本尼迪克特安德森：局外人對泰國政治的看法

 本尼迪克特安德森：局外人對泰國政治的看法

https://prachataienglish.com/node/2694

本尼迪克特-安德森。外人眼中的泰国政治

提交于 星期五, 5 八月 2011 - 05:51 下午

康奈尔大学教授、《想象的社区》一书的作者本尼迪克特-安德森在2011年1月26日由午夜大学和清迈大学人文学院举办的论坛上提出了他对泰国政治的看法。

有人要求我对这些天的泰国政治提供一些 "局外人 "的看法，我将尝试。 但我不确定 "局外人 "的真正含义是什么。 它是否只是一个礼貌性的替代者，即不是泰国公民，但对泰国政治有所了解的西方人；他有距离的优势，但没有深入和持续参与的缺点？

这意味着写暹罗的外国人的思维方式与受过教育的泰国人非常不同。 但我的强烈印象是，远洋记者和学者实际上非常依赖他们的泰国同行。 另一方面，克里斯-贝克（Chris Baker），非常英国化，长期居住在暹罗，精通泰语，他写的关于泰国政治的专栏相当独特和优秀，与帕苏克-蓬佩吉（Pasuk Phongphaichit）合作撰写了关于泰国政治的最好的现代书籍，并与她一起刚刚出版了《坤昌坤宝》的不朽英译。 称他为局外人是正确的吗？

但是，难道暹罗的数百万公民不也是外来者吗？

让我给你讲一个好故事。
几个月前，我和一个出租车司机聊了很久，他带我到昂古浩[素万那普机场]。
他超过50岁，来自曼谷的唐人街。
我问他对他信有什么看法，他的回答令我吃惊。
"他信很好，我100%支持他。"  当我问他为什么时，他说他信是像我一样的客家人。
他们是最好的中国人：勇敢、坚强、诚实、勤奋。客家人是伟大的太平天国起义的领导人，他们征服了南中国，几乎推翻了满清王朝。
他在这里的敌人是Hokkiens福建人、Hailamese海南人和Teochiu潮州人。
 阿菲斯特的家族是福建人与越南人的混合体。
 Sonthi Liem[Limthongkul]是一个海南人。
福建人是势利的、懒惰的骗子。
海南人是肮脏的、机会主义者。 潮州人很狡猾，不诚实。" 

那泰国人呢，我问。
他说。他们很随和，乐天派。他们只考虑食物和性。
最后，我说，这样的话，暹罗的政治就像三国演义[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]中的政治？ 
而出租车司机笑着表示同意。

泰南地区的马来人是如何看待泰国政治的，或Chao Le[渔民]，或南部伊桑的高棉人，或普通人tang jangwad[乡下]？
当然，现在也有一些调查，但人们必须对调查者中流行的思想类别作出反应。
我不知道有谁试图通过少数民族、小城镇和农村居民的眼睛来看待泰国政治。
你可以猜想，他们可能比那些远道而来的记者或学者要 "外面 "得多，尤其是当你想起过去15年中浮现出来的强烈的地区主义观点，以及人们对 "曼谷 "的普遍厌恶和不信任。
说到这里，现在让我谈谈我自己的一些可能错误的观点。

Kasian Tejapira，我最好的学生之一，一直将目前的制度描述为 "半民主"。这是局外人倾向于描述印度尼西亚、菲律宾和马来西亚的政治秩序的最常见方式。 
但在我看来，所有这些国家，包括暹罗，实际上都在不同程度上被寡头政治所控制，这些寡头政治是由相互关联的家庭组成的，他们的孩子在同一所学校上学，他们的生意相互关联，他们之间相互通婚，并拥有一套共同的价值观和利益。

这并不意味着他们之间没有竞争，有时是激烈的竞争。他们也不完全是排斥性的；
他们有足够的灵活性来吸收各种类型的半外来者，但要根据自己的条件。
他们甚至有一种行为准则--其中的一个要素是不利用性丑闻来对付对方。

寡头政治的一个很好的标志是缺乏一个连贯的、管理良好的反对派；
另一个标志是随着执政联盟的不断变化，议员们在所谓的政党之间容易快速流动。
 奈温前一天还是他信的得力助手，后一天就成了反他信的阿披实政府的建设者。

一个成功的寡头政治的关键是对选举制度的精明控制。
印尼在苏哈托下台后进行了第一次 "自由选举"--西方媒体将其誉为民主化的选举
--我遇到了一位专门研究选举制度的资深美国同事，事实上，他曾为印尼政府提供咨询。
 当我问他的意见时，他摇摇头说：
"他们有我所经历过的最糟糕的选举制度。
这不是一个意外，也不是愚蠢的表现。
政治领导人很清楚他们在制定有关选举的法律时在做什么。"

