[…] by the speakers. (Note that the main presentation by Surat was very similar to that presented at SOAS earlier this year.) Let me emphasise that this summary is based on my notes and recollections. […]
So the Finland Plan did exist, but in a slightly different form?
I believe that Thaksin is a superlative politician, a brilliant strategist, and nothing if not far-sighted
So brilliant and far-sighted, that he forgot HMK was nearly 80 years old and not in the best health. So instead of waiting things out, he made a decision to give up his position of power & control, take a short term loss for a long term victory ?
I say substitute ‘greedy & arrogant’ for superlative, brilliant & far-sighted, and you would get closer to the truth.
Some time in 2005-2006 (if not earlier) Thaksin realized..
Ah, so the Shin-Temasek deal with tax evasion was all part of the grand plan – he wanted to bring on a coup?
So the strategy had to be to lure the king out from his hiding place and force him to show his hand by frequent, highly visible, political interventions.
It looks more like HMK has to occasionally step in to resolve political conflict to avoid the descent into violence.
According to this theory, September 19 was not in fact the end of Thai Rak Thai and Thaksin, but in fact a great tactical victory for Thaksin…
And a victory for Samak & Chavalit too?
Who knows how Thaksin really thinks, but does anyone really think that if such a plan existed there would be no bloodshed?
Ngandeeleg: But if there are no good alternatives, who to choose? The answer nobody doesn’t really cut it. It is easy to say they are all bad, but someone has to be the leader.
Republican: With respect, I disagree. I know some “no vote” people and they certainly didn’t like Thaksin, they just hate the CNS. I also know some Thaksin supporters who abstained and voted yes.
Jeru’s world revolves between two axes – pro Thaksin and anti Thaksin. This is the only way he can understand the world. His lack of recognition for ANU – not my university – reflects the narrowness of his perspective. International rankings regularly rank ANU very high. Beats me how this can be Thaksin related.
I am one of a very small minority who will publicly confess on an academic website that I believe that Thaksin is a superlative politician, a brilliant strategist, and nothing if not far-sighted – far more so than most of his slow-witted academic critics.
So when I heard the following theory the other day from a colleague it sounded credible, although admittedly it has a conspiracy theory flavour to it and there is no evidence to support it apart from the circumstantial. Anyway, here it is for the expert analysis of any NM bloggers who may be interested:
… Some time in 2005-2006 (if not earlier) Thaksin realized that the monarchy was out to destroy him, and that once it had mobilized all its political resources he knew his government could not survive. Thaksin’s strategy then shifted to the “long game”. The aim of this game was the long overdue political neutralization of the monarchy – the biggest game there is in Thai politics. Of course, a direct political attack on the king is still too difficult to conceive for most Thais given the edifice of propaganda that has been built up around him over the last fifty years, the elimination or cooption of his enemies, the control of the king’s image in the media, and of course, the lese majeste law. This is the biggest problem for anyone under attack from the king; one can not say one is under attack. The best Thaksin could do was his famous “phu mi barami” speech in June last year. So the strategy had to be to lure the king out from his hiding place and force him to show his hand by frequent, highly visible, political interventions. This would demonstrate both to the Thai electorate (which Thai Rak Thai largely controlled) as well as the international community (who by and large were very impressed by and supportive of Thaksin) the fascistic, anti-democratic nature of the Thai king and the obsolescence of the monarchy, without Thaksin needing to utter the slightest word of criticism. Quite the opposite. On Thaksin’s websites and in his public statements he is always seen to be perfectly loyal to the monarchy – maybe even too loyal. All that was needed was to go after Prem in order to point people in the right direction. Once revealed in this way it would be difficult for the king to revert to his more comfortable, serene god-king / bodhisattva demeanour. According to the theory every public attack by the king on Thai Rak Thai is not a defeat for Thaksin, but in fact a small battle victory, because it publicly demonstrates the king to be an enemy of democracy, and more importantly an enemy of the electorate which supports Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai. This is seen more and more clearly by the electorate, as well as the international community. The high No vote in the referendum was one indication. The unprecedented criticism of the monarchy on websites is another. According to this theory, September 19 was not in fact the end of Thai Rak Thai and Thaksin, but in fact a great tactical victory for Thaksin, and the beginning of the end of the monarchy…
Believe it, or not …
I always wondered why Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai didn’t fight harder just after the coup. In fact, in the “long game” it suited Thaksin much better to be overseas and out of power. He gets the sympathy vote from the Thai electorate and the international community; he and Thai Rak Thai take absolutely no responsibility for the disaster unfolding in Thailand; and he does brilliantly with his purchase of Manchester City, which shows that he still has money and international respect and support, gives him a chance to display his undoubted brilliance as a manager, and very importantly, demonstrates to the Thai electorate his ability, as a Thai, to successfully compete internationally (and win) in the modern world on its terms. It’s a win-win situation for him.
