Military and monarchy united in royalist propaganda

Prachatai has a revealing story on the military leadership’s recent commands for more royalist propaganda. For the king’s 84th birthday in late 2011, the army plans 8 activities (shouldn’t it be 9 or 84?).

The story says these activities are meant to “honour … the King … in order for the people to appreciate his genius, and to inspire them in their way of life.”

When such statements are made it is immediately clear that this is propaganda in the style of the hopeless hagiographies that keep wasting paper by reproducing tales that can never be verified in censorious Thailand where the lese majeste laws prevent any serious and truthful discussion of the monarchy.

The activities the seemingly cash-rich army – all their treasure is from the taxpayer – include a blood donor drive that will involve 840,000 cc people, planting 84,000 trees, building 4,884 weirs, royal exhibits, operating 84 sufficiency economy learning centers, developing  royalist websites, donating 12,840 pairs of glasses for old people and a book that will detail the armed forces commitment to the monarchy.

The main point is to oppose the rising tide of anti-monarchism and republicanism: “The activities will be held at military units under the Armed Forces Development Command throughout the country to disseminate correct knowledge among people who have misunderstandings or are instilled with wrong ideas about the monarchy…”. It is added that: “holding on to the institution, the people will be united once again…”.

PPT reckons that there is little chance that such old-fashioned propaganda carries much weight these days.

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