Thailand's Perilous Road to Reform

With thousands of protesters still gathered on Bangkok's streets, with talk of elections, amidst an ocean of news and commentary one might be forgiven for thinking that Thailand was exhibiting all the symptoms of a healthy democracy.

Indeed, in a region better known for its repressive regimes, Thailand has often been held up as an example. As a nation where diversity of opinion is tolerated, where the press is unmuzzled and where vocal, though sometimes violent, debate have become established components of the political culture.

On the face of it Thailand looks, feels and even operates like a fully-fledged, if turbulent, democracy.

References to majority rule, equal rights, justice, one-man-one-vote and freedom of speech are the standard currency of political dialogue. The judiciary is nominally independent as is the media and the watchdog bodies whose declared role it is to reign in the natural tendency of elected politicians to politicise.

But what 'seems' isn't. Thailand's democracy, like a shimmering mirage, is bright and shiny from afar but looks disturbingly hollow close up.

The institutions of State that should stand above and beyond the reach of politics lack the independence, credibility and moral authority they need to function.

Many Thais no longer trust their institutions of government. Most are grudgingly resigned to a status quo where widespread corruption has become the norm.

The judiciary, neither independent nor separate from the State, is but a political weapon to be deployed against perceived enemies of the establishment. Even the press, democracy's 'fourth estate', has become entirely partisan, making it impossible for the public to turn to the media for a rational, non-biased analysis of the current situation.

Interestingly, however, and despite their bitter differences, both sides of Thailand's colour-coded divide are unified in their desire for change and reform. They just can't agree on how.

Tolerance for political corruption is wearing thin while disillusionment at the failure of Thailand's core institutions of government to rise above narrow political interest is growing.

Lurking beneath these trends, and feeding the intense emotions that electrify the ongoing street protests, lies a thread of fear: that with the passing of Thailand's much loved monarch, who alone stands above the political fray and carries the ultimate authority to temper its excesses, the remnants of this country's fragile democracy may fall apart.

It may already be too late. For even if, as the red shirts demand, fresh elections were to be held, it is hard to see how this would resolve the impasse. When the problem is systemic, one can no longer turn to the system for a solution.

So what next?

Worryingly, amidst the invective and theatrics that have come to dominate the political dialogue, it is hard to find any constructive proposals for reform.

Indeed, it seems as if beyond exchanging one leader for another and vague railings against corruption, neither side is proposing a serious road map for rebuilding Thailand's democratic institutions, which require deeper repair than merely rewriting a new constitution. Nor does there appear to be a political figure capable of offering a unifying vision that transcends partisan differences.

Viewed in this light, Thailand's polity seems helplessly and dangerously adrift. It is with foreboding that one watches waves of red shirted protesters ebb and flow through Bangkok's streets, brushing up against rows of troops drafted to maintain order.

With neither side able or willing to compromise, with no leader capable of rising above the current divide, with no practical agenda for the future, the potential for chaos and violence remains high.

Is Thailand in search of a cathartic and perhaps terrible 'release', therefore, that will jolt the nation into a realisation that unified efforts at reform and reconciliation can be the only way forward? Or will the military step in, freezing the political process yet again and perhaps deferring the reform needed to bring Thailand's promising democracy back in line with successes of its economy and the aspirations of its restless majority.

Between Rage and Reason

Thai Prime Minister Aphisit Vejajiva - Oxford-educated, soft-spoken, well meaning - is a reasonable man.

"Elections must be held under common rules and genuine calm. We have to listen to other people's voices, not just the protesters’," he announced, politely, as tens of thousands of protesters clamoured for his ouster.

Reasonable words in unreasonable times. Further evidence, perhaps, of Aphisit's apparent inability to connect with Thailand's majority.

Passion, anger, frustration and, at the fringes, simmering hatred is the fuel driving the red shirt protesters currently thronging Bangkok’s streets.

