An interesting analysis except the last part of what the liberals can be expected to help.
Honestly, rather should it be called a compromise game, a re-bargaining game is more appropriate. By this stage, all the dubious political fake shows are revealed with their purported function — glue the ostensible crack between Thaksin and the long-entrenched political establishment for a new power arrangement.
Yet it is hard to claim if either side really compromises that much. Loss is definitely involved in the negotiation. However, ambitions of both Thaksin and amarts never cease to swell. The losses in this sense become the necessary cost for future security.
With regard to the timing, I don’t think Thaksin decided on the timing solely due to the increasingly pricy ‘transaction cost’. Monetary foundation of Thaksin has never been severely crippled in the past years. He saw opportunities to return and continue with his political pursuit after the ammarts’ moral credits experienced decline among many Thais. Thaksin knew the ammarts wanted the political game to retreat from the streets as eagerly as he wanted to wield the power stick again. His return and the re-invetion of power balance can help the ammarts.
On the other hand, Thaksin has a thin chance to achieve his aspiration with the presence of all the political machinery of ammarts including the military, the PAD, the Democrats, and the utterly vicious media. Hence, Thaksin also needs endorsement from the establishment.
A mutual needing relation bonds them together and enables such a re-bargaining game.
I am deeply concerned that we’re heading back to the “Thaksin and all his works are evil” bullshit that the PAD/ASTV are so fond of.
Already Manager is quoting lines from “progressives” and “leftists” who have shifted against the Reds and gone back to the “Thaksin is evil” meme that only those of equal “evil” will ever dare counter.
Unity is the wrong objective for reconcilion – at least in the way it is being interpreted in the Thai discourse “unity as harmony under (traditional) common values”. Besides the obvious status quo interests behind this approach, there is an cultural unease with conflict, which is being associated with desease, decay, doom.
Thailands vibrant society needs exactly the opposite: the acknowledgement that conflict is the norm of a pluralist society. Thus, mechanisms are needed to mediate conflict, and continuously negotiate solutions that can satisfy divergent interests and bind together people with different values and ways of life.
The political conflict, as dangerous as it may be, opened space for divergency, and created fora for deliberation for people who have never before been part of the political process.
Why is it so hard to see this as an important step towards structural democratization? Because it is associated with the opportunity structure that allowed it to unfold: the elite conflict between Thaksin and the powers that be. And those who oppose Thaksin for underdstandable reasons cannot acknowledge that anything good came out of this decade of conflict.
Could we PLEASE move on? Lets say it loud and clear: Thaksin is an self-interested actor with authoritarian tendencies who is responsible for atrocities in the past. He did not, and will not promote democracy and social justice. He did not mean and will not mean to empower the poor, the marginal, the periphery. However, exactly that happened as an unintended side effect of the elite conflict that forced him to cater to his base.
The real issue now is (to finally come back to Veerayooth’s article) that this window of opportunity for democratization is closing under the elite rapprochement. The very space that the conflict opened up will soon be sealed by a grand elite coalition.
Again, without a real change agent, there will be no structural change. The inability of “progressive” and “liberal” forces alike to build an alliance is the main obstacle for this authoritarian backlash.
That is why I find this red-yellow/ lower class-middle class/ center-periphery bickering so counterproductive and annoying. It takes attention from the real challenge, and helps those with no interest in democratic change to uphold the status quo.
I find K Voranai’s essay in today’s Bangkok Post a very thoughtful analysis of the situation. K Sondhi and K Chamlong’s reactivation in another Post story is disturbing, but it’s hard to argue with their point about the rule of law. Their demonstration on Wednesday and the next meeting of the UDD on Saturday without a call in — the times continue to be interesting.
ted paulson (71), Life for the huge population of east Asia is getting better at an unprecedented rate. Thaksin, unattractive as he may be, is a small part of that phenomenon, which is one of the greatest and most gratifying events in human history. Thaksin is an opportunist riding on a tide of hope and human energy. But compare him, and his friendly outlook towards Thailand’s neighbours, with the reactionaries mired in hatred not only for him, but for everything that that threatens the old Thai nationalist slave/military order. Appreciate the complexity, irony, and strong ground for optimism in the situation, and don’t be blinded by cynicism!
