Matthew and Paul Handley have one thing in common. It was Thaksin that either threatened to kick them out of the country or actually did kick them out of the country.
Missionaries in Chiang Rai are like a gang (with the exception of the Swedish Baan Chiwidmai). Matthew’s right.
The only solution to Christian missionaries is Buddhist missionaries.
Thanks for the blog and all the online papers. Great resource.
IMHO Scholars who do this sort of thing are the real heroes of the internet age.
Haven’t read the paper yet that is accused of America bashing, but as the world’s only superpower and given post-9/11 debacles in Iraq and policies that are drifting further and further away from international realities, I’d even rate being critical of current policies an act of patriotism. Chomsky’s been doing it for years.
Too bad Matthew has taken to denigrating Thai Royalty.
He’ll never get anywhere that way.
He’s mistaking the center with the periphery.
It was low level civil service functionaries not being adequately monitored who did the evil things in the hills that he witnessed.
Matthew was a brilliant investigative reporter.
Yet another case of squandered Farang resources in Thailand.
Because Thailand is open in terms of population flows, a sort of global entrepot of people instead of goods (in much the same way as Singapore rose as a duty-free entrepot for goods) Thailand continually has opportunities to harness this brainpower, but it squanders these opportunities.
For example, there is a brilliant former director of a museum in Europe retired in Chiang Rai. Does anyone put him to use in the museum studies program at the nearby university?
There was a brilliant Hollywood post-production engineer from LA with patents to his name who became a chronic alcoholic and is now rotting in Suan Phlu immigration prison, if not dead. (Matthew knew him well, he urinated on the wheel of his truck, after which he tried to run him over).
There was a brilliant Cambridge educated engineer and business consultant operating out of Singapore who actually owned a farm below the university I taught at, who taught very practical and priceless classes in project evaluation (NPV, ROI calculation and things like that) at the university until the clueless 60 year old business dean (the same one who lied, cheated, and stole from me) decided pompously without having a shred of relevant knowledge that his knowledge was not sophisticated enough, so he taught at the science department upstairs instead that had a Farang dean , the same dean who brought his Nobel laureate friend to campus for a talk.
I could go on and on, but hopefully the powers that be will one day learn to harness these resources for the good of the country. These Farang after all: 1. prefer live in rural Thailand, 2. work for almost free, and 3. could be used to give poor people who cannot leave the country for an expensive education in places like ANU, a world class education, but they often pose a threat to the petty little fiefdoms that some of them have and pull up their Wizard of OZ curtains.
Why not just say in the constitution that only Jeru and his likes have the right to cast their vote in elections? This would also be much cheaper, because they could perform this exercise in Challenger Hall in Mueng Thong Thani, or even in the ball room of any good hotel. Be honest and call for the abolition of universal suffrage! But you won’t dare, right? Rather amazing, this shift of Thai politics to a right-wing world view. Or is it just the extension of the old elitism?
As Republican has tirelessly pointed out, of course they both can’t be bad and criticized, as that is falling into a strategic trap of political dupe. Despite their deep ideological differences, jeru and Republican share the same strategic sensibilities, they are just positioned on different sides of the political spectrum. I fully agree with you that both Thaksin and the military must be criticized for a better future (along with numerous other actors like the media, academics, public intellectuals, etc), but it is a bit pointless trying to get either jeru or Republican to agree to that position.
Just speculation, but I think Thaksin is a lot poorer now than when he entered politics. I did think he should have put a check on some of his wife’s dealings as being inappropriate considering the position he held and he was short-sighted in seeing that there would be no repurcussions in future from the purchase of the land plot. In fact his wife had made many purchases of land plots during his time in office. If this is what you mean by corrupt practice, then I would agree that this was inappropriate by western standards at least.
Thaksin held a huge Thai street parade in Manchester on commencement of the new season. Free food and free gimmicks; everyone supposedly left quite happy and spiced up. If Suree Sukha, Kiatprawut Saiwaew and Teerasil Dangda cannot get into the XI on merit, then they don’t get in. Sven Goran Eriksson has the final say… If I was a Manchester City supporter, I would think it is a good thing that such a huge market in Thailand would be focusing upon my team; providing money to buy players of proven quality like (dead pans) Mark Bresciano…
Whether or not it is a conscious ploy to get more Thai people to follow Man City, it does provide an avenue of hope (after how the trio got to Manchester is forgotten) for Thai football; and surely that’s not a bad thing.
