Sounds like more to Pakatan huh…. Your points seem to be bias to Pakatan. Reality is so much different than you can predict. Come and see all the grassroot in Selangor, Penang, Kedah and Kelantan. You will find the truth, nothing but the truth….
Thanks Geoff for such an interesting interview. In the contemporary development process, Cambodia needs more writers and thinkers like Tararith to inspire and challenge the Cambodian people to shape their world.
@Francois: I am not quite sure if Tararith has a his own website. However, I have some of his writings in soft copy. Please drop me an email via if you wish to read some of his work.
I am quite interested to understand what kind of democracy PAD is educating to people, and how it differs with UDD’s view, and also other democracies in the rest of the world.
Is this your Walk to Canossa!? Bist du nach Canossa gegangen?!
Reading your comments to “Garuda #6 & 12”, I was more than surprised, rather quite stunned. Especially your comments to “Garuda #12”.
Where was thee Nick Nostitz we are used to know and read?! What has happened? Where are the answers? Are you trying to avoid them? Once more Nick. Where are the answers? You ought to have them!
Usually, you are very precise. That is Nick Nostitz, isn’t it? That’s what we used to know you as being good at, being precise. Then you are really good. Where is that precision now? Where has it gone?
You actually have to stand by your writing. You must have a leg to stand on. If not, your writing will not be serious and we wouldn’t like that. Right?
— For you having ‘difficulties’ in following this conversation/comment, please go back to “Nick Nostitz #4, 10 & 13тА│ and “Garuda #6 & 12” for the full story/comments. Then you’ll understand clearly. —
You were not really commenting and giving answers to my comments/assertions and linked pictures on what you had earlier written, your own assertions, at all. This we are not very used to see when you are expressing yourself on this forum. Rather the opposite.
It ought to be almost ‘criminal’ to tell A and then not B. Starting up things/discussions, though not finishing them. Not giving answers to questions. Avoiding it. Wouldn’t you agree Nick!? Yes or no, Nick?
I do have to thank you for the extra information you gave on several other things! Well done!
We will not argue forever, not argue at all. There’s no point in that, as this is not a competition. At least not for me. Hope not for you either. Though…
Now comes – the PAD rally, from 25-26/01/2011 and for another 10 to 14 days…
Were my comments/assertions and linked pictures all that wrong, really? Were they really that wrong? Please, answer? Yes or no, Nick?
A picture, or several, tells (or can tell) a story, sometimes more than words can tell. If the picture(s) is correct, that is. What I can understand were the linked pictures I gave not wrong. Then both Bangkok Post and The Nation must have been wrong too. Wouldn’t you agree? Yes or no, Nick?
Not to mention all people who were there (according to you some 3, 000 – 5, 000 persons) and experienced, in real life, the same picture(s) as in both newspapers. The people I have talked to confirm the pictures from Bangkok Post and The Nation are correct. Maybe, they saw wrong too. Then it could be up to 20, 000 or even up to 25, 000 – 30, 000 people + two major newspapers getting the wrong picture, the picture wrong. Just hope the newspapers in Thai language haven’t got it wrong also.
However, you got the picture right. Is that so? Yes or no, Nick?
Nick, kindly be a little correct for the protocol.
So Nick, my question is now, with help of the pictures, are you viewing 3, 000 – 5, 000 persons, or could it possibly be ‘several‘ thousand more of them?
With your estimation Nick, how many people do you now see with help of the pictures, knowing PAD party reached from Makkhawan Rangsan Bridge to Royal Plaza covering all traffic lanes blocking the whole avenue and also reaching from Ratchadamnoen Nok Avenue down to Government House (you know how that street looks like and probably how many of Chamlong’s people would be camping there)?
The estimate in numbers of the participants during the first part of the PAD rally, from 25-26/01/2011 and for another 10 to 14 days were obviously many more than you wrote, even later on they were many more than you told. Though, you are right when you give the figures “on average only several hundred protesters” – that was during certain periods of the protest at Makkhawan Rangsan Bridge.
About PAD’s meeting at the concert hall in Lumphini Park + the surroundings, 10 of March 2012…
You write: “I have my own estimates, and compare them with the estimates of special branch, military intel and police (who all have a vast experience in estimating crowds – it is their profession, after all), and draw a medium.”
It’s ok with me – all respects – if this is your, the special branch, military intel and police estimates and that you draw a medium of that.
I counted three times that day, covering morning, day and evening. Also people who leave early were there once. Also those who came later. They also have to be counted. Or, could I be wrong by also counting them who left early and came later?
The PAD crowd was – at any given time as follows:
In the concert hall – full – 27 rows x 55 chairs = 1, 485 people + some 200 sitting on the floor.
In the garden another ca 2, 000 people watching the in-door meeting from outside on big screens.
About 3, 700 persons totally.
During the whole day people came, went out/home, and new came – about 3, 000 – 4, 000 people extra added to above as new.
This will give some 6, 700 – 7, 700 people during the day. Even more than the PAD themselves have reported.
Many, even thousands, of the PAD supporters had left long before Chamlong Srimuang, Sondhi Limthongkul and Phiphob Thongchai had entered the stage. It was just to stand in front of the concert hall to see how many that left early, clearly being PAD supporters with stickers, flags, signs, papers, booklets and shirts.
“During the October 7, 2008 clashes, the PAD had approximately 10 000 protesters”, you write.
