It is bizarre that this article omits to discuss or even mention the doctrinal arguments for not allowing a Theravada Bhikkhuni order. The traditional argument is that the Theravada Bhikkhuni lineage died out several centuries ago and cannot be re-established. The author really needs to address this issue if he seeks to challenge the Sangha’s position on the matter.
There goes the ‘It is cool to be corrupt’ mantra repeated ad nauseum by Robert, Nomi and ….
Yaps and yaps and more yaps.
PTP is all about Thaksin and nobody else … look what the PT Party did only a month ago with those 310 Thaksin-servants-pretending-to-be-legislators working overtime up to 4AM in the morning to pass the …. ahem … amnesty bill specifically designed to pardon every political corruption indictments … because it seems Thaksin wanted to cover all angles.
The article is informative, but only at a theoritical level; it does not offer any tangible, practical, realistic solution to the problem.
Basing his argument on the old school of thought, the Old Enlightenment, that thinking and reasoning is conscious and objective, he recommends that, in order to put an end to the political conflict in Thailand, the people must look into their own thinking. However, the New Enlightenment has been arguing that most part of human reasoning (90%) is unconscious and emotive. Thus, if that is the case, we need an instrument that will lead us to understand our political unconsciousness so that we can lit a new light to our political conception. Given the new notion on New Enlightenment, the writer of the article missed the most fundamental but important step in solving the political problem that Thailand is experiencing.
The police officers were quite frustrated. They said that they were under strict orders not to use any force against the protesters: “It’s not that we cannot stop them, we are just not allowed to even use batons against them when they attack us”. They also said that if they used force, they feared that the military could use this as a reason to side with the protesters.
So the description of the Thai police as “timid and poorly trained” should read “shackled and deliberately counter-productively trained.”
But a more interesting editorial appeared in the Bangkok Post, which was the first I’ve seen recently that actually dared to say what nobody has said before. The Red/Yellow divide is also an ETHNIC divide. It’s not just “regions;” it’s about ethnicity. And I’d thought that nobody in the Thai press would dare these days to use the word “Lao” to describe the northeast but it finally happened:
Old ethnic, class, linguistic, and religious divisions are deepening. A lot of bad blood has been stirred up by the PDRC demonstrations composed of primarily richer ethnic Thai Bangkokians and southerners. The primarily poorer ethnic “Lanna” of the North and “Lao” of the Northeast have been listening closely, with patience. A sense of outrage grows. Meanwhile, the insurgency among the Malay Muslims continues…
If this becomes a civil war, will it become regional? Will Laos become involved or destabilized as a result? Will Thailand survive in its current borders? Everything seems to point to chaos.
Nobody wants the crown prince to succeed the king. The crown princess is a logical successor but there are also male heirs in the US (though none of the male children of the crown prince are really suitable because their mothers are uniformly of low birth, especially Srirasmi–nobody wants her as the mother of a king). There can spring up a wide number of factions supporting rival claimaints all with the backdrop of red/yellow siamese/lao civil war and Thaksin waiting in the wings. All so very exciting! Get your popcorn ready!
Lets talk about big jokes.
We have the Democrat Party, backed by Prem, Military, Bangkok, Elites, English Media, most local media, the ‘educated people’, Monarchy, Monastry. The Military coup that dispose of Thaksin stack the decks by staffing the key bureaucracy, judicial, courts, administrative, with staunch Anti-Thaksinites. After confiscating almost a billion dollars of Thaksin’s wealth (now, Thaksin at that point is no longer in top ten richest in Thailand), Democrat Party is now fully backed by the top 10 richest in Thailand. Plus the managers of the 30bn (according to Forbes, 50bn by others) dollars fortune.
Even with all that, they lost 3 elections in a row.
Even with all that, the DP, like you, are so terrified of the name Thaksin, that you have no idea what damage you have done and are doing to your country that you claim you love.
How can anyone vote for such useless, incompetent, cowardly, scared, boogeyman hunting thugs?
