Even after the prolonged illness and eventual death of King Pumipon it is unbelievable that there are some Thais who still claim that the new “idiot” King Wachiralongkorn is all powerful and able to control the military junta.
One reason for prolonging this conspiracy theory is the mutual excitement that any discussion about the monarchy arouses. Given that the junta uses the lèse majesté law to imprison anyone who criticises the monarchy, it is understandable that discussions of “prohibited” subjects should cause such excitement. However, as I have explained in a number of my blog posts, the monarchy has always been weak and used as a tool by the military. In the case of Wachiralongkorn this is even more the case than it was for his father, who at least had some credibility in the eyes of many Thais. The lèse majesté law is also in existence in order to protect the military, who always claim to be protecting and representing the monarchy. [See https://bit.ly/2F73RoD, https://bit.ly/2teiOzQ, https://bit.ly/2AF9ozT ]
But excitement and gossip do nothing to further the struggle to increase the democratic space in Thai society.
In practice, those who have been involved with protesting against the junta’s dictatorship on the streets of Bangkok have targeted the military and their policies. If such protests began to rebuild a pro-democracy social movement from the ruins of the Red Shirts, it would be a powerful force for progressive change. In the past Thai pro-democracy movements have overthrown military juntas. They have also had an effect in pressurising governments to change policies. Even today, when the movement is not as strong as in the past, small and continuous protests by young activists have kept up the pressure on Prayut’s junta to make sure that there is no back-tracking on elections. Also campaigns to defend the universal health care service have so far stopped them introducing payment fees.
Yet there are those who belittle these struggles against the junta by saying that “democracy cannot be established without getting rid of the monarchy”. They claim that Wachiralongkorn is controlling the junta. Some of the more extreme commentators, who titillate their internet audiences with anti-monarchy stories, even go as far as to say that they are not against the military.
Given that in the present political climate it is not possible to demonstrate against the monarchy, the claims that the king controls the junta are just a recipe for doing nothing. By demanding something that is unrealistic, without also actively fighting for realistic changes, the demands become abstract. Yes, it is right that we aim for a republic, but we need to fight in the here and now for the ending of the junta and its 20 year plans to influence politics. Yes, it is right to aim for socialism, but as Rosa Luxemburg explained, socialists must also be the best fighters for reforms under capitalism.
Some Thais, who erroneously state that King Wachiralongkorn is ruling Thailand as an Absolute Monarch, also campaign against the military junta. But there is an inconsistency in their thinking because if it is the case that Wachiralongkorn is the most powerful person in Thailand, then the only meaningful campaign would be against the monarchy.
The real anti-democratic thugs in Thailand are Prayut and his cronies and the sooner we build a mass movement against the military, the sooner we can have democracy.
There are two main reasons why Thailand should be a republic and they do not include the myth that King Wachiralongkorn is supposedly an Absolute Monarch.
If we consider the reason why many countries such as Britain, Sweden, Spain, The Netherlands and Thailand have retained the institution of the monarchy from a previous era, we can understand the role of monarchies under modern capitalism.
Monarchies fulfill a reactionary ideological role which tries to promote the idea that class divisions and inequality are somehow “natural”. Monarchies are a statement that most people are born “low” while some are born “high”. It is only the high-born folk who deserve to be surrounded by immense wealth and it is only they who have the God-given right to determine political, social and economic policies.
The reactionary ideology of the monarchy serves to legitimise privilege, elitism and a lack of democratic space in society. It is an ideology which protects the ruling capitalist class. So it becomes “natural” for bosses to dictate policies in the workplace and for big business to exclude ordinary citizens from making economic policy. It becomes “unnatural” for anyone to suggest that we take away the immense wealth and power of the few in order to distribute it among the many.
The ideology of the monarchy also serves the purpose of trying to claim that we are all part of one nation with similar interests; the “National Interest”. This is an attempt to reduce class conflict.
Of course, this reactionary ideology is constantly being challenged from below, in Europe and in Thailand, which is why the elites seek constantly to reproduce it.
In this way, the monarchies and capitalist ruling classes of Britain, Sweden, Spain and The Netherlands are little different from the Thai monarchy and the Thai capitalist ruling class. This is despite some differences in detail, such as the functioning lèse-majesté law and the practice of crawling on the ground before the king in Thailand.
Many Thai political commentators are unable to break free from the socialisation by the Thai state and wrongly believe the ruling class myth that the king is all powerful. They are encouraged to believe this by ruling class nationalism which promotes the idea that Thailand is somehow unique. Therefore comparative studies of other countries are irrelevant. Therefore foreigners “cannot possibly understand Thai politics and society”. Some foreign academics, like the ones from the “Cornell Mafia”, but others too, just love to perpetuate myths about the unique Thai or Asian psyche which makes Thai or Indonesian politics so “mysterious”. Sharp analysis disappears among statements about “barami” (charisma) or about the “fact” that Asians love powerful leaders.
