“History”, AS Claude Levi-Strauss asserted, “is … never history, but history-for”. Perhaps nowhere is the appropriation of this view that history must always be written from some viewpoint and, therefore, for some purpose in mind more evident than in its use for the agenda of nationbuilding. Few would deny that history and nation-building — defined by one commentator as “the creation by government of a cohesive political community characterized by an abiding sense of identity and common consciousness” — are inextricably related, for history, so far as traditional arguments go, not only “offers lessons (be they true or false) to which leaders, nations and peoples respond” but is also “the shaper of national identity”. Indeed, as the editors of Writing National Histories: Western Europe since 1800 point out, “Historical writing has been connected to the process of nation-building across Europe ever since the concept of the modern nation was first formulated in the American and French Revolutions of the late-eighteenth century.” In Singapore's experience of nation-building, however, the deliberative use of history in the fashioning of a national narrative — The Singapore Story — occurred belatedly, coming only after three decades of nation-building had lapsed. The use of history — and its perceived “politicization” — for the agenda of nation-building raises intrinsic conceptual and methodological concerns, as it did in the contemporary Singapore experience, that invariably ignited ideological contestation regarding the integrity and purpose of history — and what is the proper way of portraying the past accurately.

History and Nation-Building

“The past” — “as it was” — is how history has been commonly defined. To be more precise, history is really about the “study” of the past, for the past “as it was” is irrecoverable and all we have are what historians, working with available records and archival materials, write about the past. Their retrieval, and representation, of the past has traditionally been validated by the methodology of “scientific” history based on the rigorous investigation of primary sources. By retaining “objectivity”, so the argument goes, historians could ascertain the “facts” and so report the “truth”.

Writing the story of independent Indonesia has been a more than usually difficult enterprise, and particularly so for Indonesians. Very few have undertaken it, and most who did were either in the triumphalist semi-official school of Suharto's New Order, or were foreign political scientists or journalists telling a generally disenchanted story of failure. Before Taufik Abdullah's work, I know of no professional historian, Indonesian or foreign, who set out to tell the story of independent Indonesia as a totality, except as part of semi-official projects such as the national history or fiftieth anniversary celebrations. This chapter is designed to explain why it has been so difficult.

A Rupture with the Past

Revolutions have a way of breaking continuity with the past, as is indeed their intention. The normally fuzzy transition between the contemporary domain of the social scientists and the territory of the historian becomes a sharp break when marked by a revolution. While history is passionately important for revolutionaries, once in power they tend to make things difficult for historians of anything but ancient times. The past has to preserve a powerful myth, essential to the new way in which the revolutionary state sees itself. This is true even for the French, Russian, Chinese or Vietnamese revolutions, which explicitly sought a new beginning in which science and rationality would rule, in contrast with a discredited old order of oppression, hierarchy and privilege. Indonesian revolutionaries took the same view. Tan Malaka, the most cerebral of them, declared that “the true Indonesian nation does not yet have a history except one of slavery”, while the leading professional historian of the 1950s titled both his first books in a way that consigned Indonesia's whole pre-independence past to a “feudal” category.

Indonesia's revolution however brought a further discontinuity even more profound than these other revolutions.

The essays in this volume are the product of a conference organized in Singapore by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in September 2002: “Nation-building Histories: Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore”. Altogether sixteen scholars were invited to take part in a twoday meeting that focused on these five countries, the founder members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). One volume, that on Malaysia by Cheah Boon Kheng, had already been published. Some of the draft chapters of the other four volumes were circulated for the discussants to read and offer comments. All the participants were invited to write up their thoughts, either on the work they had already done or read, or on the general problems of writing nation-building histories, especially of countries recently committed to the tasks of nation-building and issues of writing contemporary history in Southeast Asia. In the end, Cheah Boon Kheng and seven of the discussants agreed to reflect on the questions that the conference had raised. As editor, I included an essay on “Nation and Heritage” I had published earlier and wrote an introduction to place on record some of the broader issues that the whole exercise had helped to illuminate.

