Comments

“Self-coup”, eh. Well no-one could accuse The Nation of impartiality after a year demonizing Thaksin. They must be making themselves popular with the new royalist dictatorship. Some people might take seriously a limited circulation English language newspaper that supports royalist-military overthrows of democratically elected governments, but I don’t.

As for Andrew Biggs, I hope his Thai is good enough to explain to the villagers whose votes obviously mean nothing to Andrew why he believes in using tanks to rob them of their right to elect their own government. He would be crucified in his own country if he told an Australian that their vote meant nothing. But of course, we can’t compare Thailand to Australia because Thailand is unique, because of the mysterious Thai culture which means that a coup is actually a good thing, a bright “sunny” thing.

Yes, we are entering a new era, but not the one Andrew and others think. If he thinks the night was stormy, he hasn’t seen the huge monsoon clouds forming over the horizon.

Hi Andrew. I have thought long and hard about your post and felt that I had to say some thing. I hope that you don’t take it as criticism of what you are doing but as the response of someone who has experienced something different.

While the world of krohng gaan is not really my thing (cultural production/reproduction is more like it) though, I have been caught up in some projects that I could comment about. I’d love to read more of what you have got to say as you have obviously done a lot of work in this area. Further more, in this brave new post coup world, that we are now entering, the sort of ‘communities’ that you are working in are going to feel the brunt of any proposed changes.

However just a couple of comments:

1. While I understand that the notion of ‘community’ that you are referring too is not this ‘bounded thing’ where power relationships are equal but rather, perhaps, a more malleable construct of shifting allegiances that pragmatically band together out of reasons of self-interest (and I would essentially agree with you here – but would probably add, without any real evidence at all, that gossip is probably the only ‘true’ ‘universal’ trait of village life.) However, when you say that community projects “are the focus of ongoing conflict within the village about the allocation of resources and the distribution of benefits. Most projects are subjected to withering criticism and gossip–including regular allegations of financial mismanagement and misappropriation–by those who support other elements of collective activity” my first response is to wonder which village and what projects that you are referring to (its not Port Keats in the Northern Territory is it?). My experience of community projects (except in Port Keats) is not as bleak as yours and I can point to and describe some projects where, generally, the residents of a village would consider that the project was of positive value to the ‘community’. Perhaps in other parts of Thailand things are done differently by different people – and that is the joy of working in such a diverse multi-ethnic country.

2. In your post you refer to many of projects but I guess I’m interested in the village rice mill in the photo and the comments made about its purpose to undercut 3 other rice mills operating in the village. I guess the mills your referring to are similar in scale to the type of mill in the photo – a small type of mill essentially designed to produce polished rice for domestic consumption. Have you been able to look at the economics of production of these types of mills? In villages I’m familiar with the ‘price’ to mill a fertilizer bag of rice is a small quantity of polished rice (measured out in tin that originally held 400 grams of infant formula) and the byproduct of the milling process (about 50 grams of cracked rice, about 250 grams of rice bran and perhaps about 500 grams of rice hull.) If you totaled it all up and converted it to cash the ‘price’ wouldn’t reach 10 baht per sack of rice – 8 baht would be closes to the price. On the opposite side the ‘cost’ to mill the rice not includes the power but the cost of replacing all the moving parts and the ‘consumables’ (which include the cast resin and stone disks used for cracking off the hull, the cast resin and emery drums that polish the bran off the grain, the vulcanized rubber blocks that hold the grain against the polishing drums as well as the V belts that make everything shake and rattle along. I just recently saw a small mill in pieces that was being refurbished after 2 or 3 years of not particularly heavy work. The cost of brining the mill back to ‘new’ condition was estimated by the ‘tradesman’ to be some where between 16000 and 20000 baht. Now to make your money back, just for the refurbishment, (without even thinking about paying the power bill or of making a wage) I estimate that you would need to mill 2000 to 2500 bags of rice. It doesn’t seem like good business sense to me.

I’d really like to know if the mill in the photo is still operating after 12 months or so and if it ever succeeded in its aim in undercutting the price of the local millers.

Well, one prerequisite of “true democracy” (and democracy is something with many forms, not just one true one) is that the military stays out of politics.

