On mapping a nation

In Thailand, this book argues, nationhood was created arbitrarily and artificially by geography and mapping through various moments of confrontation and displacement of discourses. Even Thailand's territory and its related values and practices were discursively created.

The monarchical institution and Buddhism are the most important elements of the Thai nation. A government body that defined, preserved and promoted the national culture has always existed. Most studies focus on pre-modern Thai ideas of space on the Buddhist cosmography known as Traiphum. It classifies beings by their merit and designates them to live in particular places according to their store of merit. The most evil beings are in the lowest section of hell. There are 31 levels in 3 worlds. The Traiphum cosmos was also used in astrological calculations of the number of naga that would cause rainfall.

Different concepts of space were at work in different situations. Siamese maps could differ in form due to heritage and purpose. Some positioned Thailand in between Sri Lanka and India to include the Buddha's Werdegang. Other maps were what Europeans would call allegories of the King's powers, while others were based upon distance travelled or showed coastal towns at the bottom and islands at the top in the Chinese style. Western style map making was another kind of knowledge of space that was introduced in the second half of the 19th century.

King Mongkut used globes, charts and maps after a missionary had written a book that rejected the belief in the Traiphum. The king's interest in astronomy had started during his years in the monkhood. Mongkut led a Buddhist movement to introduce Western science, and urged his royal relatives to have a European-style education. Buddhism was supposed to refrain from worldly matters and confine itself to spiritual and moral affairs. Western science was the truth of worldly matters. The movement came to power in 1851.

Mongkut's calculations of the movement of the planets were also ignited by his love for astrology to which he made "enormous contributions". He replaced the Bangkok horoscope when it conflicted with his own, and successfully challenged the calculations of the Buddhist holidays. Mongkut did not denounce fortune-telling, but concentrated on the calculation of planetary movements (page 43). He used his new knowledge in a struggle with a conservative establishment. He made his strongest case when he forecasted a solar eclipse and invited the Thai elite and British and French scientists to view the event. Besides its use against its own conservatives, it also proved that Siam equalled the West in terms of knowledge. The imperialists' claim that Siam was uncivilised and had to be colonised was unreasonable. Mongkut would die of the malaria he contracted during the observation in the jungle.

Geography was added to the school curriculum. The books used became more sophisticated over time, so the simpler books were reallocated to primary schools. Map making, scaling and the abstraction it required were important concepts transferred to children. Most words used were still taken from the Traiphum.

British conquest of southern Burma made the decision about the exact location in an area of mountains and rainforests imperative. The Siamese were not that interested in the exact location and just required disputes to be settled in a friendly matter. The settlement became more Western in various iterations. Both Lanna and later Bangkok easily gave territory away to the British on their Western border. In 1884 a Siamese prince sent to Chiangmai learned that the British watched their side of the border, whereas the Lanna chiefs stayed in their towns, waiting for opportunities to attack the Burmese towns along the borders, plunder them, and force the people back to Lanna. The prince reorganised matters along the British pattern. The local chiefs also had to sign a declaration of loyalty and take an oath of allegiance to the king.

The British found that borders were paths free for traders and that a subject of local authority could be at the same time subject to another authority. The chief of Chiang Khaeng (on the border of Laos, Burma, and China) even had three overlords.

Thai language had various words for boundaries, but they all meant a "limit" - an extremity without a clear-cut edge and without the sense of division between two powers (page 75). They were not determined or sanctioned by a central authority. The limit of each town was determined primarily by the land it could protect, and a town could also request a change of dependence, e.g. after a dispute. The kingdom consisted of such patches with a lot of blank space in between, and defined itself to the area over which it extended power. It did not require ratification of another country. The political sphere could only be mapped by power relationships.

The relationship between political powers was hierarchical. A ruler had several local rulers or chiefs as underlings and was himself submissive to another lord. The kingdom held together as long as personal submission to the supreme king remained. The supreme overlord tolerated a tributary king with little interference, but the supreme king could enforce demands whenever he deemed it legitimate. His store of merit could suddenly expire; the challenge would create chaos and disorder in the interstate hierarchy, which had to be decided in battle. This scheme of power relations is called mandala (page 82). The most important ritual was the one of submission and the principal tribute a small tree of gold and silver leaves (with a greater gift returned by the overlord). The tributary obligation was significant in terms of material assistance, especially in times of war. The Bangkok king had to fight to expand his umbrella of merit and righteousness (dharma) as far as possible (the accumulation of wealth or raw power for the kingdom or its citizens is not mentioned as a factor in the book). The acquisition of tributaries was a sign of supremacy.

In the early 19th century the weak kingdom of Cambodia had to accept both Thailand (the "father")and Vietnam ("the mother") as overlords at the same time, and had troops of both powers stationed in the realm. Something equivalent happened to Kedah and other kingdoms on the Malaysian peninsula, where factional fights did not help. The practice of multiple submissions was often indispensable to maintain independence.

