Who Doesn’t Love Him
Round one goes to Abhisit Vejjajiva, our new sunny boy prime minister who twisted us around his little finger most charmingly. The morning after his talk at the FCCT dinner I got an email from a collegue: “BTW, did you hear about Abhisit invoking Guns N’ Roses last night?” Not to mention Abhisit invoking the Killers, Oasis and others. Doesn’t that capture the hearts of many doubters.
Abhisit rocks, that’s right. Thailand’s new prime minister is an indie rock fan, headlined the Guardian. Abhisit may be running a county besieged by protests requiring a multitude of skills – “but we’re not sure listening to indie rock counts as one of them.” Who cares, or are such Western tastes proof that he’s out of touch with the Thai people? Talk Guns N’ Roses with the rural majority.
“When I look around the room,” Abhisit told the FCCT, “a lot of you were born too early” – his way of saying: look who’s younger. “The Killers new album is good,” he went on, “and there were very good releases last year, comebacks from Oasis, Metallica, even Guns N’ Roses. He particularly liked though the Arctic Monkeys’/Rascals’ side project, the Last Shadow Puppets.
Who doesn’t want such a prime minister who’s no old fogy. “Unlike his staid predecessors,” reports AP, “the 44-year-old has cultivated an image as polished and trendy. Good looking and charming, he has a page and tens of thousands of friends on the internet social networking site hi5, and brags about his love for the Newcastle United football club.”
“Abhisit, who became prime minister last month, lists French philosopher Albert Camus as one of his favorite authors, while his musical tastes range from heavy metal to British indie rock bands to Barry Manilow.”
Hmm. Who doesn’t feel old and lonely besides such a live wire armed with charm and wit. Best of it, he’s not even dead serious about his job. If the government fails to deliver, he told the FCCT, then there is no reason for it to continue to govern. Maybe it’s more fun to be down with the kids. Look out for him at your local rock club.
I’m not … impressed. At all.
Sure it’s a refreshing change from … Samak or Somchai. And by Thai standards, it’s probably huge.
But it’s merely cosmetic changes (and haircut style).
That’s the advantage of being Westerner … We already saw this kind of “new look” politicians (Tony Blair in the U.K., Nicolas Sarkozy with his totally gorgeous singer-top-model wife etc.).
But fundamentally, the same bullshit remains.
In crisis time, we would need a real leader, more than a man who is “cool” and who listens to Guns N’ Roses …
Abhisit is clearly unable to pass the Acid Test. His first decisions are exactly on the same level than the previous government policies (Surayud, Samak, Somchai), AKA zero.
Give us a Churchill, then we could talk! ;-
Well I don’t for starters. This wallflower looks like the perfect result of a carefully orchestrated and cynical PR campaign, except that there is no such intelligence in place; Thai corruption and nepotism bumbles on … the real story about what goes on behind the scenes is the interesting one, the one no one dares to talk about …