“And Tarrin, the UK and Japanese systems are about the same as a elephant and a grapefruit. Your lack of knowledge really explains why you are sympathetic to the red shirts.”
Last time I check both country still running under constitutional monarchy and both got an upper house and lower house all the same only that UK is using common law but Japan use civil law so if you think that there’s any other fundamental different then feel free to correct me. Furthermore, you shouldn’t branded red shirt/UDD as communist/Maoist when you yourself don’t even know what socialist and communist suppose to be. From all of your comment you should learn why socialist was even invented in the first place.
Emjay? Disenfranchised? Are you joking? There hasn’t been a real election in this country, ever. Here are you choices when you go to the polls. Crook A who doesn’t care about you and will say anything he has to to get into power so he can line his pockets. Or Crook B who doesn’t care about you and will say anything he has to to get into power so he can line his pockets.
What’s your definition of democracy? The reds seem to think its mob rule. They are right – democracy is a form of tyranny. Constitutional republics and constitutional monarchies aim at protecting minority rights – so the mobs can’t vote in someone that will steal money from a minority of hardworking people in the form of say, socialism. Democracy, in a free society cannot actually be tolerated. That way, no matter how ignorant the voting masses may be, honest hard working people will not have their lives, liberty, property and prosperity taken from them. The red shirts are tools, obviously, Thaksin has said as much on several occasions, publicly, and they the masses don’t understand this.
P.S. I love how New Mandala is listed along side Bangkok Pundit and Political Prisoners on Robert Amsterdam’s Thaksin blog. It really goes leaps and bounds to show how “objective” you all are! I suppose its because you post so many stories that paint the government as bad and Thaksin and his mob of foreign funded communist rabble as good. Unfortunate for 2Bangkok – because they are real journalists and were listed merely because they posted the government’s censorship billboards.
BTW with Jakrapob now admitting they are funded by foreigners, are we still going to pretend this is about Thailand and what is best for Thai people? After all, before this interview, the last thing Jakrapob was on record saying was that he was going to Cambodia to arm his mob. Who besides maybe Al Queda and the CIA would donate money to such people?
What’s so hard to understand here? The UDD/red shirts are communist/Maoists which have always traditionally been funded by big foundations and international bankers. They use appealing ideology to get the poor to empty out old money, destroy culture and nationalism, and then the bankers come in and pick up the broken pieces. Cambodia is 60%+ owned by foreign investors now – after communists and now Hun Sen’s fascist thuggery have beaten the Khmer people into submission.
That’s what is in store for Thailand, that’s what has befallen many nations in the developing world. America has its taste now with La Raza, also a foundation funded communist group working hard to undermine American nationalism. Ford Foundation and even Bill Gates have funded them to the tune of MILLIONS.
And Tarrin, the UK and Japanese systems are about the same as a elephant and a grapefruit. Your lack of knowledge really explains why you are sympathetic to the red shirts.
Despite the gentlemen who currently run the government went to the wrong college – “Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.” William E. Gladstone
Can I remind the incumbent government that the job of government is – true to its word – to govern, not to join a jamboree set up by any political organisation. Instead of getting involved in those futile public debates, wouldn’t it be more prudent to have a re-talk with PAD leaders? The government knows full well what PAD’s agenda is.
Prae Viharn is a political issue which needs to be handled by professional politicians. This is different from a “Social Reform” – an issue affecting the social and economic life of electorate. All those public debates or discussions are counterproductive to bring about policy solutions.
As usual, Khun Chuan won’t be getting his holiday this year.
The reason why I compare this event to Sudetenland is not because it is similar to the current situation, I know too well that there is nothing to compare because there are so much different in intention and the territorial involved. However, Sudetenland is what start it all, the event raise Hitler’s confident about moving forward with the annex of Czechoslovakia and invasion of Poland because Hitler’s was convinced that the Western power will let him do whatever he want as long as there is a chance of negotiation. The reason why I mention Sudetenland was because this little useless strip of land might be use for a reason to escalated what seem to be just a little border dispute into an all out war much so with the WWII start with Sudetenland.
Where is Marshal Pibul? We should be uniting Laos to Thailand and annexing the Shan States. Forget Preah Vihear. If the Khmers want it so much, dynamite it down into Cambodia.
Perhaps you could ask Colonel Sansern to contribute to this blog for balance. I am not sure New Mandala allows posts written in Crayon, but it’s worth a shot.
