The Unbearable Lightness Of Civil War
Considered myself to be in the middle, neither pro anyone nor against any party. But since that FCCT presser with the red shirts’ Khun Jaran speaking casually about the possibility of civil war I had to take a side. Made a turn, albeit reluctantly.
Today’s headlines are dominated by the gloom and doom of a looming civil war. Without much understanding what civil war is. People talk about it as lightly as talking about an adventurous, noble pastime. It’s all hearsay and tertiary experience what a civil war might be. But hey, we saw it on TV.
Anyone lived in a civil war yet? Well I was working in war-like environments, but the prospect of urban warfare for the sake of some hardcore red shirts’ version of democracy has me dumbfounded. How ignorant can you be? You’ll soon be longing for a dictator, as long as there’s some kind of stability. Any kind. Today’s legitimate and dubious reasons that justify and at the same time scorn the red march could soon look frustratingly insignificant.
Civil war as per Wikipedia‘s definition:
A civil war is a war between organized groups within a single nation state, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation-state. The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies. It is high-intensity conflict, often involving regular armed forces, that is sustained, organized and large-scale. Civil wars may result in large numbers of casualties and the consumption of significant resources.
Ready for that? In the name of democracy? In Thailand, the paradise?!
Rebels without a cause, unable to prevent tragedy from befalling their reckless anti-heroism (to speak with James Dean …).
Looks like without some serious ugly blood-letting some people – yes count them in, the yellows – have no clue what they’re talking about when suggesting, some even glorifying, civil war as a means to an end.
Just imagine how Bangkok could be like in, say, a year. How life would be. Just think, for a minute.
Good comment, thanks!
I hope the best for Thailand.
Thailand needs change & the government needs to do something NOW to prevent hardening the opinions of both sides.
The reds see the Abhisit government as murderers & the multi-colors see the reds as stupid upcountry buffalos. This attitude needs to change, they have to get to know each other.
Thailand may be a paradise, but only to a blinkered or besotted gaze. And at any rate it has no enduring duty to be your paradise.
I think you have taken a turn a while back you know!
(BD: Not true Terry, read the relevant past posts.)
It is sad, isn’t it? No matter who wins, we’ll probably end up with a dictatorship.
It is now naive to think that the red objective is just to force the old elites into taking a more ceremonious role in society, like many Western liberal thinkers have suggested.
Perhaps, it was their original objective, but when they and the government are calling each other murderers and terrorists respectively, the obviously reasonable demand is now unachievable. What is in the mindset of both camps, possibly, is that murderers and terrorists don’t get to be government.
Giles was just, last night, calling for the Iranian revolution-type uprising. Drama queen, I thought. The problem with Thais, and the English-Chinese Giles is included, is that they are a romantic bunch. Talk to any red or yellow, emotion trumps logic.
In terms of nature and tactics of the movement, the transformation of red shirt to yellow shirt has completed. They have become dogmatic, taking all of what Jatuporn and Nattawut said as a fact and repeating them on facebook or twitter or whatever.
Talking to them personally has indicated that they, too, have become rather agitated by the government’s inaction.
For four or five consecutive nights now, I have seen my red shirt friends enthusiastically waiting for either a crackdown or a coup on my facebook newsfeed. Crying wolf, I thought. But, really, it is becoming like waiting for Godot.
I agree with you Dan that a civil war is an appalling idea. I think that the diplomatic initiative to find a compromise between the two sides was a reflection of the real concern of Thailand’s friends that violence is more of a probability that a possibility if there is no compromise. At the urging of the diplomats, and in response to the pressures of the situation that they now find themselves in, its clear that the red’s softened their position considerably. What is not clear is why the government is unwilling to soften its own position. Yes I know that they constitute the legitimate authority of the state but trying to impose their will unilaterally in the face of large scale opposition is a recipe for the creation of an insurgency. So many conflicts, including the one currently taking place in southern Thailand, have begun this way.
Something similar happened in my own country giving rise to three long murderous decades of Low Intensity Conflict. Banned from the airwaves and in a gerrymandered electoral system, even long after the original issues that had begun the civil rights protests had been addressed, the conflict and the terrorism continued. Attempts to impose the will of the state unilaterally against this kind of opposition succeed only in driving many of the people who support peaceful protests into the arms of extremists. During its worst years the terrorism in Northern Ireland did not claim 1,000 lives but, if you look at the per capita fatalities and transfer that proportionally to Thailand then a thousand deaths a year seems quite optimistic for here. And given Thailand is already the third highest ranking country in the world (after Afganistan and Columbia) when it comes to per capita homicide you have to wonder about the propensity for Thai people for violence. Its a proverbial genie in the bottle and I sincerely hope that this particularly genie is not released outside of the South which is bad enough.
It doesn’t matter who you blame for the situation. Without a compromise solution that enables both sides to save face, or an intervention that can cut the gordian knot of mutual distaste, a huge problem will be created. The “crackdown” on the Irish Civil Rights marchers gave birth to the modern provisional IRA. Like the black clothed armed men today, there were a few IRS men in the background of the Civil Rights movement. But Bloody Sunday served as the greatest recruitment campaign the militants could have wished for. A similar crackdown here could create something far worse given the abundance of military trained and armed opponents to this regime. Let’s hope that the people in power realize the risk that making no compromise entails before its too late.
Forget about showing Hotel Rwanda. The film they should be showing is Bloody Sunday.
Bloody Sunday?
The whole stalemate happened because the army doesn’t want to shoot people!
Last April reds believed soldiers were shooting into the crowd and they fled like hell.
This year they know they can get away with murder, literally, before soldiers turn their guns on them, so they stay defiant.
Their leaders take advantage of the army playing by “international rules” while they employ services of merciless “Ronins” killing people right and left without discrimination, and then they cynically berate the government for being bloodthirsty.
StanG,
The army DOES NOT DARE to shoot at people because they know the dire consequences. Many of them are also watermelons — something that you always deny its existence.
One can only admire the patience of the Thai people and government, as frustrating as this level of “tolerance” is. Has anyone any clue who’s in charge? Every other government anywhere in the world only slightly in control would long have cleaned up. Now some of the dear red liberators were blocking the Skytrain with tires – every action they take aims at escalation, but when the police beat them up they lodge a police complaint … hilarious.
The more Thai people hold back, the nastier the whole mess may explode.
Worst of it, the reds have become so predictable, but they’re in complete denial of terrorizing their own people.
BangkokDan
Apart from the watermelon soldier issue, perhaps another reason why the government “cleanup” has not come is that deep down they know they lack the legitimacy to do so.
Would be different if they were a normal elected government, and if there had been no double standard (e.g. yellow airport invasion inaction, political party dissolutions, declarations of state of emergency, etc.), but the whole protest is about those legitimacy/double standard issues, and even Dan acknowledges the reds grievances are not baseless.
The solution always was, and still is, an election in three months – avoiding it just costs more lives.
Unfortunately Abhisit has upped the stakes dramatically with his talk of terrorists, and now the resurrected Finland Plot – perhaps he can once again call upon the king to appoint a new PM.
Are you actually living in Thailand, if so do you ever travel outside the air-conditioned shopping malls and office buildings that mark the vast majority of expat territory?
In the past six months I have traveled far and wide across Thailand via bicycle, bus, train, plain, tu- tuk, mini van and foot and I have never once heard anyone, either expat or Thai, even consider the likelihood of civil war.
May I suggest you get a new yaba supplier, there may be something more in your mind that pure thoughts!