Convergence : IFLRY at 60 and its impact on Asia
By: Jan-Argy Tolentino
This year sees the celebration of six decades of international liberalism from the perspective of its youth. From the founding of the World Federation of Liberal and Radical Youth (WFLRY) in 26 August 1947, the International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY) has been witness and participant to the events that have shaped the world of today.
In that span of just over half-a-century since the founding of organized international young liberalism, so much has happened. One need not to have been a young person sifting through the rubble of a post-World War II nation to know how much of an understatement “so much has happened” is.
Francis Fukayama has often been quoted as saying that we have reached the end of history, particularly at the fall of our ideological arch-foe, communism, in the early 1990s. States built on the gospel according to Marx were collapsing left (pun not intended) and right (any pun out of this one equally unintended) and spiraling, steadily and surely, to the center as countries became swept up in the so-called Third Wave of democracy.
“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government,” Fukayama said in his seminal 1989 essay.
To us who champion the liberal democratic cause, this all seems good news. Anti-imperial as liberal democracy is, the thought of all humanity under the “rule” of the principles and ideology we hold dear sounds like a dream come true.
But one of Fukayama’s interlocutors posited that, “The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”
Although some may claim that Samuel Huntington, to whom those words belong to, was simply giving an excuse to the West for its recent forays into “global peacekeeping,” we cannot deny the fact that most of the conflicts following the fall of communism and the end of the Cold War were, indeed, “cultural” in nature. Who can forget how Yugoslavia ended? Have the dead of Somalia been buried for so long for us to not remember how horrible it was there, and what prodded men to visit such horror on their fellowmen?
But at the core of liberal democracy is that enduring belief that man is inherently good, if only he is provided access to information on the issues concerning him or her. We believe as liberal democrats that conflict arises because we lacked the necessary information to come to the right decisions.
The historian John Keegan, in his tour de force, The First World War, described in great detail in its opening chapters how what would be called the Great War could have been avoided if only people had the proper information at the proper time. And we were talking about people with “shared values.”
When one looks at the IFLRY website, scrounging around for what it does, they would notice that one of the most prominent roles the organization plays for its members is, “we strive for a free and tolerant society without any form of discrimination, with equal opportunities, respect for the individual and the minorities.”
Is this a simple platitude to the core principle of liberal democracy that we serve as frontline for? No. For central to the IFLRY goal of promoting the above is knowing the Other. The fires of conflict are easily stoked within a climate of ignorance, after all.
To achieve this, IFLRY’ has declared as its main goal the promotion and representation of “the interests of young liberals and radicals as well as the interests of youth on international level… IFLRY encourages and facilitates contacts and exchange of ideas between its member organisations. The Federation is a means to increase the interest in and knowledge of international politics within the member organisations through running and offering seminars, delegations, study visits, training courses, summer camps, a youth network and thematically networks. IFLRY also publishes a quarterly magazine called “Libel”, a monthly internal newsletter and runs home pages on the world wide web.”
This is extremely important when you consider the membership of IFLRY. These are no ordinary young men and women in a simple gathering somewhere. These are the ones being groomed in their respective countries to be its future leaders, being members of the youth wings of established political parties or non-governmental organizations active in nation-building.
Some say that the Third Wave of Democracy stopped short of Asia, particularly in East and South East Asia. In fact, there are even reversals of the democratization trend, as some governments were removed via recent coups d’etat or autocratic regimes continue to hold sway over their people.
And there is the culture. There is that inherent belief that “Asian Values” – a catchall phrase for the body of tradition that is said to embody the “real” Asia, with its utmost respect for authority over and above free expression – is inherently incompatible with something so “Westernized” as democracy. Asia is perhaps the only place on Earth where liberal democracy’s other central principle – the Market Economy – exists side-by-side and even props up authoritarian regimes.
Asia’s young only recently began to organize itself in order to effectively tackle the challenges to liberal democracy in the region. The formation of the Young Liberals and Democrats of Asia (YLDA) did not happen in a vacuum. Several of its founders were already knowledgeable of the benefits of a coordinated action, having been exposed to international systems through the work of groups like the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) and the Liberal Democrats of the UK. Many of YLDA’s member organizations are youth arms of political parties belonging to the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD). Indeed, one of the core organizations of YLDA, the Kabataang Liberal ng Pilipinas (KALIPI) has been for a long time the only Asian member of IFLRY, which we are happy to say, is changing with the entry of the Young Democrats of Singapore, Youth Initiative of Nepal and hopefully this year, the Taiwan Young Democrats Union.
IFLRY’s role in this New World Order that came to being after the Fall of Communism and the fall of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City is that of a bridge between the progressiveness of the West and the timelessness of the East.
If Huntington’s thesis is true and cultures are the flashpoints of conflict in a world growing smaller with the advances in transportation and communication technology, then IFLRY serves as that forum in which the future leaders of West and East could meet and mingle during that time of extreme impressionability and reflection that is the hallmark of being part of the youth sector.
IFLRY is that showcase for each. This is where the West can show, “this is what liberal democracy can do for you,” and where the East can say, “but what about these things that might run counter to it?” Our experiences here in the Asia, after all, are filled with stresses between “Asian Values” and “Western Democracy,” as if these two were oil and water and not a wonderful combination of Darjeeling Tea with the best Croissant from the Continent.
IFLRY is where the convergence for Western liberal democratic thought and “Asian Values” will happen. It doesn’t have to be a supplanting of one over the other. Those that cannot fit should not be fundamental compromises, since the things that liberal democracy holds dear – respect for life and the rights of Man, an economy that rewards the industrious, and the free expression of thought and belief – are not incompatible with Asia ‘s time-honored traditions.
Born in tumultuous times, IFLRY has not only survived the last six decades but thrived. And here in the early years of mankind’s Third Millenium, it stands poised to lead what could be the “fourth wave” of democracy, as the young men and women who trod the seminar halls and hotel lobbies of IFLRY’s various conferences and general assemblies begin taking more and more responsibility for their respective nations’ futures. The young leaders of yesterday are fast becoming the leaders of today and tomorrow.
And when those of us who now simply discuss all of these issues on a room for an IFLRY seminar begin debating them for real on the floors of our countries’ legislative halls, we will not be speaking as just a single leader facing the rest, but as a repository for the shared experiences, hopes and dreams of our fellow liberal democrats everywhere.
Asia and IFLRY are one.
