Going for History Tuesday, March 31, 2009
- From: pluto <pluto@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:28:40 +0800
pluto note: this article by prof Michael K. Connors, Melbourne, is a bit "dated" -- the facts are there as background to understanding the current political situation in th]
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Going for History
Having long hoped for an intra-elite solution to his circumstance, and having
failed dismally, Thaksin Shinawatra has now opted for history making. And he?s
inviting the people to make it with him, to bring back ?true democracy?.
?Thailand Needs Change?, read the banner behind the ex-prime minister as he
delivered his address from an unknown location to his red-shirted supporters
gathered around Government House in Bangkok on Monday night (30th March).
On screen he attacked the Privy Council and the military. Having promised to
name his opponents when he fled to England last year, it has taken visa
revocation, further legal stings and the termination of two crony governments by
the courts to untie his tongue.
The will to take on a system fully and in name is a watershed moment, but
Thaksin is only half there, reserving his fatal revelations only for the Privy
Council. Thaksin has rarely looked like the bourgeois revolutionary that others
have hoped him to be. His pledges of loyalty to the monarchy, his prostration
before a picture of the king while in exile in Hong Kong, and his government?s
genuflection to sufficiency economy while in office do not suggest a republican
sentiment. Ideologically speaking, Thaksin never had a republic in mind, and his
continued public declaration of loyalty to the monarchy should not be taken as a
ruse.
But now, with all the fervour and emotion of focus-group demographics, he is
striding forth as the symbol of that promiscuous variable ? democracy. This,
even as some in the pro-Thaksin Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship (DAAD)
have long believed that Thaksin uses the popular movement for his own ends. They
too are willing to use him.
The question to ask is why does a self-declared democratic movement fall back on
someone like Thaksin, a gifted but impulsive political operator so frightfully
contradictory that any popular movement that returned him to power would need to
watch its back.
The answer to that question, and to progressive acquiesce to rival elite camps
more broadly, lies in organization and politics. As long argued by Ji Giles
Ungpakorn, there is a lack of independent pro-democratic and leftwing forces of
sufficient size and clarity to intervene in struggles in such a way as to
advance a progressive agenda. In such organizational absence, individual
leftists and progressives have joined both the yellow and red camps, seeking a
free ride through history for their more radical politics.
In doing so, they have momentarily ironed out contradictions, refused to reveal
their politics, and failed to come to terms with the limits of their influence.
This strategy of simplification reveals itself as a politics of alliance,
silence and accusation; alliance with the ?lesser evil?; silence on the former
and on their own politics; accusations directed at the ?greater evil?.
They have surrendered in part the responsibility to offer criticism publicly
(necessarily circumspect) of things they criticize privately. Both red and
yellow movements are partly led by phrase-coiners and image-makers who
deliberately, on message, manage and distort, seeking to win support by
insincere argument and selective truth.
This raises the question of the place of honesty and openness in social change.
And it raises the issue of political adventurism, for a failure to fully
appreciate the social forces at play in street politics is prone to dangerous
consequences.
The People?s Alliance for Democracy may be episode one in this scenario, the
DAAD episode two.
Since the coup of 2006, each incident has been grist for the mill of partisan
interpretation. Countervailing facts are not to get in the way of propaganda,
winning an argument, or making the case for the anti or pro-Thaksin forces.
Moreover, there has been moral and peer compulsion to take sides, with people?s
commitment to democracy questioned depending on the perspective of the judge and
executioner.
?Democracy lovers? the world over have rallied hard and long for the pro-Thaksin
forces (red-shirts, politicos and an amorphous mass), while painting the
anti-Thaksin forces as reactionary and under the control of conspiratorial
elements in the military, palace and privy council. There is little recognition
of the democratic and liberal impulse that mobilized thousands of people against
Thaksin. Moreover, Pro-Thaksinites or pro-redshirts have painted NGOs as stooges
and out of touch, long-time human rights activists are maligned by those who
judge their work to be tainted by political bias, and one time pro-democracy
heroes are denounced as fascist demagogues.
Given the events of the last three years, it?s not hard to see how a plausible
case can be made that the principle struggle now unfolding is between democracy
and authoritarianism (with pro-Thaksin forces awkwardly assuming the democracy
mantle). The facts seem to speak for themselves: coup, contested constitutional
referendum, party annulment of TRT and PPP, and the recent installation of a
Democrat-led coalition as government.
To that case, the famous Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci has the best response:
?A given socio-historical moment is never homogeneous; on the contrary, it is
rich in contradictions.? The ?democratic versus authoritarian? narrative that
has captured international attention is as misconceived as it is overbearingly
homogenous.
Little attention has been given to the contradictions that exist in Thailand
today, with political discourse captured by yellow/red-coloured politics of
illusion/delusion, and their respective cheer squads.
The struggle has multiple dimensions, no doubt, but a dominant feature of recent
events has been the pacting of statist conservatives and elite liberals against
the emergent competitive authoritarianism that Thaksin represented before his
fall from office. The politics of the recent past have not been a war of the
rich against the poor ? a view that has oddly become popular - but of regime
type against regime type.
The statist-liberal pact is a historical compromise of some weight, with various
institutional and ideological mechanisms in place (including network
monarchy/royal liberalism). Since the 1980s liberals and statists have
co-operated and contested regime form. After May 1992 and successive defeats,
statist conservatives and liberals moved to an uneasy compromise represented in
the 1997 constitution. As history now records, that attempt to politically
engineer the emergence of liberal democracy with a ?strong executive? partly
assisted Thaksin?s authoritarian rise.
And so now it is back to the future, with the current situation being one of
liberals and statists occupying a complex political terrain of contest and
cooperation (something short of an alliance). They seek to return Thailand to a
path that is mutually acceptable, some form of elite liberal-conservative hybrid
democracy.
They may not succeed in this.
Protests led by the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship may intensify and
develop the infrastructure required for long term political mobilization. Open
sentiment against aristocratic privilege and bureaucratic/ military power may
become a political force. The shoddy ambitions of a one-time authoritarian
leader might well morph into a more enduring egalitarian ethos that comes to
challenge the historical pact of statists and liberals.
But where such politics will end in the absence of principled political
leadership which can speak openly about the failings of its chosen symbol, and
which acknowledges the democratic malaise (2001-2006) under the man who now
promises to return Thailand to a ?true democracy?, no one knows.
Posted by Sovereign Myth at 5:29 PM
Labels: Democracy, royal liberalism, Thai politics, Thaksin
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