I write in my capacity as newly appointed book review editor for the Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Studies Group and New Mandala. I am grateful to Justin McDaniel and Andrew Walker for both conceiving of an ambitious effort to commission and make available on-line reviews of new scholarship on Mainland Southeast Asia and for offering me the chance to work with them in this effort. I am looking forward very much to the opportunity to work with many others of you in realizing Justin’s and Andrew’s fine idea and in creating a dynamic forum for reviews that will enrich the study of Burma/Myanmar, Thailand, Southwest China, Northeast India, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

This message has two purposes.

The first is to outline in general terms some practical matters. When, in September, Justin and Andrew announced their plans, they suggested that original reviews would simultaneously go out through the TLC list and be posted on New Mandala roughly every fortnight. My goal, then, is to run some 20-25 reviews a year. Ideally, reviews ought to be between 800 and 1800 words in length, though exceptions for reviews of more than one title will be possible. My hope is that reviewers will be able to “turn around” their reviews within five or six weeks of receipt of the title to be reviewed. Editing of reviews will be light, and final versions will be confirmed with reviewers. Less practically, my hope is that TLC/NM book reviews will reflect a spirit not so much of “gotcha” criticism for criticism’s sake but rather of highlighting and introducing some of the fundamental, important questions, themes, and approaches in the study of Mainland Southeast Asia and its constituent parts. We have a unique opportunity here to bring to the study of the Southeast Asian mainland a rigorous interest in a set of common concerns of the sort that long marked the study of Maritime Southeast Asia. That opportunity also includes introducing students to the field, in the hope that this introduction will lead to their joining us as colleagues before long.

The second purpose of this message is in many ways the more important one, at least for now. Justin, Andrew, and I would like to create a roster of fellow scholars of Mainland Southeast Asia. I ask interested prospective reviewers then to e-mail me in the weeks ahead with a few lines of the areas in which they would like to review books and with their postal addresses. Andrew will soon create a section of the NM site listing books available for review. Interested reviewers will then be able to contact me to arrange mailing of titles to be reviewed. Justin has had great success in the past commissioning book reviews from a well developed roster of reviewers. So we are eager to begin assembling our own such roster as soon as possible. As scholars who have focused in our work primarily on Thailand (and Laos), we are also particularly eager for the help and participation of colleagues in the worlds of Burmese and Vietnamese studies; do forgive the cross-posting of today’s message, then.

As time passes, we will doubtless encounter wrinkles in the way that we commission and edit reviews and indeed get books into the hands of reviewers. This endeavor is, that is, a work in progress in not only intellectual but also logistical terms. But, with Justin and Andrew, I look forward very much to working with many of you in seeing that this endeavor live up to its great potential to have a substantial impact on the way in which Mainland Southeast Asia is understood and studied.

For now, with thanks and kind regards,

Mike Montesano
(michael.montesano@gmail.com)
ISEAS, Singapore

The SEA Games seem also to be sparking controversy in Laos itself and among the Lao diaspora. In the past week or so, Radio Free Asia  has picked up on reports that Lao authorities stopped a convoy of 150 people heading to Vientiane to ’stage a pro-democracy protest’ at the Patuxay monument, detaining nine of the group. The government denied the reports saying ‘people with bad intentions’ want to ‘tarnish the reputation and destroy the image of the Lao PDR’ on the eve of National Day (Dec 2nd) and the SEA Games. Meanwhile, the ‘protesters’ said they only ‘wanted help’ from the government.

But this is just the tip of the online iceberg. A stream of press releases from sites like Online PR News and Media Newswire have suggested more than 1000 ‘dissidents’ and ‘ordinary citizens urging peaceful reform’ have been arrested. Because it is Laos, it is impossible to verify any of these reports and nothing has made it through to the mainstream media. Also, the press releases seem to have been produced by – or at least with the cooperation of – anti-government groups working outside the country, which refer to the ‘November 2nd 2009 protest’ as a ten-year commemoration of student protests in October 1999

It is not unexpected that an event like the SEA Games, with the foreign attention it brings, would spark protests. But in Laos organised public demonstrations are rare and even less commonly heard about.

