SEA Hist essay

Question: In the Philippines, the moderate politicians obtained a pledge of independence from the Americans. Does this mean that, in Southeast Asia, moderate-reformist nationalists stood the best chance of political success?

Nationalistic movements in Southeast Asia are not easy to categorize where societies had become plural with the arrival of immigrants or the colonial powers had drawn up artificial boundaries of states which overlapped different peoples and traditional spheres of influence. Therefore, the natures of the nationalistic movements in Southeast Asia are mainly decided by the different nations’ history backgrounds, which presented to us many varied types of nationalism. Some are religious; some are ethnic while the rest are purely nationalistic or political. Thus, due to dissimilar history backgrounds, believes and national conditions, different nationalists had their own ways to achieve nationalism and their countries independence.

In the case of Philippines, nationalism was not about the struggle for independence: “Because independence had been conceded in principle by the American regime, opposition groups did not and could not take shape around this issue”. Philippine nationalism was distinctive in the sense that there was no need to struggle for political independence against the Americans. In the study of Philippine nationalism therefore, the topic of interest lies in the aims of the nationalist movements and how to evaluate the success of these movements in establishing the Philippines as a bona fide ‘nation-state’ when independence had been promised beforehand. So, the radical, anti-colonial forces in Philippines were fairly weak and do not stand much chance in achieving independence for Philippines.

In countries such as Malaya, the ethnic dimension of nationalism is clearly prominent. Due to the belated nationalist movements in Malaya which only came in the 1930s, it can be deduced that the majority of the Malayans were not very interested in nationalism in the beginning and thus, not very enthusiastic in working to achieve independence. Moreover, because of its plural society which consists of the Malays, the Chinese and the Indians; it is hard for the nationalists to unite the three groups of people of different races to stand up against the British together.

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For many of the Malays, they were willing to cooperate with the British due to the British’s “protection” of the Malays. Many of the British policies regarded the Malays as the “natives of the land” and thus gave them many privileges over the Chinese and Indians. This appeared to appeal to most of the Malays. Moreover, young Malay aristocrats also received special education and training reserved specially for them, and were employed in the colonial bureaucracy, involved mainly in agricultural matters relating to their own community. This made the Malays feel secured and lose interest of fighting for independence ...

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