This is a great review. It really shifts the conversation from “who’s going to win?” to “what are the key, driving influences behind the election?” and focuses on the general election as a process more than an event. I very much enjoyed it. Thanks for posting.
A quick comment to fix the beneficiary from democratization of Burma and exploiting the peaceful nature of Burmese Buddhism is the military project carried out in South East of Burma from October 2012 onward. It displaced majority of Muslim population and practically eradicated their history in the forceful move essentially a nation building event.
Doubt that if in Burma Proper as it used to be called memory of past co-existence is forgotten but the situation in the Arakan (remote from mainland society with its own Muslim communities – like the Rakhine Muslims, Kaman and Myedu but not the practically exclusive Rohingya in northern Arakan) has always been different.
Notwithstanding Rakhine nationalism vis-├а-vis the Bamar post-1784, their only recourse in the circumstances is the latter – their cousins if sworn enemies to some hardline nationalists, in what they perceive as alien, clear and present danger giving rise to a siege mentality.
Some people are politically, and the hope is they’ll also be electorally benefitting from ongoing communal violence and the greater stress on unity, the same people who blew it all up beyond the Ararkan in the first place, and it is common knowledge who these people are from past experience.
With the best will in the world it will prove to be an impossibly tough nut to crack than peace in our time after six decades of civil war. Having said that the govt would likely prefer the Kokang scenario in Western Burma too.
As I stated elsewhere, what the scholars do not mention today is these anti-Muslim sentiments can only be traced back to the British rule. But then, the British rule brought in Christianity, Hinduism, as well as Islam. Why are Muslims singled out in this?
1. Religion of “Kalars”: Islam in the days of British rule was totally different from Islam in the days of Thibaw and Mindon. Burmese Kings carefully assimilated Muslims by putting them in small groups scattered over hundreds of villages. Over times, they intermarried with locals and apart from their religion, became indistinguishable from the Burmese. But the British rule, in the words of Moshe Yegar, “brought revolutionary change in the life of the Muslim community because of the extensive flow of immigration from India. Until the arrival of the Indian Muslims, the Muslims in Burma were a small minority, tolerated, loyal to the kings, inactive as a community, and practically unnoticed. The immigrants’ coming created a large, new, and more advanced minority of foreigners which made Itself hated by the local populace.”
In contrast, most Christians are natives who were baptized by missionaries. Although this played a role in the rise of ethnic nationality and tensions, being natives, Christians can still integrate well into Burmese society without problems.
2. Lack of religious affinity: You would point out that Hindus were also brought in by the British and not discriminated at all. But being Indian religions, Hinduism and Buddhism share common core philosophy. As a gesture of assimilation, Hindus could add Buddha to their pantheon of gods without much problem. But Muslims of course, cannot do that given strict laws against Paganism. Furthermore, most Hindus become Buddhists after intermarriages. Islam again has strict laws against apostasy. Abrahamic religions are mutually exclusive. In contrast, you can be a Buddhist, Hindu, Animist, and Confucian.
3. Islam itself: Islam encourages distinct identity markers such as keeping beard and wearing veils that make them very visible and distinct from locals. Most Burmese Muslims t do not do that. Indian Muslims also tend to live in their own quarters (kalartan), limiting contact with the Burmese. Since Islam bans religious conversions, only Buddhists from intermarriages have to convert to Islam. This results in several well-publicized cases of Muslims marrying multiple Buddhist women and converting them to Islam. (A story circulated in Mawlamyine is about the owner of express bus service Yazamin who married several Buddhist women. This is true and Yazamin business declined so much that it has to close down). These stories find fertile ground for extremist speech.
What can be done? Reliable demographic data are needed to counter extremist stories from hand-picked cases. Moreover, Indian Muslims, like Burmese Muslims must work to assimilate, respect majority culture, and reduce distinct identity markers if possible. It should be noted that extremism is on both sides. In Maikhtila, a monk was burned alive by Muslims before riots began. In Mandalay, a group of Imams received death threats from their own community for being too soft in handling conflicts.
You’re contradicting yourself by saying ‘follow ALL Christ’s teachings” and then effectively saying ‘just take these two, interpret them how you like, and ignore the rest.’
But you need the rest in order to understand and interpret these two.
Read the rest of the scriptures with an open heart and mind and you’ll see that Christ (in His own words, through the prophets and through His apostles) goes to a great deal of effort to show us HOW we are to love and serve God, what true love is, and how we are to love our neighbour. Read it and you’ll find that acceptance of homosexual acts does not fit with Christ’s definition of true love.
The man said the Rohingya have lived in Rakhine State for centuries. True since the British colonial masters let them in, with an extremely tenuous connection to the history of
Mrauk U.
During WW2 they had tried a violent takeover armed by the British ‘to fight the invading Japanese’ by murdering the governor first followed by ethnic cleansing of the Rakhine in northern Arakan where for example Buthidaung is now 90% of Bengali descent.
They approached Jinnah unsuccessfully to have northern Arakan annexed or subsumed into East Pakistan.
