Now, now, that’s a bit harsh, Ohn, though perhaps not by your standards, and that Burmese reptilian analogy also rings true.
Unfortunately in Than Shwe they got a snake who can see the legs of the snakes. And in their cultivated “Heroine”, they have simply an empty vessel.
The “Heroine” has been of tremendous service to both the generals and the West now happily reconciled. That indeed was the point of it all, was it not? Don’t mind the rest of us feckless souls, mainstream or ethnic.
Leave us to the mercy of the NWO and its FDI, WTO, IMF, TRIPS, the lot… and no four letter words please such as federalism or liberte, egalite, fraternite, let alone redistribution of wealth… Oh no. Trickle down maybe.
And yet, short of a revolution, this is an historic and important election. For all her faults, and notwithstanding the expected overt or covert electoral fraud on the part of our dear ‘patriotic and devout Buddhist’ generals who have apparently undergone a Damascene conversion, it would tantamount to crass idiocy if people fall for the rhetoric and exhortations of the regime stooge Ma Ba Tha and not vote for the NLD.
Did our benign intervention not have the knock-on benefit to us of being able to seize a larger portion of Timorese undersea assets than would have been possibly if Jakarta had retained control?
“It lifted the fighting peacock from the historic students’ ABFSU flag and created confusion particularly among the younger generations.”
A bit harsh! Almost Ohn-ish really.
Funny people who think they are so liberal and advanced are drumming up for their “ideal candidate”, especially outside of the country. Really funny.
People as one also have forgotten they never ever read that little dirty green book called “Constitution” (in fact no one ever read it) and have been busy objecting it some years ago, yes- with that woman drummer for a period- and now they found something else- election this, election that, we are like a-may-di-car-now to play with to while away their worries about tomorrow’s food. Sadly fully realizing that this is rather like a Thin-gyan celebration or Permier League soccer following which life will come back in its miserable slumpy state as it has always been for the past half-century.
Now though people who really interested are the ones who wants to know there will be “rules” and enforcers- starting from establishing “Intellectual property rights” (code word for we own everything including you as we make the “Law”) and debt collecting and specialist evicting services.
As far as the “West” is concerned, so long as those services are supplied they don’t mind who they are or what they do.
Unfortunately in Than Shwe they got a snake who can see the legs of the snakes. And in their cultivated “Heroine”, they have simply an empty vessel.
And Ma-ba-tha of making laws and all that, those Gene Sharp students are simply side show. Sick yes (as sick as Sharp himself), but still a side show.
And the cronies? They would not even know what the fuss is about. Besides they are busy anyhow.
At once easy and hard to be Burmese scholars though. They can say anything they like, anything seems plausible in Burmese context. They invariably get them wrong and that is also quite expected.
You are under the mistaken impression that a reporter has to be “neutral”. I don’t know what “neutral” is supposed to be. What i have to be is *factual*, to witness first hand, to corroborate information, protect my sources from the different sides, and analyze based on all these combined factors.
As to Thaksin’s part in and with the Red Shirt movement, as catalyst, symbol and occasional antagonist i simply see it as one of the many fascinating dialectic contradictions in this conflict (another such quite obvious one is the symbiotic dependency of Red and Yellow).
And i am sorry, but i cannot see your “approach to the question of democratization and its constraints in Thailand” as very considered as long as you primarily limit yourself to moaning and whining about Thaksin, while completely ignoring developments of discourse and processes that have been and are still taking place here. Which, in my opinion, are far more interesting.
It lifted the fighting peacock from the historic students’ ABFSU flag and created confusion particularly among the younger generations.
So far the permissive atmosphere already has had its ups and downs. The real above ground extra-parliamentary opposition is mostly in prison safely out of the way in the run up to the November polls.
It’s foo busy now what with electioneering and its usual complaining and protesting within their ‘rule of law’. ‘Fighting unjust laws’ has been dropped from the moment she got into parliament which turned the beast into a prince overnight.
Totally consumed with amending the ironclad constitution that little two year long campaign as reality kicked in got her nowhere. Now its mainly RoL, again, not without striking a chord with the public, and we can do things only when we have the power, so vote NLD.
True but chasing after a mirage once again? And don’t forget Prince Charming’s got a chain and mace on his belt if the fake smile and lying through his teeth don’t work.
