Malaysia evolution going by unnoticed
The Australian (17/5/08): One of the oddest and least optimistic developments of recent years has been the way a sense of Southeast Asia has slipped out of the Australian consciousness.
This is not a partisan criticism, as the process was well under way under the Howard government but has not yet been reversed with the Rudd Government.
However, it is fair to say that both Kevin Rudd and his Foreign Minister Stephen Smith are aware of the problem and intend to address it. Watch for Smith, in particular, to undertake a program of Southeast Asian travel in the second half of this year.
The big exception to the trend is Indonesia. Everyone involved in foreign policy in Australia accepts the centrality of Indonesia to Australia's national interests. But the wider sense of Southeast Asia is fading, as are Southeast Asian studies at our universities, which could leave us radically undersupplied with specialists in nations of vital importance to us.
Several disparate factors are at work. One is, paradoxically, the success of establishing Indonesia's importance, so that institutions and individuals feel they have made their Southeast Asian effort so long as they have an Indonesian dimension. Another is the compelling quality of the Northeast Asian trade and geo-strategic story. Yet another is the rise of India, which has become our fourth largest export market. And, finally, we are understandably preoccupied with our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All this has tended to crowd Southeast Asia off our agenda and my guess is we are less generally Southeast Asia literate than we were a decade ago.
This is ironic because Southeast Asia is undergoing profound and turbulent political change. The devastating cyclone in Burma could lead to political change there. I am hearing whispers of a big, forthcoming Indonesian initiative. It will bear the acronym JIM. I'm not sure whether this will stand for Jakarta Informal Meetings on Myanmar or something else. It will seek to work with China and India on a program for Burma to reach some kind of democracy. New thinking on Burma is desperately needed. Foolish US and European sanctions on Burmese exports, and against investment in Burma, guarantee its isolation, lack of development and liberalisation.
But change is abroad everywhere else in Southeast Asia, too. Thailand's new Government already looks shaky and the political future in this key Southeast Asian nation is extremely murky.
But perhaps the most important dynamic for change is under way in Malaysia. In the March election the opposition, led by former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, won an unprecedented share of votes and four state governments. Anwar was unable to run for parliament because of an earlier conviction on what many saw as political charges brought against him under former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.
That ban has expired and soon Anwar will enter parliament at a by-election. Malaysia consists of the Malay Peninsula and the east Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. The political representatives of these states occasionally have been in the governing coalition or out of it. Anwar hopes to woo enough of them to defect to his opposition coalition to put it in government without the need for another election.
This has happened before in parliamentary democracies, including Australia (John Curtin succeeded Robert Menzies in this fashion during World War II), and would not be remotely undemocratic.
It would, however, be revolutionary. The United Malays National Organisation has ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957. It traditionally got a majority of the Malay vote. It did this in part by providing racially based preferences for Malays. It also got enough of the minority Chinese and Indian votes to make its majority overwhelming. It did this in part by frightening the Chinese and Indians with the prospect of rule by the opposition Islamist Malay party, PAS, which has traditionally wanted a Muslim state with sharia law.
But that old structure of Malaysian politics has broken down completely. PAS is able to rally its supporters against the widespread corruption under UMNO. But the steady embourgeoisment of Malaysian society, especially Malaysian cities, has seen the old consensus break down under liberal attack as well.
A lot of younger, urban Malays want a more liberal, representative and democratic Malaysia. UMNO was caught in a crossfire from liberals and conservatives. Feeling under threat from PAS, it moved back towards greater Malay ethnic chauvinism and religious fundamentalism. This finally proved too much for the Chinese, who make up about one-quarter of Malaysia, and the ethnic Indians. They are a little less than 10 per cent of the population and are the most marginalised, getting neither the racial nor religious preferences of the Malays, or the employment and other economic opportunities that come from the big Chinese business community.
What Anwar has done, which is extraordinary, is wield these disparate influences into a more or less stable coalition, something I never thought he would be able to manage. No one except Anwar could hold it together. He has the Malay and Islamic credentials to negotiate effectively with PAS, and he has the civil liberties and modern economic credentials to reassure the Chinese and Indians.
His term in prison, combined with his previous experience as a deputy prime minister, gives him an overriding moral and political stature that makes it easy for all the disparate opposition figures to acknowledge him as their leader. This is an ironic echo of Mahathir's emergence after he established his independence by being expelled from UMNO in the late 1960s.
Part of the solution for Anwar will rely on Malaysia's federalism. The predominantly ethnic Chinese state of Penang will be infinitely more liberal than the overwhelmingly Malay and Islamic state of Kelantan.
A liberal, democratic Malaysia would once more change the dynamics, and the political culture, of Southeast Asia. It would pose a striking challenge for Singapore.
Anwar may yet not become PM, and if he does it may not be peaceful and he may not run a successful government.
