Dedi Dinarto

Long before the discourse on the future of ASEAN centrality, S. Rajaratnam and Thanat Khoman have put their respective ideas on the ontological part of ASEAN, meaning that where ASEAN should depart on its characteristic, thus shape the way its interact at both internal and external level.

Rajaratnam pointed out that the long shadow of Cold War has shaped this region as the “states of fear” where every countries sought to defend themselves from external threat, and provide baseline to construct ‘common threat’. Given the situation of the escalating tension between Soviet Union and the United States, ASEAN chose to setback its activism not to show off their teeth instead of barricading Southeast Asia from the influx of communism influence.

On the other side, Thanat Khoman contrastively derived his idea on how to place the ideal and peaceful cooperation, given the framework to set aside the rising tension of konfrontasi of Indonesia and Malaysia, and other disputes between neighboring countries. He put that the ASEAN should represent a constitutive regime serving promise towards more cohesive, peaceful, and stable condition.

Between those two prominent views, it remains logical that ASEAN has produced 1967 Bangkok Declaration, Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), and Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) pacts to achieve their objectives. In spite of departing from different views on ASEAN at the first place, these two ideas can be bridged under the framework of winning the security and stability of the region. Neither national interest nor external parties are regarded crucial at that time.

Reflecting from the event of historical sociology between Rajaratnam and Thanat Khoman provides us the outlook of how ASEAN is able to determine its centrality.

However, it should be admitted that the composite interaction between ASEAN member states and its strategic partners nowadays has pushed political scientists and practitioners to look at ASEAN not only as a unproblematic regional body, but as a constructive and flexible pivot amidst tricky surroundings.

This is the matter of how we think about ‘ASEAN Centrality’ as an idea, which implies the source of power of ASEAN as a regional body. The governmentality has proceed to far serving the elites’ interest which surrounded by state-centric approach and calculation.

Not to do away from the dominant discourse, the elites could provide breakthrough creating intensive and fruitful cooperation on more human-centric issues. Negotiating major countries in the region to cooperate in non-traditional security issues that are quite transnational and require high and strict coordination and control mechanisms. Giving the example in how to attract China to aware on the issue of disasters and marine safety, and terrorism in the region would shed light on.

Therefore, this reflective approach underpin the way on how ASEAN member states could define their interests based on human-centric prioritization, and thus put up those issues to the responsibility of strategic partner countries. By doing this way, ASEAN can find its centrality amidst the complexities of international politics in the region. In other words, the centrality must be seen as a phenomenon coherent to change and intersubjective configuration.

Dedi Dinarto is a research assistant at ASEAN Studies Center, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada.

Dio Tobing – Intern at ASEAN Studies Center, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada

If the European Union is still dealing with mass influx of forced migration from the Middle East, Southeast Asian refugee crisis has also been going on for more than years. These refugees are mainly coming from places, which experience worst cases of human tragedy including political instability at their place of origins, conflict-zones, and human rights violations. At this very moment, ASEAN member countries have not yet reached any agreement on how to respond towards this issue, which is why the responsibility then goes back to its members individually.

Due to this lack of agreement within the forum, many people tend to blame the inability and incompetence of ASEAN members in responding this issue due to their majority position as non-parties the 1951 Refugee Convention. Many have also argued that the international community should pressure and urge ASEAN member states to start becoming the parties of the Refugee Convention 1951, as there are only two ASEAN members who have ratified the convention, which are Cambodia and the Philippines.

However, does ratifying such international law reflect states compliance towards its provision? Is international law a manipulable façade for power politics? (Koskenniemi, 2011) Even in the reality of ASEAN region, countries who are highly associated with the issue of refugee have constructively showed progress responding with refugee crisis. In mid-2015, the Ministerial Meeting on Irregular Movement of People in Southeast Asia have successfully adopted a joint statement stressing states responsibilities and obligations to provide humanitarian assistance towards irregular migrants initiated by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The governments of these three countries have committed to deliver humanitarian assistance and temporary shelters to those in need and those who stranded at the sea.

