Achievement and Failure of Sea Movements
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ACHIEVEMENT/ FAILURE OF PREWAR NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS
In the political arena, nationalist movements failed.
In areas like cultural/ religious, it was more of a success.
Achievements
Defending indigenous culture and traditions
Armed conflict against colonial regime
Ability to gain mass support
Forging national unity
Failure
Failure of nationalist movements to prevent majority of nationalist movements from being crushed
Achievements
Defending indigenous culture and traditions
One of the aims of many pre-war nationalist movements was to protect their cultural and traditions.
They felt that the Western ideas brought about by the colonial powers were corrupting their traditional way of life and that nationalist movement was set up to help to preserve the traditional values of village living.
As a result, many nationalist movements looked at ways to fortify their culture which included the use of traditional indigenous languages.
For example in Burma(1916), YMBA protested the manner in which Europeans entered monasteries with their footwear on.
Many of the Burmese felt that the Europeans were disrespecting their culture and tradition in the 1916 footwear controversy.
Success here could be seen in 1918 when the British colonial administration ruled that abbots had the right to determine the appropriate attire in their monasteries in places of worship.
In Cambodia in 1941, the French attempted to promote progress in the use of the Khmer language.
This policy triggered a sharp response from the Cambodian monks who felt that it was an attack on the traditions of the Khmer population.
Despite French efforts to push through their policies through the use of education and official documentation, they failed and the Romanization of the Khmer language in a failure.
LINK: thus, it could be seen that some SEA nationalist movements were successful in preventing the invasion of colonial languages and traditions, signaling a success.
EVALUATION: This could arguably, be the most significant achievement that nationalism had achieved during the pre-war era. Indeed, there were many nationalist organizations being set up for religious, cultural purposes. In addition, this can be considered an achievement because the colonials not only did not see this as a threat to their rule; they even encouraged the growth of such nationalist movements. This can be seen in Malaya, where the British sought to encourage such cultural movements for fear that repression will lead to further more radical movements. Thus, the flourishing of such movements during pre-war nationalism meant that it was its greatest achievement
Armed conflict against colonial regime
Some nationalist movements were successful in carrying out armed conflicts against the colonial regimes, despite the military superiority.
The success here could be seen in nationalist movements being able to sustain the anti colonial movement over a long period of time.
For example in Indonesia (1925), the PKI embarked on a course of violent revolution and disrupted the key industries of Java and Sumatra.
Although the strikes were forcefully put down, it can be deemed to be an achievement because PKI sustained itself for a couple of years despite being under heavy suppression by the Dutch authorities.
In addition, in Burma, the Saya San Rebellion (1930) in which the rebels attacked evidences of British colonial rule which included police post, rubber plantations and even collaborating village headmen.
The rebellion was an achievement because it was able to force the British to bring in additional reinforcement from India to suppress it.
Furthermore, the Saya San Rebellion also managed to awaken public opinion in the country and dealt a severe blow to the prestige of the British colonial government.
LINK: It could be seen that the ability to sustain armed involvement against the colonial could be qualified as an achievement due to the overwhelming force that the colonial military possessed.
EVALUATION: Then again, this achievement could not be said to be the most important one that the nationalists achieved. This is because, for the little successes that they had, there were also many failures in which they were severely defeated by the colonial army. This could be seen in the failure of many uprising including the Yen Bai uprising (1930-1931), Nghe-Tinh rebellion in Vietnam in the same year and also the failed Indo-Chinese Party strikes in 1926-1927. Thus, the presence of many failures when it came to resisting the colonial powers via the use of force meant that this was certainly not the most significant achievement.
Ability to gain mass support
Gaining mass support is an unstated aim of all nationalist organizations as with more supporters, the organization status and power will thus be increased.
In most cases in pre-war era, it was often the traditional movement that had the ability to garner mass support as they often ride on traditional