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ABSTRACT
Is humanity – a global human community – possible? I suggest that it is not only possible, but is an immanent world in certain places such as East/Southeast-Asia. This possibility emerges from what I call the original encounter – in which primordial spaces in the global realm are constituted by never-old, self-determining, and evolutionary political communities inside as well as outside of the logic of the state. The paper begins by asking: If we, the peoples, exist and respect each other as equals, how then do we come together and agree on our ideas, sentiments, beliefs, and interests as a divided community? Behind the question is a pragmatic purpose. A fifty-year peace has reigned among ASEAN states. But how did we keep this project alive? How can we extend and deepen it? The ‘original encounter’ I explore is a normative proposition. It comprises eight postulates which form aspects and dimensions of a world we inhabit but which we do not see in its totality – a gem in the rough. The objective of the paper is not to complete an answer, but provide enough evidence to raise a fundamental question: Can ASEAN be conceptualised as a community of peoples?
Acknowledgement
I am indebted to my colleagues and friends, and to my anonymous reviewers, in the course of writing the material for this essay, which I presented most recently at the 14th Pan-European Conference on International Relations (13 September 2021), International Studies Association – Northeast Conference 202 (4 November 2021), and earlier on as part of my doctoral thesis at the University of Leeds, “Constructing Human Rights: Language in the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration”, (September 2014). They have provided me the critique necessary for my thoughts that have lain fallow to take on life in the ideas that have given shape and form to this present essay.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established on the 8th of August 1967 in Bangkok by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. These first five members were joined by Brunei Darussalam on 8 January 1984, Vietnam on 28 July 1995, Lao PDR and Burma-Myanmar on 23 July 1997, and Cambodia on 30 April 1999. Available at: http://www.asean.org/about_ASEAN.html.
2 Kusuma Snitwongse, ‘Thirty Years of ASEAN: Achievements through Political Cooperation’, The Pacific Review 11, no. 2 (01/01 1998): 99.
3 Jürgen Rüland and Anja Jetschke*, ‘40 years of ASEAN: Perspectives, Performance and Lessons for Change’, The Pacific Review 21, no. 4 (08/28 2008).
4 Shaun Narine, ‘Forty Years of ASEAN: A Historical Review’, The Pacific Review 21, no. 4 (08/28 2008).
5 Alice Ba, ‘The institutionalization of Southeast Asia : ASEAN and ASEAN Centrality’, in Institutionalizing East Asia : Mapping and Reconfiguring Regional Cooperation (2016): 146–56; Alice D. Ba et al., Institutionalizing East Asia : Mapping and Reconfiguring Regional Cooperation (London: Routledge, 2017), 146–56.
6 Selected papers were then published in a formidable compendium of five volumes, collectively titled ‘ASEAN @ 50’ Surin Pitsuwan et al., eds., ASEAN@50: Retrospectives and Perspectives on the Making, Substance, Significance, and Future of ASEAN (2017). by the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), commemorating the organisation’s 50th anniversary. ERIA was established in 2007 at the 2nd East Asia Summit as a think tank to approximate an East Asia version of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
7 Ponciano Intal, Jr., ‘ASEAN: Then and Now’, in The ASEAN Journey : Reflections of ASEAN Leaders and Officials, ed. Surin Pitsuwan, et al., ASEAN@50: Retrospectives and Perspectives on the Making, Substance, Significance, and Future of ASEAN (Jakarta: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, 2017): 5.
8 Martin Wagener, ‘Lessons from Preah Vihear: Thailand, Cambodia, and the Nature of Low-Intensity Border Conflicts’, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs 30, no. 3 (2011): 27–59. I am grateful to one of my anonymous reviewers for calling my attention to this nuance.
9 Aileen Baviera, ‘Preventing War, Building a Rules-based Order: Challenges Facing the ASEAN Political-Security Community’, in Building ASEAN Community : Political-Security and Socio-cultural Reflections, ed. Aileen Baviera and Larry Maramis, ASEAN@50: Retrospectives and Perspectives on the Making, Substance, Significance, and Future of ASEAN (Jakarta: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, 2017): 3–4.
10 Richard Stubbs, ‘ASEAN Sceptics versus ASEAN Proponents: Evaluating Regional Institutions’, The Pacific Review 32, no. 6 (2019/11/02 2019), https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2019.1611627.
11 Tan Shri Ghazalie Shafie, ‘Politics in Command’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 22 October 1992, 1992, 30. Ali Moertopo served as President Soeharto’s advisor, deputy chief of the State Intelligence Coordinating Body, and Minister of Information.
