable and would slow downthe land use planning process.

So far, there has been a lack o f pro-[ found analysis o f the advantages,

problems, and costs o f participatory| research. It has not yet been shown

conclusively that participatory re-[ search approaches produce better,

more adapted results than conven-| tional research. Some o f the success

stories found in the literature are| s till ‘islands’ o f success and the d iffi­

culties and shortcomings o f partici­patory research are rarely discussed.

A further development in participa­tory approaches and a critical and re­alistic assessment o f the options andlimitations o f participatory researchare urgently needed. The intentiono f the proposed workshop is, there­fore, to bring together the m ultidis­ciplinary experiences o f variousAsian and European research and de­velopment institutions involved inagricultural research and natural re­source management projects w ith aparticipatory component. ■

Organizing Institutions:- University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart,

Germany- Hanoi Agricultural University,

Hanoi, Vietnam- Thai Nguyen University of

Agriculture and Forestry, ThaiNguyen, Vietnam

- Vietnam Agricultural ScienceInstitute, Hanoi, Vietnam

- Kasetsart University, Bangkok,Thailand

Contact Information:

DR ANDREAS NEEF ANDPROFESSOR FRANZ HEIDHUES

Institute of Agricultural Economics

and Social Sciences in the Tropicsand Subtropics

University of Hohenheim (490 A)

70593 Stuttgart, GermanyTel:+49-71 1-459 2581

Fax: +49-711-459 3934

E-mail: neef@uni-hohenheim.de

16 ► 18 A U G U S T 2 0 0 1B E R G E N , N O R W A Y

Asian W elfare Policy Responsesto the Crash o f 1 £97

"■partic ipants are in-y * * vited from across

I I I J- the social scientificdisciplines to presentanalyses and interpreta­tions o f policy responses

by East and Southeast Asian countriesto the financial crash o f the summero f 1997. The aim is to achieve a greaterunderstanding o f the relationshipsbetween economic development,‘modernization’, demographicchange, and social policy responses indifferent cultural and political con­texts. I t is o f particular interest tostudy in what way a sudden economicbacklash - in a region which for ten toth irty years had experienced a rapid,‘miracle’ economic growth - affectedthe politics o f social protection andthe ‘thinking’ on social policy andwelfare issues. Countries to be cov­ered by one or several types o f analysesaccording to the topics below areMalaysia, Thailand, Singapore, In­donesia, the Philippines, China, HongKong, Taiwan, South Korea, andJapan. The Workshop w ill take placeat University o f Bergen. A total o fsome 25 scholars from about fifteencountries w ill be invited to presentpapers in one o f the following sec­tions:

15 ► 16 J U N E 2 0 0 1C A M B R I D G E , U N I T E D K I N G D O M

Im p e ria lism , M ed ic ine and South Asia:A soc io -p o litica l perspective, 1800-1^50

r I t he discipline ofI South Asian med-

JL ical history hascontinued to be limitedby two widely prevalentproblems. The first has

been the tendency to concentrate onthe study o f scientific developmentsin the laboratory at the expense o f theintroduction o f these medical tech­nologies amongst South Asian socialgroups. The second, not unrelated tothe first, is the widespread unw ill­ingness to combine the insights pro­vided by the medical journals anddoctors’ diaries w ith the informationprovided by the official correspon­dence between all grades o f publichealth/medical administrators at­tached to the colonial state. Thisworkshop hopes to underline the aca­demic benefits o f tackling both thesehistoriographical shortcomings.

Contact Information:

DR SANJOY BHATTACHARYA12 Kirkby Close,Milton Road,

Cambridge CB4 IXP,

England, UK

Tel/Fax: +44-122-347 4407

E-mail: joygeeta@hotmail.comOr

DR BISWAMOY PATI47 Deshbandhu Apartments,

15 Patparganj,Delhi-92,

I 10092, India

Tel:+91-1 1-272 2060/ 6540

E-mail: biswamoy@del2.vsnl.net.in

The significance o f studying thedevelopments in British and Indianlaboratories is not denied. Indeed,the aim o f this meeting is to under­line the challenges faced by colonialscientists and administrators intransferring new medical tech-niques/practices to the field and howthese problems engendered freshrounds o f scientific research. I t w illbe useful, in this context, to moveaway from the currently fashionablemono-dimensional concept o f resis­tance. Although the study o f opposi­tion to state medicine has its rele­vance, the often complex bases forcompliance to - or the acceptance o f- official health provisions, biomed­ical or otherwise, has been systemat­ically ignored by historians. In theopinion o f the workshop organizersboth compliance and resistance needto be taken into account wheneveran effort is made to examine thebases for the distribution o f preven­tative and curative treatments in thecolonial South Asian context, and anumber o f participants w ill considerthis issue. But, the main workshopgoal is to encourage the presentationo f papers based on a range o f ap­proaches, and thereby advertise thedifferent archival and oral sourceson which these works have beenbased. This should underscore thegreat academic benefits o f followinga more integrationist approach,where the usefulness o f comparingthe insights available from differentsources can profitably be highlight-

1. Welfare and Social Policy Develop­ments after 1997:Focus w ill be on what happened

both to thinking about and actualactions taken on issues o f social pro­tection, security, and welfare afterthe crash, both in countries severelyaffected by the crash and in othercountries in the region.2. Where do Models o f Social Protec­

tion and Welfare Policy comefrom? @07:Which countries, insti­tutions, or organizations set theagenda? To what extent do Asiancountries look to European orAmerican historical experiences tomeet the demographic and finan­cial welfare challenges o f the 1980sand 1990s? Do Asian countries de­velop their own model(s), or lookto each other for policy learning?

3. Response to the Long-Term Chal­lenges from Changes in Demogra­phy.To what extent are welfare policy

developments and reforms responsesto domestic challenges posed bychanges in demographic composi­tion and family structure? To whatextent are traditional systems o ffamily care challenged by economicmodernization, social and geograph­ic mobility, and changing (declin­ing] fe rtility rates? ■

The Organizers:- Professor Stein Kuhnle, chair

(Department of Comparative Politicsand Centre for Social Research,University of Bergen)

- Professor Sven Hort(Södertorn University College, Stockholm)

- Professor Rei Shiratori(Tokai University and Institutefor Political Studies,Japan)

- Dr Decha Sungkawan(Thammasat University, Bangkok)

Contact information:

PROFESSOR STEIN KUHNLEE-mail: stein.kuhnle@isp.uib.no

o r the administrative secretary fo rthe workshop,

KARI FUGLSETHCentre for Social Research,University of Bergen

E-mail: kari.fuglseth@sefos.uib.no.

INFORMATION ON ADVERTISEMENTS IN THE MAS-NEWSLETTER

ed. The workshop w ill take place atWolfson College, the University o fCambridge. ■

The Organizers:- Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya (Sheffield

Hallam University, UK, andUniversity of Oxford, UK]

- Dr Gordon Johnson (University ofCambridge, UK) and Dr BiswamoyPati (University of Delhi, India)

O rganiz ing Institutions:- United Kingdom: The Wellcome

Unit for the History of Medicine,University of Oxford; CulturalResearch Institute, Sheffield HallamUniversity; and the Centre of SouthAsian Studies, University ofCambridge

- India: Department of History,Sri Venkateswara College,University of Delhi

ESF AsiaCommittee

work­shops

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5 0 • I1AS N E W S L E T T E R NS23 • O c t o b e r 2 o o o

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Lead dow’t followLernout & Hauspie SpeechProducts [L&H] is the world’sleading provider of speech andlanguage technology products,solutions and services tobusinesses and individuals world­wide. It is our mission to breakdown language barriers throughadvanced translation technologyand to enable people to interactby voice - in any language - withthe machines that empower them.

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As a NASDAQ and EASDAQquoted company and head­quartered in leper [Belgium],L&H maintains offices in morethan forty nations in Europe, Asia,

the Middle East, North America

and South America. With over5.000 employees - mainly linguists,

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of $344 million in 1999.

For the development of language and speech technology, we currently havemultiple vacancies within our linguistic engineering department in our InternationalHeadquarters in leper [Belgium ] for (m /f):

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-Taiwanese Min Nan -French -Mandarin -Ukrainian -Western Armenian•German -Polish -Urdu -Vietnamese -Greek -Swedish

F u n c t io n :• You will work within a multi-disciplinary team of linguists,engineers and programmers on the development of softwaresystems in the field of Speech, Artificial Intelligence andLanguage.- You will be involved in all aspects of the development life cycleand focus on system specification and design, implementation oflinguistic rule sets, grapheme to phoneme conversion, prosodicanalysis, software testing and quality control, preparation ofdocumentation.• Training is given both on-the-job and through lectures andtechnical documentation.• Dedicated development environments are provided whichallow language specialists to focus on their content: formalizinglinguistic knowledge.

