Dear Friends,
Much has been written against the politics of economic sanction and against Bush-Brown Policies. I have all the papers of Prof. David (also his interview published on the Yale Global online) , Prof. Taylor as well as the article of Cato Institute scholar Leon T. Hadar supporting economic engagement with the military. To answer this big question is not possible in the comment section in details, and can’t explain you here that, if it is failing then why and even in its failure it has success ingrained in it? In brief, my dear friends the politics of economic sanctions doesn’t only mean mere in terms of business trade terms/investment mechanism/economic benefits/ empirical datas. It is the question of providing legitimacy to the military regime at international and regional institutions, which Prof Taylor, David, Leon, Michael, I think intentionally fails to understand and Mr. Bush and Brown understands. And they did great disservice to Burma by providing legitimacy to the regime. It is the question of standing with right or wrong? It is the question of looking at modern Burma’s history based on facts not on enjoying dinners as a state guest of SPDC and interpretaing Modern Burma’s history that democratic values never existed there. It is the question of many resolutions of ASEAN ministerial meetings joint communique, although they are mentioning only two 36th and 37th AMM on their web site of ASEAN for the freedom of DAASK. But can ASEAN remove all the Joint Communique of AMM earlier issued, which had been already circulated? It is the question of the legitimacy of UN Secretary General’s office that despite their many calls, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s (DASSK) freedom has been not restored? It is very easy to accuse Mr. Bush and Mr. Brown, But they have the responsibility of running the country & protecting international institutions like UN and not to teach at any university like academicians. As a student of history and international relations, I know that great politicians has far superior vision than any noted scholars, and this way Mr. Bush, EU and Mr. Brown are right in following politics of economic sanction. It is not Marxism and let me clear it to you all that I’m not a Marxist but yes I accept finer points of Marxism like Gandhi accepted those some finer points, So I don’t negate marxism in whole. Even in my country (India) the present official view is of continued economic engagement with the regime. And many strategist in my country might have been thinking that I’m harming my national interest. Do I? No. But let me tell you, if India would have leadership of Mr. J.L. Nehru or Mrs. Indira Gandhi the politics would have been different because they were far superior in their vision compared with present leadership, because they were genuine leaders and grasp of world dynamics. I also know that the main reasons behind Prof Taylor, Prof. David or Leon T. Hadar or even Prof. Michael of supporting economic engagement with the regime is of serving best the concerned national foregin policy/ business interest. And it is not that I don’t have brain and I can’t propose cooperation theory with the regime. Perhaps, I can propose better economic cooperation mechanism than any great western foreign policy scholars or Harvard business think tanks going beyong Mekong Ganga Cooperation, ASEAN-Mekong Basin Development Cooperation Framework (AMBDC), ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), BIMST-EC, Kunming Railway project, Asia Bond Market, East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC), Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) etc with the regime.
I can’t write frequently on Burma Review because I have also to pursue the job for running my family expenses, which is very taxing giving little time to write.
Here comes a Christmas surprise: Isarn is the best place to live in in Thailand!
Northeastern region comes top of human security index
ANJIRA ASSAVANONDA
The poverty-stricken northeastern region, known for massive labour migration, has received the highest score in an assessment of human security made by the Social Development and Human Security Ministry.
The Composite Human Security Index (CHSI) was assessed by the ministry in 2006 and the results released yesterday.
Deputy Minister Poldej Pinprateep said the assessment covered 10 elements _ housing security, health security, education, employment and income, personal safety, family relations, social support, socio-cultural participation, rights and justice, and political governance.
The index scores were given from 0-1. Scores closer to one indicated high levels of human security.
The Northeast received the highest score with 0.72, followed by the Central Plains region with 0.70, and the North with 0.68.
The lowest score, 0.61, went to the special zone comprising Bangkok, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani and Samut Prakan.
The individual province that scored the highest for overall human security was Samut Songkram at 0.97, followed by Sing Buri, Maha Sarakham, Khon Kaen and Phetchaburi.
The province with the lowest score was Pattani, which received 0.13, followed by Si Sa Ket, Ranong, Yala and Nakhon Sawan.
When looking at the index in particular dimensions, the ministry concluded that the highest human security level was enjoyed in socio-cultural participation (0.703), followed by rights and justice (0.702) and then employment and income (0.701).
The lowest score was in politics and good governance (0.68).
In addition, it was found that Bangkok had the lowest score in housing security, while Chaiyaphum scored the lowest in health security.
Satun hit the bottom in the area of education, and Phuket scored the lowest in personal safety.
Asked why the Northeast topped the list, Dr Poldej explained that the assessment was based not only on economic growth but also on other indicators such as the school enrolment rate, employment status, relations among family members, marriage and divorce rates, stress from rights violations and crime rates.
”Judging from all these indicators, it’s not surprising a province like Khon Kaen scored higher than Bangkok in overall human security,” said Dr Poldej.
He said the index would be presented to the cabinet so responsible ministers would have an overview of the country’s human security situation.
”The index will help the authorities know what they need to do about particular elements of human security.
”For example, the public health minister will learn in which areas he needs to work harder at alleviating health problems, and the education minister will know where he needs to focus more on educational assistance,” he said.
”The interior minister will also learn from the area-based index which provinces he needs to pay greater attention to and in which dimensions,” said Dr Poldej.
They are not at all “banned from politics.” This is the short hand version used by the Thai press, but it does not make it any more correct. Please, consult the Political Party Act to find out precisely what they are banned from. When this organic law was deliberated by the CDA and the NLA, some factions indeed wanted to expand the prohibitions to include a total “ban from politics.” This was seen as “too harsh,” e.g. by usually hawkish Prasong Sunsiri. The ECT, via its “recommendation,” tried to realize what was rejected during the deliberations through the backdoor. It tried to act like a back-up legislator and court. This is a typical case of trying to replace the rule of law by political interests. One might call this the “Srithanonchai method” which is so widely used in Thai legal circles.
Organizations like HRW do have a productive function in the enormous field necessary to effect change, just as Medecins sF., at their end of the complex. People do have to be informed of issues like those outlined in the release above before they can put pressure on governments to (hopefully) force them to do something.”
