[…] veteran mainland Chinese management along in the chase for low wages. This is illustrated by the 2014 anti-China factory riots, in which Taiwanese factories were reportedly looted and burned in anger over a Chinese oil rig […]
There is an article in the December issue of Art & Culture Magazine, ลัทธิบูชารัฐธรรมนูญ” กับสยามสมัยคณะราษฎร โดย ดร.ภูริ ฟูวงศ์เจริญ ใน ศิลปวัฒนธรรม ฉบับ ธันวาคม 2558). It is worth a read, if you can find it. The article makes it clear that the constitution, a reification of republicanism, was for a while a key symbol manipulated by post-revolutionary nationalist governments to claim legitimacy. It was used in this way in the absence of a king — my interpretation — in effect as a substitute for a king. So that was pretty radical, in today’s terms.
That it didn’t take hold in popular imagination is perhaps attributable to the lack of cosmological fit between the notions of constitution and monarch, as Dr. Jory suggests. It is also surely abetted by the total disregard for the fact of existing constitutions on the part of an 80 year parade of coup leaders. Also, recognizing that it was the image, not the fact, of republicanism that was what was being manipulated, it became clear in the mid 1950s that the monarchy had returned as a viable symbol of nationhood, one that carried no implicit challenge to the existing status quo.
Modern Thai Buddhism contains some serious distortions of Buddhist doctrine. Thailand’s elite are not actually putting into practice any Buddhist doctrines, any more than the West is spreading ‘democracy’ around the world. Just because they prefer to dress their despotism in pseudo-Buddhist clothing does not make this an inherent quality of the Buddhist religion.
Politicians achieve power by their force of merit, just like those born into a royal family. However, this is no guarantee of a continuation of their past virtue or even of their present good fortune. Thailand may have little choice but to continue with their bogus mandala/galactic polity but this is again not an inherent aspect of Buddhism. Any political system that upholds morality and serves the greater good is compatible with Buddhism.
One of the distortions that is common in modern Thai Buddhism is to confuse merit and accomplishment. Merit is simply potential momentum, like being born with a full tank of petrol and this is not the same as actually driving somewhere. So even the most meritorious monarch can have no special abilities unless they also pursue a spiritual practice, equivalent to that of a forest hermit.
Lastly, the achievement of fully enlightened Buddhas is not ‘knowledge’ or ‘intellectual power’ , it is awakening into a state of perfection which exists in all living creatures. Their purpose is simply to guide others to this ultimate freedom. This hardly seems like a ‘totalitarian doctrine’.
I don’t see the point of Jory’s Khomeini red herring (note : “red”). This might have some relevance to Pattani. But it’s’ almost totally irrelevant to the rest of Thailand. What on earth is Jory talking about here ?
“The problem is that most social scientists are brought in to provide some kind of legitimacy for decisions already taken by others, be they politicians, bureaucrats or other professionals (especially engineers and planners). In these circumstances, the social scientist can be a “hired gun,” where the characteristics and skills just mentioned don’t matter at all.”
Indeed, the political economy of consulting.
A good interview specially for early career academics like me.
I think actually in Buddhism, at least Thailand’s Buddhist tradition, it does indeed matter if the ruler is a monarch or an elected parliament. This relates to the current political conflict.
According to the doctrine of merit, “the people” have low merit, while the ruler, princes, officials, have high merit. Men have higher merit than women. The powerful conservative idea in Thailand today of rule by “khon di” derives partly from this doctrine (that’s why they are so intensely loyal to the monarch, since this whole moral-political order depends on him).
But an elected parliament overturns the ideal order of things, since in a republic, with a representative parliament, low merit people rule over high merit people. “Bad people” rule over “good people”. The King made a famous speech to the Village Scouts in the 1970s precisely on this topic, which is endlessly quoted even today. Every Thai person knows it (“ในบ้านเมืองนั้นมีทั้งคนดีและคนไม่ดี …)
It’s of course true that historically you can have “bad” kings (ie. low merit, failing barami), but the solution is to replace them with a good King, not a republic.
