An end to royalist feudalism

The Economist has an article on the monarchy and the announcement of Queen Sirikit, the queen mother. We want to reproduce it for readers and make some comments:

Back in 1960 New York threw a ticker-tape parade for Thailand’s young king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, an anti-communist ally of America’s. New Yorkers turned out in droves to see Bhumibol go by. Yet bystanders noticed that he never smiled. When a reporter asked why, the king gestured to his consort, Queen Sirikit, a 27-year-old spirited beauty. “She”, he said, “ is my smile.”

In fact, the young king and queen were putty in the hands of the anti-communist dictator and father-figure Sarit Thanarat. He did much to rehabilitate the monarchy and they did much to soften the edges of a military dictatorship that went on from 1958 to 1973.

The press called the young queen, who mixed Thai jewels with French couture, the Jackie Kennedy of Asia. Sirikit died on October 24th at the age of 93. She had been largely out of the public eye since a stroke in 2012; Bhumibol died in 2016.

Her death was officially announced to have been on that date. It was speculated that she had passed earlier.

Elderly Thais still remember the early years, when she charmed Western crowds. According to Thai tradition, a good king must model Buddha-like equanimity. The counterpose to Bhumibol’s stoicism was Sirikit’s glamour. The combination made the royal couple wildly popular among their subjects during their seven-decade reign.

It is not at all clear how popular the two were. Of course, their popularity also changed over time and in line with state propaganda that built these particular images and involved a massive taxpayer funded effort to make them popular.

The two modelled a monarchy for Thailand’s aspirational middle classes.

The middle class back then was made up of Thai officials and Chinese business people who formed an anti-communist, capitalist alliance that gave the country its tycoons and corrupt administration today. The monarchy was the largest capitalist enterprise in the country and probably remains so today.

To the rural poor, their charitable works made them appear to care, when politicians did not.

This is a reproduction of royalist and palace propaganda.

Their popularity was not pre-ordained: on Bhumibol’s accession in 1946 the monarchy had been consigned by the moderates and fascists vying to lead Thailand to being a remote symbol. The royal couple’s winning personalities and charitable works—as well as aggressive public relations and strict laws against criticising them—meant the monarchy acquired unrivalled influence, an inseparable part of the Thai trinity of nation, religion and king.

Yet Thais also know Sirikit for something else: her interventions in the country’s turbulent politics. The palace interfered constantly. The king frequently intervened to bless coups and discourage violence.

Thais know of Bhumibol’s political interventions, and of his support for violence for the monarchy, but they may not openly discuss it under the lese majeste law.

By the 1970s Sirikit was even more active, aligning herself with right-wing coup-makers in her own army unit, the Queen’s Guard.

So did the king. Think of the Village Scouts and rightist monks. Think 1976.

In 2008, when royalist demonstrations seeking to unseat the government of the day turned violent, Sirikit gave money to the movement and took the extraordinary step of attending the funeral of a protester killed by police. The government soon fell.

The desire for a politics free of the court’s influence has only grown. Several popularly elected governments have been deposed by the generals or the royalist establishment, who then made a mess of governing. Many younger Thais believe a quasi-feudal monarchy stands between their country and a modern, democratic politics. They are at best indifferent to the royal nostalgia that the establishment expected with Sirikit’s death.

When Bhumibol died, the then junta declared a full year of mourning. Thais earnestly complied, wearing black and white. Football matches were cancelled and television dramas taken off air.

We don’t recognise this. Yes, like Sirikit, a year was initially demanded for the old king, but it was not much adhered too, except when the state demanded it.

On Queen Sirikit’s death, many expected an outpouring of support for the monarchy. That would have been helpful to the (royalist) prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul. His Thai Pride Party is preparing to fight a tough election campaign next year against the People’s Party, for whom reforms to the monarchy and army are central tenets. Yet even opposition politicians have been surprised at the muted reaction to Sirikit’s death. Far fewer Thais are wearing mourning clothing than nine years ago.

We are not sure how this is “measured,” but we tend to agree.

Nor have popular events been cancelled: a South Korean pop group, Blackpink, which includes a Thai member, played at the national stadium the day after the queen mother’s death (though the audience were asked to don black and white, which most did).

Though Sirikit was a consort, not the monarch, she was nearly as beloved. So the muted reaction suggests changed attitudes to the monarchy.

This is again palace propaganda being reproduced, but the point linking to Vajiralongkorn is useful. But that should not demand an idealization of the previous reign.

Her 73-year-old son, Vajiralongkorn, who rules as Rama X, is a martinet playboy who has been married four times, taken an official mistress, disinherited offspring and lacks an obvious heir. His erratic behaviour has tarnished the monarchy.

The government may have worried about the economic fallout from a strict period of mourning for Sirikit, including a ban on popular entertainment. That would have harmed its electoral prospects more than the boost that royalist nostalgia might have brought.

Yet some interpretations of court customs would prohibit an election during a royal mourning period. If his popularity has not recovered by early next year, Mr Anutin could cite them as cause to delay the polls. Keeping a royalist party in power would be a last service to the monarchy, in death, from a queen who so defended it in life