Here, here! Snarly, my boy! Just look at how productive HRW has been informing cosmopolitan academics in America and Europe, effecting change to transform them in to frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Semites.
Reply to Historicus (#144) and Dickie Simpkins (#140): You two are either dyslexic or from the Thongchai school of logical reasoning. I don’t know what you are doing on an academic blog. I don’t care what you call me, thick, thin, chickenshit or whatever. Be my guest. What I was asking for in #139 was for your friend in the Thongchai fanclub, David W., to show where I had used “abusive dismissive language” in this series of posts and to be consistent in criticizing others who did use this language.
Reply to Paul Handley: I do know that record – your talk at Wisconsin-Madison. But what is your point? I’ve praised your book and your willingness to say such things and risk not being allowed to return to Thailand, or worse. I totally agree that you have put yourself at risk far more than others, especially me. And it is entirely right that UW should host a seminar on the book. So? It seems like you are saying that because of this, I should not criticize the reasoning in Thongchai’s article in The Nation, which as I’ve said many times, I find dangerous and wrong. On this point I disagree.
Re. your first point, this raises the “song mai ao” problem, and the ethical question of academics criticising Thaksin but remaining silent on the royalists (because of the lese majeste law) who were undermining his democratically-elected government. Unlike you and most others I do not absolve these academics of at least partial responsibility for paving the way for the coup by their demonization of Thaksin, which critically weakened his democratic government. They played entirely into the hands of the royalists. Academics are meant to be smarter than the rest of us, especially those who “play politics”; ie. writing newspaper columns, thalaengkans, speaking at rallies, etc. in the hope of influencing public opinion. They should be judged by the results of their political activism: the September 19 coup and the royalist dictatorship we have now. In a corporation the CEO would have had to fall on his/her sword by now to show responsibility to the stockholders for their actions, but in the Thai Studies academic world what do they do? They very “na dan” quickly switch their target to the military regime (not the monarchy) and they continue their struggle for democracy, making themselves out to be heroes of the people, taking great risks to themselves, as if nobody remembers what they did before the coup. Because unlike the politicians they despise they are not responsible to anyone. Even a little criticism on academic blogs makes them boil with anger. They have tenure and it doesn’t matter what they say; they will receive their monthly salaries for the rest of their lives. I’ve discussed these issues at length on this blog so I won’t bore readers again.
landofsnarls, I am a latte slurper and I do have a bike. I am a little ex private school chap too.
Organizations like HRW do have a productive function in the enormous field necessary to effect change, just as Medecins sF., at their end of the complex. People do have to be informed of issues like those outlined in the release above before they can put pressure on governments to (hopefully) force them to do something. And how would MsF get their funding if there were no research and information dissemination.
I have a problem with the whole concept of human rights , and therefore that there is a body that ‘watches’ them, I find ridiculous. Medicins Sans Frontiers gets the little funding it does primarily through donors actually. Do you think that most of those donors are going to check up on HRW? The most major donor for MsF is Zayed al Nahayan who by all accounts, is not that perturbed about Human Rights.
You prattle on about ‘those people over there’ as if they have nothing to do with you, and Human Rights as if it is different from Civil Rights, & as if they are both different from your rights. Getting control of HIV/AIDS is very much to do with your rights and your life. Have you lived in a time when it was safe to have sex without a condom?
I don’t prattle on about those people over there as if they have nothing to do with me. I’m prattling on about the fact that they have everything to do with me and my position as someone who can afford to be post-materialist. Rights have nothing to do with controlling AIDS/HIV. As in, it can be controlled without having this overblown, idolatrous rights concept lauded to people who have no meaning associated with it. Having been out in the world, I am quite sure that people would prefer that their AIDS is dealt with before discussing the details of Kantian dignity. (Even before discussing Kantian dignity, maybe civil rights are needed too so this whole concept of dignity is not laughed at) It’s about an order. I thought that was plain, but maybe for you it was lost in your ad-hominem rebuttal.
This is not about ‘bleeding hearts.’ It’s about coming to grips with all sides of a huge problem that includes medical, behavioral, etc.,etc., AND in this case, Human Rights issues.
Yes, these issues make my heart bleed. I don’t know about you. I have come to grips with it and you have failed to read what I wrote. Maybe you should have attended a little private school.
You are misinformed, by the way, in you assertion that ‘the core of this tirade can be applied to every government in the world.’ Take the time to contact the Victorian Aids Council (or that of any other state in Oz) and ask them to brief you on the situation re. drug users.
They’ll be able to inform you where to look for info on other countries also.
Having been a little private school drug user, and even a deferred from uni drug user (this makes my opinion less valid, so please counter it), the problem, I thought, is with having a system that is not relaxed enough towards people who are not functioning or are able to see beyond themselves. This is even a symptom seen in insincere Australian governments whose sitting members have no empathy with introvenus drug users because they have never been in a situation that demands it and consequently, cannot see beyond giving priority to low unemployment statistics. I’m pretty sure if I asked the Victorian AIDS Council, whether or not they would like more funding I would be getting only one answer.
BTW, your ‘ more it is endemic of the gross laziness that besets believers in overarching solutions through the application of exceptionalised and particular rights,’ apart from being pretentious & pedantic is meaningless. (look up ‘endemic’ in your dictionary, if you have one. )
It’s not meaningless. Overarching solutions are lazy, yet exceptionalised, group based solutions create issues of injustice. For instance, should Typhoid sufferers be afforded the same opportunities for treatment as AIDS sufferers? This is where it is endemic for people who are uncritically educated within the confines of human rights policy to laud its moral sanctity. Are you one of these people?
I do hope you’re not one of those eager little ex-private schoolchaps who is hoping for a career in the U.N. or an NGO over here. King Bhumipol might call you ‘ngo.’
I especially wouldn’t want to work for the UN. I especially don’t hope for anything. But there you go, I’m a little ex private school chap and I don’t really need too.
