Asean political-security community challenges
Tan Sri Munir Majid, The Star
THE People’s Asean would not be a reality if the politics is not right – both the domestic political systems in which the people live and the wider regional order that underpins the peace, stability and prosperity of their lives.
As Asean member states are increasingly discovering, the previous contention that economic growth and benefit will satisfy citizens without need to be over-excited about political rights, is wearing thin. That model does not work any more, if it ever did. Certainly, if nothing else, the ICT revolution and social media have provided a shared marketplace of experiences in political societies across the globe. It is no longer possible to pull the wool over people’s eyes. So state authorities have to get smart to it, whatever political system they profess.
In this connection, the notion of an Asean political-security community (APSC) is apposite. The APSC blueprint actually is hard to be faulted. Whoever writes these things, and those who adopt them, must really know what’s happening around them, even if they do not quite come along in action against their profession in words.
Read this: The APSC… ”will ensure that the peoples and member states of Asean live in peace with one another and with the world at large in a just, democratic and harmonious environment.” Some more: The Asean states will offer democracy, rule of law and good governance, and will ensure respect for the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedom.
All good intention. However, even if this is all aspiration, it stretches credulity when it is observed how some states in Asean have stagnated as communist regimes, others have regressed into persecution and murder of minorities and workers, and yet another has introduced draconian religious laws.
Little wonder then that there is so much cynicism about, for example, the Asean Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) set up in 2009 under the auspices of the APSC “to promote and protect human rights.” Where in Asean, through the AICHR, are human rights being protected on their violation?
It is in their promotion that refuge is taken. Even so, the promotion is gentle. Go to the AICHR web-site and you will see many pictures celebrating numerous workshops to promote human rights. More Asean meetings while religious minorities are being persecuted and put to the sword in enough Asean member states.
These are all difficult situations to handle no doubt. Asean foreign ministers try to discuss the Rohingyas issue but Myanmar would not have it, and will only do so on a bilateral basis with states facing refugee problems as a consequence of its human rights violations. And it comes to pass.
Well, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, and where has the world been? Rwanda-Burundi, Bosnia, Syria, Palestine… the list is endless and the suffering never-ending. So why pick on Asean?
But, shall we say, Asean is talking about community-building and higher standards of commitments to good governance? Therefore, there is every reason to hold Asean to a better protection on human rights and treatment of citizens.
The laudable objectives of the APSC, and in the setting up of the AICHR, should not be left on the shelf as we approach the end of 2014. The blueprint itself provides for biennial review. This review process should be reported and be held in a more open fashion, with the participation of representatives of civil society, who must however appreciate the issues of state sovereignty and Asean cohesion.
The hard question is not how to put aspiration down in words but how to implement it in difficult situations and circumstances. That review process should come up with creative ideas of making the words turn into at least some action, at least in respect of protection of human rights, and not just kick the matter to long grass by having more workshops and meetings to study it.
