It seems that Malaysia has never left the pre 1965 mentality. What Suzie astutely recommended was also the view shared by the Minister Mentor of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew (whom I have a profound respect), some years back. The MM however predicted that Malaysia wouldn’t opt for an outward-looking policy, and will in times become more and more Islamic.
If Malaysia doesn’t creatively utilise her “Chinese connection”, she will have to watch her neighbours tapping in the China growth. The whole of Suwannabhum is a midget comparing to China. In the next fifty years, will we all become Chinese? Singapore might turn into the University of Singapore Nation, producing various kinds of first class graduates for the Chinese workforce. In my opinion, only nations that jam with China, but are able to single out their identity have the chance of surviving, with dignity.
In Chinese epics, an animal depicted to be worth of a fight with the dragon is tiger. The “Asian tigers”, a term used to describe newly industrialised nations, has proved, once again, to be economists’ fantasy. The real tiger, historically acknowledged by the dragon to be its equal, is of course, India. But perhaps some beasts or animals with distinctive features – the ones that lie outside the DNA of both tiger and dragon can survive. Something like Garuda— or Elephant (I’m just telling folktale here.)
Ha ha, Thanong again, wasn’t this guy who said Thaksin has cancer? Well! this guy can definitely write anything. He can make heaven looks like hell and make hell looks like heaven. Most reporters in The Nation are taught to do that. Look at those reporters like Teera, Kanok and some others, they can turn black into white. They are just people with no shame, only greeds on their faces. May be we should reconsider the education system in Thailand. They teach nothing except propaganda and obey what elderly people teaches. In the class, if you argue with the teacher, they will look at you as a crow. Whereas in a western system, it is normal to argue with a teacher, if you feel something wrong with the answer. So, my conclusion is that, the education system in Thailand is a system that teaches you not to use any brain, but only to obey to whatever they say, like a buffalo that will follow the owner wherever he may goes.
well! like the old Thai phases says, it is ok to do good but over popular can harm you.
Burmese generals definitely have had nuclear ambitions and started a program long ago since Ne Win’s time. Then CRO (Central Research Organization) now called Ministry of Technology and Research always has had a small Russian research reactor operating in Rangoon.
CRO is always headed by a trusted MIS colonel and since the 1988 coup the program has been expanded many thousand folds. The first incursion of US fleet into Burmese water during the 8-8-88 uprising and the second incursion just after Cyclone Nargis definitely had inflamed the generals’ paranoia more.
Nearly everyone in Burma knows the existence of the nuclear battalion and the hundreds of young Burmese DSA graduates sent to Moscow to study the nuclear and missile technology.
Few years back there were several incidents involving a few of those Russia returnees who added their Russian nuclear diplomas and their battalion name in their newspapers’ marriage notices as it was a common practice in Burma to proudly announce the bride and groom’s academic degrees and their work places.
But it reveals the open secret and now all the DSA trained officers are strictly prohibited from mentioning their diplomas and their serving battalions in any public notices.
The ‘majority’ where exactly Colin? At Australia, or, ANU where their vote do not even count in a Thai election.
And now you ae claiming UDD/PAD, specifically UDD the Red Shirts, belong to the minority groups. Eh? But all you New Mandala readers were posting left and right that the ‘majority’, e.g. the Reds, had been disenfranchised and hence the protests-rebellion.
The Burmese government lacks the technological wherewithal to construct nuclear weapons. Same with ballistic missiles.
At one time I believed that Burma was serious about constructing or acquiring WMD’s, but my thinking on it has now evolved due to several credible articles I’ve read on the subject.
Unless some rogue state provides a nuke and delivery system to the SPDC, the generals are just blowing smoke.
it is easy to find some reactionary expert to mouth words publishable for the BP or Nation! of course the underlying assumption is that this is a legitimately installed government. It is not. The people have every moral and legal right to demonstrate in a public place and demand open and transparent elections, the restoration of liberal democracy, end of double standards, social equity and fairness, and not be killed by state-sanctioned agents for doing so.
Coincidently the “third hand” mentioned are factions in the military, aligned with parastatal interests; the army is divided as we shall see in the next promotional rounds in September (oscillating around Prem and anti-Prem interests). “Black shirts”? – much talked about, may be either agents provocateurs sent by the govt to generate chaos, give the appearance of Red Shirts as being militaristic, and justify the onslaught. Earlier, these may be the unarmed barricade guards trained by SehDaeng (earlier on SehDaeng trained unemployed and homeless folk living around Sanam Luang to secure barricades when the protest was situated there). Dont get misled by Abhisit’s plot to detract attention from the heinous actions of Des’ military gentleman against the people.
