Reading from a news perspective, the current dispute between Indonesia and Singapore over how to deal with alleged terrorists is but just another diplomatic row between the largest and the most tiny country in Southeast Asia. However, seen in the longer time frame of modern history and larger spatial scope of regional politics, the fact that Indonesians now talk back to Singapore seems to indicate a shift of the psychic balance of power.
According to a Reuters report, Indonesias Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda told the English-language Jakarta Post last Sunday that while it is easier for Singapore authorities to make allegations against certain individuals and detain them without trial as terrorists, Indonesia, now as a democracy, cannot do the same.
Hassan was also quoted by Reuters as saying that in a democracy, everything should be done through a clear legal process and authoritarianism is something thats behind us .
For those who have followed the politics of Southeast Asia in the past 40 years or so, the posture, tone, ideas and concepts in Hassans statement are themselves indicative of a new psychic development, albeit subtle or even imperceptible.
The Indonesian foreign minister was speaking like American presidents, J F Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to Singapores Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew. A Cambridge-trained lawyer and Asias longest-serving statesman, Lee has always been self-styling himself as a classical Anglo-American liberal, but has also been widely perceived by others as the spokesperson for western interests and values in the region.
Educated generations
It is certainly an indicator of the political sea change in Southeast Asia: in the last 40 years or so; while Singapore prided itself to be the bastion of the western rule of law in turbulent and revolutionary Asia, Indonesia was ruled first by revolutionary justice of Sukarno and then the anti-revolutionary injustice of Suharto. In the same period, China was not only turbulent politically, but also socially and economically backward.
The contrast between modern Singapore and other backward Asian countries (with the exception of Japan) then was unmistakably sharp. In the west, it was specifically the defender of freedom and democracy, albeit in their diluted forms, against communism, revolutionary nationalism and radical political Islam.
However, others have learnt and grown up. Thousands of children of vernacular-speaking coolies and possibly illiterate peasants from Malaysia, Indonesia and China have gone through higher education than their parents and grandparents.
Many have also graduated from London, Washington DC, New York, Dublin, Melbourne, Sydney, Wellington and Christchurch and are capable of reading The Economist , Newsweek , Times , Far Eastern Economic Review , Foreign Affairs , Foreign Policy and Janes Intelligence Review . Like Singaporeans, they also have friends in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
Learn to empathise
True, they are still slow in developing the economies and adopting science and technologies for their countries because of the weight of histories, traditions and population, but the aspiration is certainly strong. Singapore must learn to empathise with others in the region because the march to material modernity has to be balanced by cultural and religious considerations, as well as democracy and human rights. It will become more and more lonely in the age of the rise of the regional masses.
It must not be perceived by others in the region to be arrogant, insensitive and paternal anymore. But as an independent and sovereign state, it has the right to self-defence and to find ways and means it thinks best to serve the purpose of preserving its territorial integrity, political independence and economic well-being.
Above all, it should adjust its attitudinal relationship so that others would not feel humiliated, insulted or snubbed. It should live in this region as a good neighbour, not as a school discipline master.
JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia . Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew , he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.
