Asia Leadership Fellow Program
1999 Program Report

Global Challenge, Local Response:
Asian Experiences and Concerns

International House of Japan
Japan Foundation Asia CenterContents
Foreword ……………………………………………………….……...

4

Profiles of the Fellows …………………………………………………

6

Schedule of Activities ………………………………………………...

9

Introduction ……………………………………………………………

12

Program Reports of the Fellows
On Language and Literature
Ayu Utami …………………………………………….……….

41

NＧ
ＧOs and CBOs in Some Development Cases in Japan
Ohashi Masaaki ………………………………………………

55

Observations of Changing Japan
Cho Hong-Sup …………………………………………………

60

Asia Leadership Fellow Program Report
Marites Danguilan Vitug ……………………………………... 71
ALFP 1999 Report
Teo Soh Lung …………………………………………………..

76

1999 Asia Leadership Fellow Programme
Sanitsuda Ekachai ……………………………………………..

80

Research Papers
Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation: In Search of Lasting
Solutions
Marites Danguilan Vitug …………………………………….. 87
Religions, Globalisation and Consumerism: How to Copewith New Gods
Sanitsuda Ekachai ……………………………………………. 93
Resource Persons and Program Staff………………………………...

98Foreword
This publication marks the fourth year of the Asia Leadership Fellow
Program (ALFP) jointly created in 1996 by the International House of Japanand the Japan Foundation Asia Center. Since its inauguration, the program
has sought to promote mutual understanding and close cooperation among
intellectuals in Asia. Over the last several years, they have built positive
personal networks among themselves.
In the previous three years, the program invited a good number ofacademics, journalists, activists, lawyers, artists and other professionals
from many countries in the region. For the 1999 program, we welcomed not
only the participation of fellows from Indonesia (Ayu Utami), Japan (Ohashi
Masaaki), the Philippines (Marites Danguilan Vitug), Singapore (Teo SohLung) and Thailand (Sanitsuda Ekachai), but we also had the pleasure of
having the first participant from Korea (Cho Hong-Sup). Similar toprevious programs, the 1999 batch of fellows were given a broad theme,"Development and Culture―Globalizing Processes, Localizing Strategies",
to work on for two months. To 'inspire' the fellows' intellectual aspirations
and enhance their individual perspectives, the program also provided themwith first-hand experience with Japanese society through various field trips
to different regions of Japan. To further help sharpen the focus of the issues
discussed in the workshops and seminars, a public symposium entitled"Global Challenge, Local Response: Asian Experiences and Concerns" wasalso held at the end of the program.
It is worth mentioning that the most exciting development coming
out of the 1999 program was how new thinking on global issues has sincedeveloped, the way new paradigms on 'globalization' could be explored,
and how friendships and mutual respect for fellow intellectuals have been
nurtured and maintained.
We would like to acknowledge the active participation of the fellows,
the resource persons, the various Japanese NGOs and the many others who
have contributed so much to the success of the program. Without a doubt,
their continued commitment helps ensure that the program will continue toachieve its objectives. Those who have worked behind the scenes deserve
our special thanks, especially Ms. Fumi Kitagawa for serving as rapporteur
and assistant and Ms. Chola Chek for editing this report.
The International House of Japan and the Japan Foundation Asia
Center hope that this report will enable us and future fellows to continuebuilding on what has been accomplished.

International House of Japan
Japan Foundation Asia CenterTokyo, February 2001

Profiles of the 1999 Fellows
Ayu Utami (Indonesia)
Novelist/Journalist; Editor, Kalam
Proposed ALFP Research Topic:
Expression in Capitalistic Mass Culture
Ms. Ayu Utami is a productive writer of essays on popular culture,
language and literature. In addition to being one of the editors of Kalam, an
Indonesian quarterly devoted to literature and the arts, Ms. Ayu Utami is a
novelist and a political activist. While working as a reporter for the
newsweekly Forum Keadilan (Forum for Justice), she joined other journalists
to establish the underground Alliance for Independent Journalists (AIJ) in
1994. She soon after began working with the Institute for the Study of theFree Flow of Information (ISAI), an organization devoted to preserving andpromoting press freedom. She wrote a booklet on the Soeharto family's
wealth and drew political cartoons, which were distributed widely andillegally in the months before the President resigned in May 1998. Her firstnovel, Saman, was published to critical acclaim in 1998 and received anaward for Best Novel from the Jakarta Arts Council. Ms. Ayu Utami
received her academic credentials from the Faculty of Letters, Universitas
Indonesia, 1987-93.

Ohashi Masaaki (Japan)

Associate Professor of Development Studies,
Keisen University
Proposed ALFP Research Topic:
The Role of NGOs and CBOs for Development of Japan
Professor Ohashi has been very active with NGOs and CBOs (communitybased organizations). Between 1980 and 1987, he worked with Shapla Neer:
Citizens' Committee in Japan for Overseas Support, which was founded bya group of young Japanese who went to Bangladesh immediately after its
independence to help the country recover from the ravages of war. He
spent two and a half years in Dhaka as the Director of Shapla Neer's
operations in Bangladesh, and acted as the Secretary General from 1982 to
1987. He became the Deputy Head of Delegation and Development Delegate
in Bangladesh for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies in 1990-93. In 1993 he became a university professor but
in September 1998, he took a one-year sabbatical leave to stay in New Delhi

studying NGO issues in India and South Asia. During the leave, he also
participated in the Kosovo refugee relief operation in Albania for twomonths as a delegate of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies. Professor Ohashi received his B.A. in Economics fromWaseda University (1978) and his Master of Professional Studies(Agriculture), International Agriculture and Rural Development Program,from Cornell University (1990).

Cho Hong-Sup (Korea)

Editor of the City Desk, Hankyoreh Shinmun
Proposed ALFP Research Topic:
Local Initiatives for Sustainable Development
Mr. Cho was one of the student leaders who organized the first students'
research group on pollution and environmental problems. He later
pioneered the practice of investigative journalism covering theenvironmental problems caused by rapid industrialization in Korea. Since
the early 1980s, he has dealt with such issues as the safety of nuclear power
plants, preservation of wetlands, and industrial pollution. In 1997, he wasawarded an official commendation from the Korean government whileworking for a critical, opposition newspaper. His publications include thebooks Human Beings and Environment, Save Our Children--Voices from Onsan
Village (1985) and Frankenstein or Brave New World (1999). Mr. Cho received
his B.A. in Chemical Engineering from Seoul National University (1980).

Marites Danguilan Vitug (Philippines)
Freelance Journalist
Proposed ALFP Research Topic:
Rebuilding Muslim Mindanao: The Role of Japan
Ms. Vitug is a prolific writer of essays and books. She works for thePhilippines Center for Investigative Journalism, and writes for the Manila
Times, Newsweek, and World Paper. Her first book, Power from the Forest: The
Politics of Logging, won the National Book Award in 1994. Her essays andinvestigative stories have been published in a number of books and journals,
the most recent of which are Under the Crescent Moon: Rebellion in Mindanao(2000), Jalan-Jalan: A Journey through Eaga (1998), "Highway Robbery," in Pork
and Other Perks: Corruption and Governance in the Philippines (1998), and"Environmental Advocacy," in Media Bites: An NGO-Media Dialogue (1997).
She and a colleague are currently writing a book on the Muslim rebellion inthe Philippines. Ms. Vitug received her B.A. in Broadcast Communication(1975) and her M.A. in Communication (1977), from the University of thePhilippines, Diliman.

Teo Soh Lung (Singapore)

Lawyer/NGO Activist
Proposed ALFP Research Topic:
Globalization and Peace
As one of the most active, outspoken and uncompromising members of theSingapore Law Society, Ms. Teo was one of the founders of the Society's
Criminal Legal Aid Scheme, a program designed to give assistance topeople who cannot afford legal representation. Her extraprofessional
activities include her engagement in community/NGO activities focusing
on welfare and human rights, and she was actively involved in theestablishment of organizations which have helped foreign workers and excriminal offenders in Singapore. Even after two and a half years of politicaldetention in the late 1980s, she has maintained her humane spirit andcontinued to articulate aspirations for greater care and human rights for the
economically and politically underprivileged. Ms. Teo received her B.A. in
Law (Honours) from the University of Singapore (1973).

Sanitsuda Ekachai (Thailand)
Assistant Editor, The Bangkok Post
Proposed ALFP Research Topic:
Religions vs. Globalization and Consumerism:
How Asia Copes with New Gods
Ms. Sanitsuda's articles in The Bangkok Post on rural development, women's
issues and Buddhism have inspired a whole generation of journalists tobecome more sensitive to cultural dilemmas, social inequalities and theplight of the poor. She was awarded the A.H. Boerma Award from theUnited Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization in 1991 in recognitionof her outstanding contributions in the field of journalism and her dedicatedwork with many local and international NGOs. Her publications include
Behind the Smile: Voices of Thailand and Seeds of Hope: Local Initiatives inThailand, among many others. Ms. Sanitsuda received her B.A. (first classhonors) from Chulalongkorn University (1977) and her M.A. in Political
Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1981).

Schedule of Activities
Sept. 2Introduction session

Sept. 3 - 6

Field Trip to Rokkasho-mura & Shimokita
Peninsula
Workshop I : Preparatory session for the field trip
to Okinawa

Sept. 8Workshop II: Presentation by the Fellows (1)"Ethnic Conflicts and Accommodation: In Searchof Lasting Solutions" by Marites Danguilan Vitug"Environmental Movements and
Democratization in Korea" by Cho Hong-Sup
Workshop III: Discussion with the JapaneseNGOs regarding the field trip to Ishigaki

Sept. 9Workshop IV: Preliminary session for the field
trip to Ishigaki
Workshop V: Presentation by the Fellows (2)"Religions vs Globalisation and Consumerism:
How to Cope with New Gods" by Sanitsuda
Ekachai"The Desire for Conspiracy: The Irrationality inModern Thinking" by Ayu Utami

Sept. 13

Workshop VI: Presentation by the Fellows (3)"Globalization and the Culture of Silence"by Teo Soh Lung
"Roles of NGOs and CBOs for Development"
by Ohashi Masaaki

Sept. 14

Workshop VII: Interim Evaluation (1)Sept. 16

Workshop VIII: Interim Evaluation (2)Sept. 20

Workshop IX: Informal discussion with

Sept. 21 - 26

Mikio Kato, Executive Director, International
House of Japan (1)Field Trip to Okinawa/Ishigaki Islands
Seminar I: Introduction of Okinawa
by Prof. Katsunori Yamazato and Prof.
Masaaki Gabe, University of the Ryukyus

Sept. 28

Seminar II: “Globalization and Cultural
Nationalism” by Prof. Kosaku Yoshino,
University of Tokyo

Sept. 30

Workshop X: Informal discussion with
Mikio Kato (2)Oct. 1

Seminar III: “Globalization and its
Discontents” by Prof. Kiichi Fujiwara,
University of Tokyo

Oct. 5

Visit to the Association to Preserve the Earth

Oct. 8

Seminar IV: “Consumption and Popular
Culture” by Prof. John Clammer, Sophia
University

Oct. 12

Seminar V: “New Religion in Japan and Asia” by
Prof. Nobutaka Inoue, Kokugakuin
University

Oct. 13

Seminar VI: Discussion with Japanese
Journalists: Susumu Nomura, Freelance
Journalist, and Takahiko Tennichi, Yomiuri
ShimbunOct. 15

Seminar VII: Discussion on gender issues with
Prof. Chizuko Ueno, University of Tokyo

Seminar VIII: “Japan and Southeast Asia in
Historical Contexts: Focusing on Okinawa” byProf. Hisashi Nakamura, Ryukoku University
Oct. 16 - 18

Weekend Retreat in Odawara

Oct. 20

Seminar IX: “Civil Society, Global
Marketization and Asia” by Prof. Yoshikazu
Sakamoto, Professor Emeritus, University of
Tokyo

Oct. 22

Visit to the Asia Women’s Resource Center

Oct. 25

Seminar X: "History and the Current Situationof the Ainu People" by Kayo Sunazawa,
Livelihood Advisor, Ainu Association of
Hokkaido Tomakomai Branch; and by Mr.
Hideaki Uemura, Chief Executive, Citizen’s
Diplomatic Centre for the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples

Oct. 26

Workshop XI: Preparation session for the
Symposium

Oct. 27

Public Symposium:“Global Challenge, Local Response: AsianExperiences and Concerns”

Oct. 29

Evaluation Session

Introduction
Asia Leadership Fellow Program (ALFP)
Since its inauguration, the ALFP has successfully developed 'mechanisms ofcooperation' among the participants, and there is no doubt that it has
succeeded in developing personal networks among outstanding intellectual
leaders. Throughout the previous four years, the number of the fellows who
participated in the program totalled 22. They came from eight different
countries in Asia. Many were academics (political sciences, anthropology,sociology, medical sciences, development studies, philosophy) and somewere active in the fields of journalism and the performing arts; the others
were involved in NGO and legal activities. Since 1996 the main theme for
the Program has been "Development and Culture" with more concrete
subtitles, which reflect the emphasis and interest of each year’s program. (1)The economic and financial crisis that began in Thailand in thesummer of 1997 presented the region with a series of domestic and external
challenges. The present power structure, which is essentially 'premised' byCold War thinking' has to be modified by 'the addition of cooperative, open
structures that would encourage wider discussion and greater transparency
among all parties in the region'.(2)It is apparent that governmental politics alone cannot solve theregional crisis. The process under way now is characterized by the
emergence of new forces: transnational corporations, resurgent religions like
Islam, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the intergovernmentalorganizations (IGOs) consisting of nation-states. The rapid growth in thenumber of 'voluntary', 'non-governmental', or ' non-profit' organizations has
been described as a 'global associational revolution'. (3) The Internet, global
telecommunication networks and other advanced technologies link these
new forces. Articulation beyond government-to-government relations isimperative for the fundamental reformulation of the present structure.
'Political leaders' have been the key players on the public scene--in fact, tothe extent that they are seen too often in international conferences andmeetings. There have been few opportunities so far, though, for 'intellectual
leaders' in the region to be engaged in direct cross-border dialogue and in
the process of intellectual exchange. However, the Asia Leadership Fellow
Program is one of the new channels designed to help overcome thisshortcoming and to provide a public forum for dialogues and mutual
understanding.

The ALFP 1999

During the two months of the 'collaborative interaction period', the six
fellows benefited much from working together and exchanging their views
and ideas, establishing and nurturing friendships and promoting mutual
understanding. Together they also visited several places in Japan andduring a weekend retreat at the scenic Odawara Asia Center, theyexchanged ideas with other participants, including Japanese and nonJapanese academics and journalists. Finally, at the end of the Program, apublic symposium was organized at the International House of Japan,
where the fellows reported on the findings of their individual research
projects undertaken in the last two months.
The theme for the 1999 program was "Development and Culture—
Globalizing Processes, Localizing Strategies," under which each fellow chose
his or her own specific research topic and exchanged his or her ideas withthe others. A broad theme like this not only allows room for diverse
interests and perspectives among the fellows, but also promotes theircommon interests in the ongoing local processes of globalization. The
specific topics covered in the seminars and discussions were on
democratization and environmental movements, ethnic conflicts andidentity, modernity and conspiracy thinking, new faith groups and religious
freedom, freedom of speech and expression, and nongovernmentalorganizations and civil society.

Workshops
In early September, each of the six fellows presented his or her own
individual research agenda. Their presentations and the discussions are
summarized in the following paragraphs:
1) Cho Hong-Sup: "Korean Democratization and the Environmental
Movement"
Key concepts: Globalization of civil movements and changing ideologies,
information technology, globalized environmental problems, alternative
views of development
In his presentation, Cho explained how Korean society has changed inrelation to the rise and decline of civil movements. The authoritarianregime was the basis of Korean industrialization, which resulted in an
increased income gap, corruption and restriction of the freedom of speech
and information. Throughout the 1980s the democratization movement
gained strength. NGO activities prevailed in the 1990s, as civil and politicalrights received legal guarantees. Unfortunately, many NGOs were facing
financial restrictions and encountering a lack of citizen participation. Cho

explained the example of the CCEJ (Citizen's Coalition for Economic Justice),
one of the largest nongovernmental organizations in Korea. CCEJ
successfully influenced the government's policy promoting democracy on
the basis of trust and support given by the people and media. But too muchemphasis on short-term 'issue-oriented' activities aroused criticism of its
political position and of being 'a civil movement without citizen
participation'.
Cho believed that the Korean experience of civil society movements
could offer some lessons to other fellows from Southeast Asia. He raisedsome questions and made comments on the future direction of civil society
movements. For example,
1. Civil movements are becoming less radical, but this may lead tofundamental structural problems. How can people's attention be drawn?
2. Information technology can be an efficient tool for civil movements. How
and where can it be utilized?
3. Globalization of civil movements is still taking place, while ideologies arechanging.
Cho then remarked that globalized environmental problems havebeen looked at only as technological issues, and the human aspects of suchproblems are often neglected.
2) Marites Danguilan Vitug: "Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation: In
Search of Lasting Solutions"
Key concepts: Nation building, ethnicity and secession movements, asearch for federal structure, racial tolerance, the problem ofunderdevelopment, globalization processes, and the sense of identity
Vitug focused on issues such as nation building, ethnicity and secession
movements in the Philippines today. She said that as a journalist she would
like to find a long-term solution to the Islam secessionist movement in thePhilippines by stirring debate on the issue. She explained the historical,
geographical and political background of the Islamic population in thePhilippines. The province of Mindanao has been described as the 'foodbasket of the Philippines', hosting three ethnic groups--Muslims, indigenous
people, and Christians. In Mindanao as a whole there are more Christians
than Muslims, and a number of them want a federal system rather thansecession. She indicated that behind the apparent cultural and religious
character of the problem, there exist structural problems: inequality,
poverty, and political neglect. The secession movement should beconsidered not only as a religious conflict but also as a problem inherent inunderdevelopment. Vitug pointed out that the Islamic resurgence in the
1980s might be related to economic factors and globalization. If morepeople are connected through globalization forces, the question is whether
we are turning more to a politics of ethnic identity? If this is the case, what
would be the long-term solution to the problem? How can we have apolitical structure that can accommodate different identities?
She offered two 'political solution' models that could help solve theproblem of separatist movements:
decentralization, autonomy andfederalism. She confirmed that recently there is serious rethinking about apossible federal structure in the Philippines.
3) Ayu Utami: "The Desire for Conspiracy "Key concepts: 'Truth' making, modernity, prejudice, power
There is a tendency toward a certain way of thinking that can be called'conspiracy theory.' Ayu Utami started her presentation with a provocative
statement that there is a situation where people are made to believe in a plot
imposed by the world’s superpower accusing a group of people of 'plotting
against us'. She explained that in Indonesia, for example, the women's
movement in the communist party was depicted as sensual and dangerous;
it is a common belief. The plot of 'the communists destroying Asian
countries' prevailed in Southeast Asia. Suharto's motive was to maintainpower and he did so by accusing other groups that did not support him.
People then began to show prejudices and there is a tendency to blame 'theinvisible hand plotting against us'.
She also pointed out the problems of modern thinking. Modernism
emphasizes rational thinking rooted in Western philosophy. In modernism,
there is a desire for clearness where no obscurity is allowed. In Indonesia,
after accusing the communists, the West was blamed. The Cold War camewith activities of secret agencies. Ayu Utami cautioned against the way wemake our judgments and maintained that identity-based problems might bebetter understood in the context of conspiracy-theory thinking. She thus
argued that we need to make 'truth' through negotiation in a pragmatic way,even though having plural 'truths' might not be comforting.
4) Sanitsuda Ekachai: "Religions vs Globalization and Consumerism"
Key concepts: New faith groups, religious freedom, transnationalreligious activities
Every conventional religion convinces us to eradicate our greed. This
teaching remains useful in shaping our attitudes and behavior in the face ofa globalized consumer culture. The boom of new religions, however,signifies a general decline of conventional religions because of their inability
to adapt to life characterized by many stresses and strains.

Ekachai maintained that, given a more crowded and pluralistic
religious environment, the challenge is for us to know how to keep religious
freedom while coming up with some criteria for the public to makeinformed choices. Religious tolerance is becoming increasingly significant at
a time when many people turn to religion as a way to cope with theinsecurity that comes with globalization. The growth of new faith groups inJapan is a good example. People need smaller religious organizations thatcan solve their everyday problems in an easy, relevant and moral fashion.
Thailand is facing the same phenomenon. The religious establishment,
however, is monopolistic in its structure, and it is subject to state control
and capitalism. It does not want to reform with the aim of meeting people’s
needs. As a consequence, this traditional form of legitimacy is in decline.
Meanwhile, the media and society still view new faith groups withsuspicion, labeling them as brainwashing cults. Ekachai argued that thechallenge for Thailand is how to revive Buddhism, reform the establishment,
promote religious freedom by allowing new Buddhist sects to emerge, andto promote a better understanding of new religions through media andpublic channels.
5) Teo Soh Lung: "Globalization and the Culture of Silence"
Key concepts: Freedom of speech and expression, development of
information technology, controlled democracy
Teo began her presentation by explaining the situation in Singapore. It is asmall, wealthy and economically progressive country, where freedom ofspeech and expression is not a pressing issue for the majority. Is it possible
to have the ability to both criticize and enjoy material progress
simultaneously, as they do in other developed countries?
Why do Singaporeans prefer to keep silent? Simply put, there ismuch to lose if they speak up. They consider it is not worth the trouble.
Young people are more interested in earning a living. Many work hard
everyday with the hope that they would make enough money for
emigration to another country, while they are still young. With this there is
the problem of brain drain, and foreign workers sometimes use Singapore
as a steppingstone for resettlement in other countries.
The fellows exchanged ideas on transmigration issues in Asian
countries including Singapore, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia,
and Japan. Teo said that after the economic recessions suffered by the four
Asian tigers in recent years, nobody mentions 'Asian Values' as the reason
for economic progress anymore. The group argued that 'Asian value'
discourses could be a rhetoric advocated by pro-global capitalists forpromoting the 'Asian mode of capitalism and democracy'.

6) Ohashi Masaaki: "Roles of NGOs and CBOs for Development"
Key concepts: Aid as poison, patronage and control, roles of NGOs,
sustainability
What is 'development' and for whom? Ohashi raised this fundamental
question, which remains unanswered. Today every country is categorized
either as 'developed' or 'developing', according to its GNP per capita.
Development has now become a universal objective. The role of thegovernment/state is shrinking in the globalizing economy. NGOs areconcerned about how to evenly distribute wealth on a global basis. Ohashi
clarified the definitions and concepts of NGOs, NPOs (non-profit
organizations) and CBOs (community-based organizations), and thenexplained the roles of NGOs in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri
Lanka), where he has worked as an NGO activist. He pointed out the
problems inherent in foreign aid are seen as 'poison'; reviewed the activities
of Japanese NGOs; and explained their financial situation. He added thatthe 'domestication' of NGOs by governments and big donor agencies is his
big concern at the moment. He emphasized that the structural relations of'patronage and control' plays a significant role in development processes,
and that the question of 'who pays and how?' needs to be considered.

Common Agenda
After the initial brainstorming workshops, several questions emerged. The
fellows were interested in issues at two levels: 1) 'globalization' and'development'; 2) local issues in Japan. Some of the issues raised by the
fellows can be summarized as follows:-What is globalization all about? What counteracting forces can beobserved?
-What local strategies for 'sustainability' and 'self-reliance' in developing
countries can be advanced?
-How does globalization affect Japanese society culturally and politically?
-What is the situation of women's movements in Japan?
-How do NGOs and mass organizations react to globalization?
-How do we understand 'civil society'?
-Is there a way to promote a 'multiethnic' Japan?
The observations of Japanese society during the fellows' field trips,
their visits to local institutions and their explorations were supplemented bytheoretical personal insights from the resource persons in the various
seminars.

Summary of the Sessions with Resource Persons
1) The Political Economy of Globalization

Professor Fujiwara Kiichi of the University of Tokyo gave a presentation on
the political economy of globalization. He explained how the notion of'globalization' could be understood under the title "Globalization and its
Discontents." The first meaning of globalization is 'an integrated world' bycommunication and transportation. But what is being talked about is theglobalizing market. The world market structure has become very closely
integrated. The liberalization in financial markets, investment, and tradethat took place in this decade was followed by the simultaneous economic
crises in the world in 1997. For example, it took only ten minutes forbillions of dollars to leave the Bangkok market and two days for the wholecurrency crisis to gulp up Southeast Asia. In the case of the debt crisis in
1982, which started in Mexico, it took a full half year for the crisis to reachthe Philippines. The 1997 crisis in Asia, on the other hand, developed allover the globe in less than a week. This is how communication andinstitutional change led to a more integrated world market. Thus, when wetalk about globalization, we are talking about a new version ofinterdependence.
Prof. Fujiwara further mentioned that the second interpretation isabout policy. Globalization is something brought about by the vanguards ofglobalization, in other words, by those who initiate policies forcing
globalization. Globalization is not an objective situation, but theconsequence of certain policies. Prof. Fujiwara also discussed several
policies that took place within the IMF, the World Bank, the American
government, and the Japanese government. He mentioned that, when wetalk about policies and not simply about systems and structures, we need toconsider individual conditions that allow certain policies to be adopted andimplemented. It is not only power but also agenda settings that is
important, even though it is not sufficient by itself. In analyzing policies,
we have to go into the details. If we want to make globalization a workableconcept, we have to investigate what can and cannot be easily changed.

2) Japan, Cultural Nationalism and Globalization
What does globalization mean to Japan? Does it challenge the Japanesepeople's self-perception? Professor Yoshino Kosaku of the University ofTokyo talked about "Nationalism and Globalization in Contemporary
Japan" focusing on cultural nationalism in present-day Japan.

"Nihonjin-ron," or discourses on Japanese uniqueness, began in the
1970s and prevailed in the 1980s. In these discourses, certain points were
often emphasized in contrast to those found in the West. Japanese methodsof communication, for example, are ambiguous and emotional; Japanesesociety is characterized by its groupism and vertical stratification; andJapanese society is homogeneous.
"Nihonjin-ron" discourse has been reproduced in various forms. The
existence of 'cultural intermediaries' (Featherstone, M) standing between theintellectuals and the masses has a critical role in the dissemination ofcultural nationalism. For instance, so-called 'cross-cultural handbooks' and'instruction manuals for international communication' are published by big
manufacturing companies and are sold in many bookshops. Through thesepublications, the theories of Nihonjin-ron are elaborated and reproduced.
As a matter of fact, business people are important consumers of Nihonjinron.
Another example of cultural nationalism can be found in the
popularity of the 'cross-cultural communication industry'. Professor
Yoshino mentioned the popularity of the 'English-learning' industry inSoutheast Asia from his recent research. In these publications, Americans
are represented as the significant 'Other'. Commercial as well as educational
interests in intercultural communication could lead to cultural nationalism
since the uniqueness of a particular culture is emphasized. Concern about
internationalization, paradoxically, has made the actual process ofinternationalization more difficult. Professor Yoshino also commented on
the necessity and difficulty of teaching intercultural knowledge.

3) Popular Culture and Consumption in Contemporary Japan
Taking on the issue of consumption, Professor John Clammer, a Britishsocial anthropologist teaching at Sophia University, argued that Japan has ahighly commodified form of culture. He maintained that the process ofcommodification has gone too far in Japan, and it could be named as asociety of 'hyper consumption'. The anxiety for consumption is createdthrough circulation of images that is accelerated by the unprecedented
speed and amount of media, such as magazines and advertisements.
Multiple complexes of commercial interests are underpinned by the socialand media structures in the society. While there have been many 'models'
which classical studies of Japanese society have provided, in order tounderstand contemporary Japanese culture, looking at it as a form ofcapitalism would be inevitable.
Globalization is often talked about in Japan nowadays. What is
globalization all about? Some critical scholars argue that Japan is globalizing

the world, not that Japan is becoming globalized. In thinking about
globalization, the circulation of images is very powerful and should not be
underestimated. With regard to popular culture, he mentioned the examplesof the selective spread of Japanese culture overseas, such as the popularityof Japanese manga and karaoke in Southeast Asia and the different versionsof Doraemon that exist in many countries.

4) Environmental and Consumer Activities
It is said that organic movements promote the rural way of life and organic
farms attract people from Tokyo for weekend recreation, which certainly
has ideological aspects as well. A one-day visit to the association called
Daichi wo Mamoru-kai (Association to Preserve the Earth) in Chiba Prefecture
provided a precious opportunity to get informed about the activities ofgrass-roots environmental and consumer movements in Japan.
The president of the association, Mr. Fujita Kazuyoshi, explained
the various aims of the activities of his organization: to make Japanese
agriculture self-reliant; to raise the self-sufficiency rate for foods in Japan; tohave safe, chemical-free agricultural products; to work against
environmental deterioration and to cooperate with other Asian countries forthe improvement of agriculture and the environment in each country. The
association was established in 1975 with the aim of 'bridging producers andconsumers' by buying organic agricultural products from the farmers andselling them to urban consumers. The organization commits itself toeconomic activities as well as civil movements, such as the anti-nuclear
movement and the movement against GMOs, and to recycling activities. It
is a business corporation as well as an NPO, where the stockholders consistof farmers, consumers, and staff members. The strength of the organization
lies in self-reliance, and as such it does not depend on the government or
big corporations to keep its activities going.
A few days before the visit, a nuclear accident in Tokaimura, Ibaraki
prefecture, the worst nuclear accident to ever happen in Japan, occurred.
The fellows and the president discussed issues related to the potential
environmental effects of the accident.

5) Social Changes and Religious Thinking
Professor Inoue Nobutaka, a sociologist of religion at Kokugakuin
University, is interested in the comparative study of religion in Asia. He
explained the general background of religions in Japan and talked about the
recent trends in religion and new religious activities in the country. The new
religions are modernized versions of the old ones, and there is muchcontinuity between them. The new religions are those established after the
Meiji Restoration that began in 1868. People needed new religions to copewith changes in society. New types of organizations, new styles of rituals,
and new forms of teachings were formed, but the ideas remained
unchanged. More recently, some newer religions have come out. They are'hyper-traditional' religions: they are a mixture of elements found in old andnew religions worldwide.
The characteristics of 'new religions' are as follows: easiness ofexpression, recruitment of new members, flexibility of the organization, andemphasis on healing functions. Japanese sociologists of new religions do
not use such terms as 'sects' and 'cults', but call them 'new religious groups'.
He commented that more than half of the 'new religious groups' are of
Buddhist origin. He showed many slides and explained scenes of religious
activities.
The presentation was followed by a discussion with the fellows on thechanging role and characteristics of the various religions in Asian societies.

6) Dialogue among Journalists
One of the main features of ALFP 1999 was that out of the six fellows, four
were experienced journalists.
During a session coordinated by Professor Takeda Isami of Dokkyo
University, the fellows exchanged their ideas with some Japanese journalists.
Mr. Nomura Susumu, a freelance journalist, and Mr. Tennichi Takahikofrom the Yomiuri Newspaper shared their experiences as journalists andexchanged with the fellows their views about contemporary Japanesesociety. The topics under disscusion included foreign residents in Japan,
Press Clubs, the role of journalism in Japan, the situation of female
journalists, the difficulties that free-lance journalists face, the Freedom ofInformation Act, and technical aspects of news coverage.

7) Gender Issues
The gender balance of the ALFP 1999 fellows may be worth mentioning:four women and two men, and one of the men could be described as the'most feminist' among them. Cho Hong-Sup said that Japanese women are
active in consumer movements, many of which are made up of small groups.
Grassroots movements have potential, but there is a discrepancy between
their activities and influence at the policymaking level. Cho asked
Professor Ueno Chizuko of the University of Tokyo how she would explain
this gap. She agreed with Cho's observation: women are active in grassroots
movements, but there is little access to public life. In the public sector, thereare few women. However, at the local assembly level, women activists are
becoming influential and have built nationwide networks. The problem isthat their activities remain unseen in the public sphere.
The fellows and Professor Ueno exchanged ideas on various issues
in contemporary Japan and other societies: the role of women in an aging
society, declining birth rates, women’s education and career prospects,
international marriages, and the representation of women in public media.

8) Japan in the Context of Asia
Professor Nakamura Hisashi of Ryukoku University, who spent time withthe fellows on Ishigaki Island, again gave a talk on Japan’s relations within
Asia. He acknowledged that Japan has destroyed the environment of othercountries. For instance, Japanese companies completely destroyed theforests of Mindanao Island. In 1961, the Keidanren (Japan Federation of
Economic Organizations) targeted Kalimantan, then moved on to Sava
Sawarak. Large amounts of environmental damage resulted from soil
erosion and other forms of environmental degradation.
The idea of construction has been at the center of Japan’s national
development scheme from the 16th century. Even in the Meiji period,
Japanese knowledge and technology in civil engineering was far moreadvanced than that of the West. In Japan, Civil Society might actually bereferred to as Civil Engineering Society.
Professor Nakamura also explained the history of Okinawa andHokkaido, which were colonized and annexed to mainland Japan. They
share common experiences with Taiwan, Korea and China, which wereJapan's overseas colonies. During the period of Japanese colonization, thepeople of Okinawa had to be more "Japanese" than ordinary Japanesepeople were. He called it 'double twisted history'.

9) Women Issues in the Asian Context
Ms. Matsui Yayori, the Director of the Asia Women's Resource Center, whoused to be a journalist at the Asahi Newspaper, welcomed the fellows' visit to
the Center in Shibuya, Tokyo. The Asia Women's Association wasestablished in 1997. Before that, the Association had campaigned against'sex tours' in Asian countries, and has also been active in dealing withdomestic issues. Ms. Matsui explained the situation of female foreign
workers. In the late 1970s, an increasing number of Philippino womencame to Japan, followed by Thai women in the 1980s. In 1984, a memorial
march was organized, and a list of foreign women who had committed
suicide or were killed while in Japan was distributed. Now there are more

legal foreign female workers who come under 'entertainment visas'. She
mentioned some problems they are now tackling, such as the problem ofabandoned Japanese-Filippino children, and cases of domestic violence ininternational marriages. Also there are many HIV-positive cases among
Thai females in Nagano Prefecture, where a system of spiritual care by Thai
monks should be developed. The association commits itself to thedevelopment of education projects, since all issues related to international
labor migration are rooted in the structural problems of development.

10) Civil Society
Professor Sakamoto Yoshikazu, Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo,
gave a presentation on the concept of 'civil society' within the Asian region.
We now live in a world where the myth of 'one nation, one state' isno longer tenable and every state is bound to be multiethnic and multicultural. The failure to recognize this reality leads to the horror of ethnic
cleansing. States that do not recognize the importance of transnational civilsociety, but cling on to the institutional and conceptual frameworks of
exclusionist national sovereignty will not be viable in the 21st century. It is
likely that the major actors in 21st -century world politics will be what hecalls 'regional states, or regional federations'. We can envisage East Asia asa transnational civil society.
Asia's regional identity has been defined only in negative terms--that
is, Asia was not Europe, not North America, not Latin America, not Africa.
The term "Asia" served mainly as a symbol of anti-Western colonialism. In
fact, Asia is a culturally diverse region. Further, the colonial experience andlegacies and the wounds it left on the state and society of Asia are numerous.
The structure of developmental disparities is also diverse.
This heterogeneity can give rise to two opposite scenarios. On the
one hand, as the recent turmoil in East Timor indicates, Asia in the 21st
century may be in a state of Balkanization. On the other hand, if the Asianpeoples succeed in promoting coexistence and cooperation, Asia may serve
as a model for dialogue among different civilizations of the world. In order
to counteract the dangers of global marketization and politicalfragmentation, it is essential to create an association of 'civic states' (a 'civilsociety-based state'), as the basis for transnational civic society.

11) Minority issues in Japan

The issue of Ainu as the indigenous population in Japan is relevant to Asian
countries, because in the history of nation building the Ainu were deprivedof their land and language, and were assimilated by the Japanese
government. The process was very similar to Japan's colonization policies
overseas. Mr. Uemura Hideaki, Chief Executive of the Citizen's DiplomaticCentre for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, gave a historical overview of
the Ainu people in Japan. In 1869, Hokkaido was annexed to mainland
Japan, and the Hokkaido Development Agency began to operate. Use of the
Ainu language was prohibited, and the Ainu's fishing and hunting rights
were taken away.
In 1872, land tenure regulations came into effect, where the Ainu
were regarded as not capable of managing their land. In 1899, the Hokkaido
Aborigine Protection Act was established with the purpose of assimilating
the Ainu population into Japan, through the education of children and theprohibition of the Ainu language. In 1997, the Ainu Cultural Promotion Act
was legislated, and a government-sponsored foundation was established.
However, there is no article stipulating the rights of the Ainu. In essence,
the act is to promote the 'culture' of the Ainu but not their 'rights'. A
partnership between the Ainu people and the Japanese has yet to be built.
At the present time, the Japanese people do not know very much about
Ainu culture and their situation.
Ms. Sunazawa Kayo, from Tomakomai City's social welfare
department, illustrated her experiences working as a livelihood advisor
with the Ainu population in the area, and described some cases that she had
dealt with in the previous years. In 1997, the Cultural Promotion Act of the
Ainu was legislated. Since then the media coverage of the Ainu has
increased, but at the same time the number of social-welfare cases they haveto deal with has also increased.
The Organization for the Promotion of Culture and Research of the
Ainu receives subsidies of 3 million yen, which has changed the mentality of
the Ainu people. They are trying their best to recover their lost language
and culture.
These sessions provided rich information about contemporary
Japanese society. In some sessions, a theoretical background to worldwide
globalization was given.

Field Trips

1) Field trip to Rokkasho Village in Aomori Prefecture
The field trip to Rokkasho Village had two objectives: to provide an
opportunity for socialization among the fellows at the beginning of the'collaborative interaction period'; and to help them become familiar with
Rokkasho Village, whose economy is highly dependent on nuclear waste
and recycling facilities. It was hoped that by visiting the place, the fellows
would gain a better understanding of the local people's development andenvironmental concerns.
During the visit, the participants had a lively discussion and raised anumber of concerns. But there is not a single definite answer to the
problems. There are two sides to every question.
The fellows visited a tulip-bulb farm run by Ms. Kikukawa Keiko.
She and her colleagues engaged in a movements calling for the use of nonnuclear facilities and energy. The community was divided between
supporters and opponents of nuclear facilities. Ms. Kikukawa admitted thatthey felt powerless and discouraged. However, they have developed anationwide network of women protesting against nuclear facilities. With
these women, they have protested against the shipment of enricheduranium and spent fuel to be recycled and processed in Rokkasho Village.
They have started a new movement aimed at building a town that would
not depend on nuclear energy, would maintain the rich naturalenvironment of the community, utilize the originality and creativity of thepeople, and create local industries that do not rely on material wealth or the
power of money.
The fellows then visited the Public Relations Center of Japan
Nuclear Fuel Limited (JNFL) in Rokkasho Village, whose goal was to store
petroleum. However, after the oil shock in the 1970s, the plan was changed
and it was made into a nuclear fuel plant. JNFL aims to help complete thenuclear fuel cycle to secure a long-term stable energy supply.
The fellows also visited Mr. Hashimoto Hisashi, the mayor of
Rokkasho Village. The mayor explained the history and economy of thearea and mentioned that enterprises such as the Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited
were encouraged to invest in the village. Although there are no direct
subsidies from the national government, the village benefits from theconstruction of new facilities. The employment rate has risen, and so has
the enrollment rate for higher education. The average per capita income in
the village is higher than that of the average in the prefecture and the life of
the villagers has improved in many ways, thanks to the nuclear-powerprocessing facilities. The fellows and the mayor discussed issues related to
the nuclear-processing facilities, their impact on the environment, andproblems of local economic development.

