Oh gosh, it's the new warlord!

How many no money boyz are crazy, how many boyz are raw?

How many no money boyz are rowdy, how many start a war?

Forgotten Massacres

"What is most regrettable is the fact that young people now have no third choice. If they cannot conform to the government, they must run away. Those interested in peaceful means to bring about freedom and democracy must start from square one."

Dr Puey Ungphakorn

He was referring to the 1976 massacre, but the quote is just as true and relevant today.

Today we forget to remember Hok Tulaa.

Gandhi's reflections on Zionism

"I do believe that the Jews have been cruelly wronged by the world"... "But in my opinion, they [the Jews] have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism... Why should they depend on American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine?" [Link]

In solidarity

Meanwhile, in Canada...

Canada's political situation parallels ours in Thailand to some level.

Slate tells us how:

"A royal appointee shutting down Parliament; national cross-country protests; bloodthirsty accusations of treason and sedition. All the frictions of a new democracy. I hope they work it out in Thailand!

No, welcome to Canadian politics in 2008."

I'd already published the above but then I kept reading shit like The National Post and realised I wasn't done with this post yet:

"The Conservatives seem to have a lock on the spontaneous outbursts of singing the national anthem. Tories have reportedly burst into O Canada at their annual Christmas party on Monday night and again in the middle of a closed-door meeting."

Living with no independent media, as reflected in today's headlines in the Bangkok Post and Nation

I always enjoy a bit of state-sponsored brainwashing on a Sunday morning. It goes well with my hangover. Make the connection.

We have a new government in power. They were not elected. They are backed by PAD.
Bangkok Post: Democrats Take Over
Nation: Democrats Claim Majority to Form Government

Our King, who was ill of late and for the first time in his life was unable to make his annual speech on the eve of his birthday (Thurs 4 Dec), is feeling better.
Bangkok Post: Condition of King Improves, Fever Lower
Nation: His Majesty's Condition Improves

Quickie updates

Because now I know people actually read this blog.

Don Muang Airport and Suvarnabhumi airport under emergency decree, navy and airforce brought in to clear out protesters insteado f the army even though the navy are like "but... we don't really know how". Suggests problems within army. [Link]

Earlier today, tanks came out of the barracks suggesting that there would be a coup and then a couple hours later they went back in. Like groundhog day, but with artillery and shit. Suggests, again, problems within the army (one person ordering one thing while another orders something else) (this also happens sometimes when I go to the bar and ask for whiskey soda but instead get rye ordered by someone else). I have no link for this factoid, but just trust me on it. I have many other newses which are interesting and come from sources who are on watchlists and blacklists but I don't want to get detained under the internal security act and so I can't type it here. Sorry.

Meanwhile, PAD thugs at the airport vow not to go anywhere even if the navy and airforce pop by for a visit. They say they will use "human sheilds" to deter them. OK, so really, what the hell is the difference between them and terrorists? I mean, they are armed, they hijacked an airport and they are prepared to sacrifice themselves. Am I in fucking Iraq???? [Link]

OK, but here is the most horrific of all newses guys, are you prepared for this? The Korean Pop concert is being canceled. NOOO!!!!!! [Link]

"You can't stay neutral on a moving train"

It has been a rough day.

This morning I woke up to news about terrorist attacks in south Bombay, also known as "my Bombay". I don't know these Bandra-Borivali suburbs, they were not part of my childhood. I know south Bombay. Chowpatty-Girgaum where my relatives live and my parents grew up. Colaba where I drank beer and made desi eyes at a white tourist for the first time (we all remember our first time). CST (or Victoria Terminus, because I am stuck in the past) from where we always caught our train to Gujrat. Nariman Point where we went after dinner sometimes to just listen to the ocean waves mingle with the sound of horns from cars. This was all I knew of India until age 15, and this was the India which was attacked. I don't take it personally, the world doesn't revolve around me, but I'd like to feel like shit about it for 2 seconds.

