How do Thais deal with seditious topics in the Thai language? How do Thais talk about or act on things that might bear risky consequences? How do Thais manage to talk about the same topic, but express it differently depending on where and when they are talking about it in Thai?
In the wake of a dramatic increase in the use of the lèse majesté law (Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code) to restrain the unrestrainable, there are calls from progressives, notably the Khana Nitirat, to abolish the law. The movement led to a campaign called Campaign Committee for the Amendment of Article 112 (CAA112). Thailand has now entered a period when the limits of these constraints are being challenged constantly. Talks and discussions are being organised. Thais are talking about the Article 112 wherever they are, and whatever their political affiliation may be.
While the lèse majesté law has become the center of the debate for transitional Thailand, there is a need to look into the constraints that scholars and students in Thailand work under. What limits their intellectual curiosity? We can ask a more specific question: are these limits and constraints only about the Article 112?
Why are Thais so reluctant to criticize the phu yai? Why is bua mai hai chum nam mai hai khun [บัวไม่ให้ช้ำน้ำไม่ให้ขุ่น] (1) so important as a way to smooth, or avoid, social conflict? It seems that censorship is not just about Article 112, but is the effect of deep-seated cultural code of conduct that governs Thai life and society.
On July 16 2012 at the Australian National University, three scholars sat down and talked about this in a discussion entitled “Thai Studies in the Shadow of (Self) Censorship”. Craig Reynolds, Thanes Wongyannawa, and Prajak Kongkirati kindly agreed to give their thoughts on the topic.
The Panelists
Craig Reynolds: “there is no free speech”
In no country in the world can you say anything you want. In no country in the world is speech free. It always comes with a cost. We find in post-WWII America that people were criticised or persecuted for saying something ‘anti-American’. Or you can be denied a visa to enter Australia if your public opinion on a controversial issue is seen as vilifying.
There are two reasons for the increased attention to the lèse majesté law in Thailand during the past decade. One reason can be traced back to what happened in the early 1930s, when the People’s Party ended the absolute monarchy but, after a power struggle between King Prajadhipok and the Party, the monarch was retained as head of state. The second reason has to do with the evolution of the institution of the reigning monarch who has been on the throne for sixty-six years.
There is another level besides this legal one, however. This is the hidden and unarticulated world inside of Thai language is where writers, academics, and artists have to figure out where the boundaries are.
Thanes Wongyannawa : Truth is Pain [the document]
For many Thais, “Saying something profits us only a couple of pennies, keeping silent yields many ounces of gold” [พูดไปสองไพเบี้ย นิ่งเสียตำลึงทอง] seems to be the best tactic in the politicised political environment of Thailand today. No one wants to break one’s own rice pot, especially in the upper echelon of society, where members are related by kinship, marriage, alma maters, colleagues, and so forth. Being a kae dam [black sheep] is costly.
But self censorship in Thai society is not just about dos and don’ts, but it is a rational calculation of behavior in Thai Theravada Buddhism culture that relates to the notion of truth. Truth does not belong to everybody, but it belongs to a certain social class. Truth will not lead anyone to happiness, it will only bring pain. On 21 March 2012, General Sonthi Boonyaratkalin replied to General Sanan Kachornprasart who asked “who was behind the 2006 coup?”, that he had been trained to pay loyalty to the nation, and that is not a question that is supposed to be asked (2).
The answer to who gains access to the truth lies in the cognitive structure. For Thai Theravada Buddhism, truth is eternal and absolute. In the notion of Buddhist reincarnation, on one has the ability to know one’s previous lives. In Thai political reality, when one is reborn, one forgets what has happened in his/her past lives. Forgetting and remembering are vital to the logic of nation-state. For the nation to survive, one cannot only remember, but one must also forget. For the Thai elite, the important question is not ‘what’ had happened, but ‘how’ to conduct oneself.
Thus it is not surprising to hear a classic example : General Tritos Ronritvichai gave an interview saying that those who have the privilege of reading top-secret information of Special Branch Police are only those with enough bun [the accumulation of merit]. For the elite, the truth belongs to them, and has nothing to do with the people who do not have much bun. This can also be seen from Thai political history, where the figures – high-ranking army officers, police, the royal family, etc – who were involved in important political events hardly ever revealed what actually happened. And the best example of this can be seen in their cremation volumes, where obituary is eulogy. Truth is pain.
Prajak Kongkirati : “The Thai political Trai Phum [three worlds]”
There are three interrelated areas that restrain academic work: the sacred world, the mundane world, and the underworld.