After the conference, I had summarized those questions that attracted most comments as follows: When does nation-building begin and how does it fit into the writing of contemporary history? How should historians treat the earlier pasts of each country and the nationalism that guided the nation-building task? Where did political culture come in, especially when dealing with modern challenges of class, secularism and ethnicity? What part does external or regional pressure play when the nations are still being built? When archival sources are not available, how should narrative, social science analyses and personal experience be handled? Each of the ten essays in this volume includes efforts to pose such questions with reference to one of the five countries.

Colonialism and State-Building

Nations have been compared with organisms. Metaphors of growth and evolution, of life and death, have been used in their depiction. They have alternatively been seen as constructs, or products of a political process characterized as “nation-building”. This process is sometimes described as “forging a nation”. It suggests feats of engineering and conjures up the heat of the workshop and the strength and skill of the craftsman. Yet fabrication also suggests falsification. Indeed, as Avi Shlaim has commented, “it is interesting to note how frequently the phrase ‘forging a nation’ is used, because most nations are forgeries. Indeed, some nations are based on little more than a mythological view of the past and a hatred of foreigners”. Post-colonial nations have been deliberately and artificially shaped to fit nationalist agendas, but they also bear the hammer blows of colonialism which over the years worked against the grain of national self-determination and only in its last phase hastily cobbled together successor-states that might pass for nation-states.

While nation-building has been the principal task of political leaders, economic planners and social engineers in post-colonial Southeast Asia, the foundations of their states were laid during the colonial period. Colonialism demarcated territorial boundaries, established institutions of centralized government, developed primate cities, served as a conduit for global influences, and bequeathed models for modernization. In so doing, colonialism was responsible for the integration of communities within larger government structures and economic systems. Moreover, the capacity of colonial administration for ruling and the costs of doing so led to its greater intervention in indigenous societies as heads were counted in the census, as land ownership was determined, and, most importantly, as taxes were collected. At the same time, the long reach of the colonial state contributed to individuals’ consciousness of being members of a larger community. Thus colonial rule provoked resistance from those whom it dispossessed and sharpened the aspirations of others whom it benefited. Unwittingly fashioning the political identities of subject peoples, the colonial state not only provoked demands for self-determination but also provided the mould for its successor, the nation-state.

The writing of my book, Malaysia: The Making of a Nation, (published by ISEAS, Singapore, 2002) was not an easy task because it is primarily a book of contemporary history. Historians are usually more comfortable writing about periods further back in time than the ones they lived in. I lived through some of the major events in the 1945–2001 period covered by the book. It is possible that my present-day views and recollections of the events and personalities of that period may have influenced this study. This paper is to explain why I wrote the book the way I did.

First, I take comfort from what the Italian thinker, Benedetto Croce, has to say about contemporary history. “The practical requirements which underlie every historical judgement give to all history the character of ‘contemporary history’,” wrote Croce, “because, however remote in time events there recounted may seem to be, the history in reality refers to present needs and present situations wherein those events vibrate.” Croce was arguing that historians were guided in their judgment by present-day concerns as to what documents and events were important in the past, and what were unimportant.

All history was thus written, consciously or unconsciously, from the perspective of the present. Ideas and theories in the historian's own time are what allow a reading of a document in a such a way that may be contrary to the purposes of the people who wrote it. The historian, who believes that historians should reject present-day concerns when he researches the past, and merely engage in a dialogue with the past, is merely deceiving himself. He can no more escape from the past than from the present. All history thus has a present-day purpose and inspiration.

Writing about nation-building is very much like writing a biography. In the case of the latter, an author has to decide what are the key factors that shaped or made that person's personality and character.

Arecent discussion on nation-building in Southeast Asia steered participants to look into the broader questions of what indeed is the region's contemporary history and how it should be approached. It is striking, as Professor Wang Gungwu has noted, that the early study of nation-building has been done largely by political scientists and not by historians. If the process of nation-building in the region is still on-going, as is generally acknowledged, and if the study of nation-building then is considered as falling within contemporary history, it may then be asked whether historians are able to offer an approach that is new or different from what have been applied so far by social scientists.

The historian distinguishes his work by an adoption of a narrative form. This presentation of an unfolding of events requires the searching and collection of data, critical evaluation of evidence, and assembling them into a coherent and accurate account. The historian retrieves facts that are of historical significance and draws attention to these in his careful and accurate recording of what happened. More importantly, the historian offers chronological depth in explaining and analysing features and issues that may be contemporary or otherwise. The product stands, at the least, as a faithful and well-documented chronicle of a particular period of the past. It is upon the historian's detailed and well ordered data that many social scientists eventually draw upon for comparative studies across time and place.

