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15726 results in ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute

Page 200 of 787

Bureaucracy and Development
  • Reflections from the Indonesian Water Sector
  • Diana Suhardiman
  • Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    22 July 2017
    Print publication:
    26 December 2014
  • The fall of the New Order government in 1998 and the political reform that followed posed substantial challenges for Indonesia's bureaucracy to continue fulfilling its mandate. This book analyses the process of bureaucratic reform in the irrigation sector. Using Irrigation Management Transfer policy as the entry point for analysis, it documents and analyses the irrigation bureaucracy's ability to sustain its power and prominence in the sector's development, amidst and against national and international pressures for reform.
    The book argues that bureaucratic reform in the irrigation sector, rather than attempting to change the bureaucracy's functioning in the image of national and global (good) governance perspectives and priorities, should instead focus on linking the irrigation bureaucracy's everyday practice more effectively with farmers' needs and aspirations. Reform efforts of the past decades show that Indonesia's irrigation sector development cannot be redirected without the irrigation bureaucracy's knowledge, experience and cooperation, and without strengthening its downward accountability to farmer-irrigators.

  • Foreword

  • Norshahril Saat
  • Book:
    The Traditionalist Response to Wahhabi-Salafism in Batam
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 March 2019
    Print publication:
    18 July 2017, pp v-vi

  • Summary

    The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

    The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

    The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policy makers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

  • The Traditionalist Response to Wahhabi-Salafism in Batam

  • Norshahril Saat
  • Book:
    The Traditionalist Response to Wahhabi-Salafism in Batam
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 March 2019
    Print publication:
    18 July 2017, pp vii-viii

  • Summary

    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  • •The rise of Wahhabi-Salafi ideology in neighbouring Batamis causing concern in Singapore. There are worries that some Singapore Muslims are being radicalized by Batam's Islamic radio station Hang FM, which openly promotes Wahhabi-Salafi teachings.

  • •The uncovering by Batam police of a plan by five Indonesians to launch a missile from the island, targeting Singapore's Marina Bay, and the arrest of some individuals linked to ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) in Batam in August 2016 strengthen these fears.

  • •This article argues that Batam Muslims are non-violent traditionalists in their orientation, and key religious leaders from the state have come out against Wahhabi-Salafi's anti-pluralist ideas. Contrary to expectations, key traditionalist practices like mass prayers (zikr), and praises to the Prophet Muhammad (selawat),which Wahhabi-Salafis frown upon, continue to attract a huge following in Batam.

  • •In contradistinction to perceptions that Batam influences Singapore, the city-state does in its own right exert influence on its neighbour, and monetary flow from Singapore Muslims help keep traditionalist rituals alive.

  • The Traditionalist Response to Wahhabi-Salafism in Batam

  • Norshahril Saat
  • Book:
    The Traditionalist Response to Wahhabi-Salafism in Batam
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 March 2019
    Print publication:
    18 July 2017, pp 1-20

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    Existing research on Batam–Singapore relations has focused more on economic and trade ties as opposed to social issues. The ties between the two cities, which are 20 kilometres apart, are always discussed within the framework of SIJORI, a joint development and business venture between Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. To be sure, links between the three states transcend economic, trade and security matters to also include religion and cultural exchanges. It only takes a 45-minute ferry ride from Singapore to Batam and the number of Singaporeans crossing over to Indonesia via Batam is high — comparable to the number that travels to Jakarta.

    Batam is a highly industrialized city, attracting immigration from other parts of Indonesia, especially Java. According to the 2012 census, Batam has a population of 1.2 million people. 77 per cent of them are Muslims, 17 per cent are Christians, and 6 per cent Buddhists. In terms of ethnicity, 27 per cent are Javanese, and the other major ethnic communities include: Malays (17.6 per cent); Bataks (15.0 per cent); Minangkabau (14.9 per cent); and Chinese (6.3 per cent). Even though the proportion of Malays is smaller than the Javanese, yet as part of Riau, Batam strongly upholds its Malay character. It also has a sizeable minority Bugis community, which has strong trade networks. Historically, Riau was part of the Johor-Riau Kingdom, and the name Riau appeared at least three times in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources.

