Populism and nationalism in Thailand (cont.) | 7.11.05
Below is the second part of the essay “Populism and nationalism in Thailand”, which has to be split in two because of a technical limitation. It remains, however, one long essay (as supposed to a series) that the reader should read in its entirety and from the beginning.
The professors (again)
Of these self-professed enemies that populism can have more of, probably none are more famous with the international media than Pasuk Phongpaichit, a Chulalongkorn University economics professor and a co-author (with husband Chris Baker) of the oft-cited Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand. Here in a paper titled “Thailand under Thaksin a regional and international perspective”, she links Mr. Thaksin to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, whom she accuses of — get ready for this — “neoliberal populism”:
While Thaksin seems to be drawing on local political tradition, there are also strong parallels with leaders in Latin America, particularly [Luiz Inacio] Lula da Silva in Brazil, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and past examples like Alberto Fujimori in Peru. Analysts of Latin America have labeled such regimes as “neo-liberal populist” because they combine two things (Jayasuriya and Hewison 2004). In their external policy, they conform to the open economy model favored by neo-liberals. In their internal policy, they woo the poor with subsidized social services, micro-credit, and handouts of various kinds, while often bypassing democratic institutions and fiercely repressing dissent. “Authoritarian liberal populism” might be a more accurate, if more clumsy, description.
These two faces of “neoliberal populism” reflect a couple of important features of medium-sized states in the former “third world” today.
First, they cannot avoid negotiating some sort of accommodation with the neoliberal world order. Here the best example is Lula in Brazil. After having won election on perhaps the most radical populist agenda seen in recent years, his first priority was to implement an economic austerity program of which the World Bank and IMF totally approved. Without the stability and external support which that program provided, his chances of avoiding yet another Brazilian economic crisis might have been slim.
Similarly, Thaksin initially frightened the international financial markets who feared he might be a real economic-nationalist after he talked about “looking inwards”. But he has since repeatedly emphasized that he will keep the economy open. Despite nationalist rhetoric such as declaring an “Independence Day” when the IMF loan was repaid early, he has not modified one single major item of the reforms the IMF imposed on Thailand. The financial markets now love him.
So a “populist” is a politician who keeps the economy open and the IMF in place despite raucous and sustained pressure from mobs of the media, the academia, the professional activists, and their mindless followers? What, then, do you call a demagogue who uses “neoliberalism” as the bogeyman for all the world’s ills? Whatever it is, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is one of them, as evident in his speech at the opening of the G-15 summit:
All those struggles, ideas and proposals sunk in the Neo-liberal Flood and the world began to witness the so-called “end of History” and the triumphant chant of the Neo-liberal Globalization, which today, besides an objective reality, is a weapon of manipulation intended to force us to passiveness faced to an Economic World Order that excludes our South countries and condemns them to the never-ending role of producers of wealth and recipients of leftovers.
The face of this world economic order of globalization with a neo-liberal sign is not only Internet, virtual reality or the exploration of the space.
This face can also be seen, and with a greater dramatic character in the countries of the South, in the 790 millions of people who are starving, 800 millions of illiterate adults, 654 millions of human beings who live today in the south and who will not grow older than 40 years of age. This is the harsh and hard face of the work economic order dominated by the Neoliberalism and seen every year in the south, the death of over 11 millions of boys and girls below 5 years of age caused by illnesses that are practically always preventable and curable and who die at the appalling rate of over 30 thousand every day, 21 every minute, 10 each 30 seconds. In the South, the proportion of children suffering of malnutrition reaches up to 50% in quite a few countries, while according to the FAO, a child who lives in the First World will consume throughout his or her life, the equivalent to what 50 children consume in an underdeveloped country.
The great possibilities that a globalization of solidarity and true cooperation could bring to all people in the world through the scientific-technical wonders, has been reduced by the neo-liberal model to this grotesque caricature full of exploitation and social injustice.
Neoliberal thought and politics were created in the North to serve their interests, but it should be highlighted that they have never been truly applied there, but they have been spread throughout the South in the past two decades and reached the disastrous category of a single thought.
The tragedy of underdevelopment and poverty in Africa, which historic roots lay in colonialism and the slavery of millions of its children, is now reinforced by the neoliberalism from the North. In this region, the rate of infant mortality in children under 1 year of age is 107 per each thousand children born alive, while in the develop countries this rate is 6 per each thousand children born alive; also, life expectancy is 48 years, thirty years less than in countries of the North.
We are, dear friends, in Latin America, the favorite scenario of the neo-liberal model in the past decades. Here, neoliberalism reached the status of a dogma and was applied with greatest severity.
I saw with my own eyes, a day like today but exactly 15 years ago, the 27 of February 1989, when an intense day of protest broke out on the streets of Caracas against the neo-liberal package of the International Monetary Fund and ended in a real massacre known as “The Caracazo”.
The neo-liberal model promised Latin Americans greater economic growth, but during the neo-liberal years growth has not even reached half the growth achieved in the 1945-1975 period with different politics.
Neoliberalism promised Latin American people that if they accepted the demands of the multinational capital, investments would overflow the region. Indeed, the incoming capital increased. A portion to buy state-owned companies sometimes at bargain prices, another portion was speculative capital to seize the opportunities involved in the financial liberalization environment.
The neo-liberal model promised that after a painful adjustment period necessary to deprive the State of its regulatory power over economy and liberalize trade and finance, wealth would spread over Latin America and the long-lasting history of poverty and underdevelopment would be left behind. But the painful and temporary adjustment became permanent and appears to become everlasting. The results cannot be concealed.
Taking 1980 as the conventional year of the commencement of the neo-liberal cycle, by that time around 35 percent of the Latin American population were poor. Two decades thereafter, 44 percent of Latin American men and women are poor. Poverty is particularly cruel to children. It is a sad reality that in Latin America most of the poor people are children and most children are poor. In the late 90s’, the Economic Commission for Latin America reported that 58 percent of children under 5 were poor, as well as 57% of children with ages ranging from 6 to 12.
Neoliberalism promised wealth. And poverty has spread, thus making of Latin America the most unequal region over the world in terms of income distribution. In the region, the wealthiest 10 percent of the population –those who are satisfied with neoliberalism and feel enthusiastic about the FTAA- receive nearly 50 percent of the total income, where the poorest 10 percent – those who never appear in high class society chronicles of the oligarchic mass media – barely receive 1.5 percent of such total income.
Even though the social struggles are growing sharp and even some governments have been overthrown by uprisings, we are told by the North that the neo-liberal reform has not yielded good results because it has not been implemented in full.
