The Making and Remaking of a National People’s Hero and Exemplar in Mongolia’s Socialist, Nationalist and Democratic Mobilisations

This paper examines the case of Ard Ayush [the commoner Ayush], a widely recognised national hero constructed in the socialist movement and an exemplar who survived the post-socialist rejection of socialist heroes and was reconstructed within the post-socialist democratic and nationalist movements. The paper’s title borrows the notion of a ‘national people’ from David Sneath and the notion of the ‘exemplar’ from Caroline Humphrey. Extending Sneath’s discussion of ard [commoner and/or people] and ard tümen [national people], this paper shows how the concept of ard that was constructed through the use of exemplars has become ard tümen. Then, extending Humphrey’s discussion of the moral influence of exemplars, this paper shows how some exemplars constructed during socialism helped the socialist government shape and govern a national people.

Islamism, Islamic Modernism and the Search for Modern Authenticity in an Imaginary Past

How to be authentically modern? This was the pervasive question behind the ideological elaborations of numerous religious and nationalist movements toward the end of the nineteenth century. Many of them attempted to find the answer in an imaginary past. This article claims that Islamist movements are not an exception, but rather an affirmation of this rule. The orientation towards a “golden age” of Islam and its allegedly authentic Islamic way of life has been a crucial feature of Islamist thought across all national, sectarian and ideological divides. The article traces this invocation of the past historically back to the construction of specifically Islamic forms of modernity by representatives of Islamic modernism in the second half of the nineteenth century. Interpreting their modernist thought in the context of more global nineteenth-century concepts and narratives, the article argues from a comparative perspective that Islamic modernism laid the foundations for the ways in which Islamist thinkers have constructed both individual and collective forms of Muslim identities.

Violence, Identity, and Alterity: Post-War Rhetoric of Sri Lanka’s Bodu Bala Sena

<p>The Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Strength Army) is a Sinhalese nationalist movement led by Buddhist monks that recently came to international prominence following a 2014 anti-Muslim rally that erupted into deadly violence. The Bodu Bala Sena is set apart from earlier nationalist movements in that its hostility is primarily directed towards Sri Lankan Muslims instead of Tamil separatists. Despite this difference I argue that the Bodu Bala Sena is best considered as a new development in this existing tradition of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, and that the re-orientation of the Bodu Bala Sena’s hostility from Tamils to Muslims reveals the extent to which Sinhalese nationalist conceptions of their own identity are built around various interpretations of a particular “identity narrative.” This identity narrative, which has its genesis in anti-colonial interpretations of the Mahavamsa, casts the Sinhalese people as defenders of a sacred island (the dhammadipa) against impious foreign invaders who threaten its unity and sanctity. The case of the Bodu Bala Sena demonstrates both the ongoing relevance of this identity narrative in the post-war era and, importantly, the availability of the narrative for contextual re-interpretation. The identity narrative model, which incorporates both mythic origins and contextual interpretation, helps to bridge some of the existing debates on the nature and origins of Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka which tend to favour either one or the other.</p>

Violence, Identity, and Alterity: Post-War Rhetoric of Sri Lanka’s Bodu Bala Sena

<p>The Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Strength Army) is a Sinhalese nationalist movement led by Buddhist monks that recently came to international prominence following a 2014 anti-Muslim rally that erupted into deadly violence. The Bodu Bala Sena is set apart from earlier nationalist movements in that its hostility is primarily directed towards Sri Lankan Muslims instead of Tamil separatists. Despite this difference I argue that the Bodu Bala Sena is best considered as a new development in this existing tradition of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, and that the re-orientation of the Bodu Bala Sena’s hostility from Tamils to Muslims reveals the extent to which Sinhalese nationalist conceptions of their own identity are built around various interpretations of a particular “identity narrative.” This identity narrative, which has its genesis in anti-colonial interpretations of the Mahavamsa, casts the Sinhalese people as defenders of a sacred island (the dhammadipa) against impious foreign invaders who threaten its unity and sanctity. The case of the Bodu Bala Sena demonstrates both the ongoing relevance of this identity narrative in the post-war era and, importantly, the availability of the narrative for contextual re-interpretation. The identity narrative model, which incorporates both mythic origins and contextual interpretation, helps to bridge some of the existing debates on the nature and origins of Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka which tend to favour either one or the other.</p>

The international and domestic fabrics of an ideological illusion: the Socialist MPLA

