Interesting article, marred by over-reliance on elite alleged loathing of Vajiralongkorn. I’ve spent far, far more years in Thailand (first visit : 1963) than Andrew MacGregor Marshall, speak and understand more Thai than he does – so I ask him : where is his evidence, outside elite circles, that Vajiralongkorn is SO unpopular ? I have n’t come across that, among ordinary Thais, not even in whispers, and especially NOT among Thaksin-supporting pu noi. Though an interesting point to note is that 7 NLA members did not turn up – I.e. defied the NLA Whips – to NOT vote in this special session. Very dangerous without extremely good excuse, and an immensely powerful patron. More a behind-the-scenes power struggle than the surface “shambles” AMM describes ?
I agree that the process has been messy compared to what’s on paper. However, we can note that the previous two successions didn’t follow the implied protocol either. When Prajadhipok abdicated, the then regime had to hunt about for a new king, so there was a delay. When Ananda Mahidol was shot, his young brother was not a designated heir apparent (as far as I know) and while succession was quick, didn’t necessarily follow any protocol.
In 2007, I spent some time at the Attorney-General’s office and was introduced to the woman responsible for the ongoing attempt to have Thaksin extradited.
After a bit of chit-chat, she had to get back to work on her futile project, and the man who introduced us commented as she walked away, “Part of the problem is that Thailand had no constitution at the time, so no law.”
This was said in a wry tone with a look of ironic shock on his face, so I didn’t think much of it at the time.
But a couple of years ago I started thinking about what it really meant that Thailand is not governed by “rule-of-law” but merely uses the facade of law to legitimize whatever happens to be going on at a given time in the eyes of the “international community”. As a part of this “thinking”, I tried to figure out what my “highly-placed source” at the AGO had been referring to when he made his “no constitution-no law” crack.
As far as I was able to determine, he may have been talking about the fact that the Assets Scrutiny Committee, commissioned solely to investigate Thaksin’s corruption, had been set up by the junta before the interim constitution was promulgated and so could not really have a technically legal mandate to do anything at all.
But he was joking, of course, and anyone who pays attention in Thailand knows that from the lowest rungs of the bureaucracy to the very highest levels of governance, rules, regulations and laws are followed or not at the whim of those who have the power to decide to do so.
In the case of such things as constitutions, a kind of “good as” approach seems to suffice.
So Andrew Marshall will of course continue to promote his book and his “succession struggle” theory by the kind of hand-waving represented by this article. And the mainstream media that hangs off of every Tweet by president-elect Donald Trump will of course provide an echo chamber for Marshall’s equally “tabloid” obsessions.
But that doesn’t change the fact that there has been no “constitutional mess” because such things are not all that important to the folks who run Thailand.
Just as there has been no “succession struggle” regardless of those who are invested in keeping the bogus narrative alive for personal reasons. Like Trump’s Tweets, this sort of nonsense sells.
It is unfortunate for Thailand that someone like Giles Ungpakorn does not have the same size bullhorn as a journalistic insider like Marshall.
As long as so many people, Thai and foreign alike, are content to ogle the spectacle of the monarchy and use social media to say “bad things” about it, as if that were a substitute for political analysis or indeed political activism, Thailand will continue to muddle along with the facade intact, helped in great part by the gossip promoted on New Mandala and spread throughout international media by the man who managed Reuters’ office in Iraq while Reuters and everyone else lay supine at the feet of Washington’s propaganda machine, kowtowing like mad, and absolutely refusing to “speak truth to power” when it might have actually meant something.
The West is hypocritical in its preaching – The list of countries that can behave as they like without any comments from Western Govts is proof of that hypocrisy – Saudi, current Iraq, Pakistan etc etc..
It is appalling what is happening to Rohingya women (and men) but I would not expect the current Australian Government – which is in gross violation of refugee conventions vis-a-vis people who attempt to arrive in Australia by boat – to lose too much sleep over Rohingya women.
Your paragraph beginning ‘but Jokowi is no Suharto’ is what prompted me to believe you were making a comparison between Soeharto’s situation in May 1998 and Jokowi’s in November 2016.
