The film own identity

“Ganito Kami during the

Noon, Paano transition
Kayo between the
Ngayon?” Spanish and
directed by American
Eddie Romero colonization
was of the
a brilliant Philippine
masterpiece islands. The
ahead of its film was able
time. It depicts to address
how Filipinos social issues
struggled to existing at the
find their time like the
The film own identity
“Ganito Kami during the
Noon, Paano transition
Kayo between the
Ngayon?” Spanish and
directed by American
Eddie Romero colonization
was of the
a brilliant Philippine
masterpiece islands. The
ahead of its film was able
time. It depicts to address
how Filipinos social issues
struggled to existing at the
find their time like the
The film own identity
“Ganito Kami during the
Noon, Paano transition
Kayo between the
Ngayon?” Spanish and
directed by American
Eddie Romero colonization
was of the
a brilliant Philippine
masterpiece islands. The
ahead of its film was able
time. It depicts to address
how Filipinos social issues
struggled to existing at the
find their time like the
The film own identity
“Ganito Kami during the
Noon, Paano transition
Kayo between the
Ngayon?” Spanish and
directed by American
Eddie Romero colonization
was of the
a brilliant Philippine
masterpiece islands. The
ahead of its film was able
time. It depicts to address
how Filipinos social issues
struggled to existing at the
find their time like the
he film own identity
“Ganito Kami during the
Noon, Paano transition
Kayo between the
Ngayon?” Spanish and
directed by American
Eddie Romero colonization
was of the
a brilliant Philippine
masterpiece islands. The
ahead of its film was able
time. It depicts to address
how Filipinos social issues
struggled to existing at the
find their time like the
he film own identity
“Ganito Kami during the
Noon, Paano transition
Kayo between the
Ngayon?” Spanish and
directed by American
Eddie Romero colonization
was of the
a brilliant Philippine
masterpiece islands. The
ahead of its film was able
time. It depicts to address
how Filipinos social issues
struggled to existing at the
find their time like the
The film own identity
“Ganito Kami during the
Noon, Paano transition
Kayo between the
Ngayon?” Spanish and
directed by American
Eddie Romero colonization
was of the
a brilliant The film
masterpiece “Ganito Kami
ahead of its Noon, Paano
time. It depicts Kayo
how Filipinos Ngayon?”
struggled to directed by
find their
Eddie Romero colonization
was of the
NATION AS IMAGINED COMMUNITY

a brilliant By: Benedict Anderson

masterpiece NATION

ahead of its  In Imagined Communities (1983) Anderson

argues that the nation is an imagined
political community that is inherently

time. It depicts 
limited in scope and sovereign in nature.
The people, created by the shared belief
that the people inside a country are

how Filipinos connected to each other.

IMAGINED POLITICAL COMMUNITY

struggled to ▪ a nation "is imagined because the members of

even the smallest nation will never know most

find their
of their fellow members, meet them, or even
hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the
image of their communion”

own identity ▪ Members of the community probably will

never know each of the other members face to
face; however, they may have similar interests
during the or identify as part of the same nation.

▪ Members hold in their minds a mental image

transition of their affinity: for example, the nationhood

felt with other members of your nation when
your "imagined community" participates in a

between the larger event such as the Olympic Games.