你也可以通过他们用来产生合法性的等级制度语言来发现寡头政治。 需要注意的关键词是 "给予"。   
善良的祖父政权将 "给予 "国民的孙子几乎免费的教育，对农民的补贴，海啸预警装置，廉价贷款，为小学提供电脑，为 "落后 "民族提供毛毯和种子，等等。

我对美国或英国的政治制度并不十分欣赏，但如果总统或首相谈论，比如说，'给予'一百万个新的工作机会，这两个国家的人们会觉得很奇怪，甚至是侮辱。
恐怕即使是最好的泰国学者也还没有对泰国寡头政治的语言给予足够细致的关注。
 在今天的印度尼西亚，你会经常发现寡头们抱怨rakyat masih bodoh，这意味着大众仍然是愚蠢/天真。
这句话是在60年前刚刚实现独立后的时期创造的，
当时人们认为这种由殖民主义者创造的愚蠢现在很快就会消失。
 今天，
寡头们不知羞耻地使用同样的语言，显然是指群众将永远是愚蠢的，
这就是为什么心地善良的父亲式寡头政治是必要的。

这种对伪封建等级制度的迷恋在有抱负的中产阶级中相当明显，但在这个层面上没有'给予'一词，这并不令人惊讶。

1910年，纽约接近三分之一的成年人口在做女佣、保姆、司机、警卫等工作。20年后，随着用于清洁和打理房屋的机械工具的大量生产，这一人群消失了。

寡头统治的东南亚的中产阶级则不然，他们也拥有这些工具。女佣已经成为一种地位的象征，并经常受到资产阶级家庭的母亲或祖母在身体上、精神上和经济上的虐待--这告诉你一些关于相当多的中产阶级、雇用女佣的女权主义者的心态。 

在过去，封建贵族把仆人视为他们的随从，并经常与他们保持长期关系。

中产阶级的父母不把女佣视为 "随从"，给她们的工资很吝啬，而且经常解雇她们。女佣们通常被认为是不可靠的、撒谎的、偷窃的、懒惰的女孩--不值得信任的人。

10多年来，我一直给在我居住的中产阶级公寓工作的警卫、女佣和办公室人员发放新年红利。 我想当然地认为，该公寓的其他250名左右的居民也在做同样的事情。直到今年我才发现，只有Ajarn[教师]Charnvit Kasetsiri和我在做这件事。  公寓的居民把这些他们很少费心知道名字的人视为 "仆人"，他们不应该被 "宠坏"。溺爱只是针对他们自己的常常是顽皮的孩子。

你可以去餐馆和商场，发现中年的中产阶级称服务员、女服务员和年轻的售货员为'nong'[弟弟或妹妹]；这听起来可能很友好，直到你发现他们从不费心去了解这些'nong'的名字，如果nong叫他们'phi'[哥哥或姐姐]，他们会很生气。
在大学里做讲座的人喜欢用封建的'比'来称呼他们的听众，而不是用'同事'或'朋友'这样的词。 这个国家仍然有khunyings和Thanphuyings，在这个现代时代，我觉得这似乎很可笑。
英语中使用'兄弟'一词来表示平等和团结，但这个词无法翻译成泰语，他们不得不使用等级术语phi nong[哥哥和妹妹]，这意味着不平等和从属关系。
你甚至可以说，半封建的等级制度已经深深地建立在泰国语言之中。

现在让我简单谈谈当今政治的另外两个重要方面，最后再简单说说不常说或不常写的可能的未来。

第一个是地区主义。 任何参加过去年春天红衫军大规模示威活动的人都会注意到，示威者的旗帜大多来自于伊萨省（东北部）。
但令我印象深刻的是，大多数以萨人并不年轻--不是青少年，也不是学生，而是50岁左右的人，有男有女。
我想知道这种情况以前在暹罗是否发生过。
鉴于该地区以大规模的贿选和jaophor-ism[当地有影响力的人领导的赞助制度]而闻名，为什么会这样呢？

在我看来，只有现代历史可以解释这一点。
直到20世纪70年代末，从政治上讲，伊萨是左派的
--这是贫困和Paak Klang[中部地区]以及曼谷的羞辱态度的结果。
泰国共产党在那里得到了最有力的支持。

在1975年暹罗的一次真正的民主选举中，它是唯一一个从社会党和帕朗迈选举出议员的地区。
在萨里特及其继任者的独裁统治下，该地区遭受的军事压迫最严重，并经历了泰国共产党崩溃的最痛苦的过程。

1976年后，再也没有什么重要的左派政党了。
因此，卖票成为从寡头控制的选举制度中获得任何小利益的唯一途径。
70年代成长起来的年轻人现在已经50和60岁了，他信为他们打开了再次进入政治的机会，而不是简单的卖票和服从于教父。
数十万伊萨人来到曼谷和伊萨以外的其他地方工作
（即使是唐人街，现在伊萨人也可能比中国人更多）。

