No laughing matter

The military junta has laid its bets on King Vajiralongkorn for ensuring the future of the monarchy and the system of hierarchy, privilege and wealth it underpins.

Nothing about the king can be a laughing matter.

Yet the junta knows the king is erratic and demanding, as well as odd in his demands and personal foibles. He’s also showing he’s a political neanderthal, which might be expected of a monarch, but when combined with his other traits and limited intelligence, that makes him dangerous and unpredictable.And probably not very funny.

Some of that may have said about his father, but that king was young and subject to controls by the military, mother and old princes. Once the palace propaganda was put in place for that king, in the popular imagination, he became a polymath and a savvy politician.

By the time the military was firmly in the hands of leaders who got to the top simply by their capacity for royal ego polishing, the king and palace became a locus of political power.

That’s why the dictators have been so desperate to ban and erase all of the foibles associated with Vajiralongkorn. That’s not easy when he spends a lot of time overseas, behaving oddly. Seeking a kind of Chinese firewall without the investment, the military junta is trying to bully ISPs and international corporations into doing their censorship.

Yet that is making the situation worse. Ham-fisted censorship makes a nonentity king reigning in a relatively small and unimportant country become international news of the tabloid variety.

Among a range of other channels, VICE News recently got interested, stating:

Facebook has blocked users in Thailand from accessing a video that shows the country’s king strolling through a German shopping mall wearing a crop-top revealing his distinctive tattoos, accompanied by one of his mistresses.

Asking what was in the video banned by Facebook, VICE posted it. The report states the king was filmed while shopping at:

Riem Arcaden mall in Munich on June 10, 2016….  The video shows Vajiralongkorn walking through the shopping mall, with a woman who is believed to be one of his mistresses, Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi, aka Koi. The king’s bodyguards are also visible in the video.

The junta “banned” Andrew MacGregor Marshall, Pavin Chachavalpongpun and Somsak Jeamteerasakul for posting some of this kind of material and then rushed about arresting seven people in Thailand and accused them of sharing posts or liking them when they were considered by the junta as defaming of the king. Odd that, for the king is the one dressing up as some kind of anime character and prancing about public places with a concubine.

This has caused even wider publicity to royal shenanigans and the junta’s remarkable desperation to defend the king’s “honor” and “reputation.”

The junta holds few good cards, but is betting even more of its treasure on the “protection” of the king. They prefer to show him dressed in full military uniform, accompanied by a uniformed woman who is, at least for the moment, his official consort or the No. 1 wife.

Meanwhile, in the king’s preferred home, in Germany, the publicity provided by the junta’s actions, arrests and threats to Facebook have brought considerable attention to the royal immigrant ensconced in Tutzing (when he’s in Munich).

That leads to television reports that make the king appear weird, guaranteeing even more scrutiny and sharing; exactly what the dopes at the junta think they are preventing.

Even without German, a viewer gets the message. The junta doesn’t. For them, covering up for the king is no laughing matter. It is protecting their bread and butter, and they want lots of it on their plates.

Cyber snitching

Readers may be interested in a VICE News report entitled “Thailand’s government is using child ‘Cyber Scouts’ to monitor dissent.”

We have long known that the “Thai government is recruiting its own citizens to spy on each other on social media” but we do not recall reports that the junta is “rewarding child ‘Cyber Scouts’ when they tell authorities about any insulting comments they see others making about the country’s royal family.”

The VICE report draws on a new report “Friends, Followers, Police Officers, and Enemies: Social Surveillance in Thailand” by Privacy International.

It is a military dictatorship

PPT missed a story at Vice News, which usually gets a different demographic in its readership, so is an important outlet shaping international perspectives on the country. Thailand Is in Danger of Becoming an Established Military Dictatorship is by  Charles Parkinson and appeared on 7 April.

Regular readers will know the story well, but this gets to many who usually think of Thailand as beaches and full moon parties.

It begins:

Thailand has moved one step closer towards entrenched military rule in recent days, after the governing junta granted sweeping powers of arrest and detention to military personnel….

It concludes by citing Thaksin Shinawatra:

Responding to an earlier version of Thailand’s draft constitution — which only included a partially appointed senate — Thaksin Shinawatra drew a stark comparison between the country he once led and its neighbor.

“In reality, it would be like Myanmar before its political reforms. There would be a prime minister, but the real power would be in some politburo above him and the economy would suffer. No other government would want to touch Thailand,” he told the Guardian in February.

The powers recently conferred on the military offer little to suggest he is wrong.

Anti-monarchy = freedom, balance, equality and democracy

A couple of days ago PPT posted on a VICE story about the monarchy and the threats imagined by the military dictatorship. The following is an English-language translation of the highly confidential Thai document featured in the VICE story:

[Highly confidential]
Undermining the Royal Institution
(27June 2014)

Groups undermining the Royal Institution have attempted to exploit the 72nd anniversary of the change in government structure [1932 Siamese revolution] (24 June 2014) by revealing their organisation to oppose the National Council for Peace and Order. They plan to undermine the Royal Institution, referring to freedom, balance, equality and democracy as their main justifications. Their methods have included the revelation of concealed history connecting the Royal Institution to political events, and they have attempted to distribute reports of royal deaths in an effort to reduce the community’s faith in the Royal Institution.