More amazing, is that the DP actually feel they deserve to be rulers, unelected.
Very interesting. It would also be very revealing to track patterns of public expenditure – by region and by sector – over the period. The World Bank’s latest analysis in 2012 shows that total PE per capita is Bt 163,800 in Bangkok but only Bt 16,690 and 13,165 in North & North East respectively (and similar huge regional differential for Heath and Education expenditures). Even given that Bangkok is the capital and has large share of “tertiary” facilities” such huge differentials suggest massive inequity in public service impact. One wonders if they have narrowed or widened over the past 15 years. They also are further reason to question the supposed “populist/vote-buying” tag used to label “Thaksinism” – since the overwhelming beneficiaries of spending are in the capital!
Vichai,
This is not even about Mr T anymore. Get over it. Nor is this about corruption, because no one, not one, in Thai politics is clean of that taint.
I voted PTP, because Yingluck Shinawatr is the leader NOT.
I voted PTP because PTP is the most probable party to rip up the 2007 military-concocted constitution, and either return us to the 1997 constitution that was fully paid in blood by the sacrifices of hundreds of lives in ’92, or push forth a referendum for a new one by the people, not the army.
I voted PTP because I wanted to see all, ALL, senators elected and fully accountable to voters. That PTP actually tried to fulfill that election promise validated my vote.
Not all voters vote against Democrat Party because they like or support the Shinawatrs. There are many other issues to vote for, and DP offered nothing but a boogeyman and a witch hunt. Sorry, Thailand deserve more than that. We deserve more than bitterness, hatred, and fear for one man who is not even in the country. If there is a better party than PTP more likely to push for 100% elected senators and terminate Les Majeste Law, I would have voted for them- no hestitation there.
These are serious, non-rhetorical questions. Who is a member of the Thaksin regime and who isn’t? How will they be dealt with? And most important, how will the Democrats deal with the next guy to come along and gets them voted out of office again?
And what will you do when the Army is not alone in having weapons? Because the only reason the PDRC appears to be winning is because the government has not used force, for fear the Army will intervene. What will they do against millions of armed red-shirts, many of them family members?
Clearly, Vichai, you are losing your mind as when it comes to “corruption” in Thailand, the last ThaiDem/Abhisit govenrment was definitely no slouch.
What with Newin given a few of the most lucrative ministries to loot as he pleased and the owner of one of the world’s largest and most lucrative hi-end brothels installed as Minister of Commerce.
And let’s not be rude and mention that Abhisit’s #2 man was none other than one of Thailand’s most long-lived corrupt politicians, none other than the Great Leader of the ongoing present “Anti-Corruption” protest movement, your reincarnated living Mafia God from Surat Thani, Khun Suttehp.
Oh, not that I want to spoil your illusions, dear Vichai, but if you look into the very founding moment, the birth, of the Thai Democrat Party, who will you see acting as Midwife?
Why none other than the world’s most successful Commercial Sex Business Entrepreneur, Lek Nana. Not only lots of donated cash from all those millions in rents he was collecting from his many properties in and around Soi Nana, but also the land for the Thai Democrat Party Headquarters Building itself.
Lek Nana was rewarded handsomely for this unparalleled generosity (much more so than those 100,000’s of young Isan females whose labor was the basis of his fortune) with many years of Cabinet & Ministerial posts, a lifelong Senior Advisor title, and even buried with “Royal Dirt” with Abhisit and most of the other Thai Democrat Party luminaries at his funeral to show this totally corrupt billionaire and piller of the Thai Democrat Party, their “respect” and reverence.
So let’s not go too deeply who in Thailand is corrupt and who is not. From top to bottom, one side to the other, in every way starting with the most revered to the least revered.
It’s called The Thai Patronage System. It’s been going on for years, for centuries, long before the “Devil named Thaksin” was even born. And it will keep going on long after his death.
