Roxana Waterson and Kwok Kian-Woon, eds. Contestations of Memory in Southeast Asia. Singapore: NUS Press, 2012, vi+300p.

Abstract

Contestations of Memory in Southeast Asia Roxana Waterson and Kwok Kian-Woon, eds. Singapore: NUS Press, 2012, vi+300p.Is memory a cul-de-sac?At long last, an anthology of case studies on social memory used the frame that defined memory studies in the 80s and 90s. At that time, when memory studies became popular, the literature were mainly concerned with invented traditions and the problem of nation-building (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992; Hutton 1991), memories of the Second World War in Europe, etc. (Adorno 1989; Bourget et al.1990; Olick and Robbins 1998; Climo and Cattell 2002). In this book, we can see the lineage of that earlier scholarship and how it is applied to the Southeast Asian region. Overall, the book is notable for its rich mix of talents and topics relating to the vicissitudes of how crucial his- torical events in the region are remembered by, inter alia, individuals, social groups, communities, and nations. Likewise, the book offers a wide diversity of empirical studies in an effort to elaborate the fusion between historically and geographically specific case studies with memory studies. The book is thus a significant contribution to the vast scholarship on memory.In approaching the study of memory in Southeast Asia, the book highlights tumultuous events of the last century, thereby anchoring the book to the larger themes that have characterized memory studies: trauma and identity. Specifically, the book highlights the tensions inherent in memory studies between psychological or individual and collective approaches, between the pop- ular and the official, between forgetting and remembering, and between dominant or suppressed narratives. The book is divided into three parts: the first offers a theoretical formulation of mem- ory studies and tries to link this with other disciplinary approaches to the study of memory such as history, sociology, anthropology, and politics. The next two parts are empirical studies dealing with the stories of nations, destinies, and identities (Part II) and those concerned with traumatic memories of select groups and specific historical events (Part III).Articles in Part I focus on memories of individuals and how they impact on national history and historiography. In Chapter 2 (Remembering Kings: Archives, Resistance and Memory in Colonial and Post-colonial Burma) British colonial administrators in Burma, in dealing with the Saya San Rebellion of 1931-32, framed the event as a revolt whereby Saya San (Teacher San), a monk who claimed supernatural powers and monarchical ambitions, incited naive (read pre- rational) peasants to revolt as a means to justify the state's suppression of dissenters. Instead, as author Maitrii Aung-Thwin shows, the rebellion was not about rallying peasants incapable of modern political discourse and restoring an abolished monarchy to prevent Burmese unity, but rather a result of the peasants' increasing economic marginalization brought about by onerous tax policies.Ong Keo, a member of the Nge ethnic minority and regarded as a national hero in the aftermath of the victory of the Lao revolutionary forces in 1975, is the central figure in Chapter 3 (Shifting Visions of the Past: Ethnic Minorities and the 'Struggle for National Independence' in Laos). Fighting the aggressors (French), imperialists (American), and their local lackeys (a right-wing monarchy), Ong Keo became a source of identification for the Nge community as they formed part of the Pathet Lao's narrative whereby heroic provinces became an essential element in the struggle for national liberation. With the passing of time, however, orthodox communist renditions of history have taken a back seat to more purely nationalist sources of legitimization (p. 84). As author Vatthana Pholsena observes, Buddhism, previously identified with the rival Royal Lao Government, has been relegated to the so-called dustbin of history in the decades following the Pathet Lao victory in 1975. …