Christine Gray’s observation that the British Royal Family have adapted to changing times is correct and sets an example that could be usefully followed elsewhere.
The two Duchies mentioned are legally the private property of the monarch and the heir to the throne. They are as entitled to the income from these estates, on which they pay tax, as any other property owner. Don’t be misled by republican propaganda.
No doubt some people loathe Prince Charles, but recent polls in the UK indicate majority support for him becoming king.
I would never claim that the British Royal Family are “universally loved” – opinion polls consistently show support for retention of the monarchy at around 70%, and support does not necessarily equate to love.
It’s also good to note that the British monarchy are actually German-Greek and had to change their surname during WW1 from the Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the more British sounding “Windsor”.
And let’s not forget what happened to Charles 1 when he tried to enact his own form of ultra-royalist autocracy.
The British didn’t arrive in their constitutional monarchy via some romantically imagined situation as conceived by Californian academics but by bloody struggle.
These are staggering numbers and when set against the huge queues outside the UK foodbanks, look tasteless and unpleasant.
At present the leading foodbank organisation – the Trussel Trust – estimated over 1million British citizens had to claim free food from them http://www.trusselltrust.org/stats
The royal family also derive huge income from the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster.
It’s not a “rant” to point out how inept and divorced from facts Christine Gray’s comments were.
Next you’ll be telling me that the British royal family are “universally loved”.
Well, UK has its own succession crisis too. Prince Charles is loathed.
Read the book and found that most of the stories have been circulating in coffee shops here in Thailand for a while. Nothing new I hadn’t already heard. Anyway the author, I guess has the right to his opinion. Surprised by the short bibliography. Some people are fascinated by royalty.
Green tea for me please. Perhaps you can strech to a pint glass of fresh sugar cane juice on the rocks. Is it just me or is there too much hot air in here?
My country right or wrong nationalism is perhaps what you subscribe to, dear Peter. And I’m sure both King Bagan and the Lady could use a healthy dose of criticism unless of course us mere mortals are simply a matter of contempt or in need of an exalted saviour.
I very much doubt that either tourism or mass rallies entered his mind when the king founded the Eindawya. Likewise U Nu when he convened the Great Sixth Buddhist Synod at Kaba Aye (World Peace) Pagoda.
Talk about cynicism plenty of self proclaimed Buddhists get a bottle and glasses out as soon as the monks leave after a good sermon given and a generous meal offered. A deck of cards next.
Of course the original Simon de Montfort had a dim view of the reigning monarch of the time, but even so intemperate, ill informed rants don’t really belong on what is supposed to be a forum for intelligent debate.
The reference to ermine draped royals feeding off the taxpayer is a caricature. In reality, the British people get good value for their monarchy, as most acknowledge.
The French President costs nearly three times as much, although that is an executive post. A better comparison is the Italian President, a largely ceremonial role which costs an incredible five times as much. Even the Presidency in Poland, a much smaller country with a much smaller economy, costs nearly as much as the British Monarchy. One could go on and on.
“Ignorant anthropology” for sure, but it isn’t Christine Gray who is ignorant.
As a follow up to this post, Scholars at Risk (SAR) has also written an open letter to General Prayuth regarding the colleagues who will report to authorities in Thailand this afternoon
In addition, you can read the 31 October statement from the Network of University Teachers, the group who have been summoned to appear before the ruling Junta, in both Thai and English here:
Sorry Moe, your neo-nationalism, which doesn’t even include Bamar rights, is bogus. The irony is you take two dichotomous positions. You invent a Western-derived neo-nationalism, while you lament Western colonial interference. You have one leg on each side of the fence, and the middle must be hurting like hell. U Nu was weak because he didn’t act like Ne Win, and yet you also criticize other leaders for being weak. Your whole line of reasoning from Day One, is a litany of cynical comments, with no victim free from criticism. You welcome NLD but have criticized DASSK as well. You are the Burmese version of Thomas Fowler, you take no position and you take all positions. You are inaccurate and, as expected, cynical about King Bagan, and plenty of ethnic Bamar Burma scholars will not concur with you. Eindawya Pagoda is not merely a venue for protest. Unlike Naypyitaw, a Burmese version of Albert Speer architecture, King Bagan sponsored many temple projects and not just the tourist sites. As for toddy, you better read a book on toddy by a good former colonial master. There wasn’t a King back in the day that didn’t drink, and unless you are a teetotaler, I suspect if offered a glass, you would as well.