I would say it would have been almost impossible, not to mention very dangerous and suicide, to cover such a big area covering from Makkhawan Rangsan Bridge, through the Royal Plaza all the way beyond the Parliament, and including the Government House as well with just 10, 000 PAD protesters. It’s such a vast area to cover, that the PAD never would have risked their supporters for that. Never. If the PAD would have been spreading their supporters out like you say, just with 10, 000 people, then they would not have been able to defend themselves at Makkhawan Rangsan Bridge, the Government House, Royal Plaza and the Parliament, as the area is that huge. Their people would have been very vulnerable for attacks from the police or whoever wanted to attack them.
That risk PAD would never have put themselves in if they would have been that few. With that few you mention, they might then have lost their grounds at Makkhawan Rangsan Bridge and the Government House and their fight/protest in no time. Major General Chamlong Srimuang and General Pathomphong Kesornsuk as well as others would never have risked people, the PAD, their grounds and their fight/protest doing this with that few you mention. Remember, Chamlong and Pathomphong are two renowned strategists.
I was there, so I know how it looks/looked like and how dangerous it was. It was far more than just 10, 000 supporters covering that area. They were more likely in the region of 30, 000 people covering the whole area.
Nick, do you really believe it is very likely that Chamlong and Pathomphong would have come to the conclusion it was wise and possible to safeguard an area about 2 km long x 0,5 km wide, with access for the police and others to target the PAD from at least 11 roads leading in to that vast and extended area??? Yes or no, Nick?
You say: “Many say that there is always the option that the PAD and their former backers could get back together again, but i personally have serious doubts about that, especially as long as Sondhi is still a main leader.”
+ “i believe that at present the PAD is now at a dead end, and devolved into a fringe group without mass base and has lost almost all allies.”
Thai history has taught us Never Say Never Again. Friendship come, friendship go, friendship recur.
I agree with you that “Full Siam Samakkhi meetings are generally larger” than 500 people. However, such meetings are not that very common.
I know several, though I would rather call them many, people/supporters who switch between and/or attend each other’s rallies, the PAD, Dr. Tul’s group, Siam Samakkhi, and even the Red Shirts, sometimes like “we” are changing shirts.
For Thais nothing is black or white or even eternal, as loyalty in Thailand changes rather quick if not rapidly. So, we wouldn’t know very much and very well what is valid and real tomorrow. It’s some part of our Thainess, being neither/nor, either/or and ‘no direction at all’, the last citing Kittirat Na Ranong, Finance Minister of Thailand, for the time being.
I fully agree with you in: “Mass based street politics in Thailand now have to a large part been taken over by the Red Shirts, who morphed over the years from a disorganized rabble in 2006/2007 into the most sophisticated social mass movement Thailand has ever seen – each crackdown against them resulted in structural changes and improvements leading to an incredibly multi-layered organization.”
The only scary thing with this is that we just don’t know what this will result in yet. Can be good, can turn out to be really bad. If it will lead to full control of the country, parliamentary dictatorship or even worse, will this lead to a better Thailand?
What if we one day wake up to full-blown dictatorship, by ‘democratically’ voting somebody into Parliament and Government carte blanche, Full/Plenary Powers.
What is your opinion about that?
Still strange that no one of you mentioned what Phiphob Thongchai said, that the PAD’s cautious approach could lead to real change as the group was serious about building up networks and educating people about political regimes.
If the PAD had started doing this already in 2008, it would have been better, than starting now, when the Red Shirts already are in the swing with their education concept of democracy.
Better late than sorry, it seems.
Any comments on this?
“Garuda” has attended Sondhi Limthongkul’s Lumphini Park “We Fight for the King” rallies (a forerunner to the PAD) 2005-2006 on and off, the PAD/Yellow Shirts rallies for more than 200 days, Caravan of the Poor rallies (supporting then Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a forerunner to the UDD/Red Shirts) several times 2006, the UDD/Red Shirts rallies for more than 40 days, the Siam Samakkhi & Dr. Tul’s group so many times and other parties and colours like Pink Shirts/Multicolored Group/Silom People a.o. when they were in swing frequently from 2005 until now.
Garuda will continuously attend as many rallies as possible.
English/Thai dictionaries usually translate “prisoner of war” as “chaloey suek”, but the meaning is actually quite different. The English understanding is that a prisoner of war is a captured enemy soldier who may or may not be released and repatriated at the conclusion of hostilities. An example is the Allied POWs who worked on the Burma Railway. The Thai understanding is that a chaloey suek is a captured enemy civilian who is taken into slavery, but whose descendants will eventually be integrated into Thai society. An example is the ancestors of the Thai Muslim community in Minburi, who were Malay Muslims captured in Pattani by a Siamese punitive expedition and used as forced labour digging canals.
“So why does every Western journalist point out that Laos values human rights less than it values national security?”
Because they can, get away with their every jaundice view, so easily that no attempt is even made to present the etiology.
With so few “English fluent” journalist, and the existing few always feel obligated not to offend their host countries with the TRUTH, New Mandala deserve credit to allow voices beyond SOS of Western journalists.
[…] Somsak Jeamteerasakul, the leading academic expert on the events surrounding Ananda’s death, has pointed out, deduction can go a long way, just as in crime novels like Murder on the Orient […]
In my view, Thailand offers one of the most successful examples of reactionary forces co-opting social media in order to wage hate-campaigns and intimidate the opposition. In many ways the representatives of Thai fascism have been more effective at utilising social media than those of a more progressive bent.
