Remember when the PAD wanted to close the country’s border?

[reader]

From The Thai Enquirer

Opinion: Remember when the PAD wanted to close the country’s border?

By Cod Satrusayang

After the 2006 military coup that sent Thaksin Shinawatra into exile, the yellow-shirt People’s Alliance for Democracy argued for closing the country’s borders in response to international criticism.

The country, the PAD argued, needed to shut its doors to foreigners while it cleaned house and eradicated the scourge of Thaksinomics and those that were disloyal to the crown.

Many people scoffed at the idea but hardcore PAD supporters held onto the notion with many of these same arguments surfacing again during the People’s Democratic Reform Council protest in 2013/14 – the same protest that led to the Prayut Chan-ocha coup.

Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, we finally have an inkling of what it would look like to shut down the country’s border.

In short, economic disaster. Without tourism and international trade, our industries and services sector has withered. Our GDP contracted by its largest margin ever in 2020 fueled mainly by shut borders and a lack of international arrivals.

What must be said is that the brain trust of the PDRC and the PAD that argued for shutting borders wanted to subject our country to these economic ravages willingly in the facile hope of “cleaning house” and “reeducating the population.”

Think of the economic suffering that we are witnessing currently because of this pandemic. Think of the spiking suicide rates, the families falling below the poverty line, the countless hospitality jobs lost, the countless businesses closed, because of our country closing its borders to fight the pandemic.

Now imagine a group of people so hellbent on ideological zealotry that they would subject the country to these ills voluntarily.

Perhaps it is time that we as a collective whole unsubscribe from the dogmatic pursuit of purity demanded by those so loyal to the cultural and political institutions that demands such zealotry.

Thailand must evolve into a 21st century country. Our situation demands it, our people demands it and our collective future demands it. We are situated on the Southeast Asian crossroads, caught between competing superpowers and ideologies. We cannot afford to cling so steadfastly to the past without considerations for the future.

While it is important to understand where we come from, it cannot dominate our future so thoroughly that it undermines our progress.

There are people who would tell you that being Thai means relinquishing all identity but those that are subservient to the feudal system where power is concentrated in the hands of a few.

Those are the same people that would have so willingly led us to our destruction.

It is time we move away from dogmatic beliefs and allow pluralism, debate, introspection and, yes, questioning of what it means to be Thai.

Until we do that, until we allow that, we will always be on the bring of self-destruction. And we will be led by people who think that through privilege and access, that they know better than the rest of us.

https://www.thaienquirer.com/27785/opinion-remember-when-the-pad-wanted-to-close-the-countrys-border/

 

[PeterRS]

13 hours ago, reader said:

It is time we move away from dogmatic beliefs and allow pluralism, debate, introspection and, yes, questioning of what it means to be Thai.

Until we do that, until we allow that, we will always be on the bring of self-destruction. And we will be led by people who think that through privilege and access, that they know better than the rest of us.

That commentary omits one important point. Bangkok's main airports BKK and DMK have in fact been closed before. During the massive red shirt/yellow shirt demonstrations in 2008, the pro PAD yellow shirts blockaded and shut down both airports for over a week. That certainly gave many in the country and many tourists an inkling of what it would be like if the country was totally closed off.

Outside observers will have difficulty disagreeing with the summary I re-quote above. The article's comment on the country being "hellbent on idealogical zealotry" is also hard to argue. A lot of the military and the elite in the country must still harbour not merely concern but close to anger that there was the change from absolute monarchy to supposed democracy around 90 years ago. That is obvious given the short life of most governments and the constant round of successful military coups. 

But it does not get to the heart of the problem, one that has recently been aired in another thread. The endemic corruption so deeply embedded in all aspects of Thai society from the mega-rich to the poorest of the poor ensures that there can never be anything like the sort of changes the article's writer proposes. Thailand is stuck in a time warp. Physically and economically the country has changed dramatically over the last 40 years.  Socially visually nothing has changed. The vast majority of the people in the country would still accept Thaksin back as Prime Minister despite the fact that he only got the job as a result of major corruption on his part and his bribing one or more members of the Constitutional Court to turn a blind eye to his attempts to hide massive assets which was totally against the law. Indeed he would never have become PM without the handing out of huge amounts of cash to tens of millions in the countryside, all overseen by village leaders.

Not that some of his reforms were not beneficial. They were. But Thaksin was head of a kleptocracy, a leader in the Trump mould who permitted no criticism. Journalists and even editors were fired during his tenure. He actually changed almost nothing. He only further developed the culture of idealogical zealotry. And as a result Thailand remains an even more dysfunctional democracy, even more wedded to and mired in the outdated beliefs of the past. Until someone comes to grips with the rot of corruption and acts fast to change perceptions, the country can not change.

[reader]

Thai modern history reflects the issues raised in the two posts above. But as you look deeper, it's also about the fracture between the the ruling class of elites who control the nation's commercial, legislative, executive, judicial and military and members of the peasant and working classes who comprise the vast majority of the nation's citizenry (aka: yellow shirts vs red shirts).

The Thai Enquirer continues it series with the event that took place seven years ago today:

A Brief Oral History of the 2014 Military Coup

Seven years ago, today, Thailand’s army launched yet another military coup. Once again toppling a democratically elected government, the Royal Thai Army under the leadership of General Prayut Chan-ocha said that they had to take power to restore peace and stability to the kingdom.

The following is a brief oral history of the events that transpired on May 22, 2020 from the leaders of Thai society both then and now.

Part 1: A Coup on the Horizon

For months leading up to the coup, Thailand’s political scene was deadlocked between anti-government protesters and the Yingluck Shinawatra government.

The protesters had initially come out onto the streets in November of 2013 to oppose an Amnesty Bill which would have forgiven all political players of any previous crimes, paving the way for the return of Yingluck’s brother Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin had been in exile since a previous military coup overthrew him in 2006.

A group calling themselves the People’s Democratic Reform Committee led the protests. Headed by former Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban and a group of core leaders, they opposed the Amnesty Bill.

Even though the government relented and backtracked on the bill, the protests continued.

Akanat Promphan (Former Democrat MP and PDRC core leader): The PDRC was a people’s movement. We wanted to reform and have a revolution by the people. In order to make that happen, we had to show a symbolic force. We believe that a show of force would be necessary to make the government make changes.

We wanted a period of reform before the election. The demonstrations started off because people wanted to show that they didn’t want the Amnesty Bill but as the demonstrations progressed, we realized that this was not the end of all of the problems.

What Thailand needed was a major overhaul, we wanted reform. It needed to take place immediately. We did not trust politicians with power, they were not genuine about changing.

We needed a people’s parliament to carry out the reform. The Senate would appoint an interim government. The interim government would handpick the people’s parliament to oversee the changes.

Arun Saronchai (Journalist for Anadolu News Agency): It was bullshit. What they wanted was a “people’s revolution” where the people were effectively cut out.

They wanted to appoint a non-accountable body to carry out reforms and put politicians on public trial. It is like these people never opened a textbook or read about the French Revolution. It was very ‘reign of terror.’

To make matters worse, the protesters were singing songs from Les Miserables, while marching and holding pictures of the king. My irony meter died that year.

Continues with Parts 2, 3 and 4

https://www.thaienquirer.com/13394/a-brief-oral-history-of-the-2014-military-coup/