9,000 tonnes of gold is more than US govt. entire billions holdings and USA is the world’s No. 1 gold hoarder. Is there a Nobel prize for bull(ion) shit . . .because Rose certainly could be deserving!
Germany not fractured and divided? Already the the creation of west/east was a fracture. But go further back, to the Republic of Weimar – Germany’s first failed attempt of a Democracy. Germany’s system of federalism is a result of Germany’s enormous fractures which are rooted in its history of princely states warring with each other for centuries up to the formation of the second empire by Bismarck in 1871. And then go back to the 1848 revolution, when the dream of a democracy and a nation state was first dreamed in Germany.
So, yes, democracy was possible in Germany, regardless the naysayers, and it is in Thailand as well.
Again, how do you want to achieve that? Stating that Thailand is ready for democracy and that it needs someone else than the present players to do that is simple and easy. Doing it is the difficult part.
You said that it needs someone else. Good, and who is that someone else? Who of the people or groups presently available in Thailand have the pull and ability to navigate through all the mess in order to achieve that? Who has the backing and the trust of the population, especially upcountry?
Tell me, please. Because i do not know. I do now though many of the present players, both famous and obscure, many of whom who tediously work on trying to achieve that rule of law, that feint status of liberal democracy, and have done so often for many decades.
Talk is easy, making judgements from the armchair perspective is easy. But it is quite a different matter to do realpolitics. You talk in absolutes, and completely ignore the development process that Thailand has undergone over the past ten years. Thailand is now a completely different country. What has been achieved in the past ten years? Thailand changed from a mostly apolitical society into a highly politicized society in which politics are discussed, debated, argued about and fought over on almost all levels of society – a thing that was unheard of in and up to the 90’s, and began to change in the 2000s. This is a major seismic shit, but completely ignored by you. You only look at the lack of changes in the structures – but that takes time. Already the changes in political awareness we have seen are enormous.
Politics is compromise and strategic alliance. And that means the for one the least compromising and most advantageous alliance. You seem to be waiting for the white knight, riding by on his white horse, and simply wrestle power from the amart elites. And you are disappointed that the present players didn’t behave like the heroes you expect them to be.
But this isn’t a Hollywood movie, this is real life. And in real life a happy end is not necessarily part of the script. You have to learn the playing field. In this field one cannot simply “wrestle sovereignty from the Amart”. The last time one of those very tentative attempts were made five years ago 100 people died. When a parliamentary attempt was made to make even slight changes to the constitution, it ended with a coup (and yes, some of the strategies were diluted by the amnesty bill – which though again is quite a complex issue). A government in Thailand is not necessarily in power, a point that should not be ignored. Thailand is still a double polity.
Yes, we all know that Thailand is not a liberal democracy. We know that the PT party is not yet a liberal democratic party ( but it has many members who are liberal democrats, and whose voices cannot be ignored anymore). But what we do know is that this subject is very much topic of discussion and debate. And that is a necessary step towards structural changes.
And please – do not distort what i have been saying. I have never said that liberal democracy in Thailand is a pipe dream. On the opposite – i am convinced that we have been rapidly moving towards a liberal democracy especially during the past ten years of conflict. What is a pipe dream is that suddenly some elusive third force can be built that miraculously comes to and wins the ballot box and achieves that liberal democracy where others have failed.
And again, you limit the war on drugs to Thaksin. Charges of murder? What do you me to say? That i agree with a utterly empty statement of intention? It’s completely pointless, as no murder charges will ever be done against anyone in the decision making positions during the WoD – neither Thaksin, nor police generals, nor military, nor the other factors. The WoD even had international backing. It was seen as the necessary thing to do, and from that perspective as successful as it rapidly reduced the amount of drugs. One day history may deal with it. But that is it.
Yes, we are talking about different things. I talk about Thailand’s learning process and struggle that may lead one day to point where we can define Thailand as a liberal democracy, while you moan about that it isn’t. But that it isn’t we know already.
That fellow’s name is Khin Nyunt, not “Kim Nyunt”. Khin Nyunt did have a good rapport (“guanxi”?) with ethnic Chinese drug warlords like Lo Hsinghan and Khun Sa. It was all part of the cease-fire deals: “let’s divvy up the turf for smuggling and drug-trafficking operations along the border areas”, just like good gangsters, no?
