Insignificant as it may seem, not only to the layman but also to professional scholars dealing with Southeast Asian affairs such as political scientists, economists, sociologists, and even historians, the Metal Age of Southeast Asia clearly is a force to reckon with, in the sense that it now seems to occupy everyone's mind in the various countries of the region just as much as contemporary issues do. The Metal Age, in other words, is linked with the present in Southeast Asia as nowhere else in the world, and has become a “contemporary issue” too.

We find this a most curious attack, both in tone and in substance; Loofs-Wissowa appears to believe that we, Solheim, Gorman, and the media have been engaged in a conspiracy to cloud the minds of Westerners and Southeast Asians alike on the origins of metallurgy in the region. Loofs-Wissowa evidently feels that Southeast Asian laymen view this question as equal in importance to contemporary issues there (which is of course not the case). He also believes that it is the most burning issue in archaeology since Piltdown or Glozel, splitting the profession into “Believers” in the “long dates” and “Non Believers”. This is again rather an exaggeration; we would estimate the “Believers” to number not more than a few hundred, while the “Non Believers” may be counted on the fingers of one hand (Marschall, Sørensen, Sieveking, and of course Loofs-Wissowa himself). The remainder of the archaeological world (i.e., over 90%) has other questions to occupy it. However, Loofs-Wissowa is certainly correct in pointing out the attention paid to the question of early metallurgy over the past few years, and we welcome this opportunity to counter his arguments and distinguish between our views and those published by the media. This may best be done by first pointing out errors of omission in the facts presented by Loofs-Wissowa, by examining basic errors in his conceptual framework, and finally by answering the three specific questions he poses.

Considering the importance of the early dates for bronze working technology in Southeast Asia that several of us have been presenting in preliminary reports over the last fifteen years, it is somewhat surprising that there have not been more critical articles published concerning our evidence and interpretation thereof. The primary reason for this is no doubt because final reports of the pertinent sites presenting the relevant data in context have not yet appeared. The great majority of the interested archaeologists are simply awaiting the final site reports before they decide whether our interpretation is reasonable. We are sorry for the great delay in completing the final reports. Speaking of Non Nok Tha, the first site from which excavated data produced early dates for bronze working, the descriptive portion of the research has been completed, the analysis of the data has almost been completed (primarily by Donn Bayard), and it is hoped that the first volume of a two volume final report can be submitted to the press by the end of 1982. The second volume will be totally a data volume, probably published in microfiche.

When asking the Editor's approval for responding to the replies to my article it was only with the intention to rectify possible misunderstandings; little did I imagine what unpleasant an exercise this would have to be. For, the first impression I derived from reading these replies was that their impetuosity appears to be out of proportion with the relative mildness of my remarks, which are seen as “a most curious attack” by Bayard & Pisit and as “criticisms” by Solheim. In actual fact they were meant to be neither; but merely an exhortation to ask some questions, albeit maybe slightly embarrassing ones. Contrary to what my three colleagues seem to think, I have no axe to grind and no alternative model to propose, be it my own or that evolved by somebody else; this, I thought, was clearly apparent from my text.

About the middle of the thirteenth century the great Arab scholar, Ibn Sa'id, compiled his Bast al-Ard or Geography, in which he collected many ancient texts; amongst them is the following, which may offer a clue to the early history of Brunei:

[The Khmers] lived with the Chinese in the eastern regions of the earth. Discord having broken out amongst them, the Chinese chased them towards the islands, and they remained there a certain time. The name of the King was Kamrun. Following this, discord broke out amongst them when they were in the islands, of which we shall speak later. Then those who did not form part of the Royal Family went away to the great island [Madagascar], and their Sultan dwelt in the city of Komorriya.

Our chief sources of information about Vietnam until the middle of the tenth century are the dynastic histories and related writings of China. This is because, from the beginning of recorded history in Vietnam until then, Vietnam was, for the most part, under the authority of Chinese governors or people who posed as Chinese-style governors. By the end of the tenth century, an independent Vietnamese monarchy was established, and historical information was being independently preserved by the Vietnamese; this information was eventually incorporated into the Vietnamese historiographical tradition as it developed in later centuries. Consequently, the historian of tenth-century Vietnam finds two streams of information, one coming from a wellestablished viewpoint from which Vietnam was a remote frontier district at the edge of the horizon, the other coming from the Vietnamese themselves as they worked toward a standpoint from which to remember their past.