大众媒体不断增长的力量也向他们反映了他们在泰国社会的地位。
你最后一次在电影或电视肥皂剧中看到黑暗的伊萨族美女是什么时候？
曼谷的消费主义中产阶级被luk jin[中国人的后裔]所支配，因此电视上的美女形象尽可能地远离伊萨族--所期望的 "外观 "是luk jin或luk kryng[一半西方，一半泰国]。

Isaan人被归入喜剧、滑稽和闹剧的范畴，也就是传统的仆人范畴。
但伊萨地区主义的内容不止于此。
在红衫军的示威活动中，我注意到像纳塔乌特和贾图蓬这样熟练的演说家几乎从未提到过深南地区，而深南地区的待遇实际上比伊萨省的人民要差得多。
在曼谷发生的全部杀戮事件，有些是红军所为，但更多的是军方所为，红军和曼谷媒体将其视为国家灾难，并加以处理。
没有人提到，仅在德拜发生的谋杀案就比曼谷的死亡人数多，更不用说过去十年深南地区的战争伤亡了。
伊萨地区主义关注的是它自己的麻烦。
曼谷的中产阶级不可能不关心深南地区的情况。
你觉得只要领土保持 "泰国"，当地的马来穆斯林就应该简单地消失。

第二个话题是曼谷中产阶级或kratumpi[资产阶级]、kratumpi yai[大]和kratumpi noi[小]的政治。
西方关于进步和民主的神话中，有一部分是将中产阶级或资产阶级的关键作用归结为中产阶级，这个传说绝非完全错误。
(我们很容易忘记，在中产阶级摧毁1871年巴黎公社的两个星期里，被处决的人比整个法国大革命期间还要多）。

毫无疑问，19世纪那么多伟大的小说家、画家、诗人、剧作家、建筑师、社会思想家和哲学家的成就都来自于中产阶级对文化统治的崛起。
与暹罗的对比再明显不过了。
 据我所知，曼谷还没有诞生过一位伟大的小说家、诗人、剧作家、哲学家、建筑师或社会思想家。 是
孔卡恩，而不是曼谷，诞生了阿彼察邦-韦拉塞塔库，他还不到40岁，就被国际上认为是世界电影导演中的顶尖人物，今年还获得了戛纳电影节的金棕榈奖。
你可能会想到，这样一位艺术家会成为一个总是急于显示其国际资历的资产阶级的巨大骄傲的对象。
但是没有，资产阶级继续被动地吞噬着好莱坞的垃圾、重复的中国武术垃圾、进口电子游戏和垃圾肥皂剧。 
曼谷的中产阶级，如果看了广告，只对好吃的东西、国外的时装、昂贵的度假村以及东亚和欧洲的购物之旅感兴趣。
在泰国首都真的很难找到一个漂亮的公共建筑，也没有一个泰国寺庙能胜过琅勃拉邦的Wat Xian Thong。   
关于Preah Wihan的可耻的喧嚣是掩盖任何人都应该知道的事情的一种方式，即没有任何泰式建筑可以与柬埔寨的吴哥、爪哇的婆罗浮屠或缅甸的普坎相比。
人们可以怀疑曼谷在这方面有一种隐藏的自卑感。
在Preah Wihan的两分钟告诉任何有头脑的人，这个华丽的建筑是高棉的，而不是泰国的，所以有些泰国人不能忍受这个，所以它必须是'我们的'。

对这种类型的首都中产阶级，很难有什么期待。
它怯懦地支持了73年10月的示威游行，但在1976年却背弃了学生。
它怯懦地支持早期他信的社会政策，但很快就转而反对他，现在则通过对君主制和黄种人的嘈杂支持来表达自己。 
我应该说，在这方面，曼谷的资产阶级与马尼拉、吉隆坡、新加坡和雅加达的资产阶级相差无几：
胆小、自私、没有文化、消费主义，对国家的未来没有任何体面的愿景。

为什么会这样，这是学者们才开始研究的问题。我想起了法国总理克里蒙梭对美国的破坏性判决。
他说，美国已经从野蛮状态发展到了颓废状态，中间没有任何文明的间隔期。

最后，让我也胆怯地转向未来。 伟大的意大利马克思主义者葛兰西曾写道：
"当旧的拒绝死亡，而新的正在挣扎着诞生时，怪物就会出现。"
他想到的是前社会主义者墨索里尼的崛起，这位民粹主义的右翼独裁者发明了 "法西斯主义 "一词，并将葛兰西监禁多年。
我想请你考虑一下这个相当夸张的想法。

