“a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country, typically a distant one, and occupied by settlers from that country.”
Taking your understanding of “Colony” at utmost seriousness:
1) ‘area — under the control of another country’
Does it make Bamar Dominated Governmental entity another country?
If the answer to #1 is an affirmative then:
ALL the none aboriginal Aussies in Australia, the none native American in USA, and Yes the Javanese in Indonesia, among a few, depending on how far back you will like to claim, are Colonizer as well.
If the answer is a negative then make your and the author assertions rather “thick” as you might describe.
I intended to finish reading your opus this Songkran. I have just done so and have found it to be a work of considerable scholarship. While I have some quibbles and find your demeanor at times somewhat prickly, I can cut you some slack there as I know what conditions are like when you are climbing mountains solo – both literally and figuratively. A great effort – thanks.
Many thanks for that piece. I thought it was great. To say that vote buying simply no longer works misses too much; since it’s a socially embedded endeavor it gives insights into society and its nuances more broadly.
I don’t know whether it matters if the handing out of money is called buying or not, either way we know what is being talked about. Here in Chiang Mai where Civil Society barely exists, apart from perhaps attendance at public forums and eating a free lunch, payouts are on the rise and the one candidate in the recent mayoral elections who might have some Civil Society credentials did very poorly compared to the two associated with big payments. Reported @ : http://ourchiangmai.com/2013/11/08/election-amnesty-chiang-mai-call/
With respect to Mr. Pottier, the book does not rely on Coedes alone. It references the vital work of Groslier, Sharrock, Vickery, Coe, Buckley, Higham, Hall, Jacques, Evans…and Pottier himself! My point is that most of the work available to the public on the topic is out of date, and that scholars’ understanding of Angkor is changing rapidly.
And while the existence of temples on Mt Kulen has been known for a long time, the network of canals, dykes and so on was only announced in June 2013. Only insiders would have known of this.
Andrew,
All that hard work for minimal return.
Why didn’t you just state that vote buying no longer works in Thailand and hasn’t really worked for a long time.
[…] of the electorate still undecided, research by two highly regarded pollsters showed that 21 to 24 per cent of voters were committed to voting PDI-P more than a week out from election […]
[…] of the electorate still undecided, research by two highly regarded pollsters showed that 21 to 24 per cent of voters were committed to voting PDI-P more than a week out from election […]
Mr. Hollingworth’s interview and the comments above effectively suggests some of the reasons why Kerry and Indyck have an almost impossible task in getting Israelis and Palestinians to agree on a two state solution that is obvious to everyone else, although of course that is not Mr. Hollngworth’s intention. The Palestinian narrative is that Jews had no business coming to Palestine, the Balfour Declaration was a great mistake and an exercise in colonialism, and the Palestinian refugee problem is the result which has to be rectified through the Mr. Hollingworth’s Palestinian Solidarity Committee. As Mr. Pelkhurst archly puts it, “Israel accepts the descendants of Jewish refugees allegedly (sic) expelled several thousand years ago it is not unreasonable to ask that Palestinians who were born and lived there little more than 60 years ago and their descendants be afforded the same right.” The irony is that Raheem’s position resembles the Jewish refugees of the 30’s and 40’s. For them, the world was divided between places that they could not stay and places that they could not go. The Palestinian response to that was to pressure the UK to shut off Jewish immigration to Palestine, and hundreds of thousands of Jews who could have gotten out did not and were killed. The Palestinian narrative, to the extent it does not include the deniers of Jewish history like Mr. Pelkhurst, is that while that was a terrible thing, it just wasn’t their problem and a Jewish state and a Jewish people in the Middle East is illegitimate. Thus, they reject “Two States for Two Peoples, a Jewish State and a Palestinian State.” Jews, knowing that (1) Palestinians regard their presence as illegitimate, (2) are more than happy to cheer rockets that hit Jewish civilians, and (3) will name plazas after Palestinians who died while trying to murder Jews, are reasonably frightened of empowering Palestinians because they know that Palestinians and Mr. Pelkhurst are prepared to meet Jewish suffering and death with a shrug if not a cheer. Jews then conclude that if Raheem’s ancestors could determine that Jewish refugees were somebody else’s problem and not their problem, and if Raheem can nod in approval with that conclusion, then Jews would be foolish indeed to feel sympathetic to Raheem, Palestinian refugees, or the Palestinian Solidarity Committee. Of course, the world does not have to be that way. The ideal world would promote a two state solution, a state for the Jews and a state for the Palestinians. An ideal world have a Jewish-Palestinian committee to get Raheem and his family Palestinian passports and a new life on the West Bank. An ideal world would have Jews saying, we will not treat Raheem as Raheem treated our grandparents, and Raheem saying, Jews have a legitimate right to be in a Jewish state, and I will not treat Jews as my grandparents did. What’s the chance of that kind of world coming about? Ask Raheem and the Palestinian Solidarity Committee. If they’re in, I’m in, and you could tell me where to send a donation to help Raheem.
