The last line by Melissa Crouch said it all…. a travesty of a constitution being consolidated in the name of reform… a travesty of reform…. a travesty of rule of law… a travesty of peace making….
Provided the elections are broadly free and fair PR would avert a drubbing of the USDP, with more scope for fraud, so they could still muster a significant faction if not a majority in the new parliament along with their uniformed counterparts.
Let’s not kid ourselves, as the constitution stands the CIC can still dissolve parliament if the outcome of the polls is less than satisfactory to the military elite. That’s where power transfer may prove problematic as before, old habits more likely refusing to die when it comes to relinquishing power.
I didn’t deny that there was a conflict. I pointed out that it wasn’t any internal conflict which brought about the withdrawal of the bill.
You are essentially arguing that the “internal discourse” of random Red factions, Peua Thai and Thaksin is somehow more indicative of what sort of politics we can expect from these people than their record in government.
One of the poorest legacies of British colonial rule in Myanmar and Malaysia is the ‘first-past-the post’ voting system in one member constituencies. While it leads to stable majorities it fails the test of representivity and, experience has shown, is inappropriate for very heterogenous societies.
It is a pity that the voting system in Myanmar has not been changed for the the forthcoming elections, engineering a form of coalition government for the future. A couple of years ago there was debate on this subject in Myanmar. But in the end I gather the NLD and the ethnic minority parties saw no interest in changing a system that, according to present indications, will give the former an overwhelming majority nationally and the latter seats in their local constituencies and majorities in local assemblies.
There are precedents for a change in the voting system during a time of democratic transition. After the end of apartheid in South Africa, with the prospect of a crushing ANC majority under the first past the post system, it was changed to ensure a more balanced outcome. The ANC obtained its majority but minority parties (and ethnic groups) did not feel disenfranchised and were adequately represented in parliament.
The underlying problem is that the Bamar majority have never acknowledged, let alone imagined (as in Indonesia), that their country is a multi-racial and multicultural nation. Like it or not, as Marx said ‘facts are stubborn’.
Once this existential dilemma is confronted head on, then the political elite in Myanmar will be able to deal with the consequences: instituting a real form of federalism (├а la Suisse) with significant resources for regional assemblies. Also a democratic Myanmar requires a voting system that gives political, ethnic and religious minorities a sense of empowerment and, thus, a stake in the future.
What are you trying to say there? That you are now suddenly aware that there was a conflict over the amnesty issue (which you just denied in your previous comment) but do not see the significance in the fact that there was a conflict over the amnesty issue?
The existence of internal discourse and the need to pay attention to that equals a “Thai style approach to Democracy”? Thailand isn’t that special and unique. Sorry. Realpolitics happen in the most liberal of liberal democracies, and it is part of the job of reporters to have access to and to communicate such facts less accessible to the public.
I am getting confused now – are you trying to tell me that i am not to pay attention to and take into consideration internal discourse, just because it does not suit your definition of liberal democracy where everything can be and should be taken at face value? Especially when in a restricted environment the gap between external and internal discourse is naturally quite large, for obvious reasons?
Sit-tut and Pa-late (not heeding your sensible past exhortations, these words will not be “English-ised” here) as driving force for change is impossibility. It is the foolish Burmese populace who enjoy power holder even if they constantly treat you like filth. Almost like the Burmese saying of “The more you beat up the wife, the more she loves you”.
Another Burmese saying “Pyit-nyut-thwar-yar, dut-thet-par”. This time it translate (roughly) as “the reality follows a name”. So modern Burmese try to give exorbitant and at once ridiculous names ti their offspring’s or themselves.
That is where this “Tat-ma-daw” crap came in. No one calls the Sit-tut Tat-ma-daw. But it was the success of post-88 regime (initially led by that solidified deviousness Khin Nyunt) along with that stupid name “Nay-pyi-daw” (more stupid for a place initially known as “Kyat-pyae) that these names are now bandied about by the people on the street.
In all those garish and nauseating “Min-ga-la-saungs” in ridiculously expensive hotels, a Sit-thar of some sort is an essential requirement. No one ever ostracized a Sit-thar in the history of Burma even when the littlest Sit-thers were slapping the faces of Rectors of most prestigious universities or strangling and beating up the monks on the street in day light.
Going as far back in history, Burmese on the street were always suckers for anyone with power. The Sit-tut and the Pa-late have nothing to fear. With or without those “reforms”, another joke word.
It is almost as if the Burmese have a congenital and irrepressible need and desire to be treated like shit so long as they can do the same to others at the same time. Peaceful and prosperous? Hmmm…..