    Lately, there have been security concerns between the two cities. In August 2016, Batam authorities foiled a plot by a terrorist group called Cell Gonggong Rebus (GR) which planned to launch a rocket from the island towards Marina Bay in Singapore. The police arrested five Indonesians for the failed attempt. The militants were believed to have links with ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), and separatist groups in Xinjiang, China.The leader of GR, Gigih Rahmat Dewa, travelled to Singapore several times before he was detained. He was married to a Batam resident and has a house in the city. Gigih also made several contacts with Bahrun Naim, another Indonesian radical linked to ISIS and the person who allegedly masterminded the Jakarta attacks in 2016.

  • Old Stereotypes, New Convictions: Pribumi Perceptions of Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia Today

  • Johanes Herlijanto
  • Book:
    Old Stereotypes, New Convictions
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 March 2019
    Print publication:
    14 July 2017, pp 1-26

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    On 30 July 2016, a riot took place in Tanjung Balai, a city in Indonesia's North Sumatra Province. It was incited by a protest from an ethnic Chinese woman, who felt that the sound from the loudspeaker of a nearby mosque was too loud and disturbing. Considering her protest to be harassment against their religious practice, Muslims from around the city gathered in front of the woman's house. Unable to attack the house, which was cordoned off by the security forces, the group targeted a number of Chinese and Buddhist temples, and shops, many of which belonged to ethnic Chinese Indonesians.

    Leaders in faraway Jakarta responded to the incident in various ways. The general chairperson (Ketua Umum) of Muhammadiyah, one of the largest Islamic organizations in Indonesia, saw the riot as the tip of a “social problem iceberg” caused by a deep socio-economic gap. Similarly, the general chairperson of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), another one of the biggest Islamic organizations in the country, pointed to the intellectual, economic, and social gaps within society as the root of the problem. But a more straightforward opinion came from Lieutenant General (Retired) Suryo Prabowo, who asserted that the riot was triggered by the arrogant behaviour of the ethnic Chinese, who dominate the middle and upper middle business sectors, including the property business. His assertion indicates that after two decades of reformasi, negative views of ethnic Chinese persist among important members of the pribumi elite, and the public expression of this has begun taking place more openly in recent years.

    This article studies this apparent turnaround in Indonesian public discourse, especially among the pribumi elite eighteen years after the demise of the New Order regime. Inherited from the colonial era, the term “pribumi” refers to hundreds of different ethnic groups whom the Dutch administration subsumed into one category, essentially “the natives”. The pribumi identity became a significant issue in the beginning of the twentieth century when the Indonesian nation was still being constructed. While some of the founding fathers of the nation wished to build a nation to include all who lived in the Netherlands Indies, many others thought that the nation should be exclusively for the pribumi.

  • Foreword

  • Johanes Herlijanto
  • Book:
    Old Stereotypes, New Convictions
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 March 2019
    Print publication:
    14 July 2017, pp v-vi

  • Summary

    The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

    The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

    The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policy makers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

  • Old Stereotypes, New Convictions: Pribumi Perceptions of Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia Today

  • Johanes Herlijanto
  • Book:
    Old Stereotypes, New Convictions
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 March 2019
    Print publication:
    14 July 2017, pp vii-viii

  • Summary

    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  • •Despite improvements in the position of ethnic Chinese in the reformasi era, critical and negative perceptions of them persist among prominent pribumi personalities, particularly in recent years.

  • •These include leaders of several Islamic organizations, nationalists who harbour suspicions about foreign powers, and some who were in mid-career and/or were well placed in the last years of the Suharto era. This latter group consists of retired senior military officers, senior scholars, as well as current and former senior government officials.

