Prof. John Walsh

Over the last few weeks, the heads of the ten Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been holding their annual meeting in Vientiane, the capital of Laos most commonly most commonly referred to as ‘sleepy.’ Surely this would be an ideal opportunity for the Islamic countries of Malaysia and Indonesia in particular to denounce the killings of scores of young Muslims in the south of Thailand, especially at Tak Bai, while the more democratic countries could show their displeasure at the continued home imprisonment of Aung San Su Kyi by the military junta of Myanmar (Burma) who discounted her election victory?

Well, neither of these things happened, at least in public. Why did this happen and does it mean that ASEAN is a pointless institution?

South East Asia has been described as being the region of the greatest diversity in the world that the phrase has become a cliché. Yet even people who realise this sometimes forget that this also applies to politics as well as to ethnicity, geography and culture. When ASEAN was first formed in 1967, the five countries that instituted it were Indonesia (under autocratic rule with a fledgling democracy), Malaysia (also a semi-autocratic regime with a great fear of ethnic conflict), Thailand (under constant threat of military coup), Singapore (former British colony and under semi-autocratic rule) and the Philippines (fledgling democracy and colony of the USA, according to some). Apart from neighbouring each other, almost the only thing these countries had in common was fear of communism.

This was a genuine concern because the allure of the ideology was strong among many sections of society, especially those who felt themselves to be disadvantaged or discriminated against under the current regimes. Just as radical Islam in the C21^st attracts many of the disaffected and the disadvantaged, so too did international communism in the last century. Further, international communism was to succeed in establishing ruling governments in Vietnam and Laos, just as had been achieved in China, from which so many migrants had settled throughout South East Asia throughout the course of many centuries. Indeed, the fear of those ethnic Chinese has led to outbreaks of oppression and violence against them on many occasions throughout the years.

The first five inaugurating states, therefore, reached a method of working with each other that involved co-operation on matters of mutual political and economic interest on the understanding that there would be neither scrutiny nor comment on internal matters.

Brunei, ruled still by the Sultan, one of the world’s richest men, joined AEAN in 1984. Vietnam, still a communist state, joined in 1995. Laos, communist, joined in 1997, as did Myanmar, under military dictatorship with widespread persecution of ethnic minorities and with all the universities closed. Cambodia was the last to join, in 1999, with its own democratic government undermined by the crisis of confidence resulting from past association with the Khmer Rouge and unresolved issues relating to the genocide in that unhappy country.

In short, therefore, ASEAN is a particularly fragile glass house inside which all must creep about to prevent the whole thing shattering irreparably. Even though governance, democratisation and economic development have all steadily but slowly occurred through the region, there are still more problems than solutions.

So what is the point of ASEAN then? Simply, that together, the organisation represents approximately 500 million people, with a combined gross domestic product of some US$737 billion. Working multilaterally, this makes for a powerful bloc – at least, powerful compared to the alternative of working independently. In a world in which multilateral agreements are needed as never before, to combat transnational crimes such as drug smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering and international terrorism, not to mention environmental protection, it is unfortunate that some leading nations seem determined to undermine multilateralism in the world and to work independently.

As the old saying has it, we must hang together for, if not, we will certainly be hanged alone.

ASEAN’s official website may be found at: http://www.aseansec.org.

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