Thai Crisis: I am surprised you seem so sure that American policy has nothing to do with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism – do you completely discount the ‘blowback’ theory?
Hopefully LSS will also able to do a point-by-point analysis of the ‘blowback’ theory when he has some free time.
Dear Col. Jeru can only bark on about Thaksin being bad. What about the military? Now, in power? Can’t there be any critical word about them from you? Or are you the appointed protector of their assaults on democracy? Can’t both be bad? Can’t both be criticised?
Thaksin was/is the threat to Thai democracy just as Marcos was the poison to the Philippines democratic aspirations Both were removed extra-constitutionally which allowed a reset . . of their democracy. For Thailand the reset came much sooner and that was godsend.
It was dangerous . . . these extra-constitutional resets because these resets could have been violent and bloody. And that is why both Marcos and Thaksin deserve every puke directed at them for putting their countries in such danger just because their greed and corruption were boundless and their lust to cling on to power border on the criminal.
Thailand will move on to its peculiar manner of achieving political and democratic maturity because Thailand is cursed with political leaders whose ideology orbit mainly in self-enrichment and power for its own sake. Foreigners can observe and criticize but they cannot impose their own standards or guidelines on how Thailand should behave to remove dangerous threatening flawed leaders like Thaksin.
If is a truism that a country deserve the leader(s) they get, then it must also be true that a country should be able to remove dangerous leaders they don’t deserve by the means demanded by the degree of the danger.
Now you cannot make me believe all these nonsense Andrew Walker is writing about that some semblance of maturity had already been achieved! That is stupid and dangerous thinking. When Thailand can continue to have a dominant political party like Thai Rak Thai party, with clearly no ideology beyond assisting the Shinawatras enrich themselves and shield the Shinawatras from scrutiny or investigation into their criminal abuses, Thailand clearly is vulnerable to the manipulative and the corrupt and the criminal . . . like Thaksin.
I can’t predict what Thailand’s political future will be after the junta leaves. But I can clearly predict, that Thailand’s political future WITHOUT THAKSIN would be less traumatic, less corrupt, and less susceptible to disregard of the rule of law and basic spirit of democracy.
I am not quite sure what you are implying with regards to HMK. I know for a fact the majority of the Thai populace respect the HMK unconditionally. This is easy to understand when you think that the only check on a corrupt and inefficient government would be a higher power.
The three main players in Thai politics are: HMK, The Army, Parliament.
I am not sure who comes higher in terms of political power, but I know elected parliament is last.
Jeru a la mor doo: “The only threat to Thai democracy was Thaksin and Thaksin had been removed and that’s it!” Ah, yes… Thaksin was the only threat to democracy. Not the military of course. They have not been a threat to democracy and are not been now. Oh, sorry, I forgot, since the coup, Thailand is not a democracy, so the military can’t possibly threaten it. They are composing a Thai-style authoritarianism, so no need to worry about any threat to democracy for the immediate future. The military is unlikely to threaten a constitutional order that they created. And, the military has, of course, been scrupulous in following the law, especially in the South. Don’t you ever feel that your military-centred view of Thailand just a little uncomfortable?
It takes more than an article in the economist to dislodge my convictions. The US remains the leading proponent of democracy around the world, and it is the most ideal model I hope to see perpetuated throughout Asia, and other continents.
Thaksin was seen as evil, a robber, a murderer by many of his countrymen, compared even to hitler, but I saw some aspects of his policies that delivered to the people. I ask, what leaders in the history of Thailand has kept election promises after taking power? That is what democracy is all about, is it not?
Bhutan can keep their fine democracy at home however.
Demo (of) Crazy? Does he explain what this means? It sounds like a comment on the misuse of the rhetoric of democracy. But the phrase seems to translate as ‘an example of lunacy’
I read Andrew Walker and I am still convinced that without some kind of extra-constitutional intervention, Thaksin would have increased his constitutional and criminal abuses every year and win every election still. Or, if Thaksin started feeling his ‘popularity’ started diminishing to an unacceptable degree, Thaksin himself would have staged the coup, a-la Marcos, to entrenched himself as Thailand’s ruler for life.
