ASEAN's Elusive Regional Identity Lives!

Remember the ASEAN Charter back in 2007? If we forget the integration snobbery of the EU (where the EU believes its regionalism is the model for world-wide regional initiatives) for a second, we will understand why ASEAN is still not in a hurry to become like the EU. After all, it has its famed ASEAN way.

So when one reads that at their upcoming 43rd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting they are going to discuss the ASEAN Charter in Vietnam, Hanoi, "with a focus on the implementation of the newly-ratified 2008 charter", we can only wait and see with baited breath.

The reports indicate that the Charter is supposed to "provide a legal framework" and set goals for the political, economic and socio-cultural development of its member states.

It has been riddled with holes on account of the fact that some observers wonder why such a Charter when ASEAN remains adamant that they will not deal decisively with Myanmar (Burma).That country continues to be the black sheep of the ASEAN family, and without ASEAN wielding the stick, any implementation of the Charter will come to naught.

So distressing has been the situation that even a few scholars were pointing to no less than the African Union as a model for ASEAN! You can read that article here: http://regionswatch.blogspot.com/2009/10/article-asean-asean-can-take-leaf-out.html.

That article maintains:

In 2005, the African Union even suspended Togo in response to an
unconstitutional seizure of power, which convinced the government to
call new elections. Moreover, the African Union is currently
establishing a stronger African Court of Justice and Human Rights to
hear human rights cases. As a result, according to the U.S. think-tank
Freedom House, Africans on the whole currently enjoy more civil and
political freedom than Southeast Asians. While Africa still faces many
challenges, human rights violations are no longer accepted as the norm
thanks in part to efforts of the African Commission on Human and
People's Rights.

By contrast, ASEAN has yet to adopt a single human rights treaty and
struggles to condemn gross rights violations committed by its member.
Unlike African human rights treaties, neither the ASEAN Charter nor
the ASEAN Human Rights Body's Terms of Reference detail specific
rights, but rather list vague principles, such as non-discrimination
and the rule of law. Thus, it is not even clear whether Southeast
Asians possess the same human rights that Africans currently enjoy.

As much as the ASEAN Charter is important, and needs decisive implementation, I think the 14-member grouping must actually also be credited for trying to promote ASEAN in an innovative way.

Given that this is not the first time ASEAN has made efforts at show-casing the organisation, we can only sit bemused by what next they have to offer.

Vietnam currently has a National Committee for ASEAN in collaboration with the Voice of Vietnam radio station.

This idea is basically:

in line with the regional body's attempts to raise public awareness of ASEAN and its role in member states, the radio contest centered around the "ASEAN Community of Solidarity and Prosperity", as part of the socio-cultural agenda of ASEAN under the recently ratified 2008 Charter. The radio contest is just one initiative aimed at communicating the concept and role of ASEAN to people in the region.

Although there remain challenges around the promoting of ASEAN, I think it's safe to say that it is a concept that can be replicated in different regional groupings--all with the aim of offering a constructive and progressive outlook to regional integration!

ASEAN/African Union--Still Some Way to Go for the ASEAN Community

I am both excited and disappointed by the latest developments in the ASEAN region. I am excited to hear that ASEAN wants to "accelerate" the formation of a single market; but profoundly disappointed it has to be like that of the European Union.

ASEAN is not--and should not be expected to be -- like the EU, which culture is different; furthermore, the history surrounding the establishment of ASEAN is dissimilar to the EU. Like many of the African RECs, there was no Economic Coal and Steel Community before the Treaty of Maastricht created the EU in 1992.

That the organisation agreed to move on consensus-building rather than sanctions--even with the new Charter--is a reflection already of its idiosynchratic nature.

What is not so different is the fact that there are regional leaders driving the group. In this case, it is Singapore; Thailand; Malaysia; and Indonesia. According to bloomberg, they account for almost 90 percent of all foreign investment into ASEAN.

With regard to the bloc's response to the global recession, Bloomberg reports:

Asean’s new charter, which came into force three months ago, has no mechanism to stop member countries from implementing protectionist policies. Earlier this month Indonesia ordered civil servants to use local products, and Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said it was “normal” for countries to resort to protectionist measures in a slowdown, according to local media reports.

