In Remembrance of My Father

The man on the horse is my father. He is seen riding across a snowy landscape in Lesotho, Southern Africa. This image epitomizes how I would like to remember him: laughing as he gallops forwards, full of energy as he leans into the wind; keen for adventure, thirsty for the thrill of life, a little bit wild.

An only child, Nicholas’s story began in Cape Town, South Africa, where he was born on April 9th 1938. It was fate, and some rather bad holiday planning, that brought him to England. In 1939 his parents found themselves trapped in London at the outbreak of World War II. Apparently unaware of the impending conflict, they had arrived in the UK just two days before Churchill’s declaration of war.

Nicholas’s father, Solomon, worked as a surgeon in London’s hospitals, patching up the maimed and wounded while the family took up residence in a hotel. Nicholas’s earliest memories were of room service and of German bombs raining down on the British capital.

After a traditional English education at Westminster School and Trinity College Cambridge, where he obtained a First in Medicine and developed a love for literature, Nicholas seemed set to follow in his father’s footsteps and enter the lucrative world of private medicine.
The Cambridge Graduate in the late 1950s

He had other plans.

After brief spells at Guys Hospital in London, which he described as an “endless soap opera of pretty nurses and paunchy consultants with fob watches and gold chains”, and the American Hospital in Paris, where he nurtured his early love for France, Nicholas began to move further afield.

He was keen to escape the life his parents wanted for him. And he was about to begin a lifelong journey, one that saw him traveling the globe, forever seeking a place where he might belong, that he might call home.

Perhaps his was the curse of the exile? His ancestors had fled Lithuania. His parents, perhaps still traumatized by their past, sought stability, comfort and status. Nicholas on the other hand was looking for something more. He wanted to give his life a deeper meaning.

Though he became the doctor his father wanted him to be, and though he never abandoned his Jewish roots, he seemed always in flight. Always caught in the paradox of being proud of his status and yet always wanting to transcend the banality of social labels. He resisted being defined. He wanted to be a doctor and a scientist and an artist and a bohemian too. He wanted it all.

His life choices seem, with hindsight, like a series of mini rebellions. Statements that said, I am not my parents, nor my ancestors. His love affairs and his marriages were always with non-Jews – to the chagrin of his parents and especially his mother who committed suicide while he was on his honeymoon (with my mother) in 1967.

Nicholas never wanted to be seen as English nor, god forbid, as South African. And he was, in truth, neither of those. In many ways, his was a restless, searching soul - a spirit that belonged fully to no nation.

Behind his grey-green eyes, which sometimes resembled glacial pools and sometimes glowed with such warmth, there were, I sensed, always the shadows of solitude and doubt; legacies, perhaps, of the many contradictions in his life. At times these shadows would eclipse his sparking spirit, plunging him into periods of torment and darkness.

But in 1968, with a golden future to play for, with good looks, intelligence and a first class education to thrust him forwards, the opportunities must have seemed endless.

It was in that year that a three-line advert in the Lancet caught Nicholas’s eye. A 35-bed hospital in Lesotho needed a doctor.

Thus, shortly after I was born, and just a few years after his marriage to my mother, Nicholas left England (without my mother or myself) to begin a life of travel and adventure. It was at this point that he effectively exited my life until I was 18 years old.
Nicholas outside the hospital in Lesotho

For the next two years, a missionary group called the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel employed Nicholas. He lived in a remote place called Mantsonyane and was the only doctor in a tiny rural hospital.

When the missionary priest was absent, the youthful Jewish physician extended his duties into the realm of the spiritual, conducting church services for the local Christian congregation.

Living rough in stone huts with thatched roofs and traveling to see patients over rugged mountains on horseback, he discovered the realities and hardships of life in the Third World.

Nicholas outside his hut in Lesotho

In his own words he “learned what it means to live on one meal of maize flour a day, what it feels like to go barefoot, clothed only in a blanket in the freezing winter days, and how many children die of diseases that elsewhere are entirely preventable.”

He began to ponder how improved nutrition and health could be delivered in places where resources were desperately scarce, resolving under an African sky to use his life “to improve health and survival for poorer communities in Africa and Asia”.

This was the purpose he had been searching for.

Nicholas found himself pulling teeth, dressing wounds resulting from alcohol-fuelled violence and even performing cesarean sections - with the help of a few textbooks and some advice from his father. Payment for his services was often in the form of live chickens.

When he ventured into South Africa proper, he made a point of displaying his opposition to apartheid, carrying bags for black African women and using his camera to document the regime’s injustices. He was eventually banned from South Africa, a status he wore as a badge of honour.

By 1970 Nicholas had met Therese Blanchet, with whom he was to share his life for next twenty or so years. In that same year, during a freak snowstorm in the highlands of Lesotho, their first child, Natasha, was born. She was also given an African name, Melehoa or “Mother of Snow”.

A year later Nicholas moved back to England where he read Epidemiology and Medical Statistics at the London School of Hygiene. He then traveled north to Nottingham University to work alongside Professor Maurice Backett at the recently founded Department of Community Health.

Ever the traveler and always determined to spend as much time as possible in the field, in 1976 Nicholas was on the road again, this time as part of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) smallpox eradication campaign.

Crisscrossing the remote and beautiful landscapes of Ethiopia in a yellow helicopter, Nicholas enjoyed the thrill of being on the frontline of medicine. His numerous photographs of that era depict a rustic society living in a manner that had changed little in centuries.


Nicholas in Ethiopia

A talented writer, Nicholas’s Ethiopian adventures are best and most evocatively described in his own words:

“We tracked smallpox from the green fertile slopes of Arussi, across the sand scarred start of the great African Rift valley at Awash, along the vertiginous eastern escarpment of Shoa and north west with the Afar towards the Danakil desert. Wilfried Thesiger trained his men on the same terrain before his crossing of the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia, recounted in Arabian Sands.

Waking at night in village huts, schools or tents, I could sometimes hear the hoarse coughing of lions. The yellow WHO helicopter flew me over random herds of zebra, frightened ostrich, baboon on the move, nomads carrying Italian 1930s rifles and families of hippo bathing in the crocodile infested Awash river. On the high plateau, bright red circles of spicy pepper could be seen drying beside every village. The beauty, the quality of the light, the mix of so many peoples – Amhara, Agober, Afar, Issa, Oromo, Yemeni, Arabic – made the backdrop of the landscape quite majestic. I felt that somehow we were at the centre of the Universe. I have not known sights and days like that before or after.”

Having returned to the gray skies of the British midlands and just a year after the birth of his second son, Alexis, in 1978 Nicholas was again packing his bags this time to move to Bangladesh where he lived for over a decade, working first with the Save the Children Fund and then with Helen Keller International, for whom he became Country Director.

With Natasha and Alexis in Bangladesh

His interests had by now almost completely shifted from conventional medical practice to the realm of public health and epidemiology. The challenge, as he saw it, was to formulate and implement policies that would improve the health and well being of entire populations.

In Bangladesh Nicholas had chosen one of the poorest nations on the planet. The problems were gargantuan. Typically, he sought to understand his adopted home from the inside out. He learned to read and write Bengali and immersed himself in the cultural life of the country.

With his full ginger beard and traditional Bengali attire, Nicholas cut a striking figure. He became a popular, well-known and sometimes controversial personality in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka. A Jew living in a predominantly Muslim society he would sometimes explain that the letters M.D. after his name actually stood for Mohammed!

With Alexis on a trip to Calcutta

Determined to put his medical knowledge to good use, Nicholas also spent months at a time volunteering at Mother Teresa’s hospice for the dying at Khalighat in Calcutta, India. This was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with Calcutta, a city to which he returned to live briefly later in life and of which he always talked and dreamed.

Much of Nicholas’s most important work for Helen Keller International in Bangladesh focused on Vitamin A deficiency and its role in causing blindness among the most vulnerable and malnourished sections of the population, especially children.