2) Field trip to Okinawa

The first session in Naha was held with two distinguished professors fromthe University of the Ryukyus: Professor Gabe Masaaki and Professor
Yamazato Katsunori.
Professor Gabe Masaaki presented a paper entitled "The Base Issue
in Okinawa--An Okinawan Perspective." He made three main points. First,
the people of Okinawa continue to hold strong memories about thehistorical relationship between Okinawa and the Japanese main islands. The
different historical experiences of the Okinawan and the Japanese mainislands produced a structure of prejudice against Okinawans. Even with thepresent generation, there are a considerable number of Okinawans who
continue to feel that they have endured discrimination from mainland
Japanese.
Secondly, the American military bases in Okinawa exist as aconsequence of the U.S.-Japanese security structure. When the San
Francisco Peace Treaty was put into effect in 1952, the occupation of themain islands of Japan was concluded; however, Okinawa was severed fromJapan and remained under American administration until 1972.
The third point concerns the fragile structure of the Okinawa
economy. Before reversion to Japan, the economic structure wascharacterized by issues related to the American military bases; since
reversion, investment in the economy is dependent upon financial transfersfrom the Japanese government. The poor industrial production, a tertiaryindustry that emphasizes the sale of imported goods, and a constructionindustry dependent on public works indicate an extremely irregularstructure.
The actions taken by the Okinawan people in the last year or so havestripped away the possibility of considering this to be simply a problem of'Okinawan bases'. Rather, it must be presented as a problem that should be
solved by all Japanese.
Professor Yamazato Katsunori gave a presentation on "The Cocktail
Party and Okinawan Identity." He explained the uniqueness of Okinawan
identity vis-a-vis that of mainland Japan. Unlike the people in otherprefectures, Okinawans feel a definite sense of difference from Japan (or the
mainland), which has been shaped historically and still obstinately remains
at the bottom of Okinawan consciousness.
Under the American administration, which lasted 27 years
beginning in 1945, Okinawan writers wrote about their identity andmeditated on what it meant to be an Okinawan. Culturally and politicallyseparated from the mainland and deprived of human rights during thisperiod, the Okinawans seized the opportunity to shape and sharpen theirsense of identity.
To understand Okinawa's relationship with Japan, it is interesting tosee how Okinawans have treated their language and standard Japanese.
Okinawan writers became obsessed with their own language—the
Okinawan dialect or Ryukyuan. Early modern Okinawan fiction shows that
Okinawan writers tried to use Okinawan or Ryukyuan and provide
translations in standard Japanese in parentheses immediately after thepassage. Thus, it may be possible to say that Okinawan fiction was born outof the conflict between the two languages. This pattern, that is, writing
certain passages in Okinawan dialect or Ryukyuan and providing
translations for them in standard Japanese, has continued until the present
time, and it is certain that Okinawan writers will continue to do so in the
21st century.
The fellows had a lively discussion with the professors on theuniqueness of Okinawan culture in relation to other Asian societies. Thereis a new sense of identity among the Okinawan people, who have become
more aware of their long relations with other parts of Asia.
A one-day forum, under the title "NGO Forum in Ishigaki," andorganized by the Executive Committee of the NGO Forum in Ishigaki, washeld on Ishigaki Island. Forum participants included a study group on"Marginalization and NGOs" of the Foundation for Advanced Studies on
International Development (FASID), ALFP fellows and local civil movement
activists.
Dr. Suzuki Naoki of FASID, chair of the study group, explained thebackground of the forum. The study group on "Marginalization and NGOs"
had been looking at issues surrounding international development in Asia,
Africa and other regions, and the members had come to realize that thesituation inside Japan should be closely studied as well. One of themembers, Professor Nakamura Hisashi of Ryukoku University, who has
had close relations with Ishigaki Island, suggested that what is going on in
the world and in Japan could be better understood in light of theexperiences of the people of Ishigaki.
According to Professor Nakamura, who has been working on
Ishigaki Island for decades, NGO activities involve a broad range of private
initiatives, from processing used tins in daily life to volunteering for
emergency relief activities, which the government cannot cover on its own.
Ishigaki has a geographical advantage as it lies between the mainland ofJapan and other Asian nations, and it could contribute to the building of apeaceful world. Ishigaki City can work beyond the walls of nation-states.
There were three speakers from the Yaeyama district, which is a
general name for the island district including Ishigaki. Mr. Tomoyose

Hidemasa of the Ryukyu Broadcasting Corporation gave a talk on"Grassroots Activities in Yaeyama." The Yaeyama district has developed aunique set of cultures from Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Maintaining thecultural identity of the islands would lead to new development in a global
world, and it is important to have appropriate forms of development which
suit each island.
Ms. Shiratama Keiko of the Council of Women in Agriculture andFisheries explained the situation of women in rural societies.
Shementioned that it is necessary to build a society in which both men andwomen as individuals could benefit from the society's achievements.
Mr. Miyara Misao, a member of the Ishigaki City Assembly, talked
about problems encountered by the environmental conservation movement
on Ishigaki. The political structure of Ishigaki Island is changing, and it
seems that NGOs are going to play a greater role in the future.
There were three speakers from the FASID study group on"Marginalization and NGOs." Mr. Hata Tatsuya, of the Shanti Volunteer
Association, talked about "The Roles of Japanese NGOs in Asia." Hedescribed his experiences with NGOs, including his 12-year work in
Thailand. He stressed the importance of maintaining dignity in thedevelopment process and of education based on each culture.
Mr. Taniyama Hiroshi of the Japan International Volunteer Centerargued that it is important to link local initiatives on development in Japanand overseas so that both residents and local administrative bodies could be
reinvigorated. It is also important to support the right of the local people to
make their own decisions.
Mr. Isezaki Kenji of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation pointed outthat a role can be played by NGOs, but in some fields, such as PKF, the roleof the state remains critical. He mentioned some possible mechanisms of'preventive diplomacy', to prevent conflict in advance.
The fellows further deepened their thoughts on the issues the people
on the island are facing by taking a one-day tour guided by Mr. Tomoyose
and Ms. Yamazato Setsuko. They visited a new airport construction siteand discussed problems arising from environmental degradation. Tourism
is a big industry, but there is a dilemma: Is it worth destroying the coral
reefs for the sake of tourists who can easily visit the island using the present
airport?

Weekend Retreat in Odawara

The fellows took part in a weekend retreat in Odawara. The two-day
meeting did not produce any substantial results, but the discussions were
useful.
After the presentations by Cho Hong-Sup, Ohashi Masaaki andMarites Danguilan Vitug, a discussion began with examining suchconcepts as 'civil society' and 'public interests'. Cho said that public
interests had been defined and prioritized only by government. However,with increasing voices from NGOs and the rise of civil society, the definitionof 'public interests' is changing. For Rokkasho Village, the 'public interest'
might mean going out of nuclear power dependency. According to Ohashi,
questioning the content of 'public interest' would be necessary. Vitug
contended that, in the Muslim issue in the Philippines, there was no 'one
public interest' as such and that it would be necessary to find common
ground among the competing interests.

The following issues were raised and discussed:

1) Local Initiatives and the Overcoming of Dichotomous Thinking
Mr. Ishizuka Masahiko from the Nihon Keizai Shinbun said that there is a
sharp conflict between local people's interests and governmental interests.
'Not In My Back Yard' is a common attitude of local people. Cho noted asimilar attitude in Korea, but said that a new direction could now beobserved.
Mr. Isezaki Kenji mentioned the difficulty for 'outsiders' tointervene in a locality that they don't belong to. Professor Suehiro Akira of
the University of Tokyo pointed out that only taxpayers could be precisely
defined as 'insiders' of the local community. Ekachai responded by sayingthat there is a danger in defining insiders and outsiders since such adichotomy restricts opportunities for negotiation and trust building
between them. The dilemma will be solved by interactions in the field.
Professor Kajiwara Kageaki of Hokkaido University called attention to theimportance of the notion of 'interconnectedness', or 'inter-relatedness' when
one considers ongoing processes in Asia. He said that dichotomous
frameworks such as 'Christianity versus Islam' are very dangerous. The
path towards 'civil society' is taking place so rapidly in Asia that it could be
described as the 'digital path to civil society'.

2) Globalization and Civil Society in Asia

Professor Sorpong Peou, of Sophia University, said that what is new about
globalization is speed. The state structure in many Asian countries is so
weak that it cannot cope effectively with the process of globalization. In theWest, the process of state building took five centuries; hence, state
institutions are very strong. Professor Peou maintained that 'civil society' isa Western notion which makes a distinction between the internal sovereign
rights of the state and the community of people. In the Asian context, civilsociety has emerged but remains weak because the power structure remains
concentrated in the state. He raised the point that civil society and the stateshould coexist and challenge each other, but at the same time should seek topromote cooperation. They should not become bitter enemies, nor should
they be 'partners' in the sense that civil society actors have to conform to thestate's interests. The post-Washington consensus has enabled external
actors to put greater emphasis on respect for human rights, democratization,transparency, and the accountability of the state.

3) The Power of Information
Ms. Hokugo Miyuki from the Asahi Newspaper said that the most importantfactor to be considered is access to information. If 'outsiders' hadinformation which would help empower local communities, they would be
welcomed. Civil society consists of individuals who can work
independently with enough information. In Japan, only the government
tends to possess information. How NGOs and CBOs can collect information
to empower themselves is a critical question.
Mr. Alan Feinstein, from the Japan Foundation Asia Center, said
that the state had a unique and very strong role in Japan. If the structure ofsociety changed into one with more power entrusted to local governments,
NGOs might be more influential in empowering local communities by
providing them with information.
Professor Nakatani Ayami from Okayama University pointed outthat besides access to information, critical thinking is indispensable todecision making. Ayu said that a free flow of information is not sufficient.
She agreed with Professor Nakatani on the importance of critical thinking
and pointed out the resistance against globalization by movements in small
communities. Mr. Kato said that the gap between information 'haves' and'have-nots' is widening.
Sanitsuda Ekachai focused on the transformation of 'shared belief'in Thailand in the midst globalization. Teo Soh Lung shared herexperiences in Singapore with the others and stimulated the participants’thoughts on democracy and the possibility of individual strategies against
global forces. Ayu Utami elaborated on the idea of modernity and discussed

'conspiracy thinking'. The three presentations highlighted two opposite
directions in the world: a move away from mythical and religious thinking
and to rational, scientific and modern thinking; and an increasing number ofreligious cults and acute ethnic conflicts.

4) What is Globalization?
Professor Takeda Isami of Dokkyo University suggested that the multiple
dimensions of globalization should be looked at. The perceived meaning of
globalization varies from country to country. Singapore is very muchglobalized in economic terms, but less globalized in the political arena. In
Burma, globalization is seen as dangerous.
Globalization is broader than Americanization. Professor Kajiwara
said that globalization involves two dimensions: homogenization andfragmentation. Professor Suehiro argued that in Japan globalization means
Americanization. Speaking English is one salient feature of globalization.
Many political scientists in Japan are educated in the US. Many
governments are sending personnel to the U.S. to be educated at Harvard
University, for instance, and they share the same economic theories. Ayu
said that globalization involves a more complex flow of information. Chopointed out that a globalized capital consists not only of American capital
but also of Japanese, Korean and other capital as well.

5) Effects of Globalization
The process of globalization is almost complete in terms of flows of money
and information accelerated by the use of the Internet. Professor Suehiro
said that the World Bank is changing the accountability system on the basisof the American system, for example, where management is based on ISO.
However, he noted that the use of ISO manuals written in English would
give problems to poor Thai workers who cannot read English. Ohashi also
explained the effects of globalization in India where it has brought changes
to local lifestyles. Some people return to fundamental Hinduism, fearing
the spread of Western influence exemplified by the global presence of
McDonald's restaurants.
Is there an emergence of a 'global civil society' or 'transnational civilsociety'? Does global expansion of markets and consumer activities lead to ashared consciousness among citizens in the world?
Mr. Isezaki commented that 'globalization within a civil society'could be observed and further clarified the different attitudes within NGO
communities toward globalization.

In globalization we find an accumulation of power, conspiracy,
political issues, and flow of images through which we internalize those ofothers. Professor Kajiwara suggested that we look at a particularplace/topos and individual experiences to picture the processes ofglobalization, and then we might understand how to construct'individuality' and 'locality'.
The following section summarizes the remaining sessions at the Odawara
retreat.

- A Tendency towards Bigness? What Benefits Who?
Vitug said that there is a tendency in globalization towards bigness and thatcompetition is becoming fierce as big companies emerge in the region.
Therefore, is all this beneficial to the people? Since globalization is likejoining the Olympic games, what games are we good at? Where can we finda niche? Mr. Ishizuka responded by mentioning the recent large-scale
merger of three big banks in Japan. The new rhetoric is that the banking
sector should be reorganized so that they can compete with American orEuropean banks and that restructuring by reducing the number of banks
makes the sector more efficient. All this remains to be seen.

- Market Forces, Postmodern States
Mr. Feinstein said that governments protect the images of transnational
businesses to attract consumers. What is the role of the state if transnational
corporations can monopolize capital? Professor Peou said that global civilsociety faces a problem because no power can counterbalance the power ofthe market. Privatization and liberalization allow monopolization by
powerful firms or MNCs. Fragmentation within communities will go on.
Small businesses will be pushed out. Postmodern states can no longer
control market forces effectively. Therefore a better system of check-andbalances, whereby the state can 'tame the market economy', is needed.

- In Search of a New Framework
Mr. Isezaki proposed the idea of 'global minimum' thinking, i.e. minimum
basic needs that could be found in common among people at the bottom of
the social stratum. Ohashi said that the resentment against globalization isshared. There are different levels of responses: from governmental agencies,
civil movements, NGOs, and human rights groups. Nationalism and ethnonationalism are also reactive forces against globalization. Ekachai said thatconsciousness about the environment and human rights is rising. Professor
Peou wonders how people can learn to live minimally.

The Public Symposium
Global Challenge, Local Responses: Asian Experiences andConcerns
The ALFP 1999 ended with a one-day public symposium. Mr. Kato of the IHouse, who served as moderator, stated that the aim of this program was'not to bring about solutions to any of the problems the fellows would
discuss, but to share concerns about globalization and to share hopes about
the future'.
Globalization was the keyword for discussion. There is no questionthat globalization takes place and affects people's lives, but there weredifferent notions of globalization, not to mention of the effects globalization
has had on each part of Asia. One of the conspicuous features ofglobalization is speed accelerated by information and communication
technologies. Ayu Utami, focusing on the experiences of Indonesia, argued
that we can no longer think in terms of a solid and constant identity.
Marites Danguilan Vitug shared her thoughts on Muslim separatist in thePhilippines. She highlighted the relationship between globalization and theneed to assert one's identity. Ohashi Masaaki reported on the field trip
experiences during the program, and analyzed local development in Japan.
Teo Soh Lung spoke about Singapore's vision to 'build a world-class home'.
She cited a book, The Singapore21: "We must not be seized by the five Cs(cash, car, condo (condominium), credit card and career), lest we lose sightof more enduring values like character, courage, commitment, compassion,and creativity." Sanitsuda Ekachai argued that globalization has madeconsumerism the world's new religion that has exacted a heavy toll on theenvironment on a global scale. Thailand is no exception: the country suffersfrom worsening rural poverty, serious environmental degradation, and thebreakdown of families and communities. Cho Hong-Sup pointed out thatcivil movements are at a crossroads in Korea. He referred to the recent
Korean people's reactions to a nuclear accident in Korea, which occurred
five days after the Tokai-mura accident in Japan.
The participants raised two questions:a) What are the responses of the local people on the street against
globalization? Are they returning to traditional values?

b) How can the negative effects of globalization be minimized?
Vitug responded by referring to the situation in the rural Philippines,
where fishermen and farmers are losing out in global competition. There
are two responses: 1) trying to connect with other parts of the world andexchange information, 2) going back to traditional methods. The second
response has not been seen much in the Philippines, but there areinteresting cases in Thailand. For instance, there is an experiment ofcommunity currency in Thailand.
Ekachai explained the situation in her country where there is no
single response, since there are many interest groups. The middle class andthe business sector in Thailand don't question globalization. Poor people,
whose lives have been destroyed by inequitable economic development,
have formed grassroots environmental movements. In Thailand, NGOs andvillagers are working as partners. Villagers are increasingly playing aleadership role and are forming political alliances nationwide, known as the
Assembly of the Poor. They are demanding decentralization so that natural
resources can be exploited to benefit local people. They advocate 'direct
participatory democracy'.
Globalization is widening the gap of income between rich and poor
countries. The political structure of globalization should also be questioned.
Uneven distribution of wealth between rural and urban people is a majorroot-cause. Affluence in Japan also depends on the cheaper goods imported
from overseas. This structure is possible because of the unfair terms of trade
and the different values of labor. The question to be asked is: How can welessen the wage gap? How can a more equitable value of labor be achieved?
Cho said that in order to minimize the negative effects ofglobalization, democratic principles like accountability are necessary.
Japanese and Korean NGOs cooperated to prevent the building of apolluting factory. Ayu Utami mentioned Indonesia, where the speed of
information flow doesn't reach rural areas, although it was the speed ofcapital inflows that caused the economic crisis. Teo commented on thequestion of responsibility. There is a structure of exploitation andgovernments must be held partially responsible for it.
For Cho, globalization does not simply mean Westernization.
Globalization began with the interests of capital and markets. At the sametime, civil society has been growing since the 1980s. The question is: Howshould we deal with the market forces within the framework of civilsociety? Ohashi said that world capital wants to have a global market.
Globalization is neither exactly the same as Americanization nor
Westernization, as we can see that other Western countries or the U.S. havetheir own policies to protect their market. However, free competition isalways preferable for the strong side. Consequently, globalization is often
mistakenly taken to mean Americanization or Westernization.

Epilogue
Culture, Development, and the Public Sphere:
Globalization Processes and Localizing Strategies
If nation-states are 'imagined communities',(1) we live in an 'imagined world'.
(2) The process of globalization has been helping to undermine the integrity
and unity of nation-states with increasing flows of capital, information, andimages. We are connected to people living in different corners of the world
through multiple media. Events may be witnessed anywhere no matter
where they take place.
Information can be sent and collected
simultaneously from anywhere in the world. Thus, as Featherstone argues:"[I]t therefore may be possible to point to trans-societal culturalprocesses which take a variety of forms, some of which havepreceded the inter-state relations into which nation-states can be
regarded as being embedded, and processes which sustain theexchange and flows of goods, people, information, knowledge andimage which give rise to communication processes which gain someautonomy on a global level."(3)The spread of globalization does not have the same impact on all
regions. The pace of transformation is not the same in every field:
technologies may change rapidly, but changes in cultural values are muchslower. These differences in the pace of transformation may result intransitional phases of various duration and difficulty, which might generate
further tension and conflict.
Adams argues:"Paradoxically, perhaps, globalization has had curiously isolating
effects on individuals. Globalization has shifted the location of
economic power away from individuals, local communities and(increasingly) from national governments. The relentless pursuit ofefficiency, calculability, predictability and control (nicely capturedby the term "McDonaldization") has drastically reduced the extent towhich people can control the economic conditions of their lives, evenat the scale at which commerce and industry is organized has
expanded." (4)In an increasingly globalized economy, we have witnessed theemergence of an international ideology--sometimes referred to as the
Washington consensus--that seeks to 'free the market from all substantive
forms of regulation by the state'.
The most alarming impact of globalization has been 'theaccentuation of social polarization between rich and poor countries as wellas within countries'. (5) Globalization has widened the gap between the richand the poor. The power of global capital has endangered the growth andconsumption patterns such as to result in drastic ecological degradation.
Thus environmental issues are one of the new priorities that have recently
come to the fore in the global agenda. Globalization has also led to therupturing of the 'bases of social cohesion and consensus in many societies,
further disempowering the disadvantaged and marginalized sectors'. (6)As Wallerstein points out, the global and the local distinction is
becoming very complex and problematic-- to such an extent that we should
now speak in such terms as the 'global institutionalization of the life-world
and the localization of globality'.(7) Now that we live in a global world, a
dichotomous framework of analysis is of no relevance to the reality. Indeed,
it is the dichotomous framework of global and local relationships, and thedistinction between modern and traditional societies, that we need tochallenge.
Today the main cultural trends operating on a world scale havetransnational or multinational origins, or reflect situations that can be
encountered anywhere in the world. Thus the evolution of the great
religions; the rapid growth of sects and cults; the worldwide adoption ofcertain cultural models; the expansion of some languages and thecontraction of others; large-scale movements of population such as
economic migration, refugees, and mass tourism; and the revival ofnationalism and ethnicism—all these have a far-reaching influence on the
problems of 'culture and development'.(8)It was indeed a precious opportunity to have the six fellows in Japan
to discuss and exchange ideas. The most exciting development resulting
from this program is to see how new thinking has spread and to see a
growing awareness about friends and neighbors from different countries.
How should we deal with the influences of globalizing market forces
while we reconstruct a framework of 'civil society'? As one of the fellows
aptly put it, now we are facing this huge question at the dawn of the new
century. Along with the 'crisis' and the processes of globalization that

reconstitute the elements of 'civil society', the door has been opened for new
possibilities for democratization and social movements in the Asia-Pacificregion. What responses can we make and what alternatives can we advanceto realize more human aspects of globalization? New regional alliances,which are not necessarily based on the relations of countries but on those ofprovinces in informal setups,(9) and the cooperation of citizens in novel
forms through new communication technologies have been emerging. At
least some potential for new paradigms has been acknowledged.

Notes(1) Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities. London: Verso.
(2) Appadurai, A. (1990) 'Disjuncture and Differences in the Global Cultural
Economy' in Mike Featherstone, ed., Global Culture. London: SAGE.
(3) Featherstone, M. (1990) 'Global Culture' in Mike Featherstone, ed., Global
Culture. London: SAGE.
(4) Adams, W. (1996) Future Nature. London: Earthcan. p. 56.
(5) Rivera, T. (1999) 'Globalization and the Challenge of the Next
Millennium', Paper read at the 19th International Symposium on
Globalization: Light and Darkness, co-sponsored by the Institute for the Studyof Social Justice, Sophia University, and the Social Science Research Instituteof International Christian University, Tokyo, 11 December 1999.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Wallerstein, I. (1990) 'Culture as the Ideological Battleground of theModern World System' in Mike Featherstone, ed., Global Culture. London:
SAGE.
(8) See UNESCO (1995) The cultural dimension of development. UNESCO
Publishing.
(9) See Vitug, M. and Yabes, C. (1998) Jalan-Jalan A Journey through EAGA.
Anvil Publishing.

Program Reports of the Fellows

This Chapter contains the formal reports submitted by the fellows
evaluating and reflecting on their research and residence in Japan.

