By Terry/Tavivoot
My best friend Stuart, an anarchist Brit who has lived in Thailand for the past 20 years and have seen a lot of Thailand, asked me, “What is the deal about Thai politics?”
Well, this question has been posed so much, it is time for trying to answer this. My summary follows:
- Ever since the modernization of Thai politics, there has never been a prime minister who left office and became anything much-with many had to leave Thailand for life-long exile.
- Thai politicians are driven about 70% by corruption and greed for wealth, with only about 20% being about seeking power, and only 10% about doing good for the country.
- Thai politics is about status quo-in protecting the social hierarchy system-which means using the symbol of the class system which is the palace.
- There is an inner circle of very powerful Thais-much more powerful than the palace, the military or the richest people in Thailand or any political party combined-who ultimately control Thailand’s destiny. However, the main driving motivational factor for this class of people is the love at destroying people-and nothing else.
- Thai political development for the better-such as towards freedom, democracy and social justice-comes mainly from external pressure.
- Thais as a people, is characterized by living in the moment, a belief in cycles, and being entertained. The negative side of that is a weakness in having foresight, weakness in preventive measures, and addicted to event building.
So in sum, my humble opinion is, Thailand is set-up for one purpose only-and that is to “tame” and “Humble” anything. In fact, if one looks back in Thai history, it has been nothing much more than a “Very Sophisticated Machine Geared at Crunching People.” And that crunching machine have left everyone, from the highest to the lowest, to have a broken mental and heart.
My advice to anyone that want to survive in Thailand, is either not get involved or be prepared to be destroyed. Money, power and status are just baits that are used to lure people into that crunching machine. There is truly “No Way Out” if you want to be in Thailand.
But then Stuart tells me that it is like Thailand everywhere in the world these days. And so he believes in anarchy because it brings the machine down. My response was that, there are still degree of differences and globally there is no other crunching machine that can match the Thai machine.
So why am I in the game and not become a monk to escape the machine? Well, I have a confession to make. And that is like I told Stuart, while I don’t have a death wish, I am truly ready to die for my cause-and that is for my belief in classical liberalism.
The following are what the Thai machine is made of:
Thai Brain Power Centers
Key Thai Academic:
Key Thai Politician:
- Abisit Vejjajiva (icon of political opportunist)
- Anupong Paochinda (icon of politicised soldier)
- Chamlong Srimuang (icon of political survivalism)
- Prasong Soonsiri (Right wing intelligence operative)
- Prem Tinsulanond (icon of class system)
- Sondhi Limthongkul
- Thaksin Shinawatra (icon of equalizing opportunity)
- The Thai Political Crisis in Itself
Key Thai Government Private Linkages:
Key Thai Political Roots and Issues:
Key Thai Power Centers:
