Oh goody, jonfernquest approves of this one. But why? It is the usual stuff of the international press. The king is good, the prince is a worry. That’s been said so many times since 1976 that it hardly bears repeating.
The thing worth noting for jonfernquest is the suggestion that there is some debate on post-rama ix Thailand. That might be news to the blinkered outsiders such as those at the EWC, but not to anyone who seriously watches Thailand’s politics.
I read the Japan Times version and Plate makes good points that need to be made every time this king gets another of these awards (some of them created for him). Each time a foreign organisation makes this king an award, they ignore his complicity in the 2006 coup, his regular support for authoritarian and military government in Thailand. By honouring him, they burnish his image. Well done Tom Plate on calling out the posterior polishers.
Thailand would be silly not to investigate nuclear power. For generation of electricity for it’s booming ecomony, nuclear will generate Kwh at a cheaper price than any other. I believe that this power plant would be turn key operation and would have experts from the manufacturer that would stay until Thailand and international feelings that they are comfortable with it’s safe operation.
Many coorporations have safely build and operated safe nuclear power plants across the world. Those type of coorporations will be determined by Thailand officials. Education and training for Thailand personnel should be brought into this equation.
The spent fuel storage can be determined in the future. Many nuclear power plants in America store that fuel onsite. This has been dictated becasue of political problems with Yucca Mountain.
The ability to use this spent fuel for a weapon in the future would be very difficult, and I am sure would fail in a Thailand economy. There are many agreements that Thailand can make on the international front to ensure this will not happen.
But with everything being taken into consideration, with global warming and such, nuclear power has made a comeback. This is because of it’s ability to generate electricity without harming the enviroment.
Thailand should also give education to it’s general population as to how nuclear power is safe and can be trusted. With the proper government oversight, nuclear power will save Thailand much money. And with Thailand’s decision to investigate this possibility, that was thier goal.
Thailand is a strong country and should continue and build it’s nuclear power plants.
This is a lot better than the Tom Plate piece because it discusses the tensions at work in Thai society itself rather than coming off as an intolerant person who can’t understand another culture’s rituals.
It still does not address the most glaring issue of what happens in lese majeste cases. Like the Silak Sivaraksa book that was seized by the police recently and then the Ji Ungphakorn book. What happened in these recent cases? Did these books just disappear without explanation? Are there some kind of legal proceedings taking place? This information is not known presumably because the details are never given on lese majeste cases. This a **real** media issue addressed by Streckfuss in his dissertation and a very insightful paper at the Thai Studies conference. Ignorance of the law may be no excuse. What about institutional arrangements that willfully create ignorance of the law? This, like so many other issues, coups, extrajudicial executions, police transparency and monitoring, seems to be yet another “rule of law” issue.
[…] Herald Tribune with some brief further reference to the discussion of the monarchy at the recent International Conference on Thai Studies. A king’s lessons in democracy By Stanley A. Weiss 11 March […]
Aiontay: I’m not sure of the original symbolism behind the tusks. This is not, however, the only Manau ground with a similiar configuration. Anyway, this is a good question – I hope one of our readers can answer it.
Jon: The Kachin that is generally used in Laiza (and as a lingua franca by the KIO/KIA) is the “Jinghpaw” that was standardised (for want of a better word) in the early efforts to convert the Kachin to Christianity. Of course, there are still a number of variations and the spelling of Jinghpaw words is not always entirely consistent.
As for the font engine for the Burmese – I’m not sure. I can’t get it to open on my machine either.
And, on the ceasefire front, the KIA/KIO agreement with the Burmese authorities is actually one of the more recent. Many of the agreements in the Shan state (and also the other major agreement in the Kachin state) were made in the late ’80s and early in the ’90s.
A useful chronology of ceasefires is available here. Note that it only lists the major groups. For whatever reason it has excluded the DKBA, and smaller factions like the Kachin state’s “Lasang Awng Wa Group“.
