LesAbbey, how has the blackshirts benefited the reds? On the crackdown, they were no where to be seen. And the burning, what has the red gained? Aside from the р╣Ар╕Ьр╕▓р╕Ър╣Йр╕▓р╕Щр╣Ар╕Ьр╕▓р╣Ар╕бр╕╖р╕нр╕З (Pao bahn Pao Meung) slogan that the PAD & Dems seems to love to spewed.
All if not most points to it being just another scheme of the elite. I suggest you wait until ONE black has been arrested and charged. Then your theory will have some weight.
Today, I met a professor on campus (I omit to say who and where) who remarked offhand that she had supported a certain research project “…because Pali is so important” –and this seemed to me remarkable, in part because I rarely hear sentiments of this kind even from other Pali scholars.
In Theravada Asia there is much less interest in Pali textual studies than (e.g.) the Greeks have interest in Ancient Greek –and, admittedly, one difference is that the Greeks no longer wear robes (like Socrates) whereas Theravada Buddhists do, genuinely, still try to emulate both the ancient robe and the ancient philosophy that came with it.
Alas, if you can’t read the primary sources, it will always be a difficult fit. I have plenty of sympathy for people struggling with (various combinations of) languages on various sides of that equation.
Steve, for instance, who has written to me repeatedly: I did my best to answer his questions (even if they were stated so unreasonably) and you can see that he is still not happy with the results.
The actual “question” that Steve posed to me was this (and, I note, I have already stated that the answer is no): "Surely you are not intending to revive the strategy, which I thought died out more than 50 years ago, of excising any supernatural or mythological elements from the Buddha’s biography in an attempt to reach a historical naturalistic depiction of the Buddha? Or perhaps you are. I really don’t know.
The answer is no, and I have taken some time out of my recent days to explain why that is. I have also taken some time to explain that I am not interested in refuting a thesis that I do not support –and that my own argument is not refuted in refuting such a spurious thesis (ignoratio elenchi).
I have stated very good reasons as to why the 32 marks of the “great man” are a subject that should be dealt with in a separate article, and I’ve noted that there are already many articles dealing with the subject (a decent place to start, for beginners, by the way, is here: http://www.aimwell.org/DPPN/mahapurisa.htm ).
However, in digressing to make those points, the logical relationship to my own article (or, the lack thereof) may have been lost on the reader (as it was on the interlocutor, Steve).
The 32 marks do not provide any evidence on the baldness of the Buddha, nor do they suggest in any way that he had supernatural hair, nor do they refute my basic point that the Buddha did not have freakish physical abnormalities..
So, I’ve gone out of my way to answer these questions that are indeed supplemental to the essay, because a reader expressed interest (and, indeed, expressed umbrage) in the fact that my essay had not already addressed them.
Alas, the last point in this post is the same as the first: almost nobody has any sincere interest in the study of the primary source texts, nor, simply, in letting them speak for themselves.
The comparison to material on geography that I offered earlier is a good one for students to consider: yes, there are poetic statements about the world, and there are poetic statements about the continent of India, but the Pali canon does also contain descriptions of specific towns, situated on specific rivers, at a specific distance from some other town, over a certain mountain range. One type of evidence is not commensurable with the other; one type of evidence does not refute the other.
Genuinely, I do not think that anyone who reads a significant quantity of canonical material would even ask the question about what type of text is more historically accurate than the other (be it in geography or in physical descriptions of the Buddha); however, what is self-evident to people reading primary sources is not at all obvious to those who do not do so. If a devotional poem says that the Buddha’s skin is “golden”, in a context of poetic exaggeration, there is really no challenge in reconciling that with the descriptions that arise in the debates quoted above (wherein the Buddha’s skin is, simply, said to be black, and not in praise, but as part of an insult).
Neither a devotional poem nor an insult can be said to be composed as “historically accurate” evidence; however, they are the evidence we have before us for consideration, and, as with geographic evidence found in the canon, we can put the pieces together and end up with something of a “map” (even if it is a perpetually incomplete one) of the conditions that surrounded the historical Buddha.
I don’t think the timing is Sarit. Sarit’s cremation volume has several photos of Sarit with the king, but in none is he prostrating. I can’t recall seeing a picture of any of the political figures of the Sarit-Thanom-Praphat era down on the ground. Or Kukrit. Or Kriangsak. Has anyone got counter-evidence?
I remember attending a business awards ceremony in around 1984-5 when my boss, who had to present something to Princess Sirinthorn, suddenly dropped down flat. I was surprised because this was not a common sight at the time. The audience broke into spontaneous applause, which would have been unnecessary if the practice was already standard. Of course everyone else who had to approach the princess on the platform after that had to drop down (and get a little clap) or risk being branded as rebellious. I suspect this is exactly how the practice was revived, through peer pressure. I suspect also that Paul Handley is right in identifying Prem as key.
The Sarit era is not the only turning point for the monarchy. 1976 is another. And I think prostration belongs to the changed role and image of the institution after 1976.
Most of the Reds believe that the King ordered the military to kill them. Whether he is the one who ‘ordered’ or not, I do not know. But what I know is that he remained silent despite realising that his army was out killing his own people, yet he did nothing to stop them despite the fact that it is his duty to stop. Thus his silence, or his acquiescence to the killing (if you want to put it that way) has shamed the Monarchy beyond repair. My mum used to love the King very much. Up until last year she hung the pictures of the King and Queen on the wall. After all these events, however, she threw those pictures in a bin.