In a macabre publicity stunt, the ‘reds’ drew blood from thousands of supporters only to spill it symbolically onto the street in front of Government House and Aphisit’s residence. If nothing else, the gesture was a measure of the depth of emotion behind the current unrest

Amused, bemused, confused and perhaps a little repulsed by all of this, we are left to wonder what this latest episode in Thailand’s political saga really means and how it fits into the broader picture of this nation's development.

We struggle to untangle the knotted and multiple roots of the current crisis. On the one hand there is clearly growing unease in the twilight of King Bhumipol’s reign. On the other there is an evident power struggle between the country’s elites, already jockeying for position in a post Bhumipol era.

As one ponders the significance of the various color-coded factions and as one tries to unravel the motives of protesters across the political spectrum, it is easy to lose sight of a more fundamental reality: that of the glaring social and economic disparity separating Thailand’s urban middle-class from the rest of the population.

The current conflict and the various rounds of unrest it has generated are not isolated blips in the otherwise hum drum routine of a stable and established democracy. They are mounting evidence of a profound shift in Thailand’s political landscape, of seismic social rumblings that may herald the transformation of that very landscape.

For decades Thai politics defied the logic that democracy is designed to promote: that the majority should elect those it believes will serve its interests.

Thailand’s rural majority were like sheep to be herded in this direction or that by wealthy urban-based politicians. A few well-placed roads, a well paid local ally and, typically, a bundle of bank notes was the magic recipe for a politician in pursuit of rural votes.

During Thailand's export-led boom in the nineties, the already marked divide between the cities and the countryside grew - to a point where Bangkok seemed so far removed from the rest of Thailand that it felt like another country.

Flush with the vast wealth accumulated as a result of Thailand’s economic ‘miracle’, Thailand’s leaders could have shared the spoils and poured cash into the development of the countryside, especially in qualitative areas like education.

To do so, however, the elite needed to see the countryside as more than just a pool of votes or a source of cheap labour and rice. Opportunities for broad, ‘deep’ development were largely ignored. The rich grew richer and better educated while the poor, despite seeing some benefits trickle down, remained vastly less fortunate.

The basic infrastructure of a modern state was nevertheless installed. Schools were built, roads were laid, health centers were opened and literacy rates were raised to close to 100%.

An efficient and accessible communications network was established, allowing information to pass freely. By the beginning of the millennium it seemed as though almost every home had a television, a fridge, a motorcycle and a phone.

Parliamentary debates were televised and almost everyone could read a newspaper. Government information campaigns taught rural folk about democratic values and exhorted them not to sell their votes. Even the poorest Thais seemed politically engaged. A more authentic democratic culture was beginning to take root.

It is at this point that Thaksin Shinawatra’s political star began to rise. A fabulously successful telecoms magnate, he quickly became a poster boy for the turbo-charged growth of the nineties and an icon of modernity for the materialist aspirations of most Thais.

He was smart, he was technologically savvy, he was Sino-Thai and he knew how to communicate. The middle classes saw him as their man. The rural masses found in him an inspiring example and a leader who showed an interest in their concerns like none before him.

Ever the businessman, Thaksin realized that there was a ‘market’ to be grabbed: that of the now educated, well-informed rural voters who had stood on the sidelines of Thailand’s boom; mere pawns in the power games being played out in Bangkok. Thaksin understood that these voters were in search of a voice and that they could carry him to power.

In reaching out to the poor, particularly in the rural north and northeast, and in directly addressing their concerns, Thaksin emerged as a consummate populist. He found himself riding a wave of support which swept him into office in 2001.

The rest, as they say, is history. It quickly became clear that Thaksin, instead of furthering the cause of democracy, intended to use his majority as a powerbase to actually dismantle the democratic institutions put in place by the 1997 constitution. He became an 'illiberal' democrat and a textbook example of how democracy can go awry when the institutions designed to protect it are weak enough to be subverted.

