Introduction

The year 2014 saw an intense conflict between liberalism and narrow conservatism in Malaysia. The push for democracy and inclusive policies by the opposition and civil groups opened up a call from the right-wing Malays to “reclaim” their special rights and position as the “indigenous” people of the land. The right-wing Malays even raised the ghost of May 13, the bloody racial riot that brought at least 200 civilian deaths with ethnic Chinese making up the biggest number. The Malay-dominated ruling government remained tightlipped over the right-wing groups’ antics, hence implying its support for them which helped to perpetuate the spread of racial politics. The conflict became more complex with the internal schisms in the two main parties, Barisan Nasional (National Front or BN), and opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat (People's Alliance or PR) which led to further division and discord among the general public.

The political and social ferment continued to persist despite a long list of tragedies that hit Malaysia in 2014. From the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 on 8 March to MH17 that was shot out of the sky on 17 July to the tragic crash of Air Asia Indonesian flight QZ8501 on 28 December, the majority of Malaysians were divided along party lines over the way the authorities handled these calamities. As the year was drawing to a close, Malaysia was hit with the worst floods in three decades. More than 150,000 had to be evacuated with infrastructure losses amounting to RM2 billion (US$0.58 billion). The unprecedented disaster, however, failed to heal the political divisions.

On the economic front, Malaysia continued to record higher growth even though it faced multiple challenges in keeping its economy competitive and strong in its push to be a developed economy by 2020. Global forces such as the declining oil prices along with its own archaic economic policies had impeded Malaysia's potential to grow and expand. One of the indications of a troubling domestic economy was the steep increase in household debt over the years, turning Malaysia into a country with the highest household debt in Southeast Asia. Some analysts even argued that Malaysia was going through the middle income trap where it would be facing great difficulty in leaping forward to become a developed nation.

A steep decline in terrorist acts in Indonesia in 2014 should have been good news, especially because it underscored that police vigilance was high and extremist capacity was weak. But a third factor was also involved that was not such good news: more extremists were focused on getting to Syria and joining what they believed was a more important jihad than any they could wage at home. By late 2014, about 100 Indonesians, possibly more, were believed to have left to fight in Syria, some with their wives and children, and most to join the Islamic State.

Violent Extremists in Indonesia in 2014

By early 2014, Indonesia's jihadist community was divided between those who supported violence inside Indonesia, with the police as the primary target, and those who believed that at least for the moment, violence at home was counterproductive. The former generally supported the Islamic State and its predecessor, the Islamic State in Greater Syria and Iraq (ISIS). The latter were more likely to support IS's main rival in Syria, the al-Nusra Front, and its allies.

Prominent in the first group was Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT), a group of some thirty armed men led by Santoso alias Abu Wardah in the hills outside Poso, Central Sulawesi. Santoso had run a series of military-style training camps in Poso beginning in 2011, and graduates and supporters are now scattered across Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB). Despite being effectively under police siege during the year in his jungle camp, Santoso managed to smuggle out videos periodically to YouTube and radical websites. While neither he nor any other group managed any bombings in 2014, the few attacks on police during the year were all linked to MIT. Santoso was the first Indonesian to publicly pledge loyalty to the Islamic State after its leader, Abubakar al-Baghdadi, announced the establishment of the new caliphate on 29 June 2014 (1 Ramadan).

The pro-violence group also included remnants of Mujahidin Indonesia Barat (MIB), many members of which had previous ties to an old Darul Islam network led by the now-imprisoned Abdullah Umar. It included some but not all members of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir's organization, Jamaah Anshorul Tauhid (JAT), and many followers of the imprisoned cleric Aman Abdurrahman who had no specific organizational affiliation.

Developmentalism in Laos

The sub-regions of Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia have seen many development success stories. Often, however, East Asian countries have prioritized economic development over social or political development. While this “econophoria” —whereby the solution of all society's ills is sought through economic development — has contributed to remarkable patterns of economic growth, it has also seen the rise in importance of challenges to human security in both absolute and relative terms. Kenneth Christie and Denny Roy also highlight the prioritization of macroeconomic development, noting that it “has assumed cult-like status” in East Asia. Thus it is not surprising that Laos has followed the well-trodden path of developmentalism.

