During my last research trip to Indonesia from October 2012 until March 2013 the ASEAN Community was always a big topic in my interviews. All of the politicians and diplomats I interviewed had "something" to say about ASEAN's great blueprint for a broadening and deepening of the regional integration project in Southeast based on the three pillars of the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC), ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC). However, when we started talking about substance the ice got thin for my respondents. Usually the respondents referred to what was "talked about" between the governments of the ten ASEAN members and why there was no progress on the issue at the moment. Very seldom anybody pointed to a concrete action plan. At the end many a interview partner was eager to change the topic. This can be illustrated by a conversation with an Indonesian senior diplomat strongly involved in the ASEAN Community project. After I asked him what will change in 2015. He came into trouble giving me a concrete answer and, after some stumbling, concluded happily that by 2015 we will all be able to feel that something is different! [1] It might be not very surprising that his answer did not manage to knock me off my chair.
ASEAN community building process
Clearly, we all need to understand that with the enactment of the ASEAN Community in 2015 the world will not change completely just because the governments of ASEAN decided to officially launch the next step for ASEAN's integration process. Instead, of course, we need to understand that the ASEAN Community, just like the European integration project, is a process not a single-shot event. One of the main challenges I see is that the ASEAN Community might start as a community without people. Why is that and what does it mean?
Why a community without the people?
There are many proposals in discussion within ASEAN at the moment. Among them to name a few are the common "ASEAN driving license" and a common layout for passports similar to the passports of European Union member states. One initiative taken by the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Kemlu) was to open ASEAN Studies centres in five major universities throughout Indonesia. Two of these centres are hosted by the prestigious Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta and the University of Indonesia in Depok. [2] It is right of Kemlu to stress the importance of these centres in promoting ASEAN, but they are at the moment a small but prestigious projects with limited impact.
The five universities chosen for the ASEAN centres are strategically chosen based on their geographical location as well as their ranking among the best institutions of higher education in the country. At the same time it can be argued that the students of these institutions are already among those most strongly exposed to knowledge about ASEAN. To increase the image of and knowledge about ASEAN in Indonesia, the government needs to promote the association not only beyond the gates of Indonesia's universities, but also beyond the establishment of government financed top-down initiatives.
Many of the projects related to the ASEAN Community aim at establishing and strengthening people-to-people contacts. However, ASEAN was always criticised as a club of its member states' political elites and also the ASEAN Community so far has the smell of a dominantly top-down project. But it is important to understand that community building without the people will not work. The Indonesian government should hence vastly increase the outreach of its ASEAN campaign in the Indonesian population. Thailand gave a good example by reserving prime time on television for reports and news on ASEAN. Another approach would be a large PR campaign to spread information on ASEAN in the country. A starting point would be to simply make the ASEAN logo seen all over Indonesia. An ASEAN-wide student exchange programme is always praised, but habitually fails because of a lack of money and the lack of motivation to research its feasibility. During a visit to the ASEAN Foundation I was astonished about the various high quality information brochures available and had to wonder why I never saw any of these at an Indonesian university or school I visited.
Again the only exception was Bali where a huge poster advertises the ASEAN Community 2015 (see top picture). Such advertisements, however, do not target the larger Indonesian population, but the many international tourists visiting the island every year and the foreign dignitaries coming for the APEC Summit.
Grassroots initiatives as a stepping stone to the ASEAN Community
So what is needed to promote the ASEAN Community? Most important is to encourage and stimulate grassroots initiatives that help to promote ASEAN. During my time as a guest lecturer at Universitas Katolik Parahyangan (Parahyangan Catholic University) in Bandung, I had the pleasure to get to know many of the university's bright students and, without knowing it, to wake an enthusiasm for "their ASEAN" in them. The outcome was a huge spontaneous effort to raise awareness and knowledge on ASEAN at the university and beyond. Starting with a large info board on ASEAN and its member states they created awareness and discussion. The feedback from fellow students motivated them to decide to go on with their project and to expand in the coming years. These are the kinds of initiatives the Indonesian government needs to locate and support. The government should listen to these peoples' ideas and encourage them to go on. Because a community is as strong as its members and as the European experience showed without the people their is no integration. This is where the government needs to help.
[1] Interview by author, Jakarta, January, 2013.
[2] "Yogyakarta gets ASEAN study center", The Jakarta Post, 01 May 2013
