It’s time for ASEAN to play a constructive role in tackling religious
and racial tensions across the region.
Delivering an integrated economic
community by 2015 is a long-cherished ASEAN dream. But events in recent weeks
have shown just how difficult the task will be, driving home the complex
realities facing the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),
particularly on issues of race and creed.
Hardline Islamic militancy has
surfaced again in Indonesia, while in the Southern Philippines ongoing tensions
between Christians, Muslims and ethnic Moros in search of a homeland have
spilled over into Sabah in East Malaysia. In Burma, anti-Muslim attacks have
spread, while in Vietnam and Laos all religions must follow the lead of an
atheist central government.
ASEAN has already witnessed
unprecedented political divisions, which were well documented last year when
Cambodia as the annual chair of ASEAN ignored regional responsibilities and
sided with China over its stand on negotiations involving territorial claims in
the South China Sea.
However, religious and ethnic
animosities are more deeply rooted and pose the biggest obstacles to lowering
the barriers for a 500-million strong population who will begin moving across borders
in search of work and mingling like never before, once the ASEAN Economic
Community (AEC) becomes a reality.
Authorities have been coy about
the launch date for the AEC, offering little and avoiding reporters’ questions
on the subject. They usually respond by saying the community will become a
reality by 2015, but the date has been pushed back to the end of that year.
During a recent meeting in
Brunei, this year’s ASEAN chair, the Bruneian Minister of Culture, Youth and
Sports Pehin Hazair Abdullah emphasized time was running out and a review of
the AEC was needed to assure all of its objectives were being met.
“We are two years away from 2015,
when the ASEAN Community begins,” he said at the meeting. “The time is short
and we need to act fast on this.”
His sense of urgency was
refreshing.
From a fiscal and monetary policy
perspective, the legislation is in place and the infrastructure – particularly
for cross-border trade – has been built. The desire to make money and prosper
has never been greater.
But critics argue that ASEAN –
which uses the European Union as its role model for financial unity and
stability – lacks the basic safeguards needed to ensure a fair and even
approach to a workforce that is about to witness a massive upheaval in its
traditions of organized labor.
Dave Welsh, from the American
Center for International Labor Solidarity, said those safeguards should include
a social security net, a process for collective bargaining and an independent
labor tribunal to handle complaints.
“Nobody has told us the
specifics, nor are they talking in terms of how to avoid the utter chaos that
could arise. We don’t know which workers are going to which country,” he told
The Diplomat, adding that worker choices, particularly among lower working
classes, could be driven by religion.
Here the divisions between the
major religions in Southeast Asia – Islam, Buddhism and Christianity – have
never been greater, a reflection of political pandering. Christian residents in
a small Indonesian town recently discovered this in dramatic fashion when the
city council ordered the razing of their church by bulldozers.
Muslims cheered as the walls of
the Taman Sari Batak Christian Protestant Church were pulled down in Bekasi, on
the outskirts of Jakarta, to the wailing of Koranic verses.
Islamic intolerance is not
uncommon in the world’s largest Muslim nation, with the anger of hardliners
often aimed at sects like the Ahmadiyya – seen as a blasphemous deviation of
Islam. Last year Indonesian authorities arrested a man for being an atheist,
while in Vietnam others were arrested at the same time for believing in God.
Violence has also flared between
Buddhists and Muslims in Burma. Troops have been dispatched to Meiktila where
about 20 people were reportedly killed amid heavy rioting and thousands more
fled their homes. Horrific footage was shown across the Internet of charred
bodies and people in fear.
Sources in Meiktila said that the
religious violence is being fueled partly by a lack of access to education and
economic opportunities, as well as xenophobic authorities. They added that
investment was needed at the village level to help lessen economic disparities
that are increasingly being defined by religious affiliation.
“This doesn’t need to breach
ASEAN’s mandate of non-interference in a neighbor’s affairs, rather they are
practical measures to help facilitate the local economy and small business,”
one source, who declined to be named because her family has business interests
in the town, told The Diplomat.
She added, “Considering Indonesia
and Malaysia are a part of ASEAN, it would be unwise for Burma to fuel this
xenophobia against the Muslim Rohingya and indeed, Muslims generally. Those
countries have economic clout in the region and should be prepared to speak up
for marginalized communities.”
Regional religious rivalry and
politics also provided a spectacular and deadly show of force recently in the
East Malaysian state of Sabah, where an insurgency was launched from the
Southern Philippines in February.
The Philippines has never
accepted Malaysian sovereignty over Sabah, which is traditionally Christian,
and has refused to arrest Jamalul Kiram III, a Filipino resident and
self-anointed Sultan of Sulu, whose insurrection has so far cost the lives of
at least 71 people in Malaysia.
Welsh said religion could serve
as fallback given the lack of basic rights afforded to workers under the
proposed AEC. This would mean Muslims from Indonesia, the Southern Philippines
or northern Burma would look for work in Muslim countries like Indonesia,
Malaysia or Brunei.
Meanwhile, Christians would be
attracted to The Philippines, while Buddhists would find cultural and religious
affiliations in Cambodia, Thailand, Burma and perhaps Laos where the Buddhist
clergy remains strong, despite 38 years of communism.
In short, religion will also
emerge as a backstop or guardian for communities seeking protection from the
middle-men and peddlers of dirt-cheap labor in a region where forced child
labor, press gangs and human trafficking on behalf of industries ranging from
garments to fishing have flourished.
On the other hand, there is also
a risk that religious problems will travel with the mass migration of workers.
The violence of today could consequently be taken into parts of Southeast Asia
previously untouched by militancy.
“There won’t be too many problems
for skilled people at the higher end,” Welsh said, referring to professionals
like doctors or engineers. “But at the lowest end the AEC could just be
legitimizing modern day slave labor practices.”
He added, “You will see Burmese
Buddhists going to Cambodia to work in the garment industries while young
uneducated Cambodians will probably have to forgo their Buddhist background and
work in Malaysia as domestic helpers where they work 24 hours, seven days a week.”
ASEAN and its policy of
non-interference in a neighbor’s affairs have also ensured that the bloc played
no constructive role from the outset in the latest Sabah insurgency, or in
Burma where even Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has remained silent on the
atrocious plight of Muslim Rohingyas.
“I feel like ASEAN is turning a
blind eye to the economic situation in Burma,” said the source from Meiktila.
“They need to take care to make concrete recommendations for development at a
localized level rather than one big super South East Asian economy,” she said.
None of this bodes well for a
united ASEAN, a trading bloc with aspirations of becoming a political entity
with real international clout. The AEC review called for by Pehin Hazair
Abdullah in Brunei is long overdue, but could help and is due for completion by
September.
Unless ASEAN begins to tackle its
racial and religious disharmony – much of it brought about by government
attitudes towards their own minorities – then the grouping and its much vaunted
AEC plans will look more like a rubber stamp for cheap labor, while
strengthening the religious divides, as opposed to delivering on a regional
model of laissez-faire economics.
Luke Hunt
Business & Investment Opportunities
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