Comments

I think the job has been filled as the Time Out Section of MT has been very active lately.

Most comments here are extremely unfair to Ross Dunkley. He is a true blue Aussie who is giving everybody fair go in Burma and spending his own money to keep his little newspaper in English going for very long time now in the extremely dangerous and difficult situations of Burma.

MT definitely is much better and more informative than the New Light of Myanmar, the junta’s mouthpiece.

Unlike Irrawaddy, Mizzima, and others I don’t think he has received any generous funding from Sorros’ Open Society or CIA’s NED.

I have to concur with those who have pointed out Nick Nostitz’s obvious hypocrisy.

He wants an unbiased media portrayal of the Reds, but he’s often more biased than most mainstream media.

So, you’ve heard the bias complaint before and he also covered the Yellows. That doesn’t make the complaint less relevant, and his slant in covering the Yellows was also obvious.

If Nick Nostitz wants to take sides in his reportage, that’s fine. Everyone should have a voice.

But in presenting himself as unbiased he undercuts his credibility.

Hla Oo @30, like you I fear for Nick’s safety, but perhaps he has some protection due to his nationality and prominence. He’s now well-enough known that if anything happened to him it would be a major story, and scandal, not least in his native Germany. And we know what important connections Germany currently has with not only Thailand generally, but more especially very important people very high up.
Furthermore, there is the issue of bank accounts : now that even Obama has had his hacked into ( DailyTelegraph.com.au, 26/3/2010), it would only be a matter of time before some activist somewhere succeeded in dishing out similiar treatment
to those Thai “conservatives” you mention, in the event of the major story breaking that anything untoward befalling Nick would undoubtedly now become.
As for a repeat of the 1970’s and 1980’s suppression of farmers and other grass-roots organisations, or of the Red Shirts as a whole – that would very likely be countered by the still many pro-Thaksin elements within the military and police (especially).
As for bias – ALL journalism needs to be taken with at very least a grain of salt : it’s impossible for journalists, and even academics to not have some bias – but over time, it becomes obvious.
Nick is a valuable corrective to increasingly obvious mainstream media bias, and StanG you have been a valuable corrective to Nick on the numbers issue. Thank you both.

“StanG”:

You asked:

“They were a week ahead of you and filled the blogopshere, facebook, flicr, photobucket, tweeter, youtube and what not already. Who are you going to reach now?”

This is a legitimate question. My answer is: I reach exactly the audience i aim to reach – people who have a deep interest in the socio-political conflict here. I have no interest whatsoever to compete in speed. That would anyhow be impossible.
While i still run around and take images, wire and newspaper photographers have already their pictures filed. During events such as in the April riots they have up to 10 or more photographers + writers (some of them even drawn from several countries in the region) stationed at designated areas, motorcycle runners pick up their memory cards, which get then worked on in their offices and sent out straight away to clients all over the world.
I can compete with them in terms of overall understanding of the situation, and because i have much better and wider on the ground contacts. And i do not compete in their market. Their job is extremely important, but so is mine as well, i believe.
But often we work together in the field, and help each other out, talk about things and discuss events.

I am not interested in reaching a mass audience that needs to consume events as soon a they happened (but as Nich said – they server statistics show that a whole lot of people read my articles). I did not start off writing here because i wanted to be famous or something, but because i was very disappointed over the general coverage of the situation here, and needed an outlet where i could write what i saw to present a counterpoint, and more in depth on the ground reporting. This has taken a life on its own now, which i have not foreseen.

I write when i have something to say, and when certain loose ends came to a conclusion, and not under the pressure that i have to be the first. If i would enjoy this, i would take up a job with AP, Reuters, DPA, Bloomberg, Ghetty Images or AFP (and would not have the financial problems i have now).
Once here, just before the airport occupation i made the mistake to post and article here while events were still happening, and i called the PAD final war relatively peaceful. A few hours after the article was up here, the PAD attacked Vibhavadi Soi 3. That is a mistake i am not going to repeat.

My main aim is to give a historically as accurate accurate picture as possible of this period from the ground perspective as possible (sorry, but there will be no analyzes of speeches on stages or academic analyzes from me – i just do what i am good at). Most of the stories of the aforementioned organizations have a shelf life of a day, or three days tops, these stories here on new mandala are read for months, and my resulting books will hopefully be read and be used as the basics for historical/political studies for decades to come. This may financially not be exactly rewarding, but personally this is extremely satisfying, and as close to what i have always wanted to do with job.

You said:
“Actually, I don’t think it would be such a bad idea if you took this job with a goal of bridging the gap in understanding between red spirit and the rest of the country, maybe you’ll get quoted internationally, too.”

