Papers

• Political and Social Environments for Human Rights and Peace Education in Myanmar May Thida Aung Mahidol University

  Republic of the Union of Myanmar, with a population of 51.5 million, is the home of 135 ethnic groups which are flourishing in different religions, linguistic, cultures and traditions. The prolonged armed conflict with some of the ethnic groups broke out after 1948. Undemocratic system had been practiced until 2010. When the system was changed from undemocratic to democratic, the Government has started reform processes which also include the creation of spaces for the people to exercise their rights on freedom of opinion and expression as well as press freedom. However, due to lack of well-informed human rights and peace knowledge among the people in the past, a number of clashes sparked out between the government agency and the people. The early stage of democratization process in 2011-15 has shown that human rights and peace education is necessary to be introduced in order to reconstruct the perceptions of government agency as well as the community as a whole.

  Thus, the higher education curriculum has adapted with the changes of political trends such as inclusion of human rights subject in 3rd year LLB course as elective in 2013 and inclusion of conflict management in International Relations discipline in 2015. Nonetheless, courses are not reflected with the contemporary issues such as protection on stateless persons, gender issues due to the deep rooted political and social traditions. The rising of nationalist movements due to community tensions with some minority Muslims people since 2013 also lead to less focus on minority rights. The government oppression on freedom of assembly and freedom of expression together with not fulfilling commitment of ratification of ICCPR makes the implementers deep consideration to touch upon those rights. Moreover, being raised under the military regime together with not being familiar with the concept of human rights, the idea of many decision makers is to emphasize on human rights which are compatible with local context such as using protectionist approach to protect women, emphasizing on citizen responsibilities rather than states, avoiding to teach LGBT rights due to the social and cultural belief.

  Peace education is far away from the higher education sector though the government is doing national peace process and though objectives of National Education Law provide a legal basic to build up an education system that could improve social participation and cohesion for the long-term goal of national reconciliation. It seems the government has treated peace education as distinct policy areas, though in reality they are inextricably linked. Moreover, assuming peace education is necessary only to those conflict affected areas.

• The Construction of Human Rights and Peace Education in Post-Conflict Societies: The Case of Timor Leste Khoo Ying Hooi University of Malaya

  Restored its independence in 2002, Timor Leste is the newest country and one of the poorest in the Southeast Asia region. During the peak of the eruption of violence in 1999 due to the United Nations referendum, education at all levels including higher education was forced to discontinue due to the militia action. It is estimated that around 95 percent of primary and secondary schools, as well as post-secondary education institutions included school infrastructures and teaching materials were destroyed. Despite being a post-conflict society, the Democracy Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranked Timor Leste as the most democratic country in Southeast Asia. However, it has a challenging path to get on par with other countries in human rights and peace education due to the several challenges such as lack of funding and human resources, social and structural challenges and marginalization of human rights and peace by university administrators. For instance, traditionally, Timor Leste has had a strong informal training system delivering skills in different community areas. While Timor Leste’s Constitution has adopted all basic and fundamental human rights, what remains missing is that there are no specific policies or legislations related to human rights and peace education.The education sector in Timor Leste is therefore bound to face challenges given its status as one of the world’s newest country, not to mention its status as a post-conflict small state. Based on such context, this paper examines the impacts of socio-political environment affecting the delivery of human rights and peace programmes in higher education institutions in Timor Leste, in the context of post-conflict vulnerabilities. The datapresented in this paper is drawn from the range of information available from both official and unofficial sources, including books, journal articles and government policies. Data was also collected from interviews and focus group discussions with relevant stakeholders such as the academic staff and students in Timor Leste. This paper focuses on four universities located in Dili, the capital city of Timor Leste, namely the Universidade Nacional Timor Lorosa’e (UNTL) as the only public university and three other private universities, namely the Universidade da Paz (UNPAZ), the Universidade Oriental de Timor Lorosa’e (UNITAL) and the Universidade de Dili (UNDIL). Throughout the data collection for this paper, it is found that while the democracy of Timor Leste could be high, it does not necessarily mean that human rights and peace education are recognized highly.

