It is so simple. But getting it done is the hard part. Try sitting around the same table with five or six friends to reach agreement on a public interest subject.
Me thinks AW is being cheeky, and that the previous bloggers have failed to realise his tongue is firmly in said cheek, and his point is a nice little backhander towards the ‘institution’ and its patrimonial ways.
Anyway, why not have Yingluck run the show? She looks great, speaks well – whate else do you need to get anywhere in Thailand? (I note also today that Paradorn Srichipan – former elite tennis player, also joined the political ranks, for Chaat Patthana). Whoever is nominated as number 1 on the Pheu Thai ticket will simply be anwerable to Thaksin anyway. And its typically shrewd politics from Thaksin, having been burnt previously from those whom he thought he could trust but then turned on him. Little risk of this happening with baby sister up front.
Is there an alternative to this in Thailand? Qualifications either do not matter or are non-existent. The issue is, yet, just as vital as the presence of the military in Thai politics. Little can really be done to eliminate the reality. We also have cronyism back home – Bush, Clinton, Kennedy, etc. The way to deal with this irksome part of our political process is to act individually and together to get informed, to inform, and to demand results – and when they are not forthcoming get rid of the people that fail to deliver.
To be fair to the Ambassador I would expect him to temporarily cut the Rajaprasap and come over all “ciwilia” for the benefit of the republican audience on Thursday as Khun Kasit is wont to do when stepping onto fahrang shores.
The vitriolic representation of his missive to the Sydney Morning Ranter appears rather to be a formal response and direct translation of something brewed for domestic nationalist consumption.
I am quite sure his excellency can eschew in a manner suitable for a Bondi Barbie when the diplomatic need arises. (This is what diplomats are paid for)
I look forward to hearing of the nations strenuous efforts to suppress any extant forms of piracy and tread the path of fahrang righteousness.
I also look forward to NM’s transcript of a lively, stimulating and thought provoking Q&A session….??
(I wonder if he also has an undelivered declaration of war against Australia mouldering away in his diplomatic desk since 1941? 🙂 )
John – not my intention to equate Thatcher’s question with family background. The reference was to “right thinking” in the sentence above – but I agree that it looks ambiguous given that I also mentioned “clan” just before that….. so, I’m happy to clarify.
Isn’t it the case that the present more or less “elected” Prime Minister of UK Cameron is genetically related to English Kings, Queens and other Royal Family members? But if he contests an open and fair election, doesn’t that rule out his success being disparaged as “nepotism”?
That’s not quite fair on Thatcher (and I never thought I’d see myself type those words). She was talking about political alignment (monetarist / neo-conservative etc), not family background. She was actually rather proud of her background as an ‘outsider’ in British establishment terms.
I agree with the basic premise (that blood – or even water – shouldn’t be the prime factor), but look at how many times we see brother, brother-in-law, son, son-in law etc mentioned in the context of appointments and alliances – whether it’s politicians, police generals or almost any of the senior bureaucracy. There seems to be no escaping this “connected” network attitude almost anywhere in the “upper” levels of Thai society.
Same goes for the network attitude that emerges from which cadet class now-senior officers were in. With all the incessant talk about who was whose classmate, you might start to wonder just what went on between them. Does just sitting in the same lectures as Cadet X make Cadets A, B, C, D….. etc undergo some Borg-style collective mind-merge? Maybe some unspeakable “frat” house style of initiation ritual that turns them into an incestuous “band of brothers”? So Songkitti knows what was done to Thaksin and vice versa – and so on through the Class?
Boringly enough, no. It’s just more of that clan/network mentality at work. Who wants to consider merit when helpful “right thinking” is most of what matters?
Thatcher had the same approach as UK PM. The notorious “Is he one of us?” came from her.
But it is not only “genetic” or “surname”, all people in the circle are on the list. Thaksin’s in laws and his right hand men are good example.
Though this post of AW is alright, but I feel something is not quite right… Are you doing this to please the Thai embassy in CBR or to change the tone of the blog?!??
I agree that nepotism is not the optimum path to appointing a country’s leader. There is a slight different in the case Yingluck in that she is being proposed as the leader of one political party of several contesting a national election, and it is actually the number of votes that are cast in favor of each party and their proposed leader that will determine at least which party wins the election (not going into who will actually decide which party is “allowed” to rule).
