How come people can argue about Yingluck is to blame? Suthep is supposed to be arrested under court order and he is allowed to stage demonstrations under arrest warrant leading to the contempt of court and it is openly allowed by the police/army. Why can’t the court order his immediate arrest? No point blaming Yingluck when the democrats are guilty of the worst crime. First correct oneself before pointing the finger at another.
Thanks for your perceptive analysis. However the writing was on the wall even before the “resounding 2005 re-election” of Thaksin after the Democrat Party overlooked Abhisit for the leadership in favor of Banyat Bantadan – a senior Democrat party hack seriously lacking in the charisma necessary to all successful political leaders.
Moreover, the Xmas 2014 tsunami gifted Thaksin the 2/3 majority he craved in order to make himself immune to parliamentary censure. The proof of this is that academics and other writers had been attacking Thaksin’s record and landing heavy blows which had him on the ropes until the Tsunami – after which they realized that Thaksin would become the ‘600 pound gorilla’ they had all been trying to head off.
So it seems to me that many or most Red Shirts are, and Red Shirt friends from the north and from Esarn have said as much, just along for the ride rather than having ‘welded on’ support for Thaksin.
Dear Daniel,
as a fellow Gramscian I was excited to see your piece, as I truly believe a shift in discourse hegemony is a decisive factor in Thailand’s transformation struggle.
After reading it I feel a bit short hanged. Why you leave us high and dry with two or three scarce sentences? Please elaborate your good ideas more!
Kuhn Merisa’s article is neither romanticizing nor pure satire but an accurate analysis of the mytho-politics of fascism. The themes elucidated appear in the speeches of Mussolini, Hitler (Reagan?)The hero/the villain and above all metaphors of purity and corruption. Pure virginal Germany/Thailand polluted by the Jew/Man from Dubai. Solution: the Goodman/ Fuehrer to enforce a Final Solution/de-thaksinification ushering in a past that never was. The parallels are at the level of both ideological myth and metaphor and a morally and politically barren middle class scared of the masses, subservient to their traditional superiors, and fleeing into what Micheal Burleigh, scholar of the Third Reich, called “ethno-romanticism”.
When you break it all down, the horrible thing is that we need to have a situation in which we can be overtly against the likes of Thaksin and his sister or the various other populist Red Shirt people. But because of the way the Democratic party and the others on the other side have reacted and conducted themselves politically, it is clear that the Red Shirt side is the best way to maintain Democracy or at least continue on a path to Democracy.
Once the likes of Suthep and all that he represents have been faced down and clearly defeated- and they must be seen to have failed. Then the task of building and then being part of real reform can begin in earnest.
The preoccupation with Thaksin and the Shinawatra clan is a total red herring and out of all proportion to the real significance they have in the future of Thai politics.
NO, Sukarno era nationalism and socialism was based on Marhaenism and socialist teleology, while Yudhoyono’s nationalism has no socialist component, and is based on religious (Islamic) chauvinism, Javanese pride, and cultural insecurities masked as bluster and boastfulness. Konfrontasi today, is no longer threatened invasions by Indonesia to prevent “Western outposts” in SE Asia (Malaysia and Singapore), but squabbling between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore over domestic issues, but no more invasions. Materialism has replaced Marhaenism, and nationalism in Indonesia today is simply pure hubris, devoid of any socialist or proto-Sukarnoist teleology or foundations.
The prevalence of high levels of respiratory diseases among Africans in the Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa has been correlated with microfungi and bacteria that grow within the mud and animal dung and thatch used to create mud houses. While a part of African culture
for those ethnic groups who live in rural environments, the proposition of earth housing as a general mode of habitation is neither architecturally wise, nor health wise. Mongolians, who live in animal skin and (nowadays) plastic-based Yurts, do not suffer from respiratory diseases from construction materials for the Yurts (or Gers), but from the cold winds that pass through the Mongolian Steppe.
The same concept when microfungi and bacteria were found in mud-derived brick and stone
construction in Pharaonic tombs, when cultures were made of tomb wall swipes by microbiologists, proposed as the ‘Mummy’s Curse’ that caused the lung infections, and
eventual demise, of British archaeologists
in colonial Egypt (e.g. Sir Howard Carter),
who’s ‘Curse of the Pharaohs’ were likely pathogenic bacterial or fungal infection that caused his death-causing lymphoma. Such cases are numerous in Africa, and have been shown to be caused, in large measure, by the mud, dung and thatch used to construct traditional ‘earth housing.’