The sacred world is base on the three pillars, the monarchy, religion, and the nation. In this world, apart from fear, several people self-censored themselves because they see self-censor as the right thing to do to protect the institution and figures that they love and respect. There was once a Thai scholar who came and gave a talk at the ANU about politics after the 2006 coup. He was asked to give a comment on the role of the monarchy. He did not want to discuss it because he believed that the monarchy is above politics, and said “leave the monarchy and ‘him’ alone”. For many Thai scholars, certain issues are beyond rational debate.
In the mundane world, Thai scholars and intellectuals shut their eyes on certain issues. Before the 2006, several public intellectuals admitted that they refrained from criticizing the Yellow Shirts even though they disagreed with some of their ideas and tactics. This was because they thought it was the only option available to topple former PM Thaksin, hence they did not want to weaken the movement. This is not uncommon among scholars sympathetic to the Red Shirts too.
In the underworld, brute force, murder, intimidation, and physical threat are daily constraints for students and scholars in conducting studies. Local scholars and journalists are under pressure as there is no law to protect them, and they must be realistic. For example, local scholars in the South were put under pressure by both government agencies and the separatist movement.
The military is an interesting institution, and surprisingly understudied. It is situated in both the sacred world (i.e. protecting the monarchy and the nation) and under world (i.e. arms trade, smuggling, contraband, forced disappearances, torture, etc).
The discussion left open-ended questions and answers relating to censorship. But when one looks into Thai society, one might not hesitate to ask if censorship/self-censorship really explains the constraints on speech in Thai language.
Notes
(1) About a week after the Revolution, on 30 June 1932, the leaders of the People’s Party had an audience with King Prachathiphok. The king reprimanded the People’s Party for their announcement on the day of the Revolution. Pridi Bhanomyong and General Phraya Pahon Phonphayuhasena had to apologise for offending the king and to ask for his forgiveness. See Sonthi Techanan (2545).
(2) Khaosod, 22 March 2012.
The answer is: no answer as usual.
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Just one or two quick points:
Khun Preedee writes:
there are calls from progressives, notably the Khana Nitirat, to abolish the law
Technically, this is true; Nitirat do suggest that 112 be scrapped. But they also propose a replacement which still detain special law for protection of King, Queen, Crown Prince for libel. Overall, I think most people (even Nitirat themselves) would characterize Nitirat’s proposals as not abolishing the law, but amending it.
Prajak’s take on the “three worlds”, while interesting, could be said to be misleading; no other issues “restrain academic work” like the monarchy issue. Not even close.
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“Why are Thais so reluctant to criticize the phu yai? … It seems that censorship is not just about Article 112, but is the effect of deep-seated cultural code of conduct that governs Thai life and society.”
Yes, yes, yes, a move towards Microhistory! defined as “the intensive historical investigation of a well defined smaller unit of research (most often a single event, the community of a village, a family or a person)” that aspires to “ask large questions in small places” and I venture to speculate that everyone has their own remember the time I got cheated by a Phu Yai story. [e.g. In my case, the dean of management got her acolyte Phu Yais in training to lie and do a con game on me, as a result I didn't paid a single baht for teaching 200 university students intermediate macroeconomics and economic history, writing midterms, finals, grading them plus writing, without any TA or reader, all for ***zero baht*** in pay. Standard operating procedure in this situation? Put your head down, pretend it didn't happen and move on, because it was your personal problem, not a problem with the phu yai system, right? Don't even get me started about the law professor and vice pres caught in child prostitution ring, arrested by police, story covered by Matichon, definitely no one person's personal problem, definitely a situation where students, faculty and the public at large are all stakeholders who should be informed and involved, university phu yais pretended the case did not exist, there as no public discussion involving faculty or students who were treated as intellectual infants, and if the same phu yais were confronted with the stark reality today, their reaction? One common rhetorical response to criticism of events in the past is to historicise it, first palliate by concession, yes that is so unfortunate but we have dealt with the problem already, but without any proof or change in transparency, this means zilch] Conclusion: The old style raw Phu Yai “I make the truth” variety of justice, without an iota of remorse or moral qualms. Multiply by 60 million and is it any wonder why events like Ratchaprasong happen, the miracle is that there was as little bloodshed as there was.
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“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use,” – Soren Kierkegaard
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“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use,” – Soren Kierkegaard
Jennifer, despite his reputation, I think Soren was wrong here. People demand freedom of speech because without it there is no freedom of thought.
Still, he put it catchily.
