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Asian societies’ changes from within

Last month in Ly Thai To park in central Hanoi, a group of about 1,000 young people wearing rainbow bandanas and carrying rainbow flags erupted into a rehearsed song-and-dance routine. The “flash mob” — which sparked similar events in Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang and Can Tho — was intended to promote awareness about gay and lesbian rights.

Last month in Ly Thai To park in central Hanoi, a group of about 1,000 young people wearing rainbow bandanas and carrying rainbow flags erupted into a rehearsed song-and-dance routine. The “flash mob” — which sparked similar events in Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang and Can Tho — was intended to promote awareness about gay and lesbian rights.

This being Vietnam, a one-party state run by a Communist party that does not take kindly to mass outpourings, the burst of activity was not quite as spontaneous as it may have appeared. The organiser, Mr Le Quoc Binh, a 40-year-old activist, had sought permission from the authorities to hold the event.

Unlicensed gatherings of more than five people are banned under strict security laws and the former Fulbright scholar has regular “cups of tea” with secret police to keep them informed about his activities.

“The way we are working is in collaboration with the government. We don’t confront the government,” says Mr Binh, a new breed of Vietnamese activist finding room to operate in one of Asia’s most authoritarian countries. “We are creating space for people.”

Mr Binh’s activities are part of a phenomenon that has taken root in many countries across Asia. In one-party states, such as Vietnam, and in nations where democracy is a work-in-progress, including the Philippines and Malaysia, people are seeking to participate in the political process in ways that go beyond the formal exercise of voting at the ballot box.

EFFECT of TECH EXPLOSION

Much has been written about the growth of civil society in China, where protests over issues such as land seizures have become common. Less noted, however, has been the stirring of civil society across other parts of Asia — whether in Bangladesh, where female garment workers have taken to the streets to press for better working conditions, or in Malaysia, where a broad coalition has been pushing for more open elections.

“There is a general weariness and frustration across the region with all the formal channels of politics,” says Mr Eddin Khoo, a Malaysian author who has campaigned for cultural rights in his own country. One way of looking at what is happening is to compare participatory democracy to advances in technology.

Some countries that never had a properly functioning fixed-line telephone system have leapt several stages of technology and gone straight to 3G or 4G. In the same way, some states with weak, or even non-existent, democracies have begun to embrace issues — such as gay rights or universal access to healthcare — that remain contentious in older democracies.

Thus, in rapidly reforming Myanmar, the government is drafting a law to ban discrimination against disabled people. In Hong Kong, the special administrative region of China where universal suffrage remains a distant dream, the Court of Final Appeal last month ruled that a transgender woman had the right to marry her boyfriend.

As in many other parts of the world, an explosion of technology has had a profound effect, enabling people to organise themselves more easily and share information. In Asia overall, there were more than 1 billion Internet users by the second quarter of 2012, twice as many as in Europe and four times more than the US, according to Internet World Stats. In India, there are more mobile phones than toilets. In Vietnam, where only a decade ago few owned a mobile phone, Internet penetration is 4 percentage points above the world average, at 34 per cent.

DELUSION OR REAL IMPACT?

Some analysts, such as Mr Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion, have challenged the idea that the Internet is a tool for liberation, arguing that states can just as easily use it to restrict freedom. In Vietnam, true enough, some prominent bloggers have been jailed and police harassment of online activists is common.

Nevertheless, some Internet campaigns have had a real impact. Mr Binh’s own work on gay rights involved bringing together disparate online groups and helping to transform them into a more coherent force. As a result, attitudes towards gay rights have changed markedly in recent years, he says.

Other Vietnamese Internet activists have helped investigate scandals in state-owned enterprises. So egregious — and public — has been the government’s mishandling of the economy that last October, Mr Nguyen Tan Dung, the Prime Minister, took the unusual step of apologising for mistakes to an open session of the National Assembly.

It is difficult to quantify the upsurge in democratic engagement across Asia. The number of non-government organisations (NGOs) is one proxy. In Indonesia, for example, a country with a population of 240 million people, there were just 800 registered NGOs at the end of the Suharto regime in 1998. Today, there are more than 20,000. That has produced a counter-reaction in the form of a proposed Mass Organisation Bill, which would set legal guidelines for civil society groups.

