Elite Settlement between Liberals and Conservatives

* photos copyright *
Photo from Government House at about 10:30 PM on Thursday November 27. Despite serious city-wide panic over coup rumors, it was business as usual at the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) encampment at Government House.

Academic Micheal Connors over at Sovereign Myth puts worth an interesting and alternative take on the class struggle framework which many have utilized to understand the conflict between PAD and the People's Power Party or former Thai Rak Thai.

Key quote:

"In place of the idea that this is a conflict between poor and rich, city and province, consider that the Thaksin regime progressively threatened an elite settlement between liberals and conservatives (in form since the 1980s) that envisaged a generational programme of regime change in a liberal political direction; a settlement that protected both the military and the palace. Class and geographical politics were certainly part of the equation in the 2006 conflict that led to the coup, but it is the subsequent conflict that has brought them to the fore."

To read the full article, click here: The Politics of Coups in Thailand 2008.

A Quick and Dirty Analysis of the PAD Conflict

*All photos copyright*
From a happier time at government house with the PAD protesters - September 2008.

The following is a quick and dirty analysis of the current crisis revolving around the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) using a 'presenting', 'proximate', and 'structural' framework.

The presenting problem; Protests.

The proximate factors, according to the United Nations, are "likely to contribute to a climate conducive to violent conflict or its further escalation, sometimes symptomatic of deeper problems." And, the following examples are taken from what the Thai public has expressed and I don't necessarily agree with all but they do provide the needed wide scope of issue that people feel are the problems.

In addition, it is useful to divide these into categories such as Political, Social, Economic, and Security yet some issues can be present in multiple categories.

The proximate political factors are:

• Resentment towards Thaksin
• Fears of a puppet government
• Debate of about the nature of democracy
• Dissatisfaction with people in power
• Constitutional amendment
• Political polarization
• Protecting the monarchy
  
• Protecting Thai political culture
• Political process dissatisfaction
• One vote, one person
• Dis/Reconstruction of the political system

The proximate social factors are:

• Resentment towards Thaksin
• Protecting the monarchy
• Political polarization
• Protecting Thai political culture
• Mistrust
• Mass media manipulation
  
• Aggressive mood

The proximate economic factors are:

• Corruption
• Economic stress
• Conflict of interests
• Feeling of economic insecurity
• One vote, one person

The proximate security factors are:

• Reprisals/Punishment/Treason
• Control of the mob
  
• Limited capacity for conflict in Thai society
  
• Mass media manipulation
  
• Protecting the monarchy
• Mistrust of security forces
  

The structural issues, according to the UN, are the "pervasive and long standing factors and differences that become built into the policies, structures and culture of a society and may create the pre-conditions for violent conflict." For this data, I have made extrapolated the deeper issues, from the proximate, that are driving this conflict.

Importantly, if a solution is to be reached, it essential to address the structural causes of conflict rather than the presenting or proximate issues in the conflict. If only changes are made to proximate issues then the conflict might momentarily deescalate but it will not go away. This factor, would also explain why the protests have been a reoccurring since 2004.

The structural social factors are:

• Polarized social classes of rich urban and poor rural
  
• Nepotism/corruption
• Conflict avoidance in Thai society rather than confrontation and resolution
  

The structural political factors are:

• Debate over democracy - manifest in PAD's inability to gain political power
  

The structural security factors are:

• Inconsistencies in the justice system
• Limited capacity for conflict mediation
  

The structural economic factors are:

• Economic disparity
• Corruption
  

What is essentially important here is that neither the dissolution of government or the acceptance of PAD's thoroughly anti-democratic idea of 'new politics' would help solve the crisis.

No matter what happens in over the coming days and weeks in Bangkok it will not resolve the conflict because the structural problems causing these protests have not been addressed and the cycle of protest and violence will continue.

Finding the Border at Preah Vihear – Part 4

Bangkok Post Cartoon, July 31, 2008.

International Law's Strengths and Weaknesses Mitigating between Sovereigns.

International Law’s Limitations at Preah Vihear

Despite the very clear examples of how international law has proved to be both a preventive force and a forum for resolution, there are very serious limitations to its ability to mitigate conflict. The fact that 8000 Khmer and Thai troops are locked into a standoff at Preah Vihear clearly demonstrates that international law is struggling to contain the nationalist fueled standoff. And such a stalemate is a reflection of one of the primary paradoxes of international law – enforcement. Enforcing international law, such as the ICJ decision that awarded Preah Vihear to Cambodia, is only enforceable by the very states that are in conflict. If Cambodia and Thailand can reach an agreement they can enforce international law. If they don’t agree, there is no international law because there is no one to enforce it upon them.

This peculiarity of compliance can be seen in a 1962 letter regarding the ICJ Preah Vihear ruling from Thanat Khoman, the Thai Minster of Foreign Affairs, to the Acting Secretary General of the United Nations. Thanat wrote that Thailand disagreed with the ruling “but stating nonetheless that, as a member of the United Nations, His Majesty’s Government will honour the obligations incumbent upon it under the said decision in fulfillment of its undertaking under Article 94 of the Charter”[1] (Thanat, 1962). This acquiescence did come with a particular caveat though which stated that Thailand had the future right “to recover the Temple of Phra Viharn by having recourse to any existing or subsequently applicable legal process”.

At first glance such statements of compliance with the ICJ ruling might seem to suggest that the controversial border demarcation was grudgingly agreed upon by Thailand. But this is not necessarily the case. Thailand might be capitulating to objective social forces that international law represents but it is not submitting to a higher authority. This is because where there is neither mutual interest nor balance of power, there is no international law and Thailand is under neither a binding agreement nor subject to legal repercussions should they decided to annex the temple with military force.

When the ICJ ruled on Preah Vihear, the court had the United Nations Charter, Cambodian and Thai agreement to have the court adjudicate, and the court’s own reputation but does not have the agencies of enforcement apart from the agencies of the national governments. This makes the ruling something of an enforcement paradox. The court can rule, and rule with the highest political authority, but requires the belligerents to enforce their own submission. There is recourse to the Security Council under Article 94 of the UN Charter, should one of the one of the conflicting parties ignore the ICJ ruling, but, in the case of Preah Vihear, such an intervention is highly unlikely. And particularly with the prevailing mood of hate and fear that Thai nationalism has been wiping up, compliance to the ICJ ruling would be a self-inflicted wound that the current Thai government would certainly be weary of.

