The Federal Constitution of Malaysia states that Islam is the religion of the Federation. This provision in Article 3(1), inserted in 1957 when the independence constitution was framed, has drawn considerable scholarly attention in recent years. Most of the studies, however, have not been able to consult the primary constitutional documents. Invariably, many have given varied and ambiguous interpretations of the provision. This article examines the primary constitutional documents and constitutional debates between 1956 and 1957 to trace the origin of Article 3(1) and to determine the intentions of the framers in inserting this provision in the constitution.

Malayan economic development in modern times can be split into three broad phases:

(1) establishment and vigorous growth of the staple industries (tin and rubber) — roughly from the middle of the nineteenth century to 1914;

(2) fluctuations of staple fortunes — the period between the two world wars;

(3) consolidation and rationalization of the staple industries together with diversification of the economy — post 1945.

One of the most influential ideas in Southeast Asian history in recent decades has been Anthony Reid's Age of Commerce thesis, which sees a commercial boom and the emergence of port cities as hubs of commerce over the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, which in turn spurred political, social and economic changes throughout the region. But how new were the changes described in Reid's Age of Commerce? This paper argues that the four centuries from circa 900 to 1300 CE can be seen as an ‘Early Age of Commerce’ in Southeast Asia. During this period, a number of commercial and financial changes in China, South Asia, the Middle East and within the Southeast Asian region, greatly promoted maritime trade, which induced the emergence of new ports and urban centres, the movement of administrative capitals toward the coast, population expansion, increased maritime links between societies, the expansion of Theravada Buddhism and Islam, increased monetisation, new industries, new forms of consumption and new mercantile organisations. It is thus proposed that the period from 900 to 1300 be considered the Early Age of Commerce in Southeast Asian history.

This paper compares the trajectories over the last two decades of two export-oriented ‘boom crops’ in Southeast Asia: industrial shrimp aquaculture and industrial plantation forestry. It focuses on differences in the establishment, operation and politics of these sectors to explain why they have experienced very different kinds of ‘booms’.

This article addresses the historiography of the Malayan Emergency (1948–60). It does so by challenging two archetypal works on the conflict: those of Anthony Short and Richard Stubbs. These argue the Emergency was locked in stalemate as late as 1951. By then, a “population control” approach had been implemented — the so-called Briggs Plan for resettling 500,000 Chinese squatters. The predominantly Chinese nature of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) had also ensured that most Malays — who constituted nearly half the 1950 population of five million — opposed the revolt. The several thousand strong Communist-led guerrillas thus laboured under severe limitations.

In the spring of 1954, Vietnamese revolutionaries launched a decisive assault against French colonial troops in the mountain valley of Dien Bien Phu. The military defeat of France, crystalized in the surrender of French troops in May 1954, was the single most crucial event in the collapse of colonial power. In military terms, France had unambiguously yielded to the strategic brilliance and soldierly élan of the Vietnamese, but culturally and intellectually, the empire was not so easily dispatched. Though it was decisive, the military victory alone could not resolve the problems caused by colonial domination. Rather, it created the possibility for Vietnamese to recover from the experience of colonization. Thus, in June, only a month after the French surrender, revolutionary scholars began a new offensive — an intellectual assault — against the most basic assumptions and conclusions of the colonial presence by sending forth a cascade of histories, a rush of ethnographic works, and waves of folkloric studies. In unintended ways, however, the sheer energy of their response also underscored the great difficulty of their endeavor.

Maritime Southeast Asia is one of those parts of the world destined by geography to be an international marketplace. Not only is it the largest of the world's archipelagos, penetrated throughout by sea and river, it also lies athwart one of the major international trading routes, between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean on the one hand and China and Japan on the other. These factors have always given to maritime Southeast Asia a role akin to the Mediterranean world, in which sea-borne trade was the vital factor in urban growth and in political power. In addition, however, Southeast Asia was the principal source of the items in greatest demand in the world's markets in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries — pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and camphor.

This paper lies at the intersection of the considerable scholarly literatures on household livelihood strategies and on the role of women in Southeast Asia. Focused ethnographically on rural Philippine households engaged primarily in various combinations of fishing and farming activities, and analytically on how gender relations figure in the decisions that the co-heads of these households make regarding their economic plans for the future, it considers how the livelihood diversification that characteristically accompanies rural development affects – and is in turn affected by – the conjugal relationship.

This paper combines historical with anthropological evidence on the relationship between Christianity and messianism among the Hmong of Southeast Asia and China. The lack of literacy is a motivating factor in Hmong Christian conversions. Messianism is seen as a reaction to Christian conversion, which encourages the alienation of minority groups.

