This continuity in oppositional dialectics from the colonial era and the unconditional acceptance of inherited political borders as a given reality hinders the re-imagining of the region as a collective community with a shared past, present and future. Renewed power rivalry between the US and China has also forced the region to look for new ways to balance their interests (Acharya 2017: 25-38). The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the main regional organization in Southeast Asia. Collective Identity Formation in Asian Regionalism: ASEAN Identity and the Construction of the Asia-Pacific Regional Order. Paper presented at Research Committee Sessions (RC06) Theorising the Role of Identity in the Unfolding of Regionalism: Comparative Perspectives, International Political Science Association. Indonesia's Foreign Policy. Although called the "Southeast Asia Treaty Organization," only two . There is perhaps a reason for this. 1 (February 2002): 89-117. From neighbourhood watch group to community? National histories have to shift away from a mono-logical retelling of events to one that teaches it in the broader context of the region that reminds the people of ASEAN of the numerous, intersecting historical and cultural ties that exists amongst them. Bangkok: Heinrich Bll Stiftung Southeast Asia, 2017. 6 (November/December 2012): 1043-1066. has thus far remain unpromising and has yet to move beyond being mere political slogans. The Dayaks of Borneo have similarly refuse to accept the modern day national boundaries imposed upon them and continue to straddle the borders of Kalimantan (Indonesia) and Sarawak (Malaysia) in their everyday lives (Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia 2014, 209-231). Besides the Europeans, Japanese and the Americans used to colonize Southeast Asian countries as well. Colonialism is "a policy in which a country rules other nations and develops trade for its own benefit" and "the extension of power or . On the contrary, ordinary citizens at the grass-root level do not have their hands tied in the same manner. As the European colonizers were anxious to safeguard their economic interest and avoid any possible territorial conflicts with their counterparts, they saw a need to demarcate well-defined political boundaries to minimize any ambiguity over the extent of their rule. To do so, ASEAN must quickly shed its image as an exclusive club for the elite and maximize public participation if it wishes to build a genuine ASEAN community. The arrival of the Japanese armed forces in Southeast Asia in 194142 did not, however, occasion independence. Under such a shared, borderless geographical space, different ethnic groups and polities intersected and commingled to create extensive, regularized patterns of interactions. On the positive side ii led to development of industries in Asia and Africa. There have been attempts made by the Mandailing ethnic community to achieve recognition for their perceived distinct ethnicity. For instance, instead of competing over the ownership of the batik, it could be celebrated and promoted as a shared ASEAN heritage and serve as a social glue that enhances the sense of a regional identity. Despite the fact that the imperative to create a shared sense of ASEAN belonging and we-feeling comes from the political elites and bureaucrats of ASEAN themselves, it may remain a challenge to expect such a mental leap to be taken and led by them. Regionalism and Multilateralism: Essays on Cooperative Security in the Asia Pacific. Regional Security in Southeast Asia: Beyond the ASEAN Way. Thus, member states will have to de-parochialize their curriculum and re-tailor them to educate and familiarize the young people of ASEAN about their shared historical-cultural roots. Central Intelligence Agency. Philippine Literatures in a Derridean Sense: A Problem of (Re)versing the Region? . The motto One Vision, One Identity, One Community has since become an often-repeated slogan of the organization that appears in almost every ASEAN official statements and publications. And, if the general population appeared less docile in 1945 than four years earlier, the reason lay more in the temporary removal of authority at the wars end than in the tutelage of the Japanese. Association of Southeast Asian Nation. 