Futures
Visions for Southeast Asia: Some Early Warning Signals
Conference
Report
Sohail Inayatullah
Organised by the Institut Kajian Dasar (IKD) or Institute for
Policy Research and the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF) a
workshop on Futures Visions for Southeast Asia was held in Penang,
Malaysia from September 15-18, 1994.
The Institut Kajian Dasar is an independent policy research
organisation committed to investigating economic and social development
trends and practices in Malaysia. It takes into account the moral and
ethical dimensions of development as well as the political and the
economic.
The World Futures Studies Federation is an international
non-governmental organisation affiliated with Unesco. It has more than
500 members from over 90 nations. Members conduct futures research and
policymaking and are from corporate, governmental and NGO sectors of
society. They are committed to the view that the future should be kept
open and that all cultures should be actively involved in creating just
and peaceful futures.
The meeting was coordinated by Dr. Azizan Baharuddin, a visiting
fellow at IKD and Professor Tony Stevenson, Secretary-General of the
WFSF. Resource experts invited to present papers and lead workshops were
Dr. Ziauddin Sardar, from the United Kingdom, Dr. Sohail Inayatullah, a
Pakistani living in Australia, and Professor Cesar Villaneuva, from the
University of La Salle in the Philippines. Participants included leading
Malaysian corporate leaders, scientists, government officials and
academics.
Purpose
The purpose of the workshop was to introduce futures studies to
this august group of leaders and to imagine alternative futures for
Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia. It is a part of a larger strategy
of key leaders in the Malaysian government to broaden the economic base
of Malaysia by beginning to enter the knowledge-production economic
sector.
While Malaysia is already a leader in planning for the future
(witness the Malaysia Vision 2020 national project) the focus of this
workshop was on generating alternative visions of the future. Moreover,
while planning often assumes a surprise-free environment, the IKD
visions workshop was concerned with emerging issues, or issues that
might dramatically change the social, economic, and cultural
environment. The workshop focused not on creating one future but on
investigating alternative futures. Finally, a major task was to develop
consensus on preferred visions of the future--what groups and
individuals desire to see happen.
The format of the conference was based on keynote speeches by
Sardar, Inayatullah, Villaneuva and Stevenson, followed by scenario
construction and visions workshops. The speeches provided the
theoretical framing as well specific scenarios of what might happen,
while workshops provided the actual experience of doing future studies
Introductory
Session
Zia Sardar, an Islamic scholar and independent futurist,
contextualised the meeting by asking what is the role of planning and
futures in Islam. He argued that the Prophet himself was a great planner
and it was through his vision, his ability to plan for the unforseen and
to strategize that Islam grew. Islam itself was a future-oriented
ideology, it was a preferred vision of a different world when it was
first uttered. However, today Muslims live in a world that is unfamiliar
to them since Islamic categories of reality are not the ones that are
used. The task for Muslims today is not so much to seek new converts but
to recreate knowledge schemes so they more accurately represent the
vision given to them by the Prophet. The operating question then is:
what are the basic schemes from which an alternative Islamic polity,
economy, and culture can flourish? Thus, understanding the future and
creating is and always has been central to Islam. While we should always
trust Allah, we must not forget to tie our camel.
Opening
Ceremony
The Inaugural Session was held at the Universiti Sains Malaysia
in Penang. Tony Stevenson argued that the future should be multicultural
and that the world needs to begin the process of having a grand dialogue
about the future. Moreover, the future should spring from a culture's
own categories. The future needs to be decolonised. Stevenson argues
that the WFSF is interested in foresight not prediction and that future
visions must be linked to current decisions. He also believes that
Malaysia can provide a model for the rest of the world to learn from in
that it has managed to combine culture and economic development.
The Chief Minister of Penang, who was invited to officiate the
meeting, argued that Malaysia needs to plan for the future. He pointed
out that the future is especially important now because of the rate of
accelerating change. The Malaysian government has already begun to use
planning methods to create a future that represents national integration
and industrialisation.