  • •The ethnic Chinese are often portrayed as outsiders who are already dominant economically, and who are trying to be politically dominant as well. Furthermore, it is often claimed that ethnic Chinese tend to be loyal towards China.

  • •At the same time, there are others, including politicians affiliated with pro-government political parties, high-ranking officials, leaders of NGOs sympathetic to President Jokowi, as well as advocates of multiculturalism (many of whom are scholars and Muslim leaders), who believe that Chinese Indonesians are first and foremost Indonesians. The evidence they cite to support this belief varies, from past heroic actions by ethnic Chinese to the identity constructs of Chinese Indonesians, which is usually based on Indonesia or some Indonesian region.

  • The Natunas: Territorial Integrity in the Forefront of Indonesia–China Relations

  • Leo Suryadinata, Mustafa Izzuddin
  • Book:
    The Natunas
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 March 2019
    Print publication:
    11 July 2017, pp 1-33

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    On 18 and 19 May 2017, the Indonesian military conducted a large-scale training exercise in the Natuna Seas, known as Latihan Perang Pasukan Pemukul Reaksi Cepat (War Exercise of the Rapid Reaction Attacker Troops). This exercise was witnessed by all the governors from the twenty-three provinces of Indonesia. On 19 May President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) came to Tanjung Datuk, Kabupaten Natuna (Natuna Regency) to observe the display of military weapons. He delivered a speech to 1,500 personnel there, advising the Indonesian military to upgrade their skills and defence system. Earlier he had conveyed his condolences to the families of the soldiers killed on 17 May during the military exercise due to a malfunctioning artillery cannon. The military exercise garnered increased attention from the Indonesian government to the Natuna Islands, following last year's tensions in the area.

    In early 2016, three incidents took place in the Natuna Islands (Natunas) over the span of three months involving Indonesia and the People's Republic of China (hereafter, China). These took place on 19 March, 27 May and 17 June, when Chinese fishermen and their vessels encroached into Indonesian waters.

    On 19 March, the Chinese fishing boat Kway Fey strayed into the Natunas’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and was arrested by the Indonesian navy for illegal fishing. A high-capacity Chinese coast guard vessel suddenly emerged and succeeded in freeing the fishing boat. Eight crew members were detained by the Indonesian authorities.

    On 27 May, a Chinese fishing vessel entered the EEZ again, but this time, the Indonesian navy was better prepared. Not only did the Indonesian coast guard/navy detain the fishing vessel, but the Chinese patrol boat accompanying the vessel also refrained from intervening. Unsurprisingly, China's Foreign Ministry demanded the release of the fishermen, and its spokesman also said that Beijing and Jakarta “have different views” on the waters where the Chinese vessel was detained.

    The third incident occurred on 17 June where a Chinese fishing vessel was again intercepted by an Indonesian patrol boat. According to a Chinese media report, one fisherman was injured but was rescued by a Chinese patrol boat, while the fishing vessel and seven fishermen were detained by the Indonesian authorities. The Chinese patrol boat failed to liberate the fishing vessel primarily because three Indonesian warships had reportedly arrived in the vicinity to stop the rescue effort.

  • Foreword

  • Leo Suryadinata, Mustafa Izzuddin
  • Book:
    The Natunas
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 March 2019
    Print publication:
    11 July 2017, pp v-vi

  • Summary

    The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

    The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

    The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policy makers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

  • The Natunas: Territorial Integrity in the Forefront of Indonesia–China Relations

  • Leo Suryadinata, Mustafa Izzuddin
  • Book:
    The Natunas
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 March 2019
    Print publication:
    11 July 2017, pp vii-viii

  • Summary

    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  • •In May 2017 the Indonesian military conducted a large-scaleexercise in the Natuna Islands. This was in the wake of threeincidents in 2016 that involved Chinese fishing boats. Jakartaaccused the vessels of “stealing fish” within the IndonesianExclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) but Beijing considered these boatsto be carrying out “regular activities in Chinese traditional fishinggrounds”.