That’s why “prachathipatai”-democracy is incompatible with monarchy, as the early Thai dictionaries correctly understood.
The modern conservative idea that the people are ignorant or stupid also derives partly from this doctrine. Gray discusses this point in her great thesis. Because of their superior morality, derived from their good deeds, the King and other high merit people can see and understand things which low merit people can’t. They are mired in delusion and ignorance. So government needs to be entrusted to people who can see clearly and understand things. Of course, the epitome is the Buddha, who understands everything, because of his absolute moral purity, that was built up,over countless incarnations. “Enlightenment” is really a totalitarian doctrine: the idea that one being has total knowledge, and his authority (power-knowledge as Foucault would say) is based on that.
Kings, as bodhisattas, or future Buddhas, as beings of immense merit (barami) according to this doctrine, also have immense intellectual powers. You can see the legacy of this theory in the way the King and members of the royal family are lauded in state propaganda as geniuses in various fields, or how the modern disciplines like history, medicine, law, etc. were “fathered” by Thai princes. It sounds funny and bizarre to us today, but there is in fact a serious Buddhist intellectual foundation to this idea.
So the political, moral, and intellectual order are closely related.
In this way it’s quite clear that at the level of theory, Buddhism lends itself very well to despotic rule. In practice of course a lot of other factors come into play. But the modern historical experience of the four Theravada Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos, would seem to bear this out.
Sad day when “researchers” just regurgitate garbage from mahathir’s mouth.
Under the tenure of mahathir ;
1. Non Muslims are banned from using 39 Words .. “Allah” being one of them
2. Religious bodies like jakim, jais etc were formed or strenghtened
3. “contribution” to personal coffers were changed from the 5% to a “give me your cost, I will add the mark up” system. This has resulted in “contributions” that sometimes exceed 100% of project cost
4. Massive delineation of Govt land that were then “privatised” to individuals (cronies)
5. massive privatisation were carried out, turning govt entities into corporations, with buyers (cronies) getting bank loans, guaranteed by the govt to buy controlling shares in the companies.
etc etc… the list goes on and on and on..
As they are interdependent, it doesn’t matter whether the ruler is a monarch or an elected parliament. If the populace lack virtue and merit the quality of their leaders will reflect this fact.
If a monarch genuinely embodies the virtues of a Dhammaraja then they become a kind of holy man of worldly affairs. They would therefore be entitled to use wrathful measures when required for the good of the people (Buddhadasa’s ‘righteous despotism’). However, the virtues of a sacred king are equivalent to those of an arahant, so it is not very likely to occur. In the case of ordinary kings with ordinary virtue, they can be removed when required, just as in the West. The preference for monarchy in Buddhism is to leave the door open for potential Dhammarajas, even though they are very unlikely to occur, especially in a degenerate age. Apart from this traditional preference, Buddhism is naturally very socialist.
The question of the relationship between Buddhism and republicanism is an interesting one. Of course, modern republicanism emerges out of the Enlightenment tradition, as well as its classical origins in ancient Greece and Rome. This is of course why republicanism can be criticized by conservatives as having foreign origins not “suitable” for the Thai context. Pridi and others tried to develop theories of Buddhist socialism, but the republican element was not pronounced. As far as I know, there is no real attempt to develop a Buddhist theory of republicanism that might be comparable to, say, Khomeini’s theorization of the “Islamic republic” in Iran. But even Khomeini was actually heavily influenced by Western political philosophy.
The other extreme of constitutional development is Thailand’s fake constitutional monarchy, where Bhumibol has kicked one constitution after another into the fire. He is probably set to approve the next one, insofar as he is capable, because it disenfranchises the Thai electorate, who dared to re-elect a prime minister he thought he had the right to depose. It could be argued that he did that out of personal vanity, but it was a vanity fed for many years by the grovelling snake Prem and others. There was a pressing need to return power to his impatient toadies, whose bank balances were being threatened, both by the rise of the Thaksin clique, and by the evolution of less corrupt constitutional practices.
