Back in the late 1980s, the authorities of Southeast Asian countries assigned only a secondary role to the problems of Islam. Today, they strive to become the coordinating centers of the global Muslim community.

Apparently, the time has come to assess the foreign policy course of the countries that are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), based on their position in the world Ummah (Muslim community). Such a conceptual assumption may raise a reasonable objection: Indonesia, Malaysia,Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines have different numbers of Muslims, and the authorities of these countries react differently to what is happening in the world. For example, in Indonesia, Muslims make up 85% of the country's population, in Malaysia-50%. In principle, it is precisely because of these countries that Southeast Asia is considered to be one of the main outposts of the Islamic world.

The situation is different in Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, where the proportion of Muslims is relatively small. The inter-religious contradictions characteristic of these countries give rise to the Islamic world to talk about discrimination and oppression of the Muslim minority by "infidels".

Politicization of Islam

For a long time, the main emphasis in the domestic policy of the ASEAN countries was placed on preventing the communist threat, fighting the communist insurgency, and issues related to the relationship between religion, government and society receded into the background. The latter, of course, did not always happen. For example, in Indonesia, the Suharto regime considered calls for the Islamization of the state as a criminal activity with all the ensuing consequences. And Mahathir Mohammad, Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003, announced his own program of Islamization of the country, in order to bring the difficult inter-religious and inter-ethnic situation under state control and take the initiative away from the Islamists.

In Thailand and the Philippines, in addition to communist insurgents, there were and continue to be armed groups of Muslims pursuing separatist goals. In Singapore, where almost all representatives of the government are ethnic Chinese, relations between the state and the Muslim diaspora, consisting mainly of Malays, are also not easy. However, until Islam became a factor in international politics, all these developments in the ASEAN countries were local in nature. For these countries, it was much more important to establish relations with the United States than to determine their location in the Islamic world.

The situation changed after the collapse of the USSR and the virtual disappearance of the "bipolar world" system. Marxism as an ideology has retreated to the periphery, and Islamists have hurried to fill the ideological vacuum. They took up the ideas of the political struggle for social justice that remained unattended. Islam gradually began to claim the role of an ideological dominant on the world political stage, and after that, attention to religion in the countries of Southeast Asia increased dramatically.

There was a politicization of Islam. In Indonesia, it almost coincided with the collapse in 1998 of the 30-year-old Suharto regime, which pursued a policy of strict regulation of religious activities. The society was not ready for the beginning of democratization, and this gave a head start to the Islamists, to whom no one could offer a significant alternative in the ideological field. Two successive presidents, Burhanuddin Habibi and Abdurahman Wahid, were Muslim theologians. And during Indonesia's first direct presidential election in 2004, both of the main contenders for the presidency - Megawati Sukarnoputri and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - made a "small" hajj to Mecca as part of the election campaign.

Political opponents used religion to attack their opponents. An influential group of representatives of the Islamic movement "Nadhatul Ulama" even issued a fatwa against the election of a woman (meaning Megawati Sukarnoputri) as president of the country. In turn, Yudhoyono's opponents organized a campaign to discredit him as a devout Muslim.

In Malaysia, Abdullah Badawi, a third-generation theologian who knows the Koran virtually by heart, became Prime Minister in 2003. And the political struggle between the ruling United Malay National Organization (UMNO) and the opposition party PAS (Parti Islam Semalaysia) is unfolding precisely around claims to a monopoly on the correct interpretation of the provisions of Islam.

It can be said that Islam determines the foreign policy course of even those ASEAN countries where the "American" factor prevails over the Islamic one. So, the Thai authorities took into account the difficult situation in the southern Muslim provinces of the country and, despite requests from the United States, decided to withdraw their military contingent from Iraq. Concerns about the safety of Filipinos living and working in the Middle East have prompted Philippine President Gloria Arroyo to do the same.

Catch up

The importance of Islam as an important component of world politics is constantly growing. The foreign policy factor has gained weight in the internal political struggle in Indonesia and Malaysia: in particular, Muslims believe that they have the right to demand that their elected representatives protect the interests of Islam in the international arena. And the political elites of Indonesia and Malaysia, demonstrating dissatisfaction with the peripheral position of their countries in the Muslim world, as well as taking advantage of the inability of Arab states to become leaders in this world, are trying to "catch up" through foreign policy activity. Last year's Israeli-Lebanese conflict gave them the opportunity to act as defenders of Islam. So, the decision to send Blue Helmets units from Muslim countries to Lebanon under the UN flag was made at an extraordinary meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Kuala Lumpur, and Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei pledged to allocate a total of 2 thousand military personnel for this purpose.

At the height of the conflict, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar called on the OIC member states to consider supplying weapons to Hezbollah to defend against an Israeli invasion. He stressed that "Muslim countries will not leave Israel unpunished", and also urged not to forget about the difficulties experienced by the Palestinian people, "who have become victims of the Israeli occupation".

After becoming an interim member of the Security Council for a two-year term effective January 1, 2007, Indonesia immediately prepared a document entitled "Statement by the President of the UN Security Council on the Middle East, including Palestine". It focuses on " Israeli raids targeting civilians." Despite the fact that the United States, France and other members of the Security Council called the document "unbalanced", Indonesia attaches great importance to this step, in which populism aimed at the Islamic world is no less than the desire to make a real contribution to solving serious problems.

