Elites in Colonial Southeast Asia

Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History
Political Elites in Colonial Southeast Asia: An Historical Analysis Author(s): Harry J. Benda Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Apr., 1965), pp. 233-251 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/177791 . Accessed: 28/11/2013 16:32
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POLITICAL ELITES IN COLONIAL SOUTHEAST ASIA: AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS *
Present-day political systems in the nation statesof SoutheastAsia can be classified in accordancewithvariouscriteria; theycan, forexample,be politidemocracy to totalicallygroupedon a spectrum ranging from parliamentary of politiThe focusof thepresent is thesociology tariandictatorship.' inquiry cal elites ratherthan the formsof politywhichthese eliteshave createdor withthe ruling"national"elites,leaving helped to create.It deals exclusively or ethnicallyout of consideration secondarygroups,such as territoriallybased local and regionalelites,religious elites. leaders,and othertraditional Two kinds of "national" elite can be discernedin contemporary Southeast elites" and "modernizing traditional Asia, whichwe shall call "intelligentsia forthetimebeingthe constitutional frameworks and the elites".Disregarding of each individualstate,it may be said that degreeof popular participation both elites are in many respectsoligarchies.Their oligarchicnature stems thattheyare by and largethe onlyexponents and reprefromthe fact,first, of the modernnationalstatesof SoutheastAsia whose populations sentatives the transition are only graduallyundergoing from "primordial"to "civil" in the sense thatcore members allegiances.2 Second,theyare also oligarchies recruited fromamonglimited of society. are predominantly segments
* An earlyversion on the Comparative of thispaperwas presented to the Committee of Chicago in May, 1963, a laterand abbreStudyof theNew Statesin the University in Congressof Orientalists to the XXVIth International viatedversion beingpresented help in invaluable 1964. Mr. Kevin O'Sullivan,M.A., rendered New Delhi, in January, of thisfinal version.I am also indebtedto several the researchfor and preparation Geertzand and criticisms, notablyClifford colleaguesin Chicago for theircomments at a visiting Professor C. C. Bergof Leiden University, EdwardShils,and to Professor Chicago in the Springquarterof 1963. In New Delhi, Dr. Leslie H. Palmierof the makingvaluable suggestions UNESCO ResearchCentre,kindlyread the manuscript, forits improvements. I Such classifications have i.a. been attempted by Gabriel A. Almondand JamesS. 1960), 532 ff.,and Coleman (eds.), The Politicsof the DevelopingAreas (Princeton, Studies in Edward Shils, "Political Developmentin the New States", Comparative, Moutonand II (1960), 265-92and 293-411.(Separately published, Societyand History, Co., 1962.) and is borrowedfromClifford Sentiments 2 This terminology Geertz,"Primordial Civil Politicsin the New States",in Geertz(ed.), Old Societiesand New States: The in Asia and Africa(Glencoe, 1963), 105-57. Quest for Modernity
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HARRY J. BENDA
essay, arepolities governed bygroups Intelligentsia regimes, as usedinthis ofpolitical ofSoutheast Asianswhose major, ifnotsole,claimto theexercise education and consequent orientation. powerstems from their Western-style - thegroup or classoftheir In other words, itis nottheir socialbackground - that datum aboutsuchintelligentsias (in fact, birth is themostsignificant a rather grouping from thatpointof theyusually represent heterogeneous training and outlook.3 Equallyimview),but their commonly experienced ruling classesproper: they portant, theseintelligentsias are in our definition and not becausetheyare educated rulebecausetheyare theintelligentsia they correspond rather closely to members of other ruling groups in society; or,forthat matter, to Platonic KarlMannheim's freischwebende Intelligenz4 as a ruling class will be historically philosopher-kings.5 Theiremergence their existence is predicated on traced in this essay;suffice itto saynowthat a present-day in which there are no other viablegroups able to socialorder or where traditional) groups havebeen exercise political power, such(usually so weakened as to leavetheintelligentsia as virtually thesole successful claimant to power. by contrast, consist of elitegroups preModernizing traditional regimes, on an ascriptive notto basis,from among established, dominantly recruited or groups. ofcourse, themodIt is true, that sayvested, socialclasses, strata derive their contemporary political preernizing segments of thesegroups a Western-style eminence also from education and outlook, and thatthey a fairly within thetraditional classesof minority therefore constitute distinct Bothelites Southeast their origin. thusmaybe said to belongto a modern Buttheintrinsic differAsianintelligentsia in thebroadest senseoftheterm. of themare of greater thanthebasic similarity encesbetween significance where in thefirst of polity their type intelligentsias educational experiences: ownright, the other classesin their is ruledby Westernized, act as ruling ruling "intellectualized" branches, so to speak,of traditionally-established a historical of closer or modernizing classes groups. imvestigation Reserving forsubsequent note traditional partsof thisessay,we maybriefly regimes ofcontinuity in the on a greater or lesser existence that their degree depends traditional holders of power(economic, whichhas permitted social order, to historical and to make to adaptthemselves social and political) change, in theprocesses them at leaders active someof least and,indeed, participants thatin such regimes the It does not necessarily follow of modernization.
infor both civilianand military and outlookis important This sharedexperience telligentsias. 4 See Karl Mannheim, Ideologyand Utopia (London, 1948), esp. ch. 3. 5 I have discussed as Intelligentsias thisconceptin two earlieressays,"Non-Western VI (1960), 205-18, PoliticalElites", The AustralianJournalof Politicsand History, Countries: in JohnH. Kautsky(ed.), Political Change in Underdeveloped reprinted (New York and London,1962),235-51;and "Intellectuals and Communism Nationalism BucknellReview,X (1961), 1-14. and Politicsin WesternHistory",
3
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Westernized eliteis coterminous withthe (broadly defined) intelligentsia. Insofar as there exist intellectuals outside theeducated traditional oligarchy, they mayin factform oppositional nuclei, as often as notvegetating on the (barely) tolerated fringes ofpolitical life.6 In accordance with theabovesetof criteria, Indonesia, Burmaand North (and perhaps also South)Viet Nam maybe classified as intelligentsia regimes, whileLaos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaya(Malaysia)and thePhilippinesbelong to thecategory ofmodernizing traditional regimes. It should be stressed onceagainthat these categories aresociological rather than political, and thattheyrefer to the composition of the respective elites(i.e., to the question ofwhothey are)rather than to thepolicies they adopt(i.e.,to what they actually do). Sucha classification neednotipsofacto imply differences in, or evendegrees of, "progressiveness", "modernity", "democratization", and suchlike.Either kindof regime can be progressive, modern or demoto various cratic to various extents, justas bothcan be theobverse extents.
