FULL SPEED AHEAD: KL, Singapore high-speed rail link is an example of a
project that will bring Asean citizens closer
THE news that Malaysia and
Singapore will embark on an ambitious project to build a high-speed rail link
connecting Kuala Lumpur and Singapore in 90 minutes is a happy prospect for
those of us who remain committed to Asean integration.
This comes at a time when
inter-Asean and intra-Asean trade and investment are slowly but surely rising.
Also, the communications infrastructure across the region -- in the form of
road, sea and cheap airline travel services -- has brought millions of
Southeast Asians closer, more than ever before.
Though the project will come into
fruition only in several years, it is worth taking stock of what Asean has
achieved and what it needs to bear in mind as it progresses.
For a start, with the growing
ease of travel across countries, we have not only increased physical mobility
but also increased upward social mobility. Services like the high-speed rail
system between KL and Singapore will bring together professionals, technocrats
and entrepreneurs more than ever, greatly contributing to the dynamism of both
countries and expanding their critical mass and talent pools.
It will render geography
increasingly redundant, to be replaced by temporal proximity instead as
communities develop in tandem with each other.
It will also compel us to ask
serious and deep questions about loyalties, identities, nationalities and
nationalism at a time when globalisation is forcing us to rethink these
categories, too.
Our children will grow up in an
Asean region where the concept of home may be dispersed, diluted and fluid.
One hopes, they will garner the
pluck to become truly global Asean citizens.
In a generation's time, we may
well see the next generation of Malaysians being born and educated in Malaysia,
but working and living in Singapore and other parts of Asean.
Asean may increasingly become the
home of these globalised Malaysians, and I feel that that would be a brave new
world that we should be anticipating from now.
However, there are two factors
that may hinder this process and derail it from its appointed trajectory, if we
are not careful:
For a start, it is crucial that
in the process of developing this new communications infrastructure that
connects and compacts Asean even more, all the partner-countries work and
cooperate on an equal and mutually beneficial level.
While I for one welcome the
high-speed rail link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, it is imperative that
Malaysia gains as much from the deal as its partner will do.
Second, it is equally vital to
remember that as we herald the coming of this great new age of social mobility,
we do not forget that for millions of ordinary Southeast Asians, such
opportunities may not avail themselves to them as much as they would like.
In this respect, I am referring
to ordinary Malaysians who would also need to benefit from such projects, and
for whom the benefits of such projects have to be made tangible and felt.
As Asean continues in its path
towards integration -- the Asean Community is coming closer, by 2015 -- we
should avoid the trap of creating two Asean that do not communicate with one
another: a rich, upwardly mobile, savvy and connected Asean of professionals,
entrepreneurs and technocrats; and a poor Asean made up of those who have been
marginalised by capital-driven progress and development.
What Asean has to avoid at all
costs is the prospect of creating a region where we have pockets of
hyper-development and wealth, surrounded in a vast ocean of poor, illiterate,
disenfranchised and immobile citizens.
For wealth and hyper-development
never rests comfortably next to ignorance, poverty and helplessness, and the
capitals of Southeast Asia should not end up like gated communities fearful of
the restless countryside.
What needs to be avoided in the
Asean region is the creation, by default, of scores of poor and unconnected
people who feel that they have lost out in the globalisation race, for these
will be the ones who will be most likely to support the sectarian campaigns of
hyper-nationalists who insist instead on the closure of borders, the
nationalisation of resources and who regard all foreign capital as predatory
and dangerous.
Signs of such stirrings are found
among the poorer sections of Indonesian society, and this is not surprising
when we consider that 60 per cent of Indonesia's monetary wealth resides among
the rich elite in Jakarta.
It is for these reasons that I am
elated by the announcement of the new speed-rail between the two countries, but
am also mindful of the need for all the governments of Asean to develop their
societies together, and comprehensively. Should both objectives be met
successfully, the future of an inter-connected Asean seems brighter than ever
before, and crucially it will also mean that we, Asean citizens, would have
overcome the colonial legacy of divide and rule that once tore our region apart
and rendered us strangers to ourselves.
Farish A. Noor
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