What you say about ‘all this’ always seems to make very good sense to me and I also applaud the determined way in which you say it!
Now beyond that bit of fawning praise (!) I must ask you please to share with us, if you can, your full understanding of the ‘nuanced view of the entire context of LM’ (as you put it, in posting #11 above) of the prisoners you’ve spoken to. Perhaps in a separate article.
Any authentic & faithfully ‘interpreted’ accounts of their experiences would have to be considered to be of great value.
You used my name in a post. Why? What has any of what you said got to do with anything I raised? I made an observation about how RA’s speech can be interpreted and provided an example with an independent link a supports my belief, you return with a rant that has nothing to do with me.
All I see is emotional hyperbole with no rational connection to anything I have said. You have no idea what I think about any issue outside our discussion. I don’t think there is anything more to say to you.
So, yes, criticise the government. But to ignore the wider context is a failure.
It’s daily becoming more and more difficult to ignore the forces of darkness gathering in Thailand. To point out the hopelessness of relying in any way on the stooge government in place is not to ignore the wider context.
PPT had a shot of the HM the King in army fatigues, and looking very fatigued, at Ayutaya. The Commander in Chief?
Wasana, Royal Thai Army Gossip columnist for the Royal Thai Army Times (aka the Bangkok Post) had an article admitting elements of the army were responsible for the attack on the army at Dok Wua, which then was used as the excuse for the massacre that unfolded. That’s a message from the Royal Thai Army command. Purge Time in the Royal Thai Army?
Prem was on the front page of the Bangkok Post, giving voice to the perennial uniformed complaint of corrupt politicians. Springtime For Prem In Thailand?
The background of the ‘celebration’ of the write-off of Ayutaya farmland 16 years ago, coupled with the massive write-off in Phichit this year, while ‘cleverly’ identifying the policy of beggaring Thais to spare Bangkokians with their Majesties; the identification of the policy of dispossessing people from their land in Phetchaburi … where the director of the national park there brought lese majeste charges against the NHRC for standing up against that ‘royal’ dispossession … The first of wave of attempts to make totalitarian measures ‘royal’ and thus undebatable; and those who question them treasonous?
Thailand is definitely headed … rather the Royalist Bangkok ‘elite’ are desperately trying to head Thailand … for emulation of the North Korean totalitarian cultist state, to be ruled by their priesthood, the self-selected caretakers, guardians, and custodians of HM the King, whom they are rapidly degenerating into a royal fetish.
Yeah … there’s lots going on. Just reminding that the government is a solid part of the problem and not of the solution.
The preferred criteria as stated by Asian C. for comments sent in (‘high quality comments that make original contributions…’) has me, as a first-timer, a little nervous about offering my humble thoughts! But anyway, it is just this : that while I find myself so impressed with, and much inspired by, the views expressed & issues argued here, I admit to some mild despair that those reformers who clearly agree on the core essentials (and with great integrity, I sense) , they seem bound to argue themselves – by dispute over details of debatable difference & importance – into positions of needless opposition.
I deserve to be accused of naivete. This stuff’s the flesh & bone of healthy debate, after all.
I suppose, after 20 years in the kingdom and frustrated to the gills with the place I’ve come to oddly ‘love’, I may perhaps have gone a little daft in the head in sheer, urgent desperation to see the ‘right’ changes come.
So it concerns me a little to see the likes of Giles Ungpakorn and Andrew Spooner, both of whom I have read much and greatly admire, seemingly at odds a little here, because for the life of me I can’t really see where their respective views part ways.
(Perhaps I’m not paying enough attention.)
Even Sondhi, Chamlong & the Yellow Shirts do NOT want to be ‘amnestied’! Red Shirts leaders (save Thaksin/Yingluck/Jatuporn/Nattawut et al), Yellow Shirts leaders, the military generals, Abhivsit & the Democrats are insisting that justice should follow its course . . . every party/player implicated in the 2010 Red/Black shirts riots and military crackdown should submit themselves to full judicial/parliamentary inquiry, and, prosecuted if found of any criminal wrong doing. The people of Thailand, it seems, demand: Justice before unity. With justice, and the restoration of the rule of law, through this painful process of full inquiry into the year2010 tragedy, will Thailand be purged. Then unity eventually will follow.