R. N. England #38 Your theory on slavery in Thailand’s recent past has already been demonstrated in Jit Phuumisuk’s classic “р╣Вр╕Йр╕бр╕лр╣Йр╕Щр╕▓р╕ир╕▒р╕Бр╕Фр╕┤р╕Щр╕▓р╣Др╕Чр╕в”. And if your proposing that the trauma stemming from it is still echoing in the present, then I think you are right on the money. As for Thailand needing another Pridi, then no, he had a lot of courage, but as a political theoretician he was a serial bungler, criminally naive.
We know they operated with impunity inside the area that the red shirts controlled. The most likely explanation of their actions are that they were in line with what Thaksin wanted.
Yes les but we can’t disregard the theory that the black shirt might be agent provocateur. This tactic has been used with success before in the past, just because HRW didn’t suggest so doesn’t mean it ain’t the case. Those people might be just a renegade ex-military man who have no connection with Thaksin what so ever, there’s so many things that we don’t know. Just because they fired at the military doesn’t indicate that they are working within the red control.
You seems to be talking HRW report like a bible, fine by me, but even HRW had a track record of sometime tilting their report just so they could woo some people is definitely something you should keep in mine.
Les, as you predicated when the HRW report first came out, there will be little willingness from the UDD apologist brigade to engage any rational discussion. All you are going to get is Spooner’s article on the lack of balance because the report included an honest assessment of the UDD’s leadership in inciting the violence and hooligans that followed that incitement.
If you had published an article condemning the report tas completely unfair to the UDD, the comments here would probably be over 100 by now, rather the 10, seemingly half of them from you.
Worse than that, and in a sign of clear disrespect, the district authorities had permitted the construction of a new road within one metre of the memorial stone.
Not as bad as the renaming of the р╕нр╕Щр╕╕р╕кр╕▓р╕зр╕гр╕╡р╕Ыр╕гр╕▓р╕Ър╕Бр╕Ър╕П to р╕нр╕Щр╕╕р╕кр╕▓р╕зр╕гр╕╡р╕вр╣Мр╕Юр╕┤р╕Чр╕▒р╕Бр╕йр╣Мр╕гр╕▒р╕Рр╕Шр╕гр╕гр╕бр╕Щр╕╣р╕Н and the subsequent moving of it to construct an overpass. This was the monument built to celebrate a pivotal battle between the royalist rebels and the constitutionalists during the Baworndet Rebellion.
Especially ironic given that last year, the royalist military fired upon Red Shirts not so far away. Some wars never end.
the involvement of the CPT in politics over the past decade or so is complex: What is interesting in the last five years is the relationship between CPT elements and the colour-coded political divide as we saw them on both stages, and involving the likes of Surayud Chulanond (through some paternal well-kept discretions) as it mentions in the BP article link. Like the “colours” they were radically split some years back. Surayud has ongoing affiliations to the CPT/Yellow faction. His adopted sister Hai-Tak-torn was a leading communist in the 1960s. He never talked much about her… We can speculate about his continuing CPT factional connections. Has the CPT, and regional players like Khru Chandawong’s son, been understated in its continuing influence? It is an entangled and fragmented story of personal interests. In 1980 amnesty, [Prem & subsequent patronage] many intellectuals came out and went into the professions, CSOs and politics. But the core group disbanded in 2009 (officially at least). Ex-Sec. General of Party Central Committee was Thong Jamsii (a Marxist) – who quit in 2009 as new CPT, Sec. General Vinai Permpoonsap, pro-yellow/neo-fascist/ became influential. So a split occurred:
(a) Pro-Yellow CPT working with palace/old regime/patriarchy – and lobbied by military in helping stage coups (I call this group the “thai falange”); also General Surayud’s CPT friends; Maoists; neo-fascist/ nationalists who, as with PAD, use language like р╕Чр╕╕р╕Щр╕Щр╕┤р╕вр╕б р╕кр╕▓р╕бр╕▓р╕Щр╕вр╣М (“wicked capitalists” – presumably with the hapless Thaksin in mind!). However, PAD is a falangist organisation appropriating leftist terms and frames of reference populised by the “Octobrists”. But here the left-wing associations end. Interestingly PAD earlier included Weng and Tida who first became politicised in May 1992 and formed a pro-democracy group with Prateep Ungsongtham Hata. Weng was notoriously ambitious and upset the CPT earlier when in the forest. He wanted upward mobility and became known among the CPT as a bit of a “trouble maker”. The Democrat Party are nominees of the palace, but smart [if stupid] and used ex-CPT members’ way back in the fight against TRT, joining hands with the yellow shirts (Pipop Thongchai, Somkiart Pongpaiboon, & etc.). Also, remember Surayud, [linked to the reactionary elements of CPT], has links direct to palace. Before his father died in Beijing he told Surayud to take care of the ex-old guard CPT in Thailand on his return. He has and continues to do this. Surayud can manipulate both sides (and thus yellow factions supported him as PM). Palace thought that Surayud could bring conservatives “in the guise of left-wing” factions together. Combined forces supported by yellow CPT brought down Thaksin in their service to the palace.
