It is amid tight security, at times stressful to journalists as well as the Singapore transport users, that the Asean decided to move forward towards a new age. The signing of the Asean Charter, hailed as the path to a new era in the Asean region, marks The13th Summit. However, the charter is plagued by division among the Asean grouping as well as the type of democracy the region will implement, among other salient issues at stake.

It is amid tight security, at times stressful to journalists as well as the Singapore transport users, that the Asean decided to move forward towards a new age. The signing of the Asean Charter, hailed as the path to a new era in the Asean region, marks The13th Summit. However, the charter is plagued by division among the Asean grouping as well as the type of democracy the region will implement, among other salient issues at stake.

United on the war on terror under the leadership of the U.S. administration of President George W. Bush, the Asean grouping still showed divisions on issues like racial relationship, cultural identity and the never-ending fear of press freedom and the freedom of expression among Asean governments.

The landmark charter also calls for the strengthening of democracy, enhance good governance and the rule of law, and to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms, with due regard to the rights and responsibilities of the Member States of ASEAN.Democracy is not existent in many Asean member states in those where a democratic process is in place; it is still largely arguable whether the form of democracy is authentic or biased.

Brunei does not have a democratic system in place, while Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia are not ‘democratic’ states. Myanmar has a military junta in power and it has been that way for ages. Thailand is freshly heading towards a new democratic process but it has definitely lost its democratic ‘freedom’ with the recent intervention of the army in its political affairs. The army will not relinquish full powers and the new constitution drafted after the overthrow of the Thaksin Shinawatra regime in 2006 testifies to that.

While Singapore, the host of the 13^th summit can take pride in becoming the country that hailed the Asean into a new age, it is altogether a very tightly controlled democracy with scarce ‘political freedom’ for the opponents to the existing regime.

Malaysia too faces a democratic challenge of its own with claims by the opposition of violations of democratic principles and basic rights in the country.

Democracy goes hand in hand with free market policies, that is capitalism and also with the respect of human rights and civil liberties. These rights and liberties are still largely missing in 80 percent of the Asean block.

Only the Philippines and Indonesia can claim to be fully democratic nations with freedom of the press (at least on paper) and the respect of basic human rights (again questionable in some quarters) being at the forefront of their democratic principles.

What model of democracy is right for the Asean? Is it the Indonesian model that is gaining more praises from foreign and local press alike? Or is it the Philippines style of democracy where vote rigging and buying amongst other issues, are still widely practiced?

Or should the Asean stick to the Malaysian-Singaporean ‘democratic’ equation that allows some freedom of the press with the respect of rights at some level and the formulation of a certain degree of civil liberties? The question remains without concrete answer as the participants at the Asean summit in Singapore finds it hard to discuss such an issue.

Indonesia however may stake a claim in the leadership in the Asean grouping itself if it strives to ‘export’ its democracy within the Asean. This would take a little bit of wrangling with other Asean member states but the idea of an Indonesian style democracy being active in the region will make things simpler for the half a billion people in the South East Asian grouping.

In Indonesia, the press is relatively free to engage the government (national and regional) and criticize it when it deems necessary. The press played an important role in the shelving of the Indonesia-Singapore Defense Corporation Agreement (DCA), reporting extensively on the worries and reservations of the local Member of Parliament (MP’s) on the issue.

The same press held its independence amid pressure by the Australian and American embassies and foreign departments on issues relating to ‘terrorism’ and regional disputes within the archipelago. The Indonesian press is also rich with editorials that remind the reader of the Indian press and its flourishing editorials and articles of interests. There is no doubt that the Indonesian press has grown rapidly and positively as one of the fallouts of the ‘reformasi’.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment