[Tlc] T-politics and lese majeste

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Forwarded from a reader.
Thanks,
justin


from:
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/newmandala/2007/09/28/paul-handley-replies-to-comments/



18Republican // Oct 1, 2007 at 12:14 am

Reply to Paul Handley: Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. I
appreciate it. Could I just reply to a couple of specific points in your
response:

Regarding the king’s “popularity” you say, “…In the absence of polls, I
think the evidence of people’s behavior by choice is overwhelming…”

“Behavior by choice” … I’m trying to think when people have ever had a
choice with this king. Obviously they didn’t have the choice to have him as
their king. They don’t have the choice of electing a government free from
his interference. They don’t have the choice of criticizing him without
running the risk of a 15 year jail sentence, or worse. They don’t have the
choice of schooling their children without their being indoctrinated into
the king’s personality cult. They don’t have the choice of a media free of
his propaganda. They don’t have the choice of knowing the full extent of the
king’s and royal family’s wealth. They don’t have the choice of studying the
facts of the monarchy’s real role in modern Thai political history. They don’t
have the choice NOT to grovel in prostration in his presence. Etc. etc. etc.

My point is that when Western academics and media constantly repeat this
phrase “the highly revered king”, without also pointing out the reasons why
people appear to “revere”/ “respect” the king, aren’t they in fact
contributing to the propaganda, and indirectly to the political repression
in the king’s name that is a product of this propaganda? It’s like saying
“the highly revered” Mao or the “highly revered” Kim Jong Il. They appear
“highly revered” because it is simply not possible politically (both in the
personal and in the public sense) to adopt any other posture. As I’ve said
on this website before, in my view the support that the Thai king and the
royalist establishment (“network”) surrounding him gets from the
“international community” – including academics, the media, aid
organizations, international institutions, eg. the UNDP, as well as foreign
governments – is a crucial pillar supporting his
 political authority in Thailand. Remove that – as in the case of Suharto
after the Cold War when he was no longer needed as an anti-communist ally to
the West – and you deal a blow to that authority.

“… In Thailand, something – the king perhaps? – has prevented the Mahidol
children from being that rapacious, if they had it in them. Thaksin’s family
was taking that path though….”

Others have already beaten me to it but could I add my comment here: are we
talking about the same family? I think if you examined the personal worth of
the king’s children (if the information was freely available) there is ample
evidence of a rapacity comparable, if not equal to, that of the Suharto
children. Let’s leave aside the palaces, share holdings, jewellery
collections (including, allegedly, some of the Saudi royal family’s stolen
royal jewels), real estate, charities, research institutes, etc. and take
one small example which might otherwise be easy to overlook: graduation
ceremonies (the season has just finished). These important occasions, which
in other countries are held to celebrate the achievement of the graduands,
in Thailand have been converted into ceremonies eulogizing the royal family.
Apart from their propaganda value the prince and princesses who preside over
these ceremonies get a per-head commission based on the number of
 students graduating. Then multiply this with the tens of thousands of
university students who graduate each year and you have a not inconsiderable
figure. Sometimes an additional “gift”, say, a state-of-the-art laptop
computer, will be thrown in by the university authorities. All for a few
hours “work”. Consider the brilliance of this scheme’s conception: their own
subjects are forced to pay for the royals’ propaganda.

I can’t really see the comparison with Thaksin’s children, apart from the
fact that they are obviously well looked after. I don’t agree that the
family of a PM who was in power for 5 years, most of whose wealth was
acquired before he became PM, and who could have been tossed out at any
election (if not a coup), bears a greater similarity to the Suharto children
than the Thai royals. As for the murderous, philandering Tommy, isn’t the
Crown Prince the natural comparison?

Again, I come back to the main theme of my posts. The singular achievement
of the Thai king is how he has been able to HIDE his corruption of Thailand’s
political system both from his own citizens as well as from the
“international community” for so long. What we are talking about here I
think is one of the greatest deceptions in modern political history.


______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
3046 INTN
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu