When we talk about anti-fascist movements, I think we should be mindful of the insecurities of a man who is an irascible, unremarkable, unthinking, splenetic, ill-educated, charmless, power-hungry, epauletted dalek.
General Commotion, like many dictators before him, says he has only come to “save his nation”. This is the man who has re-engineering the political system to increase “stability” at the expense of “democracy”, but who is driving the economy towards the economic abyss, whilst having a huge stab at permanent power. History has always seen fit that this self-effulence is soon flushed away.
The military had once strengthened the monarchy but now it was suffering from an acute back pain of malign narcissistic grandiosity and pomposity, with continuous claims for Thailand’s military heir presumptive to be attended to with admiration.
But his cold, uncaring behaviour towards his brethren as a man “of the people” who had “made it” from Isaan, and who regards them as merely an extension of his ego and who need to be manipulated or eliminated for personal profit, is one such characteristic of a dictator, whomever he is.
His exaggerated sense of self-impotence, preoccupation with fantasy, expectation of people automatically agreeing with his ideas, inability for empathy, hypersensitivity of insults and criticism, with reactions of rage due to humiliation, and an arrogant demeanour and attitude, is the perfect definition of a paranoid, deficient tyrant.
Perhaps we should not ignore Proust, who once suggested that: “Remembrance of things past should not be recalled as an enrichment of a potential future,” which Thailand’s elite typically ignores and obfuscates.
But Napoleonic confidence mushroomed and Commotion regularly appeared on national television like a puffed-up parrot, deliberating on existential affairs of street philosophy, bemoaning “phoney” states like the US and finding various ways of not solving any of Thailand’s inherent problems, while invoking primus inter pares.
As a playmaker, the man was clearly absurd, fitting the inner profile of those that had ceaselessly lived before him.
His utterings on Thai Buddhism and his unrivalled incapacity and pronouncements of solipsistic, narcissistic utterings, together with practicing the philosophy of reductionism, were just such a nauseous, vacuous, obsequious canon of trifle. It made us leave his clichéd, cringe-enducing programme altogether.
And no, there were no gardens of heavenly orchids or sparkling temples; no lush jungles or balmy white beaches; nor a gentle Buddhist retreat filled with delightfully smiling monks. No, instead The Land of Clowns has a far bigger problem–it simply doesn’t exist. It is a Peter Pan-like Neverland creation, where its people enjoy an enduring childhood until death.
Thailand was simply built on thin air for the ruling class to invent alluring traditions of partiality to substantiate its illegitimate and risible supremacy.
As Robert Fisk’s article on Egypt at the end of the Mubarak era pointed out, “The first essential task of a dictator is to infantilise his people, to transform them into political six-year-olds, obedient to a patriarchal headmaster. They will be given fake newspapers, fake elections, fake ministers and lots of false promises. If they obey, they might even become one of the fake ministers. If they disobey, they will be beaten up in the local police station, imprisoned or hanged.”
Prayut cannot close down Thailand. This is not North Korea. He cannot even close down the internet as businesses would collapse.
Just another stupid comment from the illegal dictator.
At least he gives everyone a good laugh with his stupid comments.
I agree with the sentiment that Westerners, indeed any foreigner who is a guest in another country, should be aware of and sensitive to local customs and mores. I also particularly agree with the comment that the local partners in the bar should have advised the foreign partner on the matter, that the name of the Buddha should not have been used. BUT the choice of words “Westerners’ ignorance and insensitivity in abusing the Buddha image is rampant.” reflects, in my view, the prejudice against particularly Westerners by many people in Asia, which is ‘an ignorant and insensitive’ attitude in itself. It is amusing in a cynical sort of way that ‘Lucky there is no such thing as a fatwa here’ which refers to the practice of an essentially non-Western religious group often threatening death to anyone who disagrees with them. Especially with this comment coming from a country where a religious minority is so heavily persecuted!
” … Switzerland’s attorney general said on Friday there were ‘serious indications that funds have been misappropriated from Malaysian state companies’ ….. Regulators in the US and Hong Kong are also reported to be investigating 1MDB … “
#4 Michael is correct about the need to have something tangible in hand after the junta. Most uprisings/revolts fail to be sustainable because they have no broad based futures plan (though I believe the ’97 Constitution was actually an Ok framework; indeed perhaps too Ok for the reactionaries, many who actually penned it. the problem for them was Thaksin was reelected! The future for the regime is to see that the palace-favoured Democrat Party will eventually be in power. This is why the military junta/amaat are working with the judiciary to disqualify through criminal convictions all opposition. This is not the “democracy” that conservatives like Friedman would have envisaged, by which he would substitute the rights and freedom of individuals. Finally, maybe I’m old fashioned, but a social democracy has fundmentals which we should all cherish.
Even the name Buddha bar itself is offensive, and the locals in the outfit should know better before they picked the name. Westerners’ ignorance and insensitivity in abusing the Buddha image is rampant. Lucky there’s no such thing as a fatwa here.