Such intense spilled over righteous anger, is not good for ones heath.
Just keeping up with and tending Nargis results alone, still ongoing, neglected still by ALL, will have kill everyone at Newmandala a thousand times over from alternate angers and sorrow.
Ko Htay
Great parabolic attempt. Now can you and your ilk convey same message to the rural/70% of the citizenry, mostly/mainly Buddhists, unlike others, pretty rich in understanding Buddhist parabolic message.
“One has to admire the British for reshaping the monarchy in respectably charismatic and modern terms.”
Oh dear.
You really had me until that point.
That you don’t get that the UK royals, dressed in luxurious tax-payer funded ermine as 1million British people have to queue up at foodbanks, are an aberration, reveals the limits of the kind of depoliticized, dehistorized and quite ignorant anthropology that makes up far too much of Thai studies.
Also this self-aggrandization about what heroes you all are. It’s pretty tedious.
Sorry, Peter. Rather like U Nu his weaknesses like his corrupt chief ministers and the loss of territory as a result of his defeat at the hands of the British will be remembered by posterity along with his boozing and gambling by posterity more than his merits such as the Eindawya Pagoda, Mandalay’s premier historic venue for mass protest and rallies in the struggle for independence like Rangoon’s Shwedagon.
Moe, how Burmese of you to forget King Bagan built many beautiful temples. If judged solely on fondness for toddy, King Bagan already exceeds the quality of most politicians in Myanmar. Not all in the NLD or in President Thein Sein’s pockets is composed of gold. If toddy and gambling, of any sort, was prohibited in SE Asia, Yangon and KL and JKT and Manila and Bangkok would look like Chicago in the 1930s and some may argue it already does. I would say the King’s priorities are where many people in Myanmar have set their priorities.
Oh, but he thinks he is. The rats are still rampant and he wants the king to leave them alone, just pay the bill and stop being careless useless. The piper and the children should lose their fear of the rats and instead appreciate their unassailable position and invaluable role in moving on.
It’s a very old past time. King Bagan, older brother of Mindon and Kanaung who overthrew him after his defeat in the Second Anglo-Burmese War (the Second Burmese War to the British of course), was known for his penchant for cockfighting as much as his fondness of palm wine toddy. You can imagine where his focus and priorities were.
I’m surprised the bombs haven’t gone off already the way the regime has been carrying on. It certainly takes two to tango.
Perhaps our generals could use it for a final solution to the Islamic problem. Let’s hope they don’t invite a 9/11 kind of disproportionate excuse for retaliation. They’d probably welcome another mujahid rebellion to crush as in the newly independent Burma, employ the Sri Lankan solution. You might say there’s a mutual admiration society between the two countries.
The Burmese in general used to see the Rohingya issue as separate from the Burmese/Rakhine Muslims but now the line has blurred thanks to the military dominated regime Ma Ba Tha nexus. At least thankfully the Burmese to their credit have shown admirable political nous in rejecting hate speech and the anti-NLD agenda it serves.
quote from a facebook page
Christine Gray:
20. November um 15:09 ┬╖
Mixed
Reading Serhat ├Ьnaldi’s fascinating “Working Towards the Monarchy” (Univ of HW 2016), I want to re-thank the journalists Paul Handley and Andrew MacGregor Marshall, plus Duncan McCargo, David Streckfuss et al. for rediscovering my work. Since I never had the time or resources to re-contextualize it, and I had forgotten much of it in the crush of domestic matters, I couldn’t quite envision what people were doing, how they were moving it forward after so many years of really concerted attempts to bury it. And really, really concerted academic attempts to either lift it or backtrack. Kevin Hewison and I were pretty much pursuing parallel tracks, or obsessions.
So tonight, at 11:47 pm, I get it.
Thanks, Serhat. It breaks my heart that so much got lost and I never felt that I could catch up. It took years to develop those theories. I am proud and grateful for the next generation. I wish I could have been a stronger person, but it was pretty lonely out there.