ASEAN has always talked about free trade, and I don't believe that will change soon. What might have to be changed is the degree of political will to move forward on integration. That they have decided on a new human rights body, which has hitherto no name, is a great idea. Still critical steps to make it an important body in the ASEAN construct ought to take prominence. The naysayers and cold observers might huff and puff at the ideas for the region's processes. However, I believe that it needs to start with its charter--and the strengthening thereof--as an important step towards the critical development of its own regional integration.

What's eating the African Union?
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the African Union, the Pan-African body is getting some migraine from Guinea;Mauritania; Madagascar; and Guinea-Bissau. Need I mention Sudan? Let's watch the space for a frenetic period for the continental body. Before we do, let me leave you with a commentary by one Tom Nuttal about lessons that the AU can learn from the EU:

Tom Nuttall writing in the "Independent" newspaper of Uganda advances five lessons that AU member states can take cognizance of while conceiving of a United States of Africa.

First of all, it doesn’t take a charismatic man to drive the idea of any Union of African states. He refers to the "founding father" of the EU—a gradualist—Jean Monnet who espoused the idea of a Europe based on federal lines. Secondly, countries ought to "focus on the bottom line". In other words, they ought to believe that they will benefit mutually from being associated with each other, that leaving becomes the last thing on their mind. The third lesson is in finding "a method of integrating states while allowing them space for legitimate disagreements—and ensuring that those disagreements do not hinder the fundamental project of union." The fourth point is predicated on finding an external force, like the US in the EU after the Second World War ended in 1945, who can preside over any attempt or project to unite. Finally, adversity and challenges are necessary to advance any unification project. 

Will the Real "Regional Integrationist" Stand Up?

Rare is the "regional integrationist that will not concede defeat against what I consider the Eurocentric paradigm of the EU being the de facto trend-setter of global regional integration. Even more rare is the one that will openly advocate "the possibility of a UN reform in which regional organisations would be given seats in the Security Council along with states."

What is not strange is who is doing the advocating -- none other than Luk Van Langenhove of the United Nations University Comparative Regional Integration Studies [UNU-CRIS]. It is a delicious irony that the Belgian be based at a research institution on regional integration that is also home to one of the most advanced regions in the West--Flanders.

This ostensible little detail about the regions is important, in my view, because as I read the article linked on the UNU-CRIS website, I could not help but mull over the use of the word regions, especially in the context of EU integration.

Langenhove makes an interesting an important point that:

The EU is the world's most advanced form of supranational regionalism. It has managed to develop a model that incorporates political elements in a deep economic integration, and challenges existing assumptions about governance.

.

This level of sophistication seems to have a lot to do with the EU's Committee of Regions that has played an important role in cementing this so-called "deep economic integration." One website describes the CoR as:

The Committee of Regions is a new advisory body established by the
Maastricht Treaty, to take into account the views of regional and local
government in European decision making. The advisory Committee of Regions is
a compromise between the aspirations of powerful regions in federally
organised member states (such as Germany, Spain and Belgium), which have
long asked for direct influence on EU decision making, and the views of much
more centralised member states (such as the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands)
whose regional governments have only derived powers from a strong central
government.

A very superficial response to the EU's Committee of Regions was to think how one could be replicated elsewhere, say, in the African Union countries, where a number of countries--say many along the West african sub-region--fall under the ambit of regions. In my own country of Ghana, there are no less than ten regions, with regional ministers and district chief executives of those regions. This all for a country of roughly 22 million!

So, I can most definitely conceive of an AU that has a system like the EU's CoR, where regions are twinned and affiliated in a manner that they act as separate entities within the states they are part of.

But the operative word, today, is "states".

Van Langenhove prefaces his article with some history about states and the Westphalian order. As regards the latter, he maintains:

The Westphalian order that emerged in Europe and now spans the world proved to have a stabilising effect, making it difficult to change borders to create bigger units, especially now that war has largely been abandoned as a means of expanding territory. But some existing states are under pressure to split up as a result of nationalism and calls for cultural autonomy.