But if Thaksin sought to bring the rural majority into the political arena by speaking to them directly from the center of power, he did not perhaps envisage the threat that this political shift would represent to the traditional establishment. Nor how they would ultimately react.

In 2006, on the cusp of angry mass demonstrations sparked by Thaksin’s evasion of tax payments on his sale of the Shinawatra Corporation to Singapore’s Temasek group, the military stepped in - pushing Thaksin into exile and throwing their support firmly behind the royalist 'yellows' of the People Alliance for Democracy (PAD).

For a while it seemed as if order had been restored and that business as usual could continue.

But the ground had already shifted. The genie of populist politics was out of the bottle. The polarisation of Thai politics had begun. Thaksin, for his part, had woken the ‘sleeping’ masses; giving them a figurehead leader of almost cult-like status, a benefactor and newfound confidence.

He had delivered the realization that, in democratic terms, the rural majority could now exercise power by electing national level leaders prepared to tip the balance of opportunity back in their favour.

While Thaksin may have sought rural support for his own political ends, once the ‘train’ of populism had left the station he had little choice but to ride on it. By his regular injections of funds and inflammatory speeches delivered via video-link from exile, Thaksin ensured that the ‘red’ movement maintained its momentum.

It is surely one of darkest ironies of Thai politics, however, that an illiberal businessman who accumulated millions through near monopolistic domination of the mobile telecoms market should become a hero for the rural masses from whom he is so far removed.

Thaksin did not create the polarisation which characterises Thailand's political landscape today, but he did, perhaps inadvertantly, shine a spotlight on Thailand's divide and in so doing lit the fires of discontent which wrack the country today.

Though it is often portrayed as hollow vehicle for political posturing manipulated by and for Thaksin Shinawatra, the red movement, whose chosen colour poignantly echoes historic communist movements in the region, has roots that go much deeper. It represents a strong and persistent political wind that will only blow harder for as long as those who have traditionally held power continue to shelter behind military might while expressing their evident disdain for the rural masses.

For even if the reds do fade back into the countryside, Aphisit and his mainly urban middle class supporters should not imagine that their problems are over. Thailand will remain divided and the reds will return again and again until they see changes that begin to address their concerns.

The most conciliatory gesture Aphisit could make would be to hold free and fair elections -the principal demand of the red shirts today. This would be eminently reasonable since Aphisit did not face the ballot box before taking office and is widely perceived as a front-man for the army and traditional establishment interests.

But herein lies the conundrum which leaves Thai politics on such unstable ground and which makes it almost impossible to see a clear path out of the current impasse.

For Thailand to change and for new openness to permeate the political system, the country needs new leaders infused with a fresh vision and sufficient legitimacy to impose change. Thailand needs leadership capable of overcoming the middle classes’ fear of the rural majority, leadership capable of ushering in a new political dawn rooted in an ideology of broad national development, inclusion and genuine equality.

Given the cast of characters currently dominating Thailand’s political scene, it is hard to see where such a leader might be found.

With no clear indication as to which turn the drama will take next, one can only hope that the Thais’ rare genius for compromise and their penchant for comfort over strife will guide them, between rage and reason, towards a peaceful solution to the current conflict. One that will create the conditions whereby acceptable levels of political, social and economic opportunity can be enjoyed by all.

Disentangling Ourselves from the Infinity of The Web

The internet, that ubiquitous funnel which feeds our digital addiction, has the power to transform our relationship to reality and shape our vision of the world.

Viewed through the screens of our computers, reality has been rendered abstract, two-dimensional, pixelated.

When I awake in the morning before brushing my teeth, almost before wiping the sleep from my eyes, I connect.

The gesture, from one who grew up with a telephone that had a dial on it and wrote with an ink pen that smudged, is already a reflex. I now type faster than I can write. I have become, as have we all, homo-interneticus.