Actually, i am already quoted internationally. Read some of the existing academic works, and also several forthcoming ones, and you see my book and several of my articles here on new mandala being quoted.

you said:

“And it isn’t even MY problem, yet I don’t want to see you being caught in a vacuum between being mainstream and “front-line” journalism, your efforts deserve better recognition.”

Thanks. I have gotten already far more recognition than i ever expected. In addition to the aforementioned, most of my articles are translated into Thai as well, re-published by Prachatai and read/discussed by a very large Thai audience as well. It makes me very glad that i have this way somehow managed to bridge the gap between Thai and farang.

Frank Lee – 71

The reason I called it off was because I’m tired of having to come up with the response to the new topic you kept come up with. First you brought up CTX, then I posted the Bangkokbiz apology page, then you refuse to believe the article without even state your reason, you simply blush it off just because an Aussie misspell CTX to TCX, fine by me. Then you come around talking about political monopoly then I give you the Trecher example go instead whine about your time against the “ammart” then you go referring about Thaksin only good at initiation but fail to complete anything so I counter with MRT, motorway, and the Suwannaphummi airport, so really it getting too personal and I dont know where this is going anymore so I just called it off because it was really all over the place and really it doesnt matter since you are not going to listen to me anyway, so whats the point.

I don’t know about you, but as the plaintiff, I was fighting THE POWER (i.e. ‘The Amnart’) in Court without even a lawyer (couldn’t get one for love or money) long before Sondhi Limthongkul fell out with Takky and Sondhi’s Yellow Shirts started blowing the whistle and began demanding that Thaksin ‘step down’ as PM. What about you and “we here at New Mandala”?

I’m not criticizing you, but you dont fight the Ammart in court because they are controlling the court, sorry to say this but if you want to fight Ammart, you got to do it by raising awareness, put pressure on by using the mass, like how the Polish did. You get butchered if you go to court. Anyhow, since you dont even know me, there’s no way you know what I did in real word, so keep the question of ” What about you and “we here at New Mandala”?” to yourselves.

Like you, I have little time for the Amnart, however I do not include people such as the King, former PM Anand and of course others among those Amnart I dislike because, in my opinion, they have done far more good than bad

Just by saying that it really shows how little you know about Thailand’s history and how it really come about. Furthermore, now you are white? don’t make me laugh, just by changing the colour of your cloth doesn’t mean your thought is any different now, why dont you come out and ask for peaceful resolution when the PAD took over the airport?. However, I really dont blame you, some educated middle class can still say “There’s no ammart in Thailand” with straight face, so I guess even if a Thai can say that, a foreigner wouldnt be doing much better.

just trying my best to correct some of the more blatant propaganda and ugliness out there – which seems to me to becoming far more from the Reds

So tell me what is that propaganda and ugliness? CTX? really what you are doing is simply rephrase what the yellow (ammart) said.

Interestingly, I’ve yet to meet a Red (for the record, I can speak to anyone about anything in Thai as I speak Thai clearly and fluently – used to read and write it well too before I was ‘blacklisted by the ‘amnart’ for suing a former rector of Thammassat U.) who would admit to ever being a Yellow, which would seem to be a good indicator of their tolerance for Thaksin’s corruption and exploitation – so long as they are getting a little bit of a handout themselves:
Red in one eye, blind in the other.

I’m not sure what you trying to prove here, someone can turn from yellow to red? FYI, as to Thaksin corruption, I dont tolerate any form of corruption, even if its from Suthep’s Sor Por Gor 4-01 (do you what happened?) Abhisit’s sufficient village project and GT200 (this one might be the most hilarious so far) . However, I’ve yet to see any of them but Thaksin, get any court case, and I’m waiting for it.

Finally, as a professional teacher here of 20 years standing, I consider his single biggest failing to be education reform. After 70-odd years had been already wasted, Thaksin achieved little if anything in replacing the rather bogus Chinese-style formal education system “software” whose deliberate aim beyond ‘the Three Rs’ has always been to produce a politically passive citizenry unskilled in thinking for themselves and distrustful of outsiders. After all, isn’t that why “we at New Mandala” had to go abroad to get a ‘real education’?

So Thaksin fail in reforming education, fine, does that make him deserve to be throw out by Coup Detat?

I find this absolutely appalling in Thaksin, given the mandate he had and claiming the Western education he did. Fortunately, by contrast, UNESCO earlier this month reported “notable progress” in reforming the QUALITY of Thailand’s formal education system – under PM Abhisit.