That was interesting. You can read about the celebrations in Kachin (which dialect?) and Burmese but not English. Windows wouldn’t recognise the Burmese font though. I think you need an Adobe font engine? Got about a dozen incompatible Burmese fonts all with different character encodings installed. Kind of like the political situation in Burma.
The ceasefire has been going since 1994? That’s a long time. Sounds successful in some sense. Probably discussed in Win Min’s new book, which you’ve motivated me to read:
Assessing Burma’s Ceasefire Accords,by Zaw Oo and Win Min, East-West Center Washington; Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) (September 24, 2007)
Thank you for your kind apology, Grasshopper. In the interest of maintaining goodwill on the forum, I’ll concede that my original comment was a bit puckish; however, I maintain it was an error of degree far less than Awzar Thi’s maudlin “O Captain! My Captain!”.
I’ve expressed my opinion as eloquently as I could muster. [And it seems I can’t muster very eloquently.] Since I don’t see any way for the current conversation on this thread to turn productive anytime soon, I’ll end my participation in it. I have no interest in turning this thread into an epic NM flame war.
LSS, I retract what I have said previously. I also apologize for quickly linking your name with my ‘damning evidence’ which only amounted to the number of links which came up in the search and then leaping to conclusions which have now seen you justifying your position far too extensively. It is probably quite obvious that my line was to damn all who have an opinion that supports oppressive behaviour, and ironically, much like the men who Somchai defended, I have ‘argued’ in an oppressive manner. I am also ashamed that I am now equally an Islamophobe as well as an anti-Semite for trying to get you to admit a need for cultural and ideological protection (on our side of the scale more than the other) on a presumption (spawned from your initial comment) which has now been debunked. I now wonder whether I latently believe in the need for such protections.
I found Plate’s comments shallow and cursory. Nevertheless, he has indeed pointed out in earnest the same things many in New Mandala feel, i.e, the well rehearsed allusions to the anachronism of the royal Thai institution that so repulses some (if not many) NM contributors. But those of us exposed daily to the devoted nightly news segment on Thai TV between 8PM to 830PM have developed calloused ears to save us from the “boredom of flowery speeches” and take for granted the propaganda value of these reminders of the royals’ countless (good) deeds that we don’t even consider whether they do have and will continue to have that enduring effect on the intended subjects to possess securely the belief that the emperor does indeed wear clothes.
I do find in particular the tone of Plate’s comments haughty and condescending, in this passage:
“One rests happily when American nonprofits honor geniuses or freedom fighters or even the otherwise disenfranchised. But kings — or queens for that matter — would seem to need no honorific welfare from American nonprofits. Generally, they can get along just fine on their own, especially those with the power to eject elected governments.”
I do not pretend to know the real truth whether HM “has the power to eject elected governments” nor justify in the least these allegations. If they are true, anything that runs against democratic principles should be condemned. But it is not for Plate to take the moral high ground and criticize the “honorific welfare” when in his very own society, its own leaders run a government whose “democratic institutions” continue to be upheld blindly (& affirmed) by its people even when they are involved in bloody and illegal wars of occupation and subverting anyone else who is not with them in their grand policy for hegemonic control of the world.
Unfortunately, Thailand doesn’t have the resources (e.g. influential Thai newpapers, blogs, intelligence services) to counter negative propaganda against its revered institutions. It doesn’t cost much to generate a counteraction against someone who had the gall to call the US a “useless friend”. It takes only finding and suborning the “right” disaffected people and with sophisticated planning pull off something that would appear to fit everbody’s purposes and most of all, come out with clean hands. Although these statements may strike as conspiracist, so be it until someday when the evidence is unearthed.
I secretly imagine having Plate the recipient of Samak’s vulgar retort that his writing is indicative of a toe sized brain (never mind that the Prime Minister gets more international exposure as a Neanderthal), or to be in the receiving end of Thai berserk rage (for his insult of HM) screaming, “you murdering bunker buster terrorist bombers, baby killers, leave us alone”!
