Show their muscle? You mean kill people? Freedom fighters, at that, fighting for the return of their own land, or at the very least, some respect for their people.
It’s exactley this sort of murdering of the Thai people, the tens of thousands of Thai people killed since 1932, that has brought such disgrace on the Thai Army.
If they really cared about defending the Thai people, they should slash their military budget and invest the money into the public transport and roads around the country instead of whining about a few sluts in a neighbourhood known for prostitution dancing topless in public to divert attention away from the staggering Songkran deathtoll on the roads that is a result of government mismanagement thanks to their squeezing of the country’s resources.
I hate the Thai Army, and rightly so. I don’t think killing more people will help. Shame on you for suggesting it.
LOL your answers to some of these assertions made me chuckle! Thanks for taking the time to respond to them. They really made my day 🙂
I wish I can have a chance to know who you are and meet you in person. However, it is a shame I probably have to remain anonymous when I post here, given that what I have said so far had not been completely fawning to the institution. And thus someone may report me to the police for committing lese majeste. I don’t want my next ‘two weeks in Bangkok’ holiday to visit my friends and family to become ‘fifteen years in Klong Prem Prison’ once I step out of the plane at the end of this year :p
Radio Free Asia – Interview with Aung San Suu Kyi – April 15, 2011
Question : I am a member of Kachin social development organization. The Myitsone Dam will have a lot of adverse effects on the people living in this area. The Kachin people reject this dam and are protesting in any way they can. Do you also have plans to protest against this dam?
Aung San Suu Kyi : Researchers in the NLD are preparing a paper not only on the adverse effects of building the Myitsone Dam, but also on how deforestation will adversely affect the plains along the Irrawaddy River.
___-
The Myitsone Dam has no economic benefits for the Burmese people. All the electricity will be exported to China while creating an environmental disaster in Burma. No environmental impact plan was prepared or approved. And any economic impact study will show that it has no income or employment multiplier benefits.
KIO leadership does not want to harm relations with China. But it cannot control its rank & file in this matter. In February 2011, Myanmar Army battalion commander, a Lt. Colonel, will killed near the Myitsone Dam by a KIO soldier for cease-fire violation. Last year, housing quarters of Chinese construction workers at the Myitsone Dam were extensively bombed.
If the newly “elected” government in Myanmar wants to shed its “puppet regime” image, it needs to address the Myitsone Dam problem in a civilized and legal manner.
No one wants war. But the Kachins, retains the right of self-defense, to defend their homes and their way of life.
It’s not straightforward megalomania but greed, filthy lucre, with both the previous and current generations of military dictators.
Whilst Ne Win jealously guarded his own fiefdom called Burma isolating it from the global markets and cultural including political influence, successfully to a large extent before the age of the Internet and globalisation, Than Shwe and his brood conveniently embraced the open market system in a country they renamed Myanmar, open almost exclusively to themselves and their cronies, and joined in the global comprador bourgeoisie making themselves exponentially rich in the process.
Ne Win was able to rub shoulders with British royalty and enjoy Royal Ascot etc., and left to his own devices because
a) his malevolent despotic rule and the civil war were relatively unknown in a global village that was very different from now, and
b) his staunch anti-communism and wars against the Chinese backed CPB put him firmly in the Western camp like any right wing dictatorship notwithstanding his other wars against ethnic minorities.
Not something Than Shwe can enjoy since his relentlessly violent and repressive misrule cannot be concealed in this day and age, and the CPB no longer figures in the equation at least for a very long time under his watch.
The question is who the current armed thugocracy, Ne Win’s progeny and new improved litter, spends the money on while swimming in a sea of hard currency. What are their priorities? When the mainstream Burmese do not even get a look in, what chance do the minorities have?
Has there been any tentative step towards genuine national reconciliation? Apart from lip service to the union and a show opposition in a sham parliament, such a policy is conspicuous by its absence. Instead the regime appears to be hell bent on investing in yet more communal strife, misery and stunting of all the peoples’ potential to become a great nation just so a handful of them can remain on top and reap all the benefits from both natural and human resources far worse than the colonial rulers of old.
To them Panglong is a four letter word whereas to the minorities it remains a unique and historic milestone in all the history of Burma that badly needs to be revisited if the future of the union is to be free, fair, peaceful and prosperous.
we will only be publishing high-quality comments that make original contributions to discussion.
Now are the new mandala moderators really serious about enforcing this?
We are seeing here another discussion on Thai monarchy turned into allegations against Thaksin and credibility/neutrality issues of the original poster. This is just blatant ad hominem/red herring, and I’m supposed to see this as a debate, let alone a discussion?
How many battles has the Tatmawdaw fought against the US versus how many battles has it fought against its ethnic brothers? As I pointed out the KIO renounced separatist back in the late 1980s, and has been fighting for a federal state system in the context of a democracy since then, but that hasn’t kept the glorious Tatmawdaw from attacking their Kachin brothers.
And since we’re on the subject of Kachins, let’s look at the splits in the KIO since the 1990s and tell me how many were caused by the US or other western powers and how many were caused by the Burman dominated military. Who’s pitting brother against brother?
“New Mandala forum had noticeably been bypassing Shawn Crispin and his article, and, that’s understandable.”
I can explain you why i will have to bypass this article: it contains some truths, much top level rumor, some semi-truths, and several points he simply got completely wrong.
Lets start with something Crispin got completely wrong: He stated that Sombat was de-facto leader and was replaced by Tida in an “internal coup”. This is embarrassingly wrong. Crispin obviously knows neither Sombat’s style of protests (already the similar during the early coup period), nor the mechanics of the Red Shirt protests after the dispersal. Neither has he apparently been at the infamous 19th September protests in which the graffiti were scribbled at central World (and on the street). Sombat has been indeed the first prominent Red Shirt with some reputation who came out in the open after the dispersal (other than several functions in Wat Patum and other temples led by Red Shirt leaders that were not arrested) with his ribbon tying protests (for which he was arrested and briefly incarcerated after his first one). Sombat at no time was a member of the UDD leadership council, and has always maintained an independent position, as he has after the 2006 coup, when after the first small (but important!) protests led by him and his group other groups came up, and eventually the UDD was formed, after which he played a less public though in his style subtly influential role.
On the 19th September protest it became clear that Sombat was not a leader of the Red Shirts other than his small group. I do not want to underestimate Sombat’s importance – which is not to be a mass leader, but an inspiration with very advanced and intelligent protest strategies. The Red Shirts would not be the same without Sombat.
On September 19th, more Red Shirts came to Rajaprasong than even Sombat expected, and he could not control the crowd. Police even provided him with a loudspeaker car so that he could the Red Shirts off the crossing. When he asked them to gather instead at nearby Wat Patum, they refused to follow Sombat and remained, while Sombat and his followers went to Wat Patum.
