New Mandala readers who have been following the case of Harry Nicolaides will want to read this reflection published in today’s The Sydney Morning Herald. Penned by a former Mae Fah Laung University colleague, Heath Dollar, it discusses Harry’s desire “to create a sensation, a publicity stunt to land an author on the literary map”. Harry’s reply is available here.
UPDATE: Forde Nicolaides statement
Dear all, there has been some media attention today claiming that Harry’s book was a ‘publicity stunt’. The suggestion that Harry intentionally sought a charge of Lese Majeste and a term of imprisonment in Thailand is baseless for the following obvious reasons -
1. The book was submitted to the Palace, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Thai Ministry of Culture for approval. The book was also accepted in to the National Library of Thailand and issued an ISBN number in 2005
2. The maximum penalty for a Lese Majeste offence is 15 years and there was no guarantee of a royal pardon in his case
3. The book was published 3 years ago and attracted no attention
4. The charge was only laid when the political situation in Thailand deteriorated
5. Harry’s case has been supported by Amnesty International, Reporters without Borders, International Pen, The International Commission of Jurists, the Australian govt, the Federal Opposition, the Victorian govt and thousands of people who have signed a petition of support
6. Harry spent 6 months in extremely harsh conditions in Thailand during which time his mother became very ill
7. The allegations made by Mr Heath Dollar, the person named in the Age and SMH today, claim that he advised Harry not to publish the book. Mr Dollar has a Myspace.com profile at http://www.myspace.com/heathdollar that records that in April this year, which must mean 2008, he “returned to the United States after twenty months of teaching at a university in Northern Thailand”. That means his time in Thailand commenced from August 2006, which is well after December 2005 when Harry’s book was published. This indicates he could not have given any advice to Harry before publication.
The suggestion that Harry would have deliberately brought this experience on himself and that all the organisations that supported him were somehow misled is completely without foundation.
Forde Nicolaides
UPDATE 2: More on Heath Dollar’s accusations
Readers keen to learn more about this story will find this more recent article helpful.
36 responses so far ↓
1 Ralph Kramden // Feb 23, 2009 at 11:29 am
Googling Mr Dollar also provides insights into his background and interests.
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2 R. N. England // Feb 23, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Could the Thai Monarchy have been sucked into playing the villain in a literary publicity stunt?
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3 Charles F. // Feb 23, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Harry Nicolaides received his fifteen minutes of fame – now it’s Heath Dollar’s turn.
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4 Val // Feb 23, 2009 at 3:53 pm
RN England: Yes, publicity stunt, absolutely, as I’ve been saying all along. However I was wrong about the book itself being a hoax. I have finally seen a photocopy. It is not very long, and badly written.
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5 michael // Feb 23, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Would that make Harry’s mother ‘collateral damage’? How can anyone know whether the story is true? But it is of some interest that both Dollar (apt surname?) and Jon Fernquest (also a former colleague) have called him an opportunist. Neither of them seems to have liked him, indeed they’ve both shown their lack of compassion, contempt even, for him by going public with their extremely negative views. In Fernquest’s case (early blog on NM), I felt that he was saying Harry deserved it. That would imply that Fernquest supports LM arrests, wouldn’t it?
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6 jonfernquest // Feb 23, 2009 at 4:19 pm
White-boy-intellectual-think goes something like this.
Hey, that’s a white boy in leg shackles locked up in that cage crying on CNN in front of 4 million viewers worldwide, I too am white boy, (ergo truth no longer relevant here) must have compassionate same-race-creature-love for fellow white boy in cage, former hotel gofer becomes “Australian academic,” a “writer,” a “political prisoner”…whatever imagined alternative reality I want him to be… (while I’m smoking my pot or sipping my espresso)
With Heath, it is now five former colleagues of Harry who are all saying the same thing: Harry is a complete liar.
The Harry case is ipso facto proof of the incompetence and misrepresentation of foreign media reporting on issues in Thailand (perhaps even ภัยจากกระแสสื่อข้ามชาติ Threat From the Thoughts/Trends of the Foreign Media, via Bangkok Pundit).
Heath having taught thousands of poor rural youth in the Czech Republic and Thailand should be the one who engenders respect, not overreaching “intellectual” fools like Harry and Giles.
