Islam and the state in Myanmar | New Mandala

Islam and the state in Myanmar | New Mandala

JAMES GIGGACHER, 

27 MAY 2015

Melissa Crouch discusses the politics of belonging in Myanmar and the need to reframe understanding of the nation’s Muslim populations.

Recent anti-Muslim violence like the 2012 Rakhine riots in Myanmar has highlighted the plight of an often persecuted but little understood minority.

The ongoing crisis involving thousands of Rohingya (and Bangladeshi) asylum seekers and migrants off the coast of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand has now garnered worldwide attention, throwing more light on a complex issue with a complicated history.

All of this has also exposed a serious gap in knowledge of Muslim communities and how they interact with the state in Myanmar.

In this talk, Melissa Crouch from the University of NSW examines the politics of belonging in Myanmar with a focus on how we can deepen our understanding of the diverse Muslim communities there.

Crouch argues that there is a need to move away from rigid ethnic-based assumptions of Muslims in Myanmar and reframe our understanding to include how Muslim identity is shaped by their relations with the state.

“The politics of belonging can help us to understand some the challenges that Muslims face, both in terms of their relation with the state, as well as with their own communities and other communities,” says Crouch.

“It’s an idea that may be both individual or collective that embodies notions of identity, ideas or acceptance and levels of participation, as well as the ways in which the state responds to these particular communities.”

In Myanmar, Muslim populations like the country’s 1.1 million Rohingya are not allowed to identify as such, but are often considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Many have been denied citizenship and are essentially stateless.

In order to reconceptualise the politics of belonging, and expand our understanding of the relation between Muslims and the state in Myanmar, Crouch suggests that we need to undertake two movements in scholarship.

“First, we need to move away from characterising Islam in Myanmar as violent, hostile and strange. To place Islam on an equal footing with other religions in Myanmar will inevitably require displacing Buddhism from its perceived position as a ‘non-violent’ religion,” says Crouch.

“Second, the study of Islam in Myanmar needs to be acknowledged and welcomed into wider academic discussions on Islam and the state. That is, rather than studying Muslims in Myanmar as an isolated anomaly, in this era of transnational Islam we need to reposition the study of Muslims in Myanmar as an important ‘Islamic crossroad’ between Central, South and Southeast Asia.”

Listen to the full talk in the player above and download from here.

Melissa Crouch is a Lecturer at the Law Faculty, the University of New South Wales. Her research covers Asian legal studies, Islamic law, law and society, public law and comparative law.

This seminar was delivered at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University. Photo of Rohingya woman in Myanmar by Austcare onflickr.

Making sense of Myanmar’s continuing conflicts | New Mandala

Making sense of Myanmar’s continuing conflicts | New Mandala

JAMES GIGGACHER, 

21 MAY 2015

Myanmar government troops on the march in Kokang. Photo by EPA.

Conference to examine country’s persistent ethnic conflicts, violence and contentious politics, and what it means for political and social transformation.

Over the weekend, 24 rebel soldiers were killed by Myanmar authorities in the Kokang Self-Administered Zone as part of an ongoing, and undeclared, military offensive.

The incident has since led to shelling inside China that the Myanmar governmentblames rebels for, and the extension of martial law in the area, which borders China’s Yunnan province.

Located in Shan State in the northeast of the country, Kokang has been the site of a major campaign against the Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) since February.

Bringing an end to six years of relative calm, the Chinese speaking Kokang region has been in a state of emergency ever since.

The MNDAA signed a bilateral ceasefire with Myanmar’s then-military government in 1989, with peace lasting until 2009. But moves to turn the MDAA into a paramilitary border force under the control of the Myanmar Army saw the Kokang commence a series of violent skirmishes that year. The MDAA lost territory and more than 30,000 refugees fled to Yunnan.

It’s against this backdrop that the 2015 Myanmar/Burma Update conference will take place at The Australian National University in Canberra on 5-6 June 2015.

As rapid political, economic and social changes continue in Myanmar, the latest edition of the biennial conference aims to ‘make sense of conflict’. Since the last Myanmar/Burma Update conference in 2013, Myanmar has succeeded in making progress on many key economic and social reforms, and in certain areas of institution building.

At the same time, political, social and armed conflict persists, and in some parts of the country has increased considerably. The continuation of longstanding conflicts in Myanmar raises questions about their persistence and the prospects of efforts to resolve them.

Bringing together leading experts from Australia, Myanmar and the globe, the conference will address the breadth and depth of conflicts in Myanmar, with insight from people working on the ground as well as studying the country from abroad.

Presentations will cover borderland conflicts and peace negotiations, communal violence, electoral politics and law-making, and contentious politics.

Another highlight will include the keynote address on the reform process by HE U Khin Aung Myint, the speaker of the upper house of Myanmar’s parliament.

