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Last week New Mandala received a letter from Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Sek Wannamethee outlining why the government took exception to a recent article published to our website. Here the author of that piece, James L Taylor, responds.
An academic piece such as my recent New Mandala article should not be a threat to anyone, or any democratic institution. It is a viewpoint. Frankly I would not think such intellectual rumination and comment worthy of an official response: but, so be it.
As an educated person, from a reputable institution of learning in the UK, Khun Sek should know the value of a discursus from his master’s classes, and have nothing to be concerned about if these views do not accord with the views of his, or his junta bosses. See also Khun Sek’s response to Pavin Chachavalpongpun in The Japan Times.
But, for those who have a sense of the underlying reality in today’s Thailand, this is more the case of him saying that the pond is clear when it is murky.
Anyone reading my New Mandala contribution has the right to agree or to disagree as long it is supported by a reasoned position. If my argumentation is distasteful, too radical, or deemed to offend the “image” of the regime, may I humbly suggest that what is needed is tolerance to differing views, to reflection instead of a defence of the indefensible.
If the reader feels it is not true, then why should s/he be so concerned? People disagree maybe because they do not like poststructuralism, or understand or agree with the philosophical opining of Deleuze. That’s also fine.
In modern Thai history, a narrative has seemingly been created that masks the truth, and any contra-views to those of the junta silenced, both indirectly and directly. Several people who could have contributed significantly to Thailand’s future have been forced to flee the country, many incarcerated, others with no choice but comply with an imposed normalisation because the alternative carries risks — what Deleuze means by micro-fascism.
This environment must change if the country is to progress harmoniously.
No one should be afraid of expressing their views and opinions, only of living by lies, deceit and misrepresentation. This has created massive divisions in society. If Thailand is to move forward, then the silenced and the voiceless must be allowed a public space.
As a start, the regime should free all political prisoners and show to the world that Thailand is a compassionate and just nation, the “land of the free”. Would the late monarch not want this?
And, of course, Thailand should be a country that ensures a safe space for those people who wish to grieve the loss of the King, though a sentiment nurtured from the heart, not the head.
Dr James L Taylor is Adjunct Associate Professor, Anthropology & Development Studies, University of Adelaide.
Good on you Prof. You say what I wanted to but unable to.
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I can think of no legitimate reason why SEK WANNAMETHEE should not have responded to Mr Taylor’s article. There are two sides to every story after all, and I think we are all better off for having heard both of them.
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Since Taylor seems to uphold the value of reasoned discourse in taking and defending positions, I would ask him to provide some sort of support for his contention that what Deleuze means by micro-fascism is “no choice but to comply with an imposed normalisation because the alternative carries risks”.
Micro-fascism is about desire, the desire of individuals, and not about state imposed norms. It is about blocked lines of flight, failed attempts to escape from the rigidities of capitalism that turn into the demand that others follow “rules” that these frustrated desires create. Micro-fascisms are diverse; fascism is monolithic.
Taylor can’t deal with these elements of Deleuzian analysis because his whole defense of Thaksin and fantasy about what Thaksin’s electoral authoritarianism represents appears to be little more than a perfect example of a blocked line of flight.
And we know where they lead.
I’ve quoted this before in response to Dr Taylor and it remains relevant to his refusal to defend his misuse of Deleuzian terminology:
“It’s too easy to be antifascist on the molar level, and not even see the fascist inside you, the fascist you yourself sustain and nourish and cherish with molecules both personal and collective.” D&G
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michael (sounds like he is chasing me across NM?) likes to divert attention from the core argument and has some pleasure in twisting my logic without reading clearly the underlying argument. you should not take small bites out of D&G without comprehending the whole terrain of their thinking. I have spent many years working with all their individual and collective works in English. your comment on D&G in this context is misleading. I am happy to povide an explanation if you wish to write to me at the university.
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I’ll take that as a refusal to provide any support for your argument beyond appeal to authority.
Your (ab)use of D&G to find yet another way to throw the word “fascist” at the junta is as relevant as the last time you did so under an altogether other rubric.
People responded then with arguments questioning the validity of your choice of “fascism” as an analytic term and you didn’t respond adequately then either.
