I love how you blame the reader for not understanding you.
You either are a liar or a horrible writer.
Stylistically, the column was inconsistent and riddled with errors. You never separated your ideas from Anek’s. You didn’t distinguish your voice from his voice. You didn’t criticize his ideas one time.
You built up Anek as this great sophisticated prophet without a hint of irony, but now you are telling us that you tore down his argument at the end with a sarcastic reformulated Abraham Lincoln cliche?
The last line was not “unambiguous.” Your writing was just horrible.
Regardless, the Nation’s editorial line has been totally consistent with Anek’s ideas.
Even Thanong’s recent column is totally consistent with Anek’s ideas.
The Nation is in bed with royalists/juntacrats, and in return for its loyalty, you see how Nation reporters have more exposure on military TV.
There was a major terrorism attack in the South this week, and how many articles on Somkid?
You regurgitate Anek’s bigoted ideas in your horrible column, yet how many words by any columnist on failing military strategy in the South?
You treat the military with kid gloves.
By the way, I loved the Superman music playing during Thepchai’s weak interview with Surayud.
Yeah, right, your last line was totally unambiguous.
Perhaps failure was sealed from the start by the tie-up with Sanan. With his giant brandy glass in hand, Sanan had no respect from Bangkokians who understood he fell out with the Democrats because he was too much a dinosaur. And he had nothing to offer rural people.
I’d like to know, thouh, why Anek didn’t work out in the Democrats? Not that they have their act together under the young farang-ized Bangkok boys, but intellectually weren’t they a match?
To Republican 32. Good question. But I think the heat which this Anek piece has created here and elsewhere bears us out. Sure, some people who don’t get as far as the unambiguous last line might think we are endorsing Anek. But that’s not a big problem.
If we were to beat up on his ideas from line one, would it make any difference? I doubt it.
Where else have his ideas been made available in English, and thus subject to the sort of criticism you want?
Maybe we credit the readers with too much discrimination, but I don’t think so.
Ammar Siamwalla has been appointed chairperson of a government committee tasked with the reform of the entire health care budget. He noted that it was strange that the 4 million civil servants, including their families, would cause the state 40 billion baht in expenses per year, while only 80 billion baht per year was spent for the 48 million people covered by the 30-baht scheme. So, merely looking at the 30-baht program would be grossly insufficient (Matichon, February 20, 2007, p. 20).
One might add here that the state’s official pay for civil servants is so low that it must be subsidized by other state budget, by corruption, by the families of civil servants, and by them not working full time to have time available for other jobs.
Taxi Driver: For your suggestion re me teaming up with HP Boothe, you will lose all your Sakdina points. So, don’t ever hope to have the right to vote in the next election! However, you might get another chance in case that you reject the constitution in the referendum (proof will have to be presented, though).
Thongchai, it is just SO you to argue for a system that protects the interests of the elites. Your “Post-Modern Caste System” sounds like the status quo to me! You’ve got a talent for spin, mister. Have you thought about taking over Somkid’s old job? I hear the pay is quite good (which = high taxable income = lots of Na = lots of voting power). You’ll probably get the phone call from the CNS anytime now.
Srithanonchai, you can experiment with your system in the Isaan Region. I’ve never been there myself (and don’t see why I ever will – I hear its a dry & dusty place where the locals eat insects and speak a different language). To ensure that your experiment is conducted in compliance with the Wikipedia Scientific Method, I suggest that Mr HPBoothe accompany you on this field experiment. Who knows, you two might end up enjoying each others company!
21Jan, if they can turn a Roi Et Sandwich Sweatshop into a Sufficiency Economy success story we can turn ours into one as well. Maybe he can hire Somkit to spin for us?
Tara, thanks for the feedback, but I feel as though I must explain my position a little more before returning to the shallows of my understanding 🙂
My field of study is international relations and a frequent problem with this field is the ease of making a grandiose, sweeping generalisation whilst focusing on present identities, prospering or not. So to take into account every situation as a historian whilst still examining present relationships would involve a great deal of silence!
Having said that I have read brief histories of Burma on the voicesforburma page, but have not been to Burma to really know it.
