INTRODUCTION

In the 1980s, while the United States and Europe were in recession, the Asian region was hailed as “living proof that the market offered a way out of poverty and underdevelopment”, as Martin and Schumann put it in their book The Global Trap: Globalization and the Assault on Democracy and Prosperity. They went on to point out that the region’s 1997-1998 economic crisis did however bring out the darker side of the ‘Asian miracle’. For the boom went “hand-in-hand with corruption, political repression massive environmental destruction, and often extreme exploitation of the labour force with no rights”. For decades, the development pattern brought about by capitalism using a neoliberal paradigm and advanced by the phenomenon of globalization was critiqued by ‘voices in the wilderness’ who were basically ignored.

In the Philippines, particularly under the Marcos’ authoritarian regime (1972-1986), repression of civil liberties and violation of human rights in the rural and urban areas facilitated an atmosphere conducive to the entry of foreign investments. All these however merely contributed to the growth and the strengthening of the communist insurgency in the country. Rebel and other dissident movements not only questioned the policies and programmes of multilateral lending agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, but actively opposed them through military means, i.e., through the New People’s Army (NPA), the military arm of the communist party. Massive demonstrations were also led by various leftwing groups against what they called the Marcos-US-IMF/World Bank dictatorship.

Similar issues and concerns were also raised by many elements of the middleclass and even some sections of the upper classes, already disillusioned with the economic policies of the Marcos government and appalled by the regime’s human rights violations. The combined efforts of all these parallel movements eventually succeeded in overthrowing the Marcos dictatorship through what was billed as the “People Power Revolution” of 1986.

During this period, the other developing capitalist countries of Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand) had no such vibrant social movements (especially of the left variety) as in the Philippines. One reason was that state control under more “able” dictators such as Suharto, Mahathir and the Thai generals seemed to have been more effective. What seemed, however, to contribute more to the absence of a strong social movement in these countries was the robust economic growth and the generally improved living conditions of the middle class that ensued, particularly due to high growth rates in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Thus, the arguments against capitalist development and exploitation as brought about by the confluence of external forces such as the World Bank and the IMF and internal factors such as neoliberal-oriented elites, seemed to have been marginalized in these countries. Thailand for one, became in 1991 Asia’s ‘Fifth Tiger’, with the world’s fastest growing economy between 1985-1995. The country was touted as the World Bank’s poster model for the international community to emulate.

Malaysia and Indonesia were not far behind. Together with Thailand, they became known as the “New Asian Tigers”, signifying their entry into the NIC (Newly Industrialized Countries) group. In these countries, there was a growth of the middleclass and the social movements that emerged from it focused on issues identified with “new social movements” (NSM), e.g. the environment, human rights, women and consumerism.

The concern of the NSMs was that rapid development also presented a threat to the quality of life due to growing industrial pollution, while there was an absence of gender equality despite the growth in the numbers of working women. These NSM concerns were somehow tolerated by Southeast Asian authoritarian regimes as they did not directly threaten the political leadership, were seemingly devoid of class concerns, and did not raise the issue of democratization.

This was not the case in the Philippines as Filipino social movements upheld the class issue and linked it with NSM issues. These concerns were tied up with the issue of democratization, hand-in-hand with the anti-dictatorship and anti-imperialist struggle. Such linkages only became a major concern in Thailand in May 1992 when there was an attempted coup that was generally opposed by a large percentage of the Thai people, led by the urban middle class. This ushered in the strengthening of the democratization movement in the country and there seemed to be no turning back for the social movements in pushing further for whatever democratic space there was left to be opened.

For Malaysia and Indonesia, however, social movements pushing for democratization became more prominent and visible when the 1997-98 economic crisis hit Asia and provided social movements with the opportunity to raise the issue of democratization. The economic crisis thus engendered a political crisis which witnessed the downfall of Asia’s longest serving strongman, Suharto and the most serious challenge against Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mohammed Mahathir, paving the way for the further strengthening of social movements in the region. Though these social movements had been struggling for decades against the nature and social consequences of capitalist development in their countries, it was only with the onset of the economic crisis that their views and influence became popular and widely disseminated.

