Identity and Ideology

**The views expressed in this and other papers associated with the NIC
2020 project**

**are those of individual participants. They are posted for discussion
purposes**

**only and do not represent the views of the US Government.**

Identity and Ideology

Is national identity a contested concept in Asia? How plastic are these
identities once established; how permeable are they to what has been
termed "global mass culture"? [^1]

Asia is a vast and extremely diverse region that defies simplistic
generalisations. While a number of countries have fairly homogeneous
populations, such as Japan and Korea, the population of a great number
of countries in the region are multi-racial and multi-ethnics. For
instance, Indonesia has over 700 ethnic groups with distinct languages
(not dialects) and traditions, while Malaysia is primarily composed of
indigenous Malays and two other racial groups, Chinese and Indians. At
the same time, almost all of the world's great religions and
civilisations have left their imprints in Asia. South East Asia in
particular has for centuries been at the cross roads of civilisations,
adopting and adapting Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, as well
as different variants of Christianity and western cultures. The
historical experience of one Asian country to another has also been
different. While a few countries escaped direct foreign colonialism,
several Asian countries experienced colonisations by different western
colonial powers for long periods of time. Modern ideological conflicts
have also touched different parts of Asia, sometimes violently, leaving
their indelible marks in the region.

Given all of these varieties and differences in historical experience,
it is to be expected that the formation of national identity and how it
evolves over time would not be uniform throughout Asia. Nevertheless,
despite the great regional diversity there are a number of common themes
that can be found. This brief paper will only look at the experience of
a few countries in Asia by trying to answer three major questions: Is
national identity a contested concept? How plastic are these identities
once established; how permeable are they to what has been termed "global
mass culture"?

**Is national identity a contested concept in Asia?**

With the possible exceptions of Japan and Thailand, which escaped long
periods of direct foreign colonialism, and therefore have enjoyed
relative political continuity as nation-states with well defined
national boundaries and identities, the construction of national
identities in most Asian countries was a Twentieth Century phenomenon.
The nationalist movements that began to emerge in the early Twentieth
Century began to gather momentum in the post World War II period, which
saw the end of western colonialism and the birth of several new
nation-states. On the whole it can be argued that in Asia the
development of national identities, which are closely linked to the
political formation of modern nation-states, has mostly been formed as a
reaction to, or a by product of, foreign occupations and interventions.

In a number of cases there have been disagreements from the very
beginning about the nature of the polities to be established, while in
others the departure of the common enemies soon revealed fundamental
differences in societies. In other words, national identity is indeed
often a contested concept, so that nation building and state building
have remained the central preoccupations of the developing countries in
Asia to the present day. The failures to develop inclusive national
identities in multicultural societies have at times led to secessionist
movements, communal conflicts and racial riots. To illustrate these
points we only need to look at the experiences of Indonesia, Malaysia
and the Philippines.

Despite its tremendous diversity Indonesia has been characterised by its
strong sense of nationalism and national identity. The shared historical
experience of being under brutal Dutch rule had been the most important
ingredient in uniting the heterogeneous people of the Indonesian
Archipelago, who for the first time in history had been brought together
under a single political unit by the Netherlands East Indies colonial
administration. The nationalist movements succeeded in developing a new
Indonesian national identity that transcended ethnic, racial and
religious differences, uniting the peoples from different racial, ethnic
and religious backgrounds in a common struggle for independence and the
creation of a new Indonesian nation state. One of the most prominent
founding fathers of modern Indonesia, Sukarno, engaged in myth making to
create a new Indonesian national identity in the years before
independence by glorifying the common past, castigating the dark
colonial present and promising a bright future for the united and
independent country.

Yet no sooner was independence achieved, Indonesia was wracked by over
two decades of violent conflicts, including a civil war. A fundamental
difference over ideologies, about whether Indonesia would become a
pluralist secular state, an Islamic state or a communist state led to
insurgencies, counterinsurgencies, massacres and political purges. The
issue of ideology was only finally resolved in the mid 1980s when
*Pancasila*[^2] was accepted as the sole foundation of the state.
Despite the existence of a radical minority that continues to struggle
for the creation of an Islamic state or the imposition of the *sharia*
on Muslims, in general one can say that today ideology is no longer a
contested issue in Indonesia. Nevertheless, Indonesia continues to face
secessionist movements in its most outlying provinces, in Aceh and West
Papua, driven by the latter's grievances against what they see as the
central government's economic exploitation and socio-political
marginalisation of their areas. The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the
Organisation of Papuan Independence (OPM) have long struggled to
establish separate states in Aceh and West Papua respectively.

