I think a little more care should be taken in the words used to discuss this subject. Monk is generally used to refer to a male monastic while female monastics are usually referred to as nuns. More specifically in Buddhism, male monastics are ordained as bhikkhu while female monastics are ordained as bhikkhuni.
The real issue in Thailand is to establish a bhikkhuni sangha which women can freely enter and which has widespread support and recognition from society including the bhikkhu sangha. Globally there is also the issue of improving the status of bhikkhuni so they are equal in status to bhikkhu.
[…] one person with a gun to do serious damage. The same turned out to be true of the incident at Ramkhamhaeng University, where third hands were also initially […]
Dear Vichai – I’m surprised at what ignorance you show about how Thailand works and the ubiquitous Patronage System that underlies all else in Thailand.
How can the mere elected Prime Minister Yingluck stop the mad dog Khun Suthep’s grand plan and vision to shut down and trash the glittering capitol city of Bangkok in the middle of the tourist High Season….
When the Thai Army is providing an invisible protective shield for the rabid Big Boss from Surat Thani, in fact, even having its own people act as his personal bodyguards.
When the CPB and some of the richest and most powerful Patrons in Thailand are encouraging Khun Suthep and his motley crew of hi-so’s, mid-so’s and rubber plantation workers to flood Bangkok’s streets with chaos, mayhem and violence.
After all, doesn’t everybody (with the possible exception of Vichai) know that whenever Khun Suthep’s Patrons decide to hit the off switch, the sleek-haired beauty from the south (who counts even Ko Phangan and Ko Samui among his many possessions, not to speak of a good percentage of Thailand’s palm oil supplies and even the classic Phuket Land Scandal/corruption story) will pack his bags, pick up his bonus and head quietly back to his Surat Thani bailiwick.
Until then, there is little or nothing a mere elected Thailand Prime Minister can do, except just sit, wait, and give the “Good People” time to think through the ultimate consequences of what they and their mad dog Suthep are doing.
Khun Vichai, please kindly elaborate on what you would and could practically do in the PM’s shoes?
The other side has the backing of the unmentionables, and implicit backing of tanks, snipers, and machine guns.
Can you order police to act, knowing it will be the excuse for the big guns to intervene. You will be pointlessly risking our poor fellow Thais lives – yes, our police force are fellow Thais, not Cambodians.
Can you order the Army to act? Do you think Prayuth will obey commands to safeguard the state from PM Vichai?
Yes, PM Yingluck made a mistake with the amnesty bill. Seriously, do you think this is about the amnesty bill? Suthep and gang has been nitpicking every single speck of dust for a trigger to chaos. Sooner or later, something will ignite. If not this, then something else one, two, maybe three months down the road.
There is a significant difference between a gang vindictively making a country ungovernable vs a caretaker PM who is not a top-calibre politician.
Personally, I rather see Suthep pack up and leave Thailand permanently. And I have no objection to Yingluck returning to managing her business and enjoying her time as mother to her child, in Thailand.
No Andrew MacGregor Marshall to both my questions? Then you must expand Mr. Marshall why no.
(1) Why should the Red Shirts scorn the Royal Family but NOT the Crown Prince. What had the Crown Prince, during his many distractions, done specially for the Red Shirts and their cause? Seems to me that the only commonality was Thaksin and his ‘tainted gifts’, yes Mr. Marshall?
(2) And why shouldn’t Thaksin Shinawatra be particularly guilty of lese majeste when he had, among other things, emroiled the Crown Prince in that scandalous and certainly very criminal enterprise of rifling the National Lottery (see above)?
On second thought, if you were referring to the 8 Garudhammas, then you are correct in that men need not follow them. When first reading your comment what came to my mind were the gender-specific rules. For example, nuns aren’t required to follow the monastic prohibition of emission of semen except during sleep, for obvious reasons.
Dear Vichai, with “friends” like you, I’m sure Nostitz doesn’t need enemies. Would be constructive if you might drop the condescension for a change. Just a little, for the new year?
We are interviewing Ali Wyne, the co-author of the book “Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World” this week on our site. He researched Lee Kuan Yew extensively and has quite thorough knowledge of him.
He also set extra rules for the women, that men need not follow.
You are mistaken. The extra monastic rules for women are not those that men need not follow. Rather, they are rules male monastics cannot follow, as they don’t possess the proper biological “equipment”, as it were.
Furthermore, it would be incorrect to assume that monastic rules are inherently punitive in nature, as you seem to imply. For a monk or nun, the rules of one’s order are tools to be used to assist in the arduous quest of spiritual enlightenment. That the historical Buddha gave extra tools to his bhikkunis could be a sign of his generosity, as opposed to a sign of latent misogyny.