(P/S, whats with you attacking my social status, yet mentioning what the great Bhumibol might say to me as though it is a representation of lower Thai social status? Man of the people?! Oh! – Bhumibol and me, we’re tight…)
Jon writes: ‘I’m not Burmese but I have lived a little bit of the Burmese life that some poor people live under US and EU sanctions. That’s why there is no way I’d ever support more of this kind of thing. If some rich powerful generals get rich in the process that’s too bad but not any different from South Korea. Economic development is the only way out of the hole. South Korea’s history shows this pretty clearly. One day they’ll be put on trial.’ He’s right. It’s pie in the sky to pretend development doesn’t favour this or that clique. America’s robber barons or and all of that. The trick is to ensure that what we can learn from the past feeds into something like a decent, accelerated trade-off. And that means doing everything we can to welcome Burma / Myanmar into the wider global community, instead of the Bush-Brownite process of ostracism. One doesn’t have to be a Marxist to understand that economics affect politics just as much as politics affect economics. But more than that, those outside Burma / Myanmar should do what they can to redress the educational deficit. Google Prospect Burma.
Yes, it is of course true that not only you have employed ‘abusive, dissmissive language’ in these posts. Unfortunately, again as I have stated previously, this is a common rhetorical ploy at weblogs, especially those that facilitate anonymous posting. It doesn’t matter whether they are academic or not in nature or focus. Discussions on weblogs have a dynamic of their own that is unlike, say, a public academic presentation or conference.
Regarding your language, you start your response to Thongchai with: “Based on your long, rather hysterical series of posts I understand that …”. I don’t know how callings someone’s opinions hysterical can be seen as anything other than a sweepingly dismissive framing of the other viewpoint right out of the gate.
As others have pointed out, Thongchai’s statements are obviously strategic in nature, and different folks disagree on how wise or consistent or valuable any particular strategic move may be. I would note, however, that your post #139 is decidely less provocative in its rhetoric. I just wonder why you couldn’t state your opinion from the start in those terms, rather than load it up with so many charged adjectives of judgement that others inevitably respond to the invective rather than the content. The same dynamic of response to your language, tone and style occurs over and over again on this site. It doesn’t seem to help your persuasiveness….
I feel that “thick” is the right term. Whether you are deliberately being thick for the sake of argument, I don’t know. I’m joining the Thongchai fan club on this one because you simply refuse to look at Thongchai’s long record on this issue and refuse to read his article in the context in which it has appeared. Bloodymindedness is something I associate with the Colonel and others of his ilk, and you are effectively doing their work for them.
Of course it is valid to point out that people supported the coup with sometimes astounding hypocrisy. But as many have noted here, abandoning support for Thaksin was not the same as endorsing the coup. Nor was it the same as abandoning democracy. You seem to depart from that in picking your targets, and hence these discussions get into pointless hair-splitting.
For the record, U Wisconsin’s SE Asia department invited me to speak there almost immediately after the book came out — that is, before the coup — and I understand the Thai government made its unhappiness about this apparent. People are taking risks in many ways even when you personally aren’t aware of it.
I don’t understand if we believe in our king what wrong ?
if we not what wrong ? it can destroy other country ?
our king make us happy and smile it make other country sadness ?
if not stop it and let’s us love him untill we die.
I never read this book but if I have a chance to read it ,I’ll love my king less than now ? NO it can’t becoz he stay for us more than 60th years and I know and see what he do for us , the one book use less time to write can’t discredit him any more .
I don’t know who is Paul Handley if I can miss him I’ll ask him you ever kiss your mom and do good for her ? you ever make your family sleep well and smile ? if not back to your home and do that and write the new book “My mom Smile and sleep well” I think that good for you ^^ if it hard please your time to see the garden and some boy and girl in the park . I hope you will have happiness and success in your job .
Looks to me as though you’re a latte-slurper, Grasshopper. Maybe you should get out more. Have you thought of riding a bike to uni? Australia is a good place to do this. (You MUST be an Australian. Only a hung-up middle-class Australian undergrad could write such drivel.)
Organizations like HRW do have a productive function in the enormous field necessary to effect change, just as Medecins sF., at their end of the complex. People do have to be informed of issues like those outlined in the release above before they can put pressure on governments to (hopefully) force them to do something. And how would MsF get their funding if there were no research and information dissemination.
You prattle on about ‘those people over there’ as if they have nothing to do with you, and Human Rights as if it is different from Civil Rights, & as if they are both different from your rights. Getting control of HIV/AIDS is very much to do with your rights and your life. Have you lived in a time when it was safe to have sex without a condom?
This is not about ‘bleeding hearts.’ It’s about coming to grips with all sides of a huge problem that includes medical, behavioral, etc.,etc., AND in this case, Human Rights issues.
You are misinformed, by the way, in you assertion that ‘the core of this tirade can be applied to every government in the world.’ Take the time to contact the Victorian Aids Council (or that of any other state in Oz) and ask them to brief you on the situation re. drug users.
They’ll be able to inform you where to look for info on other countries also.
BTW, your ‘ more it is endemic of the gross laziness that besets believers in overarching solutions through the application of exceptionalised and particular rights,’ apart from being pretentious & pedantic is meaningless. (look up ‘endemic’ in your dictionary, if you have one. )
I do hope you’re not one of those eager little ex-private schoolchaps who is hoping for a career in the U.N. or an NGO over here. King Bhumipol might call you ‘ngo.’
You are right–just after I had finished my contribution on “celebrating the King” already, the previously very few small number of billboards of Wuthipong/Thitima were joined by those from the other candidates. There are even those showing Sanoh Thienthong who aims for Chachoengsao’s party list votes. Last Thursday, I went to Ratchasan district to observe an electioneering stage set up by the constituency committee. I was taken there by the constituency director on an involuntary detour through endless rural roads. Apparently, Itthi/Somchai had done their homework well, since we encountered numerous of their small billboards in these rather remote areas, mostly where two or three roads met. BTW, they also have 35 or so advertising pick-ups roaming the streets.
Where you saw the posters (or were they small billboards or horizontal “cutouts”?), did you notice small signs, blue on white ground, saying that this was a place designated to place election posters?
