Who is the 4th Speaker in KNS panel?

Chang Noi has an op-ed about the “fourth speaker” at KNS panel.

And the “fourth speaker” was err…. er…

Man, I didn’t know who is the fourth speaker. Do I have to count from the moderator or begin with the first speaker?
Chang Noi has an op-ed about the “fourth speaker” at KNS panel.

And the “fourth speaker” was err…. er…

Man, I didn’t know who is the fourth speaker. Do I have to count from the moderator or begin with the first speaker?

From what Chang Noi review about the fourth speaker. I like the arguments. I like both.

Seriously I think santibal should do what the fourth speaker and Chang Noi suggested. Buy a copy and have it translated, then see if what they have imagined and promoted mass paranoid about the KNS, was reasonable. Had people who worried about it read it? Had people who had read it really think it is a new framework? Can they describe what is new?

The fourth speaker and Chang Noi, to me, offer the most honest assessment and opinion of the book. They do not try to raised its academic significances if/where it may not have. They do not try to churn out anything new when it was not presented in the book just because it “named” the worn out phenomenon already known openly for years and years and many Thais endorse and embrace more than willingly.

And the fourth speaker is (after asking my friends)…

You know that I am kidding, man. I knew who is the fourth speaker because I checked New Mandala From what Chang Noi review about the fourth speaker. I like their arguments. I like both.

Seriously I think santibal should do what the forth speaker and Chang Noi suggested. Buy a copy and have it translated, then see if what they have imagined and promoted mass paranoid about the KNS, was reasonable. Had people who worried about it read it? Had people who had read it really think it is a new framework? Can they describe what is new?

The forth speaker and Chang Noi, to me, offer the most honest assessment and opinion of the book. They do not try to raised its academic significances if/where it may not have. They do not try to churn out anything new when it was not presented in the book just because it “named” the worn out phenomenon already known openly for years and years and many Thais endorse and embrace more than willingly.

And the forth speaker is (after asking my friends)…

You know that I am kidding, man. I knew who is the forth speaker because I checked New Mandala

Filed under: Free speech, Narratives, Sociology and Anthropology

Small Explosion Big Interpretation

When I was back around 11 pm the road was rather quiet for this Saturaday night. I checked news regularly before I went to bed. Thairath reported a small explosion in a phone booth at Rajawithee 24.

As if the warning needed to be proved “true,” out of 1000 risks points in Bangkok. One bomb that the planter(s) did not intend to cause serious harm exploded.

Since last explosion in new year after two scapegoats had been dismissed, no more questions asked. It is hard to identified who did it for what genuine intention. Intention is less important than interpretation. Today we will see the who-did-it interpretation then the why intepretation.

Interpretations work better when truth or factual account of thesituation are not to be known. As for now those who gain more benefit from authoritative interpretion will secretly thanks bombers.

Filed under: Sociology and Anthropology, Something To Remember

Return or Reinvented? Fundamental Buddhist Movement in Constitution

Apart from being taught in school, I am not interested in Buddhism studies at all, thus, despite knowing Tambiah years ago and actually see his first edition books in print, it was not my time to read them. However, it is useful today to read along with the saffron protests.

One need to seeBuddhism as opposed to “original” teaching of Buddha.I doubt it was original because it was orally transfered from generation to generation after He had passed away, then the scripture was ordered to be written by kings.

In Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics and Violence in Sri Lanka (1992), several points are important to read what the monk and the CNS leader had been working out.

Tambiah introduced Buddhism in different phase of “national building.” Buddhism texts were rendered to the public and the academic communities as fitting the birth of a democratic nation and new Buddhist utopian future. By researching and promoting Buddhist economic, Buddhist governance and Buddhist social science and identify as ways of life, he reflected:

[W]hat have by now become standard canonical citations for those theorists who see in certain suttas Buddhust precedents for, indeed explicit formualtion of democracy, equality, rule by popular consesus, a contractual theory of elective kingship, [...], non recognition of caste distrinctions, social welfare policy, the need to eliminate poverty and unequal distribution of welth and so on. (108)

Those feature found in the Scripture, were promoted to suit the new identities against the colonial rule in Sri Lanka (and in Thailand) and now against globalization and out of control capitalism. Buddhism make to fit new threats and to forge new unity.