Lifting the screen of my notebook in the morning is a metaphor for opening a virtual window onto the world. If I look out of my analogue window I see a slice of sky, a bird chirping on a branch, the chaos of green in my garden. From my digital window I view the planet, a fragmented and bewildering tangle of information beamed at me from the four corners of the globe.

With my connection, wireless of course, comes information and knowledge. I have the potential to know anything and everything. "Seek and ye shall find", beckons the internet, oracle of the modern age.

But when we step back from the glow of our screens, close our digital windows and re-focus ourselves on more immediate three-dimensional reality, there is a nagging sense that the web may be be exactly what its name suggests - a tool of entrapment in which we have already become hopelessly entangled.

Or worse still, if we are not caught in the Web then we have ourselves, like nodes in a matrix, become a part of it: feeding it with ever more information and consuming blindly the infinite stream of data it serves up to our screens.

People of a certain age - meaning those who remember what life was like before computers - harbour a suspicion that we were perhaps better off, in some ways, without them. They remember an era when life was slower and more contemplative. When our minds were better able to focus and concentrate.

But before email, sms, Facebook and now Twitter how could we have communicated or read as much from so many diverse sources as we do today? Isn't the internet enriching us; creating more opportunities to exchange ideas, to learn, to gain access to the ideas of others, to be aware?

There is the nagging concern, however, that though we may communicate more and even read more, the quality of our communication and of the information we consume has deteriorated. A few lines, stripped of their grammar and in some cases of their correct spellings are all it takes to create a ripple in cyberspace that says "I'm thinking of you" or "I'm here, where r u."

In an era where 'site traffic' not kiosk sales are becoming the benchmarks which determine the power, and revenue streams, of today's news providers, is it not the lowest common denominator of information, the most titillating, scintillating facts with the greatest mass appeal, that will dominate our online diet of news?

But while older folks may grumble that younger folks read less books and find it hard to concentrate, can they deny that young folks are at least reading. In this internet age the truth is that we are reading from morning to night. In our professional lives we are reading and composing written messages each waking hour of the day. Never has so much been read or written, by so many, so quickly.

Though we may read more, the vortex of communication in which we are gripped often leaves us with little time to read books - of the three-dimensional, paper kind. Suddenly books and the printed page, once the epicenter of their own 'illuminating' revolution, seem dated and dusty. Engulfed in our daily tsunami of emails, videos, Facebook updates and news bulletins how many of us have still much time for a good old fashioned book?

I know that when the day has run its course, the gentle pleasure of opening a book and devouring a few pages lit only by the lamp beside me is a delight that sets my synapses dancing. I know, too, that this is partly because I am of a certain age (not old mind you) so that books still hold for me a certain romantic charm. The book is still an object of some reverence to be thumbed, browsed and weighed in the hand.

Where book information differs crucially from the words pouring forth from the web is that books are finite. You can hold them and perceive them in their finite entirety - like a painting, or a photograph, or almost any work of art. This is why reading books, as opposed to reading on the internet, is so different.

The internet, by contrast, is infinity. It is the ocean which fills the horizon. We can navigate it, we can swim in it but we cannot hope to hold it in our hands, nor can we ever really hope to comprehend its enormity. In this sense, the internet is inhuman - because it surpasses the human scale. The book, however, that can be held and read from cover to cover remains an object of distinctly human proportions.

Now I am sounding nostalgic, which helps nobody. The internet is the future, I would be a fool to deny it. Electronic books are perhaps the future too. What I hope is that somehow we will be able to find ways to tame the Web, to learn how to disconnect, and to stem or at least filter the flood of information in which we are today literally drowning.

For while the internet brings us many things, its virtual reality and the infinity of its possibilities should complement rather then replace the analogue creations which have the power, in a more simple, perhaps more human, way to excite us through their finite simplicity and their ability to ignite our imaginations to the infinite possibilities of creativity.

Imagining the Suicide Bomber

On a Thursday night in Jakarta two men watched day slide into night.