In the Philippines, the formation of a national identity has closely
been linked to the long period of Spanish colonisation and the
Filipino's revolutionary struggle for independence in the late
Nineteenth century. Interestingly, the Philippines's relations with the
United States, which took over from Spain as the new colonial power,
have generally been seen in positive light, making the Philippines-US
special relations an important part of the current Filipino national
identity. This was despite the fact that after helping the Filipinos
drive out the Spaniards, the Americans brutally crushed local resistance
to subsequent American rule.

Although the Philippines' fought for independence against Spain its
national identity has in fact been closely been identified with Roman
Catholicism, since the Spanish rulers succeeded in converting most of
their subject people to Catholicism. This is in marked contrast to the
rest of South East Asia, where conversion to Christianity had been much
more limited as most of the peoples were already Muslims, Buddhists or
Hindus. The strong identification of the Philippines' national identity
with Catholicism, however, has alienated the Muslim minorities living in
the southern part of the country. Some of these Muslim subjects do not
regard the Philippines' polity as being sufficiently inclusive, for
Muslim minorities are being relegated to a secondary position, so that
they want to establish a separate Muslim state. For many years the
island of Mindanao has been a scene of periodic conflicts between
various rebel groups and government troops.

At the same time, the special Filipino-American relations have also been
contested by nationalist groups. The most violent opposition came from
the communists, who for many years launched a guerrilla war against the
government. Although without violence, there have also emerged strong
nationalist oppositions to the continuing special military relations
between the Philippines and the United States. These can be seen from
the opposition to the renewal of agreement on military bases, leading to
the closure of US military bases in the Philippines and from the strong
public criticisms against the direct involvement of American soldiers in
the Philippines' government fight against the Abu Sayaf rebels in
Mindanao. . Nationalist historians have also tried to highlight the war
between the Filipino nationalists and the Americans in 1899, causing the
deaths of between 250,000 to 600,000 Filipinos, thus challenging the
conventional Philippines-U.S. historiography that paints the U.S. as the
liberators of the Philippines.

In Malaysia the development of a single transcending national identity
has been even more problematic. Unlike in Indonesia where a new national
identity was forged initially as a means to obtain independence from
colonial rule, in Malaya no such nationalism emerged. The indigenous
Malay rulers seemed to be quite happy under British rule as long as the
Malays continued to enjoy special privileges. The problem was that the
British had brought in large numbers of Chinese and Indian migrants to
work in the tin mines and rubber plantations. These migrant communities
came to be predominant in the economic field, though the British
protected the social and political privileges of the Malays.

An attempt made by the British in the late 1945, to grant the migrant
population liberal citizenship rights and to create a new and equal
Malayan identity for every citizen, in preparation for eventual
self-rule were strongly resisted by the Malays. The indigenous Malays
feared that they would lose their special privileges and might in fact
become marginalized in their own land by the more aggressive new comers.
As a result after the granting of independence in 1957 Malaya, later
called Malaysia after the incorporation of Sabah and Sarawak, was
established as a state based on communal lines. The terms of
independence were that the migrant communities would be granted
citizenship with certain restrictions, while the Malays would retain
their special political status. The official religion of Malaya/Malaysia
is Islam, and to be Malays means to be Muslims as well. Although after
its rapid economic development and modernisation the Malaysian identity
seems to have become much more pronounced, communal divisions have
continued to define Malaysian politics, which at times have led to
racial tensions and even violence. It remains to be seen whether at some
future date a new Malaysian identity transcending the current communal
differentiations would eventually emerge.

Nowhere, however, is the concept of national identity so bitterly
contested as in Taiwan. While the struggles to formulate and sustain a
common national identity in other countries are primarily regarded as
domestic affairs, the creation of a Taiwanese national identity has led
to both international tensions and domestic controversies. It all
started with the civil war over ideologies in China, pitting the
nationalist against the communist forces, which ended with the defeat of
the nationalist government of the Kuo Min Tang (KMT) and the
transformation of mainland China into a communist state and society. The
People's Republic of China views Taiwan as a renegade province after the
defeated nationalists escaped to the island. At the same time the KMT
government in Taipei, which continued to lay claim to the whole of
China, also regarded the people living in Taiwan as Chinese belonging to
the larger China.

