1)Paternalism: Elders take care of you, shield you from effort and any level of responsibility or consequence. In return you owe respect and obedience and quid pro quo-you will be taken care of.

2)Group Identity:The need to belong to a family group/graduate class/ shirt colour/mob/nation and not be seen as an isolated (sad-sack) free-thinker.

These traits are conditioned from birth, polished at school and burnished by media and society. With this level of saturation conditioning how can anyone function “intelligently” without an overseas upbringing?

The intellectuals and manipulators have been well aware of this down the ages and worked to maintain the hermeticism that allows it to flourish. Globalisation is a nightmare for them!

And the fear, the draconian fear will not dissapate so quickly people will have the courage to stand up and speak against the status quo. I think the next generation will have a different take on this long standing corrupt system, but even if they do, they may still become part of it due to what they might gain from it.

A friend recently informed me that his students at CMU grade him on his dress code and his understanding and politness towards the much hackneyed and grossly hypocritical standardised ‘Thai culture’. In the halls of academia, one of Thailand’s best universities. Rather than be encouraged to read, to be cynical and open minded it seems students are continually reminded that conformity is paramount to anything else. The dress code and adherence to relentlessly ridiculous notions of right and wrong has predadence over free philosophical thinking.

The rubbish needs taking out, the fusty stalwarts that keep us in the dark ages need to hang up their bruised and battered gloves. I believe, in a Platonic way, that we need to step out of the cave, just open our eyes. The first step, beyond micro politics, is just asking people to think. As a writer and commentator i am often accused by my Thai collegues of being too dark, of thinking too much, however they are fond of wearing certain colours that ostensibly correspond to a belief. My criticism, uncolured, is a bit too much. I think we are a centrury away from any real progress. Taking sides is more important than understanding the game, and who really knows what team they are on anywhay? I believe Engels called this false consciousness. No where i have ever been is false consciousness so prevalent, and with it a profound national insecurity and identity crisis.

“Still, I wonder how an intellectual approach can stand up against the hysteria and anti-intellectualism that define the Thai attitude to politics, culture and the monarchy. Have you ever noticed how resistant the majority of Thai people are to any sort of rational argument on these topics.”

^Interesting comments, but I;m afraid Thai society is “doomed”, due to the nature of, well, Thai society.

After working in the Thai media field for three years, I can tell you, it is a world ruled by “obedience” – everyone is looking after him or her self. And who governs him or her self? Whoever is “above”. People do not have the option to “speak out” since their livelihood depends on staying “in line”. As a foreign-worker in the Thai media, I’ve tried my hardest to get across, to readers and the public, much of what the author of this blog expresses. But you know what? I am constantly, endlessly met with complete indifference. Thai society is a product of its own creation – “som num na”. I dont mean that to sound in a derogatory manner. There must be a huge cultural shift in Thailand for things to change, and I just dont see that happening for awhile – although things might start to change [...REDACTED: THE JIST OF IT IS "SOON"]. I find it amazing how many of my Thai friends [...REDACTED...], and it seems that it is done mainly as a manner of obedience. I am a Buddhist, and I know Dhamma can help Thai society more than anything else, but, the reality is that Thais refuse to engage in open, honest discourse with each other.The majority of Thais are ignorant even to the fruits of their own religion.

Sadly, i doubt if this is possible now that the gov is so intent on suppressing even constructive criticism.. I think the climate of fear is now dominating Thailand…
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/newmandala/2009/03/06/crackdown-on-prachatai/

http://www.matichon.co.th/matichon/view_news.php?newsid=01act01020352&sectionid=0130&day=2009-03-02

That, or ‘illiberal democrcacy’.

I couldn’t agree more with this.it’s so true. As a Thai, this is so depressing to me.

As for where the impulse for real democratization should originate, I think that your comment goes to the heart of the problem – which is that of leadership. Indeed, even the otherwise fairly optimistic post above only speaks of opportunities and *conditions* favorable to democratic change, but leaves the issue of leadership largely unaddressed. Indeed, it wasn’t addressed because it’s not clear to me either.

The way I see it, perhaps the best hope comes from those grassroots civil society organizations that were once demonized by Thaksin (and were hence aligned with the first, more benign incarnation of the PAD), but appear to now be a growing part of the “red” movement (at least according to some reports of recent demonstrations). Beyond this I don’t know. I guess it is quite possible that the opportunities that the current political context offers will go unexploited. However, the first step towards making use of such opportunities is to recognize they are there. This is what the post sought to accomplish – take some time to step back, think about the big picture, and reflect on the vast possibilities that these otherwise dark and increasingly obscurantist times still offer.

The question that I’ve been asking myself is, where are the democrats (small-d, non-swine, as you put it)? When I arrived in Thailand a while ago, I found myself trying to figure out where the good guys were hiding. I assumed I might find them in the media, standing up for freedom of expression and keeping a watchful eye on the powers that be. Wrong. No “liberal media” here. I thought maybe the democrats were hiding out in the universities. Nope – it was Chula University itself that turned Giles in to the authorities. Western-educated Thais? The ones I’ve met seem about as progressive as Abhisit, maybe because they have too much to lose from asking questions. Thai-Chinese? You’d think they would have a bit of perspective on the whole cultural charade, being recent joiners, but you’d be wrong. So I still don’t know where the good guys are. Sure, I know individual Thais who are democrats, but they are few, they are jaded, and they are scared. Some of them might even be able to write a manifesto as eloquent as yours or Giles’, but none of them would dare, because they don’t have the means to flee the country. So I guess my question is, if a country has a liberal tradition, but there’s no one there to see it, does it really exist?

One more thing about Thailand’s “liberal traditions.” We don’t hear so much about it because this whole debate about Thai culture and history is dominated by those who have a clear interest to reduce (and, indeed, cheapen) Thai culture to the mere legitimation of supposedly natural social hierarchies. Much like every other “culture,” however, Thai culture is very much open to alternative interpretations; like every other culture, it has authoritarian and hierarchical elements as well as more pluralistic and egalitarian ones. My point is that democrats (real ones, not the swine who are in power now) need not cede any ground on this debate about culture. They (we?) only do so at great cost . And while it is true that intellectual arguments may have little appeal to most people in Thailand (as well as to people in most other countries around the world, including my own), there are ways to package these claims in simpler, more visceral messages. The success of any truly democratic movement hinges in part on doing just that.