For the Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR), the graduation from least developed country status has been an overarching goal. To this end, the government has emulated the strategies of its Communist allies such as China, by implementing National Socio-economic Development Plans (the first in 1976, the seventh for the years 2011–15) which sought to strike a balance between economic and social development. Laos has also derived inspiration from non-Communist regional economic powerhouses such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, looking to develop its way out of post-conflict poverty. Finally, Laos has looked to neo-liberal growth models, and sought to integrate ever more closely into the regional and global economic regimes. A notable example has been Laos’ membership into the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 2 February 2013, achieved after fifteen years of long, arduous negotiation. These divergent sources of inspiration, as they have been actualized in Lao PDR, have in common the primacy of state driven, macroeconomic infrastructure projects.

Natural resources such as forestry, agricultural land, and hydropower comprise more than half of Laos’ total wealth and generate approximately one third of economic growth. Despite such natural resource wealth, and its steady exploitation by the government, Laos remains on the list of least developed countries (LDCs) prepared by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). To graduate from LDC status by 2020, the government in 2011 proposed the seventh five-year economic plan, which aims to achieve a growth rate of at least 8 per cent each year.

The coup on 22 May 2014 in Thailand has, for the present, caused a break in the political divide and impasse, a problem that the previous elected government was unable to solve. Many were worried that the deeply entrenched political polarization which had existed for almost a decade would lead to bloodshed if it was allowed to continue. So many questions were asked on what went wrong with the presumed Thai democracy. Why did the coup happen? What would be the future of democracy in Thailand? How can it be consolidated? These questions reflect that Thailand is facing a serious problem of democratic consolidation.

Many scholars on democratization agree that the road to a stable democracy is not always smooth. They agree that democratic consolidation in many countries is not an easy task, and Thailand is no exception.

Democratic consolidation depends on a variety of factors which vary from one country to another. Nonetheless, one of the major causes for the instability of a democratic regime is related to political legitimacy. Any political regime which does not secure legitimacy will find it hard to survive since its legitimacy depends on its acceptance by its citizens as expressed through major political forces. There is no need at this stage to debate in detail here how to develop and fortify a democratic regime's legitimacy. However, it is accepted that the essential requirement for strengthening such legitimacy is the regime's effectiveness in meeting the needs of its people and the implementation of democratic values, practices and procedures.

Political Polarization and the Crisis of Political Legitimacy

In the case of Thailand during the past decade, we have witnessed a deeply entrenched political polarization which had never reached such extreme levels in the past. This divisiveness, initially caused by a conflict between the proand anti-Thaksin groups, later developed into a crisis of political legitimacy. The anti-Thaksin group was formed around 2001 by a mass media tycoon, Sonthi Limthongkul, and later joined by some prominent political elites, notably Chamlong Srimuang, former Governor of Bangkok. In the beginning, the group was composed of thousands from the urban middle class and some uppermiddle class who believed that Thaksin was leading the country towards one party rule. He was accused of trying to amass his family's fortunes through “policy corruption”.

In July 2014, sixty-one members of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) posted online an open letter to the party leadership and all of its members. While decrying the Party's response to China's bullying in the South China Sea, the letter called on the Party to “leave off from the mistaken path of socialism for a definitive change to the path of the people and democracy” (Para 6). It was a bold statement for a country where public expressions of opposition to the authoritarian regime are strongly discouraged and sometimes harshly punished. Later in October, another online statement by a new generation of self-declared independent “civil society organizations” declared their support for prodemocracy demonstrators in Hong Kong and made an appeal to Vietnamese youth to take on a similar struggle at home. These initiatives were examples of a new movement in Vietnam of using online petitions to publicize social grievances while also directly or indirectly promoting liberal democratic ideas and challenging authoritarianism.

The online petition movement is a recent development in Vietnam's domestic politics. It has helped generate open and critical commentary on the most controversial topics of the moment, in contrast to the state's tendencies to hide and censor them. In doing so, it has also advocated for liberal constitutional freedoms of speech, assembly and private property, rule of law, and opposition to party dictatorship. Furthermore, the people leading the petitions have included many renowned public figures — loosely referred to as “prominent intellectuals” (nhân sў trí thúc) — and those signing onto them have come from all walks of life. While their total numbers still only reach a few thousand — with the notable exception of the 15,000 that signed the petition on constitutional reform in 2013 — they are a leading edge in a country where, traditionally, only the boldest and most radical individuals expressed their opposition to party dictatorship. This article retraces the emergence of Vietnam's online petition movement and examines its significance.

