Thailand's Political Crisis

A Coup for the Rich : Thailand's Political Crisis


A Coup for the Rich. Thailand's Political Crisis, Giles Ji Ungpakorn (Bangkok: Workers Democracy Publishing, 2007)

On 19 September 2006, the Thai military seized power from the government led by Thaksin Shinawatra. Fully armed troops using tanks and humvees occupied Bangkok's television stations and staked out a range of buildings, including the parliament. The military claimed that they were acting to restore democracy and to protect the monarchy.

Their claim to be restoring democracy was a reference to the widely held view amongst the middle classes that Thaksin had become an autocrat. Of course, the military's claims to be restoring democracy would have been a remarkable turnaround from their previous political involvement which had always been antidemocratic. In fact, the new "democratic" military acted no differently from their predecessors; they declared martial law (in March 2007, this continued in many provinces), revoked the 1997 Constitution, limited civil liberties, and controlled the media. Some daft foreigners accepted the military's claims about this putsch being a "good coup," getting rid of a government that was considered corrupt. For example, the Asia Foundation's Director in Bangkok, James Klein, claimed that this coup was "... probably ... the first time that there wasn't some political agenda." Even the military didn't make such an extraordinary declaration.

Following the coup, when troops were still on the streets, Ji Ungpakorn was one of the first Thais to publicly demand that the military withdraw from politics. He was involved with a small group of protesters that was the first to defy the military's ban on demonstrations, and has been bravely critical of the military, its government and the palace's role in making the coup.
The author's actions alone mean that A Coup For the Rich is a book that should make interesting reading. In fact, this is the first book in English to challenge the return to military rule. In Thailand, the book is controversial for it offers interpretations that challenge conventional understandings. Indeed, some bookshops have refused to carry it. The author is a professor of Political Science at Chulalongkorn University and it is scandalous that his own University's bookshop has refused to sell the book.

Ji Ungpakorn makes his political views clear throughout the book. As a Trotskyist, he brings that particular lens to this study of the 2006 coup, but that lens highlights many aspects of Thailand's politics that have been missing in the media coverage of the coup and in much of the growing debate on the role of the military and the palace.

The title--A Coup For the Rich--is interesting in itself. Many observers have neglected the class character of the coup. For example, there have been few reports of the military's continued threats against opponents in poor rural areas and the city's slums. The author makes it his task to reveal the class interests that have been involved in recent Thai politics and post-coup events. Unlike mainstream discussions, he goes beyond the ruling class and examines the role of social movements that claim to represent the working class and farmers. In examining the relationships between the elite and the oppressed and dispossessed, the author is able to pinpoint a number of conflicts that have been overlooked in other accounts of the coup. And, Ji Ungpakorn does this in an accessible style. While there are some problems of repetition and production, given the time and resources available to the author, A Coup For the Rich is quite an achievement.

The book is divided into four chapters. The first three of these are mainly about the coup, its aftermath and the author's assessment of the state of the people's movements. Chapter 1 begins with a brief account of the coup, the Thaksin government and its policies. Noting the business community's generalised support for Thaksin, Ji Ungpakorn devotes most attention to the "People's Movement" which, at least in the latter days of his government, was critical of Thaksin's corruption, authoritarianism and conflicts of interest. The core of the chapter is a critical examination of "tank liberals." The author uses this term to identify the way so-called democracy activists supported the overthrow of an elected government, repeatedly called for the extra-constitutional intervention of the monarchy and celebrated the palace-military coup. The author reveals the deeply held antidemocratic ideas and elitist affinities of those who have long been portrayed as liberals and democrats, and shows how they fear the empowerment of the masses.

Chapter 2 (Inventing Ancient Thai Traditions) is essentially a consideration of the role of the monarchy in contemporary Thailand. Ji Ungpakorn begins this chapter by noting that the role and position of the monarchy is much debated in Thailand. This may come as a surprise to many foreigners who seem to buy the propaganda that has it that the monarchy is above criticism and its role cannot be debated. Rather, the author explains how the current propaganda about the monarch is a manufactured image. In fact, the king's PR machine has pumped out so much syrupy material that it has created an image of a god-like monarch that is perhaps only matched for its hagiographic heights by North Korean treatments of Kim Jong-il. This book presents alternative images of King Bhumibol, reminding readers that the current image is manufactured. One criticism of this chapter--and much of the book's analysis--is the omission of a discussion of the source of the ruling class's power. For example, this chapter might have included a little more detail of the monarchy's fabulous wealth or the palace's re-emergence as one of Thailand's major capitalist business groups.

Chapter 3 takes up some of the issues raised in Chapter 1, with Ji Ungpakorn focusing on the "October Generation" of activists that developed from the October 1973 overthrow of a military dictatorship. This chapter looks more closely at the 1973-76 period and the development of a group of students who joined the Communist party, returning from the jungle to become intellectuals and politicians. This group was reasonably cohesive until Thaksin built his Thai Rak Thai party and brought a number of the October Generation into his circle. The author notes that this supposed cohesion had begun to dissipate before Thaksin came on the scene. Ji Ungpakorn is certainly correct to note the way that intellectual fashions like postmodernism and political and economic liberalism have had a deleterious impact on their political activism. His discussion of the influence of these leaders on people's movements is interesting, and his claim that their impact has been negative and depoliticising should not be ignored.

The fourth chapter is about the ongoing woes of the southernmost provinces. In my view, this chapter is the weakest. The predominantly Malay-Muslim provinces have seen increased violence and a rapidly developing insurgency. The author doesn't add a great deal to the existing literature on this topic. At the same time, it has to be said that the south has been a remarkably perplexing problem for a multitude of analysts.

There are a few problems with the book, some of which have been mentioned above. To nitpick, I also find the author's system of transliteration confusing. He insists on a system that results in some oddities, including changing the spelling of very well-known figures like Thaksin (Taksin in this book). Another difficulty for me is the tendency for the author to sheet home many of the problems of Thai politics to the now-defunct Communist party, which he sees as Maoist and Stalinist. That may be so, but many of the basic conflicts of Thai society have little to do with the party's doctrinal debates and its eventual failure. But these are merely distractions in a book that deserves serious consideration.

A Coup For the Rich should be required reading for anyone interested in contemporary Thai politics. While there will be analysts who will disagree with aspects of Ji Ungpakorn's short book, it has to be said that he has raised a range of issues that demand greater attention, not the least being the significance of class relationships in Thailand's recent political events.


Kevin Hewison [c] 2008

Carolina Asia Center

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, USA


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