“So, yes, i am so bored with the Thaksin-is-evil discourse”
That would be because you, like the Thais you run with, are not interested in the “Thaksin is a criminal and not at all likely to be the man funding and leading a movement toward liberal democracy discourse” because that one you can’t just dismiss with the old TiT, the farang version of the Thainess position.
You like to pretend you are just a neutral “journalist and photographer” and when you restrict yourself to that you are worthy of respect and produce interesting work.
But when you act as a shill for the PT-Thaksin-UDD condominium as you do here again and again and again, you are a hack more in the tradition of Cartalucci and Yon than anyone with a more considered approach to the question of democratization and its constraints in Thailand.
I think i am the wrong person you address here – i am not a PT Party vote canvasser. I am a reporter and a photographer. Who wins elections here in Thailand is up to the political parties and the electorate. I haven’t got a say in this, and i do not write party programs or advertisements.
I have to say the same thing to you as i have always said to the still somewhat sane minority in the Democrat Party and the Yellows: As long as you spend all your energies on pondering the evils of Thaksin, you will never get your act together and manage to present yourself as an alternative to the electorate.
People aren’t stupid. They know that Thaksin and/or PT is far from perfect, but they want a government that works for them. Therefore instead of pontificating you should spend your energy in building something that will work better for the people, and to give them a choice they do not have now. They may then elect you, or whatever party that presents itself as an alternative.
15 years since Thaksin became PM, and so far all that his opposition came up with was badly copying and re-branding TRT policies, and not even being able to sell and implement those properly, and of course, making illegal power grabs? That is a piss poor performance.
Whatever that “Thaksin-PT-UDD” condominium has done wrong – one thing that cannot be blamed on them: the failings of the opposition – liberal or whatever – to reform itself into a presentable alternative, or even just a into functioning as a proper opposition.
So, yes, i am so bored with the Thaksin-is-evil discourse, the same arguments i have heard since 15 years ad nauseum, and not a single feasible plan to get over the authoritarian populism trap Thailand finds itself in from the opposition, other than assisting in and supporting military coups. I have heard far more interesting ideas and strategies out of the “Red Shirt condominium” to get over this transition period into a status of a more liberal democracy. That is not just internal discourse, but quite quite openly discussed and debated, if one would just listen…
Useful comparisons and lessons. However, meaningful differences in the two situations should also be noted. First, if the situations were more parallel, then Syria, Iraq, and other states where refugees originate would actually be in the EU. This is the case with ASEAN. Myanmar, an ASEAN member, has its own government to blame for precipitating the very crisis its neighbors must now solve. Imagine if the refugees we are talking about in Europe were from Greece or another EU member. I would think the EU’s response would be much different and would attack the source of the crisis. How tolerant would Germany and France be of Greece’s government if they were responsible for the refugee crisis?
Also, let us not forget that during the 1980s Vietnam and Vietnamese-controlled Cambodia were not yet members of ASEAN. The situation was easier to manage because the ASEAN Way didn’t get in the way. Myanmar today hides behind ASEAN’s non-interference principle even as they cause the crisis. When the retired Mahathir broke protocol last summer calling out Nay Pyi Daw by urging for Myanmar’s expulsion from ASEAN, Myanmar’s foreign minister laughed it off and retorted that ASEAN works on consensus and thus Myanmar couldn’t be expelled.
Moreover, ASEAN’s leaders are loathe to even call the Rohingya by their name, choosing instead to refer to them generically as “irregular migrants” so as to not offend Myanmar’s government who doesn’t recognize the Rohingya as a people. While some lessons from the current European crises apply, the greatest lesson of the Rohingya crisis for ASEAN may be the same old lesson ASEAN refuses to accept: its non-interference principle inhibits regional problem solving. ASEAN’s non-interference principle is complicit in freeing Nay Phi Daw from the regional criticism and pressure it is due….and the Rohingya find themselves without meaningful political support as a mistreated minority.
Excellent writing, Rose. The suggestions about what the King should do before he died are reasonable,and those who are closed to the King should heed this writing. I think the healing process should begin with the abolition of the law, Lese Majeste 112.
“This says a lot about how much government leadership can affect public responses.”
I have to say that the leadership can be affected by public responses too. And that the past is often tinted with how we like to think of ourselves.