Same goes for the white song taeos, which have long been in the camp of the Chaisaengs. When I went to see the above constituency director, I took a picture of the inside as you described. It also had Wuthipong/Thitima stickers affixed. And when I used a tuk tuk, they had just affixed the PPP stickers–the white cling film littered the place where they stop at the bus station. They also have small stickers mainly showing the PPP logo.
I will contribute a post with pictures of small billboards, posters (mainly attached to boards provided for this purpose by local governments and district offices), and stickers sometime later, because I would like to wait and see how the situation will develop. On Nov. 30, I had to go to Bangkok to prepare for a presentation on Dec. 3. I was surprised to see all the cutouts on electricity poles and trees here, i.e. something you won’t see in Chachoengsao, at least not until last Friday.
Anyway, I will have a look at Thanon Thepsothon after my return to Chachoengsao tomorrow.
I would not attach too much importance to party labels, but rather more to the candidates and their voter bases. In this respect, candidates do mostly have their geographical areas where they are strong, because they have worked in that area for many years. Phanee Jarusombat is rather unsual in this respect, because in the Senate election, she got many votes throughout the province without having worked there more than about one year. In fact, she should have had her main area in Ban Pho and Plaeng Yao districts.
The reverence for the current Thai King Bhumibhol, with or without lese majeste laws, would stay standing . . . as is . . . as to where that reverent standing is exactly right now.
That is NOT the point of Thailand’s lese majeste laws. The real purpose of the lese majeste laws is AFTER the current Thai King Bhumibhol.
But that would all be futile isn’t it? The people of the land will only tolerate obsolete laws if such laws do not “disturb” them. If the person representing the institution is NOT up to it, no laws will be able to protect that person.
Just a suggestion about the Laos category. More finely graded categories would make it easier for people to link to issue relevant material at New Mandala.
If you had a separate category on the “new road connecting Yunnan to Chiang Khong,” it would be good. As it nears completion there are bound to be issues that arise and right now it’s a little difficult and time-consuming to find all your entries on this topic in order to link to them.
New Mandala’s critical perspective is a nice counter-balance to often one-sided business pieces (and vice-versa). IMHO encouraging debate is a good thing and doesn’t make one a “sophist” as one activist made out in a recent editorial.
Ex-Ajarn, having leftist views doesn’t have to have anything to do with totalitarianism. Not to be an apologist for Taylor, but maybe he is accepting the altogether more recent norm of non-interference in domestic affairs? What article was it exactly? Available on j-stor?
Rajshekhar: “Please accept my sincere thanks for doing great works for my fellow thousands of poor rural kids of Asia.”
If you teach in rural Thailand, you teach mostly poorer kids, so it is nothing very exceptional to do this. Most Thai teachers do this everyday. The only problem is that poor kids usually get pulled out of school young like 13 and after that it’s hard to motivate anyone to learn. That’s the reality that both my mother-in-law and wife faced.
I had one really motivated but poor young Burmese guy working with me from Mon Ywa attending Yangon University with great difficulty because universities were shut most of the time during the 1990s.
Last time I met him his father was sick and he was supporting his whole seven person family all by himself. Shortly later, I was doing the same when my Burmese mother-in-law got sick with kidney failure and cancer and she started living in a private hospital. (Healthcare expenses ruin many families) I have a US passport so I could fly out of the country and make money to help her. In the end everything fell apart anyway. This is the Burmese economic reality that I am familiar with.
I’m not Burmese but I have lived a little bit of the Burmese life that some poor people live under US and EU sanctions. That’s why there is no way I’d ever support more of this kind of thing. If some rich powerful generals get rich in the process that’s too bad but not any different from South Korea. Economic development is the only way out of the hole. South Korea’s history shows this pretty clearly. One day they’ll be put on trial.
“For my part I have been called “thick”, “silly”, “chickenshit”, and Thongchai has called me or my argument: “child’s play”, “sad”, “hopeless”, “abuse”, “superficial”, “absurd”, “pseudo-reasoning”, “bashing”, “narrow-minded”, “hypocrite”, “scary”. Now I don’t mind being called names, but to be consistent will you also say that that these posters have also been using “abusive dismissive language”?”
My Dear ‘woe is me’ Republican,
If the weather is bad, and I call it a sh!t weather, and another guy calls it a f___ed up weather, and a 3rd guy calls hell or whatever. The result of the subjective opinions is based on objective fact, that the weather is bad.
That no one argues with your ‘logical argument’ is because even though your argument is based on logic (wherein you add 1+1 to get 2), it was not the right fight to pick.
That you get the names, that is because it seems that people here see through your blatant attempt at ‘scoring points’ as Paul Handley put it. Not because there has been a cabal of sorts between Prof. Thongchai and the rest.
That Prof. Thongchai used the current lese majeste law to justify the stance against the new one. It is in his rights to do so and in a “thang aom” (as Thai people like to put it) way of being against Lese Majeste as well. The reason is that if someone, even the Privy Councillor is to attack the Princess or whoever verbally, the Royal has the right to dismiss the Privy Councillor, hence removing them from the protection of lese majeste and lese majeste would be punished, not go unpunished as Thongchai put it.
Stating just that much, Thongchai is already on the border of committing Lese Majeste. Asking or ‘putting him under scrutiny’ for not going further is just a false attempt at trying to be ideologically pure.
