The more importance job prospect were to a Malaysian overseas, the lower the desire to come home. On the other hand, a higher rating on moral duty and making a difference corresponded to an increased desire to return to the home country.
Interesting, I suppose, but how do you know the actions and explanations are not reversed?
How do you know that the lower desire to desire to come home does not drive the importance of job prospects?
How do you know that an increased desire to return home is not described as harkening to the call of a moral duty, or the desire to make a difference?
In other words… this is all completely subjective and you have just taken the word of those you’ve questioned as to their motivations.
Surely people tell themselves stories justifying their actions all the time.
There seems to be no way to corroborate any of this.
Nigel: so lets take them one at time if they are not “controversial”:
firstly Thaksin “undermined…the constitution”? he exmpliefied the 1997 People’s Constitution and electoral democracy; he was voted into power twice by a landslide – by folk who could see his policies and program were working well fo them; he epitomised good governance and representation; he introduced the People’s Audit system and held gov officials accountable for their actions directly to the people (including teachers and medical practitioners); for the first time the “king’s servants” (kharatchakan) became the “public servants”; and gov officials, jaophor & others were no longer controlling their fiefdoms as they had in the past: Thaksin showed the country that the constitution can indeed work for the people. Why else would the ancien regime want to get rid of him so badly? His fault was his mangerialism, and sometimes too direct decision-making style. But why do the masses call for the return of both Thaksin AND the now abrogated democratic 1997 Constitution of Thailand? They are inseparable as Thaksin for the first time in Thai history really empowered grassroots constituencies. Secondly, the press was actually at its most free during Thaksin’s time otherwise how could they been able to get together in a compact with amaat/military interests in a vocal condemnation with spin and fiction day after day. It started with Sondhi Lim. Now I recall Thaksin threatened to sue once when it became too personal – which any citizen would do (but he never did). Reporters Without Borders ranked Thailand 153rd in its annual “World Press Freedom” index; before the coup, Thailand was ranked 66th. Despite Thailand’s slide into authoritarianism, some foreign media can still be convinced that things were so much worse back when Thaksin was PM and the country was still a democracy. People see what they want to see. Thirdly, you say that he “was responsible for a tidal wave of vigilante killings during the so called ‘war on drugs'”. That sounds horrid to me. But why does the anti-democratic media in Thailand like to bring this up time and time again? It has a purpose. As head of the Gov he, as anyone else, would need to be accountable for any action undertaken by the various agencies under him at the time, including the police (and god forbid -even the army -which we know is answerable to no one). The mafias or big players connected to the amaat slipped through the net on the WoD; we know this, and that small players got hit because they were easy targets. The police seemingly in some cases clearly overreached. So what do you want to do? keep ruminating on this and meanwhile just remain blind to the last five years? And remember, the number of those killed is still contested. I am also reminded of one of my informants last year who told me at a rally that she wanted to “thank” Thaksin for saving her children from falling into drug addiction. It was, and remains, a serious/critical situation in Thailand. There are always two sides. We need to keep those events in perspective and not fall into the trap set by the yellow Shirt media to detract from the massacres, repression and violence carried out against majority peoples since 19 September 2006. It all depends what you read Nigel and how you want to view history. These claims, contrary to what you say are indeed “controversial” and need to be uprooted from their assumptions and biases. Are you brave enough to do that?
My point is that Prem, Thaksin and Chalerm are all the product of the same underlying conditions.
Re Les Abbey – 36:
I’m inclined to agree with you. Individuals should cetrainly still be held responsible for their acts, and unless they are, little is likely to change. It has been demonstrated that psychopathy is, to a large extent, genetic. That doesn’t mean we should let psychopathic murderers off. In fact, it implies that they should be punished severely for their crimes as a deterrent to other psychopaths who, lacking a conscience, need to reason that behaving within the rules set by society is the most sensible strategy to adopt.
My point is not that we should excuse individuals because they are, in a sense, a product of their culture. Rather, it is that the problems in Thailand cannot be understood in terms of good guys and bad guys, and they will not be solved by removing one or two players (though that might help). I may have this wrong, but reading some of the posts on New Mandala suggests that many people view much that happens within Thailand as being the result of institutions imposing their will on the people. I see things differently. I don’t believe changing a few politicians will alter the underlying problems that are a barrier to the development of a successful liberal democracy in Thailand, namely, the shared beliefs, attitudes norms, roles and values of the majority of Thai people. Corruption is tolerated partly because rules governing behaviour are seen as context dependant rather than absolute. Officials are corrupt because they see their primary responsibility as being towards a particular in group rather than the country as a whole, and hence they do not feel any moral obligation to behave honestly. Indeed, by enriching themselves and other in group members, they may in fact feel good about themselves.
