& Ting Blackburn NUS PRESS SINGAPORE Women Books on Southeast Asian nationalist movements make very little — if any — mention of women in their ranks. Biographical studies of politically active women in South- inSoutheastAsianNationalistMovements Women in Southeast Asian east Asia are also rare. Women in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements makes a strong case for the signifi cance of women’s involvement in nationalist movements and for the diverse impacts of those movements on the lives of individual women Nationalist Movements activists. Susan Blackburn & Helen Ting, editors Some of the 12 women whose political activities are discussed in this volume are well known, while others are not. Some of them participated in armed struggles, while others pursued peaceful ways of achieving national independence. The authors show women negotiating their own subjectivity and agency at the confl uence of colonialism, patriarchal traditions, and modern ideals of national and personal emancipation. They also illustrate the constraints imposed on them by wider social and political structures, and show what it was like to live as a political activist in different times and places. Fully documented and drawing on wider scholarship, this book will be of interest to students of Southeast Asian history and politics as well as readers with a particular interest in women, nationalism and political activism. PUBLISHED WITH SUPPORT FROM THE NICHOLAS TARLING FUND Susan Blackburn is an associate professor in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University, where she teaches Southeast Asian Politics. Helen Ting is a research fellow at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. 9 789971 696740 NUS PRESS www.nus.edu.sg/nuspress SINGAPORE WWomenomen iinn SSEAEA CCoverover 1 77/10/13/10/13 11:52:59:52:59 PPMM Women in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements FFM-WomenM-Women iinn SSEAEA i 77/10/13/10/13 44:17:21:17:21 PPMM FFM-WomenM-Women iinn SSEAEA iiii 77/10/13/10/13 44:17:23:17:23 PPMM Women in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements A Biographical Approach Edited by Susan Blackburn and Helen Ting Published with support from the Nicholas Tarling fund FFM-WomenM-Women iinn SSEAEA iiiiii 77/10/13/10/13 44:17:23:17:23 PPMM © 2013 Susan Blackburn and Helen Ting This book is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/ Published by: NUS Press National University of Singapore AS3-01-02, 3 Arts Link Singapore 117569 Fax: (65) 6774-0652 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://nuspress.nus.edu.sg ISBN 978-9971-69-674-0 (Paper) All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher. National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data Women in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements: a biographical approach / edited by Susan Blackburn and Helen Ting. – Singapore: NUS Press, 2013. pages cm ISBN: 978-9971-69-674-0 (paperback) 1. Women – Political activity – Southeast Asia – Biography. 2. Nationalism – Southeast Asia – History. I. Blackburn, Susan, 1947–, editor. II. Ting, Helen, 1964– , editor. III. Title. HQ1236.5.A785 320.0820959 — 23 OCN843004744 Cover: Albert Leeflang The electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. The Open Access ISBN for this book is 978-9971-69-687-0. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. iv-Women in SEA_e-print.indd 4 9/1/19 3:55 PM Contents List of Maps vii List of Photographs ix Introduction: Gendered Nationalist Movements in Southeast Asia 1 Susan Blackburn 1. Th e Life and Writings of a Patriotic Feminist: Independent Daw San of Burma Chie Ikeya 23 2. “I Die Because of My Circumstances”: Nguyen Th i Giang and the Viet Nam Quôc Dan Dang 48 Micheline Lessard 3. Suyatin Kartowiyono: A Nationalist Leader of the Indonesian Women’s Movement 75 Susan Blackburn 4. Rasuna Said: Lioness of the Indonesian Independence Movement 98 Sally White 5. Salud Algabre: A Forgotten Member of the Philippine Sakdal 124 Ma. Luisa T. Camagay 6. Shamsiah Fakeh and Aishah Ghani in Malaya: Nationalists in Th eir Own Right, Feminists ahead of Th eir Time 147 Helen Ting v FFM-WomenM-Women iinn SSEAEA v 77/10/13/10/13 44:17:23:17:23 PPMM vi Contents 7. Lily Eberwein: Her Life and Involvement in the Anti-cession Movement in Sarawak 175 Welyne J. Jehom 8. “Minority” Women and the Revolution in the Highlands of Laos: Two Narratives 198 Vatthana Pholsena 9. Bisoi: A Veteran of Timor-Leste’s