Join JMD at May 29 Webinar 1200-1300 (CST) Soccer as an Engine of Change and Assertion of Identity

Dear All,

Those interested in participating in the Webinar, please register at

https://connect.dco.dod.mil/ckcspeakers


Hope to meet you there.


Best,


James

Ignoring social media at your peril (AJF News)

JAMES M. DORSEY is part of the team organising the Asia Journalism Forum conference on Media and Political Change in Asia and the Middle East. In this article, he reflects on the lessons that governments need to learn from the Arab revolts.

If there is one event or region that has highlighted the impact of technology and social media on policymaking, social movements and protest, it is the Arab revolt that has been sweeping the Middle East and North Africa since december 2010. Many have dubbed the popular revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Syria a “Facebook revolution” because of the use by middle-class activists of social media in the build-up to the mass anti-government protests that have so far toppled four Arab leaders.

Similarly, social media and mobile telephony play a key role in Syria in circumventing news blackouts and censorship to get news of the brutal crackdown by the government of President Bashar al Assad to the outside world. They also figure in exacerbating sectarian tensions between the country’s Sunni Muslims and Alawites, the minority sect to which Assad belongs.

Yet, despite the perception of many, it is not technology that sparks revolts.

No doubt, social media facilitate and accelerate the speed and breadth of communication, and impact politics, social movements, communications and the flow of news. But the answer to the question whether the Arab revolt would have erupted without Facebook is a resounding yes. To dub the Arab revolt a Facebook revolution would require revising explanations of past revolts such as the Islamic revolution in Iran and popular uprisings in the Philippines and Indonesia.

To be sure, technology plays an important role in protests and revolts. In Iran in 1979, it was the cassette tape that helped Ayatollah Khomeini to inspire millions to overthrow the Shah, at the time the most powerful symbol of US influence in the region. In Tunisia, a mobile phone video of a young man setting himself on fire in desperation, tapped into widespread discontent and brought thousands into the streets of Tunis. Cassettes and mobile telephony are technologies that autocrats understand.

Social media, however, is a game changer.

Pro-democracy activists understand social media and the opportunities they offer in ways that autocratic Arab regimes find difficult, if not impossible, to grasp. Social media change the way communications and public affairs are managed, particularly in a crisis. That requires a degree of sophistication that many but particularly autocratic governments often find difficult, if not impossible, to marshal.

In fact, employing that degree of sophistication would require a far-reaching revision of the way most Arab autocrats do business. Syria is a case in point. The government’s approach to online information warfare involved its Syrian Electronic Army hacking hundreds of opposition and international websites, to assert that it was battling terrorists.

Perhaps what is most frustrating to Arab autocrats is the fact that the combination of mobile telephony, the Internet and social media has rendered censorship futile and fundamentally rewritten the ground rules of communications policies. Social media have turned the shaping of the narrative into something much more complex, in which governments and institutions have to engage in ways they did not have to in the past.

For one, communication has become a two-way street. Shaping the narrative no longer means control, instead it means engagement. That is an approach that in the best of circumstances is a difficult one, but particularly for embattled autocrats, because it requires a mind shift that few autocrats can make.

Even the Western media had problems in adjusting to technological change. When newspapers shifted from broadsheet to tabloid formats, not only did size change, so did the content, the story. Similarly, moving the print edition of a newspaper on to the Internet proved to be an unworkable formula. It failed to recognise that technology had replaced one-way communication with interactivity and changed the way news is consumed and what an empowered public expects of news organisations.

As a result, governments and institutions, irrespective of the political environment they operate in, are being forced to rethink their approach to communications. They have to pay greater attention to the way they project themselves, their policies and the way they relate to the public in a new and increasingly complex communications landscape. 

Technological change means that governments and institutions have to be more attentive to public opinion because whether or not that opinion can be freely expressed social media enable it to become part of the public domain.

