Book Description

It was only after the end of World War II that most of the South East Asian countries gained their independence from western colonial rulers. After centuries under foreign dominion, these countries have to go through difficult processes of transformation to protect their new found sovereignty and territorial integrity especially against the threat of communism during the Cold War. More significantly, the peoples of the new independent states found greater incentives and opportunities to identify themselves with ethnic groups along common decent, shared experiences and cultural factors. This social dynamics led to the emergence of tensions and conflicts not only between ethnic groups and the state, but also between ethnic groups and other groups of society. The causes of such conflicts are complex and varied, such as discrimination, repression, political disenfranchisement and the like.