Sceptic # 3
I find your assertion that “nearly all Nation staff are native speakers” well off target. Even such luminaries, such as Thanong Khanthong, cannot be, in all seriousness, regarded as native, or native like speakers. But this is beside the point. If ‘Thailand’s territorial rite’ wasn’t as intriguing as Andrew Walker states I’d be rather inclined to say that The Nation’s sub editors are of questionable standard as well. Needless to say, I stopped purchasing this daily nearly half a decade ago. I am not thankful for their very existence, nor dependent on their work as a source of information in the Kingdom of Thailand.
chris beale #14 states that “… comparison with the Sudetenland is almost completely inappropriate.” Here I am in full agreement with him, as Thailand cannot be possibly compared to Third Reich and Hun Sen is thus no Konrad Henlein.
Otherwise, I’d like express my gratitude for the last paragraph in the comment # 2 of Suzie Wong. PAD (Thai Patriot Network) and Privy Council deserve our attention as they reign Thailand by ‘invisible hand’ that rather resembles giant Kraken’s tentacle of Pirates of the Caribbean fame that is hard to grasp and impossible to cut off.
Maybe I am bringing in some outside information here, but when you write: “One of my reasons for typing up this account is to encourage Khmer colleagues to mention to me any variations on the story they may have seen or heard. These parables circulate in the living culture (for decades or centuries) and become ever more abstracted from their origins, until somebody takes an interest and checks the primary source text.” Are we supposed to come away with the idea that the long circulating oral tradition and its (potentially shifting) meanings are invalid or incorrect if they differ from a “correct” reading of the text? And should we then also take from that a position in favor of “pure/correct textual authority” over popular tradition?
Just wonder if that is where you are trying to go with this?
I agree with Frank. This is good analysis. I had never read it until I followed a link from Nganadeelek’s blog some few months ago, but I read it now because it’s good analysis. Prognosis… none of us knows what’s going to happen.
In an unstable regional and world context, the future of Thailand appears very indecisive. The traditional elites have affirmed their desire not to let go of their powers and prerogatives. They receive for now the support of a great part of the Bangkok middle classes who seek to preserve their privileges through conservatism. The massive repression of the Red Shirts signifies a durable authoritarian stiffening of the regime.
This stiffening also responds to the approach of a major institutional crisis: the difficult succession of king Bhumibol. But it brings no response to the divisions inside the dominant classes or the social and regional tensions – apart from affirming a relationship of force. The urban and rural social movements will probably continue to follow varied strategies: lobbyism and clientelism or construction of an independent capacity for action. But beyond their composite character, the recent mobilisations of the Red Shirts have shown the potential of this latter option – providing the repression has not dealt it too harsh a blow, particularly in the provinces.
Can a political left re-emerge three decades after the defeat of the CP? It is possible given the distances taken by numerous Red Shirt activists in relation to Thaksin and the work of education undertaken at base level in numerous areas. But if such is the cases, what will this left – or indeed these lefts – be like?
For now, it might be feared that the repression will discreetly continue. A witch hunt has been launched. Red Shirt cadres have already been assassinated in the provinces. The regime enjoys the support of the US and Europe who are little moved by human rights violations in the kingdom.
I don’t see that “The author uses the evidence that there has been an attempt for reemergence of the Communist Party of Thailand for class struggle after abandoning its activities thirty years ago.”
He clearly seems to have written off the “lobbyism and clientelism” tack of the “urban social movements” and thinks that “construction of an independent capacity for action” embraced by rural Thais… that is, those outside of the megalopolis… will bear fruit, if anything does.
But he thinks that The Regime is so brutal that the Red Shirts may be crushed.
Chang Noi seems to think that the innate “fashion sense” of the Bangkok middle-class may arrest the rise of Fascism… but I don’t find that a very convincing argument.
I remember Pongphisoot Busbarat, the PhD candidate at ANU, remarking “…if we prefer democracy, but it’s not in our future it will affect a lot of rural people… whether or not Thailand is democratic or not the middle class will not be affected anyway…” in ANU’s Thai Crisis No. 6.
I agree with Pierre Rousset : if Fascism is to be beaten down in Thailand it will be beaten down by the “construction of an independent capacity for action” by rural Red Shirts.
The Red Shirts are “left”… everyone in Thailand outside of Bangkok is “left” of The Regime… but they are not communists.
Peter Tudders – I completely agree with you.
But despite this, and all I’ve written above, I do agree with Tarrin’s second point, namely that :
“I’m almost certain that the Dem dare to wage a war with Cambodia just to flame Thaksin as an instigator.”
It is quite likely Abhisit will respond to PAD pressure by launching a border skirmish.