Conclusion

What remains as a salient indicator of adherence to international law is that Thailand, with its vastly larger and technologically superior army, has not simply annexed the temple during this latest confrontation. There are certainly other mitigating factors, such as trade and tourism disruptions, that might make Cambodia and Thailand reluctant to engage in armed conflict yet international law’s calming influence and dispute mechanisms are not just working to ease the conflict but defining the very parameters of the argument. The true test though will not only be to see if armed conflict can be avoided but will be to see a lasting resolution that will prevent future conflict between the two sovereign nations.

[1] Article 94 of the UN Charter states that members of the United Nations will comply with the decision of the International Court of Justice and that if a party does not comply, the other party has recourse to the Security Council.

Finding the Border at Preah Vihear - Part 3

Bangkok Post Cartoon, July 31, 2008.

International Law's Strengths and Weaknesses Mitigating between Sovereigns.

International Law's Strenghts

It should be understood that the original French/Siamese border demarcation was the creation of international law between two sovereign entities. Because there is no global sovereign to impose laws upon states, such border treaties are agreed between states as a matter of mutual self-interest. And despite the fact that disagreement has emerged, the struggle over Preah Vihear is still largely conducted through the mutual self-interested confines of international law. To understand the relationship between the Preah Vihear conflict and how it is being mediated by international law, the ICJ’s 1962 arbitration will be explored.

The ICJ was established in 1945 as the United Nations’ (UN) principle judicial mechanism and the court has general jurisdiction to resolve international legal disputes submitted to it on consent by states. The jurisdiction of the court is predicated upon signatory member states to the UN Charter who, under Article 93, are “ipso facto parties to the Statute of the International Court of Justice” and under Article 94, must “comply with the decisions of the International Court of Justice in any case to which it is a party”.

How the case of Preah Vihear arrived at the ICJ for adjudication was a result of Thai troops using the retreat of French colonialists around 1945 as an opportunity to assert its sovereignty over the temple. It should be noted that the temple’s location is remote to both Bangkok and Phnom Penh and there is considerable confusion as to when Thai troops or border police actually annexed the temple. This confusion can be found in the ICJ proceeding which relates a general lack of knowledge whether Thai troops occupied the temple in 1940, 1949, or 1954. This point should not be particularly surprising though. After the French demarcation and besides the previously mentioned diplomatic meeting between French colonial officers and the Thai Prince Damrong, both Thailand and Cambodia neglected to demonstrate any rituals of sovereignty over the temple and it was large abandoned by officials in what has been described as a ‘do-nothing sovereignty’ by both nations.

Yet once Thai troops began occupying the contested temple, the chaotic space between demarcated states had been exposed and revealed two contesting sovereign powers vying for control over the same space. With no higher law or global sovereign to exercise authority, the potential for violent conflict over contested territory is very real. This scenario is, indeed, a primary rational spawning international law. With two entities endowed with supreme authority within their own territories there is a need to ensure peace, or at least mitigate conflict, between the contesting sovereigns.

With the potential of armed conflict looming over ownership of Preah Vihear, both Cambodia and Thailand voluntarily submitted the conflict to the ICJ for arbitration. That both states consented to arbitration by the ICJ can be understood as a way of states cooperating and trying to create international law between the two countries. This mutual consent is essential because no international court can take jurisdiction over international disputes without the consent of the states concerned and is a reflection of the nature of the international system in which the ultimate sources of law in which a state will submit to are their own.

Such consensual submission of cases to the ICJ is also a reflection upon the courts specific type approach to finding sources of international law. In the Statute of the International Court of Justice, Article 38, sources of law are found in ‘international conventions’ and ‘international custom’ as well as ‘principles of law recognized by civilized nations’ and the ‘teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations, as a subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law’. This means that along with determining the law through searching established norms, the ICJ is not necessarily a law creating intuition, such as the common law determining Anglo-American courts, but a law finding court.

Such an emphasis upon finding sources of law rather than creating law can be found in the Preah Vihear case. Issues that were emphasized in the proceedings were the original border demarcation map, called Annex I, the customs of statehood such as formal meetings between representatives of both Thailand and Cambodia, and the advice of experts on demarcation. These topics can clearly be understood as analogous to subjects in Article 38. The map is analogous to ‘international conventions’, the meetings between governmental representatives parallels ‘international custom’ and the experts on border demarcation are the ‘qualified publicists’.

In regards to the value of mapping as an international convention between states, the ICJ understood the French produced map as an implied conventional agreement between Siam and France. This was because once the border was demarcated, the French order 1000 maps to be made in which they issued 50 for the Siamese government. During the intervening period before the ICJ hearing, Thailand appeared to acquiesce to the map’s accuracy and did not lodge a complaint over the fact that Preah Vihear was drawn inside the French Indochine. This has become a point of contention in the legal struggle over the temple because Thailand’s silence was interpreted by the court as concurrence with the French-drawn border and specifically as a tacit agreement with the international convention of an agreed border.

The ICJ also placed value upon interpreting the law in the international customs between governmental officials. The most significant event was a meeting between Prince Damrong, formerly the Thai Minister of the Interior, and French officials. When the Prince arrived at Preah Vihear, he was officially received by the French Resident Superior with French flag hoisted which the ICJ understood as a standard international custom between sovereign states. A clearer demonstration of ownership by the French can scarcely be imagined. It demanded action and yet Thailand did nothing. Like the Annex I map, without protest it was interpreted by the ICJ that Thailand was demonstrating tacit approval of Preah Vihear belonging in Cambodia.

The final factor, the ‘qualified publicists’ or experts, were drawn upon to interpret the technical points of the border’s actual demarcation. This reliance was articulated by one of the twelve judges, Mareno Quintana, who wrote “A layman in the matters with which the opinion of the experts was concerned as a judge generally is, he has to draw a legal conclusion from a piece of technical work which seems to carry conviction” (International Court of Justice, 1962). And such publicists, in the form of cartographers, gave testimony on the merits and accuracy of the map’s delineation. Specific issue was taken determining, with the expert’s opinions, the watershed lines and stream beds that would be used a demarcation points. And through one academic’s interpretation, such was the reliance of the court upon expert’s opinions, that the actual topographic realities surrounding Preah Vihear were convincingly misinterpreted by a cartographic expert representing Cambodia to such an extent that region’s streams and rivers reversed their course to favor a watershed line that would place the temple within Cambodian territory.

