The challenge for Lao historiography

South East Asia Research

Volumn 14, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 339-359

  Stuart Fox, Martin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND   (Australia)

Author keywords

Historiography; Laos; Monarchy; Nationalism

Indexed keywords

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE; LOCAL PARTICIPATION; MINORITY GROUP; NATION STATE; NATIONALISM; POLITICAL HISTORY; STATE BUILDING;

ASIA; EURASIA; LAOS; SOUTHEAST ASIA;

EID: 33845650836     PISSN: 0967828X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5367/000000006778881546     Document Type: Article

References (59)

1. This is strongly argued in, for example, Ellen Meiksins Wood (2003), Empire of Capital, Verso, London.
2. On 'spatial identites', see Thongchai Winichakul (2003), 'Writing at the interstices: Southeast Asian historians and postnational histories in Southeast Asia', in Abu Talib Ahmad and Tan Liok Ee, eds, New Terrains in Southeast Asian History, Ohio University Press, Athens, OH, p 7. Thongchai makes a number of other contentious claims in this article, not least of which is that 'the raison d'être of a national history in many postcolonial countries [is] anti-colonialism' (p 9). He makes no reference to the demands of modern power relations, elite interests or group identities. In this, he reflects the reluctance of many postmodernists to engage with the hard questions of politics and power.
3. This is not to argue that nationalism, much less the nation-state, is a product of 'elite manipulation', although nationalist historiography may be. Nationalism may be used by elites, but it must have some basis in the first place; nationalisms may be constructed, but they are not invented ex nihilo. See Roger Brubaker (1998), 'Myths and misconceptions in the study of nationalism', in John A. Hall, ed, The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 272-306.
4. I am drawing here on the analysis in Michael Mann (1986), The Sources of Social Power: Volume 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Ch 1.
5. This is a valid historical labour, so long as it is also recognized that the study of the historical continuity of such myths is equally so, for they cannot just be dismissed. For example, the myths of the three gourds, Khun Borom and the Buddha's presence in Laos all deserve historical consideration for the role they have played in Lao history; see Martin Stuart-Fox (1998), The Lao Kingdom of Lan Xang: Rise and Decline, White Lotus, Bangkok.
6. A general discussion of constructions of nation is to be found in Anthony Smith (1986), The Ethnic Origins of Nations, Blackwell, Oxford.
7. While all Lao citizens have Lao 'nationality' (sonsat), those of Vietnamese and Chinese origin are not classified as being of Lao 'race' (seuasat). All other ethnic groups are indicated as being of Lao race on all official internal identification documents; Vatthana Pholsena (2001), 'Minorities and the construction of a nation in post-socialist Laos', University of Hull dissertation, Hull, p 152.
8. Influential contributions include Benedict Anderson (1983), Imagined Communities, Verso, London;
9. and Ernest Gellner (1983), Nations and Nationalism, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
10. For Southeast Asia, see also Nicholas Tarling (1998), Nations and States in Southeast Asia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
11. Anthony D. Smith (1998), Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism, Routledge, London.
12. Yumiko Iida (2002), Rethinking Identity in Modern Japan: Nationalism as Aesthetics, Routledge, London and New York;
13. Stephen Vlastos (1998), Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
14. To be such an actor, a nation-state must accept certain responsibilities - notably (since the prevailing order functions in the interests of global capitalism) to facilitate foreign capital investment and, post-11 September 2002, to prevent any persons within its border, whether citizens or not, from threatening those interests. Nation-states that fail to do this are threatened with pre-emptive regime change (Afghanistan, Iraq); failed states are to be resuscitated, not colonized or eliminated (Solomon Islands). Anthony D. Smith argues for the continuing importance of nation-states on the grounds that they are 'historically embedded' and 'pre-eminently functional for modernity'; Anthony D. Smith (1995), Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp 155, 157.
15. William J. Duiker defines nationalism as 'the result of a process by which a people become conscious of themselves as a separate national identity in a modern world, a process by which they become willing to transfer their primary loyalty from the village, or the region, or the monarch, to the state'; William J. Duiker (1976), The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900-1941, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, p 15. Almost 30 years later the process continues, but the subject has shifted from 'a people' to include everyone associated with communities situated within national boundaries, while the emphasis has shifted from race, ethnicity and culture to citizenship and the expansion of consciousness that comes with education.
