Thailand

I have a long piece up on the situation in Thailand at Global Comment. I conclude:

The United Nations has offered to mediate the situation, but the Thai government has rejected this. The government claims it doesn’t want to give legitimacy to the red-shirts, but of course, the government itself came to power through non-democratic means. It’s hard to say what leverage either the U.S. or the U.N. have in this situation and I believe violence will continue to mount.

William Barnes, writing at Asia Times Online, noted on May 13 that Maoist tactics are playing an increasing role in red shirt strategies. Were a large number of Thais to commit themselves to violent revolution, the situation could devolve into a more geopolitically important version of Nepal, which only recently ended its long and brutal civil war between the military and Maoist guerillas.

While we should condemn Maoist-inspired violence, it represents the desperation and poverty of rural Thais. They gave democracy a chance. They elected their leaders repeatedly and just as often their opponents threw their leaders out using non-democratic means. Unless the Thai military and middle-class accept democracy, understanding that they have to live with results they don’t like and that they will have to appeal to a majority of Thais in order to win power, political and social instability will result.

As the Thai elites have shown no inclination to respect democracy, I fear civil war will result that could lead to the destabilization of much of Southeast Asia.

The situation has worsened significantly in the last 24 hours, but however brutal the Thai military might act, it won't solve the problem of Thai elites not respecting democracy and poor Thais abandoning their commitment to democracy because they see it doesn't work.

Ethnic Tourism

Lisa has a great post slamming on ethnic tourism, or the visiting of strange and bizarre peoples by westerners for their consumption. In particular, she goes after this Washington Post article by Amit Paley who desperately wants to see the Paduang women who wear brass rings around their necks. The article is pretty bad. Paley talks about her quest to see these women in the context of moral complexity. But when it comes down to it, she, like so many other people, really enjoys a freak show and she's determined to see one regardless of what rules she has to break.

When I was 22, I traveled to Thailand. Then, as now, one of the big tourist attractions was to see the northern hill tribes. We trekked along, staying in these villages for a few days. Even to my stupid and uninformed mind at that age, I felt really bad at the time. It felt like we were turning these people into a zoo. At that point as well, a major attraction of these tours was opium and other drugs. At that time, the Thai government didn't have a great deal of control over the northern reaches of their country and it was tolerated. This has since ended through a vigorous crackdown but the tourism continues unabated.

While an interesting part of any trip is experiencing a bit of how other people live, treating ethnic minorities as a zoo exhibit is deeply immoral. I think the entire Thai hill tribe tour industry is unethical. Seeing the Paduang women may or may not be any worse than the average tour. Certainly their are quite complex moral issues with tourism in general and with the Paduang people in general (if it's their traditional culture, should we consider it a human rights violation to crack down on this? Perhaps it is another form of imperialism? Or perhaps the ends justify the means?), but I'll leave this for another time.

Crisis in Thailand

I have been incredibly lax lately in reporting on Thailand, something that I used to do quite a bit. For the progressive blogosphere, southeast Asia is a pretty big blank spot and I occasionally try to fill that.

Anyway, as you may have read, Thailand is a severe political crisis. This has been going on for 2 years now, but in recent days the crisis has severely escalated. Anti-government protestors have taken over Bangkok's international airport, crippling the nation's economy, especially its vital tourist industry. The military is calling on the prime minister to step down. For the first time, this crisis seems to threaten large-scale violence.

Here's the basic issue. To be incredibly simplistic, Thailand is 2 nations. One is the urban elite and growing middle class who have gotten rich through the globalized economy in the last 30 years. Two is the traditional farms and small towns outside of the capital who remain mired in poverty. To be fair, there probably is 3 Thailands, with the restless Muslim south, but we'll put that aside for the time being. The large rural population controls electoral politics. They are huge supporters of the deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Two years ago, the military overthrew him in a coup supported by the middle class. Thaksin was both corrupt and democratic. The corruption allegations are pretty bad and almost certainly true. On the other hand, Thaksin was elected and his support remained strong. The military was unable to consolidate power. In elections held last year, Thaksin's party again took over, this time under the leadership of Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin's brother in law.

The middle class sees no path to power except the military. They have almost no commitment to democracy. Many are calling for a new voting system that gives poor people less representation in government. I have had several conversations with middle-class Thais where I have heard them wish they had a Singapore-like dictatorship. Thailand has a long history of military control backed up by the all-important palace. The king is old and sick and I understand that his successor is hostile to democracy, giving the middle class and military support in their struggle for power.

