P
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is the largest country in the Pacific, occupying the eastern half of New Guinea Island, the world’s largest tropical island. The western half (West Papua) was annexed by Indonesia in 1963 and endorsed by a controversial United Nations vote in 1969; but a long-running guerilla army campaign continues fighting for independence there, where its mainly Christian and animist Melanesian people see themselves as part of the Pacific rather than Asia. PNG has seven million inhabitants, making it the largest populated country in the Pacific—in fact, 88 percent of all Pacific islanders are from PNG. It has close to 1,000 languages and has such diversity of language and culture that it has often been called literally a “parliament of 1,000 tribes.”
During the colonial period of the late nineteenth century, the northern half of PNG was German and the southern half British. However, after the First World War, the League of Nations (later continued by the UN) gave British Papua and German New Guinea to Australia to administer, together, on its behalf until its independence in 1975. Today, it remains an independent nation with a parliamentary democracy, and where most people identify as Christian.
Christianity arrived in PNG in the mid-nineteenth century with the arrival of the London Missionary Society, who brought with them a number of Christian converts from Tonga, Samoa, and Tahiti to help spread the Gospel. Soon Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, and other denominations began to spread across the vast jungles and mountains of New Guinea like wildfire; within 50 to 100 years, most Papua New Guineans had converted.
Previous to the arrival of Christianity, Papua New Guineans lived within small tribal boundaries and lived in a state that could be termed polytheistic and theocratic. That is, they were surrounded by a pantheon of spirits relating to land and sea, human and animal. The most powerful were ancestor spirits, their own ancestors who continued to exist and guide the tribe and individuals; ancestors who could be invoked to provide protection when needed or at times had to be appeased if they were considered malevolent and destructive. Chiefs and Sangumas (medicine men and women, shamans and assassins) exercised strong influence and control. There was no separation between tribal law and spiritual belief; people’s entire lives were governed by the 24/7 spirit world they inhabited and their kastom (traditional beliefs and community responsibilities) obligations.
Kastom remains an important aspect of Papua New Guinean’s lives today, as it is for most Melanesians. Although most Papua New Guineans would today consider themselves Christian, they continue to have great respect for the role of kastom, as well as a continuing belief in the existence of both ancestral spirits and the power of sorcery. Although Christianity is deemed a monotheistic faith, many Papua New Guineans, like their fellow Melanesians across the region, still see no issue with maintaining Christian values alongside their deep acknowledgement of ancestral spirits.
In many communities, male and female children still undergo elaborate initiation, seclusion, and circumcision rituals that have changed little in thousands of years. Some areas, such as in the Sepik River region, continue to use scarification to demonstrate manliness—one ritual involves young men having their backs cut and filled with ash so that their back looks like a crocodile skin. In the coastal Motu areas and elsewhere, women still tattoo themselves. In many villages, a haus man (men’s house) and haus meri (women’s house), which is the repository of important ritual objects, continue to exist, and it is tabu (forbidden) for a member of the opposite sex to enter, traditionally, on pain of death.
Sorcery continues to be believed in and used, to the extent that PNG today is considered to be facing a national crisis over sorcery-related deaths, often involving “witches” and some Christian fundamentalists. Although many cases are never prosecuted, police and NGOs claim hundreds of people are killed every year in PNG due to sorcery and witch-killings, something routinely condemned by PNG authorities who are seeking changes to the constitution and law to help counter these brutal deaths.
In its early period of Christian conversion, PNG followed mainly the established churches such as Anglicans and Catholics, especially as they had been first to arrive and become established. Since then, however, the mainstream churches have lost influence and a wider range of denominations, particularly Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and a number of Pentecostal-type churches, have grown in numbers. The South Seas Evangelical Church and Assemblies of God are two such Pentecostal churches that have a distinctly Pacific identity, while dozens of other smaller, evangelical groups continue to emerge.
Just as in the rest of Melanesia, Papua New Guinea is a religiously dynamic nation whose people have a tendency towards experimentation. There are numerous Christian syncretic movements blending Christian values with local beliefs, while others have embraced more recently introduced faiths such as Islam and Bahá’í. In the past 20 years, several thousand have converted to Islam with a particular focus on the Chimbu area of the highlands, where an estimated 3,000 alone have converted. Islamic missionaries operate in remote highland villages and also the poor squatter settlements of major towns such as the capital, Port Moresby. Islam in PNG is on the rise and likely to take root as its missionaries suggest that what they offer is a reversion to kastom, rather than conversion to a new faith. The predominant Islamic tradition practiced is Sunni, while PNG’s first imam is a Wahhabist from Nigeria. There are also hundreds of Ahmadiyya followers who have fled persecution in neighboring Indonesia and found sanctuary in PNG.
Also in common with the rest of Melanesia, PNG has a rich tradition of cult, cargo cult, and kastom movements. Some of these are movements of people who have turned their back on Christianity to return to traditional ways, others are a mix of kastom beliefs and Christian values, and still others still put primacy on the ability of ancestors to deliver modern goods to them if they are invoked ritually.
Ben Bohane
See also: Ahmadiyya; Ancestor Worship; Animism; Bahá’í Faith; Christianity; Colonialism; Fundamentalism; Indonesia; Islam; Melanesian Religion; Missionary Movements; Morality; Shamanism; Spirit Mediumship; Syncretism; Women.
Further Reading
Narakobi, B. The Melanesian Way. Port Moresby: Institute of PNG Studies, 1983.
Somare, M. Sana: An Autobiography of Michael Somare. Port Moresby, PNG: Niugini Press, 1975.
Souter, G. New Guinea: The Last Unknown. Sydney, Australia: Angus and Robertson, 1963.
PEACE-BUILDING
Southeast Asia is a laboratory of religion and peace-building. Peace-building is one of the most contested concepts in International Relations (IR) and Conflict Resolution Studies (CRS). Scholars and practitioners have never agreed on a single definition for peace-building; disagreeing on the issues such as its scope, who are the legitimate actors, and when the process is initiated and terminated. The “formal” definition of peace-building by the United Nations in Agenda for Peace only partly explains the term.
Relating religion and peace-building, especially in the context of Southeast Asia, provokes more contested debate. The concept and practice of peace-building is largely determined by IR, which has a very strong tradition of ignoring religion in its analysis. This is due to the prevailing influence of the “secular paradigm” or “theory of secularism” in IR as a key assumption of the rationalist-modernist way of thinking. According to the secular paradigm, knowing by believing is irrational, metaphysical, or even superstitious. Therefore, the mainstream IR discourse focuses more on power capability, economics, and strategic interactions between formal state actors, leaving no room for religion as an organizing power for peace and security. However, the core theory of the secular paradigm has been proven untrue. Predictions that, through development and modernization, religion would be fully privatized and removed from the public sphere are false. “Public religion” has emerged over the last several decades, providing a pivotal role for religion in the social and political arenas.
In the meantime, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there has been a dramatic change in the pattern of war and conflict in the world from interstate wars to intrastate wars. There has been a sharp increase in the number of intrastate conflicts including ethno-religious violent conflicts in the post–Cold War era. The reality in many parts of the world is that religion is not only used for mobilizing conflict, but it also involves organizing dialogue and bridging communication in divided societies, providing food and shelter for the victims of conflict, and conducting trauma healing and reconsolidation efforts. Religion becomes an inseparable part of the idea and practice of “peace-building from below.”
