S. Asia's reformist role in the Middle East

Michael Vatikiotis, Jakarta

Lost in the emotional debate over whether Indonesia and Israel should engage is the little explored potential for Indonesia to act as a catalyst for political reform in the Middle East. If Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono wants to place Indonesia's newly established democratic credentials at the heart of foreign policy there is no better place to start than the Middle East.

In the growing debate about political reform in the Arab world, the assumption is that Arab states in search of better models of governance should look to Europe and the United States. But for many progressive Arabs the West is no longer a credible inspiration for reform because of contradictory aims and motives highlighted by the war against terror and the war in Iraq.

What for instance can the United States teach the Egyptian military about accountability and transparency when its own soldiers are above the law in Iraq and the civil authorities have no power even to punish civilian contractors for the killing of innocent civilians? How is the example for democracy set when the framing of a new constitution in Iraq is conducted under a military occupation that leads to violence and mayhem?

Not surprisingly, many Arabs who should be agitating for liberal political change at home find themselves in agreement either with militant hardliners or their autocratic governments that the West is a source of instability rather than progressive change.

Perhaps they should look for inspiration in another direction. For while popular anger in the Arab world has been fixated on Europe and America's failure to bring peace and stability to West Asia, in South East Asia there has been democratic change, recovery from financial crisis, and even long-running conflicts are being resolved.

Southeast Asia is normally cast in the role of student rather than teacher when it comes to political and economic change, based on Western perceptions of Asia as underdeveloped, newly reforming and politically immature. But perhaps the Arab states could learn something from the recent experience of reform in Asia.

Most relevant for the Middle East is that reform in Southeast Asia has been undertaken in difficult conditions of political stress and conflict. Moreover, the very recent history of these efforts means that the experience can be passed on by those who have been at the sharp end of the reform effort instead of preaching from a manual or pantheon of ideals.

The primary lesson to be learnt from the Asian experience of reform is that it isn't easy and doesn't succeed overnight. Military establishments have not willingly yielded to scrutiny and control. Tough internal security measures are still a jealously guarded tool for governments wary of unrest in their plural societies, and legal institutions are plagued by corruption and political manipulation. An unhelpful culture of impunity prevails.

The parallels are striking. As in the Arab Middle East you have in Southeast Asia a range of military establishments that have all been involved heavily in political affairs, responsible for human rights abuses, and generally are seen as the root cause of political instability and authoritarian regimes. In East Asia this started to change in the 1980s with the successful overthrow of the Marcos regime in the Philippines, in 1992 in Thailand when an army coup led to a bloody clash with the people of Bangkok, and in 1998 when President Soeharto was forced out of power in Indonesia.

The Indonesian military, similar to the Egyptian army, has long based its role in politics on a sense of guardianship. But in Indonesia a younger generation of officers have increasingly resented being used as "fire extinguishers" to quell unrest or conflict generated by inept policies. Thus the logic of democracy was embraced; that better government could stem from the expression of popular will. Subjection to greater scrutiny and transparency has followed.

How far-fetched would it be for the Egyptian army to study the way in which the Indonesian army is getting out of politics and business? Perhaps shared experiences and frustrations could generate some common solutions. Is it so inappropriate for officers from the largest Muslim army in the world to contribute to the development and reform of the oldest Muslim armies in the world?

How outlandish would it be for the Palestinian Authority to learn how to cope with militancy and security from military officers who have coped with the same problem in Mindanao, Maluku and Aceh using scarce resources and under intense political pressure?

If Malaysians and Bruneians can successfully monitor peace agreements in untamed Mindanao, is there any reason why their experiences cannot be transferred to the West Bank or Gaza?

Civil society groups and liberal political actors fresh from the barricades of reform in Southeast Asia would more easily impart the lessons of reform and restructuring than well meaning armchair liberals and technocrats from Europe and the United States. The money that governments in the West make available for these efforts might be better spent harnessing the more immediate and practical experience of reform in Asia to the urgent problems of the Middle East.

The obstacles to all these ideas, and to Asia's bigger role in Middle Eastern affairs, are more in the realm of the unknown and the untried, rather than the undoable.

The writer is a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. He can be reached at michaelvatikiotis@yahoo.com.