Asean values

re: "Might doesn't make right, unjust wars will fail" (BP, Opinion, March 3, 2022)

Dear editor,

In his opinion piece, Josep Borrell,  High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, makes a series of solid points. It is true of Putin's actual violence and threats of further violence to intimidate dissent that "Such use of force and coercion has no place in the 21st century." They are relics of the bad old days of humankind's more naturally violent past. But absent constant vigilance and the learning of history, those bad old ways can too easily come back to haunt us all too materially. 

Mr. Borell also rightly points out that "To justify its crimes, the Kremlin and its supporters have engaged in a massive disinformation campaign ... with the aim to deceive and manipulate." 

But the title under which the Bangkok Post published his essay, "Might doesn't make right, unjust wars will fail", was excessively optimistic, as Thailand's own recent history, like too much of ASEAN history, attests.

It is true that "Might doesn't make right."  Overthrowing a nation's rule of law founding a people's popular, democratic government, flawed though that government will always be, with actual violence or intimidating threats of violence can never be right. Neither invasion of a neighbouring state nor a coup committed against their own people can ever be made just merely because retroactively legalized by new laws made up by the conquering usurper. Every violent aggressor, whether Moses and his hordes who committed genocide against the Canaanites, or Putin who previously aggressed against Georgia in 2008, or those who commit coups against their own people, claim legal right for their acts founded on violence against others, and make up law to fit those claims contrary to justice.

But those claims of legal entitlement beloved of aggressors using actual violence or threats of violence, whether shooting and bombing, or arrest and imprisonment, are not only contrary to justice; they are also fake claims. And this is the problem with the Bangkok Post's admittedly hopeful headline. We would certainly wish that "unjust wars will fail"; the ugly reality is that they have often succeeded. It is not yet certain that Putin's war will not succeed. It certainly seems, to cite another current example, that the war against the Myanmar people that began a year ago with the military coup against the rule of law founding that nation's popular democratic form of government has not failed. The thugs in uniform who use threats of violence, especially of arrest and imprisonment in perfect accord with the laws and legal systems they set up for that intimidating purpose, have plainly not yet failed in their unjust aggression against the people of Myanmar.

In that pursuit of unjust gain by violence, both coup committers and war wagers also wage disinformation war by suppressing free speech. They do so because critical thinking and truth speaking would undermine their false claims made up to justify the unjustifiable. Putin conjures for the Russian people mythic past glories of Russian hegemony under the benevolent rule of righteous Tsars to fabricate a sacred right to restore that past. Such nationalistic myths overlook the fact that they are nothing more than dubious stories gilding what was more often brutish, greedy, and oppressive for those not in palaces. When such claims protect themselves from critical review and dissent, that is already a sound reason to distrust their amazing claims; nor can alleged public reverence enforced by brutish law justify what by its own acts of suppression proves itself unspeakably indefensible. 

On a  more optimistic note, the global response that seeks to non-violently punish Putin's aggression is appropriate. Let us hope it will prove victorious. It is encouraging to see so many nations, organizations, even international businesses, unite in working to deny the aggressors the economic fruits so dear to them. Under Putin's repressive rule, the Russian people have been subjected to financial inequality as gross as that which has also come to exist in Thailand, with the spoils going, no surprise, to those close to and supportive of Putin. As Mr Borrell explains, Thailand should join in those actions to punish those using violence and intimidation to force their personal agenda on entire nations. 

Did ASEAN and its member nations individually hold to any decent value such as respect for democracy founded on just law or respect for human rights protected by just law, it would unequivocally join in the global actions to punish Russia's military aggression against Ukraine. Even traditionally neutral Switzerland has joined in the non-violent confounding of Putin's aggression. But then, had ASEAN any commitment to such values, it would also act to isolate and economically punish those who commit coups against the people of ASEAN member nations. 

 Felix Qui

 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 6, 2022, under the title "Asean values" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2274567/window-of-opportunism