Re Jim Taylor
I actually felt quite positive towards Thaksin when he first came to office. However, the behaviour of his government was quite clearly beyond the pale and I’m still astonished that anyone would consider him at all defensible. He completely undermined the checks and balances written into the constitution; he tolerated not one iota of criticism in the press; he was responsible for a tidal wave of vigilante killings during the so called “war on drugs”. Thaksin was a totalitarian dictator in waiting. I really do wonder why I should be writing this. I don’t think these claims are controversial.
what “events that transpired during his time on office” Nigel? err…the stuff of media fiction? or the truth regime created out of some nonsense started byanti-democratic media? we are all influenced by what we are told, read or hear, but few of us have the wisdom to question its sources. Look into “his time in office” and talk to the people under whom his policies were directed and then…well then -you may just see another story emerging that has been smudged over by the amaat regime wanting to get rid of him so badly. And the reason? because he did nothing to maintain the status quo ante and everything to work in the interests if ordinary folk…
As for Leah’s definitive statement “Thaksin was not good” (!): so who said? He was (in terms of criminality) probably the least corrupt and most certainly the most efficient if idiosyncratic of all PMs Thailand has ever has. The ancien regime had a lot to fear from his successes in creating social, economic inversions and in ensuring local level political inclusion. No doubt when the White Crow has been destroyed, the truth will reveal itsef…
Yes, I was interested in what Anand is reported to have said. He is another one who perennially confuses what the government wants with what the people want.
In Thailand we know that many of the people have been carefully conditioned over several decades to believe pretty much whatever the royalists would have them believe, including some of the most potty fairy stories I have heard since my infancy, when I would believe pretty much anything at all if it came from someone I had been conditioned to believe.
I have met Anand twice and had the chance to speak at length with him. A pleasant man he certainly is (or so it seemed on the basis of 2 hours chatting), but an impressive thinker he is not. In fact, I would count him as a pretty ordinary intellect. Typically Thai one might say, in that he is unburdened by the weight of critical thought.
So perhaps we should not attach undue credence to what he says, because it is likely to be something he has heard rather than something he has worked out for himself from observing evidence.
but the fact that all Thai politicians are seen as corrupt might suggest that it would be sensible to shift the level of analysis from actors such as Thaksin and Abhisit to Thai society and culture.
Nigel, and possibly Leah, if we do shift the analysis away from the individual we would then tend to remove the blame from the individual. This is basically the “double standards” argument that the UDD leadership have used. Of course if you are trying to escape blame as an individual it’s a good idea.
How easy it would be say that Thai culture is to blame, or even one that I have used before to my shame, that it’s (Thai-)Chinese business practice to be corrupt or to corrupt.
The Thaksin defense has the smell of a high paid PR campaign and it’s wrong. The corrupt individual is to blame. Keep removing the corrupt individuals until we find one that’s clean.
The worse thing was that Thaksin was first elected using anti-corruption as one of his themes. At least with Newin and Chalerm you knew what you were getting. they didn’t pretend to be clean.
Vision 2020? That’s easy to achieve. Please take a look at Melaka State declaration that it is a “developed” state. I believe Perak has also taken up the clarion and declared itself a “developed” state.
Anyone with any sense will know that both Melaka and Perak are far from “developed” as compared to any developed countries that one can visit with a cheap airline ticket. Yet, they have been declared!
So now back to Vision 2020 – it’s just a matter of declaration. If BN is still the govt then, Malaysia will have achieved Vision 2020 by declaration….. and I will be in Thailand, playing golf when that happens
But what the Ngram tells us is that, in some comparative sense, mentions of Burma in English language books have declined over (most of) those years. Over the same decades mentions of Siam have held up pretty well.
It’s a different tool for explaining different social processes. And, as such, I think it tells us more about the production of knowledge about a place than it does about the place (say Burna) itself. But I am happy to hear other impressions.
Arguably the most interesting applications come with tracking the usage of particular verbs or adjectives, etc. But that is not currently possible for any Southeast Asian language with the corpus that Google is using.
Dear Nich, Thanks for a novel tool. However is it not obvious that the parameters of health, education, social conditions, form of government etc would demonstrate and predict that Burma/Myanmar is on the downhill compared to Thailand?