The international community looked to the Arab street in the wake of 9/11 for change that would eradicate the breeding ground of extremism. When the Arab street did not immediately revolt, government officials, analysts and journalists wrote off the Arab street. Nonetheless, the widespread discontent continued to simmer at the surface. It was palpable if one put one’s ear to the ground.

If the current Middle Eastern revolt and its embrace of technology teach anything, it is that where discontent exists but cannot be expressed openly, it will be expressed elsewhere in what constitutes a truer reflection of reality. It is a reality enhanced by technology that Middle Eastern and North African autocrats ignore at their peril.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at NTU’s  S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. He is the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. This article was published in AJF News.

Football Seeks Fans (JMD Quoted in Asia 360)

Football Seeks Fans

Chelsea star Didier Drogba surrounded by fans upon arrival in Kuala Lumpur this July as part of Chelsea’s preseason tour of Asia. Images: Mohd Rasfan/AFP FIFA Club World Cup fails to get Asians excited about Asian football The Manchester United bumper stickers, Real Madrid t-shirts and Liverpool hats that abound on the streets of Jakarta, Mumbai and Beijing illustrate how much Asia loves football. But it is a love that is seemingly reserved only for overseas teams. Local leagues simply do not generate the excitement that the big foreign football leagues do. Given this, when two Asian clubs reached the semi-finals of the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan this week, most football fans in the region were more focused on Barcelona (Spain) and Santos (Brazil), the other two clubs left in the tournament. The FIFA Club World Cup, held annually since 2005, includes representatives from each of FIFA’s six continental football confederations and one local club. The tournament’s global representation is intended to provide a more holistic platform for the world’s best football clubs to do battle than more established continental tournaments such as the Champions League in Europe or the Copa Libertadores in South America. Asian Champions League winners Al-Sadd of Qatar reached the semi-finals of the Club World Cup with a 2-1 victory over African champions Esperance of Tunisia on December 11. Japan’s Kashiwa Reysol also made the semi-finals the same day, defeating Monterrey of Mexico 4-3 on penalties in front of a rowdy home crowd. But for many fans, the real tournament did not start until Barcelona and Santos took to the pitch. The two clubs were granted automatic qualification into the semi-finals. Some take exception to the imbalanced fervour of Asian football fans. A post on the blog, Stop EPL [English Premier League] Colonialism in Asia, earlier this year sums up the situation from a Singaporean point of view. “If fans want to see improvement in the S-League [Singapore’s Professional Football League], they have to be the change themselves and select an S-League team to support,” the post said. “They can buy match tickets, club merchandise and help spread the word about their favourite football club.” “And hopefully with this initiative, we may one day see Singapore move away from EPL colonialism and stand proudly for our own S-league.” European leagues, of course, enjoy the luxury of having the world’s best players to help sell their product. But their popularity in Asia may also be simply due to better marketing. “One part of it goes to the success of [European Leagues]. The other part of it is the outreach and the marketing of the clubs,” said James Dorsey, a veteran journalist who blogs at