14 long years

Sadly, PPT has been at work for 14 long and sometimes discouraging years. That said, we are amazed and gratified by the bravery of those in Thailand who oppose lese majeste and the monarchy-military alliance, and the voices for monarchy reform that refuse to be silenced.

Way back at our 2nd anniversary we had this:

In a very real way, the second anniversary of Political Prisoners in Thailand is not a birthday to be celebrated. When we began Political Prisoners in Thailand on 21 January 2009, we anticipated that it would be a temporary endeavor. Instead, two years later, we have grown exponentially in terms of writing and readership.

From Radical Graffiti

Unfortunately, we do not anticipate being able to end our work anytime soon. There are now more people jailed for a range of political crimes in Thailand today than there were in 2009.

If anything, things are worse today. There are at least 21 political detainees, but this number ignores others jailed on bogus charges. Worse, years of authoritarianism have changed institutions. Elections of a better regime is unlikely to mean that this embedded authoritarianism can easily be replaced. For us, fundamental political change begins with reform of the monarchy rooting out the monarchism that is the keystone of Thailand’s authoritarianism and its political and economic inequality.

Brainwashing

The Pattaya Mail reports that the junta’s tool, the Election Commission and the royalist Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation – none of which is does well – have “launched a new campaign for university students, encouraging them to render active participation as good citizens in a democratic society.”

It sounds like something for primary or elementary school students, but, no, this is paternalism for university students.

The two agencies “announced a campaign run under the cooperation between the Election Commission (EC) and the Ministry of Higher Education to promote a correct mindset towards the constitutional monarchy.”

How high?

A “correct mindset” means blind devotion to the monarch. The campaign focuses on “students from 38 Rajabhat Universities across the country…”.

The real aim is to manipulate “young leaders by instilling good citizenship and active democratic participation in the students.” That terminology is buffalo manure. The idea is to brainwash students with ridiculous monarchism.

The campaign is a response to the popular student movement to reform the monarchy. Like military regimes of the past, the current lot thinks that monarchist propaganda will change minds.

We are pretty sure that that time has passed. Dinosaurs with Cold War ideas no longer have much traction among young people.

“Love” lost

National, royalist, yellow

When all of the commentators – even some of those who campaign against the monarchy – talk about how “loved” and “revered” the dead king was and compare the current monarch unfavorably with him, we at PPT always wondered how the commentators judged this. After all, no one in Thailand was ever prepared to survey public opinion on the monarchy. And, if they did, who was likely to respond negatively after decades of indoctrination and repression of anything remotely questioning of the throne?

One of the remarkable achievements of recent pro-democracy rallies has been to open the door to a more nuanced and critical assessment of the monarchy.

Pareena

The rallies have also seen yellow shirts recycled to “protect” the monarchy, with the regime firm in its rejection of anything to do with the monarchy. For example, the loathsome Phalang Pracharath MP Pareena Kraikupt seeking to belittle activist Patsaravalee “Mind” Tanakitvibulpon with pro-monarchy jabs. As Khaosod has it, Pareena warned and lectured:

“Article 112 will not be amended…. We will not touch the culture that has been passed down to us.… Why are you asking for impossible things? … Learn to be respectful of things we cannot touch. Do not be selfish.”…

Parina insisted that the pro-democracy activists were only 100,000 in number, a minority compared to the “tens of millions” who wanted absolutely no change in the government or monarchy.

“Don’t act like a revolution. It’s impossible to change the ruling system,” Parina said. “You have to understand what ‘majority’ means….

Leaving aside the copious buffalo manure in these few sentences, we again wondered about how widely accepted “the culture that has been passed down to us” – meaning the monarchy and its trappings – actually is.

When yellow shirts rally and talk about the “silent majority” – as does The Dictator – we are also left wondering who they are invoking to their royalist politics.

A reader pointed out to PPT that we’d missed an tidbit in a recent Bangkok Post report that sheds some light on these questions.

Tucked away near the bottom of a recounting of a recent Suan Dusit Poll of 5,738 people, conducted on 19-22 October across the country, it is stated that 60.41% of respondents want protesters “to avoid infringing on the monarchy.”

Can we take this as representative of the “majority”? Are only 60% of people supporting the monarchy? In fact, we think that the percentage supporting the monarchy is probably lower than this because some would answer this was because they fear that yellow shirts will become violent.

However it is looked at, that the polling agency asked the question is a big change. That 40% were not bothered by protesters “touch[ing] the culture that has been passed down to us” is remarkable given the decades of ideological hegemony of monarchism and the political repression associated with it.

