The long walk to freedom in Asia

Anwar Ibrahim, Kuala Lumpur

True social justice is still a long way off for much of Asia. It is time for leaders to wake up to the demands of their people.

If you were walking out of prison after serving a lengthy term, you would more than likely experience the curious, eerie feeling of stepping into a different time zone, as if you had an internal clock that ran at a slower pace than real time.

As a prisoner, I felt as if the world rolled to a dull, lethargic rhythm. It was a world in which death was more real and more certain. Prisons are built to isolate criminals from the rest of us. And society often forgets its prisoners and their existential situation. Among the forgotten are innocent who, because of corruption or a lapse in the system, are thrown in to share the life of the condemned.

Lapses in the administration of justice can happen anywhere, even in societies claiming the best system humanly possible. But in some societies, the miscarriage of justice has become endemic and is sometimes used as a convenient political tool. My court trials and six-year incarceration, for example, had all the facade of legality and procedural justice, but only for the naive. In essence, the whole saga was just a more sophisticated version of the Moscow show trial.

Aside from political persecution masked by legal procedure, we also have variations of gulags (Soviet forced labor camps) and political prisons, especially in Asia and Africa. It is amazing how stubbornly these camps of shame survive. They certainly serve well the sinister political purposes of those in power.

How many have suffered from a miscarriage of justice? Celebrated victims-the Mandelas and the Suu Kyis-may be remembered and given their place in history, but what happens to the rest? Must they remain faceless and simply disappear?

Hope may be the most irrational of human instincts, but it is what makes us human. To the many who are unjustly incarcerated, it is hope that preserves their humanity. Some hope for justice beyond the grave, and some hope the world will become a better place so that others will not suffer as they have.

I too have such hopes, which I carried with me out of prison, along with my toothbrush and bundle of clothes. When the Supreme Court announced my freedom, I felt a shot of euphoria surging through my veins. But it was a temporary high. As it began to wear off, I realized that although I was free from the cold stares of four gray walls, there were other walls, more insidious, surrounding me and my compatriots. I may be free to socialize with family and friends, but in my mind's ear, I hear the rattle of chains that seek to shackle our thoughts and imagination.

The Asian currency crisis and economic meltdown-the backdrop to my incarceration-are now a distant memory. Thailand and South Korea, among the worst hit by the crisis, are again economic powerhouses.

For Indonesia, the crisis was cataclysmic, but it terminated Soeharto's military rule, forced open the gate to genuine democracy-the biggest in the Muslim world-and unleashed a free press and a vibrant civil society. The economic crisis of the late 1990s was not without its dividends: there is now some consensus, at least in words if not yet in deeds, that opacity is bad for business-be it the business of governing or the business of making money.

Yet the forces resistant to reform and unfriendly to democracy have not simply surrendered. On the contrary, they have tried to strengthen their positions. The recent decision by the Myanmar junta to extend the house arrest on Aung San Suu Kyi is a case in point. Other countries pay lip service to democracy while their policies ensure that the playing field becomes increasingly uneven. The press remains submissive to the ruling clique, and fundamental liberties are severely curtailed.

One of the dividends of the crisis is that the struggle for freedom has taken on a regional character. The civil society sector is forging regional solidarity for democracy and human rights. The governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-the 10-nation regional grouping-are fearful of this new development and cling stubbornly to their outmoded doctrine of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of member-states.

ASEAN is replete with internal contradictions. Some of its members-Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand-have made giant leaps into mature democracy. But they have not made a serious effort to influence their less democratic partners, or to put democracy on the ASEAN agenda. The region's leaders are proud of their tradition of consensual decision-making, but this is the very thing that keeps the group inert, that makes it unwilling to set a standard of democratic governance that it could impose on member-states.

But freedom has a demonstrative effect. ASEAN leaders must wake up to the reality that democracy is increasingly asserting its presence in the region. The democratic mind is nurtured by social and political activism and by unlimited access to information. We are seeing the birth of an informed "Aseanese" community. It will be increasingly evident to the region's citizens that authoritarianism limits their choices and only democracy is capable of meeting their demand for greater choice. And as the economies of the region become more interlinked, so do the fates of the ASEAN peoples.

ASEAN is diverse, but there are fundamental cultural, economic and political meeting points. The desire for wealth is a common motivation, and it has resulted in high economic growth in the region, albeit uneven.

But economic well-being nourishes the desire for greater freedom. Current ASEAN leaders want to set limits to their cooperation. They should know that they are daydreaming. Deepening economic integration will bring with it many unintended consequences. It is not only the Aseanese desire for democracy, openness and freedom that they will have to grapple with.

It may not be too long before the peoples of the region begin to see themselves as members of a single community. When that happens, the seed of ASEAN greatness will have been sown.

Anwar Ibrahim is the former deputy prime minister of Malaysia. This article appears in full in Global Agenda, the magazine of the World Economic Forum.