Royalists do the work of republicans

All the current zeal associated with the current round of lese majeste madness is becoming difficult to follow. The Yingluck Shinawatra government, which all right thinking royalists know is “disloyal” has been in power as some of the harshest ever lese majeste sentences have been handed out, and some ministers sound like yellow to the core royalists.

Meanwhile, yellow shirts and other extreme royalists are making sure that the monarchy is at the center of all political debate. It is as if the royalists are doing the work of republicans. All in the name of “loving our king,” royalist antics make the monarchy weaker by the day.

At the moment the royalist cause is led by the Siam Samakkhi group of Tul Sitthisomwong and General Somjet Boonthanom. As noted in an earlier post, they seem to think that other countries and the United Nations are interfering in Thailand’s legal affairs. Now these royalists seem to have gone a step further and give the impression that they think foreigners are trying to bring down the monarchy.

At least that’s the impression one gets from the small but rowdy group of 200 die-hard royalists and supporters parading about at the U.S. embassy and U.N. building (see here and here). They called on these alleged foreigners to apologize “for interfering in Thailand’s internal affairs and for being disrespectful to the judicial system.” They also called on the United Nations and the U.S. to “stop whatever action and activities that might affect the constitutional monarchy of Thailand…” and to “stop all activities that might affect the bond between Thais and the monarchy…”.

Of course, all of this is a royalist charade. As we noted in our earlier post, the actions of Siam Samakkhi are aimed at Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister’s government. This action on lese majeste is simply a yellow-shirted code for attacking the government they hate and can never accept. Keeping a couple of hundred people on the streets on lese majeste is little different from suing the government on floods, opposing a supposed Thaksin pardon, and so on.

These skirmishes are part of a longer-term battle to destabilize and unseat the elected government. But the royalists play a dangerous game by making the monarchy and lese majeste their focus. Political struggle over the monarchy may be seen by royalists as their best weapon, but going nuclear on the monarchy will do little more than reveal its flaws and fallacies. So it is that royalists do the work of republicans, and very effectively too.

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