“The idea that the Red Shirts may have transended their Thaksin-personality-cult phase and entered some ideologically driven state of enlightenment doesn’t seem likely to me,”
Couple of days after the 19 Sep 2006 coup, about 150 people gathered at Sanarm Luang to protest against the junta. About half a year later the protest grew to about 5,000 before they got squashed in from of Gen. Prem’s house. During that time, not many of the protesters even know what happened in 6 Oct 1976, not many know what Pridi Panomyoung did in 1932 or what happened to him after he got exile, not many even interesting in the revolution concept. Now, after 4 years, that same force grew to easily exceed 10,000 at time, many can retract Dr. Sun Yat Sen from his birth to the time of China Revolution, and almost everyone was talking about revolution (although not the word revolution itself is said in the rally) many have learn more about what happened after 6 Oct 1976 and what Pridi did wrong in 1932.
This is all happened within 4 years, I disagree with your statement that the red cannot achieve the ideology enlightenment since this past 4 years has shown that people do change in a much more meaningful ways.
Could never understand the need for countries with broken economy to have as many “zeros” as possible in their currencies. Cause a “divide overflow” in many accounting system!
As noted by the editor, Malaysia is not an Islamic state. However, for argument’s sake, let’s just put that aside for a moment.
Islam forbids assabiyah, which can be construed as racism or tribalism, and yet Malaysia’s constitution and official policies allow for racial discrimination. Islam also forbids corruption, theft and the like and yet corruption is widely practised by many who are in power in Malaysia. Thus, how can a country that implements and practises things that are haram in Islam be hailed as a model Islamic state?
But perhaps the Australian PM meant that in comparison to other existing Islamic states, Malaysia is a model state in a relative sense.
“AUNG SAN SUU KYI: We would like to engage with the military junta. We would like to engage with everybody who we think would help the democratic process.”
The last recorded stance that is never mentioned here in New Mandala or any western press was her starting position was
1) Engagement was to be based on Shwegonedaing principles
2) To prove to her ‘which part of the west sanction hurt the citizenry?’ before considering call for termination of sanction!
Now if that is not a political double speak what is?
“Those who profess to want to be ‘of help’ are just in lie for a piece of the action and not to be trusted in any case.”
Hmmmm
Thank you for exemplifying the near impossible state of convincing the west of any alternative to it present useless careless policies.
Any alternative proposer/to be ‘of help’ is automatically branded:
1)In line for apiece of action
2)Not be trusted.
GEE! that will include yourself and worst Nic Farrelly wouldn’t it?
I don’t know about you but Nic here at New Mandala certainly is meaning “to be ‘of help’ every way!
And I sincerely believe to benefit the citizenry.
The focus of any proposal must entail the benefits to the citizenry immediately. Not sometime in the near future!
Myanmar citizenry has suffered enough from the bad governance of SPDC and made worst under this present unconscionable approach of not beyond
1) Support Daw Aung SAn Suu Kyi.
2) Punish SPDC or what ever form it take after this election.
at any cost.
John Francis Lee #31 :
when the day comes, which is undoubtedly coming closer – when the soldiers of the Lao PDR cross the Mekong to liberate their Isaarn phi-nong, they are going to have to move very, very quickly – in a blitzkrieg
– to the borders of the Central Plains : and there arm your “Junyas not from Isaan.”
Sunday, 21 November 2010
By Matt Chorley, Political Correspondent
“David Cameron is to cancel a planned family holiday to Thailand this Christmas, following complaints from campaigners about the country’s human-rights record……”
#27 “Could anyone provide me an explanation about the difference between patronage and corruption in the context of Thai culture?”
Well if you still haven’t figured that one out yet, there really is no point in telling you. Or is it just you striking another pose for the revolution that has already sold out before it even gets properly going?
“So why would it be considered corruption if a politician practices similar thing?”
Because local politicians don’t apparently have the wit to realise that they are just another chip off the useless local elite block. That said, I suspect that they are all pretty much conscious of the treachery they are engaged in at our expense. There is no real philanthropy here. Just a cynical jaded rich belief that all ends always justify the cynical selfish attitudes of self-absorbed small-minded big fish that have long outgrown small ponds. You can suffer such wastrels if you so wish, but don’t expect them to actually achieve anything – since they have already acheived precisely nothing in the long wasted decades since 1932.
The answer is very simple (maybe too simple for this bord)
Have you ever seen a Thai Politician accepting bribes in public?
Regardless how explainable?
That would mean to take responsibility for something.
Everyone runs and hides.
And in Front are the “men” of the Phuea Thai.
Jatuporn the self declared victim of his own lies leading the pack.
Junya is not from Isaan. She is from Central Thailand. Nose around her site and you will find enough detail to thoroughly flesh out Junya Yimprasert.
She’s the youngest of seven, I believe, in a Thai farming family, who won a scholarship to Silpakorn and was able to attend because her older siblings struggled to see her through.
She graduated in 1989, I think, and has been involved in one NGO or another ever since. She has been disabused of the worthiness of NGOs and iNGOS since the coup and is now trying to find a novel means of advancing the struggle. She certainly seems to be an admirable person. Certainly she thinks and writes very clearly.
In any sane society she would be revered as a treasure. Instead, she is afraid to contact her family in Thailand, afraid that to so so would cause the ‘authorities’ there… well who knows what they might do.
She is clearly not afraid for herself but for the fate of the people she loves at the hands of the ruthless thugs in control of Thailand.
These men gave the king two modern farm tractors to be used as he pleases. It seems to me it is fine according to the Thai customs. So why would it be considered corruption if a politician practices similar thing?
Not sure that patronage is the word you are looking for Suzie, but the point that gift giving moves towards corruption is when something is expected in return. Now when the expectation is some award of status then you can almost forgive if the gift is charitable. Many charities in the West depend on this type of expectation in the giver. When the expectation is monitory gain then we should call it corruption.
Junya’s post is the most potent thing I’ve read coming from a Thai regarding the political situation. Do we come across this sort of thing here at NM with foreigners criticizing sacred cows in Thailand, yes, and I’ve been one of them, but at the end of the day I am a foreigner and I don’t think the Thai government loses much sleep over it.
Her voice is all the more powerful because she’s not rich, not a foreigner, not an outsider, not one of these “uneducated bribed lackeys,” nor some “radical nutcase communist general”either.
Her voice is the voice of Thailand and her story coming from poverty resonates. She is a woman, not an enraged Red Bull drinking taxi driver scribbling anti-monarchy graffiti on Ratchaprasong.
Thaksin wasn’t from Isan, neither is Jatuporn or Nattawutt for that matter. I don’t know about Veera or the other leaders. She puts a human face on these red shirts from Isan.
In the eyes of the government she would be an extremely dangerous person for the sympathy she could elicit which is more powerful than a thousand m79s.
I agree – excellent analysis by Tappe.
What his discourse and narrative seems to show – among much else – is that the ideology of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party has shifted from Marxist notions of “class” to Jeffersonian rhetoric of “the people”, in keeping with the collapse of the Soviet Union, etc.
However, there are two fundamental isssues, not addressed by Tappe’s writing here, though perhaps in his Phd :
1) At the time of their seizing power, and long before, the current Lao People’s Revolutionary Party was called the Pathet Lao.
The Lao word “Pathet” is the same as the Thai “Prathet” – i.e. nation or country, in the sense of land belonging to the people, and people belonging to that land. As distinct from eg. the more abstract, elevated – and arguably royalist – Thai word “Chart”, which can also mean “nation”.
So the Jeffersonian aspect has long been there – and arguably long more dominant than the Marxist.
2) by extension, and logically by definition, Jeffersonian Pathet Lao ideology INCLUDES re-unification with and liberation of the Isaarn Lao. The current borders are as temporary as those Jefferson’s 13 American colonies temporarily agreed to.
Could anyone provide me an explanation about the difference between patronage and corruption in the context of Thai culture? Last week, I saw a photo on a newspaper showing the Thai king gave an audience to a group of Japanese businessmen. These men gave the king two modern farm tractors to be used as he pleases. It seems to me it is fine according to the Thai customs. So why would it be considered corruption if a politician practices similar thing?
Vichai N #10 :
Good questions.
In fact good enough to be asked in a referendum, or a genuinely free and respected election !!
After all, in a true democracy – the people are the ultimate “experts”.
Here we go again. Show a bit of maturity John. There are probably good arguments to be made about Khun Junya, but you spoil it with immature statements like this.
Whatever the Abhisit government is, it’s not fascist. If elections are not held at the end of this parliament’s designated time span, then you can start looking at terms like fascist.
(I do like the idea among some of the British left that the first person to use the word fascist has lost the argument.)
@ William, & Yi Leen – thanks for highlighting this.
Wow! How about that.