It’s very good to see New Mandala expand its’ coverage to Indonesia – something I advocated long ago. It’s especially good to see comments by that excellent Indonesia analyst, Ed Aspinall.
Probably because, deep inside most Indonesians, they understand that no matter which candidate you vote now, he/she will probably end up corrupted. And with so much of “Jokowi effect”, one might wonder, has it been too much?
Voters who might have originally intended to vote for Jokowi might think “Hmm, Pak Jokowi has been very popular and all my friends and neigbours are going to vote for him. Maybe I should just accept the money to vote for other candidate, Pak Jokowi would not feel one less vote from me!”
Personally I feel, there are probably a lot of people who just do not care when the stigma of corrupted politicians are part of the culture.
Actually the argument is that democracy cannot exist without the right to withhhold consent, which is why the NOTA option is required, not just in Thailand but everywhere that calls itself a democracy.
However there is an interesting wrinkle to the Thai electoral system that lends itself for a particular type of NOTA that can send a powerful message right to the top of the Thai establishment.
This wrinkle is the party list MP system, this is a important component of patron client networks that the major political parties rely on to dominate thai society.
If the Thai electorate is given the opportunity to not endorse a party list seat for any party then this can serve a direct and very powerful message from an individual voter directly to the top of the Thai political establishment without and conflation with his or her constituency choice.
It would work like this. Currently there are 125 party list seats up for grabs. On the party list ballot voters can choose a party or they can have an option saying something like ‘ I do not wish to endorse a seat’.
When the voting is counted the percentage choosing ‘I do not wish to endorse a seat’ is used to proportionally reduce the number of party list seats on offer and the rest divided up along the proportions voters chose a party.
Eg is 50% of the voters choose the option not to endorse a seat then the number of party list seats is reduced to 68 seats (out of 125), and the rest divvied up as per normal.
This would require changing of quorum rules of course, but I think it is obvious how voters now can effectively grade the quality of politicians and policies on a national level using this system and simultaneously decimate a component of the patron client network is political parties are abusing the political system.
It’s simply not time yet. Jokowi may have proved himself to the good people of Solo, but in Jakarta his influence can barely be seen yet. Why should the entire nation take a chance on yet another unproven champion? They’re still stinging from the abject failure of Megawati’s government to do anything but feed state money into certain people’s coffers. Oh, and give us extra days off.
Like it or not, Indonesia simply is not ready for the “Jokowi” figure yet. For one thing, it would leave a Chinese man in charge of Jakarta. Now I think that would be awesome, but I can’t see the 20-odd million residents of the capital city being too happy about it.
For another thing, the country needs a strong leader, and I’m not sure that Jokowi has yet developed the gravitas he will need to tell the military what to do. I think we have to face facts here: one term of a charismatic figure who’s smart enough to be able to see what the future holds for Indonesia and begin to loudly stamp out the excesses of the past with a few well-placed proclamations. I do not care in the least for David Cameron in the UK, but I will always respect him for pushing through policy he believes in against fierce criticism.
