goldpeninsula

[goldpeninsula]

To outsiders, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte might look like an enigma.

Regularly criticised both at home and abroad for his deadly war on drugs, authoritarian leanings and combative, unmuzzled rhetoric, Duterte detractors chalk up the legacy of his four years in power as one of destruction and democratic erosion. But that’s only part of the story of public opinion – despite steadfast opposition, his administration still regularly enjoys sky-high approval ratings which, by some measures, circle around 87%.

Today marks exactly four years since Duterte’s 30 June inauguration at Malacañang Palace in Manila. To unpack the seeming dichotomy of opinion on the nation’s 16th president, the Globe spoke with Filipino commentators about the enduring appeal of this polarising figure.

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The week started with an unexpected long, warm hug. Thai people usually do not hug each other when they meet, especially if it is for the first time. Instead, they put their palms together in front of their chest and bow in a show of respect called a wai.

67-year-old social and environmental activist Tuenjai Deetes does that too. But right afterwards, the tiny; slim, short-haired woman approaches with open arms, initiating an embrace.

Deetes has dedicated most of her life working with the hill tribes and other minorities in Thailand. Field trips, where she listens to the unheard, are an essential part of her job that she does Monday to Sunday.

Located in the far north of the country, many of Thailand’s hill tribes have their historic origins in nearby China, Laos or Myanmar. Some of them have lived in Thailand for generations but lost their Thai nationality due to the border demarcation in 1904, and later the 1972 amendment to the country’s Nationality Act, which tightened controls on citizenship in response to illegal immigration from Myanmar.

Others, like the Akha people in Paka Sukjai village, fled civil war in neighbouring Myanmar that has raged throughout much of the 20th century, with about 80,000 settling down in Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai in search of peace and safety. However, despite decades of living here, many elders only have their residencies and are just now applying for their citizenship.

“We feel we are not equal to other Thai people who have citizenship. When there is a check-point, the police always asks us for ID cards,” says an elderly lady as she sips her morning tea. Drinking locally grown tea is a ritual that accompanies every visit at the hill tribes’ villages. 

While every individual has a different story in regards to why they are not Thai citizens, from bureaucracy to a lack of official documents, the impact of being stateless is the same – limited access to social welfare and health care, restricted movement, and limited livelihood options and job opportunities. 

Deetes spends half a day listening to the worries of the elders while her colleagues from HADF write down notes and take pictures of their residence cards. At the end, they will collect information and fingerprints – as they are not able to sign themselves – of each elderly person who wants to apply for Thai citizenship. The whole process can take months.

“Some of these people were waiting for their citizenship for twenty-five years,” Deetes explains, referring to fifteen villagers who were recently granted Thai nationality thanks to HADF and their cooperation with the local headman, the district governor, as well as lawyers from Thammasat University in Bangkok.

“It is an integrated effort, nobody can work alone; we have to work together. I listen to the communities and what they need. It is impossible to do things without the participation of the villages,” states Deetes.

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As the battle against COVID-19 rages in Malaysia, a new population has become collateral damage: Rohingya refugees. A terrified public, instigated by political opportunists, has endorsed numerous anti-refugee online petitions that have gained well-distributed support across Malaysia’s ethnic spectrum. Although Malaysia once embraced these survivors of Myanmar’s genocidal regime, Rohingya refugees are now being called ungrateful, uncivilised and backward leeches. This public outcry has led to mass support for Malaysia turning away boats carrying Rohingya asylum seekers. Given that many Malaysians assume that all refugees from Myanmar are Rohingya, the petitions have supported Malaysia’s detention of thousands of undocumented migrants—even those holding UNHCR registration cards—whose fates are unclear.

Perceptions of Rohingya refugees as indolent and, more recently, as virus carriers emerge from simplistic discursive representations that materialise from and circulate far beyond Malaysia. A number of entities unwittingly mutually reinforce reductive depictions of Rohingya. Myanmar nationalists vehemently deny that Rohingya belong to the polity, since the latter are perceived to be different—Rohingya “look South Asian” and are Muslims in a Buddhist country. International media have incentives to tell (and sell) simple stories, while humanitarian agencies achieve efficiencies in aid delivery when they can treat every Rohingya as a replicable token of a common type. Rohingya elites themselves have reason to present a common and distinct Rohingya identity, as this contests the Myanmar state’s assertion that the Rohingya are simply interlopers from Bangladesh (“Bengalis”).

