This is a blog only/Updated 07/05/10
I do not always see eye to eye with British Ambassadors but one who has been putting the egg back into the pudding since he left is British Ambassador Derek Tonkin who this week wrote to ‘The Times’ pointing out that the ‘Thunderer’, as it used to be known back in the Crimean War, had got its reporting, and in particular its editorials, in a twist when it came to Thai politics.
The Times has called for immediate elections and in the latest rant against Thailand’s Prime Minister repeated the miscomprehension that Abhisit Vejjajiva was not legally in power etc. Previously The Times’s Asia Editor Richard Lloyd Parry had said of Abhisit Vejjajiva: “Rarely since the days of Dr Faustus has a gifted and promising man achieved power through such grubby and disreputable means”.
Yes. And Brutus was an honourable man.
Derek Tonkin
Derek Tonkin was Ambassador to Thailand when I first arrived here working for the Observer and its film company. His letter was written with Dominic Faulder, formerly Asiaweek, Asia Inc. They could just as well have addressed letters to the BBC, Sydney Morning Herald or Washington Post.
‘Set aside partisan grievances ‘
“Sir, When you say (leading article, April 26) that Abhisit Vejjajiva “has been undermined by a simple and devastating fact — that his party has lost every election under his leadership”, you overlook another much more important fact, which is that since its foundation in 1946 the Democrat Party in Thailand has been the leading coalition partner in several administrations, but has never won an overall majority. That good fortune has been enjoyed only once by a political party in Thailand — the Thai Rak Thai Party founded and led by Thaksin Shinawatra, which was itself an agglomeration of different parties and won 374 of 500 seats in the 2005 elections.
Coalition administrations in Thailand, for better or for worse, are the norm. In the last elections in December 2007 the Democrat Party came second and secured 30.3 per cent of the constituency vote for 400 seats and 36.6 per cent of the parallel party vote for the remaining 80 seats. This was the Democrats’ best performance to date, and it is quite conceivable that the party, which has performed creditably in by-elections, could do even better at the next general election. It was not, as you say, “the consequence of military force” that led to Mr. Abhisit’s selection by the House of Representatives as Prime Minister, but a realignment, Thai-style, of elected representatives after a court ruling went against the incumbent pro-Thaksin party.
Fresh elections may provide a useful breathing space in which tempers can cool, but it would be naive to suppose that the fundamental polarisation in Thai society of recent years will thereby be resolved. This can only be done peacefully at the ballot box if all concerned set aside immediate partisan grievances and come to a better agreement on the rules by which parliamentary democracy can be made to work for Thailand and all its people.
Derek Tonkin (British Ambassador to Thailand, 1986-89)
Guildford, Surrey
Dominic Faulder
Bangkok
Now if you read what ‘The Times’ has been publishing, quite often from the Asia Editor in Tokyo, Tonkin has rather demolished ‘The Times’ stance on Thailand. And indeed the newspaper, unusually, seems to have fallen for quite a few of the red herrings which have been thrown its way. Nor is ‘The Times’ alone. Media manipulation gets quite easy when newspapers today are now running minute by minute deadlines, which means they are taking what they are reading without question.
That of course means a ‘fact’ presented in say ‘The Times’ can be a fact in hundreds of papers worldwide in a matter of minutes as the re-write men, who give themselves bylines, regurgitate the net.
So it is no surprise that Thaksin Shinawatra has hired London based political lawyer Canadian Robert Amsterdam, an entertaining self publicist, to “assist in the current contentious struggle for the restoration of democracy and rule of law in the Southeast Asian nation”, even though Thaksin says he is a ‘minor cog’ in the red shirt movement.
Above - an obvious picture used by Times Online
The days of ‘print these facts or we sue’ are upon us. Not an option open of course to the innocent victims who were gunned down during Thaksin’s ‘War on Drugs’. So we can expect more of Thaksin ‘the Robin Hood’ or, now managed by a Canadian, perhaps ‘Anne of Green Gables’. When you sue governments, particularly Russian ones, as does Amsterdam, or take on the Singapore government as Amsterdam does, your clients tends to lose while you gather lots of democratic Brownie points.
Amsterdam has of course taken the case on, not for the publicity, but for the justice, which is why I guess there are more jokes about lawyers than even journalists. But I can see the irony in him also representing the Dr. Chee Soon Juan leader of the Democrats in Singapore.
In Singapore you laugh at the system at your peril - just the sort of government Thaksin Shinawatra aspires to lead.
