Professional Documents
Culture Documents
4 2002: 555–570
David Brown
David Brown is Senior Lecturer and Head of the School of Politics and International Studies,
Murdoch University, Western Australia. His books include The State and Ethnic Politics
in Southeast Asia (Routledge, 1994 and 1996) and Contemporary Nationalism: Civic,
Ethnocultural and Multicultural Politics (Routledge, 2000). He is currently working on a
book on the impact of globalization upon national identities in Southeast Asia.
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to outline one possible framework within which
to examine the incidence of ethnic minority movements for autonomy or
secession in Southeast Asia.2 This framework suggests that separatist
ethnic nationalism develops as a result of tensions between three diver-
gent ideological perceptions of the existing nation-state: the ethno-cultural
nation, the civic nation and the multicultural nation.3
There seem to be two main ways of posing the question about ethnic
conicts such as those in Aceh in Indonesia, Mindanau in the Philippines,
and in the Karen, Shan, Chin and other regions of Burma. Either we ask
‘Why are ethnic minority movements against nation-states so strong?’ Or
we ask ‘Why are contemporary nation-states sometimes so weak?’ The
rst approach is probably the most frequently adopted, but it has tended
to generate arguments implying that ethnic attachments built on myths of
common ancestry are in some way necessarily more powerful than are
attachments to other forms of community, including the nation-state (as
in Connor 1994). Such arguments are problematic not because of any
conceptual incoherence, but rather because they make it more difcult to
explain the remarkable cohesion of many multi-ethnic nation-states. So
the approach adopted here is that of seeking to explain why nation-states
are sometimes successful in attracting the afliation of their citizens; and
why they might sometimes fail in this respect so as to generate the alien-
ation of their ethnic minorities and the mobilization of ethnic minority
separatist nationalisms.
The model begins by suggesting that the strength or weakness of nation-
states does not depend upon the facts of their linguistic, religious or racial
composition, and is not determined by the facts of their earlier history;
but rather depends upon the visions of community which comprise the
core element in the contemporary political consciousness of their citizens.
These visions of community refer to the objective historical, territorial
and cultural facts, but they are not in any direct sense derived from or
determined by such facts. Rather it is the ambiguities and complexities of
the diverse potential identity markers in each country that serve to sustain
the development of differing ideological interpretations of nationhood.
These visions of national community derive in part from the nationalist
ideologies that are promoted by state elites, and in part from the construc-
tions of identity that emerge in civil society interactions. This diversity in
their sites of origin helps to account for the emergence of divergent visions
of community within each country.
utes, and sometimes mainly on the claim that they share a particular terri-
tory and a common pride in its public institutions and public way of life.
These two bases for national identity are usually referred to, respectively,
as Cultural (or ethno-cultural) Nationalism and Civic Nationalism. Ethno-
cultural nationalism depicts the nation as a community of (ethno-) cultural
sameness, while civic nationalism depicts the nation as a community of
equal citizens. Until recently, it had been assumed that claims to nation-
hood would employ one or both of these ideas, but in the last few decades
the tensioned relationship between the two has generated a further basis
for national identity, that of Multiculturalism. Multicultural Nationalism
depicts the nation as a community made up of diverse ethnic segments,
all united by their common commitment to the public institutions of the
state that guarantee their equal status.
The countries of Southeast Asia vary as to which of the three forms of
national identity (civic, ethno-cultural or multicultural) is dominant. Most
of them can point to a linguistic, religious or racial community, which is
sometimes portrayed as the core of the nation (Burman or Buddhist in
Burma, Javanese or Islamic in Indonesia, Malay or Muslim in Malaysia,
Chinese or Confucianist in Singapore, Tagalog or Christian in the
Philippines, etc.). However, all of them also chose at various times both
to celebrate their ethnic diversity, and to proclaim the territorial basis of
their equal and ethnically-blind constitutional citizenship rights. State elites
and civil society activists employ these differing constructions of the nation
in different contexts, and the distinctions frequently remain implicit and
opaque. Indeed, it is the blurring and interweaving of these potentially
incompatible visions of community that sustains national cohesion and
state legitimacy.
Nationalism is particularly useful as a legitimatory ideology for author-
itarian regimes, since it allows them to depict the diverse individuals and
groups within their society as comprising one community with one will.
The dening feature of authoritarian regimes is not so much their reliance
on coercion, as their concern to justify coercion by the claim that they
constitute the sole legitimate articulator and defender of the common
interest or will of the people as a whole.4 They vary markedly in the way
they dene that will – to restore order, to promote religious virtue, to
pursue economic development, etc. – but in each case they depict them-
selves as the experts who can deliver what the singular entity, ‘the people’,
want or need. They thereby identify the interests of the whole commu-
nity with their own elite interests. But rst they must reconstruct the
socially fragmented society as the ideologically cohesive society.