In Thailand the role of the monarchy is to legitimise the actions of the military, big business and the conservative bureaucracy. Thus, the military use the excuse about protecting the monarchy in order to install themselves in power and to try to crush opposition. Elected business politicians like Taksin also used the monarchy to help with his legitimacy. The difference between Taksin and the military is that the military have only royal legitimacy to justify their political interventions.
I have argued in many posts on this site, and also in longer articles, that King Pumipon and King Wachiralongkorn did not and do not have political power. The main obstacle to freedom and democracy today is the military junta. But it is the ideological role of the monarchy which we also need to abolish.
King Wachiralongkorn has not created a new “absolutist” regime, but what he has been busy doing is feathering his own nest. He insisted on a change in the military’s constitution so that he could continue to enjoy the good life in Germany without having someone else appointed over his head to act on his behalf. He has reorganised royal wealth by concentrating it in his own hands. He has asked the Bangkok zoo and other organisations to move out of prime real-estate land so that he can earn higher profits. It is all about personal greed and that is all he is interested in and all he can actually control.
This brings us to the second reason why we need a republic in Thailand. The Thai king is one of the wealthiest people in the world and given the average levels of wealth of the majority of ordinary Thai citizens, this is an obscenity. If all this ill-gotten wealth was taken off the monarchy we could improve education, health care and build a properly funded welfare state.
So the two main reasons for creating a republic in Thailand are the reactionary ideology symbolised by the monarchy and the fact that it is a parasitic institution wasting millions of much-needed resources.
For some years I have argued that king Pumipon of Thailand never had any real power and that his role was purely to give legitimacy to the political actions of the elites, especially the military. He was used by them as a symbol of the “natural order of things in society” in order to maintain the status quo.
When I have debated the power of the Thai king with some of my colleagues, especially Ajarn Somsak Jeamteerasakul and more recently Eva Hanson, their argument against my position is to say that I am looking at a narrow definition of power: the power to order something to happen. But in my view this is the essence of political power. It is a materialist, real world concept of concrete power. No other power exists. Examples of this concrete power are the power to order the military to stage a coup, the power to order the shooting down of pro-democracy demonstrators, the power to order the judiciary to make decisions according to the views of the monarchy, or the power to dictate political, economic and social policy. Quite a few Thais actually believed that king Pumipon had such concrete power. Yet it could never be proved.
However, those who argue against my definition of power claim that the Thai king never had to order anything directly because people would “know” what he desired and would therefore issue the orders on his behalf.
Now, in my view, this is just playing with words. Those that claimed to “know” the king’s wishes, without him ever ordering anything must have been engaged in self-delusion for nothing can be proven. It is not only self-deception, but a great public lie in order to justify to society what they choose to do. Without clear instructions or rebukes from the monarch there is no way of knowing that these people have correctly read the mind of the king. In fact I would go so far as to state that those claiming to be carrying out the king’s wishes in this way are merely using the king to give legitimacy to their own political agenda. This leads straight back to my position which states that the king was weak and used by the elites.
There are people all over the world who claim to be carrying out “God’s work”. This claim is made without any attempt to ever show a concrete instruction from God. There are no letters, e-mails or sound recordings of God’s wishes for us to investigate. At most there are only ancient “holy books”, which were in fact written by ordinary human beings, who claimed to be carrying out God’s work, and often these books are full of contradictions.
As an atheist I do not believe that God exists. But surely Ajarn Somsak or Eva Hanson would have to agree that using their thesis, God is in fact a very powerful and real being?
Or is it really that God is a powerful excuse used by ordinary mortals, to legitimise their actions to other humans who also believe in God?
So surely those who claim to have carried out Pumipon’s wishes are really only using what they hope is a powerful symbol in the eyes of some Thais in order to legitimise their own actions. In plain language, Pumipon was a powerful excuse to legitimise the policies of the Thai elites, irrespective of whether he agreed or disagreed with them and he never had any say in the matter either. In other words, he had no power. He was just a tool.
Of course, the Thai ruling classes had to attempt to socialise the population into respecting and loving the king in order that he could be a useful tool in the first place. But this was just propaganda which could be countered. At certain moments in history, the Communist Party successfully countered royalist propaganda. More recently some Red Shirts have done the same on a smaller scale. This is just an example of Gramsci’s “War of Position”, an ideological war.
