| Abstract | This article examines these founding conceptions of national identity, memory and history embedded in the new East Timorese constitution. There are two defining features of national identity. out in the document. First, at the symbolic heart of the new constitution, the valorisation of resistance clause remembers the long and traumatic struggle for national liberation. Like the Portuguese constitution, which honours the resistance of the Portuguese people to the Salazar regime, the new East Timorese constitution recognises and sacralises the resistance as the core tradition of the independent state. The valorisation of resistance clause also empowers the government to provide protection to veterans and dependents of those who struggled for independence, and empowers the republic to render tribute to national heroes. Inscribed in the constitution, the secular resistance is thereby made a sacred part of the nation's heritage. The second defining feature of the constitution addresses the more vexed issue of cultural heritage and identification. Beyond valorising the independence struggle as the core of national identity and history, the new constitution also contributes to the broader symbolic task of defming a national identity beyond independence.
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