The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. European clubs have successfully projected themselves as global brands, making ample use of the Asian market in the process. Most major European clubs take preseason tours of Asia, playing sold out exhibition matches against various national teams and clubs in Asia. European leagues claim that these tours aid the growth of Asian football. “We’re here and we’re adding interest to the game, adding interest to football generally,” Dan Johnson, the chief spokesperson for the Barclays Premier League, told The Jakarta Post in August during this year’s preseason tours. “I think if you can leave a legacy there as well as generating interest in the game, that’ll develop the game here and we take that very seriously.” Others, however, are quick to point out the flaws of Johnson’s argument. “How can a Chelsea team playing a mishmash All-Star Thai team help the local game, especially when the Thai national team is playing Palestine in a crucial World Cup qualifier?” Anthony Sutton, a football journalist for The Jakarta Postwrote. “It may seem unimportant to Chelsea, with its big money players and its chairman and his fancy yacht, but the qualifiers are important to Thailand. By having Chelsea play in town on the same weekend, it diluted the experience.” Some Asian football leagues enjoy a decent amount of local support. But there is little doubt that many Asian teams could market themselves more effectively. This sentiment was echoed earlier this year by Stop EPL Colonialism in Asia. “Corruption and plain incompetence are issues in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia whilst in Singapore there has almost been an unwillingness on the part of the FAS [Football Association of Singapore] to promote their domestic S-League.” Kelvin Leong, the senior manager of corporate communications digital media for the FAS, has a different opinion. “We believe that there is always a following for local football and we have our marketing initiatives that help to entice the fans to keep supporting local football,” Leong told Asia360 News. Leong, however, declined to elaborate upon the marketing initiatives of the FAS. Some Middle Eastern clubs are certainly starting to market themselves more effectively. According to Dorsey, Al Jazira, a small club based in the United Arab Emirates, quadrupled its ticket sales after taking active steps to reach out to fans. Other clubs such as Persepolis in Iran, have massive local fan bases, which can perhaps spark broader followings beyond borders. “These clubs have the potential of becoming — maybe not global brands — but regional brands,” Dorsey said. “If you want to market that properly, you’d probably make some inroads.” For Middle Eastern clubs though, making those inroads in large parts of Asia may be easier said than done due to the manner in which continents are defined by FIFA. Japan and Korea have been the nexus of Asian football for decades. They are not only the two Asian nations to have advanced beyond the group stage of the World Cup on multiple occasions, but also had the distinction of co-hosting the 2002 World Cup, which saw Korea make the semi-finals. Indeed, when Al-Sadd defeated Korean club Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors 4-2 on penalties in the Asian Champions League Final on November 5, they became the first club outside Japan or Korea to win the title. Though some Middle Eastern nations have made waves on the international scene, they are generally not viewed by football fans as “Asian”. “The Middle East has never projected itself that way as such,” Dorsey told Asia360 News. “They [Japanese fans at the Club World Cup] would probably not [cheer for Al-Sadd] because of the Asian perception that the Middle East is not Asia.”

