GOOD CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

by Mr. Anand Panyarachunn
The Role of a Director in Thailand in the New Millennium
June 30, 1999

Ladies & Gentlemen,

First of all, allow me to congratulate the Stock Exchange of Thailand and AIG for gathering such a distinguished group of people to talk about this important topic. Good governance, transparency, accountability, minority shareholders rights have become the new “buzz words” as Thailand and indeed Asia, throws off the shackles of the economic woes that have plagued us since 1997.

Central to the equitable balanced and sustainable development of our Nation, is the need to counter corruption, both in the corporate sector as well as government. Corruption, at every level, must be challenged, curtailed and in the long run, hopefully eradicated, if we do not wish to deplete our limited budget and resources. Corruption demobilizes the spirit of our nation and its people. If allowed to persist, we would inhibit and dwarf the moral integrity of our society. I would venture to suggest to you all, that at the core of Thailand’s economic problems of, hopefully the past, lies the ugly truth that there was an absence of transparency, accountability, and a complete disregard for accepted business ethics, and the rule of law. Traditional Thai Values and the way business was invariably conducted, speak of loyalty first and foremost to family and kin folk. Business dealing were based on trust and personal relationships. More often than not families decided business strategy over lunch on Sunday at the senior family house. Little or no thought was given to other minority investors, be they Thai or foreign. Self-interest, protection of personal wealth and family holdings overrode the basic business requirements of honor and to be responsible for obligations both corporately and socially. Many Thais have wondered aloud, that if the first signs of financial mismanagement were taken seriously and were immediately and properly dealt with, perhaps our economic plight might have lessened. Others ask that the fact that our economic ills were allowed to escalate and worsen indicate suspected acts of “cover up” and favoritism in return for a later “special favour” by the powers that be. Social-cultural values which propagated consumerism, conspicuous consumption fertilized by the practices of cronyism and patronage have invariable combined to badly harm the Thai economy and society in general.

Because socio-economic and political factors are so inextricably intertwined, a holistic all encompassing approach which focuses on their interrelationship will serve us well in the future. Make no mistake, the captains of industry and commerce and our nation’s business leaders have a major social role to play in shaping society as a whole. Government should be an active partner in this process, but a strong civil society where everyone from business leaders to average citizens cohere to energetically pursue openness, transparency and accountability, will prove to be the most enduring deterrence against corruption.

Very clearly as we approach the new millennium, the decisions taken by C.E.O’s, directors and corporate officers, and the way they make them, no longer simply affect the success of their company or their own careers. Recent regulatory changes adopted by the government, SEC & SET, which I applaud, have strengthened, the rule of law and more explicitly defined the legal obligation of corporate directors. Throughout Asia, the voice of the minority shareholder and small inverter is being heard. Gone will be the days of “rubberstamp” self-interest in decision-making.

I also contend that our business leaders have a moral obligation to society in general. Protection of our environment that will be inherited by the next generation is but one example. We are going to need business leaders that provide real leadership with good moral character and high integrity – role models that have a real commitment to foster transparency, accountability in corporate governance and a willingness to welcome public engagement and involvement in solving both business and social issues. In tandem, government must be the provider of a legal framework which assures that people’s voices are not only heard but are nurtured. We will require a set of values that are congruent with engagement and participation by all private individuals. We can no longer accept a situation where the average citizen is made to feel not only his/her insignificance and vulnerability vis-à-vis government and powerful business organizations, where he/she is also conditioned to submit with silence and to endure, however onerous, with patience and tolerance.

We must translate and expand our natural commitment to family and kin into a far longer commitment that embraces society in general. I believe our business leaders have an obligation to society that requires active participation and involvement and even vigilance to fend off the corrosive effects of corruption wherever and whenever it occurs. The ethics and integrity necessary in business should easily translate and in fact should be examples for an integrity system that benefits society as a whole.

As our nation moves out of recession and as we embrace the new challenges and opportunities that the new millennium will bring, I believe it is incumbent upon us all to realize that there is a finite amount of capital in the world. That much needed funding will flow to countries and companies where investors believe, apart from business opportunities, that their interests, however small, will be protected, where business practices are conducted in an open and transparent manner and where C.E.O’s and directors are directly accountable for their actions. I do not presume to know all the answers, especially in the face of divergent social-cultural economic-political contexts. I do, however, believe that our business leaders have the responsibility and ownership for driving good corporate governance within their corporations. Overtime and with diligence, social good governance will follow for the wider and longer-term benefit of our nation.

The Tao of Development:
Economic Management and Good Governance in Asia
Asia-Europe Foundation First Anniversary Lecture

By Mr. Anand Panyarachun
Former Prime Minister of Thailand
February 17, 1998

Introduction

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honour to be invited to deliver the Asia-Europe Foundation’s First Anniversary Lecture. In a year when so many terrible things have happened, it is comforting in its own small way that the Foundation, or ASEF, has passed the one-year mark. Asia and Europe are both home to ancient civilizations, but the flow of ideas and knowledge between us has tended to be one-way. This forum is a unique opportunity for us to redress that imbalance and learn from one another in order to understand each other better.

Since the topic on everyone’s mind these days is East Asia’s economic crisis, it would be unseemly of me not to begin with it. In only half a year, the region’s so-called economic miracle, built up over decades, has shuddered to a halt. The likelihood of an Asia-Pacific century, once considered inevitable, is now up in the air.

The steps we take at this point will determine whether our current travails are merely a large speed bump or whether the "Asian miracle" goes down in history books as a footnote.

As for myself, I believe the region’s fundamentals are sound enough to allow recovery within a reasonable period of time, provided that we follow the right course.

That right course is already a subject of intense debate among people more learned than I. So today I intend to address another question that is no less pertinent but usually relegated to the sidelines of the debate: How can Asia, drawing on the painful lessons of the crisis, lay the groundwork for long-term development that is balanced, equitable and sustainable?

I ask this question because development is not only about growth. As we have seen, high growth can occur while other aspects of development – social justice, equitable income distribution, sound environmental management – lag behind. Development -- if you will allow an Asian metaphor -- is a matter of yin and yang, a matter of finding the right balance between competing priorities, of which growth is only one.

As Asia is a region of great diversity, generalizations will run the risk of being overly broad. Most of my observations shall therefore be drawn largely from Thailand. Some of these observations might be applicable to other cases, but this is a judgment I leave to the audience.

An introspective retrospective

Thailand’s financial crisis, as many have observed, is a blessing in disguise. Its greatest blessing, I believe, is that it has compelled us to become more introspective. Now that we have learned first-hand the harsh realities of the global marketplace, we should be in the right state of mind to correct weaknesses in our system that were left untended during our high-growth days.

This process of self-evaluation is indispensable. The choices we make today will determine the course of our long-term development.

Looking at where we started out and where we stand today, it is plain that new choices are needed. When East Asia first began its modernization drive in the late 1950s, the debate over free markets versus central planning was far from settled. Armed with cheap, plentiful labor and abundant natural resources, we adopted outward-looking trade and investment policies, gradually integrating our economies into the world market.

The result was that our economies grew by leaps and bounds. The East Asian success story was dubbed a miracle by Western analysts and observers and was generally held up as a model for less developed countries in other parts of the world.

But as we grew, our development became lopsided. Many of us preferred extravagance over efficiency, high growth over equitable income distribution, and quick profits over sustainability.

For countries seeking escape from poverty, these choices were not surprising. After all, we were playing catch-up, and had to compress into the span of a few decades what took the West hundreds of years.

And as those of you who work with computers know, compression is usually achieved through loss of non-vital or redundant data. In our case, what we lost was neither non-vital nor redundant. While outwardly we seemed to be doing a splendid job of catching up economically, it was often at the expense of social and political development.

It has taken a crash to bring home the fact that many of our institutions are ill-equipped to meet the challenges of the globalized era. While the world has been undergoing deep transformations, our economic, political and social institutions have not kept pace.

Efficiency, patronage, and economic management

The kind of systemic reform Asia needs to stay on top in the global era will not occur overnight, which is all the more reason for the process to be set in motion quickly. Competition among developing countries has become more intense, with the entry of new players in the international economy, all hawking cheap labor, plentiful natural resources, and friendly investment laws. In the West, political support for preferential trading privileges or special assistance to developing countries is increasingly hard to come by.

The only way for us to survive in the long run is to improve our efficiency. And the key to improving efficiency lies in better economic management.

This sounds like a truism. So let us be clear about what is involved, both the factors working against us and for us.

Working against us is institutional inertia. Asia’s economic success was called a miracle because it was built on an institutional framework that often contradicted free-market economics – strong state intervention, state-directed industrial policies, tight government-business networks.

But as they say, nothing succeeds like success. As long as the economy steamed ahead, the institutions that underpinned Asia’s growth worked well enough. It was only when the crisis hit that the flaws were exposed for the world to see. Once the system broke down, reform became not merely fashionable but imperative.

In the case of Thailand, our integration into the world economy was far from seamless. In fact, it created an internal contradiction that led to inefficiencies in the system. While we adopted Western-style capitalism, we retained our traditional system of patronage networks, a system built on personal connections to allocate values and resources.

Personal connections can be innocent, but when they become a factor in public affairs, they can be deadly. Because patronage is not based on merit, it tends to breed inefficiency, rent-seeking behavior and corruption.

Resource management and the Thai way

Another feature of Thai society that is ripe for reform is the way we exploit and consume resources.

If ever there was a country that could afford to be self-sufficient, it was Thailand, where, as King Ramkhamhaeng the Great observed in the 13th century, there was always fish in the water and rice in the fields. Thailand was so abundant in its natural resources that the efficiency with which they were used was never an issue. When the Royal Forestry Department was set up over a hundred years ago, for example, its original mandate was to oversee the exploitation, rather than the conservation, of the forests.

Our natural bounty has declined considerably since then, as the pattern of resource exploitation shifted from subsistence or domestic consumption to supplying the global market. The fertile rice fields around Bangkok have been converted into industrial and housing estates; the Gulf of Thailand suffers from overfishing; our forests have been so severely depleted that logging had to be banned.

The modern-day mismanagement of our natural resources does not imply, however, that efficiency or sustainability is a concept unfamiliar to Thais. We do have traditional strengths that need to be revived and drawn upon, especially in this time of crisis. Before we opened our hearts to consumerism, recycling and economical use of resources were very much part of the traditional Thai way of life. Sustainable use of resources was built into the system. Each person used only as much as he needed. Material wealth was secondary; making merit was more important. And the extended family provided a social safety net for those unable to take care of themselves, such as the elderly. Accumulating great wealth was possible, but there was no compelling reason to do so.

The introduction of the joys of the consumer society changed that. The prospect of making profits to allow indulgence in life’s luxuries replaced Buddhist piety as a motivator.

I am not bemoaning the loss of a bygone era. The world changes and there is no turning back. My point is that in our rush to catch up with the West, the lessons we learned -- from the West and from our past -- were incomplete.

While the West had evolved checks and balances to curb the excesses of capitalism, in our exuberance to reap the fruits of capitalism the need for such mechanisms went unheeded. While transparency and accountability had long been pillars of public governance in the West, in Asia the webs of power and money remain largely hidden from public view.

We sought to emulate Western ways without an appreciation of their underlying philosophy or how they evolved. At the same time, we discarded our tradition of sustainable resource usage. We created a hybrid form of capitalism where patronage was put to the service of profit-maximization, a recipe for unbalanced and unsustainable development.

Good governance and economic management

Better economic management is clearly needed. And the key is good governance.

Good governance, I must note, is about more than good government. It is about more than having honest and capable people in public office. We Thais have a fondness for the comforting certainty of strong leadership. Whenever the country is in trouble, we long for a knight in shining armor to come to our rescue.

But the days of father-knows-best decision-making are over. The state, despite its aura of authority, is not omniscient, particularly in this day and age when markets routinely flout state efforts to maintain economic stability. The government by itself cannot know, for example, how a given dam project will affect the lives of those living downstream or the ecosystem of the area. When it comes to choosing among competing priorities, political leaders are as likely to fail us as to save us.

In developing countries, governments often make decisions – political and economic – that run counter to the public interest. Good governance is about putting in place the mechanisms to define what constitutes the public interest and to see that the public interest is served despite everything else. This is the rationale of the political reform movement underway in many Asian countries.

Requirements for good governance

For good governance to come about, reforms must take place at several levels.

The government must be responsive to the people’s needs. In order for it to be so, it must first be accountable. A government that answers to no one, a government whose actions go unchecked, is more likely to abuse its power and ignore the public interest.

Checks and balances are at the heart of accountability. In a representative democracy, it is the duty of the opposition to perform this function in the legislature. But that is not enough. Checks and balances must be in place throughout society to counterweigh society’s most powerful institutions. A free and responsible press, representing a broad spectrum of opinions, is vital to make sure that all aspects of any given issue get a fair hearing. Citizen groups, NGOs, must be encouraged to form and monitor the work of the government, as well as educate the public and policymakers on issues of concern.

When there is a diversity of channels for the people to articulate their interests, it is more likely that all sides of an issue will be discussed and that a solution acceptable to all will be reached. It is when public policy decisions are made in secret or by a small coterie that the public interest is likely to be harmed. To avoid such occurrences, the decision process must be transparent and open to scrutiny. The people must be given free access to all information pertaining to public policies and projects.

To be sure, good governance will not bring about some idyllic utopia. In fact, it can be quite messy. The cacophony of voices can be deafening, and we must always keep in mind the rationale for good governance. We all dream of having Solomon-like leaders with the integrity and wisdom to solve all our problems justly with a minimum of fuss. But leaders, too, are human, susceptible to temptation and other human frailties. Good governance makes up for their shortcomings by opening up the policy process to all the people.

On the part of Thailand, reforms are underway to bring about good governance. Last year, we passed a new constitution that, for the first time in Thai history, was drafted with the full participation of the public. As someone who played a part in the drafting process, I have hopes for this constitution. I like to think that over time, it will transform Thailand into an open, democratic society, where transparency and accountability are the norm rather than the exception. I like to think that the provisions of the constitution will ensure that human rights and civil liberties are better protected and enforced. I like to think that the changes the constitution makes in the electoral process will reduce money politics and corruption, and that the checks and balances it provides will result in greater accountability on the part of politicians. But of course the constitution is not a magic bullet that will cure all of society’s ills overnight. All sectors of society must embrace the ideals behind it before it can make a difference.

Corporate governance

Good governance does not stop at the government. Accountability and transparency must also be demanded of companies and all actors that exert a disproportionate influence on the public interest.

Companies, in particular, are no less prone to abuse than are governments, but are less subject to public scrutiny. In a patronage system, they can logically be expected to make the most of connections to externalize costs to society – especially environmental costs such as resource depletion or environmental damage.

But in many developing countries, it is even harder to hold companies accountable. Flexible and creative accounting practices as well as pro forma auditing can conjure up balance sheets that have no bearing to reality. Bloated asset valuation can give a misleading picture. Cozy ties with influential political figures can help ensure that the companies’ skeletons remain firmly in their closets. The task of monitoring the private sector for abuses thus cannot be left to the government. Enlightened consumers and shareholders must do their part to keep corporate abuses at bay. This can only be achieved if and when full disclosure of facts and figures relating to companies’ performance is strictly observed.

Conclusion

The crisis facing East Asia is at heart a crisis of adaptation. It is difficult because in order to adapt well, we must do away with certain traditions, certain ways, that are out of line with the global marketplace. But if we are to prosper in this challenging era, the sooner reforms are implemented, the sooner our societies become open, the sooner transparency and accountability are built into our system, the surer will be our rewards.

Certainly there has been no shortage of people who choose to portray the crisis in nationalistic terms. After all, wasn’t it our liberalization and consequent exposure to global financial markets that landed us in this trouble?

Blaming outside forces is much too simplistic, and it reflects poorly on our critical thinking skills. As I hope I have made clear, it wasn’t our integration into the world economy that is to blame for the crisis, but our failure to maintain balance between competing development priorities. Our experience teaches us that there could be no liberalization without discipline, no investment without risk.

There are no absolutes in this world – no sure thing. In the digital age, we cannot afford to see the world in black and white or even shades of gray; we have to recognize that there are millions of colors available – and who is to say which is the most beautiful?

The nationalism we need is not the unreasoning kind, but a nationalism based on ideas, on reason. There is as much in our culture that can help guide us towards sustainable development, as there are flaws in our character that would impede it. All the different forces shaping our society must come out into the open to work out together a vision of where we want to go and how we aim to get there. We must learn to engage one another in civil dialogue, with tolerance and compassion.

Good governance allows our diversity to be reflected in our policies. It is a necessary condition for the efficient management of our nation’s resources. It allows us to be as self-reliant – or as interdependent – as we wish to be. Because good governance is about making choices that reflect society’s true needs, it is the most direct path to reconciling Asia’s traditional strengths with the demands of the global economy.

Thank you.

It’s a Good Starting Point

The Charter Chief on the Reforms - and Himself
The Nations Thailand
Asiaweek October 10, 1997

In the popular imagination, Anand Panyarachun’s persona is that of a retired, reluctant sheriff called up by the decent folk of some Wild West town to get rid of the bad guys terrorizing them. The reputation as saviour was forged during Anand’s two short, but highly effective stints, as caretaker prime minister. The first was in February 1991, when a military junta asked him to head the government. The second was after the May 1992 crack-down on democracy demonstrators. During both periods, Anand performed like no other Thai premier - with competence, honesty and the public interest in mind. Small wonder many Thais want the suave former diplomat and businessman back as Prime Minister, especially during this time of political and economic uncertainty.

Anand, now 65, would decline in the unlikely event such an offer was made, but he did agree to serve as chairman of the Constitution drafting committee, over-seeing 99 indirectly elected people from various walks of life - politics, business, academia. The upshot is a new charter that goes some way toward cleaning up Thai politics and improving civil rights and liberties.

As an aristocrat and self-professed Anglophile (he graduated from Cambridge in Law). Anand can come across as elitist and autocratic in style. In substance, however, he is very much a man of the people. On the eve of the parliamentary vote over the new Constitution, Anand discussed the changes, their implications for the country - and himself - with Correspondent Julian Gearing. Excerpts from their 90-minute talk:

The current Constitution was actually drafted and amended when you were in office. Did you not have any concerns about it at the time?

Every now and then there are complaints, that when I was Prime Minister, why did I not use the opportunity to reform the political system? The fact is that when I was first asked (by the coup leaders) to be Prime Minister, I was a bit ambivalent. On the one hand, the military knew that all my life I had been against dictatorship, corruption and extreme rightist policies. On the other hand, I saw that the coup did receive fairly strong support from the public, because the public was fed up with the government and with the corruption. I knew that if I were to accept (the job), I would disappoint a number of my more liberal friends, those people who viewed me as a sort of standard bearer for democratic ideas. I said to myself, if I were to go in, try to sort out the confusion and chaos, it would have some redeeming value. I did not like certain provisions in that interim constitution, but after I talked to (the coup leaders), I said to myself, you are damned if you do, you are damned if you don’t (laughs) - so I went in. So I had nothing to do with the Constitution. As a result, during Anand I and Anand II, I was not able to take any political initiatives.

