as for thailand’s laws, I see 3 offending pictures, plus 2 of them don’t place the picture of HM on top of everything else on the poster, that’s 5 offences. so, 15 x 5 = 75 years in a ‘tiny thai apartment’. plead guilty, you’ll get half the sentence, 37,5 years. Good luck guys!
I don’t see how Darunee’s case is damaging to the elites. Abhisit gets to answer about it once a year and he can always say “we formed a panel already”, and he/they have learned to live with and largely ignore internet activism on sites like NM or Prachatai.
StanG – I agree with you on many things, but not this.
The fundamental reason Thaksin as PM was different was because he delivered to the poor :
i.e. the huge majority of “Thais” on a national scale within a time-frame they could see – i.e. within every post-election period, before the next election.
For the first time EVER – the poor, mostly Isaarn and the Upper North, but through-out the rest of the kingdom also – got what they voted for, within the life-span of the government they voted for.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Nobody – and by that I mean NOBODY – had ever EMPOWERED them in this way before, despite huge patronage generosity from on high.
The poor know this is what they’ve been given for the first time – REAL POWER.
They will not give it up.
The only way out is fresh elections – but Anupong is being pressured into breaking his sensible stance against a coup, by eg. having his HQ bombed.
If there’s another coup, there’s no more “Thailand” :
Isaarn and Lanna break-away.
Relax. Aren’t we all forgotten to be young? I personally don’t see anything wrong with a one-off misbehaviour– nobody got killed or harmed I suppose. Punk music is generally seen as a medium to release anger and frustration- a product of 1960s and 1970s to convey a message of ‘no’ to arbitrarily authorities.
Want to trace your memory? listen to this- M-U-S-I-C.
Not being flippant, but it’s similar in spirit to Saturday Night Live or Time Magazine or Colbert Report, to name only three. Sophisticated satire and slapstick toward something arcane and obsolete.
There’s an earlier comment on this by, I think, Susie/Suzie Wong – where she argues Thailand should adopt direct Presidential elections, a la Indonesia. (Please excuse me – I’m using an extremely small Eee PC screen).
It needs to be pointed out that even in Indonesia there is a law punishing “insults to the President”, which was often used under the repressive Suharto, but to the best of my knowledge has not been used since.
Anyhow, even this Indonesian law is nowhere near as draconian as Thailand’s LM. In Indonesia, if I remember correctly, the maximum penalty is only three years.
One wonders why the Thai elite persists with this law, which in
current form is very damaging, and increasingly so – not merely to Thailand’s overseas image (and it can not be long now before a campaign takes off to boycott banks funelling elite funds out of Thailand). It is also increasingly damaging internally.
Da Torpedo is being made into a martyr.
Her sentence means there will be 18 years of publicity and campaigning over her sentence ! How stupid is that ? Or if she dies in prison, then she’s even more of a martyr.
She should apologise – but the Royalist elite should come to their senses. And wake up to the modern world.
“The Royal Thai Army is a uniformed bureaucracy that does not fight wars….The core pursuits of the Thai military are playing politics and engaging in business activities (including illegal activities, such as smuggling); when the occasion arises, commanders are not averse to killing a few dozen unarmed civilians.”
Quote from page 98 of Duncan McCargo’s book: “Tearing Apart the Land”
It is not really surprising that Thai speakers will be circumspect, after all they’ve got to go back to Thailand at some stage. Let’s hope the other speakers will feel no such compunction out of a misplaced respect for Thai “politeness”.
I’m impressed that NM is taking a risk by even posting the pictures. Then again, NM has always been less afraid of LM than other Thai-topic bloggers. Kudos.
It’s a terrible campaign, unless of course D-Reizen is so desperate for publicity that they’re willing to risk being banned from operating in all three countries. But it’s their business, and legal in their country, so great — anything that makes fun of LM in the countries where it exists should be encouraged. LM is a relic of a submissive age.
Personally I think a great campaign in Thailand would be to start putting up the Crown Prince’s picture everywhere. Pretend to love him. Praise him effusively, without referring to succession. It would be perfectly legal, and it would remind people in denial of what’s coming.
DT seems to have spoken out the truth (maybe a bit too loudly and aggressively). The opponents seem unable to argue with what she said. So they put her in jail instead.
Ambassador Tjaco van den Hout’s candor and courage reflects the reputation of Dutch people for veracity. The underlying reason as to why the International Court of Justice is located at the Hague in the Netherlands. Dutch people work hard and play hard, Amsterdam certainly mirrors the fun side. “15 years in a tiny Thai apartment” obviously means loosen up, life is too short for stupid thing.
