8 - Reflections on Divisive Modernity

Summary

Heritage can unite communities, but it can also divide different communities and even the people within each community. With the advent of modernity, other layers of complexity are added. When the quest for modernity puts great pressure on individuals and communities, it can bring greater intensity to existing divisions and also create new sources of division. The lecture I gave in honour of Herb Feith, a scholar who closely examined early political divisions in an independent Indonesia, gave me the opportunity to talk about modernity. I saw modernity as a goal that the peoples of different origins in Malaysia and Singapore, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, wanted for their respective countries. But some aspects of the modernity ideal have not brought them shared values. On the contrary, they seem to have divided the peoples further during the first decades of decolonization.

These were divisions that Herb Feith and I have talked about the few times when we met. We were concerned about the divisions for different reasons, but we shared a common interest in how they reflect the problems that developing countries faced when trying hard to become modern quickly. His particular concern was the travails of Indonesia while mine began with the troubled start to the new state of Malaysia. For both of us, our interests included political and cultural issues among the Chinese, not least those influenced by post-revolutionary China. I gave the lecture with a heavy heart. It reminded me that John Legge and I were among the last persons to see Herb Feith on the Monash campus on 15 November 2001, hours before he was killed in a tragic accident. We had just had a thoughtful discussion about the fate of Chinese communities in certain parts of Indonesia after the fall of President Suharto. John Legge's presence when we talked was important. Herb Feith and I had not seen each other for more than a decade and it was John Legge who initiated our meeting and gave me a chance to hear his views about the latest developments in Indonesian democracy. I vividly recall that last discussion we had before we parted. We touched on the subject of new kinds of divisiveness in Southeast Asian society. We had shared views about how these were caused in part by the different expectations that people had about the pursuit of modernity.