Use of Ethnosymbolism on Colonial Policies in Southeast Asia: A Comparative Study of Vietnam, the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines

This historical narrative is developed according to the concept of ethnosymbolism, the underlying reason why a group of people live together for a length of time, why the community has a strong bond of identity and unity, a concept used to justify why the community of people stood and instinctively fought for their homeland. A historical comparative approach was used in this study to point out the similarities, parallelisms and trends on the historical and social developments of Vietnam, the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines during their western colonization. The objective of this research is to present the agricultural and educational colonial policies imposed by the French in Vietnam, the British in the Malay peninsula and the Spaniards in the Philippines. Likewise, the study narrates the activities of the native population in relation to these colonial policies. The standard historical narratives today are from the vantage point of the colonizers and the justification of colonization in the Asian territories. This study seeks to address the need for historical narratives told by what A. Gramsci coined the subaltern or the social groups excluded and displaced from the socio-economic institutions of society in order to deny their political voices.