Well then, what we have been getting from ‘The Times’ is only a slightly upmarket version of what ‘popular’ papers do, just written in words of more than two syllables. I prefer to call it writing for affect, er, which I guess is journalism, but the author does not necessarily have to believe it. Afficionados of the ‘Glenda Slag’ features in ‘Private Eye’ will understand. Its ’egging the pudding’ in its more commonly used form.
This story from ‘The SUN’ however is probably quite true despite the headline ‘Brits plan holiday in hell’
“Its not a people’s thingy is it?’
One of the problems with the red-shirt protest story may be of course the dearth of foreign correspondents. In the last two years the correspondents for the three main British ‘heavy newspapers’ have jacked it in here in Thailand in the main replaced by Aussies (also filing to Fairfax and News Ltd., in Sydney)…and, of course, the re-write men.
The ‘re-write men’ are usually thousands of miles away from the places they are writing about, which is fine by me because it lets me get down to what I like doing best. But of course sometimes it does have its small disadvantages.
I spoke to a friend in News International in London last week who asked: “Andrew, what exactly is going on in Thailand?” then she added: ‘Its not altogether a people’s thingy is it?’
So despite the BBC and Times reports etc some Brits at least are wondering what on earth is going on. Thailand’s red-shirt demos even became the butt of jokes in a ’dinner table’ Brititsh TV comedy sketch on ‘Bremner, Bird and Fortune’ when the merits of collecting blood or throwing poop were discussed.
The question ‘What exactly are they demonstrating about?’ was posed but never answered as the lady of the house declared she would probably use her maid’s poop to throw at Westminster.
Abhisit Vejjajiva
The people’s revolution element has not been totally sold.
People are rightly suspicious of ‘People’s’ movements in Asia. You only have to look to Manila.
So here’s the rub. There are two ways of foreign reporting. One is to report the situation from your own perspective, knowledge and culture, and the other is to get down and dirty, and in this case do lots of mingling among the red shirts, listen to the stories of the poor etc, read Giles Ji Ungpakorn in the Socialist Worker, and write it from the ‘people’s’ perspective.
But every so often getting down and dirty is often not the right way about it if you need to know what is happening. The expression ‘can’t tell the wood from the trees’ comes to mind.
No matter how heart-wrenching the copy is from people living in poverty in north east Thailand, all it does is add bricks and mortar to the great social divide story, which is Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, etc….and which may be missing the point.
Some are suggesting that the white Thais in Bangkok are out of touch and are horrified at the unscrubbed working classes on their doostep and unable to comprehend what they are complaining about. They have a touch of the the Marie Antoinettes it seems.
‘Telling it as it is’ - a boy from the Valleys
In Bangkok too we have an Australian claiming to have served seven years in the Aussie Army giving speeches to the red-shirts exhorting them on from their podium and. On the blogs we have a Welshman reporting from within the red demos ‘telling it as it is’ and inviting those who disagree to kiss his hairy Welsh arse.
If the Scots sound like they are always about to start a fight then the Welsh accent seems to seems to reflect a sort of desperation or depression in the valleys as in ‘Little Britain’s’ ’ I’m the only gay in the village!’ sketch. But I am assured they have made cultural and culinary contributions to Thai culture.
Cultural contributions. Welsh cuisine in Bangkok
Anyway anyone can do this sort of reporting from Toxteth or the Sir Francis Chichester Estate in South London in a country where the current P.M. Gordon Brown was also not elected by the people but by fellow M.Ps.
But what no newspaper or blogger has done yet is to paint a picture of what exactly may happen if this movement were to bring down the current government, and indeed who are the people waiting in the wings in the Phuea Thai party, which has aligned itself to Thaksin Shinawatra. And then of course it all becomes a bit deja-vue.
F-16s over Laos in the Green Curry war
The phrase ‘Pass the sick bag Alice’ comes to mind. What we have apparently is a lineup of politicians who have been screwing the working classes in Thailand ever since each discovered he was not one of them any more. Their Chairman General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh even managed to lose a war against Laos, despite sending in the F-16s, which was started over logging, one of his wife’s pet past-times.
(Pause for self promo par: I managed to tag this ‘The Green Curry War’ in the Observer just as my ‘Battle for Sleeping Dog Hill’ in the Telegraph recorded the loss of the Karen base at Manerplaw to the Burmese army. The actual Karen translation I was given I think was ‘Dog lying asleep in a semi-prone position hill’ but its too difficult to shout between foreign and picture/art desks)
Chavalit also led the country triumphantly…..into its worst economic crisis ever, except for some advantaged rich people who were fortuitously forwarned and changed their baht to dollars.