II
The existence of thesetwotypes of contemporary Southeast Asianpolitical of a variety of historical elites is theresult Two setsof such developments. detailed attention in thisanalysis, willreceive one rooted developments in theimposition theother from premodern times, resulting ofmodern colonial The first rulein thenineteenth and twentieth concerns theformacenturies. thebasicsocialandpolitical tive influences affecting structures ofthevarious andthesecond, on Southeast Asiansocieties, theeffects of alienoverlordship The selection ofthese twosetsofhistorical these structures. phenomena is, of arenotnecessarily theonlysignificant in nodalpoints course, arbitrary; they theemphasis on foreign, facSoutheast Asianhistory.7 Similarly, "imported" is largely dictated oftheinquiry torsin Southeast Asianhistory bythefocus the properbalancebetween Whatever and itself. imported superstructure seems indigenous substructure maybe in each partof Southeast Asia,there theregion's and politically core areasof developed little doubtthatsocially and moreor less lastingly affected from have beenprofoundly civilizations trueof the premodern This is particularly the outside.8 era, but to some also holdsforthecolonial extent period. formative Southeast Asia can be divided to theearly According influences,
in the Political Developmentof the New See Edward Shils, "The Intellectuals in Kautsky, op. cit.,195-234. States", 7 Cf. HarryJ. Benda, "The Structure Asian History: Some Preliminary of Southeast III (1952), 106-38(Yale University Asian History, of Southeast Journal Observations", Reprint Series,# 5). Asia Studies, Southeast - civilisations 8 Cf. Georges indochinoise: histoire Coedes,Les peuplesde la peninsule (Paris, 1962), 58-60 and 204 ff.
6
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HARRY J. BENDA
Cambodia, Malayaand Indonesia in thefirst group; North and SouthViet Naminthesecond, andthePhilippines in thethird. sucha simple Obviously, tripartite division does inadequate justice to theregion's complexity, variety andhistory. First, though theeffects ofthethree foreign influences on social andpolitical structures weresignificant andprofound, of they weretheresult quite different, and chronologically disparate, developments. Indianization proceeded gradually and apparently pacifically, the impetus forthisacculturation very likely coming from within thearea rather thanfrom without; and Hispanization by contrast, Sinicization originated in military conquest and subjugation. It must, be borne in mind second, thatall oftheseforeign elements impinged to varying degrees of intensity uponthedifferent regions of their respective orbits, someparts to all intents and purposes rehaving their a mainedvirtually freeof influences. As rule,it was lowlandareas favored by geographic and economic factors thatexperienced thefullest extent ofalieninfluence intocoreareasofcivilization. andthus developed And
withineach of these threeorbitsthemodern national we finda widevariety states of cultures and subcultures exhibiting different levelsof "imported" structural elements. Third, theboundaries between thevarious orbits, especially between theIndianized and Sinicized, werenot historically not onlydo we sometimes find static; themside by side in whathas becomea single national in modern entity times,9 butwe also knowof examples, notably Champa, wherea formerly Indianized has beensupplanted polity by a Sinicized one. In thesubsequent willbe ignored, thenamesof analysis thesehighly important qualifications national entities present-day beingused as convenient shorthand symbols.
contemporary nationalboundarieswe would place Burma, Thailand, Laos,
intothree distinct sectors, theIndianized, Sinicized and Hispanized. Using
and, mutatismutandis, withinmost of
Southeast Indianized Asia. The mostsignificant characteristic socio-political right to land,werevested in thekingly office. Accession to kingship was not wealth of possession a function of either or ancestry, butrather of directly In Indianized societies of theseregaliagave the royalregalia.10 possession but also to his kin,and it becamenormal to powernot onlyto theking, - particularly offices of state thoseinvolving parceloutthemore important - to theclosekinofthemonarch. If offices ofa region thegovernance were one ofhisfemale kinwouldoften be taken as a royal to a commoner, given
betweenking and ofconcubine,thus creatinga quasi-affinal relationship ficial." of thepolitiesin theIndianizedsectorwas, thatall power and, effectively, all
9 Cf. Edmund and Studiesin Society of 'Burma'", Comparative Leach, "The Frontiers III (1960), 49-68. History, of State and Kingshipin 10 Cf. Robert Heine-Geldern's classic study,Conceptions Asia (Ithaca, 1956). Southeast 11 See, forexample,a contemporary on Angkor:"Usuallyprincesare Chinesereport
POLITICAL ELITES
237
With such extremeemphasison the royal power the distinction between "royal" and "non-royal"became crucial. Royaltywas a sacral force,sui generis,and the social and politicaldivisionbetweenthose in contactwith such a force(thoseof the sacredsphere)and thosenot in such contact(those of the profanesphere)became absolute. Since the possessionof the symbols of royalty the capital city,the palace, thethrone, thetieredumbrella, thelingam, etc. - was the essential prerequisiteof royal power, and far outweighed the familystatusof any particular claimant,cases of disputed successionwere not only frequent but virtually therule.Whilesuccession rulestheoretically provided thattheruler's eldest son should succeed him,in factwhoevermanaged,by guile,personal prestige, or main forceto possess himself of the symbolsof royalty at the end of a reignautomatically became heir to the power of the throne.Most successionswere foughtover by membersof establishedroyal familiesor nobilities, but thereare manyinstancesof successful of the royal usurpation by commoners. Thus in spite of the gulf separating the royal and nonpower royal"segments" of society, the vacuumcreatedby the demiseof a monarch made it possibleforan individual to crossthe dividing line and become royal and sacred,and hence possessorof politicalpower.'2 Kinglypower was, then,largelypersonal,not dynastically It institutional. was also virtually absoluteor "despotic",thoughnot necessarily onlyor prinatureof manyIndianizedpolities(a charmarily because of the "hydraulic" acteristic theysharedwithothers)but rather because the realmwas;not intrinsically conceivedof in termsof a functionally controlled and administratively demarcated territory so muchas in termsof the radiation, so to speak, of royalcharisma, itself a reflection of the sacral,rather than secular,nature of the polity.'3 The "patrimonial" realmproperwas unstableand almostinvariablyof limitedgeographicsize; Indianized "empires" (insofaras they wereprimarily were verylikelynot stable administrative agricultural) entities so muchas at best loose confederacies the recognizing temporary charismatic of an outstanding suzerainty primusinter pares. The keyto thiskindof polity of sparsepopulations lay in the combination and the absence of landed propchosenfor office, and if not,thosechosenoffer theirdaughters as royal concubines." Paul Pelliot,Menoires sur les coutumesdu Cambodge de Tcheou Ta-Kulan(Paris, 1951), 14. 12 Kevin O'Sullivanhas tracedroyal successions in Angkorin his illuminating essay, "Concentric in AncientKhmerKinshipOrganization", Conformity The Bulletinof the AcademiaSinica, 13 (1962), 87-96. Institute of Ethnology, 13 The questionof the supremacy of royal power vis-a-vis the Brahmanpriestsin been critically examined India has recently by Ludo and RosanneRocher,"La sacralite du pouvoirdans l'Inde ancienned'apres les textesde Dharma", in Le Pouvoir et le Sacre (Brussels, Asian context, thisproblem n.d.), 123-37.In the Southeast stillrequires attention. Coedes (op. cit.,206) observes thatin Cambodia and Champa the Brahmans did not occupyas pre-eminent a position as in India, but apparently a position inferior to thatof the king.
