Democracy in Thailand?

A place known for its exotic scenic beauty, economic development and sex workers, Thailand has seen it all. An alliance, led by People’s Power Party was floated in Bangkok on January 19th to share power in a “democracy-restoring” government in Thailand. There was no immediate reaction from the junta leaders to the PPP’s latest move. And, if the ruling junta does not stop the coalition, Surayud Chulanont, the now prime minister of Thailand, from King Bhumibol Adulyadej privy council, may soon have to return his seat to Thaksin Shinawatra. With that, Thailand will come a full circle, from being a constitutional monarchy to a military regime in 2006, and now back to being a democracy.
Military took over the government of Thaksin Shinawatra, in a bloodless military coup in 2006. The media was censored, people lost their freedom of speech, protest went unheard and its protectors abrogated the constitution and destroyed the laws of the country.
The Administrative Reform Council (ARC) justified its seizure of power, on the grounds that the Thaksin’s actions had frequently bordered on "lese majeste”. Lese majeste is being critical of the King or going against him in any way, which is punishable by the law. For example, when Thaksin ordered in 2001 the sidelining of Kasem Watanachai and Palakorn Suwannarat, two well-known royalist bureaucratic officials, the King within hours appointed both of them to his Privy Council.
He was also said to have created "social division like never before". The council also indicated that Thaksin had "politically meddled" with state units and independent organizations. Charges of corruption were also made against the government.
Army chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin explained on Thailand TV the military coup, saying that it was necessary to end intense conflicts in Thailand's society that Thaksin had created.
Thailand has seen a series of military rule, finally having a democratic form of government in 1997, with the dawn of its constitution. The coup of 1991 in Thailand ended when the masses took to the streets with demonstrations against the coup and in favor of restoration of democracy. King Bhumibol did not give his support overtly to the coup, the fact that he didn’t do anything against it as well as that the acting Prime Minister of the country is from his privy council, says it all.
According to the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), Thaksin’s government was a civilian autocracy. It did not respect human rights, the rule of law or democratic principles.
However, AHRC argues that a civilian autocracy is better than a military one as at least it does not and cannot take away the basic civil rights of the masses, where as the military one annihilates that as well, along with everything else.
Although US did condemn the military coup, it did nothing in support of its so-called support for democracy. But Thailand is an ally of US post- world war two, and US has a military base in Thailand as well, so it really didn’t have a problem with the coup. Before the coup, US aid to Thailand was around $35 billion. Whereas after the coup it saw a decline of jus $1 billion, making it $34 billion. Other than that, the fact that Thaksin was so keen on increasing his ties with China didn’t really make him a favorite with US as well.
Similarly, China brushed off the coup as an internal matter of the country. Thailand is newly industrialized market and a growing one at that, which no country wants to antagonize.
General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, a Muslim, claimed that the military coup would help improve the situation in the Southern parts of Thailand. Militants in the South regions of Thailand claims that the government is trying to destroy or dilute Malay culture and Islam. According to him Thaksin’s government has aggravated the problem rather than solving it. According to the International crisis group, the coup opened the way for improved management of the conflict in the Muslim South.
Surayud made an historic apology to southern Muslims for past abuses, announced an end to blacklisting of suspected insurgents leading to a significant decrease in arbitrary arrests, and revived key conflict management institutions disbanded by Thaksin Shinawatra in May 2002. Insurgent groups have responded to the government’s new approach by stepping up violence and propaganda aimed at undermining conciliation efforts. The insurgents’ village-level political organization has improved significantly in the last eighteen months but it is not clear how much this reflects an increase in local support. Many villagers fear both the insurgents and the security forces and are caught between the two.
Thailand has not seen any major economic depression or faced any problems from the international community as such, after the coup. If anything it has tried to improve the situation in its southern state. But the fact that the military coup did compromise with the basic foundation of a country’s progress, the freedom of its people is not justifiable in any case. How successful was this coup, and how strong is the desire of the masses of Thailand to have a democracy will be seen in days to come.

The predicament of Indian Malaysians

A few days ago, Malaysia was nothing more than a tourist destination, for most of us. A place where one can find tranquility and peace. ‘Malaysia truly Asia’. Everything has changed in a span of the last few days however. Malaysians of Indian origin are protesting against the government. Malaysia is being accused of ethnic cleansing. It seems all hell broke lose on Malaysia recently.

