Love democracy? Reproach the politicians [Opinion]

[webfact]

Love democracy? Reproach the politicians

By Tulsathit Taptim 
The Nation

 

 

Your kid gets assaulted by a big boy every time he smirks at the latter. What’s the first thing you do? Of course, you tell your kid to stop smirking. As for the “bully”, you can take care of him later.

 

That’s one analogy for every hater of the Thai military out there. If you hate the coups, don’t spoil the politicians. It’s as simple as that. If Thai soldiers are opportunists, make sure the politicians stop giving them opportunities. If the military tends to exploit every mistake made by elected politicians, teach the latter to be responsible for every bad thing they do, no matter how “small”.

 

The outcry against new Army chief Apirat Kongsompong for his refusal to rule out another coup is barking up the wrong tree. First and foremost, we can’t expect the eldest son of a former coup leader to say that staging a coup is committing a grave sin. Second, he led an operation to reclaim a satellite TV station being occupied by red-shirt protesters in 2010. Third and perhaps more significantly, previous Army chiefs have denied planning coups, only to break their politically correct promises in a heartbeat.

 

Fourth and maybe most important, chastising Apirat may send “your kid” the wrong message. It’s tantamount to telling him to keep on smirking at the bully because the child will be well protected from now on.

 

There are good reasons why we should deal with the child first and the bully later. The bully lives far away, and we don’t know what kind of weapons he has or how far he is prepared to go in his wayward behaviour. We deal with our kid first and go to the police or visit the bully ourselves when all else fails.

 

Some may argue the bully is nit-picking. If the kid doesn’t smirk at him, he will probably find another “reason” to lunge at the child. It’s the parents’ job, however, to expose that “reason”, and the next, and the next, until the bully runs out of pretexts. If the kid behaves perfectly but still gets bullied, then we can go after the big boy.

 

Everyone says coups are bad, but repeating it over and over is not going to stop the trend. Prohibiting coups in the Constitution will never work because the charter can be torn up in the blink of an eye. Staging a people’s uprising might keep over-ambitious military officers quiet for a few years but it will also make future coup-makers more proactive in preventing such eventualities.

 

There is something slippery about military “intervention” in politics. We only need to look back at recent history. An anti-military uprising in 1992 was hailed as a concerted effort by citizens to teach coup-makers a crucial lesson. Nobody would dare to stage a coup ever again, it was said at the time. As it turned out, the next military takeover toppled one of the most popular civilian governments in 

history.

 

Again, condemning Apirat or any “coup apologist” is not the way to go. We hate and fear rapists but rather than write Facebook posts against them, we tell our daughters to get home early and avoid dressing too provocatively. It’s the first thing we do.

 

Coup-makers will rule no matter what. With some public support, they may do so relatively easily. Without support, they just tighten the screws. The best we can do is to acknowledge that coup plotters are always lurking, and to teach the politicians to behave responsibly. To be fair to Prayut Chan-o-cha, political killings and senseless bombings at protest sites stopped when he rolled out the tanks for the bloodless coup of 2014.

 

Soldiers all over the world have influenced politics, more or less. There is no exception, not even in such places as America. In some countries they are saviours and in others they are bullies. There are also bullies who think they are saviours and saviours who are considered bullies. All categories exist.

 

If we are to really embrace democracy, we must treat it as our child, who is up against the big boy in the neighbourhood. We can’t focus on the latter and keep pampering the former. After all, there are so many ways we can control our kid and so little we can do about the bully. 

 

The prelude to next year’s election and its aftermath may be crucial. It’s time for us to either tell our kid to “Stop smirking!” or say to him “I’ve got your back. You have done absolutely nothing wrong. Don’t worry about anything.” 

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/opinion/30357036

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-10-24

[Samui Bodoh]

I am left breathless by the depths of idiocy of this columnist; yet again this 'Tosser of a Random Word-Salad' spews nonsense with a force that could shatter titanium. 