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HARRY J. BENDA
All land (with erty. somespecific exceptions 14) "belonged" to thekingand was farmed, so to speak,in usufruct, whether by individual peasants or corporatevillages. Indianized Southeast Asia had no landowning classes,such as gentries or feudal nobilities. Royalofficials wereappointed by theruler; they were, it is true, rewarded by tax farming privileges, butnotonlywere these privileges bydefinition revocable at thewhim oftheking, they applied
-
ofhuman Thisconcenbeings rather thanto contiguous territorial entities.16 ofpower tration stemthus precluded theexistence of"countervailing" power from conmore or lessindependently-wielded territorial ming administrative, trol.The bilateral kinship system prevailing in Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Javamayhavefurther rather tended toward thedispersal thantheconoflandedwealth, servation prestige and power.'7 In anycase,official tenure was non-hereditary, as often as nottenuous andfrequently entailandbrief, ingdismissal andevenlossoflife.'8 Last butnotleast, theruleofdecreasing descent precluded theperpetuation sinedie of ascriptive charisma. If we disregard the complex problems of villageautonomy and of the "countervailing" power attimes available Budtoreligious, notably Theravada dhist inlater andMuslim, elites wemay the"sacral" centuries, saythat basically Indianized werecharacterized polities by dualism, a division intotwosocial theroyal andthenon-royal, andthat thepolitical compartments, gapbetween thesetwocompartments was not spanned by an institutionalized system of graded power basedon landownership or other socio-economic criteria.'9
14 The exceptions were lands - at timesentirevillages- granted to religious personnel,usuallyin perpetuity. 15 For good descriptions of the tjatjahas "tax unit",see G. P. Rouffaer, "Vorstenlanden",in Adatrechtbundels, XXIV (1931), 245, 289, 303-304. to Cf. Leslie H. Palmier, "The JavaneseNobilityunder the Dutch", Comparative 11 (1960), 200, and literature Studiesin Societyand History, citedthere.JohnS. Furnivall acutelyobservedthatthe Javanesesystem constituted "the directcontrary of feudalism".Netherlands India: A Studyof Plural Economy(Cambridge and New York, 1944), 13-14. For the same writer's comment on the similarities betweenJava and Burma, see his Colonial Policy and Practice:A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India (Cambridge, 1948), 37. 17 Cf. Lauriston Sharp,"CulturalContinuities and Discontinuities in Southeast Asia", The Journal of Asian Studies, XXII (1962), 9. 18 Cf. Rouffaer, op. cit.,277-78 and 309-10,and also B. Schrieke, IndonesianSociologicalStudies:SelectedWritings of B. Schrieke, PartTwo (The Hague, 1957), 200. OIn the modes of royal controlover officialdom in Cambodia and Thailand,respectively, see Lawrence P. Briggs,The AncientKhmer Empire (Philadelphia,1951), 151 and H. G. Quaritch-Wales, SiameseState Ceremonies (London, 1931), 196. 19 This kind of politywas limitedto profoundly Indianizedareas only where,as Coedes says (op. cit.,204), "plusieurs facteurs ont contribue a briserles barrieres entre les uns aux autres, groupes fermes et a les fondre dans une organisation plus ou moins centralisee." Elsewhere, as e.g. in Western Malaya but also in partsof Sumatra, royal power,thoughit used the panoply of the Indianizedmonarchy, was restricted and circumscribed of the "countervailing" by the existence power - whether landed or - of territorial mercantile or kin chiefs.See e.g. J. M. Gullick,Indigenous Political Systems of Western Malaya (London,1958), 49.
as e.g. in the Javanesetiatiah is -
located groups to at timesdisparately
POLITICAL ELITES
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Sinicized Southeast Asia. In contrast to this dualistic, sacralIndianized polity theSinicized andHispanized polities bothcouldbe termed structurally hierarchical and "secular" (or territorial). Bothpossessed socialgroups spanning thegap between royal(albeitideologically absolute) powerand peasant society. Thesegroups as a rulehad direct accessto,and command over, landed - andhence wealth oversegments ofthepopulation living on these lands which provided them with "countervailing" power. It is these groups that, in turn, supplied the personnel forwhatwas essentially functional, territorial administration. The Sinicization ofVietnam of itsSouthern (with theexception "Cochinchinese" thefirst which occurred part,a late colonization territory) during oftheChristian millennium era was structurally so profound that it survived theendof Chinese political control in 939 A.D. by several centuries. Whatever the causal relationship between "hydraulic" agriculture and political authoritarianism, the Sino-Vietnamese politywas primarily differentiated from itsIndianized counterparts bytheabsence ofabsolute, "despotic" political power. theVietnamese Certainly state par excellencewas thecentralized and thecharisma of theimperial office was of crucial importance; butthe emperor rather thanthe owner of therealm:though was theguardian the SonofHeaven, he wasnota deva-raja. The imperial throne as suchwas open to usurpation, butmorethanpossession of thecharismatic of paraphernalia was involved in successful oftheintrinsically secular emperorship usurpation power at theapex ofthepolity. to theIndianized Compared polities, power in the Sinicized statewas institutional rather thanpersonal, and dynasties wererelatively Moreimportant in long-lived. was embedded still, continuity a hierarchically structured the Confucian-trained officialdom, bureaucracy. It was,it is true, appointed by,and responsible to,theemperor, butit was - ideally, at least recruited on merit, noton thebasis of ascriptive criletaloneatthe teria, whim oftheemperor. thescholar-officials Indeed, though on theemperor, weredependent was almost theemperor equally dependent which couldand did survive notonlyinon a cohesive, institutional group dividual butevenchanging rulers dynasties.21
20 Remnants of feudalism and powerful nobilities in factcontinued to obstruct monarchical centralization in Vietnamfor severalcenturies. For a surveyof the successive to createa centralized statemodelledon ImperialChina see Le Thanh Khoi, efforts
monarchy.20 The emperorwas thus far more than mere primus inter pares,
Le Viet-Nam -
21-46. 21 Unfortunately no institutional studyon the Vietnamesebureaucracy has to my knowledge yetappeared.While it was obviously verycloselymodelledon the Chinese on whichthe analysisin the textis largely bureaucracy, based, the parallelmay have to be qualifiedin the lightof specificdata at a later date. Dr. Truong Buu Lam, of Saigon,currently of HistoricalResearchin the University Directorof the Institute
South China", in Arthur F. Wright (ed.), The Confucian
323-26.On the Sinicization process,see HisayukiMiyakawa,"The Confucianization of

Persuasion
Histoire et Civilisation (Paris, 1955), 170-74, 222-24, 251-53, 263-64, (Stanford, 1960),
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HARRY J. BENDA
The keyto theVietnamese polity was notonlythecentralized monarchy, butalso a "gentry", which to a largeextent derived itsstatus from a system of land tenure thatpermitted patrilineages to accumulate inlands(though dividual tenure could,partly due to the absenceof primogeniture, varya greatdeal from generation to generation). This gentry couldexercise independent, "countervailing" social power,whether as notables in the Vietnamese commune (in French administrative determining local and parlance) regional affairs by virtue of theexample they setof Confucian civicmoralor as members of thecentral W-hile bureaucracy, the "mandarinate". ity,22 it is true that this meritocracy was opento candi.dates from all socialclasses, thesocialoutsider at mosttimes was very likely in a smallminority; in any case,theConfucian madehimintoan assimilated school-tie member ofwhat in essence was a gentry-dominated ofliterati-officials; group very likely, too, to accumulate accession to political office landedwealth.23 mayhavehelped a great socialandpolitical between theroyal Thus,whereas and gap existed inthesocieties ofIndianized non-royal Southeast Asia,in theSinicized polity ofVietnam that gap was bridged of landowners) bypowerful lineages (often able to exercise social and - to some extentindependent economic, political power. Southeast Asia. If India and Chinahad brought newsystems of Hispanized to thegreater political organization partofSoutheast Asia,in thePhilippines thistaskfellto medieval had apparently European Spain.Indianinfluences and eventhen isolated at bestonlybeenofperipheral in theissignificance
