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Stronger ties vital for Asia-Africa to have greater say
Muhammad L
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Muhammad L. Sulaiman - JP
Representatives and leaders of Asian and African nations are meeting in Jakarta and Bandung to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1955 Asian-African Conference, as well as the 10th anniversary of the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership (NAASP). Nigeria's Ambassador to Indonesia Muhammad L. Sulaiman, gives his insights to The Jakarta Post's Tama Salim and Yohanna Ririhena on Nigeria's vision to maintain the relevance of the cooperation for the future. The following are excerpts from the interview:
Question: Do you think that the Bandung Spirit achieved in the 1955 conference is still relevant to today's geopolitical situation?
Answer: The Bandung Spirit is still relevant to today's life. You can see Europe has the European Union and the European parliament. I would say for South-South Cooperation ' especially with regard to Africa and Asia ' we need to come together because we have so many things in common. We have common problems of poverty, development and so many other challenges. And we [most of the countries in Africa and Asia] went through colonial rule, so we have that experience. We have so many similarities in terms of multiculturalism, religion and ethnicities. I think the Bandung Spirit is still relevant ' we need to come together.
Why is the need to come together so important today?
Some 106 of 190 member countries in the United Nations are in the Asia and Africa continents. They are a power to be reckoned with. The more we are, the stronger [we become] when speaking with one voice; people will listen to you, because if you as an individual speak, people will tend to ignore you.
What should be highlighted to reinvigorate the Asian-African cooperation?
Looking at the theme of the conference, 'strengthening South-South cooperation', I think that's what you have to highlight ' that's number one. We also [...] have eight areas to focus on, the New Asia-Africa Strategic Partnership [NAASP], including security, the fight against terrorism etc. So number two, it is because we cooperate that we [need to] share ideas and learn from each other.
For instance, we would like to know how Indonesia was able to [...] lift tens of millions of its people ' from a population of over 200 million ' out of poverty and into the middle class. We have a population of 170 million, and we'd like to know how to do that. We can only do that through South-South cooperation and we are lucky that in the Asian and African traditions, we assist one another.
Since the establishment of NAASP in 2005, it seems we haven't reached the level of success that we had envisioned. What are the underlying obstacles?
We may not have achieved what we desired to do, but for the past 10 years [...] we've been making progress. We need to highlight the areas that we should concentrate on, because we have years and years to come. We now have eight areas, so let's see how far we've gone. And after we achieve a certain level of satisfaction, we can look at other areas ['¦] Concentrate on six to eight areas of cooperation where we feel we are in immediate need. After that we can identify other areas, hopefully.
Secondly, Kadin [the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry] is hosting the Asia-African Business Summit [AABS], where it is expected that Asian and African businessmen will gather, sit and work out how to strengthen our economic cooperation. [To achieve this], there should be regular contact among Asian and African chambers of commerce. There should also be an increase in the level of visits between Asian and African leaders, because for every visit there is always a trade delegation. And at the end of it, a number of MoUs [memorandums of association] are signed.
Can the conference be used to garner support so Asia and Africa can have more of a say in the UN ?
There have been attempts to reform the UN, especially the Security Council; African and Asian countries have been asking for more representation, [...] so we hope that process will be sustained [...] through this South-South cooperation. As I said earlier, when 106 countries speak, they certainly will have to listen. The UN has 190 countries, so with 106 countries, that's a two thirds [majority].
Besides common issues like poverty, development and infrastructure, we're also facing challenges from radicalism and terrorism. How do you see our cooperation in these fields?
The area of radicalism and terrorism is something that has no borders. This is an international phenomenon. Asia, Africa need to cooperate, such as what Nigeria and Indonesia do. We cooperate to overcome those challenges, particularly since Indonesia has succeeded in reducing the incidents of terrorism. We send people to get training to learn from Indonesian experiences in combating terrorism. The two countries also participate in UN peacekeeping operations. So, we send our people to Sentul, Bogor to be trained at the peacekeeping center.
