KOTA SAMARAHAN: A country’s foreign policy is meaningless if the people do not benefit from it, said Dr Johan Saravanamuttu from Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asia Studies.
LET’S TALK POLITICS: Dr Johan delivering his lecture at Unimas.
The visiting senior research fellow was in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) to deliver a public lecture entitled ‘Malaysia’s Relations with Neighbouring Countries: Complexities of History, Ethnicity and Intimacy’.
The talk presented a constructivist perspective of Malaysia’s Foreign Policy (MFP) and a review on the broad phases of MFP relating to regional politics.
The focus of the lecture was on Malaysia’s relations with the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, showing how the countries were linked through history, ethnicity and proximity.
While there was endemic friction, there were also important areas for cooperation.
The talk was attended by around 50 people, mostly students.
Dr Johan said that Asean is still very much a consensual decision making body.
“I think Asean can build on the current norms that they have, like no wars. Apart from that, Asean countries specifically agreed to a Southeast Asian nuclear weapon free zone in 1994,” he said.
“However, all Asean countries including Singapore are saying that we’re going to go nuclear, but only nuclear energy and we’re going to stop there. That is also very important. We’re not going to become North Korea.”
He added that human rights and democracy are the most difficult things to define because not everyone agrees on the same thing.
Many of the Asean countries have signed on to the United Nations convention of human rights, particularly on women’s and children’s rights.
“That’s the one everybody has signed on,” Dr Johan said.
“Civil and political liberties, not everybody. Economic and culture rights, not everybody. So we have some ways to go.”
European countries have signed on to everything, he pointed out.
“Asean countries are somewhat reticent about going the whole route in respect to human rights. When it comes to democracy, we are quite far from the norm. They say there’s an Asean norm and we can’t change it.”
Dr Johan is an active researcher, writer and advocate of peace studies, peace education and social activism in the region and in his own country.
His published works include ‘New Politics in Malaysia’ and ‘March 8: Eclipsing May 13’.
His latest books are ‘Islam and Politics in Southeast Asia’ and ‘Malaysia’s Foreign Policy, the first 50 years: Alignment, Neutralism, Islamism’.
He is also the Regional Asia editor of the journal ‘Global Peace, Security and Change’ and sits on the Editorial Advisory Boards of the journals ‘Asian Journal of Political Science’ and ‘Development in Practice’.