You are trying to make a point by building on several premises, but your premises are either wrong or not supported by evidence.
First, you say, “Where there is no monarch there cannot be a Regent.” This is not correct in Thailand, as the Thai constitution expressly states that during an interregnum, the president of the privy council shall be regent. That is the basis for Prem’s regency.
You say the RTA is sworn to protect the king, suggesting that that is its sole duty, but you have not supported that premise with any evidence. You are assuming there is no duty to protect the institution of the monarchy as well as the king, but on what basis do you make that assumption? The constitution, law, court decisions? And your assumption that the RTA’s duties do not include defending the country’s borders and sovereignty is not only unsupported by any evidence, it also defies history. Your reference to the Japanese “invasion” is simply wrong; Phibulsongkram explicitly allied with the Japanese, so obviously the military did not oppose the Japanese. And then there were later border disputes in which the RTA did attempt to defend the country, such as against Laos in the 1970s and Cambodia in the last decade.
In sum, your assumptions are wrong and don’t support your apparent conclusion that the RTA today has no “purpose”. Even if your conclusion were correct, then what?
Comparing Trump with Abhisit is once again the paradigm of academics who have melted into their lounge chairs. Comparisons of American and Thai politics is rubbish; it is a proxy for anti-Americans who lack the cojones to say so openly.
Brillant. This is what doing comparisons is all about: revealing the hidden, making obvious the neglected mechanisms in which present political life functions.
Glad you agree BKK lawyer that Thailand does not have a King.
However you then go and spoil it all by saying they have a Regent.
Where a country has a monarchy a Regent is appointed if the monarch is a minor, incapacitated or absent. Where there is no monarch there cannot be a Regent
The Royal Thai Army is sworn to protect the King. In this context they arrange coups and declare war from time to time on other Thais such as the Malay Muslim Thais or the invading Red Shirts from North and North East, The last time there was an invasion from outside Thailand such as Japan, 1941, the RTA laid down their weapons because their role is to protect the Monarchy, not the the geographic country of Thailand. Now that there is no monarch I believe they see their role as absolute rulers over Thailand, a position they have waited several generations to arrive at. You may well argue that they have a role in managing the trade in precious gems, as also is the case in Myanmar, but I do not agree that that is a worthwhile enterprise for a Royal Military Group who should be more focused on protecting the monarch.
Just when I was ready to drop the New Mandala feed, feeling disgusted by recent tabloid-style saturation coverage of Thailand’s military/palace intrigue, along comes this revealing analysis, made even more valuable by links to additional substantive resources.
The global propagation of the US muddled discourse on the interplay between identity and power is disturbing: it has serious deficiencies when applied to the US, so its application to other contexts is highly questionable. Yet this is the first attempt I’ve seen to counter that trend. Looking forward to studying the resources provided here and, hopefully, gaining a clearer understanding of Singapore identity/power dynamics. Thanks!
It’s as simple as that.” No, Chris L, it is not as simple as that. The forces arrayed against PM Thaksin and his supporters were (and are) abject anti-democracy elitists . If it were only the Thai Democrat party in opposition to TRT, PPP, etc. in a functioning democracy, then working people in Thailand would be calling the shots. But instead, Thais are under the heels of a military that has as its focus control of the Thai working classes, rather than any perceived foreign threat. The Thai royal family and the Democrat Party are pleased to ally themselves with the military.
While it is always nice to be able to break the world down into the dichotomy black/white:good/evil and identify who is on which side of the slash, I wonder if you could justify your mystifying claim that “one side” is for a liberal democracy and separation of powers in Thailand.
I for one have never witnessed such a “side” here. I really hope you are not falling for the deliberate distortions that would have us believe that Thaksin and his subsequent proxy administrations represented “liberal democracy”, because that would just put you among those who distort.
Perhaps you are mistaking “being elected” for “being liberal”? Rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of expression etcetera are actually fundamental to “being liberal” and Thaksin made it very clear that he thought “being elected” made all those things redundant.
The continual need to paint one side into the white knight armor of the “liberal democrat” brand when there is actually no such thing in Thailand is characteristic of someone who watches too much television and has never taken the time to question what she hears and sees there.
The 4 November demonstrations have had an unexpected consequence in Jokowi’s cancellation, or at least postponement, of his visit to Australia. This is probably the first time FPI and kindred organisations have brought about such a result. It was no doubt unintended. Ahok was their target, not Jokowi.
Why Jokowi took this step when the demonstrations had practically ended is a puzzle. His leadership of Indonesia was not at issue. Domestic concerns usually trump the exigencies of foreign policy for political leaders in most countries, but the concerns need to be serious ones. This is hardly the case here.
