น่าสนใจมากๆครัช นานๆทีจะมีบทความที่วิเคราะห์การเมืองไทยไปถึงรากของความเชื่อแบบพุทธด้วย
บทความของ Professor Duncan Mccargo
ผู้สอนวิชาการเมืองไทยใน University of Leeds ประเทศอังกฤษ ใน
foreignpolicy หนังสือพิมพ์การเมืองต่างประเทศของสหรัฐ อธิบาย ระบบวรรณะ
ที่ผูกโยงกับความเชื่อแบบพุทธ
ซึ่งซุกซ่อนอยู่ในบริบทปัญหาการเมืองไทยในปัจจุบัน
"ประเทศไทย มี ระบบวรรณะที่ซ่อนอยู่
ซึ่งไปเกี่ยวโยงกับความเชื่อแบบพุทธ
ที่เชื่อว่าคนจนสมควรจะมีชีวิตที่แย่กว่า เพราะการทำชั่ว
หรือการเก็บสะสมบุญที่ไม่มากพอในชาติที่แล้ว ...
กปปส พูดถูกอยู่อย่างหนึ่ง คือ
ประเทศไทยต้องได้รับการปฏิรูปอย่างเร่งด่วน เพื่อลดอิทธิพลของระบบอุปถัมภ์
และหยุดการประท้วงบนท้องถนนที่เกิดขึ้นตลอดเวลาจากทุกเสื้อสี ... แต่การที่
กปปส นำเสนอ สภาประชาชนซึ่ง
เป็นรูปแบบการปฏิรูปเดียวกับฮ่องกงหลังจากกลับคืนมาเป็นของจีน
คือให้เลือกตั้งโดย based on อาชีพ
จะทำให้ความตึงเครียดระหว่างชนชั้นแย่ลงไปอีก (ฮ่องกงหลังกลับไปเป็นของจีน
ถูก freedom house ลดอันดับจากประเทศเสรี เป็น กึ่งเสรี
และมีปัญหาความแตกต่างระหว่างชนชั้นมากขึ้น
จนนำไปสู่การประท้วงใหญ่เมื่อปีที่แล้ว)
การปฏิรูปที่แท้จริง คือ
การถอดรื้อระบบวรรณะที่ซ่อนอยู่นั้น
และลดการเอาทุกอย่างไปผูกกับสถาบันกษัตริย์
เห็นคุณค่าของเสียงในชนบทที่มีส่วนร่วมในประชาธิปไตยมากขึ้น..."
ooo
DUNCAN MCCARGO February 18, 2014
The current political standoff in Thailand is a symptom
of deeper problems that can't be solved by watering down democratic
process.
On Feb. 2, the day of Thailand's general election, untouched ballot boxes were laid out
like rows of gravestones in Bangkok's Rajathewi district office, while
more than 100 self-proclaimed pro-democracy protestors, many of them
middle-aged women from southern provinces hundreds of miles away, blew
whistles and cheered. They were celebrating their success in preventing the voting
from taking place. Shortly after 8:30 a.m., they rose up en masse and
left the government compound, padlocking the gates on their way out.
Outside they held a party on the main street, which they had closed for
the occasion. The Royal Thai Police were nowhere to be seen, and a small
group of soldiers stood passively by, snapping the padlocking ritual on
their iPhones.
Back in November, the opposition Democrat Party
demanded the dissolution of parliament and fresh elections, but once
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra -- who still had 18 months of her
term left -- called a snap election for Feb. 2, it soon became clear
that the Democrats were refusing to play ball.
The Democrats, Thailand's oldest political party, have
transformed themselves into the kind of protest movement their leaders
had always professed to despise. Not only did the party boycott the
election, but it also backed moves to disrupt the polls by the People's
Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) (an anti-government protest movement
led by former Democrat Secretary-General and Deputy Premier Suthep
Thueksuban), which announced plans to shut down Bangkok from Jan. 13 on,
blocking key intersections across the city. Protesters continue to hold
the city hostage. Most recently, on the morning on Feb. 18, three
protesters were shot and 64 injured as police attempted to break up the demonstration.
After preventing advance polling across much of Bangkok and the south on Jan. 26 -- during which one protest leader was shot dead -- protestors followed a prominent Buddhist monk into a violent altercation
with pro-government groups in the Bangkok district of Lak Si on Feb. 1.
Soon after the election, the Democrats announced that they were
bringing legal action against the Yingluck government for pressing ahead
with an "illegitimate"
election. For the Democrats, any election won by parties linked to the
demonized former premier Thaksin Shinawatra was inherently illegitimate,
however convincing the margin of victory.
Meanwhile, media outlets sympathetic to the opposition,
including the respected Bangkok Post, ran articles suggesting, without
any apparent irony, that the relatively low turnout and the high number
of "no" votes (in Thai elections, voters can tick a box saying they
reject all the candidates on the ballot) proved that the ruling party
had performed poorly. The opposition's approach was: "Let's do
everything we can to sabotage the election, including using violence,
and then blame the ruling party for making a hash of it."
