Day 2 of the International Conference on Thai Studies here in Bangkok featured the keenly anticipated panels on the Thai monarchy. The first panel discussed some of the monarchy’s key supporting institutions – the abundantly rich Crown Property Bureau, the politically influential Privy Council, and the symbolically potent cult of King Chulalongkorn. The second panel discussed the lese majeste law. And the third, exceptionally crowded, panel discussed Paul Handley’s path-breaking biography of the king, The King Never Smiles.
I am happy to open the forum to others to comment on the content and effectiveness of these three panels.
From my point of view, like yesterday’s panel on sufficiency economy, they provided a relatively open forum for the expression and discussion of ideas about the role of the monarchy in the contemporary political system. Though the discussion was, at times, rather more restrained than some may have hoped the panels did represent an important breakthrough in international Thai studies. The key message of the panels was that the persistent self-censorship imposed by the international academic community can now be cast aside. The sky will not fall in if we talk freely and frankly about the king’s role in contemporary Thai politics. Let’s make sure this is a starting point for ongoing frank and public discussion.
As I did yesterday I invite others attending the conference to submit their comments, reflections and reports.
On the issue of Thai media covereage of the conference, my media monitors tell me that apart from the Bangkok Post report (which I have inserted as a comment to yesterday’s post) there has been no subtantial press coverage. Please let us know if you have spotted anything.
12 responses so far ↓
1 ChrisIPS // Jan 11, 2008 at 2:40 am
I find the Bangkok Post article about the conference elliptical and understated to the extreme. For the conference exchanges to have more effect, there needs to be a more thorough and informative series of articles and reports……….
(the average Bangkok Post article about a Premier League soccer game has more information and detail………..)
2 Srithanonchai // Jan 11, 2008 at 2:51 am
ITSC: “The sky will not fall in if we talk freely and frankly about the king’s role in contemporary Thai politics. Let’s make sure this is a starting point for ongoing frank and public discussion.” >> …outside of this special arrangement, and within political studies academia in Thailand.
3 tettyan // Jan 11, 2008 at 6:59 am
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/11Jan2008_news20.php
4 Republican // Jan 11, 2008 at 1:36 pm
You know, one thing that I think is really important is using the correct language. The big problem with reporting on the monarchy in general, both in the Thai and in the international media, is that the authors continually use words like “elite”, “conservative”, “rightists”, “military”, etc. (the Bangkok Post report on the ICTS is an example). This enables the king and the royal family to escape scrutiny. So we must mention the monarchy at every opportunity to prevent this. The problem of course is lese majeste.
“…The sky will not fall in if we talk freely and frankly about the king’s role in contemporary Thai politics…”, maybe this is true for foreign academics who are beyond the reach of lese majeste – but what about the example of Handley? (by the way, was he refused a visa? was he discouraged from coming? or did he choose not to come out of fear for his safety? or?).
Obviously for Thai academics the sky can indeed “fall in” in the sense that if the law was enforced to the fullest extent then one faces a 15 year prison sentence. Besides the legal punishment there is also the social sanction and the threat of extreme violence.
5 david w // Jan 11, 2008 at 5:40 pm
An AP report on the monarchy panel(s):
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080111/ap_on_re_as/thailand_king_biography;_ylt=AqLMubuLQG8jq5j8oOeTUzSnxQ8F
6 jonfernquest // Jan 15, 2008 at 10:05 am
“The big problem with reporting on the monarchy in general, both in the Thai and in the international media, is that the authors continually use words like “elite”, “conservative”, “rightists”, “military”, etc. (the Bangkok Post report on the ICTS is an example). This enables the king and the royal family to escape scrutiny.”
It is exactly these “elite” high members of the bureaucracy, police, military who need to be scrutinized in more detail.
These groups consistently use the institution of monarchy to build a non-transparent wall around themselves to protect their power and rent seeking opportunities.
To point this out violates no lese majeste law, though you might get targeted in some other way.
I’ve seen it at the university I taught at. The university was named after a prominent member of the royal family, led by a former high-ranking bureaucrat with a very wealthy police general with a huge ranch nearby on the board of directors which took every opportunity to cheat the ajaans out of pay and renege on promises. Deans that had left other universities under a cloud of suspicion were effectively recycled (also a product of non-transparency and non-democratic policies of silence). Frequent legitimating royal ceremonies were followed and echoed by mini-versions local versions that reinforced their own local absolute power making it so that no one questioned them. For instance, a vice president and law professor were arrested for involvement in a child prostitution ring. This story made it to Matichon a major national daily, yet the news was quickly stifled and not even mentioned on campus! As an autonomous university a gigantic 60 million baht spa was built in back of the university, of course certain people benefited from the initial choice of the land for the university in the first place, and re-elections of the university head seem to have been rigged continually since there is ever only one candidate in elections. Local people are somehow under the impression that this university excels academically but the staff doesn’t really do research and never publishes. Why? Because the ajaans were picked to be easily controllable, mostly young women back from a masters degree in a foreign university supported by their parents obviating the necessity of paying them any money.
