Ayuttaya asks, “Can you run a country at gunpoint? For how long?” and then provides his/her answer, “Simple answer: You can’t.” Dead wrong. Burma has been ruled at the point of a gun for nigh on 48 years ago, and it is right next door.
Regarding Ayuttaya’s comment “How long can you run a country at gunpoint? You can’t)”; I’m sorry, but I have to disagree. For evidence, just look next door to Burma. The Thai government controls the media and the military, and have proved their willingness to use any measure against those who stand in their way, including defamation, prosecution and physical force. Since a significant portion of the population supports their approach, they can conceivably maintain control for a very long time.
From the comments in the SMH online edition, it seems that Australians are nostalgic for their own 1975 royal intervention when Gough Whitlam, as prime minister of a majorty elected government, was fired by the local Viceroy.
Kriangsak’s article is a little better than his miserable letter which was so poor it may well have been a forgery. However, this insipid piece lacks any discernible punch and he gives the impression that he is just going through the motions trotting out a stock essay on the topic that he least wanted to come up in the exam. You can almost hear him yawn as he mechanically ticks off all the legal boxes before getting down the real diplomatic business of the next cocktail party.
I believe the Thai military rather than big business per se, is the key to understanding Thailand over a long period and particularly now.
Using the monarchy as cover and in cooperation with business families (generally grouped as the Bangkok Elites), the military generals have been in control of Thailand with various thin layers of civilian and political leaders rising and falling as they see fit.
The motivation of the generals and their associates, including royalty and business, is money and the power to operate with impunity. Until someone is able to control the military, lock them in their barracks, banned from any involvement in business, politics and any operations inside the country, attempts at democracy will fail in Thailand.
Without the military, the normal political and influence groups in Thailand, government, reds with Peu Thai, and the royals will be forced to negotiate like normal political rivals and develop democratic solutions.
Polo is right. The ambassador kicks off by challenging Hartcher’s knowledge of Thai history by asserting that he confused 1992 with 1976 because the 1992 demonstrations took place away from any university campus. In fact, the troops in 1992 were, as Hartcher asserted, indeed confronting thousands of student demonstrators trapped inside Ramkhamhaeng University campus with armoured cars and machine guns ready to go in and crush the disidents when Suchinda and Chamlong were summoned to that famous royal audience. Two sentences further on Kriangsak makes a syntactical error which renders his entire sentence meaningless.
I was left wondering whether a man with such impressive legal qualifications from English speaking universities really wrote this poorly constructed letter or whether it is a forgery. Surely he could have racked up plenty of points by shooting down the obvious weaknesses in Hartcher’s position, rather than shooting himself in the foot with such determination. Kasit, if this is letter is genuine, please send a replacement ambassador pronto!
The answer to Kriangsak Kittichaisaree’s final lines:
“But, wouldn’t it be fair to give the Crown Prince a chance to prove his mettle when he is actually on the throne?”
The issue here is, the Crown Prince is not just a ‘playboy’ by any normal standards. He is a very active ‘playboy’ that no one can say ‘no’ to. Not the girl, not the father or brother. When all those women dared to talk without fear of their lives, when cases are charged and trial, when the Crown Prince finally grow up, then perhaps we can talk about giving that boy a chance.
here is the english transcript of Arisman speaking to the Red shirts on
March 17, 2010. It seems to contradict your assertion that the arson was not planned. Perhaps you could watch it and tell us if the translation is accurate.
“Bring 75cc or one liter,with one million of us we have 1 million liters of gasoline. I guarantee you Bangkok will turn into a land of flame. Bangkok will immediately turned into flame.
Those who live in the country, it’s ok if you can’t come. If anything happens gather at your provincial office, not need to negotiate, burn down your city as well. No need to use weapons, when you see a soldier, get near them, three of you and tie him up, seize his guns, tie his hands. With this execution, I guarantee you red mob will definitely win.”
I used to consider myself somewhat left wing before I started reading this blog site. Did somebody move the goal posts?
As someone once said, ” If you are not a socialist when you are young – you have no heart. If you are not a capitalist when you are older – you have no brain.” Perhaps I am just too old.
Do posters think it is acceptable for the media to transmit these inflammatory messages to the public? Does this constitute a right to free speech?
