Thailand on the brink - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

The Thais have had their "Bloody Sunday". In a sickening pattern, we can expect that now bloody changes will flow from that event at the instigation of revolutionary forces.

SINCE ROYAL ABSOLUTISM WAS ABOLISHED with the revolution that changed Siam to Thailand, the Thai monarchy has, particularly under the present king, enhanced its moral standing by means of propaganda and rituals to accord to itself the power to make or break governments. Since the 1970s, coups and counter-coups have faltered or succeeded depending on the king’s ability to confer the Mandate of Heaven—legitimacy—on the generally military-led regimes that have replaced each other. It seemed for a time, that the monarchy had thrown its prestige behind the democratization of the kingdom, but with the rise of Thaksin Shinawatra, the king responded to the billionaire’s populism by supporting the prime minister’s ouster in 2008.

Since then, Thailand has teetered on the brink of instability, with governments hard-pressed to hold the line in the face of sustained opposition that has divided urban from rural, the upper and middle classes from the masses, and royalists from pseudo-republicans. The armed forces, royalist to the core, have ended up holding the balance of power—and holding the supporters of Thaksin, called the Red Shirts in contrast to the royalist Yellow Shirts, at bay.

Until, that is, the army fired on the people. The death of 21 protesters and bystanders has placed the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejavija in the position of having drawn first blood—and undermined its basis for legitimacy, the support of the monarchy. In the past, it was the army firing on protesting students that resulted in the king intervening, and supporting democratization and the end of outright rule by the generals.

Thailand on the brink - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos