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Conceptions of Community in Colonial Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

A. J. Stockwell
A. J. Stockwell
Affiliation:
The Institute of Historical Research, London
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Extract

It is a commonplace that European rule contributed both to the consolidation of the nation-states of Southeast Asia and to the aggravation of disputes within them. Since their independence, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam have all faced the upheavals of secessionism or irredentism or communalism. Governments have responded to threats of fragmentation by appeals to national ideologies like Sukarno's pancasila (five principles) or Ne Win's ‘Burmese way to socialism’. In attempting to realise unity in diversity, they have paraded a common experience of the struggle for independence from colonial rule as well as a shared commitment to post-colonial modernisation. They have also ruthlessly repressed internal opposition or blamed their problems upon the foreign forces of neocolonialism, world communism, western materialism, and other threats to Asian values. Yet, because its effects were uneven and inconsistent while the reactions to it were varied and frequently equivocal, the part played by colonialism in shaping the affiliations and identities of Southeast Asian peoples was by no means clear-cut.

Type
Identities and Empires
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 8 , December 1998 , pp. 337 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1998

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