Amongst all the bad news coming from this region of the world, some developments stand out as pointers of real hope and exemplars of new democratic practices that leverage the potential of the internet.

1. Malayasia

In Malaysia, Jun-E Tan & Zawawi Ibrahim, have given a detailed account of the major effect of the blogosphere on Malasian politics, in a book, Blogging and Democratization in Malaysia: A New Civil Society in the Making, published and available via the GB GerakBudaya publishing house. Julian Hopkins has a stellar review in one of the best english-language independent news sources in Thailand, Prachathai.

Julian’s first paragraph summarizes the book’s intent:

It “is the first book to discuss blogging in Malaysia in detail. It draws upon a survey completed in late 2006, interviews and observations, and it is a unique record of the early moments of social-political blogging in Malaysia. There is also a timely postscript to the book that discusses the overall impact of blogging on the ‘political tsunami’ of the Malaysian general elections in 2008.”

For more Malaysian developments, see here.

2. Thailand

In Thailand, Jon Ungphakorn, social activist and founder of Prachatai, has launched iLaw to enable people to propose and amend laws through the process of collecting 10,000 signatures to Parliament under Sections 142 and 193 of the 2007 Constitution.

Here’s Jon explanation of the project:

“Jon, the director of Internet for People’s Laws Project (iLaw), said that the objective of the website was to support and encourage ordinary people’s participation, which is not only signing petitions, but also helping shape the law.

‘Many have asked what laws the iLaw would want to change. The iLaw will provide space for people who want to propose laws or change the laws to solve the problems they see, and will facilitate the process in which communities present their ideas and a team of lawyers will help draft them,’ Jon said.

From his experience as a Senator, one of whose main jobs was to pass laws, he found that though the legislative process was complicated and full of hurdles, he believed that the people could handle this important process without direct training in law. Members of Parliament and senators also have diverse backgrounds, not all of them being lawyers, he said.

‘In general, each law has to pass complex procedures before it comes out as a law. Even though currently the people are allowed to collect 10,000 signatures to propose laws, it’s necessary to provide proper channels and opportunity for them to have true participation, which is a crucial step leading to the collection of signatures,’ he said.

Jon said that public participation corresponds to the trend that has been developing in cyberspace, and the internet is a model of democracy which challenges democracies all over the world.

‘I’d like to invite everybody to propose laws. Even though laws are not solution to all problems in society, they will increase the people’s leverage in changing society for the better,’ Jon said.”

Thailand also starts to be very active on the social enterpreneurship front. In particular ChangeFusion.org has been organizing all kinds of interesting events. It is as far as I know the most advanced initiative in this field.

Thanks to Viriya Sawangchot of the Thai Creative Industries Forum, I will have the opportunity to hold, on the 25th of July at 1 pm, my very first workshop in Thailand, on open and social innovation (the 4th workshop on Creative Industries and Its Discontents: Social Media and Open Design Practice). More details via Viriya at 089 4593617 .