White black people

You need to be careful about creating imagery of sub-Saharan African societies for British audiences. People tend to generalise about the region and often don’t understand the differences between different African cultures, and even different African countries. During my first year at university, I discovered that around half of my housemates were unaware that Africa is a continent, and not a country.

Lazy journalists and television appeals, for their part, routinely refer to Africa as if it were one homogenous society—poor, disease-ridden, unstable, corrupt and undeveloped—with little internal differentiation save for ‘warring tribes’ and rebel armies. Our ignorance is not only embarrassing; it perpetuates stereotypes that are dangerous for those they (mis)represent.

Photographers and filmmakers also have to be sensitive to the centuries of racist representations of Africans produced by Europe and the ‘developed’ world, of which Resident Evil 5 is just the latest manifestation. Treating black Africans as part of the backdrop for a storyline centred around a white, male, protagonist has a history going back at least as far as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and undermines efforts to bring about social change based on an understanding of Africans as just as human as Europeans.

A series of photographs centred on Tanzanians suffering from albinism—the congenital condition of being born without the melanin pigment that protects our skin from the sun’s UV rays—therefore has a heavy burden of responsibility to bear. And, arresting as these images by Jackie Dewe Mathews undoubtedly are, I’m not sure they fully acknowledge this responsibility.
(http://www.jackiedewemathews.com/stories/zeru_zeru/zeru_zeru.html)

There are two main problems. Firstly, while it is the job of the images to tell the story, the captions do play their part in explaining certain information. Who are these people? Where are they? Why is this happening to them? If information is omitted, it can change the way we consume the story.

Explaining these images, the photographer barely mentions the context or the history behind them. She refers superficially to ‘ingrained prejudice’, giving us the impression that this prejudice is something inherent to Tanzanian society. She briefly mentions ‘the killings that have ravaged Tanzania’ as if they were a tornado or some other natural disaster. In fact, the images and their accompanying information provoke more questions than they answer—and not in a good way.

It is true that albinos are stigmatised throughout many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, often being shunned by their communities and relatives, having to drop out of school because of sight problems, and suffering discrimination when they seek employment. They also face a greatly increased risk of cancer and other health problems because their skin lacks the pigmentation that protects against sun damage.

However, Tanzania has become far more dangerous in recent years after Tanzanian witch doctors have increased trade in albino skin, bones, genitals and hair. These are supposed to possess magical powers and bestow luck upon others. This belief has created a demand for albino body parts, and at least 45 Tanzanian men, women and children suffering from albinism have been killed and mutilated since the beginning of 2008. According to Tanzanian police officials, the violence is worst in rural areas where people tend to be more superstitious. Fishermen reportedly weave albino hairs into their nets, hoping that they will catch more fish.

One healer in northern Tanzania denied that albino body parts form part of the witch doctor tradition in the area, saying, “Yes, I’ve heard of it. But that’s not real witchcraft. It’s the work of con men.” Indeed, it is now commonplace to hear albinos referred to as ‘deals’ because of how lucrative trading their body parts can be. Albinos in Tanzania say they are being hunted and fear for the safety of their families. Already more than 90 people, including four police officers, have been arrested on suspicion of murdering albinos.

The cause of this recent resurgence of superstition is unknown, but authorities have blamed everything from Nigerian films to rising food prices. The killings have even spread over the border into neighbouring Burundi, where at least 10 albinos have been killed and dismembered, their body parts then smuggled into Tanzania.

Government spokesman Salvator Rweyemamu has said that the killings of albinos perpetuate “perceptions of Africa that we’re trying to run away from,” pointing to the positive developments taking place in the country that the government is keen to promote.

Of course, I am not advocating that photographers seek to support government propaganda. But statements like this point to another story that is not being told: a story about uneven economic development and education; about the invention of superstition and the point at which it begins to legitimise acts of great violence. According to 49 year old Samuel Mluge, secretary-general of the grossly under-funded Tanzanian Albino Society, the recent killings are a relatively new development. While albinos in his country have long been targets of discrimination, he said, “we have never feared like we do today.”

There is another story to be told here: a story about the way people deal with physical abnormality, about how we deal with it in Britain and have dealt with it in the past, and how we consume imagery of people we find fascinating and a little frightening. This is the second problem. There isn’t anything intrinsically wrong with looking at pictures of Tanzanians with albinism. But you really need to be presented with the context. Often context is all that stands between insightful commentary and pure voyeurism, as this photo essay clearly shows.

I’d like to think that the photographer’s aim was noble; that she was concerned by the stigmatisation of those born with albinism and wanted to convey this to a wider audience. Indeed, this may well have been her motivation. But somehow, I don’t think it was.

We are drawn to the weird and grotesque; the persistence of freak shows is evidence of that. Fascination with disease, deformity and physical abnormality has a history, certainly, but it also has a psychology and a politics. To be able to gaze upon the image of a person deformed by a genetic condition excites the viewer, while conferring upon him or her the peculiar privileges of distance and detachment.

These photographs are beautiful: expertly composed and thoughtfully lit. But the incredible visual appeal of the photographs actually enhances the objectification of their subjects. Tanzanians suffering from albinism are placed under the spotlight, positioned before our curious eyes while we gawp at their condition, simultaneously enthralled and repelled by the pale pinkness of their skin, mottled with sun damage, set against the healthy brown skin of those around them.

We stare, horrified, at the tumours, scabs and sores erupting on their bodies, and without the self-conscious need to politely look away we would experience in a real-life encounter. We stare unapologetically at the strange beauty contained within these images, feeling pity and concern. We probably do not feel guilty.

The photographer’s brief was to cover a story based somewhere else—not in the UK, not in the homeland of the Royal Photographic Society and the Guardian newspaper sponsoring the endeavour—and it was supposed to be a story that suggested connections between British audiences and the wider world. The winning story certainly suggests a connection, but I’m not sure that it’s the kind of connection originally envisaged.

