[1310] Of a new secretary-general with a charter

Surin Pitsuwan will be the new secretary-general of ASEAN.

The foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have endorsed former Thai foreign minister, Surin Pitsuwan, as the new ASEAN secretary general.

Mr Surin will succeed Singapore’s Ong Keng Yong who will end his five-year term at the end of this year.

He will be the first ASEAN secretary general to serve under the ASEAN charter, a legal instrument proposed to be ready in November and aiming to transform ASEAN into a rules-based association. [ASEAN endorses new secretary general. Radio Australia. July 31 2007.

While I am pro-ASEAN, perhaps especially so after witnessing the frustrating Doha Round, I am unsure how the new secretary-general would affect me as an ASEAN citizen.

This is even more so when I read that the Singaporean Foreign Minister, George Yeo said the ASEAN Charter is expected to be signed later during the ASEAN Summit planned in November this year in Singapore.

SINGAPORE : Foreign Minister George Yeo has said he is optimistic that the final ASEAN Charter will be signed when the group meets in Singapore later this year. [ASEAN Charter likely to be signed at Singapore meeting: George Yeo. S. Ramesh. Channel NewsAsia. July 31]

When the idea of a charter for ASEAN was mooted, I was expecting what many Europeans had gone through: referenda. Alas, far from it, ASEAN processes are so far detached from the governed.

If ASEAN desperately wants to be relevant to its people, if ASEAN member states want to create a truly organic ASEAN identity, participation of its citizens in ASEAN is essential. When the citizens themselves are disfranchised from something as important as the formulation of a constitution, it is hard to see how the regional grouping would be relevant to its citizens.

I do not think too many of us, the citizens of ASEAN, think of ourselves as citizens of ASEAN. The best way for ASEAN to change that is to include its citizens into its processes. Referenda to the people of ASEAN to approve the Charter is a golden opportunity to set alight the common people interest in ASEAN.

ASEAN must stop pretending that those bureaucrats that are deliberating on matters relating to the Charter are representing the citizens of ASEAN. After all, Southeast Asia is a region with little real democratic tradition.

The ASEAN Charter must source its legitimacy only through the citizens of ASEAN, not from the bureaucrats. Unless that is done, ASEAN risks irrelevancy at home while it develops a reputation of a coffee shop internationally. The ASEAN Charter should be a milestone for a new democratic and modern Southeast Asia, not a projection of an old autocratic or paternalistic region instead.