Asia Leadership Fellow Program
1996 Program Report

INTELLECTUAL CONCERNS AND CRITIQUESIN SOUTHEAST ASIA

International House of Japan
Japan Foundation Asia CenterContents
Foreword

3

Profiles of the Fellows

4

Program Schedule

6

Introduction

9

Reports of the Fellows"A Lingering Glance"
Arnold Molina Azurin

29"Encounter with Japan: Understanding through Japan"
Ignas Kleden

36"Report on the Asia Leadership Fellow Program 1996"
Kwok Kian-Woon

52"Report on the Asia Leadership Fellow Program 1996 "Kasian Tejapira

64"1996 Asia Leadership Fellow Program Report"
Wan Manan

71

Round-table Discussion

81

Research Papers"Consuming Thainess: Global Commodities and National Identity"
Kasian Tejapira

103

Discussion Paper "Intellectuals in Southeast Asia: An Inquiry Into
the Social Construction of Their Roles"
Ignas Kleden

136

Discussion Paper "Intellectual Concerns in Contemporary Asia:
Crisis and Confluence"
Kwok Kian-Woon

140"Intellectual Concerns in Contemporary Southeast Asia:
Crisis and Confluence"
Arnold Azurin, Ignas Kleden, Kwok Kian-Woon, and Wan Manan

144"Intellectuals and 'Track III' Cooperation in Southeast Asia"
Arnold Azurin, Ignas Kleden, Kwok Kian-Woon, and Wan Manan

148

Staff and Others Assisting in the Program150

Foreword
The Asia Leadership Fellow Program, created jointly by the International
House of Japan and the Japan Foundation Asia Center in 1996, is designed to provide
selected intellectual leaders of the Asia–Pacific Region an opportunity to spend two
to six months in Japan for their own individual research and exchange activities andfor a collaborative group work on a common subject pertinent to the region.
The program aims at the promotion of mutual understanding andcooperation, and the creation of a close personal network among such leaders, aswell as with their counterparts in Japan, through various occasions for intellectual
discourse and dialogue during their stay in Japan. It is hoped that such a working
experience will be conducive to developing new norms and value-orientations forthe future of the region.
We are pleased to publish this report featuring the first year of thisinnovative program. We were extremely fortunate to be able to welcome five
outstanding intellectuals from Southeast Asian countries, namely, Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, for the months of October andNovember, 1996. All of them (except for Dr. Kasian from Thailand, who
unfortunately had to leave the program early due to unexpected illness) fully
participated in the two-month program, and some of them extended their stay forfurther individual research. It was an extremely fruitful year, and we believe the firstyear fellows successfully set a standard of excellence for the program.
Here, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to all
the people who made every effort to make this program a success: the Japanesescholars who served as steering/screening committee members, the scholars in Japan
who, as resource persons, kindly shared their views with the fellows in the seminars,
conferences and retreat; the people in various parts of Japan who helped the fellows
get around smoothly and safely; and the many others who worked tirelessly on the
program behind the scenes.
We hope and believe that this report will give you a better understanding of
the program and of its accomplishments.
March 1998
The International House of JapanThe Japan Foundation Asia Center

3Profiles of the 1996 Fellows
Arnold M. Azurin (Philippines)
Research Fellow, University of the Philippines Center for Integrativeand Development Studies
Mr. Azurin graduated from the University of Santo Thomas with a
B.A. in philosophy. He is a pioneer in the area of Philippine studies,and is one of the country's most original thinkers on culture andnationhood. His book Re-inventing The Filipino Sense of Being andBecoming has been received enthusiastically by scholars and students in and outside thecountry, and a recent essay won the Palanca Memorial Award, the most respected literary
award in the Philippines.
<Research Topic> Updated review/analysis of the Bangsamoro struggle with special
focus on its impact on the East Asia Growth Area Economic Blueprint
Ignas Kleden (Indonesia)
Director, The Society for Political and Economy Study
Dr. Kleden is widely known and recognized as one of the most creativeand prolific social thinkers in present-day Indonesia. Brought up as a
Catholic in Flores, Dr. Ignas is fluent in Indonesian, English andGerman and reads Latin as well. He conducted his graduate studies inpolitical philosophy and received his doctorate in sociology from the
University of Beilefeld, Germany, writing his dissertation on "The Involution of the
Involution-thesis: Clifford Geertz's Studies on Indonesia Revisited." He has been an
editor/coordinator for social science books and journals for several years, and has
translated theological books as well as writing on the socio-cultural problems ofIndonesia.
<Research Topic> The concept of culture of the New Order Regime in Indonesia:
Its theoretical assumptions and its political implications
Kwok Kian-Woon (Singapore)
Lecturer, Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore
Dr. Kwok graduated from the National University of Singapore andreceived his M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley. Recent articles include "The Moral Condition of
Democratic Society" and "The Problem of Tradition in Contemporary
Singapore" as well as writings on Chinese Singaporeans. He is
considered to be among the most promising younger academics in his field in Singapore.
He is the current President of the Singaporean Heritage Society.
<Research Topic> Modernity, identity, and social memory4Kasian Tejapira (Thailand)
Lecturer, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University
After graduating from Thammasat University, Dr. Kasian received his
M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Cornell University. His
research attempts to underscore the way cultures have been utilized
and appropriated in the complex process of Thai identity construction
in a globalized world. As one of the foremost Thai scholars, he has
promulgated a sophisticated analysis of Thai cultural politics.
<Research Topic> Consuming Thainess: Global commodities and national identity
Wan A. Manan (Malaysia)
Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, School of
Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia
Dr. Wan Manan is well respected in his own field (nutrition) as well as
related fields such as public health and education, and has publishednumerous works. He received his B.A. from Macalester College,
Minnesota, and an M.Ed. and Ed.D. from Columbia University in
Nutrition and Public Health. As the President of the Malaysian Academic Movement, heleads a pan-Malaysian academic reform movement, and his views and opinions are oftensought after by the media throughout Southeast Asia.
<Research Topic> Quality of life in Japan and Malaysia: A comparative study

5

Asia Leadership Fellow Program 1996:"Development and Culture"
Workshops
Each fellow presented his research topic/interest and a discussion followed.
October 7

Workshop I"Cultural Confluence: The Case of the Philippines" by Mr. Arnold
Azurin"Representing Globalized Thainess: Semi-Colonial, Hi-Tech, and
Wanthong" by Dr. Kasian Tejapira

October 11

Workshop II"Quality of Life" by Dr. Wan Manan"Humanization of Modernity" by Dr. Kwok Kian-Woon

October 14

Workshop III"The Concept of Culture of the New Order in Indonesia" by Dr.
Ignas Kleden

October 18

Workshop IV
Free Discussion on the Common Agenda of Collaborative Research

October 28

Workshop VFree Discussion on the Common Agenda of Collaborative Research

November 7

Workshop VI
Free Discussion on the Shimoda Retreat and the Public Symposium

Resource Person Seminars
Invited resource persons made presentations in their own fields, and discussed
relevant issues with the fellows.
October 17

Special Seminar"Development from the Collapse of a Culture: The Case of Georgia"
by Professor Leonard Joy, UNDP

October 21

Resource Person Seminar I"Cultural Nationalism and Nihonjinron" by Professor Kosaku
Yoshino, University of Tokyo

November 5

Resource Person Seminar II"The History of Japanese Intellectuals" by Professor Takeshi Ishida,
Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo

6

November 12 Resource Person Seminar III"Restructuring the Social Sciences" and "An Analysis of
Globalization" by Professor Kinhide Mushakoji, Meiji Gakuin
University
November 13 Resource Person Seminar IV"A New Value Orientation: An Alternative Evaluation of
Developmentalism" by Professor Surichai Wun'Gaeo,
Chulalongkorn University
Resource Person Seminar V"Postwar Japan: The Culture of a Society 'In-Between' "by Professor Tamotsu Aoki, University of Tokyo
November 21 Resource Person Seminar VI"U.S. Strategic Policy toward Southeast Asia and Japan's Position inAsia" by Professor Takashi Shiraishi, Kyoto University
Retreat
A three-day retreat outside Tokyo was held November 24–26. The fellows, together
with about ten Japanese scholars, engaged in stimulating discussions. The issues
discussed include:
Session I
Session II
Session III

Development and Culture: Some Personal Reflections
Critical Concerns of Southeast Asian Intellectuals: Crisis andConfluence
Future Collaborative Project

Public Symposium
A half-day symposium entitled "Intellectual Concerns and Critiques in Southeast
Asia" was held on November 29, attended by an audience of about 100 people, where
the fellows presented their findings and their future joint projects. Some of thespecific topics discussed were as follows:- development and culture at the expense of human rights?
- the unity of ethnicity and nationhood- victims of development and culture as sources of resistance- the humanization of modernity

7

Other Meetings
The fellows also participated in the following meetings.
October 18

International Symposium"Southeast Asia: Global Area Studies for the 21st Century"<Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University>

October 25

Special Seminar"New Nationalism and Ethnic Identity in Southeast Asia:
Japaneseness in the Asian Perspective"<Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo>

November 1

Japan–Southeast Asia Forum Workshop"Globalization and Culture in Southeast Asia Today"<International House of Japan>

November 8–9 Symposium: The United Nations System in the 21st Century"Peace and Security"<United Nations University>

8

The 1996 Program: An Introduction
Tatsuya Tanami
Background
The Asia–Pacific region is a vast area where different social institutions,
economic systems, cultures, religions, and races coexist. While such rich diversity
contributes to the great potential for the future of this region, we cannot overlook thevarious problems present as well, such as economic disparity, environmental
deterioration, and confrontations and conflicts based on race, religion, and cultural
background. In order to tackle these problems and to cope with the complexities of
rapid modernization and industrialization, Asia will need to have a deeper andbroader pool of intellectual leaders and talented people, and it is essential that they
develop mechanisms of cooperation based upon mutual understanding and trust. It
is imperative also that such mutual understanding and trust be nurtured throughdialogues and collaborative activities with proper recognition and respect toward thedifferent cultural backgrounds and value systems of others.
It is obvious that politics alone is incapable of coming to grips with thedifficulties the human community faces in the region, and that adjustments beyond
the realm of political relations are required for a fundamental restructuring of thepresent system. The emergence of NGOs and civil society organizations in theregion proves that there is a strong need for an alternative power.
In Asia, first-track diplomacy refers to government-to-government relations,exchanges and participation in regional and multilateral dialogue schemes. Leading
examples of first-track diplomacy include APEC, ARF and ASEAN, where state
matters such as security, the economy, business and international politics are
discussed.
Second-track diplomacy refers to the initiatives undertaken by the various
research institutes and think-tanks for strategic and international studies. Many ofthese institutions have close ties with their respective governments, and the issues inwhich they specialize are again centered around such issues as security, regional andinternational political economics and other delicate policy-oriented subjects to
supplement what first-track diplomacy cannot deal with at the official level.
While the first track and second track promote closer regional ties, the range
and scope of the people who participate in the dialogue is rather limited and thin.
So-called "political intellectuals" are the major protagonists on the scene, and we see
the same casting too often in various fora and meetings. Although there exists alarge pool of intellectuals in the region who are active domestically or internationallyoutside the first- or second-track schemes, there are in fact few opportunities forthem to engage in cross-border dialogue and exchange. Enhancement of intellectual
dialogue and exchange among these people—the intellectual leaders who are keen inarticulation, conceptualization, and participation in societal transformation—iscrucial in promoting deeper regional engagement, common understanding and amore robust discourse on issues outside the current first- and second-track dialogue.

9Involving such new "public intellectuals" from a variety of different
disciplines and perspectives is one way of breathing life and diversity into regional
and transnational dialogue. The new network of public intellectuals may be defined
as a "third track" in the region which complements on the one hand, and acts as a
critical counter-force on the other, to the existing first track and second track. The
public intellectuals as defined here are the people who are not only active inanalyzing the current situation, generating ideas and envisioning the future, but also
active in the actual implementation of their ideas. The "third-track" provides achance for nations and the entire region to benefit from the input of the best andbrightest of the region who, for various reasons, are not currently engaged.
The Asia Leadership Fellow Program, created jointly by the International
House of Japan and the Japan Foundation Asia Center in 1996, is designed to provide
selected "public intellectuals" of the Asian region an opportunity to spend two to six
months in Japan for their own individual research and exchange activities and for acollaborative group work on a common subject pertinent to the region. The programaims at the promotion of mutual understanding and cooperation, and the creation of
a close personal "third-track" network among such leaders, as well as with theircounterparts in Japan, through various occasions organized for intellectual discourseand dialogue during their stay in Japan.
The first year of the program started with the following five fellows selectedfrom among some twenty candidates who were recommended by the intellectual
community in the region: Arnold M. Azurin, Research Fellow, University of thePhilippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies; Ignas Kleden, Director,
SPES Foundation, Indonesia; Kwok Kian-Woon, Lecturer, Department of Sociology,
National University of Singapore; Kasian Tejapira, Lecturer, Faculty of Political
Science, Thammasat University, Thailand; and Wan A. Mannan, Associate Professor,
Department of Community Medicine, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains
Malaysia, Malaysia. For the 1996 Fellows, the broad theme of "Development andCulture" was set to be worked on together, and during October and November in1996 the five fellows were all in residence at the International House and participatedin weekly workshops, meetings with Japanese resource persons, and weekend
conferences. At the end of the two-month group work period, a public forum
entitled "Intellectual Concerns and Critiques in Southeast Asia" was organized toreport on the collaborative work and to engage in discussion before a generalaudience.
Summary of the Discourse
I. Initial Presentations
Discussion among the fellows started with a presentation by each fellow on
his current research interest.
Arnold Azurin, as a popularizer of ideas and intellectual production in
university circles, critically explored an exclusive, official manner of studying
Filipino culture and heritage. He argued that in past studies scholars did not pay

10attention to the actual dynamics of an ethnic group's interaction with thesurrounding groups. The exclusive official studies of ethnic heritage in thePhilippines have been influenced too much by the colonial experience, he criticized.
Azurin introduced a term, "inter-ethnic confluence," when analyzing remarkableinter-ethnic experiences, and gave an example: There is a local term "Beddeng" that isused in a coastal area of the northern Philippines (Ilocos) meaning a "division," aboundary to distinguish one's culture from others. The term also means a confluence
area or a cooperating zone, implying a group's brotherhood ties with neighbors. A
similar term, "buddong," is used in a high-land area when creating mutual sociopolitical ties with neighbors. As such, these examples help us realize the existence ofcommonalities in the fragmented cultures of the Philippines and ascertain theirstandpoint in their critique against the official colonial texts.
Although the notion of a national culture generated by eminent scholars,
who are led by a coastal, Christian, and Manila-educated mind-set, is dominant overthe diversified ethnic cultures of the Philippines, Azurin has been trying to establish
a new way of looking at and reorienting Filipino culture and history; an effort tounderscore inter-conjunctures of the complex cultural clusters which vary with each
tribe and with each region. According to Azurin, it is important to find "interregional commonalities" within Filipino culture and to widen the scope of analysis to
examine other Asian cultures which share cultural commonalities.
In order to deconstruct the "fantasy" made by official culture and tounderstand the significance of inter-ethnic confluence, Azurin stressed theeffectiveness of a two-way approach: "inward analysis of our cultural heritage," on
the one hand, and "outward effort of reviving links to make everyone 'alive' in Asia,"
on the other.
Kasian Tejapira spoke on "Globalized Thainess: Semi-colonial, Hi-Tech, and
Wanthong." He presented a paper on this subject later on which can be found in thisvolume.
Having a role as a cultural politician, Kasian is obliged to "deconstruct thecultural-political infrastructure of official nationalism" in order to "help the Thai
public to be liberated," to save the Thai people "who lack their cultural and economic
access and capacity."
Kasian showed three photographs which share a common concern of
depicting the relationship between Thainess and un-Thainess, or globalization,
through the symbolic use of Thai traditional dancing costumes. The Thai Mara
dancing costume in the first picture of "semi-colonial Thailand" represents unThainess. It is regarded as a threat in cultural, economic and security terms. The
picture conveys a resistance against globalization and a strong desire to preserve
Thainess. In the second picture of "Hi-Tech Thainess," an un-Thai element (shiny
metal) is incorporated into Thainess (mara headpiece). The shiny metal symbolizes
opportunity, power and strength. Combining un-Thainess with Thainess, the picture
demonstrates the will of improving technology to meet the requirements of the
global market. The message is "let us welcome 'globalization' from the outside
because we don't want to remain Thai in the same old way." The third picture of11

"Wanthong Thainess" tries to prove the existence of un-Thainess within Thai society.
Casting a doubt on the authenticity of its mara headpiece, the picture problematizes
Thainess. It presents an alternative model or meaning of Thainess that is neither
Thai in a traditional sense nor Western. The picture ultimately demonstrates anunderlying desire to become both globalized and Thai simultaneously, despite thesetwo desires being in conflict with each other.
By these examples, Kasian tries to present an ambivalence: while Thaiinterest is extended beyond the national border (globalized Thainess), the Thais reemphasize the pristine nature of Thai culture and language. "Imaginary official
Thainess" is supposed to provide a force or assurance for the Thai people, although
there are a sizable number of people who may be left out. He argues "whilemonarchy and the Thai language are preserved, the hierarchical structure issimultaneously maintained. In this context, Thainess is maintained at the expense of
the 'livelihood, community and culture of the people.' "Wan Manan stressed in his presentation that there is a strong need toaddress quality of life, because physical economic development more often than not
has neglected human aspects. The quality of life—individual and social living
conditions—is measured by both objective and subjective indicators. Wan Manan
proposes a comparative study on the quality of life between Japan and Malaysia bymeasuring such QOL indicators as work and working time, daily life, family andmarried life, cultural activity, public education, political relationship, racial
relationship, deviant behavior, value orientation, material well-being, social security
and health services, housing, transportation and communications, and theenvironment.
Wan Manan also argued about the contemporary role and responsibilities ofintellectuals, asking such questions as "Who are the intellectuals?" "Where are they?"and "Do we have an intellectual tradition?" In Southeast Asia, he notes, intellectuals
are concentrated in academic institutions (universities), which he termed the"academization of intellectuals." They are disciplined in university circles and tend
to forget their true roles; they became "experts and professionals" because
professionalization has narrowed their roles and involvement with wider audiences,
particularly the public. There has been a serious lack of critical analysis of society
itself, apathy is widespread among academic intellectuals, and comfort and the goodlife has seeped in. We can witness such things as the decline of public discourse, agrowth of think tanks, a brain drain from universities, and a rise in corporate culture.
These factors have contributed to the retreat of intellectuals and suppressing of a"culture of critical discourse." As future challenges, a consolidation or networking ofintellectuals should be formulated and democratic space must be expanded, heurges.
As the President of the Malaysian Academic Movement (MOVE), the futureof universities is another subject which concerns Wan Manan. He paid particularattention in his presentation to the erosion of academic freedom and university
autonomy. This trend has been reinforced by the encroachment of business interestsand greater governmental control in higher education, he said. He also warned of12the threat posed to the democratization of higher education in Southeast Asia, which
has shown a positive development in the last decade. While the corporatization andcommoditization of universities have been very visible, legal and operational reform
has started and promises further action in Malaysia.
Kwok Kian-Woon said "culture will increasingly become more and more
important in development, in order to withstand the problems of the 21st century.""Humanization of Modernity" is his major concern here. According to Kwok, this is
not exclusively a Western idea but can be a "global project" which is intrinsicallyhuman. Holding a fundamental perspective that "human beings are meaningseeking, language-using, symbol-creating, and art-making," Kwok asserts that any
form of development will be impoverished unless it brings out these fundamental
aspects of human life. His interests include: 1) culture and the arts in development,2) social memory and the search for identity, and 3) the role of public intellectuals.
Social memory is important because "it gets away from the idea of a singular
identity, and it also focuses on the process of selection—repression of people's
memory—which is operating all the time." The question of how people can still
remember or not remember past events is not only a sociological question but also a
moral one.
A theoretical framework demonstrates socio-historical configurations. The
present stage is neither in a 'premodern' situation, nor in a 'modern,' nor in a'postmodern,' but consists of elements of all three ideal categories. In reality, theelements in the three categories are so mixed due to a confusing combination ofdifferent elements of tradition, modernity and post-modernity that we have to find away to seek clarity as to how we respond to the time that we live in.
According to Kwok, the historical specificity and uniqueness of Singapore
are characterized by the following factors:
1. Colonial experience and transplantation
Singapore's very existence as a political entity was created by the British colonialismthat governed people in the region in the Malay archipelago and those who had beentransplanted from other parts of the world. Undoubtedly, Singapore has never had asingular and coherent culture. In this sense Singapore is a cultural orphan.
2. Sudden independence
Singapore's path to independence did not follow any bloody revolution against thecolonial master. Its independence was brought about in a short period of time.
3. Radical modernization
One way of characterizing Singapore's modernization is modernization without
modernism. The pre-1965 past had to be erased in order to create a new type ofsociety, an independent state.
Shifting from the developmental state to the entrepreneurial state, Singapore
has become a vigorous economic actor. There is a need to examine a number of13

social and cultural contradictions: state-building and nation-building; meritocracy
and materialism; individualism without individuality; communitarianism without
community; ethnicity and intercultural understanding; creativity and conformity;
and social cohesion and long-term viability.
Cultural and intellectual traditions are underdeveloped in Singapore, andthere are cultural and intellectual crises. Thus, Singapore can become more receptive
to all the cultures of Southeast Asia and the world; simultaneously, it could
rediscover its cultural traditions and resources. This is one of the possible directions
that Singapore can take.
Ignas Kleden presented the Indonesian people's struggle in figuring out theconcept of culture since the country became independent. Kleden divides the timeframe into four parts according to historical period: 1) the period of the 1930s whenserious thinking on the nature of culture emerged; 2) the period in which people
tried to define modern culture; 3) the period of Soekarno; and 4) the period of
Seoharto. By exploring Indonesia's cultural development historically, Kleden
described how people have been trying to "make use of culture for different purposesin different historical periods of time," and clarifies "how and why the Indonesian
people came to where they are now."
1. The 1930s (the first period)
The first debate, known as "Cultural Polemics," carried out by Indonesian
elites between 1935 and 1939, was the most serious and most thoughtful debate on
culture and society ever done in Indonesia.
The debate on "Cultural Polemics" comprised three main parts:
1) Debate on the nature of the state, economy and law:
Whether it should be a religious state or a secular state.
Whether it should be a free-market economy or a planned economy.
Whether the basic human rights should be included in the constitution.
2) Debate on the way which could lead to a new culture:
Whether classical culture and traditional local cultures should be regarded
as parts of the new culture.
Whether the model for new culture is Western culture or local or
traditional cultures.
3) Debate on the nature of national development as an overall national
education and training:
Whether the traditional Islamic schools should be taken as a model, or
whether one had to take over and to implement the Western model.
2. The Period When Modern Culture Was Defined
At this stage, there was a strong Western influence on Indonesian culture.
Indonesia took over the whole education system from Europe including Holland.
Advocates of the Western education system, who were graduates of Western highschools or colleges, argued that Islamic traditional schools were unable to equip theirstudents with sufficient knowledge and skills.

14

The adoption of the Western model was not only discernible in thedevelopment of the school system, but was seen in the manner in which young
Indonesians defined new arts and modern literature. Balai Pustaka (or 'House of
Literature'), founded by the Dutch government, was believed to be the initiator andthe promoter of Indonesian modern literature. Modern theaters and modern
paintings were also defined as the adoption of Western models. While Islamic or
local Indonesian cultures existed, advocates of these cultures were driven to theperiphery by those who insisted on adopting the Western model.
3. Soekarno Period
During the Soekarno period, in particular the period of Guided Democracy(1959–65), an anti-Western attitude was developed in accordance with Soekarno's
revolutionary ideas. He attempted to generate the threat of a common enemy(colonialism and imperialism) in people's minds and thereby keep them united.
Simultaneously, he had to divert political attention outward because of thedepressed economic conditions in the country.
While all Western cultural expression, which was considered to weaken
revolutionary spirit, was prohibited, KEKRA's (the Institute of People's Art, foundedby the Communist Party of Indonesia) people's art was propagated as revolutionary
art. Indonesian free artists and intellectuals issued a cultural manifesto in 1963 toreaffirm the freedom of cultural expression.
4. The Soeharto Period—The New Order
The two main programs of the New Order are: 1) elimination of communist
ideology, and 2) rehabilitation of the national economy. Political stability is aprecondition for a stable government which is expected to promote economic
development and to attract foreign investment. It is maintained through limitationof political participation by reducing the number of political parties. Political control
is also limited by revoking political opposition through cultural arguments.
Harmony, a main feature of Indonesian culture, is important in politics as well.
Family-type talks and the acceptance of the Pancasila principles (belief in God,
humanitarianism, nationalism, democracy, and socialism) create harmony.
There are ample opportunities for exposure to foreign culture now because
the national economy of the New Order is built upon foreign loans and capital. The
general attitude in politics is that foreign culture is allowed to enter the country as
long as it is not detrimental to the local values which underpin Indonesian
democracy.
The argument for the revival of traditional cultures (in the 1930s) is now
transposed into a political argument. Instead of having a cultural traditionalism, theIndonesian people are undergoing a political traditionalism which is defended onbehalf of cultural parochialism. The significance of local cultures is now officiallyacknowledged. Efforts at translating local languages into the Indonesian language
are promoted to seek more effective political control.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

15

The subjects covered by these five presentations differ and represent theparticular situation of each country, but are all interrelated at the same time andreflect the deep concerns of intellectual leaders in the region. Arnold Azurin and
Kasian Tejapira pose questions to the official culture and history created by power
holders and urge the need to deconstruct the "fantasy of the Filipino history" or"imaginary official Thainess." The significance of indigenous heritage as acommonality is emphasized by both of them despite the different historicalexperiences: Thailand as an un-colonized and the Philippines as a colonized country.
Both of them are on the side of the ethnically or culturally oppressed peoples in theirrespective countries and try to reinterpret the official notion of national culture andhistory.
The rapid pace of economic development and modernization has causedsocio-cultural problems in such countries as Malaysia and Singapore. Wan Manan
picks up the neglected aspects of human life which emerged as a negative result of
economic development, while Kwok Kian-Woon asserts that Singaporean
modernization is a modernization without modernity. Humanization of modernity
or humanization of development are the focal points of argument here. Ignas
Kleden discusses the struggle that the Indonesian people have experienced over theissue of culture. Ignas points out that the people in power try to make use of it fordifferent purposes in different times of history. In order to deal with these issues
that people in the region face in common, the role of intellectuals is questioned by allof the fellows. The fellows were engaged in very serious, in-depth, and substantial
debate thereafter in the I-House seminar rooms, over breakfast, and over million
cups of coffee at the nearby McDonald's.
II. Common Agenda
The free discussion that followed tried to identify a "common agenda" for the
fellows to engage in further debate and dialogue. The discussion dealt withdiversified subject areas, but eventually narrowed down to the issue of theintellectual. Characteristics and roles of intellectuals in modern Southeast Asia were
the focal points of discussion among the fellows to be tackled thereafter.
Questions such as "How does the government make use of intellectuals for
its own purpose?" "What is the threat to terrify the role of intellectuals?" "How can
we identify different types of intellectuals?" "What is the dynamics of sustaining
intellectual life as well as its inter-linkage within the region?" and "How do
intellectuals participate in responding to new economic development as well as
globalization in the region?" were raised.
There was a shared concern that the intellectuals of the current generation
are missing the deep spirit shared by the earlier generation. The case of Japan was
discussed at a resource person's seminar inviting Takeshi Ishida, Professor Emeritusof the University of Tokyo, an eminent political scientist and specialist in intellectual
history. According to Ishida, Japanese intellectuals played a vital role in the early
postwar period and in particular for the 1960 mass demonstration against the
U.S.–Japan Security Treaty. However, in the process of rapid economic growth, the16

majority of intellectuals in Japan have lost their critical views, while quite a few
intellectuals have engaged in economic policy planning as economists. Economic
prosperity created a large middle-class population. However, the active politicalparticipation of citizens has not necessarily accelerated. Living in a consumptionoriented society, the Japanese people tend to be apolitical.
Ignas Kleden and Kwok Kian-Woon presented short papers for further
discussion on the issue of intellectuals. Both of them included future project ideas
for the fellows to continue to work on together.
Ignas Kleden divides intellectuals into two categories: 1) literati whose role
is to conserve the cultural, intellectual and philosophical legacy of their country andto localize cultural legacy of all kinds in their local context, or to bring the great
tradition and erudition of the world into the little tradition of their context, and2) intelligentsia who are expected to explore new possibilities, new patterns of socialand political interaction as well as new ways of looking at things and to incorporate
the particularities of traditions or local context into a broader context of world
cultures and general learning. He also presents different stages of development ofintellectual ideologies: 1) Stage 1: during the period of national awakening,
intellectuals played the role of intelligentsia and brought in such ideas as freedom,human dignity, and basic human rights, 2) Stage 2: intellectuals are involved in theplanning and implementation of economic development and their role tends to fallback to the old-established traditional role of literati, and 3) Stage 3: attempts of theintellectuals as a counterforce to seek democratic society and to protect equality,
justice, quality of life and the environment against the increasing power of the state
and the market. Conflict emerges between the role of literati who are expected toconserve the scientific legacy and intellectual heritage, and are more oriented toward
the production of knowledge, and the role of intelligentsia who are more inclined toreal politics and toward the political use of knowledge. In their relation to society,the academic intellectuals look at their society as a subject for their research, while
the public intellectuals regard their society as a subject for their advocacy. The
production of empirical and theoretical knowledge by the academics finds its
counterpart in the production of new solidarity attempted by public intellectuals.
Kwok Kian-Woon stated that present-era intellectuals are being asked toclarify their own vocation and role, especially in relation to the political andeconomic conditions in each society. The time has come for a new generation of
intellectuals in Asia to engage in a collective self-clarification. There is a crisis ofmodernity whose full dimensions are not generally understood by the people.
Capitalist development has been spearheaded by strong states at the expense ofsocial equity and political participation. The crisis also has cultural, intellectual andspiritual dimensions that have to do with the breakdown of the traditional "universeof meaning" and the reception or rejection of new modes of thinking and doing
under conditions of advanced globalization. What has been the response of
intellectuals to the human possibilities made available by modernization and thecrisis of modernity? Kwok presented a typology of intellectuals and intellectualroles. According to his analysis, there are three types of intellectuals: 1) traditional

17

intellectuals who are the guardians of tradition and the purveyors of cultural
wisdom, 2) technocratic intellectuals who make up the new class of professionals
lending their expertise to the tasks of modernization, and 3) public intellectuals who
exercise an independent stance in responding critically to the actions and policies of
the traditionalist and technocratic intellectuals. This latter group comes into
existence with the growth of the middle class and the emergence of the publicsphere, a space for public discourse that is not dominated by other groups.
Further discussion led the group to reach such tentative conclusions asfollow: In the course of historical transition in society, the roles of intellectuals havebecome diverse. While intellectuals have been playing the role of conserving
traditional knowledge, the newly emerging public intellectuals face such challenges
as 1) conceptualization of new ideas and knowledge, 2) articulation of such ideas andknowledge and 3) participation in the work of societal transformation. The diagram(p. 145) demonstrates the interrelated concerns of public intellectuals in relation to
the state, market and community.
Follow-up project ideas were also discussed. There are two perspectives forthe projects: 1) Intra-SEA, focusing on intra-Southeast Asian understanding of theintellectual situation, and 2) Southeast Asia and Japan, focusing on dialogue withJapanese intellectuals considering the significance of Japanese influence in Southeast
Asia, Japan representing an advanced point of modernity. It was agreed that a
regionally organized survey exploring commonalities and differences of theintellectual situation in Southeast Asia will be an immediate action-plan, extending
the scope to Japan, East Asia and then South Asia in the future.
III. Resource Person Seminars
There were six resource person seminars organized for the fellows during
the two-month program at the International House of Japan.
Kosaku Yoshino, Professor, University of Tokyo, in his talk "Cultural
Nationalism" defined nationalism as the sentiment among people who constitute a
community with distinctive characteristics as well as the function of maintaining andenhancing distinctiveness within an autonomous state. Yoshino argued that statenationalism fails to elicit positive support from large sections of the population
because of its ineffectiveness in enhancing national sentiment compared to othersocial groups: intellectuals, media people, and business people. We can see a market
cultural nationalism emerging as a new form of nationalism in contemporary Japan.
Talking about Nihonjinron (discourse on the Japanese), Yoshino points out that there
are three main themes: 1) Japanese patterns of subtle communication, 2) the Japanesegroup-oriented attitude, and 3) the Japanese uni-racial society. Exaggerated
interpretations and explanations of these aspects were made in order to stress thedichotomy between Japanese society and others. In conclusion, he said that national
uniqueness can be found not only in Japan but in countries elsewhere. As more andmore Japanese work in the world, it is natural that the particular sense of "us" beincreasingly recognized. The realization of peculiarities is the first step to being
internationalists. Interest in international communication and cultural nationalism

18

are inseparable aspects of the same process.
Takeshi Ishida, Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo, presented arather pessimistic view on the situation of intellectuals in contemporary Japan, in
which the iron triangle—strong interrelationships among the bureaucracy, politicians
and business— is vital while community is weak. Japanese intellectuals played avital role in the early postwar period, especially for the 1960 mass demonstration
against the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty. However, in the process of rapid economic
growth, the majority of intellectuals in Japan lost their critical views, while quite afew intellectuals engaged in economic policy planning as economists. Economic
prosperity created a large middle class population. However, the active politicalparticipation of citizens was not necessarily accelerated. Living in a consumptionoriented society, the Japanese people tend to be apolitical.
Kinhide Mushakoji, Professor, Meiji Gakuin University, former Vice Rectorof the United Nations University, presented his views on 1) the need of restructuring
the social sciences and 2) the present situation of globalization.
He addressed the need of creating a non-Western epistemology. Asians
should tell the problems of Asia. Africans should tell the problems of Africa.
Problems of development should be analyzed by the victims of it, not by those who
profit from it. And the problems of "victims of development" are understood byadding a cultural dimension to the technical analysis, he argued.
Talking about globalization, Mushakoji introduced a theory of exploitation,
relations between the top and the diversified sectors. While those who are working
in the diversified sectors do not receive the value they have produced, those in the
top exploit the value. Intellectuals are in both the dominant (technocrats) anddependent sectors. But those who belong to the insecure dependent sector do notknow when they will be pushed into the excluded sector. One problem is thedifficulties in linking the dependent sector and the excluded sector. The question is
how intellectuals can play a role in creating a bottom-up process. The role ofintellectuals is to de-triangularize the situation, not by imposing values from above
but by mediating different positions and examining alternatives.
Surichai Wun'Gaeo, Associate Professor, Chulalongkorn University,presented an ideology of developmentalism observed in intellectual discourses. He
argued that a linear approach is still dominant that focuses on economic success of anation-state, viewed along developmental stages or levels. Although thecontemporary world is witnessing a transnational tendency in the economy, businessand society, and broadening the meaning of development what is viewed in front of
our eyes is examined only in terms of the economistic linear analysis without taking
the on-going context into consideration. According to him, their taken-for-granted
view has been made into an ideology. This developmentalism still prevails because:
1) governmental and social institutions still keep this linear way of thinking in which
a one-dimensional approach only judges success or failure in terms of increasingly
narrow meaning of economic performance, 2) most of the sponsors, funding sourcesof intellectual or cultural exchanges have not fundamentally reconsidered this idea,and 3) intellectual and exchange is therefore only limited to "respectables" along the19measurement of the developmentalist values. In conclusion, there is a need to firstly,
be aware of the existence of and be critical of such ideology, and, secondly, toeliminate all stereotypes which tend to limit or even obstruct meaningful cultural
encounters and understanding of differences, and , thirdly, to realize the need toreform the existing paradigms and modes of cultural and intellectual exchange into a
more cross cultural learning through common human concerns, much reflected
through the social injustices and human suffering.
Tamotsu Aoki, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, University of Tokyo,
argued that postwar Japan has enjoyed a hybrid culture. A particular characteristicof the hybrid Japanese culture is its indiscriminate absorbing of foreign cultures.
Once foreign cultures enter Japan, they lose their original form and are assimilated ina pattern of maintaining Japan's "cultural purity." The hybrid Japanese culture, thus,
highlights "in-betweenness." It offers a kind of hope to ease divisions and conflicts inthe world by fusing various disparate elements for eventually bringing about
coexistence.
Takashi Shiraishi, Professor, Kyoto University, argued that the notion ofSoutheast Asia has been crucial to U.S. foreign policy. However, it may not be as
relevant as before. As long as Japan and Southeast Asia are examined as separate
entities, there is no way to escape U.S. hegemony. Comparing "Japan and Asia" with"Germany in Europe," it is clear that Japan is not yet in Asia while Germany isalready a part of Europe. Japanese do not feel that they are Asians, but the Germans
think that they are Europeans. Since the United States understood that Germany isembedded in Europe, it helped reconstruct Germany considering it as not just asingle partner but in a German–French alliance. Eventually, this strategy waseffective both for guaranteeing the peace and prosperity of Europe, and for confining
the Soviet Union. In Asia, the United States came to a different conclusion. Insteadof creating a collective security mechanism like NATO, in Asia it created bilateral
security mechanisms with Japan, Korea, and the Philippines, etc. Economically, theUnited States has promoted trilateral mechanisms in Asia (Japan–Southeast Asia–theU.S.). As for the future, Shiraishi stresses, there might be the possibility to look at
Japan, Southeast Asia, China and Korea, all of them are embedded in a region. In
this sense, it might be useful to look at Asia not in terms of horizontal divisions like
East and Southeast Asia, but from a larger perspective, such as a maritime landmass.
IV. Shimoda Retreat Conference
The Shimoda Retreat Conference was organized as an informal gathering of
the fellows and Japanese intellectual leaders to exchange their views on common
issues pertinent to the region. Presentations by the four fellows preceded thediscussion afterwards. The presentations centered around the concept of modernity
in the postmodern era. "Modernization without modernity" and "posttraditionalization and re-traditionalization" were the issues raised.
(1) Role of intellectuals in the postmodern period
Participants from Japan responded to the questions raised by the fellows.
One participant argued for the importance of symbolic messages in any intellectual