They then launched a Mujahid rebellion that took a number of years to quell after Burma became independent.
They have changed tack since and a ‘peaceful takeover’ is under way by sheer population pressure armed with an uncontrolled birthrate.
In a country like Burma there is no way they can upgrade an Islamic enclave to a de facto or de jure Islamic caliphate, in a creeping, step-wise or violent manner, either carving one out in the north or encompassing the whole of the Arakan which they still unashamedly and falsely claim as theirs from the ninth century (nothing has incensed the Bamar as well as the Rakhine more than this rewriting of history that a lot of Westerners swallowed hook, line and sinker, not least the BBC).
The oh so liberal West including “nope, nope, nope” Australia as well as their Muslim brethren of the Umma, above all Saudi Arabia, are welcome to embrace the Rohingya with their ‘peaceful ways’. Leave Thailand and the Philippines alone; they have enough of the same problem themselves.
So out in the cold that the FATF begins meeting in Brisbane today for the week, in which Jakarta hopes to be taken off the money laundering and terror financing watchlist, just as they were taken off the blacklist in Paris during execution frenzy. In the interim their pointman accused Australian sources of funding terrorists in Poso. Wonder if he’ll say about paying smugglers? Third and last meeting under Australian Presidency.
I want to add while It’s true that the 140,000 people are not allowed to leave their camps because their citizenship status must be verified, the government allows anyone to donate, give food and shelter to them. In a country where 50% of children are suffering malnutrition, their conditions are even better than displaced Kachin refugees who receive scant media coverage and get only half of their food.
Who bears responsibility for this standoff? Politicians like U Kyaw Min are pushing their “Rohingya” agenda with complete disregard to the of suffering of their own people. If a compromise term like “Rakhine Muslims” was proposed and accepted, the government can easily move forward. Even the term “Rohingya” might be acceptable to many people if their politicians did not associate the term with fabricated claims that Rakhine was previously a Muslim kingdom.
There are even claims that their leaders even denied food rations to anyone cooperated with the government during the census. Current Rohingya leadership is using their own people as hostages to promote their political agenda.
Well Mr Giggacher, I thank you for your encouragement to “think some more”. But once U Kyaw Min is involved, we do not need to “think some more”.
“Rohingyas have been in Rakhine from the creation of the world. Arakan was ours; it was an Indian land for 1,000 years.” –Mr Kyaw Min
Such completely fabricated narratives came out from the mouth of U Kyaw Min. The agenda is part of a curriculum taught in every mosque and madrasa of Maungdaw and Buthitaung. The Rohingya must take back “their” land. Anyone, even with a white face, speaks about contraception is a government spy. No doubt, WHO family planning efforts have failed miserably. This policy against contraception pays off. The 1982 census shows 29% Muslims in Rakhine. Now they become 40% in 2014 and have twice fertility rate compared to Buddhist Rakhine, and are well on the path to become majority and to demand a separate Muslim state.
It’s not surprising that Thailand takes over a million of Burmese refugees and migrants, but refuses to take these Bengali Rohingya. In their camps, they protest for three meals a day with snacks, in the name of “the rights to food”, but refuse to help and work for the “infidels”. In Rakhine the situation is nothing new. They resent when you call them “Kalars” but they will call you “infidels” in their Bengali language and think your women deserve a rape. They managed to earn hatred even from their cousins in Bangladesh. “We’ve found a family having 18 children. Is this acceptable?” said a Bangladeshi official at Rohingya camps, not long before a riot against Rohingya broke out.
If you really want peace, then forgo your agenda about a separate Muslim state, stop the skyrocketing birth rates, guarantee the Buddhist Rakhine that there would never be a Muslim takeover, learn their language, integrate with the majority and tell the truths about when you came to Myanmar.
And again, you put out many herrings, semi-truths and hyperbole.
First, no, Gotee did not just point at the ceiling (i know him quite well since many years – one of the links i gave you a few posts before were about his Radio Station). I would suggest to re-watch the particular Vice report. The comments were so clear that the Yingluck government had no other option. Not investigating cases means also an automatic charge of lese majeste, especially when a case it as obvious as the Gotee/Vice case.
As to the position of the UDD towards the amnesty bill – accusing me of being sleazy is intellectual bankruptcy and plain laziness. Go and find the videos of the Bueng Gum stage, and lets talk again. Just because you ignore a seminal event in the UDD history, and the history of the conflict does not mean it hasn’t taken place. Lack of knowledge is no excuse here.
I do know that there are many who believe that the amnesty bill was the main reason for the PDRC’s successful overthrow of the government. I do not want to go too deep into this, but no, it wasn’t. The only thing the PDRC got from the amnesty bill was maybe a few more Bangkok middle class protesters (who anyhow stayed home when things got rough). The overthrow was planned long before, and amnesty bill or not, the result would not have been any different. I would suggest to look a bit deeper into how the amnesty bill came into place in the first time, and why the subject has been brought back after the coup. And yes, Thaksin’s and PT’s role there has not been stellar. I think my stories on that subject have expressed that, and also that the Red Shirts were not exactly happy about that. But, you chose to ignore this as it does not suit your argument.
