I’m sure you are right Egg, in these situations it is usually the most lowly and junior people who are to blame – like “some secretary” who inadvertently omitted Akanat’s actual degree and added six spurious ones. Easy mistake to make. Secretaries make stupid errors like this all the time.
The idea that some upstanding and educated member of the Thai ruling elite would try to clumsily falsify their education records to make their achievements seem more impressive than they really were, on the other hand, is plainly absurd. Thailand’s elite are the moral backbone of the country. They would never dream of lying or cheating. Perish the thought.
$20 says it’s just some secretary’s mistake. Incompetence as usual – when have thai websites got anything right? You guys seem to be reading too much into it.
Suthep claims he has a Master Degree from Tennessee University but seems unable to speak a few words in English (apart from “shutdown”) , there should be a look at his academic credentials, too
“Such blatant exaggeration of credentials and achievements is to make their claims to superiority look quite hollow, while at the same time emphasizing the many degrees of separation that lie between them and the ordinary people of Thailand whom they should be seeking to represent.”
And there are sufficient number of stupid people in the UK, with legitimate degrees, from Oxford and Cambridge, suggesting that lying does not necessarily lead to lack of intelligence, but intelligence, in many instances, can lead to lying, as the highly intelligent liars (and traitors), Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross, all attest to (George Blake, being the notable exception, never having attending Oxford or Cambridge, but nevertheless selling out the UK entirely). Cambridge five aside, Oxford has certainly had its share of liars and miscreants, including Iran’s former Interior Minister and Revolutionary Guard, Ali Kordan, who falsified his Oxford Doctoral Degree.
I am suffering here. As non-malay, we only get limited benefit. Job opportunity is not easy even have qualification and capable in many way, committed hard working, honest. It is not a merit they looking for.
Education still have quota. Chinese and Indian don’t get enough entry into local university. We have to fork out triple cost to study in private colleges owned by Australia, US and UK. All transactions are being billed into currency exchange which cant meet our earning and cost of living.
To get anything good in Msia we have to fork out money beyond our earnings. A lot of localized produced product are also being charge as very high price almost imported good cost.
Country is very very racist in all levels from school to corporate.
Quality of product is bad we pay for Quality A but get C quality product.
A lot of fat leeches (politicians) lying and cheating public. Corruption is high.
Get ripped off in every corner. Feel sad. Pls help. Want to flee the country.
New Mandala dead in the water, like a ship still afloat but going nowhere– are the long tentacles of the Thai monarchist tyranny about to pull it under?
“Or lets build the BIGGGGEST pagodassss in the world because we are the mostest biggest Buddhists.”
It was customary for ancient kings to seek and affirm divine rights by using religions to their own ends. In the case of building pagodas and images, they were not necessarily the biggest ones. That war-mongering Aung Ze Ya had the gall to name himself Alaungpaya (Future Buddha) after razing many cities in Burma and Siam (the old Thailand) to the ground and bloodletting of biblical proportion. Recorded history indicates genocides and wholesale displacement of entire races. Back in Myanmar, he built a small pagoda entirely made of pure gold three feet in height (Needs reference: U Tun Aung Chain, Prof: History, Rangoon University, year?) thus claiming the title of the merciful, missionary king.
This is in stark contrast from dynasties in Innwa and earlier periods when smaller images of Buddha were covered up with bigger images and these images with still bigger images – nothing religious, but out of the belief that it could improve their power and glory, ever greater than their predecessors.
This preoccupation with size has reached chronic proportion recently. I have read news about a monk building world’s largest bell. And there is the construction of four Buddha images claimed to be largest.
The catch is – there are few who stop and ask “So, what?”
Once an official from Bangkok asked me “Why so big?” We were on a tour of pagodas around Lower Myanmar.
We were climbing up a long flight of stairs inside the arguably largest reclining image of Buddha and the official was visibly agitated and out of breath. The official tour was organised by the usual crowd of people and it involved rushing from one pagoda to another under the scorching sun – eleven pagodas that day, if I recall it correctly. Even the devout Buddhists from Thailand (at least the ones on the tour)could not see any sense in building these enormous images.
At that time, I had no answer to that question “Why so big?” because I was caught up in that “biggest” “tallest” trend, not really believing in it but unable to unravel the riddle no one has the will nor the reasoning faculties to solve.