All this provides a good lesson on absolutism. The absolute monarch also acts largely on advice, but the power to give it is diffused through the clique that has managed to attach itself to the monarch, and down through the hierarchy of crawlers beneath. Absolutism is the form of government that is natural to a stratified society.
Probably sooner, rather than later, PEOPLE POWER would assert itself, like a volcano demanding release of suppressed heat, with explosive force. The more PM Najib and his ‘institutional abettor’ press the Malaysian people to cease and to desist from demanding accountability (of the PM) re the 1MDB scandal . . . the more the build-up of the people’s anger and outrage.
International business news headline today: “U.S. Sues To Recover Funds Allegedly Stolen From Malaysian Government Fund”
” U.S. officials say a total of $3.5 billion, raised through bond offerings made by the investment fund 1MDB between 2009 and 2015, was laundered through a series of sham transactions and shell corporations by “high level officials” of the fund and their associates. The U.S. is seeking to reclaim only about $1 billion right now, because that’s how much officials have been able to trace through the system. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, seen with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, says monies misappropriated from the 1MDB fund passed through U.S. financial institutions . . . The money was allegedly used to purchase, among other things, artwork by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, a $35 million jet, high-end real estate real estate and rights to the film The Wolf of Wall Street, U.S. officials said in a statement. One suspect, referred to in the complaint as “Malaysian official 1,” allegedly received hundreds of millions of dollars from the fund. That person has been identified in several published reports as Prime Minister Najib Razak. The Wall Street Journal has detailed how money from the fund ended up in an account controlled by Najib, who is known in Malaysia for his lavish lifestyle and expensive tastes. Najib has insisted the funds were a legal political donation from members of the royal family of Saudi Arabia. The complaints do name the prime minister’s stepson, Riza Aziz, who co-founded the film company Red Granite Productions and who is identified as ‘a relative of Malaysian official 1.’ Also named is Low Taek Jho, a/k/a Jho Low, who helped found the 1MDB fund.”
A Buddhist monarch isn’t a absolute ruler in the usual sense. Even a ‘Cakkavattin’ universal monarch is subject to divine law (Dhamma). In theory, Buddhist monarchs are also of a lower status than monks.
Elizabeth II blocked a parliamentary bill in 1999 by refusing consent. She is immune to both civil and criminal prosecution. Crown assets are also protected, as are her household staff. No legal action of any kind can take place in her presence, or in any of her residences. She also owns all the swans, sturgeons, dolphins and whales in UK waters.
Prince Charles, as Duke of Cornwall pockets the assets of anyone in the Duchy who dies intestate and his estates are not subject to any legislation of any kind. If he wished, he could even legally detonate nuclear weapons in Cornwall.
I think the last part of your post is “on the money” for the advanced economies. The monied elite, who go to the same schools, universities, live in the same suburbs, eat at the same restaurants, go to the same holiday resorts, and whose children marry each other, are a kind of new aristocracy.
RN England simply points out the reality of constitutional monarchy in the modern age: the monarchs are symbols and governments and the societies mostly behave as republics. The fact is, though, that there are three things here, not two — absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy (however active or inactive the monarch) and republic. If “republican” is defined as “no monarchy at all” then Britain doesn’t have the tradition, in the way I spoke about it; its tradition is constitutional monarchy. (Jory’s explanation makes it clearer he refers to handed-down ideology, not the practice of, if I can simplify.)
