You are hereReviews / Book reviews / Aseasuk News no. 48 (2010) book reviews / Divided over Thaksin. Thailand’s coup and problematic transition
Divided over Thaksin. Thailand’s coup and problematic transition
FUNSTON, JOHN (ed.).
Divided over Thaksin. Thailand’s coup and problematic transition
Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009
203 pp. ISBN: 978-981-230-961-7, S$49.90/US$39.90
Reviewed by Claudia Merli
University of Durham
Beyond referring to the immediate aftermath of the 2006 coup this book’s title seizes also the gloominess of the future dramatic events of March–April 2010 when, after staging a gruesome medical-political ‘ritual’ of mass blood donation, the prevalently pro-Thaksin ‘red shirts’ occupied several areas of Bangkok and finally engaged the military in actions of urban guerrillas. The problematic transition delayed its solution and the antagonistic forces were stuck in a confrontational atmosphere with no discernible way out.
This engaging collection of 13 essays weighs up Thailand’s situation before and after the 2006 coup. The contributors shed light on the intersections between the 1997 Asian economic crisis, the southern conflict, and the crisis of legitimacy culminating in the abolition of the 1997 constitution following the 2006 coup. The crucial moment in this complex dynamic is the 2001 decision of the Constitutional Court to acquit Thaksin of assets concealment and his following landslide electoral success. Did this moment mark a specific crisis of the judiciary? It comes as no surprise that the 2007 constitution contemplates increasing the judiciary’s power in an attempt to embank politicians’ rampant corruption, and with a corresponding weakening of the executive. The chapters are organised into three sections; the first focuses on democracy and the constitutions of 1997 and 2007, the second on the southern conflict, the third on the economic policies of the last decade and their effects.
The book opens with Michael Montesano’s analysis of the political contests during the year leading up to the coup, identifying the polarisation between Thaksin’s insistence on the primacy of electoral mandate and his antagonists’ focus on ‘a more normative understanding of democratic government’ (p. 4), calling for the monarchy’s intervention. In his address to the Courts of 25 April 2006 the king aligned explicitly with ‘democracy’ and defined the national political situation ‘a mess’ (p. 7). Montesano examines key factors in the political crisis, including the network of the monarchy’s prominent figures, the southern conflict and Singapore’s economic position (pp. 14–20). As it becomes clear in the following chapters the political polarisation transmuted, leaving exposed before everyone’s eyes the ever-increasing gap between urban affluence and rural poverty. Thitinan Pongsudhirak discusses this antagonism together with the related ‘crisis of legitimacy’ and ‘vicious cycle of Thai politics’ (new constitution, election, corrupt government) (p. 29). He points out that the 1997 constitution portrayed democracy as entailing people’s responsibility and obligation. On the other hand, Chairat Charoensin-o-larn highlights how the 2007 constitution focuses on ethics in politics but dangerously blurring the distinction between judiciary, legislative and executive powers; it also gives the military a right to declare a ‘state of exception’ (p.70). Concern for the heightened legislative power of the judiciary is mirrored in Vitit Muntarbhorn’s chapter. The final impression is that of a ‘directed democracy’ rather than a participatory one (p. 82). What goes amiss in the present crisis is the pledge of the rural masses which found recognition in some of Thaksin’s populist policies. Suchit Bunbongkarn recognises the possibility of an enduring political polarisation, punctually confirmed by facts, but with the positive note that the rural masses have learnt how to ‘articulate their interests’ and keep politicians accountable (p. 93). Most affected by the new constitution are the independent institutions of good governance (for example NESAC), as explained by Gothom Arya (pp. 38–48).
The four chapters devoted to the sapped southern conflict emphasise its relevance in the deterioration of the national political climate. Chaiwat Satha-Anand sets out by summarising the work of the National Reconciliation Commission, and highlights how difficult it is to just assess the correct numbers of victims in this conflict. He states that ‘all numbers in conflict situations are by and large political. Statistics also become casualties to violence’ (p. 97), although I point out Michel Foucault’s consideration that numbers and counting are always political (see Appadurai 1996). Chaiwat delineates three causes for the persistence of the problem: a) ‘the insecurity industry’, with different people gaining from the continuation of violence, b) the prevalence of a nation-security discourse branding the south as a peripheral avenue of global Islamic terrorism, and c) the persisting discourse enhancing Thailand’s successful history of accommodating differences rather than acknowledging the ‘domestic colonization’ of the south (pp. 101–5). The struggle between security forces and insurgents (or ‘bandits’) is maintained also through selection and training of the military and paramilitary (Rangers) operating in the region, which ignore the notion of ‘human rights’ (p. 104–5). This is a cogent point; however, Lesley Gill demonstrates that precisely human rights discourse figures prominently in the U.S. based School of the Americas’ training curriculum in order to maintain a façade against mounting evidence and accusation of being, all the same, the schooling ground to many of the most brutal South American military officers (Gill 2004). Since drastic military action, assimilated metaphorically by Chaiwat to cutting the Gordian knot with Alexander’s sword, has not resolved the southern Thai conflict, we must untie the knot using a better policy.