Why do you bother to “discuss” things with the likes of Vichai or try to talk sense into him / her?.
His “yellow shirts thugs stopped people from going to the election, then he turns around and claim low turn-out. That kind of crap logic is akin to Hitler claiming the Jews did not protest the concentration camps or gas chambers. “They (the Jews) went into the chambers didn’t they?”
She is good about the epistemology of educated Thais in positions of social authority, and she shows how that is linked to the kind of Thai exceptionalism that is displayed by the anti-government demonstrators every day as they react to criticism and steadfastly avoid questions of constitutional process. The book is sometimes a little naive and she does not always seem to get her translations right, but she paid attention to what was happening around the phenomena she was studying, she asked interesting questions, she wrote down what she saw and what people told her, and she weaves it together into a credible description of how elite Thailand thinks. That’s a pretty timely topic.
A charming, informative beginning that slips us into a second half that might be useful for a game of bullshit bingo sometime – is this how consultants work these days? Villages looking for a ‘game changer’, other villages looking for a ‘paradigm’ (x3). All of them dreaming of mud huts, solar panels and mini hydro systems – oh nirvana!
Is the NGO-infestation in the region so acute that we’re now clutching at straws like: “[building mud houses] helps the youth of any village build up self discipline, new skills, and even more importantly enshrines them with the ability to learn through trial and error”? Replace ‘mud houses’ with whatever you like – ‘bamboo motorcycles’ perhaps – or ‘growing food’ – the youth ain’t interested.
Guardian readers would be taken in by the general ruratopian mumbo-jumbo but aren’t us Asia-philes a little bit old in the tooth for: –
> “This is so important to keep the youth in any village today.”
Is this an aim? The youth gravitate to the cities, where there are opportunities for social advancement, learning, better healthcare and sanitation. Wish to deny them this?
> “Many earth building village clusters in Thailand have become the basis for home-stay projects, which act as a platform for other income making activities like handicraft production”
Citation please. Handicraft production of this sort, in locations with little or no tradition of handicraft production, soon becomes simply handicraft selling, with the goods imported by the container-load from China.
> “Water can also be harvested from the roofs of buildings to assist in water self reliance as well.”
Whoosh! That’s the sound of socks blowing off in villages around the region as enlightened folks pass this article around.
> “the use of natural ways of cooking”
Now you tell me! I’ve been cooking unnaturally all this time.
> “earth house projects can help change a village paradigm where there is an emphasis on developing self sufficiency, which without any village will most likely remain within the poverty trap”
1958 called and they want their Chairman Mao thought back.
> “forecasted world economic slow-down over the coming years.”
Citation please. Or tell the IMF. Or retake calculus classes.
> “connects communities to the world, devout of any middle people”
Christ on a moped …
> “However this to be achieved requires new cooperative business models, basing value upon labor and skills, rather than technology. Social evolution may be about going back to the future.”
But did your wife’s mother find them unsustainable? Wasn’t it insulting for Thaksin to run a scare campaign that the Democrat’s would end all his populist schemes (e.g. Samak’s ‘Six measures, Six Months) yet they’re still there? A student cartoon at KMITL shows a protester with a sign that says ‘RESPECT MY VOTE’ being confronted by another protester with a sign that says ‘RESPECT MY HEAD’.
tom hoy: You speak with the knowledge of a true insider. The Rule of Law does not apply to the Democrats, they are immune to prosecution under the law by their “yellow-shirt” courts. The Rule of Law only applies to the “red-shirts” who are persecuted and jailed when they try to fight back. Quite a state of affairs in the Land of Smiles!
Yet another tiresome and pointless AD HOMINEM interjection from the ever-reliable Manichean who goes by the name of Neptunian. For the record, while I appreciate Mr. Abhisit’s steady modernization of the Democrat party, there’s still too much dead-wood like the previous leader Banyat Banyatadan to make them an attractive proposition in their own right, notwithstanding Abhisit’s education and rice-purchasing reforms, and that compared to Thaksin Shinawatra they look pretty good.
Although on the surface of this article, it seems to give an insight to the political turmoil in Thailand. The author seems to write with amnesia. To say ‘a Gramscian framework provides great agency to the sublatern’ is to pose the idea of the class struggle. And this seems to be attractive as the ‘other’ seems to give a voice to ‘the Other’, appealing to reader to feel sympathetic towards the ‘oppressed’ ( the rural?, the farmers, the new middle-class?).