Ｏn Language and Literature
Encounters with Asian Fellows1
Ayu Utami

The Question on Locality
1
It was a small circle. They spoke or were able to understand my language,
here, in a room somewhere in Tokyo. Mikihiro Moriyama arranged thismeeting among a group of people who shared an interest in Indonesian
literature. I was supposed to talk about my work but the only novel I had
written had not been published in Japanese. Fortunately, most of the people
in this gathering understood Indonesian and some of them had read thebook, finished or not. A woman came up and asked me to sign the firstpage of the “book” she had in her arms – a photocopied version with covermade of color-printed reproduction. Who cares about copyright? I was
happy and surprised.
Moriyama, the organizer of this meeting, was a good-looking man in
his early forties, associate professor at Nagoya University of Commerce andBusiness Administration, and neatly dressed as Japanese usually is. His
acquaintance with Indonesia dated back years ago. Maybe he was in his
early twenties when he arrived in his Indonesian hometown, Bandung,
capital of West Java province, to study Indonesian language under grants
from both governments. In addition to capturing our national language, healso amazingly picked up the local tongue, Sundanese. Now he is stillworking on his dissertation at Leiden University on Indonesian literature. I
called him Kang Miki, a Sundanese way for addressing a brother or a senior
comrade.
There is always a bound between a scholar and a subject of research,a relation we cannot easily describe. Maybe a sort of homesick for a
discovered geography and the people that grew up there. Moriyama
always tried to organize a meeting every time he knew there was an
Indonesian writer visiting Tokyo, and made use of the opportunity
provided by other organizations. In this case, I was invited by theInternational House of Japan, or I-house, as one of the fellows under the
Asian Leadership Fellow Program (ALFP). Moriyama would take the1 This paper contains three parts. The first two, deal with the questions on locality

and feminism, are essays based on my experiences during my stay in Japan. The
third, on globality, is a report on the ALFP.

shinkansen from Nagoya, two and a half-hour each way, sometimes for a
one-day appointment only, otherwise spent one night or two at theInternational House of Japan.
His enthusiasm for Sundanese writings seems to me like an affection
I would always be astonished of. And for me it was, or it reminded me of,the question on “locality” versus “nationality”– a problem a heterogeneous
country such as Indonesia will always has.
I remember we were sitting in the coffee shop of I-House
surrounded by the unusual green autumn and heavy sunlight, he was incasual suit of somewhat green, talking about the way the discussion would
be arranged. It was November but it felt like it was summer. I was amazedthat he spoke Sundanese and understood its literature quite well. I spent
my childhood in Bogor, a town where people also spoke Sundanese besideIndonesian. Yet, I don’t speak the local language as well as he does, partly
because my parents, who came from Yogyakarta, spoke Javanese to eachother and use Indonesian to their children. Also, partly because I didn’t
really want to use Sundanese since we had our national language shared byeverybody in the archipelago.
Sundanese is the vernacular of West Java. However, Sundaneseculture has always been considered as a minority in Java, an island asprominent as Honshu for Japan. The larger groups who occupy the easternand central parts of the island call themselves orang Jawa, Javanese, eventhough they realize the differences among their subgroups. The Sundaneseare excluded from this major group and never regard themselves as
Javanese though they call the island they belong to as Java. The demarcation,
here, is self-identified by both ethnic groups despite the internal andexternal complexity. But on what base is the distinction?
Ethnic identity is in a big portion defined by language. The
Sundanese and the Javanese share the same physical characteristics. There
are some comical stereotypes shared among the groups, but no outsider
would be able to mention to. To be frank no insider as well. We have thesame darker than olive complexion, black hair, etc. The difference iscultural, and also political. But, probably, academicians also drew the line.
While enjoying our coffee and cake, Moriyama told me about his article on a
Sundanese literati from the 19th century, Moehamad Moesa, published in ascholarly journal Indonesia and the Malay World. Moesa was a local leader
and a writer who was close to the Dutch administration. He established a
Sundanese modern writing but his name was not well known. Moriyama’s
concern (in which I was interested mostly) was that in the colonial time
Dutch academicians had refused Sundanese literature as an establishedsystem like what they considered as the feature of classic Javanese writings.

In this case, scholars had added to the marginalization of one particularethnic group.
Moriyama's sympathetic observation reminded me of the reciprocal
prejudice shared between the Javanese and the Sundanese. My parents areJavanese. They came from the surrounding villages of Yogyakarta, thequintessential town of Javanese culture. When my father got a job in Bogorin the sixties, they moved to West Java where I was born and raised. I spoke
Indonesian with Sundanese accent. However, I remembered that in mychildhood one or two children from the neighborhood shouted at me as I
was walking in front of their houses, “Javanese!” Though not quite
understood what they meant, I knew that they did not like Javanese livingin their area and I was nervous to pass by their place, feeling that I was aminority in the vicinity. I was also embarrassed when my aunts talked inJavanese in a public transport and I believed that other passengers – we sat
tightly closed because the bemo was so small – would laugh at us. For me
Javanese language sounded somewhat illiterate, a language of housemaids
and servants. It was a contradictory story from the marginalization of the
Sundanese as Moriyama had told me.
Yet it was not really a contradiction. The fact that I consumed theimage of Javanese as the language of the uneducated class was the very
evident of Javanese dominance, because I internalized it from TV. We had
one TV channel at that time, the state television TVRI. Many of the national
dramas and comedies were with Javanese traditional background. Even
though there was an obvious effort by the government to introduce folksongs from many provinces, as well as heroes and heroines from eachprovince, I had never remembered seeing any dramas from Sumatra or
Kalimantan or regions outside Java being broadcasted by the central station.
If they were at all, it was a local station that did it. There was one comedy ofwhich stories derived from Sundanese folklore, Kabayan. Others weredramas with script using formal-written Indonesian or with Javanesebackground. Javanese drama always had this cliché representation of aservant: the playful character, illiterate, simple-minded though somewhat
wise. It strongly descended from the character of punakawan, the four ofservants of the pandawas, the heroes in Mahabarata epic. The punakawan is
not found in the Indian Mahabarata. In fact, those additional charactersdistinguish the Javanese version of Mahabarata from the original Indian
version. The punakawan always get a big portion on every show. Even in afull wayang kulit performance, audience would wait for the intermezzo
called goro-goro, in which the punakawan and other servants will show up.
This intermezzo is a popular part in the middle of the solemnity of thewhole wayang. The servant characters always entertain audience with theirfoolishness. These personalities stick in the mind of the audiences better
than other characters, even better than the noble heroes of the story do.
Certainly any stranger will look ridiculous, with or without
prejudice, in the eyes of the majority. I remember when in the fifth grade we
had a new boy who came from Surabaya, East Java. He cried when herealized he could not catch up with the others on Sundanese language class.
All of the students laughed at his accent just because he was different; he
was not “us”. He was “the other”. This attitude worked the other way
around. When I moved to Jakarta, a cosmopolitan center of power, I again
became a stranger, though not for a long time. My Sundanese accent
prevented my school friends from understanding me easily.
Many Javanese maintained their prejudices against Sundanese as
well as against other ethnic groups. I hear that Sundanese are jovial people,
incapable on serious matters. Their art is popular and contain no
sophisticated wisdom. The male’s voice in their language is too light. Betterfor a Javanese girl not to marry a Sundanese man, because their “ash”,
means their ascendant, was subordinate to the Javanese. (This contains adouble bias supposition; what’s wrong with a dominant wife?). Sundasounds feminine to the masculine Javanese. As far as I know, the Javanese
seldom takes Sundanese wood puppet, wayang golek, as high art as theirown shadow puppet, wayang kulit. Wayang golek is too colorful, too playful,
too entertaining. This brings me back to Moriyama’s commentary that manyscholars on Indonesian studies underestimated Sundanese literature. I agree,compared to Javanese and Sumatran Malay, literature from Sunda needs
more study and attention.
The marginalization of Sundanese culture as Moriyama recounted istrue – but superficially. To be sure, the prejudices shared between bothethnic groups have been there for a long time, but the prevailing Javanesesymbols in general discourse has always been another story -- namely
Indonesian politics. Three of the four presidents of this republic areJavanese. BJ Habibie, the only non-Javanese president, led a transitional
administration for just a few months. Deliberately or not, those leaders haveplaced a handful of Javanese within their administration, and also used
Javanese idioms in their political language.

2
One of the audiences to the meeting was a woman in her early twenties,
Miichi Suzuki. She used to be one of Moriyama’s students, but had taken adifferent path from her mentor: she had chosen Yogyakarta for her language
course. I was really impressed by her Indonesian and her understanding ofdifferent dialects from Java Island. I got a chance to chat with her a bit later.

I was also invited by another Indonesianists club to give a talk on theanniversary of the association. The event was held in Tokyo University ofForeign Studies, a week after the previous meeting organized by Moriyama.
It was Miichi Suzuki who met me at the lobby and took me to the place by
subway and JR.
The talk was rather tiring. They organized a translation after every
written paragraph of my speech that I could not be too spontaneous. Toomuch improvisation might interfere with the translator’s concentration, butotherwise I noticed some yawns. There was a standing dinner afterward. I
could not join them because I had a farewell party for my Japanese fellow,
Maasaki Ohashi. Again, Suzuki-san accompanied me to the meeting pointat Shinjuku station where my colleagues had been waiting for me; otherwise
I would have got lost.
On the way we chatted. Suzuki-san drove me back to the subject I
had earlier discussed with Moriyama, which was on the question on locality.
Being a foreigner who had stayed in Yogyakarta, Jakarta, and traveled someother towns I believed she had sensed the air of a heterogeneous Indonesia;
she had experienced different languages people spoke in different regions.
Yet she noticed that all prominent writers wrote in Bahasa Indonesia,
Indonesian language. None of them wrote in their local language. Even
writers with thick local background wrote in Indonesian. Suzuki had read
Umar Kayam, Romo Mangun, and Goenawan Mohamad, to mention somenames with solid Javanese root. “But why don’t they want to use their own
language?” she sound protested. Or maybe she was just raising her neutral
curiosity.
I was somewhat disturbed. I supposed she was thinking about thepolemic between “regional literature” and “central literature” when she
aired that question. It was a recent debate among literary critics inIndonesia and a number of seminars dealt with this question. But again thatis not necessarily what happens in reality outside academic discourses.
Cultural studies theories tend to be suspicious to anything they considered“center” while choosing to stand on the side of anything they considered“peripheral”. They suspect “high art” and celebrate “pop art”. In the case ofIndonesian language and literature, it might goes even more contradictory
to presume that local languages are neglected and literature using local
language is marginalized by the “center”.
Why don’t Indonesian writers use their “mother tongue”? I find thequestion posed by a number of foreign scholars. But what disturbs me mostis its assumption that Indonesian was not our language that had been
deeply rooted in our soil. Probably it is easier from the outside to see that anational language is a threat to local languages. This presumption finds
support in recent political incidents in Aceh and East Timor. Both used tobe Indonesian special provinces controlled by the Suharto regime
using harsh military government. The first was for economic reason because
Aceh supplies an abundant percentage of income from oil and gas to thecentral government. East Timor was more a victim of the great cold war: theAustralian government and US had supported the annexation of the region
into Indonesia when the communists were about to win in this Portuguesecolony. Struggle for independence in Aceh and East Timor were the fiercest
in Indonesia. Recently, one of the issues was whether to abandon theIndonesian language or not – on the theory that Bahasa Indonesia represents
the oppressor.
However, Bahasa Indonesia is the language I’m living with. And I
love her. I myself write in Indonesian and could not think of writing anovel in another language. Since I was born and grew up with it, it is mynatural setting. Only later I realized that it is a nurtured process when it isput vis-à-vis other languages, be it “local” or “foreign” language. It is easy
to define our identity when we encounter otherness.
Since a teenager I spent my life in Jakarta, where the Indonesianlanguage is predominant. But those who grew up outside Jakarta might live
in a quasi-bilingual atmosphere where Indonesian and “local” languages
coexist. Maybe my colleagues from a more homogenous society as Japan
will not realize this easily. It is more complex than just a situation where
one language is a threat to the other by means of coercion. Yet I believe thathegemony through modernization did happen. But what is necessarily
wrong with hegemony?
The prototype of Indonesian language, that is a form of Malay, hadbeen a lingua franca for a hundred years before our founding fathers named
it Bahasa Indonesia. It enabled people with different languages in thearchipelago to communicate in trading. In his paper From Heteroglossia to
Polyglossia H.M.J. Maier, a Dutch Indonesianist friend of both Moriyama
and I, rather called this previous situation heteroglossia: a situation in which
various languages coexisted without one being predominant and without
distinct border. By that he was describing the 19th century archipelago. In
the same article he wrote: ‘Heteroglossia constantly has difficulty inmaintaining itself; it is always running the risk of being curbed by somehegemonic center which is able to forge societal and linguistic forces in sucha manner that centripetal forces gain the upper hand over the centrifugal
ones.’
When colonization -- with its modernizing drive, brought about
education and efficiency within its bureaucracy, it needed to “invent” acommon language for Dutch civil servants, investment administrators, aswell as for native inhabitants; it had to be a standard language that would
enable them to write with about various problems. The Dutch consideredtwo languages: Javanese and Malay. Apparently Javanese was not used asvast as Malay and it was also based on a complicated layer of hierarchy.
The study of “Malay” was finally urged. In consequences, standardizationof the language was inevitable. This form of formalized “Malay” that waslater baptized as Indonesian Language prevailed until now. Here is what
Maier called as polyglossia. “Cultural plurality and linguistic flexibility
were subverted, and differences and distinctions in customs and tradition
were increasingly defined in terms of language.” (I may not agree to all of
this.)
But what is necessarily wrong with hegemony? I was a product of an
education system that has adopted standardized Bahasa Indonesia, Roman
alphabet, and modernized (e.g. westernized) school. The question is: is there
life outside hegemony? I would rather say that it is irrelevant to seek for an
origin long buried under the hegemonic power of modernity because there
is not any. As Ben Andersen has coined that Indonesia is an “imaginedcommunity”: the idea of Indonesia as a nation state is but a trace ofcolonization, bounding the colonized subjects within a myth of destined
unity. But history doesn’t deny the fact that we have decided to unite. We
embarked from a consensus, series of diplomatic lobby and struggle,
political exercises that transformed myth into reality. History solidified
what was previously liquid and Indonesia may be a mere project, as Ben
Anderson puts it, but it works.
Indonesiannationalism
has
two
directions:
towards“internationalism” and towards the “internal nations”. For me it is theuniting spirit of our nationalism that is crucial. It is not the chauvinism
against outsiders. Grown up as a child that experienced inter-ethnic
problems and prejudices, no matter how slightly it may have appeared, I
knew that the Indonesian language is an alternative identity where we
could project ourselves, freed us from our differences, and liberated us fromthe hierarchy system in our “local” thinking.
There must be a way of seeing the position of the Indonesianlanguage among local languages of the archipelago. It is not precisely likewhat Maier thinks of polyglossia, in which a standardized national
language is predominant against flexible local tongues. Locality is not insubordinate to something national. They keep on subverting the formalized
Indonesian language. Yet they also exist in their own way that every
Indonesian will get the sense of each locality without really understanding
the language. Language is not a dead body, and the living Bahasa Indonesia
is a language with languages within.

On Feminism3
Her name was Chizuko Ueno, Professor of Sociology at the University ofTokyo. She was one of a few woman speakers invited to our discussion,
despite the fact that four of the six fellows of this year's program were
women.
I was one of those who urged to have in our class a woman withprominent feminist ideas. Traces of feminism were not obvious in Japanesemass culture. Or maybe it was just that I was a foreigner that spoke no
Japanese (except one or two words repeated in the subway). At any rate, I
won’t be able to understand their discourse. But mass culture elsewhere has
never freed women from the demand to be visually aesthetic. Prof. John R.
Clammer, another speaker to our class, wrote an article in a book Women,
Media and Consumption in Japan, showing how the female body was
represented in contemporary Japanese print media. He described in some ofhis paragraphs that the female body in male media represents an object tobe consumed by the male eyes. At the same time, woman magazine alsouses female body in similar poses to be consumed by woman using thehegemonic male eye. The same criticism works towards the all-womenperformance Takarazuka. We got a chance to see the show and noticed how
the representation of the male characters was another idealization of
masculinity, while the female character was represented with an obvious
Cinderella complex.
Now in this class I got an impression that Prof. Ueno was a personwith a strong character. She was thin but firm and had sent a pack ofseveral papers of hers and her colleague for us to read before we met. I
found the articles very stimulating. Her article A Trap of Reverse Orientalism
drove me back to the problems of locality in my homeland. What are therelation between gender problems and the issue of locality? The answer isthat insecurity of the colonized world makes it more difficult for its womento carry on feminist movement. It is very easy to condemn feminist ideas asforeign and not belong to the traditional local values. Prof. Ueno’s article
was more elaborate, but to make it simple I’ll put it this way. While“western” knowledge is considered as rational and masculine, remarkably
in the period of European imperialism, the “orient” is understood as
irrational and feminine. I always think that James Bond bore the trace of
this belief: the protagonist is the white man Bond and the accessories areoften pretty women of color.
From the perspective of orientalism even the male domination of theEastern society is feminine. But within the femininized civilization of the“east”, there is domination toward its women through another kind of

“orientalism” and “feminization” of women. It is a domination within
domination and women in a double dominating world toward them would
have to fight harder to win feminist discourse.
There is of course no single “west” or “east”. However, there aredominant tastes in the European or American markets about Asia. Thosetendencies occur not only in the commercial pop culture, but also within
intellectual circle. Roland Barthes’ Empty Center, a book based on his two
weeks visit in Japan, a small book that you could find in I-House’s library, isan obvious example. The "east" has to be exotic and mysterious. Otherwise
what is its difference from a modern and rational "west"? The westernmarket – how obscure it might be – imposes a set of identity toward Asia.
But both the “west” and the “east” itself imagine a set of identities on which
Asian women are described. They should be “women” and they should be“Asian”.
Many times I came across a typical question that links to my opinion
about the identity of an Asian woman writer. What do you think about so
and so as an Indonesian or an Asian woman writer? But the mosttroublesome question is the one that is curious of whether, being an Asian
woman writer, I use my work of literature to promote feminist ideas. And I
faced those kinds of question when I talked to a Tokyo audience.
The question contains a trap. It traps me into several formulas:sexual identity, regional identity, and politically-correctness. In fact, I could
not be not Asian or genuinely male, but I do not use my fiction as a
campaign tool for my political views. During the meeting organized by
Moriyama, I told the audience about a feminist commentary on my novel bya feminist colleague living in Australia. The novel contains several plots,
including a love story of an ex catholic priest, Saman. When he was still ayoung priest, Saman was involved with a mentally retarded girl whom he
met in the poor transmigration village. The girl was sexually attracted to
the young man. Saman was not a conservative clergyman and he supported
the girl to play her fantasy with a wooden statue that he had made for her.
Disappointingly, according to the critic, Saman did not sleep with the girl
eventually. On the contrary, he slept with a beautiful woman who helped
him fled from Indonesia when he was targeted by the military. Isn’t
sleeping with a beautiful woman another reproduction of a male discourse?
I couldn’t say no to that question. Not an absolute yes either. If anintercourse between a man and a pretty woman is a male discourse, does itmean that every story of this kind is a product of male hegemony? Or, doesit mean that all female or non-male discourses should have a reverse model?
Those questions have no final answer, because we would find ourselvestrapped in an unending labyrinth of values. It is a kind of simulacrum inwhich each value is a reflection of other values, yet each value is a thing in
itself.
I believe that aesthetic doesn’t always correspond to ethic. Beauty
doesn’t always parallel to justice. As well as desire doesn’t always agreewith politics. As in sadomasochistic works of literature from Marquis deSade to George Bataille, the sensuous beauty is the act of injustice. The mosterotic part of my novel is the new version of Genesis’ Garden of Eden retoldby a woman. It tells explicitly how a man named a woman’s body. This
whole process of naming is an act of authority by a male-subject toward afemale-object that no feminist will politically agree.
Art has the ability to transform injustice in a special way into thebeauty of intensity. I remember a Japanese documentary played in
Yamagata Festival of Documentaries. The film was called Princes Plum Pudding, directed by a woman director, Terasima Mari. It is about an obese
woman, her loving mother, her collection of Mickey Mouse dolls and his
girlfriend Minnie, her dream, and her loneliness in a society where the mythabout a beautifully slim body prevails. The story line comes out as
juxtaposition between feature documentary, interview, and staged scenes.
The staged scenes are so powerful and grotesque. She is in white gown,with long black wig, heavy make up nearly like a clown. She dances with
Mickey and a Pekinese dog in her hands. She sat in a dim. A woman in
Victorian dress next to her endlessly feed her sweets and cake. She is happy,
full and contented, yet she is sad. Maybe she once implies that she is lonely.
I laughed, the audience laughed, but soon we became horrified withourselves for laughing at an unfortunate girl. The power of this film is thatit absorbs the audience and puts them in an irony. The spectators become
the very power of repression they themselves would try to condemn.
How, then, a person believing in feminist ideas should respond to
the discrepancy between the desire for justice and the passion for aesthetic
while the repression against women is still obvious? Sometime we need aspace not to be twenty-four hours politically correct; so let art offer its room,
because there are so huge home works to be done. Yet there is no generalanswer. Here we will see what the word ‘locality’ means.
Back to our discussion with Prof. Chizuko Ueno. In a more informal
chat she described the problem of Japanese women in being a carrier
woman and a mother at the same time. In Indonesia we used to call thisideal “women’s double role” and there was a special campaign by thegovernment for this. This propaganda opened a broader space for womenthan just her domestic room. But it didn’t free women from the myth ofmotherhood. There was already a reaction from the feminist side that thisideal was not realistic because only a superwoman or a Madonna could
achieve it. In fact, in Indonesia it’s not an unrealistic idea for an upper andmiddle class woman. The surplus of labor in many developing countries,
such as that in Asia and Latin America, has enabled urban families to haveservants taking care of the household and the children. “This is not like thecondition in Japan,” said Ueno. Labor wage in developed countries is sohigh that middle-class parent could not afford to pay a baby-sitter.
That was just one example that shows how different social structures
make up different kinds of justice or injustice. Justice and injustice is withina given precondition. Locality is one of the preconditions. This is of course apragmatic point of view. But is there any ideal structure outside context?
During the rest of the two months of collaborative work among thefellows, we focused our attention to discourses of the local and theglobalized world. But I believe that locality means pragmatism. It is not a
local world versus a global world, because the global situation offers us
alternatives for our ideal. “Local” is a necessary condition and locality is apragmatic effort to make endless corrections of certain circumstance.

