I didn’t mention it to be all the USDP’s fault, nor did I romanticise AASK in any way.
It was specifically aimed at the deficient internal power structure with too much overarching power in the party. It’s a two-way process.
I could have expanded it (but then it would have just been too long) to suggest that the very solidarity and desire to hold a united front within the NLD is not at all too dissimilar to the USDP’s.
Well blow me down, yet another analysis which presupposes the NLD’s shortcomings are the result of external pressure instead of its manifestly deficient internal structure.
The protests are happening in central Myanmar, where people don’t care about the exclusion of predominantly Yangon-based democracy activists. Township branches are incensed because their preferred candidates have been replaced by toadies of the NLD’s central committee, which is using the candidate selection process to dole out spoils. The townships where party members are complaining about sitting NLD MPs being renominated (Mingalar Taung Nyunt, Pakokku) are upset because they believed the NLD was a panacea to every ill in the country–once they were elected in 2012, the NLD central committee barred them from making parliamentary representations on local issues.
Look at the way the NLD leadership operates. They kicked Thein Lwin out of the central committee because he lent his support to the student protests. They waited until it was impossible for the 88 Generation to compete under a rival party banner before they blocked most of their prominent members from NLD candidacy. Their actions are completely unaccountable to their branch offices, which they treat as cadres, and they punish anyone that doesn’t show complete loyalty–Suu Kyi herself said that she considered this current dispute a “blessing in disguise” because it showed who was loyal to the leadership. They broke every pledge they made when it came to ethnic and female candidates. They still haven’t released any policies and they continue to bat away any question about the future of infrastructure projects, legislative reforms, the ceasefire negotiations or foreign investment.
These aren’t recent developments. The party has had a monopoly on moral authority and international goodwill for nearly three decades. They have an army of western consultants advising them on policies that never see the light of day. In the last four years they’ve had ample opportunity to reform their Leninist organisational structure and entrench public goodwill by publicising human rights issues and supporting the oppressed and the dispossessed. Instead they wasted two years fighting a constitutional battle that anyone with a shred of sense knew that they had no hope of winning, pissing away nearly all the moral authority they had in the meantime, because Suu Kyi wanted to make a claim on the presidency. But of course, this is all the USDP’s fault.
As todate, Burma / Myanmar could enjoy hacing over 50 political parties but it is the nature of politics that politicians seeks different interests in different ways, at different time and in different strategy. It is not to surpsied that the NLD, UNDP and other parties are not united within its own members. Let’s learn the lesson from this point.
In other words, one could say : “when Buddhistss, or Christians” does not turn the other cheek and indulge in violence in defence of their religion or religious identity, it is despite their religion. When a Muslim yields to pulsions of violence against Muslmims or non-Muslims it is often because of his religion and its canonical texts which grants him all rights to defend truth as he sees it by any means.
Suu Kyi actually said recently: “don’t worry about who the candidates are”. What a deep understanding of parliamentary democracy by the Posh Lady who was allowed to speak in front of both British Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall just a few years ago. A Foucault pendulum indeed (she twists and turns according to her selfish ambitions)
This “Thucydides trap meme thingy” is getting a bit stale. I have read this stuff in many other articles in journals such as “The Economist”, “Foreign Policy”, “The Diplomat” stc. stc. Seems to be a popular buzz word among young journos trying to talk about geopolitics. Anyway, Mr. Marston should learn a bit more about what happened in Asia over the last 100 years (as was pointed out by the other commentator) instead of going back 2500 years.
This is not just about China and the US. China poses an existential threat for he smaller countries in the region. They need to unite and stand up against this One Belt One Road(silk or maritime, I don’t care!), Big Bully before it’s too late. Who knows China might soon be building artificial islands and naval bases on the Great Barrier Reef. The new 99-dashed-line might encompass Tasmania and New Zealand!
The fact is, the Thaksin machine is the first to ever challenge one of the world’s most entrenched power cliques. Of course Thaksin is greedy for power himself, but his road to power has been a constitutional one, through elections and parliament. Whether he likes it or not, coming to power in that way strengthens those institutions and paves the way for others to succeed him to real power in the same orderly and constitutional process. The time to denounce him is when he does the same as the royalists have done.
Of course there will always be misanthropes with a tendency to be sucked in by campaigns of diabolical hatred, such as the one conducted by the Thai royalists.
Thaksin is a fugitive from Thai justice period and his corruptive ways had undone him. Whether it was the junta, or, the Democrat’s Abhisit, or, Yingluck his sister in power, Thaksin stayed a fugitive and on the run.
“If the Thais want Thaksin, let them have him. With all his faults he represents a big step towards electoral democracy.”
I agree 100% with the first statement. Of course people should have the right to elect their leaders.
The second statement is just the usual Red Farang waffle and says nothing at all about the subject, which is liberal democracy.
Thaksin, arguably, was the man who most effectively undermined the “biggest step toward [liberal] democracy” Thailand has ever taken.
As he systematically gutted the “independent bodies” mooted or improved by the 97 Constitution, as he sent out the death squads to impress the folks upstairs with his willingness to be bad to do good, and as he laughed at the notions of rule of law and human rights all the way to the ballot box, there were people at the time who could hear the death rattle of all the liberal hopes that had been enshrined (probably mistakenly anyway) in the People’s Constitution.