His colleagues remember him as a brilliant and daring thinker. His suggestion, for example, that stopping Bengali fathers from smoking might have a positive impact on child nutrition was originally met with skepticism, though it was later proved that economic resources diverted away from tobacco were often used to purchase healthier food. Stopping smoking wasn’t just better for people’s lungs it could also lead to a better diet.

In 1988 Nicholas celebrated the birth of his third son, Louis Felix, and moved back to Europe to take up a position at the World Health Organisation in Geneva where he worked as a consultant for seven years. Although he did not take easily to the bureaucracy of the UN, he nevertheless battled to get his ideas accepted.

Rare sighting in a suit

One co-worker at WHO described Nicholas as a “genuine pioneer” in his quest to see Vitamin A widely administered to children at risk in developing countries. A policy, wrote his colleague, that “has saved the lives of countless infants and the sight of even more.”

It was while working for WHO in Geneva that Nicholas met Nancy Jamieson, an American public health consultant he was to marry in 1997.

Nancy shared Nicholas’ fondness for the quirky side of life, his thirst for adventure and his love of Asia. In Nancy Nicholas found a kindred spirit, a global citizen who had led almost as many lives as he – working on trawlers in the wild seas off the Alaskan coast and bringing relief to communities on Pakistan’s wild northwestern frontier - a woman who had committed the latter part of her career to educating communities about the risks of AIDS.

Wedding day to Nancy

Nicholas and Nancy spent a number of happy years living in Delhi, Calcutta and Jakarta. Both worked as consultants traveling in the region. They spent many long days ferreting out the most interesting corners of the cities they lived in.

But by the mid 90’s, Nicholas was already beginning to show clear symptoms of the Parkinson’s disease that was to afflict him during the latter part of his life. Nancy, whose own father had suffered from the disease, knew what the future would hold.

Nicholas confronted his illness with courage and good humour, refusing steadfastly to be defined by it. Even as Parkinsons gradually stole from him the ability to travel and move around freely, he remained as dignified, as fun loving, as curious and as determined to savour the poetry of life as ever.

In 2000, Nicholas moved to Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. After years spent in France – a country he loved – and after the colour, intensity and vibrancy of life in Asia, Nicholas initially found life in North America dull.

But if British Columbia’s seduction was not immediate, he grew to love his life in Victoria. It was among the immigrants of Canada, and most especially amongst Victoria’s cosmopolitan Jewish community, that Nicholas felt most at home.

With Nancy’s help he found an apartment with a spectacular view across the straits of Juan de Fuca, looking towards the majestic Olympic Mountains on the American coast. His daughter Natasha, her husband Mutang and his two grandchildren Noeli and Agan lived close by and became a source of vital support and a focus for his love.

Despite his declining health, Nicholas remained a man whose zest for knowledge and love of life never diminished. He read widely and embraced new technologies, using Skype and Facebook to communicate with friends around the globe. He studied Thai, Russian and Italian in addition to the Bengali, Hebrew and French he already spoke fluently. And despite his handicaps he was always planning trips, always ready for a new adventure.

In December 2009, Nicholas returned to the UK, bringing his life full circle. He entered a nursing home in the town of Thames Ditton, close by my mother, where he noted that the cosmopolitan staff seemed a perfect reflection of his globalised past. Characteristically it was not long before he cut a familiar figure among local librarians and café owners.
A couple of hours after arriving in the UK. "Let's go to the pub!"

In September 2010 Nicholas fell ill with pneumonia. When doctors at a local hospital examined him more closely they found extensive cancerous tumours and informed him that he had but a few days to live.

He faced death with the same courage and dignity with which he had lived his entire life. He called those he loved to his bedside and waited patiently and peacefully for the end to come, smiling on his family and reciting prayers in Hebrew.

Looking back on my father's life, one can only feel sorrow. Sorrow that such a wealth of talent, that such depth of knowledge and culture should be lost. Such loss is akin, I feel, to an amputation. A part of one's life is forever gone and one must learn to adapt to a new, seemingly incomplete, world.
With me in London earlier this year

Looking beyond the immediate sorrow of mourning, looking beyond Nicholas's achievements and his talents, it is his extraordinary charisma that defines him most.

He was a man blessed with that invisible spiritual electricity that lights people up. He could arrive anywhere and instantly turn heads and before long he would be making new friends.

It was this charisma, combined with his rich life experience that made him a mentor for so many young people. For if his body deteriorated over time, the energy of his soul was ageless.

It is this ageless energy and charisma, mixed with many beautiful memories and the enduring warmth of his love, which remains.

The Rough Road to Reconciliation

Credit: Kerek Wongsa/Reuteurs

The protesters have returned home and the streets have been scrubbed clean. The malls bustle anew and the traffic is jammed again.

It’s business as usual.

As painful memories of the blood spilled on Bangkok’s streets begin to ebb, Thailand’s suave Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejajiva, looks calm and confident. After two miserable months, the tide seems finally to have turned in his favour.

His Ministers are telling the world that the situation in Thailand has been restored to ‘normal’. His coalition government is busily setting about the task of post conflict reconciliation.

As if reconciliation were merely a navigational challenge, the government has revealed a road map. Reconciliation in five easy steps, says Prime Minister Abhisit; making a gargantuan challenge sound as easy as a drive in the country.

But has Thailand returned to ‘normal’? Will reconciliation really be that simple?

Or are we mistaking calm for normalcy, a lack of fighting for real peace, the appearances of an open democracy led by an urbane Eton-educated technocrat for the reality of a military-backed regime that is riding roughshod over basic freedoms; chasing down its opponents and muzzling its critics in the media?

While 20 or so provinces remain under emergency rule and while the government continues to be shadowed by the all-powerful Committee for the Resolution for Emergency Situation (CRES), it requires a considerable stretch of the imagination to believe that Thailand has returned to ‘normal’.

In the aftermath of the worst civil unrest in Thailand’s modern history, which saw 99 killed and 1,900 injured, the battle for Thailand’s future has, for the moment, shifted from the street and into the realm of media.

Information and spin constitute the new front line.

Having berated international correspondents for inaccurate reporting and failing to grasp the complexities of Thailand’s crisis, the Thai government is now driving home its own conveniently simplified storyline.

It goes like this.

The Thai nation is under threat from a ruthless former dictator, Thaksin Shinawatra, and must be protected. The Red Shirts have morphed from protesters with legitimate grievances into terrorists and anti-monarchists who must be stopped before they transform Thailand into a republic.

Many thousands of good folk, the ‘poo burisut’ or ‘pure people’ as the government calls them, have been subverted by unscrupulous power-hungry elites who are using the media to mobilize the masses, inciting hatred and social divisions.

The ‘pure people’, who face real problems in the countryside, may have gone home but the dangers are still there. The government must be vigilant – hence the continued State of Emergency in many areas.

Elections will be held, but not until the situation has returned to normal, whatever ‘normal’ is and whenever that may be.

As the government seeks to reconcile and reassure with one hand, it is repressing with the other.

In the north and northeast of the country, Red Shirt strongholds, police and military units are reportedly hunting down and arresting suspected Red Shirts.

Several Red Shirt guards have been mysteriously assassinated, raising concerns that extrajudicial killings now may be part of a shadowy unofficial campaign to stymie the movement.

Media and free speech have taken a hit too.

Thailand’s democracy is starting to resemble Indonesia under Suharto, when citizens were told to exercise their democratic freedoms ‘with responsibility’, a veiled warning that criticism of the government would not be tolerated.

The screws seem to tighten with each passing week.

Citing draconian lese majeste laws officials have already shut down tens of thousands of websites and silenced scores of pro Red Shirt community radio stations.

More than 100 prominent people have been publicly blacklisted for supporting the Red Shirts and their assets have been frozen. 417 people have been detained under emergency laws, which allow for imprisonment without evidence or a fair trial. Human rights organisations say as many as 50 people are still missing in the aftermath of the crackdown.

While the government’s tough line may play well to some sections of the population, it is profoundly antagonistic to others; most notably among those already sympathetic to the Red Shirt cause.

