This thread has become quite humorous. After many years of grappling with arcane problems in anthropology of interest only to a limited number of other academics, an obscure Australian professor has launched himself into the murky world of Thai politics. As an anthropologist he has observed closely the conventions of Thai politicians to the extent that he is now qualified to imitate them and dispense with his academic training. Gone is the tedious need for verfication of facts and the endless citation of dreary learned articles published by other unworldly academics. In politics none of this necessary. You can just start from the conclusion you would like to achieve and loosely weave unsubstantiated allegations around it.
Thaksin is a master of this. He sounded the “dead bodies in army trucks” call in his TV interviews, hoping against hope that it could be made to look as if it might be true and start a movement that would end in him being happily reunited with his money and power. The faithful red foot soldiers, including the naive farang ones, are still trudging along attempting to do the Big Boss’s bidding, while he is trying on yet another diamond studded Rolex in an air conditioned shopping mall in a desperate third world country that is willing extend diplomatic priveliges to phony Sandinista ambassadors.
I have been out for a while, so I haven’t had time to read or reply your comment.
But I particularly point to 2 things.
1. Yes, Jim and Nick have the right to talk about versions of the truth that are different from the ‘official truth’. Frankly speaking, I have no problems with differing opinions and biases as they are natural and required in a pluralistic democratic society. And with you, I share their respect in ‘daring’ to speak a version of truth that is alternative to the “OFFICIAL TRUTH”
2. Regarding Jim in particular, you said, “a lot (if not most) of commentators attack him with accusations of bias. ”
—-> That is a problem. I am not attacking Jim of a “bias”. If he was biased against the government, I would probably be wondering “So what?” It matters not that he is biased, a ‘bias’ only matters when the biased person tries to pass themselves off as unbiased. In Jim’s case, the problem is that he that he is beyond bias, and even beyond partisan as he is using his position, that of an ‘academic’ not to come up with with an “alternative version” of ‘official truth’, but to use irrefutable “facts” that aren’t based on reality. Anyone can make suppositions based on the contrary evidence, but its another thing to use made up evidence to make conclusions.
I never call out ‘David Brown’ for questioning the possibility that the ‘blue shirts’ may have been behind the parking of the gas tanks and/or buses against the soldiers. In fact, as this is possible, but it doesn’t make it true. And that is where things get murky and muddy.
Academics like Jim Taylor in his discussion of psych ops should focus more on things that ‘clear the crap’ rather than adding more poop into the pile.
I’ve said it before, I have a problem with just a few words into his whole post, and instead of making it clearer or admit some type of error, Jim Taylor finds it easier to throw labels of me being some sort of close-minded facist/rightist with a hidden agenda of converting NM’ers into blindly following government propaganda. I’d argue that in life we agree with some people some of the time, and disagree with them others of the time. As Obama always says, “you can disagree without being disagreeable” Till now, and we’ve reached post #76, Jim Taylor cannot provide irrefutable evidence on his claim that 156 people died and ‘factually prove’ that the government is behind the actual instigation of the violence. Again, what we really know is that everything is possible, and the details are yet very very murky as (apparently) both sides are being full of crap rather than being sincere.
Even more odd that when I asked Nick the same question in the other thread (on Nick’s own report), Nick refused to publicly back Jim Taylor’s “irrefutable facts” and stated blankly that all things are murky, while being clear with his own beliefs/suppositions based on what he has heard/seen/witnessed. As such, Nick showed himself as someone of high regard and respectability for point-blankly refusing to add more poop into the pile.
Perhaps Academic Jim Taylor be a student and learn.
The LM law needs to be debated and amended. Your attempt to justify this medieval law is quite stunning.
However, you are correct in stating that the LM law retains place because the Thai public has not demanded it yet. I refer the to a quote, “They came from my neighbors… my friends… etc. and I did nothing, when finally then came for me… there was none left to help…”
kao chai mai?
How does society demand repeal of a law that has been propagated to them since birth? Regardless of what you read on NM and a few other blogs, HMK is an incredible man who should continue to live out his illustrious life with love and deserved reverence.