One slept fitfully in his hotel room, if he slept at all. I do not know his name and have not seen his face.

For this man, a devout Muslim I imagine, the darkness was heavy with foreboding. His night echoed with feverish prayers, with accumulated regrets, with the natural fear of his imminent death.

For the other, Evert Mokodompis his name, the night was beautiful.

Sleep came upon him gently, reassuringly. As he drifted from consciousness he was abuzz with plans, his mind's eye crammed with images of his newborn child, not yet a day old.

The fates of these two men, unknown to each other, sharing the same night, the same air, in the same city, were entwined.

One man, the Suicide Bomber, whose head was blown clean away, goaded his body through those sleepless hours, commanding his reluctant limbs to follow plans he had learned by rote, plodding methodically, perhaps joyfully, towards his macabre finale.

The other, Evert, arrived at work the next morning distracted and happy; enveloped by the love he felt for his child and its mother. The promise of the future stretched out invitingly before him.

The bomb erased six lives that Friday morning with Evert and the faceless, nameless, Suicide Bomber among them.

Their blood spilled, spilled ink, illuminated screens, opened a channel, momentarily, into the public's consciousness - that vast amorphous place where so many seek to exist.

It was through not existing, then, through their destruction, their definitive violent erasure that Evert and the Suicide Bomber engraved themselves in my mind, prompting me to write about two men of whom the only details I know relate to their interconnected destinies and the tragic waste of their lives.

As I imagine Indonesian officials picking through the debris in which Evert and the Suicide Bomber lay, amidst dust, tangled metal and the awful stains of bodies slaughtered, I am assailed by words: terror, collateral damage, hatred, extremism and cowardice. The words rush at me as if eager to take a front seat in my understanding of this now commonplace event.

It's tempting to let the habitual reactions take their habitual seats. I want to resist that though and imagine some more.

Who was the faceless, nameless being who stumbled out of obscurity to punch a hole in the morning calm?

A warrior in the war of terror that we have come to accept as a reality? A terrorist, to give him the label his actions have naturally earned him?

But what kind of warrior does not confront his enemies, does not take aim or look his victims in the eye? And what kind of terror can this be when a bomb explodes at breakfast time in a fancy hotel?

We, the public, the presumed target of the bombs, can neither see our attackers nor can we know where they will strike. We can neither retaliate nor can we find focus for our terror.

Disparate hatred is what might rise from the debris. President Bush would have had it so. Indeed hatred was doubtless the fatal infection our Suicide Bomber hoped to pass on.

The dust barely settled, however, the victims barely interred and we have moved on, scurrying forwards purposefully, inevitably forgetting the terror that should be our lot. The gift intended for us.

Evert's child will not remember this event. He will be told what happened when he is old enough to understand. His mother will foster sorrow and hatred perhaps, but Evert's child will struggle to imagine the moment his father was taken. Perhaps one day, out of despair at his sorry life (if sorry it becomes), he too will become a Suicide Bomber; what tragic irony that would be.

I try to grasp the courage of the suicide bomber; his daring. But I can't help but see desperation, an ocean of desperation. Or was it cowardice to avoid confrontation, to deny his prey the right to defend themselves? Was it cowardice, even, to choose such an easy, instant death? Call it touch-of-a-button terrorism. Instant annihilation for an instant age.

In his moment of madness, his climactic gesture of passion, faith, frustration, hatred what does the suicide bomber hope to create?

There is twisted victory in such loss: the promise of martyrdom and release from a life defined, perhaps, by poverty and want. And in his wake the Suicide Bomber does sow seeds of fear, leaves behind scarred memories, breeds grief and decimates hope.

Except we know that while you can kill and kill again, butchering flesh and blood, there is an intangible, indefatigable force, call it the human spirit, that fills the void and refuses to die.

When one considers the collective force of our capacity for love, determination and hope, one can only feel sorry for the Suicide Bomber who yielded his life and sold his spirit in an attempt to defeat what cannot be defeated.