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7 Charles F. // Feb 23, 2009 at 5:04 pm
The above mentioned statement by Forde Nicolaides certainly provides food for thought. If it’s true, then it would indicate that Heath Dollar is talking out of his ass, and just trying to insinuate himself into the situation for his own reasons. Self promotion anyone?
That Heath Dollar has spent time teaching the poor doesn’t even enter into it. Nor does the fact that Harry Nicolaides may have spent some time as a hotel “gofer”. Shades of class warfare!!!
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8 Srithanonchai // Feb 23, 2009 at 5:15 pm
“not overreaching ‘intellectual’ fools like Harry and Giles” > Harsh words. But, yes, at times one might well feel uncomfortable who one has to defend politically because certain principles say so.
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9 Nick Nostitz // Feb 23, 2009 at 5:21 pm
“jonfernquest”:
Personal animosity (and/or jealousy for international exposure?) seems to deflect from the issue here. Publicity stunt or not, previous achievements regardless, the issue is a draconian punishment for a law that increasingly stands in conflict with Human Rights and is increasingly criticised both inside and outside of Thailand.
Do i care that colleagues of Harry Nicolaides call him a liar? Not one bit, because what is the center of the debate cannot be lied about – that he was under harsh conditions in jail, and that requests for bail have been denied.
What on earth has that to do with “white boy” or race altogether other that it is easier for the media to place articles they otherwise would like to but cannot to to editorial practices? Here on this forum we though should not lower ourselves to draw the discussion into racial issues, especially with such a terminology.
This post has not done you, and what appears to be your cause, any service. If you have an issue with media reporting on the Harry Nicolaides case, i would request you to formulate a reasonable argument that we can discuss instead of a frothing diatribe.
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10 Clifford Sloane // Feb 23, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I worked at the same university at the same time as Harry, Heath and Jon. While I am far kinder to Harry than either of my other colleagues, I agree with the gist of Heath’s account. It is not that he WANTED to get busted, but he did court the risk involved and tended to either ignore or minimize the consequences. My two colleagues (who I hold in great esteem) call it opportunism. I call it a taste for flamboyance.
Context here is critical. At the time, we all knew of only one other foreigner actually accused of lese majeste. That foreigner, Matthew McDaniel, was never imprisoned; he was told to leave Thailand and never return. His crime was far more flagrant than Harry’s (he publicly criticized a royal works project as corrupt) and his punishment modest in comparison. The friends advising Harry were fairly consistent in saying that the consequences would likely be banishment, not imprisonment. We were also consistent in saying that he was taking unnecessary risks.
Jon’s accusation of Harry’s dishonesty is harsh to me, but the main fact in the case is solid; he knew, and did it anyway.
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11 michael // Feb 23, 2009 at 6:23 pm
JFQ: Has it occurred to your white-boy-intellectual-thinkin’ do-gooder brain that most of us also support every other victim of this ridiculous law & condemn the current purge? I really don’t think that many people feel Harry was a special case.
I can’t follow your reasoning on this, especially the stuff about Heath being more worthy of respect because he’s taught “thousands of poor rural youth.” Everyone who teaches here, whether in an urban or rural setting, can eventually say they’ve taught thousands of poor infants, youth, or adults – but they don’t, mostly. And most would probably agree that if that were the basis of their worthiness for respect, then perhaps they should get a life.
Isn’t it one of the fundamentals of civil-and-human rights that we are all worthy of respect and entitled to fair treatment & freedom by virtue of our identity as humans, without having to do anything to ‘deserve’ it?
Harry’s talk & his merit as a fiction-writer have absolutely no bearing on his right to freedom. And for you (who write for the extremely tame & unenlightening Bangkok Post, for god’s sake!) to put down Ji by calling him an “intellectual” fool, and imply that he deserves what has happened to him, is beyond belief.
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12 Chris // Feb 23, 2009 at 9:30 pm
It would seem unlikely that Jon Fernquest, who after all is a writer himself (for the Bangkok Post I believe), would actually believe that the penalty for being a not-very-successful writer or failed novelist (even one who may or may not have sought publicity), should really require being thrown into a Thai prison cell with 50 other hardened criminals (murderers, rapists, thieves, arms and drug dealers, etc.), sharing a public slot-in-the-floor toilet, sleeping on the floor with a cardboard box over one’s head and eating gruel for some years.