If her proposed candidacy attracts the largest plurality or majority of the votes, it is not quite the same as a nepotistic appointment in the manner of, say, North Korea.
And it may turn out that her proposed candidacy is a brilliant political strategy in dealing with 1) the supposed “attractiveness” of the “young and handsome” Abhisit who will suddenly look “old and tired”, 2) in splitting the Bangkok middle-class vote many of who, especially the female middle-class, will be attracted to the idea of electing Thailand’s 1st female Prime Minister,and 3) provide a marketing/image counter-weight to the idea that the Red Shirt/Thaksin party is somehow “shabby & disreputable”.
Also to be considered is that fact that Yingluck, by all accounts, is very educated, very competent, speaks excellent English (important for Thailand’s projection to the rest of the world), and has actually accomplished quite a lot in the world of Thai business. IE., there have been, are and will be many far worse candidates for the position of the Thailand Prime Minister than Yingluck despite her genetic ties to Thaksin.
It just goes to show how Thailand’s democracy is but a facade created by feudalistic political families that continue to bring shame to the country.
It is only lure of Thaksin’s billions that have his supporters salivating, as they wait their turn to be helpful ‘patrons’ to the masses.
Why are the Thais blind to the ambitions of these unscrupulous families? If they know not what they are doing then I suppose they deserve who they elect.
I agree that, as you imply, leaders should not be chosen solely or primarily due to family linkages
however perhaps there are other reasons that people are weighing where the family linkage is incidental and perhaps the family linkage may also be a salient factor
I guess the packer and murdoch families could smaile if reading your article, in their cases it seems family linkage is the first, gateway, criteria but like Yingluck there are also “real-world capability and achievement” factors that are also considered
comparison between the choice of Yingluck as an election-winning candidate and for example the crown princes of the UK and Thailand would expose some differences in process that I think are relevant
Those of us on the periphery are glad that you are endorsing our long-held view on this issue.
As for the real audience, they are too busy gossiping and fart-arsing around with their mobile phones to have even noted that you are actually ‘speaking’. You could try writing it on a board in full public view to slightly better effect. You might even putting it down in Thai script, but even then they will pretty much just copy it down without in any way meaningfully interacting with its greater meaning. (So you might get quoted at some time in the future – although it will probably just be as a means to prove that you are an outsider who really should stick to the price of fried rice if you only knew what was good for you.) Very few will wonder how they might actually put your ideas into positive action for their own benefit.
If anyone HAD truly been listening to anyone (insiders alone) in the last few decades, we wouldn’t still be having to tolerate such mindless codswallop from Thailand’s private-enterprize politicians.
Fascinating article… I’m faily sure that this is the same Pang Ka village on highway 1148, between Nan and Chiang Kham that I travelled through a couple of years ago. At that time an old-ish lady told me that their village (Pang ka) wasn’t that old, and that they’d moved there, from the forest because their land had been bombed.
Once I got back home, (at the time I stayed in Nan) I asked a couple of people in town about it. The lady was lying, they told me. No areas of Thailand had ever been bombed… (something I later found out to be untrue as I’ve since been told that some areas of Nan were also bombed/napalmed (maybe to get rid of opium fields, maybe to get rid of communists… who knows… and who would tell if they did…) during the same period too…)
There’s a royal project, a small forest park, and a dirt track road leading to the top of the 2 mountain summits there now. If you ask one of the officials working there why there are so few trees, they will tell you that the local hilltribe people (Mong and Yao) cut them all down (a fact much repeated by nat. park officials throughout Thailand… deforestation is almost always blamed on locals, there’s no mention of the fact that park officials are often involved too…) There’s also no mention of the fact that army bombs and napalms probably did a much quicker job of stripping the forest than the locals could have…. And, if you ask the people working there about the areas communist history, you will get told that there are no communists there. There were in the past, but they all came out of the jungle (no mention of the army’s brutal supression of them) …. history being written by the victors and all that…
And, if you want to go walking around Doi Pa Ji, a mountain straddling the borders of Nan and Phayao provinces, people will tell you that its really dangerous as there are a lot of landmines in the area… planted by the communists who wanted to protect and to stop soldiers from finding their jungle hideouts…
Its a beautiful area part of the north, and, sad as it is, its great to see someone writing about its real history… and how a lot of the environmental destruction that locals (in towns like Nan) are quick to blame on hilltribes was carried out by the state, or agents of it eg. the thai army, national park officials etc…
Yes, please help expose this kind of practices! Here is a recently posted Open Letter on the Legal and Banking Corruption in Malaysia: https://malaysiancorruption.wordpress.com
When you buy property in Malaysia you are supporting corruption. Is this how it should be? Read and help spread the word! Thanks.