Unfortunately all has been forgiven now because the RTA, who Thaksin essentially reinvigorated politically by trying to bring it into the family business, has come back out with its bogus rationalizations to save Thai democracy.
Having to choose between the Democrats as the electoral wing of the RTA/Palace and TRT/PPP/PT as the political wing of Shin Corp, the electorate has consistently chosen the better alternative.
Had they ever been offered a democratic alternative, they might have chosen differently.
But they haven’t. And Thaksin represents a step toward nothing but more of the Thai-style same ol’ same ol’. It’s a shame that so many people feel compelled to pretend otherwise in order to make themselves feel better.
I said “necessary”. I didn’t say “sufficient”. “Necessary” means it’s not liberal democracy without elections. Many Thais are in the habit of obeying particular people, not abstract rules. To them, Thaksin was the preferred alternative to the King. That is what the royalists would not tolerate, because they too obey particular people, not laws. Once the population gets into habit of obeying rules alone, they are well on the way to liberal democracy. Elections of lawmakers make it more likely that the government will make the kind of laws that people will actually obey. Elections are necessary, so let us have them, and let the elected representatives have the power to make laws and appoint each and every important government official. If the Thais want Thaksin, let them have him. With all his faults he represents a big step towards electoral democracy. He is probably less venal than Sir Robert Walpole was at a similar stage in the evolution of British democracy.
Yes, RN. I call your version of “democracy” the “Do What Thou Wilt Once Elected” school of thought.
The electorate’s “counter control” technique after Thaksin sent death squads after drug dealers and assorted enemies of policemen around the country was a landslide victory for a 2nd term.
The electorate’s “counter control” for the savagery re-ignited in the South by Thaksin’s authoritarian approach through his much-beloved police, including the disappearance of a human rights activist, was a landslide… blah blah blah.
As I have said and anyone with a functioning brain knows, elections are necessary to democracy but far from sufficient for liberal democracy.
Perhaps RN you would like to tell us how elections create free speech, and give teeth to the various human rights accords Thailand is signatory to. How elections stop the police from stealing money at roadside stops and demanding bribes from victims of crime to “investigate” their cases.
Not sure how anything you have said is a comment on my statement, but there it is.
My point is that “democracy” was not dismantled or destroyed by the most recent coup because there was not a functioning democracy for anyone to do anything with at all.
My point is also that no steps have been taken toward “democracy” when yet another election results in yet another Thaksin administration.
My point is that the longer the Reds who do support liberal democracy remain within the umbrella organization that serves to promote the interests of the Shin clan the longer Thailand will have to wait for an effective pro-democracy movement to coalesce.
If you think for a moment about what a messy hybrid any functioning liberal democracy is you will realize that calling for liberal democracy in place of electoralism has nothing to do with ideological purity of any kind.
And just to forestall the obvious: what Thailand has had these past 4 decades or so is not a “messy hybrid” anything like real liberal democracies. It has been and still is an authoritarian oligarchy with ever-shifting “democratic” facades meant to keep tourists, multinationals and foreign governments smiling.
Having the right to vote is necessary in any form of democracy. It is far from sufficient for liberal democracy to exist.
And whatever written constitution is intended to enshrine the elements that are necessary and sufficient won’t mean a thing until there are men and women in place who will uphold them in the real world.
As I said, these young people indicate the possibility that those men and women are out there somewhere; they certainly aren’t working for Pheu Thai.
There is a perception in the international media that the recent coup somehow destroyed Thai democracy. That false perception is repeated in posts here on NM, in blogs, and on various social media.
When Al Jazeera, for example, puts together a segment on Thai politics, they call on people who for one reason or another continue to purvey this false image, thereby magnifying the falsehood.
Go on YouTube and watch the clips of Obama and Yingluck praising each other and Thai democracy to the skies back in 2012.
Slavers were snatching men to enslave and shrimp to sell in Thailand in 2012. People were being trafficked and Rohingya mistreated.
Websites were being shut down at an alarming rate in 2012. LM convictions were going ahead. Government supporters were sitting in jail on false charges in 2012.
The RTA was 100% in charge of regional foreign policy and its own budget in 2012. It was also sitting in judgement on the YL administration 24/7 to make sure everything was acceptable to the people who apparently “lost” the election in 2012.
Don’t tell me that it is just “armchair purity” to point out that that was not a liberal democratic government.
And don’t tell me that the constant defense of Pheu Thai and UDD that characterizes so much of what gets posted here isn’t contributing to a “big lie” that will eventually help shape yet another non-democratic form of government in Thailand into a glowing facade that journalists can describe as a “beacon of democracy” in the region. (This is how journalists since the coup have taken to describing the first TRT administration, i.e. TS WoD Tak Bai etc…)
It is part of a US official’s job to lie through her teeth about what constitutes democracy; when vast swathes of the media and many denizens of social media do the same thing we are living in a genuinely dark age.
As a liberal of sorts I think free speech is a good thing because in part it allows official lies to be exposed.
Anyone who laments the passing of “Thai democracy” due to the recent coup needs to have her implicit lies exposed because they work too well in the service of the traditional elites in Thailand. Whether they want to admit it or not.
