2015
Postcard from Malaysia
Postcard from Malaysia
May 16, 2015.
Visa-run time (though no longer absolutely necessary before the temporary 30 day entry to Thailand
expires), this time to Kuala Lumpur for the day. First stop, the Petronas Twin Towers. This 88-storey steel and glass-clad icon is more awesome than all the photos and table-top models of it that you’ve ever seen. Lunch and a walk around the landscaped park that surrounds the towers and adjacent skyscrapers. Apart from its very modern skyline, KL as the locals call it, has space for palm-lined walks and fountains, unlike BKK where every newly spotted square inch of empty space seems destined to have something concrete and high built on it – but immediately!
Reminiscent of other Asian capitals I’ve spoken of, KL is also home to an array of British colonial- era landmarks such as the Railway Station. Markets are my special delight, and KL didn’t disappoint.
The central market, in the downtown, area near Chinatown, is aptly described in the brochures thus: “Revamped and revived as a huge gifts emporium, the Art Deco wet market, nonetheless provides a focal point for piecing together K.L.’s past.” I don’t know what a wet market is, but this ‘citadel’ was dry, air-conditioned, and I found there some gorgeous lengths of Indonesian batik fabrics (which reminded me of long ago and far away, when Meta, a friend from Bali, used to bring me some as presents after her annual trips home). I bought two pieces and wish I had bought ten – just one reason for going back again to KL, along with doing all the other things I didn’t have time for today.
At Kanchanabury Again
May 17, 2015
In Thailand, and we went to Kanchanaburi again this year, I, Ali, Andrea and the children, to Godfrey’s last resting place in the serenely beautiful gardens of the War Cemetery here in Thailand.
[I first wrote about finding Godfrey in my blog last June.]
This is where several thousand young and a few not so young, of mainly British, Dutch and Australian nationality are buried. They died in the most inhuman circumstances as Japanese POWs, forced to build the infamous Siam-Burma railway in the Second World War. There are now 5,084 Commonwealth casualties of the railway commemorated or buried in this cemetery. There are also 1,896 Dutch war graves. The remains of prisoners from America were repatriated.
We arranged our visit to coincide with the ANZAC Day memorial ceremonies. Each year on 25 April, ANZAC Day in Thailand is commemorated by conducting a Dawn Service and Gunfire Breakfast at Hellfire Pass and a Memorial Service and Wreath Laying Ceremony at Kanchanaburi War Cemetery. The ceremonials align with the customary
ANZAC DAY services in Australia and around the world.
The bank of pictures below tell the story of our family’s pilgrimage to Kanchanaburi, April 2015.
But it is fitting to add a couple more details that the pictures do not convey.
EDWARDS, GODFREY, Private 5775560, Died 29/05/1943 age 25, Royal Norfolk Regiment. Grave ref.: 2. O. 51, KANCHANABURI, Thailand. Also commemorated on Filey War Memorial, Yorkshire.
• Surviving POWs. The story of the Thai-Burma railway is still a part of memory, but only just, before it slips into history with the passing of the last remaining survivors. Two 90-plus year old Australian veterans, ex-POWs made the journey to Kanchanaburi this year; one recalled movingly and in strong voice his and his mates’ experiences and his own improbably survival against the odds, and how he now spends his retirement years talking to school groups and accompanying them on visits to this place.
• Medics. Medical personnel feature prominently in accounts of captivity. By providing medical care, displaying remarkable ingenuity and protecting the sick from the brutality of the Japanese (where they could), these men were critical to their fellow prisoners’ survival. Their innovativeness in trying to save lives, instituting measures to try and contain infections and spread of diseases for which they had no medicines, and their compassion in carefully recording the deaths and marking the places of burial along what has been described as ‘an almost endless chain of pitiful little wooden crosses throughout the length of this trail of tribulation’ – this last practice is what allowed for eventual dignified reburial in the cemetery that is today at Kanchanaburi!