I think the mischaracterization of this as a class struggle misses the fact that the rural poor are not positioning themselves as enemies of the wealthy. They are protesting the corruption that impedes their upward mobility.
But what have they got out of this strategy? Leaders arrested – do you think they will be out on bail with this level of violence? Do you think they will get a fair trial now?
Elections? Looks like the government has the perfect excuse not to hold elections with a civil war raging, and armed groups on the loose.
Process of reconciliation? Independent inquiry to violent incidents? Unlikely now.
This is a very high risk strategy. Burning down Bangkok certainly won’t work, and burning down sala klang in provinces could well back fire. It can be seen to play right into the government/PAD’s hands.
The stage is set for a political crackdown on a scale we haven’t seen for a long time.
But ultimately there will have to be some kind of negotiated process. How many years before this can occur? How many dead? And ultimately a negotiation means finding some middle ground.
The UDD have negotiated a surrender for the leadership. Absolutely none of their original demands have been met.
My question is quite simple – would they not have got a better deal by accepting the road map last week? Or rather, would the quest for democracy not have been better served by negotiation around the road map?
I know many on this forum are looking forward to a civil war and a revolution. It’s easy enough to get such a struggle started – but reigning it in to an acceptable conclusion is a different matter. And in the end, former enemies will have to sit around the table. Unless of course, one side can slaughter the other.
Thailand, one of the only countries in Southeast Asia to resist colonization is in fact now under the control of big business and Money is the name of the game.
The appalling bias of the reporting of the Bangkok events in the international mainstream media are proof if needed of the control exercised by the powers that be over most “official” news channels.
Had there been no internet, we would have just been fed whatever version of the events the government wanted the rest of the world to hear.
Bangkok is the first internet revolution in a important emerging nation.
The first time a population struggles to shed the chains of our 21st century uncontrolled and immoral capitalism that has managed to use religion and royalty to hammer the masses into submission.
Where are the thinkers and the philosophers to help us get out of this rut we have been drawn into since the fall of the Soviet Union and the positioning of money as the center of the world?
May Bangkok show us the way to a new and more just society!
“Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says he is pleased the Thai military has shown restraint in dealing with their country’s political crisis.”
Mr Smith says the situation in Thailand is “very grave” but not bordering on civil war.
“I don’t want to use a phrase like that, but I do want to underline the very grave, difficult circumstances that Thailand’s confronted with,” he said.
“We continue to urge restraint. We regret very much the violence that we’ve seen, the loss of life and the injuries.
“The last thing we need to see or want to see is Thailand revert to military rule and there have been plenty of urgings in recent times for the military to take charge.
“We don’t want that to occur. We want this resolved through democratic or parliamentary and political processes.”
I have to admit, I also hope that you are a “middle class” Thai. I have a hard time finding middle-class Thais who feel that a huge crime has taken place – even among friends with whom I have bonded along Octover 14-October 6 discussions, listening to Carawan songs…
I may be wrong, but on the parallel thread, those who complain of “pro-Red bias” seem to have mostly Thai aliases. And vice versa for us “anti-anti-Red” (as was explained in a post there).
My point is – I feel hope that change will come to Thailand if we hear more Thai voices that are at least anti-anti Red.
As for us others – there is so much to be done with respect to Western media, which gives at best superficial, and at worst government propaganda readings. This is not surprising… “Terrorism”. And the fact that US, UK, Sweden … export weapons to Thailand.
But to end on a positive note, I made it to the “voice a concern” most popular radio program in Sweden today, and could talk for some 10 minutes. And I sensed understanding from the take show host, and maybe even some guilt.
By coincidence, no doubt, there were better reports from Thailand over the day, including sharper interviews with Swedish government officials on whether arms sales to Thailand should be stopped…
So I will persue a little “Boycott the Murderers in Thailand” campaign – as long as this government is in power.
If there are indeed fresh elections, then perhaps all the suffering and death would not have been in vain.