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Interview with Professor Michael Aung-Thwin
Dear Friends,
Much has been written against the politics of economic sanction and against Bush-Brown Policies. I have all the papers of Prof. David (also his interview published on the Yale Global online) , Prof. Taylor as well as the article of Cato Institute scholar Leon T. Hadar supporting economic engagement with the military. To answer this big question is not possible in the comment section in details, and can’t explain you here that, if it is failing then why and even in its failure it has success ingrained in it? In brief, my dear friends the politics of economic sanctions doesn’t only mean mere in terms of business trade terms/investment mechanism/economic benefits/ empirical datas. It is the question of providing legitimacy to the military regime at international and regional institutions, which Prof Taylor, David, Leon, Michael, I think intentionally fails to understand and Mr. Bush and Brown understands. And they did great disservice to Burma by providing legitimacy to the regime. It is the question of standing with right or wrong? It is the question of looking at modern Burma’s history based on facts not on enjoying dinners as a state guest of SPDC and interpretaing Modern Burma’s history that democratic values never existed there. It is the question of many resolutions of ASEAN ministerial meetings joint communique, although they are mentioning only two 36th and 37th AMM on their web site of ASEAN for the freedom of DAASK. But can ASEAN remove all the Joint Communique of AMM earlier issued, which had been already circulated? It is the question of the legitimacy of UN Secretary General’s office that despite their many calls, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s (DASSK) freedom has been not restored? It is very easy to accuse Mr. Bush and Mr. Brown, But they have the responsibility of running the country & protecting international institutions like UN and not to teach at any university like academicians. As a student of history and international relations, I know that great politicians has far superior vision than any noted scholars, and this way Mr. Bush, EU and Mr. Brown are right in following politics of economic sanction. It is not Marxism and let me clear it to you all that I’m not a Marxist but yes I accept finer points of Marxism like Gandhi accepted those some finer points, So I don’t negate marxism in whole. Even in my country (India) the present official view is of continued economic engagement with the regime. And many strategist in my country might have been thinking that I’m harming my national interest. Do I? No. But let me tell you, if India would have leadership of Mr. J.L. Nehru or Mrs. Indira Gandhi the politics would have been different because they were far superior in their vision compared with present leadership, because they were genuine leaders and grasp of world dynamics. I also know that the main reasons behind Prof Taylor, Prof. David or Leon T. Hadar or even Prof. Michael of supporting economic engagement with the regime is of serving best the concerned national foregin policy/ business interest. And it is not that I don’t have brain and I can’t propose cooperation theory with the regime. Perhaps, I can propose better economic cooperation mechanism than any great western foreign policy scholars or Harvard business think tanks going beyong Mekong Ganga Cooperation, ASEAN-Mekong Basin Development Cooperation Framework (AMBDC), ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), BIMST-EC, Kunming Railway project, Asia Bond Market, East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC), Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) etc with the regime.
I can’t write frequently on Burma Review because I have also to pursue the job for running my family expenses, which is very taxing giving little time to write.
Rajshekhar
Burma Review
Unequal access
Here comes a Christmas surprise: Isarn is the best place to live in in Thailand!
Northeastern region comes top of human security index
ANJIRA ASSAVANONDA
The poverty-stricken northeastern region, known for massive labour migration, has received the highest score in an assessment of human security made by the Social Development and Human Security Ministry.
The Composite Human Security Index (CHSI) was assessed by the ministry in 2006 and the results released yesterday.
Deputy Minister Poldej Pinprateep said the assessment covered 10 elements _ housing security, health security, education, employment and income, personal safety, family relations, social support, socio-cultural participation, rights and justice, and political governance.
The index scores were given from 0-1. Scores closer to one indicated high levels of human security.
The Northeast received the highest score with 0.72, followed by the Central Plains region with 0.70, and the North with 0.68.
The lowest score, 0.61, went to the special zone comprising Bangkok, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani and Samut Prakan.
The individual province that scored the highest for overall human security was Samut Songkram at 0.97, followed by Sing Buri, Maha Sarakham, Khon Kaen and Phetchaburi.
The province with the lowest score was Pattani, which received 0.13, followed by Si Sa Ket, Ranong, Yala and Nakhon Sawan.
When looking at the index in particular dimensions, the ministry concluded that the highest human security level was enjoyed in socio-cultural participation (0.703), followed by rights and justice (0.702) and then employment and income (0.701).
The lowest score was in politics and good governance (0.68).
In addition, it was found that Bangkok had the lowest score in housing security, while Chaiyaphum scored the lowest in health security.
Satun hit the bottom in the area of education, and Phuket scored the lowest in personal safety.
Asked why the Northeast topped the list, Dr Poldej explained that the assessment was based not only on economic growth but also on other indicators such as the school enrolment rate, employment status, relations among family members, marriage and divorce rates, stress from rights violations and crime rates.
”Judging from all these indicators, it’s not surprising a province like Khon Kaen scored higher than Bangkok in overall human security,” said Dr Poldej.
He said the index would be presented to the cabinet so responsible ministers would have an overview of the country’s human security situation.
”The index will help the authorities know what they need to do about particular elements of human security.
”For example, the public health minister will learn in which areas he needs to work harder at alleviating health problems, and the education minister will know where he needs to focus more on educational assistance,” he said.
”The interior minister will also learn from the area-based index which provinces he needs to pay greater attention to and in which dimensions,” said Dr Poldej.
Bangkok Post, December 4, 2007
Thinking like a Thai Army general
They are not at all “banned from politics.” This is the short hand version used by the Thai press, but it does not make it any more correct. Please, consult the Political Party Act to find out precisely what they are banned from. When this organic law was deliberated by the CDA and the NLA, some factions indeed wanted to expand the prohibitions to include a total “ban from politics.” This was seen as “too harsh,” e.g. by usually hawkish Prasong Sunsiri. The ECT, via its “recommendation,” tried to realize what was rejected during the deliberations through the backdoor. It tried to act like a back-up legislator and court. This is a typical case of trying to replace the rule of law by political interests. One might call this the “Srithanonchai method” which is so widely used in Thai legal circles.
Thailand’s “deadly denial”
Organizations like HRW do have a productive function in the enormous field necessary to effect change, just as Medecins sF., at their end of the complex. People do have to be informed of issues like those outlined in the release above before they can put pressure on governments to (hopefully) force them to do something.”
Here, here! Snarly, my boy! Just look at how productive HRW has been informing cosmopolitan academics in America and Europe, effecting change to transform them in to frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Semites.
Wait. Walt and Mearsheimer tell me that such sentiments are mere Zionist McCarthyism? I guess I’ll have to ignore that recent research out of Yale University that shows an overwhelming stastical correlation between anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment. [At least in Europeans.] Or as one of the researchers state: “Say you’re at one of those anti-Israel rallies. Say you ask them whether they are anti-Semitic. Say all of them say no. Statistically speaking, more than half of them are lying.”
