absolutelyBangkok archive · News & Media
Originally published March 17, 2010
Tragic really, Thailand would have the grassroots movement she needs — but there is no leadership. People are yearning for betterment and fundamental change — but their leaders just led them them into another pipe dream. Over the coming hours and days the red leadership may discredit this so important movement even further. Be it by escalation or retreat, the war is lost, and these are the consequences:
1) The reds let their nemesis, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, shine with statesman-like resolve and actually strengthen Abhisit’s position. 2) Thailand’s already dire international reputation would have gone to the dogs — no government on the moon gives in to barrages of curses and ritualistic blood politics -, but a government in control gives at least a sense of normality and hey, maybe we’re not moving backwards anymore.
3) Thaksin’s return is now an even more distant prospect. On top of it, he wasted the reds’ so precious benefit of doubt with his last phone-ins. He either lost his mind or touch with reality, he’s schizophrenic or under immense pressure by daring to beg his enemies to please switch side — even the generals who ousted him! -, while his latest homophobic and Hitler rant hardly increased his standing as a hetero democrat. Are we witnessing Thaksin’s public mental breakdown? Signs of a red self-laceration? It’s gonna be an even longer wait for the reds until elections sometime in 2011.
Thaksin and the reds have to restart from scratch. Yes, short-term memory is a predominant around here. Soon we may get promised a Two Million March. Chances are though that the reds got humiliated — unfairly! — to such an extent that it’s even too late for damage control. These red leaders running about like headless chickens are not what the movement deserves. Imagine the march would succeed — whom to elect?
Nah, there never was any serendipity in Thai politics, but the reds meant hope. Stability and strategic planing are no concepts of the past, but Thailand currently certainly enjoys some modern comforts brought by the current regime. Let’s assume the reds and their political wing manage to lead a coalition. They’ll have one big aim to fight for. The rehabilitation and return of Thaksin into power. National politics will come to a standstill until that goal is reached.
The man’s not finished until the day he dies. But his fate makes his politics too radical for the time being. Thailand has other issues than being preoccupied with the life of one man — who was actually saying the other night he has to go to bed because tomorrow he has to decorate a hotel he has invested in. While his people were bleeding for him. Have no sources if he splashed his own blood against a nearby Thai embassy… Solidarity is not a virtue coined by Thaksin.
Thaksin’s humiliated post-march reds don’t deserve the mess they find themselves in. They’re denounced as crazy superstitious rural hordes — people who are not joking when they say they’re giving their life with the blood sacrifice. Well, someone is taking their life.
Before the reds start their revolution, it’s never too late for a revolution in the own house. Thailand’s disenfranchised deserve better. And — for some it’s important — no further affronts to ethics (blood). For some clean ethics are the basics of honest politics.
Sad to say, but the red march made clear, as of now Thailand doesn’t have a credible political alternative.
From the absolutelyBangkok archive. Back to all stories