Blog Six Jessie Ede

When I read the prompt for this blog post, my mind immediately jumped to the current conflict in Malaysia that Professor Aguas mentioned in class. The recent violence between Malaysians and Filipinos in Sabah and the southern Philippines, with complicating factors thrown in by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, certainly represent a dominant group being faced with challenges by emerging communities. It may be more accurate to refer to both groups as communities with emerging political clout or fledgling political agency instead of implying a newly imagined genesis. I am also not wholly convinced that Malaysian elites fear usurpation of power or future marginalization, but given the establishment of national identities in the modern era to an extent not discussed by Anderson in Chapter 6 I think this is the most likely case where a current government and nationalism is severely threatened by other national identities. The Malay government has attempted to head off further difficulties due to impending elections, but their selection of a neutral third party state was not accepted by the Philippines.
Anticipatory strategies of suggesting diplomatic talks are fairly common in foreign policy, as gaining public relations goodwill for being willing to compromise and potentially setting the terms of the agreement are powerful incentives. It appears, though, that the added strategy of a neutral third party to increase the perception of fairness was not a winning one in this case. I am inclined to believe that anticipatory strategies to co-opt involvement by an emerging group via the legal system are the most likely to succeed, especially if an official language comes into play. In order for a group desiring continuing hegemony to be successful in their power preservation aims, establishment through accepted institutions is key. Does anyone think perhaps this is happening in the United States with pushes for English-only legislation? I suppose there are people in America who feel threatened by the changing demographic landscape of our country. This blog post prompt was honestly a bit more difficult for me to wrap my head around, so I am very interested to hear in class and read about what others made of Chapter 6 and its application to situations today.