Immodest Proposals

Today I happened to read, in the paper, the petition signed by 3.5 million people asking H.M. the King to pardon Thaksin Shinawatra.

I'm a bit saddened by the text of this petition because it's not only a request for a pardon but also a political tract disputing the legitimacy of the current government. While I do agree that the coup was a misguided and ultimately self-destructive reaction to Thakin's shenanigans, the current government's hold on power, tenuous though it may be, is entirely constitutional and within the normal operating limits of a democracy. Almost every democracy in the world has had coalition governments such as this where no party possessed the ability to govern alone. "Almost" a majority is not a majority.

Had the petition simply been a heartfelt outpouring from those who love the ex-PM and weren't bothered by the tax evasion, pocket-lining, Muslim-bashing, extrajudicial killing and press muzzling that occurred during that administration, I would applaud the signatories' right to present it. After all, love is blind. It may well be true that such petitions should only legally be presented if the guilty party has served a little time and shows penitence, but in my opinion, anyone can write a letter to anyone else, even a head of state.

But the text of the petition isn't such a heartfelt outpouring. It''s a provocative attack on the legitimacy of a government whose democratic credentials are at least as strong as that of the pre-coup government, perhaps more so in that the last election may not have been quite so blatantly purchased as the one ousted by the coup. Therefore I'm saddened that those who may well have loved the ex-PM may have been manipulating into signing a political manifesto. In the end, this erodes the entire purpose of having an entity beyond politics.

Last year, I protested, and they removed, a Wikipedia entry that said I was an anti-Thaksinite. The reality is, I'm ambivalent. The man is clearly a genius, but genius does not automatically come with goodness. Otherwise the term "evil genius" would not be such a cliché of B movies.

Still, as much as I supported the yellow team's motives until they actually blatantly said that "the poor are too stupid to vote," I supported the right of the reds to petition ... until I saw that petition not only asked for a pardon, but also that that pardon include an implicit royal sanction of one view of the political situation. What was wrong with having it just say "Please pardon you-know-who?"

Well, I'd better shut up, or I'll find myself back to having only one passport ... (and it won't be the Nicaraguan one) I think that Purukanda's rap-style commentary on the Thai political situation says it all far better than I ever could. So look for it on youtube and I'll go back to talking about opera.

Fair Play

Well, well, well. It appears that in the interests of "fair play", the mysterious Purakhanda, whose "Maew Rap" has garnered well over a quarter of a million hits, has responded to those who have impugned his political impartiality by creating a "Mark Rap" deconstructing some Abhisit videos as well. But it seems that the "Mark Rap" is quite critical of the Thaksinites. Perhaps this shows Purakhanda's true colors, or perhaps it merely shows the realities that he has to work with.

In many ways this is a far more interesting artistic construct because Purakhanda uses the rearranged words to send quite a profound message about the nature of politics. Whereas the "Maew Rap" points up an underlying buffoonery in Thailand's political discourse, the "Mark Rap" uses the refined lancet of satire to open up and expose the very bowels of politics.

Using the serendipitous fact that the word "key" in English means "shit" in Thai, Purakhanda shows us that the key to politics is, indeed, shit. In order to be successful, one must get one's hands dirty. I'm afraid, though, that this video isn't as ha-ha funny as the other. The problem is in the raw material. Abhisit is too articulate and too in control of his utterances to be funny per se, so I see that Purakhanda has found other techniques to drive home his point.

It's a pity that the subtleties of this video will be wasted on those who don't speak both Thai and English. But there it is.

Toxin Rap

I'm not allowed to reveal the identity of the aging child prodigy who produced this astonishing video.

And Now Comes the Post-Mortem

Two days ago, Bangkok looked down into the abyss. One day ago, it all died down, and by evening the hookers on my street were partying hard.

Today, everyone is in punditry mode. I have spent the day dissecting the dissections instead of doing my real work. It seems to me that the international press's reaction to Bangkok's angst falls into several main categories, ranging from misinformation to willful ignorance. Nevertheless, within twenty-four hours of the quelling of the riots, it was clear that the international media were backpedaling, using hindsight to pretend that they had known the whole time what was what in the knotty skein of Thai politics.