It is also interesting that Facebook, despite pages like Social Sanctions and “I love to see Red Shirt corpses” (was in Thai – not sure it exists anymore), have become the medium of choice for the more progressive/democratic element, rather than twitter. Anecdotally this seems to be because FB has some element of safety and accountability while twitter has none at all.
In regards to Social Sanctions – you may have heard of the story of the Thai student, Kantoop, who received a police summons for lese majeste – this summons was never completed with the case being postponed indefinitely.
The real story of Kantoop is that she was stalked relentlessly since May 2010 by Social Sanctions. This was going on since she was 17, with threats, abuse, her address, photos etc being posted.
Speak to Thai HR activists – they are almost as frightened of the “social sanctions” (not just the group itself but also the wider use of these sanctions) as they are of legal sanctions when it comes to discussing things that are deemed off-limits.
And given the “social” aspect of “social media” – and all the usual “group-think” and conformist ways of interacting that can develop in social spaces – social media can, at its worst, transform into a very potent form of social control.
In such a scenario, then, legal devices, such as Thailand’s LM laws, are just the ultimate sanctions in a diverse and complex web of powerful forms of censorship. They represent a form of state violence every bit as explicit as a bullet to the head.
Twitter’s “censorship” strategies are, in my opinion, relatively minor in this context.
But you’re right as well. Why did the Thai government need to jump on this so quick? Maybe, if they’d had the cunning and devious spite of the Eton-educated UK PM Cameron, they’d have kept in quiet until it was necessary?
Whether hate to love or love to hate, the respective ruling entities in Cambodia, Lao , Vietnam and Myanmar is, what it is. A result of West hegemony over every post WW II politics.
Historically proven principles must be used to deal with these less than desirable entity.
Will the West recognize these principles that, neglected absolutely in Myanmar case?
NGOs are but a terrible stop gap measures that are useful when useless careless policy and the consequences persist.
It now must be the CBO within respective countries that must be the foci to bring about improving the plight of the citizenry.
Ohn #14 has made the point well.
#16
Need to move on from usual ‘love to hate the government’ to support the citizenry in every way.
Hi Andrew – thanks to you and the New Mandala crew for reading and responding to the the piece I wrote. I thought I might take the opportunity to continue the discussion with an engaged audience!
I agree that the twitter debate is overblown, and that the Western media/academia approach is often hyperbolic at best.
However, the point is not necessarily a cyber realist/cyber utopioan Morozov/Shirky style debate. True, the UK government discussed twitter censorship long before the policy came out – and I think you are right to point out the link between those discussions and the final policy outcome.
However, one of the interesting things about the Thai policy is not the actual (debatable) affect Twitter has on Thai politics. Instead, what is interesting is that the government felt compelled to respond quickly and so publically – you’ll note the UK did no such thing. This kind of ‘performative policy’ surrounding online censorship is increasingly interesting. This is a link to a useful article about this sort of thing in Uzbekistan: http://registan.net/index.php/2012/02/21/why-did-uzbekistan-ban-wikipedia/
I like to think of it as ‘data style as soft power’….as well as, of course, hard power. This is interesting in the Thai case given recent crackdowns on all forms of free speech – not just online. There are lots of other examples of this sort of thing, and I hope to write a post about it soon.
On your point about VCDs and the Bangkok middle class educated elite’s preoccupation with twitter – I agree with you completely. Cyber utopians tend to forget that people have long communicated about politics effectively without the internet, and continue to do so. However, what is interesting s not the mistaken argument that twitter is the most important form of this sort of communication – although it is obviously important enough for the government to worry about it.
Instead, what is interesting, as you point out, is the link between a corporate policy and contested domestic politics, and the way the corporate policy can shape those politics, inadvertently or otherwise. I’d love to know more about the social spaces facebook group you mentioned, and am off to look it up now.
The NGOs are now too close to their donor states for comfort i.e. subject to manipulation, and it has become a career choice as in the old colonial service. The modern day version of white man’s burden and mission civilisatrice which our friend plan B appears to have a love hate relationship with, not unlike that with his generals.
Of course the Malaysian constitution is racist , yet it also says all Malaysians have equal rights . The politicians of today and those before , have manipulated the constitution and laws in a bid to stay in power by giving the Bumiputra special privileges to gain votes .
Malaysia and its politicians should be condemmed by the international community , and should be removed from the UNHRC , its a disgrace they are there .
Sorry to say that there is no country in South East Asia with a good reputation in human rights and equality , even Singapore , or even with a transparent government .
All countries in SE Asia have a long way to go in government , civil service
efficiency and transparancy
He raises the issue that at that time Twitter was dominated by PAD supporters who were spinning the story a certain way.
It mentions my intervention when I correctly pointed out to the assembled newsrooms around the world that the PAD tweeple were not entirely credible – they were trying to pass off ASTV as a bonafide news source.
Of course, at that time, there was absolutely no UDD representation on twitter at all and those who took a different line to the PAD-line soon got cyber-stalked, hate campaigned etc.
Things like the Facebook-based Social Sanctions group – something that has been far more effective at censoring debate in Thailand than any proposed curtailment of twitter – never seem to get mentioned that much by Western media, academics etc.
Is that because the existence of such groups undo the false-narrative that seems to have accumulated around things like twitter, Facebook etc?
Talks ensued between the UK and twitter at that time and it is very likely that twitter’s censorship policy was as a result of those discussions which Thailand then adopted.