Moreover, these three countries also have their domestic mechanism in dealing with this problem similar to the provision of the 1951 Refugee Convention. For instance, Indonesia government refers to the Letter of the Directorate General of Immigration No. F-IL.01.10-1297. Government of Indonesia emphasizes that those who are seeking asylum in Indonesia would not be deported. The government also stresses that they are working in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) when handling the case of refugee. The provision of this letter is also in accordance with the principle of Non-Refoulement (Justinar, 2011).

Not only Indonesia, Thailand also stands as state not party to the Refugee Convention, however, the country has worked hard in providing temporary shelters along the Thai-Burma border, currently accommodating more than 105.000 refugees (EU, 2016). For Malaysia, there are currently more than 150.000 refugees registered by the UNHCR residing in the country (Lokman, 2016).

These three major ASEAN member countries do not become party to the Refugee Convention yet to some extent, their actions and policies reflected their compliance the fundamental principle codified into the convention, the Customary Principle of Non-Refoulement. Recognizing that the prohibition of refoulement stands on the same level of prohibition of torture as peremptory norm of international law, or jus cogens (UNHCR, 2006). These major countries affected by mass influx in Southeast Asian region have acted accordingly, as bound by the Customary International Law on prohibition of refoulement, although not becoming state parties to 1951 Refugee Convention. Even if there are no regional cooperation or agreement on responding towards the issue and although majority ASEAN members do not ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention, some states are in cooperation among each other as well as act unilaterally to overcome this issue in accordance to national policy.

Dedi Dinarto – Research Assistant at ASEAN Studies Center, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada

Encouraging students to actively participating in protest movement remains arduous. The busy academic activities and full-time organizational obligation pushes student to stay calm in campus without any centrifugal way of thinking. Living under strict and rigid academic practice and value, most of the students prefer to stay behind the desk and explore the reality through cyberspace as well as preparing their self-capacity for future professional job. On the other hand, there are also small amount of students whose initiative are to oppose against authoritative, corrupt, and repressive government. Given such ‘intellectual power’ to analyze and criticize the social contract, these students come up to organize counterbalance the praxis of statehood. In the last few days, the latter is real reflects on the Malaysian student-led protest that voices out the resonance to arrest ‘Malaysian Official One’ under the yell of ‘Tangkap Malaysian Official One.’

This rally should be seen as a positive signal since students start to participate and speak out of what is happening to their country and how it should be.

Despite the fact that Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 (UUCA) hampers the active participation of students within political arena, students have turned into political machine to fight against government. According to Aslam Abd Jalil, a protester who had also been graduated from the Australian National University, TangkapMO1 has showed the significant role of students in political contestation. Students are not only living under the traditional academic cage, but also transcending beyond the limit and fighting for the future of nation. In a broader aspect, he assessed that the rally would cause turbulence towards ruling party, thus affects the ruling party’s popularity. However, this opportunity will not give any significant change to the Malaysian politics since the opposition party is in a mess.

Moreover, TangkapMO1 also signifies the neutrality of student from political party.

Anis Syafiqah Mohd Yusof, spokesperson for the TangkapMO1 and the member of Persatuan Mahasiswa Islam Universiti Malaya (PMIUM) mentioned that the students are non-partisan. She loudly voiced out that this student-led rally should not be used by political parties to serve their interest. Although it does not mean that students reject the support from political parties to fight for universal values and justice.

This case reveals what Eep Saefullah (the author of Catatan atas Gagalnya Politik Orde Baru 1998) mentioned about the economic and social transformations that generate the rising of active and passionate students. The higher opportunity to access education will lead to the economic vertical mobilization. The growing of critical and well-informed community is inevitable. In the context of Malaysia, this should be seen as an opportunity since the data reported from World Bank shows that the youth literacy rate in Malaysia up to 2010 is 98.4%.

However, under the authoritative political architecture, it is insufficient for students to only organize and do protest in public space. The need to build and develop discourse within society is utmost. Breaking down the strict relation between government and society should be built under the skeptic view. Therefore, spreading discourse and opinion on what has been going on would be more significant. Otherwise, the movement will be regarded as fragile and extemporaneous.

