Maybe the answer is for the rural people to start electing the Members of Parliment that represent them rather the ones the local faction leaders tell (or pay them to). The problem for the rural poor is not in Bangkok, it is the very people that they elect.
TH
Abhisit want to get rid of Thaksin, he not care about economic.. not only loan money Abhisit also sue thaksin and get Thanksin money around 45,000 million baht.
Abhisit speech very well but he not good in administration.
People in Thailand they can die for King no matter what , who not be loyal will be attacked.
One important factor that they belive in one of fortune teller “р╕лр╕бр╕Фр╕Щр╕┤р╕Ф р╕Бр╕┤р╕Ир╕Ир╕▓” who said that soon the army will own the country and get rid all red shrts from country.
It’s true that Abhisit come during economic cirisis, but the world demand of rice are rising up, Abhisit fell to help farmers about rice price decrease 50% . more than 70% of population are farmers
David Brown, your suggestion that all gains on sales of shares are exempt from tax in Thailand is not correct, although, if you are a Thai studies professor, I would not expect you to grasp this. There is a tax waiver on gains on shares sold through the Stock Exchange of Thailand by either individuals resident in Thailand, or by individuals and corporates resident overseas in a jurisdiction that has a tax treaty with Thailand. The Revenue Department’s case against Thaksin is quite clear cut. It applies only to the portion of the transaction that was traded off the market and sold by a BVI corporation (BVI has no tax treaty with Thailand). The fact that the trade was not put through the SET and was sold by a foreign corporation with no access to a tax treaty provides two reasons to tax it. Thaksin messed up with this part of the trade because he had been incompetently advised that Temasek would be willing to acquire that block of shares by buying the BVI company with the shares in it. This is a comnon mechanism used by Thai lawyers to evade tax on unlisted transactions or save their clients’ having to report crossing threshholds of shareholdings in listed Thai companies that would require reporting or a public tender offer. In this case, Thaksin had another motivation in that he wanted to keep the proceeds from that part of the sale offshore. However, despite Thaksin’s personal visit to Singapore, Temasek refused to buy the BVI company, since the structure was obviously inappropriate for a sovereign wealth fund concerned about money laundering (as was the nominee structure used to conceal foreign ownership but their greed overcame them on that one). Since Temasek insisted in doing the whole trade onshore through the market, Thaksin was caught wrong footed and had no time to restructure that portion so that it would not be a taxable event. Instead he decided to just tough it out and rely on his ability to intimidate the Revenue Department to evade tax on that portion of the sale. Personally I think that was a big mistake. If he had coughed up the tax voluntarily, he would still be prime minister today, his assets would not have been confiscated and the people killed in the recent political disturbances would still be alive.
[…] leaders during the years he was active, including several prime ministers of Thailand."] The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants Chang Noi, in The Nation, had an interesting take back in November: […]
Many have been asking where are the students in this and it is an interesting point. University education has expanded massively in Thialand since 1973 and it is no longer considered at all exceptional for villager’s kids to go to university in the Isaan village I am familiar with and many are now able to attend private universities. Logically one would expect that with so many more rural and working class students today, they would be far more in evidence than in 1973. However, after a few visits behind the Rajaprasong barricades, one can imagine that red shirts have little appeal to students, even those from poor families. The “nakleng” style of the leaders and the black shirt guards combined with the aggressive, cracked gramophone record rhetoric and old fogies’ mor lam music are designed to appeal to the Por 6 education of their parents and probably represent better the type of society the students want to escape from than what they want for the whole of Thaland.
A few points:- While the original article lacks in a certain rigor, if we are to take a short look back at farm incomes, there is absolutely no support to anyone who says farmers are not better off now than they were 5 years ago; farm incomes are up some 40%. (data from BoT on the URL) At the same time, critics of the huge wealth gap also need to dig a bit bigger than simply saying that it’s obscene. A large chunk of wealth is made up of hard to value property, that if it needed to be sold would have a detrimental effect on the price. This is not any attempt to stick up for the ammat; however there needs to be perhaps some more balance. While the Red shirt movement may have its foundations in very worthwhile socioeconomic justifications, the actual manifestation of this in Bangkok completely fails to represent their core constituents. Finally on the tax issue-capital gains tax is exempted on public (on maket) transactions- not private ones. http://www.bot.or.th/English/Statistics/Graph/Pages/FarmIncome.aspx
Most of the article is incorrect. The writer looses credibility, when he / she tried to perpetuate the lie about Thaksin not paying Tax on Shin shares sale to Singtel. As David Brown pointed out, as have I on many occassion – share capital gains are not taxable. Nobody in the Democrat and probably the writer himself / herself have paid any tax on share sale.