Ghost, that doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t fit the facts. Thaksin certainly got lucky by doing a deal with Prem’s military government and so getting into the mobile phone market at just about the right time. The business took off and was listed on the SET long before Thaksin first entered politics in 1994. It is noteworthy that when, later, the Supreme Court found him guilty of “policy corruption” they used as their yardstick the increased value in Shincorp shares between the day he took office as PM and the day he sold out to Temasek. It was this that accounted for the 46 billion baht that the Court sequestered. The only problem was that this increase in value was broadly in line with the SET as a whole. Many investors (including the Crown Property Bureau!) profited by vastly more over exactly the same period. Siam Cement, for instance, rose by some 700%. Furthermore there was a very simple explanation for the increased value of Shincorp’s shares; its key business was still mobile phone subscriptions in which it was the market leader and, over the same period, the number of subscribers in Thailand virtually quadrupled from 12 per hundred head of population to 46 phhp. Not only that but the price Temasek paid would inevitably have included the potential for subsequent exponential growth, currently at some 120 subscriptions phhp. It is also worth mentioning that, completely counter to the idea of “policy corruption”, the result of the TRT government deregulating the mobile phone industry, had the effect that AIS actually lost 15% of the market to its rivals.
I will grant you that he has clearly made a lot of enemies, as those backing the current protests bear witness to. I am not sure that this is not to his political credit as he is quite clearly not a part of the old boy network which has dominated Thailand for so long and done so much to impede its political development. Under the circumstances for him to place more faith in his family relationships seems to me to be pretty understandable.
One other thing. Much is made by his opponents of Thaksin’s seemingly inexhaustible wealth providing his ability to fund the Red Shirts, election campaigns, vote buying or what you will. But interestingly Forbes currently rates him and his family as merely 10th in the list of Thailand’s richest. Looking at the list of the nine above him (which tactfully omits the Chakris!), most of whom are not just richer, but vastly richer than the Shinawatras, one wonders how many of them are currently funding Suthep’s PDRC as well as influencing the courts and “independent” agencies. At least two or three names on the list give grounds for suspicion.
It would have made a massive difference in the last election Jon. The anti democratic elements only barricaded a minute number of polling stataions.
If I remember correctly only 43% of the electorate turned out to vote, down from the usual 75%. You would have seen far more people coming out to use their vote and choosing the NOTA option.
In any case if the NOTA option had been present would Thaksin have ever dared to proceed with the amnesty bill that kicked this current round of protests?
And if he had would be people feel that they had no other option but to follow Suthep to make their voices heard if they had the NOTA option available to them?
I very much doubt any polling station would have been barricaded if NOTA was available as people would have the means of making their voice heard.
If you look at the Thai political situation on objectively since 2006 you will see that unelected eleites are only able to exert enough influence to oust elected elites when elected elites abuse their powers.
This is exemplified in Thaksin’s push for amnesty, without that abuse of power unelected elites would never have been able to gain the critial mass of support required to mount a serious challenge to moust the elected government.
If the NOTA option is present the most pwerful section of society is the electorate and they do not feel they need to turn to any other alternatives conrol their elected representatives.
If the NOTA oiption had been available since 2001 or earlier Thailand would have been a far more peaceful prosperous and democratic place than it is now.
NOTA is required to preserve the sancity of the law in a place like Thailand. Its not that the electorate lack maturity here; its the elites that lack maturity, and this reform would smack them all down when they get out of line or prevent them from exerting undue influence.
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Myanmar up for the count
“http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/burmese-public-views-govt-reforms-military-favorably-poll.html”
The citizenry has spoken, for now.
Colonialism and ethnic conflict in Burma
“a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country, typically a distant one, and occupied by settlers from that country.”
Taking your understanding of “Colony” at utmost seriousness:
1) ‘area — under the control of another country’
Does it make Bamar Dominated Governmental entity another country?
If the answer to #1 is an affirmative then:
ALL the none aboriginal Aussies in Australia, the none native American in USA, and Yes the Javanese in Indonesia, among a few, depending on how far back you will like to claim, are Colonizer as well.
If the answer is a negative then make your and the author assertions rather “thick” as you might describe.
