Comments on: The rural threat http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/01/11/the-rural-threat/ New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:28:26 +1100 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Jon Fernquest http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/01/11/the-rural-threat/comment-page-1/#comment-20122 Jon Fernquest Fri, 12 Jan 2007 08:24:45 +0000 http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/01/11/the-rural-threat/#comment-20122 Bird watching in the jungle (with trees) Rent seeker watching (in the urban jungle with tall buildings) http://www.readbangkokpost.com/business/corporate_governance/the_bts_debt_restructuring_con.php#intro Note the phrase: "I think they have the legal right to file charges against anyone alleging wrongdoing" To question, sometimes means to go to jail or lose all your worldly possessions, just like Socrates with his little cup of hemlock. Bird watching in the jungle (with trees)

Rent seeker watching (in the urban jungle with tall buildings)

http://www.readbangkokpost.com/business/corporate_governance/the_bts_debt_restructuring_con.php#intro

Note the phrase: “I think they have the legal right to file charges against anyone alleging wrongdoing”

To question, sometimes means to go to jail or lose all your worldly possessions, just like Socrates with his little cup of hemlock.

]]> By: Jon Fernquest http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/01/11/the-rural-threat/comment-page-1/#comment-20071 Jon Fernquest Fri, 12 Jan 2007 04:29:57 +0000 http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/01/11/the-rural-threat/#comment-20071 "Frankly speaking, sufficiency economy is a self-defence response to predatory globalisation practices and it should not be mingled with politics." Seems to me it's Thai elites predating on themselves. Like Thaksin using his connections as a police colonel and civil servant to buy government computer and then telecommunications concessions. What pray tell is global about that? Except that is where the technology originally came from. "Sufficiency economy" as it is being developed by Thai elites (not in its original form as the words of His Majesty the King) seems to be just another form of Thai Ruk Thai (not Farang) clearly implying: Thai Ruk Farang (too much). It is the Thai elites that employ whatever opportunities are exploitable in the international marketplace against other Thais in the domestic marketplace. It was Thaksin who used the tighter security worldwide after 9/11 to increase the power of the police who in the same breath accused liberal-progressive NGOs from outside the country usurping Thailand's sovereignty and declaring that the UN "was not his father." All this clearly looked like Thai (not) Ruk Thai and THai (pretend to) Ruk Thai. One must distinguish the public transcript and ideology from the hidden transcript. In the university I taught at, foreign teachers were not given the same treatment as Thai teachers. They were not given health insurance or on campus housing or long contracts. They were disposable teachers, few of which chose to remain there for long and contribute even if they really were truly of the Farang Ruk Thai variety. Meanwhile the BOI offers huge incentives to companies with lots of money to blow and luxury condomiums in Bangkok are thriving, a huge fraction of which are bought by wealthy foreigners. Education is a force that can change rural thought and participation in democracy. Exclusive focus on isolating and lassooing large globs of money as they run around loose on the free range of the international market place just solidifies Thai elite status quo and rural backwardness. “Frankly speaking, sufficiency economy is a self-defence response to predatory globalisation practices and it should not be mingled with politics.”

Seems to me it’s Thai elites predating on themselves. Like Thaksin using his connections as a police colonel and civil servant to buy government computer and then telecommunications concessions. What pray tell is global about that? Except that is where the technology originally came from.

“Sufficiency economy” as it is being developed by Thai elites (not in its original form as the words of His Majesty the King) seems to be just another form of Thai Ruk Thai (not Farang) clearly implying: Thai Ruk Farang (too much).

It is the Thai elites that employ whatever opportunities are exploitable in the international marketplace against other Thais in the domestic marketplace. It was Thaksin who used the tighter security worldwide after 9/11 to increase the power of the police who in the same breath accused liberal-progressive NGOs from outside the country usurping Thailand’s sovereignty and declaring that the UN “was not his father.” All this clearly looked like Thai (not) Ruk Thai and THai (pretend to) Ruk Thai.

One must distinguish the public transcript and ideology from the hidden transcript. In the university I taught at, foreign teachers were not given the same treatment as Thai teachers. They were not given health insurance or on campus housing or long contracts. They were disposable teachers, few of which chose to remain there for long and contribute even if they really were truly of the Farang Ruk Thai variety. Meanwhile the BOI offers huge incentives to companies with lots of money to blow and luxury condomiums in Bangkok are thriving, a huge fraction of which are bought by wealthy foreigners. Education is a force that can change rural thought and participation in democracy.
Exclusive focus on isolating and lassooing large globs of money as they run around loose on the free range of the international market place just solidifies Thai elite status quo and rural backwardness.

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