Sombat neither disappeared into obscurity (he still is very active), neither was there a “silent coup” in the UDD. Tida Tawornset was a member of the central committee of the UDD (which Sombat never was, and never aspired to be). She was initially very hesitant to become so public, as her strength was not to be a speaker on the stage, but a gray eminence behind the scene that was more a strategist than a mass leader (she was the brain behind the UDD schools, for example). One main reason that she worked on decreasing open expression of anti-monarchy sentiment was not the result of a “deal” between Thaksin, Abhisit and the Privy Council, but her unwillingness of leading the Red Shirt protesters into their deaths – an inevitable high risk if such a mass organization breaks all taboos of Thai society. Already during the late Rajaprasong era she was very much against the escalation of the protests, and more than uncomfortable with the direction this was taking. I have spoken many times during that era with her, and do not need “sources in the UDD” or other unnamed “insiders” to state that.
He is also wrong that post-dispersal protests were very tame. Only somebody who has not observed these protests with incidents that cannot be written about can state something like that. Only the creation of the acting leadership and its behind the scene talks with the grassroots level organizations made the increasingly ideologically radical protests without any leadership structure other than basic grassroots organizations more organized and tame. For the aforementioned reasons.
I am also quite uncomfortable with Crispin’s statement of “several diplomats and analysts interpreted…”. In my interpretation this is a leading statement. Anybody who knows a bit of the diplomatic community here, knows that the diplomatic community is deeply divided over how to view the ongoing crises, and how to react to it. Even within many countries embassies are bitter conflicts over this topic. Some interpret things this way, and others the completely opposite way. Similar counts for “analysts”.
The so called deals between “the establishment” and “Thaksin” are a bit more complex, especially that they are not what anyone could consider as “deals”, more talks between different sides, supported by the more moderate parts of each side, and hindered by the more radical ones. Like everything here – the situation is very fluid. Talks to some degree or other, on many levels of the conflict have always taken place. Nothing new about that.
It becomes also increasingly clear now, that presently the mood is much much towards escalation that towards “deals” or even “talks”.
I have another problem with the fixation towards the elite aspect of this conflict – this does not take into account the complex nature of the mechanics, especially in the Red Shirt movement, between the leadership factions, and also between the leadership and the grassroots organizations (which have a lot more saying in the direction the protests take than many people assume). But also the “establishment” is more varied than it is made out to be. There are many in the “establishment” that would prefer a more moderate and conciliatory approach, while others take a very hardline view on things.
I have no access to “top level diplomats, negotiators” and people who hold “close relationships”, unless they are the usual people we journalists get access to. Neither do i take at face value what they tell me, especially when what they tell me smells of conspiracy BS, or when they try to lead me.
The problem i have here with Crispin’s story is that some of what he writes i cannot verify (it may well be so as he states), but other points of his story are simply not true, or insufficiently researched and not brought with the necessary detail. And that is especially so with the parts easiest to verify here – the parts that can be seen on the street, on ground level. But one has to spend some time there to do so.
In addition to the aforementioned – in this conflict and country it is unfortunately necessary to have anonymous sources and such, but to have 90% of a whole story is based on such, makes it impossible for me to use as a note in a book , or even pay more attention to than it takes me to write these lines.
Sorry.
And as to your statement of Abhisit’s reaction having been “delicately and with the utmost measured restraint carried out resulting in the minimum loss of lives.”, sorry, but i do slightly disagree there. Abhisit may have been delicate – i have not observed him in the 11th infantry regiment barracks – but the soldiers on the streets have on some occasions in which i was on the receiving end of their bullets been not exactly delicate, the most extreme i have seen you can read in my story of the killing zone, in which there was no direct threat against the soldiers (other than a man with a sling shot who was shot in front of me, and who died on the way to hospital), and the soldiers shot at everything that moved – protesters, locals, me and other journalists (like Chaiwat, the Nation Photographer who was shot through his leg on the opposite side of the street from where i was hiding. But maybe your definition of “delicate” differs from mine…
For some reason you still manage to bring Thaksin in to the conversation almost every time even though what people were talking has really nothing to do with him.
Explain to me people why I just could not remove this perception that “Thaksin-is-the-Danger!”, and, that the the ‘Thai Red Shirts had regressed into a terror-for-hire (Thaksin the patron of course) wild bunch?”
All I can answer is that you are just another extreme royalist that Khun CT has been mention earlier and that the logic that you have has been permanently spoiled by the Thai media/education to the point where you just cannot reason with any thing. Furthermore, to show that you lack the logic mentioned earlier would be to point out that if the red was really just a terror-for-hire wild bunch they would have burn Bkk to the ground since the 1st day of their protest and not “after” the military start to use force to disperse them. While you only concentrate on the the burning part, why dont you look at another angle where 3,000 people were being fired at in Wat Patum. Doesn’t it tick you a bit that people were being shot at in the designated safe zone while next to it someone is burning CTW , why do you think the soldier dont take care of the fire but instead decided to shooting at unarmed medic??
CT – 59
I have come across those nonsense assertion countless of times, but I still attempted to answer every single one of them so that at least I planted something in their head and one they that something might grow and change the way they think. Here is some answer to some of those ridiculous assertion.
-If you don’t love the King, then don’t use Thai banknotes because the King’s face is on them.
The value of money is not based on the face of the person on it but rather the “confident” to the country that issue it and that confident is what every Thais work hard to create it. The King is not bank note if you really think about it.
-If you don’t love the King, then don’t speak Thai, because he implements Thai language.
The king is not even born in Thailand how is it possible that he implements Thai language?? so what language did we use before his reign??
-If you don’t love the King, get out of Thailand and go live with Thaksin in Montenegro.
I dont love the King doesn’t mean that I love Thaksin. Thaksin maybe love the King more than I do.
-Why don’t you love the King? How could you born into Thailand? If there is no King, would you be able to born? Would you have a chance to go to school? Would you be well-fed like you are nowadays? (These people believe that if there is no King then no Thai can be borned, and there will be no school, and there will be no food).
Certainly other nation dont need a King to make an egg fertilized, and I was born the say way that you were born and the people that fed me and send me to school was my parent. (have to agree that this is a very odd thing to be asking someone?)
-Because of the King, Thai people are able to have rice. Because his ‘Royal Rain Project’ (I think it is called ‘cloud seeding’..one of his Royal projects funded by Their Majesties the taxpayers of Thailand) that is why people can plant rice. If not because of him, you would have starved to death because there is no rice to eat.
If fake rain is what helps us grow rice then I’m really curious of what the farmers use to grow rice back in the old day. Furthermore, did you know that without proper mix of chemical the cloud seeding could create an overly acidic rain which would posted more harm than good thats why not (I think none but Thailand) use this technique as much as we do.
-You don’t love the King? Have you been to school? You must be uneducated. Don’t you know that if it’s not because of the King, Thailand would have been colonised, and we would have already been slaves of the westerners..
Not being colonized is just another excused to masked the fact that Rama V actually have to sliced away many many piece of land to both France and Britain to retained the presence of the throne. Furthermore we were being colonized indirectly by the Bowring treaty and the only reason we were “allow” to kept our independence was because the French and British need a buffer between their territory.
-You don’t love the King, that means you don’t love Thailand. Then get out of Thailand.
Thailand and the king is 2 separate identity, a country can survive without a king but a country cannot survive without its people.
-You don’t love the King? How much you got paid from Thaksin?
How much money is enough that you risk to go to jail? that how much I got.