Network monarchy’s twilight
I intended to finish reading your opus this Songkran. I have just done so and have found it to be a work of considerable scholarship. While I have some quibbles and find your demeanor at times somewhat prickly, I can cut you some slack there as I know what conditions are like when you are climbing mountains solo – both literally and figuratively. A great effort – thanks.
Vote buying – commodity or gift?
I liked the stuff about promotion of reciprocal gift obligations: the meaning of Christmas in Capitalism.
Happy Easter!
Vote buying – commodity or gift?
Hi Andrew,
Many thanks for that piece. I thought it was great. To say that vote buying simply no longer works misses too much; since it’s a socially embedded endeavor it gives insights into society and its nuances more broadly.
Fantastic piece, thanks again,
Bart
Vote buying – commodity or gift?
I don’t know whether it matters if the handing out of money is called buying or not, either way we know what is being talked about. Here in Chiang Mai where Civil Society barely exists, apart from perhaps attendance at public forums and eating a free lunch, payouts are on the rise and the one candidate in the recent mayoral elections who might have some Civil Society credentials did very poorly compared to the two associated with big payments. Reported @ : http://ourchiangmai.com/2013/11/08/election-amnesty-chiang-mai-call/
Angkor revisited
With respect to Mr. Pottier, the book does not rely on Coedes alone. It references the vital work of Groslier, Sharrock, Vickery, Coe, Buckley, Higham, Hall, Jacques, Evans…and Pottier himself! My point is that most of the work available to the public on the topic is out of date, and that scholars’ understanding of Angkor is changing rapidly.
And while the existence of temples on Mt Kulen has been known for a long time, the network of canals, dykes and so on was only announced in June 2013. Only insiders would have known of this.
Vote buying – commodity or gift?
Andrew,
All that hard work for minimal return.
Why didn’t you just state that vote buying no longer works in Thailand and hasn’t really worked for a long time.
Why was the Jokowi effect limited?
[…] of the electorate still undecided, research by two highly regarded pollsters showed that 21 to 24 per cent of voters were committed to voting PDI-P more than a week out from election […]
The 2014 Parliamentary Elections: Preliminary Lessons
[…] Read original article here: http://www.newmandala.org/2014/04/11/the-2014-parliamentary-elections-preliminary-les… […]
Why was the Jokowi effect limited?
[…] of the electorate still undecided, research by two highly regarded pollsters showed that 21 to 24 per cent of voters were committed to voting PDI-P more than a week out from election […]
Polling says it’s Jokowi’s election to lose
Vote jokowi out, he broke his campaign promises to the people of Jakarta. Will vote for Prabowo.
Interview with a Palestinian refugee in Thailand
Mr. Hollingworth’s interview and the comments above effectively suggests some of the reasons why Kerry and Indyck have an almost impossible task in getting Israelis and Palestinians to agree on a two state solution that is obvious to everyone else, although of course that is not Mr. Hollngworth’s intention. The Palestinian narrative is that Jews had no business coming to Palestine, the Balfour Declaration was a great mistake and an exercise in colonialism, and the Palestinian refugee problem is the result which has to be rectified through the Mr. Hollingworth’s Palestinian Solidarity Committee. As Mr. Pelkhurst archly puts it, “Israel accepts the descendants of Jewish refugees allegedly (sic) expelled several thousand years ago it is not unreasonable to ask that Palestinians who were born and lived there little more than 60 years ago and their descendants be afforded the same right.” The irony is that Raheem’s position resembles the Jewish refugees of the 30’s and 40’s. For them, the world was divided between places that they could not stay and places that they could not go. The Palestinian response to that was to pressure the UK to shut off Jewish immigration to Palestine, and hundreds of thousands of Jews who could have gotten out did not and were killed. The Palestinian narrative, to the extent it does not include the deniers of Jewish history like Mr. Pelkhurst, is that while that was a terrible thing, it just wasn’t their problem and a Jewish state and a Jewish people in the Middle East is illegitimate. Thus, they reject “Two States for Two Peoples, a Jewish State and a Palestinian State.” Jews, knowing that (1) Palestinians regard their presence as illegitimate, (2) are more than happy to cheer rockets that hit Jewish