Since the Supreme Patriarch died back in October and he will have a successor chosen soon, is there a chance that the issue of bhikkunis in Thailand may receive another look from the authorities with a fresh set of eyes? As far as I can tell there’s not much English-language material on who the likely candidates for the next Supreme Patriarch are and what their stances are, but I wonder if there’s reason for hope.
Or perhaps the Supreme Patriarchate and the Sangha Council aren’t the key institutions for getting Thailand to recognize women’s ordination? Is amending the 1928 Sangha Act through the legislature the most important step that needs to be done? Or is there any prospect for a royal endorsement of bhikkunis coming in the next reign?
“Maybe we should start by defining what we mean by elite?”
“What do you mean when you say elite? Are you referring to the ruling class?”
Not just the ruling class, but those who have connections to the ruling class, as well as wealthy individuals who are affluent enough to either establish connections to the ruling class (UMNO/BN and their cohorts) or have international connections (political and economic) that afford them access to material goods and services that are inaccessible to the non-elite.
I also include royalty, who by virtue of their ancestry, are also afforded political
and economic access (affluence) due to historically-based status levels that arise
from traditional Malay aristocracy in the pre-Islamic period (but was carried over
into the modern period).
Thus, these are people, who by virtue of aristocratic birth, financial success, connections to ruling parties and institutions, and access to international
goods and services (via education and the
ability to travel frequently) affords them
a status in society that the bulk of citizens
within that society are either incapable or unable to achieve.
You suggest that those who are not members
of such an elite class engage in conversation. That is all well and good, but I do not believe such conversations, even if they do take place, will lead to the engendering of a leader from within that group (or groups) of Malaysians who might engage in such dialogue. It has not happened
before as there is no precedent in Malaysia’s
political system (that does not mean it is
100 % impossible, but I think 90 % unlikely).
Please prove me wrong Greg, not with academic-style social theories with language,
that is itself elitist, because your average
Malaysian probably wouldn’t understand such academic theories. Prove me wrong with on-the-ground realities.
Khoo is wrong, during the riots in 1969, ordinary people went after ordinary people.
It was exacerbated by the Government at the time, but it was not a creation of the government. To the extent there are bad feelings between different ethnic groups in Malaysia, they aren’t all due to a corrupt
government, they are due to natural human biases that governments make use of, politically, but those biases (when they exist) are the product of the personality and viewpoints of the individual, and how they
perceive their peers and fellow citizens.
Individual responsibility can’t be excused by poor government alone. As you yourself seem to infer, which I don’t disagree with philosophically, but disagree with practically, it starts with the common citizen in dialogue with his/her peers.
I believe cultural and ethnic views impede
such dialogue, to a large extent, among the non-elite and among the elite, in Malaysia
(so I differ with Khoo on this point).
Let’s hope, in time, your thesis is proved
possible and leads to what you hope it will.
Check your math and definition of majority. No doubt elections have been consistently and convincingly won. But a true majority of Thailand was not the result of last election. Any real referendum requiring 75% or 50%, I.e. A true Majority of votes on any issue will be hard to achieve by either persuasion.
Thank you for the link! Although I doubt that the survey is representative, it is better then nothing. I found two interesting aspects in the data:
1. There are strong differences with regards to occupation. 60% of those working of the PDRC are in sales and business, what can be described as “petty bourgoisie”, compared to 33% of the udd. However, 36% of the working UDD are in productive fields as workers or farmers, compared to 10% of the PDRC. This can explain why the direct economic effects are quite small (however, one should not forget about the indirect effects which are severe!).
2. Telling is as well that even though PDRC tend to have a higher education, nearly half regard a strong leader as most important, compared to 92% of the UDD, who favour democracy. Perhaps those with a higher education have experienced longer phases of intensive “brain-washing”. As a result they tend to be more inclined towards authoritarianism.
“Anti-government protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban on Thursday (Jan2/2014) night set out the details of the plan to paralyse Bangkok on Jan 13 which involves road blockades to tie up city traffic, power and water cuts and preventing all civil servants from working.” (http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/387660/suthep-details-plan-to-paralyse-bangkok)
Kamnan Thep definitely has gone completely daft!
But if Yingluck as PM could not, is incapable of, and completely useless, to stop Kamnan Thep with his lunatic scheme to shut down Bangkok come Jan. 13th, then she should resign now, pack her bags and leave Thailand forever.