One major concern these social movements have been raising is the issue of globalization as the path for development. Unlike colonialism or imperialism, globalization as an ‘enemy’ was quite abstract because of the initial ‘benefits’ and the economic growth brought about by rapid liberalization, privatization and other neoliberal policies. The economic crisis however served to unmask the real nature of globalization.

“Globalized” Southeast Asian economies were subjected to the uncertain ‘whims’ of external forces and thus rendered vulnerable to the vagaries of international finance and trade. The issue therefore was that these countries have lost their national ‘sovereignty’ to these external forces. An even harsher reality was that the crisis brought about the collapse of hundreds of companies, mass lay-offs and unemployment and in the social sphere an overall deterioration in the lives of all classes of people, depression and even suicides. And, as seen in Indonesia, the economic crisis spawned a political crisis of mass unrest leading to the deaths of hundreds of civilians.

Social movements in Southeast Asia followed the Battle of Seattle demonstrations in 1999 with their own protests against the principal agents of globalizations - the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It is thus interesting to note, not just the critique of Southeast Asian social movements concerning globalization, but also their proposed alternatives.

The first part of this paper will therefore discuss the arguments which Southeast Asian social movements have against globalization. The second part will focus on the strategies they have used in highlighting their disagreements with globalization as an economic policy of their state. A discussion on the alternatives presented by Southeast Asian anti-globalization movements will be examined in the last part.


SOUTHEAST ASIAN MOVEMENTS AND ISSUES AGAINST GLOBALIZATION

One interesting argument by proponents of globalization is that it will bring about democracy. A globalized society is thought to bring about economic development, which will result in the emergence of a progressive middle class. This, based on the experience of Western countries, would challenge the authoritarian regimes in the Southeast Asian societies.

This seems to have worked only for Thailand. In the case of Indonesia and Malaysia, however, the ‘economic success’ of their societies gave their respective authoritarian regimes the justification for intensifying repressive policies and directions. Thus, Indonesian and Malaysian social movements questioning such authoritarian rule were dealt with harshly and their spaces for advocacy curtailed. In the case of Thailand, however, economic development did indeed create a middle class, which is thought to have taken the lead in carrying out the democratization process. But, true to its middle-of-road character, it only thinks of itself. This is a problem, particularly given the growing disparities between the middle class and the lower classes. Thus, the issues that Thai social movements like the Assembly of the Poor (a network of rural and urban villagers affected by various state and industrial development projects) were focusing on, such as poverty and underdevelopment in the countryside, were basically ignored by the middle class.

It was only after the 1997 economic crisis that the Thai middle class found itself listening to the anti-globalization tirades of Thai social movements, mainly composed of grassroots organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academic activists, and social critics. During the anti-Asian Development Bank protest actions in Chiang Mai on the occasion of the Bank’s 33rd annual conference in May 2000, the Thai social movements succeeded in securing the sympathy of the middle class.

What was not realized by the middle class of Thaïland or Philippines was that the growth did not filter down to the masses. But Philippine social movements have made the point that neoliberalism lacks a redistributive aspect and therefore is no champion of income equality. As noted by its critics, globalization has resulted in the rich countries growing richer and the poor countries growing poorer and within the country itself, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

In the East and Southeast Asian countries, both the state-led NIC-model and the free market model naturally generate and perpetuate social inequalities even if, in the case of the Asian capitalist model, rapid growth takes place. Indeed, high growth rates are necessary to allow a rise in absolute incomes without having to undertake the redistribution of wealth.

In the case of Malaysia, a challenge for the advocates of anti-globalization has been Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad himself. For many Malaysian citizens, they have much to ‘thank’ Mahathir for the economic development he has brought to the country while pursuing neoliberal policies. The economic crisis however also revealed his major defects, such as cronyism and the corruption of his family and friends. Thus, social movements in the country feel that there is a need to continue to pursue reformasi, or the advocacy for democratization. The Malaysian anti-globalization movement is therefore split into two factions. One faction feels that globalization, not democracy is the issue. The other faction believes that the anti-globalization movement should work hand-in-hand with the pro-democracy movement.