The conference is free and open to the public. To register and for more information visit http://bit.ly/MyanmarUpdate

The 2015 Myanmar/Burma Update is hosted by the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University.

A happy end for Abhisit | New Mandala

A happy end for Abhisit | New Mandala

 

NUAT NAMMAN NA THOENG, 

19 MAY 2015

Abhisit contemplates life after politics. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Mrs Namman was reading the Bangkok Post yesterday to improve her English.

She does not usually read it, as she thinks it is a red rag. She prefers to speak English with a strong Nation accent.

But yesterday she read something in the Post that really got her worked up. She had to stop pounding the chilli paste and read the article out to me:

“Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva has hinted he could leave politics for good if his party does not win at the next election.”

Holding back tears of joy and sorrow (caused by chilli or Abhisit?) Mrs Namman continued to quote the breaking news:

“I do not have much time left for political work. I do not know when the election will happen. When the next poll is held, I will contest it. But if I do not succeed, that will be the end,” Mr Abhisit said.

Mrs Namman and I both love Khun Abhisit. We both agree that another election loss would bring a very happy end to a wonderful career of losses.

Some of the mean and ungenerous commentators at New Mandala may want to count how many times Khun Abhisit has lost. But I refuse! His eminent record of electoral failure could never be reduced to a single number.

And remember that he honourably declined, not once but twice, to limit his tally of defeats by withdrawing from elections that he was certain to lose.

Morality and self-sacrifice indeed.

Khun Abhisit’s contribution to Thai style democracy is remarkable. He is a wonderful illustration of just how hard it is for good honest men to win elections.

He tried a coup. No luck. He tried a new constitution. Defeat again. Honest Mark even tried banning his opponents from politics, but the buggers put up new ones to beat him.

A good man like Abhisit needed an airport occupation, cooperative judges, and trigger happy generals to give him a short stint at the helm. But as soon as he went to an election, guess what? No luck! Yingluck!! F**k!!!

He even tried populism. But Abhisit’s version of populism was much too sophisticated for the chaw na and it wasn’t even popular!

It’s tough being a senior member of the Democrat party when elections keep putting the other side into office. Democrats are meant to respect democracy. But Abhisit had the moral strength to forge a new style of non-democratic Democrat.

Under such inspired moral leadership his party’s honourable record of defeat is unparalleled.

We can only hope that General P respects the right of Khun Abhisit to lose one more time.

Then he can hang up his gloves (which still look surprisingly unblemished, Mrs Namman commented), confident in the love of a nation that has consistently rejected him.

Rohingya crisis: The myth of Australia’s ‘front door’ | Asian Correspondent

Rohingya crisis: The myth of Australia’s ‘front door’ | Asian Correspondent
Carlton Tan, May 22, 2015 

Tony Abbott seeks to disguise Australia’s discriminatory policy against asylum seekers who arrive by boat with the euphemism of the “front door”. It is an attempt to veil populism and hostility in the language of procedural correctness.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Pic: AP.

How should asylum seekers, fleeing persecution, aided and abetted by their own government, escape their plight? How may the Rohingya, who suffer mass internment, destitution, malnutrition, starvation and widespread discrimination, find refuge?

Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s answer, representing the Australian Government’s position: “If you want to start a new life, you come through the front door, not through the back door.”

To take Abbott’s statement in isolation would be a mistake. It is not only consistent with the Liberal Party’s unyielding stance against refugees they consider to be undeserving (as if one must earn asylum), it is also good politics at home.

Ever since John Howard won the elections in 2001, refugee bashing has become an easy way to play on the public’s worst fears. With that same desire, though with much less tact, Abbott now seeks to disguise Australia’s discriminatory policy against asylum seekers who arrive by boat with the euphemism of the “front door”. It is an attempt to veil populism and hostility in the language of procedural correctness and we ought to be wary of it for the following reasons.

First of all, it is patently absurd to expect the Rohingya who are fleeing widespread and intense discrimination to first inquire with the Australian Embassy if they may apply for refugee status, go through the tedious process, then buy an air ticket and hop on a plane. They do not have that luxury.

(READ MORE: ‘Nope, nope, nope': Abbot says Australia won’t take Rohingya migrants)

Second, the notion that there is a right way to escape from a well-founded threat to one’s life and liberty is laughable. If there’s an air raid, it shouldn’t matter whether you enter the bomb shelter through the front or back, and surely no one is obliged to knock and wait for permission to enter either. Life is far too valuable to be subject to the demands of political correctness and procedural rules.

Third, the issue of national sovereignty and border control pales in comparison to the tragedy of thousands of people dying. Nations do have a right to refuse entry to desperate refugees; it’s just unconscionable to exercise it at a time like this. It is indeed a foundational international norm that countries respect each other’s sovereignty; but so is the protection of refugees, not to mention the rescue of distressed persons at sea.

