Ethnicity and nationalism @ Issue contents

ABSTRACT This paper studies how ethnicity has influenced the construction of nationalism in two political movements that took place in Sarawak, a former British colony in North Borneo. It analyzes the discourse of colonialism, freedom and independence that revolved around two movements namely the anti-cession movement and the underground communist movement, controlled respectively by the ethnic Malay and Chinese in Sarawak. A comparison of these two movements is made by looking at the fundamental differences between two movements and the way the British’s responses to them. In the analysis, local political developments as well as transnational links are taken into consideration as this paper assumes that transnational exposure was instrumental in shaping local nationalism. In doing so, the paper intends to explain the domination of ethnic nationalism in political discourse and institution of Sarawak.