The connection making the greatest impression on me is the connection with our racist colonial heritage; the one where we treat difference as a spectacle and see Africans as objects. I don’t doubt for a moment that this entirely contradicts the stated aims of the photographer, but I want to challenge the idea that we should be forgiven for our ignorance.

To portray people in Africa—anywhere in Africa—you have to recognise the burden of responsibility that your images will bear. At best, a series of photographs like this will tell an incomplete story. At worst, they will reinforce a dangerous and outdated way of looking at the world, gratifying our most base instincts and objectifying the very people the photographer wished to defend.

Wasted.

Being a student in Brighton, you’re likely to come across a fair amount of recreational drug use even if you don’t happen to partake in such activity yourself. Ketamine, MDMA, pills, even cocaine; all may be notable presences at festivals and student parties. This alone is not particularly remarkable: they are used both responsibly and irresponsibly, and it would be rash to pronounce judgement on general drug use either way.

In fact, what infuriates many people is a particular kind of drug use – or rather, a particular kind of drug user. I am quite sure, this being the home of Sussex University and other institutions known for their tendency to produce opinionated activists, that this figure will be recognisable.

It is the figure of the politicised student, the green student, the anti-war or anti-capitalist campaigner who is concerned about all forms of social stratification, violence and oppression, and will happily take any opportunity to tell you so. It is the kind of student who is not content to work tirelessly for peace and justice and sustainability; no, they are determined to be a crusader for their particular cause, guilt-tripping all those who fail to meet their exacting standards.

Which is all well and good, of course. Until they tell you, with undeniable glee, about how they got wasted the night before.

It is no secret that cocaine, for example, finds its way onto our streets only through a whole host of exploitative and harmful practices in poor countries. The cocaine user is implicated in human trafficking, armed violence, increased substance abuse in the producer countries, and environmental degradation as coca plantations replace pristine forest. New problems are arising as stricter controls in North America and Europe force new routes to be forged through vulnerable West African countries like Guinea Bissau, which lack the resources and infrastructure to tackle drug smuggling and end up facing greater corruption and poverty.

And even once it reaches Britain, its use cannot be separated from its abuse in other contexts, and the damage that dealing and related crimes inflict on already deprived communities – communities that, incidentally, very few of those privileged enough to be attending university can claim to be familiar with.

Of course, coke is less widely used amongst students because it can be prohibitively expensive, but more commonly used synthetic drugs are not without their own serious social consequences. The procurement of ketamine within Europe, for example, often takes place through organised crime networks and dodgy pharmaceutical companies.

We also have to consider the costs of any illicit drug use to the wider society: the costs of acquisitive and associated crime, law enforcement and justice systems, property damage, hospitalisation and treatment, preventative efforts, unemployment and low productivity. For those concerned about inequality, it should be borne in mind that no drug trade is without its own hierarchy, and generally accentuates income disparities.

*

I believe that everyone has their causes, and if you’re passionate about something it’s only natural to try and convince others to share your passions – whether it’s nuclear disarmament, ecological sustainability, human rights or peace in the Middle East.

But for those who are serious about social justice in our so-called ‘globalised’ world, getting wasted is a wasted opportunity, stripping you of your socially conscious credentials. You can ignore the chain of exploitation that brings drugs like cocaine all the way from Colombia to your own pocket, but you do so at the expense of your credibility.

Review: Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan (No Harvest But A Thorn)

This book review was written in December 2007 for the course Rice, Spice and Trees: Peasants in Southeast Asia at the National University of Singapore.


Ahmad’s classic post-independence era novel is an exposition of peasant struggle, a gruesome celebration of the rural Malay livelihood and its associated pitfalls. The story follows the family of Lahuma, a padi farmer in a northern Malaysian village, throughout one disastrous padi cycle. After encountering a snake in their field (an indisputable bad omen), Lahuma later pierces his foot on a nibong thorn and is unable to continue working after it becomes infected. His body gradually swells up with pus, and he dies an ignominious death. It is left to his wife, Jeha, and their seven daughters to work the padi field. But the physical and mental strain causes Jeha to slowly go mad, and she must eventually be imprisoned in a makeshift cage in their tiny home, lest she endangers her youngest children or the padi harvest itself. The novel ends with the eldest daughter contemplating her future working the fields, and Jeha, caged, “screaming through the night” (Ahmad 1991 [1966]:177). This simple plot is thickened through the detailed description of everyday life in this rural community: its social stratifications and behavioural norms; the place of women; the peasant as “existentially involved in cultivation” (Wolf 1969:xiv) and essentially connected to the soil; the constant toil and hardship of the farmer; his cosmology, his fears. Ahmad frequently narrates from the perspective of his central characters as well as taking on a more omniscient third-person style of prose, giving a very full, almost ethnographic depiction of peasant life.

Vulnerability and anxiety are entrenched in this portrayal. Lahuma worries constantly about the day-to-day work at the rice field, and about his family’s future subsistence as their small plot of land decreases in size. When he dies, this anxiety passes to Jeha; after she goes mad, it is their daughters who then shoulder the burden. The village as a whole is subject to the whims of nature: to its floods, its attacking birds, its infestations of crabs, its thorns, its snakes. The peasantry is also constrained by the limited agricultural land upon which ever greater demographic pressure is exerted, exemplified by Lahuma’s concern about the insufficiency of his plot of fourteen relongs. There are hints at the social stratifications leaving the family dependent on the help of the Tok Penghulu (the head of the village), as well as at the presence of Chinese to whom Lahuma is loth to relinquish any more land. The village seems to fit Wolf’s characterisation of the peasantry’s “basic dilemma” as a constant, conscious effort to maintain its “precarious balance” against forces threatening to undermine it (1966:16). It is this vulnerability that leaves the most enduring impression.

