None of the Thais knew about the 1980s when Vietnamese troops were along Thailand’s Cambodian border? Or just didn’t dare to ask? Sometimes the tanks came very close. And surely they would be familiar with the nearly 20-year stream of refugees by land and boat to Thailand?
The man’s story doesn’t make much sense since it would be well into the 1990s before a company like CP would be employing northerners. You think this man was fighting in Cambodia or doing something else there? And you can hardly say Russia’s support was “rock solid” when Vietnam’s adventure in Cambodia finally ended when the Russians got fed up with funding it.
The first generation immigrants feel lucky in a thriving community like Singapore. I had a lot of Singaporean friends in England and Hong Kong. Not so many in USA. They could be Chinese or Indians. Genetically speaking, people who choose to relocate are normally the more resourceful otherwise they wouldn’t leave a familiar environment. We cannot be sure for the second and third. Singapore would have to take heed. Lee Yuan Yew had a siege mentality. He talked about hardship, his and his country’s. Fine. What about those who may not have his sense of drive and motivation. Those are the current Singaporeans, Chinese or others. If I were a Singaporean leader, I would have to do a lot of soul searching.
I thought the very lack of this analysis is that Ian didn’t mention the links between the political violence in Jakarta at current with the the forthcoming local elections in Indonesia.
I know what your point is Chris and my point is you are simply wrong.
There is no “unresolved, contested, power vacuum” in Thailand right now.
Like the kid who can’t accept that hakama and dress do not signify the same things because they exist in different contexts, you and many others on NM seem unwilling/unable to accept that the lack of a written constitution and a delay in the proclamation of a new king do not signify the chaos and conflict you assign to them.
Thailand’s real constitution is an unwritten one and it obviously includes an “article” that mandates a certain amount of “play” on the part of certain special people in the hierarchy.
There is a subsection dealing with having a chuckle at the expense of those who are left fantasizing in the dark too but my “source” says I shouldn’t mention it.
*Silahkan dipelajari disimak, dibalik penolakan ahok jd DKI1*:
Sehubungan adanya demo . B penolakan Ahok, Inilah faktor Ahok memancing amarah terhadap umat Islam:
01. Ahok menghancurkan Masjid Baitul Arif di Jatinegara, Jakarta Timur, sehingga warga setempat tidak bisa shalat Jum’at dan melakukan kajian Islam sampai saat ini.
02. Ahok juga menghancurkan Masjid bersejarah Amir Hamzah di Taman Ismail Marzuki dengan dalih renovasi, namun hingga hari ini tidak ada tanda-tanda akan dibangun kembali.
03. Tidak puas dengan menghancurkan Masjid-Masjid, Ahok mengganti para pejabat Muslim dengan pejabat-pejabat kafir seperti Lurah Susan, Lurah Grace, dsb. Tak hanya itu, kepala sekolah Muslim di DKI juga banyak yang diganti dengan alasan lelang jabatan. Hasilnya, banyak kepala sekolah Kristen sekarang.
04. Merasa didukung media-media Sekuler, Ahok terus menghapus simbol-simbol Islam. Melalui Kadisdik DKI yang kafir, Lasro Masbrun, dia mengeluarkan aturan mengganti busana Muslim di sekolah-sekolah DKI setiap Jum’at dengan baju Betawi. Padahal sebenarnya baju Betawi bisa di hari lain, seperti aturan di sekolah-sekolah Bandung, yaitu Rabu untuk baju daerah (Sunda), sedangkan Jum’at tetap dengan busana Muslim.
05. Setelah sukses menghancurkan Masjid dan menghilangkan simbol-simbol Islam di DKI Jakarta, Ahok juga membatasi kegiatan syiar Islam seperti malam takbiran dengan alasan macet. Padahal perayaan tahun baru yang dipimpin Ahok jauh lebih parah macetnya dengan menutup jalan-jalan protokol Jakarta.