The ‘reconciliation checks’, the ‘amnesty bill’ … the people of Thailand could see through it as a farce to allow one Thaksin Shinawatra and another General Sonthi to elude/evade scrutiny and justice.
I respectfully disagree with you that Mr Spooner is making a feeble excuse for Yingluck Government when he wrote:
[message]
“The military have been sending a very clear message via the media and other channels for weeks,” says prominent government party MP and secretary of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Jarupan Kuldiloke. “If we try to amend 112 they will stage a coup. This puts us in a very difficult position as we cannot create and amend laws in what would be the normal procedure for a democratically elected civilian government. The threats are very real.”
Red Shirt leader, Thida Thavornsate, reiterates Jarupan’s comments….“Remember that Thailand is a dual state and that the government doesn’t have control in the normal way. The civil service, the army and the courts are not under democratic control and are unaccountable. There is no effective rule of law and the army make continual threats. Pheu Thai are scared of the power of the army.”
[end message]
I do not know exactly whether the first paragraph is true or not, but I believe it is. As for what Thida said about Thailand’s government does not have control in a normal way, this is true and anyone who studies Thailand deep enough knows this fact.
Moreover, he quoted what Jarupan and Thida said verbatim, without making additional comments (or I might be wrong, as I only skimmed the article. Please feel free to correct me). I wouldn’t think the above two paragraphs are Mr Spooner’s ‘feeble excuse’.
However, you (I mean you, Ajarn Ji) are correct that Yingluck’s overly friendly act to the elites are insinuating to watch. Additionally, while they may not be able to amend LM, it is inexcusable that they intensify the LM crackdown and impose harsh penalties.
I believe it is time for the Reds to teach Thaksin a lesson. He needs to learn what will happen to him if he decides to turn his back against his supporters. If he chooses to be with the elites, deem him an elite and boycott him.
I state very clearly in the article that the LM prisoners are not in the political prison. Please go back and read the piece properly.
According to the persons mentioned in this article, Kwanravee Wangudom and David Streckfuss, there have been less charges under this government. To my knowledge these two persons are two of the best sources to go for this kind of information. If you have actual evidence to challenge that then please present it. Just saying it is so doesn’t make it so.
The article also explicitly looks at the military’s role in maintaining LM. That a Pheu Thai MP can state “The military have been sending a very clear message via the media and other channels for weeks. If we try to amend 112 they will stage a coup” absolutely raises the issue you allude to when you state “To understand LM you have to see it as a law which protects the military.”
My comment to you regarding the prison was actually far more than that – as you know. It was in reply to your calls for people to organise against the PT government. All I did was ask how you intended to organise from your base in the UK and also pointed out that several political leaders, Nelson Mandela etc, have organised very effective political campaigns from inside a prison cell. That’s an historical fact. That comment seemed to upset you greatly. I should also point out a lot of Red Shirts managed to escape to Cambodia – have you thought about joining those that remain there and working with them?
I won’t be getting into some silly pissing contest about how much I am more committed to challenging LM than the next person. This is just an article where I bring in a range of different voices, offering a different perspective on things. If you can’t acknowledge that these different perspectives exist or that a wider context of power and how it operates exists that’s not really my problem.
What I personally found most interesting is that the actual prisoners themselves had a very nuanced view of the entire context of LM – far more, in my experience, than some of those campaigning on the outside. It was an education speaking to them.
The note at the bottom of this article states it was written before the death of Ah Kong. Therefore how on earth was I supposed to include comment on Thaksin’s gift of land to the Thai royalty? Unfortunately I am still unable to see into the future.
While our nice Mr Wilson is talking up the bright prospects of ASSK/NLD in NM, a candlelight protest has spread from Mandalay to the rest of the country which he has commented upon. ASSK has said she is fond of peaceful protest and pointed out mismanagement as the cause of power shortages.
Interesting to witness popular struggle against injustice and unfairness continue including industrial disputes at Hlaing Tharyar and elsewhere with ASSK/NLD as bystanders semidetached from these fundamental grievances although some NLD members did join in the protests. The connection between these workaday issues and ‘the fight for democracy’ seems somehow lost on them .
ted paulson (18). Are we all fools being manipulated by scoundrels? I’d suggest it’s a matter of degree, and that it varies with place and time. The bigger the gap between rich and poor, the closer you are to the truth. The better educated ordinary people are, the harder it is to defraud them.
