[…] At New Mandala, we have occasionally featured signs (of various sorts). While such signs do have obvious limitations for clarifying wider social processes, I think that at the very least they often show how governments and their various initiatives are self-promoted and referenced. For these reasons alone, they are, I reckon, worth further reflection and some more probing analysis. […]
Thanks for all of the comments on this post – Pundit, Bystander, Patiwat, Huh? and Erik.
Erik poses a particularly interesting question about the formation of state and popular self-descriptions in the post-coup scene.
I don’t see a neat answer to this question, Erik, as any concrete clarification of “Asian (Thai) values” has to come up with a way of explaining the uncertainty and ambiguity that now exists. The crowd effort to belittle “Western leaders” might be just beginning. I’m not sure. We will have to wait and see.
Patiwat’s skewering of Khun Anand’s position is probably a much better critique than anything I can offer at this (early) stage.
[…] At New Mandala, we have occasionally featured signs (of various sorts). While such signs do have obvious limitations for clarifying wider social processes, I think that at the very least they often show how governments and their various initiatives are self-promoted and referenced. For these reasons alone, they are, I reckon, worth further reflection and some more probing analysis. […]
Don’t read too much into my comments on one former Hmong highlander reflecting that he remembers a childhood of not “knowing” the earth was round. There is much that we all don’t know. That’s just the way it goes – global, local, or the many places in between.
James thanks for taking up the challenge. I like your idea about the possibilities that the study of borders and internationalism can provide in terms of analytical clarity vis-a-vis state rhetoric and related essentialisms.
Applying your comments to Tongchai’s work as an example of border studies doing this, I’d say that Anderson’s imagined communities (of which Tongchai’s study is an exemplary use of his insights, applied to the Thai case, and so to me is first a study of nationalism and then a border study) is the source of this critique you speak of and that in the case of Thailand, as Anderson himself pointed out in the late seventies, Thai Studies (“the discipline”) was/is in fact heavily implicated in the claims of a unique” Thailand and so its projects (then and now), warrant critical scrutiny, hence my raising this issue. So basically the critique was there without the borders and internationalist perspectives and so I say the global perspective in this sense isn’t appealing on that level, as much as what is happening now and a desire, rather, to look away from it.
My point is that I think the conference theme has come out of an element of reluctance on behalf of the conference co-ordinators to provide any solid critique of the coup and related institutions as well as the realityof the social state of affairs in Thailand and in part as to not look globally is to subject Thailand to scrutiny when it is unprepared to do so based on a lack of certainty and an absence of any rehearsed position to take to say all is ok, as things are still too new (for counting any chickens as they may be ducks) and so the nations academics are experiencing a state of schizophrenia like in WW2, “we don’t know who has won yet so lets play it safe and look away and see what the rest of the world says first and then decide what we will make of it all”.
I say this in terms of Thailand’s already well honed sense of its place internationally and the politics of representation/identity politics that are integral to processes of contextualization for both domestic and international consumption on this point. I would go so far as to say that this practiced, practice has given us “Global Thailand 2008” in part as a soul search for those whose “civilised” nation has become even less dissimilar to their “barbarian” neighbours through the coup (I agree with your take on the Burmese, Lao and Cambodian “others”) and in part as what do you do when you are Thailand and you have the coup “that was not supposed to happen (anymore)?” You see having the coup now is like being uncivilized in the past, it subjects Thailand to comparison with “failed states”, so what better than a “global gaze” for the moment. Thai studies conferences are after all very much a show case on Thailand.
Regardless of my musings on logics of practice, I don’t think the internationally outward focus of the conference can actually achieve something that an inward focus couldn’t (already has) but it can certainly provide an escape from much that could benefit from a more localized intense focus. Perhaps critiques of uniqueness are easier avoided if the nitty gritty details of Thailand’s normalcy are glossed over for its global ambitions?
Anyway, I am very interested in your comment regarding understanding of HIV/AIDS in terms of the Burmese, Lao and Cambodian labour and the role these migrants have in the Thai economy. What is the relationship you are drawing here exactly? And waht is the process of othering you are highlighting?
I would be a little cautious over attributing the coup’s success to the centralised nature of Bangkok as the military were on the streets of other main urban centres such as, Nakhon Sawan, Phitsanulok, Khon Kaen, Khorat, Chiangmai etc. reflecting both “decapitation” and “amputation”. Also however, I would say that as in other countries when the military have control of parliament it pretty much spells and end to rule of which ever govt was in power, the coup de tat not requiring total control over every source of power of the state, regardless of geographical distribution.
I would however like to hear more on the undefined borders of the different concepts of French and British imperial states and the pre-modern Thai versions…are you saying that Bangkok is a “hybrid” city that reflects in its form and influence the “clash of civilisations of yester-year?
Next time you are in Burma, ask about them. It probably would be better to get the story from a Kachin. Basically, they have to do with establishing Kachin claims to the Hpakant jade area, but in a way quite different than Western groups would. I was reminded of it when you wrote how global and lowland issues can seem so far away.
That “vitriolic senator from Buriram” was Karoon Sai-Ngam, well known for 1) calling on the public to stop paying taxes to protest the government, and 2) asking ladies in the audience to pass pictures of Thaksin between their legs as a way of cursing him.
There is certainly no effort on my part to claim that global forces have no impact, or that, on the contrary, they are all-pervading. These examples show, quite nicely, I think, how a range of messy interactions continuously go on. Individual knowledge and experience of life is shaped by these.
They can lead to all sorts of unexpected insights…and unexpected gaps in people’s understanding…
Aiontay, as for the elephant tusks of the Ginsi Duwa – no I haven’t heard of them. But I am intrigued.
I think my answer would be that studying borders, internationalisation, etc, tends to highlight the constructed rather than essential nature of “nation” or “thai”; and that goes a certain way towards undermining the rhetoric of uniqueness that has been trotted out to justify the coup, fend off foreign criticism, etc.
The coup itself is only possible because the thai state has been constructed by history to be over-centralised in bangkok, and hence vulnerabe to decapititation; which is a result of pre-modern era understandings of the nature of the state clashing with french and british imperial states at the undefined borders of these different concepts.
Similarly the HIV/AIDS epidemic cannot be addressed without looking frankly at the role transnational Burmese, Lao and Cambodian labour plays in keeping the thai economy afloat, which is in turn tied in to ideas circulating in thailand about legitimate and illegitimate migration, the way borders are enforced or evaded, the rightful place of thailand in the region, and so on, which I suspect date back to an older perception of non-thai as “kha” or slaves.
[…] In an earlier post I wrote about the address to be delived in Seattle by Sondhi Limthongkul (so-called pro-democracy advocate) on his “US West Coast Tour”. Some reports of the function are now coming through. New Mandala reader BF provides this link to (Thai-language) coverage of anti-coup protests at the meeting. And another reader, Jopha, provides the following account which I reproduce here in full. Jopha’s summary indicates that Sondhi’s line of argument was very similar to that presented in London. (For full New Mandala comment on the London meeting enter “Sondhi” in the search bar above.) Any other feedback on the Seattle meeting would be very welcome. Jopha writes: The speech was surprisingly well attended, with even a handful of my fellow Farangs in attendance. I thought I might meet a few grad students and the new generation of Southeast Asian scholars on campus but encountered a number of my Thai acquaintances from the local business community who all assumed I was, to their delight, a Sondhi “supporter” as opposed to an interested bystander. […]
[…] In an earlier post I wrote about the address to be delived in Seattle by Sondhi Limthongkul (so-called pro-democracy advocate) on his “US West Coast Tour”. Some reports of the function are now coming through. New Mandala reader BF provides this link to (Thai-language) coverage of anti-coup protests at the meeting. And another reader, Jopha, provides the following account which I reproduce here in full. Jopha’s summary indicates that Sondhi’s line of argument was very similar to that presented in London. (For full New Mandala comment on the London meeting enter “Sondhi” in the search bar above.) Any other feedback on the Seattle meeting would be very welcome. Jopha writes: The speech was surprisingly well attended, with even a handful of my fellow Farangs in attendance. I thought I might meet a few grad students and the new generation of Southeast Asian scholars on campus but encountered a number of my Thai acquaintances from the local business community who all assumed I was, to their delight, a Sondhi “supporter” as opposed to an interested bystander. […]