06. Ahok juga mendukung legalisasi pelacuran yaitu lokalisasi prostitusi, dan menyebut yang menolaknya adalah munafik, termasuk Muhammadiyah. Akhirnya Muhammadiyah resmi melaporkan Ahok ke polisi dengan pasal penghinaan.
07. Ketika umat Islam mati-matian memprotes Miss World, Ahok justru mendukung total bahkan bangga jika Jakarta jadi tuan rumah final kontes umbar aurat itu.
08. Tak kalah parahnya adalah, Ahok mendukung wacana penghapusan kolom agama di KTP.
09. Ahok jug
a mengeluarkan pernyataan, “Boleh minum Bir, asal jangan mabok”. Tak cuma dukung Miss World, Ahok juga dukung penuh konser maksiat Lady Gaga.
10. Ahok dengan berani melecehkan ayat suci. Dia bilang, “Ayat suci wajib tunduk pada ayat konstitusi”.
11. Pada Lebaran yang lalu, situasi yang adem tiba-tiba menjadi panas kembali dengan wacana Ahok untuk menghapuskan cuti bersama saat Lebaran. Apa dia tidak izinkan umat Islam berlebaran dan silaturahmi? Kenapa pula tidak dicontohkan melalui pencabutan cuti bersama Natal atau tahun baru? Mengapa hanya dan harus Lebaran yang dibidik?
12. Ahok juga menentang habis manifesto Partai Gerinda tentang pemurnian agama dari aliran sesat.
13. Ada yang bilang, “Tidak apa-apa pemimpin kafir, asal tak korupsi”. Ternyata Ahok diduga kuat terlibat korupsi pengadaan bus TransJakarta sebesar 1,6 triliun. Koruptor-koruptor BLBI juga kebanyakan ‘sejenis’ dengan Ahok, yaitu konglomerat-konglomerat dari warga/golongan ‘keturunan’ kafir.
Umat perlu tahu mengapa kaum Muslimin menolak Ahok. Penolakan Ahok bukan hanya tugas Hizbut Tahrir dan Front Pembela Islam (FPI). Kita semua juga punya kewajiban untuk itu.
I agree with Neptunian and stop harassing DASSK just because she is no longer a super star in the West. She is a Myanmar patriot and her duty is to protect Myanmar from Bangladeshi Muslim aggression, inside and outside the nation. All Myanmar ‘allies’ care about is oil and lumber, except India and Israel who have remained steadfast allies politically. The West should keep it’s filthy nose out of Myanmar affairs.
Michael, honey – I love your “hakama dress ” address. Grim humour indeed. My point was : Thailand seems currently in an unresolved, contested, power vacuum. I’m aware 20 odd Thai Constitutions barely add up to more than a bag of miltary green beans / has beens. “Moves in the game, rather than the board on which the game is played”, as you so aptly describe it. Shane Tarr compliments me on being an “an old Asia HAND”, and can address me as “Mr.” if he likes. But we all know, in this game as currently being played out : it may well be the cross-dresser who comes out on top !!
Bravo! This is an excellent contextually-attuned piece on the issue of racial privilege in Singapore, one that does not simplistically liken Chinese privilege to the ‘White Privilege’ discourse currently raging in the US. I haven’t gotten around to reading the full version yet (I look forward to doing so), so many of the statements in this piece do necessarily come across as rather generalising (though they do carry some truth of course). I am positive that more of such nuanced pieces would help to nudge Singapore into a true multicultural society that holds respect for all the various ethnicities residing within its borders.
