Polo – thanks for reminding me about Thongdaeng. But sadly this great master of the art of prostration is dead – is he not ? THAT is ONE reason I did not mention him. The other reason is : that my comments were CLEARLY about the CP, and his stream of loyal dogs. Glad to see Madam Feefee is now there as consolation for the terrible loss of Air Chief Marshall Fufu.
“Yet despite the intense royalist indoctrination of the Bhumibol era it would surely be naïve not to imagine that at least some of them may draw inspiration from Thailand’s long republican tradition.”
An interesting historical artifact, but it seems unlikely that anybody in Thailand will be inspired given that it’s against the law even to discuss these matters openly.
Thailand is painfully oblivious as to the depths it sinks
An investigation by the 4th Army Region found that Wichian was severely tortured by other soldiers and his superiors after he was accused of running away from military training.
It is times like these when the “Pivot to Asia” needs to be taken seriously. What does this actually mean. Is there an impending constitutional crisis in Thailand looming, with a succession battle beginning ? Are we seeing the Pro-Western Corporate Business PR gurus inflicting their first attempt at demeaning Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn. Are we to expect the West to show similar backing to the Thai Military and it’s political arm, that it has leant to other military might in the middle east, as we witnessed so clearly in Eygpt. Where a young Italian man can be tortured to death over several days by it’s security forces, and yet the country is still handed millions of dollars for “security” reasons. Where the Generals can even get caught planning to rebuild a torture chamber, to hide their sins and escape UN justice, but are still allowed to buy enough military hardware and hacking technology to maintain their vicious rule of fear. Can we then expect an online proppaganda campaign to begin, with local “experts” as was uncovered in the fake Syria Twitter campaign,that was actually being led from London’s City of Banks, when they tried to convince the public of their “wisdom” and local “knowledge”, but basically served us all a “Dead Cat” diet lie, while we all looked the other way.
Anthropologist Ilse Hayden wrote a fun and fascinating book that addresses the British monarch’s two bodies, public and private, and is quite relevant to the above discussion.
“Symbol and Privilege: The Ritual Context of British Royalty” (1987, Univ. of AZ). $.01 on Amazon.
Historian Matthew Phillips is working along similar lines in his work on modern Thai ritual.
Roughly speaking, the Thai equivalents are the Hindu-Buddhist concept of the monarch as a god-king (Devaraja); the Buddhist version of the king as a Dhamma-Raja (King of Dhamma); and its colloquial expression of the king as a “supposed angel” — “supposed” because only men of superior virtue, like an extraordinary monk, can “know for sure” about the king’s true level of merit.
This is one reason the Ninth Reign in the mid-20th century took steps to get rid of uppity monks like Phra Phimonlatham from Khon Kaen. PrP, abbot of Wat Mahathat, former associate of Pridi and Phibun, launched a meditation movement that was rival to the Thammayut movement patronized by the Palace. For this he ended up defrocked and jailed, accused of homosexuality and being a communist.
A more interesting question here is whether the prince wears an amulet, and if so, of which monk? Amulets and tattoos both offer protection against evil spirits. His Majesty, one would guess, does not wear amulets. Instead, Palace insiders hand them out as special marks of favor.
In the old days, the essence of LM was guessing out loud about the obvious — the extent of the Crown Properties.
Now?
Rapid advances in communications and social media — the lightning speed at which images such as the above can be transmitted and dissected — demand that monarchies keep abreast of these changes, and, like television in an era past, use them to their advantage if they can.
If they cannot do so, they risk losing their magic.
One must ask: What is the current intent and purpose of that magic? How adept is the Crown Prince and/or his handlers at managing ritual and social media?
Correction: It was Sidney Blumenthal, not Max Blumenthal (who is Sidney’s Blumenthal’s journalist son) that was used as a Clinton stooge. Simply outrageous these people are governing nations, and defended by most of the MSM.
No Harry’s only pretending to be a Nazi Chris. His real job is radio signalman in the UK military. Bombing the fuck out of foreigners and recruiting young uneducated Brits for BP.
Dead Cat. Just wondering if Vajaralongkorn has a publicity advisor. David Cameron has PR guru or two, and is now infamous for his use of the “dead cat” routine. Hillary Rodham Clinton uses her close friend Max Blumenthal to act as a press stooge (according to Wikileaks leaks) to write stories with specific words added: “Hi Max can you fit in the word Muscular” says Clinton’s secretary to Max Blumenthal. “will do” says Max. It all to do with PR, click bait and truth avoidance, when bad scenario’s are predicted. Just a thought…..