at HarvardUniversity, has been kindenoughto read the sections on Vietnam.On the Chinese gentry, I have drawn on Fei Hsiao-tung, China's Gentry: Essays in RuralUrbanRelations(Chicago,1953), esp. Chs. I and II; Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China: ImperialControlin the Nineteenth Century (Seattle,1960); and on Chang Chung-li, The Chinese Gentry:Studies on theirRole in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society in(Seattle,1955), accordingto whose tabulations landownership played a relatively significant role in gentry recruitment. 22 A "Councilof Notables"administered villageaffairs. It was recruited, writes Paul des villages,en y associantun certain Mus, by co-option among "la petiteoligarchie taux de lettres ou de fonctionnaires en retraite". Viet-Nam:Sociologie d'une guerre (Paris, 1952), 23. The positionof notablesthusseemingly paralleledthat of the local in China. On thelatter, cf. Fei, op. cit.,Ch. IV, and Hsiao, op. cit.,esp. 263-65, gentry 289-97,and passim. 23 The social origins and composition of theVietnamese 'mandarinate' has, once again, not yet been systematically investigated. Le Thanh Kh8i (op. cit., 328) stressesthe as one of the greatreforms 'democratic' recruitment through open examinations of the in the 19thcentury, Nguyendynasty but his assessment appears legalistic, devoid of Ch. Gosselin,L'Empire d'Annam(Paris, 1904), 39, observedthat sociologicalinsights. "tousles lettres du pays,organises depuisdes sieclesen une especede franc-magonnerie mainforte les uns les autres..." Cited in Paul Isoart,Le phenomene [sic], se pretent national vigtnamien (Paris,1961),61. Cf. also JeanChesneaux, Contribution a l'histoire de la nationvietnamienne (Paris,1955),85-86.For China,see i.a. Hsiao, op. cit.,382-83, Civil Servicein Early Sung China, 390-91,and foran earlier period,E. A. Kracke,Jr., 960-1067(Cambridge, Mass., 1953), 69-70.
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lands;with theexception of Muslim strongholds in thesouth,24 Preconquest Philippine socialorganization a territorially was limited to thebarangay, circumscribed village group largely boundtogether by kinship tiesand led by datus.Competition forleadership was a constant of these feature geographicallysmallentities, which moreover feuded with each other without everata taining even limited of political measure intolarger, more consolidation viablepolitical units. In theareaswhere theSpaniards cameto exercise controlfrom thelate sixteenth century onward, a newand centralized political super-structure emerged. But the Hispanization of the Philippines did not lead to a replica oftheHispanic-American societies basedon latifundia and a numerically andsocially significant Spanish-Filipino mestizo class.25 Rather, due to thelimited number ofSpaniards (theresult in partofgeographic distanceandin partoftherelative especially mineral, poverty ofthe economic, islands), theneworder to a largeextent involved thegradual transformation of thepreconquest Filipino ruling groupof datusintoa privileged, landed classofprincipales, themajor beneficiaries ofthenewsocial,economic, and - and ecclesiastic legalorder introduced bytheSpaniards. Though political control remained firmly in Europeanhands,and though commercial wealthuntilthe end of the eighteenth century was likewise a primarily - and to a lesser Spanish extent a Chinese monopoly, landcontinued to be predominantly owned by a segment ofthenative population. Nottoo dissimilar to theVietnamese socialstructure, Filipino society thus a native possessed classwith accessto an increasing measure ofsocialpower, and it was from thatclass thatthe alien rulers the subordinate recruited officialdom on whoseexistence and loyalty theirpolitical hegemony ultimately For ourpresent, depended. limited ofcomparison, purposes themajor structural difference between Vietnam and thePhilippines was, thatin the former, political powerat theapexhad beenwrested from foreign rulers in themiddle ofthetenth in whereas thelatter, century, theprocess ofmerging with socio-economic national tookplaceunder political power only American thefirst aegisduring halfofthetwentieth century.
III
and commercial ThoughEuropeanmaritime influence in Southeast Asia in theearly commenced sixteenth the century, Western on, andinterimpact
24 Muslim power actuallyextendedto Luzon in the 16th century, but the Spanish - My colleague, conquest pushedit Southward. Professor Harold C. Conklin, was kind enoughto read the sections dealingwiththe Philippines critically, and to suggest some corrections and improvements. 25 JohnL. Phelan,The Hispanization of the Philippines: SpanishAims and Filipino Responses, 1565-1700(Madison,1959), 118-20.See also the same writer's "Free versus Compulsory Labor: Mexico and the Philippines", Comparative Studiesin Societyand 1 (1959), 189-201. History,
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HARRY J. BENDA
ference thenative socialstructure remained forlonglimited to parts of with, thePhilippines andto Java.It was onlyin thesecond halfofthenineteenth thatEuropeancolonialism century came to embrace all of Southeast Asia - with theexception of Thailand and to affect the area moreor less profoundly. According to theincidence and type ofcolonial ruleanditsimwe shallnow super-impose pact on the indigenous elitestructure, on our original tripartite division of Southeast Asia intoIndianized, Sinicized and intoareasunder direct Hispanized regions an additional division and those under colonial of"idealtypes" direct indirect control. Quitebriefly, in terms ruleimplies theabrogation or destruction of theexisting political systemof thetraditional theelimination political elitequa elite- and its substitutionby a Western administrative apparatus staffed by non-ascriptive personthe nel,Western as wellas indigenous. Indirect rule,by contrast, indicates continuation of theprecolonial and the maintenance of traditional system, political elitegroups as at leastde jurerulers; in suchsystems, theWestern to an outside, element operates, i.e., it technically restricts itself "indirectly", a separate, administrative advisory function, without modern introducing apparatus. Important as this hereandthere typological distinction is,colonial practice in whatmight be called"mixed" Morethanthat, resulted several systems.26 bothdirectly colonies comprised and indirectly ruled territories: thus thehill were peoples ofBurma ruled Burma in theNetherproper directly; indirectly, wereunder landsIndies, most oftheso-called Outer Islands Javato indirect, all intents andpurposes under rule;in French Indochina, direct, Laos, Camruled a andAnnam wereindirectly bodia,Tonkin protectorates, Cochinchina under fellwithin colony direct rule;finally, theStraits Settlements theorbit of direct and Unfederated rule,theFederated MalayStatesthatof indirect control as wellas later American colonial can rule. Spanish in thePhilippines be classified rule. The coexistence ofthetwoadministrative as direct systems a given which cannot be examined within led to diverse colony configurations deserve indetail brief attention. In thefirst here; buttwomajor aspects place, ruleprevailed inthemost inBurma andtheNetherlands Indiesdirect heavily theperipherally Indianized indirect Indianized areas,leaving peoplesunder in Vietnam, where theSinicized heartrule.A contrasting pattern emerged with indirect thesouthern frontier-land landremained under unfalling rule,
The outstanding technically underdirectrule,was exampleis Java which,though (Netherone Dutch,the othernative.Thus Furnivall administered by a dual hierarchy, Rule was of between Directand Indirect landsIndia, 258) claimedthat"thedistinction for in the parts underDirect Rule it was Dutch legal ratherthan practicalinterest, policyto leave thepeople as faras possibleundertheirown heads..." But the imporhad developedinto a bureauwas thatnativeofficialdom tantfactof thisdual system so that,thoughethnically to its European counterpart, cratic hierarchy subordinate indigenous adit progressively in its own right, as a truly ceased to function separate, ministrative apparatus.