Also anyone who thinks Twitter is anything other than a private company seeking to make profits are delusional.
What is far more interesting is that social interactions are now being commodified and commercialised by the likes of Twitter, Facebook etc not that some “cyber evangelists” feel let down by the private companies who are colonising social space.
I’d suggest anyone who believes that things like “twitter” are bringers of “freedoms” read Evgeny Morozov’s illuminating study of all that is cyber “The Net Delusion”.
Finally, more resistance to the dominant order in Thailand has been distributed by VCD’s amongst the ordinary folk of the North and Northeast (many of whom don’t know and don’t care about “social media”) than twitter to multiplies of hundreds. The latter tends to be the preserve of middle class Bangkokians pushing a very Yellow-tinged agenda.
I concede that I do not know the exact details of the arrangement between the CIA and Vang Pao.
But I think my point has been largely missed.
Vang Pao (et al) were entirely armed and funded by the US. Following his death, US congressional representatives were actively lobbying the president to allow Pao’s body to be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
The interesting twist in this story came in 2007, when Pao was arrested in a dubious conspiracy case to supply arms to Lao guerillas.
The funny thing about the case is, it wasn’t really any different from the kind of garbage treason cases (e.g. the Liberty City 7) being built by indictment-crazed Federal investigators every day.
The whole thing was cooked up by a desperate federal informant looking to pay his bills.
The only reason Pao walked was that a legion of teary-eyed CIA spooks came out of the woodwork to bat for him. Had he been a muslim teenager, he would have been whisked away to some deep dark hole without the benefit of any kind of trail.
Or maybe tortured. Or maybe killed.
The larger point I’m trying to make is that there is a vicious double-standard regarding discourse on human rights in the Western media.
How sympathetic would the US be to a tribe of ethnic minorities who had been attacking its soldiers for 50 years with help from a foreign government?
Just ask Attorney General Eric Holder!
Those people would have no rights in the United States or anywhere else in the world–US citizen or not.
They would simply be killed. End of story.
I’m not saying that Laos should have hunted and killed the remainder of the CIA-trained Hmong fighters.
But that’s certainly what the US would have done (legally!) if it was put in the position of the Lao PDR. So why does every Western journalist point out that Laos values human rights less than it values national security?
If anything, that’s precisely the line being espoused by the US government.
Just came across this discussion today.
Some relevant generalizations:
1. The concept of “race” is a confused muddle of physical (inherited) and cultural (learned) characteristics which cannot be clearly distinguished from other confused muddles called other races. Typical Anthropology textbooks document the history of the abandonment of this concept.
2. Genetic and linguistic data are from distinct sources and tell you different things about the people who once lived in a place. Genetics tell you who was sleeping with whom, linguistics who was talking to whom. It is fairly common for people and large groups of people to change the language they speak within a generation. The third “eye” or perspective on prehistory is of course that of archaeology, which tells you basically what people were making and what survivors felt about people who died.
3. These three disciplines are distinct in their data sources and their methods of geographical expansion.
3. Although the three are totally distinct, studies show that genetic groupings and language groupings overall tend to correspond with each other. Where they don’t (e.g. south and north China) much can be learned.
4. As for Thai identity, the linguistic evidence is clearest among the three. Thai language is traceable to a distinct “homeland” on the Vietnam-Kwangsi-Kweijou border area. There is a tantalizing sprinke of minor dialects north of that area which suggest ancestors earlier than the reconstructed homeland language (called a proto-language).
5. Other linguistic theories or suggestions relating Thai to Chinese, to Austronesian and to Austro-Asiatic, do not have wide acceptance or have been debunked.
6. Genetic studies regularly show the following linkages:
-Thais and Khmers or Muong people (Austro-Asiatic speakers)
-Thais and southern Chinese. In turn it is well-established that the
southern Chinese are far closer genetically to South East Asian
populations than they are to northern Chinese.
7. Archaeological data normally cannot tell us much about ethno-
linguistic affiliation.
Some thoughts for anyone who stumbles into this discussion of six years ago, as I did today.
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Malaysia after regime change – Meredith Weiss
Sounds like more to Pakatan huh…. Your points seem to be bias to Pakatan. Reality is so much different than you can predict. Come and see all the grassroot in Selangor, Penang, Kedah and Kelantan. You will find the truth, nothing but the truth….
Interview with Cambodian writer Tararith Kho
Hi Chanroeun
Thanks for your reply. Here is my email: francoisgerles (at) yahoo (dot) fr
Kind regards
Francois
Interview with Cambodian writer Tararith Kho
Thanks Geoff for such an interesting interview. In the contemporary development process, Cambodia needs more writers and thinkers like Tararith to inspire and challenge the Cambodian people to shape their world.
@Francois: I am not quite sure if Tararith has a his own website. However, I have some of his writings in soft copy. Please drop me an email via if you wish to read some of his work.
Cheers,
Chanroeun
A week of colour
@Garuda, do you attend the PAD rallies as a supporter/believer or strictly as an observer?
A week of colour
Garuda #14
I am quite interested to understand what kind of democracy PAD is educating to people, and how it differs with UDD’s view, and also other democracies in the rest of the world.
A week of colour
“Nick Nostitz #10 & 13тА│
Is this your Walk to Canossa!? Bist du nach Canossa gegangen?!
Reading your comments to “Garuda #6 & 12”, I was more than surprised, rather quite stunned. Especially your comments to “Garuda #12”.
