Thailand

China is changing world geography, or at least trying to do so. Not in the sense of land and water like the Netherlands, but in the sense of weaving new infrastructures on land, on water, in the air, and on the web. It is not surprising that a country with some Marxist orientation would focus politics on infrastructure–but as means of transportation-communication, not as means of production. Nor is it surprising that a country with a Daoist worldview focuses politics on totalities, on holons and dialectics, forces and counter-forces, trying to tilt balances in China’s favor. How this will work depends on the background, and its implications. Two recent books, Valerie Hansen, Silk Road: A New History (Oxford University Press, 2012) and Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (Knopf, 2015) see them as arteries connecting the world, globalization, before that term became a la mode....

Kuala LumpurMalaysia has recently experienced maximum insecurity for two extra-territorial sovereign territories: Malaysian Airlines flights MH370 to Beijing and MH17 from Amsterdam. Flights are subject to air traffic rules, but sovereignty was deeply insulted for MH17–possibly also for MH370–and so was the security of the close to 600 on board: dead, possibly killed. The finding so far is that MH17 was hit by “numerous high energy objects”, which–looking at the photos of the cabin wall–aka “machine gun fire”; rather than “hit by a BUK rocket”. MH370: a race to locate the wreckage, by submarines, surface vessels; between China to find, and Australia to destroy, any evidence of crimes? Intentional destruction of planes entails identification of the perpetrators whoever they are; arraigning them into court and if found guilty punishing them for mass murder. Taking place in international space both should be international, like the International Civil Aviation Organization and the...

Time to take stock. The shot in Sarajevo 100 years ago inspires narratives of 19-year old Gavrilo Princip killing the successor to the throne of an empire and his pregnant wife as the event unleashing mutual mass murder (INYT, FAZ 28-29 June 2014). Not the empire annexing Bosnia-Herzegovina on October 6, 1908 (Art. 25 of the 1878 Berlin Congress of “great powers”). Maybe the inhabitants did not like it? Moral of that stock-taking: watch out for terrorism, not for empires and occupation-colonialism; and protect leaders, not people. ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, alternatively translated as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) comes up. TIME 30 June: The End of Iraq. Maybe Iraq – that highly artificial English colonial entity encasing Shia Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds–never started? Like its French colonial neighbor Syria – adding Alawite Arabs, Christians, Jews...

By Chaiwat Satha-Anand TFF Associate Chaiwat Satha-Anand writes warning words to the protesters’ leader about the use and misuse of non-violence in this situation. For your information, here a link to Suthep Thaugsuban, former deputy PM of Thailand, who is the recipient of professor Anand’s open letter – Jan Oberg

By Chaiwat Satha-Anand On a hot summer afternoon, nothing is better than an ice-cream. When you are nine, the summer ice-cream your mom bought for you when she took you to a fair or something like that attained beautiful meaning. Nisofian Nisani was in front of the ice-cream shop on Suwanmongkol Road in downtown Pattani when the 5 kg bomb exploded and took away his young life back to the Mercy of God on March 21, 2013 at 1.30 p.m. Fourteen others including his mother were also wounded in the violence that has claimed more than 5,000 lives and physically wounded more than 10,000 people in the past 9 years in southern Thailand, marking this deadly conflict as one of the most mysteriously ferocious in the world today. The death of this boy at this time assumes special significance since this was the first time an attack on civilians has...

/10/jonathanpower2.jpg”> Dateline: Bangkok “Thai politics is a cross between Venezuela and Italy”, observed my Thai journalist friend. “Chavez and Berlusconi rolled into one is what we have.” Deposed prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who lives in exile in Dubai, still manages to pull many of the strings of Thai politics- as does Berlusconi when not actually in office. His sister, Yingluck, is now prime minister and she provides the Chavez-style charisma for the family. Young, energetic and attractive she has wooed the voters to her side in a less divisive way than her brother. Thailand is the only country in south-east Asia to have never experienced colonial rule. Buddhism, the monarchy and the military have been the principal shapers of its evolution from peasant society to a modern industrial power house that has seen its economy almost in continuous boom (with a a big collapse in 1997 and short pause 3...

Bangkok, September 25, 2006 The September 19, 2006 (9/19) coup d’etat in Thailand is a great puzzle for many. It is difficult to understand this coup not so much in terms of why it has happened, but its popularity. There were reports of people giving flowers and cold drinks to soldiers on the streets. In Chiangmai, kids would not stop bothering their teachers until they were taken to see the coup tanks. In fact, according to one recent survey, 83% of Thais nationwide are in favor of this coup. Given the positive popular reception of this coup, one wonders if there is such a thing as a “good” or “peaceful” coup?In this article, I wish to first offer an explanation why so many, both common people and noted public intellectuals, are supporting this coup. Then the moral enigma when reasons for the coup could be accepted while the coup as...

Based on police record, there have already been 808 victims of violence in Southern Thailand during the first six months of 2005, with 607 people injured and 207 other killed mostly in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat. Among those who lost their lives were 6 soldiers, 15 policemen, and 186 civilians. (Bangkok Post, July 2, 2005). Judging by both the growing number of those fallen victims and the ways in which some of them were killed from January 1 to June 20, 2005 , including 8 cases of beheading, the killings of three religious teachers (ustazs) while praying in Pattani on June 21, and the first case of a deliberate killing of a woman who is also a teacher and a local school administrator on June 24, it could be said that the situation of violence in the South has worsened. In light of the intensified violence, amidst rumors about more...

People called me, mostly the press both Thai and international, asking how to make sense of the incident. For some of my friends who might not have followed what happened in Southern Thailand on April 28, 2004, let me offer a brief reflection. The government killed 108 men who attacked 10 official sites (police stations among others) in three provinces (Pattani, Yala and Songkhla). The attackers were mostly young (some below 20, at least one around 60), most used knives (official figures were more than a hundred with only 4 M16, 2 HK and a few guns). It was reported that in some cases these people charged the police stations with knives in their hands and engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat with the police. But in an incident which took place in Songkhla, it seems the attackers were young soccer players from a local school. A good team with good winning record:...

Director of Peace Information Center, Foundation for Democracy and Development StudiesFaculty of Political Science, Thammasat University TFF associate On January 22, 2004, two men on a motorcycle used a long knife to slit the throat of a 64 year-old Buddhist monk to death. The monk just returned from his early morning round of alms-begging. Then on January 24, three more monks were attacked, two were dead. A young novice aged only 13 died in a hospital after being attacked in the head by a youth wielding a machete on a motorcycle while another 65-year-old monk was killed in the same manner. A third machete attack put another 25 year-old monk in a hospital with serious injuries. The January 22 incident occurred in Bacho, Narathiwat while the other took place in different areas of Yala, both are Thailand’s Southernmost provinces. On the very same day, there were other killings in Yala...