The King Never Smiles?
Reply to Historicus (#144) and Dickie Simpkins (#140): You two are either dyslexic or from the Thongchai school of logical reasoning. I don’t know what you are doing on an academic blog. I don’t care what you call me, thick, thin, chickenshit or whatever. Be my guest. What I was asking for in #139 was for your friend in the Thongchai fanclub, David W., to show where I had used “abusive dismissive language” in this series of posts and to be consistent in criticizing others who did use this language.
Reply to Paul Handley: I do know that record – your talk at Wisconsin-Madison. But what is your point? I’ve praised your book and your willingness to say such things and risk not being allowed to return to Thailand, or worse. I totally agree that you have put yourself at risk far more than others, especially me. And it is entirely right that UW should host a seminar on the book. So? It seems like you are saying that because of this, I should not criticize the reasoning in Thongchai’s article in The Nation, which as I’ve said many times, I find dangerous and wrong. On this point I disagree.
Re. your first point, this raises the “song mai ao” problem, and the ethical question of academics criticising Thaksin but remaining silent on the royalists (because of the lese majeste law) who were undermining his democratically-elected government. Unlike you and most others I do not absolve these academics of at least partial responsibility for paving the way for the coup by their demonization of Thaksin, which critically weakened his democratic government. They played entirely into the hands of the royalists. Academics are meant to be smarter than the rest of us, especially those who “play politics”; ie. writing newspaper columns, thalaengkans, speaking at rallies, etc. in the hope of influencing public opinion. They should be judged by the results of their political activism: the September 19 coup and the royalist dictatorship we have now. In a corporation the CEO would have had to fall on his/her sword by now to show responsibility to the stockholders for their actions, but in the Thai Studies academic world what do they do? They very “na dan” quickly switch their target to the military regime (not the monarchy) and they continue their struggle for democracy, making themselves out to be heroes of the people, taking great risks to themselves, as if nobody remembers what they did before the coup. Because unlike the politicians they despise they are not responsible to anyone. Even a little criticism on academic blogs makes them boil with anger. They have tenure and it doesn’t matter what they say; they will receive their monthly salaries for the rest of their lives. I’ve discussed these issues at length on this blog so I won’t bore readers again.
Thinking like a Thai Army general
Thanks Teth. I forgot. We are witnessing politics of desperation here – less about the country, more about saving their skins/assets…
Thailand’s “deadly denial”
landofsnarls, I am a latte slurper and I do have a bike. I am a little ex private school chap too.
Organizations like HRW do have a productive function in the enormous field necessary to effect change, just as Medecins sF., at their end of the complex. People do have to be informed of issues like those outlined in the release above before they can put pressure on governments to (hopefully) force them to do something. And how would MsF get their funding if there were no research and information dissemination.
I have a problem with the whole concept of human rights , and therefore that there is a body that ‘watches’ them, I find ridiculous. Medicins Sans Frontiers gets the little funding it does primarily through donors actually. Do you think that most of those donors are going to check up on HRW? The most major donor for MsF is Zayed al Nahayan who by all accounts, is not that perturbed about Human Rights.
You prattle on about ‘those people over there’ as if they have nothing to do with you, and Human Rights as if it is different from Civil Rights, & as if they are both different from your rights. Getting control of HIV/AIDS is very much to do with your rights and your life. Have you lived in a time when it was safe to have sex without a condom?
I don’t prattle on about those people over there as if they have nothing to do with me. I’m prattling on about the fact that they have everything to do with me and my position as someone who can afford to be post-materialist. Rights have nothing to do with controlling AIDS/HIV. As in, it can be controlled without having this overblown, idolatrous rights concept lauded to people who have no meaning associated with it. Having been out in the world, I am quite sure that people would prefer that their AIDS is dealt with before discussing the details of Kantian dignity. (Even before discussing Kantian dignity, maybe civil rights are needed too so this whole concept of dignity is not laughed at) It’s about an order. I thought that was plain, but maybe for you it was lost in your ad-hominem rebuttal.
This is not about ‘bleeding hearts.’ It’s about coming to grips with all sides of a huge problem that includes medical, behavioral, etc.,etc., AND in this case, Human Rights issues.
Yes, these issues make my heart bleed. I don’t know about you. I have come to grips with it and you have failed to read what I wrote. Maybe you should have attended a little private school.
You are misinformed, by the way, in you assertion that ‘the core of this tirade can be applied to every government in the world.’ Take the time to contact the Victorian Aids Council (or that of any other state in Oz) and ask them to brief you on the situation re. drug users.
They’ll be able to inform you where to look for info on other countries also.
Having been a little private school drug user, and even a deferred from uni drug user (this makes my opinion less valid, so please counter it), the problem, I thought, is with having a system that is not relaxed enough towards people who are not functioning or are able to see beyond themselves. This is even a symptom seen in insincere Australian governments whose sitting members have no empathy with introvenus drug users because they have never been in a situation that demands it and consequently, cannot see beyond giving priority to low unemployment statistics. I’m pretty sure if I asked the Victorian AIDS Council, whether or not they would like more funding I would be getting only one answer.
BTW, your ‘ more it is endemic of the gross laziness that besets believers in overarching solutions through the application of exceptionalised and particular rights,’ apart from being pretentious & pedantic is meaningless. (look up ‘endemic’ in your dictionary, if you have one. )
It’s not meaningless. Overarching solutions are lazy, yet exceptionalised, group based solutions create issues of injustice. For instance, should Typhoid sufferers be afforded the same opportunities for treatment as AIDS sufferers? This is where it is endemic for people who are uncritically educated within the confines of human rights policy to laud its moral sanctity. Are you one of these people?
I do hope you’re not one of those eager little ex-private schoolchaps who is hoping for a career in the U.N. or an NGO over here. King Bhumipol might call you ‘ngo.’
I especially wouldn’t want to work for the UN. I especially don’t hope for anything. But there you go, I’m a little ex private school chap and I don’t really need too.