FPI’s Rizieq has warned that his forces and their allies will take to the streets again in three weeks unless the police solves the problem of what to do about Ahok. If the Jokowi visit is rescheduled for some time in the near future, Rizieq’s threat may prompt a further postponement.
Last-minute cancellations of head of state/government visits cause considerable inconvenience for the receiving governments. Jokowi will not have increased the number of his admirers in Australia by taking this step.
open, anon comment to the Government of Thailand from UK currently somewhere in Thailand. Back in my country, we have television channels and cartoons where we can make drawings, sketches, comics, impersonations and jokes openly about any of our Royal Family and members of parliament. Does it do anything to dilute their powers, respect, dignities, and so forth? No. They have job to do, in the public eye, and accept – that the public is a voice that needs to be listened to. You have around 7 million in Bangkok. And by now, well over 60 million elsewhere across all your other 56+ provinces. You have endless enterprises, foreign factories, investors wanting to be friends with you, bring more jobs and prosperity to your (enormous) economic potential. Yet, you then have all these smart people, academics, economists, lecturers, journalists, entertainers, members of parliament and good, highly educated and intellectual and moral Thai people that could be an enormous asset to your decision making and ideas about how to run a government and a nation. However, how come all of the ones you haven’t locked up already or otherwise silenced, have to run away overseas? Using a (face it, as every other country in the world will tell you) a draconian lese majeste law, which can not be justified anywhere, ever in any rational human thought, let alone a “It’s are complicated culture”, in the name of ‘protecting’ the very same thing you simultaneously have deconstructed. i.e. the freedoms required for Thailand to prosper.
Many, if not most, people who bother to post on New Mandala, already “take it for granted” that what gets posted here is “true and accurate” because it fits their ill-informed preconceptions, simplifies the complex (thus obviating the need to actually think), and fulfills the fantasies of the orientalist imaginations that run amok here.
If the government responds, it affirms the “truth” of James Taylor’s unsophisticated and wildly mistaken appropriation of D&G, and if it doesn’t, its perpetrators must be trembling in a corner somewhere frightened that their shaky regime is about to tumble into the Chao Phraya, as people have been proposing in their NM “analyses” since day one, over two years ago.
I think an adequate application of Deleuze or Lacan or even Papa Freud to the sorts of apocalyptic longings in evidence on NM might actually be interesting.
It would never, however, get the approval of the likes of you, I suspect, Ralph.
When I think about the “true and accurate” nature of postings on NM, I can’t help but recall when one of the more prolific and celebrated posters here referred to Isanites as constituting the working classes of Thailand, and then helpfully fleshed out that bit of “fact” by specifying them as “pedi-cab drivers, sex-workers and so on”.
That is the truth and accuracy that we have come to expect from NM.
This is article is basically assuming that what the Democrat party and much of the Thai media has been saying about Thaksin is true. I have commented about this many times before, and I don’t want to get into another rant about what Thaksin did or did not do. Let’s just make this comparison instead.
If you turend Fox News on at any time in the past 8 years, the accusations against Obama would start within minutes. Abuse of power, crony-capitalism, socialism/communism, the most divisive president ever, and so on. There has been no end to it. These are exactly the same accusations as has have been targeted against Thaksin. Now they have been repeated so many times that most people just take for granted they are true.
This brings us to the real similarities between the US and Thailand, which is the polarized politics where one party is continuously trying to delegitimize the opposition party. At the same time, media and many intellectuals have to blame both sides equally in the name of being neutral and not biased. And this is what is really ruining society. One side is for a liberal democracy with free elections and a separation of powers with checks and balances and independent institutions. The other side is not.
At the moment, the Republican party in the US and the Democrat party in Thailand are on the other side. It’s a simple as that.
By this official sanction, we can now take it for granted – and officially – that everything else at New Mandala is true and accurate. Presumably, if it wasn’t, there would have been a similar and official response from the military regime.
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Thailand’s peculiar interregnum
You are trying to make a point by building on several premises, but your premises are either wrong or not supported by evidence.
First, you say, “Where there is no monarch there cannot be a Regent.” This is not correct in Thailand, as the Thai constitution expressly states that during an interregnum, the president of the privy council shall be regent. That is the basis for Prem’s regency.
You say the RTA is sworn to protect the king, suggesting that that is its sole duty, but you have not supported that premise with any evidence. You are assuming there is no duty to protect the institution of the monarchy as well as the king, but on what basis do you make that assumption? The constitution, law, court decisions? And your assumption that the RTA’s duties do not include defending the country’s borders and sovereignty is not only unsupported by any evidence, it also defies history. Your reference to the Japanese “invasion” is simply wrong; Phibulsongkram explicitly allied with the Japanese, so obviously the military did not oppose the Japanese. And then there were later border disputes in which the RTA did attempt to defend the country, such as against Laos in the 1970s and Cambodia in the last decade.