However, what I do understand is that the seperation of state from spirituality and ethnicity is crucial to Burmese peoples having a collective voice that will be paid attention to in the international arena. I take objection to state disunification observations through media sources like christianity dot com because of the Clash of Civilisations furor that seems to be engulfing identities of so many people everywhere. The worst thing for Burmese development iin my limited opinion would be to get caught up in that.
So with many minorities oppressed through a state intent on enforcing its “Buddhist” agenda offending many in the international community because of the Junta’s lack of regard for human rights (etc), the offense here should be directed towards the intertwining of state, ethnicity and spirituality resulting in an ominous body of thuggery rather than using language which translates to “they beat our brothers up”.
It is painful to observe (what I would not like to believe is) naieve people playing the PR suffering card and in doing so playing into a much greater hand that adds legitimacy to the paradigms of $&@*expletive-deleted*@*%!! Samuel P Huntington, for writing a book that simply summarised reasons for hate and discrimination.
Reply to 23 Chang Noi: And when we see the “signs”, and we don’t like what we see, isn’t it necessary to unambiguously criticize those that forward such views? Especially writing for a mass circulation newspaper like The Nation, which may have the power of influencing some of the (English reading) urban middle class whose views Anek represents? If one doesn’t clearly criticize such views, doesn’t one run the risk of being seen to support them?
I can understand the need for understatement, allusion, ambiguity in Thai language discourse (under some circumstances), but not in English. It seems to me that one of the reasons that academics like Anek can say the things they do is that they are largely immune from the criticism that they would be subject to if they were to utter such things in English. And so such views gain credence, simply through the relative lack of criticism, and most importantly, because of their status as being “academic”, since academics are generally untouchable. And of course it helps when Anek’s view is basically that of the royalist-military dictatorship that is in power.
[…] evaluation of the various schemes that made up Thaksinomics. There has been some research on the 30 baht health scheme, but very little on the controversial economic stimulus schemes such as the one million baht […]
Thaivisa should get the Hu-Jintao-Award for self censorship – even month after the coup everything slightly critical of the junta was removed and for years every sentence with “king” in it but without “long live”, “God bless” or anything similar will get censored.
Thanks for the clarification. I can certainly see where you are coming from with this, the ‘marketing’ of human rights abuses is an issue everywhere in the world, and I myself do find the “voice for the voiceless” trope a bit tiresome. But the reason I find it tiresome is that it completely ignores the agency of those being represented – a mistake which you also seem to be making.
This issue of portrayal is certainly important, but it does relate more to how outsiders perceive those people being representated, and not how those people perceive themselves. The Chin and Kachin are actual people with actual abilities to think for themselves, and they have very strong senses of their own cultural and ethnic identities. I think if you took a closer look at this issue, you would find that indigenous national identities in Burma are firmly rooted in indigenous experiences and culture, not colonialism or western representations of them. Ben Rodgers didn’t just go pick up some barefoot villagers to parade in front of parliament and tell a sob story, the delegation consisted of very intelligent and very active political and human rights campaigners who have done far more for the Chin cause than Ben Rodgers or any international NGO, and they have every right to use every means possible to let the world know about the atrocities that are happening to their people.
Analysis and criticism of the interplay between indigenous activists, Western advocate groups, and Western audiences is important and valid, but it certainly shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the realities of those who are politically marginalized – but still fully capable of making their own choices and forming their own identities.
Taxi Driver, while I’m all in favour of your proposal I think we have to give it more sufficiency-theory-appeal or otherwise certain people with “ill gotten gains” could turn their assets into a lots of Nas only by paying taxes. Also some women of questionable profession would get an unacceptable amount of Nas (if they pay taxes).
I think it should be done by the number of syllables in the family name so the country bumpkins who aspired to status by taking out long surnames can rub shoulders with Chinese merchants with the same dreams and the real blue-bloods. Meanwhile the Bunnags would all be forced into the fourth class.
Ngarn as for your proposal for the geeks to take over, this is very highly dangerous. Never trust the geeks and their technology. For reasons why, I recommend you to read T. Kaczynski’s Unabomber Manuscript.
Come to think of it, the CNS should ask the US to release Kaczynski and bring him over to Thailand. This man is the perfect example of the “Self Sufficient” person. After all, he lived a self-sufficient lifestyle in the mountains of Montana (or somewhere remote like that I forget exactly where). Man, some people in the CNS might even be secret admirers of Kaczynski and emulated some of his actions on New Years Eve!