In an already polarized, partially traumatized, society such policies are hardly a recipe for advancing the cause of reconciliation. Instead of including its foes in the reconciliation process, the government seems bent not only on excluding them but on silencing and arresting them too.

In using the State to suppress and repress it is creating a climate not of trust, the only ground from which reconciliation can grow, but of fear and resentment. If the government continues down this path, the very divisions it seeks to heal will likely widen.

Reconciliation must be more than a public relations campaign. It must reach down to the roots of Thai society, to those areas where a sense of exclusion and discrimination have fostered deep anger and frustration. It must involve sacrifices and concessions that will be politically counter intuitive for a government that was, in May, literally at war with the Red Shirts.

Most important of all, the government must apply the law with justice and impartiality.

To do so would be evidence of courage and an significant step towards dealing with one of the most powerful issues fueling recent unrest - that of double standards.

To do so Abhisit's government must bring to justice those responsible for occupying Government House and the country’s two international airports in 2008, actions no less worthy of the label ‘terrorism’ than the Red Shirt protests in Bangkok’s commercial district of Rajaprasong.

Unless it acts against lawbreakers on both sides of the political divide, the government will be unable to generate the trust and moral authority it needs to transform sensible talk of reconciliation into a process capable of healing the still deepening rifts that threaten the peace and stability of Thailand.

Imagining Thailand's Future Without the T Words

REUTERS/Jerry Lampen

The T words, Thaksin and terrorism, have come to dominate political dialogue and analysis here. Their use has become so widespread as to mask the deeper structural causes of Thailand's crisis.

Lets start with terrorism.

For some time now the Thai government has been referring to elements within the Red Shirt movement as terrorists. Yesterday the government issued an arrest warrant for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on charges of terrorism.

In classifying Red Shirts as terrorists, the government clearly wishes to delegitimise the movement, both locally and internationally.

While this may seem a logical step to some, in the wake of the destruction and violence witnessed in Bangkok in recent weeks, to many Red Shirt sympathisers it only emphasises feelings of exclusion and injustice.

Treating Red Shirts as terrorists adds weight to claims that the government is applying double standards, one of the key gripes among rank and file Red Shirt supporters.

To many Red Shirts it is a glaring injustice, symptomic of a system that discriminates against them, that yellow shirt leaders responsible for occupying Government House and for closing down the country's two international airports remain unpunished.

And then there's Thaksin Shinawatra, the biggest T word of all.

Thailand's obsession with the exiled former Prime Minister is such that he has become the spectre that haunts every political debate, the seeming be all and end all of Thailand's current woes.

A recent op-ed by prominent Thai journalist Karuna Buakamsri published in the International Herald Tribune described Thaksin as "the fault line that has fractured our country."

Ironically in placing Thaksin at the heart of the crisis, many analsysts and the government itself have become unwitting victims of Thaksin's spin. It is as if the government and intelligentsia were themselves being manipulated by the man they have often accused of manipulating Thailand's 'gullible', 'poorly educated' underclass.

For in emphasising Thakin's role and importance, in peppering every analysis and official announcement with his name, Thaksin's visibility is increased while the space he occupies in the nation's political psyche expands, and this even as he languishes in distant exile.

There are those, thankfully, who see beyond the T words.

Anand Panyarachun, a former Prime Minister and one of the architects behind the reform orientated constitution of 1997, outlined Thailand's challenges in an article entitled 'A Shared Future' without once referring to either Thaksin or terrorism. (click here to read full article: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/05/24/opinion/A-Shared-Future-30130056.html)

In today's Thailand it was a laudable feat, evidence perhaps that Khun Anand is one of the few Thai leaders with sufficient neutrality, wisdom and moral authority to guide Thailand out of its current predicament.

In his article Khun Anand speaks of the dangers of "harbouring hatred", of the need to close "the deep and widening social divide", of Thailand experiencing a "political awakening" which has put the nation at "a point of no return."

Thailand's true challenge is not to rid the nation of so-called terrorists nor of the threat posed by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. It is, as Khun Anand writes, "to engage in a process of dialogue, which recognizes and respects the differences, interests and values of all concerned parties."

The government of Abhisit Vejajiva would do well to listen to Khun Anand's advice.

It should shift its focus away from chasing terrorists, suppressing dissentng voices and bemoaning the evil influence of former Prime Minsiter Thaksin.

Instead, as Khun Anand points out, it should "see the empowerment of the rural and impoverished sectors of our electorate as a critical and necessary step for the development of Thailand's democratic system."

Thaksin surely has much to answer for but, as Khun Anand so wisely leads us to understand, he should not be seen as the essence of Thailand's problems, even if he was the catalyst that brought them to the surface.

Thailand's current situation should not be seen as a conflict to be won or lost. Instead, as Khun Anand points out, it should be seen as an opporunity to be seized.

Scrubbing Away Memories and Covering The Fires

Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

For 'curfew' the French say 'couvre feu'. Literally it means to cover the fire.

The Thai government's curfew feels very much like the French version of the term: an attempt to cover the fire, or perhaps hide it.

It reflects a fear that while the government may have succeeded in snuffing out the Red Shirt protest at Rajprasong, the order it has imposed may be as fragile as it is combustible.

Many Bangkokians would rather wash the memories of these past two months away and move on.

It would be comforting to believe that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajiva, ever the unruffled, ever the reassuring, has dealt with the 'problem' and life will now return to normal - whatever normal may be in this city of mysterious yet charming madness.

On Rajadamri Avenue yesterday, where days earlier soldiers and protesters had fought, where bloodied corpses had lain, a different kind of army was at work.

Platoons of cheerful volunteers, wielding brooms and brushes, could be seen scrubbing frantically at streets and sidewalks, desperately trying to remove any last trace of the Red Shirt protest. It was as much about purging the city of dark and violent memories as it was about a literal clean-up.

Like a dazed boxer gathering himself from the floor, dusting himself down and preparing to fight another round, Bangkok is already regaining its old momentum. The city's inimitable energy has begun to flow again.

Familiar traffic jams have resumed their slow, jolting procession through valleys of skyscrapers. The sidewalk vendors are trundling back to their allotted spots. Most important of all the shoppers have begun, gingerly, to reclaim their malls.

Apart from a few visible scars, where fires set by retreating Red Shirts still smoulder, Bangkok has begun to look just as it always has. One could even detect a smile, here and there.

But the kind of trauma caused by the intense street violence which roiled through this city in recent weeks can't be erased with a broom and some disinfectant. Thais can put on a brave face - something they're famous for. They can tell the world it's OK now, that the 'terrorists' are being rounded up, that pretty soon it will be business as usual in the Land of Smiles.

It would be tempting to do that - to pretend. To do so, however, would be to mistake order for peace, to mistake the government's victory at Rajprasong for the reality that the Red Shirts' losses and their brusque eviction may well have lit even fiercer fires among their ranks.

The danger now would be to apply the literal meaning of the French term for curfew and to simply cover the fires which are still burning.

In moves to imprison and stifle the Red Shirt movement, there are ominous signs that this government intends not to engage the Red Shirts but to suppress them, not to extinguish the fires of discontent through compromise and reconciliation but merely to hide those flames from view.

Tranforming Order into Peace

REUTERS/Kerek Wongsa

Just over two months after the Red Shirts of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) began a protest calling for the dissolution of parliament and fresh elections, the Thai government has at last succeeded in restoring order.

It came at a price.

More than 80 people were killed and over 1,300 injured during clashes between government security forces and protesters.

Swathes of Bangkok, one of the world's most popular tourist destinations and the bustling epicenter of Thailand's high-octane economy, were transformed into battlefields.

Tonight Bangkok is under curfew. Heavily armed soldiers still patrol in 'sensitive' areas. Key public transport networks remain closed.

Around the city blackened buildings, pocked with the scars of gunfire, still smoulder after angry demonstrators rampaged Wednesday, looting shops and torching whatever they could. Department stores, cinemas, banks and even a TV station were attacked. In all more than 30 fires were lit.

