From Bali with a deeper sense of community

Bantarto Bandoro, Editor, 'The Indonesian Quarterly', Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta, bandoro@csis.or.id

The ninth summit meeting of ASEAN ended last week with a wholehearted commitment by the leaders to turn the region of Southeast Asia into one that could ensure long-term prosperity and security for its people. The Bali Concord II, so-called to reflect its status as the new foundation of ASEAN cooperation, is a regional platform on which ASEAN is to plan its future policy and destiny.

The concord represents a paradigm shift, and will accelerate regional integration and identity-building.

The leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also pledged to transform "troubled" Southeast Asia into a "united" region that stresses cooperation and mutual tolerance.

The concord is also considered to be more feasible, not only because the foundations for constructing an ASEAN community are already in place, but also because the objectives envisioned by the Concord are quite logical given the changes that have taken place in the regional environment.

The Bali Concord II, with three communities -- economic, social and cultural, and security -- as its pillars, has been necessitated by the challenges of globalization and by the economic and security situation that has developed since the 1997 financial crisis, and outbreaks of terrorism in the region.

But will these three pillars really ensure success in the effort to build an "ASEAN community"? The implication of the Concord is that ASEAN was previously only an association or a loose society -- this being the result of competing state interests.

Thus ASEAN was only an imaginary and mechanical structure in the Southeast Asia countries. ASEAN had not reached what the German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies (1855-1936) called "real and organic life." After 30 years, ASEAN leaders are now eagerly seeking to construct a real community based on proximity, friendship, neighborhood and common locality.

Thus, the community envisioned in the Concord represents ASEAN's preferred vehicle for reflecting a new regional relationship in the face of globalization, terrorist threats, illegal immigration and other forms of non-traditional security threats. It is also meant to reflect ASEAN's identity and a new approach to regional issues.

The "community" that ASEAN seeks to build is a product of both natural as well as rational will, given both decades of intra- ASEAN relations and the needs of the future. They now seek a more cohesive and solid unity.

The Bali Concord II gives the impression that ASEAN leaders are alert enough not to isolate the various phenomena that could hinder ASEAN's development, or which could cause friction among ASEAN members, such as human resources development or intra- regional differences. By refraining from doing so, the leaders are attempting to create a kind of an integrated mental image for ASEAN. A community-based relationship after all is based on the fact that states interact, link with each other and learn to live with each other because they feel that they "belong together."

An ASEAN community is one that conveys the idea of certain economic, social and security bonds stemming from proximity, moral ties, common interests, neighborhood, friendship and so forth. But ASEAN will find that with its competing state interests, policy preferences and standpoints, conflicts remain inevitable and the road to a solid regional grouping will not be smooth.

For instance, although ASEAN has done a good job in reducing tariffs among its members, only a small percentage of intra-ASEAN trade is conducted under the AFTA scheme. Furthermore, in view of different levels of development and liberalization, the task of establishing the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will be far from easy.

Compared to the AEC, many more suspicions and concerns were voiced over the "security community", as some members are wary of becoming involved in a military alliance. There are also still many differences on various security issues. It remains to be seen whether and when ASEAN can be called a true community, one that reflects a real sense of nearness, solidarity and belonging, and which enables to pursuit of common goals. ASEAN's challenge is, therefore, to prevent its community from being increasingly marked by individualism.