I recently ordained as a novice monk at WSBR for 7 weeks. phra chuntawongso is no lomger there, the temple stay program is currently held together by Graham, a former monk and now local resident near the temple. Graham is a very sincere and devoted buddhist practitioner who shares his wisdon wholeheartedly with all,he does a great job running the program. Dr Apisit and the senior monks and thai novices are all very welcoming and helpful. I loved my time in robes and the thai community are also very embracing of westerners who visit. I hope to return some day. Barry from Australia
The number of islands is in fact 18,108. See:
John G.Butcher, “Becoming an Archipelagic State, in Robert Cribb and Michele Ford (eds), Indonesia beyond the Water’s Edge, Singapore: ISEAS, 2009, p33.
On the contrary, Mega says far too much, the problem is that 99.9 % of it is kerbau patties. Indonesia should create the indigenous Sukarnoputri Muzzle, a specially designed facemask for Mega, that can’t be used in cricket and land/ice hockey.
I too am sceptical of the perception that Jokowi is a weak president. If he is, he is certainly not aware of it. He is constantly telling Indonesian audiences of his capacity to stun foreign leaders. For example, he said to a Tim Nusantara Sehat three days ago that, every time he met a foreign president or prime minister, he told his interlocutor that Indonesia had a population of 250 million and comprised 17,000 islands. The foreigners, startled (kaget) at this news, could only shake their heads (geleng-geleng kepala). If true, this anecdote merely shows that Jokowi must often encounter poorly-briefed visitors. It has never been a secret that Indonesia has a lot of islands (18,808 is the most accurate count, not 17,000).
Whatever his relationship with Megawati may be, Jokowi can draw comfort from the undeniable fact that no foreigner has ever been kaget at anything she had to say. Getting her to say anything at all is the main problem.
Let me try to make sense of how the comments relate to the article. Maureen Coffey provides a picture of Chinese survival and resilience wherever they are not the majority, and this is what reminded Moe Aung of Amy Chua’s writings. The same has been said of diasporic Arabs, Italians and Jews, Peter Cohen’s account of the illustrious Jews of Asia being a case in point. Sam’s engaging anecdote shows, once again, that how many see themselves and others is sometimes filtered through the White gaze, in this case the watchful eyes of the “white shopkeepers”.
Dear readers, we would like to thank New Mandala for running our latest think piece and for its readers’ interest in it. We are currently taking careful note of all the responses, criticisms and constructive inputs from various regional media outlets (Jakarta Post, Bangkok Post, Philippine Daily Inquirer, etc) that had decided to run our piece as well. We will try our best to address questions from this forum in our upcoming think piece.
This is an important question, and one with which, I think, many people are concerned. I have my own fears surrounding the potential for a violent monarchical legitimacy crisis. However, while I agree with the other commenters about a widespread lack of faith in the monarchy as an institution, this sentiment is not universal. I also don’t think we should always frame lack of criticism of the monarchy in terms of being ‘willing to question’ as if Thai people who support the monarchy are dupes or afraid (no one here has said this specifically, but we’ve probably all had conversations in which this was implied). The simple fact is that ‘democracy’ (whatever that means in Thailand or anywhere) and capitalism have not worked out so well in Thailand. I think it is at least worth asking to what degree the King is used as a conservative critique of these and other signals of the modern world. While I don’t agree, I am deeply sympathetic toward the search for some authority above politics and the wild west economy experienced by countries in the South. So, another layer to all this wondering about support is to ask to what degree can the monarch(y) be seen as a potential tool against the problems of modernity. As a remnant of a time before all modernity’s attendant ills, is there any hope that stability can come from a King? The whole institution is a question of what does the past mean when it contemporaneously exists with the present. To now it is obviously an instrument of oppression, and I am among those who expect this to continue (even more images of Bhumibol, even more abuses of Thainess, etc.). However, we should be slow to fault those (and here I am thinking about ‘common’ Thais who support the monarchy, not coup-folks) who look to it for solutions outside of all the other failed institutions.