我胆怯的感觉是，旧的正在死亡，尽管它仍然拒绝这样做。
有哪些指标值得思考？

去年，《曼谷邮报》简短地指出，十年前，仍有600万泰国男性穿着黄袍，要么是正式的僧侣，要么是念经[新手]。
今天，这个数字已经下降到150万--损失了75%。
毫无疑问，这种急剧下降在一定程度上是对瓦特[寺庙]商业化、定期财务和性丑闻等的反应，这些在之前被禁的电影《Naak Phrok》中都有间接的体现。
但肯定也与中产阶级的感觉有关，即把他们的儿子送进瓦特WAT(寺廟)，即使是短暂的，也是一种浪费。

我认识很多从未受戒的成年男性，他们没有计划成为僧人，哪怕是几周。   
几个月前，Ajarn Nidhi写了一篇关于城市女孩和年轻女性使用的语言的深刻专栏。
他认为，这些年轻女性使用年轻男子和男孩的yaap[不雅]语言，坚持她们的平等权利，拒绝性别等级制度。

我毫不怀疑他是部分正确的，尽管我非常有限的观察表明，这种yaap语言在女孩之间更常见，而不是在混合公司中。
但它也可以被更复杂地解读。 西方的肥皂剧中，女孩经常使用与男孩相同的有限的粗俗语言，这可能有其影响。 曼谷的电视肥皂剧经常以被宠坏的、尖叫的女孩为中心，她们会说任何东西来震惊或惩罚。这种变化也可能反映了公共语言的民主化和粗糙化。 

寡头政治在性问题上的沉默准则实际上是由Ai Lerm[Chalerm Yubamrung]首先打破的，他在议会辩论中威胁说老将军是'tut'[基佬]，从而将总理Prem将军赶下台。
但实际上是现代暹罗第一个出色的演说家纳塔乌特公开攻击普雷姆（他还能攻击谁呢？

纳塔武是在破译密码，仅此而已，或更少，这一点从他在拉特普拉松舞台上欢迎最近成为红衫军的可爱少年克拉托伊[异装癖]就可以看出，尽管这个尴尬的男孩承认他的好丈夫是个塔汉[士兵]。 纳塔乌特带领大家疯狂地、友好地鼓掌，这个小家伙创造了奇迹。

西欧显示了许多对统治阶级进行性攻击的例子，
从18世纪开始。 无论如何，我们可以肯定，所有这些趋势都不会匆匆消失。
民主化既意味着phrai[臣民或普通人]有权要求，而不是被 "给予 "什么，也意味着大量针对寡头的丑陋语言。
(如果你不相信这一点，看看美国右翼分子对奥巴马真正令人厌恶的语言）。

这种发展的另一面，被不可阻挡的博客、手机、YouTube、Twitter、Facebook等新文化极大地强调了，就是寡头政治的支点危机的到来。
这丝毫不是暹罗特有的东西。

从20世纪初开始，欧洲的君主制受到了巨大的压力，随着大众文化、小报等的崛起，等等。一个基本原因当然是世俗文化的胜利。
传统上，君主被认为是受上帝祝福的特殊人物，
他们甚至有能力通过皇室的按手来治疗臣民的疾病。 
这种权力在18世纪初的英国已经不复存在，而在法国则在二三十年后。  

由此，君主立宪制的理念最终产生，旧有的神奇的王权光环也随之结束。   
君主们不得不适应古代帝国内部民族主义的兴起，包括几十个民族，他们认同一种或另一种民族主义。
他们还必须应对正在崛起的资产阶级的期望。
王室放荡的时代即将结束，这主要得益于报纸的传播。
这样一来，资产阶级君主制就出现了，取代了封建君主制。
一个王朝的衰落意味着一个新王朝的崛起，这种古老的想法逐渐消失了。
所有欧洲的君主都开始意识到，如果他们倒下了，就不会有替代者。
1911年至1920年期间，中国、俄罗斯、奥匈帝国、奥斯曼帝国和大德意志的王朝都消失了，再加上国际联盟的成立，这种恐惧被证明是真实的。
只有在胜利的英国，凭借其帝国，A类君主制才得以生存，而且必须是尽可能好的资产阶级。
(但没有光环的君主制很难做到这一点，因为它的传统合法性取决于光环）。

在英国，这种君主制生存得相当好，直到查尔斯王储和戴安娜王妃的不愉快婚姻。
英国君主制的世俗化意味着小报在电脑黑客的帮助下，显示出丈夫和妻子都是通奸的。
 到那时，戴安娜至少已经发现了一种虚弱的新方法来获得光环。
作为她那一代人中真正的一员，她在大众传媒中找到了，作为一个超级名人。 
在电影明星和摇滚明星的陪伴下，他们都比她更漂亮、更有创造力、更有智慧，她手中握有一张黑桃A--她是皇室成员，是任何歌手和电影明星都无法达到的地位。
但她不明白，当媒体名人在性和其他丑闻中茁壮成长时，皇室成员却不能。 
她也没有意识到名人是多么短暂的。
它在每个电影明星所拥有的短暂的光环中发挥作用。
她对英国君主制造成了巨大的损害，
而英国君主制正在努力确保古老的资产阶级君主制得到复兴。
她很幸运，还只是个公主。
如果她活到成为女王，并且仍然希望成为一个名人，她可能会使君主制在英国走向终结。
我们可以从中学习。

观点

本尼迪克特-安德森

Anderson, Benedict R. O’G. (1977) ‘Withdrawal Symptoms: Social and Cultural Aspects of the October 6 Coup’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 13–31.