This can be illustrated in the Indonesian case. Disunity, which accom-
panied Indonesian agitation against Dutch and Japanese colonialism,
meant that those political leaders who sought to lead the emergent nation
were unable to portray themselves as merely reecting an established
consensual national will, which arose from the common Islamic culture of
558 The Pacic Review
the state treats the other residents of its territory as second-class citizens,
either excluding them from the full rights and status of citizenship, or
employing the state machinery to enforce assimilation. In the Indonesian
case, authoritarian ethno-cultural nationalism employed mythologizations
of history to depict the Javanese as the ethnic core, while recruitment into
elite positions came, to some degree, to be conditional on ‘Javanization’.7
In the democratic version of ethno-cultural nationalism, the nation is still
dened in terms of the culture of its ethnic core, but that culture is itself
now dened in such a way as to make assimilation voluntary, attractive
and feasible. Thus racial denitions of the ethnic core tend to give way
to linguistic, religious and cultural denitions, which are more open to
assimilation; and minority denitions of the ethnic core begin to give way
to majority denitions. Moreover, instead of relying on the state machinery
to force the pace of assimilation, the state relies more on the self-inter-
ests of ethnic minorities to acquire the high-status values of the ethnic
majority, or on the assimilationist implications of intermarriage.
In the Indonesian case, the democratic form of ethno-cultural nationalism
involves the depiction of the nation as identied by an Islamic majority,
which is portrayed as a diverse religio-cultural core able to accommodate
the heterogeneity of Islam and to respect the rights of non-Muslims. But the
pluralism of the majority-based ethno-culture means that democratization
involves the articulation of both tolerant and intolerant strands of Islam, and
there is no inevitability that democratic pluralistic tolerance will be victori-
ous. The only inevitability is that contentions develop between the tolerant
and intolerant strands of Islam: ‘all of Indonesian politics is in ux
now . . . and Islamic factions are shifting and rolling as they seek a new place
in a political order’ (Mydans 1999).8 The contentions arise because democ-
ratization generates rising expectations among the Islamic majority that the
government will at last give full recognition and status to Islamic values and
interests as the core ingredient of the country’s national identity.
In the case of multicultural nationalism, the authoritarian version is that
in which the state creates institutions that legitimate each of the diverse
ethnic identities within the country, but doing so in order to facilitate their
centralized corporatist control, and to emasculate and co-opt ethnic
minority elites.9 In its democratic version, by contrast, multicultural nation-
alism involves the state seeking to reect the ethnic diversity of the society
in its own institutional structures, precisely so that the distribution of
power and resources are organized on a decentralized and fair ‘ethnic
arithmetic’ basis. In contemporary Indonesia, this was reected in Wahid’s
devolution of powers to the provinces; in the reopening of debate
concerning the possibility of federalism and of further forms of autonomy
for Papua and Aceh; and in the concerns to reassure Christian minorities
that their rights would be respected under the new regime.
Finally, the civic nationalist vision stresses that all citizens are granted
equal status irrespective of ethnic attributes, on the sole condition that they
560 The Pacic Review
and given them to the state, who deserve the full rights and status of citi-
zens. Clearly, if a situation arises in which each of these three distinct
visions are articulated strongly by different individuals within the same
country, with this ideological confrontation being highlighted by the public
institutions of state and civil society, the resultant tensions have the
capacity to engender political confrontation, violent or otherwise.
But there is no inevitability about such confrontation, since it is by no
means certain that the three nationalist visions will become disentwined
so as to come into confrontation with each other, nor that the tensions
between them will be prioritized and made explicit in public fora. Even
then, the political consequences would seem to depend signicantly upon
how the state responds.
The entwining of the different nationalist visions was until recently most
widespread and successful in those developed nation-states whose nation-
hood had, at least in part, evolved over several centuries. There was often
no clear distinction, in the understanding of most citizens, between visions
of progress towards civic integration, cultural assimilation and inter-ethnic
tolerance. In Britain, for example, citizens of Wales could in the past portray
themselves, interchangeably or concurrently, as Welsh, English and British.
Even in some countries constructed by colonialism, potential tensions
between the divergent visions have been defused by widespread ambiguities
and confusions as to communities of identity. In Singapore, for example,
political tensions over national identity have been constrained by the blur-
ring of the distinctions between the different portrayals of the nation; its
depiction as united by a common Asian culture, as segmented by its distinct
racial cultures, and as distinguished by its ethnically-blind meritocratic
norms. State elites can frequently promote such ambiguities, and thus inhibit
the development of political confrontations over national identity, by mix-
ing the visions in their rhetoric and propaganda, and by articulating goals of
‘equality’, ‘fairness’ or ‘justice’ to which proponents of each nationalist
vision can adhere by interpreting their meanings differently.