Where was thee Nick Nostitz we are used to know and read?! What has happened? Where are the answers? Are you trying to avoid them? Once more Nick. Where are the answers? You ought to have them!
Usually, you are very precise. That is Nick Nostitz, isn’t it? That’s what we used to know you as being good at, being precise. Then you are really good. Where is that precision now? Where has it gone?
You actually have to stand by your writing. You must have a leg to stand on. If not, your writing will not be serious and we wouldn’t like that. Right?
— For you having ‘difficulties’ in following this conversation/comment, please go back to “Nick Nostitz #4, 10 & 13тА│ and “Garuda #6 & 12” for the full story/comments. Then you’ll understand clearly. —
You were not really commenting and giving answers to my comments/assertions and linked pictures on what you had earlier written, your own assertions, at all. This we are not very used to see when you are expressing yourself on this forum. Rather the opposite.
It ought to be almost ‘criminal’ to tell A and then not B. Starting up things/discussions, though not finishing them. Not giving answers to questions. Avoiding it. Wouldn’t you agree Nick!? Yes or no, Nick?
I do have to thank you for the extra information you gave on several other things! Well done!
We will not argue forever, not argue at all. There’s no point in that, as this is not a competition. At least not for me. Hope not for you either. Though…
Now comes – the PAD rally, from 25-26/01/2011 and for another 10 to 14 days…
Were my comments/assertions and linked pictures all that wrong, really? Were they really that wrong? Please, answer? Yes or no, Nick?
A picture, or several, tells (or can tell) a story, sometimes more than words can tell. If the picture(s) is correct, that is. What I can understand were the linked pictures I gave not wrong. Then both Bangkok Post and The Nation must have been wrong too. Wouldn’t you agree? Yes or no, Nick?
Not to mention all people who were there (according to you some 3, 000 – 5, 000 persons) and experienced, in real life, the same picture(s) as in both newspapers. The people I have talked to confirm the pictures from Bangkok Post and The Nation are correct. Maybe, they saw wrong too. Then it could be up to 20, 000 or even up to 25, 000 – 30, 000 people + two major newspapers getting the wrong picture, the picture wrong. Just hope the newspapers in Thai language haven’t got it wrong also.
However, you got the picture right. Is that so? Yes or no, Nick?
Nick, kindly be a little correct for the protocol.
So Nick, my question is now, with help of the pictures, are you viewing 3, 000 – 5, 000 persons, or could it possibly be ‘several‘ thousand more of them?
With your estimation Nick, how many people do you now see with help of the pictures, knowing PAD party reached from Makkhawan Rangsan Bridge to Royal Plaza covering all traffic lanes blocking the whole avenue and also reaching from Ratchadamnoen Nok Avenue down to Government House (you know how that street looks like and probably how many of Chamlong’s people would be camping there)?
The estimate in numbers of the participants during the first part of the PAD rally, from 25-26/01/2011 and for another 10 to 14 days were obviously many more than you wrote, even later on they were many more than you told. Though, you are right when you give the figures “on average only several hundred protesters” – that was during certain periods of the protest at Makkhawan Rangsan Bridge.
Once more, judge yourself:
See photos in Bangkok Post 26/01/2011: “Military flexes its muscle” http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/218177/military-flexes-its-muscle
also see the same picture (if the picture does not show up in BP) on: http://khmernz.blogspot.com/2011_01_26_archive.html
More photos can be seen in Tan Network “People’s Alliance Kicks Off Mass Rally” 25/01/2011:
http://www.tannetwork.tv/tan/ViewData.aspx?DataID=1040011
also see the same picture (if the picture does not show up in Tan Network) on: http://www.subzerosiam.com/forum/showthread.php/28156-PAD-Accede-to-demands-or-rally-continues
Jet more photos in The Nation 28/01/2011: ‘Hello, we’re back!’
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2011/01/26/national/Hello-were-back%21-30147216.html
also see the same picture (if the picture does not show up in The Nation) on:
http://www.subzerosiam.com/forum/showthread.php/28156-PAD-Accede-to-demands-or-rally-continues
About PAD’s meeting at the concert hall in Lumphini Park + the surroundings, 10 of March 2012…
You write: “I have my own estimates, and compare them with the estimates of special branch, military intel and police (who all have a vast experience in estimating crowds – it is their profession, after all), and draw a medium.”
It’s ok with me – all respects – if this is your, the special branch, military intel and police estimates and that you draw a medium of that.
I counted three times that day, covering morning, day and evening. Also people who leave early were there once. Also those who came later. They also have to be counted. Or, could I be wrong by also counting them who left early and came later?
The PAD crowd was – at any given time as follows:
In the concert hall – full – 27 rows x 55 chairs = 1, 485 people + some 200 sitting on the floor.
In the garden another ca 2, 000 people watching the in-door meeting from outside on big screens.
About 3, 700 persons totally.
During the whole day people came, went out/home, and new came – about 3, 000 – 4, 000 people extra added to above as new.
This will give some 6, 700 – 7, 700 people during the day. Even more than the PAD themselves have reported.
Many, even thousands, of the PAD supporters had left long before Chamlong Srimuang, Sondhi Limthongkul and Phiphob Thongchai had entered the stage. It was just to stand in front of the concert hall to see how many that left early, clearly being PAD supporters with stickers, flags, signs, papers, booklets and shirts.
“During the October 7, 2008 clashes, the PAD had approximately 10 000 protesters”, you write.