It’s astonishing to read these words in 2010, I heard this kind of argumentation about the Thai monarchy already in the 50’s of last century! The so-called elite have shown no evolution since, if it is not for the worse. The country is ruled today by a group of corrupt officials, 40 families whose only goal is to keep cheap and unschooled labor at their disposal for their not very efficient industries, pedophile officials, a royal family with a dissolute lifestyle, a king who has amassed over the last 60 years a fortune estimated over $ 30 billion, collecting “taxes” from any business of some importance, keeping the large majority of petrol-income in his pockets. To this we add a bunch of corrupt in incompetent generals who make a fake war in the south which they keep going on because of drug and arm trades in the Andaman See, the same with the war against drugs in the “Golden Triangle”. They buy arms and unnecessary Airplane-fighters to collect 25% bribes on the purchase prices. Then comes Thaksin, a shrewd business man with no political family and who mobilized the poor, twice legally elected installing some kind of medical security (refused by doctors!), reshaped the Thai economy and reimbursed IMF well ahead of schedules (and who did not cash-in the usual 3% all Thai-rulers did before him. But he was immensely rich and certainly more popular than the king when he appeared in public. His war against drugs and in the South was brutal but of course disturbed the Establishment. Thaksin constructed a new airport after all passed governments failed to do so during 40 years. And of course, the projected train to the airport remains unfinished and rotting since the coup of 2006
He was probably a bad politician and is certainly no statesman, but then, Thailand never had one of international stature. Its “corruption” was certainly childish compared to what the past and actual politicians in charge do. He became PM being already the probably richest Thai, after the king, he needed not anymore to get rich. As to the kings help to the poor: it’s since long reduced to giving crumbs to people who are instructed to applause when he appears. Nothing has been made to develop/irrigate the East, to the contrary, some NGO-Projects to this goal have been sabotaged.. The actual PM is clearly a puppet of the King/Queen/Army and will certainly soon disappear, once he is no more needed. Each time the King intervenes, it’s once he is sure what party has gained, he never stopped any unrest before bloodshed, neither in the seventies and the nineties. Maybe he will talk in a few days and then be ready to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, why not, after e.g. Kissinger and Obama. Thailand is today one of the most repressive states of this planet, more repressive as Saudi Arabia. This medieval law against lèse-majesté is ridiculous and shows clearly in what kind of intellectual evolution the so-called elite of Thailand remains: it’s a fascist kingdom, comparable to the one installed by Franco in Spain. To call this a democracy is insulting all other democracies. To qualify unarmed people who demonstrated during nearly 6 months for real democracy as terrorists, shooting and killing civilians and keep on the other side Yellow-shirt criminals in the government, thugs paid by the queen when they blocked and looted the airport, is fascism. Stop taking people inside and outside of Thailand for stupid. One other good thing Thaksin made, was to install even in remote schools internet, so today people even in the remotest areas can inform themselves and make up their own opinion, the don’t need any more a king to tell them what’s good or bad. And if your PM made university studies and is supposed to be intelligent, this does not prevent him from being idiot. Bush jr. had the same problem (by the way studied together with Thaksin but failed all his commercial initiatives).
I suspect you may not get your wish. Even now there is speculation among the twittering classes that the king died several days ago. All very far fetched, of course. But the days of the Thailand rallying to that old chestnut are long gone.
The king’s silence during this episode reminds me of a headline that ran across the front page of a British tabloid following the hysteria over Diana’s death: “SAY SOMETHING, MA’AM!”
It’s message was implicit.
@ Glenn and the other shrill voices pointing to the burned buildings as proof of the red-shirts’ bestial nature. Nobody is ‘rejoicing’ in property destruction, though there certainly are many who are ‘rejoicing’ in the massacre of unarmed protesters. With all the propaganda, it’s even hard to blame them. After all, for months, they have been fed a steady course of attacks on the reds, calling them thugs, buffalos, terrorists, etc. I still don’t understand what you people want from the poor of Thailand? You don’t like who they vote for, you don’t like it when they complain about coups. You don’t like it when they protest–(some of) you seem to enjoy it when they get shot–and you don’t like it when they defend themselves, or express outrage at the killing of their brothers and sisters. They grow your food, clean your houses and your streets, drive your buses and trains, guard your buildings, police your streets, bring in tourist dollars with their culture and what are they asking in return? An election. You blame them for tarnishing Thailand’s image, and hurting the tourism industry. Maybe they should have just occupied the airport, huh? That was good for tourism right? Anyway, that only took a week to topple the government, with fewer casualties so yeah, they probably should have just done that. Like I’ve said before: it’s not democracy that you want, so stop pretending. Come out and be proud of your fascist and dictatorial fantasies. Be honest with yourselves.