I don't know what's going to happen. I suspect Somchai will in fact step down or be forced out and again the military will take control for a short time. But short of an oppressive military dictatorship, which I believe won't happen because of Thailand's role as a U.S. ally in the region and because so much of their economy revolves around tourism, I don't see the middle class-military alliance holding. I don't see a lot of reason to think the military and middle class will create a more successful government than they did two years ago, particularly given the hostility they face from the majority of the country's population. The military did a poor job of dealing with the Muslim separatists in the South, had no coherent plan for governing, and were inept at running the government.

Moreover, I don't see Thailand coming to any sort of stability anytime soon. Corruption is rampant throughout Thai society, including among the holier-than-thou elite. They are upset, not because of corruption, but because the other side's corruption is more effective than theirs. The poor have embraced democracy while the rich are rejecting it. The monarchy is going to play a big role here, as is the United States and other western nations. We need to make it clear that democracy must be respected in Thailand and that there will be consequences to a coup.

If the government does want to stay in power, violence is probably necessary. Somchai has shown remarkable restraint in not using violence to open the airport and arrest ringleaders. Perhaps this is because he fears the army. But the threat of violence has to be there, particularly when the other side embraces it. In Bolivia, Evo Morales has promised that his military would not use violence against the Bolivian people. That's a good thing in theory, but it has also emboldened the right-wing opposition into using extreme tactics, knowing that they are safe from any real crackdown. Somchai either has to use violence and risk being forced out or step down on his own. I'm glad I don't have to make this decision.

As always, Shawn Crispin at Asia Times Online has much more.

Historical Memory and Nationalism

Thailand and Cambodia are presently near war over control of an obscure temple on their border. The temple, Preah Vihear, was just named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Neither nation seems to have cared that much about the site until last week, when UNESCO made this annoucement. But ever since, both nations are ready to fight it out over its control. There are a lot of factors in this weird situation. First, although it really is in Cambodia, it is almost inaccessible from the Cambodian side while Thais can basically drive up to it. So issues of development are central here. Plus, the Thai opposition, which engineered the military coup last summer but which failed to stay in power, is using the situation to embarrass the government. They are playing on militarism and nationalism to press the need for an agressive Thailand that is the dominant power in the region.

But the only way this is possible is to use historical memory for present political advantage. This is something Americans do not understand well, which I will get to in a minute. Southeast Asia has always been an area of shifting political power, with the Thais, Khmers, Laotians, and Vietnamese at various times being the strongest people, and with China always in the background. Right now, Thailand is clearly the strongest nation. Cambodia, though they had their time 700 years ago, has traditionally been pretty weak and certainly is today. But both nations can bring up issues that happened hundreds of years ago to rally support for today. For the Cambodians, the temples remind them of when they were actually important. The Thais have long claimed the area, but the International Court of Justice ruled in favor of the Cambodians in 1962. Ever since then, Thai nationalists have used this issue to rally support. Today, they bring the region to the point of what would be an incredibly absurd war. I don't think it will happen, but the danger is there for shooting to begin, especially given that both sides have pointed weapons at each other. If the present Thai government really begins to fear that the military could take the situation over, I am afraid that they actually could resort to violence as an act of self-preservation.

What is important here is the power that historical memory has for nationalism in today's world. I am seeing the same thing in Bolivia. Today, I saw members of the Bolivian navy (the world's greatest fighting force). Why does Bolivia even have a navy, given it is landlocked? Because they claim they will soon regain the ports they lost to Chile in the 1880s. 125 years ago they lost the few ports they had. Rather then move on, they cling to this as a point of national humilation. Ever since 1978, Bolivia and Chile have not even had formal diplomatic relations, though things have improved with Evo Morales and Michelle Bachelet in power. Frankly, Bolivia has a lot more important things to be worrying about. And I don't think Chile is too scared. But again, it shows the power of historical memory. Events long past can dominate current relations. We have seen this most powerfully perhaps in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

I think this is important for Americans to understand because we essentially don't have a historical memory. Maybe a few people still gripe about the Japanese over what happened at Pearl Harbor, but most young people couldn't care less. This is a good thing, but because we don't have a very good understanding of how our nation's actions affect countries that do have a long historical memory, we don't understand why these nations don't like us. Take Iran for example. If you ask most Americans why Iran seemingly hates us, they don't know. They say it's because they are terrorists or are just crazy or (and this is the worst) because they are Muslim. Yet at the heart of this is the CIA-sponsored coup in 1952 that placed the Shah on the throne, undermined any chance for legitimate political opposition, and turned people toward more radical religion as a way to deal with the regime. Iranians remember this. Americans have never heard of it. For other nations, the past is extremely meaningful. For Americans, it is something boring we have to take at school. Because of this, we suffer from nearsighted vision over our place in the world. The sooner we understand why Thailand, Cambodia, Bolivia, and Iran act in the ways they do, the sooner we can understand our own place in the world and the problems it sometimes causes.

