Tim Johnston from The Financial Times has an article on Thailand’s “royal taboo”. Readers looking for longer term context may find these two pieces from the New Mandala archive (here and especially here) offer some sense of the historical trajectory.
Review of MisallianceKeith Weller Taylor argues that this new book is thoughtful, lucid, original, analytical, and readable
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Review of Thailand’s Hidden WorkforceInga Gruß reviews a book about the work conditions of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand at this time of immense change.
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Review of Gender, Emotions and Labour MarketsSri Ranjani Mei Hua reviews a book dealing with experiences of women in Southeast Asia.
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Review of Authority of InfluenceScholarly treatments of gender in Myanmar, past or present, remain scarce. Jessica Harriden’s book thus fills a gap in our understanding of an important and controversial topic.
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Review of The King in ExileDonald M. Seekins argues that this book is the story of a dynasty that belongs truly to Burma’s past.
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Review of Buddhist FuryThis book explores the relationship between religion and violence in far southern Thailand, where Buddhist monks are a marginalized local minority.
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Review of Revisiting Rural PlacesRevisiting Rural Places should become an essential reference text for researchers who work on social, cultural, political and economic change in Asia.
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Review of The Institutional ImperativeDe-agrarianisation often isn’t very pretty, but economic disparity may well be the price to be paid for pursuing it as slowly as Thailand has over the past 50 years.
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Review of Imagining Gay ParadiseThe creation of make-shift, idiosyncratic queer paradises provides shelter, community, and belonging for many who have refused to fit into standard narratives of Southeast Asia.
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Review of The Fate of Rural HellThe models of eroticism and faith in the Hell Garden have been left behind by the robust urban bourgeois consumerist culture increasingly prominent across contemporary Thai society.
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Review of Revolution InterruptedQuestioning received notions of revolution, this book offers a passionate and rigorous reconsideration of the period in Thailand between October 1973 and October 1976.
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Review of Land and LoyaltyRead More
Review of The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical MonkRead More
Review of Saying the UnsayableRead More
Review of Economic Disparity and of Economic TransitionRead More
One may read the full article without subscribing by opening it from google:
http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f6607924-47e2-11df-b998-00144feab49a.html
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Not a *bad* article, and I would expect that *most* red shirts probably would exhibit due reverence if the actual royal anthem were played. However, as most of us here would know, there is nothing royal at all about the (Phibunist) Thai National Anthem played at 8am and 6pm.
I’ve no doubt that most Thais do not bother their pretty little heads with the ironies inherent in having this historical throwback as their national anthem… and probably most do not even have a clue regarding the actual situation in 1939 when said anthem was instituted… but I still imagine that Somchai Everyman would associate this particular anthem with sentiments along the lines of ‘Yay Thais’ and less with the ‘supreme institution’?
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SAIS website has the audio now online at http://www.sais-jhu.edu/news-and-events/index.htm and indicates the video will be forthcoming. Hopefully someone transcripted the entire speech. I frankly have little hope of much coming our of interpretations of past remarks by Kasit or Abhisit given the actual on the ground moves against freedom in Thailand. Talk the talk, but walk the walk? Thais have not been overly endowed in that area.
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“Even the red-shirted anti-government protesters who are presently demonstrating in the streets of Bangkok and who are often criticised by their opponents as a republican fifth column, halt their protests twice a day, at 8am and 6pm, to stand at attention and listen to the royal anthem as it plays over the city-wide public address system.”
Shouldn’t that be the “national anthem”? In which case there’s nothing unusual about the practise.
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http://www.sais-jhu.edu/news-and-events/index.htm
This is the URL for Kasit’s speech as recorded live. Video is due soon.
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It’s our national anthem. Not the royal anthem!!!
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In fairness, I emailed the article’s author and he replied that the anthem mistake slipped in because he had been working under deadline pressure and had originally also planned to make mention of the fellow who got in trouble for failing to stand at the cinema – so wires got crossed in the writing / editing process. I’m sure he deserves some slack.
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