Very Good information. this should be made public to the European Union. So, that All Citizens there would understand what Thailand is really all about
The question of “THAI Buddhist tradition” is an interesting one, especially in view of the fact that the LAO monarchy employed similar indoctrination techniques of subordination and servility, but were overthrown. Today, of course the Lao PDR official position is : that there exists no contradiction between Buddhism and Lao Republican “Marxism”. And the question still remains to be answered : how much do the majority of Lao people – who actually live on Thailand – NOW see themselves forcefully first and foremost as “Thai”, Royalist, Lao, Republican, or some sort of in-between Thaksinite lao khao strange brew mixture. Only time will tell.
I don’t think polo understands Britain at all. The last 300 years of British political history is dominated by the rise of the republican tradition and its de facto victory over monarchism. What is called constitutional monarchy has monarchy only as a facade. The only politically meaningful words the monarch is allowed to utter in public are decided by the parliament. All that remains of monarchy is a pantomime of bows, curtsies, and excruciating small talk. But I think it could be argued that the republican tradition itself has now become a facade, as the shopkeepers of little England retake the nation, and the people abandon the last of their civic responsibilities to modern Toryism– the absolute rule of money.
This is a great article, and I wish this Ph.D. student well, in a very promising field where yes, the Turnbull goverment should give more punch to its’ promises. But is n’t there a touch of ? :
A) old fashioned Aussie cultural cringe (are we REALLY so far behind, in the areas she suggests?).
And :
B) digital Utopianism – eg. despite its’ tech-savvy, Hong Kong’s Umbrella protest was crushed. Political power still grows out of the barrel of a gun.
And Thai cyber-dissidents have largely failed (despite some successful disabling attempts) to bring down the junta’s cyber-regime, which was possible – but will be virtually impossible once that single gateway is established. NOT that I am ADVOCATING any of this. I am simply noting the developments – or, non-developments.
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Interview with Angie Ngoc Tran
[…] veteran mainland Chinese management along in the chase for low wages. This is illustrated by the 2014 anti-China factory riots, in which Taiwanese factories were reportedly looted and burned in anger over a Chinese oil rig […]
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
There is an article in the December issue of Art & Culture Magazine, ลัทธิบูชารัฐธรรมนูญ” กับสยามสมัยคณะราษฎร โดย ดร.ภูริ ฟูวงศ์เจริญ ใน ศิลปวัฒนธรรม ฉบับ ธันวาคม 2558). It is worth a read, if you can find it. The article makes it clear that the constitution, a reification of republicanism, was for a while a key symbol manipulated by post-revolutionary nationalist governments to claim legitimacy. It was used in this way in the absence of a king — my interpretation — in effect as a substitute for a king. So that was pretty radical, in today’s terms.
That it didn’t take hold in popular imagination is perhaps attributable to the lack of cosmological fit between the notions of constitution and monarch, as Dr. Jory suggests. It is also surely abetted by the total disregard for the fact of existing constitutions on the part of an 80 year parade of coup leaders. Also, recognizing that it was the image, not the fact, of republicanism that was what was being manipulated, it became clear in the mid 1950s that the monarchy had returned as a viable symbol of nationhood, one that carried no implicit challenge to the existing status quo.
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
Modern Thai Buddhism contains some serious distortions of Buddhist doctrine. Thailand’s elite are not actually putting into practice any Buddhist doctrines, any more than the West is spreading ‘democracy’ around the world. Just because they prefer to dress their despotism in pseudo-Buddhist clothing does not make this an inherent quality of the Buddhist religion.
Politicians achieve power by their force of merit, just like those born into a royal family. However, this is no guarantee of a continuation of their past virtue or even of their present good fortune. Thailand may have little choice but to continue with their bogus mandala/galactic polity but this is again not an inherent aspect of Buddhism. Any political system that upholds morality and serves the greater good is compatible with Buddhism.
One of the distortions that is common in modern Thai Buddhism is to confuse merit and accomplishment. Merit is simply potential momentum, like being born with a full tank of petrol and this is not the same as actually driving somewhere. So even the most meritorious monarch can have no special abilities unless they also pursue a spiritual practice, equivalent to that of a forest hermit.