-The King has done so much for us, and you don’t recognise it. You are р╣Ар╕Щр╕гр╕Др╕╕р╕У (I don’t know how to explain this concept of “Ne-ra-khun” to westerners, maybe you can help?).
I think the closest meaning of Ne-ra-khun would be “ungrateful”. The country pays the royal family 3 billion baht a year, I think they should be grateful to us rather than us to them.
-You don’t love the King? You are a sinful creature. The hell will devour you.
The king is just a person, not a divine entity. (he said it himself)
-I don’t believe the Thai army shot the red shirts. I think they shot themselves. Or even if the Thai army did shoot them, so what? Those idiots deserve to die anyway. Even if they all die, I don’t give a damn.
Think that if the red is the yellow, would you say the same thing? yeah.
-These foreigners are hired by Thaksin to discredit Thailand.
As a country we dont really have much to brag about, really, furthermore if the foreigners can be hired like that, think about how bad the Thais counterpart going to be.
-These foreigners are clueless. They are not even Thai. They don’t know anything about Thailand. They don’t know what Thais think. Thus their articles are unreliable.
What “being Thai” is about?? should give a hard thought about it.
In case of naked pictures of Royals:
-These are photoshopped, by someone very skilled. Of course Thaksin is behind it.
-How dare you show me these pictures. You are a sinful creature. Hell will devour you.
Photoshop a picture is easy but photoshop an entire video clip is something else. Showing you a picture of satan wouldn’t get you to hell.
In case of evidences of Royals’ complicity in 1976 massacre:
-These pictures are photoshopped. No one died.
Many pictures actually was stored in university archive (TU is one that has them) I dont think they allow any photoshopped pictures to be there right?
-I don’t believe the Royals are behind it. Are you in the palace, hearing what they were saying, seeing with your own eyes what they were doing, so you could come up with such ridiculous conclusions?
I could ask the same question back that were you there so you dont know they didnt have anything to do with it??
-I don’t care if these students are killed. They are communists. They don’t want Monarchy. Thus they deserve to die.
That sort of thinking is what plunge us into 8 years of civil war.
I’m well aware of the craziness that has been going around, but if people like you can be aware of it then there’s surly some hope in fixing it dont you think?
“Nobody forced the military junta to build the army to the size it has.”
Let see:
Who label Myanmar as an “axis of evil”?
Among a dozen or more of absolute useless resolution in the UN, who push for especially the one called R2P?
Who parked their fleets of battle ships off the coat when ever there are ‘dispute’ b/t SPDC and the Bangladeshis neither of which, by the way, care for the poor Rohingias’ fate?
Allow Ne Win to be Ne Win without much complaint even endearingly received for example @ the court of ST James while similar or worst atrocities against the citizenry were committed, now chiming in under ‘common policy’ to ward Myanmar as ‘the out post of tyranny’?
Who has never question the intent of Daw Aung San suu Kyi call for sanction yet belittle any effort made by this present eSe on improving citizenry plight.
See anyone here volunteering @ New Mandala to anything else other than interested in fighting for the Karen against the Bamar?
Do they even care to realize that Bamar, Karen, Kachin,Kaya, Shan or any 100’s of ethnicity are brothers?
Just thinking about westerners pitting one of my my brother against another surly make me paranoid just like SPDC.
I think I will get another AK7 @ next gun show in Singapore just to be sure I am well protested.
I still await for Andrew Spooner (#20 and #21) to submit his article on the “equivalence” (Spooner’s word, not mine) between Abhisit’s and Thaksin’s human rights abuses. Andrew Spooner would very likely close off comments again (for whatever reason) at AsianCorrespondent, so I would wish he would post this article at New Mandala , but that’s just as a suggestion.
Because frankly I am drawn to conclude, based on old and new revelations about the BlackMay2010 Bangkok tragedy, that Abhisit’s response to the violence and bombing-murder-arson Red Shirts (at Thaksin’s behest of course) rampage had been delicately and with the utmost measured restraint carried out resulting in the minimum loss of lives.
Excerpts: ” . . .Thaksin’s deal with the establishment?” (http://asiancorrespondent.com/52818/thaksins-deal-with-the-establishment/). New Mandala forum had noticeably been bypassing Shawn Crispin and his article, and, that’s understandable.
But the article mentioned: “But soon after high-level meetings between known Thaksin allies and international mediators, the string of anonymous bombings across Bangkok and surrounding areas came to an unexplained halt last October. The bomb attacks commenced soon after a February 2010 Thai court decision to seize US$1.4 billion of $2.3 billion of Thaksin’s personal assets on corruption-related charges during his tenure as premier. Based on analysis of the targets hit, several diplomats and analysts interpreted the bombings as part of a campaign of instability to maintain Thaksin’s negotiating leverage vis-a-vis the government. . .”
Explain to me people why I just could not remove this perception that “Thaksin-is-the-Danger!”, and, that the the ‘Thai Red Shirts had regressed into a terror-for-hire (Thaksin the patron of course) wild bunch?”
I have to express sympathy for CT who despair and lament and rail because CT & Co. (along with the New Mandala bunch of course) that Thailand’s middle and/or privileged class carry deep set ‘contempt of the Thai poor’. And of course these Thai middle and/or privileged class are dolts, despite their education and access to all available information from every conceivable medium, because they readily swallow that canard that Thaksin had bought the bones and souls of every single brainless Reds.
The Reds of course, despite their limitations, are enlightened. Not terror-prone these Reds. Nor can they be bought, of course. The Reds are the idelologically pure and the truly ones with the sense of country, religion and democracy.
Maybe the solution is stop education of all Thais all together and let’s just all be Red simple.
It is interesting to know that you do try to confront people’s beliefs. For me I usually don’t bother, because if I do, it is going to be a long story. These brainwashed royalists’s rationale have been distorted in a way that it amazes me how people can become that irrational. Here are some of their ridiculous assertions (I might miss many; I will just cite what I remember):
-If you don’t love the King, then don’t use Thai banknotes because the King’s face is on them.
-If you don’t love the King, then don’t speak Thai, because he implements Thai language.
-If you don’t love the King, get out of Thailand and go live with Thaksin in Montenegro.
-Why don’t you love the King? How could you born into Thailand? If there is no King, would you be able to born? Would you have a chance to go to school? Would you be well-fed like you are nowadays? (These people believe that if there is no King then no Thai can be borned, and there will be no school, and there will be no food).
-Because of the King, Thai people are able to have rice. Because his ‘Royal Rain Project’ (I think it is called ‘cloud seeding’..one of his Royal projects funded by Their Majesties the taxpayers of Thailand) that is why people can plant rice. If not because of him, you would have starved to death because there is no rice to eat.
-You don’t love the King? Have you been to school? You must be uneducated. Don’t you know that if it’s not because of the King, Thailand would have been colonised, and we would have already been slaves of the westerners..
-You don’t love the King, that means you don’t love Thailand. Then get out of Thailand.
-You don’t love the King? How much you got paid from Thaksin?
-The King has done so much for us, and you don’t recognise it. You are р╣Ар╕Щр╕гр╕Др╕╕р╕У (I don’t know how to explain this concept of “Ne-ra-khun” to westerners, maybe you can help?).