By the end of the ICJ proceedings, “The Court, by nine votes to three, finds that the Temple of Preah Vihear is situated in territory under the sovereignty of Cambodia” (International Court of Justice, 1962). Through the use of conventions, customs, and experts, the ICJ interpreted international law and created what has been the most important international law concerning ownership of the temple. And although the decision remains unpopular in Thailand, and which there are various complaints over the finer points of the proceedings, the precedent has been set and Thailand has bitterly acknowledged the ruling.

Although international law may have shortcomings that will be address in the next section, the very fact that the Preah Vihear issues is a border scuffle betrays just how deeply engrained international law is. That geo-political borders are the embodiment of, and rational for, the spawning of evermore detailed and practiced international laws to mitigate conflict in the chaos between sovereign demarcated entities is almost forgotten in the haze of the law’s normality normality. The politicized globe has carved imaginative nation-states across the earth and the world of delineated states has been naturalized as though each political demarcation was an actual, incontestable, geographic reality. Preah Vihear’s ownership is not simply being fought utilizing the mechanisms of international law but is being fought because of, and through, the paradigm of approximately 400 years of legal practice and precedent. Essentially, international law has become so deeply ingrained and normalized that its basic tenets, the borders and treaties, are virtually assumed to be natural and incontestable.

Finding the Border at Preah Vihear – Part 2

Bangkok Post Cartoon, July 31, 2008.

International Law's Stregths and Weaknesses Mitigating between Sovereigns.

Historical Context – The Westphalian State and International Law

If the kingdoms of Southeast Asia had once been non-territorial mandalas, it is important to understand what the European colonial powers were trying to do by demarcating territory. A dramatic paradigm shift in the concept of spatial governance had taken place in Europe in which absolute sovereignty was recognized over very specific and clearly demarcated territories.

This change is often attributed to the 1648 Peace of Westphalia in which the Dutch, French, German, and Spanish people would be recognized within their demarcated territories as independent and sovereign nation-states. This concept of sovereign nation-states would not only go on to colonize the globe into our current political world of demarcated nation-states but would necessitate the creation of legal mechanisms to govern the problematic interactions between sovereign nation-states.

If the Westphalian nation-state enjoys absolute sovereignty over its demarcated territory that sovereignty only extends to a specifically delineated point in which one sovereignty gives way to another. At these razor-sharp meetings points between states exists anarchy. It is anarchic because, unlike the demarcated nation-states that command sovereign governance, there is no global sovereign to exercise governance over the meeting point of two or more states. As a product of Westphalian organization and its inherent anarchic propensity, international law has emerged to mitigate and reign in that anarchy.

How international law has emerged and evolved in the anarchic global system has been highly decentralized and is primarily characterized by the absence of any centralized governance. This means that international law is not legislated or handed down from a higher source of governance or court but emerges between states in the form of treaties that are triggered by their mutual interest and necessity.

In the context of Preah Vihear, when colonial France and Siam were demarcating their border, they were working in their mutual interests to avoid conflict over territory and as a necessity for conforming to the demarcated world of nation-states. What then emerged was both a solidification of the nation-state paradigm and a growing legality in relations between the two states.

It should be noted that such particular legalism has its roots in Western culture and that foreign aspect can cause suspicion and resentment in non-Western states. Such suspicion then casts doubt upon the mechanisms international law such as the ICJ.

As professor Emmanuelle Jouannet has written regarding international law’s origins; “International law was born with the modern European period. The first rationalist, humanist and liberal version of international law in effect came into being between the 16th and the 18th centuries, within the natural law school in Europe, and was then imposed in imperialistic manner throughout the whole world during the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries” (Jouannet, 2007).

Lingering resentment against the Western origins of international law should neither be surprising nor dismissed lightly. It should be remembered that when international law spread around the globe it “represented in reality the concrete translation of a territorial and colonial imperialism which entrenched, in law, discrimination between states and this the non-universality of law, even as it legitimated the imperialistic imposition of this judicial model, as well as the appropriation of land and the administration of territories” (Jouannet, 2007).

International law was essentially used as a tool of conquest. Unequal treaties, extraterritoriality, and crippling war indemnities had been used to cast legality over what was essentially the violence of territorial conquest.

Such fears of French colonial expansionism, under the guise of international law, were relayed in the 1962 ICJ judgment over Preah Vihear. Princess Phun Phitsamai Diskul, daughter of former Thai foreign minister Prince Damrong, expressed this exact apprehension regarding a meeting with colonial French officials at Preah Vihear in 1930. When queried why the Siamese delegation had not lodged an official complaint against French officials for flying the French flag at Preah Vihear, she claimed “It was generally known at the time that we [would] only give the French an excuse to seize more territory by protesting. Things had been like that since they came into the river Chao Phraya with their gunboats and their seizure of Chantaburi[1]” (International Court of Justice, 1962).

Both Cambodia and Thailand have lingering and constantly refreshed nationalist memories of how the colonial powers of France and England, or their modern-day neighbors, carved up and ‘stole’ territory under the guise of legal right. For Thais in particular, the ICJ’s 1962 ruling against them could be interpreted by some nationalists as analogous to other territorial losses such as the whole left-bank of the Mekong River that was lost to a French treaty and which, today, is the sovereign country of Laos. Ultimately, the 1962 ICJ ruling remains deeply unpopular in Thailand and has been used by nationalists to position Thailand as a victim in the conflict and help fuel anti-Cambodian sentiment.

Despite any apprehension of international law there has been a steady and relentless growth in the matrix of treaties and organizations that have been signed and created to control the anarchy between states. Regardless of its questionable origins international law has progressed to the point where it affects, practically daily, and in innumerable circumstances, all of our lives and governs all aspects of state-to-state relations. There might be prominent instances when states transgress international law, such as Thailand’s challenge to the ICJ ruling, but it is important to understand how powerful such global legality has become. Even though there are notorious incidences of states contravening global legal norms it should be remember that “during the last 400 years of its existence international law has in most instances been scrupulously observed” (Morgenthau, 1978).

Now in 2008, exactly 100 years since the controversial border demarcation that grounded Preah Vihear in Cambodia, it should not be surprising that the conflict over the temple is not only fought through the mechanisms of international law but shaped within the complex medium of international law. The old mandala structure of political organization has been replaced by the global system of demarcated states and the old system of ritual tribute between kingdoms has been replaced by international law. Now, that razor sharp meeting point of anarchy between Westphalian nation-states is being mitigated by the mechanisms of international law.

[1] Chantaburi is a Thai province that borders Cambodia and was occupied by French troops for two years.

Finding the Border at Preah Vihear – Part 1

Bangkok Post Cartoon, July 31, 2008

International Law’s Strengths and Weaknesses Mitigating between Sovereigns

On a rocky outcropping along a contested stretch of border between Cambodia and Thailand rests a picturesque 10th century Hindu temple dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva.

