BOOK REVIEW Southeast Asian Muslims for dummies The Next Front: Southeast Asia and the Road to Global Peace with Islam
by Senator Christopher S Bond and Lewis M Simons
Reviewed by Muhammad Cohen
Republican Senator Kit Bond and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Lewis Simons
seem a foreign policy version of Neil Simon's Odd Couple. Bond's record
indicates he never met a war he didn't like or a Muslim - or Islamofascist, as
many of Bond's supporters prefer - he did, while Simons writes for squishy
publications such as National Geographic.
Their book, The Next Front, is a surprisingly literate portrait of Islam
in Southeast Asia and a liberal prescription on how the United States should
interact with it. Given some of the book's
advice for US diplomacy and aid efforts, it would be fun to quiz Bond to check
just how familiar he is with what appears under his name.
American impressions of Muslims run toward Iraqi suicide bombers and Saudi
sheiks. However, Arabs constitute a tiny minority of the world's Muslims. I got
a reminder of how ignorant most Americans are about Islam at a recent lunch. I
sat next to an American who'd recently moved to Indonesia, the world's largest
Muslim-majority country. I mentioned that the food we are eating was halal, and
she replied, "Halal? What's that?"
With the US having perhaps irreparably tarnished its image in the Middle East
and Central Asia with its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan plus its support for
Israel, Southeast Asia represents the last, best chance for the US to find
common ground with Muslims. There's an opportunity in the region for the US to
forge a mutually rewarding relationship with Muslims with the potential to
expand it global, as the authors suggest. On the other hand, failing to get
things right in Southeast Asia will boost opportunities for radicalism and also
for China to expand its influence in the region.
Seen through the prism of Islam, Southeast Asia today presents a variety of
fascinating scenarios. Perhaps 10% of the world's Muslims live in Indonesia, a
secular state with a vocal minority trying to impose Islamic law. Malaysia is a
self-proclaimed Islamic state with a slim Muslim majority. Violent separatist
movements fight under the banner of Islam in Buddhist-dominated Thailand and
the overwhelmingly Catholic Philippines. Singapore sees itself as the example
of how to deal with minorities and a wise counselor to these backward
neighbors.
On the spot
Bond and Simons tell the story of these five hotspots - all founding members of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) - from some unique angles.
At its best, the book brings readers face to face with people on the front
lines of these conflicts.
Safina Garim, a mother in Thailand's restive Pattani region whose 27-year-old
son was among 78 coldly murdered in the 2004 Tak Bai massacre, has no hope of
finding justice or a fair shake for her surviving children.
Jamaluddin Mansor, a thoroughly modern Malaysian, traded his life as an
international arms dealing playboy to discover Allah at 40 and became even more
prosperous in earthly goods as well as, presumably, spirit.
Marzuki Wahid, an official in Indonesia's Department of Religious Affairs,
speaks out against the country's creeping Islamization at great personal risk
and believes his department has no place in a secular nation. Michael Mastura,
a former Philippine congressman turned Moro Islamic Liberation Front attorney,
embodies the region's love-hate relationship with the US, denouncing "Uncle
Sam's goodies" to its "little brown brother" - while asking for more.
The overall picture that emerges will disturb many Americans. Radicalism is
gaining among Muslims, thanks to a combination of factors. The George W Bush
administration's harsh, empty rhetoric and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq
pushed Muslims away from America and the West.
The growth of the Internet has enabled Muslims who couldn't find Israel on a
map to identify with distant grievances. Wahhabi missionaries from Saudi
Arabia, fueled by Western petrodollars, have found fertile ground for their
conservative doctrines in a region where clerics and congregants tend to be
poorly educated and poorly served by their own government institutions.
However, the authors find that there's less evidence of an international
Islamic conspiracy behind radicalism than local issues rooted in grinding
poverty and unequal opportunity.