CNN and the other networks are engaged in storytelling. Their techniques are those of any good novelist. There must be a protagonist you can identify with. There must be noble causes and dark forces, a bright moment, a dark moment, and then a triumphant slug-out in which the entire problems of the universe are reduced to the actions of a single hero. Why do I know all this? Because I do it for a living.

To get viewer to watch the news (and to sell the products in between the news stories, which are what commercial TV is about) ... you must bend reality into this larger mythic truth.

It was clear, in this case, that the exigencies of storytelling were severely at odds with reality. Now the revisionism begins.

Now, it turns out that Luke Skywalker was actually Darth Vader. Now we learn that the rebel headquarters on Alderan is actually the deathstar. And facts that have been conveniently shuffled about in order to bring out the mythic storyline must be reshuffled.

It's not just the media that do this. People also do it to themselves, because we are all heroes in our own mythic journey which, one way or another, we strive to make conform to the Platonic ideal of mythic journeys.

The "yellow" team was never a huge monolithic alliance of the forces of conservatism, seeking to stamp out freedom, The "reds" were not a seething mass of proletariat workers throwing off the yoke of the capitalism elite. Both sides are uneasy and highly volatile groupings of people who barely trust each other and wouldn't be seen dead together if their self-interested agendas didn't happen to coincide. The "class war" which the international media seem so intent on making this into is just a cover.

One thing is clear: the plan may well have been for the present prime minister to function as a puppet of the military, but he managed to get them to work for him instead. And he did so using a whole new armory which has never been tried in the 77 years of Thailand's so-called democratic existence: weapons like reason, transparency, and a willingness to acknowledge that the other side might have genuine grievances.

Thaksin, too, brought new techniques into the political arena during his tenure. Everyone has always blatantly purchased the rural vote, but Thaksin, having purchased it, also gave them things other than money. I found him exciting and refreshing at first. But his regime also saw new lows in human rights and press freedoms. The killing of suspected drug dealers whose names happened to appear on blacklists that seemed to be quota- rather than fact-driven was shocking. So was the appalling use of brutality to subdue the muslim minorities in the south of Thailand. As a member of a government committee on talented children, I saw first-hand evidence of wastage and when I objected to the purchase of dozens of $5,000 chairs for a new children's center on the grounds that it might be better to spend such vast sums on the children themselves, the grant money already approved for me to help children in music mysteriously didn't materialized and we were subjected to a frivolous spending investigation. I had to pay for the program out of my own pocket though the government's name was on it.

It was apparent that this government was in fact more fascist-leaning, more graft-ridden, and more corrupt than what it had replaced.

Naturally, I thought the yellow shirts were a wonderful thing at first, and though I felt that the 2006 coup was a bit over the top, the odd thing is that intellectual freedom seemed to get better after it happened. Then, they censored my opera (or tried to). But that was really a bit of a joke. It wasn't really the junta, to be honest; it was little people trying to curry favor, and blowing it big-time.

After the election, however, the new government again failed to disburse funds for a noble cause they were supposedly supporting (this time for an opera project) which they had approved a week before the election, miring it in red tape and bureaucratic process. This time, I had to borrow money from friends and family to put on events which bore the logo of the prime minister's office.

I have therefore been personally shafted my quite a few of these governments, one way or the other, and have actually ended up involuntarily subsidizing them. But I digress. I just wanted to let you understand that I have had some personal dealings with some of these regimes.

The yellows were a lot of fun, and had great music and a party atmosphere, and had really important issues that needed to be aired. But then they had to go and say that poor people were too ignorant to vote ... a big, big, big, big blunder. How could these western educated elitists make such a political correctness faux pas? Simple. Because they're not all western elitists, any more than the reds are all bumpkins. Thaksin himself came from the very same moneyed elitist group he pretends to distance himself from, and a fair number of the military types are in fact sterling examples of the uneducated masses themselves. This entire dichotomy is basically a literary device.

The yellow's second blunder was to seize the airport. Because they were no longer any fun. They had become a nuisance.

And -- this is very important -- the fall of the government really had little to do with them seizing hte airport. The judicial review of the corruption charges was complete with due process, and it s was the judiciary that fired the government. A completely constitutional process.

The coalition that finally formed was also a result of a completely constitutional process. Abhisit assumed power with the same legitimacy as George Bush in his first election; he may not have won the popular vote, but he had a majority where it counted -- in this case, cobbled together from his party and the fringe parties and Thaksin defectors. One may disagree or not like it, but to say that his premiership is illegimate is simply untrue.