26
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derdirect rule.In Malaya,thedirectly ruledareaswerein factrestricted to Europeanenclaves, known as theStraits Settlements. small,newly-created, Second,in Indonesia and Vietnam the directly ruledareas actedas social "magnets" which or siphoned attracted, elite off, potential members from the indirectly ruledterritories within thesamecolony.27 In Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Malaya,on theother hand,thisphenomenon was apparently far morelimited on account of theethnic, cultural and religious barriers separating thepopulations ofindirectly anddirectly ruled territories.28 We shallnowbriefly examine theimpact ofthetwocolonial administrative systems on thevarious polities in Southeast Asia, withspecialattention to political and economic modernization. As we already observed in passing, direct ruleledto thevirtual destruction ofthepolitical precolonial statusquo. In thecase of Burma, thelast incumbent of thethrone and his immediate entourage wereforcefully removed from thecountry after thethird AngloBurmese War in 1886. The case of Javais morecomplex. The territory of therealm of Mataram was continually reduced in size,in addition to being divided, during the 18thand 19thcenturies; whilethe rumpprincipalities were preserved as autonomous, indirectly ruled territories, lostall politithey cal significance after 1830. In modern times, then, practically theentire island was directly administered. Suddenor gradual, theimposition of direct rulein bothBurmaand Javaresulted in theactualor virtual disappearance of thesacral,charismatic, despotic Indianized monarchy, of course though notin thedestruction oftheold elitegroups as such.Alien,modern (and in a sensemodern andefficiently despotic) colonial states tooktheir place,geographically symbolized by thenew seaboardcapitalcitiesof Rangoonand Batavia.Sincesacralkingship and thecourt had beencoterminous with the Indianized realm, thedecapitation of theroyal"segment" actually amounted to thedestruction of these of their polities. enDeprived apex,and without trenched hierarchies of socialclasses, Burmese and Javanese societies were ineffect rendered reduced to undifferentiated politically elite-less, peasantries.
27 This "magnet effect" needsa greatdeal of careful research. One typical exampleis that of Sumatrans drawnto Java in colonial times.A studyof Indonesian"political decisionmakers"in the mid-1950's showsthatSumatrans, who in 1930 accounted for 8% of thetotalpopulation of theNetherlands Indies,supplied 20% of cabinetmembers and 18% of top-level civil servants. See Soelaeman Soemardi,"Some Aspectsof the Social Origin of IndonesianPolitical Decision Makers", Transactions of the Third World Congressof Sociology(London, 1956), 340; on the coincidence of such high withuniversity offices training, see ibid.,342. 28 Educational statistics forFrenchIndochinaindicate thatof a total of 525 students enrolledin the University of Hanoi in 1921-22,265 came fromTonkin, 133 from Cochinchina (bothin effect directly ruled),the protectorates of Annam,Cambodia and Laos supplying 70, 19 and 5 students, resp.;in 1929-30, the corresponding figures were 298 and 84, 98, 6 and 7 (breakdowns for the intervening years were apparently not published).See JoanneMarie Coyle, "Indochinese Administration and EducationFrench Policy and Practice,1917-1945"(Unpubl. doctoraldiss., FletcherSchool of Diplomacy,1963), 187-90.
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HARRY J. BENDA
The newpolities werealien, thenewpolitical elites composed offoreigners; though thetraditional sub-elite could,as in Java, continue a vestigial administrative existence, it couldat bestexist on theperiphery, and in theservice of,themodern colonial-bureaucratic apparatus without affecting itspolitical Increasingly, thesupra-village vacuum cameto be filled with newsocial elements, recruited largely through themedium of Western-style education- intothemodem colonial socialorder. The process ofmodernization, then, inter an intelligentsia in thewidest senseof the alia, calledforth - whose term members staffed postsin themodern bureaucracy, especially itstechnical services, theschoolsystems, clerical postsin Western enterprise, andultimately also themodern indigenous organizations, socialandpolitical, of the20thcentury. Obviously, traditional elitefamilies in Burmaand Java supplied a large, perhaps evena predominant, percentage ofthefirst generationof thisintelligentsia; of itsindividual members bebutthesocialorigin more or cameprogressively farless significant function as a thanits social lessdistinct group in these directly-ruled colonial dependencies. Membership in themodern intelligentsias ofBurmaandJavawas notbasedon ascriptive butprimarily on educational and functional criteria. Equallyimportant, the intelligentsia's socialandpolitical abodewastheWesternized cities, itssocial, and in a senseevenitspolitical, theancien but loyalty laynotwith re'gimes with themodern For all its anticolonialism, order: intelligentsia-led nationalism aimed at thecreation ofa modern avowedly state, notat therestoration oftheIndianized monarchy.30 At thesametime, however, these intelligentsias had a limited "stake" in colonial Burmaand Javaas such.In part, only this butto a perhaps was doubtless due to thecolonial even relationship itself; from thecolonial order thefact greater extent their aloofness stemmed from theintelligentsias as a group instances also as individuals) (and in many that, did not"own"anything Just as buttheir educationally-acquired proficiency. the aristocracies had derived their in Indianized status from polities royal territorial so themodern rather than from appointment control, intelligentsias, or indirectly socialorigin, derived their status oftheir from regardless directly a vested or personal inthecolonial without order, "representing" corporate other rooted in economic or terest power. thenewelites thissomewhat we might were To phrase differently saythat of (largely beneficiaries thesocially unattached, freischwebende unplanned) of traditional without suchas political modernization, beingholders power,
of the administration, coupledwiththe See Note 26, above. On the modernization of Burma,see Furnivall, Colonial Policy and of the traditional system disintegration among Burmesecolonial Practice,op. cit., 73-75. On the extentof "Anglicization" and Nation officials, see the case studiesin Lucian W. Pye, Politics,Personality, Burma'sSearchfor Identity (New Haven, 1962),211-44. Building: in the "The Intellectuals 30 On thispoint,see Shils, loc. cit., and the same author's op. cit., 195-234. of the New States",in Kautsky, PoliticalDevelopment