Furthermore, to accuse someone of having benefited unfairly from one’s position, you have to show that he / she has done better than the average joe – by a lot. The fact that Shin or other Thaksin’s holdings did no better than the Thai Stock market index, simply shows that the economy has grown. This should be a big plus to Thaksin, not negative.
As for relative poverty – try living as a farmer for a while. Also talk to the bar girls and others in the flesh trade. These are mainly supplied from the poor farming / rural districts. The urban rich are quite happy to exploit them. Unless the writer really thinks that the rural Thais have no family values and are quite willing to let their sons and daughters sell their bodies for additional income, it should reflect on the actual “wealth” in the rural areas. (BTW, the fridges, motor bikes that the writer talked about are mainly bought income from the flesh trade in Bangkok , Pattaya etc)
But we know that in Thailand there are no neutral parties, so we will have to ensure fairness through:
1) Complete transparency: The public can see raw data, not just interpretations of it.
2) International oversight: Certainly Thailand has friends in the international community it would trust to provide non-partisan oversight of certain processes (elections, investigations, etc.)
Actually solving the problem is not that hard. Getting around the people who don’t want to solve the problem is the catch.
It is always funny to see when critics try to tell millions of politically mobilized people that they got their facts and feelings wrong when they started their movement, and should therefore stop it. Maybe, the problem then is with the critic rather than with the people? He might want to try a more comprehensive analysis in order to understand what makes those mobilized people tick.
I received this email as a ‘forward’ over the weekend, & I’m still reeling. I must say that some of the figures are useful. However, a good deal of the email is extremely superficial, hollow even, & relatively meaningless. For example – the paragraphs about health care & ‘schooling’.
The care at government hospitals & clinics in rural areas is severely limited by understaffing, lack of up-to-date equipment & specialised training. It falls very far short of treatment available in Bangkok, & local people are not helped to get to appropriate facilities – in general they have to put up with what is available. The system whereby new graduates have to spend a period in rural hospitals is good, but it is limited by the fact that new doctors need experienced & skilled supervision. I know of many cases where patients have died when there is a good chance that they should not have, because of these factors.
Literacy is only the beginning of education. Education goes into areas of learning to think, & badly – trained teachers in classes of 50+ students can’t educate; they can only ‘school’. The writer’s conclusion re. the “high rate of upward social mobility” is ridiculous. How many of these lucky “bright kids” really do come from poor families? Not many, I’d think. They’re more likely to be from families in more urban rural areas who can afford to send them to extra classes, & give ‘tea money’ to the selectors. In a situation where a teacher is faced with classes of 50+ kids, the identification of bright students is severely limited. Most teachers don’t even know the names of their students.
“Barely respectable” and below that, is how I would describe most tertiary institutions all over Thailand, some of them quite ‘respected’. In the Humanities, courses are badly planned, usually with no graduation from one level to the next, textbooks are abysmal – irrelevant, even (often thrown together & printed f.o.c at the institution, by staff members who are scamming for the extra income they generate through sales), and assessment is a joke, invariably on the basis of multiple-choice. Many, if not most, departments have a policy of not failing students. Built in to the marking schemes are substantial marks for items like attendance, behaviour, attitude, ‘discretionary’, & if a student still comes below the pass mark, the lecturer is instructed to tack on a few more marks. Especially in post-grad courses, teachers are given presents before the assessment time, & assignments are frequently downloaded from the internet, very clumsily cut & pasted. I have been handed papers with hyperlinks on the page!