Every behavior of Thaksin including his disregard for rule of law, flaunting constitutional ethiquette and quick trigger to bribe any one or everyone (or intimidate when bribery will not work) supports my thesis, whatever silly things Andrew Walker says about ‘threats’.
The only threat to Thai democracy was Thaksin and Thaksin had been removed and that’s it!
Thanks for all the words, but I am unconvinced of your arguments that democracy takes a long time to settle in. I see democracy of Continental Europe different than that of the US. I personally believe that the US system is more open and properly accountable to the electorate, whereas Europe, including UK, are still stuck dealing with inherited problems, semi-socialist democracies if you will. US democracy has had less than half the time to develop than Europe, but is the more advanced and mature if we start from the time of the US constitution. Again just my opinion. Look at East Europe, a communist bloc just a single decade ago, and now most of it fully fledged democratically led nations. There must be something other that underscores the reasons. None of them taking centuries to manufacture, as you believe.
Looking back on Asia. I look at Japan as having the strongest democratic institutions of all the democratic Asian nations. How did it take root and now so well established? All this after a terrible war that devastated the nation.
India, still fragile, but I believe has taken root whereby it would be difficult to wrestle it from the people. And this after post-colonial handover.
Compare this with Pakistan and of course Thailand, and the people seem to not want it, until the time it is taken away.
My birth place of Taiwan is also developing democratically. Ok, it was a bit embarrassing beating each other up in parliament, but we had the strength to stick it out and we have come out the better. We have had problems in the past, and politics revolves too much around China with not much left domestically. But still I think it would be difficult to undo that. Only the China factor could change the status. And I point out that a democratic nation that we are, we still remain under threat from a communist nation.
But too far and too few between these democratic institutions are in Asia. Unfortunately, democracy is just for the few lucky ones.
Thanks for the link. It’s a shame that his blog only allows comments from those with Blogger accounts, though.
I read his article “The Far South of Thailand in the Era of American Empire” with great interest. He does insightfully point out the connection the militants have with local mafia and corrupt bureaucrats, which is vital to a complete understanding of the conflict; unfortunately, Prof. Horachaikul chooses to frame these insights within the malicious and calumnious rhetoric of Anti-Americanism that happens to be in vouge now. Not that I am accusing Prof. Horachaikul of plagiarism, but at times, his article read as if he took a left-wing academic’s paper on American foreign policy and replaced the word “Palestine” with “the far south of Thailand.”
I’ll post a point-by-point analysis when I have more free time.
I was sort of perplexed by the recent statement in “On the RECORD: KILLERS IN DRUG WAR BEWARE” in the Bangkok Post (24 August 2007), where National human rights commissioner Wasant Panich is quoted as saying, “we hope the committee will be able to divide all the drug murder cases into two categories. The first group consists of really innocent people and the second group real drug suspects. After the findings, the committee must announce them officially to the public. From our experience, we don’t believe all people killed in the war on drugs were really involved in drugs.” This seemed odd at first for it seems that a National human rights commissioner is saying that the extrajudicial killing of people involved with drugs is somehow okay and that the investigations will be of the deaths of “really innocent people.” If that is what is being contemplated it is reprehensible. But then I was thinking, maybe it is because the king argued that drug users should be dealt with, and there are those incriminating quotes about, that leaving murdered people who are allegedly involved with drugs aside is a way of not having to deal with the king’s urgings on the war on drugs?
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McDaniel’s new wheels
Matthew and Paul Handley have one thing in common. It was Thaksin that either threatened to kick them out of the country or actually did kick them out of the country.
Missionaries in Chiang Rai are like a gang (with the exception of the Swedish Baan Chiwidmai). Matthew’s right.
The only solution to Christian missionaries is Buddhist missionaries.
Demo[of]Crazy: A blog from Surat Horachaikul
Thanks for the blog and all the online papers. Great resource.
IMHO Scholars who do this sort of thing are the real heroes of the internet age.
Haven’t read the paper yet that is accused of America bashing, but as the world’s only superpower and given post-9/11 debacles in Iraq and policies that are drifting further and further away from international realities, I’d even rate being critical of current policies an act of patriotism. Chomsky’s been doing it for years.
