The content in this page ("Ultrademocracy" by Harrison George) is not produced by Prachatai staff. Prachatai merely provides a platform, and the opinions stated here do not necessarily reflect those of Prachatai.

Ultrademocracy

It must be something catching.  If you call yourself ‘democratic’, then you’re not.

First the People’s (self-selected minority) Alliance (of un-democratic leaders and sheep-like followers) for Democracy proposes a New Politics that is not new and certainly not democratic.

Now the longest-standing political party in the land, the Democrats, have proposed amendments to legislation that show that they are not democratic either.

It’s to do with the lèse majesté laws, and since this is such a touchy subject let me declare up front that this article has no wish or intention to say anything, overt or covert, that would contravene the lèse majesté laws.

No, it’s the Democrats I’m after.

First let us make clear that Thailand has some of the fiercest lèse majesté laws in the world.  I’ve met Thais who take a perverse sort of pride in this.  One suggested to me that Thai legislation was superior to that of the US, since he’d discovered that the US had no lèse majesté laws.  It seemed unkind to point out that you’d actually need a majesté before you could ban the lèse-ing of it.  Unkind but absolutely necessary.

The Democrats have noticed this storm of lèse majesté charges that have been flying about.  From this they have concluded two things. 

First there’s more of it going on.  This may be true.  It may also be that, since anyone can bring a lèse majesté charge against anyone, there are more malicious prosecutions than before.  Or that the definition of what constitutes lèse majesté has been informally broadened, so that previously ignored acts are now being prosecuted.  Or that people who never before had a way of publicly expressing anti-monarchical sentiments have discovered the anonymity of the internet.

The Democrats’ second conclusion, and this is where you start wondering, is that it must be a conspiracy. 

Now I don’t want to belittle by comparison the seriousness with which some regard this offence, but 4 years ago there was a similar surge of ‘happy slapping’ in England.  Most attributed this to the ready availability of the technology needed (camera phones) and a copycat mentality in the age group most guilty.  No one needed to invent a happy-slapping central command orchestrating a small army of yobbos.  Do we really need a conspiracy to explain what’s twisted the Dems’ knickers?

Anyway, conspiracy-inspired or not, This Must Stop and that needs the Big Stick.  Increase the penalties.  Expedite the trials (which must mean delaying other trials and surely the Democrats appreciate that justice delayed is justice denied).

But the kicker is that one of the lynch-pins of jurisprudence down the ages is turned upside down.  Specifically for cases of lèse majesté, you are presumed guilty until and unless you can prove your innocence.  Better that a dozen guilty walk free than an innocent man is punished, is the theory.  But not for the Democrats.

One wonders why they have stopped there.  Surely if someone accused of lèse majesté is assumed to be guilty, then we can bring their protestations of alleged innocence t a swift by the judicious use of torture.  If it’s good enough for the CIA, I don’t see why the Thai legal system should shy away from getting confessions of guilt (which we already know to be true) by application of the thumbscrews, the rack, and electrodes on the floppy bits.

In fact, if we’re going to assume that accusation means guilt, why bother with a trial at all?  What’s wrong with the ducking stool, the boiling oil, and other traditional ways of deciding guilt or otherwise?

And if the conspiracy theory is correct, surely the known associates of the accused can also be assumed to be guilty.  They’re not in this alone, after all.  They must have co-conspirators somewhere. 

It’s no use dragging just the perpetrator to the court of reverse justice; you have to round up their family members, their friends, their work-mates, their employers and employees, the people who serve them in the shops, the bus driver who gets them to work.  Someone must have put them up to this.  The whole crowd of them must fall under suspicion.  Which is as good as saying guilt.

And before you start wondering how an already overloaded justice system could handle such a deluge, ask yourself this.  If you are so unwise as to be associated with someone who can be accused of lèse majesté, don’t you think that society should be protected from dangerous people like you?  Isn’t 25 years in prison a small price to pay for the security of knowing that, whatever other fate befalls the nation, the position of its highest institution is secure?

 

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).

And if you believe any of those stories, you might believe his columns.

 

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