LSS: “I will not “relax” until you do so.” > Das ist Dein Problem, nicht meines, richtig?
“for me to openly criticize the Thai court’s decisions would be to flirt with lèse majesté.” > This rather seems to be about “contempt of court.” Your excuse is as lame as your response on my suggestion is cheap. Your comments imply that you have done quite a bit of data collection on Somchai and the cases he was involved in (in case your position is not merely based on emotions, that is). So, why don’t you make all this available to the public in order for us, who have done no such data collection, to get a better understanding of Somchai’s faults, naivite, support of Islamic terrorists, etc. etc.? You could even publish a shorter version in Bangkok Post and get paid for it!
Why is it that sufficiency economy considered a theory? (#20) Perhaps it is because, in common parlance, “theory” means something like an opinion or some kind of speculation. In other words, this kind of “theory” is conjecture and not necessarily based on any facts.
Thanks. Just saw this. I was curious whether anyone had done research on Shan Buddhist literature of the variety found in Terwiel’s catalogue. I guess not yet:
Shan manuscripts [Reference Book] / compiled and edited by Barend Jan Terwiel with the assistance of Chaichuen Khamdaengyodtai
Names Terwiel, B.J. (Barend Jan) Chaichuen Khamdaengyodtai
Publisher F. Steiner Verlag wiesbaden, Stuttgart, 2003-
Description v. : ill. (some col.) ; 29 cm. Series Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland ; Bd. 39/1-
Thailand does have great universal access to materials compared to other countries like Japan an Korea. In the US I use U.C. Berkeley’s library after purchasing the $50 UC alumni card and its just a little bit more expensive for non-alumni. At Chula 20 baht gets access! A lot of fine resources don’t get used much, like the Siam Society, which is a pity. Academic publishing in terms of papers published is compared between countries by UNDP, at least according to a presentation I saw once. How to stimulate more of it certainly isn’t an easy issue though.
Re: Srithanonchai And be careful with using words…
Srithanonchai, I refer you to your comment #4: This outburst makes me wonder whether LSS holds some religio-racist grudge.
Physician, heal thyself! Again, I implore you that if you cannot produce based on what I have wrote that I bear ill-will to any one person or group as a whole based solely on their religion or race, then kindly apologize for your insinuation. I will not “relax” until you do so.
Second, if you are sure of your data, analysis, and judgment, please put together 10 pages of systematic text deconstructing the image of Somchai.
The following applies to Bangkok Pundit’s comments as well; you know I am arguing with one hand tied behind my back, since Mr. Neelaphaijit did so well to win accquitals for the previously named clients, for me to openly criticize the Thai court’s decisions would be to flirt with lèse majesté. I’m sorry that I don’t have the gumption of a Somsak or a Republican when it comes to that. However, Srithanonchai, I would invite you to put together 10 pages of systematic text deconstructing my argument, for thus far, all you have contributed to this conversation is insinuating that I am an Islamophobe and posting a cut-and-paste article from the Nation [next time an “a href=” tag would be nice].
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Passing on the buck
Oh goody, jonfernquest approves of this one. But why? It is the usual stuff of the international press. The king is good, the prince is a worry. That’s been said so many times since 1976 that it hardly bears repeating.
The thing worth noting for jonfernquest is the suggestion that there is some debate on post-rama ix Thailand. That might be news to the blinkered outsiders such as those at the EWC, but not to anyone who seriously watches Thailand’s politics.
Tom Plate on the East-West Center’s royal event
I read the Japan Times version and Plate makes good points that need to be made every time this king gets another of these awards (some of them created for him). Each time a foreign organisation makes this king an award, they ignore his complicity in the 2006 coup, his regular support for authoritarian and military government in Thailand. By honouring him, they burnish his image. Well done Tom Plate on calling out the posterior polishers.