Then I start to see patterns – places where the biggest and tallest trends are all the rage tend to have populist quasi-religious people pushing their agendas. Their sponsors are none other than flashy Myanmar officials who want to prolong their cling to power by adhering to occult practices. The monks behind these efforts are somehow or other believed to be associated with shady practices – either worldly or other-worldly. That said – a casual survey of the landscape around one of the biggest, tallest places I have been to is heart-rending: a desolate moonscape with scattered rickety huts here and there. I don’t reserve the right to tell anyone how to use their large stash of cash but I can’t help thinking the funds could have been put to a better use to improve the hearts and minds, and consequently the life of people.
A building architect from Australia once chided (two decades ago, Newsweek, can’t remember which issue) the biggest, tallest trend saying we should put an end to the boy game of building taller-than-ever skyscrapers. Wanting to show one is bigger in size is indicative of inner-insecurity.
Then, we should not forget that there is the other side – the well-meaning, devout practitioners of the religion, any religion for that matter. The issue is complicated and contradictory in itself as a gentleman pointed out in an earlier post.
The bad comes with the good my friend. Would you be truthful of answering this question: Have you benefit from a new policy which embraces the market economy in Myanmar? Furthermore, have you noticed any improvement in the life of the ordinary people?
[…] to play that role. While a republic might be worth considering, at the moment, we tend to think, as Andrew Walker suggested some time ago albeit a little tongue-in-cheek, that a monarch who is less driven by concerns for political control and shaping a paternalistic […]
As you could see from miles, hard not to be permanently mired in Dawtha.
When one sees all the time this one of the most lovely millennium old society still full of virtue, charm and most of all “contentment” (remember Paul Mazur’s statement of agricultural societies)is now impatiently rushing along headlong toward the most odious cesspool of individualism (Nga Tae Mar-ism), Want-want-want-ism (Lawba), shameless-ism (great to get some money from Japanese, Chinese, Europeans, even miserly English, Soros, IMF, Yakusa supported Sasakawa – sorry- Nippon Foundation-of motorboat gambling, anywhere, really!) and most of all CUT-THROATISM.
This is of course well shepherded by the (again) Soros- supported Pwint-Lin crowd (88’s), CIA (and its subsidiaries like USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, and Freedom House ) supported monk and other crowd, your “West”‘s planted woman Aung San Suu Kyi.
Yes. Monks have been “useful” for the rural communities. Yes. U Sann Myint could be right there may yet be some “good” monks left.
But in today’s Burma, all one sees is Hna-lone-htee monks, tour-guide monks, Chaung-thar vacation-ing monk, foreign travel monks, millions of dollars “donating” monks, investment advising monk, and violence agitating monks. Like the pigs in Animal Farm, the longer the time is the more the monks act like the soldiers.
Their model seems to be the most overbearing and bellicose monks from Sri Lanka which incidentally is ruled by true blood brothers of Than Shwe, Rajapaksa brothers who were supported by the same “West” (or the honorable Civilized Nations in cahoot with the United Nations) fronted by baby-faced Norway in killing unarmed civilians in tens and tens of thousands at a time in COLD blood without blinking an eye and not a murmur of dissent from the Buddhist Sinhalese.
These less than virtuous acts and examples are definitely something the people of Burma can do without.
Hna-lone Htee? anyone?
Or lets build the BIGGGGEST pagodassss in the world because we are the mostest biggest Buddhists.
Andreas Ufen is a distinguished political scientists and very familiar with Southeast Asia. In a less scholarly and more practical perspective, though, optimistic perspectives like “elections are breeding democracy” might be correct, but probably have a very long time perspective in this part of the world. Some long lasting parties and ruling coalitions have lost the confidence of large parts of the electorate but can’t be toppled. As much as democratic activists are craving an “end to corruption and dirty politics”, the survival instinct of the powers that be seem to be stronger. Cambodia and Malaysia show that for entrenched parties like CPP and BN there is too much to lose if they would accept an electoral defeat. Tens of thousands of cronies and the billions at stake won’t be given up so easily in free and fair elections. For change through elections all players must be prepared to lose. Sadly enough, this is not yet the only game in town in Southeast Asia.