In Indonesia, the anti-globalization movement seems to be stymied by other pressing problems. It is against a background of political instability, caused by the downfall of Suharto, separatism and violent racial and religious conflicts, that the World Bank and the IMF are viewed as the ‘rescuers’ of the Indonesian economy with the much- needed economic loans and financial assistance subject, however, to World Bank and IMF conditionalities which continue to promote neoliberal solutions to the present economic crisis. The challenge therefore of the anti-globalization movement in this country has been to highlight the severe repercussions that such conditionalities will bring to bear on the Indonesian people, particularly the labour and peasant sectors.

Repressive labour policies

The campaign against what are perceived to be socially harsh loan conditionalities that affect the workers’ sector is reflected in the anti-ADB campaigns in Thailand . This movement noted particularly the “reduced bargaining power of the provincial labour force after the ADB intervened to have the government limit the rise in minimum wages”, according to Achara Ashayagachat. Thai NGOs noted, too, that the Bank’s support for the privatization of state enterprises would result into massive lay-offs of state workers. Thai social movements began to monitor the Bank’s policies in the country more closely after the 1997 economic crisis, when the ADB granted loans with conditionalities designed to reform the structure of the country’s social and economic systems.

Thus, despite the moves towards democratization in Southeast Asian countries as an unintended consequence of 1997-98 economic crisis arising from the failure of neoliberal policies in the region, the exploitation of their labour force continues. In Indonesia, the fashionable Nike trainer shoes, for example, which cost up to US$150 a pair in Europe and in the US,

are stitched and punched by some 120,000 workers in the contract companies that supply Nike … for a wage of less than three dollars a day. Even in Indonesian conditions, that is a starvation wage, but it complies with the legal minimum applicable to more than half of the country’s 80-million labour force. (International Herald Tribune 1996).

In Malaysia, labour strikes are forbidden and the immigrant workers that Malaysia desperately needs are also badly treated. Such an issue is a major concern of Southeast Asian social movements concerned with migrant labour, which has become highly commodified with the freer flow of labour and the demand for this which is made possible by globalization. Unfortunately, the promise of work and money is accompanied by exploitative practices.

Furthermore, globalization under Southeast Asian conditions has also brought about emerging capitalist societies which

have not so far needed a social security system… because family structures are still largely intact. ‘Our social system is the family’ – such is the usual reply of Asian politicians when asked about provisions for sickness and old age….
(Martin and Schumann)

In the Philippines, it was announced in July 2002 that the Social Security System, the government pension agency for private sector employees, has not enough money to pay the benefits of retiring employees five years hence. This is the result of bad investments made by SSS officials under pressure from then President Estrada.

Campaign against the neoliberal ideology

Southeast Asian social movements have also campaigned against the nature of development being envisioned by neoliberalism, the ideology that upholds globalization, perceived as perpetuating the exploitation of peoples. The current global anti-capitalist movements, which are supported by the social movements in Southeast Asia are, in the words of Alex Callinicos, “directed against the relentless commodification of everything… that the neoliberal hegemony has promoted and Third Way governments simply reinforced”. Moreover, such commodification has been described as destroying the very culture of Southeast Asian societies.

In Thailand, this issue had been raised by social movements as far back as the 1960s when capitalist development was perceived to have brought about changing norms and values and the accelerating rate of urban crimes, prostitution and drug addiction, among others. Thus, this period witnessed the condemnation of the ‘Americanization’ of Thailand and the pursuit of material wealth, as expressed by social critic Sulak Sivaraksa and cited by Pongpaichit and Baker in their book Thailand: Economy and Politics. They reported that Thai NGOs, “which also saw the contrasts between the capitalist culture and the village culture called for the government to separate the economy from outside pressure through a ‘nationalist economic policy of greater self reliance’.”

Linking ‘new social movement’ issues with labour movements

Anti-capitalist movements have also linked issues identified with ‘new social movement’ concerns such as the liberation of women and the protection and preservation of the environment, with traditional labour movements. Southeast Asian movements, for example, can identify with the bread-and-butter issues of the latter with the issues of women and environment. In the case of women’s concerns, globalization has facilitated the migration of women workers from Southeast Asia to work as domestics in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan, as well as in Europe and the Middle East and, in the case of the Filipino women, as entertainers and prostitutes in Japan. Numerous cases have been reported of physical and sexual abuse by employers.