As a conclusion, their Excellencies, because of its injustice and inequality, the economic and social order of neo-liberal globalization appears to be a dead-end street for the South.
Mr. Chavez blasted “neoliberalism” or its derivatives 22 times in that speech. Here’s another person Thammasat should award an honorary professorship. He’s certainly a more respectable candidate than Osama Bin Laden, although the latter is probably better known, and thus more popular, among faculties and students. Now does anyone think for a second that Ms. Pasuk, with all her talk of “neoliberal world order” and “neoliberal agenda”, doesn’t agree with the diatribe above?
(For your information: “neoliberal” and “neoliberalism” are two terms I got my economics major in college without ever encountering (not even in the Analytical Political Economy class by my favorite professor whose office door is adorned with a picture of Karl Marx). A search on the Economist website turns up as of this writing a combined ten articles, about half of which use the terms ironically, like this one about His Excellency Hugo “Neoliberals Out!” Chavez himself. I suspect this new “neoliberal” bugbear arises as capitalism-bashing is somewhat discredited after the demise of communism — not that you’d ever know that reading the Thai-language press.)
Ms. Pasuk and her husband certainly share Mr. Chavez’s distaste for the IMF (although in that interview they couch it in the usual dastardly cop-outs like “the feeling among the people”, “many Thais feel” , “Local businessmen are saying” and “People around the region feel”). She also recently took part in a two-for-one confab in Ankara titled “Reclaiming Development in the Age of Financial Globalization” and “Acts of Resistance against Globalization from the South”, featuring presentations and discussions about “Economics of New-Imperialism”, “The War against Terror and the Contemporary Forms of Imperialism”, and “Search for Alternatives in the South against Neoliberal Economic Policies”. With so much in common, how come Ms. Pasuk hasn’t embraced Mr. Chavez the way many of her fellow anti-Neoliberal, anti-globalization alternative seekers certainly have?
Mr. Chavez’s bad reputation in the international media probably has something to do with it. Of course, supporters of the “Bolivarian Revolution” will reject that as a product of the international media’s prejudice and/or misunderstanding. Without endorsing their contention, I must say I know how they’re feeling, provided that they make their case in good faith. And the feeling isn’t great.
So Ms. Pasuk understandably would rather swim with the tide than against it, especially when PM Thaksin himself is unpopular with international journalists as well. To argue that Mr. Thaksin is a populist but Mr. Chavez isn’t one would be inconvenient indeed. Not that some Thai “academics” and journalists wouldn’t try, but Ms. Pasuk knows better, which is why she has had an op-ed published in the Asian Wall Street Journal and been cited by The Economist while they haven’t. Her strategy is thus to use Chavez’s worldwide notoriety as an authoritarian populist to discredit both the loathed Thaksin and the detested “neoliberalism” in one stroke by lumping them all together under the term “authoritarian neo-liberal populism”. That’s actually quite smart, except that it sounds worse than absurd for anyone who knows anything about Chavez and has any inklings of what “neoliberalism” is supposed to mean. Chavez partisans, in particular, would likely hemorrhage.
Lest I get accused of Ms. Pasuk’s four paragraphs out of context, she did turn around several paragraphs later to differentiate between Thaksin and the “neoliberal populists”:
The second key way in which Thaksin differs from both the Mahathir-Lee model, and the Latin American “neoliberal populists” is that he is an enormously rich businessman, half of his cabinet members are also businessmen, and the core of his party includes representatives of other big business families. This business bias differentiates Thaksin from the other two models in both interests and image. Mahathir and Lee stand out as ideologues who had a vision how their societies could develop. Chavez and Lula are prototypical “men of the people”. But, the most prominent element of Thaksin’s image is that he is a successful businessman at the head of a party of businessmen. He calls himself a “CEO premier” and aims to convert other officials into “CEO provincial governors” and “CEO diplomats”. He lectures his Cabinet and the public on the superiority of business management practices over classical bureaucracy. He is both a business capitalist and an ideologue for business capitalism. He said: “A company is a country. A country is a company. They’re the same. The management is the same” (Chumphon 2002, 105).
The aspirations of Thailand’s big business corporations to control the state are not new. Back in the early 1980s, when Korea and Taiwan were copying Japan’s development model of close government-business cooperation, a prominent business politician promoted the idea of “Thailand Inc.” He said “We should run the country like a business firm” (Yos 1985, 196).
She says it as though it was a bad thing. But good or bad, it’s surreal to see Ms. Pasuk delineate the finer differences between the “ideologue for business capitalism” on one hand and Castro-hugging Hugo Chavez on the other. And she makes clear that she sees the Thaksin’s regime (yep, she uses the word) as inferior to Chavez’s because of this business mindset. That is interesting because if populism is anything, it is against Big Businesses.
Not that Ms. Pasuk is a populist. Never! She is, as I said earlier, an academic. But would the Asia Wall Street journal editorial-page editor publish a piece by that type of academic? Apparently yes, provided she’s savvy enough to drop the loony references to “neoliberalism” and frame Thaksin and his “domestic capital” cohorts as venal protectionists who in fact seek to undermine capitalism and globalization. That she does, too, toward the end of this paper (and, yes this is still the one and the same article as quoted above):
Most of these businesses are in service sectors, especially telecommunications, finance, property, entertainment, tourism, and construction. Their businesses are oriented to the domestic market. Only a couple are involved in manufacturing industry, or have any significant contribution to exports. This can be interpreted as a division of spheres of interest between domestic and multinational capital. Thailand’s trade and investment regime has been substantially liberalized over the past 20 years. As so much of manufacturing on a world scale is now dominated by established multinationals, Thailand has been gradually integrated into international production chains. The main manufacturing industries which also provide the majority of exports are subsidiaries and suppliers of multinational firms in sectors such as automobiles, electronics, and electrical goods. The fire sale of collapsed companies to foreign investors in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 1997 further increased the multinational presence in the Thai economy.
Service industries oriented to the domestic market can still be protected as an area of opportunity for domestic capital, but this protection requires the help of the state. Areas like telecommunications are protected by licensing and concession arrangements which impose legal limits on foreign participation. Entertainment and media are protected by national security laws. Property is protected against foreign ownership by old nationalistic legislation. And so on. In the context of increasing globalization of capital over the past two decades, the state has become a vital instrument for defending areas of opportunity for domestic capital. [Emphasis added.]