NATION IS A COMMUNITY

Spanish and Regardless of the actual inequality and

exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation

American
is always conceived as a deep, horizontal
comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that
makes it possible, over the past two centuries,
for so many millions of people, not so much to
kill, as willingly to die for such limited
imaginings
NATIONALISM AND IMAGINED COMMUNITIES
▪ According to Anderson's theory of imagined
communities, the main causes of nationalism
are the movement to abolish the ideas of rule
by divine right and hereditary monarchy;
▪ and the emergence of printing press
capitalism ("the convergence of capitalism and
print technology... standardization of national
calendars, clocks and language was embodied in
books and the publication of daily newspapers")
—all phenomena occurring with the start of the
Industrial Revolution.
THREE PARADOXES OF NATIONALISM:
(1) The objective modernity of nations to the
historians' eyes vs. their subjective antiquity in
the eyes of nationalists.
(2) The formal universality of nationality as a
socio-cultural concept
(3) the 'political' power of such nationalisms vs.
their philosophical poverty and even
incoherence.
NATIONALISM IS LIKE A RELIGION. IT’S NOT A
RELIGIOUS FAITH, BUT IT HAS SOME OF THE
SAME CHARACTERISTICS AS RELIGIONS
 Nationalism is similar to religious views in
that they both rely on intuition. Religions
like Buddhism, Christianity and Islam are
able to survive for thousands of years
because they tap into human intuition. They
provide hope by linking the dead, living and
unborn into an eternal chain of death and
regeneration.
 Religion and nationalism have a lot in
common. They emerged at the same time,
as religion was declining. The
Enlightenment emphasized human reason
over religious tradition, which led to the
decline of religion. However, people still
suffer from problems like disease and
poverty that were previously addressed by
religion.
 Therefore, there was a decline in the
importance of religion. This left people with
a void in their lives and they started looking
for other things to fill that void. The nation
became more important than before
because it provided an imagined
community where people can belong and
feel like they’re part of something bigger
than themselves.
SACRED LANGUAGES WERE THE GLUE THAT
HELD COMMUNITIES AND EMPIRES TOGETHER.
▪ Religious and imperial languages are written
rather than spoken. They create communities of
signs instead of communities of sounds. This is
similar to mathematical symbols, like the plus
sign. For example, Romanians and Thais have
different names for it, but they both recognize
the same symbol.
▪ Secondly, these were common languages.
Learning them wasn’t comparable to learning
French or Arabic. That was because they
weren’t divinely inspired like Latin and Arabic,
which provided access to the true nature of
things.
PRINT CAPITALISM HELPED TO CREATE
NATIONAL LANGUAGES AND ALSO LAID THE
FOUNDATIONS FOR NATIONALISM.
▪ Printing led to the spread of ideas.
▪ The invention of the printing press in Europe
was a major event. It meant that people could
read books for themselves, rather than relying
on others to tell them what the book said. This
led to the development of standardized
languages, which allowed speakers of different
dialects (French, English and Spanish) to
understand each other when they read books
printed in their language.
▪ At the same time, readers became aware of
how many people shared their language and
those who did not. This was a step toward
imagining communities based on national
characteristics.
NEWSPAPERS PLAYED AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN
THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEMOCRACY.
▪ Vernacular newspapers helped unite people
with common interests.
▪ Reading a newspaper is similar to attending
religious services. This ritual creates an illusion
that the world is a certain way, and other
people are doing this too. It confirms that the
world isn’t just imaginary.
▪ The way newspapers define news creates a
sense of what is important to the world.
▪ A sense of collective interest is created by the
shared experience of reading about the same
news in the same language. This creates an
imagined community that unites otherwise
anonymous people who share common
interests and values. It allows us to feel like
we’re part of something bigger, even if we’ve
never met most other members of our country
or culture.
A LINGUISTIC REVOLUTION IN EUROPE LED TO
THE BIRTH OF NATIONALISM.
▪ The study of language has been going on for
thousands of years. It was only in the late 18th
century that people started to realize that
languages change over time and are not static
entities as previously thought. This led to a
scientific revolution, where scholars began
studying how languages developed through
history. The study of language became known
as philology, which is now considered one of
the most important branches of science today.
▪ As people studied the vernacular languages,
they began to notice that their speakers formed
unique communities. This was the basis for
nationalist organizations arguing for
independence.
▪ This pattern is repeated all over the world
where nations are being imagined and created
through the systematization of vernaculars.
THE RISE OF NATIONALISM IN EUROPE MADE
IT DIFFICULT FOR THE EMPIRES THERE TO
MAINTAIN THEIR POWER BECAUSE
NATIONALIST PRINCIPLES WERE
INCOMPATIBLE WITH IMPERIAL RULE.
It’s not surprising that this was a problem for
empires, because they wanted to rule over
different people. The idea behind nationalism is
that the nation should be run by those who look
and talk like them. This goes against the logic of
multinational empires, which want to control
many nations with diverse populations.
AFRICAN AND ASIAN INTELLECTUALS DREW
ON EUROPEAN IDEAS TO CREATE THEIR OWN
INDEPENDENT NATIONS.
Three factors helped Africans and Asians to
imagine their future nations.
1. Technology made transportation and
communication much easier between 1850 and
the early twentieth century. It allowed ideas to
travel from metropoles to remote outposts in
an instant, as well as improved physical
mobility. This led people from colonies to make
pilgrimages to European capitals where they
learned about revolutionary political ideas.
2. Secondly, the education systems in colonies
were often highly centralized. In the Dutch East
Indies, for example, students from thousands of
unrelated islands received identical instructions
from identical textbooks. As they progressed
through the system and became more
specialized (or funneled into an ever-smaller
number of schools), they learned that their
archipelago was a single territory with diverse
people living on it.

3. Racism in Europe led to the idea that people

from a particular territory are members of a
group. The officials did not distinguish between
different groups, and instead treated everyone
as despised natives. As a result, these subjects
came to see themselves as part of a collective
called India or Indonesia.

▪ Bilingualism, Western education and the

intelligentsia brought about a new class of
people who were more aware of European
history and saw themselves as part of a larger
nation.

▪ The class led to the independence of many

countries, including Angola, Egypt and Vietnam.