Senate Israel/Palestine

Um, no, it doesn't work for them.

 

Are you Thai?

 

Ehhhhhh he's mostly right. The Bangkok Thai are generally unaffected by it, but they're not the ones voting for Shinawatra politicians.

 

http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/01/29/thailand-human-rights-free-fall

 

the issue with relying too heavily on HRW is that they adopt, though benign intent, a Western paternalistic approach which is rarely appropriately conscious of local customs and beliefs. They assume our Western values are normative and then critique as if that were the case. As I said above; the rural poor, who voted for Thaksin Shinawatra first (where the suspension of democracy took place) and his sister later are affected most by the junta's rule but Thais are generally very deferential to authority so their response to the coup is hardly uniform. So long as the King has no concerns, they won't either.

 

I don't rely on HRW exclusively. I was using them as an easy, reputable source. And I'm not sure how condemning a military junta for... acting like every other military junta is Western paternalism.

 

If people have questions about if the coup is working, and read that link, there would be temptation to take it at face value. That's all.

I still have contacts in Thailand - civil service, civilian and expat - and they've never complained (though the former simply won't).

 

What exactly do you mean by this? Either ordinary people get to have a say in how their society is run...or they don't. Sure, maybe people in other parts of the world are more deferential to authority figures, but they ought to have a choice in whether to defer to said authorities in the first place.

 

This is bizarre and sort of unique. Thousands have appeared at public protests against the coup, even after the army explicitly forbade them. Do people simply cease to exist when they're outside of your ethnic behavioral categorizations?

Sure the situation has complexity and nuance. But how about acknowledging that this exists not only in regards to their opinion of the Shinwatra's, but also of the royal family? That, perhaps, even if one is still generally supportive of them, that wouldn't eliminate significant unhappiness about this one particular move?

 

Yes, thousands have, and they're generally not urban, or at least, Bangkok Thai. Most middle class, moderate Thais would prefer not to be under the rule of a junta but they trust the king and won't rock the boat if the King appears ok with the course of events. The rural and urban poor, that's a different story and that's the core yellow shirt supporters.

EDIT: It's not that unique. Cambodians don't seem in a hurry to turf Hun Sen. The Chinese will always want a strong, central leadership over democratic reform, if the latter brings tumult. Taiwanese Chinese in Taipei favour reunification (and vote for the Guomindong) whereas the rural and regional Taiwanese favour independence.

If you view politics in Asia through a Western paradigm you'll get everything wrong.

 

Why don't poor people's opinions count? You are literally writing off the majority of the country. What your advocating is not any sort of culturally informed paradigm. It's just a nakedly classist one.

Let's reach for some clarity in this discussion. Even pointed to the current, actual social unrest in Thailand around their latest coup, and the disenfranchisement of the majority of country's population. You have responded by saying that people who were opposed to the sitting government are opposed to the sitting government. How does that have any meaning or relevance?

 

You're talking nonsense again.

I've lived in Asia, Wocky. I was responsible for bilateral ties with, among others, Thailand when I was a diplomat. I've briefed ministers on people like Thaksin. I also gave no opinions in this thread; I merely cautioned against any assumptive thinking or the incorrect application of values as normative. I instead cautioned for contextual thinking.

If you want my opinion on Thailand, I will give it. All I've given as an opinion is that Western centric thinking is as useless as a marzipan dildo when discussing SE Asian politics.

EDIT: I also agreed with Evan's initial assessment but cautioned against the HRW piece because of its Western-centric paternalism.

You need to confine my remarks to what I said and not the baggage you ascribe to them.

 

Mmm okay, explain this more. What exactly is "Western centric thinking" and why doesn't it apply to Asia?

 

I believe he's referring to the idea that Americans, and westerners in general, need to stop imposing our modes of thinking on other parts of the world, as well as expect non-westerners to think, act, and see every situation like we (westerners) do.

That, and stop acting like every country in the world yearns to be a liberal democracy. Many don't, have never wanted to, and likely never will.

Ender, apologies if I'm wrong.

Peace,

V-03

 

No, you pretty much got it.

It's almost "you need to see it to believe it" but across Asia the thinking is generally as not-Western as you can get. Up is right and down is black, as Peter Griffin put it. So if we might be offended by something or outraged, it doesn't mean they are. If we find a situation intolerable, they may not. If we find something amazing, they won't necessarily.

 

But, again, these protests fly in the face of the actual protests that we've seen over the last few years. I would venture to suggest that the response we've seen is not due to some quintessential and unknowable Asianness that the poor of northern Thailand have in lesser proportion to other parts of the country. Rather, we can probably say that they wanted the leaders they had form the outset as evidenced by having elected them, and the reasons why repeated coups don't trigger a broader social meltdown is something a bit more complex than what you two have offered to date.