As to the PDRC protests, look at the previous years after the 2011 elections, Siam Sammakhi, Pitak Siam and the Blue Sky stages, the Gomtap Prachachon, the rubber protests in the south, all this then neatly going over into the CMD which then morphed into the PDRC. And at the present moment i am not even going into the involvement by the boys in green at almost every step of the ladder.
You may choose “not to believe”. But belief belongs into the church. I deal with what i witness, evidence and corroborated information to come to my conclusions. And no, you may be surprised, as it does not suit your image of me being a blinded and brainwashed “Red Farang” mindlessly following Thaksin/PT/UDD propaganda, but i do not just talk with the Red Shirts. I still talk with all sides (since the assaults and the hate campaign against me, i only talk with a few old friends in the Yellow Alliance, not anymore with their leadership which has driven all that against me), as i have always done since i covered the conflict starting from late 2005. In the build up period to the PDRC protests from early 2011 (during which the Yellow Alliance splintered completely when the PAD protested against the DP government) up to late 2013, when i was assaulted, i have followed the Yellow Alliance much closer than the Red Shirts.
As to your last appeal of a renewed song mai aow strategy, laudable as it may sound (i can hear dramatic trumpets in the background…), you live in fantasy land if you think that this has any chance for success at the present time under the present conditions in Thailand’s screwed up and warped situation. Maybe 5 or 10 years from now. But definitely not now.
But please, go ahead if you think you have a chance. I write and take photos. I won’t hinder you to try. If your new movement takes off, i will take pictures.
I’ve made my point and anyone not blinded by the whole hand-waving phenomenon that is the PT/UDD propaganda blitz undermining any possibility of a democratic movement from taking root in Thailand will be open to considering it.
Nick, you said:
“…the relationship between Thaksin/PT and the UDD is far more complex than you claim, and shown you this by the example of the 1 1/2 year deep internal conflict over the amnesty (i guess you may not even be aware of this), which, in the end, was withdrawn.”
Had you instead said “the 1 1/2 year deep internal conflict over the amnesty bill, in spite of which PT/Thaksin sent the bill to parliament thus empowering the Yellows to mount an insurrection in the streets that was successful in forcing the withdrawal of the bill and the downfall of the government” I would have had no problem with your “interpretation”.
As it is, your obvious attempt to elide the street protests and make it sound as if PT was responding to “democratic pressure” from Reds is just sleazy. Neither Thaksin, the PT government, nor its UDD phuak cabinet ministers were ultimately responsive to the calls for justice from Redshirts. They never are and they never will be.
It is either naive or disingenuous of someone with your experience to suggest that there is evidence in the “internal discourse” to suggest that this is not the case.
Secondly, your suggestion that the Yingluck government was somehow more “liberal” than earlier TS administrations is another twisted statement.
The YL government entered parliament under the watchful eye of General Prayuth. They never had access to the power required to behave in illiberal ways. They did brag that they had censored more websites than the Democrats and Yingluck herself was keen to go public with her calls for Kotee to be arrested and charged with LM for pointing at the ceiling.
No doubt you will want to reference some “internal discourse” that gives the lie to this suggestion. Or maybe you would be content with the usual “They had to do these things to stay in power!, which ironically enough reinforces my point that there was nothing democratic about a government that, like previous TS administrations, was prepared to do what it took to gain legitimacy from the sovereign RTA/Palace mob rather than try to seize and act on legitimacy based in popular sovereignty.
Struggling in backroom negotiations to hold onto power in order to control the huge graft opportunities from an upcoming budget is not “more liberal”. Believing that it is is like believing that coup was intended to restore democracy.
I choose not to buy either line.
And yes I do know that “sawng mai ow” was discredited as a position long ago. Thing is, it is now 2015 and we have seen exactly where “ow Thaksin” has taken us.
Nowhere.
It is now past time that Red Farang and the UDD/Red factions that genuinely prefer democratic advance to “Thaksinism” to recognize that any connection with him can only increase the harm. Pro-democracy people need to denounce PT/Thaksin AND the coupsters and start working toward a democratic Thailand.
The window of opportunity that TS inadvertently opened back in the salad days of TRT is closing, pace all those who expect miracles to flow from an upcoming funeral.
And it is so-called pro-democracy advocates who are helping to slam it shut.
No. I point out that the internal conflict over the amnesty bill was one of the factors that led to the withdrawal of the bill. Not the sole factor. Read what i actually write, and not what you imagine i wrote but did not write.
It was a combination of several factors, not a single factor. The existence of the internal conflict(s) shows that your hypothesis of PT/UDD being a singular entity completely subservient to Thaksin is simply wrong, and not supported by evidence.
And no – again. I have been arguing all along that the situation is extremely fluid, and so far the steady trend was that each incarnation of the pro-Thaksin governments has been increasing in liberalism. The Yingluck government was far less authoritarian than the Thaksin governments were (while far from perfect – as we could see in the way how the amnesty bill was pushed through in parliament). The Yingluck government was much better in the treatment of critical media than what took place under Thaksin (again, not perfect).
