Recently the exiled Ji Ungpakorn issued a statement (available here) about the position of Thai NGOs in the ongoing political crisis. He traces the role of NGOs in the anti-Thaksin protests of 2005 and 2006; their response to the September 2006 coup; and NGO statements about the yellow shirt protests of 2008 and the red shirt protests of 2009. Ji argues that “in the present political crisis in Thailand, it is shocking that most Thai NGOs have disgraced themselves by siding with the Yellow Shirt elites or remaining silent in the face of the general attack on democracy. It is shocking because NGO activists started out by being on the side of the poor and the oppressed in society.”
How has this come about? Ji looks back to the history of the NGO movement. Here are a couple of extracts:
After the “collapse of Communism” the NGO movement turned its back on “politics” and the primacy of mass movements and political parties in the 1980s. Instead they embraced “lobby politics” and Community Anarchism. The two go together because they reject any confrontation or competition with the state. They reject building a big picture political analysis. Instead of building mass movements or political parties, the NGOs concentrated on single-issue campaigns as part of their attempt to avoid confrontation with the state. This way of working, also dove-tails with grant applications from international funding bodies and leads to a de-politicisation of the movement. The NGOs also oppose Representative Democracy because they believe it only leads to dirty money politics. But the Direct Democracy in village communities, which they advocate, is powerless in the face of the all powerful state. It also glorifies traditional and conservative village leaders. …
Since the poor voted on mass for Thai Rak Thai, the NGOs have become viciously patronising towards villagers, claiming that they “lack the right information” to make political decisions. In fact, there was always a patronising element to their work. Many Thai NGO leaders are self-appointed middle class activists who shun elections and believe that NGOs should “nanny” peasants and workers. They are now fearful and contemptuous of the Red Shirt movement, which is starting a process of self-empowerment of the poor. Of course, the Red Shirts are not angels, but in today’s crisis, they represent the poor and the thirst for freedom and democracy.
I don’t agree with all of Ji’s points, and am not in a position to make a judgement about some of his specific claims, but I think he is correct to highlight the failure of the NGO movement to develop a broad based and empowering political strategy that reflects the fundamentally transformed socio-economic conditions of the people they claim to represent. Thaksin stole the NGO’s grass roots thunder and they are going to have to do some solid re-thinking and re-positioning to win it back again.
Siding with the Yellow Shirts is a sure strategy for political irrelevance.
9 responses so far ↓
1 jonfernquest // May 12, 2009 at 12:32 am
“…am not in a position to make a judgement about some of his specific claims…”
You would be if Giles gave citations and made it clear what he was talking about.
Giles is a university professor and yet cites no sources so we can get a more accurate idea of what he is trying to communicate to us.
Giles litters his prose with a confused mixture of ranting and name-calling. He tells his reader what to believe, yet garners no evidence.
And of course there is the myopic self-referential approach so typical of area studies “specialists” that makes no attempt at all to link to comparable events or phenomena outside of their area, Thailand in this case, as if Thailand lives in a little cocoon making comparisons with neighboring countries impossible. (If Thailand has such and such a problem, is this the norm or an exception? Seems like Thailand has navigated through history with a lot less problems than its neighbors. What are the similarities and differences between Thailand and other countries that have passed through similar stages of development such as South Korea? Is Thailand atypical? Or is all that Giles wants to do is foment revolution?)
Ranting rather than posing falsifiable questions truly puts you in the stone age, Giles.
Or perhaps you are just trying to be “post-modern” and pawn off your personal diary, as Jim Taylor does, as some profound intellectual exercise.
Provide the essential background information before you launch into your rant, Giles, that is if you want anyone to respect you.
2 Fropper // May 12, 2009 at 2:00 am
After reading Giles’ current piece as well as the article he refers to (NGOs: Enemies or Allies?) I wondered if there is any good english language litterature dealing with Thai NGOs and their relevance for the democratic developments after 1992. Giles rather harsh perspectives on the NGO’s seems a bit the out of line with mainstream civil society litterature and I find it interesting to dig further into it.
3 Susie Wong // May 12, 2009 at 5:26 am
The Red Shirt Movement represents the poor and the thirst for freedom and democracy, I agree with Professor Ji Ungpakorn’s insights. The Red Shirts’ has its historical evolution from the Northeast where the land was dried and infertile for agriculture and the North where opium, heroine were grown as cash crops. In the past, young girls from these two regions would migrate to Bangkok to work as domestic servants or prostitutes. When people from these regions begin to take their future into their hand, real leaders would be happy to see this progress. In my opinion, I think Prof. Ji sees popular participation as a positive evolution that would lead to aggregate modernization of the country as a whole. In other words, the Red Shirt Movement is a development process toward state building and democratization.