George – as much as I appreciate Rose, I don’t think one can compare her to Aung San Suu Kyi. A peace prize? Many of her posts are aggressive and violent in nature, ASSK never acted in this way…ASSK was a Stateswomen.
Chatwadee is truly the Aung San Suu Kyi and Lech Walesa of Thailand. Why has she not been awarded a Nobel Prize for courage? Why has the western media been so silent about her dissent? (We know why the Thai media has; they’d be killed if they did.)
Simply to add two points to this rather even-handed and nuanced analysis. Successive Chinese governments have always hedged their bets with Burma in true ‘reelpolitik’ fashion. During the post 1990 junta period, while providing about $1 billion in weaponry, they also encouraged Kim Nyunt, at the time considered to be the least reactionary of the generals to pursue drafting his “roadmap for a discipline flourishing democracy” (sic). With the benefit of hindsight, the roadmap was not quite the sham that it seemed to be for Western observers. Kim Nyunt as PM also pushed for Myanmar’s membership of ASEAN over the objections of the then military strongman Tan Shwe. Having another pro-Chinese member of ASEAN was clearly in Beijing’s interest. When Kim Nyunt was disgraced and put under house arrest Beijing lost an important ally.
As for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi two lessons can be drawn from this trip. As she has fallen a little in disfavour with her Western supporters, because of the lack of a clear stance on the Rohingya, it makes sense for her to seek other international support closer at hand. Yet further evidence of her behaviour as a pragmatic politician aspiring to come to power. Secondly the fact that she was accompanied by a delegation of NLD officials, rather than her visit being the ‘one woman show’ that has been her usual approach in the West, can be seen in a positive light. A crucial problem for the NLD as it prepares to govern has been its over-dependence on one individual and a lack of delegation. The failure to foster a second and third generation of aspiring politicians – just one part of the general capacity building challenge in Myanmar – may at last be addressed.
I can see we are going to have to let this go, Nick, because we seem to talking about different things.
“State-sponsored murder” is hardly a term of art as applied to Thaksin’s WoD. And my view of it is not, as you suggest, black-and-white, so much as it is colored by my notions of rule-of-law and liberal limits to the power of the state.
I’m sure you could tell me, but, to be honest, just as they say is the case with how sausages are made, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear how your “context and mechanics” would absolve a democratically-elected PM from charges of murder in a case like the WoD.
Thaksin himself made it very clear at the time that he felt that law, international or domestic, and the strictures of the international community with its “black-and-white” propaganda about human rights were not really relevant to how he ran Thailand.
I absolutely do not agree that PAD’s political party had aspirations toward establishing liberal-democratic political structures in Thailand. Corporatism as they promoted it is closer to the ‘f’ word than to liberalism in my opinion
And maybe it is your suggestion that they did that points to why we seem to be at such cross-purposes when apparently we would both like to see democracy in Thailand.
You define democracy very differently.
For me, rule of law is the one necessary component that without which you can have elections till the cows come home and you will never have liberal democracy.
Some approximation of popular sovereignty also seems to be necessary. As long as someone other than the electorate can remove and control the government, you do not have a liberal democracy.
From TRT 1 to the dying days of Yingluck’s administration there was no rule of law in Thailand and sovereignty has not shifted one meter away from the RTA/Palace circle in all that time.
More to the point, no moves were made to install rule of law, and no attempt to wrest sovereignty from the Amart was made by any Thaksin government.
From the wink-wink-nudge-nudge of the WoD, to Yingluck’s frantic and highly symbolic gift of Ayuthaya rice land, and onward to her taking on the role of Minister of Defense to assure the generals that they were still running the show, the Shin clan have done everything necessary to stay in power without shifting the Thai state one inch toward liberal democracy.
Nothing is gained by redefining democracy so that it suits Thai conditions if that just means you end up saying that liberal democracy is a “pipe dream” in Thailand at this time.
I disagree.
I think Thailand and the Thai people are ready for democracy. It will, however, require a group of people who actually believe that to put together a political movement to make it a reality.
And neither the framers of the 97 Constitution or the UDD/PT leadership is likely to be part of such a group.