There is criticism that the new charter is too much of a compromise.

Compromise is the basis of democracy. Whatever course we decide to take, it is always subject to criticism. I am aware of that; I am used to it. It doesn’t bother me. There might be one or two sections where there are problems, but it doesn’t mean the whole process is bad. It can be amended some time in the future, after the next election, after the new Constitution has come into force and has been tested in practical terms.

What will this charter do to tackle vote buying and corrupt practices?

The monitoring process is going to be more thorough. The organs to be set up will have the power and responsibility of bringing wrong-doers to justice. It doesn’t mean that just because we have a good Constitution, democracy is going to have a rosy path in this country. People have to participate in the follow-up. People have to be alert to see that only all good men are put in these monitoring bodies (laughs).

What about the bad men, the godfathers, the corrupt? Will this new Constitution get rid of them?

You cannot get rid of them over-night. You have to go through a series of elections. There is a school of thought that people with un-savory characters, if they live under rules which allow them to show their un-savory side, they will do it. But if you put them in a different environment, under different rules, which make it, much more difficult to show their un-savory side, then they may conform. I will not say they will reform, but they may conform.

A number of politicians have been quite outspoken in their opposition to the draft. Why do you think someone like Interior Minister Sanoh Thienthong expressed sentiments against it?

Perhaps he is worried this new Constitution may spell the end of his career. In the debate over this Constitution, many of the MPs have shown their real characters.

Deputy Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra suggests only rich people, people who can support themselves, ought to be ministers.

I don’t agree with that. This is a very simplistic assessment. Rich men do not cheat. Or educated people do not cheat.

Will Thailand continues to be ruled by the elite, people with money?

I don’t think so. Look at Democrat Party leader Chuan Leekpai. He comes from a rural area, he comes from a very humble family, and his mother is still living in the market sector of Trang in the South. Look at Britain, at the number of Etonians, the people with money. Then they had John Major. Times change.

We are sitting in Bangkok, but the provinces rely very much on the old system of patronage politics.

It is not a system, it is a culture and you cannot change that culture over-night. Democracy is not only based on the Constitution. It is based on traditions, conventions, and generations of practice, which form into a culture, a democratic culture. We don’t have that yet. It will be a long time before we do. We have to uplift education, we have to enable the people to earn a decent livelihood, because what is the use of talking about democracy or the Constitution, if they have no jobs? It is no use saying because we don’t have this and we don’t have that, then dismantle the whole process.

If we look at the bigger picture, how does Thailand’s democracy compare with others in Asia?

As far as democracy is concerned, we are much better off than many other nations in terms of freedom of assembly, of expression, of civil rights and liberties. On the other hand, we in Thailand have had a so-called democratic period of only 65 years, with 40 years of interruption from military coups and “what-not”, so it is a fledgling democracy. People are not accustomed to the principles of democracy, to the philosophy. Many think that if you are able to exercise your vote once every three to four years, that is democracy. It is not only about participating in elections. It is about involvement in the decision-making process and in the governance of the country. We tend to look to the form rather than to the substance and essence.

A few critics have questioned whether Thailand should be borrowing political systems from the West.

They all wear suits to Parliament. To me, it is a very flimsy charge. After all democracy was born in the West. So if we didn’t go to the source, where could we go? The philosophy itself is something that is not indigenous. If you don’t learn from the mistakes of other countries, the way they reform their political system and the way they try to reform their perennial problems, who could we go to? There is nothing to be ashamed of; there is nothing wrong with this approach.

Will you return to politics?

I was never really in politics. I was brought into it, practically dragged into it. I enjoyed the work that I did as Prime Minister. I think I did some good for the country, but I never liked the life. Politics is the art of the possible. In the process you have to engage in manoeuvering and shenanigans. My family wouldn’t want me to take it up again. It is not my “cup of tea”. It is not my line. I like simplicity. I like my privacy.

Often the Thai people seek a “white knight” to save them in times of crisis.

That is right. That is the problem with the Thai people. They are always looking for a knight in shining armour. People have given up hope. There has not been any cheery news for Thailand for quite some time - economically or politically. The new charter is something to which the public is looking forward to. Of course you always have to be wary, that you do not raise their expectations too much. It is not a panacea to all our ills, but it is a good starting point. Because in a way, it is the first fundamental reform of our political system. It is a water-shed.

Politics and Sanity

Address by Mr. Anand Panyarachun
The Petroleum Institute Dinner
at the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel
February 18, 1997

Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

My first, off-the-cuff thought in considering the content of today’s presentation was that politics is the most potent aphrodisiac. The quest for power has, for most politicians, an irresistibly seductive attraction. In fact, it is the allure of that aphrodisiac that entices so many men, and increasingly women as well, into politics as a full-time career.

Having been propelled into Thailand’s national political arena some years ago under circumstances largely beyond my control, I shall seek your indulgence in claiming personal exemption from the attribution that I am a professional politician. Nevertheless, the seductive influence of politics has not escaped me.

I say this despite the peculiar dangers attached to such an admission. Not only may my family and friends misinterpret my message by attributing double meaning to the term, “aphrodisiac”, but reference to that titillating term has probably already diverted your attention to other, more delicate topics.

Let me, then, depart from this line of discussion and start over with a second thought - that in Thailand, at least, the title of this speech, “politics and sanity,” is an oxymoron, a pairing of words that naturally contradict one another. Perhaps, in the Thai setting, “politics and insanity” would have been a more natural and understandable title.

Speaking of sanity and insanity in relation to Thai politics carries my thoughts to Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. How would Freud have explained the malaise of Thai politics? Let us recline for a moment on Freud’s famous couch, savour the fragrant aroma of his favourite Monte Cristo cigar, and listen to his interpretation.

First, he would have examined the outward symptoms. Treading lightly over this sensitive terrain, he would likely have characterized Thai politics as a network of alliances among numerous contending factions or interest groups, constantly reforming themselves through an ongoing process of negotiation to solidify their power base. Each of those factions, he would have noted, is led by a personality skilled in the arts of negotiation and compromise, a personality considered by his encourage as capable of mobilizing resources in pursuit of the faction’s objective of maintaining and strengthening its power base.

Freud would have perceived, in that pattern of constantly shifting political alliances, the individual politician’s concern not so much with the means of promoting the public interest as of gaining factional, and ultimately personal, control over the levels of power. He would have inferred that many Thai politicians lead dual lives arising out of their persistent advocacy of the public interest while striving for personal and factional gain. That JekyII and Hyde personality trait would have interested him greatly, for it is no easy matter, psychologically speaking, to transform oneself at a moment’s notice from standing before the TV cameras with promises of public benefit to sitting in private negotiations over division of the spoils.

Freud would also have meditated on the relations between Thailand’s politicians and other key actors, especially big business and the bureaucracy, including the military establishment. Here he would have noted the surprisingly intimate atmosphere of close and cordial cooperation and accommodation among the various contending interest groups in working to their mutual advantage.

In considering the relations between the politicians and interest groups with less to offer in negotiation, Freud would have been struck by the differing rules applied to keep the less powerful in check:

=> The docile willingness of the public-at-large -- especially the politically less sophisticated rural population - to accept the broad ambiguities, sweeping generalizations, unattainable promises, and more, voiced by most politicians in local election campaigns, would have left him bemused.

=> He would have been equally intrigued by the blandishments offered to the less impressionable student population, in the form of vague allusions to greater participatory democracy, as well as more. pragmatic promises relating to enhanced educational and post-educational opportunities, to defuse their activism, in recollection of the political confrontations of yesteryear.

=> As for organized labour, one of the few interest groups generally unwilling to succumb to the politicians’ blandishments, the repressive measures enacted to curtail labour “interference” or “disruption” would have been noted as an important clue to the social psychology of the Thai political leadership.

In short, Freud would have been struck by the emphasis in Thai politics on placating the various major social interest groups through largely unfulfilled promises, while harbouring a strong aversion to open debate and decisive action on basic social issues.

From a review of the symptoms, Freud would have proceeded to a socio-psychological analysis of the Thai political scene. In one of his most entertaining works, “Civilization and Its Discontents,” Freud developed a theory of the irremediable antagonism between the demands of instinct and the restrictions of civilization. In effect, that theory argues that it is our self-control of our instinctual desires that makes us civilized. We pay a price for that self-restraint in the form of a deep-seated sense of frustration. Civilization requires that we suppress our instinctual desires, but it cannot prevent feelings of desire. That inner conflict is expressed through feelings of guilt. Thus the title of Freud’s book -- civilization is inevitably accompanied by discontent.

That human dilemma can be dealt with in a variety of ways. We can sublimate our guilt feelings through productive effort. That option has resulted in the great accomplishments of art and science, which we commonly consider the hallmark of civilization. Alternatively, we can seek to repress the conflict between our personal urges and social convention through neurotic behaviour. Third, we can escape the realities of the human dilemma entirely through psychotic behaviour. Such a socially pathological course of action ignores the restrictions imposed by civilization. We thereby regress to ego-satisfaction, ultimately descending to selfishness and brutality.

Perhaps you may think that I have deviated a bit too far from the theme of this talk that I have fallen into a trance under the clouds of cigar smoke drifting over Freud’s couch. Let me disabuse you of such suspicions by returning to the subject at hand.

Freud did his research and writing in a far different environment than that of contemporary Thailand. It has been said, in half-jest, that his theory is applicable solely to the Freud household of early 20th-century Vienna, and to no other time or place. As Freud himself said, after delving deeply into psychological theories of auto-eroticism: “When all is said and done, a cigar is still a cigar.”

Despite the cross-cultural complications of travelling between 1920s Vienna and 1997 Bangkok, I believe that Freud’s couch may be quite a suitable place from which to examine the social pathology of present-day Thai politics.

Politics, it has often been said, is the art of the possible. If negotiation lies at the heart of that art, compromise is its soul. Thai politics exemplifies these metaphors, but with a Freudian twist. They centre on what Freud would call ego-gratification, with the negotiations and compromises all too often attaching no more than cursory consideration to the larger social concerns for which the politicians have been delegated responsibility.

Let us lift our eyes above the latest political scandal -- whatever it may be today -- and scan Thailand’s broader political horizon. What we see is a panorama of self-indulgence. The traditional political expression, kin moeang (referring to the perquisites of absolute Kingship), has been distorted to new meaning in this age of participatory democracy. Election to political office in this modern age conveys upon the honoured recipient public trusts to represent and serve the people. It does not include a mandate to adopt the perquisites of traditional Kingship. In this regard it is evident that many individuals and factions in positions of political leadership still have much to learn about their larger duty, their duty to the public interest.

Freud stated that “unrestricted satisfaction of personal interest means putting enjoyment before caution, and soon brings its own punishment.” In the Thai political context that pronouncement carries prophetic meaning. The current recession in the Thai economy, it is widely agreed, is a direct result of the political mismanagement of recent years. The past record of factional accommodation to personal ambitions without due consideration of the public costs and benefits has led to the current International perception of our country as a relatively high-risk investment haven. It is no surprise, under those conditions, that the investment bubble has burst, with dramatic consequences first for the stock market and, over the longer term, national income and employment.

Thailand’s business community has only itself to blame for this passage of events. For it was negotiation and compromise between the politicians and business - in the form of financial backing in return for favourable treatment - that laid the foundations for the bust. As a major player in the political sweepstakes, business placed personal and factional interests ahead of the larger social concerns, with predictable consequences. Freud would have considered this a reflection of man’s self-destructive instincts, which can only be overcome by “civilization” - placing the common good ahead of self-gratification. He stated as a basic psychoanalytic principle that “the replacement of the power of the individual by the power of the community constitutes the decisive step of civilization.”

If civilization represents sanity, as Freud suggests, then a sane politics can only emerge with the public interest as its overriding motive. Aldous Huxley said that an intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex. A civilized man, it may be said, is someone who has discovered something more satisfying than personal advantage.

That is the essential political issue confronting Thailand today. It is an issue that transcends the law. No constitution can legislate that dictum into prescribed action. It is a responsibility that each of us must pursue with personal conviction and the common sense that recognises us as inseparable members of the larger community.

Having spent so much time reclining on Freud’s couch, permit me to close with one of his favourite quips, taken from the eighteenth-century philosopher, Pascal: “Had Cleopatra’s nose been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed.” He meant that, had Cleopatra not been quite so pretty, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony might not have parted ways, and the Roman Empire might have taken another course. The point is that small matters can make a very big difference.

That point should be pondered by each of us as we decide on our role in ensuring that our country’s future will be even greater than it’s past. If we want to ensure sanity in Thai politics, each of us must accept our responsibility as an active participant working for an open society.

ETHICS AND GOVERNANCE

Keynote Address by Mr. Anand Panyarachun
Rotary International 1996
Asia Regional Conference Closing Session
October 27, 1996

President Giay, Excellencies, Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen,

Approaching the 21^st century, we stand in joyful anticipation of a new millennium of world peace and prosperity – with Asia in the driver’s seat. I join in that celebration of the future, and of the “New Generations” who has been the subject of your deliberations at this Conference.

But I peer into the future with a vivid remembrance of earlier generations who had similar hopes and aspirations – generations whose optimistic expectations of a full and happy life for themselves and their children were in many cases left unfulfilled.

Exactly a century ago was the “Age of Innocence”, also known as the “Gay ‘90s.” Ironically, that term has been revived, a hundred years later, with an entirely new meaning. You will, I hope, permit this old man the luxury of the antique usage.

That era a century ago was marked by prospects as buoyant as those of today. The leading business moguls and political pundits of that era visualized a coming age of prosperity unrivalled in world history. The driving force of technology was considered by them an unmixed blessing. The opportunities offered by an unstintingly bountiful nature went unquestioned. The possibilities of a universal peace through political ententes among the major empires, and even the vague concept of a “League of Nations”, were being discussed the world over -- from the salons of Europe of the forums of Asia. Among the world’s intellectual, industrial and government leaders the innate goodness and manifest destiny of humanity went unquestioned.

But that vision had it’s dark side – and even darker consequences. The continuing prosperity envisaged a century ago was to be founded on the backs of the colonial peoples, and it was to be energized through the rape of their resources. We know well today, a century later, the fallacies upon which the “Great Expectations” of that “Age of Innocence” were based. Those fallacies, after all, spawned two World Wars, separated by a devastating economic collapse, and followed by a Cold War and a myriad of bloody struggles for independence and ideology.

The peoples of Asia suffered mightily through those years. But looking back, we can state with pride that they weathered the storms of the twentieth century with distinction. We can glory in their achievements. The region’s remarkable economic progress of the past several decades offers striking testimony of Asia’s resilience and potential. But we cannot afford to rest on our laurels.

Today, anticipating a splendid new millennium, do we stand at the edge of another precipice? In seeking to “build the future with action and vision” (--the theme that President Giay has established for Rotary International--) we bear a great responsibility to future generations. We must build the future with foresight, based on hindsight.

Will our legacy, like that of the world’s leaders a century ago, be flawed? Will future generations suffer the consequences of the untrammelled aspirations of Asia’s current leaders? Will this era be known to future generations, in contrast to the former “Age of Innocence”, as the “Age of Excess?”

Asia today presents some curious similarities to the West of a century ago: A sense of manifest destiny in a coming “Asian century”; an absolute conviction in the beneficence of unfettered competition; a lurking distrust of the traditional functions of government; a general disdain for the disadvantaged groups in society; widespread contempt for the limits of environmental depletion; a growing preference for “instant gratification”, the “quick buck”, and consumerism.

Much has been made recently of “Asian values” as a defense again these so-called alien intrusions. Are the moral standards of Asia somehow superior? Are the traditional ethics of this hemisphere somehow impervious to the blandishments of the new prosperity?

The self-serving colonial myth of the “lazy native” has been laid to rest. Racist conceits of intellectual superiority have been out to the lie. Equally, the lure of the so-called “exotic Orient” is fast fading as Asia modernizes to challenge the world in technology. In fact, Asia today is a dynamo of restless energy, the envy of the world. That reality may not sit happily in some corners of the tourist industry, which flourishes on the quaint and picturesque, but for the people of this region they are points of fully justifiable pride.

So what of those vaunted “Asian values?” Just as once we questioned the superiority of the West, we can now ask: Where is the natural ethical superiority of the East? Traditionally, Asian values centered on equanimity of spirit, loyalty to kith and kin, respect for wisdom, and trust in enlightened leadership. But are those not universal values?

I fear, scanning the Asian horizon, that a new system of Asian values is emerging. It may be characterized as a transformation from devotion to duty to a search for the instant pay-off. Self-interest is replacing concern for the common good.

That tidal shift in ethical standards is observable in many quarters, in both the business and political arenas, and it is spreading rapidly across society. The news media report daily on the abuses of the public trust that are rife throughout Asia today – South Asia as well as East and Southeast Asia. The flouting of legal and regulatory provisions; the granting of monopoly privileges to friends, family and financial backers; the preferential use of privileged information; vote buying; resource wastage; human exploitation – the list of abuses being committed for personal gain is depressingly long.

This erosion in Asia’s ethical base has as its common denominator the pursuit of private benefit at public expense. Surrounded by signs of burgeoning prosperity, individual desires for a larger share of the cake have become a driving force in Asian society. That is not even a zero-sum game; it leaves all participants as long-term losers.

Leaders throughout the region – in the political arena, the industrial and financial sectors, the information and entertainment industries – serve as role models in the setting of ethical standards. All too frequently these days, the models being presented to the public are grim. Military figures negotiating business deal, narcotics traffickers serving as parliamentarians, respected business personalities consorting with shady characters, professors offering snake-oil remedies to age-old problems, clerics caught under the covers – laughable, were it all not so deplorable.

Equally interesting is the current wave of support for our so-called Asian values. As if a long-hidden treasure-trove had suddenly been discovered, Asian values are the fashion topic of the day. Without specifying what, precisely, is being referred to, political leaders region-wide have grasped this fashionable term as useful rhetorical device. They have used it to champion special interests, to oppose foreign competition, to curry favour with an all-too-often gullible public.

A well-defined set of Asian values is sorely needed. At the top of the list should stand “Good Governance.” For it is only through effective leadership that the expected prosperity of the new millennium can be realized. I have already referred to leadership in its guise as role model. That function of leadership is additional to, but possibly even more important than, it’s well-known policy-making and administrative functions. In those multiple senses, good governance is as much a responsibility of the business community as of the political establishment.