Thanks Nick. I was aware of those things and don’t find the same significance at all in them.
Fancy that!
A disagreement not based in “pipe dreams” or ignorance? Can there really be such a thing? Mustn’t all reasonable men agree? Is not consensus the ultimate measure of the correctness of an idea?
Your reliance on “internal discourse” just confirms my sense that you have gone over to a very “Thai-style” approach to “democracy”. I, on the other hand, haven’t.
I recognize the Thai approach and respect it as an expression of Thai society and culture.
That doesn’t make it liberal democratic.
And that is where this whole long discussion ends.
This is getting a bit much here, endless posts where you state the obvious, but can’t see the wood for the forest.
I have not said that “Thaksin’s “authoritarianism” that opened up political space in Thailand” but used the term: “even though Thaksin’s electoral authoritarianism”. There is a difference, and it is not semantic. Yes, i am aware of all you said – i have lived in Thailand years before Thaksin was elected.
It may be convenient for you to group me into this or that group of “Red Farang” who fight in twitter. I do not use twitter. I rarely post on facebook. I am not part of any group of people other than the group of journalists/foreign correspondents, etc. But i am my own person. Therefore – stop stereotyping me. It won’t work.
Quite obviously you are not in the slightest aware of the amnesty bill saga. You judge based on the external discourse, yet have no clue about the internal discourse. Even publicly accessible material you seem to ignore that counters your argument, such as Wassana Nanuam’s story in the BKK Post that appeared soon after the Cambodia stage where Thaksin met the Red Shirts, where she wrote of a source of Thaksin’s class 10 classmates having visited Thaksin warning him about any planned amnesty (at the time it was called “reconciliation”). I can verify the accuracy of this story as i know the source well.
Can you remember what happened soon after – when Thaksin spoke in a phone-link to Red Shirt protesters at the anniversary of the May 19 crackdown on May 19, 2012 at Rajaprasong? Where he spoke about the need to sacrifice and the ship? Do you remember the unprecedented wave of criticism which forced him to apologize twice shortly after?
The simplification that the only reason the amnesty bill was withdrawn was because of the PDRC protests is wrong. This was one factor, but there were several others. One of them was the resistance of the majority UDD. As could be seen in the Bueng Gum stage, and the following conflict as played out publicly in Asia Update, where “grang soi” personalities lost their shows – all anti-amnesty bill leaders such as Weng, Tida, Jatuporn, Nattawut and Sombat (who is not UDD but free Red Shirt). Dr. Prasaeng lost his advisor position at Government House. This was the main reason why UDD TV (after the coup Peace TV) was founded. There is a whole lot more that could be said about this, but i will now restrict myself to what has been publicized.
You stating that there was not a conflict over the amnesty bill may serve your argument, but has no base in reality.
Here are a few links from that time, in which i addressed the amnesty issue, including an interview with Thaksin:
That ambitious power-hungry “lady”, the human rights icon of Burma (that even Bono from U2 used to worship) should have gone to Arakan or perhaps even to Bangladesh, to help resolve this “ugly Rohingya problem” instead of going on a pilgrimage to China to listen to Jinping Xi’s lecture about “One Belt, One Road” prosperity for Asia under Chinese hegemony with pipelines and railway lines from Kunming to Kyaukphru (which is in Rakhaing State!) and all that rubbish.
I’m not sure whether historical developments like the signing of the Magna Carta or the French Revolution have much bearing on what we are witnessing in Thailand, but I take your point.
Leaving out Japan as an exceptional case, I am more familiar with South Korea and Taiwan than other more or less stable Asian “democracies”, if there really are any. Both countries had political parties headed by democracy advocates and committed to democracy as part of their platforms and both countries went through periods of violence.
Neither of them had democracy movements funded and led by billionaires with records of undermining what democratic structures they could once they got in office.
The “shitty compromises” you refer to are characteristic of democracies working toward some kind of stability. In fact, “shitty compromise” is probably a good characterization of liberal democracy in all its real-world manifestations.
We have now had let’s call it four Thaksin administrations with enough electoral legitimacy for the process of “shitty compromising” to have begun. It hasn’t. There is no instance of there having been a push in the direction of liberal democracy in any of those four administrations.
As a matter of historical record, there has most often been just the opposite, “shitty compromises” in the direction of a “reform” version of the old Thai-style democracy intended to admit the Shin group into the magic circle of acceptable operators, not to move toward more genuine liberal democracy.