(P/S, whats with you attacking my social status, yet mentioning what the great Bhumibol might say to me as though it is a representation of lower Thai social status? Man of the people?! Oh! – Bhumibol and me, we’re tight…)
Interview with Professor Michael Aung-Thwin
Jon writes: ‘I’m not Burmese but I have lived a little bit of the Burmese life that some poor people live under US and EU sanctions. That’s why there is no way I’d ever support more of this kind of thing. If some rich powerful generals get rich in the process that’s too bad but not any different from South Korea. Economic development is the only way out of the hole. South Korea’s history shows this pretty clearly. One day they’ll be put on trial.’ He’s right. It’s pie in the sky to pretend development doesn’t favour this or that clique. America’s robber barons or and all of that. The trick is to ensure that what we can learn from the past feeds into something like a decent, accelerated trade-off. And that means doing everything we can to welcome Burma / Myanmar into the wider global community, instead of the Bush-Brownite process of ostracism. One doesn’t have to be a Marxist to understand that economics affect politics just as much as politics affect economics. But more than that, those outside Burma / Myanmar should do what they can to redress the educational deficit. Google Prospect Burma.
The King Never Smiles?
Republican,
Yes, it is of course true that not only you have employed ‘abusive, dissmissive language’ in these posts. Unfortunately, again as I have stated previously, this is a common rhetorical ploy at weblogs, especially those that facilitate anonymous posting. It doesn’t matter whether they are academic or not in nature or focus. Discussions on weblogs have a dynamic of their own that is unlike, say, a public academic presentation or conference.
Regarding your language, you start your response to Thongchai with: “Based on your long, rather hysterical series of posts I understand that …”. I don’t know how callings someone’s opinions hysterical can be seen as anything other than a sweepingly dismissive framing of the other viewpoint right out of the gate.
As others have pointed out, Thongchai’s statements are obviously strategic in nature, and different folks disagree on how wise or consistent or valuable any particular strategic move may be. I would note, however, that your post #139 is decidely less provocative in its rhetoric. I just wonder why you couldn’t state your opinion from the start in those terms, rather than load it up with so many charged adjectives of judgement that others inevitably respond to the invective rather than the content. The same dynamic of response to your language, tone and style occurs over and over again on this site. It doesn’t seem to help your persuasiveness….
The King Never Smiles?
I feel that “thick” is the right term. Whether you are deliberately being thick for the sake of argument, I don’t know. I’m joining the Thongchai fan club on this one because you simply refuse to look at Thongchai’s long record on this issue and refuse to read his article in the context in which it has appeared. Bloodymindedness is something I associate with the Colonel and others of his ilk, and you are effectively doing their work for them.
The King Never Smiles?
Republican,
Of course it is valid to point out that people supported the coup with sometimes astounding hypocrisy. But as many have noted here, abandoning support for Thaksin was not the same as endorsing the coup. Nor was it the same as abandoning democracy. You seem to depart from that in picking your targets, and hence these discussions get into pointless hair-splitting.
For the record, U Wisconsin’s SE Asia department invited me to speak there almost immediately after the book came out — that is, before the coup — and I understand the Thai government made its unhappiness about this apparent. People are taking risks in many ways even when you personally aren’t aware of it.
The King Never Smiles?
I don’t understand if we believe in our king what wrong ?
if we not what wrong ? it can destroy other country ?
our king make us happy and smile it make other country sadness ?
if not stop it and let’s us love him untill we die.
I never read this book but if I have a chance to read it ,I’ll love my king less than now ? NO it can’t becoz he stay for us more than 60th years and I know and see what he do for us , the one book use less time to write can’t discredit him any more .
I don’t know who is Paul Handley if I can miss him I’ll ask him you ever kiss your mom and do good for her ? you ever make your family sleep well and smile ? if not back to your home and do that and write the new book “My mom Smile and sleep well” I think that good for you ^^ if it hard please your time to see the garden and some boy and girl in the park . I hope you will have happiness and success in your job .
LOVE FROM KHON THAI that you never know in REAL!
Thailand’s “deadly denial”
Looks to me as though you’re a latte-slurper, Grasshopper. Maybe you should get out more. Have you thought of riding a bike to uni? Australia is a good place to do this. (You MUST be an Australian. Only a hung-up middle-class Australian undergrad could write such drivel.)
Organizations like HRW do have a productive function in the enormous field necessary to effect change, just as Medecins sF., at their end of the complex. People do have to be informed of issues like those outlined in the release above before they can put pressure on governments to (hopefully) force them to do something. And how would MsF get their funding if there were no research and information dissemination.
You prattle on about ‘those people over there’ as if they have nothing to do with you, and Human Rights as if it is different from Civil Rights, & as if they are both different from your rights. Getting control of HIV/AIDS is very much to do with your rights and your life. Have you lived in a time when it was safe to have sex without a condom?
This is not about ‘bleeding hearts.’ It’s about coming to grips with all sides of a huge problem that includes medical, behavioral, etc.,etc., AND in this case, Human Rights issues.
You are misinformed, by the way, in you assertion that ‘the core of this tirade can be applied to every government in the world.’ Take the time to contact the Victorian Aids Council (or that of any other state in Oz) and ask them to brief you on the situation re. drug users.
They’ll be able to inform you where to look for info on other countries also.
BTW, your ‘ more it is endemic of the gross laziness that besets believers in overarching solutions through the application of exceptionalised and particular rights,’ apart from being pretentious & pedantic is meaningless. (look up ‘endemic’ in your dictionary, if you have one. )
I do hope you’re not one of those eager little ex-private schoolchaps who is hoping for a career in the U.N. or an NGO over here. King Bhumipol might call you ‘ngo.’
Taking an oath for a clean and fair election
David,
You are right–just after I had finished my contribution on “celebrating the King” already, the previously very few small number of billboards of Wuthipong/Thitima were joined by those from the other candidates. There are even those showing Sanoh Thienthong who aims for Chachoengsao’s party list votes. Last Thursday, I went to Ratchasan district to observe an electioneering stage set up by the constituency committee. I was taken there by the constituency director on an involuntary detour through endless rural roads. Apparently, Itthi/Somchai had done their homework well, since we encountered numerous of their small billboards in these rather remote areas, mostly where two or three roads met. BTW, they also have 35 or so advertising pick-ups roaming the streets.