Visionary leadership is required to devise a strategy for the sustained progress of Asia into the new millennium. Vigorous leadership is required to translate that strategy into action. Responsible leadership is required to ensure the application of that action for the common good.

Vision, vigour, responsibility – those qualities constitute the essence of good governance. The absence of any of those elements is a prescription for disaster. It was the failure of all three that contributed to the disasters of the past century. The current crisis of Asian values warns us to take immediate action.

Let me restate my position in a nutshell. Asian values today appear to be glorifying personal interest. Yet the essential objective of any ethical society must be the realization of its public aspirations. In that quest, ethics cannot be divorced from good governance. It is your responsibility as Asia’s leaders to recognize that connection and act on it, for the sake of the “New Generations” of which you have spoken so eloquently at this Conference.

This Conference, in its focus on the New Generations, has highlighted the urgent need for a return to ethical fundamentals in the conduct of public as well as private affairs. That regeneration of values is essential if the New Generations of the 21^st century are to build on the achievements of the past. Social and political progress should be given the chance to match the scientific and technological advances, as well as recent economic growth, that have been the outstanding achievements of the past century. Let us make the 21^st century not only the Asian century but also the century of Asian values.

In conclusion, permit me to illustrate my argument with a vivid example. This tear, 1996, marks the golden jubilee celebration of the reign of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand. Over the fifty-year time span of his reign, His Majesty has exemplified the criteria of leadership that I have sought to enunciate in this address. Service to others, devotion to duty, moral integrity and perseverance – these attributes have made our King the beloved leader of his people. One could find no better example of what Asian values should be all about, and no better role model to guide the lives of Asia’s Future Generations.

DEMOCRACY AND FREE MARKETS

at the Conference Dinner
hosted by the Centre for Democratic Institutions
the Australian APEC Study Centre
and the Asia Society Australasia Chapter
by Mr. Anand Panyarachun
Melbourne; November 26, 1999

I take it that the topic chosen for this talk arises from the need to reflect upon the very rapid changes taking place in our part of the World, both in the political and economic sphere, and put them in the context of the broader choices that each society has to make at various junctures in its history.

All countries, including even Cambodia during the murderous Khmer Rouge episode, claim to be “democratic.” Such easy claims render the word almost meaningless. Those of us who subscribe to the liberal tradition would narrow the meaning of the term to mean a system of government whereby there exists and functions a lawful procedure by which a government can be peacefully removed, and presumably and preferrably a new one, acceptable to the population, installed in its place. Elections are but one of the many possible mechanisms, whose only virtue is that they have been tried and tested in a vast number of countries.

An essential concept of the democratic system is the notion of choice. The collectivity of the governed are in theory supposed to have some choice in the matter of whom they are governed by. One of the claims to superiority of free markets is that it enables people to have a wide latitude of choice in their economic life: where they work, what they consume, how much they want to save, and so on. It is, therefore, sometimes claimed that free markets must inevitably lead to a democratic form of government – a claim much in vogue in the period since the adoption of the market system in formerly communist countries. This claim is easy to refute, as many authoritarian countries allow free markets to exist. The converse, however, may well be true, once a country has, for whatever reasons, decided to have a heavily planned economy, it is difficult to imagine such an economy surviving in a democratic environment, let alone making a success out of it.

I believe that there is no direct relationship between free markets and a democratic form of government. There are some of us who do not make that direct link between the two, but link them with a third factor, namely economic growth as well as the high standard of living that continued growth brings in its wake. It is now widely accepted that some form of a market economy is a better approach to achieve the high economic growth that is widely desired. Of course, the kind of market economy that will deliver the growth need not be the bare-knuckled capitalism that has emerged in some transitional economies. Indeed, as I shall discuss presently, that kind of capitalism is no good for anyone.

But whether that economic growth can be delivered with a democratic form of government is not as widely accepted. At one time, many of my less patient compatriots, and even now, many Asian leaders would make the claim that we should go all out for economic growth, and let democracy wait, until the fruits of growth are ploughed into such basic services as education. THEN, when the powers that be decide that the people are good and ready, democracy will be bestowed upon them. Needless to say, these arguments are self-serving.

On the other side, for years, we also heard parallel opinions being voiced by Western businessmen. They felt they could do better business with a “stable” government than with those that are subject to the whims of the electorate. Stability of the players is equated with stability of the rules of the game, an assumption that does not pas the critical examination that it requires. Now that the old players in some countries have left the scene, so have the rules of the game, leaving the businesses and their investors in a limbo – a well-deserved limbo, I might add.

One of the unfortunate legacies of communism, and its distant cousin, socialism, is the overly sharp dichotomy sometimes drawn between a free market economy and a State-managed system, and the implication that is sometimes drawn that the two are alternatives or substitutes. The freer the market, the less the State role. This assumption may well be true for a society and an economy that has had a lengthy evolution of both its market and political institutions, so that the prevailing rules of the game in both areas are more or less taken for granted. However, for a developing country like my own, and probably even more so for a transitional economy, these rules to the game do not exist, and the State has to take an action role. Are the States in the region up to their task? Before they go about writing rules for others, they must be good at devising and then conforming to the rules that govern themselves.

We in Thailand are all too well aware of the failures that have attended our political system. The rate at which we have been tearing up and rewriting constitutions has made us the envy of the world. Despite the frequent changes that were made, one could not discern any improvement through an evolutionary process. Rather, we seemed to be spiraling rapidly downward to money politics of the most blatant kind. Western economists worry about excessive intervention of government in the markets. We Thais have to worry about the intervention of the market mechanism in our system of government.

In the last two years, the log-jam that had barred us from serious political reform had suddenly been broken. A new constitution was proclaimed in 1997. Although this is the last of the more than a dozen that we have had over the last sixty odd years, it was the first that was passed with a wide degree of public participation and entirely by constitutional means. The process was initiated by the Parliament, the means, including the setting up of the National drafting assembly, its composition, its election, its emphasis on public hearings, were all devised by the Parliament which would eventually approve or disapprove the draft constitution in toto.

The constitution mandated many institutional reforms, ranging from the auditing of government finances, to electoral supervision, to judicial reforms. It mandated specific legislation to be passed by the Parliament in these and many other areas. Although many, probably most, of the current parliamentarians (elected under the old constitution) disliked both the Constitution and the mandated reforms, they swallowed hard and reluctantly voted for them, and we should not begrudge them the credit that is due.

The economic crisis that has hit us in the last two years, also indicates that our market institutions, which we took for granted during the four decades of uninterrupted growth, had serious flaws. Since these institutions were never “broke”, no-one thought of fixing it before it was too late. Now we have no choice. During the last two years, it has become necessary for us to re-fashion in a hurry some of the most fundamental institutions of a market economy. These include new bankruptcy rules, new systems of corporate governance, new systems of regulation of public utilities. The most important task remains to be done, however, and that is to re-erect a financial mechanism that will link savers and investors, so that the economy can more forward. The mechanism that had served us before the crisis is now hopelessly beyond repair, but no-one seems to have any clear idea as to what is to replace it.

The changes that have been made and many that remain to be done, are changes to the fundamental institutions of the market economy, but they are not the kind of changes that the market mechanism will naturally bring about, there must be a political process. Inasmuch as these changes are taking place during a crisis, when there is no economic growth to anaesthetize the pains of adjustment, it is not surprising that there was bad temper all round. But to this day, I am glad to report that our political system is still holding out well. It is my firm belief that the reason the job was done, and that the reform was implemented was because the new political atmosphere made for a much greater participation – sometimes angry participation – by key sections of the population. And this is as it should be. We are truly engaged in a social contract with the future. It is important that all Thais are at least aware of what is being done in their name, and (God forbid) even to have an influence on the outcome.

The travails of the last two years have taught us some lessons about democracy and free markets. The first is that for an efficient, thriving market system to operate, it must be within the framework of a set of rules of the game, and yet allow for the smooth operation of the market mechanism. The State is necessarily involved in fashioning these rules of the game. But these rules in themselves have to command a broad social acceptance, the process by which they are adopted must be participatory to the broadest extent possible.

Of course, fashioning new rules of the game is by itself insufficient. Inasmuch as it is the State that created most of the important ones, it has to stand guard over them and, most importantly, ensure that they are followed and applied in the right context. In a rapidly changing world, it is inevitable that the officers of the State that will have to apply some discretion over how the rules are interpreted and applied. Their own personal probity, the integrity and transparency by which they conduct their affairs, are absolutely essential. A few – very few – authoritarian States may have officers that rise up to these standards. Many democratic States (including my own) have signally failed to do so. But I believe that in the long run, it is only in an open, democratic State, where freedom of speech is protected and guaranteed, where such officers will emerge and survive to serve their country.

As business-men and women, your performance is always measured against the standards set up by the stern task-master that is the market. The market test is unconditional. Businesses fail, even if the circumstances that led to the failure are beyond the control of those running them, as my colleagues in Bangkok are finding out. The market does not provide any ready excuse. Perhaps your banker may give you temporary help from your mistakes, but in a well-regulated system, he is still subject to the market test.

Politicians in less democratic, and therefore, less fortunate, countries do not have any standards by which they are judged at all. But even in democratic countries, they are measured by less stringent standards than the market. The most common of this is electoral performance. But the electoral test is far less stringent than the market test, because it is hedged about by many conditions and subject to various whims and fashions, which can be manipulated. Politicians have too many alibis, and they always cite them!

It is for this reason that we need to steer clear of the interventionist hand of the State and the heavy hand of socialism.

Having said that, let me quickly add (as my last point) that it would be a mistake to allow full play to the invisible hand of the market, except with respect to business men and women. This is because it will always be the cast that some individuals will be at the losing end of the fast-paced economic changes that are constantly occurring. And many of these are weakly equipped to bear the brunt. It is essential that society (not necessarily the State) be ready to lend a helping hand to them. For Australians, this may sound “old-hat.” This is because you have been living in a Welfare State for close to a century, and have (I gathered) even gotten tired of it. But for many Asian countries, the current crisis has caught their governments and their peoples unawares. Social safety nets are almost entirely non-existent, and the social consequences are therefore somewhat severe. One of the most important tasks that we now face in Asia is therefore, to learn from your experience, and fashion a hard-headed approach to the provision of a social safety, but one which stays within the bounds of our modest means.

We in Thailand have already embarked on a road to a functioning democracy and a sustainable free-market system. We along the way have learned to appreciate the values of systems, and at the same time are not oblivious of the flaws. It is my personal hope that a new political culture, to be instilled and nurtured by the present constitution and the organic laws, will produce in due course a government which is truly a government of the people, for the people and by the people.

Democracy in Thailand

By Anand Panyarachun
Former Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand
Parliament House, Canberra
November 24, 1999

The Honourable Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Vice-Chancellor of the ANU, Ambassador Roland Rich, Director of the Centre for Democratic Institutions, Ambassador Laxanachantorn Laopahan, Honourable Members of the House of Representatives, Excellencies, ladies and gentleman.

Let me say, at the outset that it is a great honour and privilege for me to be invited by the Centre for Democratic Institutions to make an appearance here, before you, as the third speaker at these annual lectures. It is a personal honour and it is one that I will cherish.

At the same time, I would like to think that the honour given to me personally today is perhaps a reflection of the closeness and the depth of the relations between Australia and Thailand. A reflection of the understanding and cooperation that Australia - her government, the people - have always offered and extended to Thailand, in recognition of our great efforts to promote democracy and human rights.

Some of you may not know the history of Thailand and I ask your indulgence in allowing me to give you a very brief political history. The Kingdom of Thailand was founded in the thirteenth century. Relatively speaking, it is an ancient country, the country that has always been ruled by kings, a country that started on its course as a true state, with defined territories, with defined powers of the king which were initially absolute.

Our kings, traditionally, have always ruled the country with compassion and human kindness and with full determination to see that their people, their subjects, receive fair and equal treatment and that the benefits of the rules are evenly distributed.

The beginnings of the modern Thailand started in 1932, when there was a so-called revolution which transformed absolute monarchy into so-called democratic rules. But, substantively, nothing changed very much.

The rules of the game did not change, it was merely a transfer of power from the king and the royal elite to a group of bureaucrat elites. The power was never transferred to the people, in spite of what the military, the bureaucrats and, subsequently, the politicians had been saying all along.

So from 1932 up to the mid-eighties, we were only a democracy in name and in form. Most Thais would understand democracy to mean the existence of a constitution, the electoral process, the parliament and the cabinet and they would exercise their right to vote once every three to four years. But even with that democratic right exercised, they were not allowed to enjoy it fully or uninterruptedly.

For the first forty years, since 1932, there have been a number of coups d’etat. Democratic rule was distorted or subverted and was undermined by the people in power. The people always got the short end of the stick.

We went through this forty-year period of intermittent democratic rule, interspersed with military rule and bureaucratic rule. In the mid-eighties, we managed to entice, peacefully and through logic, the student activists and those people who were labeled by the central authorities as being communist, to give up their arms and return to the fold of society.

Thailand is the only country that won the fight against communism without having to engage in a full-scale war. The authorities knew that the only solution to that problem would be a political one. And we, fortunately, managed to win the minds and the hearts of the so-called ten thousand communist rebels by accepting them back, by giving them amnesty and by taking them back into the mainstream of life in our society.

And since then they have been given further opportunities to pursue their careers, to pursue their occupations and professions, and many are now sitting in the National Assembly, as the elected representatives – and quite a few are cabinet members.

But since the mid eighties, we were not yet immune from any threat from the military, from the generals, in cahoots with businessmen who supplied money to the political process. Initially, there was a rule by the bureaucratic elite - both military and civilian - then, there was a rule by the bureaucrats, the military and the politicians. And subsequently, there was a rule by the bureaucrats, the military, the politicians and big money.

In the eighties, we saw vast injections of money into our political process. Money corrupted the entire electoral process. So, in the mid-eighties, people started to have public debates and serious discussion about political reform. I knew, at that time, the economy was still going strong, we were averaging about seven to eight per cent annual growth rate and had done so for some twenty consecutive years.

If you look at our GDP, our export growth and our per capita income and the growing number of the so-called middle class people, one would not question the wisdom of the economic and financial policies conducted at that time, because while the going was good, nobody bothered to find out what flaws might exist and what errors we might be making.

And yet, during those days, the Thai people, without the encouragement of the government, started thinking about change. The Thai public started serious talks, dialogues and discussions about the need for political reform, the need to enhance human rights, the need to make more equitable distribution of income. That process took nearly ten years - study after study.

Eventually, we managed to get our parliament, the National Assembly, to talk seriously about the matter. And in the mid-nineties, it was parliament, for once in our lifetime, that engaged itself in this political reform process.

Since 1932, we have had fifteen constitutions. Fifteen constitutions that were thrown away, every time, when there was a change of power, extra-constitutionally. Fifteen constitutions which vary in degrees as to their democratic content. Fifteen constitutions which were drafted mainly, and in many cases exclusively, by the power that be, by those who had to protect their own vested interests, political or otherwise, by those who did not wish to relinquish their authority or their responsibility, by those who had no trust in their people, by those who only grudgingly called themselves democrats.

But everything was fake. We realised that with the highest standard of education, with the increasing wealth, with the rising middle class, with the expansion of our economy and with relative stability of our major policies, we could afford the luxury of such philosophical questions as the drafting of a democratic constitution, the need to build up political institutions, the need to embark on the road to a sustainable economy, the need to look after the environment and, above all, the need to transfer the power, the sovereign power, to the people.

We had struggled for over fifty years, when the parliament reluctantly and only because of the public pressure decided to embark on a process of political reform. it was the first time that a new constitution was drafted within the context of the parliament. It was done through parliamentary means.

After several studies and research work, conducted by a parliamentary committee, together with people from outside the parliament, there was a firm basis to go ahead. And it was the National Assembly that set up the procedures, setting up an indirectly elected body known as the National Constitution Drafting Assembly, consisting of ninety-nine members chosen from the provinces and a number of seats were reserved for nominations by the Institute for Higher Learning, those who had special expertise in law, in political administration and in political science.

It was a balanced assembly because a majority of the members of the drafting committee were ordinary people - they were lawyers, there were labour leaders, there were former student’s activists, they were from the provinces. Many of them spoke their mind, sometimes contrary to democratic values and yet, for the first time, people had a choice.

There was wide popular participation. We engaged in public hearing, we consulted with every sector of our society, be it business, farmers, school-teachers, labourers and other groups in society. We confirmed that this is a people’s constitution.

Of course, there was considerable opposition. At the beginning, it came from the parliamentarians because they saw in this, I would say, revolutionary document, not a gradual erosion of their power, not a gradual erosion of their vested interests, but a very drastic reduction of their power and responsibility and the drastic challenge to their vested interests.

They saw this therefore as a revolutionary document precisely because it was approved through constitutional means, with public participation. They saw it as a threat, as a threat to their well being. They engaged in a vigorous campaign to oppose the adoption of the draft, but again, for the first time in our history, public opinion prevailed.

And I know the process of political reform started even before the onset of the financial and economic crisis because we in Thailand happen to believe that economy and politics are intertwined. You cannot do one without the other. We do not think it is right or it should be adhered to as a sacred theory, that you open up the economy first and the opening up of politics will automatically, or inevitably, follow.

I am not rejecting that theory, but my belief is that each society’s economy has become more complex and more complicated and more integrated into the globalise system largely imposed by the developed countries.

Whether we like it or not, we just had to tag along. We could not resist the changes that were taking place, particularly aided by computer technology and information technology. If we resisted, we had no resources and power to beat it. And if we decided to go along, however reluctantly, we would have just to see to it that we put in place reform measures, preparatory measures that would bring our legal infrastructure, our financial infrastructure, our credit regime and our economic regime up to internationally competitive standards.

We focused on political reform because we happened to believe that if you start it early and if you start it without having to rush through things, then that the political reform process could help immensely in implementing the much more difficult economic and financial reform measures that would have to come sooner or later.

So, now we have come to the stage where we know that democracy is not only a matter of exercising choice, because freedom of expression and freedom of choice just do not immediately or effectively translate into goods and services to be provided by the government to the people.

I am not so sure whether the present so-called democratic regime in many countries could be viewed as a functioning democracy, in the same way that it was not enough in the past or in our history just to learn the three RS: reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic. You needed a little more than that.

You needed a functional literacy. Likewise you need not only a constitution, a parliament and a cabinet, but you need a functioning democracy. And you need to build up an infrastructure for democracy of which; of course, a parliament, constitution and cabinet are part and parcel.

A functioning democracy, even with a good constitution, such as the one we have now, must continually focus on strengthening the rule of law, on the

enhancement of human rights, on transparency, on accountability, on people’s participation, on the checks and balances of the powers vested in the individuals who hold public office.