The trafficking and prostituting of women and children in the region has been the major concern of Southeast Asian movements like ECPAT, which have concentrated their advocacy work on this issue. Southeast Asian women have been forced to migrate abroad because of the impoverished situation in their home countries. They have made big sacrifices to leave their families, husbands and children in the hope of earning money to remit back home. In the case of the Philippines, overseas remittances is a major foreign exchange earner for the country.

Environment issues, on the other hand, was initially identified as a middle class problem. But Southeast Asian social movements have also shown that it is the lower class that suffers most from them. The Ormoc tragedy in Southern Philippines, whereby flash floods caused by massive deforestation killed hundreds of Filipinos and destroyed homes and property belonging to the lower classes, is only one example of an environmental tragedy in which the masses are hardest hit.

Some Southeast Asian environmental NGOs have come to the conclusion that defending the environment means challenging capitalism. In Thailand, for example, the market, the business sector and state policies have created the convergence of two ecological catastrophes: massive deforestation and massive water pollution. These have seriously affected the agricultural communities, where most of the poor in Southeast Asia live, and have been responsible for severe crises in agriculture.


ANTI-GLOBALIZATION STRATEGIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Globalization has therefore brought about the aggravation of the material inequalities that threaten social cohesion. This has given impetus to citizens’ movements, which consider it appropriate to define their basic democratic rights and strengthen social solidarity. However, while addressing the problem at the national and local level, social movements have also realized that an international campaign is just as important.

Southeast Asian anti-globalization movements are doing just this, as can be seen in their yearly mobilizations against the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and annual meetings of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). On the more organizational side of the struggle, efforts to come together in regular regional gatherings have taken place, such as the People’s Plan for the 21st Century (PP21) movement, which held a major gathering in Bangkok in 1993 lasting over two weeks. There were over 500 participants, representing social movements and NGOs from many Asian countries.

Campaign against IMF and World Bank conditionalities

After the 1997 economic crisis, Southeast Asian anti-globalization social movements have also been campaigning actively against the conditionalities imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in return for economic restructuring loan packages. In Thailand, for example, much of the anger of Thai social movements is directed at the IMF and the WB which are considered responsible for the Thai economy’s misdirected growth and their failure to foresee its eventual collapse. The IMF and the Bank have been leaning on Thailand with their heavy-handed prescriptions for trade and investment liberalization and they are therefore seen as directly responsible for the collapse of the Thai economy in 1997-98.

Together with the IMF and the World Bank, the ADB’s loan conditionalities have also been seen as partly responsible for increasing poverty and fostering under-development in the country. Despite its Poverty Reduction Strategy, ADB’s initiatives have been described as not one of poverty reduction but, according to Shalmali Guttal, “the rapid integration of local and national economic activities into the global market economy… leading to the impoverishment of people in Asia and the Pacific.” In Thailand, other loan conditions imposed by the ADB are the privatization of social services like schools and hospitals and the imposition of a water tax.

The same issue is also highlighted in the Philippines. Social movements have campaigned against the privatization of NAPOCOR, the country’s state-owned power generating company, because of the fear that it would increase the price of electricity. The ADB, however, has insisted on this condition before releasing special power-related bank loans to the government.

In Indonesia, the 97-98 economic crisis was of such gigantic proportions that it precipitated massive displays of social unrest by students and workers that eventually led to the downfall of the Suharto regime in 1998. The crisis also reduced the country to a mendicant, literally begging for foreign loans. The IMF and the World Bank have taken advantage of this situation and imposed very stringent conditionalities that are opposed by Indonesian social movements.

Linking-up with international anti-globalization movements

Another major strategy of Southeast Asian social movements is to link up with the anti-globalization movements in other regions of the world. Thus, Philippine anti-globalization movements were present in the Battle of Seattle in 1999, which marked the beginning of the wave of anti-capitalist protests. They were also present in the ones that followed, organized to coincide with meetings of the IMF, the World Bank, the G8, UNCTAD and APEC.

For example, anti-globalization activists waged protest actions during the February 1999 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Bangkok. A highlight of the protest was when American activist Robert Naiman, whose NGO represents the concern of bakers against anti-globalization, threw a cream pie in the face of outgoing IMF chief Michel Camdessus.

