I AM in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic for the first time: with this I join a minority of citizens who have been to all 10 member countries of the regional grouping. Laos is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia (and the seventh I have visited); less prosaically it is the third officially communist country I have visited after Vietnam and China — I just have Cuba and North Korea left to do (although the latter has technically repudiated communism in favour of Kim Il-Sung’s Juche ideology).
What fascinates me most about any new country, but especially a neighbouring one, is the extent to which the citizens share a common sense of belonging and destiny, and the role of history and conceptions of the future — whether framed by government or civil society — in crafting that shared identity.
Red flags of the hammer and sickle fly everywhere: from government buildings, temples, and shops where you can spend US dollars to buy communist kitsch (T-shirts, lighters, badges). After explaining that Laotian communism embraces individual freedom, our tour guide extolled the virtues of private property, and enviously said that Vientiane will, one day soon, be like Kuala Lumpur.
Laos’ capital city is located by the Mekong River, which defines much of the border with Thailand, with whom linguistic, cultural and religious similarities are strong. Political ties are stronger with China and Vietnam for ideological reasons, but like in the remaining two countries it borders — Myanmar and Cambodia — I detected enthusiasm for Asean. Young Laotians I spoke to seemed keen on the Asean Economic Community, and they were particularly excited by the connectivity and economic gains from the massive railway project connecting Kunming to Singapore.
I found evidence of other bilateral ties: a plaque commemorating a joint project with Japan and South Korea, the Friendship Bridge opened in 1994 funded by the Australian government that crosses into Thailand, but most prominently a monument dubbed Vientiane’s Arc de Triomphe. Ironically it was originally built with American funds to commemorate soldiers who fought for independence from France, but when the communists took over in 1975 they renamed it Patuxai (which would be Pintu Jaya in Malay from similar Sanskrit origins) in honour of their own victory.
The communists sent the royal family to a re-education camp and no one is quite sure how or when they died. Members of the dynasty are still around but my guide was shocked when I asked if, like in neighbouring Cambodia, a constitutional monarchy might again be considered.
However, there is much respect held for the past, with a statue of the 16th century King Setthathirat being revered near Pha That Luang, the stupa he had constructed after relocating the royal capital from Luang Prabang to Vientiane, now considered to be Laos’ most important monument.
Setthathirat reigned over a kingdom called Lan Xang, which flourished for three and a half centuries from the mid-14th century. It experienced a typical cycle of political turmoil and warfare that you would expect of any big pre-modern kingdom, but it was a succession dispute that caused its break-up into three units in 1707, leading to a period of domination by neighbouring powers and eventually the French, who reunified the kingdom as a protectorate within its Indochinese possessions, before independence was won in 1953. The colonial legacy has long been disappearing: nine years ago, the French CEO of Allianz General Laos told me, meetings could still be conducted in French, but now they are all in English. The cuisine however retains strong French influences.
On Awal Muharram, we visited the only two mosques in Laos, which educated us on a less well known legacy. The country has the smallest Muslim population in all of Southeast Asia, but these mosques pointed to fascinating historical movements of communities: Masjid Jamia was established by Tamil Muslims from other French Indian territories and later served Pashtuns serving for the nearby British, while Masjid Azahar was more connected with Champa Muslims from neighbouring Cambodia. In both, we met Thai Muslims from Bangkok and Pattani doing dakwah.
In between the mosques we visited Wat Si Muang, a beautiful 16th century Buddhist temple, where some in our group received blessings from the monk. Our guide was impressed that this small group from Malaysia could interact so well with these multi-religious legacies of Laos.
At Setthathirat’s stupa I could not help but think of the irony of a religious monument having pride of place in a communist country. And then I remembered Borobodur over 2,500km away, where Indonesia’s pre-Islamic past is celebrated in a way that nothing in Malaysia is.
Our divisive, racialised domestic politics loathes such a prospect: but it’s the best thing I’ve learned from my Asean sojourns.
Tunku Abidin Muhriz is founding president of Ideas.