THE PIC IS THE TRUTH: BLOKES RULE, OK?

 

THINGS UNSAID, PEOPLE UNSEEN            

The irony was thick as lard, yet seemingly ignored by legacy media.. What an indigestible image for International Women's Day: What an appalling advertisement for the Melbourne ASEAN Summit and its Australian host, a claimed world leader for gender equality.

The above pic appeared last week just before Minister for Women Katy Gallagher released the  government’s Working for Women strategy to “ensure women are better represented in leadership and decision-making roles.”

The lineup of a dozen leaders representing nine of the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations  plus PM Anthony Albanese were all men wearing trousers tailored to allow stand-up use of urinals. This apparently bestows wisdom and authority.  

The total population they allegedly represent is 700 million human beings.  About half would be women, though not one was on the jolly pix of delegates awkwardly holding hands and weirdly labelled “family”. That usually means Dad and Mum.

Meanwhile, Albanese's fiancee Jodie Haydon took "spouses" (PM's Department term) to the Melbourne Museum where they could see how things used to be done and maybe get selfies with koalas.

Women at the conference did get a look-in at some of the breakaway sessions like Digital Transformation Entrepreneurship, but they were battling against the flood of testosterone.  

The summit was supposed to celebrate half a century after the first meeting between ASEAN Secretaries-General and Australian officials in Canberra.  Photos from the 1974 original show an all-bloke chat, so nothing’s changed for 50 years.

        One woman who should have been at the Summit in her own right was Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi,  Her National League for Democracy won the November 2020 Myanmar general election with 346 seats against the opposition’s army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party that took just 25 of the available seats.

The USDP claimed the vote was neither free nor fair.  Three months later the army ripped up the ballot, seized the government and arrested Suu Kyi.

The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners claims 4,650 people have been killed and more than 20,000 detained since the coup.

 Suu Kyi was tried in a closed court and sentenced to a total of 33 years in a secret jail for "corruption" and a swag of other charges.  The 78-year-old will probably die behind bars.

The UN has condemned the sentences.  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reportedly called her convictions “affronts to democracy and justice”.

Did any of this disturb Australia and the ASEAN delegates? (Myanmar was unrepresented).  They never mentioned Suu Kyi in their 55-point Melbourne Declaration. Instead, it was choked with warm words like 'welcoming" and "supporting", "underscoring" and "looking forward".

In the section on Myanmar delegates “strongly condemned the continued acts of violence and called for immediate cessation … effective humanitarian assistance, and inclusive national dialogue.”  But the lady’s name didn’t appear.

      The generals in Naypyidaw must be quivering, fearing a force of ASEAN peacekeepers - like those led by Australia that secured East Timor in 1999 after a referendum backed independence from Indonesia.  The brigades might be assembled at the Melbourne    meeting and rush to rescue the rule of law.

Such interference is a fantasy, because ASEAN has no collective standing army and works on consensus. So the tiny Sultanate of  Brunei (pop below 500,000) can kibosh a resolution from giant Indonesia, (pop above 277 million) rendering any decision useless.

It seems the violence in the once-British colony of Burma deserves less attention than the former colony of Portugal.  

The Summit could have been, but wasn't about promoting democracy and women’s rights; the idea was never mentioned in the 4,660-word Declaration.  It was all about business - selling more Aussie goods into an expanding market now with enough money to pay for our goodies beyond grains and beef.

US political scientist Dr Prashanth Parameswaran who calls himself an “ASEAN Wonk” wrote that the Albanese government “has consistently put strengthening ties with Southeast Asia at the core of its foreign policy …as an invested middle power contributing to the twin pillars of peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.”

This is a long-winded code for trade first, human rights somewhere else.  

ASEAN is a party to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which includes women as equals.  The man who introduced HR into the discussions was not the Aussie PM who likes to promote freedom, but Anwar Ibrahim from a flawed democracy.

The Malaysian PM has deep personal knowledge of the topic having been jailed twice (1999-2004 and 2015-2018) on charges of sodomy believed to have been engineered by his political rivals.  He has since been pardoned.