-You don’t love the King? You are a sinful creature. The hell will devour you.
-I don’t believe the Thai army shot the red shirts. I think they shot themselves. Or even if the Thai army did shoot them, so what? Those idiots deserve to die anyway. Even if they all die, I don’t give a damn.
And these are their reactions, when they see evidences of the Royals behind this current political crisis or the Thammasat University massacre:
In case of academic articles:
-These foreigners are hired by Thaksin to discredit Thailand.
-These foreigners are clueless. They are not even Thai. They don’t know anything about Thailand. They don’t know what Thais think. Thus their articles are unreliable.
In case of naked pictures of Royals:
-These are photoshopped, by someone very skilled. Of course Thaksin is behind it.
-How dare you show me these pictures. You are a sinful creature. Hell will devour you.
In case of evidences of Royals’ complicity in 1976 massacre:
-These pictures are photoshopped. No one died.
-I don’t believe the Royals are behind it. Are you in the palace, hearing what they were saying, seeing with your own eyes what they were doing, so you could come up with such ridiculous conclusions?
-I don’t care if these students are killed. They are communists. They don’t want Monarchy. Thus they deserve to die.
I think there are more, but I am too lazy to cite them all. However, I believe these are enough to illustrate that these people’s perspectives are as followed:
1) If you are Thai you must love the King. Without the King there is no Thailand, no unity, no food, no education etc.
2) Thus if you don’t love the King you don’t deserve to be Thai.
3) Because the King is so great, thus any negative coverage about him and his family is false.
4) If you challenge the institution, you deserve to be killed. And when you die, you go to hell.
Not to mention that these people would usually become extremely hostile, violent, and rude when they confront with people who do not agree with their beliefs.
….I really don’t know what to do to be able to ‘undistort’ these people’s “super distorted” perspective back to normal Khun Tarrin. It is embarrassing and extremely sad for me to witness this craziness that is going on in Thailand nowadays.
I shared many of you sentiment here, I could also be considered as “Bangkok elite” as well so obviously I’ve also been in many situation like you just said as well where some people just come to me and show their most appreciate to the monarchy. However, I usually decided to confront their believe right out, asking them some hard questions where they will certainly cannot come up with an answer for sure.
Yes many Bangkokian are exactly what you said, but there are many that has been enlighten and they are working hard to bring many other out of the cave.
Actually, the massive militarization was due to Ne Win’s megalomania; Than Shwe is just carrying it on. Nobody forced the military junta to build the army to the size it has.
To be honest, I am not sure myself whether how Thais overseas think. Many Thais deliberately avoid to discuss this topic to the people whom they don’t know very well. A number of my Thai friends here still believe the Thai media wholeheartedly; some of them even install ASTV satellite at their houses so that they can watch the (distorted) media from Thailand even when they are here (an irony really, being that they have full access to a fair media, and they choose not to listen to them). I was even asked, during my visit to the Thai Buddhist temple two months ago, whether I want to join the programme ‘ordain for the King’ in April. I was contemplating whether I should really say what I think, then I decided not to. I just said ‘I am busy with my work and thus I won’t have the time’.
As for what the most of my Thai friends in Bangkok think, I am sorry to say that most of them have contempt for the poor (thanks to the influence of the Thai lakorn/movies/dramas). The fact that many of them have university qualifications coupled with the fact that most of the Reds are from North/Isaan (Bangkokians think they are ‘privileged’ people in Thai society and that Thais from Isaan or rural areas are uneducated, brainless idiots) made them believe what the elites tell him wholeheartedly, that they (Bangkokians) know everything and that all the Reds are brainless idiots who have been bought by Thaksin. Their arrogance and refusal to critically analyse information which is not fawning to the elites and the Monarchy keep them in the dark, never interested to find out the truth about what is going on behind the scenes in Thailand.
I have heard and seen so much silly talks from these so called ‘privileged Bangkokians’ regarding their perceptions to politics, and their opinions about foreign press. And I can tell you that I feel hopeless. Most of them (and most of my friends are very highly educated from overseas, and a few are even lecturers in Thai universities) believe that foreign media (including Wikileaks, ABC TV, CNN etc) has been bought by Thaksin, all negative information about the current government and the Monarchy are fabricated. Hell, even with those naked pictures of certain Thai Royals or even that infamous ‘dog birthday’ video, those people adamantly deny that they are real. They say they are all ‘photoshopped’ materials. Most of them still believe in those Brahmin/Hindu belief that the elites stuff into our heads in primary schools that ‘the King is a god, and if you do not love him, you will go to hell’.
Last May, one of the Thai students here, told me that I should go watch that infamous Pongpat Vachirabunchong’s video clip where he said “this is father’s home. If you don’t love the father, get out”..he told me it is the most powerful and poignant speech he has ever heard, and that it moved him to tears. It was my utmost decency which held me from saying what I really think back to him as to how ridiculous and unacademic Pongpat’s speech is.
…I could say more (believe me, I have heard and seen so many ridiculous things it would take me a whole day to cite them all), but I’ll stop, as this is probably more than enough to illustrate how most of the ‘educated’ Thais currently think.
It seems that education has not helped the Thais to figure out how to think by themselves.
Does everyone here @ New Mandala really think that the built up of a 400k + Tamadaw ,~3 x Ne Win era armed force as well as masive militarization with the help of now DPRK are a fluke, or worst megalomaniac trait of Than Shwe?
Yet given the trait so far exhibited, adhering to the principle of Aung San’s own belief in “War as an instrument of Politics”, as shown in the handling of the WA, as well as orchestrated nefarious cease fire agreements made, hoping for shoot out b/t ethic groups vs the Tamadaw by anyone here is @ best truly wanting @ worst heaping the possible consequences of that scenario on to the desperate citizenry .
Hoping, wishing, encouraging, or supporting any disharmony among the over 100 ethnicity within Myanmar is beyond ludicrous.
With the unfolding history in the Arabian Peninsula, transformation of regime required an Educated/informed citizenry that expect more from their government.
Does the last 3 or more decades of the west actions as well as most of the opinions of New Mandala comment even approach the above simple proof?
thanks, seems to me you represent a probably large number of Thai people, mainly outside Thailand, who have been brought to consider Thai political and social affairs because the mess has become more visible in recent years
democracy thrives on people that are aware and involved and forces attention because people are required to review and choose in elections at periodic elections
if things are running smoothly people are usually happy not to have to be involved and dictators and countries like the US really prefer dictatorships that represent stability and dont stir up the people
sadly we all need to be involved in Thai politics because the ruling elites/military are repressing the people so badly
lets hope Thai people are now involved enough to force the elites/military to accept rule by democratically elected governments
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Pavin on lese majeste
Luecha Na Malai ,
Show their muscle? You mean kill people? Freedom fighters, at that, fighting for the return of their own land, or at the very least, some respect for their people.
It’s exactley this sort of murdering of the Thai people, the tens of thousands of Thai people killed since 1932, that has brought such disgrace on the Thai Army.
