Southeast Asia:
colonialism and
nationalism
Feb. 13, 2014
Review
Which southeast Asian nations did not have the shape
they have today until they were colonies?
Which country colonized Indonesia?
Which country colonized Burma?
Which country colonized Indochina?
Which country colonized Malaya?
the Philippines
The US made an agreement with the landowning elite of the Philippines to
allow them a voice in running the Philippines if they would keep the majority
of the population quiet and cooperative. The elite agreed and were
gradually granted a limited degree of local self-rule. In 1933 the US
promised total independence for the Philippines on July 4, 1946.
The US promoted mass education. (p. 131) A national language (Tagalog)
was selected and became known later as Filipino.
However, since the US worked with the landowning elite of the Philippines,
it did not promote industrialization there.
Some Filipinos expressed their resentment at Spanish control of the
Catholic Church there by establishing independent churches, such as the
Iglesia ni Christo in Burnaby.
Indochina
The French showed little concern for mass education or
industrialization.
Vietnamese nationalists formed a Vietnamese Nationalist Party
modelled after the Guomindang (KMT) in China. It was crushed when
it rose up in revolt in 1930.
Then a new nationalist party arose: the Indochinese Communist Party,
led by Ho Chi Minh. (Why did he find Communist appealing?)
There was also religious resistance to the French: a new Buddhist
denomination emerged---Hoa Hao
and a new Vietnamese religion-Cao Dai.(p. 126)
What is Communism?
We will define in in more detail later, but for now let us just say that it called for
communal ownership of the means of production, ending the inequality
between colonizers and colonized, between landlord and tenant, and between
capitalist and worker.
It appealed to those who were moved by the suffering of peasants and workers
in the early modern era (peasants and workers had to accept less pay than the
value of what they produced so that a surplus could be accumulated to pay for
industrialization). It also appealed to some nationalists because, first of all, it
condemned colonialism and imperialism and it also claimed to offer a scientific
methodology which would allow less-developed nations to skip the capitalist
stage of development and move immediately into the modern advanced stage
of socialism.
The appeal of Communism was enhanced by organizational and financial
support from the Soviet Union for anti-imperialist nationalist movements.
Indonesia
The Dutch began allowing a few of the local people to obtain a
modern education. The Dutch showed little concern for mass
education or industrialization. It is out of that educated elite that the
first nationalists appeared.
That group includes the daughter of a Javanese aristocrat, Kartini,
who promoted modern education for women. (p. 128-29)
In the last decades of colonial rule, a Muslim League and an
Indonesian Communist Party appeared, but the lead in the nationalist
movement was taken by Sukarno’s Indonesian Nationalist Party.
A national language (Bahasa Indonesian) was selected.
Siam (Thailand)
Not a colony, but nationalism arose anyway.
Was able to escape from the restrictions of unequal treaties
after World War I. (It had joined the winning side.)
The modernizing Thai government used Buddhism to unify the
country, creating a national Buddhist hierarchy. It also build
modern schools to teach Thai identity.
The military seized control of the country in 1932 and created a
constitutional monarchy. Why did the army do that? Often in a
modernizing society, the military is the best organized, best
equipped, most modern, and most nationalistic institution.
Burma (Myanmar)
For the Burmese, just as with the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, Buddhism
became a vehicle for asserting a distinctive national identity. (The Young
Men’s Buddhist Association was an important nationalist organization,
starting in 1906.)
Burmese nationalism also manifested itself through anti-Indian riots in
the 1930s (and some anti-Chinese feeling).
Educated Burmese formed a nationalist group in which they addressed
themselves as “master,” a term the British had tried to reserve for
themselves.
In 1930 a Buddhist monk led a rebellion against the British and against
landlords, many of whom were immigrants from India. (p. 126) This was
inspired by the global depression.
Other British colonies
The British also controlled Malaya through a federation of
sultanates and directly controlled trading ports. The British
were never able to create a truly national government in
Malaya. Nor were the Malays, Chinese, and South Asian
there able to coalesce into one national community.
A Communist Party was established in colonial Malaya, but it
was primarily for Chinese. Very few Malays or South Asian
joined.
Very little done in the way of promoting education or
industrialization in British colonies.
Changes under Colonialism
New nations where none existed before (Indonesia, the Philippines, and
Malaya)
shattered village isolation by introducing commercial agriculture. Rubber
in Malaya and Vietnam, tin mining in Malaya, sugar and coffee in
Indonesia.(pp. 118-123)
Promoted a linguistic unity where, in some cases, it had not existed
before.
Stimulated nationalism
Created greater ethnic diversity, with millions of Chinese and South
Asians moving to Southeast Asia.
overseas Chinese
At first, the various Chinese communities didn’t think of themselves as
Chinese as much as they thought of themselves as coming from a
particular village speaking a particular dialect. (Most of them were illiterate.)
However, the rise of nationalism in China stimulated Chinese overseas to
think of themselves as Chinese.
Mandarin-language schools and Chinese religious institutions helped create
a pan-Chinese identity
Chinese assimilated better in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand than
they did in Indonesia and Malaysia (probably because of the conflict
between their polytheism and the monotheism of Islam. In the Philippines,
they converted to Catholicism and assimilated ).
Islam and ethnic minorities
South Asians tended to settle in British colonies, such as Singapore
Malaya, and Burma. They tended to be Hindus from the south rather than
Muslims.
Chinese settled all over Southeast Asia, as they had been doing for
centuries, only now it was much larger numbers of Chinese immigrants.
In Malaya and Indonesia, Chinese had difficult assimilating and remained
a people apart even after several generations.
In non-Islamic societies, such as Thailand, the Philippines and to a lesser
extent Vietnam, Chinese often intermarried with the local people. In fact,
people of mixed Chinese and non-Chinese heritage often had the greatest
economic and social success in those societies.
Nationalism and
Collaboration
Collaboration is a pejorative term for cooperation with an occupying
power by members of the occupied people.
Colonial powers could not have governed the large populations they
governed without the help of “collaborators.” They used the help of
local people to modernize the countries they colonized. By the early
20th century, that might mean introducing modern schools, modern
public health facilities, modern industry, etc.
Why did people collaborate? Sometimes they felt they had to
choose between modernization (better schools, better public health
facilities, etc) and their own traditional governing elite, who had
been predatory.