VJC Prelim History P2

VICTORIA JUNIOR COLLEGE Preliminary Examinations HISTORY 9731/02 Date: 17 September 2012 Duration: 3 hours victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college victoria junior college READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST Write your name, index number and class on all the work you hand in. Write in dark blue or black pen on both sides of the paper, but start your answer for each question on a fresh piece of paper. You may use a soft pencil for any diagrams, graphs or rough working. Do not use staples, paper clips, highlighters, glue and/or correction fluid. Answer FOUR questions in total. One from Section A and three from Section B. At the end of the examination, fasten and submit the answer scripts for Section A and Section B separately. Attach the cover page to the front Section B. All questions in this paper carry equal marks. You are advised to spend no more than 45 minutes answering each question. You are reminded of the need for good English and legible handwriting in your answers. This question paper consists of 4 printed pages

VJC l History 9731/02 l Preliminary Examination 2012 2 Section A: ASEAN, 1967-1997 You must answer Question 1. ASEAN AND REGIONAL IDENTITY 1 Read the sources and then answer the question. Source A It gives me great pleasure to officially welcome the Kingdom of Cambodia as the 10th member of ASEAN. An ASEAN that encompasses all 10 countries of Southeast Asia is a long cherished goal. … Cambodia's membership of ASEAN is an important milestone in our struggle to define a regional identity for Southeast Asia. But it is only a milestone and not the end of the journey. Defining Southeast Asia … is a political project that has absorbed the region for many decades…. It is an effort that has responded to the needs of states of this region, continuously adapting and adjusting itself in response to internal and external developments. Managing diversity and balancing nationalism with regionalism have always been our preoccupation. Our responses have changed over time. ASEAN has made and remade itself several times in the last 32 years. The ASEAN of the 1960s and 1970s was different from the ASEAN of the 1980s and 1990s. It is in our hands to shape the ASE AN of the 21st Century. To do so will require a sustained, disciplined and realistic effort. We should not deny our problems. We must face up to them and show that we are dealing with them in a practical way. We can take comfort and confidence from the fac t that we have successfully weathered many political storms in the past. There is no … reason why we will not continue to succeed. From a statement by Singapore’s Foreign Affairs Minister at the special ceremony for the admission of Cambodia into ASEAN, 1999. Source B Founders of ASEAN commented that while colonialism disrupted identity connections, interactions, and interdependency in Southeast Asia, with independence and regionalism, old linkages, commercial, cultural, and political, can be revived to build a common identity. The expansion of ASEAN to include Vietnam and other nations —Cambodia, Laos and Burma — can be seen as an identity -building exercise, under a policy framework known as the “One Southeast Asia” concept, which is also driven and reinforced by regional economic interdependence and a sense of common fate in the face of globalization. Last December, Singapore’s Straits Times published the results of a survey on Southeast Asian identity that had been conducted by several regional ne wspapers. Six out of ten people interviewed actually believed that Southeast Asians identified with each other . This seems to indicate that identity is somewhat important, despite the fact that the discourse of Southeast Asian regionalism has traditionally ignored identity altogether. Of course, such surveys are far from definitive. It was conducted among 1000 urban English - speaking elites in six ASEAN countries: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. But elites are an important part of the process of imagining regional identity , just as they play a key role in developing national identity, and in democratic transitions. At the very least, the survey says that identity is an important factor in regionalism, that it has to be taken into account, and that it is evolving. Professor Amitav Acharya in an interview with Brown Journal of World Affairs, 2006.

VJC l History 9731/02 l Preliminary Examination 2012 3 Source C Maintaining ASEAN’s distinctive identity as a regional entity while engaging actively as a member of an open, borderless world will be trying. New forms of global collaboration and competition are bound to escalate in the years ahead and will impose strain and tension on the content and contours of ASEAN's future make -up and identity. While it is observed th at ASEAN states have adopted a pro-ASEAN foreign policy, much must be done by these states to socialize and educate their citizens, especially the young, on the value, and hence relevance, of ASEAN to their future. Therefore, the challenge for the ASEAN l eaders is to sustain the group's identity and relevance amidst impending changes in the new world order – changes that can, if not creatively approached, loosen the ‘ASEAN Spirit.’ An extract from an academic article on ASEAN’s challenges in the 21st century, 1997. Source D "The dreams of an integrated ASEAN will not be a reality until the people get involved, " ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan was quoted as saying in the ASEAN Bulletin at the event that involved participants from all walks of Vietnamese society. The promotion of ASEAN's socio -cultural agenda through channels such as Voice of Vietnam highlights the enormous challenges ahead for ASEAN to form a cohesive regional identity, and to convince international observers of its commitment to democracy and human rights. Whether the goal of a cohesive ASEAN identity can be formed throughout the highly diverse region by 2015 as outlined by the 2008 Charter also remains in question . University student Rolla Apnoza says she heard about ASEAN in elementary and high school in West Sumatra, and understood that ASEAN nations were united in terms of international cooperation , agricultural production, as well as rice being the staple food. However, she admits she feels a stronger connection with Muslim-majority countries in the region such as Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam than with non-Islamic ASEAN member states. An extract from The Jakarta Post, published in 2010. Source E ASEAN faced numerous difficulties achieving a regional identity due to member states’ competing national interests , and consequently rende