(b) Pro-Red CPT; pro-electoral democracy (working with global capitalism/Thaksin/ because capitalism is here already in Thailand, which is fine, as long as it is equitable – as former CPT Surachai Sae Dan told me); democratic revolutionaries with a goal to attack the feudal power that sits above the state. Thaksin is cautious about ex-CPT after his experience; this is reflected in his attitude to Surachai Sae Dan to some extent, and even UDD’s Tida and husband Weng (=close to yellow-shirt “Octobrist” Rangist Uni anthropology lecturer Cholthira Satyawadhna and her slightly-less-yellow husband). Thaksin = neoliberal capitalist/globalist, but concerned with grassroots empowerment. Thaksin used some former CPT in his government (many smart individuals at that, Chaturon, Surapong, Adhisorn, Sutham, etc.); while others ignored. Importantly Dr Weng & Dr Tida (core leaders/UDD; former CPT southern Isaan contingent) left out; so a number of Weng’s compatriots were upset with Thaksin -because they were not able to get a piece of the cake…& etc. Scholars like Somsak, Thongchai, and Ji should be able to give a better reading on these events/
Superb! This is exactly the evocation of a social or public counter-memory of those who sacrificed their lives fighting injustice and evil committed by the military and monarchy. Let us never forget our brave comrades
It’s all about the 1812 Overture. The orhestra is dilly dallying and the final movement, where eveyrone trots on, seems so distant. I want it to hurry up and be over with, but the conductor shall not be rushed!
“The operation was planned by the army leadership, with the consent and approval of the government leadership, several weeks in advance of May 19,” it (Amsterdam’s report) said.
And,
The shopping plaza, one of 39 buildings set on fire on May 19, 2010 after the military clashed with protesters, was a perfect target for disenfranchised red shirts disdainful of Thailand’s moneyed, politically powerful elite.
See Ralph, just say we give Amsterdam the CW, what we do we then do with the other 38 buildings, (that many?). I would still go with HRW’s independent report until there is real proof of it being otherwise. Again Occam’s razor, go with the most likely explanation first. The CW claims out of the Thaksin camp do remind me of the Goebbels quote, ‘tell a lie often (or was it big) enough’.
Many people must have realised that the Thai attitude to foot gestures had its origin in slavery, but this explanation has been censored out, and a lame and unconvincing one substituted by the “education” system. This is just one example of how the “education” system has succeeded in shackling Thais to a fake culture in which fruit-carving is substituted for dangerous subjects like real history.
I suggest that a highly developed system of slavery in the quite recent past is the origin of many of the characteristics of the highly stratified Thai culture, but that this has been censored out of Thai history by the Amart, who are the descendants of the great slave-owning families. Slavery is the source of the appalling Amart arrogance, and of the contempt that the people of central Thailand show towards those of Isaan, a conquered source of slaves. It is the source of the obsequious behaviour that makes Thailand so popular with a certain class of tourists. The power relations common to militarism and slavery explain, to a great extent, the power of the military over the Thai people.
I suggest that the key to Thaksin’s popularity in areas that were sources of slaves, is that his family is untainted by that past. Despite his dishonest populism and his greed for money and power, history will regard him as a successor to Chulalongkorn and Pridi in the ongoing programme of Thai national liberation.
What is needed now is vigorous promotion of the rule of law to hold the country together as the old, brutal, and thoroughly discredited authoritarian framework dissolves. Thailand desperately needs another Pridi, a new, more permanent constitution that gives better protection to parliament, and judges with the ability and the integrity to assert the power of those laws over the Government, the King, the Amart, and the military.
Do we really expect this to change when absolutely nothing has been done to address the deaths in the numerous other earlier conflagrations? One of the ways we can begin (the very long-term process) to bring significant change here is by refusing to be goaded into acting as the richman’s chattel. To hark back to an earlier crisis, which clearly holds lessons for this one – why should I get myself killed or maimed storming the barricades just to bring glory, profit and power to that ambitious bastard Chumlong? I feel exactly the same way about his erstwhile allies, who continue to dog us with their unsustainable fantasies of THEIR future role in this country. We need to enter into conflicts with our own winning strategies, rather than just be eternal losers for the benefit of others.
Athita. Thailand has always been in the dark ages as far as governance is concerned. Grace is not something that the so-called amaat have ever been any good at. The inevitable landslide victory of those allied to the redshirts will change nothing, since the primary intention of almost all current politically-active locals is to feather their own nests at the expense of us mere mortals. To picture any other outcome for this election would be to perpetuate a centuries old lie. This country’s elite, and their aspiring usurpers, rule this country in the most medieval of fashions. We will not beat them if we continue to dance to their puppeteers’ tunes.
A 30-metre (98-ft) corrugated iron wall masks the remnants of a mysterious arson attack a year ago on Southeast Asia’s second-biggest shopping mall, a reminder of Thailand’s struggle to tame a crisis many fear could turn violent again during elections.
Despite an official investigation, it remains unclear who started the massive fire on May 19, 2010, a day when the military used force to break up an encampment next to the shopping plaza where tens of thousands of red-shirted protesters had called for fresh elections.