Already in 1995, the Manila People’s Forum on APEC (MPFA) had been set up to protest the meeting of leaders of Asian and Pacific countries that comprised the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. APEC, which includes the US, Japan, China, Canada and most Asian and South American countries bordering the Pacific, had set the goal of fast-tracking trade and investment liberalization. The MPFA brought together more than 500 social movement and NGO participants from APEC member countries and, in a parallel effort, the International Conference Against Imperialist Globalization was organized by mainly left-leaning Philippine groups. When participants of both initiatives were joined by thousands of Filipino activists from various social classes and sectors and attempted to stage a caravan to the site of the APEC meeting, the government mobilized military troops to block the road leading to the meeting site.

Regional anti-globalization movements

The linking up of Southeast Asian social movements with regional anti-globalization movements goes back well over a decade. In 1988, for example, there was a concerted effort among NGOs in the region, including the Asian NGO Coalition (ANGOC) to systematically question the ADB projects in the region. Together with the Environmental Policy Institute (now Friends of the Earth-US/FoE-US), ANGOC criticized the ADB’s badly-designed and destructive projects. They also noted the absence of dialogue on policy reforms and the need for greater transparency and public accountability.

The strategy of engaging multilateral financial institutions (MFIs) however has recently been rejected by other Southeast Asian groups and scholars. For instance, the eminent radical intellectual Walden Bello, who also heads a leftwing political party in the Philippines, sees engagement as a divisive manoeuvre by the MFIs to separate so-called ‘reasonable’ NGOs from the ‘unreasonable’ ones. He considers the NGO Committee on the World Bank, for example, as a way of legitimizing the Bank and neutralizing significant sections of the NGO community. As an alternative, and given the “fundamental dysfunctionality” of the MFIs, Bello instead proposes to "abolish them and create totally new institutions".

Regional NGOs with significant Southeast Asian constituencies have also been continually campaigning against globalization and its inimical effects on Asian peoples and societies. The Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA), a network of prominent Asian scholar activists, fosters exchange among progressive intellectuals in the region and attempts to formulate alternative development perspectives to counter corporate-led globalization.

The high-profile Focus on the Global South, led by Walden Bello, works out of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and has been prominent in research, publication, networking and advocacy work. The Asian Migrant Center (AMC) focuses on the plight of workers, particularly migrant contract workers. The Asia Monitor Resource Center (AMRC) started as a TNC-monitoring group but is now labour-based. The Bangkok-based Asian Cultural Forum for Development (ACFOD) deals with human rights and social issues. The Asian Students Association (also in Bangkok) and the Manila-based International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS) are concerned with youth and student issues.

ISIS International has its headquarters in Manila and deals with gender and women’s concerns. The Committee for Asian Women (CAW) organizes research studies and conducts seminars on gender issues. The Third World Network started by Martin Khor in Penang is now an international movement with offices in several countries around the world. The Manila-based Southeast Asian Resource Institute for Community Education (SEARICE) has been active in international campaigns against biotechnology. Another Manila-based organization is Social Watch Asia, part of the international NGO coalition which monitors implementation by governments of the Copenhagen Social Summit. The environmentalist activist Greenpeace International has also established a Southeast Asian branch in Bangkok.

Church-based regional institutions have also been engaged in advocacy and networking campaigns on behalf of victims of globalization. The Asia Alliance of YMCAs secretariat, despite the reputation of its national branches for conservatism, has been active in this regard particularly under the leadership of its two previous Secretaries- General: Tan Chi Kiong and Bart Shaha. The Christian Conference for Asia (CCA), particularly its International Affairs and Youth desks, has been similarly involved in anti-globalization campaigns. The CCA has also spawned two regional NGOs – the Documentation for Action Groups in Asia (DAGA) and the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC).

In terms of strategies, the Klong Dan villagers who are protesting the ADB’s Samut Prakarn Wastewater Management Project SPWMP in their community, were very much aided by the alliance forged among Thai social movements who share similar concerns regarding the ADB projects in their country. More importantly, their alliance was greatly strengthened by the support they received from international social movements sharing the same concern. Such experiences of Southeast Asian social movements at a global and regional level form part of the phenomenon of the transnationalizaton of NGOs in the South.