Sri Lanka's Opportunity

Trapped. Hidden from the world. Brandished as human shields then decimated in a storm of military fury.

For the thousands of civilians trapped on a tiny stretch of beach in eastern Sri Lanka the thunder of artillery and the cries of the wounded were a gruesome prelude to 'peace'.

These unfortunate civilians, families, women, children, were the collateral cost, we are told, of bringing Sri Lanka's 25 year civil war, pitting ethnic Tamil rebels against a Sinhalese-dominated government army, to a close.

When one considers the horror endured by those who lived through this grim finale, and the suffering of some 250,000 Tamils displaced by recent fighting, it is hard to imagine that such violence could be the germ for peace.

Indeed, while Sri Lanka's President Rajapaksa preens and struts in the glow of his government's victory, while jubilant Sri Lankans honk their horns and wave flags in the capital Colombo, the only peace many Tamils now know is the silencing of the guns and an end to the killing. Thousands are still detained in government internment camps surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire.

Many among the Tamil minority, who account for around 15% of Sri Lanka's 20 million population, are left to contemplate how the government's military victory will translate into the autonomy and rights which they have long been demanding.

In truth, it is not peace that comes as the logical fruit of such a bitter conflict. Peace can only be achieved when the causes of conflict have been erased, a process which often continues long after the guns have fallen silent. At the end of the Second World War, creating peace meant a re-drawing of borders, a purging of the political and social causes of conflict, a drive to reconcile and rebuild.

As Sri Lanka enjoys this moment of relative calm, its government must now seize the opportunity to demonstrate to the ethnic Tamil community, from which the Tamil Tigers and other rebels movements were born, that the causes of the conflict will be erased and that the government will re-build and re-draw the lines of this divided nation so that there is opportunity for both communities to prosper equally.

To be sure the Tamil Tigers were a ruthless movement; pioneers of the suicide bomb, fanatics who drove women and children into battle. Much of the movement's dynamism and momentum came from its mysterious and brutal leader Vellupillai Prabakharan. His apparent death is perhaps the most convincing indicator that the Tamil Tigers as a fighting force are finally spent.

For the moment President Rajapaksa is ringing reassuring notes of reconciliation. Last Thursday he declared that it was "the duty of all to ensure that all differences that hitherto divided our people are subsumed in the great and momentous joy that is shared by us all.

"The celebration of this victory, as deep as it is felt, should be expressed with magnanimity and friendship towards all," he said.

If Mr. Rajapaksa's words are sincere then he is right to foster harmony among former foes.

History has taught us that it is supremely difficult to defeat the spirit of a people fighting for its basic rights or for its survival. For many Tamils, the civil war was a struggle for self-determination in the face of a chauvinistic Sinhalese majority for its part still smarting from Tamil dominance promoted by the British during their colonial rule.

Guns can suppress, they can eradicate, they can terrorize into silence but they rarely defeat a rebellious spirit and are often better at sowing hatred than breeding peace.

Generosity, magnanimity and reconciliation will prove the most powerful weapons the government of Mr. Rajapaksa can now deploy amidst Sri Lanka's Tamils. It is only through mutual respect and in allowing the Tamils to return to rebuild their lives as equal citizens alongside their Sinhalese compatriots that Sri Lanka can hope to truly achieve peace and ensure that a new generation of Tamils do not take up arms and find a replacement for Mr. Prabakharan.

The Passion of Thailand

There isn't a single word for 'passion' in Thai. "To like alot" (chob mak), "angry" (krort), "strong feelings" (kwam ruseuk khem) are some of the approximations that the Thai language uses to explain the concept of passion.

In some ways that Thai doesn't have a single word to match the palette of intense emotions summed up by the word 'passion' isn't surprising. Thailand is better known for its placidity and serenity; characteristics nourished by the teachings of Buddhism which warns its practitioners away from desire and anger - the very seeds of passion.