These are the guys who have screwing down the price of rice….to the farmer that is. The exporters still have their BMWs! And who signed the free trade agreement with China leading to Thai supermarkets being flooded with Chinese fruit and veg?
There is no doubt that the encampments in Bangkok have bred a new solidarity among the UDD and redshirts, but where is it going to lead Thailand?
‘My, wasn’t that a rather jolly coup’
People complain that Thaksin was unfairly ousted. They are absolutely right. He was ousted because those who did so thought that it was the only way to get a Prime Minister into the courts. Attempts to curtail his excesses had failed from many directions. Even at the height of the military coup there was a collective sigh of relief. But you cannot use the words ‘tanks’ with ‘good’ when sending this story back home, and in any case, as is their wont, the military then hashed things up.
Considering Thaksin Shinawatra’s friendly and lucrative relationship with the world’s worst military in the world in Burma I am not crying too much over Thailand’s kast coup.
Had the red-shirts come in to defend Thaksin before the tanks then we would be looking at a different scenario today. But these things cost time and money I guess and Thaksin was far to busy protecting his.
Traditionally in the past, corrupt Prime Ministers have been allowed to keep the stash they made in power. Thais can choose that system again when they go to the polls in November.
Then of course the yellow shirts think Thaksin is the dictator
‘Don’t mention ze war!’
The placards in the red shirt camps of Abhisit depicting him as the dictator Adolf Hitler are of course nonsensical. The irony of course is that, like Thaksin Shinawatra, Adolf Hitler, was elected to office by popular vote, a good reason to fear democracy.
National socialism, as we know it, is when you get one group of people, preferably all wearing the same colour uniform, claiming they represent the working man, who have a charismatic leader, who leads them to attack those whom they see as robbing them of their rights and destiny. Following their ‘democratic’ election they have a tendency to plunder and dispose of their enemies both externally and internally. purging their own and of course the press and woe betide those who disagree.
But the use of ‘Hitler’ by both sides, yellow and red, shows just how primitive their messages can be.
I will say this however, I have spoken with hundreds but will never argue with a ‘red shirt’, or the boss of a Bangkok motorcycle queue.
‘Eva’, as they say, was just a musical.
‘The Charmer Making a Mess of his country’ - The Times ”The Prime Minister of Thailand, best friends at Eton with Boris Johnson, is presiding over a chaotic and callous regime”.
Very witty, Andrew. I enjoyed it.
By the way, anyone is any doubt about the facts behind Abhisit’s rise to power and the issues since would do well to consult a revered independent source, such as Wikipedia, rather than the highly biased local press -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhisit_Vejjajiva
By the way, I put you in the “independent” not “local” category of course, Andrew.
Yes, a sound comment and timely foil to the simplistic tosh currently vented by the Times.
However, in manipulating the red shirts movement could it be that Thaksin and his acolytes may well find themselves holding a tiger by its tail if they were to be successful? I sense that the demonstrations have gained a momentum propelled by others who are also seizing the opportunity to express their frustrations with the Army et al and their agenda may not be so easy to dismiss.
Possibly we are seeing the birth of a Labour movement…….?
Whilst I agree that simplistic analyses miss the point over Thaksin, Abhisit and even the coup, it is however quite easy to summarise the whole situation as the result of inequality.
No country in the world can sustain a situation in this modern day and age with communication so easy where some twenty or so families control the nation’s wealth. Those excluded simply are not going to put up with it forever so here they are now, fed up and on the streets.
The actual root of the whole problem is the same as every other problem in Thailand - Thai nature. Stubbornness and fear of loss of face and, more importantly, loss of money are the drivers of all action and inaction here.
In the non-parallel universe others inhabit, seeing the growing problem among the great unwashed, a few timely olive branches would have been thrown out and the whole thing defused for another decade.
But not in the parallel universe that is Thailand where most are in a long dream-like state anyway and fear the reality of waking up at the best of times. The preferred method of appeasing the angry masses here is to look down on them, hurl abuse and almost de-humanise them in the vain hope they will go away and be good little animals.
Not working too well is it, that strategy!
Then again, logic never was a strong suit here amongst the locals or at least it is very hard to understand at times as just today I see that Thai Airways’ answer to falling ticket sales and massive international cancellations is to raise airfares by 50% on internal routes… That’ll work! Duh…
And so the problem of the masses will continue until some logic and sense prevails but it will not be any times soon I fear so let’s all get used to civil war.
