ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Batam's economic growth has been nothing short of spectacular. In the 1990s, it experienced an investment boom fuelled by investments from Singapore. This lasted for two decades and transformed the economy and landscape of what was an outpost into a place with a major industrial city of over 1 million inhabitants.

This impressive pace of development has often been accompanied by a marked degradation of the natural environment. Mangrove areas have rapidly disappeared, floods have occurred around the city because of erosion caused by land clearing; illegal squatter settlements have intruded into protected forests, and toxic substances from the offshore cleaning of ships have affected the quality of Batam's coastal waters.

But all is not lost. Economic and environmental imperatives can be reconciled if Batam's development trajectory takes into account the impact of economic growth on the environment. Sustainable development is not impossible.

Negative environmental impacts have to be controlled by regulations and by proper enforcement. The institutional framework (regulations and property rights) plays a central role to ensure that negative environmental impacts are accounted for and minimized. Problems generally arise from either an absence of regulations or property rights to regulate the environment or from the absence or lack of enforcement by the relevant authorities.

The Riau Islands Province (PRI) is made up of five rural regencies (kabupaten) and two cities or urban municipalities (kota). Batam and Tanjung Pinang are the two cities within PRI, while Bintan, Karimun, Lingga, Anambas and Natuna form the five regencies. Batam Island's land area totals 415 km2 (41,500 hectares).

This paper will examine the various manifestations and causes of environmental degradation against the backdrop of economic transformation, population growth and enforcement (or lack thereof). It also provides a comprehensive update where possible of the present state of environmental affairs in the municipality, and the challenges involved in maintaining the carrying capacity of the environment to cope with development.

Following a discussion of the methodology used in this study, the next section will examine the impact of government policies on economic transformation, and of migration on population growth. Regulations and enforcement measures are then discussed in general, followed by an examination of Batam's environmental management challenges across many fronts.

Summary

Introduction

Among the major religions in Singapore, Christianity has been the fastest growing faith in the last three decades. The percentage of the resident population aged 15 years and older — inclusive of citizens and permanent residents numbering around 3.12 million people — that professed to be Christians, increased from 10.1 per cent in 1980 to 18.3 per cent in 2010. The converts were overwhelmingly of Chinese ethnicity. Buddhism and Taoism, the main religious affiliations of the majority Chinese population in Singapore, have registered a decline from 57.0 to 44.2 per cent in the same period. Christianization trumps secularization, as those professing “no religion” increased from 14.1 to 17.0 per cent in the same period. The two trends compete for the same demographic group, namely, young adults with higher educational qualifications.

The fastest growth sector within Singapore Christianity is independent, non-denominational Pentecostalism. The four megachurches that belong to this sector have attendance numbers estimated to be above 10,000. They are City Harvest Church (20,000), Faith Community Baptist Church (10,000), Lighthouse Evangelism (15,000), and New Creation Church (30,000). All four churches were founded in the 1980s, at a time when Christianity in Singapore was experiencing a crisis of relevance; socially engaged liberal Christianity withdrew from the public sphere due to political crackdowns and the inability of conservative Christianity to fill the gap. Most of the founding pastors of these churches left their denominational churches, seeking to carve their own way with the interpretation of scriptures and adaptation of charismatic worship practices to the Singaporean context.

Megachurches have been successful in drawing young converts largely because of the preaching of contextual theologies relevant to the aspirations of the middle classes, as well as the adaptation of church practices to the urban consumerism and political conservatism brought on by the developmental state's programme of directed capitalist transformation of society. Their years of rapid growth, from the 1990s to the 2000s, coincided with the coming-of-age of a postcolonial generation of Singaporeans in a highly urbanized social and economic setting shaped by rapid modernization and change due to globalization.

Summary

The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

Summary

TheTrends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

Summary

Introduction

Senior Pastor Lawrence Khong, head of Faith Community Baptist Church (FCBC), one of the biggest charismatic megachurches in Singapore, is a tad nervous. The 2014 Shanghai tour of his magic show VISION, part David Copperfield and part Cirque du Soleil complete with dancing girls and disappearing sports cars, is not selling as well as it should. Khong urges his congregation back home in Singapore, through a video clip on Facebook, to pray for the show's success. Together with his daughter Priscilla, Khong also runs Gateway Entertainment, the production company that funds and creates his magic shows. Meanwhile, Sun Ho, wife of Kong Hee, the senior pastor of City Harvest Church (CHC), can be found singing about “killing Bill” — her philandering partner — in a music video produced by American artist Wyclef Jean. In another dance-friendly music video replete with cultural misalignments, Ho is scantily dressed like a geisha but singing about “China Wine”. “The creation of a persona is part and parcel of the music and movie industry”, the church takes pains to explain. “Some artists switch personas from film to film or from album to album. Ho herself went from the “geisha” persona in “China Wine” to a new one in her latest music video “Fancy Free”.

