Deconstructing “Asia”

There’s something of a tyranny of ideas in the notion that Asia is one, homogeneous bloc of people, places, religions, and morals.  It’s common to speak of “Asian values” and the “Asian people” as if they are one, indistinguishable group of people who share common or identical beliefs about life, government, or ethics.  As convenient as this might be, it totally ignores the diverse demographic makeup of the vast land of Asia.  Moreover, it is an ignorant over-generalization commonly used by imperialistic “Orientalist” and close-minded Anglophones.  Any use of the term Asia for anything other than a quick geographical reference needs to be eradicated from intellectual and common vernacular.  This deconstruction of the concept of Asia allows for a broader, more substantive view of a diverse group of people who constitute a myriad of cultures, values, and ways of life. Given the rise – or perhaps more accurate, resurrection – of Asia as a competitive political and cultural force requires a new, more expansive perspective.

What’s an Asian Anyway?

Unlike its Western counterpart, Asian culture is extremely diverse. This isn’t to say that there isn’t any diversity in the West.  But on a relative scale, the differences are less stark than they are in the opposite Hemisphere.  In the West, there is a much more common ancestral past marked by ideas and movements such as Christianity and The Enlightenment.  The East is considerably different.  The massive geographical mass that if often considered the sister of Western Civilization is home to over 60% of the world’s population and accounts for nearly 30% of the Earth’s land area.  Asian is composed of several countries that have little to no modern resemblance to each other and are as different as, say, a Sudanese native is to an Alabama farmer.  Despite their common “Asian” relation, a man from Kashmir isn’t likely to share much common history with a business man from Tokyo.  Furthermore, Asia is a place of highly diverse religions and ethical systems.  Contrary to the West’s common historical foundation, the East is home to a highly diversified set of religious and ethical roots.  Thus, sweeping statement made about Asia are bound to be grossly inaccurate.  A cursory glance at the cultural makeup of Asia reveals a diverse set of religious/ethical systems:

Hinduism: The Indian subcontinent with India and Nepal has a mainly Hindu character. A strong minority exists in Indonesia (Bali).
Islam: Malaysia (along with Brunei), Indonesia, and Bangladesh are the Asian countries with the largest Islamic population, with Indonesia and its roughly 200 million inhabitants representing the most populous Islamic state in the world.
Buddhism: In the case of Buddhism the situation is more complex. It has above all a formative influence in Indochina. In Thailand and Bhutan, Buddhism is the state religion, and in Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Sri Lanka the majority religion. Other currents of Buddhism determine religious life in Tibet (Lamaism) and Mongolia.
Shintoism: In Japan, there is a parallelism of Buddhism and Shintoism, the traditional Japanese religion. In addition to the community of Buddhism and Confucianist doctrines in Korea there is a substantial Christian section of the population.
Christianity: The Philippines with their mainly Christian character are a special case. Australia and New Zealand, which tend to belong to the Western-Christian world in cultural terms, must also rank as part of the Asia-Pacific region.
Confucianism: It is impossible to define the religious character of China, Japan and Korea in terms of majority and minority concepts. In China, there is a juxtaposition, even down to the level of individual persons, of traditional Chinese popular beliefs, Buddhism and Confucianism,which, however, is to be viewed more as an ethical or moral view of the world. There is a similar situation in Singapore, where the population is to a large extent of Chinese descent. Furthermore, there are also Christians in China.*

This doesn’t even account for the various other worldviews such as Shamanism and Taoism.  But the point here isn’t to get caught up in demographics.  A simple outline is sufficient enough to illustrate the heterogeneous mix of people and beliefs that stretch across Asia.  Aside from beliefs, the institutional makeup of Asia is just as diverse.  Asia is a unique blend of highly developed countries with highly developed infrastructure and influential cultures like South Korea, Japan, Singapore (and sooner or later China and perhaps India) in addition to a collection of developing or underdeveloped countries with nascent or unstable state institutions like Pakistan, Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia.  Lumping all of these countries into one homogeneous group distorts the diverse makeup of the region.    Asia is a very diverse place with a correspondingly diverse set of people and beliefs.  Values considered important in Japan are probably hardly known is places like Singapore or New Delhi.  A token glance at Asian demographics from even Wikipedia is enough to caste a great amount of doubt upon any general ideas associated with “Asian” people.