That’s not to say that 40% are ardent anti-monarchists. But consider what they ranked above “infringing on the monarchy.” 66.23% were “not satisfied with the prime minister’s handling of the country’s administration”; 72.37% wanted the “government should immediately seek negotiations with the protesters and not to buy time”; 61.69% said the regime “should not use violence against the protesters”; 60.43% said the regime “should listen to the voice of the people and the protesters”; 73.31% of respondents “want the protesters not to become a tool of any political groups”; and wanted them “to be careful about Covid-19 (65.97%); to avoid resorting to violence (63.85%); and to respect the law (60.67%)…”.

It would seem the regime has lost the “majority” and the criticism of the monarchy is quite a way down the list of concerns.

If the monarchy was once “loved” and “revered” – and we’ll probably never know – those emotions have dwindled remarkably in a very short time.

Updated: Murderous monarchists III

Back when the handcuffed, disemboweled bodies, filled with chunks of cement, found on the banks of the Mekong, the victims of murderous monarchists, we posted on an unconfirmed report of three bodies having been found.

Two of the bodies have been identified as aides to anti-monarchist Surachai Sae Dan. The three were “disappeared” late in December from a house in Laos where the three were in exile.

Khaosod has a story seemingly confirming that a third body was found in the river, and then that it “disappeared.” The report states:

Coming after two mutilated bodies recovered from the river were identified as aides of a missing prominent anti-monarchist, the photos show what appear to be a third body that can no longer be accounted for.

The third body was found by a villager on 27 December and reported to police. A navy patrol arrived and took photos, but when police arrived, the body was gone.

The local headman “was instructed by security forces not to talk about what happened.”

It is looking like the suspension of the use of lese majeste charges has been been replaced by abduction, torture and murder.

Update: The Bangkok Post reports that police have confirmed that the bodies of the tortured and murdered two are the aides to Surachai. One line in the report jumped out: “The murdered men are believed to be the victims of more political killings of accused lese majeste suspects tracked down and killed inside Laos.” Clearly, the perpetrators are assumed to be representatives of the Thai state, torturing and murdering. It is also implied that these murders are targeting critics of the monarchy. It is a dark state that uses abduction, torture and murder, yet these have long been defining characteristics of the murderous military. When they work for a vindictive palace, acting with impunity and with no consideration for domestic or international law, the future looks as bleak as some had predicted back in 2016.

Murderous monarchists II

Yesterday we posted on the handcuffed, disemboweled bodies, filled with chunks of cement, found on the banks of the Mekong, and how one of the victims was likely Phoo Chana, a 57-year-old who had fled Thailand after the 2014 coup and lived in exile in Laos, working with Surachai Sae Dan (Danwattananusorn).

Surachai, Phoo Chana and Kasalong all went missing at the same time. Their enforced disappearance was probably the work of murderous monarchists, acting under orders. We assume that the orders to torture, murder and dispose of the bodies probably originated high up in Thailand.

It is now confirmed that the second tortured and mutilated body is that of Kasalong. Khaosod reports that “a source at the Forensic Science Institute … speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed Tuesday that DNA testing has linked the second body … to a man known as “Comrade Kasalong…”.

This also means that Surachai was probably also tortured and murdered.

The real identities are not publicly known but both were red shirts working with Surachai.

It seems that at least five anti-monarchy Thais have been “disappeared” and probably killed.

The viciousness of the murders brings to mind the work of rangers and Border Patrol Police in earlier times but also reminds one of rumors of cruelty and murder in the 1990s linked to high places.

In the report of this particular murder, “Police in Nakhon Phanom, where one of the bodies was recovered, vowed Tuesday morning to find those responsible.” Presumably they will be sleuthing in Bangkok.

Murderous monarchists I

It seems increasingly likely that the handcuffed, disemboweled bodies, filled with chunks of cement, found on the banks of the Mekong, are the victims of murderous monarchists, probably acting under orders. The orders to torture, murder and dispose of the bodies probably originated high up in Thailand.

Khaosod reports that the “son of one of three missing republicans said Monday that police have concluded that a mutilated body found in the Mekong River was his father.” Phoo Chana and Kasalong went missing at the same time that Surachai Sae Dan (Danwattananusorn) was disappeared late last year.

The Institute of Forensic Science has conducted a preliminary DNA test and the results identified him as Phoo Chana, a 57-year-old who had fled Thailand after the 2014 coup and lived in exile in Laos, working with Surachai.

Several other anti-monarchists have been disappeared and are presumed to have been murdered.

Fear among dissidents overseas is now rife. Indeed, that is exactly what the enforced disappearances are meant to achieve, for fear breeds silence.

Propaganda for the junta and monarch(y)

While PPT was posting of Fascism and academic accommodations to it and for it, a couple of interesting stories appeared in The Nation and Khaosod that seem to reflect on the issues of academic (un)freedom, indoctrination and propaganda.

With the so-called succession crisis seemingly never really materializing, royalism and royalist propaganda for the king has moved into an even higher gear, fertilized by the junta’s fervent monarchism and anti-republicanism.