In the academic world, fieldwork with Rohingya documents significant internal differentiation. But this reality has been obscured by the lack of sustained study of the group, particularly because northern Rakhine (Arakan) state, the area to which Rohingya are indigenous, has been largely inaccessible to researchers. Academics have mostly only considered elite debates or recapitulated stories of misery in Burma.

The creation of a homogenous image of Rohingya obscures the ethnic community’s striking diversity: Rohingya do not share an identical dialect, do not all look the same, nor are even all Muslim. Such diversity is unsurprising—homogenous groups tend to be maintained only through coercion and control. Given the Myanmar state’s claims that Rohingya do not exist, counter-narratives claiming a unified identity also make perfect sense. What is noteworthy are the effects of these claims and counterclaims amid mass violence and dispossession. Those who do not conform to the narrow characteristics which allegedly distinguish the Rohingya are not only excluded from making identity claims, but also the protection afforded to recognised asylum seekers and refugees.

This post draws upon fieldwork in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Thailand and Yangon, Myanmar between 2017 and 2020 to describe processes of Rohingya identity (re)formation amid ethnic cleansing and attempted extermination. We focus on Rohingya elite discourses and the criteria used by humanitarian organisations to grant protections to refugees, to show how both co-produce a reified image of the Rohingya that is then represented in media and academic treatments. The disciplining of ethnic diversity in turn becomes internalised by Rohingya refugees, who self-reinforce the homogenisation of Rohingya identity.

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[goldpeninsula]

From the iconic films of drag legend Divine to the campy classics The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar; the essential documentary Paris Is Burning to the groundbreaking TV series Pose; and, of course, the popular herstory-making franchise of RuPaul’s Drag Race. There’s a plethora of content from drag culture that can comfort the weary during these confusing times.

Drag, in its basic sense, is about transformation. It’s a reaction to society’s standards and expectations. However, albeit entertaining at first glance, drag, like any other art form, has always been political. From half a century ago’s queens of Stonewall riots to today’s digital queens, drag has always fought for the downtrodden – all the while wearing seven-inch rhinestone-studded heels.

In celebration of Pride Month, INQUIRER.net talked to six of the country’s fiercest queens about the importance of drag in this period of turmoil.

Keep reading

[goldpeninsula]

Even as Thailand’s tourism industry continues to take a hit due to the coronavirus pandemic, the country says it is in no hurry to welcome back foreign visitors until 2021.

Chattan Kunjara Na Ayudhya of Thailand’s tourism authority said during a recent virtual seminar that there has been “no discussion” about the immediate reopening of Thailand’s tourism industry, which raked in 1.93 trillion baht ($62 billion) last year.

On the potential for a Southeast Asian travel bubble, Chattan said that discussions have been halted due to rising cases in neighboring countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, which were previously thought to have contained their outbreaks.

“I see no signal from the government that Thailand will reopen this year,” he said on Wednesday, August 5, adding that the peak inbound travel periods of Christmas and Chinese New Year may see a downturn.

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Student activists at Thailand’s most prestigious university defied a ban by college administrators and staged an anti-government rally on Friday, as a prominent protest leader was arrested elsewhere for his involvement in a previous demonstration.

Up to 1,000 students gathered in a hall on the campus of Chulalongkorn University in central Bangkok to hear speeches calling for a new constitution and for the government to resign, and for an end to intimidation of critics. Heavy rain forced a change of venue from an outdoor plaza and may have discouraged attendance.

The rally was banned by the university, which said it allows nonviolent political gatherings but was given too short notice to ensure safety. Protest organizers announced they would go ahead with the event anyway, even though those taking part were threatened with possible punishment.