In his concluding speech, Dr. Azizan Bahari, Executive Director
of IKD, raised key issues as to the future of Southeast Asia. Will it be
able to provide new leadership to the world? How will Southeast Asia
deal with new technologies such as in telecommunications? Will this lead
to closer links or to increased dependency on Western formations of
news? How will changing demographics impact Southeast Asia? Can we
imagine a cultural renaissance coming from Southeast Asia? He argued
that we need to investigate these and other issues and help not only
keep up with the rapidity of a changing future, but be part of the
global process of creating the future.
Keynote
Presentations
In the first session, Sohail Inayatullah examined the politics of
forecasting methods. He covered methods such as trend analysis and
cross-impact analysis arguing that while they were useful in predicting
the future, they leave out too many variables and often the social
assumptions behind these variables are left unexplored as well.
Inayatullah also examined causal layered analysis and emerging issues
analysis, examining, for example, the implications if Malaysia becomes a
world intellectual centre. Methods, he argued, should attempt to be
predictive, interpretive and critical, that is, asking not only what
will the future be, but how different cultures and traditions construct
the idea of the future. He also arged that we need to unpack the
assumptions and the politics of particular statements made about the
future.
Inayatullah concluded his session with alternative scenarios for
Asean. These were a ceremonial Asean, that is, a failed Asean; an Asean
that becomes culturally, political and economically linked; and an Asean
that remains tied to previous colonial links, that is, one with strong
vertical links with the West and weak horizontal links between members.
In his lecture, Cesar Villanueva used the Philippine case to
discuss alternative futures for Southeast Asia. Using the metaphors of
typhoons, grand waves of change, he argued that
the first typhoon is the rush to
become a dragon, to export the nation into wealth. The second typhoon is
internal migration (from the rural to the city) and external migration
(labor moving across all borders in search of better living conditions).
The third typhoon is the spread of the tourism/consumerism paradigm and
the resultant costs to the environment. The last typhoon is the growth
of non-governmental organizations, the possibility of a strong civil
society.
The contending scenarios for Southeast Asia in the year 2020 are
first the "Dinosaur Future." In this future, the entire region
achieves developed status. Traditional values are replaced by the
post-industrial values of leisure, artificial communities, and
spacelessness. In the second scenario of "Seas of Separation"
ethnic conflict and cultural differences lead to fragmented communities
and nations, each in fear of the Other. The latest technologies are used
to ensure that the poor, the Other, do not cross over into one's own
community. In the third scenario, the "Mosaic Future,"
communities are empowered, federated and based on cultural and
environmental concerns. Communication technologies aid in recovering
community and economic development aids in creating strong democracies
committed to spiritual and environmental interconnectedness. For
Villaneuva, the key to understanding the future is to examine the future
of communities, asking what forces are impacting them, and what they are
doing to create their own future in the midst of these typhoons.
In his lecture, Tony Stevenson discussed the futures of
communication. The
emerging communications and information technologies (C&IT) are set
to change the nature of the social fabric like nothing before, he
argued. But in what way is still unclear, believes Stevenson.
On superficial inspection, these C&IT seem to be shrinking
the world in terms of linkages across spatial and cultural differences.
But, at a closer look, this shrinkage could be leeching the very
creativity from a traditional sense of community that thrives on local
initiative, decentralised autonomy and diversity.
Stevenson argued that the human ability to symbolise has
transformed social interaction and the inner, human experience.
Developing into speech, and later writing, this symbolising has been at
the very heart of humankind's manipulation of plant and animal life.
The globalisation spawned by this advanced, symbolic system and
its impingement on our species' own biophysical homeland, now stands
ready to turn back on the very social system which created such
conditions. This backlash will be aided and abetted by the emerging
information superhighway. There are thus three contradictory, if not
competing tensions between: globalisation and localisation;
centralisation and decentralisation; and standardisation and
diversification. They represent the paradoxes of C&IT.
Stevenson believes that there are four possible scenarios. A
"Drab Uniform" scenario where new technology homogenize social
relations. A "Gold Lame and Sackcloth" scenario in which there
comes to be two worlds, an information and money-rich scenario, and
information and money-poor scenario. In a "Rich Tapestry"
future, cultures blend together to create a new future. In the
"Bazaar" scenario, culture remains less blended, with
technology making the world a giant marketplace of many forms and shapes
of ideas, goods, and identities.