To play the Devil’s advocate, Thaksinomics may have benefitted from an overall excellent economic climate. During that same period, Singapore GDP increased from $123.5 to $274.7 billion (+122%), Malaysia from $143.5-$303.5 billion (+111%) and Hong Kong from $181.6-263.3 billion (+44%). And that period also includes the time when the Democrats were at the helm.
I wouldn’t say Mr. Marshalls reporting is explosive, he just read a couple of wikileaks, hears the talks around town, visit some pro-red thai forums, that all Thais know for the past decade or two, and based his reports and his theory on it. Perhaps explosive for foreigners who are still stuck on the “democracy” page and don’t know much about Thai history and politics.
Is that all the yaps you could all (Nomi, Neptunian,Robert and Matt) muster — to paint Yingluck as a hapless, sniffling, defenseless and honest-mistaking ‘passive’ administrator? More appropriate adjectives to me seem to be corrupt, inept, dishonest, self-serving big-time, and heavily conflicted. And she deliberately pushed on with her unconstitutional measures to get self-serving amnesty bill passed because her fugitive brother Thaksin instructed her so (same instructions to the other 310 or so Thaksin-servants-who-pretended-to-be-legislators).
Yingluck had completely lost her legitimacy to rule and the elites have nothing to do with it. The only elite that comes to mind who orchestrated Yingluck’s rapid downfall is her malicious brother, the fugitive Thaksin, who again overreached and flaunted his ‘impunity’ because he believes himself with ‘unique’ privileges and voodoo powers.
If the only creatures in Thailand listening to Yingluck’s commands is her dog(s), then she should really pack her bags and leave the PM’s office.
Nomi asks Vichai N a hypothetical question: In her shoes, what could I have done? Nothing better I suppose, because the grievous insults Yingluck and her 310 Thaksin-servants-pretending-to-be-legislators had visited upon the Thais, Yingluck could no longer get undone. Yingluck, like her malodorous brother Thaksin, are damaged goods permanently.
I am not surprised the Thai generals hesitate to take any action at Yingluck’s behest. Yingluck Shinawatra no longer holds any moral sway or legitimacy is why. To people of Bangkok and many parts of Thailand, save the Isan region perhaps, Yingluck Shinawatra is a big joke.
thanks very much for this…. wonder whether the money people in Thailand are aware/suppressing this view?
assume Suthep and his bosses are striving to maintain their own wealth creation on the back of/independent of the country indicators
It’s not as gossipy, entertainingly scurrilous, and journalistic as your thesis, but probably more fundamentally important. Either way the Bangkok elite are the problem, which anyone with half a brain could work out.
[…] this coming year. At the least the country will see more clashes across Bangkok, very possibly a coup, and at the worst there is potential for a much more violent conflict.. Either way this story heads […]
Maybe you should really ask Suthep to leave Thailand and stop making excuses for the Democrats, while you are at it.
While I do not totally agree with Yinluck’s passive approach, I do not see how this can be resolve without “force” by the authorities. We are talking about a desperate, ruthless lunatic here.
If Suthep had tried this anywhere else in the world, Govt forces would have gone in (violently or otherwise), arrested him, locked him up and threw away the keys. Suthep can do this in Thailand due to the not so silent backing of the Democrats, army and the democrat’s “setup” judiciary.
If you want to talk about reforms, then please discuss the “lack of any reform action” while the Democrats rule Thailand after they were installed as Govt after a whole series of coups. Of course the Democrats must be forgiven, as they were too busy ripping off the country and did not have time for reforms.
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
Time for a bhikkhuni sangha?
It is bizarre that this article omits to discuss or even mention the doctrinal arguments for not allowing a Theravada Bhikkhuni order. The traditional argument is that the Theravada Bhikkhuni lineage died out several centuries ago and cannot be re-established. The author really needs to address this issue if he seeks to challenge the Sangha’s position on the matter.
Another big weekend for Thailand
There goes the ‘It is cool to be corrupt’ mantra repeated ad nauseum by Robert, Nomi and ….