It is one of many unanswered questions following clashes between protesters and troops from April 10 to May 19 last year that killed 91 people, wounded more than 1,800 and reduced one of Asia’s most dynamic cities to scenes of chaotic street fighting, smouldering fires and 9 p.m. night curfews.
Around 7,000 red shirts rallied on Thursday near the site of the crackdown, waving flags and holding placards calling for justice for those killed.
The burning of Thailand’s busiest shopping plaza was seen by Bangkok’s middle classes as a desperate act of sabotage by an unruly mob hired by an exiled former premier seeking to wrestle back power.
While the government blames the red shirts for the attack on Central World, the sophistication of the destruction and photographs showing armed men in the building before the fire have raised questions of whether the military-backed government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva had a hand in the arson.
“If the red shirts set the fire, it would have been much smaller, since they didn’t have the tools or the expertise,” Thaksin Shinawatra, the ousted former prime minister and red shirts’ figurehead, told the Post Today newspaper this week.
His sister, Yingluck, leads the opposition in an election scheduled for July 3.
As Thailand braces for elections, investigations into the fire and the 91 deaths have made little headway, offering political ammunition to the opposition Puea Thai Party whose support appears to be gathering momentum.
With rivalry fierce between Thailand’s political camps, many fear the election results will be contested, or powerful forces might seek to manipulate the formation of a new government, which is widely expected to be a coalition.
The biggest risk, analysts say, is that perceived injustices could ignite another round of instability in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy, one of the region’s most attractive destinations for foreign tourists and investors.
Police probes and a state investigation into the violence are largely inconclusive, ID:nSGE6B902Q] and tainted by allegations of political interference, while fact-finding panels have failed to unearth what exactly happened.
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
The shopping plaza, one of 39 buildings set on fire on May 19, 2010 after the military clashed with protesters, was a perfect target for disenfranchised red shirts disdainful of Thailand’s moneyed, politically powerful elite.
After the fire that gutted the mall’s ‘Zen’ department store, blame immediately fell on the red shirts. But conspiracy theories abound over the motives and identity of the arsonists.
Authorities said calls by protest leaders to “burn” Bangkok prove their guilt, and the black outfits worn by the arsonists caught on camera were consistent with shadowy gunmen allied with the red shirts.
But the opposition and its red shirt allies say the arson was planned by the military and its establishment allies to discredit protesters and win support in Bangkok.
Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer for Thaksin, submitted a petition on January 31 to the International Criminal Court in the Hague accusing the Thai government and military of crimes against humanity during the April-May 2010 suppression of the protests.
A document produced by Amsterdam & Peroff LLP as part of the petition quotes an “Anonymous Witness No. 22” — a statement compiled from what the law firm says is the testimony of several military officers — as saying “a team of arsonists contracted by the army” planted “incendiary devices inside Central World.”
“The operation was planned by the army leadership, with the consent and approval of the government leadership, several weeks in advance of May 19,” it said.
The Thai government denied the allegation.
Internet web boards have also posted images showing the saboteurs’ military-issue boots and their use of walkie-talkies similar to those used by the army. The fact that the mall was set on fire long after the military had seized control of the protest site has not been explained.
A study published this month by New York-based Human Rights Watch blames both sides for last year’s violence, criticising the military for “excessive and unnecessary lethal force” and the red shirts for calls to riot and harbouring black-clad militants who fought the army.
“There’s some legal movement against demonstrators but no honest self examination or holding to account by the authorities and officials involved,” said Benjamin Zawacki, a researcher at London-based Amnesty International. “So far, none of the root causes have been addressed.”
An estimated 800 demonstrators were detained under emergency laws and more than 130 are still held, unable to afford bail averaging 500,000 baht. To date, 22 have been convicted of offences while no state officials have faced charges, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee investigating the unrest.
…not sure I’m convinced that the ‘black shirts’ can be emphatically linked with the ‘red shirts’.
It’s something that does seem to come up quite often, but it is case where we could apply the law of Occam’s razor. That is at times we do need to start from the most likely explanation.
At best we could put up an argument that the ‘men in black’ were operating outside of any control or knowledge of the UDD leadership, but that is about as far as we can go.
We know they operated with impunity inside the area that the red shirts controlled. The most likely explanation of their actions are that they were in line with what Thaksin wanted. That statements were made from the UDD stage that these men in black were coming was reported shortly before grenades were fired.
Something weird is going on, 2 of the 3 database servers for storing the population ID card database at the ministry of interior affair were out of order. Suddenly 150 ID card printing machines from 150 district were out of order. Furthermore, the temporary “yellow A4 paper ID” was proven to be able to crete easily imitate simply by using a mid range printer and a yellow colour A4 paper.
If this is not some scheme of set up for voting forgery I dont know what is.
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
May 2010: A year later
And most westerners didn’t even know that Redshirts died last year. As one thai writer says, ‘ Maybe 91 death just isn’t enough’….
HRW fires a few grenades
LesAbbey, how has the blackshirts benefited the reds? On the crackdown, they were no where to be seen. And the burning, what has the red gained? Aside from the р╣Ар╕Ьр╕▓р╕Ър╣Йр╕▓р╕Щр╣Ар╕Ьр╕▓р╣Ар╕бр╕╖р╕нр╕З (Pao bahn Pao Meung) slogan that the PAD & Dems seems to love to spewed.