In decentralisation, indeed, with the devolution of power from the central authorities to the locals, that would not be sufficient without two other legs in the infrastructure of democracy. There is an urgent need for our societies not only to have good infrastructure on the legal side, but there is an urgent cry also for us to help build civil society, a civil society which represents cross- sections of opinions of society as a whole.

A civil society which includes not only NGOs, be it women’s NGOs, development NGOs, human rights NGOs or environment NGOs, but also includes trade associations, business associations, teachers’ unions, labour unions, farmers’ groups and other private associations.

Because only by building up those elements in the civil society would we be able to provide checks and balances against the powers that be, or against the authorities both central and local. It is only by building a civil society that the government in power will be able to define and to determine exactly, or at least more or less exactly, where public interest lies.

That is a very difficult question because every politician, every individual whatever he does and whatever he says always cites public interest. Just like you saying you cannot vote against God, but such statements lack sincerity and lack real meaning.

Then what is the third leg in our infrastructure? This applies both to the public and the private sector. We must ensure that there is good governance that is applicable both to the government and to the public sector as well as to the corporate sector.

The features which go into good governance are also reflected in our Constitution. The independence of the judiciary, the rule of law, the accountability mechanisms of institutions as reflected in our Constitution. We have ombudsmen, we have an administrative court, we have constitutional supremacy, and we have a constitutional court for the first time. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and any existing law which is contrary to the provisions of the Constitution is null and void.

We advocate also the independence of the media because in most developing countries the State always intervenes into such matters as what their people should hear, what they should be told. As a supplement to checks and balances mechanisms, an independent, objective and, particularly, incorruptible mass media is an essential feature.

So we all tried to do all these things in a limited time. It took us nearly a decade. Were we successful? Yes, up to a certain point. Are we confident that we will be able to achieve the objectives that we set out with? Yes up to a certain point.

We have managed to produce a constitution which for all intents and purposes is quite adequate, and is more advanced than documents we produced in the past. We are building up a civil society, we talk to each other a lot as a nation, and we try to implement the good governance concepts.

The question mark is this: that in spite of what we did, in spite of what we are doing - and we shall have to continue to do it continuously in the future years - the most difficult and the most testing criterion is the attitude of the people themselves. We cannot legislate a change in the political culture of the country, in the social barriers of a society and in our basic attitudes.

That is going to take time but I am confident that once we have embarked on the correct road to a functioning democracy and to a sustainable development the process is irreversible the hiccups along the way there will be two steps forward and only one step backward.

With our persistence and with our single-minded objective eventually we shall reach the goal. Thank you very much.

ROLAND RICH:

Thank you very much Khun Anand. We will now have a session for questions from the floor and I would invite people to go to the two microphones in the aisles. Please introduce yourselves before you ask the question, but I always reserve the chairman’s right to ask the first question. And my question relates to reform fatigue.

The new Constitution requires a number of new institutions to be established: a constitutional court, administrative courts, the anti-corruption agency, the ombudsman, the new Human Rights Commission, and all this comes all at once. Will there be reform fatigue? Will the people be able to see the thing through?

ANAND PANYARACHUN:

The reform process is going to take quite a long time and to me it is a never ending process, so I am sure that every now and then people will feel this reform fatigue. To me that is only a temporary thing, a transitional thing.

The one long lasting by-product that we have since the exercise started is that people’s participation has increased. In the past few years I have been in contact with a number of civil society elements. I keep in touch with them and they do their own thing. Those who are interested in environmental matters would pursue their matters, those who are interested in human rights pursue theirs.

So, there is good networking between all these elements, and I have not detected any sense of disillusionment, any sense of despair. Yes, they were disappointed many a time because our politicians still are doing their best to distort the intentions of the Constitution, to undermine the reform process directly or indirectly or even to subvert the intent of the constitution while they were in the process of enacting organic laws.

Every time somebody was doing something underhand, elements of civil society and NGOs and the oppressed would not let them get away with it that easily. I have had personal experiences when some organic laws, particularly relating to the Human Rights Commission, to legislation on the ownership of the frequency bands of the radio, to the freedom of mass media were distorted and the draft bills were sent up with the collusion of both the government members and opposition party members.

Quietly or sometimes publicly we managed to engage the parliamentarians in public debate and finally we overcame their opposition. In a way we had to put them to shame.

So I think people’s participation is a factor which has to remain constant, it is a factor which has to be present all along, and I think that we are now acquiring a new culture within our society. If we want the Constitution to be written to the effect that sovereign power belongs to the people, you must act and you must behave as if you are the owner of that power.

Indifference or just pure talk without any action to follow up your talk, these are the luxuries that we can no longer afford.

ROLAND RICH:

Thank you. Andrew Thomson, you are next.

ANDREW THOMSON – AUSTRALIAN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

Thank you Your Excellency. My name is Andrew Thomson. I’m a member of the House of Representatives in Australia. Can you give us your opinion about the effect on democratic institutions of the new information technology, particularly the World Wide Web and E-mail?

ANAND PANYARACHUN:

Well, Thailand, you know, in spite of occasional military rule, has always been a relatively open society. There was never any secret police, and military rule was not that harsh. There were definitely some limitations on the freedoms of expression and communication.

So, I believe we need not be overly concerned about the computer technology, the Internet and new forms of communications. We need to continue to focus on the basics of democracy. We stressed the freedom of expression, freedom of choice.

Obviously some of these freedoms would be polluted by outside forces beyond our control but unlike some other countries that have been, relatively closed societies, perhaps they feel the threat much more than we do. I’m not belittling the possible debilitating effects associated with the control of the new technologies but I happen to believe that in the end people’s good judgement will prevail if their freedoms are guaranteed.

ROLAND RICH:

Thank you. Yes.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE – AUSTRALIAN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

Thank you sir. I’m Christopher Pyne. I’m also a member of the Parliament. Thailand has always been a great hotbed for democracy in the Asian region together with the Philippines, these are the two countries that have been keen practitioners of democracy. In recent years we have seen countries like Taiwan and now Indonesia also embrace democratic institutions and traditions for their future.

Would you like to give a prediction or some comments about what future countries perhaps in the Asian region might move down a path towards democratic traditions, specifically countries that previously had democracies like, for example, Myanmar?

ANAND PANYARACHUN:

Well, each country, each society has to decide on the fundamental question whether they want to remain a closed society, an authoritarian society or whether they want to open up. It is not for me to predict as to which other countries would embark on this process, but in the case of Thailand I think you may recall that the watershed of our modern political history was on October fourteenth 1973, when we had a spontaneous student uprising joined by hundreds and thousands of people in the streets of Bangkok.

Of course some lives were lost, over a hundred, there was gunfire but out of that nasty incident and with the blessing of our King the crisis came to an end, a new Constitution was drafted and the military had to retreat.

Then again three years later there was a military backlash in 1976, also in October, and I would label that particular period as the mini-McCarthy period in our history. Many prominent men, many student leaders were labeled communists. I was one of them.

At that time I was permanent secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and because it was the period when the then elected government was adjusting its foreign policies, seeking rapprochement with China and Vietnam and also Cambodia, I was just a victim of circumstances. Because I was the permanent Secretary and I was seen, perhaps unjustifiably, as the instrument that promoted this rapprochement. In fact, I was merely following the government policies even though I had agreed fully with those policies. So maybe there were many victims of circumstances.

I was accused of being a communist. It took us about four or five months to clear my name. I was sent to Germany, then I decided that civil service was not my cup of tea and I left. I left the service at the relative young age of forty-six and I was given the opportunity to join the private sector and I just did my own thing.

I continued living in Thailand and never fled the country. I had my job, I paid my taxes but I had no interest in politics in Thailand. Then fate came along and some leaders in the military asked me to become Prime Minister after the last coup d’etat in 1991.

It was against my thinking because I never supported the coup d’etat, but there was an important development in that for the first time the military knew that they could not run the country. So having staged a successful coup d’etat against an elected government they came to me, a civilian, and an unknown quantity to the military establishment.

It proved something. The military knew very well that they could stage a successful coup d’etat but they also came to realise that in the modern world, the running of a modern society and the management of the economy needed people with different qualifications from generals or air marshals.

ROLAND RICH:

Thank you. The next question is from Gareth Evans, President of the International Crisis Group, and former member of the House of Representatives.

GARETH EVANS – INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP:

Khun Anand, no southeast Asian leader ever relishes answering questions about their neighbours, as you have just confirmed, but you are an exception in so many ways to the norm, that I thought it might be worth trying again, to ask you, specifically, about Indonesia.

What degree of confidence do you now have in Indonesia’s capacity to consolidate and maintain its own process of democratisation, particularly in the light of the emerging separatist pressures in Aceh and elsewhere?

ANAND PANYARACHUN:

I am easily encouraged and now you encourage me to make comments on my neighbours. I will comply with your request. Now, take Myanmar. I disagree with the way that the country is being run. I do not know any member of the SLORC/SPDC and I do not like what they are doing. Yet I have a certain degree of respect for their internal affairs.

They, themselves, have to learn that the World has changed so much, that some matters were traditionally and historically viewed exclusively as internal matters. That might have been true a hundred years ago, or fifty years ago, but definitely not in 1999. I do not think that countries like ours should adhere strictly to that interpretation.

I think we can raise our concerns - we could talk to them about our true feelings - but, at the same time, I do not believe that countries like Myanmar should be ostracised by the International community. I still remember the days when I was serving as my country’s representative at the United Nations in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

We all knew about the apartheid regime in South Africa. We all knew that there were a series of sanctions enforced against South Africa. We knew how little effect those sanctions had, because there were some countries who violated the sanctions, including those in the Third World too, for business reasons.

Now, let me talk about constructive engagement. This term is not a term or a policy invented by ASEAN. It was invented by the Brits in relation to South Africa. Britain at that time did not want to have sanctions in force against South Africa.

So, it was the British government, then, who advocated the constructive engagement policy with South Africa, for which it was very much criticised and perhaps justifiably, by the Third World. Sanctions could never be fully effective. Now in 1990s, as we are reaching the new millenium, I think it is essential - it is essential to send strong messages and strong signals, to the people of Burma, that they’re not going to be abandoned.

That they are not going to be deserted by the International community. And that they are not going to be left in the hands of the SLORC. At the same time, we should send strong signals to the SLORC. Let them have their own reasons for conducting such policies, with which we disagree. But there is room for talk. There is room for dialogue. There is room for adjustment.

Now, of course, the pace of change is not going to satisfy us. But I believe in the unpredictability of certain forces. If you were to ask me whether we would have this Constitution that we adopted two years ago in 1997 in Thailand - if you asked me ten years ago - I would have said, forget it. People have a way of changing.

Even government leaders have a way of changing. So I am not that pessimistic about Myanmar, but I think it is important that when we talk about constructive engagement, it must encompass all elements of engagement. We must not be selective. We have to engage them economically, politically and we have to see to it that they hear the truth.

Now, in regard to Indonesia, I wish them well. It has gone through a very traumatic experience. I hope that the new political leadership in Indonesia can overcome some of the obstacles. I do not want to go into details, but I just want to take cognisance of one very important historical fact.

Many of the communal problems that you see, either in Burma/Myanmar or in Indonesia, are the results of colonisation and the divide-and-rule policies instituted by the colonial authorities. Of course we have the benefit of hindsight and when we look at the period when Burma was formed into a nation, or Indonesia for that matter, we might conclude that both countries could have functioned more effectively as a nation had the colonialists encouraged them to form a federation. A nation with federal structure, rather than one which is a unitary state. So you asked me where did Myanmar go wrong, or where did Indonesia go wrong, I think part of the responsibility, a fairly major part, must be laid at the doors of the British and Dutch.

But it is no use talking about the past. The main thing is to get a cohesive-society, to energise them and try to move them forward and move them together, then we stand a better chance of resolving these problems.

ROLAND RICH:

Well, I think the privilege of the last question goes to Alison Broinowski who has been waiting patiently.

ALISON BROINOWSKI:

Thank you, Roland. Your Excellency, you have given us an inspiring account of constitutional change in your country, one that we have noted, particularly in Australia, because of our recent failure in that regard. I wonder though, in the light of what you have said about human rights in Thailand, whether you could cast your mind back to 1993, when an International human rights meeting was held in Bangkok, to which Australia was, it was made clear, unwelcome

If such a review were held now, in Thailand, would Australia be a welcome participant, to talk about ideas of human rights at such a meeting?

ANAND PANYARACHUN:

That question was posed to me as somebody who has no part in the government, in running the country. I run the risk of giving an answer that may not be repeated by the government authorities, but I think that, since 1993, the current government knows full well that certain matters which were untouchable in the early ‘90s are no longer so.

And I hope very much that they will adopt a different attitude to 1993.

An Interview with Anand Panyarachun

July 31, 2007

How would you respond to the observation that Thai democracy has not gone very far, and vote buying and coup d’etats are still rampant after 75 years?

Anand: The foundation of Thai democracy is still weak. Let us compare it to an oak  tree, which would take perhaps a hundred years to grow fully with strong roots and branches.  Such a tree could survive even without rainfall for months.

It has been only seventy-five years since the Thai democracy tree has taken root.  The tree is still not fully developed. It is at a stage where constant nourishment and water are needed for it to flourish.   

If a tree’s roots are not well grounded, without water and sunshine, the tree becomes weak, like children, who are underdeveloped.  They cannot walk so ably.  They might stumble, fall and hurt themselves. A coup d’etat is like a fall or an injury, which takes time to nurse and heal back to health.

The Thai tree also needs to be grown on home soil to be resilient.  Some democratic concepts have been imported from the West.  We must draw from their basic tenets but adapt them to suit our own culture and customs.

I look at democracy in its multiple dimensions. First, democracy is not only about having a constitution. While most countries do have some form of a written constitution, there are others that do not, but just follow convention and tradition.

Second, democracy is not only about form. Constitutions, elections, the legislative and administrative branches are only structures. For meaningful democracy, we have to look at the roots, the children’s legs. Thailand still lacks strong roots that can withstand the forces of nature.

So what would be a good foundation for democracy? First, society must be open. Why? Because a democratic government must be of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Government of the people: This is easy. All governments, democratic, communist or dictatorial, claim to be of the people. Communist regimes call themselves People’s Republic... right?

By the people: That is also easy. It is about elections. But whether elections are free and fair is another matter.

The last one is the hardest: for the people. An open society offers a new world view. A closed society is like a house with its windows and doors closed; the dweller just stays inside. What goes on inside the house is unknown to outsiders. There is no ventilation, no sunshine.  With humidity, fungi grow and foul odors develop. In an open society, all windows and doors are open, exposed to sunlight and fresh air. The house does not have fungi or a foul smell. More importantly, people outside the house can see what the people inside are doing. Nothing is hidden, concealed, or manipulated.  Things are transparent.

If the people inside are corrupt and unethical, they are under constant fear of being discovered.  This is where the media comes in.  It has a responsibility to expose these deeds and to inform the public of the truth, which will lead to greater accountability.

But is this enough? No. Now that we know what is going on, will we allow it to continue?  If we know that these people inside the house are abusing their power, should we not do something about it?  After all, the public is the key stakeholder, whose interests are being compromised.

In an open society, there is transparency and public participation, leading to accountability. These are all important foundations of democracy.

But we still need to go further. There must be an independent judiciary system and rule of law. If we go by the principle that a man/woman is innocent until proven guilty, the rule of law must prevail.  Whether a common citizen, a general, a sitting or a former prime minister, we must all be equal before the law. And not only must the judiciary be independent but it must also be impartial. 

If we now have more roots, namely an open society, transparency, freedom of the media, accountability, independent judiciary, and rule of law, we must also prevent acts that violate the basic rights of the people….human rights and political rights. These are all abuses of power.

Are these foundations strong enough in Thailand? The answer is no. The tree is still not strong. Democratic values and institutions are still not deeply rooted. They may be only 10 inches deep. With strong winds, floods, and severe weather conditions, the tree can fall.   

Is the democratic system suitable for Thailand?

Anand: Thais always ask, “If people are still not well educated, and there are rampant abuses of power, is the system suitable?”

I never ask that question. If you still wonder if democracy is a good system, I would cite Winston Churchill, who once said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." [House of Commons speech on 11 November 1947]. I tend to agree with that view. Democracy, while not perfect, is superior to other systems of governance - dictatorships, autocracies, oligarchies, and communism.

That’s the starting point. But democracy must also be nurtured in a good environment, within the context of a country’s history and culture. I think we would be looking down on ourselves if we were to say that Thailand is an anomaly in terms of its struggle to advance democracy.  From the Sukhothai period, nearly 800 years ago, through to Ayuthaya and Thonburi, if we compare our kingdom to the kingdoms in Europe, we find that there were many undemocratic princely states in Europe ruled by violence and fear. There were also many tyrants, who engaged in continuing wars.  Many countries in the West only embraced democracy some 200 to 300 years ago. While our democracy is only 75 years old, under absolute monarchy, we were in fact ruled by several enlightened kings, who had foresight, were righteous and promoted democratic principles.

For example, since King Rama V’s reign, there were the ten princely principles, which reflected many aspects of what is now considered “good governance”. King Ramkamhaeng, in his efforts to ensure justice to all citizens, installed a bell outside the palace. Although the King had the power to execute anyone, citizens could come to ring the bell to call on the King to listen to their pleas. Thai culture has thus a tradition grounded on the concept of righteousness - to be a good person, to be kind and giving to others, to refrain from harming others, to exercise self control. 

Another foundation of democracy is justice. If we can conscientiously nurture the roots or foundations of democracy, we can achieve a deeper form of democracy that can serve to transform our value system. 

At the same time, we need a check and balance system both in and outside parliament. Peaceful demonstrations are part of the check and balance system. So promoting democratic values and institutions is critical.

Another key element in democracy is respecting diversity. Democracy is generally about majority rule, but there is another side of democracy, namely protecting the rights and interests of minority groups.

When we talk about public interests, many people may ask what that means. We are not referring to the interest of the Government or the State.  Are public interests synonymous with majority rule? No, because majority interests do not take care of minority interests. Public interests must combine both the majority and the minority. Thai society is known for tolerance, a key concept in Buddhism. We show tolerance or consideration towards our children, parents, elders, teachers, people in positions of authority and power.  This is social tolerance.

But we seem to lack political tolerance. In Thai politics, people fight and become enemies. If we want a thriving and strong democracy, we must learn to have a certain degree of political tolerance. People with different opinions should be able to co-exist peacefully and exchange views in a civil manner.  A threat to democracy is polarization.

First, we must be able to accept differences in political positions and viewpoints.  Second, we must strive for continuing political dialogue and understanding.  Third, we must be able to see that it is not a win-or-lose situation for any party. If Thais can apply the concept of tolerance in the political arena, this could lead to greater acceptance of diversity of cultures, lifestyles, ethnicity and religions, which would contribute to a more harmonious society.