Thailand began its “long march” to liberal democracy in 1932 when both Taiwan and Korea were colonies of Japan. Both of those countries underwent more rapid economic development and to a higher level than Thailand but within 50 years of decoupling from Japan, both countries had achieved a measure of stable liberal democracy, although neither would likely satisfy a purist’s measure of that exalted state.
It may simply be the case that an outstanding feature of Thai culture is a capacity for creating and sustaining illusionary structures of governance. Look how long it took for Thai Studies, with its “history”, to finally get around to seeing through the greatest illusion of them all.
It often appears to me that many of the people observing, analysing and commenting on Thai politics are now engaged in creating yet another illusion through its emphasis on “lost democracy” every time another coup throws out yet another non-democratic but elected TS administration.
Shame really, because they seemed to have it right a decade ago.
At last a voice of moderation and reason within Myanmar itself discussing the Rohingya crisis. The lack of animus from someone who has languished for seven years in prison is truly inspirational.
There must be a two-pronged – political and economic – approach within Myanmar itself: the return of citizenship to Rakhine Musilms requiring a fair process that is acceptable to all. Secondly, addressing the serious under-development in Rakhine state itself in an equitable way. Rakhine Buddhists are themselves not seeing the benefits on Myanmar’s return to the world economy.
Like Greece, Thailand has long been ruled by opposing oligarchs. Like in Greece, these have always used public funds to buy votes from their respective constituencies, leaving the opposing constituency embittered and eventually violent protests would be the result. Unlike Greece, Thailand cannot blame outside forces like the EU or the IMF for getting it into this mess. Which is the only reason why I believe Thailand’s electorate might eventually sort itself and this mess out by themselves.
[…] rather than a meeting to address the crisis of fleeing Rohingya. At the meeting, Myanmar “categorically refused to discuss its role as a cause for the crisis,” notes Matthew Davies of Australian National University, an expert on human rights in Southeast […]
If you substitute “Thaksin” with “Sir Robert Fitzwalker”; “the amart” with “King John”; “elections” with “the Magna Carta”; and your nebulous group or would-be MP Thammasart Profs with “John Wycliffe and the Lollards” – even though it screws up my timeline – don’t we have a every similar argument against the birth of UK democracy ?
Are there any examples in history where a move towards a more “liberal democracy” hasn’t either being a either a mass bloodletting of one sort or another, or a long-drawn out series of shitty compromises ?
I can’t think of any, but its a genuine question, offered in good faith.
The debate is pointless because as I pointed out above, we are talking about different things. I am interested in the discourse surrounding and the development of liberal democracy in Thailand.
You, as becomes increasingly evident, have very little interest in liberal democracy but are very much invested in defending the development of a new, improved version of “Thai-style democracy”. And that is no surprise given your apparent involvement with many of the “complexities” of the relationship between Thaksin and the UDD/Reds.
The label ‘Red Farang’ is a perfectly good shorthand for the scores of like-minded folk who often overwhelm threads on this website and who infest Twitter like a viral form of Idiocracy minus the interesting soundtrack. Your suggestion that, because it was coined by an overweight not very bright spokesperson for the Yellow side of things, it somehow discredits me is pure nonsense.
I don’t deal in absolutes. I have never thought of the conflict as being between a “singular democracy” and the “amart” and I would challenge you to point out where I have suggested any such thing. Again, Nick, your straw is showing. The “amart” vs “pro-dems” is the discourse of the quintessential Red Farang, and even as a member of that admirable club I never indulged in that particular oversimplification.
I would never deny that either the PAD and its subsequent iterations or Thaksin’s electoral juggernaut have “driven change” in Thailand.
The stereotypes you refer to me working with are nowhere evident in what I have said here and again I would challenge you to point out where they are.
Your suggestion that it is Thaksin’s “authoritarianism” that opened up political space in Thailand is ridiculous, flat out absurd.
Thaksin’s marketing savvy, his vast experience navigating the hallways and backrooms where crony capitalists have long interacted with government bureaucrats in Thailand, and his financial capacity to buy up whole swathes of political factions in order to make the bricolage of TRT resemble a political party is more responsible for that than his authoritarianism is.
His brilliant application of the previously unheard of technique of generating a popular and attractive platform and then quickly delivering on it after election time is more responsible for the opening of political space than his authoritarianism is.
Combine those things with the great fortune of being in office at a time when the Thai economy boomed, no doubt in part due to his party’s policies, and you have the TRT contribution to “opening up political space”, by which I assume you mean giving formerly disaffected villagers and other lower middle class Thais a sense that their votes and voices might actually count for something in the political process.
I would call that a kind of democratic awakening and suggest that bliss it was to be able to observe up close that dawn.