If you are interested in one of these job opportunitiesand you believe to fulfil the required profile, please e-mail yourdetailed resume to: job-announce@lhs.beLernout & Hauspie Speech Products,Personnel Department, Mr. Bart De Neve,Flanders Language Valley 50, B-8900 leper, Belgium.Fax: int+32 (0) 57.22.95.31Visit our homepage http://www.lhsl.com.

P r o f i l e :* University degree in linguistics,or equivalent;* (near) native speaker (of one ofthe above-mentioned languages) witha conversational level of English;

a

* solid grounding in linguistic theory;* good knowledge of and/or experiencein one or more of the following areas:speech processing, natural languageprocessing (NLP), computationallinguistics, programming;* perseverance and thoroughness;* willingness to travel abroad forlimited periods of time.

A0C * ,Lernout & Hauspie

October 2000 • h a s n e w s l e t t e r N?2 3 •

A L L I A N C E N E WS

E I ASP rofile

AIMSTo highlight the importance of Asia inthe future external relations of theEuropean Union; and to develop acentre of expertise on contemporaryAsian affairs with a focus onexchanges between the EuropeanUnion and its partners in Asia.TheInstitute is particularly interested inpromoting economic and socialprogress, democracy, and humanrights in Asian countries through itsvarious activities.

ACTIVITIESTo serve as a ‘think tank’ on issuespertaining to EU-Asia relationsundertaking research and studies; asa forum for the European UnionInstitutions, the academic world andthe private and public sectors, todiscuss contemporary issues of EU-Asia relations; and a source ofexpertise and information on EU-Asia relations and importantdevelopments in Asia.

FUNDINGThe European Union provided EIASwith its own line in the budget ofthe European Community in 1989,enabling the starting of a smalfacademic research centre.

CO-FINANCING AND JOINTACTIVITIESThe EIAS has organized conferencesand specialized briefings with Asianand European university (HAS,Leiden) with Asian Embassies tothe European Union (Bangladesh,India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan,Thailand) and with political andresearch foundations (KonradAdenauer Foundation, FriedrichEbert Stiftung)

FRIENDS AND MEMBERSMany Members of the EuropeanParliament (MEPs) attend theInstitute’s meetings, playing an activerole, which has contributed to thegrowing reputation of the EIAS.Presently, the EIAS has more thanone hundred individual members anda growing number of corporatemembers (companies, embassies, andassociations).

LEGAL STATUSThe EIAS is an independent associationsans but lucratif (ASBL) - a non-profitmaking association under Belgian law- recognized as a scientific researchcentre.

STAFF RESOURCESThe EIAS has a small staff and awider circle of academic specialistswho are involved with the Instituteon a project basis.

EIAS PUBLICATIONSThe EurAsia Bulletin (eleven issuesyearly), the EIAS Briefing Papers(eight issues yearly) and EIASOccasional Papers. Researchmonographs are published throughleading publishers, e.g. Curzon Press,Macmillan, etc.

T he EIAS in B russelsJoins the Strategic AllianceThe European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS) is a Brussels-based policy and research think tank supported by the Euro­pean Union (EU) which aims to promote understanding andco-operation between the EU and Asia. The EIAS seeks to pro­vide information and expertise to the European Union insti­tutions, the academic world, and business by disseminatingconcise, thoroughly researched, and up-to-date material onEU-Asia relations and important developments in Asia. TheEIAS recently joined the Strategic Alliance with the Interna­tional Institute for Asian Studies (HAS) in Leiden and Amster­dam, the Nordic Institute for Asian Studies (NIAS) in Copen­hagen, and the Institut fur Asienkunde (IfA) in Hamburg.

■ By WILLEM VAN OER GEEST

■ 1 IAS activities includep H organizing briefings,L J seminars, and con­ferences, undertaking re­search studies, in-housepublishing of research

through EIAS Occasional Papers, EIASBriefing Papers, and the EurAsia Bul­letin, supporting Europe-Asia net­works, and facilitating Internet ex­changes. Several high profile speakers,from the academic and politicalworlds, addressed public meetings inBrussels recently. The Prime Ministerof Bangladesh, Mrs Sheikh Hasina,spoke at a meeting jointly by EIAS andthe Catholic University of Brussels(4 February) on ‘Economic and SocialDevelopment in Bangladesh’. She fo­cused on the growing empowermentand education of women, where shesaid some 14,000 women hold electiveoffice now. She also spoke of her con­cern and efforts surrounding the nu­clear confrontation in the region, theeconomic burden of care and recon­struction following the 1515)8 floods,new forms of economic developmentand foreign aid, and firmly establish­ing democratic institutions.

Mr George Fernandes, India’s Min­ister of Defence, spoke about India’spolicy in the context of Asian security,addressing the European Parliamenton the invitation of the Institute (13June). He discounted the plausibilityof a nuclear confrontation betweenIndia and Pakistan over Kashmir andrejected the contention that inade­quate intelligence technology andcommand and control resourcescould lead to miscalculations withdisastrous consequences. He said thatlast year’s Kargil clash h ad '... demon­strated prudence and responsibilityin the new nuclear era’. Fernandesalso rejected Western analysts’ sug­gestions that South Asian nuclearpolicies were less restrained and thatsecurity had been eroded since bothIndia and Pakistan tested nuclear de­vices and announced an overt nuclearcapability two years ago.

Other prominent speakers includedMr Chen Sui Bian, the leader of Tai­wan’s Democratic Peoples Party. On 9December he predicted with dignifiedconfidence that the Taiwanese elec­torate would choose him as their Pres­ident - which proved to be the casesome three months later when he de­feated an internally divided KMTwith a small margin in the TaiwanesePresidential elections. Recently, the

ousted but legitimate Prime Ministerof Fiji, Mr Mahendra Chaudhry spokeat the EIAS (end of August), recount­ing his ordeal during May and Junethis year. He used the opportunity tocall for international mediation for arestoration of democracy in Fiji, em­phasizing that the coup was inspiredmerely by commercial interests andhad nothing to do with safeguarding‘indigenous rights’.

The EIAS meetings always attractMembers of the European Parlia­ment, European Commission offi­cials, senior representatives and Am­bassadors of Asian countries, leadingacademic experts, and a diverse audi­ence of interested lay persons. Mostmeetings are open to the public andthey are announced through the EIASweb site.

Join the EU-ASEAN thinktan k dia logueThe EIAS, however, aims beyond

‘merely’ providing a platform to po­litical and academic leaders. SeveralEU-Asia Dialogue meetings have beenheld which brought together first-and second-track institutions. Thesecovered, for example, EU-Indonesiarelations, as well as co-operation be­tween think tanks in Southeast Asiaand the EU. These meetings broughttogether a wide spectrum of partici­pants - from the business world, gov­ernments, NGOs and academia for in­tensive exchanges of views on key is­sues, such as political and economictransition in Indonesia as well as theways in which think-tanks can opti­mally inform official circles, withoutlosing academic independence andcredibility.

An important recent event has beenthe second EU-ASEAN Think TankDialogue, organized jointly with theKonrad Adenauer Stiftung in Stras­bourg (25-26 October). This Dialoguemeeting, held in the building of theCouncil o f Europe, has reviewed polit­ical and socio-economic trends afterthe crisis, has taken stock of the out­comes of the third Asia-Europe Meet­ing and has focused on a comparisonof experiences of free trade arrange­ments in Southeast Asia and the Euro­pean Union. In particular, the en­largement of the EU will have far-reaching consequences for exchangeswith Southeast Asia - academic ex­perts will share their insights with of­ficials in charge of enlargement andtrade policy in Europe. To receive theprogramme and your invitation(registration is free of charge), pleasee-mail to w.white@eias.org.

I n s t i tu t io n a l

EIAS research on trade,a d ju stm en t, and governanceEurope’s relations with China have

been strained and uneasy because, ina number of instances, Europeanviews and perceptions of develop­ments and events in China have beenexpressed in ways which appear to paylittle attention to Chinese sensitivi­ties on fundamental issues of nationalsovereignty, notions of rights and du­ties of and to the State, etc. Moreover,the remarkable economic, political,and social transformation whichChina is experiencing appears to beignored and stereo-typical views con­tinue to dominate public perceptions.With the European Parliament, theEIAS has been organizing seminars on‘Communicating with China’ and‘China’s Unequal Development’.These seminars are informed by re­search on EU-China political and eco­nomic interactions undertaken at theEIAS involving, amongst others, DrPaul Lim, William White, and the pre­sent author. The EIAS staff publishedseveral research papers on China’sWTO accession and related topics.Other research at the EIAS focuses ongovernance and democracy in Asia aswell as the impact of adjustment andderegulation on growth and equity.

