The majority that were killed, here in the northern part of Chiang Mai province, anyway, were killed in drug gang wars, and most of the others were suspected police informants and undercover police and military that were killed by the drug gangs in an attempt to close down the intelligence gathering and try to scare away any other informants.
Andrew MacGregor Marshall – thank you for pointing me in the direction of Christine Gray. I’m interested particularly in what she has said about Isaarn – which she mentions breifly on that link you provided. It is in Isaarn where, I believe, the fate of this entity called “Thailand”, will ultimately be decided. I’m nowhere near as pessimistic as some of the threads above. Prayuth with his “puritanical paternalism” (as The Economist recently described it) increasingly looks like an aberration, stirring up very powerful opposition towards him. Much like Tanin Kraivixien – that similar puritanical paternalist abberation who became PM, after October ’76 massacre – but did n’t last long. Prayuth is very far from being a Sarit – who was SO inclusive of Isaarn he not only spurred huge development there, but also took an Isaarn Lao wife !
People by and large judge the horrible “racism” of the native Rakhine based on the events of recent times as if it were primarily a matter of ethnicity, colour or creed without paying due consideration toits origins from the wartime violent and genocidal conflict when they were on the receiving end.
The crucial demographic change happened with Chittagongian immigration in colonial times following the Burmese defeat in the First Burmese War as British historians call it (the first of three Anglo-Burmese Wars to the Burmese) which exponentially swelled the numbers in the northernmost townships bordering East Bengal.
It cannot possibly be anything like balanced or fair critique where you conveniently forget the Mujahideen rebellion in 1947 with the explicit aim of carving out territory for an independent sultanate before Burma even gained independence, after the leaders of this immigrant enclave had approached Jinnah unsuccessfully for the three townships to be subsumed into East Pakistan.
The Americans may have pulled it off in Texas at the expense of Mexico. Well, not bloody likely in Burma.
I think Andrew’s question was not just what can be done to make Thai studies better — more insightful, more on point, etc — but what can be done to make Thai studies more sustainable and make entry into the field more accessible. I have little claim to know much about the dimensions of the problem, but it does seem to me that in the United States Thai studies stopped growing rather many years ago. Part of the problem was that people who are now in their sixties got the few university positions that were available, then got tenure. Lack of funding, lack of interest stopped further expansion. Academically ambitious people had no reason to see Thai studies as a possible career path. And I think the problems with needing to find funding, often from Thai affiliated donors, and the need to attract grad students from Thailand for the bulk of enrolled students (is that true? is that who studies in Thai studies departments?), has a very substantial contribution on lack of innovation, adherence to the old forms of understanding.
How does one break that cycle? More money, unrestricted money. Ha. Don’t we all want that.
Has anyone considered approaching Taksin to fund a major program of Thai Studies, say at ANU? A billion dollar endowment?
I don’t know too much about drugs (I work at a University in North America and I would be fired if they find me smoking pot in my office to understand Nietzsche lol)
More seriously, Universities nowadays are cash-strapped, which is how corporations and people with money can tamper with academic freedom and integrity. Governments are told to be “accountable” with tax-payer money so that they can bail out banks which are too big to fail but cut funds from public education if they are not “profitable”. Universities administrators (Chairs, Deans, Provosts, Presidents and the like) are acting like little fundraisers and lean-and-mean CEO’s. The “commercialisation and corporatisation” of Academia is proceeding at an alarming rate. Funding social sciences and humanities is not at the top of the agenda. STEM subjects are deemed more relevant. At the same time recruiting foreign students, especially from populous Asian countries such as China and India is a humongous deal. Just look at the MBA programs. Thai studies is probably considered a “fringe subject” not worthy of a “big investment”. It’s all about “return on your investment”, no?
Just curious. All those 3000 or so expeditiously executed, without due process, by Thaksin’s over zealous (like Captain Nat)police death squads … were any really drug dealers?
I beg to differ. There is still a ‘pot scene’ of sorts in the kingdom. And officialdom is always busting fairly large quantities of third-rate compressed weed – full of seeds and stems – (mostly produced in Laos, I believe) which, for many years now, has replaced the exceptionally fine Thai ganja of old (Buddha sticks, etc.). Indeed, that was one of the sorry results of Thaksin/HM’s so-called ‘war on drugs’ – growers of excellent sinsimella in Sakon Nakhon, Udorn, Nakhon Phanom etc. had the screws put on them and – fearing death from trigger happy coppers – virtually went out of business.
