Thailand: Bullet or Ballot

The root cause of the latest bloody political turmoil stems from the very weakness of the Thai society.

Thailand is so prone to the coup d'etat as a mean to overthrow a popularly mandated government.

This is added with a near-naïve reverence by large section of the society to a monarch for reconciliation when he himself is so frail and according to some commentator is most probably complicit in legitimizing the coup and the latest government.

What makes it worse is the utter lack of respect to democracy by the established interest, the aristocrats and the army.

Whenever a government is backed up by army with strong will to impose brute force against the civilian, it is inevitable to have the bloody carnage. It happened many times in Thai's history.

On Abhist, I feel sorry for him. He has a smiling baby face and it’s difficult to see him as the head of the government that crack down the red shirted protesters. He maybe outmaneuvered, but he has a choice to resign.

Had he chosen this path, his integrity and that of his party can be preserved. By holding on to it, he gains nothing for his nation and his peoples.

If he considers himself being able to solve the conflict without shedding blood, the recent events have proved him wrong. Whatever his credential, I am sure he has lost all of them.

Even if the red shirt is overcome, what is left in him is just a puppet of the real power-to-be.

On the Bangkok streets, confronted with an iron-willed military, the blood is the means and we got to respect the courage of those who defended against the professionally trained soldier who are equipped with the modern weaponry. It is ultimately a test of wills - the will to kill and the will not fearing dead.

Whoever outlast the other wins.

I am sympathetic to the red shirted for sheer reason that the party they supported won the last election.

Hopefully, the Thai soldiers (many are Buddhist) are sensible enough to reflect on Buddha birthday (this Friday) to give up the bullet for ballot.

Thailand and Singapore - Reflecting on Governing Institutions

These are thoughts which I felt deserve to be memorialized.

Firstly, I feel sad for Thailand - for the bloodshed and destruction - but also at how the institutions are unravelling. The monarchy, the army, its democracy, constitution, the entire establishment, in fact, are frayed and are being discredited bit by bit, day by day.

I do not doubt for a moment that Thailand is a wonderful nation as a people or that it can still have a promising future; but one wonders if it will go the way of a chronically failing state like the Philippines or will the current throes will throw up much needed reforms and lead to a new era stability like what Indonesia has just gone through.

The other reason for sadness is that I happen to have met and known some of the people at the helm of the current government. Back in 2003, Asia Inc Forum ran its inaugural ASEAN100 conference in Kuala Lumpur which I helped to put together. Abhisit was one of the key speakers; later I chatted with him a little while and I was impressed by his gentlemanly demeanor and earnest nature. Likewise, his associate Dr Bunaraj was an equally young and positive. Another prominent Democrat is Dr Surin the former Foreign Minister and current Secretary General of ASEAN. They are all smart and serious about public service, all a million light years away from the typical money/power grubbing oligarchs and political wheeler and dealers one sometimes meet in Southeast Asia. Now their reputation and the verdict of history is are in tatters, and I believe the future of the Democratic Party - once the most respected and non-personality based political party - is finished. Their mistake was to be used as a front for the anti-Thaksin forces and eventually being overwhelmed by forces that outside of their control. More likely they were out maneuvered - the irony is that Democrats are traditionally not known for being very effective in the bare-knuckled Thai politics.

But the fact remains that Thailand have had trouble building and sustaining a set of stable governing institutions. The present crisis is both a cause and a symptom of this.

My second thought is about the passing of a giant in the history of Singapore - Dr Goh Keng Swee last week at the age of 91. In terms of contributions to the Singapore miracle, I would consider him the equal to Lee Kuan Yew. In fact, Singapore won't be what it is without him even if history gave Singapore Lee Kuan Yew alone. Well actually, Dr Goh Keng Swee was a Peranakan born in Melaka.

If Lee Kuan Yew was the front man and the political and intellectual force. Dr Goh Keng Swee is the man who created the Singapore "system" by being the man responsible for implementing and executing Singapore's modernisation through the 60s, 70s and 80s. He was the economic and managerial power behind the Singapore miracle.

He was responsible for building Singapore's modern economy, and was instrumental in creating its key institutions of excellence like the EDB, GIC, Temasek etc., established the modern Singapore Armed Forces and architect of the Singapore education system and its support system of merit scholars. Equally important, he was responsible for creating and moulding the corporate culture of the Singapore Civil Service; and personally moulding the careers of countless men and women - those army of plainly dressed, smart, honest, dedicated, hardworking, details-and-results oriented, 'Kiasu" bureaucrats - that populated what many consider the world's best civil service. They were in many ways replicas of the original mandarin, Dr Goh Keng Swee.

Good ideas are nothing without proper execution and no outcome is sustainable without it being institutionalized. And there lies his gift.

He is a great man and I salute his singular accomplishment of having built Southeast Asia's finest institutions for governance. Against the pall of what is happening up North, one can better appreciate that there is nothing about his achievements that was inevitable.

Any Veteran Day in China?

You wrote about the American’s Veteran Day.

I had meant to reply but my efforts then were somehow due to the technical reason not saved and published in the blog.

This is my belated Johny-come-lately reply.

I am asking myself if there is any equivalent in China. If there is, what is it?

The first two occasions that came to my mind are naturally Qing Ming (清明) and Chong Yang(重阳 ) festivals. Both are dedicated to remember the deceased ancestors.

Yet in none of which we are taught or brought up to use the occasion to thank the veteran be it military or stretched more broadly to include the civilian volunteers who sacrificed for the country and the peoples.

Next came the less obvious, the Duanwu (端午) festival, better known as the Dragon Boat Festival, is actually celebrated for pretty much the dragon boat racing (at least in Hong Kong or in Penang) and the eating of the rice dumpling (I confess I belong to this category).

Most people are oblivious to the cause of the festival. Arguably the patriotism of Qu Yuan (屈原) which the occasion is commemorating is most approximate to the raison d'être of the Veteran Day.

Yet, we don’t see the Chinese people are parading. We also don’t see the veteran are marching in goose steps or being wheeled in proudly with the battle wound.

Is it that the Chinese people are ungrateful to the very peoples who sacrifice to defend her or to serve her?

I fear the answer is yes. The veteran are largely forgotten. This is sadly the reality.

At the same time, we need to understand that the Chinese culturally is not militaristic as a society like the American.

With this in mind, we could understand why the veteran is not celebrated the same way.

Personally, I think the society in particular should make greater effort to promote the awareness of the service rendered by the Veteran to the society and to the country and this can be subsumed into an occasion such as the Duanwu which is falling on June 16 this year.