hclau: “The main thing is to gauge the content of the thesis and not the language.” Yes – and if you do this it falls down even more. Back to my point that many students pay someone else to do their essays/thesis for them, the teacher is faced with a whole class returning identical copies of assignments. I know of one Canadian teaching a creative writing class at Chula who was sacked for upsetting students because he was asking them to explain what they had written in their own papers. They had not even bothered to read their own work.
Over the last few days I’ve been checking a thesis submission from one of my staff who is doing a Masters at Thammasat on alternative sources of energy and biofuel. After the first chapter I gave up – not only is the English dreadful, especially so for someone doing a Masters in English and working in an international company, but the content is almost entirely copied and rewritten from wikipedia.
Arthurson:
You said: Why don’t we start a webpage for Darunee similar to the “BringHarryHome” webpage? Then we would at least be expressing a universal principle of support for free speech.
I STRONGLY support this. Can someone post information as to how I can help? Has Thai Netizen done something along these lines?
Nganadeeleg:
You said: however I am not in favor of them being abolished outright.
I would prefer them to be changed such that only the palace can make the charge.
It seems that you are assuming that the members of the Royal Family are not involved in any of the current cases. Is this a safe assumption to make?
@Arthurson: I agree on the first two, and also that the LM laws are repugnant, however I am not in favor of them being abolished outright.
I would prefer them to be changed such that only the palace can make the charge.
I also prefer that to Netirat’s proposal (over at Bangkok Pundit) that any LM complaint must be approved by Attorney General – although that would be an improvement on the current situation.
One of the reasons I prefer the simple change rather than abolishment is that it rebuffs any claim that it’s proposers are disrespecting the monarchy, as in fact they would be showing great respect for the monarchy in trying to keep the monarchy from being dragged into politics.
Another reason is that I am generally not in favour of non-censorship (and complete free speech) are due to the prevalence of sick pornography, nutters and gullible minds.
Further, I quite like the idea of being able to see what (if anything) the palace would deem warrants the LM charge (rather than the existing situation where the dirty work is performed by others).
hclau: thank you for that “unbiased” observation…you’ve missed the point entirely. I note that you’ve identified yourself by using the quaintly colonial, “the poor sods.” May I recommend the Singaporean site, http://www.talkingcock.com , which may give you a fund of other similarly bizarre expressions, contained in the Coxford Singlish Dictionary.
Why did I not google Janet Sturgeon before this? A fascinating and brilliant interview from both sides. The dynamics of human manipulation within a fractured social and ecological landscape are not easily captured. Sturgeon has done so. The primacy of citizenship to even provide a framework for other tenurial rights is so key — do we have any sort of handle on how many forest dwellers or other rural refugees there are without citizen rights? Or how many times state powers draw borders through the mountains that bifurcate ethnic homelands without the least qualm?
My congratulations on this excellent interiew. Some readers may also be interested in the work done at rightsandresources.org.
I would also invite Janet to return to Nepal and update her knowledge.
Gabriel
@nganadeeleg
“Whether he was a publicity seeking fool or not, Harry’s punishment was harsh – however we all knew he would be pardoned eventually because he was a ‘white boy’.
It’s what happens to the non whites that we should be more concerned about – Darunee (Da Torpedo) was recently refused bail for the 3rd time – that’s harsh no matter what she said.”
Let’s all agree on the following, shall we?
Harry’s punishment was harsh.
Darunee’s punishment continues to be harsh.
The lese majeste laws are repugnant and need to be abolished.
Why don’t we start a webpage for Darunee similar to the “BringHarryHome” webpage? Then we would at least be expressing a universal principle of support for free speech.
In a 1969 speech against war protesters, he said, “A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.” “In the United States today,” Agnew told a 1970 audience in San Diego, “we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.” He went after “pusillanimous pussyfooters” and “vicars of vacillation” and “the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”
In a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, drafted by Buchanan, Agnew took on the press, which he said was dominated by a “tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one.” It was a frontal assault, raising issues of media bias, arrogance and unaccountability that are still banging around in the American mind.(Time magazine, 30 Sept. 1996)
[…] Mandala readers who prefer to get their information in Thai may find the translation of our recent interview with Giles Ji Ungpakorn useful.┬ It is available […]
Giles Ungpakorn’s father parachuted down to Siam to set the Sea-Line-of-Communication for the Allied Forces and saved the country and the Asia Pacific from the Axis Power’s occupation during World War II.