During World War II, Britain and the United States differed over the postwar status of Indochina. Although the United States made several strong statements about restoring the prewar possessions of the French Empire, the Americans, especially President Franklin D. Roosevelt, increasingly came to favour an international trusteeship guiding postwar Indochina to eventual independence. The British were not at first prepared to guarantee the complete restoration of the French Empire. With surprising slowness, the British did gradually sponsor the prompt return of French colonial authority in Indochina. British postwar planning had shown how dangerous a hostile or unfriendly France and French Empire could be to the security of the British Isles and British Empire. The British determination to reestablish the French connection coincided with a refusal by Roosevelt to enter any discussions about the postwar status of Indochina. The presidential silence only served to promote Anglo-French colonial interests. After Roosevelt's death, President Harry S. Truman did not challenge the return of French control in Indochina. Ironically, despite the earnest — but seldom expressed — American intentions to underwrite indigenous dreams of independence, the people of Indochina subsequently associated the United States with Western suppression of those dreams.

During the period of American colonial rule in the Philippines prior to the Pacific War, the attitude of most thoughtful Filipinos toward Japan seemed to waver as though tantalized between fear and fascination. For while there was often a genuine concern, principally as a result of Japanese-American tensions, that a predatory Japan was literally counting the moments to an invasion and conquest of the Islands, there was also the tremendous admiration of one Asian people for another and an almost awe-struck eagerness to emulate the startling successes of Japan in achieving modern nationhood in its fullest sense. To this generalization Manuel Luis Quezon (1878–1944) was no exception.

As the founders of a revolutionary movement with an international ideology, the small group of men who led the Burmese communist parties for their first thirty years were concerned as to whether their ideological views and political tactics were consonant with those of foreign communist parties. While looking to Marx, Lenin, and their European interpreters as the original fount of ideological coherence, Asian parties nearer to Burma provided the most immediate and programmatic sources of interpretation. Since the 1950s the example of the Chinese Communist Party has been the leading inspiration for most Burmese communists. However, in the first decade of communist activity in Burma, the Indian Communist Party provided the closest and most congenial guidance.

This paper is an attempt to analyze briefly the origin and growth of the Darul Islam movement with emphasis on the life of the leader of the rebellion, his ideology for establishing an Islamic theocratic state and a discussion on some of the problems he encountered in his effort to achieve his objective.

Sukarmadji Maridjan Kartosuwiryo: A Brief Biography

Sukarmadji Maridjan Kartosuwiryo was born in the small town of Cepu in North Central Java on the day of Selasa Kliwon (Tuesday Kliwon), 7 February 1905.

The development of the Indonesian national language has been exemplary. Unlike the creation of a national language in other developing countries, as in Malaysia, the Philippines, and India, the choice has not become a political issue. In Indonesia, no sector of society has sought to promote other local or foreign languages as the national language. In 1962, Takdir Alisjahbana outlined the initial development of Indonesian from Malay, the trade language of the archipelago from the first century AD. and the language of the Sriwijaya Empire (A.D. 700–1200) through the period of rising nationalism to independence. A few of the important steps in this process were: the declaration of Indonesian as the national language by the National Youth Congress in 1928; the flourishing of a national and a Chinese press from the 1920s onward, both of which used the Malay language; the promotion of literary works by the monthly journal, Pudjangga Baru, from 1933 onward; and the standardizing effect of the Indonesian Language Commission established in 1942. These events successfully established the first stage or emergence of the national language.

Malaya at the start of the twentieth century, in common with much of the non-European world, had a peasant economy upon which a highly capitalized export economy was being grafted. The main export in the 19th century was tin, but tin took second place to rubber by 1916. There was, as is characteristic of export economies, a great disparity between the resources, particularly capital, available to the indigenous peasant population and those available to the export sector. There were, however, distinctive features to the Malayan situation, the most important being that the capitalist export economy did not draw on the subsistence sector for produce, labour, or food; food was imported, as was the labour used in mining and on estates. The output from rubber and coconut smallholdings, many of which were Malay owned, augmented Malaya's exports, particularly after 1910, but mines and estates operated independently from the indigenous rural population. There was a high level of coincidence between ethnic groupings and occupational specializations, and the economic division between peasant cultivation and the export sector also marked the ethnic division between Malays and non-Malays. Because the colonial administration nominally held power on behalf of the Malay population, the question of the welfare and economic role of the Malays had political implications disproportionate to its economic importance.