All of the above proposals assume the hierarchy (ranked by “Nas” or points) that is based on only one criteria: education or income or ascriptive rights or else. That’s why the proposals cannot be reconciled and the comments began to not-Samanchant again.
How about a system of ranks/ points that is based on multiple criteria? Double, triple, quadruple standards. How does it work?
First – design how many main standards or criteria we want to apply. Let’s say all of the above are accepted.
Second, put people in a particular group (or ask them to choose voluntarily) according to the criteria/standard by which they are going to get ranked.
Third, then, they will be given points according to that particular criteria.
Fourth, many people deserve extra points because they are qualified by more than one standards. A poor PhD, for example, deserves fewer points than a rich PhD. A rich with royal title deserves more points than a rich whose parents were Chinese immigrants. And so on.
Therefore the superlative “cross-over” people in this hierarchy who deserve extraordinary points are those who are over-qualified by their multiple standards such as a rich person (who pay tax) with many PhDs and honorary degrees and born in a high place.
This system would guarantee that there will be no mistake who are Phu Yai or Phu Noi in a complex hierarchical society like Thailand.
What should be the name of this system? “Modern (or post-modern) Caste System”.
🙂
Thai people love the king is true. Because they live under intensive propaganda for very long time.
Now, Rural people still love the king but they are very doubt when his chief privy council blow out the elected givernment and thier belove Prime Minister.
I don’t know what will be going on in Thailand after the king die. His son is not popular like the king himself.
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Lèse majesté charges in Chiang Mai
lese majeste = ancient law, used to suppress people’s freedom of thought and speech
Sore loser
Chang Noi-
I love how you blame the reader for not understanding you.
You either are a liar or a horrible writer.
Stylistically, the column was inconsistent and riddled with errors. You never separated your ideas from Anek’s. You didn’t distinguish your voice from his voice. You didn’t criticize his ideas one time.
You built up Anek as this great sophisticated prophet without a hint of irony, but now you are telling us that you tore down his argument at the end with a sarcastic reformulated Abraham Lincoln cliche?
The last line was not “unambiguous.” Your writing was just horrible.
Regardless, the Nation’s editorial line has been totally consistent with Anek’s ideas.
Even Thanong’s recent column is totally consistent with Anek’s ideas.
The Nation is in bed with royalists/juntacrats, and in return for its loyalty, you see how Nation reporters have more exposure on military TV.
There was a major terrorism attack in the South this week, and how many articles on Somkid?
You regurgitate Anek’s bigoted ideas in your horrible column, yet how many words by any columnist on failing military strategy in the South?
You treat the military with kid gloves.
By the way, I loved the Superman music playing during Thepchai’s weak interview with Surayud.
Yeah, right, your last line was totally unambiguous.
Chang Noi on Mahachon
Perhaps failure was sealed from the start by the tie-up with Sanan. With his giant brandy glass in hand, Sanan had no respect from Bangkokians who understood he fell out with the Democrats because he was too much a dinosaur. And he had nothing to offer rural people.
I’d like to know, thouh, why Anek didn’t work out in the Democrats? Not that they have their act together under the young farang-ized Bangkok boys, but intellectually weren’t they a match?
Sore loser
To Republican 32. Good question. But I think the heat which this Anek piece has created here and elsewhere bears us out. Sure, some people who don’t get as far as the unambiguous last line might think we are endorsing Anek. But that’s not a big problem.
If we were to beat up on his ideas from line one, would it make any difference? I doubt it.
Where else have his ideas been made available in English, and thus subject to the sort of criticism you want?
Maybe we credit the readers with too much discrimination, but I don’t think so.
Evaluating the 30 baht health care program
Ammar Siamwalla has been appointed chairperson of a government committee tasked with the reform of the entire health care budget. He noted that it was strange that the 4 million civil servants, including their families, would cause the state 40 billion baht in expenses per year, while only 80 billion baht per year was spent for the 48 million people covered by the 30-baht scheme. So, merely looking at the 30-baht program would be grossly insufficient (Matichon, February 20, 2007, p. 20).