See: http://www.partyforumseasia.org
Regional secession is extreme talk, but there is a lot of extreme talk around at the moment because of the ongoing political crisis. I don’t think secession is a viable option for the NE and N, at least in the short-medium term (Patani is a different story). Bangkok is just too important economically. There are too many cultural, linguistic, religious, and kinship connections between the NE and N and the rest of Thailand. But that doesn’t mean that relations between Bangkok and the provinces should not be rebalanced. All we need is for the conservative side of politics to respect and adapt themselves to electoral politics and I think secession talk would quickly subside. Also, a long overdue reform is greater devolution of political and economic authority to the provinces, along the lines of what happened in Indonesia in the reformasi period. For example, elections of provincial governors. The current problem is, as “kha ratchakan” we know who provincial governors are ultimately responsible to. I think that following the upcoming “transition period” this reform will be high on the agenda.
Traders (middle-men) are the richest people in the world, and peasant farmers are the poorest. The assertion that you can give one the income of the other, just by swapping political leadership, even if that were possible, is one of the silliest things I’ve ever read.
How about getting rid of the corrupt themselves first. (Suthep and company)That would be a real start.
How convenient to forget that Suthep and company were running the country before Thaksin was even known beyond his home town. Of course in La La land, one could be forgiven to “claim” that Suthep and company were not corrupt
mr Cohen, perhaps it was remiss of me not to mention the legal persecution of mr. Anwar in my reference to the singaporean legal model. I wonder why you made no reference to this in your otherwise very erudite remarks?
Return to your own countries, you say. To whom? Why don’t you tell it to those foreigners who complain about the standing government, one that Thai people have chosen for themselves lawfully?
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Akanat “six degrees” Promphan
I’m sure you are right Egg, in these situations it is usually the most lowly and junior people who are to blame – like “some secretary” who inadvertently omitted Akanat’s actual degree and added six spurious ones. Easy mistake to make. Secretaries make stupid errors like this all the time.
The idea that some upstanding and educated member of the Thai ruling elite would try to clumsily falsify their education records to make their achievements seem more impressive than they really were, on the other hand, is plainly absurd. Thailand’s elite are the moral backbone of the country. They would never dream of lying or cheating. Perish the thought.
Akanat “six degrees” Promphan
You might be right… but funny that he never bothered to check.
Akanat “six degrees” Promphan
$20 says it’s just some secretary’s mistake. Incompetence as usual – when have thai websites got anything right? You guys seem to be reading too much into it.
Akanat “six degrees” Promphan
Suthep claims he has a Master Degree from Tennessee University but seems unable to speak a few words in English (apart from “shutdown”) , there should be a look at his academic credentials, too
Akanat “six degrees” Promphan
Game set and match.
“Such blatant exaggeration of credentials and achievements is to make their claims to superiority look quite hollow, while at the same time emphasizing the many degrees of separation that lie between them and the ordinary people of Thailand whom they should be seeking to represent.”
Says it all really.
Akanat “six degrees” Promphan
And there are sufficient number of stupid people in the UK, with legitimate degrees, from Oxford and Cambridge, suggesting that lying does not necessarily lead to lack of intelligence, but intelligence, in many instances, can lead to lying, as the highly intelligent liars (and traitors), Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross, all attest to (George Blake, being the notable exception, never having attending Oxford or Cambridge, but nevertheless selling out the UK entirely). Cambridge five aside, Oxford has certainly had its share of liars and miscreants, including Iran’s former Interior Minister and Revolutionary Guard, Ali Kordan, who falsified his Oxford Doctoral Degree.
Why is Malaysia experiencing a brain drain?
I am Malaysia and still in Malaysia.
I am suffering here. As non-malay, we only get limited benefit. Job opportunity is not easy even have qualification and capable in many way, committed hard working, honest. It is not a merit they looking for.
Education still have quota. Chinese and Indian don’t get enough entry into local university. We have to fork out triple cost to study in private colleges owned by Australia, US and UK. All transactions are being billed into currency exchange which cant meet our earning and cost of living.
To get anything good in Msia we have to fork out money beyond our earnings. A lot of localized produced product are also being charge as very high price almost imported good cost.
Country is very very racist in all levels from school to corporate.
Quality of product is bad we pay for Quality A but get C quality product.
A lot of fat leeches (politicians) lying and cheating public. Corruption is high.