In many societies “the law” is used by the ruling class to legitimise their actions. But “the law”, which the ruling class has written for its own benefit, is only powerful if the general population accept it. Once they do not, the real naked power of the police and army have to be used. We have seen this recently in Catalonia. We also see how the Thai junta constantly quote their own laws to justify their actions, but they are commanding the guns, tanks and the courts. Once the theatrical mask slips, we see the true nature of power.
The argument that Pumipon never had to order anyone to do anything directly, but somehow remained the most powerful man in Thailand does not hold water. It is merely another way of saying that he was used by the powerful elites to justify their actions.
In Thailand a special “Royal Language” is enforced when writing or talking about members of the royal family. The vocabulary in this royal language comes from Sanskrit via Cambodia. It applies to verbs used to describe the various actions of the royals, nouns for parts of their bodies and also their belongings. Not only this, the royals can never be called by their names but must be referred to by long strung-out titles which describe how ordinary people are lower than the dust beneath their feet.
The new King-name of the odious Wachralongkorn is a good example. It is: “SomdetPrajaoYuHuaMahaWachiralongkornBdintornTepyawaRangkun” which means “His Majesty, God Above Us ,The Great Wachiralongkorn, Succeeding in all Future Endeavours, Descended from Angels.” And this is the name of the guy who failed his education and abuses women!!
The sight of the dysfunctional and awful members of the royal family being described in such complicated terms, inherited from Cambodia, is farcical in itself because most royalist despise Cambodians. However the prolonged illness of king Pumipon before his timely death added to this farce.
Official declarations from the Palace about the king’s health were peppered with royal language describing his fevers, his lungs, his breathing, his kidneys, his urine, his blood, his head etc. Doctors were described as “offering” treatment in terms similar to offerings made to the gods. The words used were so complicated and unknown to the vast majority of Thais that each sentence had to carry translations into Thai in brackets behind each royal word. Otherwise we would not have understood any of the health bulletins.
In one of the final bulletins, they even started to use English. The term “Continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT)”, which the king was receiving, was described only in English. This might have been because they hadn’t had time to think up the royal terminology for such treatment or it could be that they wanted most Thais, who do not understand English, not to understand that Pumipon had serious kidney dysfunction, was critically ill, and about to die.
Pumipon took up an entire floor at an important state hospital in Bangkok. They even seemed to allow his dog to enter the hospital, but no doubt it only carried special and harmless royal germs.
Another aspect of the use of royal language in Thailand is that it is applied to foreign royals like the parasites in the UK and even the Pope. This is in spite of the fact that royal language is never used in the West.
All this is designed to ram it down our throats that the royals are super-humans with a higher status than us mortals. It is designed to try to ensure that we accept that there is a “natural order” in society. For those tempted to ignore this, there is the despicable lèse-majesté law used to enforce “respect” for the royals and also to protect the military and conservative elites and even the king’s dog.
Lèse-majesté is the oppressive law used to jail most political prisoners in Thailand today and many Thai exiles abroad, including myself, are living outside Thailand because of this law.
The appointment of the odious Wachiralongkorn as Thailand’s new king is a public declaration by the Thai ruling class and the military dictatorship that the abuse of women is something to be celebrated. Once again the monarchy is a stain on Thailand’s reputation. See http://bit.ly/1vQ1War
Back in 2009, I wrote a short article about what would happen when Pumipon eventually died. It is worth a brief revisit…
I wrote that “when Pumipon dies, the army and the conservative elites will hold a gigantic and very expensive funeral for him. Resources which ought to go to building welfare and raising wages will be used for this. Extensions of other King activities could take the whole thing to ten years! Pictures of the King will increase even more”.
The reason for the huge funeral events, before and after the actual cremation, is in order to shift the propaganda machine into an even higher gear. The conservative elites are desperately trying to promote and re-promote the ideology of the monarchy. Anyone who opposes the military, or the authoritarian elites and anyone who campaigns for democracy, is being accused of lèse-majesté and of trying to “overthrow Pumipon”. The fact that he is dead is of little consequence. He is the symbol of the monarchy.
The junta is using lèse-majesté against people who share the BBC Thai biography of Wachiralongkorn. For the dictatorship truth about the monarchy is a threat. Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery.
Right now, the extremely unpopular and disrespected Crown Prince is being shifted on to the Throne. He will be under the larger than life picture of Pumipon. We will never be able to forget Pumipon and his so-called “wonderful works”. Extra-long King’s anthems, with Pumipon’s pictures, are being played in cinemas and Pumipon’s birthday on 5th December will still remain a public holiday. We will see the Crown Prince, but the words “Pumipon” will be blaring out from real and virtual loud speakers.
