ASEAN Discourse: The Rhetoric of Human Rights and Asian Values‪.‬

In politics, each opposing party or political force tries to win general acceptance for its own discourse type [...] The stake is more than 'mere words'; it is controlling the contours of the political world (Fairclough 1989, 90). 1. The rousing rhetoric of former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad in the early 1990s did much to fuel a debate on the specificity of so-called 'Asian values' and their contribution to regional development. In a provocative conference speech on 'Rethinking Human Rights' delivered in Kuala Lumpur in 1994, Mahathir queried; "What, we are asked, are Asian values? The question is rhetorical because the implication is that Asians cannot possibly understand human rights, much less set up their own values" (Makaruddin 2000, 207). The present article sets out to explore the accuracy of this statement relative to the Association of South-East Asian Nations' (ASEAN) current position on human rights. It asks how ASEAN understands human rights, and whether it has made moves towards 'setting up its own values'. Since 1996, ASEAN has been collaborating with an informal coalition of working groups aiming to establish a human rights mechanism in the region. Efforts in this direction have been influenced by debates surrounding the difference, if any, between a specifically South-East Asian reading of human rights and the concept of universal human rights.