In this respect, the emergence of a civil society has an important role to play in the development of a functioning democracy.

Some people say the system is not important as long as we vote good people into office.

Anand: That’s a simplistic view. Like the word “transparency”, we all use it but do not really understand it.

This year marks the 75th year of Thai democracy, and we have not gone very far. What do you think?

Anand: I’m neither a pessimist nor an optimist. I am a realist, so I can point out the shortcomings and weaknesses of Thai society and democracy. But I do believe that, after 75 years, we have come a long way.

On the current draft constitution, several groups are against it for one reason or another.  There are those who are loyal to former PM Thaksin; those who find the coup or anything related to it unacceptable; and those who value the last constitution and the participatory process in which it was developed.

And you believe the people get the government they deserve.

Anand: Yes, that is my belief. The quality of a government is reflective of the values and level of development of the people.   

******

The Third Wave of Investment
Opportunities with ASEAN ?
By
Anand Panyarachun
23 November 2005

Mr.Chairman,

Distinguished delegates to the 31st AJBM,

Honored guests.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am honored to have been invited to address the 31st AJBM this evening.

I have known of the AJBM activities, and the Keizai Doyukai for a long time. When I was Chairman of the Federation of ASEAN Chambers of Commerce and Industry in the early 80's, I used to participate in some of the AJBM activities. I very much appreciated the supporting role played by Keizai Doyukai to ASEAN businesses through AJBM.

But lately I have heard less and less of AJBM.

So when I learn that AJBM is being revitalized, and that it will strongly support investment and businesses between Japan and ASEAN, I feel very gratified.

I would like to explain to you this evening why I am so gratified.

My past careers, diplomatic, business and political, have inevitably conditioned me in the role of an observer of international development. I have been fortunate to have often been at a vantage point to do it.

A couple of years ago, I was invited to serve on a United Nations panel to advise the Secretary-General on how the UN system could better serve the international community in the areas of threats to peace and security. That was another vantage point for me to become more aware of the inter connection of security and development issues. They are inextricably linked and they need to progress in tandem. One may even add a third element to this configuration – namely justice.

There is no security without development. There is no development without justice and there can be no justice without both. Indivisibility of security, development and justice is the conclusion.

Since the end of the second world war, there were two super powers, the United States and the Soviet Union.

Over three decades before the new Millennium the EU and Japan were second – tier countries.

Today the only recognized super power is the US, the one and supreme power in terms of politics, military, and economy.

But while there is only one recognized super power, many countries are now considered to belong to the second tier of powerful countries.

In addition to the EU and Japan, the most often mentioned countries are Brazil, China, India and Russia.

The countries in the second tier of power are all maneuvering to position themselves in this global context. Those which are not already permanent members of the UN Security Council all feel that they are entitled to such exalted positions.

Let us now turn to Asia – or to East Asia in particular. China and India are major political entities which cannot be set aside and their stability and potential economic power will inevitable have significant impact, positive or otherwise, on the rest of Asia.

China liberalised its economic system before India, focusing on manufacturing, but it was limited at first. In the recent years China went almost all the way in terms of economic liberalization, and has now achieved the status of the " factory of the world ".

India adopted a more liberal economic system from the early 1990s, allowing market forces to work more readily. Following this came the boom of computer software business through outsourcing. Since then liberalization and investment in other sectors have followed.

Both China and India have been very successful in their policies of economic liberalization, as evident in their international trade and their foreign exchange reserve holdings being at US$ 769 B, and US$ B, 143 respectively as of September 2005.

The two countries have also moved in the direction of patching up their political adversarial relationship. The progress they made in the past years has resulted in closer and more concrete cooperation in both political and economic areas.

Now both China and India are moving forward. And yet, there is a note of caution. According to a news report this morning, former Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr. Lee Kwan Yew made following remarks at a conference in India.

"Whether Asia will take its place in the world ... depends on how both India and China work together as they rise and actively set out to avoid ending up in opposing camps"

"They [India and China] must not be paranoid and suspicious of each other in a game of one-upmanship"

Japan, a giant economic power house of long – standing but a relatively minor political centre on the international scene. Its security interests are very much intertwined with the US security arrangements. There are now initial signs of the loosening – up of that relationship, but much remains to be done before it can gain its credibility as an Asian nation. As a footnote, Japan still needs to address some sensitive issues raised by China and Korea in a more responsive manner made following remarks at a conference in India.

Now we turn to the trade and business areas.

China and later India have expressed interest in developing development partnership with ASEAN.

And so has Japan.

But from the perspective of ASEAN, their relationships with ASEAN are viewed differently.

Formerly ASEAN was interested mostly in its economic relationship with the US, the EU and Japan.

But now ASEAN very much welcome the propositions from China.

ASEAN is also reciprocating its interest with India. But because of lack of familiarity, trade and investment with India will take more time to develop in a more meaningful way.

Interestingly, ASEAN wants more trade and investment with Japan. But to ASEAN, Japanese investment seems to have focused more and more on China. Beijing has now replaced Bangkok as host to the largest Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the world.

Let's try to understand the economic strategy adopted by these important countries.

China is no longer ideologically driven and more politically stable. China is the " factory of the world ". It is a resource – deficit and energy – deficit country. So, it seeks special relationship with resource – surplus countries like ASEAN, Russia and also India.

While China's intensive economic growth (averaging over 9% annually in the past three decades) is widely admired and serves as an engine of growth for ASEAN counties, one must not overlook China's lop-sided economic structure. Chinese economy accounts for only 4% of global GPD, but consumes 25% of the world's steel, 30% of its coal, 50% of its cement and 7% of its oil.

India, a democratically governed country, cannot be expected to pursue liberal policies as fast or as effectively as China. Its economic growth is therefore bound to be slower and more bumpy, but it has embarked on the right path. India's potential is not to be underestimated.

India is also an energy - deficit and infrastructure - deficit country. So it seeks energy security and investment in infrastructure from ASEAN, China, and Japan, in addition to the Middle East.

Japan had a head start – long before the emergence of both China and India. It was already a formidable economic power in the sixties and seventies. And yet, the country stumbled in the nineties and its economy was in the doldrums for over a decade.

Japanese investment in ASEAN in recent years has for financial reasons been surprisingly too low.

It was also due to the fact that many ASEAN countries suffered from severe economic crisis in 1997 / 1998, which blunted investment opportunities.

But the situation now is very much different from what it was in 1998 – 2002.

Japan is recovering and assuming a more dynamic growth. We are delighted to see the beginning of Japanese economic recovery, as demonstrated by significant growth in the last four quarters. All ASEAN economics have now recovered, and have been growing at respectable rates of 4 – 6 % for a few years now.

Such growth rates are creating the need for new investment in industrial and business expansion, and in basic infrastructure.

In other words in 2005 ASEAN economies have entered a new investment cycle, offering a broad range of investment opportunities.

While ASEAN continues to welcome investment and business from any sources, be they the United States, the EU, Russia, Korea and Australia. ASEAN has shown particular interest in Japan, their important and traditional source of direct and indirect investment.

ASEAN believes this is the third round of investment opportunities, after the first in the late fifties and the second in the seventies.

A new window of opportunity is opening up. But this time the opportunity must be viewed not only in the business context. Geo-politics and geo-economics are additional elements which are playing increasingly an important role in the promotion of peace and security in our part of the world.

I envision a substantial growth in future years in economic and political relations among China, India and Japan. This triangular network would do well to strengthen their roles in ASEAN member states. Their enlarged contributions to our economic and social development and their expanded trade relationship with ASEAN would empower us as a significant partner in this Asian enterprise. The stronger Japanese economic presence in ASEAN countries would be reassuring to ASEAN of the continued close cooperation with Japan.

The question is whether Japan, the largest economic power in Asia, shares our aspirations and is prepared to be involved, both in conceptual and concrete terms, and to join in this East Asian drive towards a new economic, political vision.

The answer lies in your hands and we hope that it is a positive one.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Address by Mr. Anand Panyarachun

on behalf of the Honorary Degree Recipients
Honorary Degrees Congregation
Loke Yew Hall, University of Hong Kong
March 14, 1996

Mr. Chancellor

Mr. Vice-Chancellor

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

It is a pleasure and an honour for me to be here with you at this Congregation. The University of Hong Kong has decided to confer upon six individuals honorary degrees in various disciplines. In representation of those six personalities, I have been invited to address you today.

The six recipients are men and women who, each in his or her own right, have contributed in profound and lasting ways to the betterment of society. Their contributions, in the fields of community service, social development, public service, economic development, and the fine arts, speak for themselves. Of diverse nationality and background, they share one common trait – their commitment to the improvement of their societies and their determination to work towards a more prosperous, just and secure world.

I am proud to have been selected for inclusion among such a distinguished group of individuals. I share their pride and humility in accepting this distinction – one that gives recognition to the leadership role that each of us has been privileged to play and that we will certainly continue to exercise in our respective areas of expertise so long as providence wills.

Jean Monet, the father of “unified” Europe, once said that there are two kinds of people: those who want to be something and those who want to do something. The distinction between those mind sets, those contrasting visions of what life is all about, is fundamental.

It is self-evident that the vast majority of humanity in today’s world clings to self-serving values in pursuit of personal interest. For those people, doing is the means of being. On the other hand, there are those who, imbued with a sense of idealism nurtured by vision and energy, work for the collective interest. For those people, doing is the very essence of life, and it is their leadership that drives development. The recipients of today’s honorary degrees exemplify that quality of leadership. They stand before you as models of a “life-style” that you, too, can adopt, if you simply will it so.

University graduates today are far better equipped with the knowledge and skills to effect change than those of my generation. A university degree, however, is by no means a guarantee of success in life. It is all too easy to fall prey to the notion of “credentialism”, the view that social status and occupational position derives from the academic degrees accumulated. It is not the degree, but what you do with it, that counts.

It is my hope that you, the graduating class of the University of Hong Kong standing upon the edge of a new millennium and a new China, will use your learning to serve the public interest. Today, like never before, opportunities for public service beckon you with open arms. That is because we are witnessing today a remarkable trend throughout Asia: a rapidly expanding role for civil society in development.

The move towards more open societies has been associated with widespread disenchantment with ineffective and inefficient governments. But government cannot be abandoned; rather, as is being attempted in the United States and elsewhere, it must be “reinvented.” The clarion call of the people for “good governance,” centring on efficiency, accountability and transparency in the activities of government, is directed to your ear.

It has always been my belief – and my practice while serving in public office – that governments must promote transparency, predictability and an open environment that provides opportunities for informed political and productive economic and social participation by all. Good governance depends ultimately upon the responsiveness of all public institutions – the legislative, administrative and judicial – to the needs and concerns of the people. A public that is educated, well informed, politically aware, and committed to democratic principles is the key to good governance. It is that reality that is referred to in the aphorism: “Each people gets the government it deserves.”

All of you have a stake – and a responsibility – for the future development of Hong Kong, China, Asia and the world. Each of you will have an opportunity for public service, in any of a wide variety of capacities. As responsible citizens, you must ensure that the economic and social resources of your communities are managed with efficiency, effectiveness and integrity. That can only be done through your active participation in the institutions and processes that govern your lives.

I hope that the future will afford you the opportunity to do just that.

On behalf of all the honorary degree recipients, I wish you every success in your endeavours.

“English Language Education beyond the Year 2000:

The Shape of Things to Come”
Inaugural and Keynote Addresses delivered by
Mr. Anand Panyarachun
at the International Conference on
“Expanding Horizons in English Language Teaching”
organized by Chulalongkorn University Language Institute
in honour of
His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s Golden Jubilee Year
November 27, 1995

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with great pleasure that I accepted to take part in this important event, not only because the theme of the conference is a challenging one, but more so because it provides me with an opportunity to associate myself with Chulalongkorn University and the distinguished audience in commemorating the rare occasion that happens probably only once in one’s lifetime – the celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of His Majesty the King’s Accession to the Throne. The entire nation rejoices, and Chulalongkorn University has held, and will be holding, several events as part of the celebrations.

It is only natural that a premier seat of learning such as Chulalongkorn University would focus attention on an academic subject, and one with resounding futures overtones. It is gratifying to know that in tune with the ever-increasing momentum of the globalization process, the Language Institute wishes to look towards the horizons where nations will converge, thereby making it imperative for peoples from diverse linguistic backgrounds to be able to communicate in a World language which is mutually understandable. In so doing, no nation will be at a disadvantage by having to rely on translation or interpretation, that is to say, through a third party, in an International setting. Even if translation or interpretation is available, the rapid response time demanded in many International situations would make the mode of translation and interpretation inadequate and inefficient.

As I understand it, the organizers of this conference are searching for “VISIONS” – a term which nowadays is becoming the in-word. Usually one talks about political visions, economic visions, social visions, etc., in the context of national development. The task before us to-day, however, is more concentrated on the attainment of knowledge by individuals. In the topic “Expanding Horizons in English Language Teaching”, we are challenged to forecast the content, the learning and teaching, of a single language, English, in the years beyond 2000 – which actually starts only five years hence.

I must mention at the outset that I am not a linguist. In fact my school experience was that English was not my forte. Although I attended a missionary secondary school, at the time when it was generally taken that missionary schools provided better opportunities for English or French learning in Thailand, I did not particularly enjoy English lessons. Moreover, I found out later, when I first had to apply my theoretical learning into practice in an academic setting in England, the citadel of the “Standard English”, that the English I had learnt at school was quite inadequate.

I understand that the audience today consists mainly of English language instructors and researchers from several countries. This conference, therefore, provides an excellent opportunity to exchange country experiences and pool together expertise in English language education. Our Thai instructors, in particular, have a good chance to learn from fellow English language instructors from other countries whether problems are similar, what their strategies and implementation plans are to cope with those problems, to ensure that future generations would find English language learning more enjoyable, and that what is learnt is truly functional in real life today and in the years to come. Let us unite our efforts and have a good look at this important area of learning, which is of great significance, academically and professionally, as well as in the domains of economic, social and even cultural developments, for our future World, a World without frontier, a World with International understanding.

I have the pleasure to declare the International Conference open, and wish it success in its undertakings.

The conference organizers intend to make full use of the limited time available for the conference, which I endorse. I have therefore been asked, and I agreed, not to leave this podium to take a deep breath, but to continue to share my personal views and concerns on the topic entitled English Language Education Beyond the Year 2000: the Shape of Things to Come.

The reason behind my choice of this topic is quite simple: it does not require linguistic specialization or first-hand teaching experience, of which I have none. As a product and user of English language education, and not the producer, I can avoid “teaching fish how to swim”, as the Thai saying goes, which is equivalent to “carrying coals to Newcastle”, since this is a gathering of English language instructors who are more knowledgeable about methodology, process, content, assessment, etc., of teaching-learning than I. But being at the receiving end, I can perhaps air my views and offer suggestions for improvement of future products, in the light of emerging trends.

English language, whether one likes it or not, is here to stay. In order to substantiate my personal prediction of “the shape of things to come”, it may be useful to look back at the English language in the past, how it leads to the present, which in turn offers directions into the future. Before proceeding further, let me mention that predictions cannot be completely accurate; more so when such predictions involve human activities, in this case, attitudes, commitments, interests, of human beings, learners and instructors alike. Also these predictions are being made at a time when change is accelerating at a rate greater than at any other time in human history.

English as a World language is a comparatively recent phenomenon. In fact in the sixteenth century, the language was confined to England and Southern Scotland, and not yet having penetrated much even into Ireland or Wales, let alone into the World beyond. The number of English speakers began to increase at the time of the Industrial Revolution, when there was a growth of population in England itself. Concurrently, English spread itself into the rest of the British Isles at the expense of the Celtic languages, through the imperatives of political and economic power. It was further encouraged by deliberate policy of a confident and aggressive government. It then strengthened its position as a World language through its wide diffusion outside the British Isles by trade, colonization, and conquest. The process expanded with the English settlements in Northern America in the seventeenth century, and also in the West Indies in competition with Spanish, French and Dutch colonizers. British domination of the Indian sub-continent dates from the second half of the eighteenth century, adding a further magnitude to the expansion of English. British settlement in Australia, the British domination in South Africa, Singapore, British Guiana, New Zealand, Hong Kong, West, East and Southern Africa pushed the geographical and population frontiers of the use of English by vast magnitudes. In the Philippines and Puerto Rico, the American form of English appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, further magnifying the use of English. To this historical backdrop should be added the population growth in the United States of America as a further contribution to the increase in the use of English.

The aforementioned historical base of vast populations using English, in proportion more than any other second language, was the reality in the World even during the first decades of the twentieth century. By the 1980s, there were an estimated 400 million native speakers of English, and about the same number using it as a second language. Some 76 percent of all secondary school students were having English as a second language.

It is not surprising that new phenomena of the twentieth century took as its communication foundation this vast base, and built upon it to push even further the use of English.

UNESCO’s Statistical Year Book of 1994 reports that the number of book titles published in English in countries where English is neither the mother tongue nor the first language, came to over 10,000. By comparison, book titles in French came to only 1,800. Internationally circulated scientific and technological publications would show an even greater proportion in English.

The economic and political power of the United States, the need for a major lingua franca for the scientific community, for International trade, for banking and finance, for the electronic communications era, were but a few of the new twentieth century phenomena that have built on the historical foundation of English usage. These factors energized the raising of English to its present dominant position. English has now become a near-global tongue, used by some 700 million speakers, bulk of the World’s mail and 80 percent of electronic information.

In addition, current pressures for globalization of the market place, of communication, of the scientific and technological spheres, have placed English permanently in its current eminent position as the lingua franca of International business and politics. These same factors make it imperative that the learning of English be given high priority, and that this high priority is placed unambiguously in the context of functionality in the multiple uses of English in the multiple facets of mega-trends for globalization.

To emphasize that even good translation modes will become dangerously inadequate over the next decade, may I quote an extract from the Bangkok Post Outlook Section of 8 September 1995, titled “Greater Highways in the Sky”. It goes as follow:

“….To make sure nothing goes wrong, traffic controllers and pilots keep in constant contact with each other throughout the flight. Since pilots come from all parts of the World, air-to-ground communications have to be in one standard language: English…ICAO is developing a new system, which will make use of satellites and digital technology for aviation control. The system, which is expected to be ready by the year 2000, will enable controllers and pilots as well as airport officers – wherever they are in the World – to communicate, swiftly and correctly, via computer language…”

This piece of information on technology research and advancement certainly underlines further that beyond the year 2000, the English language will be essential for World communication.

The data presented earlier is important for our deliberations, not merely because of the confirmation of the importance of English as a World language. The data also stresses that many types of uses for the English language must necessarily be a characteristic of the “shape of things to come”. The types of uses arise from the diverse functionalities of English that are likely to be demanded beyond the year 2000.