In vo lv in g yo u in the StrategicAllianceA first activity o f the EIAS with the

other members of the Strategic Al­liance was a large International Con­ference held at the European Parlia­ment in Brussels focusing on ‘Asiaand the European Union’s CommonForeign and Security Policy’ (24 No­vember 1999). The conference aimedat providing Members (and staff) ofthe European Parliament, many ofwhom are new to the EU institutions,with insights and perspectives on therelations between Europe and Asia.Further ‘Asia Update’ meetings arescheduled by the Alliance, most im­mediately in Berlin on 11 October2000, on the theme of'Economic Po­tential and Political Stability in Asia’.

It has become clear that research inthe fields of international economicand political relations and social sci­ence, would benefit enormously fromjoint and collaborative projects, in­volving Asian scholars working to­gether with Europeans on themes ofcommon interest. The involvement ofthe EIAS will, amongst others, focuson providing Asian researchers withfacilities to conduct research on issuesof EU-Asia relations, drawing out theimplications for Europe of economic,social, and cultural developments inAsia and vice versa. ■

To know more about EIAS publications and

activities please write to the Institute or visit

our web site:

WILLEM VAN DER GEEST, Director

European Institute for Asian StudiesRue des Deux Eglises 35, B-1000BrusselsE-mail: w.vandergeest@eias.orgHttp:// www.eais.org

EI ASA gen d a

O c t o b e r 2 5 - 26 , 2000Council o f Europe Building, Stras­

bourg, FranceSecond EU-ASEAN Think Tank Dialogue

on ‘New Perspectives/or InternationalCo-operation’

Co-organized by the EuropeanInstitute for Asian Studies, Brusselsand the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung,

European Office, Brussels.Conference Chair: Mr Hartmut

Nassauer MEP, President of the Euro­pean Parliaments’ASEAN delegation.

Leading analysts from SoutheastAsia meet with European decisionmakers and European counterpartsto exchange views on the recoveryfrom crisis, the outcomes of the

ASEM III Summit in Seoul, compar­ing developments in the formationof free trade areas across Europe andSoutheast Asia and the implications

of enlargement of the EU on rela­tions with Southeast Asia.

16- 17 N o v e m b e r 2000Brussels, Belgium

Europe and the Korean PeninsularCo-organized by the European

Institute for Asian Studies, Brusselsand the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung,

European Office, Brussels.The Roundtable will assess the

longer term implications o f the firstmeeting between the heads of

government of North and SouthKorea. Officials as well as academicsfrom North and South Korea are ex­pected to participate. Academic ana­

lysts from across Europe will alsocontribute to the meeting (Partici­

pation strictly by invitation).For programme details: EIAS

E-mail; w.white@eias.orgFax: +32-2-230 5402

3-5 D e c e m b e r zoooBrussels, Belgium

‘Taiwan and China’s New Era:Security and economic development’

(workin^title)Analysts from Europe, the USA,

japan, and Taiwan will focus on thepolitical, economic, and strategic in­

terests a t stake in the tensions be­tween China and Taiwan and how

these tensions influence stability inthe East Asian region.

But what is at stake for Europeand the United States?

Information

EUROPEAN INSTITUTE FORASIAN STUDIES (EIAS)

Rue des Deux Eglises 35B-IOOO Brussels, BelgiumTel:+32-2-230 8122Fax: +32-2-230 5402E-mail: w.white@eias.org

5 2 . • HAS NEWSLETTER N?23 • October 2000

A L L I A N C E N E WS

The Strategic Alliance& the New Partner, the EIAS (Brussels]The European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS) in Brusselshas decided to join the Strategic Alliance. The Strategic Al­liance is a co-operative framework o f European Institutes spe­cializing in Asian Studies. Its members are the Nordic Insti­tute o f Asian Studies (NIAS) in Copenhagen; the Institute ofAsian Affairs (IFA) in Hamburg; and the International Insti­tute for Asian Studies (HAS) in Amsterdam/Leiden.

■ By SABI NE A . M. KUYPERSAND W I M S T OK H O F

stablished in 1997,the Alliance aims tobring together frag­

mented forces in AsianStudies in Europe to facili­tate scholarly excellence

for the benefit of national researchenvironments and the EuropeanUnion at large. The Alliance’s openstructure makes it possible for otherEuropean Institutes to join in the fu­ture.

The Alliance partners very muchwelcome the decision of the EuropeanInstitute for Asian Studies to join theAlliance. Since the EIAS is closely con­nected to European institutions - theCouncil, the Commission and theParliament - it will provide Alliancescholars interested in the EU in gen­eral and its activities pertaining toAsia in particular with an excellentopportunity to do research. The EIASis willing to offer a temporary base forthese researchers and to assist themon their wanderings through the EUlabyrinth.

During its short period of existence(it was established in r996), the EIASimplemented a number of attention-catching public meetings and policyseminars. It was instrumental in thesuccess of the Asia Update in Brussels.

The AllianceThe main objectives of the Alliance:

x. building up high-quality, bordertranscending research with astronger focus on contemporaryissues;

2. creating sustainable networks withAsian and other overseas researchinstitutions;

3. strengthening the links andcommunication between academicresearch on Asia and non-academicinstitutions and actors.

The Alliance selected several instru­ments to achieve these aims:

Fellowships and StipendsThe first of the Alliance Fellowships

were selected by the Asia Committeeof the ESF: Dr M. Ramstedt (Germany)and Dr E. Micollier (France) each re­ceived a three-year fellowship to carry

9 > 1 2 A U G U S T 2 0 0 1B E R L I N , G E R M A N Y

ICAS 2: A.nS hort N ew s A11 Asia Scholars

around the world_ _are invited to par-ticipate in the Second In-

%/m. temational Convention ofAsia Scholars (ICAS 2) to be

held in Berlin, Germany, between Au­gust 9 and 12,2001.

In view of the growing interna­tional cooperation in the field ofAsian studies, the idea on whichICAS 1, held in the Netherlands inJune 1998 was based, will be govern­ing ICAS 2, as well. The conference isaimed at providing a broad and in­clusive forum for all scholars work-

All proposals must arrive at ICAS 2 Secretary

by I December 2000.

The ICAS 2 organization sta ff can

be contacted by icas2@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Our postal adress is:

PROF. DR EBERHARDSAN DSCHN EIDER

Arbeitsstelle Politik Chinas undOstasiens, ICAS 2 SekretariatFreie Universitaet Berlin, Ihnestr. 2214195 Berlin, GermanyTel: +49-30-838 53 252Fax: +49-30-838 55 049E-mail: polchina@zedat.fu-berlin.de

out their research in Asia and Europe.In addition, two Dutch Asianists,Dr V. van Bijlert and Dr M. Rutten,worked and studied for twelvemonths in Scandinavia, and Dr M.Jacobsen (Denmark) carried out re­search in Indonesia and the Nether­lands for one year.

So far, many short-term Fellow­ships have been allotted to Asianscholars to come to Europe, or to Eu­ropean Asianists to work at one of theAlliance Institutes.

Collaborative and ResearchProgram m esThe Alliance is convinced that a

full-fledged Asian Studies educationand research programme is a too cost­ly and complicated exercise for smallnations like the Netherlands and theScandinavian countries. Even incountries like France and the UK, thestate of Asian Studies is not very grati­fying.

Asia has become an importantglobal partner. Instead of losing inter­est in Asia, as is demonstrable in someEuropean countries (after having re­covered from the crisis, Asia is not at­tracting the attention of, and the in­vestment which it used to receivefrom, the EU and European coun­tries), an effort should be made to em­phasize Asian Studies, to direct Asianinterest to Europe and to implementjoint collaborative research projects ofcommon interest. With this goal in

ing on issues related to Asian studiesand seeking a way of establishing orimproving their international net­works. Across continents, disci­plines, regional specializations andconceptual approaches, the mainpurpose of ICAS2 will be to presentboth a formal platform and an acad­emic stimulus to improving the ex­change of scholarly contacts in AsianStudies. After the success of the firstconvention, ICAS 2 thus is meant tobe another major step towards a con­tinuous improvement of interna­tionalization and co-operation in allfields of Asian studies. ICAS 2 is co­organized by the Association forAsian Studies (AAS) and the Euro­pean Science Foundation (ESF) AsiaCommittee, representing the follow­ing six European Associations: Asso­ciation for Korean Studies in Europe(AKSE), European Association of Chi­nese Studies (EACS), European Asso­ciation for Japanese Studies (EAJS),European Association for SouthAsian Studies (EASAS), European So­ciety for Central Asia Studies(ESCAS), and European Associationfor South East Asian Studies (EU­ROSEAS). Furthermore involved is

mind, the Alliance has established theso-called Programme for Europe-AsiaResearch Linkages (PEARL).