Back to metapunditry for a moment.

We must conclude that there are no blacks and whites in this whole mess. There are a lot of losers but there is, I think, a small victory. The military learned their lesson and did not attempt a coup. Despite Thaksin's ravings to CNN (none of which CNN bothered to try to substantiate) there seems to be no evidence whatsoever of the army killing anyone. It would be difficult to hide such evidence in this digital age especially when the press was invited to every military outing and they were all timed for daylight so that nothing could be hidden. But what seems to have escaped all but the most persicacious members of the foreign press is that the terms of discourse in Thailand have changed. An entire system of concepts -- brutal suppressions of dissent, banana republic militarism, democracy versus fascism, and so on -- is no longer relevant here. That is all old hat now, and the clever ones are scrambling to adjust. Politics as usual was trumped by reason ... which had never been tried before. It was a huge gamble on the part of Abhisit and it was way outside the box. It barely worked, but it was also the only thing that had the remotest chance of working.

We might, in fact, be at the dawn of a new age -- the very new age which Thaksin promised but reneged on -- an age of transparency, reason, and fair play. It may not happen, of course ... it is a very fragile thing. I'm skeptical, but hopeful.

The above has of course been yet another retelling of the hero myth. Hopefully, more of the facts will fit this time.

Amazing! Reason Actually Seems to be Prevailing!

I woke up today with the TV still on and watched as the red shirt leader calmly gave himself up and the protesters, who had vowed to fight to the death, were calmly making their way towards the buses which will eventually take them home to the remote provinces from which they were originally recruited. The government is giving them air conditioned buses with free boxed lunches. In all this, there seems to be virtually no indication that any of the protesters wanted not to go home to some remote province ... they're just not from these parts.

Now, this has got to be the most nonviolent quelling of a citywide riot in history. If you do not believe me, let me draw your attention to the Rodney King riots in L.A., Tienanmin Square, Soweto, or any other remotely similar situation in living memory ... including some shameful episodes when this country was under the control of the military.

In three days, Abhisit has grown from an overeducated milquetoast to a formidable statesman who actually delivers what he promises, and Thaksin has shrunk from a satellite-beamed messiah to a ranting madman. Of course, the tables could still turn. They often do in this volatile world. They could even turn tomorrow.

Still, I'd rather get back to work on my overdue novels, operas, cantatas, and what have you. Of course, political crises have a direct impact on the number if blog hits I get, so if there's a side effect of more people buying my books....

A Plague on Both Your Houses

I was amazed to read on Wikipedia that I am "a critic of the Thaksin regime". As a matter of fact, my criticisms have always been doled out with utter even-handedness to pretty much every government ever to run this country. I guess I should not blame Wikipedia, which is after all composed by anyone who wants to compose it, and the information about me is generally pretty accurate, though I've had to intervene personally a couple of times to correct sheer facts, such as when someone said that I'd been to a boarding school in Switzerland.

Now that traffic is at a standstill because of more political protests, and the prime minister's house is just a 2 minute walk from mine, and his sister has become my literary agent, it might be necessary for me to explain that Wikipedia's contention that I've been a critic of the Thaksin regime doesn't mean that I haven't been a critic of its successors. After all, it was the regime after Thaksin's that tried to censor my opera Ayodhya, and about which I wrote my famous "open letter to the prime minister" which, I believe, has been read by about three people.

However, it would be wrong to imply that my criticism has been over things like corruption or buying the election. Those things are all par for the course around here; Thaksin was better at it, that's all. He had many brilliant ideas. Of all the people to have had the post of prime minister, Thaksin is one of the few who might conceivably have been posssessed of genius. His succumbing to hubris was perhaps, therefore, inevitable. The tragic flaw comes with the territory.

No, all this talk of corruption and greed underlies far more serious problems. The use of the lawsuits to silence the press, for instance, whilst pretending to uphold the freedom of the press. The extrajudicial murders disguised as a drug war and the hypocritical announcement of victory, the tone-deaf response to the muslim question, are to me far worse than cheating on one's taxes to the tune of a few billion baht. Yet no one complains of those things. That is, I think, because when we look into the heart of an enemy, we tend to see ourselves. Corruption sees corruption.