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An interesting article about Yale University participating in censor-prone Singapore appeared on the Free Expression Policy Project website at http://www.fepproject.org/commentaries/ForeignMarkets.html.
The article follows. It does not cover the flip side, that of repressive states setting up studies inside universities in the US.
Commentaries
TRADING ACADEMIC FREEDOM FOR FOREIGN MARKETS
By Marjorie Heins
The current controversy over Yale University’s planned campus in Singapore is, at bottom, an argument over how much compromise on free speech is justified in exchange for the presumed benefits of locating branches of U.S. universities within authoritarian regimes. For although the champions of global ventures like Yale’s often claim that academic freedom will be available at the foreign outposts, the fact is that such freedom, at best, will be limited to the classroom and will bear no resemblance to what we have come to expect on U.S. campuses.
In an April 2012 resolution, the Yale faculty expressed concern over the Singapore venture and urged administrators “to respect, protect and further principles of nondiscrimination for all, including sexual minorities and migrant workers” and “to uphold civil liberty and political freedom on campus and in the broader society.” Yale, in response, pointed out that its new university is a joint venture with the National University of Singapore (“N.U.S.”); it will not grant Yale degrees and will be paid for entirely by the host regime.
But Yale is lending its name; Yale faculty will teach there; the Yale-N.U.S. president, Pericles Lewis, is a former Yale professor, and the first dean, Charles D. Bailyn, currently teaches at Yale. Although Lewis told reporters that “we expect students to express all kinds of opinions on campus,” he also acknowledged that off-campus, “students will have to abide by the laws of Singapore.” Those laws include the strict censorship of films, broadcasting, print media, and the Internet, a Sedition Act, and a Public Order Act which requires a police permit to meet for any “cause related activity.” As the New York Times noted, Singapore is “an autocratic city-state where drug offenses can bring the death penalty, homosexual relations are illegal and criminal defamation charges [against people who criticize public officials] are aggressively pursued.”
These laws will in fact limit Yale’s promised freedom of speech on university grounds as well. Lewis acknowledged to the Wall Street Journal: “The Singapore campus won’t allow political protests, nor will it permit students to form partisan political societies.”
Some of the turmoil at Yale has to do with governance. As Professor Christopher Miller told Inside Higher Ed: “When Yale went co-ed, the YCF [Yale College Faculty] voted. When, last year, there was a decision about bringing ROTC back, the YCF voted. But when there was a question about setting up the first sister campus bearing Yale’s name in 300 years, suddenly it was ‘not a project of Yale College,’ and we were not allowed to vote; the corporation acted on its own.” Professor Selya Benhabib, who introduced the faculty resolution, said that Singapore’s “deplorable” record on human rights should have caused the administration to hesitate; moreover, “there are significant governance issues about faculty appointments, curriculum design and promotion procedures as well as degree authorization that have not been satisfactorily resolved.“
Before Yale came to global entrepreneurship, there was New York University blazing the trail, with a campus in Abu Dhabi, opened in 2010, and a planned campus in Shanghai, to open in September 2013. Unlike Yale, NYU will award its own degrees to the graduates. A March 2012 press release boasted that NYU Shanghai will be “the first American university with independent legal status approved by the [Chinese] Ministry of Education”; university president John Sexton exulted that “this is a magnificent day for NYU. … New York and Shanghai enjoy a natural affinity as world capitals; as vibrant, ambitious, and forward-looking centers of commerce and culture; as magnets for people of talent.”
Like Yale, NYU announced that its new campus would respect academic freedom, but it soon became clear that this applied only to classroom discussions; other on-campus activities would be subject to Chinese rules. “Academic freedom in China is curtailed by red lines around such sensitive subjects as political reform or Tibetan independence,” the Chronicle of Higher Education reported in April; and quoted the new president of NYU Shanghai, Jeffrey Lehman: “Foreign students must realize they are not exempt from Chinese law.”
As a cautionary example, Bloomberg News published an article last year describing the 25-year-old Hopkins Nanjing Center, a joint project of Johns Hopkins and Nanjing Universities: in its entire existence, it has never published an academic journal, and when an American student, Brendon Stewart, tried in 2010, “he found out why. Intended to showcase the best work by Chinese and American students and faculty to a far-flung audience,” the journal “broke the Hopkins-Nanjing Center’s rules that confine academic freedom to the classroom. Administrators prevented the journal from circulating outside campus, and a student was pressured to withdraw an article about Chinese protest movements. About 75 copies sat in a box in Stewart’s dorm room for a year. … Most of the Chinese students involved in editing and layout asked Stewart to remove their names.”