The primary aim of this would be internal, not external – i.e. to drive another nail into the Thaksin/ Red Shirt coffin by a “rally-in-support-of-our-Thai-Nation” in the face of foreign threat, while simultaneously holding the more extreme Right-wing
(PAD, in this case), at bay.
An up-dated version of the rallying cry for national unity during Thammasat massacre ’76, when “Vietnamese agents” were falsely alleged to be inside the campus, and the relatively “moderate” military leadership launched their coup to pre-empt more extreme Rightists doing so.
This time though, the risks of such a gamble going wrong are far greater.
Bye Khun Andrew. As one of the hundreds of rural students here on a Centerlink or AusAID scholarship, I’d love to know how to write academic papers in your head before you go if you’re not in a big rush. I am in a big rush. I am not familiar with this Western system being from the smallest plot of land in Si Saket. I thought I had to write them on paper. I don’t have telepathic abilities like you white people yet to submit a paper for marking in my head. How do I develop these sorts of skills? I haven’t seen this skill development advertised in the academic skills center. I spend a lot of time in there. Maybe it’s taught in the secret room I see where only falang go into?
But yes. Exactly, Jon is right. Thank His Majesty Thailand has gotten rid of the Walker smell. We were told it was the smell smelled of freedom but actually it was a closet leper. Maybe Burundi smells too, so they won’t notice that much. We’re all in a closet. It all makes sense now.
So now we can come out a little bit, and on the count of three say: “Peace Out Peaches!” Yeah!
When jonfernquest gets on his anti-academic horse and posts to NM and when the rest of the PADistas get frantic it is usually a sign that the yellows are on the move politically. Is this related to Cambodia or is something else going on?
Nobody: as we have said several times already, we have an open invitation to guest contributors. We would welcome a contribution from the Thai government or someone writing on its behalf. AW
The best thing about this article is that raises the issue of the Assembly of the Poor, of which there has been far too little focus and discussion on NM, and almost everywhere else.
There are a lot of questions all of us should be asking about the Assembly of the Poor – for a start : what is/ has been their attitude / policy during the conflict since 2006 ?
As far as I can gather, they’ve adopted a rather stand-offish approach towards Thaksin.
Apart from this, the article is pretty much what one would expect from the Fourth International – a one-eyed class analysis with nothing new.
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ABC Interview with Jakrapob
Tony 22,23,24
“And Tarrin, the UK and Japanese systems are about the same as a elephant and a grapefruit. Your lack of knowledge really explains why you are sympathetic to the red shirts.”
Last time I check both country still running under constitutional monarchy and both got an upper house and lower house all the same only that UK is using common law but Japan use civil law so if you think that there’s any other fundamental different then feel free to correct me. Furthermore, you shouldn’t branded red shirt/UDD as communist/Maoist when you yourself don’t even know what socialist and communist suppose to be. From all of your comment you should learn why socialist was even invented in the first place.
ABC Interview with Jakrapob
Emjay? Disenfranchised? Are you joking? There hasn’t been a real election in this country, ever. Here are you choices when you go to the polls. Crook A who doesn’t care about you and will say anything he has to to get into power so he can line his pockets. Or Crook B who doesn’t care about you and will say anything he has to to get into power so he can line his pockets.
What’s your definition of democracy? The reds seem to think its mob rule. They are right – democracy is a form of tyranny. Constitutional republics and constitutional monarchies aim at protecting minority rights – so the mobs can’t vote in someone that will steal money from a minority of hardworking people in the form of say, socialism. Democracy, in a free society cannot actually be tolerated. That way, no matter how ignorant the voting masses may be, honest hard working people will not have their lives, liberty, property and prosperity taken from them. The red shirts are tools, obviously, Thaksin has said as much on several occasions, publicly, and they the masses don’t understand this.
ABC Interview with Jakrapob
P.S. I love how New Mandala is listed along side Bangkok Pundit and Political Prisoners on Robert Amsterdam’s Thaksin blog. It really goes leaps and bounds to show how “objective” you all are! I suppose its because you post so many stories that paint the government as bad and Thaksin and his mob of foreign funded communist rabble as good. Unfortunate for 2Bangkok – because they are real journalists and were listed merely because they posted the government’s censorship billboards.
BTW with Jakrapob now admitting they are funded by foreigners, are we still going to pretend this is about Thailand and what is best for Thai people? After all, before this interview, the last thing Jakrapob was on record saying was that he was going to Cambodia to arm his mob. Who besides maybe Al Queda and the CIA would donate money to such people?
