Nationalism colonial states/ethnies

Three of the types are further exemplified in the subsequent case studies dealing with the Archipelago. The fourth, labelled Expanding an ethnie core , is discussed only in general terms in chapter 2. It needs specific analysis because it has often been thought to be the classic or normative form of nationalism. In these cases, Burma, Siam and Vietnam, ethnie nationalism, pre-colonial state nationalism and antiimperial nationalism, have reinforced each other to such an extent that few analysts have seen the need to separate them conceptually. The brief discussion in chapter 2 is intended to show that the factors do need to be kept separate, and that conflating them has been at the root of the problems which Burma in particular has faced since independence. 

The effect of this type of imperial interaction was to create expectations in the nationalisms they produced which would be very difficult to fulfil. The colonial boundaries were of course sacralised as the correct boundaries for anti-imperial nationalism. But in Burma, Burman ethnie nationalism became fatally entangled with state nationalism after independence, with a constant state of unwinnable war against minority ethnie nationalisms. Vietnam was very fortunate that the anti-imperial nationalism of the Indo-Chinese communist party was unable to take control of the whole colony in 1945, and eventually renamed itself the Vietnamese Workers Party in 1951. The French were able to steer Laos and Cambodia to a fragile independence in 1954 (Goscha 1999). The wars of Indo-China up until 1980 were nevertheless bedevilled by Vietnamese attempts to lead the anti-imperial nationalisms of Laos and Cambodia in the Indo-Chinese Revolution of which they had dreamed since 1930, and problems remain between these variants of nationalism. 

Both the Dutch and British colonial constructs remained extraordinarily plural, in language, religion and political formation. Few in the 1930s (except the Indonesian nationalists) believed that they could or should ever become single nation-states. Yet the pluralism was so pervasive at every level that lesser ethnie nationalisms had even more difficulty... 

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