{"id":480,"date":"2006-09-19T03:28:01","date_gmt":"2006-09-19T07:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=480"},"modified":"2018-08-20T19:49:18","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T23:49:18","slug":"tuesday-september-19-2006-turfing-thaksin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=480","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday, September 19, 2006 \u2014 Turfing Thaksin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The media, at least here in Cana\u00adda, have been tak\u00aden com\u00adplete\u00adly by sur\u00adprise by recent events in Thai\u00adland.&nbsp;A fac\u00adtion of the Thai mil\u00adi\u00adtary says it has over\u00adthrown Prime Min\u00adis\u00adter Thaksin Shi\u00adnawa\u00adtra.&nbsp;Pre\u00adsum\u00adably, a long sequence of impor\u00adtant events led up to this, but none of them attract\u00aded the atten\u00adtion of jour\u00adnal\u00adists in North Amer\u00adi\u00adca. It might be wise for peo\u00adple here to pay a bit more atten\u00adtion.&nbsp;At place of con\u00adcen\u00adtrat\u00ading on dubi\u00adous and implau\u00adsi\u00adble attempts to bring democ\u00adra\u00adcy to places like Afghanistan, we should be more con\u00adcerned about its pre\u00adcar\u00adi\u00adous posi\u00adtion in rel\u00ada\u00adtive\u00adly impor\u00adtant places like Thai\u00adland.&nbsp;For Thai\u00adland is an impor\u00adtant coun\u00adtry, with tremen\u00addous eco\u00adnom\u00adic poten\u00adtial.&nbsp;It is unique in the region in that it nev\u00ader suf\u00adfered the expe\u00adri\u00adence of colo\u00adnial\u00adism, though it has had to dance nim\u00adbly between the pres\u00adsures brought to bear on it by Britain and France (which had colonies on either side of it), by Japan, Amer\u00adi\u00adca, and&nbsp;China.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Under Thaksin, Thai\u00adland seems to have had a thin veneer of demo\u00adc\u00adra\u00adt\u00adic process, under which steamed a caul\u00addron of cor\u00adrup\u00adtion, manoeu\u00adver\u00ading by the mil\u00adi\u00adtary, and fac\u00adtion\u00adal dis\u00adputes.&nbsp;It is not clear to me exact\u00adly who wants this sud\u00adden mil\u00adi\u00adtary coup, and who oppos\u00ades it.&nbsp;I sim\u00adply don\u2019t know enough to have an opin\u00adion about Thaksin and his poli\u00adcies.&nbsp;To tell the truth, I\u2019m embar\u00adrassed that I know next to noth\u00ading about this impor\u00adtant country\u2019s pol\u00adi\u00adtics. Thai\u00adland is the kind of coun\u00adtry that should be able to find its inner strengths, and estab\u00adlish a work\u00ading democ\u00adra\u00adcy.&nbsp;There is no scar\u00adring lega\u00adcy of colo\u00adnial\u00adism, it is full of enter\u00adpris\u00ading and well-edu\u00adcat\u00aded peo\u00adple, it has a vig\u00ador\u00adous cul\u00adtur\u00adal life, it has not been torn up by war.&nbsp;But it doesn\u2019t seem to be able to make things work. I\u2019m hop\u00ading that some Thai cor\u00adre\u00adspon\u00addents will give me some insights into this per\u00adplex\u00ading situation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The media, at least here in Cana\u00adda, have been tak\u00aden com\u00adplete\u00adly by sur\u00adprise by recent events in Thai\u00adland.&nbsp;A fac\u00adtion of the Thai mil\u00adi\u00adtary says it has over\u00adthrown Prime Min\u00adis\u00adter Thaksin Shi\u00adnawa\u00adtra.&nbsp;Pre\u00adsum\u00adably, a long sequence of impor\u00adtant events led up&nbsp;to&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=480\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-au-blog-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9419,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions\/9419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}