Gathering ASEAN
Leaders of 10 Southeast Asian countries gather in Vientiane today for what has become an annual frat party for the regional grouping known as ASEAN.
Skeptics will look down on this vigil as a self-absorbed meet- and-greet that only has value as a public relations exercise for an association that has become more prosaic with age. Mannered and out of reach of the man on the street, this staged event is far away from the often gritty lives of the region's 400 million inhabitants.
It is no surprise, therefore, that after nearly four decades, the gallery of ASEAN watchers currently comprises more cynics than converts. The derision of the unbelievers is well-founded. Except for professionals connected with the grouping, few believers could easily explain how ASEAN has benefited their lives.
But expectations, especially elevated ones, are often contrived in a vacuum. And critics frequently focus on what should be and conveniently neglect what might have been.
The ASEAN summits -- past, current and future -- serve a more profound, yet less obvious purpose than as mere photo-ops for leaders on the front pages of this and other regional newspapers.
For Southeast Asians it is now impossible to talk of regional politics, or to imagine a world without ASEAN -- even if most people don't know what it is. We take for granted the peace that has prevailed and allowed most of the founding ASEAN members to become economic tigers in the early 1990s.
It is the empathy brought about by contacts in the grouping that has averted a region, which has no prior history of peaceful cooperation or dispute settlement, from instability.
For host governments of this annual event, the summit meetings are a political showcase. An opportunity to turn up the spotlight on the country's place in the world and emphasize the country's standing in global politics. For small states like Laos, hosting the summit is a landmark achievement and a source of national pride.
The significance of summit diplomacy is another merit that should not easily be dismissed. The close interaction between our leaders -- the people who shape the fate of our respective nations -- is key to the maintenance of amiable inter-state ties.
These men and women set the tone for one nation's perception of another. Their personal chemistry helps expedite possible impasses or can complicate them. At the very least, by their common association in the grouping, the prevailing internal mechanisms will not easily allow a relationship between member states to lapse into open conflict.
Some 32 documents are set to be discussed and endorsed during the latest summit and its preceding ministerial meetings. Most are beyond the comprehension or interest of the average Southeast Asian.
Nevertheless, like it or not, the shape of Southeast Asia -- Indonesia's front-yard -- is being determined in these meetings. With the endorsement of the summit, a blueprint for an ASEAN Community will be laid out; an idealistic road-map for the betterment of the peoples in the region.
It is pleasing to note the continued goodwill within ASEAN and, more importantly, its evolution -- an ability to more frankly discuss down-to-earth issues.
It is extremely encouraging that ASEAN is now considering principles that a few years ago would have been considered taboo. Issues such as political development, the environment and welfare are now often on the table. What is still needed, however, is the translation of these lofty visions into practical ideas and a common language.
It would be to much to hope that ASEAN directly and openly intervenes in news-driven issues such as continued repression of political activists in certain member states. But there is hope that as ASEAN matures new values will pervade.
Values that every man, woman, and child -- whether in Vientiane or Jakarta -- can identify with. Values that will proudly identify them as ASEAN citizens.