But these momentous developments ought to figure much more prominently in our national discussion.
This is not a partisan criticism, as the process was well under way under the Howard government but has not yet been reversed with the Rudd Government.
However, it is fair to say that both Kevin Rudd and his Foreign Minister Stephen Smith are aware of the problem and intend to address it. Watch for Smith, in particular, to undertake a program of Southeast Asian travel in the second half of this year.
The big exception to the trend is Indonesia. Everyone involved in foreign policy in Australia accepts the centrality of Indonesia to Australia's national interests. But the wider sense of Southeast Asia is fading, as are Southeast Asian studies at our universities, which could leave us radically undersupplied with specialists in nations of vital importance to us.
Several disparate factors are at work. One is, paradoxically, the success of establishing Indonesia's importance, so that institutions and individuals feel they have made their Southeast Asian effort so long as they have an Indonesian dimension. Another is the compelling quality of the Northeast Asian trade and geo-strategic story. Yet another is the rise of India, which has become our fourth largest export market. And, finally, we are understandably preoccupied with our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All this has tended to crowd Southeast Asia off our agenda and my guess is we are less generally Southeast Asia literate than we were a decade ago.
This is ironic because Southeast Asia is undergoing profound and turbulent political change. The devastating cyclone in Burma could lead to political change there. I am hearing whispers of a big, forthcoming Indonesian initiative. It will bear the acronym JIM. I'm not sure whether this will stand for Jakarta Informal Meetings on Myanmar or something else. It will seek to work with China and India on a program for Burma to reach some kind of democracy. New thinking on Burma is desperately needed. Foolish US and European sanctions on Burmese exports, and against investment in Burma, guarantee its isolation, lack of development and liberalisation.
But change is abroad everywhere else in Southeast Asia, too. Thailand's new Government already looks shaky and the political future in this key Southeast Asian nation is extremely murky.
But perhaps the most important dynamic for change is under way in Malaysia. In the March election the opposition, led by former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, won an unprecedented share of votes and four state governments. Anwar was unable to run for parliament because of an earlier conviction on what many saw as political charges brought against him under former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.
That ban has expired and soon Anwar will enter parliament at a by-election. Malaysia consists of the Malay Peninsula and the east Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. The political representatives of these states occasionally have been in the governing coalition or out of it. Anwar hopes to woo enough of them to defect to his opposition coalition to put it in government without the need for another election.
This has happened before in parliamentary democracies, including Australia (John Curtin succeeded Robert Menzies in this fashion during World War II), and would not be remotely undemocratic.
It would, however, be revolutionary. The United Malays National Organisation has ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957. It traditionally got a majority of the Malay vote. It did this in part by providing racially based preferences for Malays. It also got enough of the minority Chinese and Indian votes to make its majority overwhelming. It did this in part by frightening the Chinese and Indians with the prospect of rule by the opposition Islamist Malay party, PAS, which has traditionally wanted a Muslim state with sharia law.
But that old structure of Malaysian politics has broken down completely. PAS is able to rally its supporters against the widespread corruption under UMNO. But the steady embourgeoisment of Malaysian society, especially Malaysian cities, has seen the old consensus break down under liberal attack as well.
A lot of younger, urban Malays want a more liberal, representative and democratic Malaysia. UMNO was caught in a crossfire from liberals and conservatives. Feeling under threat from PAS, it moved back towards greater Malay ethnic chauvinism and religious fundamentalism. This finally proved too much for the Chinese, who make up about one-quarter of Malaysia, and the ethnic Indians. They are a little less than 10 per cent of the population and are the most marginalised, getting neither the racial nor religious preferences of the Malays, or the employment and other economic opportunities that come from the big Chinese business community.
What Anwar has done, which is extraordinary, is wield these disparate influences into a more or less stable coalition, something I never thought he would be able to manage. No one except Anwar could hold it together. He has the Malay and Islamic credentials to negotiate effectively with PAS, and he has the civil liberties and modern economic credentials to reassure the Chinese and Indians.
His term in prison, combined with his previous experience as a deputy prime minister, gives him an overriding moral and political stature that makes it easy for all the disparate opposition figures to acknowledge him as their leader. This is an ironic echo of Mahathir's emergence after he established his independence by being expelled from UMNO in the late 1960s.
Part of the solution for Anwar will rely on Malaysia's federalism. The predominantly ethnic Chinese state of Penang will be infinitely more liberal than the overwhelmingly Malay and Islamic state of Kelantan.
A liberal, democratic Malaysia would once more change the dynamics, and the political culture, of Southeast Asia. It would pose a striking challenge for Singapore.
Anwar may yet not become PM, and if he does it may not be peaceful and he may not run a successful government.
But these momentous developments ought to figure much more prominently in our national discussion.
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