#3, I agree, it would be interesting to see what some political scientists would have to say, though I fear some no doubt may prefer hiding behind a fa├зade of “neutrality”, for reasons of their own, or their anti-Thaksin views over the past ten years. the question of global forces, whether capital or social, is interesting. Prayut has indicated/hinted a number of times that closing down the country may not be beyond imagination if it means absolute control. Remember, the royalty & amaat have extensive investments overseas in any case. The proposed single gateway is also worrying. In my view the fundamental concern is the military. Thaksin tried to cut their funding and influence and look what happened to him! Lenin (“Lessons of the Moscow Uprising”, Selected Works Vol.1, p.530), re- events February 1917, in a different social context and place, noted that unless an uprising assumes a mass character and affects the troops, there can be no question of a serious struggle. [This relates to #1 interesting comments on only students. Thanks also #2 for an opined historical backdrop…] As long as the military feel they are servants of the monarchy and not the people and their elected government, it is hard to see a resolution.
The trouble with Thailand’s “new democracy” is that it isn’t.
New, that is.
Opposing the junta, exposing corruption, calling for “freedom and democracy”TM is rather old style in Thailand, especially using the corruption canard, which is little more than a variation on the “Good People R Us” approach to politics.
There is no one to stand for election who would credibly promise to work toward building a liberal democratic system in Thailand. No one.
And there is no one proposing how that might be done except for the tired and fatuous calls for a properly “democratic” constitution. (Anyone remember what happened to the ’97?)
These kids deserve all praise and respect for their courageous opposition to the junta. That much is clear.
As for what comes after the junta finally dissolves, that is absolutely not clear.
If Milton Friedman was even close to right when he said,
“Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable”
then Thailand is going nowhere fast. The crisis is coming without a doubt.
So what are the ideas “lying around” that will enable a transformation in the Thai political universe?
“Anti-fascism? Freedom? Democracy?”
Slogans are really not ideas in the sense that Friedman intends.
Regarding the video of the bogan rugby player in Australia I can only say that, Yes, I cringe in embarrassment, as an Australian, to see this behaviour. It is, indeed, not uncommon in Australia, especially among football players of any code (not to condemn all of them, many are indeed gentlemen and are professionals outside of their sport, such as lawyers, merchant bankers etc.) BUT the point should not be missed that this was behaviour in a private home, apparently did not include the commission of a crime, so no illegality, and nobody had the right to video it and release that video to the press or put it up on Facebook. Our right to privacy should be preeminent. Losing that right is a greater danger than some drunken yahoo pretending to have sex with a dog. Other comments elsewhere have carried on about “Is this the start of our accepting bestiality as normal?” which is of course utter nonsense. The person who videoed this is the one who has committed the greater wrong!
A fascinating and informative article with two in-depth comments. What is missing is a political economy dimension in suggesting possible scenarios for Thailand’s future. It would be great to have some comments from colleagues such as Rick Doner, Kevin Hewison and others in this area.
My own modest contribution is to suggest that ‘Teflon Thailand” is no longer, i.e. that Thailand’s political malaise does now have economic consequences. Moreover the tensions generated by Thailand’s middle-income trap will have political consequences.
For example, Thailand’s state-run Board of Investment indicated in early January that total investment applied for by foreign companies between January and November 2015 had plunged 78% from a year earlier (Agence France Presse 14.1.16).
Several days ago that ‘rabid left-wing journal’, the Nikkei Asian Review, published an article (http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Companies-flee-Bangkok-in-search-of-cheap-labor) on the flight of capital from Bangkok to lower cost production sites not only within Thailand itself (exploiting, in the usual Thai way, foreign labour from Myanmar and Cambodia) but also in more cost effective neighboring countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. . Thailand’s tourism industry will also confront greater competition as Myanmar rapidly develops its tourism infrastructure.
The end of the absolute monarchy in 1932 was in part a consequence of the Great Depression starting in 1929 that hit Siam, as an ‘informal colony’ of Great Britain, severely. As Eric Catullus suggests this was followed by the rise of Phibun Songkran and Thai-style fascism.
But the People’s Party of 1932 also had its democratic current led by a Thai academic lawyer, Pribi Banamyong. However Pribi lacked a social base to counter the organized forces of the the military.
It is to be hoped that this time around the forces of global capitalism impacting on Thai politics will contribute – as is the case at the moment at least in Myanmar – to democratic forces prevailing.
A good overview of the challenges facing Laos. However, the number of players involved in the various special projects is much more complex. For instance, few outsiders or locals for that matter know the provenance of Chinese investors. Those from Yunnan are frowned upon as crude bumpkins while those coming from Shanghai are considered more sophisticated and trying to respect local values. Many more come from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia. The duplicity of many developments means that Laos’ cities and SEZs will become clogged with the same attractions. One wonders how much the desire for a modern future has detached the wealthy elites from the hard realities of contemporary Laos where inflation is rapidly increasing and basic services remain rudimentary, even in urban areas.
