Wasted opportunity as ‘future leaders’ throw weak questions at Obama, say NGOs

Obama is all smiles as he delivers his speech at the Young Southeast Asian Leadership Initiative Town Hall at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur today. - Reuters pic, April 27, 2014.Civil society groups who attended the town hall session with US President Barack Obama were disappointed that Asean youths dubbed "future leaders" did not take the golden opportunity to ask him questions on policy issues today.

Instead, they deemed questions such as "what happiness meant to the US president" and "what his greatest regrets were" as unnecessary, when instead queries should have been over US' foreign policy and transgressions of rule of law in Malaysia.

ISIS Malaysia assistant director of foreign policy and security studies Elina Noor said that she had hoped the questions were more pointed and related to current affairs as opposed to being broad-based and philosophical.

Though more than 100 participants of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) - an intiative launched by Obama last December - were present only eight questions were permitted.

Some of them touched on the legacy he sought to leave, dealing with climate change and human empowerment. He was also asked on his advice for Malaysia on how to achieve its 2020 developed nation status target in six years.

To this, Obama praised Malaysia for having done better than many other countries in the last two decades, and that its wise leadership had helped to promote exports and train its people who had high literacy rate.

But the NGOs felt the limited time with Obama should have been better spent with questions about pressing issues affecting Malaysia now.

"We would have wanted him to explain the elevation from bilateral relationship to partnership with Malaysia that was just announced in the press conference with the Malaysian prime minister, " Elina said.

She added, however, that there were some good "takeaways" from the session, when Obama mentioned that sexual orientation should not be discriminated against, and that people should not organise themselves politically by ethnicity and religion, but instead on ideas, the rule of law and democratic ideals.

Women's Aid Organisation advocacy officer Yu Ren Chung also lamented the lack of questions about US policy and how it affects everyone else including people in Southeast Asia, especially on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and transparency issues.

Lena Hendry of Pusat Komas, meanwhile, felt that the students should have taken the opportunity to ask the president about human rights in relations to transgressions happening in Malaysia currently.

Lawyers for Liberty representative Michelle Yesudas agreed with Hendry, saying that they were hoping for a more constructive platform to discuss issues related to racism, genocide, religious policies and rule of law that has been breached in Malaysia.

"If I had a chance to ask him a question, I would have told him that the rule of law was not being taken seriously in Malaysia, and sought his response to that," Yesudas said.

Katrina Joseph Paul of Tenaganita also complained about the lack of questions on policy, adding that this raised serious concerns about the future generation of leaders from Asean countries who failed to ask pertinent questions.

"This is a reflection of the failure to analyse, be critical and hold leaders accountable for issues affecting human rights, including the fate of migrant workers for instance," she added.

Arul Prakkash from Pusat Komas said that participants should have seized the opportunity to apprise Obama about the growing voices of extremism in the country and the attack on minorities, especially non-Muslims.

He said that if given the chance to pose a question, he would have called on the US president to engage with Malaysia not only on an economic level, but to look into  human rights violations in the country.