White Men, Asian Women, and Feminism

For some reason, William Sparrow, the editor of the Asian Sex Gazette, has an occasional column at Asia Times Online. I suppose I should expect this from the editor of such a fine publication, but Sparrow's piece today was particularly loathsome.

Sparrow argues that women are gaining power in Asian countries while still recognizing the proper differences between men and women. The first part of the equation may well be true. Women do seem to be playing a bigger role in the public sphere at least in many Asian countries. But for Sparrow and other white men who go to Asia for the women, women's sexual prowess is their ultimate value. Those differences for Sparrow are about sex.

For Sparrow and his ilk, feminism has always been a repudiation of sex, despite the vast amount of feminists who no one could legitimately ever accuse of being opposed to sex. He writes: "I've heard countless men expressed how nice it is to be somewhere that they can tell a woman that she is "beautiful" or "sexy" and have it taken as a compliment rather than a lawsuit." Yes, in my experience, men who say these things are often total fucking assholes who claim that they are just telling women how beautiful they are. In reality, they may be going way over the line, sexually harassing women in really bad ways.

When I lived in Asia in the mid 90s, I knew men who had come to Asia for the women. They said things like this all the time. And you know what? They had almost no respect for women at all. Many seemed to outright hate women. They liked Asia because there one could supposedly find a submissive woman that would have sex whenever you wanted and not talk back to you. They wanted the myth of the patriarchal past, when men dominated the household and the bedroom.

Sparrow also talks about "angry feminist protests in the West - the type typified by anti-male rhetoric ("Use condoms or beat it") and signs about male oppression ("Keep your laws off my body") and empowerment ("Riots not diets")." Funny, I've hardly seen any anti-male rhetoric in years, at least among anyone under the age of 50. I guess demanding safe sex means that you hate men. Huh. Also, fighting for abortion rights is hardly the same as being "angry" about "male oppression." And I guess women's empowerment sucks or something. What a jerk.

Sparrow's views about feminism become crystal clear when he reports on what one female working at a Bangkok bar thought about his description of western-style feminism. Her response:

"Do women in your country - these 'feminists' - actually do what you're saying? (bold face added)" she asked. "[They] get angry for men looking at sexy women? They cut off their hair, don't wear make-up and dress like men?"

"No wonder [foreigners] like Asia so much."

Hmmm...so for Sparrow, all feminists hate men and sex. Really? Because most of the feminists I know talk way more about sex than I ever do. They quite often wear makeup. They rarely "dress like men," whatever the hell that even means today. I guess Sparrow hasn't been in the United States since 1975.

It's also worth wondering, as is often the case in some Asian countries and certainly in Thailand, if these female bar workers he talked to were also sex workers. Naturally, we don't know that from the article.

Sparrow's attack on those man-hating feminazis totally ignores the real oppression that many Asian women face. We'll leave the sex industry out of this. Domestic violence is an epidemic in many Asian countries. When I lived in South Korea, you saw women with black eyes way too often. They had a saying that was something like (and to get this you have to know that it references some sort of fish dish where you pound the fish) "Women and fish need to be beaten twice a week." I was teaching elementary school teachers English at that time, preparing them to teach their kids. So I brought this up to them. They were mortified that I knew this. I got called into the state education board the next day and was asked why I was teaching communism. The reaction against me telling them that beating women was wrong was sharp and swift.

But I guess issues like domestic violence, not to mention unequal wages, rape, high rates of childbirth, and the rising tide of fundamentalism don't play a role in Sparrow's ideal Asian feminism. Rather, Sparrow is much more comfortable with women who are just happily pro-sex. What else matters? He closes with an appeal to support feminist NGOs, but it really feels like a non-sequiter thrown on by an editor to make the piece more palatable.

The Failure of the Thai Coup

The Siam Sentinel has some interesting observations on the failure of the Thai coup. If you remember a year ago, the Thai military committed a coup d'etat to get rid of Thaksin, the nation's populist prime minister. Thaksin was loathed by the country's elite and rising middle class, but beloved by the large rural populace. They hated him for what he stood for and who he represented, but also widespread corruption (likely true) and his inability to crush the rebellion from the Muslim dominated southern provinces.