Was that your thesis Andrew MacGregor Marshall? Well thank you very much too, and, yes we are in agreement.
The danger of course is not the Crown Prince. The danger will be the people who will surround the Crown Prince and … how to put it … give him ‘wise’ counsel. Any ill-meaning counsellor that the Crown Prince listens to will be, of course, very dangerous to Thailand, primarily because the Crown Prince will be usually ‘distracted’, such is his reputation for many distractions.
Mr. Marshall is it because of the Thaksin ‘gifts’ (rifled out from the Thai treasury btw) the Crown Prince had so readily accepted that the Red Shirts (themselves hungry for the Thaksin gifts) believe the CP is one of their own? (Anyone corruptible, and anyone corrupted by Thaksin, would be of the same ilk as a Red Shirt.)
Seems to me that if there is to be someone to be tried and jailed for a really long sentence because of lese majeste, it should be Thaksin Shinawatra. Do you agree Andrew MacGregor Marshall?
Only after many a long hard argument, and only reluctantly, if I remember correctly.
And He also set extra rules for the women, that men need not follow.
Your views are biased and I need not provide
any classified information to you and will not. Your assumptions that all information is
in newspapers, and in the open, demonstrates
your naivete, as does your skewed views themselves.
Your information is all based on your ideological perceptions of the Rohingya. If you think the Wikileaks memo is my primary source of information, you are indeed naive. I have my information and it is factual and accurate. You may choose to believe what you will, which is not based on reality.
You contradict yourself by both questioning the validity of the Wikileaks memo, yet using it to defend your “caution,” which is disingenuous, to say the least.
I wish to have no further discussion with you
on this topic, given your lack of knowledge
of both historical (of which you mention
nothing at all) and contemporary aspects
of Rohingya social and political activities
in Burma and Bangladesh.
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Time for a bhikkhuni sangha?
I think a little more care should be taken in the words used to discuss this subject. Monk is generally used to refer to a male monastic while female monastics are usually referred to as nuns. More specifically in Buddhism, male monastics are ordained as bhikkhu while female monastics are ordained as bhikkhuni.
The real issue in Thailand is to establish a bhikkhuni sangha which women can freely enter and which has widespread support and recognition from society including the bhikkhu sangha. Globally there is also the issue of improving the status of bhikkhuni so they are equal in status to bhikkhu.
Ramkhamhaeng: A view from inside the stadium
[…] one person with a gun to do serious damage. The same turned out to be true of the incident at Ramkhamhaeng University, where third hands were also initially […]
Another big weekend for Thailand
Dear Vichai – I’m surprised at what ignorance you show about how Thailand works and the ubiquitous Patronage System that underlies all else in Thailand.
How can the mere elected Prime Minister Yingluck stop the mad dog Khun Suthep’s grand plan and vision to shut down and trash the glittering capitol city of Bangkok in the middle of the tourist High Season….
When the Thai Army is providing an invisible protective shield for the rabid Big Boss from Surat Thani, in fact, even having its own people act as his personal bodyguards.
When the CPB and some of the richest and most powerful Patrons in Thailand are encouraging Khun Suthep and his motley crew of hi-so’s, mid-so’s and rubber plantation workers to flood Bangkok’s streets with chaos, mayhem and violence.
After all, doesn’t everybody (with the possible exception of Vichai) know that whenever Khun Suthep’s Patrons decide to hit the off switch, the sleek-haired beauty from the south (who counts even Ko Phangan and Ko Samui among his many possessions, not to speak of a good percentage of Thailand’s palm oil supplies and even the classic Phuket Land Scandal/corruption story) will pack his bags, pick up his bonus and head quietly back to his Surat Thani bailiwick.
Until then, there is little or nothing a mere elected Thailand Prime Minister can do, except just sit, wait, and give the “Good People” time to think through the ultimate consequences of what they and their mad dog Suthep are doing.
Another big weekend for Thailand
Khun Vichai, please kindly elaborate on what you would and could practically do in the PM’s shoes?
The other side has the backing of the unmentionables, and implicit backing of tanks, snipers, and machine guns.
Can you order police to act, knowing it will be the excuse for the big guns to intervene. You will be pointlessly risking our poor fellow Thais lives – yes, our police force are fellow Thais, not Cambodians.
Can you order the Army to act? Do you think Prayuth will obey commands to safeguard the state from PM Vichai?
Yes, PM Yingluck made a mistake with the amnesty bill. Seriously, do you think this is about the amnesty bill? Suthep and gang has been nitpicking every single speck of dust for a trigger to chaos. Sooner or later, something will ignite. If not this, then something else one, two, maybe three months down the road.