I don’t know that the appointment of Christians Henk Ngantung and Benny Murdani more than 50 years ago during Soeharto’s abangan period are relevant to events in this era of democracy – and the FPI.
Interesting article but it remains unclear whether this process has been that effective. For a start the US$200 million (correct me if I am wrong?) is a high price to pay for securing life imprisonment of a small number of former Democratic Kampuchea leaders and apparatchiks. This money could also have been spent on better healthcare and educational programs targeted at poor rural Cambodians (they after all joined the Khmer Rouge in great numbers not out of ideological fervor but because of US bombing and perhaps social and economic cleavages in Cambodian society). Hun Sen’s CPP was against these trials, arguing quite cogently during the 1980s the supporters of these trials entered into an unholy alliance with the Khmer Rouge (so if the court is permitted to address wrongdoings in the past so is the CPP or at least it thinks it is). However, more importantly have these trials demonstrated to Cambodians that justice must not only be seen to be done but must be done. On this issue I would say the jury is out. Rather it seems Cambodians want to move on: to embrace the present and future. I think judges, lawyers, court officials and “academic experts” (well yes some such as David Chandler are experts) have benefited from the trials to date and there has been closure for some (e.g., Rob Hamill the champion NZ rower and professed Greenie whose brother Kerry, I knew moderately well at university and who when being tortured named me as his CIA desk officer). However, I am left wondering whether a Truth and Reconciliation Commission aka South Africa might not have been better.
Cockatoo: Not all commentators are as honestly intentioned as you.
You did not use destructive language. However, using ‘hangat’ indicated a level of familiarity with the writer, yet you were not sufficiently comfortable to reveal your identity. I asked if it will be a trend with Mandala because malicious, anonymous entries have harmed so many individuals and made suspect so much of social media content and Mandala will surely suffer if is continued.
Wow christine, you are one of the Diamonds of new mandala. One of many I might add. Great article.
But I hope you are at least partially wrong about the new king..
Errrr, I think you’ve misunderstood my article Ken. I am not comparing Jokowi’s situation with Suharto’s situation…that wasn’t the point of the article…
Frank, I don’t see how asking personal questions of a personal story is a problem. I made no aspersion. What’s wrong with concealing one’s identity? I suspect the main problem is that there is no one to make aspersions towards for retaliation. But, again, I don’t see what is wrong with asking personal questions of a personal story… do you?
What are you talking about Frank? Demonstration technique is often similar. I suppose the protests against Trump are similar to those of the PKI too, if we are making those sorts of analogies. Maybe you want to see 1964-65 again?
1) The symbolic imagery of the parliament building with protestors was quite different though, wasn’t it?
3) But you had made it already rather personal with this post being your subjective view. So what sort of removed, objective and positivist questions would you prefer? Why not say it was one family? Does a reader really care which family that your friends with? No.
4) You say I would have to ask them for an accurate answer. And then you say in 1998 anyone who looked Chinese was scared.
Reading this is as though I am riding a roller coaster ride called hyperbole.
yes it is her right to speak that is the issue , in Thailand she has been publicly threatened with gang rape.
01 July 2014
BANGKOK — The ultra-nationalist Thai newspaper Manager ASTV has published a “mock column” describing in graphic detail how prisoners will gang-rape a fugitive anti-coup LGBT activist when she is finally arrested.
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Ritual and the demise of Thai democracy
Excellent article, outlining how Vajiralongkorn is out-manoeuvring his enemies. New Mandala does n’t get more brilliant than Christine’s articles.
What next for the theatrics of Thailand?
Interesting article, marred by over-reliance on elite alleged loathing of Vajiralongkorn. I’ve spent far, far more years in Thailand (first visit : 1963) than Andrew MacGregor Marshall, speak and understand more Thai than he does – so I ask him : where is his evidence, outside elite circles, that Vajiralongkorn is SO unpopular ? I have n’t come across that, among ordinary Thais, not even in whispers, and especially NOT among Thaksin-supporting pu noi. Though an interesting point to note is that 7 NLA members did not turn up – I.e. defied the NLA Whips – to NOT vote in this special session. Very dangerous without extremely good excuse, and an immensely powerful patron. More a behind-the-scenes power struggle than the surface “shambles” AMM describes ?