If the mood isn't celebratory, one senses relief among Bangkokians that the darkest, wildest days of violence are now behind them. Public transport will resume limited services on Sunday when the curfew is also due to be lifted. Most people in Bangkok should return to work normally on Monday.

The barricades which served as frontlines in pitched battles between troops and protesters, and were vivid symbols of the divisions behind this crisis, have been dismantled. And the Red Shirt protesters, who had camped out in one of the capital's swishest commercial districts, have now either gone gone home or been arrested.

As Thailand begins to count the cost of its worst civil unrest in modern history, thoughts are beginning to turn to the future.

Though the fires have been extinguished and the protests quelled, there is concern that the anger and frustration which pushed Bangkok to near anarchy continue to burn.

In a televised speech a day after the violence, Abhisit vowed his government would seek reconciliation. "We will help each other rebuild our nation for the happiness of all," he declared.

He will need to be very serious about that challenge if he is to transform the order he has imposed into lasting peace.

Though their leaders have surrendered, many Red Shirts have said they are determined to fight on. At this point it is still unclear what form their struggle will take, but there are fears of more violence in the weeks and months ahead.

The spectre of an armed conflict, and the crippling instability it implies, is a real possibility. Although most of the Red Shirt protesters were expressing legitimate opposition to the government, the movement's most extreme elements are known to be armed.

The immediate challenge for Abhisit's government, amidst the bitterness and fury generated by so many deaths and injuries, is to build trust, credibility and a semblance of neutrality. The Prime Minister must demonstrate that he has the strength to step away from narrow political interests and govern for the good of the entire nation.

Caught in powerful political cross currents as he navigates between coalition partners and his military backers (to whom he owes his political survival), Abhisit will need to show that his government intends to quickly address gaping economic inequalities.

His Finance Minister, Korn Chatikavanij, revealed yesterday that Thailand has "consistent current account surpluses, record foreign exchange reserves and good fiscal space." It is imperative the government now use these resources to implement policies that will alleviate the effects of falling rice prices and a drought in parts of the Northeast, factors that have fanned discontent in disadvantaged rural areas from where the Red Shirt movement draws much of its support.

Abhisit must also show a willingness to tolerate political opposition that operates within the law and that he is prepared, as soon as possible, to announce a firm election date and subject his government to the scrutiny of the ballot box.

Ironically, Abhisit's best chance of building popular support lie in policies that will antagonise some of his closest allies.

The Prime Minister needs, for example, to take legal action against leaders of the Yellow Shirt movement (also known as the People's Alliance for Democracy or PAD) responsible, in 2008, for a three-month-long occupation of Government House and for shutting down the nation's international airports.

In doing so he would send a clear signal of personal courage and political neutrality.

Such a move would also expose him to dangerous political cross-fire, especially when one considers that his current Foreign Minister was a prominent figure among the Yellow shirts and supported their occupation of the airports.

By arresting Yellow Shirt leaders guilty of crimes no less serious than their Red Shirt counterparts, Abhisit would be showing a willingness to apply the law with equality and would undermine one of the Red Shirts' key criticisms of him: that in arresting its leaders while ignoring those of the Yellow shirts his government is guilty of double standards.

While Prime Minister Abhisit may be eloquent and well meaning, and though his government may have the material resources to impose order, the future stability of Thailand, and perhaps ultimately any hope for peace here, reposes on his government's desire to restore its moral, as opposed to physical, authority and legitimacy.

If in putting an end to the Red Shirt protests the government intends merely to affirm its power then it has simply won one battle in what could turn out to be a long and bitter war.

The Beast Let Loose

Photo by Paula Bronstein /Getty Images

The sun shines on Bangkok this morning. Yet the 'beast' ranges free. Mobs looting, burning, fighting, killing. The frightening force of hatred, frustration and revenge let loose.

Though we are bathed in beautiful light, our city is cloaked in the darkness of violence. We are witnessing Thailand's blackest hours.

At dawn armoured personnel carriers rumbled towards the red barricades - a tangle of bamboo, razor wire and tires laid along the edge of Rama IV road, in the heart of Bangkok.

Columns of troops huddled nervously behind the hulking, clumsy vehicles as the army began its long anticipated, and much feared, crackdown.

Photo by Paula Bronstein /Getty Images

Soon the air was crackling with the sound of gunfire and explosions. Within minutes reports of the first victims came in. Limp bodies, eyes staring blankly into eternity, began appearing on our screens. Thais killing Thais.

Against a backdrop of spiraling violence government spokesmen, surly and expressionless, almost apologetic-sounding, told an apprehensive nation - without the slightest hint of irony - that they were bringing the situation under control.

They sat before a blank white backdrop strangely unadorned of the Thai flag or the habitual emblems of royal authority. That blank backdrop seemed ominous; hinting at an empty-seeming future.

Shortly after, leaders of the Red Shirt protest, jittery and grim, announced they were surrendering. They asked their supporters, who had stood with them for over 60 days, to go home. Their original demand - for the government to dissolve parliament and hold fresh elections - went unmentioned. They surely understood, as did all those who watched them, that Thailand was beyond talk of politics.

Was this a victory for the government? I suppose it was, of sorts. The Red leaders had been arrested. The protest at Rajprasong had been dispersed. Mission accomplished.

As the Red Shirt protesters fled Rajprasong and their leaders were hustled into the nearby Police headquarters, the words of a journalist friend came back to me. "If they end it with an attack on the protesters at Rajprasong," he said, "it will be just the beginning."

And now Thailand burns. Mobs have attacked and set fire to municipal buildings in the northeastern provinces of Khon Kaen, Ubol Ratchathani, Mukdaharn, Nakorn Ratchasima and Udon Thani. In the northern capital of Chiang Mai there are reports that soldiers have fired live rounds at red shirt demonstrators.

In the capital the air is thick with the acrid black smoke of burning tires. It hangs like the dark clouds of a gathering storm. The scenes are apocalyptic. Many of Bangkok's glitzy malls, temples of the joyful consumerism that became a hallmark of life in this city, are aflame. Banks are being torched. The media itself is under attack.

Athit Perawongmetha/Getty Images

How is it that so many Thais should yield to such wanton destruction of their own capital, once a gleaming emblem of this nation's success?

Perhaps those burning the banks have little need for them. They are among the legions who live in debt. Perhaps those destroying Bangkok's swanky department stores do so because they never had the means to shop there. Those venting their fury against various symbols of State authority feel, perhaps, that successive governments have paid only passing attention to their needs.

While it would be reassuring to believe that the Red Shirts were merely a rent-a-mob acting at the behest of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his cronies, the roots of this crisis reach beyond the elite benefactors of the Red Shirts' protests.

In order to build a political constituency, Thaksin and his proxies shone a spotlight on huge economic disparities, stoking latent frustrations among a majority of Thais who have enjoyed only a tiny share of the spectacular wealth created here in recent decades. They peeled away a thin veneer of national unity to reveal gaping inequalities that have now divided the Thai nation in two.

As darkness falls on this tragic day, the fires that have been lit will burn and multiply through the night. Tomorrow we will awake to a new dawn. The sun will shine again but I have a feeling that Thailand and its capital will never be the same.

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The Parallel Dimension

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REUTERS/Adrees Latif

Perhaps this is the reality of civil war.

Life in Bangkok has entered a parallel dimension. It's like looking at one's reflection in a crooked mirror: everything is there but suddenly it looks strange and different.

We wake up in the morning to the usual blazing sunshine, to the habitual heat and to reports of last night's death toll. Time is measured out in news updates informing us of the latest skirmish, the latest wounded, the latest hot spots.

Our screens are filled with images of soldiers, guns, black smoke, protesters and the glum, expressionless faces of government spokesmen who punctuate our days with monotone assurances that they are bringing the situation under control, that they are just doing their jobs. "Not to worry," they chant, "we don't mean for anybody to get hurt."