First, globalization has intensified or, more exactly, the power of multinational capital has increased. This means that on the one hand, states need to make some accommodation with international finance and international financial institutions by conforming to some portion of the neoliberal agenda. On the other hand, the state has become vital as a defensive tool to protect some economic sectors for exploitation by domestic capital. The accommodation with the neoliberal agenda is hence conditional, and the conditions are liable to constant renegotiation. Hence domestic capital is bound to take a close interest in the state. [Emphasis added.]
The problem with that, of course, is that Thaksin and his “domestic capital” cohorts have been pursuing trade liberalization, which now explicitly includes service industries and it’s the Thaksin haters who are crying foul. Remember, we talked about this some five thousand words ago? Here’s the lovely front page headline from Matichon once again as a refresher:
เสนอครม.เปิดทางต่างชาติ ฮุบ20กิจการ
นักวิชาการแฉลักไก่เขมือบไทย ทั้งร.ร.-โรงหนัง-การเงิน-หุ้น
นักวิชาการรุมค้านรัฐบาล”ลักไก่” เตรียมออกกฎกระทรวง กำหนดธุรกิจบริการที่ไม่ต้องขอใบอนุญาต ที่เตรียมเข้า ครม. 18 ต.ค.นี้ ชี้จะทำให้คนต่างด้าวเข้ากุมธุรกิจไทยกว่า 20 สาขา ทั้งธนาคาร โรงหนัง โรงเรียน และ บ.หลักทรัพย์ ปิดกั้นอาชีพคนไทย หวั่นต่างชาติเข้าฮุบทุกอย่าง ซัด รบ.ทำเพื่อเอาใจการเปิดเอฟทีเอไทย-สหรัฐ จี้ส่งศาล รธน.-ศาลโลก วินิจฉัย
Propose to cabinet opening way for foreigners to gobble up twenty enterprises [industries, PWCAU –ed.]
Academics expose as furtive devouring of Thailand — schools, movie theaters, finance, stock [brokerage]
Academics rally to oppose government’s “furtive” attempt to pass ministerial regulation, stipulating that service industries don’t need to apply for permits, that is being readied for submission to the cabinet October 18; Argue will cause aliens to take over Thai businesses in as many as twenty branches [industries, PWCAU] including banking, movie theaters, schools, and stock brokers, [and] to block Thai people’s careers, Fear foreigners will gobble up everything, Slam govt. as doing to woo [pave way for, PWCAU] the opening [signing, PWCAU] of Thai-US FTA; Push to submit to World Court for arbitration.
[Translated by yours truly.; PWCAU stands for “poor word choice as usual”.]
Brought your memories right back, didn’t it? Not only that, the Thaksin administration also turned very publicly against Mr. Domestic Capital Prachai Leophairatana, founder of the bankrupt Thai Petrochemical Industry whose campaign against creditors includes a TV commercial featuring a top-hatted white guy whipping a Thai guy he’s piggy-backing (never mind that TPI’s largest creditor is Bangkok Bank). He’s now become the prime the prime sugar daddy of the anti-Thaksin movement.
So what now for Prof. Pasuk Phongpaichit? Four legs good, two legs better? Or is it two legs bad, four legs worse? I can hardly keep track anymore. In any case, having successfully had her article published in the AWSJ, she can return to her anti-liberalization, anti-“neoliberal” self that she was in that she gave this interview to Time in 2000:
People are tired of this IMF mantra of reform and opening up the economy. We do want reform. The question is, how quickly. If it’s forced on a country too quickly, it could undermine the political system and cause more harm than good. People around the region feel this way. Having suffered so much over the past few years, they are tired of constant pressure from the United States to open everything up quickly and completely. They are saying, ‘Look, our economy is booming and so you have to do it our way.’ People view this as U.S. hegemony and are saying enough is enough.
Though hiding behind the “people” as usual, she nonetheless made Time’s headline with that quote. Not that anyone will refer back to it when she paints Thaksin with the nationalist populist brush. Certainly not the pro-American, pro-free-trade, pro-Iraq-war AWSJ editorial-page editors who published an anti-Thaksin op-ed by China Central Television’s commentator Philip Cunningham. The guy would later write an op-ed piece for Bangkok Post at the height of the Katrina disaster titling himself as “Chairman of America Watch (a non-existent, non-profit human rights group founded by American citizens in China in exile from the current US regime)”. Sometimes I think the Wall Street Journal Asia (that’s the AWSJ’s new name) would publish an op-ed by Noam Chomsky provided that it’s anti-Thaksin. (That isn’t as farfetched as it sounds, considering that Chomsky’s signed a petition in favor of Supinya Klangnarong, the fierce Thaksin critic mentioned earlier.)
The plutocrats
True to form, while Ms. Pasuk and her husband Chris Baker make a big deal about Thaksin and his supporters’ business careers, titling their book Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand they have nothing to say about his well-heeled opponents. I have already pointed out some of these personages but it’s worth elaborating here. Rookie Democrat MP Korn Chatikavanij founded an investment with Jardine Flemming at the age 24 (a feat he humbly compared with Alexander the Great’s Persian Conquest) and went on to become president of JP Morgan (Thailand) after two mergers in 2001 (Chase Manhattan acquired Jardine Fleming and then JP Morgan, but chose to adopt the latter’s name. JF was by far the most active of the three in Thailand’s investment banking industry). Standing with him in the Democrats’ anti-capitalist advertisement was Khunying Kalaya Sophonpanich, who married an active member of the clan that found and still controls Thailand’s largest bank. As Thailand Petrochemical Industry’s biggest creditor, Bangkok Bank is ironically a major beneficiary of the Thaksin administration’s tough stance on Prachai Leophairatana, the company’s founder who led it into bankruptcy and who is now a major anti-Thaksin figure. Democrat Bangkok Governor Apirak Kosayodhin was the top executive at CP-controlled TA Orange and GMM Grammy before entering politics, where he brought his marketing skills to bear. The irony is almost too rich here: both CP and GMM Grammy are two quintessential “capitalist groups” that are vilified for their owners’ personal ties with the prime minister, who in turn has often been accused of using marketing tactics to win votes.
