Communism and Nationalism in South East Asia

Abstract

N i 'ATIONALISM' and 'Communism', terms used daily in connexion with events in South East Asia, need clarification and definition, for both are used quite indiscriminately, and indeed much of the confusion which obscures an understanding of revolutionary movements in South East Asia results from the arbitrary use of these two words. 'Nationalism' is defined by the dictionary as 'devotion to or advocacy of national interests or national unity and independence', but this definition is inadequate for the student of politics, who must distinguish between two senses in which the word is used. First, nationalism denotes a consciousness of the national individuality of a particulargroup, a state of mind common to the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of a country. Awareness of this national individuality and of its distinguishing characteristics such as language, tradition, and customs, implies a desire to see those characteristics respected. This 'national consciousness' exists in a primitive form among all the peoples of the world. Among peoples of a low level of civilization it is often no more than an irrational aversion to everything that is foreign. For only peoples at a high level of civilization can be really conscious of national individuality; in its fully developed form this consciousness is of recent date, even among the nations of Europe. History shows that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries peoples certainly felt themselves to be English, Italian, French, German, etc., but that this sentiment was not clearly defined, since national consciousness was still evolving. It was not before the middle of the nineteenth century that national consciousness became part of the mental make-up of a large part of the masses. The spreading of popular education was one of the most potent contributions to its growth. Through a national school system, centrally administered, the prevailing ideas of the leading intellectual groups in the nation's capital and more important cities penetrated into the uttermost corners of the State. Generation after generation, the youth of the nation was moulded according to certain patterns, and national consciousness was one of the mental attitudes most firmly implanted. This development has some bearing upon the relations of western Europe with the Asiatic world. In discussing the growth of nationalism in Asia we are apt to concentrate too much on the changing mentality of Asia. But the West has changed too. The men who went out to southern Asia in the service of seventeenth-century trading companies were loyal to the flag