In sum, your assumptions are wrong and don’t support your apparent conclusion that the RTA today has no “purpose”. Even if your conclusion were correct, then what?
Second acts for Thaksin and Trump?
That’s right. The Democrat party, the army and the monarchy have always been pretty close.
Second acts for Thaksin and Trump?
Comparing Trump with Abhisit is once again the paradigm of academics who have melted into their lounge chairs. Comparisons of American and Thai politics is rubbish; it is a proxy for anti-Americans who lack the cojones to say so openly.
Second acts for Thaksin and Trump?
Brillant. This is what doing comparisons is all about: revealing the hidden, making obvious the neglected mechanisms in which present political life functions.
Thailand’s peculiar interregnum
Glad you agree BKK lawyer that Thailand does not have a King.
However you then go and spoil it all by saying they have a Regent.
Where a country has a monarchy a Regent is appointed if the monarch is a minor, incapacitated or absent. Where there is no monarch there cannot be a Regent
The Royal Thai Army is sworn to protect the King. In this context they arrange coups and declare war from time to time on other Thais such as the Malay Muslim Thais or the invading Red Shirts from North and North East, The last time there was an invasion from outside Thailand such as Japan, 1941, the RTA laid down their weapons because their role is to protect the Monarchy, not the the geographic country of Thailand. Now that there is no monarch I believe they see their role as absolute rulers over Thailand, a position they have waited several generations to arrive at. You may well argue that they have a role in managing the trade in precious gems, as also is the case in Myanmar, but I do not agree that that is a worthwhile enterprise for a Royal Military Group who should be more focused on protecting the monarch.
Confronting ‘Chinese privilege’ in Singapore
Just when I was ready to drop the New Mandala feed, feeling disgusted by recent tabloid-style saturation coverage of Thailand’s military/palace intrigue, along comes this revealing analysis, made even more valuable by links to additional substantive resources.
The global propagation of the US muddled discourse on the interplay between identity and power is disturbing: it has serious deficiencies when applied to the US, so its application to other contexts is highly questionable. Yet this is the first attempt I’ve seen to counter that trend. Looking forward to studying the resources provided here and, hopefully, gaining a clearer understanding of Singapore identity/power dynamics. Thanks!
Second acts for Thaksin and Trump?
It’s as simple as that.” No, Chris L, it is not as simple as that. The forces arrayed against PM Thaksin and his supporters were (and are) abject anti-democracy elitists . If it were only the Thai Democrat party in opposition to TRT, PPP, etc. in a functioning democracy, then working people in Thailand would be calling the shots. But instead, Thais are under the heels of a military that has as its focus control of the Thai working classes, rather than any perceived foreign threat. The Thai royal family and the Democrat Party are pleased to ally themselves with the military.
Second acts for Thaksin and Trump?
Chris L:
While it is always nice to be able to break the world down into the dichotomy black/white:good/evil and identify who is on which side of the slash, I wonder if you could justify your mystifying claim that “one side” is for a liberal democracy and separation of powers in Thailand.
I for one have never witnessed such a “side” here. I really hope you are not falling for the deliberate distortions that would have us believe that Thaksin and his subsequent proxy administrations represented “liberal democracy”, because that would just put you among those who distort.
Perhaps you are mistaking “being elected” for “being liberal”? Rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of expression etcetera are actually fundamental to “being liberal” and Thaksin made it very clear that he thought “being elected” made all those things redundant.
The continual need to paint one side into the white knight armor of the “liberal democrat” brand when there is actually no such thing in Thailand is characteristic of someone who watches too much television and has never taken the time to question what she hears and sees there.
Making enemies out of friends
The 4 November demonstrations have had an unexpected consequence in Jokowi’s cancellation, or at least postponement, of his visit to Australia. This is probably the first time FPI and kindred organisations have brought about such a result. It was no doubt unintended. Ahok was their target, not Jokowi.
Why Jokowi took this step when the demonstrations had practically ended is a puzzle. His leadership of Indonesia was not at issue. Domestic concerns usually trump the exigencies of foreign policy for political leaders in most countries, but the concerns need to be serious ones. This is hardly the case here.
FPI’s Rizieq has warned that his forces and their allies will take to the streets again in three weeks unless the police solves the problem of what to do about Ahok. If the Jokowi visit is rescheduled for some time in the near future, Rizieq’s threat may prompt a further postponement.