Pa-O do not really live in the “borderlands” of Burma. The Kachin, the Wa, the Chin and the Rohingya do. By the way, Min Ko Naing, the 88 Gen guy, whose real name is Paw Oo Tun, is of Pa-O descent. One should also not forget that Smith Dun, the first commander in chief of the Burmese Army after independence was a Karen. Even Suu Kyi has some Karen blood, so ethnicity is partly a political construction. I don’t know about gender, I will have to ask Caitlyn Jenner lol
Goat – give us some examples or ways Thailand can have a vibrant democracy? How? Perhaps a Singapore method? Society is so fractured! And comments that countries like Germany became democratic is just naive. Germany (west) was not as fractured and divided as Thailand. You’re all dreaming and hoping for the impossible.
The notion that Thai democracy doesn’t exist because of some “special” Thai condition is pure guff. It’s also a mix of moral relativism and historical revisionism that flies in the face of facts on the ground.
For example, the reason Thai democracy doesn’t exist is not through apathy on the part of the Thai people who have, lets face it, been repeatedly brutally suppressed for decades by very powerful forces that were, at one time, linked into global geo-political power-plays.
When elections are continually usurped, when democratic institutions are continually sabotaged, when the civil service is deliberately politicized and when the bloated, degenerate, vicious military is out of any form of civilian and democratic control then you have a more genuine context for the lack of Thai democracy not ephemeral, mythical reasons borne out of theory rather than practice.
The article above is student-politics of the most naive kind and assumes that democracy is not continually struggled over even in countries where it appears established – where was democracy in Greece, Spain, Portugal only 45years ago?
And this absurd concept of “democracy worship” could only ever be written by people who’ve benefited from living in democracies themselves.
Running with the authors’ arguments maybe US “democracy” should be curtailed until it reforms its farcical “electoral college” system for Presidential elections or changes its system of midterms which only get a 40% turnout?
On the turnout front maybe US democracy – cited by the authors above as an exemplar – could learn from Thai democracy with its continual 70%+ turnouts?
Maybe the UK – where the recent election secured a majority for the ruling party based on 24% of the electorates votes – could learn something as well? After all the UK still hasn’t even delivered the Chilcott Report which looks into the reasons why it went into an illegal war in Iraq in 2003, something which was also profoundly anti-democratic?
Which model of democracy would the authors prefer I wonder before they think it can be established or before they believe the “little people” – aka ordinary Thais – get the right to choose their own government?
Emjay – the main problem in your argumentation is that you see things from a black and white, either-or position. In terms of the war on drugs – you look it simply as “state sponsored murder” yet ignore the context and mechanics, and therefore fall into the trap of polemics and propaganda (from whichever side).
In terms of democracy – you don’t seem to see that this is a process of continuous development. While Thaksin’s government indeed was authoritarian and just used democratic methods, such as elections to come to power, it still was a catalyst for developments into more democratic conditions. The Yingluck government was far more democratic than Thaksin’s 1 and 1/2 administration periods.
And again – another polemism is “Thaksin’s suppression of the media”. At the time – we felt that there was much of that. But we have learned that both the two coup governments and the Abhisit government were far more restrictive than Thaksin. The Yingluck government was not perfect, but far more open towards media than all the previous governments.
This shows that things have developed further into the direction of liberal democracy on that side of the game. You cannot simply equate Thaksin’s governments with Yingluck’s (i don’t know, but have you lived in Thailand when Thaksin was PM?).
And i am sorry, everybody knows since decades that Thailand needs a few more real democratic parties (not just one). What is ivory tower thinking is believing that this actually can be achieved at the present time, and that this would be a viable and realistic option right now. It isn’t. It is a pipe dream. Don’t you think people in both colors are not aware of this, would like to have this, but also know that this is for the time being just not a realistic option? And that trying to make this real now could even dilute every advancement that has been made in the past ten years (just look what happened with the PAD’s New Politics Party, which, apart from their ultra-nationalism had similar aspirations)?
And yes – many advancements have been made in the past ten years, while not structural, but in creating a wider political awareness than ever before in Thailand. That has forced the PT Party, and unfortunately to a far lesser degree the Democrats, to begin reforming themselves into more democratic structures. This is taking place – i would suggest to speak with MP’s and party strategists about what they are doing about this right now, and have been doing since quite a while. But these are things that take time.
The point is not that Thaksin was the “first” anything. The point is that he is just another in a long line.
I don’t criticize Thaksin for destroying anything at all, although his first two administrations represent the best chance Thais have ever had at building a democracy. Unfortunately that was not, is not, and never will be what Thaksin and his crew are interested in.