Dr. Puey Ungpakorn’s son is now saving Siam in the post-Cold War era by denying the making of a “Fuhrer” in the heartland of mainland Southeast Asia.
There is no one as appropriate as Giles Ji Ungpakorn to undertake the mission of the 21st Century Grand Strategy for the Allied Forces in the Asia Pacific Theatre.
Seems to me that as it happened in London and in English and hardly in the presence of the masses of the Thai People, it happened outside Thai History :).
The kind of Thais likely to show at any kind of SOAS event would be the sorts who (even if on the Royalist gravy train) have plenty of familiarity with family gossip about palace goings on, etc. Anyone with some experience in Bangkok knows this phenotype… folks who come from long lines of professors, government officials, etc. Current prime minister Pretty Boy would be a case in point. These guys have family memories of the fun and games with VI and the booting of VII – stuff not exactly in the Thai history curriculum. Hell, they’re the very sort who *did* show VII the door – being smart Thais, of course they knew a good thing when Sarit and Co. helped reinvent bowing and scraping as a nostrum against Ji’s Tide of History last time around – and flipped and went with the flow. They can handle a bit of discussion – provided nobody gets between them and their rice bowl.
Yellow Shirt rent-a-crowds and V and IX fetishising (quite literally, when you think about it) ‘Yaowaraj Chinese’ (who do so for a good reason, given experiences under Phibun and VI) are the sorts who get apoplectic and nasty when their religion is challenged. SOAS isn’t on their map.
Talking about chalk and cheese here. By definition, any Thai in London in or around or even knowing of the existence of SOAS is urbane enough to take three steps back and calculate ‘how do I play it?’ rather than getting all Red Gaur like. These are the sorts who graduate to sitting around tables and calmly debating whether or not the situation merits the unleashing of the useful idiots on the likes of Ji or his Dad. They have nothing to do with the broad current of Thai history or the masses… items Ji no doubt gets all misty eyed about.
I somehow doubt that this event was any kind of mustard seed.
I also have to say that whilst I regard Ji as a dreamer and the kind of fellow who is harmless and well-meaning enough whilst fighting the establishment – allowing him to do more than run the local dog pound would be a terrible mistake. Guys like him create mountains of skulls in the service of their ideals. On the balance, the royals have been MUCH less murderous than the gentlemen on Ji’s side of the dialectical fence in nearby parts of South-East Asia. However, said royals have gone and painted themselves into a right royal corner by applying too much of the Devaraja Sauce and forgetting that multiple wives and concubinage made a LOT of sense if you were going to have to make sure you won the jackpot every time you spun for a replacement. So, yes, Ji is doing a valuable service in his own way. Some things need to be said, boils are better lanced early (and it is now getting rather late in the day) and if it takes a nutty marxist to say them, well then good for marxists (up to a point).
I figure that airing the dirty laundry now rather than later might save some lives. If so that’s not a bad thing. So half a cheer for Ji and I certainly hope the Samaks of this world never get their hands on him.
(I don’t doubt the purity of Ji’s motives – just that history should have taught us by now to be terrified of anyone with pure motives.)
[…] Monday 23 February 2009 Associate Professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn gave his speech on lese majeste at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.┬ I have received a quick […]
“The Harry case is ipso facto proof of the incompetence and misrepresentation of foreign media reporting on issues in Thailand.”
So you’re saying that he wasn’t in fact put in jail for nine months because of a single paragraph in a novel? Because, you know, those seem like the facts most people have been focusing on.
Of course, from the lofty heights of the Post, perhaps you have a different perspective. (Doubtless while snorting your coke or sipping your brandy, while the rest of us poor proles have to make do with pot and espresso.)
ROFLMAO – where’s Republican, Somsak & Taxi Driver when you need them.
Whether he was a publicity seeking fool or not, Harry’s punishment was harsh – however we all knew he would be pardoned eventually because he was a ‘white boy’.
It’s what happens to the non whites that we should be more concerned about – Darunee (Da Torpedo) was recently refused bail for the 3rd time – that’s harsh no matter what she said.
