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Many ordinary Thais are very recently being sentenced to jail for egregiously long terms of up to 30-50 years for lese majeste offenses.

http://archivev.asianage.com/international/thai-junta-hits-royal-critics-record-prison-time-059

“… Since the military takeover 15 months ago, 53 people have been investigated for royal insults, at least 40 of whom allegedly posted or shared comments online, according to iLaw, a Bangkok-based legal monitoring group. The majority of these cases have resulted in charges. In the seven years and five months prior, 75 people were investigated, 27 of them for online activity. Reuters reviewed online postings for which twthe king and other members of the royal family that the court ruled to be false and defamatory. Some of the postings included profanity and ridicule. One posting was clearly false. Another was based on longstanding rumours ..

I repeat: . . “based on longstanding rumours …” The extraordinarily harsh Thai penalties for lese majeste should compel us all to pause for reflection: New Mandala is being used as a platform for anti-Thai monarchy vitriol (Chatwadee Rose); and I would not be amiss to infer that Chatwadee Rose’ vitriol had been repeatedly posted and shared online … and many of those Thais who injudiciously posted and shared the anti-monarchy vitriol were identified, indicted, tried and meted out with record prison time sentences.

Every anti-Thai monarchy article at New Mandala should carry a foreword of lese majeste offense warning. To deter the unwary Thais of the perils of Thailand’s lese majeste laws if they repost and share anti-Thai monarchy articles or comments read at New Mandala.

Thanks for the insightful and carefully reasoned comment! I’m also a fan of rugby (union, we don’t really have league in the USA, although I’m curious about it), and I have often thought about the interplay between nationalism and what I guess I would call “rugby-ism:” the unending superiority of the commonwealth countries and the sub-nationalisms that pop up within them (e.g., for the purpose of the Rugby World Cup, Wales is considered the same “type” of political thing as France or Argentina, an assertion that is fascinating and totally arguable). I remember in the 2007 RWC when one of the announcers referred to Portugal as a “rugby minnow…exploding with histrionics at their first try” during a match Scotland. That comment struck me as kind of hilarious and more than a little insulting to Portugal! Far more work is needed on rugby. There’s some great work by a woman called Toni Bruce on masculinity and nationalism in NZ rugby, but I would love to read the monograph that tries to ethnographically wrestle with rugby union in the UK through the lens of nationalism. But, I’m getting off track from the present discussion.

To respond more directly to your post, I want to argue with the statement that “ideological differences alone do not explain this nationalist rivalry.” In my reading, nationalism is itself an extremely compelling ideology; to a certain extent, nationalism itself is “ideology alone.”

The rivalries you bring up (e.g., Wallabies vs All-Blacks) are only allowed to exist as far as Aussies and Kiwis insist that they are fundamentally different from one another in some way. Despite all of the commonalities between Aus and NZ culture, this differentiation is a relatively easy ideological task: the existence of the term “sheep f*r” to refer to a Kiwi in Aus English is an easy piece of evidence for this, although I’ve only ever heard that employed in good-natured jokes.

I think it should follow, then, that where there are massive historical differences in political ideology–and where those political ideologies are extended as aesthetic ideologies (the hammer and sickle is omnipresent in Laos, on flags, on uniforms, on banners surrounding the National Stadium)–the nationalist ideologies will “follow suit,” so to speak. You’re probably right inasmuch as the Thais weren’t consciously/literally decrying “Lao commies” as such, but I do still argue that the aesthetic differences that stem from the political differences between the two states were very much at play in the above violence.

Mr Manjit,

It seems that something non-existent or unmentioned in the above article has upset you. I am not an academic, and neither do I know who Arendt, or Isin, or Nelson is. But I have heard of Samuel Huntington(or should I say, have stumbled upon his name in my readings a few years ago). But that doesn’t matter(I’m just trying to sound smart here while sitting on my bed), what matters is that you have left me scratching my head wondering how in the world did you come to judge that the writer was proposing that only the regime perpetuates and practices racism and corruption in Malaysia?

And as for the entrenched racism, corruption and all good old fashioned third world practices in all so-called Malaysians, did you miss out on the entire last 1/4 or so of the article from Ahmad Yazid’s(I don’t know who he is either) quote onwards?