I would say it would have been almost impossible, not to mention very dangerous and suicide, to cover such a big area covering from Makkhawan Rangsan Bridge, through the Royal Plaza all the way beyond the Parliament, and including the Government House as well with just 10, 000 PAD protesters. It’s such a vast area to cover, that the PAD never would have risked their supporters for that. Never. If the PAD would have been spreading their supporters out like you say, just with 10, 000 people, then they would not have been able to defend themselves at Makkhawan Rangsan Bridge, the Government House, Royal Plaza and the Parliament, as the area is that huge. Their people would have been very vulnerable for attacks from the police or whoever wanted to attack them.
That risk PAD would never have put themselves in if they would have been that few. With that few you mention, they might then have lost their grounds at Makkhawan Rangsan Bridge and the Government House and their fight/protest in no time. Major General Chamlong Srimuang and General Pathomphong Kesornsuk as well as others would never have risked people, the PAD, their grounds and their fight/protest doing this with that few you mention. Remember, Chamlong and Pathomphong are two renowned strategists.
I was there, so I know how it looks/looked like and how dangerous it was. It was far more than just 10, 000 supporters covering that area. They were more likely in the region of 30, 000 people covering the whole area.
Nick, do you really believe it is very likely that Chamlong and Pathomphong would have come to the conclusion it was wise and possible to safeguard an area about 2 km long x 0,5 km wide, with access for the police and others to target the PAD from at least 11 roads leading in to that vast and extended area??? Yes or no, Nick?
You say: “Many say that there is always the option that the PAD and their former backers could get back together again, but i personally have serious doubts about that, especially as long as Sondhi is still a main leader.”
+ “i believe that at present the PAD is now at a dead end, and devolved into a fringe group without mass base and has lost almost all allies.”
Thai history has taught us Never Say Never Again. Friendship come, friendship go, friendship recur.
I agree with you that “Full Siam Samakkhi meetings are generally larger” than 500 people. However, such meetings are not that very common.
I know several, though I would rather call them many, people/supporters who switch between and/or attend each other’s rallies, the PAD, Dr. Tul’s group, Siam Samakkhi, and even the Red Shirts, sometimes like “we” are changing shirts.
For Thais nothing is black or white or even eternal, as loyalty in Thailand changes rather quick if not rapidly. So, we wouldn’t know very much and very well what is valid and real tomorrow. It’s some part of our Thainess, being neither/nor, either/or and ‘no direction at all’, the last citing Kittirat Na Ranong, Finance Minister of Thailand, for the time being.
I fully agree with you in: “Mass based street politics in Thailand now have to a large part been taken over by the Red Shirts, who morphed over the years from a disorganized rabble in 2006/2007 into the most sophisticated social mass movement Thailand has ever seen – each crackdown against them resulted in structural changes and improvements leading to an incredibly multi-layered organization.”
The only scary thing with this is that we just don’t know what this will result in yet. Can be good, can turn out to be really bad. If it will lead to full control of the country, parliamentary dictatorship or even worse, will this lead to a better Thailand?
What if we one day wake up to full-blown dictatorship, by ‘democratically’ voting somebody into Parliament and Government carte blanche, Full/Plenary Powers.
What is your opinion about that?
Still strange that no one of you mentioned what Phiphob Thongchai said, that the PAD’s cautious approach could lead to real change as the group was serious about building up networks and educating people about political regimes.
If the PAD had started doing this already in 2008, it would have been better, than starting now, when the Red Shirts already are in the swing with their education concept of democracy.
Better late than sorry, it seems.
Any comments on this?
“Garuda” has attended Sondhi Limthongkul’s Lumphini Park “We Fight for the King” rallies (a forerunner to the PAD) 2005-2006 on and off, the PAD/Yellow Shirts rallies for more than 200 days, Caravan of the Poor rallies (supporting then Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a forerunner to the UDD/Red Shirts) several times 2006, the UDD/Red Shirts rallies for more than 40 days, the Siam Samakkhi & Dr. Tul’s group so many times and other parties and colours like Pink Shirts/Multicolored Group/Silom People a.o. when they were in swing frequently from 2005 until now.
Garuda will continuously attend as many rallies as possible.
Nationalism and genetics: Thai obsession with race
Moe Aung #16:
English/Thai dictionaries usually translate “prisoner of war” as “chaloey suek”, but the meaning is actually quite different. The English understanding is that a prisoner of war is a captured enemy soldier who may or may not be released and repatriated at the conclusion of hostilities. An example is the Allied POWs who worked on the Burma Railway. The Thai understanding is that a chaloey suek is a captured enemy civilian who is taken into slavery, but whose descendants will eventually be integrated into Thai society. An example is the ancestors of the Thai Muslim community in Minburi, who were Malay Muslims captured in Pattani by a Siamese punitive expedition and used as forced labour digging canals.
Recluses and reforms in Southeast Asia
“So why does every Western journalist point out that Laos values human rights less than it values national security?”
Because they can, get away with their every jaundice view, so easily that no attempt is even made to present the etiology.
With so few “English fluent” journalist, and the existing few always feel obligated not to offend their host countries with the TRUTH, New Mandala deserve credit to allow voices beyond SOS of Western journalists.
Malaysia after regime change – Meredith Weiss
[…] READ MORE HERE […]
Somsak on Ananda Mahidol
[…] Somsak Jeamteerasakul, the leading academic expert on the events surrounding Ananda’s death, has pointed out, deduction can go a long way, just as in crime novels like Murder on the Orient […]
Twitter in Thailand’s “word cage”
Sarah
Thanks for your comment.