I’m also not sure if ‘yaa-baa’ is actually ‘preferred’, more like – ubiquitous, ridiculously easy to obtain . This horrible chemical (extremely long lasting for novice users) is very similar to ‘yaa maa’ (horse medicine), the amphetamine favoured by truck and long-distance bus drivers 30-40 years ago. As anyone with a reasonable degree of familiarity with Thailand knows, ‘yaa-baa’ is available in virtually every ‘moo-baan’ in the country no matter how many of the insidious little red-orange pills the police seize. The substance produces very little in the way of euphoria, although it gives you an enormous amount of energy and if used continually for any time most certainly scrambles the brain. Incredibly, it’s almost a quarter of a century since this scourge began to envelop Thailand.
As for the statement ‘apparently a lot of Indians smoke THE WEED because it helps them… to understand Western Philosophy” – maybe you’re not making it up, but whoever did say this doesn’t know a great deal about the rather old charas and ganja culture in India. I doubt very many of the numerous ‘chillum babas’ you come across in that country have big hits on their chillums and then go off and read ‘Western philosophy’. Absurd!
And finally, as for the actual topic of discussion in this post – Thai Studies. Hard to know how to inspire new generations to go down this road. From what I can gather, based on long experience, few people are actually interested in learning Thai seriously and developing a broader knowledge of the society, culture, and so on. There’s no money in it and, with the rare exception here and there, few jobs. Sadly, interest in the field does not, generally speaking, lead one either to serious lucre or a viable career. Maybe one day that will change, but don’t hold your breath. My apologies for the pessimism.
Dig deep enough, just enough couple with HRW stuff aka always self serving junks and anyone can be the devil.
This is the very pontification: reading reports, document and testimonials sans being on the ground.
Take a long walk, stay awhile, talk among the natives after gaining trust and most of all observe and you will see the big picture of a whole Myanmar Citizenry and realize how ridiculous/self serving almost all that you have had read.
It’s simply not true that nobody has criticized the Thai government for its treatment of Burmese refugees and immigrants. Just two recent examples should be enough, but there are more, of course:
I remember reading a book called POT PLANET. It is about the different milieu of POT smokers across the PLANET. There is not much of a POT scene in the Land Of Smiles. Ya-ba is preferred. But everyone here knows that. But in India, there is some POT SMOKERS. Apparently a lot of Indians smoke THE WEED because it helps them, in their words,to “understand Western Philosophy”.
And in that process one “beat the hell out of” (emulsified) to achieve ‘uniform or similarity’.
Myo Chit the most fundamental of Buddhism is – Tolerance or more descriptive: Denying Oneself. That makes your insinuation of Buddhism as a source of violence as rather lame. If Muslim Kalar in Yakhine is not a face of Islam then 969 is not the face of Buddhism.
In Myanmar Kalar, Tayoke etc. as well as the majority Bama coexisted well.
Read this next line carefully;
It is the Power Than Be (PBT) manipulation of incidences to achieve what has happened conveniently using Buddhism convincing ignorant.
That said what has happened might still have happened yet.
The ultimate sin is the PBT in Myanmar doing little or sometimes nothing to diminish the attacks against Muslim Kalars until now.
I and my ilk hearts sank every time one of Myanmar Citizenry is hurt by any useless careless cause.
A few years ago when the Karen or refugee in Thailand was inhumanely treated by some Thai
no one blame the Thai Government, Police or majority.
In fact this inhumane treatment is counter with native Thai HR Solicitors using ROL to bring these “refugee that’s worth less than a dog” attitude to an end.
The atrocities documented against the Muslim are real. Unlike refugees in Thailand the difference is most of the incidences started with provocations.
Be that as it may, dwelling in the past will be a repeatedly stating of Historically documented atrocities, a useless careless reminder.
Until Citizenship/residency status are clarified and thee ROL strengthen this cycle serves nobody but more arm chair critic that will hurt a country citizenry as a WHOLE rather than improve the condition of the persecuted.
Myanmar is similarly Hellishly poor compared to Bangladesh. Yet moving on we must with out dignifying further anyone especially from outside Myanmar, who will never know Myanmar rather pick and choose one group suffering to pontificate.