It is the UDD and the Reds who, due to a complete lack of ideological impulse, are remaining mute in the face of the junta. It is the PT strategy from he-who-thinks to increase the likelihood of the clan returning to power.
And it is these young people who are calling for elections AND rule of law who are making space for activism. Let that sink in before you go on about “ideological purity”, Ralph. At least they have one.
Emjay asserts: “The sooner we all recognize that, and allow the cold hard fact of the immense difference between electoralism and liberal democracy to sink in, the sooner an effective and meaningful movement for democracy can begin to gain traction.”
I don’t recognise any such thing. Elections are the most effective and orderly form of counter-control that the governed have over their governors. Humane government without counter-control is a matter of luck. Institutions without counter-control, such as mental asylums, authoritarian schools, absolute monarchies, and military dictatorships are notorious for abuses committed against the governed. Elections are the best means so far devised to mitigate such abuse. That is why elections are necessary for the survival of liberal democracy.
Mr. Marston’s post is a useful look at lessons from history that warn of the potential for conflict in the South China Sea. Unfortunately, Mr. Marston makes a couple of historical errors that detract a bit from his argument.
He claims that the security architecture put in place by the US “has preserved peace in Asia since the end of World War II.” Somehow he has overlooked the Nationalist vs. Communist Chinese civil war, the Korean War, the Communist insurgency in Malaysia, bloody conflicts in Indonesia, the Sino-Soviet battles, the conflict between Vietnam and France, the Vietnam War, the conflicts in Laos and Cambodia, the CPT insurgency in Thailand, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, the various ethnic insurgent wars in Burma and Thailand’s border conflicts with Laos and Cambodia. While conflict is at a lower level today, the post-war history of the region is hardly one of “peace.” Moreover, it is hard to see how US “security architecture” ended or reduced these conflicts. Unfortunately, the United States was directly involved in several of these wars. That involvement, whatever the reasons for it, undoubtedly made them more deadly. This history of war and death in Asia should serve as a warning of how easily the region can slip into armed conflict and how terrible the consequences can be for its people.
Mr. Marston also somewhat misrepresents the intent of President Monroe’s policy. It was not to declare “hegemony” over the waters of the region, but to deter European powers from trying to re-colonize countries in the Americas that had recently won independence. The key clause states: “the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”
Perhaps if the anti-colonial spirit of the Monroe doctrine had been applied in Southeast Asia, the anti-colonial conflicts in Indochina might have been less deadly.
These issues aside, Mr. Marston makes the key point that the fast-growing economy and rising military power of China requires all parties to adjust to change in a careful and responsible manner. Hopefully there can be a rules-based path forward that avoids the kind of emotional appeals to nationalist fervor and jingoistic versions of history that all to often lead to war. That would be a lose-lose solution for a region that has recently begun to enjoy the benefits of peace.
Some random scribbles on “Emjay” and the statement that the “sooner we all recognize that, and allow the cold hard fact of the immense difference between electoralism and liberal democracy to sink in, the sooner an effective and meaningful movement for democracy can begin to gain traction.”
I’m unsure who hasn’t recognised this distinction. Certainly some of the so-called reformers of Suthep’s movement and the PAD before it recognised it. So did many in the broader and heterogeneous red shirt groups. Even the royalists have, according to Connors, liberal reformers and conservative diehards.
At the same time, I have no doubt that banging on about perceptions of what’s happening or not happening amongst those who are denied the right to even participate in “electoralism” is meaningless intellectualising.
Demanding the right to vote is quite obviously a political demand that carries considerable weight for those who currently have had that right removed (at all levels).
Likewise, those who demand that a vote in a national election have some and/or equal weight will be heard when a constitutional arrangement – claimed by some of its (liberal royalist?) drafters to enhance liberal and democratic policy – changes that.
Those who are engaged in political activism will not always be as politically pure as some of their armchair critics demand. Real politics doesn’t allow that.
For me, these students are brave and their politics is pretty clear. They are certainly more engaged and progressive than any of us posting here.
Demands for some kind of liberal democratic ideological purity is unlikely to have much impact on the daily grind of political activism in the limited space under a military dictatorship.
I think the main difference between you and me is that you have given up hope, and i haven’t. I am not stupid, and i am well aware that PT led governments are not exactly liberal democratic, and PT is not exactly what we can call a liberal democratic party (but has MPs who are).
I am farang, a reporter, and should therefore not really have any preference on what party and government Thais should elect for themselves (other than that, after all that happened recently, a Democrat led government could make my life exceedingly difficult here, if i remain in Thailand, which i do not plan to). I just have to find out why Thais vote for whom they do vote. And yes, for many Thais PT is the lesser of the evils. Which, in a way, is also the case in most democracies, but maybe less so than in polarized Thailand.