The British were confused by this ambiguity. When Kedah wanted to get help in return for giving up Penang and Wellesley, the British did not oblige (page 89). They were confused about the voluntary character and thus formal status of tribute to Bangkok. Later on, the French would argue over Cambodia on the basis of international law, and the Siamese on the basis of indigenous policy. The French version won in 1875.

Laos and the Mekong area were full of minor states with multiple tributary relations. They were more or less independent and neglected. They could be plundered, destroyed, and depopulated in order to deprive the enemy of supplies (page 100). The fiefdoms were required to change allegiance from time to time for survival, and any occupation was always temporary.

King Chulalongkorn modernised the administration along colonial (primarily British) lines and eradicated the ambiguity of space. In the wake of China's Taiping Rebellion it stopped allowing tributaries to pay tribute to multiple parties and operated expansionary and opportunistically (page 105). Siamese forces stayed permanently in conquered states creating a colonial-style relationship. The British were quite happy to see Siam develop as a buffer state against the French. It also facilitated their timber industry.

Urbanism and development projects like railways and telegraph lines increasingly required mapping technology, often with the help of foreign experts. Siam formed its own regiment of military engineers in the Western style in 1875.

Around the turn of the century many treaties were concluded with Britain and France to set and map the borders. A map anticipated a spatial reality, not vice versa. The chiefdoms lost out, and so did the tradition of political space:

The modern discourse of mapping was the ultimate conqueror

The map now began to define national identity. In many pre-modern societies in Southeast Asia, a realm, a kingdom, or a country was believed to be an extended body of the divine kingship, which was in turn a personification of sacred power.

In 1893 French gunboats on the Chao Phraya River held Bangkok hostage and the palace at gun point to settle the border on the Mekong. Unlike Thai expectations the British stayed neutral. It marked a sharp discontinuity that required a reassuring account of the past. In Thai history books the French are seen as aggressive, lying imperialists: evil (adharma) was victorious over good (dharma). This was despite important modernisation (centralisation), which would in the end help Thailand to endure as the only country in Southeast Asia that was not colonised. The theory is based on a previous conception that is not correct, and the agonies of the tribute states are overlooked. A British map is used as proof.

Later (school)maps showed all the areas once under Thai influence. The Thai have managed to incorporate the identities of the smaller states into a Thai identity. On the flip side, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Burma are now the countries "hated most" (page 168). Equally, the Thai could also oust the communists that the author once belonged to.

Human beings are too often given the central role in a historical narrative. They deserve a much humbler place in history - as servants of a technology perhaps, which is what is really happening now. ( )

งาน Siam Mapped ของ Thongchai ถือเป็นงานเชิงประวัติศาสตร์ที่สำคัญชิ้นหนึ่ง ที่ให้ภาพของปรากฏการณ์การเปลี่ยนแปลงของการนิยามพรมแดนอย่างเป็นรูปธรรม ในงานชิ้นดังกล่าวนี้ Thongchai ชี้ว่าการศึกษาแผนที่ของรัฐชาติหรือองคพายพทางการเมืองใดๆนั้น ไม่ใช่การแค่ระบุว่าประเทศนั้น “ได้” หรือ “สูญเสีย” พื้นที่พรมแดนส่วนไหนไปเมื่อไหร่และอย่างไร หากแต่ต้องทำความเข้าใจพัฒนาการของการสร้าง เผยแพร่ และการนำแผนที่มาใช้ในชีวิตประจำวันด้วย เพราะว่าแผนที่ไม่ได้เป็นเพียงสื่อที่มีความเที่ยงตรงไร้อคติอย่างที่มักเข้าใจกัน หากแต่กระบวนการของการทำแผนที่นั้นย่อมหลีกเลี่ยงการตัดทอน ปรับเปลี่ยน ดัดแปลง ซ้อนเร้น หรือปรุงแต่งเนื้อหาหรือความหมายแฝงต่างๆ ไปไม่ได้ แผนที่จึงเป็นเสมือนเครื่องมือหนึ่งในการก่อร่างสร้างตัวตนของความเป็นรัฐชาติ และแน่นอนว่ากระบวนการของการระบุเขตแดนที่ชัดเจน ก็เป็นวิธีการอันแยบยลอย่างหนึ่ง ในการสะท้อนให้คนในชาติเห็นถึงความเป็นอันหนึ่งอันเดียวกันผ่านสิ่งสร้างที่เรียกว่า “อาณาจักร” และ “ชาติ” ได้ ในที่นี้ ชายแดนของรัฐชาติแบบใหม่จึงเป็นสิ่งที่ไม่ได้มีมาตั้งแต่ต้น แต่เป็นผลมาจากกระบวนการสร้างชาติผ่านวาทกรรมของแผนที่นั่นเอง