The Internet and Domestic Politics

The emergence of Vietnam's online petition movement partly reflects the rapid expansion of the Internet in Vietnam. However, the Internet should not be seen strictly as a technological miracle that automatically makes societies more democratic. Rather, it has been used both to support and resist democratization efforts. Scholarly literature on the topic has warned against unilineal assumptions on the causal relation between the Internet and democratization.

It is my pleasure to present the forty-second edition of Southeast Asian Affairs. This annual review is an important source of information and analysis for all those interested in developments in Southeast Asia.

The year 2014 was a challenging one for Southeast Asia. Economic growth was lower than what many had expected at the beginning of the year. This was due to the sluggish economic recovery in the advanced industrial economies, a slowdown in China, and decline in domestic private consumption and investment in key Southeast Asian economies.

On the political front, there was more uncertainty in Thailand, following a military coup during the year. In Malaysia, the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak continued to face severe domestic challenges. In Indonesia, the election of a new president from outside the traditional elites posed questions about what his domestic and foreign policies would be like. The Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) was a matter of growing concern, especially to Indonesia and Malaysia, as it attracted recruits from the region for the jihadi cause. Major power competition in the region was more palpable, posing a challenge to ASEAN and its centrality. Tensions in the South China Sea still remained by and large contained but China's huge reclamation projects were causing concerns in Southeast Asia and beyond.

I would like to thank the authors and the editor as well as others who have helped to make this publication possible. The chapters in the volume contain a wide variety of views and perspectives. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute. The authors alone are responsible for the facts and opinions presented in their contributions.

The year 2014 reaffirmed the strongest underlying assumption of resilient continuity in Philippine political studies and by all early indicators 2015 will as well. This idea of resilient continuity is at the core of most academic and journalistic analysis of the Philippines. David Timberman referred to the Philippines as “changeless land”, while the last two Southeast Asian Affairs’ Philippines chapters also were organized around this prevalent idea. Structure determines agency.

The preponderant view is that this powerful, resilient continuity is bad for Philippine society and is deeply rooted in the nature of the Philippine political system (cacique democracy), domestic economy (booty capitalism) and controversially a damaged post-colonial culture. This sobering often defeatist image of the country heavily affects many Filipinos’ own views of their state and nation. A minority of local scholars have challenged this dominant narrative on both nationalist and analytical grounds while noting that most of its seminal works are by American scholars. These repeated challenges have had little effect.

The single six-year term of Benigno Aquino III, which in 2014 moved from its mid-term to late-term phase, acts as a good test of this resilient and negative continuity assumption. President Benigno ‘PNoy’ Aquino III personally reaffirms political elite continuity being the son of the Philippines’ first post-Marcos president, Corazon Aquino, and the leading anti-Marcos politician, Benigno Aquino Jr., as well as the present scion of one of the most powerful Philippine political dynasties. His popularity in the 2010 elections, when he won the largest plurality of all post- Marcos presidential elections, was derived much more from the popular attraction of his family name and enhanced by sympathy from the death of his mother in August 2009 than by his unimpressive twelve-year record as a legislator.

Yet by 2010, the Philippine economy was already the strongest performer in maritime Southeast Asia and had sailed through the global financial crisis largely unperturbed. It belied the country's “sick man of Asia” moniker and the assumption that political continuity in the Philippines predetermines economic stasis especially in comparison to its previously higher-performing Southeast Asian neighbours.

In just a year from 2013 to 2014 Dili has undergone major changes. Just outside the airport, which is to undergo a significant expansion, stands a gigantic statue of Nicolau Lobato, the guerrilla leader and sometime President of the selfproclaimed Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, who was gunned down by the Indonesian occupiers in 1978. The statue evokes the outstanding role played by the Resistance in the struggle for national liberation, and symbolizes the contribution of deep-rooted national values (as opposed to foreign-born ideas) that have come to dominate the political discourse in the country. These ideas contributed to the victory of Taur Matan Ruak in the presidential elections two years ago and subsequent defeat of the more cosmopolitan former President, Jose Ramos-Horta. Towards the city centre there is a brand new double bridge over the Comoro River. A few yards away there are signs of new investment as exemplified by Timor Plaza, a bustling shopping mall with fancy establishments like cafés, restaurants, fashion stores, bookshops, a cinema and even an Apple Macintosh outpost. Groups of youth, using the Internet Wi-Fi facilities provided by some mobile phone operators, cram its corridors. In addition there are upmarket office facilities occupied by many international enterprises that have established themselves in the country.