In this context, there has been serious intellectual work and political advocacy to show that traditional approaches to conflict by IR and CRS cannot cope with this new reality. IR and CRS should take religion into account in their analysis and work. There has been a realization that there is a need to broaden the meaning of peace-building that is not limited to the post-conflict peace-building phase that is usually carried out by formal state actors. Peace-building includes all activities that ensure the absence of direct and cultural violence and the presence of peace, justice, and prosperity for all when these activities are promoted by both formal state and informal actors.
Throughout Southeast Asian countries, a series of developments have shown religions as not limited to private spiritual matters. Religion “went public” and contributed significantly to political and structural transformations. In 1992, a Buddhist monk, Samdech Preah Maha Ghosananda, initiated the “pilgrimage of truth” or Dhammayietra, to promote peace and reconciliation in Cambodia. The Dhammayietra was an annual pilgrimage of truth that took different themes in response to specific issues faced by Cambodians. In 1993, Maha Ghosananda led hundreds of Buddhist monks, nuns, and laity for Dhammayietra II, walking from Siam Reap to Phnom Penh. This monthlong journey took participants through conflict zones with land mines and cross fire. In this Dhammayietra, Maha Ghosananda aimed to develop popular support for free, fair, and democratic elections and build public confidence to overcome the intimidation and terror posed by the Khmer Rouge.
In 1986, Cardinal Jaime Sin, the Catholic archbishop of Manila, became an important part of the wave of protest against the dictatorship under President Ferdinand Marcos. He encouraged millions of Filipinos to take part in peaceful demonstration. This led to what would later be known as the “People Power Revolution,” which forced Marcos to resign. In 2001, Cardinal Sin again acted as spiritual leader to call for mass rally to topple the corrupt government under Joseph Estrada.
In 1998, Muhammad Amien Rais, the chairman of Muhammadiyah in Indonesia (the largest modernist Muslim mass organization with about 25 million members), successfully led the “reformasi” (reformation) movement to topple President Suharto, who had ruled Indonesia for 32 years. In 1992, Rais started to call for regime change (suksesi) during the Muhammadiyah meeting called Tanwir in Surabaya. Since then, with support from pro-democracy organizations and student movements, the call for suksesi and reformasi became popular and received greater support from the public. Finally, on May 20, 1998, Suharto announced his resignation from the presidency.
Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, the Catholic bishop in Dili (1983–2002) who received the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, strove for peace and justice for the East Timorese, who suffered from brutal military operations. Even in the context of internal political impasse and the ineffective pressure of the international community, Buddhist monks were among the most well-organized groups that frequently stood up against the military junta in Burma.
Southeast Asia is also a home of ethno-religious conflicts; at the same time, it is a base camp of “religious peace-builders.” Intractable secessionist conflicts in southern Thailand and southern Philippines (Mindanao) have lasted for decades. Ethno-religious conflicts that occurred in Maluku and Poso (Indonesia) have divided people along religious lines. History has noted, however, that, although acting in a very notorious and complicated situation that involved a deep process of instrumentalization of religion, religious leaders and institutions in Southeast Asia were able to come up with genuine and creative initiatives for peace.
The Lembaga Antar Iman Maluku-LAIM (Maluku Interfaith Dialogue Foundation) led by Abidin Wakano and Jacky Manuputty, for example, initiated a series of activities that encouraged people from divided communities (Christians and Muslims) from various sectors of professions (youths, teachers, journalists, academicians, NGO activists, etc.) to “meet” and establish a foundation for reconciliation. LAIM has also worked with the Indonesian Council of Ulama in Maluku (MUI; Majelis Ulama Indonesia di Maluku) and the Synod of Protestant Church in Maluku (Sinode Gereja Protestan Maluku-GPM) in organizing “peace sermons,” to ensure that imams and priests understand the concept of peace-building and their own practical ability to instill in religious adherents the importance of peace and reconciliation. The imams and priests came up with “guidelines” and “materials” on how to preach peace-oriented messages in churches and mosques.
In Nalapaan, a small village (barangay) in the municipality of Pikit in the Philippines, the local Catholic priest, Father Robert Layson, OMI, together with Muslim and Lumad (indigenous religion) leaders, declared the village a Space for Peace on February 1, 2001. The initiative to establish the Nalapaan Space for Peace was a response to the fact that Nalapaan is one of the worst conflict affected barangay in Mindanao. Since the declaration, the people of Nalapaan have lived in relative peace. Both the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) respect the Space for Peace as part of the bottom-up process of peace-building.
Violent conflicts have devastated physical and social infrastructures. Peace can only be achieved through a coalition of people from different sectors including religious leaders and institutions. It is worth noting that many successful stories of “religious peace-builders” in Southeast Asia cannot be separated from the good partnership and communication with other peace constituencies such as local, national, and international nongovernmental organizations.
Raja Antoni
See also: Belo, Carlos Filipe Ximenes; Dhammakaya; Ghosananda, Maha; Indonesia; Interreligious Relations and Dialogue; Khmer Buddhism; Muhammadiyah; Rais, Muhammad Amien; Religion and Society; Sin, Cardinal Jaime Lachica.
Further Reading
Appleby, R. Scott. The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and Reconciliation. Boston: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000.
Casanova, Jose. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Devetak, Richard, Anthony Burke, Jim George, eds. An Introduction to International Relations. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Pettman, Ralph. “In Pursuit of World Peace: Modernism, Sacralism, and Cosmopiety.” Global Change, Peace and Security 22, no. 2 (June 2010): 197–212.
Ramsbotham, Oliver, Tom Woodhouse, and Hugh Miall. Contemporary Conflict Resolution. Cambridge: Polity, 2005.
Thomas, Scott M. The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations: The Struggle for the Soul of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
PESANTREN
As the oldest Islamic educational institution in Indonesia, the role of pesantren (also called “pondok” or “pondok pesantren”)—the Islamic boarding schools in Indonesia—is obvious. The ability of pesantren in providing low-cost or even free education for Muslims, especially in the remote areas of the country, has been widely acknowledged. Unlike similar Islamic educational institutions outside Indonesia, usually known as madrasah, the role of pesantren is not only limited to teaching Islamic knowledge, but also training in most aspects of human life. Many pesantren have actively participated in community development programs by providing vocational training for peasants or farmers in rural areas. Currently, according to the statistical data released by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, there are 27,218 pesantren across the country with 3,642,738 santri (students). This is an increase of more than three times from the data released in 1998, which only recorded 7,536 pesantren. Based on this development, it seems that pesantren, though still considered as traditional institutions, will continue to play their significant role not only in transmitting Islamic knowledge, but also in community development across the country.
There are at least two theories explaining the origin of pesantren. First, some scholars such as Geertz, Berg, Ziemek, and Kuntowijoyo claim that pesantren is an adaptation of the Hindu-Buddhist educational system that existed prior to the coming of Islam. This can be seen from the word “pesantren,” which literally means a place for “santri.” The word “santri” is derived from the Indian word “shastri,” which means a person who understands the sacred book. The second theory claims that pesantren is influenced by the madrasah system in the Middle East that has developed since the twelfth century, especially under the Abbasid dynasty. Apart from this historical debate, most Javanese Muslims believe that Maulana Malik Ibrahim, also known as Syaikh Maghribi (d. 1419), is the initiator of pesantren in its simplest form. This tradition was continued by his son, Sunan Ampel, who built Pesantren Kembang Kuning in Surabaya, East Java. Later on, other pesantren were built by the other members of Wali Songa (the nine saints) throughout Java.
