Buddhist Statecraft and the Politics of Ethnicity in Laos: Buddhification and interethnic relations in historical and anthropological perspective

2. Historical periods

The groundwork of the project consists of an analysis of Theravada Buddhism’s political philosophy and its notions of statecraft (Schetelich 1997). Concentrating at first on Theravada Buddhism in general and then moving on to the specific Lao setting, the project explores how on a conceptual and practical level the Buddhist kingdoms shaped the relationships with non-Buddhist ethnic minorities before the colonial expansion in 1893. Sources such as reports of explorers, local and royal chronicles, and legal texts provide important information about how local concepts of political organisation such as baan-mueang (village - principality) or mandala (‘radiating power centres of Buddhist kingship’) were imagined and operated. An in-depth look at the colonial period examines how, beginning in the 1930s, the French established and promoted a specific vision of a politics of religion and culture. The latter aimed at the forging of a Lao national identity based on Buddhism as a means of early nation-building (Kourilsky 2006). These politics largely ignored the ethnic minorities and fostered the dominance of the ethnic lowland Lao. The production of colonial knowledge and the rigid classification of ‘minorities’ by colonial bureaucrats and their anthropological agents actually created and reinforced ethnic identities. Nevertheless, many regions of the highland periphery were only marginally touched by the colonial regime, and the state rituals of the royal court in Luang Prabang continued to function as a cosmological integration of Mon-Khmer groups into the Buddhist kingdom. However, when the French and the ethnic Lao tried to expand the reach of the state into the highlands, direct resistance through uprisings and revolts also occurred.

During the postcolonial period and the Vietnam War, the situation changed dramatically. Through enhanced technical and infrastructural means, the state aimed at expanding its hegemony into the highlands with its ‘high modernist’ agenda (Scott 1998). This was enforced by the massive influx of US and Vietnamese financial and military aid into Laos. After the socialist revolution of 1975, the ethnic minorities that backed the liberation struggle were supposed to be ‘rewarded’. Lao socialism abolished Buddhism’s status as a state religion, replaced Buddhist kingship with the leadership of the Lao Communist Party and introduced a heavily controlled, nationalist form of Buddhism. This was a conscious effort to break with religion as a form of ‘feudalism’ and substitute Buddhism’s civilisational hegemony with a secular socialist ideology. The new regime promoted an egalitarian multi-ethnic political line embedded in a vision of ‘secular modernity’ (Taylor 2007; Asad 2003) that allowed for the creation of a new socialist man beyond ethnic and religious affiliations. However, with the politics of reform taking effect in the 1990s, Buddhism has under the aegis and strict control of the communist party been increasingly regaining its socio-cultural relevance. Today, the government – in order to increase its own legitimacy and foster the nation-building process – again heavily promotes a specific version of Buddhist culture and state ritualism. Many ethnic Lao and the state authorities consider this a rather orthodox and rationalistic version of Buddhism superior to the ‘animistic superstitions’ and cultures of the minorities. Many lowland Lao again pejoratively label these minorities as kha (‘slaves’) – a term the revolution was supposed to abolish – and according to the official politics of religion, minorities just have ‘customs’ (papheni) but no ‘religion’ (sasana). Minorities now face increasing assimilation pressure, which is also channelled through Buddhism and the politics of religion and culture; a kind of internal ‘colonisation of consciousness’ (Comaroff & Comaroff 1992). With monastic institutions being firmly integrated into the Party State, Buddhism and the language, moral values and ethnic lowland Lao lifestyles associated with it, are now seen again as a ‘civilisational marker’ crucial for defining ‘Lao national culture’ in the postsocialist era (Ladwig 2008). Moreover, Buddhism and its ethics are presented as an antidote to the ‘decadent’ influences of a globalised capitalist modernity and Buddhification is seen as a potential means for countering the increasing Christian missionary activity among minorities.