Chris Beale, you’ve clearly forgotten about Thongdaeng, who prostrates, remains quiet around the king, and understands rajasap as well as the people’s language. A perfect example for the nation, according to the king’s book.
A whistleblower, who has supplied full details of the project, described the plan to Sarawak Report: “The Malaysian Government is planning to award an overvalued project to launder money in order to fill the loophole of 1MDB. The plan is to award the East Coast Rail Project to a Chinese Company, China Communication Construction Company Limited (CCCC). The initial budget for the project is MYR 30b, but they have overvalued the project for another MYR 30b, making it MYR 60b. The extra MYR 30b will be use to launder out cash to 1MDB related companies.
The project has been proposed to the cabinet on 25/7/2016 and will be approved by the cabinet on 27/7/2016 with total value of MYR 60b. The Chinese company, which is backed by the China Government, will help pay off the 1MDB dept in advance and progressively. In return, this Chinese company will be rewarded with high profits and land, and of course extra influence with the Malaysian government”.
————————————-
What happened to your Saudi Arabian friends Najib? But I’ll grant you this Najib, going to the Chinese is veree veree cunning … just don’t let daughter Azrene get a whiff of the puke-inducing odor of this China deal!
Interesting debate between Dr. Gray and Dr. Shane Tarr. Most interesting of all is Dr. Gray’s NO MENTION AT ALL of the fact that FOREIGNERS CAN NOT OWN LAND – and a whole lot else also – in Thailand. Gray is talking nonsense about the poor little innocent Thai girl victim of foreign men’s power and money. It’s obviously many decades since Gray lived – if ever – in Isaarn, where the fact foreigners can own next to thing is the Jhao Poh mafia’s trump card. The Jhao Pho mafia boss these days is either herself a woman, or the power behind the male mafia throne, managing the books, and those poor little innocents who aspire to do exactly the same. Wake up Christine – it ain’t Snow White’s Christmas in Isaarn:
International laws are only good to keep small powers in place. Great powers never recognize the jurisdiction of any international courts, except in particular cases where they believe it is in their interest to do so. Last year the PCA ruled that the UK had violated the Law of the Sea by unilaterally establishing a Marine Protected Area in the Chagos Islands. The UK disregarded the ruling. Nicaragua sued the US in the 1980s for mining its harbors. Like China, the US argued that international courts did not have the authority to hear the case, refused to participate in subsequent proceedings, and denied the court’s jurisdiction on any future case involving the US, unless the US explicitly made an exception and asked to hear a case. US Ambassador to the UN Jeanne Kirkpatrick dismissed international courts as “semi-legal, semi-juridical, semi-political body, which nations sometimes accept and sometimes don’t.” China has learned well from the US.
Did they ever try training macaque monkeys to prostrate themselves ? Monkeys can be taught a lot of things, eg. Nim Chimsky was taught language. Though how Chimsky – or a Fufu / Feefee canine Chimsky – would have handled Thai Royal language is anyone’s guess, at this stage. An imperative need for more research !
You say that focusing on a grammatical or spelling error is trivial. Your writing is actually littered with such errors – surprising for one who is supposed to be an academic. This leads one to wonder whether, in spite of you making some interesting contributions, you are as careless with your research data and findings.
Agree with your concerns about market-led agriculture, including contract farming, as promoted by International Financial Institutions and many UN agencies, and the threat that this poses to customary land systems in Myanmar.
Although poor in a monetary sense, my ethnic Karen community is rich in so many other ways. Our communally managed agriculture practices incorporate our cultural values and beliefs, our own laws and regulations to protect our lands and environment, our self-reliant livelihoods and ultimately our control over our own lands and destiny. These are priceless aspects that must be considered by international or national development experts when deciding what is “developed” or “under-developed”.
PM Najib Razak’s stepdaughter Ms Azrene bluntly told her mother not to throw her US-based brother Riza Aziz under a bus “so that you and your husband can get off scot-free”. She added: “If Riza signed his soul to the devil to own what does not rightly belong to him, consider his debt with the devil collected and more due for collection. Similarly, all family members who have signed their soul to the devil… Your time will come.”
Entertaining times coming ahead on Malaysia’s fractured politics and governance arising from PM Najib’s corruption 1MDB rampage. http://news.asiaone.com/news/malaysia/najibs-stepdaughter-speaks-out-against-family-1mdb-crisis
In line with the theory of ‘proxy war’ disseminated by its military commander, General Gatot Nurmantyo, Indonesia seems more concerned by the danger of drug-trafficking than by Chinese encroachments in the South China Sea.