The intertwining of Christianity and capitalism is, of course, not new. Weber traced the origins of the Protestant work ethic to the importance that Calvinists placed on worldly success, as they grappled with the thorny issue of predestination. Miller and Yamamori highlighted the “practical” side of the “Prosperity Gospels”, in how Christian entrepreneurs are encouraged and groomed to give back to the church. Others like Ellingson and Sargeant, observing concertlike sermons and marketing strategies, noted how Christianity has been remarkably adaptable to capitalist and consumerist impulses. This adaptive character should come as no surprise because Christianity, particularly its Pentecostal strand, has long demonstrated the dual ability to be transnational in crossing cultural boundaries while indigenizing itself with local traditions and practices. This has ensured the retention of a broad global identity coupled with deep local relevance, and has contributed to the relative speed and ease with which Pentecostalism has spread across the globe, particularly Asia.

Summary

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Summary

The global success of Pentecostalism has made it necessary to speak of different Pentecostalisms. From the United States to Latin America, East and Southeast Asia, Pentecostalism has been shaped by different politics and cultures. One might even say that Pentecostal pluralism has ensured not just its survival but its continued cross-cultural flourish. Indeed, Pentecostalism's ability to adapt practices and theologies to local conditions has seen the faith emerge in a multitude of expressions while retaining enough common characteristics for global coherence. Its global spread began in the nineteenth century through the flow of Western missionaries, sometimes via the passage of colonialism, and has hinged on its simultaneously indigenizing and transnationalizing nature. For the most part, these Western missionaries, many of whom may not have been Pentecostals to begin with, in setting up churches in foreign lands had embarked on a de facto indigenization process through various actions such as their reliance on local interpreters, the communication of the Gospel through local idioms, and the eventual training of local clergy. The practical needs of proselytizing in a foreign land ensured that the Gospel was always understood through a local cultural prism, much in the same way contemporary preachers are prone to framing sermons around topical national events and local issues from their pulpits to add just that touch of relevance to the Word of God. To be able to see the divine through the local has made the Pentecostal experience a unique one.

Furthermore, the numerous Pentecostal revivals around the world that pre-date the 1906 Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles suggests that the indigenization process was not merely driven by practice and methods but also by the careful choice of relevant messages. The Gospels, its parables, and message of hope and salvation were crafted not as straightforward Judeo-Christian narratives for consumption by different communities, but as divine restoration that spoke to the wants of different locales fashioned from a common text. Korean Pentecostalism's emphasis on divine healing resonates with the Korean worldview on the wounding of the han (or ethnic essence) of communities caused by wars, colonialism and poverty.

Summary

Introduction

Said to have originated in the United States in the 1900s, Pentecostalism is one of the fastest growing Christian denominations internationally and has become the largest numerical force in world Christianity after the Roman Catholic Church. Pentecostalism has traditionally seen a downward mobilization of the Spirit resulting in large swathes of working or rural class individuals embracing the faith. Although these characteristics are now found globally, the amorphous nature of Pentecostalism defies typical characterizations because of its simultaneously transnationalizing and indigenizing features. Its growth, expressions, manifestations, and enactments deserve to be treated not merely as an import from American Christianity, but one that has varied, multiple, and fluid meanings, especially in a non-Western, Muslim majority country like Malaysia. Whereas Pentecostal churches are to some extent governed and characterized by established denominational structures and theology, many megachurches are increasingly non-denominational and construct their own brand and identity that is increasingly influenced by corporate discourse and governed by growth philosophy. In fact, this is one of the distinguishing characteristics of a megachurch: pastors deliberately execute projects to increase attendance numbers, while strategizing to grow the church even bigger in size and financial resources. This creates competitive, organizational, and theological tensions. It is important to decipher the extent to which this is embraced and resisted.