The problem with the current LM law is that it doesn’t protect the Royal family in their official role, but instead is open for such abuse as countless examples in the last 2-3 years have shown us. That people use the LM law as a shadow to hide behind to protect themselves rather than the LM law protecting the Royal family. Why is this so? Why cannot the politicians, the elite, and even the Thai populace awaken themselves given HMK’s own speech in 2005 where he said that ‘even he’ should be open for criticism (provided the criticism be fair, and not just a hurl of abuse words)?
As for Suwicha Thakor, as he did manipulate and alter images of HMK and put them on the net (there is no available evidence as ‘proof’ is hidden from the public –> another reason for LM law to be amended), then shouldn’t there be a simpler and less harsh punishment involved, like perhaps caning? And why did the prosecutor need to appeal a guilty verdict?
Finally, you are correct to use the term ‘we’ as you may be speaking for more than a singular person. Reading your text however, I keep remembering Gollum…
As is clear from my text, I don’t consider NRM a “national creed” but rather an ideological reflection of a previous stratified or hierarchical order of society (plus times of military and bureaucratic rule) that comes into conflict with a model of politics reflecting an increased functional differentiation (called “democracy”).
If you essentialize NRM to a “national creed,” it is difficult to analyze the conflicts inherent in a change of the mode of societal differentiation. It will also make it difficult to understand people such as Chai-anand (quoted at the end), Prawase (Thailand as a pluralistic society), BKK mayor Sukhumbandh (the elite consensus has broken down, with no mechanism in place to reestablish it), or Thitinan (consensus has broken down). Neither would it be easy to understand attempts of the elite to reestablish ideological dominance, or to place the “reds” within the “Thai Nation” (can they be Thais if they don’t accept the “national creed”?).
Grant Evans:
Thanks for drawing my attention to a typo that unfortunately reduced the intended meaning of your quote. I apologize for this error.
Re “ideal models of democracy” >> I also find such comparisons sterile, which is why I am more interested in how Thai politics operate rather than in Freedom House or Bertelsmann stuff. Following the globalization literature , one might call Thailand’s political system (as most of its other function systems) “hybrid,” that is, emanating from processes of global-local interactions, rather than from merely copying western models.
Having worked on Thai politics for quite some time (and from having prepared a comprehensive bibliography on this subject), I only too painfully realize the huge gaps in our knowledge, and being a political sociologist myself, I really would welcome if there were a few more scholars who could help with analyzing Thai politics from this perspective on a long-term and empirical basis.
Dr. Nelson’s piece is a refreshing contribution to NM because of its intelligence and thoughtfulness.
I wish, however, to slightly correct his quotation from my article in the Bangkok Post. He quotes: “vigilant monarchists seem to be the main threat to the monarchy’s longevity.” What I wrote was “vigilante monarchists” which perhaps, as a German speaker, he corrected to “vigilant”. Vigilanties are people who take the law into their own hands and, for example, lynch people they see as wrongdoers. So, my sentence’s meaning was much stronger than Dr. Nelson understood.
While I think Dr Nelson’s paper is very helpful one problem is see with many analyses of Thailand’s politics is that Thai political reality is compared with ideal models of democracy and found wanting. Indeed, most democracies would fail such a test to varying degrees. Of course, this is a useful exercise, but it needs to be complemented by serious comparative political and historical analysis of other countries in order to get Thai reality into some perspective. In a sense, the analyses to date are too Thai-centric. Comparative analysis is not easy, but it can be very rewarding.
A second problem is that there is little substantial political sociology. While people sound off all the time about the ‘middle class’ there are in fact few substantive analyses of this ‘class’ – Michael Connors, and Pasuk Ponpaichit and Chris baker are the exceptions. Similarly, there is little substantive analysis of the Thai working class which has burst onto the political stage so dramatically.
Attention to some of these issues would hopefully save us from the repetitive and often fruitless analyses of Thai politics that are dished up regularly in NM and elsewhere.
Stephan: #16, “why suwicha did not apply remains a mystery, can YOU explain?” I have already explained. I will try again (read my lips): In Thai law, a pardon may not be applied for until the case is closed. Suwitcha’s case is not yet closed, because the period for applying for an appeal is still open. So the reason why he hasn’t applied is obvious: he is not allowed to. (His family has stated that he will do so when it is legally possible.)
