Paper 2 Essay

National Unity

How Southeast Asian states used language, education, and religion to build national unity, and how minority and separatist groups resisted.

Language and Education

Burma pursued a Burmese-language policy (textbooks in 1958, higher education in 1964), but it was limited by minority resistance.
The Philippines introduced bilingual education in 1974; Moro and Igorot groups felt separate from the national identity.
Indonesia used Bahasa Indonesia as the medium of instruction and built civic identity through Pancasila education (a 1961 law, and Pancasila moral education from 1975).
Vietnam made Marxist-Leninist and Ho Chi Minh courses compulsory.
Indonesia pushed the assimilation of the Chinese (the 1959 rural business law, ID cards, and a quota system).
Thailand's Phibun introduced a Thai Customs Act in 1944 against Malay dress, language, and Muslim teaching.

Irian Jaya and East Timor - separatist movements against Indonesian rule.
Karen National Union - a minority insurgency in Burma.
MNLF - the Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines, met with a Marcos military response.
Patani Muslims - organised in the BRN (1963) and PULO (1968).
Tanjung Priok affair (1984) - a clash over the supremacy of Pancasila versus Islam.