An attempt to analyse ‘Can Asians Think’ by Kishore Mahbubani
More than 500 years ago, the first Portuguese colonizers stepped onto Asian soil and declared it a part of the Portuguese colony. Fast forwarding to the present era, most Asian societies are still mentally colonized, their mindsets still fixed on the belief that Europeans and Americans are far superior to themselves.
The author attempts to make the audience understand the reasons why many Asian societies have this belief and whether the Asians can regard themselves as equal to their European and American counterparts.
More interesting to me is the book’s underlying theme of questioning of democracy and free press.
The Western civilization has long promoted democracy and its many foundations globally. The author openly questions democracy and free press as prerequisites for the general advancement of a country or society which supposedly enables the society’s population to equal the Europeans and Americans level of thinking. He rejects the romantic notion of democracy and all its trappings as necessary for a country or society’s success.
The author states, ‘A free press does not lead to a well ordered society’. I support his statement. There are many examples in the book that illustrates his viewpoint. Since the book was printed in 1998, some of the examples are outdated and irrelevant.
A still relevant example is the difference between
India
and
China
.
“
India
and
China
provide two massive social laboratories to judge what prescriptions would help a society develop and prosper. Each has taken a very different political road. The West approves the freedom of press in
India
, frowns on the lack of it in
China
. Yet which society is developing faster today, and which society is likely to modernize first?’
Obviously the answer is
China
, also dubbed the Iron Dragon of Asia. Of course one can argue what free press has to do with a country’s development. Free press can lead to problems as I further researched this topic on the internet.
In 1992, foreign channels, widely available throughout
India
, broadcasted videos of the destruction of the 16th century Babri mosque. This led to widespread violence throughout the country that resulted in over 2000 deaths.
Compare this to the
Tiananmen Square
crackdown where limited press coverage and government censorship helped prevent further rioting and deaths in the other Chinese cities.
Singapore
is another example. Although not mentioned by the author, who is a Singaporean, it is worthy to note that
Singapore
achieved prosperity and success without the benefits of having a free press or a Western defined democracy. In fact, we are ranked 147th out of 167 in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index, astoundingly just above
Iraq
.
Therefore the author concluded that the Western civilization was over-idealistic in thinking that democracy is the only path to a well ordered and prosperous society. His conclusion is in line with my personal research and puts my personal political beliefs into a different perspective.