Zia Sardar spoke about the centrality of values in thinking about
the future. Even while postmodernism takes us to positions of cultural
relativity, as we design and think about the future, we should not
forget that there are certain universals, even if these are interpreted
differently. Islam in this sense becomes a compelling vision of the
future. Values remain central to Islam giving us a vision where the
environment, social justice, and concern for the Other are uniquely
integrated with spiritual values which give us direction. Unlike
modernity, which as replaced values by instrumental rationality, Sardar
argued for a vision where who we are and what we believe, and how we
treat others is central.
Workshops
These keynote speeches were interspersed with special group
meetings which functioned as practical workshops. In the first workshop
emerging issues and metaphors were discussed. Emerging issues are those
that are have potentially a high degree of impact but are generally not
known. Discerning them is difficult since the present forces them into
conventional categories.
Some of the issues presented by participants were:
(1) Deterioration of the natural environment
(2) Questioning of development
(3) Rise of consumerism
(4) Disintegration of traditional social structure
(5) Polarization within society because of religious fundamentalism
(6) Malaysia playing a dominant role in regional and international
affairs
(7) A shortage of skilled labor
(8) New types of leisure and the problem of too much free time
(9) A greater flow of information within and into Malaysia
(10) Illegal immigrants
(11) Increasing cults
(12) Increased domestic violence and child abuse as the family begins to
breakdown
(13) Pornography
(14) New diseases
(15) Environmental problems such as deforestation and waste disposal
(16) Urban problems such as traffic jams
(17) More critical attitudes towards royalty
(18) Emergence of a generation of Malay entrepreneurs
(19) New converts to Islam.
These issues were criticised as being overly present-focused, as
many of the issues considered "emerging" had already emerged.
Resource experts challenged participants to move farther into the
future, asking them to imagine second and third order impacts, to begin
to think of the impossible, as they develop their own preferred visions
of Malaysia and Southeast Asia. This challenge led to participants
creating vision statements and futures such as a culturally and
politically integrated Asean and the establishment of global centres of
learning in Malaysia.
In addition to emerging issues analysis which helps both forecast
the future and contest conventional categories of the future, metaphors
give us seeds as to what the future can be. Metaphors help us envision
the future. For example, the metaphor of the ocean gives a sense of an
unbounded future. The dice gives us the metaphor of total chance.
However, each metaphor misses various factors. The ocean, for the
Muslim, misses the role of family, community and the divine. The dice,
as well, does not take not take into account destiny. In the workshop
the task was to investigate which metaphors within Malay society best
describe the future.
It was argued that Malay proverbs and metaphors portray the whole
spectrum of Malay socio-cultural life of the past, present and the
future. Malay proverbs enforce Malay consciousness with regards to time
management, hard work, a state of preparedness for the future,
integration into Malay socio-cultural life, village solidarity,
leadership roles, Malay identity vis-a-vis other ethnic groups, as well
as Malay political leadership. With respect to the future metaphors
generally are agriculture based such as, "plant maize while waiting
for the paddy to be harvested," that is, be prepared for the
future.
Other proverbs of importance in Malay are:
(1) Sediakan payung
sebelum hujan (prepare the umbrella before it rains)
(2) Biduk lalu
kiambang bertaut
(3) Tuah ayam terletak
di kaki, tuah manusia tidak siapa yang tahu (the good fortune of a
rooster can be seen by looking at its claws; the good fortune of a man
however is invisible)
(4) Dengar guruh
langit, air di tempayan dicurahkan (when thunder is heard, water in the
storage vessel is thrown away)
(5) Tidak Melayu
hilang di dunia (together we ascend the mountains and together we
descend the valleys)
(6) Bukit sama didaki,
lurah sama dituruni (water is concentrated because of the vessl that
contains it but people are strong on the basis of mutual understanding)
(8) Bulat air kerana
pembentung, bulat manusia kerana mufakat
In general, Malays are occupied with adat: Biar mati anak jangan
mati adat (one must never lose sight of what it true and just).