Anyway, I could go on, but I think that **academics are simply being superfluous cowards** by not tackling the difficult real issues that might require them to put even their life on the line, instead they create some bogus strawman issue like criticising the monarchy itself, so they can wear their tweed jackets to their seminars and engage in something that could hardly be classified as “work.”
Investigative journalism should be the model they are following.
If they really wanted to be heroes they’d get their lazy little r*mps out of their offices and start looking into the very very untransparent real problems.
Papers, papers, academic papers, more things to file away on a library shelf and for most people forget about.
7 Frank Lee // Jan 19, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Correct!
In a country where the government has always maintained control over the electronic media, it would be very easy for it to start rolling back the monarchy’s ‘public space’ – and then there will be one less public intellectual (i.e. ‘trouble-maker”) for the powers-that-be to contend with. To quote Orwell from 1984:
“If the Party could reach back into the past and say of this or that event, ‘It ever happened’, how much worse was that than mere death and torture.”
Case in point: The first edition of the Bangkok Weekly (?) on the news stands following the king’s famous “The king can do wrong” (i.e. commit mistakes) leadership tutorial for that square-faced dullard who is no longer around, had on it’s cover a big recent photo of the king and and a counter message: “THE KING CAN DO NO WRONG”.
Clearly, it’s not easy being the king of Thailand.
Frank Lee
8 Teth // Jan 20, 2008 at 1:19 am
You overestimate our government’s competence, Mr Lee. You also underestimate the complexity of “rolling the monarchy’s public space”. The consequences are not simple as publicity for the monarchy (or its cronies) could easily turn sour, take the case of the lese majeste amendment that tried to extend protection to privy councillors or the case of Mr Jufer.
Therefore the Palace and the conservative establishment tread carefully. But have you read any Thai history textbooks recently? It is almost Orwellian. Is it any wonder very few Thais know about 6 October or Pridi Banomyong? They are left ignorant by their own ministry of education.
Of all your criticisms of Thaksin, one thing is certain, he is no dullard. I’m not a fan of Thaksin (and as I’ve stated, I am actually anti-Thaksin), but your statement was a beautiful illustration of the irrational fear and blind hatred that grips so many people when one brings up Thaksin. I say irrational because many people simply loathe Thaksin for his brash manner and arrogant style (oh, and a few corruption allegations that even a military government can’t seem to prove).
9 Republican // Jan 22, 2008 at 3:09 am
I’ve just read the interview former ITV journalist Jom Phetpradap conducted with Thaksin at the end of last year, which apparently was due to be broadcast on TITV but never made it [I found the transcript at Prachatai – http://www.prachatai.com/webboard/topic.php?id=680050
As always Thaksin appears to show great loyalty to the throne, but then there is this great throwaway line at the end of the interview, which surely must have been no accident:
…ขอให้วันที่ 23 ธันวาคม เป็นวันเริ่มต้นของความปรองดองเถอะ เรามานั่งพูดนั่งดากันทุกวัน ประเทศอื่นหัวเราะเยาะ เขาโกยเอาโกยเอา เศรษฐกิจเขาไปถึงไหนไม่รู้ ประเทศไทยเนี่ยนะ 60 ปีที่แล้ว เราแข่งกับญี่ปุ่น แล้ว 40 ปีต่อมา เราแข่งกับไต้หวัน ฮ่องกง สิงคโปร์ และ 20 ปีต่อมา เราแข่งกับมาเลเซีย วันนี้เราแข่งกับ เวียดนาม นะ หรือเราจะถอยไปแข่งกับลาว เขมร พม่า ก็ลองดู…
That’s a rather different retelling of the history of the last 60 years to the one we’re used to!
10 Taxi Driver // Jan 22, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I thought we’re already competing with Bhutan on the happiness index
11 hrk // Jan 22, 2008 at 10:03 pm
To get a bit of a historical background with regards to the dicusssion of the monarchy, I found the material provided by Scot Barmé (2002) “Woman, Man, Bangkok” very interesting, especially pages 97ff.
12 Passing on the buck // Mar 15, 2008 at 10:07 pm
[...] Herald Tribune with some brief further reference to the discussion of the monarchy at the recent International Conference on Thai Studies. A king’s lessons in democracy By Stanley A. Weiss 11 March [...]
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