Fourth, it’s almost impossible to deter asylum seekers who have nothing left to lose. Abbott wants to discourage asylum seekers from “getting on a leaky boat at the behest of a people smuggler”. But the Rohingya, and most asylum seekers, do not have any other choice. It’s not a question of the boat or Qantas Airways; it’s a question of the devil or the deep blue sea.

Finally, Abbott’s “front door” is more aptly termed, “a tiny keyhole”. You get in and you get jostled about, and perchance, you might just get through. Abbott’s rhetoric is reflected in his administration’s dismal rate of refugee acceptance—a rate that is lower even then Malaysia’s, Indonesia’s and Thailand’s. On top of that, Australia accepts fewer refugees for its wealth and landmass than Malaysia and Indonesia.

The following charts will hopefully give you a picture of this sobering reality.

The darker portion of each pie chart represents the percentage of asylum seekers that are granted recognition as refugees. Data: UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2013. (click to enlarge)

Australia only recognised 31% of its asylum seekers (people seeking refugee status) as refugees in 2013. This includes those who came by boat – people who Australia routinely diverts to offshore processing facilities. (Since Australia changed its methodology of counting asylum seekers in the middle of 2013, I have taken a conservative estimate by halving the previous year’s number of boat people and added it to the total number of asylum seekers for 2013. See Statistical Annex.)

In contrast, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, countries which are far less economically developed, granted refuge to a greater proportion of those who sought asylum in 2013 – 65% for Malaysia, 76% for Thailand and 32% for Indonesia.

While there are surely differences in the demographics of asylum seekers that reach each country–and these differences may partly explain why Australia recognises a smaller proportion of asylum seekers as legitimate refugees–it is surely no coincidence that unlike Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand do not use the dehumanisation of refugees as a political tool to win domestic support. In fact, the intense media coverage of the plight of the Rohingya refugees have made their suffering palpably clear. This has arguably contributed to Malaysia’s and Indonesia’s decision to grant temporary shelter to the Rohingya refugees for one year.

By contrast, Abbott continues to appeal to deeply entrenched stereotypes of boat people as uncivilised and barbaric. Whereas John Howard scandalously promoted the picture of boat people throwing their babies overboard, Abbott now seeks to describe asylum seekers as queue jumpers who lack the moral scruples to give due regard to their own safety and the well-being of their families. This view is not only demonstrably false–as I have sought to show–it is also toxic.

There is no queue for the Rohingya and they have no choice. Accusing the victim is an atrocious way to deflect attention and we should not allow Abbott’s dehumanisation of the victims to poison our understanding of the Rohingya refugee crisis.

The reality is, given its economic strength and land mass, Australia accepts far fewer refugees than Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Yet, both Malaysia and Indonesia are willing to accept even more refugees while Abbott fiddles.

Ratio of absolute number of refugees recognised to each  nation’s economic strength as measured by GDP per capita (PPP). Data: UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2013.

Ratio of absolute number of refugees recognised to each nation’s land mass as measured by 1000 square kilometres. Data: UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2013.

In short, Malaysia and Indonesia accept more refugees for every dollar and every square kilometre of land it has than Australia. Now, it is willing to go even further while Australia’s prime minister injects his toxic ideas into the discourse.

And if bar graphs are not your cup of tea, simply consider how ridiculous it is of Abbott to be speaking of front and back doors given the scale of the refugee crisis the world faces. It is indeed a problem for the world and Australia simply isn’t doing its part.

Australia accepted only 2% of the refugees around the world in 2013. Data: UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2013.

The UNHCR identified 11.7 million refugees in 2013. Data: UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2013.

The problem is a massive one. 11.7 million refugees need protection. In 2013, Australia recognised 5035 asylum seekers as refugees.

It’s true, the refugee crisis is a global problem; but that’s precisely why Australia must do its part. And so must a small country like my own–Singapore. Unfortunately, my Government is not one to pass up a chance to harp on our small size and remind Singaporeans of our vulnerability. And it seems like Tony Abbott knows a political opportunity when he sees it too. This makes me sick to the stomach.

Remember the intensity of Abbott’s attempts to help the Bali Nine avoid the firing squad? What has happened to it now?

The lives of Australian drug traffickers convicted of smuggling over 8 kilograms of heroin are precious; but the lives of Rohingya Muslims are not.

The death penalty will not deter drug traffickers from making their fortunes off the misery of others; but leaving the Rohingya to sink to their watery grave will deter others from trying to escape ethnic cleansing.

There is no logic to this; only the politics of power.