But it was not at all connected to liberalism and that is why his “authoritarianism” did not dent his popularity at the polls at all.
He oversaw the extrajudicial murder of some 1300 young men and was awarded a landslide by an electorate reveling in its democratic power and very much uninterested in human rights or due process, those liberal “absolutes” that I cling to and you think make me “juvenile”.
And the Yellow movement’s very effective and depressing reification of fascist or falangist tendencies inherent in Thai ultraroyalism is very clear and even more depressing.
I imagine that in the name of some bogus even-handedness you would rather suggest that their playing with the themes of ultranationalism, classism/racism and militarist authoritarianism at various times over the past decade has somehow heralded something “good” in the Thai dialectic. Not according to my lights, but as we have seen we have very different approaches to things.
Unlike you and many other Red Farang, I have kept an open mind throughout the past 8 or 9 years of this ongoing drama. I have gone from arguing almost precisely as you do in this thread (which may be why you think I am ignoring or misunderstanding you: I’m not. I’m just bored to tears waiting for a new way of seeing) to realizing that defending TS and the UDD is not connected to calling for or defending the development of liberal democracy in Thailand.
I am hardly likely to “budge from my position” in response to you parroting my former position because unlike you I have had to alter my thinking as circumstances unfolded. I would suggest to you that people who are unable to change an opinion when circumstances change are not so much “juvenile” as simply not interested in accuracy or honesty.
Your characterization of the saga of the amnesty bill as 1 1/2 years of deep internal conflict that ended with the bill being withdrawn would be hilarious if it weren’t so blatantly false.
Whatever conversations took place essentially outside the public sphere where the electorate lives in a liberal democracy, and whatever this or that faction of the UDD felt about it for 18 months, Peua Thai put the bill out there and the yellow hordes hit the streets and forced its withdrawal. To suggest that the withdrawal was somehow the result of bitter division within the UDD/PT condominium is laughable.
Had that been the case the bill would never have been squirted onto the floor in the wee hours in the first place.
Again, Nick, I think you mistake a detailed awareness of the arguments being made by which faction at which moment under which wing of the UDD/Reds for “real” information relevant to the formation of liberal democratic governance in Thailand. It isn’t.
You want to suggest that subtle differences between factions of the UDD/Reds and how they talk about Thaksin is somehow indicative of a complexity that, once recognized, will convince a sceptic that liberalism is likely to emerge from this factional interaction.
Or that because leader A of group B doesn’t think TS should be the leader of the movement there is a current running that will bring liberal democratic parliamentary government to Thailand.
You keep smokin’ whatever is in that pipe, Nick.
Because in the Thailand I live in “Thaksin thinks, Peua Thai acts” and if they don’t kowtow sufficiently in the right direction, the RTA takes over.
Sounds really old-stylee traditional Thai to me, no matter how “uncool” it is to say so.
All of which begs the question of why they ever export live cattle in the first place. Maybe I am mistaken but I should imagine that rather than exporting live animals with all the hassle and risk that entails over such considerable distances, it would be cheaper and “more humane” to do the abattoir work in Australia, then ship only the usable parts as deep-freeze produce to their destinations? And: would not shedding light on the cattle transports themselves cause even greater outrage? In Europe it did and the time cattle are allowed to travel has been curtailed and quality control introduced.
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Free and fair elections in Myanmar?
The last line by Melissa Crouch said it all…. a travesty of a constitution being consolidated in the name of reform… a travesty of reform…. a travesty of rule of law… a travesty of peace making….
Provided the elections are broadly free and fair PR would avert a drubbing of the USDP, with more scope for fraud, so they could still muster a significant faction if not a majority in the new parliament along with their uniformed counterparts.
Let’s not kid ourselves, as the constitution stands the CIC can still dissolve parliament if the outcome of the polls is less than satisfactory to the military elite. That’s where power transfer may prove problematic as before, old habits more likely refusing to die when it comes to relinquishing power.
Democracy worship in Thailand
I didn’t deny that there was a conflict. I pointed out that it wasn’t any internal conflict which brought about the withdrawal of the bill.
You are essentially arguing that the “internal discourse” of random Red factions, Peua Thai and Thaksin is somehow more indicative of what sort of politics we can expect from these people than their record in government.
And that is beyond silly.
Democracy worship in Thailand
The reality is that while a certain someone is/was still alive, it was always going to be a shitty compromise.
Free and fair elections in Myanmar?
One of the poorest legacies of British colonial rule in Myanmar and Malaysia is the ‘first-past-the post’ voting system in one member constituencies. While it leads to stable majorities it fails the test of representivity and, experience has shown, is inappropriate for very heterogenous societies.
