Yes, the full article in The Nation is interesting – props to The Nation for continuing it’s analysis.
Other notable quotes:
“Whether members of the military, industry, police, technocracy or politics, this elite conspires to manipulate politics and tanks and guns to determine who will be in charge.
Most are likely to be guilty of corruption at some level – or even worse, as the recent bombings illustrate. So, regardless of which group is in power, they seldom fully expose one another.
“Our political history clearly demonstrates that none of these people will ever go to jail,” Thitinan said.
“The [CNS] target is not about putting anyone in prison; it just wants to keep Thaksin and his people out of politics.”
Thammasat’s Vipar agreed the crooks were likely to escape legal punishment. “Thaksin will be allowed to return and live happily like other dictatorial leaders in the past.”
“While the poor may get trapped by populism, the middle class also gets stuck in flawed ideologies. To me, this emphasises the fairness of the ‘one man, one vote’ system,” Viroj said.
A fairly depressing analysis.
2 choices:
Populism with corruption, or Flawed ideologies with corruption?
Gives new meaning to the saying ‘We get the government we deserve’
Quote: “Suppose we have a new constitution, and there is an election. We may get Chuan [Leekpai] or Abhisit [Vejjajiva], the very same people whom Thais sought to replace with Thaksin six years ago,” said Yos. “What good will that do us?”
This is a very, very interesting observation.
Quote: “Democracy may be full of weak points, but the question is: if you don’t choose democracy, what’s the alternative?” he said
I think the urban middle-class had spoken “We want M. 7 PM!”. But the fact that these middle-class do not want anyone from TRT to be the new PM or they are willing to vote for TRT-opposition parties should have been enough answer. Churchill got a point, but may be Thai collectivism society demand big-brother government style?
And so we ignore any and all cultural norms and practices, fruitful insights into structures of power and their particularities in the Thai case and frame all action here in terms of procedural democrcay. Forget that ELECTIONS are rituals of legitimation of the state hence the political tension, and in favour of doing this we take the rhetoric of the struggle to make another claim for legitimacy, (another version of how things should be, in contrast to Thaksin populism or Junta sufficiency, effectively another spin on the rural urban lowerclass middleclass divide) at face value because of an ungrounded certainty that the overwhelming popularity of Thaksin came from his popular policies. what is the problem with this? There is no accounting for just how Thai Rak Thai operated on the ground and how they took the electorate inthe way they did…far more complex and “extra-democratic” processes were at play …really this assumption that Thaksin was popular with the poor but not middleclasses, was voted in on his policies alone is just intellectual laziness on behalf of foreign observers and ideological struggle for the voice of legitimacy amongst local observers/participants.
If the majority of the labor force is not employed in agriculture, then where are they? Are they employed at all? Given a ball park population of Thailand at 65 milliion with about 10 million in Bangkok and say, being extremely generous, another 10 million spread about in other cities, we still have over 40 milliion people to account for, over half the population.
I don’t know how you want to define poverty levels in Thailand and I would imagine that however you measure it, poverty levels have dropped. Yet the poor still remain the disenfranchised poor. Many have migrated to the city where they have become the urban poor, ranging from low paid manual laborers to the Thai version of the lumpen prolotariat. I do not know current numbers as to what percentage still work in agriculture, whether in their own fields, in rented fields, or living in dormitories operated by large agribusinesses such as the CP Group, or are simply umemployed farmers. I have friends in all of the above categories. But as one who has spent the majority of time in-country up-country, rest assured there are still plenty of people living in the rural villages to make the statement that there are few poor farmers left to be simply false.
That is not to say that all farmers are poor. I know one man who sold his padi land up in Mae Rim some 20 years ago to a wealthy individual looking to build a rural retreat, and then he invested that money in a larger padi land in Samoeng that he then rented out to landless peasants. He has not tilled the land since, although he did get a job with the Forestry Dept. He is clearly rural lower middle class, but he stands out in our village area and is highly respected for his success. And each village seems to have a few such families. But most of the people in the villages remain poor, not poverty stricken certainly, but poor. And I think you all might be surprised as to just how many there are.
Maybe it is because the city folks always seem to speed up when driving through the rural villages that they underestimate the size of the rural population. I always found it strange that they drive their sedans slow with apprehension through the forested and wilder areas but once in the village, despite the presence of barefooted children playing, it is usually pedal to the metal. Is it a show of superiority or is it fear of having to confront the feeling of “there but for the grace of God go I”?
But the coup was executed so that the junta could implement the self-sufficient economy – the junta’s constitution says so very clearly.
Even if you don’t want to blow the self-sufficient economy out of proportion, the military certainly did.
By exposing self-sufficiency for the flimsy sham it is, this junta has drawn more flack to the monarchy than Thaksin ever could. Instead of protecting the throne, they have actually weakened it.
Srithanonchai is correct here. The majority of the Thai labor force hasn’t been employed in agriculture since the early 1990’s. The exact figure is a bit problematic due to seasonal fluctuations, but I think the current percentage fluctuates somewhere between 30-45% of the total population. The ILO’s KILM series should have the latest figures, as should the NESDB.
The majority of the Thai population hasn’t been below the poverty line since the 70’s or 80’s. At the beginning of the Thaksin government, over 20% of the population was below the poverty line – today, it’s around 10%.
People try to blow HMK’s Sufficiency Economy tenets or guidance disproportionately out of context.
For most of us in this forum, we can ALL agree we NEVER ever refer to the King’s year-end sermon of sorts for inspiration, OK? We all do what we damn well please anyway and our ‘sufficiency’ is our own business, and nobody else’s.
But there are many people who look up to HMK for guidance and inspiration. And HMK must no doubt be aware and concerned of the plight of the millions of villagers who aspire for better things, and, to villagers deeply in plight (like the example of Nirut). And HMK’s ‘Sufficiency Economy’ wants to address these people’s concerns – – people must learn to ‘live within their means’ is what is ‘sufficiency economy’ is all about. Because it is a fact that many of these villagers ‘overreach’ themselves (with all those easy ‘loans’ from Thaksin era followed by his ‘anybody-can-be-as-rich-as-Thaksin’ message to these guillibles.)
Personally I believe it is NOT realistic to literally translate HMK’s Sufficiency Economy into a detailed government platform.
Prudent market directed economy is probably what PM Surayud’s government is trying to achieve. But anyone will tell you . . in a market economy (example the stock market) prudence varies from person to person and greed always wins (example Thaksin).
