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Summary:

West New Guinea has transformed into a symbol of Indonesia’s independence and an integral part of the nation as an imagined community, even though its local residents are reluctant to identify with Indonesia, a country that badly oppresses them. Anderson notes that West New Guineans, a stunningly diverse group only able to communicate after the government forced them all to learn Indonesian, turned Indonesian into the language of a revolutionary nationalist struggle—against Indonesia. Indeed, this diverse group only became an imagined community capable of a unified national struggle because a map lumped them into the same province, helping them see a shared cause and leading most Indonesians from elsewhere to assume that all West New Guineans share the same culture.

Analysis:

The story of West New Guinea is clearly ironic for a number of reasons. First, it shows how imagined dimensions of national identity are often more important than real ones; the...

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