This is a result of the evolution of the entire situation, of the Red/Yellow conflict, and of the rise of the Red Shirts as a power factor – not just as PT’s street support, but also as an internal control mechanism.
But to see this, you have to look at the nature of the internal discourse, of internal conflicts and conflict resolutions, and of the changing and evolving relationship between party and Red Shirts on both local and national level.
Thai politics has changed over the course of the past ten years of the Red/Yellow conflict – and a large part of this is the increasingly active participation of grassroots sectors in especially the Red Shirt movement (far less so in the Yellow Alliance as it has no discernible structures outside the DP party lines and military networks, apart from the small rump PAD and various other tiny sub-groups). This change from passive voters of Thaksin to active participants has also forced PT to be more responsive (as it has the UDD leadership to be more responsive to the grassroots organizations).
For this reason i do look more at trends and evolution than simply how things were under Thaksin as PM. The trend has been quite clearly moving into the direction of more liberalism under the “Red” governments. Thai society and politics is not the same as 15 years ago, and 5 years from now it won’t be the same as it is today.
However, to argue that “inner discourse” is more evidence of a “liberal strain”, which is where this conversation began, than the overall record of various TS governments of the past decade and a half does indeed push the boundaries of rationality.
Perhaps with a little tweaking the suggestion that there is a cult of democracy might be better expressed as an irrational faith in what presents itself as a “pro-democracy movement”.
The real crime of this regime is taking away the “Hope” of the Kalar.
The ‘Hope” entail “a residency status/statue” that must come from proper legislation.
So please do not malign DASSK no more for whatever the plight of the Kalars that was predetermined by the Colonial ambition of the British. The true devils advocate.
You are a wise man Mr. Ohn.
Burmese societal norm: “suck up to the people above you, bully the people beneath you and sweep everything unpleasant under the carpet”.
I don’t think Burmese politics is as complicated as Western academics make it to be.
It is a real change to have a thoughtful article on asylum seekers. Yet, leaving aside all moral judgements, is the Australian policy cost-effective? This is an important question to be asked of the Abbott government every eager to boast its credentials as competent economic managers. Moreover Tony Abbott and his underlings have promoted the Australian approach as the solution that should be adopted by Europeans.
Costly the ‘turn back the boats’ policy certainly is. Based on budget papers, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in early 2014 gave an annual figure of тВм186 million for the naval deployment and тВм242 million for the Customs and Border Protection services linked to the programme. Moreover, the 2013-2014 federal budget allocated a massive тВм3.3 billion for the privately managed offshore asylum seeker (detention?) centres set up to keep asylum seekers out. One could also add the тВм28 million in aid promised to Cambodia, one of Asia’s poorest countries, in return for accepting asylum seekers from these centres.
If we do a bit of repugnant ‘bean counting’ and take as a base figure 20,000 asylum seekers (the figure of arrivals for 2012 prior to the policy being fully implemented) then we get the following results. If only the naval and customs services deployments are taken into account then each asylum seeker deterred “costs” тВм21,000. However if we add the costs of the detention centres then the ‘costs’ for each asylum seeker deterred rises to тВм186,000!
In contrast to this, European policy on asylum seekers in the Mediterranean is a model of parsimony, perhaps too much parsimony. The naval deployments has a budget of тВм108 million for the year. On 1st June 2015 in Finland, a country with an equivalent standard of living to Australia, the conservative government estimated the costs of accepting 5,000 asylum seekers at тВм12 million at the most, i.e. тВм2,400 per asylum seeker. Even if we prorata a Finnish share of the costs of the naval deployment in the Mediterranean, we are still way below the Australian costs.
The European approach for all its problems is not only far less onerous but at least respects both international law and commitments to a number of United Nations Conventions, something that is at questionable in the case of the Australian policy.
Moreover it does not come with the significant costs to a nation’s reputation and influence that the ‘turn back the boats policy’ is bringing to Australia.
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Free and fair elections in Myanmar?
This is a great review. It really shifts the conversation from “who’s going to win?” to “what are the key, driving influences behind the election?” and focuses on the general election as a process more than an event. I very much enjoyed it. Thanks for posting.
Hate narratives and democracy in Myanmar
A quick comment to fix the beneficiary from democratization of Burma and exploiting the peaceful nature of Burmese Buddhism is the military project carried out in South East of Burma from October 2012 onward. It displaced majority of Muslim population and practically eradicated their history in the forceful move essentially a nation building event.
Making waves
[…] : Fran├зois Vezier Source (Evelyn Goh/New Mandala): Making Waves Photo : Port de Surabaya. Credit : […]
Hate narratives and democracy in Myanmar
Doubt that if in Burma Proper as it used to be called memory of past co-existence is forgotten but the situation in the Arakan (remote from mainland society with its own Muslim communities – like the Rakhine Muslims, Kaman and Myedu but not the practically exclusive Rohingya in northern Arakan) has always been different.
