Merdeka for Malaya: Imagining Independence across the British Empire

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Rice
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Independent State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
New Nation ◽  
Malayan Emergency

In his chapter on ‘Merdeka for Malaya: Imagining Independence Across the British Empire’, Tom Rice explores how this film produced by the Malayan Film Unit in 1957 portrays Malaya’s path to independence. Through this case study, Rice brings relevant nuances to the accepted discourse of change between the colonial and post-colonial periods. He demonstrates that both the film and the film infrastructure reveal a continued British influence, although they also validate the transition to an independent state. In his argument, the process of independence as it is recorded on film remains mainly idealised and conceals tensions for the sake of the project of imagining the new nation. Rice also Focuses on the period of the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960), and the Malayan Film Unit.

The What-Has-Been and the Now of a Communist Past in Malaya in the Films of Amir Muhammad

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-65
Author(s):  
Carlo Bonura
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Village People ◽  
Communist Past ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Malayan Emergency ◽  
The Village ◽  
Communism Today ◽  
Aesthetic Forms

This article considers two films by the Malaysian filmmaker Amir Muhammad, The Last Communist of 2006 and the Village People Radio Show of 2007. Both films are focused on the Malayan Emergency and the lives of a small group of Malayan communists. Through an engagement with Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Storyteller,” the analysis in this article examines the aesthetic forms that structure Amir’s films, namely nonlinear narratives, intertextuality, and the use of images and stories as comparative frames. This article argues that Amir’s films enable audiences to recognize how the truth of a communist past in Malaysia, both of its politics and suppression, inflects the present. The films provide an opening to recognize how the absence of communism today is the effect of the ideological clearing of all leftism that became the hallmark of the end of the British Empire in Malaysia. Communism is made meaningful in Amir’s films both as a lived experience and as a displacement that is absent from the postcolonial everyday.

scholarly journals Understanding Currents and Theories in Indian and African Postcolonial Literature: Themes, Tropes and Discourse in the Wider Context of Postcolonialism

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-393
Author(s):  
Shivani Ekkanath
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Postcolonial Literature ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Colonial Literature ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Diasporic Identity ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Diaspora And Transnationalism

The postcolonial narratives we see today are a study in contrast and tell a different tale from their colonial predecessors as minorities and individuals finally have found the voice and position to tell their stories. Histories written about our culture and societies have now found a new purpose and voice. The stories we have passed down from generation to generation through both oral and written histories, continue to morph and change with the tide of time as they re-centre our cultural narratives and shared experiences. As a result, the study of diaspora and transnationalism have altered the way in which we view identity in different forms of multimedia and literature. In this paper, the primary question which will be examined is, how and to what extent does Indian post-colonial literature figure in the formation of identity in contemporary art and literature in the context of ongoing postcolonial ideas and currents? by means of famous and notable postcolonial literary works and theories of Indian authors and theoreticians, with a special focus on the question and notion of identity. This paper works on drawing parallels between themes in Indian and African postcolonial literary works, especially themes such as power, hegemony, east meets west, among others. In this paper, European transnationalism will also be analysed as a case study to better understand postcolonialism in different contexts. The paper will seek to explore some of the gaps in the study of diasporic identity and postcolonial studies and explore some of the changes and key milestones in the evolution of the discourse over the decades.

Development or dispossession?

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fahreen Alamgir ◽  
George Cairns
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Cultural Construction ◽  
Global Integration ◽  
Global Order ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Post Colonial

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss the discourse of globalisation and its implications in the case of state-owned jute mills (SOJMs) in the post-colonial state of Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach – The authors draw upon a critical debate on the concept of globalisation and critical political economy to revisit the country’s historical, political, social and cultural construction to discuss conditions of its conformity within the global order. Additionally, the perspective of subaltern studies underpins discussion of the context of the post-colonial state. Findings – A schematic analysis of the context surfaces issues that underpin the process of “truth production” and that have contributed to global integration of the Bangladesh economy. We consider how this discourse benefits some people, while over time, the majority are dislocated, excluded and deprived. Hence, this discourse denotes a territorial power of globalism that leads us to conceptualise Bangladesh as a neo-colonial state. Originality/value – Through a case study of SOJMs, this paper contributes to discussion on the essence and implications of the globalisation discourse and on how its methods and techniques reinforce hegemony in the name of development and sustainability in the forms of liberalisation, democratisation and good governance in a state like Bangladesh.