After Pumipon, the powerful military remains. The uniforms, tanks and guns have not disappeared. The raw and repressive power of the conservative elites rests with the army. But the generals and the extreme royalist middle-classes are uneasy because their sole former source of legitimacy for their destruction of democracy has died. That is why they will extend the “Pumipon activities” for as long as possible. This will include ceremonies to refer to him as the “Great King” (Maharaj) and the building of more ugly monuments.
If it was true that Pumipon “united and held the country together, creating peace”, as trashy Western journalists love to claim, then Thailand would now be descending into violent chaos. This is not happening. The military and the conservative elites are still in power. What is more, under Pumipon Thailand has been in political crisis since 2006 and it was in chaos in the mid-1970s. Pumipon was the opposite of a unifier or a creator of peace and happiness. The only thing he did in his role as monarch was to try to create stability for the military and the conservatives.
After Pumipon, the generals now pretend to go to the palace and “receive orders” from the new king, or even claim that he is approving their actions from his huge villa in Germany. Occasionally, when it is some minor and rather silly issue, the generals will follow the Wachiralongkorn’s requests just to keep him happy and compliant. But on all important matters of policy, they will be merely informing him of their decisions.
The picture below illustrates the military’s gigantic play acting involved in using Wachiralongkorn for their own purposes. The generals crawl on the ground to create the myth that the king is all powerful. Then they do what they want in his name and repress anyone who doesn’t knuckle-under.
If the Crown Prince is hated and despised by many Thais, why has the military promoted him to be the next King? If Pumipon was all powerful, why did he not appoint his favourite child, the Princess, as his heir to the Throne? The answer is that Pumipon was too cowardly to decide anything. The military appointed the Crown Prince because their false claim that the monarchy is steeped in “ancient tradition” would collapse by any deviation from such an appointment. The Princes is unmarried by life-style choice and has no heir. Not only that, changing the succession, because the Prince was unsuitable, would mean that the monarchy could always be changed and even be abolished.
Unfortunately Taksin has sown idiotic illusions among many Red Shirts that Wachiralongkorn will be a liberal monarch. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing that Wachiralongkorn will be liberal about is helping himself to our money so that he can enjoy himself.
After Pumipon, the work of those who want a republic will not be made easier. The King’s death will provide opportunities and dangers. We have seen that the royalists have become more desperate and dangerous. But the legitimacy of the junta and its supporters can be attacked. Democracy does not fall from a branch like a ripe fruit. We have to organise to reach up and pick it and at the same time, reach up and pull down the conservative elites and their entire authoritarian system.
Embarrassing pictures of thousands of Thais crying and wearing black after the death of king Pumipon might lead a sane person to conclude that most Thais were political half-wits with a slave-like mentality. That would be a wrong conclusion.
Firstly we have to factor in the royalist military repression where anyone criticising the king is sent to jail under the draconian lèse-majesté law. Added to this is the green light given by the junta for mobs of fanatical royalists to “deal” with dissidents.
This is also one of the explanations given for the “cult of the dead king” in a recent article by Narisara Viwatchara in New Mandala [see http://bit.ly/2etCiva ]. She also mentions mysticism surrounding the monarchy and state funded king promotion. But these two other reasons are not enough of an explanation.
It is also not very useful for anyone to talk about “brain washing” and any explanation which says that “Thais have always held their kings in high regard” is historically incorrect and not a scientific explanation at all.
What we must explain is how millions of Thais came to voluntarily love Pumipon, despite the fact that he never did anything useful for Thai society, as I have previously outlined in my obituary on this blog site. This phenomenon is also despite the fact that royalism goes against the class interests of the majority of Thais because royalist ideology is used to enforce inequality and lack of freedom and democracy.
The Marxist theory of alienation helps us to understand how millions of Thais came to voluntarily love Pumipon by explaining that widely held beliefs and appearances are often not based on the truth. We can also understand when socialisation and coercion can work and when it fails to work. Socialisation is not the same as so-called “brain washing” as the latter term implies “stupidity” of those whose brains have been warped. Thai royalists are not royalist out of stupidity, although the content of their beliefs is stupid.
We know that the capitalist ruling class boosts its power by getting us to believe that the market, the family or the monarchy are “natural and good institutions”. This socialisation relies on a feeling of lack of power and a feeling of insecurity among the general population.
Thailand has no welfare state and the labour movement is not yet powerful enough to collectively enable citizens to stand up and fight for equality. The quality of life for most people seems to depend on big powerful people because of the lack of confidence that ordinary people can bring about change.