This article takes the dominant view of a top-down Khmer political culture as its point of departure and explores the extent to which the last decade's political changes have altered the socio-political landscape and triggered the growth of agency in rural areas. In particular, the reform of democratic decentralisation and its integrated ‘soft’ values are scrutinised in fields such as views on local governance, popular discourse on decentralisation, rural NGO activity and the gendering of politics.

One of the most frequently made remarks concerning British colonialism, both in print and in informal settings, has been the British role in bringing “law and order” to the colonies. Although serious scholarship has successfully questioned this assertion for some areas of the world, particularly India, for Burma, very little has been done. The reasons for proposing that Britain brought law, and especially order to Burma seem to stem from at least two factors. First, the study of Burmese law in the West is at best in its infancy, despite recent efforts by Burmese historians. Second, and more importantly, historians by and large have tended to ignore Burmese criteria for defining order, and have therefore misinterpreted as simple lawlessness what were on many important occasions traditional forms of expressing dissent and symptoms of social dysfunction, as well as cultural and psychological ambivalence of identity, especially amongst certain new classes created by colonialism itself. Thus what often appeared on the surface as order after so-called “pacification” and in general throughout the colonial period is an incomplete picture, for it was almost certainly as well, if not more so, the political, military, and psychological inability of the Burmese to present a united front against a technologically superior power. But because the entire colonial period cannot be dealt with here—although I suspect it would only further support the major thesis of this essay—and because the British concept of “pacification” (and as a result the literature on the subject) had established the intellectual framework and parameters for evaluating the subsequent colonial and post-independence periods, I feel it is adequate to have centered my arguments around the so-called period of “pacification” only. I intend to approach this topic by first describing briefly what we might call indigenous methods of pacification, contrast it to the general pacification policies and methods pursued by the British, observe the significance of the differences, and then conclude by showing how the coup of 1962 could be interpreted more as a resurrection than a true revolution.

this article examines the recent debate on the position of syari'ah in indonesian constitutional amendments (1999–2002). the article operates at two levels: a historical review of the debate on islam and state in indonesia and a theoretical effort to situate the indonesian debate in the broader context of debates over islam and constitutions. it argues that the rejection of the proposed amendment to article 29, dealing with islam, has shown that indonesian islam follows the substantive approach of syari'ah, not the formal one.

Historical studies in Thailand have been closely related to the formation of the nation since the late nineteenth century, and until recently the pattern of the past in this elitist craft changed but little. It presented a royal/national chronicle, a historiography modern in character but based upon traditional perceptions of the past and traditional materials. It was a collection of stories by and for the national elite celebrating their successful mission of building and protecting the country despite great difficulties, and promising a prosperous future. The plot and meaning of this melodramatic past have become a paradigm of historical discourse, making history an ideological weapon and a source of legitimation of the state.

This article presents a chronology of the growth of the concept of Indigeneity in Thailand, analysing the particular ways in which the global Indigenous movement has taken root in the country. In Thailand, transnational support networks and the opening of political associational space played key roles in facilitating the growth of, first, a regional, and later a national Indigenous movement during the 1980s and early 2000s, respectively. Indigenous Peoples in Thailand are asserting their identity by drawing on a new concept of Indigeneity being promoted by the United Nations and other international advocacy organisations that identifies them not only as first peoples, but crucially as colonised or oppressed peoples. Indigenous Peoples in Thailand are further asserting both their cultural distinctiveness and their compatibility with the Thai nation. The Indigenous movement in Thailand differs from movements in Australia, Canada, and the United States where Indigenous Peoples must perform their cultural distinctiveness to maintain political recognition, and in turn are accused of being not different enough when exercising their rights. In Thailand, rather, Indigenous Peoples are accused of being not Thai enough in their efforts to push for any political recognition. While the Thai government denies the relevance of the concept of Indigeneity to Thailand, it is clear that the Indigenous movement in Thailand has grown since the early 2000s. In fact, state policies between the 1950s and early 2000s contributed toward the scaling-up of a pan-Hill tribe identity among the core groups associated with the movement.

Drawing on fieldwork in the central plains of Thailand, the paper traces the transformation of the study villages from agricultural communities, to divided and often fractious dormitory settlements. Agriculture has been largely squeezed out of the local economy and local livelihoods by a raft of economic, environmental and social changes. At the same time, the rural spaces of Thailand have been infiltrated by a range of non-agricultural activities – in this instance, reflected in the arrival of an industrial park – and villagers as well as migrant sojourners from other parts of Thailand have taken up these new opportunities in the non-farm economy. The net result of these processes of agrarian transformation has been that the village, as a community, a unit of production, a site of identity, and a place with a common history, is evaporating.

