New Mandala

19 responses so far ↓

• 1 Book Zone // Feb 27, 2009 at 7:04 pm

  It’s called the Land of Smiles. The elite are smiling as long as you keep licking their dirty boots

• 2 Srithanonchai // Feb 27, 2009 at 10:49 pm

  The context for recognizing the importance of the lese majeste law might be seen in this recent reference to “Nation, Religion, Monarchy” (translated from a Thai-language pamphlet):

  “The national identity that is at the core of national security means the institutions of nation, religion, and monarchy. In the promotion of national identity, every person and every sector must have loyalty to all three institutions and join hands in promoting the security of these three institutions.”

  (Somphon Thepasith ([2008]) Prawatisat chart thai kup ekalak khong chart. Khwamsamkhan khong sathaban chart satsana phramakasat [National Thai history and state identity. The importance of the institutions of nation, religion, king]. Bangkok: Mulanithi Somphon Thepasit phuea satsana lae patthana sangkhom.)

  In 1971, it sounded like this:

  “The King and the People become one. The Throne and the Nation become one, and a profound meaning is thus given to the Thai Throne. It becomes the personification of the Thai nationhood, the symbol of the Nation’s unity and independence, the invariable constant above the inconstancies of politics, indeed, as it is written to be, the repository of the sacred trust of the whole nation.”

  (Office of His Majesty’s Private Secretariat (1971) A Memoir of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand. Bangkok: Thai Watana Panich Press.)

  The Monarchy thus is a key element of national survival, and the embodiment of the Nation. Therefore, abolishing lese majesty is seen as destructing the current conception of the Monarchy, and with this the survival of the Nation is at acute risk. Stripping the monarchy of its mythical and sacral quality by subjecting it to open criticism crushes the entire model.

  This might seem to be a rather odd worldview given that Thailand is supposed to be a democracy (with whatever adjective), and that “Nation, Religion, Monarchy” as a justification of hierarchical society and absolute monarchy predates 1932. However, even more odd is that even in our “modern” times such a great number of people really put their hearts in defending this ideology.

• 3 Kirt // Feb 28, 2009 at 4:49 am

  Minor as it may be, I think it’s worth noting that the message board post says “a better country,” not merely another country. The comment is indicative of that common defensive attitude which holds that Thailand is “objectively” inferior to Western, and some other Asian, nations. This belief seems to me to be grounded in some Thais’ (clearly buddhist-influenced) notions of race: the anxiety over the status of “farang” in Thai society is most interestingly neutralized (and hyperbolically valorized) in “luuk krueng,” for example. The farang parents of such people forever remain markedly un-Thai in their essential character, according to this culture-internal logic, as do all foreigners who have lived for extended periods in Thailand, or closely studied Thai culture, while such bi-racial children are objects of mass-media fetishization, etc, etc.

  As many observers of Thai culture and politics have surely noted, this antinomic attitude towards supposedly superior “others” is hardly uncommon and I think this comes through, however obliquely, in this post, and much of the Thai discourse on LM.

• 4 Nero Hansen // Feb 28, 2009 at 5:30 am

  Hi Nicolas,

  first of all I really appreciate this excellent website. But for my feeling the whole lese-majeste discussion is a bit onesided. True, Thailand faces massive deficits concerning basic human and democratic rights. No doubt about that and of course the propaganda blurs the ordinary perception of what is actually happening in Thai politics.

  But did anybody ask why the Thais (which are not part of the political arena) have this sentiment? As an institution the monarch as the “thammaraj” represents a set of Buddhist core values (generosity, virtue, compassion, freedom from wrong ambitions, control of anger, modesty, defending the Buddhist teachings,…). I think I don’t have to mention that Theravadan Buddhism, including the reformed Thammayud is an example of egalitarianism.

  So what happened in thats forum? Westerners would stand up and defend the values their culture is based on, and so do the Thais. That the means don’t justify ends is for sure.

• 5 DeepBlueSea // Feb 28, 2009 at 6:42 am

  Majority of Thais want change. We ask the world to help us bring progress to this oppressive society.

  Did the NAZI also use the culture factor? If we do not allow progress to take place peacefully. Violence will spread from Southern region to other parts of the country.

  Thanks to Harry for your helping hand!

• 6 Fred Nerk // Feb 28, 2009 at 12:09 pm

  The big elephant in the room where any group of left-leaning academics confabulates is communism. Easy to dismiss now, but it was literally a terror in the land back in the day.

