Bangkok Pundit has spotted that Thai politicians have learned that they can safely denigrate their opponents by use of the hypothetical ‘if’. He quotes Deputy Prime Minister in Charge of Difficult Situations Suthep Thaugsuban:

“But if the plan [by the pro-Thaksin United front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) to set up red-shirt schools in the provinces] is aimed at provoking unrest or destroying the high institution, the UDD leaders will face stringent legal action.”

The only person who has hinted that this might be the dastardly motive behind the plan is Suthep himself. He can’t come out and say explicitly that this is their objective. He’d get sued. Again. And rightly so. So he sets up this hypothetical, non-existent situation, and warns of the dire consequences.

And they’re all at it.

“Suriyasai Katasila, coordinator for the People s Alliance for Democracy, warned of a possible political twist if a third party took the opportunity to create a scene for its own benefit.”

He was talking about the rubber saplings corruption trial verdict. In the event, there was no third party, there was no political twist and there was no created scene. There wasn’t even a verdict. To the best of my knowledge, Suriyasai had no evidence other than his own imagination for thinking there was going to be any shenanigans.

“PAD leader Sondhi Limthongkul warned the ruling Democrats they could be in for political trouble if the prime minister remains idle regarding the post of national police chief.”

Calling the likely candidates in for what appear to have been job interviews goes way beyond normal Prime Ministerial involvement in a selection process that properly rests with the Police Commission. But it can hardly be described as ‘idle’.

Sondhi creates a totally implausible charge, cloaks it in a conditional clause and effectively gets away with blaming Abhisit for something that existed only in Sondhi’s brain.

“He [Chuan Leekpai] urged authorities concerned to uphold the rule of law, saying strict law enforcement was deemed necessary if the crowds turned unruly.”

He was talking about a pre-petition rally at Sanam Luang by the red shirts. The rally didn’t turn unruly, and I have no idea if Chuan had any reliable information to form such a suspicion. But by hiding behind that ‘if’, he’s reinforced the equation ‘red shirt rally = unruly crowds’.

The possibilities raised by this linguistic sleight of tongue are intriguing. Let me give out a few hypothetical warnings myself.

If Sondhi Limthongkul ever decided to come clean about not really being Chinese (thus disqualifying himself from being a Chinese son saving the nation) and admitted to having Khmer ancestry, then he could still keep trying to start a war with Cambodia. Minor considerations of ethnic origin wouldn’t matter to PAD supporters, I’m sure.

If Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij wanted to show his honest opinion of arguments against borrowing 400 billion baht to stimulate the economy by mortgaging the nation’s future and chose to do so by dropping his trousers in Parliament and wiggling his buttocks at the opposition benches, the measure would still get MPs’ votes.

If the Police Commission decided to embrace true free market principles and auctioned off senior positions in the police force to the highest bidder, the efficiency of law enforcement could not get any worse.

If the red shirts ever held a rally, without a phone-in, in order to call for an impartial, independent and comprehensive investigation into the war on drugs with a view to criminal prosecutions of all persons found to be involved in extrajudicial killings, no matter who they might be, many neutrals would be far more inclined to believe their claims to be a democratic movement.

And if the Thai press reported this rally without quoting any hypothetical ‘if’ pseudo-allegations by the government, military or PAD, public understanding of the issues would be better informed.

If the cyber crime police had a proper grasp of counterfactual conditional clauses in English and understood that the use of the past tense indicates actions, events or states that did not exist, then Harrison George could go about his business without fear of arrest.

Except that if Prachatai decided that from now they were not going to print any more snide malicious innuendo masquerading as journalism, this could be the last Alien Thoughts column you will ever read. 

About author: Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).