civilians, and (3) will name plazas after Palestinians who died while trying to murder Jews, are reasonably frightened of empowering Palestinians because they know that Palestinians and Mr. Pelkhurst are prepared to meet Jewish suffering and death with a shrug if not a cheer. Jews then conclude that if Raheem’s ancestors could determine that Jewish refugees were somebody else’s problem and not their problem, and if Raheem can nod in approval with that conclusion, then Jews would be foolish indeed to feel sympathetic to Raheem, Palestinian refugees, or the Palestinian Solidarity Committee. Of course, the world does not have to be that way. The ideal world would promote a two state solution, a state for the Jews and a state for the Palestinians. An ideal world have a Jewish-Palestinian committee to get Raheem and his family Palestinian passports and a new life on the West Bank. An ideal world would have Jews saying, we will not treat Raheem as Raheem treated our grandparents, and Raheem saying, Jews have a legitimate right to be in a Jewish state, and I will not treat Jews as my grandparents did. What’s the chance of that kind of world coming about? Ask Raheem and the Palestinian Solidarity Committee. If they’re in, I’m in, and you could tell me where to send a donation to help Raheem.
Why was the Jokowi effect limited?
It’s very good to see New Mandala expand its’ coverage to Indonesia – something I advocated long ago. It’s especially good to see comments by that excellent Indonesia analyst, Ed Aspinall.
Why was the Jokowi effect limited?
Probably because, deep inside most Indonesians, they understand that no matter which candidate you vote now, he/she will probably end up corrupted. And with so much of “Jokowi effect”, one might wonder, has it been too much?
Voters who might have originally intended to vote for Jokowi might think “Hmm, Pak Jokowi has been very popular and all my friends and neigbours are going to vote for him. Maybe I should just accept the money to vote for other candidate, Pak Jokowi would not feel one less vote from me!”
Personally I feel, there are probably a lot of people who just do not care when the stigma of corrupted politicians are part of the culture.
Thailand’s fairest reform?
Actually the argument is that democracy cannot exist without the right to withhhold consent, which is why the NOTA option is required, not just in Thailand but everywhere that calls itself a democracy.
However there is an interesting wrinkle to the Thai electoral system that lends itself for a particular type of NOTA that can send a powerful message right to the top of the Thai establishment.
This wrinkle is the party list MP system, this is a important component of patron client networks that the major political parties rely on to dominate thai society.
If the Thai electorate is given the opportunity to not endorse a party list seat for any party then this can serve a direct and very powerful message from an individual voter directly to the top of the Thai political establishment without and conflation with his or her constituency choice.
It would work like this. Currently there are 125 party list seats up for grabs. On the party list ballot voters can choose a party or they can have an option saying something like ‘ I do not wish to endorse a seat’.
When the voting is counted the percentage choosing ‘I do not wish to endorse a seat’ is used to proportionally reduce the number of party list seats on offer and the rest divided up along the proportions voters chose a party.
Eg is 50% of the voters choose the option not to endorse a seat then the number of party list seats is reduced to 68 seats (out of 125), and the rest divvied up as per normal.
This would require changing of quorum rules of course, but I think it is obvious how voters now can effectively grade the quality of politicians and policies on a national level using this system and simultaneously decimate a component of the patron client network is political parties are abusing the political system.
The Jokowi Effect: No Breakthrough Against Oligarchy
Oom W,
It’s simply not time yet. Jokowi may have proved himself to the good people of Solo, but in Jakarta his influence can barely be seen yet. Why should the entire nation take a chance on yet another unproven champion? They’re still stinging from the abject failure of Megawati’s government to do anything but feed state money into certain people’s coffers. Oh, and give us extra days off.
Like it or not, Indonesia simply is not ready for the “Jokowi” figure yet. For one thing, it would leave a Chinese man in charge of Jakarta. Now I think that would be awesome, but I can’t see the 20-odd million residents of the capital city being too happy about it.