Prayer and perseverance: the peasant hero
The novel’s constant and deepening anxiety about the future and the struggle for subsistence is (paradoxically) combined with a total and unshakeable trust in divine providence. It starts by anchoring Lahuma’s existence firmly within the land in “both a liturgical and genealogical charter” (Aveling 2000:112). Lahuma (whose very name is significant: huma, as Ahmad has acknowledged (1991:473), means ‘field’) remembers his own grandfather in the earth and silently repeats the mantra: “Life and death, dearth and plenty, are in the hands of God. In the hands of Allah the almighty” (Ahmad 1991 [1966]:1). Evident here is the rhythmic, repetitious quality characteristic of the book as a whole, which serves to create the sense of timelessness and inevitablity exemplified in the following passage:

Lahuma’s struggle for the children’s survival – sheer survival – would not end. It was going to be carried on by Jeha. Carried on by Sanah. Carried on by Milah. Carried on by Jenab. Carried on by Semek. Carried on by Liah. Carried on by Lebar. Carried on by Kiah. They would survive with the rice. Or die with the rice.
(Ahmad 1991 [1966]:95)

Ahmad also uses repetition to convey the determination of his characters in the face of desperate circumstances, constructing them as archtypal hardworking “peasant heroes” (Tahir 1982):

I will go down to the rice field… I will not come up again until all the plots are completed. I will pull up the seedlings at the belukar when the time comes. I will carry the bundles of seedlings down to the rice-field. I will plant the seedlings row by row. I will replace and rice-stems that may break. I will pull up the weeds that vie with the rice-plants. I will chase away the tiaks when the rice turns gold. I will harvest the rice in gemals. I will cary the gemals into the rice-barn. I will thrash the rice until the stalks come off. I will sun the rice until it is dry. I will pound the rice until the husks come off. I will cook the rice into hot steaming food…
(Ahmad 1991 [1966]:49)

Whilst the novel is incredibly effective at communicating the hardship and labour involved in rice production, as the very notion of the ‘peasant hero’ might suggest, such characterisations of the Malay peasantry are not ideologically or morally neutral. It is a commonplace within studies of rural Malay societies that a simplistic, conservative Islam prevails, which is associated with “a simple series of truths… A good man was one who worked hard and was wary of strangers” (Banks 1983:28). Moral status is highly dependent on hard work and acceptance of one’s rezeki (what one has been alloted by God). Some commentators have interpreted Lahuma’s total subservience to the will of God as passive, even fatalistic (see for example Banks 1987:118), indeed reflecting many anthropological readings. Swift, for example, has observed that in the Malay peasant cosmology, “[i]f someone dies an untimely death, “their span was up”… [there is] a predisposition to explain everything in terms of luck, and to neglect trying to improve one’s position, for after all one has very little control over it” (2001:91). However, the seemingly paradoxical combination of trust in fate and commitment to hard work is reconciled both in Islamic theology (see for example Basri and Zarkashi 1992:399, 401), and in Ahmad’s characters, who do not once question God’s wisdom and purpose, yet at the same time do not cease in their toil. It seems as if Ahmad is seeking to present a model ‘peasant’ response to circumstances of great hardship and suffering; indeed, he is not shy of generalisations:

The yield of rice was very poor. And the people of Banggul Derdap were plunged in gloom. But their gloom was not confined to themselves. They did not connect it with Allah the Almighty. They did not curse God. It was their habit to accept with resignation the disasters which so often befell them. Such was their life. Never to know full satisfaction. And they accepted the disasters of crabs and tiaks with fresh determination and spirit; to plant rice again next year if Allah the Almighty willed that they should survive till then.
(Ahmad 1991 [1966]:171)

It is difficult to read this passage without noting the implicit moral approval.

The construction of the peasant
Seen in the historical context of a newly independent Malaysia and contemporaneous discourses around ‘modernisation’ and ‘underdevelopment’, the anxiety that characterises the novel’s tone takes on a broader significance. For Ahmad, the peasant lifestyle and subsistence is cyclical in nature – in addition to the constant use of repetition, the novel’s time frame is one rice cycle from beginning to end, and the final chapter is entitled “The Cycle Continues” – denoting a certain stability, an enduring quality. This stability is reinforced by constant reference to elements of ‘tradition’. For example, the position of women is deemed unchanged by the possiblity of secular education: as Jeha says, “Girls needn’t know how to read. Doesn’t change the market value. I never even went to school” (Ahmad 1991 [1966]:18). Given that the area of peninsular Malaysia in which the novel is set has in the twentieth century “been transformed from an isolated and largely self-sufficient region into an administrative unit of a modern nation-state, and its residents are tied into the cash economy of rubber production” (Bailey 1983:8), we can ascribe a clear intent to Ahmad’s insistence on tradition; on the unchanging aspects of the peasant cosmology. He has made clear elsewhere his belief that wage labour, rubber tapping for the cash economy and collecting jungle products are not real farming, and that most Malays in the village of Banggul Derdap were “not real farmers” (cited in Aveling 2000:53); Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan, then, articulates the traditional ‘real farmer’.

Yet this representation obscures a great deal. Firstly, the very notion of a ‘real farmer’ or ‘authentic peasant’ tradition must be interrogated. Ahmad’s unsubtle rendering of Lahuma and family as existentially connected with the soil cannot be separated from its ideological buttressing of Malaysian society’s explicitly racialised division of labour. Twentieth century anthropologists such as Swift have also uncritically employed this form of social categorisation: “To know a person’s race is to know that he will probably perform one of a few economic functions. The Malay is primarily a peasant” (2001:88). This essentialises historically contingent social permutations, obfuscating the constructedness of the ‘Malay peasant’ (1) and how the peasantry initially came to work the land in such a way, as migrants, pioneers and settlers (2). Ahmad’s undeniably grim portrayal also obscures the wry humour that has been noticeably present in every kampung I’ve ever visited, unwittingly denying one of the ways in which the subordinated peasant may express his interpretation of contemporary events – his “hidden transcript” or “partial transcript” that may well constitute a form of resistance (Scott 1985:284-6). For example, though the Islamic worldview of the Malay peasant is presented as both profound and profoundly uncritical, there is no mention of the cynicism with which local religious leaders are often received (3).

