Page 148 - The Ethics of ASEAN

The Ethics of ASEAN

Figure 1: Emblematic species of Southeast Asia’s biodiversity. Source: ASEAN Biodiversity Centre.
Without a change in public awareness and engagement, sustainability initiatives may
face popular resistance or support populist politics that denies the urgency to act. As
with our two preceding ethical challenges, the most effective action at the ASEAN level
is to ensure teaching of sustainability ethics at all levels in national education systems
and to work with the private sector to embed sustainability ethics in business culture
and management. Both of these institutional partners can collaborate on research and
innovation to create new technologies and solutions that can contribute to the region’s
sustainable development.
Finally, public media can communicate on the threats and promises of sustainability
across ASEAN to familiarise the public ASEAN-wide need for conservation of shared
ecosystems and regional sustainability initiatives.

The Possible Existential Loss of ASEAN Ethics
The ultimate loss of ASEAN’s ethics, the existential risk, would be war or a “divide and rule”
type of recolonisation by external powers.
When I began writing this book, the geopolitical tensions over ASEAN and the South
China Sea made this scenario seem possible. The failure of the 2014 student protests in
Hong Kong during the “Umbrella Movement” provided a stark warning of how cultural and
ethical values can be reversed during a takeover. Still, a crisis scenario seemed remote.
But before finishing the book, the 2023 Russian military invasion of Ukraine and the
response by NATO made a crisis scenario in ASEAN seem more imaginable.
Loss of ASEAN ethics would be fatal for the ASEAN system. That ethics are something
you are willing to fight for is a level of commitment that you would expect from a Nobel
Peace Prize winner or a political activist, not of ordinary people who just want to live a
decent ethical life.
Given the possibility of an existential loss of ASEAN’s core ethics, the dividing line
between standing up for ethics versus hoping that ASEAN will continue with “business as
usual” is no longer so clear.

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