I have studied Thai language for over seven years now mainly for my own social research into the culture but also for the benefit of interacting with my own Thai family.
I studied the course through a university in Sydney. It was extremely challenging especially in getting answers to varied questions. Questioning Thais can be difficult at the best of times as your left to decipher a sometimes quite unfamiliar answer.
The most difficult aspect of learning Thai in Australia was actually finding people to use it with. This is where I found the negative aspects to ‘kreng jai’ would appear. Thai people I would meet would say they were willing to help me and then never return my calls or would be baffled by why I would want to study the language in the first place.They continually tried to put me off. Having a ‘farang ruu maak’ always lead back to some sort of ‘kreng jai’ as I’m constantly reminded now by my Thai family. Apparently farang like to question everything as we do.
I persevered and and eventually met a Thai friend who helped me understand how the language worked within the social aspects of the culture, especially those dealing with class, status and hierarchy. All the rules with so many been broken and distorted drove me insane but yet I was fascinated how the language an culture mirrored each other. I couldn’t give up learning more as it mirrored my own artistic research.
My Thai teach emphasized an important thing; that is, when learning any language, if it is to be taken seriously it must be a lifelong pursuit as you will never learn everything, even in my own mother tongue of English.
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An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
It is so simple. But getting it done is the hard part. Try sitting around the same table with five or six friends to reach agreement on a public interest subject.
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
Me thinks AW is being cheeky, and that the previous bloggers have failed to realise his tongue is firmly in said cheek, and his point is a nice little backhander towards the ‘institution’ and its patrimonial ways.
Anyway, why not have Yingluck run the show? She looks great, speaks well – whate else do you need to get anywhere in Thailand? (I note also today that Paradorn Srichipan – former elite tennis player, also joined the political ranks, for Chaat Patthana). Whoever is nominated as number 1 on the Pheu Thai ticket will simply be anwerable to Thaksin anyway. And its typically shrewd politics from Thaksin, having been burnt previously from those whom he thought he could trust but then turned on him. Little risk of this happening with baby sister up front.
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
Sure. I detest the woman, but it wasn’t nepotism.
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
Is there an alternative to this in Thailand? Qualifications either do not matter or are non-existent. The issue is, yet, just as vital as the presence of the military in Thai politics. Little can really be done to eliminate the reality. We also have cronyism back home – Bush, Clinton, Kennedy, etc. The way to deal with this irksome part of our political process is to act individually and together to get informed, to inform, and to demand results – and when they are not forthcoming get rid of the people that fail to deliver.
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
#8 Are there really that many royalists around here?
Thai ambassador to speak at ANU
To be fair to the Ambassador I would expect him to temporarily cut the Rajaprasap and come over all “ciwilia” for the benefit of the republican audience on Thursday as Khun Kasit is wont to do when stepping onto fahrang shores.
The vitriolic representation of his missive to the Sydney Morning Ranter appears rather to be a formal response and direct translation of something brewed for domestic nationalist consumption.
I am quite sure his excellency can eschew in a manner suitable for a Bondi Barbie when the diplomatic need arises. (This is what diplomats are paid for)
I look forward to hearing of the nations strenuous efforts to suppress any extant forms of piracy and tread the path of fahrang righteousness.
I also look forward to NM’s transcript of a lively, stimulating and thought provoking Q&A session….??
(I wonder if he also has an undelivered declaration of war against Australia mouldering away in his diplomatic desk since 1941? 🙂 )
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
c10
John – not my intention to equate Thatcher’s question with family background. The reference was to “right thinking” in the sentence above – but I agree that it looks ambiguous given that I also mentioned “clan” just before that….. so, I’m happy to clarify.