In Melbourne Anwar lobbied Albanese to restart funding of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, suspended after allegations that some workers for the agency took part in the Hamas attack on 7 October. The stoppage has directly impacted women and kids.  Resumption is likely.

Domestic violence in Australia has only recently been recognised as a national scourge. Laws, shelters, police re-training and other measures are now in place, making us a leader in reform.

The curse of DV is also widespread in ASEAN countries, though little discussed because of cultural shame. The Indonesian Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection reported 18,000 cases of violence for the first nine months of 2023. Women were almost always the victims.

A national survey by the ministry recorded 18 per cent of married women  experiencing physical or sexual violence.  Twenty-one per cent reported emotional violence, while a quarter had experienced economic violence where the man exploits his partner’s assets.

Here was a chance for this largely hidden crime to be exposed and discussed in the calm of Melbourne. West Australian scholar and Indonesian speaker Dr Kate O’ Shaughnessy has written that Indonesian law “does not properly address ideological, religious and cultural definitions of gender roles.”

Albanese has acknowledged business between his nation and the bloc has been "underdone".  At the summit, he spruiked an AUD 2 billion fund "to boost trade and two-way investment (focusing on) infrastructure and green-economy transition projects."

The facility will provide loans, guarantees, equity and insurance for projects that will boost Australian trade and investment in the region.   Australia will also give $140 million to a Partnerships for Infrastructure Programme for "governments to deliver projects with expertise such as planning and procurement".  

Women should benefit,  but who’ll get the money? Minister Gallagher has already said companies that want government contracts must meet gender equality targets. Only in the Wide Brown - or everywhere?

Also not aired at the ASEAN Summit was pay equality - an issue getting wide coverage in Australia. A UN report on  leadership found less than half the women have paid work in Indonesia and adjacent states:

"Women's share of managerial positions across ASEAN countries remains below parity. With the exception of Laos and the Philippines, women remain underrepresented in management in all countries… representation in middle and senior management is even lower, at 26 per cent."

Though not on the stage.  While the ASEAN Summit delegates in Melbourne were trying to get noticed, US superstar Taylor Swift was sucking out all the available news space in Singapore.  Her performances forced fans from elsewhere in ASEAN to travel to the island state that’s earned big money on her success.

While 12 men who think they’re special yarned in Melbourne about their plans to earn, independent Swift sang in Singapore and coined millions.  That’s woman power, and it’s a lot more cheering and effective.

It’s a pity she didn’t make the ASEAN Summit. Then the HR issues she promotes would have been raised to the roofs.

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First published in Pearls & Irritations, 14 March 2024: https://johnmenadue.com/things-unsaid-people-unseen/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE CLUB TO NOT JOIN

A PARADE OF TALK MARCHING NOWHERE

Count the women

ASEAN has been around for so long media outlets rarely spell the full name - Association of Southeast Asian Nations.  That sounds significant and grand.  It’s not.

A better title for the acronym would be Association of Supercilious Egoists and Nationalists.  Even that snide put down wouldn’t do enough injustice to a ten-member group that likes to think it’s a local version of the European Economic  Community.

ASEAN is not Asia’s Common Market, but this week Australians will be bamboozled into thinking otherwise.

Summit delegates will meet in Melbourne this morning for a two-day bun fight that will generate indigestion, photos of ranks of mostly plump men and a mass of verbiage.  The taxpayers of the region who fund this knees-up will be served commentary that means nothing because ASEAN does nothing.

"The African Union has shown it can take “collective action against coups and other breaches of democratic rule, as well as taking collective action in the face of other political crises.” ASEAN can’t,  according to US journalist Joshua Kurlantzick, a Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Some background: In 1967 during the Vietnam War Indonesia with US support set up ASEAN with Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.  The idea was to block the advance of Communism.

 Ironically two latecomers are Red – Vietnam - subtly backing Russia - and Laos, with feudal Cambodia sticking close to China. The absolute monarchy of tiny Brunei  (population less than half-a-million) signed up in 1984.  Despotic Myanmar now a military dictatorship became a member in 1997.