ConferencesThe encouragement of closer

scholarly contacts within Europeand beyond by sponsoring confer­ences and academic meetings on in­novative topics, and bringing to­gether scholars who would other­wise be unlikely to meet each otheris viewed by the Alliance as an excel­lent initiative to stimulate new top­ics for major collaborative researchprogrammes in the future. Up untilnow, twenty workshops have beenorganized in Asia and Europe on top­ics ranging from ‘The Pace of Life inSoutheast Asia and Pacific Asia’ to‘The Future of the ASEM Process’.

The Alliance is aware of the greatimportance of young Asianists for thefuture of Asian Studies. It is for thatreason that it organized a four-daycolloquium for advanced PhD stu­dents from all over Europe. The aimsare to provide these students withqualified support from an interna­tional team of lecturer/consultantsand to enable them to become ac­quainted with their future colleaguesfrom other European (and Asian)countries who are executing thesiswork on similar topics. Leading schol­ars in the field are invited to give pre­sentations about their own research,but most of the time is devoted to dis­cussing, in seminar form, each stu­dent’s dissertation work on the basisof papers circulated in advance.

Conferences / Asia UpdatesThe key feature of the Alliance is

cutting-edge research, but it recog­nizes that dissemination of results to

S H O R T N E WSthe International Institute for AsianStudies (HAS), Leiden, as the organiz­ing unit of ICAS 1. At the presentstage, other associations of Asianstudies are cordially invited to joinus in the endeavour to establish aglobal network of scholarly ex­change in Asian studies.

All Asia scholars around the worldare invited to participate in the sec­ond International Convention ofAsia Scholars (ICAS 2), to be held inBerlin in Germany from 9-12 August2001. The Formal Programme of theICAS 2 will be devoted to sessions,which will be selected from propos-

a broader audience, including govern­ments, the media and the generalpublic, is an essential part of the re­sponsibilities of scientific institu­tions.

In democratic societies, it is of theutmost importance that decisionmakers, leaders of opinion, and thepublic have access to reliable and bal­anced information about other partsof the world. As a contribution to this,the Alliance organizes annually one-day information programmes calledAsia-Updates, in which well-in­formed scholars present analyses ofcurrent events in Asia. One was heldin Brussels in the European Parlia­ment (24 November 1999), and themost recent one took place on 11 Oc­tober, 2000 in the ‘Haus derDeutschen Wirtschaft’, Berlin.

ProjectsIn close co-operation with its part­

ners from Scandinavia and theNetherlands, the IFA carried out a setof studies (resulting in several work­shops) on the role and organization ofAsian Studies in Europe and the US;on that of Asian Studies in Germany;on the future prospects of digitaliza­tion with regard to Asian Studies; andon the place and importance of SouthAsia Studies in the German educationand research situation. The joining ofthe EIAS means a considerablestrengthening of the Alliance. Eachinstitute relies upon different pools ofknowledge and has different net­works. In many ways, the instituteshave proven to be complementary. Asa group of institutes, the Alliance hasa certain ‘added value’: it has more ef­fect and a greater impact than any oneof the participating institutes couldhave individually. ■

als from the field. Proposals can be oftwo basic types: for an organized ses­sion, or for an individual presenta­tion. The proposals for Informal Pro­gramme can be of any kind: meet­ings in conjunction, book presenta­tions, film or video screenings, re­ceptions, parties, and so forth. ■

SEALG Conference 2000By R.L. ROBS O N - M C K I L L O P

he SEALG represen­tatives from GreatBritain, the Nether­

lands, France, and Ger­many met on the campusof the University of Sussex

near Brighton on 2 and 3 June 2000.The main topic of discussion was howto deal with the flood of grey litera­ture which is now being disseminatedon the Internet. While some of this isvery worthwhile, much of it is veryephemeral and does not need to besaved for a specific academic or scien­tific purpose. This shifting is a skilledprocess and requires knowledge andjudgement of the topic as well as inmany instances highly trained lan­guage skills. One problem facing li­braries is finding members of staffwho are capable of performing thesefunctions. Finding properly qualifiedand enthusiastic staff is a difficultywhich is growing more acute owing

to the low esteem in which librariesare held and the far-better paid jobswhich are available in informationprocessing. This difficulty is onewhich we hope to address at our nextmeeting in London in September2001, when we shall meet in conjunc­tion with EUROSEAS. We wouldwarmly welcome ideas and opinionsfrom interested people about ourmajor problems which could be sum­marized as the thwarting of thesmooth functioning of libraries bypeople who choose to call themselves‘researchers’ (which does not say verymuch, it is also possible to ‘research’the number of soap packets sold at thelocal supermarket every Saturday),who are often extremely circum­scribed in their own interests andknowledge. Many of these peoplewould prefer to sit on their own col­lections and are petrified of makingsuch collections accessible to the out­side world. This is nonsense in view ofthe fact that knowledge is there to be

shared for all. This situation is veryfrustrating to librarians who by thevery nature of their work are requiredto have a very broad and thoroughknowledge of their field of interest.This is particularly difficult forSoutheast Asian librarians who arefaced with a plethora of languagesand cultures. In this too we should re­member colleagues in SoutheastAsian countries who are faced withheavy financial burdens, lack ofskilled staff, and above all often ahuge lack of understanding about thevital importance of libraries in thecollection and dissemination ofknowledge. We are looking forward tohearing some reactions and learningabout some of the problems whichyou are facing. ■

R.L Robson-McKillop is Editor for Excerpta

Indonesica and English Editor for the HAS

Newsletter. E-mail: robson@rulletleidenuniv.nl

October zoo0 • has n e w s l e t t e r 14523 • 5 3

I N T E R N A T I O N A L C O N F E R E N C E A G E N D A

2000O c t o b e r 2000

18- . 20 O c t o b e r 20 0 0Seoul, Korea

ASEM 2000 People's ForumE-mail: pspdint@pspd.org

22 O c t o b e r 20 0 0London, U nited Kingdom

Symposium on the past and presentin traditional medical systems

Ms F. Houser, The welkomeInstitute for the History of

Medicine, 183 Euston Road, LondonNWi 2BE, United Kingdom

Tel: +44-171-611 86151Fax: +44-171-611 8862

E-mail: d.wujastyk@ucl.ac.uk

2 3 - 2 6 O c t o b e r 2000H ainan, China

The Second Bi-annualATLAS ASIA Conference

(Asian Tourism in the 21st century]Karin Bras, ATLAS ASIA,

Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamDept, o f Culture, Organisation and

Management, De Boelelaan 10811081 HV Amsterdam

The NetherlandsTel: +31-20-444 6727Fax: +31-20-444 6720

E-mail: ch.bras@scw.vu.nl

2 5 - 26 O c t o b e r 2000Strasbourg, France

Second EU-ASEAN Think TankDialogue on ‘New Perspectives^

International Co-operationEuropean Institute

for Asian Studies (EIAS)Rue des Deux Eglises 35

B-iooo BrusselsBelgium

Tel: +32-2-230 8122Fax: +32-2-230 5402

E-mail: w.white@eias.org

2 6 - 27 O c t o b e r 2000Den Haag, The N etherlands

Labour relations in Asia and Europe:exchanging experiences and perspectives

Geraldine Ang Project assistantTel: +65-838 4728Fax:+65-732 4371

E-mail: geraldine@asef.org

2 6 - 28 O c t o b e r 2000Trivandrum , India

CLARA Workshop‘Domestic Servants and Mobility:Labour, Livelihoods and Lifestyles’ILAS/IISG research programme

CLARA, Programme co-ordinator:Dr Ratna Saptari, Information:

c/o Cruqiusweg 31,1019 ATAmsterdam, The Netherlands

Tel: +31-20-668 5866Fax: +31-20-665 4181

E-mail: Chlia@iisg.nlHttp://www.isg.nl/clara

27 O c t o b e r 2000Leiden, The N etherlands

HAS Annual Lecture: Asia and WesternDominance -Retrospect and ProspectSpeaker: Professor Deepak Kumar Lai

(University o f California]Contact address: International

Institute for Asian StudiesP.0 . Box9515 2300 Leiden

The NetherlandsTel:+31-71-527 2227Fax: +31-71-527 4162

E-mail: iias@rullet.leidenuniv.nl

2 7 - 29 O c t o b e r 2000Bethlehem , PA,

U nited States o f America29 th Annual M id-A tlan tic Region

Association for Asian Studies Conference:Asia: Tradition, Memory and ChangeDavid C. Prejsnar, Program Chair

MAR/AAS, Dept, of History/Philosophy, Community College ofPhiladelphia, 1700 Spring Garden