16. On history, memory and identity, see David Lowenthal (1985), The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge;
17. and Jacques Le Goff (1992), History and Memory, Columbia University Press, New York.
18. Marc Ferro (2003), The Use and Abuse of History: Or How the Past is Taught to Children, rev ed, Routledge, London and New York.
19. J. G. A. Pocock (1996), 'The historian as political actor in polity, society and academy', Journal of Pacific Studies, Vol 20, p 91.
20. On power, see Steven Lukes (1974), Power: A Radical View, Macmillan, London;
21. Keith Dowding (1996), Power, Open University Press, Buckingham;
22. and Stephen Gill (2003), Power and Resistance in the New World Order, Palgrave, London.
23. Peter Novick (1988), That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
24. The 'intellectual imperialism' of some Western historians has always worried me. Because we now write histories in certain ways, we take it for granted that everyone else should too, even though the stage of construction of political and social institutions in a country might be better served by other forms of historiography practised there - better served, that is, in terms of its political and social impact on the cohesion of communities and their identities. That requires a judgment that is again political, however. See Robert Young (1990), White Mythologies: Writing History and the West, Routledge, London and New York.
25. The debate over 'black arm-band' history in Australia is a case in point. There has, for example, been intense public discussion over whether children in school should be told that white people 'settled' or 'invaded' the continent; Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark, eds (2003), The History Wars, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic.
26. Martin Stuart-Fox (2004), 'Historiography, power and identity: history and political legitimisation in Laos', in Christopher E. Goscha and Søren Ivarsson, eds, Contesting Visions of the Lao Past: Lao Historiography at the Crossroads, NIAS Press, Copenhagen, pp 71-95.
27. I have discussed this at greater length in Stuart-Fox, supra note 5.
28. As I have argued in Martin Stuart-Fox (1995), 'The French in Laos, 1887-1945', Modern Asian Studies, Vol 29, No 1, pp 111-135; reprinted in Martin Stuart-Fox (2002), Buddhist Kingdom, Marxist State: The Making of Modern Laos, 2 ed, White Lotus, Bangkok, pp 23-50.
29. An example of colonial historiography is Roland Meyer (1931), Le Laos, Exposition Coloniale et Internationale de Paris, Hanoi.
30. Some scholars reject any continuity between Lan Xang and the modern Lao nation-state. Thus Grant Evans argues that 'One cannot write a history of Laos or a history of Thailand or Cambodia because these entities did not exist until the modern nationalist period'; Grant Evans, ed (1999), 'Introduction', Laos: Culture and Society, Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai, p 16.
31. This argument has been well refuted in Anthony D. Smith (2000), The Nation in History: Historical Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism, University Press of New England, Hanover, NH, particularly Ch 3 on 'Social construction and ethnic genealogy'. Smith argues for what he calls an 'ethnosymbolic' account of nations and nationalism that takes seriously persistent belief in 'national myths' as historical phenomena.
32. My own position is set out in Martin Stuart-Fox (1993), 'On the writing of Lao history: continuities and discontinuities', Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol 24, pp 106-121, reprinted in Mayoury Ngaosrivathana and Kennon Breazeale, eds (2002), Breaking New Ground in Lao History: Essays on the Seventh to Twentieth Centuries, Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai, pp 1-24.
33. The best study of Phetsarat's role is in Christopher Goscha (1995), Vietnam or Indochina? Contesting Concepts of Space in Vietnamese Nationalism, 1887-1954, NIAS, Copenhagen.
34. Katay Don Sasorith (1959), 'Historical aspects of Laos', in René de Berval, ed, Kingdom of Laos, France-Asie, Saigon, pp 24-31, especially p 30.
35. Thus the publication, Anonymous (197 1), Un quart de siècle de lutte opiniâtre et victorieuse, Éditions du Neo Lao Haksat, np, proclaims the history of the Lao people to be 'a secular struggle for independence and liberty' (p 53).
36. See Phoumi Vongvichit (1968), Le Laos et la lutte victorieuse du peuple lao contre le néo-colonialisme américain, Éditions du Neo Lao Haksat, np.
37. Martin Stuart-Fox (1980), 'The initial failure of agricultural cooperativization in Laos', Asia Quarterly, No 4, pp 273-299; reprinted with some modification as 'The failure of agricultural cooperativization', in Stuart-Fox, supra note 20, at pp 153-178.
