Comments

I’ve had second thoughts about Cod’s article which now seems more likely satire fashioned under the demands of living in a kingdom where speaking directly on certain topics has become dangerous.

And before anyone brings it up. I don’t think thaksin is at the root of thailand’s problems, but he is a key player in the current conflict.

Whether you think how much this article is so rationally flawed (and I also think that way, IMHO this is even worse than first year university essay, had I been the lecturer and this is a university essay, it will receive an F from me, as it is poorly researched, one-sided, contains no scholarly analysis, and makes no attempt to convincingly counter the argument from other side), the sad fact is the vast majority of Thai people also think this way. And I don’t see how can this change.

In your first sentence you state “It is good that Cod bravely raised the issue”. How brave can one actually be by raising an issue which could lead opponents of your false arguement to a term in prison?

It’s good that Cod has bravely raised the issue about whether Thailand “needs” the monarchy or not.

But the question as to whether Thailand needs or doesn’t need the monarchy is meaningless unless it is possible for Thai people to freely answer: “No”.

If Cod is confident that the people “cherish” and “revere” the monarchy then he should have nothing to fear from abolishing Article 112, since according to this thinking the people would still cherish and revere and “widely support” the monarchy whether the law exists or not.

So why retain Article 112?

As Cod himself states in the first paragraph, some people fear that if the law were abolished then that would be “the natural road to a republic”.

But how could abolishing Article 112 lead to a republic if most people “widely support” the monarchy?

Only if a majority of Thai people did NOT actually support the monarchy and had the freedom to say so and then act on that freedom to reform Thailand’s political system.

Therefore, based on his own apparent support for Article 112 – judging from his argument about the “silent majority” – Cod actually appears to suggest that the majority of the Thai people potentially do NOT support the monarchy at all. That’s why Article 112 needs to be retained – to prevent people from saying so and taking Thailand down the “natural road to a republic”.

Royalists who truly believe that the monarchy is popular should advocate for the abolition of Article 112, because only then can we truly test their claims that the monarchy is widely supported.

Countries like Britain can still have a monarchy which is moderately popular without a law like Article 112. Why can’t Thailand?

Every defense of the Monarchy I have read are not a defense of the Monarchy, they are a defense of the current King. What do you say, defenders of the Monarchy, in defense of the next King? Will your words of praise be identical?

I’m afraid Cod’s weak attempts at what could only ever be considered pseudo-intellectualism don’t forego a piece that is essentially just another royalist hagiography, Karl Marx or not.

I, for one, am tired of reading such stuff as it only inflects the kind intellectual torpidity that seems to be one of the defining tropes of Thai Studies.

Here’s a quote for you from someone else considered one of the giants of modernist thinking…

“Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants willing to be dethroned.”