You say,”we are living in thailand & believe it to be very ethical.” I can’t possibly begin to answer the rest of your post, if that is the way you see Thailand. I don’t have time. Please don’t bother to respond.
@michael # 19
thank you very much for this cool response with no personal attack.
this way we can talk facts:
1. democracy
a) thailand is a very young & unstable democracy. it needs help
b) show me a better one and we’ll rip it apart with naked hands.
we did not ‘imply’ nothing. especially not ‘straightforward’.
we just call it a democracy, no more, no less.
2. ethics
what’s that? religion? law? conscious?
can you give an example of an ethical country for thailand?
we are living in thailand & believe it to be very ethical.
(if you forget about a few criminals)
much more ethical than the u.s.a.
often used as a model in the western world!
and yes, you very obviously observe different media than we do.
that does not mean ‘different worlds’, just ‘different perception’!
3. pardon
the thai king has openly expressed that he is human & can be critisized
he has pardoned many LM offenders already
even khun thaksin has openly applied for a pardon
(which we think should NOT be granted)
why suwicha did not apply remains a mystery, can YOU explain?
(maybe some think he is more valuable without/within?)
we think he should and will be pardoned,
if he repents and promise not to do it again.
only stubborn people do not deserve a pardon.
4. cartoon caricatures
have you ever heard about mohammad or rushdie?
no laws were broken in their countries
still they were threatened with death
but some people care more about a naughty boy
who spent two weeks more or less in jail
giving interviews to his fan-group (for free?)
we hope we did only express opinions
and don’t attack or hurt individual posters.
if you think different tell us
and we explain or apologize
Stephan#16 – my criticism of your sentence beginning “in a democracy…” is that we are talking about a country which is not yet a democracy. The fact that there are sometimes elections does not per se indicate that there is a democracy, at least of the straightforward type implied in your statement.
Your statement at the end of your post #16 would have credibility in a state where lawyers and the judiciary, as well as law-makers, had independence & a high standard of ethics, and where the legal process for a trial of this kind could be conducted openly & with evidence presented fully & openly, & normal legal discussion. If you believe that all that you refer to is “well-known and guaranteed in Thailand,” you must have been reading different literature & speaking to different legal academics & political observers from me.
Re. your statement about Kh. Suwitcha not having applied for a pardon: this cannot be done until the statutory period allowed for an appeal has expired. (This has been written about in relation to this & many other cases, over & over.) At the time when Kh.Suwicha’s appeal period was about to end, the Prosecutor applied for and was granted an extension. This was a most peculiar thing to do, and one (or ‘we’) can only speculate about why, because the reason has not been announced. It’s very clear, of course, that it may have prolonged the period of his encarceration, & therefore his suffering, so some have seen it as a brutally spiteful act.
Heads of State (including monarchs) in many countries are the subject of cartoon caricatures in the media on a daily basis. There is no evidence to suggest that they lose any respect as a result. It is a fact that the cartoonists frequently receive requests for the original drawings from those who have been lampooned, & they are proudly displayed.
The LM law is a ridiculous anachronism. It’s having an effect quite the opposite of that which was (ostensibly) intended, & it is being used as an instrument of repression.
@Ralph Kramden #17
hi ralf, thank you very much for this splendid example of
1. the richness & subtlety of the english language
2. the vigorous debate nm encourages
3. the ‘high quality’ comments nm publishes
4. ‘short & sweet’ usually trumps ‘long & involved’. how ‘sweet’!
5. “…ranting, unimaginative point-scoring and idle abuse will not be entertained.”
YOU are entertained, so what?
but just ONE serious question:
what country do YOU come from? a dictatorship??
and why don’t YOU have much to say about our topic:
“Suwicha Thakor”
was HE put in jail by the ‘military’?
or by a law ‘’scrapped or modified’ by the ‘military’?
YOU owe us an explanation, don’t you?
Thank you for your kind comment. I shall try to "untangle" my post for you.
