Xref: utzoo news.groups:13682 soc.culture.misc:1110 soc.culture.china:27021 soc.culture.indian:19147 soc.culture.hongkong:1700 soc.culture.taiwan:1775 soc.culture.japan:3119 Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!usc!ucsd!ogccse!orstcs!guille!harish From: harish@guille.ece.orst.edu (Harish Pillay) Newsgroups: news.groups,soc.culture.misc,soc.culture.china,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.hongkong,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.japan Subject: Re: ******** Call For Votes about creating soc.culture.asean ******** Message-ID: <13389@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> Date: 27 Oct 89 05:46:28 GMT References: <13194@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <9553@june.cs.washington.edu> Sender: usenet@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU Reply-To: harish@guille.ECE.ORST.EDU (Harish Pillay) Organization: Electr & Compt Engr, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331 Lines: 146 In article <9553@june.cs.washington.edu> rkr@june.cs.washington.edu (R. K. Raj) writes: Raj>I normally believe in the principle of "live and let live," but since Raj>nothing has been done to address the issue of name, I will take this Raj>opportunity to request people to vote NO to the group under its present Raj>name, soc.culture.asean. Two of the reasons are: Raj> Raj> (a) nearly all the original objectives of this newsgroup were Raj>POLITICAL in nature, and definitely not SOCIAL nor CULTURAL. I invite Raj>Harish Pillay, the prime mover of this newsgroup, to repost his original Raj>message. I would have done this but my site has unfortunately removed Raj>the old message. OK, Mr R. K. Raj, for what its worth, here is my original call for discussion. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is the first call for discussion about a proposal to create a newsgroup possibly called SOC.CULTURE.ASEAN. ##################### ### Brief History ### ##################### ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) was formed in 1967 as a regional grouping to help the nations of South East Asia climb the economic ladder and to foster regional peace, stability and cultural harmony. There were 5 original countries - Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. In 1984, when Brunei gained her independence, ASEAN admitted her as the 6th nation. Currently, Papua New Guniea has an observer status in the organization. ASEAN has been instrumental in disproving the "domino effect theory" popular among many political commentators of the Vietnam war/Nixon era. The turmoil and strife seen in the Indochinese countries of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos pretty much ended there after the Vietnam War. The nations of ASEAN continued on the path of economic progress with the result of Singapore emerging as a Newly Industrialized Economy with Malaysia and Thailand on the threshold of becoming a NIE. The last 10 years have seen the problem of the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia occupy the center stage in ASEAN's concerns. There was an ill-fated Cambodia Peace Conference earlier this year in the light of the Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia. However, with the withdrawal almost completed, there is a lot of uncertainty in the future of Cambodia as a nation. In any case, the ASEAN countries are poised to assist any government freely elected in Cambodia solve basic bread and butter problems and help the country get back on its feet. Apart from this, ASEAN is viewed as the most dynamic regional economic grouping with approximately 300 million people (almost the size of Europe 92) and exceeding the USA. The vast endowment of natural resources and dynamic and pragmatic governments of ASEAN have attracted large investments in industry by multinational companies based in the US, Canada, Europe and Japan. Lately there have been some concerns being expressed with regards to the Philippine "Marshall Plan" and the proposal by Singapore to offer naval facilities to the US Navy. This offer is seen as a blow to ASEAN's concept of ZOPFAN (Zone of Peace, Freedom And Neutrality). ################# ### Objective ### ################# This newsgroup will serve as a discussion forum for the issues that face the citizens of ASEAN. It can also serve as a place where free and frank discussion of so-called "sensitive" issues can be made. It should be kept unmoderated. By removing the perceived fear of speaking up and discussing issues that matter without the "government-led" "responsible" journalism so pervasive in some of the ASEAN countries, it is hoped that this newsgroup will help foster ASEAN solidarity and understanding. The newsgroup can be a channel where specific country related issues to be discussed. If in the future, the traffic for a specific country becomes dominating in this group, a newsgroup for that country can be spawned off off this group, for example, soc.culture.asean-singapore or whatever. One other aspect worth considering would also be future membership of the 3 Indochinese nations - Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. There has been a lot of work being done to heighten the awareness of the ASEAN amongst the constituent citizenry. The bulk of which has been done at the official, governmental level. This newsgroup should foster people to people contact at a totally participatory and voluntary manner. If you have any questions or comments, it is preferred that you post them to news.groups. If you want to address them to me specifically, the following should bring it to me: Internet: harish@ece.orst.edu UUCP: uunet!ece.orst.edu!harish Please post your comments to news.groups Thank you. Harish Pillay ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you look under my statement of objectives, I've indicated that this shall serve as a discussion forum for the issues that face the citizens of ASEAN. I left it sufficiently wide open to interpretation, to which I had to post clarifications, specifically, that the group shall be discussing the culture and customs of the nations making up ASEAN. Raj> (b) During the discussion period, several folks have observed their Raj>dissatisfaction with the name for geographical reasons -- the name, Raj>soc.culture.asean, does not address these reasons adequately. Raj> Raj> [...deleted...] Raj> Raj>- R. K. Raj I've stated and restated ad nauseum why the name was chosen. The peoples of the 6 nations share a lot in common - culture, history, language and economy. If you want specifics, e-mail me and I shall oblige. If you aren't from there [and ALL of my objectioners aren't :-(], you'll probably have a hard time realizing the truth to this. If the group was to be s.c.se-asia, we'll be bringing in the 3 Indochinese states and Myanmar (Burma). My only reservation is that I fear that the group will degenerate to one of mud-slinging between Vietnam and the rest of SE Asia. If the 3 Indochinese states want to have a newsgroup, someone should propose and get the process going. You can count on my YES vote to it. I don't want to open a pandora's box, but, it is perfectly legitimate to have 2 separate newsgroup for Southeast Asia for there is precedence already, viz., s.c.china, .taiwan, .hongkong. IMHO, it would have been sufficient to have s.c.chinese, but, nonetheless, I'd have voted in favor of each separate group in any case. I'm sure they've valid reasons for having separate groups. Once again let me put this out. I am willing to get into ANY discussion with anyone who is KNOWLEDGEABLE of ASEAN. If, as a result, I'm convinced that ASEAN is PURELY a political entity, I'll shall stand corrected. We've already completed the discussion period and the voting is in progress. I believe the Usenet rules call for ceasation of discussion while the voting is in progress. Please e-mail me your votes - either No or YES. Please mail your votes to: Internet: harish@ece.orst.edu UUCP: uunet!ece.orst.edu!harish Thank you. Harish Pillay harish@ece.orst.edu