There are at least five basic elements for a pesantren: pondok (dormitory), mosque, santri (students), the teaching of kitab kuning (“yellow books”—the classical Islamic texts), and kyai (the leader, as well as the owner of pesantren). Currently, many pesantren add some new features, such as madrasah, public school, and some vocational programs operated within the pesantren. The use of kitab kuning, especially the works of scholars from Shafi’i madhhab (legal school), becomes the main characteristic that distinguishes pesantren from the other Islamic educational institutions. The ability of the kyai in mastering Islamic knowledge usually becomes the specialty of each pesantren. For example, if the kyai is an expert in Qur’anic studies, that leader’s pesantren will be known as pesantren Qur’an, though this does not mean that the santri will learn only Qur’anic studies because most pesantren now have the madrasah system that offers other different branches of knowledge in Islam. Some examples of well-known pesantren include Pesantren Tebuireng in Jombang, Pesantren Lirboyo in Kediri, Pesantren al-Munawwir in Yogyakarta, Pesantren Tegal Rejo in Magelang, and Pesantren Modern Gontor in Ponorogo.
Achmad Zainal Arifin
See also: Ahmadiyya; Aisyiyah and Nasyiatul Aisyiyah; Education; Indonesia; Islam; Maarif, Ahmad Syafi’i; Muhammadiyah; Nahdlatul Ulama; Rais, Muhammad Amien; Reform Movements; Religion and Society.
Further Reading
Dhofier, Z. The Pesantren Tradition: The Role of the Kyai in the Maintenance of Traditional Islam in Java. Tempe: Monograph Series Press, Program for Southeast Asian Studies, Arizona State University, 1999.
Hefner, R. W., and M. Q. Zaman. Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Lukens-Bull, R. A. “Two Sides of the Same Coin: Modernity and Tradition in Islamic Education in Indonesia.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly 32, no. 3 (2001): 350–72.
Pohl, F. “Islamic Education and Civil Society: Reflection on the Pesantren Tradition in Contemporary Indonesia.” Comparative Education Review 50, no. 3 (2006).
PHILIPPINES
The Republic of the Philippines is an archipelagic nation of 7,107 islands located in the Southeast Asian region in the Western Pacific. The 2010 census cites its population as 92.34 million people (NSO 2012). Its capital, Manila, is one of the 16 cities and municipalities that comprise the Metropolitan Manila region. The Philippines is a nation of great ethnic diversity. The largest of its ethnic-linguistic groups are the Tagalogs, who make up 30 percent of the population, followed by Cebuanos/Bisayans at around 17 percent and Ilocanos at close to 8 percent. A further 25 percent are classified as “others,” including nontribal groups such as the Kapampangans, Moros, and Ivatans, each of whom maintain their distinct and rich religious and cultural traditions.
The Philippines leads the world in surveys about religion and belief, such as the 2012 survey taken by the National Opinion Research (NOR) Center at the University of Chicago, which involved over 30 countries in Europe, the United States, and Asia. The NOR survey found that 93.5 percent of Filipinos professed that “I believe in God now and I always have,” while 91.9 percent declared a belief in a personal God. In all, 60.2 percent of those surveyed are certain God exists, always believed in God, and strongly agree that there is a personal God. This is the highest among the surveyed countries, the next ones being Israel with 38 percent and the United States with 35 percent. Correspondingly, the Philippines is at the bottom of the list of patterns of nonbelief. Only 0.1 percent of Filipinos does not believe in God, never believed in God, and strongly disagree that there is a personal God (Smith 2012, 8–11).
In spite of great ethnic and linguistic diversity, the vast majority of Filipinos (over 90 percent) profess adherence to one faith, Christianity. In fact, the Philippines is the largest predominantly Christian nation in Asia and, along with Timor Leste, is one of two predominantly Roman Catholic countries in the region. The religious profile can be broken down further as such: Roman Catholic, 81 percent; Protestant, 7.3 percent; Iglesia ni Kristo (Church of Christ), 2.3 percent; Philippine Independence Church, 2.0 percent; Muslim, 5.1 percent; and Buddhist, 0.1 percent (Pangalangan 2010, 559).
Precolonial Religion
In precolonial times, the respect and worship accorded to deities corresponded to the physical features of the natural environment and with the human engagement in it. There was, thus, Sipada, the god of the rainbow; Mandarangan, the fire god; and Magwaye, the goddess of harvest. Filipinos believed in a spiritual realm, an otherworld, which indicated a belief in an afterlife. There were, as such, deities that reigned in these realms—Agni, the god of the netherworld; Lalahon, the god of Hell; and Idiyanale, the god of death (Agoncillo and Guerrero 1970, 44–45). There is a rich tradition of religious materiality in the form of the veneration of soul-spirits through material object. Idolatry, in the form of anitos in Tagalog or diwata in Bisayan, to whom offerings of food and prayer are made, was believed to bring good fortune. Ritual specialists and shamans, called babaylanes, conducted sacrifice and performed acts of healing by channeling their special connection to the divine spirits.
Filipino “folk Catholicism” is a term used to describe the way in which the faithful in the Philippines, then as now, have integrated precolonial beliefs into Catholic rites and rituals. Slippages in translation into native vernaculars, as well as associations made with preexisting indigenous notions of spirits and deities, contributed to the idiosyncratic nature of Filipino Catholicism. The use of amulets, the persistent belief in pre-Hispanic deities, and the practice of faith-healing and spirit-mediums signified that Catholicism was often accepted and interpreted in ways that Spanish friars did not intend. Yet, while “folk Catholicism” may be seen as a pejorative term, implying a lack of a sophisticated appreciation of doctrine, many Filipinos do not see their faith as diminished or corrupted. Rather, elements of both belief systems are integrated into the very fabric of life—such as in praying to both Bathala animist spirits and Roman Catholic patron saints in harvest time—without a sense of duality or theological friction.
Consolidation of Islam from the Fourteenth Century
There is some evidence, mainly philological, that the Hindu-Buddhist religious system that we find in other parts of Southeast Asia prevailed in the Philippines before the consolidation. In Luzon, for example, the region south of Maynila (modern-day Manila) was the homeland of nominally Islamic domains under Rajahs Sulaiman and Matanda; while the Buddhist-Hindu polities, such as that of Raja Lakandula, prevailed in a district called Tondo to the north (Agoncillo and Guerrero 1970, 22–23). However, this is not manifested in the contemporary landscape of the Philippines, at least not as prominently as the other major faith traditions observed by Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian who arrived in Cebu as the chronicler of the first Spanish expedition in 1521. He did single out a single “Moor” in Cebu who, he claimed, had been renamed Christopher upon his baptism into the Christian faith. Indeed, Arab merchants and traders came to the region in the ninth century, though it is not until the fourteenth century that the concerted efforts to spread the faith are recorded. Karim ul’ Makhdum was an Arab missionary and scholar who was responsible for the Islamization of Malacca. From there, he traveled east to Sulu around 1380 and facilitated the conversion of the natives there. Following Mahdum’s death, his missionary efforts were continued by the Sumatran prince Rajah Baguinda, who, with a force of invaders, settled in the capital of Sulu. There he would lay the foundations of a faith that would spread north to the Visayas.