Just a point to consider: I wonder if any discussion of the increasing trend towards Singapore’s Sinicization trend can be divorced with the wider geo-political reality — of Singapore leveraging upon cultural-linguistic similarities with China to equip itself with a perceived economic edge in a world where China is ascending quickly. History may provide useful lenses of course, but I’m not too sure if the late Lee’s views on the intrinsic superiority of the Chinese people continue to be the main factor driving pro-Chinese policies in Singapore. The continued marginalisation of Tamils and Malays, in my view, is inextricable from the specific content of the ‘Pragmatist’ paradigm that Singapore’s leaders profess to uphold. Hence, ‘bilingualism’ and ‘biculturalism’ in Singapore is almost invariably conceived as being conversant in the English/Western and Chinese/(broadly conceived as) Asian cultural worlds, simply because of implicit perceived notions of utility in being culturally fluent in Chinese, as compared to Malay and Tamil (Tamil, by the way, does not even represent the whole of Indian culture, hence its perceived utility in Singapore as a Asian/global city remains marginal). For a city-state with a 24/7 sense of paranoia of remaining relevant on the global stage, Singapore’s domestic policies and institutions have to be studied in relation to its global aspirations – simply because of the uniquely paternalistic mode of governance the ruling party is so accustomed to adopting (‘we can’t change our policies, because, pragmatism!’). The task for activists, then, would be to unpack this paradigm of Pragmatism: is a Sinicized Singapore the right (or even the only) way to become a globally relevant city-state with unique Asian characteristics? What are the hidden social costs of this aspiration to become a global/Asian city that ironically marginalises a substantial portion of its domestic (and very Asian) population? I believe this perspective would usefully complement the historical view that Mr. Hydar has so intelligently supplied to this discussion, and hopefully, pave the way for a more socially just Singapore.
I think you’ll find, Chris Beale, that in a country like Thailand, where a written constitution is little more than a series of moves in the game rather than the board upon which the game is played, most of those actually involved would find nothing but a kind of grim humor in either situation of “lack”, as you see it.
All these posts which presume the universality of some quasi-American notion of “constitutionality” make me think of Piaget and Kohlberg and their stages of moral-cognitive development and the rather obvious truth of the observation that very few individuals ever reach or apply the kind of “thinking” involved at the highest stage in each formulation.
“Look mom! There’s a man wearing a dress over there!”
“That’s not a dress, honey. It’s called hakama.”
“Yeah, sure mom. You’re as nuts as he is! Hahahaha!”
“values of democracy, rule of law, and respect for human rights, on which that positive perception rests;”
Please stop this PR bull already – Ask Saudi Arabia, ask Pakistan about the above. They are USA staunch allies and friends.
About the “capital” US corporations put in, pleaseeeee…. those were money put in to explore for Oil. When the Oil Corp departed, so did the “capital” input..
Less sure about Hun Sen supporting democracy in Thailand although he did support Thaksin after they got over their spats vis-a-vis Angkor Wat and the sacking of some Thai owned businesses in Phnom Penh back in the early days of the Thaksin government, which incidentally was elected democratically. However, to suggest Hun Sen did not seek to restrain the Khmer Rouge is sheer gibberish and demonstrates either you lack or willingness to understand Cambodia’s torturous road to peace. So give me the argument of Chris any day over your’s…..suggest you go back and study some recent Cambodian history.
I assumed he referred to the American War. Recently I got into a spat with a World Bank staffer who tried to refer to the American War as the Vietnam War but the Vietnamese born in the North supported me against him and reminded him that McNamara went from supporting the war by the Americans in Vietnam to opposing it. Amazingly this WB staffer did not know this but like many of these “new development professionals” his sense of history and herstory in the region is very limited.
Man prosecuted for merely observing anti-junta’s draft charter campaign
Military court has indicted a man for allegedly participating in a campaign against the junta-backed draft charter in late June despite the fact that the man merely observed the campaign. He was later released on bail without condition.
Singapore should be careful not to project the image of being a Chinese-dominated country. I visited Singapore for a month in 1970. At that time, Singapore was scare that its neighboring countries perceived Singapore as China’s proxy in spreading Maoism. People in Singapore chose not to speak in Chinese to me. Now it has changed and Mandarin Chinese with Singaporean accent is widely spoken. Many Singaporeans of Indian descent and some with Malay descent occupy high places in the government.
This has nothing to do with succession … but Marx, a little.