No wonder the junta is as desperate for him to come home now as they were a few months ago for him to stay away.
Thaksin always looks to be in such a good mood, in contrast to the harried look of Surayud and the ridiculous antics of the Keystone Cops junta as things go from bad to worse. Why? Because all is going to plan?
Half the country remains under martial law, the government is controlled by a royalist dictatorship, the mass Thai Rak Thai party has just been destroyed, its leader exiled and his assets seized, the mass media is totally controlled by the regime, the military and bureaucracy have thrown hundreds of millions of baht into a Yes campaign, and the rubber-stamp legislature passes a bill imposing a ten-year prison sentence on those found guilty of “influencing or persuading” the way people make their choice in the referendum – and yet 42% of the electorate still vote “No”.
Of course, the “No” vote is a vote for Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai.
Given the royalists’ repeated public denunciations of Thaksin as an enemy of the throne, if I was the king – not to mention all the interest groups that live off the monarchy – I would be very worried.
I find the 2 last sentences (“To rescue their country… people in every other part of Asia that looked to them for inspiration and guidance”) quite melo dramatic… and very thai centered if I may say.
Thailand an example ?
Thailand has had 30 years, and an extraordinary window of opportunity from an historical point of view, right after the end of Vietnam war…
In the issue of attending or boycotting ICTS, it is a rather simple choice – are you an idealist or are you a pragmatist? Thai cultural practice can be annoyingly and frustratingly pragmatic for both the foreigners and those within Thai society. If one can understand and accept that, then there shouldn’t be any issue with attending. If one can’t and believe Thailand should become a liberal, Western democracy by tomorrow, then it is best you stay away – as you can potentially do much more harm than good.
On that note, ‘democracy’ has sadly become a tainted concept since America tried to violently impose ‘democracy’ on Iraq. And the Thai army proposed internal security law is merely a copy from American and British models. Let’s view things as ‘area specialists’ here, as events in Thai history are often closely interrelated to external global factors at play. If one means well for Thai society, it’s better to constructively rather than destructively engage.
Sounds like the UNC-Chapel Hill model of hiring proven scholars with a lifetime of **contributions** like Hewison has an excellence knowledge-reinforcing strategy.
[That is instead of providing sinecures for nepotistic patron-client chain hangers-on or non-publishing non-foreign-language-primary-source-using only-English-secondary-source-using political networking smooze artist paper-pushing administrator types]
nganadeeleg: “I fail to see what’s wrong with hosting any, and all, sides of the argument”
Exactly. Go get Soros to send an anti-government PR team if you want. Nothing’s preventing this.
jeru: “Seriously people schools are for kids!”
That’s not fair. Hopefully universities are for making “contributions to knowledge” and not for developing partisan one-sided political viewpoints.
There’s no doubt that Thailand is experiencing some kind of class warfare.
Like all the wealthy people years ago who had the Marie Antoinette attitude towards the 30 baht plan years ago.
Last week I tried to use my social security card at my officially assigned health provider and the doctor tried to needle me, called me a “labourer.”
But despite being unelected and the product of a coup, IMHO the government side is the best bet for Thailand not degenerating into a full time 24-7 political conflict.
Political conflict may be what some academics do, but normal people engage in productive work everyday, add value, not just get value redistributed to them via untransparent Thaksin populist programmes (I challenge you to provide examples of productive use of the redistributed money, for instance of the village funds, taxi micro-finance loans were one productive use I know, but the norm of just pumping money into rural areas without plans to produce more value from them just seems long-term infeasible).
