Why Thai Politics is No Longer Normal

Posted Below is a longer version of a piece that appears in the The AGE today.

For Italian Translation Click Here or for Chinese translation see below.

Written for a general audience, I focus on broad trends rather than immediate analysis of what is happening now. As for current events, no one who supports the right of people to protest can support the use of military with armed weapons to end the stand-off. The degeneration into this state abuse of power is not excusable, and despite the existence of paramilitary elements in the red-shirts, the disproportionate use of weaponry by the government side is to be condemned.
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When a social order is threatened, politics becomes about defining friend and enemy. Then you wage a rule-less war for complete victory.

History is a fat pile of friend/enemy wars and as monstrous as it sounds, this is how transformative change sometimes happens. In the process, old social orders survive by reform or tumble, and new orders rise. It is never pretty, and often bloody.

So it has been since former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was outsted in a coup in 2006.

The street battles and rising death toll in Bangkok right now signal that fundamentalist antagonists are now waging war over who defines democracy.

The red-shirts are seeking a new social order. The Democrat Party led-governing coalition, backed so far by the military, are committed to restoring a social order that is now in ashes. Each sees the other as the enemy.

The violent actions of both sides in the street battles are born of this dangerous logic of friend/enemy, and do not tell us much about what they stand for, what kind of Thailand they wish to build.

Some recent history will help.

After the 1991 coup and its bloody aftermath in May 1992, a politically liberal reform movement emerged. Elites recognised that the semi-democracy of the 1980s, when a retired general depended on palace support to stay as prime minister, was an age gone by. The movement resulted in the celebrated 1997 “People’s Constitution”, which enshrined the liberal doctrine at the heart of the Thai state. Henceforth, executive power (coming from a democratic mandate) would be scrutinised by a variety of liberal checks and balances, an electoral commission, and constitutional and administrative courts.

Some believe the liberal political settlement was devised in anticipation that King Bhumiphol’s death – even then thought to be in the twilight of his reign – required Thailand embrace an open politics based on robust political institutions.

Nevertheless, suspicious of the dangers of majoritarian democracy, elite liberals embraced a role for the monarchy, who they popularly represented as the supreme ombudsman, virtuous and able to restrain the venality of politics. Thus, the monarchy that had a reciprocal relationship with military dictators from the 1950s onwards was reinvented as a liberal institution by elites who feared full democracy without a moralizing centre to restrain mass appetite.

In anycase, no one expected a smooth path to liberal democracy. The military’s corporate interests remained and networks around the monarchy continued to wield power. Corruption was pervasive. Rather, the project was to be gradual and generational.

Then the project came unstuck. When the liberally-oriented Democrat Party ruled during the Asian Economic Crisis of 1997-2000, it failed to offer anything except implementation of an IMF austerity program. Such liberal feebleness paved the way for Thaksin Shinatara and his brand of authoritarian populism and popular pro-poor policies.

During his term as prime minister (2001-2006) Thaksin systematically tore up the aspirational liberal settlement. His disregard for human rights and the institutions of checks and balances is well documented, as is his undoubtable electoral support, which won him office in 2001 and 2005 (and would possibly see a pro-Thaksin government returned to power were elections held soon). Liberalism and Democracy parted ways.

The yellow-shirt movement against Thaksin that arose in 2005/2006 was a mixture of the liberal middle class elements, rural poor, and unionists opposed to privatisation programmes. There were also elite conservative elements who feared Thaksin was pushing them from their pedestal as power-brokers. They viewed Thaksin as a threat to the social order and most importantly to the monarchy.

Since 2006 liberals have loosely pacted with conservative elements in the state, and the yellow shirts, to defeat Thaksin and his supporters. Together, they brought down an elected pro-Thaksin government in late 2008. They are driven by a flawed logic of gradually returning Thailand to something like the liberal settlement of 1997 – with all its compromises. Some anti-Thaksin elements have called for a “new politics” that does away with full electoral democracy.

The current government, led by Abhisit Vejjajiva, recognises there are genuine grievances among the redshirts and has offered a raft of pro-poor policies since taking office in late 2008. Thai liberalism has moved towards a form of social liberalism that recognises the importance of equal opportunity. But perhaps, as in all revolutionary situations, this is too little too late. And now associated with scores of deaths as a consequence of the crackdown underway, what future does the government have?

What of the red-shirts, what social order, should they win, can we expect?

The redshirts are a diverse movement of middle layer farmers, leftwing activists, rural poor, working class urban elements, and middle class professions, and business. Importantly, Thaksin and his political networks play a role too. Frustrated with a failed year-long campaign to bring down the government, they have moved to endgame on the streets of Bangkok. Some redshirts have also embraced a para-military solution.

They pledge to return the 1997 Constitution, deal with the bureaucratic and aristocratic elements of the state, and make democracy ‘edible’. They support market capitalism and want a better deal for the “commoner”. They rightly speak of double standards in the execution of law, and of non-transparent processes that are non-democratic. Their program is powerfully attractive, but fatally flawed.

Like liberals who have failed to come to terms with the non-democratic nature of conservative institutions in Thailand, the red-shirt leadership and its backers refuse to publicly account for the authoritarian slide under Thaksin.

They have mobilized a powerful myth of a democratic oasis at the centre of which stands the Thaksin era. But apart from calling for an immediate election to enable the victory of Pheu Thai, the pro-Thaksin opposition party, no one knows what a red-shirted democracy would look like.

Thai politics is obviously no longer in a “normal phase”. It’s as if a textbook struggle between liberalism and democracy is taking place, except that real people are being killed.

Chinese Translation - Thanks to Ng Cheng Beng

为什么泰国政治已不再正常
当社会秩序受到威胁，政治成为界定朋友与敌人。然后有人发动一场没有法纪的战争，以求达到完全的胜利。
历史是一堆朋友与敌人的战争，它听起来虽骇人听闻，却正是改变有时发生的原因。在这个过程里，旧的秩序或因改革而得以生存，或倒下而新的秩序得以抬头。这，从来不会是美丽的，反倒常是很血腥的。
这，就是泰国前首相达信，在二零零六年的一场政变，被推翻以来的写照。
在曼谷的街头战，和持续上升的死亡人数，显示基本教条主义的对抗者，现在正在发动一场战争，看谁在界定民主。
红杉军要求新的社会秩序。民主党领导的联合政府 - 至今仍受军方的支持，要求恢复社会秩序，但它现已成灰。双方互视为敌人。
双方的暴力行动，因朋友/敌人这个危险的逻辑而产生，他们并没有告诉我们，他们的立场，以及他们希望建造一个怎样的泰国。
一些过去的历史，可以帮助了解情况。
一九九一年的政变，以及它在一九九二年造成的血惺暴动之后，一股政治自由改革的运动产生了。精英份子承认，一九八零年代的半民主时代已一去不返。这个运动导致了有名的一九九七年“人民宪法”，它将自由主义教条，载入泰国的国家核心。自此以后，行政权力（来自民主的授权）一直受到各种自由主义制衡，选举委员会，以及宪法和行政的检验。
没有人期待，自由民主的道路，会是一帆风顺的。军方的团体利益，保留不变，而围绕着王室的联络网，一直在巩固势力。贪污猖獗。
这个计划本应该是循序渐进的。然而，它却脱序了。
当自由派的民主党，在一九九七至二零零零年，亚洲金融危机时间执政，它完全束手无策，只得实行国际货币基金制定的紧缩方案。自由派的衰弱，为达信和他的独裁民粹主义，以及他的受欢迎、有利於穷人的政策铺路。
在他为首相的任期，达信把得来不易的理想自由主义撕毁了。他无视人权和体制的制衡，以及他在选举得到的支持，让他在二零零一年和二零零五年赢得执政，这些皆有案可稽。自由主义与民主於是分道扬镳。
黄衫军反对达信，发生在二零零五 - 二零零六年，它是自由主义中产份子，反对私营化计划的乡村穷人，和工会会员的混合产物。还包括保守派的精英份子，他们害怕达信把他们作为权力掮客的基本盘给移走。他们视达信为对社会秩序，更重要的对王室，是一种威胁。
自二零零六年，自由派和国家的保守份子、以及黄衫军，结成松散的联盟，打败了达信和他的支持者。他们一起在二零零八年后期，把支持达信的政府给弄下台。他们是基於一个错误的逻辑，以为可以让泰国慢慢地回到好像一九九七年那种自由主义 - 包括所有的妥协。有一些反达信份子，还呼吁实行一种“新的政治”，取消全面民主选举。
阿比昔领导的现任政府承认，在红衫军之间存有真正的不满，自从他於二零零八年后期出任首相以来，他也提出了一系列有利於穷人的措施。泰国的自由主义，已经转移成一种社会自由主义的形式，承认平等机会的重要性。但，或许正如所有的革命，它来得有点太迟、太慢了。而由於现在正在进行的镇压，造成了几十人死亡，政府将会有什么样的未来呢？
假如红衫军赢，我们将可期待怎么样的社会秩序呢？
红衫军是由中间阶层的农夫、左翼活跃份子、城市穷人，城市的工人阶级份子，和中产专业人仕组成的一个复杂运动。重要的是，达信与他的政治联络网也扮演了一个角色。对一个失败、长达一年而无法打倒现任政府的宣传运动感到沮丧，他们不惜在曼谷采取街头的最后一战。有些红衫军也赞同成立辅助军的方案。
他们誓言回到一九九七年宪法，对付国家的官僚与贵族份子，让民主“可以食用”。他们支持市场资本主义，而又要求让“平民百姓”得到更好的待遇。他们的计划很吸引人，但，却是一个致命的错误。
正如自由派无法与泰国的保守机构达致妥协，红衫军领袖也拒绝公开对达信的独裁负责。
他们发动了一个强大的民主绿洲神话，而站在它的中心的是达信的时代。但，除了呼吁立刻举行大选，让支持达信的反对党为泰党赢得胜利之外，没有一个人知道，红衫军的民主，倒底是什么个样子的。
泰国的政治，明显的，已经不是一个正常的状态。它看来好像正在举行一场教课书上，关於自由主义与民主的斗争，例外的是，有人真的被杀害了。

作者：麦可康纳斯（Michael Connors）
发表於：19.05.2010
麦可康诺斯在澳洲La Trobe University教政治学。他是《泰国的民主与国家认同》（Democracy and National Identity in Thailand）一书的作者。
译者：苏杭