My premise is that all nations have normative creeds that are enforced through the prevailing social order. I believe that it is cultural bias that prevents people from perceiving the prevailing cultural mores or creed of their own society. The cultural assumptions that societies operate on seem invisible to the members of that society because the normative creeds are so pervasive.
Your article seems to imply that Thailand’s having a national creed is somehow negative. My use of the term “single out” was meant to convey that criticizing Thailand for having a national creed is unusual since as all nations have national creeds. To assert that the Western creeds of egalitarianism, liberty and democracy are superior to Asian concepts of religion, duty and family is, in my humble opinion, a cultural bias.
The Thailand Law of Lese Majeste law suffers from a bad name. The law is more closely related to criminal defamation laws. Whereas in normal situations a private citizen can privately defend his rights against defamation, in the context of Royal Family, the state is prosecuting the defamation case on behalf of the Royal Family. To not do so would lead to an absurd and unfair situation where the Royal Family has to defend privately defend legal actions for defamation against them. The theory behind the law is that the Royal Family has official duties that take place in the public that benefit the State and, in exchange, the State owes a duty to the Royal Family to protect them against defamation that also occurs in public.
The government had already assigned appropriate agencies to look into the UDD’s claims that protesters died, he said.
The premier insisted he was inside his car when red-shirt protesters attacked it at the Interior Ministry.
The government did not allow the opposition to show video clips about the crackdown on the protesters because it would only exacerbate the problem, he said.”
not allowing (also censoring, blocking websites etc) certainly helps a lot the FACTS finding !
nobody is charged for “insurgency”, “terrorism” (aka allegedthreatening to blow up gas truck, or burning busses) or for murders (as killing 2 civilians in that market area) ?!
this is supposed to be a joke, right ? for blocking Din Daeng traffic
WHY till now nobody is arrested and charged for all those alleged crimes gov. and Thai media cried foul about ?
oh, wait, there is some ESPECIALLY established by gov. (Sathit) official website as an effort to proivde “facts” about events of 13th Apr : http://www.factreport.go.th/en/
there are A LOT of facts there – hahahahahaha ! 😀
“The site is still under development, please visit again in the near future.”
well, it is over 1 months now since Apr 13th – how long more it’ll take ? “near future” being like another 10-20 years (as those containers found under the sea) ?
@michael #15
at least you do not deny us the right to speak not just for one alone.
we all know that english is not the native language of the majority.
so what is rarely used or not is difficult to judge.
what’s right or wrong, comprehensible or not seems more important.
we do not comprehend your critic of our sentence in #4:
“in a democracy, if you don’t like a law,
you’ll get a majority of lawmakers and change it. no other way…”
this was in direct response to Dickie Simpkins #3
“…the LM law needs to be scrapped or at least modified…”
we thought dickie displayed a contempt for
due legal democratic processes and responded accordingly.
what’s wrong with our sentence, its context or content?
who ‘scraps or modifies’ laws in your county? the mob on the street?
we may safely assume that it is more productive in a discussion
to exchange arguments than to talk about posters and their english.
if you don’t understand a sentence, please ask and we explain.
for everything there is a reason.
everyone is free to respond to a post or not, including us.
we agree that legal laws should be used and not ‘abused’.
defendants should have lawyers,
the courts should decide according to laws
which in turn are made or modified by lawmakers
who are elected as representatives of the people.
all that is well known & guaranteed in thailand.
we only cannot prevent people from braking laws, but who can?
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Red faces: Unconvincing psych-ops
This thread has become quite humorous. After many years of grappling with arcane problems in anthropology of interest only to a limited number of other academics, an obscure Australian professor has launched himself into the murky world of Thai politics. As an anthropologist he has observed closely the conventions of Thai politicians to the extent that he is now qualified to imitate them and dispense with his academic training. Gone is the tedious need for verfication of facts and the endless citation of dreary learned articles published by other unworldly academics. In politics none of this necessary. You can just start from the conclusion you would like to achieve and loosely weave unsubstantiated allegations around it.