After all, we were/are just fronting for the Thai who are trying to speak up without getting killed, while the American government looks the other way. In a way, after all those decades of the Americans “working towards the monarchy,” that’s the biggest disgrace of all. A lot of people have been broken for speaking up about what are, after all, fairly obvious truths. As ever, we can’t really mention our Thai colleagues for fear of endangering them. Again.
P.S. What got erased in Thai history was Thaksin’s real antecedent, the enemy of Sarit (and the palace): the brilliant, uppity Isan monk and folk hero Phimonlatham, who opposed, exposed and satirized the monarchy long before either we or Thaksin came along.
As I sit here in San Francisco, Zulia, Venezuela with pets, watching roses bloom, I think if Phimonlatham could claim that his years of jail after being forcibly disrobed were the best of his life …
Serhat’s work involves years of synthesis, layers of thought, novel but perfect approach: architecture, and its political economy. Thanks to Thak Chaloemtiarana for breaking much of that new ground. He guided me. Paul Handley for years tenaciously dug up details of crown business. Although he was definitely a player, and an intimidating one at that, it hurts to see the former Lord Chamberlain gracelessly thrown out by the CP, a prototype of a key royal rebelling against royal secrecy and business as usual. Who did he think CP business associates were, Pollyanna? In so ruthlessly tearing his father’s house down, the CP may be tearing down his own. If he goes after his sister … shrinking her charitable presence as he expands how own, who knows? Sweet as she may be, her gaze, too, is steely after years of parental favor, her properties (which can be appropriated in a heartbeat), extensive. Monogamy did not serve the modernist King Bhumibol well. Polygamy has made a monkey of his son.
Again, the issue is going to be the dearth of experienced, able and loyal royal courtiers. R IX had an extraordinary and extraordinarily motivated circle of courtiers propelling him forward in his youth. R X and Prayuth are a match up of mediocres. With little or no help from the prince, recreation of an air of propriety around the throne is near impossible. R IX, to his credit, spent decades ceaselessly sacrificing himself and his time in tedious ritual and Royal duty, out of guilt, shame and to ameliorate bad karma, one assumes. And yes, good intentions towards his poorer subjects while vastly benefitting the rich who exploited them.
Again, there would be no Serhats or Gray forthcomings if journalists like Handley and Marshall hadn’t ripped off the cover of the crown properties, and determined scholars like Kevin Hewison relentlessly putting it all together. The oldsters (lol) having gotten it out there, a new generation can push the project forward.
Part of this is simply about aging and impotence. The king and queen are moribund, their presence macabre. The royal children and grandchildren are middle aged and often rotund, a little nuts from privilege.
One has to admire the British for reshaping the monarchy in respectably charismatic and modern terms, and the Japanese for so long having kept theirs silent but, one assumes, equally influential in support of the capitalist class. Power can turn around and bite anyone in the derrière, so many of these extraordinary runs may be short lived.
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The crisis behind ‘A Kingdom in Crisis’
Christine Gray’s observation that the British Royal Family have adapted to changing times is correct and sets an example that could be usefully followed elsewhere.
The two Duchies mentioned are legally the private property of the monarch and the heir to the throne. They are as entitled to the income from these estates, on which they pay tax, as any other property owner. Don’t be misled by republican propaganda.
No doubt some people loathe Prince Charles, but recent polls in the UK indicate majority support for him becoming king.
I would never claim that the British Royal Family are “universally loved” – opinion polls consistently show support for retention of the monarchy at around 70%, and support does not necessarily equate to love.
The crisis behind ‘A Kingdom in Crisis’
It’s also good to note that the British monarchy are actually German-Greek and had to change their surname during WW1 from the Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the more British sounding “Windsor”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6904531.stm
And let’s not forget what happened to Charles 1 when he tried to enact his own form of ultra-royalist autocracy.
The British didn’t arrive in their constitutional monarchy via some romantically imagined situation as conceived by Californian academics but by bloody struggle.
Let’s hope the Thais avoid that, eh?
The crisis behind ‘A Kingdom in Crisis’
Sorry Bryan but you’re really badly misinformed.