“Never Again”: time to end genocide in Burma | New Mandala

“Never Again”: time to end genocide in Burma | New Mandala

NANCY HUDSON-RODD, 

12 MAY 2015

Photo by UNHCR/ACNUR Américas on flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/acnurlasamericas/

The international community can no longer ignore the plight of Myanmar’s Rohingya, writes Nancy Hudson-Rodd.

In the last few days, hundreds of Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority from Myanmar, have washed up on the shores of Indonesia. According to some reports, many more thousands are still stranded at sea.

The mass exodus speaks volumes for a Myanmar apparently on the march towards political and social reform.

Myanmar’s regime is not ‘backsliding’ on commitments to democratic rule so often misleadingly reported. There was no commitment to democracy, instead two major goals: the maintenance of military rule; and the final eradication of 800,000 plus Rohingya.

What uncomfortable times to live in, times of general amnesia when the spin of Burma is applauded as the ‘truth’. Nations chose to believe a hypothetical future of democratic rule promised by Thein Sein, a former top general chosen in 2010 to be the front man for the old regime with a new façade. The 2010 election results were approved despite procedural irregularities, voter intimidation, ballot manipulation, thousands displaced in Eastern Burma unable to vote, international monitors and reporters denied access, and political prisoners held.

Aung San Suu Kyi, an international icon of human rights, when freed declared herself a politician, denied she was ever “a human rights defender”. She has supported the regime in their sham quest for democracy, the case of mistaking mirage for water.   The military has carefully planned continued rule in the 2015 elections.

Roadmap to ruleNewly appointed Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt pledged to hold elections at an unspecified future date in his inaugural 30 August 2004 speech. He announced elections, as the final step of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) “roadmap to democracy”. Khin Nyunt’s speech was broadcast on Burmese state televisions and the sole national radio program, with no reporters allowed to cover the event. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Situation in Myanmar and the Special Envoy to the UN Secretary-General were denied entry visas in 2004. They wanted to verify reports of increased arrests; “security detainees” given harsh prison sentences for writing, speaking, or peacefully protesting the Constitutional process which denied public comment and participation. This visa refusal, in retrospect, revealed the nature of democracy on offer in Burma.

On 10 May 2008, the regime declared the Constitution overwhelmingly approved in a fraudulent referendum process, held during devastating Cyclone Nargis. It kept troops on stand-by to crush popular unrest, rather than mobilise them for emergency and rescue missions while blocking offers of emergency aid missions from regime-friendly China and India or hostile Western powers such as USA, France and UK. To top it all off, 21 Burmese aid workers were imprisoned for helping survivors. Zargana, comedian and blogger, was sentenced to 59 years in prison, for criticising the regime’s cyclone response on BBC. He was released in 2011 as part of a general amnesty, after having his original 59-year sentence commuted to 35 years. For weeks post-cyclone, a State-run media campaign accused citizen journalists and international reporters of trying to destabilise the government, claiming on state-television that the impact of foreign media intrusion was worse than the cyclone.

From the outset, the regime’s roadmap was to install “discipline flourishing democracy”. Generals would play the role of whips, lest unruly masses, defiant dissidents, autonomy-minded minorities stray from the military’s path towards a warped neo-totalitarian dystopia. Lt-General Thein Sein, Secretary 2 of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), was in charge of drafting a Constitution (1993-2006) of their design.

As President, he explained in 2012 why it took so long to complete. “Actually, we could have wrapped all of it up in a day, but there’s a need to make it look good, isn’t there?” He rejected all proposals by ethnic and other groups, but included a clause to protect current and former military leaders, from prosecution for crimes committed. Perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the current Home Affairs Minister, sit in parliament, reported Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic in 2014.

Army chief senior General Min Aung Hlaing confirmed in January there would be no 2015 pre-election Constitution amendments concerning military representation in parliament while conflict continues. The military can dissolve parliament anytime to “maintain the peace”. War is constant. The military commits copious abuses, terrorising civilians. Yet, only three per cent of the 1.5 million people requiring urgent support are assisted by UNHCR (2015).

The UN General Assembly resolution to create a UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in Myanmar was based on, “continued seriousness of the situation of human rights including imposition of oppressive measures directed in particular at ethnic and religious minorities….and deep concern for Rohingya” (UN General Assembly Resolution 46/132 of December 1991).

No Rohingya in regime’s BurmaThe 2014 Myanmar Population and Housing Census, completed with international financial and technical support, was declared successful despite excluding over 1 million people, including 800,000 Rohingya – who were denied citizenship and right to their identity.

As Maung Wai, permanent representative of Myanmar to the UN Human Rights Council, said on 27 March 2015:

We strongly reject the use of terminology ‘Rohingya’. The people of Myanmar do not and will not recognise such terminology since it has never existed in our ethnic history. We further reject the call to allow self-identification…a false term.