Ever since the 1890s, when King Chulalongkorn strengthened the military in a reasoned reaction to colonialism, it has played a leading and perverse role in Thai politics. Then, in the 1930s, when the military budget doubled and power had been collected in the hands of Phibun Songkhram, an admirer of Napoleon and the rising European fascists, who kept a signed portrait of Mussolini hung over his desk, royalism was all but defunct.
Phibun despised all of the princes and begun supplanting royalism with a German- and Japanese-style modern militant nationalism. Meanwhile, in Lausanne, King Rama VIII was studying French, Latin and German instead of Thai and Pali, the language of his idealised but distinctly distant land.
After his death, the monarchy under Bhumibol rose to a position of ultimate conscription over all of the country’s institutions because of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat. But although Bhumibol was raised and educated in Switzerland, he now regarded himself as a dhammaraja king. He studied his ancestors, educated himself in royal rituals, read Buddhist philosophy and practiced its meditation techniques. He and he alone came to represent the unparalleled wisdom and astute insights into the ways of man and the cosmos.
He believed that, by his selfless commitment, he was the only man sufficiently equipped to direct “his” people and his “kingdom” and injected himself deep into the body politic, development planning and strategies. From behind a protective wall of powerful courtiers and their allies, he strove to set the direction of the government and the people.
But instead of making a whip out of cords to drive the mountebanks from the temple, through his utter fecklessness he simply allowed the scattered coins of the money changers to continue: whilst too inwardly to overturn the tables, he joined hands with the military’s philistine, pilfering fingers.
The “New Democracy” movement are not “at the forefront of spontaneous anti-fascist activities in Thailand”. No, they are a group of 14 students of working class backgrounds that have no chance of affecting the Thai political system. One only has to remember how deeply rooted the culture of “Theravada Buddhism” is, that high social status and moral authority reflects “good karma” acquired in previous lives.
To illustrate this, there was someone history has not been very kind to, as no one has ever heard of him. He was the Ayutthayan King Boromma Trailokanat, the man who reigned in Siam between 1448 and 1488 and introduced the Sakdina system. Not only did the king move the capital of his so-called “empire” to Phitsanulok to establish new temples dedicated to himself, he codifying an attendant class war under the 3-Seal Code based on people’s worth according to their closeness to him.
While members of the royal family and noblemen were ranked in the tens of thousands of “na”, those of a lower in rank received hardly any at all and, in modern-day politics, voters for Thaksin Shinawatra receive bugger all.
And while the political system has become so progressively bleak, there is a potential for events to get far worse, leading to a tethered and bleating semi-comatose denial that the Thai notion of a nondescript military and monarchy is leading them towards the path of an economic abyss.
For all of Thailand’s foibles, the effete Prem was seen dressing up in his deliciously tailored fuchsia jacket, while the erogenous popinjay Prayuth was sliding into a cobalt blue-style coolie outfit. Both men had started to self-stylise their dress in direct opposition to one another, but these fashion statements did not spell outright opposition but eventually a congenial alliance.
While NDM says it is committed to “fighting for freedom and democracy”, MR Kukrit established long ago a top-down style that made Thailand a nation of bricks and pebbles, which the British and the French outlawed as “barbaric”.
In the early 1950s, Kukrit successfully, unfortunately and enduringly thought it was within him as a member of the royal clique, to reinforce the ideals of “royalism” and he actually managed to convince the Thai people that Hindu kingship was an institution that was indispensable to the Thai nation. Except, in 2010, it was all coming to a rather sickening end.
The existential Thai crisis is not just about the succession; it is also about a perfect storm and a Thai identity crisis that needs unravelling. What upset the elite was all the talk of exploring new ways to re-define “Thainess” so that it was broad enough to give each member of society their own space to develop intellectually, culturally and emotionally – a return to the 1970s was not the answer and the country is faltering in its attempts to impose a fake fascist dictatorship.
Thailand was in the twenty-first century and had seen many campaigns exhorting people to be proud of being Thai, which was little other than an extreme abstraction. To create a nationalist consciousness of this type mystified and bewildered many non-Thais and the Thai people of different cultures and, as the world moved relentlessly forward, Thai conservatives obstructed its flow.
The more the currents of globalisation found its way into the very fabric of Thai society, the more the royalist group regarded the changing nature of the world as utterly intolerable. They were rich and greedy enough to abandon any sense of their false Buddhist principles to unleash a torrent of abuse against the poor.
It reached the stage where anachronistic, histrionic, braying calls were made for the “extermination of buffaloes”. Instead, “Thainess” should have been stockpiled in aspic, but the utter brutality of the state had forced them to temporarily withdraw from the fray. We’re sorry, but a few students will not bring down this decades-old ancien régime.
In 2014, the military junta felt an urgent desire to justify its dastardly practices and, owing to its piercing proclamations, which barred all media from presenting critical news and views against it, few had the courage to speak up and the Red Shirt movement was left speechless. Instead, people woke up one morning to find that the military’s “Ministry of Love” had, to great fanfare, provided a free pass to see sexy girls in short shirts and a haircut if they kept their mouths firmly shut.