On Globality
4
Of course pragmatism is not ideal as well. Practicality was the reason thatour program’s means of communication was English. One important
requirement to the ALFP candidacy was to be able to communicate inEnglish. The invitation letters, the correspondence, as well as, theconversation when I met the organizers and the other fellows in Tokyo,
were all in English. It seems that English has became one of the minimum
standards of intellectual quality throughout the globe.
I arrived in Tokyo on August 31st. Later in the hotel coffee shop I saw
Teo Soh Lung and Cho Hong-Sup for the first time. They were talking in
English. She is a Singaporean and he is a Korean. The next day I was
introduced to the rest of the fellows, as well as to the organizers and thesponsor representatives, in a formal lunch with white table linen and goodcuisine. We, again, spoke to each other in English. Masaaki Ohashi broke
my impression that Japanese were reserved people. He soon took HongSup and I roaming Shinjuku’s night for the other fellows were too tired.
Ohashi spent years in Bangladesh with Shapla Neer, an organization to help
Bangladesh recover from the ravages of war. Hong-Sup is a journalist in
Hankyoreh, a daily that bore an important role within the struggle fordemocratic South Korea. He himself was a pro-democracy activist when he
was a student and imprisoned. I am now a writer and an editor for ajournal on literature. I used to be a news-journalist and an activist for press
freedom. We shared similar experiences and interests and I instantly got

very close to my new friends and immediately felt at home. Isamu
Maruyama and Naoko Shimamura who organized this program were reallywarm and helpful. Our rapporteur Fumi Kitagawa was also a very sweet
person and her curiosity involved her with our discussions. Masayo
Shiozawa from the Japan Foundation Asia Center helped me a lot with myinterview and research on Japanese contemporary and traditional art.
Day after day I realized that all fellows got along with each otherquite well, maybe too well. We were all of equally hedonistic: we loved todrink, eat, sing, and share jokes, and enjoy public bath. Soh Lung and Jah
might not drink as much as the others, and I might not eat as much as theothers. I might not like Hong-Sup’s smoking as he might not like my jokes.
But we shared such happy moments, and here I have to say that I love mycolleagues. Soh Lung is an activist and a lawyer; Marites and Jah arejournalists. Looking at the professional backgrounds which were different
from the first year fellows, our way of reasoning was in the same level toeach other: mostly using non-theoretical discourse and argument based on
experience in dealing with various problems in each country. The lack oftheoretical reflectiveness in our group was complemented by the precious
presentation by various speakers with remarkable academic background.
In one of our early classes we traded our works. Isamu or Naoko
had previously sent us one of Marites’ books, Jalan-Jalan, a book on what
was defined as East Asian Growth Area. Now she had another bookpublished. Hong-Sup brought his book as well, but it was in Korean. I
wasn’t able even to pronounce the text of Hong-Sup’s work. I learnt that
Jah’s work had been translated some two years ago, but the translation was
into Japanese. I didn’t bring any of my writings for I was definitely surethat no one of the fellows would understand Indonesian. It was only
Marites’ books and Ohashi’s article on Non Government Organization that
we could read because they were both in English. I was slightly sad torealize that we could only understand each other through a “doubletranslation”. I spoke to Jah in English and she would transfer my English
into her English before translating it into her mother tongue Thai. That was
the way I communicate with others. Marites and Soh Lung were morebilingual. They used their own dialect of English in everyday live. Like theIndian Hinglish, Singaporean has Singlish and Filipino has Taglish. I am
more exposed to English literature than literature of my neighboring
languages. There are some works of Mishima and Kawabata translated into
Indonesian, but I could not find translation of other Asian literature into
Indonesian.
I remember our weekend retreat in Odawara, a nice town outside
Tokyo, some one hour by train. One of the participants, a gentleman from
NHK, casually aired what many people thought of globalization. It was theuse of English, he said and about English ability in the job market. Naturally
many won’t be happy with this, especially when a newspaper wrote that
English proficiency in Japan was lower than that in Korea. There was also afurther worry that English may banish languages of powerless societies.
Here we face a dilemma of choosing between practicality by using English
and the impractical idea of preserving the “local” language.
Language is a way of uniting and a way of defining at the same time.
Technology has made the situation more complicated where digitalsurpasses geography. I realize that I am more linked to American culture
than to the geographically closer Asian nations through movies andtelevision programs. However, the speed of digital technology has created a
new dimension of the previous international relation. Kiichi Fujiwara
reminded us that the recent economic crisis was distinct from the Mexican
crisis in the 80s, in terms of its incredible speed in giving its impact on theworld economy. Virtual trading within digital network system has enabled
capital to fly to the other end of the globe within seconds. This is the crucial
problem of current globalization. But to quote Giddens, “globalization does
not only concern the creation of large-scale systems, but also thetransformation of local, and even personal, contexts of social experience.” Itis, he writes, a mixture of processes that often produce contradiction; suchas the revival of local identities.
We know that connection is done through language as well.
Language, as de Saussure points out, is a convention, which is arbitrary andindeed doesn’t consider fairness. The power of Hollywood movies,
McDonald restaurants, CNN are products and producers at the same timeof political and economic power of English language setting.
In the second half of the twentieth century Japan emerged as one of
the world’s big economic power. The Japanese do not give their language apower, but they give something else. Through dubbed Doraemon, andrecently Pokemon, Japanese cute pop figures spread throughout Asia andthe rest of world. Japan came forth as another center of powerful cultureindustry to challenge those that had existed previously.
Economic power also generates philanthropic attitude in some big
institutions. There are many prominent organizations in Japan of which
activity goes abroad the country. The Japan Foundation, The Toyota
Foundation, and later The Nippon Foundation – to mention some names –are those among many of which concern is to promote regional cultural andintellectual cooperation.
The ALFP was sponsored by The JapanFoundation Asia Center. Back to Indonesia, I work for an alternative art
center of which some programs were also supported by The JapanFoundation Asia Center. Those were regional projects that were participatedby artists and intellectuals from Asian countries.

Japan has become a new motor. Its ambition to promote Asian
networking deserves praise. I-House regional programs would not result
just as a formal conference at the closing of the two months-collaborative
ALFP program. The end is a start of a larger network. Writing this article,
I’m already in Jakarta, back to my routine job, still unable to complete mynovel. However, the cultural center I’m working with – Komunitas Utan
Kayu, promoted by 1998 ALFP fellow Goenawan Mohamad, a place where
we strive for an open society through liberation of art, thinking, andinformation – carries on some programs. One of them was a seminar on
leftist ideas and movement in Asia that was granted by The JapanFoundation Asia Center. This is a crucial issue in Indonesia since for 32
years General Suharto’s government banned all leftist thinking, while now
Indonesia needs an exercise for alternative inspiring ideology to competewith the bigotry of religion or narrow nationalism. But I’m glad that we got
contact with the Thai speaker, Kasian Tejapira, through ALFP connection.
This is just an example of a bigger possible collaboration. In our meetingroom these days we are planning a network to promote tolerant religious
discourses in Indonesia as well as in its neighboring countries. Some
contact persons are previous ALFP fellows.
Now I remember the public seminar at the closing of our program, atthe end of October. Ohashi called it a cosmetic side of ALFP, on which I
agree. Unfocused it might be, unnatural was the supposedly simultaneoustranslation, it was not the core of this program. The substance lies in the
future. A step is not a leap. But it is incredibly important.
***NGOs and CBOs in Some Development
Cases in Japan
Ohashi Masaaki
1. Introduction
For the last 20 years, I have been involved in NGO activities, which support
destitute people mainly in South Asia, and recently in Albania for Kosovar
refugees. To me, an NGO is an organization that relates to development
issues abroad, not in Japan.
It is, however, very unfair. “Development” is a universal indicatorthat ranks all the nations in the postwar world. As one of them, Japan was in
the category of “developing” countries, or low-income countries, in the
1950s. We then experienced a rapid economic growth, or development,utilizing external assistance in the 1960s. Through the 1970s, many
development projects were implemented based on the New National
Comprehensive Development Plan (Shin Zenkoku Sogo Kaihatu Keikaku). We
still have many development projects and plans, while extracting a large
surplus from the international trade. It is, therefore, quite relevant to review
our own development process in the past and at present, from theviewpoint of a development NGO.
The Asia Leadership Fellowship Program (ALFP) provided me witha golden opportunity to review some development projects/cases in
Rokkasho village in the Shimokita peninsula and Ishigaki Island in
Okinawa Prefecture. In those places, I found some interesting difference interms of roles of NGOs, external groups which support local movements,
and CBOs (Community-Based Organizations) that are local groups
consisting of the local community members and local people in respective
local movements against each development project/plan.
The view presented here is my own, but the interaction with other
ALFP fellows has largely contributed to it during the Program.

2. Functions and Roles of NGOs and CBOs in Rokkasho
Village
When a large scale “Industrial Area Development Plan” in the MutsuOgawara area in the most northern part of the Honshu Island of Japan,
including the Rokkasho Village, was proposed in the late 1960s jointly by
the prefectural government and some large industrial houses, the villagemayor and most villagers were against the plan. However, many villagers
were bound to sell their land due to their acute poverty and large debts.
They sold land to private real estate agencies, which got the maximum
profit in the process by re-selling the land with much higher prices to a
newly established semi-governmental organization for the Plan.
Many villagers who sold land repaid their loans for their livelihoodand livestock investment. A certain number of them have re-settled in otherparts of the village. A few villagers in the planned area have been faithful totheir original determination and had not sold their land. Gradually,
villagers lost their unity and finally became fragmented.
An area of 5,000 hectares was finally prepared for the Plan, but noprivate factory came to the area, except one official oil storage facility thatoccupied only a few dozen hectares, due to the Oil Shocks and subsequenteconomic recession. When the Plan became totally abortive, the government
proposed the other huge scale construction plan for the same site. This is theconstruction plan of “Nuclear Waste Storage and Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing
and Uranium Enrichment” complex and related institutions. This kind ofcomplex is indispensable for a country where nuclear energy was going to
be one of main energy sources, but everyone wants to avoid having it near
their own homes.
A few local CBOs, such as Fishermen’s Cooperatives in one hamletof the village and some individuals in the village, have been active against
the construction and also against the transportation of nuclear wastes to thevillage. It should be also mentioned that almost no NGOs have actively andcontinuously involved in the local movement.
As a result, some part of the complex and related institutions havebeen constructed and begun to operate. The construction will continue forthe coming years and more and more nuclear wastes will be brought into
the village. High-level radiation wastes, which have a very hightemperature, will be stored under the earth for more than several hundredyears to cool down.
The present local government is fully supporting the nuclear waste
facilities. The mayor was very proud of “development” of the village, interms of higher incomes of villagers than other part of the prefecture;
availability of job opportunities at the complex and institutions for villagers
including young people within the village and drastic improvement of thehigh school enrollment rate.
Why much powerful movements against the construction of thenuclear facility could not be organized? Why involvement of NGOs in thisarea is limited? It is apparent that the people’s movements and the NGOs'
involvement in the village are much weaker than other similar cases inJapan.

According to Kamata, an author of books that carefully record
peoples’ reactions against the two plans in Rokkasho Village for decades,
many villagers were not happy with those plans, but they were/are
economically powerless in front of attractive offers of high land prices andjob opportunities. The village is located at one of the poorest area and also
as geographically isolated.
He also mentions that there was some apathy to the involvement of
external organizations. In the late 1960s, negative impressions of such
involvement were often expressed on mass-media in the late 1960s when
student movements became very violent, and the anti-airport construction
movement in the Sanrizuka, to which student organizations were involved
in, inevitably became violent in front of the government’s offence. Kamata
adds that a miscreant, who was probably sent either by the semigovernment agency or by a real estate company, amplified this apathy
among the villagers of Rokkasho when they were trying to organize
themselves against the Industrial Area Development Plan in the late 1960s.

3. Functions and Roles of NGOs and CBOs in Ishigaki
IslandThe Ishigaki Island is one of the most attractive tourist resorts locating four
hundred-kilometer southwest of the Okinawa Island, 2,100-kilometer
southwest of Tokyo, or 250 kilometer west of Taiwan. Hundreds ofthousand tourists a year visit this small island of 45,000 habitants and othersmaller islands nearby. They come here to enjoy beaches, well-developed
colorful corals, tropical green scenery, and so on.
Transportation of tourists to this island is naturally very important
for the economy of the island. Most of them arrive by air, as sea travel takes
too much time. There is an airport in the island and several flights fly to the
airport everyday. Still there is a plan to construct one new airport with alonger runaway, so bigger jet airplanes can bring more tourists.
The Okinawa Prefecture government decided this construction planin 1979 and named the Shiraho area of the Ishigaki Island as the site. People
living in the area organized a mass meeting in December of that year, andunanimously adopted a resolution against the plan. The resolution argues
that the construction may irretrievably destroy the beautiful naturalenvironment, especially certain rare species of corals that are very sensitive
to environmental changes.
In the early 1980s, there is a series of offence to begin theconstruction on the proposed site. The Minister of Transportation officiallyapproved the construction and riot police were later brought in to the site toprotect surveyors who prepared survey maps. The “Yaeyama Fishermen’sCooperative”, which was the one of the main opposition groups, had agreed
to receive a compensation against the loss created by the construction.
In 1983, some islanders with some outsiders formed a local NGO of“Shiraho-no-umi-wo Mamoru-kai(Association for Protecting Sea of Shiraho).
This Association is to support the local people in Shiraho who almost gaveup their opposing position under the heavy pressure.
This Association initially organized some nation-wide masscampaigns, so that people all over Japan would come to realize the problem.
They contacted some parliament members and national and internationalorganizations for natural environment. Hundreds of small pieces of land on
the proposed site were sold to many individuals in Japan, so that the official
requisition would be troublesome. They even organized an academic survey
conducted by some renowned Economists and other academicians, on theeconomic viability of the proposed airport construction to refute the official
reason for the construction.
In the late 1980s, the international general meeting of IUCN adopted
a resolution concerning possible effects to the environment by theconstruction. WWF also became very active against the construction plan.
The Environment Agency officially requested to the Okinawa Prefecture
government to review the plan.
As a result, the Prefecture government altered their original idea toconstruct the new airport on Shiraho, to suggest five different sites on the
Island for the construction, and proposed the local government to choose
one. It must be noted that the government did not give up the idea of the
airport construction itself, but tactically passed the most difficult part, thesite selection, to the island. This selection issue may bring about a deeper
division among island people who have different view and economic
relations.
In terms of protecting people and the environment of Shiraho, NGO
activities in the Ishigaki Island have effectively promoted the whole
movement. The formation of a local NGO has created immense impacts
locally, nationally and internationally, and made many individuals andinstitutions involved.
Those who are leaders of the movement are still active in various
social activities (for instance, to realize sustainable local development andalternative development), and trying to involve other CBOs, local
governments and local industrialists in their respective activities.

4. Conclusion
As explained above, people in the Rokkasho Village have been isolated andthus powerless facing the dangerous nuclear waste facility construction

project. They had to accept whatever proposed upon them. In contrast,
villagers of the Shiraho area have been persistent for years with theirposition to protect people and the environment against the new airport
construction, and finally succeeded with their demand.
Why are there differences in the people's power between case of the
Rokkasho Village and that of the Shiraho?
One of the most obvious answers is involvement of NGOs and theirroles in the movements. In the Rokkasho Village, almost no NGO could
play any vital role in the mood of anti-external intervention. As a result, themovement was isolated, and could not sustain their rightful demand in aeffective manner.
In the Ishigaki Island, a local NGO has been formed to support the
local people in Shiraho. This NGO have played immense roles to support
villagers and make the movement nationally and internationally. As a result,a wide range of individuals and institutions came to participate in the
movement in different ways. Probably without the formation and supportsof the local NGO, “Shiraho-no-umi-wo Mamoru-kai (Association forProtecting Sea of Shiraho), local people could not be successful.
As an external agency, the NGO is indispensable to promote
people’s movement, as shown in two contrasting cases. It is, however,similarly important that an NGO does not act as a representative of local
people and/or a CBO. Personally, I am very much concern with thispossible tendency, because more and more official development and aid
agencies are emphasizing the need of NGO involvement. An NGO mustretain their own position as an outsider and a supporter of local people,
CBOs and their movement.

***

Observations of Changing Japan
Cho Hong-Sup

1. Introduction
Since I was appointed as an editor of city desk in March of 1999, I have felt
as if my brain was getting empty. Everyday I had to participate in four
meetings, edit nearly a hundred articles, page 25 reporters in turn and orderthem to write specific articles. It has been almost impossible to squeeze out
spare time from my schedule to read, think, and meet friends.
The Asia Leadership Fellow Program (ALFP) rescued me. At first I
could not adjust to the sudden freedom given by the Program. Soon I foundmyself enjoying a new life being full of intellectual challenges, endlessconversation with other fellows, so envied library commuting, and research
visits without a mission to write.
The theme of this year's ALFP, "Development and CultureGlobalizing Processes, Localizing Strategies", was rather broad forjournalists like me, who have been trained to think concretely of short-termchanges. However, it was not long before that I found most of the programs
fitted my research interests. Especially, the trip to Rokkasho-mura, visits toand meetings with NGOs and their staff members, field visits to Tamagawa
and Kisogawa and related institutes were most helpful for my research.
The Program consisted of two parts: collaborative interaction period
from September to October 1999 and personal research period during
November. During the first part, I participated with other fellows in field
trips to Rokkasho-mura and Okinawa, retreat conference in Odawara,
public symposium, and resource person seminars. In November, I
concentrated on Energy issues and 'nature-plentiful river construction'
projects in Japan. I shortened my participation in the ALFP by 5 days inorder to participate in the International Workshop for Sustainable andPeaceful Energy in Asia held in Phuket, Thailand.

2. Trips to Rokkasho-mura and Okinawa
When we visited remote areas we expected something of an exotic
landscape, food, people, and some secret stories. Although the ALFP
fellows were not ordinary tourists, field trips to Rokkasho-mura andOkinawa were exciting experiences for both intellectual exploration as wellas tourist's taste. I was deeply impressed by how the program wasorganized to show fellows one the most serious problems of Japanesesociety, from the beginning. I could feel relieved from the burden of
thinking that a host country of the program might impose a predetermined
solution of social problems. At the same time I could find similar
characteristics of local development issues between Japan and Korea, andpossibility of future solidarity of NGOs in two countries.

Nuclear Discriminations
The fellows visited Rokkasho-mura during September 3-6th. Although oneof the main purposes of the trip was 'ice-breaking', we immediately melted
the ice and by the second day 'evaporated' as one of the fellow Ohashi
mentioned. Evaluation meetings held every day during the stay were
helpful both for understanding local issues and for deepening interactions
between fellows.
I had visited Rokkasho-mura for two times before this trip. But thisvisit gave me much more information and intellectual impacts. It was
partly because the duration of stay was longer than the previous ones.
More importantly, it was because of the organizer's scrupulous
arrangements to meet people ranging from local anti-nuclear activists to PR
Center of nuclear industry and the mayor of Rokkasho-mura.
Nuclear industry brings about discrimination. It discriminates
against nature, people, and local development. Nuclear facilities require
scrutinized safety, especially when there are facilities dealing with suchsensitive materials as plutonium and condensed uranium. All the important
instruments in nuclear facilities have 'fail-safe' design, that is, as they havemultiple safety measures that even if one of them fail to operate the others
would work. The only exemption in nuclear facilities that has no fail-safe
design is human. We should be continuously monitored and educated justbecause we are not like machine.
Nuclear industry deteriorates nature. Nuclear facilities select theircites in remote areas with good water supply, cheap lands, and lesspopulation. In many cases these areas coincide with those of beautiful
scenery, fertile crop fields and fisheries grounds, and rich ecosystems.
Furthermore, nuclear industry could contaminate the environment semipermanently through nuclear wastes and accidents. For instance,
radioactivity of plutonium that is contained in burned nuclear fuel andreprocessed nuclear waste needs 2,4000 years to become half the originalamount.
Nuclear industry distorts local development as a consequence.
Various grants and subsidies from the central government and nuclear
industry may present prosperity to the local economy only for the time
being. But heavy dependence on outside support is insecure as global trendshows a dwindling importance of nuclear industry mainly from the fact that
nuclear industry is no longer safe, environmentally sustainable, andeconomically viable.
These observations on nuclear industry apply also to Rokkashomura. Mr. Hashimoto, mayor of Rokkasho-mura, proudly told the fellows
that the rate of students entering into university grew up to 35% from only
three students, five years ago. He continued to show us statistics that the
average income of his town was 10% more than the prefecture average andalmost near to the national average. However, it seemed that there are dark
shades behind this superficial prosperity. Firstly, the local economy isdecidedly dependent on nuclear industry. Nearly 40% of its income comesfrom national support, as a compensation for allowing sites for nuclear
facilities. This means that the fate of the town will be on the hands ofnuclear industry.
Uncertain future of the town is evident from the fact that the town
has secondary role in nuclear cycle industry, in worst as a burial ground forhighly toxic and persistent radioactive wastes. For example, among 156
local people who work for the nuclear-related companies in Rokkasho-mura,
41 are guards and most of the remaining persons are also in charge ofsimple and unimportant works.
Secondly, the nuclear cycle industry seems to inhibit local
development. The ambitious 'Mutsu Ogasawara Development Plan' has
been staggering leaving more than half of the industrial site of 2880ha asbarrens. One of the major reasons of the belated development seems to be
the location of nuclear industry. No Company would construct plantsneighboring dangerous nuclear facilities. I heard from local people that thepriority job of the best students in town was to become workers of nuclear
cycle companies which guaranteed 'Tokyo-level' salary. Creative ideas andenergy of young people that the local economy badly needs is absorbed by
the nuclear industry.
Thirdly, risk of possible radiation accidents or contamination has
never been admitted nor assessed. In Rokkasho-mura, the most dangerous
nuclear facilities such as reprocessing plant, high-level nuclear waste
storage site, low-level nuclear disposal site, uranium enrichment plant aregathered together. But as Ms. Kikukawa, a tulip grower who has
implemented anti-nuclear campaign for eight years in the town, said,"nuclear industry always reiterates absolute safety of the facilities". Of
course, threats from the nuclear cycle facilities are not confined to
Rokkasho-mura. Not to mention of radioactive accidents, intriguing threat
comes from increasing stockpile of plutonium. When the construction of
reprocessing plant is finalized on schedule in 2005, somewhat 4000

kilograms of plutonium will be produced annually. This is the amount tomake 500 nuclear bombs of Nagasaki type.