“We are fed up with dictatorship, with people’s voices being ignored, with activists being harassed by the authorities, with enforced disappearances, with the government siding with the capitalists leaving the rest of the people to suffer, with the law not being applied to the elites, with us the people not holding power,” said Sirin Mungchareon, one of the participants.

The rally was the latest in a series in several major cities around the country.

Several activists involved in organizing earlier protests have been arrested on various charges, including sedition. Police on Friday stopped a car carrying Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak and arrested him on a sedition charge in connection with a July 18 protest.

His arrest in a northern suburb of Bangkok, as he was reportedly traveling to a protest at another university, was shown in a video on his Facebook page.

The protests have been gaining steam for several weeks but took a controversial turn on Monday, when some speakers at another university north of Bangkok openly criticized aspects of Thailand’s constitutional monarchy.

The openness of that challenge to what is traditionally the country’s most revered institution sent shock waves through the country. The monarchy is protected by a draconian defamation law that carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison.

It also put pressure on the government to crack down harder on the protest movement, at the risk of stoking further discontent among supporters of the student activists.

The wave of protests has pressured Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s government, whose competence to run the economy was already in question before the pandemic, with growth struggling in comparison with Thailand’s Asian neighbors.

The growing anti-government agitation has mainly taken aim at its perceived illegitimacy. Prayuth, a former army commander, originally seized power in a coup in 2014. He retained it last year in an election under rules that opponents say were drawn up to all but guarantee his victory.

[goldpeninsula]

Only last week Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s maritime minister and close confidant of the country’s president, touted herbal mangosteen juice as a coronavirus remedy.

His suggestion was the latest in a string of unorthodox treatments put forward by the president’s cabinet over the past six months, ranging from prayer to rice wrapped in banana-leaf to eucalyptus necklaces.

The remedies reflect the unscientific approach to battling the coronavirus in the world’s fourth-most populous country, where the rate of testing is among the world’s lowest, contact tracing is minimal, and authorities have resisted lockdowns even as infections spiked.

Indonesia has officially reported 6,346 deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, the highest overall toll in Southeast Asia. Including people who died with acute COVID-19 symptoms but were not tested, the death toll is three times higher.

Indonesia shows no signs of containing the virus. It now has the fastest infection spread in East Asia, with 17% of people tested turning out positive, rising close to 25% outside the capital, Jakarta. Figures above 5% mean an outbreak is not under control, according to the World Health Organization.

“This virus has already spread all over Indonesia. What we are doing is basically herd immunity,” said Prijo Sidipratomo, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the National Veterans Development University in Jakarta. “So, we should just dig many, many graves.” Herd immunity describes a scenario where a large proportion of the population contracts the virus and then widespread immunity stops the disease from spreading.

Government spokesman Wiku Adisasmito did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters. He said the number of infections was “a warning for Indonesia to continuously improve its handling effort,” and that positive cases per capita in Indonesia were lower than most countries. President Joko Widodo’s office did not respond to questions sent by Reuters.

To be sure, Indonesia’s confirmed 144,945 infections out of a population of 270 million are much less than the millions reported in the United States, Brazil and India, and below the neighboring Philippines, which has less than half Indonesia’s population. But the true scale of Indonesia’s outbreak may still be hidden: India and the Philippines are testing four times more per capita, while the United States is testing 30 times more.

Statistics from Our World in Data, a nonprofit research project based at the University of Oxford, show Indonesia ranked 83rd out of 86 countries surveyed for overall tests per capita.

“Our concern is that we have not reached the peak yet, that the peak may come around October and may not finish this year,” said Iwan Ariawan, an epidemiologist from the University of Indonesia. “Right now we can’t say it is under control.”

[goldpeninsula]

Stone tools reveal how island-hopping humans made a living

Prehistoric axes and beads found in caves on a remote Indonesian island suggest this was a crucial staging post for seafaring people who lived in this region as the last ice age was coming to an end.

Our discoveries, published today in PLOS ONE, suggest humans arrived on the tropical island of Obi at least 18,000 years ago, successfully making a living there for at least the next 10,000 years.

It also provides the first direct archaeological evidence to support the idea these islands were crucial for humans’ island-hopping migration through this region millennia ago.

