Fireworks for Thailand 2009!

This short article is about two things: the events of 2008 and why they might have happened and the forecast for 2009 and how it might affect Thailand and its people.  The focus as usual for me is on what motivates the behavior and what effect the future will have on behavior.

Many things changed in 2008.  It was no longer legal to smoke in some public places, it was illegal to hold a mobile phone while driving but it appeared perfectly legal to kidnap an international airport.  As longstanding expats here will tell you, “TIT - This in Thailand!”

The smoking ban took some time to take effect but now works quite well.  It took time to enforce and is still not universally upheld because of a combination of corruption, addiction and apathy but that it has mostly been heeded and is a positive step forward for  Thailand.  In fact it put Thailand up there with a host of first world countries and it is an accolade for a third world country to have such a positive thing enforced but it
reminds me of some other strange things here.

For some reason, and it probably is a very simple reason such a as a very influential person somewhere has influenced matters with their feelings on the matter, Thailand now has a combination of very strict drinking, smoking, drug and prostitution laws to its credit.  But this is in stark contrast to the reality of life here where drinking is an integral part of everyday life, smoking is pandemic, drugs are never too far away and prostitution is more obvious here than probably any other country in the world.

So what does this tell us about the psyche of the people or the culture of Thailand in general?  Well, it’s complex of course but my personal take is that Thailand is a beautiful country with beautiful, generous people but it is badly scarred and very confused.  I believe the traditional belief systems are being toppled at an alarming rate.

The signs are there everywhere and in people from all walks of life but I propose to illustrate them starkly with the seemingly enormous changes that can take place in one person’s life and only in Thailand.  Bangkok has hundreds of thousands of working girls who make their living working in bars and, although a minority compared to those that are employed to entertain Thai men. Many thousands make their living in bars those foreigners frequent.  Many girls come to this life very young from villages in the north and in the innocent eyes of a newly arrived young girl in the bright streets of Bangkok you can see benevolence and trust but fear also at new surroundings.

I will not labor the detail here but assuming this girl has the best possible outcome and does not end up in a worse situation, she will work in a bar as a hostess looking after customers.  She will learn from other bar girls that the men are not to be trusted, they are only meal tickets and her sole purpose is to extract money from them. There is a highly evolved and complex system for doing this so she has to learn fast, stay happy and be charming at all times.

She is gradually straying away from her belief system with every turn and she will soon forget her modesty and values and simply do whatever she has to in order o make money because that is the job.  She may fall in love with a customer and be rescued or continue to juggle several lovers into older life but the reality is that she is becoming a commercial object as well as a soul.  When she returns to her village to her family she has been providing for they will smile and be happy but they know where the money comes from.  Yet they will ignore this as the money is everything to them and she will be pushed to earn more.

This story is not unique to Thai-land as it happens all over the world and it is not as sad as many others we could tell but it does serve to illustrate the fate of the whole country in my opinion.  The whole world is ever descending into values that are purely financially motivated and traditional values are eroding everywhere but Thailand has managed to win the prize for most devout and reverent people at one end of the spectrum and most commercial and corrupted at the other.  This sits side by side and just does not work in the end.  It causes tension.

For 10 years Thailand had the fastest growing economy in the world and this catapulted it into the global spotlight as an economic power, a tourist hotspot and a wonderful place to live.  In the same way our bar girl has changed her life, so has Thailand.  It retains its religious and other traditional values but it espouses money and all that it can buy.  Easy money from cheap loans has funded homes; pick up trucks, fat screen TVs and mobile phones.  They have also sadly created the be-ginning of the malaise of the West in the form of fat children, troublesome youths, rising crime and impossible levels of personal debt.  This is both caused by the nature of the people and affects them for the future.

Thais are by nature gentle, fun loving uncomplicated people who will take any opportunity to laugh and have fun in a straight forward environment where their immediate life is all that is important.  These changes have troubled them by putting pressures on them they are not used to but they are not equipped to handle the change.  Now they have to work harder and longer to get the new toys and the bank will not understand if they cannot make a re-payment so they have to try to keep their job rather than walk away. They are troubled economically and in their souls s this changes their way of life.

They are also deeply troubled politically. In the second half of 2008, Thailand’s dominating news was and still is at time of writing this, the rivalry between groups of red shirt sand groups of yellow shirts.  In true Thai style, they make it colorful and they will sit en masse and sing together waving plastic clappers but the underlying reality is very grave.

In the same way our bar girl is torn between the forward thinking way her foreign customers behave and the values she is used to amongst her fellow bar girls, the country is struggling to understand whether it wants a leader who opened up the country to the rest of the world with all the good and bad that brought or a leader who will keep the country shielded from the woes of the outside world and retain the Thai traditional values with all the good and bad that entails.  There is no easy balance.

It is more complex but that is the essence of it.  Retain a conservative constitution, old values and traditions or embrace open market economy and democracy whatever the consequences.  This rivalry has been brewing for years; it triggered the coup in 2006 that overthrew then
Prime Minister Thaksin has sucked in ever greater numbers of opinions and lobbying powers and did of course culminate in mass protests and violence recently.