"The palace-backed coup d’etat achieved almost nothing. Though the new constitution allows many of the senators to be appointed, one would have expected the generals who led the coup to have done more with their time in Government House. They not only failed to crush Thaksin’s powerbase, they may have alienated a large number of their one-time supporters. The general impression is that the coup, though initially seen as a positive, has been bad for Thailand. The generals demonstrated a lack of competence in economic policy, failed to bring peace to the South, and engaged in shady deals (though few Thai newspapers have openly labeled these dealings corruption). Though there are still fears that other opportunistic generals could stage another coup in the near future, the military will now have a harder time justifying its actions. But does the failure of the Sonthi-Surayud government also highlight the waning power of the royal palace?"

I kind of doubt this last bit. One cannot overestimate the influence of the King on all aspects of Thai life. He is aging and I understand the next king has authoritarian tendencies that are likely to be controversial. On the other hand, the palace backed the coup and the coup leaders were turned out in the recent vote.

Coup leaders lacked the will and political power to change Thai politics permanently. The problem with a coup is that if you don't have the ability to oppress the opposition, you become a joke when you find out that the populace doesn't support you. This is what happened in Thailand. Coup leaders inability to solve any of the problems of the Thaksin, combined with his party's continued popularity among the rural poor, doomed the coup. Good riddance.

Thailand

I'm so far from surprised that the Thai coup is falling apart. You mean that if you support a military coup but don't support it brutally crushing the opposition, that it might not work? The forces of Thaksin, the country's leader who was overthrown, are on the rebound. The coup is divided between hard-liners and more moderate elements and support for the military government from the crown seems to be dwlinding. Corruption is as bad in the military regime as under Thaksin. Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont had to reshuffle his cabinet recently because of the corruption of several of his ministers.

There are several possibilities here. The best is that elections scheduled for December go forward and are relatively peaceful. The worst is a hard-line coup from elements who really want Thailand to be like Burma, but with tourism and foreign investment. The reality I think is that it will lean toward the former rather than the latter. Thailand has an awful lot to lose from a brutal military takeover and the King occupies a position of respect that no one in Burma can lay claim to. Moreover, large sections of the public, particularly the nation's innumerable poor, love Thaksin and so there is a popular backlash against the coup as well.

Bangkok

The worst thing about Bangkok is the most well-known in the West--the sex trade. It's definitely there, but as a traveller, you can also avoid it pretty easily. Or you used to be able to. This article discusses the expansion of the sex trade on Khaosan Road, the traditional backpacker haven.

Khaosan Road is not a very nice place really. It's cheap and that's the main reason to stay there when travelling through Bangkok. It's great in some ways, particularly the wonderful street food located there. But it also represents the worst of the backpacker culture--dredlocked and shirtless French guys in their mid 30s hitting on any woman within shouting distance, groups of backpackers discussing different ways to save every last dime, Europeans claiming to be getting away from home while sitting with their friends from home watching American movies blasted out of every bar. But for all that, you could avoid the sex trade pretty easily there. It's hardly surprising that prostitution is expanding there with Thailand's international reputation, increasingly prosperity, and cheap prices compared to the more upscale districts. But it's also a bummer because it will be harder to justify staying there next time I'm in town.

On the other hand, once you've spent a few days in Bangkok, there really isn't very many good reasons to go back to that sweltering, polluted, urban expanse if you can help it. So maybe I'll figure out a way to avoid it all together.

Phallic Shrines

I've actually seen one of these phallic shirnes in Thailand. It's pretty trippy. If there's one thing the world needs, it's more shrines to the penis....

Asia for Asians!

Marwaan Macan-Markar has a good article at Asia Times about the backlash in Thailand to the new Thailand-Japan free trade agreement. Why? Because it would allow Japan to dump an unlimited amount of toxic waste in Thailand. Thai environmental groups are up in arms and it is embarrassing the already embattled Thai military government.

But hey, Japan is getting smart and learning from the United States--why physically conquer the nations in your sphere of influence when you can just use them for natural resources, export your economic problems upon them, and dump all your toxic waste in their soil? It's like physical imperialism with all of the benefits and none of the downside. Well, unless you're Thai that is. But who cares about them? They should be sacrificing for the benefit of the great Asian power anyway.
Asia for Asians!