20

discourse and the need to theorize overlapping elements among the premodern,modern and postmodern stages. Another participant pointed out that the questionof "modernity" is one of the common denominators shared by non-Westerners thesedays. A common concern is how to deal with traditional values, and the role ofintellectuals is to de-politicize dominant politicized values in the society. Many
questions were raised: "In which direction should intellectuals proceed?" "Whoshould sacrifice what for whom?" "What should be done?" There was someargument responding to these. The role of local intellectuals is important and thequestion is how to create networks of them in the postmodern period. The publicrole of intellectuals will be in contest with politicians and bureaucrats by using bothprint and electronic media to "speak the truth to expose lies." Intellectuals, therefore,
will be running political risks and need to work under a strategy to introduce a
counter-force or counter-criticism of concrete deprivations, owning up to social andhuman costs.
(2) What is Asia?
Takeshi Hamashita, Professor, University of Tokyo Institute of Oriental
Culture, presented a new notion of Asia. He argued that the conventional notion of
the nation-state tends to ignore the role of the sea and that a reinterpretation ofhistory focusing on the sea as well as coastal areas (maritime history) would
introduce a new perspective. It is significant, according to his argument, to consider
a maritime perspective in this period of post-nationalism, because intra-sea relations
can present intensive relationships—harmonious or competitive—among sea areasthat have played historical roles of influencing culture, people and society in theregion.
The discussion following the presentation covered a wide range of views.
For example, the notion of Asia was created by the West in order to differentiate itfrom the West according to geographical setting, and a multi-layered interpretation
including moral, religious, political and economic aspects is needed to define Asia.
Does Japan attach herself to the West, or China? Is Japan trying to detach herself
from Asia or entering Asia? Japan's position in Asia was also discussed, viewing
Japan as a heterogeneous nation with diversified population, local cultures andlanguages. Talking about Japanese intellectuals, one Japanese participant remarked
that Masao Maruyama, whose name was repeatedly referred to by Southeast Asianparticipants, was one of the last intellectuals in postwar Japan. Maruyama,according to this participant, criticized the one nation-state myth of Japan, and after
his death his work has been deeply recognized and studied again. People inSoutheast Asia view Japan favorably these days for its industrial and economic
success, and its ability to keep tradition on the one hand and modernize on the other.
Thus the love-hate relationship is now shifting to a more positive perspective toward
Japan and some view Japan as a buffer against China. However, the question of how
to reconcile Japanese culture with militarism or with ultranationalism has not yet
been answered properly.
(3) Asian Values
Although the term is developing now as an Asian reaction to the West after

21

the Cold War, each society may interpret it in a different way. There exists a
hesitancy of supporting Asian values due to the vagueness of the term and the
difficulty of defining Asia. How to reformulate or invent the term "Asia" by bringing
in a modern idea of universalism is the question. Appropriation and monopolizationof modern ideas such as democracy have occurred in many places in the world; thatsometimes brings about positive effects in society. One participant argues that aslong as the term has a positive meaning, we should not deny it, but how we can find
it not just as a term but as an actual sense in our real life is important. It is acontestable idea in the political arena. It is important to consider, throwing away allstereotypes, what kind of elements we can put in the term. We need to clarify theexpression and nature of the term. From an intellectual point of view, "Asian values"
should neither be politicized nor oppose universal values. A form of nationalism ora wider self-centrism is sometimes regarded as Asian values and this is dangerous.
V. Public ForumIn the initial presentations by the fellows to the audience, Kwok Kian-Woon
again raised the issue of the "humanization of modernity." Using the Singaporean
experience of modernization as an example, he argued following three interrelated
problematics: First is the economic sphere. Increased competitiveness in the region
and the uncertainty in the global capitalist economy are posing questions. Second is
the social arena. Although we are against individualism, our system is very muchbased on meritocracy, relying on the talents and efforts of individuals. This leads toa contradiction with our search for nationhood. If Singapore does not do welleconomically, will the Singaporeans still be committed to their community? Third,
the political sphere. As Southeast Asia's economy develops, middle-class
intellectuals are increasing. However, these intellectuals tend to retreat into a private
world rather than committing themselves to the country or society. Kwok continues
that culture is important because culture is a sphere in which people can develop
strength to deal with the human costs and negative consequences of modernization.
Wan Manan spoke about intellectual development in Southeast Asia andMalaysia. He says that intellectuals are people who are not just knowledgeable intheir own fields but independent thinkers who continuously emphasize and struggle
with the hardships of society. They represent the conscience of their own societies.
What we need is an intellectual culture in order to expand the democratic space.
During the national awakening period in Indonesia, the revolution as awhole was led by public intellectuals who did not belong to the bureaucracy,
business, or even academia, Ignas Kleden asserts. The activities of public
intellectuals are characterized as articulating essential things and the redistributionof them.
Arnold Azurin points out that the problem of the intellectual circle in Manila
is not an overdependence on foreign intellectuals, but their inability to critique bookson the Philippines written by foreigners. It is a tragedy that the Philippines have
imposed foreigners' views on their culture, history and people. The Filipino,developed by the old national school of thought, is to be Christian, English speaking,22

university educated, and anti-imperialist. This is a definition of pro-regional culture.
Azurin argues against this conventional image created by Filipino intellectuals andasserts that ethnicity can be a part of nationality, taking the example of himself as an
Ilocano Filipino.
There were many questions and comments from the audience on the above
issues as well as such issues as "globalization and local challenges," "the future ofhuman rights," and "sustainable development."
At the end of the Forum, the fellows announced to the audience their futurecollaborative research project, "Intellectual Cooperation and Exchange for the
Betterment of People and Community." The following three action programs areplanned:1. Joint publication- country reports on how each fellow regards the condition of intellectual
development of his own country.
2. Conferences- "Asian Values and Intellectual Discourse" (First year)- "Ethno-nationalism, Nationalism and Globalism" (Second year)
3. Book projects based on wider research involving other intellectuals
in Southeast Asian countries:- the intellectual history of respective countries in Southeast Asia
- intellectual advocacy in Southeast Asia
- Asian values and intellectual discourse- human rights, democracy and the political economy
Conclusion
The summary of the discourse as compiled above only shows a small part of
the whole exchange of ideas that took place during the two-month period ofcollaborative activities. There were many more interactions not recorded officially.
In particular, the discussion they had informally among themselves were very
meaningful and substantive, helping the fellows to reflect and reorganize their waysof looking at the issues.
The activities of the 1996 Fellows have not ended since there are plans forfollow-up conferences and publications yet to be worked out. It is not possible togive any definitive conclusion to the two-months debate among the fellows, thesummary of which is presented above. The energy and commitment shown by the
fellows were really extraordinary, and there is no doubt that great accomplishments
were made. One of the most significant was the creation of a very cohesive networkof outstanding intellectual leaders in Southeast Asia who share common concerns,
who realize what roles they are expected to play, and who are determined andcommitted to engage themselves in further communication and collaborative
activities.

23

In his report, Ignas Kleden says that "one main objection against Southeast
Asian intellectuals is that they are either very much country-bound or Westernoriented. Their knowledge of their neighboring countries used to be very limited
and superficial." Kwok Kian-Woon states in his paper, "We have tended not tomove from a national outlook to a wider and deeper regional outlook through which
intellectuals in one country can understand what intellectuals elsewhere are thinking
and how they grapple with their situations." The very objective of the program is,borrowing from Kasian Tejapira's description, "to provide the fellows with a rareand valuable opportunity and forum to air their domestically developed ideas andarguments before an audience of like-minded international colleagues, to let theirviews be examined, questioned, challenged, contested and criticized by the latter andsee whether or not they could withstand the test and still hold water." In otherwords, the program aims to provide an opportunity for such intellectuals, who arerather confined in their own compartments, to learn about their neighbors including
the Japanese, if they regard the Japanese as their neighbors.
In the evaluation papers of the fellows, a few questions were raised about thebasic objectives of the program. One common question was whether the programaims at providing an opportunity for Asian intellectuals to get together and discuss
among themselves issues of common concern, or primarily to learn about Japanesesociety, because of the overwhelming amount of information on Japan they got
through the seminars. The answer to this question is obvious. The program
objective aims at the former and not the latter. The latter is a byproduct since theprogram was held in Japan.
Kasian Tejapira, however, points out that the Japanese context had both
positive and negative distracting effects. There were some who questioned whether
or not the Japanese organizers had any hidden agenda behind initiating a programfor Southeast Asian intellectuals in Japan. Some fellows even asked with a certain
skepticism why Southeast Asians must gather in Japan supported by Japanesemoney to discuss issues pertinent to Southeast Asia. The answer of the organizers israther simple. There is no hidden agenda and the program was generated with theidea that we should not draw a line between Southeast Asia and Japan as we may
have done before. Rather we want to regard "Japan in Asia," with the firm belief thatissues pertinent to the region are also pertinent to Japan as a close neighbor. In fact
there were many commonalities found in the intellectual discourses between
Southeast Asian and Japanese intellectual leaders. Kwok Kian-Woon called it the"prism" effect, and interactions with Japanese counterparts surely helped theSoutheast Asian fellows to think about themselves, too. As Kwok says, "I could sensethat the dialogue among those of us from Southeast Asia oftentimes resonated with
our Japanese counterparts who were engaged in reflecting on their own situation,
especially when we discussed the intellectual situation or specific problems ofcultural and social development."
Through the daily interactions the fellows tried to learn from andunderstand each other's situation. Wan Manan describes the process: "It was also atest of our patience in dealing with other people with various idiosyncrasies who

24may sometimes surprise us with what they said or did. But that is part of learningand building a bridge of cultural understanding . . . . It is also part of creating
tolerance among us despite our differences in religious belief, culture, ethnicity andideology." Ignas Kleden recalled questioning the boldness of his Filipino colleague
Arnold Azurin's remarks, which surprised him and enlightened his understandingof moral and social ambivalence. Azurin commented, "Being under control and evenunder repression could become beneficial, because one had to be more creative andinventive in maintaining the freedom of expression in manners which were tolerable
and effective at the same time. Too much freedom of expression as was the case with
the Philippine press could make journalists unwittingly self-complacent."
Experiencing "times when ideas and propositions clashed or were in
opposition to each other," the fellows gradually moved into the second stage where
they tried to identify a common agenda. The subjects they dealt with were many but,as was stated repeatedly, they are all interrelated. The most significant outcome ofthe discourse is that they defined their roles as public intellectuals to tackle theseissues of common concern. The question was whether or not "intellectuals fromSoutheast Asia can set up a network for solidarity-building, which can play a role in
the advocacy of intellectuals in those countries, both by defending their right toexpression, as well as by promoting the freedom of intellectual communication
among them," according to Ignas Kleden. To a great extent the program answered
this question in the affirmative: as Ignas Kleden beautifully puts it, "a meeting
among intellectuals . . . does not only produce a better understanding of both one's
own situation and that in other countries, but can also establish a new solidarity
among intellectuals in the face of their common struggle."
Again, Ignas Kleden courageously states in his report, "Intellectuals still
have a role to play, for the simple reason that we cannot leave social and political life
to the judgement and the treatment of specialists only. Life is too big to be pigeonholed. The courage to reject compartmentalization with the risk of roaming in an
unlimited horizon is a desperate and yet necessary undertaking which an intellectualis always tempted to embark upon, for better or worse."
In their candid evaluations of the program, there were many constructive
suggestions to improve the program which the organizers have taken seriously. This
first year's program was very experimental in a sense since there was no model tofollow or imitate. There were thus achievements as well as limitations. KasianTejapira's report articulated many of these limitations and gave us very usefulsuggestions, most of which we tried to take into account for the second year.
However, on balance, we feel that the remarkable sense of unity and responsibility of
the fellows was sufficient to overcome all the difficulties.
The International House of Japan and the Japan Foundation Asia Center
would like to thank the fellows again for their willingness to participate in thisprogram and their commitment to making the program a meaningful and productive
one. As the organizers of the program, we are determined to continue this endeavor
and hope that this small step of creating a new wave of public intellectuals in theregion will flourish in years to come.

25

This overview was authored by Tatsuya Tanami, Program Director, International House of Japan. The
summary of the discourse was compiled based upon the extraordinary work of Yumiko Suenobu, therapporteur for the program. The author thanks Ms. Suenobu for her excellent work.

26

Reports of the Fellows

The reports here were submitted by the fellows after their fellowship program, evaluating andreflecting on their research stay in Japan.

A Lingering Glance
Arnold Molina Azurin
Part I
The pervasive image of homogenized Japanese culture is just that, an image,no more no less, created by the efficient bureaucracy and mass media. The scholar
asserting such a supposition before the panel of fellowship and research grantees
from Southeast Asia is a youthful professor of the University of Tokyo, author of abook propagating the same blasphemy against the enshrined cultural unity of Japan.
The skeptical me, one of the five fellows of the Asia Leadership Fellow Programchosen from Southeast Asian countries to undertake an intensive cultural exchange
project, courtesy of the International House of Japan and Japan Foundation Asia
Center, is compelled to object: "My own behavior has been 'massaged' since myarrival. I walk more on the left, not on the right [which is the Filipino practice]. I
bow more often, and say 'Sumimasen' like most Japanese . . ."In short, I have been laboring under the belief of having been compelled toadjust to the homogeneous customs and traits of Japanese society. But have I reallyobserved enough to rightfully say "like most Japanese?" Well no. And that's bingo
for the Professor's point of view.
Actually this scholarly encounter with the notion of diversified anddemystified Japanese culture took place last October. But it's so fresh on my mind; it
has spurred me to have a good look at the Japanese cultural domains in thesouthernmost prefecture of Okinawa and the northernmost tip of Hokkaido. A very
expensive and gruelling journey, considering that I was travelling through winterand early spring alone, without the slightest smattering of Nihongo. And domestic
travel in Japan is perhaps as costly as going to the remoter regions of Canada or theUnited Kingdom.
Believe it or not, I was often mistaken for a Japanese—a Nihonjin—despite
my brown skin, eyes not too aslant and lost-in-the-woods gait. Professor Nick
Tiongson, currently teaching in Osaka, thought it might have been on account of the
Nikon camera slung perpetually on my shoulder. Or, could it be my first-ever winterwardrobe? Of course, he was kidding. He himself can melt into the Japanese crowd
like margarine on a hot slice of bread.
In the course of my travels crisscrossing Japan's landscape, which turned out
to be a lecture circuit on Philippine culture and politics, it steadily dawned on me
that this country known to have a heavily centralized and imperial history andheritage has a varied cultural orientation from one region to another. In Tokyo I wastold for instance that the ordinary Okinawan would consider himself foremost as an
Okinawan, and a Japanese as an afterthought.
Truth to tell, while the rest of Japan was shivering to the chill of winter,
Okinawa was exuberant to the breeze from the Pacific and the South China Sea.
Atop the ruins of Chinen castle, I espied the olden Okinawan sailors' route to the29Philippines, Taiwan, Indochina, Malaysia and Indonesia. In fact, when I gave an
informal pep talk before Okinawan writers and journalists, the group gave me a sash
as a gift which looked like a Yakan weave from Basilan, a southern province in thePhilippines.
At least two museums in Okinawa perpetuate the rancorous view thatmainland Japan came to dominate the independent kingdom of Okinawa. The major
city, Naha, commemorates yearly the departure of the olden fleet from Okinawa
dispatched to pay tribute to China. Hence, it is clear from this particular festival that
Okinawa's vaunted "independence" from Tokyo was understandably based on its
dependence on China. Thus I urged the Okinawan writers to try the two-sided
dialectical tensions in analyzing Okinawa's links with Southeast Asia, China, Tokyoand the military bases of the United States.
In the ancient cultural and political capitals of Osaka, Nara and Kyoto, theBuddhist heritage and Chinese legacy are much cherished. Facing the Korean
Peninsula is Japan's Fukuoka Prefecture where the public museum clearly states thatthe regional culture has derived much from the "great traditions" of China andKorea, particularly in literacy, religion, and pottery.
But the Korean community has always been regarded by the Japanese as aminority culture. And many of these Koreans couldn't care less. The Ainu people in
the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido even comprise less of a "minority." A
closer look into the Ainu religious rituals, folklore and physical character and social
culture would show affinities with Chinese, Indochinese and even Indonesiananimistic traditions.
There's so much of Asia within Japan, but many Japanese would rather stickto their belief that Japan is beamed in the past and at present to the Big Apple andLondon's Big Ben.
(This section first appeared in the Philippines Free Press on June 7, 1997, withseveral photograph taken by the author.)
Part II
The preceding published retrospect of my zigzag sojourn across Japan(which took half a year if the initial two-month series of conferences and panel
discussions conducted in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Shimoda were included) is just a fastpaced journalistic overview. It is deliberately packaged as a photo-and-text essay
intended to stimulate the public imagination about the varied scenery across Japan asautumn lapsed into winter and I found myself hopping from one prefecture toanother.
My photo documentation bares the usual scenery and outdoor activities thatperk up the daily ritual of living among Japanese folk: a house painter gives awhitewash to a simulated chapel that serves as a wedding venue come spring andsummer; two young friends await the approach of fowls before clicking their camera
at a river scene; a heavy construction equipment scrapes off the remains of ademolished building to give way to a new skyscraper; a man walks his dog acrossthe thick snow in Hokkaido; two teenagers wrapped in their winter clothes try to30befriend the birds in a park by throwing crumbs at the flock; monks in a Buddhist
temple excitedly take photos of their visiting relatives; schoolchildren exercise byrushing up and down a park stairway within the ruins of a castle for a couple ofhours, to toughen their muscles and bones against the chill while an aging gardener
dutifully sweeps away the fallen leaves.
In more desolate spots, such as in graveyards, I have also photographedlonesome candles, cups and fresh bundles of floral offerings. I have also noticed thatsome stone carvings in shrines and burial grounds are clad in crimson aprons andjackets (to warm them up during snowbound days, perhaps?). And this practice isevidently prevalent whether in urban Tokyo, olden Kyoto, or rustic Niigata andSapporo. Highly conspicuous during my exploratory research from Okinawa to
Hokkaido concerning the cultural landscape is how earnestly people flock to theparks and museums, whether for art displays or ethnological exhibits; like wintering
birds, visitors to these museums give vitality to these institutions even as they
provide brisk business for artistic souvenirs, book, journals and catalogues available
in museums or shrines.
And to reiterate an observation I have made in the photo essay, thesemuseums complement the religious shrines in preserving the prevailing (butoftentimes ignored) ancestral links between the diverse Japanese cultures and Asia,
either of the Mainland or the southerly sprawl of islands. The artifacts displayed in
Okinawa as well as in far-north Hokkaido embody either the ancient links throughtrade and migration or intercultural commonality and confluence.
That is precisely why I am making this second and lingering look on an
exploratory journey because it has been an intense experience, an eyeopener no less,for me as an anthropological researcher. First, I have been further stimulated to try
deepening my initial insights (published in Reinventing the Filipino Sense of Being andBecoming) on the pan-Asia cultural transactions from prehistoric epochs, with a boost
from the studies done by Professor Takeshi Hamashita, among others. Second, I
have been privileged to see concrete evidence of such intercultural affinities not onlyin the glass-encased cabinets of museums but also in olden shrines and in actual
production sites (particularly with respect to the craft of stoneware pottery, a current
research interest of mine). In Okinawa, the tunnel-type olden kiln used for baking
nonglazed arayaki jars is exactly similar to the type used in my hometown, Vigan, inthe northern Philippines, along the coast facing China, Taiwan and Okinawa. I had
been shown by one of the curators in the prefectural museum of Okinawa somesamples of "Luzon jars" which are similar to those traditionally manufactured by
Vigan potters.
The curator, however, expressed bewilderment why the display caption
described these dark stoneware jars as coming from Luzon although they were madeby Chinese potters. So I assured him there is no confusion nor contradiction in thelabel because the original potters and owners of kilns in northern Luzon descended
from Chinese immigrants. In addition, I informed him that the traditional kiln for
Okinawa arayaki (now used in storing local wine) is very similar to that type used by
Vigan potters until today. And I did inform him further that historical records and31archaeological findings have shown that in the late 16th century the chief Japaneseruler had imposed a monopoly in exporting Luzon jars, which were then highly
valued by the Japanese for their quality and capacity for storing tea leaves for a longtime.
In Fukuoka, a ceramic-store manager and owner of an old kiln told me that it
was only in the 17th century when the vitrified clayware or stoneware wasintroduced in that part of Japan, through the efforts of Hideyoshi who conquered
Korea for a while and who invited skilled Korean ceramicists to establish theirclayware shops in that prefecture facing Korea. This pioneering period for suchpottery in this locality jibes with the era when Japanese merchants of the previous
century imported stoneware made in Luzon, most probably in Ilocos, particularly in
Vigan. And such an interlink of historical facts and probabilities has inevitably
whetted my interest to plan a research project that would revisit that period when
sailing ships crisscrossed the trade routes and ports of this maritime zone of Asia tobring jars, beads, textiles, jewelry, indigo, flour, fowls and cattle—and not to exclude
certain cultural values and practices—from one country to another.
What would such retrospection lead to? Perhaps to a keener enlightenment
regarding our past but long-lived reciprocal ties. And also to a greater appreciationof our intercultural heritage and mutualities. Consequently to acquire a fresh
perspective in viewing our current narrow-mindedness or tense insularity resulting
from short-term memories and the vagaries of vested interests. Ultimately, as
popularization of such perceptions of intercultural bonds leads to a broadening of
our minds and hearts to the range of wisdom and compassion, it may thenceforthloosen the ground for malingering bigotry and distrust which underpin the need for
genocidal armaments and oppressive mindsets.
The third aspect of my exhilaration while traveling across Japan has been therare opportunity to give a series of lectures on the political culture in the Philippines.
On top of this has been the consoling prospect of meeting my Japanese scholar
friends on their own turf, as well as meeting new kindred folks. After having
traveled together with the other fellows under this program within the first twomonths in zestful camaraderie, I subsequently feared the onset of loneliness while
going solo flight, aggravated by the fact that I could not speak the local language.
Fortunately, the prospect of meeting old friends like Professors Shimizu and
Kajiwara (and Nick Tiongson in Osaka) enabled me to endure the intervening
distances and solitudes. To my surprise, there were also total strangers who werevery kind in showing me the way to the next stopover. Along this rambling itinerary
along a variety of transport vehicles, a few co-travelers even talked to me
spontaneously in Nihongo, presuming I was a Nihonjin, probably returning homefrom a long stint of working overseas.
Significantly though there were a few times when I would let my fingerpointing do the talking in restaurants as I ordered my choice of dishes. Invariably,
the amused restaurant manager or personnel would ask about my nationality, andupon being informed that I was a Filipino, he or she would also identify with
unexpected alacrity himself or herself as Korean—as if to assure me that we were32

after all fellow travelers on the same boat or, perhaps, kindred drifters alongside thestrong currents of the culturally and politically homogenized mainstream in Japan. I
may be extrapolating here but one thing expressed unmistakably was that such folks
were identifying themselves ardently as Korean, without any trace of selfincrimination.
Underlying this impression is the well-known simmering situation of the
Koreans and Korean-Japanese as comprising a marginalized ethnic community inJapan that harbors a certain resentment over historical acts of injustice or present
discriminatory policies and regulations. But in the course of my perambulations I
learned that the city of Osaka has joined one or two other Japanese metropolitan
centers in dropping the nationality requirement for government job opportunities.
This was understood to be an affirmative action to alleviate the plight of Koreans
who have been long-time residents in Japan by removing social and legal barriers totheir full participation, if not integration, in the Japanese polity.
For the same reason, another preferential treatment type of jurisprudence
was issued by a judge in Hokkaido identifying the Ainu people (for the first time inlegal circles, according to the news report) as an indigenous people or aboriginals inJapan. The judge's verdict also awarded rights of ancestral domain to the Ainu
litigants on an area developed into a dam by the central government. While I was
roving around Nibutani, an Ainu village, I learned from some community leadersthat the impressive public museum for Ainu culture was built (or funded?) by thecentral government as part of the indemnity for the use of the river and delta. The
natives had cherished this zone as a traditional fishing ground and the river banks as
the site for burial and such other animistic rituals as the spiritual launching of
dugout boats. This blend of natural and supernatural cosmology is akin to the belief
systems of the farming and fishing folk in the Philippines and elsewhere in Southeast
Asia. After a careful observation and scrutiny of the museum artifacts, I was almost
certain that it would not be too wild a conjecture to consider the Ainu people as
sharing the same zone of origin as the migrating progenitors of the Southeast Asians
in prehistoric epochs, from somewhere in the southern steppes of the Asia Mainland.
But while the ancestors of the Ainu trekked northward along Mongolia and Siberia
until finally crossing over to Sakhalin and the smaller islands, the aboriginal
Southeast Asians wended their way to the southern clusters of islands. One may
make such a supposition after comparing, though superficially as yet, the traditional
life cycle rituals and art motifs of the Ainu and the Southeast Asians orAustronesians. But in physical features, the notion of commonality in progeny andprovenance may even be more persuasive (as evidenced by the accompanying
photograph of me and the wife of Diet member Kayano Shigeru in front of theprivate museum that she manages; doesn't she look like my mom, or auntie?)
Professors Hamashita and Yoshino indeed could not have been far off themark in asserting that Japanese society has more heterogeneity than is depicted in
the mass media and bureaucracy (whose ethnocentrism is now being eroded by the
Osaka city officials who have cancelled the nationality requirement for jobseekers ingovernment offices, by the judge's decision in Hokkaido granting legal and historical

33

validity to the Ainu claim to ethnic self-identity and a sort of dominion over theirancestral environment, and most especially by the highly articulate advocates forautonomous rule in Okinawa).
Doubtless it was in Okinawa where the Asian cultural confluence is moreevident than in any part of Japan today, and more cherished as well.
This Okinawan self-assertion has been incorporated in social science books
and in anthologies of legends and creative literature. This emergent Asia-oriented
world view in Okinawa is also reflected in the local businessmen's economic strategyof "deregulation," whereby Okinawa may enjoy free trade arrangements with Taiwan
and other nearby countries. According to a local paper, Weekly Shimpo, on February 3,
1997, the Okinawa representative in the Diet had initiated moves toward suchderegulation, and the national officials appeared to have posed no objections; theygave, however, a word of caution or a precondition: that such trade linkage with
Taiwan or Hong Kong might be worth pursuing if China does not raise any objection
or resistance to the strategy.
The notion of deregulation among businessmen here has a counterpart
concept among the politicized writers in Okinawa, like the poet Ben Takara. When
Takara was asked last October by Newsweek's Hideko Takayama about his vision of
Okinawa's future, the poet said a mouthful: "I think Okinawa should become a special
autonomous prefecture of Japan. I understand that the Okinawan government isplanning to demand that. Japan may continue to have power regarding foreign policy
and defense matters, but the rest would all be left to Okinawa. For example, Okinawa
could have an expanded free trade zone or allow Asian tourists to come without
visas."
It was Takara himself who led a group of writers and journalists in hosting awelcoming session for me, over local wine and Orion beer (described by the island's
television channels as "the beer of Okinawa") along with a pork dish which the poet
unfailingly told me to be very similar to a Filipino recipe. After introducing
themselves individually in the context of their literary fields and accomplishments,
the writers then asked me to talk on how the Filipinos succeeded in booting out the
U.S. military bases. So I gave a brief historical account, along with the long-runningdebate in the press, legislature and the "parliament of the streets" which culminated in
the Senate's rejection of a new treaty draft. I didn't forget to cite the timely help inousting the U.S. armory coming from the sudden eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the
periphery of the two military bases.
There were also a few questions raised on the history and prospects of theautonomous Muslim-dominated regions (which subsequently became the theme of
my lecture at Hokkaido University). A week after, a news feature appeared in thelocal newspaper describing the discussion of that lively night, avidly summing up theissues and repartee, and without forgetting to mention that we all enjoyed sharing
Okinawa sake as well.
Such pleasant moments along this meandering exploration were, of course,
deepened by reflection and by my reading of several books on Japanese culture thatwere my traveling companions, if not my compass in this vast landscape. But as to34

the directions of research these books and my personal memories are leading me,that is obviously another long-winded story that can be told in another season of sakeand karaoke songs after the serial panel discussions.

35Encounter with Japan: Understanding through Japan
Ignas KledenI
My second visit to Japan, with ten years in-between, was made possible byan invitation from the International House of Japan (IHJ) and the Japan Foundation
Asia Center in Tokyo. It was an invitation to Southeast Asian scholars andintellectuals to participate in a particular fellowship program, which was conducted
for the first time from October 1996 until March 1997. The program, which is called
the Asia Leadership Fellow Program, invited five fellows from five Southeast Asian
countries, including Indonesia.
The good luck which my colleagues and I had at that time was due to thefact that the program was a new venture in building an exchange of intellectual
insights among the participants. Being a new venture many things were not yet
fixed, and the initiator and coordinator as well as the participants were equally
involved in giving shape to it. The participants were allowed and encouraged topropose programs which they thought worth carrying out or lecturers or speakers
among Japanese scholars and intellectuals who, in their opinion, would be good tolisten to and to discuss with.
Most of the programs were held at the IHJ, Roppongi, Tokyo, where all theparticipants stayed during the first two months. The six-month period for the
fellowship was divided into two terms. The first two months were obligatory both interms of presence at the IHJ as well as in terms of the schedule of joint programs for
all fellows. The last four months could be used by the participants for theirindividual projects according to the time which they could provide for such projects.
In our case, the second term of the fellowship was fully used only by twocolleagues, Mr. Azurin from the Philippines and Dr. Manan from Malaysia. Our
Thai colleague, Dr. Kasian, due to his unexpected illness during the first two months,
had to leave our joint program earlier. Dr. Kwok, from Singapore, terminated his
participation by the end of 1996 owing to his teaching obligations at his university. I
left the program by mid-December 1996, partly because of the sudden heart attack of
my father which caused him to pass away at the end of the month. However, thiswas not the whole reason I had to leave the program early, because it was planned
since the beginning that my full participation in the fellowship would only last for
the first term. My request, which had been approved by the IHJ, to spend the lastmonth of the fellowship in March 1997, could not be carried out as was planned,
though I could spend a one-week time during the last month of the fellowship tohave a second meeting with my colleagues and with people at the IHJ. I was alsoable to attend the last meeting, which officially concluded the fellowship at the endof March.
In hindsight I think the program was a very productive cultural experience
for me. The program was organized as a meeting point for both intellectuals and36

academics from Southeast Asian countries and those from Japan. As far as this goal
was concerned, there was ample opportunity which gave an extraordinary exposure
to the intellectual and academic life of Japanese society. This was conducted byarranging our meeting with Japanese scholars and intellectuals at the IHJ as well as
through our attendance and participation at various seminars, colloquia, andsymposia during the first two months. The IHJ, which has always been known for its
international ties in Japan, made use of these ties to make us acquainted with othercultural groups or intellectual clubs from Japan, the United States, Britain, and India.
The long established contact between IHJ and the UN University at Tokyo enabled
our contact with researchers working at the University, who came from all corners of
the globe, and brought up so many international problems which I, for one, would
have not been aware of, had IHJ not provided the opportunity for such a contact orarranged such a meeting for the fellows.
Needless to say, with such a focus in the program, there were less
opportunities during the first two months to meet with other groups in Japanesesociety, which, I think, were by no means less important or less interesting thanJapanese intellectuals and academics. What I now have in mind are groups such as
Japanese NGOs, people from Japanese business circles, people from theenvironmental movement or women's movement, representatives fromdenominational groups, Japanese politicians and bureaucrats, Japanese professionals,
teachers from high schools or primary schools (who I suppose must be able to givesome valuable input for the situation of Indonesian teachers), or marginalized groups
and alternative groups within Japanese society.
The question is: is the program intended to enable an exchange ofintellectual insights between Southeast Asian intellectuals and academics and thosefrom Japan, or rather is it aimed at making use of such an exchange to improve ourunderstanding of those countries whose intellectuals and academics are involved in
the fellowship program? Speaking for myself, the intensive and well-organizeddiscussions and debates with Japanese scholars and intellectuals cannot be overly
appreciated, but it would be equally interesting to know how the people "in thestreet" think about their society and whether they are interested in other countries,
especially those which can be seen as the neighboring countries of Japan in the South.
Of course there is no contradiction between the two goals. As a matter of fact, during
the two-month stay at the IHJ my understanding of Japanese society increased andwas improved as much as my understanding of the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia
and Singapore through my fellow colleagues.
Such a meeting with intensive discussion can and does help eliminate
many prejudices which usually hail from a superficial acquaintance with a country ora group of people. Taking all good effects of tourism into account, I could not help
but be made aware of a side-effect resulting from tourism in matters of intellectualand cultural encounters. Coming to a country in a very short time, going to places
which are selected by a travel bureau, and talking to people who are prepared towelcome and celebrate the visitors from outside, in such a case the understanding ofanother country is usually made of a very fleeting impression. One might be37overwhelmed by the exoticness of another country and another culture, while
thinking that people living in those other countries are entirely different and cannot
be compared to the people from the visitor's own country. If there is somethingwhich does not meet the expectation of such visitors, this tends to strengthen theirpreexisting prejudices. In that case, one tends to take cultural appearances at theirface-value, and feels these are verified, because one has seen it on the spot. There isno effort to understand why people behave as they do, which values guide their
behavior, or by which world-view they try to establish an orientation for themselves.
All these things which are essential to an elementary understanding of culturalaffairs are glossed over, because there is not enough time and opportunity to look alittle bit deeper into those foreign cultures, and in fact such an understanding is not
the most important thing in matters of tourism. In other words, tourism as such is agood thing, but it can turn out to be detrimental if it systematically produces culturaland intellectual tourism. By this peculiar term I mean an understanding of othercultures which is strong enough to strengthen one's own prejudices, but not strong
enough to correct or to eliminate them.
A program for intellectual exchange has an added value, in that it provides
the participants not only with more time to learn about other cultures and otherpeople, but also with more exposure and opportunity to discuss what they see in the
country they are visiting. To put it in more general terms, I, for one, tend to believethat the exoticness and the particularities of other cultures come to the fore at firstglance and those make one culture so different from the other. However, if one iswilling to go deeper, all the particularities tend to fade away, because they are
merely different stages where the same plays are performed: the human struggle forhappiness and meaning, the way they come to terms with suffering and tragedy, theway they produce or lose their identity, as well as the effort to overcome problems
which become part of the order of the day.
Looking at Japan from outside, one is very much impressed by the successof its economy, the expansion of its industry, the stability of its middle class, the highproductivity of its labor force, and a work ethos which even surpasses the spirit ofcapitalism in the Protestant Ethic. However, after spending some time in Japan,
looking around and listening to people, all this success story cannot cover up thevery strained life of students who are under the constant pressure of highcompetition, the impact of an increasing number of unproductive and aging people
due to the improvement of life-expectancy, the condition of children at home whohave to spend their time alone because their parents are struggling for promotion attheir work, or the increasing general concern about the younger generation who,born into the wealthy society of Japan, look at material success as something given or
natural. These young people therefore ignore the hardship with which thegeneration of their parents or grandparents have brought the country to its present
development and tend to take everything in their society for granted.
The continuous discussion with my fellow colleagues contributed a lot tomy view of the problems with which Indonesia is faced. In a comparative
perspective many problems which initially seemed trivial to me suddenly became38more serious, or many problems which were apparently so serious are not that
serious in comparison to the situation in other countries. The result is that one gets
not only a new understanding with a new perspective, but one is involved in a more
serious exchange of expectations and analysis.
Being regularly involved in journalistic activities, the question of freedomof expression cannot help but linger in my head. The Indonesian conception of socalled "freedom with responsibility" turned out to give too much opportunity to thepeople in power to interfere in the day-to-day business of running the national press.
The print as well as electronic media in Indonesia are expected to control themselvesin news which is supposed to do harm to the national interest. The problem is: whois to define what the national interest should be? In the case of Indonesia themonopoly of interpretation in the hands of the executives makes news reporting very
difficult, because there are no clear and objective guidelines in terms of which thereporting can be conducted properly. Everything is usually judged by the powerholders in an ex post facto manner. This makes the interpretation of the national
interest very much dependent upon the situation and, still worse, upon the whim
and favor of those in power who feel injured or affected by the reporting. One
cannot orient oneself to objective guidelines formulated in rules and regulations, butrather one has to wait for approval or warning or disagreement after one has taken ajournalistic action.
When I discussed this situation with my colleagues while expressing myappreciation of the relatively free press in their countries, my Filipino colleague
interrupted with an unexpected comment. He said, one should be able to make thebest of one's situation and look at the positive side of it. Being under control andeven under repression could become beneficial, because one has to be more creativeand inventive in maintaining the freedom of expression in ways which were
tolerable and effective at the same time. He added that too much freedom of
expression, as was the case with the Filipino press, could make the journalists
unwittingly self-complacent. The press in the Philippines, argued Mr. Azurin, was ina situation where the journalists and even the writers suffered from having too much
freedom. Though this comment by no means could cancel the need and necessity forfighting for more autonomy and freedom of the press, it did nevertheless enlighten
my understanding of the moral and social ambivalence of each situation in terms ofwhat it can bring about. It also gave me more optimism and hope in the face of thesituation of freedom of expression in my country.
This example shows clearly that a meeting among intellectuals and scholarsof various countries does not only produce a better understanding of both one's own
situation and that in other countries, but can also establish a new solidarity among
them in the face of their common struggle. One gets a strong feeling of joining acommon search for ideals which in fact attract so many people in many othercountries. There are some fundamental beliefs—in human dignity, justice, equality
before the law, and the right to expression and organization—which one is tempted
to discard if one is involved in difficulties in the struggle to make them occur.
However, if you listen to your colleagues and they turn out to tell you the same39

story, you get a new self-confidence that those beliefs are not only worth striving forbut also that the struggle to realize them can make your life worth living.
The same thing happened when I told them that there was a new effort inIndonesia to limit the term of the presidency as a concrete measure of political
reform. Again Mr. Azurin reminded me that one had to be very careful with theregulation of the limit of the term for the presidency. He said if it was stipulated in
the constitution, as was the case in the Philippines, this might bring a president who
wanted to rule longer than the established term to have recourse to martial law anddeclaring a state of emergency. Marcos put martial law into force because this was
the only way to escape regulation by the constitution.
The comment of my Filipino colleague convinced me that an open
discussion and an intensive meeting among, say, Asian intellectuals and scholars
could result in a productive exchange of political experience. One could be rescued
from doing the same blunder which had been committed in other countries, though
the different political context of each country might bring different reactions to agiven political action. It became clearer for me that power has an inherent tendency
everywhere which is quite the same, and therefore the countervailing action tocontrol power had many things in common and ran quite similar risks despite thedifferent particularities of each country.
I learned from my Malaysian colleague that the interethnic question in
Malaysia has been tackled with an open procedure through debates in parliamentand legal regulation as well as political discussion. The Chinese-Bumiputera
problem has always been there, but it is not seen and treated as a political taboo as is
the case in Indonesia, but rather as a concrete social problem which should be
discussed publicly and reasonably with solutions which can do justice to all parties
involved. It is a good lesson for people coming from Indonesia, that a social conflict
cannot be solved by means of covering it up. The habit or the tendency to keeppeople from popular participation in solving a political problem is evidence of norecognition of the political maturity of the citizens to take care of themselves, andtherefore one could easily come to the assumption that they can be ruled only
through political protection on the one hand and political mobilization from aboveon the other. Participation, political articulation and self-determination are
unwittingly counted out.
Spending some time in Japan, I learned something about the nature and theworkings of bureaucracy. Coming from Indonesia, I usually have the idea thatbureaucracy is not compatible with modern effectiveness and efficiency. I tend tobelieve that what the German sociologist Max Weber said and wrote on therationality of bureaucracy is rather a vision, an ideal type, but not an empirical fact.
The speedy and constant increase of the Indonesian bureaucracy is not accompanied
by any facilitating in pushing for more economic and political initiatives. This is thecase because the separation between the ruling party and the bureaucracy is not veryclear in the country. Those who are leading GOLKAR as the ruling party also
assume very important positions within the Indonesian bureaucracy.
In Japan I was told that there was not only a clear-cut separation but also a40

sort of competition between political parties and the bureaucracy. Those who workwithin the Japanese bureaucracy are so aware and also confident of their public
responsibility that some of them even look at the bureaucracy as something more
important than political parties. This is discernible in the recruitment of aspirants
and candidates for the bureaucracy, who are usually selected from among thegraduates of the most excellent universities. The reason why some Japanesebureaucrats believe that the bureaucracy is more important than political parties, I
think, is because they also believe that, unlike political parties who are competitors
for governance, the bureaucracy belongs to the state itself. I could sense such a
feeling when a Japanese bureaucrat told me that political parties could come and go
but the bureaucracy remained and was always there.
I left for Japan with a strong conviction that paternalistic patterns in social
interaction or else a too status-conscious cultural attitude and cultural behavior aremental constraints in modern political and economic affairs. However, thisconviction became really shaky when I was in Japan. I now think and believe thatboth paternalistic patterns as well as status-consciousness are quite common andobvious among the Japanese people. The way a junior behaves towards his senior in
an office, or an employee towards his or her employer, shows clearly statusconsciousness and a cultural leaning towards a patron-client relationship. And yet,the proposition that such attitudes tend to become a cultural constraint in politicaland economic interactions is proved wrong. In economic and business affairs theJapanese are more efficient and effective in comparison to what I witness not only in
my home country but also in other industrialized countries. In politics, such cultural
attitudes turn out not to hinder political control or even the right to expression andself-determination, as was discernible in the latest debate on the American bases in
Okinawa. In this case the Prime Minister had to listen to the demand of the residentsof the island, though at last they lost the case. Respect for status and the deep-seatedfeelings of a patron-client relationship do not necessarily result in awkward politicalparticipation or indolent economic behavior.
The experience brings me back to an old sociological question: how to
relate the value system and the concrete form of social interaction? Can one predict
how people act and interact simply by looking at values and norms, in terms ofwhich they are supposed to orient themselves? My experience in Japan has made me
more concerned with this question because a similar cultural pattern can result indifferent patterns of behavior. Why does a paternalistic attitude in Indonesia becomea mental constraint in economic and political behavior, whereas in Japan it can bevery productive? Why is a status-conscious attitude in Japan instrumental to therealization of a productive relationship, whereas in Indonesia it makes people moreinterested in assuming a high status than achieving a high performance in theirwork?
Obviously, one has to figure out the many intervening variables whichobtain between the value system, on the one hand, and the actual behavior on theother. One explanation might be that what results from the value system depends
very much on the social structure in which it is supposed to apply. In that case I

