Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: March 25, 2021 at 9:58:03 AM EDT > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-War]: Lee on Hammond, 'China's Muslims and Japan's > Empire: Centering Islam in World War II' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Kelly A. Hammond. China's Muslims and Japan's Empire: Centering > Islam in World War II. Chapel Hill University of North Carolina > Press, 2020. 314 pp. $29.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4696-5965-7. > > Reviewed by Seok-Won Lee (Rhodes College) > Published on H-War (March, 2021) > Commissioned by Margaret Sankey > > Hammond's book is an important contribution to the study of the > cultural and intellectual history of the Japanese Empire. > Acknowledging recent works on Pan-Asianism in Japanese history, > _China's Muslims and Japan's Empire_ probes the question of how > Islamic communities in China encountered Japan and its empire > building in the 1930s and 1940s. Hammond's narrative powerfully > engages the audience since this book is not confined to a > conventional institutionalist approach--that is, how a colonial > empire integrated the colonized through top-down policies. Instead, > this work first pays attention to the hybrid identity and culture of > the Muslim population in China and then focuses on the tense and > provocative relations between Muslim communities in China and > Southeast Asia and imperial Japan. Through this, the author attempts > to challenge the perception of Asian culture and religion in which > the presence of Islamic believers has been largely neglected. > > Throughout the book, the author well demonstrates the intertwined > presence of Muslim communities in twentieth-century Asian history. > The author acknowledges that "Islam and Muslims were never central to > imperial Japan's initiatives and decision making," and that they were > considered as part of an "add-on" (p. 149) in Japan's grand Pan-Asian > strategy. However, Hammond's work reveals the subtle and crucial > presence of Sino-Muslims and Islamic believers in Southeast Asia > during the tumultuous time period of 1931-45. > > Hammond offers two different groups of Muslins within Asia. According > to the author, Sino-Muslims had undergone a dynamic identity > formation. While they were under the influence of Han > Chinese-oriented politics and culture championed by Sino-centrism, > they also showed their religious adherence to Arabic language and > culture. This hybridity is well described in this book, and the > author makes the convincing point that Sino-Muslims maintained > cooperative and conflicting relations with both the Nationalist > government in China and imperial Japan. The Japanese Empire > constantly approached a small but important number of Sino-Muslim > communities to make them a showcase of Japan's Pan-Asian empire > building. Imperial Japan offered several "inclusive" gestures to > Sino-Muslims, including educational opportunities in China and Japan, > while imperial policymakers in wartime Japan were reluctant to > instill Japanese identity into the minds and culture of Sino-Muslims. > > The nuanced relation between Sino-Muslims and imperial Japan became > increasingly complex, as most Southeast Asian countries were under > Japan's control in the early 1940s. Hammond argues that Muslims in > Southeast Asia showed less intensive national identities, and this > provided Japan with a different basis from which to propagandize its > Pan-Asian rhetoric. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was > logically associated with Pan-Islamism, and imperial Japan > disseminated its deceptive but highly tempting rhetoric of the > "liberation of Southeast Asia" from European colonialism, which had > been hostile to Islamic culture. Hammond makes the point that the > logic of liberation was not simply empty rhetoric, since a number of > Muslims in Southeast Asia accepted Japan as a liberator. > Nevertheless, Muslim communities in Southeast Asia still cast a > dubious eye on the Japanese Empire, perceiving its real nature. > Malayan Islamic believers, for example, still maintained close ties > to the Nationalist government in mainland China. Under these > circumstances, imperial Japan revealed its explicit motivation to > integrate Southeast Asia into the Japanese Empire. As is well known, > the wartime economy of oil necessitated Japan's bold moves to put > Southeast Asia under its control in the early 1940s. > > In chapters 4 and 5, the author provides interesting stories about > how Muslims in Southeast Asia were approached quite differently from > Sino-Muslims by the Japanese Empire. While opportunities for > Sino-Muslims were confined to supporting their businesses or helping > them visit the Middle East, imperial Japan became increasingly > aggressive in dealing with Muslim communities in Southeast Asia. > Offering Japanese-language education was an obvious example of this, > indicating that Muslim communities in Southeast Asia had to take the > question of becoming "Japanese" more seriously than Sino-Muslims. In > addition to education and cultural policies, Japan also utilized its > existing tea trade network to penetrate the everyday life of Muslim > communities in Southeast Asia. Here, the author argues that > Sino-Muslims played an important role in linking imperial Japan to > Muslims in Southeast Asia through the tea business. The tea > connection between Sino and Southeast Asian Muslims and imperial > Japan provides an important insight for a more intertwined history of > tea in modern East Asia. The final chapter of this book attempts to > draw a broader picture of how Muslim communities in China and Inner > Asia, Afghans in particular, emerged as a crucial geopolitical factor > amid the ideological and cultural conflicts between Caucasian states > and fascist regimes, including imperial Japan. > > All in all, anyone interested in the history of Muslim communities in > wartime Asia will find this work valuable. As the author shares in > her epilogue the contemporary aspect of the marginalization of > Islamic believers in China in the name of "Islamophobia," this book > is a must-read for those eager to develop a critical perspective > concerning how war and politics first appropriated minority religious > communities and how these communities responded to state power and > imperial violence. > > Citation: Seok-Won Lee. Review of Hammond, Kelly A., _China's Muslims > and Japan's Empire: Centering Islam in World War II_. H-War, H-Net > Reviews. March, 2021. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=56014 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#7510): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/7510 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/81604472/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