It is unlikely, however, that governments can do anything to prevent
some degree of disentwining of the three visions (for reasons, and in ways,
which are discussed below). The danger is clear: that an ethnic majority
begins to be mobilized around an ethno-cultural vision of the nation-state
which grants that majority higher status than its ethnic minorities; while
ethnic minorities, for their part, begin to mobilize around a multicultural
nationalist vision that prioritizes ethnic minority rights. This is indeed a
widespread phenomenon; but political stability and national unity might
not be threatened in those cases where the third vision, that of civic nation-
alism, has sufcient currency and resonance to act as a buffer between
ethnic majoritarian and ethnic minority visions. Where civic nationalism
is strong, the tensions between ethnic majority expectations embodied in
ethno-cultural nationalism, and ethnic minority expectations embodied in
multicultural nationalism, can be to some extent ameliorated and absorbed
562 The Pacic Review
by civic norms and structures. In other words, where state institutions are
built primarily on civic norms of citizenship equality or individual rights,
then the ethno-cultural claims to enhanced ethnic majority status, and the
multicultural claims to enhanced ethnic minority status, can both be
directed towards seeking reforms in those civic institutions, rather than
being aimed directly at each other. But if the civic nationalist vision is
weak, then there is little to prevent the trend towards confrontation
between majority rights expectations and minority rights expectations.
Once ethnic minorities lose faith that the state can promote civic nation-
alism, they come to perceive the state as the agency of the ethnic majority,
and therefore lose faith in its multiculturalist promises of status or
autonomy to ethnic minorities. The weakening of civic nationalism thus
leads in turn to the erosion of multicultural nationalism. Loss of faith in
the state means that calls for ethnic autonomy become radicalized. Thus
what begins as ethnic minority support for a multicultural nationalist vision
can easily become rearticulated by radical activists as ethnic minority
support for a separatist ethno-cultural nationalist goal.12
It is this possibility that determines the way in which this paper poses
the question as to the incidence of ethnic conict. Why, in the Southeast
Asian context, have ideas of ethno-cultural nationalism and multicultural
nationalism frequently become counterposed, and why has civic nation-
alism become weakened so that it fails to act as an effective buffer?
The answer is in three parts: rst, the impact of ideas of democracy;
second, the impact of the patrimonial element in politics; and third, the
impact of the failure of state elites to full their various social justice
promises.
fragility or decline (as with Burma and the Philippines, and with contem-
porary Indonesia) visions of equal individual civic rights are liable to carry
less weight than are visions of new access to a more responsive patron.
Fourth, the restructuring of patrimonialism, which characterizes attempts
at democratization, involves the fracturing and restructuring of authoritar-
ian patrimonial linkages as new patrons seek new alliances. But this tran-
sitional disruption of the patrimonial structures pervades state institutions,
and can lead to central elites losing effective control over subordinate
ofcials. Faith in the possibility of progress towards civic rights is thus
eroded, either because the errant behaviour of subordinate ofcials is
blamed on new governmental elites, or as the efciency of state institutions
is seen to decline.
If it is indeed the case that the persistence of patrimonial politics inhibits
the development of a civic nationalist vision, then there is little to amelio-
rate the tensions between an ethnic majority and ethnic minorities. Once
ethnic minorities lose faith that the state can promote civic nationalism,
they come to perceive the state as the agency of the ethnic majority, and
therefore cease to believe that its multiculturalist promises of status or
autonomy to ethnic minorities will be delivered. The weakening of civic
nationalism thus leads in turn to the erosion of multicultural nationalism.
Loss of faith in the state means that calls for ethnic autonomy become
radicalized, and might shift to become calls for full independence.
But once faith in the social justice promises of state elites began to
erode, civic nationalism was weakened. As evidence mounted, particularly
from the end of the 1960s onwards, that peripheral regions of the country
(for example, Shan, Mindanau and Aceh) were being exploited as internal
colonies rather than being subsidized – or that education and welfare
provisions to subordinate class groups were being cut back – those being
marginalized began to lose faith in the state-elites’ promises of social
justice and to seek alternative political visions. They frequently found them
in the promises of counter-elites that minority ethnic nationalism offered
better hope of social justice. This is of course one basis for the emergence
of the multicultural nationalist vision of the nation-state, but where dis-
illusionment with the broken promises of state-elites is strong it provides
the basis for the development of minority ethno-cultural nationalisms. It
is the weakness of civic nationalism that lies behind this development, and
this in turn derives from the loss of faith in the social justice promises of
state elites that underpinned the civic vision of the nation.