I went on a tour to Vietnam last year with in-laws in a tour organized and marketed in Thailand. It was all Thais but me, a range of professions, nobody very rich, nobody very poor. A middle class Thai tour group? The major activity was shopping, but there was a lot of site seeing, a number of historical stops. It was a good tour.
There was a Vietnames tour guide in attendance. He had been born in Thailand in the Northeast, ethnically Vietnames, lived in Thailand through middle school or high school, then back to Vietnam with his family. They lived in the North; he was in the army or some other branch of service. After the war he had worked for a large Thailand based agricultural company, and he was now retired, doing tour groups as a part time gig.
In between stops, as the bus rolled down the highway or wended it way through Hanoi city streets, it was his job to fill the time with commentary and stories. Much of it was standard tourist talk, on the right we have …, on the left we have … . But he had several other themes that he interwove — the rock solid support that Vietnam had received from Russia through the war years and after, the failure of endurance that had been the American fate in the war, and the history of Communist thought from Marx through Stalin. Pretty garbled, but surely the first time any of my tour companions had heard such things spoken about with that much enthusiasm. It was quite fun. Nobody complained or even argued back.
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Thailand’s peculiar interregnum
None of the Thais knew about the 1980s when Vietnamese troops were along Thailand’s Cambodian border? Or just didn’t dare to ask? Sometimes the tanks came very close. And surely they would be familiar with the nearly 20-year stream of refugees by land and boat to Thailand?
The man’s story doesn’t make much sense since it would be well into the 1990s before a company like CP would be employing northerners. You think this man was fighting in Cambodia or doing something else there? And you can hardly say Russia’s support was “rock solid” when Vietnam’s adventure in Cambodia finally ended when the Russians got fed up with funding it.
Making enemies out of friends
It is too bad that the data mentioned in the text is inconsistent with the data reported from the local government.
http://www.beritajakarta.com/read/31027/14.900-Jiwa-Sudah-Direlokasi-ke-Rusun#.WBt0AeGLSX0
Confronting ‘Chinese privilege’ in Singapore
The first generation immigrants feel lucky in a thriving community like Singapore. I had a lot of Singaporean friends in England and Hong Kong. Not so many in USA. They could be Chinese or Indians. Genetically speaking, people who choose to relocate are normally the more resourceful otherwise they wouldn’t leave a familiar environment. We cannot be sure for the second and third. Singapore would have to take heed. Lee Yuan Yew had a siege mentality. He talked about hardship, his and his country’s. Fine. What about those who may not have his sense of drive and motivation. Those are the current Singaporeans, Chinese or others. If I were a Singaporean leader, I would have to do a lot of soul searching.
Making enemies out of friends
I thought the very lack of this analysis is that Ian didn’t mention the links between the political violence in Jakarta at current with the the forthcoming local elections in Indonesia.
Thailand’s peculiar interregnum
I know what your point is Chris and my point is you are simply wrong.
There is no “unresolved, contested, power vacuum” in Thailand right now.
Like the kid who can’t accept that hakama and dress do not signify the same things because they exist in different contexts, you and many others on NM seem unwilling/unable to accept that the lack of a written constitution and a delay in the proclamation of a new king do not signify the chaos and conflict you assign to them.
Thailand’s real constitution is an unwritten one and it obviously includes an “article” that mandates a certain amount of “play” on the part of certain special people in the hierarchy.
There is a subsection dealing with having a chuckle at the expense of those who are left fantasizing in the dark too but my “source” says I shouldn’t mention it.
Making enemies out of friends
*Silahkan dipelajari disimak, dibalik penolakan ahok jd DKI1*:
Sehubungan adanya demo . B penolakan Ahok, Inilah faktor Ahok memancing amarah terhadap umat Islam:
01. Ahok menghancurkan Masjid Baitul Arif di Jatinegara, Jakarta Timur, sehingga warga setempat tidak bisa shalat Jum’at dan melakukan kajian Islam sampai saat ini.