Filed under: Sociology and Anthropology

Borders and �Buddhism defines Thailand�

The Nation sported an interview entitled “Constitution debate ‘Buddhism defines Thailand’” where “the” nation religious is promoted. These are reasons:

There are many reasons. First, a constitution is the supreme law, and yet the first of the three pillars of the nation, which is Buddhism, is not recognised.
Second, since we are living in a democratic system and Buddhists constitute 94 per cent of the population – or almost 60 million people – [the drafters] must listen to their demands. It was the Constitution Drafting Assembly that tried to promote people’s participation in the drafting process and argued it’s a people’s constitution. Why would they do that if they won’t give us a chance?
Third, at a recent world Buddhist conference attended by 43 nations, Thailand was chosen to be the centre of Buddhism of all sects.
Fourth, Buddhism has been rooted in Thailand for 2,200 years and, although there are people of other faiths, they are regarded as minorities. The King has always been defender of the Buddhist faith, but the Thai political system changed in 1932. There has been a need to include Buddhism in the constitution since then.
Another thing is that Thais have a unique identity of being forgiving and accommodating, and Buddhism moulds this unique identity.

(Emphasis added)
Buddhism in his sense now promoted hand in hand with race/ethnicity and nationalism. A strong reaction, indeed to separate Buddhism from other “regarded minorities.”
In his view the leader of the movement regarded other faiths as “minorities” because he chose to identify and locate the border of his justification within the border of Thailand itself and his views of Thai people as “forgiving and accommodating.” His accommodation came with some reserves: as long as Buddhism being recognized as the nation religious, an official state sponsored majority, then it is possible to accommodate others as minorities.
Many actual practices do state that Buddhism is national religious through Buddhist holidays as national holidays, buddhist economic, buddhist politics are being promoted in national practice. Like it or not, in state schools, daily ritual began with citing Buddhist prayers. Thailand is so far from being secularism as the people who demand Buddhism in the Constitution thought.

Then, what Buddism should be in the Constitution? They have to make new borders.

Is it the Buddhism that exclude women from being monks? Will Buddhism include only Theravat or every kind of Buddhism? What kinds of Theravat it would like to embrace? If the only form of state sponsored Buddhism is included, in the Constitution, will the inclusion excludes other Buddhism and freeze other potential to interpret Buddhism by non-sponsored Buddhism?

When “Buddhism” is included as the national religious, it is not the problem of Buddhism defines Thailand, but handful of Thais will be empowered to defines the country’s Buddhism. The power to interpret Buddhism will be under the joint operation of several political and key religious (Buddhist) leaders. Like when state choose to organize Chatukam amulets. Buddhism will be in and under the constitution. It is what the movement will trade for the official recognition that already exist.

Filed under: Sociology and Anthropology

Madness and Songkran Civilization

Readers will notice that I intended to borrowed the term. My friend and I finally were spared of the water war that put us throughly shaking due to the water was very ice cool.

As a resistance to Ministry of Culture’s pledge to have a gentle songkran that reflect Thai high culture and good old day, we only witness roadside tank full of water and songkran by buckets.

Khao Sarn and other Khao …. road, according to tvs are like water war zones, while over 10,000 villages is not affected from early draught.

Madness cannot be not excluded from civilization but included in tourism package Despite MOC tried to rule out “impolite” water practices such as putting dirty gooey things, ice, color in water or powder playing, the madness is the part of the fun in the festival.

You guys don’t want to go back to good old gentle day entirely for the whole songkran period. There must be madness. Water fight. 200 liters buckets loaded on pick up trucks ready to throw on one another and make them soaked inside out.

Madness is now civilized and what the making the madness of songkran the other side of civilization would be just a fail propaganda. We need madness. Now.

Filed under: Sociology and Anthropology

Subversive Acts

Several calls, e mail exchanges. 15 April is approaching. I have to spend considerable amount of time talking and thinking about this issue, given New Mandala’s alternative proposal. Boycott. Anyway, I am not significant and my proposal will not ensure immediate consideration.

It is already hard to find a theme I can fit comfortably in under the 10th International Conference on Thai Studies. Half of them with “S” word I am not interest or my interest may vary and cause instance rejection because the proganizer would not want to see too much santibal help screening their papers. I felt like it is no longer Thai studies but something else.

I fully understand symbolic call to boycott. Last week I went to Thongchai Winijakul’s address at SAC’s. Citing ‘fear of the masses,’ (here i borrow a title from Warren Montag (2000) ‘The Pressure of the Street—Habermas’ Fear of the Masses’ in Hill and Montag (eds.) Masses, Classes, and the Public Sphere London: Verso.) he presented what many of you know better than me about the [imagined and actual] masses that made the academic and most of us become self censoring.

