Is Thailand spiraling downward toward civil war? This is an issue that exiled Thai professor Giles Ungpakorn – now ensconced in his U.K. home surrounded by free-thinking academia – has previously addressed.He has been joined in his concern by those on both sides of the yes-no fence.
The Marxist professor fled Thailand last month just before he was scheduled to appear at Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation to respond to allegations of having committed lèse majesté.
His recent statement – in which he called on the king to “honor his constitutional role and stop intervening in politics” – has been perceived as a threat to national security.
There is now a concerted campaign in the country to quash discussion of any ties between the revered royal family and political intrigue.
Civil wars are not always easy to define, however, much less predict. Stanford University Professor James Fearon, with credentials from Harvard and Cornell, defines civil war as “a violent conflict within a country fought by organized groups that aim to take power at the center, or in a region, or to change government policies.”
Fearon also co-authored a 2003 paper with fellow academic David D. Latin, "Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War," wherein one of the points put forward was that the key to understanding civil war is to properly define insurgency.
The authors may have been right, especially in Thailand where there currently exist two kinds of insurgency. One is the open militant kind, found in the country’s southern Muslim-dominated region.
The other is a more elusive political insurgency that threatens traditional
power structures and basic value systems that have gained strength over generations, but which themselves lead to conflict among various ethnicities, races and sociopolitical groupings.
When Professor Ungpakorn spoke of civil war in Thailand, he seems to have been addressing the more violent kind, with a large civilian population aided by heavily armed groups able to carry on a credible resistance and offensive against standing armed forces.
Thus, insurgency in Thailand today could be generally characterized as something broiling on several levels and across the board. It could include questions being asked by traditionalists,
by reformists, by academics, by Thais and by foreigners who have not been able to ignore, no matter how they try, the significant changes that have already taken place in Thai society
These changes include:A new readiness to immediately assail public figures, both in words and with limited violence, such as recently occurred with a small cherry bomb tossed at a Thai minister’s car.
The degradation of media coverage, in terms of straight reporting and analysis of events, so that helpful analytical content is left out and replaced with opinions and simplistic “safe” questions.
A distinct discomfort with a society that continues to define itself by tradition and yet attempts to remain tolerant toward those with a legitimate right to say what they say. The
very definition of what it means to be Thai, in fact, has finally come open to question. Are Thais, for example, still Thais if they disagree with the presence of the monarchy? Are they
Thai if they side with foreigners who have a sound argument against reactionary thinking in Thailand?A reluctance to reform agencies and processes that would lead to greater freedom and individual identity among the Thai people.
Royalists, pseudo-royalists and supporters of traditional Thai values have set up various barricades against those pushing for change, ostensibly because they perceive such change as wrongfully destroying legitimate institutions and values.
That these pro-royalists and militant anti-free speech activists have taken such measures as ordering the army to spy on the general public is one indication that reform is not likely to result in real and needed change.
The continued presence of xenophobia when it comes to official actions to protect and preserve Thai values and Thai institutions.
Citations by anti-reformists include the idea that Thais who listen to foreign concepts are being poisoned and misled, or that foreigners themselves are attacking Thai institutions
without understanding those institutions and the importance of protecting them.None of these changes in Thai society – some of which are not changes as much as they are modern reaffirmations – is surprising.
What does and should shock political analysts is the fact that Thailand has resorted to bringing in its armed forces, like “friendly neighboring countries” Burma, Laos, and Cambodia
have done, to spy on citizens to make sure they are not endangering national security.This may be deemed not just a step in the wrong direction, but a step toward civil war against a
population fed up with being fed.At the crux of the current Thai government’s efforts to quash free speech is the fear that offensive ideas may take hold, and if they do, the old way
will have to give way.( Frank G. Anderson is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad. He was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965-67, working in community development.
A freelance writer and founder of northeast Thailand's first local English language newspaper, the Korat Post – www.thekoratpost.com – he has spent over eight years in Thailand "embedded" with the local media.
He has an MBA in information management and an associate degree in construction technology.
©Copyright Frank G. Anderson.)
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