The UK royal family receive UK┬г36million directly from UK taxpayers. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cost-of-royal-family-rises-twice-as-fast-as-inflation-9563293.html
When other costs are taken into consideration this rises to over ┬г300million.
https://republic.org.uk/what-we-want/royal-finances
The Queen’s personal wealth outside of this is ┬г340million. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33253411
These are staggering numbers and when set against the huge queues outside the UK foodbanks, look tasteless and unpleasant.
At present the leading foodbank organisation – the Trussel Trust – estimated over 1million British citizens had to claim free food from them http://www.trusselltrust.org/stats
The royal family also derive huge income from the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster.
It’s not a “rant” to point out how inept and divorced from facts Christine Gray’s comments were.
Next you’ll be telling me that the British royal family are “universally loved”.
Well, UK has its own succession crisis too. Prince Charles is loathed.
The crisis behind ‘A Kingdom in Crisis’
Read the book and found that most of the stories have been circulating in coffee shops here in Thailand for a while. Nothing new I hadn’t already heard. Anyway the author, I guess has the right to his opinion. Surprised by the short bibliography. Some people are fascinated by royalty.
Statement of support for Michael Buehler
I too am happy to associate myself with this statement.
Questions like this need to be raised – and answered.
Dr John Monfries
College of Asia and the Pacific
ANU Canberra
Notes on a Naypyitaw cockfight
Green tea for me please. Perhaps you can strech to a pint glass of fresh sugar cane juice on the rocks. Is it just me or is there too much hot air in here?
My country right or wrong nationalism is perhaps what you subscribe to, dear Peter. And I’m sure both King Bagan and the Lady could use a healthy dose of criticism unless of course us mere mortals are simply a matter of contempt or in need of an exalted saviour.
I very much doubt that either tourism or mass rallies entered his mind when the king founded the Eindawya. Likewise U Nu when he convened the Great Sixth Buddhist Synod at Kaba Aye (World Peace) Pagoda.
Talk about cynicism plenty of self proclaimed Buddhists get a bottle and glasses out as soon as the monks leave after a good sermon given and a generous meal offered. A deck of cards next.
The crisis behind ‘A Kingdom in Crisis’
Of course the original Simon de Montfort had a dim view of the reigning monarch of the time, but even so intemperate, ill informed rants don’t really belong on what is supposed to be a forum for intelligent debate.
The reference to ermine draped royals feeding off the taxpayer is a caricature. In reality, the British people get good value for their monarchy, as most acknowledge.
The French President costs nearly three times as much, although that is an executive post. A better comparison is the Italian President, a largely ceremonial role which costs an incredible five times as much. Even the Presidency in Poland, a much smaller country with a much smaller economy, costs nearly as much as the British Monarchy. One could go on and on.
“Ignorant anthropology” for sure, but it isn’t Christine Gray who is ignorant.
Review of General Ne Win: A Political Biography
I hope Ambassador Fred Milne is “thick skin enough to take the coming critics of his purely very subjective exposé.
Honestly, has he received any incentive from any pro Ne Win source.
Even the time warp that he noticed and mention contradict everything good that was Ne Win that was described.
It is not the intent rather the acts that this son of a xxxxx (Kway mah tha) will rot in hell, forever.
What next, Pol Pot was well meaning.
Academics face unjust detention in Thailand
As a follow up to this post, Scholars at Risk (SAR) has also written an open letter to General Prayuth regarding the colleagues who will report to authorities in Thailand this afternoon
Read the letter here:
http://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu/Documents/LOA_Eight_Thai_Scholars_11-23-2015.pdf
In addition, you can read the 31 October statement from the Network of University Teachers, the group who have been summoned to appear before the ruling Junta, in both Thai and English here:
http://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu/Documents/The_University_Is_Not_a_Military_Base.pdf
All the best to everyone,
James
Notes on a Naypyitaw cockfight
Sorry Moe, your neo-nationalism, which doesn’t even include Bamar rights, is bogus. The irony is you take two dichotomous positions. You invent a Western-derived neo-nationalism, while you lament Western colonial interference. You have one leg on each side of the fence, and the middle must be hurting like hell. U Nu was weak because he didn’t act like Ne Win, and yet you also criticize other leaders for being weak. Your whole line of reasoning from Day One, is a litany of cynical comments, with no victim free from criticism. You welcome NLD but have criticized DASSK as well. You are the Burmese version of Thomas Fowler, you take no position and you take all positions. You are inaccurate and, as expected, cynical about King Bagan, and plenty of ethnic Bamar Burma scholars will not concur with you. Eindawya Pagoda is not merely a venue for protest. Unlike Naypyitaw, a Burmese version of Albert Speer architecture, King Bagan sponsored many temple projects and not just the tourist sites. As for toddy, you better read a book on toddy by a good former colonial master. There wasn’t a King back in the day that didn’t drink, and unless you are a teetotaler, I suspect if offered a glass, you would as well.
