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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria University of Wellington. Vol. 24, No. 5. 1961

The Danger of Chauvinism

The Danger of Chauvinism

Unfortunately, emphasis on the indigenous component in Southeast Asian history carries the danger of chauvinism, which would have the historian say nothing which does not contribute to the glory of the "nation," whatever that means. In Southeast Asia, what we are pleased now to call nations are often simply conglomerations of disparate peoples living within boundaries laid down for colonial administrative convenience. In consequence, there is a high risk of defection and instability. Hence the governments ruling over these groups are prone to demand that historians write nothing which does not contribute to the national image they can concerned to sell to maintain their authority. This, Perhaps, is Where Asian Historians at the Moment Differ from their Western Counterparts: it Requires more Courage to be Objective in the Writing of History in Asia than it does in the West.

The transgressor finds that passports to leave the country to attend courses or conferences abroad are impossible or difficult to get; he is not given the fellowships, etc., dispensed by international bodies to governments for distribution among their nationals; he is not placed on the committees which are concerned with cultural affairs ol one kind or another.

Instead, all these perquisites go to the sycophants who never criticise the bureaucrasy, or the "nation." Of course, objective writing gives a historian recognition by the international world of scholarship, but this often has to be his consolation for being without honour in his own country.