Power of Identity
The next trip of the ALFP fellows to Okinawa and Ishigaki Islands waschallenging and especially for me, who had no background knowledge ofthe islands, and the local peoples' strong sense of identity came up to me as
fierce as the typhoon. Although the unprecedented mighty typhoon madeshort of our schedule by half, I could feel and think about the widespread
issues of war and peace, ethnic and cultural identity, meaning of
globalization, problems of American military bases, and discrimination.
For the first time I got to know that Japan is not a homogeneous
society both in terms of ethnicity and culture. I have to confess that fromthe visit to Okinawa I came to realize that Korea had also 'Okinawa' in
Cheju Island. Shameful enough, I have never thought about the island in
this way in my life. Cheju Island, which is the largest island in Korea
located at the southern end of the Korean peninsula, has its peculiar history
comparable with Okinawa. To take for a few, it has a dialect which usuallycannot be understood by other Koreans, exotic culture in many aspects, anda sad history of insurgency and subsequent cruel suppression by
government troops which had caused at least 30,000 civilian victims.
As Professor Yamazato pointed out in an informal seminar, theOkinawan sense of identity that has become a new tendency of selfconfidence could be an invaluable example of localizing strategy against
globalization.

3. Meeting with NGOs
There is a noticeable growth of NGOs in Asian nations in recent years
reflecting a significant advancement of the democratization andpluralization process among nations in the region. Lester M. Salamon put
the new trend in "association revolution" on his article in <Foreign Affairs>.
He maintained that "it may prove to be as significant to the latter twentiethcentury as the rise of the nation-state was to the latter nineteenth." Japan is
not an exemption. According to Yamamoto Tadashi of the Japan Center forInternational Exchange, "the debate on the role of civil society andgovernance has been particularly intense in Japan in the past several years,
as the country has witnessed a breakdown in the system of governance thatserve Japan well during its modernization process". As Korea is witnessing
burgeoning of NGO activities recently, the ALFP has provided valuableopportunities to research about NGO activities in Japan, their relationshipwith government, and comparison of characteristics of NGO activities
shown in both Korea and Japan.

Success Story of "The Earth"
I visited several Japanese NGOs and discussed about their activities. They
are the Association to Preserve the Earth, Japanese Environment Conference,
Asia-Japan Women's Resource Center, National Network of Water Resource
Development Problems (SUIGENREN), and Citizens' Nuclear Information
Center.
Among them, the Association to Preserve the Earth ('the Earth') wasmost impressive from the point of view that its activities are firmly based onwidespread supports from people, and are public activity-oriented rather
than policy-oriented, in that sense it may represents typical characteristics ofJapanese NGOs.
'The Earth' is an organic farming organization with members
consists of 46,000 consumers, 2,500 producers, and five corporate. Its main
activities are to provide organic agricultural and fisheries food to consumers
and to implement civil advocacy movements mainly through educational
activities. It took seven years for 'the Earth' to accomplish break-even pointof business since its establishment in 1975. Korea has also this kind of NGO
that seem to be not so successful in business and civil activities. I believe
other NGOs in Asia could utilize the Earth's know-how of controlling
excessive agricultural products and consumer education programs.
It is also noteworthy that 'the Earth' has implemented Asian
Solidarity Programs, which include exchange of trainees and information
with Korea and Thailand, and to buy Philipino bananas and Thai handicraft
products. Considering that Japan imports more than 60% of food fromabroad, the idea of 'the Earth' to buy Asian food instead of American orEuropean food, which necessarily deteriorate the environment during thelong transport process, gives insights to overcome problematic WTO's
agricultural product trade policy.
Taking into account of the successful works of 'the Earth', I cannot
but ask some fundamental questions on the role of the organization. Is it
possible to change society through 'business plus civil activity' movements?
In other words, do consumers who can afford to buy 20% expensive organic
foods really want a new 'organic society' based on equity and ecology? Does
the movement have any strategies to reform government policy on
environment, agriculture, and food? In order to seek answers to thesequestions, it should be interesting to see Korean NGOs' problems andpossibilities that present a striking contrast to Japanese NGOs.

Learning From Each Other
Korea has experienced a growing role of NGOs during the 1990s as a resultof democratization in late 1980s. Some of the Korean NGOs such as
Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice, Korean Federation ofEnvironmental Movement, and People's Solidarity for Participatory
Democracy are so influential as to successfully affect and in sometimes
deeply involve in government policy making processes.
This could be partly explained by the history of democratization
movements where people's movement had taken a determining role. As aconsequence, ordinary people as well as the mass media give a full support
and trust to NGOs whereas government administration and political parties
receive less credit. Major NGOs, on the other hand, have adopted to
implemented policy-oriented activities heavily dependent on professional
activists and progressive scholars rather than ordinary people's
participation. It should be noted that while Korean NGOs have become toenjoy a growing influence on government, it begins to show someunhealthy symptoms such as bureaucracy, unsound financial structure, lackof memberships and participatory programs, and institutionalization.
I believe that the contrasting characteristics between Korean andJapanes NGOs could be good topics for study by both sides in order tostrengthen each other's weak points. I had valuable opportunities to discuss
this point when I gave lectures to graduate or undergraduate students in
Waseda University, Tokyo International University, and public lectureorganized by Citizens' Nuclear Information Center.

4. Japan Is Changing From Streams
With kind and thoughtful arrangements of the International House of Japanand the Ministry of Construction, I could make field research on emerging
new river control methods of Japan. These methods emphasize on
environment rehabilitation and peoples' accessibility to rivers, not tomention traditional flood control and water resource development. Where I
visited were Aqua Restoration Research Center and Kiso Sansen National
Government Park in Gifu Prefecture, and Tamagawa and Tsurumigawa in
Kanagawa Prefecture.
The Ministry of Construction, which had been regarded as one of thestrongest and conservative organization, began to change its long-heldposition toward considering environment aspect since 1990. It came up with
the General Principles for Environmental Policy in 1994. Furthermore, it
declared fundamental change to river management policy by amending theRiver Act in 1997. The main change of the policy is to take into accountenvironment and local peoples' participation in river/stream management
projects.
Visible consequence of the change is the new shape of streams.
Efforts have been made to change streams suffocated by concrete riverbeds
into more nature plentiful streams with plants growing riverbeds, shallow
and deep parts in succession, natural rocks and escape backwater for fishes
and water insects. Some of the local environmental groups and local
governments initiated trials to make nature-plentiful streams during 1980s.
The Ministry of Construction began to take part in these efforts in 1990. It is
unprecedented that the Ministry accepted civil initiatives even before it hadcome up with construction guidelines. In 1999, the Ministry of Construction
announced that based on pilot projects to construct nature-plentiful streams
it would implement full-fledge nature-plentiful stream project nation-wide.
This year the government is going to construct 5,700 of 'non-concrete'streams among the 7,300 of streams in need of remedy.

World Largest Artificial Streams
The Aqua Restoration Research Center (ARRC) was established in 1998 as
an experimental facility of the Ministry of Construction. The major missionof ARRC is to provide basic research and technology, which is required tomake rivers, and streams more ecologically sound. The most conspicuous
facilities of ARRC are experimental streams. There are three artificial
streams of 800m long each. According to ARRC they are the largest in theworld of this kind. The first one is conventional concrete riverbed style withhomogeneous habitat. The others are designed as natural with diversified
habitat.
Researchers of the ARRC have devised various imaginative
experiments using artificial streams. They are investigating different
influence of natural and non-natural streams on fish population, prosperityof aquatic organisms, riverbank development. They are also trying to know
how controlled flood and inundation affects fish habitat, vegetation ofwaterside and gravel bar, and erosion and sedimentation of stream
basements. They even have plans to insert a transmitter to a carp, to figureout its behavior at the time of a flood using tele-metering method.
It would be too early to expect some significant research results as
the Center began its activities in October 1998. Mr. Tanaka, director of theCenter summarized one year of research as "too many things are unknown
and unexpected. We should wait several years to get some basic
understandings of stream ecology not to mention the practical knowledge toconstruct nature-plentiful streams." Mr. Tanaka's remark suggests that wehave to depend on experience of trial and error to make streams morenatural for the time being.
In fact, the Center seems to be successful in disseminating ideas ofnatural stream making and environment education. The Center is crowdedwith visitors from relevant government agencies, research institutes,
environment groups, and tourists. Since last April more than 3,000 people
visited the Center, which is more than double the number of visits during
same period the year before.

River Democracy
A new experiment is being carried out to test if democracy from below
works in Tamagawa, the river that flows through densely populated
suburbs of Tokyo into Tokyo Bay. The Tamagawa Project is also a model for
the New River policy of the Ministry of Construction providing muchnature and accessibility to the local people.
The Tamagawa Watershed Association is a focal point of the test.
The Association represents civil groups, companies, scholars, local
governments, and government officials in charge of river management.
Through discussions the Association comes up with a river management
plan that will be discussed by formal Tamagawa Watershed Committee
represented by citizen, professionals and administration.
The rivermanaging officials will then devise a final plan after the public hearings.
This kind of time-consuming scheme is rather new in Japaneseadministrative culture. In the background of this partnership between civilgroup and administration there are more than 148 civil groups which havebeen active for nearly 30 years in conservation campaign of the river and as
watchdog against the administration.
Present features of Tamagawa have shown some hope of the future
shapes of urban rivers. Water ways as long as 20km, which have been usedas rice paddy water source, are now developed as water-friendly spaces forwalking, resting, and kids' playground. Traditional skills to control
riverside erosion are being rehabilitated. Wood cows, triangular wooden
structure have been established alongside the river to prevent erosion as
well as to provide spaces for fishes and plants. Every dam has adopted
newly devised fish ladders, in some dams closed circuit cameras are
installed to monitor how the fishes use the ladders.
Control measures to meet with floods are in many cases
contradictory to environmental conservation. Tsurumigawa, an urban riverneighboring Tamagawa, shows a good example overcoming this difficulty.
The Ministry of Construction devised 'Tsurumi River in the Year 2001
Project' which includes to construct multipurpose retarding basin at thedownstream of Tsurumigawa. The retarding basin, which will beestablished near the river with the area of 100ha, will act mainly as
floodwater reservoir. But in normal times the basin will be utilized ashabitat of wildlife, biotopes, parks, and sports centers. It should be notedthat 100 billion yen was spent to buy the private owned land for this project,which represents 70% of the total cost.

New Paradigm 'From Below'
Recent trend in river/stream naturalization seems to have significant
meaning in civil society development in Japan. Environmental aspect has
become one of the major factors to be considered in policy making and newprocess of policy making has a more significant meaning. Initiatives tomake rivers/streams more naturally came from civil groups for the firsttime, which was received by the local governments and later by the central
government. Although this 'bottom-up' process may seem to be less efficientthan previous 'top-down' approach, it promises local peoples' active
participation with their imaginations and traditional skills, and theappropriate way of developments that fit to the local natural conditions.
However, it should be noted that the central government shows lessflexibility in big river developments. Several dam construction projects facewith fierce and tenacious opposition movements by the local people. It is
compared to successful co-operation between administration and civilgroups in urban and small river/stream development projects. Probably
this implies that democratization of administration has not reached to thepoint that allows full-fledged rethinking of regional development.
It is costly work to make rivers/streams more nature friendly.
According to the book Reportage-Streams of Japan by Ishikawa, to make 1 mof nature-plentiful stream costs 54000 yen which is several times higher thanthe cost of ordinary stream remedy. Here, a question could be raised.
Recent trend to reconstruct rivers as nature friendly forms has to do withconstruction companies' interests (or conspiracy)? My temporary answer
after I went to the 'River Environment Exhibition 99' which was held on
November 23-26th, is "no". One hundred and forty companies andorganizations introduced recent technologies and experiences to the
Exhibition. But I couldn't find any sign of a lucrative business in this fieldyet.

5. Miscellaneous Reflections
Discussions with people from Okinawa, Aomori, and Hokkaido (Ainu)
reminded me of the tragedy of Koreans in Japan, the largest foreign ethnicgroup. A free-lance journalist, Mr. Susumu Nomura, was invited to have aseminar with the fellows and from him I could understand more about
Korean society in Japan and another face of Koreans as oppressors in
Vietnam and United States. Participation in the International Symposium on"Reconciliation in Europe: The Road to Regional Co-operation and Security"
also gave me a good opportunity to think about how to solve theantagonistic relationship between Japan and former colonial countries
specially Korea and China.
Japanese mornings break with cawing of crows and from myexperience, big cities have more crows. For the crows, there is more garbage
to eat and fewer enemies like hawks in big cities. However, this could be an
ominous symptom of simplicity of an urban ecosystem.
Japanese people like nature. They like to sing and write poem withthe expressions from nature, and love pets. As some western scholars point
out, however, what Japanese like is not pristine nature but cultivated nature.
This applies from Japanese garden to sashimi. When I found gold carps innatural waterways and naturalized streams I felt uneasiness because for me,gold carps are not natural animals. Is artificial nature a fate of industrializedcountries? Are Japanese people good at recovering nature but somewhat
negligent in preserving pristine nature?

6. Suggestion to the Program
The main theme of the Program "Development and Culture" seems to beappropriate. I would like however, to suggest that the sub-theme be more
concrete and changed every year. For instance, each year the sub-theme
could be specified as environment, or NGOs, or women issue, and thefellows in the same field could be invited. This may help the fellows
concentrate deeper in their own field and strengthen future interactions
among themselves. Although the fellows' interest is the same, theirprofession should be diversified to cover scholars, journalists and NGO
activists etc.
If the organizers accept the idea that the Program should be lessscholar-oriented but more practical, I would suggest changing the venue ofthe Program from I-House to one of the Universities in Tokyo. A university
setting may provide better opportunities for the fellows to come in contact
with academic activities, NGO activities, library, and better computer
facilities with less expensive living expenses. Of course, administrative
aspects to carry out the program should be considered beforehand.

7. Gratitude
The three months that I stayed in Japan was one of the most exciting andenlightening period in my life. I would like to express my sincere gratitude
to the International House of Japan and the Japan Foundation Asia Center
for allowing me an extraordinary opportunity to take part in the ALFP as
the first Korean participant.
The company I have had the privilege of being part of during theProgram has been exceptionally intelligent and thoughtful. I would like tothank the organizing committee for its excellent ability in identifying such anice group. As for the other fellows, Ms. Teo Soh Lung inspired me with adauntless spirit for democracy that has been diminished unconsciously in
my mind. Mr. Masaaki Ohashi enlightened me on the emerging possibilities
and limitations of NGO activities. From Ms. Ayu Utami I could get insights
on Southeast Asian intellectuals' agony. As for Ms. Sanitsuda Ekachai, she
has exemplified for me the restless pursuits of journalists and Ms. Marites
Danguialn Vitug, springs of jokes, has always clarified the essence of the
problems. I would like to thank all of the fellows for their kind advice andintellectual discussions with me.
Without the attentive and warm support which Ms. Naoko
Shimamura and Mr. Isamu Maruyama gave us, the Program might notproceed smoothly and orderly. I must mention Mr. Mikio Kato for his
impressive introduction of Japanese society and thoughtful guidance. I
cannot forget the generous and mindful support from Mr. Yoo Fukazawa,
Ms. Masayo Shiozawa, Mr. Alan Feinstein, and Ms. Ogawa Reiko of theJapan Foundation Asia Center. Especially I would like to thank Mr.
Fukazawa for giving me a chance to experience the Japanese home withsuch hospitality. Not to forget Mr. Takefumi Terada and Fumi Kitagawa
whose unseen efforts have made the program go in the right direction.
There are a lot of people who are not mentioned here. I would like toconvey my warmest thanks to all of them.

***Asia Leadership Fellow Program Report
Marites Danguilan Vitug
1. Teasing out Globalization
As tear gas dissipated in Seattle and as passions melted after the failed
World Trade Organization summit in November 1999, I realized that theoverused G word – globalization – is such a gut issue, transcending
intellectual discussions. Indeed, it has received so much hype in this day
and age. As Newsweek wrote, globalization “has launched a thousand
articles, and scores of books.” Add to that a slew of conferences, workshops,
and seminars.
Yet, this near-mantra seemed to remain in the realm of arcane
discussions among bureaucrats in double-breasted suits. But things changedin Seattle when the WTO meeting to open a new round of trade-liberalizing
talks caused sleepless nights. The G word showed its risky side, that it could
make people lose money and jobs. The high-brow talks turned into
pragmatic, life-threatening issues as furious protesters clashed with riot
police on the streets of the port city made famous by Microsoft, Tom Hanks
and Meg Ryan. Not since the days of the anti-Vietnam war rallies did
America see this kind of rage. It brought home the stunning power of civilsociety.
As these images burst on television and landed on magazine covers,
my mind flashed back to the earlier months of September and October,
when, in tranquil surroundings in Japan, six of us, participants of the Asian
Leadership Fellows Program (ALFP), engaged in discussions to tease out
globalization and its meaning. Surely, such a huge multi-dimensional
concept has uncivil as well as civil effects on peoples. It is broad enough toencompass many joys as well as pains and sorrows, gains as well as
setbacks. In short, it divides the world into winners and losers.
The focus was timely. The ALFP sharpened my awareness of thisphenomenon, a valuable preparation for Seattle and its aftermath. Before
the Program, I entertained notions of globalization at the back of my mind,
giving them fleeting attention. Then, I thought, globalization was an issue
more apt for the G-7s of this world. Not any longer since it has become very
real to me, swept into it by two months of extensive discussions in Japan.
True, the talks and exchanges were broad, at times, but, like ahammer, they pounded on us the urgency and importance of globalization.
The word and its general meaning and implications stuck; the specifics wereleft to us to unravel and to ponder on.

Prof. Kiichi Fujiwara, in his grand sweep of globalization, gave us afirm starting point. Prof. Yoshikazu Sakamoto enhanced this with his
dazzling overview of a globalizing civil society. On another front, Prof.
Kosaku Yoshino provoked us into thinking about this worldwide
phenomenon in relation to “cultural nationalism” specifically in Japan.
The fellows also brought to the discussions their insights, rooted intheir countries experiences and expanded to a broader, regional perspective:♦ Hong-Sup, ever-instructive and well-informed, linked the vigorous
environmental movement in Korea to democratization in Asia.
♦ Jah, in her thoughtful manner, made us take a deeper look at thespiritual yearnings of peoples as a result of globalization, the new gods
proliferating in Thailand and the rest of the region.
♦ Ohashi aptly used a scalpel, rather than a butcher’s knife, in dissecting
the world of NGOs and how they are able to shape people’s lives andinfluence policy, a prelude to the apogee in Seattle.
♦ Ayu dug out of our deep psyches the lurking threat of conspiratorial
mindsets, so prevalent in Indonesia and parts of the region. By letting us
enter this world, she opened a dimension into ways people think about
globalization, usually taken for granted.
♦ Soh Lung made the case of Singapore stands out as a globalized citystate in the financial sense of the word but impervious to the intangibles,
like freedoms, which accompany economic prosperity. She deftly
showed us that globalization can be compartmentalized: leave out thedangerous freedom stuff but welcome the currencies.

In a nice convergence, the resource persons andfellows enriched the ALFP, buoyed by highly
educational study trips, from Aomori to Okinawa.
The entire process was made easy by facilitatorsfrom the I-House and Japan Foundation. In theend, we put human dimensions to globalization,
real and palpable.

