Thailand’s reconciliation war

Thailand most certainly has had its fill of political conflict over the past several years. It becomes very easy to some up the sides using any number of descriptors. But whatever you call them, Thailand reconciliation is being caught in the middle and waiting for it to happen is like waiting for water to boil without a heat source.

Perhaps this entry may be better named Thailand’s reconciliation on hold, because that seems to be the state at the moment. Certainly there are a few active players looking to make it happen, but the ones that will not get what they want from reconciliation have managed once again to reverse the process and drive things apart.

Taking advantage of the October curse where Thai blood was spilled over numerous dates, the Red Shirts seem to be gaining some momentum and have managed to stall the reconciliation process. As it is, many of the anniversaries the Red Shirts are using for reasons to come out have little to do if any with the Red Shirts. But like smokers finding a reason to smoke, the Red Shirts have managed to attach themselves to these events in Thai history.

As for Thaksin, it is clear he does not want reconciliation as it would allow his political enemies to better solidify their base. So By keeping them off balance he at least avoids losing any more ground and perhaps may make some forward movement.

As for what is going on you must think of the car and the driver analogy. The car being democracy and whatever means to forward democracy, and the driver can be anyone. As the car is simply a method of transportation that any driver can take advantage of, we must consider that there are both good and bad drivers. There are even some drivers that would use the car as a weapon to rundown people they do not like, but getting that driver arrested requires catching the car.

So in this case Thaksin is most certainly a bad driver using that democracy car to run his enemies off the road and to reach his destination.  However once he reaches his destination he no longer will need that democracy car and very quickly discard it because it was too small and was not good for off road driving that has no real rules other than avoid getting stuck.

In the case of Prime Minister Abhisit, he too is driving the democracy car, and most certainly Thaksin is doing his best to cut Abhisit off the road and perhaps fatally crash him into a tree. Political unrest most certainly has a way of making the road very slippery as if covered in black ice.

So perhaps this analogy can help some people better separate the car from the driver when looking at the situation. It is important to look in the car and not just at the car when talking about a pro democracy movement. In this case it is much like a gun, where the gun can commit a crime as well as prevent one. Some may want to remove the gun, but the correct fix requires just keeping the gun out of the hands of people who would use it to harm others.


One Response to Thailand’s reconciliation war

  1. I have been reading your articles, and I like and agree with them. The accuracy is excellent and good for someone in the world to find the truth about Thailand.