Modernist ambivalence: the “babble and roar”
However, beyond the role of the author or anthropologist in disciplining the rural population, Ahmad’s reification of the Malay peasantry is also indicative of a broader anxiety – a “babble and roar about what Malay life style should be” (Nash 1974:65) – that characterised the Malay population during the postwar period and its associated social upheavals. ‘Modernity’ and later ‘development’ was seen as something external, foreign; both desired and feared (Johnson 2007:13). Nash also cites the rural expression, that if we don’t change we’ll be driven to hanging from the trees, which “sums up the poignancy of a peasantry who are the lagging members of a modernizing nation” (1974:67). This conception of the peasant is not mere paranoia; key anthropologists have also encouraged such a view (4). Other commentators have also noted the rapid de-kampung-isation of the Malays (see for example Sardar 2004). Viewed in social-historical context both the anxiety which is so intrinsic to the novel, and the simple, steadfast souls who inhabit its cyclical peasant universe, can be seen as symbolic of the endemic ambivalence of the period. Ahmad, at one point the national laureate of Malaysia, attempts to discursively ‘fix’ the peasant in his traditional lifestyle, asserting a permanence to Malay peasant culture in the face of existential threat. As Foucault (1970:290) argues, “if language expresses, it does so not in so far as it is an imitation and duplication of things, but in so far as it manifests… the fundamental will of those who speak it”.

Though Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan certainly provides a meticulous and moving depiction of peasant life, preserving it somewhat in the context of large-scale social change; ultimately its value must be seen in its exemplary construction (and simultaneous obfuscation) of ‘the Malay peasant’, and the reification of tradition in response to the perceived threat of ‘development’.

(1) The Malayan colonial economy was structured according to (and dependent on) this racialised division of labour; when Malays began to sell their land to Chinese, Indian and European buyers, threatening the organisation of the rural Malay population in their kampungs (villages), colonial administrators adopted a paternalistic discourse of protection. To prevent the “extinction” of Malay “tradition” – seen as “a race of yeoman-peasantry… deluded by visions of present but transitory wealth” (cited in Ong 1987:19-20) – they actively prevented such sales from taking place, whilst also restricting Malays who wanted to cultivate cash crops instead of food (1987:21). Clearly the essentialisation of peasant identity can be seen as a strategy of “containment” (Kearney 1996:60). During the period in which the novel was written there are further ideological implications of constructing the Malay as ‘native’ to and hence bound to the land itself, considering the political motives behind state and legal discourses according certain rights to bumiputera (lit. ‘sons of the soil’).
(2) (see also Walker 2001 and Tan 2000 for examples from Thai and Vietnamese contexts respectively).
(3) For example, Nash (1974:60) recounts one common anecdote in the village in which his research was based: “A man catches a strange fish. He brings it to a Tok Guru asking if it is halal (lawful) to eat. The Tok Guru hesitates in replying. The fisherman says it would be a shame to throw it away since he wanted to give the Tok Guru half of it. The Tok Guru immediately says that the fish is of course halal.”
(4) Wolf, for example, places the peasantry “midway between the primitive tribe and industrial society… They are important historically, because industrial society is built upon the ruins of peasant society. They are important contemporaneously, because they inhabit that “underdeveloped” part of the world whose continued presence constitutes both a threat and a responsibility for those countries which have thrown off the shackles of backwardness” (1966:vii). He clearly understands the peasant existence as both threatened and threatening in equal measures – and additionally, as a social permutation whose ultimate decline and replacement by modern industrial society is inevitable (and even desirable).


Bibliography
Ahmad, S. 1991 [1966]. No Harvest But A Thorn [Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan], trans. A. Amin (Petaling Jaya: Fajar Bakti)

Ahmad, S. 1991. Sastera Sebagai Seismograf Kelidupan (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka)

Aveling, H. 2000. Shahnon Ahmad: Islam, Power and Gender (Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia)

Bailey, C. 1983. The Sociology of Production in Rural Malay Society (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press)

Banks, D. J. 1983. Malay Kinship (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues)

Banks, D. J. 1987. From Class to Culture: Social Conscience in Malay Novels Since Independence (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies)

Basri, G. and Zarkashi, M. P. 1992. ‘Islam and Rural Development in Malaysia with Special Reference to Malaysian Fisherman’ in King, V. T. and N. M. Jali (eds.) Issues in Rural Development in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka)

Foucault, M. 1970. The Order Of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Random House)

Johnson, D. 2007. ‘Malay Representations of Modernity, the Present and the Future’, Paper presented at the ICAS5 Conference: Shaping a Future in Asia. Kuala Lumpur, 2-5 August

Kearney, M. 1996. Reconceptualizing the peasantry : anthropology in global perspective (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press)

Nash, M. 1974. Peasant Citizens: Politics, Religion and, and Modernization in Kelantan, Malaysia (Ohio: Center for International Studies)

Ong, A. 1987. Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia (Albany: State University of New York Press)

Sardar, Z. 2004. The Consumption of Kuala Lumpur (London: Reaktion Books)

Scott, J. C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (Yale University Press)

Swift, M. G. 2001. ‘Malay Peasants’ in Baharuddin, S. A. (ed.) Social Anthropology of the Malays: Collected Essays of M. G. Swift (Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia)

Tahir, U. M. M. 1982. ‘Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan: The Story of a Peasant Hero’, in Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs, 16 (1): 26-47.

Tan, S. B-H. 2000. ‘Coffee frontiers in the Central Highlands of Vietnam: networks of connectivity’ in Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 41 (1): 51-67

Walker, A. 2001. ‘The ‘Karen Consensus’, Ethnic Politics and Resource-Use Legitimacy in Northern Thailand’ in Asian Ethnicity, 2 (2): 145-162

Wolf, E. R. 1966. Peasants (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall)

Wolf, E. R. 1969. Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper and Row)

Poda Poda spring/summer 2007

Tom in Burma after the cyclone

Tom went to Burma during the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis with the intention of being of some assistance, particularly in the worst-hit rural areas. Being quite visibly English, he wasn't able to access those areas but spent some time working for a local NGO engaged in relief work in Rangoon. Here is his report, edited by me.