In the past decade, however, a new Taiwanese nationalist movement has
developed and gathered momentum, demanding a separate *de facto* and *de
jure* Taiwanese national identity and a separate independent state. The
Democratic People's Party, that has Taiwanese independence as its
political platform, won the presidential election in 2000 and has
attracted more supporters over the years. This phenomenon has naturally
alarmed China, which has threatened to launch a military attack against
Taiwan if it were to declare independence, and has divided the Taiwanese
people between the pro-independence and pro-status quo groups, as can be
seen from the recent presidential election. Unless there are fundamental
changes in Beijing's attitude towards Taiwan, which at the moment seem
unlikely, the issue of Taiwan's national identity will remain a
contested issue, particularly as the development of a separate Taiwanese
identity will only become stronger over time.

**How plastic are these identities once established; how permeable are
they to global mass culture?**

In Asia the construction of national identities has often been an
arduous and painful process, often involving bloody conflicts. Not
surprisingly most Asian countries, particularly those that have achieved
independence from colonial rule or imperial subjection, have attached
great value to their respective national identities. While in Europe
nationalism has come to be regarded as a dangerous sentiment, as
national chauvinism had led to two world wars, in Asia nationalism is
equated with patriotism and is considered to be a high virtue. Only
through the development of a common national identity and nationalism
could the disparate people of the Indonesian archipelago unite to
overthrow colonial oppression and establish their own independent state.
Since many countries in the region are still in the process of nation
and state building, and few can take their national unity or even
survival for granted, national identities tend be guarded jealously.

The experience of a number of Asian countries, however, revealed that
the nature of the regimes in power determine how national identities are
treated, whether they are seen as dynamic and open so that identities
can be plural and evolve over time, or whether they are regarded as
closed and utterly unique, thus allowing no more room for changes or for
competitive identities to emerge. In fact, a number of authoritarian
regimes in the region created or manipulated national identities,
endowing them with certain rigid characteristics as a means of political
control. The Indonesian experience under 32 years of Suharto's New Order
authoritarian rule can help to illustrate this point.

Just as Indonesia's founding fathers had engaged in myth making to
foster a common national identity that transcends racial, ethnic and
religious differences, the Suharto regime also engaged in myth making by
imbuing the Indonesian national identity with certain unchanging
characteristics. Although the development of the nationalist movement
and the birth of the modern nation states in Asia cannot be separated
from western history and influences, particularly western education and
the influence of the French and the American revolutions, the New Order
government argued that Indonesian national values wholly originated from
within. The regime then proceeded to define what the Indonesian national
identity was as well as the correct, and therefore politically
acceptable, values associated with that identity. Such values included a
strong sense of nationalism, an emphasis on consensus, respect for
authority, the rejection of communism, Islamism or western liberalism,
as well as the deification of the national ideology and the 1945
Constitution so that the constitution could never be amended. By
monopolising the definition of the national identity the New Order
government was able to impose strict social and political control,
accusing those with different ideas as subversives and enemies of the
state. Ideas such as democracy and respect for human rights were
considered foreign ideas, and therefore should be rejected. Continuing
attachments to local or primordial identities or attraction to a
supra-national regional or global identity were regarded as dangerous
since these could undermine the national identity.

The experience of Indonesia was not unique. Just as national identities
in Asia had in many cases been artificially constructed for political
ends, such as national independence and the formation of modern nation
states, politics had also played a dominant role in the articulation of
national identities in the subsequent years. Before the Asian financial
crisis many leaders in the region extolled the virtue of the "Asian
Values", usually signifying that the people must be discipline, work
hard, save their earnings and show unquestioning loyalty to their
governments. The national identities that had been established in the
respective countries were idealised, protected from challenges coming
from within or outside the countries. As the protectors of the "true"
national identities the regimes in power can then legitimately prosecute
all of those who contest them, particularly those trying to offer
alternative forms of identities. The "Asian Values" argument emerged as
a reaction by certain Asian leaders, in particular Lee Kuan Yew of
Singapore and Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia, to western criticisms
regarding the lack of democracy and respect for human rights in a number
of Asian countries.