I criticize people who lament Thaksin’s various manifestations, including the most recent, as a lost democracy.
I would agree that there was an opportunity lost or squandered, but that is as much Thaksin’s or any of the PT people’s responsibility as it is Prayuth’s or Suthep’s.
There is no hole in the argument.
There is just democracy and Thai-style democracy. And when people pretend that one is the other, it just makes it less likely that anything will change.
To go back to the original theme of how Thai Studies bears on this problem: For years and years Thai Studies people bought into and propagated the most persistent and destructive myth of governance in Thailand.
Recently it has become acceptable to explode the myth, which is a good thing.
Unfortunately, another equally pernicious but possibly even more destructive myth is now entering into the canon.
The last two coups in Thailand did not destroy Thai democracy. Thai democracy has never yet come close to manifesting in reality. What possible benefit can flow from deluding ourselves or anyone else that it has?
“The most recent coup did NOT destroy Thai democracy because it never existed in the first place.”
So if the coup didn’t destroy what didn’t exist how can you criticize Thaksin for the same?
Your argument has a giant hole in it.
The very idea that Thaksin was the first to initiate terrible human rights abuses, whilst corrupting the political system and attacking liberal values and that before him was some pure system that he had denuded is the key fallacy in the “liberal’s” aka PAD’s spiel.
The answer to Thaksin’s obvious failings was always more democracy, not less. And those who opposed him failed utterly to bring that about.
Now, instead, we have mealy mouthed excuses for coups and irrational arguments.
Thanks for the update. Any chance a recording will be added to the Soundcloud? Or is there anywhere else we could find a transcript, audio or video recording?
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Royal resilience and Thai dictatorship
9,000 tonnes of gold is more than US govt. entire billions holdings and USA is the world’s No. 1 gold hoarder. Is there a Nobel prize for bull(ion) shit . . .because Rose certainly could be deserving!
Royal resilience and Thai dictatorship
Not blocked as of 11.06 on Tuesday the 16th of June.
Democracy worship in Thailand
Germany not fractured and divided? Already the the creation of west/east was a fracture. But go further back, to the Republic of Weimar – Germany’s first failed attempt of a Democracy. Germany’s system of federalism is a result of Germany’s enormous fractures which are rooted in its history of princely states warring with each other for centuries up to the formation of the second empire by Bismarck in 1871. And then go back to the 1848 revolution, when the dream of a democracy and a nation state was first dreamed in Germany.
So, yes, democracy was possible in Germany, regardless the naysayers, and it is in Thailand as well.
Democracy worship in Thailand
Again, how do you want to achieve that? Stating that Thailand is ready for democracy and that it needs someone else than the present players to do that is simple and easy. Doing it is the difficult part.
You said that it needs someone else. Good, and who is that someone else? Who of the people or groups presently available in Thailand have the pull and ability to navigate through all the mess in order to achieve that? Who has the backing and the trust of the population, especially upcountry?
Tell me, please. Because i do not know. I do now though many of the present players, both famous and obscure, many of whom who tediously work on trying to achieve that rule of law, that feint status of liberal democracy, and have done so often for many decades.
Talk is easy, making judgements from the armchair perspective is easy. But it is quite a different matter to do realpolitics. You talk in absolutes, and completely ignore the development process that Thailand has undergone over the past ten years. Thailand is now a completely different country. What has been achieved in the past ten years? Thailand changed from a mostly apolitical society into a highly politicized society in which politics are discussed, debated, argued about and fought over on almost all levels of society – a thing that was unheard of in and up to the 90’s, and began to change in the 2000s. This is a major seismic shit, but completely ignored by you. You only look at the lack of changes in the structures – but that takes time. Already the changes in political awareness we have seen are enormous.
Politics is compromise and strategic alliance. And that means the for one the least compromising and most advantageous alliance. You seem to be waiting for the white knight, riding by on his white horse, and simply wrestle power from the amart elites. And you are disappointed that the present players didn’t behave like the heroes you expect them to be.
But this isn’t a Hollywood movie, this is real life. And in real life a happy end is not necessarily part of the script. You have to learn the playing field. In this field one cannot simply “wrestle sovereignty from the Amart”. The last time one of those very tentative attempts were made five years ago 100 people died. When a parliamentary attempt was made to make even slight changes to the constitution, it ended with a coup (and yes, some of the strategies were diluted by the amnesty bill – which though again is quite a complex issue). A government in Thailand is not necessarily in power, a point that should not be ignored. Thailand is still a double polity.