Unlike Ms. Pasuk and her husband, I have no problem with businessmen’s forays into politics. I just wish the Demo-plutocrats and their groupies wouldn’t be so hypocritical about it. With the “businessman” and “capitalist” stigma out of the way, we can start to debate real political issues, perhaps like Banthoon Lamsam, Kasikornbank’s bank CEO and a staunch Democrat, is doing here on the question of trade liberalization:
“วันนี้เราต้องเผชิญกับยุคล่าอาณานิคม เป็นโจทย์การล่าอธิปไตยทางเศรษฐศาสตร์ ว่าไทยจะยังสามารถรักษาผลิตภัณฑ์ที่เป็นของคนไทยได้หรือเปล่า การสูญสิ้นระบบทางการเงินไทยให้ต่างชาติ ผมถือเป็นการหมดอำนาจอธิปไตยทางการเงิน ขณะที่การทำงานของรัฐบาลก็ถือเป็นกระแสทะลักเข้ามาอีกด้านหนึ่ง แต่จะมีลักษณะทางอ้อม ซึ่งรัฐก็ได้สนับสนุนและอยากให้แบงก์แข็งแรง แต่เราก็ต้องสู้ด้วยตนเอง”
“Today we are facing an age of colonialism. [It] is a problem of the hunt for economic sovereignty, of whether or not Thailand can still safeguard products that belong to Thai people. I consider the loss of the Thai financial system to foreigners as the depletion of financial sovereignty. The government’s work can count as another flooding wave, but an indirect one, in which the government supports and wants banks to be strong. But we still have to fight for ourselves.”
Although a careful reading of Mr. Banthoon’s entire speech reveals a more nuanced picture this quote might suggest, this Princeton University and Harvard Business School graduate certainly feels free to rouse his (client) base with a xenophobic invective worthy of, um, a standard Thai university professor. Nuance is not the local newspapers’ strong suit to begin with, and with so much red meat thrown at them, it should be no surprise their reports came out blaring such headlines as “Foreign capital hounds Thai banks to gobble up” (“ทุนนอกไล่ล่าฮุบแบงก์ไทย”) and Banthoon warns to fight foreign colonialism (“‘บัณฑูร’ เตือนสู้ต่างชาติล่าอาณานิคม”) It shouldn’t surprise anyone either that those articles came from the two most fervently anti-government newspapers, ??Thai Post?? and ??Naewna?? respectively. Both, of course, are duly archived by FTA Watch.
If we may dismiss Mr. Banthoon red meat for the press as more style than substance, we certainly cannot do the same with this emphasis-filled memorandum on Thailand-US free trade negotiations from Kasikorn Research Center, whose overall tone is ominous, protectionist, and anti-US:
1. Agricultural sector
- Thailand should push for the US to reduce/scrap non-tariff barriers (NTBs), i.e., anti-dumping (AD) and subsidization in the US farm sector both in production and exports, which is to blame for the slump in prices of farm produce globally. Thai farmers have thus felt the pinch due to lower prices of exported agricultural products.
- Thailand should take into account food security in the light of the US wanting to see Thailand fully open its farm goods market that may eventually lead to the US monopolizing Thailand’s farm sector. [Emphasis mine, but also original.]
4. Intellectual property
Thailand should insist on the same stance concerning intellectual property protection by accepting the obligation of intellectual property protection that conforms with TRIPs agreement of WTO, particularly with regard to the point on drug patent protection period. Nothing must be done that would adversely affect drug accessibility of poor people and Thailand must insist on being able to use the “Compulsory Licensing” and “Parallel Import” so that drug prices are cheaper. Meanwhile, Thailand should adopt a proactive stance in requesting the US to provide protection on GI (Geographical Indication) on Thai goods; these are jasmine rice and Thai silk, which the Thai authorities want to include in the negotiations with the US at this time. It will be greatly beneficial if these goods can be clearly identified as being from Thailand. [Emphasis mine.]
Not everything fits the standard NGO talking points, but the hostile, zero-sum attitude is consistent:
5. Environment and workers
The US wants Thailand to provide protection of workers’ rights and maintain environment by lifting the protection level of environment and domestic workers, including enforcing the law efficiently. The US may use the point of stricter environmental and labor standard to form trade barrier with Thailand. Thailand should have the power to supervise environmental and labor policies freely and the US should not attempt to use these two points to form trade barrier with Thailand. [Emphasis mine]
And here is my favorite part:
3. Service sector
The US wants Thailand to liberate service sector fully and immediately which includes full liberalization of financial sector, EDS (Express Delivery Services) and the cancellation of some occupations including accounting, lawyers, engineers, architectural work concerning design and drawing, etc, that are now reserved for Thai people only under the Royal Decree on Aliens’ Works B.E. 2522 (A.D.1979). Since Thailand wants to liberate its financial sector only gradually, negotiations with the US must be conducted with the maximum care. In the event of a full and immediate liberalization, the US would be in a position to take full and immediate advantage of its position in Thailand, whereas Thai entrepreneurs are still not ready to compete on the same scale immediately. [Emphasis mine.]
Hmmm, I wonder if those “Thai entrepreneurs” include a certain flamboyant third-generation banker? KRC should be careful there. If people perceive it as a serious research outfit instead of Mr. Bantoon’s private advocacy think tank, then it may easily be accused of a conflict of interest. That is, of course, another charge often leveled against the Thaksin government.
In this case, however, what Ms. Pasuk calls “domestic capital” is certainly not aligning itself with the government like she says it will. (See also the correction to the linked Nation article and the KBANK’s elaborately ugly but geomantically-correct corporate logo.) Remember the professorial FTA bashers at the Thammasat seminar? Mr. Bantoon probably fits their cartoon image of a poor little “Thai businessman” about to be run over by foreign neo-colonialists, never mind that he is heading one of what BusinessWeek calls “Asia’s first families”. The only other Thai family so honored is the CP Group’s Chearavanonts, who are known to be close to Thaksin and thus constitute a “capitalist group” (which contributes nothing to society except employing zillions of people and churning out gazillions of products and services). Because she vilifies “businessman”, too, Ms. Pasuk doesn’t have that badge as a ready-made exception for anti-Thaksin capitalists, but I’m sure she’ll come up with something.
Conclusion
We have thus come full circle. Populism and nationalism run through Thaksin opponents, binding them together and feeding them vehemence and vitriol. The politicians channel and pander to the professors and the so-called “people sector”. The professors and the “people sector” in turn try to incite real people by any demagogic means possible, including invoking the plight of “Thai businessmen” who may be fantastically rich but apparently don’t count as part of the loathsome “capitalist groups”. The businessmen sponsor politicians, and provide red meat to the “people sector” and the press, and may even own a newspaper without a whimper of protest. The press provides a soapbox for all these populists and nationalists, be they opportunistic or onanistic, including those in its own ranks. And round and round it goes in this vicious cycle.