Yaps and yaps and more yaps.
PTP is all about Thaksin and nobody else … look what the PT Party did only a month ago with those 310 Thaksin-servants-pretending-to-be-legislators working overtime up to 4AM in the morning to pass the …. ahem … amnesty bill specifically designed to pardon every political corruption indictments … because it seems Thaksin wanted to cover all angles.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
The article is informative, but only at a theoritical level; it does not offer any tangible, practical, realistic solution to the problem.
Basing his argument on the old school of thought, the Old Enlightenment, that thinking and reasoning is conscious and objective, he recommends that, in order to put an end to the political conflict in Thailand, the people must look into their own thinking. However, the New Enlightenment has been arguing that most part of human reasoning (90%) is unconscious and emotive. Thus, if that is the case, we need an instrument that will lead us to understand our political unconsciousness so that we can lit a new light to our political conception. Given the new notion on New Enlightenment, the writer of the article missed the most fundamental but important step in solving the political problem that Thailand is experiencing.
Storming the DSI building
The police officers were quite frustrated. They said that they were under strict orders not to use any force against the protesters: “It’s not that we cannot stop them, we are just not allowed to even use batons against them when they attack us”. They also said that if they used force, they feared that the military could use this as a reason to side with the protesters.
So the description of the Thai police as “timid and poorly trained” should read “shackled and deliberately counter-productively trained.”
How bad is Thaksinomics?
The complaints of the Yellows pretty much echo this report on the Thai economy:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jessecolombo/2013/11/04/thailands-bubble-economy-is-heading-for-a-1997-style-crash/2/
But a more interesting editorial appeared in the Bangkok Post, which was the first I’ve seen recently that actually dared to say what nobody has said before. The Red/Yellow divide is also an ETHNIC divide. It’s not just “regions;” it’s about ethnicity. And I’d thought that nobody in the Thai press would dare these days to use the word “Lao” to describe the northeast but it finally happened:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/387684/devolve-state-powers-to-stave-off-civil-war
If this becomes a civil war, will it become regional? Will Laos become involved or destabilized as a result? Will Thailand survive in its current borders? Everything seems to point to chaos.
Nobody wants the crown prince to succeed the king. The crown princess is a logical successor but there are also male heirs in the US (though none of the male children of the crown prince are really suitable because their mothers are uniformly of low birth, especially Srirasmi–nobody wants her as the mother of a king). There can spring up a wide number of factions supporting rival claimaints all with the backdrop of red/yellow siamese/lao civil war and Thaksin waiting in the wings. All so very exciting! Get your popcorn ready!
How bad is Thaksinomics?
Full report at: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/05/10/thailand-public-finance-management-review-report I quoted data from Table 3 at para. 33.
How bad is Thaksinomics?
Hi roger, can you provide the source? very interesting data.
AW
Another big weekend for Thailand
Lets talk about big jokes.
We have the Democrat Party, backed by Prem, Military, Bangkok, Elites, English Media, most local media, the ‘educated people’, Monarchy, Monastry. The Military coup that dispose of Thaksin stack the decks by staffing the key bureaucracy, judicial, courts, administrative, with staunch Anti-Thaksinites. After confiscating almost a billion dollars of Thaksin’s wealth (now, Thaksin at that point is no longer in top ten richest in Thailand), Democrat Party is now fully backed by the top 10 richest in Thailand. Plus the managers of the 30bn (according to Forbes, 50bn by others) dollars fortune.
Even with all that, they lost 3 elections in a row.
Even with all that, the DP, like you, are so terrified of the name Thaksin, that you have no idea what damage you have done and are doing to your country that you claim you love.
How can anyone vote for such useless, incompetent, cowardly, scared, boogeyman hunting thugs?
More amazing, is that the DP actually feel they deserve to be rulers, unelected.
Thats the big joke. The sad joke.
How bad is Thaksinomics?