In the 1990s, China reportedly established a signals intelligence base on Great Coco Island, though it was never confirmed. And now, Burma’s tourism authorities intend to open the islands up to foreign and domestic tour groups with the first ferry of tourists due to sail on Friday…A return ticket price for the first tour has been quoted at 25,000 kyat (US $25) although the price is expected to be much higher for foreign tourists. Travel agencies in Rangoon expect the tours to be popular though little is known about any facilities on the islands.

- Extracted from Wai Moe, “Coco Islands to Open for Tourism”, The Irrawaddy, 19 November 2009. Thanks to a long-time New Mandala reader for pointing out this tourism opportunity.

Malaysia’s economic performance has never averaged 9 per cent over the course of a decade, even in the best of times, and has been on the downtrend since the East Asian Financial Crisis of 1997/98. Average growth was around 6.7 per cent in the 60s; 7.7 per cent in the 70s; 5.9 per cent in the 80s; 7.3 per cent in 90s and 5.2 per cent for the period 2000 – 2006 (Yusuf & Nabeshima, 2009). It is therefore unrealistic given the current global economic situation and, more importantly, Malaysia’s weakening economic fundamentals that it would achieve even 5 per cent GDP growth. The Economist Intelligence Unit (Sept 15, 2009) projects that Malaysia’s GDP is expected to grow at an annual average of 4.6 per cent in 2011-2020. The World Bank’s most recent assessment for Malaysia, which was more hopeful, notes that the Malaysian economy is projected to grow at 4.1 per cent in 2010. In the medium term (2011-2012) growth is projected at around 6 per cent conditional on the country undertaking structural reforms. Herein lies Malaysia’s challenge.

Since 1991, Vision 2020 – Mahathir’s vision to transform Malaysia into a developed economy – has been Malaysia’s long term objective. There is consensus that his target will not be met as the required structural reforms were not taken. Malaysia is still a highly protected economy – especially in the services and resources sectors with a perverse economic model that benefits a particular class of people within the ruling political party. This has severely curtailed efficiency and dampened economic growth.

Najib Razak was forced to introduce a new vision – to move Malaysia into the category of high income economies – to maintain political legitimacy for the ruling party.  To achieve this target, Malaysia would need to double its current per capita income of US7, 990 to US15, 000 by 2020. This would require restructuring the Malaysian economy; a job that would naturally impact on the Malaysian political and social situation. Najib himself has admitted that this is a Herculean task. This may explain why his administration has not been able to provide a policy document or a coherent argument on what the required structural adjustments are and how they will be implemented. Najib has so far made ad hoc announcements of liberalisation measures: some genuine, others smoke-screens and some even overturned in the face of political pressure.

Structural adjustments will involve the dislocation of certain groups, industries or sectors. The welfare of some people will definitely be affected. However, if the nation benefits as a whole, the groups that are dislocated will be compensated and the nation will be better off as a whole.  This is the central problem in Najib’s efforts to secure its economic future by improving competitiveness through liberalisation – an inability to define the “national interest”. Over the years, the increasing strength of the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) had defined the “national interest” as ensuring the welfare of the community aligned to the ruling party. They are predominantly but not exclusively Malay elites (UMNOputras) who have benefited tremendously from affirmative action policies. While the policy has been applauded in general for maintaining stability, it has clearly come at the expense of the nation as a whole.

For Malaysia to become a high income economy, the World Bank’s recommendations were that the Malaysian economy specialise further, improve workforce skills, make growth more inclusive, and bolster public finance. This obviously requires that “national interest” be defined broadly – to include all Malaysians and reverse policies that benefit a select few. Therefore, Malaysia’s economic future ultimately lies in Najib’s ability to put the interest of Malaysians ahead of the supporters of his political party or for Malaysians to vote in an alternative Prime Minister who would do just that.

Greg Lopez is a postgraduate student at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University.

On Sunday, the PAD held a rally on Sanam Luang in Bangkok, showing loyalty to nation and monarchy. This event was attended by about 35,000 people, mostly dressed in colors with royal affiliation. The main tone of the rally was rousing patriotism. National flags dominated the visual scene. Retired General Preecha Iamsuphan gave a fanatical speech calling for a war against Cambodia. Both Thaksin and Hun Sen were attacked on the stage. The crowd was asked, for the foreign media, to recite in English: “We Love The King! We Love Thailand!” Often the foreign media was mentioned on the stage. The event would be seen all over the world.