Using Calvary Church, a Pentecostal megachurch based in Kuala Lumpur, as a case study, I demonstrate how the church is able to strategically draw upon various discourses, embedded in discursive practices and mediated by organizational, linguistic, and socio-cultural resources to materialize Christianity in the Malaysian context and achieve its organizational objective of growth. Given Malaysia's volatile and complicated multi-ethnic and multi-religious landscape, this chapter explores how Calvary Church uses elements of religious traditions and other familiar and appealing discourses to produce artefacts and experiences that resonate with contemporary middleclass ideals in Malaysia. I demonstrate this specifically by studying the church's practices as well as the multiple discourses the church draws upon, which can be observed from organizational artefacts. The focus of the chapter and the milieu of the analysis will be the organizational structure of the church. Although reference will be made to the Malaysian context where appropriate, it will not be the central scope of this chapter; there is extensive literature about Malaysia's religious context.

Summary

My recently retired colleagues at the University of Minnesota, Carla and Wim Phillips, have asserted, “By the late fifteenth century, the ocean had ceased to be a barrier and had instead become a highway or bridge to what lay beyond.” That may pertain to Europe and the voyage of Columbus, about whom they were writing, but in Asia, way before the late fifteenth century, water created a trading network — at the very least a proto-world system. In fact, as early as the third millennium BCE we have evidence for trade by sea, and a flourishing trade network is documented by the first century BCE.

Around 2500 BCE, when we first can document cross-cultural sea trade, civilizations with access to the ocean could enhance local economies through trade, providing not only a means of selling locally produced goods to a vastly expanded market, but also providing a means of importing luxury goods and expanding the repertoire of products locally available. Sea trade created a system linking a huge area extending from East Africa to Arabia and on to China, bridging a region that transcended cultures and kingdoms and regions of distinct sovereignty. What is the advantage to the sea? Imagine taking goods overland, even on well-established routes. Traders would have needed many pack animals, a very large herd of them, to take the same weight or volume of goods that can be carried on a single boat; a single ship's cargo of 500 tons would have been enough to provide every inhabitant of Rome with one pound of pepper per year, probably an exaggeration but nonetheless a useful figure in visualizing the impact of sea trade. A mule can carry about 100 kilograms and travel only about 25 kilometres in a day, so it would take about 4,500 pack animals to carry the amount that could be loaded on one ship. Michael Pearson puts the contrast even more powerfully, noting that a dhow can travel the same distance as a camel caravan in one-third of the time and that a boat can carry the equivalent of 1,000 camel loads.

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Since its inscription into the UNESCO's list of world heritage sites in July 2016 the ruins of Nālandā will certainly attract more attention through the Indian and global public than hitherto. The most recent or forthcoming publications on Nālandā by Frederick Asher and Mary Stewart critically assess the archaeological and art-historical evidence, and for this purpose they constantly refer to textual sources. These references are made on the basis of the old nineteenh century translations of the most extensive texts on Nālandā, the Chinese records, and of the Middle-Indic (Pāli, Prākṛt) and Tibetan sources. It seems therefore appropriate that a volume on Nālandā also contains a contribution from the textual-philological point of view, not only, as the title implies, to set the records straight, but also to give contextually informed translations and discussions of the relevant textual sources. I do not claim at all that these are the final words on all the issues addressed here, but would rather like to open a critical discourse on and about some of these sources.

The textual sources referring to Nālandā are threefold: inscriptions, Buddhist and Jain “canonical” texts in Indic languages, and passages in and from the travelogues of Chinese visitors or residents of the monastery and relatively late Tibetan historiographical writings. Among these sources the ones deemed to be most informative and reliable are the Chinese records of Xuanzang (600/602–664), of his biographer(s), and of Yijing (635–713), because both monks resided and studied in Nālandā for several years. Information extracted from these sources, digested mostly from the nineteenth century translations by Beal and others, feed rather uncritically into the major historical narrative of the monastery, pushing its existence even back to the time of the Buddha. The article has a focus on the Chinese texts and their translations and the Pāli and Jain sources while neglecting other sources like inscriptions. As a natural consequence of this, I will not discuss the paraṃparā of kings given by Xuanzang, since relation cannot be done without the evidence from royal inscriptions and other historical sources, as important as this is for the reconstruction of the history of the monastery. Due to restriction of space such an analysis has to be given at another occasion.

Summary

Blackburn Lane. It's a sleepy, time-forgotten alley in Kolkata's Tiretta Bazaar. Ennui hangs heavy, like Elliot's yellow fog, curling into every sleepy crevice. Suddenly, a thundering roll of drumbeats shatters the timeless languor — a gaggle of boys and girls in costume spill out of a weather-worn brick house in a raucous dragon dance. The street erupts into joyous celebration, the greys eclipsed by a riot of red. It is Chinese New Year in Kolkata's Chinatown.