Khun Johpa, one should not, I think, confuse “poor” and “farmers.” This is a typical urban misconception. An urban businessman in a rural province once told me that all those people who are farmers will always remain poor, i.e., until they had become businesspeople. Certainly, the poor do not constitute the majority of the Thai population, neither even do the farmers, since their proportion of the total population has been substantially reduced over the past few decades. I don’t think that Khlong Toey slum is very representative of Bangkok. This said, I agree with you that there are certainly still poor people in Thailand, whether they constitute eight or 10% of the population, and that they fully deserve being taken seriously policy-wise. This includes a differentiated perspective on regional differences as well.
Khun Srithanochai, please rest assured that there remain multitudes of poor farmers in Thailand who I believe, last time I looked, still constitute the majority of the population. Many have indeed migrated and become poor urban dwellers. But these people have not been integrated into the modern economic sector, or at least I don’t see Khlong Toey residents in such light. Do you? The city people with the money may call this mobility, but the poor probably see it more as instability.
Sufficiency is not a Royal project. I have watched a few Royal Agricultural projects up north over the past few decades, and most are more aimed at experimental agricultural crops, attempting to grow more novel crops for cash and then selling them to hotels catering to foreigners, and nothing much more.
I am not really sure what the sufficiency economy is all about. I have yet to read anything specific as HRM tends to write and speak a bit elliptically. HRM may be a conservative monarchist who prefers the company of military men, but I am all for him speaking out more forcefully and more specifically on the subject of this economic concept if it stands in opposition to “free trade”. I am waiting.
The Nation article offers little insight.
Here is one problematic paragraph:
While praising ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s free-trade initiatives, The Asian Wall Street Journal failed to point out the widening trade deficits Thailand has experienced since signing free-trade agreements (FTAs) with China and India during his era. It also failed to mention the current government’s intentions of pursuing pending FTAs, but in a more discreet way and including public reviews to ensure transparency.
The Asian Wall Street journal is of course a believer in free trade agreements as well as a believer in the “invisible hand of the market” so we would not expect it to note the all too common trend that FTAs don’t do much to improve the local economics of small countries like Thailand. The new government is noted as continuing the trend toward FTAs, and I just don’t think that being more discreet or being more transparent (I am not even going to touch The Nations claim to morality) will change anything what so ever. Methinks that all this talk about “sufficiency” is smoke and mirrors wrapped up in Royal robes to deflect criticism that the coup is not going to change anything other than the cast of lead characters.
A very sad story, Nirut, although I am sure you will find similar stories of desperate circumstances, bad luck and misfortune throughout the world – including places that don’t have kings or junta’s.
Has it ever ocurred to you that, rather than being concerned over their ‘potential to pose a credible threat to his power base’, the King mght have a genuine concern for the rural poor?
I’m talking about HMK in person, not the cronies and power base. Have you thought about just how much power that one man really has, and what influence he has over the cronies and power base?
How long would he last if he persistently went against the power base?
Do you really think the (small farm) new theory was just devised as a way to keep people poor?
There’s only room for one Republican amongst the voices here!
As far as aspirations go, please remember that HMK has attained a reasonable age, and with that age comes time to reflect and for some people, wisdom.
Perhaps I am closer in age to HMK than you, and therefore much of what he says in regards to aspirations seems to resonate with my thoughts.
Back to your sad tale, it brings me to my feeling that we are on a treadmill. The young man appeared to have fairly modest aspirations, although I wonder why it is necessary to pay a bride price and spend more than you can afford on a wedding.
Who put those expectations there? Societal pressures?
Those things are a small example of what is happening througout society – why do we need to have cars, mobile phones, fancy houses & large mortgages, plasma tv’s etc etc?
Food, Education, Health & Heath Care, Legal Rights & Protections, and Security seem much more important to me than possesions.
A wise man once said ‘Enough to live on, and enough to live for’.
Corruption is probably the greatest problem in Thailand, and it exists whether the country is under a democratic system or not.
Why should you have to pay off the military to avoid conscription?
I can agree with much of what you and Andrew say, although I think it is misguided to think that the King is the problem and Thaksin style democracy is the solution.
The stock market movements show that not even the foreign investors are concerned about democracy, and they only care about their pockets.
Yes, I am indeed fortunate to be able to make this my hobby.
Guys my point here is that it doesn’t require the King for people to reflect on their aspirations and situations and in fact his reflections don’t match theirs as you will see above. Here I am in total agreeance with Andrew’s sentiment that that the fact that the King feels a need to comment/ideologise people’s aspirations is indicative of his concern over their potential to pose a credible threat to his power base (and the elite fractions that support him). By talking about people’s aspirations the way he does the king is effectively pathologising them by presenting them as unsustainable (problematic) yet gives no sense as to why he might think so and no credible rationale for thinking so.
Here Holly High’s ideas on blame development resonate closely in that the perceived ills of the world (over consumption of resource, flooding etc etc etc) is seen to be a result of the general population’s “unsustainable lifestyles”. Industry and elite wealth making enterprises that have far outstripped things like population pressure on resources and the environment are seen as necessary and somehow more sustainable than people’s desire for white goods and a living, for example.
I however, find it highly problematic that you have allowed the King (aka elite concerns) to become the point of reference that define how and what people will discuss and as is evidenced throughout this blog and the media, the debate rages in terms of the limits he has set. As anthropologists we are best positioned to provide alternative and far more nuanced appreciations and representations of what is happening, in particular the sheer diversity of views rather than the simplistic homogenised models people are working with on this and other blogs, for example what are people’s aspirations (to date here we have assumptions as to what they are, no solid data, asumptions that are derived from the King’s appraisal of the situation at that), we could be asking whole sets of other questions rather than engaging with the patently ideological rubbish that the King and cronies is espousing as they attempt to reshape and maintain control over their “subjects”. Failure to let ethnographically derived perspectives to replace the patently ridiculous claims of King and friends , effectively disallowing the ideology to control cum be the debate, is remiss of us and antithesis to the anthropological project.
Broader things are at play than the somewhat limited attempts at legitimation of an ailing King and his coup cronies and yet it is their words and their setting of the issues that are given the most “air time here”. It is hard not to wonder if this willingness to accord such legitimacy to the king and his ideologies is due to an attraction to the grandiose nature of power and hence disinterest in the nitty gritty and challenging details of the general populations own take on things and how the familiarity and ease with which talking about politics and power brokers sees you all dive into English langauge papers on a Thai language etc speaking country and UN reports and world bank statistics all the while debatig the lot of the uneducated masses that these reports and statistics and news paper articles describe in very familair language and terms….no taken for granteds are being subject to scrutiny just a challenging of the ridiculously transparent claims of a dated elite…by this I do not mean that everyone should become literate in Thai or have to be to comment (for those who might like to take a cheap shot and detract from what i am saying…) but there are other sources (specifically books written in English by Thai literate peole who study Thailand) acessible and easliy available…you don’t have to be enrolled in a course to read a good book.
