Thitinan & The Symbolism Of Ratchaprasong

Full house at the FCCT once again when a kind of The Last of the Mohicans among local academics, Ajarn Thitinan Pongsudhirak, took the floor only hours before the red Ratchaprasong rally culminated in a conditional declaration of victory. The reds want government guarantees and Abhisit shall not look like a hero. Enough is enough, you hear the people scream. Playing hardball in overdrive? Well, they formally accepted the roadmap.

Much was posturing and charade. We just don’t know when they pack their bags. Warned Thitinan: “If the reds delay a decision there will be repercussions (…) If the red shirts are intransigent public opinion will turn against them.” He himself though doesn’t worry that much about tomorrow. No doubt, the reds got out of hand. His real worry is the Thailand in two decades when he’s retired and his daughter has to make a life of her own. “We don’t want to become like the Philippines,” he told me.

Following is a first person transcript of what he said. Another intellectual firework of this insider who is neither side’s lapdog as the many other academics who lost credibility by siding with pseudo-liberals and fake democrats. But let’s start from the beginning:

The focus of Thitinan’s talk was on the Ratchaprasong rally – you can actually hear the loudspeakers and see the rally from the FCCT. But why Ratchaprasong? To this day Ratchadamnern was the hotbed of liberalism, the seat of the power of authority. But people today who want to make a difference, they move beyond Phan Fa and Government House.

The space for democracy movements has changed, said Thitinan. And why is that so. With the politicization of Ratchaprasong the red shirts chose a place with stark differences. Ratchaprasong represents the fruits of prosperity with Bangkok’s major shopping malls. In the 1970s Ratchaprasong was the site of Thailand’s first shopping center Daimaru – where today you find BigC. Ratchaprasong reinforces the reds’ claim of the fight against the ammart, the aristocracy, to sap the pockets of the ammart and paralyze. It’s very difficult to break this strategic location blocked in four directions with six main fortifications.

According to Thitinan the army would need at least six batallions, a batallion of 800 or so, that’s two regiments, so you really need a whole division of three regiments to subdue the protesters. You need another division or two as backup to subdue in the provinces. So the red shirts have chosen a strategic location with symbolic meaning, getting at the heart of their fight against the ammart.

The main stage is set up near the Royal Thai Police Headquarters. If you let thousands of soldiers march they have to amass at one place, so the red shirts must have some confidence that police do not act against them. Furthermore the Police Hospital is right on the corner of the red stage, so why no problems with the Police Hospital? To have snipers in there, and not in the Chulalongkorn Hospital, would be logical. But that has not happened so far.

So today Ratchaprasong is not only the center of development, but also democratization. The yellow shirts as well with their Suvarnabhumi blockade relied on new place for their protest. Globalization, development and democracy play together.

Many people on the outside remain puzzled how this thriving democracy can have broken down. We are in the search for a new consensus. What will have to happen are short-term resolutions, but there are medium-term implications and longer-term issues that have to be addressed. For now the ball’s in the court of the red shirts.

According to Prime Minister Abhisit’s compromise parliament would has to be dissolved on October 1st by the latest. Reds have very good reasons to counter with their own proposals. But if they delay a decision there will be repercussions. What we don’t want is acts of bad faith. We don’t need maneuvering behind the scenes and a breakdown of the process. To end the vicious cycle we need good faith on all sides. If the red shirts are intransigent public opinion will turn against them.

In the medium and long term there are many more issues that have to be addressed. This is a short gap. To get closer to a consensus needed they need more negotiations to come to terms with what happened and with what will be required for Thailand’s transformation.

Asked if the red shirts voiced much of a policy Thitinan answered they haven’t. They haven’t come out with a policy platform if they’d come to power. But their strategy was to make the government ungovernable. Now they need to come up with what kind of Thailand they see and they need to sell that.