Street, Philadelphia, PA 19130,United States of America

Tel: +1-215-751 8644Fax: +1-215-972 6304

E-mail: dprejsnar@ccp.cc.pa.usHttp://www.dickinson.edu/

prorg/maraas

N o v e m b e r 2000

2 N o v e m b e r 2000Am sterdam , The N etherlandsThe Borderless South China Sea:A source of national irredentism

IIAS/NIOD Seminar Series 2000-2001‘Southeast Asia Across Borders’

Speaker: Stein Tonnesson(University o f Oslo]

Discussant:J. Thomas Lindblad(Leiden University]

Information: Peter Post, NIOD,Herengracht 380,1016 CJ

AmsterdamTel: +31-20-523 3800

E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

3 - 4 N o v e m b e r 2000Paris, France

lfri Conference InternationalIfn Conference Internationale

27 rue de la Procession75740 Paris Cedex 15, France

Deadline 13 October 2000

3- 5 N o v e m b e r 2000Vancouver, BC, Canada

Women’s Studies: Asian ConnectionsCentre for Research in Women’sStudies and Gender Relations,

UBC, 1896 East Mall, VancouverB.C. V6T 1Z1 CanadaTel: +1-604-8229171Fax: +1-604-8229169

E-mail: litton@interchange.ubc.caDeadline initial response:

30 November 1999Deadline papers: 29 February 2000

9 - 1 0 N o v e m b e r 2000Seoul, Korea

Reflecting and Exploring fo r the 21stcentury Educational Development:

Search fo r Asian identities andperspectives

Institute of Asia-Pacific EducationalDevelopment (IAPED],

Seoul National University, Korea

9 - 1 0 N o v e m b e r 2000Seoul, KoreaWorkshop on

Japanese Colonialism and EducationDr Li Narangoa, Nordic Institute ofAsian Studies, Leifsgade 33, DK-2300

Copenhagen-S, DenmarkTel: +45-3254 8844Fax: +45-3296 2530

E-mail: nara@nias.ku.dkHttp://nias.ku.dk

8 - 11 N o v e m b e r 2000Kansas City,

U nited States o f AmericaOn the Cusp o f an Era:

Art in the Pre-Kushan WorldNelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 4525Oak St., Kansas City, MO 64111-1873

United States of AmericaTel: +1-816-7511396Fax: +1-816-9317204

E-mail:prekushan@nelson-atkins.org.

9 - 11 N o v e m b e r 2000Turnon, Guam, U nited States o f

AmericaLibraries and Archives: Where

information and language literacybegin, Tenth Annual Conference o f thePacific Islands Association o f Libraries

and ArchivesArlene Cohen, Circulation /Outreach Services Librarian

RFK Library, University of Guam,UOG Station, Mangilao, Guam 96923

United States of AmericaTel: +1-671-735 2345Fax: +1-671-734 6882

E-mail: acohen@uog9.uog.eduHttp://www.uog.edu/rfk/accv. html

1 6 - 1 8 N o v e m b e r 2000Taiwan

Chinese Business and Culturein Global and Local contexts

Dr Edmund Terence Gomez, Facultyof Economics, University of Malaya,

Kuala Lumpur 50603, MalaysiaTel: +60-3-7593633/45

Fax: +60-3-756 7252E-mail:

edmund@malaya.freeserve.co.uk

Agenda

1 6 - 1 8 N o v e m b e r 200 0Khonkaen, Thailand

Rights and Responsibilitiesin Traditional Tai Law Codes

Oliver Raendchen, SEACOM,Southeast Asia CommunicationCentre, Tor Str. 40,10119 Berlin,

GermanyTel: +49-30-201 3770Fax: +49-30-2479458

E-mail: or@seacom.deHttp://www.seacom.de/research

23 N o v e m b e r 200 0Am sterdam , The N etherlandsFourth IIAS/NIOD Seminar Series:Cities, Hinterlands and Peripheries:Changing economic geographies o fisland Southeast Asia, 1850-2000*

Speaker: Howard Dick(University of Melbourne]

Contact address: Dr Peter PostNederlands Instituut voor Oorlogs

Documentatie, Herengracht 3801061 CJ AmsterdamThe Netherlands

Tel: +31-20-523 3800E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

1 6 - 1 7 N o v e m b e r 20 00Brussels, Belgium

Europe and the Korean PeninsularEuropean Institute for Asian Studies

(EIAS], Rue des Deux Eglises 35,B-iooo Brussels, Belgium

Tel.: +32-2-230 8122Fax: +32-2-230 5402

E-mail: w.white@eias.org

2 3 - 2 4 N o v e m b e r 2000Paris, France

Ceramics from the Sea: New discoveries /Ceramiques du Fond de Mers:

Les nouvelles découvertesTel: +33-1-4563 5075Fax: +33-1-4563 7816

23 N o v e m b e r 2000Singapore

EAMSA 2000:Globalization and the Uniqueness o f Asia

Dana Leopold, Boulevard deConstance, 77305 Fontainebleau

Cedex, FranceTel: +33-1-6072 4000 ext 4520

Fax: +33-1-6072 4380E-mail: dana.leopold@insead.fr

Http://www.insead.fr/events/eamsa/

2 3 - 2 7 N o v e m b e r 2000T oronto, CanadaNEACP Conference:

Regional Security in Northeast AsiaLynne Russell, Programme Co­ordinator, Joint Centre for Asia

Pacific Studies, University ofToronto - York University, Canada

Tel: +1-416-946 8976E-mail: lynne.russell@utoronto.ca

2 7 - 2 9 N o v e m b e r 2000Bangkok, Thailand

From Fact to Fiction: A history o f Thai-Myanmar relations in cultural context

Organized by ChulalongkornUniversity, Bangkok and IIAS

Contact address: SupangChantavanich, Director,

Chulalongkorn University, PhyataiRoad, Bangkok, 10330, ThailandE-mail: supang.c@chula.ac.thHttp://www.ias/chula/ac/ th

D e c e m b e r zooo

3- 5 D e c e m b e r 200 0Brussels, Belgium

‘Taiwan and China's New Era:Securip/ and economic development’

(working title)European Institute for Asian Studies

(EIAS], Rue des Deux Eglises 35B-iooo Brussels, Belgium

Tel: +32-2-230 8122Fax: +32-2-230 5402

E-mail: w.white@eias.org

4 - 6 D e c e m b e r 20 0 0Toronto, Canada

Democracy and identity Conflicts in Asia:The politics o f cultural difference in an

age o f globalizationLynne Russell, Programme

Co-ordinator, Joint Centre for AsiaPacific Studies, University of

Toronto - York University, CanadaTel: +1-416-946 8976

E-mail: lynne.russell@utoronto.ca

4 - 6 D e c e m b e r 2000Australia

Social Transformationsin the Asia Pacific Region

Dr Jan Elliott,CAPSTRANS Conference Secretariat

University of Wollongong,2522 Australia

Tel: +61-2-4221 3780Fax: +61-2-4228 6313

E-mail: capstrans@uow.edu.auHttp://www.uow.edu.au/research/

centres/capstrans

9 - 1 2 D e c e m b e r 2000Leiden, The N etherlands

Women and Crises in Indonesia:Opportunities and threats,

past and presentDr Brigitte Holzner or Dr RatnaSaptari, Werkgroep IndonesischeVrouwen Studies (WIVS], Projects

Division TCZOAONonnensteeg 1-3

2311 VJ Leiden, The NetherlandsE-mail:

brigaard@wxs.nl or rs-bw@wxs.nlDeadline for abstracts: 15 May 2000

Deadline for papers/exhibition material: 31 October 2000

1 1 - 1 2 D e c e m b e r 2000La Rochelle, France

Échanges, Éthiques et Marches:Europe-Asie en XVII-XXsiecles

Institut Universitaire du mondeAsie Pacifique,

x parvis Fernand Braudel17042 La Rochelle Cedex 1, France

Tel: +33-5-4645 6800Fax: +33-5-4650 5995

1 1 - 14 D e c e m b e r 2000Bonn, Germany

International Sym posium on AinuCollections in Europe and North

America - viewed in the light ofAinu studies and

the image of the AinuE-mail:

johannes.wilhelm@uni-bonn.deHttp://www.uni-bonn.de/

japanologie/

1 2 - 14 D e c e m b e r 200 0Bangkok, Thailand

International Conference Chao PhrayaDelta: Historical development, dynamics

and challenges o f Thailand’s rice bowlThe conference is jointly organised

by Kasetsart University,Chulalongkorn University,

L’Institut de Recherche pourle Développement, France, and

Kyoto University, JapanE-mail: odoras@ku.ac.th or

cusri@chula.ac.thHttp://std.cpc.ku.ac.th/delta/

deltacp/events/Conference—CP.htmDeadline abstracts: 15 June 2000

14 D e c e m b e r 20 00Am sterdam , The N etherlands

Separatism and the Legitimacy o f theNation-State in Southeast Asia: Anti­colonial and post colonial perspectivesIIAS/NIOD Seminar Series 2000-2001

