Anyone making comparisons betweeen Thailand and North Korea needs to be very clear that the only correspondence revolves around the ‘sacrosanct’ nature of the ‘Great Leader’ – a being above and beyond any form of worldly law, criticism, or comment that could be construed as anything less than fulsome praise. Bugger all room for democracy in that sort of environment.
The last coup appointed “neutral PM” managed such a spectacular success in reconciliation, and there was even less conflict in society and he’s a privy council to boot. What in the nine hells inspire this coup to think they can do more with less?
May be, may be not.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
You cannot compare them, Snowden is a Traitor, he broke his solemn oath to the country, and disobeyed his superior officers, as a soldier, he would have been executed, had he done what he did in a time of war. Rose, how ever is only guilty of speaking her personal opinion, which is not a crime in FREE countries.
Chris Beale (#34), were these decrees published, or were they made secretly and thus subject to plausible deniability? Or could they be only rumours?
One can only hope that the Crown Prince’s military faction is an equal match for all the rest, and that they clash in a lonely place with 100% casualties.
“Keep the words to yourself” says it all. Stifle criticism, free speech, and expressing opinions is what it’s all about in Maithailand. This is the most most damning part of this royalist’s comment.
it’s amazing how little you lot seem to know about Thailand.
On high horses you judge.
Thailand exists at all because the Thai people led by their monarchy fought very hard won centuries of wars with their neighbors.
You people who live in false democracies where all of the power is in the hands of people who have no love of their people have no perspective.
The Taksin government was lightweight, under resourced. They had the numbers of the people but not the depth and breadth of leadership to run a country let alone a country as complex as Thailand.
They were running the country into the dirt, putting it in hock to foreign banks and some of them skimming whatever they could for themselves along the way.
If you think the military is enjoying the coup you are as brainless as your words.
There are things for Thais to work out and no doubt they will in Thai time. They should not and will not dance to the tune of gulls and other noisy scavengers.
Every day is a sad day for Buddhism is Maithailand. Thai people are the greediest people on the planet. Trust me, as an American I know greed! I left home to get away from it, BUT Thai’s are even worse.
I thought Buddha said want causes all suffering. There’s more to Budhism than waiing at a stone idol like a plastic bird perched on the rim of a water glass.
Islam is politicised in Indonesia in the same manner as it is in Malaysia. Shi’ites and Ahmadiyah Muslims are deemed heretical and agents of ‘foreign’ powers, always a euphemism for Israel, Jews and the United States. Never mind that Iran spends billions of dollars on bogus cultural centres in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, when Iran’s goal is clearly ideological and religious. Neither President Yudhoyono nor Prime Minister Najib are much on irony, and therefore do not see the dichotomy between encouraging very close ties between Indonesia or Malaysia and Iran, and they obviously see no problem with 20,000 Iranians entering their nations with fake student visas which they never use, as they overstay and remain in Indonesia and Malaysia, often engaged in activities not quite Halal. One policy for Iran and Iranians, all free to influence Indonesia and Malaysia; one policy for indigenous Shi’ites who are called “Dajjal” and Fatwas issued proclaiming them heretics. At the same time, each prospective Presidential incumbent in Indonesia trying to out Islamise the other,
as nobody wants to really be accused of heresy and brought before the Ulama, who serve at the government’s pleasure. In Indonesia, it is a personal contest, while in Malaysia, it is a battle between status-quo Malays (UMNO/BN; the ruling coalition) and “Islamic Malays” represented by PAS. The semi-secular opposition, opposing national-scale Shari’a Law (hukum Shari’a) and Hudud in the first instance.
Ahmad Syarif is correct is stating that NU (Nadhlatul Ulama) remains a moderate Islamic
organisation, though not as moderate as when
Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) led it. But NU believes in separation of politics from the practice of faith, always a good thing everywhere, and Gus Dur, when alive, warned
repeatedly against sectarian conflict, within Islam, and between Islam and other religions. As Brunei as instituted Hudud for Muslims and non-Muslims, Malaysia is beset by Malay NGOs that do not hide their extreme fascism and racism (Isma and Perkasa), and Islamic and racial stridency is rapidly increasing in Malaysia, the question for Indonesia, is whether tolerance will remain the model for the nation (as no Islamic nation is now currently tolerant, including Islamist Erdogan in Turkey, with the possible exception of neo-Stalinist Kazakhstan) and will NU represent the kind of Islam that Indonesians want to practice, or will Aceh become more indicative of Indonesia’s future, where Shari’a courts supersede civil law and Hudud and other Islamic infractions are prosecuted without end ? As no other Muslim nation has now sustained secularism (Erdogan reversing Ataturk’s secular laws and Kazakhstan’s semi-secular society only holding on due to a USSR-period dictatorial holdover, who could be removed any day, by a Muslim extremist group), Indonesia remains the test case; as Malaysia is failing tolerance and multiculturalism daily. All eyes are on Indonesia, to see if Islam and Democracy can co-exist, where it has failed
in every other Islamic nation. Will Indonesia be the exception that proves the global pattern of Islam ?