Yes, we all know that Thailand is not a liberal democracy. We know that the PT party is not yet a liberal democratic party ( but it has many members who are liberal democrats, and whose voices cannot be ignored anymore). But what we do know is that this subject is very much topic of discussion and debate. And that is a necessary step towards structural changes.
And please – do not distort what i have been saying. I have never said that liberal democracy in Thailand is a pipe dream. On the opposite – i am convinced that we have been rapidly moving towards a liberal democracy especially during the past ten years of conflict. What is a pipe dream is that suddenly some elusive third force can be built that miraculously comes to and wins the ballot box and achieves that liberal democracy where others have failed.
And again, you limit the war on drugs to Thaksin. Charges of murder? What do you me to say? That i agree with a utterly empty statement of intention? It’s completely pointless, as no murder charges will ever be done against anyone in the decision making positions during the WoD – neither Thaksin, nor police generals, nor military, nor the other factors. The WoD even had international backing. It was seen as the necessary thing to do, and from that perspective as successful as it rapidly reduced the amount of drugs. One day history may deal with it. But that is it.
Yes, we are talking about different things. I talk about Thailand’s learning process and struggle that may lead one day to point where we can define Thailand as a liberal democracy, while you moan about that it isn’t. But that it isn’t we know already.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to China
That fellow’s name is Khin Nyunt, not “Kim Nyunt”. Khin Nyunt did have a good rapport (“guanxi”?) with ethnic Chinese drug warlords like Lo Hsinghan and Khun Sa. It was all part of the cease-fire deals: “let’s divvy up the turf for smuggling and drug-trafficking operations along the border areas”, just like good gangsters, no?
Royal resilience and Thai dictatorship
George – as much as I appreciate Rose, I don’t think one can compare her to Aung San Suu Kyi. A peace prize? Many of her posts are aggressive and violent in nature, ASSK never acted in this way…ASSK was a Stateswomen.
Royal resilience and Thai dictatorship
Chatwadee is truly the Aung San Suu Kyi and Lech Walesa of Thailand. Why has she not been awarded a Nobel Prize for courage? Why has the western media been so silent about her dissent? (We know why the Thai media has; they’d be killed if they did.)
Royal resilience and Thai dictatorship
I am assuming NM will get blocked in Thailand now? Good piece though!
Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to China
Simply to add two points to this rather even-handed and nuanced analysis. Successive Chinese governments have always hedged their bets with Burma in true ‘reelpolitik’ fashion. During the post 1990 junta period, while providing about $1 billion in weaponry, they also encouraged Kim Nyunt, at the time considered to be the least reactionary of the generals to pursue drafting his “roadmap for a discipline flourishing democracy” (sic). With the benefit of hindsight, the roadmap was not quite the sham that it seemed to be for Western observers. Kim Nyunt as PM also pushed for Myanmar’s membership of ASEAN over the objections of the then military strongman Tan Shwe. Having another pro-Chinese member of ASEAN was clearly in Beijing’s interest. When Kim Nyunt was disgraced and put under house arrest Beijing lost an important ally.
As for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi two lessons can be drawn from this trip. As she has fallen a little in disfavour with her Western supporters, because of the lack of a clear stance on the Rohingya, it makes sense for her to seek other international support closer at hand. Yet further evidence of her behaviour as a pragmatic politician aspiring to come to power. Secondly the fact that she was accompanied by a delegation of NLD officials, rather than her visit being the ‘one woman show’ that has been her usual approach in the West, can be seen in a positive light. A crucial problem for the NLD as it prepares to govern has been its over-dependence on one individual and a lack of delegation. The failure to foster a second and third generation of aspiring politicians – just one part of the general capacity building challenge in Myanmar – may at last be addressed.
Democracy worship in Thailand
I can see we are going to have to let this go, Nick, because we seem to talking about different things.
“State-sponsored murder” is hardly a term of art as applied to Thaksin’s WoD. And my view of it is not, as you suggest, black-and-white, so much as it is colored by my notions of rule-of-law and liberal limits to the power of the state.
I’m sure you could tell me, but, to be honest, just as they say is the case with how sausages are made, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear how your “context and mechanics” would absolve a democratically-elected PM from charges of murder in a case like the WoD.