The politics of fear drives the closed door policy to people who are fleeing. And we allow the government to dish it up. Australia would be one of the few places with a small population occupying a giant country, rated as one of the richest per capita base on resource wealth. So how is that working for us? Seems to be only working for a few.
With an abundance of wind, sun, wave action and entrepreneurialism, we could be enhanced, yes, enhanced by people who would die trying just to get here.
And for the record, I am white, English speaking, healthy and with no need for assistance and yet the Howard immigration policy in 1996 would have kept me and my family out too. We started businesses, bought a house, won awards and volunteer 1000s of hours for our new homeland.
So let’s see refugees as the new natural resource, and I don’t care how they get here. In fact, send a plane if we are so worried about their death at sea and cut out the middleman people smuggler. There is no one who would be more patriotic that one who sought asylum to a country which welcomed them. And let fear find another port.
“And again, you build up another strawman. Where on earth have i given the indication that Thaksin does not carry his part of responsibility for the drug war killings, and should not be legally held responsible? ”
Nowhere, Nick. I am mistaken:
“It is just so convenient to point to the safe scapegoats – the evil police and the evil politicians, yet ignore the fact that they are just part of a system that will hardly change of not tackled comprehensively.”
Obviously you are serious about holding TS and TRT responsible because, as you say, it is convenient even though you really blame it on “society” like a teenage punk in a comedy.
You’ll have to forgive my naivety and my similarity to Cartalucci and Yon who say the most ridiculous things in defense of the Yellows.
I shall strive to convince myself that a man and his phuak who ordered and oversaw mass murder as a government program to eradicate the “drug problem”, tore up the constitution, undermined all checks and balances, had dozens of journalists fired for criticizing his administration and laughed about human rights and the UN charter is really funding and directing a political party and a street wing that will lead Thailand into a future of liberal democracy if only they are allowed to win one more election.
That would be more realistic.
I’ll just have to work on that “Thai-style self-delusion and denial” to get there.
Maybe I should read some of those notorious fools that Red Farang love to ridicule rather than confront the inadequacies and absurdities of their own positions and “arguments”.
The problem is that, as difficult as it is for you to believe, I see the same Thailand you do, with all the same structural problems and with the primary dysfunction of sovereignty residing on a military base and parceled out through a network.
Where I differ is in failing to believe that attempting to corral that system and bring it under one man’s control constitutes an attempt to move toward liberal democracy.
Because that is all the Thaksin-PT-UDD condominium has ever appeared to be doing.
I will confess to lacking access to the “inner discourse” that apparently gives the lie to all the overt realities in the record thus far. It reminds me that I have also never experienced the prevenient grace that might have led me to belief in a loving god in spite of all the simple and obvious evidence.
Zachary Abuza’s facts are all correct (except that the date in the first sentence should be 19 September). But his interpretation misses the point, or only gets half of it.
The story in Vietnam is that political expression is expanding in all sorts of ways: social media, grassroots movements, organized civil society advocacy. Vietnam has the highest number of Facebook users in SE Asia, and the government has given up trying to block the site. Even government ministers are using social media themselves. At times even the state-owned media is following the lead of independent social media.
Most public expression is outside of state censorship. But in a few cases, security forces harass and arrest bloggers and other activists. This is a state reaction to an increasingly vibrant society; it is a sign of fear and weakness, not strength.
By focusing solely on state reactions and cases of individual dissidents, the article inadvertently makes the state seem more powerful than it really is. Many human rights organizations make the same error. Vietnamese citizens are not, in the main, victims of a repressive state: they are actors with agency challenging the limits.
In short, there is no “rising repression” in Vietnam. There is repression at times, but also tolerance and diversity. Even by this article’s own narrow standard – number of dissidents arrested – there is less repression this year than last. No guarantee of the future, but at least for now active citizens have the initiative.
To clarify, I was not arguing that the troublemakers seen in the video are not nationalists per se, but was merely suggesting that it may have been too simplistic to cast this event as down to nationalism alone, but wondered whether there may have been other dynamics at play, such as an expression of loyalty to a particular club, which I was aware had spawned its own distinct sub-group in domestic Thai football.
