Kevin! I am wondering the same thing as you. SCL claims to have worked in Philippines but doesnt list Duterte specifically as a client. Which conferences did Nix attend before the elections?
Chris Beale, Peter Cohen has contradicted you, not supported you. What you write about Indonesia is often so far from contemporary reality that I don’t know if you are just hopelessly uninformed, or, like with your grotesque and slanderous Prayut-Ahok comparison in another thread, willfully trolling. The developments in Indonesia are no joke. It is the biggest Muslim majority country in the world and the last big example of a more or less moderate Muslim majority country. If the intolerant strains of Islam finally win in Indonesia, this will be sad news not only for Indonesia, but the whole world. If you don’t know anything about contemporary Indonesia, stop writing about it.
The Abangan – Santri divide has ceased to be important decades ago. The orthodox Islam of the Santri has won completely. The openly practicing Abangan are a tiny, tiny minority now, often persecuted. Many scholars have written about this development. Many NGOs but also e.g. the wife of the Sultan of Yogyakarta have complained about it.
The important question now is if Indonesia manages to uphold its tradition of “unity in diversity” despite its already ‘orthodoxified’ Islam or whether Indonesia follows the Middle East and North Africa in interpreting Islam in a more and more intolerant, narrow-minded way.
The freedom to protest peacefully is also an important (but underrated) attribute of a rule of law culture. Legitimate public protest is an important element in signalling a desire to curb arbitrary exercises of power (regardless of whether or not the protest itself yields and immediate policy change)
And presumably why the public is being already softened up to accept further election delays.
The international community appears to have stopped inviting Prayuth to events he can use to strut around and pretend that other countries believe what he says. Seems like nobody outside Thailand believes him, and increasingly few inside Thailand believe him.
There may be dark times ahead because I really don’t think he’s bright enough to change his ways. Delusions of grandeur. He wants history to remember him as the guy that saved Thailand. Personally I have my doubts.
“While plenty of past reports have put forth sensible recommendations, too often, domestic and international responses to the Rohingya crisis suffer from the phenomenon of goal displacement. Rather than stopping the violence or increasing humanitarian and development assistance, a common response to a newsworthy report is to issue another statement, request another report or investigation, and maybe host a multilateral meeting.”
…. Exactly!
Thank you for sharing this here on NM. Cool and measured analysis amidst a sea of victimology, propaganda, and sensationalized headlines.
There must be some way out of this current situation.
No, it is not. The greatest divide is between Arabized Indonesians and those Indonesians who call for a strictly Indonesian, non-Arab, indigenous Islam.
Nothing substantial will change in Thailand – until the official mourning period for the late, great King is over. After which, all is up for grabs. Which is WHY Prayut is launching his attack on Dhammakaya temple NOW, not later.
Chris, your comment shows so much ignorance, both about Muslim majority countries in general and Indonesia in particular as well as both historical and contemporary fascism in the West, it’s hard to know where to begin.
Hardline Islamic groups from FIP to ISIS use religion, Islam as a binding tool, not nationalism or race (like fascism). The demonstrations against the Christian governor Ahok were staged, because he had allegedly committed blasphemy by “insulting” the Muslim holy book, the Al-Quran. The demonstrations were supported by many mainstream Muslims, which shows there are shared “Islamic values” between mainstream and radical Muslims, especially a shared sensitivity about “defending” Islam against perceived “insults”. Far too many mainstream Muslims accepted the leadership of radicals, under the given circumstances. One of the gubernatorial candidates, Anies Baswedan, even went to the headquarter of the radical FPI to have a friendly meeting with these religious bigots and later said, he only did so to prove his good Sunni Muslim identity. If you say all of this has nothing to do with Islam you are denying reality.
The vast majority of Western fascist groups don’t and historically didn’t refer to Christianity at all, both Italian and even more so German fascism were quite anti-clerical in fact. And where in historical Fascism there was a connection between the church, and Fascism, it is clearly mentioned by historians. No serious historian would write about Franco’s Spain without mentioning the role of the Catholic church. No serious historian would write about Croatian fascism without talking about the role of the Catholic church.