In India, frustration at the inability of politicians to tackle fundamental problems has sparked recent mass mobilisations over at least two issues: Corruption and rape. Last year, a fast by anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare brought tens of thousands of middle-class protesters on to the streets. There was a similar outpouring after the horrific gang rape and killing of a 23-year-old paramedical student in Delhi last December.

In Malaysia, the rise of Bersih, a multi-ethnic group campaigning for cleaner elections, has galvanised civil society. In last month’s general election, the opposition came closer than ever to dislodging the ruling coalition that has governed continuously since independence in 1957.

“Bersih has raised the awareness of people tremendously,” says Ms Ambiga Sreenevasan, who chairs the organisation. Voter turnout last month was 85 per cent, the highest in the country’s history. In Singapore, another state dominated by one party, there has been a similar opening up of the political process.

INTERNALISED RED LINES

Still, there are limits to what civil society can achieve. In authoritarian states, such as China and Vietnam, activists have learnt to stick to issues that do not directly challenge the government.

Mr Binh says he concentrates on gay and ethnic-minority rights as well as issues around freedom of association but has never taken on the Communist party’s legitimacy. “We focus on community building. We talk about equity, discrimination, human rights, love, but we don’t blame the state,” he says.

One Western diplomat who works with NGOs in Hanoi says: “People have internalised where the red lines are. They have figured out where there is room to negotiate.” Those red lines can shift, though. For example, when Hanoi allowed, then clamped down on protests about China’s territorial claims to waters off Vietnam.

Nor is the ability to air grievances an end in itself, says Mr Michael Buehler, an expert in state-civil society relations at Northern Illinois University. “Civil society is becoming more vocal across the region but that’s completely different from becoming more influential,” he says. He cites pressure groups in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, among others, which have championed the cause of universal access to healthcare and education. But many Asian states lack the legitimacy, financial wherewithal or technical capacity to respond.

In Indonesia, for example, some 60 governors and local government heads have adopted initiatives to extend healthcare and education to the poor. In practice, though, little has changed. Indonesia collects tax worth just 11 per cent of gross domestic product and lacks credible institutions to distribute even that small amount, he says.

“Ironically, for civil society to become more influential, the state needs to become stronger,” he says. “The state no longer directly suppresses civil society. But the state’s capacity to implement change is so low that civil society may not be much more influential than it was 20 years ago.”

DARK SIDE OF ENGAGEMENT

Some of the noise being made by civil groups may be less a catalyst for real change and more a letting-off of steam.

In India, for example, the government has responded to December’s outpouring by taking some small steps to address what appears to be an endemic culture of rape. Yet Mr Buehler is not convinced that the sudden outrage against a single event — when so many similar incidents go unreported — will produce lasting change. “I don’t think this says very much about the strength of civil society,” he says. “I see it as an isolated incident, rather than a sign of changing attitudes within Indian society.”

There can even be a dark side to greater public engagement, what academic Verena Beittinger-Lee, research associate at the University of Kent, calls “uncivil society”. She has studied Indonesia, documenting the type of groups that can flourish in a weak state, including radical religious groups, civil militias and vigilante organisations.

In Myanmar, a rapid shift away from authoritarianism has given many previously silent citizens a stronger voice. Some of that freedom has been used to foster hatred for the Muslim minority, particularly the Rohingya, some 80,000 of whom have fled to makeshift camps as a result of violence directed against them. Not everything that bubbles up from the populace is progressive or desirable.

Nevertheless, Mr Binh is convinced his work and that of others is gradually changing public attitudes for the better and creating space for dialogue with the state. As a result, he says, the Vietnamese government’s “tolerance” on issues has increased: “We are pushing the envelope a little bit and waiting to see how they react. Then we push a little bit more.” THE FINANCIAL TIMES LIMITED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

David Pilling is the Financial Times’ Asia Editor. Additional reporting by Nguyen Phuong Linh.

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