On the newly paved seafront, a new building reveals a little of the motivation behind this recent surge in public works: the headquarters of the Commonwealth of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) which had its regular summit in Dili in late July, bringing several heads of state and government from Africa, Europe and South America to the country, and promoting Timor-Leste to the chair of the organization for the next two years — a most significant achievement for its young diplomatic corps. A few blocks inland, and dominating the cityscape, another imposing building, the ten-storey iron and glass air-conditioned Ministry of Finance which cost over an estimated US$50 million, was inaugurated by the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the occasion of his farewell visit. Indonesian building companies had taken the largest share in the construction, an example of the thriving commercial relations that bind the two countries. Several other ministries have completed building their new headquarters (Ministry of Solidarity) or are in the process of building them (Ministry of Justice).

Introduction

The traditional media in Singapore has played a supportive role in nation building since post-independence, with the print and broadcast media deployed for the purpose of communicating state policies to the populace. The government's control of the media was justified on the grounds of building social cohesion among its citizens from diverse ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds. A myriad of laws was put in place to govern both print and broadcast media such as the Broadcasting Act, the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act, Undesirable Publications Act and Public Entertainment and Meetings Act. The public service monopoly of broadcasting was intended to protect and promote national culture and identity and the prohibition of private ownership of the mass media as well as satellite dishes (until the 1990s) helped the government to maintain both political and social stability, critical factors that are purported to have created Singapore's economic success.

Within a short span of about forty years since its independence, Singapore's growth achieved a phenomenal rate, averaging 8 per cent per annum, an outcome that has been attributed to the government's sound economic planning and focused efforts to attract foreign investments in various industrial sectors. The 1990s witnessed a shift in the policymakers’ priority as they embarked on transforming the island with a population of over four million into an information hub, one that trades in ideas rather than commodities. Visible success for initiatives such as the Singapore IT2000 Masterplan and Infocomm 21 Strategy was clearly evident from the sharp increase of Internet penetration and broadband among the populace. By 2009, Internet access and broadband access among households reached 81 per cent and 80 per cent respectively. In that same year, Singapore was ranked among the top five economies in Asia Pacific on the ICT Development Index.

This chapter examines the development of the online space in Singapore, specifically the broadening of public discourse and civic engagement among citizens in recent years. While the online space has provided opportunities for marginalized voices and players to emerge, its dark side has reared up in the form of anti-social behaviour such as anti-foreigners and racist speech, trolling and witch-hunting. The latter has given rise to concerns among policymakers and the public on the polarizing effects of new media on society.

EDUCATION IN VIETNAM

How do the villagers of Long Tuyen pursue education? What is its purpose and what role does it play in their lives, particularly in the midst of uncertainties associated with their family farming? In fact, education is one of the few means people have to secure a better future.

When talking about education (giao duc), villagers often refer to two kinds of education: one in family and the other at school. Education in the family setting is generally considered important. Within the family, people explain, education determines the relationships among members, particularly parents and children, and determines each family's way of life. Many parents talk, sometimes proudly, about how they educate their children. Some parents, by contrast, lament the difficulty of educating their children well at home. The importance of family education is recognized not only by each family, but also by the whole society. The family is once again recognized as the main social unit in contemporary Vietnam, so education is seen as crucial also to the development of the whole society. Through education family and society are closely connected. Thus, education at home is not only familial, but also social.

Education at school is also both familial and social. Especially, many families consider school education important for the children in the face of difficult social conditions. However there exist many problems that villagers are now facing in providing their children with a school education and people are struggling to secure a stable future through education for themselves and their children. Although school lies outside of the family space, it is closely interrelated with the family and its existence in contemporary society. Family views of the future as well as the present are often manifested in school education.

FAMILY EDUCATION

Education at home is thought to affect the children's lives. Uncle Bay tells me, “I taught my children to be honest, so they have no problem in their lives right now.” He thinks that some of his children are doing quite well in agriculture and others have good jobs because they are good people and they work diligently. In his opinion, good family education has helped his children to be good people and have good life. He believes one of the major purposes of family education is to teach children good morality and values, and honesty is especially important.