Couldn’t agree more. The cultural garbage is in part second hand through the Pacific rim countries from Japan to Singapore, although satellite TV plays a large part and helped by the globalisation lark that the generals are also great fans of.
The moneyed classes, mostly new money i.e. junta and crony families, have spoilt their young rotten who ape the culture of conspicuous consumption and celebrity, and they are in turn aped by their misguided peers who can ill afford such a life style.
Western consumerism after all wins hands down every time; it has practically seen off religion in Britain and the US whereas communism failed miserably to achieve the same in the old Soviet bloc. The genuinely sound stuff that we should emulate and copy from the West naturally fails to gain a foothold. Capitalism works by seduction which we fall easy prey to, and mainly to exploit markets.
The affliction used to be more limited in the Ne Win era, overseen by the great man himself who attended Ascot on a regular basis but banned racing in Burma. The isolation was real – no TV until 1984 – unlike today. His nationalism was also real unlike the current lot that hankers for the spoils of comprador capitalism. Of course Ne Win’s nationalism stunted the nation’s potential and Burmese ingenuity and creativity diverted to the urgent task of scratching for a livelihood in a dirt poor economy. The age of information technology has put paid to the isolation, and yet the economy remains as badly mismanaged as ever by those who have no interest whatsoever in sharing the national pie with the people subjected to their misrule and exploitation.
Yes, it is the new opium of the people besides the genuine article heroin and ‘recreational’ drugs. The more the merrier if it manages to keep young people away from today’s pressing issues, but the vast majority of Burmese youth remains plagued by the lack of both education and employment opportunities, a force for politicisation far stronger than the distractions of ‘modernity’.
I’m heard from some Burmese (who otherwise detest the regime) that they are somewhat thankful that their country’s isolation has preserved traditional cultures and halted the worst of Westernization. Unfortunately, as this article shows, increasingly Burmese youth are getting the worst of both worlds – the cultural garbage of the West with the political repression of Burma. Meanwhile, the junta loves this because pop culture depoliticizes youth to an extent (there’s even a book about this called “Karaoke Fascism”).
1. the truth.
2. What just about everyone with more than a single lonely neuron in Thailand knows full well.
3. What everyone in Thailand and Saudi Arabia already knows or believes they already know in respect of the blue diamond.
4. Correctly identified Prem as a dubious old …. who should probably wander off in a field somewhere … – if he had any self-respect.
A Panel Discussion on
“Thai Political Situation: Wherefrom and Whereto?”
co-hosted by the Royal Thai Embassy and the SOAS Thai Society
Friday 29 January 2010
at Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre,
Russell Square, SOAS
17.30-21.00 hrs.
———-
17.30 Registration
17.45 Introductory remarks by H.E. Mr. Kitti Wasinondh, Ambassador of Thailand
18.00 Panel Discussion
Panelists
Professor Suchit Boonbongkarn,
Chairman of Thailand’s Political Development Council
Professor Duncan McCargo
Professor of Southeast Asian Politics, University of Leeds
Professor Peter Leyland
Professor of Public Law, London Metropolitan University
Professor Borwornsak Uwanno
Fellow of Thailand’s Royal Institute and
Secretary-General of King Prajadhipok’s Institute
Moderator
H.E. Mr. David Fall
Former British Ambassador to Thailand and
Chairman of the Anglo-Thai Society
LOL @Sus(z)ie Wong – You can’t even make up your mind how your name is spelling and you expect us to listen to you. Funny indeed.
And if you fully believe that Da Torpido is so right in every point, why don’t you go to Thailand and bring up the same topics. Maybe you can be her best jail mate to your beloved idol.
Change will never come to people like you! .. Remember Karma, thinking, speaking, acting negatively toward other people, it will come back and haunt you one day. soonish..
To LSS: I was wondering on what basis you think that DT was referring to Prem and not the King when she used the term р╣Др╕нр╣Йр╕Хр╕▓р╣Бр╕Бр╣И
In the text of the judgment it is unequivocal that she was understood as using the term to refer to the King.
Were you at the rally in which she used that term? I was not, so I can not be sure what she said or the context in which she said it.
But her alleged use of the term appears consistent with her views on the King and the monarchy as outlined in the judgment. And opponents of the Thai monarchy privately refer to the King with much harsher language, as we know.
To Thai Tax Payer: on this point it would be best to read the original version of the judgment in Fa Dio Kan.
The judgment concluded that what DT allegedly said “made the listener understand that they should (р╕кр╕бр╕Др╕зр╕г) be guillotined or shot”.