Surely, the world’s prisons would soon be overflowing with such writers and it is obviously a better use of the limited resources of the world’s penal systems to let such writers simply go on their way.
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13 Ralph Kramden // Feb 23, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Trust jonfernquest to come up with such a response. All his colleagues say he was a liar. He lied about writing the book, he lied about being in prison. jonfernquest insinuates that all foreign journalists of being drug-fuelled, coffee-drinking white racists and as misrepresenting everything they write on in Thailand. jonfernquest’s posts become more nonsensical by the day.
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14 landofsnarls // Feb 24, 2009 at 3:41 am
Having taught thousands of poor urban youth in Thailand, not to mention the hundreds of poor urban & rural teachers & civil servants, it is most comforting to know that if I’m ever in need of a pompous, embittered and extremely patronising yank to pontificate on how I should engender respect over some young (alleged) motor-mouth who has just experienced months of indignity & brutality in a Thai prison for no identifiably just reason, jonfernquist will be available. But will anyone listen? I hope not!
Whatever Harry’s character flaws, I can’t see that they are relevant to a discussion of this LM issue. Your dear & respected friend & colleague, Mr Dollar, appears to be something of an opportunist himself, having wasted no time at all in selling his cheap, tabloid-style (and possibly libellous) expose to 2 major Oz papers. If we are to believe Forde’s statement re. the allegation that Dollar advised Harry not to publish (& the maths work), then it would seem that he is also something of a liar. An opportunistic liar, and – oh yes – an unsuccessful novelist, according to his myspace page, where we learn he could’ve been published by City Lights…but wasn’t (reminds me of the Indian civil servants who used to put ‘B.A.[failed]‘ on their business cards.)
Jonfernquest’s bitchy remarks about Ji’s intellectuality should also be read with the knowledge that fquest’s time as a university academic was less than successful.
LM is wrong, no matter who are the victims.
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15 bosunj // Feb 24, 2009 at 6:11 am
I told you he’s a nitwit! Politically correct Aussie Mamma’s boys won’t post this comment though.
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16 nganadeeleg // Feb 24, 2009 at 9:26 am
ROFLMAO – where’s Republican, Somsak & Taxi Driver when you need them.
Whether he was a publicity seeking fool or not, Harry’s punishment was harsh – however we all knew he would be pardoned eventually because he was a ‘white boy’.
It’s what happens to the non whites that we should be more concerned about – Darunee (Da Torpedo) was recently refused bail for the 3rd time – that’s harsh no matter what she said.
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17 Vox Populi // Feb 24, 2009 at 11:43 am
“The Harry case is ipso facto proof of the incompetence and misrepresentation of foreign media reporting on issues in Thailand.”
So you’re saying that he wasn’t in fact put in jail for nine months because of a single paragraph in a novel? Because, you know, those seem like the facts most people have been focusing on.
Of course, from the lofty heights of the Post, perhaps you have a different perspective. (Doubtless while snorting your coke or sipping your brandy, while the rest of us poor proles have to make do with pot and espresso.)
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18 amberwaves // Feb 24, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Jon Fernquest, I’ve outed your secret hero!
In a 1969 speech against war protesters, he said, “A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.” “In the United States today,” Agnew told a 1970 audience in San Diego, “we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.” He went after “pusillanimous pussyfooters” and “vicars of vacillation” and “the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”
In a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, drafted by Buchanan, Agnew took on the press, which he said was dominated by a “tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one.” It was a frontal assault, raising issues of media bias, arrogance and unaccountability that are still banging around in the American mind.(Time magazine, 30 Sept. 1996)
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19 Arthurson // Feb 24, 2009 at 3:45 pm
@nganadeeleg
“Whether he was a publicity seeking fool or not, Harry’s punishment was harsh – however we all knew he would be pardoned eventually because he was a ‘white boy’.
It’s what happens to the non whites that we should be more concerned about – Darunee (Da Torpedo) was recently refused bail for the 3rd time – that’s harsh no matter what she said.”
Let’s all agree on the following, shall we?
Harry’s punishment was harsh.
Darunee’s punishment continues to be harsh.
The lese majeste laws are repugnant and need to be abolished.