I do not see how the ‘yellows’ can win. The ‘reds’ have woken up. The ‘reds’ have the numbers. Democracy is a game of numbers. The ‘yellows’ make up for their lack of numbers by ‘sleight of hand’ (redrafting the constitution, political decapitation by judiciary) and ‘sheer force’ (military). ‘Sleight of hand’ no longer works; the ‘reds’ protest. ‘Sheer force’? Can you run a country at gunpoint? For how long? Simple answer: You can’t. Therefore, back to the ballot box. The ‘reds’ have the numbers.
Previously, ‘yellows’ have a nice time because the ‘reds’ are asleep; ‘sleight of hand’ didn’t bother them. Now, no longer.
Unsightly, horrific, terrible.
But what you see now is the birth pangs of Real Thai Democracy.
When a woman gives birth, it is a rather horrific sight: pain, blood, screams, ruptures, before the baby is born, covered in blood, bawling his lungs out. Ditto here.
Final ironies
Thaksin (would be autocrat; his heroes were Singapore’s Lee and Malaysia’s Mahathir) will go down in history as the midwife to Real Thai Democracy.
Abhisit (supposedly ‘liberal’; British-born, Eton- and Oxford-educated) will go down in history as bloody suppressor.
Forget Eton. Forget Oxford. Forget international liberal elites everywhere. Real democracy depends on those of the soil, here.
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Chaos, curfew and confusion
Ayuttaya asks, “Can you run a country at gunpoint? For how long?” and then provides his/her answer, “Simple answer: You can’t.” Dead wrong. Burma has been ruled at the point of a gun for nigh on 48 years ago, and it is right next door.
Chaos, curfew and confusion
Regarding Ayuttaya’s comment “How long can you run a country at gunpoint? You can’t)”; I’m sorry, but I have to disagree. For evidence, just look next door to Burma. The Thai government controls the media and the military, and have proved their willingness to use any measure against those who stand in their way, including defamation, prosecution and physical force. Since a significant portion of the population supports their approach, they can conceivably maintain control for a very long time.
Ambassador Kriangsak in the SMH
From the comments in the SMH online edition, it seems that Australians are nostalgic for their own 1975 royal intervention when Gough Whitlam, as prime minister of a majorty elected government, was fired by the local Viceroy.
Kriangsak’s article is a little better than his miserable letter which was so poor it may well have been a forgery. However, this insipid piece lacks any discernible punch and he gives the impression that he is just going through the motions trotting out a stock essay on the topic that he least wanted to come up in the exam. You can almost hear him yawn as he mechanically ticks off all the legal boxes before getting down the real diplomatic business of the next cocktail party.
Chaos, curfew and confusion
I believe the Thai military rather than big business per se, is the key to understanding Thailand over a long period and particularly now.
Using the monarchy as cover and in cooperation with business families (generally grouped as the Bangkok Elites), the military generals have been in control of Thailand with various thin layers of civilian and political leaders rising and falling as they see fit.
The motivation of the generals and their associates, including royalty and business, is money and the power to operate with impunity. Until someone is able to control the military, lock them in their barracks, banned from any involvement in business, politics and any operations inside the country, attempts at democracy will fail in Thailand.
Without the military, the normal political and influence groups in Thailand, government, reds with Peu Thai, and the royals will be forced to negotiate like normal political rivals and develop democratic solutions.
Thai Embassy response to Hartcher
Polo is right. The ambassador kicks off by challenging Hartcher’s knowledge of Thai history by asserting that he confused 1992 with 1976 because the 1992 demonstrations took place away from any university campus. In fact, the troops in 1992 were, as Hartcher asserted, indeed confronting thousands of student demonstrators trapped inside Ramkhamhaeng University campus with armoured cars and machine guns ready to go in and crush the disidents when Suchinda and Chamlong were summoned to that famous royal audience. Two sentences further on Kriangsak makes a syntactical error which renders his entire sentence meaningless.
I was left wondering whether a man with such impressive legal qualifications from English speaking universities really wrote this poorly constructed letter or whether it is a forgery. Surely he could have racked up plenty of points by shooting down the obvious weaknesses in Hartcher’s position, rather than shooting himself in the foot with such determination. Kasit, if this is letter is genuine, please send a replacement ambassador pronto!
