I felt it in my bones. There would be a coup in Thailand.
Coups run in the blood of the Royal Thai Army. They have mounted 20 coups since 1932.
The patience of Thai generals is short when it comes to public turmoil.
A Thai coup is de rigueur for regime change. This happened when I was working in Bangkok in the ’70s. One sunny day, all the radio stations suddenly played John Philip Sousa’s martial music repeatedly. I asked my Thai friends in the office, “Hey, what’s happening?” One wag answered nonchalantly, “There’s a coup. Last night the tanks came. They now surround the parliamentary building.”
At noon a voice over the radio made the announcement: “This is your new government speaking, the general public is ordered to keep calm and proceed to do their job, as usual.” And that was it.
It was different in the ’70s. The people of Bangkok were unperturbed when a coup took place. Today’s prolonged and violent street activism was unthinkable.
My kinds of Thai coups in the ’60s and ’70s were the may pen rai (never mind) type: Bangkok bustled as usual; the offices hummed, Thai girls on the sidewalk were feasting on burning hot som tam (spicy green papaya salad), Thai boxing socked it to ’em at Lumpini Stadium, massage parlors and noodle vendors in Raprasong were doing brisk business.
It was also in the ’70s when President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law “to save the republic from a communist takeover.” Like the Thais, we took martial law meekly. We didn’t see nothin’ yet.
It would take 16 years before we gathered our collective umbrage, triggered by Ninoy Aquino’s assassination, to mount an Edsa, a successful People Power rebellion befitting a constituent act in a republican form of government.
Our upbringing in democracy started early during the American regime.
The Americans provided us with the structure and impetus in the ways of democracy. They established a commonwealth government that became the training ground for excellent politicians like Quezon, Osmeña, Recto and Laurel. Early on we practiced the right to suffrage, to choose the politicians we deemed fit and capable to govern professionally.
Not coup-savvy
We are fortunate that the Philippine Army has no coup hang-up, by training and discipline. They are strictly obedient to our constitution and civilian rule. The coup attempts during the turbulent Cory administration were all bungled. The coups under Gloria Arroyo’s regime were also miserable failures. Our army is simply not coup-savvy.
I’m very concerned about the ongoing political turmoil in Thailand. I consider Bangkok my second home. I enjoyed my working stint there in the ’70s. I admire the Thais for their happy disposition in life, their indifference to life’s problems, their tolerance for pettiness, their Buddhist calmness, and most of all, their scintillating chili hot cuisine.
The Thais, likewise, took a liking to Filipinos. They sent their students to our universities in Manila, Baguio and Dumaguete for higher learning. One of the reasons why Thai agriculture is very successful is because many Thais studied Agriculture at UP Los Baños. The Thais admired Filipinos for being musical people and highly professional technocrats, serving as English-speaking executives in multinational companies in Bangkok.
I worry about the violent and deadly political crisis in Bangkok. But I understand where the two killer mobs are coming from. I ascribe it to Thailand’s heritage as a kingdom ruled for centuries by an absolute monarch. The Thai people were assigned as subjects obedient to the king. The king’s warrior army acted as police enforcer of royal edicts. “Ang utos ng hari ay ’di nababali.” (The king’s order is unbreakable.)
In 1932, a group of foreign-trained army officers mounted a coup that changed the absolute monarchy into a constitutional one. Thailand’s journey to democracy began its arduous process.
In its current parliamentary form, the big catharsis in Thai politics was created by Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire telecom tycoon.
Thaksin, an astute politician, became the prime minister by establishing his power base in the huge rural and farm communities. He politicized a once-docile electorate with populist windfalls in health care and agri-aid. Thaksin’s party won every election by landslide since 2001.
Thaksin’s hold on the huge base of Thailand’s lower class segment and his rugged individualism exasperated the long-term and traditional ruling elite composed of royalists, old rich, big business, the catty, urban nouveau riche and of course, the army high command. Thaksin was also accused of being disrespectful to the king. The army mounted a coup to oust him in 2006.
Violent confrontations
The passion of the current killer mobs is something new in Thailand. Their prolonged violent confrontations on the main streets of Bangkok have been convulsing for seven months.
The street activists’ self-interest runs feverishly high. Foul mouths and hateful slogans abound—so unlike the Thais that I knew in the ’70s.
Thailand’s geriatric and ailing monarch, King Bhumibol, seemed incapacitated to make a strong pronouncement to calm down both mobs.
The Yellow Shirts took the cudgels for the royalists and the traditional ruling class. They demanded the resignation of Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s youngest sister and current premiere.
Yingluck is an imposing femme fatale politician with a lot of hubris, and she riles Thailand’s elite and ruling class. She is some kind of a rock star for the millions of Red Shirts. The Red Shirts are the fanatical mass of lower class rural electorates beholden to the windfalls of Shinawatra’s populist politics.
In one swift blow, on May 22, martial law surgically removed Yingluck and abolished the senate, and all lawmaking powers are now in the hands of the military junta, headed by sleek and handsome army chief General Prayuth Chan-Ocha, who clothed himself with extrajudicial powers to arrest people without trial.
The leading Western democracies in the world reacted instantly to the coup with alarm and consternation. They admonished a quick return to democratic principles. The United States instantly cancelled its $3.5 million military aid.
Rights groups urged the ruling National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) to curb the army’s powers to detain and prosecute civilians.
Thailand is one of the fastest-growing economies in the region. General Prayuth promises motherhood statements and social unity. He has immediate plans to hype the economy with project expenditures, reforms in education and curbing corruption.
An election should be held to choose a mutually acceptable leader. When and how is anybody’s guess. It goes without saying that the junta will completely eliminate Thaksin’s hold on the politicized rural poor, the sooner the better.
Bangkok Post opinion writer Voranai Vanijaka wrote: “Without real reforms and true democratic developments, Thailand will always remain the middling country that it is, or likely tumble into worse. Old problems will revisit. History will repeat itself. Just like, once again, after 82 years of the so-called democracy, tanks rolled out in the streets of the capital.”
E-mail the author at hgordonez@gmail.com.