By Kalinga Seneviratne*Courtesy IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
SINGAPORE (IDN) - The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) held its annual summit in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi October 28-30 along with the East Asia Summit (EAS). The latter is an initiative of ASEAN but it has been bogged down by a lack of clear identity from its very beginning and has been purely driven by ASEAN governments with a business and security focus rather than community building.
When the former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad proposed an East Asian grouping in the 1980s he only had Japan, Korea and China in mind, and wanted it to be built in similar fashion to the European Community to raise Asia’s common voice and clout in international affairs. But when it was launched after his departure as EAS (an annual summit of regional leaders) Australia and New Zealand were invited and later India, which made the term East Asia a misnomer. This year it was decided to invite the United States and Russia to the EAS from next year, which makes the title of the summit a mockery.
The decision to invite the U.S. and Russia is seen in the region as an attempt to counter any Chinese domination of the regional forum rather than building an Asian community. In fact cold war politics could creep into the regional forum rather than community building, and comments made by U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton in Hanoi are indicative of how Washington will use the forum to counter Chinese influence in the region. If ASEAN is keen on building an Asian community they would have first invited Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan, and also possibly Maldives and Bhutan to join in.
There are many media, academic and civil society critics in the region who are questioning the government-driven community building model of ASEAN, which wants to create an EU (European Union) style ASEAN Community by 2015.
"ASEAN remains the domain of inter-state affairs," observes international relations expert Evi Fitriani of the University of Indonesia. "Majority of the population of ASEAN member countries appears to remain inward-looking, overwhelmed by their own domestic politics, economic and social problems. As a result, the concept of an ASEAN community is familiar only among the government elites."
THE BIG 'P'
In order to make the big ‘P’ -- the people -- involved in ASEAN community building Fitriani argued in a commentary for 'Asiaviews' magazine that the secrecy of ASEAN Summits and their proceedings may need to be evaluated. "For people to implement the agreements made by the leaders they need to know and understand the substance of their meetings so that they can benefit from the Leaders' vision and plans."
The region's English language news monthly Asiaviews, published by Indonesia's Tempo group, observed in an editorial month that language barriers are a formidable obstacle to regional people-to-people links. "Watch a seminar where media people or NGOs from Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos sit next to an Indonesian, a Thai and a Filipino and you will see them struggling to understand each other," the editorial pointed out.
The ASEAN Media Forum (AMF) -- a civil society initiative organised by the Singapore based Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) with financial assistance from Germany's Friederich Ebert Stiftung -- convened a Forum immediately after the ASEAN Summit for the second year running, with focus on using the media in the region to build people-to-people interactions.
"ASEAN needs to go beyond organising formal meetings. We need to have spontaneous activities if you are serious about building a community, we need to go beyond government to government track," Viswa Sadasivam, nominated MP and former media executive from Singapore said in a keynote speech at the Second AMF held in Bangkok on November 9-10.
Pham Thuy Trang, editor of international news from VTV Vietnam agreed that ASEAN countries need to build better people-to-people links. "It is disappointing much of the people in the region don’t know much about each others countries," she noted.
Throughout the Forum participants consistently pointed out that countries in the region are too dependant on the international media from the West to interpret and introduce the neighbouring countries to each other and this is largely a problem of mindsets within ASEAN, especially among senior media executives, rather than an issue of lack of resources or talent.
RIDICULOUS
"There are many aspects of our history, our heritage our traditions that are fascinating. The irony is that international TV channels like Discovery and National Geography are doing great features on what is fascinating in our region and we end up finding out about Southeast Asia through Western media channels. I find that ridiculous, especially when very often these documentaries portray our region as exotic. I don't think we should be overly flattered with that perspective," said Sadasivam in his keynote address.
A major theme of this year's AMF was building an ASEAN community through creating an ASEAN news features network run by youth for youth in the region. A Panel of eight young journalists and mass communication students from ASEAN countries took part in a panel discussion on this topic, and next day attended a day-long social media workshop run by Indian social media guru Dr Madanmohan Rao exploring ways to set up a youth news network for the region using social media in particular.
"I must admit that I don’t see that such thing as ASEAN community exists in the awareness of my peers. Even for me I feel that, yes I live in Malaysia, and yes Malaysia is part of ASEAN. But I don't feel ASEAN. These are reasons (strong enough) for us to build an ASEAN youth community . . . we need to have an ASEAN identity," argued Aidila Razak a young journalist from Malaysiakini, the country's pioneering internet news portal.
SHARING NEWS
Another speaker Jeanette Tan, a mass communications student from Nanayang Technological University in Singapore pointed out that youth in Singapore know very little about its ASEAN neighbours, even though they have the means to travel in the region. "We in Singapore are always keen to travel outside but we go afar as China and India, and Europe and America, but we never think about our neighbours," she admitted. "We need to visit each other's countries more, report on them and share the news with our neighbours."
"I arrived here four days ago," explained Razak. "I had the opportunity to see a Thai play, I didn’t understand a word of it but it was similar to our Bangsawan theatre tradition. I went to the museum and saw a lot of things, which were familiar to me. We do have a shared history, shared heritage and a shared story, but it's a question mark as to why suddenly today, we feel disconnected from each other."
To overcome language barriers and government-centred regional integration, which perhaps disconnects people, ASEAN may have to look for a common goal. Indonesian social activist and former ambassador for Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for Asia and the Pacific Erna Witoelar argues that MDG-based areas of corporate social responsibility could become enabling pillars of ASEAN integration, such as poverty reduction, migrant workers protection, clean water and sanitation, job creation, affordable drugs and health services, alternative energy and other technologies for ecological sustainability.
"Thinking, feeling and acting ASEAN requires a process of mindset changes not only among business and political leaders, but also among larger constituencies including the poor -- who need to be more aware of opportunities and consequences of integration," she said at a recent ASEAN Foundation presentation.
Perhaps the planned ASEAN Youth News Network may look into the MDG issues listed above which could create links between mainly urban mass communication students and the rural poor and urban marginalised communities and help to build an ASEAN community through some common sets of goals where most people could identify with.
* Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is Head of Research at AMIC, Singapore.