• The Politics of Human Rights and Peace Education in Indonesia: A Tool for (In)tolerance and Social (In)justice? Patricia Rinwigati Waagstein Regional EU-ASEAN Dialogue Instrument Human Rights Facility

  Human rights and peace education is a fundamental tool for guaranteeing human rights and peace. For the last decade, human rights and peace education in Indonesian has been integrated into national curriculum. Such integration has been driven by the vast development of human rights in Indonesia. The high commitment of Indonesian government to human rights coupled with the increase public awareness on human rights has created a need to have more knowledge on human rights and peace. Here, human rights and peace education has been perceived as a necessity. On the other hand, universities have been accused of being a place to spread intolerance toward extremism. Hence, the question is whether human rights and peace education can be used as a socio-political tool to spread tolerance and social justice.

  The EUROSEAS presentation attempts to analyse the legal basis as well as the politics behind human rights and peace education at the theoretical and operational levels in Indonesia. It discusses further the interrelation between extremism and human rights and peace. It is argued here that understanding human rights and peace constitutes an essential contribution to the long-term prevention of human rights abuses as well as a conflict. At the same time, human rights and peace education is expected to provide positive impacts for the promotion of tolerance and moderation. Nevertheless, as this presentation will be highlighting, it has beening faces some challenges that prohibit its full potential to commit changes in social perception and work towards human rights protection and peace building throughout the country.

• The Politics of Human Rights and Peace Education in Southeast Asia Sriprapha Petcharamesree Mahidol University

  The protection of human rights, conflict transformation, and building of peace in Southeast Asia are far from being the norm in terms of governance, law making, and even in the everyday life of its peoples. The socio-political problems in the region are deep and far ranging, with some countries having more serious rights violation than others. What is alarming is the popularity of governments that are blatantly authoritarian and populist. This reflects a non-appreciation of human rights and peace, not only on the part of states, but perhaps, far worse, on the part of many people.

  Human rights and peace education aim to help students develop an understanding and appreciation of human rights and peace. Moreover, it leads to building capacities for students to contribute to the protection of human rights and creation of peace in their respective societies and/or communities. Although Human Rights and Peace education is included in ASEAN Vision 2025 and is part and parcel of the Association of Southeast asian Nation (ASEAN)’s Culture of Prevention, human rights and peace education is still lacking, or is still not included in learning systems in many parts of Southeast Asia. A significant number of higher education institutions and academics are struggling to push for its full promotion due to (1) restrictive political climate, (2) low demand for subjects or programmes, (3) the lack of funding and human resources, (4) social and structural challenges, (5) marginalization of human rights and peace by States and non-state actors, most notable university administrations

• Transition to Democracy in Malaysia: Challenges and Opportunities for Human Rights and Peace Education Khoo Ying Hooi University of Malaya

  For decades, Malaysia has been described as a flawed democracy; progress in addressing human rights concerns is seen as a product of decades of struggles. The rights of Malaysians to participate in civil society, and protection of basic civil liberties, are spelt out at length under the second part of the Federal Constitution, under the section of fundamental liberties. But the distribution of civil, political and socio-economic rights remains a challenge until today. The Barisan Nasional (BN) was the ruling government since the country’s independence in 1957. However, the administration has changed for the first time on May 9, 2018 when the coalition of a united opposition parties - Pakatan Harapan (PR), won the elections. This is particularly important to mention because this political development has had an impact on the general human rights and peace environment of the country. This is especially true as the PH branded itself as a champion of human rights and democracy. Based on this context, human rights and peace education in the country has taken shape in a particular way in Malaysia. For some, human rights are considered as Western values and it contradicts with the Asian values. In Malaysia, several documents such as the Federal Constitution, the National Ideology or also known as the Rukunegara and the National Philosophy of Education provide basic guiding principles for a faith-based values education. Based on such background with different races, religions, values and systems, steps are taken by the government to foster the faith-based values and moral education at all levels of education. Due to this, human rights and peace education are generally treated as less of a priority field of studies in Malaysia. After the change of government, there are now more calls from the new government to enhance and strengthen human rights education. Based on such context, this paper intends to investigate how does the democratic transition process affecting the delivery of human rights and peace programmes in higher education institutions in Malaysia. The data presented in this paper is drawn from the range of information available from both official and unofficial sources, including books, journal articles and government policies. Data was also collected from online interviews with relevant stakeholders i.e. the academic staff that are either directly or indirectly related to the human rights and peace education in Malaysia. It covers three types of universities in Malaysia, namely: public universities, private universities and foreign universities with campuses in Malaysia. This paper found that while the current socio-political features open opportunities to adopt a more open and human rights approach system, overall, the human rights and peace education remains a challenge and a long struggle.

Abstract

Keywords

• Conflict
• Education
• Human Rights
• Politics