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
Isn’t it the case that the present more or less “elected” Prime Minister of UK Cameron is genetically related to English Kings, Queens and other Royal Family members? But if he contests an open and fair election, doesn’t that rule out his success being disparaged as “nepotism”?
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
That’s not quite fair on Thatcher (and I never thought I’d see myself type those words). She was talking about political alignment (monetarist / neo-conservative etc), not family background. She was actually rather proud of her background as an ‘outsider’ in British establishment terms.
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
I agree with the basic premise (that blood – or even water – shouldn’t be the prime factor), but look at how many times we see brother, brother-in-law, son, son-in law etc mentioned in the context of appointments and alliances – whether it’s politicians, police generals or almost any of the senior bureaucracy. There seems to be no escaping this “connected” network attitude almost anywhere in the “upper” levels of Thai society.
Same goes for the network attitude that emerges from which cadet class now-senior officers were in. With all the incessant talk about who was whose classmate, you might start to wonder just what went on between them. Does just sitting in the same lectures as Cadet X make Cadets A, B, C, D….. etc undergo some Borg-style collective mind-merge? Maybe some unspeakable “frat” house style of initiation ritual that turns them into an incestuous “band of brothers”? So Songkitti knows what was done to Thaksin and vice versa – and so on through the Class?
Boringly enough, no. It’s just more of that clan/network mentality at work. Who wants to consider merit when helpful “right thinking” is most of what matters?
Thatcher had the same approach as UK PM. The notorious “Is he one of us?” came from her.
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
Great argument, Andrew. I’m surprised the NM regulars seem to be missing your point.
It would be fun to send it to The Nation as a letter. Their hatred of Thaksin might blind them so much to your point that they would print it!
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
Totally agree…
But it is not only “genetic” or “surname”, all people in the circle are on the list. Thaksin’s in laws and his right hand men are good example.
Though this post of AW is alright, but I feel something is not quite right… Are you doing this to please the Thai embassy in CBR or to change the tone of the blog?!??
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
I agree that nepotism is not the optimum path to appointing a country’s leader. There is a slight different in the case Yingluck in that she is being proposed as the leader of one political party of several contesting a national election, and it is actually the number of votes that are cast in favor of each party and their proposed leader that will determine at least which party wins the election (not going into who will actually decide which party is “allowed” to rule).
If her proposed candidacy attracts the largest plurality or majority of the votes, it is not quite the same as a nepotistic appointment in the manner of, say, North Korea.
And it may turn out that her proposed candidacy is a brilliant political strategy in dealing with 1) the supposed “attractiveness” of the “young and handsome” Abhisit who will suddenly look “old and tired”, 2) in splitting the Bangkok middle-class vote many of who, especially the female middle-class, will be attracted to the idea of electing Thailand’s 1st female Prime Minister,and 3) provide a marketing/image counter-weight to the idea that the Red Shirt/Thaksin party is somehow “shabby & disreputable”.
Also to be considered is that fact that Yingluck, by all accounts, is very educated, very competent, speaks excellent English (important for Thailand’s projection to the rest of the world), and has actually accomplished quite a lot in the world of Thai business. IE., there have been, are and will be many far worse candidates for the position of the Thailand Prime Minister than Yingluck despite her genetic ties to Thaksin.
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
A classic – and I’m one of those who deserve to be condemned 🙂
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
It just goes to show how Thailand’s democracy is but a facade created by feudalistic political families that continue to bring shame to the country.
It is only lure of Thaksin’s billions that have his supporters salivating, as they wait their turn to be helpful ‘patrons’ to the masses.
Why are the Thais blind to the ambitions of these unscrupulous families? If they know not what they are doing then I suppose they deserve who they elect.
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
I agree that, as you imply, leaders should not be chosen solely or primarily due to family linkages
however perhaps there are other reasons that people are weighing where the family linkage is incidental and perhaps the family linkage may also be a salient factor
I guess the packer and murdoch families could smaile if reading your article, in their cases it seems family linkage is the first, gateway, criteria but like Yingluck there are also “real-world capability and achievement” factors that are also considered
comparison between the choice of Yingluck as an election-winning candidate and for example the crown princes of the UK and Thailand would expose some differences in process that I think are relevant
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
Those of us on the periphery are glad that you are endorsing our long-held view on this issue.
