Let us not have a blind Southeast Asia region

By Vorapun Srivoranart

BANGKOK: During a recent visit to Thailand, South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad shared his country's experience in national reconciliation, offering a relevant lesson to Southeast Asia in transition.

We are bombarded by non-stop daily reports of appalling violence flaring up around the globe. Gruesome violence in Indonesia, the Abu Sayaaf rebellion in the Philippines and repression in Myanmar have dominated the regional news.

It is frustrating after watching the news to ask: why can't we just live peacefully together? In reality, the world today is far from being a utopia. The end of ideological struggle during the Cold War flung open a Pandora's box full of pent-up feuds over ethnicity and religion.

Political fault lines are being created around the world by a human need for the sense of being which often provokes a destructive sense of otherness towards other groups with a similar need.

As a result, national reconciliation is a painstaking process that rarely materializes since most of the wounds can never be healed.

But South Africa is an exception. It stands as an archetype of smooth transition and reconciliation. Less than 10 years ago, South Africa was still a pariah state, but now it is seen as a beacon of democracy and harmony between people of different backgrounds.

Above all, it represents a victory of the human spirit. To show what racial harmony really means, Pahad cited the composition of his delegation as an immediate example: they came from entirely different communities that could never mingle during the Apartheid years.

In 1994, people thought that we would have the mother of all race wars, he joked.

Some might argue what is good for goose is not necessarily good for the gander and that what had happened in South Africa is unique. Nonetheless, the South African case is worthy of examination, especially for Southeast Asia where countries are trying to reconcile societies fractured by the financial crisis of 1997.

According to Pahad, the most important tool that helped bring down the dreaded Apartheid regime was international sanctions. But sanctions, he says, must be carried out in a comprehensive manner with all major powers in the same boat.

History has proven that as long as these big brothers continue to exercise hypocrisy, sanctions, even if imposed by the UN, are doomed to failure. Worse, sanctions tend to inflict hardship upon ordinary people, not their targeted rulers as in Iraq and Myanmar.

Pahad says decades of UN sanctions imposed on South Africa were less than effective until the United States imposed sanctions in 1986.

However, external pressure alone is not enough to usher in any significant change. Change requires domestic firewood: a conducive social, economic and political environment. Potent political forces enjoying popular support must exist as an alternative to the ruling regime. The African National Congress had a long and arduous struggle since its founding in 1912.

Next, a sense of common identity and fate bound the South Africans of all races together. Pahad terms it a new patriotism, which is in line with the Rainbow Nation as envisioned by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former president Nelson Mandela.

Another crucial ingredient is a willingness to compromise to avoid impasse. This requires a strong faith in the value of other human beings, which eventually opens a door for dialog. Without trust, no genuine reconciliation can ever be achieved.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission under the leadership of Archbishop Desmond Tutu is at the heart of the healing process. It helps to inculcate a commitment to accountability and transparency into public life.

Pahad says the process allows whoever committed crimes against human rights to step forward and recommend reparation measures to restore the victims' dignity and prevent future violations in return for amnesty.

This underlies one thing always missing in our world: forgiveness. In truth, the act of forgiving is braver than retribution and requires much more courage. The recourse to violence does not help rectify past wrongs but triggers a chain of terror instead.

On the use of violence and violent response, Mahatma Gandhi once commented that an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

From this perspective, it was the decisive political leadership by Mandela, who pursued a non-violent path, that diverted South Africa from the mother of all race wars.

Perhaps, this is what Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid might have had in mind when he promised amnesty for disgraced former President Soeharto if he returned all his ill-gotten wealth to state coffers. Only time will tell if he is doing the right thing.

East Timorese leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao has likewise pledged to grant amnesty to pro-Jakarta militias, despite the damage they inflicted, if they participate in national reconstruction.

He always says the East Timorese are ready to forgive but not forget.

Thailand has come a long way to be what it is now. Many lives and much blood were sacrificed but the spirit of reconciliation was never lost.

As a result, it is in a good position to share its experience with friends of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations undergoing a similar transition, though in different contexts, whenever this is needed.

Without trust in other human beings, the courage of forgiving and the spirit of reconciliation, from the individual to the international level, the future of Southeast Asia and the world as a whole would be bleak.

What is the point of having a global village where residents are estranged from each other?

-- The Nation / Asia News Network