Whereas the evolution of NGO in Siam since 1980s has nothing to do with modernization process but has everything to do with the Great Powers’ geo-strategic objectives of the Asia-Pacific Theatre. Thus the behavior of NGO in Siam must be interpreted in terms of politics. The search for understanding the NGO in Siam outside international politics is doomed to frustration. The issue is there are no one in Siam and in the Asia-Pacific region that has the knowledge of the linkage between the second image (domestic politics) and the first image (international politics) of the post-Cold War world especially at the Grand Strategy level. As a result, the analysis has been focused on domestic politics, political economy, anthropology, any analysis from strategic standpoints would be discarded because lacking of strategic knowledge.
It is easier to intervene into the domestic politics of other country with “non-state actors” like NGO to mobilize the mass for one’s strategic objective. Siam is the heartland of mainland Southeast Asia, the control of Bangkok and the South would provide any Great Powers geo-strategic advantage in particular the Sea Power domination. Since the 19th and the 20th century, Navy has been the decisive factor in the outcome of the Great Powers rivalry, as such the 21st century will continue to be the same.
The NGO in Siam joined hand with PAD and the Democratic Party to keep the status quo and against any change which is very different from NGO in other countries. Professor Ji Ungpakorn has put forward the issue that is important but I think the analysis about the NGOs in Siam has to go deeper and broader to encompass the strategic issue in order to understand why they mobilize the middle class against change when most middle class in other countries support change.
4 Susie Wong // May 12, 2009 at 11:49 am
This article appears in Bangkok Pundit today. It reflects similar opinion as Ji’s.
“The Sydney Morning Herald’s International Editor, Peter Hartcher, has an op-ed entitled “Thailand turns into Indonesia – and vice versa”
Today we see an extraordinary role reversal. Thailand is now a wreck, suffering a constitutional crisis, emergency rule and an investment strike.
Indonesia, on the other hand, is stable and tolerant under a mature and clean president, with better growth prospects than any of the states in the region. The US think tank Freedom House has designated Indonesia for the first time as the only fully free and democratic country in South-East Asia.
The essential difference is that Indonesian power elites universally respect the legitimising power of democracy. The Thais have not.”
5 Wren Toekill // May 12, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Local NGOs most certainly DO have a tendency to become entirely self-serving. And surely that is the point about almost all ’social movements’ here. They almost always get hijacked by the parasitic red & yellow shirts of Thai society.
Susie Wong: “The Red Shirt Movement represents the poor and the thirst for freedom and democracy”.
But the Thaksin thing has a higher priority for them, and the poor are just people they cynically manipulate without actually listening to them. This is a power struggle that will deliver nothing to the average Sompomg, since it was initiated by bourgeouis who are far more interested in their own personal stake in the hiso pig trough.
Susie. Where are the Communists & socialists in all this? Banned by both sides, of course. We can’t have people messing up the cosy poo-yai system of parasitism by talking REAL politics. Political movements here always end up being hijacked by the poo-yais.
6 Les Abbey // May 12, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I guess Giles is saying that prior to the 2006 coup it was OK to be anti-Thaskin. Afterwards they were supporting reactionary royalist forces. It would be so better if they had turned their support to a reactionary pro-Thaksin movement.
I do wonder what Giles was looking for. Was it something similar to a Maoist Nepalese peasant movement or even the earlier Khmer Rouge one. Whatever it must have been so tempting to use Thaksin finance and PR companies to build this movement, in his mind anyway.
Did Lenin or Trotsky ever envisage such a method or would they have called it adventurism. Still Giles won’t have to suffer as he’s out of the country.
7 Prapote Inthapichai // May 13, 2009 at 5:27 am
Could someone expalain who or what the NGO Prof. Ji was referring to and how it’s been financed?
May I also express my love and admiration for Susie Wong’s comments? They get my vote every time.
8 Prapote Inthapichai // May 13, 2009 at 5:44 am
Sorry about the stupid request I made earlier. I went back and read the full text of Prof. Ji and it did explain some questions.
9 amberwaves // May 13, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Fropper: See the book “The NGO Way: Perspectives and Experiences from Thailand,” Edited by Shinichi Shigetomi, Kasian Tejapira and Apichart Thongyou, published in 2004 by The Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization. It includes an essay on “The Thai Monarchy and Non-governmental Organisations,” co-authored by Fah Diew Kan’s Thanapol Eawsakul.
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