Very interesting. It would also be very revealing to track patterns of public expenditure – by region and by sector – over the period. The World Bank’s latest analysis in 2012 shows that total PE per capita is Bt 163,800 in Bangkok but only Bt 16,690 and 13,165 in North & North East respectively (and similar huge regional differential for Heath and Education expenditures). Even given that Bangkok is the capital and has large share of “tertiary” facilities” such huge differentials suggest massive inequity in public service impact. One wonders if they have narrowed or widened over the past 15 years. They also are further reason to question the supposed “populist/vote-buying” tag used to label “Thaksinism” – since the overwhelming beneficiaries of spending are in the capital!
Another big weekend for Thailand
Vichai,
This is not even about Mr T anymore. Get over it. Nor is this about corruption, because no one, not one, in Thai politics is clean of that taint.
I voted PTP, because Yingluck Shinawatr is the leader NOT.
I voted PTP because PTP is the most probable party to rip up the 2007 military-concocted constitution, and either return us to the 1997 constitution that was fully paid in blood by the sacrifices of hundreds of lives in ’92, or push forth a referendum for a new one by the people, not the army.
I voted PTP because I wanted to see all, ALL, senators elected and fully accountable to voters. That PTP actually tried to fulfill that election promise validated my vote.
Not all voters vote against Democrat Party because they like or support the Shinawatrs. There are many other issues to vote for, and DP offered nothing but a boogeyman and a witch hunt. Sorry, Thailand deserve more than that. We deserve more than bitterness, hatred, and fear for one man who is not even in the country. If there is a better party than PTP more likely to push for 100% elected senators and terminate Les Majeste Law, I would have voted for them- no hestitation there.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
These are serious, non-rhetorical questions. Who is a member of the Thaksin regime and who isn’t? How will they be dealt with? And most important, how will the Democrats deal with the next guy to come along and gets them voted out of office again?
And what will you do when the Army is not alone in having weapons? Because the only reason the PDRC appears to be winning is because the government has not used force, for fear the Army will intervene. What will they do against millions of armed red-shirts, many of them family members?
Another big weekend for Thailand
Clearly, Vichai, you are losing your mind as when it comes to “corruption” in Thailand, the last ThaiDem/Abhisit govenrment was definitely no slouch.
What with Newin given a few of the most lucrative ministries to loot as he pleased and the owner of one of the world’s largest and most lucrative hi-end brothels installed as Minister of Commerce.
And let’s not be rude and mention that Abhisit’s #2 man was none other than one of Thailand’s most long-lived corrupt politicians, none other than the Great Leader of the ongoing present “Anti-Corruption” protest movement, your reincarnated living Mafia God from Surat Thani, Khun Suttehp.
Oh, not that I want to spoil your illusions, dear Vichai, but if you look into the very founding moment, the birth, of the Thai Democrat Party, who will you see acting as Midwife?
Why none other than the world’s most successful Commercial Sex Business Entrepreneur, Lek Nana. Not only lots of donated cash from all those millions in rents he was collecting from his many properties in and around Soi Nana, but also the land for the Thai Democrat Party Headquarters Building itself.
Lek Nana was rewarded handsomely for this unparalleled generosity (much more so than those 100,000’s of young Isan females whose labor was the basis of his fortune) with many years of Cabinet & Ministerial posts, a lifelong Senior Advisor title, and even buried with “Royal Dirt” with Abhisit and most of the other Thai Democrat Party luminaries at his funeral to show this totally corrupt billionaire and piller of the Thai Democrat Party, their “respect” and reverence.
So let’s not go too deeply who in Thailand is corrupt and who is not. From top to bottom, one side to the other, in every way starting with the most revered to the least revered.
It’s called The Thai Patronage System. It’s been going on for years, for centuries, long before the “Devil named Thaksin” was even born. And it will keep going on long after his death.
How bad is Thaksinomics?
According to Transparency International, the perceived corruption is also on a downward trend. Although this was somewhat reversed in 2006.
http://oi42.tinypic.com/29egm4i.jpg
(I have reversed the CPI score to make it more intuitive. A lower score equal less corruption)
How bad is Thaksinomics?