Khaosod’s story is of blunt force propaganda inflicted on students at Thammasat University by junta and royalist university administrators:

Eight people, six women and two men wearing yellow neckerchiefs and blue baseball caps, marched on stage with the precision of a military parade. Taking turns speaking over the next two hours, they described the benevolence of the Chakri dynasty in bringing peace and happiness to the people of Thailand.

The propaganda for the monarchy began with the shameful groveling of “rector Kesinee Withoonchart …[who] prostrated herself on the ground before it [a portrait of the king].”

The propagandists, “drawn from the armed forces and police” are “volunteers” in the pay of the state and are known as “Volunteers Unit 904. The number 904 is derived from the former radio call sign of the king before he was king.”

Endless palace and junta propaganda wrapped up “with people being asked to stand for a song newly written for the new king and the traditional royal anthem.” The message seems to be that the population will now endure double doses of forced erect standing that Fascists mistake for obedience.

This gross effort concluded in an entirely appropriate manner: “a question-and-answer session saw no takers from the audience.” Fascists and royalists – many of them combining these proclivities – mistake this for orderliness and attention to hierarchy.

The Nation has a more on propaganda, this time for the junta’s Deputy Dictator, the Watch Man, Gen Prawit Wongsuwan. Like magic, a “new Facebook page has been created to support and defend Deputy Premier and Defence Minister Prawit …, who has been embattled with damaging scandals recently.” It seems this page is to support “Uncle Pom’s Lovely Side.” We are unsure which side that is, but we guess it is his right side.

The creation of the page is more or less an admission of guilt because of its need to manufacture “messages in support of Prawit, news reports in favour of the ruling junta, and video clips defending Prawit against allegations.” The syrupy propaganda reckons the dumpy general is “a reliable man who has been trusted by the armed forces for over five decades, and also a former commander well loved by his colleagues and ‘brothers’ in the Army.” No recommendation at all! But is does suggest that the Army is at work creating the page.

Monarchism in the new reign

One of the things that critics and the international media says (repeatedly) about King Vajiralongkorn is that he does not command the same “respect” or “reverence” as his father did.

This is a shorthand for all of the eccentricities and worse associated with the king and rumored to be associated with him, ranging from odd dress to his violence and from his philandering to his use of his own prison, and so on.

It also seems to imply that, even with the palace’s formidable propaganda machine, the king will not follow in his father’s footsteps and be made out to be a popular and respected figure.

It seems to us that such beliefs and hopes are nonsense. Already, the same kinds of buffalo manure that were spread out for the dead king are also being used for the new one.

Remember all that stuff about the hysteria over the dead king’s dog Thong Daeng? Shirts and books selling out immediately, with the king’s puerile scribblings being proclaimed great works?

So it will be with the new king because maintaining monarchism is critical for the constitution of the ruling class.

So it is that Khaosod reports that shirts featuring stick figures claimed to be doodled by the king have sold out in minutes. It says many were disappointed they couldn’t get one of the shirts.

It reports that:

[h]undreds of people queued at dawn this morning in lines stretching out of the Government House to buy yellow and white polos in preparation for the [k]ing’s birthday next month. Half an hour after the shop opened at 9am, all shirts were sold out, even after they were capped at five shirts per customer.

Some royalist mouthpiece at the Prime Minister’s Office described the king’s doodling as a “cute pattern that anyone would want to keep for its auspiciousness and value, since there’s no other shirt like it in the world.”

Purchaser are reported as cooing about how wonderful the shirts are. Even Panthongtae Shinawatra, son of ousted former prime minister Thaksin, was chauffeured down to buy a shirt. Sucking up to royals is standard practice.

Meanwhile, it is said that “the palace would increase production to 3,000 shirts from 500 a day.”

Nothing seems to have changed as far as palace propaganda and the promotion of monarchism is concerned.

 

Updated: Royalism undermines popular sovereignty

Everyone knows that the prince, now king, began his purges of the palace from late 2014, when he “divorced” Srirasmi. Dozens of her family and associates were jailed. Then there were the clearances that saw “unreliables” ditched, deaths in custody, lese majeste jailings and the use of a personal jail. Some fearful palace associates, now out of favor, fled the country.

This was followed by an aggregation of control to the palace. The constitution was secretly changed to accord with the king’s desires and then secret meetings of the puppet assembly gave him control over formerly state bureaucratic departments and the vast wealth of the Crown Property Bureau to the king.

Has he finished? Probably not. Fear and favor mean that an erratic king will lose interest in some people and some things and will need to be rid of them. Then he’ll desire control over other people and things.

But one of the other things that is noticeable is the “normalization” of the reign, as if nothing has changed or that the changes made are in line with the normal activities of the king and palace. Yet even this “normalization” has been a process of promoting a heightened royalism.