In early April 2019, we and our colleagues in Indonesia became the first archaeologists to explore Obi, in Indonesia’s Maluku Utara province. Read more.

[goldpeninsula]

The dragon kiln, or longyao, is a traditional Chinese wood-fired kiln that dates back several thousand years. The long, cylindrical kiln is said to resemble the shape of a dragon, and it hisses, bellows, and spits smoke as it works. Dragon kilns rose in popularity in Singapore in the early 19th century, and from the 1940s to the 1970s, nearly 20 opened up across Jurong. Over time, electric kilns replaced the more labor-intensive dragons, and all but two such kilns shuttered. Today, Thow Kwang Pottery Jungle is home to the oldest surviving dragon kiln, and the only one that continues to breathe fire.

Made by hand in the 1940s, Thow Kwang’s dragon kiln is molded from clay and buttressed by bricks. The 27-meter-long kiln is built at a steep slope so that the fire, lit within the head of the dragon, can propel intense heat throughout the kiln and push rising smoke from the tail. Pottery that can withstand high heat is placed closest to the mouth, where temperatures can reach up to 1,500°C. The dragon can “eat” up to 4,000 pieces at once, but each piece must be placed into the kiln individually. It’s a laborious process, and a long one, too; from starting the fire to cooling the pottery, it takes about six days. Workers sustain the fire day after day, periodically sliding pieces of wood through the kiln’s stoke holes.

Thow Kwang Pottery Jungle has been owned and operated by the Tan family for three generations. Tan Kim Seh, the founder, was a third-generation potter born in Feng Xi, China who, after moving to Singapore, purchased the kiln and started the family pottery business. Although the kiln is no longer used commercially, the Tan family fires up the dragon two to three times each year for clay artists to use and spectators to witness. When the kiln isn’t in operation, Thow Kwang offers pottery workshops, tours, and educational events. It also serves as a studio and gathering space for a group of potters known as the Thow Kwang Clay Artists.

The shop house, relatively unchanged since the 1990s, brims with an assortment of ceramic umbrella stands, flower pots, lampshades, and dishes alongside miscellaneous bric-a-brac, religious statues, and household items used by the Tan family. The pièce de résistance, of course, is the dragon itself, and while it’s only operational a few times a year, the lucky visitor can tour the belly of the wood-fired beast.

[goldpeninsula]

In the shadow of the whitewashed Catholic church in Ainaro, Timor-Leste, Kalistru walked down the steps onto the dusty road. He was just a boy, eight years old. He couldn’t have known he would never see his mother or father again after that day.

It was 1977 and Timor-Leste was at war. Two years earlier Indonesian forces had invaded and occupied the tiny former Portuguese territory. Too young to join the resistance like some of his siblings, Kalistru clung to his mother’s side during the chaos of those days.

Kalistru and his friends barely noticed a group of Indonesian soldiers waiting nearby as they left church early that day. They were too busy playing with some coins as they wandered down the road. One of the soldiers approached them and asked if he could join in.

“Do you know the Indonesian capital, Jakarta?” he asked the boys. “No,” they said. “Would you like to go there?”

Too young to see the Indonesian soldiers as the enemy and excited at the promise of a grand adventure, before they knew it the boys were in an army Jeep heading for Dili.

It would be 42 years before he would stand there again on the steps of his family’s church, returned as a father himself, still carrying the burden of guilt and pain that day placed on him.

[goldpeninsula]

Thailand's king has reinstated his royal consort to the position, nearly a year after she was stripped of her titles in a dramatic fall from grace.

King Vajiralongkorn returned Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi's rank and titles on Wednesday, the Royal Gazette announced.

Sineenat was stripped of her rank in October 2019, only months after being named as the king's companion.

The palace had said that she was being punished for trying to elevate herself to "the same state as the queen".

Sineenat was the first royal consort for almost a century in Thailand, where the term refers to a partner in addition to the king's wife.

Last year's announcement also accused her of "misbehaviour and disloyalty against the monarch". She has not been seen in public since and her whereabouts have not been confirmed.