Get ripped off in every corner. Feel sad. Pls help. Want to flee the country.
The weakness of the Thai royalists
New Mandala dead in the water, like a ship still afloat but going nowhere– are the long tentacles of the Thai monarchist tyranny about to pull it under?
Review of Buddhist Fury
“Or lets build the BIGGGGEST pagodassss in the world because we are the mostest biggest Buddhists.”
It was customary for ancient kings to seek and affirm divine rights by using religions to their own ends. In the case of building pagodas and images, they were not necessarily the biggest ones. That war-mongering Aung Ze Ya had the gall to name himself Alaungpaya (Future Buddha) after razing many cities in Burma and Siam (the old Thailand) to the ground and bloodletting of biblical proportion. Recorded history indicates genocides and wholesale displacement of entire races. Back in Myanmar, he built a small pagoda entirely made of pure gold three feet in height (Needs reference: U Tun Aung Chain, Prof: History, Rangoon University, year?) thus claiming the title of the merciful, missionary king.
This is in stark contrast from dynasties in Innwa and earlier periods when smaller images of Buddha were covered up with bigger images and these images with still bigger images – nothing religious, but out of the belief that it could improve their power and glory, ever greater than their predecessors.
This preoccupation with size has reached chronic proportion recently. I have read news about a monk building world’s largest bell. And there is the construction of four Buddha images claimed to be largest.
The catch is – there are few who stop and ask “So, what?”
Once an official from Bangkok asked me “Why so big?” We were on a tour of pagodas around Lower Myanmar.
We were climbing up a long flight of stairs inside the arguably largest reclining image of Buddha and the official was visibly agitated and out of breath. The official tour was organised by the usual crowd of people and it involved rushing from one pagoda to another under the scorching sun – eleven pagodas that day, if I recall it correctly. Even the devout Buddhists from Thailand (at least the ones on the tour)could not see any sense in building these enormous images.
At that time, I had no answer to that question “Why so big?” because I was caught up in that “biggest” “tallest” trend, not really believing in it but unable to unravel the riddle no one has the will nor the reasoning faculties to solve.
Then I start to see patterns – places where the biggest and tallest trends are all the rage tend to have populist quasi-religious people pushing their agendas. Their sponsors are none other than flashy Myanmar officials who want to prolong their cling to power by adhering to occult practices. The monks behind these efforts are somehow or other believed to be associated with shady practices – either worldly or other-worldly. That said – a casual survey of the landscape around one of the biggest, tallest places I have been to is heart-rending: a desolate moonscape with scattered rickety huts here and there. I don’t reserve the right to tell anyone how to use their large stash of cash but I can’t help thinking the funds could have been put to a better use to improve the hearts and minds, and consequently the life of people.
A building architect from Australia once chided (two decades ago, Newsweek, can’t remember which issue) the biggest, tallest trend saying we should put an end to the boy game of building taller-than-ever skyscrapers. Wanting to show one is bigger in size is indicative of inner-insecurity.
Then, we should not forget that there is the other side – the well-meaning, devout practitioners of the religion, any religion for that matter. The issue is complicated and contradictory in itself as a gentleman pointed out in an earlier post.
Review of Buddhist Fury
The bad comes with the good my friend. Would you be truthful of answering this question: Have you benefit from a new policy which embraces the market economy in Myanmar? Furthermore, have you noticed any improvement in the life of the ordinary people?
Why King Vajiralongkorn will be good for Thai Democracy (re-post)
[…] to play that role. While a republic might be worth considering, at the moment, we tend to think, as Andrew Walker suggested some time ago albeit a little tongue-in-cheek, that a monarch who is less driven by concerns for political control and shaping a paternalistic […]
Review of Buddhist Fury
As you could see from miles, hard not to be permanently mired in Dawtha.
When one sees all the time this one of the most lovely millennium old society still full of virtue, charm and most of all “contentment” (remember Paul Mazur’s statement of agricultural societies)is now impatiently rushing along headlong toward the most odious cesspool of individualism (Nga Tae Mar-ism), Want-want-want-ism (Lawba), shameless-ism (great to get some money from Japanese, Chinese, Europeans, even miserly English, Soros, IMF, Yakusa supported Sasakawa – sorry- Nippon Foundation-of motorboat gambling, anywhere, really!) and most of all CUT-THROATISM.