My first foray into Burma has been emotional, to say the least. Initially, I felt that life was ticking along normally; Rangoon seemed to be like many other third world cities, the streets alive with food stalls and child beggars, with rubbish cluttering the gutters. The desecrated landscape and rigid tree branches jutting from sidewalks were the only evidence of an environmental disaster. People in Rangoon were relaxed – to the point of appearing blasé – about the effects of Cyclone Nargis and the encroaching monsoon season. An early chat with a Burmese man revealed that when it rains through his decrepit roof he simply gets out of bed, sits on the floor and drinks hot tea under an umbrella. Perhaps, it seemed to me, people here should be more worried about sleep deprivation than the onslaught of a ‘second wave’ of disaster.

These perceptions have been proven to be grossly miscalculated. The suburbs of Rangoon reveal a darker picture, whilst the storm-affected regions are suffering from starvation and disease.

On a rickety bus ride through Rangoon I met Kyaw Aung Aung, an off-duty shipman heavily involved in aid work. On Friday I met with Aung very early, intending to proceed to a refugee camp to hand out supplies. This ended in disappointment for me. "No Foreigners" is the message drilled into the officers, so despite my cunning disguise in green longjee, a sarong worn by Burmese men for generations, I was politely sent packing along with the bureaucratic formalities.

Disappointed, but not downcast, we returned to Aung's house, from which he proceeded to show me around a neighbouring village in living abject poverty. The dividing line between these polarised habitats was so sudden that this village could conceivably have been someone’s bedraggled garden. Each household we went to delivered the same message: the government are corrupt, terrible human rights abusers and totally inept in this climate of disaster. People want to fight but have no provisions and no training. They are in limbo.

The worst news was painfully obvious to a trained eye. In the markets around downtown Rangoon there are inordinate amounts of warm weather clothing and ponchos, usually spread out over tarpaulins on the ground. These are exactly the same types of donated clothing I saw cluttering the corner of the Myanmar Buddhist Temple in Singapore, from where I flew to Burma. It has been explained to me that supplies sent from abroad have been surreptitiously stolen by soldiers to be sold on the black market. The aid is not reaching the needy. Moreover, corrugated iron sheets are not being administered properly. One small sheet is being sold for 5000 Kyats (five US dollars) a piece – utter corruption. Meanwhile, civilians are receiving only half a litre of water as their ration per day, queuing for hours to receive it. Funerals are further contaminating the water supply around the suburbs, as these traditionally take place in the rivers. All these factors illustrate one common necessity: deliver resources to the right people.

The good news is that local civil society groups, such as Aung's, are allowed to deliver supplies to their people. The other cars in our convoy went in without a problem – it was the foreigner’s vehicle that was held back! Aung says there are 7000 people in his group, but they are not a fully fledged NGO, as this would place them under the scope of the government, effectively making it a GO (Governmental Organisation). They have around 1000 monks on board, but, incidentally, monks are not allowed into the refugee camps. The government are afraid of the blurring of religious and political lines.

Saturday was quite a harrowing ride. My walk with Aung through the destitute village, where we handed water sterilising tablets to a local Red Cross branch, became deeply upsetting. Aung had had too many heartfelt conversations, the longest with some increasingly impassioned monks in a Buddhist monastery, and was clearly shaken by the end. Part of me dre not imagine how horrific conditions in the refugee camp would have been.

Unfortunately, so far as personal endeavours go, there is not much I can accomplish with Aung at the moment, since my foreigner status imposes inevitable limitations. To stay true to my commitment to helping these people, I now work as journalist/editor and website whipping-chief for Nargis Action Group, a local NGO in Rangoon, far from the cyclone-affected Ayeyarwady Delta but close to the present state of affairs. As I am the only native English speaker, my responsibilities have spanned to thank you letters, international requests and yesterday I helped an elderly gentleman down the stairs. It's all go, go, go!

Nargis Action Group has been a reliable presence in the Ayeyarwady Delta. We have a strong infrastructure in the field, with our own Regional Health Centre, clinics, temporary shelters and roaming medics. Swarms of yellow-emblazoned volunteers toil in Pyapon, Bogalay, Dedaye, Labutta and beyond, receiving and distributing supplies every day. Our registered volunteers are accompanied by countless other helpers who are crucial to the relief effort. They have a valuable knowledge of the area and a thirst for work, which we repay with cash-for-work.

The Delta regions are still in a dire state, while aid distribution has struggled to reach some of the remote villages. The news that foreign aid workers had finally been granted access to the disaster-hit areas was met with great enthusiasm (not least by me, as I have thus far been desk-bound), but also scepticism. The latter sentiment has since come to the fore, as General Than Shwe's promise has proved to be another bureaucratic hash-up, even affecting our efforts as a local organisation; the government checkpoints barricading the disaster-zones have become more stringent and time-consuming for our supply-laden trucks.

However, we are not a political organisation! Far from it: since the establishment of Nargis Action Group we have prized the benefits of staying on the right side of the intrusive military force. That is not to say we are pro-government here – no one is pro-government in Burma – but it makes sense to be mindful of our words in this time of urgency. I have had a sentence or two deleted on the grounds that they are too subtly provocative for our website. But I have learnt my lessons – I have to be more subtle! – and have concentrated on writing empathetic pieces to grapple with the conscience of potential donors, seduce their sympathy glands and encourage them to help.

The foreigners, computer geeks and businessmen (I stake a claim to all of these) man our headquarters in Rangoon; maintaining the website and accounts, contacting donors, etc. The office is always a hub of activity, with frequent donors coming by to drop off packages (ranging in size from teeny to titanic), funds, or simply to seek some further information on our organisation. My boss, a German lady named Kerstin, is lovely, brassy and tempestuous all at once. Just what is needed around here, as the Burmese are never shy of a tea break. Perhaps the same would go for me if the tea wasn't so god-awful.