Surely the critical operative word functionality must have fundamental and far-reaching implications for the development of curricula, methodologies, evaluation and other processes in English learning and teaching. Indeed, in many countries, the antiquated “Latin Model” of infusing huge doses of grammar, has been replaced already with proficiency-based curricula for communicating in English.

I wish to raise the issue of overall design for your deliberations. In the context of the vastly increased types of functionalities indicated earlier, perhaps a new and radical view of functionality itself needs to be developed, and with it, new implications for curriculum development and other components of English learning and teaching. One possible approach may be to shift the emphasis of the design from the limited “supply” side to the

“demand” side. Given the varied and changing specific demands made on the use of English nowadays, the stress on the “supply” aspect is clearly not valid.

Even to-day, the demands may range from mere knowledge of the Roman script, say, for punching computer keys, to being able to understand and use technical brochures for operating household items, or comprehending food labels, etc., to following installation or repair manuals by technicians. Then there are Commercial English, Scientific English, and even its use in literature and culture. The English proficiencies required for each of these are naturally different. Should the educational provisions, which are aimed at achieving those varied proficiencies, necessarily be derived from the characteristics of each of the requirements? Should the proficiencies be defined case by case?

Rather than presuming what should be the foundational proficiencies that can serve all these highly varied sets of individual proficiencies, it may be necessary to define carefully and systematically first these varied and different sets of proficiencies, and only then derive any common foundational proficiencies. These then could be the common cores of proficiencies for beginners of English language learning.

Later on the design may eventually include a smorgasbord of learning sequences for learners to select from, according to individual functional requirements. Some are likely to be modular and additive; some of short, and others of long duration.

I venture to indicate here examples of some initial questions that may arise from such a concept of demand-side functionality.

• What are the situations in which English is to be used?
• What are the language activities or environments in which the learners will need to be engaged?
• What are the language functions, which the learner will need to fulfil?
• What are the notions or concepts, which the learner needs to be able to handle?
• What will the learner need to be able to do with respect to each topic?

Of course such a design content must be more complicated than ones in general use. This may well be as serious constraint to effective implementations, if current modes of learning and teaching are used.

In addition, in many countries, other constraints may exist. Among them are inadequate teacher proficiencies, and lack of, or inappropriate, or even negative environmental reinforcement for the learning of English.

The former has arisen not only from possibly ineffective teacher training curricula and methodologies, but also from the very large number of teachers who have to be trained in a relatively short period to meet the quantitative requirements of English learning and teaching. The latter is an almost inevitable consequence of the social and cultural milieu, which is devoid of suitable resources to support the reinforcement and application of the initial learnings in English. Both aspects are likely to take a considerable time to reach levels of adequacy.

However, the future of English language education is not too bleak. With the advancement of information technology, one may look forward to the time, I believe, when technology may be fully used to make up for the aforementioned and other inadequacies. We already have language laboratories. Computers have been used widely to assist in the learning and teaching process. It may not be too Utopian to predict that one of these days, perhaps in a decade or so, something along the line of a Flight Simulator may be available to learners of languages.

In the field of aviation, integral to pilot training, flight simulators are now essential training instruments for all airlines, air forces and space programmes. A trainee is totally immersed in simulated real-life situations – involving the techniques as well as the atmosphere, the environment, which have psychological effects on the learning and behavioural processes.

Can we then think ahead, in the “shape of things to come”, to the development of corresponding English Language Simulators, which are computer-assisted, complete with audios and visuals, and interactive, and so on? Currently shared-time and on-line computer-assisted simulation or instruction is not merely possible but economically feasible for language instruction. It can provide language scenarios for a vast number of situations. It can accommodate a large variety of learning styles and other learning attributes. It would be relatively easy to alter curriculum learning-teaching sequences, as and when needed, in contrast to the inertia of traditional “classroom” situations.

Fortunately a substantial range of software and hardware are already available in the market, and more will surely appear. Some adaptations most certainly will be required.

We may have to focus first on teacher trainees, as facilitators of learning through the new medium. This may be followed by the introduction to schools with language laboratories that could be converted into computer assisted language-learning simulators. Then these may become resource centres for a cluster of schools. Finally all schools may have such facilities. We may move on to even community learning centres to meet non-formal learning demands not only for English but for any other foreign language as well, as needed by the general population.

Indigenous software and hardware development work must be encouraged, and it must take into account local cultural and language-specific barriers and demand requirements, vis-à-vis English learning and teaching, or of any other language.

You would, no doubt, recognize that all three important issues, that is, (I) multiple proficiency; (II) inadequate teacher proficiencies; and (III) non-supportive social and cultural milieu, may find solutions in the suggestion of the user-friendly, computer-assisted, language learning simulators. This aspect alone, I believe, would make this suggestion worthy of serious consideration.

Since the aforementioned would involve the creation of innovative and sustainable designs for English language curricula, and learning sequences, may I seek your tolerance regarding a few observations I would like to make in this respect. These observations have been derived from being a concerned consumer, and not, as I said at the beginning, from academic expertise.

We have seen linguists and linguistic experts designing classroom language teaching and learning materials along lines conforming to their individual notions of linguistic structure and theory. Sometimes one had the feeling that there is greater interest in promoting those notions than in researching careful language learning effectiveness in pupils. We have seen over-emphases on language as recurring structural units, with syntax largely ignored. Such designs do not take into account the vital environment or scenario for the language use, which the simulation situations require.

The development of learning sequences may best be done, I believe, by active practitioners in the applied field of teaching English, and not by theoreticians alone who may tend to adhere to one aspect of language learning with which each theoretician has best equipped herself or himself. Language communication is a behavioural phenomenon in a real World setting, and not necessarily dependent solely on analyses of language structures. The excessive devotion to grammatically correct linguistic competence demands high skills abstraction totally beyond functional operational skills of learners, in addition to being irrelevant to the kinds of language demands I outlined earlier.

The point about a simulation intervention is that language speakers and writers do not simply generate sentences in the abstract, but in context. Language is for receiving and transmitting information in context, across the wide scope spectrum, as fitting each particular position in the spectrum. All else, including the nicety, grammaticality and elegance of speech, can become subsidiary to this pragmatic use, and mere tools for the purpose, not ends in themselves.

None of us can guess what the English language will be like in a hundred years’ time. What appears quite certain, however, is that information technology and knowledge growth is moving ahead at a phenomenal speed. It seems unlikely that any other language will supercede the English language as a World medium of communication, given its present head-start. If a nation is to keep up-to-date with developments in all spheres of knowledge, particularly in scientific and technological research, it has to be able to have an instant access to the World “knowledge bank:, through electronic and other means. This requires proficiencies in English, which is the dominant World language for International communication. The English language will continue to be the major vehicle that drives us along the information superhighway. The development of a nation, therefore, will make it imperative for the people to learn and master the English language. Hence the education system-must seeks ways to improve both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of this learning area.

We have also to recognize that societies are organizing rapidly, having as focal points people who can innovate, who can increase productivity, who can maintain sustainable development, through knowledge. The co-ordinating and activating new economic nucleus is knowledge, the resource with the highest value, the resource that has the highest “value adding” potential. The traditional triad of capital, labour and materials as raw components of progress is being replaced by knowledge in the new information era – knowledge held and used by people, knowledge that people in countries must have access to, acquire and expand, so that the countries themselves may progress. Not preparing for this may even be called suicidal for our countries. The quickest access may well be largely through the English language.

Let us pool our efforts and ideas together to make it easy, enjoyable and profitable for our people to learn and to want to learn English and acquire sufficient proficiencies to make it truly a tool for communication in a World without frontiers, and a tool for the uninterrupted development of our countries beyond the year 2000.

Let us also remember that predicting the “shape of things to come” is exciting. But shaping the shape of things to come is even more gratifying.

Keynote address delivered

by Mr. Anand Panyarachun
at the 1995 Annual ASAIHL Seminar on
“Higher Education for All”
at Bangkok University, Bangkok
June 22, 1995

Higher Education and an Enterprising Society

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a pleasure and an honour for me to have been invited by the organizers of the 1995 Annual ASAIHL Seminar to deliver an address at this distinguished gathering.

The theme of this Seminar, that is, Higher Education for All, is of particular interest to me. Although I am not an educationalist by training or by profession, yet on several occasions I have professed my personal interest and concern in education in its broader connotation. Since education enters the life of everyone of us, we should pool our ideas and efforts to ensure its quality and relevance.

When we speak about Higher Education for All, the term “for all” appears to focus on the quantitative aspect – whether it be the rather long-term prospect of ensuring that every person receives higher education, or whether it be the more feasible prospect of making higher education accessible to all by providing equal opportunities to receive high education, through various modes of delivery and over various flexible spans of time. The factors contributing to achieving these aims are amply covered by the topical papers to be presented and discussed in this Seminar in the next few days. I have therefore opted to focus the attention of this audience on two questions which have been of great concern to me, and these are: firstly, what kind of higher education should be accessible to all who venture into higher education? And secondly, what kind of higher education for what kind of society? I would like to share with you my own thoughts and concerns, hoping that through our co-operative endeavour we will arrive at some practical strategies for the benefit of our future generations. It is never too early to debate and act on educational reform and renewal, since in education, the future is now. There is no end to the need for reform in education, since to-day’s future will most likely not be tomorrow’s.

The last decades have witnessed an astonishing growth and reform in higher education. Yet higher education is facing a crisis both in terms of quantity and quality. The current national and international efforts to focus world attention on Basic Education for All means that eventually there will be more students wishing to go on to secondary education, and sooner or later the pressure will be on higher education. According to UNESCO’s global

projections, the growth of the number of students in higher education will accelerate – from 65 million in 1991 to 79 million in the year 2000, 97 million in 2015 and 100 million in 2025. The projected enrolment in higher education in the developing countries also shows a strong increase – from 30 million in 1991 to 40 million in the year 2000, 50 million in 2015 and 54 million by 2025. To cope with this quantitative aspect, let alone quality and relevance, the higher education system itself must be innovative in its search for strategies and actions with an eye on both the near and distant future in which the young intellectuals will live a meaningful life.

Traditionally, education has been viewed in the context of social, economic and cultural development of a nation. However, in recent times, with the aspiration towards a “learning society”, education is in itself a contribution to the development of a society. Thus, independent of the earlier definition, opportunities have to be provided to individuals to extend their learning, if necessary, purely in terms of their own personal interests.

Higher education, whether it be confined to a selected few, or whether it be for all, should be given and received with a definite purpose, which entails careful planning in setting goals and objectives. Generally speaking, much educational planning has not given adequate weightage to educational goals, or the set goals are not taken into full account in evaluating the process that produces the products of higher education, or in evaluating the products of higher education. The planning also frequently appears to focus mainly on projecting the present trends into the future time-frame, and tends to give more attention to inadequacies and shortfalls of the past, rather than exploring the needs of the future. In other words, it is current crisis-oriented, or focused on finishing the unfinished tasks. In recent years, some efforts have been made to involve non-educationalists in forecasting future requirements and future goals and aims. The translation of goals into strategies and contents is also a most vital undertaking.

Like many countries in the region, Thailand, too, has defined its goals for the education system, the most recent being the Royal Command Announcement of 10 June 1992. In this Announcement, it is stated that the goals of education emphasize balanced and harmonious development in the individual in four aspects, namely, wisdom, spiritual development, physical development, and social development.

Taking two of these goals as examples, under “Wisdom”, the description states:

“WISDOM. An educated person should attain wisdom: the ability to understand causality; to differentiate between virtue and vice, right and wrong, and good and malicious deeds on the basis of truth, to intelligently solve problems; to recognize and understand rapid and various changes; to be creative and possess an inquiring mind to keep up with technological

progress; to appreciate Thai wisdom and culture; and to wisely choose modern knowledge and exogenous culture for adoption by Thai society”. And under “Social Development”, the description states: “SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. An educated person should possess proper social behaviours at work and in the family, organizations and society; to extend help unselfishly; to possess communication skills and ability; to use proper Thai as well as foreign languages for communication purposes; to preserve the Thai national identify and culture; to recognize and observe one’s own and others’ rights and freedom under the democratic form of government with the King as Head of State; to be able to utilize and conserve natural resources and to create a proper environment; and to contribute towards enhancing an appropriate role of the nation in the world community”.

Since these are national goals, it is pertinent to ask: in what way are these being manifested in higher education so that the young intellectuals of the nation may be helped to develop them? In what way are the various learning areas and faculties in higher education, the Departments of Chemistry or Mathematics, or History or Languages, or Engineering or Medicine, and indeed every one of them, assisting in helping the young intellectuals to develop in respect of such goals? If little conscious effort has been focused on this issue to date, should it not become a priority concern in designing learning strategies and sequences in all areas of higher education?

A related question is whether higher education institutions themselves should manifest in their “way of life” these same goals, not only because these goals are nationally important, but also to create an atmosphere and an environment in which the goals are practised in real life.

To take one goal, social development; the extension services of the Faculties of Agriculture in many countries reach out, with their academic and developmental resources, to the masses of the nation. What would corresponding extension services be for the Faculties of Law and Humanities, or Fine Arts? Is this an important dimension in higher education?

Educational reform and renewal, at any level, must be conceived in the perspectives of multi-dimensional, multi-variable and long-term developments in society. Education, and more so higher education, should not merely respond to society’s needs; it should also be an effective change agent in re-shaping the present, generating new possibilities, and strengthening capacities to make choices as to what kind of “preferred” future we want, out of a number of possible futures.

In order to form an idea of the kind of society that would likely to be equipped to face the challenges of the future, I venture to predict a future global scenario, in full realization that predictions, and more so predictions of human activities, can never be absolutely accurate. However, a broad charting of future paths may be useful in preparing for eventualities whenever they occur.

This century has witnessed exceptional human achievements in knowledge, as well as amazing discoveries on how to discover knowledge. At the same time the shifting of social, cultural and political imperatives, coupled with cumulative growing problems as a result of contemporary technologizing civilization, has posed a heavy burden on mankind. The knowledge explosion, the development quest, the emerging interdependent world, the problems of population and environment, and the crisis of human values are relentlessly increasing their demands for societies to be active participants in the choosing and fashioning of the future. Unless and until we equip ourselves in advance to cope with the rapid socio-economic and technological advancements, as also the realities of different rates of advancements, for example those of science and technology versus those of socio-cultural developments, we may find ourselves lagging behind, marginalized, and passively letting circumstances overwhelm us.

What, then, could ensure our survival in the future? Knowledge alone will not suffice, and this is expressed in a Thai saying, “Steeped in knowledge, but unable to save oneself”. Technical skills acquired to-day may become obsolete in a few years’ time, due to the rapid scientific and technological advances.

In the vastly changing scenarios of the world, several factors seem to point at a trend towards shifting more and more responsibility onto the shoulder of the individual. The impact of the “mass” concept seems to be less significant. For example, adverse conditions in many countries continue to worsen the impact of unemployment on individuals, making it imperative for each man and woman to have to vie for jobs by showing characteristics such as initiative, creativity, leadership and adaptability. Likewise, increasing self-employment especially assisted by modern electronic technology asserts great demands on the part of individuals. In business companies, top-down management is giving way to increased involvement of all workers, even at the decision making level, in order to make full use of new ideas, creativity, and commitment of large numbers of individuals to meet the exigencies of the market. Even the media is being demassified, as evidenced by the major mass newspapers and magazines losing ground to smaller and mini-magazines catering to special interest groups, with individual writers and reporters initiating new approaches and communication styles to attract individual readers who can now afford to be more selective in their choice of reading materials. Another obvious example of this “individual trend” is the advances made in the electronic media, which will continue unabated, making it necessary for each of us to learn and be familiar with, say, bank electronic networks, self-service supermarkets, computer link-up for home-based duties, computer-assisted means to cater to individual specifications.

Taking these trends into account, it may well be that future generations of society will have to develop proficiencies that may be called “enterprise proficiencies”, the term “enterprise” here having the broader connotation and not merely confined to entrepreneurship or money-making activities. Personal qualities and abilities such as initiative, creativity, risk taking, self-confidence, team spirit, leadership, which enable the individual to be better at thinking, analysing, solving problems, taking action and corrective measures, are not subject areas to be taught in schools or universities, but can be captured through the learning process. University students, being at a mature age for divergent thinking and intellectual independence, are in a position to develop these proficiencies which ultimately will improve their quality of life and ensure their place in an enterprising society which is constantly seeking new ways to improve the future of mankind.

The trends as presented so far offer challenging conditions in which higher education has to rethink its role and mission, particularly in view of the fact that higher education is in the very forefront of the intellectual growth of a nation. The wards of higher education are the young intellectuals of a nation. The growing interdependence of the world and the will to preserve national identity and heritage require concerted action to make education assume greater responsibility towards sustainable human development. In this context, higher education is undoubtedly in the best position to develop a quality workforce and a cadre of future decision makers with the needed proficiencies to survive in a complex and rapidly changing society.

An enterprising society must search for positive ways to cope with the dichotomies in the world to-day, that is to say, for example, international co-operation versus international competition; economic development versus social development; industrial progress versus environmental sustainability. These dichotomies must be recognized as realities of life, existing side by side in this world of ours, and efforts must be made to make one complementary to the other, instead of trying to focus attention on one at the expense of the other. One of the roles of higher education is to help future generations to accommodate these dichotomies constructively. Even higher education itself is faced with dichotomies of its own, such as increasing participation while trying to avoid surpluses of graduates; achieving high quality fundamental research while having to respond to the current needs of industry and community.

Now that we have identified and predicted some of the trends and challenges of the future scenario, it is for us all, and educationalists in particular, to gear higher education towards the desired goal. Certainly higher education cannot be considered in isolation from the entire education system. Society building must start with the young child. But it is specially the graduate who is at the terminal level of formal education who must be equipped with intellectual tools and characteristics to learn how to learn that is, lifelong education must be one of the set objectives. An enterprising individual should, after leaving the portals of a school or a university, possess a certain mind set and be able to seek further sources of knowledge and information to improve his or her existence, and not remain stagnant and be a prey to obsolescence. A young intellectual must learn how to develop penetrating mindfulness, critical thinking, discover causality; how to solve problems, recognize patterns in the observed data; identify and define them, consider alternative solutions, select the most feasible solution; develop proficiencies for real-life problem solving,

plan and monitor actions, and evaluate result for future planning cycles. No doubt those who are in or exposed to Buddhist traditions of mental development will recognize that aspects like critical thinking, penetrating mindfulness, dependent origination, now considered highly modern “pedagogy”, had been integral to Buddhism for over 2,500 years. It may well be appropriate to ask whether it is the duty of higher education to enlighten the young intellectuals of parallelisms between the ancient and the modern such as those which exist in our cultures. In so doing, the young intellectuals may be helped to place their modern learning in the stream of cultural consciousness. Similar parallelisms between the ancient and the modern surely exist in other religious and cultural frameworks as well.