I do not base my hope and conclusions on faith, but on data. Data such as demands voiced by ordinary Red Shirt groups – both within the UDD and from free Red Shirt groups – which sooner or later will trickle up, inevitably. The amnesty bill fiasco and how badly it played out will hopefully be a reminder of that. In the UDD leadership there is a clear knowledge and understanding that their movement has changed, and if they want to survive, they will have to change, adapt, and especially consider their grassroots following. The future will show if they can achieve that. Now any sort of public discourse on any of these issues is almost not possible, and just happens hush hush. Some of the leadership’s aspirations have been successful, such as pushing out some of the more corrupt characters. Some quite clearly hasn’t happened yet. Again, the future will show. Right now much of the game takes place where i can’t really comment on as it is places where there is too much of an element of speculation and lack of corroborated information for me to say anything really in public as i try not to make an arse out of myself if i am wrong.
I do not have any hope whatsoever that the Democrat Party is able to reform itself. Unfortunately, because a democracy needs more than just one party that can win elections.
And again, i disagree with the by many people voiced view that the PT flushed down their mandate, even though i agree that it made many mistakes. The Yingluck government was from the start on borrowed time, and never a government in our sense of the term. I am convinced, and that is supported by my own data, that the fall of this government was already decided long before the 2011 elections, and planned for since longer than most imagine. Deals or no deals, a pro-Thaksin government could not be tolerated, no matter what, in this particular time (but i am sorry, i hope you can understand that i will not go any deeper into this right now).
And no, i have never advocated that “Thai style democracy” would be a sufficient goal – only you have stereotyped my with this accusation. Neither have i stopped thinking. I just stopped publishing things, for the time being. But different than you i do believe that Thailand is a whole lot closer to democracy than in 2003 – simply because especially the past ten years have massively improved political awareness. The effects of how the coup now has influenced this process we will see in a few years time. If i am not wrong, i think it will not be the result the military hopes and works for.
And i am sorry, being there, as a reporter, is important. Other than witnessing important events (even and especially if they are smaller and escape notice), and contextualizing them, it allows me direct access, and the privilege to see nuances i would otherwise miss. I can gather and communicate raw data which scholars later can use. With all the shit you are throwing at me – be honest, please – what would be state of knowledge on this conflict if i would not have published the many articles i have over the years?
As I’ve mentioned and you have failed to either comprehend or respond to I am on here under another name taking on the sawng mai ow position with great verve. It was wrong at the time. We hadn’t had time to see where the TS phenomenon was going to go. But that was what? 7-8 years ago?
The difference between you and I Nick appears to be the ability to allow circumstance to effect judgement, to allow new data to change an analysis, and to simply admit to having come to a wrong conclusion.
You apparently got bored with the “Thaksin issue” as far back as 2005. Like many long-time expats in Thailand you seem also to have got bored with thinking around the same time, imagining instead that just “being there” was a substitute for intelligence.
It is now 2015 Nick.
We had a really fine election four years ago, a new Thaksinite party gained power, scooped up all the little parties in parliament but the Democrats and the bad traitorous BJT, and launched out into the world with a legitimate mandate from the people of Thailand.
In a phrase, they flushed that mandate down the toilet with the same casual disregard with which the RTA tears up constitution after constitution.
I base my assessment of the likelihood of the Thaksin-PT-UDD condominium’s ever issuing forth with a liberal democratic push on how they have governed since 2001, on who they have promoted to the PMship, and how they have dealt with the explicit and implicit mandates they rolled into power with.
You base yours on “internal discourse” and the nature of the relationship between Reds and TS and UDD.
The Democratic Party of the United States includes among its supporters Americans who loathe America’s wars; not one of the men, women and children who have died around the world as a result of those wars is any less dead because there are “doves” in the Democratic camp.
By the same token, there are Reds who would love to see a liberal democratic government in Thailand and who have voted again and again for TRT/PPP/PT. Thailand is no closer now to having democracy than it was in 2003 while death squads were making the nightly news and Thaksin was chuckling about “human rights”.
I myself would have voted for the Thaksin parties in every election since I started following Thai politics. I never believed that the result would be an overnight transition to liberal democracy, thinking instead that the reliance on the electorate for gaining power would gradually “train” TRT et al into a democratic practice.
It hasn’t happened. All they have done is used TS’ popularity and increasingly hollow economic incentives to get into power and then tried to stay there by negotiating a deal with their semblables on the other side of the elite. In spite of that, I would vote for them again for the same reason I suspect many people do- because they are better than the alternatives. But that isn’t liberal democracy in action.
The issue is not Thaksin, Nick.
The issue is liberal democracy, something which is quite different from the Thai-style democracy you apparently think is a sufficient goal for a democracy movement in Thailand.
Of course I may be wrong and the majority of Thais may agree with you that liberal democracy with rule of law and respect for popular sovereignty may not be suitable for Thailand.
In which case it hardly matters who sits in the PMs chair or how they get there just so long as a few clever technocrats get to work the levers of the economy.
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The taming of the NLD… by the NLD
Dear Sean,
I didn’t mention it to be all the USDP’s fault, nor did I romanticise AASK in any way.
It was specifically aimed at the deficient internal power structure with too much overarching power in the party. It’s a two-way process.
I could have expanded it (but then it would have just been too long) to suggest that the very solidarity and desire to hold a united front within the NLD is not at all too dissimilar to the USDP’s.
On-going State of negotiations…
The taming of the NLD… by the NLD
Well blow me down, yet another analysis which presupposes the NLD’s shortcomings are the result of external pressure instead of its manifestly deficient internal structure.