Lastly, the achievement of fully enlightened Buddhas is not ‘knowledge’ or ‘intellectual power’ , it is awakening into a state of perfection which exists in all living creatures. Their purpose is simply to guide others to this ultimate freedom. This hardly seems like a ‘totalitarian doctrine’.
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
I don’t see the point of Jory’s Khomeini red herring (note : “red”). This might have some relevance to Pattani. But it’s’ almost totally irrelevant to the rest of Thailand. What on earth is Jory talking about here ?
Interview with Professor Kevin Hewison – Part One
“The problem is that most social scientists are brought in to provide some kind of legitimacy for decisions already taken by others, be they politicians, bureaucrats or other professionals (especially engineers and planners). In these circumstances, the social scientist can be a “hired gun,” where the characteristics and skills just mentioned don’t matter at all.”
Indeed, the political economy of consulting.
A good interview specially for early career academics like me.
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
I think actually in Buddhism, at least Thailand’s Buddhist tradition, it does indeed matter if the ruler is a monarch or an elected parliament. This relates to the current political conflict.
According to the doctrine of merit, “the people” have low merit, while the ruler, princes, officials, have high merit. Men have higher merit than women. The powerful conservative idea in Thailand today of rule by “khon di” derives partly from this doctrine (that’s why they are so intensely loyal to the monarch, since this whole moral-political order depends on him).
But an elected parliament overturns the ideal order of things, since in a republic, with a representative parliament, low merit people rule over high merit people. “Bad people” rule over “good people”. The King made a famous speech to the Village Scouts in the 1970s precisely on this topic, which is endlessly quoted even today. Every Thai person knows it (“ในบ้านเมืองนั้นมีทั้งคนดีและคนไม่ดี …)
It’s of course true that historically you can have “bad” kings (ie. low merit, failing barami), but the solution is to replace them with a good King, not a republic.
That’s why “prachathipatai”-democracy is incompatible with monarchy, as the early Thai dictionaries correctly understood.
The modern conservative idea that the people are ignorant or stupid also derives partly from this doctrine. Gray discusses this point in her great thesis. Because of their superior morality, derived from their good deeds, the King and other high merit people can see and understand things which low merit people can’t. They are mired in delusion and ignorance. So government needs to be entrusted to people who can see clearly and understand things. Of course, the epitome is the Buddha, who understands everything, because of his absolute moral purity, that was built up,over countless incarnations. “Enlightenment” is really a totalitarian doctrine: the idea that one being has total knowledge, and his authority (power-knowledge as Foucault would say) is based on that.
Kings, as bodhisattas, or future Buddhas, as beings of immense merit (barami) according to this doctrine, also have immense intellectual powers. You can see the legacy of this theory in the way the King and members of the royal family are lauded in state propaganda as geniuses in various fields, or how the modern disciplines like history, medicine, law, etc. were “fathered” by Thai princes. It sounds funny and bizarre to us today, but there is in fact a serious Buddhist intellectual foundation to this idea.
So the political, moral, and intellectual order are closely related.
In this way it’s quite clear that at the level of theory, Buddhism lends itself very well to despotic rule. In practice of course a lot of other factors come into play. But the modern historical experience of the four Theravada Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos, would seem to bear this out.
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
He does not pocket the assets of anyone who dies intestate. Only of those who die intestate AND have no living relatives.
Social cohesion and scandal cycles in Malaysia
Sad day when “researchers” just regurgitate garbage from mahathir’s mouth.
Under the tenure of mahathir ;
1. Non Muslims are banned from using 39 Words .. “Allah” being one of them
2. Religious bodies like jakim, jais etc were formed or strenghtened
3. “contribution” to personal coffers were changed from the 5% to a “give me your cost, I will add the mark up” system. This has resulted in “contributions” that sometimes exceed 100% of project cost
4. Massive delineation of Govt land that were then “privatised” to individuals (cronies)
5. massive privatisation were carried out, turning govt entities into corporations, with buyers (cronies) getting bank loans, guaranteed by the govt to buy controlling shares in the companies.
etc etc… the list goes on and on and on..