Why don’t we start a webpage for Darunee similar to the “BringHarryHome” webpage? Then we would at least be expressing a universal principle of support for free speech.
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20 nganadeeleg // Feb 24, 2009 at 4:43 pm
@Arthurson: I agree on the first two, and also that the LM laws are repugnant, however I am not in favor of them being abolished outright.
I would prefer them to be changed such that only the palace can make the charge.
I also prefer that to Netirat’s proposal (over at Bangkok Pundit) that any LM complaint must be approved by Attorney General – although that would be an improvement on the current situation.
One of the reasons I prefer the simple change rather than abolishment is that it rebuffs any claim that it’s proposers are disrespecting the monarchy, as in fact they would be showing great respect for the monarchy in trying to keep the monarchy from being dragged into politics.
Another reason is that I am generally not in favour of non-censorship (and complete free speech) are due to the prevalence of sick pornography, nutters and gullible minds.
Further, I quite like the idea of being able to see what (if anything) the palace would deem warrants the LM charge (rather than the existing situation where the dirty work is performed by others).
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21 Clifford Sloane // Feb 24, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Nganadeeleg:
You said:
however I am not in favor of them being abolished outright.
I would prefer them to be changed such that only the palace can make the charge.
It seems that you are assuming that the members of the Royal Family are not involved in any of the current cases. Is this a safe assumption to make?
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22 Clifford Sloane // Feb 24, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Arthurson:
You said:
Why don’t we start a webpage for Darunee similar to the “BringHarryHome” webpage? Then we would at least be expressing a universal principle of support for free speech.
I STRONGLY support this. Can someone post information as to how I can help? Has Thai Netizen done something along these lines?
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23 nganadeeleg // Feb 24, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Is this a safe assumption to make?
Unless their names are on the charge sheets as the ones instigating the charges, then I’m prepared to make that assumption.
That’s the beauty of making the change as suggested, for then we will know who is behind the charge.
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24 Rofen // Feb 24, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Clifford Sloane: your comments that Harry was advised by so-called ‘friends’ of the unecessary risks of writing the actual offensive passage in his book and that he “tended to either ignore or minimize the consequences” lacks any credibility and is meaningless. If you, heath and Jon Fernquest did give such advice, Harry appears to have listened to you all and acted responsibly to eliminate any risks by writing letters about the book to the Royal Household Bureau, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Is there any higher authorities he could have written to? The national library of Thailand then accepted the book (and still do apparently as it is publically available on the shelves) and Asia Books had no problem with distributing it either. It took over 3 years for the book to get attention. Where is the ‘taste of flamboyance’ in that?
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25 greg lowe // Feb 26, 2009 at 2:22 am
I saw a copy of Harry’s book when I worked for a local publisher and he was attempting to get it printed.
I threw it in the bin because it was so diabolically bad (now I wish I had kept a copy).
He clearly knew something was up because in the cover letter he mentioned how he thought his emails at MFL Uni were being intercepted. The book made some very unwise statements about the Thai royal family (hence the LM charge) and he was a fool to try to get it published in Thailand.
So maybe the claims that he was looking for publicity have some weight to them. But the point is he was sentenced under draconian laws for writing. Writers write. It’s what they do (even if it is badly).
The institution he was accused of offending has centuries of culture behind it, which one would think would make it robust enough to stand up to a few badly placed words in a terrible novel that nobody even bought.
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26 Ecrit // Feb 26, 2009 at 2:55 am
Rofen’s post is unanswerable. Clifford and Jon shouldn’t even begin to try to sanction this horrible injustice suffered by one of their colleagues. How easy it would be for so many of us to suffer this punishment. All of us would hope at that time that people we had worked with would be brave in our defence, not working out their pique at not having being “listened to”. Dickens created Uriah Heep for this kind of ignoble worm.
Have a heart. Don’t add to the indefensible things that will make you flinch when you are old.
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27 Ecrit // Feb 26, 2009 at 3:27 am
Sorry, have to post on this again. I’ve just read Harry Dollar’s SMH article. Excuse me for being unacademic, but what a total prick the Dollar boy is! I am shocked that the Herald would have posted such a clutch of sour grapes.