So an academic makes accusations he won’t defend with reasoned argumentation against a government that denies all charges without appeal to reason or anything other than simply saying so.
As I’m sure any Deleuzian reading would find, the similarities are far more meaningful than the differences. Hence the relevance of “micro-fascism” to Taylor’s own practice.
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Kudos Dr JL Taylor .
‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’
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Michael Wilson – get you historical facts straight : fascism has HISTORICALLY been DIVERSE. Go back and read BASIC history – or are you nothing more than an ignorant propagandist.
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Thank you for having the convictions to express what you stated. This foreign ministry spokesperson, as well as Don Pramudvinai, the Thai foreign minister, is only doing the bidding of their new puppet masters, the illegitimate military junta, that seized power from an elected govt. tore up the constitution and is now ruling with no checks and balances, dishing out threats and warnings daily, suppressing the will of the Thai people, silencing anyone who speaks out, while jailing hundreds of innocent Thais who took a stand. It’s a shame that Thailand has fallen this low and the worst is still yet to come, with “Sia O” getting ready to take the throne.
This illegitimate military junta will be remembered as the “worst” of them all. Thailand’s day of reckoning is fast approaching and the majority of hard working Thais, who have been repressed for decades will rise up and take back their country from these so called royalists, elites, sino-thai tycoons, and men in uniform, who are corrupt to the core and have enriched themselves by all means.
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Seems like Taylor was unable to offer substantive argument and went for light discourse. Any response would have to include that the definitions of Fascism and Naziism are different and that fitting a person to a theory is easier than thinking. Thais didn’t know their monarch personally and neither does Taylor so one could dismiss any criticism of the king as feeling in the dark.
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I feel that Taylor is so emotional when he writes, “If the reader feels it is not true, then why should s/he be so concerned?” in response to Khun Sek Wannamethee’s letter. If it was true, why is he concerned?
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I would have benefitted from greater elucidation of Jim Taylor’s use of D&G but not because I question what it is he is asserting, “micro Fascism” and Macro Fascism are well established realities in Thailand (think Axis WW2, Phibul Songkhram and Sarit Thannarat, Thanom, The Scouts movement (Catherine Bowie) and every military coup since 1930s). What I’m left wondering is what does Deleuze add to the analysis?
By this I mean from Phibul’s programmes of nation building where people were fined, beaten and jailed for not wearing hats and adopting other hybrid cultural forms, themselves confections of American middle-class mores, through the anti-communist totalitarian mobilisation of the “Village Tiger Cub scout” movement; to the unrelenting cultural chauvinism of the Thai state against the Malay speaking population of the southern provinces etc, when hasn’t Thailand been a Fascist state with incumbent micro and macro fascisms that one would expect to inhere to a fascist state?
For a parallel to people being bashed for not respecting the monarchy “appropriately”, take a look at the record album cover of the Dead Kennedy’s “Holiday in Cambodia” that depicts a Thai beating the corpse of a student protester with a chair who has been hung in the Tamarind trees of Sanam Luang in the wake of the 1976 ROYAL BACKED military crackdown on the students.
These protesters were alleged to be both communist and to have also defamed the crown prince by urinating on an effigy of him inside the campus of Thammasart university. There are other such images of general population beating and defiling corpses of these students who were all believed to have Committed lese majeste.
What is interesting in the current context is many of the students from this period and some years later constitute a vanguard of intellectuals who see the Thai King’s support of the crackdown against them, as a betrayal of the people and country of Thailand, and we read and hear nothing of these people in the musings here in blogs or other media in the wake of the King’s passing, my guess is they aren’t wearing black but nor are they likely being bashed.
Also, I think it would be more anthropological to look at the who of who are the people being bashed (as evidence of micro fascisms) and by whom are they being bashed. The reason being not everyone failing to wear black is being bashed nor is every “disrespectful” comment online being hunted down. Just like with anything there are cultural scripts being acted out here and for anthropologists this is usually the most important kind of data.