So, all I am saying hobby, is it is problematic to accept that it would take the king to make people reflect on their circumstances and aspirations, people do this all the time, the issue here is the king doesn’t want people to, so he is providing them with his blueprint for their aspirations and it is fundamentally limiting cum completley oppressive.
I would suggest we forget about the king and his cronies for a while and discuss the people, look at the structures of inequality and asymetrical distribution of power and the effects this has on people’s ability to sufficiently survive and also the history that has placed these people in the position of subaltern to a mad monarch who has legitimated so much of their oppression…I am thinking Siamese colonialism, green revolution, rice tax, counter insurgency initiatives and US funding based massive expansion of police and military and propping up of dictators (just like Central America, south America etc), and so on, and lets look at what people are saying and doing instead of taking the elite representation at face value….
Take for an example an extreme case I know of in Nongkhai where a young man (20year old going on 21) living in rural nongkhai, Thailand wanted to get married and had a 6 grade education, his father worked on international fishing trawllers for years at a time and has come home for two weeks between trips, bearing seacucumbers to make larb for everyone and enough money to buy a pick up truck that he has given to the younger brother so he can make money with his wife running market deliveries on weekends and operating on the local songtaew queue on weekdays. He has to date worked on his familiy’s rice paddy and occassionally done some seasonal wage labour work, to suplement his share in the family’s rice crop usually earning around 800 to 1500 baht a month for one or two months at a time. However, through his father’s connections he could borrow 150,000 baht by entering into endentured labour with another ship, the money would provide him with necessary brideprice (35000), wedding (12000) and the pay off to the military to avoid conscription (27000) in a few months time, with the rest left over for his wife to set herself up selling food from a roadside stall in town (15,000) and to give his mother the remainder as she was looking after three grand children to other siblings and was in poor health (part of money was used to pay for local labour to help with the rice fields) . Another opportunity he had was to borrow money from creditors and pay intermediary agencies to get him work in the middleeast or Taiwan . Otherwsie he can work his family’s 5 rai of rice paddy and have a share in its produce and do seasonal wage labour in the district or migrate to Bangkok in order to have a supplementary living, these latter two seeing him have to risk conscription and certaily not be able to marry for quite some time.
What to do? What are the aspirations and circumsatnces that underpin his choices. Well clearly he wants to get married and needs (not just aspires to ) an income. In this situation he took the shipping job and loan but was crippled in an accident and had to be in a wheel chair 7 months into paying back his debt which left his family to have to pay back the remainder (just over 110,000 baht plus interest. So the family mortgaged the house and paddy to Kasikorn Thai for 60,000 baht and borrowed through other creditors the remainder. With his health related costs and the need to pay outsiders to help with the rice the family couldn’t keep up with payments and so had to borrow at higher rates of interst to keep up payments with the bank this culminated in the younger brother selling his songtaew and borrwing to get a job in Israel. First two years this was successful and he came back payments on the house were almsot complete, second trip however, the agents who were arranging his transport, visas job etc absconded with the money leaving him in debt around 180,000 baht. They lost the house and land.
There is nothing abnormal or frivilous about the aspirations and actions taken in this story (that was relate to me by his wife and siblings) and certainly nothing about the aspirations are unsustainable. But to move away, for a moment, from the frame that the discussion of sufficiency economy has limited us to, I find it interesting how entreperneurial people are and think that the way people make sense of what hapens in these circumstances and how they continue on and what they do in order to survive is testament to an incredibly rich and creative process of reflection on their situations and circumstances. In context of the king and his Junta’s comments this is another example of just how ridiculous the whole discussion is if left on their terms, end of story.
CNS got their military-political compass 180-degree wrong.
In an instance to solve corruption and insurgent as military iron hand, they do it as soft-politician.
In an instance to handle international relation and PR propaganda with politician feather-touch, they do it as mititary regime.
Seriously, if they want to run a coup government. At least make an efficient one at that.
Hopefully, at least the King’s message gets people thinking about the way they live, and what their aspirations are (and why). Applies equally to rich and poor.
At the risk of being accused of ethnocentricism again, I sometimes think many of us are on a treadmill, and never really allow ourselves to reflect of what we are doing, and why.
The king’s answer to “persistent inequality” is to tell the peasants not to aspire too much. I am not certain this is to protect the elite, though the elite certainly exploit the king’s message in this way. But non-aspiration does translate as non-desire, and is promoted to the poorest rather than the richest. But I guess it’s hard to promote non-desire to the rich when your wife and kids are out scoring new jewelry all the time.
hmmm…not quite what I meant on the voices front but never mind. Now I might make some outlandish comments ( I do so to stimulate debate…albeit more often than not rather unsuccessfully here) but I stop short of the conspiracy stuff that you are in the pay of Thaksin or the like so you can stop the comparisson with Vichai there. I Just thought I’d see if the critique can go both ways…ie middle-class have their interests as do you in this sufficiency economy debate.
Perhaps if I were to provide you with an example of what I am talking about you will be more receptive to my perspective (or not). I looked at submitting this so you could make it a post for the political culture and vote buying you were wanting but thought it is probably not quite what you would be looking forso held off. I have framed it now in terms of the sufficiency economy debate and my ideas on it. If it is too long for the comment section here I won’t mind if you don’t include it.
Recently much discussion on New Mandala regarding events in
Thailand has focused on the sensational developments of the ousting of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatr by a military Junta allied closely to the Thai monarch. Analyses of the subsequent events that have unfolded have reflected, i think, a disproportionate dependency on media representations and debates have tended to allow the media to set the issues and the tone or parameters in which they will be discussed. In particular the English language newspaper The Nation has featured as a central source of issues on this blog, to the point that the Nation’s own reporting recently became a topic of discussion here (Royalty and Loyalty.).
Interestingly and perhaps not by coincidence, much of the academiccontribution here has reflected earlier tendencies in the study of Thailand to privilege state and elite perspectives over those of the “general population”, perspectives that constitute the bread and butter of newspaper (sometimes tabloid) reporting. I wouldlike to propose a discussion that moves away from the stereotypes of media attempts to hold the politically powerful accountable, by rendering their actions as transparent as is possible (media and politics existing in sets of relations that certainly call intoquestion any notion of impartiality,)and to shift away from the predictability of the hagiography of the monarch, the institution of the monarchy, and the indulgences in predicting the future while double guessing the past and present actions of said monarch that constitue so much of the content of these ‘personality politics’ based discussions.
As an alternative to the media and elite positions that have been amply discussed here, I propose to provide some anecdote/data on what being in Thailand during this tumultuous period was like by sharing the reflections of an informant, shared with me while spending some time recently in Nakhorn Sawan inCentral Thailand.