It’s often said that the WA-RI wheat trade is the economic ballast in the relationship – only when this trade is put on the table will we know that the relationship is in real trouble.
Unlike cattle, the WA-RI wheat trade is truly strategic, supporting the processing and value adding of grain which is then re-
exported as instant noodles to feed Asia.
WA wheat growers entered into a partnership with one of Suharto’s uber corrupt cronies, the Salim Group, which continued to expand after the end of the New Order. The business model by which WA wheatgrowers can sell their product to entities in Indonesia in which they have part ownership – effectively having price inputs throughout the production, processing and distribution chain, should receive more academic and media attention than it has to date.
The Salim Group is involved in the BLBI corruption scandal implicating Megawati. Her own sister, Rachmawati, accuses her publicly of using her POLRI allies to prevent KPK investigating. This in turn has rebounded upon Widodo, contributing to a growing
perception [not one that I share] that he’s a weak President, unable to establish his independence from Megawati. The Salim Group is said to owe between Rp 20-50 trillion, and would stand to lose this should KPK investigate Megawati and BLBI. How exposed Salim’s WA partners could be is perhaps known only to themselves, though I’m sure many others would be interested.
In the meantime, those who claim that the recent executions are a response by Widodo to domestic accusations of weakness, in which the POLRI scandal is a major factor, could reflect upon how WA wheat interests would seem to align with Salim, Megawati and her POLRI loyalists.
As a campaign against capital punishment, the efforts of Australians in the last few months are unlikely to be effective outside Australia. The reason is this: outsiders will not see it as disinterested. In order to be effective outside Australia, a campaign against capital punishment needs to be seen as applying universally. Care should be taken not to turn up the volume when Australians are executed, lest it be dismissed by outsiders as a campaign for special treatment of Australian criminals.
Hard to know what to make of this odd, odd, odd little essay. It does seem symptomatic of the rapidly declining standard of what passes for expertise on Thailand–among both Thais and foreigners–in these times, just when sound understanding is most needed. But readers should be aware that Professor Christoph Giebel of the University of Washington has devoted a book and a good bit of additional research to Ton Duc Thang. For the book, see http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/GIEIMA.html .
Once in Hanoi I asked some friends, why they have the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, as he himself always opposed it. They answered: “So that the government (elite)can hide behind it”.
My thoughts exactly. Long have I believed that Phumiphon will never ‘die’. While he will be reduced to ashes on the pyre, all those cheesy images we’ve all been bombarded with over the decades will be recycled and refurbished ad nauseam. A living myth for future generations.
Most of the population is getting more and more impoverished especially the tillers of the land whilst nobody is likely to forget that most of the population remain woefully undereducated and unskilled. And we all know the common denominator here, don’t we?
Expectations run high when people are led to believe it’s all change from here on in. But no, you can’t expect clean water as soon as the well is dug… this familiar refrain, the Myanmar version of jam tomorrow, is wearing thin and getting tiresome.
So yes, give them a break. Perestroika? Da. Glasnost? Da. Give Thein Sein another term in office, or Shwe Mann, or why not Min Aung Hlaing. This cat has more than nine lives.
They haven’t run out of pious platitudes yet, or guns, but on the contrary are busy learning a whole lot of sound bites from their new best friends. The fox is still in charge of the chicken coop and being patted on the back.
A shame you got far more dislikes than likes because you are quite correct in what you say. I suspect that with New Mandela being a home of intellectuals they do like their fancy words to be ship-shaped and sorted before moving onto the more mundane tasks of actually running a country.
As an example, today the newspapers are reporting that Uncle To demands a crack-down on drunken drivers in the wake of the tragic killing of three cyclists by an intoxicated motorist.
No fine words in a constitution are going to cure Thailand’s problems if basic rule of law is ignored.
The police do not police as the term is commonly understood in the West. The police are firstly a money-making organisation and secondly a clean-up-the-evidence outfit. They have no interest in clamping down on drunken drivers unless it is to extract a fee from them. And then let the perps carry on with their business. For motorists it is not so much a punishment but a fee for the right to drive – whether you are drunk, unqualified, uninsured, in an unsafe vehicle, speeding or whatever.