The alarm bells that the author gives about the stability of the Westphalian system--and how that is is danger is more relevant, because it means that the system is imperfect and can be modified. But does that mean that regions are the answer to resolving those potential dangers?

The author does not go this way in saying the region is a panacea. Rather, he argues that:

I myself believe that an announcement of the "death of the state" is – to paraphrase Mark Twain – gravely exaggerated. In the foreseeable future, states will remain important centres of governance. But in an attempt to face the challenges of globalisation, states can – on a voluntary basis – turn to world and local regions to complement and even strengthen their power. As such, the world of states would gradually become a world of states and of regions.

Regions as Complementary Roles
So, in fact, regions are complements to the nation state--and not substitutes. World and local regions helping to complement and strengthen the power are important in going this way. Note what Van Langenhove says about the EU:

European integration has been accompanied by "de-federalisation": the emergence of sub-national regional governance. The EU is not just a collection of 27 member states; it is also an association of hundreds of local regions. Regions can be found at all territorial levels. One could organise nice academic debates about what a region actually is, but a more pragmatic approach is just to accept the plurality of the concept and focus on what regions are not. They are not sovereign states!

In my own country of Ghana, the Ashanti region--the second biggest region after the Northern region--is renowned for having called for independence from Ghana many years ago. Belgium's own recent troubles that lasted more than six months when the relatively stronger Flanders region wanted to do what looked like a split from Bruxelles-capitale politicking is a testament of the potential divisiveness of ensuring strong regions within states.

States won't disappear
Thing, though, is that states are not going to go away any time soon--neither will regions. Extrapolate this to the international level, and it seems likely that most regional organisations that we know will not go away any time soon either! Rather, I foresee that they will do the natural thing of evolving and transforming into bigger entities, such as ECOWAS Secretariat into an ECOWAS Commission, and the former OAU into the African Union in 2003--very much modelled on a hybrid between the United Nations and the European Union.

That ASEAN now has a charter, where the EU does not is not necessarily an indication of the sophistication of that ten-member grouping, but rather one of the decision to evolve into a more supra-national entity with what is considered legal personality.

These are certainly big ideas coming from a big article, and a lot more could be said. In the interests of time, I will broach this article at another time, for the ideas have tremendous resonance in the regional integration paradigm. That the EU is to play a greater role in the development of regional integration worldwide is a palatable idea.

It is a shame, therefore, to see it using the Economic Partnership Agreements as a stick to disrupt the regional integration initiatives of the AU countries.

Still, Van Langenhove's point here is not to be sneezed at, and I sincerely believe that it is providing the grounds for a critical and progressive look at regional organisation as well:

The multiple world of regions could be a way to replace the illusion of a single national identity with the more realist view that people hold plural regional identities. As such, the world of regions might not only be a more complex world but also one with more chances of peace and freedom. Europe can help to make this challenging vision real.

ASEAN/SAARC Integration Gospel, according to The Economist

You have got to give it to the Economist. Once it propounds theories on regional integration, people are bound to listen. It hasn't been in this business of writing and influencing for almost two centuries for nothing. But that has got to change.

On issues of regional integration, people are getting smart, and being more discerning. Old attitudes that seek to see the EU as the precursor of regional integration everywhere, or those that seek to perpetuate the idea that it is because of countries against each other that cause the fragmentation of regional block are not quite fading into insignificance, but fading...somewhere!

Whilst there is some truth to these ideas, it's always important to look beneath the surface.

The Economist sadly, in its latest article looking at ASEAN, fails to do so. In my view, any generalist on regional integration could have come up with the view.

It starts off by saying all that we know: "The European Union has plenty of critics".

By gum, surely a secondary school leaver could have come up with that!

Then it goes on:

"For Asian leaders who seek greater regional integration across the continent, however, the EU surely provides at least a distant goal, if not a model. But time spent in Brussels talking to officials at the European Commission about the EU’s relations with Asia highlights the gap between the EU and its nearest Asian equivalents"

Let me not begin to presume that I am cognisant of the discussions that transpired between EU officials, but I can say authoritatively that this post goes to fly in the face of the Economist magazine's claim. In that article, EU officials from the 28th session of the Inter-Parliamentary ASEAN Assembly were claiming that ASEAN's model was a commendable one. They went on:

"We have good relations and strong economic links. The EU is a large investor and we create a lot of trade in Asean and vice-versa."

