This paper reexamines controversies around Malayness during the early 1930s by focusing on Jawi (Malay in Arabic scripts) newspaper Majlis.

The 1930s saw a great increase of Jawi periodicals. Majlis, one of the leading Jawi papers, was established in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the Federated Malay States, in 1931. While their discourses were Malay nationalistic, but heterogeneity of Malay Muslims and multi-ethnic contexts in the colonial city has not yet been fully taken into consideration by previous works.

During the interwar period, the so-called pro-Malay policy, that gave administrative preferences to Malays, aroused responses from various communities. Chinese and Indians, calling themselves as Malayans, demanded equal rights as Malays on the grounds that many of them were also Malayan-born British subjects. Their opinions appeared in English papers in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Meanwhile, Majlis always referred to criticism of these English papers and contradicted to them. Majlis’ quotation of other media, in spite of difference of languages, showed the presence of the multilingual media space in British Malaya during that time.

One important topic in the controversy was on Malayness, “Who were the Malays?” Non-Malays accused that Malays contained many foreigners from Sumatra and Java, though Malays were regarded as natives of Malaya in the pro-Malay policy. On the other hand, Majlis contradicted, stressing that Indonesians were brothers of Peninsula Malays and they were classified into Malays in the official categorization. In fact, urban Malays, including many Malay journalists were of foreign origin, including Abdul Rahim Kajai, the first editor of Majlis, whose father was from Sumatra.

Though the British defined Malays based on the concept of race, the Malay framework was still ambiguous even in the colonial period, as there was a constant inflow of immigrants. In addition, Malayness was always contested in multilingual controversies, sometimes by non-Malays. The concept of Malay nation had come to be shared along these controversies. It suggested how interactions with others played an important role in the formation of ethnic groups in the demographically fluid society.

Malaysia has observed remarkable social change since the 1970s as a result of Islamic revival (dakwah movement). Some previous studies have described the social change as “Islamization” by attributing the change through the policies under the Mahathir’s government that integrated Islamic elements into various aspects of official administration, such as the establishment of Islamic banking systems and enhancement of Islamic judicial system. With these policies, Malaysia’s progress in terms of Islam was hailed as a result of “Islamization policy.” However, the meaning of “Islamization” has not been explicitly discussed. Because of the lack of discussion, previous studies give impression that as if there is a single direction toward something “more Islamic,” even though it is obvious that Muslim have various interpretations about what is “Islamic.” Thus this study aims to reconsider the concept of “Islamization” by investigating how the interpretation of Islamic terms has changed under the banner of “Islamization.”

As a case study, this paper focuses on the content of textbooks for the subject of “Islamic education” in Malaysian secondary schools. The subject was introduced and refined during the time of intensive implementation of “Islamization policy.” The analysis employs the idea of “functionalization” suggested by an anthropologist, Gregory Starrett [1998] to explain how the meaning of religious concepts may change when they are transferred from a traditional religious context into a social and political context.

The analysis of textbooks in comparison with some classical texts that are used in traditional Islamic learning shows that the explanation of religious elements are reinterpreted in a way that may “function” positively for the national integration and social and economic development of Malaysia. This implies that the official discourses produced under the “Islamization” policy have changed the interpretation of the religious concepts. The various directions of such transformation should be understood in order to evaluate the “function” of Islam in Malaysia.

It has become clear that Myanmar has many unofficial gains or Buddhist orders, although the government officially recognizes only nine gains and banned the others in the 1980s. An ethnic Mon saṅgha has not only its unofficial orders as an example of the above but also pan-ethnicist movements that expanded their influence after the ban. This paper discusses how the pan-ethnicist movement occurred in the Mon saṅgha and achieved some amount of success during the period of the foundation of a Myanmar state saṅgha after the 1980s and yet, how the Mon orders have not become truly pan-ethnic.

The Mon saṅgha in Myanmar has the same structure as the state saṅgha: the majority of the saṅgha, Rāmañña nikāya, and the minorities, which are known as the stricter vinaya orders, Mahā Yen (Dhammayutti nikāya) and Shwekyin Mon. The Rāmañña nikāya is an unofficial order and does not have a hierarchical organization among its members. A question thus arises: Has the Rāmañña nikāya become a social entity, and if so, how?