  Put yourself in the shoes of anyone *not* radicalised in (say 1965) and the re-sacralisation of the monarchy becomes a blindingly obvious thing to do. Read the 1971 blurb above in this context.

  People, *it worked*. Along with Malaysia, Thailand was the only SE-Asian Country to successfully kill the beast without creating a mountain of skulls in doing so. If you guys think 1976 was bad (I’m not saying it was nice or fair or not vomit-making, mind you)… try East Java and Bali 1965.

  Thing is, a lot of of the folks writing about SE Asia think communism is a feature and not a bug. It drives them nuts that all the usual suspects + the old guy dug deep down into the Thai psyche and pulled out a mystical magical trick that held the line when Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos fell.

  So you write blather wondering in some faux ingenuous way why the Monarchy was re-built as it was from Sarit onwards. The real reason is clear as day. But you have to be honest about historical conditions at the time. Of course there were the usual Thai/human secondary issues like other people gaining power, the Kityakaras riding back into town, etc., etc… but finding a mystical bulwark against communism and making it work was the order of the day.

  What later happened in those three countries was far more evil than anything that’s gone down in Thailand in living memory. But most of this gets wall papered over. Far more exciting to take on the Thai Monarchy from a distance than have a go at Hun Sen (fatal in 9 cases out of 10 ).

  I’m not supporter of the Thai Monarchy… and it is a truism that everything eventually becomes subject to contradictions, historical ironies, etc… the marxists are right on this one point. The wheel has turned and change is in the air. This however does not in any way imply that things are going to get better without the Chakris in the house.

  Like Tito, Franco, and Salazar… once you take away the stifling wet blanket, all kinds of things (both good and bad) crawl out and get breeding in the light of day.

  Another obvious point related to basic human nature. People NEED to believe in someone good. Obama-fever people. Buddhism doesn’t provide any kind of ’saviour figure’ (to East Coast / West Coast Whitey, this is a feature, not a bug – to an indebted peasant, less so). This need is so deep-seated that in the absence of anyone genuinely good, people will fixate on the nearest, best-looking, least obviously evil person (who might be regarded as a monster in a more civilized time and place) – Exhibit A: Zhou Enlai. Obviously the Old Guy fulfills this kind of duty too.

• 7 Nero Hansen // Feb 28, 2009 at 12:11 pm

  DeepBlueSea: As far as I recall, the escalation of violence in the South since 2004 originated Thaksins challenge of the royal power network which disequilibrated the region. As a German national with an expatriate background in Thailand I can reassure that I didn’t meet work mates who complained about 3rd Reich propaganda so far.

• 8 Lleij Samuel Schwartz // Feb 28, 2009 at 4:05 pm

  re: Fred Nerk

  Buddhism doesn’t provide any kind of ’saviour figure’

  Huh? That’s news to me. Out of the major religions of the world, I would argue that Buddhism is the one most focused on salvation (i.e. liberation from samsara), and that the Buddha and his teachings (the Dharma) provide a symbol and focus for salvation. In Buddhist theology, this concept is refered to as “taking refuge in the Triple Gem (sarana gamana).”

  Now of course, there is a huge difference between the soteriology and buddhology of Theravada and Mahayana schools; nevertheless, both clearly view salvation, through the attainment of Nirvana, as the primary focus, and the Triple Gem as a “savior figure” appears in the earliest credos of the Buddhist faith. Indeed, taking refuge in anything else, including a thammaraj would be seen as “unskillful”.

• 9 Nero Hansen // Feb 28, 2009 at 7:40 pm

  Actually, I am a bit confused about some interpretations of Theravadan Buddhism getting mixed up with Brahministic and Mahanikayan folklore. Firstly, the Pali Canon doesn’t teach anything about racial superiority/inferiority. If there is no place for a “self” and the definition of nibanna (breaking the cylce of samsara) is the liberation from greed, aversion and delusion I wonder how that fits in. Secondly, in Theravadan Buddhism “taking refuge” in the “tripple gem” is not to be mixed up with “savior” figures. They come to simbolize wisdom, truth, and virtue – qualities to be developed by the lay people on their individual path to liberation. Buddhist monks and nuns are not preachers (at least in the Theravadan tradition) but offer “spiritual guidance” to the general Buddhist public as mutual support. For a more detailed explanation please find a lecture on basic aspects of Buddhism by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi at http://www.bodhimonastery.net/bm/about-buddhism/audio/83-the-buddhas-teaching-as-it-is.html

  Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

• 10 Ralph Kramden // Feb 28, 2009 at 10:48 pm

  Fred Nerk’s prose is not particularly clear in his posts, but at least one point deserves a little more attention.