Yes, yes. Yes. And yes!
But where is all the discussion about educating the masses in order to ensure they have agency? Every discussion about the patron system appears to be limited to the tiny handful of patrons who are wielding the masses at the time.
I agree the ammat are responsible for creating the problem with their generic aristocratic idiocy. But the incapacity to learn the lessons from historical inequality & the endless failure of the ‘beneficiaries’ of Economic Apartheid to appreciate that they are manufacturing the exploitability that will be their inevitable undoing, is ongoing!
Thaksin has never been about self-determination. He’s not interested in giving the masses agency. He just lies to their faces with endless patronising insults whilst simultaneously bludgeoning his way past every obstacle with the proceeds of his crafty self-serving management of the noisy till. Yet every time a patron hijacks the masses with a new imprinted image of stick (fear, violence & terror) & carrot (insulting ‘treats’ to nibble & choke on); so long as they’re ‘anti-establishment’, they’re widely supported by those who should know better than to blindly support yet another new master, always the same as the old.
I want every single person thinking for themSelves, because I am Selfish and I want all my options available. Patrons take blocs of millions out of play, turning them into automatons & clones; whilst the discussions endlessly focus on individuals at the apex of the corrupted pyramid scheme, who just lie and lie and patronise and insult the masses they have bought to own.
Everyone seems disturbingly focused on ignoring the tell-tale signs of manipulation & imprinting and patronage which suggest “people power” has been hijacked yet again by another individual. They call it democracy when a new overlord scoops up the pot of vassals to wield as they please; they talk up “the peoples” political savvy as if they were unaware of the continual, endless washing of “the peoples” minds with lies & insulting rhetoric, contradictions, broken promises and more.
Until the masses are educated to act in their own best interests, the insane game of exploitation will spin around…and around…and around…and isn’t it time we got off this stupid patronising, self-defeating, miserable ride already?
Many of the poorest people realise that, and sacrifice their own meagre consumption in order to get the best possible education for their children.
Do you really believe this is happening? I’m a little cynical but I see a lot of children being bred to please (i.e. bred for exploitation).
Spooner is making up feeble excuses for the Yingluk Government. As Nick says, they have chosen to increase the use of LM and increased the budget for this. It is no secret that Yingluk and Taksin have done a deal with the military. No shadowy figures there! The LM prisoners are also NOT in the political prison. They were excluded. Yingluk and Taksin have also gone out of their way to ingratiate themselves with Prayut, Prem and now the King. The latter has been bought some land by the Shinawat family. The UDD has also been very quiet about LM. To understand LM you have to see it as a law which protects the military because the military uses the monarchy for its legitimacy. Even some right-wing figures like Anan Panyarachun say that LM is problematic. But Yingluk chooses not to. She also chose to visit Bahrain recently. PT and Taksin have no intention of amending LM. Taksin’s government used it before the coup. In the past Spooner has told me “to go back to Thailand and organise from prison” if I don’t like what Yingluk is doing. Given the fate of Somyot I won’t be doing that!
Sorry to keep coming back to your comment but it’s full of holes.
You claim that
“without citing any evidence is also somewhat misleading.”
Yet then include a quote that states “Sunai guessed that approximately 10 percent of the red-shirts were “radicals” bent on using violence to topple the monarchy.”
A guess, as I’m sure you’re aware, is not proper evidence. It’s just a guess.
Yes Longway, I guess I’m part of the mindless zombie horde, one of the millions of dupes clutching their 500 baht notes, like the “hapless and honourable Thida”.
Just for the record, I criticized Thaksin for the murders of Kru Sae, the war on Drugs and Tak Bai in the letters pages of the Bangkok Post and The Nation when these events happened. The coup deprived me of the pleasure of seeing him thrown out of office legitimately and forced me to address the fact that he was the person that people elected. I support democracy not Thaksin./
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Why the compromise game?
An interesting analysis except the last part of what the liberals can be expected to help.
Honestly, rather should it be called a compromise game, a re-bargaining game is more appropriate. By this stage, all the dubious political fake shows are revealed with their purported function — glue the ostensible crack between Thaksin and the long-entrenched political establishment for a new power arrangement.