As for the real audience, they are too busy gossiping and fart-arsing around with their mobile phones to have even noted that you are actually ‘speaking’. You could try writing it on a board in full public view to slightly better effect. You might even putting it down in Thai script, but even then they will pretty much just copy it down without in any way meaningfully interacting with its greater meaning. (So you might get quoted at some time in the future – although it will probably just be as a means to prove that you are an outsider who really should stick to the price of fried rice if you only knew what was good for you.) Very few will wonder how they might actually put your ideas into positive action for their own benefit.
If anyone HAD truly been listening to anyone (insiders alone) in the last few decades, we wouldn’t still be having to tolerate such mindless codswallop from Thailand’s private-enterprize politicians.
The violent suppression of opium cultivation
Fascinating article… I’m faily sure that this is the same Pang Ka village on highway 1148, between Nan and Chiang Kham that I travelled through a couple of years ago. At that time an old-ish lady told me that their village (Pang ka) wasn’t that old, and that they’d moved there, from the forest because their land had been bombed.
Once I got back home, (at the time I stayed in Nan) I asked a couple of people in town about it. The lady was lying, they told me. No areas of Thailand had ever been bombed… (something I later found out to be untrue as I’ve since been told that some areas of Nan were also bombed/napalmed (maybe to get rid of opium fields, maybe to get rid of communists… who knows… and who would tell if they did…) during the same period too…)
There’s a royal project, a small forest park, and a dirt track road leading to the top of the 2 mountain summits there now. If you ask one of the officials working there why there are so few trees, they will tell you that the local hilltribe people (Mong and Yao) cut them all down (a fact much repeated by nat. park officials throughout Thailand… deforestation is almost always blamed on locals, there’s no mention of the fact that park officials are often involved too…) There’s also no mention of the fact that army bombs and napalms probably did a much quicker job of stripping the forest than the locals could have…. And, if you ask the people working there about the areas communist history, you will get told that there are no communists there. There were in the past, but they all came out of the jungle (no mention of the army’s brutal supression of them) …. history being written by the victors and all that…
And, if you want to go walking around Doi Pa Ji, a mountain straddling the borders of Nan and Phayao provinces, people will tell you that its really dangerous as there are a lot of landmines in the area… planted by the communists who wanted to protect and to stop soldiers from finding their jungle hideouts…
Its a beautiful area part of the north, and, sad as it is, its great to see someone writing about its real history… and how a lot of the environmental destruction that locals (in towns like Nan) are quick to blame on hilltribes was carried out by the state, or agents of it eg. the thai army, national park officials etc…
How corrupt can Malaysia get?
Yes, please help expose this kind of practices! Here is a recently posted Open Letter on the Legal and Banking Corruption in Malaysia:
https://malaysiancorruption.wordpress.com
When you buy property in Malaysia you are supporting corruption. Is this how it should be? Read and help spread the word! Thanks.
Reforming Thai language structure
I have studied Thai language for over seven years now mainly for my own social research into the culture but also for the benefit of interacting with my own Thai family.
I studied the course through a university in Sydney. It was extremely challenging especially in getting answers to varied questions. Questioning Thais can be difficult at the best of times as your left to decipher a sometimes quite unfamiliar answer.
The most difficult aspect of learning Thai in Australia was actually finding people to use it with. This is where I found the negative aspects to ‘kreng jai’ would appear. Thai people I would meet would say they were willing to help me and then never return my calls or would be baffled by why I would want to study the language in the first place.They continually tried to put me off. Having a ‘farang ruu maak’ always lead back to some sort of ‘kreng jai’ as I’m constantly reminded now by my Thai family. Apparently farang like to question everything as we do.
I persevered and and eventually met a Thai friend who helped me understand how the language worked within the social aspects of the culture, especially those dealing with class, status and hierarchy. All the rules with so many been broken and distorted drove me insane but yet I was fascinated how the language an culture mirrored each other. I couldn’t give up learning more as it mirrored my own artistic research.
My Thai teach emphasized an important thing; that is, when learning any language, if it is to be taken seriously it must be a lifelong pursuit as you will never learn everything, even in my own mother tongue of English.