Passing on the buck
Hey, even King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia believes that no one is above criticism. And this coming from a country, which, for all intents and purposes, still practices slavery!
Nuclear sufficiency
Thailand would be silly not to investigate nuclear power. For generation of electricity for it’s booming ecomony, nuclear will generate Kwh at a cheaper price than any other. I believe that this power plant would be turn key operation and would have experts from the manufacturer that would stay until Thailand and international feelings that they are comfortable with it’s safe operation.
Many coorporations have safely build and operated safe nuclear power plants across the world. Those type of coorporations will be determined by Thailand officials. Education and training for Thailand personnel should be brought into this equation.
The spent fuel storage can be determined in the future. Many nuclear power plants in America store that fuel onsite. This has been dictated becasue of political problems with Yucca Mountain.
The ability to use this spent fuel for a weapon in the future would be very difficult, and I am sure would fail in a Thailand economy. There are many agreements that Thailand can make on the international front to ensure this will not happen.
But with everything being taken into consideration, with global warming and such, nuclear power has made a comeback. This is because of it’s ability to generate electricity without harming the enviroment.
Thailand should also give education to it’s general population as to how nuclear power is safe and can be trusted. With the proper government oversight, nuclear power will save Thailand much money. And with Thailand’s decision to investigate this possibility, that was thier goal.
Thailand is a strong country and should continue and build it’s nuclear power plants.
Passing on the buck
This is a lot better than the Tom Plate piece because it discusses the tensions at work in Thai society itself rather than coming off as an intolerant person who can’t understand another culture’s rituals.
It still does not address the most glaring issue of what happens in lese majeste cases. Like the Silak Sivaraksa book that was seized by the police recently and then the Ji Ungphakorn book. What happened in these recent cases? Did these books just disappear without explanation? Are there some kind of legal proceedings taking place? This information is not known presumably because the details are never given on lese majeste cases. This a **real** media issue addressed by Streckfuss in his dissertation and a very insightful paper at the Thai Studies conference. Ignorance of the law may be no excuse. What about institutional arrangements that willfully create ignorance of the law? This, like so many other issues, coups, extrajudicial executions, police transparency and monitoring, seems to be yet another “rule of law” issue.
Passing on the buck
Great…
How could we open our mind without the right to speak and criticize..!!!!!
Monarchy, monarchy, monarchy
[…] Herald Tribune with some brief further reference to the discussion of the monarchy at the recent International Conference on Thai Studies. A king’s lessons in democracy By Stanley A. Weiss 11 March […]
Manau festival at Laiza
Hi Aiontay and Jon,
Just quickly –
Aiontay: I’m not sure of the original symbolism behind the tusks. This is not, however, the only Manau ground with a similiar configuration. Anyway, this is a good question – I hope one of our readers can answer it.
Jon: The Kachin that is generally used in Laiza (and as a lingua franca by the KIO/KIA) is the “Jinghpaw” that was standardised (for want of a better word) in the early efforts to convert the Kachin to Christianity. Of course, there are still a number of variations and the spelling of Jinghpaw words is not always entirely consistent.
As for the font engine for the Burmese – I’m not sure. I can’t get it to open on my machine either.
And, on the ceasefire front, the KIA/KIO agreement with the Burmese authorities is actually one of the more recent. Many of the agreements in the Shan state (and also the other major agreement in the Kachin state) were made in the late ’80s and early in the ’90s.
A useful chronology of ceasefires is available here. Note that it only lists the major groups. For whatever reason it has excluded the DKBA, and smaller factions like the Kachin state’s “Lasang Awng Wa Group“.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
Manau festival at Laiza
That was interesting. You can read about the celebrations in Kachin (which dialect?) and Burmese but not English. Windows wouldn’t recognise the Burmese font though. I think you need an Adobe font engine? Got about a dozen incompatible Burmese fonts all with different character encodings installed. Kind of like the political situation in Burma.