D&G might be titillating for anyone interested in post-structuralism but has anyone actually tested their insights and theories cross culturally yet? If considered from the very basic tenet of anthropology that all experience is culturally mediated, does the quite obviously European notion of “desire” deployed by Deleuze, translate commensurately to non-European contexts? And do it’s implications similarly apply? My anthropological intuition is saying, unlikely.
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I think we can call the Thai dictatorship “fascist”, if we mean a combination of militarism with violent authoritarianism and an emphasis on what people are to be served and obeyed, rather than laws. As in European fascism, crimes can be justified on the grounds that the victim was somehow disloyal to the values of the State. What laws there are, are justified as being the commands of a head of state or his underlings, rather than as the moral values of the people. They are usually written in such a flexible way as to accommodate the interests of anybody with influence in the state. All these social characteristics are what the authorities call “Thainess”. The main propaganda instrument of the Thai fascist state is the education system, which is a kind of military for children with reduced emphasis on academic matters. The resurgence of the Thai fascist state, after a period of somewhat greater respect for the rule of law and formal democratic institutions, coincides with the decline of US influence. It has combined with world economic recession to substantially reduce the amount of capital investment in Thailand, and bring economic hardship on the Thai people. Western investors look elsewhere if the price includes the increased and largely unknown cost of bidding against more established entities for permission to operate, and freedom from interference, from the lawless State. (The Chinese are more at home, but are going through their own bust at the moment.)
Though Thai fascism has much in common with fascist-era Europe, in Asia it is probably culturally closer to Imperial Japan. A major difference from both is that, with the odd tiny exception, the Thai fascist state is satisfied with its internationally established borders. That should not be surprising though, given that World War II brought an end to territorial ambition the world over. (Instead we have “régime change”.) The Thai military has long been satisfied with the conquest of its own people, which is its sole function.
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We went through all this nonsense about whether or not the present junta can properly be called “fascist” or not almost one year ago to the day: http://www.newmandala.org/a-state-of-madness/
We get variations on a theme from Jim Taylor: “insidious creep” of fascism in December 2015; in April of 2016 we have Thailand “sliding further toward fascism”; and of course the recent abuse of post-structuralists Deleuze and Guattari invoking the “micro-fascisms” of the Thai state.
Falangists, Fascists, Nasty Bad Boogymen: the question should be directed at determining the value of applying these labels drawn from European history to the arguably very different situation here in Thailand.
As can be seen in the comments from the article linked above, Taylor is a propagandist who denies the reality of the Thaksin regime just as the present junta denies the reality of their own anti-democratic practice.
It is in this light that we should view Taylor’s misuse of the “fascist” label and his deliberate application of the “Big Lie” technique.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m with Orwell when he says:
“The word FASCISM has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.””
To suggest otherwise in the Thai context is positively Orwellian.
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Michael Wilson – what makes you think Orwell was correct, even in European terms, when he wrote that ? “Politics and The English Language” is a great polemic, and certainly illuminates SOME political use/
abuse of English. But it is NOT accurate historical analysis. Fascism – and Falangism – CAN be broadly, flexibly defined as a conceptual tool,, a heuristic device, for social scientists and historians, just as, eg. ” nationalism”, “communism”, liberalism”, “conservativism”, etc., can – surely ?
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The Thai military has long been satisfied with the conquest of its own people, which is its sole function.
Nail Head Hit
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Fascism may have lost its meaning in Orwell’s view but my own usage follows the usual criterion of an authoritarian government but not just any authoritarian government, one that is jingoistic, deeply culturally chauvinistic with an impulse to purge from the body politic/society/territory entire categories of people (sometimes things) and that does so in the name of them being arbitrarily accorded an “enemy” status. Drawing on more historical forms I consider another defining factor the complete intolerance of dissenting views, in conjunction with a concomitant repression of labour. While fascism can and has and does take many and varied forms it is noteworthy that these criteria tend not to be present in non fascist milieus. I extend this definition to encompass the Neoliberal return to pre WW2 class power relations as deeply implicated in the current crisis of the middle class that is seeing fascism emerge in Europe, Nth America, Australia again, as a viable political force, just as the class power relations of the pre World War period fomented the crisis of the middle class that was the fight between fascism and socialism and I would point to ISIS as being emblematic of the fascist counter culture movement of our times (though Trump may yet claim the title). I think it important to point out the paucity of any effective socialistic counter culture movement to match either. So I think Orwell was observing (and bemoaning) the usual process of how the name of something dirty, dangerous, or the like becomes part of the vernacular, such as the word Vandal has its history, Philistines has its etc. and he didn’t stay around long enough to see the fruit of Reagan and Thatcher’s neoliberal project. But Fascism is here and it is in Thailand
By my definition Thailand is fascist has been for a long time and looks to remain so for a long time to come, irrespective of what you may have thought the case a year ago (almost to the day).