Raising the stakes: Russian military support for Syria

RSIS presents the following commentary Raising the stakes: Russian military support  for Syria by James M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click  on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS  Commentaries, at  RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg No. 181/2011 dated 9 December 2011 Raising the stakes: Russian military support for Syria By James M. Dorsey Synopsis Russia is stepping up military support for Syria; reinforcing its opposition to international  efforts to force President Bashar al-Assad to halt his eight-month-old crackdown  on anti-government protesters. In so doing, Russia is turning the Syrian crisis into an international test of wills. Commentary RUSSIA IS reinforcing its opposition to international efforts to tighten the economic  embargo on Syria by sending a Russian battle group of three vessels led by an aircraft  carrier to the eastern Mediterranean. The flotilla, expected in the region at the end of  this week, is likely to dock in the Syrian port of Tartus, Russia’s only naval base in the  Mediterranean, before the end of the month, according to Russian defence officials.  The arrival of the flotilla comes on the heels of the delivery to Syria of supersonic  anti-ship Yakhont cruise missiles as part of an agreement signed in 2007 and a Russian  promise to go ahead with the training of Syrian personnel in the use the state-of-the-art  weapons. As Syria teeters on the brink of civil war, Russia, in sending a flotilla to the eastern  Mediterranean and maintaining arms supplies to Syria, is in effect bolstering President  Bashar Al Assad’s resolve not to give in to international demands that he halts his  brutal eight-month-old crackdown on anti-government protesters.  That corner of the Mediterranean is already being patrolled by US 6th Fleet warships led  by an aircraft carrier. By raising the bar, Russia is signalling its determination to foil  attempts to strangle the Syrian leader’s regime and also hopes to reduce the  chances of a military intervention in Syria, possibly spearheaded by Turkey. In a defiant  show of force, Syria last week held war games that included test-firing of missiles and  air force and ground troop operations. Capitalising on influence in Damascus In an ironic twist, Russia’s breaking of ranks with the international community could  position it alongside the Arab League as the only power potentially capable of coaxing  Assad to moderate his hard line towards his opponents. Russia has consistently resisted  efforts in the United Nations Security Council to condemn Syria as has China, which  however, unlike Russia, has declared its support for sanctions imposed by the Arab League. Syria this week conditionally agreed to allow Arab observers into the country to monitor  compliance with a government ceasefire in a bid to fend off stepped up Arab sanctions and an  Arab push for UN involvement in the crisis. With Syria having repeatedly broken its earlier  pledges to halt the crackdown, it remains to be seen how serious Assad is this time around.  Moreover, the battle lines in Syria have hardened to a degree that opposition forces may be  unwilling to settle for anything less than Assad’s demise. Russia’s defiant resistance to allowing Syria to be internationally isolated is fuelled by the fact  that it has far more to lose politically, strategically and economically in Syria than it did in  Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen - the four Arab nations whose autocratic leaders were this  year swept aside by the wave of anti-government protests sweeping the Middle East and North  Africa. The naval base in Tartus is operated by the Russian military under an agreement signed in  1971 between Syria and the then Soviet Union even though the Soviet Navy’s Mediterranean  Fleet was disbanded after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As a result, the port’s floating  docks fell into disrepair and Russian naval vessels rarely visited. That changed four years  ago when Russia decided to renovate the base and turn it again into its window on the  Mediterranean. Some 600 Russian technicians are upgrading facilities, dredging the harbour,  and preparing it for Russian Navy port calls of which the Admiral Kuznetsov would be the first. Political risk outstrips economic and strategic stakes Russia’s economic stakes in Syria are equally high. Russia has concluded US$4 billion  worth of arms contracts with Syria and has invested some $20 billion in Syrian infrastructure,  energy and tourism. Russia’s Stroitransgaz is building a natural gas processing plant and  supporting an Arab gas pipeline while Tatneft, which is already pumping Syrian oil,  announced earlier this year that it would invest $12.8m in oil exploration near the Iraqi border. If the economic and strategic stakes are high, they pale from Russia’s perspective compared  to the potential fallout if Assad’s opponents prevail in the face of a crackdown that has so far  cost 4,000 lives, wounded thousands, and led to the arrest of even greater numbers. Russian  forces have this year killed some 300 militants in the northern Caucus, a patchwork of ethnic  and religious groups where Islamists regularly attack Russian targets. They could well be  encouraged by the toppling of Assad.  Alternatively, a Syria that disintegrates as a result of  civil war could equally inspire militants in Russian republics like Chechnya, Dagestan and  Ingushetia. Syrian acceptance of Arab League observers, if implemented, offers Russia the opportunity to  align support for Assad with Arab efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis peacefully. The question  is whether a negotiated solution that seeks to meet protesters’ demands for an end to  repression and corruption and a transition to democracy, is possible as long as Assad  remains in office given that the Syrian leader and his cohorts are unlikely to risk a political  opening after so much bloodshed. At the very least, Russia hopes that by positioning itself alongside the Arab League as a  key player with influence in Damascus it will be able to protect its interests by shaping  whatever negotiated resolution is achieved whether or not it maintains Assad in office. The  alternative - the overthrow of the Assad regime - would constitute a significant setback for  Russia not only in the Eastern Mediterranean but also across the Middle East and North Africa.    James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies  (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.  He has been a journalist covering the Middle  East for over 30 years. Click here for past commentaries. Find us on Facebook. Due to the high number of publications by our RSIS Centre for Non-Traditional Security  Studies (NTS), RSIS maintains a separate subscription facility for the Centre. Please click here to subscribe to the Centre's publications.