38. See also Grant Evans (1995), Lao Peasants under Socialism and Post-Socialism, Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai.
39. Personal communication from a Lao source. One matter of contention was over how to deal with the Vietnamese invasion of Lan Xang in 1478, which the committee-authored Vietnamese history of Laos (Anonymous [1982], Laos: An Outline of Ancient and Contemporary History, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Hanoi) simply ignored, but which Lao historians wanted to mention.
40. Thongsa Sanyavongkhamdi et al (1989), Pavatsat Lao Lem III: 1893 theung Pachuban [Lao History Volume 3: 1893 to the Present], Ministry of Education and Social Science Research Institute, Vientiane.
41. Houmphanh Rattanavong (1994), 'Histoire de la recherche lao en sciences humaines', in Pierre-Bernard Lafont, ed, Les recherches en sciences humaines sur le Laos, Centre d'Histoire et Civilisations de la Péninsule Indochinoise, Paris, pp 18-19.
42. Martin Stuart-Fox (1999), 'Laos: from Buddhist kingdom to Marxist state', in Ian Harris, ed, Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth-Century Asia, Continuum, London and New York, pp 153-172.
43. Souneth Phothisane and Nousai Phoummachan (2000), Pavatsat Lao (Deukdamban-Pachuban) [Lao History (Ancient Times to the Present)], Ministry of Information and Culture, Vientiane.
44. The Marxist argument is that Marx was right: countries cannot skip the capitalist stage. The role of the LPRP is thus to preside over a capitalist economy until the forces of production have increased sufficiently to allow the transition to socialism.
45. Any attempt to establish Buddhism as the Lao 'national religion' - Buddhist proselytization already has unofficial Party endorsement - threatens further to alienate minorities who have converted to Christianity.
46. Vatthana, supra note 6, at pp 166-177.
47. This is the educative component of nation formation that Benedict Anderson (supra note 7) stresses, along with the role of the popular media.
48. On secondary education for ethnic minorities, see Manooch Faming (2004), 'Education for the national integration of ethnic minorities in the Lao PDR', paper presented at the workshop in Singapore but not included in this issue.
49. As Bruce Lockhart shows in his article in this issue, there is confusion over just this point in the Pavatsat Lao text (Souneth Phothisane and Nousai Phoummachan, supra note 31).
50. On the rituals, see Charles Archaimbault (1973), Structures religieuses lao: Rites et mythes, Vithagna, Vientiane.
51. I have not seen the detailed two-volume study of this work recently published in Laos: Maha Sila Viravong (2000-03), in Duangduan Bunnyavong et al, eds, Thao Hung Thao Cheuang: Mahakap [Thao Hung Thao Cheuang: The Great Epic], National Library, Vientiane.
52. Phongsavath Boupha (2002), The Evolution of the Lao State, Konark Publishers, Delhi.
53. In the much more important Pavatsat Lao (Souneth Phothisane and Nousai Phoummachan, supra note 31)
54. (see the article by Bruce Lockhart), the role of minorities in rebellions against the French and in the '30-year struggle' is given full recognition, as it is in Thongsa Sanyavongkhamdi et al, supra note 28, on which it is based.
55. Vientiane Times, 3-6 January 2003, p 12.
56. Lao and Thai interpret the war of 1827-28 very differently, particularly the motivation and role of Chao Anou. For the Lao, he was fighting for Lao independence; for the Thai, he was a disloyal vassal who was duly punished. This period has been exhaustively studied from the Lao perspective by Mayoury and Pheuiphanh Ngaosyvathn (1998), Paths to Conflagration: Fifty Years of Diplomacy and Warfare in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, 1778-1828, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
57. This book has never been translated into Lao; an earlier and much shorter study in Lao was published, but only after considerable political manoeuvring: Mayoury and Pheuiphanh Ngaosyvathn (1988), Chao Anu, 1767-1829: Pasason Lao lae Asi Akhane [Chao Anou, 1767-1829: The Lao People and Southeast Asia], LPDR Publishing House, Vientiane.
58. The most perceptive discussion of these issues can be found in Grant Evans (1998), The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos Since 1975, Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai, especially pp 168-184. One approach would be to condemn the Luang Prabang monarchy both for failing to support Chao Anou and for collaborating with the French, and thus for having betrayed the cause of Lao independence.
59. A project is under way for a Lao translation of Grant Evans (2002), A Short History of Laos, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW. If this comes to fruition, it will be the first work by a foreign scholar translated into Lao since the foundation of the LPDR (personal communication, Grant Evans, February 2004).