• The children. Small wooden crosses made and inscribed by primary school children across Australia, and flown out to Thailand for the occasion, were handed out to us to place around the cemetery at graves that may not have been visited. The children had written touchingly on the little crosses – ’lest we forget’, ’thank you for serving our country’, ‘God bless’ …
• The Australians. In my several visits to Thailand in the past decade, I have learned to appreciate that in south-east Asia Australia is a lead nation to be relied upon, an example being the dedication to preserving the knowledge of the enormous sacrifices made in these foreign fields in times of conflict. For those of us who live far away, we are grateful to the Australians – their work and contribution is estimable.
Somali Marriage Practice
May, 2015
A recently published paper by the late-Dr Virginia Luling on marriage practices in southern Somalia is a welcome new addition to the ethnographic record. Given the small body of material in the academic literature on marriage practices among Somalis, the essay is a valued contribution.
Hardly anything has been published on the subject since I. M. Lewis’s classic study, “Marriage and the Family in Northern Somaliland,” which dates from the 1950s
Continuities and Changes: Marriage in Southern Somalia and the Diaspora is the title of the essay by Luling which appears in the current issue of the Northeast African Studies Journal,
NEAS (Volume 15, Number 1, 2015:139-65). This is the last paper she was working on in the months before her death in January 2013.
NEAS, published twice a year by Michigan State University Press, is a distinguished journal devoted to scholarly analysis of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, and Sudan, as well as the Nile Valley, the Red Sea, and the lands adjacent to both.
Despite the wars and social ,upheavals which have devastated Somalia since 1990, “people go on getting married,” even if the ways in which people celebrate marriage have changed. And this essay seeks to document some past and enduring traditions, along with changes in the last half century that reflect social and political shifts.
In this age of the internet and social media, blog posts and general commentary on the topic of marriage among Somalis may give an impression of uniform or universal practices. But what we see from Luling’s careful study is that with the exception of the formalizing of a union in accordance with Islamic Shari’a law, variations in local traditions abound, and are endlessly fascinating.
At the centre of Luling’s essay, as with many of her writings, are the Geledi people and their neighbours in and around the town of Afgooye. From the period of her initial Anthropological fieldwork in the late 1960s and throughout her life, Luling continued a professional personal relationship with this particular region of Somalia, even as she advocated for the rights of Somali and Oromo minorities more widely throughout the Horn of Africa.
The first section of the narrative looks at the way in which weddings were performed by the Geledi and Wa’dan clans of Afgooye in southern Somalia as she originally recorded them, and here she draws on her extensive research notes from interviews and fieldwork in the 1960s and 1980s. Her own observations are supplemented by the work of Jan M. Haakonsen, Maurizio Gigli, and others, including this writer. Under consideration is the extent to which Geledi practices may be typical of southern Somalia as a whole, while certain differences with northern nomadic clans’ practice clearly exist. Also looked at in some detail are the influences of Benadiri culture of the Reer Hamar of Mogadishu on wedding customs in Afgooye – which themselves exemplify the penetration of coastal culture to such communities of the immediate hinterland through trading contacts and spread of religion.
In the second section, Luling traces the ways in which marriage has changed, both in Afgooye and in the diaspora. Here her own observations are supplemented by data obtained through the close ties she maintained with the Somali diaspora in Europe and North America during more recent decades. Of the diaspora, one hardly needs reminding that over the past 25 years, Somalia has experienced a series of destructive civil wars and the complete breakdown of state institutions. The fracturing of society along clan lines coupled with two decades of chronic insecurity resulted in major population displacements within Somalia and the emigration of tens of thousands of Somalis from all sections of society in search of sanctuary abroad. Somali diaspora communities exist today across the globe, with Britain, Scandinavia, and Canada being home to some of the largest concentrations in the West.
Luling continued a steady output of scholarly writings throughout her professional life. They were always learned, free from academic jargon, and faithful to the perceptions and cultural language of her Somali sources – qualities which are typical too of this last piece. [The publication in 2002 of her masterful Somali Sultanate: The Geledi City-State over 150 Years established Luling as the leading authority on Geledi society and the Somali clans of the Lower Shabelle river basin. Her unpublished field notes are archived at SOAS, London University.]