The righteous indignation of Thaksin's opposition, however, went beyond the pale when they started to say that the poor shouldn't vote because they're too stupid. Even if they believed that, there are ways to say these things that do not cross the political correctness line ... such as suggesting that money be poured into rural education to enable the poor to make more informed judgments not colored by bribery. That was the moment when they lost my sympathy. Taking over the airport was simply dumb. It basically obliterated the moral high ground.

When I watched Abhisit's speech on TV last night, however, I must admit that his words were so balanced, so reasonable, so intelligent, and so well thought through, that surely this man cannot remain in office long. Thailand's system tends not to reward reason, intelligence, forethought, or balanced judgment. Brute force, brazen lies, and lining one's pockets are generally considered the most desirable traits in a Thai prime minister. Though naturally I have a vested interested in seeing an Old Etonian in power, I worry. I fear that he is simply too good for this job.

I want to say, however, that these two people do, in a strange way, have something in common. They are both operating in an intellectual universe far beyond the graft-driven grind of normal Thai politics. And I don't think that either one of them is understood by the majority of his own supporters.

If we can get through the weekend, we'll probably be okay. The Songkran festival is supposed to wash away the sins of the past. I wouldn't know. I probably won't get wet. I'm a Songkran hermit.

When did the PAD lose me?

Anyone can edit Wikipedia, but I was once astonished to read, in the entry about myself, that I am a "harsh critic" of the Thaksin regime. I am in fact almost absurdly apolitical when it comes to politics in this country. In fact, I decided to edit that entry myself, removing the word "harsh". Yes, I confess, I have tampered with my Wikipedia entry (I've corrected other mistakes too, like the one about the Swiss boarding school ... I think they had me confused with far more blue-blooded members of the Thai aristocracy.)

Although it was fine, just, and fair to call the Thaksin government to task on corruption issues, there were much more serious issues, and ones that didn't involve the pot calling the kettle black. The extrajudicial killings of alleged drug dealers, the heavy-handed suppression of Muslim dissent, and the misuse of libel laws as a means to silence press opposition were all specailities of the Thaksin regime, whereas corruption and vote-buying were common to all. The Thaksinites were just better at it.

Still, I always did sympathize with most of the PAD's grievances. Civil disobedience has always been a useful tool ... look at what Gandhi achieved. And their protests were a lot of fun, with great music, delicious food, and fine, fiery rhetoric. Everyone in my family went. My nephews had their pictures taken with Sondhi, who is a fine gentleman who once put up money to help me make an art film.

They began to lose me when they suggested that the government be reorganized along less democratic lines, diluting the peasant vote with appointed members of parliament who would presumably safeguard the values of the intelligentsia. The point about the peasants being too uneducated to grasp the issues, and liable to be bought off, may contain an element of truth, but in a modern society, to say such things is simply not politically correct. You can absolutely NOT begin any political dialogue with the assumption that all humans are not equal. You may secretly believe it, but you have to have the political savvy not to simply state it blatantly. The minute you do that, it's all over in the court of international opinion.

The point could have been made subtly, and international opinion saved. For example, they could have suggested that a new system provide a larger investment in education for the provinces so as to inculcate in hoi poloi a greater understanding of the wider world. They could have proposed zero tolerance legislation on vote buying. There are all sorts of ways to say that you think the poor are too stupid to vote that don't make you look stupid.

But, there is also the alarming proposition that the poor might not be too stupid ... they might just have other priorities ... local priorities which you yourselves have been too stupid to research....

Still, I think they all realized that they had said too much, and they seemed to be backing off. And then this airport thing happens, and it is, to say the least, disappointing. Because it means that, after all, the opposition might be just as selfish as the people they are opposing, and that it is possible that neither side has the country's best interests at heart. I no longer think that any of you want to achieve anything meaningful for the country. For this joke of a government to declare that it must stay on in order to defend democracy is a joke. For the PAD to say that it has to defend democracy by disenfranchising non-members of the bourgeoisie is equally a joke. It looks suspiciously like another, very Thai thing ... neither party wants to lose face.

But no one is going to save face at this juncture. I think that all of you, pro and anti, should bite the bullet and realize that for things to get better, you will all have to agree to lose face rather than dragging the country down into the abyss. That you will all lose face is in fact now a given. Just face it and deal with it. You will all be the better for it, and the rest of us can get on with our lives.