My other "home" meanwhile is on the brink of anarchy, though it was top story yesterday my place of birth took it over today. As I brace myself for whatever is to come here in Bangkok, be it a coup or be it a bloodbath (most likely, it will be both), I know things have shifted and nothing will ever be the same again. Both cities will have to change, and I with them because I am connected to them as they are to me.

An activist friend said to me yesterday "you can't be neutral on a moving train" and that has repeated itself in my head all day. What does that mean? Many activists who were previously non-aligned have decided to join the reds, who are pro-government, despite being in ideological opposition to them. Their argument is, when faced with a situation where electoral democracy is at stake, the ends justifies the means. Therefore, join the reds, because the reds want to keep electoral democracy.

See, if a crisis were to break out on a moving train and a difference of opinion were to arise, everyone is still on the same fucking train!! We're on the same railway tracks and our fate is shared. If you think about the analogy, it's really not about picking sides, but about working together for the same end result. And so, does the saying make sense? Perhaps it is when you are on a moving train that you should actually be neutral?? Or am I completely misunderstanding the metaphor?

And what do I think of neutrality? In all honesty, neutrality in my chosen feild of work is linked to apathy and indifference. I am never neutral, and I never will be. "Non-aligned" is not the same as "neutral". I remain non-aligned, that is my stance.

Morning has come and the PAD are still stupid

Last night they seized Suvarnabhumi International Airport. Honestly, think about this. It is a giant colossal structure and pretty much one of the most secured buildings in the country. Look, I'm brown, I know a thing or two about airport security. Police don't look after airport security, the military do. Armed protesters don't just "seize" international airports, the military lets them.

So now there are 10,000 stranded passengers and the Bangkok Post has an editorial about how the airport closure is "hurting the country". We're "losing face" they are "hurting the country" - pay heed to this language!! This is the language of Thai nationalism!

The government's strategy in all this has been pretty sound, in my opinion. They haven't stepped in, they haven't cracked down, they have left the police powerless - they basically are letting the PAD go nuts on the streets and making sure no fault is accounted to them, meanwhile slowly the PAD lose a little bit of the popular support due to their antics and also look a bit silly because they still haven't managed to overthrow the government.

The PM will be announcing a state of emergency today. We have a bunch of international human rights conferences going on in the city at the moment so any laws prohibiting the gathering of 5 or more activists might be problemmatic......!!

Losing face

Honestly, the world's financial system is crumbling and countries of the South are regressing in meeting Millennium Development Goals as people who were being lifted out of poverty are being thrown right back in and a repeat of late-90s IMF economies is a near reality - but all of this made very little news of late compared to the PAD rallies (for once, politics became more newsworthy than the economy, too bad it was the politics of idiots!) and now in true Thai fashion we must discuss economic failure in a way that impacts everyone the way it is supposed to - by discussing reputation!

Thailand may "lose face" and investor confidence if it fails to sign international agreements at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Chiang Mai next month, a senior trade official warned.
...

"Thailand is having two kinds of problems - economic and political - that have impacts on the business sector," he said. "We hope the conflicts and issues can be settled peacefully, so the Thai economic situation can start to improve."

Yo Jitsukata, vice-president of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in Bangkok, said the protests are damaging Thailand's image as a democratic country. "This kind of political confusion degrades Thailand's reputation," said Mr Jitsukata, also president of Marubeni (Thailand). [Link]

Only now Thailand's reputation as a democratic country is being damaged? A coup in 2006 didn't do it for ya? 3 Prime Ministers in one year didn't make you think "well hang on now..."? But today, after video footage of guns and crazy yellow shirts, today we have decided that we should be slightly embarrassed about ourselves and perhaps this has gone on slightly too long. Now, suddenly, we have integrity and it is with this integrity we would like to shift our attention to the economy. For our faces must be saved, lest they be lost.

