Comments

Royal disgrace? What did the royal family do to her?… Nothing at all. She’s the one who accused the King and his royal family of some craps. Well.. in my opinion she deserved the sentence. No parole or pardon..

Because, Athita, there is a long history on both sides of this argument of people droning on for hours on end about their daily thoughts. In your comment, you identify these two groups. The motive of both is always the consolidation of MY power & wealth. So yes, there is something wrong with it. These two parties constantly do their utmost to portray it as a struggle in which they alone provide the only options. Do you really want to destroy one monopoly just to find you have installed something every bit as sinister?

Les Abbey writes:
(boldface emphases are mine. sorry for the long quote, it’s necessary)

Am I an absolutist? Which I take is a believer in absolute monarchy? No, my sympathies are republican. Even in my own country, the UK, that puts me in a, although growing, minority. Even in Australia there is large minority who are anti-republican. At the moment in Thailand I suspect those with republican views are a very small minority.

What scares me right now is people like Chalerm, is he really the leader of the opposition?, and a Thaksin comeback which will drive Thailand back to a fascist Pibul-like 1938 rather than an absolute monarchy of pre-1932.

I’m tired of LB who, despite claiming to have lived many years in this country, shows with such writing that he’s never seriously studied its history, both recent or more remote period.

Take some of the above points as example.

In Thai accademic community today, only a monarchist (yes, monarychist) scholar would describe 1938 Pibul regime in European Fascist terms. Were there mass arrest, murder, execution of opposition carried out by Pibul as there were in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany? Was Pibul’s Yuwachon Thahan (Young Soldiers) anywhere near Fascist Black Shirts or Nazi Storm Troopers? Absolutely not.

Only a real paranoid would “scare of” Chalerm! He is regarded even among the pro-Taksin politicians and Red Shirts at best as a “second or third tier” politician. Can you even cite an instance when any of the pro-Taksin or Red Shirts show sign of really consider him as potential PM?

“those who believe in an absolute monarchy would be found only on the most extreme fringes of the PAD”

Actually I can go even further and say categorically that NO ONE IN THE PAD “believe[s] in an absolute monarchy”, if by “absolute monarchy” you mean the form of gov where the monarch himself was head of the abminstration (pre-1932 like). No one in the PAD or no one among those who count themselves as royalist or monarchist in Thailand today believe that! (And by bringing this up, this shows how little LB understand the country.) For they all know that “absolute monarchy” in this sense would instantly destroy the monarchy!

But if by “absolute monarchy” one means the system whereby the monarch and all his apparatus (Privy Councils, his family and so on) are absolutly unaccountable while able not only to interfere in politics but take part in social and political activities (the Royal Projects and so on) without accountability whatsoever even though all these activities are publicly-funded, if by “absolute monarchy” one means the systematic indoctrination 24-7 of the monarchy’s merit and all its present unaccountable, anti-democratic status, then the whole PAD as a movement IS an “absolute monarchy” movement.

Finally, what makes me sick most is LB’s claim to be a “republican sympathizer”. This really gives republicanism a bad name. Any “republican sympathizer” who saw the monarchy able to overthrow a popularly elected government then installed governments of its own choosing – for this’s what IN ESSENCE happened the past few years – and still goes on an on in such paranoid manners about elected politicians – such “republican sympathizer” should be sent immediately to psychiatric hospital for a brian check.

Les Abbey –

What’s scary about the PAD is not what happens if they seize power. I agree that the PAD seizing power is a much more remote possibility than Thaksin’s return. The problem with the PAD is that much of the current elite sympathizes with their views and ideology, and that they are very effective at putting pressure on soldiers, democrat politicians, and other elite actors to further their agenda. They also provide cover to the elite to push a highly anti-democratic agenda (e.g. aggressive enforcement of lese majeste laws).

If you’re going to use the Nazi example, I’m going to bring up Japan in the 1930s. Fascism and fanatical emperor-worship in Japan didn’t come overnight. It came about through backroom factional struggles, pressure from fringe ultra-nationalist groups that expanded into the mainstream (w/ the help of certain factions among the ruling elite), and generational change w/in the ruling elite that created an unstable power vacuum. This is a far closer analogy to the situation in Thailand than Nazi Germany (Thaksin as explained above is a very poor analogy to Hitler).

For true fascism, you need an ideology. Thaksin, though he may be a demagogue, isn’t an ideologue. The real ultra-nationalist ideologues in Thailand are Sondhi L, the PAD, and their quiet (and not so quite) supporters in the army and the ultra-royalist elite. For these people, there’s no room for anyone who disagrees with them one bit, except the gallows. I think fascism is more likely to come to Thailand through the machinations of the PAD working with factions of the current elite, and not through Thaksin’s return. Some may argue this is even happening already.

Nganadeeleg you are correct that Thaksin let a genie out of the bottle, the populist policies on social welfare, and it will be very hard for other politicians to put it back. This is a good thing.