Where you saw the posters (or were they small billboards or horizontal “cutouts”?), did you notice small signs, blue on white ground, saying that this was a place designated to place election posters?
Same goes for the white song taeos, which have long been in the camp of the Chaisaengs. When I went to see the above constituency director, I took a picture of the inside as you described. It also had Wuthipong/Thitima stickers affixed. And when I used a tuk tuk, they had just affixed the PPP stickers–the white cling film littered the place where they stop at the bus station. They also have small stickers mainly showing the PPP logo.
I will contribute a post with pictures of small billboards, posters (mainly attached to boards provided for this purpose by local governments and district offices), and stickers sometime later, because I would like to wait and see how the situation will develop. On Nov. 30, I had to go to Bangkok to prepare for a presentation on Dec. 3. I was surprised to see all the cutouts on electricity poles and trees here, i.e. something you won’t see in Chachoengsao, at least not until last Friday.
Anyway, I will have a look at Thanon Thepsothon after my return to Chachoengsao tomorrow.
I would not attach too much importance to party labels, but rather more to the candidates and their voter bases. In this respect, candidates do mostly have their geographical areas where they are strong, because they have worked in that area for many years. Phanee Jarusombat is rather unsual in this respect, because in the Senate election, she got many votes throughout the province without having worked there more than about one year. In fact, she should have had her main area in Ban Pho and Plaeng Yao districts.
Thinking like a Thai Army general
Chaturon-Sudarat are banned from politics, for your information.
The King Never Smiles?
The reverence for the current Thai King Bhumibhol, with or without lese majeste laws, would stay standing . . . as is . . . as to where that reverent standing is exactly right now.
That is NOT the point of Thailand’s lese majeste laws. The real purpose of the lese majeste laws is AFTER the current Thai King Bhumibhol.
But that would all be futile isn’t it? The people of the land will only tolerate obsolete laws if such laws do not “disturb” them. If the person representing the institution is NOT up to it, no laws will be able to protect that person.
The Lao resettlement controversy
Just a suggestion about the Laos category. More finely graded categories would make it easier for people to link to issue relevant material at New Mandala.
If you had a separate category on the “new road connecting Yunnan to Chiang Khong,” it would be good. As it nears completion there are bound to be issues that arise and right now it’s a little difficult and time-consuming to find all your entries on this topic in order to link to them.
New Mandala’s critical perspective is a nice counter-balance to often one-sided business pieces (and vice-versa). IMHO encouraging debate is a good thing and doesn’t make one a “sophist” as one activist made out in a recent editorial.
Interview with Professor Robert Taylor
Ex-Ajarn, having leftist views doesn’t have to have anything to do with totalitarianism. Not to be an apologist for Taylor, but maybe he is accepting the altogether more recent norm of non-interference in domestic affairs? What article was it exactly? Available on j-stor?
Interview with Professor Michael Aung-Thwin
Rajshekhar: “Please accept my sincere thanks for doing great works for my fellow thousands of poor rural kids of Asia.”
If you teach in rural Thailand, you teach mostly poorer kids, so it is nothing very exceptional to do this. Most Thai teachers do this everyday. The only problem is that poor kids usually get pulled out of school young like 13 and after that it’s hard to motivate anyone to learn. That’s the reality that both my mother-in-law and wife faced.
I had one really motivated but poor young Burmese guy working with me from Mon Ywa attending Yangon University with great difficulty because universities were shut most of the time during the 1990s.
Last time I met him his father was sick and he was supporting his whole seven person family all by himself. Shortly later, I was doing the same when my Burmese mother-in-law got sick with kidney failure and cancer and she started living in a private hospital. (Healthcare expenses ruin many families) I have a US passport so I could fly out of the country and make money to help her. In the end everything fell apart anyway. This is the Burmese economic reality that I am familiar with.
I’m not Burmese but I have lived a little bit of the Burmese life that some poor people live under US and EU sanctions. That’s why there is no way I’d ever support more of this kind of thing. If some rich powerful generals get rich in the process that’s too bad but not any different from South Korea. Economic development is the only way out of the hole. South Korea’s history shows this pretty clearly. One day they’ll be put on trial.
The King Never Smiles?
“For my part I have been called “thick”, “silly”, “chickenshit”, and Thongchai has called me or my argument: “child’s play”, “sad”, “hopeless”, “abuse”, “superficial”, “absurd”, “pseudo-reasoning”, “bashing”, “narrow-minded”, “hypocrite”, “scary”. Now I don’t mind being called names, but to be consistent will you also say that that these posters have also been using “abusive dismissive language”?”
My Dear ‘woe is me’ Republican,
If the weather is bad, and I call it a sh!t weather, and another guy calls it a f___ed up weather, and a 3rd guy calls hell or whatever. The result of the subjective opinions is based on objective fact, that the weather is bad.
That no one argues with your ‘logical argument’ is because even though your argument is based on logic (wherein you add 1+1 to get 2), it was not the right fight to pick.
That you get the names, that is because it seems that people here see through your blatant attempt at ‘scoring points’ as Paul Handley put it. Not because there has been a cabal of sorts between Prof. Thongchai and the rest.
That Prof. Thongchai used the current lese majeste law to justify the stance against the new one. It is in his rights to do so and in a “thang aom” (as Thai people like to put it) way of being against Lese Majeste as well. The reason is that if someone, even the Privy Councillor is to attack the Princess or whoever verbally, the Royal has the right to dismiss the Privy Councillor, hence removing them from the protection of lese majeste and lese majeste would be punished, not go unpunished as Thongchai put it.
Stating just that much, Thongchai is already on the border of committing Lese Majeste. Asking or ‘putting him under scrutiny’ for not going further is just a false attempt at trying to be ideologically pure.
don’t cry.