I think that Jim Taylor over played the significance of the fascist card and drew on theory to the expense of ethnographic data but that is a common criticism of post structuralism and it resonates with the Orwellian version of the word fascism as being more a pejorative word, in so much as Jim appeared to be name calling (aka came across quite tendentious). I think the topic of fascism will be still with us in a years time so see you all back here for that update.
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Janet makes some good points, well received. It is true, fascism is a historical moment, if somewhat fuzzy political ideology, but it is also a tendency which captures multiple social and cultural articulations, perhaps more akin to Eco’s Ur-Fascism (see for instance, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/); characteristics which indeed need to be seen using cultural frames of reference. I make no apologies for borrowing from certain French theorists, (and even as an anthropologist) find considerable comparative utility in the thinking of individuals such as Lefebvre, Foucault, Nora, and Deleuze (if readers would have read my academic articles over the past decade). Orwell was concerned with the implications of totalitarianism during war torn Europe; I believe his fascism (which he actually noted in 1944 as being emptied of meaning by its misuse: see http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc) was related to concerns about a particular set of beliefs which include absolute state control on society and the economy; a powerful and all-intrusive role for the military and the prevention of any kind of (effective) political opposition. (sound familiar?)
My (over-?) use of the term “F/fascism”, and its deleuzian ruminations, was simply for heuristic purposes; to draw attention to certain propensities, attitudes and values in present day Thailand and the single-purpose direction in which the junta is taking the Thai nation-state. Much of this, as we know, through intense ongoing propaganda leaning on monarchy. The amaat-junta alliance has now taken out all effective opposition in the name of protecting monarchy, and in continually harassing and silencing those who it cannot incarcerate or disappear. No one would know, if they solely read the compliant and controlled state media, and I wonder if academics (among others) really care what happens to real people inside. If readers have uncensored information, they can of course form their own conclusions based on facts, not intimation (–or even in academic point-scoring, mostly in relation to still [yes, what about the past ten years? yawn,,,] bagging Thaksin).
As red shirt leader Surachai Sae Dan once told me in a 2011 interview, while (F)ascism may be seen as a past defining historical moment in Thailand, in fact we are now seeing new modalities of (f)ascism in desperation by ruling elites/aristocracy and their bourgeoisie lackeys (“clients”) to hold back democracy, whatever the social, economic and political cost to the nation. Nothing it seems is above personal interests when it comes to maintaining the status quo ante.
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Gen. Praying had caused ‘disappearances’ while PM according to Jim Taylor. Back up your claim JimT with names of the disappeared.
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The reason why you will not hear much if anything about political killings or disappearances post-coup is the extensive censorship and fear by legal and human rights activists in speaking out. Information to the people is blocked. Pity. Thailand is now “less free” than neighbouring Cambodia, so do not expect anything antithetical to the junta to be reported in electronic (–though still good for Thai soapies) or Thailand’s normalised print media. We rely only on informal networks for disappearances, which for obvious reasons remain a discrete discussion. Human Rights and independent academic legal groups in Thailand have no rights now or support to pursue cases. Disappearances also require checking household registers to support claims. Washington-based Freedom House has Thailand in 2016 as “not free” for press freedom status and “not free” for Net Freedom Status, and around the same scores for civil liberties 5, political rights 6 (7 being the least free) and total aggregate score as Cambodia (except Cambodia is in fact better than Thailand and now “partly free” for Net Freedom Status). In 2014, before the coup and Prayut’s watch, Thailand was ranked at least “partly free”, and going back earlier to 2001-6 (under whose government?) an impressive 2-3 for all categories with a “free” status.
