What's The Point Of It All.

[Bruce551]

Portrait of a dysfunctional regional community

The first question that must be asked and answered is: Are we willing or capable of making the necessary changes in our cultural and business attitudes, to adopt the free market mentality and compete where it counts the most?

Published: 18/10/2009 at 12:00 AM

Newspaper section: News, Bangkok Post

The 15th Asean summit will take place over the course of this coming week in Hua Hin. Top of the agenda is to create the Asean Community, not dissimilar to the European Union. The Asean Community - where there's free trade in a borderless region, free transfer of knowledge and professional skills - doing away with protectionism, duties and tariffs, a community where we pool resources to bargain with the rest of the world as a united entity.

United we stand, divided we fall - some 600 millions of us - after all, separately we can't hope to compete with the likes of China, Japan and South Korea, and those are only the countries within the region.

Not only for economic and logistic reasons, the Asean Community also stands to promote and ensure human rights and liberties across the region. The year 2015 is the timeline for setting up the community. That's only six years. Realistically, the Asean Community won't solve all the woes of the region immediately. But as Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan puts it: It's a step forward.

But that step won't be easy, when our feet are shackled in irons.

The most notorious of Asean members, Burma, continues to turn its back on the world community. Even when Asean extended a helping hand for the victims of Cyclone Nargis, Burma played hard to get. Even while President Barrack Obama made overtures, offering niceties and co-operation, Burma wouldn't budge. Even as Secretary-General Surin said Burma is opening up more and listening more - the world is still full of sceptics when it comes to the issue of Burma.

How are we to become a single, united community, when one member systematically refuses democracy and denies human rights to its citizens?

How are we to bargain for economic benefits with the developed world, specifically the United States and the European Union, when one of our members is shunned and sanctioned by developed countries?

How are we to cooperate in peace and harmony when there are continuing reports of North Korean ships heading to Burma's ports, with rumours of transfers of nuclear technology?

As long as Burma is a member of Asean, it will play an important role in the future of the community - for better or for worse. Thailand, as Burma's most immediate neighbour, could and should play a vital role in working with Burma towards democracy, human rights and free trade.

But Thailand has problems of its own, not least of which is the fact that some of our military brass consider the Burmese junta close friends.

Not least of which, Thailand continues to rely on energy supplies from Burma. The junta only has to push a button and Thailand could be paralysed.

Burma could literally blackmail us to serve its purposes. Somehow it seems, in dealing with our neighbour to the west, ever since the days of Ayutthaya, we are always at a disadvantage.

I posed a question to Secretary-General Surin, asking him if there's a possibility, for the better future of the Asean Community and its role in the world, that Burma could be dismissed from the association by its other member countries.

The answer didn't surprise: It would be highly unlikely.

Burma isn't the only obstacle standing against the future of the Asean Community, Thailand itself has a fair share of issues to resolve.

Thailand is no stranger to the practice of protectionism, trade barriers and tariff walls.

The country's business community is accustomed to being carried by the state, as well as having close ties to and influence in the Thai government, regardless of which party rules at the time.

In fact, some may say the powerful business community has a powerful voice in the making of national decisions.

If the Asean Community is to be one without barriers, how then will Thailand adjust and cope? Will it be able to adjust and cope? Will the powerful industries lobby hard to keep the walls and barriers?

How are we to compete when we are so used to being carried? What of good governance and transparency?

There's a reason why Vietnam already has 3G technology and is planning to upgrade to 4G as soon as the technology is available, which could be some time in 2010. There's a reason why Laos announced it will broadcast the 25th SEA Games via 3G applications.

There's a reason why this past week, Thailand still bickers over who will take the biggest slice of cake from the licensing of 3G, after the technology has been available for nearly a decade.

(NTC wants 11 billion baht for each of the 3G concessions. What happened to rolling out the affordable internet for poor people in Thailand, only 1.6% of Thais have broadband)

Wasting billions on an old technology while the rest of the world is preparing for 4G in a year or two, so we can waste billions more to adopt 4G in a decade's time?

So many steps behind, so many resources squandered.

While our poorer neighbours are setting up infrastructure and gearing up to compete and march forward, we who have decades of a head start in this region are still imprisoned by our own shortsightedness.

For the Asean Community, the time will come when the issue of Burma has to be decided one way or the other.

The skeptics consider Asean a lame duck _ politically irrelevant and economically exploitable. After all, how potent can this community be when it can't even nurture one of its members to adopt progress?

For Thailand, it's not a question of when the Asean Community will be realised. Nor is it a question of how we are to play a role in the community. Nor is it a question of the steps we must take to integrate ourselves into the community. Process isn't the question, culture is.

The first question that must be asked and answered is: Are we willing or capable of making the necessary changes in our cultural and business attitudes, to adopt the free market mentality and compete where it counts the most _ through skills and merits, with good governance and transparency?

Otherwise, what would be the point of it all?

Email: [email protected]

About the author

Writer: Voranai Vanijaka

Position: Editor

Thailand is a sinking ship and nobody bailing.

:?:

[PeeMarc]

The point of it all? = Money and power.

As soon as many of the tossers in power (not just government) in Asia can get over their obsession with their own small dicks, maybe... just maybe... they might be able to start thinking about the people instead of themselves.

[Mister Moobs]

Maybe Thailand should take a page out of the Euro and US playbooks and invade Burma.

:twisted:

The point of it all.

Seems to be to make the world one great big shopping mall and to lose our soul.

Steep discounts at Disney Euro. Trade your soul in for a lifetime pass. Ihear Coke, Nokia, Rolex, Volvo, Mercedes, Ford, McDonalds, Baskin Robbins are also offering good deals.

Prada and Louis Vuitton and the like take group discounts. Ten souls to open an account.

A piece at a time.

All in the name of the all powerful touch of midas.

It's all just a waste of time until you die.

Preferably a dried up old husk out of which they've soaked every last penny, peso, dinar, afghan and drop of blood, oil and treasure.

There's a song out there that captures the big picture.

Die Mutherfcuker Die!!!

All that don't mean that you can't fight back or have a hell of a ride along the way though.

But...you're still on a one way ride.