  • •Both Beijing and Jakarta acknowledge that the Natuna Islandsbelong to Indonesia. But while the Chinese avoid mentioning theissue of the islands having an EEZ, Jakarta openly claims that theislands definitely do have an EEZ.

  • •The two countries are “strategic partners”, and while Chinaneeds Indonesia to help realize some of its “One Belt One Road”ambitions, Jakarta eyes funding from Beijing to help its “MaritimePower Dream”.

  • •Indonesia has adhered to its claim of being an Archipelagic Stateand has relied on the United Nations Convention on the Law of theSea (UNCLOS) to support its territorial claims. China has alsoopenly stated that the South China Sea issue would be resolved withreference to UNCLOS.

  • •However, Indonesians are divided over the issue. There are thosewho wish to bring the problem to an international tribunal, becausethey have no faith in bilateral negotiations as a possible path to asolution. The rise of hardline Muslims in recent months and their critical view of Chinese investments in Indonesia may also affect Jakarta–Beijing relations.

  • • While the Natunas is likely to remain a perennial issue between Indonesia and China in the short to medium term, it is unlikely to derail the bilateral relationship as economics is likely to continue trumping politics in Sino-Indonesian relations, at least under Indonesian President Jokowi's administration. It is also unlikely to bring about an outright naval confrontation between Indonesia and China.

  • 5 - The Reconstruction of Heritage in Rural Vietnam: An Analysis of State and Local Dynamics

  • Edited by Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, Yew-Foong Hui, Philippe Peycam
  • Book:
    Citizens, Civil Society and Heritage-Making in Asia
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    03 January 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2017, pp 86-113

  • Summary

    We have lived not only in the era of globalization but also in the age of heritagization. More and more sites and activities have been officially designated as tangible or intangible heritage, from the local level to the international. Many scholars have attributed the making and remaking of heritage, both tangible and intangible, to globalization and state policies, specifically to the impact of the accelerating international tourist flow as well as to state efforts to shape distinctive national identities and to attract international tourists through cultural-historical heritage.

    International research on the remaking of heritage in Vietnam — which has focused on major tourist attractions like UNESCO-designated heritage sites in Huế and Hội An — has similarly emphasized the impact of global forces and state policies (see Long 2003 and Salemink 2007 regarding the Huế festival). Vietnamese research has strongly centred on state policy issues, such as how to maintain or to manage heritage in the context of globalization and urbanization (Trương Thin 1993; Bui Hoai Sơn 2009; Đặng văn Bai 2012). However, in numerous localities throughout Vietnam, heritage is being made and remade far from the domestic and international tourist gaze, and with little state support. In this chapter, I suggest that local networks and regionally varying community dynamics play at least as an important role as global forces and state policies in the making and remaking of tangible and intangible heritage in Vietnam.

    Focusing on rural/semi-rural festivals normally linked to sacred spaces in particular localities, I analyse why the revival of festivals as intangible heritage is much stronger in the Red River delta of northern Vietnam than elsewhere in the country. According to 2006 statistics from the Department of Community Culture (Vietnamese Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism), the Red River delta, although home to only 21.6 per cent of the Vietnamese population, witnessed the celebration of 3,650 festivals (46 per cent of all festivals in Vietnam in 2006). The Mekong delta of southern Vietnam, with 20.7 per cent of the Vietnamese population, had only 1,234 festivals (15 per cent of all festivals in Vietnam that year). Of the two main metropolitan areas in Vietnam, Hanoi had 1,097 festivals (14 per cent) while Hồ Chi Minh City, despite having a larger population, had only 91 festivals (1.1 per cent; see appendix).

