Beyond taboo and myth

Violence

In and by itself, there is nothing new about violence in this ‘peace-loving’, ‘smiling’, ‘Buddhist’ environment, even as the people concerned protested my observation (Mulder 2000) as it went against the grain of how outsiders are supposed to understand life in Thai society. Of course, Thailand does not hold the monopoly in Southeast Asia of being prone to violence and murder—also in the name of the state (Mulder 1997)—as the cases of the Philippines and Indonesia are very comparable, making strong-arm tactics and brute force as Southeast Asian as spicing food with shrimp paste and fish sauce (Mulder 2003).

In the analysis of the current Thai ‘why’, it is normally assumed that the large extent of public violence since 2006 is the expression of class warfare between the privileged and the underdog that no longer calmly lies asleep but barks up at the tree of hierarchy and oligarchy. As the ‘Red Shirts’, they reflect a growing anger among Thailand’s poor over the persistently wide wealth gap. Originally, they awoke and coalesced as supporters of Thaksin—whose proxies still drew landslide victories at the polls—but even without that leadership, they now insist on no longer being at the receiving end as they claim their just share of the public sphere.

 

Public sphere

The problem here is that the members of the power elite or oligarchy consider the public sphere as their private territory, and they are not in the mood of tolerating intruders. The latter are a threat to what they consider their birth right—yet, this is what happens. Not so long ago, at the time of my field research in the 1970s, common people referred to things public as khong luang, as ‘belonging to the king’. So, the owner of a (public) telephone booth could be said to be the crown, and that facility was not felt as a shared piece of property for which every citizen was responsible. This has changed, even as the elite continue with their exploitation of khong luang as a privilege which they will defend tooth and nail.

This is why MacGregor Marshall (MGM) in A Kingdom in Crisis spends considerable attention to analysing the motivations and behaviour of the elite. Accordingly, if the Thai people are ever to take full control of their destiny and escape the ideological shackles that constrain their freedom, the secretive actions of the Thai ruling class have to be brought fully into the open. Whereas, at the same time, the smouldering conflict over royal succession is much less significant than the struggle for democracy and equal rights, investigating and exposing it is the central problem of MGM’s study as this conflict is essential to provide a full understanding of the kingdom’s crisis.

If it is as central as the author claims it to be—and I have no reason to disagree—how come it is not openly discussed while remaining an ‘unacknowledged conflict’? The most obvious reason is that telling the truth of Thai history and politics is illegal, which is known as the anti-lèse majesté legislation that, in recent years and in defence of the myth-making has obtained such a broad interpretation that it easily lands somebody from three to fifteen years in prison!

 

Four hypotheses

To explain his claims, MGM sets out four ‘essential’ propositions, namely, (1) at the elite level, Thailand’s conflict is a succession struggle, as most of the Thai elite are implacably opposed to the prospect of only son and Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn succeeding his ailing, 87-year-old father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej; (2) The assumption that the current monarch’s death will unleash a period of upheaval and instability misses the point that this era has already begun, and has been in full swing since 2005; (3) The intense struggle over succession does not imply that a Thai monarch has significant political power and freedom of action. Contrarily, as of old the elite want a king they can control, which gives them access to the legitimising sacred aura of the palace, and to the immense royal fortune; (4) Consequently, the intense ultra-royalism of the elite is an act, intended to mask their antipathy to Vajiralongkorn. Unlike most of the elite, Thaksin has no qualms about the crown prince becoming the 10th monarch of the Cakri dynasty, also because he is deemed to be on the best of terms with the ever-money-hungry prince. 

As the text proceeds, the readers are regaled with an abundance of anecdotes and illustrative stories that cast a piercing light on the three central issues—succession, substantial democracy, truth—and that are good reading to boot. Some of the illustrations seem to come close to gossip, legerdemain, and could-be’s, but on the whole I think that he makes his points while staying out of jail through his emigration. Sometimes, however, he seems to overstep the limits of constraint. Whereas there is no doubt that vajira can be rendered as ‘thunderbolt’ (134), I think that the popularity of vajira in royal names rather refers to ‘diamond’ or the light it sheds over the realm and its people.

Another dubious reference to the crown prince is ‘Sia-O’ that, according to MGM, is a combination of the word for a Chinese-Thai gangster and the sixth syllable of his royal title (no explanation of the last) (138). Sia just means ‘rich Chinese’, such as in Sia Mèw, Rich Chinese Cat, the popular nick name of Thaksin whose portrait makes one think of a cat. Süa, ‘tiger’, also refers to gangster, but not necessarily to a Chinese-Thai one; the latter are rather known as yang-yee.

The way MGM makes his points and introduces the reader to see through the maze of taboos and myths is very enlightening, indeed. About this, he proposes that the only way for Thais to solve their tragic political conflict and find a way to heal society’s divisions is for the country’s people to talk, openly and without fear, to which he hopes that A Kingdom in Crisis will make a modest contribution (8).

 

Niels Mulder retired to the southern slope of the mystically potent Mt. Banáhaw, Philippines, where he concluded his swan song, Situating Filipino Civilisation in Southeast Asia; Reflections and observations (2012, Saarbruecken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, print-to-order ed., ISBN 9783659130830) (niels_mulder201935@yahoo.com.ph)

 

 References

Mulder, Niels. 1997. Thai Images; the Culture of the Public World. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.

- 2000. Inside Thai Society; Religion, Everyday Life, Change. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.

- 2003. Southeast Asian Images; Towards Civil Society? Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.