Moving toward a more inclusive ASEAN

Alexander C. Chandra, Jakarta

In 2005, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will celebrate its 38th anniversary. Since its formation, ASEAN has undergone a process of deepening integration in the political, economic and socio-cultural realms.

One major objective of ASEAN is to create an ASEAN Community (AC) by 2020, which will reinforce the creation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), ASEAN Security Community (ASC), and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC).

Despite these attempts to promote integration and the increasing importance assigned to the word "community" in its integration projects, ASEAN remains out of reach of its people.

It is for this very reason that the 4th ASEAN People's Assembly (APA) meeting in Manila was held to help bring the Association back "down to earth".

Although calls for a more transparent and inclusive ASEAN are often made, key policymakers in both ASEAN countries and the ASEAN Secretariat appear to be deaf to the calls and proceed with their integration projects without consulting with the people of Southeast Asia.

If one looks closely at the dynamics of the relationship between ASEAN and its people, those who have been critical of the Association are mainly the "elites" of ASEAN. To a large extent, the majority of the people in Southeast Asia, including those from civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), are somewhat indifferent about the Association.

In order to come up with an appropriate strategy for promoting inclusiveness in the Association, the people of Southeast Asian should first be convinced of the importance of having a "regionalized" Southeast Asia.

The first, and most obvious, reason for a regionalized Southeast Asia, as stated in the Bangkok Declaration of 1967, is to ensure peace and stability in the region. Peace and stability are the keys to facilitating the development of other forms of cooperation. The potential of the Southeast Asian region to implode into the Balkans of Asia makes political and security cooperation among ASEAN states essential.

The second important rationale is sustained economic development. In other words, the closer relationship and cooperation among the countries of Southeast Asia provide the space needed by each member country to focus on its own development.

The third motive is the maintenance of member countries' national unity and territorial integrity. Treaties and documents, such as Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), have been signed to support this rationale, all of which are attempts to respect the freedom, sovereignty, equality, and territorial integrity of each ASEAN member state.

The fourth motive is to allow the ASEAN states to secure greater international autonomy and to increase their bargaining position in international fora.

Last, but not least, is the containment of the negative forces of globalization. The process of globalization has been abused lately by, as Richard Falk once put it, "non-accountable powers and their collaborators with the ideology of consumerism and a development ethos weighted entirely towards return on capital mainly achieved by maximizing growth".

It is very unfortunate that ASEAN to date has been used to accommodate and facilitate the interests of those frequently "non-accountable powers" by committing itself to an extremely "open economic" regionalism, despite the possible damage that these powers could inflict on the member countries of ASEAN.

Given the possibility of transformation from a highly capitalistic approach to a more inward-looking form of regionalism at the policy-making level, ASEAN may well become more useful to its people, instead of being the slave of purely capitalistic and consumerist transnational actors.

Overall, ASEAN's initiative in pursuing deeper integration among the various communities in the Southeast Asian region is a positive project that has to be supported. Unfortunately, Southeast Asian people have never been consulted on many of the Association's activities.

Take the example of the current regional economic integration initiative known as AFTA. It is still a matter of debate as to the extent to which the Southeast Asian people actually understand the concept and the progress of this regional economic integration initiative.

In Indonesia, for example, many small and medium enterprises are still faced with difficulties in becoming involved and participating in this trade arrangement. The overall benefits of AFTA are still scarcely being felt by these economic actors, not to mention the community at large.

It is now the right time to start coordinating our actions to challenge the unfair process of regionalization proposed by ASEAN.

Apart from the creation of AFTA, as mentioned earlier, ASEAN, as an institution, is aiming to reach higher levels of integration by approaching the countries of Northeast Asia to form a larger regional grouping, under the framework of the ASEAN plus Three (APT) mechanism, which would include the ten countries of Southeast Asia, plus China, Japan and South Korea.

The expansion of ASEAN's regionalization process should be watched carefully. The creation of a larger regional grouping could, of course, produce positive results for the overall welfare and well-being of the Southeast Asian people.

To date, however, similar to the decision-making process at the ASEAN level, all the decisions regarding the expansion of the regionalization process in Southeast Asia are still the exclusive preserves of foreign policy-makers in each ASEAN member country and the ASEAN Secretariat.

All of these developments not only suggest that the Southeast Asian region is entering a key transitional period, but also can act as a reminder to the members of civil society throughout the ASEAN region to start realizing the potential benefits and costs that may derive from such arrangements.

The members of civil society in ASEAN should start getting their act together before ASEAN as a result of its attempt to expand its regionalization process becomes too big and too out of reach for the ordinary citizens of Southeast Asia.

In many ways, the activities of ASEAN have gone unnoticed by the majority of people, except for members of the academic community and a small minority of NGOs.

There is no doubt that the Southeast Asian region is far better off with than without ASEAN, but it also imperative that ASEAN becomes more relevant to its people. It is evident to us that the people of Southeast Asia need to start touching the untouchable. ASEAN should be continuously challenged and reminded of the actual needs of its people. It is only in this way that ASEAN can be made more relevant to its people.

The writer, a researcher with the Institute for Global Justice (IGJ), can reached at alex@globaljust.org.