E.g. Burma has a military government since 1962, civil war since 1948, country-wise protest against the government off and on since 1962 culminating in the 1988 upheaval, refugees into Thailand and other neighboring countries, economic migrants, lower health status etc. Excuse me for my naivety.
I think there is some “normalisation” introduced to account for the number of books in the corpus from each year. But that may be only part of the answer. Happy to hear other suggestions.
Something seems off. I know why Burma tapered off circa 1962. However, what I don’t quite get is why the decline accelerated AFTER 1988. If anything, it seems like there are ever more references to Burma post-1988 in the media and more books on the country, especially with human rights issues, and there is enough controversy over the name in countries that speak European languages that “Myanmar” probably wouldn’t have replaced “Burma” entirely after 1988. Is there any explanation for this dropoff that I’m missing?
Thani Thongpakdi, foreign ministry spokesman, said: “Regarding documents that have been released by Wikileaks in general, Thailand is not in a position to confirm the accuracy or authenticity of such documents because they were not issued by us.
“Additionally many documents seem to be conveying hearsay or gossip which in some circumstances may have been reported out of context. We should therefore not give credence to them.”
I’m sorry if this post seems a little tangential to the discussion, but the fact that all Thai politicians are seen as corrupt might suggest that it would be sensible to shift the level of analysis from actors such as Thaksin and Abhisit to Thai society and culture. I personally developed a very low opinion of Thaksin based on the events that transpired during his time in office. Nevertheless, I would suggest that Thaksin and his ilk (Chalerm etc) are a natural emergent property of Thai subjective culture, and so doing away with Thaksin will not necessarily solve the problem.
Certainly wasn’t trying to offer any “excuses” for PSRD. I just thought it was an interesting distinction. Journals quite regularly ignore instructions without earning a ban, though, so i wouldn’t agree that”the slightest aberration” can get them shut down. They are pretty aware of when it’s worthwhile taking the risk.
It is a question of values. Most Malaysians who support BN, do it for the following reasons:
(1) People who believe in Malay supremacy (mostly in UMNO);
(2) People who accept Malay supremacy as long as they can “survive” – those in BN component parties, chambers of industry & commerce, rentier capitalists;
(3) People who are apathetic (tak kisah) e.g. as long as I have food on my table – I don’t care what BN does;
(4) People who are ignorant of their rights and the responsibilities of a government – especially the poor in rural Sabah & Sarawak but also on the Peninsular, and also large segments of middle class Malaysia who do not understand the workings of a democracy (this also relates to point (3);
@Kong, you will note that very few people vote for BN because they believe that its a great/best political party – they vote for it out of fear, greed or simply not vote.
At the moment, for the reasons stated above, Malaysia is still a low quality democracy as its built on a low quality electorate resulting a low quality government.
If Malaysia is to achieve Vision 2020 or take its place as a leader among the community of nations – it will need to improve the quality of its electorate.
I just wonder about Anand Panyarachun comment, quoted by Ann, because I remember reading in Thailand Political Prisoner-quoting Anand in saying that a great many Thais are critical of the Thai monarchy and in fact, Anand gave an estimate-one of the first credible estimate ever given. I am not criticizing Ann or Anand as being hypocrits-but perhaps the report on Anand above-is his old position-especially, after what the WikiLeaks reveiled about Anand attitude towards the Thai crown prince.
David Streckfuss, through his brilliant book, reminds us how important it is to ask questions and seek answers, an uneasy task in Thailand, where any semblance of truth is marginalized and trivialized.
But then Streckfuss was able to discuss the same topic on pages of Bangkok Post back in 2007 http://bit.ly/fZQxi2 , and here is hoping that beauty and reason of academic debate will prevail over deceit and irrational hate spawned about by certain sections of Thai media and security agencies nowadays.
Hopefully his extensive study of Lèse majesté will be translated to Thai – an uneasy task in itself – and thus made available to a wider Thai audience…before it gets banned…
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Why is Malaysia experiencing a brain drain?
The more importance job prospect were to a Malaysian overseas, the lower the desire to come home. On the other hand, a higher rating on moral duty and making a difference corresponded to an increased desire to return to the home country.
Interesting, I suppose, but how do you know the actions and explanations are not reversed?
How do you know that the lower desire to desire to come home does not drive the importance of job prospects?
How do you know that an increased desire to return home is not described as harkening to the call of a moral duty, or the desire to make a difference?
In other words… this is all completely subjective and you have just taken the word of those you’ve questioned as to their motivations.
Surely people tell themselves stories justifying their actions all the time.