Ambassador Kriangsak in the SMH
The answer to Kriangsak Kittichaisaree’s final lines:
“But, wouldn’t it be fair to give the Crown Prince a chance to prove his mettle when he is actually on the throne?”
The issue here is, the Crown Prince is not just a ‘playboy’ by any normal standards. He is a very active ‘playboy’ that no one can say ‘no’ to. Not the girl, not the father or brother. When all those women dared to talk without fear of their lives, when cases are charged and trial, when the Crown Prince finally grow up, then perhaps we can talk about giving that boy a chance.
Chaos, curfew and confusion
Useful post about the Sakdina system in Thailand.
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Investigating-Thailands-Traditiona-t359263.html
Burning, curfew
Leeyiankun and others:
here is the english transcript of Arisman speaking to the Red shirts on
March 17, 2010. It seems to contradict your assertion that the arson was not planned. Perhaps you could watch it and tell us if the translation is accurate.
“Bring 75cc or one liter,with one million of us we have 1 million liters of gasoline. I guarantee you Bangkok will turn into a land of flame. Bangkok will immediately turned into flame.
Those who live in the country, it’s ok if you can’t come. If anything happens gather at your provincial office, not need to negotiate, burn down your city as well. No need to use weapons, when you see a soldier, get near them, three of you and tie him up, seize his guns, tie his hands. With this execution, I guarantee you red mob will definitely win.”
I used to consider myself somewhat left wing before I started reading this blog site. Did somebody move the goal posts?
As someone once said, ” If you are not a socialist when you are young – you have no heart. If you are not a capitalist when you are older – you have no brain.” Perhaps I am just too old.
Do posters think it is acceptable for the media to transmit these inflammatory messages to the public? Does this constitute a right to free speech?
Armoured vehicles on the move in Bangkok
I think the mischaracterization of this as a class struggle misses the fact that the rural poor are not positioning themselves as enemies of the wealthy. They are protesting the corruption that impedes their upward mobility.
Bangkok: This is a massacre
mikeize 89
Maybe you’re right.
But what have they got out of this strategy? Leaders arrested – do you think they will be out on bail with this level of violence? Do you think they will get a fair trial now?
Elections? Looks like the government has the perfect excuse not to hold elections with a civil war raging, and armed groups on the loose.
Process of reconciliation? Independent inquiry to violent incidents? Unlikely now.
This is a very high risk strategy. Burning down Bangkok certainly won’t work, and burning down sala klang in provinces could well back fire. It can be seen to play right into the government/PAD’s hands.
The stage is set for a political crackdown on a scale we haven’t seen for a long time.
But ultimately there will have to be some kind of negotiated process. How many years before this can occur? How many dead? And ultimately a negotiation means finding some middle ground.
The UDD have negotiated a surrender for the leadership. Absolutely none of their original demands have been met.
My question is quite simple – would they not have got a better deal by accepting the road map last week? Or rather, would the quest for democracy not have been better served by negotiation around the road map?
I know many on this forum are looking forward to a civil war and a revolution. It’s easy enough to get such a struggle started – but reigning it in to an acceptable conclusion is a different matter. And in the end, former enemies will have to sit around the table. Unless of course, one side can slaughter the other.
Chaos, curfew and confusion
I am not sure if this is relevant, ignore if you think so but the act of the government reminds me of Pinochet’s government in Chile.
I may say something stupid but I am not quite sure if this government lasts, will Thailand be made a super-neoliberal state?
Chaos, curfew and confusion
Thailand, one of the only countries in Southeast Asia to resist colonization is in fact now under the control of big business and Money is the name of the game.
The appalling bias of the reporting of the Bangkok events in the international mainstream media are proof if needed of the control exercised by the powers that be over most “official” news channels.
Had there been no internet, we would have just been fed whatever version of the events the government wanted the rest of the world to hear.
Bangkok is the first internet revolution in a important emerging nation.
The first time a population struggles to shed the chains of our 21st century uncontrolled and immoral capitalism that has managed to use religion and royalty to hammer the masses into submission.
Where are the thinkers and the philosophers to help us get out of this rut we have been drawn into since the fall of the Soviet Union and the positioning of money as the center of the world?
May Bangkok show us the way to a new and more just society!