Building on the intensity of the propaganda campaign, Indonesia hosted the International Forum of Muslim Parliamentarians in Jakarta at the end of January 2007. Representatives of 28 countries with predominantly Muslim populations participated in its work. The main topic was the situation in Palestine. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who spoke at the forum, called for an "early end to factional strife and clashes in the PA," and the country's Foreign Minister, Hassan Wirayuda, announced the readiness of" the world's largest Muslim country by population " (that is, Indonesia) to mediate negotiations between the two largest Palestinian parties - Hamas and Fatah. Subsequently, this initiative was intercepted from Indonesia by Saudi Arabia, and negotiations between the heads of Hamas and Fatah took place in Mecca, but the application, as they say, was made.

The Palestinian question is not the only card in the Indonesian deck. For example, in the spring of 2006, Jakarta offered Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad its assistance in reducing tensions in Iranian-American relations. The role of a mediator in resolving one of the main political problems of our time would certainly strengthen Indonesia's reputation in the eyes of the world Ummah, but Ahmadinejad made it clear that he would not consider such proposals. However, Yudhoyono was not discouraged by this reaction, and he now suggested that the United States participate in resolving the Iraqi crisis.

The Iraqi problem, according to Yudhoyono, should be solved exclusively by Muslim countries under the leadership of Indonesia. US President George W. Bush heard such suggestions when he visited Jakarta on November 20, 2006. By the way, Bush's six-hour visit to the Indonesian capital was accompanied by mass protests: anti-American sentiments are no less characteristic of Indonesian Muslims than of their "Arab brothers in faith." Even before the arrival of the American president, about 500 representatives of radical Islamic organizations staged a protest demonstration at the US embassy. "We call on the Indonesian government and people to prevent Bush's visit!" - the demonstrators declared. Yudhoyono limited himself to reminding citizens of the "duty of hospitality."

On the day of the US president's visit, 5,000 demonstrators on the streets of Jakarta called for physical violence against Bush. They also warned Yudhoyono himself and Vice President Yusuf Kalla that by accepting the "killer of Iraqis", they were putting their victory in the next election in 2009 in doubt.

Against the background of these events, a reasonable question arises: why was this visit necessary for both the receiving and arriving parties? The Indonesian authorities tried to disguise the true purpose of the meeting of the heads of the two countries. Journalists were informed that the main topic of the talks will be cooperation in the fields of education, healthcare, disaster prevention, and avian flu control. The reality was somewhat different. The fact is that despite all the anti-American sentiments prevailing among the Muslims of Southeast Asia and, of course, taken into account by local politicians, Jakarta and Washington manage to maintain outwardly good relations. And for the United States, Indonesia is one of the most realistic candidates for the role of a "window" to the Muslim world.

At a joint conference of the two presidents following the talks, Yudhoyono said Indonesia had put forward its plan for a" step-by-step resolution of the Iraq crisis", which focuses on the"inevitable US withdrawal from Iraq". Yudhoyono suggested that after the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq, they should be replaced by peacekeepers representing either the UN or an "alternative force". By "alternative" was meant DEC. The President of Indonesia considers the latter option preferable. Military personnel from "fraternal Muslim countries", in his opinion, will not be perceived by the local population as enemies. In a short period of time, they would have brought order to the country.

"Breathe new life into DECs"

After this speech, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said that "Indonesia would like to send its peacekeeping troops to Iraq, thereby setting an example to other countries of the Islamic world." He referred to a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. According to him, she supported the idea of involving "moderately Muslim" Indonesia in the peace process in Iraq. Having initially opposed intervention in Iraq, Indonesia is now not averse to being among the initiators of a new peacekeeping mission.

On January 30-31, President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf visited Indonesia and Malaysia. The parties discussed not only the possibility of creating a real counterweight to US influence in the Middle East, but also talked about the relationship between Sunnis and Shiites. Yudhoyono and Musharraf in Jakarta called for holding an international conference with the participation of Muslim theologians representing various trends and legal interpretations in Islam. The venue of the proposed forum is still Indonesia. President Yudhoyono has already asked the leaders of the country's two largest Muslim organizations, Nahdatul Ulama and Muhammadiyya, which have tens of millions of members, to take responsibility for the conference.

The nature of the discussion of Middle East issues at the meetings of the Pakistani President with the head of Indonesia and Prime Minister of Malaysia Abdullah Badawi is also interesting. Negotiations to resolve the situation in the Middle East were conducted by countries that were historically on the periphery of the Islamic world. Musharraf, Yudhoyono and Badawi developed a series of initiatives that the President of Pakistan later intended to coordinate with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Thus, Arab countries were offered ready-made projects to overcome the crisis phenomena in their own region! The meetings in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur discussed the prospects of strengthening the role of non - Arab OIC member States in solving problems of concern to all Muslims. According to Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wiraud, " this will breathe new life into the OIC."

The OIC is currently chaired by Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi. Radical Muslims around the world are dissatisfied with its activities. DECs are accused of "passivity, compromise with the West, non-resistance to its neo-colonialist policies", which contradicts the original goals of the organization's creation. Malaysia and Indonesia are forced to make a difficult choice between the traditional partnership with the United States and Western countries and the obligatory for the potential "leader of Muslims around the world" consistent sharp criticism of the West. It seems that the countries of Southeast Asia are opting for the second option. However, this does not mean that Indonesia and Malaysia have no competitors in the struggle for leadership in the Islamic world. They just exist, these are Pakistan and Iran. In addition, Saudi Arabia is unlikely to want to give up its "special status". Although, apart from the fact that Mecca and Medina are located on its territory, it has practically no arguments in favor of its leadership.

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