I remember arriving in Thailand for the first time in the mid 1980s. I had travelled from India and was immediately struck by the contrast between the chaos, noise and incessant movement of Bangkok and the calm equanimity of its inhabitants.

Where in India crowded buses had been seething, cacophonic anthills of sweaty humanity, in Thailand the same number of passengers crammed into non-air conditioned buses while seeming, almost, not to touch each other, with barely a voice raised and only the occasional bead of sweat as testimony to the stifling humidity.

Amidst the madness and intensity of Bangkok, where was the passion, I asked myself.

This is not to say, of course, that because the Thais don't have a specific word for passion or because in their daily lives manifestations of passion appear few and far between that the Thais lack passion. Far from it.

Passion is one of the fundamental ingredients of life anywhere. It is the emotional turbo charge that allows us to push beyond the boundaries of mediocrity. It is the psychological fuel that can propel us to excellence, to summits of devotion or to depths of destruction.

Though artfully hidden from view, one quickly becomes aware of the currents of passion flowing powerfully, sometimes frighteningly, beneath the beguiling tranquility of Thailand's 'mai pen rai' (never mind) exterior. Passion lurks here. The one truly un-tameable emotion that demands to be let loose is, for the most part, kept rigidly chained up.

And so when passion does break free the consequences are often terrible.

Last Sunday I attended the funeral of Nong Fai. Just twenty six, an only child and the love of her mother, Nong Fai threw herself in front of a speeding car. Her moment of mortal madness was spurred, friends told us, by an argument with her lover. In flash of irrational passion Nong Fai cast her young life into the oblivion.

Nong Fai's suicide was an extreme and violent gesture which appeared jarringly incongruous amidst the smooth, unruffled charm of Thai culture. Yet her brand of destructive passion is not uncommon here. It is too often echoed in stories recounted in the Thai press. Stories of jealous lovers driven to mutilation, murder and suicide.

Indeed, who could use any other word but 'passionate' to describe the intensity of the political movements which have been venting their fury in the streets of the capital these past weeks and months.

It is as though passion expressed, as it is so colourfully in Latin cultures, can be an almost poetic channel for love and desire, while passion repressed boils and churns like an explosive potion being reduced to one of it most fundamental elements: violence.

If only more Thais were allowed to set their passion free, this powerful emotional energy, today hidden and unnamed, could perhaps transform itself into ideas, into creativity and inventiveness.

As it is, battened down under layers of Buddhist propriety, Thailand's passion has but too few avenues of expression. It is a sad truth that when passion does eventually break loose here, its face is often dark and violent.

Harnessing the Forces of Change

Political systems are dynamic. They are the sum of an ever-evolving, continually interactive relationship between social, political, cultural and historic forces.

In Thailand, the tensions that recently flared into violence on the streets of Bangkok are the symptoms of a political system experiencing the torque of a wrenching transition.

The genesis of modern Thai politics can be traced to 1932 when a military-civilian coup replaced absolute monarchy with the nominal structures of constitutional democracy.

In the ensuing decades Thailand's democracy has been tested by 17 coup d'etats, breakneck economic growth, a jarring economic meltdown and several violent uprisings.

Yet Thailand has often been held up by Western observers as a model: citing its impressive growth and the durability of its democratic institutions; which have continued to function in the benevolent shadow of the nation's much-revered monarchy.

Meanwhile Thai society has undergone massive change. Strained by the alienation of urban-industrial development, traditional relationships have been transformed. Values and expectations have shifted. One of the hallmarks of Thailand's development has been the huge inequality it spawned - between the urban middle class and the rural population.

These socio-cultural changes and the economic inequality engendered by the boom of the nineties lie at the heart of the nation’s current political malaise.

While power may have nominally passed from palace to parliament in 1932, the legitimacy and prestige of Thailand's traditional centers of power did not, and naturally could not, dissolve overnight.