I posted details of these two events (with title omitted) and no additional comment on the Thai expat website ‘Thaivisa.com’ a week or so ago. The result: thread deleted and myself banned from website.
Having taught thousands of poor urban youth in Thailand, not to mention the hundreds of poor urban & rural teachers & civil servants, it is most comforting to know that if I’m ever in need of a pompous, embittered and extremely patronising yank to pontificate on how I should engender respect over some young (alleged) motor-mouth who has just experienced months of indignity & brutality in a Thai prison for no identifiably just reason, jonfernquist will be available. But will anyone listen? I hope not!
Whatever Harry’s character flaws, I can’t see that they are relevant to a discussion of this LM issue. Your dear & respected friend & colleague, Mr Dollar, appears to be something of an opportunist himself, having wasted no time at all in selling his cheap, tabloid-style (and possibly libellous) expose to 2 major Oz papers. If we are to believe Forde’s statement re. the allegation that Dollar advised Harry not to publish (& the maths work), then it would seem that he is also something of a liar. An opportunistic liar, and – oh yes – an unsuccessful novelist, according to his myspace page, where we learn he could’ve been published by City Lights…but wasn’t (reminds me of the Indian civil servants who used to put ‘B.A.[failed]’ on their business cards.)
Jonfernquest’s bitchy remarks about Ji’s intellectuality should also be read with the knowledge that fquest’s time as a university academic was less than successful.
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Heath Dollar on Harry’s literary ambition
Is this a safe assumption to make?
Unless their names are on the charge sheets as the ones instigating the charges, then I’m prepared to make that assumption.
That’s the beauty of making the change as suggested, for then we will know who is behind the charge.
More repressive efforts in Thailand
hclau: “The main thing is to gauge the content of the thesis and not the language.” Yes – and if you do this it falls down even more. Back to my point that many students pay someone else to do their essays/thesis for them, the teacher is faced with a whole class returning identical copies of assignments. I know of one Canadian teaching a creative writing class at Chula who was sacked for upsetting students because he was asking them to explain what they had written in their own papers. They had not even bothered to read their own work.
Over the last few days I’ve been checking a thesis submission from one of my staff who is doing a Masters at Thammasat on alternative sources of energy and biofuel. After the first chapter I gave up – not only is the English dreadful, especially so for someone doing a Masters in English and working in an international company, but the content is almost entirely copied and rewritten from wikipedia.
Heath Dollar on Harry’s literary ambition
Arthurson:
You said:
Why don’t we start a webpage for Darunee similar to the “BringHarryHome” webpage? Then we would at least be expressing a universal principle of support for free speech.
I STRONGLY support this. Can someone post information as to how I can help? Has Thai Netizen done something along these lines?
Heath Dollar on Harry’s literary ambition
Nganadeeleg:
You said:
however I am not in favor of them being abolished outright.
I would prefer them to be changed such that only the palace can make the charge.
It seems that you are assuming that the members of the Royal Family are not involved in any of the current cases. Is this a safe assumption to make?
Heath Dollar on Harry’s literary ambition
@Arthurson: I agree on the first two, and also that the LM laws are repugnant, however I am not in favor of them being abolished outright.
I would prefer them to be changed such that only the palace can make the charge.
I also prefer that to Netirat’s proposal (over at Bangkok Pundit) that any LM complaint must be approved by Attorney General – although that would be an improvement on the current situation.
One of the reasons I prefer the simple change rather than abolishment is that it rebuffs any claim that it’s proposers are disrespecting the monarchy, as in fact they would be showing great respect for the monarchy in trying to keep the monarchy from being dragged into politics.
Another reason is that I am generally not in favour of non-censorship (and complete free speech) are due to the prevalence of sick pornography, nutters and gullible minds.
Further, I quite like the idea of being able to see what (if anything) the palace would deem warrants the LM charge (rather than the existing situation where the dirty work is performed by others).
More repressive efforts in Thailand
hclau: thank you for that “unbiased” observation…you’ve missed the point entirely. I note that you’ve identified yourself by using the quaintly colonial, “the poor sods.” May I recommend the Singaporean site, http://www.talkingcock.com , which may give you a fund of other similarly bizarre expressions, contained in the Coxford Singlish Dictionary.
