Individual freedom is stable society

By Abdulgaffar Peang-Meth

GUAM, United States (JP): Stability and order are two important goals for any society. Without them, other goals are difficult to attain.

Stability and order are prerequisites for the development of a cohesive society. Philosophical concepts and principles are necessary to provide a set of core values that guide men and women as they relate with one another.

Guidance provides predictable expectations of behavioral patterns and responses that minimize conflict and create harmony.

Misunderstanding and confusion are diminished; stability and order are enhanced. Stability and order are reinforced and complemented by a set of core values.

Today, there is an imbalance between values and principles on the one hand and stability and order on the other. In Bosnia, ethnic cleansings continued while Americans and Europeans debated who should take the lead to restore human rights and how to carry out actions with minimal disruption to society.

In Somalia, the warrant for the arrest of Somali warlord Aideed became secondary to negotiations to secure order. In Myanmar, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest by the military regime for half a decade and human rights and democracy were trampled upon because world leaders were unwilling to exert pressure on Yangon.

In Cambodia, Pol Pot, under whose rule more than two million people died, remains at Anlong Veng out of reach of international tribunals, and coup leader Hun Sen continues to rule while foreign governments express disapproval but continue to deal with him.

To go after Pol Pot would be costly; to confront Hun Sen could lead to war with him.

It is easier to avoid actions that are costly than to advocate for the principles that ostensibly form the underpinnings of domestic and international policy.

Recently, the fundamental differences that often emerge between adherents of Western and non-Western cultures have again become apparent.

Some Asian leaders have pointed to the need for the UN Organization to review its "universal" human rights concepts and principles, which they feel have a Western bias.

East and West can differ on concepts of human rights, freedom, democracy, despite the 1948 "Universal" Declaration of Human Rights.

Nevertheless, the need for core societal values to provide a framework for a productive society remains true. Yet, how "universal" are principles in different civilizations?

Asian societies have emphasized the need for stability and order above abstract concepts and principles, believing that only with stability and order can civil rights, freedom, and democratic ideals flourish.

Western societies, where the worth of the individual is paramount, view individual rights and freedom as inviolable.

Asians tolerate authority. Westerners demand its limitation and greater individual freedom.

Recently, however, there seems to have been a consistent adjustment by the U.S. in the international arena.

While Asian states have continued to emphasize stability and order as a first priority, the West, notably the U.S., which has preached individualism in the past, has declined to intervene in conflicts where order has been threatened.

The U.S. has, by inference, sanctioned an international norm of conduct that prizes stability and preservation of the status quo, when these would be threatened by aggressive advocacy of individual rights and freedom.

So there has been de facto tolerance of individuality intolerable situations in Myanmar and Cambodia.

An Asian policy research institute and some politicians and academics have lately criticized the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for being too "reactive" a body with its "non-interference" policy, and has urged ASEAN to adopt "constructive intervention".

The absence of a movement seeking to restore the balance of individual versus collective good has threatened the wellbeing of large segments of the world's peoples.

Men will not benefit by tipping the scale at the expense of one or the other.

Encouraging ASEAN to a policy of "constructive intervention" seem to be part of a public strategy to restore a balance in international affairs between societal stability and individual freedom.

The upholding of the principles of individual human rights in Bosnia, Myanmar, or Cambodia, would augment efforts to establish stability and order, peace and justice.

Those who suffer from these oppressive regimes become increasingly unable to advocate for themselves as a veneer of stability and order is forced in place.

It is for us to restore the necessary balance to their societies.

Abdulgaffar Peng-Meth was born and raised in Cambodia and was a senior official of the non-communist Khmer People's National Liberation Front in 1980-1989. A naturalized U.S. citizen, he is Associate Professor of political science at the University of Guam, United States.