Have the Malaysian High Commission staffs in Australia (and everywhere else) been misleading Malaysian students and denying them their right by not allowing them to vote.
When I had asked HC staffs in Canberra if I could vote at the High Commission (in 2008), they politely said no.
I am really pissed. Pissed that I did not know my rights and pissed that the HC staffs misled me.
I think this calls for action – to demand that the High Commission allow “legitimate absent voters” here in Australia to vote.
We should also support the rights of all Malaysians overseas to vote (MyOverseas Vote) . After all, if the country can send a Malaysian to space (read here), land the national car PROTON, in the North Pole (read here) to the tune of millions of ringgit, the logistics for this should not be too daunting and costs as much.
@ John, happy to give your group (and any group), especially if your mission is to reform Malaysia, a voice.
That’s what the New Mandala is all about.
New Mandala readers, here’s a worthwhile cause and I can assure you that John & MyOverseasVote is no UMNO/BN type sham outfit out to swindle your money. It will go to fund the test case on allowing Malaysians overseas to vote.
For others who wishes to support this group who is fighting for the rights of ALL Malaysians overseas to vote without having to return to Malaysia, you may donate here. http://myoverseasvote.org/donate-now-2/
Greg
Would appreciate if you could give this link more prominence.
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
How hardline have the redshirts become?
Nigel – 19
“The idea that the Red Shirts may have transended their Thaksin-personality-cult phase and entered some ideologically driven state of enlightenment doesn’t seem likely to me,”
Couple of days after the 19 Sep 2006 coup, about 150 people gathered at Sanarm Luang to protest against the junta. About half a year later the protest grew to about 5,000 before they got squashed in from of Gen. Prem’s house. During that time, not many of the protesters even know what happened in 6 Oct 1976, not many know what Pridi Panomyoung did in 1932 or what happened to him after he got exile, not many even interesting in the revolution concept. Now, after 4 years, that same force grew to easily exceed 10,000 at time, many can retract Dr. Sun Yat Sen from his birth to the time of China Revolution, and almost everyone was talking about revolution (although not the word revolution itself is said in the rally) many have learn more about what happened after 6 Oct 1976 and what Pridi did wrong in 1932.
This is all happened within 4 years, I disagree with your statement that the red cannot achieve the ideology enlightenment since this past 4 years has shown that people do change in a much more meaningful ways.
Inflation and iconography: the new 100,000 Kip banknote in Laos
Could never understand the need for countries with broken economy to have as many “zeros” as possible in their currencies. Cause a “divide overflow” in many accounting system!
Anwar Ibrahim at Univerity of Sydney & ANU
As noted by the editor, Malaysia is not an Islamic state. However, for argument’s sake, let’s just put that aside for a moment.
Islam forbids assabiyah, which can be construed as racism or tribalism, and yet Malaysia’s constitution and official policies allow for racial discrimination. Islam also forbids corruption, theft and the like and yet corruption is widely practised by many who are in power in Malaysia. Thus, how can a country that implements and practises things that are haram in Islam be hailed as a model Islamic state?
But perhaps the Australian PM meant that in comparison to other existing Islamic states, Malaysia is a model state in a relative sense.
Aung San Suu Kyi on engagement
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s3066062.htm
Excerpt:
“AUNG SAN SUU KYI: We would like to engage with the military junta. We would like to engage with everybody who we think would help the democratic process.”
The last recorded stance that is never mentioned here in New Mandala or any western press was her starting position was
1) Engagement was to be based on Shwegonedaing principles
2) To prove to her ‘which part of the west sanction hurt the citizenry?’ before considering call for termination of sanction!
Now if that is not a political double speak what is?
Burma commentary, with more to come
John Francis Lee #5
“Those who profess to want to be ‘of help’ are just in lie for a piece of the action and not to be trusted in any case.”
Hmmmm
Thank you for exemplifying the near impossible state of convincing the west of any alternative to it present useless careless policies.
Any alternative proposer/to be ‘of help’ is automatically branded:
1)In line for apiece of action
2)Not be trusted.
GEE! that will include yourself and worst Nic Farrelly wouldn’t it?
I don’t know about you but Nic here at New Mandala certainly is meaning “to be ‘of help’ every way!
And I sincerely believe to benefit the citizenry.
The focus of any proposal must entail the benefits to the citizenry immediately. Not sometime in the near future!
Myanmar citizenry has suffered enough from the bad governance of SPDC and made worst under this present unconscionable approach of not beyond
1) Support Daw Aung SAn Suu Kyi.