I can understand your desire not to contribute to an undeserved hatred against ordinary Muslims in the West, because I share this desire. But this cannot be done by denying reality, and betraying minorities and moderate Muslims in the Islamic world that fight against the radicals. Moderate Muslims involved in this struggle often see very clearly the connection between aspects of orthodox Islam and the Islamist radicals.
we were born and raised in Brunei! My late granny was Brunei Dusun origin and my late grandpa was from Hong Kong. So, we are Brunei Sino-Dusun (Dusun-Chinese). My late granny was bestowed “Orang Kaya Perkasa Antak” by the Brunei late Sultan Haji Omar Ali Saifuddien Saadul Khairi Waddien ibni Sultan Muhammad Jamalul Alam II.
We are not given a citizenship either till today. My Sister, brother and even me had sat for the Brunei citizenship exam years ago till today the answer is ‘wait, belum ada news yet!” My sister had gotten her letter informing her that she has passed her citizenship exam (6 – 7 years ago) and when she went to immigration to ask about the status recently, the officer told her “not yet ada news, even you passed the exam doesn’t mean you are given a citizenship status”. Well, I don’t really care about my citizenship exam results, all my concern are, please give me a PASSPORT (NOT Brunei Certificate of Identity) to travel. I guess that’s most of Brunei PR’s wish!
I might agree partially with the view expressed here, though I have not seen anyone claim that the undeniable social engineering that has taken place in Thailand over time is the only cause of anything. It is however (in my view), a major contributory factor to quite a lot of downstream problems in Thailand, including the failure of law and order, the extraordinary ubiquity of institutionalised corruption and the general psychology and culture of Thais, which many find superficially attractive, imho mistaking the leopard’s spots for the leopard.
There is a big difference between thinking something ought not to be true because it offends out personal world-view (or more often what they would like to think is true), and it actually not being true. I surmise that John knows this because his phrasing strongly suggests that whereas Matthews post was just offensive (and largely wrong where it refers to me and my views), but I shall not comment further on what was only a thinly-disguised personal attack and not a bona-fide comment. Moderators take note…
To John, I think you’re wrong about Thai culture (and, by extension, Thais in general). I suspect perhaps you have bought in to the mythology and hagiography more than you should have done, but that’s common among the expatriate community. We often see the patina of civilisation and not the underlying reality. As the old hymn goes: “A man who looks on glass, on it may stay his eye. Or if he pleaseth through it pass…: There is no doubt that my own highly sceptical assessment of Thais and Thai culture reflect my inclination to try and see things as they are (usually through the lens of human psychology and motivation), and not merely as they [are deliberately made to] seem.
I’m sorry my friend, this is a seriously dishonest post. I have not made any of the comments you attribute to me and your attempt to draw a line between IQ and learned knowledge lacks credibility.
“Unfortunately – I fear that Le Fey has succumbed to a classic assumption. That as a farang he sits happily on the edge of this world looking in. Far from it – framing the Thai as dumb conforms perfectly to old farang attempts to distinguish the Thai world from the one they were actively creating or indeed to the generations of Thai political elite who have routinely done the same.””
This is not true and is offensively phrased. I shall have no more to say on this matter if my comments are to be distorted or otherwise misrepresented and my world-view assumed by someone who doesn’t know anything at all about me, has never met me and is unaware of the reasons my views are held. It is always helpful to be able to distinguish between not liking a view and it being wrong or unsubstantiated.
I thought NM was a place for intelligent and constructive conversation, perhaps I was mistaken.
Well, it is my fault. In order to expand my point. Singapore is a second tier offshore finance jurisdiction. The offshore finance jurisdiction are organized in the I.T.I.O. with their peers in the Caribean Sea, Pacific Sea and Latin America.
Transnational corporation from the USA, EU, Japan, ASEAN and Hong Kong and Taiwan are utilizing onshore/offshore business models to minimize tax. Singapore is part of a big offshore network. So I think that the Navy of the USA, Japan, France, Great Britain have an interest in the independent existence of Singapore as a city state.
We observe in all offshore jurisdiction ethnic stratification because these countries import labour for services and construction. Further we observe that the existence of an finance industry polarize between blue collar and white collar occupations.
My intuition say that we could import sucessful conflict models from other I.T.I.O. member states to fight dominant majorities and get greater share of the cake. But this require that we decolonialze our mindset and look in the past for successful multiethnic city states. Very often, majority do not know what to think and stick to tradition – but traditions are always invented. It is very likely that you find an counter-example that help to legitimize your aims.