It is this feeling of fear and lack of status and confidence in Thai society, which is encouraged by the ruling class because it helps to socialise people into believing that the monarchy is a powerful benefactor. Yet it is an instrument to strengthen, not just the monarchy, but the entire modern Thai capitalist class, especially the military. That is why Taksin, the military, the civilian bureaucracy and the corporations all support and promote the monarchy.
The important thing to also consider is that devotion to the king is not an unchanging thing. After the 1932 revolution or during the struggle carried out by the Communist Party in the 1970s millions of Thais hated the monarchy.
The Marxist George Lukács, in his book “History and Class Consciousness”, explained that ruling class socialisation, which leads to an alienated belief in lies, can be overcome by mass struggle because it allows people to see their own strength and ability to determine the future on their own terms.
By struggling against the dictatorship in a collective manner, millions of Red Shirts ceased to revere the monarchy, especially when the royalist military dictatorship shot down unarmed pro-democracy activists. This effect may now have been mitigated to some degree by the time spent in inactivity and the fact that Taksin sowed seeds of hope in peoples’ minds about the so-called “progressive nature” of Wachiralongkorn. Never the less I would be willing to bet that millions of Thais would be happy if Thailand became a republic, especially after the death of Pumipon and the prospect of king Wachiralongkorn.
In order to challenge the collective madness or the “cult of the dead king”, which is gripping the population, we therefore need to build a mass pro-democracy social movement against the military dictatorship which can develop the fight into a struggle for socialism. Such a movement will inspire people with the confidence that they have the potential power to determine their own futures.
Finally, we need to oppose the statement from many people that “we must respect” the grieving of millions of Thais after Pumipon’s death. This grieving is not about personal loss of a friend or relative. It is totally political. Would people have said that we must “respect” the political views of millions of Germans who loved Hitler? Do we have to “respect” the views of racists? No, we do not have to respect political views and feelings which lead to tyranny or enslavement.
The images of mob violence carried out by fanatical royalists after the Thai king’s death is a stark reminder that the ideology of “Nation, Religion and Monarchy” is a constant source of violence in Thai society. This is why calls for peace and understanding are likely to fall on deaf ears.
In historical terms it comes as no surprise that the institution of the monarchy has always been associated with violence. In the feudal “Sakdina” period, forced labour and the trade in products of forced labour, was the source of wealth for the monarchy. Many ordinary people tried to escape this violent coercion by moving into rural areas far away from kings and their soldiers. Naturally, the process of becoming a king was little different from the process of becoming top boss in a criminal gang. It relied on naked violence. Frequently big men fought it out to take the throne, even in the early Bangkok period.
Even when the Sakdina system was no longer sustainable and the Absolute Monarchy came into being under king Chulalongkorn, violence was at the heart of the new royal dictatorship and it was used to suppress those who wanted to seek political self-determination, such as those in the north-east or Patani.
After the 1932 anti-monarchy revolution, the ideology of “Nation, Religion and Monarchy” was redefined and modernised in the 1950s for use in the Cold War by the dictator Field Marshal Sarit, who used military violence to take power. Sarit was a brutal and corrupt ruler who promoted and used the monarchy for his own ends. The monarchy became a symbol of the collective conservative Thai ruling class.
Sarit executed socialists like teacher Krong Jundawan without any trial. This was justified by saying that it was necessary for national security and to protect “Nation, Religion and Monarchy”.
After the 14th October 1973, when Sarit’s protégés killed pro-democracy students in the streets to try and maintain power, the king had to step in to protect “Nation, Religion and Monarchy” from the rapidly radicalising movement of students and workers. The royal family, top military generals and conservative politicians cultivated fanatical royalist mobs and para-military police who eventually attacked students and workers at Thammasart University on 6th October 1976. People were hung from trees, shot and beaten to death. The justification was that these were leftists bent on insulting and overthrowing the monarchy. “Nation, Religion and Monarchy” were saved through a bloodbath against unarmed civilians.
In more modern times the ideological slogan of “Nation, Religion and Monarchy” has had a fourth word reluctantly added, almost as an afterthought. We now see the slogans “Nation, Religion, Monarchy and the People” as a backdrop to military press conferences.
The royals have always been photographed in military uniform, often holding guns and even the females like the queen have used the language of violence. A few years ago she was quoted as saying that she wished she could just pick up a gun to fight Patani dissidents.
Today during the imposed mourning period for the king, a mixture of violence and socialisation are being used to enforce a public expression of royalism. Howling mobs of fanatical royalist attack anyone believed to be anti-royalist and this has the backing from the general who runs the so-called ministry of justice. Those in power today got where they are now through the barrel of the gun and seek to maintain power to protect the monarchy using all sorts of violence, including the lèse-majesté law. Victims of royalist mob violence are arrested and charged under this draconian law. The use of the law is an act of violence against thought and body. It is there to prevent free thinking and to lock up dissidents.