Thaksin himself made it very clear at the time that he felt that law, international or domestic, and the strictures of the international community with its “black-and-white” propaganda about human rights were not really relevant to how he ran Thailand.
I absolutely do not agree that PAD’s political party had aspirations toward establishing liberal-democratic political structures in Thailand. Corporatism as they promoted it is closer to the ‘f’ word than to liberalism in my opinion
And maybe it is your suggestion that they did that points to why we seem to be at such cross-purposes when apparently we would both like to see democracy in Thailand.
You define democracy very differently.
For me, rule of law is the one necessary component that without which you can have elections till the cows come home and you will never have liberal democracy.
Some approximation of popular sovereignty also seems to be necessary. As long as someone other than the electorate can remove and control the government, you do not have a liberal democracy.
From TRT 1 to the dying days of Yingluck’s administration there was no rule of law in Thailand and sovereignty has not shifted one meter away from the RTA/Palace circle in all that time.
More to the point, no moves were made to install rule of law, and no attempt to wrest sovereignty from the Amart was made by any Thaksin government.
From the wink-wink-nudge-nudge of the WoD, to Yingluck’s frantic and highly symbolic gift of Ayuthaya rice land, and onward to her taking on the role of Minister of Defense to assure the generals that they were still running the show, the Shin clan have done everything necessary to stay in power without shifting the Thai state one inch toward liberal democracy.
Nothing is gained by redefining democracy so that it suits Thai conditions if that just means you end up saying that liberal democracy is a “pipe dream” in Thailand at this time.
I disagree.
I think Thailand and the Thai people are ready for democracy. It will, however, require a group of people who actually believe that to put together a political movement to make it a reality.
And neither the framers of the 97 Constitution or the UDD/PT leadership is likely to be part of such a group.
Making sense of Myanmar’s borderland conflicts
Pa-O do not really live in the “borderlands” of Burma. The Kachin, the Wa, the Chin and the Rohingya do. By the way, Min Ko Naing, the 88 Gen guy, whose real name is Paw Oo Tun, is of Pa-O descent. One should also not forget that Smith Dun, the first commander in chief of the Burmese Army after independence was a Karen. Even Suu Kyi has some Karen blood, so ethnicity is partly a political construction. I don’t know about gender, I will have to ask Caitlyn Jenner lol
Democracy worship in Thailand
Goat – give us some examples or ways Thailand can have a vibrant democracy? How? Perhaps a Singapore method? Society is so fractured! And comments that countries like Germany became democratic is just naive. Germany (west) was not as fractured and divided as Thailand. You’re all dreaming and hoping for the impossible.
Democracy worship in Thailand
The notion that Thai democracy doesn’t exist because of some “special” Thai condition is pure guff. It’s also a mix of moral relativism and historical revisionism that flies in the face of facts on the ground.
For example, the reason Thai democracy doesn’t exist is not through apathy on the part of the Thai people who have, lets face it, been repeatedly brutally suppressed for decades by very powerful forces that were, at one time, linked into global geo-political power-plays.
When elections are continually usurped, when democratic institutions are continually sabotaged, when the civil service is deliberately politicized and when the bloated, degenerate, vicious military is out of any form of civilian and democratic control then you have a more genuine context for the lack of Thai democracy not ephemeral, mythical reasons borne out of theory rather than practice.
The article above is student-politics of the most naive kind and assumes that democracy is not continually struggled over even in countries where it appears established – where was democracy in Greece, Spain, Portugal only 45years ago?
And this absurd concept of “democracy worship” could only ever be written by people who’ve benefited from living in democracies themselves.
Running with the authors’ arguments maybe US “democracy” should be curtailed until it reforms its farcical “electoral college” system for Presidential elections or changes its system of midterms which only get a 40% turnout?
On the turnout front maybe US democracy – cited by the authors above as an exemplar – could learn from Thai democracy with its continual 70%+ turnouts?
Maybe the UK – where the recent election secured a majority for the ruling party based on 24% of the electorates votes – could learn something as well? After all the UK still hasn’t even delivered the Chilcott Report which looks into the reasons why it went into an illegal war in Iraq in 2003, something which was also profoundly anti-democratic?
Which model of democracy would the authors prefer I wonder before they think it can be established or before they believe the “little people” – aka ordinary Thais – get the right to choose their own government?
