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So where can we find the full text in English?

And the palace and its supporters are scared out of their skin by the events in Nepal. Maybe the PAD mob should be showing film of 6 October 1976? That was the last time that they were scared by events affecting “brother” monarchies (in Laos that time).

I guess if the authorities haven’t the guts to close down this website we can expect to see more of the likes of Vichai N posting their apologist comments as a sort of rear guard action. To me it’s all very simple: we have all (kings, queens, roadsweepers) done good things, bad things, acted intelligently, acted stupidly. Is it really too much, Mr. Vichai, to admit as much? to admit the plain simple truth?

The political temperature in Bangkok is certainly on the rise as well. PAD and its leadership appear to be back in 2006 mode, making all kinds of allegations that amount to a call for the military to again intervene on behalf of the monarchy and “the people”. Apparently recent opinion polls show that a coup is not a preferred option for those surveyed.

The Jakrapob affair is interesting. His comments are reasonably clear but the point really seems to be that he can never be forgiven for having led demonstrators attacking old man Prem. He must go. But by hanging on, he is making a statement and taking a position that is important in the ongoing struggle against the palace. The discussion of the “institution” as a political agent is now all over the media (including a really neat little piece in the Nation yesterday about the history of the re-establishment of royal power after 1932).

Just as an aside readers might be interested in British pathologist Professor Keith Simpson’s account of his involvement in the Ananda case. See ‘The Violent Death of King Ananda of Siam’ in his Forty Years of Murder: An Autobiography, London: Harrap, 1978. Simpson’s disagrees with both the accident and suicide versions of what happened. He writes:

‘The question was…accident, suicide, or murder? The King has been keenly interested in small firearms, and had often practiced shooting with Vacharachai. He had kept an American Army .45 Colt automatic in his bedside drawer. Could it have gone off accidently while he was examining it? Would an intelligent man who knew anything about firearms inspect a pistol with the safety catch of and the magazine charged while lying in bed on his back, his head on the pillow and the pistol pointing at his forehead? The idea seemed wildly far-fetched, even apart from the fact that the King’s sight was so defective that he could not have examined anything without his spectacles, and at the time of his death these were lying on the bedroom table. The position of the body made suicide almost equally unlikely. In twenty years experience I had not seen a suicide shoot himself whilst lying flat on his back. No such case existed, so far as I knew. The suicide sits up or stands up to shoot himself. There were other strong indications against suicide. The pistol found at the King’s side was by his left hand, but he was right-handed. The wound, over the left eye, was not in one of the elective sites, nor a “contact” discharge. The direction of fire was not inward towards the centre of the head. Furthermore the King had never hinted at suicide to anyone and had not been depressed at the time of his death. That left only murder, for which the evidence was very strong. I thought he had almost certainly been shot while dozing, and that unconsciousness had followed instantly. The muzzle of the pistol had evidently been close to but not against the skin, giving the King no warning or any chance to protect himself. “This is not a case of suicidal discharge nor of accident, but one of deliberate killing by firearm,” I concluded my report’.

Robert, thanks, this discussion has been fruitful for me, prompting me to do some research on Tai “hybrid” Buddhisms. The following references are useful:

Tanabe, Shigeharu (1991) Religious traditions among Tai ethnic groups: a selected bibliography, Ayutthaya : Ayutthaya Historical Study Centre.

“Buddhist Proselytism, c. 1400-1560,” in Victor Lieberman’s Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800-1830,” Cambridge University Press, 2003, has a good overview of the development of Buddhism in early Tai polities. It also cites all the important western papers on the subject.

“From Opposition to Syncretism: A Preliminary Analysis of the Tai Lue religion,” by Leshan Tan, in the proceedings of the 4th Thai Studies Conference in Kunming, referenced in the Tanabe bibliography above, has a very interesting discussion of the development of Tai Lue religion, with a lot of references to primary sources in Chinese. There are other papers in the proceedings, but they seem to suffer from methodological and terminological problems like referring to Tai Lue marriage customs as “free love” or religious practices as “primitive taboos.” Apparently, most of the work on Tai Lu religion is in Chinese without (yet) a thorough bibliographical study to guide the scholar like Foon Ming Liew and Grabowsky’s “An Introduction to Tai Lu sources of the History of Moeng Lu (Sipsong Panna),” published in Aseanie, decembre 2004.

“My hope is that the politicians come to their senses and totally open the process of constitutional amendment to broader societal involvement and debate – as it should be…”

This sums up what I find most disagreeable with our society. We “hope” politicians will come to their sense but the truth is that people from all walks of life, our middle class, our elite, need to starting doing rather than hoping.

There is a reason politics is also known as public service: someone has to sacrifice their intentions for the greater good, and no one, not one of those protesting on the streets or crying foul on the newspapers seem to be able to do that. We have no Aung San Suu Kyi, basically.

I recently discussed this issue with another Thai whom I respect. I told him mentioned how many Thais bemoaning the lack of transparency and the rampant corruption who once pulled over by a cop, will pay the bribe. I suggested that we practice what we preach, but even he told me that one can’t survive without being corrupt in our country. Its the system that forces us all to be corrupt in order to survive.

I didn’t tell him this, but I begged to differ. It is not impossible to practice what you preach, but it is certainly difficult. The fact that normal, regular Thais are unwilling to make even that little sacrifice has implications on the elite. What will you expect of powerful, megalomaniac, “elite” politicians/bureaucrats/soldiers/businessmen? (Even the October generation has apparently abandoned their idealism!) Ours is a country that does not reward honesty, hard work, and integrity. We admire cunning, relativism, and compromise. So unless we change this attitude how will we ever get a good, efficient government?