For an example of the Muangthong Thani Ultras involvement in post-match street violence, which included guns, see following article from last year when they beat Singtharua FC 3-1:
Thus, I merely raised the possibility that this incident may have portrayed elements of domestic team tribalism and nationalism playing out simultaneously. However, prompted by this uncertainty, I did a quick search through the Net and concede there now exists a national group of Ultras (formed since 2012 apparently, with a series of local groups around the country), who appear to be ones on the terraces in VTE, as this and other Youtube videos of some of their former match day exploits would indicate:
Who is the figures appearing on their flags and regalia I wonder? One seems to be Taksin the Great, with a loudspeaker replacing his sword, but I may be mistaken? Another interesting question would be whether Lao TV showed this incident, or whether it was considered best thrown in the Orwellian memory hole and erased from local consciousness?
However, the rise of pan-Thai nationalist Ultras aside, it does not detract from the recent rise of domestic football hooliganism in Thailand, which may be traced to the much greater sums of money being pumped into the sport through particular wealthy families (e.g. Chidchobs, Shinawatras, etc) or corporations (e.g. SCG, Singha, KTB, etc.), in turn linked to political dynasties and networks. It is here in the realm of domestic sport, commerce and politics that I sense a potentially rich vein of social science research could be opened up, which as yet does not seem to be tapped.
Larry McDonald thanks for that link. It has always amazed that me that NOBODY has suggested the possibility Bumiphol is the victim over the murder of his brother. It would be quite easy to groom a young, trusting 18, who often joined his brother playing with empty guns, to this time play with one he did not realise was loaded. If it’s a murder, then some else is guilty, NOT a mere 18 year old Bumiphol.
Exactly the same tales of corruption, crime and brutality can be told about the military. Why single out the police?
During the drug war the military was quite involved as well, not just in the darker aspects of the drug war, but also in the involvement in the distribution of drugs (as was the police, and so many other sectors who benefited from the almost free for all drug business in the years from particularly the 97 crisis up to 2003). I remember, for example, when my nephew was a conscripted soldier stationed in the far north at the border, and his unit was part of a drug suppression and intel gathering squad. The villages most known for being gateways of amphetamines brought into Thailand his squad was not allowed to enter as they were under protection of powerful officers in the army. Same fucking difference. Blaming police while being silent on the army is hypocrisy.
Fact is that during the drug war all sectors of the state worked in perfect collaboration and harmony – the establishment of the black lists, intel, and the killings could not have been done otherwise – and are therefore equally guilty.
It is just so convenient to point to the safe scapegoats – the evil police and the evil politicians, yet ignore the fact that they are just part of a system that will hardly change of not tackled comprehensively.
As we have seen over the past 10 years, it is hardly the police or the politicians who are holding the real power in this country. Why not start where the real power is? They always talk reform and anti-corruption and whatever not, yet do nothing other than taking power and perpetuating the mess.
We have heard over the past year and a half since the coup about police reform. Where is it? The only reform i have seen is replacing top ranked officers with at least equally corrupt military loyalists. That maybe shows a reality – that nobody really is interested in police reform beyond giving lip service, and that the force being so riddled with problems is actually far more convenient than a professional force, which could become then a danger to the holders of power.
To start small – where for example are the investigations into the 2 cases where PDRC guards tortured 6 Special Branch officers for hours during their protests? Nil, zilch, utter silence. What about the many officers who were badly beaten up, one officer from Detective 2 even needed brain surgery? Same – fuck all investigations.
Now even Chitpas, member of the leadership responsible for those horrible incidents, has the chutzpah to apply for a position in the police force, sponsored by officers who are quite obviously less interested in justice than pleasing their superiors in green.
Even in his prime the King was little more than a puppet for Thailand’s old elites (and the military in particular). The Crown prince will assume this function or face the consequences.
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NLD needs to lift the standard
Now, now, that’s a bit harsh, Ohn, though perhaps not by your standards, and that Burmese reptilian analogy also rings true.
Unfortunately in Than Shwe they got a snake who can see the legs of the snakes. And in their cultivated “Heroine”, they have simply an empty vessel.
The “Heroine” has been of tremendous service to both the generals and the West now happily reconciled. That indeed was the point of it all, was it not? Don’t mind the rest of us feckless souls, mainstream or ethnic.