All if not most points to it being just another scheme of the elite. I suggest you wait until ONE black has been arrested and charged. Then your theory will have some weight.
The Buddha was bald
In reply to Moe Aung,
Today, I met a professor on campus (I omit to say who and where) who remarked offhand that she had supported a certain research project “…because Pali is so important” –and this seemed to me remarkable, in part because I rarely hear sentiments of this kind even from other Pali scholars.
In Theravada Asia there is much less interest in Pali textual studies than (e.g.) the Greeks have interest in Ancient Greek –and, admittedly, one difference is that the Greeks no longer wear robes (like Socrates) whereas Theravada Buddhists do, genuinely, still try to emulate both the ancient robe and the ancient philosophy that came with it.
Alas, if you can’t read the primary sources, it will always be a difficult fit. I have plenty of sympathy for people struggling with (various combinations of) languages on various sides of that equation.
Steve, for instance, who has written to me repeatedly: I did my best to answer his questions (even if they were stated so unreasonably) and you can see that he is still not happy with the results.
The actual “question” that Steve posed to me was this (and, I note, I have already stated that the answer is no):
"Surely you are not intending to revive the strategy, which I thought died out more than 50 years ago, of excising any supernatural or mythological elements from the Buddha’s biography in an attempt to reach a historical naturalistic depiction of the Buddha? Or perhaps you are. I really don’t know.The answer is no, and I have taken some time out of my recent days to explain why that is. I have also taken some time to explain that I am not interested in refuting a thesis that I do not support –and that my own argument is not refuted in refuting such a spurious thesis (ignoratio elenchi).
I have stated very good reasons as to why the 32 marks of the “great man” are a subject that should be dealt with in a separate article, and I’ve noted that there are already many articles dealing with the subject (a decent place to start, for beginners, by the way, is here: http://www.aimwell.org/DPPN/mahapurisa.htm ).
However, in digressing to make those points, the logical relationship to my own article (or, the lack thereof) may have been lost on the reader (as it was on the interlocutor, Steve).
The 32 marks do not provide any evidence on the baldness of the Buddha, nor do they suggest in any way that he had supernatural hair, nor do they refute my basic point that the Buddha did not have
freakish physical abnormalities..So, I’ve gone out of my way to answer these questions that are indeed supplemental to the essay, because a reader expressed interest (and, indeed, expressed umbrage) in the fact that my essay had not already addressed them.
Alas, the last point in this post is the same as the first: almost nobody has any sincere interest in the study of the primary source texts, nor, simply, in letting them speak for themselves.
The comparison to material on geography that I offered earlier is a good one for students to consider: yes, there are poetic statements about the world, and there are poetic statements about the continent of India, but the Pali canon does also contain descriptions of specific towns, situated on specific rivers, at a specific distance from some other town, over a certain mountain range. One type of evidence is not commensurable with the other; one type of evidence does not refute the other.
Genuinely, I do not think that anyone who reads a significant quantity of canonical material would even ask the question about what type of text is more historically accurate than the other (be it in geography or in physical descriptions of the Buddha); however, what is self-evident to people reading primary sources is not at all obvious to those who do not do so. If a devotional poem says that the Buddha’s skin is “golden”, in a context of poetic exaggeration, there is really no challenge in reconciling that with the descriptions that arise in the debates quoted above (wherein the Buddha’s skin is, simply, said to be black, and not in praise, but as part of an insult).
Neither a devotional poem nor an insult can be said to be composed as “historically accurate” evidence; however, they are the evidence we have before us for consideration, and, as with geographic evidence found in the canon, we can put the pieces together and end up with something of a “map” (even if it is a perpetually incomplete one) of the conditions that surrounded the historical Buddha.
Chulalongkorn abolished prostration
I don’t think the timing is Sarit. Sarit’s cremation volume has several photos of Sarit with the king, but in none is he prostrating. I can’t recall seeing a picture of any of the political figures of the Sarit-Thanom-Praphat era down on the ground. Or Kukrit. Or Kriangsak. Has anyone got counter-evidence?
I remember attending a business awards ceremony in around 1984-5 when my boss, who had to present something to Princess Sirinthorn, suddenly dropped down flat. I was surprised because this was not a common sight at the time. The audience broke into spontaneous applause, which would have been unnecessary if the practice was already standard. Of course everyone else who had to approach the princess on the platform after that had to drop down (and get a little clap) or risk being branded as rebellious. I suspect this is exactly how the practice was revived, through peer pressure. I suspect also that Paul Handley is right in identifying Prem as key.
The Sarit era is not the only turning point for the monarchy. 1976 is another. And I think prostration belongs to the changed role and image of the institution after 1976.
Many thanks, Pavin.
May 2010: A year later
Most of the Reds believe that the King ordered the military to kill them. Whether he is the one who ‘ordered’ or not, I do not know. But what I know is that he remained silent despite realising that his army was out killing his own people, yet he did nothing to stop them despite the fact that it is his duty to stop. Thus his silence, or his acquiescence to the killing (if you want to put it that way) has shamed the Monarchy beyond repair. My mum used to love the King very much. Up until last year she hung the pictures of the King and Queen on the wall. After all these events, however, she threw those pictures in a bin.