41

think it must be of great importance to study the social structure of Japanese society,which makes it different from Western industrialized countries in its value systemand yet very similar to their economic and political performance. It is also equallysignificant to look into the social dynamics which makes Japan quite different in its
economic and political achievements from Indonesia, though in some basic cultural
patterns the two countries show some obvious similarities and commonalities. My
own personal question is: why is Japan very Asian in its cultural appearance andvery Western in its performance? How can a country take over the spirit ofcapitalism without taking over the concomitant cultural patterns of Westerncountries which have brought capitalism into its present development?
II"Culture and Development" as the general theme of the program is broad
enough to be carried out for many years to come. On the other hand, it is also
specific enough to generate subjects which can become the topics of seminars orquestions for research. As far as my experience in Indonesia is concerned, "culture
and development" becomes quite an actual issue, because culture is usually seen andtreated as something outside or even opposed to development, whereas bydevelopment one means by and large economic development. In that sense,
Indonesian anthropologists such as Koentjaraningrat talked and wrote time andagain about the mental and cultural constraints of development. On the other hand apublic intellectual such as Soedjatmoko consistently looked at development as afundamental cultural change. The latter opinion entails two consequences. First, it
refers to the cultural conditions which should be created in order to enable economic
development proper. Second, it also points to the impact of economic developmenton the material base of culture in particular and on the patterns of social behavior
and value orientation in general.
After 25 years of economic development in Indonesia, and after completingthe so-called first period of long-term national development, I, for one, tend tobelieve that the problem for Indonesia is no longer one between economic
development and culture, but rather the problem of culture in economic development.
The general question is whether all the achievements in economic development andeconomic growth result in a condition which better enables and facilitates basic
human values. By human values I mean a double ideal. First, it means all values
which are intrinsically inherent in human nature. Second, it implies all values whichhave or produce a humanizing force and lead to the humanizing process.
If one listens to what the president of the Republic of Indonesia reports inadvance of the celebration of Independence Day on August 17 every year, one cannot
help but be overwhelmed by very impressive figures. Let me quote some figuresfrom the presidential speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of national
independence on the 16th of August 1995. The speech compared the economic
situation at the beginning and the end of the first 25-year period of national
development.
In 1969 per capita income in Indonesia was no more than $70. After 25

42years the per capita income became $920. The average growth rate during the fifth
REPELITA (Five-Year Development Plan) was 8.3 percent; in 1994 it went down to
7.3 percent. The target growth rate for the last year of the sixth REPELITA was 6.2
percent.
The economic growth was evidently supported by economic stability. The
inflation rate between 1961 and 1966 was 250 percent, with its worst condition in
1966, when the inflation rate went up to 650 percent. Between the 1980s and 1990s it
was kept below 10 percent.
Along with economic growth, industrialization was simultaneously
enhanced in order to absorb the increasing labor force, which could not be absorbed
by agriculture any longer. In 1994 industry increased to 23.9 percent while
agriculture decreased to 17.4 percent, much sooner than was targeted in the national
plan. According to the initial plan, in 1998 (the last year of the sixth REPELITA)
industry was expected to increase to 24.1 percent and agriculture was planned todecrease to 17.6 percent.
The problem of poverty was also gradually overcome. In 1970, sixty of
every hundred people were poor. In 1993 the proportion became 14 to 100. The
absolute number of poor people in that year was 26 million. Besides that, theaverage consumption of energy per capita per day was significantly improved. In
the mid-1940s the average consumption of energy per day was 1,880 kilocalories. In
1994 it went up to 2,933 kilocalories per capita per day.
General education and schooling were also reported to be improved. In the
period after independence the illiteracy rate on the island of Java was about 70
percent. In 1990 the number of illiterate people decreased to 16 percent. The samecan be said of women's participation in the labor force. In 1980 women's
participation was 33 percent and it went up in 1990 to 39 percent.
Given the above figures an observer of Indonesian politics cannot help but
have a lot of critical questions. Of course one is very much impressed by theincreasing participation of women in the labor force. However, women activists in
Jakarta, for example, keep reporting every month on the sexual harassment andabuse which take place every day in offices, factories, or other working places.
The number of poor people is supposed to be decreasing significantly, but
the story of those who are deprived of their lands and houses for the sake of newbuildings and new roads is still part of the order of the day. Still worse, they often
cannot receive a just compensation for the land and house they have to give up. The
officials usually feel justified to argue that what they are doing is for the public good,
and therefore individual interests should be sacrificed for the national cause.
The case of illiterate people is definitely more paradoxical. The number ofthe illiterate has been decreasing, but this is not reflected in an increasing number ofbooks being published. Let me take an example which I happen to know. The
biggest publishing house in Indonesia, Gramedia in Jakarta, does its best to publish
every year about 2,000 titles, which comprise both fiction and non-fiction. Except forsome titles which become best-sellers, the average copies of each printing are no
more than 3,000. The publisher is satisfied if the 3,000 copies are sold out in one year

43among the population of 2 billion. In comparison to other neighboring countries inSoutheast Asia, Indonesia is no doubt the least developed country as far as a reading
habit is concerned.
The quality of general education and schooling is far from excellent. Aftersix years of learning the English language at secondary and high school, Indonesianstudents do not have enough command to read English-language books, to write a
simple letter in English, or to engage in a simple English conversation. Also the useof the Indonesian language is much less than satisfactory. This is due to no clear
standardization, while most of the people who learn Indonesian as their second
language (the first is their mother tongue) take over the grammatical patterns of theirlocal languages and apply them to the Indonesian language. Besides, a politicalparlance full of slogans and jargons becomes a constant influence which issuperimposed on the minds of people by the print and electronic media.
In the matter of language, one can safely say that in the present situation inIndonesia it is not poets, novelists, or creative writers who make and create thelanguage but government officials and bureaucrats. The bureaucratization of
language results in the bureaucratization of mind. One is not trained to thinklogically and reasonably, because the self-imposed censorship is so powerful that it
makes people think in terms of what is acceptable or not, proper or improper,
according to the tacit standards which are dependent upon the whim and favor of
the powers-that-be.
What I am trying to illustrate is that there is not necessarily any positive
correlation between what a nation achieves physically, technically and economicallyand what it gains culturally, intellectually and mentally. More than that, it can be thecase that the relation is a negative one. This means that the building of new schools
and the printing of more textbooks can go along with a decrease in critical attitude
and lessening of intellectual curiosity. Or else, the building of new churches,mosques and places for religious services or the printing and distribution of more
holy books can go hand in hand with the weakening of religious morality, thediminishing of concern for marginalized people, and an increase of corruption within
the bureaucracy.
This is the case, I think, because there is a misperception of culture,
whereby all cultural values are identified with material goods. This is not totallywrong because to a certain extent values are also realized in material goods. No
artist can claim his or her talents if he or she never produces a good painting, ornever performs a good dance. However, the relationship between cultural goods
and cultural values is basically symbolic in nature. This means cultural values are
realized in material products or physical behavior, but material goods and physicalbehavior are not necessarily equal or even connected with cultural values. The
reason is that the latter can be an expression of the first but can become also a
concealment of the first. Cultural values are always symbolic in that they can bemade present and revealed in their representation but they can elude theirrepresentation which then conceals the absence of those values.
The Indonesian government will eagerly refer to the increasing number of44

schools all over the country as evidence of the official attention given to this sector.
However, official attention does not necessarily imply an understanding which isprofessionally correct, let alone real progress in national education. One reason isrelated to the nature of a pragmatic approach to cultural affairs. The strength of apragmatic approach is its capacity to provide us with operational criteria for action
as well as empirical criteria for evaluation. The weakness of this approach, however,lies in its tendency to equate physical and material representation with the culturalvalues represented. This is to say, the printing and distribution of more handbooks
for students and school-teachers indicates the increased attention of the government,
but whether it necessarily increases the learning capability of students andencourages the eagerness for certain subjects is still questionable. The reason is thatit still depends on how the subject matter is methodically presented in the books, towhat extent the subject matter presented relates to the actual environment of thestudents, and whether the teachers have enough time and attention to carry out aninteresting instruction on the subject matter.
Speaking of Indonesian primary, secondary and high schools, I am of theopinion that most of the handbooks do not meet expectations satisfactorily. Thosebooks contain materials to be drilled and learned by heart, and most of the questions
are given in multiple choice form. In turn this method of questioning does notprovide the students with an opportunity to think of the reason for their answer, but
forces them instead to merely guess at a possible answer given in the check-list.
Needless to say, this multiple choice system might be helpful in some cases, but it
obviously does not work in others. How can one be convinced that students canlearn good English simply by guessing at a possible answer? How can they beprovided with the ability to formulate their thoughts in a short essay if they are nevertrained to do so?
The same can be said of other sectors. A current issue under heated debate
is the plan of the Indonesian government to build a nuclear plant somewhere on theisland of Java. Much public reaction seems to oppose such a plan. The objection is
not due to a lack of trust in the technical expertise of Indonesian engineers but rather
to the aspect of social ethos and social discipline. The question is: how can one
believe that Indonesia is able to dispose of nuclear waste correctly when it has not yet
proven that the Indonesian state and society are able to dispose of paper and plastic
as well as can waste effectively enough?
Another objection relates to the question of error elimination in technology.
It goes without saying that the margin of error in technology is tolerable in reverse
ratio to the level of technology: the lower the technology, the larger the margin; thehigher the technology, the narrower the margin of error. In nuclear technology themargin of error must be reduced to near-zero. Error, however, is not only due to alack of know-how or expertise, but in many cases it is due to a lack of discipline,
concentration and sense of responsibility. Expertise is a matter of technologicaleducation and science, but discipline and responsibility are a matter of social ethos
and belong therefore to cultural affairs. With regard to nuclear technology, manyobservers in the country do not believe that the social ethos of the Indonesian people45

is developed enough to support such a high-risk technology as a nuclear plant.
Social discipline and social responsibility are discernible in the transportation system,in the manner people treat such public utilities as telephone boxes, or else in the way
people stand in line to buy tickets for a train or airplane. If this social discipline isstill obviously lacking, how can one be confident that suddenly the Indonesian
experts will be so disciplined in running a nuclear plant? Where will they find thediscipline? Who is to control them?
This is all the more urgent because in matters of high technology theexperts are not accessible to social control anymore, since those who are able to carryout social control of high technology are people who are well trained enough in thatfield with specialized technical know-how. This is totally different from social
control in politics, where the only prerequisite is political awareness and the politicalconcern of the citizens. In that sense, control of high technology is for the time being
more dependent upon the social ethos of the engineers rather than on the public
control of the citizens.
What I am trying to illustrate is that whatever infrastructure is built andwhatever physical and technological equipment is provided, all this achievement
does only very little for the improvement of human life if it lacks the supporting
mentality to give a cultural underpinning to the whole achievement.
The pragmatic assumption that economic growth will automatically bring
wealth to the whole nation is not proven in the Indonesian case, because the oldbelief in the trickle-down effect of economic growth is not verified. In the same vein,
the pragmatic assumption that technological development will necessarily bringabout corresponding changes in social behavior and mental orientation is not
validated. The use of mobile phones among many people in Jakarta does not resultin a more punctual attitude, just like the widespread use of personal computers andlaptops among Indonesians does not result in a more prolific production of books orscientific publication. This is not difficult to explain because the presence oftechnological goods is only the necessary condition for change, but it is by no means
the sufficient condition for such change. Social change or cultural change is the endresult of a dialectic between material circumstances and mental disposition. If themental disposition remains unchanged, and even resistant to changing
circumstances, nothing new will happen.
In that connection, if IHJ wants to retain the theme "Culture andDevelopment" for the next years of its fellowship program, I would like to suggest
breaking down the theme into related sub-themes, each of which could be the focus
of a year of the fellowship program. As described above, my own interest lies in thelack of culture in development. However, there are many related sub-themes whichmight be equally interesting.
III
The fellowship program has been designed as an exchange program and is
aimed at providing the participants with ample opportunity for such an exchange.
However, learning about other outlooks is one thing, whereas learning about why

46

people think differently is another. Being in Japan for two months while getting
involved in intensive discussions and meetings with various people gave me more
understanding than reading some volumes on Japan. This is because one has theopportunity to test one's understanding on the spot, both by means of talking to thepeople in face-to-face communication and by means of direct observation of how
people behave and think.
In that connection, I would suggest that the program could be carried out
not only in Tokyo, but alternately in places in East Asia or Southeast Asia. The
benefit of changing the place of meeting is that all the participants would have theopportunity of living in other countries and meeting and talking to the people there.
After some years of the fellowship program in different countries the IHJ in Tokyo
would have enough material for comparison, which could be distributed anddisseminated among all the participants who have finished their program as well as
among the new participants who are about to start their fellowships. The
comparison might give some light not only on different experiences from different
places, but also on why different places and different people have a different outlook
on the same matter.
Speaking from my own experience, this method was once applied in the socalled UN-University program in cooperation with academics from several East andSoutheast Asian countries. Those involved came from Hong Kong, the Philippines,
Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. The program went on from 1982 to
1986. Every year the participants came together in one country bringing theircountry-report on four clusters of themes, namely on the state and political economy,
people's movement, religion and culture. I took part in the yearly meetings
respectively in Salatiga (Indonesia), Penang (Malaysia), and Hayday (Thailand). In
the last year a member of each group was assigned to write a regional synthesis oneach cluster. I still remember that it took me quite a long time to synthesize countryreports from so many countries of four years of work. The experience of meetingother people in other countries was really stimulating and exciting as well. The only
difference with the IHJ program is that the people who met every year at that time
were the same participants.
I think the same thing could be done in the ALFP fellowship program.
After three or four years, the fellows of the next year can be assigned to write asynthesis on each cluster of themes based on their own perceptions and experiences,or on what they think can be done in a better way.
Another proposal is that the IHJ could coordinate a newsletter as a meansof communication among old and new participants, in order to set up a network of
ALFP fellows. Such a newsletter can play an important role as a cross-country media
which brings up cross-country opinions and outlooks. One main objection against
Southeast Asian intellectuals is that they are either very much country-bound orWestern-oriented. Their knowledge of their neighboring countries used to be very
limited and superficial. In the case of the UN-University program which I describedabove, there was a quite regular publication based in Manila, entitled New Asian
Vision, in which all the country reports were published. It is too bad that with the47

end of the program the publication also terminated. I can imagine that such a
newsletter can even survive if the fellowship program for one reason or another isterminated.
The fellowship program is aimed mainly at an exchange of opinions andoutlooks. However, understanding is only the beginning and not the end. Better
understanding, elimination of prejudices, and increasing capability for compassion
can and perhaps should be developed into a base for a new solidarity. The question
is: can intellectuals from Southeast and East Asia set up a network for solidaritybuilding which can play a role in the advocacy of intellectuals in those countries,
both by defending their right to expression, as well as by promoting the freedom ofintellectual communication among them?
In the case of Indonesia, the ban on books written by people who areallegedly opposed to the government is still part of the order of the day. In that casethe voice of fellow intellectuals from other neighboring countries will help exert
more pressure on the national government to review this policy because not only
does it not promote intellectual life in general, but it obviously does injustice to theintellectual property rights of creative authors. Many limitations, for example in thecase of the national press of Indonesia, are still defended on the basis of nonintervention in domestic affairs. This argument is also often utilized in the case ofhuman rights violations. A network of intellectuals of Southeast and East Asian
countries, I believe, can push towards a breakthrough whereby the argument of nonintervention in fundamental cases can be made questionable. What I now have inmind is a center for intellectual property rights, or a center for freedom of expression,in which intellectuals from Southeast and East Asian countries can work together
and fight together for whatever purposes they think important. So far such a centerhas been established for cultural cooperation, but no center has been set up for the
defense of common rights and advocacy against violation of those rights.
The transition from common understanding to solidarity-building is apractical answer to the theoretical question regarding the role of intellectuals.
Solidarity-building and common struggle can be a crystallization of the intellectualrole and the political role of intellectuals. Are intellectuals merely responsible for the
production of ideas, or are they also responsible for the working of those ideas? To
some extent, this question sounds rhetorical, because nobody is in a position tocontrol the working of his or her ideas. The unintended results of ideas is asociological fact. However, one can contribute to make one's ideas not only
understandable and acceptable, but also workable.
The identity and the role of the intellectual, it seems to me, will still be a
subject of debate in years to come. Who are they? What role are they to play? Must
they be necessarily scholars or scientists? How do they relate to politics? Those arequestions which will haunt intellectuals wherever they are. For analytical purposes I
think one can differentiate some different roles which intellectuals are to play,
particularly in their relation to knowledge in general and to scientific knowledge inparticular. Can one differentiate the role of intellectuals from that of scholars andideologues?

48

According to my understanding, scholars or scientists are people who areresponsible for the production, evaluation, reproduction and progress of scientificknowledge. It is their job to make the knowledge they have produced accessible andaccountable to the scientific community. They are to give a sort of guarantee that theknowledge used by people in the society is true knowledge which has been validated
by a scientific test or by an academic examination, this being done by means of their
theoretical and methodological apparatuses. The recognition given to them isprovided not by the society, but rather by their peers, which become the members ofan academic community.
Ideologues are people whose concern is not the production of knowledge,
but the psycho-political use of it. They are not responsible for the validity ofknowledge, but rather they provide existing knowledge with a political relevanceand political actuality. They do not aim at the objectivity of knowledge, but at thetransformation of knowledge into an instrument of political persuasion, solidaritybuilding and commitment, by means of transposing knowledge into sentiment andfeeling. Ideologues change objective knowledge into subjective belief. The
relationship between an ideologue and his followers is never one among peers but
rather one between patron and clients or between a leader and followers.
An intellectual, I think, has a place somewhere in-between. He is nottheoretically and methodologically rigorous enough to be a scholar, and not politicalenough to be an ideologue. His main concern is not the progress of knowledge per
se but rather the development of knowledge as a possible way towards moral
maturity. His responsibility is not an academic or political one in the first place but
relates primarily to the perfectibility of human beings. If an ideologue tends to be so
confident of his or her ideas, an intellectual tends to examine those ideas critically. If
a scholar looks at knowledge with regard to its being verified or proved false, anintellectual treats knowledge as something which is right or wrong. A scholar
measures his knowledge against the availability of supporting data. An intellectual
measures his knowledge against the norms and values in which he or she believes.
A scholar looks at knowledge in terms of its correspondence with reality. An
ideologue looks at knowledge in terms of its correspondence with his political vision.
An intellectual looks at knowledge in terms of its correspondence with underlying
values. Scholar, ideologue, and intellectual can only work with some stock ofknowledge at hand, but they give quite different meaning to what they believe theyknow, and what it could bring to other people.
It goes without saying that the above differentiation is ideal or typologicalin nature. In reality, many scholars in Southeast Asian countries play the three rolesat the same time. It seems to me that in countries where the number of scholars is
not yet sufficient those who work within academia are often actively involved as
public intellectuals. Also, in countries where official politicians are barred fromspeaking for the political aspirations of their constituency, both scholars andintellectuals usually take over the job and become informal representatives of various
political groups. This is the case in Indonesia, where the position of MP (member ofparliament) is not yet so independent and separate from the executive. An MP who49

is seen as too critical or too outspoken can be recalled by his party under the pressureof the Ministry of Domestic Affairs.
Besides that, I do believe that intellectuals are now less persons or groups
rather than functions. The question is not who are intellectuals but which
institutions can assume an intellectual role in a modern society. As long as theintellectual role is still needed, it seems that if one institution is unable to assume thatrole, it will soon be taken over by other institutions in one way or another. I am
thinking of Indonesia. The intervention of the bureaucracy in Indonesian academia
has gone so far as to make many institutions of higher learning not free enough totake intellectual initiatives or to engage in intellectual exploration. Of course this is
not an ideal situation. However, as far as intellectual life is concerned, this is not theend of intellectual life because the same role is nowadays played also by theIndonesian press and electronic media. If the press and electronic media are put
again under control and are rendered unable to play their intellectual role, I am sure
this role will be taken over by NGOs or other independent study clubs.
In that sense, the question "Do we have public intellectuals now?" will be
replaced by the question "Is the role of public intellectuals still needed in a modern
society?" Power politics and the bureaucracy are evidently a risk faced by public
intellectuals. However, this is a risk from outside. There is another risk which
originates in the internal dynamics of modern sciences as well as in the internalchange of the role of scientists.
In the first place, intellectual life is faced with the technicalization ofknowledge. Technicians are those whose concern and business are to transformtheoretical knowledge into use-value knowledge. For them knowledge is there to be
used, utilized, and applied. Practical applicability and the working of knowledge
become their primary aim. Epistemological truth and scientific validity can be
attributed to the scholars and scientists, whereas the moral rightness of knowledge isleft to intellectuals. Technicians use their knowledge pragmatically in order to bringabout the expected benefits.
Secondly, intellectual life is also faced with the professionalization ofknowledge. Professionals are people whose business is to transpose use-value
knowledge into exchange-value knowledge. Medical doctors, lawyers, engineers,
psychologists or economists who are working in a bureau of consultation are doing
service by means of selling their knowledge to their clients in order to get honoraria
or fees in return. There is of course nothing wrong with this. The risk they might berunning is that because of their jobs they are oriented primarily to the salability of
their knowledge rather than to the use-value of that knowledge, let alone to thevalidity of that knowledge.
Thirdly, intellectual life is also faced with the technocratization ofknowledge. Technocrats are people whose business is to transform their knowledge
and expertise into political power. This becomes possible because modern societies
become much more complex and complicated so that the ability to rule over themmust be supported by technical skills which are owned by experts. The entrance ofexperts into politics is also unique because they do not need the support of political50

legitimacy. Experts are accepted in politics not because they are supported by theirpolitical constituencies, but because of their knowledge and skills. There is a sort ofself-legitimizing character of expertise and technical know-how. Besides that, therecognition given to them is not provided by society but is a recognition by peers.
The technical use of knowledge in the hands of technicians is changed into thepolitical use of it in the hands of technocrats. Furthermore, the exchange ofknowledge for economic profit in the hands of professionals is changed into an
exchange of knowledge for power in the hands of technocrats. The main difference
between ideologues and technocrats is that whereas the first change knowledge into
political sentiment, the latter change it into political position.
If we look at the complexity of the role of the knowledge-worker in amodern society as described above, the space for intellectuals in general and public
intellectuals in particular becomes much narrower than before. The question is:should intellectuals now compete with other knowledge-workers for a niche for their
specific role, or is it possible that they can collaborate with other knowledge-workers,
for the sake of both cooperation and control, by means of giving an intellectual
underpinning to each role played by the knowledge-workers?
As far as my experience in Indonesia is concerned, I would argue that therole of the intellectual is still badly needed. For one thing, there is still a need forpeople who can take time and give overall attention to the different sectors in orderto get an overview of the development of society. Some generalists among so many
specialists are not an anachronistic luxury but rather a basic need. For another, theproblem of meaning is always there, whether a society is underdeveloped ordeveloped. The economists and economic planners are concerned with pushing for
economic growth. But who is to raise questions about the cost of economic growth
and the social aims which can justify such growth? Engineers might be concernedwith technological development, but who is to think of the social cost which is to be
paid for the use of that technology? There seem to be no specialists who are trained
for such a task.
In that case, intellectuals still have a role to play, for the simple reason that
we cannot leave social and political life to the judgement of specialists only. Life is
too big to be pigeonholed. The courage to reject compartmentalization with the riskof roaming in an unlimited horizon is a desperate and yet necessary undertaking
upon which an intellectual is always tempted to embark, for better or for worse.

51

Report on the Asia Leadership Fellow Program 1996
Kwok Kian-Woon
l. Introduction
Sometime in July 1996 I received a telephone call from Isamu Maruyama of
the Program Office of the International House of Japan, informing me that I had been
selected as a fellow in what was to be a new program—the Asia Leadership Fellow
Program—jointly organized by the I-House and the Japan Foundation. I was notquite prepared for such news. I was both surprised and honored that I was selected,
and the program seemed rather unlike the usual sort of academic fellowship that one
would come across. The program aimed at bringing together a group of intellectuals(and not just academics) from Southeast Asian countries. There was to be a twomonth period of collaborative work and fellows could spend an additional fourmonths in Japan for individual research. Given my work commitments at the
National University of Singapore (NUS), I could not be away for six months unless I
was on sabbatical leave (and that was nowhere in sight). Mr. Maruyama encouraged
me to look into the possibility of participating in at least the two-month (October–
November) period, during which all the fellows must be present. I told him that I
would consider the matter carefully and see how I could accept the invitation.
Before too long the Program Office sent further details. I was intrigued by
the potential breadth and depth of the program and by the background of the otherselected fellows. It seemed that I-House was striking out in a new direction with aprogram whose thrust was bold and format somewhat experimental. The overall
theme "Development and Culture" was a broad and open-ended one, but it seemed
to intentionally leave room for free exploration of key issues and problems in theregion. The emphasis on face-to-face and intensive dialogue made it different fromother types of fellowship. Just looking at the write-ups about the other fellows mademe think that they were unusual individuals (whom I have more to say about lateron). They didn't seem to fit the profile of ivory-tower academics; their work as
intellectuals appeared to carry certain profound concerns about the contemporary
situation in their societies.
I had already been assigned teaching responsibilities for the new academic
year. The first semester ran from mid-July to early November. With the permissionof the Department of Sociology at NUS, I sought the help of colleagues to cover thelast two weeks of teaching in October and examination duties in November. The
University granted me one month of study leave and allowed me to take one monthof holiday leave so that I could participate in the collaborative part of the program inJapan. Here I would like to place on record my gratitude to my colleagues, mydepartment and my university for allowing me to participate in the Asia Leadership
Fellow Program in October–November 1996. They made it possible for me toundergo a rare and significant intellectual experience, which I shall always treasure.

52

2. The two-month collaborative research and dialogue
One of the reasons why I was attracted to the program was the list of
selected fellows. I recognized three of the five other names. I had met KasianTejapira from Thailand at a conference in Cebu in November 1995; he presented an
excellent (and rather humorous) paper on the discourses on Thai identity. I had
remembered telling him that I was working along comparable lines of analysis in myresearch on culture and identity in Singapore. I had met Wan Manan from Malaysia
at a conference in Penang in January 1995, but we did not have the chance to get toknow each other well. I had often heard about Ignas Kleden from a close
Singaporean colleague who had contact with Indonesian intellectual circles. Ignas,
Kasian, Manan and I had not known the irrepressible Arnold Azurin of thePhilippines, but he made himself known to us in due course.
The minds who created the program were taking a calculated risk. Bringing
five or six independent intellectuals from different backgrounds together for twomonths could result in any number of possibilities, including the possibility that
individual idiosyncrasies could have stood in the way of any group effort and things
could have disintegrated. But that didn't happen for a number of reasons, one ofwhich was perhaps pure luck in that there was some chemistry between the different
participants. We took an almost instinctive liking to each other very quickly. Let us
be candid: in terms of both ideas and personality, anyone could find some aspects ofanother individual disagreeable. But there was enough good will, fellow feeling, andcommon sense of purpose for us to deal with the situation, sometimes by mutual
understanding but more often by mutual challenging. I didn't think that any one of
us would simply let things be, and we found our own ways of making our thoughts
and views known to each other. We knew that there could be no real dialogue
without real debate, and that a superficial consensus was not what we were after.
Other than group chemistry, however, the collaborative research anddialogue could be carried out because of the role of the I-House Program Office, itsleaders and staff, as facilitator. By this I do not simply mean that the organizers
provided the necessary infrastructure in terms of basic arrangements and a loose andmeaningful series of workshops, seminars, and other meetings. This is important,though. The I-House staff worked tirelessly to make sure that our accommodation,
food, travel and medical arrangements were taken care of. This freed our minds andallowed us to concentrate on our intellectual pursuits. The two months were filledwith many organized activities; but we also had some time for informal interaction
over meals, coffee, and trips to the bookstore.
But more than that, I think there were deeper aspects of the I-House
facilitator role that I appreciated. Let me be rather straightforward. As an
intellectual, I value—and indeed can function only with—a sense of autonomy. I try
to be sensitive about any possibility or way that my autonomy could becompromised or that my intellectual effort would be marshalled into the service ofcauses of which I am neither cognizant nor supportive. In this case, I was aware ofvarious strands of thinking concerning the "reasianization" of Japan in the 1990s. I
had to be clear about what this unusual program, funded by the Japan Foundation

53

and with I-House playing a key organizing role, meant for Southeast Asian
intellectuals. Two things, however, stood out. First, the organizers were committed
to "Track III" or people-to-people cooperation and a very special nongovernmental
institution was driving the program. Second, this particular organization—I-House—has had a history of promoting intellectual exchange, and not just between
American and Japanese scholars; in spite of the postwar turn toward the UnitedStates and long before the "reasianization" thesis emerged, I-House's leaders werealready in dialogue with Southeast Asian intellectuals, especially from the 1970s.
Indeed, there was something uncanny about all this. I-House's leaders werevery much in touch with people like Sulak Sivaraksa of Thailand, the late
Soedjatmoko of Indonesia, and William Lim of Singapore. Mikio Kato, Executive
Director of I-House, also knew scholars and public intellectuals such as Professor
Wang Gungwu and Professor Tommy Koh. Now, it turned out that Kasian knew
Sulak and saw him as a leading example for younger Thai intellectuals engaged in"cultural politics"; Ignas had a close friendship and a deep intellectual relationshipwith Soedjatmoko before he died; and I had worked with Willie in the Singapore
Heritage Society over the last few years. I also have great admiration for Professor
Wang Gungwu's lifework and scholarship and for Professor Tommy Koh's public
integrity; although I was not close to them, they were two of my role models. This
web of relationships between Japanese and Southeast Asian intellectuals andbetween different generations of intellectuals in our societies struck me. Somethingthat I had been grappling with in the case of Singapore suddenly crystallized: thesignificance of public intellectual life, of intellectual tradition and generational
continuity and change. And it was in this light and through collective discussionthat I thought that a worthwhile collaborative and comparative project would be onethat focused on the intellectual situation in contemporary Southeast Asia, raisingfundamental questions such as the roles of intellectuals, their concerns, and theircritiques. All the Fellows agreed that this was an appropriate starting point,providing a springboard for discussion on a whole range of specific issues.
Thus our discussions during the two months did, I think, have a sense of
purpose, direction, and coherence. Each of us brought to the collaboration specificconcerns, which grew out of our background; each brought a prior history ofgrappling with questions and issues, and this enriched the entire process. The
group's strength was definitely affected by Kasian's illness, which robbed him ofmany opportunities to make trouble for the rest of us, robbed us of many instanceswhere his vigorous style of posing fundamental criticisms could have jolted us into ahigher plane of discussion. Yet we were fortunate to have the benefit of his
interventions before and after his truly painful ordeal.
This is not the place for me to sum up the many important themes thatemerged from our discussions. The substance of our discussions has been recorded
elsewhere, and we hope to pursue the dialogue further. Let me say, however, that it
is rare for Southeast Asian intellectuals to experience close and sustained contact
among themselves. Given the graduate training in American and European
universities that some of us have undergone, we are quite at home in the intellectual54environment and discourses that are found in such universities and, more generally,in the West. We have had great teachers, we have read the best scholarly works in
Western languages, but we do not have as intimate a grasp of the intellectual
traditions and discourses in our neighboring countries. And this is also because wetend not to have cultivated a deeper relationship with intellectuals in these countries.
Thus the idea of a collaborative dialogue and the long-term building of networks ofintellectuals in the region is an idea whose time has come or is long overdue. There
have been precious fledgling efforts in the past, especially in the form of academic
conferences, regional NGO activities, and informal contacts. But these tend to be
sporadic and short-term. To give an example, one would be hard put to find aregional journal or newsletter that puts people in touch with contemporary
developments in politics, economics and culture from the standpoints of local
intellectuals who make it their vocation to analyze and to speak.
We have tended not to move from a national outlook to a wider and deeper
regional outlook through which intellectuals in one country can understand what
intellectuals elsewhere are thinking and how they grapple with their situations—andin turn look back at our own situation with fresh perspectives. This is one way of
explaining what I have learnt from our collaborative research. Beyond the widening
and deepening of my knowledge of other Southeast Asia societies and Japanesesociety through the eyes and experiences of their intellectuals, I have benefited by the
conflict and confluence of different lines of analysis, modes of reasoning, and stylesof argument. Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Japanare all different societies; yet there are parallels, comparisons, and affinities amid thecontrasts. These can only emerge in the course of genuine dialogue, as in light
passing through a prism. And they hit me powerfully, sometimes like a shock ofrecognition and often in the form of a creative release from my own way of looking
at the world, so that some new insight and even inspiration comes into the picture,and the picture is changed, made more multidimensional and more complex.
As much as the dialogue among us was an intensive and productive one, I
would also like to comment on the dialogue between our Japanese counterparts andus. Early on, I felt that the program should not be such that our Japanese organizers
merely made the opportunity for us to be in dialogue with each other. To put it
philosophically, it shouldn't be a case of us being put into a position in which wehuman subjects become the objects of gaze by others having a special curiosity orinterest in our deliberations. And it shouldn't be the case that we look back at the
onlookers as the objects that bring us together and make our deliberations possible.
In other words, I am critical of a subject-object (or object-subject) relationship between"the Japanese" and "the Southeast Asians." Rather, my ideal is for people to have asubject-subject relationship, that is, not to make the "other" the object of one's gaze but
to see, understand, and engage each other as flesh-and-blood individuals and not as
an artificial representation of something else. If we have the chance to deepen our
relationship we discover both our unique individuality and our common humanity.
This is the "prism" effect that I have described earlier and not, to put it crudely, the"fishbowl" effect of a subject-object gaze.