But in the actual text of the speech that DT allegedly made, part of which is quoted in the judgment, she appears to be rhetorically asking the King/royal family to choose whether they want to be a monarchy like in Japan or England, OR like those in Russia, France or Nepal – where [in the case of Russia] the whole royal family were shot (“puh puh”), or [as in the case of France] their heads were chopped off, or [as in the case of Nepal] there was a popular uprising and the whole family were shot (“puh puh”) – on the latter DT seems mixed up, if the speech is genuine.
I suppose this is splitting hairs, but the judgment appears not quite consistent with what DT said, according to the text of the speech quoted in the judgment.
The funny thing, though, is that by making the judgment that DT had threatened the Thai monarchy with guillotining or being shot, the judge seems to have decided himself that the Thai monarchy is most comparable to the despotic monarchies of Russia, France and Nepal, rather than the “good ruling class” (DT’s words – presumably because their monarchies appear more apolitical) of Japan and England!
***
The important point is that if this is what one woman allegedly said to large rallies of Red Shirts and pro-Thaksin supporters in Bangkok, one wonders what much larger numbers of people think about the King and the monarchy privately. Of course, this can not empirically be known, simply because uttering such views in public would result in one suffering the same fate as DT.
Hence the on-going reproduction of the discourse of the “widely revered Thai King” which apparently must accompany every news story about the Thai monarchy – apparently on the basis of people following certain dress colour ordinances, showing up to rallies, and the royal propaganda industry.
So in this sense, the more lese majeste trials, and the more published judgments, the better, if we are to gain a better insight into the thinking of opponents of the monarchy.
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“15 years in a tiny Thai apartment …”
as for thailand’s laws, I see 3 offending pictures, plus 2 of them don’t place the picture of HM on top of everything else on the poster, that’s 5 offences. so, 15 x 5 = 75 years in a ‘tiny thai apartment’. plead guilty, you’ll get half the sentence, 37,5 years. Good luck guys!
On the judgment against Da Torpedo
As I said – her case will become damaging to the elite as exposure of their funelling assets out of Thailand becomes exposed and campaigned against.
On the judgment against Da Torpedo
I don’t see how Darunee’s case is damaging to the elites. Abhisit gets to answer about it once a year and he can always say “we formed a panel already”, and he/they have learned to live with and largely ignore internet activism on sites like NM or Prachatai.
The return of Thailand’s old friend
StanG – I agree with you on many things, but not this.
The fundamental reason Thaksin as PM was different was because he delivered to the poor :
i.e. the huge majority of “Thais” on a national scale within a time-frame they could see – i.e. within every post-election period, before the next election.
For the first time EVER – the poor, mostly Isaarn and the Upper North, but through-out the rest of the kingdom also – got what they voted for, within the life-span of the government they voted for.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Nobody – and by that I mean NOBODY – had ever EMPOWERED them in this way before, despite huge patronage generosity from on high.
The poor know this is what they’ve been given for the first time – REAL POWER.
They will not give it up.
The only way out is fresh elections – but Anupong is being pressured into breaking his sensible stance against a coup, by eg. having his HQ bombed.
If there’s another coup, there’s no more “Thailand” :
Isaarn and Lanna break-away.
Yangon punks
Relax. Aren’t we all forgotten to be young? I personally don’t see anything wrong with a one-off misbehaviour– nobody got killed or harmed I suppose. Punk music is generally seen as a medium to release anger and frustration- a product of 1960s and 1970s to convey a message of ‘no’ to arbitrarily authorities.
Want to trace your memory? listen to this- M-U-S-I-C.
“15 years in a tiny Thai apartment …”
Not being flippant, but it’s similar in spirit to Saturday Night Live or Time Magazine or Colbert Report, to name only three. Sophisticated satire and slapstick toward something arcane and obsolete.
On the judgment against Da Torpedo
There’s an earlier comment on this by, I think, Susie/Suzie Wong – where she argues Thailand should adopt direct Presidential elections, a la Indonesia. (Please excuse me – I’m using an extremely small Eee PC screen).
It needs to be pointed out that even in Indonesia there is a law punishing “insults to the President”, which was often used under the repressive Suharto, but to the best of my knowledge has not been used since.
Anyhow, even this Indonesian law is nowhere near as draconian as Thailand’s LM. In Indonesia, if I remember correctly, the maximum penalty is only three years.
One wonders why the Thai elite persists with this law, which in
current form is very damaging, and increasingly so – not merely to Thailand’s overseas image (and it can not be long now before a campaign takes off to boycott banks funelling elite funds out of Thailand). It is also increasingly damaging internally.