When Sonthi Limthongkul came on the stage, he talked mostly about protecting the monarchy and how, if the PAD would not have fought for the monarchy last year, nothing might have been left over. In the middle of his speech suddenly a loud blast occurred, maybe 150 meters behind the stage. I saw a small column of smoke rising just opposite from Wat Pra Keow, and rushed to the scene. A few lightly injured people were there, and soon rescue workers arrived. One of the injured was a small boy, about 10 years old, with a puncture wound from shrapnel in his upper leg. Another was a PAD guard. I saw two more injured. Altogether 15 injured were reported. A small melee happened when enraged PAD protesters attacked a young man who was arrested, but was most likely not involved.

The rally closed about 10.30 in the evening, when the Royal anthem was sung while protesters held candles.

[Click on the images for larger versions. Hover on images for captions.]

Saturday Red

Sunday Yellow

It has come to our attention that their is still continuing debate around the issue of the French Culture Minister,

Frédéric Mitterrand, and his admission that he paid for sex with male sex workers in Thailand. We have seen attacks on him from both the left and the right of French politics- attacks which we see as both homophobic and anti-sex worker.

Worse we see the racist, orientalist views of the elites on both sides of French politics who construct Thai sex workers as somehow “backward” and unable to choose what we do. In Thailand all male sex workers are referred to by the term “Nong” which means boy. We are not duped under age boys forced into “sexual slavery.” We are people in a poor country exercising our choices to live and earn money to support ourselves, our family and our country.

The money we earn and send home to the rural areas of Thailand is far larger than any international development programme and supports far more people.

Tourism to Thailand is our country’s second biggest industry- and people have sex on holidays. Are they meant to be celibate? Is it now unacceptable for Europeans to have sex with Asians in case they are exploiting us? If French politicians are so concerned about our exploitation they would do better to support labour laws for sex workers and to push the ILO to recognise sex work as work.

When and until the parties of the Left and the Right of French politics agree to substantially increase development aid to redistribute the wealth that France and other former colonial countries stole from the developing world, we would appreciate it if you keep sending us your tourists so that we can show them a good time and get some of your hard won cash.

Elizabeth Fitzgerald

The video was taken by Anne Murat, who is co-filmmaker on the the documentary Rangoon Cocoon.

Thanks to a regular reader for the tip.

Leading the way is Malaysiakini – Malaysia’s pioneer online news portal. It states that its editorial position, “…is consistently supportive of justice, human rights, democracy, freedom of speech and good governance.”

Malaysiakini’s pioneering efforts have encouraged other like minded citizens to set-up online media as a medium to allow Malaysians to discuss Malaysia’s future. Here is a list of some of them:

The Nutgraph with the tag line “Making sense of politics and pop culture” has a wider scope, addressing issues beyond politics. It provides an avenue to highlight the positive aspects of Malaysian society including arts and culture. Columns such as “Found in Malaysia” focus on Malaysians who exemplify the best in Malaysian society.

The Malaysian Mirror introduces itself as “…founded by a group of veteran journalists from Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak. Our investors comprise entrepreneurs, professionals from various disciplines, including journalists and politicians from both sides of the political divide. We are an independent entity and shall endeavour to report without fear or favour because the citizenry deserves to know the truth…”

The Malaysian Insider is another online news portal fast gaining popularity. Operated by individuals with corporate background, their objective is to “…create an Internet newspaper which offers an unvarnished take on events and personalities in Malaysia.” The online media also hopes “…that in time more Malaysians who crave for balanced and serious reporting on issues will contribute their news and views to us. We believe that with transparency, promotion of good character and professionalism, we will contribute towards building a country that has the USP (U-unity, S-security and P-prosperity) to be transformed into a great nation…”

It is hoped that this and many other attempts to reverse institutionalized racism by civil society in Malaysia will ultimately bear fruits. Preferably sooner rather than later.