The historian, however, goes beyond a narration of the sequence of events. He may suggest how the distant past continues to have an influence on his unfolding story and might discover that amidst the changes taking place today are elements of continuity. Among these enduring features are ideas and institutions that have survived the past and have, in modified forms perhaps, persisted to shape events in contemporary history. Furthermore, the historian is sharply aware that how the country's past is recalled and reconstructed has a bearing on the thrust and direction of nation-building.

At the International Conference of Historians of Asia (IAHA) in Bangkok (1996), there was a panel on nation-building at which it was debated whether it was time for historians to write nation-building histories for Southeast Asia. This appeared rather unadventurous because in 1996 there was much more debate about globalization and transnational developments, even speculation about the end of nation-states. It was pointed out that the break-up of colonial empires in Asia had happened a long while back. Unlike the new nations after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, those that were established after World War II faced a world that was changing much faster than it has ever done. Since the 1950s, new global markets have flourished, new technologies have reached out in all directions and new social forces have been released. It was surely more important to examine the new emerging factors in society that were transforming human lives beyond recognition. In many countries, these had begun to render the idea of nation-states increasingly irrelevant.

On the other hand, only a few years earlier, German reunification and the dissolution of the Soviet Empire had led to a new wave of nation-building in Central and Eastern Europe as well as Central Asia. And what a dramatic challenge that has been to the Western European experiment in crossing national borders to build new kinds of communities. Since then, the tension between a European Union seeking to double its size and the murderous struggles of the new ethnic nationalisms has barely abated. This has certainly led to fresh interest in the idea and practice of nationbuilding. Of course, how to understand what that process now means may have to change. The Southeast Asian efforts of the past half-century show that the region's new nations are not the same as those carved out of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.

At first glance the ISEAS project on nation-building in Southeast Asia seems dated — a hangover from an earlier scholarly preoccupation. In fact, the reverse is the case. In an era in which the nation-state is under attack from one quarter after another — with books bearing such titles as “The End of the Nation State” — it is timely to review the processes which constituted the nation in the first place. Today we are getting the analytic distance to appreciate better the constructedness of the nation-state — to see it (as Wang Gungwu puts it) as an “idea”. The nation-state cannot now be seen as a taken-for-granted thing. It is a precarious structure, merely one of several options for organizing human communities, and a venture that has always been vulnerable to contest and subversion. In the early twentyfirst century there seems nothing inevitable about the triumph of the nationstate. Now more than ever there is reason to identify the different elements in promoting the emergence of nation-states, if only to see more clearly the possible way or ways in which they might eventually fragment and perhaps disintegrate. In this nation-building, the element with which I will be concerned — influenced, as I am, by the writings of the ISEAS project — is the work of the national historian. My focus will be on Malaysia, where there has been exceptional interest in nation-building narratives. Examining this interest, and the different ways in which the “Malaysia” story is emplotted, throws light on the character of the Malaysian nation-state, and on the process of nation-building itself.

One of the gains of the ISEAS project has been to remind us of the plurality of forms in which nation states have emerged. This is not to deny the great, uni-directional historical forces that have acted across the globe to foster a nation-state architecture — the impact of European colonialism is one that has been recently reviewed. But the differences in nation-state building, and between nations, are at least equally important.

Distinguished American feminist scholar Joan W. Scott, reflecting on what now counts as “common sense” in her discipline, has argued that “[h]istory is in the paradoxical position of creating the objects it claims only to discover” (2001, p. 85). The fact that historians include and exclude as well as organize and present their “materials” or “data” exposes the interpretive practices that not only underpin their field of study, but constitute the knowledge produced by that field as knowable and intelligible in the first place. Wide-ranging critiques of historical representation (Foucault 1971; White 1973, 1987, and 1999; LaCapra 1983 and 1987) have placed interpretation at the centre of history understood in its double sense as both object of study and verbal account. No longer can interpretation be treated as completely separate and distinct from reality, since interpretations help define and shape that reality. Neither can “materials” or “data” be treated as free-floating and self-contained information awaiting discovery or recovery, since they are embedded within complex, often past systems of thought and action that historians can ill afford to either ignore or discount.