2. "Apart from having a common economic interest, our regional cooperation is the most advanced and successful in the world,"

3. "Until last year AIPA was still called the Parliamentary Organisation. It stresses parliamentary influence in Asean just like the European parliament"

Clearly, saying that there is work to be done does not discount the commendable nature of the organisation that is ASEAN, but in my view, the Economist should not go away making readers feel that ASEAN is clamoring to be like the EU--otherwise the ASEAN Charter would not have been passed!

Still, it is interesting to note that the article talks about war having been fought among the current 27-member-strong EU several decades ago, so why does it feel that if there are issues between India and Pakistan in SAARC over Kashmir, the two countries cannot sort it out? It writes:

In comparison, the two big Asian integrative ventures—the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC)—are puny striplings.

ASEAN has at least achieved the first aim. Formed in 1967, just after a period of “confrontation”, just short of war, between Indonesia and Malaysia, it has made armed conflict between its members (now ten of them) seem very unlikely.

SAARC is not even there yet. It is riven by bloody internal conflicts in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, and a dormant but unresolved dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan that has sparked three wars in the past. A regional conflagration, sadly, cannot be ruled out.

In Brussels, SAARC hardly gets a mention. This is not just because its contribution to regional integration is so inchoate. It is also because, within South Asia, India physically, politically and economically dwarfs its neighbours.

This reference to India/Pakistan is a development that needs must be talked about in discussions over any SAARC integration, but I would have assumed the esteemed magazine to have elaborated a bit more than the sentiment that things can turn into a "regional conflagration."

It is fair to say that integration in SAARC is slow and, well, very slow, but it is important to put things into perspective. SAARC and the EU are far from comparable. EU and ASEAN, yes, but SAARC and EU, no!

I like the fact that the Economist has woven a news story of the EU wanting an FTA with India and ASEAN around this piece, but it has done some selective interpretation of the story, in my view, to underscore how formidably efficient the EU is--and, frankly, that's not on.

Sure, the EU had problems with Burma, but let's face it, ASEAN has not kicked that country out. The ASEAN Charter is a reality and Burma does not look to be going anywhere!

It is true that the Charter might have issues on voting; and the beefing up of the Secretariat, inter alia (note that ECOWAS without a charter transformed into a Commission so as to become more "efficient"), but it is not as if ASEAN will do it today is it?

Even the much-maligned African Union has moved away from the doctrine of non-interference, albeit slowly. ASEAN will go that way some day.

In my view, it's all about shades of gray.

It is important to talk about SAARC and how it can be helped, but the EU, I suspect, knows that it because it has preferential relations with the India (a rather dominant figure within SAARC), the organisation can probably go fish.

I suspect further that any greater proactiveness by India within SAARC might go to ruffle the EU's growing feathers.

Communicating the ASEAN Message

"I think many journalists are not aware of the impacts of ASEAN's many achievement on us. It seems that if it is not a corruption case then they will not publish it. We realize that we have to change this" -- Dian, Foreign Ministry's director general for ASEAN affairs

Haven't we been here before?

Communicating the ASEAN message graced this blog, when I first started writing it in this way back in April 2007. Then, it was the Malaysian ASEAN Youth/Sports Minister who was encouraging the youth to face up to both global and regional challenges by learning about ASEAN.

Now, like a boon to the minister, we read that most youngsters are actually in tune with what ASEAN is doing:

It found students from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were most likely to identify themselves with the ASEAN, with 96 percent, 93 percent and 92 percent respectively.

Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam are the newest members of ASEAN, having joined the 10-nation grouping in the 1990s.

They are often referred to as the newest four, or CMLV, and their development lacks behind the other six member countries.

Students in Singapore had the weakest affinity toward the grouping, with some 49 percent saying they were citizens of the grouping.

Even if these are the latecomers expressing this opinion, it cannot hurt for ASEAN to know that they might be getting something right.

Furthermore, it was not that they were only in tune with what the regional grouping was doing but that they also identified themselves as citizens of ASEAN.