29
destiny.29
POLITICAL ELITES
245
landedwealth. Indeed, thelack of sucha secular power base mayto some extent at leastaccount fortheinsignificant roleplayedin economic lifeby modern as wellas traditional coloelites in theIndianized orbit.3' Doubtless nial policies favoring Western capitalism, no less thantraditional religiousideological orientations, both had their share in continuing this disability into therealm ofeconomic modernization. The result was an economic dualism32 expressed in ethnic pluralism, in which, in addition to a European leading element, Asian minorities represented the mainintermediate layerin the modern economic sector. It is true that the"ubiquitous" Chinese became the artisans and retailers par excellence colonial throughout Southeast Asia. But onlyin Indianized Southeast Asia did they- or, less frequently, Indian Arabsor evenVietnamese34- alsobecome chettyars,33 themajor purveyors of readycash,themoneylenders linking themodern and traditional sectors of thedual economy.35 Little wonder that thepolitically conscious Burmese andJavanese condemned intelligentsias, to theoppositionist fringe ofcolonial political lifeand alooffrom modemeconomic life,couldonlyenvisage inof theelimination dependence in terms of alienoverlordship together with that ofthealien, andideologically capitalist economy. etatisme Sociologically ifnotsocialism theintelligentsias witha logical, theonly provided perhaps fornational logical, prescription salvation; and,though inspired by conscious of modernity, socialism" couldin factbe nourished visions such"national traditional often roots.36 bylong, hidden,
31 In theperipherally - as e.g. in partsof Sumatra - theresponse societies Indianized was far less passive. This contrast to economicinnovation requiresa good deal of careful investigation. In CliffordGeertz's Agricultural Involution:The Process of Ecological Change in Indonesia(Berkeley and Los Angeles,1963), it is explainedin and in relation to Dutch economicactivities terms of different "eco-systems" in Indonesia. 32 The term to denotethe existence, is hereused descriptively side by side, of a capiI am not here concerned withthe inferences talistand a subsistence economy. drawn fromthis co-existence by such scholars as H. Boeke, which have given rise to a literature. voluminous and controversial 33 On the Indian chettyars in colonial Burma and Malaya, see Usha Mahajani, The in Burmaand Malaya (Bombay,1960), 16-22,98-101. Role of IndianMinorities 34 On theVietnamese in Cambodia,see David J. Steinberg, Cambodia:Its People,Its Its Culture(New Haven, 1959),40-42. Society, 35 In Vietnam(especially in French Cochinchina), were not primarily moneylenders of VictorPurcell'sThe Chinesein Southeast Asia (London,New Chinese,as a reading but also Vietnameselandlords.See York & Toronto,1951), 236 ff. would suggest, tr. by Isabel Charles Robequain,The EconomicDevelopment of FrenchIndo-China, New York & Toronto, A. Ward(London, and PierreGourou, 1944),40n.,85-86,192-93, du sol en Indochinefrangaise L'utilisation (Paris, n.d.), 276-80. In the Philippines, "that the Filipino is always in debt to the Chinese is Purcell (op. cit., 635) writes, undoubtedly true,but the evidenceis all to the effect thatthe Filipinocacique is even moreoppressive and usurious." 36 The interplay betweentraditional religiousor ideological and modernsocialist, has as yet receivedinadequateattention. A penetrating especiallyMarxistthought, and Marxism can be foundin Mus, op. cit.,Chs. XIV, XVIII of Confucianism analysis Russlandund der Messianismus and XIX. Cf. also Emanuel Sarkisyanz, des Orients:
246
HARRY J. BENDA
of societies a widevariety and covered applied rulewas variously Indirect thehistorical investigating Without of Indianization.37 degrees with differing of in theorbit of its application or thevarieties foritsintroduction reasons observato a fewgeneric ourselves Southeast Indianized Asia,we shalllimit thepolitical notto confuse importance It is above all of paramount tions. has Whilethere consequences. rulewithits sociological of indirect aspects retained legalsovereignty theresidual regarding controversy beensomerecent underDutchindirect potentates by Indonesian especially by nativerulers, upon imposed impotence political the intrinsic rulein the 19thcentury,38 rule of indirect umbrella" the "protective by elites indigenous traditional ofEuropean thedegree To be sure, wellestablished. to be reasonably seems the between from area to area, as forexample variedconsiderably control Westunder rulers butall native MalayStates,39 Federated and Unfederated of sovereignty, attributes someessential ipso factoforfeited ernsuzerainty inmatters circumscribed offoreign affairs. notably intherealm Yet,however to survive as werenotonlypermitted elites thenative martial and political, given werein effect they to thepax occidentalis, a socialgroup, but,thanks If thepolicing powerof thecolonial cohesion. and internal stability greater the Indianized polities, strife endemic among theperennial removed regimes with of theprinciple of hereditary and stabilization introduction monarchy, their terminated perennial equally virtually moreor less orderly succession, internal instability. these from innovations. accrued consequences as wellas negative Positive ofthe oftherepresentatives in itsarbitrary indirect support Undeniably rule, elite the growth of competing to inhibit statusquo, tended socio-political economic modernization in areas subjectto intensive particularly groups, thenew,artificially truethat proIt is similarly enterprise. Western through and did could withpolitical combined colonialsecurity, impotence, tected, The carefully termsocial and cultural involution. lead to whatwe might to stagthat is to say,couldsuccumb Indianized "Establishment", preserved itstradiandnarcissistically from contemplate withdraw itcould reality nation, of to a tropically luxuriant profusion andit couldgivebirth grandeur; tional ofthetaxpaying, at theexpense non-royal and office usually offices holders,
1955), and the Chiliasmusdes Ostens(Tiibingen, und politischer Sendungsbewusstsein Survey43 (1962), 55-64 and same author's"Marxismand Asian CulturalTraditions", Weltund orientalische Asiens: Marxismus und Geisteskrise 129, and "Kommunismus Politik:Eine Einfahrung in DieterOberndorfer (ed.), Wissenschaftliche anschauungen", und Theorie(Freiburg, ihrerTradition n.d.), 335-64. in Grundfragen 37 For a careful Indies, Malaya and theNetherlands rulein British of indirect analysis Rule (New York, 1937). Malaysia:A Studyin Directand Indirect see Rupert Emerson, 38 Cf. G. J. Reesink,"Inlandsche Archipel(1873-1915)", Statenin den Oosterschen of IndoM. van der Kroef,"On the Sovereignty B.K.I., 116 (1960), 313-49,and Justus ibid., 117 (1961), 238-66. nesianStates:A Rejoinder", see 39 See Emerson,op. cit., 24 ff.,248 ff.,351 ff. For a briefbut clear analysis, in Malaya (London,1945). of Self-Government The Development PhyllisM. Kaberry,