If they really cared about defending the Thai people, they should slash their military budget and invest the money into the public transport and roads around the country instead of whining about a few sluts in a neighbourhood known for prostitution dancing topless in public to divert attention away from the staggering Songkran deathtoll on the roads that is a result of government mismanagement thanks to their squeezing of the country’s resources.
I hate the Thai Army, and rightly so. I don’t think killing more people will help. Shame on you for suggesting it.
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
Khun Tarrin,
LOL your answers to some of these assertions made me chuckle! Thanks for taking the time to respond to them. They really made my day 🙂
I wish I can have a chance to know who you are and meet you in person. However, it is a shame I probably have to remain anonymous when I post here, given that what I have said so far had not been completely fawning to the institution. And thus someone may report me to the police for committing lese majeste. I don’t want my next ‘two weeks in Bangkok’ holiday to visit my friends and family to become ‘fifteen years in Klong Prem Prison’ once I step out of the plane at the end of this year :p
New war in Kachin State?
Radio Free Asia – Interview with Aung San Suu Kyi – April 15, 2011
Question : I am a member of Kachin social development organization. The Myitsone Dam will have a lot of adverse effects on the people living in this area. The Kachin people reject this dam and are protesting in any way they can. Do you also have plans to protest against this dam?
Aung San Suu Kyi : Researchers in the NLD are preparing a paper not only on the adverse effects of building the Myitsone Dam, but also on how deforestation will adversely affect the plains along the Irrawaddy River.
___-
The Myitsone Dam has no economic benefits for the Burmese people. All the electricity will be exported to China while creating an environmental disaster in Burma. No environmental impact plan was prepared or approved. And any economic impact study will show that it has no income or employment multiplier benefits.
KIO leadership does not want to harm relations with China. But it cannot control its rank & file in this matter. In February 2011, Myanmar Army battalion commander, a Lt. Colonel, will killed near the Myitsone Dam by a KIO soldier for cease-fire violation. Last year, housing quarters of Chinese construction workers at the Myitsone Dam were extensively bombed.
If the newly “elected” government in Myanmar wants to shed its “puppet regime” image, it needs to address the Myitsone Dam problem in a civilized and legal manner.
No one wants war. But the Kachins, retains the right of self-defense, to defend their homes and their way of life.
New war in Kachin State?
It’s not straightforward megalomania but greed, filthy lucre, with both the previous and current generations of military dictators.
Whilst Ne Win jealously guarded his own fiefdom called Burma isolating it from the global markets and cultural including political influence, successfully to a large extent before the age of the Internet and globalisation, Than Shwe and his brood conveniently embraced the open market system in a country they renamed Myanmar, open almost exclusively to themselves and their cronies, and joined in the global comprador bourgeoisie making themselves exponentially rich in the process.
Ne Win was able to rub shoulders with British royalty and enjoy Royal Ascot etc., and left to his own devices because
a) his malevolent despotic rule and the civil war were relatively unknown in a global village that was very different from now, and
b) his staunch anti-communism and wars against the Chinese backed CPB put him firmly in the Western camp like any right wing dictatorship notwithstanding his other wars against ethnic minorities.
Not something Than Shwe can enjoy since his relentlessly violent and repressive misrule cannot be concealed in this day and age, and the CPB no longer figures in the equation at least for a very long time under his watch.
The question is who the current armed thugocracy, Ne Win’s progeny and new improved litter, spends the money on while swimming in a sea of hard currency. What are their priorities? When the mainstream Burmese do not even get a look in, what chance do the minorities have?
Has there been any tentative step towards genuine national reconciliation? Apart from lip service to the union and a show opposition in a sham parliament, such a policy is conspicuous by its absence. Instead the regime appears to be hell bent on investing in yet more communal strife, misery and stunting of all the peoples’ potential to become a great nation just so a handful of them can remain on top and reap all the benefits from both natural and human resources far worse than the colonial rulers of old.
To them Panglong is a four letter word whereas to the minorities it remains a unique and historic milestone in all the history of Burma that badly needs to be revisited if the future of the union is to be free, fair, peaceful and prosperous.
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
we will only be publishing high-quality comments that make original contributions to discussion.
Now are the new mandala moderators really serious about enforcing this?
We are seeing here another discussion on Thai monarchy turned into allegations against Thaksin and credibility/neutrality issues of the original poster. This is just blatant ad hominem/red herring, and I’m supposed to see this as a debate, let alone a discussion?
New war in Kachin State?
How many battles has the Tatmawdaw fought against the US versus how many battles has it fought against its ethnic brothers? As I pointed out the KIO renounced separatist back in the late 1980s, and has been fighting for a federal state system in the context of a democracy since then, but that hasn’t kept the glorious Tatmawdaw from attacking their Kachin brothers.
And since we’re on the subject of Kachins, let’s look at the splits in the KIO since the 1990s and tell me how many were caused by the US or other western powers and how many were caused by the Burman dominated military. Who’s pitting brother against brother?
New war in Kachin State?
Hi RY,
Why the Kachins doesn’t like Myitsone Dam?
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
Vichai N said:
“New Mandala forum had noticeably been bypassing Shawn Crispin and his article, and, that’s understandable.”
I can explain you why i will have to bypass this article: it contains some truths, much top level rumor, some semi-truths, and several points he simply got completely wrong.
Lets start with something Crispin got completely wrong: He stated that Sombat was de-facto leader and was replaced by Tida in an “internal coup”. This is embarrassingly wrong. Crispin obviously knows neither Sombat’s style of protests (already the similar during the early coup period), nor the mechanics of the Red Shirt protests after the dispersal. Neither has he apparently been at the infamous 19th September protests in which the graffiti were scribbled at central World (and on the street). Sombat has been indeed the first prominent Red Shirt with some reputation who came out in the open after the dispersal (other than several functions in Wat Patum and other temples led by Red Shirt leaders that were not arrested) with his ribbon tying protests (for which he was arrested and briefly incarcerated after his first one). Sombat at no time was a member of the UDD leadership council, and has always maintained an independent position, as he has after the 2006 coup, when after the first small (but important!) protests led by him and his group other groups came up, and eventually the UDD was formed, after which he played a less public though in his style subtly influential role.
On the 19th September protest it became clear that Sombat was not a leader of the Red Shirts other than his small group. I do not want to underestimate Sombat’s importance – which is not to be a mass leader, but an inspiration with very advanced and intelligent protest strategies. The Red Shirts would not be the same without Sombat.
On September 19th, more Red Shirts came to Rajaprasong than even Sombat expected, and he could not control the crowd. Police even provided him with a loudspeaker car so that he could the Red Shirts off the crossing. When he asked them to gather instead at nearby Wat Patum, they refused to follow Sombat and remained, while Sombat and his followers went to Wat Patum.