Now they could rationalize the Abhisit roadmap by showing good faith and providing a good omen for what’s to happen on Coronation Day. At the end of the day they have achieved what they wanted, a dissolution of the lower house. A little bit later than demanded, but it’s still a dissolution, while in the countryside there is a lot of unprecedented mobilization.

An unnegotiable issue for the government is army reshuffle. General Prayuth is in line to take over. If red shirts accept this proposal we gonna see a repeat of the campaigns in December 2007 and during the referendum.

Asked if the government went too far with the emergency law and the term „terrorists“ Thitinan recommended “the best article in the last forty years on Thai politics” written by Professor Benedict Anderson in 1977: “Withdrawal Symptoms.” The same framework can be applied today. There have been various attempt to corner the red shirts, but none has gotten the traction like in 1976. Today the knockout punch is the disloyalty to the monarchy and all these charges – a complex web of relationships that defies methodology. It has no basis.

Nevertheless there are strrong parallels to 1976, but this time the allegations don’t stick. Reds also try to shake off these allegations by demonstrating allegiance to the crown. Yes, there has been a concerted effort to try to recreate the 1976 hysteria leading to the crushing of the reds, the students in 1976. But this time it hasn’t played out the same way.

Asked how the terrorist charges against red leader will play out Thitinan answered that the details are the key that will be decisive. One major sticking point is what will happen with all these wrongdoings, with all the illegal acts, the occupation of this area, the fatalities we’ve seen and the violence. The line has to be drawn somewhere what is criminal and what is political. They haven’t hammered out those terms yet. If they wanna go after the ultimate terms this would go back to all the banned politicians and so on.

Whatever Thailand can offer in terms of political talent is out of action, what can be exonerated, what not, what is criminal, what not, and how to make the playing field even.

Thitinan’s take on Abhisit? He would be a good professor. Coming out to soon has its price. Coming out too soon is regretful. There will be another time when we would need a man like him, but then he may not be available anymore. Abhisit is likeable, but came out at the wrong time at the wrong place. He could not connect to people. He has had one whole year in 2009 to do it, remember when he came in, remember how he promised reform and reconciliation.

He had to reach out for the people who didn’t vote for him or didn’t like him. Instead he has further antagonized his opponents. Now the tone and the details of his proposals sound very smooth, but he has a tendency to say things that don’t happen. This is a prime minister who has been holed up in a military barrack. Understandably so, there are death threats. But one has difficulties that he’s not doing someone else’s bidding, which is a pity because he is a good bright man Thailand could need in the future.

Abhisit is rationalizing himself that he’s the savior of the throne. That’s a bad self-fulfilling situation. One day there can be a self-fulfilling outcome. We all don’t want that. The monarchy is good for Thailand, as are the fundamental forces at play with the adjustments of constitutional monarchy and democratic development.

Still, red core leader Dr. Weng called Abhisit the “Pol Pot of Thailand,” “a Hitler,” a questioner said. A lot of issues still need to be discussed. One cannot seriously think of Democrats campaigning in red zones.

Thitinan concedes that the election campaigns could be very nasty ones. We could end up in the same vicious cycle with the loser not accepting. We need something on the table with nuts and bolts, but at the same time they need a consensus about the rules of the game, and there can’t be a blanket amnesty because there were fatalities. You have dead people now, there have to be investigations, there are many layers.

A lot of the talk is about posturing to bargain from a position of strength. A lot of this has to do with negotiation tactics. But most important are good will and good faith. That also requires the synchronizing the Thailand of the past with the Thailand of the future. What kind of Thailand Thaksin and the reds see in the recent past and in the future – and how the government sees them.

We had everything in the 1997 constitution, said Thitinan. The 2007 constitution is lopsided and uneven. When the basis is crooked the outcome is not necessarily acceptable. Still, with more checks and so on you can understand that the minority from the Thaksin days favor some safeguards.

The minority has to be safeguarded and not abused. Majority rule is not a blank cheque for abuse and corruption. Majority rule yes, but no abuse of minority rights.