Not many people are even aware of a Chinatown in Kolkata, much less that it is one of the oldest and the only surviving one of its kind in South Asia. The Chinese began settling in Calcutta (now Kolkata) over two and a half centuries ago, and for as long as the elders in the community can remember, Chinese New Year has always been heralded by dancing dragons in Blackburn Lane. The procession then winds its way to the newer Chinatown, the once swampy badlands of Tangra, now a warren of bumpy roads dotted with outdated Chinese restaurants and questionable tanneries. It finally ends up in Achipur in the city's suburbs where the community pays homage to the graves of ancestors in the place where the Chinese first settled. Where celebrations go, this is a pretty modest revelry, but it signifies something much deeper. A celebration of diasporic survival. Of continuity. Of a city's unique multi-ethnic heritage.

Today it's hard to tell that Tiretta Bazaar was once a bustling, vibrant market in a once grand, cosmopolitan city that was the “jewel in the crown” of the British Raj. Here you could buy the world: from crystal chandeliers to marble statues, from hookahs to cigars; it was where the Portuguese picked up the choicest fruits and the Armenians shopped for exotic birds; where the Baghdadi Jews selected Italian tiles for their mansions and where the Dutch bought shoes and the Greeks their olives. The large, colonnaded, cacophonous market was built by the flamboyant Venetian architect Edward Tiretta — friend of the infamous Casanova no less — who became Superintendent of Streets and Bazaars in Calcutta. The Calcutta Gazette of 1788, described Tiretta Bazaar as occupying “nine bighas and eight cottahs of land, formed in two squares, with convenient shops, surrounded with a colonnade veranda, and the whole area of the square divided into commodious streets with pucka stalls”.

Summary

The archaeological site of Nalanda has been inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List of 2016. One of the key requirements put forth by the World Heritage Convention (WHC) for such recognition is to geospatially identify core and buffer zones of the inscribed property. This essay analyses these inscribed zones in the spatial context of records and maps of archaeological remains at Nalanda created by Francis Buchanan- Hamilton, Alexander Cunningham and Alexander M. Broadley in the nineteenth century. Using recent satellite imagery and associated geospatial techniques together with ground observations, this essay firstly, identifies the geographical location of all features mapped and recorded by the three British explorers in and around Nalanda, secondly presents a visual comparison of the property inscribed as a World Heritage site and the expanse of archaeological features noticed in nineteenth century (some of which still exist, yet lie outside the core and buffer zones), and finally records the present land-use along those features (via visual interpretation of the latest satellite imagery and field visit) in order to identify locations where there is high potential for heritage conservation.

INTRODUCTION

Nalanda was a Buddhist monastery of considerable repute which attracted scholars from great distances. Accounts of visitors from China (dating from the seventh century AD) suggest that Nalanda was a large, thriving establishment whose physical dimensions were immense. This institution seems to have remained in existence from the fourth/fifth century to at least until the end of the twelfth century. It is unknown exactly when this centre came into existence, and we do not have a continuous record for its activities. It must have gained a reputation for importance by the seventh century AD, attracting scholarly monks such as Xuanzang and Yijing from China. Tibetan monk Dharmasvamin records some lingering activity in the monastery with a handful of monks during his visit in 1234–36 AD. There is sparse historical documentation about Nalanda in the subsequent centuries, and the very existence of this mega monastery was forgotten in that region.

The site was visited by Francis Buchanan in 1812, a Scottish physician, who surveyed the region that would later be known as Nalanda as part of a survey of the territories forming the Presidency of Fort William.

Summary

The story of the Buddha's enlightenment is one of complete transformation, of the world shaking, and of universal paradigms being broken. It was, in all senses of the word, cataclysmic. The story goes that after practising asceticism for many years, the Buddha ate some rice and milk before discerning a new path to liberation. Looking for a place to realize his new vision, the Buddha set his eyes on a small spot of ground below a pipal tree. He prepared his seat by laying a woven mat of grass and vowed never to rise before achieving total enlightenment. The climax of the dawn of enlightenment is when Mara, the God of Illusion, appears before Siddhartha demanding that he support his claim to defeat all delusion. In response, Siddhartha reaches his right hand down, touching the earth as witness to the magnitude of the merit of his acts up to that moment. The earth trembled and Siddhartha became a Buddha, realizing the truth of liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth.

