Is the ASEAN spirit dead?

The lofty ideals of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), founded more than thirty years ago with such high hopes and big fanfare, and which has now grown from five nations to the 10 it is today, may be perceived by the peoples of ASEAN as seemingly dead in spirit.

They fail to understand why Indonesian workers are unwelcome in Malaysia. Also, why these workers rioted against their employer neighbors and why the Malaysian authorities are chasing them away, as it were. Indonesians and Malaysians have so many things in common and yet they are behaving like enemies. Surely those Indonesian workers did not want to damage the welfare of the people of Malaysia, in spite of their illegal status as workers.

The peoples of ASEAN expected that the formation of ASEAN would pave the way to peaceful and brotherly settlement of whatever conflict and problems might have arisen between them. The fact is that today they have bitter feelings for each other's country and government, which appear unable to bring solutions to the conflict.

Recently, Indonesians, who are in fact also citizens of the ASEAN community, have taken to the streets to demand the cutting off of diplomatic ties with another of their neighbors, Singapore. Singapore's senior minister Lee Kuan Yew has expressed the belief that there are international terrorists hiding or even walking free in Indonesia, with an attack on the island republic of Singapore on their mind as a followup to the Sept. 11 destruction of the World Trade Center in New York.

Some Indonesians, especially those belonging to extremist Muslim groupings, feel offended by the statement made by Lee Kuan Yew in public and even thought it fit to burn his effigy. Could one have expected such animosity, say, even five years ago?

The governments of ASEAN may have agreed on much nice-sounding cooperation but the peoples of ASEAN are living in a different world, full of suffering and unfulfilled promises. The ASEAN spirit indeed looks dead, at least when it concerns the fate of the common and poor masses of the community.

GANDHI SUKARDI

Jakarta