4 They argue that an inherent tension between state sovereignty and regionalism exists as political elites are more concerned with the building of a stable, legitimate sovereign state as a vital prerequisite before the building of a strong regional community and identity (Hund 2010). They were unable, however, to avoid other concomitants of state expansion and modernization. As Rodolfo C. Severino notes, the Socio-Cultural Community was apparently brought in almost as an afterthought, at the Philippines suggestion, in the interest of rounding out the concept of a community (Severino 2007: 17-24) . Making Process, Not Progress: ASEAN and the Evolving East Asian Regional Order. International Security 32, no. Continuity served these purposes best, and in Indochina the Japanese even allowed the French to continue to rule in return for their cooperation. Locality in Conflict Resolution in Papua, The School and Society amid the Pandemic: A Teachers Reflection, Developing a Program for Gifted Music Students in Malaysia, Opposition Legislative Behaviour under Malaysias National Front. Map of Asia. In Cosmographia, 1598. This may explain why the collective ASEAN Identity as envisioned remains vague and poorly defined despite the repeated rhetoric of solidarity and cooperation in the official statements of ASEANs political elites (Jones 2004). _____________. In many others, independence was achieved only after a protracted revolution. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the main regional organization in Southeast Asia. They accepted the existing state as the foundation of a modern nation, which they, rather than colonial officials, would control. This influences some of the systems like education and governance but also stagnated the growth and development in these areas. From the Editor Myanmars Transition Stalled: From Opening to Coup, The International Court of Justice ruled in favour of Cambodia in 2013 with the temple of Preah Vihear and most of the nearby land belonging to Cambodia. Thus, the Thai began early on to send princes to Europe for their education, employing them throughout the government on their return. From this point onwards, a subject under the British colonial rule would only be allowed to travel within the dominions of the British Empire (A Collection of Statutes Relating to the East India Company 1810). Thailand Escaped Colonialism, But Still Adapted Western Ideas. These dialectics have assisted the regions political elite in their repeated attempts at playing up national sentiments against neighbouring countries in order to galvanize its populace for political gains. While ASEAN as a language game played by the political elites is not united by any geographical or historical linkages but rather material and political-economic interests, Southeast Asia remains an organic region where cultures, histories, language and ethnic identities overlap and cross-fertilize one another. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar. There was a clear absence of any rigid form of political and ethnic loyalties in the pre-colonial world of Southeast Asia. While these measures contributed to a greater sense of commonality and collective identity within the colonial states and allow its inhabitants to imagine themselves as part of an imagined community, they were confined within the boundaries drawn-up by their colonial masters. The article would further propose that the ASEAN Identity and ASEAN Community will continue to exist only in form but not in substance if a mental leap to re-imagine the region is not taken by the political elites and people of ASEAN. Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Laos all have civil law systems. While the boundaries of Southeast Asia, both epistemic and geographic, were inchoate, regional identity did exist in the region in a pre-modern sense. London: Archibald Constable & Co, 1825. It was a living reality for each individual Southeast Asian living in the pre-colonial era to possess multiple identities and having a sense of belonging that was not solely determined by ones place of birth (Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia 2014: 209-231). It is also likely that European efforts to choke and redirect the regions trade had already done much to destroy the general prosperity that trade previously had provided, though Europeans were neither ubiquitous nor in a position to rule, even in Java. 3 (July 2011): 365-382. In worst case scenarios, histories of pre-colonial wars and conflicts between ancient kingdoms are abused to foster a sense of national identity based on antagonistic terms, such as in the case of Thailands history textbook that depicts the neighbouring countries of Burma and Cambodia as enemies of Siam (taught as a precursor to the Kingdom of Thailand) in order to perpetuate a collective perception of external threat in which all Thai has to unite against (Aguilar Jr 2017). Shinzo Abes Military Legacy for Indonesia: The Seed Planted for the Future 1 (April 2012): 1-53. David M. Malitz, Senior Research Fellow, DIJ, Japan, Vietnam For instance, the inhabitants of the Indonesian archipelago began to see themselves as Dutch subjects, Malaya and Burma as British subjects and Indochinese as French subjects. A true ASEAN community cannot be built based on elite-level interactions and belief alone. Nevertheless, it was uncertain whether these efforts would be sufficient to withstand the pressures of the immediate future. Forming a security community: lesson from ASEAN. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 7, no. It will also argue that identities can be overlapping and not mutually exclusive and that an individual can be both a citizen of a Southeast Asian state and also sees himself as a fully participatory member of the ASEAN community. Over time, multiple networks of inter-related, mutually dependent communities were formed across the region with numerous linkages of affinities forged through maritime trade, migration and intermarriages that cuts across ethnic, cultural and political affiliations (ibid.). Aguilar Jr, Filomeno. It argues Imperialism affected imperialised peoples in both positive and negative ways. A few works by Hund (2010) and Narine (2004) have posited the persistence of a level of uncertainty among the political elites of ASEAN in their domestic political legitimacy as a key variable in their reluctance to create a unified ASEAN community and collective ASEAN identity. In Southeast Asia, colonialism did have the positive effect of European investment and construction of canals and irrigation systems. Nation Branding in Post-Coup Thailand: A Strategy for Political Legitimation? Thus, ASEANs main function was to assist the nascent nation-states in promoting, enhancing and preserving the political legitimacy of its government and safeguarding them from any external threats that may de-stabilize their sovereignty (Noor 2017, 9-15). Indian nationalism is rising, and it is a . Virtually all of the mobilization efforts, however, were based on Japanese models, and the new rulers were frustrated to discover that Southeast Asians did not behave in the same fashion as Japanese. Mayer, Franz C. and Jan Palmowski. Realist interpretations continue to dominate the study of ASEAN. Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei are the three countries with the highest percentages for trust. In the early 19th century, most of the nations of Latin America fought their wars of independence, freeing themselves from the colonial control of Spain. Social change was desired only insofar as it might strengthen these activities. For instance, Singapore remains plagued by a siege mentality that views its neighbouring countries, Indonesia and Malaysia, with much suspicion and this mentality informs its diplomacy approaches and military doctrines in the region (Rahim 2009). Imperialism in South Asia and the Pacific. Greater interaction between ASEAN citizens will definitely go a long way in helping them to take the mental leap required to develop a common sense of belonging that transcends national boundaries. Most of the new intellectual elite were only vaguely aware of these sentiments, which in any case frequently made them uneasy; in a sense they, too, were foreigners. Britain moved into Hong Kong in 1842, into Burma in 1886, and into Kowloon in 1898. However, for such a mammoth undertaking to take place, a significant cognitive transition must be made by the people of ASEAN that exceed the confines of temporality and space to re-imagine the region. S. Rajaratnam School of InternationalStudies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 22 February 2012. Impacts. Thus, they generally cast doubts for any sovereign states to be genuinely interested in the building of a shared community that is anchored on we-feelings. In the case of Southeast Asia, it is for the purpose of colonial capitalism and colony management during the period of colonial rule which is later adapted by the local elites for state and nation-building. Indeed, if Acharyas claim that an collective identity has been successfully developed among the political elites of ASEAN was true, one may question why recent events have pointed out to an increasing lack of regional cohesiveness and why the political elites of ASEAN have made repeated attempts to highlight the urgency to create an ASEAN community and identity if it is already a given? Integration into the global economy. Kurlantzick, Joshua. Despite the immense amount of scholarly work carried out on ASEAN, existing literature seems unable to provide a satisfactory answer to this predicament. Southeast Asia was to be re-modelled as an economic space primarily ruled by the logics of rationalism and instrumentalism. The French colonisation of Vietnam began in earnest in the 1880s and lasted six decades. From its roots as an inward-looking multilateral regional arrangement, ASEAN has since expanded its geographical scope to engage with external powers in the Asia Pacific region through the creation of modalities such as the ASEAN Regional Forum in 1994, ASEAN Plus Three (China, Japan and Republic of Korea) in 1997 and East Asia Summit in 2005 (Prasetyono 2007: 109-116). Even though early Southeast Asian most probably did not share a sense of solidarity as a collective community, it would be safe to say that they would have perceived themselves as fellow inhabitants of a common world. Efforts would be sufficient to withstand the pressures of the systems like education and governance but also stagnated the and. Belief alone the logics of rationalism and instrumentalism in return for their education, employing them throughout the on! 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