Although my comments re. schooling apply to Bkk as well as rural areas, the situation in the latter is worse because of the difficulty of attracting teachers to the countryside. Thaksin did try to rectify this by instituting a system (based on a Chinese one) whereby young teachers who served time in remote schools would be ‘fast-tracked’ when they returned to the city. This didn’t take off, because he was thrown out before it commenced. Likewise, he also planned to bring in a fairly harsh system of retraining for teachers, whereby they would have to re-sit a test for their licence every 2 years. This was coupled with a plan for early retirement of teachers who didn’t want to participate. Many teachers hate him for this. (I’m not a fan either, but for other reasons. I must say that my dislike of the man is massively energized by the fact that it’s clear he had wonderful administrative abilities & could have fixed up a great deal, had he behaved decently.)
Banphai #6, thanks for that link. It’s really worth reading, & in many ways gets to the heart of the matter.
I suggest the gov’t build community centres within every mooban sala klang. Provide it with some modern tools of communication like computers and basic IT skills for kids and all in the community. Esp., for the senior citizens to gather and unwind with activities. When oxytocin flows quality of life improves. I speak for my own village of 400 households without a single computer. We are 20 km. from the city. I am sure we have thousands of moobans in the Isarn which can use some collective public services. Where affluence a little below? The gov’t should give a thought to this gap filling idea. Money for from vote selling to the criminal Thugsin is only a one night stand! Why not the legitimate budget use in mooban and happiness tax money can buy? My daughters would happy to use the community centre computer for their school projects instead of paying 20bht/hr at internet cafe 2 km. away. Most 60+ villagers will be happy to browse thru’ the papers. This can be the place for farmer to improve their farming skills and decisions.
This reads like the introduction to a Lonely Planet guide or a UN report. What’s the thesis here, besides painting a rosy picture of Thailand’s rural poor? The author doesn’t tie any of this to the events of recent days except to make a a passing comment about how Thaksin played no role in the rural poor’s riches. Looks like he copied the executive summary of an Economist Intelligence Unit country report and threw in some truisms to make it his own.
The argument is daft. It would be like saying South African blacks, who were the richest blacks in Africa even at the height of Apartheid, should have been happy with their lot.
I would query some of the facts stated, particularly those regarding healthcare (something I do know a lot about), although his basic premise probably stands up quite well, I suspect.
The emailist could have said he didn’t like Thaksin without giving mountains of unrelated data. I love the lines, “[T]hey are the richest poor people in the Third World. And they owe none of their affluence to Thaksin Shinawatra.” What froth: “richest poor”, “affluence”, “such prosperity”; the dichotomous usage is disingenuous. Owning a TV, fridge and old motorcycle does not affluence make.
Left-over Peace Corp workers and other ineffective NGO types are threatened by Thaksin’s popularity, because it points to their own futility. So they patronize and patronize and patronize; let the “richest poor” decide for themselves who they support.
Citing comparison statistics of development in Thailand over time or in contrast with the US, Angola, and Afghanistan misses one of the points that the Red-shirts are rallying around–Thaksin’s policies were fundamentally more attuned to rural aspirations than those of other governments, before or since.
The conflict may be more about relative poverty than absolute poverty but let’s not forget that both sides have played up the notion of rural Thailand’s “peasantry” and “chaonaa-ness.” Indeed, the PAD, Royalists, and Bangkok bureaucratic elite view are perhaps more guilty in characterizing rural Thais as soom poor, homogenous population that needs direction. Evidence for this is found in the many romanticized documents and promotional materials for Sufficiency Economy. The idea that rural Thais of the 21st Century should just survive on 10-15 rai, avoid all credit, and disengage from anything but local markets has not been received well by anyone but new-age urban Thais and Santi-Asoke fundamentalists.
The loud message from most bureaucratic elites since 1997 has been that Thailand’s “chaonaa” can only be safe from globalization if they return to pre-modern sufficiency values and methods (and become “more Thai”). Thaksin told them differently. He told rural Thais they were the part of the “Kitchen of the World;” that more aggressive agricultural policies, state support, SMEs, and rural entrepreneurship would help rural Thailand adapt to globalization. He backed his rhetoric with funding and programs they actually experienced. In rural Thailand one commonly hears that “Thaksin is the only one who understands us.” What evidence is there that traditional bureaucrats do? Examine the policy track records.
The Dem is aiming at the baby-boomers by its 60+ welfare spending. Their demographic transition plus other carrot-stick strategy may tip the vote this election in the Isarn!
People who have nothing to loose then their chains will usually not revolt, or, not revolt in an organized manner. People revolt exactly because they are afraid that they will loose something, and they organize their revolt, when they have education and an understanding of how to organize. In development jargon one would speak in this case about successful “capacity building” and “empowering” thanks to the work of NGO supported by international donors since the eighties! After the economic miracle now a miracle of successful political development?
As studies on revolts indicate (see f.e. E.P. Thompson, T. Bottomore and J. Scott), revolts occur when a “moral consensus” has been or is about to be abolished. The demands follow such a moral perspective. They do not demand higher prices for crops, more credit, state support etc. but an end of double standards, acceptance and recognition of own views and perspectives of the future, and quite simply elections. Namely the later seems quite reasonable in view of recent history. The current government is based on a coup d’etat, outlawing of major parties, hostage taking etc. Now even the ruling party faces to be outlawed as it did not follow election laws! The demand for new elections to allow for a new start looks in view of such circumstances, quite reasonable and rational.
The issue of a moral consensus has, however, a further dimension. Current Thai nationalism including the love to country, religion and king, is a top down affair. It follows quite closely the very western ideas propagated by Rama VI, as a combination of nationalism with romanticism. (Quite a few of the dramas remind of 19. century European romantic plays). In this the aristocratic elite should lead the people, quite as it was formulated in conservative European romanticism in opposition to nationalism derived from the national revolutions in 1948. In contrast to these royal concepts, Phibul and Pridi developed a “people” nationalism, in which to form the nation is the task of the people.
In the royal version of nationalism, the enlightened few are to tell the many, who lag proper understanding, what they should do. If the many follow and obey the enlightened, the future will be bright. Unfortunately, the red shirts propose another version of nationalism, in which all who belong to the nation have a right in it. In short nationalism of the elite versus nationalism of the people. Of course, the demand for a new moral consensus evolves from successful integration of the rural areas into the “Thai nation”, increased participation of rural people in the economy, education and culture, etc. Therefore it is not all suprising that the farmers are better off! In short, the state and nation that were formerly quite far away, have entered into everyday life. Thereby nationalism becomes secularized, and now the subjects demand their rights. Does anybody have a problem with people demanding rights granted in all constitutions etc. ?
If these extrajudicial killings is justified, then I guess the current government could justify a crackdown of protestors that kills only 100 when they could can save thousands of life from potential extra judicial killins if Taksin ever come back into power again?
Neither you and me can speak of any certainty of the number of dead toll. I’m basing the number form the majority of media which obviously you said is a lie. Then please produce some evidence instead of just accusing them of lying.
Most importantly, you still didn’t answer my question, so how should the process be to reduce drug in Thailand? Since they didn’t tackle any real cause of drug traffic rather than a temporary dispersal of the distribution network, even if the dead toll was exaggerated, do you now say that it is OK to alloacted a headcount number for the police to pick yearly? Done not too improperly, that would surely reduce drug traficking in Thailand, right?
Now that the extrajudicial killings is OK, this extrajudicial killings should be used to reduce deadtoll from drunk driving, which kills about a thousand of life each year during Songran holidays alone. The government will do well shooting a drunk driver on spot. Only if they do that for say five to ten people a year, no one will ever drive drunk again in Thailand, do you think?
Please do not use the sentimental type of information from a small group of data to conclude of a very big picture. I can use sentimental information from the family whose husband happened to be shot down because the police thought he was a traffiker when he actually won a lottery. (This is a published fact, but may be you conveniently say it’s a lie again, I suppose). If these extra judicial killings by Taksin is right, what are these people supporting Taksin asking for democracy or human rights?
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
Maybe the answer is for the rural people to start electing the Members of Parliment that represent them rather the ones the local faction leaders tell (or pay them to). The problem for the rural poor is not in Bangkok, it is the very people that they elect.