Leave us to the mercy of the NWO and its FDI, WTO, IMF, TRIPS, the lot… and no four letter words please such as federalism or liberte, egalite, fraternite, let alone redistribution of wealth… Oh no. Trickle down maybe.
And yet, short of a revolution, this is an historic and important election. For all her faults, and notwithstanding the expected overt or covert electoral fraud on the part of our dear ‘patriotic and devout Buddhist’ generals who have apparently undergone a Damascene conversion, it would tantamount to crass idiocy if people fall for the rhetoric and exhortations of the regime stooge Ma Ba Tha and not vote for the NLD.
Independence and interventions
Did our benign intervention not have the knock-on benefit to us of being able to seize a larger portion of Timorese undersea assets than would have been possibly if Jakarta had retained control?
NLD needs to lift the standard
“It lifted the fighting peacock from the historic students’ ABFSU flag and created confusion particularly among the younger generations.”
A bit harsh! Almost Ohn-ish really.
Funny people who think they are so liberal and advanced are drumming up for their “ideal candidate”, especially outside of the country. Really funny.
People as one also have forgotten they never ever read that little dirty green book called “Constitution” (in fact no one ever read it) and have been busy objecting it some years ago, yes- with that woman drummer for a period- and now they found something else- election this, election that, we are like a-may-di-car-now to play with to while away their worries about tomorrow’s food. Sadly fully realizing that this is rather like a Thin-gyan celebration or Permier League soccer following which life will come back in its miserable slumpy state as it has always been for the past half-century.
Now though people who really interested are the ones who wants to know there will be “rules” and enforcers- starting from establishing “Intellectual property rights” (code word for we own everything including you as we make the “Law”) and debt collecting and specialist evicting services.
As far as the “West” is concerned, so long as those services are supplied they don’t mind who they are or what they do.
Unfortunately in Than Shwe they got a snake who can see the legs of the snakes. And in their cultivated “Heroine”, they have simply an empty vessel.
And Ma-ba-tha of making laws and all that, those Gene Sharp students are simply side show. Sick yes (as sick as Sharp himself), but still a side show.
And the cronies? They would not even know what the fuss is about. Besides they are busy anyhow.
At once easy and hard to be Burmese scholars though. They can say anything they like, anything seems plausible in Burmese context. They invariably get them wrong and that is also quite expected.
Governing by the gun
You are under the mistaken impression that a reporter has to be “neutral”. I don’t know what “neutral” is supposed to be. What i have to be is *factual*, to witness first hand, to corroborate information, protect my sources from the different sides, and analyze based on all these combined factors.
As to Thaksin’s part in and with the Red Shirt movement, as catalyst, symbol and occasional antagonist i simply see it as one of the many fascinating dialectic contradictions in this conflict (another such quite obvious one is the symbiotic dependency of Red and Yellow).
And i am sorry, but i cannot see your “approach to the question of democratization and its constraints in Thailand” as very considered as long as you primarily limit yourself to moaning and whining about Thaksin, while completely ignoring developments of discourse and processes that have been and are still taking place here. Which, in my opinion, are far more interesting.
NLD needs to lift the standard
It lifted the fighting peacock from the historic students’ ABFSU flag and created confusion particularly among the younger generations.
So far the permissive atmosphere already has had its ups and downs. The real above ground extra-parliamentary opposition is mostly in prison safely out of the way in the run up to the November polls.
It’s foo busy now what with electioneering and its usual complaining and protesting within their ‘rule of law’. ‘Fighting unjust laws’ has been dropped from the moment she got into parliament which turned the beast into a prince overnight.
Totally consumed with amending the ironclad constitution that little two year long campaign as reality kicked in got her nowhere. Now its mainly RoL, again, not without striking a chord with the public, and we can do things only when we have the power, so vote NLD.
True but chasing after a mirage once again? And don’t forget Prince Charming’s got a chain and mace on his belt if the fake smile and lying through his teeth don’t work.
Governing by the gun
Final word from me on this yet again:
“So, yes, i am so bored with the Thaksin-is-evil discourse”
That would be because you, like the Thais you run with, are not interested in the “Thaksin is a criminal and not at all likely to be the man funding and leading a movement toward liberal democracy discourse” because that one you can’t just dismiss with the old TiT, the farang version of the Thainess position.
You like to pretend you are just a neutral “journalist and photographer” and when you restrict yourself to that you are worthy of respect and produce interesting work.