2. Identity, Friends, Inc., and JapanThe other value of the ALFP was in exposing and connecting me tovarious Asians. While I’ve been to a number of conferences wherein I met
up with Asians, those meetings were typically short and rushed. In contrast,
the ALFP was intense and long. At first, I didn’t quite see the merit ofmaking us stay together for two months, at least, with an extra monththrown in as a bonus. Looking back, I now understand that the length had apurpose: It made us still. It made us settle into a pattern of living, longenough for rich interaction, and quite enough to tickle one’s interest inJapan.
As a result of this Fellowship, I stretched my identity, from being
Southeast Asian to being Asian. I’ve actually come a long way to thisidentity search. First, I only thought of myself as Filipino, isolated from therest of the region because of our obsession with America. It was thePhilippines-U.S. relationship that was paramount. When the U.S. bases shut
down in the Philippines in 1992 after decades of sitting on prime land andbeing the centerpiece of our ties to the U.S., a whole new world suddenly
opened up to us. We rediscovered our Southeast Asian neighbors. We
looked towards them, away from Mother America, and found our roots.
Finally, I was a Southeast Asian.
With the first and second layers of identity firmly tucked in, I gained
a third one, thanks to the ALFP. It made me conscious of being part of awhole larger Asia. I made an instant connection to the East Asians in thegroup. We’re of the same color, share common episodes in history, and, notleast of all, like the same food, from kimchi to sushi. That we belong to thesame region hit home.
For the Japanese, it appears that they, too, are belatedly recognizing
this. Their gaze was always towards the West. In a way, Japan is like thePhilippines during the bases era. It is tightly locked in the U.S. security
embrace. On another front, Japan played economic catch-up with the US
and Europe. They felt, and probably continue to do so, certain superiority
over the rest of Asia because of their giant strides in attaining prosperity.
Out of the ashes of war, they rose to become the second largest economy in
the world. In the process, they distanced themselves from the region,referring to themselves as “Japan and Asia.”
The four-year old ALFP, to a certain extent, seems to me to bereflective of a gradual shift of gaze, from the West to Asia, from strange andfaraway lands to home. It is also a rediscovery of neighbors and theircultures, unnoticed in the haste to become part of the rich, industrialized
peers. Another interesting dimension of the ALFP is the participation of a
Korean fellow, the first in the short history of the Program. Again, it
reflected the big picture: a thawing of relations between Japan and Korea, so
physically close to each other yet separated by a wide gulf of historicalanimosities.
All these intra- and inter-country dynamics played out in September
and October of 1999. At the same time, I got to know, even if only slightly,
the host country, its people, quirks, and wonders. I was never tire of saying
that, as a first-timer to Japan and was fascinated by this country. It got me
hooked with only a hello. I found its rich culture alluring. The people I met

and was exposed to, I know, are not representatives of the entire Japan. But
they showed me a facet of the country that is worth understanding evenmore.

Most of all, I gained new friends. It’s not oftenthat we like people we meet, especially when
we’re thrust together in new surroundings,
coming from different countries and with varied
personal histories. By some magical twist of fate,
the batch of 1999 gelled. Now, we have a close
personal network across countries, kept alive
through e-mail and visits. Truth is, cross-cultural
understanding, exchange of ideas, and regional
cooperation begins with empathy. We had plentyof that for each other, as persons andprofessionals. No matter how exciting one’s
ideas is, if there’s no connection, no warm feelingfor each other, the ideas don’t sink in. They stay
as words, wafting in the air, for which there areneither takers nor believers.

3. Points to Consider
For future ALFPs, please consider the following:
1) Globalization is a good, handy, timely, and provocative theme. However,
it would be helpful to go into specifics during workshops and seminars.
For example, instead of focusing on the “impact of globalization,” theissues could be:a) Homogenization of culture;b) The impact of hot money (short-term international financial
flows) on domestic economies;c) Roquefort cheese and American beef: dismantling barriers inagriculture;d) WTO: negotiating conflicts;e) Free Trade vs. Safe Trade; andf) Borderless civil society.
2) As I mentioned during the evaluation in October 29, 1999, I found thegeneral topic "Development and Culture: Globalizing Processes, Localizing
Strategies” very broad. It also seems vague. How about changing theprocess? Instead of setting a catchall theme, just keep the focus on
Globalization, and let the participants thresh this out in one of the firstmeetings. Globalization becomes the peg on which they will hang theirideas. They will decide which specific issues under this 'G' word they will
pursue during their stay in Japan, and what kinds of speakers to invite.
Globalization is huge enough and it doesn’t have to be connected to the ageold development-and- culture rubric. Besides, both development andculture have facets linked to globalization. I know that the word
globalization is much used and thrown around but it is in settings like the
ALFP – where there is enough time and talent – that it can be given a morethorough, thoughtful and deeper look.
As for the research papers, the fellows can be asked to submit a synopsis oran outline, also with Globalization and any of its facets as the core issue.
3) Apart from talks given by topnotch academics, journalists, NGO leaders,etc., it would be useful to show good documentaries, those that are
powerful enough to provoke lively discussions.
4) I am a firm believer in field trips. Please add one more to the current
program. There is no substitute for first-hand experiences and on-theground exposure. Fieldwork always enhances one’s perspectives.
5) It was only after the Program that I understood what the public
symposium was all about. In the beginning, this should be made clear to the
Fellows, that it’s a cultural thing, a ritual to end the Program. As such, they
can think up a creative format, with presentations or discussions separate
from the retreat.
6) As we excitedly agreed on the last day of our “collaborative interaction
period,” the Fellows will hold a reunion in the future. This gathering ismeant to bring together all alumni of the ALFP in a setting that will
stimulate sparkling discussions as well as renew and start friendships. I’m
still very keen on the suggestion that the meeting should not only be Tokyobased; it should entail some travel within Japan so that we can once more
apply the now-tested and classic practice of “breaking the ice” theRokkasho-mura way.

December 1999***

ALFP 1999 Report
Teo Soh Lung
My participation in the two-month ALFP has been an exceedingly
important and enriching experience. It not only afforded me an invaluable
break from my work but also gave me the opportunity to learn from fellow
participants from Japan, Thailand, The Philippines, Indonesia and South
Korea. The various field trips, lectures by eminent professors and meetings
with activists and leaders of non-governmental organizations andindividuals added to my learning experience.
The organizers of the program were also mindful of what we should
know of Japan. We could see for ourselves the wealth of Japan but as twomonth ‘tourists’, we would never have known the less happy side of thisvast and successful country if the organisers did not give us thisopportunity. Thus we were introduced not only to the nuclear waste
reprocessing and storage plants at Rokkasho-mura where the Mayor himself
gave us insights on the benefits that his prefecture had reaped from suchplants, but also to the farm of an anti-nuclear activist. We thus heard thepros and the cons of nuclear energy. The nuclear fall-out at Tokai Mura
during our stay added to our discussions.
Similarly, while we were introduced to Okinawa and Ishigaki, thetropical islands of Japan, we met activists who were not too happy with theAmerican base located at Futenma. We had an interesting tour of theislands, learning about the environmental damage the base had created andthe sufferings of the islanders during the Second World War.
The program also allowed us ample time to move around busy
Tokyo on our own and to observe and enjoy the local culture and cuisine.
We were able to attend some public symposiums, the theatre and evenenjoyed the Hakone Hotsprings, thus adding to our cultural experience ofJapan. I was most impressed with the Kabuki Theatre.

1. The Participants
My initial fear that I would not be able to get along with my fellow
participants was soon put to rest. They were a helpful group, humourous,
down to earth and full of the zest for life. There is nothing like a first handexchange of the lessons of history and development and the effect of
globalisation.

Ayu’s topic “The Desire for Conspiracy: The Irrationality in Modern
Thinking” was fascinating and it made me think about the Cold War andthe effect on Asian countries. I soon realized that Singapore was not the
only country that called all opponents of the governments of colonizers“Communists” and credited to them all the country’s violence and chaos.
Hong Sup’s serious concern on environmental issues and his
participation in the democratization process in his own country, South
Korea was impressive. He was a walking encyclopaedia to us.
Jah’s critical analysis of her country’s economic progress and thespringing up of new religions in Thailand certainly made me reflect evenmore about my own country’s breakneck progress.
Marites’ spontaneous singing was a delight. Her humour and herzest for life belies her serious mind and concern for the minority Moros of
Mindanao.
Ohashi’s involvement in NGO studies was an eye-opener. I never
knew that there is so much to say about non-governmental organizations
and that it could be a subject for postgraduate studies.

2. The Lectures
I find all the lectures exceedingly stimulating.
The liberal attitude of I-House enabled us to meeta wide spectrum of academics and I enjoyed alltheir lectures. It is heartening to note that all ofthem speak their minds. For me who comes froma rather tight society, it was a new experience andit made me think why the academics in Singapore
are so different from those in Japan.

3. Workshops
The various workshops where all participants
had to present papers were about the hardest partof the program for me. But the time spent in
preparing the papers was beneficial to me at theend of the day. The free and frank discussions
that followed the presentation of papers,
especially at the Odawara retreat were invaluable.

4. Reflections
This is my first trip to Japan and I find this country fascinating. Naoko andIsamu have planned the program very well. The field trips enabled us toappreciate the vastness and beauty of Japan and gave us an opportunity tomeet with the locals. The lectures were very helpful and interesting and thenumber was not so large as to overwhelm us and disable us from exploring
Tokyo on our own. When I first arrived in Tokyo, I felt that Singapore wasa bit like Japan. But as the weeks went by, I realized that there is really nosimilarity. The sheer size of Japan puts her out of any comparison. And
while Japan’s orderly society reminds me a bit of home, I soon realised that
she is again different.
Walking one Sunday with fellow participants in the heart of Tokyo,
we were surprised to see an army of riot police with intimidating riot
shields. We could not believe that the people in Tokyo would riot and out
of curiosity, we trudged along to see what was happening.
It was not long before we realized that there was an anti-nuclear
protest. The protesters were the most orderly group of people I have seen.
They wore headbands, locked hands and carried banners. They were led
across streets by the police and marched in an orderly manner. While I
smiled at the mildness of the protests, I also realised that such protests
would never take place in Singapore.
The incredible orderliness and discipline that prevails in Japanesesociety is also evident in the youths. Around Shibuya and Harajuku, young
people were amazingly orderly even though they were dressed in fashions
that would scare the conventionals. Everywhere, young people with theweirdest fashion walked, stood and sat around. They were not boisterous.
They simply enjoyed their own spectacle and minded their own business.
They were tolerant of tourists and even allowed themselves to be
photographed. We were told that those young people often carried theirfanciful gears to the train stations. There they changed and kept theirordinary clothes in lockers. At the end of the day, they would return homein their ordinary clothes.
The behaviour of young Japanese made me wonder why the youths
in my country cannot have the same temperaments. One of the reasons
perhaps is due to the space given to Japanese youths. Imagine several
streets in Harajuku and Shibuya devoted solely to the young. In Singapore,harassed shoppers, tourists and young people share Orchard Road. We
cannot afford to give young people the space.
I am also impressed with the courtesy, industry and humility of theJapanese workers. The staff at I-House deserves special mention. I noticed
that they not only perform their set duties but also helped with other work.

Narisawa for instance could fix my computer, answer queries at the front
desk and did not mind assisting guests with their heavy luggage. Isamu,
Naoko, Masayo were exceedingly helpful and most efficient. Every single
request was attended to promptly. Their efficiency and willingness to goout of their way to assist has made my stay most memorable.
Finally, I-House Director, Mr. Mikio Kato’s friendly tutorials werevery educational. His personal account of the war years and Japan’s peace
Constitution gave us the background information that was most useful. He
also set us on the road to taking the public transport around Tokyo.
I have benefited much from the ALFP and I thank the International Houseof Japan and Japan Foundation Asia Center.

***1999 Asia Leadership Fellow Programme
Sanitsuda Ekachai
One of the biggest professional traps for journalists is to be totally swept
away in the endless streams of events and crises so much so that we lose thebig picture and an ability to see the inter-relatedness of the seemingly
scattered news events. I am then thankful for the opportunity to have sometime away from busy deadlines to be able to step back and get a perspectiveof the bigger forces which are shaping the world around us.

1. Research Topics: Religious Crisis in Thailand and New
Religions
Buddhism has always been my personal and professional interest. Since
Thailand is currently facing a serious religious and economic crisis, I intend
to use my time in Japan to see how these two phenomena is related while
trying to learn as much as I can about Japan’s mushrooming new religions.
I hope this might shed some light on what is happening back home.
Thailand’s dominant religion is Theravada Buddhism, which focuseson Buddhism’s early scriptures. Although Thai popular Buddhism has been
mixed with pre-existing animism and Hindu gods’ worship, Buddhist
teachings on moderation and the laws of nature – suffering, impermanence
and non-self – are still very much in daily vocabularies of Thai Buddhists.
Although the Thai way of life is already deep in consumer culture
and very far from Buddhist ideology, the Thais still feel reassured that atleast we have some sound principles to fall back on in time of need. Many
Thais then feel greatly concerned when Dhammakaya, a middle-class
Buddhist movement, changed the essence of orthodox Buddhist teachings
that negates greed to include materialism and the here-and-now concrete
rewards as part of Buddhist teachings.
Dhammakaya does not see itself as a sectarian movement. And
many critics feel concerned about its goal to dominate the centralised
mainstream Buddhist clergy with its new religious interpretations. The
cleric elders, meanwhile, support Dhammakaya despite its controversial
teachings, financial scandals and aggressive fund-raising drives. The result
is increasing tensions between the Dhammakaya Temple, which is backed
by the cleric establishment, and the so-called liberal and socially conscious
Buddhists backed by the mass media.

How should we settle this religious conflict peacefully? I came to
Japan with this worry. Although the situation has not much changed backhome, I am satisfied that by the time the end of my two month’s stay inJapan is approaching, I have gained a new way of looking at things which
has eased my previous concerns.
My first revelation occurred when Teo Soh-Lung and I went to theTokyo National Museum. There was a big exhibition of Buddha statues
from various countries and I was overwhelmed by the differences the way
Buddha is perceived by different cultures. Different peoples create Buddhaof their own. This realisation through seeing – that my Buddhism is not the
only Buddhism – is more powerful than any intellectual explanations.
But old habits die hard. Buddhist Thais are brought up to see
Buddha’s early teachings as the only true teachings, not interpretations bylater monks. While being caught in the two-day typhoon in Okinawa, I
spent my time reading the hotel’s book on Buddhism. It was late at night
but I was so unhappy by what I read that I called up Soh-Lung from her
slumber just to tell her that “This is not Buddhism!” I then felt sorry for
waking her up and started to question myself if my own fixed view -- that
there is only one version of truth without any room for differences -- isactually the cause of conflict itself.
The Okinawa and Ishigaki trips have been illuminating on this point.
There, I had a chance to ponder upon the tragedies and atrocities that
resulted from another kind of religion – militant nationalism. The mostpowerful image that stuck in my mind is the picture of a mass suicide
exhibited at the Malaria museum in Ishigaki.
The Okinawa trip showed me that it is always ordinary people who
suffer the most from systematic brainwashing that is created by people inpower primarily to maintain themselves in power. The Okinawa tragedies
also warned me of the dangers of being enslaved by the ideology based on
prejudices, fervour and fear.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the crux ofour concerns – Marites in the rise of identity conflicts, Hong-Sup in modern
technology’s arrogance, Ayu in conspiracy thinking, Soh-Lung in politicalinertia and Ohashi in inequitable development – are rooted in prejudices in
one form or another, and the way the powerful have successfully
maneuvered our prejudices and turning them into a fervour to serve theirgoals.
If prejudices are the root causes of so much suffering, then ourchallenge is how to free ourselves from them. Prejudices are based on thewe/they thinking. It is based on the group perception of collective
differences and superiority. In order to transcend prejudices, another viewis needed – that we are in many ways the same.

But prejudices are strong emotions. Sheer information or rationality
alone cannot easily dismantle deeply rooted prejudices. Here, lies the powerof all forms of arts as well as personal interactions to help people
understand the way things work without being judgmental, to see thebeauty in others’ cultures and to appreciate different ways of thinking. I
must thank the Okinawa and Ishigaki trips – which showed me the dangers
of fanaticism – to reach this personal conviction. For my own researchinterest in new religions, I have prejudices to undo too.
As I mentioned earlier, I came to Japan heavy-hearted with thereligious crisis in Thailand. I was wearied by the Buddhist establishment forbeing out-of-touch and for succumbing to materialism, thus betraying
Buddha’s principles and public trust. I was also wearied by Dhammakaya
for exploiting the people’s faith and by turning religion into a faithcommodity.
Thanks to the programme’s schedules that allows time for fellow’s
independent research, and thanks to the I-House Library, I was able to dosome independent readings, which have significantly clarified myunderstanding on new religions as a worldwide phenomenon.
Although my views on religious crisis back home remain largely thesame, to understand that the arising of new religion movements is the resultof rapid social changes in modern times has made me less judgmental. I
have also come to understand that the decline of religious establishments is
an inevitable result of modernisation and universal education, whichenables the lay society to study religious teachings directly without having
to go through monks and priests.
Globalisation has made changes in religious movements faster andmore complex. Prof Inoue’s articles on how globalisation will shape the way
new religions operate in a new arena is therefore a very useful tool for me tounderstand the situation better.
Through learning about new religions in various parts of the world, I
have come to see that religious pluralism is an inevitable phenomenon in a
globalised world. No matter we agree with their ideologies and practices or
not – we just have to learn how to cultivate tolerance to new religious
groups if we want to avoid tension and conflicts.
If we see new religions as an inevitable outcome of modernisationand its discontents, these movements are then not the problem, but themonopolistic religious structure or political policies that suppresses
religious diversity and decentralisation in order to maintain old central
control.
In case of Thailand, the monopolistic and authoritarian structure of
the clergy is empowered to eradicate the sectarian movements they don’t
like and to support the ones that big gifts and appearances of respect. The

challenge in Thailand, therefore, is how to reform the Buddhist clergy’s
structure to be more egalitarian and decentralised in order to accommodate
religious diversity.
I used to be quite concerned that Dhammakaya’s new interpretationof Buddhist teachings which legitimises materialism will seriously
contaminate Buddhism’ core teachings. Now, I no longer feel that urgency.
We are living in the information age when people can have direct access to
our Prophets’ teachings. With this new power of knowledge, no one can foolanyone as easily as it used to be. And if a group of people have decided tochoose a new form of materialistic Buddhism which answers theiremotional needs better, then it is their choice. For there will always be othergroups who continue to uphold what they see as the core teachings.
As a media person, I feel it is crucial that the mass media realise thedanger in overlooking an important cause of religious conflicts – themonopolistic structure – and in letting themselves fanning hatred, distrustand fear between different religious groups.

2. Field Trips
Another important part of the programme is to widen my horizons on the
global forces that shape things to come.
Before the visit to Rokkashomura, nuclear power had never been myinterest. The trip has changed me. I have done my own reading on nuclear
issues in Thailand after that. The visit has helped me relate with thisimportant issue, the complexity surrounding it, and the dangers of ignoringit. Here, I must thank Hong-Sup for being ever so willing to answer myevery question on nuclear issues. I think everyone of us, the fellows, share
this feeling that we are very lucky to have him as our in-house expert.
Like the Rokkashomura visit, the Okinawa and Ishigaki trips are
inspiring because they reconnect me to the women’s fighting spirit in thegrass-roots movements. Years from now, I may forget the detailed
information about their struggles, but Mrs. Yamazato’s and Mrs.
Kikukawa’s quiet tenacity against all odds will remain deep in mymemories. Their energy, in fact, is the same energy I feel with womenfarmers in Thailand. And the same women’s energy is happening
everywhere around the world. I see hope in another kind of global forcesthat are shaping the world. Globalisation is not only about the economic
forces that turn everything into a commodity to sell to a world market, it isalso about the inter-connected energy of ordinary people who are affectingchanges in their own localities.
I will remember the Odawara retreat for the resourcefulness of Prof.
Sorpong Peou. I was moved by his willingness to share his personal

experiences in Cambodia to remind us of the danger of all forms of fervour,
no matter how good intentioned it seems to be at first. He also wisely
cautioned us of the danger of any systems with only one single power
centre for it will eventually leads to a lack of tolerance and violence. This is
not a futuristic picture. It is the world we are living now. It still amazes me
how Prof. Sorpong, in just one long informal conversation, could
significantly clarify my thoughts while convincing me all the more that ourchallenge now is based on the two keywords: tolerance and balance.

3. Personal Comments
Despite the wealth of knowledge I have gained here, two months is a longtime to be away from an adorable four-year-old daughter and a loving
husband. Here, I must thank my other fellows – Ayu, Hong-Sup, Marites,
Ohashi and Soh-Lung (in alphabetical order!) for their friendship, fun andmany inspirational thoughts. (Including information about lizards andwhere to eat for best money).
I must also thank Fumi-san, Terada-san and Masayo-san for goingout of their way to make our stay enjoyable.
Last but not least, I am grateful to Isamu-san and Naoko-san for
their hard work and their foresight to make the programme well balanced
between field trips, lectures and independent reading. Please keep it thatway, although in hindsight I think we can have one more short field trip
without hurting our balanced programme.

***

Research Papers

Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation:
In Search of Lasting Solutions
Marites Danguilan Vitug

Introduction
I would like to share with you my thoughts on the almost 30-year old
Muslim separatist movement in the Philippines. I would describe it in
the context of: first, the phenomenon of globalization and the need toassert one’s identity; second, the Islamic resurgence that swept many partsof the world in the 1970s and 1980s, and third, the tortuous and seemingly
endless search for solutions.
I will be painting rather broad-brush strokes and hope that I will fill up part of acanvass. My interest and study of the Muslim rebellion in my country – and its
international influences, largely from the Middle East and minimally fromSoutheast Asia -- is a continuing journey. So please be with me in the next 15
minutes or so as I tell you our story.