Despite the sometime crude and heavy- handed attempts by some
governments to "protect" their national identities and cultures from
insidious foreign influences, very few have in fact succeeded in
insulating their countries from the forces of globalisation. With the
exception of North Korea and till recently Myanmar, most countries in
East Asia have been enthusiastic proponents of economic development and
international trade, and history has shown that trade links with peoples
from different cultures had also led to exchanges of ideas and values.
In modern time, economic development, with education as its corollary,
has been the single most important agent of social transformation,

As has been mentioned earlier, South East Asia has always been at the
crosswords of civilisations. This is quite different from North East
Asia where China and Japan had for long periods of time sealed
themselves from the outside world. Before the arrival of the western
colonial powers, which transformed local societies by military and
political force, South East Asian countries had been converted to
Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam through peaceful means, often by means of
trade over a long period of time. The cultures and traditions of South
East Asia have mostly been the products of adoptions and adaptations of
the great world religions and civilisations coming from outside the
region. The introduction of western education in the early twentieth
century, introducing such new ideas as nation states, sovereignty,
freedom, democracy and political parties that had never existed before,
transformed the Asian political landscape. Nevertheless, despite these
acculturation and similarities across regions, each Asian country has
been able to form a distinct and unique identity of its own.

Given the basic permeability and adaptability of some of the cultures in
the region it is only to be expected that the onslaughts of the forces
of globalisation, which among others have led to the creation of global
mass culture, have also left their imprints in Asia. North East Asia is
no exception. Since being forcefully opened to the outside world Japan
has embraced modernisation with great determination, adopting and
adapting western ideas, customs and technologies without losing its
Japanese identity, which seems be both changing rapidly while at the
same time remaining essentially Japanese.

In a number of South East Asian countries globalisation has been both
feared as threats to traditional values and hailed as liberators from
the forces of feudalism and repression, depending on the viewers'
perspectives. There is little doubt that the democratic waves that
toppled authoritarian regimes in many countries, including in North and
South East Asia can largely be attributed to the forces of
globalisation. The success of the "people power" movements against
authoritarian regimes in certain countries could be seen and give
inspirations to similar movements elsewhere. The imposition of
"universal values" is becoming harder to resist, thus putting those
governments who continue to talk about particularistic values on the
defensive. In the social arena, the emergence of a metropolitan super
culture manufactured in Hollywood, marked among others by consumerism,
has also swept Asian cities, making one city very much like another.

Despite the difficulties encountered by many Asian countries, it can
generally be argued that with the exception of Taiwan the nation states
that now exist in the region are fairly well established, with clearly
drawn boundaries and distinctive national identities. It can also be
noted that with increasing self confidence the countries in the region
have also become much more open, both to aspirations from below and the
forces of changes from the wider global community. Experiences of
periodic conflicts over ideologies and identities, which in the past had
led to the imposition of authoritarian regimes, in a growing number of
countries have led to a greater political openness and willingness to
accept plurality. At the same time, the desire to compete and be
accepted in the wider regional and global community has also made a
growing number of countries in the region to be more open to such
concepts as "universal values" as well as to binding regional and
international ties.

This process is still at a fairly early stage, but one can foresee
interesting trends developing in which greater convergences at the
regional and global levels will be matched by greater autonomy and
plurality at the local level. In other words, as national identities
become more well established in Asia, they can afford to become much
more open and dynamics. Local identities, supra-regional identities and
global citizenships will likely exist alongside established national
identities, each having an influence in the evolution of the other. For
Asian societies, with their rich cultural traditions, there lies a hope
that in the future they can contribute to the enrichment of a more
plural global culture, instead of being merely consumers of a monolithic
global mass culture.\*\*\*

[^1]: Presented at the Asia Society-The National Intelligence Council
    2020 Project. 5-7 May, 2004.

[^2]: Pancasila or 5 Principles was adopted as the Indonesian national
    ideology soon after the proclamation of independence in 1945. It is
    a compromise between those who wish to establish an Islamic state
    and those who want a secular state. The 5 Principles are: Belief in
    One God; Humanity; National Unity, Democracy and Social Justice.