The author wanted to say that Suthep is no angel and manipulate on the moral ground. I agree that he is no angle, however, I am not sure the word ‘manipulate’ is the right word.
Precisely, it is because we need to be moral; and sadly it seems archaic these days. Don’t we think for a start about what is just, what is right rather than looking at it in terms of political ‘subalternity’?
It would have given the author more insight, If he has understood the talks by people from different professions, giving information to protestors on the ‘huge’ problems of corruption – from academics, civil servants e.g. FCO (Thai). Education, Health, Labour and Tax revenue dept., and not to mention regional administrative staff. Besides, people (from different strata) have been giving donations all over Thailand. They are defying the emergency decree and DSI.
They have come out not because of Suthep, not because of the Democrat party – but simply they feel something – ‘morality’. And precisely, because they feel this – they think of the ‘Other’.
Now that, the farmers, who have not had money paid due to the huge failure of the rice pledge programme, have come out for the protest. Some in Chiangrai province could not come out for fear of the threats from their local (Phue Thai) PT representatives.
The rice pledge scheme is scandalous – simply because we have never known how much the rice stock in the silos. There is a huge corruption that the money has lost out to the PT politicians. And there is a lie saying from their side that the Thai government negotiated to sell rice to the Chinese government – and the Chinese government had to come out to deny it.
There are many issues that we need to take into account – e.g. water resources management, energy and health issue etc.
This protest has been peaceful (physically) from the protestors’ side. Has the author ever seen shootings and blasting in a broad daylight, and shooting sprees to threaten people who voice differently. Would one say this is an ugly situation? So far, Thailand has lost 10 lives and hundreds injured – without a single case arrested by the Centre of Maintaining Peace and Order (CMPO)
The case in 2010 – the lost of lives of the red demonstrators – one needs to look at the evidence – it is horrendously violence. However, if one has a chance to look at the evidence – you will see that the red core organisers incited them and intimidated the soldiers – not to mention ‘men in black’ that shot to kill. There is a report fromTRC ( Truth for Reconciliation Commission), an independent agency appointed by the Democrat and PT. governments.
People all over to Thailand have first come out because of the controversial Amnesty Bill (technically for Thaksin- although it is meant for all including the Red and yellow protestors and also, Suthep and Aphisit on the charge of 2010 crackdown), but they would rather face the trials.
For anybody sensible will think – how could one forgive Thaksin who has, during his administration, – corrupted and infringed human rights – thousands of people downsouth have been killed (and it is still going), not to mentioned his draconian rules on drugs.
Our (flawed) democracy gave rise for PT party to treat Thailand as a cooperate, rather than as a government.
A very simple fact might makes us think – when the rulers are not good – people have the right to overthrow. This is Locke’s social contract and it seem that Thailand needs it so long that the military does not stage a coup.
Gramsci’s idea, then, perhaps is not suitable to provide the framework for civic discourse to Thai society as this is not about class struggle as a lot of academics and journalists seem to claim – it is simply about justice, which is the basis for democracy. Or am I wrong?
So far there has been no mention how skilfully Mr. Suthep and his protestors, with their thuggish guards, have “highjacked” the national symbols of state with their red-white-and- blue paraphernalia, and pictures of the King, in their street protests.
My guess would be that self-interested militarists thought up the idea. Also, that the Government is a bit tired of keeping them under control, since Indonesia, like so many countries, has been treated so shabbily by the multinational Anglo-ethnic spy industry. Singapore is seen as belonging to this increasingly unpopular group.
In this soap opera Suthep is certainly not the good hero. He is the one who path the way for the hero to come! In this he is even willing to do something bad, because sometimes you can only fight the bad persons through bad deeds. Thus, in a fully unselfish way, he is willing to sacrify himself and hurt his own karma, only to open the way for the good to come.
I like the story. In fact, I think a lot of politics in Thailand resembles soap operas, which, however, sometime have a tragic end.
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
Thailand’s election: 2 February 2014
How come people can argue about Yingluck is to blame? Suthep is supposed to be arrested under court order and he is allowed to stage demonstrations under arrest warrant leading to the contempt of court and it is openly allowed by the police/army. Why can’t the court order his immediate arrest? No point blaming Yingluck when the democrats are guilty of the worst crime. First correct oneself before pointing the finger at another.