Filed under: Methodology, Political Sciences, Sociology and Anthropology, Something To Remember

Overgeneralised jokes.

I was reading this

[...] Whereas, at least since the 1930s. despite fault lines in its political
geography, the Singhala- speaking people of the island have moved towards consolidating their identity, the plural identities of the Tamils have been far more openly articulated, not only by the state, but also until the early eighties, by the various Tamils groups as well. In fact the Singhala state likes to have it both way. On the one hand, faced with the threat of a Tamil separatist movement, the state, in whose interest it is to emphasize that there is no single Tamil interest and therefore cannot be a single Tamil state, does like to highlight the differences among Tamils. In this mode, it differentiates the Tamils of the Jaffna Peninsula from those who live along the east coast, from those who work on the tea estates in the island’s south-central hills, and so on. On the other hand, the state at various times and to various degrees, fuels the more generous Singhala sentiment that hold all Tamils (including the Tamils of South India) to constitute the monolithic other against whom the Singhala people, along with the Singhala state can define its identity. The blueprint for this construction is to be found in linguistic nationalism. (Daniel 1996, 17)[...]

Then this.

Iraqi Hospitals Are War’s New ‘Killing Fields’ Medical Sites Targeted By Shiite Militiamen
By Amit R. Paley form Washington Post (Wednesday, August 30, 2006; Page A01)

[...]Authorities say it was not an isolated incident. In Baghdad these days, not even the hospitals are safe. In growing numbers, sick and wounded Sunnis have been abducted from public hospitals operated by Iraq’s Shiite-run Health Ministry and later killed, according to patients, families of victims, doctors and government officials. [...]

Is this one of the results for generalised “rescue” of Iraqi? Over genreralisation can be find almost everywhere, I was about to go to watch Tongpan the movie about affected people and a hydroelectric dam at Thammasat University, by now it is already too late, but might drop in for concert afterwards. This movie remind me about another dam (and that where is my fieldnote) that was build and advertised on theory of over generalisation that become popular is Pak Moon dam. Almost all people were narrated by pro dam groups as farmers who would be benefited from the dam as they would have water for agriculture. However, some affected people were fisher-folks. Later when the society were informed that they were fisher-folks, they were asked to be sacrifice fisher-folks for development and prosperity of the nation (and some farmers.) Likewise, some were to leave with their home and land flooded to prevent other people’s home and land from flood.
———————–
Daniel E. Valentine. (1996) Charred Lullabies: Chapters in An Anthropography of Violence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press

Filed under: Sociology and Anthropology, Something To Remember

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Filed under: Anthropology of Human Rights, Back up, Methodology, Sociology and Anthropology

2004 Back up: Autoethnography

เป็นงานแปลที่ไม่รู้จะทำต่ออย่างไรเเละทำไม เพราะเวลาอ้างอิงก็ต้องอ้างจากภาษาอังกฤษกันอยู่เเล้ว เเต่เอามาแปะไว้ เพื่อจะได้รู้ว่าต้องหาต้นฉบับภาษาอังกฤษ เเละบรรณานุกรม
…
” ผมไม่แน่ใจว่าการให้รายชื่อหนังสืออ้างอิง นิยามศัพท์ ตัวอย่างเชิงวิพากษ์ รูปแบบเชิงนามธรรม รูปแบบเกณฑ์ในการประเมินความสำเร็จ หรือการตั้งทฤษฎีจากมุมมองของ “ข้าพเจ้า” จะช่วยให้ผู้อ่านสามารถสังเคราะห์ความรู้ของเรา ในฐานะผู้เขียนให้เป็นความรู้ของตนเองได้ไหม คำตอบของผมคือไม่ได้ ผมต้องการให้บทความนี้มีรูปแบบที่ทำให้ผู้อ่านตระหนักถึงทางเลือกทางจริยธรรมที่สับสน ให้เขาคิดไปพร้อมกับเรื่องของเรา แทนที่จะคิดถึงเรื่องของเรา ให้เขามีส่วนร่วมในการตัดสินใจว่าอะไรทำให้งานวิจัยสักชิ้นเป็นงานวิจัย แบบ Autoethnography และคิดว่าจะพลิกชีวิตของเขาให้เป็นเรื่องที่คู่ควรกับการเล่าได้อย่างไร”
Source: “Autoethnography”
…
autoethn_th_unfinished.doc

Filed under: Back up, Reading List, Sociology and Anthropology, Something To Remember