TH
Video of Thailand on the Verge
Abhisit want to get rid of Thaksin, he not care about economic.. not only loan money Abhisit also sue thaksin and get Thanksin money around 45,000 million baht.
Abhisit speech very well but he not good in administration.
People in Thailand they can die for King no matter what , who not be loyal will be attacked.
One important factor that they belive in one of fortune teller “р╕лр╕бр╕Фр╕Щр╕┤р╕Ф р╕Бр╕┤р╕Ир╕Ир╕▓” who said that soon the army will own the country and get rid all red shrts from country.
Video of Thailand on the Verge
It’s true that Abhisit come during economic cirisis, but the world demand of rice are rising up, Abhisit fell to help farmers about rice price decrease 50% . more than 70% of population are farmers
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
David Brown, your suggestion that all gains on sales of shares are exempt from tax in Thailand is not correct, although, if you are a Thai studies professor, I would not expect you to grasp this. There is a tax waiver on gains on shares sold through the Stock Exchange of Thailand by either individuals resident in Thailand, or by individuals and corporates resident overseas in a jurisdiction that has a tax treaty with Thailand. The Revenue Department’s case against Thaksin is quite clear cut. It applies only to the portion of the transaction that was traded off the market and sold by a BVI corporation (BVI has no tax treaty with Thailand). The fact that the trade was not put through the SET and was sold by a foreign corporation with no access to a tax treaty provides two reasons to tax it. Thaksin messed up with this part of the trade because he had been incompetently advised that Temasek would be willing to acquire that block of shares by buying the BVI company with the shares in it. This is a comnon mechanism used by Thai lawyers to evade tax on unlisted transactions or save their clients’ having to report crossing threshholds of shareholdings in listed Thai companies that would require reporting or a public tender offer. In this case, Thaksin had another motivation in that he wanted to keep the proceeds from that part of the sale offshore. However, despite Thaksin’s personal visit to Singapore, Temasek refused to buy the BVI company, since the structure was obviously inappropriate for a sovereign wealth fund concerned about money laundering (as was the nominee structure used to conceal foreign ownership but their greed overcame them on that one). Since Temasek insisted in doing the whole trade onshore through the market, Thaksin was caught wrong footed and had no time to restructure that portion so that it would not be a taxable event. Instead he decided to just tough it out and rely on his ability to intimidate the Revenue Department to evade tax on that portion of the sale. Personally I think that was a big mistake. If he had coughed up the tax voluntarily, he would still be prime minister today, his assets would not have been confiscated and the people killed in the recent political disturbances would still be alive.
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
[…] leaders during the years he was active, including several prime ministers of Thailand."] The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants Chang Noi, in The Nation, had an interesting take back in November: […]
Map of “Bangkok Dangerous”
Many have been asking where are the students in this and it is an interesting point. University education has expanded massively in Thialand since 1973 and it is no longer considered at all exceptional for villager’s kids to go to university in the Isaan village I am familiar with and many are now able to attend private universities. Logically one would expect that with so many more rural and working class students today, they would be far more in evidence than in 1973. However, after a few visits behind the Rajaprasong barricades, one can imagine that red shirts have little appeal to students, even those from poor families. The “nakleng” style of the leaders and the black shirt guards combined with the aggressive, cracked gramophone record rhetoric and old fogies’ mor lam music are designed to appeal to the Por 6 education of their parents and probably represent better the type of society the students want to escape from than what they want for the whole of Thaland.
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
A few points:- While the original article lacks in a certain rigor, if we are to take a short look back at farm incomes, there is absolutely no support to anyone who says farmers are not better off now than they were 5 years ago; farm incomes are up some 40%. (data from BoT on the URL) At the same time, critics of the huge wealth gap also need to dig a bit bigger than simply saying that it’s obscene. A large chunk of wealth is made up of hard to value property, that if it needed to be sold would have a detrimental effect on the price. This is not any attempt to stick up for the ammat; however there needs to be perhaps some more balance. While the Red shirt movement may have its foundations in very worthwhile socioeconomic justifications, the actual manifestation of this in Bangkok completely fails to represent their core constituents. Finally on the tax issue-capital gains tax is exempted on public (on maket) transactions- not private ones.
http://www.bot.or.th/English/Statistics/Graph/Pages/FarmIncome.aspx
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
Most of the article is incorrect. The writer looses credibility, when he / she tried to perpetuate the lie about Thaksin not paying Tax on Shin shares sale to Singtel. As David Brown pointed out, as have I on many occassion – share capital gains are not taxable. Nobody in the Democrat and probably the writer himself / herself have paid any tax on share sale.