A Gramscian take on Thai politics
Thanks for your perceptive analysis. However the writing was on the wall even before the “resounding 2005 re-election” of Thaksin after the Democrat Party overlooked Abhisit for the leadership in favor of Banyat Bantadan – a senior Democrat party hack seriously lacking in the charisma necessary to all successful political leaders.
Moreover, the Xmas 2014 tsunami gifted Thaksin the 2/3 majority he craved in order to make himself immune to parliamentary censure. The proof of this is that academics and other writers had been attacking Thaksin’s record and landing heavy blows which had him on the ropes until the Tsunami – after which they realized that Thaksin would become the ‘600 pound gorilla’ they had all been trying to head off.
So it seems to me that many or most Red Shirts are, and Red Shirt friends from the north and from Esarn have said as much, just along for the ride rather than having ‘welded on’ support for Thaksin.
A Gramscian take on Thai politics
Dear Daniel,
as a fellow Gramscian I was excited to see your piece, as I truly believe a shift in discourse hegemony is a decisive factor in Thailand’s transformation struggle.
After reading it I feel a bit short hanged. Why you leave us high and dry with two or three scarce sentences? Please elaborate your good ideas more!
Suthep’s romantic tale
Kuhn Merisa’s article is neither romanticizing nor pure satire but an accurate analysis of the mytho-politics of fascism. The themes elucidated appear in the speeches of Mussolini, Hitler (Reagan?)The hero/the villain and above all metaphors of purity and corruption. Pure virginal Germany/Thailand polluted by the Jew/Man from Dubai. Solution: the Goodman/ Fuehrer to enforce a Final Solution/de-thaksinification ushering in a past that never was. The parallels are at the level of both ideological myth and metaphor and a morally and politically barren middle class scared of the masses, subservient to their traditional superiors, and fleeing into what Micheal Burleigh, scholar of the Third Reich, called “ethno-romanticism”.
Thailand’s election: 2 February 2014
The Courts promoting anarchy, and the Anti-Corruption Organisation corrupted by royal patronage. They could happen only in Thailand.
A Gramscian take on Thai politics
Yes you are wrong.
Stupethy is as Stupety does.
When you break it all down, the horrible thing is that we need to have a situation in which we can be overtly against the likes of Thaksin and his sister or the various other populist Red Shirt people. But because of the way the Democratic party and the others on the other side have reacted and conducted themselves politically, it is clear that the Red Shirt side is the best way to maintain Democracy or at least continue on a path to Democracy.
Once the likes of Suthep and all that he represents have been faced down and clearly defeated- and they must be seen to have failed. Then the task of building and then being part of real reform can begin in earnest.
The preoccupation with Thaksin and the Shinawatra clan is a total red herring and out of all proportion to the real significance they have in the future of Thai politics.
Indonesia: Why you so like that wan?
Greg,
NO, Sukarno era nationalism and socialism was based on Marhaenism and socialist teleology, while Yudhoyono’s nationalism has no socialist component, and is based on religious (Islamic) chauvinism, Javanese pride, and cultural insecurities masked as bluster and boastfulness. Konfrontasi today, is no longer threatened invasions by Indonesia to prevent “Western outposts” in SE Asia (Malaysia and Singapore), but squabbling between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore over domestic issues, but no more invasions. Materialism has replaced Marhaenism, and nationalism in Indonesia today is simply pure hubris, devoid of any socialist or proto-Sukarnoist teleology or foundations.
The benefits of mud houses
The prevalence of high levels of respiratory diseases among Africans in the Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa has been correlated with microfungi and bacteria that grow within the mud and animal dung and thatch used to create mud houses. While a part of African culture
for those ethnic groups who live in rural environments, the proposition of earth housing as a general mode of habitation is neither architecturally wise, nor health wise. Mongolians, who live in animal skin and (nowadays) plastic-based Yurts, do not suffer from respiratory diseases from construction materials for the Yurts (or Gers), but from the cold winds that pass through the Mongolian Steppe.
The same concept when microfungi and bacteria were found in mud-derived brick and stone
construction in Pharaonic tombs, when cultures were made of tomb wall swipes by microbiologists, proposed as the ‘Mummy’s Curse’ that caused the lung infections, and
eventual demise, of British archaeologists
in colonial Egypt (e.g. Sir Howard Carter),
who’s ‘Curse of the Pharaohs’ were likely pathogenic bacterial or fungal infection that caused his death-causing lymphoma. Such cases are numerous in Africa, and have been shown to be caused, in large measure, by the mud, dung and thatch used to construct traditional ‘earth housing.’
