http://khikwai.com/blog Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:29:22 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It's my great pleasure to announce that the book "Thailand Unhinged" --- a draft of which had been posted here in early January --- was released today by Equinox Publishing (click here for the press release). It comes with a new subtitle: "Unraveling the Myth of a Thai-Style Democracy." The blurb on ... http://khikwai.com/blog/2010/02/17/thailand-unhinged-out-today/ UPDATE x3 (Feb. 6): Owing to some technical issues, the book's release was pushed back a few days. Anyway, the book should be available for purchase on Amazon by the end of next week. Once again, an announcement is forthcoming. In the meantime, some details about the book are available ... http://khikwai.com/blog/2010/01/04/thailand-unhinged/ 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. http://khikwai.com/blog/2009/12/12/the-myth-of-a-thai-style-democracy/ 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 ... http://khikwai.com/blog/2009/10/02/thailand-for-sale-redux/ 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 ... http://khikwai.com/blog/2009/04/14/twilight-of-the-idols/ This blog has remained silent on the latest "disturbances" --- with every hour that passes, it looks increasingly likely we will refer to this as a "massacre" when it's all said and done. Not that anyone would give a damn about what I think, really, but some thoughts are forthcoming. ... http://khikwai.com/blog/2009/04/13/the-fog-of-war/ The battle lines are drawn, in the ongoing fight over Thailand's grotesque lèse majesté laws. It's "Western" democracy versus "Thai" culture. In contemporary political discourse, after all, "culture" is just about the only word whose international currency rivals democracy's. To be sure,  culture commands more respect than the "dictatorship" and "oppression" it is ... http://khikwai.com/blog/2009/03/20/thai-culture-and-democracy/ Soi 4, just off Sukhumvit Road, is not quite as smooth as silk. A uniquely Thai blend of fermenting piss, rotting compost, exhaust fumes, and burnt-out cooking oils is rendered only more asphyxiating by the cheap incense smoldering by the ubiquitous makeshift shrine. Steam rises from the roadside foodstalls that ... http://khikwai.com/blog/2009/02/22/dont-call-me-daughter/ 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 ... http://khikwai.com/blog/2009/02/09/thailands-orange-revolution/ 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 ... http://khikwai.com/blog/2009/02/02/the-thaksin-parable/