The ceasefire has been going since 1994? That’s a long time. Sounds successful in some sense. Probably discussed in Win Min’s new book, which you’ve motivated me to read:
Assessing Burma’s Ceasefire Accords,by Zaw Oo and Win Min, East-West Center Washington; Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) (September 24, 2007)
Forests, fur and fun
Forest, fur and fun:
I was looking at Google Images/Forests and I found this site.
The beauty of your language is a delight to my eyes. I’d like to understand more about yur language.
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
Dog Lover: Are you talking about economic ‘theories’, or something else? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_of_economics
Hobby
The disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit
Re: Grasshopper and Srithanonchai.
Thank you for your kind apology, Grasshopper. In the interest of maintaining goodwill on the forum, I’ll concede that my original comment was a bit puckish; however, I maintain it was an error of degree far less than Awzar Thi’s maudlin “O Captain! My Captain!”.
I’ve expressed my opinion as eloquently as I could muster. [And it seems I can’t muster very eloquently.] Since I don’t see any way for the current conversation on this thread to turn productive anytime soon, I’ll end my participation in it. I have no interest in turning this thread into an epic NM flame war.
Srithanonchai, you can “relax” now.
Mit Freundlichkeit,
Lleij Samuel Schwartz
The disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit
LSS, I retract what I have said previously. I also apologize for quickly linking your name with my ‘damning evidence’ which only amounted to the number of links which came up in the search and then leaping to conclusions which have now seen you justifying your position far too extensively. It is probably quite obvious that my line was to damn all who have an opinion that supports oppressive behaviour, and ironically, much like the men who Somchai defended, I have ‘argued’ in an oppressive manner. I am also ashamed that I am now equally an Islamophobe as well as an anti-Semite for trying to get you to admit a need for cultural and ideological protection (on our side of the scale more than the other) on a presumption (spawned from your initial comment) which has now been debunked. I now wonder whether I latently believe in the need for such protections.
More debate on The King Never Smiles
I’m also the Thai who’s anti the les majesty law.We should have a right to criticize.They are human as we are they may do right or wrong.
but these things nver happen in Thailand.
Tom Plate on the East-West Center’s royal event
I found Plate’s comments shallow and cursory. Nevertheless, he has indeed pointed out in earnest the same things many in New Mandala feel, i.e, the well rehearsed allusions to the anachronism of the royal Thai institution that so repulses some (if not many) NM contributors. But those of us exposed daily to the devoted nightly news segment on Thai TV between 8PM to 830PM have developed calloused ears to save us from the “boredom of flowery speeches” and take for granted the propaganda value of these reminders of the royals’ countless (good) deeds that we don’t even consider whether they do have and will continue to have that enduring effect on the intended subjects to possess securely the belief that the emperor does indeed wear clothes.
I do find in particular the tone of Plate’s comments haughty and condescending, in this passage:
“One rests happily when American nonprofits honor geniuses or freedom fighters or even the otherwise disenfranchised. But kings — or queens for that matter — would seem to need no honorific welfare from American nonprofits. Generally, they can get along just fine on their own, especially those with the power to eject elected governments.”
I do not pretend to know the real truth whether HM “has the power to eject elected governments” nor justify in the least these allegations. If they are true, anything that runs against democratic principles should be condemned. But it is not for Plate to take the moral high ground and criticize the “honorific welfare” when in his very own society, its own leaders run a government whose “democratic institutions” continue to be upheld blindly (& affirmed) by its people even when they are involved in bloody and illegal wars of occupation and subverting anyone else who is not with them in their grand policy for hegemonic control of the world.
Unfortunately, Thailand doesn’t have the resources (e.g. influential Thai newpapers, blogs, intelligence services) to counter negative propaganda against its revered institutions. It doesn’t cost much to generate a counteraction against someone who had the gall to call the US a “useless friend”. It takes only finding and suborning the “right” disaffected people and with sophisticated planning pull off something that would appear to fit everbody’s purposes and most of all, come out with clean hands. Although these statements may strike as conspiracist, so be it until someday when the evidence is unearthed.