McDaniel’s new wheels
Too bad Matthew has taken to denigrating Thai Royalty.
He’ll never get anywhere that way.
He’s mistaking the center with the periphery.
It was low level civil service functionaries not being adequately monitored who did the evil things in the hills that he witnessed.
Matthew was a brilliant investigative reporter.
Yet another case of squandered Farang resources in Thailand.
Because Thailand is open in terms of population flows, a sort of global entrepot of people instead of goods (in much the same way as Singapore rose as a duty-free entrepot for goods) Thailand continually has opportunities to harness this brainpower, but it squanders these opportunities.
For example, there is a brilliant former director of a museum in Europe retired in Chiang Rai. Does anyone put him to use in the museum studies program at the nearby university?
There was a brilliant Hollywood post-production engineer from LA with patents to his name who became a chronic alcoholic and is now rotting in Suan Phlu immigration prison, if not dead. (Matthew knew him well, he urinated on the wheel of his truck, after which he tried to run him over).
There was a brilliant Cambridge educated engineer and business consultant operating out of Singapore who actually owned a farm below the university I taught at, who taught very practical and priceless classes in project evaluation (NPV, ROI calculation and things like that) at the university until the clueless 60 year old business dean (the same one who lied, cheated, and stole from me) decided pompously without having a shred of relevant knowledge that his knowledge was not sophisticated enough, so he taught at the science department upstairs instead that had a Farang dean , the same dean who brought his Nobel laureate friend to campus for a talk.
I could go on and on, but hopefully the powers that be will one day learn to harness these resources for the good of the country. These Farang after all: 1. prefer live in rural Thailand, 2. work for almost free, and 3. could be used to give poor people who cannot leave the country for an expensive education in places like ANU, a world class education, but they often pose a threat to the petty little fiefdoms that some of them have and pull up their Wizard of OZ curtains.
Six threats and one opportunity
Why not just say in the constitution that only Jeru and his likes have the right to cast their vote in elections? This would also be much cheaper, because they could perform this exercise in Challenger Hall in Mueng Thong Thani, or even in the ball room of any good hotel. Be honest and call for the abolition of universal suffrage! But you won’t dare, right? Rather amazing, this shift of Thai politics to a right-wing world view. Or is it just the extension of the old elitism?
Six threats and one opportunity
Military Advisor,
As Republican has tirelessly pointed out, of course they both can’t be bad and criticized, as that is falling into a strategic trap of political dupe. Despite their deep ideological differences, jeru and Republican share the same strategic sensibilities, they are just positioned on different sides of the political spectrum. I fully agree with you that both Thaksin and the military must be criticized for a better future (along with numerous other actors like the media, academics, public intellectuals, etc), but it is a bit pointless trying to get either jeru or Republican to agree to that position.
Six threats and one opportunity
Jeru,
Just speculation, but I think Thaksin is a lot poorer now than when he entered politics. I did think he should have put a check on some of his wife’s dealings as being inappropriate considering the position he held and he was short-sighted in seeing that there would be no repurcussions in future from the purchase of the land plot. In fact his wife had made many purchases of land plots during his time in office. If this is what you mean by corrupt practice, then I would agree that this was inappropriate by western standards at least.
I can’t understand the rest of your points.
Own goals at Manchester City?
Thaksin held a huge Thai street parade in Manchester on commencement of the new season. Free food and free gimmicks; everyone supposedly left quite happy and spiced up. If Suree Sukha, Kiatprawut Saiwaew and Teerasil Dangda cannot get into the XI on merit, then they don’t get in. Sven Goran Eriksson has the final say… If I was a Manchester City supporter, I would think it is a good thing that such a huge market in Thailand would be focusing upon my team; providing money to buy players of proven quality like (dead pans) Mark Bresciano…
Whether or not it is a conscious ploy to get more Thai people to follow Man City, it does provide an avenue of hope (after how the trio got to Manchester is forgotten) for Thai football; and surely that’s not a bad thing.
Demo[of]Crazy: A blog from Surat Horachaikul
Thai Crisis: I am surprised you seem so sure that American policy has nothing to do with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism – do you completely discount the ‘blowback’ theory?
Hopefully LSS will also able to do a point-by-point analysis of the ‘blowback’ theory when he has some free time.