12 See Scott Burchill and Andrew Linklater, eds., Theories of International Relations (Basingstoke, Hampshire [U.K.]; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
13 Michael Walzer, ‘On the Role of Symbolism in Political Thought’, Political Science Quarterly 82: no. 2 (1967): 194.
14 See the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and the 2008 ASEAN Charter. These are the constitutional documents of ASEAN and the cornerstone of the organisation’s so-called ‘dialogue partnerships’ with other states and regional organisations. The database is provided by the Center for International Law of the National University of Singapore is the most complete and systematically accessible: Center for International Law, ‘CIL Document Database’, (National University of Singaporer, 2009). https://cil.nus.edu.sg/home/.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Fernand Braudel, History of Civilizations (London: Penguin, 1993).
18 Braudel, History of Civilizations.
19 Nathaniel Peffer, ‘Regional Security in Southeast Asia’, International Organization 8, no. 3 (1954): 311–12.
20 For a lucid exposition of this reality see Erik Martinez Kuhonta, ‘Walking a Tightrope: Democracy versus Sovereignty in ASEAN's Illiberal Peace’, The Pacific Review 19, no. 3, (2006). For a critique of the principle of consensus as ‘least common denominator’ see Kevin H.R. Villanueva and Rosario Manalo, ‘ASEAN Consensus: The Intangible Heritage of Southeast Asian Diplomacy’, in Building ASEAN Community: Political-Security and Socio-Cultural Reflections, ed. Aileen Baviera and Larry Maramis (Jakarta: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, 2017).
21 Eric Tagliacozzo, ‘Navigating communities: race, place, and travel in the history of maritime Southeast Asia’, Asian Ethnicity 10, no. 2 (06/01 2009).
22 Tagliacozzo, ‘Navigating Communities: Race, Place, and Travel in the History of Maritime Southeast Asia’, 101–2.
23 This is work that I have only partially examined and shall further explore because it appears most promising for the arguments that I advance in this essay: Thomas Gibson and Kenneth Sillander, Anarchic Solidarity : Autonomy, Equality, and Fellowship in Southeast Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 2011).
24 Farish Noor, ‘Where Do We Begin? Reclaiming and Reviving Southeast Asia's Shared Histories and Geographies’, in Building ASEAN Community : Political-Security and Socio-Cultural Reflection, ed. Aileen Baviera and Larry Maramis, ASEAN@50: Retrospectives and Perspectives on the Making, Substance, Significance, and Future of ASEAN (Jakarta: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, 2017).
25 Noor, ‘Where Do We Begin?’.
26 In ASEAN, there are two tendencies in which scholars, and diplomats, who have participated in the drafting of many an ASEAN document, have taken to invoke consensus. The first recalls the cultural-anthropological origin and expressions of consensus in the Malay values of village life (kampung), called mufakat (consensus) and musyawarah (consultation). In the words of Indonesian Foreign Minister Subandrio negotiations undertaken in the spirit of musyawarah take place – ‘not between opponents but between friends and brothers’: see Siddique and Sree, The 2nd ASEAN reader, p. 48. Early and frequent references to mufakat and musyawarah go back to Peter Boyce, ‘The Machinery of Southeast Asian Diplomacy’, in New Directions in the International Relations of Southeast Asia: The Great Powers and Southeast Asia, ed. Teik Soon Lau (Singapore: Singapore U.P. for the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1973); Tan Shri Ghazalie Shafie, ‘Politics in Command’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 22 October1992; Kamarulzaman Askandar, Jacob Bercowtch, and Mikio Oishi, ‘The ASEAN Way of Conflict Management: Old Patterns and New Trends’, Asian Journal of Political Science 10, no. 2 (2002). Musyawarah goes on ‘for as long as needed for mufakat to be achieved’. For a longer discussion see Amitav Acharya, Constructing a Security community in Southeast Asia : ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2009); Alan Collins, ‘Bringing Communities Back: Security Communities and ASEAN’s Plural Turn’, Cooperation and Conflict (January 24, 2014); David Capie and Paul Evans, The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon (Upated 2nd Edition) (ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, 2007).
27 Brown, Understanding International Relations, 180.
28 ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, The State of Southeast Asia: 2021 Survey Report, ASEAN Studies Centre, February 2021; ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, The State of Southeast Asia: 2020 Survey Report, ASEAN Studies Centre, January 2020. Note that the survey questions here are verbatim from the 2021 survey. The wording of the some of the questions change in the 2019 and 2020. The questions are substantially similar in meaning and we don’t believe would change the survey outcome.
29 Though we have reason to be skeptical of this conclusion given the profile of the respondents.
30 Available at: http://www.asean.org/21861.htm.
31 For first-hand testimonies of the drafters, see Tommy Koh, Rosario G Manalo, and Walter Woon, eds., The Making of the ASEAN Charter (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., 2009).