Maybe the minorities in Singapore should make an alliance with other minorities in the other I.T.I.O. member states. The offshore finance industry is very dependent low-skilled service labours and maritime import.
Do not trust academics like Adeline Koh and Sangeetha Thanapal. The academic career track is dependent on citations and the US universities occupy a central place in the world of science. They misinterpret the entire conflict just to model your ethnic conflict after the black/white binary. This tactic of naming and shaming do not work.
There is also a very specific Chinese way to treat minorities. Obviously there is a long history of affirmative action in the P.R. China and the Republic of China long before the USA even thought of it. And we all know that India have an affirmative action policy for minorities. So I think finding a common ground with respect to these country-specific policies is the best way.
We also need an imagination of a common future and I advised you to look for historian that emphasize the entangled history of the Asian Mediteranean Sea. Do not utilize historian that put China or India at the center of the world system. François Gipouloux wrote a book with the title “The Asian Mediterranean
Port Cities and Trading Networks in China, Japan and Southeast Asia, 13th–21st Century” that should be your bible to redefine the past to influence the future.
Do not talk about Chineseness because it will only reinforce the soul searching forChineseness. There are no things like Chineseness, Britishness and Whiteness. Chinese are a multiethnic nation who assimilate other ethnic groups since ancient times. The ethnogenesis never ends. You must emphasize demos and neglect ethnos to fight for political and social equality. It will help you to remind the Singaporean majority that all Chinese-dominated states suffer from low birth rates. It is impossible to uphold the current political power relationship.
You should be careful about Adeline Koh because she seems to know something about the gender/race/class intersection of power. White American women skillfully exagerated black male threat to better their own situation. Black men gained voting rights first. White women could convince white men to give them more rights to counter black men as an unified white front. In order to make the offer attractive they had to build an image of black male thirst for power & sex first.
Fiji is a very illuminating example because there are plenty of ethnicities there. Several ethnicities manage to reimagine themselves as native and the Indo Fijian as immigrant. There were several coups d’etat. In order to save the multiethnic democracy they conciously did a constitutional reengineering. The Indian diaspora in Uganda made a big political mistakein the past and wasdrive out of the country. Ghandi South African years was a mess. He was a racist back then and only support the advancement of the Indian diaspora and neglect the native black South African. You should always know something about Malaysia history to understand the independence movement that made Singapore.
The terminology is odd. Why not ditch the unclear terms “Islamist”, “hardline” and “conservative” altogether and just refer throughout about the Far Right. You are talking about the various far-right movements in the country. (When talking about far right groups and neo fascist groups in Europe we don’t refer to them as “Christianist” or “Catholic-based” or “Judeo-Christian” just because that’s how the fascists define themselves. These groups aren’t particularly related to Islam, they are just far right or violent fascists so why not call them with the most descriptive terminology to avoid confusion?
I meant to suggest that part of why this mythology is so stubbornly held to is that the available substitutes don’t work for the people who are currently most persuaded of it. In particular, some of these people (how many?) certainly still see the alternative to the current myths of Thainess in old colonial terms, the uncivilized, heathen, militarily weak prey of Europeans, Americans and the Japanese; to reject the Thai myths is be to be left with the colonial slurs. That, for instance, it seems to me, accounts for at least some of the emotional valence around Khao Phra Vihaan — it’s either Thai by virtue of the mythic empire or it’s not by virtue of colonial shaming. That seals the deal for a lot of folks.
I think it is of course true that repression and elite manipulation play a big role in the lack of better substitutes. However, I’m not sure that I buy that as the sole cause. The myths offer a very attractive way to see oneself, unique on the world’s stage, better than those who would be better than us. Call it branding. It’s a good story. Which is not to say that it is not also manipulated.
Unfortunately I DO think that the answer is more complex than simply IQ. While I know that Le Fey assumes this to be the consequence of policies that have by design kept people under-educated (which having taught in a Thai school I can entirely sign up to), this can not account for the failure of democracy in Thailand.
Why, for example, is it that those who have studied abroad, or in international schools at enormous expense, are often the the greatest proponents of Thailand’s current political system. Great knowledge, great talent, great energy is often channeled into a whole wealth of industries and activities that prove this sector of society to be innovative, creative and highly adept – while also radically conservative. At the same time, learnt knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing, and many who live across Thailand prove themselves to be incredibly resourceful – routinely having to work a system stacked against them. So – John G. I agree that Thailand’s current state can be understood much better by simply accepting that most have to get on – have to get by.