Now let’s see why I’m more scared of Thaksin than any of the others. I have lived in Thailand for more years than any other country, including the one I was born in. I have seen the various governments from Prem’s ones onwards. Very few Thai politicians (and generals) have impressed me, but even fewer have scared me. Suchinda of course was one and Thaksin was another.

Just a reminder on the first TRT election. Many, including myself thought it would be good thing as Thaksin was being promoted as an anti-corruption candidate. The previous Chuan government had been undermined by corruption among some of the southern Democrats. There was a general feeling that Thaksin was too rich to be corrupt. His previous affiliation with Phalang Dharma and Chamlong didn’t hurt either. The whole CEO Thailand thing might not be bad, maybe a Lee Kuan Yew Thai style with more of a live and let live attitude. Even when he bought off the provincial godfather politicians and sucked them into the TRT, many still thought it was OK. Thaksin had enough money and if the politicians got it before they were elected, maybe they would keep their hands out of the till afterwards. Even the fuss over the hidden assets still allowed many I knew to say, just give him a chance.

Initially it seemed that Thailand had found the right man. I remember the army standing on the Chonburi motorway gates counting cars after a scandal broke about senior staff stealing money. Gradually the true face was shown. The CEO Thailand became an authoritarian who was out to become even richer. Not a Lee Kuan Yew but a Ferdinand Marcos. His family and friends were promoted in the services. Contracts were divvied out. Worse of all, he looked at GW Bush and Blair and figured he could be like them.

From a not very active Islamic southern insurgency Thaksin decided to have his Iraq without leaving the country. The gloves came off and as with the anti-drug war legality went out of the window. How many people have died because of Thaksin’s two wars? The worse was how cynical it was. In the war on drugs, middle and low level dealers along with users were targeted. The higher levels which crossed into provincial mafias and politicians were left untouched. In Chiang Mai where rumours of involvement among high level civil servants, military and politicians have always abounded, no action at this level was forthcoming.

Why am I scared of Thaksin? Well because he is capable of destroying the country if there was a profit in it. If an end to elections was what he needed to keep the money rolling in, then that’s what he would do. So Nganadeeleg, not the only danger, but just the most likely one facing Thailand, and one that doesn’t need a party calling itself Marxist-Leninist or Trotskyist to be backing.

Comparasins with Hitler & Nazi’s are nonsense, but I’m wondering why does Les see Thaksin as the only danger?
Were his years of rule any worse than others, including the current mob?

I’m not normally an optimist, but I have a feeling that Thaksin let a genie out of the bottle which will not be easy for anyone to put back in, including Thaksin, should he ever make a return to power.

That’s the one big positive I see about this sorry saga that has been going on in Thailand for the last 3 years (or decades)

Sorry Tettyan

Just to finish my point. What I’m saying above is that supporting Thaksin is neither principled or smart. Again I would say if Thaksin did return as prime minister I am scared we would get a new Pibul. Couldn’t we say Pibul was “far too pragmatic and unprincipled” also?

Les Abbey –

Now Gile’s party is obviously not large, but I do hope some on the left aren’t saying, ‘First Thaksin, then us’. It was unprincipled in 1933 and it’s unprincipled now.

Nazi and Hitler comparisons aren’t really effective ways of winning arguments. As you readily admit, Thaksin isn’t even a Chavez. I think he’s probably somewhere b/w a Peron and Berlusconi (so my thinking on this rly isn’t that far off from yours). Moreover, he’s unlikely to regain the political power he had from 2001-2006 anytime in the foreseeable future (though his proxies are another story). I’m sure the unliklehood of Thaksin becoming PM again probably was a factor the left of Giles’s ilk considered before throwing their support to the Reds.

Academics can afford to only be principled, whereas politicians have to strike a balance b/w principles and pragmatism. I’m not going to defend Giles at length here (he’s capable of defending himself, and he has his own site too). But for all intents and purposes now, he’s a politician, and he needs to build and expand his coalition beyond its core group of 1970s student leaders who didn’t sell out to the PAD. Which brings me to my next point. Thaksin may have been an authoritarian, but I wouldn’t call him a fascist (he’s far too pragmatic and unprincipled to fit into any ideological box, even fascism). The PAD, on the other hand, does have a strong ideology, and that ideology, as documented here and elsewhere, does exhibit many fascist tendencies. So who’s really unprincipled? The old leftists who threw their lot with the quasi-fascist PAD and their demagogic leaders (e.g. Sondhi L)? Or Giles and his pals, who support a movement that has as its symbolic leader a populist authoritarian?

Pre-1933 the German Communists were the largest communist party outside of Russia. They saw the biggest danger as being the socialists and others on the left. When Hitler came to power they were of course banned and their leader, Ernst Thaelmann, imprisoned. He was eventually executed in 1944 at Buchenwald. I can’t verify the quote, but he was supposed to have said, ‘First Hitler, then us’.

Now Gile’s party is obviously not large, but I do hope some on the left aren’t saying, ‘First Thaksin, then us’. It was unprincipled in 1933 and it’s unprincipled now.

I realize that the Nazi analogy can be used in many ways, both for and against, but do remember the Nazis also needed populist policies in order to gain power.