Just heard an interesting theory about the coup. I always wondered why, when political tension was so high, Thaksin went on such a long overseas trip. Through his advisers and sources he would of course have known if a coup was in the offing. The theory is that Thaksin deliberately let the coup happen in order to “lure the tiger out of the cave” where it has been hiding for most of the last year (lese majeste is the cave that hides and protects the tiger). Thaksin’s “phu mi barami” speech was like a whistle to the tiger. Now everyone can see the tiger – not only the international community but increasingly the Thai population. Not only is the tiger out of the cave now but it is harrassing the villagers. And everyone knows what happens to tigers when they find themselves out in the open…

Curious said “It is lese majeste that stands between the royalist control of politics, usually subtle but now unashamed, and true democracy.”

Can you please outline what ‘true democracy’ is, and give a few examples of countries where it exists?

It might be helpful so we can understand the continious criticism of the King that prevails amongst certain academics.

One would have to feel heartened that this issue is at last getting the broader coverage and debate that it deserves. But I think that Evans is still far too soft on the king. I really can’t understand this reticence to condemn what must be condemned, particularly amongst Western academics who are not subject to lese majeste. I would certainly not characterize the 2005 birthday speech as one of “grace” and “charm” and it was not “gentle”. The aim of the speech was firstly to give Thaksin a very public dressing down with no right of reply (in my opinion a disgraceful thing to do to a democratically elected Prime Minister). Secondly, it was designed to pressure Thaksin to lift the libel cases on Suphinya and Sondhi – not out of any liberal sentiment but in the interest of “network monarchy’s” battle with Thaksin. And the speech had almost immediate effect as the cases were indeed withdrawn soon after. Sondhi went on to demonize Thaksin in his media on a daily basis, now free to trumpet the whole time that his actions were to defend the monarchy against Thaksin – and Thaksin was helpless to do anything about it! Soon most of the media had joined in the feeding frenzy because they knew that the king had given them the green light and Thaksin was defenceless. The rest is history. (Now it is “check bin” time: I notice that three journalists from the Manager Media group were appointed to the royalist dictatorship’s puppet National Assembly. Who knows what other rewards Sondhi has waiting for him for all his good work. But I don’t think his work is done yet).

So it is naive to accept the king’s birthday comments regarding lese majeste at face value. Over the last 10 months the king (sometimes directly, sometimes through the network) was pulling out every trick in the book to cripple Thaksin (eg. summoning the judges to have the elections annulled; replacing government-appointed military officers with palace loyalists, having the electoral commissioners charged and then jailed, etc.) and Thaksin could not say a thing! This is the background to Thaksin’s “phu mi barami” comments, uttered maybe out of frustration, but more likely out of the desire to let people know, at least in coded form, that the “network” was interfering politically with a democratically elected government.

The king has sycophants “in his sights”? Then why endorse the coup masterminded by one of them (Prem – Chairman of the Privy Council and “State Hero”), carried out by another (Gen. Sondhi – a Prem loyalist), then appoint another as Prime Minister (Surayudh – another Privy Counsellor), and stack the Cabinet and National Assembly full of them?

If one is to believe that the king had issued a “call for criticism” then why was Prem so down on the Handley book (as reported by New Mandala)? Why is the book banned in Thailand? If we are to believe that the king truly “welcomed criticism” then one would think that the king himself would have jumped at the chance of having his subjects read the book and find out a bit more about his personal history.

The way to read the king’s comments is therefore not to take seriously their literal meaning but to look at their intended political effect – in this case, the political weakening of Thaksin. I really am baffled at why the article wants to paint the king as the good guy in all of this. Again we see the immense power of the royalist discourse of the virtuous, selfless king, above the dirt and corruption of the politicians (ie. the elected representatives of the people), dispensing wisdom and righteousness.

And I’m sorry, but it is naive in the extreme to think that the royalists would ever even contemplate lifting lese majeste. Why throw away the only weapon that can defend an illegitimate, royalist-appointed government – and indeed the monarchy itself – against the criticism and scrutiny of a disenfranchised electorate? It is lese majeste that stands between the royalist control of politics, usually subtle but now unashamed, and true democracy. Because even before the coup Thailand was never a “Constitutional Democracy”, but a “Democracy with the Great King as Head of State”, the literal translation of the Thai phrase. And the royalists will do whatever it takes to keep it that way.

What’s most interesting about interpretations of the king’s speech is that neither of you shows the king clearly and absolutely condemning extrajudicial murders. If he isn’t clear on that, then what does he stand for?