Chaos, curfew and confusion
Australia’s take on the events:
“Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says he is pleased the Thai military has shown restraint in dealing with their country’s political crisis.”
Mr Smith says the situation in Thailand is “very grave” but not bordering on civil war.
“I don’t want to use a phrase like that, but I do want to underline the very grave, difficult circumstances that Thailand’s confronted with,” he said.
“We continue to urge restraint. We regret very much the violence that we’ve seen, the loss of life and the injuries.
“The last thing we need to see or want to see is Thailand revert to military rule and there have been plenty of urgings in recent times for the military to take charge.
“We don’t want that to occur. We want this resolved through democratic or parliamentary and political processes.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/20/2904478.htm?section=world
Chaos, curfew and confusion
I hope you are right, Ayuttaya.
I have to admit, I also hope that you are a “middle class” Thai. I have a hard time finding middle-class Thais who feel that a huge crime has taken place – even among friends with whom I have bonded along Octover 14-October 6 discussions, listening to Carawan songs…
I may be wrong, but on the parallel thread, those who complain of “pro-Red bias” seem to have mostly Thai aliases. And vice versa for us “anti-anti-Red” (as was explained in a post there).
My point is – I feel hope that change will come to Thailand if we hear more Thai voices that are at least anti-anti Red.
As for us others – there is so much to be done with respect to Western media, which gives at best superficial, and at worst government propaganda readings. This is not surprising… “Terrorism”. And the fact that US, UK, Sweden … export weapons to Thailand.
But to end on a positive note, I made it to the “voice a concern” most popular radio program in Sweden today, and could talk for some 10 minutes. And I sensed understanding from the take show host, and maybe even some guilt.
By coincidence, no doubt, there were better reports from Thailand over the day, including sharper interviews with Swedish government officials on whether arms sales to Thailand should be stopped…
So I will persue a little “Boycott the Murderers in Thailand” campaign – as long as this government is in power.
If there are indeed fresh elections, then perhaps all the suffering and death would not have been in vain.
Burning, curfew
Serious quetions raised about a red shirt leader
http://jotman.blogspot.com/2010/05/did-arisman-lay-plans-to-burn-bangkok.html
Ambassador Kriangsak in the SMH
It’s astonishing to read these words in 2010, I heard this kind of argumentation about the Thai monarchy already in the 50’s of last century! The so-called elite have shown no evolution since, if it is not for the worse. The country is ruled today by a group of corrupt officials, 40 families whose only goal is to keep cheap and unschooled labor at their disposal for their not very efficient industries, pedophile officials, a royal family with a dissolute lifestyle, a king who has amassed over the last 60 years a fortune estimated over $ 30 billion, collecting “taxes” from any business of some importance, keeping the large majority of petrol-income in his pockets. To this we add a bunch of corrupt in incompetent generals who make a fake war in the south which they keep going on because of drug and arm trades in the Andaman See, the same with the war against drugs in the “Golden Triangle”. They buy arms and unnecessary Airplane-fighters to collect 25% bribes on the purchase prices. Then comes Thaksin, a shrewd business man with no political family and who mobilized the poor, twice legally elected installing some kind of medical security (refused by doctors!), reshaped the Thai economy and reimbursed IMF well ahead of schedules (and who did not cash-in the usual 3% all Thai-rulers did before him. But he was immensely rich and certainly more popular than the king when he appeared in public. His war against drugs and in the South was brutal but of course disturbed the Establishment. Thaksin constructed a new airport after all passed governments failed to do so during 40 years. And of course, the projected train to the airport remains unfinished and rotting since the coup of 2006
He was probably a bad politician and is certainly no statesman, but then, Thailand never had one of international stature. Its “corruption” was certainly childish compared to what the past and actual politicians in charge do. He became PM being already the probably richest Thai, after the king, he needed not anymore to get rich. As to the kings help to the poor: it’s since long reduced to giving crumbs to people who are instructed to applause when he appears. Nothing has been made to develop/irrigate the East, to the contrary, some NGO-Projects to this goal have been sabotaged.. The actual PM is clearly a puppet of the King/Queen/Army and will certainly soon disappear, once he is no more needed. Each time the King intervenes, it’s once he is sure what party has gained, he never stopped any unrest before bloodshed, neither in the seventies and the nineties. Maybe he will talk in a few days and then be ready to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, why not, after e.g. Kissinger and Obama. Thailand is today one of the most repressive states of this planet, more repressive as Saudi Arabia. This medieval law against lèse-majesté is ridiculous and shows clearly in what kind of intellectual evolution the so-called elite of Thailand remains: it’s a fascist kingdom, comparable to the one installed by Franco in Spain. To call this a democracy is insulting all other democracies. To qualify unarmed people who demonstrated during nearly 6 months for real democracy as terrorists, shooting and killing civilians and keep on the other side Yellow-shirt criminals in the government, thugs paid by the queen when they blocked and looted the airport, is fascism. Stop taking people inside and outside of Thailand for stupid. One other good thing Thaksin made, was to install even in remote schools internet, so today people even in the remotest areas can inform themselves and make up their own opinion, the don’t need any more a king to tell them what’s good or bad. And if your PM made university studies and is supposed to be intelligent, this does not prevent him from being idiot. Bush jr. had the same problem (by the way studied together with Thaksin but failed all his commercial initiatives).
