- 8 months ago
- #considerthis
As regional leaders gather for the 46th ASEAN Summit here in KL, a parallel gathering of civil society is also underway—The ASEANPeoples@ASEAN2025 forum.
Over 500 regional civil society organisations are gathering to discuss key regional issues and are planning to deliver a bold 5-point advisory to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim as ASEAN chair, urging ASEAN to place human rights, equity and inclusion at the heart of its post-2025 vision. On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Jerald Joseph, Convening Chair of ASEANPeoples@ASEAN2025.
Over 500 regional civil society organisations are gathering to discuss key regional issues and are planning to deliver a bold 5-point advisory to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim as ASEAN chair, urging ASEAN to place human rights, equity and inclusion at the heart of its post-2025 vision. On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Jerald Joseph, Convening Chair of ASEANPeoples@ASEAN2025.
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00:00hello and good evening i'm melissa idris welcome to consider this this is the show where we want
00:25you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day as regional leaders gather
00:31in kuala lumpur for the 46th asean summit a parallel gathering of civil societies also underway
00:39the asean peoples at asean 2025 forum over 500 regional civil society organizations are gathering
00:48here to discuss key regional issues and is hoping to deliver a bold five-point advisory to prime
00:55minister and ibrahim as asean chair urging malaysia urging asean to place human rights equity and
01:03inclusive and inclusion at the heart of its post 2025 framework vision so joining us on the show to
01:10discuss this further is convening chair of asean peoples at asean 2025 gerald joseph gerald well
01:18thank you for coming on the show um ahead of your um full and packed weekend tell us a little bit about
01:25the asean peoples um at asean 2025 well what that is and what exactly is the core objective of this
01:34weekend's forum hi melissa uh thanks for the invite uh i i think uh it's quite symbolic 20 years ago the
01:43first ever civil society gathering of asean actually started here in malaysia when atun badabi was the
01:49prime minister then there was a first ever initiative of civil society parallel to the asean summits and
01:56honestly speaking uh civil society is not a very friendly welcome usually in intergovernmental
02:04meetings and more so for asean but i think over the last 20 years things have gotten better uh some
02:12recognition but still not the easiest i was placed officially in the asean summit really is on the
02:19furthest periphery if i may say always hoping to be taken seriously as one of the key stakeholders but
02:25that's the reason we organize this as chair prime minister anwar is managing the serious uh chair
02:35of all the intergovernmental issues but also we as the people of asean also have very deep concerns
02:44as serious or even more serious than the governments tend to remind themselves of so that's why we brought
02:52ourselves together and i think today is a travel day uh tomorrow in the morning at 8 30 we'll see
02:58about 550 people from all over asean sabah sarawak north south east coast of smenanjung uh convening
03:08to discuss a variety of topics you know and yeah and human rights topic really very development topics
03:16um climate change has taken on a very strong focus uh this time corruption good governance uh so so i
03:24think this is what asean is you know uh uh maybe for for diplomats uh talking openly it's a bit of a
03:31tough call someone some don't want but for civil society i think that is where we have the space
03:37is to honestly uh discuss matters on the ground but also seriously develop some ideas workable ideas
03:48for governments to take uh these issues uh at a different level not just the hand crossing nice
03:56asean photo i mean i like it too you know always is a bit of a mess but uh but i think that uh that
04:04mess should be unmasked as asean people can i ask you so if this is almost like a full circle moment
04:11have the issues changed have the issues um increased and is that a good thing that we're bringing more
04:19issues to the table or is that a bad thing that there are more things to be concerned about i i think
04:24uh uh asean has always uh taken the approach of a progressive uh step-by-step approach which is
04:34understandable and i think no no no issue has a magic one some you can clear it off just by political
04:42will like no torture stop it you know no corruption but reality is different but i think some issues are
04:50persistent i think and that needs to be realized sadly we had a moment for myanmar when the aSEAN
04:59chairmanship or chairpersonship was actually in the period of a democratic government there and now it's
05:05reverted back to military government so and that brings a whole array of trouble so in one sense it's
05:12familiar ground sadly we should not be on such type of familiar grounds we should be celebrating uh
05:19changes uh in a better way but on on other fronts i'm actually quite uh i was just smiling at myself
05:26yesterday saying this time i see i think the largest sector uh registered and attending here are the
05:33climate change environmental uh people and that's for me a big shift you know 10 years ago when i was
05:40chairing also we brought 1500 people and that time we were fighting for so you know freedom of assembly
05:47you know stop the torture you know free and fair election i mean it's all still there but i'm really
05:53happy to say the new concerns getting more and more traction and i think that's also what human rights
05:59should speak to environment climate change clean air clean water you know all those kind of things uh
06:05but of course we also have a few newer issues uh and uh i think a bit more sparked by the malaysian reality like
06:12um a marriage migration you know children next generation and malaysia is a good case study for the issue of
06:20statelessness both the rohingya statelessness that belongs to another country in asean but also our own
06:27statelessness issues uh in sabah and some of the states that need to be handled uh also we still feel
06:36we are not really there in terms of a robust uh mechanism to handle corruption and i think this is
06:44a place where asean can come in uh cross border uh cross border uh corruption cross border corruption
06:53uh that actually a good asean framework can can help uh mitigate you know so and i think the saddest
06:59part is migration we are all beneficiaries especially malaysia of our neighbors labor strength and decades of
07:08contributing but uh the standards are still not there and i think asean should actually be a beacon
