This article presents the findings of a longitudinal survey of East Timorese
tertiary student attitudes, obtained by conducting a modified version of the
International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) national identity module (Dili,
August 2002, July 2007 and March 2010). It examines a range of nation-building
‘fault lines’ in post-independence Timor-Leste,1
by focusing on the attitudes of
a particular group likely to contribute strongly to future decision-making elites:
tertiary students. Where the findings of the first two surveys (Leach 2003, 2008)
focused on key aspects of intergenerational conflict over national identity (including
the choice of Portuguese as the co-official language), this article offers a
different focus. Among other things, it examines the longitudinal evidence for
differences in attitudes between students from eastern and western districts,
categories that became briefly but intensely politicized in the 2006 political-military
crisis. It is argued that the relatively few significant differences in attitudes
peaked in the 2007 survey, and were associated with the overt politicization of
regional identity within Dili, and with perceptions that East Timorese returning
from the diaspora were dominating the post-independence national leadership,
rather than with any genuine ‘ethnic’ or ‘regional’ variation in attitudes. The
most recent survey findings also highlight the ongoing importance of tradition
and adat2 in understandings of political community, but also reveal significant
gender differences in attitudes to the political roles of traditional authorities.