Imagined Communities

"I’d say of all the books the list I gave you, if one of your readers were thinking about just picking up one, this would be it. Anderson created a whole new genre of historiography with this book. He’s just a wonderful guy, still teaching at NYU I guess, who decided in the early eighties to go back and do the archaeology on where nations come from. He didn’t just accept France as France or Britain as Britain. He went back and put dates and names on the origins of these things which we call nations. He talks about how capricious the beginnings often where, how unlikely, and gets under the skin of the whole concept known as nationalism. Now the reason why this book is on my list is that one can’t talk intelligently about the nature of war or civil war unless one grasps how powerful the influence of the nation really is. Everybody thinks love of country is great. It’s great to be patriotic. And to die for your country is of course traditionally considered to be noble. But for your ethnic group or your tribe or, god forbid, for your family – that’s considered to be pretty low brow, a low level affiliation. But here’s Benedict Anderson with his brilliant book and he’s saying essentially that the nation, for which it is noble to die, is a fantasy founded in accident. I called him the ‘expansive voice of the scholar of systems’ because he’s looking at the underlying trestle upon which Britain and France, for example, rest upon. Exactly. Books are written, newspapers printed, and of course maps drawn. Somebody, at some point, gets out his pencil and the question is always who’s behind that pencil? Which takes us back to the divided city. Who draws the line? In the divided city you always have a line or lines and somebody drew those too. Somebody comes down and fiddles around with the map redistributing identity and territory – and somebody like Anderson is saying, ‘I want to know who was holding that pencil before I get too worked up about what happened after they drew that line.’ So that’s the view that Anderson provides."

"When I was researching Generation HK back in 2015 and 2016, the received wisdom was that young Hong Kongers were upset because of politics – as in the lack of human rights and democracy – or economics, as in the high cost of living and low salaries. These were both important factors driving the Occupy Movement and the wider political awakening that culminated in last year’s mass protests. But I felt that people were overlooking the role of identity, which has acted as both a social glue and a political accelerant in Hong Kong. Hong Kongers aren’t just fighting for abstract concepts but for their homeland and for their fellow Hong Kongers. As a former student of Southeast Asian politics, my thinking was heavily influenced by Benedict Anderson’s seminal study of nationalism. Defining a nation as an “imagined political community”, he argues that it was the “deep, horizontal comradeship” of nationalism that “makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings”. I remembered these words last year when I heard of teenagers in Hong Kong going out to fight the police with sticks and shields in their hands and their last will and testament in their pocket. “You could say that the definition of activism is working toward seemingly impossible goals” There are many other uncanny parallels in Imagined Communities . Anderson singled out tombs of the Unknown Solider as emblematic of the modern culture of nationalism. During last year’s protests, Hong Kongers set up shrines to unknown activists who were believed to have died at the hands of the city’s unhinged police force. Whether Beijing likes it or not, Hong Kongers are imagining themselves as a distinct community of people that cuts through space and time, life and death. Hong Kong’s struggle mirrors the anti-colonial movements of Southeast Asia in the first half of the twentieth century, which Anderson documents so well. Just like Western imperial powers then, Beijing today believes that its repression will eradicate opposition by a “minority of troublemakers”. But it is instead having the opposite effect. When a handful of Hong Kongers started booing the Chinese national anthem at football matches, Beijing made it illegal to do so. Then Hong Kongers wrote their own protest anthem, which has been sung by millions in the city and around the world. Now the authorities are creating a new generation of (mostly young) political prisoners and exiles and in doing so they risk creating new nodes of opposition and new stories of resistance. In the flames of conflict, an ever stronger Hong Kong identity is being forged – a nation without a state. Indonesia has been called “the world’s biggest invisible object” because there is probably no other country that is so large and so important yet so little understood in the outside world. How many foreigners could even find it on a map? As the world’s fourth most populous nation, a G20 economy, and a vibrant if flawed democracy, Indonesia will play a key role in determining how the balance of power in Asia is settled between an assertive China and a wounded US. More than that, Indonesia is a fascinating, beautiful country and its leader, Joko Widodo, is a compelling character who rose to the presidency from humble origins and has transformed himself into a powerful insider. Jokowi, as he is known, reflects the contradictions of modern Indonesia, caught between democracy and authoritarianism, Islam and pluralism, openness and protectionism. Like Hong Kong and many other Southeast Asian nations, Jokowi’s Indonesia is still trying to find its way forward from a troubled legacy of colonialism and dictatorial rule. At the same time, it is also struggling to work out how to live in China’s shadow, although geographical distance and national sovereignty mean that Indonesia’s challenge is far easier than the challenges facing Hong Kong. My favourite place in Hong Kong is the little-visited Mai Po wetlands in the far northwest of the city. It’s a beautiful nature reserve and as far away as you can get from bustling, hustling, urban Hong Kong. The mangroves are well protected and get some impressive birds stopping over on their long migratory routes. The flip-side of Hong Kong’s crazy urban density is that the authorities have carved out spaces like this to provide some respite and tranquillity. But, fittingly, mainland China still looms large over Mai Po. While the skyscrapers of Shenzhen tower above, the kingfishers, herons and spoonbills forage in the muddy waters below."