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The crisis in Thailand has not just evolved over the past decade, its evolution has been over many decades going back to the early thirties. That now there is more exposure to the abuses that have been cyclic may be put down to the worlds’ advances in technology and communication.
Governments the world over can no longer hide from the outside the abuses they afflict on their people. Thailand is just another country like all of us. That it continues to tell the world that they don’t understand their culture is just belittling the intelligence of those of us so called ‘stupid’ foreigners who ‘yes’ have the actual capacity and ‘free right’ to ‘constructively critise’ things things that have been deliberately hidden. Is this the superior culture they continue to insist on having.?
Many foreigners have Thai families who we are trying to care and provide security .. Just because they are not Thai does not mean they are non-entities with no rights to form and express opinions especially when events in the kingdom direstly affect their family members.

Thai ‘nationalist propaganda’ has evolved over decades to create the sort of ‘Thainess’ most Thais adhere to today.
That both red and yellow groups are so similar is not suprising as both in essence still pay reverence to wealth, power and influence. They both wish to be in the drivers seat as they know of the enormous amount of wealth that can be siphoned off to themselves their families and friends. This is the great Thai culture that we as foreigners could never understand.
The once revered ‘patronage sytem’ that was meant to give the lower classes a sense of security has evolved into something quite sinster as in effect it rorts those in lower positions. This is what we as foreigners are meant not to understand as we are stupid and pay too much tax to our governments as I have been often told by my Thai freinds.
To be told constantly you as a foreigner do not understand the culture because you are not Thai just proves how extreme nationalism works to create the sort of insularity that has kept the Thai classes divided with total subservience by many as a result.
The education system is a classic example of how social manipulation can result in Thais believing their system is the only system.
Thai students are not encouraged to ‘critically think’ or ask questions of their elders. In other words they must blindly follow and follow they do, by example of those without morals and ethics above them. Its a twisted cycle that has the people brainwashed into believing theirs is the only way.
This sort of indoctrination has become a powerful tool in terms of social as well as cultural manipulation.
The lose of FACE is so strong within the culture that when the glaring truth is exposed especially in the foreign media the most common Thai response is that the outsider could never understand a culture that in many respects does’nt understand itself, as it has denied the majority of the population a real educational foundation to actually look outside the square and admit its failures..

Tarrin #25, the Dutch Ambassador, Tjaco Van den Hout, a very down-to-earth man who can often be seen at FCCT, wrote an article for Bangkok Post in May 2009, in which he pointed out that although several European countries still have Lese Majeste laws, it’s considered a dead issue, in most jurisdictions they haven’t been used for years, & the European Parliament & the European Court of Human Rights don’t support the idea that Heads of State need special privileges in regard to defamation. It’s still online @
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/17035/europe-lese-majeste-laws-and-the-freedom-of-expression

He wrote the article because he’d noted that Dr Borwonsak of the King Prajadiphok Institute had conveniently left 2 important facts out of his series of 3 articles on the topic for the Post, thus giving the impression that LM laws still exist (actively) in Europe.

I recently read of a man in Poland being fined for insulting the Pope, who is a HOS. This reminds me that one evening when he was in Melbourne during the nineties, I saw the Popemobile driving on its way to an engagement & I gave him the finger. I wasn’t arrested.

If you want to see how tolerant the British are in this respect, do a google search on David Icke (pron.’Ike’). He’s published several books which are openly sold – I was happy to get one as a birthday present a few years ago, in which he proposes that certain British people in very high places are shape-shifting lizards. He hasn’t been prosecuted. He’s not a comedian, he really believes it – & he has a following of like-minded nutters.

Tarrin #25 – yes, I agree with you – especially on the issue of Da Torpedo. However : she still has to apologise.
Dutch law ? I don’t see anything as liberal as this happening in East Asian countries in any near future. The most we can hope for is something like Indonesia’s much more relaxed laws, i.e. only 3 years jail for insulting the head of state.

StanG # 36, as often with you – good points you’ve raised.
If Naomi is referring to the pre-May’92 period, then she’s correct.
If she’s referring to post-May’92, she’s wrong – and you are right.
It was largely the work of Anand’s interim, care-taker government
– Royally appointed – which gave Thai media the unprecedented freedom (as a result of their heroics during May’92), which Thaksin gradually – though far from totally – snuffed out.
May ’92 until Thaksin was indeed the heyday of Thai journalism.

chris beale -24

If I’m not mistaken, the Dutch also has LM law and maximum penalty is 100 Euro fine.

By the way, IMO, I think the reason Suwicha got pardon is just to ease up public decent on LM law. Keep in mind that Suwicha is just a blogger, he doesn’t have that motivation like Da Torpido, so its much safer to release him, while keeping those principle activist like Da Torpido.

Will someone please post the link from Matichon?

Thanks so much

Suzie Wong #5 :
“the Crown Property and the King became the largest land-owner and the richest family in the world.”
According to Forbes magazine, Thailand’s King is the world’s richest monarch.
Quite surprising really given the immense wealth
of the Saudi Royal Family, and others. Where does all this Royal Thai wealth go ?.
But Bumipol is NOT the world’s largest land-owner :
England’s Queen Elizabeth owns more land, and so do many other very rich people, not all of them royals.
Also – what is meant by “largest land-owner” ?
Eg. Does this mean size of the land, or wealth of the land ?
The Sultan of Brunei owns large slices of the most expensive real estate in London. By the VALUE of the land he owns, the Sultan of Brunei could be considered to own more land than Bumiphol.

Naomi,

You say secret investigations against journalists were a norm before Thaksin. Really?

Did Democrats secretly investigate financial transactions of Thai Rath and other journalists during the Phuket land scandal? Do they investigate anyone for bringing up Samui land plots up now?

Not to mention that AMLO was not your usual investigative body, it’s an anti-money laundering agency and it dealt only with very serious crimes like financing international terrorism, and it was set up only after 1997.

Tarrin #23 :
I was n’t saying “just the apology is enough”, merely stating the obvious : that this helps.
For one thing it helps the PM and most especially the King (who by now obviously disapproves of the LM law in its’ current form) show the hard-liners that they are not a mere push-over for either side.
“Why not just write a law saying “once you are charge with LM, just say “I’m sorry” and you will be pardon”??? Even Western defamation law is not as lax as this – though perhaps it should be.