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
As they are interdependent, it doesn’t matter whether the ruler is a monarch or an elected parliament. If the populace lack virtue and merit the quality of their leaders will reflect this fact.
If a monarch genuinely embodies the virtues of a Dhammaraja then they become a kind of holy man of worldly affairs. They would therefore be entitled to use wrathful measures when required for the good of the people (Buddhadasa’s ‘righteous despotism’). However, the virtues of a sacred king are equivalent to those of an arahant, so it is not very likely to occur. In the case of ordinary kings with ordinary virtue, they can be removed when required, just as in the West. The preference for monarchy in Buddhism is to leave the door open for potential Dhammarajas, even though they are very unlikely to occur, especially in a degenerate age. Apart from this traditional preference, Buddhism is naturally very socialist.
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
The question of the relationship between Buddhism and republicanism is an interesting one. Of course, modern republicanism emerges out of the Enlightenment tradition, as well as its classical origins in ancient Greece and Rome. This is of course why republicanism can be criticized by conservatives as having foreign origins not “suitable” for the Thai context. Pridi and others tried to develop theories of Buddhist socialism, but the republican element was not pronounced. As far as I know, there is no real attempt to develop a Buddhist theory of republicanism that might be comparable to, say, Khomeini’s theorization of the “Islamic republic” in Iran. But even Khomeini was actually heavily influenced by Western political philosophy.
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
The other extreme of constitutional development is Thailand’s fake constitutional monarchy, where Bhumibol has kicked one constitution after another into the fire. He is probably set to approve the next one, insofar as he is capable, because it disenfranchises the Thai electorate, who dared to re-elect a prime minister he thought he had the right to depose. It could be argued that he did that out of personal vanity, but it was a vanity fed for many years by the grovelling snake Prem and others. There was a pressing need to return power to his impatient toadies, whose bank balances were being threatened, both by the rise of the Thaksin clique, and by the evolution of less corrupt constitutional practices.
All this provides a good lesson on absolutism. The absolute monarch also acts largely on advice, but the power to give it is diffused through the clique that has managed to attach itself to the monarch, and down through the hierarchy of crawlers beneath. Absolutism is the form of government that is natural to a stratified society.
The Kuala Lumpur logo controversy
Probably sooner, rather than later, PEOPLE POWER would assert itself, like a volcano demanding release of suppressed heat, with explosive force. The more PM Najib and his ‘institutional abettor’ press the Malaysian people to cease and to desist from demanding accountability (of the PM) re the 1MDB scandal . . . the more the build-up of the people’s anger and outrage.
International business news headline today: “U.S. Sues To Recover Funds Allegedly Stolen From Malaysian Government Fund”
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/20/486755672/u-s-sues-to-recover-funds-allegedly-stolen-from-malaysian-government-fund
Excerpts:
” U.S. officials say a total of $3.5 billion, raised through bond offerings made by the investment fund 1MDB between 2009 and 2015, was laundered through a series of sham transactions and shell corporations by “high level officials” of the fund and their associates. The U.S. is seeking to reclaim only about $1 billion right now, because that’s how much officials have been able to trace through the system. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, seen with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, says monies misappropriated from the 1MDB fund passed through U.S. financial institutions . . . The money was allegedly used to purchase, among other things, artwork by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, a $35 million jet, high-end real estate real estate and rights to the film The Wolf of Wall Street, U.S. officials said in a statement. One suspect, referred to in the complaint as “Malaysian official 1,” allegedly received hundreds of millions of dollars from the fund. That person has been identified in several published reports as Prime Minister Najib Razak. The Wall Street Journal has detailed how money from the fund ended up in an account controlled by Najib, who is known in Malaysia for his lavish lifestyle and expensive tastes. Najib has insisted the funds were a legal political donation from members of the royal family of Saudi Arabia. The complaints do name the prime minister’s stepson, Riza Aziz, who co-founded the film company Red Granite Productions and who is identified as ‘a relative of Malaysian official 1.’ Also named is Low Taek Jho, a/k/a Jho Low, who helped found the 1MDB fund.”
