Thailand: A lull before the revolutionary storm
As 2008 drew to a close, an uneasy calm appeared to have settled over
Thailand, following months of turmoil in the south east Asian country, which
culminated in the leader of the minority, right wing Democrat Party, Abhisit
Vejjajiva, being installed as Prime Minister following a coordinated campaign
of economic disruption by right-wing mobs and judicial subversion of the
democratic process, both backed and instigated by the most reactionary forces
in Thai society, namely the monarchy and the army top brass.
Despite substantial economic growth over recent years, Thailand remains
one of the most divided and polarised societies on earth, with a poor rural
majority almost completely excluded from the fruits of development.
That only began to change when Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist businessman,
was first elected as Prime Minister in February 2001, and kept to his election
promises, which included low cost universal health care, along with debt relief
and micro credits for poor farmers. Although Thaksin’s policies were intended
only to create the conditions for stable capitalist development, they were
sufficient to provoke a ‘carnival of reaction’ from monarchists, feudalists and
militarists, whose interests are opposed to even this limited degree of social
development.
Thaksin was deposed in a military coup on 19 September 2006. However, the
military junta’s inability to solve any of the pressing problems facing the
country, led to a civilian government, comprised mainly of Thaksin’s
supporters, with Samak Sundarajev as Prime Minister, being formed on 28 January
2008, following a 23 December 2007 general election. At that time, we wrote in Lalkar:
“The people of Thailand have won an important victory in their democratic
struggle, but one may be sure that intrigues are still being hatched in royal
palaces and barracks to frustrate their will.” (‘Thai people frustrate
Royals and generals,’ Lalkar, March/April 2008)
Our analysis has been completely vindicated by events. In May 2008, the
grossly misnamed “People’s Alliance for Democracy” (PAD), which is
actually a monarcho-fascist organisation, which overtly seeks to disenfranchise
the poor rural majority on the basis that they are “not ready” for
democracy, launched a protest movement demanding the resignation of the elected
government.
On 26 August, PAD staged violent assaults on several government ministries
and the state television channel. A mob estimated at several tens of thousands
took over the Prime Minister’s compound.
On 9 September, a court ruling dismissed Samak from his post of Prime
Minister and barred him from holding political office. The pretext was an
alleged conflict of interest, as Samak had occasionally hosted a television
cookery show and had been paid very modest expenses, for example the cost of
ingredients used – this in a country which has long been, and remains, a byword
for corruption, and where the opposition to the elected government has been
allowed to plunge the country into chaos without any legal sanction whatsoever.
Indeed, the Queen nailed the palace’s colours firmly to the
counter-revolutionary mast by paying the medical costs of wounded protestors
and presiding at the funeral of a young woman demonstrator killed in the course
of a violent protest.
On 17 September, the parliamentary majority elected another supporter of
Thaksin, Somchai Wongsawat, as the new prime minister.
In response, the PAD intensified its protests. Occupation of the prime
ministerial compound effectively paralysed much of the work of government.
Then, on 25 November, the PAD was allowed by a pliant military to take over the
country’s main international airports, halting all flights, stranding hundreds
of thousands of travellers and inflicting huge damage on the national economy.
Once again, instead of taking measures to shore up the elected government,
the judiciary played its allotted role in the counter-revolutionary script,
declaring that Somchai’s party was guilty of “electoral fraud” and
barring him from politics for five years.
Finally, on 15 December, this coordinated counter-revolutionary campaign
succeeded in installing an anti-Thaksin prime minister. The new prime minister
was born in England and was educated at Eton and Oxford. He is so far removed
from the realities of life for the majority of Thailand’s people that the International
Herald Tribune reported that critics joked “that he would need a visa to
travel to the rural heartland of the north and northeast”. (‘New leader
lacks a populist base’, 15 December 2008)
Indeed, Abhisit’s ability to properly address the problems facing the
country and the people are less than zero. Thaksin’s support among the poor
rural masses remains as strong as ever. As the International Herald Tribune
put it on 12 September: “Traditionally in Thailand, governments have pursued
policies that reflected the country’s hierarchical culture, favouring the urban
elite.
“‘We can say that every government has a policy platform that
has an urban bias.’ Prajak said. ‘So when elections come, they court the
support of the rural vote. But when they are in power, they formulate policy
that favours the urban and industrial sector.’
“Because of this, he said, ‘We have an unequal growth between
the agricultural sector and the industrial sector. This gives us the very high
gap in income distribution.’
“Thaksin tapped into this disparity, placing the poor at the
centre of his governing strategy with populist policies like low-cost health
care and debt relief. Poor and rural voters found their voice in voting for
him, creating an overwhelming electoral base that gave him and his allies
increasing economic and political power that some saw as a challenge to the
monarchy.” (‘Power
of the people fights democracy in Thai protests’)
Indeed, for the elite in Thailand, the rural poor have traditionally been
seen as scarcely human and it is this gross oppression and humiliation that is
now being rejected. As the International Herald Tribune reported on 13
October: “‘The people of Isaan are people, too,’ said Damneun, 48, who is
now a farmer, like most people in this small village. ‘We also eat rice, and we
also have an education, and they can’t insult us like this.’
“The insult comes from the leaders of an anti-government
protest in Bangkok who say that rural voters are misguided and ignorant…
“‘The people of Isaan and the poor people everywhere all like
Thaksin’, said Prasart Pangsopa, 54, who breeds cows and grows long beans, red
chillies and rice.”
And inevitably, the class anger of the poor is rising: “The anger runs
the other way here in Ban Huay Chan, where the farmers spin violent fantasies
of mayhem against the protesters.