It is a pity that the voting system in Myanmar has not been changed for the the forthcoming elections, engineering a form of coalition government for the future. A couple of years ago there was debate on this subject in Myanmar. But in the end I gather the NLD and the ethnic minority parties saw no interest in changing a system that, according to present indications, will give the former an overwhelming majority nationally and the latter seats in their local constituencies and majorities in local assemblies.
There are precedents for a change in the voting system during a time of democratic transition. After the end of apartheid in South Africa, with the prospect of a crushing ANC majority under the first past the post system, it was changed to ensure a more balanced outcome. The ANC obtained its majority but minority parties (and ethnic groups) did not feel disenfranchised and were adequately represented in parliament.
The underlying problem is that the Bamar majority have never acknowledged, let alone imagined (as in Indonesia), that their country is a multi-racial and multicultural nation. Like it or not, as Marx said ‘facts are stubborn’.
Once this existential dilemma is confronted head on, then the political elite in Myanmar will be able to deal with the consequences: instituting a real form of federalism (├а la Suisse) with significant resources for regional assemblies. Also a democratic Myanmar requires a voting system that gives political, ethnic and religious minorities a sense of empowerment and, thus, a stake in the future.
Democracy worship in Thailand
A good point to end it. It’s been very entertaining and it has reminded me of the quote by George Carlin.
“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
Democracy worship in Thailand
What are you trying to say there? That you are now suddenly aware that there was a conflict over the amnesty issue (which you just denied in your previous comment) but do not see the significance in the fact that there was a conflict over the amnesty issue?
The existence of internal discourse and the need to pay attention to that equals a “Thai style approach to Democracy”? Thailand isn’t that special and unique. Sorry. Realpolitics happen in the most liberal of liberal democracies, and it is part of the job of reporters to have access to and to communicate such facts less accessible to the public.
I am getting confused now – are you trying to tell me that i am not to pay attention to and take into consideration internal discourse, just because it does not suit your definition of liberal democracy where everything can be and should be taken at face value? Especially when in a restricted environment the gap between external and internal discourse is naturally quite large, for obvious reasons?
Free and fair elections in Myanmar?
“Post-election power transfer”
Now that is cute! Even Pokemon writers could not have thought of that.
Do you ‘like’ the Tatmadaw?
Sit-tut and Pa-late (not heeding your sensible past exhortations, these words will not be “English-ised” here) as driving force for change is impossibility. It is the foolish Burmese populace who enjoy power holder even if they constantly treat you like filth. Almost like the Burmese saying of “The more you beat up the wife, the more she loves you”.
Another Burmese saying “Pyit-nyut-thwar-yar, dut-thet-par”. This time it translate (roughly) as “the reality follows a name”. So modern Burmese try to give exorbitant and at once ridiculous names ti their offspring’s or themselves.
That is where this “Tat-ma-daw” crap came in. No one calls the Sit-tut Tat-ma-daw. But it was the success of post-88 regime (initially led by that solidified deviousness Khin Nyunt) along with that stupid name “Nay-pyi-daw” (more stupid for a place initially known as “Kyat-pyae) that these names are now bandied about by the people on the street.
In all those garish and nauseating “Min-ga-la-saungs” in ridiculously expensive hotels, a Sit-thar of some sort is an essential requirement. No one ever ostracized a Sit-thar in the history of Burma even when the littlest Sit-thers were slapping the faces of Rectors of most prestigious universities or strangling and beating up the monks on the street in day light.
Going as far back in history, Burmese on the street were always suckers for anyone with power. The Sit-tut and the Pa-late have nothing to fear. With or without those “reforms”, another joke word.
It is almost as if the Burmese have a congenital and irrepressible need and desire to be treated like shit so long as they can do the same to others at the same time. Peaceful and prosperous? Hmmm…..
Democracy worship in Thailand
Thanks Nick. I was aware of those things and don’t find the same significance at all in them.
Fancy that!
A disagreement not based in “pipe dreams” or ignorance? Can there really be such a thing? Mustn’t all reasonable men agree? Is not consensus the ultimate measure of the correctness of an idea?
Your reliance on “internal discourse” just confirms my sense that you have gone over to a very “Thai-style” approach to “democracy”. I, on the other hand, haven’t.
I recognize the Thai approach and respect it as an expression of Thai society and culture.
That doesn’t make it liberal democratic.
And that is where this whole long discussion ends.
Democracy worship in Thailand
This is getting a bit much here, endless posts where you state the obvious, but can’t see the wood for the forest.
