The content in this page ("As you were" by Harrison George) is not produced by Prachatai staff. Prachatai merely provides a platform, and the opinions stated here do not necessarily reflect those of Prachatai.

As you were

Drafting a reform package seems to be the new game in town that anyone can play. 

And I’m anyone.  But unlike politicians, I learn from experience.

Everybody else’s reform proposals have quickly been shot down in flames, like Abhisit’s and Suthep’s as far as you can understand it.  And I think that’s because they all incorporate one basic flaw that makes them totally unrealistic: they expect other people to do something different from what they are already doing. 

But if these other people really wanted to do things differently, well, they’d have just done them.  They’re not going to change their ways just because you tell them to (especially when you’ve been calling them really nasty names for the past few years).

I suspect that this all arises from a belief that the country should be managed according to certain principles, which differ from person to person.  If my principles are not followed, says Person A, then the country will face disaster (or Person A will lose power, prestige or money, which amounts to the same thing from their point of view).  Ditto Persons B, C etc.

My proposals are not based on any mere faith in a system of government.  They are based on scientific knowledge, actual real-world experience of what kind of government works best.

Well, one experience.  But a very telling one.

In 2011, the best GDP growth figures for the capitalist west were uninspiring.  The US was barely inching ahead at 0.3%, the UK was 0.2% and even Germany was only 0.1%, which was better than the 0% that the French managed.  But tootling along ahead of them all was Belgium at 0.7%. 

This was very interesting because, after the deadlocked results of the 2010 elections, Belgium had just broken the world record for functioning without a government; 353 days to be exact.  With no government to implement reforms of any description, they had outperformed everything tried elsewhere. 

The obvious conclusion is that countries may do better puttering along on automatic pilot, than actually having someone trying to steer things.

So my reform proposals will not make the basic mistake of trying to impose any preconceived idea about how to govern and then forcing everyone else to conform to that.  This blueprint for national prosperity, harmony and happiness for all relies on everybody doing whatever they are already doing, with nobody really in charge. 

Noone will have to undergo the humiliation of publicly changing their minds, or even worse, having their minds changed for them.  Everyone can carry on doing whatever seems to float their boat.

The Democrats will be required to keep up their continuous but completely ineffective whinging about anything and everything to do with Thaksin.  This will include persistent haranguing in parliament (if they ever decide to rejoin), up to and including fisticuffs, and flirting with street protests (but not when it’s too hot – so icky).  They must boycott elections or not, depending on how they feel at the moment, because it won’t make a scrap of difference and they’ll lose anyway.

Pheu Thai, no matter how many name changes they are forced to undergo, will continue to pick Thaksin corporation clones as their leaders, will operate by secret backdoor deals with the military and anyone else who will let them stay in charge, will pursue Article 112 prosecutions as relentlessly as anyone else, and will employ the best advertising techniques that consumer capitalism has devised to ensure they win elections.

The military must carry on in its self-appointed role as playground monitor (though it will use far more grandiose language) where it will strut about looking important but won’t actually do anything to stop the mayhem unless and until it threatens the lucrative deals they’ve been negotiating behind the bicycle sheds.

The PDRC will maintain a continuous presence on the streets, either moving about in a random manner so as to cause maximum traffic congestion, or staying put to create a sanitation hazard.  Suthep must announce at least two final battles per month and inflate the number of his followers by many orders of magnitude.  But he must restrain his Napoleon complex just this side of being certifiable.

The radical wings of the PDRC (the Students and People’s Network for Thailand’s Reform and the Mad Monk’s Mob) will both instigate and provoke violence.  Their purpose is to make such outrageous demands and behave so obnoxiously that the mainstream PDRC looks reasonable in comparison.

The red shirts will be required to maintain a lurking presence through mass rallies upcountry and on the outskirts of Bangkok that the media can ignore.  They will also provide a regular stream of defendants in lèse majesté trials and wonder why they keep winning elections but losing democracy.

The courts will interpret the law and the constitution in increasingly novel and arbitrary ways until it becomes necessary to publish two versions, one for good people and one for the rest.  The independent agencies will either independently thwart the will of the people (a la ‘elections are evil’ Wicha of the NACC) or independently do bugger all (a la NHRC).

And Prachatai will continue to trust in the fancy lock on their front door to protect them from being shut down.

 


About author:  Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).

 

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