S. Asia's reformist role in the Middle East

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.