Excellencies, the Ambassadors of ASEAN,
Excellencies, the Ambassadors ASEAN Dialogue Partners,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The birth of ASEAN took place on this day 41 years ago when five wise men of ASEAN -  H.E. Adam Malik from Indonesia, H.E. Narciso Ramos from the Philippines, H.E. S. Rajaratnam from Singapore, H.E. Tun Abdul Razak from Malaysia, and H.E. Tun Thanat Koman, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand at that time - gathered in a small village called Bang Saen, southeast of Bangkok. They had a dream - the dream of a stable, secure and prosperous Southeast Asia.   Our five wise men gave us a path to the future.

Four decades later, we gather here on the grounds of the Secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to celebrate that dream. We celebrate with a series of rituals – hoisting of the ASEAN flag and listening to the ASEAN hymn. All these colourful and impressive ceremonies and rituals are stuff that create institutions; and definitely, ASEAN is now the institution of the region. 

However, we are here representing more than the original five countries whose high representatives huddled around a small table, crafting the ASEAN Declaration of the 8th of August in Bang Saen. Now, there are ten ASEAN Member States. All ten countries of Southeast Asia are now brought under a big umbrella called ASEAN. In addition to the original five, Brunei Darussalam, Viet Nam, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Cambodia joined ASEAN.   ASEAN now has Dialogue Partners from all corners of the world: Australia, Canada, China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Russia, the United States and the United Nations. 

As we toil on to realise the dream of our Founding Fathers, we have one plan and we have confounded sceptics.  We have made development partners out of those who had doubts about our viability.   We have made dialogue partners out of those who are once reluctant to associate with us, holding judgment about our sustainability and our resiliency.  

In fact, on 9th of August 1967, there was an interesting anecdote.  The Charge de Affaires of the British Embassy in Bangkok wrote to his Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London saying these new countries had tried many organisations before but all have failed. This time ASEAN looks pretty convincing and looks like it’s going to last.  The advice from the Charge de Affaires to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that day was: we don’t need to give them anything; we already have given them the most valuable gift of all - they all spoke in English.  I just got that piece of information from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after they declassified that document ten days ago.

As we in ASEAN embark on our community building in accordance to the ASEAN Charter promulgated for the first time by our Leaders last November, our friends, allies and Dialogue Partners - all of them represented here this morning - also wish us well. They are eager to see us succeed in our efforts to construct this new structure, this new architecture of cooperation across the region and beyond. 

The new ASEAN Charter has now won seven ratifications from the ten Members. I am standing in front of you with full confidence that by December, we will have the rest.   Only yesterday, a piece of enabling legislation has passed the first reading in the Lower House in Bangkok.

The community will be built on three pillars as you know: Political and Security, Economic and Socio-Cultural.  In all the three pillars and three communities, we are embarking on our full effort to create stronger pillars for a stronger ASEAN.
 We are establishing what we call the Committee of Permanent Representatives here in Jakarta working with the Secretariat.  The Terms of Reference for that are being drafted now. We are creating, for the first time, our Human Rights Body; the Terms of Reference for that are being drawn up now.  We will have a High Level Task Force on Legal Matters whose report will define the “legal personality” of the new ASEAN.

So the ASEAN sprit is being revitalized. The original dream is being repeated and we are here to make the dream a reality.

ASEAN is essentially a Tapestry of Hope. We are all engaged in weaving it into a robust architecture that will reflect our aspirations for the future of our region and a better life for our posterity.

Our celebrations will continue for the next three days, beginning with the second Best of ASEAN Performing Arts tonight by the great artistes from Thailand. I hope all of you will join us for that performance in the old theatre in downtown Batavia. Then on Sunday, we will have our Family Day with the staff of the ASEAN Secretariat and the ASEAN Embassies. It will be a day on bonding among us in the ASEAN Family.  All of us will be recharged for the challenges ahead. 

I have to thank all of you, Ambassadors of the ASEAN Countries, Ambassadors and High Representatives of the Dialogue Partners for joining us today in our celebration of four decades of success, four decades of prosperity and four decades of tremendous sacrifices for the well-being of our people in the region as dreamt up by our Founding Fathers 41 years ago.

I hope that this is the new beginning for ASEAN and I hope from now on, the word ASEAN will be inscribed and enshrined in every heart of the peoples of ASEAN - the 567 million of them - so that every time they hear the word ASEAN, it will inspire them and it will encourage them. It will remind them not just of the dream and but of the potentiality that that dream can lead us into the future, again for the benefit of our people and for the future of our prosperity.

Shall I say “Long Live ASEAN”; shall I say “Jaya ASEAN”, or shall I say “Happy Birthday ASEAN. I hope all these are appropriate for this occasion.

Thank you.