Interview with Professor Janet Sturgeon
Why did I not google Janet Sturgeon before this? A fascinating and brilliant interview from both sides. The dynamics of human manipulation within a fractured social and ecological landscape are not easily captured. Sturgeon has done so. The primacy of citizenship to even provide a framework for other tenurial rights is so key — do we have any sort of handle on how many forest dwellers or other rural refugees there are without citizen rights? Or how many times state powers draw borders through the mountains that bifurcate ethnic homelands without the least qualm?
My congratulations on this excellent interiew. Some readers may also be interested in the work done at rightsandresources.org.
I would also invite Janet to return to Nepal and update her knowledge.
Gabriel
Heath Dollar on Harry’s literary ambition
@nganadeeleg
“Whether he was a publicity seeking fool or not, Harry’s punishment was harsh – however we all knew he would be pardoned eventually because he was a ‘white boy’.
It’s what happens to the non whites that we should be more concerned about – Darunee (Da Torpedo) was recently refused bail for the 3rd time – that’s harsh no matter what she said.”
Let’s all agree on the following, shall we?
Harry’s punishment was harsh.
Darunee’s punishment continues to be harsh.
The lese majeste laws are repugnant and need to be abolished.
Why don’t we start a webpage for Darunee similar to the “BringHarryHome” webpage? Then we would at least be expressing a universal principle of support for free speech.
Heath Dollar on Harry’s literary ambition
Jon Fernquest, I’ve outed your secret hero!
In a 1969 speech against war protesters, he said, “A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.” “In the United States today,” Agnew told a 1970 audience in San Diego, “we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.” He went after “pusillanimous pussyfooters” and “vicars of vacillation” and “the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”
In a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, drafted by Buchanan, Agnew took on the press, which he said was dominated by a “tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one.” It was a frontal assault, raising issues of media bias, arrogance and unaccountability that are still banging around in the American mind.(Time magazine, 30 Sept. 1996)
Special interview: Giles Ungpakorn, part 1
[…] Mandala readers who prefer to get their information in Thai may find the translation of our recent interview with Giles Ji Ungpakorn useful.┬ It is available […]
Aturan Permainan DominoQQ utk Pemula
Congratulations, Harry!
Your story is a triumph of freedom. Now if only I could get a copy of your book…
Quick report on Giles in London
Giles Ungpakorn’s father parachuted down to Siam to set the Sea-Line-of-Communication for the Allied Forces and saved the country and the Asia Pacific from the Axis Power’s occupation during World War II.
Dr. Puey Ungpakorn’s son is now saving Siam in the post-Cold War era by denying the making of a “Fuhrer” in the heartland of mainland Southeast Asia.
There is no one as appropriate as Giles Ji Ungpakorn to undertake the mission of the 21st Century Grand Strategy for the Allied Forces in the Asia Pacific Theatre.
May God save Giles Ungpakorn!
Quick report on Giles in London
Obviously looking forward to watching it. hopefully a transcript will also be available.
Quick report on Giles in London
Seems to me that as it happened in London and in English and hardly in the presence of the masses of the Thai People, it happened outside Thai History :).
The kind of Thais likely to show at any kind of SOAS event would be the sorts who (even if on the Royalist gravy train) have plenty of familiarity with family gossip about palace goings on, etc. Anyone with some experience in Bangkok knows this phenotype… folks who come from long lines of professors, government officials, etc. Current prime minister Pretty Boy would be a case in point. These guys have family memories of the fun and games with VI and the booting of VII – stuff not exactly in the Thai history curriculum. Hell, they’re the very sort who *did* show VII the door – being smart Thais, of course they knew a good thing when Sarit and Co. helped reinvent bowing and scraping as a nostrum against Ji’s Tide of History last time around – and flipped and went with the flow. They can handle a bit of discussion – provided nobody gets between them and their rice bowl.
Yellow Shirt rent-a-crowds and V and IX fetishising (quite literally, when you think about it) ‘Yaowaraj Chinese’ (who do so for a good reason, given experiences under Phibun and VI) are the sorts who get apoplectic and nasty when their religion is challenged. SOAS isn’t on their map.
