The World of the Indian Ocean from Dar es salaam to Jakarta: Unusual Thoughts following the Tsunami Disaster

The Tsunami disaster, which till now claimed over 100,000 lives already, affecting South and Southeast Asia on the one hand, and East African Coast on the other, reminded me of how interconnected and integrated the Indian Ocean once used to be. Sometimes disasters of international proportions remind me how interconnected our homes, cities, countries, regions, continents are, and sometimes, I suppose, disasters may uncover regional systems by virtue of their influence. When the Russian stock market crashes, Berlin stock exchange suffers the most severe decline among the advanced industrial economies, because Germany is Russia's no.1 trading partner. When the atrocious 8.9 earthquake rocked the base of the Indian Ocean, huge waves struck at Indonesia and Tanzania, Somalia and Sri Lanka alike. Once upon a time, when the entire Indian Ocean was an integrated trading bloc and one civilization linked by Arab-Muslim merchants, from Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) to Aceh (Indonesia), from Somalia to India, all Muslim lands until at least the 17th century. This insight is not mine, and I would not want to claim credit for it. In any case, it is much cooler to quote its original bearer. It was professor Rashid Khalidi, who very briefly -in a sentence or two- talked about how Indian Ocean used to be a huge, continental system akin to a distinct civilization with its own political economy and culture. Then I remember seeing that insight, again by Khalidi, in an article of his about the virtue of area studies (which I read, ironically, not at the University of Chicago, where I took his course, but here at UC Berkeley).