Good question polo, I like “Contesting Global Governance” as I think it should be contested and rigorously, in practice and in theory (though not necessarily in the way that it is being contested in Thailand right now); “Buddhism in the modern world” would open up some very interesting possibilities for enquiry into the relationship of the state and Buddhsim in Thailand…perhaps in terms of ideas of moral authority and the state. The moral authority of candidates in elections and how vote buying plays into processes of its construction, an important issue for consideration in juxtaposition or complementary fashion to coups and other “technologies” of “Thai democracy” or political culture. “Law and society” could be interesting if the context of Thailand’s history of coups and numerous constitutions and what this might mean for legal culture in Thailand was unpacked in the context of this coup and not the neo-liberal notion of “civil society” that has come to dominate people’s perspectives on this kind of discussion over the last decade. “Natural and man-made disasters” could lend itself to an interesting play on the coup and Tsunami and would perhaps allow for a comparisson between Thaksin and the coup in context of some real pressing issues facing Thailand to contextualise much of the debate over democracy, sufficiency economy and the coup. “Democracy under Globalisation” is to me quite a ridiculous notion. I can’t see how a discussion of democracy in terms of the chimera of globalisation isn’t actually about the international dimension of democracy in which case we have two central areas of enquiry. The postal vote, which was an issue a few years back in Thailand around Chuan’s time but even with my obsession with political culture and vote buying would be hard pressed to write anything meaningful on it. The other being International Relations, which is too macro for my liking…
Havig said all the above, Nic, I don’t know what Tim and Ant think of globalisation, but for me the conference couldn’t have a less appealing theme to have to write about…there isn’t much more I can say about globalisation than I think it is a novel cultural elaboration of the “no longer flat earth” theory and it carries with it the airs of pretention of the enlightenment sentiment that is implicated in legitimating the succeednig centuries of cosmological chauvinism that gave us entire theories of racism and capitalism. I prefer to ask why valorise such an idea with an international conference…is it because right now “inter” is particularly salient for Thais as anti-coup factions try to attract foreign commentary to support their cause and the pro-coup lobby are reduced to defending their position by resorting to Asian Values to shore up their position against international criticism. Or is it a project of a particularly influential academic class that’s aspirations are global that shapes the conference theme?
When the host country, of which the conference is about, is in the grip of a coup, has an ailing monarch who has been head of the nation for most of living memory and implicated in the coup culture, an upsurge of civil unrest involving acts of state (torture, massacre) and civilian violence (“terrorist” and other acts) that must have an impact on political culture now and in the future (obviously in and from the past), along with a raft of other domestic and more local oriented concern such as an unabated HIV/AIDS epidemic, massive debt across classes, a rise in acts of random violence on the streets of large urban centres, why look globally…is this an intentional myopia, a head in the sand approach by Thai studies to the “difficult questions” ?
Anyone care to throw around some ideas about this one or are we just going to roll over and write our papers about how amazing it is that earth isn’t flat?
Found your website while looking for details about Sondhi’s lecture so thought I would contribute.
The speech was surprisingly well attended, with even a handful of my fellow Farangs in attendance. I though I might meet a few grad students and the new generation of Southeast Asian scholars on campus but encountered a number of my Thai acquaintances from the local business community who all assumed I was, to their delight, a Sondhi “supporter” as opposed to an interested bystander.
First, Sondhi’s English is excellent, far better than most. Initially he was initially to give a 20-minute talk in English, but the talk went on for nearly an hour.
