Thailand. Pug-ugly rating: 9.8

“…No one (in Thailand) is interested in reversing course from what has become an ad hoc, do-as-you-please system bereft of any semblance of democratic process or rule of law. Political instability, corruption, indecisiveness and political abandonment appear to flourish unabated…”

And, “Thailand must build national unity and co-operation if it is to avoid the threat of deteriorating into a failed state.”

Both comments above were written recently by influential Thais and appeared in the Bangkok Post, Thailand’s highly respected English language newspaper. As if all that were not enough, there also exists the possibility of civil war.

Excuse me, Mr Dickens, but the people of Thailand are experiencing “…the worst of times.”

More bad news 1: “The Public Health Ministry found that nearly 100,000 people had fallen ill from the smog shrouding eight provinces in the North and warned that more would be affected if the situation persists…hundreds of thousands of face masks sent…one hundred thousand patients visited 19 hospitals for treatment.”

More bad news 2: (Also hanging in the air) “Expectation…as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (the Red Shirts) begins its attempt to unseat the government…State of Emergency…Security forces on the streets and in blocking positions on routes from the North” (kitted out with face masks, presumably).

By the end of my 6-day visit to Bangkok I was thinking of Mad Max. Was I in a sub-world city of a country close to Armageddon? I know Bangkok is just another capital city in a chaotic, over-populated and vulgarised world, but to stop myself from going completely mad I needed a mental antidote. So I thought about Mumbai, telling myself that Bangkok is not that bad; which is debateable. Bangkok? I’m writing it off. It’s too pug-ugly for words.

For a left leaning, capitalism hating, liberal-socialist like me, to live here in Thailand would be problematical. Last year I was thinking about doing precisely that. I checked my finances and figured out that I could do it. But living here means me becoming indifferent to the plight of common Thais, this country’s uneducated and exploited serfs. If I didn’t become indifferent I would become very angry. And that’s bad for me.

Have you noticed how the rich take crap in their strides? They have made an art form out of indifference to suffering. The rich of this poor, benighted country are a-typical. They don’t live hard, destitute, unsanitary lives that blight polite Thai society. They live in condos, or nice houses in gated communities, popping out for dinners at restaurants selling ‘Royal Thai cuisine’. They ride to plush offices in air-conditioned cars leaving the chauffeur to contend with parking and traffic jams. Meanwhile, beggars and labourers from the North and North East crawl along pavements and subsist in unsanitary slums.

I wonder how many of Thailand’s burgeoning Middle Class sit back and, after reading the Business News section of the Bangkok Post, start dreaming about owing an English Premier Division football club. To achieve something like that – it’s been done already – the qualities needed are, no morals, no conscience, the gift of the gab and the instincts of jewellery thief.

First and foremost such a person needs to know who has influence and how much to pay that person for their services. If they don’t have enough money to buy influence then the Thai dream of a full belly during a life at the top will fade into the smoggy distance. The rich know that if they don’t have enough money to achieve their ambitions, they have to get it. Anyway they can.

Which is where Thaksin Shinawatra comes into this story.

Not only did Thaksin Shinawatra know who, and how much, to pay, he accumulated enough money to buy the loyalty of millions of ordinary Thais from the North and North Eastern regions of this country. Mr Shinawatra was also glib enough to fire the imaginations of millions of his country’s horribly exploited countrymen and women. They now believe that he will crush all those who have traditionally exploited them i.e. the rich, the landowners, the aristocracy and their ilk. This man has convinced them that their, and their country’s, future is in his hands. I don’t know if he told them that one day they would all get to own an English Premier League football club but they act as if he did.

Therefore, to those who still ruthlessly exploit Thailand’s millions of poorly educated peasants to accumulate vast wealth, Thaksin Shinawatra is a dangerous man. That’s why there was a military coup in 2006. That’s why the exploiters pushed the army into staging the coup that ousted him when he was Prime Minister.

But they made a dreadful mistake. They did it while he was out of the country, and although Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted, he was not ousted out of the game, not by a long chalk.

So now his supporters, the misinformed dreamers who believe he is their saviour, are streaming into Bangkok. Their aim is to topple those who benefited from Thaksin Shinawatra’s misfortune – namely the new government – and install their own, even by democratic means. In other words, they believe that without any help from the army that they can win the election that would have to be called.

This new government would try to pardon their de-facto leader for his conviction for hiding his assets, and/or, for appropriating assets that may really have belonged to the Kingdom of Thailand. They would put him back in power. They would do this because they know that some of those assets will be coming their way, one way or another. Ideologically, they also believe that he would break the relentless grip on power that is held by the rich and powerful.

The hard question is: would this be a good or bad thing for Thailand?

As one influential Thai indicated above, Thailand is a lawless country riddled with vice, injustice and corruption on a grand scale. The longer I stay here the notion of ‘failed state’ begins to sound realistic. Thailand may not yet be a failed state but it’s a country that has taken more wrong turns than any country should. Twenty-odd military coups since World War II? That’s got to be some sort of record.

So which way is it going to go and is Thailand a failed state already? It’s debatable. Politically and economically there is massive instability and if confidence in the system (rampant capitalism) collapses, the consequences could be catastrophic. For sure, all hell would break loose.

And it might just happen following events this weekend.