Sitting in a sala on the side of the road awaiting a songtaew I
asked Chai, an informant I had met two weeks before, while
conducting open ended survey’s on attitudes towards Reproductive Health information programmes in a subdistrict of Nakhorn Sawan province, and who was now accompanying me to the bus station in the provincial capital, what his take on present political situation in Thailand was.
“What do you think of the coup and how Thaksin was deposed by the military?”
“Politics for me is uninteresting. I am concerned (“huang
reuang”)that my family are in debt, my relatives are in debt and
I (38 year old male rice farmer) am in debt. All of the overnment
projects and programmes (“khrong karn saraphat khong rathaban”)to help the poor, we poor, have made more debt out of debt (“saang nee jark nee”). When Thaksin left we thought the debt would go with him but we just got a new creditor (jao nee) so we had to borrow more money to pay them. Before you could play shares(“len shae”) and if you were lucky get somewhere, pay off some debt. Now you have to porn (pon)gold as a down payment (“jamnam thong”) with your
creditor and where in shares the interest was never more than 20% now it gets as high as 35-40%. It doesn’t matter who is in
government , who buys your vote, you will be in debt to whoever is the government. I don’t find it boring (Naa beua) I am bored of all their faces (“Beua khi naa tang mord”)”…”Look at all the crime now. The govt tells us all is well and we are getting democracy back soon. Thaksin killed his opponents and this lot (puak nii)will kill theirs and in the meantime youth are stabbing and shooting eachother across the country, instead of celebrating the harvest we are at funerals. Our leaders (“phunam”) are crazy and now our children (“luuk laan”)are copying them. Last month three young men (“noom saam khon”)walked into our neighbours house and robbed them.
The next day a young woman was stabbed and killed and robbed in the next village, they cut off her hands. She wore gold bracelets and necklaces. This all used to happen before, before Thaksin, even during Thaksin, but some people might say it didn’t. But now it is happening more and more and it is getting more violent. There is no point being intereted in politics, they make us in debt and then they make debt out of debt and then people kill because of the debt on debt. When they buy our votes it is like a cell phone promotion. You buy a sim card (Chai points to his Nokia cell)because they offer you some free calls, about 300 baht included in the price, then they take all your money as you are stuck with them…unless you buy another sim with another company on a another promotion. The company buys your vote and you are in debt to them. The government buys your vote and you are in debt to
them.”
This brief and somewhat pessimestic reflection on the state of
affairs in Thailand since the coup was similarly reflected in
comments made by other people I spoke with in Nakhorn Sawan and elsewhere in central Thailand toward the end of last year (2006). In particular other people were concerned with debt related crime and a perceived increase in its incidence. Of interest here however, is the particular emphasis on debt and disenchantment with the political process, two issues that have been discussed in depth here and elsewhere, but with a very different flavour. Where debates have pitted the urban middle-classes ideologically against the rural poor (etc) in terms of the poor as representing a mass
united under the populist policies of Thaksin and with
contradictory needs and wants politically to the the middleclasses (another group seen to be united under a banner but against him), we have here an example of how such issues are seemingly irrelevent in the face of the more pressing concerns of soaring debt and crime. The
perspective here differing also from World Bank and UNDP
assessments of the social, economic and political situaion in
Thailand. Of further interest is how Chai sees vote buying as
being like a promotional for cellphone cards in that no matter who you go with they will all drag you into debt as once ensconced changing provider/government requires more resources than seems reasonable/viable for people like him, especially considering that inevitably you end up with more of the same (boring faces).
I would like to emphasise that the disenchantment here is not
manifest in terms of exclusion from the political process by way of the coup and the ousting of a populist cum legitimate prime minister as understood by proponents of “democracy lost” ideas, rather it is a blanket disenchantment with politics at the level of the structural where the issues of procedure and substance are seen as being moot points and where the normative acts of power of government, Thaksins’s extrajudicial killngs, are seen to be mirrored in the staging cum potential of the coup, and are seen to be being reproduced at the level of the genral population through a ombination of being forced through soaring debt and reproduced through cultural
emulation.
Clearly there is a different percpetion here of what is at stake
than the issues of democracy under threat and populist policies. In fact the popularity of the very policies themselves are in question and in keeping with other data I have collected elsewhere in the central Thailand are not as popular as the voting outcome would indicate. Hence my continued call for an on the ground perspective.
“Foreigners working in companies here also face that pressure. You really can’t gauge how Thais, especially educated people, feel about the royal family as long as they don’t have a choice whether to wear yellow, stand up at movie theaters or criticize voodoo economics. To paraphrase Voltaire.”
I’ve never been forced to wear a yellow shirt, nor are Thais where I work forced to. It’s a pity if people are forced to.
A lot of people like it because they can feel part of something bigger then themselves. Like my dear old mother-in-law who proudly wears the shirt we bought her when she walks around the neighborhood.
My wife bought me a yellow shirt when we went to the Ratcha Preusek flower show in Chiang Mai. Some people told me they thought the show was a waste of money, but I saw **elderly people walking around together with their families** and farmers with Bangkok people, and everyone was having a good time. Very positive. Yellow shirts were part of the fun and those little rubber wrist bands too.
I am just very happy that Thailand is not like Iraq. (except maybe some provinces in the south) I read today in the New York Times it the war is likely to cost 1.2 trillion dollars. Imagine what $1.2 trillion dollars could do for the world, if used wisely. Better that people wear yellow shirts and live in peace.
[The university I worked at, though, was like the heart of darkness so concentrated was the power in the hierarchy or as one friend describes it “fun fascism”. There’s sometimes a ridiculous effort to get foreigners to do everything like Thais, teach what Thai teachers teach in the manner they teach, instead of using their complementary outlook and skills (like good ole irreverent Voltaire and his enlightenment buddies) like they did it in the Korean university I worked at.]
Aung, South Africa’s primary trading partners are the UK and USA. China has less than a fifth of their combined trade. By your logic, South Africa should have voted yes!
In Africa (as a whole), China has signifigant trade relationships Nigeria and to a lesser extent, Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
South African rejection of the UN proposal was attributed to Burma not posing a signifigant international threat. Surely this represents a strange irony in that sufferers of a polarising aparthied regime voted to continue a 40 year military dictatorship in Burma. However, rather than wallow in a ‘the international community won’t help us’ depression, can it not be foreseen that this will solidify a Burmese movement much like that which formed the ANC in South Africa? No international favours helped Nelson.
A civil-servant friend of mine just sent me an sms saying that this government had “asked the cooperation” of civil servants to wear yellow t-shirts on every day for one year.
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One vote, one value
Yes, the full article in The Nation is interesting – props to The Nation for continuing it’s analysis.
Other notable quotes:
“Whether members of the military, industry, police, technocracy or politics, this elite conspires to manipulate politics and tanks and guns to determine who will be in charge.