Speaking as someone who doesn’t like to be shown up, lose money or give in without a fight ( I’m Irish after all ), your cultural interpretation Edward is perhaps just a tad facile but I suppose like most falang you inevitably fall back on such drivel in much the same way chaps argued against female suffrage in Pankhurst days.
Nobody very much wants to get their arse shot off whether it be in Thailand or Timbuktu but if they think a bit of aggro will change things for the better most will give it a punt.
The Thai are just learning how to go about it.
Small acorns, dear chap, small acorns.
Westerby, if my comments are drivel, I have no words for yours other than they belong with all the other has-been wannabe fascists on ThiaVisa. You must be a regular contributor there and that’s why I certainly am not. I’ll work on my facile outlook and take lessons form such a great anthropologist as yourself! No doubt your heroes are Thatcher, Bush and Le Pen. Mine are not but then I guess you’re also here by choice because it’s all too modern and socialist back home in the old country. Tally ho!
I just clicked the link to the Times article and I have to say in my opinion is it a very fair and balanced article. Not pro anyone but also not afraid to tell the truth which is not allowed here in Thailand anymore, is it as censorship of everything has increased since Abhisit took power. If Thaksin is dead or near dead as claimed now, who are all you short-sighted yellows and establishment followers going to blame then? Maybe then you’ll accept that it is about the have-nots wanting to be treated like human beings. The equivalent in the UK of the ridiculous elitism here in Thailand would be telling everyone living north of Watford Gap they are too stupid to get a vote - fair? No, I don’t think so either but that is what the Bangkok elite thinks.
Andrew Drummond Well I think if you are in the red camp you may consider this to be a very fair article. Then of course it is written in a very ‘I came to bury Caesar’ sort of way’. The innaccuracies of the article have been pointed out clearly enough by Derek Tonkin, the major one of course is how Abhisit came to power. Incidentally what the Red leaders say on stage and what they say in television interviews is quite different by many degrees. If you are British for instance, whether from north of the Watford Gap or south, you would be considered by the Reds little more than cow dung. This is because ‘Adolf’ Abhisit was born in Newcastle. Sadly, and I have tested this many times over the years, not many from the North East of Thailand actually know who Hitler was I am sad to say. But then again nobody remembers being conquered by Japan. Nobody of course has suggested the the poor people should not get a vote. The problem is they have been selling it for years and wonder why the people they voted for have neither morals or ethics.
Westerby, Edward
Calm down now boys. No fighting in the playground.
You both make valid and perceptive points
There is a big class divide here and it was ever thus. A clever effective feudal device. The “poorer” Thais don’t like it of course but they also understand the long conventions here of accepting it and taking many things as a given. “Rich man at his castle………”
Thailand’s way may be more slowly slowly catchee monkey at best than French style revolution.
Walk away and the problem will go away too; make a face saving compromise now which can be reversed later; three steps forward and two steps back. That’s more the Thai way I think.
Only a Welshman’s perspective. Not that nationality has anything to do with it.
Newbie, fair points but of course your “Thai way” is not working any more is it as they woke up finally to the unfairness… Maybe just a few too many Mercs surveying the fields did it.
Andrew, actually yes, the PAD are on record as stating that the people of Isaan are too stupid to vote. Check your facts.
Westerby, I guess you went back to ThaiVisa. great…
“On this occasion I have steered clear of politics because the world’s press would have us believe that we are going through a ‘People’s Revolution’ and events, I believe, will show something much more contrived.”
Andrew ‘Gypsy Rose’ Drummond, April 24 2010.
Any truth in the rumour you’re after Jonathan Cainer’s job?
Andrew Drummond I was, but then I predicted I wouldn’t get it. And he has not yet predicted his dismissal.
It is true that the PAD think of the reds and most of Isaan as no more than fodder and do not think they should have the right to vote. I see today’s article in The Nation states this:
“While the society is still unable to tell right from wrong”
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/05/05/politics/PMs-road-map-timing-wrong-PAD-30128577.html
Very clear arrogance and I think a lot of hi-so bangkokians think the same way so hardly surprising the reds are revolting!
Maybe it’s not quite Watford Gap but it is like saying north of Birmingham is just for us southern types to line our pockets and have our fun with the girls and keep em all dumb. Not nice but then the general Thai attitude is not that nice when you look close enough.
Andrew Drummond:Thank you for the link Simon but neither the quote or link stand up what you are saying. Do you have any others. I am not saying you are wrong but Thailand’s problem is education or lack of it. Its the only way to close the divide and save the country in the long term.