The establishment of “The Organisation of Free Thais for Human Rights and Democracy: FT-HD” includes Mr Jarupong Ruangsuwan as the Presidential Secretary and Mr Jakrapob Penkair as the Managing Secretary. On 24 June 2014, a videoclip was released providing a declaration from the organisation, criticising the political changes made by the National Council for Peace and Order as having broken Thai and international law, causing Thailand to return to an extreme system of dictatorship. The choice to use the phrase“Seri-Thai” [Free Thai] on the website http://www.youtube.com with the username “FreeThai Organisation”, and on the page “Seri-Thai Organisation” (องค์กรเสรีไทย), is said to refer to the freedom and rights of the common people, suitable for use while fighting to reclaim their human rights and democracy.

The opinions of most of the general Internet community oppose/do not agree with the above-mentioned proceedings. They see the establishment of such an organisation as being connected to the undermining of the Royal Institution, and spread information regarding the differences between “Seri-Thai” during the political changes caused by the revolutionaries in 1932 and the present. Concerning the groups that are undermining the Royal Institution, they have promoted and joined in sharing the above-mentioned declaration, as well as inviting each other to use the tag “#FreeThai”. They have stated that they are releasing the country to freedom and update each other with information on the page “Followers of the Thai Freedom Against the National Dictator Movement” (แนวร่วมขบวนการเสรีไทยต่อต้านเผด็จการแห่งชาติ). Interestingly, Mr Anon Numpa, a lawyer, has requested that Mr Jarupong or others involved in this organisation clearly provide a statement concerning the existence of the Royal Institution.

Regarding the movements of individuals attempting to undermine the Royal Institution, during the reporting period it was found that some have returned to using Facebook or have reopened their Facebook accounts, such as Mr Thanthawut Taweewarodomkulor “Noom Retanont” (หนุ่ม เรศนนท์), who has become active on Facebook again and has confirmed his refusal to report to the National Council for Peace and Order, including rejecting the order as a denial of his rights and freedom. In addition, it was found that individuals attempting to undermine the Royal Institution living overseas, who were asked to report to the National Council for Peace and Order, displayed their passports to show that they have received a different nationality rejecting their Thai nationality and include: Miss Chatwadee Amornpat or “Rose” (England), Mr Lerpong Wichaikhammat or “Joe Gordon” (USA) and Pavin Chachavalpongpun (Japan).

Overseas Situation

Mr John William Oliver, a comedy actor known for parodying English politics, discussed the issue of Crown Prince Filipe of Spain’s inauguration, criticising it and referring/connecting it to other countries with monarchs, such as Queen Elizabeth II, by means of showing sections of and criticising ‘the poolside clip’ broadcast on HBO, 23 June 2014.

For Consideration

The declaration of actions/establishment of the “Organisation of Free Thais for Human Rights and Democracy” by Mr Jarupong, which Mr Saneh Tinsaen (Piangdin Rakthai) had previously (on 21 June, 2014) provided information regarding the establishment of this organisation, shows that this organisation is connected/it may contact or join in an attempt to undermine stability.

AMM at VICE on lese majeste madness

Andrew MacGregor Marshall has a story, Thailand’s Military Government Thinks John Oliver Is a Threat to Its Monarchy at VICE.  Well worth a read.  Snippets:

An official document seen by VICE News and marked “highly confidential” shows that the junta that seized power in May is paranoid about Oliver’s activities after he mocked the government and made fun of Thailand’s Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn during the June 22 episode of his HBO show.

He quotes the remarkable Slavoj Žižek:

These absurdities have provided ample fodder for mockery on social media — which the junta has also banned, of course. But while comical, the paranoia of Thailand’s military dictators about seemingly innocuous satire is well founded. As Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek has observed, when ordinary people lose their fear of laughing at the ridiculousness of authoritarian regimes, dictatorships can quickly crumble.

“We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice but goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss,” he wrote. “When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down.”

VICE on what the rich fight for

We imagine that most readers will have seen this by the time PPT has posted it. We didn’t watch it immediately, but when we did, we found it quite revealing. The blurb states:

As the conflict in Thailand intensifies, VICE News goes deep into the lives of the rich and powerful royalists of Bangkok, who are fighting to keep the old order from crumbling. These Bangkok elite have long aligned themselves with the most potent symbol of Thai unity—King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world’s longest-ruling current monarch.

The royalists’ fanatical devotion to the king has long assured them of an unquestionable claim to represent the country. But that’s changing rapidly, and the country’s political climate is inspiring PDRC leaders Nat and Victor, two young, Ferrari-driving multimillionaires, to go out to the streets—and into a violent and unpredictable future. How long will they be able to hold on to power?

VICE: Bangkok Rising

Readers will find the half-hour news story from VICE, which is self-described as an “online den of nefarious activities, investigative journalism, and enlightening documentaries,” of particular interest. VICE has a curious range of stories, including some oddities.

The documentary-style of reporting and the claims of demonstrations as “party” will strike some as odd, but this is a 20-something hipster reporting with some striking images.