Michael Connors follows up analysing the ‘cultural policy’ of the struggle. Malay culture is promoted by the government as part of a Thai identity (based on a rhetoric of cultural diversity), and resisted by Islamic fundamentalists as remnant of a pre-Islamic period. Connors identifies the formation in the south of a ‘stateless nation’ antagonistic to ‘Thai-centric nationalism’, an entity of equal status which is alien to the very ethno-ideology of “Thainess” (p. 112–13). This opposition has been nurtured by the colonising and paternalistic project of developing the south. The attempt to reconstitute the SBPAC dismantled by Thaksin as a new Strategic Administrative Centre presents difficulties if it is not accompanied by, for example, accepting Malay as the working language and overcoming the government’s ‘indiscriminate suspicion’ against Muslim religious teachers and students (p. 118–19). But an acknowledgment of cultural diversity could potentially lead to the recognition of an existing Malay ‘nation’.
John Funston focuses on the Gordian knot of three different proposals of decentralisation, whose dismissal contributed to the deterioration of the situation up to the 2006 coup. Funston describes how a certain degree of decentralisation already operates in the form of special security-administrative structures, administrative and educational arrangements, such as Civilian-Police-Military Task Force 43, the SBPAC (both active since the early 1980s and closed down in 2002 by Thaksin), Islamic courts and pondok schools, a National Islamic Council and provincial Islamic committees (p. 127–128). Wan Kadir Che Man suggested that the real difference would be to strengthen local administration (like it was envisaged by the 1997 constitution), with elected assemblies. The solution proposed by the NRC in 2006 comprises interventions at ‘individual’, ‘structural’, and ‘cultural’ levels, including recognition of Malay as a ‘working language’ (pp. 130–131). The possibility of creating a regional administrative unit by bringing together three or more provinces, a Pattani (or Patani) Metropolis, was voiced by Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit in 2004 but its realisation would be considered by many ‘a first step toward southern independence’ (p.133).
Joseph Chinyong Liow investigates the multifaceted aspects of Islamic education in Southern Thailand, a phenomenon usually approached as ‘a monolithic entity’ (p. 136). Liow exposes the influence of prominent religious figures and international educational networks, from the traditional Malay-speaking halaqah in Masjid Al-Haram to the reforms introduced by Haji Sulong Abdul Kadir, Saudi government funding of madrasah and the more recent reformism of Ismail Lutfi Japakiya. Lutfi’s teaching focuses on the relevance of context (for example in Islamic jurisprudence, or fiqh), and is very critical of the contemporary violence in the region. The picture presented is of a complex background which cannot be reduced to a one-dimensional ‘Wahhabi extremism’, and should include the multiple dynamics between advocate reformists and traditionalists, often summarised locally as the Kaum Muda (Young Group)-Kaum Tua (Old Group) antagonism.
The third and final section of the book offers economic analyses of the transition from the Thaksin government to the post-coup situation, including its effects on investments. Peter Warr defines as ‘stalled recovery’ the Thaksin government’s hallmark, a broken promise of the 2001 election campaign revolving around overcoming the 1997–1998 financial crisis and poverty reduction. Thailand’s Boom period (1987–1996) driven by high and stable domestic and foreign investments in physical capital ended with the most severe and lasting contraction among Asian countries (pp. 153–54). In Thailand poverty incidence is concentrated in rural areas (especially the Northeast) and related to poor education and rate of economic growth. Warr contends that the economic aspect to the southern conflict should also be taken into account since household income per capita in Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala are in the range of the north and northeast regions with peaks of poverty incidence double the national average (p.168). The Thaksin government’s efficiency in reducing poverty, although introducing some important measures, is not relevantly different from previous governments. However, we must say that the rural masses from the north and northeast perceived his successful policies as particularly innovative. Bhanupong Nidhiprabha discusses the effects of the Thai political crisis on economic growth and poor performance compared to other Asian countries, due especially to measures endorsed by the junta towards capital control to tighten foreign investment criteria (p.177–81). Still in 2007 the Thai economy was growing slowly, with a steady decline in the tourism industry. However, the concluding chapter by Glen Robinson claims that taking as a measure foreign direct investment, applications to the Board of Investment and numbers of Australian tourists the negative reaction by foreign investors was more in the media and newspaper headlines than in the real market. This interpretation does not rule out the possibility of higher levels of investment had Thailand not experienced the coup.
This volume offers a rich analysis of multiple antagonisms and polarisations which keep Thailand from embracing a full-fledged participatory democracy and political stability, both at the national and at the local level. For this reason the book is good introductory reading to all those who want to gain a broader understanding of the Thai entrenched political crisis.
References
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Number in the colonial imagination. In Modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Gill, Lesley. 2004. The School of the Americas: military training and political violence in the Americas. Durham NC: Duke University Press.