But – I would add one important point – and that is that the myth is that this is somehow tied to a ‘traditional’ Thai cultural worldview or outlook. There is nothing traditional about Thailand today. Rather, what we have is a country that perfectly demonstrates how the expansion of capitalism, of a modern economy, does not necessarily transport a society to any one place.
Bangkok has always been a polyglot, cosmopolitan, commercial city that caters to a multitude of vested interests and has always been arguably more outward than inward facing. Unlike similar such cities that expanded from the mid nineteenth century (Shanghai, Yangon, Singapore), however, Bangkok was also the seat of the Chakri kings, who were able to protect (JUST) their sovereign status and secure their power by aligning their interests with those of a global capitalist elite. The trick then, was how to govern at home while maintain the income streams. The success of the ninth reign was mastering the later while leveraging the profit to establish a powerful hegemony over the former. This, in turn, helped to reinforce (rather than undermine) the power of the throne, and the ritual world that surrounded it.
Unfortunately – I fear that Le Fey has succumbed to a classic assumption. That as a farang he sits happily on the edge of this world looking in. Far from it – framing the Thai as dumb conforms perfectly to old farang attempts to distinguish the Thai world from the one they were actively creating or indeed to the generations of Thai political elite who have routinely done the same.
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How Duterte won the election on Facebook
Kevin! I am wondering the same thing as you. SCL claims to have worked in Philippines but doesnt list Duterte specifically as a client. Which conferences did Nix attend before the elections?
Is hardline Islam really rising in Indonesia?
Chris Beale, Peter Cohen has contradicted you, not supported you. What you write about Indonesia is often so far from contemporary reality that I don’t know if you are just hopelessly uninformed, or, like with your grotesque and slanderous Prayut-Ahok comparison in another thread, willfully trolling. The developments in Indonesia are no joke. It is the biggest Muslim majority country in the world and the last big example of a more or less moderate Muslim majority country. If the intolerant strains of Islam finally win in Indonesia, this will be sad news not only for Indonesia, but the whole world. If you don’t know anything about contemporary Indonesia, stop writing about it.
The Abangan – Santri divide has ceased to be important decades ago. The orthodox Islam of the Santri has won completely. The openly practicing Abangan are a tiny, tiny minority now, often persecuted. Many scholars have written about this development. Many NGOs but also e.g. the wife of the Sultan of Yogyakarta have complained about it.
The important question now is if Indonesia manages to uphold its tradition of “unity in diversity” despite its already ‘orthodoxified’ Islam or whether Indonesia follows the Middle East and North Africa in interpreting Islam in a more and more intolerant, narrow-minded way.
Does the data reveal declining dictatorship in Myanmar?
The freedom to protest peacefully is also an important (but underrated) attribute of a rule of law culture. Legitimate public protest is an important element in signalling a desire to curb arbitrary exercises of power (regardless of whether or not the protest itself yields and immediate policy change)
Private: Grieving as Thainess in 2017
And presumably why the public is being already softened up to accept further election delays.
The international community appears to have stopped inviting Prayuth to events he can use to strut around and pretend that other countries believe what he says. Seems like nobody outside Thailand believes him, and increasingly few inside Thailand believe him.
There may be dark times ahead because I really don’t think he’s bright enough to change his ways. Delusions of grandeur. He wants history to remember him as the guy that saved Thailand. Personally I have my doubts.
A turning point in the Rohingya crisis
“While plenty of past reports have put forth sensible recommendations, too often, domestic and international responses to the Rohingya crisis suffer from the phenomenon of goal displacement. Rather than stopping the violence or increasing humanitarian and development assistance, a common response to a newsworthy report is to issue another statement, request another report or investigation, and maybe host a multilateral meeting.”
…. Exactly!
Thank you for sharing this here on NM. Cool and measured analysis amidst a sea of victimology, propaganda, and sensationalized headlines.
There must be some way out of this current situation.
Is hardline Islam really rising in Indonesia?
For once, I can totally agree with Peter Cohen. The abangan-santri divide remains Indonesia’s most crucial – though not insurmountable – divide.
Is hardline Islam really rising in Indonesia?
No, it is not. The greatest divide is between Arabized Indonesians and those Indonesians who call for a strictly Indonesian, non-Arab, indigenous Islam.