In my view, Thailand offers one of the most successful examples of reactionary forces co-opting social media in order to wage hate-campaigns and intimidate the opposition. In many ways the representatives of Thai fascism have been more effective at utilising social media than those of a more progressive bent.
It is also interesting that Facebook, despite pages like Social Sanctions and “I love to see Red Shirt corpses” (was in Thai – not sure it exists anymore), have become the medium of choice for the more progressive/democratic element, rather than twitter. Anecdotally this seems to be because FB has some element of safety and accountability while twitter has none at all.
In regards to Social Sanctions – you may have heard of the story of the Thai student, Kantoop, who received a police summons for lese majeste – this summons was never completed with the case being postponed indefinitely.
The real story of Kantoop is that she was stalked relentlessly since May 2010 by Social Sanctions. This was going on since she was 17, with threats, abuse, her address, photos etc being posted.
Speak to Thai HR activists – they are almost as frightened of the “social sanctions” (not just the group itself but also the wider use of these sanctions) as they are of legal sanctions when it comes to discussing things that are deemed off-limits.
And given the “social” aspect of “social media” – and all the usual “group-think” and conformist ways of interacting that can develop in social spaces – social media can, at its worst, transform into a very potent form of social control.
In such a scenario, then, legal devices, such as Thailand’s LM laws, are just the ultimate sanctions in a diverse and complex web of powerful forms of censorship. They represent a form of state violence every bit as explicit as a bullet to the head.
Twitter’s “censorship” strategies are, in my opinion, relatively minor in this context.
But you’re right as well. Why did the Thai government need to jump on this so quick? Maybe, if they’d had the cunning and devious spite of the Eton-educated UK PM Cameron, they’d have kept in quiet until it was necessary?
Urban art in Yangon
If the topic of Yangon’s urban art may be extended to the urban musical arts, readers may be interested in today’s Guardian article which includes discussion of Yangon’s punk scene.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/mar/17/punk-rock-state-oppression-burma
Meet the Mekong mafia
Whether hate to love or love to hate, the respective ruling entities in Cambodia, Lao , Vietnam and Myanmar is, what it is. A result of West hegemony over every post WW II politics.
Historically proven principles must be used to deal with these less than desirable entity.
Will the West recognize these principles that, neglected absolutely in Myanmar case?
NGOs are but a terrible stop gap measures that are useful when useless careless policy and the consequences persist.
It now must be the CBO within respective countries that must be the foci to bring about improving the plight of the citizenry.
Ohn #14 has made the point well.
#16
Need to move on from usual ‘love to hate the government’ to support the citizenry in every way.
Twitter in Thailand’s “word cage”
Hi Andrew – thanks to you and the New Mandala crew for reading and responding to the the piece I wrote. I thought I might take the opportunity to continue the discussion with an engaged audience!
I agree that the twitter debate is overblown, and that the Western media/academia approach is often hyperbolic at best.
However, the point is not necessarily a cyber realist/cyber utopioan Morozov/Shirky style debate. True, the UK government discussed twitter censorship long before the policy came out – and I think you are right to point out the link between those discussions and the final policy outcome.
However, one of the interesting things about the Thai policy is not the actual (debatable) affect Twitter has on Thai politics. Instead, what is interesting is that the government felt compelled to respond quickly and so publically – you’ll note the UK did no such thing. This kind of ‘performative policy’ surrounding online censorship is increasingly interesting. This is a link to a useful article about this sort of thing in Uzbekistan: http://registan.net/index.php/2012/02/21/why-did-uzbekistan-ban-wikipedia/
I like to think of it as ‘data style as soft power’….as well as, of course, hard power. This is interesting in the Thai case given recent crackdowns on all forms of free speech – not just online. There are lots of other examples of this sort of thing, and I hope to write a post about it soon.
On your point about VCDs and the Bangkok middle class educated elite’s preoccupation with twitter – I agree with you completely. Cyber utopians tend to forget that people have long communicated about politics effectively without the internet, and continue to do so. However, what is interesting s not the mistaken argument that twitter is the most important form of this sort of communication – although it is obviously important enough for the government to worry about it.
Instead, what is interesting, as you point out, is the link between a corporate policy and contested domestic politics, and the way the corporate policy can shape those politics, inadvertently or otherwise. I’d love to know more about the social spaces facebook group you mentioned, and am off to look it up now.
Thanks,
Sarah.
Meet the Mekong mafia
Frederick,
A point well made, thanks.
The NGOs are now too close to their donor states for comfort i.e. subject to manipulation, and it has become a career choice as in the old colonial service. The modern day version of white man’s burden and mission civilisatrice which our friend plan B appears to have a love hate relationship with, not unlike that with his generals.
We’re not racists!
Of course the Malaysian constitution is racist , yet it also says all Malaysians have equal rights . The politicians of today and those before , have manipulated the constitution and laws in a bid to stay in power by giving the Bumiputra special privileges to gain votes .
Malaysia and its politicians should be condemmed by the international community , and should be removed from the UNHRC , its a disgrace they are there .
Sorry to say that there is no country in South East Asia with a good reputation in human rights and equality , even Singapore , or even with a transparent government .
