Thailand's late king Bhumipol
In 2004, my wife and I decided to spend a year in Thailand
– a year that slowly turned into four. As we learned, the dominant meme in
Thai culture is that, whatever happened, the Thai would smile. This turned
out to be true, but over the four-year period we lived there – in the lovely
northern city of Chiang Mai – we gradually learned that the Thais have a
smile for every known human emotion. The country enjoys the moniker, the
“Land of Smiles.”
We created new lives for ourselves there. We took an
intensive, six-month course in Thai, and I began teaching at Chiang Mai
University, developing a course for foreigners who had come to Thailand to
teach English. My course book is still available online
and used by many people in many countries. Soon after we arrived, the Boxing
Day tsunami killed nearly a quarter million people in 14 countries.
Bernie became involved in charitable organizations – first
with local people who had suffered from leprosy; later, with a Dutch charity
directed at the country’s desperately poor Hill Tribe people. These people,
whose lives were restricted to the tops of mountains, were deprived of the
fertile lands in the valleys and often of Thai citizenship. Hundreds of
thousands are among our planet’s stateless peoples.
We travelled a lot. I, for one, became immersed in the
country’s history and religion – nominally Buddhist, but with trappings of
Hinduism and ancestor worship. There was deep reverence for King Bhumibol. He
was the ninth monarch of Thailand from his dynasty, which dates back to 1782.
Born in 1927, he was already elderly. I couldn’t imagine how the country
would respond when he died.
Each morning we woke up to BBC World News, which kept us
informed about the world outside Thailand. But on the morning of September
19, 2006 that changed. Instead of comforting news from the Beeb, we woke up
to martial music. As I drove to work that morning, I encountered military
vehicles everywhere. Overnight, there had been a coup d’état. I remember
saying to Bernie, “It’s time to go back. We’re Canadians. We don’t do coups.”
A container ship took our belongings, and we returned home.
The Thais restored democracy for a while, until another
general took over in 2014. It was the country’s twelfth coup since becoming a
constitutional monarchy 86 years ago.
~~~~~
Fast forward a decade. The King died in 2016, and the
country mourned for more than a year. Recently a priest we knew in Chiang Mai
– Bernie went to mass at his church – sent a commentary to friends and former
parishioners that “many continue to wear black,” or have black ribbons sewn
onto their clothing, to honour the year of mourning “for the passing of the
well-revered, and genuinely loved, late king.” Although he was not crowned
until after the mourning period, the thrice-married (and, when we were there,
unpopular)
new king’s reign was back-dated to the death of his father.
Then Father David Townsend’s message becomes ominous.
“Politically, Thailand remains in the grip of the army generals who removed
the last democratically elected government. Groups of more than five persons
meeting publicly are banned. Some well-respected scholars who were hosting an
international academic gathering here in Chiang Mai University have been
arrested,” he said about a country I once loved.
“There is great use of the lèse-majesté law, computer laws
and defamation laws, against opponents. Whistle-blowers, social activists,
and workers detailing the truth regarding abuse of workers’ rights and such
like, even BBC news reporters, can be ensnared by defamation suits.”
Dissidents are being “called into army barracks for extended ‘conversations’
to encourage ‘attitude adjustment,’” he said.
~~~~~
The deposed former Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, warned
that the criminal negligence case against her would make future leaders
rethink any policy to help Thailand’s citizens. In court for alleged
mismanagement over her government’s rice pledging scheme, she gave a rather
confusing defense. “No public policy benefits you financially,” she said. “If
you measured public policy only by financial benefits, no government would
want to make the decision.” She came from a wealthy family and her brother,
Thaksin, served as PM while we were there.
When Thai general Prayuth Chan Ocha staged his coup
against her four years ago, it followed six months of street protests against
her fairly elected government. After the military took power, they charged
her with dereliction of duty.
The charges related to her oversight of a political episode
called the “rice pledging scheme.” The idea ran aground in early 2014, after
three years of accumulating from the country’s many peasant farmers an
inventory of more than 17 million tonnes of rice. This angered the middle
class in Bangkok, Southeast Asia’s economic colossus. The bourgeoisie felt
taxes were going into “populist” schemes laden with corruption.
Four years after the coup, says the headline
in a Singapore-based newspaper, “Thais tire of corruption and democratic
delays.” The good news, if there is any, is that popular dissent has begun.
For example, a few months ago the people of the northern city of Chiang Mai
openly protested the building of a government luxury housing project on
forested land outside the city. This was the largest gathering since the
junta took control.
The military are also being investigated by the country's
anti-graft agency over a suspected misappropriation of some C$512 million
from a state fund for the poor. The government, most Thais believe, is wide
open to corruption and the haemorrhage of state funds into military hands.
The former government minister in charge of a major aspect of the scheme
received a 42-year custodial sentence. Prime Minister General Prayuth has
said to expect an election in about a year’s time. Presumably activity by
approved political parties will be allowed beforehand. Drafted by military
minds, the new constitution will no doubt give the armed forces continuing
political power.
~~~~~
After reading Father Townsend’s epistle, I got in touch
with three friends who had married Thai women and wanted to raise their kids
in that country. Two refused to discuss the situation, because living in a
country operated by a military with a good intelligence system carries risks.
The third – let’s call him Dave – formally responded, but in ways that made
the impact of military rule clear. At best, his comments were cautious; at
worst, designing.
“My wife and I and our family are pretty happy too. We are
not rich, but I work and we make enough money,” he writes. “I’m sending my
daughter to university now, for example. I guess we would be considered
middle class by most standards.” In comparison to the days before the latest
coup, he suggested, “the current situation is a gift. I love Thailand, and my
Thai family and friends. The people I love best in the world, outside of my
American family, are all here. Yet this stability comes with high prices –
notably repression and oppression. People are not allowed to talk about the
government. People are not allowed to demand change.”
He says Thais admire justice and free speech “in the
abstract,” but “in the real world in Thailand, they are secondary
considerations at best.” Thais can be jailed for making comments on social
media about the government or monarchy. “I would certainly never do it, and
if any of my Thai friends did something like that I might never see them
again.” The mood is resigned but waiting for change: “Since people are not
permitted to act or speak their minds, or demonstrate in public, they cling
to old and moldy beliefs. No one will make the change themselves because they
think the cost is too high.”