The media has been used recently to promote royalism. The excuse has been the queen’s 85th birthday, with a series of “stories” about “people nationwide” celebrating her birthday. Many of the photos showed military men and bureaucrats doing the celebrating.

The Dictator was especially prominent, leading the junta in an alms-giving exercise for 851 monks at the Royal Plaza, claiming it was also a tribute to the dead monarch.

More specific propaganda pieces have dwelt on “merit” and filial piety. For example, the Bangkok Post has run pictures of the king, his mother and Princess Sirindhorn making merit together.

Other royal stories include a donation to of 100 million baht to Siriraj Hospital, with the king thanking the hospital for taking care of his father. The money is said to have “come from revenue from selling his diaries featuring his drawings…”.

While we might doubt that so much money can be made from the sale of a collection of childish drawings, the junta’s support for the king has been strong and maybe it bought many diaries and distributed them.

But back to deepening royalism. The Nation reports on a “revival” of Kukrit Pramoj’s restorationist story “Four Reigns.” Kukrit was an incessant promoter of royalism, ideologue for the dictatorial General Sarit Thanarat, booster for King Bhumibol and diplomat for royalism translated for foreigners.

The Four Reigns is now Six Reigns. According to The Nation, the “restaging of Thailand’s most commercially successful musical play is more pro-absolute monarchy than ever.”

The play opens with the scene in which the spirit of Mae Phloi starts to recount her life story and confirm her unwavering love for “kings”, and the background is the familiar image of people gathering outside the wall of the Grand Palace paying respect to the late King Bhumibol.

And with the last scene showing Thai people paying respect to King Vajiralongkorn, the play now covers six, not four, reigns.

Clearly, the play … tries, more clearly than the original novel, to prove … that Thailand was much better before 1932 than after. This outdated attitude doesn’t sit too well in 2017 Thailand, as we try to build our political system from “military junta under a constitutional monarchy” to “unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy”, a kind of democracy that is already difficult to explain to our friends from many countries.

This royalism can only deepen as the cremation of the dead king approaches and as Vajiralongkorn and the junta further embed his reign and undermine notions of popular sovereignty.

Update: The new king is the old king propaganda continues, with two stories at The Nation of the king’s donations to 300 flood victims and 39 students in the south. We should add that there is no evidence provided of where the funds come from. Like royal projects, it may be that “donations” are all taxpayer funded.

Fear and unintended consequences I

Yet another strange media event highlights the politics of the new reign.

Yesterday it was reported that the dead king’s funeral would take place on 26 October. Later in the day, Khaosod has published this, with the black nothingness being in the original:

Note to Readers: Removal of An Article About a Palace Announcement
Khaosod English
April 18, 2017 6:41 pm

From the Editors of Khaosod English.

Khaosod English has deleted an April 18 article about a certain statement made by the royal palace.

The story was removed because the announcement was not yet released formally by the palace, and Khaosod’s editorial management feared that the content in the article might lead to legal action.

As a news agency based in Thailand, Khaosod English is obliged to comply with Thai law. However, we strive to serve the public interest by presenting objective, accurate news reports.

That the newspaper is unable to present “objective, accurate news reports” due to the monarchy is nothing new. However, the fear that is seen in bizarre news reporting like this, under the new reign, is now part of a commentary.

We have briefly mentioned a New Mandala op-ed by Pavin Chachavalpongpun on fear in the new reign. Earlier we mentioned an op-ed by Claudio Sopranzetti also writing of fear.

While we agree that fear now seems central to the new reign under the erratic and violent King Vajiralongkorn, we do not agree with their contrasting references to the previous reign as one that was one of love and reverence. Idealizing the previous reign is a political mistake based on an incomplete reading of history.

In fact, the previous reign was also one that was defined by patronage and a feeling of impending danger, leading to bizarre politics. Yet for the earlier period of the reign there was also a political struggle as the palace sought to revive monarchy and royalism, along with its wealth and power.

It is in this sense, that the last 10 years marked the political success of that strategy, even if the king was not particularly involved, being hospitalized for the last decade or so of his reign.

Yet his proxies demonstrated a bizarre pattern of rightist and royalist politics that were a direct result of the monarchy’s manufactured position, power and influence. They fought the ghosts of the past and what they perceived as the threat to their position and power that had come from monarchism. That threat was seen in popular sovereignty.

It is in this sense that the current reign is the true and real outcome of that struggle and its politics.

Royalists have always known that Vajiralongkorn is a thug and unstable yet they now seem  somewhat confused that they have aided and abetted a new reign that sees monarchism moving towards an absolutism that they may not have contemplated.

Confusion will lead to bizarre politics and bizarre acts as those who consider themselves part of the royalist ruling class maneuver for influence.

Yet this is also a dangerous time for both the ruling class and for the monarchy as missteps in this small circle of the rich and powerful can have unintended consequences that threaten both.