Thai historians suggest changes to history book

[Bluespunk]

"......Suphawat said the content of a history book should consist of facts and not ideas...."

Facts???? The pages of history are always written by the victors.

Not really.

The victors books are but the losers also write and are free to interpret facts differently.

Often times they do.

Good thing really, you need both sides arguments to find the truth at the centre...

[Emster23]

to once more drag out Orwell chestnut: "Those who control the present control the past. Those who control the past control the future".

[petedk]

Have any of you read it?

I have read several pages of it and it is impossible to understand.

All the previous leaders and kings are referred to by their full names, so just mentioning the fact that "leader a" replaced "leader b" takes up 2 or 3 lines.

All place names are mentioned in great detail making it impossible to understand.

I gave up reading after about 8 - 10 pages.

[londonthai]

so good on this book and on it's autors. Nobody will understand and remember anything, and rewriting it would take a century. Kids and students will go online to read updated stories. And on the net nobody is able to censor

[jayboy]

"As a historian, he believes that stories or events appropriate for academic discussion should have occurred more than 50 years ago."

I am as well a university graduated historian and I strongly disagree with that view.

I know Thai history students are taught a short course in historiography, but they might be interested in studying the subject of historical method (usually a 2 semester heavy course) to learn a scientific approach to history, methodology and source criticism.

If he is a prime example of Thai historians then that discipline is in a very sad state in this country.

I fully agree.There is also erroneous thinking in implying that history is mainly a process of assembling facts, and that recent decades are too controversial or murky to be able to establish what these facts are.

The truth is history of whatever vintage is always subjective and potentially controversial - as we remember from the row over the Sukhothai inscription for example.

[Thai at Heart]

Funny they consider that one book can constitute the definitive version of history anyway. So typically Thai that they don't understand that all history texts are more or less an interpretation of events which are coloured by the opinion of the writer.

Thus anyone must read many opinions of the same event and for ones own opinion of what happened. Humans are not computer disks who are able to regurgitate cold data.

Thus their way around this is to say that they can only write about things 50 years old because they might offend the living. And they think they are academics? Numpties.

[Trouble]

This is the problem with the Thai government being involved in writing history text books. Seems to me that in most countries history text books are written by historians independent of government oversight and then selected by school boards based on their usefulness. Books in college courses are generally chosen by faculty members with no government oversight at all. What is going on in Thailand. There seems to be no independent thought process going on outside of government and where it might exist it is muted by the government if they are in disagreement. Nothing like brainwashing the students.

[Saan]

They switched sides more often than I change the oil in my car!!

I think you must mean 'change gears'.

[baboon]

Funny they consider that one book can constitute the definitive version of history anyway. So typically Thai that they don't understand that all history texts are more or less an interpretation of events which are coloured by the opinion of the writer.

Thus anyone must read many opinions of the same event and for ones own opinion of what happened. Humans are not computer disks who are able to regurgitate cold data.

Thus their way around this is to say that they can only write about things 50 years old because they might offend the living. And they think they are academics? Numpties.

I think it is less a case of being numpties and more a desire not to end up as fish food, to be honest.

[Thai at Heart]

Funny they consider that one book can constitute the definitive version of history anyway. So typically Thai that they don't understand that all history texts are more or less an interpretation of events which are coloured by the opinion of the writer.

Thus anyone must read many opinions of the same event and for ones own opinion of what happened. Humans are not computer disks who are able to regurgitate cold data.

Thus their way around this is to say that they can only write about things 50 years old because they might offend the living. And they think they are academics? Numpties.

I think it is less a case of being numpties and more a desire not to end up as fish food, to be honest.

Possible. So why say anything at all. Just write what everyone wants to read and live to fight another day

[baboon]

to once more drag out Orwell chestnut: "Those who control the present control the past. Those who control the past control the future".

Or as Churchill said: "History will be kind to me as I shall write it"..

[exona]

I'd love to see the history of 1965 taught. The Ugly American starring Brando and a future puppet PM would be a good place to start. Who built Mittapah Road? Sattahip, Pattaya, Udon, Ubon etc etc the Border Police.....

[silent]

Events more than 50 years old !

Will Thailands's role in WWII finally be properly explained ?

Didn't think so.

On Remembrance Day next year

[ramrod711]

hence the political conflict involving the red and yellow shirts as well as the 2014 coup do not qualify, they said.

Um, they have heard of YouTube, right?

[Bluespunk]

hence the political conflict involving the red and yellow shirts as well as the 2014 coup do not qualify, they said.

Um, they have heard of YouTube, right?