Sondhi is clearly conflicted by the coup, happy to have Taksin out of the way yet frustrated that the only possible method of removing Taksin was a military coup. His reasons for this situation, this failure of “democracy”, and a personal frustration, focused upon a lack of free speech and free press, no surprise from coming from a self-proclaimed media tycoon recently muffled. He also briefly touched upon the failure of the education system to create an educated voting public, but like many Thais, he is unwilling to critically explore the nature of the Thai education system in any depth.
He was almost downright contemptuous of Taksin’s “populist” policies, as if populist notions were too far below him to even dignify a comment. He was equally, in my humble opinion, contemptuous of the poor who he imagines as being easily bought off by simple bribery. (I guess that my experiences of observing election money being distributed in local villages over the past 20 years and what Sondhi imagines it to be are at variance.) According to Sondhi, the poor and the very wealthy do not pay taxes (I believe the rural poor pay taxes indirectly by pricing controls on agriculture products) and that he is the self-proclaimed advocate for the newer emerging middle-class who he believes do pay the taxes. It really seemed to gall his Bangkok sensibilities that Taksin gave his, Sondhi’s, “hard-earned tax money,” to the rural poor. The poor seem to be the problem to Sondhi, as he noted that most of the opposition votes came from the 1st (amphoe muang) districts of a Province whilst Taksin received his support from the more rural districts. There was no mention about how he and the TRT opposition might have attempted to go after the rural votes.
Sondhi appears to be a monarchist and clearly supports the throne having a role in what he described as the “royal prerogative” to bestow or withhold favor on leaders of the nation. And judging by some of the images shown during his talk, methinks he has some support by the Crown Prince although he played down the role of the palace in the recent coup.
He attacked Taksin for the perceived problems at the new Airport (does he read the thaivisa boards?) without noting that this mega project predated his former ally’s rise to power. He also made a comment about someone taking advantage of a bankruptcy filing, an odd remark coming from one who is notorious for defaulting on loans.
I got the feeling, and just an opinion now, but both Sondhi and the other speaker (a vitriolic senator from Buriram) were really pissed off about Taksin because of the amounts of money he made off with tax-free. It was as if parts of the Thai elite, and I know Sondhi is no middle class tax payer, loss face because they could not even imagine getting away with such sums, and would never be in a position to be involved with such sums. I can only imagine, from my humble position, the loss of face having to acknowledge that a competitor stands in a class clearly above you.
I was unable to stay for Sondhi’s talk in Thai as two hours had already passed between Sondhi’s talk and the impassioned rant of the senator from Buriram. And I admit that I have problems following such speeches in Thai for too long.
In a question and answer follow up, Sondhi proclaimed that he was not a politician and had no interest in running for office. I found this rather difficult to accept given the political nature of the speech, with what could only be described as a campaign sign hanging above him, a book for sale, and what was clearly an enthusiastic group of ex-pat Thais here in the USA who wish to support Sondhi and his movement.
Upon my return home I thought that my wife would be happy that I went and met Thai friends but she was rather upset that I had become “involved” in Thai politics. It turns out she had been invited to the talk by several of her friends, but coming from a poor rural background up north, she perceived Sondhi as just another Taksin, another Thai politician, and I confess, I have to agree with her.
Hmm. The 2006 royal coup d’etat. Should a paper on that come under “Buddhism in the Modern World”, or “Contesting Global Governance”, or “Democracy under Globalization”, or “Law and Society”?
Or perhaps should it be included in “Natural and Man-made Disasters”?
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[…] At New Mandala, we have occasionally featured signs (of various sorts). While such signs do have obvious limitations for clarifying wider social processes, I think that at the very least they often show how governments and their various initiatives are self-promoted and referenced. For these reasons alone, they are, I reckon, worth further reflection and some more probing analysis. […]
“You’re not Asians yet…” and other arguments
Thanks for all of the comments on this post – Pundit, Bystander, Patiwat, Huh? and Erik.
Erik poses a particularly interesting question about the formation of state and popular self-descriptions in the post-coup scene.
I don’t see a neat answer to this question, Erik, as any concrete clarification of “Asian (Thai) values” has to come up with a way of explaining the uncertainty and ambiguity that now exists. The crowd effort to belittle “Western leaders” might be just beginning. I’m not sure. We will have to wait and see.