Countries as a whole derive little benefit from protracted political conflicts like the one that Thaksin kicked up with his divisive vote-sinning (I mean vote-winning) policies. Look at Burma for instance, a place addicted to long-term political battles since the end of WWII and a place that Thailand may well become if economic life can’t get back on track. A country can go down as well as up economically. There are enough examples of successful economies in Asia and none of these models include **long-term protracted social conflict**.
The silent protest was over gas price hikes in Burma.
This is hardly the first time that gas prices suddenly shot up sending the exchange into sudden depreciation and causing a sharp spike in market prices.
During the Burmese-Thai war up around Maesai, I was living in Yangon, and the same thing happened. The army supposedly hoarded oil for the war. The public market in Tamwei in Yangon was policed and vendors prevented from raising their prices. Power outages every other day in Yangon for about 7 hours. A friend who ran a fertiliser import business was completely caught exposed adn lost a lot of money. Later things got better again.
I don’t see anyone referring to this previous episode. For example, is the current episode worse? IMHO without history and context, news is just noise.
An intellectual’s “human right’s violation” is just another euphemism for murder. I suppose this stems from the fact that if, like HRWA, you frequently engage in dialogue with powerful people, you have to watch your Ps and Qs somewhat. I have long given up bothering to try and understand the convolutions in the thinking of the alpha-one Thai male. It gets you nowhere, which is precisely as intended. Better to view Thai politics as a place where murder frequently occurs. Let’s not make that acceptable by intellectualising it!
While the seminar is obviously questionable, and that ANU is in some ways complicit in supporting the dictatorship, I think the response by stopping the seminar is far too blunt. For a start, this will allow people to question other events which give one side of the story, say Burmese democracy groups (or any other anti-government group). Will they now need to have a govt. spokeperson to balance out their views?
Secondly, even if they attempt to stop questions at the forum (or avoid these questions as they seemed to do at SOAS), this does oblige the NTSC to promote an anti-dictator forum. And it doesn’t stop the numerous other forums (such as this one) to criticise the event.
Corruption permeates all levels of public and private life in Thailand, there is no place where evidence of rampant graft and corruption cannot be seen. I don’t believe it will ever change, simply because it is a way of life and people don’t identify it with wrong doing. They simply don’t know any different. This on its own will ensure that Thailand (for all of its attractions) will always stay a banana republic, populated largely by stupid and incompetent people.
Ideas about cultural, political or educational reform are just chaff in the wind. The problem lies with the entire Thai cultural system – it is a feudal and primitive culture and that is not going to change. Until Thais learn about ethics and concern for others (ie until they become less self-centric), what we see now is what we will always get. Sadly.
I have a lot of respect for Hewison’s work, in particular the influence of his political economy approach at a time when such work was rare in studies of Thailand, and also his relatively early targeting of the monarchy for critical analysis. On his views re. the discipline vs. area studies debate, I have to differ, but this argument is an old one, the positions are entrenched, and it is unlikely that either side will budge just yet. I also think that it has a greater relevance to the ecology of North American academia than to anything else. When one witnesses a disciplinary specialist walk into a foreign country (eg. Thailand) and totally misunderstand what is going on around them it is enough to shatter any illusions that one may have of the superiority of the disciplinists. Also, one would wish that the Iraq War has been a good lesson for the discipline studies purists, who knew their Plato, Hegel and Leo Strauss, but did not appear to know that Iraq actually had different ethnic and religious groups. I remain a true believer in area studies, while accepting that a lot of area studies work (most of it?) is truly of terrible quality, which gives the field such a bad name. But this is partly, though not entirely, due to the difficulty of learning the language and the infinite cultural allusions that is necessary before one can begin to make proper sense of one’s data. It seems to me that for an outsider coming to Thai Studies one can not but be an area studies specialist, and if one is not good at it or at least is unwilling to accept the challenge then you may as well give the game away. The disciplinary silos are to me an anachronism, largely kept alive by university politics and should not be taken seriously. Scholars always adopt serious demeanors so it is common to take them more seriously than they deserve. At the same time no-one is more aware than me of the awful quality of so much work in Thai Studies done in the name of “culture”. So a background in the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences tradition, broadly defined, is crucial. It is not an either-or equation, but more of both, and of better quality. Thai Studies is a very young field of study and it may take another 50 years or more before anything of any lasting scholarly value is produced.
Well said. The statement does not appear equivocal.
Sparta,
The “You farang will never understand” is weak argument to hang your hat on. Clearly there is not a single Thai view on this. Maybe you are a Thai, maybe not. Same with me. So let’s focus on the strengths of the arguments, not who they come from.
I am not a Thaksin supporter and was initially open to the coup. I think his association with Newin Chitchob is as revolting as the actions of Saprang, Banowit and Prachai. Criminals all of them.
However, when it became clear that the junta’s plan was not to restore balance, but to cement the control of the elite and all of consequent benefits, I saw the military for what it was.
The statement above is very clear that the crimes of the military in less than one year, dwarf the crimes of Thaksin.
It seems to me to be impossible to actually believe that Thaksin’s popularity was based purely on bribes and not at all on a deal made to improve the lives of the poor.
Yes, Thai democracy is corrupt. The Democrats, Chart Thai and other parties have also bought votes. Is there really any actual evidence that Thaksin was worse?
Why can the ASC find almost nothing on him? If they tried junta buddy Suwat for his role in the Klong Tan dam, a conviction would seem to be a piece of cake.
You seem to be parroting the junta talking points that claim the same actions that are crimes when Thaksin does them are “patriotic” when done by them and their cronies.
But let’s not just discuss this on websites. Join me in the call to have the UN, EU and others oversee the next election. Let prove who is buying votes, shuttering the media, harassing opponents and all the things the above article describes better than I can.
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Report on SOAS event in London: “Thailand after the Coup”
[…] by the speakers. (Note that the main presentation by Surat was very similar to that presented at SOAS earlier this year.) Let me emphasise that this summary is based on my notes and recollections. […]
Thaksin skeptic
So the Finland Plan did exist, but in a slightly different form?
I believe that Thaksin is a superlative politician, a brilliant strategist, and nothing if not far-sighted
So brilliant and far-sighted, that he forgot HMK was nearly 80 years old and not in the best health. So instead of waiting things out, he made a decision to give up his position of power & control, take a short term loss for a long term victory ?
I say substitute ‘greedy & arrogant’ for superlative, brilliant & far-sighted, and you would get closer to the truth.
Some time in 2005-2006 (if not earlier) Thaksin realized..
Ah, so the Shin-Temasek deal with tax evasion was all part of the grand plan – he wanted to bring on a coup?
So the strategy had to be to lure the king out from his hiding place and force him to show his hand by frequent, highly visible, political interventions.
It looks more like HMK has to occasionally step in to resolve political conflict to avoid the descent into violence.
According to this theory, September 19 was not in fact the end of Thai Rak Thai and Thaksin, but in fact a great tactical victory for Thaksin…
And a victory for Samak & Chavalit too?
Who knows how Thaksin really thinks, but does anyone really think that if such a plan existed there would be no bloodshed?
14.7 out of 45. An endorsement for the junta?
Ngandeeleg: But if there are no good alternatives, who to choose? The answer nobody doesn’t really cut it. It is easy to say they are all bad, but someone has to be the leader.
14.7 out of 45. An endorsement for the junta?
Republican: With respect, I disagree. I know some “no vote” people and they certainly didn’t like Thaksin, they just hate the CNS. I also know some Thaksin supporters who abstained and voted yes.
Surayud’s “war room” comes to Canberra
Jeru’s world revolves between two axes – pro Thaksin and anti Thaksin. This is the only way he can understand the world. His lack of recognition for ANU – not my university – reflects the narrowness of his perspective. International rankings regularly rank ANU very high. Beats me how this can be Thaksin related.
Thaksin skeptic
I am one of a very small minority who will publicly confess on an academic website that I believe that Thaksin is a superlative politician, a brilliant strategist, and nothing if not far-sighted – far more so than most of his slow-witted academic critics.