How quickly the shocking has become familiar and our senses anesthetized to the tragedy represented by each death and injury. Forty lives lost and over one thousand people injured. As I write news breaks on twitter that a 10 year old boy has been killed by gunfire. Minutes later a grenade lands in a police station. Human disasters soon to be lost in the statistics.

In today's Bangkok the difference between normalcy and life threatening violence can be a few hundred meters up or down a street...or a wrong turn. The city is breaking into pieces. Suddenly you find yourself thinking about the safest route to take. There are zones: red zones, no go zones, safe zones, live fire zones.

The future used to be something one planned for with confidence. Nobody saw these dark days in their crystal balls. Coups yes. Sporadic political turbulence for sure. But a meltdown that could degenerate into civil war?

Witness the deadly lure of power, the politician's ultimate high. Unbound by rules or arbiters, Thailand's leaders will go to any length to obtain or retain it. It's an "I win you lose" game with no middle ground.

There was a time when power struggles were played out in parliamentary debates, in shady corridors of influence and through elections. I remember those days fondly now. If there weren't quite rules there were at least agreed upon limits. And there was at least one ultimate arbiter to whom the nation could turn when the power brokers got out of control.

Today those self-set boundaries have evaporated, the facades of civility have fallen and we are left with the brutal law of force. Bangkok, erstwhile icon of Asia's progress, now looks more and more like the jungle from which it rose.


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Of Barricades and Madness

From a distance the barricades, bristling with bamboo pikes, resemble tousled oversized porcupines ambling across a street.

Close up they look more like urban art installations: chaotic yet carefully arranged sculptures assembled from rags, bamboo, razor wire and old rubber tires. A revolutionary art project of sorts and a direct, almost poetic, expression of the differences splitting Thailand down the middle.

In reality, of course, the barricades are more than poetry. They are battle lines, frontiers even, separating ‘Red Bangkok’ from the rest of the city. The rags and tires aren’t there for art; they are to be burned. The ‘porcupine’ barricades will then become a wall of fire.

“You go Iraq?” joke Bangkok taxi drivers if you give a destination near the barricades - where soldiers are now entrenched behind sandbags. The drivers, like me, have never actually been to Iraq. But they’ve seen the pictures on TV and can’t help but make the comparison.

Like Iraq there are bombs. Seventy attacks, mainly with M-79 grenades, have been reported in or around the city this year. In April alone 27 people were killed as a result of political violence and more than 900 were injured.

Unlike Iraq Bangkok’s camouflaged combat troops, clad in heavy flak jackets, full metal helmets and laden with weapons, patrol in opulent, skyscraper-lined business districts. They share their war zone with polite-looking office workers in white shirts and with elegant women mincing along in thigh hugging miniskirts.

It’s more surreal than real.

On Patpong, one of Bangkok’s red light districts, a squad of soldiers, surly and bored, stands guard. A few meters away a bar offers S and M. Girls touting for custom hover at the entrance. They smack passers-by with bamboo rods, enticingly. Two different kinds of menace side-by-side: one playful, the other less so.

Scenes as twisted and as quirky as the barricades themselves; barricades that seem to grow more and more tangled by the day, reflecting the growing chaos as this crisis deepens.

One senses a loss of innocence in this city once defined by its smiles, its sense of fun and its penchant for a party.

In spite of the traffic jams, the hassles, the corruption and the pollution Bangkok, for all its less-than-innocent naughtiness, retained a certain ‘lightness’, a refusal to be serious. A French friend and longtime resident compares Bangkok to a ‘jardin des enfants’. He is right. There has always been a youthful playfulness.

In the shadow of violent street battles now raging in the city, however, the glint in Bangkok’s eye has dulled. The city no longer sparkles. It is the dark side that shines now.

Has Bangkok gone mad? Or was the madness always there, waiting to burst free?

Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Getty Images

Behind the calm smiles, the well-ordered queues, the gleaming shopping malls, amidst the chaos one has long sensed a lurking, sometimes menacing, schizophrenia - a duality fed by the many contradictions which, till now, passed for normal.

Today the schizophrenia no longer lurks. It rages wild. The contradictions, once tamed by tolerance, have broken off their uneasy marriage and are fighting openly in the streets.

The stifling heat might have something to do with the madness. For those sleeping at the protest sites ‘cool’ is a distant concept. Boiling is the reality – both emotionally and physically.

In the air conditioned towers of logic, Western analysts who dare to enter the maze of Thai politics soon find themselves disorientated by endless blind alleys. Understanding is the mirage. Just when it starts to make sense, just when you think you’ve pinned it down something strange happens and it slips away from you, again.

Hidden beneath so many layers of propaganda, with so much deception and shadow play it is hard to filter fact from fiction. Tragedy, betrayal, suspense, murder and even farce are the ingredients of this ever twisting drama.

While one senses a desire on all sides to reach for something better, a desire to see the country somehow survive the terrible shock of the King’s eventual passing, an unseemly and bloody power struggle is poisoning what should be a great opportunity: to usher in a new era of reform.

The most worrying barricades I now see around me are those being erected in people’s hearts. We are witnessing the dark side of Thailand’s mysterious, captivating, sometimes terrifying, passion.

Where Did All The Good Times Go?

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

After all Thailand was a lauded Asian 'tiger' - an economic powerhouse poised to leap confidently towards a prosperous future.

Its democracy stood like an island of freedom amidst neighbouring nations where a combination of poverty, totalitarianism and intolerance had stifled political development.

Thailand, with its picture postcard beaches, smiling locals and carefully nurtured exotism was the global Shangri-la for tourism; a place where the mysterious East could be discovered in comfort and safety.

On the surface, Thailand looked golden.

It was dynamic, diverse and modern. And despite obvious inequalities its society, underpinned by a cultural acceptance of hierarchy, looked impressively stable. The world marveled at how patient, how tolerant and how good-natured Thais were.

Today we marvel at how a nation endowed with such a modern State, inhabited by such genteel and easy-going people, could unravel so fast. The tolerant Thailand of yore now stands divided, daggers drawn, teetering on the brink of deadly, and possibly widespread, civil unrest.

What went wrong? Was it all an illusion?

Part of the answer lies in Thailand's 'live for the present' mentality. When other Asian nations, perhaps less fun-loving and perhaps less free, were diligently planning for the future, investing heavily in education for example, Thailand was partying.

In the 1990s when its economy was growing at dizzying rates, Thailand was producing fewer doctors and engineers per capita than fellow 'tiger' economies such as Malaysia, Taiwan, South Korea or Singapore. This education gap was to cost Thailand its competitive edge as cheaper labour in countries like Vietnam and China began to attract investors.

In this nation of historic abundance, where there has always been rice in the fields, fruit in the trees and fish in the rivers, few worried about what the future might hold. Indeed part of Thailand's unique genius has been its ability, through charm, patience and guile, to always muddle through.

So it was that while the economy boomed the good times rolled. Growth was driven by investors seeking a cheap and amenable labour force, by millions of Thais awaking to the 'joys' of consumerism and by tourists pouring their hard-earned holiday dollars into the economy.

The mantra was spend, spend, spend - although admittedly most of the spending was done by a relatively small urban-based elite.

At one point Thailand was Mercedes Benz' largest market outside of Germany. University students in Bangkok could be seen pulling up to classes in BMWs. Shopping malls, high class hotels and gleaming office towers mushroomed throughout the capital.

The Asian economic crash of 1997, which began in Thailand, was a rude awakening. For a moment the country paused to catch its breath. There was a talk of a need for more emaphasis on spiritual values, concern that society had become too materialist. Many Thais returned to the temples to rediscover Buddhism, nominally the religion of 90% of the population.

There was also a realisation that the appearances of a modern democracy had perhaps been an illusion. That the euphoria of economic success and the inebriation of materialism had masked serious systemic problems.

Where a legal system should have stood, the Thais found widespread corruption. Where democracy should have stood, the Thais found widespread vote-buying. Where the independent regulatory controls needed to reign in a fast growing and complex modern polity should have been there was nepotism and self-interest.