Visions
The next group session began directly to move into visions. Zia
Sardar interviewed various individuals and asked them how they see the
future, that is, what a day in their life would look like in 30-50
years. For some, this meant a new Kuala Lumpur that was highly
technological and environmentally friendly. Public transport would be
inviting, eventually almost replacing the car. The city would be
accessible and architecturally rich. For another, it was a world where
they could use helicopters to fly to meetings. News would be people
oriented, Malaysia would be less Kuala Lumpur centred, and the country
would be connected by numerous highways. A third person saw a nation
where the people were organised around the values of the Quran, where
the ulema were scientists and scientists were ulema. However, in this
person's vision, there was much to be worried about. There would be more
patients seeking professional help, especially women, as men would not
raise families and, in fact, would continue to exploit women. Divorces,
depression, and other psychological problems would continue to increase.
Another person saw Southeast Asia as an integrated region. It would be
multi-cultural, multi-religious, and multi-lingual. The operating value
would be living in diversity. One participant described in detail the
monetary system of the time, largely one where Malaysians had a great
deal of ownership in the economy. It would be a shareholding democracy,
where there would be a happy co-existence between Islamic finance and
secular institutions. The Malaysian Ringitt would continue to gain in
strength until it became valued at double the US$. Politicians would be
increasingly scrutinized and the nation would have a strong social
support system. Development thus would be sustainable, integrated and
holistic. Research institutions would be focused on finding ways to
prevent natural calamities. In a startling high-technology vision, one
participant described a world where there would be no politicians, where
computers would do almost everything. Power would be decentralised into
the communities. However, even with strong self-determination there
would be agreed-upon universal values. The United Nations would play a
much stronger role in the world, and there would be regional governance
centers.
These visions generally showed the optimism the group had. They
emphasised the need for universal values even within diversity. They saw
Malaysia and the region as culturally, economically, and even
politically integrated in the long term future.
Scenarios
This workshop laid the groundwork for collective, group scenarios
and visions of the future. In the discussion on scenarios, a range of
scenarios were posited as ideal types. The first was the continued
growth, status-quo scenario. This assumes that the past will continue
into the future, basically more of the same. The second was the collapse
scenario, which assumes that because of contradictions in the first
scenario there would be a social, technological or economic collapse.
The third assumes a return to a past steady state, prior to growth. The
last scenario is of the transformational type, which assumes that there
will be fundamental societal, technological or spiritual changes. The
past will not continue, instead, there will be a rupture and some new
type of society would emerge.
The groups divided into two, one focusing on the status-quo
scenario and the other on transformation. In the status-quo scenario for
Malaysia in 2020, it was assumed that economic growth would continue,
and that there would be political stability with no foreign
interventions and no natural disasters.
It was forecasted that there would be a decrease in the gap
between the North and Southeast Asia; that Southeast Asia would become
increasingly democratic, adopting a soft-authoritarian type of polity.
The dominant paradigm would be that of consumer-led economic
development. Economism would dominate culturism and environmentalism.
Malaysia, in particular, would begin to have greater control of its
manufacturing. Moreover, it would be technology, not politics, that
would lead to greater regional cooperation. Cities would continue to
grow with megacities emerging. Poverty would be reduced, natural
resources would be exploited, and the people would be cheerful but
vacant.
Using this scenario, participants attempted to backcast from 2050
to the present. What follows is one group's effort at this.
Backcast Exercise
1995
1.
Southeast Asian multinational corporations develop.
2.
Southeast Asian leaders have summit meeting.
3.
Liberalisation of economic policies from state to
regional level is agreed upon and implementation steps begun.
1996
1.
Establishment of Southeast Asia Funds (mobilisation of
regional funds for investment overseas) and Southeast Asia
Investment and Development Bank (providing assistance for poorer
countries within Southeast Asia).
2.
Highly skilled and high quality human resource base
continues to emerge.
3.
Agreement on Research and Development goals and
policies reached.
4.
Asean University setup.
1997
1.
Southeast Asia high technology centre (run by private
corporation) is established. It helps move the region from mere
manufacturing to invention.
2.
SEA leadership Summit reaffirms goal of an industrialised
region by 2020.
1998
1.
High growth region image is promoted.