55

In this sense, I am grateful that we have all tried to make the dialogue closer
to this ideal throughout the series of workshops, seminars, the Shimoda retreat, thefinal public symposium, and in informal interaction. I could sense that the dialogue
among those of us from Southeast Asia oftentimes resonated with our Japanesecounterparts who were engaged in reflecting on their own situation, especially when
we discussed the intellectual situation or specific problems of cultural and social
development. In other words, we were not merely the objects of attention on the partof Japanese intellectuals and vice versa. Rather all of us were coming into a larger
dialogue, contributing our individual views and experiences and reflecting back onthem through the views and experiences of others.
3. Individual research time
To be sure, I didn't have much individual research time during the twomonth collaborative period. The schedule was tight, and the group spent much of
the spare time in informal interaction. However, there was a lot on my mind andbecause the little time that I had was precious to me, I wanted to grapple with some"big" sociological questions that I had confronted in the course of working on anumber of research areas. I took the opportunity to organize these ideas and topresent them for discussion and criticism at the Shimoda retreat. To give an idea ofwhat I was working on, it may be useful for me to reproduce here the "Typology ofSocio-Historical Configurations" that I had developed, encapsulating some of my key
concerns and what I learnt through discussions with the other fellows. I shall not
attempt to explain the typology in detail. For the purpose of this report, I shall repeat
some of the things I said in my presentation at Shimoda.
The typology is a conceptual "map" to help me highlight some contours of
the contemporary world and guide my research. There is very little that is original inthis map, as often I have followed in the footprints left by other scholars andintellectuals. My concerns are not just theoretical but also empirical and practical.
Empirical because I am most immediately concerned about what is happening in mycountry and among my people, but I also want to draw comparative lessons andinsights (as well as points of challenge and inspiration) by learning about thesituation in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Japan. And practicalbecause I am concerned with what is at stake (and for whom) in what is happening
and with the question of what is to be done and what can or cannot be done to meetthe demands of the day.
From the big picture, therefore, I ask questions such as the following: What isthe empirical socio-historical configuration found in a particular society? What are
the human and social limitations and possibilities of the present, given its
characteristic tendencies and tensions? And, as intellectuals, how do we evolve andmount a coherent, vigorous and effective response to the conditions of the present?
In spite of differences, what do we share in common and what can we learn fromeach other? How will a regional network of intellectuals be helpful for our social
analysis and civic involvement in each of our home countries?
The typology works as what sociologists call an idealtype schema; that is, it56

artificially exaggerates or caricatures certain elements of each socio-historicalconfiguration—Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern. I do not view these
configurations as stages making up a causal or sequential model. Rather my view isthat the present reality is not traditional, modern, or postmodern; instead, the present
can be characterized as the intertwinement of tradition, modernity, and postmodernity.
But the combination of elements, the extent to which they are developed, and the
directions in which they are played out are different across the societies. The
empirical reality is of course infinitely more complex than what is abstracted in theideal typology, which is meant to throw into relief the relative presence or absence ofelements and to throw up sociological questions about the existing situation.
I put forward two general propositions for discussion:
1. Intellectuals should deal with the combination of elements of tradition, modernity,and postmodernity, rather than work along a single dimension, because theseelements and their often double-edged tendencies coalesce and challenge each other.
The present is marked by continuities and discontinuities with the past. It is neither
possible nor always desirable to abandon tradition as such, especially when elementsof traditional (especially religious) universes of meaning are important for many
people. Indeed the manipulation and erasure of social memory serves politicaldomination. At the same time, modernity is not simply a set of conditions but also a
set of normative ideas and commitments, which may have positive and negative
consequences. Similarly, postmodernity as a set of historically unprecedented
conditions should be confronted, not necessarily by accepting all the many different
claims that come under the rubric postmodernism.
2. The situation in most Asian societies, if not most contemporary societies, can becharacterized as a crisis. As in the Chinese and Japanese word for "crisis," there are
elements of "danger" and "opportunity" which intellectuals should conceptualize andarticulate in relation to specific and concrete issues. The complex present requires anequally complex set of intellectual responses. The underdevelopment of intellectual
tradition and intellectual community has some serious costs. And when there is avoid in public discourse, not least because intellectuals have not defined their publicrole in the face of contemporary conditions, the void will be filled (almost by default)
by the domination of the state and the market (and sometimes by other forces such as
religious sectarianism). Given the stakes involved, intellectuals cannot go on
privatizing themselves. That there is no sense of crisis may be a sign of just how far
and deep the crisis has developed.

57

Typology of Socio-Historical Configurations: Tendencies and Tensions

Techno-economic
context

Premodernagrarian revolution/
feudalism

Modernindustrial revolution/capitalism

Postmodern
information revolution/late capitalism

Communications

oral-written tradition

print-broadcast
mediaelectronic media

Temporal-spatial
experience

rootedness in time and transcendence of time
place (boundedness:and place (openness:
firm linkage todouble capacity ofparticular cultural
linking and desystem)
linking)compression of timeand space (newer
forms of linkage, withemphasis on de-linking
and unboundedness)

Gesellschaft/market–society–nation-state("imaginedcommunity" )"global village"/"virtual community"
plus search for new
forms of
Gemeinschaft

Social organization

Gemeinschaft/face-to-facerelations

Political
organization

aristocracy/
absolutism

democracy/
totalitarianism/authoritarianism

the renewal of
democracy? Or newer
forms of control?

hierarchy:
Socialintegration
based on values andnorms

equality:
system integration
based on "amoral"
functions of exchange
and power

network:combination of social
fragmentation andincreased system
integrationdifferentiation
between polity (state),
economy (market) and"private" sphere (e.g.
family, religion);emergence ofautonomous publicsphere or civil society

new possibilities forde-institutionalizationand creation ofautonomous spaces
through multiple
networks, bypassing
official channels

religion:salvation/other-worldly
concerns

humanism:enlightenment/
emancipation/
progresspluralism/antifoundationalism:"incredulity toward
metanarratives"

religious schism basedon dogma/ethnonationalist conflictclass conflict averted
by welfare state andnationalist ideology"politics ofrecognition" (raceethnicity, gender, etc.)

Organizing principle

Differentiation of
spheres of life

Metanarrative

Nature of social
conflictlack of differentiation
between sociocultural, political andeconomic spheres

58

Premodern

ModernPostmodern(continued)

Basis of legitimacy

Logic of hegemony/domination

Basis ofde-legitimization

Selfhood andidentity

Moral agency

Intellectuals andintellectual activities

substantive (e.g.
tradition, charisma,
natural/mythic
origins, sanctified inand through customs
and rituals)

positivistic("what is is right")

critique of
traditionalism(critical de-linking oforigin and validity ofknowledge)

embedded self:
embedded in tradition[e.g. rules ofdeference] andcommunity without
room forindividuality;

formal/procedural(e.g. rule of law,electoral
representation andformation ofconsensus)

instrumental mix ofsubstantive andformal bases (e.g.
"invention of
tradition" and legal/
bureaucratic
rationalization)

rationalistic:
1. formal rationality:("what is legal isright") plus
2. instrumental
rationality("what works isright")

relativistic:emphasis on cultural
particularism andnational sovereignty[multiculturalism,
political correctness,
assertion of statesovereignty]

critique of"rationality without
reason"(critical re-linking of
substantive values andrationality, the ethicaland the empirical)

critique of utilitarianand nihilistic
relativism/dialecticof deconstruction andreconstruction of
tradition and rule oflaw, etc.

disembedded self
integrated into
bureaucracy/market;
room for individual
achievement andsocial mobility
without sense ofcommunity;

re-embedded self? :new forms ofindividuality andcommunity, local,
regional and global;

fixed, rigid, and 'pure'identity

autonomous/reflexive self; fluid
identity

shifting, multiple(incoherent) identities
or multidimensional/
hybrid (coherent)
identity

obedience to sacred
powers/ethic of
ultimate ends

conscience and moral
reasoning/ethic ofresponsibility

either relativist
tolerance orabsolutist intolerance?

guardians of heritage,
bearers of social
memory, developersof traditions,articulators ofcommunity ethos

vanguards ofmodernization, as
technocrats/
professionals and as
critics of domination

deconstructionists: as
manipulators in or
critics of political/
economic uses ofsymbol systems

59

4. Plans and prospects for follow-up
I intend to find the time to follow up on many of the themes and argumentsthat the other fellows and I have developed and bring them into my current andfuture writings on culture and development. I also hope to do this in tandem withthe group's action plan, which includes a joint publication and at least two
conferences in the coming years. Given the fact that when we are back in our own
countries we will be absorbed in our vocation as academics and intellectuals, theseprojects need to be pushed and driven with great effort in order to be fully
accomplished. We need to be in touch with each other more closely. In thisconnection, I am grateful that Wan Manan has agreed to spearhead a conference in
Malaysia in 1998. The work for our intended book project could proceed in tandemwith the run-up to the conference. Perhaps some impetus would also be provided
with the building of a larger network of intellectuals both by our own efforts and by
the continuation of the Asia Leadership Fellow Program. However, we can't wait fora critical mass to be built up; even little efforts will count for something in the longrun. Thus I think our work towards the 1998 Malaysia conference will help us pickup the momentum and perhaps involve the 1997 fellows and other intellectuals.
Something valuable has been started, and follow-up is not going to be easy because
our work pulls us in so many directions. But we must try, or else the potentialities
behind what we have begun will not be meaningfully realized.
5. Other general observations
I have been asked to relate my general observations about the program, thefellows, our Japanese counterparts, Japanese intellectuals, people at large, Japaneseculture, and Southeast Asian Studies in Japan. I have already indicated some of myviews about the program, which I shall return to in my concluding section.
As for the fellows, let me say that they have enriched my intellectual life in
the short space of a few months. There are aspects of what I have learnt from themwhich I think will always remain with me, aspects of personality and cognitive style,and passion for life. I am grateful to Arnold, Ignas, Kasian, and Manan for extending
their friendship and for nudging and challenging me in intellectual debate. Each of
the fellows came to be associated with a particular talent: Manan for making social
arrangements and giving a sense of direction, Ignas for rigorous philosophizing andcoming up with just the right word (in English, Bahasa, German, and Latin), Kasianfor his combination of a mischievous critical spirit and a loud, infectious laughter,and Arnold—what can we say?—for being Arnold. Memories of little things,
snippets of conversation, gestures of kindness, these I shall carry with me.
This too is the case in my relationship with Japanese friends and fellow
intellectuals, whom I have had the privilege of meeting during my stay. We had thechance to engage each other as we engaged the demands of the day in our society,our region and the world. The Shimoda retreat was a high point in our stay, and I
shall always remember the depth with which we pursued the issues that were
uppermost in our minds. And let us not forget that after all our hard work we
discovered during our karaoke session that what unites all Asians is their60

unapologetic love of the Beatles. Likewise, we sensed that the public symposium atthe end of the two-month period stirred much interest, judging not just by the size ofthe audience but by the kind of questions that were posed to us.
It would take a book for me to do justice to the complex matter ofcontemporary Japanese social and intellectual life. I have had occasion to share myruminations on Japanese society during discussions. No generalization about"Japanese society" or "the Japanese intellectual" is useful because it cannot
encapsulate the diversity of life within Japan and the inner struggles of individual
Japanese. Since my teenage years I have cultivated an interest in Japanese spiritualand aesthetic traditions. I also have an abiding interest in the question of social
memory, and here there are significant issues related to the Japanese wartime recordin Southeast Asia: how generations and groups of Japanese deal with this past, which
also includes the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During my training at
Berkeley, I learned about Japan through the works of Robert Bellah and heard Masao
Maruyama and Kenzaburo Oë at a conference and later read many of their works
translated into English.
Maruyama's death in 1996 signaled for me the passing of an important
generation of Japanese intellectuals, although perhaps not the total passing of aparticular intellectual spirit, which I hope would continue to animate contemporary
intellectuals, and not just in Japan. In particular I am struck by Maruyama's great
intellectual effort directed at understanding the historical, sociological, andpsychological conditions that shaped and distorted consciousness and action. My
own views about contemporary Japanese society are close to the perspective
developed in Kenzaburo Oë's "Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself," his 1994 Nobel
Prize Speech. For me, Japan represents a particular expression of modernity, of
Asian modernity, of the possibilities of modernity and the limits of possibility.
And it will not do for me to simply say that contemporary Japanese society isin a state of crisis. I hope to find the time to set out my reflections on contemporary
Japan and show what I mean by such a statement. Tatsuya Tanami, if I recall
correctly, once said that contemporary Japan is "a land without a script." There is agreat deal of truth in this statement, and if so intellectuals do have a significant roleto play. The crisis of Japanese modernity cannot be alleviated by the work ofintellectuals alone, but intellectuals must do their work. And the search for a new
script would have implications not just for Japanese society but also for Southeast
Asia and the world. I say all this at the risk of being misunderstood. I am not justspeaking of Japanese modernity and Japanese intellectuals. Ultimately I am
addressing not Japanese or other intellectuals but my own conscience as anintellectual. And conscience makes trouble for all of us.
I have also been asked to say something about Japanese culture and thepeople at large. There is simply too much to say and it cannot be said given thelimits of time and space. Let me try one way of saying something by recalling what
Kenzaburo Oë says at the end of his Nobel Prize Speech. Oë's critique of thecontemporary Japanese order is deep and unrelenting, but he does not stop there andoffer no path out of the "chronic disease that has been prevalent throughout the61modern age." At the end of the speech, he invokes the memory of his teacher Kazuo
Watanabe whose work sought to "teach the Japanese about humanism, about theimportance of tolerance, about man's vulnerability to his preconceptions and to themachinery of his own making." Then Oë concluded with the idea of "the wondrous
healing power of art" and with the image of Hikari, his handicapped son, making
music, expressing "the voice of a crying and dark soul" and in the process music is"an act of recovery" for both musician and listeners.
Art (and the arts in and out of Singapore) is a personal interest, research area,and social concern of mine. I also study childhood autism in Singapore andsubscribe to the idea that a society—its true quality of life and its moral worth—isjudged by how it treats its disadvantaged members and how it relates to thedisadvantaged of the earth. It was a great privilege that I experienced in Japan one of
the most powerful artistic performances that I have come across in my life and thatspoke to my concerns. This was a Butoh performance led by Natsu Nakajima
entitled "Loitering children going nowhere" performed on the 29th of October 1996 in
Yokohama. Nakajima-san and her colleagues had worked with a group of children
with Down's Syndrome and their parents, and their performance was filled with thehumanism and healing power of art that Oë had written about. I can be critical ofJapanese culture and the Japanese people and of any society, including my own, but
it behooves any intellectual to try to get at the humanity of the people that he or she
is criticizing so that in delving beneath the layers of political and economic structures
we know that we are ultimately dealing with human beings. The whole of what
contemporary Japanese society is was not captured in that precious performance, but
I experienced one significant part of Japan that offered some hope and light.
Finally, a word about Southeast Asian Studies in Japan. I can't do justice tothis subject, but more because of ignorance and lack of information. My thoughts on
this are rather impressionistic. I find great value in the work of many Japanesescholars on Southeast Asia. I am often impressed by their facility in Southeast Asian
languages, their in-depth historical and ethnographic understanding. I know there issome rethinking going on concerning the future directions of Southeast AsianStudies in Japan. My main comment would be in relation to what I said about thedifference between a subject-object relation and a subject-subject relation in the studyof an "other" culture, society or region. There is much room for both Japanese andSoutheast Asian scholars to engage each other in delving into fundamental issues.
There are times when I think that quite a lot of Japanese scholarship on Southeast
Asian societies stays at the level of empirical detail—which in itself has scholarly
value—but does not touch on the larger implications or deeper meanings of aparticular phenomenon for Southeast Asians and the world. When the question"What is at stake?" is hardly asked or addressed in academic studies, ourunderstanding of any society or culture is impoverished.
6. Suggestions and recommendations for the future program
The 1996 fellows have given some suggestions for the future development of
the program at the end of the two-month collaborative work. I am glad to see that a62number of recommendations have been taken up in the 1997 program. The inclusionof a Japanese participant is a concrete way of addressing some of the concerns that I
have discussed earlier. The criteria of selection with a view to bringing together
public intellectuals and through nomination from a wide range of sources should be
kept. Also, from my experience I urge that selected participants need to be given
enough advance notice for them to plan their schedule and negotiate their workcommitments, especially if they are to find some way of taking up the full six-month
fellowship.
I think the emphasis on "Track III" cooperation is the program's mostprecious asset, and the independence of I-House in defining the shape of the
program, along with its willingness to seek and incorporate the views of theparticipants should be preserved. I take this opportunity to let my co-fellows knowthat "Southeast Asia" has come to mean something more real and more special since I
met them. Intellectuals are suspicious of artificial categories, empty signifiers into
which people, especially those in power, can invest their own meanings. But so canwe. Still, I hesitate to say "I am a Southeast Asian" because I know that the term
carries special responsibilities for one to know much more about our peoples and ouraspirations. I have only just begun.

63

Report on the Asia Leadership Fellow Program 1996
Kasian TejapiraFirst of all, as the Thai member of the first group of fellows in the program,let me commend the International House of Japan and the Japan Foundation Asia
Center for their farsighted vision, courage and initiative in launching thisunprecedented, innovative endeavor with potentially far-reaching intellectual andcultural impact on East Asia and beyond. For, as far as I understand, what the
program's initiators have visualized and tried to bring about, facilitate and support isnothing less that a nongovernmental and non-business so-called "third track" forum
for open, free and equal exchange and debate among prominent Asian public
intellectuals and social activists on current issues of common concern to theirrespective societies, as a first step towards the possible formation of an independentand autonomous regional network of Asian civic leaders. Obviously, much morethan financial resources are needed to create such a forum and network. Mutual
trust, good will and sincerity are the indispensable foundation and building blocks ofthis kind of international cooperative enterprise. And to the credit of both of its
institutional organizers, the overall design and execution of the program as well as
its director, coordinators and staff were highly and exemplarily conducive to theflourishing of these essential psychological elements among the fellows.
Achievements and Limitations of the Two-Month Collaborative Research Period
To collaborate in a collective intellectual project, people need to know one
another well both personally and intellectually. Based on my own incomplete andlimited one-month experience due to my unexpected illness, hospitalization andearly departure, I would say that the fellows came to know one another personallyfairly well and quickly. (A sure indicator were the friendly jokes about one another's
funny, idiosyncratic behavior and personality traits they started cracking in thesecond week of the program.) I still cherish a vivid memory of a few times when the
fellows, in informal gatherings away from the meeting rooms and official agenda,
such as on the upper floor of a Roppongi MacDonald's restaurant, discussed,
disagreed, argued and debated, excitedly, stimulatingly and thought-provokinglywith one another on a wide variety of topics ranging from the philosophy of Karl
Popper to the meanings of democracy in various Southeast Asian countries.
I once asked another fellow whether this kind of serious mutual engagementwith other fellows' arguments on key issues took place in the program's formal
meetings. His answer was no.
But why not?
Let's not forget that we had with us there and then perfect contenders andresource persons for various rounds of Great Debates. Intellectually speaking, thesefellows came to Tokyo fully formed and mature. They had, for a long time, engaged
their intellectual compatriots in deep and serious public debates on important64

cultural, political and socio-economic issues, sharpened their ideas and trained theirarguments on their respective reading and thinking national public, won and lostarguments, and become more or less influential opinion-makers in their own
respective civil societies. The program provided the fellows with a rare and valuable
opportunity and forum to air their domestically developed ideas and arguments
before an audience of like-minded international colleagues, to let their views be
examined, questioned, challenged, contested and criticized by the latter and see
whether or not they could withstand the test and still hold water. Only throughopen, sincere, serious and uninhibited debates could there be a genuine exchange ofideas and mutual learning among the fellows.
Why didn't they debate with one another in formal meetings as fully andseriously as they could have done? I could think of a number of reasons. First,
because they didn't know one another well enough intellectually. That they wererelatively ill-informed of one another's intellectual interests, positions and projects
was due to the fact that they did not have an adequate chance to introduce andpresent themselves intellectually to one another in formal occasions. All that wasallotted to each fellow according to the schedule was a single session of one or twohours to talk about one's intellectual profile, interests and work. Bibliographies of
their English publications and/or copies of selections from their writings were notsystemically prepared and provided. Those that were made available were few andfar between, random, limited and probably unrepresentative of their overall
intellectual vocation. Had more time been allowed for each fellow's formal selfintroduction and presentation, and a list and copies of representative readings of his
work distributed, they would have had a far better chance to become moreacquainted with and knowledgeable about one another's ideas, positions andarguments, found stimulating points of agreement and disagreement, convergenceand divergence of interest among themselves, and probably argued and debatedwith as well as learned from one another much more intensely and fruitfully.
Perhaps what is needed is a series of half-day sessions for each of the fellows to taketurns to introduce themselves and lecture on some topic(s) of particular personal
interest, followed by a week-long break for reading other fellows' writings and for
informal gatherings and joint activities in the evenings, and then a resumption of
meetings to review and debate each fellow's work and ideas arranged according to alist of topics of common interest compiled by the fellows themselves.
Secondly, there seemed to be certain dynamics peculiar to the gathering of
the fellows during the two-month collaborative research period. To be "uprooted"
from one's home, family, friends, colleagues and familiar-linguistic, cultural andworking environment, and then be "transplanted" to an "I-House" (which was reallya hotel rather than a house) in the center of a cosmopolitan metropolis among
strangers who spoke in tongues for a considerable period of time, was a rather
challenging and disconcerting experience, to say the least. It was a perfect setting not
only for meeting new people and making new friends, but also for missing old ones.
Thus, some fellows could soon become homesick and set their hearts and minds tohome rather than to the seminars and meetings. They might still take part in the65

program but, in a way, the program seemed to pass them by without seriously
engaging their deep concerns. They might actually disagree with some of the things
being said in a seminar but they wouldn't bother to argue, raise an objection, state
their contrary opinions or alternative positions, or pursue the argument further.
Better be reticent and congenial rather than forthright and argumentative for this was
merely a temporary and rather unreal set-up. Let it go along smoothly anduneventfully so that everyone would be happy and, at the end of it, each could thengo his or her own separate way back to the real things at home. For the program
was, after all, not ours or mine.
This lack of the sense of "ownership," the feeling that the program didn't
belong to them, was perhaps the most debilitating psychological factor affecting thefellows' participation in it.
Thirdly, the Japanese presence and context had both positive and distracting
effects. Of course, the program had to be held somewhere and it was nice that thevenue was Tokyo, with its ample material and human resources, rich intellectual
culture, accessible research facilities, and convenient accommodation andtransportation. But, understandably, the Japanese presence and context also exerted
such strong attraction on the fellows that sometimes they inadvertently veered awayfrom the program's original and main objective, namely to provide an opportunity
for Asian civic leaders to get together and discuss among themselves issues ofcommon concern to them and their countries and region (including, but not only,
Japan) by availing themselves of local research facilities and resource persons (whichhappened to be Japanese). Willy-nilly, the themes of discussion and resource
persons invited to talk to the program's seminars and meetings resembled more andmore those of a crash course on Japanese studies, as if the fellows had come here
primarily to learn about Japanese society, culture and history. Of course, there wasnothing wrong with learning about Japan and it would be a pity indeed if the fellows
didn't make use of this rare opportunity to learn something about their host country,
which has become the economic powerhouse of Asia. But that was a different
objective which required a different kind of program and group of participants. It
wouldn't have the unique objective and special character that made it an "Asia
Leadership Fellow Program" but be reduced to a simple program of extended
Japanese study tours.
One should realize that the most important resource persons for the program
were the fellows themselves, not outsiders, and the most important issues for them todiscuss were about their own societies, not Japan.
And yet, despite all the above-mentioned limitations, I got a distinct
impression that the fellows did come to know, befriend and learn a lot from one
another through comparing their personal and working experiences as well as thesituation in their respective countries. That was no mean feat, considering the factthat this was actually an unprecedented and untried innovative international
program in its first year with so many possible and unexpected odds against it.

66

Achievements of My Overall Fellowship Period
It was unfortunate that I fell seriously ill and had to go back homeprematurely during the two-month collaborative research period. So I was absent
from most of the program's activities in that crucial initial phase and had no chance
to do much "collaborating." Therefore, in terms of formal exchange of ideas andnetworking with other fellows, I am afraid not much was achieved on my part.
Personally and intellectually, I became most acquainted with and closest to Kwok
Kian-Woon, the Singaporean fellow. This probably had to do with the fact that weboth happened to be ethnic Chinese and were intellectually and politically interested
in similar issues in our own respective societies, i.e., the ethnic Chinese, culturalpolitics, public intellectuals, etc. So, in this case, there is a good chance that we cancollaborate fruitfully in the future. I was also intrigued and interested in Arnold
Azurin's distinct, original and revisionist views on culture and nationhood, which hedeveloped from the Philippine context, as well as in Ignas Kleden's critical andperceptive analyses of Indonesian politics and culture, including his practicalexperience as an NGO activist there.
In my opinion, the prospects of further collaboration among the fellows
gradually and eventually building up into an active, productive, sustainable andlong-term regional network depend on two crucial factors, i.e., 1) the emergencewithin the group of a natural, magnetic leader and 2) a "permanent" secretary who
persists with the tedious but indispensable job of maintaining routine
communications among them.
For various reasons, factor one was missing from the group whereas Wan
Manan has emerged as a natural and perfect candidate for factor two. And I'm
happy to report that with regard to our group's first collaborative research project on
public intellectuals in Southeast Asia, he is performing the secretarial task effectively
and admirably.
As to my own personal research project on "Consuming Thainess: Global
Commodities and National Identity," I managed to write up the research reportduring the one-month extended fellowship period in March 1997. Actually, thecollection of research materials and data for the project had already been completedin Thailand prior to my coming back to Tokyo. However, given my many
obligations both familial and professional, I couldn't have found the time, seclusionand concentration to write it up in Bangkok. In that sense, my fellowship in Tokyo
afforded me the necessary peace, calm and tranquility to think through my whole
research and formulate its proper theoretical and conceptual framework.
Besides, I had frequent opportunities to meet and discuss with a number ofJapanese academics, journalists and writers, especially those with special interest andexpertise in Southeast Asia in general and Thailand in particular, such as Professor
Yoneo Ishii of Sophia University, Professor Akira Suehiro of Tokyo University,
Professor Takashi Shiraishi of Kyoto University, and others at the Institute ofDeveloping Economies, the Toyota Foundation, and the Japan Foundation Asia
Center. Apart from exchanging views with these people and receiving some very
interesting and useful research publications and data from them, I also had a chance67

to present some of my raw or half-baked evolving hypotheses and ideas on cultural
globalization and racist opportunism in Thailand to an audience of learned, JapaneseSoutheast Asianists and Thai Studies scholars so as to sound them out. Needless tosay, I benefited greatly from their critical reaction and comments.
Impressions about My Stay in JapanMy experience of Japan was rather limited in both space and time.
Altogether, it lasted less than three months and was exclusively within the city ofTokyo. Moreover, for about two weeks my presence and movement was confined toa single university hospital due to my illness. Therefore, what I am about to report isindeed nothing more than subjective "impressions," destined to be disputed anddisproved by objective studies and analyses, but "impressions" nonetheless may beinteresting and useful as they are.
(1) At first glance, Japan, as seen through its metropolitan streets and TV
programs, looked distinctly much more "Westernized" or, perhaps better still,"Americanized" than their counterparts in Thailand. In public places, virtually every
Japanese man wears a suit and tie and every Japanese woman a pair of stockings.
Western-styled, bright-color hair-dyeing and flashy make-up was much morefashionable and widespread among women here than in some reputedly very
"globalized" Asian cities such as Singapore and Bangkok. European, especially
Italian and French, cuisine and restaurants seemed to be all the rage for the Japanesepublic. And for a country that still maintains its own unique national language andnon-Romanized script, the free-wheeling and common sprinkling of English terms
onto the words of many a Japanese popular song (especially title songs of cartoon
movies) was astonishing.
(2) And yet, when one observed the Japanese at work closely enough, one
could distinguish traces of an altogether non-Western and residual stiff hierarchicalstructure and paternalistic relationships and ethos among them behind theWesternized, Americanized or "Globalized" veneer. Be it at the I-House program
office, the I-House coffee shop, or the university hospital where I stayed, subordinate
and junior personnel showed a very high degree of deference, obedience and loyalty
to their bosses and senior colleagues, as if the relationships that obtained had beenmaster-apprentice or patron-client ones. Orders were dutifully and strictly executedby the former; opinions with regard to anything new, unexpected or unusual wereconstantly sought from the higher-ups before any action would be taken; theirmouths were tightly shut when attending a meeting with an outsider in the presenceof their bosses; and not a single bad or critical word was ever uttered against thelatter behind their backs even in private. A boss and his closest assistant might havetheir desks set next to each other but one could tell from the way the assistant always
referred respectfully and compliantly to the boss that the psychological and power
distance between them was huge.
(3) Rules, regulations and established procedures of all sorts, including even
items on a menu, were fetishized and strictly and rigidly adhered to even when thecircumstances that obtained in some particular cases practically demanded

68otherwise. Regularity, predictability and certainty were the order of the day whereas
flexibility, pragmatism and improvisation seemed out of the Japanese order. As if
moulded from a multiple-choice mindset, the Japanese worker became out of his or
her depth and disconcerted when confronted with an unusual situation or requestthat called for an unconventional, unpremeditated alternative to be taken.
(4) It appeared to me that the Japanese presence in the outside world andespecially in Southeast Asia was uneven in character, i.e., it was more economic andtouristy than cultural and intellectual. This was due primarily to the fact that while
English was the lingua franca of the present generation of Southeast Asian
intellectuals, many of whom were trained in America or Europe, most Japanese
intellectuals did not speak or write in English. Besides, only a small if growing
number of Japanese academic, literary, journalistic and cultural works were available
in English whereas the Southeast Asian reading public and audience in generalpractically knew no Japanese, an incongruous situation resulting in largely deserted
Japanese bookshops and shelves upon shelves and piles upon piles of unborrowed
and uncatalogued, donated Japanese books in university libraries in Bangkok. One
would only wait in vain for the currently dominant Anglophone Southeast Asian
intellectuals to go Japanese, and it will take perhaps at least 15 to 20 years for a newgeneration of Japanese-trained and -speaking intellectuals to arise and take the older
ones' place, if that is ever possible at all.
So, for the foreseeable future, if Japan seriously wishes to enhance its
intellectual and cultural presence, contact and network in the region, there is no
escape from "going English" for both its intellectual and cultural products.
Suggestions and Recommendations for Future Programs
Most of my suggestions and recommendations for the Program have alreadybeen made earlier, so I won't repeat them again. Rather, I would like to point out one
specific issue of crucial if still neglected importance to the Program, namely thehealth of the fellows.
As the one fellow who fell seriously ill during the Program and hence had
hands-on experience of the matter, I think the Program's director and staff initially
underestimated the severity of my illness, resulting in my excruciating sufferings,
belated hospitalization, prolonged sickness and slow recovery. Coolness and caution
were of course the marks of capable leadership. But when dealing with an
emergency situation of unknown disease, physical pain and rapidly deteriorating
health, coolness could hardly be distinguished from cold-bloodedness and caution
from indecision. The nature and symptoms of diseases prevalent in the tropicalcountries of Southeast Asia are different from those common in Japan and generally
unfamiliar to Japanese doctors.
Given these facts, one should be particularly alarmed at and concerned about
any instance of illness among the fellows from that region and every necessary
advance measure and action should be taken to prevent its aggravation. For
example, fellows should be required to undergo a medical check-up before leaving
their home country and bring the check-up report along with their health profile to69

Japan. Regrettably, none of these had been done in a timely manner in my case.
Be that as it might, once I was hospitalized and the seriousness of my illness
realized, the Program's director and staff were the best friends an expatriate patient
could hope for in place of his closest family members. The constant and unfailingcare, devotion and responsibility they bestowed upon me were exemplary andbeyond any and all expectations. It left a profound and heartfelt positive impressionof the Japanese people upon me that would certainly long outlast my unfortunate
illness.

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1996 Asia Leadership Fellow Program Report
Wan A. Manan
Introduction
The Asia Leadership Fellow Program, which was organized and sponsoredby the International House of Japan and the Japan Foundation, respectively, was apioneer program of its kind. The fellows that participated in the two-monthintensive program came from varied backgrounds and disciplines. As one of theparticipating fellows I found the fellowship period very fulfilling intellectually and avery useful resource in charting my future endeavours. As planned by theorganizers, this program was a Track III channel where individuals from several
Asian countries were selected, as opposed to the Track II where the exchange ismainly through people representing institutions or think tanks, and Track I whichmeans a government to government channel. The fellows for this program werepeople who are rather independent; some are working in government universities,
but as academicians they are quite independent and are free to express their opinion,even be critical of their own governments. Therefore, the atmosphere created by the
Fellowship program encouraged a free exchange of ideas and experiences, and was
also very conducive towards discussing a higher level of cooperation between
individuals and organizations. This report will highlight some of the activities that
we were involved in during our period in Japan and also personal perceptions andreflections during my six-month stay in Japan.
Collaborative Research (October 1–November 30, 1996)
After our arrival on October 1, 1996 at the International House of Japan, theprogram proceeded on schedule, except for the late arrival of Dr. Ignas Kleden due tohis work commitment in Indonesia. The fellows began to interact with each otherfreely even before the program orientation; nonetheless, the orientation andwelcoming session on October 3 was very informative and gave us a better picture
about the International House of Japan and the Japan Foundation, the twoorganizations which were responsible for our presence in Japan. Having understood
the role and functions of both organizations we were more at ease in proceeding toour next phase, which basically involved a lot of discussion, readings and debating
on issues that were raised during the succeeding days and weeks.
The week starting with October 7, 1996, where the first presentation byattending fellows was conducted, was the beginning of a series of serious discussions
among the fellows themselves and also the organizers. The tone that was set by thepresentation served as a pacesetter for us to delve into various topics of interest andconcern in the following weeks to come. Apart from discussions among thepermanent members of our workshop, which included the fellows, the coordinatorand the staff of the International House and the Japan Foundation, we were also
exposed to other speakers of different wavelengths in their understanding and71

perspective about culture and society. This gave us a new dimension of looking atthings from the opposite direction or the other end of the spectrum. The
presentations by different resource persons enriched our understanding not only
about Japan, but also broadened our views in relation to other cultures. The mannerin which the presentation and discussions were held gave us ample time to argueand elaborate on points of contention. Based on this short exposure and interaction
among the fellows we managed to work out a topic and area of concern to be
discussed at the weekend retreat in Shimoda.
The weekend seminar in Shimoda on "Development and Culture: Personal
Reflection" and "Critical Concerns of Southeast Asian Intellectuals—Crisis andConfluence" was the highlight of our interaction with the Japanese scholars andintellectuals. The seminar was very fruitful because it gave us a place to exchange
ideas and also to debate the strength and weakness of certain approaches inconstructing and analyzing prevailing cultural ideology and understandings. At
times there were tense moments and disagreement among the participants, but at theend of the seminar we felt we were more informed about our weakness and fallibility
regarding imposing our version of reality on others. The seminar did help a lot in
the preparation towards the Public Symposium that was held on November 29, 1996.
The Public Symposium was the grand finale of our two-month stay at theInternational House and it was well attended. At the symposium we all presented
our concerns about the future of Southeast Asia and other related issues such as therole of intellectuals, the challenge of modernity, globalization and local challenges,
and the future of human rights, etc. The audience participated by asking us
questions, challenging our views and also providing their comments and alternative
views. The symposium was a success by our standard of evaluation.
Apart from the program and activities organized at the International House,
we also had the opportunity to participate in and attend other forums andconferences. On October 18–20, 1996, for example, we went to Kyoto to attend theInternational Conference on Southeast Asian Studies. It was a well-attended
conference with many Japanese and foreign experts on Southeast Asia presenting
their papers and findings. We benefited a lot from the conference, not only the
papers and presentations but also the opportunity to exchange ideas and meet new
friends and contacts. Other conferences and seminars that I attended include theseminar on "Culture and Identity—Ethnic Coexistence in Asia" organized by the
Sasakawa Peace Foundation (October 23, 1996), "Shaping a Sustainable Urban
Future—Habitat II and Challenge to Civil Society," United Nations University(October 24, 1996), and "The United Nations System in the 21st Century—Peace andSecurity," United Nations University (November 8–9, 1996).
On the whole, the two-month period we stayed together at the International
House and our participation in various programs, either formally scheduled orotherwise, were very interesting and eye-opening. We learned a lot within a shortperiod; we have educated ourselves through listening to other experts, readings, themass media, and other forms of interaction and observation within the vicinity of
Roppongi in particular and Tokyo in general. The interaction among us fellows have72

given us precious moments that we will cherish in many years to come; we havelearnt a lot from each other about our culture, the public and the sensitive aspects ofthem.
Individual Research Activities (December l, 1996–March 31, 1997)
Even though most of the fellows left Japan after the two-month stay at theInternational House, I continued to stay in Japan to pursue my research on thequality of life. Furthermore, I was on sabbatical and planned in such a way that I
could take full advantage of my stay in Japan and maximize the available potentialthat I still had in exploring the issue of the quality of life in Japan. My original
proposal was to do a comparative study on the quality of life in Japan and Malaysia.
I have not completed the research, and am still reading and collecting data now,
before I embark on writing a report or a monograph.
I continued to stay in Japan for the next four months after the collaborative
research period ended with continued funding from the fellowship sponsors. From
December 1996 to the end of March 1997, I attached myself at the School ofInternational Health, University of Tokyo. Basically during this four-month period I
began my library search and secondary data collection on the Japanese population
and relevant statistics. It was not an easy job, because publications of those materials
that I was looking for in English was very scanty, and in addition I was still a novice
in this game. However, with the help of staff and students at the university and also
the staff of the International House I managed to overcome many barriers such as
language, technical and administrative matters during the course of my research.
My research involved mainly library work and compiling information on
selected topics, particularly on the quality of life in general, aging in Japan, thesupport system for the elderly, and on the health status, educational status, civilsociety variables, and worldviews that shaped the Japanese mind and practices.
Based on preliminary readings, I found that the quality of life in Japan was rather
high compared with other countries, particularly Malaysia; this was based on thecomparison of objective indicators only. However, when subjective indicators areevaluated, the problem of relativism comes into play and it is very difficult to scorean index. For example, how do we prove that people in Japan are happier than in
Malaysia or in general the Japanese people are more depressed than people in
Malaysia? These are some of the issues that I was contemplating during myinvestigation. In addition to library research and information gathering, I also met
many experts and professors from several institution, attended seminars and also
made several presentations.
During the four-month period I also participated in the weekly seminarorganized by the Institute of Population and Social Security, Ministry of Health andWelfare. The topics of their guest presentations were very relevant to my research
work; these include:
1 . "Demographic Transition in India with Special Reference to Kerala"
by Professor P. S. Nair (Kerala University), January 10, 1997.

