Abbas Zaidi
By and large, Southeast Asians think of the West in terms of its decline (e.g., high unemployment, collapse of the welfare system, violence, and racism) and, as said above, renaissance in their own case. Recently the Foreign Secretary of Singapore addressed a meeting of National University of Singapore students in which he referred to the "deep angst" in many Western societies about the rise of Southeast Asia. "These Western societies will be torn between welcoming the rise of our societies and trying to trip them up. The same people who want to co-operate and benefit from our renaissance are indeed the very people who have the impulse to trip up the successful Southeast Asian societies," he concluded. His statement was shortly elaborated by Lee Kuan, Singapore's Senior Minister (and formerly Prime Minister), when he urged his countrymen to aim for the "pot of gold." Observing that Singapore was entering a golden age---- "culturally and economically" in his words---- he called upon Singaporeans to ride the tide sweeping the region: "The sky has turned brighter. There is a glorious rainbow that beckons those with the spirit of adventure. And there are rich findings at the end of that rainbow."
Soon after Lee Kuan's enunciation, the Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr Mahatir Mohammed, also played upon the European Renaissance themes of discovery and adventure when he challenged his countrymen to conquer Mount Everest and reach the Poles. Said the Prime Minister: "The highest mountain and the coldest place in the world, when we are successful, our [Malay] race will reach maturity and can compare ourselves with all the others [sic.] in the world.... We must have confidence to achieve all of our dreams, this includes climbing the Everest [Sic.], sailing across the Pacific, conquering the Arctic and Antarctic [Sic.]."
Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Anwar, has written Asian Renaissance in which he has raised the renaissance claim. By Asia he actually means Southeast Asia plus Japan with occasional references to China and South Korea.
Mr George Yeo, Singapore's Minister of Information and the Arts was more to the point. Launching Singapore Government's plan to spend more than S$1 billion on the National Library he said: "I hope our new library system will help make Singapore... a renaissance city in the new Asia."
Recently a great renaissance dream of Singapore was realised when its Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan broke the ground for a S$513 million "world class" arts centre named "The Esplanade". "It is a historic moment for Singapore", said Mr Tan....
Is Southeast Asia going through a European-style renaissance? One wishes it was so, but the statements of Southeast Asian leaders about the Southeast Asian renaissance are not based upon the understanding of the very term renaissance. By definition renaissance means "rebirth" or "revival." The European Renaissance was a rebirth/revival in connection with the recovery of classical thought in Europe and its application to contemporary human problems. It was secularisation of Europe that developed out of the Middle Ages. The foundations of the Renaissance were humanistic only, and not scientific or even philosophical. The Renaissance did not produce a single scientist or philosopher of first class calibre, though it did produce artists like Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo whose works still remain unsurpassed. The Renaissance did not go beyond creative art; even philosophy did not flower in the entire period of the Renaissance. Thomas Hardy Leahey in his A History of Psychology writes that the Renaissance "contributed nothing to philosophy: There is no first-rate philosopher between Ockham (died 1348) and Descartes (born 1596)."
From the viewpoint of advancement of science, the Renaissance does not have anything to prove. To quote Leahey again, "It is doubtful how much it [i.e., the Renaissance] contributed to science for which Renaissance thinkers had little use." The so-called Renaissance scientists like Francis Bacon were not scientists but nature philosophers; most of them were intellectually grounded in magical and alchemical traditions. One representative example of Renaissance "science" is that the scientists thought that skull and brain damage could be cured by the administration of walnuts, for the walnut shell "resembles the skull and the nut resembles the brain."
With the above in view, there is nothing that exists in Southeast Asia today that could remotely be indicative of a renaissance. As said before, the Renaissance was entirely humanistic. Despite his conclusion that Man was "a quintessence of dust," Hamlet had to say that Man in every respect was a miraculous, wondrous "piece of work." Man and his dignity were the point of every reference, and the sun still revolve around the earth. On the contrary, the Southeast Asian countries are regularly condemned for human rights violations. The Philippines and Thailand are dens of male and female child prostitution; the Malaysian constitution provides guarantees and safeguards to Malays only while Chinese, Indians and countless indigenous groups have no such protection; the fate of political dissent in Singapore and Indonesia has never been enviable; and Burma, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia are still struggling with their political neuroses.
Interestingly, the whole of Southeast Asia cannot claim to have a single artist of high calibre. The contemporary Southeast Asian scene is a perfect foil to the humanistically creative period of the Renaissance. Whereas the greatest ideal of the Renaissance was elevation of man, the chief ideals of the Southeast Asians are the famous five Cs: career, cash, credit card, car and condominium (some Southeast Asians half-seriously add condom to the Cs).
If there is anything common between the Renaissance and the contemporary East Asian situation, it is on the negative side of the former: Southeast Asia does not boast of a single high calibre philosopher. Similarly Southeast Asian science does not exist as such, nor does its trumped-up scientific and technological progress. Science in Southeast Asia at best is replicative---- as opposed to creative---- of the Western science: sometimes excellent replication to the point of innovative improvisation, as in the case of Singapore; and sometimes fairly good replication, as in the case of countries like Malaysia and Thailand.
What we have in Southeast Asia today is a commercial boom inspired and greatly financed by the West, especially the US during the Cold War. Bankloads of money, skyscraperfuls of cities, and mushrooming of business executives and tycoons do not make a renaissance. The European Renaissance was a spiritual experience felt artistically and expressed as such. The Southeast Asian boom is not even an economic renaissance, as the recent trading in Southeast Asian stocks by Western speculators has sent all Southeast Asian economies reeling: the contemporary Southeast Asian scene is simply a good money-making business that is neither a recovery nor a rediscovery and certainly not a rebirth: this boom is the first time birth.