The realities of power in Myanmar
Ko Moe Aung
Such intense spilled over righteous anger, is not good for ones heath.
Just keeping up with and tending Nargis results alone, still ongoing, neglected still by ALL, will have kill everyone at Newmandala a thousand times over from alternate angers and sorrow.
Ko Htay
Great parabolic attempt. Now can you and your ilk convey same message to the rural/70% of the citizenry, mostly/mainly Buddhists, unlike others, pretty rich in understanding Buddhist parabolic message.
The crisis behind ‘A Kingdom in Crisis’
“One has to admire the British for reshaping the monarchy in respectably charismatic and modern terms.”
Oh dear.
You really had me until that point.
That you don’t get that the UK royals, dressed in luxurious tax-payer funded ermine as 1million British people have to queue up at foodbanks, are an aberration, reveals the limits of the kind of depoliticized, dehistorized and quite ignorant anthropology that makes up far too much of Thai studies.
Also this self-aggrandization about what heroes you all are. It’s pretty tedious.
Notes on a Naypyitaw cockfight
Sorry, Peter. Rather like U Nu his weaknesses like his corrupt chief ministers and the loss of territory as a result of his defeat at the hands of the British will be remembered by posterity along with his boozing and gambling by posterity more than his merits such as the Eindawya Pagoda, Mandalay’s premier historic venue for mass protest and rallies in the struggle for independence like Rangoon’s Shwedagon.
Notes on a Naypyitaw cockfight
It’s like any other form of gambling on any kind of blood sport with prize money or racing for that matter.
Notes on a Naypyitaw cockfight
Moe, how Burmese of you to forget King Bagan built many beautiful temples. If judged solely on fondness for toddy, King Bagan already exceeds the quality of most politicians in Myanmar. Not all in the NLD or in President Thein Sein’s pockets is composed of gold. If toddy and gambling, of any sort, was prohibited in SE Asia, Yangon and KL and JKT and Manila and Bangkok would look like Chicago in the 1930s and some may argue it already does. I would say the King’s priorities are where many people in Myanmar have set their priorities.
The realities of power in Myanmar
Oh, but he thinks he is. The rats are still rampant and he wants the king to leave them alone, just pay the bill and stop being careless useless. The piper and the children should lose their fear of the rats and instead appreciate their unassailable position and invaluable role in moving on.
Notes on a Naypyitaw cockfight
It’s a very old past time. King Bagan, older brother of Mindon and Kanaung who overthrew him after his defeat in the Second Anglo-Burmese War (the Second Burmese War to the British of course), was known for his penchant for cockfighting as much as his fondness of palm wine toddy. You can imagine where his focus and priorities were.
Southeast Asian snapshots
[…] by Mish Khan, Associate Editor http://www.newmandala.org/2015/11/23/southeast-asian-snapshots-8/ […]
Religion and the vote
I’m surprised the bombs haven’t gone off already the way the regime has been carrying on. It certainly takes two to tango.
Perhaps our generals could use it for a final solution to the Islamic problem. Let’s hope they don’t invite a 9/11 kind of disproportionate excuse for retaliation. They’d probably welcome another mujahid rebellion to crush as in the newly independent Burma, employ the Sri Lankan solution. You might say there’s a mutual admiration society between the two countries.