In my view, this is a great start, and very welcome news to the South East Asia grouping, especially in the light of the establishment of its Charter last year.

Work to be done
In the meantime, much needs to be done by the media--the purveyors of information, and often the putative gatekeepers to society--to showcase the works of ASEAN. This, at least, was what Indonesia was saying.

Superficially speaking, blame can be apportioned to the media for failing to write about ASEAN. Truth be told, if there is little interest in the first place, how can you expect editors to consider writing about it. Therein lies the paradox of reconciling a responsibility to encourage citizens to feel more in tune to the regional grouping, and highlighting what it means for them, with reporting actual news about the organisation--even if it is considered bad.

On communicating regional integration to citizens, there are hardly any black-and-white areas: these agreements are realities--whether we like it or not, and so it becomes incumbent on all and sundry in the media to do its level best to understand the issues inherent in them, and if it is not happening, use the media itself to question why it is not happening.

Surely, that can only be a small step to obtaining that critical and progressive view of regional integration?

ASEAN Apathy Bites the Dust with ASEAN Charter?

"ASEAN, as an inter-governmental organization, is hereby conferred legal personality," says the Charter.

According to the Blueprint, the AEC builds on four pillars: a single market and production base, a highly competitive economic region, a region of equitable economic development, and a region fully integrated into the global economy

"When it (the Charter) comes into force, it has the potential to transform ASEAN from a loose grouping of countries into a more cohesive, more effective and a more rules-based organization,"

Even at a time when the South East asian regionalisms attitude towards erring members (viz: Pakistan in SAARC, and Myanmar in ASEAN) could be described as this side short of soporific, I have to confess that I am rather excited by the prospect of an ASEAN Charter. Excited, because it signals the beginning of what can be in the critical and progressive discussion on regional integration. What can be as in what is possible, where others might have failed.

I've intoned time and again how the Europeans rejected the constitution back in 2004, yet ASEAN leaders have managed to chalk, and pass it. As to whether it will translate to the citizens is a moot point.

Whatever the case will be, I believe history will look favourably on the 10-member regional organisation that has a population of 500 million [ECOWAS has 250-300 million, and is fifteen members] for having bitten the bullet to pass the Charter.

Highlights of the Charter include a compulsion by members:

to democracy and protection of human rights, the charter also mandates the establishment of a human rights body in the region and aims to turn the region into an European Union-style market.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/071120/43/6nguj.html

Though I am wont to criticise the EU-one-size-fits-all that many regionalisms touch on at least once in their life, I am avoiding that here, because I think it's time to accentuate the positive step ASEAN has taken.

Let's remember that 4the organisation turned forty only in August this year. It didn't wait for its Jubilee before doing something constructive for its region!


Above all, and in all seriousness, ASEAN wants to use the Charter to facilitate an Asian Economic Community by 2015. Well, deadlines are great. (Isn't the world supposed to eradicate poverty by half by 2015?) What matters is that there is a framework, a structure that can be carried forward by posterity. ASEAN now has legal personality--and that certainly, four decades after it was established, can only be congratulated.

In many respects, however, I can understand why the celebrations over the charter eclipsed the UN envoy to Burma Ibrahim Gambari's visit in a way that made the meeting abortive. Put simply, the meeting didn't happen.

I surmise that not that ASEAN was denying that Myanmar is a nettlesome issue, but that to have brought the UN envoy would have been undermining the cohesion ASEAN tried so hard to fight for in taking more than two years to draft this lofty charter.

I have always been in favour of UN envoys--and it's not going to change anytime soon--but, again, I've seen a similar thing in West Africa with Cote d'ivoire when it launched its coup in September 2002.

ECOWAS also decided not to expel it, but brought pressure to bear through the collective voice of ECOWAS to bring normality to the country through...talk.

For all the necessary noise that the US is making by saying (through Susan Schwab, US trade representative) that ASEAN's relationship with Myanmar cannot be "business as usual", it makes sense that ASEAN is not going to break its party anytime soon! Let it cry when it wants to--but certainly not now that there has been a significant, critical and progressive development in ASEAN's regional integration.


quotations taken from the following links:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7115277.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7114354.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7115085.htm