If force and compulsion alone could solve this protracted conflict, then what about the lessons of the South, which has been under martial law for years in a torturous and brutal guerrilla war in Thailand’s tropical gulag. So, in order for the country to “return to normality”, the military junta implausibly proposed an enforced state of partisanship with a circus.
It is perhaps worth mentioning a quote from Gabriel Garc├нa M├бrquez’s famous book, One Hundred Years of Solitude: “You must have been dreaming,” the officer insisted, “nothing has happened in Macondo, nothing has ever happened and nothing will ever happen. This is a happy town.” For many of the anti-democrats, Thailand went from deviousness and vapid trifle into becoming a new military-induced “Macondo”.
But far from “nothing ever happening”, the junta let it be known what sort of punishment their beloved Macondians would face if they did not comply with the country’s trumped-up military regime’s sentences; they tried to arrest anybody who had the potential to lead any opposition to them.
In a fascistic environment under a temple pavilion one day, sixty Red Shirt villagers watched a projected image of a candle on a screen. A military staff member asked everyone to close their eyes, sit silently and meditate while she read aloud: “How was it that we kept a hold on our country and avoided being colonised by another country [sic: Persians, Indians, Chinese, British, French]? It was because our king protected our nation,” she indoctrinatorily recited. “If any outsiders come to destroy our country, we will fight until we die.” Farcically, she explained, “We need to protect our land and we need to love each other.”
As an aside, an interesting parallel is when Siamese forces resisted French troops in 1893. The French government then had the pretext for a war they had sought all along and as the French were refused permission to send gunboats up the Chaophraya River to Bangkok, the French commander sent them up anyway, forcing a short engagement.
Prince Devawongse made a valiant attempt to calm the situation down by going to the waterfront and congratulating the French commander for his daring and agreed at once to the evacuation of Siam troops from the east of the Mekong. So much for non-colonisation.
Then, after this brief meditation of disbelief, a group of soldiers led the villagers in a synchronised dance, chanting the names of fruits and swaying their hips from side to side in praise of the durian tree.
These activities were part of the “training” conducted in Khon Kaen during an extensive tour of three-day events in villages across Prayuth’s region of Isaan. It is perhaps worth remembering that ever since the unfurling of Julius Caesar, no absolute ruler had ever had provisions like section 44; not even Hitler or Mussolini enjoyed that clause.
Surely, the key to resolving the political impasse was not about medievalism but about building links between cultures, values and beliefs and a new vision for the future, which would perhaps have had a chance to encourage all sides towards compromise. But the problem was that the idea of commonality to the royalists had always been a bitter stumbling block when attempts were made for the country to reinvent itself.
The real melee started towards the end of 2015 as the Thai economy became profoundly affected: the perfect storm was hanging back awhile to appease an undeserving nation facing fragile export markets and low commodity prices, drought, rice and rubber subsidies, greater competition from its neighbours, much reduced Western tourism, reluctant governmental support, education failures, repression of the working class, academics and free-thinkers, bankruptcies, an untenable exchange rate for local businesses, unreasonable anger by officialdom and an inadequate supply of skilled labour for the country to rise in the value chain. And, the unthinkable.
While the king had formerly been the epoxy of a fractured nation, the military government was showing no haste in handing back power to the politicians. “No one feels like smiling anymore,” said a merchant at a fruit and vegetable market behind the Temple of Dawn.
So “all the masses can do in the interim is to seemingly wait and endure the social, political and economic consequences of this high-level connivance” is not going to be solved by “by a core group of 14 mostly students of working class backgrounds”.
As Giles Ji Ungpakorn would attest, the “untermenschen” – and members of the disaffected middle class – must join hands in establishing a base in which to erase this fascist regime. But, not only is Thailand’s centuries-old system not easily going to crumble, it is also not about to relinquish control quite yet without, perhaps, a civil war.
But would-be perpetrators are worried that they would either be shot and/or their genitalia electrified. Sorry, how many democratically-elected governments did you say have there have ever been in Thailand?
I am interested in your thesis paper about Eu Chooi Yip as he is one of the intellectuals (alongside others) I’m working on. I would really appreciate it if you can share with me the sources you have about him (especially about his role in the Malayan Democratic Union). I look forward to your favourable reply!
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The trouble with Thailand’s new democracy
When we talk about anti-fascist movements, I think we should be mindful of the insecurities of a man who is an irascible, unremarkable, unthinking, splenetic, ill-educated, charmless, power-hungry, epauletted dalek.
General Commotion, like many dictators before him, says he has only come to “save his nation”. This is the man who has re-engineering the political system to increase “stability” at the expense of “democracy”, but who is driving the economy towards the economic abyss, whilst having a huge stab at permanent power. History has always seen fit that this self-effulence is soon flushed away.
The military had once strengthened the monarchy but now it was suffering from an acute back pain of malign narcissistic grandiosity and pomposity, with continuous claims for Thailand’s military heir presumptive to be attended to with admiration.
But his cold, uncaring behaviour towards his brethren as a man “of the people” who had “made it” from Isaan, and who regards them as merely an extension of his ego and who need to be manipulated or eliminated for personal profit, is one such characteristic of a dictator, whomever he is.
