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Re: SEA/ASEAN regional actor in res.

Hey, folks:

Medina brings up some interesting operational problems that might arise
with using ASEAN, but I just wanted to comment on a couple of underyling
assumptions - I actually haven't made a decision about how ASEAN would be
as a topic actor.

On Wed, 18 Jun 1997, Jorge Medina wrote:

> problems from an Asian perspective. ASEAN is based on compromise and
> consenses in the traditional Asian way, everyone gets a say and nobody

This is a common view held in the West, but I'm not sure it's productive
to characterize the policy process of an entire continent this way.  The
reason ASEAN member states like the organization is that it is run by
them, not by some country 3,000 miles away that thinks it runs the world
simply because it has the biggest missiles.  Much of Asian history has
been characterized by exactly the types of conflicts that have occurred in
Western history.  There have been many, many Asian policy decisions made
by brute force that involved one side dominating the other, and there are
rivalries in that part of the world that predate many European
governments. 

> open up every Aff for a critique.Many of the countires in SE Asia have a
> different conception of human rights then we do.The only way to avoid

Again, I think this is a dangerous assumption.  Colleagues of mine, born
and raised in the PRC and still citizens there, wore black armbands after
the massacre at Tiannenmen Square.  Many Asian governments have a
different concept of human rights than we do, but if you ask the fellow
who is getting flogged in the back yard of the prison labor camp, he would
probably give you a very Western definition of human rights (assuming you
could talk to him freely in the absence of his captors, of course).  I
find it interesting that nobody argues that Mobutu Sese Seko was just
pursuing an alternative, African definition of human rights for his
countrymen.

I don't presume to know everything about Asian cultures, but my experience
and reading have suggested that many of the assumptions we use to describe
the people in that part of the world are not only wrong, but dangerous. 
I'm not saying that Medina is engaging in racist stereotyping, so everyone
just calm down.  I just think we need to examine these issues more
carefully before leaping to conclusions. 

          --Alan

__________________
Alan Dove
N3IMU
ad52@columbia.edu
http://128.59.173.136/Poliolab/Alan/Dove.html
References:
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