Last-minute cancellations of head of state/government visits cause considerable inconvenience for the receiving governments. Jokowi will not have increased the number of his admirers in Australia by taking this step.
Thailand’s peculiar interregnum
Thailand has a constitution: the 2014 constitution.
It doesn’t have a king, but it has a regent during the interregnum, pursuant to the constitution.
The military does not have the “sole purpose” of protecting the king.
Thai government responds to New Mandala article
open, anon comment to the Government of Thailand from UK currently somewhere in Thailand. Back in my country, we have television channels and cartoons where we can make drawings, sketches, comics, impersonations and jokes openly about any of our Royal Family and members of parliament. Does it do anything to dilute their powers, respect, dignities, and so forth? No. They have job to do, in the public eye, and accept – that the public is a voice that needs to be listened to. You have around 7 million in Bangkok. And by now, well over 60 million elsewhere across all your other 56+ provinces. You have endless enterprises, foreign factories, investors wanting to be friends with you, bring more jobs and prosperity to your (enormous) economic potential. Yet, you then have all these smart people, academics, economists, lecturers, journalists, entertainers, members of parliament and good, highly educated and intellectual and moral Thai people that could be an enormous asset to your decision making and ideas about how to run a government and a nation. However, how come all of the ones you haven’t locked up already or otherwise silenced, have to run away overseas? Using a (face it, as every other country in the world will tell you) a draconian lese majeste law, which can not be justified anywhere, ever in any rational human thought, let alone a “It’s are complicated culture”, in the name of ‘protecting’ the very same thing you simultaneously have deconstructed. i.e. the freedoms required for Thailand to prosper.
Thai government responds to New Mandala article
Ralph:
Many, if not most, people who bother to post on New Mandala, already “take it for granted” that what gets posted here is “true and accurate” because it fits their ill-informed preconceptions, simplifies the complex (thus obviating the need to actually think), and fulfills the fantasies of the orientalist imaginations that run amok here.
If the government responds, it affirms the “truth” of James Taylor’s unsophisticated and wildly mistaken appropriation of D&G, and if it doesn’t, its perpetrators must be trembling in a corner somewhere frightened that their shaky regime is about to tumble into the Chao Phraya, as people have been proposing in their NM “analyses” since day one, over two years ago.
I think an adequate application of Deleuze or Lacan or even Papa Freud to the sorts of apocalyptic longings in evidence on NM might actually be interesting.
It would never, however, get the approval of the likes of you, I suspect, Ralph.
When I think about the “true and accurate” nature of postings on NM, I can’t help but recall when one of the more prolific and celebrated posters here referred to Isanites as constituting the working classes of Thailand, and then helpfully fleshed out that bit of “fact” by specifying them as “pedi-cab drivers, sex-workers and so on”.
That is the truth and accuracy that we have come to expect from NM.
Question is: what happened?
Second acts for Thaksin and Trump?
This is article is basically assuming that what the Democrat party and much of the Thai media has been saying about Thaksin is true. I have commented about this many times before, and I don’t want to get into another rant about what Thaksin did or did not do. Let’s just make this comparison instead.
If you turend Fox News on at any time in the past 8 years, the accusations against Obama would start within minutes. Abuse of power, crony-capitalism, socialism/communism, the most divisive president ever, and so on. There has been no end to it. These are exactly the same accusations as has have been targeted against Thaksin. Now they have been repeated so many times that most people just take for granted they are true.
This brings us to the real similarities between the US and Thailand, which is the polarized politics where one party is continuously trying to delegitimize the opposition party. At the same time, media and many intellectuals have to blame both sides equally in the name of being neutral and not biased. And this is what is really ruining society. One side is for a liberal democracy with free elections and a separation of powers with checks and balances and independent institutions. The other side is not.
At the moment, the Republican party in the US and the Democrat party in Thailand are on the other side. It’s a simple as that.
Thai government responds to New Mandala article
By this official sanction, we can now take it for granted – and officially – that everything else at New Mandala is true and accurate. Presumably, if it wasn’t, there would have been a similar and official response from the military regime.
Confronting ‘Chinese privilege’ in Singapore
See you in Orchard Street.
Thai government responds to New Mandala article
Kids in bururam school – if i remember correctly – were taken away their coloured winter jackets recently…
Confronting ‘Chinese privilege’ in Singapore
Neptunian,
It’s “Anti-Semitic”, but your point is well-taken.
Thai government responds to New Mandala article
Some really convoluted use of English escapism to get out of a corner one paints oneself into.
Can’t imagine why anyone would criticize.Ahem!!!
Making enemies out of friends
Spot on.
Confronting ‘Chinese privilege’ in Singapore
Clarification: “…the rock and the hard place between which Singapore sits.”