All in the family

In case readers miss it, in the Postbag section of the Bangkok Post, Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij’s wife Vorakorn defends herself and her interview with Matichon earlier in the week.

For details of the Matichon interview, see Bangkok Pundit’s post here. Apparently, Vorakorn was apprised of a comment about her statement on the “problem of democracy”  at Robert Amsterdam’s Thai-language site. Vorakorn seems miffed and writes to the Bangkok Post:

Mr Amsterdam, in reference to the article ”Is democracy a problem?”, posted on your website and Twitter, I wish to respond as follows.

First of all, I assume you know what freedom of speech is. What I said in the interview (with Matichon newspaper, Nov 12) is an opinion that many others share. I am a housewife who sees the flaws in my country’s democratic system. Notwithstanding that, I am a law-abiding citizen who complies with her democratic duty of voting at every election, local or national.

Anyone who calls himself a democrat would also acknowledge my democratic right to criticise democracy in my own peaceful way. In fact, if democracy can’t be criticised, then surely it wouldn’t be democracy at all.

Now, let me share my perspective: You, Mr Amsterdam, are now serving a former leader whose political party was disbanded for election fraud and who himself was convicted of corruption whilst in office. Like me, he chose to criticise society; but unlike me, he chose the route of violence by supporting an uprising that led to many deaths and the burning of private and public properties. All the while he says he ”loves democracy”. I understand that your paid duty is to whitewash your employer, but I am confident that the whole world sees him for who he really is.

One problem with the response is that she believes that she needs to respond to Amsterdam when all his site has done is translate the original Bangkok Pundit post. See Bangkok Pundit on this.

A second problem is that she seems to think that pointing out here views on democracy is somehow challenging her right to speak on democracy. In fact, there was no such attempt by either Bangkok Pundit or Amsterdam. Like others associated with the current government, she seems to confuse legitimate commentary with some kind of political attack. Maybe all critical commentary needs to be banned for these privileged members of the elite to feel comfortable. Of course, Amsterdam is banned from Thailand already and the elite has worked hard to chase out others they see as “oppositional.”

A third issue is that she is justifying a comment where she questioned the efficacy of democracy for Thailand. In her misdirected attack on (the messenger) Robert Amsterdam, Vorakorn conflates democracy with voting – isn’t that what urbanites like her accused “ignorant” villagers of doing when they supported Thaksin Shinawatra?

Finally, she accuses Amsterdam of working for a former leader who supported violence “by supporting an uprising that led to many deaths and the burning of private and public properties.” Wasn’t it her husband’s government that sent the military in with weapons and free fire zones?

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