Later, in 1450, a leader from Palembang married Rajah Baguinda’s daughter and, having thus established himself among the local aristocracy, founded the sultanate of Sulu with himself as its sultan. Meanwhile, in a similar fashion, Sharif Kabungsuan from Johor arrived in Cotabato in 1475, intermarried with a native princess, Tunina, and proclaimed himself as the first sultan of Mindanao. From these two regions, Islam would begin a process in which other belief systems gradually became displaced, both by conquest and by the benefits of trading privilege (Hisona 2010).
Today, Philippine Muslim communities are largely concentrated in the southern island group of Mindanao, comprising 13 ethno-linguistic Muslim groups, where they practice the faith in accordance with a cultural legacy that predates the colonial regimes or the modern Philippine state. This includes rituals of courtship and marriage, child rearing, initiation, and laws governing family relations. Islamic culture and the arts, such as traditional wear, dance, and music, literature and decorative craft likewise flourish in Mindanao as they have since Islam’s establishment. This cultural and religious distinctiveness has been the basis for attempts to carve an independent Islamic nation state, initially through the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). Under the Tripoli agreement signed in 1976, the MNLF accepted to establish autonomy within the framework of the Philippine legal system, even as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a faction of the MNLF, decided upon continuing an armed struggle for a separate state. Nevertheless, the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was created under the 1987 Philippine constitution, spanning two geographical areas covering a total of 12,288 square kilometers. As of this writing, it remained to be seen whether the new Peace Accords signed in 2012, which promises the creation of a new political entity called “Bangsamoro,” will achieve full consummation.
Christianity from the Sixteenth Century
Compared to Islam, Roman Catholicism has a shorter history in the Philippines, though this historical legacy is much more widely commemorated and revered given its widespread adoption among the vast majority of Filipinos. The roots of Roman Catholicism go back to 1521, when the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the archipelago to expand the religious and economic interests of Imperial Spain. Although the Philippines was not Magellan’s principal destination, the sheer difficulty of the expedition's pioneering trans-Pacific voyage invested their landing with the perception of divine providence. This laid the foundations not only for subsequent expeditions to the islands, but the establishment of a colonial regime that was to last over 300 years—one of the longest in Southeast Asia. By 1570, a majority of those who came in contact with the Spanish had converted to Catholicism, mainly in the lowlands of the northern island of Luzon. For centuries, the cross and the sword came to symbolize the nature of Spanish dominion such that conversion to Roman Catholicism meant receiving the temporal protection of Spanish colonial forces as well as the privilege to engage in trade and economic activity. It became advantageous, therefore, to adopt the new faith, at least outwardly. By the end of the nineteenth century, the vast majority of Filipinos lived their lives according to the Faith and the temporal authority of the Spanish crown.
The American colonial presence began in the Philippines toward the beginning of the twentieth century after the Philippine-American war from 1899 to 1902. The American “Manifest Destiny” in the islands carried with it a proselytizing agenda, as President William McKinley famously declared the need to “Christianize” the Philippines in spite of the legacy of three centuries of Roman Catholicism in the islands. Thus, in the early part of the American colonial period, there were significant instances of anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish vitriol, which conceived of Spanish Catholicism as a decadent variant of the faith defined by clerical abuse, flamboyant worship, and idolatry. While some American Protestant missions achieved successful conversions, particularly in the highlands of northern Luzon, by the first half of the twentieth century, only a small fraction of Filipinos had turned away from their Catholicism.
In spite of the limited success of the American missionary endeavor, the 1890s to the 1930s could be described as a time in which Filipinos became exposed to new and alternative ways of believing in Christ. The nationalist movement that had gained momentum during the elite-led Propaganda Movement from the mid-1800s had encouraged the development of schismatic movements within the Catholic Church. Filipinos themselves were active in offering alternatives to the Roman Catholic Church and enjoyed some initial success in attracting disillusioned Catholics to their fold. In the early 1900s, Felix Y. Manalo formally established the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), a Restorationist Unitarian Christian church which proclaimed Manalo as the last messenger of God, and that the Roman Catholic doctrines of the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit have no biblical or theological basis. The INC is now the largest indigenous Christian church in the world, with an estimated membership of two to four million members (NSO 2012). Similarly, Gregorio Aglipay had broken away from the Roman Catholic Church to form the Iglesia Filipino Independiente (Philippine Independent Church), fueled largely by deep resentment at the Spanish clergy’s reluctance to ensure the full participation of Filipino clergy in the sacraments.
Religion and Politics
In spite of the determined efforts of American Protestantism and indigenous Filipino Christian churches to gain converts, the Roman Catholic Church was able to maintain a foothold on their membership, particularly in rural areas. From its roots as Catholic welfare organizations in the aftermath of the Second World War, Roman Catholic clerics sought the endorsement of the pope in establishing the formal institutional foundations of the faith in the country. In 1968, the Holy See approved the establishment of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) as the official organization of the Catholic episcopacy in the country. Today, the CBCP comprises of over 90 active cardinals, archbishops, and bishops who oversee 16 archdioceses, 51 dioceses, seven apostolic vicariates, five territorial prelatures, and a military ordinate. Its functions, however, extend beyond that of ensuring the pastoral care of its flock. The CBCP’s commitment to spiritual and doctrinal guidance has meant that it has played an active and significant role in influencing the course of Philippine politics.
Since its establishment, bishops and clergy have often been vocal about matters regarding the moral legitimacy of governmental policies, as well as of the moral fitness of the country’s top officials. Two examples are particularly indicative. In 1986 and 2001, church leaders had been instrumental in galvanizing a number of members of its flock to the “People Power” revolutions that drove Presidents Marcos and Estrada from office. These revolutions were significant in the Philippine Church’s position as arbiters of social and political morality. This position has been put to the test, even within operations of the legislative process. More recently, the church has faced its greatest challenge with regard to the push for reproductive health bills in the Philippine congress. As such bills are seen by clerics as a veiled attempt to legalize contraception and even abortion, CBCP clerics have evoked Vatican doctrines such as Humane Vitae in organizing sustained criticism and protest against their passage.
Julius Bautista
See also: Buddhism; Calungsod, Pedro; Christianity; Colonialism; Contextualization; Ethnicity; Hinduism; Interreligious Relations and Dialogue; Islam; Liberation Theologies; Missionary Movements; Nacpil, Emerito; Religion and Society; Religious Conversions; Ruiz, Lorenzo; Santo, Ignacia del Espiritu; Secularism; Sin, Cardinal Jaime Lachica; Spirit Mediumship.
Further Reading
Agoncillo, Teodoro A., and Milagros Guerrero. History of the Filipino People. Quezon City, Philippines: Malaya Books, 1970.
Hisona, Harold. “The Introduction of Islam to the Philippines and Filipinos | Philippine Almanac.” Philippine Almanac, July 14, 2010. http://www.philippinealmanac.com/history/the-introduction-of-islam-to-the-philippines-and-filipinos-530.html (accessed October 25, 2014).
