THE SOUTH-EAST ASIAN SCENE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29264, 23 July 1960, Page 3

THE SOUTH-EAST ASIAN SCENE

(Reviewed by J.H.E.) The Lotas And The Dynamo. A Traveller in Changing Southeast Asia. C. D. Rowley. Angus and Robertson. 238 pp. This is a travel book, but it is much more as weU. The author, who was working for U.N.E.S.C.O. and the 1.L.0., writes primarily of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and his travels in these countries, but his survey relates to the whole region which he calls Asia Proxima, which includes Indonesia and the Philippines as well. The Lotus symbolises the old values of South-east Asia now subjected to the stresses and strains of Western materialism symbolised by the Dynamo.

Outside the cities of Asia Proxima most of the people live in villages and are dependent on rice farming for their living. In Cambodia the proportion is as high

as 90 per cent. The basis of the South-east Asian state is this village—more of less closed, small,

traditionally self-sufficient economically, with the “wat” or religious centre exercising a great influence on community life. But this village life no longer brings the same satisfaction to the people. The economy is becoming increasingly, vulnerable; the struggle for survival puts increasing emphasis on material things, and the dominance of religion is undermined as Western secular education brings scepticism into the village. At the same time the policies of the new governments of the region are designed to make the villager a citizen of an industrial state—less a pious villager, says Mr Rowley, and more like the mythical economic man of the West.

The picture is at least equally depressing when he turns from the villages to the cities, the place of congregation for the lost and the dispossessed. The dissatisfied and the unfortunate drift from the villages into these huge centres, where their old status and security are gone, but there is no Welfare State to relieve the hardships due to rapid and unplanned urbanisation: the old craft techniques have been largely lost, and there is widespread unemployment and underemployment; there is little education; women are compelled by economic circumstances to work for wages and neglect their children: proper trade union organisation is difficult. It is significant that the city poor derive their impressions of the outside world from American. French and Indian films

Into this welter of conflict and distress have come the agencies of the United Nations and the United States, and various other organisations, and we may be grateful to Mr Rowley for indicating to us some of the problems that have to be faced. Some of these are material; there is of course a shortage of capital, and the extension of technical training alone is not likely to improve the lot of workers generally. At the same time, the countries of Asia Proxima have their own individual differences. Cambodia for instance is planning not only for greater production but also for greater population, while Laos has been left with no French industrial enterprises and no railway; its village life is consequently comparatively undisturbed. The country is said to have only one qualified doctor, and no printer or bookseller, a circumstance which leads Mr Rowley to remind us that it is politically Important which government supplies the books which at present are so scarce. He also asks what help should be offered, and points out that the problem of raising the standard of living involves the attempt to Influence the way of life of hundreds of small self-contained societies. in contrast to the Communist technique of propaganda and if necessary force designed to change the old social and economic order,

the method followed by the agencies already mentioned is one of community development, an interim attempt to do everything possible at the village level with the materials available. An example of this is the “fundamental education” programme of U.N.E.5.C.0., which establishes centres where workers in education, health and agriculture can be trained. This seems at least a promising beginning. On the other hand, Mr Rowley makes it clear that the problem is very largely a spiritual one. The dominant religion of the region is Buddhism, and the difficulty is that of persuading people to concentrate on improving material welfare when they believe that escape from suffering in successive lives may be won by suppressing desire, and that striving for physical advantages makes the path to Nirvana more difficult. Mr Rowley points out, for instance, that some monks whom he met in Thailand knew that the greatest problems of delinquency were to be found in the wealthiest cities of the modern world. It is a salutory reflection. On the other hc-nd we are told that the Buddhist outlook is modified by the duty of compassion for the unfortunate. which should lead to an attempt by the monks to improve the social conditions of the people who support them.

Mr Rowley thinks that Buddhism may yet provide a basis for social integration in our complex world society, in which he believes, rather surprisingly, that the message of Christianity has failed. There are apparently hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics in Vietnam, where they have a labour confederation. We also read of church secondary schools and schools conducted by Vietnamese nuns, as well as churches in a refugee camp, and of the medical teams of Operation Good Neighbour that went to Vietnam from the Philippines, the only predominantly Christian nation in Asia, and the only one in which there is any, feeling against using women for heavy manual work. This is certainly dot evidence of the failure of Christianity in at any rate two countries of Asia, where the Church, like UJJ.E.S.C.O, appears to have made some progress. This book is a survey of the South-east Asian scene through the eyes of an Australian, and he has an interesting view of the standing of "his country in Asian eyes. The Asian, we are told, tends to blame the foreigner for his own poverty, but the Australian is not regarded as a colonial exploiter or a European official, nor is he to be feared; he can therefore provide technical aid without being suspect, and it is realised by the Australian Government that national security depends on Asian goodwill. We may add that that the standing of the New Zealander is probably much the same, and that this is a book which may be widely and profitably read in this country.