LSDP MEETS JAMES M. DORSEY (GT 2011 N.79)

LSDP MEETS JAMES M. DORSEY (GT 2011 N.79)

di LO SPAZIO DELLA POLITICA       sezione: POLITICA GLOBALE

The butterfly effect of our “Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2011 list” continues.

Today we propose an interview with James M. Dorsey (GT 2011

number 79), Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International

Studies, syndicated columnist and author of the acclaimed blog,

“The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer“. Dorsey is one of the most

capable analysts about the Arab world, and one of the few who have

underlined the key role of sports in the Arab spring (Egyptian role in

Tahrir Square clashes) and as a geopolitical factor in general (2022 World

Cup).

You were one of the first that underlined the role of the  Egyptian

football supporters in Tahrir square.  How would you describe this 

role? Why this connection? What did they bring that other

people on the square was lacking?

Egyptian soccer fans modelled themselves on the ultras in Italy and

Serbia. They share their militancy, degree of organization and willingness

to employ violence with their European counterparts. What sets them

apart is that they are highly politicized and developed in an autocratic

society where the mosque and the soccer pitches were the only

venues where one could release pent-up anger and frustration. As

a result, they were the one group that was fearless and had

garnered street battle experience in years of clashes in the

stadiums with security forces and supporters of rival clubs. That

enabled them to play a leading role in the destruction of the

barrier fear that had prevented people for standing up for their rights

and to become in effect the protesters’ shock troops, the ones

that defended protesters on Tahrir Square against the security

forces and groups loyal to former President Hosni Mubarak. Since

the fall of the Mubarak, the ultras were in the front of protests demanding

an end to corruption, a more pro-Palestinian Egyptian foreign policy

and that the transition military government keep its promise to lead the

country to free elections. They were the ones who stormed the offices

of the State Security Service immediately after Mubarak’s downfall as

well as the Israeli embassy in Cairo in September and battled security

forces on Tahrir Square last month.

We all know that Al Jazeera had an important role on the Arab

Spring, but maybe not everyone is familiar with the role of it had

already in the Arab world through football, what can you tell us

about it?

Al Jazeera is one of the major sports broadcasters in the Arab world,

if not the predominant ones. Its acquisition of the broadcast rights of major

leagues and tournaments including the 2014, 2018 and 2022 World Cups

and league matches in for example Egypt and France is part of Qatar’s

strategy to use sports as a political and commercial tool. Al Jazeera Sports

however played less of a role in the Arab revolt than the main Al

Jazeera news channel.

Is it possible to compare the Tunisian supporters during the revolution

with the Egyptian ones? Which are the similarities and

differences?

The root causes for the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia are the same: a

quest for dignity, political freedom and economic opportunity. The difference

in the way they unfolded and the way the transition to a more open

society is occurring lies in the structure and role of the military. In Tunisia, the

military had no stake in the old regime, which had marginalized it, radically

cut its budget and and decimated its officer corps. As a result, it also had no

vested interests to defend in whatever would emerge from the ashes of the

regime of ousted President Zine el Abedine Ben Ali. In Egypt, the military

as the transition government had its own interests: a significant say in

national security, lack of civilian oversight, a commercial conglomerate of its

own and a direct relationship with the US. Preserving those interests

makes the military an interested party, not an independent arbitrator in the

transition process. As a result, the transition in Egypt is far messier than in

Tunisia.

Could you please describe the importance of football players in the

revolution in their countries? We are thinking about two different 

kinds of examples: The case of Abdelbasset Saroot in Syria (positive)

and the divisions in the Egyptian national team (negative).

By and large football players and managers have stayed on the sidelines

of the revolts in the Middle East and North Africa. This is largely cause

managers are regime appointed and players enjoy many perks. The two

exceptions are Libya where four months into the revolt a split emerged

in the national team with the captain supporting Qaddafi  and some

players joining the rebels. In Syria, the national team goalkeeper

has been imprisoned while the goalkeeper of the national youth team is

a leader of the protests in the city of Homs.

