The army in Thailand has announced the imposition of martial law over the country, granting itself wide-ranging powers to enforce its decision. Thailand's powerful military has launched or attempted 18 coups in 81 years and it is still unclear if this is another coup although they insist it isn’t.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was dismissed on May 7 when the Constitutional Court ruled Yingluck abused her power by appointing a relative as national security chief. Yingluck's Pheu Thai party is pressing ahead with a planned election on July 20 when the rural poor are expected to give the Pheu Thai party another victory. It's already handed Yingluck and her brother Thaksin Shinawatra six consecutive election victories between 2001 and 2013.
Many wealthy Thais believe the poor shouldn’t have the vote, a view linked to popular Buddhist notions that the poor deserve their lower status because of accumulated demerits from previous lives. That system relied on the lower class's continual servitude and, in some way, their acceptance of a deeply embedded caste system in which reverence for the king, who is accorded divine-like status, carried over to reverence for anyone occupying a higher social strata. The caste and status consciousness is deeply ingrained that it is reflected in the Thai language itself.
Probably more accurately is that the urban affluent elite have finally grasped the fact of electoral democracy: they are permanently outnumbered by the poor. The old superior-inferior fiction is eroding thanks satellite TV, the Internet and the cheap mobile phones, information being the true form of democracy. Those who once lived in isolated hamlets are now more aware of the wide inequality urban/rural gap, and possess a deep and growing sense of injustice.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was dismissed on May 7 when the Constitutional Court ruled Yingluck abused her power by appointing a relative as national security chief. Yingluck's Pheu Thai party is pressing ahead with a planned election on July 20 when the rural poor are expected to give the Pheu Thai party another victory. It's already handed Yingluck and her brother Thaksin Shinawatra six consecutive election victories between 2001 and 2013.
Many wealthy Thais believe the poor shouldn’t have the vote, a view linked to popular Buddhist notions that the poor deserve their lower status because of accumulated demerits from previous lives. That system relied on the lower class's continual servitude and, in some way, their acceptance of a deeply embedded caste system in which reverence for the king, who is accorded divine-like status, carried over to reverence for anyone occupying a higher social strata. The caste and status consciousness is deeply ingrained that it is reflected in the Thai language itself.
Probably more accurately is that the urban affluent elite have finally grasped the fact of electoral democracy: they are permanently outnumbered by the poor. The old superior-inferior fiction is eroding thanks satellite TV, the Internet and the cheap mobile phones, information being the true form of democracy. Those who once lived in isolated hamlets are now more aware of the wide inequality urban/rural gap, and possess a deep and growing sense of injustice.
1 comment:
"Thailand's powerful military has launched or attempted 18 coups in 81 years and it is still unclear if this is another coup although they insist it isn’t."
It is now clear. The Thai military announce they are now the government. Coup number 19 has taken place.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27517591
And i can add that all television is presently off the air, replaced by miltary logos and patriotic music and a army spokesperson periodically announcing the generals' statement.
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