Is Thailand a Failed State?

Thai Solider outside a mosque in Ampur Bananstar, Yala province.

Is Thailand a failed state?

The short answer, I think, is no, but the longer answer is maybe.

I once talked with Dr Chaiwat Satha-anand from Thammasat University – a prominent academics and a common face on Thai TV – who told me; “Thailand is not a failed state…but we are starting to show signs of failure.

He was talking about the southern crisis and was specifically talking about the life of southern residents.

He told me that there is a panic for legitimacy in the Thai government, a panic that started in Thaksin's time and has gone on to consume the various governments since.

Samak's government is particularly at risk and can only focus on its own survival. It has no time, no moral authority, and apparently no will to try to resolve the violent rebellion in the southern border provinces.

And law, already suffering in the border provinces, has further broken down in the south. Justice does not exist and citizens have resorted to carrying guns for their own protection because the state can not protect them.

This is a fundamental problem in that the state should have a monopoly on the use of force. Not only are armed insurgents challenging that, but ordinary people have decided to take their own safety, and the law, into their own hands.

The government has imposed draconian laws, such as the emergency decree and marshal law, that strip citizens of their rights and has give the security forces immunity from prosecution. The military, the police, and a growing number of armed militias are now operating with complete legal immunity.

The violence has also divided the community.

In the past, the Thai-Buddhists and the Malay-Muslim citizens were not divided by some bizarre civilizational barrier but lived in a distinctly multicultural space that was characterised by ethnic and religious diversity.

Now, the corrosive persistence of violence and poisonous nationalisms are pushing a divide between Thai Buddhist and Malay Muslim citizens.

But compared to failed states like Burma, Laos, and Cambodia, Thailand doesn’t compare.

Burma is in utter shambles, so poverty stricken, repressed, and ethnically divided that some experts will admit that a resolution to the vast problems there might never emerge.

Cambodia is ruled by the self proclaimed 'strong man' Hun Sen for over 20 years and the country is also mired in poverty, and deeply scared from a genocide which the country has yet to reconcile with itself.

Laos is simply a communist museum, locked into the past, and seems unlikely to wake up to the modern world.

So, no Thailand is not a failed state but, as professor Chaiwat said, it is showing signs of being one.