What always amazes me is the viciousness of those who have worked with people and seen them fall on hard times. Clifford is a classic case; first he sticks the boot in, then tries to turn the kickbacks into a “let’s debate the %^&$$@!%” issue. Yuck. The other trogs who backed up Cliff and his buddies are equally as gross. I might be a ^&*$, but I’m not a ^%$@*&^ %$#& (TISM).
Good night, and good luck.
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28 Catherine // Feb 27, 2009 at 8:23 pm
I don’t care about Heath Dollar as it’s nothing news.
But I do care about is this item…
‘The book was submitted to the Palace, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Thai Ministry of Culture for approval. The book was also accepted in to the National Library of Thailand and issued an ISBN number in 2005′
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29 Christie // Mar 8, 2009 at 8:28 am
Heath Dollar has been a friend of mine for over 15 years. He was indeed in Thailand teaching at the university during the period he stated in his article. He occasionally mentioned Harry during the course of our correspondence. He is a man of great integrity. Unfortunately, he has been vilified for his honesty by many who were snowballed by Mr. Nicolaides chicanery.
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30 rofen // Mar 8, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Chicanery? As a close observer of the Nicolaides case this couldn’t be further from the truth. You only need to look at the timing of when Heath Dollar made his claims (day after Harry was pardoned) to judge his ‘great integrity’. As I said above, these claims are meaningless.
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31 Christie // Mar 12, 2009 at 10:40 am
To rofen: Mr. Dollar was only made aware of the case after receiving an e-mailed article from a colleague after the fact.
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32 Christie // Mar 18, 2009 at 3:41 pm
To rofen: Last post from me – I misspoke about Mr. Dollar’s knowledge of Nicolaides’ imprisonment. He actually was aware of the case prior to Nicolaides’ release and wrote the piece in SMH at that time. SMH felt that it would be prudent to refrain from publishing the piece until Nicolaides’ release lest it be used in some way to strengthen the Thai government’s case against him and Mr. Dollar agreed. It was not his intent that Nicolaides get a greater sentence. His intent was one of caution: be careful who you hold up as a martyr lest you end up with egg on your face.
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33 michael // Mar 18, 2009 at 6:04 pm
re. Christie #32: So, you’re now saying that Dollar submitted the article before the pardon was announced, and that SMH advised against publication before Harry’s release, because it was potentially damaging. That would seem to indicate that all your stuff about Dollar being a man of integrity is a load of nonsense. It’s very clear that Dollar didn’t give a damn about Harry; he was only intent on cashing in. At least SMH showed they had some scruples.
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34 Christie // Mar 19, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Michael – I know Heath Dollar, you do not. I stand by my statements regarding his integrity and his intentions. My post regarding the timing of the article was a complete misunderstanding on my part.
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35 rofen // Mar 21, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Christie, the intentions of someone wanting publicity have been made quite clear through the actions of Heath Dollar. There is no disputing that. If he has the great integrity you say he has, why didn’t he report the matter to the Police in Thailand? Why would it matter to Heath Dollar when his claims were aired by SMH? I have to agree with Michael above, that he didn’t give a damn about Harry and was intent on cashing in on meaningless claims.
Even if one accepted that his claims were true, so what? Is Heath Dollar some higher authority on Lese Majeste than the Thai Royal Household or Ministry of Culture (where Harry wrote letters to before publishing)?
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36 Kristin // Mar 28, 2009 at 6:42 pm
For the record, quoting a MySpace page may not be the most accurate means of keeping track of people’s life stories….Heath was most definitely in Chiang Rai before and during Harry’s tenure at Mae Fah Luang. I can attest to this as well, as I was also teaching there.
Harry did indeed share his manuscript–with several teachers at MFLU. I also remember the blue cover with the butterfly on it when he published it himself. And Heath’s recollections are wholly consistent with my impressions of Harry. In fact, his pushing the limits attitude was par for the course of Harry’s behavior in general. It is unfortunate that he was made to be the whipping boy of an unevenly enforced, borderline abused law—but he was voluntarily living and working in Thailand, and should have been aware and respectful of Thai laws accordingly. He certainly had ample access to a reliable resource/barometer for appropriate conduct in his wonderfully talented and accomplished Thai partner, Tam.
The other side of the story deserves to be told–lashing Heath on the web does nothing to advance the truth of what happened specifically to Harry, or to contextualize the larger issues and political tensions facing Thailand during this tumultuous time.
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