Thaksin is a master of this. He sounded the “dead bodies in army trucks” call in his TV interviews, hoping against hope that it could be made to look as if it might be true and start a movement that would end in him being happily reunited with his money and power. The faithful red foot soldiers, including the naive farang ones, are still trudging along attempting to do the Big Boss’s bidding, while he is trying on yet another diamond studded Rolex in an air conditioned shopping mall in a desperate third world country that is willing extend diplomatic priveliges to phony Sandinista ambassadors.
Red faces: Unconvincing psych-ops
Antipadshit,
I have been out for a while, so I haven’t had time to read or reply your comment.
But I particularly point to 2 things.
1. Yes, Jim and Nick have the right to talk about versions of the truth that are different from the ‘official truth’. Frankly speaking, I have no problems with differing opinions and biases as they are natural and required in a pluralistic democratic society. And with you, I share their respect in ‘daring’ to speak a version of truth that is alternative to the “OFFICIAL TRUTH”
2. Regarding Jim in particular, you said, “a lot (if not most) of commentators attack him with accusations of bias. ”
—-> That is a problem. I am not attacking Jim of a “bias”. If he was biased against the government, I would probably be wondering “So what?” It matters not that he is biased, a ‘bias’ only matters when the biased person tries to pass themselves off as unbiased. In Jim’s case, the problem is that he that he is beyond bias, and even beyond partisan as he is using his position, that of an ‘academic’ not to come up with with an “alternative version” of ‘official truth’, but to use irrefutable “facts” that aren’t based on reality. Anyone can make suppositions based on the contrary evidence, but its another thing to use made up evidence to make conclusions.
I never call out ‘David Brown’ for questioning the possibility that the ‘blue shirts’ may have been behind the parking of the gas tanks and/or buses against the soldiers. In fact, as this is possible, but it doesn’t make it true. And that is where things get murky and muddy.
Academics like Jim Taylor in his discussion of psych ops should focus more on things that ‘clear the crap’ rather than adding more poop into the pile.
I’ve said it before, I have a problem with just a few words into his whole post, and instead of making it clearer or admit some type of error, Jim Taylor finds it easier to throw labels of me being some sort of close-minded facist/rightist with a hidden agenda of converting NM’ers into blindly following government propaganda. I’d argue that in life we agree with some people some of the time, and disagree with them others of the time. As Obama always says, “you can disagree without being disagreeable” Till now, and we’ve reached post #76, Jim Taylor cannot provide irrefutable evidence on his claim that 156 people died and ‘factually prove’ that the government is behind the actual instigation of the violence. Again, what we really know is that everything is possible, and the details are yet very very murky as (apparently) both sides are being full of crap rather than being sincere.
Even more odd that when I asked Nick the same question in the other thread (on Nick’s own report), Nick refused to publicly back Jim Taylor’s “irrefutable facts” and stated blankly that all things are murky, while being clear with his own beliefs/suppositions based on what he has heard/seen/witnessed. As such, Nick showed himself as someone of high regard and respectability for point-blankly refusing to add more poop into the pile.
Perhaps Academic Jim Taylor be a student and learn.
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
Stephan,
The LM law needs to be debated and amended. Your attempt to justify this medieval law is quite stunning.
However, you are correct in stating that the LM law retains place because the Thai public has not demanded it yet. I refer the to a quote, “They came from my neighbors… my friends… etc. and I did nothing, when finally then came for me… there was none left to help…”
kao chai mai?
How does society demand repeal of a law that has been propagated to them since birth? Regardless of what you read on NM and a few other blogs, HMK is an incredible man who should continue to live out his illustrious life with love and deserved reverence.
The problem with the current LM law is that it doesn’t protect the Royal family in their official role, but instead is open for such abuse as countless examples in the last 2-3 years have shown us. That people use the LM law as a shadow to hide behind to protect themselves rather than the LM law protecting the Royal family. Why is this so? Why cannot the politicians, the elite, and even the Thai populace awaken themselves given HMK’s own speech in 2005 where he said that ‘even he’ should be open for criticism (provided the criticism be fair, and not just a hurl of abuse words)?
As for Suwicha Thakor, as he did manipulate and alter images of HMK and put them on the net (there is no available evidence as ‘proof’ is hidden from the public –> another reason for LM law to be amended), then shouldn’t there be a simpler and less harsh punishment involved, like perhaps caning? And why did the prosecutor need to appeal a guilty verdict?