In 2016 most red shirt media were forced to close down, media leaders arrested. Check also Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, AHRC, and iLaw Freedom. Indeed, the reader may want to see Freedom of Expression Documentation Centre (iLaw Freedom) website (English) “charges-against-individuals-after-2014-coup”, (though last update was 30 April 2016) under NCPO regime. Staggering, and this is only what the group of lawyers can actually document given constraints and regime blockages. I no need to mention the pitiless increasing use of 112, 116, –and section 44, etc. since Prayut came to dominance. Many regional and local pro-democracy (formerly red shirt) activists, at village, district and provincial levels, have disappeared since 2010. There are no traces of some of these leaders. Documentation of these disappearances became blurred since Prayut’s censorship (I believe iLaw Freedom started to document this earlier, but were not able to continue).
Prayut pledged to make torture and enforced disappearance criminal offenses, according to Human Rights Watch and last year announced it would submit a bill to criminalize torture and enforced disappearances to the military-appointed National Legislative Assembly. He also said Thailand would ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. This has not been undertaken. Even if it were, the double speak of the junta would make this legislation worthless. For the reader “enforced disappearance” is defined under international law as the arrest or detention of a person by state officials, or their agents, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty, or to reveal the person’s fate or whereabouts. This happened even within the extensive use of “attitude adjustments”. Enforced disappearances violate a range of fundamental human rights protected under international law, including prohibitions against arbitrary arrest and detention; torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; and extrajudicial execution. All of the above have been, and continue to be, normalis usum for the military junta in an excuse to control dissent and return to the old order of things.
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Tuck, what we do know for sure, Den Kumlae, a community leader from Chaiyapoom Province. Disappeared under your admired Prayut. Ittipol Sukpan aka DJ Sunho is another person who was reported missing while he was seeking asylum in Laos. Indeed, he was relentless hunted down a ross the border. Prayut has a massive and well funded apparatus at his disposal for such witchhunts, including harrassment as we recently saw in the case of Yingluck and her family. There are two more cases that need confirmation,,, As I said the censorship and repression on the freedom of expression is extreme. It is time to end excuses.
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Regardless of whether Orwell was right or wrong at the time he wrote, and regardless of what particular definition of “fascism” he had in mind when he denigrated its worth as a term of “political” analysis, the fact remains that the term “fascist”, like “Hitler”, has become primarily a tool of propagandists.
When Sadam is “Hitler”, Madeleine Albright’s assertion that half a million dead Iraqi children were a price worth paying, not to mention Gulf War II and all those deaths and all that destruction, is contextualized in such a way as to make murderous American militarism look good.
When Gaddafi is “Hitler”, the ghoul that grinningly exulted “We came, we saw, he died” in the act of using a man’s having died being sodomized with a bayonet as a campaign ad looks good.
Similarly, when the junta, which is just a slightly amped-up version of the usual Thai state authoritarianism, is labeled “fascist”, the “democratically-elected” Thai administration that let loose death squads and murdered over a thousand citizens looks good.
Also, regardless of the fact that the majority of disappearances logged by NGOs and the HR community since 2000 took place under the “not-fascist” Thaksin administration, we will be asked to subscribe to the Rumsfeld doctrine that holds that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
We will also be asked to believe that even though the PT administration under Yingluck could have signed and ratified the UN Convention, it is the evil junta who is refusing to do so. The rather astounding fact that neither the US nor the UK , those upstanding examples of liberal democracy, has signed or ratified the same document means nothing in Jim’s fantasy bubble.
The fact that not one Asian country has does not mean that Thailand is a normal Asian nation regardless of whether it happens to be in one of its periodical moments of “democratically-elected” government, it just means that at this particular moment in time, Thailand is under the sway of vicious fascists who insist on continuing to not do what their “democratic” predecessors insisted on not doing.
Are we ready for “Orwellian” yet?
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Michael has, however, raised the interesting point of how can such European-derived terms, be translated into Thai ? This is not easy – there are HUGE socio-politico linguistic issues, if not barriers.