The Qatari royal family have been selected by us as global thinkers

n°1, how would you describe the links between the different members

of it?

The Qatari royal family is an interesting study in contradictions. It is without

doubt the most visionary and creative of the Arab rulers,witness the creation

of Al Jazeera which revolutionized the Arab media landscape, its

employment of sports as a policy and economic tool and its independent

foreign policy. While it has recently announced elections, it remains how all

of this and the lessons of the Arab revolt will be translated at home.

From East to West, from North to South there is a trending  topic lately

Turkey as model for Tunisia and Egypt, which is your opinion?

There is for the first time a power vacuum in the Middle East and North Africa

that is not being filled by a global power. The competition is between Turkey,

Iran and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia brings financial clout and the moral

power of being the guardian of Islam’s two holiest cities but lacks the military

clout to make a sustainable claim. In addition, Saudi Arabia is not a system

many want to emulate and is vulnerable to domestic challenge by protesters

seeking real change. Iran similarly does not have a system others want to

emulate and is likely to at some point witness a revival of its own. With other

words it is Turkey’s to loose. Turkey is a model of an open political system

that is economically successful and proved that Islamists can perform in a

pluralist, secular system.

World cup 2020. You have often explained the economic impact that

it will have in a country as Qatar. Is it possible that the FIFA

investigation confirms the corruption accuses? Which will be the

economic consequences of this?

Theoretically anything is possible. If it comes however to an investigation,

I suspect that it will emerge that Qatar technically will not have violated

rules or crossed red line. What I expect will also emerge is that Qatar

skillfully employed its financial muscle to exploit gray areas that need to be

resolved in a revision of FIFA’s bidding rules and process.

Egyptian elections have just finished. Do you think that, this chapter

being closed, we can expect an important change in Syria and

a bigger involvement of the international community? Is it possible

that they were waiting for the elections to happen and refrained

themselves to act before that in order not to create too uncertainty to

Israel?

I don’t think that there is a link in terms of timing between the Egyptian

elections and potential intervention in Syria. I think one will initially see

stepped up covert support for the dissident Free Syrian Army that has a

base on the Turkish side of the Syrian border and eventually a possible

Turkish buffer zone inside Syria. I suspect that if it comes to a full-fledged

military intervention and that would still be a ways off, it would be

a Turkish-spearheaded effort.

(Interviewed by Andrea Matiz)

‘THE ARAB SPRING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON SOUTHEAST ASIA’

JAMES M DORSEY LECTURE: ‘THE ARAB SPRING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON SOUTHEAST ASIA’

By Refana Juanda, SHHBIDSS

BOLKIAH GARRISON, Thursday 1 December 2011 - The Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (SHHBIDSS) conducted a lecture this morning at the Officers’ Mess in Bolkiah Garrison. The lecture, entitled ‘The Arab Spring and its Implications on Southeast Asia’, was presented by Mr. James Dorsey, a Senior Research Fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Mr. Dorsey discussed the developments of the Arab Spring and how it impacted Southeast Asia, especially with regards to governance, Islam and energy resources. The lecture was attended by the Ministry of Defence and Royal Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF) officers as well as defence attachés and representatives from various government agencies and tertiary institutions. The next lecture is expected to be held in January 2012.

Year of the Arab Uprising: Impact on Southeast Asia

RSIS presents the following commentary Year of the Arab Uprising: Impact on Southeast Asia by James M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at  RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg

---

No. 177/2011 dated 30 November 2011

Year of the Arab Uprising:
Impact on Southeast Asia

 By James M. Dorsey

Synopsis

The popular revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa are part of a global demand for political openness and transparency. Southeast Asia has so far proven adept in its response but has yet to address fundamental issues.

Commentary

TUNISIAN STREET vendor Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation was not simply a cry for justice, freedom and economic opportunity. It was an act of desperation in the face of humiliation, a cry for dignity that resonated with the masses across North Africa and the Middle East.

