T

he European Union (EU) received the 2012 Nobel Peace prize for its contribution to regional and global peace. On the other side of the world, another very important regional organization that works to brings peace to its region is the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Although the two are different in many ways, they share the same difficulties in building regional identities. On the eurozone crisis and the South China Sea issue, they try to stay together, integrated and face problems. Both opt to use the notion of identity as an integrating factor. However, the outcomes have not been so satisfying.

According to the pollster Eurobarometer77, the feeling of attachment of Europeans toward the EU stood at only 46 percent in 2012. While 52 percent of European citizens surveyed do not feel any connection with the EU, 15 percent felt no attachment at all.

There are few reliable surveys on the attachment of ASEAN’s citizens to the region, although one survey conducted by Thompson and Thianthai in 2008 revealed that even among elite university students, only 60.7 percent of respondents were familiar with ASEAN.

So what went wrong? There are two explanations for this question: the empirical-practical and the
fundamental-conceptual.

The first reason argues that the EU is still seen by European citizens as an elite club. Political support for the EU is very limited. The main reason for this, according to Neil Fligstein, is that the integration has resulted in uneven outcomes for individuals.

It has only benefited a small group of people among European elites who have had the opportunity to travel, speak other languages and communicate with other Europeans.

Moreover, according to Yeo Lay Hwee, the development of the EU has been top-down and elite driven. The push toward market integration was seen as an elite effort to achieve economic efficiency in a way that disregarded the public discourse on political and social impact. In other words, the fast development of the EU as an institution was not followed by the Europeanization of the citizens.

An example of this gap between the institution and the Europeanization of the citizens is the enlargement of the EU from 15 to 25 member states in 2004, which was seen as “advancement” by EU elites.

However, the enlargement did not get significant support from the citizens of the first 15 member countries. Eurobarometer data in 2004 said that only 42 percent of EU citizens agreed to the enlargement, while 39 percent were against.

ASEAN does not have a different story. There are not as many policies that directly touch upon the citizens of ASEAN, except the 30-day free visa. There is no single passport, like in the EU, nor is there as much freedom of movement as the European Schengen provides.

The second explanation considers a fundamental reason rather than an empirical policy basis. We are still living under the Westphalia model of world order where nation-states are the main international actors. Citizens in regional organization always feel a greater sense of “nationality” rather than “regionality”.

In a way, the concept of the nation-state in the current world order hinders the establishment of regional identity, as the identity of a nation will always overshadow the identity of a regional community.

In the global world community such as in the United Nations, all nation-states represent themselves. All votes are all based on nationality. Development of a regional identity, therefore, has been undermined.

The national government thus creates a national notion of everything within its territory, such as national language, national history books, national education system, etc. These national characteristics are the main factors that help to create the identity of a national citizen. A common national language is considered a strong foundation in creating a community’s identity.

An attempt to have a common language in ASEAN is not there yet and might never be there. English has commonly been used in ASEAN and in the EU in their interactions, but its use has been limited to elite groups only.

As long as the approach of an organization that governs a particular area is still based on nationality, it will be difficult to have a strong sense of regionality. So does the government wholeheartedly promote regionalism or still stick to nationality?

In a seminar held by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in December, Joseph Maila said that French identity is more important than the identity of any other group. In the case of ASEAN, the finding of Farish A. Noor’s research in 2012 about the history of Indonesia shows a very nationalistic perspective and very few stories about ASEAN. Sadly, the most frequent mention of another ASEAN member nation was the case of konfrontasi with the Federation of Malaysia in 1963-1965.

These examples show that if a nation-state educates the people in its territory too narrowly about the history of their nation, say Indonesia or Cambodia, at the expense of the history of Southeast Asia, it will be very difficult to build a common identity.

Too nationalistic an approach will shape their culture, character, and hence their national identity somewhat underlines the importance of their regional identity. As a result, the sense of belonging to Europe or Southeast Asia will be overshadowed.

Only the willingness of the government and the citizens can save the day. Changing too nationalistic approaches with a more regional approach may be the answer, bringing ASEAN to the grass roots. It should start from now as the clock is ticking. The ASEAN Community 2015 is only two years away.

The writer is a student at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.