Sombat neither disappeared into obscurity (he still is very active), neither was there a “silent coup” in the UDD. Tida Tawornset was a member of the central committee of the UDD (which Sombat never was, and never aspired to be). She was initially very hesitant to become so public, as her strength was not to be a speaker on the stage, but a gray eminence behind the scene that was more a strategist than a mass leader (she was the brain behind the UDD schools, for example). One main reason that she worked on decreasing open expression of anti-monarchy sentiment was not the result of a “deal” between Thaksin, Abhisit and the Privy Council, but her unwillingness of leading the Red Shirt protesters into their deaths – an inevitable high risk if such a mass organization breaks all taboos of Thai society. Already during the late Rajaprasong era she was very much against the escalation of the protests, and more than uncomfortable with the direction this was taking. I have spoken many times during that era with her, and do not need “sources in the UDD” or other unnamed “insiders” to state that.
He is also wrong that post-dispersal protests were very tame. Only somebody who has not observed these protests with incidents that cannot be written about can state something like that. Only the creation of the acting leadership and its behind the scene talks with the grassroots level organizations made the increasingly ideologically radical protests without any leadership structure other than basic grassroots organizations more organized and tame. For the aforementioned reasons.
I am also quite uncomfortable with Crispin’s statement of “several diplomats and analysts interpreted…”. In my interpretation this is a leading statement. Anybody who knows a bit of the diplomatic community here, knows that the diplomatic community is deeply divided over how to view the ongoing crises, and how to react to it. Even within many countries embassies are bitter conflicts over this topic. Some interpret things this way, and others the completely opposite way. Similar counts for “analysts”.
The so called deals between “the establishment” and “Thaksin” are a bit more complex, especially that they are not what anyone could consider as “deals”, more talks between different sides, supported by the more moderate parts of each side, and hindered by the more radical ones. Like everything here – the situation is very fluid. Talks to some degree or other, on many levels of the conflict have always taken place. Nothing new about that.
It becomes also increasingly clear now, that presently the mood is much much towards escalation that towards “deals” or even “talks”.
I have another problem with the fixation towards the elite aspect of this conflict – this does not take into account the complex nature of the mechanics, especially in the Red Shirt movement, between the leadership factions, and also between the leadership and the grassroots organizations (which have a lot more saying in the direction the protests take than many people assume). But also the “establishment” is more varied than it is made out to be. There are many in the “establishment” that would prefer a more moderate and conciliatory approach, while others take a very hardline view on things.
I have no access to “top level diplomats, negotiators” and people who hold “close relationships”, unless they are the usual people we journalists get access to. Neither do i take at face value what they tell me, especially when what they tell me smells of conspiracy BS, or when they try to lead me.
The problem i have here with Crispin’s story is that some of what he writes i cannot verify (it may well be so as he states), but other points of his story are simply not true, or insufficiently researched and not brought with the necessary detail. And that is especially so with the parts easiest to verify here – the parts that can be seen on the street, on ground level. But one has to spend some time there to do so.
In addition to the aforementioned – in this conflict and country it is unfortunately necessary to have anonymous sources and such, but to have 90% of a whole story is based on such, makes it impossible for me to use as a note in a book , or even pay more attention to than it takes me to write these lines.
Sorry.
And as to your statement of Abhisit’s reaction having been “delicately and with the utmost measured restraint carried out resulting in the minimum loss of lives.”, sorry, but i do slightly disagree there. Abhisit may have been delicate – i have not observed him in the 11th infantry regiment barracks – but the soldiers on the streets have on some occasions in which i was on the receiving end of their bullets been not exactly delicate, the most extreme i have seen you can read in my story of the killing zone, in which there was no direct threat against the soldiers (other than a man with a sling shot who was shot in front of me, and who died on the way to hospital), and the soldiers shot at everything that moved – protesters, locals, me and other journalists (like Chaiwat, the Nation Photographer who was shot through his leg on the opposite side of the street from where i was hiding. But maybe your definition of “delicate” differs from mine…
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
Vichai 60-61
For some reason you still manage to bring Thaksin in to the conversation almost every time even though what people were talking has really nothing to do with him.
Explain to me people why I just could not remove this perception that “Thaksin-is-the-Danger!”, and, that the the ‘Thai Red Shirts had regressed into a terror-for-hire (Thaksin the patron of course) wild bunch?”
All I can answer is that you are just another extreme royalist that Khun CT has been mention earlier and that the logic that you have has been permanently spoiled by the Thai media/education to the point where you just cannot reason with any thing. Furthermore, to show that you lack the logic mentioned earlier would be to point out that if the red was really just a terror-for-hire wild bunch they would have burn Bkk to the ground since the 1st day of their protest and not “after” the military start to use force to disperse them. While you only concentrate on the the burning part, why dont you look at another angle where 3,000 people were being fired at in Wat Patum. Doesn’t it tick you a bit that people were being shot at in the designated safe zone while next to it someone is burning CTW , why do you think the soldier dont take care of the fire but instead decided to shooting at unarmed medic??
CT – 59
I have come across those nonsense assertion countless of times, but I still attempted to answer every single one of them so that at least I planted something in their head and one they that something might grow and change the way they think. Here is some answer to some of those ridiculous assertion.
-If you don’t love the King, then don’t use Thai banknotes because the King’s face is on them.
The value of money is not based on the face of the person on it but rather the “confident” to the country that issue it and that confident is what every Thais work hard to create it. The King is not bank note if you really think about it.
-If you don’t love the King, then don’t speak Thai, because he implements Thai language.
The king is not even born in Thailand how is it possible that he implements Thai language?? so what language did we use before his reign??
-If you don’t love the King, get out of Thailand and go live with Thaksin in Montenegro.
I dont love the King doesn’t mean that I love Thaksin. Thaksin maybe love the King more than I do.
-Why don’t you love the King? How could you born into Thailand? If there is no King, would you be able to born? Would you have a chance to go to school? Would you be well-fed like you are nowadays? (These people believe that if there is no King then no Thai can be borned, and there will be no school, and there will be no food).
Certainly other nation dont need a King to make an egg fertilized, and I was born the say way that you were born and the people that fed me and send me to school was my parent. (have to agree that this is a very odd thing to be asking someone?)
-Because of the King, Thai people are able to have rice. Because his ‘Royal Rain Project’ (I think it is called ‘cloud seeding’..one of his Royal projects funded by Their Majesties the taxpayers of Thailand) that is why people can plant rice. If not because of him, you would have starved to death because there is no rice to eat.
If fake rain is what helps us grow rice then I’m really curious of what the farmers use to grow rice back in the old day. Furthermore, did you know that without proper mix of chemical the cloud seeding could create an overly acidic rain which would posted more harm than good thats why not (I think none but Thailand) use this technique as much as we do.
-You don’t love the King? Have you been to school? You must be uneducated. Don’t you know that if it’s not because of the King, Thailand would have been colonised, and we would have already been slaves of the westerners..
Not being colonized is just another excused to masked the fact that Rama V actually have to sliced away many many piece of land to both France and Britain to retained the presence of the throne. Furthermore we were being colonized indirectly by the Bowring treaty and the only reason we were “allow” to kept our independence was because the French and British need a buffer between their territory.
-You don’t love the King, that means you don’t love Thailand. Then get out of Thailand.
Thailand and the king is 2 separate identity, a country can survive without a king but a country cannot survive without its people.
-You don’t love the King? How much you got paid from Thaksin?
How much money is enough that you risk to go to jail? that how much I got.
