Preliminary Observations

This brief note is intended to acquaint readers with some of the salient elements inherent in the formative process of the ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS (ASEAN). It will follow in essential detail the chronology of events and occurrences, leading to the founding of the Association, the birth and growth of ASEAN and the progressive developments of this collectivity of national societies, composing the ultimate regional community.  Efforts will be made to pursue each significant step of the Association from infancy to maturity, and eventually to the up-coming celebration of ASEAN’s 50th Anniversary on the 8th August 2017. As a prelude to the wider appreciation of the substantive importance of ASEAN, the picture of the pre-dawn of ASEAN will be given to Southeast Asia as a region or sub-region of turmoil and confusion amidst the withdrawal of Western Colonial Powers and severe competition among the outsiders to gain control over the disorder flowing from the struggles by the indigenous population, labouring their utmost to recover and retrieve their sovereign independence and to regain and retain their dignity in the Era of Decolonization, to ward off the danger and to prevent any possible return of further encroachment by any form of neo-colonialism, whether by way of capitalistic or socialistic take-over.         It has not been easy for native South-East Asian nations to recover and steadfastly to maintain intact their own national sovereign independence, to survive as free societies, free from external interference and safe and secure without foreign or outside intervention.