His exaggerated sense of self-impotence, preoccupation with fantasy, expectation of people automatically agreeing with his ideas, inability for empathy, hypersensitivity of insults and criticism, with reactions of rage due to humiliation, and an arrogant demeanour and attitude, is the perfect definition of a paranoid, deficient tyrant.
Perhaps we should not ignore Proust, who once suggested that: “Remembrance of things past should not be recalled as an enrichment of a potential future,” which Thailand’s elite typically ignores and obfuscates.
But Napoleonic confidence mushroomed and Commotion regularly appeared on national television like a puffed-up parrot, deliberating on existential affairs of street philosophy, bemoaning “phoney” states like the US and finding various ways of not solving any of Thailand’s inherent problems, while invoking primus inter pares.
As a playmaker, the man was clearly absurd, fitting the inner profile of those that had ceaselessly lived before him.
His utterings on Thai Buddhism and his unrivalled incapacity and pronouncements of solipsistic, narcissistic utterings, together with practicing the philosophy of reductionism, were just such a nauseous, vacuous, obsequious canon of trifle. It made us leave his clichéd, cringe-enducing programme altogether.
And no, there were no gardens of heavenly orchids or sparkling temples; no lush jungles or balmy white beaches; nor a gentle Buddhist retreat filled with delightfully smiling monks. No, instead The Land of Clowns has a far bigger problem–it simply doesn’t exist. It is a Peter Pan-like Neverland creation, where its people enjoy an enduring childhood until death.
Thailand was simply built on thin air for the ruling class to invent alluring traditions of partiality to substantiate its illegitimate and risible supremacy.
As Robert Fisk’s article on Egypt at the end of the Mubarak era pointed out, “The first essential task of a dictator is to infantilise his people, to transform them into political six-year-olds, obedient to a patriarchal headmaster. They will be given fake newspapers, fake elections, fake ministers and lots of false promises. If they obey, they might even become one of the fake ministers. If they disobey, they will be beaten up in the local police station, imprisoned or hanged.”
Southeast Asian snapshots
“Especially with this comment coming from a country where a religious minority is so heavily persecuted!”
People who have lived long in Burma before 2011 would disagree with this.
The crisis behind ‘A Kingdom in Crisis’
Back in March/April Andrew Marshall set up a donor page to secure funds to translate his work.
Facebook updates by him at the time said he’d reached his donor goal and would have the translation ready in two months.
It’s now almost a year later and nothing is published.
What happened to the money Andrew Marshall raised?
When will the translation appear?
Maybe Andrew could answer here as I know many people who are keen to read it.
The trouble with Thailand’s new democracy
Prayut cannot close down Thailand. This is not North Korea. He cannot even close down the internet as businesses would collapse.
Just another stupid comment from the illegal dictator.
At least he gives everyone a good laugh with his stupid comments.
The trouble with Thailand’s new democracy
Jim T…..When the general hints at “closing down the country” what do you think he means?
How far would this mob go?
Southeast Asian snapshots
I agree with the sentiment that Westerners, indeed any foreigner who is a guest in another country, should be aware of and sensitive to local customs and mores. I also particularly agree with the comment that the local partners in the bar should have advised the foreign partner on the matter, that the name of the Buddha should not have been used. BUT the choice of words “Westerners’ ignorance and insensitivity in abusing the Buddha image is rampant.” reflects, in my view, the prejudice against particularly Westerners by many people in Asia, which is ‘an ignorant and insensitive’ attitude in itself. It is amusing in a cynical sort of way that ‘Lucky there is no such thing as a fatwa here’ which refers to the practice of an essentially non-Western religious group often threatening death to anyone who disagrees with them. Especially with this comment coming from a country where a religious minority is so heavily persecuted!
Southeast Asian snapshots
Burma of today is solid confused greed filled mass. Right and wrong are no longer differentiated. Vultures’ delight.
Malaysia’s ‘strongman’?
“About $4bn (┬г2.8bn) may have been stolen from a fund owned by the Malaysian state, a prosecutor says.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35447174
” … Switzerland’s attorney general said on Friday there were ‘serious indications that funds have been misappropriated from Malaysian state companies’ ….. Regulators in the US and Hong Kong are also reported to be investigating 1MDB … “
Predicting Myanmar’s next president
http://yangon.coconuts.co/2016/01/28/political-analysis-we-have-absolutely-no-idea-who-myanmars-next-president-will-be
Elections, parties and decentralisation in Cambodia
Dear Scott.
An awesome article. Proud to see your name on an important issue. Welldone Rawlinson.
All the best.
The trouble with Thailand’s new democracy
#4 Michael is correct about the need to have something tangible in hand after the junta. Most uprisings/revolts fail to be sustainable because they have no broad based futures plan (though I believe the ’97 Constitution was actually an Ok framework; indeed perhaps too Ok for the reactionaries, many who actually penned it. the problem for them was Thaksin was reelected! The future for the regime is to see that the palace-favoured Democrat Party will eventually be in power. This is why the military junta/amaat are working with the judiciary to disqualify through criminal convictions all opposition. This is not the “democracy” that conservatives like Friedman would have envisaged, by which he would substitute the rights and freedom of individuals. Finally, maybe I’m old fashioned, but a social democracy has fundmentals which we should all cherish.
Southeast Asian snapshots
Even the name Buddha bar itself is offensive, and the locals in the outfit should know better before they picked the name. Westerners’ ignorance and insensitivity in abusing the Buddha image is rampant. Lucky there’s no such thing as a fatwa here.
The trouble with Thailand’s new democracy
#3, I agree, it would be interesting to see what some political scientists would have to say, though I fear some no doubt may prefer hiding behind a fa├зade of “neutrality”, for reasons of their own, or their anti-Thaksin views over the past ten years. the question of global forces, whether capital or social, is interesting. Prayut has indicated/hinted a number of times that closing down the country may not be beyond imagination if it means absolute control. Remember, the royalty & amaat have extensive investments overseas in any case. The proposed single gateway is also worrying. In my view the fundamental concern is the military. Thaksin tried to cut their funding and influence and look what happened to him! Lenin (“Lessons of the Moscow Uprising”, Selected Works Vol.1, p.530), re- events February 1917, in a different social context and place, noted that unless an uprising assumes a mass character and affects the troops, there can be no question of a serious struggle. [This relates to #1 interesting comments on only students. Thanks also #2 for an opined historical backdrop…] As long as the military feel they are servants of the monarchy and not the people and their elected government, it is hard to see a resolution.
The trouble with Thailand’s new democracy
The trouble with Thailand’s “new democracy” is that it isn’t.
New, that is.
Opposing the junta, exposing corruption, calling for “freedom and democracy”TM is rather old style in Thailand, especially using the corruption canard, which is little more than a variation on the “Good People R Us” approach to politics.
There is no one to stand for election who would credibly promise to work toward building a liberal democratic system in Thailand. No one.
And there is no one proposing how that might be done except for the tired and fatuous calls for a properly “democratic” constitution. (Anyone remember what happened to the ’97?)
These kids deserve all praise and respect for their courageous opposition to the junta. That much is clear.
As for what comes after the junta finally dissolves, that is absolutely not clear.
If Milton Friedman was even close to right when he said,
“Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable”
then Thailand is going nowhere fast. The crisis is coming without a doubt.
So what are the ideas “lying around” that will enable a transformation in the Thai political universe?
“Anti-fascism? Freedom? Democracy?”
Slogans are really not ideas in the sense that Friedman intends.
Southeast Asian snapshots
Regarding the video of the bogan rugby player in Australia I can only say that, Yes, I cringe in embarrassment, as an Australian, to see this behaviour. It is, indeed, not uncommon in Australia, especially among football players of any code (not to condemn all of them, many are indeed gentlemen and are professionals outside of their sport, such as lawyers, merchant bankers etc.) BUT the point should not be missed that this was behaviour in a private home, apparently did not include the commission of a crime, so no illegality, and nobody had the right to video it and release that video to the press or put it up on Facebook. Our right to privacy should be preeminent. Losing that right is a greater danger than some drunken yahoo pretending to have sex with a dog. Other comments elsewhere have carried on about “Is this the start of our accepting bestiality as normal?” which is of course utter nonsense. The person who videoed this is the one who has committed the greater wrong!
The trouble with Thailand’s new democracy
A fascinating and informative article with two in-depth comments. What is missing is a political economy dimension in suggesting possible scenarios for Thailand’s future. It would be great to have some comments from colleagues such as Rick Doner, Kevin Hewison and others in this area.
My own modest contribution is to suggest that ‘Teflon Thailand” is no longer, i.e. that Thailand’s political malaise does now have economic consequences. Moreover the tensions generated by Thailand’s middle-income trap will have political consequences.
For example, Thailand’s state-run Board of Investment indicated in early January that total investment applied for by foreign companies between January and November 2015 had plunged 78% from a year earlier (Agence France Presse 14.1.16).
Several days ago that ‘rabid left-wing journal’, the Nikkei Asian Review, published an article (http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Companies-flee-Bangkok-in-search-of-cheap-labor) on the flight of capital from Bangkok to lower cost production sites not only within Thailand itself (exploiting, in the usual Thai way, foreign labour from Myanmar and Cambodia) but also in more cost effective neighboring countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. . Thailand’s tourism industry will also confront greater competition as Myanmar rapidly develops its tourism infrastructure.
The end of the absolute monarchy in 1932 was in part a consequence of the Great Depression starting in 1929 that hit Siam, as an ‘informal colony’ of Great Britain, severely. As Eric Catullus suggests this was followed by the rise of Phibun Songkran and Thai-style fascism.
But the People’s Party of 1932 also had its democratic current led by a Thai academic lawyer, Pribi Banamyong. However Pribi lacked a social base to counter the organized forces of the the military.
It is to be hoped that this time around the forces of global capitalism impacting on Thai politics will contribute – as is the case at the moment at least in Myanmar – to democratic forces prevailing.
Forty years of Lao PDR: what’s next?
