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Viewpoints No one likes a bully
Viewpoints No one likes a bully | No one likes a bully |
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| Viewpoints | |
| Monday, 25 September 2006 | |
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There are two things that really annoy me. One is inefficiency. The other is ignorance. The recent coup in Thailand engages me on both those counts. The Thai economy has struggled for a long time. Some would attribute this to global market pressures. Some would attribute it to over-reliance on products with low margins. I'd tend to attribute it to corruption and an institutionally unequal social system. Thailand is a country of extremes, where the rich are very rich and the poor will remain so. The military in Thailand have long been too strong for either their own good or for the good of the people. Their actions in South Thailand are ample illustration of this, and the fact that so few of these actions are accurately reported is illustration of how deeply the military hold sway over civil society. In a moment of carefully executed engagement the military took over the Thai nation on the 19th of September. In doing so they formally took steps to deal with the inefficiency of the Thai political arena. They claim they are doing this to remove corruption, to strengthen the nation and to ensure that the king remains revered. The military have suspended the Thai constitution, closed the borders and imposed severe restrictions on foreign media. They have – in short – established a junta. Whether they dissolve this and return the Thai state to a democratically elected leader remains to be seen. In attempting to remove inefficiency the Thai military have committed the sin of ignorance and their method of doing so has endangered the lives of countless men, women and children. They have deployed a nation's protective force against itself in violation of the laws of the country. They have removed the separation of power that previously existed. The Thai military have committed the simple single sin of inept rulers everywhere; they have regarded the democratic institutions of state as optional. This action dissolves the legitimacy of the nation-state. In Thailand today law means little, democracy is gone and – even if it were to be restored – will take many years to renew. The media are now mere puppets of the state. On the 18th of September Thailand was a nation suffering gravely from corruption. Today (the 21st of September) Thailand is no longer developing. In fact, it stands in barely better stead than the military dictatorship of bordering Myanmar. This is a disgrace. A society has failed when might is equated with right; when a gun is more powerful than a vote. Far from delivering Thailand from a corrupt elite the Thai military have proven how institutional the idea of bullying is in that country. What a terrifically sad event. I hardly know what to say except that somehow (impossibly) I had hoped for more. |
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