There seems to be no way to corroborate any of this.
Wikileaks and Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn
Nigel: so lets take them one at time if they are not “controversial”:
firstly Thaksin “undermined…the constitution”? he exmpliefied the 1997 People’s Constitution and electoral democracy; he was voted into power twice by a landslide – by folk who could see his policies and program were working well fo them; he epitomised good governance and representation; he introduced the People’s Audit system and held gov officials accountable for their actions directly to the people (including teachers and medical practitioners); for the first time the “king’s servants” (kharatchakan) became the “public servants”; and gov officials, jaophor & others were no longer controlling their fiefdoms as they had in the past: Thaksin showed the country that the constitution can indeed work for the people. Why else would the ancien regime want to get rid of him so badly? His fault was his mangerialism, and sometimes too direct decision-making style. But why do the masses call for the return of both Thaksin AND the now abrogated democratic 1997 Constitution of Thailand? They are inseparable as Thaksin for the first time in Thai history really empowered grassroots constituencies. Secondly, the press was actually at its most free during Thaksin’s time otherwise how could they been able to get together in a compact with amaat/military interests in a vocal condemnation with spin and fiction day after day. It started with Sondhi Lim. Now I recall Thaksin threatened to sue once when it became too personal – which any citizen would do (but he never did). Reporters Without Borders ranked Thailand 153rd in its annual “World Press Freedom” index; before the coup, Thailand was ranked 66th. Despite Thailand’s slide into authoritarianism, some foreign media can still be convinced that things were so much worse back when Thaksin was PM and the country was still a democracy. People see what they want to see. Thirdly, you say that he “was responsible for a tidal wave of vigilante killings during the so called ‘war on drugs'”. That sounds horrid to me. But why does the anti-democratic media in Thailand like to bring this up time and time again? It has a purpose. As head of the Gov he, as anyone else, would need to be accountable for any action undertaken by the various agencies under him at the time, including the police (and god forbid -even the army -which we know is answerable to no one). The mafias or big players connected to the amaat slipped through the net on the WoD; we know this, and that small players got hit because they were easy targets. The police seemingly in some cases clearly overreached. So what do you want to do? keep ruminating on this and meanwhile just remain blind to the last five years? And remember, the number of those killed is still contested. I am also reminded of one of my informants last year who told me at a rally that she wanted to “thank” Thaksin for saving her children from falling into drug addiction. It was, and remains, a serious/critical situation in Thailand. There are always two sides. We need to keep those events in perspective and not fall into the trap set by the yellow Shirt media to detract from the massacres, repression and violence carried out against majority peoples since 19 September 2006. It all depends what you read Nigel and how you want to view history. These claims, contrary to what you say are indeed “controversial” and need to be uprooted from their assumptions and biases. Are you brave enough to do that?
Wikileaks and Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn
Re: Leah Hoyt
My point is that Prem, Thaksin and Chalerm are all the product of the same underlying conditions.
Re Les Abbey – 36:
I’m inclined to agree with you. Individuals should cetrainly still be held responsible for their acts, and unless they are, little is likely to change. It has been demonstrated that psychopathy is, to a large extent, genetic. That doesn’t mean we should let psychopathic murderers off. In fact, it implies that they should be punished severely for their crimes as a deterrent to other psychopaths who, lacking a conscience, need to reason that behaving within the rules set by society is the most sensible strategy to adopt.
My point is not that we should excuse individuals because they are, in a sense, a product of their culture. Rather, it is that the problems in Thailand cannot be understood in terms of good guys and bad guys, and they will not be solved by removing one or two players (though that might help). I may have this wrong, but reading some of the posts on New Mandala suggests that many people view much that happens within Thailand as being the result of institutions imposing their will on the people. I see things differently. I don’t believe changing a few politicians will alter the underlying problems that are a barrier to the development of a successful liberal democracy in Thailand, namely, the shared beliefs, attitudes norms, roles and values of the majority of Thai people. Corruption is tolerated partly because rules governing behaviour are seen as context dependant rather than absolute. Officials are corrupt because they see their primary responsibility as being towards a particular in group rather than the country as a whole, and hence they do not feel any moral obligation to behave honestly. Indeed, by enriching themselves and other in group members, they may in fact feel good about themselves.
Re Jim Taylor
I actually felt quite positive towards Thaksin when he first came to office. However, the behaviour of his government was quite clearly beyond the pale and I’m still astonished that anyone would consider him at all defensible. He completely undermined the checks and balances written into the constitution; he tolerated not one iota of criticism in the press; he was responsible for a tidal wave of vigilante killings during the so called “war on drugs”. Thaksin was a totalitarian dictator in waiting. I really do wonder why I should be writing this. I don’t think these claims are controversial.