To play the Devil’s advocate, Thaksinomics may have benefitted from an overall excellent economic climate. During that same period, Singapore GDP increased from $123.5 to $274.7 billion (+122%), Malaysia from $143.5-$303.5 billion (+111%) and Hong Kong from $181.6-263.3 billion (+44%). And that period also includes the time when the Democrats were at the helm.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
I wouldn’t say Mr. Marshalls reporting is explosive, he just read a couple of wikileaks, hears the talks around town, visit some pro-red thai forums, that all Thais know for the past decade or two, and based his reports and his theory on it. Perhaps explosive for foreigners who are still stuck on the “democracy” page and don’t know much about Thai history and politics.
Another big weekend for Thailand
Is that all the yaps you could all (Nomi, Neptunian,Robert and Matt) muster — to paint Yingluck as a hapless, sniffling, defenseless and honest-mistaking ‘passive’ administrator? More appropriate adjectives to me seem to be corrupt, inept, dishonest, self-serving big-time, and heavily conflicted. And she deliberately pushed on with her unconstitutional measures to get self-serving amnesty bill passed because her fugitive brother Thaksin instructed her so (same instructions to the other 310 or so Thaksin-servants-who-pretended-to-be-legislators).
Yingluck had completely lost her legitimacy to rule and the elites have nothing to do with it. The only elite that comes to mind who orchestrated Yingluck’s rapid downfall is her malicious brother, the fugitive Thaksin, who again overreached and flaunted his ‘impunity’ because he believes himself with ‘unique’ privileges and voodoo powers.
If the only creatures in Thailand listening to Yingluck’s commands is her dog(s), then she should really pack her bags and leave the PM’s office.
Nomi asks Vichai N a hypothetical question: In her shoes, what could I have done? Nothing better I suppose, because the grievous insults Yingluck and her 310 Thaksin-servants-pretending-to-be-legislators had visited upon the Thais, Yingluck could no longer get undone. Yingluck, like her malodorous brother Thaksin, are damaged goods permanently.
I am not surprised the Thai generals hesitate to take any action at Yingluck’s behest. Yingluck Shinawatra no longer holds any moral sway or legitimacy is why. To people of Bangkok and many parts of Thailand, save the Isan region perhaps, Yingluck Shinawatra is a big joke.
How bad is Thaksinomics?
thanks very much for this…. wonder whether the money people in Thailand are aware/suppressing this view?
assume Suthep and his bosses are striving to maintain their own wealth creation on the back of/independent of the country indicators
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
Andrew M,
David Steckfuss has a very good opinion piece in the Bangkok Post:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/387684/devolve-state-powers-to-stave-off-civil-war
It’s not as gossipy, entertainingly scurrilous, and journalistic as your thesis, but probably more fundamentally important. Either way the Bangkok elite are the problem, which anyone with half a brain could work out.
Counting Thailand’s coups
[…] this coming year. At the least the country will see more clashes across Bangkok, very possibly a coup, and at the worst there is potential for a much more violent conflict.. Either way this story heads […]
Another big weekend for Thailand
Maybe you should really ask Suthep to leave Thailand and stop making excuses for the Democrats, while you are at it.
While I do not totally agree with Yinluck’s passive approach, I do not see how this can be resolve without “force” by the authorities. We are talking about a desperate, ruthless lunatic here.
If Suthep had tried this anywhere else in the world, Govt forces would have gone in (violently or otherwise), arrested him, locked him up and threw away the keys. Suthep can do this in Thailand due to the not so silent backing of the Democrats, army and the democrat’s “setup” judiciary.
If you want to talk about reforms, then please discuss the “lack of any reform action” while the Democrats rule Thailand after they were installed as Govt after a whole series of coups. Of course the Democrats must be forgiven, as they were too busy ripping off the country and did not have time for reforms.