I have not said that “Thaksin’s “authoritarianism” that opened up political space in Thailand” but used the term: “even though Thaksin’s electoral authoritarianism”. There is a difference, and it is not semantic. Yes, i am aware of all you said – i have lived in Thailand years before Thaksin was elected.
It may be convenient for you to group me into this or that group of “Red Farang” who fight in twitter. I do not use twitter. I rarely post on facebook. I am not part of any group of people other than the group of journalists/foreign correspondents, etc. But i am my own person. Therefore – stop stereotyping me. It won’t work.
Quite obviously you are not in the slightest aware of the amnesty bill saga. You judge based on the external discourse, yet have no clue about the internal discourse. Even publicly accessible material you seem to ignore that counters your argument, such as Wassana Nanuam’s story in the BKK Post that appeared soon after the Cambodia stage where Thaksin met the Red Shirts, where she wrote of a source of Thaksin’s class 10 classmates having visited Thaksin warning him about any planned amnesty (at the time it was called “reconciliation”). I can verify the accuracy of this story as i know the source well.
Can you remember what happened soon after – when Thaksin spoke in a phone-link to Red Shirt protesters at the anniversary of the May 19 crackdown on May 19, 2012 at Rajaprasong? Where he spoke about the need to sacrifice and the ship? Do you remember the unprecedented wave of criticism which forced him to apologize twice shortly after?
The simplification that the only reason the amnesty bill was withdrawn was because of the PDRC protests is wrong. This was one factor, but there were several others. One of them was the resistance of the majority UDD. As could be seen in the Bueng Gum stage, and the following conflict as played out publicly in Asia Update, where “grang soi” personalities lost their shows – all anti-amnesty bill leaders such as Weng, Tida, Jatuporn, Nattawut and Sombat (who is not UDD but free Red Shirt). Dr. Prasaeng lost his advisor position at Government House. This was the main reason why UDD TV (after the coup Peace TV) was founded. There is a whole lot more that could be said about this, but i will now restrict myself to what has been publicized.
You stating that there was not a conflict over the amnesty bill may serve your argument, but has no base in reality.
Here are a few links from that time, in which i addressed the amnesty issue, including an interview with Thaksin:
http://www.newmandala.org/2012/04/10/a-red-shirt-songkran-party-and-amnesty-thoughts/
http://www.newmandala.org/2012/04/23/songkran-in-cambodia-red-shirts-meet-thaksin/
http://www.newmandala.org/2012/06/05/reconciliation-games/
Wassana Nanuam’s story:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/289915/victims-relatives-asked-to-forgive
Rakhine and Rohingya: hopes for a peaceful future?
That ambitious power-hungry “lady”, the human rights icon of Burma (that even Bono from U2 used to worship) should have gone to Arakan or perhaps even to Bangladesh, to help resolve this “ugly Rohingya problem” instead of going on a pilgrimage to China to listen to Jinping Xi’s lecture about “One Belt, One Road” prosperity for Asia under Chinese hegemony with pipelines and railway lines from Kunming to Kyaukphru (which is in Rakhaing State!) and all that rubbish.
Democracy worship in Thailand
I’m not sure whether historical developments like the signing of the Magna Carta or the French Revolution have much bearing on what we are witnessing in Thailand, but I take your point.
Leaving out Japan as an exceptional case, I am more familiar with South Korea and Taiwan than other more or less stable Asian “democracies”, if there really are any. Both countries had political parties headed by democracy advocates and committed to democracy as part of their platforms and both countries went through periods of violence.
Neither of them had democracy movements funded and led by billionaires with records of undermining what democratic structures they could once they got in office.
The “shitty compromises” you refer to are characteristic of democracies working toward some kind of stability. In fact, “shitty compromise” is probably a good characterization of liberal democracy in all its real-world manifestations.
We have now had let’s call it four Thaksin administrations with enough electoral legitimacy for the process of “shitty compromising” to have begun. It hasn’t. There is no instance of there having been a push in the direction of liberal democracy in any of those four administrations.
As a matter of historical record, there has most often been just the opposite, “shitty compromises” in the direction of a “reform” version of the old Thai-style democracy intended to admit the Shin group into the magic circle of acceptable operators, not to move toward more genuine liberal democracy.
Thailand began its “long march” to liberal democracy in 1932 when both Taiwan and Korea were colonies of Japan. Both of those countries underwent more rapid economic development and to a higher level than Thailand but within 50 years of decoupling from Japan, both countries had achieved a measure of stable liberal democracy, although neither would likely satisfy a purist’s measure of that exalted state.