Furthermore, to accuse someone of having benefited unfairly from one’s position, you have to show that he / she has done better than the average joe – by a lot. The fact that Shin or other Thaksin’s holdings did no better than the Thai Stock market index, simply shows that the economy has grown. This should be a big plus to Thaksin, not negative.
As for relative poverty – try living as a farmer for a while. Also talk to the bar girls and others in the flesh trade. These are mainly supplied from the poor farming / rural districts. The urban rich are quite happy to exploit them. Unless the writer really thinks that the rural Thais have no family values and are quite willing to let their sons and daughters sell their bodies for additional income, it should reflect on the actual “wealth” in the rural areas. (BTW, the fridges, motor bikes that the writer talked about are mainly bought income from the flesh trade in Bangkok , Pattaya etc)
Map of “Bangkok Dangerous”
HWGA,
I agree 100%. Let’s investigate all of them.
But we know that in Thailand there are no neutral parties, so we will have to ensure fairness through:
1) Complete transparency: The public can see raw data, not just interpretations of it.
2) International oversight: Certainly Thailand has friends in the international community it would trust to provide non-partisan oversight of certain processes (elections, investigations, etc.)
Actually solving the problem is not that hard. Getting around the people who don’t want to solve the problem is the catch.
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
It is always funny to see when critics try to tell millions of politically mobilized people that they got their facts and feelings wrong when they started their movement, and should therefore stop it. Maybe, the problem then is with the critic rather than with the people? He might want to try a more comprehensive analysis in order to understand what makes those mobilized people tick.
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
I received this email as a ‘forward’ over the weekend, & I’m still reeling. I must say that some of the figures are useful. However, a good deal of the email is extremely superficial, hollow even, & relatively meaningless. For example – the paragraphs about health care & ‘schooling’.
The care at government hospitals & clinics in rural areas is severely limited by understaffing, lack of up-to-date equipment & specialised training. It falls very far short of treatment available in Bangkok, & local people are not helped to get to appropriate facilities – in general they have to put up with what is available. The system whereby new graduates have to spend a period in rural hospitals is good, but it is limited by the fact that new doctors need experienced & skilled supervision. I know of many cases where patients have died when there is a good chance that they should not have, because of these factors.
Literacy is only the beginning of education. Education goes into areas of learning to think, & badly – trained teachers in classes of 50+ students can’t educate; they can only ‘school’. The writer’s conclusion re. the “high rate of upward social mobility” is ridiculous. How many of these lucky “bright kids” really do come from poor families? Not many, I’d think. They’re more likely to be from families in more urban rural areas who can afford to send them to extra classes, & give ‘tea money’ to the selectors. In a situation where a teacher is faced with classes of 50+ kids, the identification of bright students is severely limited. Most teachers don’t even know the names of their students.
“Barely respectable” and below that, is how I would describe most tertiary institutions all over Thailand, some of them quite ‘respected’. In the Humanities, courses are badly planned, usually with no graduation from one level to the next, textbooks are abysmal – irrelevant, even (often thrown together & printed f.o.c at the institution, by staff members who are scamming for the extra income they generate through sales), and assessment is a joke, invariably on the basis of multiple-choice. Many, if not most, departments have a policy of not failing students. Built in to the marking schemes are substantial marks for items like attendance, behaviour, attitude, ‘discretionary’, & if a student still comes below the pass mark, the lecturer is instructed to tack on a few more marks. Especially in post-grad courses, teachers are given presents before the assessment time, & assignments are frequently downloaded from the internet, very clumsily cut & pasted. I have been handed papers with hyperlinks on the page!