While I may not agree with Rose’s method on her approach to the subject matter, she has the right to express her opinion. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are the basic human right. Taking that away and what you got is a dictatorship state like North Korea.
Well, I expect Joke and many like him would say that campaigning with policies that appeal to the electorate, “populist” policies, actually amounts to vote-buying. In fact I fully expect that the appointed legislature, when it is formed, will make such an approach illegal.
With respect to spending on local government organizations, Bangkok gets less than its share relative to GDP contribution and more than its share relative to population.
To make this clearer, if we were to follow the flawed logic of the World Bank report, then the entire US federal budget would be counted towards spending in Washington, DC, and you could say 59% of US government spending is on the capital only.
The 72% is the proportion of the total budget spent by the national government, and the remaining 28% is the proportion of the total budget spent by local administrative organizations nationwide. You’re not at fault for this: the World Bank report got it wrong.
Some interesting points made by Chris Beale. I’d heard about the April 4th decree and seen the purple ribbons, but hadn’t been aware of the November decree. The question that I’d been wondering about is why did the Crown Prince and his retinue check in to a Hampshire hotel a week before the coup?
Crucial analysis from current edition of The Economist, worth reading in full :
“the army, the force defending the throne, has recently had unpalatable news. In late November the king signed a decree mandating that all decisions by the powerful defence council were subject to veto by the crown prince. The council includes the service heads and the permanent defence secretary. The heir apparent is now, in effect, their boss.
This will make it even harder for anyone thinking of subverting the royal succession. Mr Suthep’s sponsors, like many Thais, have long prayed for a miracle that gives the throne to the crown prince’s sister, Princess Sirindhorn. Involved with royal charity, she enjoys a saintly image. Some troops on the streets this week wore a purple ribbon, the princess’s colour.
Another royal decree, on April 4th, spelled out greatly expanded powers for Prince Vajiralongkorn’s own special army: the Royal Guard 904 Corps, or Ratchawallop, an infantry regiment under the prince’s command since 1978. The corps will now protect anyone the prince chooses and engage in any mission he feels necessary to protect national security. Commanding your own army carries risks. King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) formed the Wild Tiger Corps on his accession to the throne in 1910. Two years later resentful army officers attempted a coup.
The prince’s troops are better paid than regular soldiers. Increasingly, they are recruited in Thailand’s rural north and north-east–heartland of the Shinawatra clan. That may be no coincidence. To rule, the crown prince may feel he needs to tap into Mr Thaksin’s popular legitimacy. Likewise, to become prime minister again Mr Thaksin may need the crown prince. He is thought in the past to have paid off the prince’s gambling debts.
Whether the crown prince and Mr Thaksin are working in concert is unclear. Earlier this year, when the army was slow to provide protection for Yingluck Shinawatra, Mr Thaksin’s sister and prime minister at the time, the crown prince sent her soldiers. The courts remain part of the old establishment and have since kicked Ms Yingluck out of office. The elite may reckon that clawing back power from an elected government it dislikes–which this coup is clearly intended to do–may be easier now than after the king’s death. The risks to Thailand only mount.”
The situation seems rather hopeless in a country where children are brainwashed from birth. How do you argue with persons born to privilege and wealth and consider this their birthright? Where citizens are classified as most worthy and less. Where the law is applied to keep some in a permanent state of servitude. Where domocratic values are spurned and regarded as down right dangerous. Where these same values are regarded as the cause of all the conflict. Where peoples┬┤ ideas who reflect the changes occurring in society are shut up and incarcerated.
The reality behind the Land of Smiles is quite shocking and depressing, the smile disguising the pain of centuries of hurt.
Then I guess Spitting Image was before your time. Google it and you’ll see stuff re the monarchy that could never be broadcast in Thailand. Also there are regular cartoons in the newspapers making fun of members of the royal family which again would never be printed in Thailand.
Comparison with N Korea isn’t accurate or relevant. A more useful comparison would be with the UK which may be more democratic in some respects but nevertheless entrenches power and wealth in the hands of the few rather than the many. Smartphones/TV etc are the new opium of the people.
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Thorns of the Thai rose
Anyone making comparisons betweeen Thailand and North Korea needs to be very clear that the only correspondence revolves around the ‘sacrosanct’ nature of the ‘Great Leader’ – a being above and beyond any form of worldly law, criticism, or comment that could be construed as anything less than fulsome praise. Bugger all room for democracy in that sort of environment.