15 August 2014 was only the 9-year anniversary of the Helsinki agreement. Hopefully there will be more media coverings next year around the 10-years anniversary.
Greg, on the recent Singapore general elections and by elections, see my co-authored paper alongside Stephan Ortmann’s piece in Asian Survey 54(4) July/August 2014.
As a Singaporean, I agree with almost everything tocharian says. Unfortunately, Benjamin’s narrow focus on the F1 race as an extension of Singapore’s soft power and its symbolic positioning as a global hub illuminates as much as it obscures. Left untold, are the stories of worker exploitation and marginalization, of domestic hegemony and identity, and of consumerism and inequality.
plan B: as long as you use your religion to be exclusive, divisive and violence-prone towards peoples of other religions, your religion fundamentalist, whatever it teaches you!
This again shows how you have taken great pains to homogenize all the Muslims of the world, especially Rohingya and Muslims in Bangladesh, into Jihadists. It resonates with certain voices which are globally popular nowadays. So, your message will always find eager ears from such people. But let me ask you something: Will you be happy if the whole world thinks of all Rakhine and Burmese Buddhists as inherently violent depending on what happened in Rakhine and many other parts of Myanmar? You won’t and I won’t. So, be careful when you say generalizing comments.
You want references and quotes? I am afraid I can’t provide the references and quotes which are as biased and ultra-nationalist as yours are. For example, I have never seen such a report couched in inflammatory language and poor logic as that produced by so-called Arakan Human Rights (human rights only for Rakhines?) and Development Organization and lead-authored by an American musician, which you proudly quoted above.
If you’d like independent reports: see these but you will reject them as biased and incorrect because they portray a different story. But since you wanted them, here are a few:
Human Rights Watch, “The Government Could Have Stopped This”:
Sectarian Violence and Ensuing Abuses in Burma’s Arakan State: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/07/31/government-could-have-stopped
Human Rights Watch, “All You Can Do is Pray”:
Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Arakan State: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/04/22/all-you-can-do-pray-0
Physicians for Human Rights, “Patterns of Anti-Muslim Violence in Burma
A Call for Accountability and Prevention” http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/reports/patterns-of-anti-muslim-violence-in-burma.html
But I know you won’t accept them. That’s why I didn’t provide them in the first place.
In many Asian countries there is an unspoken axiom that “white Westerners”, academic or otherwise, can never truly understand, appreciate let alone “penetrate” the “deep, mysterious, arcane and even sacrosanct” true nature of their culture and tradition. Thai-ness, Burmese-ness, Chinese-ness, Khmer-ness, etc.. will always remain inscrutable for “white Westerners” with
their “Greco-Judeo-Roman-Christian Weltanschaung” . On the other hand, in this day and age of politically correct diversity and multi-culturalism, Westerners would never dare to say that Asians cannot appreciate the subtelties of the Fugues of Bach or Shakespeare’s plays or Euclidean Geometry or Wagner’s. Nibelungen or Plato’s Republic or Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or the twerks of Miley Cyrus etc. etc.
This is a truly asymmetrical unhealthy and hypocritical attitude bordering on double-standards.
I really appreciate Western academics and scholars who are trying to break through this artificial oxymoronic barrier (East and West, the twain shall never meet nonsense). Countries like Thailand (and others in Southeast Asia) truly need a period of “Enlightenment”, perhaps even a French Revolution of sorts.
Disclosure: I was born in Burma and lived there for over 20 years.
[…] and author of Demokrasi: Indonesia in the 21st Century (Black Inc). The article was first published here and is reprinted here with the kind permission of ANU. […]
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Captain Nat and the wheels of Thai justice
The majority that were killed, here in the northern part of Chiang Mai province, anyway, were killed in drug gang wars, and most of the others were suspected police informants and undercover police and military that were killed by the drug gangs in an attempt to close down the intelligence gathering and try to scare away any other informants.