73

2. "Urban-rural Differentials of the Living Arrangements Among Korean
Elderly" by Prof. Ik Ki Kim (Dongguk University), January 16, 1997.
3. "The New Strategy of Urbanization in China Since the 1980's"
by Prof. Ma Rong (Peking University), February 20, 1997.
On February 13–15, 1997 the International House of Japan and the JapanFoundation, with the cooperation of a host of other organizations from Japan andAsia, organized an International Conference of Asian Foundations and Organizations
under the theme: "Envisioning the Future—International Cooperation among AsianFoundations and Organizations." I am glad to have participated in that conference
and been able to meet Japanese as well as Asian delegates from non-governmentorganizations and grant-making foundations. I also benefited from the long
discussion and debates in the workshop on civil society, of which I was one of theparticipants. The conference was successful in bringing together people andorganizations from diverse interests and places; at the end of the conference theycame to a general agreement that they need to work together and form an Asian
network in order to be more effective in championing their causes.
I also had the opportunity to do several presentations on my researchinterest and research findings. On March 5, 1997, I presented a paper entitled"Health and Nutritional Status of the Elderly in Kelantan, Malaysia" at the Graduate
School of International Health, University of Tokyo. These are the results of ourstudies on the elderly in Kelantan, Malaysia, which we have been conducting for the
past four years. On March 29, 1997, I presented a paper on the "Quality of Life in
Malaysia" to the Japanese Association of Malaysian Studies (JAMS) at the Tokyo
University of Foreign Studies. This paper is based on my recent article "Quality ofLife" in Malaysia' s Economic Development: Policy and Reform (eds: Jomo K.S. & Ng
Suew Kiat) (1996). We had a long discussion after the presentation with a lot of
feedback and criticisms on the concept and measurement of quality of life.
General Impressions
Living in Japan for six months provided me an opportunity to observe andlook at Japanese society closer with respect to its people and behavior. In terms ofphysical development and industrialization, Japan is very advanced, particularly inthe public infrastructure sector. Public facilities are very efficient as compared toother countries that I have visited; these include the public transport, particularly thetrains and subways. Despite being a very big city, Tokyo seems to accommodate alot of activities in an organized way, and the city is also very safe. There are a lot ofsigns which can guide visitors to their destination, even though they cannot read or
speak Japanese. Most of the signs and instructions are bilingual (Japanese andEnglish), and that makes it easy to follow, of course provided that you read English.
Occasionally we can also find a few inaccurate translations which sound rather
funny or awkward in English.
The Japanese people in general are very polite; they are polite not only toforeigners, but first of all among themselves. I think it is a habit that has been74

cultivated in the society and also a way of life. In that sense the Japanese as a wholeseem to be very organized and systematic in conducting their work and leisure.
Even though there exist differences in behavior and personal manifestations, as agroup the Japanese are uniform, so that we can expect the kind of response orreaction they will give to certain phenomena. This is my personal observation basedon my encounters with the Japanese people during a short stay and limited
interaction. Another observation which struck me is the harmony or civility ofJapanese adolescents and young people; despite being in crowded places they seemto congregate in groups and enjoy themselves, either in restaurants, entertainment
premises or on the streets. There is less tendency towards criminality and violence; I
hardly saw a fight or a street argument, as are often the case in other big cities of theworld. Furthermore the culture of vandalism is absent in Japanese cities. Public
facilities such as telephones, toilets and bus stands are untouched by graffiti.
Another aspect of Japanese society which attracted my attention was the love
for reading; this is very prevalent, particularly in public transportation andbookstores. The bookstores in Japan are frequented by many people of all ages, andthey are as crowded as the supermarket. But foreign language books in Japan arevery expensive. I wonder why, is it because less people read foreign books or is it away of controlling the incoming of foreign books and protecting the local
publications?
Japanese Intellectuals and Scholars
After meeting and listening to various Japanese scholars or intellectuals intheir talks, presentations and what was printed in the mass media I still cannot form
an opinion on them as a group. But, nonetheless, what is common among them isthe sense of guilt they carried, that is, the guilt of the Second World War, particularly
in relation to Southeast Asians. They were very apologetic and cautious in making
comments about other countries. Despite the atonement they had paid, in terms offinance and other forms of aid, they still have not fully recovered or cleaned
themselves from the sins of World War II committed by their government. I met
several groups of people whom I considered as Japanese intellectuals, but very often
they are very reserved in making their comments and their stand on certain issues.
Most of them are very generous in criticizing the Japanese government and the LDP,
but when confronted with more universal or foreign problems, they seem to be
reluctant to criticize the wrongdoings of other countries and governments, eventhough we know, for example, a particular government is very repressive and abuses
human rights. The Japanese intellectuals that I met were very diplomatic and werewilling more to listen than to offer their personal opinions.
My impression about Japanese intellectuals may be misleading. On thecontrary, I also met a few intellectuals who are very vocal and make no apologies
about their stances on issues with which they are fully committed. In relation to Asia
in general and Southeast Asia in particular, most Japanese intellectuals are not wellinformed, except those who are involved in area studies of a particular region or
country. Intellectually the Japanese academicians are more Western-oriented in their75

knowledge and subject matter. Most of them have been to the West or studied in theWest (Europe and America) or they have a mentor in the West. This is not
surprising, because since the Meiji Restoration Japan began to emulate the West not
only in terms of industrialization but also in the knowledge sector, where their
universities have churned out thousands of graduates whose education is based on
the German or American system. In this respect, Japan is far more advanced thanother Asian countries in the field of tertiary education and has a large number oftrained professionals in every field. In fact, Japan is at a par or even more advanced
in some areas of studies and research than most of the universities in Europe andNorth America.
Based on my short assessment I came to the conclusion that Japanese
intellectuals are very diverse and are not very active as other professions or
professionals; they have passed their prime. Intellectuals are marginalized and on
the fringe of the mainstream. Probably the role of intellectuals in a techno-society
has been greatly reduced. Unless they assert themselves or adopt a new strategy tomake their voice or concerns heard, they are on the verge of being swallowed up by
the waves of business, corporatism, and globalization. I may be wrong in myanalysis about Japanese intellectuals, because my inferences are based on works andprinted materials in English only; in fact some of the talks we had with intellectuals
were also conducted in English.
Southeast Asian Fellows
Being one of the fellows in the same program makes it difficult for me to give
an impartial evaluation of our conduct during the fellowship program. Nonetheless,I consider it important for me to give my opinion on the running of the program andinteraction among us. Except for Dr. Kasian Tejapira from Thammasat University,
who fell ill for most of the duration of the program and had to take medical leave, thefour of us (myself, Dr. Ignas Kleden, Dr. Kwok Kian Woon and Arnold Azurin) got
along very well and managed to hold long discussions in various places. We also
had the opportunity to know each other, not only as citizens of another ASEAN
nation, but as individuals, friends, colleagues and persons of other religious
denominations.
Our interaction within the two-month period was really a learning
experience; in fact, I learned more from the other fellows through informal andcasual discussions than some of the formal sessions. It was also a test of our patiencein dealing with other people of various idiosyncrasies who sometimes surprised us
with what they said or did. But that is part of learning and building a bridge ofcultural understanding, which I think is very important if we Southeast Asian
fellows are going to have a continuous rapport in the future. It is also part ofcreating tolerance among us despite our differences in religious belief, culture,ethnicity and ideology.
I have to admit also that there were times when our ideas and propositions
clashed or were in opposition to each other, but with careful explanation and a spirit
of working together we managed to resolve them amicably. It is normal for us to be76

critical of other people's ideas and interpretations of reality when we have lived
under different social conditions or regimes. In a way we have been successful ingetting to know each other better and also initiate the seed of cooperation towards amore advanced networking among us in Southeast Asia in the future. And in thisrespect we have fulfilled one of the objectives of the fellowship program.
Future Plans and Follow-ups
What transpired from our two months together were several proposals on
how to continue our collaboration between us Southeast Asian fellows and ourJapanese counterparts, namely, the International House of Japan and the JapanFoundation Asia Center, Intellectual Exchange Division. We proposed to continue
our cooperation through a form of networking which will include other colleagues inour countries who can contribute to make the new network a viable and dynamic
one. However, we think that the initial steps should be started by us and among us
first. For this reason we have decided to embark on a few projects:l. The Book Project—We agreed to publish a book on the intellectual historyof each of our countries and societies with an additional contribution from Japan.
This book project is supposed to be in preparation now, and I will act as thecoordinator. We expect to publish it in 1998. The contributors to the book willconsist of all of us l996 fellows and our Japanese contributors. The book will discuss
the intellectual history and activities in our countries based partly on what we havediscussed at length among us and in our workshops during the fellowship program.
The book will compile our reflections, thoughts and perceptions about our own
society, our roles and how can we be more effective in exercising our participation.
2. International Conference—We plan to organize an international
conference in Malaysia in 1998 and at the same time launch the book that was
discussed above. The theme of the conference that we agreed on was "Asian Values."
This conference will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and will be organized by
the Malaysian Academic Movement (MOVE) in collaboration with the Centre for
Leadership and Development Studies (CELDES), the International House of Japanand the Japan Foundation Asia Center. Currently we are at the preliminary stage oforganizing our plans, which include the proposal of the theme of the conference, theplace to be held, the expected number of participants, the number of speakers andsessions, and many other technical aspects of the conference. Once the initial steps
are finalized we will submit them for funding to the relevant grant-making
foundations in Malaysia and Japan.
For the conference we hope all fellows will do a presentation and we will
invite other colleagues from Asian countries to participate. This conference will be atest of our collaboration before any future projects can be implemented. If thisconference is successful we may organize another one in another country under adifferent theme in two to three years' time. Hopefully each of us will host one
conference each in our country within the next ten years.
3. Research Projects—We also talked about coordinating research projects
relating to issues of common interest in the ASEAN region. The topics that have77

been suggested include human rights, globalization, Asian values, multiculturalismand development. We hope this project will be conducted by a group of people ineach country, and at the end of the project we will organize a seminar to present ourfindings and later compile them into a published book.
Conclusion
I have to conclude this brief report with a positive note because I think theeffort that has been implemented by the International House of Japan and the JapanFoundation Asia Center is very unique and commendable. As the pioneers of the
Asia Leadership Fellow Program we went through grilling and extensive
discussions, which I found to be very relevant to our future dialogue people topeople as opposed to between governments or institutions. Generally I found theprogram to be very exciting and enlightening, despite its intensive nature. We may
not have had enough time to read widely before each workshop or presentation, but
we learned a tremendous amount of new things through our colleagues' knowledge
and experience. This is the part which cannot be substituted by reading or attending
formal courses. For a person like myself who has been heavily involved withteaching and research for many years, attendance in the Program gave me time toponder and reflect on all the things that I had been trying to ask and discuss. Even
though between my busy schedules in Malaysia I still steal the time to be involved insocial and organizational activities, they were sometimes done in a hurried or ad hocmanner. So the time that we had at the International House of Japan during the
program was a golden opportunity for me to reexamine my thoughts and debatethem with friends who shared the same concerns.

78Round-table Discussion"Asian Values and Development"

Asian Values and Development:
Round-Table Discussion among the 1996 Asia Leadership Fellows
This is an edited transcript of the round-table discussion held at the Japan Foundation Asia
Center, Tokyo on November 20, 1996.
ALAN FEINSTEIN (AF, Moderator; Coordinator, Japan Foundation Asia Center):Let's begin this discussion by talking about how economic growth—"development,"
in other words—has become an ideology that dictates to every other sphere ofsociety, while social, political, cultural aspects are expected to play subsidiary roles.
Are values therefore being manipulated to serve this economic growth?
ARNOLD AZURIN (AA): In the Philippines, it is true that social change is througheconomic development. On the other hand, this kind of mega-planning for thewhole country has also generated an opposite force, which is a rise of ethnic andautonomous aspirations. So, as the national elite tries to impose its own program of
economic development, people in the regions—especially in the mountain areas andin the southern Philippines—now try to react to this national pressure by
maintaining their own hold on their natural regional resources.
What happens is—in the Philippines especially—that there is now a rise ofwhat I would call "ethno-nationalism." But ethno-nationalism in the regionalparameters, which is in contrast to the smaller tribal sectors in a regional inter-tribal
basis, is also a development in reaction to the economic blueprint of the national
government. There is a polarity between ethnicity, and national interest. That's whyin the Philippines we have so-called "rebel-infested areas" and there is a rise of
autonomous sentiments. On the other hand, while there are armed confrontations
between the forces of the state and the interest of the national elite going into theregional domains for the exploitation of the natural resources found there, there is
now a conflict among the "national interests." The problem with the ethnic domains,
as in the Cordillera, is that they have tried to resist the national imposition to grab
their natural resources, but they are not unified enough to protect or safeguard theirinterest. And it is not so difficult for the national government to engage in "divide
and rule." Inasmuch as the national government already has politicians in thenational political structure representing people from these regions, all they do is justgive them enough money to what they call the "country-wide development fund" totry to make people accept national economic planning, because, after all, the people
can share in, let's say, a project on a farm-to-market road, or small irrigation. All
these things to placate the people in the regions are supposed to be sufficient forregional development. But the articulators in the regions, especially the NGOs (NonGovernment Organizations), are sure that these are only palliatives, and in the giveand-take the national government is giving too little for the big size of the natural
resources. For instance, in the Cordillera there are mining and logging concessions

81

being targeted.
What I am trying to bring out here is that development between national
domain and development for regional interests of the people living there do not haveto be contradictory. However, in the balance, the national government seems to be
taking more, and people in the regions are only left with the crumbs in thesedevelopment schemes. In fact, there is a term that they use now, "development
aggression." These programs have not been formulated with consultation with thepeople involved. This spawns rebellious sentiments. It is also used by the National
Democratic Front, the Marxist group in the Philippines, to keep rallying the people
against national government imposition.
On the other hand, what would be necessary to make development lesspainful and less inequitable an arrangement would be the rise of researchers andarticulators in the region who can really find out the values of the people, what kindof risk or sacrifices they can absorb, so as to make the regional development andnational development blend together for progress. Of course, when we talk aboutprogress, we do not just mean economic development but how much of the regional
heritage is not being eroded by this economic blueprint. Unfortunately, in the
Cordillera in particular, there are two few articulators and researchers of the people.
The problem is that scholars operating there are still very much a part of the national
academic bureaucracy. Instead of linking up with the grassroots to find out specificproblems, scholars are mostly doing something that is too academic. The NGOs,
while they are focused, seem to be carrying an ideological burden instead of talking
more with people and learning more and trying to articulate the values andsentiments of the people.
AF: Are you saying that the social scientists or the researchers, whether in theacademy or as part of the NGO network, are trying to impose national values on
local communities which do not necessarily share those values?
AA: The scholars and researchers are trying to educate the communities. The
presumption of this education from the outside is that the Cordillera is intertribalistic in sentiment. There are five major tribes there that, while they can use
English among themselves, they use Ilocano also to communicate. They seem to be
opposed to one another when it comes to securing their own tribal domain. So, theseNGOs would rather regionalize the people's consciousness away from these
tribalistic roots. There is a disjuncture here. The people have not yet unified to talkof regional unity and a regional ecological interest, for instance.
AF: Do you mean a region within the nation?
AA: Yes. As adjacent ethnic groups they have not come to a unified stand. So, theprocess of economic development is also either lopsided or it is not really goingaccording to the government plan.

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AF: This is something that Ignas Kleden writes about in his paper, that Indonesiansocial scientists have been given the role in the New Order development scheme ofensuring that the social, political and cultural aspects of society don't hinderdevelopment, but enhance it. In a sense then, intellectuals have been "bought off."
They've agreed to serve the role of worshipping the god of development. In fact,
development has become an ideology in itself.
IGNAS KLEDEN (IK): That's right. I think that this is partly due to the internal
politics of Indonesia."Technology," "stages of growth," etc., beset the mind ofIndonesian government and Indonesian social scientists, as well. Now, I think, there
is a counterbalance: one is that the self-evident nature of economic development isdecreasing. People have started raising questions, e.g., "we have to sacrificesomething in order to have economic growth; but what in the last analysis do we getby sacrificing all our political rights, our cultural values?" So, economic development
is not as self-evident any more as it was before.
Again, even the government is realizing now that economic growth hasbrought about some unintended results which it and the Indonesian people neverenvisaged before. We never thought that economic growth could strengthen thepolitical carrying capacity of certain groups, which would make them able to finance,
say, political opposition, as in the case of Megawati. We tend to believe that as
economic growth goes on, then everybody will be satisfied with the politicalsituation, they will welcome all the government is doing, etc. But it is not like that.
AF: According to the laws of a growth-oriented economy, where real political debate
is considered to be a negative value because stability is essential for the growth of theeconomy and to encourage investment, everyone has to agree that democracy shouldplay a subsidiary role in the course of economic development. Are you saying thatthese assumptions are being rejected?
IK: In the Indonesian political context I think that such arguments hold true now if
you assume the self-evidence of economic development as something that legitimizes
the rule of the New Order. Why economic development is so important is that it is
one thing that the New Order can offer to legitimize and to justify its existence andits governance, vis-à-vis the Old Order, which failed so evidently in economic
development. If we take this argumentation for granted, then the whole politicalargument, as you said before, can have its force. But people have started questioning
this assumption. "Why should we keep on pushing for economic development if itmeans making so many sacrifices?" "Should we carry on limiting our political rights
in order to have this development continue, while giving opportunities to certainclasses or groups to concentrate the results of economic development for their own
interest, while keeping the so-called ‘trickle-down effect' for other groups?" So, I
don't think this political argumentation still has much force anymore, because theunderlying assumption of the self-evidence of economic development is collapsing.

83AF: You say in your article that the state in Indonesia makes recourse to the notion of"harmony" as a value. Harmony, above all, is essential to the smooth running of thestate. Is this assumption also being questioned? Is it being imposed in Indonesia inthe same way as in the Philippines, as described by Arnold?
IK: It has been increasingly questioned in view of the violence that is taking place.
The question is, should we believe that we still have harmony, despite all theviolence? We have to change our mind-set and start saying that not everything isquite so harmonious as we had tended to believe. And we, the critical intellectuals inIndonesia, have started saying publicly that if we assume that harmony is something
so fundamental in our culture, this can lead to the effect that we ignore all theviolence that is taking place under the pretext of harmony, and we even come tojustify all these power abuses by pretending that they are only trivial in comparison
to the basic harmony that is supposed to exist. Harmony is something esthetic, in myview. Harmony has little to do with ethical considerations. It is basically an esthetic
outlook, which means that you have to be able to put all these things together ingood equilibrium in order that they look beautiful. In that sense, harmony is acultural way to justify political wrongdoing, and even power abuses and offenses
against human rights.
KWOK KIAN-WOON (KK-W):[On the subject of Asian values, such as harmony], I
think this is an old problem in the whole Asian region. So, in China and Japan, forexample, during the time of early modernization, there was an old slogan which canbe translated something like "Eastern Morality and Western Technology," or "Eastern
Values and Western Science." So, from very early on in Asia—this is repeatedslightly differently in Southeast Asia—there was already a kind of bifurcation, withvalues being Asian and science and technology being Western. But the moment that
Asian societies have in fact come some distance in modernization in science andtechnology, you cannot simply say that modernization is equal to Westernization,and that science and technology are just Western and that we are simply borrowing.
Because in some ways we have brought not just technology but also the mentality
behind it into our local forms of life, especially through education. So, there are also
values behind technology, behind modernization, industrialization. The dichotomy
between values and technology has, in fact, been breaking down for many decades.
But in the Southeast Asian case, when countries begin to experience rapid
modernization, we have a kind of triangular problem. There is economic growthwhich is being achieved especially more recently, but going along with that , there isan insistence on "political stability" or what you have been calling "harmony," orwhat we call in Singapore "consensus." But there is a third corner of the triangle,
which is the whole area of "culture." What happens to culture? I think that officially
the whole problem is seen in terms of culture providing a kind of support formodernization. Therefore, for some time, there has been a debate about
Confucianism being serviceable to the demands of modernization. It is like finding
an equivalent for the Protestant ethic in the West. But, of course, Singapore is a84

multi-racial society, so you cannot talk about Confucianism only, since Confucianism
is linked to one particular ethnic group, the Chinese. Hence the discourse on "Asian
Values."With the late twentieth-century phenomenon of the "Rise of Asia," theASEAN region is very dynamic, and China and India are emerging from conditionsof poverty, especially China, coming out of Communism, and the Indochinese states
emerging from socialism. With this kind of economic dynamism, and with Japan
providing some sort of example, there is this search for a cultural correlation to theeconomic dynamism. But this project has another side, I think, which is less often
talked about: reflections on the consequences of modernization, especially thenegative and unintended ones. If we go beyond talking about culture at theideological level, which fits so well with economic growth and political stability, atan underlying, more fundamental level, in fact, the sphere of culture is seriously
challenged under conditions of modernization. Hence, there emerges what may becalled the problem of meaning, or what I call the problem of "social coherence."
AF: There is a kind of sacrifice involved which what Ignas was talking about earlier.
It seems to me that your metaphor of a triangle is really a kind of pyramid in which
economic growth is at the top, while culture and political discourses are subservient,rather than being on the equal corners of a triangle.
KK-W: That's right. That sums up the ideology of developmentalism.
AF: So is it true that culture—or Asian values—is used as an argument, as in the caseof Mahathir, to defend the ideology of development?
WAN MANAN (WM): Since 1970, there has been a new economic policy in
Malaysia. The government discovered that the Malays, the so-called "Bumiputera,"
including the indigenous people of Sabah and Sarawak, owned less than 3 percent of
the economic participation and ownership, while foreigners owned 60 to 70 percent,and non-Bumiputera (Chinese and Indians) owned about 30 percent. That was the
beginning of the economic engine in Malaysia, which was equivalent to affirmative
action, but it is an open kind of discriminatory policy, in which the Malays andBumiputera were given twenty years to make sure that they got about 30 percent of
economic participation and ownership by 1990.
The two objectives of the New Economic Policy were to abolish poverty andto restructure society, because those who were living in poverty were mostly
Bumiputera at that time. By 1990, they had not achieved the goal, but only about 10
percent ownership and participation. The per capita income of the country has
improved dramatically. But indirectly this relative poverty is beginning to widen,
although absolute poverty in Malaysia has decreased from 40 percent in 1970 to 17
percent in 1994. We still have pockets of poverty based on regional difference, but
not so much along racial lines anymore.
According to the World Bank this New Economic Policy is a success in85

economic planning and engineering in the Third World and there are few otherprojects that go along that line. But after 1990, the Malaysian government took amore open economic policy, which they call laissez faire, but with a lot of interferenceby the government and government cronies. A lot of these government cronies arethose who are rich and who come from the Chinese towkays and a few new Malay
millionaires. When Mahathir first came to power in 1981, he started the "Look East"
policy by looking to Japan as a model for economic growth, to imitate the work
discipline of the Japanese, and to send students to Japan and Korea to study inmostly technical fields. I think that was partly due to the earlier failure of transfer oftechnology when Japan came to Southeast Asia to supposedly transfer technology,
but all the management was actually Japanese and so the local people were only
workers. I think that in Malaysia it's more of a matter of modernization thandevelopment. Modernization in Malaysia has brought about local challenges andresponses, particularly in the mid-1970s from the resurgence of Islam. Because of thecraze for economic development without morality, the Muslims in particular are very
sensitive to getting money with interest. So now banking in Malaysia has introduced"Muslim banking." The local response on this issue has made the government morecautious in what it introduces, even leading to what they call "instilling Islamicvalues" in government policies, just to counter the opposition within the country.
AF: What about non-Muslims?
WM: Non-Muslims are not affected. They can still make money through interest, etc.
Islamic banking doesn't affect the real running of the economy. Malaysia has had aquite remarkable growth, 8 percent or more per year for the last ten years. But
Malaysia has paid high costs domestically in terms of political freedom. When
Mahathir goes abroad, he is the champion of the Third World, of human rights; but
domestically he is playing a different game. Even university students cannot voice
their own opinion unless they get permission from the Vice-Chancellor, even the staff
can get sacked by the university for being too outspoken. So what you areproducing, apart from economic growth, are obedient civil servants, obedientstudents, obedient graduates.
But the focus now is more on the NGOs. After the expansion of the middle
class, people's needs have been continuously growing. New consciousness,
consciousness of environmental degradation and of displacement of indigenous
people in Sarawak, where they're building this $5 billion Bakung dam, is coming into
the country and creates efforts for expanding the democratic space in the country.
Another problem in Malaysia is immigrant workers. Most of the Japanese factories
in Malaysia are now electronics industries which are hiring workers from
Bangladesh and Indonesia. Among workers, 1 million are legal and 2 million are
illegal workers.
AF: As in Indonesia, perhaps Malaysia is not willing to pay the high social cost of
economic development?

86WM: In Malaysia we have not been indoctrinated in that way, so it will take sometime for people to reach this realization. But educated groups of the middle class,including NGOs, consumer groups, and political parties, are beginning to realize that
there is a limit to all the costs we are paying. Because, we need some freedom also.
So, indirectly, there is a move towards recognizing the threat to freedom in the
country. The Islamic challenge in Malaysia is not like in the Middle East. It is more
integrated well with other aspects of human rights, not fundamentalist, nonviolent.
AF: Are there, in fact, Muslim activists who are arguing for more space for humanrights based on religious arguments?
WM: Yes, there are arguments even by the Islamic party in Parliament against themost stringent laws of the government, the Internal Security Act, saying that you
should not detain people without trials. Now they are detaining Muslims accused ofbeing "deviant." Al-Arqam, for example, among others. Indirectly Al-Arqam is achallenge, since they are working at alternative development in rural areas, where
the local economy operates. They are not dependent on the government. The
government is not yet used to independence; it even accuses consumer groups ofbeing spies, "tools of the West." But things will change. The "Asian values" thing isselling quite well in the country.
AF: But it's mostly for export. When people like Mahathir, Soeharto, Lee Kwan Yew
talk about Asian values, they are not looking inwards at their own societies—thequestion of values, the national project as opposed to local needs, aspirations, orparticipation—but rather reflecting a focus outwards. They're saying, "Don't tell us
what to do. We are following our own set of values." Is there a logical problem here
or is it a case of pure hypocrisy?
AA: It's also just good tactics. After all, the powerful nations elsewhere are dictating
and using certain values elsewhere to exact economic privileges. Like the U.S.'s"open skies" policy in which they put demands on Japan or the Philippines or othercountries. From the beginning this has been an inequitable policy—"keep your skies
open." So, with this "liberalization" as a slogan elsewhere, at a practical level Asianleaders are trying to make their own defenses using Asian values as a slogan,although it might have a hollow ring, especially in terms of internal situations. But,in the Philippines, if you notice, Asian values as a slogan does not have muchcurrency. Among ASEAN nations, the Philippines seems to be the most porous in
accepting Western, modern values. But in the struggle for more equitabledevelopment that would accrue to the people's interest, our slogan seems to be moreof democratic rights, human rights, so the NGOs are more active there. They don't
ever make use of the banner of "Asian values" in the Philippines.
AF: It's odd that in a place like Malaysia you find strange bedfellows—an activist like

87

Chandra Muzaffar seems to be using the argument of Asian values to reject thehegemony of the Western discourse on human rights in a way that actually resonateswith Mahathir's use of the slogan.
WM: I think this is what a lot of intellectuals in Asia are dealing with. There was a
proposition put forward at a meeting in Bangkok prior to the Human Rights
Conference in Geneva, where the government and NGOs agreed on certain things:
first, a "new world order" is more of a "North versus South." The North would
dictate what human rights would be, but when it comes to trade they would be free
to plunder into the South. So, on that argument there is common agreement among
the NGOs and the governments in the South. The other thing is the American
occupation of Iraq; a lot of intellectuals in Asia agreed that that was really an unfair
game there. You are talking about human rights and yet you are doing these things.
What was reported from the West and the East in 1991 was totally different, twodifferent perspectives. Now because of America's problem with China, Clinton did
not win the issue of trying to impose human rights standards on China. There are a
lot of other things they never take into consideration. ASEAN is sort of on the side of
China in that sense.
AF: You don't have to look far for examples of hypocrisy in the U.S. record on humanrights, in its own country or in its dealings with other countries in the post-WorldWar II period. In a way, you can agree with rejecting the U.S. stand on human rights
because it comes from the U.S. But, it's a kind of ad hominem, or ad nationem,argument. Instead of addressing the issue of whether certain human rights areuniversal, you say "What right does the U.S. with its own record have to talk abouthuman rights to the Chinese?"
KK-W: I think the discourse on human rights and Asian values has become very
unproductive in that way. There is a point in asserting culture in the face of Western
hegemony and in the face of the problems of modernization. I think cultural identity
is a problem, but it can be a resource, too. The problem is that the "Asian values"
debate very often slides into either cultural defensiveness or cultural triumphalism.
At that level, vis-à-vis the West, it's unproductive. And within the domestic setting,there is a strange combination of a superficial kind of traditionalism which can bepolitically used, and a rational instrumentalism, therefore bypassing all the real
problems of cultural identity that people are facing as they modernize.
WM: There is one more issue, represented by a particular article, "Clash of
Civilizations" written by Samuel Huntington. That really upset Asian intellectuals
because Huntington has this idea that the next clash will not be a military clash, but
an ideological clash of civilizations among Confucianism and the West and Islam andthe West. This just tended to reinforce the notion of Asian values.
AA: It depends on where we start. Because, the West has also been creating a lot of88

bugaboos. Perhaps in order to secure itself and to say "Hey, there's no more Cold
War, no more Evil Empire, but there's Islamism and Arabism against our partner,
Israel." So, it seems like the West is creating its own enemies out of others. The
Asians are also impelled to justify, "Look, we have our own culture." And untilinternational gobbledygook proves to be more respectful, the "Asian values" cardand Islamism and fundamentalism will always have an interplay. This is the gameof the superpowers and we, the less powerful, have to contend with that.
AF: There are some who worry that, with the end of the Cold War and the so-called"triumph" of capitalism and the seeming transition from socialist and communist
economies to market economies, cultures in many parts of the world are threatened.
And market systems tend to affect culture in dire ways, in more dire ways than othersocial "-isms."
KK-W: You know, it could be said that really there are only two kinds of limits tocapitalism: One is ecological limits and we are seeing that today. The other is moral
and sometimes religious. Without these limits, socially created wants would always
run ahead of the available means to fulfill them. You can never have enoughmaterially. So, with greater capitalist development in Asia and Southeast Asia, theproblem of culture will become more and more important. Because capitalism iscorrosive of culture, in the deeper sense. The political authorities want to use culture
to support capitalism and, at the same time, say that we can withstand theconsequences of capitalism, the ecological and moral consequences. But at somepoint the contradictions are just too deep.
AF: Do you think this would qualify as what are called "economic rights," "social
rights," "community rights"—do you think those are neglected in the universalist
paradigm of individual civil liberties, human rights?
WM: No, he's talking more about economic exploitation.
AF: But capitalism in the view of some will somehow lead to development of
democracy and human rights. I fail to see the connection myself, but [that view] isespoused.
WM: It's not automatic. Most American economists in the economics textbooks are
telling us that economic improvement or development will automatically bring abouthappiness, income distribution. They say, "You don't have to have a planned
economy."IK: To consider that income distribution is a natural process which is brought about
by economic growth doesn't make much sense anymore. To believe that we have towork for growth and that income distribution will take care of itself in the course oftime, is not verified by our experiences.

89

AF: It will always be put off until some future time. But even in very prosperous
economies like Singapore and Malaysia, it seems still to be put off. Is that right?
WM: No, I think in our case [Singapore and Malaysia], it's a bit different. If you
consider the income of workers in Malaysia, for Malaysian citizens, the pay isrelatively high. But then the immigrant workers are down there—they're not evenbeing paid sometimes. The agent or the company holding their passports are taking
their money. This owning-of-a-car business—people can have so much, but there are
only so many roads. That's why you have all these traffic jams in Bangkok andJakarta, because of personal ownership of cars. This shows how there is acontradiction within itself.
AF [to KK-W]: It's like what you were saying about the natural limits of capitalism; inthe environment you just can't have an unlimited number of cars. Or, you can't minenatural resources sustainably forever.
WM: But the logic of capitalism is that you have to keep on producing. Because, forinstance, if you produce a shoe that lasts two years, that's very bad for capitalism, it's
better to have a shoe that only lasts six months, so people will buy more, and so thatthe workers won't be out of a job.
KK-W: I think that countries within the Asian region that have moved up thedevelopment ladder, right now to sustain the way of life of their development they
depend a lot on foreign labor. In Malaysia and Singapore we have the workers fromIndonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and India. And one problem is whether
these workers are invisible in the minds of our citizens, because "they" are not like"us," and because they are serving us.
AF: The best example in Asia is Japan. A model of incorporating outside workers
but failing to recognize them.
WM: But I think in Japan the number is like 300,000 as compared to 100 million
population. And that is a big issue here. In Malaysia, you have immigrant workers
that are 10 percent of the population. Even in Singapore it's about 10 percent of the
population. Here in Japan hardly 1 percent.
IK: The immigrant workers represent only part of the problem of internationalizationof capital, market and labor, which makes the choices for a welfare state moredifficult than before. This is the case because welfare states can only work where
capital and labor are not mobile, unlike internationalized flow of capital and labor
where each can move freely, which seems more promising in terms of profit (for theemployers) and wages (for the workers).

90WM: But this is a flaw in the Asian values thing. You're talking about Asian values,
but you're exploiting your fellow Asians! This issue was never raised. But it has
become a big issue [among] the citizens, because there are two classes of citizens ineach country, like in Singapore and Indonesia. The other class is not entitled to
medical care, education—they're not entitled to all those things, yet they are the ones
working. You're talking about human rights, but the basic things like health care andeducation you're not even going to give to these people.
AF: What about talking in regional terms about the issues that have been raised?
Take ASEAN, for instance, or Burma, Cambodia, or Indonesia, the most obvious
examples. The model is that each state has the right to decide its own politicalculture and determine its own values and no neighbor, no outsider has the right tointervene in that process. But, that would seem to break down. Political andeconomic cooperation would seem to enforce some sort of recognition of rights of thepeople in each country from exploitation by their own governments. But here's
where the Asian values argument is most stridently used. "Democracy doesn't have
only one form, we have the right to decide our own form of government, etc." Howdoes this argument play out in the regional context?
AA: It seems that with the way the Malaysian government allowed groups to disrupt
the conference on East Timor, out of "love" for the Indonesian government, and theway the Philippine government rejected the coming of Jose Ramos Horta, it seems
that ASEAN is really trying to help one another in order to put up a solid plank of
Asian culture, Asian solidarity, and logically, Asian values.
But it's also true that the inter-state articulators are united. The ones trying
to challenge the certitude and morality of this type of ideology are also the networkof NGOs—they're the ones challenging this. And the NGOs are no less Asian for thatmatter. They are articulating the opposite of the voice of the powerful to protect one
another. So the debate will have to go on and many people in the region, the more
articulate ones, who are linked up with the rest of the world, will have to counter thishegemonic beautiful slogan of "harmony among neighbors." But the government
will have to articulate its own position. Maybe we can't blame them for being
responsible to the citizens. But since I believe in a dialectical dynamism of society,the people will also have to bear the responsibility to mold their own governments.
If we in the Philippines will be so subservient to our president, and if we allow him
to change the charter so he can run for re-election and maintain his presidency
beyond the legal limits, then we will just allow this government to be a goodneighbor to Soeharto, to Mahathir. The Filipinos would be also responsible allowing
such a president to represent us. I wouldn't blame that leader so much because there
are people who are really enabling him to do such things. The NGOs, the peoples'organizations—the rebels included—should keep on the struggle.
IK: Making use of "more objective" arguments, by saying that while we have ourown political culture, our own values, but all these cultural values are not immune

91

from economic and political development. So, development, let's say in the last
thirty years, has brought about cultural changes with it. We have to deal with thesechanges and take them into consideration. This is one of our arguments, going along
the lines of economic development.
AF [to KK-W]: As you said, this kind of nostalgia—or cultural traditionalism—issometimes evoked. Things have changed so much that what you're now callingtraditional values have long since been supplanted.
KK-W: I've learned very much from my Southeast Asian fellows, but there's one linefrom Ignas which I love very much, which is: "The important thing about Asianvalues is not that they are Asian, but that they are values." If we pay attention not to
the Asianness of the values, but to exactly what those values are about, I think we
can push for a new level of discourse about culture, identity, and values. When you
look at someone like Aung San Suu Kyi, who speaks not just about an abstract
concept of human rights, but about Buddhist conceptions concerning life and humanexistence, it's something that, even if you come from another religious tradition, you
can relate to. That's where the discourse can take place, as Arnold said, on thepeople-to-people level. Whereas on the government-to-government level, you canalways expect the discourse to be ideologically motivated.
AF: So, it's a process then of civil society, or people at the civil level finding a kind of
unforced consensus?
KK-W: Since you brought up this idea of civil society and Manan said something
about the new middle classes and Arnold talked about the NGOs, I would like toraise this view. There is a theory that with capitalism and the growth of the middle
classes, you will have the growth of civil society. Now, for me, it's not automatic.
Because the members of the middle classes are beneficiaries of economic growthunder conditions of political stability, they themselves could go in the otherdirection, which is to privatize themselves even more. Retreat into their own private
world of consumption, especially globalized consumption. And self-indulgence.
AA: Self-indulgence. It seems to be happening in Japanese society.
KK-W: Speaking from the Singapore background, that could retard the growth ofcivil society.
AF: You think that's happening in Singapore?
KK-W: I think it's happening. What would make the difference is commitment on
the part of people to values that are higher and deeper, rather than just economic
growth and consumerism. So that they can conceptualize and articulate another setof values.