So when I heard the following theory the other day from a colleague it sounded credible, although admittedly it has a conspiracy theory flavour to it and there is no evidence to support it apart from the circumstantial. Anyway, here it is for the expert analysis of any NM bloggers who may be interested:
… Some time in 2005-2006 (if not earlier) Thaksin realized that the monarchy was out to destroy him, and that once it had mobilized all its political resources he knew his government could not survive. Thaksin’s strategy then shifted to the “long game”. The aim of this game was the long overdue political neutralization of the monarchy – the biggest game there is in Thai politics. Of course, a direct political attack on the king is still too difficult to conceive for most Thais given the edifice of propaganda that has been built up around him over the last fifty years, the elimination or cooption of his enemies, the control of the king’s image in the media, and of course, the lese majeste law. This is the biggest problem for anyone under attack from the king; one can not say one is under attack. The best Thaksin could do was his famous “phu mi barami” speech in June last year. So the strategy had to be to lure the king out from his hiding place and force him to show his hand by frequent, highly visible, political interventions. This would demonstrate both to the Thai electorate (which Thai Rak Thai largely controlled) as well as the international community (who by and large were very impressed by and supportive of Thaksin) the fascistic, anti-democratic nature of the Thai king and the obsolescence of the monarchy, without Thaksin needing to utter the slightest word of criticism. Quite the opposite. On Thaksin’s websites and in his public statements he is always seen to be perfectly loyal to the monarchy – maybe even too loyal. All that was needed was to go after Prem in order to point people in the right direction. Once revealed in this way it would be difficult for the king to revert to his more comfortable, serene god-king / bodhisattva demeanour. According to the theory every public attack by the king on Thai Rak Thai is not a defeat for Thaksin, but in fact a small battle victory, because it publicly demonstrates the king to be an enemy of democracy, and more importantly an enemy of the electorate which supports Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai. This is seen more and more clearly by the electorate, as well as the international community. The high No vote in the referendum was one indication. The unprecedented criticism of the monarchy on websites is another. According to this theory, September 19 was not in fact the end of Thai Rak Thai and Thaksin, but in fact a great tactical victory for Thaksin, and the beginning of the end of the monarchy…
Believe it, or not …
I always wondered why Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai didn’t fight harder just after the coup. In fact, in the “long game” it suited Thaksin much better to be overseas and out of power. He gets the sympathy vote from the Thai electorate and the international community; he and Thai Rak Thai take absolutely no responsibility for the disaster unfolding in Thailand; and he does brilliantly with his purchase of Manchester City, which shows that he still has money and international respect and support, gives him a chance to display his undoubted brilliance as a manager, and very importantly, demonstrates to the Thai electorate his ability, as a Thai, to successfully compete internationally (and win) in the modern world on its terms. It’s a win-win situation for him.
No wonder the junta is as desperate for him to come home now as they were a few months ago for him to stay away.
Thaksin always looks to be in such a good mood, in contrast to the harried look of Surayud and the ridiculous antics of the Keystone Cops junta as things go from bad to worse. Why? Because all is going to plan?
14.7 out of 45. An endorsement for the junta?
Half the country remains under martial law, the government is controlled by a royalist dictatorship, the mass Thai Rak Thai party has just been destroyed, its leader exiled and his assets seized, the mass media is totally controlled by the regime, the military and bureaucracy have thrown hundreds of millions of baht into a Yes campaign, and the rubber-stamp legislature passes a bill imposing a ten-year prison sentence on those found guilty of “influencing or persuading” the way people make their choice in the referendum – and yet 42% of the electorate still vote “No”.
Of course, the “No” vote is a vote for Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai.
Given the royalists’ repeated public denunciations of Thaksin as an enemy of the throne, if I was the king – not to mention all the interest groups that live off the monarchy – I would be very worried.
3rd International Conference on Gross National Happiness
[…] the past I highlighted┬ the upcoming 3rd International Conference on Gross National Happiness that will be […]
More noise in Chachoengsao
[…] 19 August 2007 – More noise in Chachoengsao […]
All quiet in Chachoengsao
[…] 23 July 2007 -┬ All quiet in Chachoengsao […]
“A long road back”
I find the 2 last sentences (“To rescue their country… people in every other part of Asia that looked to them for inspiration and guidance”) quite melo dramatic… and very thai centered if I may say.
Thailand an example ?
Thailand has had 30 years, and an extraordinary window of opportunity from an historical point of view, right after the end of Vietnam war…
Look what they did of it…
The necrosis is total.
