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The book is a festschrift, dedicated to Hans Dieter Kubitscheck,
the former head of the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at
Humboldt University, Berlin. Ten authors representing different
academic disciplines (mainly history and ethnology) as well as four
different countries (Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos and Burma/Myanmar)
discuss the relations between ethnic minorities and the nation
state in Southeast Asia in colonial and modern times.
Southeast Asia is a region of eleven different states, each having
many different peoples, languages, cultures and religions. However,
general ideas, principles or rules which can encompass any one
particular example or one country are nevertheless possible. This
constant interplay and interaction between the specific and the
general, between the local and the regional, between region and
nation, between history and current times, is one of the
characteristics of Southeast Asia. In taking this background into
consideration it is important to distinguish between rule and
exception, to trace down recurrent themes in history according to
changing circumstances, and to seek possible ways of smoothing
tensions or of solving conflicts. This book includes contributions
covering about seven Southeast Asian countries: Myanmar, Thailand,
Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam on the mainland, as well as Singapore
and Indonesia on the islands. The contributions deal with all three
of the important categories of ethnic minorities: the tribal or
indigenous populations, the nationalities who live as majority
population in neighbouring states, and the so-called 'Foreign
Asians'. Furthermore, general questions such as
Nationalitatenpolitik and language politics (Sprachenpolitik) are
also addressed.
This edited book examines how South Vietnam’s (formerly the
Republic of Vietnam 1955-1975) literary and journalistic writers
were perceived and - potentially - influenced by Western thought,
led by thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Franz Kafka, Sigmund
Freud, Thomas Mann, Martin Heidegger, Hermann Hesse, Edmund
Husserl, Stefan Zweig, Graham Greene, and Somerset
Maugham. The book reveals the dynamism and diversity of
Western thought in individual literary texts, as well as among the
authors themselves. The volume considers how writers and their
texts engaged with issues that are socially, culturally,
politically, and philosophically significant to Vietnam and beyond,
past and present. This approach to South Vietnam’s literary and
journalistic tradition enables an alternative plural, inclusive
view of the significance of these texts, which are shown to be
neither exclusively anti-Communist nor “bourgeois
individualist†(cá nhân tiểu tư sản), as they have so
often been interpreted both in and outside of Vietnam. Such an
interpretation problematically retains the marginal position of
South Vietnam’s literature in mainstream Vietnamese literature,
and in the literatures of the host countries where these Vietnamese
authors have migrated, settled, and continued to write following
the 'Fall of Saigon'. This volume presents itself as a key
text for those studying Asian and postcolonial literatures, as well
as scholars in the humanities researching Vietnam – its history,
politics, society, and culture.Â
The book deals with Vietnam's ethnic and religious minorities in a
historical perspective. The time frame stretches from the
pre-colonial era to contemporary times. Except for one paper on the
situation of the Vietnam-China border area, the authors focus on
South or Southern Central Vietnam. The Chinese, the Cham and the
Bahnar represent three different categories of ethnic minorities:
the so-called Foreign Asians, the highly developed nationalities
and the former tribal populations, who once lived at the margins.
The Vietnamese and Highland Catholics as well as the French
Protestants are two prominent religious minorities. The aim of this
book is to contribute to a discussion about common features,
categories and tasks, which transcend regional, ethnic or religious
particularities and the familiar lowland-highland divide.
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