Patiwat’s skewering of Khun Anand’s position is probably a much better critique than anything I can offer at this (early) stage.
NSF
“Yes sir, I understood”
[…] The sign was endorsed by a provincial level law enforcement centre during the much debated “war on drugs“. […]
“Thou shalt not criticise dad”
[…] The sign was endorsed by a provincial level law enforcement centre during the much debated “war on drugs“. […]
Tongue Thaied in Chiang Rai
[…] At New Mandala, we have occasionally featured signs (of various sorts). While such signs do have obvious limitations for clarifying wider social processes, I think that at the very least they often show how governments and their various initiatives are self-promoted and referenced. For these reasons alone, they are, I reckon, worth further reflection and some more probing analysis. […]
War on “war on drugs”
[…] The sign was endorsed by a provincial level centre during the much debated “war on drugs“. […]
Flat earth and global (dis)location
Thanks, Aiontay,
I will look into that – thanks for the tip.
Don’t read too much into my comments on one former Hmong highlander reflecting that he remembers a childhood of not “knowing” the earth was round. There is much that we all don’t know. That’s just the way it goes – global, local, or the many places in between.
Nich
Thai Studies Conference, Bangkok, 2008
James thanks for taking up the challenge. I like your idea about the possibilities that the study of borders and internationalism can provide in terms of analytical clarity vis-a-vis state rhetoric and related essentialisms.
Applying your comments to Tongchai’s work as an example of border studies doing this, I’d say that Anderson’s imagined communities (of which Tongchai’s study is an exemplary use of his insights, applied to the Thai case, and so to me is first a study of nationalism and then a border study) is the source of this critique you speak of and that in the case of Thailand, as Anderson himself pointed out in the late seventies, Thai Studies (“the discipline”) was/is in fact heavily implicated in the claims of a unique” Thailand and so its projects (then and now), warrant critical scrutiny, hence my raising this issue. So basically the critique was there without the borders and internationalist perspectives and so I say the global perspective in this sense isn’t appealing on that level, as much as what is happening now and a desire, rather, to look away from it.
My point is that I think the conference theme has come out of an element of reluctance on behalf of the conference co-ordinators to provide any solid critique of the coup and related institutions as well as the realityof the social state of affairs in Thailand and in part as to not look globally is to subject Thailand to scrutiny when it is unprepared to do so based on a lack of certainty and an absence of any rehearsed position to take to say all is ok, as things are still too new (for counting any chickens as they may be ducks) and so the nations academics are experiencing a state of schizophrenia like in WW2, “we don’t know who has won yet so lets play it safe and look away and see what the rest of the world says first and then decide what we will make of it all”.
I say this in terms of Thailand’s already well honed sense of its place internationally and the politics of representation/identity politics that are integral to processes of contextualization for both domestic and international consumption on this point. I would go so far as to say that this practiced, practice has given us “Global Thailand 2008” in part as a soul search for those whose “civilised” nation has become even less dissimilar to their “barbarian” neighbours through the coup (I agree with your take on the Burmese, Lao and Cambodian “others”) and in part as what do you do when you are Thailand and you have the coup “that was not supposed to happen (anymore)?” You see having the coup now is like being uncivilized in the past, it subjects Thailand to comparison with “failed states”, so what better than a “global gaze” for the moment. Thai studies conferences are after all very much a show case on Thailand.
Regardless of my musings on logics of practice, I don’t think the internationally outward focus of the conference can actually achieve something that an inward focus couldn’t (already has) but it can certainly provide an escape from much that could benefit from a more localized intense focus. Perhaps critiques of uniqueness are easier avoided if the nitty gritty details of Thailand’s normalcy are glossed over for its global ambitions?
Anyway, I am very interested in your comment regarding understanding of HIV/AIDS in terms of the Burmese, Lao and Cambodian labour and the role these migrants have in the Thai economy. What is the relationship you are drawing here exactly? And waht is the process of othering you are highlighting?