Maybe you can organize a national hoping day, Sidh. In the meantime we will continue to get the politicians we deserve.

Nine years ago I published an article about the backgrounds of this Thai version of The Devil’s Discus, titled р╕Бр╕Зр╕Ир╕▒р╕Бр╕гр╕Ыр╕╡р╕ир╕▓р╕И р╣Бр╕ер╕░р╕лр╕Щр╕▒р╕Зр╕кр╕╖р╕нр╕Бр╕гр╕Ур╕╡р╕кр╕зр╕гр╕гр╕Др╕Х . The article was later included in my book р╕Ыр╕гр╕░р╕зр╕▒р╕Хр╕┤р╕ир╕▓р╕кр╕Хр╕гр╣Мр╕Чр╕╡р╣Ир╣Ар╕Юр╕┤р╣Ир╕Зр╕кр╕гр╣Йр╕▓р╕З I’ll put the whole article on my blog shortly, and will give notice here after I finish.

Let me discuss here a few details about the book. I’ll write more later if I have time.

First of all, Andrew’s picture of the book cover above is definitely not the real one. It’s been, I think, digitally modified to make the book’s title, author and translator more easily readable. (The font used here actually was not invented back in 1974) I’ll put the picture of the real 1974 front cover on my blog too. (Or if you can’t wait and can find my book, you can have a look there on page 100.)

About the book’s availibility. As K.Serhat says, there used to be a copy of the English version in the Pol Science Faculty Library (too bad without the dusk jacket which looks quite nice). It’s been there for great many years without much notice, until recently.

Actually in my article I also “revealed” how a THAI version had been, for many years also, mysteriously put inside the Thammasat main library, under a wrong title (both on the front cover and in the library catalog). But some students of mine recently told me that it has also been removed, or disappeared or stolen (I cannot think how the staff would know its existence to remove it. But possibly because of my mentioning it the article some people had tracked it down and maybe kept it for him/herself.

About the Thai version. K.Old Phrai’s story is largely correct (I really wonder who you are, since not many people, even of my – our – generation would know about it).

The publishers were the two TU Pol Science students K.Old Phrai says. At first I thought of revealing their names, since it’s been more than 30 years and no harm should happen to them. (Besides they have long ceased to be leftist activists). But on reading K.Old Phrai, I agree it’s better not talk about their names for the time being, especially at current political climate (although given details K.Old Phrai already told, it wouldn’t be difficult for anyone with keen interest in the matter to find out. I’m not saying this’s wrong. Below I’ll confirm some details about them which I don’t think make much difference from what K.Old Phrai already says.

At the time (1974) the two were very close to Seksan. They’re also in a relationship, but had since broken up, I believe, after they went into the jungle to join the CPT. The man left with Seksan and Jiranan in 1980 but the woman stayed and rose to the rank of the CPT Central Committee just before the party’s demise. Late the woman was arrested and released. She started a new career as a writer and wrote articles for daily paper with a sort of feminist leaning. (I have to check K.Old Phrai’s story about her being a senator. This part of her life I missed it.)

In 1974, they (especially the man) decided to publish the Thai version believing it’s legal, since Pridi had submitted it in court case he brought againt MR.Kukrit Pramot for defamation. But I was told since 1974 that Seksan himself adviced against putting the book (already finished) on the market. The book was then “sold under the table” (р╕Вр╕▓р╕вр╣Гр╕Хр╣Йр╣Вр╕Хр╣Кр╕░ i.e. selling something illegally). This was how I bought a copy in 1974, as did a number of people in the student movement . A couple of years ago I checked with an old-book seller at Jatuchak Market, the book I bought for 25 baht was now priced around 6-7000 baht!

I was told that the very first printing of the book had a yellow cover. But I never saw it (the one I bought has the same black cover K.Andrew shows above except for the font used for title, etc as I said earlier). I understnad this yellow cover was changed after the publishers decided to sell it ‘under the table’ instead, as he also have to remove the first 16 pages (or the first prining sheet. I don’t know the technical term in English but we used to call this р╕лр╕Щр╕▒р╕Зр╕кр╕╖р╕н 16 р╕лр╕Щр╣Йр╕▓ р╕вр╕Б which means one printing sheet folded to make 16 pages) Because contained the preface and the real name of the publisher.

That’s it for now. I may write some more if I have time.

“My hope is that the politicians come to their senses and totally open the process of constitutional amendment to broader societal involvement and debate – as it should be…”

Yeah, that sounds good. The trouble is, I would gather that the much vaunted poor rural electorate really has no really idea of what debate actually is, not that it’s their fault. Didn’t all the “intellectuals” sort of guide them in public hearings for the 1997 People’s constitution? Would this really be possible now?

The street fight between rural motorcycle gangs that Thai politics seems to be degenerating into is pretty disturbing. Things are a lot more chaotic and less clear cut than they were back in 1992. Another coup isn’t acceptable, but I can see how a lot of people don’t find Thaksin acceptable either, given his aggressive approach, and the way he moulded government policy to make a mint off his mobile phone concessions (See Ukrist Pathmanand and Chris Baker, Hello and goodbye to the mobile phone, in Thai Capital after the 1997 Crisis, 2008), and the belief that many have that he’ll make a comeback and do it all over again. That’s why I think that Samak serving out a full term, followed by of course, hopefully Abhisit, the highest international caliber leader, to lead Thailand peacefully with dignity (not street fight) into prosperity, is the best path, but another coup is looking more and more likely, I guess, ugh.