Thailand: a “soft revolution” in a happy country
The last coup appointed “neutral PM” managed such a spectacular success in reconciliation, and there was even less conflict in society and he’s a privy council to boot. What in the nine hells inspire this coup to think they can do more with less?
May be, may be not.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Thorns of the Thai rose
You cannot compare them, Snowden is a Traitor, he broke his solemn oath to the country, and disobeyed his superior officers, as a soldier, he would have been executed, had he done what he did in a time of war. Rose, how ever is only guilty of speaking her personal opinion, which is not a crime in FREE countries.
Thailand, what next?
Chris Beale (#34), were these decrees published, or were they made secretly and thus subject to plausible deniability? Or could they be only rumours?
One can only hope that the Crown Prince’s military faction is an equal match for all the rest, and that they clash in a lonely place with 100% casualties.
ANU No Coup
“Keep the words to yourself” says it all. Stifle criticism, free speech, and expressing opinions is what it’s all about in Maithailand. This is the most most damning part of this royalist’s comment.
Thailand: a “soft revolution” in a happy country
it’s amazing how little you lot seem to know about Thailand.
On high horses you judge.
Thailand exists at all because the Thai people led by their monarchy fought very hard won centuries of wars with their neighbors.
You people who live in false democracies where all of the power is in the hands of people who have no love of their people have no perspective.
The Taksin government was lightweight, under resourced. They had the numbers of the people but not the depth and breadth of leadership to run a country let alone a country as complex as Thailand.
They were running the country into the dirt, putting it in hock to foreign banks and some of them skimming whatever they could for themselves along the way.
If you think the military is enjoying the coup you are as brainless as your words.
There are things for Thais to work out and no doubt they will in Thai time. They should not and will not dance to the tune of gulls and other noisy scavengers.
pop
ANU No Coup
Every day is a sad day for Buddhism is Maithailand. Thai people are the greediest people on the planet. Trust me, as an American I know greed! I left home to get away from it, BUT Thai’s are even worse.
I thought Buddha said want causes all suffering. There’s more to Budhism than waiing at a stone idol like a plastic bird perched on the rim of a water glass.
Campaigning on religious nationalism
Islam is politicised in Indonesia in the same manner as it is in Malaysia. Shi’ites and Ahmadiyah Muslims are deemed heretical and agents of ‘foreign’ powers, always a euphemism for Israel, Jews and the United States. Never mind that Iran spends billions of dollars on bogus cultural centres in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, when Iran’s goal is clearly ideological and religious. Neither President Yudhoyono nor Prime Minister Najib are much on irony, and therefore do not see the dichotomy between encouraging very close ties between Indonesia or Malaysia and Iran, and they obviously see no problem with 20,000 Iranians entering their nations with fake student visas which they never use, as they overstay and remain in Indonesia and Malaysia, often engaged in activities not quite Halal. One policy for Iran and Iranians, all free to influence Indonesia and Malaysia; one policy for indigenous Shi’ites who are called “Dajjal” and Fatwas issued proclaiming them heretics. At the same time, each prospective Presidential incumbent in Indonesia trying to out Islamise the other,
as nobody wants to really be accused of heresy and brought before the Ulama, who serve at the government’s pleasure. In Indonesia, it is a personal contest, while in Malaysia, it is a battle between status-quo Malays (UMNO/BN; the ruling coalition) and “Islamic Malays” represented by PAS. The semi-secular opposition, opposing national-scale Shari’a Law (hukum Shari’a) and Hudud in the first instance.
Ahmad Syarif is correct is stating that NU (Nadhlatul Ulama) remains a moderate Islamic
organisation, though not as moderate as when
Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) led it. But NU believes in separation of politics from the practice of faith, always a good thing everywhere, and Gus Dur, when alive, warned
repeatedly against sectarian conflict, within Islam, and between Islam and other religions. As Brunei as instituted Hudud for Muslims and non-Muslims, Malaysia is beset by Malay NGOs that do not hide their extreme fascism and racism (Isma and Perkasa), and Islamic and racial stridency is rapidly increasing in Malaysia, the question for Indonesia, is whether tolerance will remain the model for the nation (as no Islamic nation is now currently tolerant, including Islamist Erdogan in Turkey, with the possible exception of neo-Stalinist Kazakhstan) and will NU represent the kind of Islam that Indonesians want to practice, or will Aceh become more indicative of Indonesia’s future, where Shari’a courts supersede civil law and Hudud and other Islamic infractions are prosecuted without end ? As no other Muslim nation has now sustained secularism (Erdogan reversing Ataturk’s secular laws and Kazakhstan’s semi-secular society only holding on due to a USSR-period dictatorial holdover, who could be removed any day, by a Muslim extremist group), Indonesia remains the test case; as Malaysia is failing tolerance and multiculturalism daily. All eyes are on Indonesia, to see if Islam and Democracy can co-exist, where it has failed
in every other Islamic nation. Will Indonesia be the exception that proves the global pattern of Islam ?