92AF: Do you think that religion, then, plays a central role in providing those kinds ofvalues, some kind of meaning beyond pure consumerism?
KK-W: I think religion can provide deep spiritual resources for the articulation of
meaning. But we must always beware: there is religion and there is religion.
AF: Because it can always be exploited.
KK-W: This is why, when it comes down to it, you still need a critical outlook.
IK: What we can use is the secular, cultural argument. This is something we're doingright now in Indonesia: we're saying that economic development is culturaldevelopment at the level of its material base. The question is whether or not
improvement of the material means of culture can bring something new—new
interactions, new ways of looking at things. Having two or three cars is fine, but thisbrings about new ways of interaction, new ways of . . .
AF: If I'm hearing you correctly, I'm hearing more a hope for people working at thelevel of NGOs, social activists, than for intellectuals, people who seem to have been
co-opted in the societies we're talking about. Is there a kind of bankruptcy in theacademic sphere?
WM: This is where we define the intelligentsia or the intellectuals. There are those
who have been co-opted, one is in the government, they become bureaucrats. The
other is the so-called think-tanks, government or private. The think-tank, despite itsrole of being supportive of the state and the powers that be, has room for some
improvement. Because through the think tanks you can have a lot of access to
information, which can be passed to the NGOs for proper action. Academia is where
I don't see much role in social movements. They are tied up with a lot of work andall these things. But then they can be one link outside also, if they are really
dedicated. But at present most academics, except in Thailand, are rather contented
with what they have—high salaries, especially in Malaysia and Singapore. They tend
to give papers here and there and give a kind of analysis of the situation.
AF: In Singapore they're very much monitored. There's a kind of atmosphere of fearin academic circles, isn't there? If you publish an editorial that's considered to be
critical of the government, you can lose your job.
KK-W: I would try to push for a deeper analysis of that kind of situation in
Singapore. You see, sometimes it's good not to keep blaming the state. Whenintellectuals and academics have all kinds of fears, imagine all kinds of fears, andwhen they themselves have not developed a coherent vision, or view, or line ofanalysis, and are not offering it to the public, they are letting the state become93stronger by default. At the same time they blame the state for making them fear it.
So the problem of Singapore is not so much censorship as self-censorship. I don't
think Singaporean intellectuals should fear all kinds of negative consequences if they
themselves have a point of view which they develop and can offer to the public.
There are certainly ways of bringing these ideas into public discourse. The challengein Singapore is not to confuse the distinctions between citizenship, party, andgovernment and nation. If you confuse all these things and lump them together, tobe a citizen means to be supportive of the party, and the ruling party is thegovernment, and all these three define the nation. Then if you're critical, you're
being disloyal. That's very bad. You can argue the other way around, that people
who are critical care and because they care, they're willing to spend the time andenergy to find alternative ways of looking at things.
AA: The Philippines seems to be the freest in having this atmosphere of freedom.
But on the other hand, this democratic space for academics in the academe, in mass
media, is not really doing too well for national or cultural or even individual
advancement intellectually. Because in academe what happens more often than not,because of the low salaries in Manila, the scholars try to do as much as they can toadvance their career within the academic ladder. Of course there are a few who areinterlinked with the media and the NGOs and they are the ones more stimulating as
they are more stimulated by their activity. But the democratic space seems not to bevery fertile for most people, because it only allows people to have the room to talkwithout having the responsibility of trying to find out the logic and validity of what
they're saying. Anybody can talk, because they're free. Anybody can write for mass
media, because there are a lot of newspapers. In this interplay of so many, many aresomehow drowned out.
AF: That's interesting, because it's also a criticism of the Western paradigm of humanrights, which is to see freedom as a kind of end in and of itself . . . As you say, evenin the Philippines, where there's freedom of expression, it doesn't seem to bringmuch value in other domains.
AA: And I'll even push it further by saying that of all countries in Southeast Asia, thePhilippines is one of the poorest and culturally it's one of the most diffuse. One
could hardly speak of a national culture that gives cohesion. Although I'm in theforefront of talking of "commonalities" of "interregional resonance," I'm actually
doing it out of a sense of adventure. I'm trying to establish a voice that would
somehow underpin a nation.
AF: Yes, but some would say if you compare it to Indonesia where a national model
is so much imposed on everybody, all the different groups, maybe it's better to havea looser system than a tight one that's forced on you.
AA: Maybe.

94WM: It's what Lee Kwan Yew was saying, "The Philippines, they're free, but where
are they now?"
AF: People say the same thing about India, too: "The largest democracy in the world,
but look at it—a mess."
AA: But, personally, despite all the defects of the Philippines, I would rather live in
the Philippines.
MARIKO OKA-FUKUROI (Director, Intellectual Exchange Division, JapanFoundation Asia Center): Regarding Eastern values and Western science, technology
plays a rather universal role. It can be a tool to examine modernization, the problem
of modernity in the West or Japan. For example, the development of printing
technology or the media is a strong tool to understand the problems of modernity.
That idea of simple dichotomy comes from the Meiji era, when we were trying toimport Western culture. Japanese don't want to lose their identity, they just want toborrow the technology. But there should be values in Western civilization and alsoin Asia.
Maybe we are going beyond the postmodern period. But in the Asian case,modernization and the postmodernity come in different sequences. Do you witness
the postmodernity phenomenon in your Asian countries, or is there any feeling that
postmodernity can be a problem for your societies?
AA: Let me answer that, because I've been a critic of the postmodern in the
University of the Philippines. I actually call it a neo-colonial discourse, in the way it
is practiced. It is not a criticism of postmodernity, because it is a phenomenon
world-wide. But the way it is used in Manila, for instance, is a way by which it
becomes very self-indulgent. Instead of looking at it as a living dynamism in society,they get it artificially from a book. So that in the name of postmodernity a friend ofmine would talk about the "gay discourse." But this "gay discourse," as he presents
it, is so much taken from the U.S. postmodern catalogue of books. He doesn't look
into the experience of the gays in the Philippines. But because there is a "valid"
postmodern discourse, then he comes out triumphantly with "I am postmodern. I
have a validity in the Philippines." And he even comes out saying that "Since I am in
the gay discourse, I don't have to bother about the nation." His search for genderorientation excuses him from searching his unity and his living links with thenational polity. So, in the Philippines at least, postmodernity is chicken shit; the shitof an American chicken. It isn't even a chicken of the Philippines. I am very much a
critic of that. They sometimes classify me as postmodern. And so it becomes soironic, why don't you just judge me the way I produce these articulations, theseanalyses and then analyze me for what I am? Don't judge my work according topostmodern labels and equations. But, they do that. "Oh, Arnold is using a languagethat is not New York or British, because in the postmodern discourse he is trying to95

appropriate that voice." So, they try to understand me only through that and not
through an authentic link between my words and the Philippine experience. It iswhether my words reflect the postmodern text. That is the danger.
KK-W: I think we should make a distinction between "postmodernism" andconditions of "postmodernity." There are many kinds of postmodernism, of whichsome aspects are very problematic for me because very often they are not concernedwith real life, politics, and economics, for instance. But conditions of postmodernity I
think are important and I would characterize the present as the intertwining ofconditions of tradition, modernity, and postmodernity. I think one of the features is
what's called by David Harvey "time-space compression," the compression of timeand space. This is linked to very concrete conditions of the information revolution
and also the globalization of market capital, labor, and culture. So, with the Internet,
MTV, and so on, we have to figure into our analysis a recognition that these
conditions are coming into our societies: how do we find an intellectual response tothem?
Coming back to the question of Asian values, the reason why the Asianvalues discourse can take place is also very postmodern. Because it is a kind of
abstract culture that pretends to be civilizational. Asia now becomes a civilizational
entity. That is what we call globalized culture. It adds on to all the other globalized
cultures. This becomes an addition to the many signs floating around, like "theWest," which people identify superficially. Conditions of postmodernity have to be
met with a vigorous intellectual response.
IK: The way we are faced with postmodernity in Indonesia has less to do withprobing intellectual validity than with making use of some of its arguments in orderto have more political tools or to give more cultural relevance to some issues. The
example is perhaps a plural model of living or thinking for the country. Itemphasizes that there is more to hope for if we have different peoples living
together, than to have one big monolithic society with one goal.
AF: Indonesian political culture is traditionally characterized by harmony. But
postmodernity seems to consist of cultural elements being placed randomly without
any sense of solidarity or cohesion.
IK: Right. So what is underscored is the right to differ. But, intellectually speaking,we have our own very big objection to this argument of difference, because ifeverybody has his/her own different stance, you get people saying, "Let us live inpeace. Just because you are pro-democracy and I am anti-democracy, we are justdifferent in that regard." To some extent this has become its own contradiction. So
we tell the young people, who are enthusiastic about all these things, "At some point
postmodernistic thinking can become nonproductive in a political struggle."
The second thing is thinking about construction and deconstruction. This we
can make use of productively in our political struggle by saying that all these cultural96

things are the result of our own construction. So we have to see if we haveconstructed it rightly or wrongly.
But let me say something about your question about technology, since we are
dealing with high technology as implemented by Minister Habibie now. I think mostintellectuals are against these nuclear plants in Central Java and the arguments arequite various. My own view is that sociologically speaking, the higher thetechnology, the smaller the tolerable margin of error. In the case of nuclear
technology, the margin must be close to zero. So our argument is that perhaps thewhole scientific and technological equipment is there and perhaps also theIndonesian engineers have the necessary knowledge to build this sort of nuclear
plant. But what we are lacking is a social discipline within our own culture. We
cannot support or secure this very risky technology.
WM: We've had this big debate in Malaysia about science and technology.
Technology is very biased, technology is not neutral. I'll give an example: a gun. A
gun is invented to kill people; you don't use it to kill chickens. So, having a gun,there is a purpose. So, whatever its purpose—I say the purpose is to make profit.
Profit for you or for us. But science is more neutral, because orderly observation ofthings, of the world, is more objective.
"Modernization" in Southeast Asia is actually more "industrialization."
Modernization includes many more things, not just physical development. So
society might achieve a "post-industrialist" stage. That's where Japan is.
It's difficult to talk about this postmodernism stuff, because it's more in thearts, literature. But post-industrialization we can talk about because it's gone beyond
national capital. It's more global capital now, it's more within the realm of the WTO,
because the transnational companies now have a passport as a state now. Mitsubishi
is equivalent to the Philippines or Malaysia; whenever they go anywhere, they cannegotiate at the same level as a nation. That is what worries a lot of people, thecoming of European, American, Japanese multinationals behaving like another state.
AF: And without accountability. Nobody elects them.
IK: We have the same idea in Indonesia and we put it very concretely in our attempt
to deal with the engineers. Our proposition is that technological development is atechnological matter. But technological application is a social matter. Because once
you apply technology, you apply it only in certain cultures and certain societies,
which are never empty of social values. In that sense, technological development
and application are a social affair in the first place.
KK-W: I have a few comments on this matter of technology. First is a question ofhuman scale. If technologies erase local particularities and local memories, then you
can have a civilization in which the more intimate kinds of identification are
gradually being lost. Urbanization in Singapore is such a process, for instance.
Second, there is a question of ethical control over technology, especially in the areas97

of reproductive technology, life-sustaining technology, or biotechnology. Our
technological advancement has run much faster and further than the development of
our ethical thinking. Thirdly, if you see electronic technology as a very useful tool, asa means of communication, then with all this expansion of means of communication,such as the Internet, what is the cultural content that is being offered? This is why the
problem of culture becomes more important under such conditions.
I'll give you an example. In Singapore, there are certain restrictions for theInternet. People have to use certain servers, so that the access to certain Web sites,
especially pornography, will not be available. Given the present state of thetechnology, you cannot clamp down completely. So, for me, adding more controls
may not be so helpful. Rather, you must have serious, intense cultural development,so that people develop ideas about taste, judgement and cultural content. So
cultural development will be very important.
AF: Maybe this is related to what you were saying, that people are overwhelmed bychoice. There's too much. Content is so multifarious. This is the postmodern
condition. There's no way to judge. It's much bigger than you and your local
situation.
KK-W: Right. Technology itself is not a neutral tool, but the sphere of culture could
provide the tools for us to judge.
AF: By way of conclusion I will try to summarize some of the main points wetouched upon in our discussion of Asian values and development, and especiallythose on which there seemed to be a sense of agreement.
We talked about how the ideology of economic development in the last
several decades has led to distortions in the social and cultural sphere—where values
are constantly being redefined and practiced. The fruits of economic development
are not equitably enjoyed by all in the booming economies of Southeast Asia and thishas led to community struggles for equity that often make recourse to cultural
nationalism based on ethnicity or religion and, in reaction, state policies that devalue
open debate and discussion under the slogans of "harmony" or "consensus."
Disputes over human rights in the region provide a particularly sensitive arena forthe employment of arguments based on "Asian values." You all seem to agree that
there is a fair degree of hypocrisy or slippery rhetoric at work here.
The human rights proponents from northern hemisphere countries tend toview rights as universals, even though their governments often act in ways that seemto go against those same universal ideals; Southeast Asian leaders have manipulated
the slogan of "Asian values" for their own purposes, however, you seemed to say,and often do not apply what would seem to be commonly held Asian values in theirown countries. Human rights activists in the region are often caught in the dilemmaof rejecting the hegemony of a universalist paradigm enforced from outside, while
struggling to get basic rights recognized and enforced in their own societies. And, as
Kwok pointed out, the extraordinary rise of market capitalism and economic

98

prosperity of recent years has brought with it so many radical social changes that it isdifficult to know what is left of "traditional" Asian values anyway. What you allagreed was most predominant was the rise of a middle class that is overwhelmingly
consumerist in its orientation and basically apathetic politically. Yet you seem tohold out some hope for the middle class's dissatisfaction with politically closed
systems eventually bringing about more openness: note the People's Powerrevolution in the Philippines, or similar tendencies that Ignas sees growing inIndonesia.
All of you seemed to point, too, to the controversial role of intellectuals,
academics and NGO leaders in confronting these challenges. With the Indonesian
example perhaps the most extreme, you seemed agreed that academics have shirked
their duties to analyze the real situation of people—especially the marginalized.
Many academics have been co-opted by the rewards of government contracts ormesmerized by academic theory-making. NGOs get higher marks according to you,but still have not quite met the challenge either. In Arnold's view, for instance,
NGOs in the Philippines tend not to listen to the real wishes of the communities inwhose name they're working, because they are too taken up with their own
ideological biases or are too city-focused in their own values.
On balance, though, I sense an attitude of hope in many of your comments,
however critical. Kwok seems to think, and I suppose that the rest would agree, that
there is the likelihood of a growing role for citizens outside the governmental sector
to affect the directions in which your dynamic societies are heading. Ethical values
and culture are at the heart of the territory that is being contested, Kwok pointed out,
and the long religious and spiritual traditions of the region may prove to be a fertile
source for the means to fight for respect of basic human rights and to find moremeaning in life than consumerism.

99Research Papers

These papers were produced by the fellows during the fellowship period. Dr. KasianTejapira's paper is the result of his individual research on "Consuming Thiness: Global
Commodities and National Identity," and was submitted in March 1997. The other four
papers are discussion papers which illustrate the process of the fellows' collaborative work on
the subject of "The Role of Intellectuals" and on the "Follow-up Project."Consuming Thainess:
Global Commodities and National Identity 1
Kasian Tejapira
Abstract
This research paper considers and analyses the effects of globalized
consumerism on Thai national identity or Thainess through a critical reading of print
and audio-visual artefacts in contemporary Thai popular culture. The overall effects
are conceptualized as four-folded liberation, namely the liberation of consumption
from the consumers' own national identity, the liberation of national identity as asignifier from specific national or ethnic commodity-referents, the liberation of brandnames from the nationality or ethnicity of commodities, and lastly the liberation ofidentity from the national. In the analysis of this four-folded liberation, the paper
focuses its attention on the complex psycho-cultural negotiation, mediation and mutualtransformation between the national identity of Thainess and the overwhelming andunavoidable imperatives of competitive production and consumption of identitycommodities in a globalized marketplace. This complex psycho-cultural process isshown to comprise double sublimation i.e. 1) psychological sublimation of un-Thaiconsuming desires and 2) pseudo-chemical sublimation of Thai national identity. The
upshot is that Thainess is reduced to a fossilized and free-floating signifier or symbolic
form which any and all commodities, Thai or un-Thai, can freely assume.
1) Introduction
Consumerism Is Not About Material Consumption; Advertising Is Not About
Selling Commodities"Entertainment commodities are constantly consumed in our daily life. In developed
countries, entertainment is the fifth basic necessity of life. The entertainment industry
is very huge. In this year alone, the total value of the world music industry is
estimated to be no less than 800 billion baht."
An executive of Grammy Entertainment Company,"Chainstore yuk grammy 2000
[Grammy's Chainstores in the Year 2000] "Phoojadkan Raiwan, 14 November 1994, p.29, 30.
"i am what I buy."

102

Mark C. Taylor and Esa Saarinen,
Imagologies: Media Philosophy. 1994.
To judge simply by the volume of the capital involved, it can be concluded that
the Thai government's so-called "Year to Campaign for Thai Culture" project from 1994
to 1997, the total budget of which amounts to less than 200 million baht, is a mere petty
attempt in contrast with the Thai advertising industry whose annual spending on the
media is approximately over 30 billion baht. 2 Therefore, the advertising andentertainment industries in the private sector are the real stage of national culture andconsciousness in Thailand, not the government one. Herein lies the real interlocutorthat is engaging the Thai public in cultural and psycho-social dialogue day in and dayout.
And yet, what conceptual tools are available to the Thai public to interrogate,
scrutinize, criticize and talk back to this tidal wave of overwhelming cultural power ?
So far, there are some of them, not many, and grossly inadequate.
Sulak Sivaraksa, a foremost and internationally-renowned social critic, andRangsan Thanapornpan, a widely-respected professor of economics, different though
they are in their opinions regarding the alternatives between globalization andcommunitarianism, do share a certain consensus on the judgement of consumerism. In
his 1994 speech entitled "Globalization and Thai Society and Economy" delivered inmemorial to the late Supha Sirimanond, the first Thai intellectual who had published aserious study of Marx's Capital in the 1950s, Rangsan linked consumerism with"cultural imperialism" as follows :"The dissemination of Anglo-Saxon culture and especially its American version is both
rapid and forceful with the international TV broadcasts as its main medium. The
influence these TV broadcasts have on the fashion of dress, lifestyles and above all theparadigms of thinking is undeniable.
"The interaction between Thai and foreign cultures amidst Americanization results inthe adaptation of Thai culture. Consequently, some parts of Thai culture have
improved while others that were not able to withstand the onslaught of foreign culture
could not but wither away and be dominated by the latter...
"...Cultural capital is invading Thai society and economy at its weak point, namely theteenagers, by transforming their tastes and beliefs. There is still great room for
consumerism to expand." 3 (emphases added)103

In the same vein, in an article entitled "Religion and Culture: Crisis andTrends", Sulak called consumerism "a new world religion" and vehemently denounced
its impact on Thai society as follows:"In the old days, religious culture was disseminated through church and temple
murals. But nowadays advertising posters are put up everywhere to propagate
consumerist culture and the TV screen has become a new pulpit that seduces people
into buying what they don't really need. The youth are deluded by consumerism into
craving for wearing jeans, eating fast food and drinking fizzy drinks, all of which are
the worst of their kinds in the world. Even happiness is turned into a kind of alcoholic
drinks and the identity of a distinguished gentleman into a low-quality shirt that
doesn't bear comparison with our own native Morhom shirt.
"A lot of prostitutes sell their sex organs just to earn money to afford unnecessary
luxuries for their parents who are under the spell of consumerist culture no less thantheir daughters. And likewise are the educators, intellectuals as well as even somehigh-ranking monks who earn money by selling amulets and condominiums.
"As prostitutes sell their sex organs to earn money, intellectuals and academics also
sell their brains to serve dictatorship. This will go on as long as virtue and ethics is
not upheld as a matter of principle.
"If these trends are not diverted, both the poor and the rich, the fools and theintelligent, including even the monks would all succumb to the new religion which isconsumerist culture." 4 (emphases added)
Please note the underlined terms in the above quotations for they are the
keywords that indicate how the two thinkers understand the interaction between
consumerist culture on the one hand, and Thai consumers and culture on the other,namely "the influence", "could not but wither away and be dominated", "invading","transforming their tastes and beliefs", "seduces", "deluded", "under the spell" and "succumbto", etc.
I would like to conclude that theirs is the domination-centered approach to
cross-national consumerism which emphasizes the moral and ethical aspects of theprocess and remains bounded within the nation-state framework. This approach does
have its own merits and certain role to play especially in condemning cross-national
consumerism as an immoral cultural epidemic that plagues the population of a nationfrom the outside. And yet, it has almost nothing to inform the said victims-cumconsumers of the complex inner workings of this "domination" process, nor enhancetheir capacity to analyse and criticize it in depth and detail.

104

A new approach to the study of consumerism in Thailand proposed in thispaper starts from a basic premise that turns the terms of the domination-centeredanalysis around and points up the reverse side of consumerist culture, which iscultural consumption.
The consumption of material products in the globalized market has beentransformed by the advertising and entertainment industries into the simultaneous
consumption of culture. In essence, the process of consumption going on underconsumerism does not consist simply of physical buying, eating, chewing, swallowing,
dressing, wearing, using and disposing of material products, but also of cultural
signification, transmission, reception, transformation/translation and interpretation ofsymbolic messages at the same time.
Hence the most important thing being consumed by consumers underconsumerism is not the material objects of commodities but the abstract meanings
which these commodities have been made to signify by advertising. Only thus can thevolume of consumption by the consumers exceed the limits of their physical capacityand biological needs to consume and instead become a function of their potentiallyinfinite psychological desire or eros which goes far beyond the said capacity and needs
and can be limited only by the purchasing power of the consumers, be it the real one in
the present or the virtual one borrowed from the future by means of credit cards, etc.
Since the main thing being consumed is abstract meanings, those competent to
consume them are therefore not brainless automatons remote-controlled by advertising
but real people who are capable of thinking, signifying, communicating and thereby oftaking part actively in the consumption of meanings under consumerism, including theteenaged ones. It is because they can think for themselves that they have become suchactive, energetic consumers. Were they mere automatons, they wouldn't be able to doso.
Those abstract meanings or messages for cultural consumption are conveyed
by commodities which function as signs signifying them through advertising. Thus theutmost secret of advertising is how to transform the trading of commodities into the
trading of signs. In this light, the purchase of commodities by consumers is but themundane ending of the consumption process whereas the purchase on meanings bycommodities as signifying units is its crucial and significant prerequisite.
Therefore, the effective critique of consumerism must aim at the message thosecommodities attempt to convey rather than the presumed moral or ethical weakness
and unpatriotic behaviour of the consumers so as to expand the semiotic space of
reinterpretation and create a virtual suspension of time (or non-time as against real105

time) for them in the face of the message received from advertising. This critique will
provide them with the condition in which they can exercise their own potential andcapacity to talk back to the advertised message before making a decision to buy or not
to buy its commodified signs.
Consumerism can't be effectively resisted if one takes it to be merely anotherform of domination from the outside (i.e. outside the consumers or the nation) sinceultimately speaking, the workings of consumerism require active and energetic
participation of the consumers themselves. In other words, consumerism is something
the consumers voluntarily self-commit and thence only they can liberate themselvesfrom it.
The Importance of Consumption in a Globalized Consumerist Society
While the Thai state media still persist in their traditional, conservative,
authoritarian, paternalistic attitude towards national culture and language, forexample :"With regard to various broadcasts, the officials in charge must carefully scrutinize
them. In a broadcast interview with any person, if the interviewee's speech is improper,
heavily accented or grossly slurred, then the voice should be edited out for it will
become a bad example for the public."
Former Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai,
Interview given in the Language Club broadcastof the Office of the National Culture Commission,
Government House, 20 July 1993.
...the private media, on the contrary, state in one of their advertisement that :"Everyone has the equal right to speech."
An advertisement of the Siemens telephone exchange system, Phoojadkan
Raiwan, 26 July 1994, p.5.
Or as a private satellite dish company describes its superior services almost
unreservedly :"...providing you with a feeling of privacy, freedom to choose from a variety of
programs without being controlled by any agency."
An advertisement poster put up in an exhibition of the Samart satellite dishcompany at the Future Park Plaza, Bangkae, Bangkok, 26 June 1994.

106

There is no need to spell out which agency it means.
Consumption is highly appealing in Thai society because it allows a choice oflifestyles relatively free from state domination and the control of the cultural
bureaucratic authorities. 5 In the market, the consumers can choose to consume avariety of brand name commodities, to give their own personal meanings to them ascommodified signs or symbols, without the nagging interference and uninvited moral
judgement of those self-proclaimed official cultural arbitrators.
Of course, on the one hand one may say that these consumers fall prey to the
seduction of the market. But on the other hand, it is in this market which forms part ofcivil society that they have the freedom of choice, communication and association withother fellow consumers through the consumption of commodities beyond the watchfuleyes of the state.
Be that as it may, the freedom to consume is by no means free for all. An
application for membership in this global club of happy-go-lucky consumers-cumshoppers requires a certain degree of purchasing power. Those without such power
are thereby automatically excluded from the market and deprived of the freedom toconsume. Instead, they have no choice but to live the life of the repressed under theconstant surveillance and control of the state police (in case they attempt shop-lifting)and depend for their livelihood on state welfare whose (dis)services are notorious for
its inefficiency and inhumanity.
According to Bauman, all these reflect the tendency of forms of domination in
consumerist society to shift from repression to seduction, from policing to public
relations, from authority to advertising, and from norm imposition to needs-creation.6
Hence the freedom to consume in the market of civil society, in the private
world where each individual can invent his/her own subjective meanings andidentities through consumption, is bought at a price. Apart from the money price,
there is also a political price to pay, that is the tendency of these freewheeling, happygo-lucky consumers-cum-shoppers to become increasingly depoliticized. Driven by
their consuming passion to consume, they tend to desert their civic duty and obligation
and remain indifferent to the plight of their poor compatriots outside the market. It
goes without saying that, ironically, democratic self-government and all kinds of
distracting civic participation in public affairs are the only sort of luxuries they can't
afford.
And yet, consumption is not something that one may renounce and walk awayfrom at will. In today's consumerist society, consumption and human beings are so

107

tangled up that the former has become the inevitable fate of an ever-increasing numberof the latter.
In his "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts", Karl Marx argues that nature is
the inorganic body of human beings.7 Human beings need nature to provide them not
only with the basic necessities of life, but also with the materials and condition for thedevelopment, flourishing and flowering of their far-reaching and unfathomablewonderful potential. To put it simply, without natural sound there would have been
no music and Beethoven, without natural colour there would have been no colour
paintings and Vincent Van Gogh, without the natural way of things there would havebeen no Taoism and Lao Tzu, etc. In that sense, nature is the cultural, spiritual andexistential interlocutor of humanity. In this dialogue, both are mutually transformedby each other. Human beings have adapted themselves to the evolution of nature andnature has also been changed by human beings into humanized nature with
ineradicable human traces.
The problem is:- what has happened to nature or the interlocutor of humanbeings in the age of global capitalism ?
Immanuel Wallerstein, the internationally-acclaimed founder of world-systems
theory, has named a chapter in his book entitled Historical Capitalism (1983) as "TheCommodification of Everything: Production of Capital". 8 This can be taken as theanswer to the above problem as "everything" naturally includes nature.
In the present, the particular nature co-existing and conversing with humanity
has already been transformed by capitalism. It is no longer pure and pristine natureuntampered by human beings, waiting there ready for them to go back to at any time.
It has become commodified nature or the world of commodities for the purpose ofuniversal consumption. As a result, the main mode of interaction between humanbeings and commodified nature is no longer production. Technological advance,
robots, automatic production have changed the main economic problem from "how tosolve the scarcity of products ?" to "how to manage surplus production ?".
Consumerist consumption has now become the paradigmatic answer to the newproblem as well as the main mode of interaction between humanity and commodified
nature.
Individual needs, be it the need for personal freedom, the need to define themeaning of one's own life, to lead a life according to that self-defined meaning, and toraise oneself to the level of perfect human beings or even that of superman, have all
been transformed/translated into the needs for possession and consumption ofcommodities in the market. So, those who are excluded from the market due to their108

deficiency in purchasing power have lost not only the opportunity to consume but also
the essential condition to develop their potential as human beings. Suffice it to say that,in consumerist society, societal conditions have turned out in such a way that those
who do not consume cannot be a full-fledged human being.
Semiotics As a Tool to Read Consumerist Culture"Even happiness is turned into a kind of alcoholic drinks and the identity of a
distinguished gentleman into a low-quality shirt that doesn't bear comparison with
our own native Morhom shirt."
Sulak Sivaraksa 9"Words that almost have meanings for children such as love, warmth have all beensold out. Love turns into milk in advertisement, and warmth into a toy. Children
become confused as to what these words really mean. Adults too can't tell what theymean because they themselves have been searching for their meanings for so long andthey don't know."
Todd Thongdi 10
Both foregoing criticisms of consumerist culture/cultural consumption point tothe same semiotic phenomena which are brought about by the advertising industry
and have become increasingly prevalent in globalized consumerist society i.e. semiotic
chaos in which words, meanings and commodities are all jumbled up in the process ofcommunication to such an extent that, to quote Todd again :"Children become confused as to what these words really mean...
"Adults too can't tell what they mean...
"...because they themselves have been searching for their meanings for so long...
"...and they don't know."
How, then, has this semiotic chaos come about ?
It happens when the semiotic field (i.e. the sum total of words, signs andsymbols) of a given society is bombarded with and overrun by commodities/brandnames which come to function as new words, new signs and new symbols, thusinterfering and vying with pre-existing words, signs and symbols, occupying,incorporating and transforming their meanings to such an extent that there occurs a109

prevalent and chaotic mismatch among words, meanings and things (or signifiers,
signifieds and referents for that matter).11
To simplify the matter, let me use a diagram to illustrate an elementary
semiotic process. In a society, a word vocally uttered or written in script normallysignifies certain abstract meaning(s) in our mind. Therefore, to use the criticisms by
Sulak and Todd above as examples, we can construct a diagram as follows:WORD or SIGNIFIERMEANING or SIGNIFIED"happiness"[happiness]"identity of a distinguished gentleman"[identity of a distinguished gentleman]"love"[love]"warmth"[warmth]These words have potent meanings. They are modern "mantras", beloved,cherished and chanted by people in certain culture and society. They can move andmotivate those who hear, read, or think of them and enliven their drab, mundane
everyday life. Hence, they are signs with cultural value. The secret of advertising is tofind ways to transform/translate their cultural value into exchange value or a market
price of commodities, thus bypassing the specific and concrete use value of thesecommodities or, in other words, symbolically dematerializing them altogether. The aim
is to move the passion and motivate the action of the target group of consumers somuch so that they can't help but open their wallets, take out their banknotes or credit
cards, and buy these advertised commodities to consume their cultural value.
The method is to project the commodities or their brand names into thesignifier-signified relationships so as to incorporate both the words and meanings andusurp their cultural value as the commodities/brand names' own.
Thus :-

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SIGNIFIERCOMMODITYSIGNIFIED"happiness"

alcoholic drink[happiness]"identity of a distinguishedgentleman"shirt[identity of a distinguishedgentleman]"love"

milk
toy"warmth"[love][warmth]Please note that the upshot of this method is to make commodities function as
both signifiers and signifieds, depending on which dyadic relationship is underconsideration. So, if this incorporation of signs by commodities is accomplished, thenthe upshot will be twofold.
First, commodities will then assume the function of signifiers in the sense thatwhenever the consumers perceive, buy or consume these commodities/brand names,
they will immediately think of those signifieds in their mind. Thereby,...
whenever they buy an alcoholic drink of that particular brand name to consume, they
will think of [happiness];whenever they buy a shirt of that particular brand name to wear, they will think of[identity of a distinguished gentleman];
whenever they buy milk of that particular brand name to feed their children, they will
think of [love];
and whenever they buy a toy of that particular brand name for their children, they will
think of [warmth].
Secondly and simultaneously, commodities will also assume the function ofsignifieds in the sense that whenever the consumers utter or hear, write or read thesesignifiers, they will immediately think of those signifieds + commodities/brand namesin their mind. Thereby,...
whenever they utter or hear, write or read the signifier "happiness", they will think of[happiness + an alcoholic drink of that particular brand name];

111whenever they utter or hear, write or read the signifier "identity of a distinguishedgentleman", they will think of [identity of a distinguished gentleman + a shirt of thatparticular brand name];
whenever they utter or hear, write or read the signifier "love", they will think of [love +milk of that particular brand name];
whenever they utter or hear, write or read the signifier "warmth", they will think of[warmth + a toy of that particular brand name].
So much so that, subjectively speaking, if they do not buy the alcoholic drink ofthat particular brand name to consume, they will not feel completely happy. If they do
not buy the shirt of that particular brand name to wear, they will fall short of theidentity of a distinguished gentleman. If they do not buy milk of that particular brandname to feed their children, their parental love of them will be defective. And if they
do not buy a toy of that particular brand name for their children, their family ties willsoon unravel.
Amidst global cultural flows, the Thai government's "Year to Campaign forThai Culture" project has played a significant role in augmenting the cultural value ofThainess as a potent sign in Thai society. Precisely because of that, there has been an
unprecedented and large-scale incorporation of Thainess by commodities, both Thaiand un-Thai, which effectively turns the said project into one of "the Year to Sell Thai
Culture".
Next, I will describe, illustrate, analyse and criticize the ongoing process of
consuming Thainess in Thai globalized consumerist society.
2) Text
Consumerism versus Nationalism
On Wednesday the 28th April 1993, Phoojadkan Raiwan or Manager Daily, a
best-selling Thai-language business daily in Thailand, carried on page 22 a full-pageadvertisement of Samakhom Sathapanik Siam Nai Phrabarommarachoopatham or the
Association of Siamese Architects under Royal Patronage (ASA), announcing its
annual seminar for that year on the theme of "Seubto winyan seubsan wela" (or"Tradition and Trend" in the Association's own English rendering, although a more
literal translation would be "Carry on the Spirit, Move on with the Times") to be heldin the Plenary Hall at Queen Sirikit National Convention Center from April 30 to May
3. The advertisement itself featured a photograph of an attractive young Thai lady
elegantly dressed in a business suit. Slouching at ease in an armchair and looking

112intently even invitingly at her supposed viewers, she was surrounded all over by
several graphic pointers with English captions revealing the un-Thai identity of various
parts of her bodywear, namely, a hairstyle with a "Parisian Touch", "Italian Import(ed)"ear-rings, "American Fragrance", a suit of "English Wool", a "Swiss Made" watch, and"Japanese Silk" stockings. A big caption near the top right angle of the photographasks straightforwardly in Thai: "Bok dai mai khun pen thai thi trong nai ?" ("Can you tellwhich part of you makes you Thai ?").
But actually who were the "you" being asked ? And whose image ofconsumption of un-Thai commodities was being looked at for that matter ? Was it theimage of the lady in the photograph or that of her viewers ? Through her reflective
gaze, the viewers were enticed to look with unexpected and growing unease at her
image as evidence of their own possible un-Thainess, their imagined communion withher being grounded on the common challengeability of their Thai identity. For once,the voyeurs themselves were subjected to ethnic self-voyeurism.
But not for long. The lengthy caption beneath the photograph rushed torelieve the viewers of the troubling, incipient self-doubt about their own national
identity with a quick-fix soothing message in Thai:"It's not strange if we are used to bread and coffee more than rice with curry...There's
nothing wrong with the fact that we are dressed in Western style. It's not unusualthat we drive Japanese cars. Because Thai-Thai feelings still remain in our
spirit...That's why ARCHITECT'93 summons up the meaning of Thai style of living
again by presenting contemporary architectural ideas that are consonant with the Thaiway of life in an attempt to stimulate ties between modern living and Thai identity
under the theme "Carry on the Spirit, Move on with the Times" (Tradition & Trend)in order to preserve Thainess." (my own translation, emphases added) 12
Without pausing to elaborate on what "Thai-Thai feelings", "Thai style ofliving", "Thai way of life", "Thai identity" and "Thainess" were, the ad hurried along to
invite architects and the public from all over to the seminar to learn and exchange
ideas so as to formulate "the concept of a unique contemporary Thai architecture".
Ironically, the highlight of this mission in search of contemporary Thai architectural
identity turned out to be an introductory speech on "present day new concepts (sic)" bya "world renowned Japanese architect, Mr Fumihiko Maki" (emphasis added). The adthen ended with an assuring note: "And we who are called "Thais".....will not be "Thai"by name only." 13
The presumption that Thainess and the consumption of un-Thai commodities
could coexist without qualms or dissonance, the fact that Thai architects these days

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could begin to discuss contemporary Thai architecture only after hearing words of
wisdom from their Japanese counterpart, etc., these stand in stark contrast to Thainessof yesteryear when the burgeoning nationalist, democratic university student
movement launched an effective and influential campaign of boycott against Japanese
goods in the early 1970s. Being then in high school, I was shown by one of myclassmates (whose Thai name, by the way, happened to be Ekkaraj, meaning
Independence) a newspaper clipping of a contemporary Thai poem which ingeniously
contained many familiar and popular brand names of Japanese consumer products in
the Thai market, wittily rhymed them with Thai words, and hilariously poked fun at
the way Thai people unceasingly and unthinkingly pursued the consumption of these
Japanese goods in their daily lives. The poem left such a profound impression on me
that, twenty years afterwards, having been through one massacre in Thammasat
University, one failed guerrilla warfare in the jungles of northeast Thailand andCambodia, one doctoral thesis at Cornell, and another recent mass uprising in the
middle of Bangkok, and having completely forgotten all the details of its reference safea vague idea of its cultural-political whereabouts, I still could recite its first and final
rhyming couplets without fail.
Needless to say, it was the lady with un-Thai bodywear in the abovementioned ad who reminded me most strongly of that poem. Having heard me lament
for it and recite some of its couplets in a public lecture in January 1994, a bohemianfriend of mine among the audience called on me at my office the following day andhanded me a copy of the complete text of the poem in his own handwriting, saying hehad first found it quoted in full in a newspaper article about eleven years earlier (i.e. in1983) and liked it so much that he copied it down instantly and had kept it ever since.
And here is the full text of that poem entitled "Khaniyom" ("Values"), written by avirtually unknown Mr Sakda Jintanawijit:
First thing in the morning,grasp White Lion toothpaste and enjoy brushing teeth;
then make some tea with a National electric kettle
and smooth down hair with Tanjo pomade.
Put on Thaitorae Tetoron clothes,wear a Seiko watch when leave home,
listen to government news broadcasts on a Sanyo radio,
drive a Toyota to pick up girlfriend.
Wonder where to do luxurious shopping ?
Go to Daimaru where there are plentyof consumer products made in Japan,