That is why the quality of argument is low and thousands can be mesmerised at the press of a tv button, red or yellow.
Andrew, we all know that education is a problem. But so is greed and lack of common sense and, and… Some of the best educated Thais here are also absolutely the most stupid without a doubt - education is not everything.
Either way, everyone is allowed a vote - stupid or not, uneducated or not and as for the PAD saying that the Isaan people are too stupid to deserve a vote, they have said it may times and it is well documented. Any google search will show that. The problem now is that many Bangkok people, aware of their own short-comings, like to look down on Isaan people because it makes them feel better in their own mediocrity.
The fact is that Thailand is a country of also ran people in the intellectual stakes - there never has been and probably never will be any measure of intellect here - but of course they all like to consider themselves better than someone else just like the BKK bar girl looks down on her roots when she gets a foreign atm!
This article form today’s The Nation just says it all about censorship, intimidation and stupidity in this country if you ask me. What is the problem with so many of the people in positions of power? From the freaky pathologist to the retiring generals, from the clueless ministers to the corrupt governors, it’s just one long pantomime of stupidity.
Don’t tell me, Andrew, that things could be any worse under a new change of government than this charade with or without education. I think we are at rock bottom anyway so how could it get worse!
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/05/06/politics/PM-overlooking-trust-issue-in-his-road-map-30128639.html
Andrew Drummond: All this cutting tells me is that the security services here are disfunctional which is a bit of a no brainer. I suspect its going to get worse btw.
Andrew, tell me why all you poms and yanks are such hardcore elitists when you get to Thailand, love the rich and ho-so types and. Can’t be doing with the regular folk in the cheap seats. Were you all aristocrats or mega-business owners before in your old place or did you just feel above the average folk here cos you have some more dollars? I see so many like that over here
Andrew Drummond: Gosh that’s a rather Aussie generalisation. Have you just kicked in from Thaivisa.com?
I like and agree many things about this piece. However its easy to criticize the attempt of journalists to describe quite a complex situation to newspaper readers with short attention spans and a strong desire to simplify these complicated foreign doings.
I would boil down your anti-Red argument for the maintenance of the existing dispensation into t main points.
1. The Red leadership contains a number of authoritarians who if given the opportunity to achieve power in Thailand would probably behave worse than the current holders of power. Inside the actual demonstration there seem to be a quite a number of thugs attracted to the idea of class conflict.
2. There is little ideological content to the colour based political alignments (red or yellow) which means that should these populist movements be successful we will be at the mercy of their leaders agendas which are not openly declared. This means authoritarian rule becomes more, and not less likely if the majority in this democracy are given the opportunity to vote.
You seem to conclude that in the unlikely event that the Red’s succeed in somehow seizing power we will all live to regret it. I think you are probably right because the authoritarian power structures of the current regime are likely to be co=opted to support the new rulers.
Given the forbearance of the decision makers in power now I think that like yourself, there is hope for civilized political discourse in Thailand. However, I’d be curious to know what you would, or perhaps will, think of the current dispensation if it resorts to violent force to clear the demonstration? This seems very unlikely but is your willingness to offer an apologia for the state’s power holders, both elected and unelected, based on the idea that the current regime for all its obvious all its drawbacks is the better option? Do you think that this is a better option for all and that the Red’s are actually acting against the interests of their supporters?
Andrew Drummond: Well that was an interesting post. Just two points for me to make really.
1. Journalists are the first to point out how newspapers are developing at the moment so I do not think I have presented any surprises to them, but I singled out ‘The Times’ as did Derek Tonkin because I think there is an agenda behind stories which has not been challenged.
2. Secondly both the leaders of the reds and the yellows have been deliberately misleading their supporters mainly by making extravagant, distorted, and downright malicious claims through their respective tv channels. If you also listen to what they say out of the arena its quite different. and clear that they have been telling two different stories, one for their masses, and a totally different one for us.
Democracy in non Occidental countries is not about the promotion of a manifesto that may define any particular party not least because altruism, an essential component of any worthwhile social contract, simply doesn’t make any sense unless a personal dividend is guaranteed - a paradox that seemingly is only resolved in the arms of Buddha.
Given the disparity in wealth between the haves and have nots this is hardly surprising but then again in democratic terms Thai politics would seem more familiar to the Whigs and Tories before 1832 than to any average western ingenue suckled on a diet of welfare and socialist principles.
Still think revolution for the sake of it is the way to go.