What next for the theatrics of Thailand?
I agree that the process has been messy compared to what’s on paper. However, we can note that the previous two successions didn’t follow the implied protocol either. When Prajadhipok abdicated, the then regime had to hunt about for a new king, so there was a delay. When Ananda Mahidol was shot, his young brother was not a designated heir apparent (as far as I know) and while succession was quick, didn’t necessarily follow any protocol.
What next for the theatrics of Thailand?
In 2007, I spent some time at the Attorney-General’s office and was introduced to the woman responsible for the ongoing attempt to have Thaksin extradited.
After a bit of chit-chat, she had to get back to work on her futile project, and the man who introduced us commented as she walked away, “Part of the problem is that Thailand had no constitution at the time, so no law.”
This was said in a wry tone with a look of ironic shock on his face, so I didn’t think much of it at the time.
But a couple of years ago I started thinking about what it really meant that Thailand is not governed by “rule-of-law” but merely uses the facade of law to legitimize whatever happens to be going on at a given time in the eyes of the “international community”. As a part of this “thinking”, I tried to figure out what my “highly-placed source” at the AGO had been referring to when he made his “no constitution-no law” crack.
As far as I was able to determine, he may have been talking about the fact that the Assets Scrutiny Committee, commissioned solely to investigate Thaksin’s corruption, had been set up by the junta before the interim constitution was promulgated and so could not really have a technically legal mandate to do anything at all.
But he was joking, of course, and anyone who pays attention in Thailand knows that from the lowest rungs of the bureaucracy to the very highest levels of governance, rules, regulations and laws are followed or not at the whim of those who have the power to decide to do so.
In the case of such things as constitutions, a kind of “good as” approach seems to suffice.
So Andrew Marshall will of course continue to promote his book and his “succession struggle” theory by the kind of hand-waving represented by this article. And the mainstream media that hangs off of every Tweet by president-elect Donald Trump will of course provide an echo chamber for Marshall’s equally “tabloid” obsessions.
But that doesn’t change the fact that there has been no “constitutional mess” because such things are not all that important to the folks who run Thailand.
Just as there has been no “succession struggle” regardless of those who are invested in keeping the bogus narrative alive for personal reasons. Like Trump’s Tweets, this sort of nonsense sells.
It is unfortunate for Thailand that someone like Giles Ungpakorn does not have the same size bullhorn as a journalistic insider like Marshall.
As long as so many people, Thai and foreign alike, are content to ogle the spectacle of the monarchy and use social media to say “bad things” about it, as if that were a substitute for political analysis or indeed political activism, Thailand will continue to muddle along with the facade intact, helped in great part by the gossip promoted on New Mandala and spread throughout international media by the man who managed Reuters’ office in Iraq while Reuters and everyone else lay supine at the feet of Washington’s propaganda machine, kowtowing like mad, and absolutely refusing to “speak truth to power” when it might have actually meant something.
What next for the theatrics of Thailand?
Andrew; could you provide an English language translation of the documents photographed above? Thank you.
Malaysia, the Philippines and ASEAN
The West is hypocritical in its preaching – The list of countries that can behave as they like without any comments from Western Govts is proof of that hypocrisy – Saudi, current Iraq, Pakistan etc etc..
No end to war without women
It is appalling what is happening to Rohingya women (and men) but I would not expect the current Australian Government – which is in gross violation of refugee conventions vis-a-vis people who attempt to arrive in Australia by boat – to lose too much sleep over Rohingya women.
Echoes of past violence haunt Indonesia
Your paragraph beginning ‘but Jokowi is no Suharto’ is what prompted me to believe you were making a comparison between Soeharto’s situation in May 1998 and Jokowi’s in November 2016.
Ahok, the FPI and PilPres 2019
I don’t know that the appointment of Christians Henk Ngantung and Benny Murdani more than 50 years ago during Soeharto’s abangan period are relevant to events in this era of democracy – and the FPI.