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sent here from faraway Nippon.
Girlfriend buys Kanebo cosmetics
and also those of Sisedo and Pola,
Wacoal underwear for her big boobs,
Onkyo electric appliances for her ecstasy.
When back at home, switch on a Toshiba TV set,
flip through the channels looking for Gamo and Kendo. 14
But after fighting mosquitoes for a while,
feel like visiting Saburi massage parlour.15
In our modern daily life,
we begin to have self-doubt
so we ask an Asahi mirror:"Eh, am I a Thai ?"("Watachiwa thai yen deseuka ?") 16
To this soul-searching, nationalist question self-reflectively and rhymingly
posed by a Thai consumer of Japanese goods twenty-one years earlier, the resounding
answer unhesitatingly and unrhymingly proffered by a Thai consumer of un-Thaicommodities today is emphatically: "Yes, I am a Thai despite my consumption ofmany an un-Thai thing !"Between the nationalism-above-consumerism of the 1972 "Khaniyom" poem
and the consumerism-above-nationalism of the 1993 ASA's advertisement lay a text
which most aptly captured the increasing commodification and de-referentialization of
the Thai signifier, namely, a Thai folk-song with the English title of "Made in Thailand",composed and played by a highly popular folk-song group named Carabao in 1984.
Owing to its economic nationalist message, the song won government approval andpromotion and quickly became a top hit. And yet, the jacket of the Carabao cassettetape that featured this song bore a widely recognizable trademark of the Coke softdrink in red and straightforwardly declared in print the following assuring message:"Coke and Carabao jointly promote the value of Thainess" !?! 17
Freedom of Consumption and Liberation of National Identity
I would argue that this affirmative answer signifies, in present-day Thailand,
manifold cultural liberation from the nationalist regimes of the past, be it radical leftist
or right-wing authoritarian. On the one hand, it is the liberation of consumption in115which the consumption of commodities is no longer limited or constrained by the
consumers' own national identity. One can consume commodities of whatevernationality or ethnicity regardless of one's own national identity with no nationalist
angst, guilt or remorse. Or, to parody a well-known cri d' extase a la the American civilrights movement of the 1960s, the Thai consumers are now "free, free at last !" (toconsume whatever they desire).
But it also suggests, on the other hand, the liberation of national identity as
signifier from the control of specific national or ethnic commodity-referents. Thus
Thainess becomes unanchored, uprooted, liberated or freed from the regime ofreference to national or ethnic Thai commodities. Thainess is now able, as it were, toroam freely around the commodified globe, to coexist and copulate with Italian earrings, American fragrance, English wool, a Swiss-made watch, Seiko, Sanyo, Toyota,
Wacoal, etc. or any other un-Thai commodities and sundries, and still to refer as suchto the consumer of these products. Its referential essence is limited to mere spectral,
amorphous, uncorporeal, intangible, hollowed-out and undefined Thai-Thai feelings in
the spirit. Once liberated, Thainess takes wing and turns into a freewheeling, freefloating signifier.
Would A Rose, By Any Other Brand Names, Smell As Sweet ?
And yet, come to think of it, on the third hand (the pomo world is such acomplex place and we have only two hands), is it the products themselves or theirrepresentations i.e. brand names, that are at issue here ? From the point of view of ourlady with un-Thai bodywear and her fellow consuming compatriots, will it still be "notstrange", "not wrong" or "not unusual" if the brand names of those bread and coffee aswell as Western dresses and Japanese cars which they consume daily are changed fromfashionable foreign to commonplace Thai ones (for example, from Sony to Seni, or from
Hitachi to Hatthachai) ? Or, if Thai products assume exotic foreign brand names oreven generic names, will they become more or less palatable to the Thai national
spirit ?
Numerous examples spring to mind in this connection. For instance, not long
ago, the Thai manufacturer of a popular but controversial stimulant drink called
Krating Daeng (meaning Red Bull) has marketed a new line of product which is asterilized refreshing tissue under the English brand name of Red Bull. Also, during theannual Chinese Buddhist kin je (a Thai term for going vegetarian) festival in October
1994, a long-established Thai manufacturer of a variety of canned food products
bearing the Tra nok phirab (or Pigeon Brand) trademark has launched canned, readycooked Chinese vegetarian food under the brand name of J-Foods, which is a fantastic
linguistic hybrid consisting of the abbreviated English transliteration of a Thai word116

whose origin is Teochiu Chinese plus an English word. 18 In addition, there are
Regency brandy, Cute Press and Oriental Princess cosmetics, etc. all locally producedby Thai manufacturers. As to generic names, during the 1994 Chinese lunar festival,
the traditional Chinese cakes seasonally made and consumed at that time whose
generic name in Thai is khanom wai prajan, have been widely advertised for the firsttime ever in Thailand as simply moon cake.
The foregoing questions are posed against the background of a distinct andgrowing trend among Thai business companies, manufactured products, film and TV
stars, singers, musicians and entertainers to adopt foreign (that is, Western andChinese) names, brand names or stage names.19 This is readily understandable in caseof those companies, products and individuals that plan to go global and are targeted atforeign export market. But even when they are clearly for domestic consumption,
foreign names are still widely adopted. Thus, most shopping centers in Bangkok andmajor provinces in Thailand now have such names as Central, The Mall, Robinson,
Pata, Welco, Wonder, Safco, Cathay, etc.; the bigger and better-known among Thaicompanies adopt such names as Telecom Asia, Jasmine International, Bangkok Landand Houses, IBC, Thai Sky TV, Media of Medias, etc.; and singers of Thai songs callthemselves with such foreign-sounding stage names as Tik Chiro, Chen Chen
Bunsungnoen, Honey Sri-isan, etc. 20 As for business establishments with original
names in Thai, a convenient ploy is to use the abbreviations of their English
transliterations along with them. Hence, DK for Duang Kamol Bookstore, MBK for
Mabunkhrong Shopping Center, CP for the Charoen Phokphand Group. Interestingly,
the nominal metamorphosis of the Charoen Phokphand multinational conglomeratefrom Chia Tai through Charoen Phokphand into CP is indicative of the cultural andeconomic transformations of Sino-Thai businesses in general. 21
The reason for this, as told by Mr Thiraphol Phongphana-ngam, the generalmanager of a newly-opened Thai fast-seafood restaurant located in the midst of
cutthroat competition from nearby McDonald's, Popeye's, Kentucky Fried Chicken
franchised fast-food restaurants and the like in a huge shopping mall in an affluent
residential area in Bangkok, is presumably fairly typical. Here he explained why,
having gone and pondered over more than 200 possible names, he finally chose toname his restaurant in English as Calico Jack:"Although we set up our restaurant for Thai customers, it would be risky to use a Thai
name. That's why we decided to use an English name in order to create an inter (sic)image as well as to compete with ourselves." (my own translation) 22
The last part of the final sentence in Mr Thiraphol's statement is worth
pondering. So, in order "to compete with ourselves" or, in other words, to drive our117

Thai selves harder, we need an inter(national) image created by a foreign brand nameto prod us and prick our Thai conscience. Thus, in the case of Calico Jack, what
remains of Thainess (the Thai id) is being contested right there in its last refuge in thepsyche by the more competitive and dynamic un-Thai superego and, hopefully, will beovercome someday .
Adoption of foreign brand names by Thai products aside, it has become
increasingly difficult and even pointless to try to determine the Thai/un-Thainationality of a consumer product in the Thai market through its original brand namein this present age of economic globalization. As it is now "possible, according to
Milton Friedman, to produce a product anywhere, using resources from anywhere, by
a company located anywhere, to be sold anywhere," so, unsurprisingly, Thailand has
become, in recent years, a favourite overseas investment site and production base forexport of many a Japanese, Asian Nics' and Western multinational corporation, owing
to its comparatively lower labour costs and strategic geo-economic location as agateway to Indochina and South China. 23 Therefore, not only Toyota but also
Mitsubishi, Isuzu, Honda, Nissan, Volvo, BMW, etc. cars, not only National but alsoSony, Sharp, Sanyo, Saijo Denki, Nordmende, etc. electric appliances are now being
manufactured and/or assembled in Thailand by Thai workers and technicians withincreasing local contents. In this strictly economic sense, be it with regard to the
production site, manufacturing labour, component parts, export earnings and balanceof trade, these products are already getting more and more Thai despite their foreign
brand names. Consequently, what is actually liberated to copulate with Thainess may
not be so much the products themselves as their foreign representations or brandnames.
Freedom from Thainess
The liberation of consumption, national identity, and brand names leads to thenext logical step i.e. the liberation of identity from the national. Since the exclusive
power of Thainess as a signifier to refer to only Thai things is loosened, the signified ofThainess also changes from the supposed embodiment of the inherent essence of allthings Thai into just one identity option among many others, national, ethnic orotherwise, which anyone can partake of and indulge in through the purchase andconsumption of commodities as identity signs. To put it another way, the manifold
freedom from the barriers imposed by national or ethnic self-identity simultaneously
allows Thai consumers the possibility to consume commodities as identitycommodities i.e. the consumption of consumer products not for their intrinsic use
value or socio-economic exchange value, but for their cultural value as signs of desired
identity.24 And the objects of desire in question may vary from national or ethnic to118

mere brand-name identities as provocatively and succinctly put by Mark C. Taylor and
Esa Saarinen in their recent iconoclastic work:" i am what I buy." 25

The Desire to Be Thai in the Age of Globalization
The alienation of Thais from Thainess, the distance they subconsciously
assume between themselves and their supposed national/ethnic essence, the mannerin which they regard Thainess as other than and separate from their own individual
identities and treat it as reified "thingness", are evidently the underlying premises in
the following excerpts from the interviews of four rising young stars in the Thai
entertainment industry. First, Miss Angkhana Thimdi or simply Ann, a sexy film & TV
star, fashion model and occasional singer, well-known for her voluptuous body andoften partially and tightly-clad dresses, was reported to have commented on her
attitude towards Thainess, just before the New Year's eve and the beginning of thegovernment's designated Pi ronnarong watthanatham thai (or Year to Campaign for Thai
Culture) of 1994, as follows:"Does anyone know that, even though she likes to wear extremely provocative dresses,
actually Ann-Angkhana Thimdi is very strict in observing Thai traditional customs,
to the point of always saying a Buddhist prayer before going to sleep...She also likes togive alms to Buddhist monks regularly. Moreover, she is a very old-fashioned lady
who likes to preserve Thainess..... However, that Ann-Angkhana must wear suchprovocative dresses, says the reporter, is due to the fact that she has a good figure andwants to show off what she has.....And having learned a lot about the teachings of
Buddha lately, Ann-Angkhana would like to take vows as a Brahmin nun sometime
next year." (my own translation, emphasis added) 26
In the same vein, Mr Billy Ogan, a popular, half-bred, Filipino-Thai, young
singer and film & TV star, explained the concept of his new music album in relation tothe official Year to Campaign for Thai Culture as follows:"Although the songs that will be produced are teenage songs, Thai cultural issues will
also be stressed. This is because next year will be the Year to Campaign for Thai
Culture, therefore, in regard to the new songs, Thai cultural issues must be mixed in.
And personally speaking, I also like Thainess a lot but don't have much chance so far
to express that. So, when there is a chance of producing songs according to my own
ideas, I would like to bring out what I myself am..." (my own translation, emphasis
added) 27

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And last but not least, Kob - Paphassara Chutanuphong and Tui - Monreudi
Yamaphai, two famous leading female TV stars, told a newspaper reporter of their
special plan jointly to celebrate the 1995 Saint Valentine's Day in a very Thai-Thai way:
"While most young stars who are in love take today's opportunity (14 Feb.) tocelebrate the Valentine's Day or the Day of Love according to Western custom, theyoung-star couple, Kob - Paphassara Chutanuphong and Tui - Monreudi Yamaphai,choose instead to observe the Thai Buddhist festival of Magha Puja, (a Buddhist
festival on the day of the full moon in the third lunar month to commemorate thespontaneous great assembly of the Buddha's disciples-Kasian) which falls on the samedate. Kob-Paphassara states that actually she and Tui have already celebrated their
Day of Love festival late last year by touring round the U.S. for two full weeks with
Tui's elder sister. "Both of us work hard and intend to save ten thousand Baht amonth. When October and November come, we will spend our savings on a tour torefresh ourselves. This year, we plan to go to Italy." However, it so happens that thisyear's Valentine's Day coincides with the Magha Puja Day. So, Kob decides on
doing something special even though they have already celebrated the Day of Love.
Kob says that on February the 14th, she and Tui will fly to the province of Kalasin to
make merit by buying a bookcase for the Tipitaka and Pali texts for a Buddhist temple
as well as wearing a white dress and observing the Buddhist precepts in that temple fora day. On the following day, they will come back to work." (my own translation,emphases added) 28
Cultural SchizophreniaSo, professedly, all four of them - Ann, Billy, Kob and Tui, like Thainess, love
Thainess, and desire to be Thai, to remain Thai and, better still, to become even more
Thai. The actuality even possibility of their professed common desire is premised
upon the existence, on the one hand, of Thainess as the object of desire and, on theother hand, of themselves as the subjects of desire. Moreover, in the very act of
pursuing their object of desire, the four subjects concurrently reveal a split in theirpersonality and symptoms of cultural schizophrenia. Thus we have, in the case of Miss
Thimdi, the presumably un-Thai sexy, exhibitionist Ann and the presumably Thai
traditionalist, Buddhist Angkhana. Again, in the case of Mr Ogan, we have Billy, theembodiment of un-Thai teenage fads and Ogan, the lover of Thai culture. And in thecase of Ms Chutanuphong and Yamaphai, we have, on the one hand, Kob and Tui, whocrave after un-Thai tourist exotica and, on the other hand, Paphassara and Monreudi,
who prefer observing Thai Magha Puja to Western Valentine's Day. Their own claims
that their Thai self is deeper, truer or more authentic than its un-Thai counterpart can
only be taken with a grain of salt, given the context in which the statements were made,namely right before and shortly after the official Year to Campaign for Thai Culture.

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Rather, their fragmented subjectivity seems to be flexible artifice selectively anddiscreetly practised in response to the varying demand of the segmented cultural
market in Thailand which include, among others, the government, the Buddhist
faithful, teenagers, soft porn fans, etc. None of these market segments is deeper, truer
or more authentic than the others. They are just different groups, big and small, ofimage consumers.
Lest anyone should think that Ann, Billy, Kob and Tui are isolated individual
cases, let me introduce further instances of cultural schizophrenia inflicted uponpresent-day Thailand by the widespread attempt to reconcile the overwhelming
undeniability and inevitability of cultural globalization with the nervous desire to holdon to the increasingly elusive and slippery Thainess. Thus, when the 125 students who
took the Creative Copywriting class at Ramkhamhaeng University's Department ofAdvertising and Public Relations were assigned by their instructors to make a onepage ad to instill Thai cultural values into today's youth on the occasion of the Year toCampaign for Thai Culture, the best 20 among them, as picked out by the instructors,
include the following samples:

121Name of Student
Maneerat Siriwong

Phongmethee Saengrit

Jumnanja Punaret

Tachsanee Wongrach

Ad Picture

Ad Message

the back view of a boy
dressed in the recognizable
M-TV black rap-singer style& the front view ofsupposedly the same boy ina Thai traditional dress
performing Thai classicaldance"Rap dance is acceptable but
Thai (classical) dance is notforgotten; though not (Thai)on the outside!... but theheart is genuinely Thai"youths making hand
gestures and screaming in a
pop concert & soldiersmarching under the Thainational flag and the imageof a national monumenta jean & a traditional Thai
dress for males known as"Raja Pattern" in a showcase"The scream in front of aconcert stage should not be
different from the shout forindependence; Althoughtime passes by, "Thainess"still persists, for us tocherish, along with Thai
independence.""Many jeans in the market;
only one (Raja Pattern dress)in the museum; who will
carry on the style of dress
which is Thai identity, if notyou.."

SangthianPongsiam Khumsoithonga Thai male youth dressed in
American teenage styleplaying skateboard in an
urban areaa traditional Thai Singha (asin the logo of Singha Beer) &Walt Disney's Lion Kinga 100 Baht banknote over
and above a 20 Baht
banknote over and above a
Thai citizen's ID card

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"Thai-Thai games are still in(my) memory...; Today's
world may make great
progress but Thainess isnever forgotten.""Thai Singha & Lion King;Do you know thedifference ?""Thainess is not only..what
you carry; Don't let Thai
culture..be only an option"

Over and over again, the same symptoms as in the cases of Ann, Billy, Kob andTui are shown here i.e. a split personality or fragmented subjectivity, be it individual orcollective, realistic or symbolic (rap dancer vs Thai dancer, screaming youths vsshouting soldiers, a jean vs a Raja Pattern dress, a skateboard vs Thai-Thai games,
Singha vs Lion King); the submersion, subjectification, spiritualization, interiorizationof Thainess 29 (which is evident in phrases like "Thai (classical) dance is not forgotten","not (Thai) on the outside, but the heart is genuinely Thai", "Thai-Thai games are still in(my) memory", "but Thainess is never forgotten", "Thainess is not only what you
carry");30 the explicit or implicit claim that the interiorized Thai self is more authentic
than - or at least none the less authentic despite - the projected un-Thai self in the formof dress, behaviour or activity (thus the Thai classical dance and the genuinely Thai
heart are more authentic than the rap dance and rap dress; shouting in a military
parade is as authentic as screaming in a pop concert; the singularity and aura of theRaja Pattern specimen in the museum makes it more authentic than the limitlessly
reproducible manufactured jeans in the market); and lastly, the irrepressible, ardent,
resilient, recurrent and ever-reincarnating desire to be Thai (which is supposed to keepon haunting Thais even when they are rap dancing, screaming in a pop concert,wearing jeans, playing a skateboard or watching a Walt Disney cartoon). Cultural
schizophrenia is reaching epidemic proportions in Thailand, or so it seems.31
Inhaling Thainess into the Psyche
After solid Thainess has been melted into air or vaporized and then inhaled or
spirited into the psyche, it is then purified or purged of any elements deemed
unsuitable for the urgent need to survive and succeed in the increasingly competitive
economic and cultural environment of globalized Thailand. In the same manner thatthe manager of Calico Jack had to give his Thai fast-seafood restaurant an un-Thai
name so as "to compete with our(Thai)selves", Mr Patrick McGeown, an Australiancreative group head of EURO RSCG Ball Partnership (allegedly the seventh largest
advertising agency in the world) and one of the two co-instructors who assigned theabove-students in their Creative Copywriting class at Ramkhamhaeng University tomake ads to instill Thai cultural values, advised his students on Thainess and their
future advertising career as follows:"It's really for the students to think that they are Thai and never forget it. They don't
have to drop it when they go into the real world of advertising; it should be somethingthat they should always carry with them. The things that are created in Thailand when creating an advertisement try to make it Thai, keep it Thai. It doesn't have to beWestern; they don't have to copy." (emphases added) 32

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That is, inhale Thainess, keep it in the psyche and then proceed to create ads
that are "Thai". So far so good. But then, he went on,...
"It's because Thai people have this nature of being kreng jai (i.e. being considerate)
and always saying mai pen rai (i.e. never mind). That is why I insist that mystudents speak up if they don't agree about anything. This is not because I'm trying tochange Thai traditional values of always being polite and giving in, but rather I'mdoing it to improve the advertising industry, ultimately, by standing up for one's
ideas." (emphases added) 33
And here we have in the same person, on the one hand, Pat, a Siamophile,
lover and admirer of Thai culture ("Thailand is rich in culture - so is India - but
America and Australia are not.", so he averred), who repeatedly urged his students to"always carry (Thainess) with them" and, on the other hand, Mac, a world-classadvertising guru, who regarded kreng jai and mai pen rai as hindering theimprovement of the advertising industry and insisted that his students had to "drop it"
and thereby become more "un-Thai"! Alas, this proves that nationality or ethnicity is
no immune system against the truly infectious disorder of cultural schizophrenia,
induced by the desire to be Thai amidst the un-Thai exigencies of globalization.
The case of Pat Mac offers an interesting contrast to that of Calico Jack. While
Calico Jack represents an attempt to become "un-Thai" under an un-Thai sign, Pat Mac
makes the clarion call to his students to try desperately to become "un-Thai" in theirworking style under the sign of "Thainess". One can well imagine, sometime in thenear future, one of Pat Mac's former students arguing in a very "un-Thai" style, i.e.
forcefully and assertively, without kreng jai and mai pen rai , with his/her surprised,polite and submissive Thai copywriting colleagues in a world-class advertising agency
for his/her own idea of "Thai" ads. I would like to call this process the sublimation (inthe psychological sense) of un-Thainess, in which un-Thai urges are expressed undermore socially acceptable Thai signs.
Cultural Sublimation: Psychological and Pseudo-chemical
But Thainess is also sublimated, though not in the more familiar psychologicalsense, but in a sense analogous with the less familiar chemical one. Chemicallyspeaking, "sublimate" is to change a solid substance to a gas by heating it and thenchange it back to a solid, in order to make it pure. I have already discussed how solid
Thainess is melted into air, spirited into the psyche, and then purged or purified ofthose elements that are not conducive to un-Thai globalization. The last step in the"sublimation" (in the pseudo-chemical sense) of Thainess is to change it back to a solidor solidify it with an image or a sign.

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To turn vaporized Thainess into a solid sign or signifier, one needs anappropriate, readily recognizable "Thai" form for it. That form, therefore, has to be old,
venerable, immutable and hence, by the same token, rather useless, irrelevant andfossilized in present-day circumstances. Such is the standard form of almost all
advertisements, official or private, related to the government's designated Year toCampaign for Thai Culture as well as most public displays and individual expressions
on this theme. This can be clearly seen in the Ramkhamhaeng students' Thai-Thai ads
above. Most of the signs with which they chose to signify Thainess in their ads are ofthis character.
For example, television and public ads aside, the Thai traditional dress, theThai classical dance and the Raja Pattern dress cannot be seen anywhere else but in a
museum, theatre, or Buddhist temple on special occasions only. Thai-Thai games are
hardly ever played by most urban Thai youths or they have stopped playing them longtime ago since their parents took them away from the rural villages. Generally
speaking, a singha appears only either on a bottle of Singha Beer or on the logo of the
Ministry of the Interior, "the least just and honest government agency", according to thefindings of a recent opinion poll commissioned by the Ministry itself. 34 Military
parades and prowess have become less and less relevant to Thai national security andpolitical stability since the collapse of the Thai communist rural insurgency in the early
1980s, the end of the Cold War at the end of that decade, and the middle-class uprisingagainst military rule in May 1992. As to Thai banknotes and citizen's ID cards, they
can of course be found everywhere but have become less of a necessity of late. For
those 1,700,000 credit-card holders in Thailand (as of early 1995, with a 42 % annual
growth rate), Thai banknotes are indeed rather cumbersome options.35 And unless one
needs to deal with government agencies (in which case a citizen's ID card is requisite),credit cards can serve the purpose of self-identification just as well. Actually, it serves
that purpose even better in business establishments as it helps identify your class,income, purchasing power, lifestyle, etc., something a simple citoyen/ne 's ID card cannever do due to its inherent egalitarian ideological bias.
Verbally and articulately symptomatic of the pseudo-chemical sublimation ofThainess is a statement made by Mr Anand Praphaso, on behalf of a group of eight
Thai painters named Klum Nimit (or The Creation Group), on the occasion of the
opening of the exhibition of their collection of paintings called "Thai Nimit" ("ThaiCreation") at Landmark Plaza Hotel in Bangkok on 17 March 1994. Anand wrote:"In the age of turbulent cultural currents, no one denies that every Thai has to be able
to lead his life amidst the growth and prosperity of a modern society. Every morning,
we wake up to find a confusing, chaotic and systematic (sic) way of life in which wecannot afford even a moment of mistake otherwise everything will fail. Modern Thai

125

society has made us into a heartless robot. People's hearts become hardened day by day.
We have no time to review who we are, where we come from. In the future, children
will think that a home is a square box, that squids are brown strings, that longans arein cans...
"All of us always accept that the comforts of present-day popular ways of life is a goodthing that should not be rejected. But we call on every Thai to spend five or ten
minutes daily reviewing one's own role and way of life, asking oneself what we aredoing and whether we have forgotten what actually is the meaning of the word "aThai". Is not it high time that each and everyone of us revived the spirit of being a
Thai ? Is not it high time that each and everyone of us refused to lead a life of abrainless robot without any feeling for the spirit of Thainess ?
"The Nimit Group has created the collection of their works of art called "Thai
Nimit" in order partly to contribute towards the arousing and awakening of the
consciousness of being a Thai so that it may come back in the form of "Thai Mai"("New Thai"), which is in harmony with modern society. We hope that our collection
will contribute towards linking up Thainess with technology unawkwardly. We hopethat the children will know what is Thai art, what is a Thai, and that a modern Thai
must be "a genuine Thai".
"Every painter of the Nimit Group creates his/her works of art in his/her own style
based on a commonly-held concept to present the Thai-Thai way of life so as tocommunicate the rationale according to his/her own individual character. Therefore,
there is no limit as to the techniques and methods of presentation.
"Every painter will project his/her mind into "Thai"-ness in his/her own
consciousness and then refine it into a work of art in his/her own individual style.
This is our commonly-held concept. Thus, "Thai Nimit" is a diversity in harmony
with the spirit of Thainess." (emphases added, my own translation) 36
The news report features a sample of their collective effort to spiritualize,
purge, subjectivize, and project Thainess back into a solid image or sign of their desire
i.e. a painting of a young Thai male in traditional northern Lanna Thai princely dress
with all the awkward trappings of ancient royalty.
Commodities' Penetration of Thainess and Other Nationhoods
Thus, pseudo-chemically sublimated Thainess is returned to us in a solid but
useless, irrelevant and fossilized or mummified form right from a temple, theater or
museum. And this is as it should be for now that Thainess has been ripped away from126

its traditional, historical, theatrical or religious context and deprived of its aura, it
becomes an empty shell, a neutral terrain, a free-floating signifier which can be enteredinto and "exited" at will by commodities of whatever nationality or ethnicity. Thus,
apart from Coke - the promoter of the value of Thainess, we have, in this official Year
to Campaign for Thai Culture, such Thai-Thai advertising campaigns as "Singha Beer the pride of the nation",37 "Thai Life Insurance - the life insurance company of, by andfor the Thais",38 "Central Department Store - the Thai Store",39 etc.
No matter how spurious their claims to Thainess may be under scrutiny, thefact that these commodities have indeed been turned into signs of Thainess haschanged Thainess willy-nilly into one identity option among many others in the freemarket of a limitless plurality of commodities and/or brand names, in the same sensethat Coke is just one option among many other brands of cola, Singha Beer is just one
option among many other brands of beer, Thai Life Insurance is just one option among
many other life insurance companies, and Central Department Store is just one option
among many other department stores. By dint of association with, or signification bycommodity signs, Thainess has become, alongside Chineseness, Europeanness,
Englishness, etc., another choice among a variety of national/ethnic signifiers to beworn or shed according to the fluctuations of their respective cultural value.
Some more examples will help clarify or perhaps further complicate this point.
Daewoo Corporation, a world famous South Korean automobile manufacturer,
marketed its Fantasy and Espero sedan models in Thailand under the "Daewoo sells
Europeanness" concept in early 1994. 40 Coca Restaurant, a well-known chain of
Teochiu "sukiyaki" restaurants in Bangkok which also bakes and sells Chinese cakes,
released a radio spot to advertise its "Coca Moon Cakes" (sic) during the 1994 Chinese
lunar festival featuring a bilingual conversation between a mother who speaks Thaiand a son who speaks impeccable and fluent American English (with no Thai
translation) about "the best moon cake" she wants him to buy for her on this occasion.41
Lipton, a brand of instant English tea, came up with a TV commercial in which an old
bearded Chinese Kung Fu master, when asked by a young disciple as to the secret ofserenity, makes him a cup of Lipton tea as the answer.42 So here we have Korean cars
assuming a European identity, Chinese cakes assuming an American English identity,
and English tea assuming a Chinese identity. The perfect illustration of this reductionof stature, uniqueness and aura, or this profanation of nationalities and ethnicities as
they become mere commodified identity signs is the following advertisement:
Breakfast: CHINESE. Lunch: FRENCH. Dinner: CHINESE.
Breakfast: ITALIAN. Lunch: CHINESE. Dinner: CHINESE.
Breakfast: GERMAN. Lunch: CHINESE. Dinner: JAPANESE.
Breakfast: ITALIAN. Lunch: CHINESE. Dinner: FRENCH.

127

Breakfast: AMERICAN.Lunch: ITALIAN. Dinner: AMERICAN.
Breakfast: GERMAN. Lunch: JAPANESE. Dinner: FRENCH.
Breakfast: JAPANESE. Lunch: GERMAN. Dinner: JAPANESE.
Breakfast: AMERICAN. Lunch: CHINESE. Dinner: FRENCH.
Breakfast: ITALIAN. Lunch: CHINESE. Dinner: FRENCH.
Breakfast: GERMAN. Lunch: JAPANESE. Dinner: AMERICAN.
Breakfast: FRENCH. Lunch: CHINESE. Dinner: AMERICAN.
Breakfast: CHINESE.Lunch: FRENCH. Dinner: AMERICAN.
Breakfast: ITALIAN. Lunch: CHINESE. Dinner: GERMAN.
Breakfast: ITALIAN. Lunch: ITALIAN. Dinner: FRENCH..................................................................................Tired of the same old thing ?
Put some spice into your life.
Tandoor
The Essence of India
Holiday Inn CROWNE PLAZAFor Reservations call 238-4300 ext. 4364" 43
One may as well say:"Tired of the same old Thai thing ?"But, alas, the Tandoor advertisement provides only a horizontal perspective of
the profanation of nationalities/ethnicities whereas, apparently, profanation works
vertically too. This point is made monetarily plain by the varieties of Chinese mooncakes on sale in Bangkok this year. Looking identical from the outside, these deepbrown cubes with Chinese characters imprinted on the top are categorized according
to their different inner fillings. And given the increasingly fierce competition in the
400-million Baht worth moon-cake market, their filling categories have been multipliedin recent years from just a few to around a dozen so as to appeal to a wider range ofconsumer groups. Thus, those with traditional Chinese fillings such as Ngo Ying (orFive Kinds of Nuts) cost about 40 - 50 Baht (approximately 2 US$) each. The ones with
Thai-Thai sweetened Durian fruit fillings, especially of the famous Mon Thong (orGolden Pillow) variety, are priced a little higher at 60 Baht (about 2.50 US$) each. But
the most expensive of them all, fetching about 70 - 80 Baht (or 3 US$) apiece, contain"American" fillings, with such exotic names as Khaeliffornia (sic) and Hawaii .44 Whilethe comparative cultural value of Thainess vis-a-vis Chineseness and Americanness inthis particular instance is monetarily clear, the definite national/ethnic identity of a
Khaeliffornia or a Mon Thong moon cake is much harder to specify. When a greedy
buyer munches on it, is it Chineseness, Thainess or Americanness that is being
consumed ? Seemingly, nationality/ethnicity is now solely and arbitrarily in the eyesof the consumer.45

128Commodities' Self-Penetration
Nationality and ethnicity having been loosened and unravelled thus far, it is
now possible for commodities to take the next logical step i.e. undo their tie with thenational altogether and create an identity of their own under the sign of theirrespective brand name. The following are a few examples of commodity-constituted
identity being offered for prospective identity consumers to hold onto and identify
themselves with amidst the flux of globalized commodity consumption.
-Carlsberg Beer presents itself to Thai consumers as the globalized beer with the slogan"the same taste all over the world", offering an imaginary worldwide identity andcommunity of Carlsberg Beer drinkers that cut across all geopolitical barriers andcultural differences, against the Thainess advertising campaign of Singha Beer.46-Tri Petch Isuzu Sales Co., Ltd. presents a sports utility vehicle imported from Japan as
the identity sign of its prospective buyers in these words:"You've reached the top: it's up to you to make the big decisions, the ones that count.
Your achievement is the realization of everything that people think of when they hear
the word success, and your position is one that everyone aspires to attain some day.
Now your life is full of new and bigger challenges. And when you move out into theworld to experience the special exhilaration that come with leadership, you drive a carthat reflects your identity as someone who is modern, successful, and ready foranything - an Isuzu Trooper." (emphases added) 47-To the seemingly endless and meaningless collective suffering of nameless, facelessand powerless drivers in Bangkok's world-notorious suffocating traffic jams, Volvo
offers itself as a symbolic difference and relief:"Outside the Volvo it's hot, noisy and polluted. Inside the Volvo it's cool, very quiet
and very, very comfortable. The Volvo Executive is an island of luxury andtranquility in a sea of impatience and discomfort. Of course, everyone knows that
Bangkok's traffic is getting worse by the month. And even a Volvo, with its deep
leather seats, auto air-conditioning, CD player and stretch-out legroom, cannot makethe traffic jams any shorter. But they certainly seem shorter. Thank goodness, I'm in a
Volvo." 48-And last but not least, the same message is said in not so many words by thisadvertisement, which offers a special credit card membership to prospective or actual
owners of a luxurious car:129

"You know who I am."Tell them who you are with the Mercedes Card." 49
No longer a Thai, a Thai-Thai, or even an un-Thai, but simply a Mercedes
person.
3) Conclusion
Postmodern Thainess
The cultural political phenomena I have tried to present in this research paper
may be characterized, to borrow and expand on Marx's celebrated dictum in his andEngels' Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), as solid Thainess melting into air andthen resolidifying again into signs. That is of course a seductive metaphor. One canalso render it in cultural studies parlance as national identities and the consumption
and reproduction of identity commodities in the age of cultural globalization.
They have to do with the ongoing transformation of "Thainess" as a result of
two causes, namely :1) the ineluctable and undeniable process of economic and cultural globalization and2) the attempt of the Thai state to hold on to its erstwhile cultural political hegemony
over the signification and communication of "Thainess" amidst the worldwide, statebypassing and cross-national flows of commodities and images.
Under the pretext of "the preservation of Thainess", the state has tried topreserve and insist on its official nationalist authority over the increasingly
independent and globalized Thai society and culture. Hence, the "Year to Campaign
for Thai Culture" project which was first introduced in 1994 and has later been
extended until 1997.
I am of the opinion that the total upshot of this project, instead of helping topreserve or freeze "Thainess" as the state originally intended, has led to the further
meltdown of the signifieds of Thainess. Of course, since the beginning of the project,
there have been a plethora of widespread, eager and energetic responses to the official
campaign from the private and popular sectors and "Thainess" has become highly
visible and widely publicized in the media and urban areas. And yet, the so-called"Thainess" has materialized in the forms of free-floating, empty and ambiguous
signifiers, open to a wide range of opportunistic and situational reinterpretation andmanipulation so that it comes to signify a host of "un-Thai" things, commodities andbehaviour. It can thence be concluded that the game of Thainess, or the interplay

130

between the official ethno-ideology of Thainess and the conflicting, schizophrenic
desires of the Thai public, has resulted in the fragmentation and meltdown of"Thainess" as the object of desire.
But if solid Thainess has already melted into air, how one can study such a
gaseous entity ?
I would like to suggest that one can do so by seriously and critically seeing,
watching, reading, scrutinizing and peeping at the signs and images of Thainess as
they appear. It means that the main thing one has to grasp and focus on is not any
essence of "Thainess" behind or beneath these images and signs (or the deep structure)
but the superficial and mediatized images and signs themselves (or the surface
structure). Not the profound, inner content of Thainess, but its surface, outer forms
should be the very object of our study.
These surface, outer forms consist of commodities, signs and images which are
the cultural artefacts for mass consumption prevalent in print and electronic media as
well as mundane everyday life, be it advertising, songs, poems, TV & film stars, singers,
commodities, brand names, posters, stimulant drinks, sterilized refreshing tissues,canned vegetarian food, moon cake, fast-food/ethnic food restaurants, sedans, etc.
One has to stop looking down upon and dismissing them as mere low-class, low-taste,
copycat popular culture unworthy of serious intellectual and conceptual engagement.
To continue doing so is to miss and misunderstand the whole logic and dynamic ofcultural change. Hence the thoughtless and heedless official campaign for Thai culture
without being aware of its actual consequences.
On the contrary, one should carefully and earnestly read the cultural artefacts
for mass consumption as if they were mysterious and wonderful antiques or artworks,
containing hidden truths and waiting there for us to decipher, so that we may becomeaware of what they are doing to "Thainess".

Prepared for the Asia Leadership Fellow Program 1996 in Tokyo, organized by theInternational House of Japan and the Japan Foundation Asia Center. The author would like
especially to express deeply-felt gratitude to the staff members of the Program Office at I-Housefor taking care of him during his unfortunate illness there and for making his intellectual
sojourn in Japan an impressive and memorable one.
1131

2 Supakana Popittakamol, "New Entrants Spur Ad Spending," Bangkok Post, 2 December 1994,

p.21.
3 Rangsan Thanapornpan,"Lokanuwat kab sangkhom setthakij thai [Globalization and Thai Society

and Economy]," Phoojadkan Raiwan, 30 September 1994, p.8.
4 Sulak Sivaraksa, "Sassana lae watthanatham: wikritkan lae naewnom [Religion and Culture: Crisis

and Trends]," Sinlapawatthanatham, 16:1 (November 1994), 103-114.
5 My argument concerning consumerist culture and society in this part is derived from Zygmunt

Bauman, Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Post-Modernity and Intellectuals (Ithaca,
New York: Cornell University Press, 1987), Chapter 10, 11.
6 Bauman, ibid., pp.167-168.
7 KarlMarx, "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844)," Early Writings, tr. Rodney
Livingstone and Gregor Benton (London: Penguin Books in association with New Left Review,1981), pp.279-400.

8 Immanuel Wallerstein, Historical Capitalism (London: Verso, 1983), Chapter II.
9 Sulak, ibid., p.108.
10 Chiwit

tong soo, 3:109 (24-30 December 1994), 12. Todd Thongdi is a well-known andoutspoken Thai-speaking American musician, singer, writer and commentator who appears
frequently on various TV talk shows in Thailand. The passage came from an interview he gavein the Concert for the Handicapped at the National Theatre on 2 December 1994.

11 My notion of semiotic chaos was inspired by Nopphorn Prachakul, a lecturer in the Faculty of

Liberal Arts, Thammasat University, in his article "Wikritkan pi 2000 thi nostradamus leum thamnai[Crisis in the Year 2000 that Nostradamus Forgot to Predict]," Phoojadkan Raiwan, 14 February
1994, p.10.
It is a long-standing and popular Thai linguistic practice to double an adjective so as to lessen
the effect or intensity of its meaning. Thus, daeng is supposed to be redder than daeng-daeng
which is not very red. Likewise, whereas Thai implies a singular, pure, genuine, authentic,
original, definite, narrow and monolithic version of Thainess, Thai-Thai connotes a pluralistic,
mixed, mutant, altered, simulated, indefinite, broad and differentiated version of the same. For
example, one usually applies the adjective Thai-Thai to foods, drinks, tastes, dresses,
atmosphere, etc., but never to nation, country, people, armed forces, government or king which
remain chat thai, prathes thai, khon thai, kongthap thai, ratthabal thai, phramahakasat thai. While Thaisuggests a clear-cut division, disparity and even opposition between Thainess and un-Thainessboth in their material existence and ideal essence, Thai-Thai indicates internal differentiation,
blurring of external borderlines and shades of Thai-Thainess. Suffice it to say that Thai-Thai12132seems to admit a far greater and wider membership of people and things into its club than therather exclusive Thai counterpart.
13 Phoojadkan

Raiwan, 28 April 1994, p.22. The English version of this advertisement withbasically the same message but in a more concise and less colourful rendering was published on
the same day in Bangkok Post, p.2.
14 Being shown on Thai TV at the time, these two Japanese film series were especially popularamong kids and youngsters.
15 Presumably, the name of a massage parlour in Bangkok at the time.

Massage parlours began
to sprout in Bangkok during the 1960s and quickly gained popularity and notoriety as
upgraded brothels. It was then a common practice among massage parlours' proprietors to give
their establishments an exotic Japanese-sounding name like Saburi or Sakura which by nomeans necessarily implied any Japanese ownership or connection. While its origin is unclear tome, I distinctly remember a contemporary strong sense of association between massage on the
one hand and Japanese femininity on the other as if somehow it had been the Japanese females
who excelled in the art of massage !?! Perhaps, this might have something to do with thestereotype of a slavishly submissive Japanese wife.
16 Supposedly, a Japanese rendering of the question in the preceding line.