To write a history of contemporary Philippines is not — and, at a time when disciplines and their boundaries are subject to critical interrogation, can no longer be — simply a matter of writing about the Philippines with particular reference to its past. The historian must now also attend to the conceptual parameters within which a “history” of “the Philippines” is conceivable and practicable as a scholarly undertaking. This entails analysing the ways in which “the Philippines” was imagined and consolidated as a “national” community with “its” own history (Anderson 1991 [1983]; Scott 2001, p. 97). It also demands that historians acknowledge the role that their own project plays in structuring — intellectually and materially — the history of that nation.

When five Southeast Asian historians took up the challenge to write five nation-building histories, they embarked on a project that took as its main point of reference the nation-state. While the five histories in their final form will be very different in how they approach their respective countries, each historian accepted the nation-state as worthy of serious attention. It was not an abstraction; it was not an illusion. It was not an unwelcome European by-product of the colonial period but a real and meaningful entity that shaped the post-independence history of each country. These historians are not besotted with the nation-state, nor are they uncritical of its mortal rulers. Rather, they are not, or at least not yet, willing to discard the nation-state as the political entity whose unity, multi-cultural membership, and territorial integrity are best able to give expression to aspirations for political participation, social justice, and economic security. Not one of these historians has given up on the nation-state. They have also not given up on the nation.

This willingness to take the nation as a given and something worth fighting for and writing about is not universal in post-colonial societies around the world. A case in point is South Asia, particularly in the writing of India's history. Generalizations are always a little risky, but I would venture to say that a conversation in India today about the nation would move quickly to a discussion about ethnicity, religion, communalism, or caste. Not much hope is invested in the nation, and nationalism is seen as a derivative discourse, an unwelcome legacy of colonialism. The Subaltern Studies group contributed greatly to this shift, and the words of Partha Chatterjee in The Nation and Its Fragments, published about a decade ago, are still worth recalling:

Linking the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia has long been an important passage for trade. Hot on the heels of traders were missionaries and proselytizers. The first of world religions to arrive in the region were Hinduism and Buddhism via trade links with India. Indian merchants not only established trading stations along the region but also brought along their religious and cultural influences. Beyond the spiritual, Hinduism and Buddhism have contributed to the development of a written tradition in Southeast Asia. And while Southeast Asian converts have incorporated local features and cultures into Hinduism and Buddhism for a distinct flavour, aspects of their religious life are still observably Indian. By the twelfth century, peoples in what are known today as Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam were converted to Buddhism. In Bali, part of Muslimdominated Indonesia, approximately 90 per cent of the population practise Hinduism.

The year and source of Islamic influence in Southeast Asia is a matter for debate. Some European scholars argue that Islam entered the region upon trade with India, some regional Muslim historians assert that it was imported directly from the Middle East, while other scholars believe that Muslim Chinese introduced it when they traded in the region. Nonetheless, it is generally accepted that Islamic teachers had, by the fifteenth century, established religious schools largely in the Malay Peninsula as well as in parts of Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, and Mindanao. In the course of time, Islam absorbed many pre-existing Southeast Asian beliefs such as animism. Presently both Malaysia and Indonesia are predominantly Muslim, with the latter the most populous Muslim country in the world.

Christianity was, comparatively speaking, a late arrival to Southeast Asia. Christian missionaries only ventured into the region in significant numbers with the spread of colonialism from the eighteenth century. Failing to penetrate China and Japan, many Christian missionaries settled along Southeast Asia.

Diversity and change are the only constants in Southeast Asia. In a region of approximately 4.5 million square kilometres in size, over 500 million people, one thousand languages, a religious smorgasbord of Animism, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity, the sheer diversity of Southeast Asia defies simple categorization. The region has also been host to a variety of political ideologies from monarchism to colonialism, communism, authoritarianism, and different versions of democracy.