The Thai nation is in turmoil because it has had no real leader since Thaksin, the people are bitterly divided and the global economy has now started to have an effect in the country too.  Jobs are being lost at an alarming rate, prices are rising and people are unhappy because they are confused about their values.  Most will choose not to voice things in these terms but the evidence is too strong to ignore.

If this was not enough, the biggest series of own goals in the country’s history have been scored this year.  Against all the positive messages from the changes mentioned before such as the smoking ban, Thailand has stubbornly refused to change other things thereby holding it back.  It has failed to open a dialogue with rebels fighting in the south that cause terror, injuries and death on a daily basis.  It has antagonized its neighbor Cambodia in a dispute over land around a temple, which was really all about a national boundary for oil ownership, which nearly escalated into war.

It has continued to fragrantly breach international copyright laws and patents and allow copying on everything from clothes to drugs to DVDs to the extent it has been warned by many countries to stop.  It has made the land ownership, company ownership and visa regulations more difficult for foreigners rather than relaxing them to encourage trade.  It has failed to tackle pollution in the big cities, improve disabled access and of course made no dent on prostitution or other illegal activities. The list is long of opportunities missed.

Of course the most serious factors against the countries interest have been the continued reports of fighting on the streets that prompted embassies to advise against travel to Thailand and then the blockade of the airport so thousands of tourists were stranded and tons of air freight was abandoned.  The effects are being very strongly felt now and will continue to be so for a long time into the future!

So enough of the past and let’s look to the future.  As 2008 draws to a close we have a new, very intelligent, highly educated, young, energetic and apparently uncorrupted Prime Minister.  He has the chance to lead the country into the future and change the mistakes from the past but he will face a lot of challenges.

Next year will bring tough times for us all here in many ways and these are just some of the challenges he faces.  I take no political sides, I just hope for progress from the cur-rent situation.

Thailand’s economy has been seriously dented by the shutdown of the airport and many contracts have been cancelled as a result with business going to other neighbors.  It will take a long time to regain the trust of these people and when companies are forced to cut back in the light of the global slowdown, they will likely have Thailand high on their list.

The fighting and airport closure leaving hundreds of thousands of tourists stranded has left a bitter taste in many people’s mouths.  Not only were they stranded, they were abandoned with no help from the authorities and this has caused a lot of bad feeling instead of the usual love of the land of smiles and its people.

Loss of jobs and a general slowing down of the economy will cause great hardship to many and this will inevitably lead to higher crime and social other social ills like illegal activities, increased begging on the streets and more prostitution as people have to make ends meet.  Ongoing corruption and wrong doing at all levels of life with little evidence of the police or judiciary system talking any action against those who have ‘immunity’ will plague steps towards economic and political progress.

But the biggest challenge of all is the social and political division that still exists within the hearts of the people with more rallies and protests planned and a mass of red shirted supporters that are angry their government was dissolved.  The new Prime Minister is a very capable man and I hope he manages to take charge of all this.  He has already, after only a few days in office, acknowledged all of the above problems mentioned and promised to address them as a matter of priority.  I think he is the best man for the job and I sincerely hope he succeeds.

But what of the average Thai people?  How will he/she cope next year and how will they re-ally feel about what is going on in their country?  Our bar girl will hear from so many tourists about all the problems that she will be well aware of the issues and like so many other Thais she will regret the inconvenience things have caused.  Other older Thais are typically stoical about the problems and have the usual optimism that things will get better and this is a good thing.

They probably will and probably sooner than we think because there is a remarkable resilience in the Thai culture and economy that rides these things.  People love to holiday here so they will soon forget and prices will soon be very attractive as businesses are forced to discount to attract back those that left.  Many like me love to live here so they will not be put off by these problems as long as they do not escalate.  Trade will return to Thailand too as it is a great international hub for air freight, a cheap labor force for factories and a growing economy for some to invest.

But what will make Thais feel content in them?  When will they come to terms with the social and political divide and the challenge of which values to choose – the old way or the new world order? This is a challenging problem and I fear things will get worse be-fore they improve.  A very poor education system is producing a generation almost unable to be employed productively for the future, excessive censorship in certain areas stops healthy discussion on important matters, corruption siphons off the crucial money needed for infrastructure projects and improvement to the country and most of all a hand to mouth existence for so many stops any meaningful choices in life – just survival counts.

All of these factors hold the country back and until these issues are addressed and changes come about there will be ever more problems for Thailand in the short and medium term.  I believe 2009 will be a critical year of change for the country as 2008 was a critical year of trouble!  I believe it will see the start of many changes for the better as the old order cannot continue and these have to come about soon. 

My worry is not whether Thailand will change for the better and leave all these problems behind but rather the effect these changes will have on its people who are already confused and unhappy. I prey they will come through this stronger and maybe a challenge like this is what is needed for these already remarkable and resilient people who have been through s much in the last year! We will soon see.

(Please remember these are only my personal observations but I feel they are based on facts and logic and they are intended to be constructive and helpful as insights).

Original contribution by
Edward Moulton, Writer, Editor and Social Commentator - edwardmoulton@gingerasia.com

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