Our knowledge is still insufficient to allow us to assess the overall significance of the mestizo in Philippine history. But on the basis of what we now know we can make some generalizations and some hypotheses for future study. It is clear, in the first place, that the activities I have described are those of Chinese mestizos – not Spanish mestizos. While the Chinese mestizo population in the Philippines exceeded 200,000 by the late nineteenth century, the Spanish mestizo population was probably never more than 35,000. Furthermore, those who commented at all on the Spanish mestizo noted that he was interested in military matters or the “practical arts” – never in commerce. The aptitudes and attitudes of the Chinese mestizo were in sharp contrast to this.

Secondly, the Chinese mestizo rose to prominence between 1741 and 1898, primarily as a landholder and a middleman wholesaler of local produce and foreign imports, although there were also mestizos in the professions. The rise of the mestizos implies the existence of social change during the Spanish period, a condition that has been ignored or implicitly denied by many who have written about the Philippines. It needs to be emphasized that the mestizo impact was greatest in Central Luzon, Cebu, and Iloilo. We cannot as yet generalize about other areas.

Third, the renewal of Chinese immigration to the Philippines resulted in diversion of mestizo energies away from commerce, so that the mestizos lost their change to become a native middle class, a position then taken over by the Chinese.

Fourth, the Chinese mestizos in the Philippines possessed a unique combination of cultural characteristics. Lovers of ostentation, ardent devotees of Spanish Catholicism – they seemed almost more Spanish than the Spanish, more Catholic than the Catholics. Yet with those characteristics they combined a financial acumen that seemed out of place. Rejecters of their Chinese heritage, they were not completely at home with their indio heritage. The nearest approximation to them was the urbanized, heavily-hispanized indio. Only when hispanization had reached a high level in the nineteenth century urban areas could the mestizo find a basis of rapport with the indio. Thus, during the late nineteenth century, because of cultural, economic, and social changes, the mestizos increasingly identified themselves with the indios. in a new kind of “Filipino” cultural and national consensus.

Those are my conclusions. Here are some hypotheses, which I hope will stimulate further study:

1. That today's Filipino elite is made up mostly of the descendants of indios and mestizos who rose to prominence on the basis of commercial agriculture in the lattetf part of the Spanish period. That in some respects the latter part of the Spanish period was a time of greater social change, in terms of the formation of contemporary Philippine society, than the period since 1898 has been.

2. That in the process of social change late in the Spanish period it was the mestizo, as a marginal element, not closely tied to a village or town, who acted as a kind of catalytic agent. In this would be included the penetration of money economy into parts of the Philippines. There were areas where the only persons with money were the provincial governors and the mestizos.

3. That the Chinese mestizo was an active agent of hispanization and the leading force in creating a Filipino culture characteristic now of Manila and the larger towns.

4. That much of the background explanation of the Philippine Revolution may be found by investigating the relationships between landowning religious orders, mestizo inquilinos, and indio kasamahan laborers.

It is my hope that these hypotheses may stimulate investigation into this important topic which can tell us so much about economic, social, and cultural change during- the Spanish period of Philippine history.

The seizure of the Sta. Catarina took place off the east coast of Singapore in 1603 and was popularised by the Dutch lawyer and humanist Hugo Grotius. Based on Dutch and Portuguese sources, the article revisits the incident to critique Grotius' account and provide a snapshot of Portuguese trade and diplomacy in Asia at the time.

Most models that explain the development of agricultural systems suggest evolutionary relationships between extensive (e.g. swidden cultivation) and intensive (e.g. wet-rice cultivation) forms of production. Recent information from highland Southeast Asian farming systems questions the validity of this assumption. As a case in point, this article presents the results of a combined ethnographic study and spatial analysis of the Ifugao agricultural system in the northern Philippines, focusing in particular on the relationships among intensive rice terracing, swidden farming and agroforestry (Ifugao forest management). Informed by the Ifugao example, this article suggests that extensive and intensive systems are often concurrent and compatible components of a broad-spectrum lifeway.

This article explores ‘ancestor worship’ from the viewpoint of villagers in the Red River Delta, as a meaningful practice reverberating across spiritual, social and moral realms. I describe two cases of what is locally termed ‘remembering the moral debt to our grandparents’. The first case involves the personal interactions of an older unmarried woman with her deceased parents, while the second focuses on the re-incorporation of a prominent local lineage organisation. I then analyse how war, revolution and reform have shaped the way villagers ‘remember the debt’ at home and in lineage halls.