House for rent near the temple how is it

[webfact]

OPINION

Thai democracy missing more than just a revolution plaque
By Tulsathit Taptim
The Nation

 

What differentiates democracy from other political systems is that it doesn’t really need a symbol.

 

The Michael Douglas character in the Hollywood blockbuster “The American President” hit the nail on the head when he said, in defence of his girlfriend who had joined protesters in burning the US flag, that the true spirit of advanced, democratic citizenship lies in tolerance of hostility and ideologies that don’t conform to your thinking. That statement could be applied to the “missing plaque” in Thailand.

 

The essence of his remark is this: For democracy to thrive, the onus is not on the flag burners, but those who may not like what the former do but accept their right to do it anyway. “You want free speech?” the Douglas character says, “Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing centre stage and advocating at the top of his lungs what you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn the flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the ‘land of the free’.”

 

If that’s a great summary of true democracy, then we obviously have a lot of problems in Thailand. Tolerance here is minimal. People calling themselves “pro-democracy” give symbols too much importance. When products of democracy face protests, the protesters are condemned, stereotyped and are likely to be wiped out at the earliest opportunity. Charges of untoward conduct are easily dismissed, not by evidence to the contrary but by how much power one has in Parliament. In short, the pro-democracy movement in Thailand is in danger of becoming its own worst enemy.

 

The right to cry foul over the missing plaque is embedded in democracy. But it has to be a healthy democracy with an efficient check-and-balance system, a respectable legislature and properly functioning courts of law. As we can see, this country is missing a lot more than a revolution plaque where democracy is concerned.

 

We can place the plaque back where it was and surround it with the best anti-theft barricade in the world, but that doesn’t mean our on-and-off democracy will suddenly be all right. Again, the onus is not on the ones who have taken the plaque, but on the people bemoaning its absence. As the Douglas character said, if you want democracy, “you gotta want it bad, ’cos it’s gonna put up a fight”.

 

And the fight is not against those responsible for a plaque’s disappearance. What he means is democracy will keep testing you, even when you think you have a good hold of it. True democracy continuously seeks to separate the fake from the genuine articles. It always wants to make sure you are worthy of it.  

 

Other political systems can have symbols. Religions also take symbols seriously. “Democracy lovers” can choose to duplicate them, or fine-tune their mindsets so that the ideology they advocate matters more when ingrained in their conscience. The integrity of a plaque is far less significant than the solidity of our own ideological wills.

 

True democracy is saying “We don’t need a symbol.” It’s not only because a symbol is nothing without the true yearning for equality, but also because the symbol can misguide weak minds about rights to protest or human rights as a whole.

 

True democracy is saying “History is nowhere near as important as the future, because while the other systems can afford a comfort zone, we cannot. And true democracy is saying “Even though the other systems cannot tolerate us, we will tolerate them.” Which means that if we cannot tolerate a plaque’s disappearance, what chance do we really have? Coming to think of it, if democracy really needs a symbol, maybe it’s the willingness to understand why the plaque went missing. Such a willingness could be the biggest symbol of all.

 

Democracy requires a much greater responsibility than protecting a commemoration plaque, and its advocates have to do a lot more than raising noise over its disappearance. Anyone in any ideological system can be assigned to guard a plaque, but not everyone can shrug off its absence by saying “It’s just a symbol.”

 

Which is why the situation in Thailand is quite peculiar, because the fierce “fight” doesn’t necessarily mean people “want it bad”.  A lot of “fighters” are crying for the missing plaque, but not everyone in this country is crying over the missing ingredients of true democracy, which has probably become elusive for good reasons.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/opinion/tulsathit/30313364

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-04-26

[Somtamnication]

Yep, it's missing quite a few nuts and others are also loose. 

[kannot]

1 hour ago, Somtamnication said:

Yep, it's missing quite a few nuts and others are also loose. 

and as a  result the wheels  fell off a  long time ago

[habanero]

Who is the author of this article?

[darksidedog]

Heavily slanted article, probably written at the Juntas order, that fails to point out that Thai democracy is not just missing a plaque, it is missing the single most important thing, Democracy itself.

[yellowboat]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

 A lot of “fighters” are crying for the missing plaque, but not everyone in this country is crying over the missing ingredients of true democracy, which has probably become elusive for good reasons.

The plaque was a theft, and should be treated as such, nothing more.  People should have a right to a heritage without it being pushed aside.  Democracy in Thailand lacks fairness.  There will always be people who are above the law in Thailand.  People who can instigate coups is a good example.   The structure of the civilian government is to preserved at all costs.  That will never happen while there is an unaccountable army. 

[baboon]

28 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

Heavily slanted article, probably written at the Juntas order, that fails to point out that Thai democracy is not just missing a plaque, it is missing the single most important thing, Democracy itself.

That is exactly what I was thinking. The old 'Democracy is more than just...' smokescreen. A jet aeroplane is a lot more than just wings, but good luck getting it off the ground without them...

[klauskunkel]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

But it has to be a healthy democracy with an efficient check-and-balance system, a respectable legislature and properly functioning courts of law.

and that's the crux of it

[ratcatcher]

1 hour ago, habanero said:

Who is the author of this article?

[ballpoint]

2 hours ago, Somtamnication said:

Yep, it's missing quite a few nuts and others are also loose. 

I beg to differ.  There are too many nuts, and it's the screws that are loose.

[Jimbo2014]

Thai Democracy? - Oxymoron

[NCC1701A]

I was hoping the AK's would come out after they banned riding in the back of pick-ups.