____ (1978) ‘Studies of the Thai State: The State of Thai Studies’, in Eliezer B. Ayal (ed.), The Study of Thailand, Ohio Center for International Studies, Athens OH, pp. 193–247.

____ (2012) ‘Outsider View of Thai Politics’, www.prachatai.com/english/node/2694; accessed 7 February 2014.

Benedict Anderson: Outsider view of Thai politics

Submitted on Fri, 5 Aug 2011 - 05:51 PM

Benedict Anderson, professor at Cornell University and author of Imagined Communities, offered his view on Thai politics at a forum organized by the Midnight University and the Faculty of Humanities of Chiang Mai University on 26 Jan 2011.

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I have been asked to offer you some kind of “outsider” view of Thai politics these days,  and I will try.  But I am not sure what the meaning of  an outsider really is.  Is it simply a polite substitute for a farang, ie a Westerner who is not a Thai citizen, but knows something about Thai politics;  who has the advantage of distance, but the disadvantage of not being deeply and constantly involved?

The implication is that farang who write about Siam think in a very different way from educated Thai.  But my strong impression is that farang journalists and scholars in fact are heavily dependent on their Thai opposite numbers.  On the other hand, there is Chris Baker, very English, a longtime resident in Siam, in good command of Thai,  who writes quite distinctive and excellent columns on Thai politics, has penned the best modern books on Thai politics in partnership with Pasuk Phongphaichit, and with her too has just  published a  monumental English translation of Khun Chang Khun Paen.  Is it right to call him an outsider?

But aren’t there millions of citizens of Siam who may be outsiders too?

Let me tell you a good story. Some  months ago, I had a long chat with a taxi driver who was taking me to Ngong Ngu Hao [Suvarnabhumi Airport]. He was  over 50 and came from Bangkok’s Chinatown. I asked  him what he thought of Thaksin, and his answer surprised me. “Thaksin is wonderful, I support him 100%.”  When I asked him why, he said Thaksin is a Hakka like me.  They are the best Chinese: brave, tough, honest, and  hardworking. Hakkas were the leaders of the great Tai P’ing rebellion which conquered South China and nearly toppled the Manchu Ch’ing dynasty.  His enemies here are Hokkiens, Hailamese, and Teochiu.  Aphisit’s family is Hokkien mixed with Vietnamese.  Sonthi Liem [Limthongkul] is a Hailamese.  Hokkiens are snobbish, lazy liars. Hailamese are dirty and opportunist.  The Teochiu are tricky and dishonest.” 

What about the Thai, I asked.  He said: They are easy-going and happy-go-lucky. They only think about food and sex.  Finally, I said that in that case Siam’s politics is  just like the politics of  Sam Kok [Romance of the Three Kingdoms]?   And the taxi driver laughed in agreement. 

How do Malays in the Deep South think about Thai politics, or the Chao Le [fisher folks],  or the Khmer in southern Isan, or ordinary people tang jangwad [upcountry]?  Of course, there are surveys now and then, but people have to respond to the categories of thought popular among the survey-makers. I don't know of anyone who has yet tried to see Thai politics through the eyes of minorities, small town and rural people.  You could guess that they might be far more ‘outside’ than the run of farang reporters or scholars, especially when you remember the strong regionalist outlooks that have come to the surface over the past 15 years, and the widespread dislike and distrust of ‘Bangkok.’  This said, let me now turn to some probably mistaken opinions of my own.

Kasian Tejapira,  one of the very best students I ever had, has been describing the present system as a ‘semi-democracy.’ This is the commonest way that outsiders tend to describe the political orders of Indonesia, the Philippines, and  Malaysia.   But in my opinion all these states, including Siam, are actually controlled, to varying extents,  by oligarchies, clusters of interlocking families, whose children go to the same schools, whose businesses are interconnected,  who marry among themselves, and share a common set of values and interests. 

This does not mean that they do  not compete among themselves, sometimes fiercely. Nor are they entirely exclusionary; they are flexible enough to  assimilate various kinds of semi-outsiders, but on their own terms.  They even have a kind of code of conduct – one element of which is not to  use sexual scandals against each other. 

