Imran Shamsunahar

Opinion | Is the world headed for an Asian future? Not if we don’t admit to some inconvenient histories

Asia’s leaders, intent on dragging their countries into developed status, kicking and screaming, are ignoring festering historical fissures that threaten any developmental gains, writes Imran Shamsunahar

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Police fire tear gas during a protest in Hong Kong on August 4. Photo: Isaac Lawrence / AFP

Imran Shamsunahar

Published: 7:32pm, 9 Aug 2019Updated: 7:41pm, 9 Aug 2019

“The future is Asian,” boasts Parag Khanna, a Singapore-based consultant in his recent book of the same name. Khanna believes that as American unipolarity begins to ebb, the Asian regional system will increasingly begin to exert itself on the world stage, reorienting the global economy, altering geopolitics, and elevating the appeal of Asian cultural norms worldwide.

Certainly, there is much evidence to support Khanna’s thesis. Asia now accounts for 50 per cent of global GDP and two thirds of global economic growth. It hosts some of the world’s largest economies and produces, trades and consumes more goods than any other region.

Yet, as the ongoing protests in Hong Kong and the May riots in Jakarta have showed, key financial centres in the Asian system remain vulnerable to disruption. The trumpeted economic rise of Asia, from Southeast Asia to the subcontinent, remains stunted by the spectre of unresolved histories. These are historical tensions hailing back decades and pertaining to issues of national identity, violence and power, and the value of pluralism and tolerance. Asia’s leaders, intent on dragging their countries into developed status, kicking and screaming, choose to ignore the festering historical fissures that threaten to wash away any developmental gains.

Supporters of Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto throw rocks at police during clashes in Jakarta. Photo: AP

Indonesia’s altogether successful completion of a momentous presidential election on April 17 was tarred by two days of violence in Jakarta between supporters of losing candidate Prabowo Subianto and police. For many Indonesians, violence and democracy is an old story, with its young democracy birthed out of the rioting that gripped Indonesia’s cities in 1998, eventually leading to the downfall of Suharto’s New Order regime. The riots in Jakarta alone in May 1998 killed an estimated 1,200 people.

As observed by Indonesian writer and activist Andreas Harsono, the violence that permeates Indonesian history is tied to both the cynical pursuit of power by elites, as well as a culture of impunity that protects them. Ghosts of Suharto’s New Order continue to bedevil Indonesian stability. The rise of hardline Islam as one of the more pertinent issues of this recent election can be traced to the Islamisation of society under Suharto, who sought to balance the military by currying favour from the Islamic lobby.

Although most hardline Islamic groups threw their lot in with Prabowo this election, Widodo’s choice of conservative cleric Ma’ruf Amin as running mate caused consternation among liberals about the further normalisation of conservative Islam and what this means for Indonesia’s religious and sexual minorities. The still ambiguous position of the military vis-à-vis civilian institutions also remains another remnant of the Suharto era.