Moving toward a more inclusive ASEAN

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.