With that last sentence, I did something I’d consciously kept myself from doing all through the almost 10,000 words of this essay: I called the Thaksin opponents outright as populists and nationalists that they are. I had refrained from that, sometimes resorting instead to sarcasm and other times dancing around it and suppressing the logical momentum, expressly to avoid the begging the question fallacy. It may be too much to demand the same compulsive exactitude in the international media, but the world’s worldly journalists should at least be expected to practice their standard tradecraft like verifying cartoonish clichés before passing them on. After all, the one thing that unites Thaksin detractors besides crass populism and nationalism is the charges of populism and nationalism that they level against him.
That is, mind you, far worse than a pot calling a kettle black. It is more like a tar pit calling a Dalmatian black and using that supposed blackness as a casual and general slur to discredit the Dalmatian at every mention of it. And this has been going on for about five years now, since the local semi-sophisticates first picked up the “populist” and “nationalist” meme from the international media’s misguided but presumed-innocent coverage of the 2000-2001 election campaign. I cannot, however, extend that presumption of innocence to the insistence on that false depiction of Mr. Thaksin and the Thai Rak Thai Party by local and international critics since. It is not easy to describe the local echo chamber: stupidity is too benign and hypocrisy is too smart. For the international one, however, lazy and egotistic pigheadedness is the best, and kindest, way to put it.
Much has happened in the past five years. If the very first and still prevalent characterizations of Mr. Thaksin’s politics can be so glaringly wrong, then the critical mind naturally turns to others. The allegations of media suppression, blaring day in, day out from the media, is an obvious candidate. And that’s just a part of the staple, multi-purpose accusation of authoritarianism, a word that — like populism — is calqued from English by Thai semi-illiterates to mean essentially that people they don’t like are in power. I intend later write about some of these rampant misrepresentations and misconceptions in this space. Yet I am by no means omniscient, much less omnipotent. One cannot rely on me for 100-percent complete and correct coverage of Thailand. For that, Thailand-based international correspondents must do their jobs. That would require that they spend less time in their favorite watering holes with dubious sources and start doing some real reporting. (There first assignment could be to find out why I’ve given up on their Thai counterparts. Thai literacy would certainly help, although anyone who doesn’t already observe travesties of journalism in the Bangkok Post and The Nation doesn’t deserve to call himself a journalist.)
In the mean time, news consumers like you and I must be far more critical about the unthinking bromides and glib innuendos so rife in the international media’s conceited coverage of Thailand. If you’ve read up to this point, then you’re off to a good start. At the very least, you can call out the next phony — Thai or non-Thai, journalist or layman — who parrots the claptrap about Thaksin the Populist/Nationalist. More important, however, is that with this scandalously pervasive and painfully evident piece of misinformation in mind, you’ll likely never be able again to read the most basic reportage from a Third-World country with the same trusting eye. If you think this heartbreaking hardheadedness is worth sharing, here’s the permanent web address for this article:
http://sanpaworn.vissaventure.com/?id=207
Alternatively, those would rather continue attaching the false but fun populist and nationalist labels to Mr. Thaksin and the TRT Party should go right ahead. It is after all a (relatively) free country, no matter how many local and international partisans try to paint it as the opposite. There still remains, however, the question that I asked in the beginning: what to call the anti-Thaksin demagogues if not populists and nationalists? Here I have a suggestion in the great Stalinist tradition some Thaksin critics both Thai and international no doubt admire. Those who invoke populism and nationalism in service of the great cause of toppling Mr. Thaksin are neither populists nor nationalists, but People’s Patriots.
The Democrat Party, insofar as it’s wooing the People’s Patriots with People’s Patriotic Policies, can then be known as the People’s Patriotic Party, consisting of People’s Patriotic Politicians. “Academics” like Messrs Charoen, Somchai, and Thirayuth can be proudly reappointed, without scare quotes, People’s Patriotic Professors. The press, of course, is the People’s Patriotic Press, as it always has been. Mr. Bantoon Lamsam and his ilk are People’s Patriotic Plutocrats, as are some members of the People’s Patriotic Party. The biggest accolade of them all, however, goes to the Thailand’s “people sector”, whose modest trademark will be shed in favor of this worthier one: People’s Patriotic People.
« Crushing blow for journalism | Main | Populism and nationalism in Thailand »
- 1
- post staffer 9.11.05
You can be rich and still have in you a desire to serve people, like PM Thaksin. I don’t know why he does it - many other rich men his age would not bother - and he has spoken before about the toll it takes on his health and hairline. I suspect religion, a conviction as one of the King’s subjects that he has a duty to serve, and a patrician and selfless desire to help the less fortunate.
You can do good work as a politician even if you are out of touch. I don’t think Thaksin’s wealth necessarily makes him remote from voters. But I do think he is a political animal, right down to his quick, which can make him appear arrogant and stand-offish.
I would like to know to what extent he is ‘handled’ (advised) by flunkeys and to what extent this politician is his own man. He is too smart to be pictured with a cellphone stuck to his ear (not a good look if you want to be seen as a grassroots guy). That’s despite the fact that he sells a lot of them. But then we get those unfortunate post-election comments of his last week …those provinces that voted for us, they’ll get top spending priority.
Ouch! Those comments were so politically inept they could only have come from someone who doesn’t have time to think. No time to take advice, and perhaps no inclination either.
Good on him. I like him for it.
PM Thaksin has children and a wife at home. What value do you put on a phone call to your family at night, when you are stuck in some godforsaken temple down south, far from your own bed? If the pillow’s too hard, the shower too cold, the toilet too nasty, and your toes numb, your hosts can fix the problem. So what? You’d still rather be at home.
I want to know how this guy has time to sleep away from home, be nice to voters, bang the heads of public servants…do all this in a day, and launch telecommunications rockets at the same time. The guy is…much more than we give him credit for being.
A political animal is a politician driven by a will to succeed, which in this awkward country means a determination to conquer people, climate, distance and traffic obstacles.
Sometimes politicians don’t quite get the better of those obstacles. They catch them on the hop, and then politicians say something dumb.
As I said, it’s no bad thing if a politician is out of touch. I don’t want a fool making decisions about my country. But I do like diversity. For every two stupid politicians who converse with voters easily, there should be at least one whose intellect puts him way out of the public’s clammy reach.
Hard to do in Thailand, where you have to be a university graduate before you can stand for politics.
Overseas it’s different. Ironically, the relatively stupid ones are often not up to the job that politics demands. They are better at listening to complaints at their grassroots constituency ‘clinics’, or giving phone-in interviews to the local radio station, than they are at legislating or forming governments.