Private: Grieving as Thainess in 2017
There is a a VERY STRONG ideology developing in “Thailand’s” 16 Lao majority provinces (jangwat Lao) that they are NOT part of Prayut’s Thailand.
Private: Grieving as Thainess in 2017
Nothing substantial will change in Thailand – until the official mourning period for the late, great King is over. After which, all is up for grabs. Which is WHY Prayut is launching his attack on Dhammakaya temple NOW, not later.
Hanging on by a ‘sin’ and a prayer
Re: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/02/16/chinese-indonesian-wins-in-banjarnegara.html
Please note that unlike Ahok who is a Christian, Kho Wing Chin (Budi Sarwono), an ethnic Chinese, who won the 2017 Banjarnegara election is a Moslem.
Is hardline Islam really rising in Indonesia?
Where is mention of the abangan-santri cleaveage ? It is arguably Indonesia’s most crucial divide – yet not a word of it here.
Is hardline Islam really rising in Indonesia?
Chris, your comment shows so much ignorance, both about Muslim majority countries in general and Indonesia in particular as well as both historical and contemporary fascism in the West, it’s hard to know where to begin.
Hardline Islamic groups from FIP to ISIS use religion, Islam as a binding tool, not nationalism or race (like fascism). The demonstrations against the Christian governor Ahok were staged, because he had allegedly committed blasphemy by “insulting” the Muslim holy book, the Al-Quran. The demonstrations were supported by many mainstream Muslims, which shows there are shared “Islamic values” between mainstream and radical Muslims, especially a shared sensitivity about “defending” Islam against perceived “insults”. Far too many mainstream Muslims accepted the leadership of radicals, under the given circumstances. One of the gubernatorial candidates, Anies Baswedan, even went to the headquarter of the radical FPI to have a friendly meeting with these religious bigots and later said, he only did so to prove his good Sunni Muslim identity. If you say all of this has nothing to do with Islam you are denying reality.
The vast majority of Western fascist groups don’t and historically didn’t refer to Christianity at all, both Italian and even more so German fascism were quite anti-clerical in fact. And where in historical Fascism there was a connection between the church, and Fascism, it is clearly mentioned by historians. No serious historian would write about Franco’s Spain without mentioning the role of the Catholic church. No serious historian would write about Croatian fascism without talking about the role of the Catholic church.
I can understand your desire not to contribute to an undeserved hatred against ordinary Muslims in the West, because I share this desire. But this cannot be done by denying reality, and betraying minorities and moderate Muslims in the Islamic world that fight against the radicals. Moderate Muslims involved in this struggle often see very clearly the connection between aspects of orthodox Islam and the Islamist radicals.
Brunei’s stateless left in a state of confusion
we were born and raised in Brunei! My late granny was Brunei Dusun origin and my late grandpa was from Hong Kong. So, we are Brunei Sino-Dusun (Dusun-Chinese). My late granny was bestowed “Orang Kaya Perkasa Antak” by the Brunei late Sultan Haji Omar Ali Saifuddien Saadul Khairi Waddien ibni Sultan Muhammad Jamalul Alam II.
We are not given a citizenship either till today. My Sister, brother and even me had sat for the Brunei citizenship exam years ago till today the answer is ‘wait, belum ada news yet!” My sister had gotten her letter informing her that she has passed her citizenship exam (6 – 7 years ago) and when she went to immigration to ask about the status recently, the officer told her “not yet ada news, even you passed the exam doesn’t mean you are given a citizenship status”. Well, I don’t really care about my citizenship exam results, all my concern are, please give me a PASSPORT (NOT Brunei Certificate of Identity) to travel. I guess that’s most of Brunei PR’s wish!
Private: Grieving as Thainess in 2017
If true, then I agree.
Private: Grieving as Thainess in 2017
I might agree partially with the view expressed here, though I have not seen anyone claim that the undeniable social engineering that has taken place in Thailand over time is the only cause of anything. It is however (in my view), a major contributory factor to quite a lot of downstream problems in Thailand, including the failure of law and order, the extraordinary ubiquity of institutionalised corruption and the general psychology and culture of Thais, which many find superficially attractive, imho mistaking the leopard’s spots for the leopard.