Accompanying the temple are approximately 8000 Khmer and Thai soldiers who have taken up opposing positions in a growing dispute over ownership of the temple. Although much of the media coverage surrounding the demarcation spat has highlighted how domestic politics and acerbic nationalisms are pushing the dispute ever closer to armed conflict, there has been less focus on how international law has been mitigating and defining the parameters of this conflict.

To illustrate how ubiquitous international law has been in this dispute, the historical context of the creation of Westphalian nation-states in Southeast Asia and their catalyst for the creation of international law will be explored. And yet despite the matrix of legality that has shaped, defined, and restrained much of the conflict, the problematic shortcomings of international law’s inability to decisively prevent bloodshed over the temple will be shown.

Historical Context – The Temple and the Border

The problematic ownership of the Preah Vihear temple is not simply due to convoluted legal wrangling but is complicated because historical claims of geographical ownership can be found favoring both Cambodia and Thailand. This is primarily because the old kingdoms of Southeast Asia were never the demarcated territories that they are today. Only in the last 100 years, since the European colonial powers had finished carving out their territorially-defined colonial possessions, have the old and diverse kingdoms of Southeast been transformed along Western ideology to fit what is now the global standard of the modern Westphalian nation-state.

Before European arrival, governance in Southeast Asia was largely non-territorial and that political structure has often been referred to as a mandala system. Mandalas are concentric circles of power spreading out from each kingdom in which smaller mandalas – smaller kingdoms or fiefdoms – existed within the more powerful spheres of larger kingdoms. In this system there were no clearly defined borders, no singular sovereign power, and smaller centers looked outward to more powerful mandalas for protection. This paradigm of governance meant that borders did not exist and remote regions were not definitively under control of one power source.

The location of Preah Vihear, before Westphalian demarcation, was “a largely autonomous collection of tributary principalities in the Khorat marginal highlands, an area the Siamese Kings called Forest Khmer Domains [huamuang khamen padong in Thai]” (Cuasay, 1998). Along with there being no solidified borders, such tributary principalities were often paying tribute to multiple larger kingdoms of which they were never under direct administrative control.

Essentially, territorial governance was ambiguous and secondary to controlling human populations and maps of the region were more concerned with cosmology than with topographical features. And although both modern states are fighting over the temple and claiming historical ownership, neither Cambodia nor Thailand existed as they do today. So, their historical claims of ownership are largely driven by nationalistic fictions that apply modern Westphalian rules of sovereignty over remote and previously-independent peoples and lands.

Yet geographical ambiguity for the region ended with the arrival of European cartographers and specifically ended for Preah Vihear when a boundary settlement was made in 1904-1908 between France, then in control over its colonial territory of Indochine, and Siam (Thailand). In a reflection of Siam’s mandala-like thinking and subsequent lack of cartographical knowledge, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) writing of the original 1904-8 border demarcation, said “The Siamese Government, which did not dispose of adequate technical means, had requested that French officers should map the frontier region.” (International Court of Justice, 1962). Along with placing the temple inside Cambodia, the demarcation treaty was the first act of international law concerning the temple and set the first and, arguably, most important precedent in the ongoing legal battle.

First-Ever Thai/Pattani-Malay Dictionary

When the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) – a government sanctioned commission comprised of academics, civil society leaders, and politicians tasked with recommending ways to relieve violence in the southern border provinces – recommended in 2006 that Pattani-Malay become a working language for the southern border provinces the idea was shot down by various spoilers.

The most devastating was most likely Privy Council President and former Prime Minister General Prem Tinsulanonda. He employed an ultra-nationalist tone and claimed that "We cannot accept that [proposal] as we are Thai. The country is Thai and the language is Thai”.

Such narrow minded nationalist restrictions on what it means to be Thai are, of course, far from the ethnic/linguistic realities of Thailand.

For the majority of southern Muslims, their first language is Pattani-Malay. The language exists only in spoken form and is sometimes mistakenly called Yawi (อาวี) which is actually the name of the language when written with the Arabic script. The language is a dialect of Malay and can be heard in most of peninsular Thailand and even in some neighborhoods of the capital Bangkok. In the southern border provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat it is the most commonly used language and has strong roots in the culture and religion of the region.

Essentially, the language has roughly two million speakers and, if their knowledge of Thai is weak, they have no way to communicate with government officials.

And the NRC report addressed this cultural/communication barrier when the wrote “one cause of violence in the region stems from the actions of government officials. In particular, some civil servants who exercise state authority in the three southern border provinces do not understand religion, culture, language, and way of life of Thai Muslims”.

Their rational was that the relationship between government institutions and the Thai-Muslim population was dysfunctional and that improving the lines of communication was a key to deescalating tension in the region.

So, despite ultra-nationalist spoilers like General Prem, it is great to see that the first Thai/Pattani-Malay dictionary has been published.

If the dictionary can help ease communication barriers between the civil service and the local population, then it is an important step in mitigating sources of conflict on the southern border.

This dicationary has been publish by the Asia Foundation and more information can be found here: First-Ever Thai/Pattani-Malay Dictionary

International Workshop on Autonomy and Armed Separatism in South and Southeast Asia

For those with a strong academic interest in the Southern Insurgency, there is an important conference being held at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

There are a number of well regarded academics such as Duncan McCargo and Anthony Reid and the abstracts look extremely interesting.

If any of the papers being presented are released, I will post links to them in the following days.


The description provided by the Asia Foundation is as follows:

Description:
Over recent decades, a number of South and Southeast Asian states have been troubled by intensifying armed separatist conflicts. Various forms of autonomy have been promoted by scholars and policy-makers as the most democratic way of accommodating separatist insurgents in ethnically, politically, religiously, economically and socially divided states. Despite this, very few states have successfully ended their armed separatist conflicts through offers of autonomy or self-governance. This raises difficult questions about how much freedom nation-states are willing and capable of granting their nationalist minorities without releasing control over their sovereign territories.

This international workshop promotes a multidisciplinary approach towards understanding national identity problems in seven South and Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Burma, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Thailand, India and Indonesia’s former province of East Timor. It explores the political, economic, legal, security and other compromises that have been offered by national governments to negotiate shared-rule outcomes with their separatist movements through the devolution of central state authority and resources. These attempts to achieve conflict resolution through autonomy have met with varying degrees of success, ranging from Indonesia’s successful offer of self-governance to Aceh to the ongoing separatist insurgencies in Indonesia’s Papua, southern Thailand, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka and Burma.