  The historical record that we have is not particularly supportive of the view that “the re-sacralisation of the monarchy becomes a blindingly obvious thing to do.” That may seem obvious in hindsight, but it was not back in then. Sarit tied his regime’s legitimacy to the monarchy for reasons other than fighting communism. Kukrit Pramoj was the one who developed the idea of an authoritarian regime that engaged the monarchy as an element of so-called Thai-style government (see, for example, http://www.fringer.org/wp-content/writings/thainess-eng.pdf). This re-employment of the monarchy was for domestic political reasons to do with a fight between royalists and anti-royalists. At the same time, the Americans had a vague perspective that Sarit was leftist – recall that they had been supporting the previous regime as they developed their anti-communist strategy in SE Asia.

  In fact, though, it could be argued that it was the Americans who stumbled across this idea of promoting the monarchy as a Cold War ally, after much searching around by anthropologists and others in their pay. It took a good while for them to come to this view. The idea of printing the king’s portrait and having it put up in rural homes was a way to identify loyal peasants and, by implication, the dangerously communist ones as the anti-communist war in Thailand developed – I’m not sure anyone know how many people were killed in this war from about 1965 to the early 1980s?

  Of course, the current king, whose political ideas were largely adopted from Sarit was initially far more vehemently anti-communist than his mentor. But as deals for US aid and support were developed, Sarit was on board with the US and his successors, Thanom and Prapass, continued this process of Americanization.

  So I’m not sure that the re-sacralization was not blindingly obvious in the late 1950s, when it began, was more a process of domestic political competition between royalists and anti-royalists, and it took a while for it to become a process tied to US Cold War tactics.

• 11 Lleij Samuel Schwartz // Mar 1, 2009 at 3:37 am

  re: Nero Hansen

  Secondly, in Theravadan Buddhism “taking refuge” in the “tripple gem” is not to be mixed up with “savior” figures. They come to simbolize wisdom, truth, and virtue – qualities to be developed by the lay people on their individual path to liberation.

  As I noted before, I recognize there is a big difference between Theravada and Mahayana soteriology. Nevertheless, wouldn’t you agree that someone or something that shows you the way to liberation is a “savior”? For me, as a Buddhist, someone doesn’t need to have “died for my sins” to be considered my savior; a supremely Awakened being, such as the Buddha, whose teachings show me the path to spiritual freedom and peace is a savior to me.

  Of course, this aspect of salvation is emphaized a great deal more in the Mahayana schools, such as the Pure Land school. However, it would be incorrect to say that saddha in the Triple Gem has no place in Theravadan thought. One merely needs to skim the Mahavagga or other Tripitaka texts to see this is true.

• 12 Fred Nerk // Mar 1, 2009 at 3:45 pm

  @Ralph K:

  I will admit to occasionally churning out less than perfectly pellucid prose .

  OTOH, I am not a careerist… and have no position to maintain or improve. I’m just interested in banging rocks together dialectic-wise and seeing if any sparks eventuate.

  Thank you for your point re Sarit and the Monarchy. I will poke around in the books a bit more.

  One issue I would like to raise: it’s easy enough to say ‘CIA sponsored anthropologists dreamt up the Devaraja Renaissance’ – this is what you guys *would* say, isn’t it? Well, it may even be true. Or part of the truth…. and if I were a US taxpayer and the CIA hadn’t done that, I’d be wanting my money back. I just wonder though… are the Thais so supine and stupid that various generals and royalists wouldn’t have been actively shopping the idea to the Americans before this plague of engaged (we can’t have that now, can we?) anthropologists?

  As for numbers of people knocked off during the various regional communist insurgencies. No we don’t know. But presumably one would need to knock one or two zeroes off the Cambodian and Indonesian figures to get a handle on it. I think it is fair to say that seeing off Communism in Thailand by topical application of the Special Royal Sauce had a butcher’s bill at least one order of magnitude less than the aforementioned. Of course this bears no relation to the suitability of the monarchy today, but that’s another issue.

