The Thai prime minister, himself gotten to power on a very big long lasting wave of demonstrations, disruptions, violance and a blockade of the international airports around Bangkok, announced today a state of emergency in and around Bangkok.
In itself not unexpected, but all who look at what is hapening now, should not forget what started this extreme way Thai seem to get into eachothers hair... and while doing so, causing havoc in all kinds of area's of society including the tourism industry.
Kik and I, and our weddingguests from overseas (The Netherlands and Australia), had to find out how disruptive these things can be, how difficult moving trough the country became because the airports were blocked/occupied by what we then caled The Yellow Shirts. Hence it is something you hardly forget, because it is linked to our Thai weddingday!
Sofar we have seen, what we now call The Red Shirts demonstrating, tastly pooring human blood on the streets, BUT at least their own, not their opponents!!!, And disrupting shopping in the luxuury quarters of Bangkok, where the rich, wealthy and influential Thai also live and shop... And ofocurse the demonstartions on the main roadways around Bangkok.
All in all quite a civil series of affairs sofar by the Red Shirts, definitly if one compares with what the Yellow Shirts did themselfs in the secondhalf of 2008, though now these Yellow supporters, including the Thai PM, shout the most terrible warnings and same time ofcourse stating that no vialoant actions will be taken.
The State of Emergency was declared after the Red Shirts for a short while stormed and occupied the parliament building. Something of which I thought : "Is that all?". Did the yellow shirts not for months occupy the offices of the then prime minister and other departments, blocking meetings of parliament, occupying airports and places of assembly, all in all disrupting life in the whole of Thailand and causing terrific economic havoc at a time that the whole world was not only watching what was happening in Bangkok (thats what an occupation of airports does these days) but was also wittnessing the greatest global financial crisis taking place and causing panick in the money area which is regarded as the worse since the Great Depression in the early 1930's!
I allways think that a non elected governement, a governement manipulated into power due to all the protest , non stop sabotage of essential en economic functioning of the state and directed against the majority rule, I think such a governement should be somewhat more modest in its attitude towards the group who represent, for all intent and purposes the majority of the last elections!
Well, ofcourse this is all talk from the side line... like with the upcomming World Championship Soccer in South Africa: we can all watch, get excited, etc. but we have no way of influencing what is happening on the field, in principal (yea, one has to be carefull haha) not even with all the money in the world.... Thank God and Bhudda that not everything can be bought, unlike, as it nowadays often seems, in Thailand.
Not withstanding all of this, it is and remains a wonderfull country, with marvelous people... and maybe that makes me so worried how things will go here, not only for Kik, his family, our frineds here and me.... but for the Thai people in general who so deserve decent, honest and trustworthy leadership, which, sadly, at the moment seems not avaiable here, it is devastating.
6th of May, 9th of June, General elections in the UK and The Netherlands... all the Brits and Dutch will go to the polls and cast their votes, quickly afterwards we know the results of these elections and the formation of a new governement can start. All parties will except the outcome and the fact that they have to live with it till the next general elections are being held.
This concept is still not accepted here in Thailand it sems, when we judge the behaviour of the yellow shirts.
very synical you sometimes hear here: O, when the present PM cals an election, the chances his yellow coalition losses is very to the red coalition is big, very big! But then the whole circus will start all over again, roughly as told above.
Its better to ride out a bad electionresult and fight new elections when you get the chance to, more chance on lasting results and much less economic damage. BUT who will try to explain this to the Thai??
One other, and complicating factor has to be mentioned. The country has a father to whom all parties rever, who for a long time seems to have kept all the excesses into limits, which now seem to have been left.
His role and futur is something which is a non issue by allmost all Thai.
It fits the general picture I have that the average Thai do not learn to plan, to organise, to prepare for events, financially or otherwise. BUT I can not believe that the old Thai elite, who sends their children abroad to get our western (!) education, not prepare for such important questions.
To help you maybe get some insight in this particular situation and all its complications it brings in Thai politics as well, I can refer you to an article in The Economist: (See below)
Hope my 'little' remarks made any sense to you. It was written durting an evening/night with lots of distractions... from simply having dinner, then shower, then supervising our Theater/Cabaret Cafe annec karaokebar (pffff haha) as far as its posisble here to do such a thing succesfully (again pffff haha), and meeting, talking to all kinds of people and then back home talking with Kik about a lot of different things from health issues to travelplans etc etc.... yes, then I hope this whole article stillmakes decent and good sense to you ;-)
The Economist's article is in principal only for non Thai people outsite Thailand. The issue in which this article was published has not been distributed here in Thailand and as such doesn't excist in this country. Just so you know ;-)
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