Finally, you are correct to use the term ‘we’ as you may be speaking for more than a singular person. Reading your text however, I keep remembering Gollum…
Political reform in Thailand: Structural and ideological issues
Tigger:
As is clear from my text, I don’t consider NRM a “national creed” but rather an ideological reflection of a previous stratified or hierarchical order of society (plus times of military and bureaucratic rule) that comes into conflict with a model of politics reflecting an increased functional differentiation (called “democracy”).
If you essentialize NRM to a “national creed,” it is difficult to analyze the conflicts inherent in a change of the mode of societal differentiation. It will also make it difficult to understand people such as Chai-anand (quoted at the end), Prawase (Thailand as a pluralistic society), BKK mayor Sukhumbandh (the elite consensus has broken down, with no mechanism in place to reestablish it), or Thitinan (consensus has broken down). Neither would it be easy to understand attempts of the elite to reestablish ideological dominance, or to place the “reds” within the “Thai Nation” (can they be Thais if they don’t accept the “national creed”?).
Grant Evans:
Thanks for drawing my attention to a typo that unfortunately reduced the intended meaning of your quote. I apologize for this error.
Re “ideal models of democracy” >> I also find such comparisons sterile, which is why I am more interested in how Thai politics operate rather than in Freedom House or Bertelsmann stuff. Following the globalization literature , one might call Thailand’s political system (as most of its other function systems) “hybrid,” that is, emanating from processes of global-local interactions, rather than from merely copying western models.
Having worked on Thai politics for quite some time (and from having prepared a comprehensive bibliography on this subject), I only too painfully realize the huge gaps in our knowledge, and being a political sociologist myself, I really would welcome if there were a few more scholars who could help with analyzing Thai politics from this perspective on a long-term and empirical basis.
Political reform in Thailand: Structural and ideological issues
Dr. Nelson’s piece is a refreshing contribution to NM because of its intelligence and thoughtfulness.
I wish, however, to slightly correct his quotation from my article in the Bangkok Post. He quotes: “vigilant monarchists seem to be the main threat to the monarchy’s longevity.” What I wrote was “vigilante monarchists” which perhaps, as a German speaker, he corrected to “vigilant”. Vigilanties are people who take the law into their own hands and, for example, lynch people they see as wrongdoers. So, my sentence’s meaning was much stronger than Dr. Nelson understood.
While I think Dr Nelson’s paper is very helpful one problem is see with many analyses of Thailand’s politics is that Thai political reality is compared with ideal models of democracy and found wanting. Indeed, most democracies would fail such a test to varying degrees. Of course, this is a useful exercise, but it needs to be complemented by serious comparative political and historical analysis of other countries in order to get Thai reality into some perspective. In a sense, the analyses to date are too Thai-centric. Comparative analysis is not easy, but it can be very rewarding.
A second problem is that there is little substantial political sociology. While people sound off all the time about the ‘middle class’ there are in fact few substantive analyses of this ‘class’ – Michael Connors, and Pasuk Ponpaichit and Chris baker are the exceptions. Similarly, there is little substantive analysis of the Thai working class which has burst onto the political stage so dramatically.
Attention to some of these issues would hopefully save us from the repetitive and often fruitless analyses of Thai politics that are dished up regularly in NM and elsewhere.
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
Stephan: #16, “why suwicha did not apply remains a mystery, can YOU explain?” I have already explained. I will try again (read my lips): In Thai law, a pardon may not be applied for until the case is closed. Suwitcha’s case is not yet closed, because the period for applying for an appeal is still open. So the reason why he hasn’t applied is obvious: he is not allowed to. (His family has stated that he will do so when it is legally possible.)
You say,”we are living in thailand & believe it to be very ethical.” I can’t possibly begin to answer the rest of your post, if that is the way you see Thailand. I don’t have time. Please don’t bother to respond.
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
@michael # 19
thank you very much for this cool response with no personal attack.
this way we can talk facts:
1. democracy
a) thailand is a very young & unstable democracy. it needs help
b) show me a better one and we’ll rip it apart with naked hands.
we did not ‘imply’ nothing. especially not ‘straightforward’.
we just call it a democracy, no more, no less.