Bangkok streets

The protests made the cover of the IHT this morning and was the main story on BBC. By the time night had fallen, this had happened on the streets of suburban Bangkok near where the old Don Muang airport was (now being used as a temporary government house after the PAD took the real one over):



Note that at around 30 seconds, a PAD supporter shoots into the distance while his buddy holds up a framed photo of a familiar patriarch.

At around 3 minutes onwards, it seems the journo is being harassed and told to get out of there. The importance of cameras being at the right place at the right times. The importance of journalists in documenting violations. Responsible and brave journalism is so important.

In other news, here is an article connecting PAD with opposition party Democrats.

And check it - PAD have taken over Suvarnabhumi Airport. No flights out, "some" flights in. Looks like we're trapped.

Literally what is happening is that the PAD is creating a situation of total chaos wherein it becomes "justifiable" for the military to step in to restore peace and order on the streets.

I want an Obama too :-(

So I guess now we're all asking ourselves "where is our Obama?" Can we have such a broad-based campaign that turns into a movement, that appeals across ethnic, racial, age and gender divides?

Maldives had a "yes we can" moment in October of this year as they ousted their dictator who ended his 30-year rule when their first multi-party election elected instead Mohamed Nasheed, a human rights defender in his 40s who has spent his life in and out of prison cells fighting for democratic reform in his country. Can this optimism and fervour for change spill over to the rest of Asia?

The Bangkok Post ran an editorial today asking rhetorically if the US elections serve as an example to Thailand. Of course, the editorial was stupid and bland:

"After accepting defeat, Republican candidate John McCain congratulated his Democratic rival on victory and pledged support for his presidency.

Thai people should learn a lesson from the US example, said Wutthipong Priabchariyawat, director of Sahasawas Institute, a think-tank. "The two parties fought hard against each other but they didn't prolong their competition after the results were announced," he said."

In India, an Obama victory could potentially mean losing jobs which were created as a result of outsourcing, more pressure to resolve the Kashmir issue and perhaps even pressure to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty since Obama is quite strong about non-proliferation. To be honest, both China and India could really benefit from another Bush term as they've been given this free space to do whatever the fuck they want. Anyway, so in India we wonder if a minority leader can appeal so widely as to hold the highest leadership position in the country?

"Deals with BJP powered Mayawati to the Cheif Minister's chair in Uttar Pradesh twice and even though she never completed her terms, it allowed Dalits to believe that one of their own can hold office...

As things stand, Left is backing her for PM and, if she ends up with a bagful of UP's 80 seats, Delhi could beckon. She certainly thinks so. But such a scenario is more the result of vagaries of coalition politics than broad social or political consensus. The iron grip of caste has not loosened on much of India and prejudice against someone from the deprived sections is alive and kicking.

And, despite Indira Gandhi's long rule, being a woman does not make things easier for the "Dalit ki beti". The one-time municipal school teacher has reached out to "savarnas" but the contract is need driven — a section of UP's upper castes saw in her the only available option but do not see her as a natural leader. Caste flows thicker than blood."

The search for India's Obama is on. We go to the polls next year, my focus now turns matrubhumi-wards.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I was stunned into disbelief at first as I saw the electoral vote count pass the 270 mark for Obama. I was half expecting a "hanging chad" fiasco, an attempted assassination or Bristol Palin to go into labour. CNN cut to the screaming crowds of people in Chicago and New York and then back to their studio where some of their pundits made teary-eyed concluding statements. Obama had won.

It is Reverend Jesse Jackson's face that stays with me, when the crowd of a million people in Grant Park went crazy and celebrated all around him and a 3 second clip showed him in his stillness with tears on his cheeks as he came to terms with what had actually happened in America on 4 November 2008.

It is Obama's following words which are simple and few but felt like a personal shout-out, knowing full well that we were desperate for an Obama victory: "To all those watching tonight from beyond our shores from Parliaments and Palaces and those huddled around the radio, our stories are singular but our destiny is shared, a new dawn of American leadership is at hand."

It is the promise of something new not just in America, but in the world.