A good sign of oligarchy is the absence of a coherent, well-managed opposition; another is the easy and rapid movement of sor-sor [MPs] between so-called parties as shifting governing coalitions get formed.  Ne Win  was one day the right hand man of Thaksin, and the next the builder of the anti-Thaksin present Aphisit government.

Crucial to a successful oligarchy is astute control of the electoral system. After Indonesia  undertook its first ‘free elections’ following the fall of Suharto -- elections which were hailed as democratization in the Western press -- I ran into a senior American colleague who specializes in electoral systems, and, in fact, advised the Indonesian government.  When I asked  him his opinion, he shook his head and said “They have the worst electoral system I have ever experienced.  This is not an accident, nor a sign of stupidity. The political leaders knew exactly what they were doing in framing the laws on elections.”

You can spot oligarchies also by the hierarchical language they use to generate legitimacy.  The key word to look out for is  “give.”    The kind-grandfather regime will “give’ the national grandchildren almost free education, subsidies for farmers, tsunami warning apparatuses, cheap  loans, computers for elementary schools, blankets and seeds  for ‘backward’  ethnic groups and so on. 

I am not a great admirer of either the US or the UK political system, but people in those two countries would find it odd and even insulting if the President or the Prime Minister talked about, say, ‘giving’ one million new jobs.  I’m afraid that even the best Thai scholars do not yet pay enough detailed attention to the Thai oligarchy’s language.  In Indonesia today, you will often find oligarchs complaining that the rakyat masih bodoh, which means the masses are still stupid/naïve.  The phrase was coined in the period just after independence was achieved 60 years ago,  when people thought this stupidity, created by the colonialists, would now soon disappear.  Today the oligarchs without shame use the same language clearly meaning that the masses will always be stupid, and that is why the  good-hearted fatherly oligarchy is necessary.

It is not a matter of great surprise that this fascination with pseudofeudal hierarchy is quite visible among the aspiring middle classes, but at this level without the word ‘give.’ 

In 1910, close to one third of the adult population of New York was working as maids, nannies, chauffeurs, guards and so on. Twenty years later, with the mass production of mechanical tools for cleaning and upkeeping houses, this population vanished.

Not so with the middle classes of oligarchic SE Asia, who also own these tools. Maids have become a sort of status symbol, and  have frequently been abused physically, mentally, and financially, by the mother or  grandmother of the bourgeois family – which tells you something about the mentality of quite a few middle class, maid-employing feminists.  

In the old days, feudal aristocrats regarded their servants as their entourage, and often  kept up long-term relations with them. 

Middle class parents do not see the maids as ‘entourage,’ pay them stingily, and regularly fire them. The maids are usually regarded as unreliable, lying, thieving, and lazy girls – not people to be trusted.

For more than 10 years I have been giving  New Year bonuses to the guards, mae ban [maids],  and office personnel working at the middleclass condo where I live.  I took it for granted that all the other 250 or so inhabitants of the condo were doing the same thing. Only this year did I discover that only Ajarn [teacher] Charnvit Kasetsiri and I did this.   The condo inhabitants  regard these people, whose names they rarely bother to know, as ‘servants,’ who shouldn't be ‘spoiled.’ Spoiling is only for their own often bratty children.

You can go to restaurants and malls and find middle-aged, middle-class  people calling waiters, waitresses, and young salespeople ‘nong' [younger brother or sister]; which might sound friendly until you see that they never bother to know the names of these ‘nong,’ and would be angry if the nong called them ‘phi’ [older brother or sister].  People in universities giving talks liked to address their audience with the  feudal ‘than,’ rather than words like ‘colleagues,’ or ‘friends.’  The country still has khunyings and Thanphuyings,  which seems to me laughable in these modern times. English uses the words ‘brothers’ to indicate equality and solidarity, but the word can’t be translated into Thai, who have to use the hierarchical terms phi nong [older and younger brothers and sisters], which imply inequality and subordination. You could even argue that semi-feudal hierarchy is built deeply inside the Thai language.

Let me now turn briefly to two other important aspects of today’s politics, before concluding with a few simple remarks on possible futures which are not commonly spoken or written about.

The first is regionalism.  Anyone who attended the early days of the Red Shirts’ huge demonstration last spring would have noticed the predominance of banners indicating the protesters' origins in Isaan [northeastern].  But what struck me was that most of the Isaan people were not young – not teens, not students, but people around 50 and up,  both men and women.  I wonder whether this has ever happened before in Siam.  Why should it be so, given the region’s reputation for massive vote-buying and jaophor-ism [patronage system under local influential persons]?

In my opinion, only modern history can explain this.  Up until the late 1970s, Isaan was, politically speaking, leftist – the outcome of poverty and Paak Klang [central region] and Bangkok’s humiliating attitude. The Communist Party of Thailand had its strongest support there.