Indeed, the legitimacy and power of Thailand’s monarch, King Bhumipol Adulyadej , has grown significantly in the six decades of his reign; largely as a result of his active commitment to development and his intervention during times of crisis.

Traditional power has, till now, co-existed with the modern infrastructure of democracy. And this despite obvious contradictions between the Western ethos of democracy, which places theoretic emphasis on the equality of all, and Thailand's traditional power structures which revolve around centralised and hierarchic authority.

The simplest expression of traditional political power in Thailand is the relationship between patron and client. Patrons distribute patronage in exchange for the loyalty, and during elections the votes, of their clients.

In Western democratic terms, patron client relationships are 'corrupt'. They do not abide by the encoded rules of an impartial system. They are, instead, determined by the arbitrary ability of a patron to purchase the loyalty of his 'clients' through the distribution of favours, privilege and largess.

In the context of Thai democracy this ‘corrupt’, or more precisely 'traditional', form of politics can function as long as patronage flows from one unchallenged source and for as long as such patronage is able to satisfy the aspirations and expectations of its recipient 'clients'. Like any successful political system it relies on a degree of stability and acquiescence.

In recent years, however, a number of factors have emerged to challenge the stability of Thailand's 'traditional' democracy.

The first could be described as the growing competition between the traditional bureaucratic, aristocratic and military elite and the emergent power of Thailand's nouveau riche 'business class' who have sought to transform wealth and prestige acquired during the boom of the 1990s into political capital. Telecom tycoon, Thaksin Shinawatra, who cast himself in the role of a CEO Prime Minister, is the most obvious example of this phenomenon and the most visible challenger to traditional power.

The tension surrounding this struggle for control of the 'centre' of Thailand's political system has been further heightened by an awareness that the nation's much loved monarch is nearing the end of his reign.

The King has been a vital anchor of continuity and stability for Thailand. Many naturally fear that without his stabilising presence and without the legitimacy he lends to the traditional bases of power, Thailand's democracy could melt into an all-out political conflict with elite interest groups battling for control of the State.

While there is a pervasive sense of unease about a future without King Bhumipol and with conflict already visible among Thailand's elites, the current crisis also comprises a broader social component.

Rather like the businessmen who sought to transform their wealth into political capital, Thailand's rural majority also now seek to convert their numerical weight into political power.

This dynamic is being driven by a change in what ordinary people expect of the State, by a heightened understanding of constitutional and democratic rights and by a sense of disillusionment with successive governments that have paid scant attention to the needs of Thailand’s rural majority.

Through his populism, Thaksin Shinawatra took the first step towards allying the central power of the State with the interests of the rural majority. On the face of it, this looked like a positive democratic development.

The reality, however, was that Thaksin did not represent the advent of a more democratic regime but rather the cementing of an alliance of convenience between a rural majority seeking greater influence over central government and a business elite seeking the means to wrest control from what it has labelled as the traditional ‘bureaucratic polity’.

Thakin used his popular mandate to impose a decidedly illiberal style of democratic rule which aimed to stifle debate, neutralise opposition and consolidate control of the independent institutions designed to provide checks and balances to executive power. These excesses were often overlooked or ignored by a majority who saw Thaksin as their 'champion'. At last a leader who was prepared to share some of the State's wealth with the rural poor.

Today, Thailand's political crisis remains in suspended animation. The currents of conflict continue to churn beneath the surface.

To ensure stability, the political establishment needs to recognise the huge socio-cultural and economic changes that have taken place in recent decades and accommodate them in a corresponding adjustment in the balance of power.

Political change can be wrought through upheaval on the streets or through constructive dialogue between players on both sides of the divide. The imperative now is to recognise that change is inevitable and that it is in the interests of all to ensure that the energy and passion being expressed in the political arena today can be channelled into a process that moves the nation forward peacefully and inclusively into the future.