All countries in SE Asia have a long way to go in government , civil service
efficiency and transparancy
Twitter in Thailand’s “word cage”
Here, also, is something Morozov wrote for the Foreign Policy magazine/website back in 2009 about the Songkran Uprising in Bangkok that year.
http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/17/technologys_dubious_role_in_thailands_protests
He raises the issue that at that time Twitter was dominated by PAD supporters who were spinning the story a certain way.
It mentions my intervention when I correctly pointed out to the assembled newsrooms around the world that the PAD tweeple were not entirely credible – they were trying to pass off ASTV as a bonafide news source.
Of course, at that time, there was absolutely no UDD representation on twitter at all and those who took a different line to the PAD-line soon got cyber-stalked, hate campaigned etc.
Things like the Facebook-based Social Sanctions group – something that has been far more effective at censoring debate in Thailand than any proposed curtailment of twitter – never seem to get mentioned that much by Western media, academics etc.
Is that because the existence of such groups undo the false-narrative that seems to have accumulated around things like twitter, Facebook etc?
Twitter in Thailand’s “word cage”
I raised this before when New Mandela and others ran the “Thailand started twitter censorship” story.
The first major democracy that called for twitter banning, blocking and censorship was the UK during the riots of August 2011.
http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/872080-uk-riots-david-cameron-hints-at-social-media-shutdown
Talks ensued between the UK and twitter at that time and it is very likely that twitter’s censorship policy was as a result of those discussions which Thailand then adopted.
Also anyone who thinks Twitter is anything other than a private company seeking to make profits are delusional.
What is far more interesting is that social interactions are now being commodified and commercialised by the likes of Twitter, Facebook etc not that some “cyber evangelists” feel let down by the private companies who are colonising social space.
I’d suggest anyone who believes that things like “twitter” are bringers of “freedoms” read Evgeny Morozov’s illuminating study of all that is cyber “The Net Delusion”.
Finally, more resistance to the dominant order in Thailand has been distributed by VCD’s amongst the ordinary folk of the North and Northeast (many of whom don’t know and don’t care about “social media”) than twitter to multiplies of hundreds. The latter tends to be the preserve of middle class Bangkokians pushing a very Yellow-tinged agenda.
Recluses and reforms in Southeast Asia
I concede that I do not know the exact details of the arrangement between the CIA and Vang Pao.
But I think my point has been largely missed.
Vang Pao (et al) were entirely armed and funded by the US. Following his death, US congressional representatives were actively lobbying the president to allow Pao’s body to be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
The interesting twist in this story came in 2007, when Pao was arrested in a dubious conspiracy case to supply arms to Lao guerillas.
The funny thing about the case is, it wasn’t really any different from the kind of garbage treason cases (e.g. the Liberty City 7) being built by indictment-crazed Federal investigators every day.
The whole thing was cooked up by a desperate federal informant looking to pay his bills.
The only reason Pao walked was that a legion of teary-eyed CIA spooks came out of the woodwork to bat for him. Had he been a muslim teenager, he would have been whisked away to some deep dark hole without the benefit of any kind of trail.
Or maybe tortured. Or maybe killed.
The larger point I’m trying to make is that there is a vicious double-standard regarding discourse on human rights in the Western media.
How sympathetic would the US be to a tribe of ethnic minorities who had been attacking its soldiers for 50 years with help from a foreign government?
Just ask Attorney General Eric Holder!
Those people would have no rights in the United States or anywhere else in the world–US citizen or not.
They would simply be killed. End of story.
I’m not saying that Laos should have hunted and killed the remainder of the CIA-trained Hmong fighters.
But that’s certainly what the US would have done (legally!) if it was put in the position of the Lao PDR. So why does every Western journalist point out that Laos values human rights less than it values national security?
If anything, that’s precisely the line being espoused by the US government.
Nationalism and genetics: Thai obsession with race
Just came across this discussion today.
Some relevant generalizations:
1. The concept of “race” is a confused muddle of physical (inherited) and cultural (learned) characteristics which cannot be clearly distinguished from other confused muddles called other races. Typical Anthropology textbooks document the history of the abandonment of this concept.
2. Genetic and linguistic data are from distinct sources and tell you different things about the people who once lived in a place. Genetics tell you who was sleeping with whom, linguistics who was talking to whom. It is fairly common for people and large groups of people to change the language they speak within a generation. The third “eye” or perspective on prehistory is of course that of archaeology, which tells you basically what people were making and what survivors felt about people who died.
3. These three disciplines are distinct in their data sources and their methods of geographical expansion.
3. Although the three are totally distinct, studies show that genetic groupings and language groupings overall tend to correspond with each other. Where they don’t (e.g. south and north China) much can be learned.
4. As for Thai identity, the linguistic evidence is clearest among the three. Thai language is traceable to a distinct “homeland” on the Vietnam-Kwangsi-Kweijou border area. There is a tantalizing sprinke of minor dialects north of that area which suggest ancestors earlier than the reconstructed homeland language (called a proto-language).
5. Other linguistic theories or suggestions relating Thai to Chinese, to Austronesian and to Austro-Asiatic, do not have wide acceptance or have been debunked.
6. Genetic studies regularly show the following linkages:
-Thais and Khmers or Muong people (Austro-Asiatic speakers)
-Thais and southern Chinese. In turn it is well-established that the
southern Chinese are far closer genetically to South East Asian
populations than they are to northern Chinese.
7. Archaeological data normally cannot tell us much about ethno-
linguistic affiliation.
Some thoughts for anyone who stumbles into this discussion of six years ago, as I did today.