In Siam’s one really democratic election, in 1975, it was the only region to elect MPs from the Socialist Party and Palang Mai. It was the region that suffered most from military oppression under the dictatorship of Sarit and his successors, and experienced most painfully the collapse of the CPT. 

After 1976, there were no more leftist political parties of significance. Hence the drift towards selling votes as the only way to get any small benefit from the oligarchy-controlled electoral system.  Youngsters who grew up in the 70s are now in their 50s and 60s, and Thaksin opened chances for them to enter politics again, beyond simple vote-selling and submission to jao phor [godfathers]. Hundreds of thousands of Isaan people have been coming to work in Bangkok and elsewhere outside Isaan (even Chinatown is now perhaps fuller of Isaan people than Chinese). 

The evergrowing power of the mass media also reflects to them their status in Thai society.  When was the last time you saw a dark Isaan beauty in films or TV soaps?  Bangkok’s consumerist middeclass is dominated by luk jin [Chinese descendants], so that the image of TV beauty is as far from Isaan as possible – the desired ‘look’ is luk jin or luk kryng [half-western, half-Thai]. 

Isaan people are relegated to the sphere of comedy, slapstick, and farce, the traditional sphere of servants.  But there is more to Isaan regionalism than that.  During the Red Shirt demonstrations, I noticed that skilled orators like Nattawut and Jatuporn almost never mentioned the Deep South,  which is actually treated much worse than the people of Isaan.  The total killings in Bangkok, some by Reds but more by the military, were regarded and treated by the Reds and the Bangkok media as national calamities. No one mentioned that the  murders at Tak Bai alone were more numerous than the deaths in Bangkok, let alone the casualties of the war in the Deep South over the past decade. Isaan regionalism is focussed on its own troubles. Middleclass Bangkok could not care less about the Deep South. You feel that as long as the territory remains ‘Thai,’ the local Malay Muslims should simply disappear.

The second topic is the politics of the Bangkok middle class or kratumpi [bourgeoisie], kratumpi yai [big] and kratumpi noi [petty].  Part of the mythology of progress and democracy in the West attributes a  crucial role to the middle class or bourgeoisie and this legend is by no means wholly false. (It’s so easy to forget that  more people were executed in the two weeks it took the middle class to destroy the Paris Commune of 1871 than during the whole of the French Revolution). 

There is no doubt that the 19th century effloration of so many great novelists, painters, poets, playwrights, architects, social thinkers, and philosophers came out of the rise of middle classes to cultural dominance.  The contrast with Siam could not be more striking.  So far as I know, Bangkok has yet to give birth to a great novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, architect, or social thinker.  It is Kongkhaen, not Bangkok, that gave  birth to Apichatpong Weerasetakul who, barely in his 40s, is internationally regarded as among the very top of  world cinema directors, and this year won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. You might have expected that an artist of this calibre would be the object of immense pride by a bourgeoisie always anxious to show its international credentials.  But no, the bourgeoisie continues passively to swallow up  Hollywood junk,  repetitive Chinese martial arts junk, imported videogames and trashy soaps.   Middle class Bangkok, if one reads the advertisements,  is interested only in good food,  fashions from abroad,  expensive resorts, and shopping trips in East Asia and Europe.  It is really hard to find a beautiful public building in the Thai capital, and there is no Thai temple that can beat Wat Xian Thong in Luang Prabang.    The shameful hubbub about Preah Wihan is one way of covering up what should be obvious to anyone,  i.e. that there are no Thai-thai buildings than can compare with Cambodia’s  Angkor,  Java’s Borobudur, or Burma’s Pukan. One can suspect that Bangkok has a hidden inferiority complex in this regard.  Two minutes at Preah Wihan tells anyone with brains that this gorgeous building is Khmer not Thai, so some Thais can’t bear this, so it has to be ‘ours.’

It would be difficult to expect anything from a capital city middle class of this type.  It timidly supported the demonstrations of October 73, but turned its back on the students in 1976.  It timidly supported the early Thaksin social policies, but very soon turned against him, and now expresses itself through noisy support for the monarchy and the Yellows.   I should say that in this way the Bangkok bourgeoisie isn’t far from that of Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta: timid, selfish, uncultured, consumerist, and  without any decent vision of the future of the country. 

Why it should be so is something that scholars have only begun to investigate. I am reminded of French Prime Minister Clemenceau’s devastating verdict on the US. He said that the US has progressed from barbarism to decadence without any intervening period of civilization.

Finally, let me turn, also timidly, to the future.  The great Italian Marxist Gramsci famously wrote that” When the old refuses to die, and the new is struggling to be born, monsters appear.” He was thinking of the rise to power of ex-socialist Mussolini, the populist rightwing dictator who  invented the word ‘fascism’ and imprisoned Gramsci for many years.  I would like to ask you to consider this rather overdramatic idea.

My timid sense is that the old is dying though it still refuses to do so. What are the indicators to think about? 