The name of the bohemian friend who "returned" this long-lost poem to me is Mr Suphachai
Jaroensakwatthana. The newspaper article in which he found it quoted is Banyat Surakanwit,"Khwamsamphan thai-yipun: Phapphot thi mai plianplaeng [Thai-Japanese Relationship: The
Unchanged Image]," Matichon, 2 May 1983. The poem itself was originally published inThairath, 17 December 1972.
17 See Cassette tape jacket information, Made in Thailand,

Carabao (Ligo, 1984. C-27106).

18 "Je n. food without fish or meat for Vietnamese or Chinese who observe a religious rite, alsoJae. (Chinese)" (my own translation). See Photjananukrom ratchabandittayasathan pho.so. 2525
[The Royal Institute's Dictionary, B.E. 2525] (Bangkok: The Royal Institute, 1987), p.238.
19 According to Associate Professor Dr Wilaiwan Khanisthanan of the Faculty of Liberal Arts,

Thammasat University, a recent survey of the brand names of products advertised on Thai
television shows that over 90 % of them are in English. See Wilaiwan Khanisthanan, "Laksana
phasa thi chai phan seumuanchon thorathas [The Character of Language Used in TV Mass Media],"
Thammasat wichakan: neuang nai wara khrob rob 60 pi haeng kansathapana mahawitthayalai thammasat[Thammasat Scholarship: On the Occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the Founding ofThammasat University] (Bangkok: Academic and Research Affairs Department, Thammasat
University, 1994), pp.219-319.

133

20 In this regard, it is noteworthy that a favourite gimmick among Thai singers is to adopt aforeign stage name (e.g. Honey, Chen Chen) but keep the surname in Thai or local dialects (e.g.
Sri-isan, Bunsungnoen, both of which are distinctly Laotian).
21 See in this regard Akira Suehiro, "Capitalist Development in Postwar Thailand: Commercial

Bankers, Industrial Elite, and Agribusiness Groups," in Ruth McVey, ed., Southeast Asian
Capitalists (Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1992).
22 "Meua fast seafood baeb thai thai ja soo ham-kai sanchat nok[When Thai-Thai Fast-Seafood Is
Going To Fight Ham-Chicken of Foreign Nationality]," Phoojadkan Raiwan, 1 November 1994,
pp.29-30.
23 Quoted in John Naisbitt, Global Paradox: The Bigger the World Economy, the More Powerful

Its Smallest Players (London: Nicholas Brealey, 1994), p.19.
24 I owe this fruitful insight to Donald M. Lowe's perceptive analysis of the workings of the late-capitalist commodity in his "Postmodernity and Postcoloniality," Positions, I:1 (Spring 1993),
280-285.
25 Mark C. Taylor and Esa Saarinen, Imagologies: Media Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1994),

p. Simcult 4-5.
26 "Ann khan rab fashion hit, anurak-buach chiphram [Ann Responds to Fashionable Hit, Preserve(Thainess)-Take Vows as Brahmin Nun," Thairath, 30 December 1993, p.21.
27 "Khita yib chin pla mun khwa billy [The Khita Company Catches a Big Fish, Getting Billy],"

Thairath, 15 December 1993, p.21.
28 "Maghavalentine kob-tui sweet sangob khao wad tham bun-nunghom khao [On Magha-Valentine's

Day Kob and Tui Sweetly and Calmly Go to the Temple to Make Merit and Wear a White
Dress]," Thairath, 14 February 1995, p.14. A not so subtle insinuation of lesbianism in theirrelationship by the Thairath reporter is distastefully evident.
29 Emphatically not "internalization" for reasons that will soon become apparent.
30 A superb telepathic allegory of this spiritualization of Thainess emerged on another similaroccasion, namely a TV & radio spot contest on the theme of the Year to Campaign for Thai
Culture, jointly organized by Office of the National Culture Commission (a government agency
under the Ministry of Education) and Robinson Department Store. The top award in the radio
spot category was won by a team of five students from Chulalongkorn University whose entry
was entitled "Mun khleun phid" (or "Wrong Tuning"). They explained the concept behind theirwork as follows:"Suppose a kid turns on a radio, tries tuning in to every possible program and then finds only
Thai classical music...That is wellnigh impossible. But if we tune our mind, that is our feelings134and spirit, then we can receive Thai classical music and love Thai classical music. We can betuned in together and don't have to depend on other things around us including mass media."(my own translation)
See "Seu spot thorathas lae witthayu: sing sathon watthanatham no. so. thai [TV & Radio Spots:
Reflections of Thai Students' Culture]," Siam Post, 18 May 1994, p.11.
31 Reeya Chaicharas,"The Future Face of Thailand's Ads ?," The Sunday Magazine (Bangkok

Post), 20(25 September-1 October 1994), pp.16-19; also see the front cover and contents page.
By the way, remember Mr Billy Ogan, the famous pop-singer and idol of Thai teenagers
quoted earlier ? His new music album, in which he intended to mix in Thai cultural issues, has
finally been released in mid-1994. Entitled "Billy banleulok" in Thai and "Billy World Class" inEnglish, the album features a lead song with the title "Sawaddi rap yo" (or "Good Day Rap, Yo"),the most "Thai-Thai" song in the album, whose lyrics were written by a Mr Bunliang Angkaew
and reads partly as follows:"If you want to rap dance, let's do it but don't forget to preserve Thai-Thai things. Associatewith Westerners but don't forget that you are Thais...." (my own translation)
See Cassette tape jacket information, Billy World Class, Billy Ogan (Onpa, 1994. 90-002).
32 Quoted in Reeya,"The Future Face of Thailand's Ads ?," p.18.
33 Quoted in Reeya,"The Future Face of Thailand's Ads ?," p.19.
34 The survey was conducted by Integrated Partners, a private company, among 1,200 people

throughout the country from 1 to 19 November 1993. As it turned out that the overall public
perception of the Ministry was strongly negative, the Ministry typically decided to suppress thefindings for fear that its reputation would be further tarnished. See "Opinion Poll without
Results," Bangkok Post, 9 June 1994, p.1; and "Poey phol wijai mahadthai, kromthidin-to.ro. huai sud[Opinion Poll on Interior Ministry Revealed, Lands & Police Depts. Are the Worst]," Matichon
Raiwan, 9 June 1994, p.1, 13.
35 "Batkredit

boom sudkhid, bank chi mai deung ngoenfoe [Credit Cards Are Booming but Not
Causing Inflation, Bank Says]," Phoojadkan Raiwan, 18 July 1994, p.1, 2; and "Firms Still
Rushing into Thai Credit Card Market," Bangkok Post, 15 February 1995, p.19.
36 "Nithassakan "thai nimit" pluk khwam pen thai hai

kheun chip [The "Thai Nimit" Exhibition: The
Revival of Thainess]," Phoojadkan Raiwan, 22 February 1994, p.10.
37 See the reports on the advertising and marketing campaign of Bunrod Brewery Company, theproducer of Singha Beer in Phoojadkan Raiwan, 9 December 1993, p.25, 26; and especially theperceptive, tempting and intoxicating comparative analysis of the advertising strategies ofSingha Beer vs Carlsberg Beer by Issara Choosri in "Lokanuwat nai kaew beer [Globalization in a
Glass of Beer]," Phoojadkan Raiwan, 17 August 1993, p.35.

135

It should be pointed out in this regard that Thais are well aware of the un-Thainess of beer as
an alcoholic drink originally brought in from the West. There is not even a Thai coinage for theword "beer", only a foreign-sounding transliteration. It is in this cultural context that Singha
Beer chooses to present itself to the public as the pioneer in beer-brewing in Thailand andtherefore a proud sign of Thainess.
38 A TV advertising spot released in 1993 made the point that among the variety of insurancecompanies, Thai Life Insurance was chosen "well, because I am after all a Thai", so said the malecharacter in the ad to his wife. And yet, this Thai life insurance company had been founded in
the 1940s by such Chinese business tycoons as Lo Tek Chuan Bulasuk, Tan Chin Ken Wanglee,
etc. See Kasian Tejapira, "Jomphol plaek: phoonam ratthaniyom thai [Field Marshal Plaek: Thai
Statist Leader]," Sinlapawatthanatham, 15:3 (January 1994), 56-59.
Launched on 6 July 1994 by the top executives of Central Department Store themselves, alldressed up in traditional Thai style, the campaign was said to be partly an adaptive
management reform in the wake of the liberalization of Thai retail businesses as a result of
GATT and AFTA, and partly a participative response to the government's Year to Campaign forThai Culture. Needless to say, the Chirathiwat family, which owns this biggest chain of
department stores in Thailand, is originally Hainanese of the Zheng clan. Also, this Thai-Thaistore has adopted an English name since its founding. Of course, their Thai Store campaign has
become rather problematic in the present context of global capitals and multinational (Thai &un-Thai) business alliances in Thailand. See Phoemphol Phophoemhem, "Khwam pen thai khong
central [Central's Thainess]," Phoojadkan Raiwan, 8 July 1994, p.29, 30.
39

40 "Daewoo

khai khwam pen europe [Daewoo Sells
January 1994, p.36.

Europeanness]," Phoojadkan Raiwan, 28

41 "Coca Moon Cake," Radio broadcast, MCOT-FM 96 MHz., September 4, 1994.
42 "English tea, Lipton Tea, a higher level of serenity," so says the ad at the end.

"Cha lipton, ikkhan khong khwam sukhum [Lipton Tea, a Higher Level of Serenity]," MCOT (TV Channel 9),
Bangkok, September 4, 1994.
43 A close replica of the original advertisement in Bangkok Post, 8 June 1994, p.27.
44 "Rao nen kanphalit baeb dangdoem kab khanom wai phrajan khong rao [We Stress the Traditional

Method in Producing Our Moon Cakes]," Interview of Ms Patchari Kesornthammakittiwut,
manager of Shang Palace Restaurant, Shangrila Hotel, Phoojadkan Raiwan, 29 August 1994,
p.29, 30. And Kasian Tejapira, "Thassana sueksa watthanatham ton pai thiew hua qiao [Cultural
Study Tour: Visiting Hua Qiao]," Phoojadkan Raiwan, 26 September 1994, p.8.
45 .....or of the worshipper.

I distinctly remember two occasions when I found this to be the case.
The first one happened in 1993 when I visited the famous Mangkorn kamalawas or Leng Nei Yi
Chinese Buddhist temple in the Chinatown area of Bangkok during the kin je festival. I

136

overheard, while viewing a religious exhibition, a Chinese Bhuddhist monk explaining to two
Chinese women in white kin je dress that originally the Kuan Yin Goddess in Chinese Buddhist
popular mythology had been an ethnic "Indian" but was later Sinicized by the Chinese. One of
the women looked perplexed and asked impatiently: "Well then, is she actually Indian orChinese after all ?" To whom the monk replied: "What she is depends on the faith of theworshipper. It's the same thing with a Buddha image. The Chinese make it look Chinese while
the Indians make it look Indian..."Four years before that, I had a lengthy argument with a group of Thai students in Cornell on asimilar topic i.e. the nationality/ethnicity of Jesus Christ. I suggested to them the possibility of a
Jesus Christ turning black perhaps after being Africanized by some negroid worshippers in
Africa, to which they flatly denied. Alas, it's a pity that at the time I hadn't yet read page 10 ofCarlos Fuentes' stupendous Terra Nostra.
46 Issara

Choosri, "Lokanuwat nai kaew beer [Globalization in a Glass of Beer]," Phoojadkan
Raiwan, 17 August 1993, p.35.
47 Bangkok Post, 26 July 1994, p.15.
48 One may as well say: "Thank goodness, I'm a Volvo." Bangkok Post Economic Review, Mid-

Year 1994, 30 June 1994, p.5.
49 Bangkok Post, 15 August 1994, p.13.

137

Intellectuals in Southeast Asia:
An Inquiry Into the Social Construction of Their Roles(Discussion paper prepared on October 28, 1996)
Ignas Kleden
1. The Idea
The role of intellectuals in Southeast Asian countries seems to always
oscillate between that which is played by the traditional literati on the one hand andthat which is assumed by the new intelligentsia on the other. As literati they aresupposed to conserve the cultural, intellectual and philosophical legacy of theircountry, whereas as intelligentsia they are expected to explore new possibilities andnew patterns of social and political interaction as well as new ways of looking atthings. As literati they are assumed to localize the cultural legacy of all kinds in theirlocal context, or to bring the great tradition and erudition of the world into the little
tradition of their context, whereas as intelligentsia they are expected to incorporate
the particularities of their little tradition or their local context into a broader context
of world cultures and general learning.
The role of intelligentsia is discernible most clearly in the role theintellectuals of Southeast Asian countries played during the national awakening
which led finally to the emergence of new nations and the subsequent new states inthis region after the Second World War. The ideas of freedom, human dignity andmany other things which had to do with basic human rights were brought into thecountries by the intellectuals, these in turn becoming one of the driving forces which
pushed for the new venture among the then-colonized peoples.
The second stage faced by the intellectuals of these countries is characterized
by their involvement in the planning and implementation of economic development.
The once rather general role of producing ideas pertaining to society, state, culture
and history, turns out to be superseded by a more technical, expertise-based andprofessionally oriented role, which is needed for economic development. The
technical side of the intellectual role in economic affairs, however, is accompanied byanother process, in which the role of intelligentsia tends to fall back to the oldestablished traditional role of literati. This is the case because economic planning is
not always compatible with the unpredictable socio-political changes which might
result from the exploring ventures of the intelligentsia. Ceteris paribus (other things
being equal) seems to become a tenet on which to postulate economic theories, butalso a precondition for embarking upon economic development.
The third stage is marked by the attempt of intellectuals to deal with thestrengthening of the state made possible and necessary after the emergence of thenation-state, as well as with the strengthening of market forces made possible byeconomic development. The new, critical responses to both state and market are
owing to the fact that the state, which was initially believed to be a realization ofnational sovereignty, is not always in a position to stand for the development of a136

democratic society (which was initially one of the leading ideas which pushed fornational awakening), while market forces turn out to be unable to deal withquestions relating to equality and justice, the improvement of quality of life andenvironment, and the availability and the creation of more equal opportunity for the
citizens. In other words, the process in which the state is disembedded from thesociety, and the economy is disembedded from both state and society, brings abacklash which is not necessarily beneficial to the making and the development of
so-called civil society.
2 . Some Problems
The relationship between intellectuals and their societies is basically a dialectical one.
While they are impinging upon their societies through their ideas and their actions,they are at the same time subject and susceptible to the impact of social changes
taking place in their societies. The social changes in Southeast Asian countries in thelast decade, for instance, have exerted an obvious influence on the selfunderstanding of intellectuals and the role they are forced to play, as well as the
problems with which they are expected to deal. The changes listed below should
serve as a starting point for a discussion of the state of affairs of Southeast Asian
intellectuals with reference to the historical background described in above.
2.1. A shift is evident from intellectual as a status-group to intellectual as a function
and role. For the time being, it seems to me, it is more pertinent to speak of theintellectual role of various institutions and groups rather than of a group called
intellectuals. In that sense, the contribution of intellectuals proper might not be as
spectacular as expected, since this role is being taken over by other institutions andorganizations such as media (print and electronic), academe, professionals, NGOs or
the advocates of people' s movements.
2.2. The old-established tension between literati and intelligentsia is now taking a
new shape with a powerful economic underpinning. The traditional tension between
the conservation of the cultural legacy and the exploration of new possibilities istransposed into a new tension between, on the one hand, the attempt to articulate
problems and concerns arising from within the country and to speak for them on theinternational level and, on the other hand, the role played by the so-called
compradores who assume the role of middlemen mediating between the national
interest and the outside interest of multinational capital.
2.3. With regard to internal politics, the traditional role of literati is now transposed
into a function to justify and to legitimize the powers-that-be both academically andpolitically. This is done by referring to theoretical arguments which can support
political priorities set in certain policies, as well as by emphasizing the politicalrelevance and significance of those priorities and the need for power to get themdone. On the other hand, the role of intelligentsia is taking the form of social
criticism, which intentionally or unwittingly brings a delegitimizing effect on the137existing political system. This is done both by speaking and standing for thecommon good and by questioning the inevitability of "necessary" evils.
2.4. In a more limited context and under certain circumstances, the conflict between
the role of literati and that of intelligentsia could take place within the academe,
whereby academically based intellectuals come to a parting of the way with public
intellectuals. The former are supposed to conserve the scientific legacy andintellectual heritage handed down through higher learning, whereas the latter are
more inclined to deal with living issues originating in Realpolitik or in the changing
conditions of society. The former are more oriented towards the production ofknowledge, the latter towards the political use of knowledge. The former attempt totranslate practical problems into theoretical research questions, while the latter go theother way by providing theoretical apparatuses with political and economic
relevance. In their relation to society, the academic intellectuals look at their society
as the subject of their research and study, while the public intellectuals regard theirsociety as the subject of their advocacy. The production of empirical and theoreticalknowledge by the academics find its counterpart in the production of new solidarity
attempted by public intellectuals.
3. Project proposal
Keeping the above historical background in mind and considering the newproblems facing Southeast Asian intellectuals in the present context, some measures
can and should be taken in order to deal with both the theoretical and practicalchallenges which threaten to put the existence and the functioning of intellectuals
into question. There are at least three related projects which can be attempted in thisconnection.
3.1. A regionally organized survey to be conducted both by Southeast Asian
intellectuals and on Southeast Asian intellectuals. The aim of this research is to figureout whether or not there are commonalities which all intellectuals in this region
might share, and whether or not there are particularities and specific peculiarities
which make the challenges facing the existence and the role of intellectuals in one
place different from those in another. This survey will entail the identification of thecontribution of intellectuals to their own understanding as well as the contribution
provided by the changing general understanding of what intellectuals should be like.
This survey can be regarded as the intellectual and academic part of the project on
intellectuals in Southeast Asia.
The survey encompasses the following items:- intellectual history- intellectual tradition in the respective countries- intellectual community- intellectual politics- interlinks among intellectuals- problems and challenges facing intellectuals- typology of intellectuals138

2. To set up a network among Southeast Asian intellectuals, which can function as arallying point for Southeast Asian intellectuals as well as a meeting point between
them and their counterpart in other regions. This network is expected to enhancecommunication and cooperation among Southeast Asian intellectuals, and is
expected to take actions if the existence and the role of intellectuals should be
jeopardized. This is done by means of:- a statement of solidarity and concern about fellow intellectuals who are underpolitical pressures;- securing and enhancing freedom of expression by organizing alternative ways of
publication of censored intellectual works. In this way, for example, the works ofIndonesian intellectuals banned in that country could be published in thePhilippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand or Japan.
3. To set up a Southeast Asian magazine which can bring together academic work as
well as intellectual work. This magazine or journal is expected to become a forum fordiscussion among Southeast Asian intellectuals as well as between them and theircounterparts in other regions, in which the intellectual products in the respective
countries can be published, commented upon and challenged.
The sociological context of Southeast Asian intellectuals can be shown in thefollowing diagram:State- government/governance- power/legitimacy- political parties/military- national sentiment- public sphere- bureaucracy- legal system

Community- identity- ethnicity- religious life
- culture /education- people's movements- civil society- localities

Market- capital- trade- industry- technology- media139

Intellectual Concerns in Contemporary Asia:
Crisis and Confluence(with special emphasis on intellectual life in Southeast Asia and Japan)(Discussion paper prepared on October 28, 1996)
Kwok Kian-Woon
1. Intellectuals at century' s end
Perhaps intellectuals shouldn' t spend too much time talking about
intellectuals. Yet there are moments when intellectuals must pause to clarify andanalyze the intellectual situation of their own societies and in relation to thecontemporary state of the world. And they do so in a spirit of self-reflection and selfcriticism rather than self-importance and self-indulgence. By virtue of theireducation and work, intellectuals comprise a particular sector of any society, usually
as members of the middle and upper class. But their status and relatively privileged
position must be qualified. On the one hand, the education of intellectuals inculcatesin them a sense of vocation which transcends careerism, a sense of their wider
contribution which transcends narrow specialization. On the other hand, people dolook up to intellectuals as men and women who can help to throw light on thecontemporary situation and to bring about social betterment. Historically,
intellectuals constitute a socially significant stratum, if not one of the leading strata,
in a society.
Yet the present era challenges certain basic assumptions about intellectuals.
And intellectuals themselves are among the first to experience the need to clarify
their own vocation and role, especially in relation to the political and economic
conditions in each society. Different societies and different historical moments makeavailable varying degrees and various kinds of freedom and unfreedom. How do
intellectuals make use of the relative freedom that they have or do not have? Whatis the range of ways in which intellectuals stand in relation to political and economic
power? Where do they place themselves in relation to the cultural and religious
traditions of their people and the modern forms of thought and practice that are
made available by their education? If intellectuals have no self-identity as
intellectuals, how can they play meaningful roles in society? If intellectuals lose theirsense of direction, what confidence can the public have in them? Indeed, is it thecase that intellectuals are prevented from playing their role or that they do not have ahighly developed sense of their role (or both)?
The time has come for a new generation of intellectuals in Asia to engage in acollective self-clarification on these questions.
2. The rise of the Asia region: renaissance and crisis
With the economic rise of Asian countries and the increasing economic
interdependence within the region, we need to cultivate a deeper understanding of
the cultural and intellectual dimensions of "Asia" or the "Asia-Pacific" as a region.

140

For it will not do to speak so glibly and superficially about "Asian values" or even an"Asian renaissance." Such concepts proclaim the arrival of a new and glorious "Asia"
but gloss over the more fundamental human problems in each country. Indeed,
there are two sides to the new Asia in the making. On the one hand, there is the
economic growth and technological advancement of the region. Given theexperience of poverty and backwardness in the history of the region, the significanceof these aspects of development should not be denied or taken for granted. On theother hand, it is possible to argue that there is a crisis of modernity whose full
dimensions are not generally understood. In many cases, capitalist development has
been spearheaded by strong states which place economic growth and politicalstability as necessary priorities at the expense of social equity and politicalparticipation. But the crisis also has cultural, intellectual and spiritual dimensions
that have to do with the breakdown of the traditional "universes of meaning" and thereception or rejection of new modes of thinking and doing under advanced
globalization.
3. Toward a typology of intellectuals and intellectual roles
What are the intellectual responses to the human possibilities made available
by modernization and the crisis of modernity? Perhaps it would be useful to have aclarification of "ideal types" of intellectuals and intellectual roles. At the mostfundamental, we can identify three types of intellectuals, which may overlap in
reality:A) Traditionalist intellectuals. Such intellectuals, usually germinating from within thereligious sphere, are the guardians of tradition and the purveyors of cultural
wisdom. Almost by definition they play a conservative role in the sense of"conserving" traditional forms of knowledge, but this also involves grappling withthe forces of modernity. This group can either support or criticize political power,
depending on whether the latter is seen to be promoting its interests. For this reason,
too, political authorities are keen to win approval from this group and endow
policies with the aura of traditional moral authority.
B) Technocratic intellectuals. These make up the new class of professionals who lend
their expertise to the tasks of modernization, especially in the fields of bureaucratic
administration and technological advancement. This is the group that is mostcultivated and coopted by political and economic power in the service ofmodernization, often playing the role of legitimizers of the new order.
C) Public intellectuals. This group comes into existence with the growth of the middle
classes and the emergence of the public sphere, a space for public discourse that is
not dominated by the traditionalist and the technocratic intellectuals. Althoughpublic intellectuals may be sympathetic to and supportive of the concerns and goalsof the other two groups, they exercise an independent stance in responding criticallyto the actions and policies of both groups. In a sense the public intellectuals resemble

141the traditionalist intellectuals and also play a cultural role, but they do so without
being confined by the boundaries of traditionalist, especially religious, discourse. By
their " secular" status, which does not necessarily mean that they have no spiritual
concerns, they are able to be open to groups from different religious backgrounds.
Although they too can be coopted into the official network and play a legitimizingrole, they tend to resist this in order to maintain their autonomy and play theircritical role.
4. Dialogue and Confluence among Asian Intellectuals(with special reference to Southeast Asian and Japanese intellectuals)
In each society, there is the challenge of developing an intellectual
community and an intellectual tradition which connects thinking minds acrossgenerations and localities. Thus, the study of intellectual history is of greatsignificance in identifying continuities and discontinuities over time. Indeed, thedevelopment of an intellectual community and tradition cannot be taken for granted
as they can be fragmented by the forces of modernization, including the dominanceof political power (the state) and economic power (the market). A weak sense of
intellectual community and an underdeveloped intellectual tradition—not least
because of the failure to understand and repair the discontinuities in intellectual
history—can only serve to strengthen political and economic power, whose
dominance is entrenched almost by default. It is important to clarify where public
intellectuals stand in relation to power and in relation to other types of intellectuals.
As local intellectuals work out these issues, however, they can gain insights
and draw lessons from the comparative study of intellectual life in other Asiansocieties. With the opportunity for direct dialogue and networking, they cancultivate not only a sense of a wider intellectual community and tradition across timeand space, rooted in a deeper companionship, but also an active understanding ofeach other's situations. However different these situations might be, there can bepoints of confluence which could serve as points of departure for new ways ofgrappling with the human costs and negative consequences of modernization andimagining and realizing the newer positive human potentialities of modernity.
In sum, our project can be carried out at two levels:
A) A comparative study of the intellectual situation in Asian countries, withemphasis on the situation in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia,
Singapore, and Japan. Such a study will focus on dimensions such as intellectual
history and the role of intellectuals but it must also highlight the substantive
concerns of intellectuals in relation to the concrete social and political situation ineach country and in the region.
B) A strategic plan for effective networking among intellectuals in the region. The
idea of an Asian intellectual journal needs to be elaborated in discussion before
writing a detailed proposal: This is an exciting idea which requires a great deal ofvision, commitment, planning, strategy and infrastructural support. It can be started

142

on a modest scale, but long-term sustainability is crucial. Its success will both
depend on and encourage a deep and serious networking among Asian intellectuals,
and it should also enhance intellectual discussion within each country.

143Intellectual Concerns in Contemporary Southeast Asia:
Crisis and Confluence(November 29, 1996)
Arnold Azurin, Ignas Kleden, Kwok Kian-Woon, and Wan Manan
Prologue
What are the deepest concerns of intellectuals in Southeast Asia? What are
the problems and challenges faced by intellectuals? What is their own
understanding of their roles within the specific socio-historical conditions of theirsociety and of the region? What is their relation to the state and the market? These
are some fundamental questions to guide our discussions as we evolve ourcollaborative project. In the first phase of the project, we will embark on acomparative inquiry into the intellectual situation in Southeast Asia, with special
focus on Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. We plan toelicit and analyse certain commonalities which Southeast Asian intellectuals share, as
well as certain particularities which make the intellectual situation in one country
different from that in another. In subsequent phases of the project, we hope todeepen and widen the discussion among intellectuals from other parts of Asia.
Context
Historically, intellectuals constitute a socially significant stratum in themodernization of Southeast Asian countries. Intellectuals have played the role ofconserving traditional knowledge in the local setting. In the wake of modernity,
however, they have also been engaged in developing newer forms of thought andnewer patterns of social and political interaction. In the immediate postwar era,
intellectuals contributed to the anticolonial and nationalist struggles, bringing into
their countries the idea of freedom and human dignity (and other related ideas).
And with national independence, they played the role of modernizer, the vanguard
and legitimizers of a new social, political and economic order. At this stage, the once
general role of producing ideas pertaining to society, politics, culture and history issuperseded by a more technical, expertise-based and professionally oriented role,
which serves the demands of economic development. But national development andthe rise of the middle class also enlarges the public sphere, or civil society, as arelatively autonomous arena in which intellectuals play a critical and responsiblerole. Likewise, social movements emerge in response to the negative consequencesof development. With the strengthening of the state and the expansion of the market
under globalization, however, intellectuals face new challenges in conceptualizing
and articulating ideas and participating in the work of societal transformation. The
time has come for a new generation of intellectuals in Southeast Asia to engage in acollective clarification about their role and situation.

144

A Preliminary Theoretical Framework
Non-intellectuals do not exist because intellectual activity is an intrinsic partof human life. But the term "intellectual" presupposes a role or function that not
every person plays in society. Intellectuals play such a role in a manner and to an
extent that other members of the society do not.
I. An "empirical" definition of intellectual activity
As a minimal definition of intellectual activity, we propose the following
three interrelated elements:A) Conceptualization. Intellectuals are consciously engaged in the work ofconserving existing forms of knowledge, whether it be historical, moral,
philosophical or theoretical knowledge, and which is often developed within certain
disciplines. At the same time, they grapple with the challenges to such forms ofknowledge and attempt to construct and crystallize new conceptions of the worldand new modes of thought and action in response to a changing environment.
B) Articulation. Intellectuals do not just conceptualize the changing needs of society
and arrive at new paradigms; they also articulate their conception of the world andmodes of thought in relation to people in their own society, to other intellectuals, tothe state, and also to the intellectual world beyond national boundaries.
C) Participation. Conceptualization and articulation would be both impossible andmeaningless if intellectuals were not already involved in a definite, concrete socialand historical context in the production and use of knowledge. There is no strict
dichotomy between the production of theoretical and empirical knowledge and theuse of such knowledge in working toward social change, although different
intellectuals might place an emphasis on one or the other.
II. A "normative" definition of intellectual vocation
In addition to the above analysis, it is also pertinent to add another layer tothe discussion by suggesting a normative dimension to the work of intellectuals.
This comes through, for example, in Sulak Sivaraksa's definition of intellectuals as:. . . people who provide for their society—be it the world or the nation state—
the most articulate, persuasive, precise, and perhaps accurate definition of thesociety from their experience. They also have a serious commitment to improvethat society. Often, they are major living writers, educators, technocrats,
members of parliament, and intellectual leaders of their religious institutions.
They dare to write and speak openly and against current public opinion,
especially against the policy and administration of the ruling elites. Scholars
and academics and journalists who do not perform such function cannot claim
to be intellectuals.

145In other words, there is on the part of intellectuals a normative commitment
toward social betterment. There are many things to be said about intellectual
conscience and responsibility. But we suggest that the intellectual vocation is to
strive against human deprivation of all kinds, including poverty, discrimination,
injustice, violence, and repression.
III. A working typology of intellectuals and intellectual spheres
Intellectuals can be categorized according to different dimensions. We
propose the following three ideal types, which are in reality not mutually exclusive:A) Technocratic intellectuals. These make up the new class of professionals, who
lend their expertise to the tasks of modernization, especially in the fields ofbureaucratic administration, economic planning and technological advancement.
This is the group that is most cultivated and coopted by political and economic
power in the service of modernization, often playing the role of legitimizers of the
new order.
B) Apolitical intellectuals. These are working in the fields of the humanities and thesciences or are professionals. They are specialists who make their contribution byconserving and developing knowledge or serving in the application of suchknowledge. However, they do not consciously participate in any specific social
agenda to promote change and to work towards social betterment.
C) Public intellectuals. This group comes into existence with the emergence of the
public sphere or civil society as a relatively autonomous arena of public—intellectualand political—discourse. They exercise an independent stance in responding
critically to the actions and policies of the state as well as the workings of the market.
They can be rooted in specific (e.g. religious) communities or be part of nongovernmental organizations and social movements.
IV. A schema of the sociological context of intellectual work
The following diagram highlights some of the key interrelated concerns ofintellectuals and their role in the public sphere or civil society in relation tocommunity, the state, and the market:

146

State- government / governance- power / legitimacy- political parties, bureaucracy, military,- legal system / educational system- ideology / national sentiment

Public sphere / Civil Society"public intellectuals"- conceptualization- articulation- participation- conscience / responsibility
Community- identities / localities- culture / tradition / values- ethnicity, religious life
- family, education- gender, generations- social movements

Market- globality- capital- classes- trade and industry- science / technology- the professions- media

Project OutcomesA) A comparative study of the intellectual situation in Southeast Asian societies,
focusing on issues related to intellectual history, tradition, community, and politics
and relations vis-à-vis the state and the market. The work is to be carried out inseveral steps.
1. Initial findings to be presented and discussed among Southeast Asian andJapanese scholars at the Weekend Retreat in Shimoda (November 24-26, 1996).
2. Further reflections to be presented at the Public Symposium at the International
House of Japan (on November 29, 1996).
3. The work will be initially published in a monograph after the Public Symposium.
4. A book-length edited work will be published a year later.
B) In the meanwhile, we will continue the dialogue in the next phase of the project,also in relation to the International House of Japan, which will expand the Asia
Leadership Fellow Program to a wider group of Asian countries.

147

Intellectuals and "Track III" Cooperation in Southeast Asia
(November 29, 1996)
Arnold Azurin, Ignas Kleden, Kwok Kian-Woon, and Wan Manan
1. Introduction
The need for intellectual cooperation and exchange has become more urgent
in recent years owing to numerous new problems emanating from the globalizing
process. Such concerns include the responses of local communities to the global
threat from the internationalization of capital, labor and market forces, andformulating new modes of social and political interaction. This will give rise to new
problems brought about by the loss of the traditional set of meanings and the attempt
to orient oneself anew in the changing world.
In brief, the whole transformation, which is still unfolding necessitates a new
way of looking at the world, a new approach to posing questions, and creative meansof figuring out possible answers. In this respect, intellectuals, whether they like it ornot, are faced with new challenges which they will have to ponder fully. Apart fromhaving to render intelligible the globalization process, they also need to syncretize
new aspirations for their community by articulating them, pari passu, getting theircommunities actively involved in the effort to come to terms with the ongoingtransformation.
2. New Needs
Needless to say, in order to take advantage of the rapid transformation andto surmount its negative effects, individual effort alone will not be sufficient.
However, mutual cooperation and exchange are old modi operandi which are now
taking on new relevance and significance. Responses to the ongoing globalization
are discernible in various attempts to foster and enhance regional cooperation via
government-to-government cooperation (Track I) and also through economic
cooperation in general and trade in particular (Track II). In addition to the above
types of cooperation, we believe that other strategies should be established, which
could lead to Track III cooperation, namely, people-to-people cooperation. This isdue not only to the limitations of Track I and Track II, but also because there aremany aspects of human relations and mutual understanding which can be better
developed outside the framework of state politics or of the market economy.
One type of community-to-community or people-to-people relation can takethe form of intellectual cooperation and intellectual exchange, both among Southeast
Asian intellectuals as well as between Southeast Asian intellectuals and theircounterparts in other regions.
3. Objectives
The general objective of this project is to promote intellectual cooperationand exchange which pertain to the academic sphere of intellectual work as well as tothe political sphere of the state and the cultural domain of their society and148

community. Specific aims are as follows:
1. Considering the fact that many Southeast Asian intellectuals and academics are
more acquainted with their mentors and counterparts in developed countries thanwith fellow intellectuals in their own region, the very first aim of this project is toenable and to foster networking among Southeast Asian academics and intellectuals.
2. Once this network has been established, it can function as a regional base forcooperation, exchange and networking with intellectuals from other regions in Asia ingeneral and in East Asia and South Asia in particular, the next-door neighbours ofSoutheast Asia.
3. Apart from the organizational and infrastructural aspect, exchange andcooperation are intended to enable and to enhance periodical meetings, seminars,
conferences, workshops and other forms of discussion among Southeast Asian intellectuals
as well as between them and their counterparts in other regions.
4. It will become a center for information on the socio-political and socio-cultural conditionsof intellectuals in their respective countries.
5. It is expected to undertake advocacy for fellow intellectuals who are facing politicalpressure or undergoing political harassment.
3. Action Plan and Action Program
With regard to the Asia Leadership Program we are thinking of carrying out
projects in the future as follows:
1. A joint publication of the Asia Leadership Fellows, which contains a moredeveloped and finalized version of papers they have presented at the International
House of Japan. The chapters of this volume will be country reports on how every
fellow regards the condition of intellectual development in their own countries. It is
hoped that this book will come out in October 1997 in Malaysia.
2. Conferences:– in Malaysia in 1997 on "Asian Values and Intellectual Discourse"– in Manila in 1998 on "Ethno-nationalism, Nationalism and Globalism"
3. Book projects based on wider research involving other intellectuals in Southeast
Asian countries:
a. Intellectual history of respective countries in Southeast Asia
b. Intellectual advocacy in Southeast Asia
c. Asian values and intellectual discourse
d. Human rights, democracy and the political economy

149

Staff and Others Assisting in the Program
Coordinator:
Isami Takeda

Professor, Dokkyo University

Rapporteur/Research Assistant:
Yumiko Suenobu
Resource Persons:
Tamotsu Aoki
Takeshi Ishida
Leonard Joy
Kinhide Mushakoji
Teruo Sekimoto
Takashi Shiraishi
Akira Suehiro
Surichai Wun'Gaeo
Kosaku Yoshino

Professor, University of Tokyo
Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo
UNDP
Professor, Meiji Gakuin University
Professor, University of Tokyo
Professor, Kyoto University
Professor, University of Tokyo
Associate Professor, Chulalongkorn University
Professor, University of Tokyo

Shimoda Retreat Participants:
Yoshiko Ashiwa
Takeshi Hamashita
Akio Igarashi
Hidetaka Ishida
Kageaki Kajiwara
Chimaki Kurokawa
Lee Jong Won
Hiromu Shimizu

Associate Professor, Hitotsubashi University
Professor, University of Tokyo
Professor, Rikkyo University
Professor, University of Tokyo
Professor, Hokkaido University
Managing Director, The Toyota Foundation
Associate Professor, Rikkyo University
Professor, Kyushu University

The Japan Foundation Asia Center
Masahiko NoroManaging Director
Mariko Oka-Fukuroi
Director, Intellectual Exchange Division
Tadashi Ogawa
Assistant Director, Intellectual Exchange Division
Maho SatoIntellectual Exchange Division
Alan Feinstein
Coordinator
The International House of Japan
Mikio Kato
Executive Director
Tatsuya Tanami
Program Director
Isamu Maruyama
Chief Program Officer
Naoko Shimamura
Program Officer
Takeshi Ito
Program Department

150

Asia Leadership Fellow Program 1996 Program ReportIntellectual Concerns and Critiques in Southeast Asia
Edited and Published by
The International House of Japan
November 1998
Printed by Seibundo Printing Co., Japan
Copyright © 1998 by
The International House of Japan
5-11-16 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0032, Japan
Tel. 03-3470-3211
All rights reserved
The International House of Japan, incorporated in 1952, is a private, nonprofit membership organizationcommitted to the furtherance of international good will and understanding. Housed in a handsome
structure built in 1955 and enlarged in 1976, it is a working international community directly engaged
in a variety of programs that embody free exchange and the interaction of ideas to foster a climate
favorable to international cooperation.

152