As PPT recently posted, the king’s birthday and anniversary celebrations were something of a wake for an era that is quickly passing.
We said: “While all of the (royal) familial togetherness and media’s cringingly syrupy odes, along with the required pageantry, seems pretty standard, especially as the king has now reached a very ripe old age for Thai kings, we can’t help but feel that this was also a wake for the end of an era. The zenith of the reign has passed and the future is uncertain. Most especially the future is uncertain because royalists seem intent of demolishing the monarchy in the name of protecting it.”
Indeed, a rash of critical reports related to lese majeste around the time of these celebrations confirm a decline. We tend to think that two recent articles provide confirmation.
At Asia Times Online, Shawn Crispin has a set of theories on why lese majeste charges are rampant. Crispin begins by indicating how bizarre lese majeste has become, stating that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra could have been charged for her team posting a photo of the king’s dead brother instead of the king himself on her Facebook page.
Whereas all of the current lese majeste cases appear to us to have begun under the previous Abhisit Vejjajiva government, Crispin is undoubtedly right to note the present government’s boisterousness in its claims of “loyalty” and to be determined to “protect” the monarchy.
Interestingly, Crispin calls out so-called human rights groups, noting that “until now [they have been] seen as mostly reticent on the [lese majeste] issue,” and he notes that they have only now “made strong statements against the law’s widening use. Amnesty International said that convicted US citizen Joe Gordon should be considered a ‘prisoner of conscience’, while Human Rights Watch referred to recent lese majeste penalties as ‘shocking’ and an apparent government response to lingering questions about its loyalty to the crown.” That they have been spineless on lese majeste is clear.
He also notes that the “Abhisit Vejjajiva-led government oversaw the filing of 478 lese majeste cases last year, a threefold increase over the number lodged in 2009,” and that these “charges filed by his Democrat Party were often politicized to undermine certain of Thaksin [Shinawatra]‘s political allies…”.
But we think Crispin then gets off track when he claims that Yingluck Shinawatra’s “equally aggressive approach to purging anti-monarchy sentiment has blurred the earlier storyline that portrayed Thailand’s political conflict as a fight between an old royalist elite and a Thaksin-aligned noveau riche who hold competing visions for the monarchy’s future once the widely revered King Bhumibol passes from the scene.”
We don’t think that has been the storyline and nor do we know that the present government has been “equally aggressive.” It was always known that any attempt to change the lese majeste law was going to be exceptionally difficult. The Abhisit government was aggressive while the Yingluck government has been spineless. Despite what Crispin says, the Yingluck is not yet charging tens of new cases that would indicate an aggressive crackdown. It might do this, but it hasn’t yet.
As always, Crispin has a bunch of unsourced claims about what is going on, this time in the palace. We liked this one, although we have no reason to believe it more than any of the others: “… one wing of the palace – backed by the military top brass and their allied retired coup-makers – wants the law firmly upheld in the run-up to what is expected to be a delicate and potentially destabilizing royal succession from the revered King Bhumibol to Vajiralongkorn.”
The other story is at the Bangkok Post, where Deputy Editor Atiya Achakulwisut also looks at similar lese majeste events and concludes that there must be a kind of plot against the monarchy: “If that were not the case, then why would two successive governments need to appoint high-level commissions to deal with websites and online discussions defaming the monarchy?”
But she thinks the lese majeste law “has put the monarchy in a negative light (a very broad description)…”. She also admits that there are “extremes of opinion” on the monarchy. That perspective is, in itself, something of a statement for the mainstream media. She even thinks that anti-monarchy sentiment on the web has “proliferated because there has been no open and free forum for people to express their opinions and to engage in a frank discussion about the important issue without fear of retribution…”.
What a crazy thought! A frank discussion of the monarchy without fear of retribution….