That’s where lawyers trained in keeping parliament together are so important. Huh? That’s right. Lawyers. Guys who know the cabinet manual inside out, the Standing Orders (rules for running parliament) back to front. The guys who tell the newcomers what to do, and can even teach the old hands a thing or two.
Those guys are wonderful. They keep democracy ticking over better than any politician does, no matter how remote, or how at one with the people. With those indefatigable souls on the job, politicians sleep easy at night.
We never here about those guys here. All we hear about is what Thaksin says. But how well do we know him? We don’t. The media tells us nothing about what makes the man tick. I don’t know what time he goes to bed. I don’t know what time he wakes. I know even less about how parliament or the senate works, how a bill is legislated, what happens at a select committee. All I hear is … bleating. This talking head or that, sounding off.
They do us no service. Most of it fails to further public debate. But it’s the best our timid media can do.
They’re still learning. I would like to think they are pushing this or that political or media envelope, making democracy a stronger, more resilient beast. Reining in the egos of arrogant politicians. Who the hell knows.
What I can tell you is that I lost a man I regard as a friend the other day, New Zealand Green Party MP Rod Donald. He was larger than life, as almost anyone who knew Rod, 48, would tell you.
Went to the same school as me, became head prefect. Lived with his partner in a pretty Christchurch character home, where together they raised three daughters.
As a young man, Rod allowed politics to divert him from completing his university studies, a decision he regretted for the rest of his life. But he was kind, and I can’t think of any more important attribute in a human being.
Even though Rod was a leftie, and left his irrepressible green stamp on almost everything he touched, I felt I knew him well. I wonder how many Thai politicians any of us could say we really know well.
None. They are way too big for us. Suits them, perhaps. But the media is in no hurry to make them or their families more accessible, either.
Once they become one of us again, they will be less inclined to order soldiers on to the streets to shoot protesting students.
So bring on the day, I say, when politicians become one of us…even if a few illusions about their omnicient power or influence are shattered in the process.
- 2
- JW 9.11.05
I’ll post a comment on Friday, but Tom can you please* divide up your articles into smaller pieces. Responding to such a long article becomes a marathon article in itself. You yourself divide your article up with 3-4 different heading. I understand that you seem to want the articles to be seen as a sinlge item (thank god for technical limitations), but you could easily do this by saying this article is part of series and label it part one.
I agree with PS on one of his previous comments. The best thing you could do is to roll out your articles on a regular basis, whether bi-weekly or whatever. You can always post smaller articles/posts in between time.
I will only make one small point of substance, you do seem to ignore the realpolitik of opposition politics and that is to be against everything the party in power is for. Dare I even suggest the Democrats are following Thaksin’s line of argument prior to his election in 2001 (what you have referred to as Thakin going to the ‘dark side’) with being anti-IMF, anti-western influence etc. Thaksin certainly changed his tune when he came into power and I do suspect that the Democrats would do the same. Having said I do agree with the overall substance of your article.
*how about a pretty please with a cherry on top?
- 3
- Tom Vamvanij 9.11.05
I’ll post a comment on Friday, but Tom can you please* divide up your articles into smaller pieces. Responding to such a long article becomes a marathon article in itself.
But you could divide up your comment! You know, make a series of it. :-)
*how about a pretty please with a cherry on top?
I prefer mozzarella on top.
- 4
- post staffer 12.11.05
Speaking of populists, media tycoon and Manager Media Group founder Sonthi Limthongkul is doing his best to join the ranks of people’s saviours at present.
The Manager newspaper is steadily declining into little more than a political soapbox for ‘arch Thaksin critic’ (like that?) Sonthi. We can expect a bid for politics any day soon, I suspect.
Actually, it’s worse than that…these days Sonthi and his epic David vs Goliath struggle against Thaksin is virtually the only story covered on the newspaper’s website. It’s just Sonthi and his gaudy yellow T-shirt, wherever you look.
The more Thaksin retaliates, the bigger Sonthi’s army of admirers swells. Or so we are led to believe. Take a look at the strident reader comments left in response to the Manager story below (see link), about Thaksin’s latest bid to silence Sonthi in court.
Sonthi would probably portray his campaign as a valiant struggle against dark, sinister forces trying to silence the Thai media, and ruin the economy. ‘He [guess who] is doing what Chávez has done in Venezuela or Juan Perón in Argentina,’ says Sonthi.
Sonthi was already tough. Times Online called him ‘one of the most pugnacious, aggressive and thick-skinned journalists in Asia’. In a 1996 Wired.com story, Sonthi, a shameless self-publicist, compared himself to Genghis Khan: I march, I seize the fort, I get somebody who is able to run it, then I keep moving on.’
Still, I wonder if his family sees much of this travelling salesman these days.
I would like to know what the Thaksin camp thinks of Sonthi. The Manager Group is in recovery from bankruptcy, for goodness sake. Has he no breeding, no shame?
A friend heard a policeman speculate on radio that the bomb planted outside the Manager’s office a few weeks ago was probably left there by the newspaper’s own staff. I enjoyed that, though it’s probably untrue.
Below are links to websites where you can read more about people’s saviour Sonthi, including an Asia Week report going back to 1995, to the founding of his Asia Times, a regional business daily which later went bust.
Seems that experience taught him little about the precarious economics of mounting regional business dailies, as he has since started another one with IHT (in fact, his third overall), the eye-catching but advertising-sparse Thai Day. But never mind.
I love this bit:
IT WAS A RARE appearance and one that seemed designed to offer the staff of the soon-to-be-launched Asia Times a bit of reassurance. Perhaps Sondhi Limthongkul sensed it was needed; journalists are a skeptical bunch by nature, and some of the newspaper veterans had been involved in other ambitious projects that shone for a brief moment then faded away.
Dropping in unannounced, Sondhi waded into a crowded editorial office and gave one of his characteristically upbeat assessments of the paper’s prospects. “Don’t worry about the money,” he told editors who know only too well how dicey the publishing game can be. “I have long pockets.”
His plans at the time included not only Asia Times (an online version survives today, even though the print one went bust), but a satellite TV service, and on-line news service as well.
His company was an early victim of the Asian financial crisis. The American Journalism Review tells how:
Hardest hit have been those Thai newspapers that were part of companies investing in property development and other vulnerable areas of the economy. One was the Manager Group, run by the flamboyant media entrepreneur Sondhi Limthongkul. The group once controlled a far-flung empire of newspapers and magazines across Asia and in the United States.
Sondhi’s Asia Times newspaper, launched with great fanfare in the early ’90s, was seen as an Asian-owned, English-language regional paper designed to give the Asian Wall Street Journal and the International Herald Tribune a run for their money.