For example : Prem was paid a courtesy New Year’s call by Prayut, and many top brass. English language Thai media reported Prem as thanking Prayut for his “self-sacrifice”. Hang on – Prayut is a PAID public servant, on a salary. In English he has made NO ” self-sacrifice”. Is this a matter of literal language translation ? Or of political translation ? Difficult to translate Orwell into Thai ?
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Pholachi “Billy” Rakchongcharoen
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So far three reported disappeared under Gen. Prayut’s junta rule:
(1) Pholachai “Billy” Rakchongcharoen (via Falang) – “The United Nations human rights office called Thursday on Thailand to speed up an investigation into the disappearance of an ethnic minority environmental activist who has helped villagers report illegal activity in Thailand’s largest national park.” (April 2015 http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-speedy-probe-urged-over-missing-thai-2015apr15-story.html).
(2) and (3) compliments of Jim T: Den Kumlae, a community leader from Chaiyapoom Province and Ittipol Sukpan aka DJ Sunho who was reported missing while he was seeking asylum in Laos. Note that there is no other news about these two missing persons other than Jim T’s claim.
Any other Thai disappeareds under General Prayut from NewMandala commentators?
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Well หมอหยอง is not not coming back. How many bodies will satisfy you?
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หมอหยอง died in prison. For a guy from laos, where lots of disappearances of dissenters is a fact of daily life, laoguy should have been able to make the distinction.
And หมอหยอง was not a political dissenter but a quack who crossed some VIP laoguy.
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Who cares about your irrelevant distinctions. Who cares if they are Lao or Thai. Or if they are covert or overt disappearances. Or if they are some delicate political operator or some social lightweight. The same neolithic political terror tactic of “kill the chicken to scare the monkey” is being used to deny fundamental human rights. The semantics of this tactic have long been understood by both Thais and the Lao and indeed the present Philippine government’s copy of Thaksin’s war on drugs is just a minor variation of the theme of maintaining fear in the population.
“And หมอหยอง was not a political dissenter but a quack who crossed some VIP” Quite a revealing statement of your social and moral ethics it seems. This person is of no consequence, lets not include him in the big boys talk. And that VIP you speak of, would you care to name him? Surely, not the same guy who was rumoured to have ordered the hit on Sonthi Lim in the middle of Bangkok and has since gone on to higher things?
But then again it has always been the fevered search for “distinctions” that has justified support for Thailand’s theatrically costumed mafia. Maybe your clamoring endeavors will be rewarded in this life or if not, maybe the next.
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Was Jim T lying when he said Gen. Prayuth’s junta are responsible for many ‘disappearances’ of Thai dissenters?
Laoguy says ‘who cares’?
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tuck
Oh dear. Could you be so honest as to put that ‘who cares’ back into its correct context. Your comment and mine are directly adjacent, they can be compared.
Any problems you have with Jim T feel free to take them up with him. He is after all a Thaksin supporter who in my not so humble opinion is a major criminal. Thaksin also made people disappear. He also had a lot of partners in crime, so don’t forget to mention them too, there were some big names amongst them.
Oh, and what was the name of that VIP again?
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Laoguy/Tuck. feeding on each others strong views leads to a black hole. To set the record straight Laoguy: I am not a “supporter” of Thaksin as you claim. I never even said I liked him (though I may have done if I actually knew him). But, unlike many dogmatic and self-opinionated colleagues, I assessed the evidence on the ground, read widely, rather than from a one-sided distorted amaat controlled media. Thaksin was in fact done badly leading up to the coup. He was sincere in working for ordinary Thais (ask peasant or working class Thais who mostly benefited from his policies [– well, maybe not right now though]). It is ludicrous to assert that he “disappeared people” as Laoguy claimed. He was a businessman not a thug, and highly effective if authoritative and unbending; a political leader who brought Thailand out of an entrenched period of international debt. And if you have open eyes regarding political events past decade or so it will be evident that the military-amaat-royalist propaganda (starting with Sondhi Lim’s lies and misinformation in 2005) was intent on bringing him down, precisely because he was so damn good at what he was doing at the time and esteemed by the masses. In this matter, he brushed against the monarchy regime. The consequence of which we see today in his permanent exile.