‘Southeast Asia Across Borders’Speaker:

Clive J. Christie (University of Hull]Discussant:

Remco Raben (Netherlands Institutefor War Documentation]

Information: Peter Post, NIOD,Herengracht 380,1016 CJ

Amsterdam, The NetherlandsTel: +31-20-5233800

E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

1 3 - 1 5 D e c e m b e r 200 0Leiden, The N etherlands

International workshop‘Violence in Indonesia: Its historical roots

and its contemporary m anifestations’Contact: Dr Freek Colombijn,Department of Languages andCultures of Southeast Asia and

OceaniaLeiden University, P.0 . Box 95152300 RA Leiden, The NetherlandsTel: +31-71-527 2560 or 527 4159

Fax +31-71-527 2615E-mail:

colombijn@let.leidenuniv.nl

2001J a n u a r y 2001

4 - 6 J a n u a r y 2001Vienna, Austria

The ‘Dark Side’o f Life in Asia and theWest - night-time and time to sleepMain organizer: Brigitte Steger

Department of East Asian Studies,Japanese Studies, University of

Vienna, Universiteitscampus AAKHH of 2, Spitalgasse 2-4,1090 Vienna,

AustriaTel: +43-1-4277 43805Fax:+43-1-42779438

E-mail: brigitte.steger@univie.ac.at

5 - 7 J a n u a r y 2001Salisbury, U nited States o f America

Third International Conferenceon Gender and Equip' Issues

Srinakharinwirot University andSalisbury State University

Dr Thomas L. Erskine, EnglishDepartment, Salisbury State

University, Salisbury,Maryland 21801

United States of AmericaTel: +1-410-543 6371Fax: +1-410-548 2142

E-mail: tlerskine@ssu.edu

1 1 - 1 3 J a n u a r y 20 00Leiden, The N etherlands

The Hotei Publishing ConferenceonUkiyo-e

Chris Uhlenbeck and Rene Scholten,Directors, Hotei Publishing,

Zoeterwoudsesingel 56,2313 EK Leiden, The Netherlands

Tel: +31-71-5663190Fax: +31-71-566 3191

E-mail: info@hotei-publishing.comHttp://www.hotei-publishing.com

18 J a n u a r y 2001Am sterdam , The N etherlands

Japanese Business Networks in SoutheastAsia, 1 9 0 0 S -1 9 6 0 S

IIAS/NIOD Seminar Series 2000-2001‘Southeast Asia Across Borders'Speaker: Hiroshi Shimizu

(Aichi Shukutoku University]Discussant: Peter Post (NetherlandsInstitute for War Documentation]

Information: Peter Post, NIOD,Herengracht 380

1016 CJ AmsterdamTel: +31-20-5233800

E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

5 4 ‘ IIAS n e w s l e t t e r Tsi?23 • October 2000

2 7 - 3 ° J a n u a r y 2001New Delhi, India

Fifth International Conference onDowiy, Bride-Burning and Son-

Pre/erence in IndiaDr Werner F. Menski, SOAS,

University of London, RussellSquare, London WC 1 H oXG,

United KingdomTel: +44-171-323 6339

E-mail: wm4@s0as.ac.ukHttp://www.asiatica.org/

dowryconf.php3

F e b r ua r y z o o i

8 F e b r u a r y 2001Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Royalties and Historiesin Mainland Southeast Asia

IIAS/NIOD Seminar Series 2000-2001‘Southeast Asia Across Borders'

Speaker: Barend-Jan Terwiel(University of Hamburg)

Discussant: Rogier Busser(Leiden University)

Information: Peter Post, NIOD,Herengracht 380

1016 CJ AmsterdamTel:+31-20-5233800

E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

1 6 - 1 7 F e b r u a r y 2001Berkeley, CA,

United States o f AmericaMass Political Violence in Twentieth

century Southeast Asia:Causes, consequences, and the politics

o f representationDr William Collins, Vice Chair,

Center for Southeast Asia Studies,University of California, Berkeley

94720-2318, United States ofAmencaE-mail cseas@uclink4.berkeley.edu

Deadline for abstracts:15 November 2000

I Deadline for papers: 15 January 2000

2 3 - 2 4 F e b r u a r y 2001London, United Kingdom

Asceticism and Powerin the Asian Context

Organized by: The Royal AsiaticSociety, London, and The School of

Oriental and African StudiesContact: Dr Rupert Cox, Research

Fellow, Royal Asiatic Society,60 Queen’s Gardens

London W2 3AF, United KingdomTel: +44-(o)20-7724 4741Fax: +44-(o)20-77o6 4008

E-mail:106207.2000@c0mpuserve.c0m

Http://rai.anthropology.org.uk/antheal/asianasceticism.html

Deadline for abstracts:1 September 2000

M a r c h 2001

1 M a r c h 2001Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Transnational Islam in Southeast AsiaIIAS/NIOD Seminar Series 2000-2001

‘Southeast Asia Across Borders’Speaker: Robert W. Hefner

(Boston University)Discussant: Martin van Bruinessen

(University of Utrecht)Information: Peter Post,NIOD Herengracht 380,

1016 CJ Amsterdam,The Netherlands

Tel: +31-20-523 3800E-mail: p.post@oorlogsdoc.knaw.nl

1 6 - 1 8 M a r c h 2001Los Angeles,

United States of AmericaEstablishing a Discipline: The past,

present and future o f Korean art historyOrganizers: Los Angeles County

Museum of Art (LACMA) andUniversity of California Los Angeles

- (UCLA)Support: The Korea Foundation

Contact address: The Far Eastern ArtDepartment, Los Angeles County

Museum of Art, 5905 WilshireBoulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036,

United States of AmericaTel: +1-323-857 6029Fax: +1-323-857 6217

E-mail: Kwilson@lacma.org,Jungmann@humnet.ucla.edu,

Khwang@lacma.org, orEsung@lacma.org

Deadline for abstracts: June 1,2000

2 1 - 23 M a r c h 2001Ivry-sur-Seine, France

Patronage in Indo-Persian CultureMain organizer: Dr Frangoise

‘Nalini’ Delvoye, Monde Iranien, C/oCNRS, 27 rue Paul Bert, 94200 Ivry

sur Seine, FranceTel: +33-1-4954 2356Fax: +33-1-4954 2676

E-mail: Nalini.Delvoye@ehess.fr

2 2 - 25 M a r c h 2001Chicago, USA

The 53d Annual Meeting ofthe A ssoaadonfor Asian Studies

Contact address: Karen F. Fricke,1021 East Huron Street, Ann Arbor,

Michigan 48104United States of America

Tel: +1-734-665 2490Fax: +1-734-665 3801

E-mail: Kfricke@aasianst.org

29 M a r c h - 1 a p r i l 2001Nottingham (pending),

United KingdomPolitical Parties in South Asia:

Asianisation o f a Western Model?Main organizer: Prof. S.K. Mitra,Department of Political Science,

South Asia Institute, University ofHeidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld

330,69120 Heidelberg, GermanyTel: +49-6221-548 921Fax: +49-6221-544 591

E-mail:subrata.mitra@nottingham.ac.uk

A pri l 2001

4 - 8 A p r i l 2001London, United Kingdom

2001AKSE ConferenceDr Youngsook Pak,

School of Oriental & African Studies,University of London,

Thornhaugh Street, LondonWCiH OXG, United Kingdom

Tel: +44-20-789 84 224Fax: +44-20-789 84 229

E-mail: yp@SOAS.ac.ukDeadline for proposals:

1 September 2000Deadline for papers: 15 January 2001

7 - 1 0 A p r i l 2001Beijing, PR China

Esthetique du Divers: Internationalcomparative literature symposium

Professor Yue Daiyun and ProfessorMeng Hua, Institute of Comparative

Literature and Culture, PekingUniversity, Beijing 100871, PR China

Tel:+86-10-6275 1246Fax: +86-10-6275 1240

1 1 - 1 4 A p r i l 2001Kobe, Japan

Immigration tojapan EU and the USAand thejapanese Abroad

Main organizer: Prof. C. Peach,Oxford University, Mansfield Road,Oxford, OX4 4DU, United Kingdom

Tel: +44-1865-271919Fax: +44-1865-27 1923

E-mail: ceri.peach@geog.ox.ac.uk

Agenda J u n e z o o i

1 5 - 1 6 J u n e 2001Cambridge, United Kingdom

Imperialism, Medicine and South Asia:a socio-political perspective, 1800 - 1950

Main organizer:

1 3 - 1 5 APRI L 2001Istanbul, Turkey

Intellectual and Spiritual Authoritiesin 20^ century Middle Eurasia. Status,

networks, discourse, strategiesMain organizer:

Dr Stéphane Dudoignon, CNRS,UMR 7571 Protasi, Centre de

Recherche sur 1’Asie intérieure,le monde turc et 1’espace ottoman,

23 rue du Loess - Bat. 50,F-67037 Strasbourg Cedex 02, France

Tel: +33-3-8810 6086Fax: +33-3-8810 6094

E-mail: dudoignon@aol.com

M ay z o o i

M a i 2 0 0 1

Amsterdam, the NetherlandsLabour Migration and Socio-Economic

Change in Southeast and EastMain organizer: Dr Ratna Saptari

(CLARA), IIAS/IISH, Cruquiusweg 33,1019 AT Amsterdam

The NetherlandsTel: +31-20-668 5866Fax: +31-20-665 4181

E-mail: Chlia@iisg.nlHttp://www.isg.nl/clara

2 3 - 2 7 M ay 2001Hanoi, Vietnam

Participatory Technology Developmentand Local KnowledgejorSustainable

Land use in Southeast AsiaMain organizer: Prof Franz

Heidhues, Institute of AgriculturalEconomics and Social Sciences in theTropics and Subtropics, University

of Hohenheim (490 A)70593 Stuttgart, Germany

Tel: +49-711-459 3934Fax: +49-711-459 3934

E-mail:heidhues@uni-hohenheim.de

29 M ay - 2 J u n e 2001Moscow, Russia

Historical Sources o f Eurasianand North African Civilizations:

Computer approachesSpecial topic: Digital Fund of Oriental

Historical Sources: Inner AsiaInstitute of Oriental Studies

Orientalists’ Society (both RussianAcademy of Sciences), Orientalist

Information Centre, EurasianOriental Server

Fax: +7-95-925 7788E-mail: ivran@orc.ru

Deadline for abstracts:30 November 2000

IF YOU WISH YOURCONFERENCE TO BE

INCLUDED IN THESE PAGES,PLEASE CONTACT THE

EDITORS, TANJA CHUTE ORELZELINE VAN DER HOEK

IIASNEWS@RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL

Dr Sanjoy Bnattacharya12 Kirkby Close, Milton Road

Cambridge CB4 1XPUnited Kingdom

Tel: +44-1223-47 4407Fax: +44-1223-47 4407

E-maihjoygeeta@hotmail.comCategory: (1) Welfare systems and

models of social securityAC-member: Perez

1 5 - 1 7 J u n e 2001Heidelberg, Germany

Modem Chinese Historiography andHistorical Thinking

Main organizer: Dr Axel Schneider,Institute of Chinese Studies,

University of Heidelberg,Akademiestr. 4-8,69117 Heidelberg,

GermanyTel:+ 49-6221-542 4 76Fax: +49-6221-542 439

E-mail:sws@gw.sino.uni-heidelberg.de

2 2 - 2 4 J u n e 2001London, United Kingdom

1900: The Boxers, China, and the WorldDr Robert Bickers / Dr Hans vd VenE-mail: robert.bickers@bristol.ac.uk

/ jjvio@cus.cam.ac.ukH ttp://mail.bris.ac.uk/~hirab/1900.

htm lDeadline for abstracts: 1 Dec. 2000

Deadline for papers: 1 May 2001

23 J u n e 2001Singapore

The ASEAN Inter-University Seminaron Social Development

Carole Faucher, National Universityof Singapore, Department of

Sociology, ASi, #03-10,11 Arts Links117570, SingaporeTel: +65- 874 6356Fax: +65-7779579

E-mail: soccf@nus.edu.sgHttp://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/ soc/

asean—inter.htm

J uly 2001

J u l y 2 0 0 1

Beijing, PR China2001 Beijing Seminar on Tibetan Studies

Mr Lian Xiangmin, The ChineseCenter for Tibetan Studies, Post Box

9704, The Asian Games VillageBeijing 100101, PR China

Tel: +86-10-6497 2885Fax: +86-10-6493 7897

E-mail: lianxm@netchina.com.cn

2- 3 J u l y 2001London, United Kingdom

Maritime Empires:The operation and impact o f nineteenth

century British imperial tradeHelen Jones, Research

Administrator, National MaritimeMuseum, Greenwich,

London SE10 9NEUnited Kingdom

Tel: +44-20-8312 6716Fax: +44-20-8312 6722

E-mail: research@nmm.ac.ukHttp://www. nmm.ac.ukDeadline for abstracts:

1 January 2001

A u g u s t z o o i

9 - 1 2 A u g u s t 2001Berlin, Germany

Second International Conventiono f Asia Scholars (ICAS 2)

ICAS 2 organizing unit:Prof. Dr Eberhard Sandschneider,Arbeitsstelle Politik Chinas und

Ostasiens, Freie Universitat Berlin,Ihnestr. 22, D-14195 Berlin, Germany

E-mail:sandschn@zedat.fu-berlin.de

1 6 - 1 8 A u g u s t 2001Bergen, Norway

Asian Welfare Policy Responsesto the Crash o f 1997

Main organizer: Prof. Stein Kuhnle,Department of Comparative Politics,

and Centre for Social Research,University of Bergen, Christiesgt. 15

N-5007 Bergen, NorwayTel: +47-5558 2175Fax: +47-5558 94.25

E-mail: Stein.Kuhnle@isp.uib.no

30 A u g u s t -1 S e p t e m b e r 2001

Amsterdam, The NetherlandsPeople and the Sea: Maritime Researchin the social sciences - an agenda fo r the21st century, Inaugural conference for the

Center for Marttime ResearchCenter for Maritime Research

(MARE), Plantage Muidergracht 41018 TV Amsterdam

The NetherlandsTel:+31-20-527 0661Fax: +31-20-6229430

E-mail: mare@siswo.uva.nlHttp://www.siswo.uva.nl/mare

S e p t e m b e r 2001

5 Se p t e m b e r 2001Singapore

Asian Diasporas and Cultures:Globalization, Hybridity,

IntertextualityDr Robbie Goh, Department of

English Language and Literature,National

University of Singapore, Block AS5,7Arts Link, Singapore 117570

Fax: +65-773 2981E-mail: ellgohbh@nus.edu.sg

6 - 8 S e p t e m b e r 2001London, United KingdomThird EUROSEAS Conference

Ms Hilga Prins, ManagementAssistant, EUROSEAS Secretariat, c/o

KITLV,P.0. Box 9515, 2300 RA, Leiden, The

NetherlandsTel.: +31-71-527 2639Fax: +31-71-527 2638

E-mail:euroseas@rullet.leidenuniv.nl

N o v e m b e r 2001

1 N o v e m b e r 2001Cortona (Arezzo), Italy

International Workshop on:Emotions and the Analysis o f Historical

Sources in ChinaProf. Paolo Santangelo

(E-mail: p.santangelo@iol.it) andProf. Patrizia Carioti (E-mail:

0575601263@i0l.it), Department ofAsian Studies, Instituto

Universitario Oriëntale. Piazza S.Domenico Maggiore, 12. 80134

Napoli, Italy.Tel: +39-081-552 6178/ 552 4970

Fax: +39-081-551 7852Deadline for title of paper:

1 December 2000Deadline for abstract: 31 May 2001Deadline for paper: 31 August 2001

28 N o v e m b e r -1 D e c e m b e r 2001

Christchurch, New ZealandAsian Futures, Asian Traditions: New

Zealand Asian Studies Society 14thInternational Conference

Dr Edwina Palmer, Asian LanguagesDepartment, University of

CanterburyPrivate Bag 4800, Christchurch,

New ZealandTel: +64-3-364 2987 ext. 8566

Fax: +64-3-364 2598E-mail:

nzasia@asia.canterbury.ac.nzHttp://www.asia.canterbury.ac.nz/Deadline for abstracts: 15 June 2001

October 2000 • i i as n e w s l e t t e r >4923 • 5 5

A D V E R T I S E M E N T S

Cambridge JournalsNew to CambridgeUniversity Press in 2001:

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and AfricanStudiesPublished for SOAS, University o f LondonI he Bulletin o f the School o f Oriental and African Studies is theleading interdisiplinary journal carrying uparalleled studies of thepast and present civilizations and cultures of the Near and theMiddle East, Asia and Africa. It publishes articles, notes andcommunications and review articles of the highest academicstandard, and also features an extensive and influential reviewssection and an annual index.