Coinciding with the holding of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Vientiane, it was announced that the unhappily-named Merri Utami, sentenced to death after being caught in 2001 with just over a kilogram of heroine, was being transferred to Nusakambangan. This is a one-way trip for those drug merchants who, no matter how limited the scale of their operations, have had the misfortune to face Indonesian courts bent on imposing capital punishment. Many traffickers, no doubt the majority, avoid this grim fate.
It is easy to forget that Indonesia played a leading role in ASEAN’s formation. Now it has no more intention of pushing the organisation towards an intelligent policy on the South China Sea than, say, Laos or Myanmar. National resilience was once a goal for Indonesia. Regional resilience, clearly, is not.
After the distraction of the arbitral tribunal, let’s get back to fighting the proxy war.
The difference is that the announcement at the palace was to a very restricted audience of notables, Thai and Foreign, whilst the announcement in the Royal Gazette was addressed to all his subjects, although one has to doubt how many actually became aware of it. Even so, such an announcement surely undermines Christine Gray’s claim that the decision to abolish prostration was specifically for the benefit of a farang audience.
Apologies for not expressing my thoughts more clearly, the “trivial incident” I referred to was not the abolition of prostration, but the appearance in public of a middle aged man dressed rather oddly.
The reasons for the reintroduction of prostration have been well documented, the process began several decades ago and indeed I doubt if it ever died out completely.
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Royal ink
Polo – thanks for reminding me about Thongdaeng. But sadly this great master of the art of prostration is dead – is he not ? THAT is ONE reason I did not mention him. The other reason is : that my comments were CLEARLY about the CP, and his stream of loyal dogs. Glad to see Madam Feefee is now there as consolation for the terrible loss of Air Chief Marshall Fufu.
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
“Yet despite the intense royalist indoctrination of the Bhumibol era it would surely be naïve not to imagine that at least some of them may draw inspiration from Thailand’s long republican tradition.”
An interesting historical artifact, but it seems unlikely that anybody in Thailand will be inspired given that it’s against the law even to discuss these matters openly.
US sanctions and human rights in Thailand
time to bump this ……………..
In June 2011, Wichian Puaksom, 26, a conscript in the Deep South province of Narathiwat, died after alleged brutal torture by about 10 soldiers.
http://prachatai.org/english/node/6023
and now :
Thailand: Niece of soldier beaten to death at army camp arrested for defamation
THE niece of an army conscript who was beaten to death by other soldiers was detained by police on Tuesday for allegedly defaming the Thai military.
https://asiancorrespondent.com/2016/07/thailand-niece-killed-soldier-arrested-defaming-army/
Thailand is painfully oblivious as to the depths it sinks
An investigation by the 4th Army Region found that Wichian was severely tortured by other soldiers and his superiors after he was accused of running away from military training.
A statement on the South China Sea ruling
The only ASEAN Country with courage and dignity to declare and uphold the international law so far. Big salute.
A crown prince and German affairs
It is times like these when the “Pivot to Asia” needs to be taken seriously. What does this actually mean. Is there an impending constitutional crisis in Thailand looming, with a succession battle beginning ? Are we seeing the Pro-Western Corporate Business PR gurus inflicting their first attempt at demeaning Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn. Are we to expect the West to show similar backing to the Thai Military and it’s political arm, that it has leant to other military might in the middle east, as we witnessed so clearly in Eygpt. Where a young Italian man can be tortured to death over several days by it’s security forces, and yet the country is still handed millions of dollars for “security” reasons. Where the Generals can even get caught planning to rebuild a torture chamber, to hide their sins and escape UN justice, but are still allowed to buy enough military hardware and hacking technology to maintain their vicious rule of fear. Can we then expect an online proppaganda campaign to begin, with local “experts” as was uncovered in the fake Syria Twitter campaign,that was actually being led from London’s City of Banks, when they tried to convince the public of their “wisdom” and local “knowledge”, but basically served us all a “Dead Cat” diet lie, while we all looked the other way.
Royal ink
Anthropologist Ilse Hayden wrote a fun and fascinating book that addresses the British monarch’s two bodies, public and private, and is quite relevant to the above discussion.
“Symbol and Privilege: The Ritual Context of British Royalty” (1987, Univ. of AZ). $.01 on Amazon.
Historian Matthew Phillips is working along similar lines in his work on modern Thai ritual.
Roughly speaking, the Thai equivalents are the Hindu-Buddhist concept of the monarch as a god-king (Devaraja); the Buddhist version of the king as a Dhamma-Raja (King of Dhamma); and its colloquial expression of the king as a “supposed angel” — “supposed” because only men of superior virtue, like an extraordinary monk, can “know for sure” about the king’s true level of merit.