It’s clear to see that it is therefore against police interests to apply the rule of law as this will reduce the money-making opportunities in the future. Now multiply this attitude throughout the country to every public service organisation, to every government office where the people need documents signed, certificates issued, school places allocated or what have you, and we have a society where rule of law does not apply and those with resources can buy whatever outcome they want.
So we can await with baited breath for a new constitution and pore over the details and analyse what it means for ordinary Thais. On the other hand we could just open a New Mandela sweepstake on how long this constitution will last before the next one arrives; for all the difference it will make to Thailand’s subjects.
As Jonfernquest says: Rule of Law must come first. Without it, a constitution is just a bunch of words.
King Bhumibol will live on long after his death. His sainthood in life is nothing compared to the deification that will be built around him by the military and elite. The King Bhumibol cult will rise to new levels once he has left this mortal coil.
In doing so the elite can continue with the same level of control over the people. Better still, a dead man’s image can be polished and shaped far easier than a living man’s. And it also neatly side-steps the problem of how to shoe-horn the new monarch into the system, ie. Rama IX will be given a much higher profile than his son in the new order.
Old patriarchs never die, they just get a makeover.
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Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
I have, several times, and she was quite voluble, if not infuriating. Not a formal interview, just a one-way discourse, mostly in her direction.
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
Try interviewing her.
Mixing religion and commerce: The Monk for a Month Program in Fang, Chiang Mai
I recently ordained as a novice monk at WSBR for 7 weeks. phra chuntawongso is no lomger there, the temple stay program is currently held together by Graham, a former monk and now local resident near the temple. Graham is a very sincere and devoted buddhist practitioner who shares his wisdon wholeheartedly with all,he does a great job running the program. Dr Apisit and the senior monks and thai novices are all very welcoming and helpful. I loved my time in robes and the thai community are also very embracing of westerners who visit. I hope to return some day. Barry from Australia
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
The number of islands is in fact 18,108. See:
John G.Butcher, “Becoming an Archipelagic State, in Robert Cribb and Michele Ford (eds), Indonesia beyond the Water’s Edge, Singapore: ISEAS, 2009, p33.
Najib’s taxing problem: The politics of Malaysia’s GST
Appreciate if you could share with us the sample size, methodology and geographic coverage of the underlying survey done.
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
On the contrary, Mega says far too much, the problem is that 99.9 % of it is kerbau patties. Indonesia should create the indigenous Sukarnoputri Muzzle, a specially designed facemask for Mega, that can’t be used in cricket and land/ice hockey.
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
I too am sceptical of the perception that Jokowi is a weak president. If he is, he is certainly not aware of it. He is constantly telling Indonesian audiences of his capacity to stun foreign leaders. For example, he said to a Tim Nusantara Sehat three days ago that, every time he met a foreign president or prime minister, he told his interlocutor that Indonesia had a population of 250 million and comprised 17,000 islands. The foreigners, startled (kaget) at this news, could only shake their heads (geleng-geleng kepala). If true, this anecdote merely shows that Jokowi must often encounter poorly-briefed visitors. It has never been a secret that Indonesia has a lot of islands (18,808 is the most accurate count, not 17,000).
Whatever his relationship with Megawati may be, Jokowi can draw comfort from the undeniable fact that no foreigner has ever been kaget at anything she had to say. Getting her to say anything at all is the main problem.
An unlikely encounter
A comment about the reference to her as “The Lady” lest we forget: it was not safe to refer to her by name for many years, and thus this appellation.
The double captivity of ‘Chinese privilege’
Let me try to make sense of how the comments relate to the article. Maureen Coffey provides a picture of Chinese survival and resilience wherever they are not the majority, and this is what reminded Moe Aung of Amy Chua’s writings. The same has been said of diasporic Arabs, Italians and Jews, Peter Cohen’s account of the illustrious Jews of Asia being a case in point. Sam’s engaging anecdote shows, once again, that how many see themselves and others is sometimes filtered through the White gaze, in this case the watchful eyes of the “white shopkeepers”.