How can learners in a higher education institution be facilitated to be enterprising? The key word here is “to facilitate”, which provides opportunities for the development of divergent thinking on the part of the learners themselves. In a formal type of higher education institution, the academic staff should no longer be only “lecturing” to students; rather, they should encourage in the young mind the habit of learning to learn and learning to do, preferably using real-life situations in the learning process. The staff is in fact the role model in acting as facilitator, so that the young intellectuals can gain self-reliance and self-confidence to face the vicissitudes of life on their own later on.

In the era of globalization, higher education should also give full attention to enhanced internationalization, in its content and in its functions. A nation can no longer afford to remain in isolation, and the young must benefit in their formative years from an education system that enables them to come into contact, either directly or indirectly, with the world at large. In this context, the study of international languages and world history will be an asset in promoting inter-cultural understanding and mutual respect among nations. The study of a second language should start as early as possible, and should continue throughout the school and college years. A good command of at least one international language would ensure that a nation is not in a disadvantaged position in international dealings and contacts. Moreover, the knowledge of an international language, and English in particular, provides greater opportunities for acquiring first-hand and latest information on new discoveries, new ideas and latest research findings which may be beneficial for one’s own use and reference. It enables a person to have instant access to an international network of information, thanks to the electronic media and the information super-highways which ensure information flow throughout every corner of the globe.

The internationalization of higher education can also be effected through staff and student mobility. This should be promoted as a two-way traffic, in the sense that every country has something to give and something to receive, as equal partners, and not merely from South to North, as is regrettably still the case in many developing countries. Scholarships, fellowships and exchange programmes should benefit participants on both sides. In this regard, it may be mentioned that the dilemma of the “brain drain” is not exclusively caused by professional mobility, but also by other factors such as lack of opportunities for professional growth in one’s own country, or by political, economic and social issues in one’s homeland. Having made the point about “internationalization”, it is perhaps appropriate to recall, in this context, one of the goals of education stated in Thailand’s National Scheme of Education of 1992, that is “wisdom”, and I quote: “to appreciate Thai wisdom and culture, and to wisely choose modern knowledge and exogeneous culture for adoption by Thai society”. Such goal is undoubtedly of value to all countries in the region. The question is: Who would facilitate the development of these proficiencies of wisdom in the young intellectuals? And in what way?

Against the rising tide of dehumanizing forces, it is imperative that people must preserve and strengthen personal cultural and social values. Apart from those nurtured by the home, values are developed in the young mind by the educational environment. In the development of a whole personality, knowledge and skills must be processed through moral and ethical sensibility, cultural understanding, humaneness and compassion. An enterprising society must be a caring society – a society which sets certain moral and ethical standards for its members, giving a sense of dignity in showing respect and responsibility for others, and working towards the common good of a nation, and of mankind. Higher education is at the frontier of knowledge, and is the producer of young intellectuals of a nation and its future decision makers; hence it is in the best position to respond to the intellectual aspiration of the individuals to learn, as well as to contribute towards the creation of an enterprising society.

Technology Management Education
and Economic Development

by Mr. Anand Panyarachun
at Dusit Laguna Hotel, Phuket
12 March 1995

Optional Intro:

Let me first welcome all of you, particularly those who have traveled from overseas, to Phuket. As one looks at the beautiful scenery and inhales in clean, balmy air, I support a question about this week-long executive program must arise: Is this work or vacation?

Looking at the packed schedule ahead, I am afraid I must be the one to inform you that it really will be work. I am assured by the organizers that Phuket was chosen so that the clean air would stimulate clearer thinking and the wonderful views would encourage far-sighted vision of what lies ahead for business in the region.

I hope this is true – at least to some extent – because we do have a serious purpose; upgrading the skills and thinking of executives who will have much to say about how well Thailand and the region develop in the years ahead. With rapid technological change and worldwide competition, economic development increasingly depends on the ability to learn. The businesses that flourish are those that are best able to acquire develop and use knowledge that global markets need. So economic development and business progress is intimately and necessarily involved in the learning process. This broader understanding of education and business was the major reason that I recently accepted the chairmanship of the Kenan Institute of Asia.

The Institute is, in fact, carrying out a number of interesting and valuable tasks in this region:

• providing innovative ideas for infrastructure development, such as the Global Transpark, which is being planned for U Taphao

• arranging research opportunities for top Thai, Indonesian and Vietnamese academics through the CitiBank Fellowship Program

• carrying out business research in Southeast Asia that will help enlarge our understanding of the success of some of the best regional firms

• Building business linkages through the US-Thailand Development Partnership that can help address serious environmental and health problems in Thailand

• Bringing young MBA interns to work in the region.

At the core of each of these activities is the concern for education – improving the knowledge and skills of our people so the mistakes of the past will not be repeated and the knowledge that leads to success will not be forgotten.

That is very much the purpose of this week.

Continuing education is our defense against being overwhelmed by the pace or rapid and puzzling change.

Nowhere has the pace of change been greater than in the role that technology plays in our lives and in our businesses.

During my lifetime, the development experience has moved from dependence on resource advantages to labor-cost advantages to technology-advantages. In fact low-cost labor was only the beginning of the “East Asian Miracle.” The major part of that continuing movement is a miracle of technologies – their acquisition, their application and their development. As a result, nations that were formerly on the periphery of the world economy are today among the most interesting players shaping the future. Technology leadership may be important to success in the world economy of today; it will be absolutely essential to success in the 21^st century.

The issues of technology acquisition are of critical importance to Southeast Asia because we began to industrialize later than the West and Japan. We must use the technology of others in order to begin to develop technology of our own. Of course, we must invest more in research and development. Our companies and our economies will not prosper in the 21^st century without these investments and they must begin now. To make these investments most effective, however, we must buy into the knowledge that has been built up by others.

Isaac Newton said “I have only been able to see so far because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” So should we stand on the shoulders of the technological giants of business?

However, we must not feel that we are a supplicant seeking aid from the owners of technology. Asian companies have the market knowledge, the distribution channels and the business systems in place that are required to bring a new technology to the local market.

This knowledge is a part of the intellectual capital that is needed just as much as technological capability if an enterprise is going to succeed. The common phrase “technology transfer” misses the mutual benefits of this process, which should actually be called “technology partnering” or “technology cooperation.”

The technology holders must learn to partner, with us in Southeast Asia in order to share in the growth of our domestic markets and, ultimately, to share in the benefits of the improvements that we can bring to the technology. We must learn how to partner with foreign firms in order to access the right technology and move up the technology scale.

This is not a zero sum game. A technology cooperation agreement that fails for the Asian partner, usually fails for the Western partner as well.

The program that we are inaugurating today addresses issues that are central to world business competition. Over the next week you will work through the issues that will characterize much of our industrial future. We will examine how foreign technologies should enter in the repertoire of our own activities and competencies. From those issues we will evolve general strategies and specific skills that will enable our companies to succeed in achieving technology leadership.

In Southeast Asia, over the past decade, we have an abundance of examples of local-foreign partnership that were built around technology; some successful and others not. The development of Thai Airways International has been a successful melding of foreign hardware with traditional Thai service. The establishment of Malaysia as the world’s leading exporter of electronic components is a tribute to the effective partnership of American and Japanese technology with local worker skills and management efforts. The excellence of Singapore’s high-tech port facilities was born of a far-sighted government strategy, effective management, Western technology and a capable work force drawn from many of the countries of Southeast Asia. The launch of Indonesia’s Pallapa satellites more than two decades ago combined an appreciation of technology and an understanding of the peculiar needs of an expansive archipelago nation.

Those satellites have not only helped the country achieve its current rapid rate of development, but they have also helped assure the successful political integration of scattered islands with differing languages and cultures. There are many other examples.

All of this attests to the power of technology in developing our nations and our people.

It is important to recognize, however, that few of these “technological” experiences are primarily concerned with hardware. One of the defining characteristics of late-20^th century technology is that it is increasingly “soft” in nature. It is the software that drives the hardware. It is the “bytes” that are increasingly more important than the “bolts.” It is the management skills, such as those you possess and those you will acquire this week, that ultimately determine success or failure.

In the past, to speak of technology was to speak of engineering. Today, to speak of technology is increasingly to speak of management. A giant like IBM does not falter because of its technology, but because of mismanagement of that technology.

The management of technological change is significantly different than the management of other, more traditional activities. The management of technology is the management of ideas, of concepts, and the management of the people and processes capable of developing those ideas. It is the management of intellectual rather than real property. It is a world where the key assets of the firm are in the heads of the workers and managers; where management by authority is supplanted by management by knowledge. It is where knowing why something works the way it does is more important than knowing how it works. It is a world where knowing how to learn may be the most important knowledge of all.

It is fashionable today in management circles to talk of reinvention. The idea is a powerful one. It claims that if you are behind a well-established market leader, you will probably never catch-up by imitating them. You will only fall further behind as they continue to move ahead to new agendas, while you pursue the old ones. What you must do to leap over the leaders is to reinvent the business; change the rules of engagement; negate the traditional advantages.

The genius of the Apple computer was not in its technology. The main frames of IBM were far more technologically advanced. The genius was in reworking the technology to suit the needs of people for independence, low cost and ease of operation.

The increasing need for reinvention is of vital importance to the Newly Industrializing Economies. We are not doomed to forever follow in the tracks of the fore-runners. The new technologies of the future and the staggering pace of their development give us the power, if we are clever, to leap over the old, established leaders; to reinvent the basis for competition. To do that, however, we must first get into the technology game. We must access technologies from abroad that we do not already have and partner with foreign firms to acquire the competitive knowledge that we need.

We must understand the deeper workings of the technology, and perhaps more important, understand the underlying needs of the people who will use it.

Companies around the world have large inventories of innovative devices and processes. This technology, however, is worthless until it can be connected to human needs. So an adhesive invented by 3M that didn’t stick very well seemed like a failure until it was converted into the yellow “Post-it” notes that are now stuck everywhere.

Clearly two kinds of knowledge are needed – the understanding of the technology and the understanding of how to make that technology serve human needs.

Despite the increasing recognition that both of these kinds of intellectual capital are essential to future financial results, companies have often failed to value it sufficiently or manage it properly. That is a problem for those companies and an opportunity for those who need to play “catch-up.”

Dow Chemical for instance found that of its 29,000 patents, less than half were being utilized. Dow concluded, however, that the company owned intellectual assets that went much beyond patents – technical expertise, trade secrets, and market knowledge and distribution systems. The failure of companies to identify and value their intellectual assets properly will be exposed in any technology cooperation agreement.

Whether we work for Western companies with high technology or Asian companies with high aspirations, we cannot assume that technology in and of itself will lead to success. It is effective acquisition and proper management of all sorts of intellectual assets that provide competitive advantage.

A recent study in Thailand examined the effects of technology acquisition on 20 different companies in a variety of energy-intensive industries. The study found that the major impact of the technological cooperation did not result from the main investment, but from incremental efforts to improve production procedures and systems associated with the new technology. The study found that these associated improvements did not take place in every company. These changes took place only in those firms where there were organized structures of knowledge and resources dedicated to absorbing a wide range of inputs from the technology provider. The most successful technology cooperation had little to do with technology in and of itself, but much to do with the managerial capabilities of the firms involved.

So technology cooperation must be far more than moving machinery or gadgets to a new location. It requires investment of time and resources, not just in the technology itself, but in acquiring the necessary knowledge that goes with it. It implies a genuine partnership: combining intellectual assets, transferring managerial techniques, re-training people and possibly re-organizing our businesses. The goal should not be technology, but capability.

In the next week you will focus on negotiation as the core of a process that delivers that capability by creating new combinations of intellectual assets. Negotiation is far from all of the process, but it sets the framework and often the tone for what must follow. If it is done poorly, it will be difficult to avert failure. Clearly it is not an easy process. Not only are there difficulties in valuing the assets that each side provides, there are barriers of distance, culture and information.

In areas of new technology development and technology transfer, Asian managers often face difficulties in working out where they should focus. They often find out later to their disadvantage that issues they thought were insignificant turn out to be very expensive.

The process should begin with an understanding of the motivations of each side. The technology seeker must understand why his company needs the technology. This requires an examination of the company’s current capabilities, its aspirations, its market and its competitors. This is essential to deciding on the scope, extent and costs of the technology cooperation arrangement. The seeker must also find out as much as possible about the motivations of the provider.

There is a tendency to think the technology provider has all the cards. The seeker must count his own cards: the technology owner’s need for the marketing, production and adaptation abilities that the seeker can provide.

The negotiation must specify all the elements of the technology to be acquired. It is essential that those broader intellectual assets we noted earlier be specifically included. It is usually to the advantage of both parties to have an explicit process to transfer such assets as scientific understanding of the technology, technical expertise in its manufacture, systems for maintenance and repair, ongoing training and effective marketing approaches.

All of this is actually based on people. It therefore requires such people-based mechanisms as conferences, seminars, open communication and opportunities for informal inter-action. Typically, these are overlooked or under-estimated.

Much of negotiation concentrates on the “what” to negotiate. However, it is equally important for Asian managers and their Western counterparts to understand the “how” of negotiation; that is, how culture, style and strategy influence the negotiation outcome.

The Technology Leadership Program therefore will go beyond lectures and develop a negotiation simulation that will test skills and strategies. The beauty of the simulation is that you will get not only expert guidance and review, but that you can’t drive your company into bankruptcy while you learn.

Having been through some rather difficult negotiations myself, I can tell you that negotiating talent is only a small part of the formula for success. You have to work hard to develop the information needed to map out a clear strategy. You have to see the process from the point of view of your partner, but you also need the determination to stick with your own strategy and achieve your objectives.

As a senior manager you have to bring all the elements together into a cohesive strategy and then you have to build the teams and make the decisions that make things happen. Doing this in the cross-cultural context that is typical of technology cooperation adds new dimensions to the challenge. I am sure you will learn a great deal from your teachers, but you will also learn from each other.

Your tasks are genuinely important – to a great extent the future of your companies will depend on you and your ability to move towards technology leadership. The development of our economies, in turn, depends on corporate abilities to develop technology and connect it to human needs.

But don’t completely forget the beauty of our surroundings. Enjoy the course – both the executive course, and perhaps even the golf course, enjoy Phuket and return home to enjoy great success.

Remarks by Mr. Anand Panyarachun

at the Morning Convocation, University of Victoria
Victoria, B. C., Canada
November 27, 1993

It is highly significant that of the three recipients of honorary degrees of the University of Victoria in 1993, two come from a region which is now commonly referred to as East Asia. Dr. Chen-Fu Koo from Taiwan is a much – respected figure not only in his own country but is well – known all over the region. His name is synonymous with the remarkable progress and development of Taiwan. His consistently wise counsel to the government played an important role in enabling Taiwan to achieve its present status.

I myself also come from that region. Admittedly, Thailand’s record in the past decades cannot match that of Taiwan, but gradually she, along with other Southeast Asian countries, is travelling towards the same destination.

East Asia stands out among developing regions for its spectacular economic growth and impressive reduction of poverty. But is also stands out as a region marred by degradation of air, water, land and biodiversity. If not corrected in time, this encroachment on the environment will undo the tremendous progress in human development that the region has achieved. It will make long – term economic growth unsustainable in East Asia.

Global Changes

Much of the economic success of East Asia has to a large extent been a result of the region’s commitment to the role of education in development. The long-term returns of the region’s educational investments are beginning to bear fruit. If we are to continue to move forward, we must ensure that education in East Asia and elsewhere always responds more readily to the changes taking place around us.

There have been many in recent years:

• the end of the cold war has altered the types of problems mankind is dealing with to include more economic and social issues;

• improved information and transportation flows have increased the amount of ideas and goods available to address these new questions; and

• the increasing integration of the world economy has given us more choices and options, increasing the complexity of the environment in which these questions are both posed and answered. Actions we take increasingly “spill over” to affect other countries or sectors.

All these developments have radically changed the way we look at the World, and education must equip us with new tools with which to approach the challenges.

Promoting development means promoting responsibility. This is the more traditional, and time-tested, role of education in development. Education plays a crucial role in creating not only personal development, but also social progress.

One example of this increased consciousness is the ability to gain a better understanding of politics and democracy and of events beyond one’s own locality.

Another example of increased consciousness is looking at how industrialization and the economic development process can be pursued to truly benefit all members of our society. With such an awareness, we will be able to address income and regional disparities that often occur along with economic development, and which can prevent the benefits of development from reaching those who need it most.

True education not only creates awareness of technological possibilities, but also develops a moral consciousness to manage the development of those possibilities.

Expanded information and technology flows require that we prepare our people to be a part of the information age; expanded training in electronic data processing and communications technology are necessary for such countries as Thailand to maintain the economic progress it has experienced in recent years.

Education and Regional Development

A recent study of the Asian Development Bank on regional cooperation in the education sphere concluded that there is a strong link between “education and training on the one hand, and productivity and income on the other”.

At a most basic level, education, especially of women who have been a neglected target group, has a crucial effect on poverty, health and nutrition, and can drastically improve basic standards of living.

While improvements in primary education are seen as most likely to yield the highest returns, technical and vocational education, especially management training, is singled out by the Bank as the most important way to help alleviate serious skills shortages in certain parts of the region. Focused training can promote such sub-regional sectoral efforts as development of tourism and of new technologies.

Consultations with regional governments showed they feel that coordinating at least some elements of higher education, especially research capabilities, on a sub-regional basis will increase the region’s knowledge base and ensure that skills crucial to economic development are available from among the population of the region.

Challenges

The following are the challenges as I see them:

First, to promote the internationalization of education by forging more International linkages between educational institutions. Regional information networking, faculty and student exchanges, and International cooperation on research, curriculum development and training at both graduate and undergraduate levels are ways to further Internationalize education.

Second, to encourage educational institutions to continuously enhance the relevance of educational curricula to respond to evolving economic, political, and social conditions and to improve linkages between the education sector and other sectors in the economy. All areas of knowledge must be approached by being placed within a comprehensive international context.

Third, to use education as a tool to promote social progress of our nations and increase mutual trust and understanding. World leaders can make peace and war, but it takes ordinary citizens to create world understanding. Proper education can encourage social responsibility, individually and collectively, and an awareness of global perspectives and common global problems that can override parochial concerns.

In all these areas, the University of Victoria has consistently taken the initiative to pursue courses of action, which are designed to meet these challenges.

I wish you success in your commitments to the future.

Keynote Address

by Mr. Anand Panyarachun
Chairman, Saha Union Group of Companies
on “International Cooperation
Among Higher Education Institutions”
Kasetsart Golden Jubilee International Convention
Kasetsart University, Bangkok
August 10, 1993

Distinguished Participants, Ladies & Gentlemen:

I am honoured to be with you at this Golden Jubilee Convention marking Kasetsart University’s 50 years of excellence in serving our country and bringing together such an impressive group of international and domestic educators.