02. Ahok juga menghancurkan Masjid bersejarah Amir Hamzah di Taman Ismail Marzuki dengan dalih renovasi, namun hingga hari ini tidak ada tanda-tanda akan dibangun kembali.
03. Tidak puas dengan menghancurkan Masjid-Masjid, Ahok mengganti para pejabat Muslim dengan pejabat-pejabat kafir seperti Lurah Susan, Lurah Grace, dsb. Tak hanya itu, kepala sekolah Muslim di DKI juga banyak yang diganti dengan alasan lelang jabatan. Hasilnya, banyak kepala sekolah Kristen sekarang.
04. Merasa didukung media-media Sekuler, Ahok terus menghapus simbol-simbol Islam. Melalui Kadisdik DKI yang kafir, Lasro Masbrun, dia mengeluarkan aturan mengganti busana Muslim di sekolah-sekolah DKI setiap Jum’at dengan baju Betawi. Padahal sebenarnya baju Betawi bisa di hari lain, seperti aturan di sekolah-sekolah Bandung, yaitu Rabu untuk baju daerah (Sunda), sedangkan Jum’at tetap dengan busana Muslim.
05. Setelah sukses menghancurkan Masjid dan menghilangkan simbol-simbol Islam di DKI Jakarta, Ahok juga membatasi kegiatan syiar Islam seperti malam takbiran dengan alasan macet. Padahal perayaan tahun baru yang dipimpin Ahok jauh lebih parah macetnya dengan menutup jalan-jalan protokol Jakarta.
06. Ahok juga mendukung legalisasi pelacuran yaitu lokalisasi prostitusi, dan menyebut yang menolaknya adalah munafik, termasuk Muhammadiyah. Akhirnya Muhammadiyah resmi melaporkan Ahok ke polisi dengan pasal penghinaan.
07. Ketika umat Islam mati-matian memprotes Miss World, Ahok justru mendukung total bahkan bangga jika Jakarta jadi tuan rumah final kontes umbar aurat itu.
08. Tak kalah parahnya adalah, Ahok mendukung wacana penghapusan kolom agama di KTP.
09. Ahok jug
a mengeluarkan pernyataan, “Boleh minum Bir, asal jangan mabok”. Tak cuma dukung Miss World, Ahok juga dukung penuh konser maksiat Lady Gaga.
10. Ahok dengan berani melecehkan ayat suci. Dia bilang, “Ayat suci wajib tunduk pada ayat konstitusi”.
11. Pada Lebaran yang lalu, situasi yang adem tiba-tiba menjadi panas kembali dengan wacana Ahok untuk menghapuskan cuti bersama saat Lebaran. Apa dia tidak izinkan umat Islam berlebaran dan silaturahmi? Kenapa pula tidak dicontohkan melalui pencabutan cuti bersama Natal atau tahun baru? Mengapa hanya dan harus Lebaran yang dibidik?
12. Ahok juga menentang habis manifesto Partai Gerinda tentang pemurnian agama dari aliran sesat.
13. Ada yang bilang, “Tidak apa-apa pemimpin kafir, asal tak korupsi”. Ternyata Ahok diduga kuat terlibat korupsi pengadaan bus TransJakarta sebesar 1,6 triliun. Koruptor-koruptor BLBI juga kebanyakan ‘sejenis’ dengan Ahok, yaitu konglomerat-konglomerat dari warga/golongan ‘keturunan’ kafir.
Umat perlu tahu mengapa kaum Muslimin menolak Ahok. Penolakan Ahok bukan hanya tugas Hizbut Tahrir dan Front Pembela Islam (FPI). Kita semua juga punya kewajiban untuk itu.
What Do you Opinion about my Field Data..?
Washington’s untapped influence in Myanmar
I agree with Neptunian and stop harassing DASSK just because she is no longer a super star in the West. She is a Myanmar patriot and her duty is to protect Myanmar from Bangladeshi Muslim aggression, inside and outside the nation. All Myanmar ‘allies’ care about is oil and lumber, except India and Israel who have remained steadfast allies politically. The West should keep it’s filthy nose out of Myanmar affairs.
