A Saucer Model of Southeast Asian Identity

Abstract

This essay argues for an indigenous origin of the Southeast Asian idea. Two inherently Southeast Asian factors determined that the region would be seen as one: (i) a positive view from what we now call Malaysia/Singapore, that it sits in the centre of a meaningful region called by a diversity of names. This self-conscious centrality is based, however, on communications, not on civilization or empire like the cores of many other historic regions. The Malacca Straits area has always been a meeting place of ports and portages, not a centre of agriculturally-based population, large armies, architectural or literary monuments; (ii) a negative decision by the peripheries of this region that they did not want to be appendages of their larger and more threatening neighbours, so that Southeast Asia became a kind of default option. Show more