2.
Highly skilled and high quality human resource continues.
3.
Five major stockmarkets in the region flourish.
Capitalism continues to grow.
2000
1.
Reverse investment from the region to the rest of the
world.
2001
1.
Great depression in the First World.
2.
SEA leaders Summit attempts to soften impact of
depression on Southeast Asia.
2010
1.
New Period of growth centred around the Pacific Rim
begins.
2.
Signing of Memorandum between SEA and the world leads to
greater integration of the region with the global economy.
2020
1.
Malaysia achieves its Vision, becomes an industrialised
nation.
2.
SEA leaders summit continues, now meeting yearly.
2030
1.
Asean nations are able to sustain high economic growth
|
The transformational scenario is in some ways similar to the
status-quo in that economics and technology play a central role in
driving the future; however, in this vision, language, religion,
politics are equally important.
In this scenario, Malaysia plays a much more central role in the
political, cultural and economic integration of Southeast Asia. To begin
with, transportation will be pollution-free and perhaps even
self-powered. Along with high-technologies such as robotics and
telecommunications systems, there would be extensive reforestation. At
the political level, integration will be quite rapid with the
development of an Asean Parliament, an Asean court of Justice, and a
rotating head of Asean. Travel would be possible without passports, at
least in the region. An Asean passport would emerge which would be
respected world-wide. Malay would most likely become the common language
of the region, although English would still be important. The gap
between the rich and poor would be dramatically reduced, partly by
export economies, partly through more local forms of tourism, and partly
through the success of Islamic welfare economic practices. Agriculture
would become increasingly mechanised. There would be a common currency
and a common economic policy. Eventually, a common defense policy would
emerge. The region, however, would be integrated into the world economy
but on its own terms, not those of the North. Malaysia would become a
center of Islamic learning, particularly, Islamic medicine. Both Western
and Eastern medicines would become commonplace. Society as a whole would
become caring, with strong social and family networks. Daycare would
become statutory, in addition. The region would be a cultural, economic
and religious centre--a renaissance in all areas of life.
This group chose not to backcast the entire scenario but only
determine how Malaysia would become a centre for Islamic medicine. By
and large, it was argued that more funds would go in that area, cures
for numerous diseases would come from Islamic medicine and individuals
and societies would be attracted to it because of cost-savings and
because of its holistic nature. In addition, since it blended Western
and Eastern medicine, individuals from all over the region and world
were attracted to it. Breakthroughs came, however, when deadly viruses
were cured through Islamic medicine. In addition, as Malaysia and the
region became richer, instead of spending money on arms, national
surplus went to health and education. A sophisticated centre for
medicine was established in Kuala Lumpur. Technology, coupled with
holism, that is, an eclectic focus, led to the development of Malaysia
as an Islamic centre, particularly for medicine.
Resolutions
On the final day, group visions and backcasts were presented to
the group. After a lengthy discussion, a series of resolutions were
adopted. There were:
(1) Expand participation of this type of futures workshop across
ethnic lines and across various disciplines.
(2) Indigenous discourses should be used to understand futures.
(3) There should be
more and longer workshops.
(4) The Prime Minister
should be invited to such a course or meeting.
(5) IKD should provide
a Reader of future studies.
(6) Help establish an
Asean Court of Justice.
(7) There should be
research to investigate the results of the workshop.
(8) There should be a critical collaboration of futurists and
social scientists on futures methods that are Southeast Asian focused.
To conclude, the workshop began the process of thinking about the
future. Tensions existed between those who wanted an eclectic religious
model and those committed to one particular religion. However, all
believed that values are central for the future of the region. Many
aspired for increased integration, some for total integration, others
just for economic integration in the region. All believed that Southeast
Asia, particularly Malaysia, had an important and vital role to play in
the emerging global ecumene.
Dr. Sohail Inayatullah is a
Political Scientist at the Communication Centre, Queensland University
of Technology.
I would like to thank Dr. Azizan Baharuddin, a social scientist
at the Univeristy of Malaya, for Malay translations and for her
editorial comments.
I would also like to thank Leanne Holman of the Communication
Centre for her editorial assistance in completing this article.