1. Globalization & Identity
Sometime ago, I met a young man, in his early twenties, a Filipino Muslim,
from Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippines. (Mindanao isin the southern part of the country where the Muslim community isconcentrated). Fresh from two years of studies in Sudan, he was actively
organizing the Muslim youth in support of the secessionist movement, theMoro Islamic Liberation Front or the MILF. Theirs was a legal association
but their sympathies were clearly with the MILF – a 14,000-strong rebel
group that advocates an independent Islamic state. We engaged inconversation and I found him severe, radical and hard-line.
He didn't want to be called a Filipino. “I’m not Filipino,” he told me,
his eyes intense and his face somber. “I’m Bangsamoro.” Bangsamoro
means a nation of Moros. It means their homeland.
I was struck by what he told me. It sounded so final and, to me, so
offensive! Why didn’t he want to be called a Filipino? What is so wrong
about being a Filipino? Wasn’t he, indeed, by nationality, a Filipino? He wasborn in the Philippines, has Filipino parents, and grew up there.
Then the painful reality dawned on me that we may be living in thesame Republic but our memories are different, our histories are separate.

(I come from Luzon, the main island, and I’m a Catholic.) Before thePhilippines ever came to be, the Muslims in Mindanao already belonged to
the Sulu Sultanate. The Sultanate was established in 1390, the first organized
government based on Islamic tenets in the country. Five hundred years ago,
they were the center of a thriving commerce – maritime trade -- amongpeoples of Borneo, the Moluccas, Celebes, and China. The Europeans –British, French, Portuguese and the Dutch – came to this part of the world
lured by spices, pearls, timber and other products, both basic and exotic.
But the brisk trade was not to continue. The Western powers carved
up the region, dividing it among themselves: the Netherlands had its East
Indies, the British had Malaya, and Spain created Filipinas.
The Muslims were the last to be colonized in the Philippines. They
fought and bitterly resisted the colonizers for more than three centuries, first
the Spaniards and next the Americans, long before the rest of thePhilippines did. For centuries, the Muslims were rivals to Spanish power onland and sea. If the Spaniards did not colonize us, the Philippines could
have been an Islamic country. Today, we are the only Catholic country in
Asia. But, as my Indonesian colleague reminded me, we will soon lose this
distinct title. East Timor, the newest independent nation, is Catholic as well.
One Filipino historian said that Islam and Christianity in effectglobalized themselves, at least in the Philippines, as early as the 14th and 16th
centuries, respectively. They kept their global face while acquiring local
character. In the Philippines, the Spaniards stayed for 333 years anddelineated territorial boundaries. The Dutch, British, and French initiatedand accomplished a similar process in Indonesia, Malaysia and Laos – andleft their own cultural imprints on these countries.
Ethnic cultural diversity is not new in Southeast Asia. It has been ahistorical fact of life. There is a wide gulf separating the cultures of those in
the majority and minority. There has been little convergence of interests andidentity between majority and minority groups. Why? Because theprejudices of majority societies are so deep-seated that it is difficult to arrive
at a consensus on how to reconcile the interests of the majority and minority.
In the case of the Philippines, we have been living with a Muslim
secessionist movement for more than 25 years. First, it was waged by the
Moro National Liberation Front or MNLF which made peace withgovernment in 1996. Today, the MILF, which broke away from the MNLF inthe late 1970s, is pursuing a separatist war. Thousands of lives have been
lost and many have been displaced or dislocated.
The reasons for the Muslim rebellion in the Philippines are mainly
economic. The areas where the Muslims live are among the poorest; literacy
rates are low. Government has neglected them for a long time. They havebeen excluded from mainstream social and political life. At the same time,the Muslims want to keep their identity and at the core of this is theirreligion. The Muslim separatists defend Islam militantly because of what
they perceive to be the encroachment into their world by overzealous
Christians, grabbing their lands, influencing their culture. The leaders of
the MILF say that the secular influence of Western culture is harmful to
Islamic values.
The Muslims in the Philippines are a minority, about 4 million in a
population of 70 million. The moderate Muslims have been trying topersuade the majority that things need changing. They want genuine
autonomy. The armed rebels, for their part, have chosen the violent option
and claim their right to self-determination. The Moro Islamic Liberation
Front has repeatedly called for the creation of an independent Islamic state.
They are moved to action by connections of blood and faith. Religion serves
to identify, rally and fortify peoples whose identity is threatened bynumerical superiority.
Apart from the inequity and injustice, major factors that havepropelled the Muslim rebellion, the problem also raises the complex andhuge question of identity.
Who are we? Who are they? I find thesequestions fundamental and timely. These were posed by The Economist, in
its recent survey of new geopolitics. Indeed, the post Cold war has beenmarked by a revival of ethnic conflicts. Separatist movements, many of them
Islamic, have threatened the fabric of national unity. Never since World War
II have there been so many conflicts. Ethnic strife have been cited as themost frequent cause of conflict, resulting in about four million deaths in one
year alone, 1993-1994.
There were 62 separate states in 1914, 74 in 1946, 203 today. How
many will there be in the next 10 years? From Kosovo to Kashmir, fromAceh to Mindanao, the angry conflicts continue some with the intensity of a
volcano. As we know, Asia is not alone. In Eastern Europe, the former
Yugoslavia has disintegrated.
What is it that makes a group of a few million or even a few
thousands think of themselves as different from all those other groups ofpeople out there? And why does the process of asserting identity seem moreradical than ever?
It has been said that a group of people, believing themselves to bedifferent or distinct, usually on the basis of ethnic characteristics, determinesthat it forms a “self.” That definition of self is greatly aided by increased
levels of cross-border communication, which leads to a heightenedawareness of uniqueness. As such, globalization – which makes the world
smaller through communications, technology, transport – can contribute to
fragmentation. While we see the sameness, the homogenization taking place,
we also see the differences and these become even more highlighted. Today,it is easier for minority Muslims in the Philippines to relate to their umma(Muslim community) because of the speed of information, high technology,
and easy travel.

2. Islam and Islamic Resurgence/Revival
The MILF’s call for an independent Islamic state is also heavily
influenced by Islamic resurgence worldwide – and this began in the 1970s.
In countries where Muslims ruled, the revival took the form ofefforts to bring the whole country in line with the sacred law. Where
Muslims did not rule, several processes took place: long-standing efforts forautonomy revived and took on a more Islamic tone, powerful minorities
rebelled, and weak ones asserted their rights more forcefully. This Islamic
revival also implied greater receptivity to veils, robes, hostility towards theWest, and non-territorial loyalties increased along with mosque attendanceand devotion to the Sharia.
A number of authors have described two striking features thatcharacterized the Islamic revival. First, it touched nearly all Muslims.
Second, the surge took place within a decade; Islam had far greater political
impact in 1980 than in 1970.
What happened so that the whole umma nearly simultaneously
turned to Islam and what was it that encouraged the Muslims to emphasize
Islam as an identity? One author argued that the political revival of areligion usually comes when the religion is subject to new forms ofinsecurity or when the followers are beginning to acquire a new level of selfconfidence. He is convinced that in the case of Islamic revival, both factors
have been at play.
What are the factors that led to the revival?
1) The end of the imperial era spurred the revival of Islam in a variety
of ways: the West’s declining prestige, the end of colonialism, andindustrialization. As industrialization took full speed, the poor weredislocated. Thrust out from their familiar surroundings, they soughtsolace in Islam. Islam, one author argued, was virtually the only
aspect of their identities that could be transferred from the village tothe slum.
2) The Arab military success against Israel in October 1973 gavefurther impetus to the growth of Islamic sentiments.
3) The great oil boom was profoundly and broadly influential. Oil
wealth affected Islam by enhancing its standing in the world andimproved the attitudes of Muslims towards Islam. Saudi Arabia and
Libya acquired the means to promote Islamic causes around the world.
4) The Iranian revolution, waged in the name of Islam, affected
Muslims beyond Iran.
5) The victory of the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s
reinforced Islamic revival.

3. Search for Solutions
What then are the trails countries can blaze to end these painful andviolent conflicts? What are the pathways governments can tread to resolve
long years of war?
At the heart of this extremely difficult problem of ethnic conflict andsecession is the establishment of a generally acceptable, just and democratic
government that would respond to the needs and demands of ethnic
communities, short of destroying the state. What structure would
accommodate the divergent and competing claims of the respective
communities for equity and autonomy?
Historically, three approaches exist for the settlement of disputes ofa religious or ethnic nature: border changes, constitutional adjustment
requiring compromise, and international responsibility in the form of
mandates, protectorates, peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations.
In many cases of domestic or intra-state conflict, the most crucial
ingredient is the political system. In countries with civil wars, politicalsystems have failed to perform essential governance functions, thereby
generating political as well as ethnic insurgencies. They were unable to meetthe needs and aspirations of their people -- and to reconcile the demands ofcompeting groups within the framework of economic growth and politicalstability.
In the Philippines, four Muslim provinces have been granted semiautonomy but the experience, so far, is a near failure. With limited revenues,
since these areas are among the poorest in the country, they depend on
national government subsidy. Essentially, they do not have fiscal autonomy.
A decentralization law was also passed in the early 1990s and this has madelocal governments less dependent on central government. Instead of turningover most of their revenues to Manila, a bigger share goes back to them,
depending on population, among other factors. They can now exercise
powers over certain government agencies.
The World Bank, in a recent report, called this “localization” – thegrowing economic and political power of cities, provinces, and other subnational entities – and forecast that it will be one of the most important new
trends in the 21st century. Localization is a mixed blessing: it could enhanceprospects for human development or it could lead to conflict and increased
human suffering. Successful localization, the Bank wrote, creates a situation
where local entities and other groups in society are free to exercise
individual autonomy but also have incentives to work together.
Localization can be in the form of a general demand for broader
popular participation in politics. Or it can take the form of demands for
greater local autonomy, which may lead to decentralization or official
recognition of a local cultural identity as in Canada and Spain.
In the Philippines, among some sectors today, there is a renewed callfor a serious rethinking of the national structure which, they say, has turned
out to be unjust. They advocate a restructuring into a federal republic to becomposed of several autonomous states.
In Asia, Malaysia and India are countries, which have adopted afederal form of government. Others are Germany, US, Canada, Australia,
Brazil, Mexico, Switzerland and Argentina. There are only about 20
countries with federal systems out of almost 200 countries in the world.
A federal system, it is believed, may be able to address the situationin Mindanao not only as a victim of neglect but also as a unique islandregion that is host to three groups of people --Muslims, indigenous peoples,and Christians -- of diverse backgrounds, customs and culture. It could be apolitical option that may avoid separatism, helps to prevent a stalemate andan enduring war in Mindanao.

***

Religions, Globalisation and Consumerism:
How to Cope with New Gods
Sanitsuda Ekachai
Wisdom from world religions promise to show us a path to social harmonyand spiritual awakening. But does ancient wisdom still work in a modern
world dominated by globalised consumerism where money is the ultimate
God?
Many believe that religions have lost their powers because people
today are less religious and more materialistic. If that’s the case, how can we
explain the proliferation of new faith groups that are fast eating into oldterritories of conventional religions?
Given negative new reports about religious cults in the media, wetend to view new religious groups with suspicions. But if the proliferationof new faith groups indicate the people’s growing needs to have a smaller,
more close-knitted spiritual and identity niches in a cold impersonal society,maybe contempt is not the right way to view them.
But what is the correct way? Should we stick to anything-go
liberalism for the sake of religious freedom although we know that some ofthese groups are exploitative? Are there any criteria to differentiate “safe”
faith groups from the exploitative or dangerous ones?
Globalisation has apparently made this situation more complicated.
It used to be that new religious movements are reformist offshoots of thereligious establishments in a country. Or they are foreign missionaries,
which are relatively few in number and much slower in their propagation
work. Now it is totally a new ball game and each country has a variety ofhome-grown new religious groups and these groups are all looking outside
their borders to win new converts.
Thailand, for example, is now a religious supermarket of new
foreign faith groups, many of them from Japan. This is happening when theThai Buddhist establishment is facing a crisis of public faith andorganisational problems that beg for a major reform. We don’t know yet
what will be the outcome of this situation, whether the crowded religious
communities will lead to inter-religious understanding or discrimination.
But the emergence of new religious movements tends to entail tension andconflict. Fierce competition in the faith business may also easily strengthen
prejudices and discrimination.
I still remember seeing an evangelist Christian preacher telling his
TV audience in the U.S. that Hinduism is the reason why India remains

poor. He obviously wanted to prevent his followers from being attracted tomeditation guru from India who are popular in America.
This also raises a question of the role of the mass media. As a media
person, I often ask myself if my profession has contributed to inter-religious
understanding or only perpetuating and strengthening prejudices. The roleof the media is particularly crucial in a situation when religious prejudicescoincide with ethnic persecution and economic disparity, because the resultof judgmental reports can be explosive. Despite the growth of religious
pluralism in a modern society, I don’t think we can dismiss the power ofconventional religions just yet.
Globalisation has made excessive consumption into a worldwide
lifestyle. It has made consumerism the world’s new religion. This has
exacted a heavy toll on the environment on a global scale. To turn things
around, much has been said about the need for us to have a new
development paradigm, which is kind to both nature and the majority poor.
But how can we do this?
World religions, given their common anti-greed messages, arepotentially useful to help people rethink their consumer culture and change
their behaviours. Unfortunately, we cannot expect much from the religious
establishments, which are too busy accumulating wealth or too busy
competing with new religions to care about saving the environment and theunderprivileged from the onslaught of global consumerism. Here, theinformation age, which is one aspect of globalisation, may help provide us
some of the answers.
Today, religious knowledge is no longer a sole domain of priests ormonks. Through books, modern communications and information
technology, the lay people can have equal access to the wisdom of their
Prophets. This new opportunity, which has automatically undermined thestatus of priests and monks, means the lay society can no longer blame
religious professionals for being out of touch. Now that the lay societies
have equal access to religious teachings, they have equal responsibility tomake religions relevant and meaningful to society again. And they can only
do so by proving that ancient religious wisdom can still solve the problems
of modern society.
Much has been said about new religions or reformist movements as
an effort to fill the spiritual void of people who suffer loneliness in animpersonal, industrialised world because established religions have failed to
do so. And the popularity of faith healing can be viewed as a response to thefailure of modern medicine. But if we stop at this analysis, we might
conclude that world religions – in order to hold grounds – must reform theirorganisations to restore public credibility and to learn from the newreligious groups’ techniques to answer the followers’ emotive needs for asense of belonging more effectively.
The danger of this analysis is that the religious reform that we
demand for will end up offering better medicines for the symptoms ofmodern society only, but it will still miss the root causes of our modern
world’s problems. What exactly is the problem, then? Please allow me tofocus on my country.
Earlier this year, a group of religious leaders and intellectuals from
Buddhist, Christian and Islamic organisations in Thailand met to discuss
about Thailand’s problems and they commonly blamed greed-driven
development as the country’s main problem. For the past 40 years,
Thailand has joined the development race to catch up with the standard ofliving in the West. It ended up destroying natural resources to the point of
no return to fuel its material economic growth. The result is worsening rural
poverty, serious environmental degradation and the breakdown of families
and communities.
During this period, the Thai people’s moral landscape has alsochanged drastically. The people predominantly belong to Theravada
Buddhism, which stresses loyalty to ancient scriptures. Although popular
Thai Buddhism has been mixed with local beliefs of animism and ancestral
worship, it still retained much of Buddhism’s emphasis on moderation andself-contentment.
This changed after World War II under the military regime ofstrongman Sarit Thanarat. He issued a stern order to all Buddhist monks in
Thailand to stop teaching on contentment because he believed it prevents
the country from being developed. To instill a new value, he issued aslogan for a nationwide campaign. It said: Work! Because work is money
and money is the source of happiness. That was how we come to have a
corrupt military dictator as Thailand’s Father of Materialism.
Two years ago, Thailand’s economy crashed on a huge pile ofenvironmental and human destruction. The economic crisis has spurred
louder calls from civic groups for the government to quit the destructive
economic race and pursue a more humane development. But to no avail.
Why is it so difficult for the policy elites to change their mindset?
The religious intellectuals from Buddhism, Christianity and Islam in
Thailand were in consensus that it is because the policy makers were too
deeply under the spell of consumerism –the world’s truly new and allpowerful religion.
But are the policy makers only to blame? And what about ourselves?
Back to the question whether or not old wisdom from religions can deal
with modern problems. For many rural villages in Thailand, this is nolonger the question.

There are several success stories of local monks using Buddhist
values to restore the community well-being. There are also several successstories of the villagers who, after being bankrupt by profit-driven cash crop
farming, become self-reliant again when they quit the money race, turn tonatural and self-sufficient farming, and adopt a simple lifestyle. Most ofthem describe their change not as a result of an economic decision but areligious one, that is to say no to greed spurred by state and media
propaganda once and for all.
How to translate this seed of awakening in the local level to national
policy change? Here, I see a positive sign as a result of a new religious
movement in Thailand which started about sixty years ago. Unlike othernew religious movements, which are normally organised, this is an
unorganised one, initiated by a monk from southern Thailand. His namewas Phra Buddhadasa.
Realising the power of universal education and literacy which makes
the population, he wrote countless books, gave countless lectures and use
other modern communications technology available in his days to discuss
Buddha’s core teachings which aims at transcending greed, anger andprejudices. He also warned of the dangers of selfishness that comes withmainstream development.
Phra Buddhadasa emphasised the need to understand the laws ofnature in order to transcend greed, likes and dislikes as well as all forms ofprejudices. For such understanding enables one to appreciate a simple,
moderate life with spiritual contentment. And to see the futility of foreverchasing instant material gratification. He also stressed the need for eachindividual to understand the core of one’s religion, to study and appreciate
the essence of other’s religions and to build inter-religious understanding.
This approach is useful at a time when religious and ethnic conflicts are on
the rise in the modern world.
It can be said that the majority of intellectuals and NGOs workers
who form the focal points of civil society and pressure groups demandingfor ecological and democratic development in Thailand are influenced by
Phra Buddhadasa’s thoughts. That shows how powerful religious thoughts
are if they are relevant to the society.
The same yardstick used to evaluate conventional religions should
also be used with today’s countless new religions. It is not enough for us todifferentiate safe faith groups from dangerous ones. Since the information
age is supposed to free us from knowledge monopoly of elite groups, it isimportant to see whether or not religious groups still monopolise theirpower by making their leaders and their rituals indispensable for thefollowers’ spiritual liberation. Given the destructive forces of consumerism,

it is also important to ask if these religious groups, new or old, encourage orquestion consumerism.
In the final analysis, the same yardstick should also be used with us.
Our choice is governed by our own values. If we don’t question the cult ofefficiency and productivity which has destroyed much of our nature andhumanity; if we still value modern convenience and comfort and equate theability to consume as happiness, then it is inevitable that money will be ourgod.
In this sense, we are as guilty as our policy makers in maintaining
the system, which destroys nature and the underprivileged. And we cannot
just blame the religious establishments for not being able to do a better job
in a modern world.

***

Asia Leadership Fellow Program 1999
Resource Persons
John Clammer

Professor, Sophia University

Fujiwara Kiichi

Professor, University of Tokyo

Gabe Masaaki

Professor, University of the Ryukyus

Inoue Nobutaka

Professor, Kokugakuin University

Kikukawa Keiko

Anti-nuclear fuel facility activist

Matsui Yayori

Director, Asia-Japan Women’s Resource
CenterNakamura Hisashi

Professor, Ryukoku University

Nomura Susumu

Freelance Journalist

Sakamoto Yoshikazu

Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo

Sunazawa KayoLivelihood Advisor, Ainu Association of
Hokkaido, Tomakomai Branch

Tennichi TakahikoStaff Writer, Yomiuri Shimbun

Uemura Hideaki

Chief Executive, Citizen's DiplomaticCentre for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Ueno Chizuko

Professor, University of Tokyo

Yamazato Katsunori

Professor, University of the Ryukyus

Yoshino Kosaku

Associate Professor, University of Tokyo

Odawara Retreat Participants
Hokugo Miyuki

Staff Writer, Political Dept., Asahi Shimbun

Ikunaga Meguri

Staff Writer, Population Problems ResearchCouncil, Mainichi Shimbun

Isezaki Kenji

Program Officer, The Sasakawa Peace
Foundation

Ishizuka Masahiko

Editorial Writer, Nihon Keizai Shimbun

Kajiwara Kageaki

Professor, Hokkaido University

Nakatani Ayami
Associate
Professor, Okayama University Sorpong
Peou
Assocaite
Professor,
Sophia University
Suehiro Akira

Professor, University of Tokyo

Takeda Isami

Professor, Dokkyo University

Program Staff
Japan Foundation Asia Center
Noro MasahikoManaging Director

Fukazawa Yoo

Director, Intellectual Exchange Division

Shiozawa Masayo

Intellectual Exchange Division

Alan Feinstein

CoordinatorInternational House of Japan
Kato Mikio

Executive Director

Maruyama Isamu

Chief Program Officer

Shimamura Naoko

Program Officer

Rapporteur/Research Assistant
Kitagawa Fumi

Asia Leadership Fellow Program 1999 Program Report

Global Challenge, Local Response:
Asian Experiences and Concerns
Published by The International House of Japan and
The Japan Foundation Asia CenterFebruary 2001
Printed and bound by Seibundo Printing Co., Tokyo, Japan

Copyright © 2001 by
The International House of Japan
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