Thailand’s peculiar interregnum
Michael, honey – I love your “hakama dress ” address. Grim humour indeed. My point was : Thailand seems currently in an unresolved, contested, power vacuum. I’m aware 20 odd Thai Constitutions barely add up to more than a bag of miltary green beans / has beens. “Moves in the game, rather than the board on which the game is played”, as you so aptly describe it. Shane Tarr compliments me on being an “an old Asia HAND”, and can address me as “Mr.” if he likes. But we all know, in this game as currently being played out : it may well be the cross-dresser who comes out on top !!
Confronting ‘Chinese privilege’ in Singapore
Bravo! This is an excellent contextually-attuned piece on the issue of racial privilege in Singapore, one that does not simplistically liken Chinese privilege to the ‘White Privilege’ discourse currently raging in the US. I haven’t gotten around to reading the full version yet (I look forward to doing so), so many of the statements in this piece do necessarily come across as rather generalising (though they do carry some truth of course). I am positive that more of such nuanced pieces would help to nudge Singapore into a true multicultural society that holds respect for all the various ethnicities residing within its borders.
Just a point to consider: I wonder if any discussion of the increasing trend towards Singapore’s Sinicization trend can be divorced with the wider geo-political reality — of Singapore leveraging upon cultural-linguistic similarities with China to equip itself with a perceived economic edge in a world where China is ascending quickly. History may provide useful lenses of course, but I’m not too sure if the late Lee’s views on the intrinsic superiority of the Chinese people continue to be the main factor driving pro-Chinese policies in Singapore. The continued marginalisation of Tamils and Malays, in my view, is inextricable from the specific content of the ‘Pragmatist’ paradigm that Singapore’s leaders profess to uphold. Hence, ‘bilingualism’ and ‘biculturalism’ in Singapore is almost invariably conceived as being conversant in the English/Western and Chinese/(broadly conceived as) Asian cultural worlds, simply because of implicit perceived notions of utility in being culturally fluent in Chinese, as compared to Malay and Tamil (Tamil, by the way, does not even represent the whole of Indian culture, hence its perceived utility in Singapore as a Asian/global city remains marginal). For a city-state with a 24/7 sense of paranoia of remaining relevant on the global stage, Singapore’s domestic policies and institutions have to be studied in relation to its global aspirations – simply because of the uniquely paternalistic mode of governance the ruling party is so accustomed to adopting (‘we can’t change our policies, because, pragmatism!’). The task for activists, then, would be to unpack this paradigm of Pragmatism: is a Sinicized Singapore the right (or even the only) way to become a globally relevant city-state with unique Asian characteristics? What are the hidden social costs of this aspiration to become a global/Asian city that ironically marginalises a substantial portion of its domestic (and very Asian) population? I believe this perspective would usefully complement the historical view that Mr. Hydar has so intelligently supplied to this discussion, and hopefully, pave the way for a more socially just Singapore.
Thailand’s peculiar interregnum
Michael I think Chris is probably aware of this. He is an “old hand” when it comes to The Realm. Still I like you comments.
Thailand’s peculiar interregnum
I think you’ll find, Chris Beale, that in a country like Thailand, where a written constitution is little more than a series of moves in the game rather than the board upon which the game is played, most of those actually involved would find nothing but a kind of grim humor in either situation of “lack”, as you see it.
All these posts which presume the universality of some quasi-American notion of “constitutionality” make me think of Piaget and Kohlberg and their stages of moral-cognitive development and the rather obvious truth of the observation that very few individuals ever reach or apply the kind of “thinking” involved at the highest stage in each formulation.
“Look mom! There’s a man wearing a dress over there!”
“That’s not a dress, honey. It’s called hakama.”
“Yeah, sure mom. You’re as nuts as he is! Hahahaha!”