Talking about chalk and cheese here. By definition, any Thai in London in or around or even knowing of the existence of SOAS is urbane enough to take three steps back and calculate ‘how do I play it?’ rather than getting all Red Gaur like. These are the sorts who graduate to sitting around tables and calmly debating whether or not the situation merits the unleashing of the useful idiots on the likes of Ji or his Dad. They have nothing to do with the broad current of Thai history or the masses… items Ji no doubt gets all misty eyed about.
I somehow doubt that this event was any kind of mustard seed.
I also have to say that whilst I regard Ji as a dreamer and the kind of fellow who is harmless and well-meaning enough whilst fighting the establishment – allowing him to do more than run the local dog pound would be a terrible mistake. Guys like him create mountains of skulls in the service of their ideals. On the balance, the royals have been MUCH less murderous than the gentlemen on Ji’s side of the dialectical fence in nearby parts of South-East Asia. However, said royals have gone and painted themselves into a right royal corner by applying too much of the Devaraja Sauce and forgetting that multiple wives and concubinage made a LOT of sense if you were going to have to make sure you won the jackpot every time you spun for a replacement. So, yes, Ji is doing a valuable service in his own way. Some things need to be said, boils are better lanced early (and it is now getting rather late in the day) and if it takes a nutty marxist to say them, well then good for marxists (up to a point).
I figure that airing the dirty laundry now rather than later might save some lives. If so that’s not a bad thing. So half a cheer for Ji and I certainly hope the Samaks of this world never get their hands on him.
(I don’t doubt the purity of Ji’s motives – just that history should have taught us by now to be terrified of anyone with pure motives.)
Giles in London
[…] Monday 23 February 2009 Associate Professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn gave his speech on lese majeste at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.┬ I have received a quick […]
Heath Dollar on Harry’s literary ambition
“The Harry case is ipso facto proof of the incompetence and misrepresentation of foreign media reporting on issues in Thailand.”
So you’re saying that he wasn’t in fact put in jail for nine months because of a single paragraph in a novel? Because, you know, those seem like the facts most people have been focusing on.
Of course, from the lofty heights of the Post, perhaps you have a different perspective. (Doubtless while snorting your coke or sipping your brandy, while the rest of us poor proles have to make do with pot and espresso.)
Heath Dollar on Harry’s literary ambition
ROFLMAO – where’s Republican, Somsak & Taxi Driver when you need them.
Whether he was a publicity seeking fool or not, Harry’s punishment was harsh – however we all knew he would be pardoned eventually because he was a ‘white boy’.
It’s what happens to the non whites that we should be more concerned about – Darunee (Da Torpedo) was recently refused bail for the 3rd time – that’s harsh no matter what she said.
Heath Dollar on Harry’s literary ambition
I told you he’s a nitwit! Politically correct Aussie Mamma’s boys won’t post this comment though.
Giles in Oxford: Lese majeste in Thailand
I posted details of these two events (with title omitted) and no additional comment on the Thai expat website ‘Thaivisa.com’ a week or so ago. The result: thread deleted and myself banned from website.
Heath Dollar on Harry’s literary ambition
Having taught thousands of poor urban youth in Thailand, not to mention the hundreds of poor urban & rural teachers & civil servants, it is most comforting to know that if I’m ever in need of a pompous, embittered and extremely patronising yank to pontificate on how I should engender respect over some young (alleged) motor-mouth who has just experienced months of indignity & brutality in a Thai prison for no identifiably just reason, jonfernquist will be available. But will anyone listen? I hope not!
Whatever Harry’s character flaws, I can’t see that they are relevant to a discussion of this LM issue. Your dear & respected friend & colleague, Mr Dollar, appears to be something of an opportunist himself, having wasted no time at all in selling his cheap, tabloid-style (and possibly libellous) expose to 2 major Oz papers. If we are to believe Forde’s statement re. the allegation that Dollar advised Harry not to publish (& the maths work), then it would seem that he is also something of a liar. An opportunistic liar, and – oh yes – an unsuccessful novelist, according to his myspace page, where we learn he could’ve been published by City Lights…but wasn’t (reminds me of the Indian civil servants who used to put ‘B.A.[failed]’ on their business cards.)
Jonfernquest’s bitchy remarks about Ji’s intellectuality should also be read with the knowledge that fquest’s time as a university academic was less than successful.
LM is wrong, no matter who are the victims.