One might add here that the state’s official pay for civil servants is so low that it must be subsidized by other state budget, by corruption, by the families of civil servants, and by them not working full time to have time available for other jobs.
New Sakdina
Taxi Driver: For your suggestion re me teaming up with HP Boothe, you will lose all your Sakdina points. So, don’t ever hope to have the right to vote in the next election! However, you might get another chance in case that you reject the constitution in the referendum (proof will have to be presented, though).
New Sakdina
Thongchai, it is just SO you to argue for a system that protects the interests of the elites. Your “Post-Modern Caste System” sounds like the status quo to me! You’ve got a talent for spin, mister. Have you thought about taking over Somkid’s old job? I hear the pay is quite good (which = high taxable income = lots of Na = lots of voting power). You’ll probably get the phone call from the CNS anytime now.
Srithanonchai, you can experiment with your system in the Isaan Region. I’ve never been there myself (and don’t see why I ever will – I hear its a dry & dusty place where the locals eat insects and speak a different language). To ensure that your experiment is conducted in compliance with the Wikipedia Scientific Method, I suggest that Mr HPBoothe accompany you on this field experiment. Who knows, you two might end up enjoying each others company!
21Jan, if they can turn a Roi Et Sandwich Sweatshop into a Sufficiency Economy success story we can turn ours into one as well. Maybe he can hire Somkit to spin for us?
“Carrying the Cross”: Christians and Burma
Tara, thanks for the feedback, but I feel as though I must explain my position a little more before returning to the shallows of my understanding 🙂
My field of study is international relations and a frequent problem with this field is the ease of making a grandiose, sweeping generalisation whilst focusing on present identities, prospering or not. So to take into account every situation as a historian whilst still examining present relationships would involve a great deal of silence!
Having said that I have read brief histories of Burma on the voicesforburma page, but have not been to Burma to really know it.
However, what I do understand is that the seperation of state from spirituality and ethnicity is crucial to Burmese peoples having a collective voice that will be paid attention to in the international arena. I take objection to state disunification observations through media sources like christianity dot com because of the Clash of Civilisations furor that seems to be engulfing identities of so many people everywhere. The worst thing for Burmese development iin my limited opinion would be to get caught up in that.
So with many minorities oppressed through a state intent on enforcing its “Buddhist” agenda offending many in the international community because of the Junta’s lack of regard for human rights (etc), the offense here should be directed towards the intertwining of state, ethnicity and spirituality resulting in an ominous body of thuggery rather than using language which translates to “they beat our brothers up”.
It is painful to observe (what I would not like to believe is) naieve people playing the PR suffering card and in doing so playing into a much greater hand that adds legitimacy to the paradigms of $&@*expletive-deleted*@*%!! Samuel P Huntington, for writing a book that simply summarised reasons for hate and discrimination.
Sore loser
Reply to 23 Chang Noi: And when we see the “signs”, and we don’t like what we see, isn’t it necessary to unambiguously criticize those that forward such views? Especially writing for a mass circulation newspaper like The Nation, which may have the power of influencing some of the (English reading) urban middle class whose views Anek represents? If one doesn’t clearly criticize such views, doesn’t one run the risk of being seen to support them?
I can understand the need for understatement, allusion, ambiguity in Thai language discourse (under some circumstances), but not in English. It seems to me that one of the reasons that academics like Anek can say the things they do is that they are largely immune from the criticism that they would be subject to if they were to utter such things in English. And so such views gain credence, simply through the relative lack of criticism, and most importantly, because of their status as being “academic”, since academics are generally untouchable. And of course it helps when Anek’s view is basically that of the royalist-military dictatorship that is in power.
Somkid, sandwiches and sufficiency
That would be torture. But for dinner, I do have German-style bread. Does this count as sandwhich?
Evaluating the 30 baht health care program
[…] evaluation of the various schemes that made up Thaksinomics. There has been some research on the 30 baht health scheme, but very little on the controversial economic stimulus schemes such as the one million baht […]
Lèse majesté charges in Chiang Mai
Thaivisa should get the Hu-Jintao-Award for self censorship – even month after the coup everything slightly critical of the junta was removed and for years every sentence with “king” in it but without “long live”, “God bless” or anything similar will get censored.