ABC Interview with Jakrapob
What’s so hard to understand here? The UDD/red shirts are communist/Maoists which have always traditionally been funded by big foundations and international bankers. They use appealing ideology to get the poor to empty out old money, destroy culture and nationalism, and then the bankers come in and pick up the broken pieces. Cambodia is 60%+ owned by foreign investors now – after communists and now Hun Sen’s fascist thuggery have beaten the Khmer people into submission.
That’s what is in store for Thailand, that’s what has befallen many nations in the developing world. America has its taste now with La Raza, also a foundation funded communist group working hard to undermine American nationalism. Ford Foundation and even Bill Gates have funded them to the tune of MILLIONS.
And Tarrin, the UK and Japanese systems are about the same as a elephant and a grapefruit. Your lack of knowledge really explains why you are sympathetic to the red shirts.
Abhisit’s territorial rite
Despite the gentlemen who currently run the government went to the wrong college – “Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.” William E. Gladstone
Can I remind the incumbent government that the job of government is – true to its word – to govern, not to join a jamboree set up by any political organisation. Instead of getting involved in those futile public debates, wouldn’t it be more prudent to have a re-talk with PAD leaders? The government knows full well what PAD’s agenda is.
Prae Viharn is a political issue which needs to be handled by professional politicians. This is different from a “Social Reform” – an issue affecting the social and economic life of electorate. All those public debates or discussions are counterproductive to bring about policy solutions.
As usual, Khun Chuan won’t be getting his holiday this year.
Andrew Marshall on politics and education
jonfernquest – 34
If you have something better to offer then be our guest and see what you have in your hand about “rural voting”.
Abhisit’s territorial rite
chris beale – 14
The reason why I compare this event to Sudetenland is not because it is similar to the current situation, I know too well that there is nothing to compare because there are so much different in intention and the territorial involved. However, Sudetenland is what start it all, the event raise Hitler’s confident about moving forward with the annex of Czechoslovakia and invasion of Poland because Hitler’s was convinced that the Western power will let him do whatever he want as long as there is a chance of negotiation. The reason why I mention Sudetenland was because this little useless strip of land might be use for a reason to escalated what seem to be just a little border dispute into an all out war much so with the WWII start with Sudetenland.
Abhisit’s territorial rite
Where is Marshal Pibul? We should be uniting Laos to Thailand and annexing the Shan States. Forget Preah Vihear. If the Khmers want it so much, dynamite it down into Cambodia.
The blind men and the elephant in Cambodia
So the key the nirvana of correct decision is to enable a blind to see.
How about those who can see turning a blind eye to what is so obvious?
Robert Amsterdam on a “Strategy of Tension” in Bangkok
Nobody,
Perhaps you could ask Colonel Sansern to contribute to this blog for balance. I am not sure New Mandala allows posts written in Crayon, but it’s worth a shot.
Abhisit’s territorial rite
Sceptic # 3
I find your assertion that “nearly all Nation staff are native speakers” well off target. Even such luminaries, such as Thanong Khanthong, cannot be, in all seriousness, regarded as native, or native like speakers. But this is beside the point. If ‘Thailand’s territorial rite’ wasn’t as intriguing as Andrew Walker states I’d be rather inclined to say that The Nation’s sub editors are of questionable standard as well. Needless to say, I stopped purchasing this daily nearly half a decade ago. I am not thankful for their very existence, nor dependent on their work as a source of information in the Kingdom of Thailand.
chris beale #14 states that “… comparison with the Sudetenland is almost completely inappropriate.” Here I am in full agreement with him, as Thailand cannot be possibly compared to Third Reich and Hun Sen is thus no Konrad Henlein.
Otherwise, I’d like express my gratitude for the last paragraph in the comment # 2 of Suzie Wong. PAD (Thai Patriot Network) and Privy Council deserve our attention as they reign Thailand by ‘invisible hand’ that rather resembles giant Kraken’s tentacle of Pirates of the Caribbean fame that is hard to grasp and impossible to cut off.
Robert Amsterdam on a “Strategy of Tension” in Bangkok
@James Hepburn:
the rumours that Mr. Thaksin had died in late April…
Well, he looks much more alive and kicking than close to death:
Thaksin Shinawatra in Montenegro 26 april 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkOyR4r_GZk
The blind men and the elephant in Cambodia
Eisel:
Maybe I am bringing in some outside information here, but when you write: “One of my reasons for typing up this account is to encourage Khmer colleagues to mention to me any variations on the story they may have seen or heard. These parables circulate in the living culture (for decades or centuries) and become ever more abstracted from their origins, until somebody takes an interest and checks the primary source text.” Are we supposed to come away with the idea that the long circulating oral tradition and its (potentially shifting) meanings are invalid or incorrect if they differ from a “correct” reading of the text? And should we then also take from that a position in favor of “pure/correct textual authority” over popular tradition?