-The King has done so much for us, and you don’t recognise it. You are р╣Ар╕Щр╕гр╕Др╕╕р╕У (I don’t know how to explain this concept of “Ne-ra-khun” to westerners, maybe you can help?).
I think the closest meaning of Ne-ra-khun would be “ungrateful”. The country pays the royal family 3 billion baht a year, I think they should be grateful to us rather than us to them.
-You don’t love the King? You are a sinful creature. The hell will devour you.
The king is just a person, not a divine entity. (he said it himself)
-I don’t believe the Thai army shot the red shirts. I think they shot themselves. Or even if the Thai army did shoot them, so what? Those idiots deserve to die anyway. Even if they all die, I don’t give a damn.
Think that if the red is the yellow, would you say the same thing? yeah.
-These foreigners are hired by Thaksin to discredit Thailand.
As a country we dont really have much to brag about, really, furthermore if the foreigners can be hired like that, think about how bad the Thais counterpart going to be.
-These foreigners are clueless. They are not even Thai. They don’t know anything about Thailand. They don’t know what Thais think. Thus their articles are unreliable.
What “being Thai” is about?? should give a hard thought about it.
In case of naked pictures of Royals:
-These are photoshopped, by someone very skilled. Of course Thaksin is behind it.
-How dare you show me these pictures. You are a sinful creature. Hell will devour you.
Photoshop a picture is easy but photoshop an entire video clip is something else. Showing you a picture of satan wouldn’t get you to hell.
In case of evidences of Royals’ complicity in 1976 massacre:
-These pictures are photoshopped. No one died.
Many pictures actually was stored in university archive (TU is one that has them) I dont think they allow any photoshopped pictures to be there right?
-I don’t believe the Royals are behind it. Are you in the palace, hearing what they were saying, seeing with your own eyes what they were doing, so you could come up with such ridiculous conclusions?
I could ask the same question back that were you there so you dont know they didnt have anything to do with it??
-I don’t care if these students are killed. They are communists. They don’t want Monarchy. Thus they deserve to die.
That sort of thinking is what plunge us into 8 years of civil war.
I’m well aware of the craziness that has been going around, but if people like you can be aware of it then there’s surly some hope in fixing it dont you think?
New war in Kachin State?
aiontay
“Nobody forced the military junta to build the army to the size it has.”
Let see:
Who label Myanmar as an “axis of evil”?
Among a dozen or more of absolute useless resolution in the UN, who push for especially the one called R2P?
Who parked their fleets of battle ships off the coat when ever there are ‘dispute’ b/t SPDC and the Bangladeshis neither of which, by the way, care for the poor Rohingias’ fate?
Allow Ne Win to be Ne Win without much complaint even endearingly received for example @ the court of ST James while similar or worst atrocities against the citizenry were committed, now chiming in under ‘common policy’ to ward Myanmar as ‘the out post of tyranny’?
Who has never question the intent of Daw Aung San suu Kyi call for sanction yet belittle any effort made by this present eSe on improving citizenry plight.
See anyone here volunteering @ New Mandala to anything else other than interested in fighting for the Karen against the Bamar?
Do they even care to realize that Bamar, Karen, Kachin,Kaya, Shan or any 100’s of ethnicity are brothers?
Just thinking about westerners pitting one of my my brother against another surly make me paranoid just like SPDC.
I think I will get another AK7 @ next gun show in Singapore just to be sure I am well protested.
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
I still await for Andrew Spooner (#20 and #21) to submit his article on the “equivalence” (Spooner’s word, not mine) between Abhisit’s and Thaksin’s human rights abuses. Andrew Spooner would very likely close off comments again (for whatever reason) at AsianCorrespondent, so I would wish he would post this article at New Mandala , but that’s just as a suggestion.
Because frankly I am drawn to conclude, based on old and new revelations about the BlackMay2010 Bangkok tragedy, that Abhisit’s response to the violence and bombing-murder-arson Red Shirts (at Thaksin’s behest of course) rampage had been delicately and with the utmost measured restraint carried out resulting in the minimum loss of lives.
Excerpts: ” . . .Thaksin’s deal with the establishment?” (http://asiancorrespondent.com/52818/thaksins-deal-with-the-establishment/). New Mandala forum had noticeably been bypassing Shawn Crispin and his article, and, that’s understandable.
But the article mentioned: “But soon after high-level meetings between known Thaksin allies and international mediators, the string of anonymous bombings across Bangkok and surrounding areas came to an unexplained halt last October. The bomb attacks commenced soon after a February 2010 Thai court decision to seize US$1.4 billion of $2.3 billion of Thaksin’s personal assets on corruption-related charges during his tenure as premier. Based on analysis of the targets hit, several diplomats and analysts interpreted the bombings as part of a campaign of instability to maintain Thaksin’s negotiating leverage vis-a-vis the government. . .”
Explain to me people why I just could not remove this perception that “Thaksin-is-the-Danger!”, and, that the the ‘Thai Red Shirts had regressed into a terror-for-hire (Thaksin the patron of course) wild bunch?”
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
I have to express sympathy for CT who despair and lament and rail because CT & Co. (along with the New Mandala bunch of course) that Thailand’s middle and/or privileged class carry deep set ‘contempt of the Thai poor’. And of course these Thai middle and/or privileged class are dolts, despite their education and access to all available information from every conceivable medium, because they readily swallow that canard that Thaksin had bought the bones and souls of every single brainless Reds.
The Reds of course, despite their limitations, are enlightened. Not terror-prone these Reds. Nor can they be bought, of course. The Reds are the idelologically pure and the truly ones with the sense of country, religion and democracy.
Maybe the solution is stop education of all Thais all together and let’s just all be Red simple.
Amen.
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
Khun Tarrin,
It is interesting to know that you do try to confront people’s beliefs. For me I usually don’t bother, because if I do, it is going to be a long story. These brainwashed royalists’s rationale have been distorted in a way that it amazes me how people can become that irrational. Here are some of their ridiculous assertions (I might miss many; I will just cite what I remember):
-If you don’t love the King, then don’t use Thai banknotes because the King’s face is on them.
-If you don’t love the King, then don’t speak Thai, because he implements Thai language.
-If you don’t love the King, get out of Thailand and go live with Thaksin in Montenegro.
-Why don’t you love the King? How could you born into Thailand? If there is no King, would you be able to born? Would you have a chance to go to school? Would you be well-fed like you are nowadays? (These people believe that if there is no King then no Thai can be borned, and there will be no school, and there will be no food).
-Because of the King, Thai people are able to have rice. Because his ‘Royal Rain Project’ (I think it is called ‘cloud seeding’..one of his Royal projects funded by Their Majesties the taxpayers of Thailand) that is why people can plant rice. If not because of him, you would have starved to death because there is no rice to eat.
-You don’t love the King? Have you been to school? You must be uneducated. Don’t you know that if it’s not because of the King, Thailand would have been colonised, and we would have already been slaves of the westerners..
-You don’t love the King, that means you don’t love Thailand. Then get out of Thailand.
-You don’t love the King? How much you got paid from Thaksin?
