Nationalism, language and Islam: A cross -regional comparative study of Muslim minority conflict

This dissertation identifies and tests a hypothetical proposition regarding the exceptional relationship of nationalism and Islam. The modernist paradigm of ethnonationalism posits that a shared culture and language are the locus of nationalist identities in their corresponding nation-states. In a model attributed principally to Ernest Gellner, industrialization promotes the creation of modular citizens in an ideally homogeneous nation-state. Modernized urbanites then share a High Culture of seamless communication, cultivated and recreated by a system of state education. Individual social mobility requires literacy and general economic prosperity depends on a shared and standardized language. A contrasting theory posits Muslim societies are the exception to this rule: a shared religion, Islam, and a shared sacred language, Arabic, are the locus of political identities in Muslim states. In a model attributed not only to Ernest Gellner, but also Adrian Hastings, Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington, Islamic culture precludes the emergence and mobilization of ethnonational identities. High Culture and Islam are fused; public education promotes religious instruction. Ethnicity and native languages are politically irrelevant since the polity is defined by membership in a community of faith, or ummah. In this view, claims for autonomy among Muslim minorities in multiethnic states are interpreted as religious conflicts rather than ethnic or national conflicts. To test the hypothetical propositions of Muslim national exceptionalism, the leadership of separatist parties and organizations were interviewed regarding specific reasons for separatism, and whether the group and its followers mobilize in support of Islam or ethno-linguistic nationalism, their faith or their flag, a nation of Islam or a Muslim nation. Field work was conducted in a cross-regional comparative study of six separatist conflicts, including Kurds in Iraq, Uighurs in China, Sindhis in Pakistan, Kashmiri-speakers in India, Acehnese in Indonesia and Moros in the Philippines. In sum, these movements frequently invoke the doctrine of national self-determination to protect a minority culture and language, while political Islam functions infrequently in this role. Muslim minority populations that share a unique print culture are likely to mobilize in support of language rights, especially in regard to public education; Muslim minorities without written vernaculars are not