Thailand’s election: 2 February 2014
Why do you bother to “discuss” things with the likes of Vichai or try to talk sense into him / her?.
His “yellow shirts thugs stopped people from going to the election, then he turns around and claim low turn-out. That kind of crap logic is akin to Hitler claiming the Jews did not protest the concentration camps or gas chambers. “They (the Jews) went into the chambers didn’t they?”
The King Never Smiles?
The truth hurts?
Review of Worshipping the Great Moderniser
She is good about the epistemology of educated Thais in positions of social authority, and she shows how that is linked to the kind of Thai exceptionalism that is displayed by the anti-government demonstrators every day as they react to criticism and steadfastly avoid questions of constitutional process. The book is sometimes a little naive and she does not always seem to get her translations right, but she paid attention to what was happening around the phenomena she was studying, she asked interesting questions, she wrote down what she saw and what people told her, and she weaves it together into a credible description of how elite Thailand thinks. That’s a pretty timely topic.
A Gramscian take on Thai politics
Alexander’s answer to The Gordian knot was not tountie it but hack through it with his sword.
The benefits of mud houses
A charming, informative beginning that slips us into a second half that might be useful for a game of bullshit bingo sometime – is this how consultants work these days? Villages looking for a ‘game changer’, other villages looking for a ‘paradigm’ (x3). All of them dreaming of mud huts, solar panels and mini hydro systems – oh nirvana!
Is the NGO-infestation in the region so acute that we’re now clutching at straws like: “[building mud houses] helps the youth of any village build up self discipline, new skills, and even more importantly enshrines them with the ability to learn through trial and error”? Replace ‘mud houses’ with whatever you like – ‘bamboo motorcycles’ perhaps – or ‘growing food’ – the youth ain’t interested.
Guardian readers would be taken in by the general ruratopian mumbo-jumbo but aren’t us Asia-philes a little bit old in the tooth for: –
> “This is so important to keep the youth in any village today.”
Is this an aim? The youth gravitate to the cities, where there are opportunities for social advancement, learning, better healthcare and sanitation. Wish to deny them this?
> “Many earth building village clusters in Thailand have become the basis for home-stay projects, which act as a platform for other income making activities like handicraft production”
Citation please. Handicraft production of this sort, in locations with little or no tradition of handicraft production, soon becomes simply handicraft selling, with the goods imported by the container-load from China.
> “Water can also be harvested from the roofs of buildings to assist in water self reliance as well.”
Whoosh! That’s the sound of socks blowing off in villages around the region as enlightened folks pass this article around.
> “the use of natural ways of cooking”
Now you tell me! I’ve been cooking unnaturally all this time.
> “earth house projects can help change a village paradigm where there is an emphasis on developing self sufficiency, which without any village will most likely remain within the poverty trap”
1958 called and they want their Chairman Mao thought back.
> “forecasted world economic slow-down over the coming years.”
Citation please. Or tell the IMF. Or retake calculus classes.
> “connects communities to the world, devout of any middle people”
Christ on a moped …
> “However this to be achieved requires new cooperative business models, basing value upon labor and skills, rather than technology. Social evolution may be about going back to the future.”
Where’s Pol Pot when you need him?
The King Never Smiles?
But did your wife’s mother find them unsustainable? Wasn’t it insulting for Thaksin to run a scare campaign that the Democrat’s would end all his populist schemes (e.g. Samak’s ‘Six measures, Six Months) yet they’re still there? A student cartoon at KMITL shows a protester with a sign that says ‘RESPECT MY VOTE’ being confronted by another protester with a sign that says ‘RESPECT MY HEAD’.
The weakness of the Thai royalists
tom hoy: You speak with the knowledge of a true insider. The Rule of Law does not apply to the Democrats, they are immune to prosecution under the law by their “yellow-shirt” courts. The Rule of Law only applies to the “red-shirts” who are persecuted and jailed when they try to fight back. Quite a state of affairs in the Land of Smiles!
The King Never Smiles?
Yet another tiresome and pointless AD HOMINEM interjection from the ever-reliable Manichean who goes by the name of Neptunian. For the record, while I appreciate Mr. Abhisit’s steady modernization of the Democrat party, there’s still too much dead-wood like the previous leader Banyat Banyatadan to make them an attractive proposition in their own right, notwithstanding Abhisit’s education and rice-purchasing reforms, and that compared to Thaksin Shinawatra they look pretty good.