In simpler terms, to be disturbed by what happened in Thailand, one needn't believe that Thais are desperate to emulate the West. One only has to concede that their original preferences--which have been voided--were sincere. There's nothing particularly inappropriate or assuming about that.

 

Ok, Wocky, since you've developed an expertise on Asian politics on the fly:

In 2005, I was walking through Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park in central Taipei, to diagonally cut across to Guangfu Bei Lu (Guangfu Rd, North) which would take me several blocks to my street of Nanking Donglu (Nanjing Rd, East). As I emerged, I found myself on the major arterial roadway Zhongxiao Donglu (Zhongxiao East Rd).

The road was packed with a sea of green - green hats, green signs, green flags. The event was a pro-independence rally, in which literally a sea of people - nearly 100,000 by estimates at the time, as I recall - took to the streets in support of incumbent leader Chen Shui Bian of the Democratic People's Party (DPP, or Green Party).

They flooded the tiny pseudo-state capital's busiest road, which goes all the way down past prominent MRT interchange Zhongxiao FuXing station, to Taipei Main Station - the overland rail network that shuttles people to other cities, to the airport, etc. It's a huge road, a good 8-10 lanes wide.

They wanted their voice heard, in support of an independent Taiwan; a Taipei that was a national capital and not, under proposed reunification, a regional or pseudo-captial a la Hongkong.

At face value, Wocky, it seemed a heartfelt expression of popular sentiment and I went to Taiwan very much of the pro-independence mindset. After all, why not - Taiwan satisfied all but one criteria of the Montevideo conference - recognition, and even then it was de jure, not de facto, recognition they lacked.

Anyway, in a city of 2 million, 100,000 is a hefty rally.

Or so I thought.

See, Chen Shui-Bian - or CSB as he was known - was a crafty bugger who liked expensive clothes and was a bit corrupt (I had his tailor make me a suit; it was lovely). Taiwan's most populous city was subject to a coordinated campaign in which party faithful were bussed in from all over Taiwan to give the appearance of broad public support for independence. It wasn't a rally organised at the grassroots - it was a coordinated performance of the party faithful from rural settings, for the media's benefit. And the election of Ma Ying Jeou, then mayor of Taipei and now President, and his Guomindang (KMT, or Blue Party - pro-reunification) to the top job indicated actually, no, there wasn't that kind of support for independence out there.

If I can find my photos to convey the scale of the Green rally, I will upload some. But the point is that in Asia, face value is not always face value. I've no doubt that many of the non-Bangkok urban Thais are angry at the way Mr Shinawatra and his party have been treated. After all, it was his party that made most substantial attempt at agrarian reform and welfare; he was a people's president. Really, all I am saying is this; unless you have expertise on Thailand specifically or Asia generally, you should refrain from drawling conclusions mired and biased by your own cultural lense. I am not going to give views on the validity of anti-junta protests, except to say whatever you think you know, you probably don't.

Graeme Greene knew it best; "They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived."

 

I haven't claimed to "know" anything, except of their existence. I just find the whole conversation weird. Of course, the point about cultural bias is well-taken. I just don't see where it applies here. dp4m made a roundly awful claim in defense of Israeli policies by holding up Thailand as a model for how other forms of government can work out well. Except that the chronic instability isn't really that workable, whatever else one thinks about it. There was no greater or lesser commentary than that, so I don't see why you started chiding us that the whole world doesn't secretly yearn to be American. No one said they did, or even came remotely close to it.

 

What? No, I cautioned against both sides using that as an example by pointing out most ordinary Thais aren't that worried about the coup and subsequent marital law. You were the one who took exception to this.

 

We have a thread for this.

 

You didn't. You told Even that dp4m's assertion was "mostly right." You then followed up multiple times to tell us about all the different people you know who didn't mind the coup, even though they all would likely have opposed the government that was unseated anyway. You weighed in heavily and on only one side of this debate.

 

It's relevant, Vivec. Read the context.

Jabba-wocky, I see how you took it that way. Mea culpa; I was saying to dp that Even was mostly right. A portion of Thais are deeply affected by the martial law scenario (but in reality, it's bigger than the March 2014 coup - it goes to the reforms proposed by Thaksin and his pals).

The misunderstanding on both side around the Thai situation should illustrate it is an inappropriate point of comparison.

 

Well, if you were actually making the opposite point, then yeah. Never mind it all, and forget it. Apologies.

Though I'd also say that for pretty much every coup ever, it's not so much about the loss of one particular person/government as the termination of their policies/leadership their removal implies.

 

OK. dp4m, by consensus and investigation we would suggest that the Thailand situation is not appropriate as a basis of comparison.

your pals

the Committee