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(August 7, 2007/
Singapore)
The
Association of Southeast Asian Nations should engage its people
more to avoid becoming an elitist club, the group's incoming
chief said in a report published Tuesday.
"It is
extremely important that we engage the people of ASEAN," former
Thai foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan said, referring to the
10-nation bloc by its initials in an interview with Singapore's
Straits Times newspaper.
"It
should not be just the monopoly or the preserve of the elites,
the diplomats, of political leaders, even some journalists and
academics doing some research and writing, or even business
people," he said.
Surin,
57, was speaking ahead of the bloc's 40th founding anniversary
on Wednesday. He was formally named as the next ASEAN secretary
general at the annual meeting of the group's foreign ministers
in Manila last week.
Critics
have said that while ASEAN has helped preserve peace in
Southeast Asia over the past four decades, it has failed to make
a difference to the daily lives of the region's citizens because
of its elitist nature.
Surin
said he aims to change this.
ASEAN's
citizens should develop a sense of identity and belonging
instead of thinking as nationals of individual states, said
Surin.
"I think
ASEAN should be a common aspiration for all peoples of ASEAN and
they must feel emotionally attached to ASEAN," he said.
"We must
engage the youth because it is their future. If the youth or
younger generation do not identify with or do not care about
ASEAN, we have a problem."
Surin
said his top priority would be to develop the region's human
resources.
"The
problems of poverty, lack of opportunity, illiteracy, lack of
human resource development are the first priorities for all of
us because they are the root causes of all other problems that
we have in the region," he said.
ASEAN,
founded on August 8, 1967, is a market of 500 million people. It
groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
(Hon. Surin Pitsuwan is the Founding Chairman of CALD.) |