Lets try and gauge the reason for all this. Indians have contributed to Malaysian population, for the past 150 years. “They are the third largest population in the country. They make- up for 11% of the total population, of which 8% are Tamils”, says P Uthayakumar one of the main leaders of the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf). "We were removed by duplicity and force from our villages (in India) and taken to the then Malaya and put to work to clear the forests, plant and harvest rubber and make billions of pounds for British owners," said Malaysian lawyer Waytha Moorthy Ponnusamy. P Uthayakumar. Who alongwith Waytha Moorthy and Rao is one of the three main leaders of the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf).

The political and economic importance of some of the ethnic and religious groups from India far exceeded their numerical strength, in Malaysia. Two important business communities were the Chettiars, a money lending caste from Madras, and the South Indian Muslims (Moplahs and Marakkayars) who were mainly wholesalers. The third groups were the Ceylonese Tamils who were employed principally in the lower levels of the Civil Service and in the professions.

Because of this the economic and social status of the local Malay’s was reduced. They were marginalized in their own country. People belonging to other counties took the top positions, as well as the low- profile ones. Namely these people belonged from India and China. Although the Malay’s, also known as Bumiputra, have always been the largest racial segment of the Malaysian population (about 65%), their economic position has always tended to be precarious.

As late as 1970, 13 years after the drafting of the constitution, they controlled only 4% of the economy, with much of the rest being held by Chinese and foreign interests. Because of which Article 153 was drafted, to address this economic imbalance. To make sure that the locals reaped the benefits of the economic boom, more than anyone else. Its common knowledge that Bumiputra were given preference over people belonging from any other caste or relegion. In the 1970s, substantial economic reforms were enacted to address the economic imbalance. In the 1980s and 1990s, more affirmative action were also implemented to create a Malay class of entrepreneurs.

Seemed fair enough at that time. After all , we will all think about our family members first than we will about the guests. And Indians were guests in the country, who were not even invited to the house. Britishers, who were unwelcome visitors themselves, brought them in.

A majority of the Malays during that time believed that the Chinese and the Indians came to Malaya for economic purposes only,under work permits during the British rule. And they were promised that the immigrants were to return to their countries once their work permits expired.Many Chinese and Indians also felt unfairly treated since some of them had been there for generations, since the mid 1800s. And they were still treated as second-class citizens.

Things got out of hand when these feelings against ndians turned into fanaticm. Lack of opportunities, destruction of Hindu temples, right to education in their mother tongue and lack of avenues for advancement. Indians began to feel they were being colonized once again.

That is when the Hindu Rights Action Force or Hindraf, a Hindu grassroots movement that has won wide support from ethnic Indians in Malaysia, filed an unusual lawsuit. This lawsuit blames the British government for the plight that the Indians are in Malaysia. They took out a rally on 25th November, in which around 10,000 people from the community took part. They wanted to march to the British High Commission and hand over a memorandum complaining of marginalisation of Indians from the time their ancestors were bought to the then Malaya as indentured laborers.

Police used tear gas and water cannons to break up the demonstration, declared as "illegal" by the government.This incident carried on by the Indians, brought in sharp focus the class inequality in Malaysia more than anything. It showed us the problems that the underprivileged are facing in the country.

The only possible solution to this issue is to address to the problems of the poor in the country. And when I say poor, I mean deprived citizens, not categorized as Indians or Chinese. Economic development for all the communities. It is not that only Indians are poor in Malaysia. They are in great number, yes. But the fact remains that the richest man in Malaysia is an Indian as well. This shows that there is a class disparity more than a religious one.

The government of Malaysia must now make sure that this episode does not get marked as violence against a particular minority community. But as a problem that they have to solve for the poor of their country, who cut across all the religious borders.

Controversy over Obama's relegious bent

The controversy over the religious bent of Senator Barack Obama, one of the candidates for the post of the U.S president, has come under the line of fire recently. The question whether he is a follower of Islam or Christianity, has taken the country by a storm. Obama on the other hand is trying to assure, anyone who listens, that he is a staunch follower of Christianity and although he belongs to a Muslim background, has got nothing to do with that faith.

In his speeches and often on the Internet, the part of Sen. Barack Obama's biography that gets the most attention is not his race but his connections to the Muslim world, according to a report in Washington Post.

During his contention for presidential seat in February, Obama, a member of a congregation of the United Church of Christ in Chicago, has had to address claims that he is a Muslim or that he had received training in Islam in Indonesia, where he lived from ages 6 to 10.