There is something about the composition of ground, tree, and figure that creates a poignant scene for the great conflict of the Buddha's liberation. In many representations, the Buddha is shown serenely seated under a tree as demons attack, beautiful ladies tempt, and Mara provokes. In some depictions, the arching bows of the tree begin to trace a circle around the Buddha, defining an entire microcosm — a vision of reality or an ecosystem — that frames the moment of liberation. Like the transformation of the Sakya Prince into the Lord Buddha, the ground the Buddha sat upon and the tree he sat beneath were remade. The spot became the bodhimanda, or seat of enlightenment, and the tree the Buddha sat beneath became the bodhi tree, or tree of enlightenment. While both demand further consideration, this paper will focus on the bodhi tree as a liminal object between the figure of the Buddha and the ground of his enlightenment. It is, in fact, the tree's liminality that has made it an important living symbol of Buddhism. While iconographically rich with a history that extends from early depictions in the third century to countless iterations around the world, bodhi trees also occupy a central place in ritual engagements with Buddhism, especially around the making of sacred space and a modern history of Buddhism in India.

Summary

“TURK, TELI, TAR, WEH TINO HAIN BIHAR”

Writing in 1870s Alexander Meyrick Broadley, an official of the colonial bureaucracy and an avid antiquarian, thus rounded up his account of exploits in Bihar — “Turks (Muhammadans), Telis (oil pressers), and Tar (Tar-palms), these three make up Bihar.” This configuration of Bihar, as Broadley persuasively argued, was a common parlance of the late nineteenth century. The choice of this particular phrase as the concluding sentence of his long essay on ancient Buddhist remains of the region, however, served a more crucial function than adding a bit of local colour to a standard nineteenth century regional history. It sought to bring out the labours of a colonial administrator and antiquarian in reclaiming the glorious pasts of a land now lost to vagaries of time, and to the all too familiar colonial charges against “uninformed native vandalism”, and “misappropriation”.

Framing nineteenth century Bihar as a land of wilderness, a region wrecked by lawlessness, and inhabited by natives with a disregard for their own past, enabled the colonial narratives of discovery of Bihar's ancient history. It is against these narratives of loss that colonial officials, archaeologists, and antiquarians like Broadley would stage their labours of recovering ancient pasts. In his capacity as the Assistant Magistrate of Bihar, Broadley conducted surveys, excavations, and built up a substantial antiquarian collection which found their way into the Bihar Museum established in the town of Bihar Sharif. As the earliest museum collection of nineteenth century colonial Bihar, the Broadley Collection emerged during 1870s and 1880s as the site of rediscovered ancient Buddhist Bihar protected from the ravages of “nature” and “natives”. However, this museum had a short life, spanning only some two decades.

In 1890s the Government of Bengal disbanded the Bihar Sharif Museum and transferred the antiquities to Calcutta to add to the imperial collection in the Indian Museum. In 1917, five years after the creation of the new province of Bihar and Orissa, a provincial museum was established in Patna, the new provincial capital. Citing instances of earlier carting away of antiquities outside the territorial limits of province, in which the disbanding of the Bihar Museum featured as a major grudge, the Patna Museum projected itself as the sole rightful repository of Bihar's antiquarian heritage. The institution emerged as a potent ground for the fashioning of a new provincial identity predicated on the reclamation of the province's history and antiquities.

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Reconciling Economic and Imperatives in Batam

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8 - Grace, Megachurches, and the Christian Prince in Singapore

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About the Contributors

Malaysia

Index

Foreword

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Foreword

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Singapore

9 - Speaking the Heart of Zion in the Language of Canaan: City Harvest and the Cultural Mandate in Singapore

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Indonesia

Reconciling Economic and Environmental Imperatives in Batam

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Frontmatter

1 - Introduction

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4 - Reaching the City of Kuala Lumpur and Beyond: Being a Pentecostal Megachurch in Malaysia

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3 - India, Magadha, Nalanda: Ecology and a Premodern World System

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6 - Setting the “Records” Straight: Textual Sources on Nālandā and Their Historical Value

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12 - A Heritage Gem Sits in the Heart of a City, Unacknowledged, Incognito: The Case for Recognizing Kolkata Chinatown as a Historic Urban Landscape

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11 - Archaeological Remains at Nalanda: A Spatial Comparison of Nineteenth Century Observations and the Protected World Heritage Site

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8 - The Object | The Tree: Emissaries of Buddhist Ground

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4 - Collecting the Region: Configuring Bihar in the Space of Museums

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