Da Torpedo is being made into a martyr.
Her sentence means there will be 18 years of publicity and campaigning over her sentence ! How stupid is that ? Or if she dies in prison, then she’s even more of a martyr.
She should apologise – but the Royalist elite should come to their senses. And wake up to the modern world.
Royal Thai Embassy sponsored event at SOAS
“The Royal Thai Army is a uniformed bureaucracy that does not fight wars….The core pursuits of the Thai military are playing politics and engaging in business activities (including illegal activities, such as smuggling); when the occasion arises, commanders are not averse to killing a few dozen unarmed civilians.”
Quote from page 98 of Duncan McCargo’s book: “Tearing Apart the Land”
It is not really surprising that Thai speakers will be circumspect, after all they’ve got to go back to Thailand at some stage. Let’s hope the other speakers will feel no such compunction out of a misplaced respect for Thai “politeness”.
“15 years in a tiny Thai apartment …”
I’m impressed that NM is taking a risk by even posting the pictures. Then again, NM has always been less afraid of LM than other Thai-topic bloggers. Kudos.
It’s a terrible campaign, unless of course D-Reizen is so desperate for publicity that they’re willing to risk being banned from operating in all three countries. But it’s their business, and legal in their country, so great — anything that makes fun of LM in the countries where it exists should be encouraged. LM is a relic of a submissive age.
Personally I think a great campaign in Thailand would be to start putting up the Crown Prince’s picture everywhere. Pretend to love him. Praise him effusively, without referring to succession. It would be perfectly legal, and it would remind people in denial of what’s coming.
The Allah dilemma in Malaysia
Thanks Mahidol,
Appreciate that link.
Regards
Greg
On the judgment against Da Torpedo
DT seems to have spoken out the truth (maybe a bit too loudly and aggressively). The opponents seem unable to argue with what she said. So they put her in jail instead.
PS – do you guys wonder why Taro is so dumb?
“15 years in a tiny Thai apartment …”
Ambassador Tjaco van den Hout’s candor and courage reflects the reputation of Dutch people for veracity. The underlying reason as to why the International Court of Justice is located at the Hague in the Netherlands. Dutch people work hard and play hard, Amsterdam certainly mirrors the fun side. “15 years in a tiny Thai apartment” obviously means loosen up, life is too short for stupid thing.
Yangon punks
Dom Nardi
Couldn’t agree more. The cultural garbage is in part second hand through the Pacific rim countries from Japan to Singapore, although satellite TV plays a large part and helped by the globalisation lark that the generals are also great fans of.
The moneyed classes, mostly new money i.e. junta and crony families, have spoilt their young rotten who ape the culture of conspicuous consumption and celebrity, and they are in turn aped by their misguided peers who can ill afford such a life style.
Western consumerism after all wins hands down every time; it has practically seen off religion in Britain and the US whereas communism failed miserably to achieve the same in the old Soviet bloc. The genuinely sound stuff that we should emulate and copy from the West naturally fails to gain a foothold. Capitalism works by seduction which we fall easy prey to, and mainly to exploit markets.
The affliction used to be more limited in the Ne Win era, overseen by the great man himself who attended Ascot on a regular basis but banned racing in Burma. The isolation was real – no TV until 1984 – unlike today. His nationalism was also real unlike the current lot that hankers for the spoils of comprador capitalism. Of course Ne Win’s nationalism stunted the nation’s potential and Burmese ingenuity and creativity diverted to the urgent task of scratching for a livelihood in a dirt poor economy. The age of information technology has put paid to the isolation, and yet the economy remains as badly mismanaged as ever by those who have no interest whatsoever in sharing the national pie with the people subjected to their misrule and exploitation.
Yes, it is the new opium of the people besides the genuine article heroin and ‘recreational’ drugs. The more the merrier if it manages to keep young people away from today’s pressing issues, but the vast majority of Burmese youth remains plagued by the lack of both education and employment opportunities, a force for politicisation far stronger than the distractions of ‘modernity’.
The Allah dilemma in Malaysia
Greg,
If you haven’t come across the link to the High Court’s judgment in ful regarding this matter, it can be found here
Yangon punks
I’m heard from some Burmese (who otherwise detest the regime) that they are somewhat thankful that their country’s isolation has preserved traditional cultures and halted the worst of Westernization. Unfortunately, as this article shows, increasingly Burmese youth are getting the worst of both worlds – the cultural garbage of the West with the political repression of Burma. Meanwhile, the junta loves this because pop culture depoliticizes youth to an extent (there’s even a book about this called “Karaoke Fascism”).