2. ethics
what’s that? religion? law? conscious?
can you give an example of an ethical country for thailand?
we are living in thailand & believe it to be very ethical.
(if you forget about a few criminals)
much more ethical than the u.s.a.
often used as a model in the western world!
and yes, you very obviously observe different media than we do.
that does not mean ‘different worlds’, just ‘different perception’!
3. pardon
the thai king has openly expressed that he is human & can be critisized
he has pardoned many LM offenders already
even khun thaksin has openly applied for a pardon
(which we think should NOT be granted)
why suwicha did not apply remains a mystery, can YOU explain?
(maybe some think he is more valuable without/within?)
we think he should and will be pardoned,
if he repents and promise not to do it again.
only stubborn people do not deserve a pardon.
4. cartoon caricatures
have you ever heard about mohammad or rushdie?
no laws were broken in their countries
still they were threatened with death
but some people care more about a naughty boy
who spent two weeks more or less in jail
giving interviews to his fan-group (for free?)
we hope we did only express opinions
and don’t attack or hurt individual posters.
if you think different tell us
and we explain or apologize
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
Stephan#16 – my criticism of your sentence beginning “in a democracy…” is that we are talking about a country which is not yet a democracy. The fact that there are sometimes elections does not per se indicate that there is a democracy, at least of the straightforward type implied in your statement.
Your statement at the end of your post #16 would have credibility in a state where lawyers and the judiciary, as well as law-makers, had independence & a high standard of ethics, and where the legal process for a trial of this kind could be conducted openly & with evidence presented fully & openly, & normal legal discussion. If you believe that all that you refer to is “well-known and guaranteed in Thailand,” you must have been reading different literature & speaking to different legal academics & political observers from me.
Re. your statement about Kh. Suwitcha not having applied for a pardon: this cannot be done until the statutory period allowed for an appeal has expired. (This has been written about in relation to this & many other cases, over & over.) At the time when Kh.Suwicha’s appeal period was about to end, the Prosecutor applied for and was granted an extension. This was a most peculiar thing to do, and one (or ‘we’) can only speculate about why, because the reason has not been announced. It’s very clear, of course, that it may have prolonged the period of his encarceration, & therefore his suffering, so some have seen it as a brutally spiteful act.
Heads of State (including monarchs) in many countries are the subject of cartoon caricatures in the media on a daily basis. There is no evidence to suggest that they lose any respect as a result. It is a fact that the cartoonists frequently receive requests for the original drawings from those who have been lampooned, & they are proudly displayed.
The LM law is a ridiculous anachronism. It’s having an effect quite the opposite of that which was (ostensibly) intended, & it is being used as an instrument of repression.
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
@Ralph Kramden #17
hi ralf, thank you very much for this splendid example of
1. the richness & subtlety of the english language
2. the vigorous debate nm encourages
3. the ‘high quality’ comments nm publishes
4. ‘short & sweet’ usually trumps ‘long & involved’. how ‘sweet’!
5. “…ranting, unimaginative point-scoring and idle abuse will not be entertained.”
YOU are entertained, so what?
but just ONE serious question:
what country do YOU come from? a dictatorship??
and why don’t YOU have much to say about our topic:
“Suwicha Thakor”
was HE put in jail by the ‘military’?
or by a law ‘’scrapped or modified’ by the ‘military’?
YOU owe us an explanation, don’t you?
“The decision to send the army … came from the royal palace”
Taro,
The other side of the story is ubiquitous in Thailand; not satisfactorily enough ?
Political reform in Thailand: Structural and ideological issues
Dr. Nelson:p>
Thank you for your kind comment. I shall try to "untangle" my post for you.
My premise is that all nations have normative creeds that are enforced through the prevailing social order. I believe that it is cultural bias that prevents people from perceiving the prevailing cultural mores or creed of their own society. The cultural assumptions that societies operate on seem invisible to the members of that society because the normative creeds are so pervasive.