Pangalangan, Raul. “Religion and the Secular State: National Report for the Philippines.” Religion and the Secular State: Interim National Reports Issued for the Occasion of the XVIIIth International Congress of Comparative Law, edited by Javier Martínez-Torrón, W. Cole Durham, and Brigham Young University, International Center for Law and Religion Studies, 559–71. Provo, UT: International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University, 2010.
Philippine Statistics Authority, National Statistics Office (NSO). 2010 Census of Population and Housing, April 4, 2012. http://web0.psa.gov.ph/content/2010-census-population-and-housing-reveals-philippine-population-9234-million (accessed October 24, 2014).
Smith, Tom. “Beliefs about God across Time and Countries.” National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, April 18, 2012.
PILGRIMAGE
None of the major world religions were founded in Southeast Asia, and consequently, the region does not enjoy the presence of any primary religious pilgrimage centers. Yet, there is a long history of pilgrimage in Southeast Asia as diverse religions established themselves and became contextualized in different countries. The ninth-century Mahayana Buddhist Temple in Magelang of Central Java attracts pilgrims from all over the region. Bagan in Myanmar, where exist the remains of over 2,000 temples and pagodas, and Luang Prabang in Laos, with its numerous Buddhist temples and monasteries, too are well-known pilgrim centers. For Muslims, while the most sacred pilgrimage is considered to be the hajj, there is also a long tradition of non-hajj pilgrimage. Malaysia is important in this regard, not only for its locational importance in generating the largest number of hajj pilgrims but also as a center for “Islamic tourism” that is aimed at various countries and, particularly, the Arab nations.
Hinduism too has centers of pilgrim importance in Southeast Asia. The Balinese Sacred Mandala Pilgrimage covers nine kahyangan jagat, or “directional” Hindu temples in Bali, Indonesia. Out of these, six are considered as world sanctuaries. Pilgrimage to the “directional” temples is considered to cleanse spiritual obstacles and impurities from the visitors. There are also other temples that are centers of pilgrimage in Bali.
As one of the two Southeast Asian countries where Christianity is a majority religion, the Philippines is a key pilgrim center. Our Lady of Manaoag is a widely visited Roman Catholic pilgrimage site that is believed to possess healing powers. Sendangsono in Central Java of Indonesia too is historically important as the place where Rev. Van Lith, SJ, baptized 171 people in 1904, as this event heralded the birth of the church among the Javanese people. The location of the baptism is now a pilgrimage center.
Pilgrimage is central to popular religiosity. Since Asia does not have a tradition of tourism for pleasure and sightseeing alone like in the West, pilgrimage serves the purpose of both tourism and spiritual nurture. While opportunities for international pilgrimage are limited to the privileged few, travel to local and regional pilgrim centers is an essential part of the religious and social lives of the people.
Jesudas M. Athyal
See also: Buddhism; Christianity; Contextualization; Hinduism; Indonesia; Islam; Localization of Hinduism in Indonesia; Malaysia; Philippines; Popular Religion; Siddique, Muhammad Abdul Aleem; Tourism.
Further Reading
Albanese, Marilia. The Treasures of Angkor (paperback). Vercelli: White Star Publishers, 2006.
Bhardwaj, Surinder M. “Non-Hajj Pilgrimage in Islam: A Neglected Dimension of Religious Circulation.” Journal of Cultural Geography 17, no. 2 (1998).
Jessup, Helen Ibbitson, and Barry Brukoff. Temples of Cambodia: The Heart of Angkor. Bangkok: River Books, 2011.
Snodgrass, Adrian. The Symbolism of the Stupa. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program Publications, 1985.
POPULAR RELIGION
The whole of Asia is home to world religions. Southeast Asia is home to the Theravada form of world Buddhism. The coming of Buddhism to Southeast Asia began with the sending of Buddhist missionaries by King Asoka of India during the third century BCE. He sent his Buddhist missionaries not only to all parts of India, but also southward to Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) and eastward to Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia around the period between the fifth and seventh centuries.
Buddhism, particularly the Hinayana school of Buddhism, is a major popular religion in Southeast Asian countries such as Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia. There are two schools of Buddhism in Southeast Asia. They are namely Mahayana, and Hinayana or Theravada schools. The Mahayana school spread first in northern India and then in China, Tibet, Korea and Japan. The Hinayana or Theravada school of Buddhism, which is also called Pali Buddhism or Southern Buddhism, with its scriptural emphasis in Pali canon, claimed that they were stuck to the original teaching of the Buddha; while the Mahayana school or Greater school of Buddhism which is also called Northern Buddhism, claimed that their vehicle was for all humankind to achieve universal salvation. Historically speaking, Buddhism originated in India with Gautama the Buddha as its founder. It then split itself into two main camps as mentioned above by the beginning of the Common Era. The term “Yana” means a “vehicle,” and “Maha” means “great.” “Hina” means small or lesser, so that “Hinayana” means “lesser vehicle” and Mahayana means “great vehicle.” Buddhism as popular religion in Southeast Asia is seen to have existed alongside other local and indigenous beliefs such as spirit (“Nat”) worship.
Buddhism was introduced to Sri Lanka around 250 BCE and became the national religion of the Sinhalese from that time. Since then, Buddhism and Buddhist culture, which had a long and dominant history and tradition, became the fundamental basis for the Sri Lankan national identity and religious heritage. Other religions alongside Buddhism include the influence of Indian Hinduism and other various local religious beliefs and traditions. Most Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka would have a room with an image of a Hindu god, Vishnu, and images of many other local gods which are being worshipped.
Myanmar (Burma)
Myanmar is predominantly a Theravada Buddhist country in Southeast Asia which is sandwiched between Thailand and India. The country is described as the land of golden pagodas in the abode of the Southeast Asia peninsula. Buddhism is believed to be practiced by 89.3 percent of the population, whereas Christianity is practiced by 5.6 percent, Islam by 3.8 percent, Hinduism by 0.5 percent, and primal religions (animism) by 0.2 percent, respectively. Burmese Buddhism represents the Theravada Buddhist tradition, which implies “the way of elders.” This way is believed to be the classical, conservative, scriptural, and orthodox type of Buddhism, which can also be found in other Southeast Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. According to an Asokan tradition of India, Emperor Asoka (272–232 BCE) sent, after the third Buddhist Synod held in 273 BCE at Pataliputtara, India, his missionaries, namely, Maha Theras Sona and Uttara, to Thaton (Suvannabhumi, Burma) around 247 BCE. Since then, Theravada Buddhist tradition took its root deeply in the Burmese culture as well as in the lives of the Burmese people for many centuries. Buddhism in Myanmar has become not merely the majority religion of the state, but also the particular foundation of the life of the Burmese people, which helps preserve their worldviews, their conception of the meaning of human existence and destiny, and their idea of God. Buddhism has also served as the primal source of Burmese nationalism, arts, language, social life, politics, philosophy, religion, and culture. The Burmese Buddhists cannot think of nationality apart from their religion, for it is Buddhism that has wielded the Burmese people together, and the idea of nationhood owes its inception to Buddhism. For them, Buddhism not only has spiritual significance, but also the political significance of uniting the people. As Buddhism reached down into local communities to become a popular religion, compromises were made with the existing folk religion and the Buddhism lived and practiced in local, rural communities came to contain many elements of folk religion. This folk aspect of Buddhism, with its incorporation of local deities (Nats) and the cults associated with them, is much different from the pure literary Buddhism of the Pitakas. The commentaries and subcommentaries helped to make Buddhism a popular religion woven into the fabric of the Myanmar society.