For another thing, the country needs a strong leader, and I’m not sure that Jokowi has yet developed the gravitas he will need to tell the military what to do. I think we have to face facts here: one term of a charismatic figure who’s smart enough to be able to see what the future holds for Indonesia and begin to loudly stamp out the excesses of the past with a few well-placed proclamations. I do not care in the least for David Cameron in the UK, but I will always respect him for pushing through policy he believes in against fierce criticism.
Network monarchy’s twilight
Ghost, that doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t fit the facts. Thaksin certainly got lucky by doing a deal with Prem’s military government and so getting into the mobile phone market at just about the right time. The business took off and was listed on the SET long before Thaksin first entered politics in 1994. It is noteworthy that when, later, the Supreme Court found him guilty of “policy corruption” they used as their yardstick the increased value in Shincorp shares between the day he took office as PM and the day he sold out to Temasek. It was this that accounted for the 46 billion baht that the Court sequestered. The only problem was that this increase in value was broadly in line with the SET as a whole. Many investors (including the Crown Property Bureau!) profited by vastly more over exactly the same period. Siam Cement, for instance, rose by some 700%. Furthermore there was a very simple explanation for the increased value of Shincorp’s shares; its key business was still mobile phone subscriptions in which it was the market leader and, over the same period, the number of subscribers in Thailand virtually quadrupled from 12 per hundred head of population to 46 phhp. Not only that but the price Temasek paid would inevitably have included the potential for subsequent exponential growth, currently at some 120 subscriptions phhp. It is also worth mentioning that, completely counter to the idea of “policy corruption”, the result of the TRT government deregulating the mobile phone industry, had the effect that AIS actually lost 15% of the market to its rivals.
I will grant you that he has clearly made a lot of enemies, as those backing the current protests bear witness to. I am not sure that this is not to his political credit as he is quite clearly not a part of the old boy network which has dominated Thailand for so long and done so much to impede its political development. Under the circumstances for him to place more faith in his family relationships seems to me to be pretty understandable.
One other thing. Much is made by his opponents of Thaksin’s seemingly inexhaustible wealth providing his ability to fund the Red Shirts, election campaigns, vote buying or what you will. But interestingly Forbes currently rates him and his family as merely 10th in the list of Thailand’s richest. Looking at the list of the nine above him (which tactfully omits the Chakris!), most of whom are not just richer, but vastly richer than the Shinawatras, one wonders how many of them are currently funding Suthep’s PDRC as well as influencing the courts and “independent” agencies. At least two or three names on the list give grounds for suspicion.
Thailand’s fairest reform?
It would have made a massive difference in the last election Jon. The anti democratic elements only barricaded a minute number of polling stataions.
If I remember correctly only 43% of the electorate turned out to vote, down from the usual 75%. You would have seen far more people coming out to use their vote and choosing the NOTA option.
In any case if the NOTA option had been present would Thaksin have ever dared to proceed with the amnesty bill that kicked this current round of protests?
And if he had would be people feel that they had no other option but to follow Suthep to make their voices heard if they had the NOTA option available to them?
I very much doubt any polling station would have been barricaded if NOTA was available as people would have the means of making their voice heard.
If you look at the Thai political situation on objectively since 2006 you will see that unelected eleites are only able to exert enough influence to oust elected elites when elected elites abuse their powers.
This is exemplified in Thaksin’s push for amnesty, without that abuse of power unelected elites would never have been able to gain the critial mass of support required to mount a serious challenge to moust the elected government.
If the NOTA option is present the most pwerful section of society is the electorate and they do not feel they need to turn to any other alternatives conrol their elected representatives.
If the NOTA oiption had been available since 2001 or earlier Thailand would have been a far more peaceful prosperous and democratic place than it is now.
NOTA is required to preserve the sancity of the law in a place like Thailand. Its not that the electorate lack maturity here; its the elites that lack maturity, and this reform would smack them all down when they get out of line or prevent them from exerting undue influence.
Thailand’s fairest reform?
You will find the legal case outlined in the article at the top of the page.