The Power (and Problem) of Western Hegemony

“[The Orient] cannot represent themselves; they must be represented.”

Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

The chief cause of this distorted view is due, more than anything else, to the remnants of Orientalism and Western dominance.  Since the time of imperial expansion the West has taken Giovanni Vico’s existentialist view that men make their own history and extended it to geography.  Thus, the Orient – or the East, or Asia, or whatever you want to call it – does not simply “exist” a priori.  God did not say sometime between day 1 and 2 that the region East of the Bosporus would hence be called Asia. Or, as cultural historian Edward Said, in his book Orientalism, puts it, “the Orient is not an inert fact of nature.  It is not merely there, just as the Occident itself is not just there either.”  What humans can know is only what they have deliberately created.  Ideas, cultures, and histories are not simply stand-alone objects of observation; they are results of the human imagination making itself manifest in the external world.  Thus, the Orient is a creation of man, not a natural phenomenon.

Having said this, there is very important distinction to be made.  Any discussion of ideas, cultures, or histories cannot accurately be understood outside its corresponding configuration of power.  Those who control discourse control creation.  The power to dictate creation is a arm of the power-knowledge structure.  In other words, power is knowledge.  This knowledge gives one the ability to create, destroy, or alter in any way deemed appropriate.  Thus, historically speaking, the relationship between the East and West (or the Orient and the Occident) is not a cooperative or mutually benefiting one.  It is one of power and domination, stemming from what Said calls a “complex hegemony.”  All of the problems of Western domination over the East (direct subjugation not forgotten, e.g.. Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc), perhaps biggest the problem here is the conspicuous absence of a distinctly “Asian” voice.  Asians did not create Asia; Anglo-Saxons did. Thus, over the course of recent history, “Asians” have had very little say in the way in which their histories were dictated and controlled.  Challengers never fared well.  To threaten the hegemonic equilibrium without express written consent of the hegemon more often than not meant almost certain destruction, e.g. Imperial Japan.

A Counterbalancing Act

Times are certainly changing.  In recent decades the East-West relationship has undergone some fundamental structural changes.  With the rise of the Asian Tigers and the return of the behemoth Dragon, Asia is regaining its posture and its voice.  There should be little shock when popular and powerful Asian leaders stand up to the West.  When the foreign minister of Singapore warns that universalism can be used to “deny or mask the reality of diversity” or the Chinese Premier strongly rebukes Western accusations that its manipulating its currency (even if it is), it should be interpreted as more of a backlash against decades of Western hegemony rather than arrogant self-assertion  (although the latter shouldn’t be totally discounted).  With the rise in power of several Asian nations will come a corresponding rise in national pride and self-assurance.  The emergence of Asia as a serious contender of the West mandates a new, revolutionary way of perceiving East-West relations.  This requires the deconstruction of the antiquated binary way of looking at the world.  It isn’t the East vs. the West; it’s several diverse Asian nations with divergent beliefs and national goals who seek to assert themselves as unique, individual actors interacting with the old-masters of the last century.

A reinvention of the conventional way of thinking is in the best interests of the major nations of the Western world, particularly the United States.  This nouveau worldview must go beyond simply depicting the East and West as mutually dependent economic of military partners.  It must highlight the new dynamic interplay between nations in an extremely diverse, multifaceted system of people, places, and ideas.  Although the preponderance of power isn’t likely to fade completely away from the West anytime real soon, there is a very noticeable shift in the balance of power with the “rise of the rest.”  In order to engage the East on more humane, less domineering terms, its important that the West continually find ways to reinvent the way it perceives the East.

*Langguth, Gerd, 2003, “Asian Values Revisited”, Asia Europe Journal, 1, 25-42.