Dogs Don’t Give Birth to Humans, Coups Don’t Give Birth to Democracy

Immediately after the September 19th coup d'etat a considerable number of foreign journalists and academics in Bangkok showered praise upon the new military leaders.

Thaksin’s divisive and failing policies coupled with his grotesque arrogance were too much for most and anything, even the strong arm of the military toppling a democratically elected government, was deemed preferable to his prolonged tenure.

One of the few initial, and rather vocal, voices opposing the junta was Professor Giles Ungpakorn of Chulalongkorn University.

About a week after the coup Giles gave a particularly spirited attack against the junta while it was still unfashionable to do so.

While Bangkok's residents were still lining up to have their pictures taken with the flower draped soldiers Giles was at the Foreign Correspondents Club Thailand reprimanding the assembled foreign media and pro-junta academics.

Supporters of the coup were ‘tank liberals’ he claimed and rhetorically questioned whether academics that supported the coup would “all burn their Comparative Politics books and scrap all courses on ‘democratization’ in favor of teaching military science and tank maintenance?”

Giles’ academic wrath has now been focused into valuable new book titled A Coup for the Rich – Thailand’s Political Crisis.

The book is certainly ‘hot of the press’ but it’s not exactly for sale. It seems that Thailand’s supposedly prestigious Chulalongkorn University has opted for self-censorship and the school’s bookstore will not be selling the book.

What makes the book particularly worth reading is both the fact that its banning reflects the pathetic state of press freedom in Thailand as well as its blunt and open critique of Thai politics.

Giles lashes insightful criticism on almost everyone. The military, the pu yai (upper class), and even the monarchy are fair game.

Such criticism is not just refreshing in a country where open political discussion is extremely curtailed but it is essential if Thailand is to solve the on-going political crisis.

What Giles does best though is bring a clever, spirited, and serious challenge to Thailand’s increasingly confined political space.

His unprecedented questioning of the monarchy is nothing short of breath-taking.

In a climate of fear where any rational questioning of the monarchy has the very real possibility of leading to a prison term it is important to have an academic brave enough to raise important issues that are essential elements to resolving Thailand’s political quagmire.

The book does have flaws though. Giles follows a rather strict socialist ideology that tends to lionize the poor as free from the bigoted villainy of the upper class. Unfortunately, humanity's capacity for bad behavior spans all classes so poverty doesn't automatically result in higher morals values as the book often suggests.

But such criticism is limited. Not only has Giles initiated essential political dialogue that Thailand is starving for, but he initiates dialogue with a comedic flare that is often absent in the academic world.

While scolding the international media for our lackadaisical challenge to military rule he gave a wily smile and reminded us that dogs don’t give birth to humans, should we expect coups to give birth to democracy?

_________________________________

*As far as I know the only place to buy Giles' book is still from his office in the faculty of political science at Chulalongkorn. If anyone know's another source, please leave a comment and let us know.

The Apocryphal 'Nation-State'

By disciplining non-state 'others' the Thai state exercises its existence. Burmese migrants being deported back to Myawadi, Burma - 2005.

“States attempt, physically and discursively, to marginalize or destroy various aspects of centrifugal otherness: ethnic solidarities, reasserted nationalisms, indigenous movements, and draft resistances, all dissonant elements proclaiming the tenuous hold of states over territories and identities”

Thailand is not a nation-state yet it is striving to become one.

In a complex process of ethnic competition and state formation a myth has been nurtured that Thailand is built around a nation of ‘Thais’.

By adopting the Westphalian model of a nation-state, Thailand has conformed to the logic of the international system at the expense of ethnic diversity within its borders.

To become a nation-state the dominant state sanctioned identity, the Thais, have had to internally colonize their territory by subjugating minority identities to create and perpetuate not only the political state but the very definition of Thai identity.

The process of Thailand’s self-colonization has striking similarities to the theoretical foundations of Europe’s colonial adventures.

As Siamese (Thai) identity was transforming under pressure from the arrival of Europeans it was placed in comparison to the state’s own subaltern identities.

Siamese comparisons followed the intellectual fault identified by Palestinian academic Edward Said in his seminal work; Orientalism.

The failings of Thai orientalism stem from classifying and applying stereotyped roles for minorities as ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ – mirroring the same sense of superiority that Europeans used to rationalize their colonial presence.

Like the colonial powers were doing across SEA, the Siamese began an orientalist study of the ethnic minorities that the state's modern borders contained.

The Siamese classified them, detailed their customs, their dress, their beliefs, and opened museums to display the ‘others’ within their borders.

By interpreting the state’s minorities as ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ the state cast itself in a rationally paternalistic roll whose dominance over minorities was implicit.

The unique utility of orientalism is the way that the classification of ‘others’ does more to identify the ‘self’ (in this case the Siamese) than that of the ‘other’ (the minorities).

If the ethnic minorities were ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ then the Siamese would be ‘advanced’ and ‘modern’.

As a tool of nationalist state-craft it is essential to have an ‘other’ as there is simply no nation if it can not be compared to an apposing minority or alternate nation.

The minorities within Thailand’s borders serve a necessary function of being the ‘other’ to Thailand’s ‘self’.

By studying and classifying the state’s minorities as oppositional ‘others’ the Thai state has been able to define who the ‘Thai’ are and what the ‘Thai state’ represents.

Non-state identities being ‘others’ within the Thai state act as a threat to the state’s identity while paradoxically giving the state legitimacy by allowing the state to express its own existence.

The ‘otherness’ of minorities is closely associated to alternate nations and, particularly if viewed through the global Westphalian system of nation-states, their presence within the state represents a violation of state order that must be either assimilated into the defined nation-state identity or be controlled by the state’s legitimate right to use force.

By disciplining the ‘others’ within their territory, the nation-state exercises its existence and its identity is brought to life.

As the modern Thai state has adopted the Westphalian model it has conformed to the logic of the international system at the expense of the country’s minorities.

Thailand has colonized itself into the international system and has/is attempted/ing to internally colonize the non-state identities within its borders.

Essentially, the very definition of Thai identity has been articulated because it is in contrast to the minorities and the state's presence is brought to life by exercising authority over the country’s minorities.

A Trip to Tong Hong

From the village of Tong Hong the setting sun falls into Shan State. Tong Hong, Thailand - 2000.

The small village of Tong Hong is located on Thailand’s far northwestern frontier with Burma.

A scattering of thatched huts and a few cement buildings are shaded within a bamboo forest resting on the top of a small mountain.