But when you act as a shill for the PT-Thaksin-UDD condominium as you do here again and again and again, you are a hack more in the tradition of Cartalucci and Yon than anyone with a more considered approach to the question of democratization and its constraints in Thailand.
ASEAN can learn from Europe’s refugee crisis
Not going to start another ridiculing incomparable value of the East and the West.
Let see what problems the RICH wsst is willing to tackle:from HR- Sharia, and anywhere in b/t.
Starting with Germany whose conception the cream of the crop will be their next tax payers generation.
Governing by the gun
I think i am the wrong person you address here – i am not a PT Party vote canvasser. I am a reporter and a photographer. Who wins elections here in Thailand is up to the political parties and the electorate. I haven’t got a say in this, and i do not write party programs or advertisements.
I have to say the same thing to you as i have always said to the still somewhat sane minority in the Democrat Party and the Yellows: As long as you spend all your energies on pondering the evils of Thaksin, you will never get your act together and manage to present yourself as an alternative to the electorate.
People aren’t stupid. They know that Thaksin and/or PT is far from perfect, but they want a government that works for them. Therefore instead of pontificating you should spend your energy in building something that will work better for the people, and to give them a choice they do not have now. They may then elect you, or whatever party that presents itself as an alternative.
15 years since Thaksin became PM, and so far all that his opposition came up with was badly copying and re-branding TRT policies, and not even being able to sell and implement those properly, and of course, making illegal power grabs? That is a piss poor performance.
Whatever that “Thaksin-PT-UDD” condominium has done wrong – one thing that cannot be blamed on them: the failings of the opposition – liberal or whatever – to reform itself into a presentable alternative, or even just a into functioning as a proper opposition.
So, yes, i am so bored with the Thaksin-is-evil discourse, the same arguments i have heard since 15 years ad nauseum, and not a single feasible plan to get over the authoritarian populism trap Thailand finds itself in from the opposition, other than assisting in and supporting military coups. I have heard far more interesting ideas and strategies out of the “Red Shirt condominium” to get over this transition period into a status of a more liberal democracy. That is not just internal discourse, but quite quite openly discussed and debated, if one would just listen…
Vietnam’s rising repression
[…] New Mandela […]
Vietnam’s rising repression
[…] New Mandela […]
ASEAN can learn from Europe’s refugee crisis
Useful comparisons and lessons. However, meaningful differences in the two situations should also be noted. First, if the situations were more parallel, then Syria, Iraq, and other states where refugees originate would actually be in the EU. This is the case with ASEAN. Myanmar, an ASEAN member, has its own government to blame for precipitating the very crisis its neighbors must now solve. Imagine if the refugees we are talking about in Europe were from Greece or another EU member. I would think the EU’s response would be much different and would attack the source of the crisis. How tolerant would Germany and France be of Greece’s government if they were responsible for the refugee crisis?
Also, let us not forget that during the 1980s Vietnam and Vietnamese-controlled Cambodia were not yet members of ASEAN. The situation was easier to manage because the ASEAN Way didn’t get in the way. Myanmar today hides behind ASEAN’s non-interference principle even as they cause the crisis. When the retired Mahathir broke protocol last summer calling out Nay Pyi Daw by urging for Myanmar’s expulsion from ASEAN, Myanmar’s foreign minister laughed it off and retorted that ASEAN works on consensus and thus Myanmar couldn’t be expelled.
Moreover, ASEAN’s leaders are loathe to even call the Rohingya by their name, choosing instead to refer to them generically as “irregular migrants” so as to not offend Myanmar’s government who doesn’t recognize the Rohingya as a people. While some lessons from the current European crises apply, the greatest lesson of the Rohingya crisis for ASEAN may be the same old lesson ASEAN refuses to accept: its non-interference principle inhibits regional problem solving. ASEAN’s non-interference principle is complicit in freeing Nay Phi Daw from the regional criticism and pressure it is due….and the Rohingya find themselves without meaningful political support as a mistreated minority.
Royal power in Thai politics
Excellent writing, Rose. The suggestions about what the King should do before he died are reasonable,and those who are closed to the King should heed this writing. I think the healing process should begin with the abolition of the law, Lese Majeste 112.