Somkid, sandwiches and sufficiency
If your work isn’t too exhausting, a few sandwiches may be sufficient nutrition.
“Carrying the Cross”: Christians and Burma
Representated! Well, that’s a Bushism waiting to happen. That was just a typo, I promise.
“Carrying the Cross”: Christians and Burma
Thanks for the clarification. I can certainly see where you are coming from with this, the ‘marketing’ of human rights abuses is an issue everywhere in the world, and I myself do find the “voice for the voiceless” trope a bit tiresome. But the reason I find it tiresome is that it completely ignores the agency of those being represented – a mistake which you also seem to be making.
This issue of portrayal is certainly important, but it does relate more to how outsiders perceive those people being representated, and not how those people perceive themselves. The Chin and Kachin are actual people with actual abilities to think for themselves, and they have very strong senses of their own cultural and ethnic identities. I think if you took a closer look at this issue, you would find that indigenous national identities in Burma are firmly rooted in indigenous experiences and culture, not colonialism or western representations of them. Ben Rodgers didn’t just go pick up some barefoot villagers to parade in front of parliament and tell a sob story, the delegation consisted of very intelligent and very active political and human rights campaigners who have done far more for the Chin cause than Ben Rodgers or any international NGO, and they have every right to use every means possible to let the world know about the atrocities that are happening to their people.
Analysis and criticism of the interplay between indigenous activists, Western advocate groups, and Western audiences is important and valid, but it certainly shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the realities of those who are politically marginalized – but still fully capable of making their own choices and forming their own identities.
And welcome to my blog, I hope you enjoy!
New Sakdina
Taxi Driver, while I’m all in favour of your proposal I think we have to give it more sufficiency-theory-appeal or otherwise certain people with “ill gotten gains” could turn their assets into a lots of Nas only by paying taxes. Also some women of questionable profession would get an unacceptable amount of Nas (if they pay taxes).
New Sakdina
I think it should be done by the number of syllables in the family name so the country bumpkins who aspired to status by taking out long surnames can rub shoulders with Chinese merchants with the same dreams and the real blue-bloods. Meanwhile the Bunnags would all be forced into the fourth class.
New Sakdina
Ngarn as for your proposal for the geeks to take over, this is very highly dangerous. Never trust the geeks and their technology. For reasons why, I recommend you to read T. Kaczynski’s Unabomber Manuscript.
Come to think of it, the CNS should ask the US to release Kaczynski and bring him over to Thailand. This man is the perfect example of the “Self Sufficient” person. After all, he lived a self-sufficient lifestyle in the mountains of Montana (or somewhere remote like that I forget exactly where). Man, some people in the CNS might even be secret admirers of Kaczynski and emulated some of his actions on New Years Eve!
New Sakdina
All of the above proposals assume the hierarchy (ranked by “Nas” or points) that is based on only one criteria: education or income or ascriptive rights or else. That’s why the proposals cannot be reconciled and the comments began to not-Samanchant again.
How about a system of ranks/ points that is based on multiple criteria? Double, triple, quadruple standards. How does it work?
First – design how many main standards or criteria we want to apply. Let’s say all of the above are accepted.
Second, put people in a particular group (or ask them to choose voluntarily) according to the criteria/standard by which they are going to get ranked.
Third, then, they will be given points according to that particular criteria.
Fourth, many people deserve extra points because they are qualified by more than one standards. A poor PhD, for example, deserves fewer points than a rich PhD. A rich with royal title deserves more points than a rich whose parents were Chinese immigrants. And so on.
Therefore the superlative “cross-over” people in this hierarchy who deserve extraordinary points are those who are over-qualified by their multiple standards such as a rich person (who pay tax) with many PhDs and honorary degrees and born in a high place.
This system would guarantee that there will be no mistake who are Phu Yai or Phu Noi in a complex hierarchical society like Thailand.
What should be the name of this system? “Modern (or post-modern) Caste System”.
🙂
More debate on The King Never Smiles
Thai people love the king is true. Because they live under intensive propaganda for very long time.
Now, Rural people still love the king but they are very doubt when his chief privy council blow out the elected givernment and thier belove Prime Minister.
I don’t know what will be going on in Thailand after the king die. His son is not popular like the king himself.
The King figer is a God but his son like a demon.