There is a significant difference between a gang vindictively making a country ungovernable vs a caretaker PM who is not a top-calibre politician.
Personally, I rather see Suthep pack up and leave Thailand permanently. And I have no objection to Yingluck returning to managing her business and enjoying her time as mother to her child, in Thailand.
Another big weekend for Thailand
Vichai, prime ministers in Thailand are never in complete control of government. Networks
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
No Andrew MacGregor Marshall to both my questions? Then you must expand Mr. Marshall why no.
(1) Why should the Red Shirts scorn the Royal Family but NOT the Crown Prince. What had the Crown Prince, during his many distractions, done specially for the Red Shirts and their cause? Seems to me that the only commonality was Thaksin and his ‘tainted gifts’, yes Mr. Marshall?
(2) And why shouldn’t Thaksin Shinawatra be particularly guilty of lese majeste when he had, among other things, emroiled the Crown Prince in that scandalous and certainly very criminal enterprise of rifling the National Lottery (see above)?
Time for a bhikkhuni sangha?
On second thought, if you were referring to the 8 Garudhammas, then you are correct in that men need not follow them. When first reading your comment what came to my mind were the gender-specific rules. For example, nuns aren’t required to follow the monastic prohibition of emission of semen except during sleep, for obvious reasons.
Storming the DSI building
Dear Vichai, with “friends” like you, I’m sure Nostitz doesn’t need enemies. Would be constructive if you might drop the condescension for a change. Just a little, for the new year?
When Lee Kuan Yew dies…
We are interviewing Ali Wyne, the co-author of the book “Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World” this week on our site. He researched Lee Kuan Yew extensively and has quite thorough knowledge of him.
If you have any questions you would like to ask Ali, please submit them on the site – we will be accepting questions until tomorrow:
http://www.sixquestions.co/i/ali-wyne-author-and-blogger-on-foreign-policy
Time for a bhikkhuni sangha?
He also set extra rules for the women, that men need not follow.
You are mistaken. The extra monastic rules for women are not those that men need not follow. Rather, they are rules male monastics cannot follow, as they don’t possess the proper biological “equipment”, as it were.
Furthermore, it would be incorrect to assume that monastic rules are inherently punitive in nature, as you seem to imply. For a monk or nun, the rules of one’s order are tools to be used to assist in the arduous quest of spiritual enlightenment. That the historical Buddha gave extra tools to his bhikkunis could be a sign of his generosity, as opposed to a sign of latent misogyny.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
No
Time for a bhikkhuni sangha?
Since the Supreme Patriarch died back in October and he will have a successor chosen soon, is there a chance that the issue of bhikkunis in Thailand may receive another look from the authorities with a fresh set of eyes? As far as I can tell there’s not much English-language material on who the likely candidates for the next Supreme Patriarch are and what their stances are, but I wonder if there’s reason for hope.
Or perhaps the Supreme Patriarchate and the Sangha Council aren’t the key institutions for getting Thailand to recognize women’s ordination? Is amending the 1928 Sangha Act through the legislature the most important step that needs to be done? Or is there any prospect for a royal endorsement of bhikkunis coming in the next reign?
Moving away from the consociational model
“Maybe we should start by defining what we mean by elite?”
“What do you mean when you say elite? Are you referring to the ruling class?”
Not just the ruling class, but those who have connections to the ruling class, as well as wealthy individuals who are affluent enough to either establish connections to the ruling class (UMNO/BN and their cohorts) or have international connections (political and economic) that afford them access to material goods and services that are inaccessible to the non-elite.
I also include royalty, who by virtue of their ancestry, are also afforded political
and economic access (affluence) due to historically-based status levels that arise
from traditional Malay aristocracy in the pre-Islamic period (but was carried over
into the modern period).
Thus, these are people, who by virtue of aristocratic birth, financial success, connections to ruling parties and institutions, and access to international
goods and services (via education and the
ability to travel frequently) affords them
a status in society that the bulk of citizens
within that society are either incapable or unable to achieve.
You suggest that those who are not members
of such an elite class engage in conversation. That is all well and good, but I do not believe such conversations, even if they do take place, will lead to the engendering of a leader from within that group (or groups) of Malaysians who might engage in such dialogue. It has not happened
before as there is no precedent in Malaysia’s
political system (that does not mean it is
100 % impossible, but I think 90 % unlikely).
Please prove me wrong Greg, not with academic-style social theories with language,
that is itself elitist, because your average
Malaysian probably wouldn’t understand such academic theories. Prove me wrong with on-the-ground realities.