Lèse-majesté cases mushroom under military regimes, both the present one and the previous Abhisit led government which was controlled by the military.
We need to build a counter ideology which opposes nationalism, fanatical Buddhism and royalism in order to reduce state-sponsored violence in Thai society. That involves building a strong social movement opposed to military rule.
The death of the Thai king and the atmosphere of repression under the military junta has unleashed an ugly and dangerous royalist hysteria which is rapidly becoming a witch hunt against those who believe in democracy and equality. Anyone not wearing black in the streets or anyone rumoured to have supposedly “insulted” the king is being persecuted and threatened with violence while the authorities look on approvingly. The general in charge of the ministry of “justice” has even approved of mobs bullying dissidents.
The military and police have been taking advantage of the situation and arresting any dissidents who have been accused of insulting the king by the fantatics. No hard evidence is necessary. One such person was arrested after police “found” a single methamphetamine pill.
There were three cases of angry mobs attacking people in various southern provinces only days after the death of the king. These are areas where Sutep and his Democrat Party mobs drew support for their anti-election rampage through Bangkok in 2014. Many of these thugs may now be engaging in the royalist witch-hunts.
On the tourist island of Koh Samui, a howling crowd of 500 fanatical royalists forced a young woman to grovel in front of a picture of the king and ask for forgiveness at a local police station for apparently “insulting” the king. The police clearly sided with the crowd.
An elderly woman was slapped in the face in front of police for apparently “insulting the monarchy”…
There have been numerous threats to people on social media for not changing their profiles to black and white.
Riantong NananRiantong as part of a fascist-type mob organised to disrupt elections
Self-appointed “Witch-Hunter General”, Major General Riantong Nanan, director of Monkutwatana Hospital, has incited people to “deal” with Aum Neko, exiled trans-gender prodemocracy activist, who has been given asylum in France. He also threatened to do her harm himself.
Aum Neko
A fanatical royalist also posted on her face book that someone should “deal” with me in England as a result of my call for a republic.
Fanatical royalist threatening me
It reminds many of us of the kind of atmosphere created around the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasart University.
Why aren’t you wearing black?
But what it exposes more than anything is that love and respect for the Thai monarchy is hardly voluntary or natural in the case of millions of people. It exposes that the royalists are really frightened of a possible republican mood in the country after the death of Pumipon.
The military and the monarchy are so tightly wrapped around each other, like two venomous snakes, that it is necessary to abolish the monarchy as part of the struggle against the military dictatorship.
The Thai military claim that its main reason to exist is to protect the monarchy. But it is the ideology of the monarchy, and all the repression that accompanies this ideology, that props up authoritarian and corrupt military regimes, both past and present.
This is a major reason why we need to fight for a republic. But the actions of key members of the royal family are another reason.
The future king, Wachiralongkorn, is a vicious, sexist, thug. He is a man who totally disrespects women and doesn’t care if we all know it. He is also well known for inappropriate behaviour at public functions. For example, allowing his pet dog to run up and down the high table, spreading germs at official dinners, where it licked the plates of foreign guests and lapped water from their glasses.
His dead father preached the “Sufficiency Economics” ideology, pretending to be frugal, when in fact he was the richest monarch in the world. King Pumipon has never lifted a finger to defend democracy or criticise the military for killing pro-democracy citizens. This weak and cowardly king also loved his dogs more than his fellow Thais. (See my full obituary on this same site).
The Queen and her daughters have supported the middle-class mobsters who helped bring about two recent military coups. They are thoroughly reactionary.
These royal parasites are treading on thin ice. As the monarchy goes into a downward spiral, those in power become more manic and oppressive in their royalism. Lèse-majesté charges against opponents of the junta have sky-rocketed. Military courts are the order of the day and an authoritarian sham democracy is being crafted in order to hold “elections” in the future.
After the death of the king people are being witch-hunted on social media for not changing their profiles to black and white.
Ever since the barbaric military crack-downs in the 1970s, right up to the two recent military coups, the military has continuously sought to legitimise itself by using the monarchy. In attacking democracy during the present crisis, the royalists have continually insulted the “ignorant poor”, claiming that government policies to raise people out of poverty are somehow “corrupt”. These are the enemies of all decent working people.
Yet, Taksin and his fellow business elites are no different. They all promote the monarchy to serve their own interests. For all these members of the Thai ruling class, the monarchy is a symbol of the “natural order of things”, where some are born to rule and the rest are born to be exploited under capitalism.