Notwithstanding Rakhine nationalism vis-├а-vis the Bamar post-1784, their only recourse in the circumstances is the latter – their cousins if sworn enemies to some hardline nationalists, in what they perceive as alien, clear and present danger giving rise to a siege mentality.
Some people are politically, and the hope is they’ll also be electorally benefitting from ongoing communal violence and the greater stress on unity, the same people who blew it all up beyond the Ararkan in the first place, and it is common knowledge who these people are from past experience.
With the best will in the world it will prove to be an impossibly tough nut to crack than peace in our time after six decades of civil war. Having said that the govt would likely prefer the Kokang scenario in Western Burma too.
Hate narratives and democracy in Myanmar
As I stated elsewhere, what the scholars do not mention today is these anti-Muslim sentiments can only be traced back to the British rule. But then, the British rule brought in Christianity, Hinduism, as well as Islam. Why are Muslims singled out in this?
1. Religion of “Kalars”: Islam in the days of British rule was totally different from Islam in the days of Thibaw and Mindon. Burmese Kings carefully assimilated Muslims by putting them in small groups scattered over hundreds of villages. Over times, they intermarried with locals and apart from their religion, became indistinguishable from the Burmese. But the British rule, in the words of Moshe Yegar, “brought revolutionary change in the life of the Muslim community because of the extensive flow of immigration from India. Until the arrival of the Indian Muslims, the Muslims in Burma were a small minority, tolerated, loyal to the kings, inactive as a community, and practically unnoticed. The immigrants’ coming created a large, new, and more advanced minority of foreigners which made Itself hated by the local populace.”
In contrast, most Christians are natives who were baptized by missionaries. Although this played a role in the rise of ethnic nationality and tensions, being natives, Christians can still integrate well into Burmese society without problems.
2. Lack of religious affinity: You would point out that Hindus were also brought in by the British and not discriminated at all. But being Indian religions, Hinduism and Buddhism share common core philosophy. As a gesture of assimilation, Hindus could add Buddha to their pantheon of gods without much problem. But Muslims of course, cannot do that given strict laws against Paganism. Furthermore, most Hindus become Buddhists after intermarriages. Islam again has strict laws against apostasy. Abrahamic religions are mutually exclusive. In contrast, you can be a Buddhist, Hindu, Animist, and Confucian.
3. Islam itself: Islam encourages distinct identity markers such as keeping beard and wearing veils that make them very visible and distinct from locals. Most Burmese Muslims t do not do that. Indian Muslims also tend to live in their own quarters (kalartan), limiting contact with the Burmese. Since Islam bans religious conversions, only Buddhists from intermarriages have to convert to Islam. This results in several well-publicized cases of Muslims marrying multiple Buddhist women and converting them to Islam. (A story circulated in Mawlamyine is about the owner of express bus service Yazamin who married several Buddhist women. This is true and Yazamin business declined so much that it has to close down). These stories find fertile ground for extremist speech.
What can be done? Reliable demographic data are needed to counter extremist stories from hand-picked cases. Moreover, Indian Muslims, like Burmese Muslims must work to assimilate, respect majority culture, and reduce distinct identity markers if possible. It should be noted that extremism is on both sides. In Maikhtila, a monk was burned alive by Muslims before riots began. In Mandalay, a group of Imams received death threats from their own community for being too soft in handling conflicts.
Review of Gay is OK! A Christian Perspective
You’re contradicting yourself by saying ‘follow ALL Christ’s teachings” and then effectively saying ‘just take these two, interpret them how you like, and ignore the rest.’
But you need the rest in order to understand and interpret these two.
Read the rest of the scriptures with an open heart and mind and you’ll see that Christ (in His own words, through the prophets and through His apostles) goes to a great deal of effort to show us HOW we are to love and serve God, what true love is, and how we are to love our neighbour. Read it and you’ll find that acceptance of homosexual acts does not fit with Christ’s definition of true love.
Rakhine and Rohingya: hopes for a peaceful future?
The man said the Rohingya have lived in Rakhine State for centuries. True since the British colonial masters let them in, with an extremely tenuous connection to the history of
Mrauk U.
During WW2 they had tried a violent takeover armed by the British ‘to fight the invading Japanese’ by murdering the governor first followed by ethnic cleansing of the Rakhine in northern Arakan where for example Buthidaung is now 90% of Bengali descent.
They approached Jinnah unsuccessfully to have northern Arakan annexed or subsumed into East Pakistan.
They then launched a Mujahid rebellion that took a number of years to quell after Burma became independent.
They have changed tack since and a ‘peaceful takeover’ is under way by sheer population pressure armed with an uncontrolled birthrate.
In a country like Burma there is no way they can upgrade an Islamic enclave to a de facto or de jure Islamic caliphate, in a creeping, step-wise or violent manner, either carving one out in the north or encompassing the whole of the Arakan which they still unashamedly and falsely claim as theirs from the ninth century (nothing has incensed the Bamar as well as the Rakhine more than this rewriting of history that a lot of Westerners swallowed hook, line and sinker, not least the BBC).