Nat (Spirit) Worship in Myanmar
The original faith of the Burmese was a primitive animism, centered on the worship of the 36 Nats (spirits). The term “Nat” comes from the Pali word, “Natha” meaning Lord. Nats in Myanmar were of two categories: native spirits of the sky, trees, water, and other natural phenomena, and the wraiths of heroes and ancestors who had met a violent death. The most celebrated brother and sister Nats were the Mahagiri Nats, believed to be residing on Mount Popa, which is the seat of Nats. Around 1000 CE, Nat worship and Naga (Dragon) worship were still more prevalent than Buddhism. Historically, Shin Arahan brought Buddhism to Thaton in 1049. King Anawratha attempted to abolish the Nat worship from Buddhism, but it was not successful. Finally, he added one Nat, Tha-gya-min (the king of Nats), regarded as the guardian god of Buddhism, replacing the former guardian Nat, Maha-giri, to make him a guard to all other 36 Nats and then declared the total number of Nats as 37. King Anawratha allowed peoples to worship Nats as subordinated gods to the Buddha on the platform inside Shwezigone Pagoda, which he built. According to Maung Htin Aung, a Burmese historian, Nat worship is part of the Buddhist faith and the Burmese want to worship “Nats” without ceasing to be good Buddhists. In Myanmar, Nat (spirit) worship is a common religion practiced by majority Buddhists as part and parcel of Buddhism. Nat worship is especially associated with mountains, rivers, trees, houses, heroes, and many other figures. Nat worship is the most effective form of popular religion in Myanmar, while other observers commented that the true religion is Buddhism and that Nat worship is a superstition with less influence over the lives of the people than the Buddha.
Thailand
Thailand is also a Theravada Buddhist country where the Buddhist tradition and ways of life and practice are similar in many ways to those of the Buddhist faith and practice in Myanmar. Historically, Hinduism had influenced Thai Buddhism very strongly in the past so that the Thai (also called Siam) Buddhist temples today have similar features of the Hindu gods in India. Hindu elements can also be found in the Thai Buddhist festivals and offerings being made to the statues of the Buddha. For example, the flowers being offered to the images of the Buddha also need to be bathed as in Hindu cults. Hindu Brahmin priests are still consulted in Thai Buddhist society for various purposes. Priests go around the city walls to scare away evil spirits, and guns are fired in the night for the same reason. Indian mythology such as the Ramayana also appears in art in the Buddhist temples. Finally, like other countries, the Thai people still practice Buddhism combined or along with the worship of spirits (Phis in Thai) like the worship of spirits (Nats) in Myanmar.
Cambodia and Laos
The Theravada form of Buddhism can be found in Cambodia and Laos. There are numerous Buddhist temples, monasteries, and fine images of the Buddha and other figures. Cambodia and Myanmar had, along their histories, great pyramid temples such as famous ruined temples at Angkor, and thousands of ruins of Buddhist pagodas in Bagan, Myanmar.
Islam in Indonesia
Indonesians were originally animists, Hindus, and Buddhists. Islam spread to Indonesia about the end of the thirteenth century through Arab Muslim traders who had already entered the country as early as the eighth century. Indonesia, whose dominant religion today is Islam, is the most populous Muslim country in Southeast Asia; it has a larger Muslim population than any other country in the world, with approximately 202.9 million identified as Muslim, that is, 88.2 percent of the country’s total population of 237 million. The majority of Indonesian Muslims adheres to the Sunni Muslim tradition mainly of the Shafi madhhad. Around one million are Shi’as who are concentrated around Jakarta.
Religions in the Philippines
The Philippines was first colonized by Spain in the late sixteenth century and later by the United States. During the colonial rules, the Catholic Christian missionaries arrived in the Philippines, making the country a predominantly Christian nation in East Asia, with approximately 92.5 percent of the population belonging to the Christian faith. Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion and the largest Christian denomination, with estimates of approximately 80 percent of the population belonging to this faith in the Philippines. The country has a significant Spanish Catholic tradition, and Spanish-style Catholicism is embedded in the culture, which was acquired from priests or friars. Islam reached the Philippines in the fourteenth century with the arrival of Muslim traders from the Persian Gulf, southern India, and their followers from several sultanate governments in maritime Southeast Asia. The Muslim population of the Philippines is estimated to be 5–9 percent, the majority of whom belong to Sunnites and other Muslims belong to a Shiite minority. Islam is the oldest recorded monotheistic religion in the Philippines. Islam’s predominance reached all the way to the shores of Manila Bay, home to several Muslim kingdoms. During the Spanish conquest, Islam declined rapidly as the predominant monotheistic faith in the Philippines as a result of the introduction of Roman Catholicism by Spanish missionaries. Only the southern Filipino tribes resisted Spanish rule and conversions to Roman Catholicism.
Samuel Ngun Ling
See also: Animism; Buddhism; Cambodia; Christianity; Colonialism; Contextualization; Hinduism; Indonesia; Interreligious Relations and Dialogue; Islam; Laos; Missionary Movements; Myanmar (Burma); Myth/Mythology; Philippines; Religious Conversions; Spirit Mediumship; Syncretism; Thailand.
Further Reading
Aung, Maung Htin. Folk Elements in Burmese Buddhism. Rangoon: Buddha Sasana Council, 1959.
Luce, Gordon H. Old Burma: Early Pagan. New York: J. J. Augustin Publisher, 1969.
Nigosian, S. A. World Faiths. 2nd ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
Parrinder, Geoffrey. Introduction to Asian Religions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Spiro, Melford E. Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and Its Burmese Vicissitudes 2nd expanded ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
Tun, Than. “Religion in Burma, AD 1000–1300.” Journal of Burma Research Society 42 (1959): 47.
POSTCOLONIAL THEORY
Postcolonial theory examines the implications and consequences of colonization on cultures and societies up to the present day. It endeavors to critically investigate claims to hegemonic knowledge and opposes the universalizing discursive power of Western rationality. As a committed intellectual project, postcolonial theory or postcolonialism dismantles the discursive construction of “the other” and strives for the recovery of subjugated and occluded ways of knowledge by focusing on the agency of marginalized societies, ethnic minorities, and subaltern subjects. Along with “class,” “race,” and “gender,” the term “postcolonial” has become a quintessentially political concept, most effectively theorized in literary studies, history, and political science. Postcolonial theory has evolved in two stages.
The first stage was the period of decolonization after the Second World War. Many intellectuals and radical anticolonial activists were deeply influenced by Marxist political theory and the notion of cultural revolution as a means of fighting the subjective effects of colonialism and neocolonialism. In this first stage of postcolonialism, the most prominent thinkers were Aimé Césaire (1913–2008), Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906–2001), Albert Memmi (1920), and Frantz Fanon (1925–1961). The latter, who was born in Martinique and worked as a psychiatrist in Algeria, combined Marxism and psychoanalysis in his influential book The Wretched of the Earth (1961).