 

How does he merit a column in a newspaper? Seriously, is he the son of the Publisher? Does he have something on the Editor? Does he give HUGE sums to the paper as a gift? You could try to tell me a million billion times that he has earned it, yet I would never, ever believe it.

 

Dear God! In the name of humanity and all that is good, spare the life of a tree and stop printing his nonsense!

 

 

[zzaa09]

Everyone talks of this democracy, yet seemingly have not an understanding of such. 

 

Inclusive the world over.

[Somtamnication]

Until the men in green are removed and turned into boy scouts, this country will never be able to even grow into a so called democracy.  And let's not even talk about ex mil and ex police within the red and yellow shirts.

[Lungstib]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Soldiers all over the world have influenced politics, more or less.

Really? There is huge list of European and Scandinavian countries that show this to be rubbish. The whole article is flawed to the point of stupidity. Making out the abused brought it on himself, that the aggressor is the victim. Rapists are only such because girls look too sexy. Who made this crepe up?

[BigBadGeordie]

3 hours ago, Samui Bodoh said:

How does he merit a column in a newspaper? Seriously, is he the son of the Publisher? Does he have something on the Editor? Does he give HUGE sums to the paper as a gift? You could try to tell me a million billion times that he has earned it, yet I would never, ever believe

Tulsathit Taptim is on the board of Nation International Edutainment PCL.

https://www.marketscreener.com/business-leaders/Tulsathit-Taptim-0H246V-E/biography/

 

Don't you just love that word "EDUTAINMENT".

[Denim]

What a cringworthy article.

 

The news about the elephants out for a stroll was nice though.

[alant]

Another coup, by who?

My understanding is the election is unable to remove the army from power as they are assured a majority in government irrespective of the vote.

[RichardColeman]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

If Thai soldiers are opportunists, make sure the politicians stop giving them opportunities

Buy me more subs or.................. 

[Eric Loh]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

Again, condemning Apirat or any “coup apologist” is not the way to go.

Apirat should be locked up for that treasonous talk; not condemn. Gutless editorial trying to make excuses for coups. Shameful and disgusting.

[connda]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

It’s as simple as that. If Thai soldiers are opportunists, make sure the politicians stop giving them opportunities. If the military tends to exploit every mistake made by elected politicians, teach the latter to be responsible for every bad thing they do, no matter how “small”.

I tend to agree with the OP.  The average citizen and Western 'democracies' can gripe and complain, but at the end of the day the reality of the Thai system of governance is that Thailand has a Constitutional Monarchy with Coups. It's been that way since the 20th Century and that form of government will probably define Thailand well into the future. 

[Snow Leopard]

That was hard reading. All over the place. Nothing like coming directly to the point is there. 

[Srikcir]

11 hours ago, webfact said:

teach the latter to be responsible for every bad thing they do, no matter how “small”.

How does one tell General and PM Prayut, and the entire military command?

You can ask and beg. But without power the Thai people are captives.

They might as well be stateless.

[tomta]

The worst writer in the world.

 

 

Does anyone remember his cringeworthy series where he had two character callled Democracy,  a naive wide-eyed innocent (read Abhisit) and Corruption, an evil cunning manipulator (read Thaksin) engaged in ridiculous conversation. He'd always end with something, "And the world held its breath, between heaven and hell.

 

 

This one sinks to new lows because he cannot recognize the indisputable fact that the coupsters are politicians too.

 

 

[zzaa09]

2 hours ago, tomta said:

The worst writer in the world.

 

 

Does anyone remember his cringeworthy series where he had two character callled Democracy,  a naive wide-eyed innocent (read Abhisit) and Corruption, an evil cunning manipulator (read Thaksin) engaged in ridiculous conversation. He'd always end with something, "And the world held its breath, between heaven and hell.

 

 

This one sinks to new lows because he cannot recognize the indisputable fact that the coupsters are politicians too.

 

 

Another unrecognized fact is that they all are cut from the same cloth and belonging to the same family, regardless of the surface bs.

 

....and they all deserve one another.

The good Thai folks don't deserve it though.