[Tlc] TLC Digest - Black Songkran

[maureen hickey]

Hi Justin,

Below are some articles and blog entries on the unfolding Thai crisis.

Best,
Maureen Hickey Putnam
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Geography
University of Washington
Seattle, WA USA

Newsweek has an interesting piece on the broader meaning of events in  
Thailand. A little simplistic, but still interesting:

Posted Monday, April 13, 2009 9:59 AM
The Rise of Red-Shirt Capitalism
Michael Hirsh
Watching the protests in Thailand over the weekend brought back some  
distant memories for me—of covering the pro-democracy protests in that  
country nearly 17 years ago, in May of 1992. Then, as now, the country  
was paralyzed, but the story line was a lot simpler in those days.  
Then it was a nascent middle class clamoring for Thailand’s emergence  
from military autocracy, making use of technologies like fax machines  
and cell phones to spread the word and undermining official state TV.  
It was all part of that simplistic “end-of-history” model we were  
enthralled with back then. Once people got a taste of prosperity, they  
wanted open political expression. And boy, were they becoming  
prosperous in the ‘90s, or so we thought. Western-style open-market  
economies had dominated in the great cold war contest of alternative  
ideologies. Even Vietnam found itself surrounded by Asian Tigers --  
the cold war dominoes had fallen the other way. The end of the cold  
war was nigh, as was the collapse of the Soviet Union (that would take  
place six months later). The ultimate victor, we all knew, would be  
freedom. And not some abstract concept of freedom -- instead, we all  
were coming to the belief that the freedom to think and vote and act  
freely was intrinsically linked to the freedom to invent some hot new  
technology or to start up your own business. It was a moment of  
history when the truth really did seem simple.

Now we know better. And nothing demonstrates how complex things have  
become than the travails of Thailand. The latest protests, after all,  
are not just a story of brave freedom-seeking demonstrators versus  
evil authoritarians. Yes, the target of their immediate ire is the  
latest military coup, the one that toppled Prime Minister Thaksin  
Shinawatra in 2006. But Thaksin was also corrupt, and the economic  
inequalities he did little to ameliorate during his increasingly  
authoritarian tenure have become acute with the latest economic  
crisis. And as Thaksin faces charges at home, the former telecom  
magnate has been funneling money to the protesters, known as Red  
Shirts, who have their own satellite TV channel. Many Thais genuinely  
want a return to democracy, but Thaksin is hardly the hero of the  
future.

The deeper problem is the flaws in that rapidly obsolescing old  
globalization model—free-markets produce democracy which in turn  
produces general happiness—still need to be addressed. The model is  
long overdue for rethinking and rejiggering. In the wake of the  
subprime mortgage fallout, we have realized that simply letting  
capital flow freely—the global financial system we have depended on— 
isn’t working. We’ve also known for years that while free trade is  
generally good, the world is not flat, that globalization has deepened  
income inequalities rather than narrowed them. Overall globalization  
is still the way to go: No country, not even would-be rogues like Iran  
and Russia, has found a way around the iron law of the post-cold war  
global order: in order to be influential or powerful, a nation must be  
prosperous; and in order to be prosperous, its economy must take part  
in the international system. But simply coasting on those verities  
won’t cut it any more. I’m not sure what the answer is exactly, but to  
try to find out I’ve begun reading a book by Joseph Stiglitz that for  
too long I’ve ignored: “Making Globalization Work.”

Here is the link:

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/wealthofnations/archive/2009/04/13/the-rise-of-red-shirt-capitalism.aspx

Also, New Mandala (http://rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/newmandala/) out of  
ANU has some interesting things up right now, including a link to this  
article:

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2009/04/13/thailands-songkran-crisis-of-2009-2/

and a link to the Thai Photo Blogs  which has some interesting images  
up (warning, some are graphic):

http://www.thaiphotoblogs.com/

They have also posted a first person account from a reader:


Battle at Dindaeng, Bangkok, 13 April 2009
April 13th, 2009 by Nicholas Farrelly · 6 Comments

We received the following account from a New Mandala reader in  
Bangkok.  It provides a very personal perspective on the events around  
Dindaeng earlier today.

Around 4.19 am. I was woken up by the sound of something like gunshots  
but I wasn’t sure. I live near the junction between Rachavithi and  
Rachaprarop Roads - not far from the Dindaeng triangle. So I went out  
to have a look. I saw many taxi drivers taking their cars to block the  
roads and a number of red group protesters around. Some of them told  
me that the sound I heard was that of the soldiers throwing tear gas  
at the red protesters at the triangle. I saw two ambulances went in  
and not long later they came out with some people inside. The people  
there seemed to be very angry and when one of them shouted “‘one of us  
is dead, brothers”, the rest ran along shouting with anger. Someone  
came along with something that looked like a container of fuel and not  
long after I saw a fire being lit not far in front. But it didn’t look  
like the news of death was true. It was clarified later that the  
soldiers used tear gas but still people did not back off. One of the  
taxi drivers got off his car parked in front of me and opened up the  
rear, took out a baton and a piece of cloth then wrapped it around his  
face and then walked up to the frontline. Another taxi driver told me  
soldiers fired tear gas at people protesting in other parts of town  
too. People asked each other was there any members of the media around  
and got no answer. Then something happened in the front and people  
started to run. I did too - back to my room. More gunshot-like sound  
was heard again and again - just now - in fact- but I stayed inside  
feeling all ashamed that may be people are killing each other out  
there but I can’t do anything.

I checked the television and got no news. There were programs on  
someting about the royal visit to somewhere on the Thai PBS, the  
public television and channel 11 has a monk preaching about how bad it  
is to block the roads. He said people who did this invited trouble on  
themselves because there might be someone too angry to control  
themselves and throw a bomb at them. “Even me, sometimes I thought -  
let’s get them. You see. Even a monk. But I can suppress that  
thought.”  I changed the program and checked out some websites and got  
into a chat room of the red group. They were complaining about the  
media. One of them said ‘”I hope they rot in hell. They let us die and  
are not even reporting on it.” Outside I hear more of the gunshot-like  
sounds again. I hear people shouting and someone urging people to join  
others at Government House.
Dawn now.



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