Khoo is wrong, during the riots in 1969, ordinary people went after ordinary people.
It was exacerbated by the Government at the time, but it was not a creation of the government. To the extent there are bad feelings between different ethnic groups in Malaysia, they aren’t all due to a corrupt
government, they are due to natural human biases that governments make use of, politically, but those biases (when they exist) are the product of the personality and viewpoints of the individual, and how they
perceive their peers and fellow citizens.
Individual responsibility can’t be excused by poor government alone. As you yourself seem to infer, which I don’t disagree with philosophically, but disagree with practically, it starts with the common citizen in dialogue with his/her peers.
I believe cultural and ethnic views impede
such dialogue, to a large extent, among the non-elite and among the elite, in Malaysia
(so I differ with Khoo on this point).
Let’s hope, in time, your thesis is proved
possible and leads to what you hope it will.
Ramkhamhaeng: A view from inside the stadium
Check your math and definition of majority. No doubt elections have been consistently and convincingly won. But a true majority of Thailand was not the result of last election. Any real referendum requiring 75% or 50%, I.e. A true Majority of votes on any issue will be hard to achieve by either persuasion.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
Thank you for the link! Although I doubt that the survey is representative, it is better then nothing. I found two interesting aspects in the data:
1. There are strong differences with regards to occupation. 60% of those working of the PDRC are in sales and business, what can be described as “petty bourgoisie”, compared to 33% of the udd. However, 36% of the working UDD are in productive fields as workers or farmers, compared to 10% of the PDRC. This can explain why the direct economic effects are quite small (however, one should not forget about the indirect effects which are severe!).
2. Telling is as well that even though PDRC tend to have a higher education, nearly half regard a strong leader as most important, compared to 92% of the UDD, who favour democracy. Perhaps those with a higher education have experienced longer phases of intensive “brain-washing”. As a result they tend to be more inclined towards authoritarianism.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
Indeed. Can’t disagree with either of your points.
Another big weekend for Thailand
“Anti-government protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban on Thursday (Jan2/2014) night set out the details of the plan to paralyse Bangkok on Jan 13 which involves road blockades to tie up city traffic, power and water cuts and preventing all civil servants from working.” (http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/387660/suthep-details-plan-to-paralyse-bangkok)
Kamnan Thep definitely has gone completely daft!
But if Yingluck as PM could not, is incapable of, and completely useless, to stop Kamnan Thep with his lunatic scheme to shut down Bangkok come Jan. 13th, then she should resign now, pack her bags and leave Thailand forever.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
Was that your thesis Andrew MacGregor Marshall? Well thank you very much too, and, yes we are in agreement.
The danger of course is not the Crown Prince. The danger will be the people who will surround the Crown Prince and … how to put it … give him ‘wise’ counsel. Any ill-meaning counsellor that the Crown Prince listens to will be, of course, very dangerous to Thailand, primarily because the Crown Prince will be usually ‘distracted’, such is his reputation for many distractions.
Mr. Marshall is it because of the Thaksin ‘gifts’ (rifled out from the Thai treasury btw) the Crown Prince had so readily accepted that the Red Shirts (themselves hungry for the Thaksin gifts) believe the CP is one of their own? (Anyone corruptible, and anyone corrupted by Thaksin, would be of the same ilk as a Red Shirt.)
Seems to me that if there is to be someone to be tried and jailed for a really long sentence because of lese majeste, it should be Thaksin Shinawatra. Do you agree Andrew MacGregor Marshall?
Time for a bhikkhuni sangha?
Only after many a long hard argument, and only reluctantly, if I remember correctly.
And He also set extra rules for the women, that men need not follow.
Beyond bigotry: Unravelling ethnic violence in Rakhine
Mr. Sommer,
Your views are biased and I need not provide
any classified information to you and will not. Your assumptions that all information is
in newspapers, and in the open, demonstrates
your naivete, as does your skewed views themselves.
Your information is all based on your ideological perceptions of the Rohingya. If you think the Wikileaks memo is my primary source of information, you are indeed naive. I have my information and it is factual and accurate. You may choose to believe what you will, which is not based on reality.
You contradict yourself by both questioning the validity of the Wikileaks memo, yet using it to defend your “caution,” which is disingenuous, to say the least.
I wish to have no further discussion with you
on this topic, given your lack of knowledge
of both historical (of which you mention
nothing at all) and contemporary aspects
of Rohingya social and political activities
in Burma and Bangladesh.