Republican I did expect your reply but I did not expect it to be that short. Do articulate some more sir Republican on why HMK of Thailand deserves to be no. 5 in the list. Maybe Anon, Taxi Driver and of course my friend Andrew Walker can fill in what you have missed.
Then the four of you can keep reading and re-reading what you wrote to lull you all to blissful sleep.
Tosakan – Well, yes of course there are exceptions; and I also love the weather hypothesis. I also think that Thailand suffers from its own variant of the “oil curse” – it is an amazingly rich country with tons of natural resources, fertile fields, long coastlines, few major natural disasters (yes, some floods and maybe a tsunami every 700 years, but no volcanoes, typhoons, earthquakes, etc), that has been at relative peace for decades. Instead of marvelling at how much its grown, the real mystery is why it’s still so backwards – I think it’s because life is so easy here. Why bother? There’s fish in the sea and rice in the fields – relax. Vichai is right on. Of course, this attitude also allows the more ambitious and conniving to take advantage of the situation, and they do. Driving behavior is a good metaphor, I think – 90% of Thai drivers will let you get away with all sorts of psycho behavior, and the other 10% consequently exhibit all sorts of psycho behavior.
Your “governmental outsourcing” idea is similar to a solution I proposed when the Shin Corp sale was first announced and so many hackles were raised – how about incorporating Singapore into Thailand as its 77th (I think) province? That way, Singaporeans will automatically become Thais, and there’s no more problem of “foreign ownership” – plus the PAP could contest elections, and then we’d have a real competition going on! The Singaporeans are clamoring for a real country to run, and Thailand could sure use a bit of Singaporean efficiency – seems like a win-win to me!
nganadeeleg – I completely agree with your point about the quality of farang here, though I see a lot of farang-worship as well as farang-hating. The hating i can understand – how do you explain the worship?
One of the problems with “Mekong region/countries” ist that they are very different in political terms. Sometimes, this leads to funny situations, for example when training courses for people from these countries are offered. Imagine a course for higher-level civil servants who spend four weeks on being familiarized with “public sector reform.” Given the great political-administrative differences of these countries, this sort of thing can only mean very different things to people from Burma, Laos, Vietnam, China, Cambodia, and Thailand. What will participants from the first three countries think when you explain the approach of “democratic decentralization” to them by using Thailand as an example?
I would say this is indicative of two things: (i) the problem that most people have of criticizing the coup and the regime too strongly or openly, particularly in academic forums, given the support it has been given by the monarchy (the problem of lese majeste, once again); and (ii) the betrayal of the Thai electorate by the majority of Thai social science academics, whose support for the anti-Thaksin movement last year demonstrates their preference for a royalist-military dictatorship over an elected government. A Thai university seminar is not the place to expect a liberal critique of Thai politics. What you can expect to see are rantings and ravings about the evils of capitalism, Western culture, expessions of loyalty to the monarchy, and of course, deep concern for the plight of the poor rural folk. Just don’t expect these academics to argue that the poor rural folk’s right to elect their own representatives should be respected. After all, that would put these academics out of a job – the job they have given themselves of speaking for the poor!
#26: Thank you Vichai for giving me this opportunity. Of course, you would know that I could not be satisfied with your list. Obviously I would replace #5 with “Bhumibol of Thailand”, based on the following qualities he has in common, with Suharto in particular:
(i) longetivity of his authoritarian regime
(ii) Western education and modern outlook, disguised by a phoney pretence at embodying “traditional cultural values” of the nation
(iii) control of the military as the basis of his political power
(iv) promoter of authoritarian state-led developmentalism
(v) willingness to ruthlessly crush opposition when necessary
(vi) intolerance of criticism (hence the lese majeste law)
(vii) tight control of his image in the state controlled media
(viii) strong support for anti-communism (hence the support of the US)
(ix) deep anti-democratic sentiment
(x) head of a huge, untouchable business empire (the Crown Property Bureau)
(xi) distrust of market liberalization (ie. “sufficiency economy”) as he realizes, rightly, that it will adversely affect his business interests and those of his allies, and hence the position of the monarchy
(xii) widespread abuse of their privileges by his children and family
(xiii) surrounded by cronies (the Privy Councillors, royalists in the military, “Network Monarchy”, etc.)