Given this diversity, a stable and distinct Southeast Asian identity remains elusive. The region's identity is very much defined in contrast to other regions than by any specific inherent features or characteristics. As a geographical concept, Southeast Asia is a recent invention. The term only gained popular acceptance from World War II, during which the British used “Southeast Asia” to describe the collection of peninsulas and islands to the south of China and east of India as a particular area of military operation against the Japanese. It was only in the 1950s and 1960s with the wave of anti-colonial and nationalist sentiments sweeping across the region that nation-states — itself very much a modern entity — emerged. On 8 August 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established in Bangkok. The five original member countries were Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Brunei Darussalam joined later, in 1984; Vietnam in 1995; Laos and Myanmar in 1997; and Cambodia in 1999.

There is little doubt that Southeast Asia is undergoing modernization, changing not only the way Southeast Asians live but also the way they see themselves. The extent of modernization, however, varies from country to country. It is thus important not to think of modernization as a static concept but as an uneven process that societies undergo. This book seeks to capture the main debates surrounding certain issues that are affected by, and in turn influencing, the modernization processes in Southeast Asia. It is not intended to serve as a comprehensive examination of the complex and multifarious processes of modernization; rather, it offers itself as an introductory, and hopefully critical, approach to selected issues.

The modernization of societies depends on their ability to create new institutions, exploit advanced technologies, master their environment, and adapt their patterns of behaviour for common goals. Conventional wisdom has it that education, by improving the capabilities of individuals and institutions, plays a key role in the modernization process. Education serves as a catalyst for economic, social, and political development, all of which contribute to overall national development. Nonetheless, precisely how education, as a causal agent, triggers economic growth continues to be a matter for debate among researchers. On the one hand, numerous studies suggest that education is strongly linked to economic productivity, technological advancement, higher individual income, lowering of poverty levels, gender equality, greater awareness of citizenry responsibilities, and the general elevation of quality of life. Education also breaks cultural barriers by connecting societies to the rest of the world through the common languages of mathematics, science and technology, and ideologies.

On the other hand, there are counter-studies that suggest that education may have negative consequences. Uneven access to education, for example, leads to an education system that may perpetuate and legitimize divisions based on ethnicity, gender, or economic status. If a certain ethnic group or class is found to be over-represented in higher education at the expense of others, it may lead to a polarization of society, with ethnically heterogeneous societies being the most vulnerable. Another popular criticism of education is its heavy reliance on Western information, technologies, pedagogy, and philosophies. This is especially evident in higher education such as colleges or universities, and if left unchecked, will make younger generations more susceptible to Western or global culture and may be responsible for weakening their cultural roots and traditional values. One economic criticism is that poverty-stricken families may begin by borrowing heavily to send their children to universities in the hope of giving them the means to a better life. However, when job scarcity becomes chronic, these families sink deeper into debt, thus creating a downward spiral.

Flipping through a popular news magazine recently, I came across two glossy images of Southeast Asia. The first was a beautifully composed photograph of weather-beaten Thai farmers in oversized straw hats bending over terraced rice fields. The second image was a close-up snapshot, washed in a fashionable blue tint, of an urban Chinese professional in a sharp business suit barking into his mobile phone as he navigated the metropolitan city. While close to caricature, these two contrasting images capture several truths about the region.

Firstly, the region's history of uneven economic development has resulted in extremes. In the city the rich are never too far from the poor while throbbing cities are never too far from half-empty dusty villages. Secondly, from Philippines to Indonesia to Thailand to Singapore the experience of modernization is a subjective one. Southeast Asia's modernization experience has been informed by the cultural, religious, and political facets of its many national constituents. Islam, semi-democratic, and authoritarian states, ethnic interests, and cultural values all influence the way modernization is conceived as well as the perception of promises and threats it holds for society at large. Thirdly, the two images underline not only the close geographical but also psychological and normative proximity between the old and the new, between the rural and the urban, between tradition and modernity in Southeast Asia. The lifestyles and values of many Southeast Asians are neither anchored completely in the rural or the traditional nor do they unfold exclusively in the urban or modern. The Southeast Asian must learn to negotiate different conceptual worlds from the religious, the ethnic, and the cultural to the professional, the cosmopolitan, and the global. Given these unique political, social, and cultural conditions, will a Southeast Asian modernity emerge?

A SOUTHEAST ASIAN MODERNITY?

One major question concerning many Southeast Asian intellectuals and thinkers is: can Southeast Asia ever become modern on its own terms?