I would be a little cautious over attributing the coup’s success to the centralised nature of Bangkok as the military were on the streets of other main urban centres such as, Nakhon Sawan, Phitsanulok, Khon Kaen, Khorat, Chiangmai etc. reflecting both “decapitation” and “amputation”. Also however, I would say that as in other countries when the military have control of parliament it pretty much spells and end to rule of which ever govt was in power, the coup de tat not requiring total control over every source of power of the state, regardless of geographical distribution.
I would however like to hear more on the undefined borders of the different concepts of French and British imperial states and the pre-modern Thai versions…are you saying that Bangkok is a “hybrid” city that reflects in its form and influence the “clash of civilisations of yester-year?
Flat earth and global (dis)location
Next time you are in Burma, ask about them. It probably would be better to get the story from a Kachin. Basically, they have to do with establishing Kachin claims to the Hpakant jade area, but in a way quite different than Western groups would. I was reminded of it when you wrote how global and lowland issues can seem so far away.
Sondhi in Seattle
That “vitriolic senator from Buriram” was Karoon Sai-Ngam, well known for 1) calling on the public to stop paying taxes to protest the government, and 2) asking ladies in the audience to pass pictures of Thaksin between their legs as a way of cursing him.
Flat earth and global (dis)location
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
There is certainly no effort on my part to claim that global forces have no impact, or that, on the contrary, they are all-pervading. These examples show, quite nicely, I think, how a range of messy interactions continuously go on. Individual knowledge and experience of life is shaped by these.
They can lead to all sorts of unexpected insights…and unexpected gaps in people’s understanding…
Aiontay, as for the elephant tusks of the Ginsi Duwa – no I haven’t heard of them. But I am intrigued.
Thai Studies Conference, Bangkok, 2008
Tough challenge there Nirut.
I think my answer would be that studying borders, internationalisation, etc, tends to highlight the constructed rather than essential nature of “nation” or “thai”; and that goes a certain way towards undermining the rhetoric of uniqueness that has been trotted out to justify the coup, fend off foreign criticism, etc.
The coup itself is only possible because the thai state has been constructed by history to be over-centralised in bangkok, and hence vulnerabe to decapititation; which is a result of pre-modern era understandings of the nature of the state clashing with french and british imperial states at the undefined borders of these different concepts.
Similarly the HIV/AIDS epidemic cannot be addressed without looking frankly at the role transnational Burmese, Lao and Cambodian labour plays in keeping the thai economy afloat, which is in turn tied in to ideas circulating in thailand about legitimate and illegitimate migration, the way borders are enforced or evaded, the rightful place of thailand in the region, and so on, which I suspect date back to an older perception of non-thai as “kha” or slaves.
SOAS discussion on the Thai coup
[…] In an earlier post I wrote about the address to be delived in Seattle by Sondhi Limthongkul (so-called pro-democracy advocate) on his “US West Coast Tour”. Some reports of the function are now coming through. New Mandala reader BF provides this link to (Thai-language) coverage of anti-coup protests at the meeting. And another reader, Jopha, provides the following account which I reproduce here in full. Jopha’s summary indicates that Sondhi’s line of argument was very similar to that presented in London. (For full New Mandala comment on the London meeting enter “Sondhi” in the search bar above.) Any other feedback on the Seattle meeting would be very welcome. Jopha writes: The speech was surprisingly well attended, with even a handful of my fellow Farangs in attendance. I thought I might meet a few grad students and the new generation of Southeast Asian scholars on campus but encountered a number of my Thai acquaintances from the local business community who all assumed I was, to their delight, a Sondhi “supporter” as opposed to an interested bystander. […]
Sondhi in Seattle