Video of Thailand on the Verge
well…. i’m thai, i love my country and i love my King
i’m sure that i’ll sincered love the next King as well as the King
and can i ask you a question? what do you want?.. do you want to deteriorate the Thais views?
Ambassador Kriangsak in the SMH
Daniel Wolf (1)
I suspect you may not get your wish. Even now there is speculation among the twittering classes that the king died several days ago. All very far fetched, of course. But the days of the Thailand rallying to that old chestnut are long gone.
The king’s silence during this episode reminds me of a headline that ran across the front page of a British tabloid following the hysteria over Diana’s death: “SAY SOMETHING, MA’AM!”
It’s message was implicit.
Burning, curfew
@ Glenn and the other shrill voices pointing to the burned buildings as proof of the red-shirts’ bestial nature. Nobody is ‘rejoicing’ in property destruction, though there certainly are many who are ‘rejoicing’ in the massacre of unarmed protesters. With all the propaganda, it’s even hard to blame them. After all, for months, they have been fed a steady course of attacks on the reds, calling them thugs, buffalos, terrorists, etc. I still don’t understand what you people want from the poor of Thailand? You don’t like who they vote for, you don’t like it when they complain about coups. You don’t like it when they protest–(some of) you seem to enjoy it when they get shot–and you don’t like it when they defend themselves, or express outrage at the killing of their brothers and sisters. They grow your food, clean your houses and your streets, drive your buses and trains, guard your buildings, police your streets, bring in tourist dollars with their culture and what are they asking in return? An election. You blame them for tarnishing Thailand’s image, and hurting the tourism industry. Maybe they should have just occupied the airport, huh? That was good for tourism right? Anyway, that only took a week to topple the government, with fewer casualties so yeah, they probably should have just done that. Like I’ve said before: it’s not democracy that you want, so stop pretending. Come out and be proud of your fascist and dictatorial fantasies. Be honest with yourselves.
Chaos, curfew and confusion
I do not see how the ‘yellows’ can win. The ‘reds’ have woken up. The ‘reds’ have the numbers. Democracy is a game of numbers. The ‘yellows’ make up for their lack of numbers by ‘sleight of hand’ (redrafting the constitution, political decapitation by judiciary) and ‘sheer force’ (military). ‘Sleight of hand’ no longer works; the ‘reds’ protest. ‘Sheer force’? Can you run a country at gunpoint? For how long? Simple answer: You can’t. Therefore, back to the ballot box. The ‘reds’ have the numbers.
Previously, ‘yellows’ have a nice time because the ‘reds’ are asleep; ‘sleight of hand’ didn’t bother them. Now, no longer.
Unsightly, horrific, terrible.
But what you see now is the birth pangs of Real Thai Democracy.
When a woman gives birth, it is a rather horrific sight: pain, blood, screams, ruptures, before the baby is born, covered in blood, bawling his lungs out. Ditto here.
Final ironies
Thaksin (would be autocrat; his heroes were Singapore’s Lee and Malaysia’s Mahathir) will go down in history as the midwife to Real Thai Democracy.
Abhisit (supposedly ‘liberal’; British-born, Eton- and Oxford-educated) will go down in history as bloody suppressor.
Forget Eton. Forget Oxford. Forget international liberal elites everywhere. Real democracy depends on those of the soil, here.