It can be a saddening process at times, and not just because of bad tea. The number of heartbreaking stories that reach my ears and storm-ravaged pictures I must sift through can engender a sorrowful mood. In one instance, I had to choose the 'best' photograph from a whole folder of dead naked figures strewn across landscapes and on riverbanks, leaving me subdued and ponderous for the afternoon. My personality has taken a swift beating, and I have since become a bit of an emotional wreck.

Some of the tales from the night of the storm are nothing short of breathtaking. It is difficult not to enjoy such accounts of daring-do and resourcefulness, although, as with many of these things, they are not devoid of a sombre note. I relish (and simultaneously anguish over) the visual image of an entire village huddling together in a monastery, only to find the next morning that it is the only construction still standing. Meanwhile (I say meanwhile as this was not an isolated case), villagers in a brick nogg building, its roof blown clean off, stood up for almost twelve hours straight, covered up to the neck in water. As the water level rose rapidly in the building, these Burmese people summoned great initiative by placing their children in plastic buckets. The nippers bobbed incessantly through the night, only to emerge the following morning once the water had receded. This image is such a poignant one: babies bobbing in bright buckets around the heads of their grown-up saviours. And all this in the midst of a thunderous cyclone plundering through the sky.

We have had a good deal of success here in the offices of Nargis Action Group, initially with our relief aid distribution, and since with building and reconstruction. This latter initiative is a pressing concern, with both the rains and the postponed first day of school fast approaching. Are lessons to take place in temporary shelters or under individual umbrellas, with students sheltering from the monsoon downpours?

Schools must be rebuilt, especially as village schools in Burma serve many purposes besides education. To any new visitor, they might appear to function as a community hall, kindergarten and hotel all at once; children play, villagers congregate to have meetings, while guests even sleep and eat there in the right circumstances. Unsurprisingly, these villages are desperate to have their schools back, so, for now at least, we are looking to build temporary constructions to function as schools and housing whilst also planning for long-term buildings. We are aiming to construct cyclone shelters like, for example, the ones already existing in Bangladesh, built in the aftermath of their Cyclone Sidr. These would be constructed in areas close to the Bay of Bengal, as that is the area most prone to future storms and flooding.

As for aid relief, we have focused on food distribution, providing shelter materials and water purification measures, and medical care. Rice, noodles, potatoes and oil make up the culinary pongs currently wafting through the delta (Burmese cooking notoriously uses copious amounts of oil - good for killing bugs in the pan but a danger for romantic dinners..). For shelter, we distribute plastic tarpaulins and corrugated galvanised iron sheets to help build temporary shelters, while handing out blankets, candles, flip flops, mosquito nets, etc. Flip flops might seem a curious one, but the number of patients turning up at our clinics with wounded feet created the necessity, as it was further burdening the over-worked nurses and doctors who are busy with tetanus vaccinations, first aid and ad hoc psychological support. Meanwhile, our volunteers have been working with villagers to clean and clear water ponds (large tanks for harvesting rainwater) and also provide for a future chlorinated water supply. As most of the water had been contaminated by flooding and disease, the need for renovation of water purification procedures and a distribution of Aluminium Sulphate tablets was paramount.

A lot of our work in the delta focuses on needs assessment, since it is important to identify the most desperate villages whilst, as much as possible, helping everyone. Some of the more remote villages are extremely difficult to reach in the current climate of destruction so are in grave need of attention. Once our roaming volunteers have allocated a spot, they then determine to whom they should give the food and other supplies for distribution within the village; should it be a monk, the chief or a teacher? We then send out a monitor, who scurries from village to village, making sure that everything is being administered justly. What a lot to think about!

Frustratingly, although we have the most personnel in the delta, plus countless local volunteers, we lack sufficient funding for our substantial plans. We receive donations in kind at all times of the day, but, thus far, hard cash has been thin on the ground. UNICEF and Oxfam, among others, have since sent us supplies, while Action Aid, an international non-governmental fellowship programme, has channelled funds through us from the offset, providing their own volunteers to accompany ours in the field.

This has been a thoroughly interesting and enlightening experience for me so far. It illustrates the necessity of carefully researching where to send aid contributions. A case in point: the reconstruction of new schools is imperative in lieu of the destruction caused by Cyclone Nargis. The new term was due to begin on June 2nd but this has been postponed because most villages in the Ayeyarwady Delta lack temporary shelters, let alone school buildings, to conduct classes. Corrupt construction businesses have grasped a unique opportunity here, and are charging unreasonable prices for building works. The experienced local businessmen here scream, 'Foul Play!', and use their grassroots know-how and connections to seek out cheaper, but equally effectual, options. We have alerted other NGOs to more realistic prices and companies, while continuing our own initiatives.

The future for cyclone-affected families looks bleak. Millions of people have been displaced from their homes, squeezing under flailing plastic tarpaulins in alien villages, their possessions and loved ones nowhere to be found. Households and livelihoods have been shattered. While these people beg for food and plead for work to repair their lives, the desecration of their countryside is visible all around. Paddy fields and farm land are a mess, with contorted water lilies and decaying animal carcasses dotted around the landscape. Most of the Delta’s buffalos and cows were slaughtered by Cyclone Nargis, machinery damaged beyond repair, while stockpiles of seeds were cleared and scattered by the storm and flooding. Even if the resources were still available to toil the land, there would only be a fifty-fifty per cent chance of a decent harvest due to the contaminated, salted water supply. The circumstances look desperate; farmers could toil for months with sub-standard resources and eventually yield an unusable harvest of rice. Farmers have two weeks – the situation is urgent.

The international community seems to have forgotten about Burma. Cyclone Nargis is not news anymore, displaced in peoples’ consciousnesses by earthquakes, typhoons and European football, but it is still news out here. It is still big news. Money is needed, and needed fast, because we can help these people to survive and repair their lives.

See for yourself at www.nargisaction.org. (It's probably still under construction – some of these computer buffs have no appreciation of aesthetics – but if you read any flowery puff pieces with the occasional empathetic detail, it's most likely to be written by me.)

