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+---- Thread: South East Asia (/thread-5740.html)
South East Asia - Teejay - 12-05-2019
I have been doing some thinking about the saeculum in South-East Asia and I believe they are currently in an early Unravelling, starting sometime in this decade. While their last Crisis being approximately from c.1955-c.1975, with the last Awakening being from approximately the middle 1990s to the middle 2010s. An old Fourth Turning poster visited Malaysia in the early 2010s and remarked that the country seemed to be in an Unravelling.
The region of South-East Asia, I define as being Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, East Timor, The Philippines and possibly Burma. The peoples of this region, despite differences in religion, often see themselves as part of the same civilization or 'world' which has a Hindu-Buddhist foundation.
Anyway, In the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, the whole region was wracked by wars, political upheaval, and revolutions, that I will explain briefly below.
In Vietnam, you had the Vietnam war, which triggered a Civil Wars in both Cambodia and Laos. Indeed, I can definitely see Ho Chi Minh (1890) being a 'Grey Champion' in Vietnam's last Crisis. The Vietnam war being an Awakening war for America, the whole it was a Crisis war for Vietnam. The Vietnam war ended in a total victory for the Communists and resulting in a lot of exiles.
In Malaysia, there was the “Malayan Emergency” which was a war of liberation for the Malays. Also had Singapore breaking off from Malaysia and becoming an independent nation.
In Indonesia, you had the fall of Sukarno in 1965, which resulted in the killing of anywhere between 500,000 to 3,000,000 Communists, other leftists, those Javanese who practiced a syncretic form of Islam and ethnic Chinese people. The events of 1965 are Indonesia I cannot see as anything other than a Crisis event. The Australian film The Year of Living Dangerously set in Jakarta in 1965, really portrayed a Crisis mood quite well.
In Thailand, in 1973 you had a massive student uprising, which overthrew the military dictatorship of Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn.
Political upheavals in the Philippines starting in 1965, which resulted in the rise of Ferdinand Marcos (1917). Which was accompanied by other strongmen leaders taking power, such as Lee Kuan Yew (1925) in Singapore, Pol Pot (1925) in Cambodia and in Indonesia Suharto (1921). After reflecting on their personalities and ruling styles, I would argue they were all Nomads. Also, It seems obvious to me that the last Crisis throughout South-East Asia was approximately from c.1955 to c.1975, give or take a few years either way.
The next wave of political upheaval occurred in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. In Indonesia, you had the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998, Reformasi movement in Malaysia, Second EDSA revolution in 2001 in the Philippines, which resulted in the removal of Joseph Estrada as President. Also, Islamist movements started to really take off during this period in the region as well.
It seems that the whole region became in the late 1990s awash in political activism by young adults, in a manner consistent from what you would expect from Young Adult Prophets. Also remembering what the current events shows were reporting from the region back then, the mood was one of an Awakening throughout the region at the time.
Currently, the mood throughout the whole region is definitely an Unravelling one in my opinion. For example; there are culture wars currently raging in both Malaysia and Indonesia, between secularists and Islamists. Does that sound familiar to you Americans?. Also, young people these days are more focused on making money, than political activism which was the case say twenty years ago.
RE: South East Asia - Warren Dew - 12-06-2019
For Vietnam at least, that would be consistent with their being happy with becoming a low labor cost economic area. I also agree regarding most of the rest of southeast Asia. I'm not certain about Thailand.
RE: South East Asia - Teejay - 12-07-2019
(12-06-2019, 04:36 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: For Vietnam at least, that would be consistent with their being happy with becoming a low labor cost economic area. I also agree regarding most of the rest of southeast Asia. I'm not certain about Thailand.
Protest movements and political crises happen in any turning, although their character is different according to to the turning. The recent anti-government protests in Thailand resemble the Revolutions which happened in the Germany and Austro-Hungarian empires, at the end of WW1.
I read that the young anti-government activists in Thailand, to me resembled the Xer Anti-WTO protesters back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Also, the young anti-immigration detention protesters back in the early 2000's in Australia, who torn down the fences of a immigration detention center and allowed Asylum Seekers to escape.
I really need to write a post about the character of radical Nomad political activists, often they are the most strident (the music of Rage Against the Machine really describes this mentality quite well). Also, a large number of influential political theorists came from Nomad Generations as well.