His paternal grandfather, a Kenyan farmer, was a Muslim. The son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, Obama was born and spent much of his childhood in Hawaii, and he talks more about his multicultural background than he does about the possibility of being the first African American president. "A lot of my knowledge about foreign affairs is not what I just studied in school. It's actually having the knowledge of how ordinary people in these other countries live," he said earlier this month in Clarion, Iowa.

"The day I'm inaugurated, I think this country looks at itself differently, but the world also looks at America differently," he told another Iowa crowd. "Because I've got a grandmother who lives in a little village in Africa without running water or electricity; because I grew up for part of my formative years in Southeast Asia in the largest Muslim country on Earth."

Obama aides sharply disputed the initial stories suggesting that he was a Muslim, and in Iowa, the campaign keeps a letter at its offices, signed by five members of the local clergy, vouching for the candidate's Christian faith, according to the Washington post.

Obama for many of us represents not only the hope to see the first ever African- American candidate in the white house, but also to have a man that understands the world- politics and US role in it, in a positive way. Obama’s strong opposition to the Iraq war and his policies towards those parts of the world where the United States is not popular makes him a tough competitor and a better politician.

However, this issue about his religious followings has highlighted a lot of other problems in the country. It has brought out the mentality that works in US. The mind-set that is yet to accept a person from a Muslim background as their own. Because of which, the US claim to be a democratic as well as a developed country is at stake. It also proves that the blemish that was left by the incident of 9/11 is still fresh. People are yet to start trusting the community, which was alleged to have committed the biggest crime in the history of US. In an August poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 45 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate for any office who is Muslim, compared with 25 percent who said that about a Mormon candidate and with 16 percent who said the same for someone who is an evangelical Christian.

Conservative talk-show hosts have occasionally repeated the rumor, with Michael Savage noting Obama's "background" in a "Muslim madrassa in Indonesia" in June, and Rush Limbaugh saying in September that he occasionally got "confused" between Obama and Osama bin Laden. Others repeatedly use the senator's middle name, Hussein.
His integrity does not get questioned whether he is a Muslim guy, following another religion. It gets questioned when he is so adamant to prove that his alliance with Islam is just fate and not by personal choice.

In the past few months, Obama has actively touted his Christianity, particularly in South Carolina, where his campaign hosted a gospel tour to appeal to black voters. He describes his movement from a "reluctant skeptic" to a believer during his 20s while he was working with black churches in Chicago as a community organizer, according to Perry Bacon Jr. a journalist working in Washington post. The title of his second book, "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream," comes from a sermon by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ.

The fact that, in making people believe that he follows Christianity, he has unknowingly shooed away the other faith. This attitude by the Senator has put a doubt in the minds of many, about the integrity of his intentions and claims to various foreign and internal policies, proposed by him during his presidential campaign.

My philosophy

Sometimes when I look around me,
I cannot believe that I am where I am.
The people who surround me all the time,
Used to be strangers, whose existence was not known to me.
Now they are my best friends.
And my best friends,
I do not know their continuation anymore.
Is it how life works?
With new people, new situations and new places?
Where you don’t know about your past anymore, in order to know your present.
I am trying to strike a balance so badly.
But sometimes I feel detached,
Sometimes unconcerned,
Sometimes I fear that my present will become my past,
And I don’t know what my future is.
This is a circle in which your life moves and there is no holding it.
One thing although that I have learnt from all this is,
It doesn’t take time for you’re present to become your past,
So before it becomes just another memory, try and live it to its fullest.
Live your life on your on terms, because you never know when it ends.

Some thoughts:

Har aahat par ruki dhadkan laga ki tera jawab aaya hai
Har saas ki gungunahat main laga ki tera naam aaya hai,
Har raah main pair rakhte hue laga jaise,
Har mood pe tere kadmon ko chukar mera anjam aaya hai.





Khali aangan main padti barish ki kali bunde,
Aur chand ko chummati chamkati kali bunde,
Ek sukha hua fool mez par pada hua
Aur pazeb ki jhankar jeene pe padti.
Ek anjani anchahi muskurahat hoton par,
Ek labz se lipte hue kai jazabaat,
Kapte haathon main,
Aur bolti aankhon main,
gudgudate sapne
Aur har sapne main simati hui kai raat.