You mean he got good score from introducing ONET? the same entrance exam where student got question like “how long does it take to dry your cloth?” or “If you are pregnant, who would you tell?” (I’m not kidding, that’s the real question asked in ONET) yeah UNESCO really made my day (can I see the link to your statement?). Furthermore, transparency.org clearly show that Thaksin’s government got significantly more mark than any other government and the score actually drop from 3.4 (Somchai/Samak government) to 3.2 during PM Abhisit so yeah, Abhisit might win on education front but he fail in preventing corruption (or conduct one himself).

Somchai writes:
The Red Shirts are actually neither leftists nor Marxist-Leninist; they are just protesters,

Well, not quite. The Red Shirts are very diverse. Some really are leftists and some really are (old-styled) Marxist-Leninist. It would take much time to elaborate on this, but let me give you just one example. Among the ‘core leaders’ of the movement at the present time is Thida Thawornset, wife of Weng Tojirakan. Although Thida is not appearing much on stage, she’s very active ‘off stage’ (I wouldn’t say ‘behind the scene, as she doesn’t really hide her involvement.) She’s the one reposible for the so-called Red Shirts ‘Political Schools’, series of seminars organized all around the country for Red Shirts activists. Through these ‘Schools’ she has some noticeable influence on the thinking of other leaders who have no leftist background. In fact the Red Shirts current tactics / slogan of ‘Peaceful Protracted Protest’ quite unmistakebly reflects her influence, and indeed is a ‘legacy’ of the CPT-led student movement of the 1970s. Thida was a former CPT member, her last position before breaking with the Party in the early 1980s was a Central Committee member. And even though she changed quite a lot, her thinking is still very much old-style Marxist-Leninist.

I could go on citing other examples ….

BTW, the editor of the journal with Lenin portrait on the cover that everyone is talking here is someone I know quite well. A man in his late 30s, he’s currently an MA student at Thammasat Pol Science Faculty. He already finished his course-work and is waiting to start his thesis (the last time we talked about this, he said he’s interested to do a thesis on the monarchy and the military). Used to sit in one of my classes. … I would definitely describe him as a leftist, though he’s not old enough to be schooled in Marxism-Leninism as in the case of Thida (she’s about 60 year old).

More important than these few individual cases is the fact that there IS definitely a resurgence in Marxist-Leininist thinking during the current crises, expecially among the Red Shirts activists and sympathizers. (In fact the longer the crises, the stronger the resurgence and influence of this thinking.)

You omitted so many details that might portray the Reds in less than favourable light, so much so that I agree that your report seems either biased or a professional level of observation is lacking.

What the international media most needs right now is independent reporting by someone who actually understands what the redshirt leaders are shouting about day and night at their rallies and over red radio in the capital. Obviously your Thai is not up to it. I’ve been following the protests both on the streets and on red radio. It’s mostly hoarse shouting hammering on two points: dissolve the National Assembly and restore power to Thaksin. There is very little mention of elections or democracy or justice. There is little or no effort to educate neutral parties who haven’t made up their mind yet. The rhetoric seems designed merely to stir up anger in the listeners rather than to offer any convincing arguments for why the NA must be dissolved now. Also dominating the rhetoric are propagandistic exaggerations. On the radio last night a rally leader was exclaiming “There are 500,000 redshirts in Bkk now, with two million more arriving tomorrow!”

The atmosphere at the rallies, whether mobile or stationary, includes nonstop drinking of alcohol, dancing and rowdy carrying on. Once they have left the scene, the roadsides are littered with empty Saengsom bottles etc. Most Bangkokians I know find such behaviour on the part of the demonstrators ineffective and irritating.

Most Bangkokians I know are getting fed up with the traffic tie-ups and grenade attacks. We don’t like the yellowshirts much better but at least they kept their activities confined to the area around Govt House for the most part. A taxi driver told me this morning, “The redshirts are interfering with our civil rights.”

Entertaining if not surprising to see StanG gearing up for the next avenue to dismissing anything that doesn’t dovetail with his agenda…..

We’ve already had:

a] the usual numbers game

b] many BKK-ians greeting UDD enthusiastically were just being Thai and not returning a smile with a frown

c] “There was a rumor running around Chatuchak Saturday morning that they reds were recruiting cheerleaders for 2,000 baht. Make whatever you want out of it.” (e.g. nothing)

d] “What about people who didn’t go outside their houses to wave at the procession? Anyone counted them? There were probably a couple of million people living along the red caravan route.” (see a])

e] “the same old stuff we’ve already seen” (I’m bored/don’t like it –
nothing new here, move on folks…..)

to now the forthcoming attraction of

f] whichever pics not dismissed out of hand as unrepresentative/distorted/too-boring-to-look-at have probably been resurrected from a previous event.

Priceless……

Where is the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) now when they are desperately needed to lead the Red Shirts?

A Class War should not be led by the richest man of the land.