Talk of Australia joining this  Cold War relic long past its use-by date is academic because decisions must be unanimous.

We’re a Western nation aligned with Northern Hemisphere powers, superior and racist - an image already hardened by the Voice result.  On the other side we’re democratic and follow the rule of law.  That makes us out of place in ASEAN.

Only Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines follow forms of ‘flawed democracy’ as assessed by the Economist Intelligence Unit.   That doesn’t mean they’re goodies,  just not so bad as the rest.

 The US found AUD$ 142 million this year to support ‘the robust implementation of the ASEAN Outlook’ whatever that’s supposed to mean.

The only frayed twine stringing the ten disparate nations together isn't language (meetings are in English), culture, history, ideologies, total population (672 million) or economies. It's geography.

Is the continent and Commonwealth of Australia in Southeast Asia?  Most ASEAN citizens and Australians wouldn't think so despite our politicians from Whitlam onwards claiming otherwise.

Eleven years ago then PM Julia Gillard released Australia in the Asian Century White Paper ’nurturing deeper and broader relationships … by taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the Asian century.’

It vanished from government websites following the election of Tony Abbott but has now reappeared.

The truth is we relate better to New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, countries that provide us with visitors and workers mainly using the same language and having similar faiths.

To soften up Melburnians to tolerate traffic snarls caused by summiteers’  sightseeings, locals have been told by the PM’s office that the show celebrates Australia becoming ‘ASEAN's first Dialogue Partner in 1974.’  There’s more:

‘Australia and ASEAN have worked together to address the complex challenges facing our region. Our practical cooperation contributes to making the region more peaceful, open, stable and prosperous.’

Maybe the words will comfort the activists fighting for their lives, villages and a return to democracy in Myanmar, a member state of ASEAN and now a vile military dictatorship.

The PM's office blurbs use the word 'bloc' as though all member states coalesce.  That's another misnomer - distrust among neighbours is widespread and ancient.

In 2021 Australia and ASEAN set up a ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’. What this means in terms of dollars spent, paid and understood by citizens is another blur of obfuscation:

‘We've been working with our ASEAN partners on giving effect to our partnership, agreeing shared priorities, increasing resources and advancing new programs. Our Plan of Action guides the implementation of the goals and objectives of the partnership.’

There is some business underway but whether this has much to do with ASEAN is doubtful. Our trade in 2021 with ASEAN states was AUD178 billion, but almost a third was with or through Singapore.

Two-way investment with that tiny island nation (population six million) was AUD 225  billion.  The figure for ASEAN is AUD 249 billion - and that includes Singapore. Whoops.  Not a stat the host nation wants to spread.

Supporters of ASEAN rightly promote the importance of  regional unity, but warn: ‘Diversity, divisions and disputes remain consequential features of the region that pose a significant threat to unity.’

In 2012 ASEAN delegates declared they supported human rights.  Fifty-five civil rights organisations were furious, claiming the statement implied ‘their people are less deserving of human rights than the people of Europe, Africa or the Americas.’.

Cambodia is this year's ASEAN chair and  PM Hun Sen seems indifferent to the Myanmar coup that so distresses Western democracies. ‘He has essentially invited Myanmar's military leaders to just return to the ASEAN fold, provided they meet laughably easy markers,’ writes Kurlantzick.

The truth behind the hoopla is that Australia has no idea of how to relate to the region.  It has a Free Trade Agreement with Indonesia, the burgeoning and largest state in ASEAN with a population 500 times bigger than Brunei. But this FTA is moving so slowly that Canberra regularly pushes businesses to do more.

Western investors are reluctant because of political instability and corruption throughout ASEAN.  Today’s show will be another attempt to breathe some purpose into the old pact while hoping some other more credible association can arise.

That’s unlikely.

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First published in Pearls & Irritations, 4 March 2024: https://johnmenadue.com/the-parade-of-talk-going-nowhere/