In September 1997, in an optimistic moment of sobriety after the excesses of gravity-defying growth, Thailand voted on a new constitution. It had been drawn up as a result of broad popular consultation and was intended to encourage the neutral institutions needed to stabilise its fragile democracy. It was to have been the cornerstone of a new democratic era that would carry Thailand into the future.

Demonstrating the patience and good nature for which it had become famous, Thailand moved quickly beyond the crisis of 1997, accepting its consequences with astounding stoicism and equanimity. Despite the hardships prompted by the crash, Thailand's fabled social stability held firm.

Enter Thaksin Shinawatra. A businessman who built a fortune on the back of the mobile telecommunications boom, Thaksin sought to parlay his business success into a political career. Despite fumbling beginnings, he quickly emerged as a popular figure, playing the system but casting himself in the role of a modern politician - so rich that he didn't need to be corrupt.

A self-made billionaire whose lavish lifestyle embodied what many Thais aspired to, much of Thaksin's appeal lay in what he represented. He was living evidence of what could be achieved. In contrast to the dowdy bureaucrats, corrupt politicians and out-dated generals who had hitherto held sway in Thailand, Thaksin offered new dynamism, new hope - an embodiment of what modern Thailand should be.

Thaksin swept to power in 2001 with a landslide victory at the polls. Like no other politician before him, he had modernised the political game using spin and sophisticated communications to 'market' his policies to prospective voters.

He had garnered widespread support from Thailand's middle class who saw themselves reflected in Thaksin's CEO style and his Sino-Thai features. Most importantly, however, Thaksin won massive support from the countryside to whom he promised a million baht for each village, debt forgiveness and a 30-baht healthcare scheme.

Crucially, and unlike his predecessors, Thaksin's campaign had reached out directly to the rural poor, partially short-circuiting local patrons who had traditionally been power brokers for national level leaders based in Bangkok.

Thaksin understood that in the post 1997 era, where talk was of a new democratic dawn and where bill boards warned people that to sell their votes was to sell the nation, he needed to win the hearts and minds of the majority.

Thaksin did so by shining a spotlight on issues that had long been sources of frustration in the countryside, prompting a historic social awakening that has had seismic consequences for Thai politics.

In speaking to rural Thailand as a united constituency and in casting himself in the role of their saviour, Thaksin single handedly upended the social equilibrium which had allowed Thailand's economy to boom while the gap between rich and the poor grew wider.

The social shift he provoked is echoed today through the 'class warfare' rhetoric of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), known as the Red Shirts, who currently occupy one of the most prestigious commercial quarters of the capital and are defiant in the face of establishment power.

But if Thaksin galvanised Thailand's rural majority, he also polarised the nation as a whole.

Once in power Thaksin used his vast majority to exploit the nascent institutional checks and balances provided for in the 1997 constitution. He became increasingly intolerant and increasingly corrupt, often blatantly blurring the lines between the use of State power and his own business interests.

Disillusioned by his ostentatious corruption, irked by his growing intolerance of dissent and concerned by his populism, the urban middle class, whose core resides in Bangkok, became critical of their erstwhile hero.

Thaksin's seemingly limitless ego was even perceived as a challenge to Thailand's revered monarchy, sparking concerns that he harboured a thinly veiled ambition to turn Thailand into a republic.

Thaksin's evasion of tax payments on the sale of his Shin Corp to Singapore's Temasek Group in January 2006 was the last straw. Spurred on by media tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul and a coterie of academics, trade unionists and politicians, small groups of protesters began to gather regularly and in increasing numbers in Bangkok's Lumpini Park. Underscoring their allegiance to the monarchy, the protesters chose to wear royal yellow.

This was the beginning of the yellow shirt movement (which later became the People's Alliance for Democracy or PAD), and of Thailand's much documented colour coded politics.

It was also the beginning of a concerted movement to remove Thaksin from political power: a campaign which saw tens of thousands of yellow shirt protesters in the streets of Bangkok. These demonstrations culminated, in September 2006, in a military coup that toppled Thaksin's government while he was on a trip to New York.

Proponents of the 2006 coup claim that Thaksin's hold on State power had become a parliamentary dictatorship. They no longer felt the judicial system could be relied on to act against him. The huge anti-Thaksin demonstrations in the weeks leading up to the coup seemed evidence enough that his removal, by whatever means, was legitimate.

Critics counter that by stepping into the fray the military triggered a cycle of conflict that has pushed Thailand outside the framework of normal democratic process and to the brink of civil war. By choosing to act outside the law in removing Thaksin, the military de-legitimised the establishment they were acting to defend and rewound Thailand's political development by decades.

In the aftermath of the coup, and under the aegis of a military junta, a new constitution was drawn up and approved in a half-hearted referendum in 2007. The charter included measures to appoint half the nation's Senators and an amnesty for those behind the coup. Unlike the 1997 constitution, which had encouraged public participation, criticism of the new charter was banned.

The 2007 constitution aimed to limit executive political power and strengthen the judiaciary. But it was too little too late for Thailand's already moribund and fragmented system.

Far from being neutral, the judiciary was already viewed as a tool through which the establishment could exercise political power. In September 2008, for example, the constitutional court forced elected Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, widely viewed as a proxy for Thaksin, to step down because he had appeared in a cooking show - a minor misdemeanour that was seen as a political pretext for his removal.

In the past four years, littered with court cases, protests and counter protests, there has been much talk of right and wrong as both sides argue for the moral high ground.

Thaksin's supporters legitimise his abuses of power by pointing to his putative democratic mandate and to the double-standards they see in Thailand's judicial system. Claiming corruption to be a systemic reality in Thai politics, they also argue that Thaksin's transgressions were little different from those of his predecessors or his opponents.

Herein lies the crux of Thailand's current woes. On both sides of the divide there is little or no faith in the neutrality of the political system. Corruption is a given, impartiality a vague chimera.

On both sides there are genuine concerns and grievances. On both sides there are good folk who want the best for the country. And on both sides there are ruthless thugs, who are armed and dangerous.

In the pre-Thaksin era Thailand's democracy was dominated by only one powerful constituency; namely the urban middle class. The system could function because power was being contested for by a single, if fractious and corrupt, group.

Violent disputes when they occasionally erupted were adjudicated by King Bhumipol, the only person with enough authority and legitimacy to restore order when political tensions boiled over.

In awakening the rural constituency, and by framing his claim to power in purely democratic terms, Thaksin destabilised this imperfect equilibrium, a situation that has been further exercabated by the fact that Thailand's King is now in failing health and apparently no longer able to fulfill his traditional role of arbiter.

In the absence of rules and of any independent body to call opposing sides to reason, Thailand's democracy has been reduced to a raw and increasingly violent tussle for control of State power.

Unbound by law and without a neutral leader to guide them through this crisis, the Thais, now faced by the spectre of bloody civil conflict, must find the solution within themselves.

For if this is crisis has been a rude awakening, if it has thrown into view the darker sides of this nation, it should also now be seen as an opportunity for the Thais to prove to the world that the charm, generosity, patience, tolerance and even compassion for which this nation has become renowned were not an illusion.

Sliding Towards Disaster

Like a boat drifting towards a precipice, Thailand is sliding inexorably towards disaster.

The veneer of democratic politics has fallen away to reveal a bitter and violent struggle for State power.

The Land of Smiles, once famed for its generous and tolerant people, has become a land divided. Where tourists once walked, soldiers now patrol. And with each passing day Thailand’s once highflying economy plummets.

At the Rajprasong intersection the gleaming malls, normally crammed with eager shoppers, stand empty; closed down by thousands of Red Shirt protesters camped out in the avenues around them.

Bangkok, better known for its easy-going if chaotic mood, is now a city cloaked in tension and fear.

The Red Shirts of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship or UDD, entrenched behind makeshift barricades of barbed wire, tires and bamboo pikes, say they want the Prime Minister to dissolve parliament immediately and for fresh elections to be held.