Note the EU parliament condemnation of Abhisit’s alliance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMlbFwEM7uQ
Violence in Thailand BBC Democracy Live 20May 2010 1(2).avi
Nick sorry to hear you still suspect missing bodies from last year. I do figure there are enough real bodies for everyone this year. I also feel sorry that you are still attempting to divorce the UDD from Thaksin. If it is true that it was Thaksin’s intervention that stopped the roadmap being taken up by the red shirt leadership, then we would have to say that the movement does hang on him.
Anyway in case Andrew doesn’t publish my post below is Father Joe Maier’s letter without my post lead in. I do hope it’s not a fake as I’m not on his mailing list.
***
Dear Everyone
Once again from Bangkok, “after the present troubles.”
All is quiet. The curfew is slowly going away. I believe Saturday will be the final night. Today, Thursday, as I write this, curfew is from midnight till four a.m. The first night, five folks tried to torch different parts of our Klong Toey slum. One by dropping burning material from the express way above the slum. All were doused in minutes. Two of the arsonists were 14-year old kids who had been given a handful of money to throw a petrol bottle bomb anywhere they could, to burn the slum, and if they succeeded, they would get more cash.
The total slum mobilized and kept watch against strangers, and even their own. First time in my forty years here I have seen total unity: no one – absolutely no one will burn – will torch – our slum. And that is the way it was and is. Our kids kept watch also, boys patrolling the street with a couple of slum street motorcycle gangs and the girls up the roof, keeping watch. We don’t have enemies, but our buildings are large, and look flammable, (which they ain’t) but you can do a lot of damage with a petrol bottle bomb!
The loss to this beloved land is beyond counting. For most, all started rather jovial – everyone getting a daily stipend of anywhere from a thousand baht for people on foot, and three to four thousand baht for motorcycles for joining the rallies. A thousand baht is four to five days wages for unskilled labor here in the slums and a bit more in the provinces. But then if you joined the protesters, they took your photo, registered you. That was when it began to unravel.
Then, it all blew up. Huge buildings, banks, shops, homes got torched. Hospitals evacuated. The police were passive, allowing everything to happen. Maybe that’s what they were told to do. I shall not comment on that. I think everyone was “like slapped senseless” by the reality.
What now?
Life goes on. We pick up the pieces. We are most uncertain of a calm tomorrow. We here in the slums, strongly feel this is just the beginning.
The poverty level here in Klong Toey has jumped higher. The port closed for a while. The bars closed, and many of the nighttime working moms of our kindergarten kids had no work – no customers. Street kids went hungry. Most of the slum had and still has no work – no wages. And the long term suffering is just now beginning. More and more people come to us daily for help, to begin their lives again.
Had the protesters won the day, we would now be under dictatorship with lots of folks disappearing. The Law of the Gun. I am reminded of the lyrics of “Keeper of the Song.” Those in power write the history, those who suffer write the songs. Meanwhile, now, children are beginning the new school year – but the corruption goes on, the carpetbaggers go on.
We, and that means almost everyone in Thailand, fear that any new radical government certainly would not be interested in the cost, time and effort necessary to bring about the radical economic changes urgently needed for better equality.
As for us and our children, our family at Mercy Center, thank you for your prayers and concern. Many of you asked how you could help us. I hope that I do not have to put out another letter, urgently asking, begging for your assistance. Right now, today, we are fine, unscathed physically, but emotionally pretty beat up. Some of our neighbors died, both protesters and those in uniform. Death is death.”
I checked out the comment in Bangkokpost, I saw someone said
“The bottom line is the democracy and human right has to be modified to fit individual nations and cultures”
No wondered Thailand history’s is full of violence and blood, human right is the basic requirement for a proper developed democratic country. It has a certain standard, you either have human right or you don’t, if the culture is oppressive then should have oppressive human right standard as well????
Why the king did not stop the the massacre?
If the king was not well during the massacre, why didn’t anyone in his family speak out to stop the killing of Thai people?
Disagree all you want but make an anti red post and watch your red thumbs. The majority here support the reds.
I support neither side, I think both Yellow and Red are just as bad as each other and do not like Thaksin as he is the root cause. I would like to see stability in Thailand, even if it means having elections. At the moment Thailand needs stability, no rocking the boat, elections were on the table for Nov 14 but that has been taken away because of the Reds not leaving the protest site. What more did they want?