Voter turnout for the Feb. 2 general election was just under 48 percent overall
(compared to 75 percent in the 2011 election), not bad considering that
voting was virtually impossible in several southern provinces where the
opposition was able to shut down the electoral process. The
controversial military-backed referendum to approve the 2007
constitution secured a comparable turnout of just under 57 percent.
Overall, nearly 75 percent of those who voted in 2014 supported the
government. Split ballots and "no" votes were up compared to the most
recent elections.
As Thailand's leading political blogger, Bangkok Pundit, noted,
a more useful comparison might be to the 2006 snap election called
under similar circumstances by Yingluck's brother, Thaksin Shinawatra,
during his time as prime minister. Democrats boycotted the 2006 poll as
well, but actively campaigned for a "no" vote. As a result, nearly a
third voted "no" -- compared to the mere 17 percent that did in 2014.
There is no solid basis for assuming that most of those who failed to
vote, or who cast "no" votes, in a boycotted and violently disrupted
general election, were people who would otherwise have voted for the
Democrat Party -- though some were certainly disappointed by lackluster
local members of parliament from the ruling party.
What the Feb. 2 elections most clearly illustrate is
the growing political chasm that separates greater Bangkok and the
country's south from its less affluent but more populous regions in the
north and northeast. The latter have long been strongholds of support
for Yingluck and Thaksin, who was elected largely because of his appeals
to urbanized villagers, Thais with rural origins who dream of making it
to middle-class standards of living. Because of Thailand's hidden "caste system" -- which is linked to popular Buddhist notions that the poor deserve their lower status because of accumulated demerits
from previous lives -- Bangkokians typically have a profoundly
paternalistic view of the masses. Thaksin's populist, can-do message,
the stuff of self-help books, resonated deeply with many voters in the
north and northeast. The leaders of the current anti-government protests
-- many of whom come from Bangkok -- constantly deride these voters as
ignorant and susceptible to electoral manipulation and vote-buying.
Worse still, these anti-government protesters accuse pro-Thaksin voters
of disloyalty to the Thai nation and the monarchy. On Jan. 26, I heard
one rally speaker declare that those who had taken part in advance
voting did not really love Thailand, and were probably in fact
Cambodians casting fake ballots.
How did Thailand reach this sorry state of affairs?
Pro-Thaksin parties have won six successive general elections since
2001, while the opposition Democrats have failed to win a convincing
election victory in almost 30 years. The conservative establishment,
comprising the Democrats, the military, the network monarchy, and the
judiciary, have made numerous failed attempts to drive a stake through
the heart of this controversial politician: a military coup, election
annulment, party dissolution (twice), and criminal conviction on
corruption-related charges. Because he faces a two-year jail term,
Thaksin has not set foot in Thailand for nearly six years, yet he
remains the single most important non-royal Thai by far. If you just
listen to the vitriolic, nauseating rhetoric at the nightly
anti-government rallies at multiple locations around Bangkok, you would
think Thaksin and his sister were the country's biggest political
problems. In fact, Thailand faces two huge parallel challenges, neither
of which is of Thaksin's making:
The first challenge is national anxiety about the
country's future. Rama 9, King Bhumibol, the world's longest serving
monarch, is now 86 years old. Who will succeed him, and what will happen
as a result, is the focus of endless gossip among Thais. A lot of the
protestors' anti-Thaksin sentiment reflects their view that the
influential former premier must not have any hand in managing the
delicate succession process.
The second challenge, seen in attempts to disrupt
voting in Bangkok and elsewhere, concerns the logic of electoral
politics. Now that voters in the north and northeast have been mobilized
to vote as a bloc, the Bangkok middle classes and their southern allies
face the real prospect that they will never again choose a government
to their liking. Thailand has moved into a phase of majoritarianism, in
which pro-Thaksin governments will be able to run the country with
virtual impunity for the foreseeable future. Affluent
Bangkokians have finally grasped the logic of electoral democracy: they
are permanently outnumbered by the rural masses.
The PDRC is right about one thing: reform is urgently
needed in Thailand to reduce political partisanship and break the
constant cycle of mass protests. But any reform process that moves away
from popular voting -- towards some Hong Kong-style electoral system
based on occupational groups, for example, as is apparently implied by
the PDRC's loose talk of a "people's assembly" -- will only exacerbate
the country's class tensions. Reform means dismantling the informal
caste system, reducing psychological dependence on the monarchy, and
growing an appreciation for the capacity of the rural population to
contribute to their democracy. The latest general election, though a
partial boost for the Yingluck administration, has also failed to
deflate the protests. Thailand already has liberty in abundance, and a
fair bit of fraternity. Creating more equality is the next step.
Rufus Cox/Getty Images
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น