These sentiments echo Thein Sein’s thinking on the issue, who told the Washington Post in 2013 that “There are no Rohingya among the races. We only have Bengalis who were brought for farming [during British rule].”

Burma as 2014 ASEAN chair forbade reference to Rohingya. The word does not appear in Burmese state or independent media. An estimated 800,000 Rohingyas were forced to surrender all temporary white ID cards by 31 March this year. These withdrawn cards, issued under the 1949 Burma Residents Registration Act, effectively strip Rohingya of legal documentation, their identity, and last right to live in Burma.

No opposition groups came to the defence of the Rohingya. Certainly not Aung San Suu Kyi in her role as chair of the Rule of Law and Tranquillity Committee. Since being released from house arrest in November 2010, she has travelled widely, meeting royalty and the powerful, collecting her ‘human rights’ awards. Alas, she has found no time to take an hour flight from her lakeside house to visit the semi-concentration camps in Rakhine state, where nearly 150,000 Rohingyas are locked up; for their own protection of course.

Since 2012, these Rohingya, illegalised and dehumanised, remain locked in squalid state-controlled internally displaced persons(IDP) camps, isolated behind barbwire, guarded by machine-gun wielding security troops. Seventy per cent of Rohingya have no access to enough food, safe water, sanitation, and health care. Malnourishment for children under five is double the national rate, individuals are dying. The regime severely restricts humanitarian help. UN premises and most international NGOs were attacked and ransacked in 2014. Three local INGO staff are still imprisoned for speaking to international media, during the 2012 violent attacks on Rohingya. The regime denies holding political prisoners. Police, navy, army, state security forces, profit by trafficking Rohingya who escape by sea, a lucrative business worth up to $7,000 for each boatload of desperate people.

The current destruction of the Rohingya as a distinct and self-identified ethnic group is not an isolated incident of religious or ethnic violence. Based on three years of research into the plight of Rohingya, Dr Maung Zarni and Alice Cowley conclude that Rohingya have been subject to a process of “slow-burning genocide” since 1978. Both the State in Burma and the local community have committed four out of five acts of genocide as spelled out by the 1948 Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide.

Amartya Sen has thrown his formidable intellectual weight, supporting the genocide characterisation at a conference on the worsening plight of Rohingya held at Harvard University in November 2014. The Sentinel Project to Prevent Genocide concludes that the risk of genocide or related mass atrocities in Burma is extremely high. Violence, discrimination, and extrajudicial killings mostly directed toward the Muslim Rohingya, conducted by both state and non-state groups are both widespread and systematic.

“Never Again”Bernard Kouchner, French politician, co-founder of Mèdecins Sans Frontiéres and Mèdecins du Monde filed an application of the responsibility to protect (R2P) in Burma on April 2015. His application has sparked considerable debate at the UN, within civil society, and among founders and proponents of the concept. All agree the regime denies adequate protection to civilian populations by obstructing aid, holding a referendum instead of providing aid, and stealing aid to help only the regime. They disagree on whether this situation is a case of R2P.

Debate focuses on how to conduct protection in Burma, or even if it is needed. Despite growing evidence of genocide, the international community so far avoids calling this large-scale human suffering genocide. Is this due to nations framing the genocide in different terms (ethnic/ religious conflict, furthering a peace process, restoring order), or is it the denial of political implications?

Government leaders agreed they had a responsibility to protect civilians from crimes against humanity, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and genocide at the World Summit in 2005. If diplomatic, economic, and political means, do not effect change, then force is required.

This month an international conference on the Rohingya will be held at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway. There, some of the world’s iconic figures including George Soros; Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu; former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad; Irish peace activist and 1976 Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire; former Timor-Leste President, José Ramos-Horta; and former Prime Minister of Norway, Mr Bondevik will publicly call for the end of Burma’s policies of persecution and destruction of Rohingya.

The R2P community internationally should stop splitting theoretical and legal hairs and join this credible chorus calling for the immediate end to the slow genocide of the Rohingya. As excruciating as this genocidal process is because of its slow-motion, decades-long nature, it does give the moral citizens of our world a chance to push for its end by speaking with one voice on this most heinous crime: Burma’s verifiably intentional destruction of an entire ethnic group simply because of their ethnic identify.

It would be tragic if “Never Again” is allowed to remain an empty slogan by those who should know better — diplomats, world leaders, academics, journalists and informed global citizens.

Dr Nancy Hudson-Rodd is a senior honorary research fellow and human geographer based at Edith Cowan University.

The Borneo Project releases new documentary on Sarawak's controversial mega-dams | Asian Correspondent

The Borneo Project releases new documentary on Sarawak's controversial mega-dams | Asian Correspondent
Rowena Dela Rosa Yoon May 08, 2015 

The Borneo Project has released a new documentary film, ‘Commerce or Corruption?’, exposing the controversies surrounding the proposed mega-dams in Sarawak, Malaysia.