These minority groups UDD/PAD need to be dissolved and the leaders thrown in jail with the same punishment. Those with ties should not be immune such as Suthep, Abhisit should not be punished though.
The essay by Thanong should be taken as “ethnographic material”, as information about “free spaces of legitimate pschotic distortion” currently wide spread among some elites. Any rational discussion of it misses the point.
If you want to know how good this King Phumibol Adoljadet is please read the article in this blog http://www.thaipoor.blogspot.com I found it interesting.
By they way The Sovannaphumi Land is not termed with Thailand, But Cambodia. In Cambodian historian book even in the inscription, Cambodia is inscripted as The Land of Sovannaphumi or Khmer Sovannaphuni.
It is not likely that sense is needed to abandon our allies or perceived allies – what matters most is passion of the moment, or what is determined by those who make decisions that a certain issue is important enough to take a visible stand or not. The US has abandoned friends in the past and will undoubtedly do so in the future. It is not always a malicious thing but is often done in error and based on many wrong assumptions.
While history might seemingly describe what happened, what really happened and whether it matter or not is determined by subsequent events that are, sadly, often repeats of the past.
Not to be simplistic, but abandonment very often comes along as a tactical necessity or strategic redirection toward an even greater darkness.
Neptunian – Thanks for the emphasis on the impact of petroleum revenues. What do you (or any other contributor) recommend as reliable analyses on the importance of petroleum revenues for both economic policies and overall politics over time in Malaysia?
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Thanong on King Bhumibol
Thaksin has cancer? The story I got was Thaksin was THE cancer.
Najib – coming up to the half way mark of 2010
It seems that Malaysia has never left the pre 1965 mentality. What Suzie astutely recommended was also the view shared by the Minister Mentor of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew (whom I have a profound respect), some years back. The MM however predicted that Malaysia wouldn’t opt for an outward-looking policy, and will in times become more and more Islamic.
If Malaysia doesn’t creatively utilise her “Chinese connection”, she will have to watch her neighbours tapping in the China growth. The whole of Suwannabhum is a midget comparing to China. In the next fifty years, will we all become Chinese? Singapore might turn into the University of Singapore Nation, producing various kinds of first class graduates for the Chinese workforce. In my opinion, only nations that jam with China, but are able to single out their identity have the chance of surviving, with dignity.
In Chinese epics, an animal depicted to be worth of a fight with the dragon is tiger. The “Asian tigers”, a term used to describe newly industrialised nations, has proved, once again, to be economists’ fantasy. The real tiger, historically acknowledged by the dragon to be its equal, is of course, India. But perhaps some beasts or animals with distinctive features – the ones that lie outside the DNA of both tiger and dragon can survive. Something like Garuda— or Elephant (I’m just telling folktale here.)
Thanong on King Bhumibol
Ha ha, Thanong again, wasn’t this guy who said Thaksin has cancer? Well! this guy can definitely write anything. He can make heaven looks like hell and make hell looks like heaven. Most reporters in The Nation are taught to do that. Look at those reporters like Teera, Kanok and some others, they can turn black into white. They are just people with no shame, only greeds on their faces. May be we should reconsider the education system in Thailand. They teach nothing except propaganda and obey what elderly people teaches. In the class, if you argue with the teacher, they will look at you as a crow. Whereas in a western system, it is normal to argue with a teacher, if you feel something wrong with the answer. So, my conclusion is that, the education system in Thailand is a system that teaches you not to use any brain, but only to obey to whatever they say, like a buffalo that will follow the owner wherever he may goes.
well! like the old Thai phases says, it is ok to do good but over popular can harm you.
Question of the month: Burma and WMD?
Burmese generals definitely have had nuclear ambitions and started a program long ago since Ne Win’s time. Then CRO (Central Research Organization) now called Ministry of Technology and Research always has had a small Russian research reactor operating in Rangoon.
CRO is always headed by a trusted MIS colonel and since the 1988 coup the program has been expanded many thousand folds. The first incursion of US fleet into Burmese water during the 8-8-88 uprising and the second incursion just after Cyclone Nargis definitely had inflamed the generals’ paranoia more.
Nearly everyone in Burma knows the existence of the nuclear battalion and the hundreds of young Burmese DSA graduates sent to Moscow to study the nuclear and missile technology.