In the evening, the day’s fading light filters through the haze of slash-and-burn agriculture and the sky glows in brilliant shades of golden red.

Looking west, towards the setting sun, a series of mountain ridges shimmer in the golden light and continue rolling west beyond the horizon.

Although it is a tranquil view, the sun is setting over more than a half century of armed rebellion, an ever changing mixture of ethnic/ideological armies, vast poppy fields, heroin and methamphetamine refineries, and a huge population of internally displaced people that have been forced from their homes and are surging against the Thai border.

The sun is setting upon Shan State, Burma and the village of Tong Hong has a front row view of the border's humanitarian crisis.

How small Thai towns and villages like Tong Hong experience border issues and conflict in Shan State might be best understood as either internal or external.

Issues inside the Thai border commonly revolve around the various ethnic minorities or ‘hill tribes’.

Although the majority of them were born and have lived their lives in Thailand they are not officially citizens of the state.

Under a staggered citizenship scheme most peripheral minorities are not classified as actual citizens but classified as residents whose rights and movements are severely curtailed.

The major challenge for residents without the same rights as regular citizens is the cycle of poverty linked to the absence of government provided education and health care.

Even though education or health care are not provided the state further discriminates against minorities by restricting their movement.

If minority groups wish to migrate for economic reasons or to access state funded education and health care they are prohibited from leaving either their districts or provinces.

The residents living along the borderlands have literally been locked out culturally and economically from Thai society.

Common external problems, emanating from Shan State, that border villages experience are refuges fleeing conflict, economic migrants fleeing poverty, and a steady flow of drugs – heroin for the international market and methamphetamines for the Thai market.

(please see previous post for description of conflict and drug production in Shan State: Between Armed Factions,Drug Production,and International Borders).

The combination of internal poverty stricken residents and the external forces of refugees, economic migrates, and drugs has resulted in both a humanitarian crisis and a heavy military/police presence.

Although there is an extremely limited effort to address humanitarian issues the frequency of police patrols and military road blocks gives the impression that the full might of Thai law enforcement agencies have been unleashed upon the borderlands.

In response to humanitarian issues revolving around the international border, the village of Tong Hong has opened a free medical clinic.

The clinic, a small building with a cement floor and a thatched bamboo roof, was opened and run by an ethnic Shan resident named Sai Sam.

Although he is not an official doctor his clinic is often the sole medical centre that minorities and migrants have access to.

Sai Sam’s clinic is operated with an extremely frugal budget supplied by international donors (one of those donors, the group that introduced me to Sai Sam, is a Canadian group called Medical Mercy Canada – http://www.medicalmercycanada.org/).

Both internal and external border issues are evident at the clinic.

Each morning a group of 20-30 patients can be seen mingling around waiting for medical assistance.

Migrant workers from Shan State make up the majority of clinic visitors.

Thai employers have a nasty reputation for exploiting migrant labour and, if labourers complain of low or withheld wages, employers are known to call immigration and have those complaining deported.

Due to the precarious legal and economic situation that migrant labourers exist in they have no access to state assistance and no resources to pay for medical assistance when they become ill.

The situation in the surrounding villages is similar to the economic migrants – a lack of medical access or the inability to afford it.

Sai Sam treats many of the ethnic minorities at his clinic but also makes ‘house calls’ to the surrounding villages.

Taking medical care to the various villages is a necessity due to the fact that there is no public transportation and patients often have to walk for an entire day to reach the clinic.

A common ailment for both migrant labourers and the region's minorities is malnutrition.

Although the hills are teeming with orchards and valley floors are partitioned into lush rice paddies basic sustenance is a constant challenge.

Migrant labourers often receive less then half of the legal minimum wage which barely affords them enough to eat.

The situation for minorities is more complicated but a combination of their remote locations, no access to fertilizers, and the 'bleaching' of the soil results in small crop production with limited nutritional value.

Although the bulk of Sai Sam's patients are economic migrants and minorities there are often refugees arriving from the frontline of conflict in Shan State.

The stories of why they have fled often revolve around gross human rights violations by the Burmese army - the Tatmadaw.

The residents of Shan State are often 'recruited' at gun point by the Tatmadaw to act as porters transporting military equipment and supplies.

While transporting supplies the porters are forced to walk in front of the armed columns to act as both human shields and mine sweepers.

Because the of the high likelihood of being killed either in conflict or from physical exhaustion/malnutrition many porters flee to Thailand.

The porters that reach Sai Sam's clinic are often severely malnourished, suffering from untreated injuries, slightly dependent upon opium used to relieve pain and fatigue, and deeply traumatized.

The curious fact of the border region is that the internal and external issues of the region are not actually locally driven issues but issues influenced by politics of countries and distant economies.

Shan State is locked into perpetual conflict because of its resistance to becoming subservient to a large state dominated by ethnic Burmese.

Thailand's minorities are forced to be residents of a large country that is alien to their culture, language, and beliefs yet is also a country that actively discriminates them.

And finally, the drug based economy of Shan State is directly fuelled by the global thirst for illicit drugs.

Although this posting has focused upon one village and how it is influenced by border issues it should be noted that Tong Hong is one of thousands of villages lining Thailand's periphery.

Each one of those villages is intimately linked to the internal and external issues that revolve around borders.

Tong Hong may have a front row view to the humanitarian crises that exists along the border but, unfortunately, so do the thousands of other villages.

Between Armed Factions,Drug Production,and International Borders

Thai Rangers on border patrol near Mai Sot.

“Burma is currently a land where there is no human security and where several millions are displaced externally as refugees or illegals in neighbouring countries. Burma and Shan state is a land where hundreds of thousands are dispossessed, dislocated, and hunted down like animals by army columns and search and destroy patrols. It is a country where almost everyone is without hope, living lives of utter desperation in abject poverty, without a shred of dignity or human rights of any kind” - Chao Tzang Yawnghwe

On the opposite side of Thailand’s far northwest border, in Burma, is a large mountainous region called Shan State.

Everyday refugees and drugs flow across the border from Shan State into Thailand.

In order to understand what refugees are fleeing from and why drugs continue to flow across the border it is necessary to understand the dynamics of drug production, resistance armies, and Thai policy towards refugees.

Burma is the second largest producer of heroin in the world and the majority of its poppy fields and drug refineries are located in Shan State.

Shan State is also home to a bewildering array of armed factions and most of them have been locked in a seemingly intractable conflict with the government of Burma.

