Years of Poems and Spirits

In “Islam, Law, and Equality in Indonesia”, John Bowen reveals how societies, like the one in Indonesia, maintain social order and continuance by drawing strength from “repertoires of reasoning” (p5). One key concept in Bowen’s thesis is “pluralism”. However, Bowen has not defined clearly what this term means in his book. Instead, I find that, although he intends to use “pluralism” to denote multiple sources of legal reasoning, Bowen occasionally confuses “pluralism” with “multiculturalism”. I would further argue that the obfuscation of the concept undermines Bowen’s attempt to apply his thesis in societies other than Indonesia.

First of all, Bowen’s main contention is that public reasoning is a dynamic process that comprises sources of reasoning and interpretations of such sources. The diversity of the sources and the interpretations is what he characterizes as “the pluralism of legal systems” (p8). Some sources of public reasoning Bowen identifies in his book are: traditional norms as seen in adat, religious tenets as codified in sharia, and the secular state laws. In addition, there are various but nuanced ways to apply rules from each source. For example, sharia is used to govern life rituals such as birth, marriage or divorce, while adat is cited in property disputes or interethnic relationships (p16). What is more, the contextualized interpretation of rules from the different sources contributes further to the “pluralism” of public reasoning in Indonesia.

Secondly, when describing diversity in Indonesian society, Bowen seems to have confused “pluralism” with “multiculturalism”. For example, when discussing the arguments surrounding equality, pluralism, and political legitimacy, he gives an example of what he means “pluralism” here as “how porous the boundaries ought to be between religious communities …” (p6). Later in the section “Indonesian pluralism”, he refers to the term “pluralism” as “a consciousness of other societies”. To add to the confusion, Bowen dedicates a whole section to “cultural pluralism” (p253), in which he discusses how cultural diversity adds to ad hoc validation of amalgam of legal sources.

Finally, I would argue that Bowen’s casual use of “pluralism” seriously undermines the validity of his theory. Although Bowen’s immediate focus is on Indonesian society, he nevertheless harbors the hope of a broader adaptation of his theory. For example, by studying how Indonesian society cope with the changing world within the confines of tradition and religion, he hopes to find clues as of how “constitutional democracy states can encompass cultural and religious diversity”. Indeed, Bowen concludes his book with a discussion about Muslim “implants” in the West, where, when arguing against what he calls a “monist” view, he questions the assumption that there is only one “basic structure” of society (p264). Instead, Bowen argues that there ought to be more sources of public reasoning in Western societies too.

But Bowen fails to distinguish cultural pluralism from legal pluralism. These two concepts do not always go hand in hand. In Indonesia, for example, the “adat communities” are not the same as linguistic or ethnic communities (for example, there are different “adat communities” among the Javanese). The very reason that different legal sources do carry binding forces over diverse social groups is that those legal sources are “internal” to all the groups. For example, most, if not all, Indonesians recognize traditional norms (adapt) or religious teaching (sharia) as valid legal sources. The society may be culturally “plural” but its acceptance of the “legal pluralism” is universal—thus “singular”. In the case of Muslim “implants” in the West, the challenge is fundamentally different: the society as a whole does not and cannot agree on a set of legal sources that are binding to all. The French mainstream public may never accept sharia as an alternative source of public reasoning while the Muslims in France may never recognize the state law as the sole source. In French society, the challenge may not even be, as Bowen suggests, that there is a lack of legal pluralism. Rather, the difficulty of integration lies in the fact that sources of legal pluralism do not overlap from community to community.

Had Bowen consciously made the distinction of “cultural” pluralism and “legal” pluralism, he might have realized the limited application of his theory. He might have enlightened us with some other cases, for example, In Indonesia, how non-Muslim communities or new Muslim immigrants are coping with their neighbors or with the changing world? Unfortunately, we cannot find such cases in Bowen’s book.

In Faith in Nation, Anthony Marx delivers a spirited rebuttal of the “literary trope” (p 15) about a liberal, inclusive Western nationalism. Instead, he argues that even the “truest” brand of Western nationalism-that of England and France-came to being only after brutal fratricide of massive scale. His entire theory is based on a central position that nationalism developed much earlier than is popularly believed today. This leads one to question why does he insist on such a position? Has he made the case for it? What happens to his theory if the position turns out to be wrong?

I will argue that the definition of the state, or the lack thereof, is key to answering all of the above questions. Only by implicitly loosening the definition of the state, can Marx trace the genesis of Western nationalism back to as early as the 16th century, thus cementing the linkage between Western nationalism and religious violence. However, the liberal adaptation of the concept of the state puts Marx’s entire theory on shaky ground.

According to Marx, the state is the raison d’�tat of nationalism: for nationalism to become a historical force, it “must … refer to a state as an existing structure or potential object of engagement” (p8). Although he declares early and clearly what nationalism is (p4), he never spells out his definition of a state. In fact, what we would think of as a modern state today can hardly be found in 16th century Europe.