Just wonder if that is where you are trying to go with this?
Semuren
French communist on Thai politics
I agree with Frank. This is good analysis. I had never read it until I followed a link from Nganadeelek’s blog some few months ago, but I read it now because it’s good analysis. Prognosis… none of us knows what’s going to happen.
I don’t see that “The author uses the evidence that there has been an attempt for reemergence of the Communist Party of Thailand for class struggle after abandoning its activities thirty years ago.”
He clearly seems to have written off the “lobbyism and clientelism” tack of the “urban social movements” and thinks that “construction of an independent capacity for action” embraced by rural Thais… that is, those outside of the megalopolis… will bear fruit, if anything does.
But he thinks that The Regime is so brutal that the Red Shirts may be crushed.
Chang Noi seems to think that the innate “fashion sense” of the Bangkok middle-class may arrest the rise of Fascism… but I don’t find that a very convincing argument.
I remember Pongphisoot Busbarat, the PhD candidate at ANU, remarking “…if we prefer democracy, but it’s not in our future it will affect a lot of rural people… whether or not Thailand is democratic or not the middle class will not be affected anyway…” in ANU’s Thai Crisis No. 6.
I agree with Pierre Rousset : if Fascism is to be beaten down in Thailand it will be beaten down by the “construction of an independent capacity for action” by rural Red Shirts.
The Red Shirts are “left”… everyone in Thailand outside of Bangkok is “left” of The Regime… but they are not communists.
Abhisit’s territorial rite
[…] there is this Abhisit’s Territorial Rite one has to consider if Abhisit degree from Oxford is really genuine. […]
Abhisit’s territorial rite
Peter Tudders – I completely agree with you.
But despite this, and all I’ve written above, I do agree with Tarrin’s second point, namely that :
“I’m almost certain that the Dem dare to wage a war with Cambodia just to flame Thaksin as an instigator.”
It is quite likely Abhisit will respond to PAD pressure by launching a border skirmish.
The primary aim of this would be internal, not external – i.e. to drive another nail into the Thaksin/ Red Shirt coffin by a “rally-in-support-of-our-Thai-Nation” in the face of foreign threat, while simultaneously holding the more extreme Right-wing
(PAD, in this case), at bay.
An up-dated version of the rallying cry for national unity during Thammasat massacre ’76, when “Vietnamese agents” were falsely alleged to be inside the campus, and the relatively “moderate” military leadership launched their coup to pre-empt more extreme Rightists doing so.
This time though, the risks of such a gamble going wrong are far greater.
Andrew Marshall on politics and education
Bye Khun Andrew. As one of the hundreds of rural students here on a Centerlink or AusAID scholarship, I’d love to know how to write academic papers in your head before you go if you’re not in a big rush. I am in a big rush. I am not familiar with this Western system being from the smallest plot of land in Si Saket. I thought I had to write them on paper. I don’t have telepathic abilities like you white people yet to submit a paper for marking in my head. How do I develop these sorts of skills? I haven’t seen this skill development advertised in the academic skills center. I spend a lot of time in there. Maybe it’s taught in the secret room I see where only falang go into?
But yes. Exactly, Jon is right. Thank His Majesty Thailand has gotten rid of the Walker smell. We were told it was the smell smelled of freedom but actually it was a closet leper. Maybe Burundi smells too, so they won’t notice that much. We’re all in a closet. It all makes sense now.
So now we can come out a little bit, and on the count of three say: “Peace Out Peaches!” Yeah!
Andrew Marshall on politics and education
When jonfernquest gets on his anti-academic horse and posts to NM and when the rest of the PADistas get frantic it is usually a sign that the yellows are on the move politically. Is this related to Cambodia or is something else going on?
Robert Amsterdam on a “Strategy of Tension” in Bangkok
Nobody: as we have said several times already, we have an open invitation to guest contributors. We would welcome a contribution from the Thai government or someone writing on its behalf. AW
French communist on Thai politics
The best thing about this article is that raises the issue of the Assembly of the Poor, of which there has been far too little focus and discussion on NM, and almost everywhere else.
There are a lot of questions all of us should be asking about the Assembly of the Poor – for a start : what is/ has been their attitude / policy during the conflict since 2006 ?
As far as I can gather, they’ve adopted a rather stand-offish approach towards Thaksin.
Apart from this, the article is pretty much what one would expect from the Fourth International – a one-eyed class analysis with nothing new.