Today, much of Sondhi’s former empire has been sold off or is caught up in legal disputes. Asia Times exists only as a bare-bones online operation. Meanwhile, Sondhi has returned to his newspaper roots to run the Manager Daily shirtsleeve-style with a reduced staff, emphasizing sensationalism in an apparently successful effort to boost circulation.
An Asia Times report below talks about Thaksin’s plans to sue Sonthi, which contains this entertaining quote from Paisal Sricharatchanya, Thai Day editor:
Paisal, echoing what is standard conversation fare among Bangkok’s smart set, comments that most people in Bangkok now criticize Thaksin. ‘His urban base among the middle classes is eroding…’
Eh? But then all these outfits are linked: Asia Times (the web-based survivor) is affiliated to Manager Group, which is linked to Thai Day. Each is adept as the other at oiling this vast publicity machine.
From the same article, here’s a less-than-subtle plug for Sonthi’s travelling political roadshow:
Sondhi had already decided to take his talk show on the road and turn it into an expanded exercise in participative democracy. (They) are broadcasting live every Friday from an auditorium at Thammasat University in Bangkok, with an audience of up to 4,000.
Viewers can order a VCD of each show for only 55 baht, as well as yellow T-shirts with the slogan ‘We will fight for the King’ printed in Thai.
I have also included an absolute gem of a piece from the English-language Korat Post (didn’t know such a beast existed), in which Sonthi talks about his ‘hatred’ of the West (sounds like my kinda guy), and makes this tawdry confession:
‘Yes, I thought Thaksin was sort of a savior…’
Bet he won’t repeat that one in court on Dec 26!
Here’s another extract, which shows a careful attention to detail which readers look for in any newspaper (see the unerring reference to the name of the mosque):
Sonthi Limthongkul, owner of Manager newspaper, a frequent and today the highest-profile (outside of Luangta Mahabua) critic of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai party - as well as the way it is handling business, especially in southern Thailand - appeared at a televised speaking engagement in front of Muslims last night (Dar es Salaam? - location only indicated by name of mosque) where he once again blasted the Thai prime minister.
Among the many barbs was that Thaksin and George Bush must have the same DNA. Sonthi’s far-reaching comentary and observations were hardly erudite in the strictest sense of the word, but his theme was clear - western civilization IS a threat to the world.
Back to the real world, and I think anyone would be churlish not to admire what Sonthi has accomplished, at one time or other in his life. Below, you can also find an Asia Week interview (The Man and the Myths) with Sonthi, where he talks frankly about how he made his money, and says the biggest influence on his life is his graveyard:
I always think when I die I want to die as a pioneer; as the first Asian to get up and fight the Western press.
‘If the West thinks that this region has the potential and they are willing to invest, why should [Westerners] be the gatekeepers of all information? Basically, this is my turf and I see no reason why I shouldn’t get into the race. I am betting on the understanding that as an Asian I will do things better.’
Another source to read about Sonthi is the man himself. A link below takes you to the Manager’s bookstore, where you can read the introduction to his book ต้องแพ้เสียก่อนจึงจะชนะได้
The first AsiaMedia link gives you an idea of how his empire (and that of his son, Jittanart) has expanded since the financial crisis.
It includes ventures into satellite TV (ASTV), which Sonthi is also at pains to promote during his political roadshows, which he now broadcasts on ASTV after Channel 9 pulled the plug on him.
I have not been to Sonthi’s roadshows or met the man, but I did work for his Channel 11/1 (now known as ASTV News 1), on Phra Arthit Rd last year. The Manager’s offices are nearby.
As media outfits go, I have never seen so much money stuffed in one place. They even keep a speedboat out front (called the Manager, in dashing red), for covering those all-important breaking news events on the sleepy Chao Phraya.
Ironic as it seems now, one presenter told me that he suspected Thaksin had given Sonthi the money. He just couldn’t see how a man with his troubled business record could find so much cash to throw around.
Bad news may beckon for his TV venture. The House committee on communications has asked the government to look into complaints that television stations including the Manager Group’s ASTV, are running illegally.
(The) TV stations, including Nation Channel and ASTV, operated by sending signals through the gateway of an internet service provider.
These signals were then transmitted via an underwater cable to a station abroad to link up with a satellite.
From there they were relayed for broadcast in Thailand.
LINKS
“ทักษิณ” สั่งทนายฟ้อง “สนธิ” อีกคดี พร้อมขอศาลปิดปาก Manager Online
Thaksin meets the press - in court Asia Times
Sondhi’s Times Asiaweek
Savior or a fad? Korat Post (For this one, scroll down until you see a huge shot of Sonthi’s mug).
Hard Times for Thai Journalists Wired
ต้องแพ้เสียก่อนจึงจะชนะได้ Manager Bookstore
Operations of 600 “illegal” local TV stations under scrutiny Asia Media
Happy reading!
- 5
- JW 14.11.05
Interesting array of links PostStaffer.
Did you know there was once a Sondhi Limthongkul Center for Interdependence at Hartwick College in the US? Although things don’t seem to have been kind to Sondhi and it is now known as the The S.L. Center for Interdependence.
I wonder if this is where Sondhi got his doctorate from, as occassionally he listed as Dr Sondhi.
- 6
- poststaffer 16.11.05
Sonthi’s ASTV is being taken off the air in the provinces, which leaves the political firebrand hopping mad.
After getting the word from the government, local branches of the Thailand Cable TV Association are telling TV operators to stop taking ASTV’s signal.
ASTV’s News One channel airs Sonthi’s political talkshow Thailand Weekly, where Sonthi climbs on his soapbox every Friday to attack Thaksin. Sonthi took his show on the road, and started airing broadcasts on ASTV after Channel 9 axed the programme, in what Sonthi says was an attempt by the government to stifle criticism.
After calling the association to a meeting, the Public Relations Department, which which licences operators and oversees programme schedules, yesterday urged operators to suspend broadcasts of Thailand Weekly, which it said was not on its list of approved programmes.
It also claimed the programme was in breach of the broadcasting law, by containing inflammatory material and inciting people.
Final details have yet to be hammered out, with some suggestions the order may apply to the specific programme Thailand Weekly rather than all ASTV News One broadcasts, but meantime provincial association branches have started telling operators to stop taking signals from all ASTV channels.