The release this week coincides with the 555th day of the community-led Baram Dam blockades. Various local groups have been fighting to stop 12 mega-hydro projects being pushed by the Malaysian government through the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy or SCORE. The groups said the dams will destroy the rivers – the lifelines of the Borneo jungle. It is feared the Baram Dam alone will inundate 26 villages and displace between 6,000 and 20,000 people, if completed.

Local residents watch trucks intruding into their community for the construction of mega-dams. (Photo: Supplied)

Jettie Word, executive director of The Borneo Project, said the dams will displace people, wipe out their livelihoods, drive unknown species to extinction, and emit more greenhouse gas. The dams will “produce more greenhouse gas emissions per megawatt of energy than a coal-fired power plant,” Word said, adding: “The damage inflicted by these dams would be massive, and the benefits are still unclear. Given that there is no sound reason to build these dams, the question becomes, why are these dams being built, and why now? ”

‘Commerce or Corruption?’ is a second film in a series of short documentaries that tries to unveil the government’s hidden agenda. Word said it is all about personal financial gains, adding that private companies involved in construction and transmission stand to make gigantic profits from building the dams. Many of the companies are allegedly controlled by relatives and friends of the governor of the state, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who has been in power for four decades. Doling out the contracts would add even more gold to the already over-flowing coffers of politicians and their well-connected family members.

Murum Dam under construction (Photo:Supplied)

The mega-dams are also expected to create “an outrageous” energy demand growth rate. Word said Sarawak currently produces significantly more energy than it can use, and proponents have no concrete plans for how to use or sell the energy.

The ongoing Baram Dam blockades, community-led non-violent direct actions, involve men, women and children and have prevented loggers and the dam developer, Sarawak Energy Bhd (SEB), from accessing the construction area since October 2013.

The blockade is maintained by indigenous Kenyah, Kayan, and Penan people and demonstrates the tremendous local resistance to dam development and logging. Despite opposition to the dams, the government of Sarawak and SEB continue to overlook widespread grievances and push for unnecessary and harmful development. If completed, the Baram Dam will flood 26 villages and displace between 6,000 and 20,000 people.

‘Broken Promises’, the next film in the series, will be released in July. It will highlight the devastating impacts of forced relocation on indigenous communities.

The office of Taib is yet to respond to the film.

Commerce or Corruption? from The Borneo Project on Vimeo.

Succession and legitimacy: Vajiralongkorn and Tôn Duc Thang | New Mandala

Succession and legitimacy: Vajiralongkorn and Tôn Duc Thang | New Mandala

DAVID CAMROUX, 

4 MAY 2015
It may appear incongruous and, to some at least, offensive to compare the present Crown Prince (aged 62) and heir apparent to the Thai throne with the second president of North Vietnam and, after reunification, the first president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. After all the putative ‘predecessor’ of the former, King Bhumibol (Rama IX), while ailing, still remains on the throne and is still the more than ceremonial head of state of the Thai kingdom. As for Tôn Duc Thang’s predecessor, Ho Chi Minh, he died in 1969 and Tôn himself passed away in 1980 at the age of 92. Yet a recent trip to neighbouring Vietnam has caused me to think again on political developments in the Southeast country with which I am at present most concerned, Thailand, and the parallels and divergences in the historical trajectories of these two Southeast Asian nations.

(Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn - Photo New Mandala)

During this holiday I visited the Tôn Duc Thang Museum in Ho Chi Minj City, as well as alighting from a cruise on the Mekong to visit the Tôn Duc Thang Exhibition House on My Hoa Hung Island.  The Museum has been correctly described by tourist guidebooks as one of the quietest places in the bustling city, formerly known as Saigon, while the Exhibition Hall was totally bereft of visitors. It seemed terribly unfair that such a true Vietnamese revolutionary should, despite some efforts by the Vietnamese propaganda machine, be so neglected by his compatriots. After all he was not only an authentically working class party cadre, but also came from southern Vietnam. He had not only spent fifteen years imprisoned by the French on the infamous Con Dao Island, but had presided over the reunification of his country, the culmination of a life of struggle and sacrifice. Surely if someone deserved elevation to the pantheon of Vietnamese heroes it was Ton. Alas, in life and in death, he had to live in the long shadow cast by his predecessor Ho Chi Minh.

(Tôn Duc Thang - Photo lichsuvietnam.edu.vn)

The same cruel fate would appear to await for Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn when he finally ascends the throne after the more than sixty year reign of his father, the world’s longest reigning monarch. In Bangkok in March 2010 during the violent repression of anti-government, pro-democracy demonstrators by the military that caused the death of 90 red shirt protestors, one of their supporters scrawled on a Bangkok overpass, in reference to King Bhumibol, “Where is daddy?” The question is does this really matter?