(xiv) hypocritical discourse of “morality” late in his life, motivated purely by political objectives (Suharto’s interest in Islam in the final years of his regime to neutralize the Islamic movement; Bhumibol’s “sufficiency economy” to attack Thaksin’s popular brand of capitalism)
Thanks, first of all for your comments..Republican!!.. to our prefered way of life in here, Thailand. Your comment completely implied how much or barely you really know or understand what about our sufficiency economy’s concept exactly is..apearently! How geneous you are!! You didn’t know what exactly it based on ..right!? Maybe you shoud learn some of our great philosopher Dr.Sittattha before you said or showed off your brilliant IQ, EQ or even PQ also! So, you have to admit one true thing before given your big mounth around here, that we are molded in the different backgrounds both of physical and social environments, including the way of thoughts and particulary different experiances! So, what is the rule that you dared just our prefered way of life…and moreover for the example you gave in case about tourism country as us to be applied by our sufficiency philosophy might be imposible in your eyes but didn’t you know when you came around to travel here that now we’ve already applied it in our tourism more than 20 years before..Its aim to protected over exceeding natural exploitations..to delay the decayed rates to sustainable for recovering..that’s it! But you didn’t mention about it at all..how you understand our philosophy completely..huh?!
Genious!! We all have both of dark and bright sides all the rest! Last but not least,
I give this to you Republican..Do not just anyone if you still not walking 2 moons in his/her moccacines!
1.There are an uncountable number of king in the past, present king, royal family, relatives and high society people in Thailand who have special rights more than general people.
2.These group of people are out of constitutional law.
3.Military and people relate to king project or business gain high benefit.
4.Thai student books has been writen to brush people brain to respect these group of people.
So, they keep power, while Thai people still close eyes and stay in the old world.
China leader, Japan leader used to involve in the war.
If that day Germany won the war, no one would accused Hitler.
Nowaday, Germany is going to be giant again.
Don’t compare Germany and Thailand because we can not comparable, whatever the economy, the number of educated people, the technology. Thailand has lower development. The quality of leader and government teams are uncomparable.
I used to like the Nation newspaper but now it receives high money from the coup to write the bias news. They do not write the fact of news. Most of them are opinion.
[…] It can be all too easy to foget that many people in Burma – including many Karen, Shan, Kachin and others – have fought for decades.┬ Short-term mercenaries they are not!┬ It is because of the life-long commitment of soldiers like Brig-Gen Htain Maung that the armed independence movements on Burma’s fringes┬ now enjoy such long histories.┬ […]
The Burmese people were once proud fierce warriors (history of wars with Thailand). How could they have taken so much abuse from General Newin and the military juntas that followed in never-ending succession.
Because whatever point you are trying to make with your sarcasm and questions is not clear, at least to me.
If the question is why throngs of yellow shirted Thais worship and deify their King, there are many answers for it.
But since your post is dripping with sarcasm as if we all should know out in internetland, why don’t you contribute to the thread and answer the question yourself?
Or maybe you don’t know the answer and you are just being a dick.
good discussion. despite all the rants and raving about the failure of liberal democracy in thailand, don’t people here wonder why thai people, elites, the masses, and all, (excepting perhaps those who are afflicted with western democractic ideals), bow down to their king with utmost respect and fealty? doesn’t it matter to these bloggers who claimed to be democrats how such throng of people numbering in millions are willing to subjugate their reasons for a belief which they “know” is manufactured for their consumption? how can the majority be so wrong, if we have to take the discussions earlier?
good post and nice shirt (do bloggers get a piece?).
anyway, talking about regional development, i was thinking how far regional can it be when the coverage of the mekong among the key players is quite uneven spatially. if my estimate is right, around 10-15% in Thailand, whole (or nearly) of Cambodia and Laos and about 30% in Vietnam. and these are only the lower basin countries. also, the ‘region’ is essentially being defined by the interests of multilateral institutions, notably, ADB, WB, and MRC, as for example in the case of the LMC and GMS. perhaps the ‘mekong’ has more salience as a reference point to a region.
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Diplomatic exchange carried by The Nation
Republican I did expect your reply but I did not expect it to be that short. Do articulate some more sir Republican on why HMK of Thailand deserves to be no. 5 in the list. Maybe Anon, Taxi Driver and of course my friend Andrew Walker can fill in what you have missed.
Then the four of you can keep reading and re-reading what you wrote to lull you all to blissful sleep.
Diplomatic exchange carried by The Nation
Do NOT be angry Patiwat because those lousy Thai academics would dare malign Hitler, err…. I mean Thaksin.
I will make up for that. I hereby declare that Thaksin is definitely better, not worse, than Hitler.
Satisfied Paiwat. So I hope your neck Patiwat don’t get too red in anger sir.