It may simply be the case that an outstanding feature of Thai culture is a capacity for creating and sustaining illusionary structures of governance. Look how long it took for Thai Studies, with its “history”, to finally get around to seeing through the greatest illusion of them all.
It often appears to me that many of the people observing, analysing and commenting on Thai politics are now engaged in creating yet another illusion through its emphasis on “lost democracy” every time another coup throws out yet another non-democratic but elected TS administration.
Shame really, because they seemed to have it right a decade ago.
The double captivity of ‘Chinese privilege’
Just to clarify. Peter Augustine Goh, a Chinese, won the prize for poetry in the Malay category of the Singapore Literature Prize.
Rakhine and Rohingya: hopes for a peaceful future?
If this man is the voice of the Kalar in Yakhine, I dread for their future.
A litany of contradictory and outright fault in claiming historical coexistence.
Heavy emphasis, mostly unsubstantiated claim to degree of atrocious nature of present camp condition.
Still calling for a citizenship using the very bad example of “Colonial Justification”.
Veil threat of no total arm struggle now, comparing with other true ethnic group, and citing UN claim as legitimacy for absolute citizenship.
Th status of Kalar in Yakhine need to be resolved from a new paradigm with followingn characteristics:
1) Stop/avoid claiming legitimacy that both side will not accept.
2) Assure the existing majority culture as venerable.
3) Resist using the ignorant west, useless careless way to goad this government with DASSK in mind.
4) Coexistence require give and take especially in Yakhine where only the land and the culture are the only important factors presently.
These are just a few common sense point to consider for a dialogue to ensue.
As for now staring from square one independently is more promising than holdong on to the west and OIC insistent.
If an arm struggle should ensue, all bets are out.
Rakhine and Rohingya: hopes for a peaceful future?
At last a voice of moderation and reason within Myanmar itself discussing the Rohingya crisis. The lack of animus from someone who has languished for seven years in prison is truly inspirational.
There must be a two-pronged – political and economic – approach within Myanmar itself: the return of citizenship to Rakhine Musilms requiring a fair process that is acceptable to all. Secondly, addressing the serious under-development in Rakhine state itself in an equitable way. Rakhine Buddhists are themselves not seeing the benefits on Myanmar’s return to the world economy.
Rice, repression and rule by force
Like Greece, Thailand has long been ruled by opposing oligarchs. Like in Greece, these have always used public funds to buy votes from their respective constituencies, leaving the opposing constituency embittered and eventually violent protests would be the result. Unlike Greece, Thailand cannot blame outside forces like the EU or the IMF for getting it into this mess. Which is the only reason why I believe Thailand’s electorate might eventually sort itself and this mess out by themselves.
Rohingya crisis: nothing from nothing
[…] rather than a meeting to address the crisis of fleeing Rohingya. At the meeting, Myanmar “categorically refused to discuss its role as a cause for the crisis,” notes Matthew Davies of Australian National University, an expert on human rights in Southeast […]
Democracy worship in Thailand
If you substitute “Thaksin” with “Sir Robert Fitzwalker”; “the amart” with “King John”; “elections” with “the Magna Carta”; and your nebulous group or would-be MP Thammasart Profs with “John Wycliffe and the Lollards” – even though it screws up my timeline – don’t we have a every similar argument against the birth of UK democracy ?
Are there any examples in history where a move towards a more “liberal democracy” hasn’t either being a either a mass bloodletting of one sort or another, or a long-drawn out series of shitty compromises ?
I can’t think of any, but its a genuine question, offered in good faith.
Democracy worship in Thailand
The debate is pointless because as I pointed out above, we are talking about different things. I am interested in the discourse surrounding and the development of liberal democracy in Thailand.
You, as becomes increasingly evident, have very little interest in liberal democracy but are very much invested in defending the development of a new, improved version of “Thai-style democracy”. And that is no surprise given your apparent involvement with many of the “complexities” of the relationship between Thaksin and the UDD/Reds.
The label ‘Red Farang’ is a perfectly good shorthand for the scores of like-minded folk who often overwhelm threads on this website and who infest Twitter like a viral form of Idiocracy minus the interesting soundtrack. Your suggestion that, because it was coined by an overweight not very bright spokesperson for the Yellow side of things, it somehow discredits me is pure nonsense.
I don’t deal in absolutes. I have never thought of the conflict as being between a “singular democracy” and the “amart” and I would challenge you to point out where I have suggested any such thing. Again, Nick, your straw is showing. The “amart” vs “pro-dems” is the discourse of the quintessential Red Farang, and even as a member of that admirable club I never indulged in that particular oversimplification.
