Posted on: Sunday, January 13, 2002

JERRY BURRIS
Localism tossed aside at forum

By Jerry Burris
Advertiser Editorial Editor

Former U.S. House Speaker "Tip" O'Neill coined what has been a famous phrase that describes how politics works.

"All politics is local," O'Neill said, making the point that what really counts in politics is what the folks back home care about.

The analysis holds as true today as when O'Neill first made it. But there are ways in which politics stops being local.

In Hawai'i last week, we had an example of politicians deliberately — and by all accounts successfully — getting past the localism that tends to dominate politics.

The occasion was the 10th meeting of the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum, a loose organization of more than 100 lawmakers and parliamentarians from some 25 nations across the Asia Pacific region.

If you think it's hard to find common interests between, say, a congressman representing Manhattan and another representing rural Kansas, imagine the gulf that separates legislators from Laos and Canada.

It turns out they might have more in common than you think.

For starters, they identify with a region that was not even identified as such a quarter-century ago, said Charles Morrison, East-West Center president, whose organization acted as secretariat for this year's meeting.

The concept is firmly in place, although the process of building institutions and structures of regional cooperation remains, at best, a work in progress.

Still, the delegates to this meeting — the first held in the United States — found plenty of common ground. At the top of the list was international terrorism.

From the Philippines to China, from Indonesia to the far corners of Thailand, authorities have been struggling with domestic and imported terrorists.

So it was relatively easy for this vastly divergent group to come up with a unanimous resolution condemning terrorism in all forms — international, national and local. But beyond wringing their hands about the matter, the delegates approved specific resolutions calling on international agreements on terrorist activities such as money-laundering and piracy.

While the resolutions are non-binding on the member nations, they help form the groundwork for specific legislation back home. And they offer the delegates security that they are not standing alone in the region.

Perhaps more interesting than the stand against terrorism was the forum's recognition that there must be a regional "war" on regional problems that terrorists use to justify their actions. These include poverty, nation-to-nation territorial conflicts, the rights of indigenous minorities and others.

Other agreements were reached on balanced trade practices, the need for a Mideast peace process and the importance of stopping human trafficking across borders.

It's obvious that the minute the delegates got back to their home countries from Honolulu, the press of "local politics" once again took over their attention. But conferences such as this are a healthy reminder that — for all our self-interest and parochialism — none of us can truly go it alone.

Jerry Burris is editor of the editorial pages of The Advertiser. You can reach him through letters@honoluluadvertiser.com