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Coup d'etat Thailand: The Crumbling Old Power

I have been holding myself back from delivering any remarks against the recent coup d'etat in Thailand. One chief reason is the fact that my third fiction encompasses the political landscape of the place.  But with all the updates streaming in from several sources, I am rather tempted to let my political stance be quite clear.

The glittering gadgets in reckless hands and the roads packed with foreign cars can’t be construed as a development that exacts political developments in the minds of the people. You can discuss what province in the country has got the best fried pork with the best and the most beautiful people, yet the same people would discourage you from discussing politics. Politics, to most, is for the elite or for the royalists, and this most Thais don’t mind much as long as they have a place to work to make a living.

No Thai would bother to go as far as the kindergarten curriculum to find out why they are taught that certain families are superior to the rest, why they are made to crawl before one family. Their political affiliation is influenced by the family to which they show their servility; it has got nothing to do with a person finding his or her political belief in a party.

Politics everywhere is murky and it exists with different shades and set of complexity, yet it, apparently, is inevitable. One’s desire to remain apolitical is also a political decision.  To try to win over masses is no ordinary person’s job, but it would be a collective failure to give in to an illusion that only a few are capable for it.

What I find appalling is the endorsement of dictatorship by a lot of supposedly educated-looking people who believe that they owe their existence to certain persons in the country, and they could live and die wearing clothes of one colour. These colour-stained people ,bred and brought up in servility, should understand that there are people who are up for a shake up and it is time they gave some thought. To level a political field you don’t need those rusted imported tanks and rifles which have never been used, except against their own people. Some years back none would dare to show finger middle to the anachronistic establishment, but today there are thousands of them who are willing to bring it down.

The champagne-soaked chauffeur-driven elite and the royalists may still be living in their old, but crumbling, world sniffing the sense of security. But they should also know that it will soon be replaced by the wind of change.     


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