On the judgment against Da Torpedo
This had me scratching my head.
It seems like DT told pretty much:
1. the truth.
2. What just about everyone with more than a single lonely neuron in Thailand knows full well.
3. What everyone in Thailand and Saudi Arabia already knows or believes they already know in respect of the blue diamond.
4. Correctly identified Prem as a dubious old …. who should probably wander off in a field somewhere … – if he had any self-respect.
So, where’s the beef?
On the judgment against Da Torpedo
[…] New Mandala has posted a summary of the court decision against Da Torpedo Here […]
Royal Thai Embassy sponsored event at SOAS
The circulated programme for this event reads:
“Programme
A Panel Discussion on
“Thai Political Situation: Wherefrom and Whereto?”
co-hosted by the Royal Thai Embassy and the SOAS Thai Society
Friday 29 January 2010
at Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre,
Russell Square, SOAS
17.30-21.00 hrs.
———-
17.30 Registration
17.45 Introductory remarks by H.E. Mr. Kitti Wasinondh, Ambassador of Thailand
18.00 Panel Discussion
Panelists
Professor Suchit Boonbongkarn,
Chairman of Thailand’s Political Development Council
Professor Duncan McCargo
Professor of Southeast Asian Politics, University of Leeds
Professor Peter Leyland
Professor of Public Law, London Metropolitan University
Professor Borwornsak Uwanno
Fellow of Thailand’s Royal Institute and
Secretary-General of King Prajadhipok’s Institute
Moderator
H.E. Mr. David Fall
Former British Ambassador to Thailand and
Chairman of the Anglo-Thai Society
19.30 Q&A
20.00 Reception in Brunei Suite”
On the judgment against Da Torpedo
LOL @Sus(z)ie Wong – You can’t even make up your mind how your name is spelling and you expect us to listen to you. Funny indeed.
And if you fully believe that Da Torpido is so right in every point, why don’t you go to Thailand and bring up the same topics. Maybe you can be her best jail mate to your beloved idol.
Change will never come to people like you! .. Remember Karma, thinking, speaking, acting negatively toward other people, it will come back and haunt you one day. soonish..
On the judgment against Da Torpedo
To LSS: I was wondering on what basis you think that DT was referring to Prem and not the King when she used the term р╣Др╕нр╣Йр╕Хр╕▓р╣Бр╕Бр╣И
In the text of the judgment it is unequivocal that she was understood as using the term to refer to the King.
Were you at the rally in which she used that term? I was not, so I can not be sure what she said or the context in which she said it.
But her alleged use of the term appears consistent with her views on the King and the monarchy as outlined in the judgment. And opponents of the Thai monarchy privately refer to the King with much harsher language, as we know.
To Thai Tax Payer: on this point it would be best to read the original version of the judgment in Fa Dio Kan.
The judgment concluded that what DT allegedly said “made the listener understand that they should (р╕кр╕бр╕Др╕зр╕г) be guillotined or shot”.
But in the actual text of the speech that DT allegedly made, part of which is quoted in the judgment, she appears to be rhetorically asking the King/royal family to choose whether they want to be a monarchy like in Japan or England, OR like those in Russia, France or Nepal – where [in the case of Russia] the whole royal family were shot (“puh puh”), or [as in the case of France] their heads were chopped off, or [as in the case of Nepal] there was a popular uprising and the whole family were shot (“puh puh”) – on the latter DT seems mixed up, if the speech is genuine.
I suppose this is splitting hairs, but the judgment appears not quite consistent with what DT said, according to the text of the speech quoted in the judgment.
The funny thing, though, is that by making the judgment that DT had threatened the Thai monarchy with guillotining or being shot, the judge seems to have decided himself that the Thai monarchy is most comparable to the despotic monarchies of Russia, France and Nepal, rather than the “good ruling class” (DT’s words – presumably because their monarchies appear more apolitical) of Japan and England!
***
The important point is that if this is what one woman allegedly said to large rallies of Red Shirts and pro-Thaksin supporters in Bangkok, one wonders what much larger numbers of people think about the King and the monarchy privately. Of course, this can not empirically be known, simply because uttering such views in public would result in one suffering the same fate as DT.
Hence the on-going reproduction of the discourse of the “widely revered Thai King” which apparently must accompany every news story about the Thai monarchy – apparently on the basis of people following certain dress colour ordinances, showing up to rallies, and the royal propaganda industry.
So in this sense, the more lese majeste trials, and the more published judgments, the better, if we are to gain a better insight into the thinking of opponents of the monarchy.