Interview with Professor Kevin Hewison – Part Two
In the issue of attending or boycotting ICTS, it is a rather simple choice – are you an idealist or are you a pragmatist? Thai cultural practice can be annoyingly and frustratingly pragmatic for both the foreigners and those within Thai society. If one can understand and accept that, then there shouldn’t be any issue with attending. If one can’t and believe Thailand should become a liberal, Western democracy by tomorrow, then it is best you stay away – as you can potentially do much more harm than good.
On that note, ‘democracy’ has sadly become a tainted concept since America tried to violently impose ‘democracy’ on Iraq. And the Thai army proposed internal security law is merely a copy from American and British models. Let’s view things as ‘area specialists’ here, as events in Thai history are often closely interrelated to external global factors at play. If one means well for Thai society, it’s better to constructively rather than destructively engage.
Interview with Professor Kevin Hewison – Part Two
Thank you once again for a great interview.
Sounds like the UNC-Chapel Hill model of hiring proven scholars with a lifetime of **contributions** like Hewison has an excellence knowledge-reinforcing strategy.
[That is instead of providing sinecures for nepotistic patron-client chain hangers-on or non-publishing non-foreign-language-primary-source-using only-English-secondary-source-using political networking smooze artist paper-pushing administrator types]
Viva la Hewison and other heroes of knowledge!
Surayud’s “war room” comes to Canberra
nganadeeleg: “I fail to see what’s wrong with hosting any, and all, sides of the argument”
Exactly. Go get Soros to send an anti-government PR team if you want. Nothing’s preventing this.
jeru: “Seriously people schools are for kids!”
That’s not fair. Hopefully universities are for making “contributions to knowledge” and not for developing partisan one-sided political viewpoints.
There’s no doubt that Thailand is experiencing some kind of class warfare.
Like all the wealthy people years ago who had the Marie Antoinette attitude towards the 30 baht plan years ago.
Last week I tried to use my social security card at my officially assigned health provider and the doctor tried to needle me, called me a “labourer.”
But despite being unelected and the product of a coup, IMHO the government side is the best bet for Thailand not degenerating into a full time 24-7 political conflict.
Political conflict may be what some academics do, but normal people engage in productive work everyday, add value, not just get value redistributed to them via untransparent Thaksin populist programmes (I challenge you to provide examples of productive use of the redistributed money, for instance of the village funds, taxi micro-finance loans were one productive use I know, but the norm of just pumping money into rural areas without plans to produce more value from them just seems long-term infeasible).
Countries as a whole derive little benefit from protracted political conflicts like the one that Thaksin kicked up with his divisive vote-sinning (I mean vote-winning) policies. Look at Burma for instance, a place addicted to long-term political battles since the end of WWII and a place that Thailand may well become if economic life can’t get back on track. A country can go down as well as up economically. There are enough examples of successful economies in Asia and none of these models include **long-term protracted social conflict**.
Around the Southeast Asia blogs
The silent protest was over gas price hikes in Burma.
This is hardly the first time that gas prices suddenly shot up sending the exchange into sudden depreciation and causing a sharp spike in market prices.
During the Burmese-Thai war up around Maesai, I was living in Yangon, and the same thing happened. The army supposedly hoarded oil for the war. The public market in Tamwei in Yangon was policed and vendors prevented from raising their prices. Power outages every other day in Yangon for about 7 hours. A friend who ran a fertiliser import business was completely caught exposed adn lost a lot of money. Later things got better again.
I don’t see anyone referring to this previous episode. For example, is the current episode worse? IMHO without history and context, news is just noise.
“A long road back”
An intellectual’s “human right’s violation” is just another euphemism for murder. I suppose this stems from the fact that if, like HRWA, you frequently engage in dialogue with powerful people, you have to watch your Ps and Qs somewhat. I have long given up bothering to try and understand the convolutions in the thinking of the alpha-one Thai male. It gets you nowhere, which is precisely as intended. Better to view Thai politics as a place where murder frequently occurs. Let’s not make that acceptable by intellectualising it!
Surayud’s “war room” comes to Canberra
While the seminar is obviously questionable, and that ANU is in some ways complicit in supporting the dictatorship, I think the response by stopping the seminar is far too blunt. For a start, this will allow people to question other events which give one side of the story, say Burmese democracy groups (or any other anti-government group). Will they now need to have a govt. spokeperson to balance out their views?