A Gramscian take on Thai politics
Although on the surface of this article, it seems to give an insight to the political turmoil in Thailand. The author seems to write with amnesia. To say ‘a Gramscian framework provides great agency to the sublatern’ is to pose the idea of the class struggle. And this seems to be attractive as the ‘other’ seems to give a voice to ‘the Other’, appealing to reader to feel sympathetic towards the ‘oppressed’ ( the rural?, the farmers, the new middle-class?).
The author wanted to say that Suthep is no angel and manipulate on the moral ground. I agree that he is no angle, however, I am not sure the word ‘manipulate’ is the right word.
Precisely, it is because we need to be moral; and sadly it seems archaic these days. Don’t we think for a start about what is just, what is right rather than looking at it in terms of political ‘subalternity’?
It would have given the author more insight, If he has understood the talks by people from different professions, giving information to protestors on the ‘huge’ problems of corruption – from academics, civil servants e.g. FCO (Thai). Education, Health, Labour and Tax revenue dept., and not to mention regional administrative staff. Besides, people (from different strata) have been giving donations all over Thailand. They are defying the emergency decree and DSI.
They have come out not because of Suthep, not because of the Democrat party – but simply they feel something – ‘morality’. And precisely, because they feel this – they think of the ‘Other’.
Now that, the farmers, who have not had money paid due to the huge failure of the rice pledge programme, have come out for the protest. Some in Chiangrai province could not come out for fear of the threats from their local (Phue Thai) PT representatives.
The rice pledge scheme is scandalous – simply because we have never known how much the rice stock in the silos. There is a huge corruption that the money has lost out to the PT politicians. And there is a lie saying from their side that the Thai government negotiated to sell rice to the Chinese government – and the Chinese government had to come out to deny it.
There are many issues that we need to take into account – e.g. water resources management, energy and health issue etc.
This protest has been peaceful (physically) from the protestors’ side. Has the author ever seen shootings and blasting in a broad daylight, and shooting sprees to threaten people who voice differently. Would one say this is an ugly situation? So far, Thailand has lost 10 lives and hundreds injured – without a single case arrested by the Centre of Maintaining Peace and Order (CMPO)
The case in 2010 – the lost of lives of the red demonstrators – one needs to look at the evidence – it is horrendously violence. However, if one has a chance to look at the evidence – you will see that the red core organisers incited them and intimidated the soldiers – not to mention ‘men in black’ that shot to kill. There is a report fromTRC ( Truth for Reconciliation Commission), an independent agency appointed by the Democrat and PT. governments.
People all over to Thailand have first come out because of the controversial Amnesty Bill (technically for Thaksin- although it is meant for all including the Red and yellow protestors and also, Suthep and Aphisit on the charge of 2010 crackdown), but they would rather face the trials.
For anybody sensible will think – how could one forgive Thaksin who has, during his administration, – corrupted and infringed human rights – thousands of people downsouth have been killed (and it is still going), not to mentioned his draconian rules on drugs.
Our (flawed) democracy gave rise for PT party to treat Thailand as a cooperate, rather than as a government.
A very simple fact might makes us think – when the rulers are not good – people have the right to overthrow. This is Locke’s social contract and it seem that Thailand needs it so long that the military does not stage a coup.
Gramsci’s idea, then, perhaps is not suitable to provide the framework for civic discourse to Thai society as this is not about class struggle as a lot of academics and journalists seem to claim – it is simply about justice, which is the basis for democracy. Or am I wrong?
Suthep’s romantic tale
So far there has been no mention how skilfully Mr. Suthep and his protestors, with their thuggish guards, have “highjacked” the national symbols of state with their red-white-and- blue paraphernalia, and pictures of the King, in their street protests.
Indonesia: Why you so like that wan?
My guess would be that self-interested militarists thought up the idea. Also, that the Government is a bit tired of keeping them under control, since Indonesia, like so many countries, has been treated so shabbily by the multinational Anglo-ethnic spy industry. Singapore is seen as belonging to this increasingly unpopular group.
Suthep’s romantic tale
In this soap opera Suthep is certainly not the good hero. He is the one who path the way for the hero to come! In this he is even willing to do something bad, because sometimes you can only fight the bad persons through bad deeds. Thus, in a fully unselfish way, he is willing to sacrify himself and hurt his own karma, only to open the way for the good to come.
I like the story. In fact, I think a lot of politics in Thailand resembles soap operas, which, however, sometime have a tragic end.