Most are likely to be guilty of corruption at some level – or even worse, as the recent bombings illustrate. So, regardless of which group is in power, they seldom fully expose one another.
“Our political history clearly demonstrates that none of these people will ever go to jail,” Thitinan said.
“The [CNS] target is not about putting anyone in prison; it just wants to keep Thaksin and his people out of politics.”
Thammasat’s Vipar agreed the crooks were likely to escape legal punishment. “Thaksin will be allowed to return and live happily like other dictatorial leaders in the past.”
“While the poor may get trapped by populism, the middle class also gets stuck in flawed ideologies. To me, this emphasises the fairness of the ‘one man, one vote’ system,” Viroj said.
A fairly depressing analysis.
2 choices:
Populism with corruption, or Flawed ideologies with corruption?
Gives new meaning to the saying ‘We get the government we deserve’
One vote, one value
Quote: “Suppose we have a new constitution, and there is an election. We may get Chuan [Leekpai] or Abhisit [Vejjajiva], the very same people whom Thais sought to replace with Thaksin six years ago,” said Yos. “What good will that do us?”
This is a very, very interesting observation.
Quote: “Democracy may be full of weak points, but the question is: if you don’t choose democracy, what’s the alternative?” he said
I think the urban middle-class had spoken “We want M. 7 PM!”. But the fact that these middle-class do not want anyone from TRT to be the new PM or they are willing to vote for TRT-opposition parties should have been enough answer. Churchill got a point, but may be Thai collectivism society demand big-brother government style?
One vote, one value
And so we ignore any and all cultural norms and practices, fruitful insights into structures of power and their particularities in the Thai case and frame all action here in terms of procedural democrcay. Forget that ELECTIONS are rituals of legitimation of the state hence the political tension, and in favour of doing this we take the rhetoric of the struggle to make another claim for legitimacy, (another version of how things should be, in contrast to Thaksin populism or Junta sufficiency, effectively another spin on the rural urban lowerclass middleclass divide) at face value because of an ungrounded certainty that the overwhelming popularity of Thaksin came from his popular policies. what is the problem with this? There is no accounting for just how Thai Rak Thai operated on the ground and how they took the electorate inthe way they did…far more complex and “extra-democratic” processes were at play …really this assumption that Thaksin was popular with the poor but not middleclasses, was voted in on his policies alone is just intellectual laziness on behalf of foreign observers and ideological struggle for the voice of legitimacy amongst local observers/participants.
Sufficiency economy explained…
If the majority of the labor force is not employed in agriculture, then where are they? Are they employed at all? Given a ball park population of Thailand at 65 milliion with about 10 million in Bangkok and say, being extremely generous, another 10 million spread about in other cities, we still have over 40 milliion people to account for, over half the population.
I don’t know how you want to define poverty levels in Thailand and I would imagine that however you measure it, poverty levels have dropped. Yet the poor still remain the disenfranchised poor. Many have migrated to the city where they have become the urban poor, ranging from low paid manual laborers to the Thai version of the lumpen prolotariat. I do not know current numbers as to what percentage still work in agriculture, whether in their own fields, in rented fields, or living in dormitories operated by large agribusinesses such as the CP Group, or are simply umemployed farmers. I have friends in all of the above categories. But as one who has spent the majority of time in-country up-country, rest assured there are still plenty of people living in the rural villages to make the statement that there are few poor farmers left to be simply false.
That is not to say that all farmers are poor. I know one man who sold his padi land up in Mae Rim some 20 years ago to a wealthy individual looking to build a rural retreat, and then he invested that money in a larger padi land in Samoeng that he then rented out to landless peasants. He has not tilled the land since, although he did get a job with the Forestry Dept. He is clearly rural lower middle class, but he stands out in our village area and is highly respected for his success. And each village seems to have a few such families. But most of the people in the villages remain poor, not poverty stricken certainly, but poor. And I think you all might be surprised as to just how many there are.
Maybe it is because the city folks always seem to speed up when driving through the rural villages that they underestimate the size of the rural population. I always found it strange that they drive their sedans slow with apprehension through the forested and wilder areas but once in the village, despite the presence of barefooted children playing, it is usually pedal to the metal. Is it a show of superiority or is it fear of having to confront the feeling of “there but for the grace of God go I”?
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
But the coup was executed so that the junta could implement the self-sufficient economy – the junta’s constitution says so very clearly.
Even if you don’t want to blow the self-sufficient economy out of proportion, the military certainly did.
By exposing self-sufficiency for the flimsy sham it is, this junta has drawn more flack to the monarchy than Thaksin ever could. Instead of protecting the throne, they have actually weakened it.
Sufficiency economy explained…
Srithanonchai is correct here. The majority of the Thai labor force hasn’t been employed in agriculture since the early 1990’s. The exact figure is a bit problematic due to seasonal fluctuations, but I think the current percentage fluctuates somewhere between 30-45% of the total population. The ILO’s KILM series should have the latest figures, as should the NESDB.
The majority of the Thai population hasn’t been below the poverty line since the 70’s or 80’s. At the beginning of the Thaksin government, over 20% of the population was below the poverty line – today, it’s around 10%.
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
People try to blow HMK’s Sufficiency Economy tenets or guidance disproportionately out of context.
For most of us in this forum, we can ALL agree we NEVER ever refer to the King’s year-end sermon of sorts for inspiration, OK? We all do what we damn well please anyway and our ‘sufficiency’ is our own business, and nobody else’s.
But there are many people who look up to HMK for guidance and inspiration. And HMK must no doubt be aware and concerned of the plight of the millions of villagers who aspire for better things, and, to villagers deeply in plight (like the example of Nirut). And HMK’s ‘Sufficiency Economy’ wants to address these people’s concerns – – people must learn to ‘live within their means’ is what is ‘sufficiency economy’ is all about. Because it is a fact that many of these villagers ‘overreach’ themselves (with all those easy ‘loans’ from Thaksin era followed by his ‘anybody-can-be-as-rich-as-Thaksin’ message to these guillibles.)
Personally I believe it is NOT realistic to literally translate HMK’s Sufficiency Economy into a detailed government platform.
Prudent market directed economy is probably what PM Surayud’s government is trying to achieve. But anyone will tell you . . in a market economy (example the stock market) prudence varies from person to person and greed always wins (example Thaksin).
Sufficiency economy explained…
Khun Johpa, one should not, I think, confuse “poor” and “farmers.” This is a typical urban misconception. An urban businessman in a rural province once told me that all those people who are farmers will always remain poor, i.e., until they had become businesspeople. Certainly, the poor do not constitute the majority of the Thai population, neither even do the farmers, since their proportion of the total population has been substantially reduced over the past few decades. I don’t think that Khlong Toey slum is very representative of Bangkok. This said, I agree with you that there are certainly still poor people in Thailand, whether they constitute eight or 10% of the population, and that they fully deserve being taken seriously policy-wise. This includes a differentiated perspective on regional differences as well.