07:15that uh prosper thy neighbor should be our our battle cry yeah i know that i mean that's so true
07:20and what i really i'm so impressed about the um uh this forum that you're putting together is that
07:27there are so many thematic clusters that are going to be discussed so covering a whole range of topics um
07:34and if i understand correctly each of these thematic cluster discussions will lead to a five
07:40point recommendation to to be given to the prime minister and the idea is that having this advisory
07:47paper to contribute to this the new 20-year framework for the azean community yeah so melissa you're right
07:55i think uh we knew that if we started to do the work now and send the five point to our prime minister now
08:02he will have no time to look at it because he'll be caught in traffic jams also so we as a strategy
08:10finalized this paper at the end of january submitted the paper officially to him as chair of asean
08:17so the five points are already synthesized from the various thematic groups this time it will be a bit
08:23more deeper dive in on strategies on how to take it forward and also uh we are all waiting because no one
08:29has a clue what is a 2045 vision right i can only guess it should not be regressed to what it was
08:37but i hope it's time bound it's specific it's targeted it's measurable no so that asean can really
08:44feel uh asean rather than just talking so 10 years ago it was launched uh also in malaysia i think the
08:52vision uh but now it's going to stretch on to 2045 which i think is a correct timeline but what is there
08:59i'm hoping the concerns of the people are taken into as serious consideration by governments and
09:07business people and other stakeholders you know you know i was a commissioner in swakam human rights
09:13commission so one of my simple hopes is that can every country in asean have a human rights commission
09:18and now we only have six out of eleven you know including timor leste right yeah so where are the
09:24other five you know so i really pray and hope that's a small ask a low hanging fruit that should
09:29not be difficult yeah gerald um sometimes asean and these types of asean summits can be very state
09:37centric can be can be very focused on state issues as opposed to people issues and one of the um i think
09:45promises of asean was it supposed to be people centered how are you seeing that trajectory that is asia
09:52becoming more people centered as opposed to state centric well uh honestly speaking i think the
10:00the comfort level with the critical civil society base has been a a tension of growing respect
10:10if i can put it that way you know some governments like malaysia we have come to another phase where
10:16society has seen as partners invited to many meetings you know that that all all malaysia where
10:23if you go out the policeman will come and say what meeting you know now the policeman is calling me
10:29asking me information i'm sending him and telling him is it oh i just want to know how many mpv or
10:34police i need to set up so it's a totally different space but honestly speaking not every country is
10:40like that uh we don't have such uh such anecdotes to tell it's not that we are perfect we still have a
10:47lot of uh torture happening and abuse you know uh but the reason we chose our team our asean peoples
10:55at the core is the very answer to your question melissa we still feel the words are hollow it's symbolic
11:04and it's not really touching that power of almost 800 million i think we are touching 800 million asean
11:11people and uh the the fear that if we are a truly cohesive unified um region that means oh you know
11:22you'll have to go into democratic style sustainable government no corruption climate just all the good
11:30things should be celebrated but many governments get rattled because politically they feel uh democracy
11:38is painful we know it is painful but it brings a lot of good benefits and so so i really hope that uh
11:44partnering and this is where asean as an entity the government is another entity must get the asean
11:52secretariat to also be open to us right at present at present the asean secretariat is not easy to get into
11:59the i i i was actually about to ask you whether asean has the um kind of institutional mechanisms
12:07to respond meaningfully to civil society proposals like the advisory paper that you're putting for
12:13so uh asean works in very segmented very departmentalized so if i want to bring we want to bring our paper to
12:21the asean as a whole so we go to the chairs just good that the chairs malaysian prime minister but he must
12:28do more to open up spaces for our participation and 10 years ago i remember uh it was quite monumental
12:36for civil society in malaysia under then government uh that one was uh prime minister najib's time we
12:43had actually access into the main meeting hall i think 20 of us i was walking freely in and out i like
12:48i'm looking around and say am i in the right meeting i was afraid somebody will arrest me but i had the
12:53correct tag and then when i checked they said yeah you uh civil society we gave you 10 i like wow i think
12:59that's the kind of changes that a good government can enable you cannot change all the mechanics but fine
13:06ways and i'm hoping summit is not you know summit is a high high game a high game but in between the
13:12summit there's like hundreds of meetings i had six to seven meetings a year the ministerial meetings on
13:18agriculture on economy on women's writing that's not so political but civil society is not present
13:24there as a partner i would actually one day hope this is institutionalized and that's why i said the
13:30asean secretary must actually make people the call if people find like we can go into regularly meet with
13:37them but it's so difficult to get a meeting with the asean secretary i think from the top to the bottom
13:43it's so structuralized and i think the 10 the consensus mechanism while it has grown asean to
13:50where it is it's also regressive because it's a de facto veto to stop any good good progression so i
13:57think we're maturing it's about time i hope the vision captures some of this difficulty and not
14:03hide it under the carpet because the younger generation will just need ai to tell what's the
14:08flaw in in asean you know so you don't need to really try to hide anything yeah well gerald i wish
14:15you the best of luck for the forum this weekend and i hope it invigorates all the 550 civil society
14:24delegates that will be attending thank you so much for speaking with me today that was the convening
14:29chair of asean peoples at asean 2025 gerald joseph we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back
14:35after this to discuss more about the people's forum stay tuned
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