The oh so liberal West including “nope, nope, nope” Australia as well as their Muslim brethren of the Umma, above all Saudi Arabia, are welcome to embrace the Rohingya with their ‘peaceful ways’. Leave Thailand and the Philippines alone; they have enough of the same problem themselves.
The suffering of sovereignty
Some perspective please.
The relationship is SO out in the cold that the allegedly naughty boat, Wollongong, was conducting joint exercises with TNIAL in Kupang. http://www.tni.mil.id/view-78892-cassoex-2015-resmi-ditutup.html
So out in the cold that the FATF begins meeting in Brisbane today for the week, in which Jakarta hopes to be taken off the money laundering and terror financing watchlist, just as they were taken off the blacklist in Paris during execution frenzy. In the interim their pointman accused Australian sources of funding terrorists in Poso. Wonder if he’ll say about paying smugglers? Third and last meeting under Australian Presidency.
http://www.fatf-gafi.org/documents/news/fatf-plenary-june-2015.html
Don’t know who she is but the internet’s good for stray quotes.
“Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked.”
тАХ Elizabeth Berg
Rakhine and Rohingya: hopes for a peaceful future?
I want to add while It’s true that the 140,000 people are not allowed to leave their camps because their citizenship status must be verified, the government allows anyone to donate, give food and shelter to them. In a country where 50% of children are suffering malnutrition, their conditions are even better than displaced Kachin refugees who receive scant media coverage and get only half of their food.
Who bears responsibility for this standoff? Politicians like U Kyaw Min are pushing their “Rohingya” agenda with complete disregard to the of suffering of their own people. If a compromise term like “Rakhine Muslims” was proposed and accepted, the government can easily move forward. Even the term “Rohingya” might be acceptable to many people if their politicians did not associate the term with fabricated claims that Rakhine was previously a Muslim kingdom.
There are even claims that their leaders even denied food rations to anyone cooperated with the government during the census. Current Rohingya leadership is using their own people as hostages to promote their political agenda.
Democracy worship in Thailand
No, Emjay, Nick is not the idiot in this.
Rakhine and Rohingya: hopes for a peaceful future?
Well Mr Giggacher, I thank you for your encouragement to “think some more”. But once U Kyaw Min is involved, we do not need to “think some more”.
“Rohingyas have been in Rakhine from the creation of the world. Arakan was ours; it was an Indian land for 1,000 years.” –Mr Kyaw Min
Such completely fabricated narratives came out from the mouth of U Kyaw Min. The agenda is part of a curriculum taught in every mosque and madrasa of Maungdaw and Buthitaung. The Rohingya must take back “their” land. Anyone, even with a white face, speaks about contraception is a government spy. No doubt, WHO family planning efforts have failed miserably. This policy against contraception pays off. The 1982 census shows 29% Muslims in Rakhine. Now they become 40% in 2014 and have twice fertility rate compared to Buddhist Rakhine, and are well on the path to become majority and to demand a separate Muslim state.
It’s not surprising that Thailand takes over a million of Burmese refugees and migrants, but refuses to take these Bengali Rohingya. In their camps, they protest for three meals a day with snacks, in the name of “the rights to food”, but refuse to help and work for the “infidels”. In Rakhine the situation is nothing new. They resent when you call them “Kalars” but they will call you “infidels” in their Bengali language and think your women deserve a rape. They managed to earn hatred even from their cousins in Bangladesh. “We’ve found a family having 18 children. Is this acceptable?” said a Bangladeshi official at Rohingya camps, not long before a riot against Rohingya broke out.
If you really want peace, then forgo your agenda about a separate Muslim state, stop the skyrocketing birth rates, guarantee the Buddhist Rakhine that there would never be a Muslim takeover, learn their language, integrate with the majority and tell the truths about when you came to Myanmar.
Democracy worship in Thailand
And again, you put out many herrings, semi-truths and hyperbole.
First, no, Gotee did not just point at the ceiling (i know him quite well since many years – one of the links i gave you a few posts before were about his Radio Station). I would suggest to re-watch the particular Vice report. The comments were so clear that the Yingluck government had no other option. Not investigating cases means also an automatic charge of lese majeste, especially when a case it as obvious as the Gotee/Vice case.
As to the position of the UDD towards the amnesty bill – accusing me of being sleazy is intellectual bankruptcy and plain laziness. Go and find the videos of the Bueng Gum stage, and lets talk again. Just because you ignore a seminal event in the UDD history, and the history of the conflict does not mean it hasn’t taken place. Lack of knowledge is no excuse here.
I do know that there are many who believe that the amnesty bill was the main reason for the PDRC’s successful overthrow of the government. I do not want to go too deep into this, but no, it wasn’t. The only thing the PDRC got from the amnesty bill was maybe a few more Bangkok middle class protesters (who anyhow stayed home when things got rough). The overthrow was planned long before, and amnesty bill or not, the result would not have been any different. I would suggest to look a bit deeper into how the amnesty bill came into place in the first time, and why the subject has been brought back after the coup. And yes, Thaksin’s and PT’s role there has not been stellar. I think my stories on that subject have expressed that, and also that the Red Shirts were not exactly happy about that. But, you chose to ignore this as it does not suit your argument.
