NOVANEWS
Benedict Anderson (1936–2015) was the Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Government and Asian Studies at Cornell University, New York. He passed away in Indonesia on December 13th 2015 at the age of 79.
He will be remembered long and well for his contribution to the study of nationalism, which had its impact in several disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. A polyglot, his most well-known work, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism,first published in 1983 was to prove to be one of the most thought-provoking books in the study of nationalism for decades to come. In this work he argued for the nation as an “imagined political community” that came into being through an interplay between capitalism and the printing press, among others. It was print that allowed for the spread of an overarching identity and discourses across differing languages that allowed for the generation of the idea of a nation. His work did not stop at imagining the community of the nation but rather extended to critiques of orthodoxies in Anglo-American scholarship as well as Western logic and rationality more broadly, as Ariel Heryanto pointed out.
A Marxist and anti-colonial scholar, in his “Cornell Paper,” he spoke of the anti-Communist purges in Indonesia of 1955-56, undauntingly, recording for posterity the massacre of over 500,000 people. This work led to a subsequent ban on his entry to Indonesia, a ban that was eventually lifted in 1988. When Anderson returned to Indonesia, Scott Sherman described the event thus:
“At a luxury hotel in downtown Jakarta, the sixty-two-year-old Anderson, wearing a light shirt and slacks to combat the stifling heat, faced a tense, expectant audience of three hundred generals, senior journalists, elderly professors, former students, and curiosity seekers. In fluent Indonesian, he lashed the political opposition for its timidity and historical amnesia—especially with regard to the massacres of 1965-1966.”
This then, was Anderson and his commitment to progressive political change made him, as Kevin Hewison, a professor of politics and international studies at Murdoch University, remarked, an “icon for scholars”, particularly those who worked on South-East Asia, especially Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.
Anderson’s view of the nation, too, stemmed from this progressive position, wherein he saw people working through critical fraternities. He said, “In an age when it is so common for progressive, cosmopolitan intellectuals … to insist on the near-pathological character of nationalism, its roots in fear and hatred of the Other, and its affinities with racism, it is useful to remind ourselves that nations inspire love, and often profoundly self-sacrificing love.” Anderson’s words in Imagined Communities are a timely reminder for us, at the present in India. When there is a tremendous pressure exerted to produce the nation as belonging only to some and not others, it is the link that love and fraternity may produce for all, that we must honour. We salute his legacy of support to the Communist Party of Indonesia, his progressive politics and his vision of nations as fraternities of people, which allowed all equal space, right and vision.
