The second conviction of Malaysia's former finance minister, Anwar Ibrahim, although widely anticipated, has nonetheless reverberated around the region, and indeed the globe. Democrats everywhere are groaning that this transparent political witchhunt has been allowed to continue in the courts of an otherwise rapidly modernizing and successful country.
Protests have arisen from various quarters, most loudly from Australia, New Zealand, the US and the EU, which all issued statements of condemnation. More subtle, but nonetheless distinct, disquiet has been heard in Manila and Jakarta and other regional capitals.
It is no coincidence that the orchestrator of Anwar's judicial persecution, Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, has been one of the primary exponents of the so-called "Asian values" theory, whereby Asian cultures, supposedly with a greater sense of collective responsibility, value individual human rights at a discount compared to Western societies. But the irony is nonetheless rich. First of all, Anwar himself actually embodies the genuine traditional culture and religion of Malaysia far more that his former mentor. Second, where once he scorned Western institutions as inappropriate for his country, Mahathir now invokes the principle of independence of the judiciary to counter criticism of the court's verdict, claiming the matter is out of his hands.
Enough has been written to debunk the "Asian values" theory, such as the rhetorical question raised by Amnesty International: "where is the cultural value that condones torture?" The Asian financial crisis, widely understood to have been brought on by corruption and opaque financial practices, weakened the argument further. Most importantly, the steady democratization of Asian societies, from the Philippines to Thailand to South Korea to Indonesia -- and, not least, here in Taiwan -- has increasingly made Mahathir and his ilk look simply like anachronisms.
If there is any good to come of the Anwar conviction, perhaps it is the final nail in the coffin of the "Asian values" discourse. It further reinforces the fact that what the theory represents is nothing more than a political smokescreen for a monopoly on political power by any means. Instead of specifically "Asian," it is just one more abuse of the old -- in fact, originally European -- notion of state sovereignty to justify the whims of those in power.
Here in Taiwan, we should not be silent on this issue. We stand as evidence before the world that democracy is a universal value, and that there is no truth to the self-serving argument of Mahathir and others that democracy is inappropriate in our cultures. When democracy and human rights are threatened in the region, we have a moral responsibility to speak out.
It is a pity that our government has not more officially communicated its concerns about the Anwar case. The arrival of true democracy in Malaysia would clearly serve our national interest -- as indeed it does anywhere in the region -- by further isolating China and building a regional community of democracies. Moreover, with the new government's proclaimed interest in "human rights diplomacy," it would not be unreasonable for us to take a stand on this issue.
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