Sufficiency economy explained…
Khun Srithanochai, please rest assured that there remain multitudes of poor farmers in Thailand who I believe, last time I looked, still constitute the majority of the population. Many have indeed migrated and become poor urban dwellers. But these people have not been integrated into the modern economic sector, or at least I don’t see Khlong Toey residents in such light. Do you? The city people with the money may call this mobility, but the poor probably see it more as instability.
Sufficiency is not a Royal project. I have watched a few Royal Agricultural projects up north over the past few decades, and most are more aimed at experimental agricultural crops, attempting to grow more novel crops for cash and then selling them to hotels catering to foreigners, and nothing much more.
I am not really sure what the sufficiency economy is all about. I have yet to read anything specific as HRM tends to write and speak a bit elliptically. HRM may be a conservative monarchist who prefers the company of military men, but I am all for him speaking out more forcefully and more specifically on the subject of this economic concept if it stands in opposition to “free trade”. I am waiting.
The Nation article offers little insight.
Here is one problematic paragraph:
While praising ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s free-trade initiatives, The Asian Wall Street Journal failed to point out the widening trade deficits Thailand has experienced since signing free-trade agreements (FTAs) with China and India during his era. It also failed to mention the current government’s intentions of pursuing pending FTAs, but in a more discreet way and including public reviews to ensure transparency.
The Asian Wall Street journal is of course a believer in free trade agreements as well as a believer in the “invisible hand of the market” so we would not expect it to note the all too common trend that FTAs don’t do much to improve the local economics of small countries like Thailand. The new government is noted as continuing the trend toward FTAs, and I just don’t think that being more discreet or being more transparent (I am not even going to touch The Nations claim to morality) will change anything what so ever. Methinks that all this talk about “sufficiency” is smoke and mirrors wrapped up in Royal robes to deflect criticism that the coup is not going to change anything other than the cast of lead characters.
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
A very sad story, Nirut, although I am sure you will find similar stories of desperate circumstances, bad luck and misfortune throughout the world – including places that don’t have kings or junta’s.
Has it ever ocurred to you that, rather than being concerned over their ‘potential to pose a credible threat to his power base’, the King mght have a genuine concern for the rural poor?
I’m talking about HMK in person, not the cronies and power base. Have you thought about just how much power that one man really has, and what influence he has over the cronies and power base?
How long would he last if he persistently went against the power base?
Do you really think the (small farm) new theory was just devised as a way to keep people poor?
There’s only room for one Republican amongst the voices here!
As far as aspirations go, please remember that HMK has attained a reasonable age, and with that age comes time to reflect and for some people, wisdom.
Perhaps I am closer in age to HMK than you, and therefore much of what he says in regards to aspirations seems to resonate with my thoughts.
Back to your sad tale, it brings me to my feeling that we are on a treadmill. The young man appeared to have fairly modest aspirations, although I wonder why it is necessary to pay a bride price and spend more than you can afford on a wedding.
Who put those expectations there? Societal pressures?
Those things are a small example of what is happening througout society – why do we need to have cars, mobile phones, fancy houses & large mortgages, plasma tv’s etc etc?
Food, Education, Health & Heath Care, Legal Rights & Protections, and Security seem much more important to me than possesions.
A wise man once said ‘Enough to live on, and enough to live for’.
Corruption is probably the greatest problem in Thailand, and it exists whether the country is under a democratic system or not.
Why should you have to pay off the military to avoid conscription?
I can agree with much of what you and Andrew say, although I think it is misguided to think that the King is the problem and Thaksin style democracy is the solution.
The stock market movements show that not even the foreign investors are concerned about democracy, and they only care about their pockets.
Yes, I am indeed fortunate to be able to make this my hobby.
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
Guys my point here is that it doesn’t require the King for people to reflect on their aspirations and situations and in fact his reflections don’t match theirs as you will see above. Here I am in total agreeance with Andrew’s sentiment that that the fact that the King feels a need to comment/ideologise people’s aspirations is indicative of his concern over their potential to pose a credible threat to his power base (and the elite fractions that support him). By talking about people’s aspirations the way he does the king is effectively pathologising them by presenting them as unsustainable (problematic) yet gives no sense as to why he might think so and no credible rationale for thinking so.
Here Holly High’s ideas on blame development resonate closely in that the perceived ills of the world (over consumption of resource, flooding etc etc etc) is seen to be a result of the general population’s “unsustainable lifestyles”. Industry and elite wealth making enterprises that have far outstripped things like population pressure on resources and the environment are seen as necessary and somehow more sustainable than people’s desire for white goods and a living, for example.
I however, find it highly problematic that you have allowed the King (aka elite concerns) to become the point of reference that define how and what people will discuss and as is evidenced throughout this blog and the media, the debate rages in terms of the limits he has set. As anthropologists we are best positioned to provide alternative and far more nuanced appreciations and representations of what is happening, in particular the sheer diversity of views rather than the simplistic homogenised models people are working with on this and other blogs, for example what are people’s aspirations (to date here we have assumptions as to what they are, no solid data, asumptions that are derived from the King’s appraisal of the situation at that), we could be asking whole sets of other questions rather than engaging with the patently ideological rubbish that the King and cronies is espousing as they attempt to reshape and maintain control over their “subjects”. Failure to let ethnographically derived perspectives to replace the patently ridiculous claims of King and friends , effectively disallowing the ideology to control cum be the debate, is remiss of us and antithesis to the anthropological project.
Broader things are at play than the somewhat limited attempts at legitimation of an ailing King and his coup cronies and yet it is their words and their setting of the issues that are given the most “air time here”. It is hard not to wonder if this willingness to accord such legitimacy to the king and his ideologies is due to an attraction to the grandiose nature of power and hence disinterest in the nitty gritty and challenging details of the general populations own take on things and how the familiarity and ease with which talking about politics and power brokers sees you all dive into English langauge papers on a Thai language etc speaking country and UN reports and world bank statistics all the while debatig the lot of the uneducated masses that these reports and statistics and news paper articles describe in very familair language and terms….no taken for granteds are being subject to scrutiny just a challenging of the ridiculously transparent claims of a dated elite…by this I do not mean that everyone should become literate in Thai or have to be to comment (for those who might like to take a cheap shot and detract from what i am saying…) but there are other sources (specifically books written in English by Thai literate peole who study Thailand) acessible and easliy available…you don’t have to be enrolled in a course to read a good book.