Last year, the Bangkok Post  briefly noted that ten years ago there were still 6 million male Thais wearing yellow robes, either as full monks or as nen [novice].  Today the number has fallen to 1.5 million – a 75% loss.  No doubt this drastic drop is partly a reaction to the commercialization of wats [temples],  the regular financial and sexual scandals, and so on, which are obliquely  recognized in the previously banned film Naak Phrok.  But is surely also connected to a middle class feeling that putting their sons into wat, even if briefly, is a waste of time.

I know plenty of adult males who have never been ordained and have no plan to become, even for a few weeks, a monk.    Some months ago Ajarn Nidhi  wrote an insightful column about the language used by  urban girls and young women. He argued that these young women use the yaap [indecent] language of young men and boys to insist on their right to equality and to reject  gender hierarchy.

I have no doubt  that he is partly right, though my very  limited observations suggest that this yaap language is more common among girls together rather than in mixed company.  But it can also be read more complexly.  Western soaps, where girls often use the same limited coarse language of the boys, probably have their influence.  Bangkok TV soaps regularly centre on spoiled, screaming girls who will say anything to shock or to punish. The change may also reflect both a democratization as well as a coarsening of public language.  

The oligarchy’s code of silence on sex was actually first breached by Ai Lerm [Chalerm Yubamrung], who drove PM General Prem from power by threatening to call the elderly general a ‘tut’ [faggot] in parliamentary debate. But it was really Natthawut, the first brilliant orator in modern Siam, who openly attacked Prem (who else could he attack?) as a tut, even though Prem’s sexual life had  nothing to do with his political maneuvering. 

That Nattawut was code-breaking, and nothing more, or less, was shown by his welcoming on the Ratprasong stage  of a cute teenage krathoey [transvestite] who had recently become a Red Shirt, even though the embarrassed boy confessed that his wonderful pua [husband] was a tahan [soldier].  Nattawut led the wild and friendly applause that the little tut created.

Western Europe shows many examples of sexual attacks on the ruling classes, from the 18th century on.  In any case,  we can be sure that all these trends are not going to disappear in a hurry.  Democratization means both the right of the phrai [subjects or ordinary people] to demand, rather than to be ‘given’ something, as well as plenty of ugly language directed at the oligarchs. (If you don't believe this, look at the really repulsive language directed at Obama by American rightwingers.)

The other side of this development, enormously accentuated by the new culture of  unstoppable blogs, cell phones, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook etc) is the coming crisis of the pivot of the oligarchy.  This is not something in the least peculiar to Siam. 

From the beginning of the 20th century, monarchy in Europe came under enormous pressure, with the rise of popular literacy, tabloids, etc etc. One basic cause was certainly the triumph of a secular culture.  Traditionally monarchs were believed to be special  God-blessed people, who even had the power to cure diseases among their subjects by the laying on of royal hands.   This power ceased to exist in England in the early 18th century, and in France two or three decades later.   

Out of this came eventually the idea of constitutional monarchy, and the end of the  old magical aura of kingship.    Monarchs had to adapt to the rise of nationalism inside ancient empires that included dozens of nationalities, by identifying themselves with one nationalism or another.  They also had to deal with the expectations of the rising bourgeoisie. The age of royal debauchery was coming to an end, not least thanks to the spread of newspapers. In this way, bourgeois monarchy came into existence to replace feudal monarchy.  The old idea that the fall of a dynasty would mean the rise of a new one, gradually disappeared.  All European monarchs began to realize that if they fell, there would be no replacement.  The fear was shown to be real between 1911 and 1920, when the dynasties in China, Russia, Austro-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Great Germany all disappeared, together with the foundation of the League of Nations. Only in victorious UK, with its empire, did Class A monarchy survive, and it had to be as good bourgeois as  possible. (But aura-less monarchy had a hard time of this, since its traditional legitimacy depended on aura). 

In the UK this kind of monarchy survived pretty well until the unhappy marriage of Crown Prince Charles and Princess Diana. The secularization of the British monarchy meant that the tabloids, helped by computer hacks, showed that both husband and wife were adulterous.  By then Diana, at least, had discovered a frail new way to achieve an aura. A true member of her generation, she found it in the mass media, as a super-celebrity.   In the company of film stars and rock stars, both more beautiful, more creative and more intelligent than she, she had in her hand the ace of spades – she was royalty a status which no singer of film star could attain. But she did not understand that while media celebrities thrive on sexual and other scandals, royalty can not.   She also did not realize how ephemeral celebrity really is.  It works for the short period of aura that every film star has.  She did enormous damage to the British monarchy, which is trying to make sure that the old bourgeois monarchy is revived. She was lucky to be still only a princess. Had she lived to become Queen, and still wished to be a celebrity, she might have brought monarchy to an end in the UK.  We can learn from this.