This is one reason the Ninth Reign in the mid-20th century took steps to get rid of uppity monks like Phra Phimonlatham from Khon Kaen. PrP, abbot of Wat Mahathat, former associate of Pridi and Phibun, launched a meditation movement that was rival to the Thammayut movement patronized by the Palace. For this he ended up defrocked and jailed, accused of homosexuality and being a communist.
A more interesting question here is whether the prince wears an amulet, and if so, of which monk? Amulets and tattoos both offer protection against evil spirits. His Majesty, one would guess, does not wear amulets. Instead, Palace insiders hand them out as special marks of favor.
In the old days, the essence of LM was guessing out loud about the obvious — the extent of the Crown Properties.
Now?
Rapid advances in communications and social media — the lightning speed at which images such as the above can be transmitted and dissected — demand that monarchies keep abreast of these changes, and, like television in an era past, use them to their advantage if they can.
If they cannot do so, they risk losing their magic.
One must ask: What is the current intent and purpose of that magic? How adept is the Crown Prince and/or his handlers at managing ritual and social media?
Judging from Bike4Mom and Bike4Dad, quite.
Royal ink
Correction: It was Sidney Blumenthal, not Max Blumenthal (who is Sidney’s Blumenthal’s journalist son) that was used as a Clinton stooge. Simply outrageous these people are governing nations, and defended by most of the MSM.
Royal ink
No Harry’s only pretending to be a Nazi Chris. His real job is radio signalman in the UK military. Bombing the fuck out of foreigners and recruiting young uneducated Brits for BP.
Royal ink
Dead Cat. Just wondering if Vajaralongkorn has a publicity advisor. David Cameron has PR guru or two, and is now infamous for his use of the “dead cat” routine. Hillary Rodham Clinton uses her close friend Max Blumenthal to act as a press stooge (according to Wikileaks leaks) to write stories with specific words added: “Hi Max can you fit in the word Muscular” says Clinton’s secretary to Max Blumenthal. “will do” says Max. It all to do with PR, click bait and truth avoidance, when bad scenario’s are predicted. Just a thought…..
Royal ink
Chris Beale, you’ve clearly forgotten about Thongdaeng, who prostrates, remains quiet around the king, and understands rajasap as well as the people’s language. A perfect example for the nation, according to the king’s book.
The Kuala Lumpur logo controversy
OUTRAGE! – Najib’s Secret Deal With China To Pay Off 1MDB (And Jho Low’s) Debts!
http://www.sarawakreport.org/2016/07/outrage-najibs-secret-deal-with-china-to-pay-off-1mdb-and-jho-lows-debts-shock-exclusive/
A whistleblower, who has supplied full details of the project, described the plan to Sarawak Report: “The Malaysian Government is planning to award an overvalued project to launder money in order to fill the loophole of 1MDB. The plan is to award the East Coast Rail Project to a Chinese Company, China Communication Construction Company Limited (CCCC). The initial budget for the project is MYR 30b, but they have overvalued the project for another MYR 30b, making it MYR 60b. The extra MYR 30b will be use to launder out cash to 1MDB related companies.
The project has been proposed to the cabinet on 25/7/2016 and will be approved by the cabinet on 27/7/2016 with total value of MYR 60b. The Chinese company, which is backed by the China Government, will help pay off the 1MDB dept in advance and progressively. In return, this Chinese company will be rewarded with high profits and land, and of course extra influence with the Malaysian government”.
————————————-
What happened to your Saudi Arabian friends Najib? But I’ll grant you this Najib, going to the Chinese is veree veree cunning … just don’t let daughter Azrene get a whiff of the puke-inducing odor of this China deal!
A crown prince and German affairs
Interesting debate between Dr. Gray and Dr. Shane Tarr. Most interesting of all is Dr. Gray’s NO MENTION AT ALL of the fact that FOREIGNERS CAN NOT OWN LAND – and a whole lot else also – in Thailand. Gray is talking nonsense about the poor little innocent Thai girl victim of foreign men’s power and money. It’s obviously many decades since Gray lived – if ever – in Isaarn, where the fact foreigners can own next to thing is the Jhao Poh mafia’s trump card. The Jhao Pho mafia boss these days is either herself a woman, or the power behind the male mafia throne, managing the books, and those poor little innocents who aspire to do exactly the same. Wake up Christine – it ain’t Snow White’s Christmas in Isaarn:
To rule over the waves
International laws are only good to keep small powers in place. Great powers never recognize the jurisdiction of any international courts, except in particular cases where they believe it is in their interest to do so. Last year the PCA ruled that the UK had violated the Law of the Sea by unilaterally establishing a Marine Protected Area in the Chagos Islands. The UK disregarded the ruling. Nicaragua sued the US in the 1980s for mining its harbors. Like China, the US argued that international courts did not have the authority to hear the case, refused to participate in subsequent proceedings, and denied the court’s jurisdiction on any future case involving the US, unless the US explicitly made an exception and asked to hear a case. US Ambassador to the UN Jeanne Kirkpatrick dismissed international courts as “semi-legal, semi-juridical, semi-political body, which nations sometimes accept and sometimes don’t.” China has learned well from the US.