Diplomatic exchange carried by The Nation
Tosakan – Well, yes of course there are exceptions; and I also love the weather hypothesis. I also think that Thailand suffers from its own variant of the “oil curse” – it is an amazingly rich country with tons of natural resources, fertile fields, long coastlines, few major natural disasters (yes, some floods and maybe a tsunami every 700 years, but no volcanoes, typhoons, earthquakes, etc), that has been at relative peace for decades. Instead of marvelling at how much its grown, the real mystery is why it’s still so backwards – I think it’s because life is so easy here. Why bother? There’s fish in the sea and rice in the fields – relax. Vichai is right on. Of course, this attitude also allows the more ambitious and conniving to take advantage of the situation, and they do. Driving behavior is a good metaphor, I think – 90% of Thai drivers will let you get away with all sorts of psycho behavior, and the other 10% consequently exhibit all sorts of psycho behavior.
Your “governmental outsourcing” idea is similar to a solution I proposed when the Shin Corp sale was first announced and so many hackles were raised – how about incorporating Singapore into Thailand as its 77th (I think) province? That way, Singaporeans will automatically become Thais, and there’s no more problem of “foreign ownership” – plus the PAP could contest elections, and then we’d have a real competition going on! The Singaporeans are clamoring for a real country to run, and Thailand could sure use a bit of Singaporean efficiency – seems like a win-win to me!
nganadeeleg – I completely agree with your point about the quality of farang here, though I see a lot of farang-worship as well as farang-hating. The hating i can understand – how do you explain the worship?
Don’t mention the coup!
One of the problems with “Mekong region/countries” ist that they are very different in political terms. Sometimes, this leads to funny situations, for example when training courses for people from these countries are offered. Imagine a course for higher-level civil servants who spend four weeks on being familiarized with “public sector reform.” Given the great political-administrative differences of these countries, this sort of thing can only mean very different things to people from Burma, Laos, Vietnam, China, Cambodia, and Thailand. What will participants from the first three countries think when you explain the approach of “democratic decentralization” to them by using Thailand as an example?
Don’t mention the coup!
Andrew…maybe you didn’t notice that all the other conference participants were wearing yellow!
Don’t mention the coup!
I would say this is indicative of two things: (i) the problem that most people have of criticizing the coup and the regime too strongly or openly, particularly in academic forums, given the support it has been given by the monarchy (the problem of lese majeste, once again); and (ii) the betrayal of the Thai electorate by the majority of Thai social science academics, whose support for the anti-Thaksin movement last year demonstrates their preference for a royalist-military dictatorship over an elected government. A Thai university seminar is not the place to expect a liberal critique of Thai politics. What you can expect to see are rantings and ravings about the evils of capitalism, Western culture, expessions of loyalty to the monarchy, and of course, deep concern for the plight of the poor rural folk. Just don’t expect these academics to argue that the poor rural folk’s right to elect their own representatives should be respected. After all, that would put these academics out of a job – the job they have given themselves of speaking for the poor!
Diplomatic exchange carried by The Nation
#26: Thank you Vichai for giving me this opportunity. Of course, you would know that I could not be satisfied with your list. Obviously I would replace #5 with “Bhumibol of Thailand”, based on the following qualities he has in common, with Suharto in particular:
(i) longetivity of his authoritarian regime
(ii) Western education and modern outlook, disguised by a phoney pretence at embodying “traditional cultural values” of the nation
(iii) control of the military as the basis of his political power
(iv) promoter of authoritarian state-led developmentalism
(v) willingness to ruthlessly crush opposition when necessary
(vi) intolerance of criticism (hence the lese majeste law)
(vii) tight control of his image in the state controlled media
(viii) strong support for anti-communism (hence the support of the US)
(ix) deep anti-democratic sentiment
(x) head of a huge, untouchable business empire (the Crown Property Bureau)
(xi) distrust of market liberalization (ie. “sufficiency economy”) as he realizes, rightly, that it will adversely affect his business interests and those of his allies, and hence the position of the monarchy
(xii) widespread abuse of their privileges by his children and family
(xiii) surrounded by cronies (the Privy Councillors, royalists in the military, “Network Monarchy”, etc.)
(xiv) hypocritical discourse of “morality” late in his life, motivated purely by political objectives (Suharto’s interest in Islam in the final years of his regime to neutralize the Islamic movement; Bhumibol’s “sufficiency economy” to attack Thaksin’s popular brand of capitalism)
etc. etc.
Diplomatic exchange carried by The Nation
When a prominent Thai academic acuses Thaksin of being worse than Hitler, then an “academic site” and a “redneck forum” aren’t too different.
More debate on The King Never Smiles
to June:
And was (is) Thaksin the antidote, or just more of the same, but without a heart?