Bouazizi's death sparked a move to end not just the yoke of tyranny but of neo-patriarchic rule in which the autocratic father figure replicates himself throughout society from head of state to village chief to the head of the nuclear family. The system franchised authoritarian rule. As a result Bouazizi’s cry for dignity was and is a quest for citizenship rather than guardianship, for legitimate authority, transparency and ultimately true sovereignty.

Arguably, more than anything else, Bouazizi’s cry integrated the relatively inward-looking region from Morocco to the Gulf into a globalised world. The region became part of a global trend and in some ways its most resilient, poised to rewrite political geography. The demand for openness and transparency, fuelled by a perceived failure of existing institutions, manifests itself in different ways in different parts of the world. In the West it's Occupy Wall Street. In the Middle East and North Africa, pushing for greater transparency often meant violence to change ossified dictatorships incapable of accommodation of people's aspirations and reform.

Southeast Asia not immune

Southeast Asia has not been immune to the global trend. Nonetheless, to suggest that the Arab Spring would spark a counterpart uprising in Southeast Asia would be far-fetched. Southeast Asia was already confronting calls for change before the Arab revolt erupted and the impact of the trend in Southeast Asia is evident.

Myanmar has cautiously relaxed strict government control, Malaysia responded to 

sharp criticism of the police by repealing two sweeping security laws and lifting restrictions on the media and Thai voters returned to power the party of deposed premier Thaksin Shinawatra, a victory for his red-shirted supporters involved in bloody clashes with the military last year. In doing so, Southeast Asian governments have proven to be far more attuned than their Middle Eastern and North African counterparts to what was happening around them and have displayed a greater deal of vision and flexibility. Nonetheless, they will also require forward planning.

Ensuring energy security

When, rather than if, the Arab uprising inevitably spreads to the Gulf, Southeast 

Asian nations will have to define the risk to their energy security and develop alternatives in case of a disruption in oil and gas supplies as well as increase their focus on alternative energy options. Some, like the Philippines, will also have to deal with the impact of large numbers of migrant workers returning home to escape erupting turmoil.

Non-oil producing Southeast Asian nations like Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines depend on the Middle East for 70 percent of their oil and gas imports. 

In addition, Southeast Asia and the Middle East are crucial links in a seaborne commerce conveyor belt that runs from the Gulf to the Pacific. If the Straits of Malacca and Singapore were seen until now as potentially risky maritime choke points, today it is the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf and Bab el Mandeb between Somalia and Yemen that are more vulnerable.

Asia would be most affected if shipping particularly through the Straits of Hormuz were to be interrupted. The United States gets 22 percent of its oil from the Gulf, Europe about 30 percent but Asia all of 75 percent, which makes Asia having the most at stake in terms of energy security.

Southeast Asia’s strategic advantage

Almost a year into the Arab revolt, the Middle East and North Africa region is looking at up to a decade of volatility, uncertainty and bloodshed. The region may be the part of the world where resistance to change will prove to be most adamant with consequences far beyond its borders. 

Southeast Asian nations, unlike those in the Middle East and North Africa, with few exceptions have demonstrated an ability to respond to demands for openness and transparency and sought to restore confidence in institutions in ways that do not escalate tensions. Nonetheless, steps taken by Southeast Asian government are likely to prove insufficient. Those steps are by and large designed to remove immediate lightning rods and release pent-up frustration but often do not really address basic grievances, among which corruption figures prominently.

A majority of Southeast Asian governments, unlike their Middle Eastern and North African counterparts, enjoy varying degrees of popularity and legitimacy. To the extent that there is a desire for change, it is a desire to effect change with the government, not in spite of it. That is an asset few Middle Eastern rulers can claim. However to maintain that strategic advantage, Southeast Asian nations will have to develop enlightened, proactive policies that go beyond removing immediate irritants and address real concerns.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.  He has been a journalist covering the Middle East for over 30 years