Washington’s untapped influence in Myanmar
“values of democracy, rule of law, and respect for human rights, on which that positive perception rests;”
Please stop this PR bull already – Ask Saudi Arabia, ask Pakistan about the above. They are USA staunch allies and friends.
About the “capital” US corporations put in, pleaseeeee…. those were money put in to explore for Oil. When the Oil Corp departed, so did the “capital” input..
Thailand’s peculiar interregnum
Bernd Weber – soThailand is currently without a King, AND without a Constitution ! Bizarre political bazaar.
Cambodia’s latest game of cat and mouse
Less sure about Hun Sen supporting democracy in Thailand although he did support Thaksin after they got over their spats vis-a-vis Angkor Wat and the sacking of some Thai owned businesses in Phnom Penh back in the early days of the Thaksin government, which incidentally was elected democratically. However, to suggest Hun Sen did not seek to restrain the Khmer Rouge is sheer gibberish and demonstrates either you lack or willingness to understand Cambodia’s torturous road to peace. So give me the argument of Chris any day over your’s…..suggest you go back and study some recent Cambodian history.
Thailand’s peculiar interregnum
I assumed he referred to the American War. Recently I got into a spat with a World Bank staffer who tried to refer to the American War as the Vietnam War but the Vietnamese born in the North supported me against him and reminded him that McNamara went from supporting the war by the Americans in Vietnam to opposing it. Amazingly this WB staffer did not know this but like many of these “new development professionals” his sense of history and herstory in the region is very limited.
The real meaning of Thailand’s referendum
Wed, 02/11/2016
Man prosecuted for merely observing anti-junta’s draft charter campaign
Military court has indicted a man for allegedly participating in a campaign against the junta-backed draft charter in late June despite the fact that the man merely observed the campaign. He was later released on bail without condition.
http://www.prachatai.com/english/node/6689
Confronting ‘Chinese privilege’ in Singapore
Singapore should be careful not to project the image of being a Chinese-dominated country. I visited Singapore for a month in 1970. At that time, Singapore was scare that its neighboring countries perceived Singapore as China’s proxy in spreading Maoism. People in Singapore chose not to speak in Chinese to me. Now it has changed and Mandarin Chinese with Singaporean accent is widely spoken. Many Singaporeans of Indian descent and some with Malay descent occupy high places in the government.
Thailand’s peculiar interregnum
This has nothing to do with succession … but Marx, a little.
I went on a tour to Vietnam last year with in-laws in a tour organized and marketed in Thailand. It was all Thais but me, a range of professions, nobody very rich, nobody very poor. A middle class Thai tour group? The major activity was shopping, but there was a lot of site seeing, a number of historical stops. It was a good tour.
There was a Vietnames tour guide in attendance. He had been born in Thailand in the Northeast, ethnically Vietnames, lived in Thailand through middle school or high school, then back to Vietnam with his family. They lived in the North; he was in the army or some other branch of service. After the war he had worked for a large Thailand based agricultural company, and he was now retired, doing tour groups as a part time gig.
In between stops, as the bus rolled down the highway or wended it way through Hanoi city streets, it was his job to fill the time with commentary and stories. Much of it was standard tourist talk, on the right we have …, on the left we have … . But he had several other themes that he interwove — the rock solid support that Vietnam had received from Russia through the war years and after, the failure of endurance that had been the American fate in the war, and the history of Communist thought from Marx through Stalin. Pretty garbled, but surely the first time any of my tour companions had heard such things spoken about with that much enthusiasm. It was quite fun. Nobody complained or even argued back.
Cambodia’s latest game of cat and mouse
I presume that you’re bring sarcastic Chris. Hun Sen plainly didn’t restrain the Khmer Rouge or support Thailand’s democracy movement.
Thailand’s top ten after Bhumibol
Prem is now temporary regent, not “acting king”. I’d suggest adding Prince Dipankorn, who is legally next in line to the throne after Vajiralongkorn.