This is of course well shepherded by the (again) Soros- supported Pwint-Lin crowd (88’s), CIA (and its subsidiaries like USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, and Freedom House ) supported monk and other crowd, your “West”‘s planted woman Aung San Suu Kyi.
Yes. Monks have been “useful” for the rural communities. Yes. U Sann Myint could be right there may yet be some “good” monks left.
But in today’s Burma, all one sees is Hna-lone-htee monks, tour-guide monks, Chaung-thar vacation-ing monk, foreign travel monks, millions of dollars “donating” monks, investment advising monk, and violence agitating monks. Like the pigs in Animal Farm, the longer the time is the more the monks act like the soldiers.
Their model seems to be the most overbearing and bellicose monks from Sri Lanka which incidentally is ruled by true blood brothers of Than Shwe, Rajapaksa brothers who were supported by the same “West” (or the honorable Civilized Nations in cahoot with the United Nations) fronted by baby-faced Norway in killing unarmed civilians in tens and tens of thousands at a time in COLD blood without blinking an eye and not a murmur of dissent from the Buddhist Sinhalese.
These less than virtuous acts and examples are definitely something the people of Burma can do without.
Hna-lone Htee? anyone?
Or lets build the BIGGGGEST pagodassss in the world because we are the mostest biggest Buddhists.
Democratisation by elections and protracted transition
Andreas Ufen is a distinguished political scientists and very familiar with Southeast Asia. In a less scholarly and more practical perspective, though, optimistic perspectives like “elections are breeding democracy” might be correct, but probably have a very long time perspective in this part of the world. Some long lasting parties and ruling coalitions have lost the confidence of large parts of the electorate but can’t be toppled. As much as democratic activists are craving an “end to corruption and dirty politics”, the survival instinct of the powers that be seem to be stronger. Cambodia and Malaysia show that for entrenched parties like CPP and BN there is too much to lose if they would accept an electoral defeat. Tens of thousands of cronies and the billions at stake won’t be given up so easily in free and fair elections. For change through elections all players must be prepared to lose. Sadly enough, this is not yet the only game in town in Southeast Asia.
See: http://www.partyforumseasia.org
The weakness of the Thai royalists
Regional secession is extreme talk, but there is a lot of extreme talk around at the moment because of the ongoing political crisis. I don’t think secession is a viable option for the NE and N, at least in the short-medium term (Patani is a different story). Bangkok is just too important economically. There are too many cultural, linguistic, religious, and kinship connections between the NE and N and the rest of Thailand. But that doesn’t mean that relations between Bangkok and the provinces should not be rebalanced. All we need is for the conservative side of politics to respect and adapt themselves to electoral politics and I think secession talk would quickly subside. Also, a long overdue reform is greater devolution of political and economic authority to the provinces, along the lines of what happened in Indonesia in the reformasi period. For example, elections of provincial governors. The current problem is, as “kha ratchakan” we know who provincial governors are ultimately responsible to. I think that following the upcoming “transition period” this reform will be high on the agenda.
Review of Buddhist Fury
Ohn
Do not be grip by ‘Dawtha’.
The monks are the only source of guidance in the rural part 60%+ of Myanmar.
Burma’s parliamentary system explained
Can anyone tell me the salary of a Senator in Myanmar Parliament.
Please Email me
[email protected]
Democratisation by elections and protracted transition
Traders (middle-men) are the richest people in the world, and peasant farmers are the poorest. The assertion that you can give one the income of the other, just by swapping political leadership, even if that were possible, is one of the silliest things I’ve ever read.
Suthep’s romantic tale
How about getting rid of the corrupt themselves first. (Suthep and company)That would be a real start.
How convenient to forget that Suthep and company were running the country before Thaksin was even known beyond his home town. Of course in La La land, one could be forgiven to “claim” that Suthep and company were not corrupt
Democratisation by elections and protracted transition
mr Cohen, perhaps it was remiss of me not to mention the legal persecution of mr. Anwar in my reference to the singaporean legal model. I wonder why you made no reference to this in your otherwise very erudite remarks?
Suthep’s romantic tale
Return to your own countries, you say. To whom? Why don’t you tell it to those foreigners who complain about the standing government, one that Thai people have chosen for themselves lawfully?