Yet it is hard to claim if either side really compromises that much. Loss is definitely involved in the negotiation. However, ambitions of both Thaksin and amarts never cease to swell. The losses in this sense become the necessary cost for future security.
With regard to the timing, I don’t think Thaksin decided on the timing solely due to the increasingly pricy ‘transaction cost’. Monetary foundation of Thaksin has never been severely crippled in the past years. He saw opportunities to return and continue with his political pursuit after the ammarts’ moral credits experienced decline among many Thais. Thaksin knew the ammarts wanted the political game to retreat from the streets as eagerly as he wanted to wield the power stick again. His return and the re-invetion of power balance can help the ammarts.
On the other hand, Thaksin has a thin chance to achieve his aspiration with the presence of all the political machinery of ammarts including the military, the PAD, the Democrats, and the utterly vicious media. Hence, Thaksin also needs endorsement from the establishment.
A mutual needing relation bonds them together and enables such a re-bargaining game.
Human rights and lese majeste
JFL
I am deeply concerned that we’re heading back to the “Thaksin and all his works are evil” bullshit that the PAD/ASTV are so fond of.
Already Manager is quoting lines from “progressives” and “leftists” who have shifted against the Reds and gone back to the “Thaksin is evil” meme that only those of equal “evil” will ever dare counter.
Human rights and lese majeste
Nganadeeleg
“For Thailand’s sake, if anyone should “go back to Thailand and organise from prison”, I think it should be Thaksin Shinawatra.”
Yep, he should’ve done that years back.
But, if he had, he would have been even more popular as his victimhood would’ve become almost sacralised.
Why the compromise game?
Unity is the wrong objective for reconcilion – at least in the way it is being interpreted in the Thai discourse “unity as harmony under (traditional) common values”. Besides the obvious status quo interests behind this approach, there is an cultural unease with conflict, which is being associated with desease, decay, doom.
Thailands vibrant society needs exactly the opposite: the acknowledgement that conflict is the norm of a pluralist society. Thus, mechanisms are needed to mediate conflict, and continuously negotiate solutions that can satisfy divergent interests and bind together people with different values and ways of life.
The political conflict, as dangerous as it may be, opened space for divergency, and created fora for deliberation for people who have never before been part of the political process.
Why is it so hard to see this as an important step towards structural democratization? Because it is associated with the opportunity structure that allowed it to unfold: the elite conflict between Thaksin and the powers that be. And those who oppose Thaksin for underdstandable reasons cannot acknowledge that anything good came out of this decade of conflict.
Could we PLEASE move on? Lets say it loud and clear: Thaksin is an self-interested actor with authoritarian tendencies who is responsible for atrocities in the past. He did not, and will not promote democracy and social justice. He did not mean and will not mean to empower the poor, the marginal, the periphery. However, exactly that happened as an unintended side effect of the elite conflict that forced him to cater to his base.
The real issue now is (to finally come back to Veerayooth’s article) that this window of opportunity for democratization is closing under the elite rapprochement. The very space that the conflict opened up will soon be sealed by a grand elite coalition.
Again, without a real change agent, there will be no structural change. The inability of “progressive” and “liberal” forces alike to build an alliance is the main obstacle for this authoritarian backlash.
That is why I find this red-yellow/ lower class-middle class/ center-periphery bickering so counterproductive and annoying. It takes attention from the real challenge, and helps those with no interest in democratic change to uphold the status quo.
Why the compromise game?
I find K Voranai’s essay in today’s Bangkok Post a very thoughtful analysis of the situation. K Sondhi and K Chamlong’s reactivation in another Post story is disturbing, but it’s hard to argue with their point about the rule of law. Their demonstration on Wednesday and the next meeting of the UDD on Saturday without a call in — the times continue to be interesting.
Why the compromise game?
ted paulson (71), Life for the huge population of east Asia is getting better at an unprecedented rate. Thaksin, unattractive as he may be, is a small part of that phenomenon, which is one of the greatest and most gratifying events in human history. Thaksin is an opportunist riding on a tide of hope and human energy. But compare him, and his friendly outlook towards Thailand’s neighbours, with the reactionaries mired in hatred not only for him, but for everything that that threatens the old Thai nationalist slave/military order. Appreciate the complexity, irony, and strong ground for optimism in the situation, and don’t be blinded by cynicism!
