6 - Building a Community

Summary

A senior officer at the ASEAN Secretariat once observed that people will really feel part of ASEAN when they are able to live and work or study freely anywhere in the region, as in the European Union. Other observers of ASEAN have countered that the free movement of Southeast Asians to live and work or study anywhere in the region will be possible only when the consciousness of belonging to ASEAN has reached a certain level among its people. Not surprisingly, the truth lies in both assertions. The two propositions reinforce each other. A regional consciousness and a regional identity have to be relentlessly cultivated even as policies are evolved progressively to free up the movement of people around the region.

A regional consciousness does not come at the expense of one's national identity. A German acquaintance of mine likes to say, “I am a Bavarian, a German and a European — all at the same time.” A French scholar asserts that her children consider themselves European as well as French. Southeast Asia has not yet reached the stage at which its people can say and truly feel that they are Southeast Asians or people of ASEAN. This is another way of saying that ASEAN is not yet a community in the sense that Europe is.

Because of its social and political implications, the free movement of people should be and can only be a later phase in the process of regional economic integration; such a process would normally begin with the free movement of goods and services. Then would come, selectively, the free flow of capital. Regional economic integration, in turn, would require, and at the same time reinforce, a resolve on the part of states and peoples to strive for good relations and develop mutual trust among them. So would effective cooperation in dealing with regional problems. So would a realization, necessarily gradual, of shared regional interests and mutual need. Only in this way will an ASEAN community emerge and be built.