Democracy worship in Thailand
A few decades ago people said the same thing about Germany – that Democracy is not possible there.
Well, it was, as we can see.
Democracy worship in Thailand
Emjay – the main problem in your argumentation is that you see things from a black and white, either-or position. In terms of the war on drugs – you look it simply as “state sponsored murder” yet ignore the context and mechanics, and therefore fall into the trap of polemics and propaganda (from whichever side).
In terms of democracy – you don’t seem to see that this is a process of continuous development. While Thaksin’s government indeed was authoritarian and just used democratic methods, such as elections to come to power, it still was a catalyst for developments into more democratic conditions. The Yingluck government was far more democratic than Thaksin’s 1 and 1/2 administration periods.
And again – another polemism is “Thaksin’s suppression of the media”. At the time – we felt that there was much of that. But we have learned that both the two coup governments and the Abhisit government were far more restrictive than Thaksin. The Yingluck government was not perfect, but far more open towards media than all the previous governments.
This shows that things have developed further into the direction of liberal democracy on that side of the game. You cannot simply equate Thaksin’s governments with Yingluck’s (i don’t know, but have you lived in Thailand when Thaksin was PM?).
And i am sorry, everybody knows since decades that Thailand needs a few more real democratic parties (not just one). What is ivory tower thinking is believing that this actually can be achieved at the present time, and that this would be a viable and realistic option right now. It isn’t. It is a pipe dream. Don’t you think people in both colors are not aware of this, would like to have this, but also know that this is for the time being just not a realistic option? And that trying to make this real now could even dilute every advancement that has been made in the past ten years (just look what happened with the PAD’s New Politics Party, which, apart from their ultra-nationalism had similar aspirations)?
And yes – many advancements have been made in the past ten years, while not structural, but in creating a wider political awareness than ever before in Thailand. That has forced the PT Party, and unfortunately to a far lesser degree the Democrats, to begin reforming themselves into more democratic structures. This is taking place – i would suggest to speak with MP’s and party strategists about what they are doing about this right now, and have been doing since quite a while. But these are things that take time.
Democracy worship in Thailand
The point is not that Thaksin was the “first” anything. The point is that he is just another in a long line.
I don’t criticize Thaksin for destroying anything at all, although his first two administrations represent the best chance Thais have ever had at building a democracy. Unfortunately that was not, is not, and never will be what Thaksin and his crew are interested in.
I criticize people who lament Thaksin’s various manifestations, including the most recent, as a lost democracy.
I would agree that there was an opportunity lost or squandered, but that is as much Thaksin’s or any of the PT people’s responsibility as it is Prayuth’s or Suthep’s.
There is no hole in the argument.
There is just democracy and Thai-style democracy. And when people pretend that one is the other, it just makes it less likely that anything will change.
To go back to the original theme of how Thai Studies bears on this problem: For years and years Thai Studies people bought into and propagated the most persistent and destructive myth of governance in Thailand.
Recently it has become acceptable to explode the myth, which is a good thing.
Unfortunately, another equally pernicious but possibly even more destructive myth is now entering into the canon.
The last two coups in Thailand did not destroy Thai democracy. Thai democracy has never yet come close to manifesting in reality. What possible benefit can flow from deluding ourselves or anyone else that it has?
Democracy worship in Thailand
“The most recent coup did NOT destroy Thai democracy because it never existed in the first place.”
So if the coup didn’t destroy what didn’t exist how can you criticize Thaksin for the same?
Your argument has a giant hole in it.
The very idea that Thaksin was the first to initiate terrible human rights abuses, whilst corrupting the political system and attacking liberal values and that before him was some pure system that he had denuded is the key fallacy in the “liberal’s” aka PAD’s spiel.
The answer to Thaksin’s obvious failings was always more democracy, not less. And those who opposed him failed utterly to bring that about.
Now, instead, we have mealy mouthed excuses for coups and irrational arguments.
Making sense of Myanmar’s borderland conflicts
Thanks James
Making sense of Myanmar’s borderland conflicts
Hi John
Recordings of each session should be on the site by Wednesday. Keep a look out.
Glad you are enjoying the coverage.
All the best,
James
Making sense of Myanmar’s borderland conflicts
Thanks for the update. Any chance a recording will be added to the Soundcloud? Or is there anywhere else we could find a transcript, audio or video recording?