2) Punish SPDC or what ever form it take after this election.
at any cost.
How hardline have the redshirts become?
John Francis Lee #31 :
when the day comes, which is undoubtedly coming closer – when the soldiers of the Lao PDR cross the Mekong to liberate their Isaarn phi-nong, they are going to have to move very, very quickly – in a blitzkrieg
– to the borders of the Central Plains : and there arm your “Junyas not from Isaan.”
Robert Amsterdam’s preliminary submission to the International Criminal Court
“At a minimum the document will make respectable western leaders re-evaluate PM Mark V, the smooth talker from Eaton……” #8
“Cameron urged to cancel Thailand holiday to avoid human rights abuse message.”
Published 10/11/2010 07:44:20 Dailymail
http://news1.capitalbay.com/news/cameron_urged_to_cancel_thailand.html
Sunday, 21 November 2010
By Matt Chorley, Political Correspondent
“David Cameron is to cancel a planned family holiday to Thailand this Christmas, following complaints from campaigners about the country’s human-rights record……”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/8148805/Camerons-no-longer-dreaming-of-a-Thai-Christmas.html
See.
How hardline have the redshirts become?
#27 “Could anyone provide me an explanation about the difference between patronage and corruption in the context of Thai culture?”
Well if you still haven’t figured that one out yet, there really is no point in telling you. Or is it just you striking another pose for the revolution that has already sold out before it even gets properly going?
“So why would it be considered corruption if a politician practices similar thing?”
Because local politicians don’t apparently have the wit to realise that they are just another chip off the useless local elite block. That said, I suspect that they are all pretty much conscious of the treachery they are engaged in at our expense. There is no real philanthropy here. Just a cynical jaded rich belief that all ends always justify the cynical selfish attitudes of self-absorbed small-minded big fish that have long outgrown small ponds. You can suffer such wastrels if you so wish, but don’t expect them to actually achieve anything – since they have already acheived precisely nothing in the long wasted decades since 1932.
How hardline have the redshirts become?
zo suzie wong 27!
The answer is very simple (maybe too simple for this bord)
Have you ever seen a Thai Politician accepting bribes in public?
Regardless how explainable?
That would mean to take responsibility for something.
Everyone runs and hides.
And in Front are the “men” of the Phuea Thai.
Jatuporn the self declared victim of his own lies leading the pack.
How hardline have the redshirts become?
Junya is not from Isaan. She is from Central Thailand. Nose around her site and you will find enough detail to thoroughly flesh out Junya Yimprasert.
She’s the youngest of seven, I believe, in a Thai farming family, who won a scholarship to Silpakorn and was able to attend because her older siblings struggled to see her through.
She graduated in 1989, I think, and has been involved in one NGO or another ever since. She has been disabused of the worthiness of NGOs and iNGOS since the coup and is now trying to find a novel means of advancing the struggle. She certainly seems to be an admirable person. Certainly she thinks and writes very clearly.
In any sane society she would be revered as a treasure. Instead, she is afraid to contact her family in Thailand, afraid that to so so would cause the ‘authorities’ there… well who knows what they might do.
She is clearly not afraid for herself but for the fate of the people she loves at the hands of the ruthless thugs in control of Thailand.
How hardline have the redshirts become?
Suzie Wong – 28
These men gave the king two modern farm tractors to be used as he pleases. It seems to me it is fine according to the Thai customs. So why would it be considered corruption if a politician practices similar thing?
Not sure that patronage is the word you are looking for Suzie, but the point that gift giving moves towards corruption is when something is expected in return. Now when the expectation is some award of status then you can almost forgive if the gift is charitable. Many charities in the West depend on this type of expectation in the giver. When the expectation is monitory gain then we should call it corruption.
How hardline have the redshirts become?
Junya’s post is the most potent thing I’ve read coming from a Thai regarding the political situation. Do we come across this sort of thing here at NM with foreigners criticizing sacred cows in Thailand, yes, and I’ve been one of them, but at the end of the day I am a foreigner and I don’t think the Thai government loses much sleep over it.
Her voice is all the more powerful because she’s not rich, not a foreigner, not an outsider, not one of these “uneducated bribed lackeys,” nor some “radical nutcase communist general”either.
Her voice is the voice of Thailand and her story coming from poverty resonates. She is a woman, not an enraged Red Bull drinking taxi driver scribbling anti-monarchy graffiti on Ratchaprasong.