A good overview of the challenges facing Laos. However, the number of players involved in the various special projects is much more complex. For instance, few outsiders or locals for that matter know the provenance of Chinese investors. Those from Yunnan are frowned upon as crude bumpkins while those coming from Shanghai are considered more sophisticated and trying to respect local values. Many more come from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia. The duplicity of many developments means that Laos’ cities and SEZs will become clogged with the same attractions. One wonders how much the desire for a modern future has detached the wealthy elites from the hard realities of contemporary Laos where inflation is rapidly increasing and basic services remain rudimentary, even in urban areas.
Southeast Asian snapshots
Sorry! Fixed that up 🙂
The trouble with Thailand’s new democracy
Ever since the 1890s, when King Chulalongkorn strengthened the military in a reasoned reaction to colonialism, it has played a leading and perverse role in Thai politics. Then, in the 1930s, when the military budget doubled and power had been collected in the hands of Phibun Songkhram, an admirer of Napoleon and the rising European fascists, who kept a signed portrait of Mussolini hung over his desk, royalism was all but defunct.
Phibun despised all of the princes and begun supplanting royalism with a German- and Japanese-style modern militant nationalism. Meanwhile, in Lausanne, King Rama VIII was studying French, Latin and German instead of Thai and Pali, the language of his idealised but distinctly distant land.
After his death, the monarchy under Bhumibol rose to a position of ultimate conscription over all of the country’s institutions because of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat. But although Bhumibol was raised and educated in Switzerland, he now regarded himself as a dhammaraja king. He studied his ancestors, educated himself in royal rituals, read Buddhist philosophy and practiced its meditation techniques. He and he alone came to represent the unparalleled wisdom and astute insights into the ways of man and the cosmos.
He believed that, by his selfless commitment, he was the only man sufficiently equipped to direct “his” people and his “kingdom” and injected himself deep into the body politic, development planning and strategies. From behind a protective wall of powerful courtiers and their allies, he strove to set the direction of the government and the people.
But instead of making a whip out of cords to drive the mountebanks from the temple, through his utter fecklessness he simply allowed the scattered coins of the money changers to continue: whilst too inwardly to overturn the tables, he joined hands with the military’s philistine, pilfering fingers.
The “New Democracy” movement are not “at the forefront of spontaneous anti-fascist activities in Thailand”. No, they are a group of 14 students of working class backgrounds that have no chance of affecting the Thai political system. One only has to remember how deeply rooted the culture of “Theravada Buddhism” is, that high social status and moral authority reflects “good karma” acquired in previous lives.
To illustrate this, there was someone history has not been very kind to, as no one has ever heard of him. He was the Ayutthayan King Boromma Trailokanat, the man who reigned in Siam between 1448 and 1488 and introduced the Sakdina system. Not only did the king move the capital of his so-called “empire” to Phitsanulok to establish new temples dedicated to himself, he codifying an attendant class war under the 3-Seal Code based on people’s worth according to their closeness to him.
While members of the royal family and noblemen were ranked in the tens of thousands of “na”, those of a lower in rank received hardly any at all and, in modern-day politics, voters for Thaksin Shinawatra receive bugger all.
And while the political system has become so progressively bleak, there is a potential for events to get far worse, leading to a tethered and bleating semi-comatose denial that the Thai notion of a nondescript military and monarchy is leading them towards the path of an economic abyss.
For all of Thailand’s foibles, the effete Prem was seen dressing up in his deliciously tailored fuchsia jacket, while the erogenous popinjay Prayuth was sliding into a cobalt blue-style coolie outfit. Both men had started to self-stylise their dress in direct opposition to one another, but these fashion statements did not spell outright opposition but eventually a congenial alliance.
While NDM says it is committed to “fighting for freedom and democracy”, MR Kukrit established long ago a top-down style that made Thailand a nation of bricks and pebbles, which the British and the French outlawed as “barbaric”.
In the early 1950s, Kukrit successfully, unfortunately and enduringly thought it was within him as a member of the royal clique, to reinforce the ideals of “royalism” and he actually managed to convince the Thai people that Hindu kingship was an institution that was indispensable to the Thai nation. Except, in 2010, it was all coming to a rather sickening end.
The existential Thai crisis is not just about the succession; it is also about a perfect storm and a Thai identity crisis that needs unravelling. What upset the elite was all the talk of exploring new ways to re-define “Thainess” so that it was broad enough to give each member of society their own space to develop intellectually, culturally and emotionally – a return to the 1970s was not the answer and the country is faltering in its attempts to impose a fake fascist dictatorship.
Thailand was in the twenty-first century and had seen many campaigns exhorting people to be proud of being Thai, which was little other than an extreme abstraction. To create a nationalist consciousness of this type mystified and bewildered many non-Thais and the Thai people of different cultures and, as the world moved relentlessly forward, Thai conservatives obstructed its flow.
The more the currents of globalisation found its way into the very fabric of Thai society, the more the royalist group regarded the changing nature of the world as utterly intolerable. They were rich and greedy enough to abandon any sense of their false Buddhist principles to unleash a torrent of abuse against the poor.