Hothon se takrake shabd bikhar gaye,
Palkon se milkar sapne bun gaye,
Ghunghat iss dil ka kabhi uthaya hi nahi,
Unki raaton main fir bhi har raaz khul gaye.

Freedom of expression and its limitations
Your freedom ends, where mine starts. Any kind of freedom comes with its set of limits. These limitations are necessary to protect that freedom from being misused. But, at the same time, every person has a right, to have individual thoughts, on any and every subject. We all have a right to perception and interpretation. In the same way, we cannot use freedom of expression to disgrace another person or hurt his sentiments in absolutely any way. Our freedom of expression does not give us the liberty to damage others person right to dignity or individualism.
I believe that James Watson was wrong when he said that ‘black’ people were intellectually inferior to white people. First of all ‘black’ itself is a derogatory term. Secondly, a finding like this cannot be generalized. It can be true to a certain extent, in some situations, for a chosen few. But it cannot be an absolute truth, and there can never be a proof supporting this theory, which hold true for everybody.
However, if we look at ‘Fire’ as an example here, I think what the Hindu activists did was absolutely uncalled for. Fire was a movie about two women (characters) finding love and solace in each other. Lesbianism has been there for decades and was not an unheard topic. And Lesbians exist. Those characters represented a section of our society, which we very conveniently choose to ignore. The setting of the story also represented the real social conditions of the society. So, showing something that already exists, does not account to violation of any kind of freedom.
What we do not realize is freedom of expression and freedom to degrade somebody are two different things. I have a right to criticize something or somebody, but I don’t have any right to offend or degrade it.
We have to realize that we all have a right to be against something or someone, but we don’t have a right to take away their freedom of expression. Like happened in the case of
Taslima Nasreen case or even the movie ‘Fire’.
What we have to realize before exercising our right so vehemently, is that the concept of freedom has to be understood in its right spirit, and not the literal meaning.
EOM

My idea of Secularism

I have a friend, who is part Hindu and part Muslim. Her parents met in college and fell in love. Her liberal mother came from a conservative Hindu family. Same was the case with her father. They both decided to marry, against the desire of their respective families.
They both knew that religion was a matter of personal faith. It’s not necessary to belong to the same religious group, to be happy with each other. That religion and traditions are there for an individual’s convenience, to make his life a smooth flow, and not to dictate them. They understood this and respected each other’s personal beliefs.
This basic understanding and attitude is secularism for me.
The best part about this marriage was that, no one told the other, to convert. They accepted each other the way they are, without wanting to change anything in each other. This acceptance for me is secularism.
Secularism as a political and constitutional principle involves two basic propositions. The first is that people belonging to different faiths and sections of society are equal before the law, the Constitution and government policy. The second requirement is that there can be no mixing up of religion and politics. It follows therefore that there can be no discrimination against anyone on the basis of religion or faith nor is there room for the hegemony of one religion or majoritarian religious sentiments and aspirations. It is in this double sense--no discrimination against anyone on grounds of faith and separation of religion from politics--that our Constitution safeguards secularism.
But secularism in the broader sense is accepting others the way they are. Not just by the
Government, but the society as well. It is a change in the outlook of an individual.
Blurring of barriers of caste, creed, religion etc amongst the masses.
This change in attitude defines secularism for me. Secularism will be attained totally when we do not have classified ads in the matrimonial section saying, ‘ we want a fair Hindu Brahmin girl’, or ‘ a Vaishnav boy’.
Its not just confined to religion, caste, etc. It involves appreciation of our past and acceptance of our future and present. To know the reasons behind the age-old traditions and recognize the need for change in them. To know that we are all children of our circumstances. To identify that our parents had a different up-bringing, different environment. And to respect that. To realize that our children are living in a different setting, and that their needs are different.
We have to be aware of the fact that we need to give a certain amount of space to a person. Every being is entitled to have different perception and interpretation, which are of his own.
Secularism for me also means, the autonomy to analysis. Freedom of thought. Where we think for our own selves the way we want, accept it the way we think and not feel sorry for it.
Like if I want to have sex with some random person, whom I don’t even know, I should think about it without feeling guilty. This remorse comes from the way we are born and brought up in our society. We are told the most natural thing to a person is a taboo. Secularism is when you question this and ask why? When you look deep inside yourself, find an answer that makes you happy and accept it.
‘Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high…’ , this anthem for defines secularism in its true spirit.