To what extent is ‘crony capitalism’ a reasonable explanation for recent experiences of the East Asian ‘developmental state’?

this essay was written in February 2007 for International Political Economy II, an International Relations course at Sussex University

The main problem in East Asia was not macroeconomic, but structural. Deep flaws afflicted the financial system. They include excessive leverage, and a banking system based excessively on directed lending, connected lending and other collusive personal relationships. Ten years ago, finance experts called it relationship banking, and thought it might help to minimize “problems of asymmetric information and incentive incompatibility;” today we call it “crony capitalism”… the rules of economics turn out to apply to East Asia similarly to elsewhere.
(Frankel 1998:2)

Despite being a view propagated by numerous official bodies such as the US Treasury and the IMF, as well as numerous neoliberal scholars, the notion that the 1997 crisis was all “the result of some politicians in Bangkok who got their hands caught in the cookie jar” (International Herald Tribune 14/08/98) is both empirically flawed and theoretically dubious. This essay first outlines the orthodox or neoclassical understanding of ‘cronyism’ and its pejorative connotations, before considering the ‘developmental state’ paradigm that emerged with East Asia’s ‘miracle’ growth. I then attempt to recast the concept of cronyism within its historical and cultural context, dispensing with neoclassical ideas of ‘correct’ economic practice and notions that crony capitalism itself represents either an explanation or a necessary outcome. In other words, this essay is not so much concerned with the extent to which such practices did or did not contribute both to the high growth rates in the region and later to the 1997 crisis; rather it asks how we should view cronyism – as a deviation from the ‘natural’ workings of the market system, or as somehow constitutive of particular variants of capitalist practice? I stress the value of a comprehensive institutionalist approach, as opposed to the neoclassical vs. developmental state inter-paradigmatic debate.

THE NEOCLASSICAL VIEW

[cronyism as deviance]

Like many neoliberals, Frankel (1998) concludes – somewhat triumphantly – that the East Asian crisis proved the Anglo-American economic model to be the most successful after all, which in turn demonstrates that the neoclassical ‘rules’ of economics do apply universally. From this perspective ‘crony capitalism’, a term used to describe a variety of practices including nepotism, preferential treatment, favouritism, or more generally “forms of trust violation that can occur whenever a state tries to manipulate incentives or, in other ways, alter market outcomes” (Johnson 1998:654), is perceived to be a deviation from liberal or neoclassical standards like transparency, regulatory frameworks, and competition policy. The dirigiste state represents not an alternative model of political economic conduct, but a failure to institutionalise these universally applicable norms (Hughes 1999). This ideology is premised on the separation of capital and state, on a system in which the free market provides the most efficient and fair allocation of resources. Thus cronyism is not only imbricated with ‘corruption’ – defined as the abuse or appropriation of public roles and resources for private benefit (Robinson 1998:4) – and therefore subject to all the moral associations of deviance and theft; it also exemplifies a model of capitalism characterised by the intermingling of the otherwise pristine spheres of public and private, by excessive state intervention in the economy with ‘market distorting’ structural consequences. There is assumed to be a negative correlation between economic and financial liberalisation, and the incidence of corruption (World Bank 1997), whilst cronyist practices are perceived as fundamentally unsustainable – the worm in the apple that would inevitably have undermined the Asian ‘miracle’ sooner or later.

THE ‘DEVELOPMENTAL STATE’ PARADIGM

[cronyism as ‘culture’, or a necessary evil]

An alternative view within mainstream discourses heralded the Asian ‘miracle’ as counterevidence to the dependentistas’ critiques of the capitalist world system, arguing that state-directed development was indeed possible – and thus there is some reluctance to dispense entirely with the notion of Asian economic success. Neumann admits that cronyism’s “impact has not always been benign as recent events persuasively showed”, but argues that nevertheless the vertical patron-client relationships which, for him, characterise the region can in fact be conducive to economic growth despite micro-economic ‘distortions’ – for example by maintaining conditions of political stability so that “insulated technocrats” are free to pursue conservative economic policies (2002:11). This kind of interpretation posits a very different idea about how the market should be organized in relation to the state, implying that East Asian economies, in “co-joining private ownership with state guidance” (Woo-Cumings 1999:2), have demonstrated that the public/private distinction fundamental to neoclassicism need not necessarily be upheld. Lee and Naya (cited in Moon and Prasad 1998:17-8) describe these Asian state/society or government/private enterprise networks as actually integrated into a “quasi-internal organization” characterised by “extended bounded rationality, reduced opportunism and uncertainty, reduced small-number indeterminacies, better information, and a group-oriented atmosphere” (Lee 1992:193). This exemplifies the ‘developmental state’ model, which emphasises endogenously generated growth created by, for example, state-directed interventionist or protectionist measures, in contrast to the neoclassical stress on orienting economies to the exogenous imperatives of the world market.

Within this paradigm there is a tendency to excuse cronyist or corrupt practices as somehow indigenous to Asian societies, and therefore permissible insofar as they continue to promote economic growth. There is an attempt to remove the pejorative connotations associated with such practices, pointing out the inappropriateness of applying neoclassical assumptions about the nature of motivation and exchange to societies generally characterized not by the atomistic individualism and horizontal relationship ties of Western post-industrial societies, but rather by a more collectivist model in which vertical patronage networks remain predominant. In these contexts, exchanges are not necessarily contractual, nor are they necessarily regulated by an impersonal rationalist-legal framework (Dean 1999). In this view

crony capitalism was not the intent but a by-product of the structural characteristics of the Asian-type economies. These structures include cartelization of the keiretsu-chaebol variety, bank-based systems of capital supply, mercantilism and protectionism vis-à-vis external economies, and rule by bureaucratic elites despite a pretence of democracy. The intent of these structures was to enrich the nations of East Asia, not to meet consumer demand, global efficiency, individual choice, or any of the other motives posited by neoclassical economics.
(Johnson 1998:655)

DIVERGENCE, OR DIFFERENCE?