32 Available at http://www.asean.org/22769.htm.
33 The literature on the Asian Values Debate is vast but the place to start is a survey of the following: Fareed Zakaria and Lee Kuan Yew, ‘Culture Is Destiny: A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew’, Foreign Affairs 73, (1994); Mohamad Mahathir bin and Shintarō Ishihara, The Voice of Asia: Two Leaders Discuss the Coming Century (New York; Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1995); Joanne R. Bauer and Daniel A. Bell, eds., The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
34 C. M. Turnbull, ed., Chapter 10: Regionalism and Nationalism, vol. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries, The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia (Cambridge Histories Online: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
35 These three conventions are available at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CoreInstruments.aspx.
36 Turnbull, ed., Chapter 10: Regionalism and Nationalism.
37 Niall Ferguson, ‘The Year The World Really Changed’, Newsweek (Article), 2009; Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Penguin, 1992); Samuel P. Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Article, Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (Summer 1993); Michael Leifer, ‘The ASEAN Peace Process: A Category Mistake’, The Pacific Review 12, no. 1 (1999).
38 Zakaria and Yew, ‘Culture Is Destiny’.
39 Mahathir bin and Ishihara, The Voice of Asia.
40 Kishore Mahbubani, ‘An Asian Perspective on Human Rights and Freedom of the Press’, in Debating Human Rights : Critical Essays from the United States and Asia, ed. Peter Van Ness (London; New York: Routledge, 1999).
41 See for example, E. Brems, Human rights: Universality and Diversity (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2001), 69–71.
42 1993 Joint Communique of the 26th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (Singapore: ASEAN, 24 July 1993, 1993). Available at: http://cil.nus.edu.sg/rp/pdf/1993%20Joint%20Communique%20of%20the%2026th%20ASEAN%20Ministerial%20Meeting-pdf.pdf.
43 Alan Collins, ‘A People-oriented ASEAN: A Door Ajar or Closed for Civil Society Organizations’, Contemporary Southeast Asia 30, no. 2 (August 2008). Contrast views with Stephen McCarthy, ‘Chartering a New Direction? Burma and the Evolution of Human Rights in ASEAN’, Asian Affairs: An American Review 36, no. 3 (2009).
44 The details of drafting and negotiation may be consulted carefully and at length in Kevin H. R. Villanueva, ‘Constructing Human Rights: Language in the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration’ (PhD University of Leeds, 2014). For to delve into the specificities of these events – at least in this journal and for this piece – would not only shift the epistemic intention of the essay – a normative call for ‘a new kind of ASEAN’ in a language of her own – but would also fall beyond the reasonable limits of space and potentially lead us astray. The study by Villanueva makes no attempt to generalize on progressive human rights structural changes either on the level of ASEAN or in any of the 10 member states let alone actual human rights situations on the ground. On the contrary, the investigation looks at the minutiae – what may often be considered negligible aspects – of social phenomena, in a specific setting, within a limited time scale and the paucity of rare pieces of valuable data. The official press releases for all ten official meeting may be viewed at: http://aichr.org/press-release/press-release-of-the-first-meeting-of-asean-intergovernmental-commission-on-human-rights-on-the-asean-human-rights-declaration-siem-reap-cambodia/#more-435.
45 I was invited to join the Philippine Delegation to the AICHR to observe the drafting process of the Declaration by Ambassador Rosario Manalo. We have since published an essay on the implications of the Declaration on the promise of consensus for ASEAN, and more generally for global diplomacy: Kevin H. R. Villanueva and Rosario Manalo, ‘ASEAN Consensus: The Intangible Heritage of Southeast Asian Diplomacy’, in Building ASEAN Community: Political-Security and Socio-Cultural Reflections, ed. Aileen Baviera and Larry Maramis (Jakarta: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, 2017). The arguments I make in the present essay, however, comprise a broader and more fundamental view in terms of how ASEAN is a historically contingent moment whose experience and lesson we may or may not choose to keep alive. I am looking at principles, not things.
46 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures : Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 10.
47 Not because it belongs to or is Southeast Asian, but because it is an experience and outlook that is present and real to Southeast Asia.
48 Thomas B. Pepinsky, ‘Migrants, Minorities, and Populism in Southeast Asia’, Pacific Affairs 3, no. 93 (September 2020): 600–6.
49 For an overview of the present challenges and opportunities which face the region, see for example, Mark Beeson and Alice D. Ba, Contemporary Southeast Asia : The Politics of Change, Contestation, and Adaptation (2017).
50 Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), 2.
51 UN/World Bank, Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict, World Bank, Washington, 2018, 126.
52 UN/World Bank, Pathways for Peace, 109.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Kevin Henry Villanueva
Dr. Kevin Henry Villanueva is an Associate Professorial Fellow at College of Arts and Sciences at the University of the Philippines in Iloilo, Philippines and Senior Fellow in Ethics and International Relations at the National Chung Hsing University in Taichung, Taiwan. He was awarded the ASEAN Fulbright Fellowship in 2018, at the American University's School of International Service in Washington D.C. and the Taiwan Fellowship in 2020, at the Institute of Strategic and International Affairs in National Chung Cheng University. He studied International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science for his Master of Science and received his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.