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
A Buddhist monarch isn’t a absolute ruler in the usual sense. Even a ‘Cakkavattin’ universal monarch is subject to divine law (Dhamma). In theory, Buddhist monarchs are also of a lower status than monks.
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
Elizabeth II blocked a parliamentary bill in 1999 by refusing consent. She is immune to both civil and criminal prosecution. Crown assets are also protected, as are her household staff. No legal action of any kind can take place in her presence, or in any of her residences. She also owns all the swans, sturgeons, dolphins and whales in UK waters.
Prince Charles, as Duke of Cornwall pockets the assets of anyone in the Duchy who dies intestate and his estates are not subject to any legislation of any kind. If he wished, he could even legally detonate nuclear weapons in Cornwall.
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
I think the last part of your post is “on the money” for the advanced economies. The monied elite, who go to the same schools, universities, live in the same suburbs, eat at the same restaurants, go to the same holiday resorts, and whose children marry each other, are a kind of new aristocracy.
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
RN England simply points out the reality of constitutional monarchy in the modern age: the monarchs are symbols and governments and the societies mostly behave as republics. The fact is, though, that there are three things here, not two — absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy (however active or inactive the monarch) and republic. If “republican” is defined as “no monarchy at all” then Britain doesn’t have the tradition, in the way I spoke about it; its tradition is constitutional monarchy. (Jory’s explanation makes it clearer he refers to handed-down ideology, not the practice of, if I can simplify.)
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
Very Good information. this should be made public to the European Union. So, that All Citizens there would understand what Thailand is really all about
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
The question of “THAI Buddhist tradition” is an interesting one, especially in view of the fact that the LAO monarchy employed similar indoctrination techniques of subordination and servility, but were overthrown. Today, of course the Lao PDR official position is : that there exists no contradiction between Buddhism and Lao Republican “Marxism”. And the question still remains to be answered : how much do the majority of Lao people – who actually live on Thailand – NOW see themselves forcefully first and foremost as “Thai”, Royalist, Lao, Republican, or some sort of in-between Thaksinite lao khao strange brew mixture. Only time will tell.
Thailand’s hidden republican tradition
I don’t think polo understands Britain at all. The last 300 years of British political history is dominated by the rise of the republican tradition and its de facto victory over monarchism. What is called constitutional monarchy has monarchy only as a facade. The only politically meaningful words the monarch is allowed to utter in public are decided by the parliament. All that remains of monarchy is a pantomime of bows, curtsies, and excruciating small talk. But I think it could be argued that the republican tradition itself has now become a facade, as the shopkeepers of little England retake the nation, and the people abandon the last of their civic responsibilities to modern Toryism– the absolute rule of money.
Australia offline in an online world
This is a great article, and I wish this Ph.D. student well, in a very promising field where yes, the Turnbull goverment should give more punch to its’ promises. But is n’t there a touch of ? :
A) old fashioned Aussie cultural cringe (are we REALLY so far behind, in the areas she suggests?).
And :
B) digital Utopianism – eg. despite its’ tech-savvy, Hong Kong’s Umbrella protest was crushed. Political power still grows out of the barrel of a gun.
And Thai cyber-dissidents have largely failed (despite some successful disabling attempts) to bring down the junta’s cyber-regime, which was possible – but will be virtually impossible once that single gateway is established. NOT that I am ADVOCATING any of this. I am simply noting the developments – or, non-developments.