Six threats and one opportunity
Dear Col. Jeru can only bark on about Thaksin being bad. What about the military? Now, in power? Can’t there be any critical word about them from you? Or are you the appointed protector of their assaults on democracy? Can’t both be bad? Can’t both be criticised?
Six threats and one opportunity
Thaksin was/is the threat to Thai democracy just as Marcos was the poison to the Philippines democratic aspirations Both were removed extra-constitutionally which allowed a reset . . of their democracy. For Thailand the reset came much sooner and that was godsend.
It was dangerous . . . these extra-constitutional resets because these resets could have been violent and bloody. And that is why both Marcos and Thaksin deserve every puke directed at them for putting their countries in such danger just because their greed and corruption were boundless and their lust to cling on to power border on the criminal.
Thailand will move on to its peculiar manner of achieving political and democratic maturity because Thailand is cursed with political leaders whose ideology orbit mainly in self-enrichment and power for its own sake. Foreigners can observe and criticize but they cannot impose their own standards or guidelines on how Thailand should behave to remove dangerous threatening flawed leaders like Thaksin.
If is a truism that a country deserve the leader(s) they get, then it must also be true that a country should be able to remove dangerous leaders they don’t deserve by the means demanded by the degree of the danger.
Now you cannot make me believe all these nonsense Andrew Walker is writing about that some semblance of maturity had already been achieved! That is stupid and dangerous thinking. When Thailand can continue to have a dominant political party like Thai Rak Thai party, with clearly no ideology beyond assisting the Shinawatras enrich themselves and shield the Shinawatras from scrutiny or investigation into their criminal abuses, Thailand clearly is vulnerable to the manipulative and the corrupt and the criminal . . . like Thaksin.
I can’t predict what Thailand’s political future will be after the junta leaves. But I can clearly predict, that Thailand’s political future WITHOUT THAKSIN would be less traumatic, less corrupt, and less susceptible to disregard of the rule of law and basic spirit of democracy.
Demo[of]Crazy: A blog from Surat Horachaikul
I agree with Samuel.
The article leaves a bitter taste in the mouth…
And it reminds me what was said during Thaksin era : mafia, drug related violence, like “nothing to worry there”, etc.
Same old story…
With just a “modern” varnish : the bad Americans with their “war on terror” put gasoline on the situation. It’s ridiculous.
The bottom line is : I’m not sure that the Americans have anything to do with the beheading of people… Nor drugs, nor mafia.
We should put away those rozy glasses.
The South is on fire. Because of an ideology (muslim fundamentalism linked to a political target, that is the independance from Thailand).
Six threats and one opportunity
Andrew,
I am not quite sure what you are implying with regards to HMK. I know for a fact the majority of the Thai populace respect the HMK unconditionally. This is easy to understand when you think that the only check on a corrupt and inefficient government would be a higher power.
The three main players in Thai politics are: HMK, The Army, Parliament.
I am not sure who comes higher in terms of political power, but I know elected parliament is last.
Six threats and one opportunity
Jeru a la mor doo: “The only threat to Thai democracy was Thaksin and Thaksin had been removed and that’s it!” Ah, yes… Thaksin was the only threat to democracy. Not the military of course. They have not been a threat to democracy and are not been now. Oh, sorry, I forgot, since the coup, Thailand is not a democracy, so the military can’t possibly threaten it. They are composing a Thai-style authoritarianism, so no need to worry about any threat to democracy for the immediate future. The military is unlikely to threaten a constitutional order that they created. And, the military has, of course, been scrupulous in following the law, especially in the South. Don’t you ever feel that your military-centred view of Thailand just a little uncomfortable?
Republican on Thailand after the coup
ngandeeleg,
It takes more than an article in the economist to dislodge my convictions. The US remains the leading proponent of democracy around the world, and it is the most ideal model I hope to see perpetuated throughout Asia, and other continents.
Thaksin was seen as evil, a robber, a murderer by many of his countrymen, compared even to hitler, but I saw some aspects of his policies that delivered to the people. I ask, what leaders in the history of Thailand has kept election promises after taking power? That is what democracy is all about, is it not?
Bhutan can keep their fine democracy at home however.