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
Dear readers, we would like to thank New Mandala for running our latest think piece and for its readers’ interest in it. We are currently taking careful note of all the responses, criticisms and constructive inputs from various regional media outlets (Jakarta Post, Bangkok Post, Philippine Daily Inquirer, etc) that had decided to run our piece as well. We will try our best to address questions from this forum in our upcoming think piece.
Succession and legitimacy: Vajiralongkorn and T├┤n Duc Thang
This is an important question, and one with which, I think, many people are concerned. I have my own fears surrounding the potential for a violent monarchical legitimacy crisis. However, while I agree with the other commenters about a widespread lack of faith in the monarchy as an institution, this sentiment is not universal. I also don’t think we should always frame lack of criticism of the monarchy in terms of being ‘willing to question’ as if Thai people who support the monarchy are dupes or afraid (no one here has said this specifically, but we’ve probably all had conversations in which this was implied). The simple fact is that ‘democracy’ (whatever that means in Thailand or anywhere) and capitalism have not worked out so well in Thailand. I think it is at least worth asking to what degree the King is used as a conservative critique of these and other signals of the modern world. While I don’t agree, I am deeply sympathetic toward the search for some authority above politics and the wild west economy experienced by countries in the South. So, another layer to all this wondering about support is to ask to what degree can the monarch(y) be seen as a potential tool against the problems of modernity. As a remnant of a time before all modernity’s attendant ills, is there any hope that stability can come from a King? The whole institution is a question of what does the past mean when it contemporaneously exists with the present. To now it is obviously an instrument of oppression, and I am among those who expect this to continue (even more images of Bhumibol, even more abuses of Thainess, etc.). However, we should be slow to fault those (and here I am thinking about ‘common’ Thais who support the monarchy, not coup-folks) who look to it for solutions outside of all the other failed institutions.
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
It’s often said that the WA-RI wheat trade is the economic ballast in the relationship – only when this trade is put on the table will we know that the relationship is in real trouble.
Unlike cattle, the WA-RI wheat trade is truly strategic, supporting the processing and value adding of grain which is then re-
exported as instant noodles to feed Asia.
WA wheat growers entered into a partnership with one of Suharto’s uber corrupt cronies, the Salim Group, which continued to expand after the end of the New Order. The business model by which WA wheatgrowers can sell their product to entities in Indonesia in which they have part ownership – effectively having price inputs throughout the production, processing and distribution chain, should receive more academic and media attention than it has to date.
The Salim Group is involved in the BLBI corruption scandal implicating Megawati. Her own sister, Rachmawati, accuses her publicly of using her POLRI allies to prevent KPK investigating. This in turn has rebounded upon Widodo, contributing to a growing
perception [not one that I share] that he’s a weak President, unable to establish his independence from Megawati. The Salim Group is said to owe between Rp 20-50 trillion, and would stand to lose this should KPK investigate Megawati and BLBI. How exposed Salim’s WA partners could be is perhaps known only to themselves, though I’m sure many others would be interested.
In the meantime, those who claim that the recent executions are a response by Widodo to domestic accusations of weakness, in which the POLRI scandal is a major factor, could reflect upon how WA wheat interests would seem to align with Salim, Megawati and her POLRI loyalists.
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
As a campaign against capital punishment, the efforts of Australians in the last few months are unlikely to be effective outside Australia. The reason is this: outsiders will not see it as disinterested. In order to be effective outside Australia, a campaign against capital punishment needs to be seen as applying universally. Care should be taken not to turn up the volume when Australians are executed, lest it be dismissed by outsiders as a campaign for special treatment of Australian criminals.
Succession and legitimacy: Vajiralongkorn and T├┤n Duc Thang
Hard to know what to make of this odd, odd, odd little essay. It does seem symptomatic of the rapidly declining standard of what passes for expertise on Thailand–among both Thais and foreigners–in these times, just when sound understanding is most needed. But readers should be aware that Professor Christoph Giebel of the University of Washington has devoted a book and a good bit of additional research to Ton Duc Thang. For the book, see http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/GIEIMA.html .
