December 2, 2016

"There are essentially two main contending voices in the decade-long debate about Asia embracing democracy. The core argument against it is that the value systems of Asian countries are not compatible with democracy which emerged historically in western cultural and intellectual contexts. The counter-argument is that Asian values do contain elements of democratic ideals, such as moderation and toleration, and people-centered political philosophy.

This article takes a different approach. It reflects on the adoption and adaptation by Southeast Asia of religious beliefs, ways of life, and institutions from India, China, and the Middle East. These influences from distant lands had originated in cultural-intellectual settings that were alien to Southeast Asia. Yet, Southeast Asians were able to borrow what they needed and they adapted them to serve their own needs. Southeast Asians were not passive beneficiaries and the results were rarely carbon copies of the sources; instead they created in the process a distinctive synthesis. For example, the Hindu temples in the Indonesian island of Bali were not like the Hindu temples built in Myanmar centuries earlier, and neither resembled Hindu temples in India. In transplanting foreign cultures into local cultural soil, Southeast Asians showed a penchant for combining seemingly incompatible elements into a cultural unity. Animism was incorporated into or existed alongside imported faiths. Adoption and adaption of foreign ideas to local conditions is a long drawn out process, which requires creativity, flexibility, and openness. After centuries of such mixing and integration, Southeast Asia has a transformed but richer cultural-intellectual landscape. "

Read more:

http://www.ippreview.com/index.php/Home/Blog/single/id/296.html 

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