Thaksin wasn’t from Isan, neither is Jatuporn or Nattawutt for that matter. I don’t know about Veera or the other leaders. She puts a human face on these red shirts from Isan.
In the eyes of the government she would be an extremely dangerous person for the sympathy she could elicit which is more powerful than a thousand m79s.
Look forward to hearing more from her…
Inflation and iconography: the new 100,000 Kip banknote in Laos
I agree – excellent analysis by Tappe.
What his discourse and narrative seems to show – among much else – is that the ideology of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party has shifted from Marxist notions of “class” to Jeffersonian rhetoric of “the people”, in keeping with the collapse of the Soviet Union, etc.
However, there are two fundamental isssues, not addressed by Tappe’s writing here, though perhaps in his Phd :
1) At the time of their seizing power, and long before, the current Lao People’s Revolutionary Party was called the Pathet Lao.
The Lao word “Pathet” is the same as the Thai “Prathet” – i.e. nation or country, in the sense of land belonging to the people, and people belonging to that land. As distinct from eg. the more abstract, elevated – and arguably royalist – Thai word “Chart”, which can also mean “nation”.
So the Jeffersonian aspect has long been there – and arguably long more dominant than the Marxist.
2) by extension, and logically by definition, Jeffersonian Pathet Lao ideology INCLUDES re-unification with and liberation of the Isaarn Lao. The current borders are as temporary as those Jefferson’s 13 American colonies temporarily agreed to.
How hardline have the redshirts become?
Could anyone provide me an explanation about the difference between patronage and corruption in the context of Thai culture? Last week, I saw a photo on a newspaper showing the Thai king gave an audience to a group of Japanese businessmen. These men gave the king two modern farm tractors to be used as he pleases. It seems to me it is fine according to the Thai customs. So why would it be considered corruption if a politician practices similar thing?
How hardline have the redshirts become?
John Francis Lee – 26
and in fact the point is now moot, after the coup of 1 October…
Good of you to tell us we had a fascist coup on the 1st. October John.
It brings to mind the story of the boy who cried wolf.
How hardline have the redshirts become?
Vichai N #10 :
Good questions.
In fact good enough to be asked in a referendum, or a genuinely free and respected election !!
After all, in a true democracy – the people are the ultimate “experts”.
How hardline have the redshirts become?
Thanks for your concern for my maturity and/or my image, Les. I won’t presume to advise you on yours. I’m sure its carefully cultivated.
Whatever the Abhisit government is, it’s not fascist.
Well I disagree there, Les, and in fact the point is now moot, after the coup of 1 October, when Prayuth and the military reassumed power.
How hardline have the redshirts become?
John Francis Lee – 24
the fascist Thai state…
Here we go again. Show a bit of maturity John. There are probably good arguments to be made about Khun Junya, but you spoil it with immature statements like this.
Whatever the Abhisit government is, it’s not fascist. If elections are not held at the end of this parliament’s designated time span, then you can start looking at terms like fascist.
(I do like the idea among some of the British left that the first person to use the word fascist has lost the argument.)
Malaysia’s Democratic Action Party in Sydney
@ William, & Yi Leen – thanks for highlighting this.
Wow! How about that.
Have the Malaysian High Commission staffs in Australia (and everywhere else) been misleading Malaysian students and denying them their right by not allowing them to vote.
When I had asked HC staffs in Canberra if I could vote at the High Commission (in 2008), they politely said no.
I am really pissed. Pissed that I did not know my rights and pissed that the HC staffs misled me.
I think this calls for action – to demand that the High Commission allow “legitimate absent voters” here in Australia to vote.
We should also support the rights of all Malaysians overseas to vote (MyOverseas Vote) . After all, if the country can send a Malaysian to space (read here), land the national car PROTON, in the North Pole (read here) to the tune of millions of ringgit, the logistics for this should not be too daunting and costs as much.
@ John, happy to give your group (and any group), especially if your mission is to reform Malaysia, a voice.
That’s what the New Mandala is all about.
New Mandala readers, here’s a worthwhile cause and I can assure you that John & MyOverseasVote is no UMNO/BN type sham outfit out to swindle your money. It will go to fund the test case on allowing Malaysians overseas to vote.
Malaysia’s Democratic Action Party in Sydney
For others who wishes to support this group who is fighting for the rights of ALL Malaysians overseas to vote without having to return to Malaysia, you may donate here. http://myoverseasvote.org/donate-now-2/
Greg
Would appreciate if you could give this link more prominence.
Rgds
John