Chulalongkorn abolished prostration
R. N. England #38 Your theory on slavery in Thailand’s recent past has already been demonstrated in Jit Phuumisuk’s classic “р╣Вр╕Йр╕бр╕лр╣Йр╕Щр╕▓р╕ир╕▒р╕Бр╕Фр╕┤р╕Щр╕▓р╣Др╕Чр╕в”. And if your proposing that the trauma stemming from it is still echoing in the present, then I think you are right on the money. As for Thailand needing another Pridi, then no, he had a lot of courage, but as a political theoretician he was a serial bungler, criminally naive.
HRW fires a few grenades
LesAbbey
We know they operated with impunity inside the area that the red shirts controlled. The most likely explanation of their actions are that they were in line with what Thaksin wanted.
Yes les but we can’t disregard the theory that the black shirt might be agent provocateur. This tactic has been used with success before in the past, just because HRW didn’t suggest so doesn’t mean it ain’t the case. Those people might be just a renegade ex-military man who have no connection with Thaksin what so ever, there’s so many things that we don’t know. Just because they fired at the military doesn’t indicate that they are working within the red control.
You seems to be talking HRW report like a bible, fine by me, but even HRW had a track record of sometime tilting their report just so they could woo some people is definitely something you should keep in mine.
HRW fires a few grenades
Les, as you predicated when the HRW report first came out, there will be little willingness from the UDD apologist brigade to engage any rational discussion. All you are going to get is Spooner’s article on the lack of balance because the report included an honest assessment of the UDD’s leadership in inciting the violence and hooligans that followed that incitement.
If you had published an article condemning the report tas completely unfair to the UDD, the comments here would probably be over 100 by now, rather the 10, seemingly half of them from you.
TH
Khrong Chandawong remembered
Worse than that, and in a sign of clear disrespect, the district authorities had permitted the construction of a new road within one metre of the memorial stone.
Not as bad as the renaming of the р╕нр╕Щр╕╕р╕кр╕▓р╕зр╕гр╕╡р╕Ыр╕гр╕▓р╕Ър╕Бр╕Ър╕П to р╕нр╕Щр╕╕р╕кр╕▓р╕зр╕гр╕╡р╕вр╣Мр╕Юр╕┤р╕Чр╕▒р╕Бр╕йр╣Мр╕гр╕▒р╕Рр╕Шр╕гр╕гр╕бр╕Щр╕╣р╕Н and the subsequent moving of it to construct an overpass. This was the monument built to celebrate a pivotal battle between the royalist rebels and the constitutionalists during the Baworndet Rebellion.
Especially ironic given that last year, the royalist military fired upon Red Shirts not so far away. Some wars never end.
Khrong Chandawong remembered
the involvement of the CPT in politics over the past decade or so is complex: What is interesting in the last five years is the relationship between CPT elements and the colour-coded political divide as we saw them on both stages, and involving the likes of Surayud Chulanond (through some paternal well-kept discretions) as it mentions in the BP article link. Like the “colours” they were radically split some years back. Surayud has ongoing affiliations to the CPT/Yellow faction. His adopted sister Hai-Tak-torn was a leading communist in the 1960s. He never talked much about her… We can speculate about his continuing CPT factional connections. Has the CPT, and regional players like Khru Chandawong’s son, been understated in its continuing influence? It is an entangled and fragmented story of personal interests. In 1980 amnesty, [Prem & subsequent patronage] many intellectuals came out and went into the professions, CSOs and politics. But the core group disbanded in 2009 (officially at least). Ex-Sec. General of Party Central Committee was Thong Jamsii (a Marxist) – who quit in 2009 as new CPT, Sec. General Vinai Permpoonsap, pro-yellow/neo-fascist/ became influential. So a split occurred:
(a) Pro-Yellow CPT working with palace/old regime/patriarchy – and lobbied by military in helping stage coups (I call this group the “thai falange”); also General Surayud’s CPT friends; Maoists; neo-fascist/ nationalists who, as with PAD, use language like р╕Чр╕╕р╕Щр╕Щр╕┤р╕вр╕б р╕кр╕▓р╕бр╕▓р╕Щр╕вр╣М (“wicked capitalists” – presumably with the hapless Thaksin in mind!). However, PAD is a falangist organisation appropriating leftist terms and frames of reference populised by the “Octobrists”. But here the left-wing associations end. Interestingly PAD earlier included Weng and Tida who first became politicised in May 1992 and formed a pro-democracy group with Prateep Ungsongtham Hata. Weng was notoriously ambitious and upset the CPT earlier when in the forest. He wanted upward mobility and became known among the CPT as a bit of a “trouble maker”. The Democrat Party are nominees of the palace, but smart [if stupid] and used ex-CPT members’ way back in the fight against TRT, joining hands with the yellow shirts (Pipop Thongchai, Somkiart Pongpaiboon, & etc.). Also, remember Surayud, [linked to the reactionary elements of CPT], has links direct to palace. Before his father died in Beijing he told Surayud to take care of the ex-old guard CPT in Thailand on his return. He has and continues to do this. Surayud can manipulate both sides (and thus yellow factions supported him as PM). Palace thought that Surayud could bring conservatives “in the guise of left-wing” factions together. Combined forces supported by yellow CPT brought down Thaksin in their service to the palace.