As to the PDRC protests, look at the previous years after the 2011 elections, Siam Sammakhi, Pitak Siam and the Blue Sky stages, the Gomtap Prachachon, the rubber protests in the south, all this then neatly going over into the CMD which then morphed into the PDRC. And at the present moment i am not even going into the involvement by the boys in green at almost every step of the ladder.
You may choose “not to believe”. But belief belongs into the church. I deal with what i witness, evidence and corroborated information to come to my conclusions. And no, you may be surprised, as it does not suit your image of me being a blinded and brainwashed “Red Farang” mindlessly following Thaksin/PT/UDD propaganda, but i do not just talk with the Red Shirts. I still talk with all sides (since the assaults and the hate campaign against me, i only talk with a few old friends in the Yellow Alliance, not anymore with their leadership which has driven all that against me), as i have always done since i covered the conflict starting from late 2005. In the build up period to the PDRC protests from early 2011 (during which the Yellow Alliance splintered completely when the PAD protested against the DP government) up to late 2013, when i was assaulted, i have followed the Yellow Alliance much closer than the Red Shirts.
As to your last appeal of a renewed song mai aow strategy, laudable as it may sound (i can hear dramatic trumpets in the background…), you live in fantasy land if you think that this has any chance for success at the present time under the present conditions in Thailand’s screwed up and warped situation. Maybe 5 or 10 years from now. But definitely not now.
But please, go ahead if you think you have a chance. I write and take photos. I won’t hinder you to try. If your new movement takes off, i will take pictures.
Democracy worship in Thailand
Just two things and then I am finished with this.
I’ve made my point and anyone not blinded by the whole hand-waving phenomenon that is the PT/UDD propaganda blitz undermining any possibility of a democratic movement from taking root in Thailand will be open to considering it.
Nick, you said:
“…the relationship between Thaksin/PT and the UDD is far more complex than you claim, and shown you this by the example of the 1 1/2 year deep internal conflict over the amnesty (i guess you may not even be aware of this), which, in the end, was withdrawn.”
Had you instead said “the 1 1/2 year deep internal conflict over the amnesty bill, in spite of which PT/Thaksin sent the bill to parliament thus empowering the Yellows to mount an insurrection in the streets that was successful in forcing the withdrawal of the bill and the downfall of the government” I would have had no problem with your “interpretation”.
As it is, your obvious attempt to elide the street protests and make it sound as if PT was responding to “democratic pressure” from Reds is just sleazy. Neither Thaksin, the PT government, nor its UDD phuak cabinet ministers were ultimately responsive to the calls for justice from Redshirts. They never are and they never will be.
It is either naive or disingenuous of someone with your experience to suggest that there is evidence in the “internal discourse” to suggest that this is not the case.
Secondly, your suggestion that the Yingluck government was somehow more “liberal” than earlier TS administrations is another twisted statement.
The YL government entered parliament under the watchful eye of General Prayuth. They never had access to the power required to behave in illiberal ways. They did brag that they had censored more websites than the Democrats and Yingluck herself was keen to go public with her calls for Kotee to be arrested and charged with LM for pointing at the ceiling.
No doubt you will want to reference some “internal discourse” that gives the lie to this suggestion. Or maybe you would be content with the usual “They had to do these things to stay in power!, which ironically enough reinforces my point that there was nothing democratic about a government that, like previous TS administrations, was prepared to do what it took to gain legitimacy from the sovereign RTA/Palace mob rather than try to seize and act on legitimacy based in popular sovereignty.
Struggling in backroom negotiations to hold onto power in order to control the huge graft opportunities from an upcoming budget is not “more liberal”. Believing that it is is like believing that coup was intended to restore democracy.
I choose not to buy either line.
And yes I do know that “sawng mai ow” was discredited as a position long ago. Thing is, it is now 2015 and we have seen exactly where “ow Thaksin” has taken us.
Nowhere.
It is now past time that Red Farang and the UDD/Red factions that genuinely prefer democratic advance to “Thaksinism” to recognize that any connection with him can only increase the harm. Pro-democracy people need to denounce PT/Thaksin AND the coupsters and start working toward a democratic Thailand.
The window of opportunity that TS inadvertently opened back in the salad days of TRT is closing, pace all those who expect miracles to flow from an upcoming funeral.
And it is so-called pro-democracy advocates who are helping to slam it shut.
Democracy worship in Thailand
No. I point out that the internal conflict over the amnesty bill was one of the factors that led to the withdrawal of the bill. Not the sole factor. Read what i actually write, and not what you imagine i wrote but did not write.
It was a combination of several factors, not a single factor. The existence of the internal conflict(s) shows that your hypothesis of PT/UDD being a singular entity completely subservient to Thaksin is simply wrong, and not supported by evidence.
And no – again. I have been arguing all along that the situation is extremely fluid, and so far the steady trend was that each incarnation of the pro-Thaksin governments has been increasing in liberalism. The Yingluck government was far less authoritarian than the Thaksin governments were (while far from perfect – as we could see in the way how the amnesty bill was pushed through in parliament). The Yingluck government was much better in the treatment of critical media than what took place under Thaksin (again, not perfect).
