Nation-Building in Post-Colonial Asia: Retrospective and Prospective Assessment The profound transformations experienced by Asian societies during the

last century are intimately connected with the European colonial domination in the region which roughly began in the 16th century in Goa (India) and had its symbolic closure with the hand over of Macau in late 1999. During this period a significant number of peoples and cultures came under the territorial and political control of European powers. The process of decolonisation which took pace after the second world war has certainly met with the aspirations of self-rule but, at the same time, has led to a geopolitical insertion of the new political entities within a neo-colonial structure characterised by an unbalanced centre-periphery relationship and the injunctions of the Cold War. The processes of political freedom from colonial and neo-colonial domination have given a major impetus for the development of distinctive forms of nationalisms in Asia. If, on he one hand, Asian nationalisms present a complexity which resists any attempt to reduced them to mere reactions to external intervention, on the other, they are part and parcel of project of building and re-building nations which cannot be understood without a proper assessment of the colonial and neo-colonial experiments. In fact, whether articulating pre-colonial unities or a plurality of them under institutions and ideologies inherited or assimilated during the colonial and neo-colonial encounters, nationalism has played an important and insubstituable role in re-defining and re-constructing territorially, socially and politically the ancient cultures of Asia. The intimate relation between nation-building and nationalism in Asia emerges therefore as a result of a unique conjunction of traditional local elements with external adventitious inputs. The first accounts for the survival or reviving of ancient forms of self-ruling and human behaviour whereas the second addresses the need to revise them at the light of the modern requirements of political survival in an expanded world. The diversity of pre-colonial cultural formations and the diversity of and reaction to the projects of colonial and neo-colonial domination by Portuguese, French, Dutch and British and North-American explains, to a certain extend, the development of a myriad of nationalisms in the region, which rang from liberalism to religious fundamentalisms, sometimes drawing substantive

elements from classical modernity other times opposing it. Cultural and regional diversity within a particular political unit has also fuelled the growth of subnationalisms, "little nationalisms" and supra-nationalisms which keep a tense relationship with national hegemonic projects. In this backdrop, the Project proposes to address the various aspects involved in nation building and nationalism in Asia in the 20th century with emphasis on the role of the colonial and post-colonial heritage in the South, Southeast and East Asia. Special attention would be given to the impact of globalisation and the perspectives for the 21st century. For its symbolic role as the first colonial power to reach Asia and the last to leave it, a special workshop will be conducted on Portuguese colonialism with special reference to comparative aspects relating to the various types of nationalisms and subnationalisms developed in areas of Portuguese domination such as Goa (India), Timor and Macau (China). The last cases are on-going processes, a fact which lends the whole exercise an interesting didactic character. Among the major themes which would be the focus of the Project we could list the following. 1. Nationalism as an ideology of political domination and the role of the state in building or re-building the nation. In the 20th century, nationalism is found to be associated with political systems ranging from political absolutism, theocracy, military dictatorship, liberal democracy and varieties of socialisms. Thus, despite the anti-imperial postures adopted by Asian political elites, nationalisms have not been necessarily producers of democratic orders. On the other hand, hegemonic nationalisms have received strong opposition by great varieties of sub-nationalisms which seek to eradicate arbitrary and artificial elements of the former. 2. The traditional socio-economic structures of collective and hierarchical character and the individualistic, equalitarian and globalised tendencies of modernity. The introduction of capitalism in Asia in its mercantilist and industrial varieties, has certainly had a strong impact on traditional and stratified forms of social organisation but it has also been influenced by the later. Various types of social movements in the region, particularly those fomented by subnationalisms, are distinctively based on traditional patrimonial relations whether by supporting or challenging them.

3. Colonial and neo-colonial cultural encounters and the foundation of Asian nationalisms. It is generally assumed that Asian cultures did survive the challenge of colonial policies of assimilation and discrimination and have preserve a certain cultural identity after the colonial interlude was over. Yet, if it is true that in most cases contemporary Asian societies are not new cultural entities, on the other one has to acknowledge that a certain degree of incorporation of external motifs took place. Almost invariably, cultural renaissances were a result of re-vision of traditional values - particularly those conveyed by religious schemes - under the scrutiny of external paradigms. Issues such as citizenship and human, gender and minority rights rights are, in a way or another, related to the need to evolve new political unities out of traditional cultures and values. A special attention could be devoted to the role of diasporas in this dynamics of cultural interaction. 4. The role of literary production in Asian nation building and nationalism. Post-colonial literature in Asia present some basic orientations which make it an important protagonist of the process of constructing new political unities. First, it undertakes the critique of colonial mentalities. Second, it re-writes the pre-colonial, colonial and neo-colonial past according to revised paradigms. Third, it tries to highlight the constants of particular cultures. And four, it is essentially fictional as long as long as it tries to anticipate and problematise a common cultural ground for the new political units. 5. Geopolitics and Globalisation. Colonialism and postcolonialism was instrumental in incorporating in definitive the Asian continent into the wider frame of world affairs. It was also an major cause for the territorial re-organisation which followed the political processes of independence in the region. After playing the subservient role of a peripheral region until the end of the Cold War, Asia looks at the 21st century and the overall process of globalisation and re-ordination of international relations as an opportunity to ensure for itself a place of prominence in the global scenario. On the other hand, globalisation has prompted a reassement of nationalisms in Asia with antinomic orientations. While challenging narrow nationalisms - particularly those marked by an anti-colonial tone - it prompts either a healthy renewal of their fundamentals or a radicalisation which docks at all sorts of fundamentalisms.