Page 24 - The Ethics of ASEAN

The Ethics of ASEAN

European ethical systems and institutions influenced their Southeast Asian colonies
differently: you can still see the traces today in use of European languages, institutions,
religion, sports and cuisine. Southeast Asia cannot be said to have a regional ethical
or political identity of its own during the colonial period. Then in the twentieth century
a fundamental change came to these countries in the aftermath of World War Two.
Following a brief Japanese colonisation during the war, the Southeast Asian colonies
seized the opportunity for independence and declared themselves sovereign nations. As
a result, the national ethics of recently sovereign nations in ASEAN play a very important
role in the ideals, values and institutions of the different member states.
Today’s modern layers of ethics sit atop earlier layers reaching back more than two
thousand years, when the various Southeast Asian kingdoms traded with China, the Indian
subcontinent, the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia, Egypt and Europe. Migrations are also part
of the ethical blending. Southeast Asia has an ongoing history of migration going back tens
of thousands of years and active today with one-third living in an irregular status in their
country of destination according to the Migration Portal on Southeast Asia .
4
Religious expansions create layers that make up an ethical archaeology, sweeping
quickly or spreading peacefully in successive religious adoptions. In today’s religious mix
we can see the sediments from movements started more than two thousand years ago,
from India with Hinduism, then Buddhism. From China with Confucianism. Then in the 10 th
century Islamist expansion through trade routes spread peacefully, eventually becoming
the most widely adopted religious faith in Southeast Asia. European maritime exploration
and trade starting in the 16th century brought Christianity that became imposed though
colonisation by different European cultures.
However, the dominant religions do not make up the whole story of ethical influence.
Local religious variations, syncretism, continuing practices of animism and ethical
values inspired by indigenous leaders continue to influence belief and behaviour in
Southeast Asia today. No less than 37 different religious doctrines or belief systems exist
in Southeast Asia, according to a recently published encyclopedia of faiths and cultures
in Southeast Asia.5 So it is really impossible for any ASEAN country to embrace only one
ethical system today and Southeast Asia is the richer for it.
When it comes to ethics, religious and political influences are not necessarily aligned.
To take the example of political democracy, the world’s largest democratic country is India,
which is mostly Hindu and Muslim with many other religions represented, while the second
largest is the United States which has largely Christian foundations, and the third is largest
Indonesia which according to the latest census is 86.7% Muslim.
ASEAN ethics are not only defined by a diversity of religion and politics but also by
historical experience, such as the values of national founders. Ethics stems even from
business and economic strategies based on growth of a middle class and the management
of work. As a regional community ASEAN ethics are hyper-diverse compared to other

4 Migration is not only widespread today across Southeast Asia but has its own ethical problems with human
trafficking and human rights violations, as well as political oppression. Over one million Rohingya’s have migrated
from Myanmar as refugees. Data and explanations can be found on the Southeast Asian Migration Portal https://
www.migrationdataportal.org/regional-data-overview/south-eastern-asia downloaded 30 January 2021
5 Religion in Southeast Asia: an Encyclopedia of Faiths and Cultures edited by Jesudas M. Athyal, ABC-CLIP 2015.

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