Your article seems to imply that Thailand’s having a national creed is somehow negative. My use of the term “single out” was meant to convey that criticizing Thailand for having a national creed is unusual since as all nations have national creeds. To assert that the Western creeds of egalitarianism, liberty and democracy are superior to Asian concepts of religion, duty and family is, in my humble opinion, a cultural bias.
The Thailand Law of Lese Majeste law suffers from a bad name. The law is more closely related to criminal defamation laws. Whereas in normal situations a private citizen can privately defend his rights against defamation, in the context of Royal Family, the state is prosecuting the defamation case on behalf of the Royal Family. To not do so would lead to an absurd and unfair situation where the Royal Family has to defend privately defend legal actions for defamation against them. The theory behind the law is that the Royal Family has official duties that take place in the public that benefit the State and, in exchange, the State owes a duty to the Royal Family to protect them against defamation that also occurs in public.
The crushing of the Red Shirts
PM testifies at Songkran riots inquiry
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/143606/pm-explains-songkran-violence-to-panel
“No protesters died during the crackdown, he said
The government had already assigned appropriate agencies to look into the UDD’s claims that protesters died, he said.
The premier insisted he was inside his car when red-shirt protesters attacked it at the Interior Ministry.
The government did not allow the opposition to show video clips about the crackdown on the protesters because it would only exacerbate the problem, he said.”
not allowing (also censoring, blocking websites etc) certainly helps a lot the FACTS finding !
Photos from Insein Prison vigil
Fascinating pictures. The courage of the oppressed never fails to move me.
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
Stephan: “who ’scraps or modifies’ laws in your county?”
The military.
The crushing of the Red Shirts
now, here is a latest developement :
“Four red shirts get a slap on the wrist for blocking Din Daeng traffic”
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/05/19/politics/politics_30103051.php
THAT’s ALL ? LOL
nobody is charged for “insurgency”, “terrorism” (aka allegedthreatening to blow up gas truck, or burning busses) or for murders (as killing 2 civilians in that market area) ?!
this is supposed to be a joke, right ?
for blocking Din Daeng traffic
WHY till now nobody is arrested and charged for all those alleged crimes gov. and Thai media cried foul about ?
oh, wait, there is some ESPECIALLY established by gov. (Sathit) official website as an effort to proivde “facts” about events of 13th Apr : http://www.factreport.go.th/en/
there are A LOT of facts there – hahahahahaha ! 😀
“The site is still under development, please visit again in the near future.”
well, it is over 1 months now since Apr 13th – how long more it’ll take ? “near future” being like another 10-20 years (as those containers found under the sea) ?
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
@michael #15
at least you do not deny us the right to speak not just for one alone.
we all know that english is not the native language of the majority.
so what is rarely used or not is difficult to judge.
what’s right or wrong, comprehensible or not seems more important.
we do not comprehend your critic of our sentence in #4:
“in a democracy, if you don’t like a law,
you’ll get a majority of lawmakers and change it. no other way…”
this was in direct response to Dickie Simpkins #3
“…the LM law needs to be scrapped or at least modified…”
we thought dickie displayed a contempt for
due legal democratic processes and responded accordingly.
what’s wrong with our sentence, its context or content?
who ‘scraps or modifies’ laws in your county? the mob on the street?
we may safely assume that it is more productive in a discussion
to exchange arguments than to talk about posters and their english.
if you don’t understand a sentence, please ask and we explain.
for everything there is a reason.
everyone is free to respond to a post or not, including us.
we agree that legal laws should be used and not ‘abused’.
defendants should have lawyers,
the courts should decide according to laws
which in turn are made or modified by lawmakers
who are elected as representatives of the people.
all that is well known & guaranteed in thailand.
we only cannot prevent people from braking laws, but who can?
The crushing of the Red Shirts
Scott – that is a blast from the past! 17 years or so it must have been. I sent you an email straight away. 🙂
Photos from Insein Prison vigil
Government work for the people.
I say it’s time to start picking off the Junta one at a time.
Political reform in Thailand: Structural and ideological issues
I find the article very educating and interesting like most of what Dr. Nelson has produced throughout the years.
Thanks Michael
Photos from Insein Prison vigil
Their courage after decades of oppression is absolutely astounding…