Comments

A member of constituency committee 1 I talked to today ascribed Phanee’s win in the Senate election to plain vote buying. He suggested a “2:2” formular for the elections, meaning that one PPP and one Phuea Phaendin will win in each constituency. Voters, he said, might not want to vote for two people of the same political party, but want more variety. However, this collides with the fact that Itthi’s and Somchai’s voter base appears to be very strong, and they have long been at odds with the Tancharoens. So they will not concede defeat easily.

If Phanee can make it in constituency 2, the choice will be between Wuthipong and Thitima. However, that member also thought that the people might be bored of the old (not in terms of age) candidates, which might open the way for one Democrat candidate. One must keep in mind here, that, in the 2006 election, both Thitima and Wuthipong got fewer votes than no-vote votes and invalid ballots combined. Thus, there was a lot of voter dissatisfaction at that time, and they expressed it by their ballot papers (this did not in the same way apply to Somchai and Suchart). Thus, one will have to wait whether the same voters intend to make a more general electoral point here. So far, the Chaisaengs campaign on an “elect both” approach. It remains to be seen whether they will later switch to push for one of them (also to make the work of their hua khanaen easier; but a similar switch had backfired in an election some years earlier, when the choice was between Anan and Chaturon), and save the other for the Senate elections early in 2008.

Republican:

I’ve posted a reply along these lines on Bangkok Pundit’s blog where I first saw the article referred to. I have to thank BP for actually accepting the comment as I understand that his website is in Thailand and that some of the content of the post might be a little sensitive.

One never knows where to draw the line. Well, the last sentence of your comment I was unsure about. It is not to do with my website being in Thailand as it isn’t – blogspot is not hosted in Thailand. The Computer Crimes Act and Lese Majeste apply to anyone everywhere in the world. I could set foot in Thailand and be whisked away, so to speak. Given the other two bloggers who were recently arrested this is not just being paranoid.

I have actually deleted/not approved a dozen or so comments over the time I have had the blog. I would rather not do so, but being hauled off by the police for a hobby is not my idea of fun.

When I try to understand the conservative political stance of overseas Thais (and perhaps also a considerable number of Thai Studies academics working in overseas universities) I’m reminded of what was once called the “conservative migrant syndrome”.

This is a phenomenon that is widely found amongst migrant communities around the world, where the culture, mores and world-view of the migrant community is stuck in a time-warp dating from the time they left their homelands. The principle reason for the persistence of these earlier cultural and moral values is the close-knittedness of new migrant communities, which is needed for survival in the new country. It is also a kind of reflexive reaction to the desire to retain one’s sense of cultural identity amidst the pressures of assimilation, alienation from the foreign culture, cultural stress, etc.

Meanwhile, in the two, three, or four decades since these migrants left their homeland the culture, mores and world-views of their homeland have experienced huge changes. To take an extreme example: the case of an Italian migrant family in a Western country which will not let their daughters out after 7pm, while meanwhile in Italy they are electing former porn actresses as MPs.

That is why I never buy into this idea that criticism of the monarchy is a Western plot or restricted to overseas educated Thais. In fact, it is the opposite.

There are many, many more republicans in Thailand than there are outside it. The only difference is that they are not allowed to express their opinions. Basically I think Thais are pretty radical politically.

PART TWO IN THIS SERIES: For my next trick I will try to explain why farang expats on the whole tend to be so loyal to the throne. A kind of flip-side to the “conservative migrant syndrom”. TO BE CONTINUED.

Welcome to the deep dark night of self-imposed ignorance, Kulap!

Re: Grasshopper>

Thanks for the explanation. So, if I understand you correctly, I guess the opposite of monism would be some form of political “value pluralism”? I can see how political monism can stem from philosophic monism espoused by Plato and Marx & Hegel (via Kant).

However, and this is where I think we have disagreed before, I don’t believe that pluralism necessarily leads to out and out relativism. For example, one can accept that for any given situation there are several value-judgements that can be made, all of which are equally correct and true. Furthermore, one can accept that the values used to formulate these value-judgements are in conflict with each other; however, this need not mean that all value-judgements are equally correct. Only several need to be true for a pluralistic ethic.

I’m now having flashbacks of my sophmore year thesis, which was a Perspectivist analysis of Machiavelli’s The Prince as a response to the world-view formulated in St. Augustine’s De civitate Dei. Ack!