Maybe it was really late at night. Maybe you should read it again, I’m sure your comprehension skills are much better than your ability to namedrop notable academics.

Syabas.

I hope that somebody has been collecting all of General Prayut’s sayings and will one day publish them. It has every chance of being a best seller as well as being of huge academic interest (not to mention a stocking filler).

Mike as a fan of soccer but more so rugby football, I find your analysis pretty interesting. It is correct that the greatest rivalry in SE Asian soccer is between Thailand and Vietnam and yes competing images of nationalism have much to do with this. But the Communist/non-Communist dualism you present is probably less important than it used to be. Thais might think Vietnamese are still Communists for what that is worth but few Vietnamese look upon themselves as Communists.

As I have observed sport-induced nationalism rivalry or is it nationalism-induced sporting rivalry does not simply apply to Vietnamese-Thai rivalry but also to Thai-Indonesian rivalry or indeed other major players in the SE Asian soccer league (Malaysia and Singapore). Even outside this sub-group when the Philippines (which is not really a soccer playing country but there has always been rivalry between Thailand and Philippines in boxing) beat Vietnam the latter’s fans were visibly upset. In both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) – and also many other towns and cities of Vietnam – when Vietnam wins there is an amazing outpouring of exuberance on the streets that often lasts all night.

As you know soccer wars are not the preserve of Southeast Asia. Indeed elsewhere in the world – and especially Europe – soccer wars have often spilled over as rival fans have fought one another. In the US nationalist rivalry over sport is less of an issue (no-one apart from the Americans really play American Gridiron although basketball if it involves matches with Cuba or ice hockey with Canada can I suppose fire up nationalist sentiment.

Anyone familiar with sporting rivalry between Australia and New Zealand (All Blacks must defeat the Wallabies at all costs) or between Australia and England (Australians love to beat the English at their own game) will understand ideological differences alone do not explain this nationalist rivalry.

That to one side, in both Vietnam and Thailand (and even in lesser soccer able countries such as the Lao PDR) nationalist rivalry per se takes a back seat to the weekly gaming on the outcome of soccer matches elsewhere in the world. I think this shared affinity, even if not explicitly articulated, is more powerful than any violence by rival football fans.

Nich

B/f a Burmese cake is baked one only need to known the kind.

“Once baked the necessary condiment is more important than the original cake.”

To make the original cake irresistible.

Let us bake the cake first.

Well Well Well…
We already know that NLD will kick out Muslim candidates in their party and now that’s coming true. Sad!

The true test of Prayuth and his clean up crew’s abilities is their management of the insurgency in the deep South, since this is the only major initiative that they were legitimately mandated by the Thai electorate to ‘fix’ and they have been at it continuously for well over a decade.

For the entire period the same band of coup addicted generals have been at the helm even though various administrations have come and gone in the interim. For most of the time, they have had martial law in place in the hot spots, so they have had absolute authority and power to fix the situation.

So where are we now? The death toll has topped 5000 and is growing by the day. As recent announcements from insurgent leaders make clear, there is not even a flicker of hope for an end to the deaths and hostilities. Thailand’s military clique have utterly failed to make progress on fixing the only major issue they were legitimately tasked to address for more than a decade.

In fact Thailand’s generals have proven themselves to only be truly outstanding at one thing, that is promoting their minions to general level where they can gain lucrative access to provisioning and training budgets.

Incredibly, Thailand has a general to soldier ratio that is 30 times higher than the Chinese military. I think that statistic tells us all we need to know about the senior levels of the Thai military.

The Thai people are paying 30 generals to do the work what 1 x Chinese general does. And these guys honestly expect us to believe they are capable and honest, hard working soldiers?

Somchitt V – I once had the priveldge of teaching in one of your ‘Thai’ schools. The rampant, blatant discrimination and prejudice against the few Isaarn kids in this Bangkok school is something I will never forget. Completely contrary to the great King Chulalongkorn’s love of both sides of the Siamese family.

I continue to be amazed that New Mandala which I took to be an academic or at least quasi-academic publication publishes these pieces by Chatwadee Rose Amornpat.