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So, not a supporter but an admirer. Your comment above is ample proof, thanks.
Now just a couple of things. The Tak Bai massacre and the Yaa Baa killings. These are covered under the overt disappeared that I mentioned above. Can you point to anything Taksin has done to bring the perpetrators to justice.
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laoguy introduced the quack หมอหยอง asking how many bodies more . . . and now he asks what was that VIP’s name responsible for the quack’s confirmed disappearance . . . you have lots of b/s laoguy. if you truly don’t know . . . then you are a liar.
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tuck, you are seeing liars all around, your advanced state has become a little worrying. หมอหยอง didn’t actually disappear, he merely experienced an unhappy interrogation and a consequent unseemly swift cremation.
However, your wriggling around the naming of the VIP is indicative of the censorious power of Thailand’s untouchable class. Unlike in India, these people are at the very top of the power structure, wallowing in obscene wealth. If they can unilaterally alter a constitution then getting away with the odd disappearance here or there must be a matter of a wave of the hand.
Indeed, I must thank you for the fine display of avoidance you have performed in this sub-thread. Implicating someone from this elite class would put you and/or your family in real danger and we don’t want to see that. It is though, a raw example of the force of terror in many Asian societies, thank you.
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If Jim’s account is true, then the sovereignty of the Lao PDR borders has been grossly infringed upon by Prayut’s government. The last time a Thai military regime – way back in the 1980’s infringed on the Lao PDR. – Thailand’s pathetic military suffered defeat. Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it, the second time as farce.
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Chris, although now dated see: http://www.khaosodenglish.com/politics/2016/07/11/military-denies-knowledge-missing-anti-monarchy-dissident/
Disregard the nonsense remark in this piece by pro-DP exiled Somsak Jiem who thrives on political ambiguity. iLaw Freedom may have more up to date information. Evidence of cross border intrusion by Thai junta spies is in fact well known in their hunting for redshirts in a compact between the junta’s neighbours,,,
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Jim T obviously is very up to date on Red-Black shirts events and any on-going junta intimidation and arrest or disappeared of Red leaders. But why is that notorious Red leader Arisman, of the million-petrol-filled plastics bags burn-Bangkok-down notorious rant, not been arrested or whatever? Could Jim T explain why Arisman is spared by Gen Prayuth while small fish and minor leaders are supposedly being hunted or disappeared?
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6 Mar 2015
Arisman, 14 UDD members jailed for 2009 Asean summit break-in
http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/learning-news/490589/arisman-14-udd-members-jailed-for-2009-asean-summit-break-in
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“Disregard the nonsense remark in this piece by pro-DP exiled Somsak Jiem who thrives on political ambiguity.” So when aajaan Somsak criticizes the red shirts support for Taksin that automatically makes him pro Democratic Party? Any Thai readers can follow aajaan S. by going to his twitter page
https://twitter.com/somsakjeam?lang=th
and from there link to his facebook page so you don’t have to sign up. If you go looking for political ambiguity, ya gonna be disappointed.
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And in typical Orwellian fashion Whiteman cuts and pastes the tale of Arisman going to jail (again) but fails to post the simple fact that 3 days later he and 15 other Reds were bailed out.
Yet more evidence of the nefarious fascism of the Junta!
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Michael Wilson – the junta could hardly have legally revoked bail on a crime committed in 2009, when the junta did not come to power until 5 years later !! Can you cite an instance Hitler, Mussolini, or Franco acting in such a legally retrospective manner ? Even those three fascist gentlemen realised the PR wisdom of politically judicious use of the law. I suggest you read more Machiavelli, less Orwell.
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The trial and bail hearing were in 2015, Chris.
And my constant harping on Orwell is meant to be ironic, given that the posters here who are given to pulling out the litany of “fascism, Orwell, North Korea” as a way of avoiding discussing Thailand in the context of its own history are at least as guilty of indulging in mindless Hate Weeks (months, years) and deliberate distortions of the historical record as the junta.
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Michael – do you honestly believe, in a democracy, or even a country seeking to become one : there would be a “bail hearing” SIX YEARS after the alleged crime ?
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Or should that be 12? Editor please add this query to my post above.
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