Communalizing Colonial Policies and Postcolonial Ethnic Warfare: A Multimethod Analysis of the British Empire

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-43
Author(s):  
Matthew Lange ◽  
Emre Amasyali ◽  
Tay Jeong
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
Mixed Use ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Indirect Rule

Abstract In this article, we reorient the literature on colonialism and ethnic violence by exploring how different types of communalizing colonial policy (CCP) affected postcolonial patterns of ethnic warfare. We hypothesize that CCPs have limited or mixed effects when they simply recognize or empower communities but that they promote ethnic warfare when explicitly favoring some communities over others, especially when this discrimination affects the power of communities. To test these hypotheses, we combine a statistical analysis of the British Empire with a focused case study of Myanmar. We find that two relatively non-discriminatory CCPs—the use of communal census categories and high levels of indirect rule—had limited or mixed effects on postcolonial ethnic warfare. Unequal communal representation in the legislature and security forces and a mixed use of indirect rule, on the other hand, are three highly discriminatory CCPs, and we provide evidence that they increased the odds of postcolonial ethnic warfare.

Good governance and local autonomy in the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Europe and the Caribbean: An uneasy relationship

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Jaap Woldendorp
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Local Autonomy ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Independent State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Netherlands Antilles ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Overseas Territories

The existence of a specific ministry for overseas territories in the Netherlands — Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties (Interior Affairs and Relations within the Realm or Kingdom) — is the outcome of a few hundred years of (post) colonial history. In the 1970s and 1980s Dutch governments pushed for independence of the Netherlands Antilles and Suriname in order to get rid of the colonial stigma. In 1975, Suriname became an independent state. However, subsequently a combination of factors made decolonization of the Netherlands Antilles unfeasible. The first factor was the experience with the negative developments in Suriname after its independence.

LEGITIMITET VIDOVDANSKOG USTAVA – IDEALIZAM BEZ REALNOG UPORIŠTA

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslav Đorđević ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Independent State ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
The Road ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Election Results ◽  
New Nation ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Political Actions ◽  
First World

The Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (KSHS) of 1921 had for its goal to constitutionalize the organization of the new state, created after the end of the First World War: its organization of government, human and minority rights and freedoms, etc. and also to establish a new nation – the so called "nation with three names" or "three-tribe nation", i.e. – Yugoslavs, as the bearer of the identity of the new state. KSHS was to reconcile not only the nations with different history, mentality and language, but also nations who fought each other fiercely just until a few years back before the adoption of the Vidovdan Constitution. The constitutionalization of a unitary state in which the official language is "Serbo-Croatian-Slovenian" (which as such simply does not exist), ignored clear signals that the essential legitimacy for such state does not exist in a significant part of the country. The analysis of the political activities of the parties, their programs and the election results in the western territories of what was soon to become KSHS (especially in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia – back then within the Austro-Hungary) shows a distinct anti-Serbian and especially anti-Yugoslav narrative since the middle of the 19th century and the political actions of Ante Starčević, Eugen Kvaternik, later Ivo Pilar and others. It is also clear that such chauvinist, extreme political standpoints, present to a far greater extent to be simply ignored, would turn out to be too much of a burden for the new state and nation, as well as for the Vidovdan Constitution itself, indirectly leading to its infamous end, declaration of dictatorship, assassination of King Alexander Karađorđević and finally the disintegration of the state and horrendous atrocities and genocide against Serbs in the Independent state of Croatia (NDH). In a certain way, the Vidovdan Constitution, due to the shortcomings in its legitimacy, traced the road to hell – paved with good intentions.

Co-constituting Fijian identity: the role of constitutions in Fijian national identity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Mudaliar
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
British Colonialism ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Legacy ◽  
Island States ◽  
National Symbols ◽  
Insight Into

This chapter focuses on the role that constitutions play in national identity, particularly in states that are recently independent and constrained by a colonial legacy. It uses Fiji as a case study, exploring how British colonialism influenced conceptions of Fijian national identity in the constitutional texts of 1970, 1990 and 1997. The chapter explores the indigenous ethno-nationalist ideals that underpinned these constitutions, which led to the privileging of indigenous Fijian identity within the wider national identity. However, in 2013, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama introduced a new constitution which shifted away from previous ethno-nationalist underpinnings towards a more inclusive national identity through the promotion of a civic nationalist agenda. In doing so, Bainimarama’s goal of reducing ethnic conflict has seen a constitutional re-imagining of Fijian identity, which includes the introduction of new national symbols, and a new electoral system, alongside equal citizenry clauses within the Constitution. This study offers a unique insight into power and identity within post-colonial island states.

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