Human rights and lese majeste
To Andrew Spooner,
What you say about ‘all this’ always seems to make very good sense to me and I also applaud the determined way in which you say it!
Now beyond that bit of fawning praise (!) I must ask you please to share with us, if you can, your full understanding of the ‘nuanced view of the entire context of LM’ (as you put it, in posting #11 above) of the prisoners you’ve spoken to. Perhaps in a separate article.
Any authentic & faithfully ‘interpreted’ accounts of their experiences would have to be considered to be of great value.
Why the compromise game?
@TM 60
You used my name in a post. Why? What has any of what you said got to do with anything I raised? I made an observation about how RA’s speech can be interpreted and provided an example with an independent link a supports my belief, you return with a rant that has nothing to do with me.
All I see is emotional hyperbole with no rational connection to anything I have said. You have no idea what I think about any issue outside our discussion. I don’t think there is anything more to say to you.
Human rights and lese majeste
It’s daily becoming more and more difficult to ignore the forces of darkness gathering in Thailand. To point out the hopelessness of relying in any way on the stooge government in place is not to ignore the wider context.
PPT had a shot of the HM the King in army fatigues, and looking very fatigued, at Ayutaya. The Commander in Chief?
Wasana, Royal Thai Army Gossip columnist for the Royal Thai Army Times (aka the Bangkok Post) had an article admitting elements of the army were responsible for the attack on the army at Dok Wua, which then was used as the excuse for the massacre that unfolded. That’s a message from the Royal Thai Army command. Purge Time in the Royal Thai Army?
Prem was on the front page of the Bangkok Post, giving voice to the perennial uniformed complaint of corrupt politicians. Springtime For Prem In Thailand?
The background of the ‘celebration’ of the write-off of Ayutaya farmland 16 years ago, coupled with the massive write-off in Phichit this year, while ‘cleverly’ identifying the policy of beggaring Thais to spare Bangkokians with their Majesties; the identification of the policy of dispossessing people from their land in Phetchaburi … where the director of the national park there brought lese majeste charges against the NHRC for standing up against that ‘royal’ dispossession … The first of wave of attempts to make totalitarian measures ‘royal’ and thus undebatable; and those who question them treasonous?
Thailand is definitely headed … rather the Royalist Bangkok ‘elite’ are desperately trying to head Thailand … for emulation of the North Korean totalitarian cultist state, to be ruled by their priesthood, the self-selected caretakers, guardians, and custodians of HM the King, whom they are rapidly degenerating into a royal fetish.
Yeah … there’s lots going on. Just reminding that the government is a solid part of the problem and not of the solution.
Time for Ta Sawang Ti Song.
Human rights and lese majeste
Sorry, I meant New Mandala, not Asian C. Oops
Human rights and lese majeste
The preferred criteria as stated by Asian C. for comments sent in (‘high quality comments that make original contributions…’) has me, as a first-timer, a little nervous about offering my humble thoughts! But anyway, it is just this : that while I find myself so impressed with, and much inspired by, the views expressed & issues argued here, I admit to some mild despair that those reformers who clearly agree on the core essentials (and with great integrity, I sense) , they seem bound to argue themselves – by dispute over details of debatable difference & importance – into positions of needless opposition.
I deserve to be accused of naivete. This stuff’s the flesh & bone of healthy debate, after all.
I suppose, after 20 years in the kingdom and frustrated to the gills with the place I’ve come to oddly ‘love’, I may perhaps have gone a little daft in the head in sheer, urgent desperation to see the ‘right’ changes come.
So it concerns me a little to see the likes of Giles Ungpakorn and Andrew Spooner, both of whom I have read much and greatly admire, seemingly at odds a little here, because for the life of me I can’t really see where their respective views part ways.
(Perhaps I’m not paying enough attention.)
Why the compromise game?
Even Sondhi, Chamlong & the Yellow Shirts do NOT want to be ‘amnestied’! Red Shirts leaders (save Thaksin/Yingluck/Jatuporn/Nattawut et al), Yellow Shirts leaders, the military generals, Abhivsit & the Democrats are insisting that justice should follow its course . . . every party/player implicated in the 2010 Red/Black shirts riots and military crackdown should submit themselves to full judicial/parliamentary inquiry, and, prosecuted if found of any criminal wrong doing. The people of Thailand, it seems, demand: Justice before unity. With justice, and the restoration of the rule of law, through this painful process of full inquiry into the year2010 tragedy, will Thailand be purged. Then unity eventually will follow.