A caracterização politico-ideológica e a análise dos movimentos nacionalistas An The political-ideological characterization and analysis of Angolan nationalist movements and the conflicts between them, has always been subject of major and passionate political-academic discussion, which became an important component of the nationalist movements’ international and domestic characterization and definition. The MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) rapidly acquired the epithet of leftist, Socialist and Marxist since the anti-colonial struggle through the independence and afterwards. However, during the so-called founding period of an officially proclaimed Socialist MPLA, in an apparent contradiction, the MPLA’s governing practice went objectively in an opposite direction, while still reinforcing that unquestioned epithet of Socialist. It is here argued that foreign attributed classifications (political and academic), influenced by the passionate political-idological struggles of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the civil war and the Cold War, ended up diplomatically-politically assumed (instrumentalised) by the movement itself, whereby an illusive characterization/identification prevailed, hampering a more objective analysis of the post-independence political practice. Our paper will focus on the contrast between the academic discussion on the political-ideological characterization of the MPLA (part I) and the governing practice of the party during the administration of the first President of the Republic, which was the founding period of the MPLA as a so-called Marxist-Leninist Socialist party (part II). Keywords: Angola; MPLA; Socialism; Agostinho Neto administration; political orientation. golanos, assim como os conflitos entre eles, foi sempre sujeita a apaixonadas discussões politico-académicas, que se tornaram um importante componente da definição doméstica e internacional dos movimentos nacionalistas. O MPLA rapidamente adquiriu o epíteto de esquerdista, Socialista e Marxista desde a luta anti-colonial, durante o processo da independência e depois da independência. No entanto, numa aparente contradição, durante o designado período fundacional de um oficialmente proclamado MPLA, a prática politico-governativa do partido prosseguiu numa direção oposta, ao mesmo tempo que reforçava o epíteto de Socialista. Este texto argumenta que as classificações atribuídas a partir de fora (políticas e académicas), influenciadas pelas apaixonadas lutas politico-ideológicas das décadas de 1950, 1960 e 1970, a guerra-civil e os alinhamentos da ‘Guerra Fria’, acabaram assumidos (instrumentalizado) pelo próprio movimento/partido, num processo mediante o qual prevaleceu uma ilusória caracterização/definição ideológica, obstaculizando uma análise mais objectiva da prática política do pós-independência. Este texto focar-se-á no contraste entre a discussão académica acerca da caracterização político-ideológica do MPLA (parte I) e a prática governativa do partido durante a administração do primeiro Presidente da República, consistindo no período fundacional do MPLA enquanto partido Socialista Marxista-Leninista (part II).

Unfinished Revolutions

This article examines Wei Beihua's modernist works, which have receded into the shadows of Sinophone Malayan (Mahua) literary history, in relation to Indonesian poet Chairil Anwar, to excavate a neglected route of transculturation at the height of Southeast Asia's nationalist movements during the 1950s. Unlike Anwar's modernist poems that thrive in Indonesia, Wei Beihua's works were considered outliers during a period when realist literature was deemed an effective tool for social mobilization in postwar Malaya. Nonetheless, it is critical for us to recognize that Wei Beihua did not reject realism or underestimate the role of literature in nation building. This article argues that Wei Beihua's idea of modernism is premised on an artist's affective and self-reflexive engagement with realism, which gives rise to a dialectical tension. The tension between his advocacy of an artist's individualism, which is inspired by Anwar, and the impetus of responding to nationalism manifests in his meta-fictional short stories that reflect on the varying motivations behind art creation. His works offer a productive perspective to reconsider the modernist artist's role during revolution and “the limits of realism” of revolutionary works when art was deemed integral to nation building in postwar Southeast Asia.

Conclusion

The last chapter looks at the research and policy implications of the theory of secessionism sketched in this book. The chapter argues that nationalist movements will continue to be enduring components of some liberal-democratic states. Hence, states should consider these movements as democratic actors whose claims require continuous responses rather than as troublemakers bringing problems that should be solved once and for all. The chapter also comes back to the cases examined in the book in order to analyse the impact of the state’s approach to autonomy for the internal national community and for the multinational country as a whole, and to discuss the potential consequences of the implementation of one or the other form of autonomy for unity.

Introduction

The first chapter explains the contributions of the book to the literature on nationalism. The first is to highlight the importance of the interplay between nationalist movements and the state for understanding a nationalist movement. The second is to emphasize temporality in the accommodation of nationalist movements as the key dimension for explaining why nationalism sometimes becomes strongly secessionist while other times it does not. The third contribution is to highlight the divided nature of nationalist movements. The book’s fourth contribution is a conceptual innovation about autonomy. It distinguishes between static autonomy, which corresponds to permanent autonomy arrangements, and dynamic autonomy, which features autonomy arrangements that are, or can be, laterally adjusted or enhanced in time. This conceptual distinction represents the building blocks for sketching a theory about secessionism in liberal democracies. Such a theory is the fifth contribution of this book. This theory is that static autonomy stimulates secessionism while dynamic autonomy staves it off.

Nationalism and Secessionism

At the turn of the twentieth century, nationalist movements in Western democracies were not expected to feature strong secessionism. Catalonia and Scotland defied this expectation while Flanders and South Tyrol conformed to it. This divergence is the starting point for this chapter, which sets up the controlled comparison. The chapter discusses how to account for the strength of secessionism within nationalist movements in liberal-democratic contexts using historical institutionalism to build a framework where the nature of autonomy, more specifically its capacity to evolve in time, determines if a nationalist movement has a strong secessionist stream or not. It offers a conceptual innovation, distinguishing between static and dynamic autonomy. It lays out the expectation for the relationship between autonomy and secessionism analysed in the four case studies of the controlled comparison: static autonomy should stimulate secessionism because it reduces self-determination options to the status quo and independence while dynamic autonomy should weaken secessionism, since it involves on-going adjustments to the evolving identity and interests of the internal national community as defined by its political class. The chapter also discusses the research design for the controlled comparison and details the process-tracing methodology used to see how the nature of autonomy has impacted the self-determination claims of four nationalist movements in Western democracies.