Here is another essay that combines some of the old blog posts about Thai culture and democracy with some rather provocative new material (pdf format). As usual, comments are welcome.

Once again, apologies for the long absence. Life and work get in the way sometimes. Anyway, I spent part of the last couple of months trying to put together a book manuscript on Thailand that combines some of the posts on this blog (hopefully improved from the original) with some new material. A draft of the manuscript should be done in a couple of weeks — at which point I’ll try to pitch it to a few publishers — but I am posting here a preview of one of the …

In the end, they just packed their bags and left. Clutching water bottles, walking slowly towards the buses aboard which they would begin the journey home, the red shirts streaming out of the besieged Government House looked more like a football team’s vanquished supporters than revolutionaries forced to surrender by a violent government crackdown. Dejected and emotionally spent, to be sure, but still walking away from it with their lives, their limbs, and their freedom. Earlier threats to the contrary notwithstanding, when their backs were against the wall their leaders …

It has been too long since the people of Thailand last faced any good option. Today as they have for much of the past eight decades, if perhaps in terms that have never been more stark, the Thai people confront a choice that offers no real alternative. Before them stand two factions, divided more by competing private agendas than they are by alternative visions for the future of the country. On one side, in yellow, safely ensconced behind their tanks, their guns, and a frenzied, yah bah- powered army of …

The military made its move on September 19, 2006 — less than one month ahead of a new round of legislative elections. Ominously foreshadowing that something big was about to go down, Thai television stations abruptly cut out of scheduled programming and played soothing, ready-made slideshows bearing still images of the royal family, at times accompanied by music composed by the King. Shortly thereafter, CNN reported that tanks were advancing through Bangkok, rolling down Rachadamnoen Avenue in the direction of the Government House. The capital city — a megalopolis of …

The good people of Thailand have a long history of meekly acquiescing to coups d’état. So it was not altogether surprising that they appeared to collectively breathe a sigh of relief when Abhisit Vejjajiva emerged from the siege of Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports with just enough parliamentary votes to become Thailand’s 27th Prime Minister. By-elections held on January 11 gave him an unexpected boost. The Democrat Party picked up a handful seats; its performance in a number of constituencies in Northern and Central Thailand improved markedly. The Thai people, …

Culture, we should have learned by now, is the first refuge of vulgar propagandists a world over. In this sense, the counteroffensive launched by a veritable army of sycophants, useful idiots, third-rate academics, and serial Kool-Aid drinkers in the Thai media – brain-dead buffoons like Thanong Khanthong, Vasit Dejkunchorn, and Surakiart Sathirathai – in the face of the increased scrutiny Thai politics has received in the foreign press was entirely predictable. Save for the fact that these writers have taken to new heights the laziness, intellectual dishonesty, and crass …

On October 7, after bloody skirmishes outside the Thai parliament building left three people dead and scores injured, The Nation’s special online edition screamed ”BLACK OCTOBER 2008.” The idea the headline sought to convey is that the current disturbances are essentially the latest in a series of violent clashes between “the people” and the authorities that famously claimed hundreds of casualties back in 1973, 1976, and 1992. Indeed, this is exactly the kind of story-line the PAD has relentlessly been pushing for months. In this narrative, the PAD is but the …

A few months ago, just as the situation on the streets of Bangkok was beginning to get out of hand, an acquaintance of mine (a highly educated Thai woman) lamented in very emotional terms the grave danger that the PPP government posed to the future of Thailand. For the first time in its history, she said, Thailand has a government hell-bent on “selling the country off.” She volunteered no specifics, but I knew what she was talking about.
For years now, the PAD has repeatedly warned the nation that Thaksin Shinawatra …