[an institutionalist approach]

The problem, however, in the representation of cronyism according to both analytical perspectives outlined above, is that they possess severely limited explanatory value. Each remains preoccupied with notions of success and failure, seeking to account first for the East Asian states’ miraculous growth despite their apparent disregard for certain liberal fundamentals, and then for a crisis which in different ways threatened to undermine both perspectives. Indeed, “[i]ndicting crony capitalism for the crash of 1997 is like blaming the Roman empire for its fall: in that case, you should also praise it for its long success” (Godement 1999:55). Furthermore, each typologises a model or norm which necessitates too-broad generalisations and reinforces the state/market dichotomy. Thus ideological factors and normative concerns are here inseparable from theorising about the East Asian experience, and any such analyses thus tend to be incomplete. As Moon and Prasad argue, “we must realign the ontological foundations of the East Asian political economy” (1998:19), advocating a more broadly institutionalist approach. This methodology rejects more orthodox notions of universally applicable models through which to interpret state and market behaviour; insisting that political economy is inseparable from the social institutions in which it is embedded. It challenges not only the state/market dichotomy, but also the separation of culture, belief, legitimisation and ideology from the study of political economic processes. From this perspective cronyism must be viewed not as deviant behaviour from some established pattern, but rather as the crystallisation of different institutions, structures and practices which are continually interacting and synthesising (Clark and Chan 1998).

In fact, the very separation of state and market – i.e. of economic and political modes of authority – in Anglo-American and European societies, by which the state as a rational-legal authority combined with a bureaucratic administration took on its ostensibly public character (rationalising currency, taxation etc.), has been shown to be a process both historically and geographically specific (see for example Silberman 1993; Teschke 2003). And in fact the economic/political separation itself is highly dubious, since much recent historical materialist scholarship details how what is taken to be a natural or universal phenomenon is in fact a socially constructed distinction which serves to obscure the inherently political or power-based nature of economic or market transactions (1)  (Wood 1995; Rosenberg 1994). Furthermore, and of greatest import for this study, in no sense can it necessarily be replicated elsewhere: as Hamilton-Hart (2002) points out, the gradual process of state-rationalisation in Southeast Asia (with the exception of Siam/Thailand perhaps) was a process bound up with the political, administrative-bureaucratic and cultural institutions of colonisation and the processes by which formal independence was achieved, in addition to the cultural and religious institutions that already existed.

So, rather than seek to draw generalisable conclusions and prescriptions, we can note important differences in how ‘crony capitalism’ manifests itself in the experiences of different East Asian societies. For example, the Marcos and Suharto regimes in The Philippines and Indonesia respectively have been characterised as ‘client-pathological’ (Clark and Chan 1998:27;36), whereby a ‘weak’ state or government permits manipulation of the economy by powerful groups, as opposed to the ‘client-paternalistic’ state-society complex evident in countries such as Malaysia. Here a “constitutional bargain” between Malay political elites and Chinese business elites has been enshrined in policy and law, with elite-mass relations best described as ‘feudal’, patrimonial and authoritarian (Case 1998:153) – an innovative method of exercising control over a highly pluralistic society (2). In this very stable regime, “UMNO (3)  elites, granting the state licences and contracts that sustained Chinese business, in turn received campaign contributions, “secret funds,” and memberships on the boards of Chinese-owned companies. Top Chinese business people, for their part, were given some political voice through the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) in the governing coalition” (Case 1998:151). Still more forms of what has been broadly characterised as Asian ‘crony capitalism’ are evident in the patriarchal Chinese Confucian models in Hong Kong and Taiwan, promoting strong familial ties, and in the more feudal Confucian traditions of Japan and South Korea, supporting large corporate cartelisations such as the keiretsu and chaebol (Clark and Chan 1998:31-2).

Clearly, then, the relationship between cronyism and economic growth must be wrenched away from its causationalist moorings, and interpreted with reference to factors such as religion, demography and colonial history, just as much as to individual policymakers and state strategies. ‘Crony capitalism’ represents a theoretically and empirically inadequate explanation for either the Asian miracle or the crisis, or indeed the specific natures of individual societies, and its continued, habitual usage tells us more about those employing the term than it accurately reflects a reality.

(1) And indeed, state-market relations in the US and Europe are by no means clean of the supposedly corrupting influences of cronyist practices (see for example Shorrock 2002 for a discussion on the Carlyle group, or more generally van der Pijl 1998), suggesting that cronyism and the overlapping of political and market spheres may in fact be a normal behavioural tendency under capitalism, and not a deviation. Given this, the stereotype of Asian ‘crony capitalists’ can only be viewed as a hypocritical and vaguely racist representation – as Dr Mahathir of Malaysia suggests, speculating on the prospect of Malaysia implementing IMF-advised policy reforms along neoliberal lines: “there will not be any giant Bumiputra [lit. ‘people of the earth’ – generally used to refer to the Malays, who benefit from favourable treatment under Malaysian economic policy] companies. And we will be happy as there will not be any more Bumiputra ‘billionaires’ and ‘millionaires’ with their Mercedes, private jets and luxury yachts. All those who are accused of being political leaders’ cronies will be got rid [of]… The foreign workers will earn high wages. They will in turn be the millionaires and billionaires with the Mercedes, private aircrafts and luxury boats” (Mahathir 1998:61).
(2) The Chinese ‘minority’ constitutes nearly a third of the total population.
(3) UMNO is the United Malay National Organisation – the Malay-dominated main political party.

Bibliography
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Clark, C. and Chan, S. 1998. ‘Market, State, and Society in Asian Development’ in S. Chan, C, Clark and D. Lam (eds.) Beyond the Developmental State: East Asia’s Political Economies Reconsidered (Houndmills: Macmillan)
Dean, G. 1999. ‘East Asia and the Roots of the Economic Crisis’; accessed 24/02/07, available at http://www.okusi.net/garydean/works/eastasiancrisis.html
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Newspaper articles
International Herald Tribune 14/08/98. T. Fuller. ‘Asian Crisis: More Than Just Crony Capitalism’.
The Nation 14/03/02. T. Shorrock. ‘Crony Capitalism Goes Global’.