The tension and division between those who are deeply fed up with the royals and their military allies and those who claim to adore the monarchy above their own lives, is rapidly deepening. The Thai monarchy is well past its sell-by date. Yet change is never automatic or inevitable. All of us who wish to see a free and equal society in this country must work hard to push forward to a democratic and socialist republic. This will take serious political organisation.
King Pumipon of Thailand was a weak and characterless monarch who spent his useless and privileged life in a bubble, surrounded by fawning, grovelling, toadies who claimed that he was a “god”. He was a pathetic creature who should not in any way be pitied. His life’s work was in self-enrichment, support for military regimes and the defence of inequality. He played a significant role in preventing democratic rights, the development of social justice and the fair and unbiased use of the law. He did this by legitimising all the worst government policies and atrocities committed by Thai rulers. In recent years he remained silent while more and more dissidents were jailed, under the draconian lèse majesté law, for merely speaking out against the destruction of democracy. He always remained silent about the killing of innocent civilians by the military.
Pumipon and son with dictator Tanom
Pumipon was a willing tool of the military, who constantly staged coups and obstructed democracy and the economic development of the Thai people. For Pumipon this resulted in great rewards. He amassed so much wealth from the work of others during his reign, that he became the richest man in Thailand and the richest monarch in the world. Yet he preached, through the “Sufficiency Economy Ideology” that his “subjects” should be happy in their poverty and he always opposed any redistribution of wealth. Thailand is one of the most unequal countries in Asia.
His toadies had to constantly project a photo of him with a drop of sweat falling from his nose. The photo was always the same one, since Pumipon seldom did anything to work up a real sweat. Unbelievably, his followers wept when the Palace released a photo of him tying his own shoe-laces without help from any servants. He allowed the use of crawling and special royal language in his presence without any sense of shame and he passed on his warped and elitist view of the world to his dysfunctional children.
Pumipon working up a sweat just thinking about doing real workPumipon trying to tie his own shoe laces
Pumipon was born in the United States and spent much of his youth in Switzerland. His love of fast cars and the good life resulted in him losing an eye in a car accident. He came to the throne after his elder brother died from gunshot wounds to the head in 1946. His brother’s death was either a suicide or a gun accident, involving Pumipon. Either way, Pumipon was fully aware of the circumstances of his brother’s death, but chose to keep them a secret, allowing 3 innocent palace staff to be executed and allowing Pridi Panomyong to be falsely blamed for the incident by his political opponents. Pumipon carried on his career as a monarch in this deceitful and spineless manner for the rest of his life.
Pumipon saying his last goodbyes to the despot Sarit
During the late 1950s and early 1960s he was used by Thailand’s corrupt and despotic ruler, Field Marshall Sarit Tanarat, to build a strong coalition between the military and the monarchists. The monarchy had fallen into disrepute and was very unpopular among the Thai people in the 1930s and 1940s, before and after the successful revolution which overthrew the absolute monarchy in 1932. Even key military leaders had republican leanings in those days. Sarit and the monarchists used the Cold War as a means of building up the prestige of the conservative elites. King Pumipon was systematically promoted as the symbolic figurehead of this “anti-Communist” alliance and Pumipon became very fond of Sarit. Even the U.S. government helped out by distributing photos of the King to villagers in rural areas as part of the fight against communism. Any house without such a picture would be deemed as “red”.
When the dictator Sarit died, his deputies, Tanom and Prapart, became the next bunch of corrupt military rulers and Pumipon carried on working with them. Never once did Pumipon ever speak up for democracy or social justice. Never once did he criticise corruption. The military promoted the King and his so-called “Royal Projects”, but over the years these projects had little impact on the standard of living of the majority of Thais.
In October 1973 the military regime was overthrown by a mass popular uprising and Pumipon was called upon by the elites to step in and protect the status quo. This he did by appearing on television and announcing a new civilian government. Thus he also managed to pretend that he was a “democratic king”. But the dark clouds of class struggle were looming. This was at the height of the Vietnam War and the students and social activists in Thailand were looking for real social change. They were attracted by the ideas of the Communist Party. Pumipon joined up with the military and conservative elites in promoting right-wing paramilitary groups, such as the Village Scouts, who attacked the students and the Left. The end result was a bloody crackdown at Thammasart University in October 1976. Pumipon supported this crackdown, the military coup that followed, and the general repression and censorship under the new dictatorship. He justified this by saying, in December 1976, that Thailand had had “too much democracy”. Left-leaning Thais hated him for this. After 6th October 1976 massacre, Thailand was plunged into a civil war between the government and the communist party.
