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In his speech the other day when former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra apologized, he also mentioned accepting the position of economic adviser to the Cambodian government - Matichon has the transcript - and noted that he is not the first senior Thai politcian to have done so:
BP: Thaksin was responding to numerous statements by Democrats questioning his patriotism and asking if he was not a traitor. Matichon has a statement by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's spokesman Thepthai who says Thaksin's behavior of accepting the position has a name, namely a traitor to the country (ขอ เรียนว่าพฤติกรรม พ.ต.ท.ทักษิณไปเป็นที่ปรึกษาของรัฐบาลกัมพูชา ได้ชื่อว่าเป็นผู้ทรยศต่อชาติ). Matichon also has Abhisit asking "why does [Thaksin] care about the interests of another country more than his own?" (ทำไมจึงเป็นห่วงผลประโยชน์ของประเทศอื่นมากกว่าประเทศตัวเอง). He then later states "or does Thaksin have a problem with loving the country?" (หรือพ.ต.ท.ทักษิณ มีปัญหาเรื่องรักชาติ). Is Dr. Supachai as UNCTAD Sec-Gen (and before WTO Sec-Gen) a traitor working for an international organization? What about Surin Pitsuwan, former Foreign Minister under the Democrats, becoming ASEAN Secretary-General? BP sees plenty of extreme nationalist rhetoric from the Democrats, but little criticism of this. Thaksin is labeled a traitor or evil person as if he is no longer human.
Related StoriesOf traitors and foreign spies among us (story by Rocky's Bru) Comments
Sure, anyone can say all kind of things. As long as they are responsible for it. Would a libel charges be file against Thepthai?
BP: Never heard of anyone calling Thaksin a non human or sub human. Thaksin was off base for comparing himself with Viranbongsa or Supachai. These two are not appointed by a country virtually at war with Thailand that wants to dishonor extradition treaty with Thailand. The fact that you raise the question whether Suachai is a traitor for working with UNCTAD or WTO is very, very puzzling....
watched Thaksin economics speech to the Cambodians live on PeopleTV (www.thaipeoplevoice.org) yesterday He addressed a capacity crowd of about 150 including the Deputy PM, government bureaucrats and private industry with a sprinkling of farangs, one introduced himself as a lawyer resident in Cambodia. He spoke confidently and lucidly covering the global, Asian and local Thai and Cambodian economies. He had preliminary specific advice and priorities for his hosts. and promised to work with smaller groups on details for a strategic plan. He discussed his experiences as PM in Thailand with the Village Fund, OTOP, 30Baht Health, etc and said that the work by the King and Queen in their Village Projects and Demonstration Farms was valuable in enabling implementation and spread of these ideas across the villages in Thailand. In answer to questions he noted that the present Thai government does not have a vision and philosophy to underpin their copies of his policies, calling them populous rather than targetting them for the long term benefit of the people. For the audience he described his approach as capitalist rather than socialist and provided a cautionary tale of the scorpion and the turtle, in capitalism you should cooperate for mutual win-win benefit but always recognise the risks and protect yourself from being stung as it is the nature of capitalists to compete and take advantage of opponents. He described developing countries as selling labour and tears (small returns for effort), semi developed as value adding with creative input and developed countries as having high leverage in making paper worth more than effort. India and China have attracted their creative people back home and are increasing their creative input rapidly. For me the highlight was his simple and meaningful simile of the economy of a country as a tree, where the poor and workers are the roots, rising to the middle class and those at the top. The performance of the economy is most dependent on the health and well-being of the roots. If you water the top of the tree you must use a lot of water to get benefit. If you water the roots the top of the tree must wait to get the benefit and they can cause trouble for a government as happened to him. It is important to focus on the roots but at least spray the top and the middle so that a government can stay in office long enough to benefit the country.
Wasn't it Mark Twain - "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel"? It really is the emptiest, most contemptible of attacks, isn't it?
No, it was Samuel Johnson, sorry.
Jeremy I think that's unfair. Nationalism can be patriotism which is not a bad thing. Nationalist propaganda is what Aphisit is doing, which is not the same. However, this is teh first time I've heard Aphisit use that line so directly, Thaksin, on the other hand, used it as one of his main artillery pieces. Anytime there was any criticism or opposition to his plans he would wheel out either the "You don't understand what I'm doing" line or "Please don't harm the country" line. It was regular as clockwork. Greg (redandwhitestripes)
I don't know about that - I'm yet to see any real positives flow from patriotism, either. We're having a discussion about this over at asiancorrespondent.com/melbournelefty. |
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