Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T07:45:20.614Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Race, Language, and National Cohesion in Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

Lee Yong Leng
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Southeast Asian states are often referred to as “nations” (for example, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN), thus implying that the peoples of each state form only one national group and are easily distinguished and characterized. In fact, more often than not, each population of the various states shows not only differences of nationality but also many other differences. Among these factors of differentiation, the political geographer attaches particular importance to the two factors of language and nationality. These two cultural factors are elements of the “state-idea” and can affect the cohesion and strength of a state. All the newly independent states of Southeast Asia are seeking to establish their state-ideas and, i n the analysis of each state's population, these two factors can throw much light on the cohesion, functioning, and viability of that particular state.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 1980 , pp. 122 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

This article was submitted to the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies in Sept. 1979.

1 For historical details, see Fisher, C.A., Southeast Asia, (London, 1967).Google Scholar

2 E.g., see Leng, Lee Yong, Population and Settlement in Sarawak (Singapore, 1970)Google Scholar; Sandhu, K.S., Indians in Malaya (London, 1969)Google Scholar; Jackson, J.C., Planters and Speculators (Kuala Lumpur, 1968)Google Scholar.

3 Mabbett, Hugh and Mabbett, Ping-Ching, The Chinese in Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, Minority Rights Group, Report No. 10, 1972.Google Scholar

4 Leng, Lee Yong, “Southeast Asia: The Political Geography of Economic Imbalance”, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie (in press).Google Scholar

5 Mabbett, and Mabbett, , op. cit.Google Scholar

6 Heidhues, Mary F.S., Southeast Asia's Chinese Minorities (Hawthorn, Victoria, 1974).Google Scholar

7 Third Malaysia Plan, 1976-1980. Kuala Lumpur, 1976, p. 180.Google Scholar

8 “The Exodus and the Agony”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 22 Dec. 1978, pp. 8–13.Google Scholar

9 There are now 57,900 Vietnamese “boat people” in the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Most of them are in offshore island camps, and Pulau Bidohg alone has 30,000 of them. Although they are not welcome, they still keep coming every day; Straits Times, 11 Apr. 1979, p. 1.Google Scholar

10 Economist. 3 Mar. 1979, p. 55.Google Scholar

11 For historical details, see Fisher, , op. cit.Google Scholar

12 For a fuller account of Singapore's sociolinguistic profile from the viewpoint of a sociologist, see Kuo, Eddie C.Y., “A Sociolinguistic Profile”, in Singapore: Society in Transition, ed. Hassan, Riaz (Kuala Lumpur, 1976), pp. 134–48.Google Scholar

13 Mabbett, and Mabbett, , op. cit., p. 8.Google Scholar

14 Tagalog is the mother tongue for about 21% of the population (Cebuano about 24%), but it is much more widely spoken as an intergroup language than Cebuano.

15 Malay has long been the most important language in intergroup communication in Singapore, and the choice of Malay as the national language is more than just a mere token gesture.

16 Hartshorne, Richard, “The Functional Approach in Political Geography”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 40, no. 2 (1950): 95–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 For the development of the following ideas, see Muir, Richard, Modern Political Geography (London, 1975). p. 5Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., p. 98.