The use of global media

Another strategy of Southeast Asian social movements is the use of the global media to highlight their interests. As Nurina Widagdo has observed:

since the Battle of Seattle in 1999 where one witnessed violent demonstrations against the World Trade Organizations, this has been followed by a series of demonstrations and associated activities against similar meetings of international financial institutions (IFIs), like the ADB, with wide coverage and interest from the mainstream media.

The NGO Forum on the ADB, a coalition of NGOs and grassroots organization all over Asia, was able to take advantage of the global media during the campaigns against the ADB, as was seen at the conference in Thailand, in May 2000, which has already been mentioned. The Thai social movements, in particular, who were part of this coalition, felt that the media was an important instrument for propagating the anti-ADB campaigns and educating the public.

As noted by Kasian Tejapira of Thammasat University, the demonstration had the benefit of the global media because it was an international conference. He added that the Thai state could really do nothing except ignore the demonstrations. As declared by a Thai anti-globalization activist, reported in The Nation, “the media has communicated our message to the Thai public and the rest of the world about the negative impact of the ADB’s loan policy on the Thai people”.


ALTERNATIVES TO GLOBAL CAPITALISM

Southeast Asian movements have not only been criticizing globalization, neoliberalism and other current characteristics of capitalism, they have also been active in re-defining them. As Walden Bello has said:

While regional elites have battled to defend the direction of Asia-Pacific development along free-market lines or along the lines of state-assisted capitalism, many NGOs, people’s movements, and progressive academics have, over the last few years, evolved a powerful critique of both approaches. Both models – state-led NIC and neoliberal – intrinsically are ecologically destructive and unsustainable.

Contrary to the views being promoted by the apologists of neoliberalism, social movements do not view globalization in black and white terms. Like other movements in the world, they defend a more socially and environmentally inspired global policy through the profound democratization of the decision-making structures in the world economy. They call for the decentralization of the economic decision-making to communities, regions or ecological zones, and making national planning a bottom-up process.

As the experience of the struggles against the Asian Development Bank has shown, pressure from NGOs in the region led to a more systematic and open dialogue with the Bank and member governments. NGOs were invited to attend the ADB Annual Board of Governors Meetings where they engaged in major lobbying activities that challenged the Bank’s overall development priorities based on a centralized economic growth model and called for greater public accountability, transparency and participation in the Bank’s processes.

There is a proposal for the NGOs and social movements to be the third pillar of the political economic system to balance state and business. Such views were actually threshed out even before the 1997 economic crisis during NGO consultations, such as the People’s Forum in 1991. For the proponents of this Forum, the regional organizations promoting corporate-led globalization must be challenged at the regional level and by parallel, region-wide initiatives by social movements. They are pressing for, in Bello’s words:

the elaboration of a progressive regional alternative to both the APEC free-trade idea and East Asian Economic Growth (EAEG). It was also pointed out that both Japan and the United States should be excluded, for one of the key purposes of such a bloc is precisely to change the power relationship between the weaker countries and the economic superpowers.

Regional alliances of social movements and NGOs should address the problems created by globalization and present them as the main agenda of social change. This entails rejecting the agenda of neoliberalism and replacing it with a people’s agenda.
Again, as Bello says:

Rather than beginning with bringing down barriers to inter-corporate or intra-corporate trade, an alternative strategy for regional integration could begin by addressing the pressing cross-border problems that undercut the welfare of people and the environment. One such problem is posed by multinational corporations that pit one country against another by threatening to move their operations to a country with lower labour costs and a less strict enforcement of environmental laws.

In confronting the above issue, social movements can push for region-wide solutions that protect the civil and political rights of the working class and ensure their economic well being. As Mark Rupert has remarked:

The creation of a common regional environmental code with tight standards, and a common labour code with guarantee of labour organizing and decent wage standards, would be an important step in bringing about this people-based regional co-operation.

Furthermore, “Resistance to globalized capitalism has opened up possibilities for new reforms. Practices which are not circumscribed by the territorial state or by the conventional separation of politics from economics.