Demo[of]Crazy: A blog from Surat Horachaikul
Demo (of) Crazy? Does he explain what this means? It sounds like a comment on the misuse of the rhetoric of democracy. But the phrase seems to translate as ‘an example of lunacy’
Six threats and one opportunity
I read Andrew Walker and I am still convinced that without some kind of extra-constitutional intervention, Thaksin would have increased his constitutional and criminal abuses every year and win every election still. Or, if Thaksin started feeling his ‘popularity’ started diminishing to an unacceptable degree, Thaksin himself would have staged the coup, a-la Marcos, to entrenched himself as Thailand’s ruler for life.
Every behavior of Thaksin including his disregard for rule of law, flaunting constitutional ethiquette and quick trigger to bribe any one or everyone (or intimidate when bribery will not work) supports my thesis, whatever silly things Andrew Walker says about ‘threats’.
The only threat to Thai democracy was Thaksin and Thaksin had been removed and that’s it!
Republican on Thailand after the coup
Tim,
Paul L is my name. Thaipaul is the moniker on my laptop. Stick with Paul L.
Apol. for confusion.
Republican on Thailand after the coup
Tim,
Thanks for all the words, but I am unconvinced of your arguments that democracy takes a long time to settle in. I see democracy of Continental Europe different than that of the US. I personally believe that the US system is more open and properly accountable to the electorate, whereas Europe, including UK, are still stuck dealing with inherited problems, semi-socialist democracies if you will. US democracy has had less than half the time to develop than Europe, but is the more advanced and mature if we start from the time of the US constitution. Again just my opinion. Look at East Europe, a communist bloc just a single decade ago, and now most of it fully fledged democratically led nations. There must be something other that underscores the reasons. None of them taking centuries to manufacture, as you believe.
Looking back on Asia. I look at Japan as having the strongest democratic institutions of all the democratic Asian nations. How did it take root and now so well established? All this after a terrible war that devastated the nation.
India, still fragile, but I believe has taken root whereby it would be difficult to wrestle it from the people. And this after post-colonial handover.
Compare this with Pakistan and of course Thailand, and the people seem to not want it, until the time it is taken away.
My birth place of Taiwan is also developing democratically. Ok, it was a bit embarrassing beating each other up in parliament, but we had the strength to stick it out and we have come out the better. We have had problems in the past, and politics revolves too much around China with not much left domestically. But still I think it would be difficult to undo that. Only the China factor could change the status. And I point out that a democratic nation that we are, we still remain under threat from a communist nation.
But too far and too few between these democratic institutions are in Asia. Unfortunately, democracy is just for the few lucky ones.
Demo[of]Crazy: A blog from Surat Horachaikul
Thanks for the link. It’s a shame that his blog only allows comments from those with Blogger accounts, though.
I read his article “The Far South of Thailand in the Era of American Empire” with great interest. He does insightfully point out the connection the militants have with local mafia and corrupt bureaucrats, which is vital to a complete understanding of the conflict; unfortunately, Prof. Horachaikul chooses to frame these insights within the malicious and calumnious rhetoric of Anti-Americanism that happens to be in vouge now. Not that I am accusing Prof. Horachaikul of plagiarism, but at times, his article read as if he took a left-wing academic’s paper on American foreign policy and replaced the word “Palestine” with “the far south of Thailand.”
I’ll post a point-by-point analysis when I have more free time.
Republican on Thailand after the coup
Responding to Tim and extrajudicial killings:
I was sort of perplexed by the recent statement in “On the RECORD: KILLERS IN DRUG WAR BEWARE” in the Bangkok Post (24 August 2007), where National human rights commissioner Wasant Panich is quoted as saying, “we hope the committee will be able to divide all the drug murder cases into two categories. The first group consists of really innocent people and the second group real drug suspects. After the findings, the committee must announce them officially to the public. From our experience, we don’t believe all people killed in the war on drugs were really involved in drugs.” This seemed odd at first for it seems that a National human rights commissioner is saying that the extrajudicial killing of people involved with drugs is somehow okay and that the investigations will be of the deaths of “really innocent people.” If that is what is being contemplated it is reprehensible. But then I was thinking, maybe it is because the king argued that drug users should be dealt with, and there are those incriminating quotes about, that leaving murdered people who are allegedly involved with drugs aside is a way of not having to deal with the king’s urgings on the war on drugs?