Pumipon with the Village Scouts
By the mid 1980s the democratic space in Thailand was opening up and an elected civilian government came to power. Soon this was toppled by a new military coup in 1991 and Pumipon supported the military leaders again. However, a mass popular uprising and street fighting in Bangkok, in 1992, ended the dictatorship. When it was clear that the army had lost, Pumipon appeared again in public in order to claim his democratic credentials. But scores of people had been killed. Democratic elections were held and the political elites fell over each other to grovel and praise the “Great King”, while promoting and re-promoting his “super human talents”. By doing this they increased their own legitimacy. Pumipon lapped this all up and probably came to believe himself, that he was Devine.
One of those elite politicians who helped to promote Pumipon’s image was Taksin Shinawat, who won repeated elections because his party had serious pro-poor policies. The vast majority of the Thai electorate enjoyed real and immediate economic and social gains from these policies. This was in stark contrast to the King’s supposedly good works over many decades. Going with the flow as ever, Pumipon praised Taksin’s brutal War on Drugs where 3000 people were killed by extra-judiciary means.
Taksin’s influence among the majority of the electorate eventually enraged his rivals among the conservative elites: the army, the bureaucracy and the conservative political and business classes. The result was the 2006 and 2014 military coups and the subsequent destruction of democracy. Pumipon was a willing tool in these coups too, allowing his name to be used by the army and the royalist thugs who had laid the ground for such coups. He never once had the courage or the integrity to help prevent the growing political crisis. In fact Pumipon has never built stability for Thai citizens and never managed to “hold the country together”. He is a symbol of naked class oppression.
When the army gunned down nearly a hundred civilians in April and May 2010, Pumipon remained silent. He was old, but he could still speak, often making speeches to newly appointed judges. This event alone was enough to show that having a King as Head of State was at best a complete waste of public money. It is this event, and the two military coups, which have raised serious questions in the minds of millions of Thai citizens about the so-called benefits of having Pumipon, or anyone else, as King. There is now a strong republican sentiment throughout Thailand. But it faces real repression.
Many wrongly believed that Pumipon was powerful and ordered the 2006 coup and even the 2010 killings. By the time of the 2014 coup, Pumipon was so incapacitated by old age that he probably had limited awareness about what was happening. This did not stop General Prayut from using him, however.
The fact is that Pumipon never had political power. His role was always to provide a strong ideological legitimacy for the elites and their actions, especially the actions of the army. Pumipon was never brave or resolute enough to be a political leader. He was the bright fairy on top of the Christmas tree. His ideological role was not just about defending the military and the undemocratic elites. His reactionary “Sufficiency Economy” ideology was designed to oppose any redistribution of wealth and to support neo-liberalism by opposing state intervention to alleviate poverty. All sections of the Thai elite sought to use him for their own benefit. This included top businessmen, including Taksin, and the civilian and military bureaucrats.
Pumipon lived a life of luxury built on lies. He was projected as the “Father of the Nation, loved by all”. Yet his son, the Crown Prince is a half-wit and a bully, hated by many. He oppresses all women by publicising naked pictures of his women on the internet.
Pumipon was supposed to be a “genius”. It was claimed that he led a “simple life”. Yet any criticism of his actions or those of the royalist elites, would be harshly punished by the use of the lèse majesté law. This is why many obituaries about him written by foreign journalists will continue to repeat the usual lies and nonsense in praise of this pathetic and loathsome man.
Pumipon was a shy and alienated individual, more comfortable in the company of his dogs than that of fellow human beings. Millions of Thais will hope that his death will open the door to progressive changes to Thai society. But they will be disappointed as nothing is automatic. We must continue the fight for democracy and social justice and we still have to deal with the military and Pumipon’s reactionary successor. It is time for a genuine democratic republic. The amassed wealth of the Thai Royal Family and all their palaces should be turned over to the people in order to build a welfare state. Shed not one tear for Pumipon. Instead, think of those who were killed in his name by the military and all the people who will have to suffer from the long drawn out and very expensive funeral rites.
Lazy journalists will claim that the long-running political crisis was all about the Succession. But the main reason for the decade of political crisis was never about the king’s failing health nor succession but can be traced back to the 1997 economic crisis and the attempt by Taksin Shinawat to modernise Thai society. The Asian Economic crisis was the spark that exposed the existing fault-lines in Thai society, and the actions of political actors in response to this, eventually led to a back-lash against democracy by the conservatives. [See http://bit.ly/2d9UUAu ]
Read more about the dreadful Wachiralongkorn, the future king, here: http://bit.ly/1vQ1War
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