In a conference-workshop entitled Integrating Alternative Development Efforts in Asia (IADEA) held in Kerala, India in March 1996, several examples were presented on alternative development practices by Southeast Asian communities, assisted by NGOs and social movements. These range from organic and communal farming activities in Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand to alternative trade between Philippine and Japanese NGOs; from community forestry in Indonesia to agricultural planning in rural communities in the Philippines; as well as women’s livelihood and credit projects in Thailand, among others. The workshop was co-sponsored by the Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA), the Kerala Science Writers’ Forum (KSSP) and Rural Urban Alternatives (RUA).

Alternative educational practices have also been initiated, notably by the Education for Life Foundation (ELF) in the Philippines, headed by the former rebel priest Edicio de la Torre and, on the regional level, by ARENA which has held two sessions in Bali (1998) and Manila (1999). ELF’s strategy is based in part on Denmark’s folk schools’ experience.

Other documented alternative and counter-globalization initiatives in Southeast Asia by communities and NGOs include cooperative development, small-scale power generating projects (mini hydroplants), microfinancing, local marketing systems, integrated area development, and local governance systems. In Thailand, an alternative currency system was in place among local communities in the Northeast but was shut down by the local government.

While falling short of actually posing a direct challenge to corporate-led globalization, these local efforts nevertheless essentially go against the prevailing paradigm, given their emphasis on local initiatives, production for the local market, people-to-people economic relations and local empowerment.

Some elements of the global power bloc have begun to challenge and reincorporate potentially rebellious subjects within the global liberal vision. In the Philippines, the government has come up with anti-poverty programmes and social movements in the country view these as an opportunity to intervene in the government’s policy for the poor. Anti-poverty programmes, however, are not enough to tackle the problems created by the free-market model. Social movements are advocating that priority be given to agriculture and the reinvigoration of the rural society as the centrepiece of the development process, as opposed to the free market’s bias for urban-based industries. There is also a call for appropriate technologies for industries and organic, chemical-free agricultural technology. This is in opposition to the adoption of capital-intensive high technology in industry and chemically intensive technology in agriculture.


CONCLUSION

Overall, globalization as the panacea for underdevelopment has been taking a severe beating. Southeast Asian anti-globalization movements have realized that their cause is not isolated and they were given a boost in November 1999 when a number of them participated in the demonstrations that violently disrupted the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, forcing the declaration of a state of emergency in that city.

Seattle proved to be an inspiration to social movements all over the world. The London-based World Development Movement documented the intensification of anti-IMF/WB protests in 2001 in 23 poor countries all over the world, which have resulted in the deaths of 76 people and thousands injured and arrested. The report, called “States of Unrest II,” also demonstrated that protests against these institutions and their policies were not limited to privileged students and anarchists from rich countries, as some politicians and the IMF and WB themselves tried to claim, but led by the world’s poorest peoples.

As C. Fred Bergsten, chief of Washington’s Institute of International Economics, has pointed out, “anti-globalization forces are now in the ascendancy”. In Southeast Asia, the lingering effects of the 97-98 economic crisis, the inability and unwillingness of the region’s ruling elites to break free of the WB-IMF-WTO and US stranglehold over their economic policies and programmes, and the vibrancy of the social movements that challenge the prevailing hegemonic paradigm, will prove crucial in determining and changing the region’s socio-economic, political and cultural landscape.


Bibliography

Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives, Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad, and Rural Urban Alternatives, Integrating Alternative Development Efforts in Asia, Hong Kong, 1996.

Ashayagachat, Achara. 2000. “NGOs on the attack at curtain-raiser”, Bangkok Post, April 7.

Bello, Walden. 1997. “Fast-track Capitalism, Geoeconomic Competition, and the Sustainable Development. Challenge in East Asia” in Thomas, Caroline and Wilkin, Peter, Globalization and the South. London: MacMillan, pp. 143-162.

____________, “From Melbourne to Prague: The Struggle for a Deglobalized World,” speech delivered at a series of engagements against the World Economic Forum (Davos) in Melbourne, 6-10 September 2000.

____________, “Genoa and the Multiple Crisis of Globalisation,” Focus on Trade, No. 64, July 2001.

____________, Shea Cunningham and Li Kheng Poh. 1998. A Siamese Tragedy: Development and Disintegration in Modern Thailand. London: Zed Books.

Business Day. 2000. “Thailand Takes Steps to Prevent Another Pie-in-the-Face Incident”, 15 May.

Callinicos, Alex. 2001. Against the Third Way. London: Polity Press.