Diplomatic exchange carried by The Nation
Is this an academic site, or a redneck forum?
Its gone from Thaksin being compared to Hitler, to the Chinese being the Jews of the East, to thai fascism.
I might as well add to the sweeping generalizations:
– IMHO many commentators on this site exhibit signs of Aryanism
– its little wonder some Thais have a low opinion of farang, given the quality of farang that they come across.
The Economist on the UNDP’s Thailand Report
Thanks, first of all for your comments..Republican!!.. to our prefered way of life in here, Thailand. Your comment completely implied how much or barely you really know or understand what about our sufficiency economy’s concept exactly is..apearently! How geneous you are!! You didn’t know what exactly it based on ..right!? Maybe you shoud learn some of our great philosopher Dr.Sittattha before you said or showed off your brilliant IQ, EQ or even PQ also! So, you have to admit one true thing before given your big mounth around here, that we are molded in the different backgrounds both of physical and social environments, including the way of thoughts and particulary different experiances! So, what is the rule that you dared just our prefered way of life…and moreover for the example you gave in case about tourism country as us to be applied by our sufficiency philosophy might be imposible in your eyes but didn’t you know when you came around to travel here that now we’ve already applied it in our tourism more than 20 years before..Its aim to protected over exceeding natural exploitations..to delay the decayed rates to sustainable for recovering..that’s it! But you didn’t mention about it at all..how you understand our philosophy completely..huh?!
Genious!! We all have both of dark and bright sides all the rest! Last but not least,
I give this to you Republican..Do not just anyone if you still not walking 2 moons in his/her moccacines!
More debate on The King Never Smiles
1.There are an uncountable number of king in the past, present king, royal family, relatives and high society people in Thailand who have special rights more than general people.
2.These group of people are out of constitutional law.
3.Military and people relate to king project or business gain high benefit.
4.Thai student books has been writen to brush people brain to respect these group of people.
So, they keep power, while Thai people still close eyes and stay in the old world.
Diplomatic exchange carried by The Nation
China leader, Japan leader used to involve in the war.
If that day Germany won the war, no one would accused Hitler.
Nowaday, Germany is going to be giant again.
Diplomatic exchange carried by The Nation
Don’t compare Germany and Thailand because we can not comparable, whatever the economy, the number of educated people, the technology. Thailand has lower development. The quality of leader and government teams are uncomparable.
I used to like the Nation newspaper but now it receives high money from the coup to write the bias news. They do not write the fact of news. Most of them are opinion.
Volunteering to fight in Burma
[…] It can be all too easy to foget that many people in Burma – including many Karen, Shan, Kachin and others – have fought for decades.┬ Short-term mercenaries they are not!┬ It is because of the life-long commitment of soldiers like Brig-Gen Htain Maung that the armed independence movements on Burma’s fringes┬ now enjoy such long histories.┬ […]
Volunteering to fight in Burma
The Burmese people were once proud fierce warriors (history of wars with Thailand). How could they have taken so much abuse from General Newin and the military juntas that followed in never-ending succession.
Speculation on succession
Diego-
Why don’t you just spit out your point?
Because whatever point you are trying to make with your sarcasm and questions is not clear, at least to me.
If the question is why throngs of yellow shirted Thais worship and deify their King, there are many answers for it.
But since your post is dripping with sarcasm as if we all should know out in internetland, why don’t you contribute to the thread and answer the question yourself?
Or maybe you don’t know the answer and you are just being a dick.
Speculation on succession
good discussion. despite all the rants and raving about the failure of liberal democracy in thailand, don’t people here wonder why thai people, elites, the masses, and all, (excepting perhaps those who are afflicted with western democractic ideals), bow down to their king with utmost respect and fealty? doesn’t it matter to these bloggers who claimed to be democrats how such throng of people numbering in millions are willing to subjugate their reasons for a belief which they “know” is manufactured for their consumption? how can the majority be so wrong, if we have to take the discussions earlier?
Critical transitions?
good post and nice shirt (do bloggers get a piece?).
anyway, talking about regional development, i was thinking how far regional can it be when the coverage of the mekong among the key players is quite uneven spatially. if my estimate is right, around 10-15% in Thailand, whole (or nearly) of Cambodia and Laos and about 30% in Vietnam. and these are only the lower basin countries. also, the ‘region’ is essentially being defined by the interests of multilateral institutions, notably, ADB, WB, and MRC, as for example in the case of the LMC and GMS. perhaps the ‘mekong’ has more salience as a reference point to a region.
Volunteering to fight in Burma
nic, perhaps you will be the first one…after or during your phd!
a