[…] In an earlier post I wrote about the address to be delived in Seattle by Sondhi Limthongkul (so-called pro-democracy advocate) on his “US West Coast Tour”. Some reports of the function are now coming through. New Mandala reader BF provides this link to (Thai-language) coverage of anti-coup protests at the meeting. And another reader, Jopha, provides the following account which I reproduce here in full. Jopha’s summary indicates that Sondhi’s line of argument was very similar to that presented in London. (For full New Mandala comment on the London meeting enter “Sondhi” in the search bar above.) Any other feedback on the Seattle meeting would be very welcome. Jopha writes: The speech was surprisingly well attended, with even a handful of my fellow Farangs in attendance. I thought I might meet a few grad students and the new generation of Southeast Asian scholars on campus but encountered a number of my Thai acquaintances from the local business community who all assumed I was, to their delight, a Sondhi “supporter” as opposed to an interested bystander. […]
Thai Studies Conference, Bangkok, 2008
Good question polo, I like “Contesting Global Governance” as I think it should be contested and rigorously, in practice and in theory (though not necessarily in the way that it is being contested in Thailand right now); “Buddhism in the modern world” would open up some very interesting possibilities for enquiry into the relationship of the state and Buddhsim in Thailand…perhaps in terms of ideas of moral authority and the state. The moral authority of candidates in elections and how vote buying plays into processes of its construction, an important issue for consideration in juxtaposition or complementary fashion to coups and other “technologies” of “Thai democracy” or political culture. “Law and society” could be interesting if the context of Thailand’s history of coups and numerous constitutions and what this might mean for legal culture in Thailand was unpacked in the context of this coup and not the neo-liberal notion of “civil society” that has come to dominate people’s perspectives on this kind of discussion over the last decade. “Natural and man-made disasters” could lend itself to an interesting play on the coup and Tsunami and would perhaps allow for a comparisson between Thaksin and the coup in context of some real pressing issues facing Thailand to contextualise much of the debate over democracy, sufficiency economy and the coup. “Democracy under Globalisation” is to me quite a ridiculous notion. I can’t see how a discussion of democracy in terms of the chimera of globalisation isn’t actually about the international dimension of democracy in which case we have two central areas of enquiry. The postal vote, which was an issue a few years back in Thailand around Chuan’s time but even with my obsession with political culture and vote buying would be hard pressed to write anything meaningful on it. The other being International Relations, which is too macro for my liking…
Havig said all the above, Nic, I don’t know what Tim and Ant think of globalisation, but for me the conference couldn’t have a less appealing theme to have to write about…there isn’t much more I can say about globalisation than I think it is a novel cultural elaboration of the “no longer flat earth” theory and it carries with it the airs of pretention of the enlightenment sentiment that is implicated in legitimating the succeednig centuries of cosmological chauvinism that gave us entire theories of racism and capitalism. I prefer to ask why valorise such an idea with an international conference…is it because right now “inter” is particularly salient for Thais as anti-coup factions try to attract foreign commentary to support their cause and the pro-coup lobby are reduced to defending their position by resorting to Asian Values to shore up their position against international criticism. Or is it a project of a particularly influential academic class that’s aspirations are global that shapes the conference theme?
When the host country, of which the conference is about, is in the grip of a coup, has an ailing monarch who has been head of the nation for most of living memory and implicated in the coup culture, an upsurge of civil unrest involving acts of state (torture, massacre) and civilian violence (“terrorist” and other acts) that must have an impact on political culture now and in the future (obviously in and from the past), along with a raft of other domestic and more local oriented concern such as an unabated HIV/AIDS epidemic, massive debt across classes, a rise in acts of random violence on the streets of large urban centres, why look globally…is this an intentional myopia, a head in the sand approach by Thai studies to the “difficult questions” ?
Anyone care to throw around some ideas about this one or are we just going to roll over and write our papers about how amazing it is that earth isn’t flat?
Sondhi in Seattle
Found your website while looking for details about Sondhi’s lecture so thought I would contribute.
The speech was surprisingly well attended, with even a handful of my fellow Farangs in attendance. I though I might meet a few grad students and the new generation of Southeast Asian scholars on campus but encountered a number of my Thai acquaintances from the local business community who all assumed I was, to their delight, a Sondhi “supporter” as opposed to an interested bystander.