The protests are happening in central Myanmar, where people don’t care about the exclusion of predominantly Yangon-based democracy activists. Township branches are incensed because their preferred candidates have been replaced by toadies of the NLD’s central committee, which is using the candidate selection process to dole out spoils. The townships where party members are complaining about sitting NLD MPs being renominated (Mingalar Taung Nyunt, Pakokku) are upset because they believed the NLD was a panacea to every ill in the country–once they were elected in 2012, the NLD central committee barred them from making parliamentary representations on local issues.
Look at the way the NLD leadership operates. They kicked Thein Lwin out of the central committee because he lent his support to the student protests. They waited until it was impossible for the 88 Generation to compete under a rival party banner before they blocked most of their prominent members from NLD candidacy. Their actions are completely unaccountable to their branch offices, which they treat as cadres, and they punish anyone that doesn’t show complete loyalty–Suu Kyi herself said that she considered this current dispute a “blessing in disguise” because it showed who was loyal to the leadership. They broke every pledge they made when it came to ethnic and female candidates. They still haven’t released any policies and they continue to bat away any question about the future of infrastructure projects, legislative reforms, the ceasefire negotiations or foreign investment.
These aren’t recent developments. The party has had a monopoly on moral authority and international goodwill for nearly three decades. They have an army of western consultants advising them on policies that never see the light of day. In the last four years they’ve had ample opportunity to reform their Leninist organisational structure and entrench public goodwill by publicising human rights issues and supporting the oppressed and the dispossessed. Instead they wasted two years fighting a constitutional battle that anyone with a shred of sense knew that they had no hope of winning, pissing away nearly all the moral authority they had in the meantime, because Suu Kyi wanted to make a claim on the presidency. But of course, this is all the USDP’s fault.
Foucault! How droll.
The taming of the NLD… by the NLD
Dear Sir
As todate, Burma / Myanmar could enjoy hacing over 50 political parties but it is the nature of politics that politicians seeks different interests in different ways, at different time and in different strategy. It is not to surpsied that the NLD, UNDP and other parties are not united within its own members. Let’s learn the lesson from this point.
Myanmar: The calm before the storm?
In other words, one could say : “when Buddhistss, or Christians” does not turn the other cheek and indulge in violence in defence of their religion or religious identity, it is despite their religion. When a Muslim yields to pulsions of violence against Muslmims or non-Muslims it is often because of his religion and its canonical texts which grants him all rights to defend truth as he sees it by any means.
The taming of the NLD… by the NLD
Suu Kyi actually said recently: “don’t worry about who the candidates are”. What a deep understanding of parliamentary democracy by the Posh Lady who was allowed to speak in front of both British Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall just a few years ago. A Foucault pendulum indeed (she twists and turns according to her selfish ambitions)
War in ASEAN’s troubled waters
This “Thucydides trap meme thingy” is getting a bit stale. I have read this stuff in many other articles in journals such as “The Economist”, “Foreign Policy”, “The Diplomat” stc. stc. Seems to be a popular buzz word among young journos trying to talk about geopolitics. Anyway, Mr. Marston should learn a bit more about what happened in Asia over the last 100 years (as was pointed out by the other commentator) instead of going back 2500 years.
This is not just about China and the US. China poses an existential threat for he smaller countries in the region. They need to unite and stand up against this One Belt One Road(silk or maritime, I don’t care!), Big Bully before it’s too late. Who knows China might soon be building artificial islands and naval bases on the Great Barrier Reef. The new 99-dashed-line might encompass Tasmania and New Zealand!
Hopes for democracy in Thailand
The fact is, the Thaksin machine is the first to ever challenge one of the world’s most entrenched power cliques. Of course Thaksin is greedy for power himself, but his road to power has been a constitutional one, through elections and parliament. Whether he likes it or not, coming to power in that way strengthens those institutions and paves the way for others to succeed him to real power in the same orderly and constitutional process. The time to denounce him is when he does the same as the royalists have done.
Of course there will always be misanthropes with a tendency to be sucked in by campaigns of diabolical hatred, such as the one conducted by the Thai royalists.
Malaysia’s long history of financial scandals
“Thai Justice”
I like it – just like a “virgin experienced in sex” Very hard to find”
Malaysia’s long history of financial scandals
Thaksin is a fugitive from Thai justice period and his corruptive ways had undone him. Whether it was the junta, or, the Democrat’s Abhisit, or, Yingluck his sister in power, Thaksin stayed a fugitive and on the run.
Hopes for democracy in Thailand
“If the Thais want Thaksin, let them have him. With all his faults he represents a big step towards electoral democracy.”
I agree 100% with the first statement. Of course people should have the right to elect their leaders.
The second statement is just the usual Red Farang waffle and says nothing at all about the subject, which is liberal democracy.
Thaksin, arguably, was the man who most effectively undermined the “biggest step toward [liberal] democracy” Thailand has ever taken.
As he systematically gutted the “independent bodies” mooted or improved by the 97 Constitution, as he sent out the death squads to impress the folks upstairs with his willingness to be bad to do good, and as he laughed at the notions of rule of law and human rights all the way to the ballot box, there were people at the time who could hear the death rattle of all the liberal hopes that had been enshrined (probably mistakenly anyway) in the People’s Constitution.
