This post will only really be understandable to those who are familiar with Thailand’s recent political past. I’m not going to try to weigh in either way on the political problems that the country is dealing with (there are plenty of others who do it far better than I), but I did read something the other day that struck me as incredibly interesting, and it was too thought-provoking for me not to post about. […]
As you’ve probably heard by now, Thailand is in the middle of its 12th coup since 1932 (not including seven attempted ones). After 6 months of increasingly turbulent and violent protests, General Prayuth Chan-ocha finally had enough and said “Yeah, I’m in charge now.” This is my second coup in Thailand, and while neither I – nor most people – can say with any certainty what comes next, I can say that living through the Thai coups so far has not been what an uninitiated westerner would imagine them to be. […]
Bangkok has an endless number of things to blog about, but there are times – like right now – when it becomes a bit of a chore. The ongoing, and seemingly unsolvable, political crisis is dominating everything from lunchtime conversations to the evening news, and it’s a serious problem with serious and long-term consequences. I previously wrote that the best way (for me) to deal with it was to simply stop caring about any of it. To stop worrying and fretting and getting worked up, because no matter how much I did, it would have zero […]
As it does on a seemingly regular basis, Thailand’s protest season has started up again. As of today, the prime minister is in an unstable position and facing threats and calls for her to step down; boisterous, abusive mobs on both sides of the political divide are making threats to individuals and sometimes even attacking them for completely fabricated reasons; mobs have stormed several government ministries; and there’s a general air of uneasiness and behind-closed-door-edness in the air. This kind of thing has been going on for years now, and used to really upset me. I used to […]
It was back in 2007 that I started blogging. Part of it was that I figured my demented genius was simply too awesome not to be shared, but it was mostly because I liked saying "I have a blog." Those early days were full of mistakes and wobbles with my writing - when I look back it's quite coarse and unpolished, but I've left it alone because, well, it is what it is. At any rate, my first post was on November 9, 2007 and my first subject was one that I'm very happy to be writing about again tonight in this short post - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. That old post was about the failed protests and yet another crushed bid for democracy in which ASSK (as I'll call her) could only watch from behind her gates. But happily, tonight, for the first time in 24 years, ASSK has left Burma and landed in Bangkok.
Just thought I should write another wee post about the flood waters that are currently surrounding Bangkok and threatening to march right through the city. I'd say the most common element that everyone shares right now is stress; mental fatigue. The whole city is on edge - you can feel it. I said to my friend it's kind of like Max Brooks' excellent book World War Z - an army of zombies is marching toward your city - some of them are already here - and all you can do is build walls and wait. I'm very lucky in that I live and work in inner Bangkok, so for me, it's business as usual. Indeed, if it wasn't all over the news and the shelves weren't cleared out, I'd have no idea anything was amiss. But you know what? Despite all this, you'll never find a more upbeat, smiling group of people in a crisis than Thais - generally speaking.
The current unrest in Egypt is making a lot of people nervous, and rightfully so. The one phrase that I keep coming back to is from Alan Moore’s badass comic book V for Vendetta: People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people. It’s a simple statement, but it carries a lot of weight. But as I took in what’s happening in Egypt and compared it with my experiences with Thailand’s recent unrest over the past year, I got to thinking about how context and relativity plays a role in examining just how bad one actually has it, or how serious a situation really is.
The Thai government has been working overtime in the wake of all the red shirt mayhem that went down a few months ago to reassure everyone that all is well and things are back to normal. Of course, looking at the big picture and the deep social scarring left from the protests it might be a bit of a misnomer to say things are 'back to normal', but on the surface (where most tourists reside), things look pretty regular. However, businesses are still hurting, so to help drum up interest in the Ratchprasong area (where most of the fires and shootings took place), the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) organized a special press tour of the affected area, which I was lucky enough to be invited to.
As you likely know, Bangkok has, for the past several nights, been under curfew. This isn't something I've experienced since I was about 15 years old, so to say it was a bit odd is an understatement; knowing that you'll likely be arrested by the army if you're outside after 9pm is the adult version of a kid running home at sunset to avoid the monsters that come out after dark. Seeing the city asleep has been very strange. Normally buzzing with the sound of cars, motorbikes, music, food and general city sounds, the city is quiet and lifeless. Standing on your balcony looking out out across the blinking lights, I felt a bit like Will Smith in I Am Legend, but without all the abs.
Well, despite my vow to avoid writing about politics, here's another post about the situation in Bangkok. As the redshirts tear up the city, again, and the army tries to beat them into submission, again, it's like some sick version of Batman vs The Joker - neither side wins, everyone loses, wash, rinse repeat. I don't mean to crack wise - the situation is tense, deadly and will have long-term repercussions for the entire country. Being stuck amid events like these is not something that us North Americans are used to, and I've written before about how it changes your perceptions of reality. It also really opens your eyes into the machinery behind situations like this, most notably the machinery of how information is distributed and consumed. In this regard, it's been a salient - although deadly - crash course in the power of Twitter.
