ก่อนหน้านี้ผมได้ลงบทความวิจารณ์หนังสือชื่อ The silence of the intellectual lambs แต่ผมได้รับบทความต้นฉบับ ซึ่งแตกต่างกันทั้งชื่อเรื่อง เริ่มต้นที่ชื่อเรื่อง ผมว่าอันเดิมดูจะตรงประเด็นมากกว่า ส่วนที่ปรากฎใน Bangkok Post ทำให้ผมคิดถึง Hannibal Lecter ตอนหาบทบทความ search engine ทั้งหลายก็พยายามจะเอา The silence of the Lamb มาให้ผมแทน ในด้านเนื้อหาก็มีความแตกต่างกันอยู่ ลองอ่านดูนะครับ
“Thai Intellectuals and the September 19 Coup”:
A Review of Fa Dio Kan’s The September 19 Coup: The Coup in the Name of the “Democratic System with the Great King as Head of State”
by Patrick Jory
Regional Studies Program
Walailak University
The political earthquake that has rocked Thailand over the last year damaged more than just the country’s political institutions: it has also shaken the Thai academic establishment. Since September 19, university presidents, deans and professors have accepted lucratively paid positions in rubber-stamp legislative assemblies appointed by the military junta, “public intellectuals” write columns legitimizing the regime, and political scientists have written revised accounts of some of the most sensitive incidents in Thailand’s political history. In a country where academics enjoy great privilege and influence the political stance of many of Thailand’s best-known intellectuals, both before and after the coup, has been called into question as never before. Criticism has been especially strong on the webboards and blogs, which, because of the censorship of the mainstream media, have become one of the freest forums for academic debate in Thailand.
The role of Thailand’s intellectuals in the political crisis raises the uncomfortable question: did their failure to support strongly enough the principle of respecting the result of democratic elections, help legitimize the coup and the royalist regime it has put in power? Did academics, who for so long have portrayed themselves as supporters of the “peoples movement”, betray the very people they professed to represent, who had voted overwhelmingly for Thai Rak Thai on three occasions?
Last month’s publication by the Thai academic journal, Fa Dio Kan, of The September 19 Coup: The Coup in the Name of the “Democratic System with the Great King as Head of State” may provide an answer to these questions. It is a compilation of interviews, articles, statements, letters, and even web postings by some of the most prominent Thai intellectuals, including Nidhi Eeosiwong, Chaiwat Satha-Anand, Kasian Tejapira, Thongchai Winichakul, Thirayudh Bunmi, Somsak Jiamthirasakul, Chaiyan Chaiyaphorn and many others. The publication has already aroused controversy: it has just been banned from Thailand’s largest academic bookseller, Chula Book Center.
Over the last five years Fa Dio Kan, (“Same Sky”) has become the leading forum for academic debate on political and social issues in Thailand. Its success has come from its focus on topical, contemporary issues, its skilful marketing of academic debate to a new generation of academics, students and activists, and a willingness to touch on controversial issues, including the most sensitive of them all: the position of the monarchy in Thai politics. Fa Dio Kan has gone further than any other journal in pushing the limits of what can be said on this subject, most famously in its “Institution of the Monarchy” issue. For this it has been duly charged under the draconian lèse majesté law that forbids any critical reference to the monarchy.
The positions of Thai intellectuals during the crisis can be broadly divided into three groups.
The first group gave their full support to the anti-Thaksin movement, and particularly to the People’s Alliance for Democracy. They also backed the call for royal intervention to resolve the crisis, through the use of “Article 7” of the (now abrogated) 1997 Constitution. A number of them have continued to publicly support the royalist regime that was installed after the coup.
The second group enthusiastically joined the movement to oust Thaksin, but rejected the call for royal intervention. This is the group that was subject to withering criticism by the Thammasat political historian, Somsak Jiamthirasakul, in a series of widely circulated webboard postings, which are included in Fa Dio Kan’s The September 19 Coup. Somsak accuses the academics who took this position (which he calls the “two rejections”) of “opportunism”, since knowingly or not, their support for the anti-Thaksin movement helped paved the way for the undemocratic overthrow of the Thaksin government.
The third, much smaller group, whose voices were mostly confined to webboard postings, took the position that no matter what one thought of Thaksin, one had to respect his legitimacy based on the fact that he had been elected on three successive occasions by an overwhelming majority of the people.
September 19 placed Thailand’s intellectuals in a difficult position. Many of them had a pedigree deriving from the student democracy movements of the 1970s, and played leading roles in the “peoples’ movements” of the 1990s. Yet in the crisis of the last year they were unwilling to support the democratically elected Prime Minister in the face of a movement that had declared its intention to do everything possible, including using extra-Constitutional means, to depose him.
How can one explain their lack of support for the democratically elected government? Some believed that Thaksin had abused the political system. Others were outraged at alleged human rights abuses, particularly over the government’s handling of the war on drugs and the violence in the south. But there is perhaps another explanation.
Underlying these criticisms one call also detect among many academics a deep-seated distrust of liberalism, which explains their discomfort with the principle of elections, politicians, and their obvious distaste for capitalism and globalization.
Most of these academics had their overseas academic training in the 1970s and 1980s, at a time when social science departments in the Anglo-American academic world were heavily influenced by a variety of anti-liberal theories: classic Marxism, post-colonialism and Third-World nationalism (with a good dose of anti-Americanism), and, more recently, postmodernism. This was the intellectual culture that many Thai graduate students at that time imbibed while completing their PhDs.
On their return to Thailand, where liberal principles have never been able to firmly establish themselves since the overthrow of the Absolute Monarchy in 1932, the Marxist, postcolonial/nationalist or postmodern critiques of Thai society engaged in by these academics were strangely in line with the conservative political culture that has taken hold since the 1970s, which Thongchai Winichakul refers to as “royalist nationalism”. The similarities are striking, and were on display in the academic debate of 2006: a willingness to discount the importance of democratic elections; a loathing for capitalism; an elitist distaste both for elected politicians (especially from the provinces) and businessmen; and perhaps most importantly, a belief in the intellectual’s right to “speak for the people”.
The mantra recited by many of Thailand’s intellectuals during the standoff between Thaksin and the forces aligned against him was that “elections are only one part of democracy”, “Thaksin had already destroyed democracy”, “Thaksin lacked morality”, “the villagers sold their votes”, or “the villagers are not educated enough”.
What is most surprising is that the intellectuals who demonized the elected Prime Minister week after week throughout the 2006 crisis, have been generally silent on the royalist-military coup of September 19. Some have even accepted positions in the appointed National Legislative Assembly and the Constitutional Drafting Commission.
The essays and comments by contained in Fa Dio Kan’s The September 19 Coup may thus read as an attempt by Thailand’s academics to justify the positions they took before September 19. It will therefore make essential reading for those wanting to understand the failure of the great majority of Thai academics and intellectuals in 2006 to support a government elected by the majority of the people of Thailand.