Independence Movement 226 Sara Niner 10. Karen Nationalism and Armed Struggle: From the Perspective of Zipporah Sein 250 Ardeth Maung Th awnghmung and Violet Cho Conclusion: Becoming Women Nationalists 276 Helen Ting Abbreviations 294 Glossary 296 Bibliography 298 Contributors 316 Index 320 FFM-WomenM-Women iinn SSEAEA vvii 77/10/13/10/13 44:17:24:17:24 PPMM List of Maps Map 1. Burma/Myanmar 26 Map 2. Vietnam during the French colonial period 49 Map 3. Provinces of northern Vietnam (Tonkin) under French colonial rule 63 Map 4. Indonesia 77 Map 5. Malaysia and western Indonesia 101 Map 6. Th e Philippines 128 Map 7. Provinces of southern Luzon, Philippines 136 Map 8. Malaya 156 Map 9. Laos 200 Map 10. East Timor 228 vii FFM-WomenM-Women iinn SSEAEA vviiii 77/10/13/10/13 44:17:24:17:24 PPMM FFM-WomenM-Women iinn SSEAEA vviiiiii 77/10/13/10/13 44:17:24:17:24 PPMM List of Photographs Daw San in the late 1940s. 24 Salud Algabre in 1977. 126 Th irteen-year-old Shamsiah Fakeh with her mother and brother before both siblings left for Sumatra in 1938 to study. 148 Shamsiah Fakeh, 1960. 148 Aishah Ghani (standing, middle) with friends at Diniyah Putri School in Padang Panjang, 1937; seated is Ibu Rahmah El Yunusiah, the principal of the school. 149 Aishah Ghani at Hyde Park, London, 1956. 150 Aishah Ghani speaking at the general election campaign in Kampung Datuk Keramat, Kuala Lumpur, 1964. 150 Kaum Ibu MNU, Sarawak, 1946. 176 Lily Eberwein Abdullah, 1980. 176 Manivanh. 199 Mana Bisoi and her uncle, Falintil Commander L7 Foho Rai Boot. 227 Zipporah Sein (second from left ) with her mother, sister and nieces, 2009. 251 Zipporah Sein at KNU congress, 2009. 251 ix FFM-WomenM-Women iinn SSEAEA iixx 77/10/13/10/13 44:17:24:17:24 PPMM FFM-WomenM-Women iinn SSEAEA x 77/10/13/10/13 44:17:25:17:25 PPMM Gendered Nationalist Movements in Southeast Asia 1 Introduction Gendered Nationalist Movements in Southeast Asia Susan Blackburn here is quite an extensive literature on gender and nationalism but Tless on women in nationalist movements, particularly from a bio- graphical perspective, and very little on either of these in relation to Southeast Asia.1 Th ese are gaps that this book seeks to address. Th is introductory chapter opens up discussion of some of the concepts and questions that are central to the chapters that will follow. Th ey relate to gender and nationalist movements, and the special con- tribution that is off ered by the biographical approach. Th e Introduc- tion refl ects on what is specifi c to Southeast Asia from the point of view of women in nationalist movements. A brief overview of the chapters is also provided. Gender and Nationalist Movements “Nation” and “nationalism” are contested terms. Nationalism involves the identifi cation of a people with a place and a community, to which they refer as a nation and to which they feel a sense of belonging and loyalty, and which confers rights and commands obligations. What forms the core of that identifi cation, how it emerges, the discourse of nationalism and how people are mobilised behind it constitute some of the key questions exercising the minds of scholars of nationalism.2 For most of our Southeast Asian protagonists, living in the fi rst half of the 20th century, fi ghting to free the land and society in which they lived from foreign colonial powers was something obvious and worthy of their pursuit. For them, nationalism entailed the responsibility to 1 IIntrontro ((1-22)1-22) 1 77/10/13/10/13 22:11:10:11:10 PPMM 2 Susan Blackburn struggle to liberate the nation from foreign domination and establish their own nation-state. Yet this seemingly straightforward agenda concealed a number of tensions and contradictions that could not be ignored as time went on. Even in the course of the anti-colonial struggle, it was clear that nationalists were divided by class, ethnicity and religion that led them to pursue diff erent visions of the nation. Once the colonial yoke had been thrown off , the nation was openly revealed as lacking solidarity, however hard nationalist leaders worked to conceal it. One of the most intractable problems was the issue of ethnicity and how it was to be negotiated in Southeast Asia’s multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies. Some ethnic groups envisaged the nation as the place where they could preserve and sustain their own cultures and religions, which would otherwise be subordinated or even annihilated in a state dominated by other groups.