that new states were frequently the arbitrary creations of colonialism. They
consisted of a multiplicity of ethnic groups bound together under colonial
domination and a common administrative and economic system, after
the European powers had divided their tropical dependencies among them-
selves with scant regard to existing social and political boundaries.
Differences of caste, region and ethnicity were further exacerbated by the
representation of these incorporated societies in racial and tribal categories,
and by the unequal impact of colonial educational, economic and political
experiments (Nafziger and Richter, 1976). The nationalism which subse-
quently drew such communities together was based solely on opposition to
subjugation by an alien power. They were united (and often far from com-
pletely) only in their desire to throw off colonial domination. The state cre-
ated by the achievement of independence ‘preceded’ nationalism, in that
there was no other common identity than anti-colonialism. The nation-state
was not built on a basis of common religious, cultural, linguistic or racial
factors as it is when nationalism precedes the state (Kohn, 1945; Coleman,
1954, p. 419).
So for Anderson et al. (1974, p. 9) it is ‘uncontroversial’ that:
Afro-Asia, in particular, is dominated by new states that face agonizing
problems in winning the full commitment of their citizenry which is
taken for granted in most Western societies. In equipping the state with a
mystique of nationhood, the new leaders face intense competition from
diverse forms of subnational loyalties, which we have referred to as
cultural pluralism. These loyalties may be based on race, ethnic identity,
language, caste, religion, or region; they have in common the capability
of evoking sentiments in men very similar to those described as national-
ism. What seems to us crucial to know is the direction of change. Are
subnational loyalties giving way to the imperative of nationalism, as
many seem to assume? Our evidence suggests to us that this is not the
case in Africa and Asia. Both national identification and subnational
loyalties are growing stronger as modern communications and education
penetrate and the self-enclosed, small-scale rural subsistence communi-
ties are progressively eliminated.
Eventually parochial loyalties should be eroded by a diffusion of cultural
values during the process of modernization. The diffusionist school of mod-
ernization theory argues that when countries modernize, cultures become dif-
fused and sub-cultures lose their significance. Ethnic loyalties become
superseded by loyalties to the wider state. There are four factors involved in
this process: bureaucratic penetration, social mobilization, industrialization
Nationalism and Secession 201