Secondly, even if they attempt to stop questions at the forum (or avoid these questions as they seemed to do at SOAS), this does oblige the NTSC to promote an anti-dictator forum. And it doesn’t stop the numerous other forums (such as this one) to criticise the event.
Yellow shirts, 100 baht and a speech from Surayud
Corruption permeates all levels of public and private life in Thailand, there is no place where evidence of rampant graft and corruption cannot be seen. I don’t believe it will ever change, simply because it is a way of life and people don’t identify it with wrong doing. They simply don’t know any different. This on its own will ensure that Thailand (for all of its attractions) will always stay a banana republic, populated largely by stupid and incompetent people.
Ideas about cultural, political or educational reform are just chaff in the wind. The problem lies with the entire Thai cultural system – it is a feudal and primitive culture and that is not going to change. Until Thais learn about ethics and concern for others (ie until they become less self-centric), what we see now is what we will always get. Sadly.
Interview with Professor Kevin Hewison – Part Two
I have a lot of respect for Hewison’s work, in particular the influence of his political economy approach at a time when such work was rare in studies of Thailand, and also his relatively early targeting of the monarchy for critical analysis. On his views re. the discipline vs. area studies debate, I have to differ, but this argument is an old one, the positions are entrenched, and it is unlikely that either side will budge just yet. I also think that it has a greater relevance to the ecology of North American academia than to anything else. When one witnesses a disciplinary specialist walk into a foreign country (eg. Thailand) and totally misunderstand what is going on around them it is enough to shatter any illusions that one may have of the superiority of the disciplinists. Also, one would wish that the Iraq War has been a good lesson for the discipline studies purists, who knew their Plato, Hegel and Leo Strauss, but did not appear to know that Iraq actually had different ethnic and religious groups. I remain a true believer in area studies, while accepting that a lot of area studies work (most of it?) is truly of terrible quality, which gives the field such a bad name. But this is partly, though not entirely, due to the difficulty of learning the language and the infinite cultural allusions that is necessary before one can begin to make proper sense of one’s data. It seems to me that for an outsider coming to Thai Studies one can not but be an area studies specialist, and if one is not good at it or at least is unwilling to accept the challenge then you may as well give the game away. The disciplinary silos are to me an anachronism, largely kept alive by university politics and should not be taken seriously. Scholars always adopt serious demeanors so it is common to take them more seriously than they deserve. At the same time no-one is more aware than me of the awful quality of so much work in Thai Studies done in the name of “culture”. So a background in the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences tradition, broadly defined, is crucial. It is not an either-or equation, but more of both, and of better quality. Thai Studies is a very young field of study and it may take another 50 years or more before anything of any lasting scholarly value is produced.
“A long road back”
David W,
Well said. The statement does not appear equivocal.
Sparta,
The “You farang will never understand” is weak argument to hang your hat on. Clearly there is not a single Thai view on this. Maybe you are a Thai, maybe not. Same with me. So let’s focus on the strengths of the arguments, not who they come from.
I am not a Thaksin supporter and was initially open to the coup. I think his association with Newin Chitchob is as revolting as the actions of Saprang, Banowit and Prachai. Criminals all of them.
However, when it became clear that the junta’s plan was not to restore balance, but to cement the control of the elite and all of consequent benefits, I saw the military for what it was.
The statement above is very clear that the crimes of the military in less than one year, dwarf the crimes of Thaksin.
It seems to me to be impossible to actually believe that Thaksin’s popularity was based purely on bribes and not at all on a deal made to improve the lives of the poor.
Yes, Thai democracy is corrupt. The Democrats, Chart Thai and other parties have also bought votes. Is there really any actual evidence that Thaksin was worse?
Why can the ASC find almost nothing on him? If they tried junta buddy Suwat for his role in the Klong Tan dam, a conviction would seem to be a piece of cake.
You seem to be parroting the junta talking points that claim the same actions that are crimes when Thaksin does them are “patriotic” when done by them and their cronies.
But let’s not just discuss this on websites. Join me in the call to have the UN, EU and others oversee the next election. Let prove who is buying votes, shuttering the media, harassing opponents and all the things the above article describes better than I can.