  • 11 - Policy Formation and Civil Society Engagement in Heritage-Making in Taiwan: A Historical Examination

  • Edited by Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, Yew-Foong Hui, Philippe Peycam
  • Book:
    Citizens, Civil Society and Heritage-Making in Asia
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    03 January 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2017, pp 232-250

  • Summary

    In Taiwan the discussion of civil society emerged in the 1980s and peaked in the early 1990s, when the society underwent political democratization. Civil society was considered a public sphere, enjoying relatively autonomy from the control of the state or the market. The birth of civil society in Taiwan came about by the proliferation of non-profit organizations, community organizations, and professional and voluntary groups through continuous social mobilization. Lawmaking was indispensable for the consolidation of civil society. New ordinances, ranging from human rights, environmental regulation to cultural preservation, were brought to the agenda. The emergence of civil society allowed people to leverage themselves from the control of the state and the market. In addition to this, the new Taiwanese identity that took shape in the 1990s reinforced the civil society that was in the making. However, across the turn of the millennium, as the state– society relationship reconfigured, civil society also differentiated. Both the market and the state tried to entrench civil society, which more often than not led to many different voices within civil society. Conflicts among various social groups have become a noticeable feature in the debates and decision-making processes of public affairs.

    Against this backdrop we would like to trace the early history of the development of the idea of heritage preservation in Taiwan. The emergence of the heritage preservation movement and related policies is closely intertwined with the changing cultural politics that reflect the contested meanings of national and local identities in Taiwan. Before the lifting of martial law in 1987, civil society had played a significant role in heritagemaking. Since 1987, civil society has further pushed the state to change the laws and policies governing heritage preservation.

    The first piece of legislation in this area, the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act, was promulgated in Taiwan in 1982, while the country was still under authoritarian rule. The implementation of the Heritage Act and associated cultural policies inevitably reflected the Chinese nationalist historical narrative; however, at the same time, it created negotiable spaces for diverse narratives through the imported notion of “cultural heritage”, which could be seen as an indirect challenge to the dominant narrative.

  • 2 - Heritage, Identity and Power

  • Edited by Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, Yew-Foong Hui, Philippe Peycam
  • Book:
    Citizens, Civil Society and Heritage-Making in Asia
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    03 January 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2017, pp 15-39

  • Summary

    My colleague Yujie Zhu recounted a tea ceremony he had attended in Canberra, Australia. At the ceremony was a student from Taiwan, a Chinese mainland tea expert, and a Japanese scholar. The Taiwanese student said, “Every time I drink this, it make me feel like I am back at home. It is like I am in Taiwan. I am feeling Taiwanese.” The Japanese scholar responded, “Yes, I can understand, but you know, this tea was actually influenced from Japan.” The tea expert then said, “Oh, interesting, because the tea is now sold as a Chinese tea.”

    What this story tells us is that heritage-making is always fraught and contested. Indeed it is always political, not simply because its interpretation or history may be disputed, but because any assertion of inclusive heritage must also include an implicit assertion of exclusion — “this is who I am, and you are different from me”.

    One of the significant assumptions that underpins both heritage management practices and heritage scholarship is that heritage is about identity. Heritage, in either its intangible or tangible form, is intuitively understood to be about the assertion and reinforcement of identity — be that associated with social, cultural, national, ethnic or other forms of identity. The link between heritage and identity is often simply taken for granted, and there is very little work that takes as its central task an analysis of the linkages between expressions of identity and heritage.

    In attempting to reveal these links, I want to develop my argument that heritage is a cultural performance, in which the meaning of the past for the present is continually recreated and reinterpreted to address the political and social needs and problems of the present. Contra to the writings of David Lowenthal (1986, 1996) and Benedict Anderson (1991), heritage is neither a cult nor is it imagined or simply invented; rather it is part of a cultural and political performance and set of negotiations that has material consequences for a range of contemporary social problems.