So, all I am saying hobby, is it is problematic to accept that it would take the king to make people reflect on their circumstances and aspirations, people do this all the time, the issue here is the king doesn’t want people to, so he is providing them with his blueprint for their aspirations and it is fundamentally limiting cum completley oppressive.
I would suggest we forget about the king and his cronies for a while and discuss the people, look at the structures of inequality and asymetrical distribution of power and the effects this has on people’s ability to sufficiently survive and also the history that has placed these people in the position of subaltern to a mad monarch who has legitimated so much of their oppression…I am thinking Siamese colonialism, green revolution, rice tax, counter insurgency initiatives and US funding based massive expansion of police and military and propping up of dictators (just like Central America, south America etc), and so on, and lets look at what people are saying and doing instead of taking the elite representation at face value….
Take for an example an extreme case I know of in Nongkhai where a young man (20year old going on 21) living in rural nongkhai, Thailand wanted to get married and had a 6 grade education, his father worked on international fishing trawllers for years at a time and has come home for two weeks between trips, bearing seacucumbers to make larb for everyone and enough money to buy a pick up truck that he has given to the younger brother so he can make money with his wife running market deliveries on weekends and operating on the local songtaew queue on weekdays. He has to date worked on his familiy’s rice paddy and occassionally done some seasonal wage labour work, to suplement his share in the family’s rice crop usually earning around 800 to 1500 baht a month for one or two months at a time. However, through his father’s connections he could borrow 150,000 baht by entering into endentured labour with another ship, the money would provide him with necessary brideprice (35000), wedding (12000) and the pay off to the military to avoid conscription (27000) in a few months time, with the rest left over for his wife to set herself up selling food from a roadside stall in town (15,000) and to give his mother the remainder as she was looking after three grand children to other siblings and was in poor health (part of money was used to pay for local labour to help with the rice fields) . Another opportunity he had was to borrow money from creditors and pay intermediary agencies to get him work in the middleeast or Taiwan . Otherwsie he can work his family’s 5 rai of rice paddy and have a share in its produce and do seasonal wage labour in the district or migrate to Bangkok in order to have a supplementary living, these latter two seeing him have to risk conscription and certaily not be able to marry for quite some time.
What to do? What are the aspirations and circumsatnces that underpin his choices. Well clearly he wants to get married and needs (not just aspires to ) an income. In this situation he took the shipping job and loan but was crippled in an accident and had to be in a wheel chair 7 months into paying back his debt which left his family to have to pay back the remainder (just over 110,000 baht plus interest. So the family mortgaged the house and paddy to Kasikorn Thai for 60,000 baht and borrowed through other creditors the remainder. With his health related costs and the need to pay outsiders to help with the rice the family couldn’t keep up with payments and so had to borrow at higher rates of interst to keep up payments with the bank this culminated in the younger brother selling his songtaew and borrwing to get a job in Israel. First two years this was successful and he came back payments on the house were almsot complete, second trip however, the agents who were arranging his transport, visas job etc absconded with the money leaving him in debt around 180,000 baht. They lost the house and land.
There is nothing abnormal or frivilous about the aspirations and actions taken in this story (that was relate to me by his wife and siblings) and certainly nothing about the aspirations are unsustainable. But to move away, for a moment, from the frame that the discussion of sufficiency economy has limited us to, I find it interesting how entreperneurial people are and think that the way people make sense of what hapens in these circumstances and how they continue on and what they do in order to survive is testament to an incredibly rich and creative process of reflection on their situations and circumstances. In context of the king and his Junta’s comments this is another example of just how ridiculous the whole discussion is if left on their terms, end of story.
Sufficiency democracy – CNN blocked in Thailand
CNS got their military-political compass 180-degree wrong.
In an instance to solve corruption and insurgent as military iron hand, they do it as soft-politician.
In an instance to handle international relation and PR propaganda with politician feather-touch, they do it as mititary regime.
Seriously, if they want to run a coup government. At least make an efficient one at that.
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
Hopefully, at least the King’s message gets people thinking about the way they live, and what their aspirations are (and why). Applies equally to rich and poor.
At the risk of being accused of ethnocentricism again, I sometimes think many of us are on a treadmill, and never really allow ourselves to reflect of what we are doing, and why.
The Golden Boat update 6: mobile lifestyles
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The Golden Boat update 5: shopkeeping on the borderline
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Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
The king’s answer to “persistent inequality” is to tell the peasants not to aspire too much. I am not certain this is to protect the elite, though the elite certainly exploit the king’s message in this way. But non-aspiration does translate as non-desire, and is promoted to the poorest rather than the richest. But I guess it’s hard to promote non-desire to the rich when your wife and kids are out scoring new jewelry all the time.
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
hmmm…not quite what I meant on the voices front but never mind. Now I might make some outlandish comments ( I do so to stimulate debate…albeit more often than not rather unsuccessfully here) but I stop short of the conspiracy stuff that you are in the pay of Thaksin or the like so you can stop the comparisson with Vichai there. I Just thought I’d see if the critique can go both ways…ie middle-class have their interests as do you in this sufficiency economy debate.
Perhaps if I were to provide you with an example of what I am talking about you will be more receptive to my perspective (or not). I looked at submitting this so you could make it a post for the political culture and vote buying you were wanting but thought it is probably not quite what you would be looking forso held off. I have framed it now in terms of the sufficiency economy debate and my ideas on it. If it is too long for the comment section here I won’t mind if you don’t include it.
Recently much discussion on New Mandala regarding events in
Thailand has focused on the sensational developments of the ousting of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatr by a military Junta allied closely to the Thai monarch. Analyses of the subsequent events that have unfolded have reflected, i think, a disproportionate dependency on media representations and debates have tended to allow the media to set the issues and the tone or parameters in which they will be discussed. In particular the English language newspaper The Nation has featured as a central source of issues on this blog, to the point that the Nation’s own reporting recently became a topic of discussion here (Royalty and Loyalty.).
Interestingly and perhaps not by coincidence, much of the academiccontribution here has reflected earlier tendencies in the study of Thailand to privilege state and elite perspectives over those of the “general population”, perspectives that constitute the bread and butter of newspaper (sometimes tabloid) reporting. I wouldlike to propose a discussion that moves away from the stereotypes of media attempts to hold the politically powerful accountable, by rendering their actions as transparent as is possible (media and politics existing in sets of relations that certainly call intoquestion any notion of impartiality,)and to shift away from the predictability of the hagiography of the monarch, the institution of the monarchy, and the indulgences in predicting the future while double guessing the past and present actions of said monarch that constitue so much of the content of these ‘personality politics’ based discussions.
As an alternative to the media and elite positions that have been amply discussed here, I propose to provide some anecdote/data on what being in Thailand during this tumultuous period was like by sharing the reflections of an informant, shared with me while spending some time recently in Nakhorn Sawan inCentral Thailand.
