How independence was achieved  

The groundwork for establishing independent states in Southeast Asia was laid at the end of World War II, when firearms were controlled by Southeast Asians for the first time since colonial rule was established. However, even before the start of the war, pre-war nationalism most was evident in countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia. In both countries, armed struggles against the French and Dutch eventually prevailed.

In other countries, pre-war nationalism was brought about by the political, economic and social impact of colonial rule. The Western colonial masters often disregarded indigenous views and practices and rewrote laws to perpetuate their hegemony. Social change was only supported in cases where Western hegemony could be preserved. In Thailand, princes were sent to Europe and returned to serve in government, while in Indonesia, the Dutch started schools for the indigenous elite and prevented social mobility from taking place thoughout society.

Because the level of education was low among indigenous populations and few local children attended government schools, some Southeast Asian intellectuals started their own schools. Some institutions, such as Vietnam's Tonkin School, was closed down by colonial rulers. Against this backdrop, it did not take too long before a group of intellectuals emerged to champion against colonial rule. The first seeds of nationalism were thus sowed.

The pre-war nationalists, however, faced challenges throughout their cause. For one, they could not garner support from the masses, especially those who lived outside the cities, due in part to efforts by colonial governments to stifle communication through various measures. Moreover, the common folk did not fully comprehend the concept of nationalism and modernisation. Notwithstanding, there was widespread resentment against colonial governments over high taxes, tight control, corruption and forced labour, Emboldened by war in Europe and the Great Depression, which showed that Western powers were not infallible, a string of revolts were mounted in Burma, Vietnam and the Philippines.

To curb nationalist movements, the colonist governments instituted policies involving crackdrowns, divide-and-rule tactics and granted concessions. In Burma, police acts were used to control nationalists while in Vietnam, Confucian scholar-patriots and the Vietnamese Communist Party were persecuted.

When the Japanese arrived in Southeast Asia in 1941, some nationalists found them to be acceptable to work with, while others viewed Japanese colonialism to be more powerful than Western colonial governments. Japan had proposed a Greater East Asia Prosperity sphere that sought to modernise Southeast Asia through the Japanese model of industry and political hegemony, and saw no incentive to upset the status quo. The French were even allowed to maintain their rule in Indochina, in exchange for cooperation with the Japanese colonialists.

However, the Japanese soon found that Southeast Asians did not buy into the Japanese prosperity model. While there was widespread dissent, the local elites were also given opportunities to carry out the same policies under the Western colonialists. When the Europeans returned to Southeast Asia after the war, leaders like Aung San, who had collaborated with the Japanese, sided with the British. In January 1947, he went to London and negotiated with the British Labour government to gain independence for Burma.

Books and texts are often mainstays of resource guides as these provide introductory and comprehensive information on a particular topic. In the creation of this libguide however, effort was also made to recommend resources that are highly accessible, such as, ebooks, journal and newpaper articles, authoritative websites, among others. Please find below a brief write-up of the resource formats, as well as, how to access them.

• Print materials from both the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, as well as, NLB's Public Libraries. Just click on the given links to activate NLB's online catalogue showing availability of the items. Apart for the reference books at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, books recommended in this guide can be reserved online and brought to the library branch of your choice for a small fee of $1.55 (just click on "Reserve this item").
  
  
• Journal Articles from the library's eResources service (http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg). Most of the recommended journal articles are from Proquest Central and JSTOR as these databases are accessible from home. Just click on the given links to be brought to the relevant section of the eResources site. Thereafter, register (if you are new to the service) or log-in >> click on the relevant database (e.g., JSTOR, Proquest Central) >> conduct a search using the article's title. 
  
  
• Newspaper articles from the Factiva database, as well as, the NewspaperSG database. Factiva is available via our eResources service and articles within can be accessed in the same manner as that for journal articles (described above). Newspapers from NewspaperSG can be accessed via (http://newspapers.nl.sg). Articles from 1831 - 1989 can be accessed from home (direct links to the articles are provided) while those after 1989 can only be accessed onsite at the libraries. 
  
  
• RSS feeds. Listings of the most recent articles from reputable websites. Simply click on the link to be brought to the webpage.
  
  
• Embedded videos. A picture speaks thousand words, what more a video? Click the play button on the embedded videos (from reputable sources) for some visual learning. 
  

For more detailed information on accessing our print resources and electronic databases, please go to the section on "Accessing the Resources" in this same guide.