There is a big difference between thinking something ought not to be true because it offends out personal world-view (or more often what they would like to think is true), and it actually not being true. I surmise that John knows this because his phrasing strongly suggests that whereas Matthews post was just offensive (and largely wrong where it refers to me and my views), but I shall not comment further on what was only a thinly-disguised personal attack and not a bona-fide comment. Moderators take note…
To John, I think you’re wrong about Thai culture (and, by extension, Thais in general). I suspect perhaps you have bought in to the mythology and hagiography more than you should have done, but that’s common among the expatriate community. We often see the patina of civilisation and not the underlying reality. As the old hymn goes: “A man who looks on glass, on it may stay his eye. Or if he pleaseth through it pass…: There is no doubt that my own highly sceptical assessment of Thais and Thai culture reflect my inclination to try and see things as they are (usually through the lens of human psychology and motivation), and not merely as they [are deliberately made to] seem.
But we’re all different.
Private: Grieving as Thainess in 2017
I’m sorry my friend, this is a seriously dishonest post. I have not made any of the comments you attribute to me and your attempt to draw a line between IQ and learned knowledge lacks credibility.
“Unfortunately – I fear that Le Fey has succumbed to a classic assumption. That as a farang he sits happily on the edge of this world looking in. Far from it – framing the Thai as dumb conforms perfectly to old farang attempts to distinguish the Thai world from the one they were actively creating or indeed to the generations of Thai political elite who have routinely done the same.””
This is not true and is offensively phrased. I shall have no more to say on this matter if my comments are to be distorted or otherwise misrepresented and my world-view assumed by someone who doesn’t know anything at all about me, has never met me and is unaware of the reasons my views are held. It is always helpful to be able to distinguish between not liking a view and it being wrong or unsubstantiated.
I thought NM was a place for intelligent and constructive conversation, perhaps I was mistaken.
Confronting ‘Chinese privilege’ in Singapore
Well, it is my fault. In order to expand my point. Singapore is a second tier offshore finance jurisdiction. The offshore finance jurisdiction are organized in the I.T.I.O. with their peers in the Caribean Sea, Pacific Sea and Latin America.
Transnational corporation from the USA, EU, Japan, ASEAN and Hong Kong and Taiwan are utilizing onshore/offshore business models to minimize tax. Singapore is part of a big offshore network. So I think that the Navy of the USA, Japan, France, Great Britain have an interest in the independent existence of Singapore as a city state.
We observe in all offshore jurisdiction ethnic stratification because these countries import labour for services and construction. Further we observe that the existence of an finance industry polarize between blue collar and white collar occupations.
My intuition say that we could import sucessful conflict models from other I.T.I.O. member states to fight dominant majorities and get greater share of the cake. But this require that we decolonialze our mindset and look in the past for successful multiethnic city states. Very often, majority do not know what to think and stick to tradition – but traditions are always invented. It is very likely that you find an counter-example that help to legitimize your aims.
Maybe the minorities in Singapore should make an alliance with other minorities in the other I.T.I.O. member states. The offshore finance industry is very dependent low-skilled service labours and maritime import.
Do not trust academics like Adeline Koh and Sangeetha Thanapal. The academic career track is dependent on citations and the US universities occupy a central place in the world of science. They misinterpret the entire conflict just to model your ethnic conflict after the black/white binary. This tactic of naming and shaming do not work.
There is also a very specific Chinese way to treat minorities. Obviously there is a long history of affirmative action in the P.R. China and the Republic of China long before the USA even thought of it. And we all know that India have an affirmative action policy for minorities. So I think finding a common ground with respect to these country-specific policies is the best way.
We also need an imagination of a common future and I advised you to look for historian that emphasize the entangled history of the Asian Mediteranean Sea. Do not utilize historian that put China or India at the center of the world system. François Gipouloux wrote a book with the title “The Asian Mediterranean
Port Cities and Trading Networks in China, Japan and Southeast Asia, 13th–21st Century” that should be your bible to redefine the past to influence the future.
Do not talk about Chineseness because it will only reinforce the soul searching forChineseness. There are no things like Chineseness, Britishness and Whiteness. Chinese are a multiethnic nation who assimilate other ethnic groups since ancient times. The ethnogenesis never ends. You must emphasize demos and neglect ethnos to fight for political and social equality. It will help you to remind the Singaporean majority that all Chinese-dominated states suffer from low birth rates. It is impossible to uphold the current political power relationship.