2001 Volume: 3 issues.Institutions print plus electronic: £100. Individuals print only: £45Developing countries rate: £60. SOAS copies: £50.ISSN 0041-977X

Journal of African LawPublished for SOAS, University o f LondonDuring the past 45 years Journal o f African Law has establisheditself as the leading journal in its field. Its wide coverageencompasses the laws of sub-Saharan African countries. Itsauthoritative and thought-provoking articles addresscontemporary legal issues and highlight issues of international andcomparative significance. The journal contains a separatesection on recent legislation, case-law, law reform proposals andrecent international developments affecting Africa. Journal o fAfrican Law is essential reading for academics, professionallawyers, development workers and policy-makers.2001 Volume: 2 issues.Institutions print plus electronic: £71. Individuals print only: £30.Developing countries rate: £30.ISSN 0221-8553

The China QuarterlyPublished for SOAS, University o f LondonThe China Quarterly is the leading scholarly journal in its field,covering all aspects of contemporary china including Taiwan andoverseas Chinese. Its interdisciplinary approach covers a range ofsubjects including art, commerce, economics, geography, history,international affairs, literature, politics and sociology. Edited torigorous standards the journal publishes high-quality, authoritativeresearch, keeping readers up to date with events in contemporaryChina. International in readership and scholarship, The ChinaQuarterly provides readers with historical perspectives, in-depthanalyses, and a deeper understanding of China and the Chinese. Ithas a comprehensive Book Review section, an annual special issueand the Quarterly Chronicle, which keeps readers informed of .events in China. The special issue in 2001 will consider Taiwan inthe twentieth century.

2001 Volume: 4 issues. Institutions print plus electronic: £80.Individuals print only: £39. Students: £20.ISSN 0009-4439

Journal of Southeast Asian StudiesThe Journal o f Southeast Asian Studies is one of the main outlets inthe world for scholarly articles dealing with Southeast Asia in thehumanities and social sciences. Incorporating a wide range ofacademic disciplines, the Journal aims to remain accessible tonon-specialists, as well as to scholars specializing in a variety ofsubject areas. The Journal covers all aspects of Southeast Asia,defined as Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,Myanmar, The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Inaddition to scholarly research articles, the Journal publishes 60 to70 book reviews per year, including works written in SoutheastAsian languages.

2001 Volume: 3 issues. Institutions print and electronic: £50/$83.Individuals print only: £25/$42ISSN 0022-4634

Modern Asian StudiesModem Asian Studies promotes an understanding of contemporaryAsia and its rich inheritance. Covering South Asia, South-EastAsia, China, and Japan, this quarterly journal publishes originalresearch articles concerned with the history, geography, politics,sociology, literature, economics, and social anthropology andculture of the area. It specialises in the longer monographic essaybased on archival materials and new field work.Volume 34 in 2000: February, May, July and October.Institutions print and electronic: £131/$218.Individuals print only: £61/$98. ISSN 0026-749X

Journal of the Royal Asiatic SocietyPublished for the Royal Asiatic Society o f Great Britain and IrelandJournal o f the Royal Asiatic Society has been published by theSociety since 1834 and is distinguished not only by its longevitybut also by its consistency in providing a forum for scholarlyarticles of the highest quality on the Indian Subcontinent, theMiddle East, Central Asia, the Far East and South-East Asia. Itpublishes articles on history, archaeology, literature, language,religion and art, and reviews of books in these fields.

Volume 10 in 2000: April, July and November.Institutions print only: £64/$ 104. Individuals print only: £40/$63ISSN 1356-1863

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anesha Publishing is an inde-I '■■pendent company devoted to

republishing Western historicalsources on Asia. In addition to furtherdeveloping our initial series of collect­

ed works in the areas of Japanese stud­ies and travel writing, we are pleased

to announce a new series on theSources of Orientalism.

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shortly beexpanding into the sub­

jects of modem Asian historyand the religions andphilosophies of Asia.

History of Asian StudiesOrientalismModern Asian HistoryReference WorksTopography and TravelAsian Religions andPhilosophy

We welcome all proposals and suggestions fromresearchers in the above areas.Contact/Sales: info@ganesha-publishing.comor write to PO Box 27760, London E5 8UU.

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NEW Collected Works ofBasil Hall Chamberlain:Major WorksWith an introduction by Richard Bowring,University o f CambridgeOctober 2000 • 1 86210 013 6 • 8 volumes• c. 4050pp • £695/$1110Series: Collected Works of Japanologists

NEW The Russo-Japanese War:Reports from Officers Attached to theJapanese Forces in the FieldWith an introduction by Sebastian DobsonNovember 2000 • 1 86210 014 4 •5 volumes • c. 2900pp • £595/ $950Modern Asian History

N E W Collected Works of ErnestMason Satow: Collected PapersThe second part of the Collected Works ofErnest Satow collects for the first time all hispreviously published journal and newspaperarticles, pamphlets, introductions, and contri­butions to various books. It will comprisecirca 85 such items from the Japan Herald,Japan Weekly Mail, Chinese and JapaneseRepository, Japan Times, Transactions of theAsiatic Society o f Japan, The Phoenix, TheQuarterly Review, The New East, and vari­ous other sources.February 2001 • 1 86210 015 2 •4 volumes • c. 1800pp • Price tbcSeries: Collected Works o f Japanologists

NEW The European Discovery ofIndia: Key Indological Sources ofRomanticismWith an introduction by Michael Franklin,Cardiff UniversityThis set assembles the key literary and

devotional texts which accomplished an‘Oriental Renaissance’ in the West and cul­tural revolution in India. This set comprisesten works in their first editions, now allexceedingly rare, including Charles WilkinsBhagvat Geeta (1785) and Heetopades

(1787), H.H. Wilson Megha Duta (1814) andVishnu Purana (1840), William HodgesTravels in India (1793), H.T. ColebrookeEssays (1837), and Friedrich von SchlegelOn the Language and Wisdom o f the Indians(1808, English translation 1849).April 2001 • 1 86210 016 0 • 6 volumes •c. 2700pp • Price tbcSeries: Sources o f Orientalism

NEW Japan in American Fiction,1880-1905With an introduction by Charles B.Wordell, Nanzan University, NagoyaThis collection contains the most importantrepresentations of Japan in American fictionpublished in the period 1880 to 1905. Theworks selected form a valuable research col­lection for scholars engaged inPostcolonialism, Orientalism, Gender andRace studies, and the history of Americanpopular culture. The selection comprises 11titles, including Edward Howard House YoneSanto (1888), W.E. Griffis Honda theSamurai (1890) and In the Mikado’s Service(1901), John Luther Long Madame Butterfly(1898), and Alice Mabel Bacon In the Lando f the Gods (1905).May 2001 • 1 86210 017 9 • 7 volumes •c. 3250 pp • Price tbcSeries: Sources o f Orientalism

Collected Works ofWilliam George AstonWith an introduction by Peter F. Komicki,University o f CambridgeJanuary 1997 • 1 86210 000 4 • 6 volumes• c. 2930pp • £640/ $995Series: Collected Works o f Japanologists

James G. R. Forlong,Cyclopaedia of Religions(1906 edition)November 1997 • 1 86210 005 5 •3 volumes • c. 1740pp • £225/ $350Reference

Collected Travel Writingsof Isabella BirdWith an introduction by Olive Checkland,Fellow (Overseas), Fukuzawa MemorialCentre, Keio University, TokyoJanuary 1998 • 1 86210 001 2 •12 volumes • c. 4800pp • £850/ $1325Series: Collected Works of Travel Writers

Collected Works ofErnest Mason Satow: Major WorksWith an introduction by Nigel Brailey,University o f BristolJune 1998 • 1 86210 002 0 • 12 volumes •c. 5240pp • £975/ $1525Series: Collected Works o f Japanologists

International Congress ofOrientalists: Proceedings, 1873-81October 1998 • 1 86210 004 7 •11 volumes • c. 5500 pp • £975/ $1550Reference

Collected Works of Walter WestonWith an introduction by Hamish Ion,Royal Military College o f Canada,Kingston, OntarioMarch 1999 • 1 86210 011 X • 4 volumes •C. 1380pp • £395/ $650Series: Collected Works of Travel Writers

Collected Works ofFrederick Victor DickinsWith an introduction by Peter F. Komicki,University o f CambridgeSeptember 1999 • 1 86210 003 9 •7 volumes • c. 3550pp • £595/ $950Series: Collected Works of Japanologists

Japanese Art & Japonisme:Early English WritingsWith an introduction by Akiko Mabuchi,Japan Women’s University, TokyoJanuary 2000 • 1 86210 012 8 • 6 volumes•c. 1600pp • £495/ $795Series: Sources o f Orientalism

http://www.ganesha-publishing.com All works are printed on acid-free paper, sewn and bound in a high-quality library buckram.

5 6 • i ias n e w s l e t t e r N?23 • October 2000