(b) Pro-Red CPT; pro-electoral democracy (working with global capitalism/Thaksin/ because capitalism is here already in Thailand, which is fine, as long as it is equitable – as former CPT Surachai Sae Dan told me); democratic revolutionaries with a goal to attack the feudal power that sits above the state. Thaksin is cautious about ex-CPT after his experience; this is reflected in his attitude to Surachai Sae Dan to some extent, and even UDD’s Tida and husband Weng (=close to yellow-shirt “Octobrist” Rangist Uni anthropology lecturer Cholthira Satyawadhna and her slightly-less-yellow husband). Thaksin = neoliberal capitalist/globalist, but concerned with grassroots empowerment. Thaksin used some former CPT in his government (many smart individuals at that, Chaturon, Surapong, Adhisorn, Sutham, etc.); while others ignored. Importantly Dr Weng & Dr Tida (core leaders/UDD; former CPT southern Isaan contingent) left out; so a number of Weng’s compatriots were upset with Thaksin -because they were not able to get a piece of the cake…& etc. Scholars like Somsak, Thongchai, and Ji should be able to give a better reading on these events/
Khrong Chandawong remembered
Superb! This is exactly the evocation of a social or public counter-memory of those who sacrificed their lives fighting injustice and evil committed by the military and monarchy. Let us never forget our brave comrades
May 2010: A year later
It’s all about the 1812 Overture. The orhestra is dilly dallying and the final movement, where eveyrone trots on, seems so distant. I want it to hurry up and be over with, but the conductor shall not be rushed!
HRW fires a few grenades
Ralph Kramden – 9
“The operation was planned by the army leadership, with the consent and approval of the government leadership, several weeks in advance of May 19,” it (Amsterdam’s report) said.
And,
The shopping plaza, one of 39 buildings set on fire on May 19, 2010 after the military clashed with protesters, was a perfect target for disenfranchised red shirts disdainful of Thailand’s moneyed, politically powerful elite.
See Ralph, just say we give Amsterdam the CW, what we do we then do with the other 38 buildings, (that many?). I would still go with HRW’s independent report until there is real proof of it being otherwise. Again Occam’s razor, go with the most likely explanation first. The CW claims out of the Thaksin camp do remind me of the Goebbels quote, ‘tell a lie often (or was it big) enough’.
Chulalongkorn abolished prostration
Many people must have realised that the Thai attitude to foot gestures had its origin in slavery, but this explanation has been censored out, and a lame and unconvincing one substituted by the “education” system. This is just one example of how the “education” system has succeeded in shackling Thais to a fake culture in which fruit-carving is substituted for dangerous subjects like real history.
I suggest that a highly developed system of slavery in the quite recent past is the origin of many of the characteristics of the highly stratified Thai culture, but that this has been censored out of Thai history by the Amart, who are the descendants of the great slave-owning families. Slavery is the source of the appalling Amart arrogance, and of the contempt that the people of central Thailand show towards those of Isaan, a conquered source of slaves. It is the source of the obsequious behaviour that makes Thailand so popular with a certain class of tourists. The power relations common to militarism and slavery explain, to a great extent, the power of the military over the Thai people.
I suggest that the key to Thaksin’s popularity in areas that were sources of slaves, is that his family is untainted by that past. Despite his dishonest populism and his greed for money and power, history will regard him as a successor to Chulalongkorn and Pridi in the ongoing programme of Thai national liberation.
What is needed now is vigorous promotion of the rule of law to hold the country together as the old, brutal, and thoroughly discredited authoritarian framework dissolves. Thailand desperately needs another Pridi, a new, more permanent constitution that gives better protection to parliament, and judges with the ability and the integrity to assert the power of those laws over the Government, the King, the Amart, and the military.
May 2010: A year later
Do we really expect this to change when absolutely nothing has been done to address the deaths in the numerous other earlier conflagrations? One of the ways we can begin (the very long-term process) to bring significant change here is by refusing to be goaded into acting as the richman’s chattel. To hark back to an earlier crisis, which clearly holds lessons for this one – why should I get myself killed or maimed storming the barricades just to bring glory, profit and power to that ambitious bastard Chumlong? I feel exactly the same way about his erstwhile allies, who continue to dog us with their unsustainable fantasies of THEIR future role in this country. We need to enter into conflicts with our own winning strategies, rather than just be eternal losers for the benefit of others.
May 2010: A year later
Athita. Thailand has always been in the dark ages as far as governance is concerned. Grace is not something that the so-called amaat have ever been any good at. The inevitable landslide victory of those allied to the redshirts will change nothing, since the primary intention of almost all current politically-active locals is to feather their own nests at the expense of us mere mortals. To picture any other outcome for this election would be to perpetuate a centuries old lie. This country’s elite, and their aspiring usurpers, rule this country in the most medieval of fashions. We will not beat them if we continue to dance to their puppeteers’ tunes.
Khrong Chandawong remembered
Its very hard to find the documentation of all these people since most have been destroy once by Sarit then later on by other elites.