Unfortunately all has been forgiven now because the RTA, who Thaksin essentially reinvigorated politically by trying to bring it into the family business, has come back out with its bogus rationalizations to save Thai democracy.
Having to choose between the Democrats as the electoral wing of the RTA/Palace and TRT/PPP/PT as the political wing of Shin Corp, the electorate has consistently chosen the better alternative.
Had they ever been offered a democratic alternative, they might have chosen differently.
But they haven’t. And Thaksin represents a step toward nothing but more of the Thai-style same ol’ same ol’. It’s a shame that so many people feel compelled to pretend otherwise in order to make themselves feel better.
Hopes for democracy in Thailand
I said “necessary”. I didn’t say “sufficient”. “Necessary” means it’s not liberal democracy without elections. Many Thais are in the habit of obeying particular people, not abstract rules. To them, Thaksin was the preferred alternative to the King. That is what the royalists would not tolerate, because they too obey particular people, not laws. Once the population gets into habit of obeying rules alone, they are well on the way to liberal democracy. Elections of lawmakers make it more likely that the government will make the kind of laws that people will actually obey. Elections are necessary, so let us have them, and let the elected representatives have the power to make laws and appoint each and every important government official. If the Thais want Thaksin, let them have him. With all his faults he represents a big step towards electoral democracy. He is probably less venal than Sir Robert Walpole was at a similar stage in the evolution of British democracy.
Dealing with disaster in Myanmar
Sad Myanmar people, this terrible flooding in history.
#savemyanmar
#helpmyanmar
Hopes for democracy in Thailand
Yes, RN. I call your version of “democracy” the “Do What Thou Wilt Once Elected” school of thought.
The electorate’s “counter control” technique after Thaksin sent death squads after drug dealers and assorted enemies of policemen around the country was a landslide victory for a 2nd term.
The electorate’s “counter control” for the savagery re-ignited in the South by Thaksin’s authoritarian approach through his much-beloved police, including the disappearance of a human rights activist, was a landslide… blah blah blah.
As I have said and anyone with a functioning brain knows, elections are necessary to democracy but far from sufficient for liberal democracy.
Perhaps RN you would like to tell us how elections create free speech, and give teeth to the various human rights accords Thailand is signatory to. How elections stop the police from stealing money at roadside stops and demanding bribes from victims of crime to “investigate” their cases.
I can’t wait to hear.
Hopes for democracy in Thailand
Not sure how anything you have said is a comment on my statement, but there it is.
My point is that “democracy” was not dismantled or destroyed by the most recent coup because there was not a functioning democracy for anyone to do anything with at all.
My point is also that no steps have been taken toward “democracy” when yet another election results in yet another Thaksin administration.
My point is that the longer the Reds who do support liberal democracy remain within the umbrella organization that serves to promote the interests of the Shin clan the longer Thailand will have to wait for an effective pro-democracy movement to coalesce.
If you think for a moment about what a messy hybrid any functioning liberal democracy is you will realize that calling for liberal democracy in place of electoralism has nothing to do with ideological purity of any kind.
And just to forestall the obvious: what Thailand has had these past 4 decades or so is not a “messy hybrid” anything like real liberal democracies. It has been and still is an authoritarian oligarchy with ever-shifting “democratic” facades meant to keep tourists, multinationals and foreign governments smiling.
Having the right to vote is necessary in any form of democracy. It is far from sufficient for liberal democracy to exist.
And whatever written constitution is intended to enshrine the elements that are necessary and sufficient won’t mean a thing until there are men and women in place who will uphold them in the real world.
As I said, these young people indicate the possibility that those men and women are out there somewhere; they certainly aren’t working for Pheu Thai.
There is a perception in the international media that the recent coup somehow destroyed Thai democracy. That false perception is repeated in posts here on NM, in blogs, and on various social media.
When Al Jazeera, for example, puts together a segment on Thai politics, they call on people who for one reason or another continue to purvey this false image, thereby magnifying the falsehood.
Go on YouTube and watch the clips of Obama and Yingluck praising each other and Thai democracy to the skies back in 2012.
Slavers were snatching men to enslave and shrimp to sell in Thailand in 2012. People were being trafficked and Rohingya mistreated.
Websites were being shut down at an alarming rate in 2012. LM convictions were going ahead. Government supporters were sitting in jail on false charges in 2012.
The RTA was 100% in charge of regional foreign policy and its own budget in 2012. It was also sitting in judgement on the YL administration 24/7 to make sure everything was acceptable to the people who apparently “lost” the election in 2012.
Don’t tell me that it is just “armchair purity” to point out that that was not a liberal democratic government.
And don’t tell me that the constant defense of Pheu Thai and UDD that characterizes so much of what gets posted here isn’t contributing to a “big lie” that will eventually help shape yet another non-democratic form of government in Thailand into a glowing facade that journalists can describe as a “beacon of democracy” in the region. (This is how journalists since the coup have taken to describing the first TRT administration, i.e. TS WoD Tak Bai etc…)
It is part of a US official’s job to lie through her teeth about what constitutes democracy; when vast swathes of the media and many denizens of social media do the same thing we are living in a genuinely dark age.