Justice’s slow but steady march in Cambodia
Interesting article but it remains unclear whether this process has been that effective. For a start the US$200 million (correct me if I am wrong?) is a high price to pay for securing life imprisonment of a small number of former Democratic Kampuchea leaders and apparatchiks. This money could also have been spent on better healthcare and educational programs targeted at poor rural Cambodians (they after all joined the Khmer Rouge in great numbers not out of ideological fervor but because of US bombing and perhaps social and economic cleavages in Cambodian society). Hun Sen’s CPP was against these trials, arguing quite cogently during the 1980s the supporters of these trials entered into an unholy alliance with the Khmer Rouge (so if the court is permitted to address wrongdoings in the past so is the CPP or at least it thinks it is). However, more importantly have these trials demonstrated to Cambodians that justice must not only be seen to be done but must be done. On this issue I would say the jury is out. Rather it seems Cambodians want to move on: to embrace the present and future. I think judges, lawyers, court officials and “academic experts” (well yes some such as David Chandler are experts) have benefited from the trials to date and there has been closure for some (e.g., Rob Hamill the champion NZ rower and professed Greenie whose brother Kerry, I knew moderately well at university and who when being tortured named me as his CIA desk officer). However, I am left wondering whether a Truth and Reconciliation Commission aka South Africa might not have been better.
A festival of the deprecated spirit lords of Burma
To the article that is more subjective this is truly an objective complementary.
The western audience need to be in the milieu of these festivity especially in the contact of villages.
It will make 2 points very clear:
1. The depth of the culture that has endured in it totality despite useless careless treatment meted out.
2. Impossible acceptance of Islamic concept of religion, where the redemptive value is associated with only killing of the infidels..
The question of autonomy suggested by the west to NLD under DASSK is impossible with Kala in Yakhine falsely claiming to be another ethic group.
Echoes of past violence haunt Indonesia
Cockatoo: Not all commentators are as honestly intentioned as you.
You did not use destructive language. However, using ‘hangat’ indicated a level of familiarity with the writer, yet you were not sufficiently comfortable to reveal your identity. I asked if it will be a trend with Mandala because malicious, anonymous entries have harmed so many individuals and made suspect so much of social media content and Mandala will surely suffer if is continued.
Speaking of the succession
Wow christine, you are one of the Diamonds of new mandala. One of many I might add. Great article.
But I hope you are at least partially wrong about the new king..
Echoes of past violence haunt Indonesia
Errrr, I think you’ve misunderstood my article Ken. I am not comparing Jokowi’s situation with Suharto’s situation…that wasn’t the point of the article…
Cambodia exports can get high on cannabis
Thanks Luke – I’ve edited this per the author’s request
Soul of a nation
Chris irrespective of conflicts Mark is correct.
Echoes of past violence haunt Indonesia
Frank, I don’t see how asking personal questions of a personal story is a problem. I made no aspersion. What’s wrong with concealing one’s identity? I suspect the main problem is that there is no one to make aspersions towards for retaliation. But, again, I don’t see what is wrong with asking personal questions of a personal story… do you?
Echoes of past violence haunt Indonesia
What are you talking about Frank? Demonstration technique is often similar. I suppose the protests against Trump are similar to those of the PKI too, if we are making those sorts of analogies. Maybe you want to see 1964-65 again?
Echoes of past violence haunt Indonesia
Thanks Danau.
1) The symbolic imagery of the parliament building with protestors was quite different though, wasn’t it?
3) But you had made it already rather personal with this post being your subjective view. So what sort of removed, objective and positivist questions would you prefer? Why not say it was one family? Does a reader really care which family that your friends with? No.
4) You say I would have to ask them for an accurate answer. And then you say in 1998 anyone who looked Chinese was scared.
Reading this is as though I am riding a roller coaster ride called hyperbole.
Red and Yellow in Germany
yes it is her right to speak that is the issue , in Thailand she has been publicly threatened with gang rape.
01 July 2014
BANGKOK — The ultra-nationalist Thai newspaper Manager ASTV has published a “mock column” describing in graphic detail how prisoners will gang-rape a fugitive anti-coup LGBT activist when she is finally arrested.
http://en.khaosod.co.th/detail.php?newsid=1404210747&typecate=06§ion=