Health of democracy lies in debate

Both articles stress the importance of a re-examination of recent events in Thailand in relation to similar events in world history.

Well, who’s going to bring that sort of debate to the rice farmers, shop owners, welders, herders, taxi drivers, kamnans and primary school teachers? Who’s going to provide the security for such a far-ranging debate, or provide the background so necessary to understand what’s involved? Who’s going to be the “anchor” to steady such a perilous debate? 

The problem is that debate is so rarely anchored in Thailand in such a way that everybody feels able to listen. The vast majority of Thai people would accept only one anchor in any case, and that anchor has, for one thing, already spoken. The ball is now squarely in the Thai people’s court.

“The King is not above criticism,” said the King in a notably lucid birthday speech. “Beware of Double Standards,” he said in another, striking at the very heart of the issue long before the 2006 coup. And finally, “Trust your Courts” – for without an independent and fearless judiciary no community can protect itself against those unscrupulous interests which are hell-bound to take over – or hold on to power, and in Thailand which one depends very much on what colour you wear! 

Democracy is always vulnerable to selfish interests, because in a democracy everybody can say 

anything – and sometimes the majority voice isn’t right either, and even if it is right it’s not “democratic” to force anything on anybody. Indeed, the health of democracy lies more in the debate than the conclusion.

An incorruptible judiciary that delivers justice, that’s our last hope. We Thai people must place our trust in our courts because they are the bastion against the floods of egotism, jealousy and anger that threaten to overwhelm open societies everywhere. The courts are human conscience, after all, as well as consciousness, and without developing them human beings just stagger from one blind mis-step to another.

Which is precisely why the Truth for Reconciliation Commission of Thailand insisted in its last report that the best place for Thailand to go to understand the present predicament is the 2001 “hidden assets” case in which a group of very good and superbly trained high court judges allowed an “illegal” ruling to stand. And, of course, the irony is that the judges who permitted that verdict did so not because they were paid for it, or threatened, or whatever, but because they believed at the time that it was best to do the wrong thing out of respect for the will of the people.

Put like that, the TRCT’s emphasis on 2001 is obvious, but does anyone look back at that moment in detail? Is anyone attempting to talk about that miscarriage of justice in public – and I mean not the verdict but the mechanics of it, how it could have happened?

For the issue today is not the preservation of the monarchy in Thailand but the development of a sense of justice in the hearts of the Thai people. For, love of King is worth little more than love of tyrant if it’s blind – which is what the King meant, I feel sure.

Lung Kip

Chiang Mai