Sitting in a sala on the side of the road awaiting a songtaew I
asked Chai, an informant I had met two weeks before, while
conducting open ended survey’s on attitudes towards Reproductive Health information programmes in a subdistrict of Nakhorn Sawan province, and who was now accompanying me to the bus station in the provincial capital, what his take on present political situation in Thailand was.
“What do you think of the coup and how Thaksin was deposed by the military?”
“Politics for me is uninteresting. I am concerned (“huang
reuang”)that my family are in debt, my relatives are in debt and
I (38 year old male rice farmer) am in debt. All of the overnment
projects and programmes (“khrong karn saraphat khong rathaban”)to help the poor, we poor, have made more debt out of debt (“saang nee jark nee”). When Thaksin left we thought the debt would go with him but we just got a new creditor (jao nee) so we had to borrow more money to pay them. Before you could play shares(“len shae”) and if you were lucky get somewhere, pay off some debt. Now you have to porn (pon)gold as a down payment (“jamnam thong”) with your
creditor and where in shares the interest was never more than 20% now it gets as high as 35-40%. It doesn’t matter who is in
government , who buys your vote, you will be in debt to whoever is the government. I don’t find it boring (Naa beua) I am bored of all their faces (“Beua khi naa tang mord”)”…”Look at all the crime now. The govt tells us all is well and we are getting democracy back soon. Thaksin killed his opponents and this lot (puak nii)will kill theirs and in the meantime youth are stabbing and shooting eachother across the country, instead of celebrating the harvest we are at funerals. Our leaders (“phunam”) are crazy and now our children (“luuk laan”)are copying them. Last month three young men (“noom saam khon”)walked into our neighbours house and robbed them.
The next day a young woman was stabbed and killed and robbed in the next village, they cut off her hands. She wore gold bracelets and necklaces. This all used to happen before, before Thaksin, even during Thaksin, but some people might say it didn’t. But now it is happening more and more and it is getting more violent. There is no point being intereted in politics, they make us in debt and then they make debt out of debt and then people kill because of the debt on debt. When they buy our votes it is like a cell phone promotion. You buy a sim card (Chai points to his Nokia cell)because they offer you some free calls, about 300 baht included in the price, then they take all your money as you are stuck with them…unless you buy another sim with another company on a another promotion. The company buys your vote and you are in debt to them. The government buys your vote and you are in debt to
them.”
This brief and somewhat pessimestic reflection on the state of
affairs in Thailand since the coup was similarly reflected in
comments made by other people I spoke with in Nakhorn Sawan and elsewhere in central Thailand toward the end of last year (2006). In particular other people were concerned with debt related crime and a perceived increase in its incidence. Of interest here however, is the particular emphasis on debt and disenchantment with the political process, two issues that have been discussed in depth here and elsewhere, but with a very different flavour. Where debates have pitted the urban middle-classes ideologically against the rural poor (etc) in terms of the poor as representing a mass
united under the populist policies of Thaksin and with
contradictory needs and wants politically to the the middleclasses (another group seen to be united under a banner but against him), we have here an example of how such issues are seemingly irrelevent in the face of the more pressing concerns of soaring debt and crime. The
perspective here differing also from World Bank and UNDP
assessments of the social, economic and political situaion in
Thailand. Of further interest is how Chai sees vote buying as
being like a promotional for cellphone cards in that no matter who you go with they will all drag you into debt as once ensconced changing provider/government requires more resources than seems reasonable/viable for people like him, especially considering that inevitably you end up with more of the same (boring faces).
I would like to emphasise that the disenchantment here is not
manifest in terms of exclusion from the political process by way of the coup and the ousting of a populist cum legitimate prime minister as understood by proponents of “democracy lost” ideas, rather it is a blanket disenchantment with politics at the level of the structural where the issues of procedure and substance are seen as being moot points and where the normative acts of power of government, Thaksins’s extrajudicial killngs, are seen to be mirrored in the staging cum potential of the coup, and are seen to be being reproduced at the level of the genral population through a ombination of being forced through soaring debt and reproduced through cultural
emulation.
Clearly there is a different percpetion here of what is at stake
than the issues of democracy under threat and populist policies. In fact the popularity of the very policies themselves are in question and in keeping with other data I have collected elsewhere in the central Thailand are not as popular as the voting outcome would indicate. Hence my continued call for an on the ground perspective.
Royalty and loyalty
“Foreigners working in companies here also face that pressure. You really can’t gauge how Thais, especially educated people, feel about the royal family as long as they don’t have a choice whether to wear yellow, stand up at movie theaters or criticize voodoo economics. To paraphrase Voltaire.”
I’ve never been forced to wear a yellow shirt, nor are Thais where I work forced to. It’s a pity if people are forced to.
A lot of people like it because they can feel part of something bigger then themselves. Like my dear old mother-in-law who proudly wears the shirt we bought her when she walks around the neighborhood.
My wife bought me a yellow shirt when we went to the Ratcha Preusek flower show in Chiang Mai. Some people told me they thought the show was a waste of money, but I saw **elderly people walking around together with their families** and farmers with Bangkok people, and everyone was having a good time. Very positive. Yellow shirts were part of the fun and those little rubber wrist bands too.
I am just very happy that Thailand is not like Iraq. (except maybe some provinces in the south) I read today in the New York Times it the war is likely to cost 1.2 trillion dollars. Imagine what $1.2 trillion dollars could do for the world, if used wisely. Better that people wear yellow shirts and live in peace.
[The university I worked at, though, was like the heart of darkness so concentrated was the power in the hierarchy or as one friend describes it “fun fascism”. There’s sometimes a ridiculous effort to get foreigners to do everything like Thais, teach what Thai teachers teach in the manner they teach, instead of using their complementary outlook and skills (like good ole irreverent Voltaire and his enlightenment buddies) like they did it in the Korean university I worked at.]
The Burmese veto aftermath and dictators’ friends
Aung, South Africa’s primary trading partners are the UK and USA. China has less than a fifth of their combined trade. By your logic, South Africa should have voted yes!
In Africa (as a whole), China has signifigant trade relationships Nigeria and to a lesser extent, Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
South African rejection of the UN proposal was attributed to Burma not posing a signifigant international threat. Surely this represents a strange irony in that sufferers of a polarising aparthied regime voted to continue a 40 year military dictatorship in Burma. However, rather than wallow in a ‘the international community won’t help us’ depression, can it not be foreseen that this will solidify a Burmese movement much like that which formed the ANC in South Africa? No international favours helped Nelson.
Royalty and loyalty
A civil-servant friend of mine just sent me an sms saying that this government had “asked the cooperation” of civil servants to wear yellow t-shirts on every day for one year.