POLITICAL ELITES
247
ofIndianized component Southeast Asianpolities.40 On thecredit sideofthe ledger, however, standcontinuity, or rather thepossibility of gradual modofchange ernization, within continuity. For sure, this is thevery virtue which themosteloquent (though not invariably themostMachiavellian) colonial administrators readinto thenecessity ofindirect rule.Butoneneednotshare their apologetic romanticism in order to admit thesociologically significant fact that indirect ruleat leastobviated thesocialandpolitical vacuum which ofdirect andthat wastheconcomitant rule, it allowed itdidnot (eventhough necessarily encourage) themodernization ofmembers ofthetraditional elites in Indianized It could evenbe argued principalities. thatsomeIndianized underindirect of responsibility monarchies forthe conduct of rule,shorn political affairs proper, mayhave gainedin charismatic and stature, lustre with theaid ofmodern mediaofcommunications developing intosymbols of traditional-modem grandeur. Just Western education as in BurmaandJava, constituted byfarthemost prominent avenue tomodernization inindirectly ruled territories. Butwhereas we saw that in thesedirectly ruledcolonial dependencies education tookthe placeofascription, inMalaya,Cambodia andalso inLaos perhaps education The younger in a senseenhanced ascription. generation of the traditional Cambodian and Laotianelites thusbecamethebeneficiaries, Malayan, first, of an increasingly institutionalized charisma, and,second, ofWestern education.41 These (potentially) modernizing traditional elites, then, weresocially a farmore than theintelligentsias in directly ruled colohomogeneous group their often radical nies.And,unlike and counterparts, they could, individually afford to espousea moreconservative corporately, approach to social and to assume political problems. It wouldbe a mistake thatthecolonial status true butaloofness from theforeigner rather quo as suchinspired loyalty, than - letalonesocialism - may in any radical nationalism havebeenprevalent; of things was not a primary of attack forthe case, the socialorder target of thetraditional as it certainly modernized was fortheinmembers elites, we shouldadd,partook Bothkindsof elite, of political modtelligentsias.42 and avidly thanof economic farmorewidely we ernization moderuization; thatthisimbalance of the have already suggested mayhavebeentheresult
in the Javanese statesof Mataramfrom princely This processis well demonstrated was createdin officialdom onward.In Malaya, a new religious century the eighteenth Cf. WilliamR. Roff,"Kaum Muda-KaumTua: Innovation century. the late nineteenth in K. G. Tregonning (ed.), Papers on the Malays, 1900-1941", and Reactionamongst 1962), 162-92. (Singapore, Malayan History 41 Since thisessaydeals withcolonialSoutheast Asia, the specialcase of Thailandhas even though parallelsdo exist.Cf. David important fromthisdiscussion, been omitted Politicsin Thailand(Ithaca,1962),Ch. I, and Lauriston Sharp(ed.), Thailand A. Wilson, (New Haven, 1956),Ch. 6. 42 Cf. Raden Soenarno, Journal Asian 1900-1945", of Southeast "Malay Nationalism, nationalism, between Malay and Indonesian History, I (1960), 1-33,esp. his comparison 27-33.
40
248
HARRY J. BENDA
as well as of the polities, base of the Indianized non-economic essentially policies.43 andofcolonial valuesystems traditional rulewhichwe have so far and indirect direct between The distinctions to less applicable respects orbitare in several in the Indianized examined in fact was directly ruled, onlyCochinchina theoretically Although Vietnam. from court oftheVietnamese thejurisdiction from removal virtual Tonkin's control. French theNorth under brought moreor less direct 1886 onward intoa legalficturned progressively theProtectorate Even in Annam itself, The artificial existence.44 to a shadowy andmandarinate court tion, relegating with hand-in-hand went realm of the Vietnamese colonialdismemberment Laos and Union(embracing Indochinese oftheno less artificial thecreation and "pays").To all intents Vietnamese to thethree Cambodiain addition thanindirect significance rulewas of fargreater direct purposes, rule,and led to thesuinevitably of thetwoin suchcloseproximity thecoexistence in some of the ruledareas. Like its counterparts of the directly premacy had to cede capitalcityof Vietnam, Hue, thetraditional Indianized states, andto Saigon centers: to Hanoiintellectually urban ofplaceto modem pride commercially. in the of French rulediffered thesociological consequences Nonetheless, in thinlyoccurred concomitants ofVietnam. Its mostimportant three parts in rulehad onlybeenestablished Vietnamese where populated Cochinchina, one of created technology and whereFrenchhydraulic the 18thcentury Whilethecomtimes. ricegranaries in modern fertile Asia's most Southeast benefited revolution thisagricultural primarily from resulting wealth mercial landswas preofthenewly opened ownership capital, French (and Chinese) "Gallicof thisnewand increasingly The origins Vietnamese.45 dominantly some,perhaps likely are notyetclear;but very ized" class of landowners officialmandarinal Vietnamese to lower-rank ofitsmembers belonged most, theFrench thearea after conquest). left mandarins having dom (thehigher to economic an easyadaptability thenewclass showed itsorigin, Whatever in Vietnam wereprimarily Vietnamese, moneylenders significantly, change: elite the Annam as in where In pattern or Chinese. Tonkin, notIndians somefew we evenfind in Cochinchina, than affected was farlessprofoundly
a negativeresponseto economic Thai elite demonstrated Since the traditional to thatof elitesin colonial,IndianizedSoutheast Asia, the quite similar modernization Cf. Sharp,op. cit., 160-67. mustnot be exaggerated. of the colonialfactor importance Java and Japanwhichwouldseemless Geertz(op. cit.,130 ff.)drawsparallelsbetween Asia. IndianizedSoutheast within thancomparisons relevant 44 For a brief thethree pays,see Philippe of Frenchcolonialpoliciestowards summary de 1940 ti 1952 (Paris, 1952), 28-29. Cf. also Isoart, Histoiredu Viet-Nam Devillers, one French op. cit., Ch. IV, and Le Th'anhKh6i, op. cit., 394-406. Of Cochinchina de cette caracteristique observedthat it possessed "une tonalitefrangaise, historian en Indochine,I (Paris, Georges Taboulet, La geste frangaise portiond'Indochine", 1956), 522. 45 Cf. Devillers, op. cit., 166, Isoart, op. cit.,39-40,Mus, op. cit.,240-41,Chesneaux, op. cit.,255-58.
