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ALFP 2006 Program Report COMMUNITIES IN ACTION COMMUNITIES IN ACTION Struggle for Peace and Sustainability in Asia Published by International House of Japan & Japan Foundation Date of publication September 2007 ©International House of Japan 5-11-16 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan 106-0032 Tel: 81-3-3470 3211 Fax: 81-3-3470 3170 Email: [email protected] URL: www.i-house.or.jp Cover & illustration Raphael Ahmed Layout & design Lim So-Youn, Jang Ik-Su Printed in Japan CONTENTS Preface Part 1: Sixty Days’ Chronicle A Decade of Collaboration 11 Naoko Shimamura Profile of 2006 Fellows 17 Eight Weeks’ Sojourn 21 Discourse and Dialogue 45 Part 2: Envisioning Community-Building Unmasking Identity 139 Maria Hartiningsih From Revolution to Devolution: How democracy’s “long tail” 159 can sustain press freedom, development and peace in Asia Kunda Dixit Democracy, Development and Diversity 183 Mohiuddin Ahmad Building Cultural Sustainability among Young Communities in Asia 209 Janet Pillai Toward the Futures which Bring Back Our Wisdoms Within: 227 Shifting theDirection of Development Kamata Yoji NGO Initiatives in Northeast Asia Environmental Cooperation: 243 Cases of KFEM-Jilin, Kitakyushu-Dalian Cooperation Seejae Lee Religion and Corruption: Advocacy for Integrity in Philippine 263 Church and Society Albert E. Alejo Part 3: Journey through Japan The Tokyo Tribunal 2000 and Beyond 287 Maria Hartiningsih Discovery of Japan 301 Mohiuddin Ahmad Japan Diary 327 Seejae Lee Asian Face of the Struggle for Integrity 339 Albert E. Alejo PREFACE Throughout our life, we constantly seek knowledge and engage in changing our environment. We do so because we want to elevate ourselves to a higher level in terms of moral standard and material comfort. We want to reach a greater height. This obviously calls for engagement with the experiences and practices that are available around us. Interpersonal and intercultural interactions thus help in our capacity building, as well as enlightenment. The Asia Leadership Fellow Program (ALFP) is an excellent opportunity in this respect. ALFP is engaged in building a constituency among public intellectuals. We are talking about organic intellectuals. This means that one needs not only to attain the capacity to envision and articulate, but also to stimulate action for positive change. ALFP has been trying to be a gateway for the intensive interaction of people from diverse social conditions and intellectual backgrounds in Asia to facilitate development of an Asian perspective, if there could be any. Although the world is becoming closer, it is still full of unknown diversity. People in “other cultures” have their own rich traditions, own ways of engagement with nature and the community and contextual ways of seeking alternatives to existing odds. It is always inspiring to become acquainted with their notions and struggles that may immensely benefit us in acquiring a regional and global perspective on issues that concern all human beings. Through ALFP, the International House of Japan and the Japan Foundation have been trying to facilitate such a process by bringing “public intellectuals” from diverse backgrounds and from different Asian countries and providing them with a space to interact among themselves, as well as with Japanese academia and practitioners in various fields, to find the meaning of Asianness. This can be stimulated and accelerated through a process for reorientation, for getting in touch with other ideas, understandings and applications. For a considerable part of our professional life, we have been working with a certain mission. We have been playing the role of an academic, or an animator, or a researcher, or a creative writer, or an artist, or an advocacy activist, or a communicator. The most common denominator for us is perhaps our engagement in activities intended to change the quality of life of the people through our respective works. We believe that ‘critical consciousness’ is a missing link between ignorance and enlightenment, between marginalization and empowerment. We strongly feel that we need to constantly enhance and update ourselves in attaining the required level of excellence, so that we can stimulate ourselves, as well as others, to steer the process of development, cohesion and harmony in society. This has been attempted through ALFP since its commencement in 1996. In 2006, ALFP hosted its tenth group of eight participants, one each from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines and Vietnam. They were together in Japan from mid- September to mid-November. ALFP opened a new window to this group of eight and indeed helped familiarize them with contemporary Japanese society and culture. Though Japan is in Asia, many of us know very little about Japan. Our aim has been to enhance our knowledge base. We had high expectations from ALFP, and ultimately it has been in fact rewarding. ALFP has been instrumental for achieving a higher level of companionship, understanding and enlightenment. This should help rebuild