ABSTRACT
Today, the ideas of state and nation are often conflated, as in the term nation-state. But technically, the two are not necessarily the same. The ‘state’ can be generally described as the ‘political institutionalization of a society within fixed boundaries as a necessary system to organise the social life of a group’ and is represented by a government. ‘Nation’, which is more elusive in its essence, consists of a ‘specific solidarity and a specific group feeling bound to the community called “nations” together and which would exceed a “merely” rational decision or cause for the establishment of such a community’. This study examines the contentious nature of statehood and nationhood in the early decades of independence of two Southeast Asian countries, Singapore and the Philippines. It offers analysis of two literary texts that chronicle the early negotiations between state and nation as both countries explore the intricacies of self-rule: F. Sionil Jose’s novel Mass (1979) and the poetry collection A Third Map (1993) by Edwin Thumboo. Conditions today in both countries may already be different but the early years have created an indelible mark in the still ongoing search for nation. Early efforts at nation formation can be seen as arduous and conflicted. These texts suggest that finding and founding a nation is a process of negotiation that can either be joyful or hurtful, but never smooth. Exclusion or deprivation is always a danger for a community. In contemporary times, finding a nation is an act of recuperation and agency for a community in search of national belonging.