Ho Chi Minh was described by the French historian, Jean Lacouture, as a “Franciscan who had read Marx”. Certainly his personal modesty, moral integrity and an almost monk-like devotion to his vocation are portrayed in the ubiquitous images that adorn public buildings and hoardings throughout Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh, like King Bhumibol, in his personal behaviour seemed to epitomize the ideal of the Buddhist middle way: the rejection of personal gratification and vice in service of a greater public good. Indeed, King Bhumibol’s doctrine of the sufficiency economy, promulgated in reaction to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-1998, could have been as easily drafted in Ho’s modest bungalow in Hanoi as in the Dusit Palace in Bangkok. Both Ho and King Bhumibol are portrayed as having a particular concern for the lowest of the low, the peasant farmer. Other parallels can be drawn: Ho is affectionately referred to as cu(uncle), the benevolent family patriarch who devotes himself to his family (the nation) while King Bhumibol is commonly referred to as the father of his people.  Yet, while Ho Chi Minh may have an altar devoted to him in several Buddhist temples in Vietnam, (such as that in Chau Doc, I visited), under a secular Communist regime he never acquired the revered status of a dhammaraja (the virtuous Buddhist ruler) associated with King Bhumibol.

It seems unfair that Ton Duc Thang has been allowed to fade into obscurity despite sharing many of the character traits so vaunted in Ho Chi Minh. The same continuity in personal demeanour cannot be said to exist in the case of Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn in relation to his father. Going into detail to make the contrast more explicit would potentially incite prosecution under Thailand’s much abused lese majesté laws: suffice it to say that the thrice divorced future Rama X is almost the antithesis of the monogamous Rama IX. In the rumour mill that compensates for the lack of open discussion of the monarchy in Thailand, the eccentric playboy, to put it mildly, is often contrasted with the saintly father (and Prince Vajiralongkorn’s elder sister). However does this really matter?  After all the British monarchy, to take but one example, has survived for centuries despite having had at times some rather dubious characters on the throne. My argument is that indeed it does matter, for it is not the Thai monarchy itself that is problematical, but rather the particular role it plays – or rather has been orchestrated to play – in the construction of a sense of   Thai nationhood.

Once again a reference to the Vietnamese case is useful. Ton Duc Thang’s relegation to the status of a footnote of history is of little consequence for the Vietnamese nation. The State-orchestrated cult of Ho Chi Minh is that of the revolutionary leader who united his country across class, regional and ethnic divides to create a new modern Vietnam.  The lack of a spiritual successor is of little importance, for, in a sense Ho Chi Minh lives on in the egalitarian ideals of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, if not often in its practice. In contrast the cult built around King Bhumibol is designed to maintain a somewhat feudal social order in the interests of a Bangkok elite comprising the business community, the top Administration and the Military. This personalized cult, extended only to Princess Chakri Sirindhorn and, to a lesser extent, to Queen Sirikit, does not portray the king as a the head of a Thai democracy, even if this is his constitutional role. Parliaments and elected governments are to be kept weak. They will become even weaker under the present proposals of the civilianized military government resulting from the coup of May 2014.  Rather the monarchy is the first of the three pillars, the others being the sangha (the monkhood) and the nation, that officially defines Thai identity. Yet is the individual on the throne, not the institution of the monarchy per se, that is brought to the fore in this official portrayal.

What lessons can be drawn from this brief comparison? Thailand, like Vietnam, is constrained by its past. As we are constantly reminded Siam (today’s Thailand) was the only polity in Southeast Asia not, formally at least, to be colonized. In Thai school textbooks and in the popular imagination the perpetuation of Thai independence was the almost single-handed work of two great monarchs of the Chakri dynasty:  King Mongkut (Rama IV) and King Chulalongkorn (Rama V). The latter has been described by one Dutch scholar, Irene Stengs, as the ‘patron saint of the Thai middle class’. The modern Thai nation, in other words, is a product of the Thai monarchy, going back even further in history to the 13^th century. The ‘other side of the coin’ of the Thai kingdom’s ostensibly uninterrupted independence is that, unlike most neighbouring countries, it did not experience that cathartic seminal moment, when the struggle for independence against the colonizer brings together a founding national movement united across class barriers, and the sense of citizenship involving some form of social contract. The people of Thailand continue to be subjects before they are citizens.