Although my comments re. schooling apply to Bkk as well as rural areas, the situation in the latter is worse because of the difficulty of attracting teachers to the countryside. Thaksin did try to rectify this by instituting a system (based on a Chinese one) whereby young teachers who served time in remote schools would be ‘fast-tracked’ when they returned to the city. This didn’t take off, because he was thrown out before it commenced. Likewise, he also planned to bring in a fairly harsh system of retraining for teachers, whereby they would have to re-sit a test for their licence every 2 years. This was coupled with a plan for early retirement of teachers who didn’t want to participate. Many teachers hate him for this. (I’m not a fan either, but for other reasons. I must say that my dislike of the man is massively energized by the fact that it’s clear he had wonderful administrative abilities & could have fixed up a great deal, had he behaved decently.)
Banphai #6, thanks for that link. It’s really worth reading, & in many ways gets to the heart of the matter.
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
I suggest the gov’t build community centres within every mooban sala klang. Provide it with some modern tools of communication like computers and basic IT skills for kids and all in the community. Esp., for the senior citizens to gather and unwind with activities. When oxytocin flows quality of life improves. I speak for my own village of 400 households without a single computer. We are 20 km. from the city. I am sure we have thousands of moobans in the Isarn which can use some collective public services. Where affluence a little below? The gov’t should give a thought to this gap filling idea. Money for from vote selling to the criminal Thugsin is only a one night stand! Why not the legitimate budget use in mooban and happiness tax money can buy? My daughters would happy to use the community centre computer for their school projects instead of paying 20bht/hr at internet cafe 2 km. away. Most 60+ villagers will be happy to browse thru’ the papers. This can be the place for farmer to improve their farming skills and decisions.
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
This reads like the introduction to a Lonely Planet guide or a UN report. What’s the thesis here, besides painting a rosy picture of Thailand’s rural poor? The author doesn’t tie any of this to the events of recent days except to make a a passing comment about how Thaksin played no role in the rural poor’s riches. Looks like he copied the executive summary of an Economist Intelligence Unit country report and threw in some truisms to make it his own.
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
Inconvenient Truth #7
and still the immoral, sadistic, corrupt, criminal military rule Thailand…
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
The argument is daft. It would be like saying South African blacks, who were the richest blacks in Africa even at the height of Apartheid, should have been happy with their lot.
I would query some of the facts stated, particularly those regarding healthcare (something I do know a lot about), although his basic premise probably stands up quite well, I suspect.
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
The emailist could have said he didn’t like Thaksin without giving mountains of unrelated data. I love the lines, “[T]hey are the richest poor people in the Third World. And they owe none of their affluence to Thaksin Shinawatra.” What froth: “richest poor”, “affluence”, “such prosperity”; the dichotomous usage is disingenuous. Owning a TV, fridge and old motorcycle does not affluence make.
Left-over Peace Corp workers and other ineffective NGO types are threatened by Thaksin’s popularity, because it points to their own futility. So they patronize and patronize and patronize; let the “richest poor” decide for themselves who they support.
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
Citing comparison statistics of development in Thailand over time or in contrast with the US, Angola, and Afghanistan misses one of the points that the Red-shirts are rallying around–Thaksin’s policies were fundamentally more attuned to rural aspirations than those of other governments, before or since.
The conflict may be more about relative poverty than absolute poverty but let’s not forget that both sides have played up the notion of rural Thailand’s “peasantry” and “chaonaa-ness.” Indeed, the PAD, Royalists, and Bangkok bureaucratic elite view are perhaps more guilty in characterizing rural Thais as soom poor, homogenous population that needs direction. Evidence for this is found in the many romanticized documents and promotional materials for Sufficiency Economy. The idea that rural Thais of the 21st Century should just survive on 10-15 rai, avoid all credit, and disengage from anything but local markets has not been received well by anyone but new-age urban Thais and Santi-Asoke fundamentalists.
The loud message from most bureaucratic elites since 1997 has been that Thailand’s “chaonaa” can only be safe from globalization if they return to pre-modern sufficiency values and methods (and become “more Thai”). Thaksin told them differently. He told rural Thais they were the part of the “Kitchen of the World;” that more aggressive agricultural policies, state support, SMEs, and rural entrepreneurship would help rural Thailand adapt to globalization. He backed his rhetoric with funding and programs they actually experienced. In rural Thailand one commonly hears that “Thaksin is the only one who understands us.” What evidence is there that traditional bureaucrats do? Examine the policy track records.