The muzzling of the journal, according to Bloomberg, was just one example of “the compromises to academic freedom that some American universities make in China.” On the eve of the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square in 2009, students discussed the events in an online Google group; one of them offered to screen a documentary about the protests in a student lounge. Chinese police monitoring the Internet conversation alerted the center’s Chinese administrators, who contacted their American counterparts, who halted the film showing.
Bloomberg reported that “limits on academic freedom are one reason” that Stanford and Columbia have not opened campuses in China, although Columbia has a study center in Beijing, and Stanford plans to open one on the campus of Peking University. Such centers host lectures and provide offices for visiting professors, but are easily exited, Columbia President Lee Bollinger explained: “The one thing we have to do is maintain our academic integrity. … There are too many examples of a strict and stern control that lead you to think that this is kind of an explosive mix.’” Stanford President John Hennessy said its center has no protection of academic freedom: “Even the ones you get are so scripted as to not be freedom as we imagine it in this country.”
Yet the rush to build more U.S.-style universities in authoritarian countries continues. “Many of our American institutions are being seduced by the promise of an infusion of much-needed wealth from China,” Orville Schell of the Asia Society told the Daily Beast. In other words, China (like Singapore) pays the bills, and the new campuses are expected to be lucrative. The Wall Street Journal, referring to the Yale-Singapore project, put it in crasser marketing terms: “For Yale, the venture provides a chance to extend the university’s brand to fast-growing Asian markets” (and, oh yes, “to help introduce the Western liberal-arts tradition to the region”).
Some administrators defend the tradeoff by attempting a semantic distinction between free speech and academic freedom. NYU’s Sexton told Bloomberg News that although “students and faculty at the new [Shanghai] campus shouldn’t assume they can criticize government leaders or policies without repercussions, … I have no trouble distinguishing between rights of academic freedom and rights of political expression.” He did not explain why he thought academic freedom does not include criticism of government leaders or policies, whether in the classroom, elsewhere on campus, or outside its walls. And research, journal writing, campus protest, film showings, and “extramural speech” have long been aspects of academic freedom as understood in the U.S.
Is the tradeoff worth it? Apart from the economic incentives, creating these global “portals,” as NYU calls them, is driven by a thirst for prestige – to be a world player. Is there an argument that building these bridges, even with the inevitable cost to academic freedom, might create pressure on repressive regimes for more open inquiry? Or is such an argument simply naïve? One of my Chinese students thinks that giving up nearly all freedom of speech is a reasonable tradeoff: “Most of the population (especially young people under 50) acknowledge the abysmal state of censorship in China,” she wrote to me. “However, no one is willing to stand up or speak out. I think it’s important for Chinese students to experience freedom of expression (even in limited conditions), so they can solidify their beliefs and develop the courage and skills to change China for the better.”
Professor Andrew Ross of NYU (in an essay for the Chronicle of Higher Education) wants to go beyond “the tiresome debate about balancing the virtuous contributions of our new branch campuses against the corrosive stain of operating in illiberal societies.” But that doesn’t mean accepting administrators’ frankly financial motives: foreign campuses “are social commitments,” Ross writes, “entailing responsibilities that are not governed by the bottom line.”
For example, Ross recounts, when a lecturer at Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, was arrested for speaking out in favor of judicial and financial reforms, NYU President Sexton told concerned faculty “that they should learn how to be cultural relativists and respect the different norms of another country.” That was “entirely the wrong response,” Ross says, “and indicative of why we cannot afford to view foreign campuses purely as revenue-seeking ventures.”
Marjorie Heins’s book, “Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the anti-Communist Purge,” is due out in February.
July 30, 2012
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I disagree with Thanes Wonyannawa’s statement “Truth does not belong to everybody, but it belongs to a certain social class.” It simply sounds like a statement from those who try hard to show his/her sympathy to those from the poor socio-economic background. Truth does exist in all fabrics of society but it’s the matter if you dare to bring truth on the discussing table.
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and there is nothing to do with บัวไม่ให้ช้ำน้ำไม่ให้ขุ่น when it comes to criticising poo yai. what you/he discuseed is so 1960′s.
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What boggles the mind is how Thai people know the truth but nevertheless choice to believe in lies.
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Cognitive dissonance. It is rife in Thailand, and amazingly, not only among Thais. There are many, many farang who are also sufferers – check out ThaiVisa and you’ll see what I mean.
Maybe it’s something in the water…
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