In Vietnam the cult of Ho Chi Minh both maintains and legitimizes the nature of the modern one party nation-state. In Thailand respect for the monarchy, largely centred on the personality of King Bhumibol himself, could rapidly disappear once his son ascends to the throne. As a Thai colleague once suggested to me, Thais have become “Bhumibolists’ rather than fervent supporters of the monarchy as an enduring institution. In the inevitable succession it can be feared that social cohesion within Thailand itself would be severely challenged.  The reconciliation of kingdom and modern nation remains a work in progress, as the constant changing of the Thai constitution – with the twenty-first since 1932 now being drafted – demonstrates. If constitutions can be discarded like so many scraps of paper quid the future of a constitutional monarchy? If the legitimacy of an institution, such as the Thai monarchy is so centred on the purported extraordinary attributes of one individual, will it survive when a far lesser mortal succeeds the irreplaceable?

David Camroux is Associate Professor and Senior Researcher in the Centre for International Studies at Sciences Po in Paris and co-editor of the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs.

Feature image: Yellow shirt supporters at King Bhumibol’s birthday celebrations in December 2013, Bangkok Post 5.12.2013

Myanmar’s workers of the world | New Mandala

Myanmar’s workers of the world | New Mandala

NICHOLAS FARRELLY, 

6 MAY 2015

This column was published at The Myanmar Times on Monday, 4 May 2015

The first time I had a long chat with somebody from Myanmar was in Thailand. Many moons ago. They, like millions of their compatriots, had left the “Golden Land” seeking opportunity and safety across the border. I recall our efforts – the suburban Australian kid, the hardened migrant worker – to find common ground. We both talked about dreams, and settled on discussing football.

Since then I have met many other migrant workers, and not just in Thailand. Until recently, the incentives for escaping Myanmar’s lacklustre economic conditions and the stagnant politics of misery were immense. It’s hard to blame people for taking the chance for greater wealth, health and security in foreign lands.

While such migrants once had limited options, and most simply scurried across the river to Mae Sot, Mae Sai and beyond, a whole universe of possibilities now open up from Yangon’s international airport. When you sit to watch the comings and goings, it becomes clear that Myanmar’s workers are on the move in unprecedented numbers, travelling far and wide.

They are quickly becoming familiar faces from the posh shopping districts of Kuala Lumpur to the industrial zones of the Middle East. Thousands crew ships that sail to the farthest corners of the world.

Getting to grips with their lives is no simple task. Experiences vary so wildly. The unlucky can be collared at border formalities, or the many checkpoints established across Southeast Asia and around the world, for the express purpose of blocking those whose paperwork doesn’t add up.

Millions of others, however, manage to get ahead – often with official endorsements, but sometimes through a mix of guile, luck and good timing. They end up surviving, often on the margins, in societies far from their own. Some will harbour ambitions of further movement. Once in Kuala Lumpur, say, it can be exciting to consider the chance of covering the short distance to Singapore. Pay rates can double or triple for those who end up in the Lion City.

And then there is still the possibility of striking out for more distant shores: the Middle East, Europe, North America, Australia. It all takes planning, judgement and courage, and a hunger for economic betterment.

That large numbers of Myanmar’s migrants end up prey for criminals, exploited and discarded, is part of a wider problem. Ethnic minorities, and especially those from groups that don’t have full citizenship in Myanmar, are ripe for exploitation. When these stories hit the news there is some level of outrage, leavened by resignation that there are too many ills in the world. Muslims from western Myanmar are among those who seem to do it toughest when they seek out opportunities abroad.

Yet it’s not all doom and gloom, and the possibilities for migrants are probably better than ever. Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, to name just the three most obvious countries, all require huge surges of youthful and energetic labour to take care of the jobs that their own people can’t or won’t do.

Foreign labour helps to keep goods and services cheap, and also frees up the Thais, Malaysians and Singaporeans to study longer and harder, and work toward achieving solid middle-class status. This means that the jobs lower on the economic pecking order are open to those who want to build new lives in foreign lands.

Later in the year the ASEAN Economic Community will spring to life and, in the long term, the management of intra-regional labour migration will be a big issue. The theory is that everyone benefits when workers can move to places that pay them more for their time and commitment. They can send money home, of course, but also have a chance to build their expertise, create networks and get new things happening. In practice many migrant workers end up stuck: physically and emotionally, struggling simply to survive another day on low pay.

Some suggest that it is only at home that genuine long-term opportunities can be found. Increasingly in Myanmar I find myself bumping into former migrants. The taxi driver who spent 10 years machining precision parts in Malaysia, the drunk lads in Hpa-an who crewed cargo ships around the world, the former professor now doing sterling service as a policy entrepreneur: What they have in common is awareness that Myanmar can offer fresh opportunities for those who take a chance at home.

It’s not always easy to return, with many former migrants struggling to adjust to the reception they receive back in Myanmar. Former migrant workers may bring capital, skills and languages to the table, but there aren’t always the right opportunities for them. They may stumble around in the hope that solid chances will emerge. They may need to cool their heels until Myanmar society catches up to the need for their training and expertise. In the meantime they can wait, think, dream.