  • 1 - Introduction: Finding the Grain of Heritage Politics

  • Edited by Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, Yew-Foong Hui, Philippe Peycam
  • Book:
    Citizens, Civil Society and Heritage-Making in Asia
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    03 January 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2017, pp 1-14

  • Summary

    This volume is a collection of papers from the second conference in a series of three. This series of three conferences was first envisioned to look into what we call “the cultural politics of heritage-making” in Asia. In positing the notion of “heritage-making”, we foreground “heritage” as a dynamic process, a product that is unfinished and always in the making, akin to Harvey's (2001) assertion that the term is a verb, that is, something that is done. We further recognize that this process of heritage-making is embedded in contesting political interests that seek to present “heritage” as a finished product, a noun that becomes appropriated as a form of cultural capital, broadly speaking. Or to put it another way, “heritage” becomes the manifest material and symbolic anchor for culture, and one must have a “heritage” as one must have a nose and two ears (to borrow Gellner's simile) if one is to be recognized and recognizable in the international, national and sub-national arenas. Thus, “heritage” implies the process of heritage-making, and this process, when we consider the politics of recognition that is at stake, is embedded in cultural politics of multiple scales (see Harvey 2014).

    These multiple scales, ranging from the local to the national and international levels — which we do not assume are discrete arenas of social action — involve different players with different degrees of agency and interests. In a generic way these players include the state, local actors at the grass-roots level, and international organizations and experts. Again, we do not assume that these actors or the arenas that they operate in are discrete. Often we may find actors reprising roles across the different scales, which hints at the complex assemblages that produce what we call “heritage”. Without foregoing the multi-scalar complexities involved in the process of heritage-making, but with a view to foregrounding in turn the different sets of actors involved at different levels of the heritage-making chain, each of the conferences in the series focused on one set of players respectively. Thus, the first conference, held in Singapore in January 2014, focused on the role of the state.

  • 3 - Heritage-Making and Post-coloniality in Yangon, Myanmar

  • Edited by Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, Yew-Foong Hui, Philippe Peycam
  • Book:
    Citizens, Civil Society and Heritage-Making in Asia
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    03 January 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2017, pp 40-60

  • Summary

    In a nation where the post-independence, military-led governments saw their people as potential enemies who threatened the territorial integrity of Myanmar,1 heritage-making has been deployed as an exclusive technique of the state to manufacture a unitary national identity. That identity has been Burman (the dominant ethnic group), Buddhist, and, until recently, staunchly anti-colonial, with the Shwedagon Pagoda standing as its ultimate monument. Since 2012, educated elite in Yangon have begun to rewrite the narrative of colonial oppression to incorporate the modernity implanted through British rule as represented by the grand facades of institutions such as Grindlays Bank and the Secretariat. This foregrounding of aesthetic modernity has been spearheaded by Thant Myint-U (grandson of U Thant, the third UN secretary-general), who has returned to Myanmar from a cosmopolitan life in the West. With the assistance of foreign-educated Myanmar architects, Thant has founded the Yangon Heritage Trust (YHT) to safeguard the physical and aesthetic integrity of colonial-era buildings. In the words of Thant, “If we can make Yangon the most attractive, beautiful and liveable city in Southeast Asia, this is an asset worth billions of dollars” (Linthicum 2014).

    This chapter investigates the influence of Myanmar's elite, a small segment of the city's civil society, in redefining Yangon's heritage during a time of unprecedented change. National reforms initiated in 2011 followed by the lifting of international sanctions have ushered in fast-paced real estate development that threatens to alter the face of Yangon before the local population has a chance to reflect on what they value. In the haste to save turn-of-the-century architecture from the irreparable damage of wrecking balls, critical questions about the history of Yangon and how residents live in the city have been left barely examined. The YHT's efforts to save colonial-era buildings, though important for maintaining the traces of history in the built environment, run the risk of erasing colonial abuses and masking entrenched urban inequalities. These inequalities were largely introduced by British rule, even if paradoxes, exclusions and segmentations are always a part of urban organization and city form (AlSayyad and Roy 2006).

Page 200 of 787