P.S. – Phanee’s brother seems to be rather poor: “The poorest minister is former public health minister Phinij Jarusombat. He has debts of more than 32 million baht and assets of 28 million baht. ” (Bangkok Posty, web site, Nov. 15)

Could be his colleague didn’t like what was written so they told him to take it down under the guise of an order from MICT so as not to offend.

Although it wouldn’t surprise me that they have his site and its comments as a rss feed. Maybe MICT are l337 d00ds too? Blogs are after all a fairly good indicator of public opinion. For instance, even Lee Hsien Loong admitted to reading popular Singapore blogger mrbrown in his national day speech of 2006.. Why wouldn’t there be some sort of effort to control the King’s image – especially given the recent youtube debacle?

I get very impatient with the assorted royalists, academics and NGOs going on about “aggressive capitalism” and the terrible crime of “globalization” when they in fact have been the main beneficiaries of these processes, while at the same time they are silent on the “aggressive royalist militarism” that has murdered thousands of Thais over the last 50 years. When did the “aggressive capitalists” butcher and torture students in the streets as the king’s security forces and paramilitaries did in October 1976? When did “aggressive capitalists” burn people alive in 44 gallon drums like the king’s security forces did in Phatthalung during the 1970s? Why are you people silent on the king’s implication in these crimes against humanity? Not only silent but join in the cult of the king as some kind of morally perfect being, “highly revered by the Thai people”.

Finally got the etiquette book. What is considered acceptable social behaviour **differs by social class** should be acknowledged. This book seems like it is written for formal occasions such as meeting diplomats, royalty, or the elite. Certain situations in the west have pretty strict protocols and etiquette too. Some of the things are useful, like the exact way to perform special rituals, like moving your hand up and down when you receive a diploma. When you have to do this, this manual could prove useful.

There would have been a fundamental disconnect if the manual was used with the foreigners at my university. What is the proper etiquette when you see the dean sliipping into a massage parlour, or the president dining with his mistress, or when Matichon a major national daily reports that the vice president has just been arrested for running a child prostitution ring in collusion with a local used car dealer? “Be very careful about every word you say,” or pretend that they have high moral standards, I guess is the best solution to this etiquette conundrum.

The history of Thai Social Etiquette is a interesting topic and a lot of it probably falls into Eric Hobsbawm’s invented traditions like Craig Reynolds mentions in that paper, but some of it is pretty ancient. A little history with citations to the relevant older sources mentioned would have been useful to see how ancient it actually is.

[Anyway, old history books are full of these sorts of etiquette issues. For example, I was translating a section from the Mon epic Rajadhirat last night in which one commander didn’t immediately have the normal audience with the king when he arrived back from campaigning. When the king called the commander to his presence, he found out that it was because he was embarassed about reporting too few captives taken after the battle, but it was because the other general (Lagunein) had swept in after his success and taken captives, after messing up the battle initially. The captives weren’t really his to claim. The general who falsely represented his contribution was severely upbraided and the king likened him (Lagunein) to a cowherd. Anyway, Lagunein has a continual problem with self-control in critical situations, like blurting out to people that they are about to be ambushed. He spends most of the time carrying out heroic acts to repent for these outbursts and lack of self-control, like sneaking into the Burmese king’s bedroom to kill him, but he steals his betel box instead, because it’s wrong to kill a sovereign king, even if it’s the enemy. His heroic acts are scenes in a Thai drama written from the Mon epic dating from the early 19th centuryu and staged after the Mon history conference at Chulalongkorn last month. To conclude, ancient etiquette can be fun and interesting.]

Republican, the Thai diplomat further illustrated the previous statement something along the line: “Farangs from richer countries will look down on Thais like Thais look down on people from poorer countries like our neighbors. It’s also like Bangkokians look down on people from the provinces. This is unfortunate but is the way things are”.

I’ve been living in a rich, Western country long enough to know that ‘egalitarianism’ is merely another ideal generally incompatible with aggressive capitalism and is particularly complicated when different cultures and skin colors are factored in.

Republican, please also do not assume too much about me unless you are a Thai who have been through a Thai university education and/or a Thai who has lived, studied and work in a Western country for more than 10 years. If you are either, then accept my apologies.