  I would guess (without much real knowledge) that the King was a fence sitter until things became clearer and it was clear Pridi was never coming back… that’s the only interpretation I can place on his translating a book about Tito – a sign that he wasn’t signing up for either team. Regardless, Thais should be thankful he wasn’t a clown like Sihanouk.

  As for historical record. I am sure if you are a professional academic historian, you realise that what really happened and what you can write about without losing your job are sometimes two different things entirely. ergo referring to ‘the historical record’ can sometimes be a cop out.

  i.e. there must be a very interesting back story to how the Old Guy’s mother got taken up by an aristocratic family… but it will never be told. The story of how he had to marry a particular Kityakara in effect to just *stay alive* in Phibun’s Thailand will also never be told. In the case of HK, how certain people became tycoons will never be told. The story of Ibu Tien and Suharto’s mistress, the fire truck, and the sewage plant probably won’t make it into any book you author either – but it happened.

• 13 michael // Mar 1, 2009 at 7:20 pm

  Ralph Kramden #10: The link you’ve given comes up with the message ‘the file is damaged & could not be repaired.’ As the file is PDF, do you or anyone else have it saved? If so, could you make it available through NM? ‘Thank you before!’ (as my sanook Thai friends say.)

• 14 Ralph Kramden // Mar 2, 2009 at 1:07 pm

  For michael: the link works for me.

  For Fred Nerk: I am sorry that I really can’t follow your writing very well. Maybe I need some of that Special Royal Sauce to be able to cope better with your colourful prose. You state “it’s easy enough to say ‘CIA sponsored anthropologists dreamt up the Devaraja Renaissance’,” but who said it? There are some books related to the role of the U.S. in Thailand in this period, but they don’t get into the role of the monarchy much. Anthropologists did research symbols of loyalty and their reports are in the Thailand Information Center.

  On deaths, I was referring to the period of anti-communist warfare in Thailand.

  On the historical record, I like to think that much of it remains in archives in various places.

• 15 brainface // Mar 2, 2009 at 6:24 pm

  I don’t buy the romanticisation of Buddhism by Westerners anymore than I buy the notion that Christianity is superior to Islam/Sikhism/Hinduism/Judaism etc.

  Let’s look at a few societies and cultures where Buddhism is dominant – Cambodia, Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand.

  All of these have had enormous problems with vicious, murderous civil wars or forms of fascism that lay-waste to the establishment of democracy.

  Coups, genocide, massacres of unarmed civilians. Nasty business.

  The widely practised forms of Buddhism prevalent in these countries build into themselves a complete deference to authority (normally in the forms of monks) that severely inhibits freedoms and leads to said forms of fascism in the wider body-politic.

  Back in the 1930s even the Tibetan monks were assassinating dissenters to their theocracy. Power always corrupts even the purest hearts.

  Of course not all parts of all religions could be analysed as harmful but Buddhism has its failings as much as anything else. As a rational, humanist atheist why so many Westerners fail to take this up has always struck me as bizarre.

• 16 R. N. England // Mar 3, 2009 at 12:18 pm

  Brainface is right. All established religions are “good” in the sense that they provide a basis for a successful culture. But each has its faults, and that of Buddhism is the spectacular extent to which power corrupts. Good people are either at the bottom of the power pyramid, or headed in that direction. There is strength in the foundations but the superstructure is unstable and downright ugly.

• 17 Dhammanusari // Mar 3, 2009 at 6:41 pm

  The Buddha never claimed that his Teaching should be adopted by the whole population and used (by kings or governments) as a “national religion”. The first one to do so was probably Ashoka and the results were not terribly good (many people romanticize Ashoka but he may have never been a “Buddhist” although he recognized the benefits that he could gain from promoting the religion). What we see in Asia is the systematic promotion of the hierarchical model of kingship and the devaluation of the republican model of administration (which the Buddha specifically chose for the monastic order — for a good reason). The Sangha Acts in Thailand in the 20th century show very clearly how uncomfortable the ruling powers are with the concept of consensual decision-making and that this must be prevented at all cost, even in the religious sphere. More attention should be paid to this aspect and not mistake the officially paraded nationalistic “Buddhism” for the real thing.

• 18 R. N. England // Mar 5, 2009 at 2:15 am

  You give us hope, Dhammanusari!

• 19 Leveller // Mar 6, 2009 at 12:28 pm

  As Nietzshe said many noble ideals, especiallly those promoting love peace and harmony, are born in blood and violence-there is no reason to think Buddhism and ‘king of kings’ should be exempt

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