The second stage of postcolonial theory started in 1978 with the seminal text Orientalism by the literary theorist Edward W. Said (1935–2003). In this work, Said scrutinizes the process by which the “Orient” was “invented” in European thinking. The Orient as such does not exist, Said argues, but was rather created by scholars, artists, writers, and politicians who naturalized various Orientalist stereotypes and conjectures. The underlying power relationship between the West and the oriental East is governed by interests (scholarly, geopolitical, aesthetic, etc.) and the will to understand, but also to manipulate and control. The colonial gaze on the exotic other, the downgrading of the other’s culture, and the assertion of its backwardness are both conditions—and effects—of colonial practices. Said demonstrated impressively the applicability of Michel Foucault’s discourse analysis and Jacques Derrida’s concept of deconstruction. As a result, Said’s Orientalism initiated a “postcolonial turn,” characterized by an orientation toward representation, culture and identity, textual criticism, discourse, and deconstruction.
Together with Said, Gayatri Chakaravorty Spivak (1942 in Calcutta) and Homi K. Bhabha (1949 in Mumbai) form the “Holy Trinity of colonial-discourse analysis,” as Robert Young coined it (Young 1995, 163). Gayatri Spivak is best known for her text, “Can the subaltern speak?” (Spivak 1985). Spivak focuses on nonelite groups in India who are less visible to colonial and Third World national-bourgeois historiography (such as subsistence farmers, unorganized peasant-labor, or tribals). In particular, she directs her analytical attention to the subject-position of the female subaltern, who is doubly vulnerable: economically exploited by the imperialist economy, and forcibly suppressed by the patriarchal system.
The colonial impact on individual and collective identities is a central concern for postcolonial theory and led to the development of key concepts such as hybridity, creolisation, mestizaje, in-betweeness, diasporas, and liminality. Of these concepts, Homi Bhabha’s “hybridity” has been the most influential and controversial (e.g., Bhabha 1994). Referring to Fanon and post-Freudian psychoanalytical theory, Bhabha insists that hybridity and liminality are necessary attributes of colonialism. Thus, colonial identities are always unstable and in constant flux. Practices of creolization and syncretism are reevaluated in Bhabha’s work. Hybridity offers a countermodel to every dominant culture. Migrants, artists, and intellectuals are not passive (post)colonial subjects; rather, these subjects who move between cultures are able to use their multiple belongings in creative and productive ways. It is within the “Third Space of enunciation,” a contradictory and ambivalent in-between, where cultural identity always and everywhere emerges (Bhabha 1994, 3, 37).
From the beginning, postcolonial studies and its side branch, subaltern studies, were largely shaped by South Asian intellectuals. Later, Latin American and African academics as well as British scholars with a migrant background contributed significantly to postcolonial theory.
Southeast Asia, although a region deeply affected by colonialism, is lesser known for an academic milieu or outstanding academics with a distinct postcolonial theoretical profile. A striking exception is the Malaysian politician, public intellectual, and sociologist Syed Hussein Alatas (1928–2007). In his Myth of the Lazy Native, published in 1977 prior to Said’s Orientalism, he analyzes the colonial construction of the image of the indolent, backward, and treacherous native and the use of this image as a moral pretext for the justification of the colonizer’s civilizing mission. Syed Farid Alatas, son of Syed Hussein Alatas, offers a stimulating contribution to postcolonial critique of hegemonic knowledge production in his book Alternative Discourses in Asian Social Sciences (2006).
Despite such contributions to postcolonial theory by native scholars in the region, Southeast Asia is largely absent in introductory textbooks and anthologies of postcolonial studies. This observation led the editors of the influential journal Postcolonial Studies to publish a volume on “Southeast Asia’s Absence in Postcolonial Studies.” Chua Beng Huat identifies the main reasons for this negligence as the “hot” Cold War in Southeast Asia and the dominance of the English language in postcolonial studies (Chua Beng Huat 2008). A telling example for a rather unknown Southeast Asian postcolonial approach is the Filipino intellectual movement Pantayong Pananaw (PP). The “for-us-from-us” approach is motivated by the ambition of “indigenizing” the historiography of the nation. It is assumed that there is a unique holistic Filipino culture enshrouded and expressed in a language, yet made invisible by the hegemonic knowledge production of the colonizers. Therefore, the use of Filipino language in the narration of Filipino history is indispensable, even though it risks intellectual isolation.
In Southeast Asian studies, postcolonial approaches influenced by continental philosophy (e.g. Foucault, Derrida) and referring to concepts such as mimicry, hybridity, agency, marginality, the subaltern, and the like became increasingly known in the 1990s. The Thai scholar Thongchai Winichakul outlines how notions of national identity were discursively constructed in the nineteenth century when the kingdom of Siam developed its internal colonialism. The “geo-body” of Siam was shaped by the adoption of modern mapping techniques imported by the Europeans. These techniques involved new conceptions of geography and boundary demarcations and were at once adopted by the Siamese rulers who imposed them on previously borderless, uncategorized, or differently categorized regions, peoples, and spaces (Winichakul 1994). Further studies exploring traces of the colonial in Thailand—the “never colonized” nation in Southeast Asia—are compiled in a volume edited by Rachel V. Harrison and Peter A. Jackson (2010). In the book, postcolonial theory is explicitly used to reflect on Thailand as a semicolonial nation. The relationship to power is as ambiguous (Jackson, in Harrison and Jackson 2010) as the relation toward foreigners, a phenomenon Pattana Kitiarsa labeled Siamese Occidentalism (Kitiarsa, in Harrison and Jackson 2010). Michael Herzfeld identifies Thai crypto-colonialism and its dilemmas (Herzfeld, in Harrison and Jackson 2010), while Rachel V. Harrison (in Harrison and/Jackson 2010) analyzes the making of Thai Identities by (en)countering the West in films, and Thanes Wongyamnva outlines the Thai appropriation of Foucault’s “Discourse” (Wongyamnva, in Harrison and Jackson 2010).
Studies in which postcolonial theory is empirically tested, written mostly by U.S. scholars, are also noteworthy. In her multiple-award-winning book In the Realm of the Diamond Queen (1993), anthropologist Anna Tsing discusses the cultural and political construction of marginality and the protest against marginalizing discourses amongst the Meratus Dayak of Indonesia. Laurie Sears (1996) and Suzanne Brenner (1998) research issues of modernity, desire, and the feminine in Indonesia through postcolonial theory. Sears shows how indigenous patriarchal fantasies of feminine behavior and Dutch colonial notions of proper wives are merged in the attempts to maintain control over images and actions of women. In her study on a merchant enclave in Solo (Java), Brenner portrays women and their power in the marketplace and the home. Her thorough analysis of mostly elite/colonial co-constructed discourses of status and hierarchy, “tradition” and “progressive modernity”, and the role of gender within such discourses contributes to and confounds modernization theory.
