The French thought they'd use Laos to get at China, then dithered about it when they realised they couldn't
Creating Laos: The Making of a Lao Space between Indochina and Siam
By Soren Ivarsson
Published by Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2008
Available at leading bookshops, Bt750
Reviewed by Michael Smithies
This is a fascinating study of the "creation" of Laos as we know it today, the "land in between" Indochina and Siam.
In comprehensive chapters, the author deftly handles such differ¬ent topics as the colonial encounter and Thai discourses on history and race, pointing to the crucial date of 1893, when France sent a gunboat up the Chao Phraya and shattered any Siamese illusions of immunity from outside influences.
The volume starts with a thor¬ough review of the literature on the history of Laos, including more recent and partisan offerings by authors like Phoumi Vongvichit ("Laos and the Victorious Struggle of the Lao People against US NeoColonialism").
Ivarsson implies that the French encounter in Laos was all a mis¬take. The colonists were lured by the rich trade available in Yunnan via the Mekong, only to discover that it was impossible to use the river because of the Khone Falls and Khemarat rapids.
They were left holding territory that traditionally attempted to keep Siam and Vietnam at bay, and which itself had the baggage of three different historical periods of power.
As Ivarsson notes, the Lao were "given a past" by the colonials - and a present, in terms of cartogra¬phy.
There is much consideration of the influence of maps (and, inci¬dentally, of Thongchai Winichakul's influence in their interpretation).
Wichit Wathakan's nationalistic "Thai" influence is strong in this section. Already in 1925 a map was published "erasing Laos from car¬tographic representation", showing Siam extending to the Vietnamese cordillera.
"The change from 'Siam' to 'Thailand'," Ivarsson rightly notes, "can be seen as a prelude to the military campaign for a return of the lost territories, which materi¬alised in 194041."
"Lost territories", in the Lao context, should perhaps also have inverted commas in the book's text.
The separation of Laos from its "natural hinterland" as a result of the 1893 agreements created a state that some considered artifi¬cial. It was certainly given little attention by the French: it had few natural resources, it was thinly populated, and its lines of commu¬nication were virtually nonexis¬tent.
In addition, "Historically, access to the territories that became Laos had been primarily via the Khorat Plateau to Bangkok", and goods to and from Laos continued to arrive more quickly via Siam.
So the French built roads (often useless in the rainy season) linking the country internally and with Vietnam. Laotian history was moulded, and even religious insti¬tutions were created, to separate Laos from Siam.
There is an interesting aside on the French policy. At one stage France considered bringing Vietnamese into Laos, which Ivarsson briefly considers "a practi¬cal problem within the confines of an Indochinawide colonial space".
Laos lacked manpower, and had uncultivated land in plenty. But such arguments clearly overlooked practical and historical considera¬tions, and in fact only Frenchtrained Vietnamese administrators significantly increased in number in Laos, not Vietnamese farmers.
Chapter 4 deals extensively with "The Campaign for a 'National Rewakening', 19411945", led largely by the first Lao newspaper, Lao Nhay.
The final chapter deals with the fivemonth Japanese occupation of hitherto Vichyheld territory, and the brave new world facing the country in 1945. The Lao, without a hinterland, appeared to be left to try and integrate their minorities, which are numerous in nomencla¬ture but few in actual numbers.
The text of this volume is on the whole clearly expressed, but the possessive "Laos's" is extremely cumbersome and easily avoidable.
The bibliography is comprehensive to a degree, the index less so.