-The King has done so much for us, and you don’t recognise it. You are р╣Ар╕Щр╕гр╕Др╕╕р╕У (I don’t know how to explain this concept of “Ne-ra-khun” to westerners, maybe you can help?).
-You don’t love the King? You are a sinful creature. The hell will devour you.
-I don’t believe the Thai army shot the red shirts. I think they shot themselves. Or even if the Thai army did shoot them, so what? Those idiots deserve to die anyway. Even if they all die, I don’t give a damn.
And these are their reactions, when they see evidences of the Royals behind this current political crisis or the Thammasat University massacre:
In case of academic articles:
-These foreigners are hired by Thaksin to discredit Thailand.
-These foreigners are clueless. They are not even Thai. They don’t know anything about Thailand. They don’t know what Thais think. Thus their articles are unreliable.
In case of naked pictures of Royals:
-These are photoshopped, by someone very skilled. Of course Thaksin is behind it.
-How dare you show me these pictures. You are a sinful creature. Hell will devour you.
In case of evidences of Royals’ complicity in 1976 massacre:
-These pictures are photoshopped. No one died.
-I don’t believe the Royals are behind it. Are you in the palace, hearing what they were saying, seeing with your own eyes what they were doing, so you could come up with such ridiculous conclusions?
-I don’t care if these students are killed. They are communists. They don’t want Monarchy. Thus they deserve to die.
I think there are more, but I am too lazy to cite them all. However, I believe these are enough to illustrate that these people’s perspectives are as followed:
1) If you are Thai you must love the King. Without the King there is no Thailand, no unity, no food, no education etc.
2) Thus if you don’t love the King you don’t deserve to be Thai.
3) Because the King is so great, thus any negative coverage about him and his family is false.
4) If you challenge the institution, you deserve to be killed. And when you die, you go to hell.
Not to mention that these people would usually become extremely hostile, violent, and rude when they confront with people who do not agree with their beliefs.
….I really don’t know what to do to be able to ‘undistort’ these people’s “super distorted” perspective back to normal Khun Tarrin. It is embarrassing and extremely sad for me to witness this craziness that is going on in Thailand nowadays.
Doctor in the House – a review by Tom Plate
[…] This article first appeared in the New Mandala […]
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
CT: Almost nothing on any of those. The cables begin in 2005 and end in early 2010.
Nobody: Plenty on most of those.
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
CT – 56
I shared many of you sentiment here, I could also be considered as “Bangkok elite” as well so obviously I’ve also been in many situation like you just said as well where some people just come to me and show their most appreciate to the monarchy. However, I usually decided to confront their believe right out, asking them some hard questions where they will certainly cannot come up with an answer for sure.
Yes many Bangkokian are exactly what you said, but there are many that has been enlighten and they are working hard to bring many other out of the cave.
New war in Kachin State?
Actually, the massive militarization was due to Ne Win’s megalomania; Than Shwe is just carrying it on. Nobody forced the military junta to build the army to the size it has.
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
Mr Brown,
To be honest, I am not sure myself whether how Thais overseas think. Many Thais deliberately avoid to discuss this topic to the people whom they don’t know very well. A number of my Thai friends here still believe the Thai media wholeheartedly; some of them even install ASTV satellite at their houses so that they can watch the (distorted) media from Thailand even when they are here (an irony really, being that they have full access to a fair media, and they choose not to listen to them). I was even asked, during my visit to the Thai Buddhist temple two months ago, whether I want to join the programme ‘ordain for the King’ in April. I was contemplating whether I should really say what I think, then I decided not to. I just said ‘I am busy with my work and thus I won’t have the time’.
As for what the most of my Thai friends in Bangkok think, I am sorry to say that most of them have contempt for the poor (thanks to the influence of the Thai lakorn/movies/dramas). The fact that many of them have university qualifications coupled with the fact that most of the Reds are from North/Isaan (Bangkokians think they are ‘privileged’ people in Thai society and that Thais from Isaan or rural areas are uneducated, brainless idiots) made them believe what the elites tell him wholeheartedly, that they (Bangkokians) know everything and that all the Reds are brainless idiots who have been bought by Thaksin. Their arrogance and refusal to critically analyse information which is not fawning to the elites and the Monarchy keep them in the dark, never interested to find out the truth about what is going on behind the scenes in Thailand.
I have heard and seen so much silly talks from these so called ‘privileged Bangkokians’ regarding their perceptions to politics, and their opinions about foreign press. And I can tell you that I feel hopeless. Most of them (and most of my friends are very highly educated from overseas, and a few are even lecturers in Thai universities) believe that foreign media (including Wikileaks, ABC TV, CNN etc) has been bought by Thaksin, all negative information about the current government and the Monarchy are fabricated. Hell, even with those naked pictures of certain Thai Royals or even that infamous ‘dog birthday’ video, those people adamantly deny that they are real. They say they are all ‘photoshopped’ materials. Most of them still believe in those Brahmin/Hindu belief that the elites stuff into our heads in primary schools that ‘the King is a god, and if you do not love him, you will go to hell’.
Last May, one of the Thai students here, told me that I should go watch that infamous Pongpat Vachirabunchong’s video clip where he said “this is father’s home. If you don’t love the father, get out”..he told me it is the most powerful and poignant speech he has ever heard, and that it moved him to tears. It was my utmost decency which held me from saying what I really think back to him as to how ridiculous and unacademic Pongpat’s speech is.
…I could say more (believe me, I have heard and seen so many ridiculous things it would take me a whole day to cite them all), but I’ll stop, as this is probably more than enough to illustrate how most of the ‘educated’ Thais currently think.
It seems that education has not helped the Thais to figure out how to think by themselves.
New war in Kachin State?
Nich
Does everyone here @ New Mandala really think that the built up of a 400k + Tamadaw ,~3 x Ne Win era armed force as well as masive militarization with the help of now DPRK are a fluke, or worst megalomaniac trait of Than Shwe?
Yet given the trait so far exhibited, adhering to the principle of Aung San’s own belief in “War as an instrument of Politics”, as shown in the handling of the WA, as well as orchestrated nefarious cease fire agreements made, hoping for shoot out b/t ethic groups vs the Tamadaw by anyone here is @ best truly wanting @ worst heaping the possible consequences of that scenario on to the desperate citizenry .
Hoping, wishing, encouraging, or supporting any disharmony among the over 100 ethnicity within Myanmar is beyond ludicrous.
With the unfolding history in the Arabian Peninsula, transformation of regime required an Educated/informed citizenry that expect more from their government.
Does the last 3 or more decades of the west actions as well as most of the opinions of New Mandala comment even approach the above simple proof?
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
CT #50
thanks, seems to me you represent a probably large number of Thai people, mainly outside Thailand, who have been brought to consider Thai political and social affairs because the mess has become more visible in recent years
democracy thrives on people that are aware and involved and forces attention because people are required to review and choose in elections at periodic elections
if things are running smoothly people are usually happy not to have to be involved and dictators and countries like the US really prefer dictatorships that represent stability and dont stir up the people
sadly we all need to be involved in Thai politics because the ruling elites/military are repressing the people so badly
lets hope Thai people are now involved enough to force the elites/military to accept rule by democratically elected governments