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
The Dem is aiming at the baby-boomers by its 60+ welfare spending. Their demographic transition plus other carrot-stick strategy may tip the vote this election in the Isarn!
The rebellion of Thailand’s middle-income peasants
People who have nothing to loose then their chains will usually not revolt, or, not revolt in an organized manner. People revolt exactly because they are afraid that they will loose something, and they organize their revolt, when they have education and an understanding of how to organize. In development jargon one would speak in this case about successful “capacity building” and “empowering” thanks to the work of NGO supported by international donors since the eighties! After the economic miracle now a miracle of successful political development?
As studies on revolts indicate (see f.e. E.P. Thompson, T. Bottomore and J. Scott), revolts occur when a “moral consensus” has been or is about to be abolished. The demands follow such a moral perspective. They do not demand higher prices for crops, more credit, state support etc. but an end of double standards, acceptance and recognition of own views and perspectives of the future, and quite simply elections. Namely the later seems quite reasonable in view of recent history. The current government is based on a coup d’etat, outlawing of major parties, hostage taking etc. Now even the ruling party faces to be outlawed as it did not follow election laws! The demand for new elections to allow for a new start looks in view of such circumstances, quite reasonable and rational.
The issue of a moral consensus has, however, a further dimension. Current Thai nationalism including the love to country, religion and king, is a top down affair. It follows quite closely the very western ideas propagated by Rama VI, as a combination of nationalism with romanticism. (Quite a few of the dramas remind of 19. century European romantic plays). In this the aristocratic elite should lead the people, quite as it was formulated in conservative European romanticism in opposition to nationalism derived from the national revolutions in 1948. In contrast to these royal concepts, Phibul and Pridi developed a “people” nationalism, in which to form the nation is the task of the people.
In the royal version of nationalism, the enlightened few are to tell the many, who lag proper understanding, what they should do. If the many follow and obey the enlightened, the future will be bright. Unfortunately, the red shirts propose another version of nationalism, in which all who belong to the nation have a right in it. In short nationalism of the elite versus nationalism of the people. Of course, the demand for a new moral consensus evolves from successful integration of the rural areas into the “Thai nation”, increased participation of rural people in the economy, education and culture, etc. Therefore it is not all suprising that the farmers are better off! In short, the state and nation that were formerly quite far away, have entered into everyday life. Thereby nationalism becomes secularized, and now the subjects demand their rights. Does anybody have a problem with people demanding rights granted in all constitutions etc. ?
Thongchai Winichakul on the Red “germs”
Jim,
If these extrajudicial killings is justified, then I guess the current government could justify a crackdown of protestors that kills only 100 when they could can save thousands of life from potential extra judicial killins if Taksin ever come back into power again?
Neither you and me can speak of any certainty of the number of dead toll. I’m basing the number form the majority of media which obviously you said is a lie. Then please produce some evidence instead of just accusing them of lying.
Most importantly, you still didn’t answer my question, so how should the process be to reduce drug in Thailand? Since they didn’t tackle any real cause of drug traffic rather than a temporary dispersal of the distribution network, even if the dead toll was exaggerated, do you now say that it is OK to alloacted a headcount number for the police to pick yearly? Done not too improperly, that would surely reduce drug traficking in Thailand, right?
Now that the extrajudicial killings is OK, this extrajudicial killings should be used to reduce deadtoll from drunk driving, which kills about a thousand of life each year during Songran holidays alone. The government will do well shooting a drunk driver on spot. Only if they do that for say five to ten people a year, no one will ever drive drunk again in Thailand, do you think?
Please do not use the sentimental type of information from a small group of data to conclude of a very big picture. I can use sentimental information from the family whose husband happened to be shot down because the police thought he was a traffiker when he actually won a lottery. (This is a published fact, but may be you conveniently say it’s a lie again, I suppose). If these extra judicial killings by Taksin is right, what are these people supporting Taksin asking for democracy or human rights?