The Politics of Religion, Nationalism, and Identity in Asia

by Jeff Kingston

Overview

This comprehensive book provides a comparative analysis of religious nationalism in contemporary, globalized Asia. Exploring the nexus of religion, identity, and nationalism, Jeff Kingston assesses similarities and differences across the region, focusing on how religious sentiments influence how people embrace nationalism and with what consequences. Kingston shows that in the age of the internet this has become an especially volatile mix that breeds violence and poses a significant risk to secularism, diversity, civil liberties, democracy, and political stability. This extremist tide has swept across Asia with tragic results, as witnessed by 730,000 Rohingya Muslims driven out of Myanmar, 70,000 Kashmiris slaughtered in India, and Islamic State affiliates terrorizing Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Who could have imagined Buddhist monks inciting violence and intolerance or setting themselves on fire? Or pious vigilantes beheading atheist bloggers? Or clerics defeating and jailing powerful politicians on blasphemy allegations? And, what explains why one million Uighur Muslims are locked up in China? Examining the causes and consequences of these varied phenomena and what they portend, Kingston casts a sobering light on the prospects of the Asian Century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442276888
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	07/30/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	312
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jeff Kingston is professor of history and director of Asian studies at Temple University Japan. He is the author of Nationalism in Asia: A History since 1945 and editor of Asian Nationalisms Reconsidered along with several books on Japan.

Table of Contents

Map of Asia
1 Introduction
2 Hinduism and Hindutva
3 Christianity in Asia
4 Arabization and Islam in Asia
5 Militant Monks, Abiding Anxieties
6 Rohingya: Race, Religion, and Ethnonationalism
7 Islamic Minorities in Asia
8 Politicizing Blasphemy
9 Contesting Sexuality
10 Conclusion
Glossary
Suggested Further Reading
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

This consistently insightful and often gripping book traces one of the most important and troubling trends in contemporary Asia: the fusion of religious zealotry and ethnic chauvinism. Showing his grasp of a stunning variety of cases, Jeff Kingston illuminates the worrisome shift toward majoritarianism that dehumanizes minorities and sanctifies their victimization. Long one of the best writers on political tensions in Asia, Kingston has crafted a beautifully organized, sharply analytical work that never loses sight of the moral dimensions of social transformation and conflict.

David Leheny

Kingston's wide-ranging study of religious nationalism across Asia is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship that probes the intersection of religion and politics, especially the impact of ethnoreligious nationalism on domestic minority groups. Kingston (history and Asian studies, Temple Univ. Japan) provides a very nice introduction to key concepts such as religion, identity, and nationalism, and follows that with ten chapters devoted to specific cases and sites. He moves seamlessly across a wide spectrum of religious traditions and Asian nations, for each providing a trove of information and in-depth analysis. Kington's accessible narrative style and sustained argument across the chapters do credit to his thesis that ethnoreligious nationalism, or as he puts it "malevolent majoritarianism" (p. 15), is a grave problem that affects all the states in which these impulses and actors thrive. Some readers may be tempted to focus on a single case or site, but this would be a pity because the core problem that Kingston uncovers persists and is so important, not least because it is so widespread across Asian states and societies.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

Choice Reviews

Suspicious of cliché and alert to nuance, Jeff Kingston is one of our most reliable guides through the thickets of Asian political economy. Those bewildered by the upsurge of militant chauvinism from India to the Philippines can do no better than read this excellent book.

Pankaj Mishra

Jeff Kingston provides a lucid, sweeping account of the role religion plays in today’s Asia. This book shows how religion, often ignored or decried as a vestige of the past, remains a vital—and sometimes highly disruptive—force. Drawing on years of study and deep, cross-disciplinary knowledge, Kingston provides us with an invaluable handbook that will attract students, teachers, and general readers trying to make sense of the world.

Ian Johnson

This book reaches magnificently beyond the one-dimensional view of Asia as essentially a story of economic development and China’s rise, to show how crucial religion, nationalism, and identity are in shaping this huge and complex region’s past, present, and future.

Bill Emmott

Kingston takes us on a grand tour of the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to religion in Asia, and anyone interested in understanding how this region is evolving should book a ticket. The last two chapters, in particular, are gems. I read the one on blasphemy with particular interest and also some distaste, because blasphemy is such an easy and also lethal tool. At times my thoughts turned to the United States, where at present both the right and the left seem willing to call out others for blasphemy, and heap abuse on supposed blasphemers, which is simply not the way it should be, but almost everything is politicized in the United States at this moment. But one finds even more extreme uses of blasphemy in Asia. The chapter on contesting sexuality will loom large in my teaching, for this generation of students wants to know about the environment for LGBTQ individuals, so accessing accurate up-to-date information is crucial.

Ken Ruoff

Kingston's wide-ranging study of religious nationalism across Asia is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship that probes the intersection of religion and politics, especially the impact of ethnoreligious nationalism on domestic minority groups. Kingston (history and Asian studies, Temple Univ. Japan) provides a very nice introduction to key concepts such as religion, identity, and nationalism, and follows that with ten chapters devoted to specific cases and sites. He moves seamlessly across a wide spectrum of religious traditions and Asian nations, for each providing a trove of information and in-depth analysis. Kington's accessible narrative style and sustained argument across the chapters do credit to his thesis that ethnoreligious nationalism, or as he puts it "malevolent majoritarianism" (p. 15), is a grave problem that affects all the states in which these impulses and actors thrive. Some readers may be tempted to focus on a single case or site, but this would be a pity because the core problem that Kingston uncovers persists and is so important, not least because it is so widespread across Asian states and societies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

Choice

Kingston's wide-ranging study of religious nationalism across Asia is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship that probes the intersection of religion and politics, especially the impact of ethnoreligious nationalism on domestic minority groups. Kingston (history and Asian studies, Temple Univ. Japan) provides a very nice introduction to key concepts such as religion, identity, and nationalism, and follows that with ten chapters devoted to specific cases and sites. He moves seamlessly across a wide spectrum of religious traditions and Asian nations, for each providing a trove of information and in-depth analysis. Kington's accessible narrative style and sustained argument across the chapters do credit to his thesis that ethnoreligious nationalism, or as he puts it "malevolent majoritarianism" (p. 15), is a grave problem that affects all the states in which these impulses and actors thrive. Some readers may be tempted to focus on a single case or site, but this would be a pity because the core problem that Kingston uncovers persists and is so important, not least because it is so widespread across Asian states and societies.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

CHOICE