Vietnam’s rising repression
[…] http://www.newmandala.org/2015/09/22/vietnams-rising-repression/?utm_source=twitterfe… […]
Australia, asylum and ghosts of the past
“This says a lot about how much government leadership can affect public responses.”
I have to say that the leadership can be affected by public responses too. And that the past is often tinted with how we like to think of ourselves.
The politics of fear drives the closed door policy to people who are fleeing. And we allow the government to dish it up. Australia would be one of the few places with a small population occupying a giant country, rated as one of the richest per capita base on resource wealth. So how is that working for us? Seems to be only working for a few.
With an abundance of wind, sun, wave action and entrepreneurialism, we could be enhanced, yes, enhanced by people who would die trying just to get here.
And for the record, I am white, English speaking, healthy and with no need for assistance and yet the Howard immigration policy in 1996 would have kept me and my family out too. We started businesses, bought a house, won awards and volunteer 1000s of hours for our new homeland.
So let’s see refugees as the new natural resource, and I don’t care how they get here. In fact, send a plane if we are so worried about their death at sea and cut out the middleman people smuggler. There is no one who would be more patriotic that one who sought asylum to a country which welcomed them. And let fear find another port.
Governing by the gun
“And again, you build up another strawman. Where on earth have i given the indication that Thaksin does not carry his part of responsibility for the drug war killings, and should not be legally held responsible? ”
Nowhere, Nick. I am mistaken:
“It is just so convenient to point to the safe scapegoats – the evil police and the evil politicians, yet ignore the fact that they are just part of a system that will hardly change of not tackled comprehensively.”
Obviously you are serious about holding TS and TRT responsible because, as you say, it is convenient even though you really blame it on “society” like a teenage punk in a comedy.
You’ll have to forgive my naivety and my similarity to Cartalucci and Yon who say the most ridiculous things in defense of the Yellows.
I shall strive to convince myself that a man and his phuak who ordered and oversaw mass murder as a government program to eradicate the “drug problem”, tore up the constitution, undermined all checks and balances, had dozens of journalists fired for criticizing his administration and laughed about human rights and the UN charter is really funding and directing a political party and a street wing that will lead Thailand into a future of liberal democracy if only they are allowed to win one more election.
That would be more realistic.
I’ll just have to work on that “Thai-style self-delusion and denial” to get there.
Maybe I should read some of those notorious fools that Red Farang love to ridicule rather than confront the inadequacies and absurdities of their own positions and “arguments”.
The problem is that, as difficult as it is for you to believe, I see the same Thailand you do, with all the same structural problems and with the primary dysfunction of sovereignty residing on a military base and parceled out through a network.
Where I differ is in failing to believe that attempting to corral that system and bring it under one man’s control constitutes an attempt to move toward liberal democracy.
Because that is all the Thaksin-PT-UDD condominium has ever appeared to be doing.
I will confess to lacking access to the “inner discourse” that apparently gives the lie to all the overt realities in the record thus far. It reminds me that I have also never experienced the prevenient grace that might have led me to belief in a loving god in spite of all the simple and obvious evidence.
I’m naive that way.
Vietnam’s rising repression
Zachary Abuza’s facts are all correct (except that the date in the first sentence should be 19 September). But his interpretation misses the point, or only gets half of it.
The story in Vietnam is that political expression is expanding in all sorts of ways: social media, grassroots movements, organized civil society advocacy. Vietnam has the highest number of Facebook users in SE Asia, and the government has given up trying to block the site. Even government ministers are using social media themselves. At times even the state-owned media is following the lead of independent social media.
Most public expression is outside of state censorship. But in a few cases, security forces harass and arrest bloggers and other activists. This is a state reaction to an increasingly vibrant society; it is a sign of fear and weakness, not strength.
By focusing solely on state reactions and cases of individual dissidents, the article inadvertently makes the state seem more powerful than it really is. Many human rights organizations make the same error. Vietnamese citizens are not, in the main, victims of a repressive state: they are actors with agency challenging the limits.
In short, there is no “rising repression” in Vietnam. There is repression at times, but also tolerance and diversity. Even by this article’s own narrow standard – number of dissidents arrested – there is less repression this year than last. No guarantee of the future, but at least for now active citizens have the initiative.