Habibah H. Hermanadi – Research Intern at ASEAN Studies Center UGM

2016 begun with yet another terrorist attack to one of the ASEAN member states, Indonesia, the attempt of suicide bomb in Jakarta backed up by the currently emerging terrorist group Daesh surprisingly resulting in the famous #kamitidaktakut internet sensation which means we are not afraid, a sense of solidarity among Indonesians to resist the terror. Daesh or known as Islamic State (IS) is currently expanding their influence beyond Middle East and North Africa towards Asian regions with strong ideological roots fighting for the return of Islamic Caliphate. Their attacks went continuously in 2016 throughout Europe and Asia, the group is known for spreading terror and grievance by utilizing these attacks and propaganda. One of the most viral propagandas was recently uploaded in youtube—a video based social media depicting dozen of young Indonesian and Malaysian children who were armed and told to ‘liberate’ their homelands.   

Another notorious terrorist group which identifies itself as Abu Sayyaf, located in Philippines, has been causing distress in the Southeast Asia region since 2004, the group spreads regional terror after the very recent case where the group kidnapped 7 Indonesian sailors last month and now 5 more Malaysian fishermen were abducted around Sulu, Philippines. The group had shown extreme gruesome hostility towards the government by sending visual threats through the act of beheading, it was  considered as obscenely brutal way when it is not done in one fell swoop of a sword, but with slashes and hacks from a hunting knife.

On the 36th ASEANPOL Conference, Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak stated the importance of unity to fight off terror, in his speech he clearly mentioned “Daesh and its cruel, twisted ideology have no place in our peaceful, diverse, tolerant country and nor in our region,” he also condemned Abu Sayyaf and their recent abduction. The Prime Minister put on emphasis on the role of stronger ASEAN by taking example of Malaysia who had adapted the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act or Sosma; the Special Measures against Terrorism in Foreign Countries Act; the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the National Security Council, by implying these strong counterterrorism measure within Malaysia he had been facing many critics which questioned the government’s intentions yet he was unapologetic for the action that he took when it comes to the safety of the citizens. Similar reaction was shown by the newly elected President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, where he appointed the military to enhance the capability to search and engage the rogue and lawless elements, in his words, “the Armed Forces of the Philippines will be applied to crush these criminals who operate under the guise of religious fervor.”

The strong remark on the conference was dearly welcomed by the Russian federation whereas Moscow offered joint measures to diminish the number of militants arriving from Daesh, The idea was in line with Prime Minister Najib Razak mentioned, Russia will work together with ASEAN through mechanisms of our partnership, namely informal meetings of ASEAN defense ministers and talks of senior officials and sessions of the working group on counteracting terrorism and transnational crime. However on the foreign ministers meeting collaboration between ASEAN-United States was drawn, according to deputy’s spokesperson Mark Toner the detail of collaboration would be focusing on specific actions to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and ASEAN-US pledged their commitment to strengthen cooperation against terrorism and violent extremism.

The two initiations by the two influential countries exactly portray the dynamics of security in Southeast Asia, in one side as terrorist groups had been advancing themselves and connectivity among nations became vital in the context of tracking these groups down, yet in the other side the region has always been known as a strategic region, desirable by many for further security collaborations allowing flow of external parties from United States and Russia questioning the 1971 Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality declaration which was created to assure that there will be no interference  coming from outside powers. Razak and Duterte had been very vocal in showing their firm actions against these terrorist groups and suggesting others to tighten their military involvement in counterterrorism. Through these strong reactions ASEAN is given an opportunity to think about what Center for Strategic and International Studies, Rizal Sukma, mentioned in 2015 that ASEAN is not a security community, but rather a a security regime; without violating the sacred principle of non-interference. Will the current face of terror reformed the status quo driving ASEAN closer towards its ‘security community’ and ‘common internal enemy’ concept voiced by Professor Amitav Acharya in 1991? Either way the answer lies among the member states and whether or not they will concur.