Only when the definition of a state is sufficiently loosened, can Marx backdate nationalism to the 16th century, when most of the political authorities at the time existed in the form of royal courts. Only after he pushes back the genesis of nationalism, can Marx connect the religious violence of the 16th century to nationalism. Only when the religious violence is viewed as part of the history of nation building, does it acquire significance in the nature of Western nationalism. Otherwise, the St. Barthelme Day massacre or the burnings at Smithfield is just another “normal” religious upheavals in history, thus any association the massacre or the burnings may have with nation building would be purely coincidental-as Liah Greenfeld implied when Marx quoted her in saying, “Frenchness was disassociating itself from Catholicism.” To Anthony Marx, however, French nationalism and its French Catholic identity are not external to each other. They are just different stages in the same dialectic process. Therefore, real “Frenchness” is actually the public oblivion in France of the strange relationship between the church and the state1.

Yet all the grand reasoning depends on Marx’s definition of the state. After all, can we call the royal courts of the 16th century “states”? Not only has Marx not given his readers a clear answer, some of his own writings seem to contradict each other. For example, Marx mentions that the Treaty of Westphalia marks the beginning of the modern states (p 35). But the French War of Religions and the reign of Mary Tudor-the very conflicts that are supposedly at the core of nation-state building-occurred almost a century earlier. Even if we use the later date, 1648, as the beginning of the state system, one still has to be cautious to label all subsequent political authorities “states”. Regardless whether Louis XIV actually said “I am the state”, the fact that monarchical authority is directly associated with an individual ruler makes it transient in nature (relative to institutionalized modern government), therefore it can hardly be designated the “object of engagement” for nationalist ideology.

Since Marx’s concept of the state is on shaky ground, his entire theory appears highly questionable. I would argue, however, there are two options that can salvage his arguments. One is to weaken the link between nationalism and the state. In other words, nationalism may develop independent of the state. This observation may have a wider application outside of the context of Western history than inside of it. The other option is to introduce a third element, such as political culture, that can bridge the violent past and state and nation building in later times. For example, one accepts that the massive fratricide did happen earlier than the emergence of the nation-state. Nevertheless, the bloodshed molded a new political culture, which manifested itself as a more inclusive nationalism when the nation-state took shape later. If such an interpretation proves to be a more sensible reading of history than that of Marx, then Marx’s criticism of Western nationalism can be easily appropriated to deconstruct the Western political culture-the liberal democracy-itself: that it has a ugly past but short memory. However, is the world ready for such a “total recall”?

In States and Power in Africa, Jeffrey Herbst frequently uses the term “international system.” An instinctive reading of the term may lead to the idea of “international community” (another term that is frequently seen in the text), and there are moments in Herbst’s narrative that seem to support this interpretation. Yet Herbst repeatedly stresses the importance of state development in Africa to the international system : does he mean to say that the rise and fall of Zaire or Mali are seismic events in the world community?

In fact, I would posit, “international system ” refers to more than just one type of international system in Herbst book. Sometimes, the term refers to the Westphalia state model. Other times, it refers to a model that is specific to Africa only. Yet there are still moments when the term is used to mean a “meta-international system” that incorporates both the European and the African models.

First, Herbst recognizes that the Western states and the African states are fundamentally different. The Western states are built on the establishment and mutual recognition of sovereignty. But in Africa, many states have only limited sovereignty at best. For example, many African governments are effective only in urban areas; they have a hard time collecting taxes; some cannot even enforce a single currency within their borders (p226). But most telling of all: African states do not always have a monopoly on the use of force (p255).

Second, Herbst describes how the subsequently formed Western international system is equally different from the African international system. Whereas the Western system is bound together by the threat of anarchy and violence, the African system is more loosely organized but has a tradition of cooperation (p26). Although Herbst repeatedly assures us that, “fundamentally, there is nothing exotic about African politics,” (p31) there is nevertheless an overwhelming sense of “otherness” in how Herbst portrays the relationship between the Western and the African international systems. For example, Herbst states at one point, “It will … be up to the Africans to come up with alternatives to the nation-state. However, the international community can play an important role …” (p269) If the Africans are truly part of the international community, then why the “However,” but not “The rest of”?

Third, in order to have the two international systems (Western and the African) working together, Herbst urges the world to embrace a new system in which sovereignty is no longer a prerequisite (p269). To paraphrase Herbst: if the power or control is exercised within a sub-national unit (a tribe or a region, for example) why can’t the international agencies engage the sub-national unit directly? Assuming Herbst’s definition of engagement includes the representation of those units (or we are back to the Colonial days), he is in effect proposing a different international system—a meta-system as I termed earlier—that is a mishmash of sovereign states and non-sovereign polities. This meta-system is what he has in mind when he theorizes the relationship between state development and international system (p27).

The metamorphosis of the term “international system” reveals a fault line in Herbst’s work: in essence, he is trying to replace an existing concept (Westphalia international system) with a new one (meta-international system) by using terminologies that are alive only within the existing concept. Sovereignty, system, state and nation are terms conceived in the West, and are laden with Western historical experiences . Using terms such as “sovereignty” to construct an international system without sovereignty is bound to cause enormous confusion.

However, the misappropriation of terminologies is only a minor transgression compared to the implication of Herbst’s conclusion. What he advocates, in essence, is to relieve the suffering in Africa at the expense of state building . Yet he has failed to make the case that, without the kind of power that Western states have to mobilize resources within a secured border, the proto-states in Africa can survive in today’s global economy—one that was created by and for strong states only. Consequently, even if the international community can find ways to accommodate a continent full of chiefdoms, people in Africa may find themselves forever condemned to impoverishment and dependency.