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One Vision, One Identity, One Community
- Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Motto; ASEAN Charter, 2007, Article 36
To promote an ASEAN identity through the fostering of greater awareness of the diverse culture and heritage of the region
Charter of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2007, Article 1(14)
Residents of ASEAN should forge a new regional identity in addition to their nationality in order to strengthen political and economic integration
Secretary-General Dr Surin Pitsuwan, 2010
...ASEAN is moving towards establishing an ASEAN Community in 2015. Pursuant to that, ASEAN is gearing up to forge a regional identity for ASEAN through various cultural and information projects that cover the arts - visual, performing, literary, musical and other art forms whether traditional, contemporary, or modern - cultural heritage, information and the mass media, as well as in collaboration with our Dialogue Partners.
H.E. Dato' Misran Karmain, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community1
The aim of this paper is to examine whether cultural heritage can be used as a mechanism for developing a transnational ASEAN identity in addition to the nationality of each ASEAN Member Country (AMC) in order to promote unity in the establishment of the ASEAN Community by 2015. It focuses on cultural issues, particularly intangible cultural heritage (ICH), in this context, and the relevance of these issues to a variety of ASEAN declarations and other softinstruments on cultural heritage.
The ten AMCs (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam) have diverse cultures and heritages arising from different languages, religions, traditions, etc. Even within a country, sub-cultures complicate the origins of a cultural heritage, as does the mixture of cultures derived through inter-marriages and other influences, such as from migrants. On the other hand, certain ethnic groups such as Chinese, Indians and Malays are found in the various AMCs. Current discussions of national rights and obligations with regard to cultural heritage can raise difficult questions in this context. What if each race/group were to claim that a tradition, or other element of cultural heritage, belongs only to its race living in that particular country and refused to acknowledge that there could be shared cultures across national boundaries? For example, as noted below, the Chinese...