Thai Studies in Australia, redux
Andrew MacGregor Marshall – thank you for pointing me in the direction of Christine Gray. I’m interested particularly in what she has said about Isaarn – which she mentions breifly on that link you provided. It is in Isaarn where, I believe, the fate of this entity called “Thailand”, will ultimately be decided. I’m nowhere near as pessimistic as some of the threads above. Prayuth with his “puritanical paternalism” (as The Economist recently described it) increasingly looks like an aberration, stirring up very powerful opposition towards him. Much like Tanin Kraivixien – that similar puritanical paternalist abberation who became PM, after October ’76 massacre – but did n’t last long. Prayuth is very far from being a Sarit – who was SO inclusive of Isaarn he not only spurred huge development there, but also took an Isaarn Lao wife !
Rohingya and national identities in Burma
People by and large judge the horrible “racism” of the native Rakhine based on the events of recent times as if it were primarily a matter of ethnicity, colour or creed without paying due consideration toits origins from the wartime violent and genocidal conflict when they were on the receiving end.
The crucial demographic change happened with Chittagongian immigration in colonial times following the Burmese defeat in the First Burmese War as British historians call it (the first of three Anglo-Burmese Wars to the Burmese) which exponentially swelled the numbers in the northernmost townships bordering East Bengal.
The rest as they say is history very well summarised by Martin Smith in 1995.
It cannot possibly be anything like balanced or fair critique where you conveniently forget the Mujahideen rebellion in 1947 with the explicit aim of carving out territory for an independent sultanate before Burma even gained independence, after the leaders of this immigrant enclave had approached Jinnah unsuccessfully for the three townships to be subsumed into East Pakistan.
The Americans may have pulled it off in Texas at the expense of Mexico. Well, not bloody likely in Burma.
Thai Studies in Australia, redux
Except of course, it is Nicholas Farrelly who posed the question, not Andrew Walker.
Thai Studies in Australia, redux
I think Andrew’s question was not just what can be done to make Thai studies better — more insightful, more on point, etc — but what can be done to make Thai studies more sustainable and make entry into the field more accessible. I have little claim to know much about the dimensions of the problem, but it does seem to me that in the United States Thai studies stopped growing rather many years ago. Part of the problem was that people who are now in their sixties got the few university positions that were available, then got tenure. Lack of funding, lack of interest stopped further expansion. Academically ambitious people had no reason to see Thai studies as a possible career path. And I think the problems with needing to find funding, often from Thai affiliated donors, and the need to attract grad students from Thailand for the bulk of enrolled students (is that true? is that who studies in Thai studies departments?), has a very substantial contribution on lack of innovation, adherence to the old forms of understanding.
How does one break that cycle? More money, unrestricted money. Ha. Don’t we all want that.
Has anyone considered approaching Taksin to fund a major program of Thai Studies, say at ANU? A billion dollar endowment?
Thai Studies in Australia, redux
I don’t know too much about drugs (I work at a University in North America and I would be fired if they find me smoking pot in my office to understand Nietzsche lol)
More seriously, Universities nowadays are cash-strapped, which is how corporations and people with money can tamper with academic freedom and integrity. Governments are told to be “accountable” with tax-payer money so that they can bail out banks which are too big to fail but cut funds from public education if they are not “profitable”. Universities administrators (Chairs, Deans, Provosts, Presidents and the like) are acting like little fundraisers and lean-and-mean CEO’s. The “commercialisation and corporatisation” of Academia is proceeding at an alarming rate. Funding social sciences and humanities is not at the top of the agenda. STEM subjects are deemed more relevant. At the same time recruiting foreign students, especially from populous Asian countries such as China and India is a humongous deal. Just look at the MBA programs. Thai studies is probably considered a “fringe subject” not worthy of a “big investment”. It’s all about “return on your investment”, no?
Captain Nat and the wheels of Thai justice
Just curious. All those 3000 or so expeditiously executed, without due process, by Thaksin’s over zealous (like Captain Nat)police death squads … were any really drug dealers?
Singapore Grand Prix and soft power
Will do Elvin. Thanks.
Thai Studies in Australia, redux
@Chong Marin
I beg to differ. There is still a ‘pot scene’ of sorts in the kingdom. And officialdom is always busting fairly large quantities of third-rate compressed weed – full of seeds and stems – (mostly produced in Laos, I believe) which, for many years now, has replaced the exceptionally fine Thai ganja of old (Buddha sticks, etc.). Indeed, that was one of the sorry results of Thaksin/HM’s so-called ‘war on drugs’ – growers of excellent sinsimella in Sakon Nakhon, Udorn, Nakhon Phanom etc. had the screws put on them and – fearing death from trigger happy coppers – virtually went out of business.