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Though pandemic lockdowns prematurely quashed a burgeoning anti-government movement in March, recent days have seen some of Thailand’s largest anti-government protests since its 2014 military coup.

According to Reuters, around 2,500 mostly young Thai protesters gathered at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument on Saturday to demand sweeping changes: the dissolution of parliament, an end to official harassment of government critics, and a rewriting of the nation’s constitution, which was most recently revised under the provisional military government in 2017. Smaller groups of protesters gathered at a military base and the prime minister’s office on Monday evening, the AP reports.

“No one hates the nation here,” one protest leader said on Saturday, leading a crowd-wide rendition of the national anthem, the Bangkok Post reported.

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Even as Thailand’s tourism industry continues to take a hit due to the coronavirus pandemic, the country says it is in no hurry to welcome back foreign visitors until 2021.

Chattan Kunjara Na Ayudhya of Thailand’s tourism authority said during a recent virtual seminar that there has been “no discussion” about the immediate reopening of Thailand’s tourism industry, which raked in 1.93 trillion baht ($62 billion) last year.

On the potential for a Southeast Asian travel bubble, Chattan said that discussions have been halted due to rising cases in neighboring countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, which were previously thought to have contained their outbreaks.

“I see no signal from the government that Thailand will reopen this year,” he said on Wednesday, August 5, adding that the peak inbound travel periods of Christmas and Chinese New Year may see a downturn.

[goldpeninsula]

A beauty product labeled as made in “Manila, Province of China” provoked anger amongst Filipinos when photos of it began circulating online.  

The product, sold at an outlet in Manila’s Chinatown district, listed “Manila Province, People’s Republic of China” as its manufacturing address, prompting angry reactions from Filipinos and local officials.

On Thursday, August 20, Manila Mayor Isko Moreno shuttered the establishment selling the keratin hair treatments and called for the deportation of two Chinese nationals involved in the business.

“I am not a governor of China, I am the mayor of Manila, Philippines,” he said. “That is the address of Manila. Manila is in the Philippines, and the Philippines is free. We are a sovereign nation,” Moreno said in a Facebook Live broadcast.

The mayor asked the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation to file appropriate charges against the Chinese nationals he identified as Shi Zhong Xing and Shi Li Li. He also asked the immigration bureau to conduct deportation proceedings against the two men, claiming that they exhibited “disrespect” to the Philippines with their stunt.

“Their utter disrespect to the country as shown by these violations should not be countenanced. We cannot let these foreign nationals insult our nation and our people,” he wrote in a letter addressed to immigration officials.

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Thailand is a country where the monarchy and the military have been locked in a symbiotic relationship for decades and where politicians have often blurred the lines between the government and the crown, using the laws meant to protect the king, known as lese-majeste, to silence political opponents.

The manifesto read by Panusaya calls for revoking those laws, cutting back on public spending on the royal family and countering its influence over Thai politics. It caught the military-backed government of general-turned-prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha by surprise.

"The military government doesn't know how to approach or to address this new kind of threat," says David Streckfuss, author of a book about the Thai monarchy and laws written to shield it from public discussion.

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And the rate of teenage pregnancy is rising. According to the most recent data, collected every 10 years, in 2002, 6.3 percent of teenagers were pregnant; by 2013 it had gone up to 13.6 percent.

Last August, the Philippines' economic development agency declared the number of teenage pregnancies a "national social emergency."

[goldpeninsula]

Stone tools reveal how island-hopping humans made a living

Prehistoric axes and beads found in caves on a remote Indonesian island suggest this was a crucial staging post for seafaring people who lived in this region as the last ice age was coming to an end.

Our discoveries, published today in PLOS ONE, suggest humans arrived on the tropical island of Obi at least 18,000 years ago, successfully making a living there for at least the next 10,000 years.

It also provides the first direct archaeological evidence to support the idea these islands were crucial for humans’ island-hopping migration through this region millennia ago.

In early April 2019, we and our colleagues in Indonesia became the first archaeologists to explore Obi, in Indonesia’s Maluku Utara province. Read more.