Time for Thailand to be bold

Thomas Smith (April 20th, 2009)

The following is reproduced from the Bangkok Post (April 10th, 2009) where it promoted a response from the Prime Minister and was subsequently removed from their website.

In the world of protest movements who would have known that the London G20 summit could have been overshadowed by a meeting of the ASEAN leaders a few weeks after Brown and Obama swooned the worlds great and good in London?

Held in the seaside resort of Pattaya, better known for seeing old white men arm in arm with young Thai brides, a conference of South-East Asian leaders, supposed to foster economic development and stability, would normally attract as much attention as a village fete. Of course holding these conferences have an inherit risk of protest, and so hosting the event in a resort town 3 hours from Bangkok where a high population of westerners provide a comfort blanket against any potential domestic power struggles seemed like a good plan. But like all the best laid plans...

Whereas the London G20 summit went off with only broken glass to show. The one tragic fallout that has been drenched in coverage was ironically the death of a man who was not protesting at all but selling newspapers normally to the city bankers the protesters targeted.  Capitol cities, indeed the most western of western capitol cities seem to be the safe havens of choice for the good old fashioned conference with all the useful communiqués, hand shakes and photo-calls we have come to expect.

The images of Asian leaders fleeing in helicopters from rooftops as protesters stormed the building, has been labelled as a humiliation for the Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his government. The resulting civil unrest in Bangkok in the days following seems to back up this notion of a weak state with undermined leadership. This reading of events however would fail to recognise that the British born Prime Minister of Thailand might not enjoy but inherits a national population of political junkies the likes of which in his motherland are invisible, or were at least holidaying during the G20 protests.

The comparisons in the protest movement are of course short, the nature of the protests in Thailand were not concerned with the conference taking place, that would just be boring, rather if your going to have a protest and catch the worlds media eye on Easter weekend, do it with something that strikes to the heart of the western democratic bliss we enjoy in London. While the G20 protesters shouted about global capitalism and other grandiose targets, the Thais would rather have a say in a long running ‘debate’ about how their country is run, who runs it and what they can do about it.  Imagine if Gordon Brown had an electorate as interested in the machinations of government, we could dream about public demands about referenda on Europe, military interventions or for even just proportional representation for starters. It is in the fires of such electorates that great political leaders of each generation are forged.

And so comes an opportunity of a generation for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Thailand itself to lead the world in a shake up of the political process, and the sterile debate of western democracy. The civil unrest is not so much a humiliation but a show of the vibrancy of feeling, granted some of it ill-feeling, at the political system in Thailand. The tank bashing red shirted supporters of the self exiled former PM Thaksin Shinawatra give the current regime a chance to unite the electorate. Not perhaps over party lines but on issues, allow Thaksin back to stand for re-election against the current regime and any others who may wish, I suspect there will be a larger number of options on the ballot paper than we had at our last election in the UK.

Returning the ousted PM for a court trial is unlikely and would be as ugly a procedure for a developing country to go through as could be envisaged right now. Instead make a fresh election a trail in the court of public opinion on policy issues, Thaksin’s premiership of the country against a fresh start by a young pro western leader. If instead Thailand takes the traditional route of keeping him in exile by not offering an olive branch to his supporters than we can only expect more protest followed by state repression. This route, back an forth would not do anything to lessen either sides strength of feeling or more importantly best embrace Thailand’s vociferous appetite for a political dust up and be as bold to proclaim, ‘let the best man win’.

Thomas Smith is completing a PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London titled, The Global Jihad. Thomas.smith@rhul.ac.uk