ASEAN’s South China Sea ulcer
Apparently, it is a fishery issue, right.
http://thediplomat.com/2016/07/the-south-china-sea-is-really-a-fishery-dispute/
Royal ink
Did they ever try training macaque monkeys to prostrate themselves ? Monkeys can be taught a lot of things, eg. Nim Chimsky was taught language. Though how Chimsky – or a Fufu / Feefee canine Chimsky – would have handled Thai Royal language is anyone’s guess, at this stage. An imperative need for more research !
A crown prince and German affairs
You say that focusing on a grammatical or spelling error is trivial. Your writing is actually littered with such errors – surprising for one who is supposed to be an academic. This leads one to wonder whether, in spite of you making some interesting contributions, you are as careless with your research data and findings.
Playing with fire
Agree with your concerns about market-led agriculture, including contract farming, as promoted by International Financial Institutions and many UN agencies, and the threat that this poses to customary land systems in Myanmar.
Although poor in a monetary sense, my ethnic Karen community is rich in so many other ways. Our communally managed agriculture practices incorporate our cultural values and beliefs, our own laws and regulations to protect our lands and environment, our self-reliant livelihoods and ultimately our control over our own lands and destiny. These are priceless aspects that must be considered by international or national development experts when deciding what is “developed” or “under-developed”.
For more information about ethnic land systems, please read very good report release this month by the Ethnic Community Development Forum, from Myanmar. “Our Customary Lands” at http://www.ecdfburma.org/images/our%20customary%20land%20-%20eng.pdf
Saw Eh Kaw
The Kuala Lumpur logo controversy
PM Najib Razak’s stepdaughter Ms Azrene bluntly told her mother not to throw her US-based brother Riza Aziz under a bus “so that you and your husband can get off scot-free”. She added: “If Riza signed his soul to the devil to own what does not rightly belong to him, consider his debt with the devil collected and more due for collection. Similarly, all family members who have signed their soul to the devil… Your time will come.”
Entertaining times coming ahead on Malaysia’s fractured politics and governance arising from PM Najib’s corruption 1MDB rampage.
http://news.asiaone.com/news/malaysia/najibs-stepdaughter-speaks-out-against-family-1mdb-crisis
ASEAN’s South China Sea ulcer
In line with the theory of ‘proxy war’ disseminated by its military commander, General Gatot Nurmantyo, Indonesia seems more concerned by the danger of drug-trafficking than by Chinese encroachments in the South China Sea.
Coinciding with the holding of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Vientiane, it was announced that the unhappily-named Merri Utami, sentenced to death after being caught in 2001 with just over a kilogram of heroine, was being transferred to Nusakambangan. This is a one-way trip for those drug merchants who, no matter how limited the scale of their operations, have had the misfortune to face Indonesian courts bent on imposing capital punishment. Many traffickers, no doubt the majority, avoid this grim fate.
It is easy to forget that Indonesia played a leading role in ASEAN’s formation. Now it has no more intention of pushing the organisation towards an intelligent policy on the South China Sea than, say, Laos or Myanmar. National resilience was once a goal for Indonesia. Regional resilience, clearly, is not.
After the distraction of the arbitral tribunal, let’s get back to fighting the proxy war.
Royal ink
The difference is that the announcement at the palace was to a very restricted audience of notables, Thai and Foreign, whilst the announcement in the Royal Gazette was addressed to all his subjects, although one has to doubt how many actually became aware of it. Even so, such an announcement surely undermines Christine Gray’s claim that the decision to abolish prostration was specifically for the benefit of a farang audience.
Apologies for not expressing my thoughts more clearly, the “trivial incident” I referred to was not the abolition of prostration, but the appearance in public of a middle aged man dressed rather oddly.
The reasons for the reintroduction of prostration have been well documented, the process began several decades ago and indeed I doubt if it ever died out completely.