I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't.

[sanukjim]

The way the Thais think is that if all the new governments can after a coup can re write the Constitution to protect them selfs from their criminal past then we can also alter our own history to show our future genorations that those coups never happened . Its for the greater good ypu know.......Does this to any one beganing to sound like North Korea ?

[Bluespunk]

The way the Thais think is that if all the new governments can after a coup can re write the Constitution to protect them selfs from their criminal past then we can also alter our own history to show our future genorations that those coups never happened . Its for the greater good ypu know.......Does this to any one beganing to sound like North Korea ?

No.

[KarenBravo]

Thai history as written by Thais should just be called what it really is.........propaganda.

[tuanku]

What qualifications does one need to be an historian in Thailand?

Is it one of those jobs reserved for Thais?

[Wilsonandson]

PM Prayuth great, great grand daddy is now a wealthy land owner and silk trader. Before he just had a broken down chicken hut and a mulberry bush. History? Modern history of Thailand is only accurate via foreign media. Wikipedia is a good source.

[digibum]

Those event only happened few year ago and they already relegating it to ' history ' ? it should be more

under civil current affairs, as this ' history ' will likely change at any time, so don't rush to includes them

in any ' history ' books....

I guess this "historian" believes that history is written by the victors and since it's unclear who the victors are yet, best to leave those things out so whoever wins can write those stories rather than publishing them now and having to order new textbooks in a few years. :-)

[Puwa]

Governments shouldn't be in the business of writing history books to begin with.

[tuanku]

There are no historians in Thailand, only propagandists

[Mister Fixit]

The history book of Cloud Cuckoo Land ...

[connda]

Revisionist history is not history. Just saying...

[AZBill]

What a stupid approach to history! What does stability have to do with it? One guess where this nonsense is coming from!

[bangrak]

PM Prayuth great, great grand daddy is now a wealthy land owner and silk trader. Before he just had a broken down chicken hut and a mulberry bush. History? Modern history of Thailand is only accurate via foreign media. Wikipedia is a good source.

Allow me to contradict you: Wikipedia is NOT a good source concerning Siam and Thailand's History, in each and every part I have consulted about it, there are flagrant 'distortions' of facts, or some important ones 'providentially' missing, and many 'disturbing episodes' simply absent. Just test it on events and persons you are (very) well informed about, and you might come to share my opinion...

[northernjohn]

While it is clear that the history book should be revised, but he is a bit over the top when talking about recent events, ...

As a historian, he believes that stories or events appropriate for academic discussion should have occurred more than 50 years ago

so no Thanom staging a coup against his own government and making himself supreme leader, no 14 October 1973 uprising, ... no 1976 Thammasat massacre, ... no 1992 military junta general promising to not become PM, and then becoming PM, ...

Guess it just needs to end with Field Marshal Sarit and his amazing military corruption ....

or not...

Agreed it is a ridicules time frame. In my opinion it should end with the first election of Thaksin. That drama is still being played out.

[bangrak]

Has there ever been ANY History book about Thailand depicting the facts, all the facts, the facts only, whether ancient, old, past, or recent?

Mind you, this is not only true about Thailand, as, as far as I know, it is only in the last decades, and only in some European countries, that fresh generations of 'critical' Historians have risen, producing works relegating most, when not all, existing 'History books' to what they were: biased, propagandistic, ...epic novels.

IMHO, no 'History book' worth the name can be written to 'serve' a 'system' or any group of people, and as long as being 'critical' in your quest of the truth(!) whatever 'controversial' the outcome might be, will about certainly have you jailed for many years, there will not be true 'History books' in Thailand.

Also, considering what Thais 'know' (have been scarcely taught) about their own 'History', when they would be at once 'informed' about all the true facts, it could trigger a proverbial 'tsunami' in the country, sweeping all of the, rotten, 'system' holding them in its firm grip, away in one big, violent, bloody, wave...

Are the Thais 'ripe' (enough) for the, hard, truth of History then? I'm asking myself, and I, alas, doubt it...

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

And people wonder why students emerge from the Thai education system so woefully uneducated about the history of their own country and how it has been governed in past decades, including the various major events that have influenced both. Obviously better to focus on the special role of Thainess and the central position Thailand has in the history of the world .

if I applied this guy's same 50-years past rule for the history of the U.S., we wouldn't be teaching about: the U.S. civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, Nixon's scandal and resignation, the Iran hostage crisis, the Arab oil embargo, the World Trade Center attacks, Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the "war" on terrorism, etc etc. After all, why would any students need to learn about any of those silly kinds of things.