I would never deny that either the PAD and its subsequent iterations or Thaksin’s electoral juggernaut have “driven change” in Thailand.
The stereotypes you refer to me working with are nowhere evident in what I have said here and again I would challenge you to point out where they are.
Your suggestion that it is Thaksin’s “authoritarianism” that opened up political space in Thailand is ridiculous, flat out absurd.
Thaksin’s marketing savvy, his vast experience navigating the hallways and backrooms where crony capitalists have long interacted with government bureaucrats in Thailand, and his financial capacity to buy up whole swathes of political factions in order to make the bricolage of TRT resemble a political party is more responsible for that than his authoritarianism is.
His brilliant application of the previously unheard of technique of generating a popular and attractive platform and then quickly delivering on it after election time is more responsible for the opening of political space than his authoritarianism is.
Combine those things with the great fortune of being in office at a time when the Thai economy boomed, no doubt in part due to his party’s policies, and you have the TRT contribution to “opening up political space”, by which I assume you mean giving formerly disaffected villagers and other lower middle class Thais a sense that their votes and voices might actually count for something in the political process.
I would call that a kind of democratic awakening and suggest that bliss it was to be able to observe up close that dawn.
But it was not at all connected to liberalism and that is why his “authoritarianism” did not dent his popularity at the polls at all.
He oversaw the extrajudicial murder of some 1300 young men and was awarded a landslide by an electorate reveling in its democratic power and very much uninterested in human rights or due process, those liberal “absolutes” that I cling to and you think make me “juvenile”.
And the Yellow movement’s very effective and depressing reification of fascist or falangist tendencies inherent in Thai ultraroyalism is very clear and even more depressing.
I imagine that in the name of some bogus even-handedness you would rather suggest that their playing with the themes of ultranationalism, classism/racism and militarist authoritarianism at various times over the past decade has somehow heralded something “good” in the Thai dialectic. Not according to my lights, but as we have seen we have very different approaches to things.
Unlike you and many other Red Farang, I have kept an open mind throughout the past 8 or 9 years of this ongoing drama. I have gone from arguing almost precisely as you do in this thread (which may be why you think I am ignoring or misunderstanding you: I’m not. I’m just bored to tears waiting for a new way of seeing) to realizing that defending TS and the UDD is not connected to calling for or defending the development of liberal democracy in Thailand.
I am hardly likely to “budge from my position” in response to you parroting my former position because unlike you I have had to alter my thinking as circumstances unfolded. I would suggest to you that people who are unable to change an opinion when circumstances change are not so much “juvenile” as simply not interested in accuracy or honesty.
Your characterization of the saga of the amnesty bill as 1 1/2 years of deep internal conflict that ended with the bill being withdrawn would be hilarious if it weren’t so blatantly false.
Whatever conversations took place essentially outside the public sphere where the electorate lives in a liberal democracy, and whatever this or that faction of the UDD felt about it for 18 months, Peua Thai put the bill out there and the yellow hordes hit the streets and forced its withdrawal. To suggest that the withdrawal was somehow the result of bitter division within the UDD/PT condominium is laughable.
Had that been the case the bill would never have been squirted onto the floor in the wee hours in the first place.
Again, Nick, I think you mistake a detailed awareness of the arguments being made by which faction at which moment under which wing of the UDD/Reds for “real” information relevant to the formation of liberal democratic governance in Thailand. It isn’t.
You want to suggest that subtle differences between factions of the UDD/Reds and how they talk about Thaksin is somehow indicative of a complexity that, once recognized, will convince a sceptic that liberalism is likely to emerge from this factional interaction.
Or that because leader A of group B doesn’t think TS should be the leader of the movement there is a current running that will bring liberal democratic parliamentary government to Thailand.
You keep smokin’ whatever is in that pipe, Nick.
Because in the Thailand I live in “Thaksin thinks, Peua Thai acts” and if they don’t kowtow sufficiently in the right direction, the RTA takes over.
Sounds really old-stylee traditional Thai to me, no matter how “uncool” it is to say so.
Beef and prejudice
All of which begs the question of why they ever export live cattle in the first place. Maybe I am mistaken but I should imagine that rather than exporting live animals with all the hassle and risk that entails over such considerable distances, it would be cheaper and “more humane” to do the abattoir work in Australia, then ship only the usable parts as deep-freeze produce to their destinations? And: would not shedding light on the cattle transports themselves cause even greater outrage? In Europe it did and the time cattle are allowed to travel has been curtailed and quality control introduced.