Countervailing factors
The argument that the weakening of civic nationalism promotes tensions
between the ethno-cultural and multicultural visions of the nation-state
should not be taken as implying that ethnic majorities and ethnic minori-
ties will necessarily engage in political confrontation. In practice, all
minority ethnic nationalist movements are divided, and frequently they
mobilize only a minority of the minority. Similarly, members of ethnic
majority communities frequently come to reject an ethno-cultural vision
in favour of ideas of multicultural democracy that can accommodate ideas
of ethnic minority rights. There are several reasons why ethnic majorities
divide politically on this issue, and why ethnic rebellions tend to be frag-
mented. The most obvious is the clear cost of ethnic rebellion in terms
of disruption, disunity and death. But it should also be noted here that
the three factors already cited as weakening civic nationalism and there-
fore promoting ethno-cultural–multicultural tensions also play a signi-
cant role in fragmenting, and therefore potentially weakening, ethnic
autonomy movements.
The prospect of the democratization of the nation-state clearly serves
to inhibit the political alienation of at least some members of ethnic
minority communities to the extent that it seems to open the door to the
increased political decentralization of the nation-state and decreased
discrimination against minorities. Similarly, the patrimonial features of
politics that weaken civic nationalism also serve to promote the factional
rivalries dividing and weakening ethnic nationalist movements. Moreover,
to the extent that the political alienation of ethnic minorities derives from
their disillusionment with the exploitative behaviour of an incumbent
central government regime, ethnic minorities will divide between those
568 The Pacic Review
putting most faith in demands for a change of regime, and those putting
most faith in a call for separatism. All of these factors are at work, for
example, in the present Acehnese rebellion in Indonesia. The Free Aceh
Movement (GAM) is divided both by patrimonial rivalries and by the
differing views, amongst Acehnese, of whether to aim for stronger
autonomy with the potential to enhance social justice within a democra-
tized Indonesia, or whether to ght for full secession. The tensions between
the two can for the moment be partially camouaged by calls for ‘self-
determination’, but they are nevertheless increasingly visible in the
disunity of the Acehnese elites (Brown 2000b; Aspinall 2000). In the case
of Aceh, as elsewhere, ideological cleavages between the three visions of
national community – ethno-cultural, civic and multicultural – occur just
as much within ethnic minority communities, as within the nation-state.
Conclusion
The paper has indicated, in rather schematic terms, a model within which
the cases of ethnic separatism in Southeast Asia might be examined.
Instead of seeing such ethnic conict as a cause of the weakening of the
nation-state, the reverse is argued. It is the weakening of the nation-state
that generates ethnic minority separatism. Nation-states remain strong to
the extent that their state-elites can promote visions of civic nationalism,
ethno-cultural nationalism and multicultural nationalism, which employ
overlapping myths and symbols so that they intertwine with each other
and resonate with civil society. The civic nationalist element is particu-
larly crucial in this, since it provides the cement that holds the nation
together, and the buffer that prevents confrontation between ethno-
cultural nationalism and multicultural nationalism. It is the weakening of
civic nationalism that explains the development of ethnic separatist
conict. Civic nationalism might weaken for various reasons and in various
ways, but the factors examined here, and which seem to be most salient
to the Southeast Asian case, have been the currency of democratic ideas,
the incidence of patrimonial politics, and the loss of faith in the social
justice promises of state elites.
Notes
1 This paper was presented at the Panel on ‘Political Faultlines in Southeast Asia:
Pre-Modernist Atavisms in Post-Colonial Nation-States’ (22–25 March 2001,
Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Chicago). It was dis-
tributed for discussion at the Symposium on ‘Political Faultlines in Southeast
Asia: Movements for Ethnic Autonomy in Nation-State Structures’ (15–16
October 2001, Southeast Asia Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong).
2 For purposes of illustration, this paper makes brief references to the case of
Indonesia, but it is intended to be of wider relevance so as to also be applic-
able, for example, to discussions of the various ethnic rebellions in Burma and
the Philippines.
D. Brown: Constructed nationalist and ethnic ideologies 569
display political support for their patrons, are rewarded with resource benets.
(iii) Mobilizational patrimonialism, in which politics takes the form of rival
patrons competing for mass support. In this proto-democratic form of patrimo-
nial politics, the power-balance shifts so that communal clienteles have some
choice as to their patronage linkage with central government, and can choose the
patron who is most responsive to their claims.
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