Legitimacy crisis in Thailand
Bangkok Post review is here: http://www.bangkokpost.com/print/212181/
Review of Truth on Trial
For good measure, the authorities ban almost everything that discusses the royalty including those that heap praises on the King and his family.
Wikileaks and Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn
what “events that transpired during his time on office” Nigel? err…the stuff of media fiction? or the truth regime created out of some nonsense started byanti-democratic media? we are all influenced by what we are told, read or hear, but few of us have the wisdom to question its sources. Look into “his time in office” and talk to the people under whom his policies were directed and then…well then -you may just see another story emerging that has been smudged over by the amaat regime wanting to get rid of him so badly. And the reason? because he did nothing to maintain the status quo ante and everything to work in the interests if ordinary folk…
As for Leah’s definitive statement “Thaksin was not good” (!): so who said? He was (in terms of criminality) probably the least corrupt and most certainly the most efficient if idiosyncratic of all PMs Thailand has ever has. The ancien regime had a lot to fear from his successes in creating social, economic inversions and in ensuring local level political inclusion. No doubt when the White Crow has been destroyed, the truth will reveal itsef…
Review of Truth on Trial
Yes, I was interested in what Anand is reported to have said. He is another one who perennially confuses what the government wants with what the people want.
In Thailand we know that many of the people have been carefully conditioned over several decades to believe pretty much whatever the royalists would have them believe, including some of the most potty fairy stories I have heard since my infancy, when I would believe pretty much anything at all if it came from someone I had been conditioned to believe.
I have met Anand twice and had the chance to speak at length with him. A pleasant man he certainly is (or so it seemed on the basis of 2 hours chatting), but an impressive thinker he is not. In fact, I would count him as a pretty ordinary intellect. Typically Thai one might say, in that he is unburdened by the weight of critical thought.
So perhaps we should not attach undue credence to what he says, because it is likely to be something he has heard rather than something he has worked out for himself from observing evidence.
Wikileaks and Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn
Nigel – 36
but the fact that all Thai politicians are seen as corrupt might suggest that it would be sensible to shift the level of analysis from actors such as Thaksin and Abhisit to Thai society and culture.
Nigel, and possibly Leah, if we do shift the analysis away from the individual we would then tend to remove the blame from the individual. This is basically the “double standards” argument that the UDD leadership have used. Of course if you are trying to escape blame as an individual it’s a good idea.
How easy it would be say that Thai culture is to blame, or even one that I have used before to my shame, that it’s (Thai-)Chinese business practice to be corrupt or to corrupt.
The Thaksin defense has the smell of a high paid PR campaign and it’s wrong. The corrupt individual is to blame. Keep removing the corrupt individuals until we find one that’s clean.
The worse thing was that Thaksin was first elected using anti-corruption as one of his themes. At least with Newin and Chalerm you knew what you were getting. they didn’t pretend to be clean.
The 13th General Election in Malaysia
Hai Greg,
Vision 2020? That’s easy to achieve. Please take a look at Melaka State declaration that it is a “developed” state. I believe Perak has also taken up the clarion and declared itself a “developed” state.
Anyone with any sense will know that both Melaka and Perak are far from “developed” as compared to any developed countries that one can visit with a cheap airline ticket. Yet, they have been declared!
So now back to Vision 2020 – it’s just a matter of declaration. If BN is still the govt then, Malaysia will have achieved Vision 2020 by declaration….. and I will be in Thailand, playing golf when that happens
Wikileaks and Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn
Chalerm was Prem’s ilk long before he was Thaksin’s. Read history. See how it repeats. Thaksin was not good, but this is much bigger than him.
Google Ngram from Siam to Myanmar
Thanks Maung Maung,
I suppose so. That sounds right to me.
But what the Ngram tells us is that, in some comparative sense, mentions of Burma in English language books have declined over (most of) those years. Over the same decades mentions of Siam have held up pretty well.
It’s a different tool for explaining different social processes. And, as such, I think it tells us more about the production of knowledge about a place than it does about the place (say Burna) itself. But I am happy to hear other impressions.
Arguably the most interesting applications come with tracking the usage of particular verbs or adjectives, etc. But that is not currently possible for any Southeast Asian language with the corpus that Google is using.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
Google Ngram from Siam to Myanmar
Dear Nich, Thanks for a novel tool. However is it not obvious that the parameters of health, education, social conditions, form of government etc would demonstrate and predict that Burma/Myanmar is on the downhill compared to Thailand?
