Comments

Tom Hoy #8
“And he paints a convincing picture of moral cowardice and arse protection that is central to the continuance of laws such as lese majeste.”

…and tragically, any other kind of response is designated “un-thai” by our elders and betters…

Yes, if a few expatriates have a low opinion of them then obviously they deserve to be locked up. Once they are out of the way, the expatriates can get stuck into serious issues like dual pricing policies.

LAOS Had been coursed for many Generations and it will be continuing for ever. I was born and growth up in Laos. I was served in the Laos Royal Army during the Vietnam and Laos Civil war for 10 year. I had learnt a lot about Laos Political readership. Those who lead Laos during that time, all were greedily, corrupt, and coward. I call them the coward pretender or moron. Those leadership never get along, fight against one another, coup attempt. That why LAOS got burn by those Lao moron leadership. I got a lot to
say about those coward Laos leadership during that period, but I have to stop now.

Bennett, comment 4

I broadly share Arthurson’s views after my 12 years in Thailand.

The continuing electoral victories of Thaksin and Thaksin-proxy legislatures (I won’t say governments because I don’t think that Peua Thai has full control over the mechanisms of government i.e. the army) election after election would suggest that the opinions of your expat and Thai associates are not universally shared among either Thais or expats.

I get different opinions. So we probably just mix in different circles.

Having said that, Thaksin’s career of amoral, self-interested opportunism does make CJ Hinke’s analysis very plausible. And he paints a convincing picture of moral cowardice and arse protection that is central to the continuance of laws such as lese majeste.

Keith Barney’s posting in the ‘annals’ of anthropologists in Lao hydropower development was brought to my attention only a few days ago. I shall restrict myself here to a few comments and refer to my more detailed reflections in a chapter published in 2009. (1)
To begin with, the only reason that I may now figure in Barney’s annals is that I decided to publish my report without asking permission from anybody, instead of having it put away, in abstracted and heavily edited form, in the overall EIA report, which was not in the public domain. I published in the interest of transparency and possible collegial dialogue, but over the years it has also brought some flak from anti-hydropower environmentalists. So Barney is continuing a time-honoured practice.
I have no ideological commitment for or against hydropower (but living in a country that derives 45 per cent of its domestic electricity production from hydropower, and none from fossil fuels, I recognize some advantages). My main commitment was to the welfare of local population who had had a major infrastructural development project dumped on them. The limitations of this old study, in terms of both time and scope, are obvious. I am a social anthropologist and made no claims to expertise in watershed ecology; my brief did not include such a study. I did not propose an ‘irrigation mega-project scheme’ but a modest development of paddy fields on the Nam Hai plain with irrigation from water leaving the power station; at the time, a concern among proponents of rural development was the relatively low productivity of paddy cultivation in the country, and it was commonly assumed that local irrigation schemes might improve food security. Barney acknowledges my rejection of a clear-cut paddy/swidden distinction, but goes on to accuse me of ‘clear anti-swidden agriculture bias’; I do not get the point. I did not talk about a ‘severe ecological crisis’ along Nam Theun/Nam Gnouang; I reported the population’s perception of their situation, and I still believe they knew (better than me) what they were talking about. I did not make ‘sweeping recommendations for large-scale population resettlement’; I noted that quite a few people had already moved from the Nam Theun to the Nam Hai and suggested that others who wanted to follow suit should get some help, because they perceived that such a move would improve their livelihoods – in terms of food security as well as access to health and education facilities and transportation (factors deemed necessary for poverty reduction).
If my recommendations were as inappropriate as Barney claims, he may take comfort from the fact that they were completely ignored by the project planners. Once I had submitted my draft report at the end of my one-month contract, I had no further involvement in the scheme.
I had occasion to pay a brief visit to the area in 1999. ‘Spontaneous’ in-migration had transformed the quiet village where I had stayed into a sprawling rural town, easily accessible by a paved road. The power plant’s ‘operators’ village’ was placed in park-like surroundings, complete with tennis courts and a golf course, and with a high wire fence around it. Outside the people lived their lives much as before, fetching water in buckets from the little stream. No electricity had been installed, and no measures of rural development were in evidence. I think the people had deserved better.
Given that my report had absolutely no practical impact on the project, it is curious to be accused of almost single-handedly having directed ‘a discursive process that minimized (in the extreme) the probable ecological outcomes of a major inter-basin diversion hydropower project’. I am at a loss to understand how this ‘discursive process’ could be immune to influences from all the ecological knowledge that has presumably been accumulated in the meantime.

(1) ‘The Loneliness of the Short-Term Consultant. Anthropology and Hydropower Development in Laos’. S. Hagberg and C. Widmark (eds), Ethnographic Practice and Public Aid. Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology, 2009. (Electronic off-print available on request: [email protected])

Having spent much of the past two years attending L-M and CCA trials at San Aya, I can’t agree with Sae Dan’s assessment of ongoing judicial coup.

Indisputably, all judges are amaat but all courts in every country ALWAYS try to ingratiate themselves with their current sitting govt.

The hardline on L-M comes squarely from Puea Thai. After all, Thaksin would never allow himself to be seen as anti-Royal. It is incredible to me that more Reds simply don’t wake up and realise they have been used and discarded. Until, of course, their votes are needed again.

I also must disagree that there exists any separation of powers in Thailand. It’s a big bed and they’re all in it together. Thus, if the legislators blindly refuse to debate the L-M laws despite Constitutional requirement to do so on the basis of citizen petition, the executive makes no noise whatsoever, let alone compel them to do so. The administrative bureaucrats scramble to appear loyal with more censorship and prosecutions and the Constitutional Court makes the unilateral decision, without even consulting the Council of State, that freedom of expression is not protected!

I grieve for the families of Darunee, Tanthawut, Somyot, Surachai not because they are Reds but because they are human and all us humans are programmed to want freedom of expression.

I have called on the previous and the current NHRC to task on some big Royal issues such as transparency over govt censorship and its costs to taxpayers, and to reopen an inquiry into the death of King Ananda…and have not heard from them in well over a year.

As I said, it’s a really big bed!

Expatriates who live (or had lived for some years) in Thailand carry a very low opinion of Thailand’s Red Shirt movement; particularly those who were in Bangkok in years 2009-2010 when the Reds were in senseless violent rampage at the behest of their disgraced convicted corrupt leader Thaksin Shinawatra. Red Shirt leaders are inexorably linked to Thaksin . . . past, present and future. My Thai associates simply knowingly smile when I ask them if Thailand’s Red Shirt movement is to further Thailand’s democracy.

interesting article, and what is said follows most of my own observations/perceptions, too.

Meaningless platitudes of brothers against brothers cannot hide the fact that this is a war like most others fought over control of land and resources. Two (the kleptocracy and China)is a company,three is a crowd. To the govt there is nothing wrong with Kachin State full of forests, the source of the mighty Irrawaddy with all that gold and jade, except it is also full of Kachins.

Admittedly there is that colonial legacy and meddling foreigners to this day in many different forms, states, groups and individuals on both sides of the fence in a globalized world, but you ignore the elephant in the room at your peril.