Succession and legitimacy: Vajiralongkorn and T├┤n Duc Thang
Once in Hanoi I asked some friends, why they have the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, as he himself always opposed it. They answered: “So that the government (elite)can hide behind it”.
Fair pay for Myanmar’s civil servants
Printing new 5000 kyats note to cover, for now, will not affect inflation.
The under current of everything economic, here, the Civil servants wages, which Myanmar will and must face is “Graft”.
Not until this problem is ‘BROUGHT UNDER CONTROL’, MYanmar will see the same result as BSPP era with the difference of ‘bogger economic pie’.
Succession and legitimacy: Vajiralongkorn and T├┤n Duc Thang
@Tim
My thoughts exactly. Long have I believed that Phumiphon will never ‘die’. While he will be reduced to ashes on the pyre, all those cheesy images we’ve all been bombarded with over the decades will be recycled and refurbished ad nauseam. A living myth for future generations.
Change you can depend on
Most of the population is getting more and more impoverished especially the tillers of the land whilst nobody is likely to forget that most of the population remain woefully undereducated and unskilled. And we all know the common denominator here, don’t we?
Expectations run high when people are led to believe it’s all change from here on in. But no, you can’t expect clean water as soon as the well is dug… this familiar refrain, the Myanmar version of jam tomorrow, is wearing thin and getting tiresome.
So yes, give them a break. Perestroika? Da. Glasnost? Da. Give Thein Sein another term in office, or Shwe Mann, or why not Min Aung Hlaing. This cat has more than nine lives.
They haven’t run out of pious platitudes yet, or guns, but on the contrary are busy learning a whole lot of sound bites from their new best friends. The fox is still in charge of the chicken coop and being patted on the back.
Pol-la-muang: The making of superior Thais
A shame you got far more dislikes than likes because you are quite correct in what you say. I suspect that with New Mandela being a home of intellectuals they do like their fancy words to be ship-shaped and sorted before moving onto the more mundane tasks of actually running a country.
As an example, today the newspapers are reporting that Uncle To demands a crack-down on drunken drivers in the wake of the tragic killing of three cyclists by an intoxicated motorist.
No fine words in a constitution are going to cure Thailand’s problems if basic rule of law is ignored.
The police do not police as the term is commonly understood in the West. The police are firstly a money-making organisation and secondly a clean-up-the-evidence outfit. They have no interest in clamping down on drunken drivers unless it is to extract a fee from them. And then let the perps carry on with their business. For motorists it is not so much a punishment but a fee for the right to drive – whether you are drunk, unqualified, uninsured, in an unsafe vehicle, speeding or whatever.
It’s clear to see that it is therefore against police interests to apply the rule of law as this will reduce the money-making opportunities in the future. Now multiply this attitude throughout the country to every public service organisation, to every government office where the people need documents signed, certificates issued, school places allocated or what have you, and we have a society where rule of law does not apply and those with resources can buy whatever outcome they want.
So we can await with baited breath for a new constitution and pore over the details and analyse what it means for ordinary Thais. On the other hand we could just open a New Mandela sweepstake on how long this constitution will last before the next one arrives; for all the difference it will make to Thailand’s subjects.
As Jonfernquest says: Rule of Law must come first. Without it, a constitution is just a bunch of words.
Succession and legitimacy: Vajiralongkorn and T├┤n Duc Thang
King Bhumibol will live on long after his death. His sainthood in life is nothing compared to the deification that will be built around him by the military and elite. The King Bhumibol cult will rise to new levels once he has left this mortal coil.
In doing so the elite can continue with the same level of control over the people. Better still, a dead man’s image can be polished and shaped far easier than a living man’s. And it also neatly side-steps the problem of how to shoe-horn the new monarch into the system, ie. Rama IX will be given a much higher profile than his son in the new order.
Old patriarchs never die, they just get a makeover.