Religion, in comparison with gender, race, power, or identity, never took center stage in postcolonial theory and remains a “blind spot.” Accordingly, studies on religion in Southeast Asia from a decidedly postcolonial perspective are rare. The works of Reynaldo C. Ileto (1979) and Vicente Rafael (1988) are noteworthy exceptions. Both focus on Iberian Catholicism and the historical processes of its appropriation and reconfiguration in the Philippines. In his Pasyon and Revolution, Ileto shows how the “colonizer’s gift,” namely the Christian passion story, became the “grammar of dissent” during the nineteenth century’s anticolonial upheavals. The passion narrative effectively functioned both as a colonial tool and, in special circumstances, as a language of liberation. By decoding the unfamiliar worldview behind the peasant unrest, he reveals various dynamics of popular Christianity, especially its revolutionary potential in the realm of politics, and furthermore, recalls a century’s long tradition of anticolonial resistance of essentially religiously motivated revolts across Southeast Asia. In his work, Rafael scrutinizes the missionaries’ attempts to convert Manila’s populace to Christianity during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the converts’ reactions. Central to his attempt to reconstruct the conversion process as power negotiations are the analytical categories “localization” and “translation.” Under such a perspective, conversion can be regarded as a debt transaction with the Spaniards and their God. He argues that while the natives did submit, they concomitantly hollowed out the colonizers’ call to submission. It was the cultural and linguistic operation of translation that enabled the converts to evade the totalizing grip of the Christian religion “by repeatedly marking the differences between their language and interests and those of the Spaniards” (Rafael 1988, 211). In Thailand, it has primarily been Pattana Kitiarsa (1968–2013) who took inspiration and analytical strength from postcolonial theory. Kitiarsa (2005, 2012) applies Mikhail Bakhtin’s and Homi Bhabha’s versions of hybridity to frame and understand Thai popular religion (e.g., spirit-medium cults, millennial Buddhism, magic monks, Indian gods, and Chinese deities). In his work, Kitiarsa demonstrates that “hybridity” is a powerful conceptual tool far more suited to the analysis of contemporary religious transformation in Thailand than “syncretism.”
Peter J. Braeunlein
See also: Alatas, Syed Hussein; Buddhism; Christianity; Colonialism; Communism; Contextualization; Ethnicity; Ileto, Reynaldo C.; Indonesia; Minorities; Missionary movements; Orientalism; Philippines; Popular Religion; Religious conversions; Sexuality; Study of Religion; Thailand; Women.
Further Reading
Alatas, Syed Hussein. The Myth of the Lazy Native: A Study of the Image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th Century and Its Function in the Ideology of Colonial Capitalism. London: Frank Cass & Co., 1977.
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.
Brenner, Suzanne. The Domestication of Desire: Women, Wealth, and Modernity in Java. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Chua Beng Huat. “Southeast Asia in Postcolonial Studies: An Introduction.” Postcolonial Studies 11, no. 3 (2008): 231–40.
Harrison, Rachel V., and Peter A, Jackson, eds. The Ambiguous Allure of the West: Traces of the Colonial in Thailand. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010.
Ileto, Reynaldo C. Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1979.
Kitiarsa, Pattana. “Beyond Syncretism: Hybridization of Popular Religion in Contemporary Thailand.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 36, no. 3 (2005): 461–87.
Kitiarsa, Pattana. Mediums, Monks, and Amulets: Thai Popular Buddhism Today. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Press, 2012.
Rafael, Vicente. Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule. Manila: Ateneo de Manila Univ. Press, 1988.
Sears, Laurie. Fantasizing the Feminine in Indonesia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press; 1996.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakaravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak? Speculations on Widow Sacrifice.” Wedge 7/8 (Winter–Spring 1985): 120–30.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: Marginality in an Out-of-Way Place. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Winichakul, Thongchai. Siam Mapped: A History of the Geobody of the Nation. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994.
Young, Robert J. C. Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race. London: Routledge, 1995.
PUPPETRY
Perhaps there is no area of the world with the possible exception of South Asia that compares with Southeast Asia in the variety of dance and theatrical forms, as well as the number of performing troupes. Not only in the traditional royal court cities are to be found the conventional arts of dance, music, drama, and puppetry that have been cultivated for a thousand or more years, but also in the newer urban centers and in innumerable provincial towns and cities, to say nothing of the peripatetic troupes of actors, dancers, puppeteers, and singers who move from village to village in the rural areas.
In much of the world, dance, drama, and music are typically discrete arts, whereas throughout Southeast Asia, dance, drama, mime, music, song, and narrative are amalgamated into composite forms, frequently using masks or puppets. The viewer’s senses, emotions, and intellect are assaulted concurrently with color, movement, and sound, giving rise to a marvelous fullness and intensity that is absent in much of the performing arts in the West.
While Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and other Southeast Asian countries have their own puppets, the best known of the Southeast Asian puppet traditions is the shadow puppetry known as wayang, or the Indonesian and Malay traditions. Wayang is a generic Javanese term denoting traditional “theater” and/or “puppet.”
Using opaque, often articulated forms in front of bright backdrop to create an illusion of shifting, “shadow puppetry” is an antique form of storytelling and amusement. Employing a stencil figure held between a source of illumination and a luminous backdrop, a variety of effects can be created by moving both the puppet and the light source, which enables a talented puppeteer to make figures walk, dance, struggle, and laugh.
The origins of shadow puppetry are unclear, whether native to Java or imported from India. However, the wayang kulit system of a sacred puppeteer, or dalang, who is accompanied by the percussive yet fluid music of a gamelan orchestra while he moves intricately constructed leather figures before an oil lamp casting trembling silhouettes on a luminous screen as he intones mythic narrative in ancient sanskritized indigenous languages, seems to have been invented in Indonesian tradition. Unlike the royal court art traditions, wayang kulit is a centuries-old folk tradition and is today Southeast Asia’s most durable traditional theater configuration.
As much a rite as a drama, the action is set in mythical time, some performed at animistic events invoking local spirits, others staging events from the Hindu epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, while the preponderance are basically creations of Java in which the five Pandawa brothers from the Mahabharata are situated in a variety of situations. Stories from Arab and other indigenous traditions also provide dramatic material. The presence of god-clown-servant figures and a gang of ogres insinuate popular mythical traditions significantly separated from more classical traditions Performances are also commissioned, such as offertory plays for the harvest, or animistic exorcisms to protect children from being harmed by Kala, the guardian deity of the underworld.
For the spectator to experience the symbolism of a wayang play is vicariously to struggle through the life cycle and to undergo mystical exercises. To this end, meditations and treatises on the plays have been composed that explicate their meaning in relation to local philosophies and theologies, as well as those of the world’s religions.
The puppetry traditions of Southeast Asia have been an integral part of Southeast Asian experience for perhaps a thousand years, and they continue to be so, influencing the political and secular as well as the religious life of the region. Performances abound, not only in palaces and schools, but also in community life—at wedding and village festivals, amid the laughter of children and the gossip and meditative conversation of their elders.
David C. Scott
See also: Cambodia; Contextualization; Dance and Drama (Theatre); Hinduism; Indonesia; Laos; Malaysia; Music; Myth/Mythology; Religion and Society; Ritual Dynamics; Thailand.
Further Reading
Osnes, Beth. The Shadow Puppet Theatre of Malaysia. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2010.
“Puppetry in Asian Cultures.” The Roman World, September 11, 2007. http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/974780 (accessed May 12, 2014).
Van Ness, Edward C., and Prawirohardjo. Javanese Wayang Kulit: An Introduction. London: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Walujo, K. W. Wayang Kulit as a Medium of Communication. Surabaya, Indonesia: Department of Communication, Dr. Soetomo University, 1995.
Wolters, O. W. History, Culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives, Rev. ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program in collaboration with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1999.