I think that Obama's popularity outside the US is linked to the following 3 general reasons:

1) Despite independence and despite the end of the Cold War, leaders of Western countries have continued to look at the global South through an imperialistic lens. Obama, as an American of Kenyan descent and having spent his childhood in Indonesia, does not seem to be like those other old, angry, white men who can't pronounce "Pakistan" properly and consider the will of other countries to be secondary to their own. I think we look to him as our ally in the White House, someone who will treat us with the respect and the dignity we deserve and have failed to recieve. Someone who actually understand the issues we face with much more nuanced insight.

2) He has managed to mobilised the marginalised, the young, the disenchanted to vote in large numbers, many for the first time. It is this very dynamism that is lacking in much of the rest of the world, the youth especially are alienated from and apathetic towards their political system. I think we all look at America with a huge amount of jealousy because of the way the campaign turned into a youth movement of sorts. We are awed and we wish we were part of it.

3) He looks like us. We feel like we stuck it to Whitey.

The Global Election: Hope in a Time of Fear

These screenshots today from my Facebook Status Updates tab, taken at 4pm Bangkok time:


These are people from Thailand, India, England, New Zealand, Malaysia as well as the USA. My first question would be, do I really truly not have any Republican Facebook friends? More importantly, why does everyone outside of America give a shit, anyway?

Behold, Newsweek article not written by Zakaria: http://www.newsweek.com/id/166910

Choice excerpts:

"By the final days, it was as if the world and America were talking about two different elections. In the United States, the pundits framed campaign '08 much as they framed the last election, and the one before... Outside of the United States, the election played large and transformational: a 21st-century man with whom the whole world can identify versus an old cold-warrior out of synch with the complex political and economic crises of our age. The election, it seemed, had morphed into a meta-election. If at home, especially as the election neared its end, Obama seemed to be playing down his blackness, his intellect, his eliteness and his progressive ideas, these were the qualities that more and more drew the rest of the world to him. The world loved the idea that a man named Barack Hussein Obama could become America's 44th president after a 200-year string of white guys named Washington and Jefferson, Clinton and Bush.""

"Jonathan Freedland, a columnist for The Guardian in London, says the past seven years have been a long, painful public education for the world in the importance of decisions made by the United States. "Two wars and a global financial crisis—those events, at least to some extent, had their origins in decisions taken in Washington." What's more, the connection between the world and the occupant of the Oval Office has become deeply personal, says Constanze Stelzenmüller, director of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. "In a globalized world," she says, "America's president can shape lives worldwide. He is our president, too.""

I am "enraptured by the sheer spectacle of it all". I am also very very nervous.

GOBAMA!!!!!!!!!

Commemorating Hok Tulaa Massacre

On this anniversary of Thailand's student uprising on 6 October 1976 and the subsequent violent crackdown, I am paying homage to student movements whose idealism and passion for change and social justice have continuously been subjected to suppression (often violent) by the government, in the name of fighting communism, terrorism or whatever the reason of the day to legitimise force against youth.

The right wing government and elites at the time supported the violence conducted towards the students, which not only included beatings and shootings but also public lynching of "communists" and setting fire to their bodies.

The student groups are absent in this current political crisis which pins one right-wing group against another right-wing group. Individual students are now joining the existing factions, either choosing to side with the pro-Crown PAD or the pro-Thaksin PPP instead of being that cohesive, organised and crucial 3rd voice, the voice of resistance calling for reform.

Here are some clips of former PM Samak and his complete lunacy, both in general and when discussing the massacre specifically. Samak recently had to give up his PM post as his cooking show on national television was in breach of the constitution. Nevertheless, the frightening statements which he makes exemplify that there is still a fight to be fought.

Peace, etc

On September 1st, the day Emergency was declared by PM Samak, a group of 50 student and youth activists defied the ban on gatherings of 5 or more people by holding a peace vigil in the trendy Siam area of town. The message was one of restraint, they walked in silence through the trendy shopping district with candles and signs that urged people not to pick sides.


