Get rid of lese majeste
The Christian Science Monitor (27 May 2010) includes an article by a businessman who wants to remain anonymous. Of course he does, because he writes of the monarchy and lese majeste. He says: “The major obstacle to political reform in Thailand is its law of lèse-majesté.” He adds that the law is politically expedient: “the law has been applied broadly to intimidate and – where expedient, to imprison – critics of the current political system.”
Usefully the author also recognizes that the lese majeste laws “throw a cloak of quasi-religious adulation around the institution. This contradiction between democratic and god-king visions of governing must be resolved. Reform in Thailand can find no traction within the existing political system that rests, in part, on a sacred institution that cannot be discussed or questioned.”
The article concludes that until “lèse-majesté laws are repealed and the political space is opened to discussion, extremists on both sides will dig in for a long, bitter struggle.” Not just extremists. This struggle is now society wide.
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