This is a result of the evolution of the entire situation, of the Red/Yellow conflict, and of the rise of the Red Shirts as a power factor – not just as PT’s street support, but also as an internal control mechanism.
But to see this, you have to look at the nature of the internal discourse, of internal conflicts and conflict resolutions, and of the changing and evolving relationship between party and Red Shirts on both local and national level.
Thai politics has changed over the course of the past ten years of the Red/Yellow conflict – and a large part of this is the increasingly active participation of grassroots sectors in especially the Red Shirt movement (far less so in the Yellow Alliance as it has no discernible structures outside the DP party lines and military networks, apart from the small rump PAD and various other tiny sub-groups). This change from passive voters of Thaksin to active participants has also forced PT to be more responsive (as it has the UDD leadership to be more responsive to the grassroots organizations).
For this reason i do look more at trends and evolution than simply how things were under Thaksin as PM. The trend has been quite clearly moving into the direction of more liberalism under the “Red” governments. Thai society and politics is not the same as 15 years ago, and 5 years from now it won’t be the same as it is today.
Democracy worship in Thailand
I don’t think Nick is an idiot.
However, to argue that “inner discourse” is more evidence of a “liberal strain”, which is where this conversation began, than the overall record of various TS governments of the past decade and a half does indeed push the boundaries of rationality.
Perhaps with a little tweaking the suggestion that there is a cult of democracy might be better expressed as an irrational faith in what presents itself as a “pro-democracy movement”.
The suffering of sovereignty
Should be Bahasa Indonesia not Bahasa Indonesian.
Cheers
Kerry
Rakhine and Rohingya: hopes for a peaceful future?
The real crime of this regime is taking away the “Hope” of the Kalar.
The ‘Hope” entail “a residency status/statue” that must come from proper legislation.
So please do not malign DASSK no more for whatever the plight of the Kalars that was predetermined by the Colonial ambition of the British. The true devils advocate.
Do you ‘like’ the Tatmadaw?
You are a wise man Mr. Ohn.
Burmese societal norm: “suck up to the people above you, bully the people beneath you and sweep everything unpleasant under the carpet”.
I don’t think Burmese politics is as complicated as Western academics make it to be.
The suffering of sovereignty
It is a real change to have a thoughtful article on asylum seekers. Yet, leaving aside all moral judgements, is the Australian policy cost-effective? This is an important question to be asked of the Abbott government every eager to boast its credentials as competent economic managers. Moreover Tony Abbott and his underlings have promoted the Australian approach as the solution that should be adopted by Europeans.
Costly the ‘turn back the boats’ policy certainly is. Based on budget papers, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in early 2014 gave an annual figure of тВм186 million for the naval deployment and тВм242 million for the Customs and Border Protection services linked to the programme. Moreover, the 2013-2014 federal budget allocated a massive тВм3.3 billion for the privately managed offshore asylum seeker (detention?) centres set up to keep asylum seekers out. One could also add the тВм28 million in aid promised to Cambodia, one of Asia’s poorest countries, in return for accepting asylum seekers from these centres.
If we do a bit of repugnant ‘bean counting’ and take as a base figure 20,000 asylum seekers (the figure of arrivals for 2012 prior to the policy being fully implemented) then we get the following results. If only the naval and customs services deployments are taken into account then each asylum seeker deterred “costs” тВм21,000. However if we add the costs of the detention centres then the ‘costs’ for each asylum seeker deterred rises to тВм186,000!
In contrast to this, European policy on asylum seekers in the Mediterranean is a model of parsimony, perhaps too much parsimony. The naval deployments has a budget of тВм108 million for the year. On 1st June 2015 in Finland, a country with an equivalent standard of living to Australia, the conservative government estimated the costs of accepting 5,000 asylum seekers at тВм12 million at the most, i.e. тВм2,400 per asylum seeker. Even if we prorata a Finnish share of the costs of the naval deployment in the Mediterranean, we are still way below the Australian costs.
The European approach for all its problems is not only far less onerous but at least respects both international law and commitments to a number of United Nations Conventions, something that is at questionable in the case of the Australian policy.
Moreover it does not come with the significant costs to a nation’s reputation and influence that the ‘turn back the boats policy’ is bringing to Australia.
Free and fair elections in Myanmar?
The lady expectation was only a “thant shinn” election with the definition clearly defined by herself.
Simple straight forward understandable to all in Myanmar.
EVery westerners should take note of the remark in it entirety b/f adding personal ‘the glass is 1/2 empty’ opinion.
https://www.facebook.com/aungsansuukyi/videos/vb.9953503420/10153390812093421/?type=2&theater
Above video should be watched by everyone.
Closest translation
1) Thant Shinn (Clean)
2) Tha Yah sheet (lawful, not at the expense of the other)
Expectation from a nascent democratic process is projecting a picture of useless future.
The lady 70th BD message and continued struggle should bring shame everyone who are arm chair politician.