E.g. Burma has a military government since 1962, civil war since 1948, country-wise protest against the government off and on since 1962 culminating in the 1988 upheaval, refugees into Thailand and other neighboring countries, economic migrants, lower health status etc. Excuse me for my naivety.
Google Ngram from Siam to Myanmar
Thanks Dom,
I think there is some “normalisation” introduced to account for the number of books in the corpus from each year. But that may be only part of the answer. Happy to hear other suggestions.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
Google Ngram from Siam to Myanmar
Something seems off. I know why Burma tapered off circa 1962. However, what I don’t quite get is why the decline accelerated AFTER 1988. If anything, it seems like there are ever more references to Burma post-1988 in the media and more books on the country, especially with human rights issues, and there is enough controversy over the name in countries that speak European languages that “Myanmar” probably wouldn’t have replaced “Burma” entirely after 1988. Is there any explanation for this dropoff that I’m missing?
Wikileaks, Thaksin and the Crown Prince
This from the BBC:
Thani Thongpakdi, foreign ministry spokesman, said: “Regarding documents that have been released by Wikileaks in general, Thailand is not in a position to confirm the accuracy or authenticity of such documents because they were not issued by us.
“Additionally many documents seem to be conveying hearsay or gossip which in some circumstances may have been reported out of context. We should therefore not give credence to them.”
Full report:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12010706
Wikileaks and Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn
I’m sorry if this post seems a little tangential to the discussion, but the fact that all Thai politicians are seen as corrupt might suggest that it would be sensible to shift the level of analysis from actors such as Thaksin and Abhisit to Thai society and culture. I personally developed a very low opinion of Thaksin based on the events that transpired during his time in office. Nevertheless, I would suggest that Thaksin and his ilk (Chalerm etc) are a natural emergent property of Thai subjective culture, and so doing away with Thaksin will not necessarily solve the problem.
Coverage of Suu Kyi release
Hi Maung Maung,
Certainly wasn’t trying to offer any “excuses” for PSRD. I just thought it was an interesting distinction. Journals quite regularly ignore instructions without earning a ban, though, so i wouldn’t agree that”the slightest aberration” can get them shut down. They are pretty aware of when it’s worthwhile taking the risk.
The 13th General Election in Malaysia
@ Kong & @ Azmi Zain.
It is a question of values. Most Malaysians who support BN, do it for the following reasons:
(1) People who believe in Malay supremacy (mostly in UMNO);
(2) People who accept Malay supremacy as long as they can “survive” – those in BN component parties, chambers of industry & commerce, rentier capitalists;
(3) People who are apathetic (tak kisah) e.g. as long as I have food on my table – I don’t care what BN does;
(4) People who are ignorant of their rights and the responsibilities of a government – especially the poor in rural Sabah & Sarawak but also on the Peninsular, and also large segments of middle class Malaysia who do not understand the workings of a democracy (this also relates to point (3);
@Kong, you will note that very few people vote for BN because they believe that its a great/best political party – they vote for it out of fear, greed or simply not vote.
At the moment, for the reasons stated above, Malaysia is still a low quality democracy as its built on a low quality electorate resulting a low quality government.
If Malaysia is to achieve Vision 2020 or take its place as a leader among the community of nations – it will need to improve the quality of its electorate.
Review of Truth on Trial
I just wonder about Anand Panyarachun comment, quoted by Ann, because I remember reading in Thailand Political Prisoner-quoting Anand in saying that a great many Thais are critical of the Thai monarchy and in fact, Anand gave an estimate-one of the first credible estimate ever given. I am not criticizing Ann or Anand as being hypocrits-but perhaps the report on Anand above-is his old position-especially, after what the WikiLeaks reveiled about Anand attitude towards the Thai crown prince.
Review of Truth on Trial
David Streckfuss, through his brilliant book, reminds us how important it is to ask questions and seek answers, an uneasy task in Thailand, where any semblance of truth is marginalized and trivialized.
But then Streckfuss was able to discuss the same topic on pages of Bangkok Post back in 2007 http://bit.ly/fZQxi2 , and here is hoping that beauty and reason of academic debate will prevail over deceit and irrational hate spawned about by certain sections of Thai media and security agencies nowadays.
Hopefully his extensive study of Lèse majesté will be translated to Thai – an uneasy task in itself – and thus made available to a wider Thai audience…before it gets banned…