How the politics of drug production mingle with the politics of armed resistance is often misunderstood and insurgent armies are mistaken for narco-armies.

In order to understand the various armed factions it is important to first clarify drug production in Shan State.

Along with the more traditional opium/heroin production there is a booming methamphetamine industry.

Yaba (ยาบัา or ‘crazy medicine’ in Thai) is produced from a cocktail of chemicals, with minimal labour, in drug labs lining the Thai border.

The primary motive is profit, the market is largely confined to Thailand and China, and the business is dominated by apolitical drug runners.

Opium, in contrast, is an agricultural product that a large number of peasant farmers depend upon for their livelihood.

It is transported by farmers to local market dealers who then take the raw opium to a broader network of dealers, primarily Chinese, who render it down into a more concentrated form or refine it into heroin 'number 4’.

It is then transported by large drug syndicates across the Thai and Chinese borders where it then joins the world market.

The armed factions that operate in and around Shan State cross the whole political spectrum from ethnic nationalists to the Burmese military to multi-ethnic communists to Chinese Nationalists to well armed criminal gangs.

All armed factions are somehow linked to the drug trade.

Ethnic nationalist armies are primarily associated with opium/heroin through the taxation of trade goods passing through their territories.

Many of the ethnic nationalists, such as the Shan State Army, have/are attempting to wean their economic dependence away from drug profits and to end the growing of poppies within their spheres of control.

The Burmese government and its military, the Tatmadaw, may not be active in drug production yet they are a main beneficiary of the profits and are directly responsible for creating a drug based economy in Shan State.

The grotesque economic failure of ‘Burmese socialism’ dismantled the country’s economy to such an extent that paper currency, the Burmese kyat, became worthless. The economy reverted back to the bartering of commodities.

In Shan State, opium became the principle commodity because it is easy to transport, can be stored for long periods, and is far more valuable than any other agricultural crop farmers can grow.

The opium economy in Shan State has also been encouraged by the Tatmadaw’s brutal 'four cuts' military campaign.

The four needs of insurgent armies were deemed to be access to food, finance, recruits, and intelligence and the Burmese military launched a campaign to eliminate those resources.

The campaign directly targeted the civilian population with search and destroy patrols that murdered, tortured, raped, and confiscated land and property from peasants in order to cut any supplies from reaching insurgent armies.

Opium became the single commodity that peasants could take with them when fleeing from rampaging Tatmadaw patrols.

Flourishing in the chaotic environment are the remnants of the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalists) army and various criminal gangs.

The KMT have been involved in drug production in Shan State since retreating from China after Mao’s victorious communist revolution in 1950.

Being capitalists, and rationalizing their need to purchase arms as well as being apathetic to Shan nationalist aspirations, the KMT were uniquely qualified to revolutionize the opium trade.

Their global connections to Chinese diaspora afforded them both the global reach and capital to reap enormous profits from drugs.

Criminal gangs, with various allegiances and ethnicities, account for the rest of the drug trade.

As many Shan State residents are internally displaced by the political chaos and endless conflict they are being pushed up along and over the Thai border.

How refugees are received in Thailand is a reflection of the Thai held stereotype that everyone from Shan State is either a drug runner or an insurgent soldier.

Refugee camps lining the border are filled with Shan State residents who have fled conflict and the Tatmadaw but live as prisoners surrounded by barbwire fences and bristling with Thai military sentries.

More worrying has been Thai Prime Minister Thaksin’s ‘war on drugs’.

In a reactionary and ineffectual response to the flow of drugs, particularly the near epidemic use of yaba in Thailand , Thaksin launched a draconian extermination campaign against drug dealers.

Because Shan State is a major source of drugs, the power of the police and military has been unleashed and focused upon the border.

Low level drug dealers, suspects in rural and poverty stricken villages, and often those with out any connection to drugs, were not just at risk of mass arrests but were at risk of state-sanctioned assassination.

Approximately 3000 extrajudicial killings have been carried out by joint military/police patrols under the orders of Prime Minister Thaksin.

The aggregate result of both drug production and politically diverse armies in Shan State and the hostile reception that refuges receive in Thailand has been the immense suffering of peasants caught between armed factions, drug production, and international borders.

The one simple truth, and articulated in the opening quote, is the abysmal conditions forced upon the average resident of Shan State.

A Paradox of Histories

Selective interpretations of history have allowed both the government and the separatists to claim rightful ownership over the south. Students waiting for school in front of the reflecting Pattani Mosque - 2005.

A conventional historical narrative of the contested southern region might start with either the Islamic Sultanate called Pattani (roughly the current Thai provinces of Pattani, Narrathiwat, Yala, and Satun) or the kingdom of Siam (Thailand).

But to properly understand how the deep south has multiple, and seemingly logical, claims of rightful ownership a brief understanding of pre-colonial governance is far more valuable.

Before the Europeans arrived the paradigm of territorial governance in Southeast Asia had little, if any, resemblance to today’s world of demarcated nation-states.

The concept of a border that would sharply divide one polity from another polity was not used but a system called mandalas existed.

Each mandala was a circular ring of political influence – not territory – that emanated from each kingdom.

The mandala system was ambiguous, almost unconcerned, with territoriality. What was important to the various kingdoms was the allegiance of surrounding settlements and allegiance, demonstrated through ritual tributes, of smaller kingdoms that existed within a more powerful kingdom's mandala.

The sultanate of Pattani was in a tributary relationship with the more powerful Siamese (ethnic Thai and political Thailand before 1941) kingdom in Bangkok.

The tributary relationship meant that Pattani demonstrated allegiance with tributary gifts to acknowledge that the Siamese mandala exercised its power over the region but Pattani was not part of Siamese territory and was still a sovereign Islamic sultanate.

The complication and confusion surrounding Pattani’s sovereignty or subjugation to Siam began when the colonial British began to squeeze their colonial possessions of Burma and British Malaya into the European nation-state mold.

For what had once been ambiguous and irrelevant – territory – was to become specific and extremely relevant.

In order to make a nation-state a border must be drawn on a map and that country’s governance is extended to that geographic border.

What the British, and later the French, ended up doing while mapping Malaya, Burma, and Indochine was to, by default, also draw modern day Thailand into existence.

Because of Pattani’s tributary status the British and Siamese determined that the far south would be a part of Siam.

Despite Pattani's 80% Malay-Muslim population it became a rather awkward appendage of a Thai-Buddhist country.

Because the traditional mandala was non-territorial and the modern nation-state is specifically territorial there is no easy answer whether the south should or should not be part of Thailand.