First, Sondhi’s English is excellent, far better than most. Initially he was initially to give a 20-minute talk in English, but the talk went on for nearly an hour.
Sondhi is clearly conflicted by the coup, happy to have Taksin out of the way yet frustrated that the only possible method of removing Taksin was a military coup. His reasons for this situation, this failure of “democracy”, and a personal frustration, focused upon a lack of free speech and free press, no surprise from coming from a self-proclaimed media tycoon recently muffled. He also briefly touched upon the failure of the education system to create an educated voting public, but like many Thais, he is unwilling to critically explore the nature of the Thai education system in any depth.
He was almost downright contemptuous of Taksin’s “populist” policies, as if populist notions were too far below him to even dignify a comment. He was equally, in my humble opinion, contemptuous of the poor who he imagines as being easily bought off by simple bribery. (I guess that my experiences of observing election money being distributed in local villages over the past 20 years and what Sondhi imagines it to be are at variance.) According to Sondhi, the poor and the very wealthy do not pay taxes (I believe the rural poor pay taxes indirectly by pricing controls on agriculture products) and that he is the self-proclaimed advocate for the newer emerging middle-class who he believes do pay the taxes. It really seemed to gall his Bangkok sensibilities that Taksin gave his, Sondhi’s, “hard-earned tax money,” to the rural poor. The poor seem to be the problem to Sondhi, as he noted that most of the opposition votes came from the 1st (amphoe muang) districts of a Province whilst Taksin received his support from the more rural districts. There was no mention about how he and the TRT opposition might have attempted to go after the rural votes.
Sondhi appears to be a monarchist and clearly supports the throne having a role in what he described as the “royal prerogative” to bestow or withhold favor on leaders of the nation. And judging by some of the images shown during his talk, methinks he has some support by the Crown Prince although he played down the role of the palace in the recent coup.
He attacked Taksin for the perceived problems at the new Airport (does he read the thaivisa boards?) without noting that this mega project predated his former ally’s rise to power. He also made a comment about someone taking advantage of a bankruptcy filing, an odd remark coming from one who is notorious for defaulting on loans.
I got the feeling, and just an opinion now, but both Sondhi and the other speaker (a vitriolic senator from Buriram) were really pissed off about Taksin because of the amounts of money he made off with tax-free. It was as if parts of the Thai elite, and I know Sondhi is no middle class tax payer, loss face because they could not even imagine getting away with such sums, and would never be in a position to be involved with such sums. I can only imagine, from my humble position, the loss of face having to acknowledge that a competitor stands in a class clearly above you.
I was unable to stay for Sondhi’s talk in Thai as two hours had already passed between Sondhi’s talk and the impassioned rant of the senator from Buriram. And I admit that I have problems following such speeches in Thai for too long.
In a question and answer follow up, Sondhi proclaimed that he was not a politician and had no interest in running for office. I found this rather difficult to accept given the political nature of the speech, with what could only be described as a campaign sign hanging above him, a book for sale, and what was clearly an enthusiastic group of ex-pat Thais here in the USA who wish to support Sondhi and his movement.
Upon my return home I thought that my wife would be happy that I went and met Thai friends but she was rather upset that I had become “involved” in Thai politics. It turns out she had been invited to the talk by several of her friends, but coming from a poor rural background up north, she perceived Sondhi as just another Taksin, another Thai politician, and I confess, I have to agree with her.
Sondhi in Seattle
http://www.pantip.com/cafe/klaibann/topic/H4881480/H4881480.html
Someone opposed him at the conference.
Thai Studies Conference, Bangkok, 2008
Hmm. The 2006 royal coup d’etat. Should a paper on that come under “Buddhism in the Modern World”, or “Contesting Global Governance”, or “Democracy under Globalization”, or “Law and Society”?
Or perhaps should it be included in “Natural and Man-made Disasters”?
The rice mandala
[…] Link is here Posted by Erik Filed in Labor, Agriculture, Rice […]
Flat earth and global (dis)location
Excellent post, Aiontay – it puts things into perspective nicely.