Few years back there were several incidents involving a few of those Russia returnees who added their Russian nuclear diplomas and their battalion name in their newspapers’ marriage notices as it was a common practice in Burma to proudly announce the bride and groom’s academic degrees and their work places.
But it reveals the open secret and now all the DSA trained officers are strictly prohibited from mentioning their diplomas and their serving battalions in any public notices.
Thailand in crisis – ANU video series
The ‘majority’ where exactly Colin? At Australia, or, ANU where their vote do not even count in a Thai election.
And now you ae claiming UDD/PAD, specifically UDD the Red Shirts, belong to the minority groups. Eh? But all you New Mandala readers were posting left and right that the ‘majority’, e.g. the Reds, had been disenfranchised and hence the protests-rebellion.
What’s all this nonsense now Colin?
Question of the month: Burma and WMD?
The Burmese government lacks the technological wherewithal to construct nuclear weapons. Same with ballistic missiles.
At one time I believed that Burma was serious about constructing or acquiring WMD’s, but my thinking on it has now evolved due to several credible articles I’ve read on the subject.
Unless some rogue state provides a nuke and delivery system to the SPDC, the generals are just blowing smoke.
Violating human rights? Yes, indeed!
it is easy to find some reactionary expert to mouth words publishable for the BP or Nation! of course the underlying assumption is that this is a legitimately installed government. It is not. The people have every moral and legal right to demonstrate in a public place and demand open and transparent elections, the restoration of liberal democracy, end of double standards, social equity and fairness, and not be killed by state-sanctioned agents for doing so.
Coincidently the “third hand” mentioned are factions in the military, aligned with parastatal interests; the army is divided as we shall see in the next promotional rounds in September (oscillating around Prem and anti-Prem interests). “Black shirts”? – much talked about, may be either agents provocateurs sent by the govt to generate chaos, give the appearance of Red Shirts as being militaristic, and justify the onslaught. Earlier, these may be the unarmed barricade guards trained by SehDaeng (earlier on SehDaeng trained unemployed and homeless folk living around Sanam Luang to secure barricades when the protest was situated there). Dont get misled by Abhisit’s plot to detract attention from the heinous actions of Des’ military gentleman against the people.
Note the EU parliament condemnation of Abhisit’s alliance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMlbFwEM7uQ
Violence in Thailand BBC Democracy Live 20May 2010 1(2).avi
Violating human rights? Yes, indeed!
Kwanravee,
The UN High Commissioner for Human rights, N. Pillay, is a she. [Now corrected in post. AW]
Thanong on King Bhumibol
Ten royal virtues? Who’s practicing them? You make me laugh.
Thailand in crisis – Episode 2
Nick Nostitz – 58
Nick sorry to hear you still suspect missing bodies from last year. I do figure there are enough real bodies for everyone this year. I also feel sorry that you are still attempting to divorce the UDD from Thaksin. If it is true that it was Thaksin’s intervention that stopped the roadmap being taken up by the red shirt leadership, then we would have to say that the movement does hang on him.
Anyway in case Andrew doesn’t publish my post below is Father Joe Maier’s letter without my post lead in. I do hope it’s not a fake as I’m not on his mailing list.
***
Dear Everyone
Once again from Bangkok, “after the present troubles.”
All is quiet. The curfew is slowly going away. I believe Saturday will be the final night. Today, Thursday, as I write this, curfew is from midnight till four a.m. The first night, five folks tried to torch different parts of our Klong Toey slum. One by dropping burning material from the express way above the slum. All were doused in minutes. Two of the arsonists were 14-year old kids who had been given a handful of money to throw a petrol bottle bomb anywhere they could, to burn the slum, and if they succeeded, they would get more cash.
The total slum mobilized and kept watch against strangers, and even their own. First time in my forty years here I have seen total unity: no one – absolutely no one will burn – will torch – our slum. And that is the way it was and is. Our kids kept watch also, boys patrolling the street with a couple of slum street motorcycle gangs and the girls up the roof, keeping watch. We don’t have enemies, but our buildings are large, and look flammable, (which they ain’t) but you can do a lot of damage with a petrol bottle bomb!
The loss to this beloved land is beyond counting. For most, all started rather jovial – everyone getting a daily stipend of anywhere from a thousand baht for people on foot, and three to four thousand baht for motorcycles for joining the rallies. A thousand baht is four to five days wages for unskilled labor here in the slums and a bit more in the provinces. But then if you joined the protesters, they took your photo, registered you. That was when it began to unravel.