The night before, government supporters and the PAD had clashed. Foreign media reported at least one dead while locally there were reports of 3 or 4. It was said that this kind of violence has not occurred in Thailand since 1992. But people keep forgetting southern Thailand. And Thaksin's war on drugs. But that's different, right? That's government killing civilians in the name of protection and anti-terrorism and the purging of evil. That's allowed to continue in an atmosphere of impunity. This was brother-on-brother. This, apparently, is more tragic.

Yellow shirts fade slowly

Today is Monday. Every Monday since 2006, Thai people have diligently and loyally worn yellow t-shirts to honour the King. Yellow is also the colour of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the group that led a "people's movement" to overthrow Thaksin's government in favour of a military coup in the name of restoring dignity to the throne and democracy to the country. Today, however, we all noted a significant decline in the number of people wearing yellow. This is their silent, symbollic gesture of disapproval at the PAD's more recent violent behaviour and tactics.

PAD rally, source: AFP

The current political crisis in Thailand is incredibly disturbing, the PAD (despite their name) seek to end electoral democracy in this country and vow not to stop their fight until the government is dissolved and replaced with a parliament consisting of 30% elected officials and 70% appointed officials by the, uh, "Establishment". 2 years ago, they had mass support to the extent that most in the country believed a coup was necessary and justified - and now they have managed to make a nation of yellow fanatics reach for a new colour in their closet.

Though the protests have gotten violent, for the general public it is business-as-usual. We won't ever see the conflict spill to the rest of the city, I mean, god forbid the urban educated middle class get involved! God forbid they have an opinion they wish to express! What is being overlooked, however, is that something much worse is about to occur: the entire democratic process and institutions of the country are at stake.

Human rights groups and democracy activists are fighting each other, reflecting a highly polarised and divided country. This is the time when human rights groups and progressive academics should be coming out as a strong, united third voice to condemn both the PAD and the government and push for reform, but the factions are deep and feelings have been hurt and I fear they will never be resolved.

It's honestly a really dark time for Thailand at the moment, it is hard to be optimistic.

Sick of the Democratic Primaries

While listening to an old Gil Scott Heron cassette today, one particular passage of Enough really made me think of the mother of all Primaries which I once observed with anticipation and hope and a sense of celebration from all the way over here in Asia. Now, as the media continues to pit black man against white woman and middle class educated white voters against "blacks" and young women voters against older women voters and Asian immigrant voters against their 1st generation children - what the hell is going on over there!

"I hope you don't think that a vote for John Kennedy took you off my shitlist, because in the street there will only be black and white,
there will be no democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives,
moderates or any of that rest of the shit that you've used
to make me forget to hate."

Audacity, etc

In the United States, large arenas full of people who have the audacity to hope have devoted themselves to a man who promises to be the bringer of change. Together, in solidarity, they chant "yes we can!" and the words shake the walls and make their bellies tremble. They will bet on change, as intangible as this change may look, because they have nothing to lose.

In Asia, the so-called "change" takes the form of IMF-highways and Burberry stores but has the face of familiar tyrants and conservatives. We had thought we had left them behind in a past century, but as one democracy falls after another, we re-enter a familiarly oppressive Asia. There were changemakers once, a long time ago, they took the streets and fled to the jungles and devoted themselves to civil society and good governance. They believed in the potential of Asia as an example of post-colonial democratic success. In this security-obsessed world, today's changemakers are misunderstood and, even worse, ignored.

I entered university the month the World Trade Center came down. I began working on human rights the month the new UN Human Rights Council had their first session. This world order defines my existence and purpose but I have not the courage to fight and I fear pension schemes and credit crunches. This global paradigm of fear restricts and cripples the most noble of intentions. So this sense of daring, this audacity to hope, this audacity to demand change, this audacity to stand for justice and human rights, this audacity should be part of us all, really. We should all be this fearless. Especially in Asia.