I’m also not sure if ‘yaa-baa’ is actually ‘preferred’, more like – ubiquitous, ridiculously easy to obtain . This horrible chemical (extremely long lasting for novice users) is very similar to ‘yaa maa’ (horse medicine), the amphetamine favoured by truck and long-distance bus drivers 30-40 years ago. As anyone with a reasonable degree of familiarity with Thailand knows, ‘yaa-baa’ is available in virtually every ‘moo-baan’ in the country no matter how many of the insidious little red-orange pills the police seize. The substance produces very little in the way of euphoria, although it gives you an enormous amount of energy and if used continually for any time most certainly scrambles the brain. Incredibly, it’s almost a quarter of a century since this scourge began to envelop Thailand.
As for the statement ‘apparently a lot of Indians smoke THE WEED because it helps them… to understand Western Philosophy” – maybe you’re not making it up, but whoever did say this doesn’t know a great deal about the rather old charas and ganja culture in India. I doubt very many of the numerous ‘chillum babas’ you come across in that country have big hits on their chillums and then go off and read ‘Western philosophy’. Absurd!
And finally, as for the actual topic of discussion in this post – Thai Studies. Hard to know how to inspire new generations to go down this road. From what I can gather, based on long experience, few people are actually interested in learning Thai seriously and developing a broader knowledge of the society, culture, and so on. There’s no money in it and, with the rare exception here and there, few jobs. Sadly, interest in the field does not, generally speaking, lead one either to serious lucre or a viable career. Maybe one day that will change, but don’t hold your breath. My apologies for the pessimism.
Rohingya and national identities in Burma
Mr Galache
Dig deep enough, just enough couple with HRW stuff aka always self serving junks and anyone can be the devil.
This is the very pontification: reading reports, document and testimonials sans being on the ground.
Take a long walk, stay awhile, talk among the natives after gaining trust and most of all observe and you will see the big picture of a whole Myanmar Citizenry and realize how ridiculous/self serving almost all that you have had read.
Rohingya and national identities in Burma
Plan B:
It’s simply not true that nobody has criticized the Thai government for its treatment of Burmese refugees and immigrants. Just two recent examples should be enough, but there are more, of course:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/09/12/ad-hoc-and-inadequate
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2014/09/01/two-years-no-moon
Thai Studies in Australia, redux
I remember reading a book called POT PLANET. It is about the different milieu of POT smokers across the PLANET. There is not much of a POT scene in the Land Of Smiles. Ya-ba is preferred. But everyone here knows that. But in India, there is some POT SMOKERS. Apparently a lot of Indians smoke THE WEED because it helps them, in their words,to “understand Western Philosophy”.
I am not making this up.
Rohingya and national identities in Burma
Homogenize is for milk!
And in that process one “beat the hell out of” (emulsified) to achieve ‘uniform or similarity’.
Myo Chit the most fundamental of Buddhism is – Tolerance or more descriptive: Denying Oneself. That makes your insinuation of Buddhism as a source of violence as rather lame. If Muslim Kalar in Yakhine is not a face of Islam then 969 is not the face of Buddhism.
In Myanmar Kalar, Tayoke etc. as well as the majority Bama coexisted well.
Read this next line carefully;
It is the Power Than Be (PBT) manipulation of incidences to achieve what has happened conveniently using Buddhism convincing ignorant.
That said what has happened might still have happened yet.
The ultimate sin is the PBT in Myanmar doing little or sometimes nothing to diminish the attacks against Muslim Kalars until now.
I and my ilk hearts sank every time one of Myanmar Citizenry is hurt by any useless careless cause.
A few years ago when the Karen or refugee in Thailand was inhumanely treated by some Thai
no one blame the Thai Government, Police or majority.
In fact this inhumane treatment is counter with native Thai HR Solicitors using ROL to bring these “refugee that’s worth less than a dog” attitude to an end.
The atrocities documented against the Muslim are real. Unlike refugees in Thailand the difference is most of the incidences started with provocations.
Be that as it may, dwelling in the past will be a repeatedly stating of Historically documented atrocities, a useless careless reminder.