The government, ensconced in an army base, argues that to step down in the face of lawless demonstrators would be to set an unhealthy precedent. Elections there will be, it says, but not in response to threats and not until the government has had a chance to disburse its budget and implement core policies.

At first glance, and as confusing as it is, Thailand’s crisis looks like the kind of political turbulence that might easily characterize the growing pains of a young democracy: a storm that will pass.

But the current crisis has already surpassed the normal framework of democratic politics.

Political opponents have become mortal enemies. Politicians have begun to accuse each other of being murderers and traitors. The struggle is increasingly being portrayed not as one that will determine the next government of Thailand but as an existential battle that may permanently re-shape the political landscape here.

In a worrying shift, government spokespeople and pro-government commentators now refer to the Red Shirts not as protesters but as terrorists and thugs. The UDD movement is no longer a political opposition movement but a threat to national security.

Pro-government supporters are growing more vocal and more insistent in their calls for the military to act and ‘uphold the law’.

In a further sign that Thailand is moving away from any hope of compromise, the propaganda machines on both sides of the divide are preparing their supporters for battle.

Throughout the sprawling Red Shirt protest site the sound of screams and gunfire can be heard as videos replay images of deadly clashes between protesters and government forces last April 10th.

Designed to shock and enrage, the clips emphasise graphic images of bloodied protesters lying dead or wounded. Twenty-four people, including four soldiers, were killed in the riots of April 10th and over eight hundred were injured.

The government, meanwhile, has intensified its information war. Last night, its NBT channel aired harrowing footage of the April 10th clashes. The edited clips, set to dramatic music, focused almost exclusively on wounded soldiers being dragged from the front lines of the riot. The troops were shown soaked in blood, lifeless, screaming in pain. There could be little doubt in viewers’ minds who was to blame.

Interviewed directly afterwards, guest commentators spoke of the need for the military to act decisively. They were echoing mounting criticism of Army Chief Anupong Paochinda who has so far resisted calls for a crackdown on the thousands of protesters, many of whom are elderly, women and children, gathered at Rajprasong.

More worrying, however, are the government’s allegations that the Red Shirts are seeking to overthrow Thailand’s monarchy, an institution that inspires near-religious reverence among many here.

If the current conflict is successfully re-framed as a battle between those for and against the monarchy, the risk of serious violent confrontation and loss of life will rise considerably.

If the Red Shirts are enemies of the monarchy, terrorists and thugs then a legitimate justification, in the eyes of the government and its supporters, has been made for their repression.

Beyond these arguments, however, lie far grimmer realities. If Thailand’s military does use force to clear the Red Shirts from their Rajprasong protest site, it will almost inevitably result in a massive and tragic loss of life.

Lest those who would implement such a crackdown forget, when it is over and the dead are counted they will all be Thais.

Notes from the Silom 'War Zone'

The Silom area of Bangkok resembled a war zone last week as troops, clad in full combat gear and toting a daunting array of weapons, patrolled along pavements in front of shops, banks and go-go bars in one of the city's busiest commercial districts.

In surreal scenes, tourists, journalists, office workers, hawkers and hookers took turns to squeeze past coils of razor wire and pose for pictures with smiling soldiers.

Streams of sympathisers handed food and drink to embarrassed-looking troops who at times seemed equally laden with guns and riot gear as with shopping bags brimming with gifts. Some concerned office workers at a nearby hotel provided support in the form of fresh underwear for security forces, many of whom were sleeping rough in car parks and side streets.

The move to position troops on Silom road is an indication of the escalating levels of tension here and of the Thai government's desperation as it struggles to maintain a semblance of control while seeking a solution to this deepening crisis.

The other side of a busy intersection at the top end of Silom, opposite a MacDonalds and a five star hotel, Red Shirt anti-government protesters dug themselves in - creating a de-facto front line just meters from government troops. Clusters of onlookers, often snatching pictures for posterity, watched as the protesters erected a barricade of barbed wire, tires and sharpened bamboo poles.


The Red Shirts, who have been protesting in Bangkok for over a month now, were again thumbing their noses at government power; making it clear they would not be dispersed without a fight.

As military helicopters wheeled overhead and as rumours of an imminent crackdown came and went throughout the week, protesters could be seen diligently sharpening hundreds of bamboo spears apparently in preparation for battle. Local newspapers reported that the red shirts had stockpiled war weapons and were making bombs filled with concentrated acid.

With each passing day, like a bizarre urban art installation, the Red Shirts' makeshift barricade became more elaborate, more permanent and more impenetrable.

Red Shirt guards, dressed in black uniforms and often wearing caps emblazoned with red stars, patrolled the outer perimeter of the barricade while protesters clambered atop the ramshackle construction to shout slogans, wave flags, pose for photos, hurl insults and occasionally engage in skirmishes with pro-government supporters.

With each passing day the mood grew darker. Angry mobs took to the streets on Silom, venting their fury on anyone suspected of being a Red Shirt. Soldiers intervened to save several hapless individuals from being lynched. Scuffles broke out. Bottles, rocks and bolts were hurled across the front lines.

On Thursday the situation took a dramatic turn for the worse. The mounting tensions of previous days culminated in a brutal grenade attack that saw five explosions rip into crowds of pro-government protesters and innocent by-standers during the evening rush hour at the upper end of Silom. Three people were killed and eighty seven injured.

The attack, the origins of which are still unclear, was a watershed moment. It was clear that if neither side stood down the situation could quickly escalate into something more serious and possibly more widespread.

Two days earlier reports that a group of Red Shirts in the northeastern province of Khon Kaen had brazenly seized a train carrying seventy soldiers and military equipment served as a reminder that the Red Shirts are capable of extending their struggle beyond the capital.

Since Thursday's attack, the situation has entered a phase of relative calm, with both sides apparently pausing to consider their strategies. After a tense stand off, the Red Shirts agreed to pull their supporters 100 meters back from their barricades, while the police ensured that pro-government supporters were not allowed to gather close to Red Shirt positions.

As I write, Thailand is holding its breath, relieved at the hiatus in the street fighting but fearful for what the future may hold. The battle lines are clearly drawn. We are waiting to see if Thailand's leaders will choose the course of compromise or conflict.

The Guessing Game

Thailand's political drama veered towards farce last Friday morning as police commandos played out a comedy of errors in a botched attempt to ensnare key leaders of the red shirt movement at the SC Park Hotel in Bangkok.

The police operation took a wrong turn when overly polite officers, apparently keen to avoid damaging any doors, asked hotel staff for a master key. Red shirt sympathisers raised the alarm and supporters soon began gathering at the hotel.

By the time the police were ready to pounce, a paunchy looking Arisman Pongruangrong, one of the red shirts' more militant leaders, was already enacting a dramatic, if rather clumsy, James Bond-style exit; lowering himself down a rope from his hotel balcony in full view of the media and a cheering throng of red shirt supporters.

For their grand finale the red shirts succeeded in capturing several policemen, including a colonel and major general, who were whisked to their protest site at Rajprasong where they were paraded on stage before being released.

The fumbled sting operation, while amusing, was yet another curious episode in this ongoing political drama.

How did police commandos manage to make so many errors and then allow their prey to slip between their fingers in full view of the public? Were they really trying?

And how did Thailand's military with all the modern equipment, training and resources at its disposition fail to dislodge a motivated but relatively poorly armed band of protesters - leaving us with the tragedy of April 10th that cost 24 lives and left more than 800 injured.

True Abhisit's government is on the back foot. True he's facing an intransigent, broad and well funded opposition. True Thailand's army and police are perhaps not the best trained in the world. But even so many events of recent days and weeks just don't compute.

Ask almost any observer here, from cab drivers up to political anaylysts, how the current crisis might play out and you will be met with a political diatribe, a blizzard of vague theories or, most likely, a shrug of the shoulders and an honest "I've got no idea."

Though many here view the future with foreboding, nobody knows where this crisis is headed.