The Manager newspaper provides the background:
“กรมประชาฯ” เตรียมร่อนหนังสือถึงพันธมิตร ASTV ให้ระงับ “เมืองไทยรายสัปดาห์” อ้างเนื้อหาโจมตี-ส่อเสียดขัดกฎกระทรวง และไม่ได้อยู่ในผังรายการของกรมประชาฯ เผยยังรับชมทางทางอินเทอร์เน็ต และจานรับสัญญาณได้ปกติ
ผู้สื่อข่าวรายงานจากกรมประชาสัมพันธ์ว่า วันนี้ (15 พ.ย.) นายดุษฎี สินเจิมสิริ อธิบดีกรมประชาสัมพันธ์ได้เรียก นายบำรุง วสันตกรณ์ นายกสมาคมเคเบิลทีวีแห่งประเททศไทย และกรรมการสมาคมบางส่วนมาร่วมหารือถึงแนวทางในการหาทางออกกรณีที่มีการควบคุมไม่ให้เคเบิ้ลทีวีท้องถิ่นเผยแพร่สัญญาณจาก ASTV ฟรีทีวีผ่านดาวเทียม และถ่ายทอดรายการเมืองไทยรายสัปดาห์ รวมทั้งสถานีข่าว NEWS1 โดยการหารือได้เริ่มตั้งแต่เวลา 16.00 น.
ภายหลังการประชุมที่ใช้เวลานานกว่า 1 ชั่วโมง นายบำรุง กล่าวว่า กรมประชาสัมพันธ์ในฐานะผู้ออกใบอนุญาตให้กับผู้ประกอบการหลายร้อยรายจะส่งหนังสือเพื่อขอให้ทางผู้ประกอบการเคเบิลฯ ให้ระงับการแพร่ภาพรายการเมืองไทยรายสัปดาห์ โดยทางอธิบดีฯ ระบุว่า รายการดังกล่าวไม่ได้อยู่ในผังรายการที่ทางกรมประชาสัมพันธ์ได้อนุญาตให้แพร่ภาพ ส่วนจะมีการระงับการแพร่ภาพของสถานีข่าว NEWS1 หรือไม่คงจะต้องรอดูในรายละเอียดของหนังสือที่ทางกรมประชาสัมพันธ์มาอีกครั้ง ทั้งนี้ การที่ให้มีการระงับการแพร่ภาพรายการดังกล่าวนั้นจะบังคับใช้เฉพาะผู้ชมที่รับชมทางเคเบิลท้องถิ่นที่เป็นพันธมิตรกับ ASTV เท่านั้น ซึ่งจะไม่เกี่ยวข้องกับผู้ชมที่รับชมผ่านทางจานรับสัญญาณโดยตรงจาก ASTV และทางอินเทอร์เน็ตThe head of the Cable TV Association reckons that if the suspension order applies to ASTV News One rather than the specific programme, and the operator’s licence is in order, then the order could be in breach of the constitution. If Thailand Weekly breached the law then the department should say how, he said.
The Metropolitan Electricity Authority has apparently also had a hand in this murky affair. The Manager obtained an odd looking letter from the authority, saying ASTV was affecting its operations.
Earlier, PM’s Office Minister Suranand Vejjajiva said he knew nothing of any suspension order, though he urged operators to exercise caution, as he had received many complaints about Thailand Weekly.
According to Sonthi’s Thai Day newspaper, the national cable TV association says it refused to pass on an order from the department urging a suspension. It says it left the decision to branch associations, but with provincial authorities and police knocking on the door asking to inspect their licences, increasing numbers of operators are opting to suspend ASTV, annoying viewers.
In Buri Ram, cable TV operators say they will stop taking ASTV because Sonthi’s programme refers to the monarchy in a way that could lead to public confusion.
ผู้บังคับการตำรวจภูธรจังหวัดบุรีรัมย์ (ผบก.) ได้ขอความร่วมมือมายังผู้ประกอบการทั้งหมดให้งดถ่ายทอดสัญญาณโทรทัศน์ผ่านดาวเทียม ASTV ทุกช่องไว้เป็นการชั่วคราว
โดยอ้างว่า ช่อง NEWS 1 ที่ถ่ายทอดออกอากาศ รายการเมืองไทยรายสัปดาห์ มีเนื้อหาเกี่ยวข้องกับสถาบันเบื้องสูง เกรงว่า จะสร้างความสับสนให้เกิดขึ้นกับประชาชน จึงขอให้งดถ่ายทอดสัญญาณ ASTV ทุกช่องไปก่อนจนกว่าทุกอย่างจะมีความชัดเจน หรือสถานการณ์คลี่คลายแล้วIn Khon Kaen, no mention was made of royalty. The cable TV association suspended Sonthi’s show to protect people from the possibility they might be misled into thinking bad things about the government (เพื่อป้องกันการเข้าใจผิดของประชาชนต่อรัฐบาล).
Forgive my cynicism. I do not like Nanny State governments telling people what to think.
The Manager, Sonthi’s print mouthpiece, is fuming, with its website (amid otherwise outstanding coverage of this breaking story) referring to the government as thieves, and accusing Thaksin of trying to close people’s minds and ears to anyone who dares to criticise his government.
Background to public relations dept meeting
อ้างส่อเสียด! กรมประชาฯสั่งระงับ “เมืองไทยรายสัปดาห์” ทางเคเบิล
http://www.manager.co.th/Politics/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9480000158410The Khon Kaen story:
ฟันธงแล้ว! ห้าม “เคเบิลขอนแก่น” แพร่ภาพ ASTV ทั้งหมด
http://www.manager.co.th/Local/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9480000158113Criticism from the East:
คนตะวันออกประณามรัฐบาลเผด็จการ ตัดสัญญาณ ASTV
http://www.manager.co.th/Home/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9480000158018More emotive stuff, on Buri Ram:
แฉไอ้โม่งสั่งตัดสัญญาณ ‘ASTV’ เคเบิลบุรีรัมย์ ทั้ง จว.-สกัดดูรายการ ‘สนธิ’
http://www.manager.co.th/Local/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9480000158057นายกฯ “แม้ว” ปิดหูปิดตาชาวอีสานสำเร็จ เคเบิลท้องถิ่นทนกดดันไม่ไหวปิด ASTV แล้ว
http://www.manager.co.th/Local/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9480000158849Suranan growling
http://www.manager.co.th/Politics/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9480000158232ประมวลข่าว อำนาจรัฐไล่บี้ เคเบิลท้องถิ่นตัดสัญญาณ ASTV
http://www.manager.co.th/Home/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9480000158292สมาคมเคเบิลทีวีแห่งประเทศไทย ‘s website
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