It reached the stage where anachronistic, histrionic, braying calls were made for the “extermination of buffaloes”. Instead, “Thainess” should have been stockpiled in aspic, but the utter brutality of the state had forced them to temporarily withdraw from the fray. We’re sorry, but a few students will not bring down this decades-old ancien régime.
In 2014, the military junta felt an urgent desire to justify its dastardly practices and, owing to its piercing proclamations, which barred all media from presenting critical news and views against it, few had the courage to speak up and the Red Shirt movement was left speechless. Instead, people woke up one morning to find that the military’s “Ministry of Love” had, to great fanfare, provided a free pass to see sexy girls in short shirts and a haircut if they kept their mouths firmly shut.
If force and compulsion alone could solve this protracted conflict, then what about the lessons of the South, which has been under martial law for years in a torturous and brutal guerrilla war in Thailand’s tropical gulag. So, in order for the country to “return to normality”, the military junta implausibly proposed an enforced state of partisanship with a circus.
It is perhaps worth mentioning a quote from Gabriel Garc├нa M├бrquez’s famous book, One Hundred Years of Solitude: “You must have been dreaming,” the officer insisted, “nothing has happened in Macondo, nothing has ever happened and nothing will ever happen. This is a happy town.” For many of the anti-democrats, Thailand went from deviousness and vapid trifle into becoming a new military-induced “Macondo”.
But far from “nothing ever happening”, the junta let it be known what sort of punishment their beloved Macondians would face if they did not comply with the country’s trumped-up military regime’s sentences; they tried to arrest anybody who had the potential to lead any opposition to them.
In a fascistic environment under a temple pavilion one day, sixty Red Shirt villagers watched a projected image of a candle on a screen. A military staff member asked everyone to close their eyes, sit silently and meditate while she read aloud: “How was it that we kept a hold on our country and avoided being colonised by another country [sic: Persians, Indians, Chinese, British, French]? It was because our king protected our nation,” she indoctrinatorily recited. “If any outsiders come to destroy our country, we will fight until we die.” Farcically, she explained, “We need to protect our land and we need to love each other.”
As an aside, an interesting parallel is when Siamese forces resisted French troops in 1893. The French government then had the pretext for a war they had sought all along and as the French were refused permission to send gunboats up the Chaophraya River to Bangkok, the French commander sent them up anyway, forcing a short engagement.
Prince Devawongse made a valiant attempt to calm the situation down by going to the waterfront and congratulating the French commander for his daring and agreed at once to the evacuation of Siam troops from the east of the Mekong. So much for non-colonisation.
Then, after this brief meditation of disbelief, a group of soldiers led the villagers in a synchronised dance, chanting the names of fruits and swaying their hips from side to side in praise of the durian tree.
These activities were part of the “training” conducted in Khon Kaen during an extensive tour of three-day events in villages across Prayuth’s region of Isaan. It is perhaps worth remembering that ever since the unfurling of Julius Caesar, no absolute ruler had ever had provisions like section 44; not even Hitler or Mussolini enjoyed that clause.
Surely, the key to resolving the political impasse was not about medievalism but about building links between cultures, values and beliefs and a new vision for the future, which would perhaps have had a chance to encourage all sides towards compromise. But the problem was that the idea of commonality to the royalists had always been a bitter stumbling block when attempts were made for the country to reinvent itself.
The real melee started towards the end of 2015 as the Thai economy became profoundly affected: the perfect storm was hanging back awhile to appease an undeserving nation facing fragile export markets and low commodity prices, drought, rice and rubber subsidies, greater competition from its neighbours, much reduced Western tourism, reluctant governmental support, education failures, repression of the working class, academics and free-thinkers, bankruptcies, an untenable exchange rate for local businesses, unreasonable anger by officialdom and an inadequate supply of skilled labour for the country to rise in the value chain. And, the unthinkable.
While the king had formerly been the epoxy of a fractured nation, the military government was showing no haste in handing back power to the politicians. “No one feels like smiling anymore,” said a merchant at a fruit and vegetable market behind the Temple of Dawn.
So “all the masses can do in the interim is to seemingly wait and endure the social, political and economic consequences of this high-level connivance” is not going to be solved by “by a core group of 14 mostly students of working class backgrounds”.
As Giles Ji Ungpakorn would attest, the “untermenschen” – and members of the disaffected middle class – must join hands in establishing a base in which to erase this fascist regime. But, not only is Thailand’s centuries-old system not easily going to crumble, it is also not about to relinquish control quite yet without, perhaps, a civil war.
But would-be perpetrators are worried that they would either be shot and/or their genitalia electrified. Sorry, how many democratically-elected governments did you say have there have ever been in Thailand?
Eu Chooi Yip: Singapore’s unknown communist leader
Hi Christine,
I am interested in your thesis paper about Eu Chooi Yip as he is one of the intellectuals (alongside others) I’m working on. I would really appreciate it if you can share with me the sources you have about him (especially about his role in the Malayan Democratic Union). I look forward to your favourable reply!