The government is determined to cling to power, one might surmise, because it fears stepping down now would be a prelude to defeat in elections. It seem likely too that with the Prime Minister ensconced in a military base, he has army firmly behind him. Or is the reverse true? The Prime Minister is a hostage to the military, a mere puppet?

Does the army have its own agenda? Is a coup in the offing? Do the elites, discreetly funding the protests while scripting its storyline, know how they would like this battle for power to end?

Amidst the farce, the rumours and the speculation, however, there are some constants that help us navigate through the confusion.

We know, for example, real and bitter divisions in Thai society exist; born out of inequalities exacerbated by and largely ignored during Thailand's economic miracle.

We know too that, for all his faults and failures, Thaksin shone a spotlight on the woes of Thailand's underclass and succeeded in winning deep affection and support among many of them. He is a potent force behind the red shirt movement: its patron and perhaps its master strategist.

It is also clear that, while there is broad consensus that Thailand's political system needs reform, opinion is split over what shape the reform should take.

Most important of all are the very real passions that surround the question of Thailand's much revered monarchy. Many here, who have grown up to view King Bhumipol, 82, as a guiding light and stabilizing force,fear the vaccuum his passing will leave.

The red shirt movement, which has shunned images of the King, is increasingly being seen as a threat to the monarchy; a challenge that could be met with a violent and angry backlash from pro-royalists.

The economic cost of the crisis is also beyond debate. With each passing day the wounds to Thailand's once ebullient economy multiply.

For the moment, each side is holding its ground, staring their opponents down, planning their strategies and maneuvering their forces. Thailand is at a crossroads: will the opposing factions pull back from the brink and negotiate a compromise? or will they go on the offensive, deepening the conflict and raising the spectre of a civil war?

At this point, your guess is as good as mine.

Red Monday

If Saturday was black, Monday was red.

Two days after the worst civil unrest here since the riots of May 1992, thousands of red shirts, some on motorcycles others crammed into pick-ups and trucks, paraded through the Thai capital forming an impromptu, sometimes chaotic, river of red that stretched for over 10 kilometers.

At times the procession took on the air of a victory parade with supporters lining the streets cheering and waving red flags. Some women watched with tears streaming down their faces as the protesters passed by, evidence of the deep emotions that have been unleashed by this crisis.

Coffins containing several of those killed in Saturday’s clashes were draped in Thai flags before being blessed by monks and hoisted onto the backs of open vehicles to serve as reminders of the cost of the red shirts’ defiance. A move calculated to inflame and harden sentiment among the red shirts whose mood was a volatile mix of euphoria and fury.

For the red shirts the good news just kept rolling in. Late in the afternoon they were bolstered by an announcement that the Electoral Commission had found the Democrat Party guilty of accepting an illegal donation of 258 million baht.

If the Constitutional Court, which must rule in such cases, confirms the commission’s findings, the Democrat Party will face dissolution and its leaders, including Prime Minister Aphisit, will be banned from politics for five years.

The Democrat Party would be the third to be dissolved in as many years, leaving Thailand’s political landscape, already in disarray, deprived of many of its principal players.

Probably the visible tip of behind-the-scenes political maneuvering, the Electoral Commission’s announcement dealt a fresh blow to the Prime Minister and his beleaguered coalition, which is running short of options as it struggles to put an end to the protests. The red shirts principal demands are that Parliament be dissolved and fresh elections called.

The army’s failure to dislodge the demonstrators on Saturday and the resulting loss of life make it difficult for Aphisit to send government troops back into the streets. Thai Army Chief General Anupong Paochinda seemed to underscore this when he announced, “the situation requires that the problem be solved by politics.”

But despite intense pressure, Aphisit has remained combative. In an afternoon press conference he reaffirmed his government’s unity and issued an ominous warning that terrorists seeking to bring about a ‘great change’ in Thailand had infiltrated the red shirt protest movement.

This was a coded nod to widespread rumours that the red shirts’ ultimate objective is to overthrow Thailand’s monarchy. The red shirt demonstrations have indeed been unique for the total absence of images of the King and Queen who are generally revered and have traditionally been used as icons to legitimize any form of popular protest.

Aphisit’s warning would seem to be an attempt to rally pro-royalist sentiment as a counterbalance to the momentum and popularity of the red shirts.

If the Prime Minister is seeking to characterize the current conflict as one between royalists and the enemies of Thailand’s much revered monarchy, it would also signal the opening of a dangerous new front in Thailand’s deepening crisis.

A perceived threat to the monarchy would almost certainly be met by an aggressive and probably violent response from royalists – most likely led by the ‘yellow shirts’ of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD).

Many observers fear that the longer the crisis drags on there is a mounting risk that there could be a street-level backlash by supporters of the PAD, who led the movement that culminated in Thaksin Shinawatra’s ouster in 2006 and whose mainly privileged urban middle/upper class support base represents the opposite end of the political spectrum from the populist red shirts.

With the government looking cornered and with support for the red shirts running high in rural areas, the Democrat led coalition knows that if it dissolves parliament and holds fresh elections now its chances of being returned to power by a popular vote are slim.

By stirring divisive fears over the future of Thailand's monarchy, however, the government risks worsening the current conflict; creating a situation that could lead to more of the violence and instability that has already wrought considerable damage to Thailand's once gleaming economy.

Black Saturday Puts Thailand at a Crossroads

It’s already being called “Black Saturday”.

In a night of chaos and violence, red shirt protesters fought running battles with government security forces, transforming popular tourist areas into virtual war zones.

Clouds of tear gas engulfed troops and protesters as they descended into savagery - using guns, sticks, rocks, grenades, petrol bombs and just about anything that came to hand to shoot, batter and bludgeon their opponents.

Sirens wailed late into the night as over eight hundred injured, some unconscious and soaked in blood, were ferried to nearby hospitals.

When the fighting was done, twenty-one people had lost their lives. And Thailand had finally lost the balance of relative peace it had been struggling for weeks to maintain.

Black Saturday was a tipping point many had predicted and feared.

It was the culmination of rising tensions, of endless streams of propaganda, of cynical manipulation by political leaders and of deep frustrations born out of the inequalities that have become one of the sad hallmarks of Thailand’s boom.

Strangely, however, as Thailand awoke to count the dead and survey the damage, the violence did not seem to have provided the cathartic shock that should have jolted the protagonists to the negotiating table.

In the wake of the worst political unrest for almost two decades, there appeared to be no realization that a repeat of such violence must be avoided at all cost. The mood, sadly, is not yet one of reconciliation.

Instead, the red shirts remained defiantly in control of their protest sites, crowing over their victory, recovering their strength and whipping up their supporters to greater depths of hatred and extremism by parading their dead before angry crowds.

Across the political divide, a procession of government officials took it in turns to explain why their troops, clad in full body armor and equipped with a formidable array of modern weaponry, were unable to quell the red shirts or to clear their protest sites. Bizarrely, their best excuse seemed to be that they were faced with an unruly mob who were breaking the law and had ‘unfairly’ used lethal weapons.

Instead of rushing to avert a repeat of Black Saturday, both sides simply dug-in, trading accusations and re-grouping, perhaps for the next round.

A sense of uncertainty now hangs over the capital. There has, as yet, been no intervention or statement from the Palace. Worryingly, there is no other neutral body or inspirational political leader to whom the Thais can now turn for guidance.

Thailand’s political development appears to have reached a crossroads – with Black Saturday signaling its entry into dangerous and uncharted territory.

Though the rhetoric of democracy is well rooted here, the structures needed to maintain democracy’s imperfect and fragile balance are all but absent.

The State's legitimacy has been eroded, there is no independent judiciary and there are no unbiased sources of information. Thailand’s democracy is being defined by a raw, passionate and increasingly violent struggle for power.

At this crucial juncture there is a danger that if unreasonable hatred is allowed to prevail and if social and economic divisions continue to be exploited for political ends then Thailand, a nation best known for its welcoming smiles, might lurch towards a broader and more damaging civil conflict.