In my term as Prime Minister, I would like to think that I played a role in stressing the emphasis that must be placed on education, which should be high on the agenda of all future governments. I am reminded of a talk I gave last August to the Foreign Chambers of Commerce, where I stated:

“A better educated population will be the key to our nation’s efforts to tackle the challenges of the future. Higher levels of education will lead to greater political awareness, reduce differences in economic opportunities between urban and rural areas, and the enhanced competitiveness of the Thai economy.”

As a private citizen, I continue to believe strongly in that statement. Education is the key upon which the development of the Thai society rests, and, indeed, the development of the entire Southeast Asian region.

In my talk today, I shall first present my views on the changing role of education in the world economy. Then, closer to home, I shall put forward some thoughts on the crucial role of education in the regional context – both for ASEAN and for the emerging nations of Indochina, Myanmar, and southern China. Lastly, I shall conclude with some ideas on the challenges to be considered and addressed by this prestigious international convention.

1. Role of Education in a Changing Global Economy

To play a vital role in shaping society, education must continuously respond to the changes taking place around us.

There have been many in recent years:

• The end of the cold war has altered the types of problems mankind is dealing with to include more economic and social issues;

• Improved information and transportation flows have increased the amount of ideas and goods available to answer these new questions; and

• The increasing integration of the world economy has given us more choices and options, increasing the complexity of the environment in which these questions are both posed and answered. Actions we take increasingly “spill over” to affect other countries or sectors.

All these developments have radically changed the way we look at the world, and education must equip us with new tools with which to approach this increasingly challenging environment.

Of course, the traditional role that education has played in helping our country develop must not be overlooked.

Successful economic development rests on the development of each person to his fullest intellectual and moral ability. A tall order, but one I am sure you are capable of filling.

Promoting development means promoting responsibility. This is the more traditional, and time-tested, role of education in development. Education plays a crucial role in creating not only personal, but social maturity.

One example of this increased consciousness is the ability to gain a better understanding of politics and democracy and of events beyond one’s village or town of birth. This will be accompanied by increasing political development and a strengthening of society’s institutions to achieve true social maturity.

Another example of increased consciousness is looking at how industrialization and the economic development process can be truly useful and productive for all members of our society. With such an awareness, we will be able to address income and regional disparities that often occur along with economic development, and which can prevent the benefits of development from reaching those who need it most.

True education not only creates awareness of technological possibilities, but develops a moral consciousness to control the development of these possibilities.

We should never forget to pay attention to developing people into socially responsible citizens with the same intensity we give to developing new technologies. This moral component of education is one of the foundations of the Thai nation and a most valuable asset of traditional methods of education that we must preserve as we expand our horizons to meet the new challenges of today’s changing world.

Building upon this solid base, education must now evolve to meet these new challenges.

Expanded information and technology flows require that we prepare our people to be a part of the information age; expanded training in computers and communications technology are necessary for such countries as Thailand to maintain the economic progress it has experienced in recent years.

I am sure you are also well aware that the main client for university graduates has substantially shifted from the civil service to the private sector. This means that more effective inter-facing between universities and the private sector is essential and we must develop innovative programs to ensure this is achieved. Industry/academic cooperation can ensure that research is quickly applied to serve the general public.

Another new challenge we must meet is the ability to support sustainable development. Environmental awareness, energy efficiency, and conservation technology must all be addressed to stop the depletion of our natural resources. Our development must be built upon sustainability of these resources, or we will end up paying more later for their rehabilitation. People are but one of our available resources, and education should teach us that improvement of our own condition is dependent on the improvement of our environment.

Environmental cooperation is one example of how countries can cooperate to pool talented manpower to address common global problems. As the world gets smaller, we must educate people to understand their neighbors and their neighbor’s concerns, to be more tolerant. Cultural understanding and a global perspective come through awareness of other societies, and universities must increase this awareness. Only by achieving such an understanding can Thailand truly function in today’s global economy and participate in the fight to solve our global problems.

At the same time, social responsibility can be promoted by increasing awareness of those less privileged within our society. Universities must continue efforts to extend themselves to the community to ensure that new ideas reach all levels of the population.

Kasetsart began pioneering such an outreach approach some 40 years ago, offering short courses during holidays, off-hours, and weekends to small entrepreneurs, farmers, and to mothers at home. Such efforts should be expanded to ensure that those who cannot attend university full-time can still profit from our centers of higher learning.

The evolution of education is fundamental to our societal development. While traditional roles must always remain, evolve, and be improved, efforts to implement the newer roles education is being called upon to fill must be given top priority.

2. Education and Regional Development

In Southeast Asia, and the areas around Thailand in particular, there exists significant scope for education to play a key role in promoting economic development in the emerging nations of Indochina, Myanmar, and southern China. Thailand’s recent economic prosperity has caused us to transform our role in some cases to that of a donor, instead of a recipient, country.

A recent study of the Asian Development Bank on regional cooperation in the education sphere concluded that there is a strong link between “education and training on the one hand, and productivity and income on the others.”

At a most basic level, education, especially of women, has a crucial effect on poverty, health and nutrition, and can drastically improve basic standards of living.

While improvement in primary education is seen as most likely to yield the highest returns, technical and vocational education, especially management training, is singled out by the Bank as the most important way to help alleviate serious skills shortages in parts of the region. Focused training can promote such sub-regional sectoral efforts as development of tourism and of new technologies.

Interviews with area governments showed they feel that coordinating at least some elements of higher education, especially research capabilities, on a sub-regional basis will increase the region’s knowledge base and ensure that skills crucial to economic development are available from among the population of the region.

As an example of such regional research and training, I may cite Kasetsart’s Regional Community Forestry Training Center (RECOFTC), which is being sponsored by the Asian Development Bank, along with Swiss and Thai agencies. This community forestry training program utilizes knowledge from several different countries by employing resource persons “on-loan” from various public and private groups. The global community helps preserve a dwindling global resource – the forests – through a cooperative university program. Further collaboration of this kind between countries will help reach the goals on our global and regional agenda, of which resource preservation ranks high on the list. Universities are the natural catalyst for sharing the knowledge needed to reach these goals.

At another level, there still exists considerable scope for enhanced cooperation between the ASEAN nations in the human resource development arena.

Development of additional area-oriented specialized regional research/ education centers, such as SEARCA in the Philippines, BIOTROP in Indonesia, and AIT in Thailand should be promoted. Cooperating universities can channel themselves into technology generation and transfer as an inter-disciplinary project.

Encouraging the academic and private sector to work together, while at the same time encouraging academic cooperation, is especially important in newly emerging areas of technology. Development and successful transfer of these technologies is key to strengthening regional economic competitiveness and improving the welfare of each of the ASEAN national economies.

An increased number of regional cooperative science parks and research centers can be facilitated by seeking multilateral and bilateral funding to support these initiatives. Such an area-oriented view for university research agendas greatly assists regional economic development by expanding our existing body of knowledge while simultaneously integrating that knowledge with the regional economy.

In these ways, better regional cooperation can be supported through better academic cooperation.

3. The Challenges Posed for this International Convention

Although I am far from being an educational expert, I shall take the liberty of concluding with four main challenges that I urge the educationalists present here to address during this ambitious Inter-national convention.

First, to promote the internationalization of education by forging more international linkages between educational institutions. Teacher exchanges, student exchanges, and international cooperation on study and training at both graduate and undergraduate levels are all ways to further internationalize education. To this can be added specific networking opportunities between academics in different countries through information exchange and research.

Second, to encourage educational institutions to continously develop their curricula and course offerings in response to evolving economic, political, and social conditions and to improve linkages between the education sector and other sectors in the economy. All areas of knowledge must be approached by being placed within a comprehensive international context.

Third, to use education as a tool to promote social maturity in our nations and increase mutual trust and understanding. World leaders can make peace and war, but it takes ordinary citizens to create world understanding. Proper education can encourage social responsibility and an awareness of global perspectives and common global problems which override parochial concerns, whether personal, local, or national.

Last, to combine increased international linkages with international understanding to initiate concrete educational initiatives to assist the newly emerging nations of the region in their economic and social development. By also forging links with other ASEAN economies for mutual assistance in these areas, we can further the development of the entire region.

I am aware that these are not small challenges, and that your deliberations will not end with this convention. But I am equally sure this conference is a perfect example of the critical long-range thinking the education sector needs to face these challenges.

I look forward to observing your successes in these areas, and to the resulting continued social and economic development in the Southeast Asian region amid improved trust and understanding among our peoples.

I wish you all good luck as you tackle these critical challenges.

“Reaching the Information Gateways:
An Unfinished Task”

Address given by Mr. Anand Panyarachun
at the 65^th General Conference of
International Federation of Library Associations
and Institutions (IFLA)
Bangkok, August 24, 1999

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The invitation extended to me by Khunying Maenmas Chavalit, President of the National Organizing Committee responsible for this Conference, presented me with a challenging task. I must admit that the thought of addressing an audience of library and information experts from all over the world was indeed daunting, since I am merely a user of the final product, with limited knowledge of the theoretical and technical processing of information. Nevertheless, I am a staunch advocate of the reading habit, of self-acquiring of knowledge, and of life-long learning. Therefore, I take this opportunity to share with you my concepts on libraries, and my views on the roles of information and communication in the future. To perform effectively in the business world, the “demand and supply” theory is an essential guideline. Likewise, in the world of information and communication, the expectations and needs of consumers have to be taken into account in charting the path of information development.

Looking back into the past, humankind has evolved its communication mode from the primeval body language to the ancient oral tradition, to the book culture, and now to the domain of information technology. One of the most significant events of the 20^th century was no doubt the invention of the computer. A decade or so ago, we claimed to be on the threshold of a new world - a global village where time and distance had taken on new concepts. Consequently, we cannot discuss the new role of libraries without examining the effect and implications of the advancement of information technology.

We are all aware that communication techniques refer not only to tools and procedures, but also to knowledge, content and symbols required for reading, renewing or transmitting information. When all these technologies are harnessed in support of information collection, storage, retrieval and dissemination, they can have a significant potential to enhance life-long learning, in terms of quality and quantity. They posses the potential to have an impact on poverty eradication, sustainable development, and in bringing about social equity.

The number of books and written materials coming out of the press and other media continues to increase day by day, which inevitably means that readers have to be more selective and discerning. Likewise, libraries all over the world, large or small, public or private, must find alternative ways of coping with the information deluge, while keeping in constant view the demands of the clientele. To serve as a change agent, libraries have to change their role constantly from being a mere depository of books to being not only a reservoir of knowledge, which is essential for an individual to make informed judgement and for sharpening a human mind, but also a facilitator of the proficiencies to select the required information out of the deluge.

When one considers ways to support the development of libraries, the most obvious concern is the physical infrastructure. The problems related to space, acquisition of books and hardware items, design of hardware and software, repair and maintenance, replacement of outdated machines, lack of power supply, etc., continue to plague all types of libraries.

Furthermore, the current trends seem to suggest that books will increasingly be replaced by computer elements processed by various types of software. The effect of globalization is quite strong when it comes to the use of software programmes developed extra-nationally. The development of indigeneous software is a demanding task, requiring time, skill and funding, but it is a task that must be seriously considered, in order to safeguard against intrusive foreign cultures, particularly when they affect the young minds, and more so, national cultural identity. After all, technology in use is not simply machines and hardware, but also a collection of transferred attitudes, values, social norms and beliefs. Cultural pollution has already become a phenomenon of serious concern in many countries.

Let us consider the Internet as a concrete example. When we mention Internet, we think of the vast quantity of information available in an instant from all corners of the globe. It is perhaps the largest knowledge and information base in the world today. Internet is certainly a jungle of wonders, from which we can acquire information at our own discretion. On the other hand, Internet is also a jungle of hazards, where there is no control on pornography, propaganda, advertisement, violence and crime. A recent example was the case of students learning from the Internet how to make bombs, which killed a number of adults and teenagers at their own school in the U.S.A. Then there have been cases of misuse of the Internet to get information from children for illegal purposes. I was glad to read from a newspaper recently that in the U.S.A. the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act will become law in the year 2000. This will forbid advertisers to receive personal information from children less than 13 years old without offline parental permission. Controls on the Internet are possible, but, as has been shown in countries that have applied these controls, the balance between control and freedom to obtain information is a very sensitive one.

Apart from the question of hardware and software essential for user-friendly library services, the psychosocial component has to be taken into account. If a library is to be completely computerized, then efforts must be made to promote the willingness of children and adults to go into information technology with confidence and enthusiasm. This calls for intensive education and training, both for producers and users of information. Otherwise what is the use of having sophisticated technologies which people are hesitant to use, either because they are too complicated to handle, or the products do not meet the requirements of the users? There is a recognized need to instruct users how to cope with tools for searching for information. In some countries, this is still a transitional period when both the old and new skills are competing for limited instructional opportunities.

While on this subject, let me digress a little and mention that, with the globalization and advancement of information technology, I believe that our educational direction and effort should be geared towards equipping our children with the essential tools for survival in the future world. Among these tools are computer literacy and languages. Since English is currently the most common computer language, proficiency in English must be stressed.

However, sophisticated the machines and electronic processing methods are they will become valuable only when they are put to good use by the human component of the information set-up. Hence librarians must play a dynamic and catalytic role. They must be sensitive to the needs of their specific groups of clientele, be they the public, the institution or organization staff, the teaching cadre and students in colleges and schools. This calls for full involvement of librarians in the planning and operational aspects of the set-up, so that the work of librarians not only reflects the immediate needs of the users, but also a forecast of what is to come. For example, when a school curriculum is to be refocused on, let us say, environment, teachers and students should be able to gather information ahead of time on the subject, which means that the librarian must start acquiring materials and software on environment prior to the actual implementation of the curriculum. Unfortunately I have heard complaints from librarians that they are sometimes isolated from the decision-making process of institutions, as if they can function in any direction they like, and not as information support to on-going or future undertakings. That will not do. Librarians must take part in conferences and seminars where plans and programmes are initially discussed and developed. How can any decision be made without a proper information base? At the same time, every effort and provision should be made to encourage librarians to undergo regular training and attend refresher courses to update their knowledge and skills to keep up with the latest accesses to information. Surely the caretakers of the various information gateways must be kept alert and ready to usher in those who pass through the threshold of the information sphere.

I am sure all of us here still recall vividly our school and college days when libraries were essential and indispensable study rooms where we spent long hours searching and digesting information. Without libraries, we would not have been exposed to scientific knowledge, artistic work and philosophical thoughts, and the visions and wisdom’s of great minds. People of my generation had library books as tools for learning, but my grandchildren’s generation is more fortunate to have a variety of electronic tools to access information.

While appreciating the good fortune that enabled me to recognize the full value of libraries, I often ask myself the question: How many others are not so fortunate? Let me take Thai children as examples. Although nowadays a much larger number of students make good use of libraries, thanks to the government and private-sector efforts to set up libraries both in the urban and rural areas, often I noticed that the books and materials remained almost too neatly arranged on shelves, with very few being used. Worse still, some schools are still lacking space and funds for setting up book corners, let alone proper libraries. When it comes to information technology, the disparities between elite schools and poor schools are quite vast and increasing. The trend appears to marginalize the latter more and more, which in fact means marginalizing the poor evenmore.

This must surely disturb us, as we strive for social justice and equity, and as we advocate participatory democracy across the nation. The more this disparity increases, the more knowledge becomes monopolized by the minority “non-poor”, and the capacity of the poor for wholesome participatory decision-making is correspondingly denuded.

The picture is even more dismal when we consider the Asia and Pacific region as a whole, where the population is almost 3.3 billion, or 54.5 percent of the world’s total population 1/. In terms of geography, culture, population density and income distribution, it is a region of sharp contrasts, a home to over two-thirds of the world’s poor, with 620 million illiterates, or 70 percent of the world’s total illiterates 2/. With such socio-economic, cultural and educational deficiencies, any effort to improve the quality of the people must be encouraged, and this certainly includes the active role of libraries in opening up the knowledge horizon, especially amongst the young.

Concern must also be expressed, as within countries, of the dangers of marginalizing whole nations as the information technology gap widens among them.

Every time I hear people in urban areas talk about the Internet, E-mail and faxes, I cannot help but think of a large number of those who do not have access even to conventional telephone services. Governments in least developed and developing countries are still dependent on outside resources to improve their information and communication technologies. Even within a country, these technologies may widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Hence the question of access and equity cannot be ignored. It is an established fact that those equipped with information technologies exert more economic, cultural and political power over those without, since knowledge is power, and those with better knowledge are likely to survive in this highly competitive world.

A wealth of information is available via various modes of information and data processing. To-day information technologies greatly facilitate libraries to ensure that the content of information meets the real needs of the consumers in terms of timeliness, relevance and utility. Those making use of libraries have recognized that behind the information gateways lie multiple paths to knowledge, wisdom and enlightenment. Some of us have passed through some of these gateways, while several others are unfortunately struggling to reach them, due to both internal and external circumstances and limitations. There must be an honest sensitivity of all concerned, particularly policy makers.

To the need of the unreached, otherwise the continued marginalization will widen the gap and seriously affect national development efforts, and a nation’s place in the international arena.

The main theme of this Conference mentions an “enlightened” world. Although the concept of “enlightenment” may seem rather Utopian, it is worth striving towards it. To me an enlightened society must first and foremost be a learning society, where people are eager to become wiser through the search for proper knowledge. This is by no means an easy task. Several gateways towards knowledge sources are available, among them libraries. Still, it is the will of human beings that spurs them on to reach those gateways. Perhaps the very first step would be to develop a critical reading and listening culture, to encourage the young to ask questions and get correct answers, to think for themselves and apply what they have learnt to improve the quality of life. Some pockets of society may be more “enlightened” than others. It is the unreached that should be the focus for development actions, and the target of library service planning.

Several tasks remain to be done, and must be done quickly to narrow the chasm between the influx of information and the transmittal and spreading of information. All actions should focus on equal access to information, which is the right of a citizen. Libraries must make it their mission to reach the currently unreached population, thus contributing towards the development of an egalitarian society. Most important of all, the ultimate goal of libraries is to turn data and information into knowledge, and to ensure that such knowledge serves as a source of wisdom; for without wisdom there is no enlightenment. Only then can we expect the 21^st century to usher in an era of an “enlightened” world. The word “enlightenment” to me, as a Buddhist, brings with it a vision of a world of Metta, Karuna, Mudita, Upekkha, which mean loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. Let us all unite our efforts to make this world a peaceful world.

1/ UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1997 (Year 2000 projection)

2/ UNESCO Compendium of Statistics on Illiteracy, 1995

(Year 2000 projection)