I secretly imagine having Plate the recipient of Samak’s vulgar retort that his writing is indicative of a toe sized brain (never mind that the Prime Minister gets more international exposure as a Neanderthal), or to be in the receiving end of Thai berserk rage (for his insult of HM) screaming, “you murdering bunker buster terrorist bombers, baby killers, leave us alone”!
The disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit
LSS: “I will not “relax” until you do so.” > Das ist Dein Problem, nicht meines, richtig?
“for me to openly criticize the Thai court’s decisions would be to flirt with lèse majesté.” > This rather seems to be about “contempt of court.” Your excuse is as lame as your response on my suggestion is cheap. Your comments imply that you have done quite a bit of data collection on Somchai and the cases he was involved in (in case your position is not merely based on emotions, that is). So, why don’t you make all this available to the public in order for us, who have done no such data collection, to get a better understanding of Somchai’s faults, naivite, support of Islamic terrorists, etc. etc.? You could even publish a shorter version in Bangkok Post and get paid for it!
Mit besten Wuenschen fuer baldige Entspannung…
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
Why is it that sufficiency economy considered a theory? (#20) Perhaps it is because, in common parlance, “theory” means something like an opinion or some kind of speculation. In other words, this kind of “theory” is conjecture and not necessarily based on any facts.
Report on Shan conference in London
Thanks. Just saw this. I was curious whether anyone had done research on Shan Buddhist literature of the variety found in Terwiel’s catalogue. I guess not yet:
Shan manuscripts [Reference Book] / compiled and edited by Barend Jan Terwiel with the assistance of Chaichuen Khamdaengyodtai
Names Terwiel, B.J. (Barend Jan) Chaichuen Khamdaengyodtai
Publisher F. Steiner Verlag wiesbaden, Stuttgart, 2003-
Description v. : ill. (some col.) ; 29 cm. Series Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland ; Bd. 39/1-
A Thai studies warlord
The above topic was discussed today on the foremost humanities blog in the US:
http://crookedtimber.org/2008/03/13/academic-journals-thinking-from-the-south/
Thailand does have great universal access to materials compared to other countries like Japan an Korea. In the US I use U.C. Berkeley’s library after purchasing the $50 UC alumni card and its just a little bit more expensive for non-alumni. At Chula 20 baht gets access! A lot of fine resources don’t get used much, like the Siam Society, which is a pity. Academic publishing in terms of papers published is compared between countries by UNDP, at least according to a presentation I saw once. How to stimulate more of it certainly isn’t an easy issue though.
The disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit
Re: Srithanonchai
And be careful with using words…
Srithanonchai, I refer you to your comment #4:
This outburst makes me wonder whether LSS holds some religio-racist grudge.
Physician, heal thyself! Again, I implore you that if you cannot produce based on what I have wrote that I bear ill-will to any one person or group as a whole based solely on their religion or race, then kindly apologize for your insinuation. I will not “relax” until you do so.
Second, if you are sure of your data, analysis, and judgment, please put together 10 pages of systematic text deconstructing the image of Somchai.
The following applies to Bangkok Pundit’s comments as well; you know I am arguing with one hand tied behind my back, since Mr. Neelaphaijit did so well to win accquitals for the previously named clients, for me to openly criticize the Thai court’s decisions would be to flirt with lèse majesté. I’m sorry that I don’t have the gumption of a Somsak or a Republican when it comes to that. However, Srithanonchai, I would invite you to put together 10 pages of systematic text deconstructing my argument, for thus far, all you have contributed to this conversation is insinuating that I am an Islamophobe and posting a cut-and-paste article from the Nation [next time an “a href=” tag would be nice].
Cura ut valeas,
Lleij Samuel Schwartz