The Academy of Socio-Economic Research and Analysis was founded to undertaken research and advocacy on economic justice in the Asian region and globally. Since its conception in 2004, it has engaged in numerous projects relating to gender and Islam in Asia, the economic and social history of Straits Muslims in the Malay Archipelago and more recently, migrant women workers in the Asia-Pacific region. Industrialisation and globalisation has forced minorities, women and the poor to cross borders to seek more secured livelihoods .In the process, some forms of exploitation have occurred at worksites since people on the move are for the most, poorly educated and politically represented. There have been rising incidences of ethnic racism and hostilities towards migrants although they fill up menials jobs which are usually avoided by local workers. The economic history of population movements in Asia and the Pacific suggest that there are significant opportunities for socio-economic mobility as seen in the material wealth generated by migrant Chinese and Indians in the region. However some populations, like the indigenous minorities and majority indigenous people have not made significant advances in economic wealth although some are accorded with prominent political status and popular power. It is significant that rural populations have for the most been unsuccessful in adaptation or integration with new work cultures of globalisation despite efforts made to provide them with affirmative status and privileges. The diversity of socio-economic livelihoods among local and migrant populations may be a product of colonial history but post-colonial politics, growing ethnic and religious consciousness and the rising plurality of work and trade have elucidated differential strengths and weaknesses among communities in the Asia-Pacific, necessitating different kinds of development strategies and policy approaches for women, minorities, majority indigenous people and migrants. Since global work systems are becoming more internationalised, it is appropriate that global labour policies relating to systems of recruitment and employment, domiciliation and remuneration be more rigorously streamlined to enable a more equal and just work culture to emerge and one that can transcend local economic and gender politics and culture.

It is increasingly argued that material wealth is just one form of wealth and that social wealth or social capital is essential for societies to develop effectively. A well conceived policy of democratic education, comprehensive health care and welfare system with sustainable development could generate productive and secured communities of the future. Democracies with healthy opposition from organised politics and civil society could transform a patriarchal and authoritarian society to a self-critical thinking society where it is equally possible to engage in constructive criticism of domestic and global politics without fear of censorship or punishment. Even if the reaction to criticism is swift, clinical and legal, it curbs minds to be brave and thinking and the end result is an obedient society without creativity and imagination. It may score high on the chart of material development but is socially and politically too immature to understand its own vulnerable future. Freedom of mobility, security from crime, civil disorders and terrorism are again necessary for economic growth and a growing climate of insecurity both domestic and global must be honestly addressed in relation to root causes and events. To approach the "consequence" as the "cause", to caution the global community to "fear and resist" rather than to "learn and understand" is a poor execution of global governance. It provides few solutions for peace and ammunition for more conflict and unless this is a desired outcome, to use military strategies to gain access to borders and resources, communities will be drained of their social wealth and eventually will succumb to primordial and essentialist emotions, rendering a course for future violent agendas with personally justified motives.

An agenda on social wealth to evaluate human development and civility through successful policies of social and economic justice in the form of gender and ethnic equality, social democracy and security will lay the foundations for material wealth and prosperity which in turn can advance social wealth further. We need not necessarily be victims of globalisation if we have social wealth. We could be successful participants of global economies as long as values, policies and conflicts are correctly addressed in the local and global politics of economic change. These values should be embedded in a culture of sharing knowledge and ideas rather than an imposition of values perfected by the West for their own ends.

Finally "the prosecution (must) rest" for the global society to take its natural course. A long-term policy of ideological or political extermination of ethnicity, faith or culture does not bury it permanently. It retreats and resurfaces in forms so bizarre and incomprehensible that social education may prove obsolete even for the best minds.

 

Wazir Jahan Karim
September, 2006