Reflections

Our friends on the far right have recently come out to say a few interesting and controversial things. Among them are these thoughts:

Sondhi also opines that he does not believe in the majoritarian system because Parliament is a place of evil. He will fight against the one-man-one-vote system because he wants a ‘Dharma-ocracy’ instead. If Mr Abhisit cannot achieve it, there should be a military coup. He adds that no one is bloodthirsty; people are just doing their duties.

and this from Mr Thanong

Don’t be misled by Freedom, Human rights, Democracy, globalisation and other crazy fashionable ideas. They are poisonous and hollow.

more from Mr Thanong

Let’s make it clear: Thailand is now suffering from rampant and irresponsible free speech. We don’t have enough right speech.

yet even more from Mr Thanong

I would like Abhisit government to start chart out phor phiang policy in all respects. This would shield us from impending global turmoil.

and more from Mr Thanong

If you follow me, you’ll understand the secret of Suvarnabhumi. But you have to solve the riddle of the “self” first.

and yet even more

Many of us fall under the spell of a beautiful Independence Day phrase: All men are created equal. We are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If you’re a Buddhist like me, you would not get too excited with these American phrases.Men are not born equal because each of us has different baramee depending on our accumulated deeds or karma. I have trouble with “equal rights”.

almost there

Most developed economies are already in the water after decades of overconsumption or not phor phiang.

and finally

I hate the word government. Let communities grow and government from their own community councils (sapha chumchon)

Well it seems that on one extreme we have republicanism and social welfare state as the objective, on the other extreme we have an egalitarian, agrarian, phor phiang society with no votes, and emphasis on the rural communities being self sufficient.

Bare with me now for something a little bit more academic. This is from a look into the formation of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Here is the intellectual backdrop in the movement, Khieu Samphan’s thesis which provided the inspiration for the Khmer Rouge.

In this heretofore exploitation-exploited schema, where underdevelopment grows from the yoke of capitalism and international integration, a less-developed country can expect to develop only if it severs itself from the World-System (that is, the world itself). For Khieu Samphan, autarkic development was renamed “conscious, autonomous development” to make it appear more palatable. Later, conscious, autonomous development was re-christened “self-reliance.”

Does that sound at all familiar? Or how about this, which a journalist wrote in the early days of the ‘revolution;

Can the regime recapture the grandeur of Angkor [in which the great temples were built in the 12th century] without duplicating the slavery (and by implication, the elite ) that made Angkor what it was? Is the price for liberation, in human terms, too high? Surely, as a friend of mine has written, we Americans with our squalid record in Cambodia should be “cautiously optimistic” about the new regime, “or else shut up.” At the same time, I might feel less cautions and more optimistic if I were able to hear the voices of people I knew in the Cambodian countryside fourteen years ago, telling me about the revolution in their words.

Angkor, Sukhothai, Suvarnabhumi, oh how we glorify the past. Oh here is a little tidbit on how (French) journalists were distorting the rumours coming out of Cambodia. How it was all too sensational.

These public pleas for support and the public concern raised by sensational, but false, documents finally provoked the Paris Mission of Democratic Kampuchea [Ed: Khmer Rouge Government] to protest that some journalists were degrading their profession and that the French held a major share of the responsibility for allowing these activities to continue.

or how about those pesky American Journos.

The United States press, not to be outdone, produced dramatic news reports and editorials based on refugee and unnamed intelligence sources. In retrospect, these reports were partly inaccurate and are still largely unverified. The flap illustrates the powerful and potentially dangerous force that is generated when the political machinations of a few capture the attention of a concerned and uninformed public.

and this is from a party broadcast after the ‘liberation’ of Phnom Phenh

Upon entering Phnom Penh and other cities, the brother and sister combatants of the revolutionary army . . . sons and daughters of our workers and peasants . . . were taken aback by the overwhelming unspeakable sight of long-haired men and youngsters wearing bizarre clothes making themselves undistinguishable [sic] from the fair sex. . . . Our traditional mentality, mores, traditions, literature, and arts and culture and tradition were totally destroyed by U.S. imperialism and its stooges. Social entertaining, the tempo and rhythm of music and so forth were all based on U.S. imperialistic patterns. Our people’s traditionally clean, sound characteristics and essence were completely absent and abandoned, replaced by imperialistic, pornographic, shameless, perverted, and fanatic traits.

You might think there is no relationship but I think its absolutely chilling. Then again you don’t have to believe me about what certain people believe, just watch ASTV for yourself. Or follow @thanongk on twitter. I leave you with these last few statistics on the cost of the Khmer Rouge’s ‘return to year zero.’

• 1.5 million people killed. That is 1,500,000 people killed.
• 200,000 thousand orphaned.
• 180,000 internally displaced.
• 4 million landmines

Tagged: Angkor, Khmer Rouge, PAD, Sonthi, Sukhothai, Suvarnabhumi, Thailand, Thanong