Soccer wars in Southeast Asia
To clarify, I was not arguing that the troublemakers seen in the video are not nationalists per se, but was merely suggesting that it may have been too simplistic to cast this event as down to nationalism alone, but wondered whether there may have been other dynamics at play, such as an expression of loyalty to a particular club, which I was aware had spawned its own distinct sub-group in domestic Thai football.
For an example of the Muangthong Thani Ultras involvement in post-match street violence, which included guns, see following article from last year when they beat Singtharua FC 3-1:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Football-hooliganism-must-not-take-root-30245988.html
Thus, I merely raised the possibility that this incident may have portrayed elements of domestic team tribalism and nationalism playing out simultaneously. However, prompted by this uncertainty, I did a quick search through the Net and concede there now exists a national group of Ultras (formed since 2012 apparently, with a series of local groups around the country), who appear to be ones on the terraces in VTE, as this and other Youtube videos of some of their former match day exploits would indicate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS1RQ2q41Bs
Who is the figures appearing on their flags and regalia I wonder? One seems to be Taksin the Great, with a loudspeaker replacing his sword, but I may be mistaken? Another interesting question would be whether Lao TV showed this incident, or whether it was considered best thrown in the Orwellian memory hole and erased from local consciousness?
However, the rise of pan-Thai nationalist Ultras aside, it does not detract from the recent rise of domestic football hooliganism in Thailand, which may be traced to the much greater sums of money being pumped into the sport through particular wealthy families (e.g. Chidchobs, Shinawatras, etc) or corporations (e.g. SCG, Singha, KTB, etc.), in turn linked to political dynasties and networks. It is here in the realm of domestic sport, commerce and politics that I sense a potentially rich vein of social science research could be opened up, which as yet does not seem to be tapped.
Royal power in Thai politics
Larry McDonald thanks for that link. It has always amazed that me that NOBODY has suggested the possibility Bumiphol is the victim over the murder of his brother. It would be quite easy to groom a young, trusting 18, who often joined his brother playing with empty guns, to this time play with one he did not realise was loaded. If it’s a murder, then some else is guilty, NOT a mere 18 year old Bumiphol.
Governing by the gun
Exactly the same tales of corruption, crime and brutality can be told about the military. Why single out the police?
During the drug war the military was quite involved as well, not just in the darker aspects of the drug war, but also in the involvement in the distribution of drugs (as was the police, and so many other sectors who benefited from the almost free for all drug business in the years from particularly the 97 crisis up to 2003). I remember, for example, when my nephew was a conscripted soldier stationed in the far north at the border, and his unit was part of a drug suppression and intel gathering squad. The villages most known for being gateways of amphetamines brought into Thailand his squad was not allowed to enter as they were under protection of powerful officers in the army. Same fucking difference. Blaming police while being silent on the army is hypocrisy.
Fact is that during the drug war all sectors of the state worked in perfect collaboration and harmony – the establishment of the black lists, intel, and the killings could not have been done otherwise – and are therefore equally guilty.
It is just so convenient to point to the safe scapegoats – the evil police and the evil politicians, yet ignore the fact that they are just part of a system that will hardly change of not tackled comprehensively.
As we have seen over the past 10 years, it is hardly the police or the politicians who are holding the real power in this country. Why not start where the real power is? They always talk reform and anti-corruption and whatever not, yet do nothing other than taking power and perpetuating the mess.
We have heard over the past year and a half since the coup about police reform. Where is it? The only reform i have seen is replacing top ranked officers with at least equally corrupt military loyalists. That maybe shows a reality – that nobody really is interested in police reform beyond giving lip service, and that the force being so riddled with problems is actually far more convenient than a professional force, which could become then a danger to the holders of power.
To start small – where for example are the investigations into the 2 cases where PDRC guards tortured 6 Special Branch officers for hours during their protests? Nil, zilch, utter silence. What about the many officers who were badly beaten up, one officer from Detective 2 even needed brain surgery? Same – fuck all investigations.
Now even Chitpas, member of the leadership responsible for those horrible incidents, has the chutzpah to apply for a position in the police force, sponsored by officers who are quite obviously less interested in justice than pleasing their superiors in green.
Royal power in Thai politics
Even in his prime the King was little more than a puppet for Thailand’s old elites (and the military in particular). The Crown prince will assume this function or face the consequences.