HRW fires a few grenades
From Reuters on this topic:
A 30-metre (98-ft) corrugated iron wall masks the remnants of a mysterious arson attack a year ago on Southeast Asia’s second-biggest shopping mall, a reminder of Thailand’s struggle to tame a crisis many fear could turn violent again during elections.
Despite an official investigation, it remains unclear who started the massive fire on May 19, 2010, a day when the military used force to break up an encampment next to the shopping plaza where tens of thousands of red-shirted protesters had called for fresh elections.
It is one of many unanswered questions following clashes between protesters and troops from April 10 to May 19 last year that killed 91 people, wounded more than 1,800 and reduced one of Asia’s most dynamic cities to scenes of chaotic street fighting, smouldering fires and 9 p.m. night curfews.
Around 7,000 red shirts rallied on Thursday near the site of the crackdown, waving flags and holding placards calling for justice for those killed.
The burning of Thailand’s busiest shopping plaza was seen by Bangkok’s middle classes as a desperate act of sabotage by an unruly mob hired by an exiled former premier seeking to wrestle back power.
While the government blames the red shirts for the attack on Central World, the sophistication of the destruction and photographs showing armed men in the building before the fire have raised questions of whether the military-backed government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva had a hand in the arson.
“If the red shirts set the fire, it would have been much smaller, since they didn’t have the tools or the expertise,” Thaksin Shinawatra, the ousted former prime minister and red shirts’ figurehead, told the Post Today newspaper this week.
His sister, Yingluck, leads the opposition in an election scheduled for July 3.
As Thailand braces for elections, investigations into the fire and the 91 deaths have made little headway, offering political ammunition to the opposition Puea Thai Party whose support appears to be gathering momentum.
With rivalry fierce between Thailand’s political camps, many fear the election results will be contested, or powerful forces might seek to manipulate the formation of a new government, which is widely expected to be a coalition.
The biggest risk, analysts say, is that perceived injustices could ignite another round of instability in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy, one of the region’s most attractive destinations for foreign tourists and investors.
Police probes and a state investigation into the violence are largely inconclusive, ID:nSGE6B902Q] and tainted by allegations of political interference, while fact-finding panels have failed to unearth what exactly happened.
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
The shopping plaza, one of 39 buildings set on fire on May 19, 2010 after the military clashed with protesters, was a perfect target for disenfranchised red shirts disdainful of Thailand’s moneyed, politically powerful elite.
After the fire that gutted the mall’s ‘Zen’ department store, blame immediately fell on the red shirts. But conspiracy theories abound over the motives and identity of the arsonists.
Authorities said calls by protest leaders to “burn” Bangkok prove their guilt, and the black outfits worn by the arsonists caught on camera were consistent with shadowy gunmen allied with the red shirts.
But the opposition and its red shirt allies say the arson was planned by the military and its establishment allies to discredit protesters and win support in Bangkok.
Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer for Thaksin, submitted a petition on January 31 to the International Criminal Court in the Hague accusing the Thai government and military of crimes against humanity during the April-May 2010 suppression of the protests.
A document produced by Amsterdam & Peroff LLP as part of the petition quotes an “Anonymous Witness No. 22” — a statement compiled from what the law firm says is the testimony of several military officers — as saying “a team of arsonists contracted by the army” planted “incendiary devices inside Central World.”
“The operation was planned by the army leadership, with the consent and approval of the government leadership, several weeks in advance of May 19,” it said.
The Thai government denied the allegation.
Internet web boards have also posted images showing the saboteurs’ military-issue boots and their use of walkie-talkies similar to those used by the army. The fact that the mall was set on fire long after the military had seized control of the protest site has not been explained.
A study published this month by New York-based Human Rights Watch blames both sides for last year’s violence, criticising the military for “excessive and unnecessary lethal force” and the red shirts for calls to riot and harbouring black-clad militants who fought the army.
“There’s some legal movement against demonstrators but no honest self examination or holding to account by the authorities and officials involved,” said Benjamin Zawacki, a researcher at London-based Amnesty International. “So far, none of the root causes have been addressed.”
An estimated 800 demonstrators were detained under emergency laws and more than 130 are still held, unable to afford bail averaging 500,000 baht. To date, 22 have been convicted of offences while no state officials have faced charges, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee investigating the unrest.
HRW fires a few grenades
Artisans – 7
…not sure I’m convinced that the ‘black shirts’ can be emphatically linked with the ‘red shirts’.
It’s something that does seem to come up quite often, but it is case where we could apply the law of Occam’s razor. That is at times we do need to start from the most likely explanation.
At best we could put up an argument that the ‘men in black’ were operating outside of any control or knowledge of the UDD leadership, but that is about as far as we can go.
We know they operated with impunity inside the area that the red shirts controlled. The most likely explanation of their actions are that they were in line with what Thaksin wanted. That statements were made from the UDD stage that these men in black were coming was reported shortly before grenades were fired.
Agen DominoQQ Online Paling Populer
Something weird is going on, 2 of the 3 database servers for storing the population ID card database at the ministry of interior affair were out of order. Suddenly 150 ID card printing machines from 150 district were out of order. Furthermore, the temporary “yellow A4 paper ID” was proven to be able to crete easily imitate simply by using a mid range printer and a yellow colour A4 paper.
If this is not some scheme of set up for voting forgery I dont know what is.