Eric Hobsbawm, Nationalism And Debolism

Eric Hobsbawm did not see nations as naturally occurring ideas, but rather as deliberately engineered; thus leading to the unequal development of national consciousness amongst social groups and different regions. As a Marxist historian, Hobsbawm contended that the “national consciousness” often leaves out the popular masses, even though they are the group most talked about within nationalistic rhetoric. While this idea raises relevant points, I do not believe it is universally applicable, as especially within post-colonial states it become difficult to tell the elite from the masses, the oppressor from the oppressed. Moreover, his ideas do not account for whether the group willingly accepted such identities, rather than it merely being a false-consciousness

Smith and John Armstrong are considered ethnosymbolist. They move beyond Hobsbawm, Billig, and Hearman, who view symbolism as important to the nation, but as an inherent aspect of ethnicity, which then forms the nation. Smith also sees nationalism is a product of the modern international order of nation states and would not exist without such a system. However, while he views nations as a modern construct, he argues that they are rooted in pre-existing, pre-modern ethnic cores. Likewise, Armstrong argues that nations form out of underlying factors, namely politics and religion. However, there are some flaws with his particular arguments. Armstrong maintains that “artificial” nationalism do not work, for the nation is an inherently organic institution, but this fails to account for the formation and often success of post-colonial nation-states, such as Indonesia. Furthermore, Armstrong attempts to create a unifying theory, but these are often easily disproven. For example, Armstrong argues that Islam created a unified nationalism among its followers. However, my case study of Southeast Asia proves, this is not the case. Islam was spread throughout Maritime Southeast Asia through traders. Consequentially, local interpretations of Islam created different customs and practices in each of its locations. Furthermore, Michael Laffan provides clear proof that the Arab-base of the Islamic World viewed Muslims from Southeast Asia as ignorant and often poor practitioners of their faith. They certainly did not view all Muslims as part of the same