43
POLITICAL ELITES
249
but significant, positive Vietnamese to economic responses modernization (banks,trading houses,factories, etc.). These positive standin reactions marked contrast to theon thewholenegative responses to economic change in theIndianized polities, and arevery likely anchored in thepresence of an intrinsically "secular" indigenous socialstructure. - largely Political modernization in Vietnam ofWestern againtheresult - must education be primarily viewed in thecontext of direct rule. colonial The predominance ofdirect overindirect rulein contiguous comterritories, binedwith therapidweakening of thetraditional political structure, greatly a systematic inhibited of modernization thecourtand mandarinate as a coelite. hesive In thetwentieth most ofthebeneficiaries ofWesternizacentury, tionthus cameto be oriented French towards metropolitan culture andmodernadministrative andpolitical forms. Though Western-educated of members the traditional elitein Annamhere and theredoubtless playedimportant roles,themodern of Vietnam history was apparently madein Tonkinand Cochinchina. a largesegment of the modernized Socially, eliteverylikely camefrom themandarinate (in theNorth) and thelandowning class (in the South),rather thanfromthe "unattached" in intelligentsias we observed Indianized Southeast directly-ruled Asia. But thissocial anchorage did not preclude theemergence ofa radical wing, sidebysidewith a moderate wing, - notably in Vietnamese The latter nationalism. strong in Cochinchina primarily aimed at political emancipation fromforeign rule,the former, Tonkin-centered, at complete independence and, indeed,at social revolu-
tion.46
Philippine socialevolution can be dealtwith more briefly on account ofits basic continuity. We saw thatSpanish colonialism had calledintobeinga
of theislands' exploitation resources, accompanied of by commercialization from Philippine agriculture aboutthemiddle of theeighteenth century on, a periodof accelerating initiated socialchange. Aboveall else,newopporforcapitalaccumulation tunities cameintoexistence. Recentresearch indicatesthatthe mainbeneficiaries of thiseconomic modernization were,in to Filipino addition thenumerically caciques and Chinese, strong of group
class of nativeprincipales deriving its statusfromlanded wealth. Increasing
Chinese mestizos.47 After the mid-nineteenth Chinese centuryimmigrant started to supplant theseChinese mestizosas a commercial, urbanmiddle
retained status and prestige class,butthey derived from landedwealth and from Hispanization. As in Vietnam, the moneylender in Luzon and other islands was a native thana foreigner. (and mestizo)rather Towards theclose of Spanish there rule, thusexisted a specifically Philippine ruling classcom46 Cf. Chesneaux, op. cit.,Ch. X, and I. MiltonSacks, "Marxismin Viet Nam", in FrankN. Trager(ed.), Marxismin Southeast Asia (Stanford, 1959), 102-70. 47 See EdgarWickberg, "The ChineseMestizoin Philippine History", Journal of Southeast Asian History, V (1964), 62-100.
250
HARRY J. BENDA
posedofnative andmestizomembers. While thecolonial power had created thepreconditions foreconomic modernization in thePhilippines, Europeans actually playeda less important partin it thandid Chineseand Chinese in sharpcontrast to thecolonial mestizos, empires of thecapitalist Western nations in Southeast Asia.Philippine nationalism was thus primarily political, notsocially radical: itsleaders strove forpolitical equality within theSpanish empire, and also the "nationalization" of Spanish, notably Church, landholdings; butthey did not aim at destroying thesocialstatus quo as such. American colonialrule,though it commenced withthe destruction of the short-lived Philippine Republic, almost immediately turned intopreparation forautonomy andindependence. It thus to consolidate helped thePhilippine eliteand to increase its landholdings; it also offered new commercial, and educational and administrative far-reaching opportunities. The politically elitemembers active werethus firmly rooted in a classthat had enjoyed, and to enjoy, of acculturation, continued theprivileges and wealth. education
IV
Theforegoing ofSoutheast Asianelites in terms, analysis ofpre-modern first, socialstructures of thevariegated and,second, influences of different Euroa useful toolfor peancolonial regimes, theunderstanding mayprovide ofthe of whatwe have called intelligentsia-ruled emergence polities and polities traditional governed by modernizing elitesin postwar Southeast Asia. Like all selective structural eliteanalysis, however inhisinvestigations, embedded ofsocialandpolitical torical data,only dealswith someaspects withhistory, to all outseeking explain itsramifications. Obviously sucha schematic presentation must appear itneither can nordoesin fact misleadingly rigorous; fully let alone the operational explainor accountforthe existence, modes,of it cannot Moreparticularly, present-day political systems. do justice possibly to thesignificant and local variations which ofnecessity the regional modify hereattempted. classifications Thusforexample theproblem of ecogeneric nomic modernization of indigenous in theIndianized elites, especially orbit, has onlybeen peripherally touched upon; if the case of Malaya deserves on account of verylargenon-indigenous treatment separate Asian groups, an interesting case study of economic Bali presents modernization on the Thebrief whole oftheVietunhampered bysuchaliencompetition.48 analysis is similarly to account fortheemergence namese elites ofextreme inadequate radicalism. we mayhavesucceeded in showing howvarious While national elites came incolonial to trace Southeast into existence their Asia,we havenotattempted
48
Peddlers and Princes:Social Changeand EconomicModernizaCf. Clifford Geertz, tion in Two IndonesianTowns (Chicago and London, 1963), esp. Ch. 4.
POLITICAL ELITES
251
as wellas turbulent era of decolonization, actualriseto powerin theoften For such nationstates. classesin independent as ruling their performance scaffolding wouldhave to be amplified purposes our social and historical in them developing we can onlybriefly suggest, without alonglineswhich occupation era,ofmilitheemergence, theJapanese during this essay. First, not intelligentsias, though to themodern taryelites- in partan adjunct - andthat echelons ofpotenofyounger coterminous with them necessarily it theelitestructure, and with affected tialleaders profoundly has obviously Second, as Burmaand Indonesia. in suchcountries contemporary politics, boundifferent socialsystems within thesamepolitical theinterplay between in moddynamics noteworthy has likewise provided someofthemost daries theocmostnotably (with perhaps againin Indonesia ernpolitical history, terriin indirectly-ruled, several, previously currence of "socialrevolutions" Indianized Javaand someof between thetug-of-war tories, as wellas with a similar Indianized in Burma(with tug-oftheperipherally OuterIslands), Indianized minority groups) warbetween Burmaproper and non-Indianized in partrevolves around thedichotomy and in Vietnam thestruggle (where montagnard minorities). Sinicized Vietnamese and non-Sinicized between also eliteshave nonetheless rarely primeactors,religious Third,though Southeast Asiancounhistories ofseveral national helped to shapetherecent of be supplemented byclosestudy In thefourth must place,thepicture tries. gaining political ranging all thewayfrom leadership, theroleof Communist tolaunching revolts, e.g.,inthePhilipinpart ofVietnam unsuccessful power differ of thatleadership pinesand Malaya.The socialrootsand character in Vietnam, it formed to country; where Burmaand Indonesia from country in directly-ruled colonial elitereared areas, intelligentsia partof thegeneral in Malaya it originated theChinese urbanmiddle class,and in the among intellectual sub-elite. among themarginal Philippines of boththeinternal pursued by each inpolicies an examination Finally, orinternational orientations sigelite anditsexternal may yield dividual ruling It is probably that onthewhole nificant andperhaps correlations. true insights while modon wholesale socialtransformation haveembarked intelligentsias consertowards social and political traditional eliteshave tended ernizing tothis rulecanbe found. to detect possible butexceptions It is,again, vatism; international a preponderance of "pro-Western" orientations amongsuch is ones amongintelligentsias, but thisgeneralization elitesand "neutralist" lessrelevant, to change, subject dependand,indeed, evenmore questionable, rather than domestic configurations. inguponinternational
HARRY J. BENDA
Yale University

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POLITICAL ELITES IN COLONIAL SOUTHEAST ASIA: AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS *

contemporary nationalboundarieswe would place Burma, Thailand, Laos,

intothree distinct sectors, theIndianized, Sinicized and Hispanized. Using

and, mutatismutandis, withinmost of

as e.g. in the Javanesetiatiah is -

located groups to at timesdisparately

South China", in Arthur F. Wright (ed.), The Confucian

323-26.On the Sinicization process,see HisayukiMiyakawa,"The Confucianization of

class of nativeprincipales deriving its statusfromlanded wealth. Increasing

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