“‘If those people come here I’ll beat them to death and throw
them into the river!’ cried Noochen Sinkham, 67, as he squatted on the ground
with a cleaver, chopping strips of bamboo.
“Everybody laughed, and the farmer named Marongrit upped the
ante. ‘I want the police to throw a bomb into that demonstration’, he declared.
‘Let them die.’” (‘In
Thai heartland, anger over protests’)
Needless to say, imperialism treats the Thai monarchy and generals with
kid gloves, especially when compared to the neighbouring generals in Myanmar
(Burma) or the leaders of anti-imperialist governments. The Thai ruling class
have, after all, been long-time, faithful servants of imperialism. As the Economist
put it: “The origins of this, in part, were in the Vietnam war, in which
America found King Bhumibol a staunch anti-communist ally. Recognising his
value as an anti-red icon, America pumped propaganda funds into a campaign to
put the king’s portrait in every Thai home. Even today, although quick to decry
undemocratic moves in other Asian countries, America rarely protests at the
arrests of Thais and foreigners for criticising the monarchy.” (‘A right
royal mess’, 4 December)
Nevertheless, such impeccable organs of finance capital as the Economist
and the Financial Times have expressed mounting exasperation at the
antics of the Thai ruling elite. For example, on 4 September, the Economist
dismissed the PAD with the following lines: “The PAD’s leaders, however, are
neither liberals nor democrats. A gruesome bunch of reactionary businessmen,
generals and aristocrats, they demand not fresh elections, which they would
lose, but ‘new politics’- in fact a return to old-fashioned authoritarian rule,
with a mostly appointed parliament and powers for the army to step in when it
chooses.” (‘Worse than a coup’)
Their irritation has, needless to say, nothing to do with any genuine
empathy for democracy or the interests of the poor, but stem rather from fear
that, as with the Bourbon dynasty in pre-revolutionary France, or the Russian
Tsarist regime, the venality, stupidity, greed and brutality of an
anachronistic elite may end up undermining not only what is after all an
ultimately dispensable set of imperialist servants, but will also place greater
and more strategic imperialist interests in jeopardy.
As the Economist put it on 4 December: “In reality, with public
anger at the queen’s support for the thuggish PAD and the unsuitability of
Bhumibol’s heir simmering, Thailand risks the recent fate of Nepal, which has
suffered a bitter civil war and whose meddling king is now a commoner in a
republic. The PAD was nurtured by the palace and now threatens to engulf it. An
enduring image of the past few days is that of PAD toughs shooting at
government supporters while holding up the king’s portrait. The monarchy is
now, more clearly than ever, part of the problem. It sits at the apex of a
horrendously hierarchical and unequal society. You do not have to be a
republican to agree that this needs to be discussed.” (‘The king and
them’)
In the same edition, the Economist also sounded this warning note,
redolent with historical parallels for anyone with even a passing familiarity
with events in France in 1789 or Russia in 1905: “But the PAD’s ever more
menacing behaviour, the palace’s failure to disown it, and the group’s
insistence that Thais must choose between loyalty to Mr Thaksin and to the
king, may be doing untold damage to the crown itself. Some of Mr Thaksin’s
voters must be contemplating the flip-side of the PAD’s argument: if the
monarchy is against the leader they keep voting for, maybe it is against them…
“At a pro-Thaksin rally in July a young activist ranted
against the monarchy, calling the king ‘a thorn in the side of democracy’ for
having backed so many coups, and warning the royal family they risked the
guillotine. She was quickly arrested. What shocked the royalist establishment
was not just the startling criticism of the king – but that the activist was
cheered. ‘It is more and more difficult for them to hold the illusion that the
monarchy is universally adored,’ says a Thai academic.” (‘A right royal mess’)
Simply put, the Thai elite feels that it cannot live with even a
moderately reforming bourgeois government that concedes a minimum of rights and
dignity to the poor rural majority. However, imperialism (which famously has no
permanent allies only permanent interests) could live with such a government,
if such is the only way to keep revolution at bay. At present, Thailand appears
to have no left-wing political party of any significance. The US, Japanese and
British imperialists would like to keep it that way, but the brutish and stupid
Thai reactionaries, by criminalising and seeking to destroy their bourgeois
democratic opponents, risk placing that in jeopardy.
Although the party is apparently currently defunct, imperialism has
certainly not forgotten that, less than two decades ago, Thailand had one of
the strongest communist movements in the region, outside of the socialist
states. As the Wikipedia entry on the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) puts
it: “In the
1960s the CPT grew in membership and support and by the early 1970s was the
second largest communist movement in mainland South-East Asia (after Vietnam).
Even though the CPT suffered internal divisions, at its political peak the
party effectively acted as a state within the state. Its rural support is
estimated to have been at least four million people; its military support
consisted of 10-14,000 armed fighters.”
Moreover, a spectre is now haunting the region, that of the
advancing Nepalese revolution. Writing in the International Herald Tribune
of 1 December, Philip Bowring, a veteran and intelligent bourgeois commentator
on south east Asian affairs, warned:
“As Nepal showed, monarchies can self-destruct when royal families have
internal squabbles or when incompetent monarchs overreach themselves and set
off a republican reaction.
“It is worth recalling that the late King Birendra of Nepal was a
revered figure during a 30-year reign. But after his assassination in 2001 by a
crazed son he was succeeded by King Gyanendra, who in 2005 dissolved Parliament
and attempted direct monarchical rule. This was a total failure. Republicanism
and a Maoist insurgency paved the way for elections and the monarchy was
abolished in March.” (‘The crowd and the crown’)
Imperialism fully realises what the stakes are in Thailand,
even if their longterm servants do not.