The Rāmañña nikāya pariyatti group started its own annual examination for Mon monks in 1983 as preparation for the state paṭhama-byan, one of the official examinations on the pāli scriptures. The state saṅgha administration, on the other hand, introduced a Burmese language exam into the state paṭhama-byan examination around 1984. This change had significant impacts on the Mon saṅgha, because until then, Mon monks were able to study pāli books in their native Mon language and could take the state paṭhama-byan examination in Mon. As a result, it is said that many Mon monks boycotted the state paṭhama-byan examination and took the examination for the Rāmañña nikāya pariyatti group instead. The boycott ended when a Mon language exam replaced the Burmese language exam in the state paṭhama-byan. However, the annual examination of the Rāmañña nikāya pariyatti group still attracts nearly 1,800 examinees every year. Thus, it can be said that the Burmanization of learning Buddhism allowed the Rāmañña nikāya to become a sort of social entity through the annual examination on the pāli scriptures held by the pan-ethnicist group of Mon monks.

However, the Rāmañña nikāya is not completely pan-ethnic due to the following reasons. First, because the Rāmañña examination has the same content as the state paṭhama-byan and depends on its authority, this “pan-ethnicism” does not extend to the Mon saṅgha in Thailand. Second, because the other two Mon pure vinaya orders did not join in the above-referenced boycott, three Mon orders in Myanmar respectively hold their own annual examinations in preparation for the state paṭhama-byan, thereby heightening their group cohesiveness.

This article aims to follow footsteps of the Japanese advisory body that was placed in Burma’s Ba Maw government during the Pacific War, and to deepen the understanding of the degree of the accomplishment of autonomy and self-reliance of the government.

Japan withdrew many of the military directorial personnel from Burma after its ‘independence’ (August, 1943), and instead, decided to send an advisory group. Booklets created by the Historical Facts Section of the Demobilization Department and some publications of the hometown of OGAWA Gotaro (the supreme advisor) state that the advisory group contributed great deal to the reconstruction of Burma. If this is the fact, it means that the resistance and countercharge of Ba Maw government to realize Burma’s autonomy and self-reliance did not succeed in this sphere.

However, as I studied unpublicized diaries and official documents, it was revealed that Ogawa arrived in Burma in December 1943, and returned to Japan temporarily during March through July of 1944. Ogawa went back to Japan to summon advisory members. Those senior advisors summoned at that time arrived on a plane in Burma around August. Meanwhile, general advisors took boats and trains and all the members finally arrived by November. However, by that time, Burmese frontline was about to collapse, and the advisory group did not have enough time to operate much. In addition, Ba Maw’s government, at that time, was requiring science technicians, and there was not much of work the advisory group could have done. Consequently, it never intervened and interfered with the Ba Maw government in full scale.

Incidentally, Lieutenant General KAWABE Masakazu came to think that there was not much to expect from the advisory group by 1944. If the Japanese Burma Area Army actually decided to go back to the policy of interfering with the government of Burma by the civil officers belonging to the Army, the weakened interventions and interferences of Japan would have been only about the advisory group or a temporary status. However, there were differences of opinions between KAWABE and other staff officers. Besides, there were some other materials that implied the interference had been slackened all the way. Then, it would be well possible that the military never went back to its original policy of interfering with Burma’s politics. I intend to excavate historical materials further to reveal the fact.

This article aims to analyze the changes in freight transport on Thai Railways during World War II. This was largely influenced by the introduction of Japanese military transport shortly after the war began diverting freight transport away from Thai Railways. While the reduction of transport volume on the East Bank line (the Northern, the Northeastern, and the Eastern lines) was remarkable, the rate of decrease on the West Bank line, or the Southern line along the Malay Peninsula, was relatively low. The large gap between two lines that pre-existed the war reduced steadily. The most important role of Thai Railways in pre-war period was the transport of freight (primarily rice, pigs, and wood) from the inland regions in the North and Northeast to the entrepôt at Bangkok. This was greatly affected by the reduction in transport capacity after the outbreak of the war resulting in a further decrease of civil freight transport by Thai Railways.

At the same time, transport capacity on the Southern line was less than that on the East Bank line. As such, necessities such as rice and salt continued to be transported on the Southern line. As alternative methods of transport, particularly water transport, were halted due to the war, the importance and value of the Southern line continued to increase. Furthermore, this helped to support its use in transporting civil freight.

Before the war, the focus of Thai Railways had been on transporting freight from the inland regions to Bangkok via the East Bank line. However, during the war, the importance of this line was reduced by the introduction of Japanese military transport. Instead, the focus of Thai railways became the West Bank line in an effort to address the shortage of necessities on the Malay Peninsula. As a result, the West Bank line reached its peak during the war as it was not only central to Thai Railways transport routes but also those of the Japanese military.