The Burmese in general used to see the Rohingya issue as separate from the Burmese/Rakhine Muslims but now the line has blurred thanks to the military dominated regime Ma Ba Tha nexus. At least thankfully the Burmese to their credit have shown admirable political nous in rejecting hate speech and the anti-NLD agenda it serves.
The crisis behind ‘A Kingdom in Crisis’
quote from a facebook page
Christine Gray:
20. November um 15:09 ┬╖
Mixed
Reading Serhat ├Ьnaldi’s fascinating “Working Towards the Monarchy” (Univ of HW 2016), I want to re-thank the journalists Paul Handley and Andrew MacGregor Marshall, plus Duncan McCargo, David Streckfuss et al. for rediscovering my work. Since I never had the time or resources to re-contextualize it, and I had forgotten much of it in the crush of domestic matters, I couldn’t quite envision what people were doing, how they were moving it forward after so many years of really concerted attempts to bury it. And really, really concerted academic attempts to either lift it or backtrack. Kevin Hewison and I were pretty much pursuing parallel tracks, or obsessions.
So tonight, at 11:47 pm, I get it.
Thanks, Serhat. It breaks my heart that so much got lost and I never felt that I could catch up. It took years to develop those theories. I am proud and grateful for the next generation. I wish I could have been a stronger person, but it was pretty lonely out there.
After all, we were/are just fronting for the Thai who are trying to speak up without getting killed, while the American government looks the other way. In a way, after all those decades of the Americans “working towards the monarchy,” that’s the biggest disgrace of all. A lot of people have been broken for speaking up about what are, after all, fairly obvious truths. As ever, we can’t really mention our Thai colleagues for fear of endangering them. Again.
P.S. What got erased in Thai history was Thaksin’s real antecedent, the enemy of Sarit (and the palace): the brilliant, uppity Isan monk and folk hero Phimonlatham, who opposed, exposed and satirized the monarchy long before either we or Thaksin came along.
As I sit here in San Francisco, Zulia, Venezuela with pets, watching roses bloom, I think if Phimonlatham could claim that his years of jail after being forcibly disrobed were the best of his life …
Serhat’s work involves years of synthesis, layers of thought, novel but perfect approach: architecture, and its political economy. Thanks to Thak Chaloemtiarana for breaking much of that new ground. He guided me. Paul Handley for years tenaciously dug up details of crown business. Although he was definitely a player, and an intimidating one at that, it hurts to see the former Lord Chamberlain gracelessly thrown out by the CP, a prototype of a key royal rebelling against royal secrecy and business as usual. Who did he think CP business associates were, Pollyanna? In so ruthlessly tearing his father’s house down, the CP may be tearing down his own. If he goes after his sister … shrinking her charitable presence as he expands how own, who knows? Sweet as she may be, her gaze, too, is steely after years of parental favor, her properties (which can be appropriated in a heartbeat), extensive. Monogamy did not serve the modernist King Bhumibol well. Polygamy has made a monkey of his son.
Again, the issue is going to be the dearth of experienced, able and loyal royal courtiers. R IX had an extraordinary and extraordinarily motivated circle of courtiers propelling him forward in his youth. R X and Prayuth are a match up of mediocres. With little or no help from the prince, recreation of an air of propriety around the throne is near impossible. R IX, to his credit, spent decades ceaselessly sacrificing himself and his time in tedious ritual and Royal duty, out of guilt, shame and to ameliorate bad karma, one assumes. And yes, good intentions towards his poorer subjects while vastly benefitting the rich who exploited them.
Again, there would be no Serhats or Gray forthcomings if journalists like Handley and Marshall hadn’t ripped off the cover of the crown properties, and determined scholars like Kevin Hewison relentlessly putting it all together. The oldsters (lol) having gotten it out there, a new generation can push the project forward.
Part of this is simply about aging and impotence. The king and queen are moribund, their presence macabre. The royal children and grandchildren are middle aged and often rotund, a little nuts from privilege.
One has to admire the British for reshaping the monarchy in respectably charismatic and modern terms, and the Japanese for so long having kept theirs silent but, one assumes, equally influential in support of the capitalist class. Power can turn around and bite anyone in the derrière, so many of these extraordinary runs may be short lived.