As a liberal of sorts I think free speech is a good thing because in part it allows official lies to be exposed.
Anyone who laments the passing of “Thai democracy” due to the recent coup needs to have her implicit lies exposed because they work too well in the service of the traditional elites in Thailand. Whether they want to admit it or not.
It is the UDD and the Reds who, due to a complete lack of ideological impulse, are remaining mute in the face of the junta. It is the PT strategy from he-who-thinks to increase the likelihood of the clan returning to power.
And it is these young people who are calling for elections AND rule of law who are making space for activism. Let that sink in before you go on about “ideological purity”, Ralph. At least they have one.
Hopes for democracy in Thailand
Emjay asserts: “The sooner we all recognize that, and allow the cold hard fact of the immense difference between electoralism and liberal democracy to sink in, the sooner an effective and meaningful movement for democracy can begin to gain traction.”
I don’t recognise any such thing. Elections are the most effective and orderly form of counter-control that the governed have over their governors. Humane government without counter-control is a matter of luck. Institutions without counter-control, such as mental asylums, authoritarian schools, absolute monarchies, and military dictatorships are notorious for abuses committed against the governed. Elections are the best means so far devised to mitigate such abuse. That is why elections are necessary for the survival of liberal democracy.
War in ASEAN’s troubled waters
Mr. Marston’s post is a useful look at lessons from history that warn of the potential for conflict in the South China Sea. Unfortunately, Mr. Marston makes a couple of historical errors that detract a bit from his argument.
He claims that the security architecture put in place by the US “has preserved peace in Asia since the end of World War II.” Somehow he has overlooked the Nationalist vs. Communist Chinese civil war, the Korean War, the Communist insurgency in Malaysia, bloody conflicts in Indonesia, the Sino-Soviet battles, the conflict between Vietnam and France, the Vietnam War, the conflicts in Laos and Cambodia, the CPT insurgency in Thailand, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, the various ethnic insurgent wars in Burma and Thailand’s border conflicts with Laos and Cambodia. While conflict is at a lower level today, the post-war history of the region is hardly one of “peace.” Moreover, it is hard to see how US “security architecture” ended or reduced these conflicts. Unfortunately, the United States was directly involved in several of these wars. That involvement, whatever the reasons for it, undoubtedly made them more deadly. This history of war and death in Asia should serve as a warning of how easily the region can slip into armed conflict and how terrible the consequences can be for its people.
Mr. Marston also somewhat misrepresents the intent of President Monroe’s policy. It was not to declare “hegemony” over the waters of the region, but to deter European powers from trying to re-colonize countries in the Americas that had recently won independence. The key clause states: “the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”
Perhaps if the anti-colonial spirit of the Monroe doctrine had been applied in Southeast Asia, the anti-colonial conflicts in Indochina might have been less deadly.
These issues aside, Mr. Marston makes the key point that the fast-growing economy and rising military power of China requires all parties to adjust to change in a careful and responsible manner. Hopefully there can be a rules-based path forward that avoids the kind of emotional appeals to nationalist fervor and jingoistic versions of history that all to often lead to war. That would be a lose-lose solution for a region that has recently begun to enjoy the benefits of peace.
Malaysia’s long history of financial scandals
Hello,
Thaksin is a fugitive because he was ousted by a corrupt Military.. If you can’t tell the difference,,,,,,??
Oh, sorry, maybe you think the current military and also the Democrats yellow shirts are clean, honest people..
Hopes for democracy in Thailand
Some random scribbles on “Emjay” and the statement that the “sooner we all recognize that, and allow the cold hard fact of the immense difference between electoralism and liberal democracy to sink in, the sooner an effective and meaningful movement for democracy can begin to gain traction.”
I’m unsure who hasn’t recognised this distinction. Certainly some of the so-called reformers of Suthep’s movement and the PAD before it recognised it. So did many in the broader and heterogeneous red shirt groups. Even the royalists have, according to Connors, liberal reformers and conservative diehards.
At the same time, I have no doubt that banging on about perceptions of what’s happening or not happening amongst those who are denied the right to even participate in “electoralism” is meaningless intellectualising.
Demanding the right to vote is quite obviously a political demand that carries considerable weight for those who currently have had that right removed (at all levels).
Likewise, those who demand that a vote in a national election have some and/or equal weight will be heard when a constitutional arrangement – claimed by some of its (liberal royalist?) drafters to enhance liberal and democratic policy – changes that.
Those who are engaged in political activism will not always be as politically pure as some of their armchair critics demand. Real politics doesn’t allow that.
For me, these students are brave and their politics is pretty clear. They are certainly more engaged and progressive than any of us posting here.
Demands for some kind of liberal democratic ideological purity is unlikely to have much impact on the daily grind of political activism in the limited space under a military dictatorship.
Hopes for democracy in Thailand
I think the main difference between you and me is that you have given up hope, and i haven’t. I am not stupid, and i am well aware that PT led governments are not exactly liberal democratic, and PT is not exactly what we can call a liberal democratic party (but has MPs who are).
I am farang, a reporter, and should therefore not really have any preference on what party and government Thais should elect for themselves (other than that, after all that happened recently, a Democrat led government could make my life exceedingly difficult here, if i remain in Thailand, which i do not plan to). I just have to find out why Thais vote for whom they do vote. And yes, for many Thais PT is the lesser of the evils. Which, in a way, is also the case in most democracies, but maybe less so than in polarized Thailand.