The ‘reconciliation checks’, the ‘amnesty bill’ … the people of Thailand could see through it as a farce to allow one Thaksin Shinawatra and another General Sonthi to elude/evade scrutiny and justice.
Human rights and lese majeste
For Thailand’s sake, if anyone should “go back to Thailand and organise from prison”, I think it should be Thaksin Shinawatra.
Human rights and lese majeste
Dear Ajarn Ji,
I respectfully disagree with you that Mr Spooner is making a feeble excuse for Yingluck Government when he wrote:
[message]
“The military have been sending a very clear message via the media and other channels for weeks,” says prominent government party MP and secretary of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Jarupan Kuldiloke. “If we try to amend 112 they will stage a coup. This puts us in a very difficult position as we cannot create and amend laws in what would be the normal procedure for a democratically elected civilian government. The threats are very real.”
Red Shirt leader, Thida Thavornsate, reiterates Jarupan’s comments….“Remember that Thailand is a dual state and that the government doesn’t have control in the normal way. The civil service, the army and the courts are not under democratic control and are unaccountable. There is no effective rule of law and the army make continual threats. Pheu Thai are scared of the power of the army.”
[end message]
I do not know exactly whether the first paragraph is true or not, but I believe it is. As for what Thida said about Thailand’s government does not have control in a normal way, this is true and anyone who studies Thailand deep enough knows this fact.
Moreover, he quoted what Jarupan and Thida said verbatim, without making additional comments (or I might be wrong, as I only skimmed the article. Please feel free to correct me). I wouldn’t think the above two paragraphs are Mr Spooner’s ‘feeble excuse’.
However, you (I mean you, Ajarn Ji) are correct that Yingluck’s overly friendly act to the elites are insinuating to watch. Additionally, while they may not be able to amend LM, it is inexcusable that they intensify the LM crackdown and impose harsh penalties.
I believe it is time for the Reds to teach Thaksin a lesson. He needs to learn what will happen to him if he decides to turn his back against his supporters. If he chooses to be with the elites, deem him an elite and boycott him.
Human rights and lese majeste
Giles
I state very clearly in the article that the LM prisoners are not in the political prison. Please go back and read the piece properly.
According to the persons mentioned in this article, Kwanravee Wangudom and David Streckfuss, there have been less charges under this government. To my knowledge these two persons are two of the best sources to go for this kind of information. If you have actual evidence to challenge that then please present it. Just saying it is so doesn’t make it so.
The article also explicitly looks at the military’s role in maintaining LM. That a Pheu Thai MP can state “The military have been sending a very clear message via the media and other channels for weeks. If we try to amend 112 they will stage a coup” absolutely raises the issue you allude to when you state “To understand LM you have to see it as a law which protects the military.”
My comment to you regarding the prison was actually far more than that – as you know. It was in reply to your calls for people to organise against the PT government. All I did was ask how you intended to organise from your base in the UK and also pointed out that several political leaders, Nelson Mandela etc, have organised very effective political campaigns from inside a prison cell. That’s an historical fact. That comment seemed to upset you greatly. I should also point out a lot of Red Shirts managed to escape to Cambodia – have you thought about joining those that remain there and working with them?
I won’t be getting into some silly pissing contest about how much I am more committed to challenging LM than the next person. This is just an article where I bring in a range of different voices, offering a different perspective on things. If you can’t acknowledge that these different perspectives exist or that a wider context of power and how it operates exists that’s not really my problem.
What I personally found most interesting is that the actual prisoners themselves had a very nuanced view of the entire context of LM – far more, in my experience, than some of those campaigning on the outside. It was an education speaking to them.
The note at the bottom of this article states it was written before the death of Ah Kong. Therefore how on earth was I supposed to include comment on Thaksin’s gift of land to the Thai royalty? Unfortunately I am still unable to see into the future.
Counting on the National League for Democracy
While our nice Mr Wilson is talking up the bright prospects of ASSK/NLD in NM, a candlelight protest has spread from Mandalay to the rest of the country which he has commented upon. ASSK has said she is fond of peaceful protest and pointed out mismanagement as the cause of power shortages.
