Why is the king in hospital?

Also available as: ทำไมกษัตริย์ยังคงทรงประทับในโรงพยาบาล

Thai Crisis is blocked to some readers in Thailand. In it’s latest blog, Thai Crisis asks the questions that many people are asking but that no commentator in Thailand wants to touch. Why is the king still in hospital? Is he really so ill that he needs to be there for 3 months? What’s going on? PPT is not sure about the speculation, but if the palace and its Royal Household Bureau was more transparent, maybe there wouldn’t be continual rumor and speculation.

We reproduce This Crisis on this below, correcting a couple of obvious typographical errors and trying to keep the links active:

Why the King is kept in hospital ?

Published 10 December 2009

The question might appears as provocative. But let’s review some hypothesis.

First the fact : the King is in hospital since… September 19. Almost 3 months!

Second : at the beginning, the state apparatus spent a lot of energy to try to divert attention, to water down the reality of the King’s ailment. That was achieved through surreal “daily official statements” (read a few of my previous articles here and there).

Third : the King made 3 public appearances… 2 at the hospital. And the last one was for a very brief address, for his birthday last week (read here).

On December 5, as soon as the speech was over, the convoy of official cars (a VW van for the King) went… back to the hospital. Live on TV.

Now,  let’s go deeper.

1-We can assume without any risk that the King of Thailand would be able to get all doctors and equipment money and modern science can buy. When he wants. And where he wants.

2-It would be rational to assume that the King would prefer to be in his palace,  home, while being treated, rather than in a hospital room.

3-And we can assume, due to past events (the attempts to water down the reality of the health situation), that it would be  in the interest of the state apparatus to continue the same policy. AKA : stability. We could even say : it’s in the public interest. For that matter, It would be perfectly logical to try, as far as possible, to shorten and/or to hide the most visible proof of abnormality, AKA the King’s hospitalization.

Normality = King in his palace (even if very hill). Abnormality = King in hospital.

It’s basic common sense.

So let’s recap… 1+2+3 = ?

Why do they keep the King in the hospital? Why did they show to the world this convoy of official cars… travelling back from the palace directly to the hospital, right after the royal speech?

Why such an ostentatious hurry ? Live on all Thai TV channels?

Why they didn’t even try to… pretend?

It doesn’t make any sense.

Until… well… it makes perfectly sense… AKA = this is exactly what they want to show.

Let’s assume that the whole situation is designed.

What would be their motives ? Who would benefit from this operation?

The answer seems then obvious: while the King is in the hospital, AKA in a position of weakness, the struggle with the opposition cannot resume. The Thai people is compelled, in a way, to unite behind its monarch.

To summarize : in order to prevent (political) abnormality, a group of people (?) could paradoxically gamble and play on a… a real abnormality.

What do you think? Far stretched?

The question of why the king remains in hospital is now pretty much a political one. Some of the other speculation is that being in hospital is “safer” than being in the palace. Exactly who is the “danger” varies with the telling. In any case, while there is no reliable information, speculation will continue.