As western ideology pervasively grows across the global community, Southeast Asia's traditional values are unavoidably challenged by these foreign thoughts. "Western" concepts like democracy, individual rights, and freedom face stark competition with "Asian" concepts of family, state, and stability on the political realm. These "Asian values" are the grounds upon which Southeast Asian politics have been governed over the past decades, but often to the demise of their own rule. The strict adherence to the …showed first 75 words of 1300 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1300 total…be a shortsighted and unsuitable description. Asians indeed tend to value family and communal living more-so than their individualistic counterparts in the west, but these values do not extend to the degree of sacrificing personal rights for the preservation of political hierarchy in times of crises. The individual's desires for his voice to be heard and recognized will not be forsaken for the mere sake of stability and self-sufficiency. "Asian values" makes not the Asian.