April 2010

Few days ago I was at the 7th Asean Leaders Forum. At the session for Young Leaders Forum, the panelists were Abidin Muhriz (Institute for Democracy and Economics Affairs), Benjamin Quinones (Coalition of Socially Responsible SMEs) and Karim Raslan (Karim Raslan Associates).

I tweeted live as the session was going on, they are as below,

*scroll all the way down and read from bottom up, as I can’t be arsed to edit this whole thing

• Forum finish. Kudos to organizers. Start and end on time.
• Asean does not really hv2break its rules on non-interference on undemocratic issues by its members,but tht it refuses 2 touch d issue-abidin
• @KarimRaslan pls correct me if I misquote u. Gd session so far.
• The forum is shifting to speak more on civil society organisations. CSO.
• Unfortunately politicians c journalists as trash at d bottom of their shoes,shld they happen2 touch it.d same way they c CSO’s @KarimRaslan
• We live in silos. Integration , we have trouble doing it in malaysia. Let alone doing it asean. @KarimRaslan
• We think we are the multicultural success. But more often than not we don’t live it. We live in silos. @KarimRaslan
• Abidin said 1diff btwn asean and ec is tht we hv very diff political systems.also we dd not share WW2 d way d eu did.Our demographic is vast
• Also he said definitely we dnt want asean to follow tht path.taking directives fr less democratic powers
• Abidin said its def wrong to group d 2 together. EC has become somewhat of an authority leaving some eu states ‘losing’ its sovereignity
• I jst asked a q abt how ppl r hard on asean,bt europeans say d same thng abt EC.How far behind is asean to ec?is there even a parallel path?
• Mr Ben saying there’s a lot of room for young ppl in the civil society.
• Abidin who agreed w @KarimRaslan abt tht but we dnt need asean to do tht. KRA confirms & says,yes we shld move it on our own bcz we nd it
• Our unis r not sending students2neighbouring countries nor r we settin up Indo Dept in uni.We shld learn abt our neighbrs @KarimRaslan
• We shld be doin what singapore did years ago when they noticed they were limited by their demands & looked at their neighbours. @KarimRaslan
• There are a lot of ppl who want to use the asean platform. But not many ppl know how to or can. – @KarimRaslan
• Mr Benjamin said it must start local. At d same time,only in some areas there’s a strong drive for volunteerism.Aftr @KarimRaslan talks abt how d oil palm industry is bein viewed v diffrntly by d rural as oppose 2 urban area.Income vs. Enviro concerns.
• Chap fr Philippines said4enviro dev planning can start by bringing ppl2have more contact point.He quoted a grp of Thai kids brough2d Mekong
• There arnt many youths here at this Young Leaders Forum. Abidin fr IDEAS jst gave his intro.Nw is Chairman of Coalition of Socially Resp SME
• I’m by far the most under-dressed person at this 7th Asean Leadership Forum. Session jst started. @KarimRaslan speaking on Indonesia & Asean