our mindset about our neighbors in Asia, stimulate our energy to work for meaningful interaction with other Fellows, broaden our horizon and bring greater clarity in the thought process. As part of the program, we were supposed to prepare and present one paper centering on a theme. The theme of ALFP 2006 was first decided as “Unity in Diversity: Envisioning Community-Building in Asia and beyond.” Later the Fellows in consultation with the secretariat staff phrased it for the public symposium as “Communities in Action: Struggle for Peace and Sustainability in Asia.” At the end of the program, it was decided to publish a book on ALFP 2006. This book has been designed to contain, among others, activities in which the Fellows participated and their individual works. It has three parts. Part 1 includes some introductory remarks, a summary activity report and a detailed report based on transcripts of selected seminars. Part 2 includes the final papers prepared by the Fellows. Out of eight, seven Fellows contributed. It was also felt important to share the feelings, observations and experiences of the Fellows on Japan, which has been endeavored through essays contributed by four Fellows. This anthology is the result of a team effort. Ms. Naoko Shimamura, Ms. Mayuko Sasanuma and Mr. Kimihiro Sonoda of the International House of Japan were instrumental in making our stay comfortable and facilitating the two-month program in a meaningful and purposive manner. Ms. Kazumi Yagi and Mr. Toru Oono of the Japan Foundation also deserve acknowledgement in this respect. Ms. Mattie Reyes has put a lot of hard work into preparing reports based on her notes and made transcripts out of recorded tapes. Ms. Mayuko Sasanuma has also made a selection of photographs and put on captions that would help readers to have a glimpse of the 2006 program. The managements of the I-House and Japan Foundation have always been supportive in all stages. Prof. Lee Jong Won, Prof. Masaaki Ohashi and Prof. Chiharu Takenaka, advisers of the ALFP, were inspiring icons with their counseling and participation. Finally, it was the Fellows with their unique professional backgrounds, participation and fellowship under a very expedient and conducive environment that made the 2006 program a success. All these contributions are acknowledged with gratitude. Mohiuddin Ahmad Editor A Decade of Collaboration Naoko Shimamura I felt both honored and embarrassed when I was asked to contribute a paper for the ALFP 2006 book. Over the years, I had been cajoling the Fellows to write discussion papers and reports for the Program. But when it came to writing one me, it was another story. I have been heavily involved in the coordination of this beloved project since its initiation and what I have received from my experiences have been so immense that I have no idea how to put them on paper. ALFP was conceptualized and has evolved during the decade when each Asian nation-state, and Asia as a region, was struggling for maturity. At the same time the acceleration of globalization was transforming people’s lives and value systems. Therefore, it is not an easy task to reflect on the ALFP experience that mirrors the changing environment in which Asia and its peoples faced during such an eventful period. When the program started in 1996, the Fellows came from the ASEAN countries where state development was still in a transitional stage. In most cases, the Fellows’ domestic situation made it difficult for them to speak freely in a public setting about the problems of political/social issues. Talks of regional integration at the governmental level or through economic cooperation were beginning to be active around that time; but, on the other hand, it was still rare for Asian public intellectuals from various cultural backgrounds to meet at their own initiatives, especially when their professions or fields of interest were different. The first three years of the ALFP were spent mainly to sow the seeds— to inform public intellectuals in various parts of Asia that they could spend two months in Japan as part of an innovative fellowship program, where they could discuss issues of common concern pertinent to the region. At the outset, there seemed to have been doubts and anxieties among the Fellows about the intention of the ALFP—i.e. why is Japan doing this, or what the participants are expected to do or to produce out 12 Communities in Action of the program, etc. But as time went on, the Fellows seemed to discover that the discussions they engaged in during formal or informal meetings (sometimes at the renowned I-House breakfast table or at McDonald’s) were usually of a special quality and that they wouldn’t be able to have these conversations if they were confined to their daily professional engagements. During these years, many large-scale events affecting the lives of many Asians, such as the economic crisis that shook the whole region and how the magnitude of the economic crisis heavily hit the weakest members of Asian societies in particular, took place.
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