I do not base my hope and conclusions on faith, but on data. Data such as demands voiced by ordinary Red Shirt groups – both within the UDD and from free Red Shirt groups – which sooner or later will trickle up, inevitably. The amnesty bill fiasco and how badly it played out will hopefully be a reminder of that. In the UDD leadership there is a clear knowledge and understanding that their movement has changed, and if they want to survive, they will have to change, adapt, and especially consider their grassroots following. The future will show if they can achieve that. Now any sort of public discourse on any of these issues is almost not possible, and just happens hush hush. Some of the leadership’s aspirations have been successful, such as pushing out some of the more corrupt characters. Some quite clearly hasn’t happened yet. Again, the future will show. Right now much of the game takes place where i can’t really comment on as it is places where there is too much of an element of speculation and lack of corroborated information for me to say anything really in public as i try not to make an arse out of myself if i am wrong.
I do not have any hope whatsoever that the Democrat Party is able to reform itself. Unfortunately, because a democracy needs more than just one party that can win elections.
And again, i disagree with the by many people voiced view that the PT flushed down their mandate, even though i agree that it made many mistakes. The Yingluck government was from the start on borrowed time, and never a government in our sense of the term. I am convinced, and that is supported by my own data, that the fall of this government was already decided long before the 2011 elections, and planned for since longer than most imagine. Deals or no deals, a pro-Thaksin government could not be tolerated, no matter what, in this particular time (but i am sorry, i hope you can understand that i will not go any deeper into this right now).
And no, i have never advocated that “Thai style democracy” would be a sufficient goal – only you have stereotyped my with this accusation. Neither have i stopped thinking. I just stopped publishing things, for the time being. But different than you i do believe that Thailand is a whole lot closer to democracy than in 2003 – simply because especially the past ten years have massively improved political awareness. The effects of how the coup now has influenced this process we will see in a few years time. If i am not wrong, i think it will not be the result the military hopes and works for.
And i am sorry, being there, as a reporter, is important. Other than witnessing important events (even and especially if they are smaller and escape notice), and contextualizing them, it allows me direct access, and the privilege to see nuances i would otherwise miss. I can gather and communicate raw data which scholars later can use. With all the shit you are throwing at me – be honest, please – what would be state of knowledge on this conflict if i would not have published the many articles i have over the years?
Hopes for democracy in Thailand
As I’ve mentioned and you have failed to either comprehend or respond to I am on here under another name taking on the sawng mai ow position with great verve. It was wrong at the time. We hadn’t had time to see where the TS phenomenon was going to go. But that was what? 7-8 years ago?
The difference between you and I Nick appears to be the ability to allow circumstance to effect judgement, to allow new data to change an analysis, and to simply admit to having come to a wrong conclusion.
You apparently got bored with the “Thaksin issue” as far back as 2005. Like many long-time expats in Thailand you seem also to have got bored with thinking around the same time, imagining instead that just “being there” was a substitute for intelligence.
It is now 2015 Nick.
We had a really fine election four years ago, a new Thaksinite party gained power, scooped up all the little parties in parliament but the Democrats and the bad traitorous BJT, and launched out into the world with a legitimate mandate from the people of Thailand.
In a phrase, they flushed that mandate down the toilet with the same casual disregard with which the RTA tears up constitution after constitution.
I base my assessment of the likelihood of the Thaksin-PT-UDD condominium’s ever issuing forth with a liberal democratic push on how they have governed since 2001, on who they have promoted to the PMship, and how they have dealt with the explicit and implicit mandates they rolled into power with.
You base yours on “internal discourse” and the nature of the relationship between Reds and TS and UDD.
The Democratic Party of the United States includes among its supporters Americans who loathe America’s wars; not one of the men, women and children who have died around the world as a result of those wars is any less dead because there are “doves” in the Democratic camp.
By the same token, there are Reds who would love to see a liberal democratic government in Thailand and who have voted again and again for TRT/PPP/PT. Thailand is no closer now to having democracy than it was in 2003 while death squads were making the nightly news and Thaksin was chuckling about “human rights”.
I myself would have voted for the Thaksin parties in every election since I started following Thai politics. I never believed that the result would be an overnight transition to liberal democracy, thinking instead that the reliance on the electorate for gaining power would gradually “train” TRT et al into a democratic practice.
It hasn’t happened. All they have done is used TS’ popularity and increasingly hollow economic incentives to get into power and then tried to stay there by negotiating a deal with their semblables on the other side of the elite. In spite of that, I would vote for them again for the same reason I suspect many people do- because they are better than the alternatives. But that isn’t liberal democracy in action.
The issue is not Thaksin, Nick.
The issue is liberal democracy, something which is quite different from the Thai-style democracy you apparently think is a sufficient goal for a democracy movement in Thailand.
Of course I may be wrong and the majority of Thais may agree with you that liberal democracy with rule of law and respect for popular sovereignty may not be suitable for Thailand.
In which case it hardly matters who sits in the PMs chair or how they get there just so long as a few clever technocrats get to work the levers of the economy.