Then, it all blew up. Huge buildings, banks, shops, homes got torched. Hospitals evacuated. The police were passive, allowing everything to happen. Maybe that’s what they were told to do. I shall not comment on that. I think everyone was “like slapped senseless” by the reality.
What now?
Life goes on. We pick up the pieces. We are most uncertain of a calm tomorrow. We here in the slums, strongly feel this is just the beginning.
The poverty level here in Klong Toey has jumped higher. The port closed for a while. The bars closed, and many of the nighttime working moms of our kindergarten kids had no work – no customers. Street kids went hungry. Most of the slum had and still has no work – no wages. And the long term suffering is just now beginning. More and more people come to us daily for help, to begin their lives again.
Had the protesters won the day, we would now be under dictatorship with lots of folks disappearing. The Law of the Gun. I am reminded of the lyrics of “Keeper of the Song.” Those in power write the history, those who suffer write the songs. Meanwhile, now, children are beginning the new school year – but the corruption goes on, the carpetbaggers go on.
We, and that means almost everyone in Thailand, fear that any new radical government certainly would not be interested in the cost, time and effort necessary to bring about the radical economic changes urgently needed for better equality.
As for us and our children, our family at Mercy Center, thank you for your prayers and concern. Many of you asked how you could help us. I hope that I do not have to put out another letter, urgently asking, begging for your assistance. Right now, today, we are fine, unscathed physically, but emotionally pretty beat up. Some of our neighbors died, both protesters and those in uniform. Death is death.”
***
Violating human rights? Yes, indeed!
I checked out the comment in Bangkokpost, I saw someone said
“The bottom line is the democracy and human right has to be modified to fit individual nations and cultures”
No wondered Thailand history’s is full of violence and blood, human right is the basic requirement for a proper developed democratic country. It has a certain standard, you either have human right or you don’t, if the culture is oppressive then should have oppressive human right standard as well????
Thanong on King Bhumibol
Why the king did not stop the the massacre?
If the king was not well during the massacre, why didn’t anyone in his family speak out to stop the killing of Thai people?
Thailand in crisis – ANU video series
Del,
Disagree all you want but make an anti red post and watch your red thumbs. The majority here support the reds.
I support neither side, I think both Yellow and Red are just as bad as each other and do not like Thaksin as he is the root cause. I would like to see stability in Thailand, even if it means having elections. At the moment Thailand needs stability, no rocking the boat, elections were on the table for Nov 14 but that has been taken away because of the Reds not leaving the protest site. What more did they want?
These minority groups UDD/PAD need to be dissolved and the leaders thrown in jail with the same punishment. Those with ties should not be immune such as Suthep, Abhisit should not be punished though.
Thanong on King Bhumibol
The essay by Thanong should be taken as “ethnographic material”, as information about “free spaces of legitimate pschotic distortion” currently wide spread among some elites. Any rational discussion of it misses the point.
Thanong on King Bhumibol
If you want to know how good this King Phumibol Adoljadet is please read the article in this blog http://www.thaipoor.blogspot.com I found it interesting.
By they way The Sovannaphumi Land is not termed with Thailand, But Cambodia. In Cambodian historian book even in the inscription, Cambodia is inscripted as The Land of Sovannaphumi or Khmer Sovannaphuni.
Thanong on King Bhumibol
Thanong’s analysis reminds me of the old joke about Communist dictatorships: “the people have failed us, we need to elect a new people”.
Thanong on King Bhumibol
thanong is either a propagandist or a fool
Sondhi – return parliamentary powers to the king
It is not likely that sense is needed to abandon our allies or perceived allies – what matters most is passion of the moment, or what is determined by those who make decisions that a certain issue is important enough to take a visible stand or not. The US has abandoned friends in the past and will undoubtedly do so in the future. It is not always a malicious thing but is often done in error and based on many wrong assumptions.
While history might seemingly describe what happened, what really happened and whether it matter or not is determined by subsequent events that are, sadly, often repeats of the past.
Not to be simplistic, but abandonment very often comes along as a tactical necessity or strategic redirection toward an even greater darkness.
Najib – coming up to the half way mark of 2010
Neptunian – Thanks for the emphasis on the impact of petroleum revenues. What do you (or any other contributor) recommend as reliable analyses on the importance of petroleum revenues for both economic policies and overall politics over time in Malaysia?
Thailand in crisis – Episode 2
Chris Baker #32: Thanks for the link.