Dilokvidharaya, Lae. 1984. “Industrialization and the Trade Union Movement in Thailand”, pp. 122-132 in “Transnationalization, the State and the People: The Thailand Case: Part II”, New Asian Visions, Working Papers of the United Nations University Asian Perspectives Project (Southeast Asia), The United Nations University.

Guttal, Shalmali. 2000. Creating Poverty: The ADB in Asia. Focus on the Global South, Bangkok.

International Herald Tribune, 1996 cited in Martin, Hans-Peter and Schumann, Harald. 1996. The Global Trap: Globalization and the Assault on Democracy and Prosperity. London: Zed Books.

Janviroj, Pana. 2000. “Thai middle class in a world of its own”. The Nation, 9 August, page A4.

Kaewthep, Kanoksak. 1984. “The Political Economy of the Modern Thai Peasant Movement: The Case of the Farmers’ Federation of Thailand (FFT), 1973-1976”, pp. 141-185 in “Transnationalization, the State and the People: The Thailand Case: Part II”, New Asian Visions, Working Papers of the United Nations University Asian Pespectives Project (Southeast Asia), The United Nations University.

Kahn, Joseph. 2002. “As panacea, globalization comes down to earth”, International Herald Tribune, pp. 1,4.

Khor, Martin, “Tide Turning Against Globalisation,” Third World Network, October 2000.

Martin, Hans-Peter and Schumann, Harald. 1996. The Global Trap: Globalization and the Assault on Democracy and Prosperity. London: Zed Books.

Rupert, Mark. 2000. Ideologies of Globalization: Contending visions of a New World Order. London and New York: Routledge.

Philippines-China Development Resource Center (PDRC) and the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), Dialogue on Best Practices in Local Level Partnerships for Rural Poverty Alleviation in Asia, 13-14 March 2000, DAP Conference Center, Tagaytay, Philippines.

Pongpaichit, Pasuk and Baker, Chris. 1995. Thailand: Economy and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Post reporters. 2000. “NGO gathering to battle ADB”, Bangkok Post, 3 May, p. 10.

Jeff Powell, "Thailand's First Community Currency System Ordered Closed," (E-mail message) May 2000.

Prasartset, Suthy. 1984. “Crisis of the Transnationalization Model of Accumulation: the Thai Case”, pp. 1-31 in “Transnationalization, the State and the People: the Thailand Case: Part II”, New Asian Visions, Working Papers of the United Nations University Asian Perspectives Project (Southeast Asia), The United Nations University.

Quizon, Antonio B. and Perez-Corral, Violeta. 1995. The NGO Campaign on the Asian Development Bank. Manila: Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development.

Sarit, Dita. 2001. Acceptance speech. Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emerging Youth Leader, Cultural Center of the Philippines, December, Manila, Philippines.

Sulak Sivaraksa, “Alternatives to the APEC Agenda,” Focus on the Global South, 1997.

Sukin, Kamol. 2000. “ADB protest concludes peacefully”, The Nation, 9 May.

Kalinga Seneviratne, “Developing Thailand: Buddhist Path for Economy,” Sunday New Straits Times, 26 May 2002.

Joseph Stiglitz, “Globalism’s Discontents,” American Prospect, 14 January 2002.

Thai Working Group on the ADB’s Impact. 2000. Document.

Thomas, Caroline. 1997. “Globalization and the South” in Thomas, Caroline and Wilkin, Peter. Globalization and the South. London: MacMillan, pp. 1-17.

Tejapira, Kasian. 2000. Interview. Associate Professor of Political Science. Thammasat University, 18 May, 2000.

Widagdo, Nurina. 2001. “Overview of what is to happen in Hawaii”, Document from the Bank Information Center (BIC), 9 March.

______________ and Garrido, Jane. 2002. “Testing ADB Accountability: The case of the Samut Prakarn Wastewater Management Project in Thailand”, A Bank Information Center Publication, Washington DC.

Wilkin, Peter. 1997. “New Myths for the South: Globalization and the Conflict between Private Power and Freedom” in Thomas, Caroline and Wilkin, Peter. Globalization and the South. London: MacMillan. pp. 18-35.

Author: Teresa S. Encarnacion Tadem