Until Citizenship/residency status are clarified and thee ROL strengthen this cycle serves nobody but more arm chair critic that will hurt a country citizenry as a WHOLE rather than improve the condition of the persecuted.
Myanmar is similarly Hellishly poor compared to Bangladesh. Yet moving on we must with out dignifying further anyone especially from outside Myanmar, who will never know Myanmar rather pick and choose one group suffering to pontificate.
Refusing to forget
15 August 2014 was only the 9-year anniversary of the Helsinki agreement. Hopefully there will be more media coverings next year around the 10-years anniversary.
Singapore Grand Prix and soft power
Greg, on the recent Singapore general elections and by elections, see my co-authored paper alongside Stephan Ortmann’s piece in Asian Survey 54(4) July/August 2014.
As a Singaporean, I agree with almost everything tocharian says. Unfortunately, Benjamin’s narrow focus on the F1 race as an extension of Singapore’s soft power and its symbolic positioning as a global hub illuminates as much as it obscures. Left untold, are the stories of worker exploitation and marginalization, of domestic hegemony and identity, and of consumerism and inequality.
Rohingya and national identities in Burma
plan B: as long as you use your religion to be exclusive, divisive and violence-prone towards peoples of other religions, your religion fundamentalist, whatever it teaches you!
Rohingya and national identities in Burma
This again shows how you have taken great pains to homogenize all the Muslims of the world, especially Rohingya and Muslims in Bangladesh, into Jihadists. It resonates with certain voices which are globally popular nowadays. So, your message will always find eager ears from such people. But let me ask you something: Will you be happy if the whole world thinks of all Rakhine and Burmese Buddhists as inherently violent depending on what happened in Rakhine and many other parts of Myanmar? You won’t and I won’t. So, be careful when you say generalizing comments.
You want references and quotes? I am afraid I can’t provide the references and quotes which are as biased and ultra-nationalist as yours are. For example, I have never seen such a report couched in inflammatory language and poor logic as that produced by so-called Arakan Human Rights (human rights only for Rakhines?) and Development Organization and lead-authored by an American musician, which you proudly quoted above.
If you’d like independent reports: see these but you will reject them as biased and incorrect because they portray a different story. But since you wanted them, here are a few:
Human Rights Watch, “The Government Could Have Stopped This”:
Sectarian Violence and Ensuing Abuses in Burma’s Arakan State: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/07/31/government-could-have-stopped
Human Rights Watch, “All You Can Do is Pray”:
Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Arakan State: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/04/22/all-you-can-do-pray-0
Physicians for Human Rights, “Patterns of Anti-Muslim Violence in Burma
A Call for Accountability and Prevention”
http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/reports/patterns-of-anti-muslim-violence-in-burma.html
But I know you won’t accept them. That’s why I didn’t provide them in the first place.
Rohingya and national identities in Burma
Myo Chit 9.1.1
Will you please define “fundamental Buddhists ideology” for everyone here sake.
Since Islamic Ideology is well understood here.
Thai Studies in Australia, redux
In many Asian countries there is an unspoken axiom that “white Westerners”, academic or otherwise, can never truly understand, appreciate let alone “penetrate” the “deep, mysterious, arcane and even sacrosanct” true nature of their culture and tradition. Thai-ness, Burmese-ness, Chinese-ness, Khmer-ness, etc.. will always remain inscrutable for “white Westerners” with
their “Greco-Judeo-Roman-Christian Weltanschaung” . On the other hand, in this day and age of politically correct diversity and multi-culturalism, Westerners would never dare to say that Asians cannot appreciate the subtelties of the Fugues of Bach or Shakespeare’s plays or Euclidean Geometry or Wagner’s. Nibelungen or Plato’s Republic or Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or the twerks of Miley Cyrus etc. etc.
This is a truly asymmetrical unhealthy and hypocritical attitude bordering on double-standards.
I really appreciate Western academics and scholars who are trying to break through this artificial oxymoronic barrier (East and West, the twain shall never meet nonsense). Countries like Thailand (and others in Southeast Asia) truly need a period of “Enlightenment”, perhaps even a French Revolution of sorts.
Disclosure: I was born in Burma and lived there for over 20 years.
New president, old politics?
[…] and author of Demokrasi: Indonesia in the 21st Century (Black Inc). The article was first published here and is reprinted here with the kind permission of ANU. […]