The Governments of Southeast Asia
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Post-independence, the governments of Southeast Asia saw the need to engage in nation building. Due to the presence of various minority groups, it was important to unite the people (both majority and minority groups) along a common identity so that the state would remain politically stable and viable in the long run. Minorities refer to a group of people who are distinguished by being on the margins of power, status or the allocation of resources within the society. Minority issues come about due to tensions between the minorities and the majority which threaten national unity. The Southeast Asian governments hence implemented and adopted broad strategies such as assimilation and multiculturalism to nurture national unity as well as a few rather discriminatory policies against the minorities. Independent Southeast Asian states policies towards minorities can only be proven as a failure by seeing the reaction from the minorities as well as the historical legacy and international development of the countries. Furthermore, we must also take into account the time frame of such reactions. Hence, by saying the independent Southeast Asian states policies towards minorities have been a failure, it would be too overarching a statement as not all countries achieved the same level of success or failure. Furthermore, in evaluating SEAs success and failures, one should not be too harsh as nation-building is an on-going process and SEA is inherently diverse hence it would not be fair to be too critical of the states actions in such a short time period. Hence, Independent SEA state policies towards minorities have been a failure to a large extent with reference to the time period 1945-1997.
Independent SEA state policies towards minorities have been a failure to a large extent in reference to policies using coercion to crack down on dissidents. The use of force was particularly successful in cracking down on the minorities. However, the success was merely superficial as not only did the separatist movements persisted, coercion also hardened the responses of the minorities against the state. In the case of Thailand, due to a resistance movement that led to full scale clashes with the army, the Thai government had to hence declare an emergency in the South and people were ill treated by the Thai military was sent to suppress the rebellions. Resentment became strong in Pattani as the PNLF received support from Muslim countries. A bomb attack was done on the King in 1977 and the clashes between the separatists movements and the government increased in the 1970s. As the minorities of Thailand had to get help from other Muslim countries to fight against its own government, national unity was obviously not achieved by such a policy and it was hence a failure. The violence that resulted from such policies also showed the extent of anger in the minorities, as the other policies were rather accepted even though it was discriminatory. Similarly in the case of Indonesia, East Timor, their incorporation ensued in violence and chaos, including famine. An estimated 100,00-200,00 East Timorese died. There was anti-Indonesia sentiment all over the world and Indonesia was massively condemned due to media coverage of the killings in Dili, killing nearly 300 people. This shows the failure of the government policies, whereby the violence only bred more violence, resulting to such horrific killings. National unity was less than present in Indonesia, and hate for the country by minorities grew by the day. Independent SEA state policies towards minorities have been a failure to a large extent with reference to the time period 1945-1997.
Independent Southeast Asian states policies towards minorities have been a failure to a large extent as seen in the use of discriminatory policies and coercion to promote economic development. Discriminatory policies and coercion to achieve equity also helped in economic stability as it alleviated possible sources of conflict due to socio-economic gaps. However, most governments use this as a means to exploit minority areas and alienated these minorities. Although economically, the country did improve and achieved certain success, it came with the expense of minority issues. These policies riled up the tensions between the minorities and the majority, threatening national unity as the minorities felt abused and used by the government hence leading to the failure of the policy. In the example of Malaysia, the Orang Asli were exploited for their regions natural resources. They were completely alienated from the government as they were thought to be hindering economic development and therefore had no special privileges. They had no title rights to the land, did not benefit from the states economic growth and also were blamed for deforestation.