Mastura also notes that Muslims and non-Muslims alike across Southeast Asia
must consider America's reaction to everything they do, while the US hardly
thinks about them at all. That's a more important point than the authors'
contention that the US has ignored the region since its ignominious withdrawal
from Vietnam. The US has become the de facto heir to the age of imperialism -
richly deserved in the Philippines where it was a cruel and repressive colonial
master for more than 40 years.
Taking the wrong side
The US is seen as preaching or meddling, whether about democratization or free
markets, in contrast with China, which just wants to do business in Southeast
Asia. The Bush administration helped fuel radicalization of Muslims, not just
with its Iraq fiasco but its single-minded focus on anti-terrorism in the
region.
The authors note that anti-terrorism in the Philippines aligns the US with a
military that's widely disrespected as corrupt and duplicitous across most of
society. However, they miss that connection in Indonesia, where, as Asia Times
Online's Gary LaMoshi has written, radical Muslim violence often has military
links, from the 1965 slaughter of communists to the sectarian fighting in
Sulawesi and Ambon that provided training grounds for the Bali bombings and,
more important, gave popular legitimacy to Islamic extremism. (See
Terrorism links in Indonesia point to military, Asia Times Online,
October 8, 2004.)
The authors get a few other things wrong, too. While documenting Malaysia's
rising Islamic tide, they talk to the ruling United National Malays
Organization (UMNO) party and to the Islamic Party of Malaysia, the party that
UMNO is trying to derail via state piety. But they don't talk to Anwar
Ibrahim's multi-ethnic Justice Party, which is likely to lead the next
government, about how it has countered this Islamic tide with an inclusive
message.
In Singapore, the authors admit that only one person matters: founding father
Lee Kuan Yew. Yet they waste paper on interviews with other officials who -
surprise - parrot the elder Lee's positions. To their credit, the authors do
present a more balanced than usual portrait of Lee, his mini-state, massive
ego, and pining for fellow autocrat Suharto to rise from his grave and rule
again in Indonesia.
Despite these shortcomings, the authors clearly identify and articulate the
conundrum facing the US and its allies in Southeast Asia and around the world,
particularly where Muslims comprise a significant constituency. The disaster of
the Bush years including the harsh rhetoric and empty promises and invasions of
two Muslim majority countries makes it extraordinarily difficult for foreign
leaders to embrace the US.
Even as the Obama administration tries to turn from the Bush people's strident
anti-terrorism and military focus to more so-called "smart power" initiatives
such as reviving the Peace Corps and Fulbright Scholarship program in
Indonesia, being labeled pro-American remains political poison. Anyone with
more than a passing familiarity with the region will find these conclusions
pretty basic, and be shocked that Americans haven't already figured it out.
The authors suggest Americans will have to be content to work with little
fanfare or credit to attack poverty, lack of education and unequal opportunity,
the root causes of radicalism in the region. If US politicians and taxpayers
can agree to spend the billions of dollar necessary to help improve the lives
of Muslims and forgo recognition for those efforts, as the authors prescribe,
then this Odd Couple will have produced a truly bizarre but beneficial outcome.
The Next Front: Southeast Asia and the Road to Global Peace with Islam by
Senator Christopher S. Bond and Lewis M Simons. Hoboken, New Jersey, USA, 2009
(Asia release, 2010). ISBN: 978-0-470-50390-4. US$25.95; 276 pages.
Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America’s story to the
world as a US diplomat and is author of
Hong Kong On Air, a novel set during the 1997 handover about television
news, love, betrayal, financial crisis, and cheap lingerie. Follow
Muhammad Cohen’s blog for more on the media and Asia, his adopted home.
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With the US having perhaps irreparably tarnished its image in the Middle East
and Central Asia with its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan plus its support for
Israel, Southeast Asia represents the last, best chance for the US to find
common ground with Muslims. There's an opportunity in the region for the US to
forge a mutually rewarding relationship with Muslims with the potential to
expand it global, as the authors suggest. On the other hand, failing to get
things right in Southeast Asia will boost opportunities for radicalism and also
for China to expand its influence in the region.