Interesting to witness popular struggle against injustice and unfairness continue including industrial disputes at Hlaing Tharyar and elsewhere with ASSK/NLD as bystanders semidetached from these fundamental grievances although some NLD members did join in the protests. The connection between these workaday issues and ‘the fight for democracy’ seems somehow lost on them .
Why the compromise game?
Yes, yes. Yes. And yes!
But where is all the discussion about educating the masses in order to ensure they have agency? Every discussion about the patron system appears to be limited to the tiny handful of patrons who are wielding the masses at the time.
I agree the ammat are responsible for creating the problem with their generic aristocratic idiocy. But the incapacity to learn the lessons from historical inequality & the endless failure of the ‘beneficiaries’ of Economic Apartheid to appreciate that they are manufacturing the exploitability that will be their inevitable undoing, is ongoing!
Thaksin has never been about self-determination. He’s not interested in giving the masses agency. He just lies to their faces with endless patronising insults whilst simultaneously bludgeoning his way past every obstacle with the proceeds of his crafty self-serving management of the noisy till. Yet every time a patron hijacks the masses with a new imprinted image of stick (fear, violence & terror) & carrot (insulting ‘treats’ to nibble & choke on); so long as they’re ‘anti-establishment’, they’re widely supported by those who should know better than to blindly support yet another new master, always the same as the old.
I want every single person thinking for themSelves, because I am Selfish and I want all my options available. Patrons take blocs of millions out of play, turning them into automatons & clones; whilst the discussions endlessly focus on individuals at the apex of the corrupted pyramid scheme, who just lie and lie and patronise and insult the masses they have bought to own.
Everyone seems disturbingly focused on ignoring the tell-tale signs of manipulation & imprinting and patronage which suggest “people power” has been hijacked yet again by another individual. They call it democracy when a new overlord scoops up the pot of vassals to wield as they please; they talk up “the peoples” political savvy as if they were unaware of the continual, endless washing of “the peoples” minds with lies & insulting rhetoric, contradictions, broken promises and more.
Until the masses are educated to act in their own best interests, the insane game of exploitation will spin around…and around…and around…and isn’t it time we got off this stupid patronising, self-defeating, miserable ride already?
Do you really believe this is happening? I’m a little cynical but I see a lot of children being bred to please (i.e. bred for exploitation).
Human rights and lese majeste
Spooner is making up feeble excuses for the Yingluk Government. As Nick says, they have chosen to increase the use of LM and increased the budget for this. It is no secret that Yingluk and Taksin have done a deal with the military. No shadowy figures there! The LM prisoners are also NOT in the political prison. They were excluded. Yingluk and Taksin have also gone out of their way to ingratiate themselves with Prayut, Prem and now the King. The latter has been bought some land by the Shinawat family. The UDD has also been very quiet about LM. To understand LM you have to see it as a law which protects the military because the military uses the monarchy for its legitimacy. Even some right-wing figures like Anan Panyarachun say that LM is problematic. But Yingluk chooses not to. She also chose to visit Bahrain recently. PT and Taksin have no intention of amending LM. Taksin’s government used it before the coup. In the past Spooner has told me “to go back to Thailand and organise from prison” if I don’t like what Yingluk is doing. Given the fate of Somyot I won’t be doing that!
Human rights and lese majeste
Nick
Sorry to keep coming back to your comment but it’s full of holes.
You claim that
“without citing any evidence is also somewhat misleading.”
Yet then include a quote that states “Sunai guessed that approximately 10 percent of the red-shirts were “radicals” bent on using violence to topple the monarchy.”
A guess, as I’m sure you’re aware, is not proper evidence. It’s just a guess.
Why the compromise game?
Yes Longway, I guess I’m part of the mindless zombie horde, one of the millions of dupes clutching their 500 baht notes, like the “hapless and honourable Thida”.
Just for the record, I criticized Thaksin for the murders of Kru Sae, the war on Drugs and Tak Bai in the letters pages of the Bangkok Post and The Nation when these events happened. The coup deprived me of the pleasure of seeing him thrown out of office legitimately and forced me to address the fact that he was the person that people elected. I support democracy not Thaksin./