Thorns of the Thai rose
While I may not agree with Rose’s method on her approach to the subject matter, she has the right to express her opinion. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are the basic human right. Taking that away and what you got is a dictatorship state like North Korea.
Condemnation of the coup
I am an academic who works in Thailand. I condemn the coup
Thailand, what next?
Well, I expect Joke and many like him would say that campaigning with policies that appeal to the electorate, “populist” policies, actually amounts to vote-buying. In fact I fully expect that the appointed legislature, when it is formed, will make such an approach illegal.
Thailand, what next?
With respect to spending on local government organizations, Bangkok gets less than its share relative to GDP contribution and more than its share relative to population.
I hope this is helpful.
Thailand, what next?
To make this clearer, if we were to follow the flawed logic of the World Bank report, then the entire US federal budget would be counted towards spending in Washington, DC, and you could say 59% of US government spending is on the capital only.
Thailand, what next?
The 72% is the proportion of the total budget spent by the national government, and the remaining 28% is the proportion of the total budget spent by local administrative organizations nationwide. You’re not at fault for this: the World Bank report got it wrong.
Thailand, what next?
Some interesting points made by Chris Beale. I’d heard about the April 4th decree and seen the purple ribbons, but hadn’t been aware of the November decree. The question that I’d been wondering about is why did the Crown Prince and his retinue check in to a Hampshire hotel a week before the coup?
Thailand, what next?
Crucial analysis from current edition of The Economist, worth reading in full :
“the army, the force defending the throne, has recently had unpalatable news. In late November the king signed a decree mandating that all decisions by the powerful defence council were subject to veto by the crown prince. The council includes the service heads and the permanent defence secretary. The heir apparent is now, in effect, their boss.
This will make it even harder for anyone thinking of subverting the royal succession. Mr Suthep’s sponsors, like many Thais, have long prayed for a miracle that gives the throne to the crown prince’s sister, Princess Sirindhorn. Involved with royal charity, she enjoys a saintly image. Some troops on the streets this week wore a purple ribbon, the princess’s colour.
Another royal decree, on April 4th, spelled out greatly expanded powers for Prince Vajiralongkorn’s own special army: the Royal Guard 904 Corps, or Ratchawallop, an infantry regiment under the prince’s command since 1978. The corps will now protect anyone the prince chooses and engage in any mission he feels necessary to protect national security. Commanding your own army carries risks. King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) formed the Wild Tiger Corps on his accession to the throne in 1910. Two years later resentful army officers attempted a coup.
The prince’s troops are better paid than regular soldiers. Increasingly, they are recruited in Thailand’s rural north and north-east–heartland of the Shinawatra clan. That may be no coincidence. To rule, the crown prince may feel he needs to tap into Mr Thaksin’s popular legitimacy. Likewise, to become prime minister again Mr Thaksin may need the crown prince. He is thought in the past to have paid off the prince’s gambling debts.
Whether the crown prince and Mr Thaksin are working in concert is unclear. Earlier this year, when the army was slow to provide protection for Yingluck Shinawatra, Mr Thaksin’s sister and prime minister at the time, the crown prince sent her soldiers. The courts remain part of the old establishment and have since kicked Ms Yingluck out of office. The elite may reckon that clawing back power from an elected government it dislikes–which this coup is clearly intended to do–may be easier now than after the king’s death. The risks to Thailand only mount.”
Thailand: a “soft revolution” in a happy country
The situation seems rather hopeless in a country where children are brainwashed from birth. How do you argue with persons born to privilege and wealth and consider this their birthright? Where citizens are classified as most worthy and less. Where the law is applied to keep some in a permanent state of servitude. Where domocratic values are spurned and regarded as down right dangerous. Where these same values are regarded as the cause of all the conflict. Where peoples┬┤ ideas who reflect the changes occurring in society are shut up and incarcerated.
The reality behind the Land of Smiles is quite shocking and depressing, the smile disguising the pain of centuries of hurt.
Thorns of the Thai rose
Then I guess Spitting Image was before your time. Google it and you’ll see stuff re the monarchy that could never be broadcast in Thailand. Also there are regular cartoons in the newspapers making fun of members of the royal family which again would never be printed in Thailand.
Thorns of the Thai rose
Khun Dok Tong khrap, are you serious to use this name? In my opinion, it is offensive.
Thorns of the Thai rose
Comparison with N Korea isn’t accurate or relevant. A more useful comparison would be with the UK which may be more democratic in some respects but nevertheless entrenches power and wealth in the hands of the few rather than the many. Smartphones/TV etc are the new opium of the people.