 

But seriously, I think everybody should be careful what they ask for because to fix this sh*t they are going to have to tear the whole place down. 

[Eric Loh]

17 minutes ago, ratcatcher said:

Political prisoner in Thailand

 

Extract from their article " Targeting Thaksin 111

 

"It is difficult to see how The Nation could get any worse, but it has. In “commenting” on the Forbes interview with Thaksin, op-ed “writer” Tulsathit Taptim strikes a new low".

 

We can expect an article from Khun Taptim to be right leaning and pro-junta.

[kannot]

1 hour ago, ratcatcher said:

sounds "fishy"   ...........tabtim

[realenglish1]

Very Well Said 

[metisdead]

An off topic post has been removed. 

[canuckamuck]

What the author fails to realize is that the plaque was a burning flag. that was ultimately not tolerated.

Sent from my ASUS_X008D using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[tomta]

Even for Tubtim, this is one of his more stupid analogies. As Canuckamuck says, the intolerance is on the part of those who stole the flag. IT is an issue of theft and vandalism of public property. I'm all for free expression and if people want to burn flags go ahead - but you can't steal flags owned by the public that are flying in a public space, then burn them and replace with a flag of your own design. If you want to burn flags, buy your own. If they don't like the plaque, they could make a replica, burn it, put hexes on it, stomp on it and put their own plaque in the backyard of their house. 

 

[ddavidovsky]

This didn't read like propaganda to me. Unless I didn't read it closely enough I got the impression he's saying:

 

i) that the plaque itself doesn't stand for much. I agree. It doesn't stand for democracy at all. It merely marked a transition from absolute monarchy to a military/elite alliance that still exists. If it upheld democracy as an ideal, that was just the same old ruse that has always been used (and still is) to cover the activities of the deep state.

 

ii) that real democracy is indeed something else. The current regime no doubt does believe in real democracy - as long as their own party gets to win a free and fair election - they even named their party the Democrats in order to give them that boost. But as they can't win a free and fair election (I'm sure the elites are miffed at that), they have to create the illusion and fake promise of democracy.

[candide]

As far as I understand this article, which is rather unclear, it seems to turn reality upside down. The problem is not that people are intolerant about the plaque's theft. The problem is the current intolerance of people complaining about the theft, who are threatened, arrested, "adjusted" and charged for doing so.

Edited April 26, 2017 by candide

[heybruce]

Many words written that say little.

 

In a country with no semblance of real democracy, he criticizes people who protest at the theft of a symbol of democracy.  He writes nothing about the absence of democracy, the refusal of the authorities to investigate the theft, the detaining of a citizen who asks for the theft to be investigated, or the warnings from on-high to not make waves (in other words, suppression of free speech).

 

He doesn't strike me as a fan of democracy.

[ballpoint]

It does appear that people are getting more agitated over the theft of a symbol of democracy than they are over the theft of democracy itself.  As he says, what would putting the original plaque back really change?  it would be like putting the bung back in a boat that has long since sunk, or in this case, one that has never floated in the first place.

[candide]

53 minutes ago, ballpoint said:

It does appear that people are getting more agitated over the theft of a symbol of democracy than they are over the theft of democracy itself.  As he says, what would putting the original plaque back really change?  it would be like putting the bung back in a boat that has long since sunk, or in this case, one that has never floated in the first place.

Didn't it come to your mind that getting agitated over the theft of an object is much less dangerous than getting agitated over the issues behind it? Actually, even just complaining about the theft seems to be dangerous (see the other thread about democracy activists), so you can imagine what would happen if people dared to address the democracy issues....

Edited April 26, 2017 by candide

[DrTuner]

12 hours ago, Somtamnication said:

Yep, it's missing quite a few nuts and others are also loose. 

Somchai "fixed it".

[Puccini]

9 hours ago, NCC1701A said:

I was hoping the AK's would come out after they banned riding in the back of pick-ups.

 

But seriously, I think everybody should be careful what they ask for because to fix this sh*t they are going to have to tear the whole place down. 

 

The AK's what?

 

What is an AK?

[lvr181]

22 hours ago, kannot said:

and as a  result the wheels  fell off a  long time ago

It had wheels? Amazing 

[IMA_FARANG]

All so called "Democracies" worldwide, not only Thailand but other countries such as  the U.S.A., the U.K., and those in the E.U. area are a continuous struggle between those groups who want to favor their own interests and the quite possibly equally valid interests of other groups.

There is no country in the world where different interests don't disagree and compete with each other.

A functioning nation is simply one where different and diverging interests compete peacefully and in a shared framework of law and respect for other interests.

That's basic  Civics 101 as I studies it years ago in my University days, during the Civil Rights movement, and the Vietnam war protests in the 1960's and 1970's in the U.S.

It hasn't changed since those days.....just the issues are different now.

That still applies to Thailand as well as the rest of the world

 

 

[lamyai3]

12 hours ago, Puccini said:

 

The AK's what?

 

What is an AK?

Assuming you're asking seriously, it's a Kalashnikov... 

[lamyai3]

The article does seem highly ambiguous. One the one hand it vilifies the idea that democracy can be reduced to a mere symbol... on the other it stands squarely behind the authorities, insisting that the missing symbol merits no investigation whatsoever. 

[Puccini]

On 2017-4-27 at 1:55 AM, lamyai3 said:

Assuming you're asking seriously, it's a Kalashnikov... 

 

Thank you, and yes, I was asking seriously. Now I see that it is "a type of rifle or submachine gun made in Russia, especially the AK-47 assault rifle"