From the rhetoric of both the Thai government and the separatists it is obvious that selective interpretations of history are employed to bolster each side’s claims to sovereign right.

Yet the paradox of the European idea of spatial governance replacing the older mandala system is that both sides can be simultaneously right and wrong in their claims of ownership.

And, if there is such a historical catch-22, the opposing claims over the deep south's history will never be resolved through history.

From Mandala to Westphalia

Royal Thai Rangers on border patrol along the Thai/Burma border near Mai Sot.

To understand how the introduction of borders was a dramatic alteration to mainland Southeast Asia (SEA) it is necessary to illustrate what the implications of borders are.

When the colonial powers arrived in SEA it was a region characterized by borderless kingdoms that were territorially ambivalent.

When the Europeans were finally chased out, the region had been demarcated into states. What follows is a brief account of how mainland SEA made the transition from mandala to Westphalia.

In a previous post - A Paradox of Histories - there was a brief explanation of how pre-modern SEA was politically organized along the mandala paradigm When the colonial powers of England and France began carving their possessions out of Asia they introduced a dramatically different idea of governance – the Westphalian nation-state.

Although the origin of the nation-state does not have an exact date it is often associated with the Peace of Westphalia.

Fatigued by war on their continent, European leaders gathered in 1648 in what is now the German town of Westphalia to bring peace through a new form of territorial governance.

The nation-state, a work of considerable political fiction in which a homogenous population would live peacefully within a sovereign state, was subscribed to.

Although history clearly demonstrates that the nation-state is more often the cause of war than war’s resolution, the political paradigm has thrived and is now the norm for an entire globe demarcated into nation-states.

As the European powers sailed into Asia they began transforming kingdoms into colonies based upon the nation-state model – albeit with each nation subservient to European control.

Borders based upon European conquest, rather than following local political/ethnic/religious reality, began to be drawn.

There was some congruence with local politics, as Europeans often co-opted local rulers in their quest for colonies, yet resemblance to traditional political structure was often negated by the colonial powers tendency to maximize their territory beyond traditional boundaries.

The rise of various SEA nationalisms before World War II, the dramatic region-wide Japanese military take-over during the war, and the determined efforts of powerful independence movements eventually dislodged the Europeans from SEA.

Yet the young states that independence leaders had fought to control had essentially been drawn into existence by European cartographers.

It is not that there wasnt powerful kingdoms and sultanates across SEA but what the independence leaders wrestled from the Europeans were dramatically different political entities than had once existed.

Thailand is often cited as the historical exception in SEA because it was never officially under colonial rule yet the story is essentially the same.

The cartographers that had drawn the borders of British Malaya, Burma, and French Indochine had, by default, also drawn Thailand into existence.

The country’s kings, succeeded by various constitutional governments, did the work of self-colonization modeled exactly (often directly administered by European nationals) upon the western nation-state paradigm. T

he Kingdom has taken a different historical path yet arrived at the same destination as the rest of Southeast Asia – a distinctly territorial polity striving to be a nation-state.

The old mandala political structure was erased by the colonial powers and then the new polities were focused by the region’s nationalist leaders into modern states.

The local political structures that had once been ambivalent about territory and distinctly multi-ethnic had been reinvented into unconditionally territorial nation-states.

The last transformation, and a transformation that is still in progress, is the attempt to create ethnic homogeneity out of a region characterized by heterogeneity.

The Apocryphal 'Nation-State'

“states attempt, physically and discursively, to marginalize or destroy various aspects of centrifugal otherness: ethnic solidarities, reasserted nationalisms, indigenous movements, and draft resistances, all dissonant elements proclaiming the tenuous hold of states over territories and identities”

Thailand is not a nation-state yet it pretends to be.

In a complex process of ethnic competition and state formation a myth has been nurtured that Thailand is built around a nation of ‘Thais’.

Such an idea is utter non-sense.

By adopting the Westphalian model of a nation-state, Thailand has conformed to the logic of the international system at the expense of ethnic diversity within its borders.

To become a nation-state the dominant state sanctioned identity, the Thais, have had to internally colonize their territory by subjugating minority identities to create and perpetuate not only the political state but the very definition of Thai identity.

The process of Thailand’s self-colonization has striking similarities to the theoretical foundations of Europe’s colonial adventures.

As Siamese (Thai) identity was transforming under pressure from the arrival of Europeans it was placed in comparison to the state’s own subaltern identities.

Siamese comparisons followed the intellectual fault identified by Palestinian academic Edward Said in his seminal work; Orientalism.

The failings of Thai orientalism stem from classifying and applying stereotyped roles for minorities as ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ – mirroring the same sense of superiority that Europeans used to rationalize their colonial presence.

Like the colonial powers were doing across SEA, the Siamese began an orientalist study of the ethnic minorities that the state's modern borders contained.

The Siamese classified them, detailed their customs, their dress, their beliefs, and opened museums to display the ‘others’ within their borders.

By interpreting the state’s minorities as ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ the state cast itself in a rationally paternalistic roll whose dominance over minorities was implicit.

The unique utility of orientalism is the way that the classification of ‘others’ does more to identify the ‘self’ (in this case the Siamese) than that of the ‘other’ (the minorities).

If the ethnic minorities were ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ then the Siamese would be ‘advanced’ and ‘modern’.

As a tool of nationalist state-craft it is essential to have an ‘other’ as there is simply no nation if it can not be compared to an apposing minority or alternate nation.

The minorities within Thailand’s borders serve a necessary function of being the ‘other’ to Thailand’s ‘self’.

By studying and classifying the state’s minorities as oppositional ‘others’ the Thai state has been able to define who the ‘Thai’ are and what the ‘Thai state’ represents.

Non-state identities being ‘others’ within the Thai state act as a threat to the state’s identity while paradoxically giving the state legitimacy by allowing the state to express its own existence.

The ‘otherness’ of minorities is closely associated to alternate nations and, particularly if viewed through the global Westphalian system of nation-states, their presence within the state represents a violation of state order that must be either assimilated into the defined nation-state identity or be controlled by the state’s legitimate right to use force.

By disciplining the ‘others’ within their territory, the nation-state exercises its existence and its identity brought to life.

As the modern Thai state has adopted the Westphalian model it has conformed to the logic of the international system at the expense of the country’s minorities.

Thailand has colonized itself into the international system and has/is attempted/ing to internally colonize the non-state identities within its borders.

Essentially, the very definition of Thai identity has been articulated because it is in contrast to the minorities and the state's presence is brought to life by exercising authority over the country’s minorities.