You should be careful about Adeline Koh because she seems to know something about the gender/race/class intersection of power. White American women skillfully exagerated black male threat to better their own situation. Black men gained voting rights first. White women could convince white men to give them more rights to counter black men as an unified white front. In order to make the offer attractive they had to build an image of black male thirst for power & sex first.
Fiji is a very illuminating example because there are plenty of ethnicities there. Several ethnicities manage to reimagine themselves as native and the Indo Fijian as immigrant. There were several coups d’etat. In order to save the multiethnic democracy they conciously did a constitutional reengineering. The Indian diaspora in Uganda made a big political mistakein the past and wasdrive out of the country. Ghandi South African years was a mess. He was a racist back then and only support the advancement of the Indian diaspora and neglect the native black South African. You should always know something about Malaysia history to understand the independence movement that made Singapore.
Is hardline Islam really rising in Indonesia?
The terminology is odd. Why not ditch the unclear terms “Islamist”, “hardline” and “conservative” altogether and just refer throughout about the Far Right. You are talking about the various far-right movements in the country. (When talking about far right groups and neo fascist groups in Europe we don’t refer to them as “Christianist” or “Catholic-based” or “Judeo-Christian” just because that’s how the fascists define themselves. These groups aren’t particularly related to Islam, they are just far right or violent fascists so why not call them with the most descriptive terminology to avoid confusion?
Private: Grieving as Thainess in 2017
I meant to suggest that part of why this mythology is so stubbornly held to is that the available substitutes don’t work for the people who are currently most persuaded of it. In particular, some of these people (how many?) certainly still see the alternative to the current myths of Thainess in old colonial terms, the uncivilized, heathen, militarily weak prey of Europeans, Americans and the Japanese; to reject the Thai myths is be to be left with the colonial slurs. That, for instance, it seems to me, accounts for at least some of the emotional valence around Khao Phra Vihaan — it’s either Thai by virtue of the mythic empire or it’s not by virtue of colonial shaming. That seals the deal for a lot of folks.
I think it is of course true that repression and elite manipulation play a big role in the lack of better substitutes. However, I’m not sure that I buy that as the sole cause. The myths offer a very attractive way to see oneself, unique on the world’s stage, better than those who would be better than us. Call it branding. It’s a good story. Which is not to say that it is not also manipulated.
Private: Grieving as Thainess in 2017
Unfortunately I DO think that the answer is more complex than simply IQ. While I know that Le Fey assumes this to be the consequence of policies that have by design kept people under-educated (which having taught in a Thai school I can entirely sign up to), this can not account for the failure of democracy in Thailand.
Why, for example, is it that those who have studied abroad, or in international schools at enormous expense, are often the the greatest proponents of Thailand’s current political system. Great knowledge, great talent, great energy is often channeled into a whole wealth of industries and activities that prove this sector of society to be innovative, creative and highly adept – while also radically conservative. At the same time, learnt knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing, and many who live across Thailand prove themselves to be incredibly resourceful – routinely having to work a system stacked against them. So – John G. I agree that Thailand’s current state can be understood much better by simply accepting that most have to get on – have to get by.
But – I would add one important point – and that is that the myth is that this is somehow tied to a ‘traditional’ Thai cultural worldview or outlook. There is nothing traditional about Thailand today. Rather, what we have is a country that perfectly demonstrates how the expansion of capitalism, of a modern economy, does not necessarily transport a society to any one place.
Bangkok has always been a polyglot, cosmopolitan, commercial city that caters to a multitude of vested interests and has always been arguably more outward than inward facing. Unlike similar such cities that expanded from the mid nineteenth century (Shanghai, Yangon, Singapore), however, Bangkok was also the seat of the Chakri kings, who were able to protect (JUST) their sovereign status and secure their power by aligning their interests with those of a global capitalist elite. The trick then, was how to govern at home while maintain the income streams. The success of the ninth reign was mastering the later while leveraging the profit to establish a powerful hegemony over the former. This, in turn, helped to reinforce (rather than undermine) the power of the throne, and the ritual world that surrounded it.
Unfortunately – I fear that Le Fey has succumbed to a classic assumption. That as a farang he sits happily on the edge of this world looking in. Far from it – framing the Thai as dumb conforms perfectly to old farang attempts to distinguish the Thai world from the one they were actively creating or indeed to the generations of Thai political elite who have routinely done the same.