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I had that book as a kid.
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Sep 23, 2013 08:26
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It's a marvel, isn't it.
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Sep 23, 2013 08:29
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Indonesian goon here. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm the only goon in the entire Bali island. I'm no historian so most of the info I got are stories from the old folks, their speculations and some random information here and there from the web. In regards to Indonesia's September 30th event, basically, what I think happened was something like this: Soekarno had brought the country close to bankruptcy through no direct fault of himself but more like no one had any idea how to govern a country like this. The western powers appeared to didn't want to help that much for reasons I don't know. So he got closer with China instead. He took Indonesia out of the United Nations because of border disputes with Malaysia and claimed ready to declare a full out war with Malaysia. No idea of this could ever happened back then. But the Indonesian army was not exactly a close knit entity. Instead of thinking of them as a fully organized entity like in first world countries, the military were made of people who used to be the militia. The army, navy, air force and all the others behaved closer to separate militia groups, except now they got snazzier uniforms. They got their own leaders and agendas. Add to this the fact that one of Soekarno's vice president, Adam Malik, was a CIA asset/operative (pretty sure it's confirmed now due to declassified papers). There was a lot of backroom poo poo going on and it was a powder keg and no commoner knew who stood with who. Soekarno poised to start his own militia, called the Third Army or something, where he was planning to arm the various social parties/groups including the premiere communist party, PKI. Then on Sept. 30th someone killed the highest ranking army general in his home, leading to a whole bunch of murder of high ranking officials and a lot of mayhem. It was civil war and a coup attempt probably by everybody against everybody else. The following day, the apparent winner of the conflict (Soeharto, rumored to be backed by the CIA) started the purge of all opposition. This led to a period of chaos where there was open season to anyone declared to be communist. My grandparents lived through this and the village head looted their house and took all of their assets (2 buses and a truck, grandpa was a transportation business owner). My dad, who lived in the city and were good friends with an army colonel, "borrowed" a couple of Raiders (some sort of special assault soldiers, I think?) and took them to get my grandparents' assets and protect their home. Basically, it was a period while the people at the top were power struggling, the common folk were killing each other just because. Got a grudge against someone? Say he's a commie, you're free to bash his head in. My family didn't get it *too* bad since we lived in a tiny separate island but my dad did got his store burned down because of the fire started everywhere. Soeharto took over, using a letter he claimed was signed by Soekarno giving him full power to quell the "attempted coup" by PKI and then to take over as interim president. There's a rumor that the letter was doctored and the original letter actually doesn't have the latter part. Soekarno spent the rest of his days under house arrest. To cover up on what actually happened during this time, Soeharo's regime started a massive brainwashing and propaganda campaign. Students were fed the doctored version of the events, comic books were released and there's a movie of the event that is played at the anniversary. Knowledge on the events are (were) mandatory and students are expected to "know" more about this than even the struggle for independence. Communists and communism became the face of evil, Chinese names, characters, literature were banned and considered treasonous material, much to the chagrin of my dad, who was an avid fan of chinese kungfu/wuxia novels. At least that bullshit got relaxed later on and pretty much swept under the rug following the government after Soeharto's downfall. Probably 1-3 million people died in the whole thing, no one knows for sure. It wasn't quite a genocide or even an anti-chinese riot, it's just a bunch of powerful assholes trying to kill each other while pointing the finger at something else. Us chinese got the brunt of it socially, but the ones that really got purged were socialists. Indonesian Women Movement, United Farmers of Indonesia, Teachers Alliance, etc, those got lumped up with PKI and purged. Indonesia went from 30+ parties to 3: one controlled by Soeharto, the other 2 were puppets. Ironic that after Soeharto's fall we're back to a couple dozen political parties again, although still there's no socialist party. The 30+ years of propaganda really did a number on the nation's psyche and installing hatred and fear of communism and socialism. Except that Indonesians love free stuff. Free healthcare, free rice, free education, more subsidies, etc, are always promised by shitlords running for office. Just don't call them "socialism".
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Oct 14, 2013 09:38
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Sukarno got minimal Western support because (1) he was one of the key people pushing the Non-Aligned movement, so he was hardly enthusiastic for it (2) he was busy fighting a low-intensity war with British Malaya. The Confrontation makes more sense, as a political tactic, if you note that it had worked in annexing Papua. Unfortunately, the British wanted to defend Malaya more than Sukarno had expected. He did have good Soviet and Chinese relations, but not substantive materiel support.
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Oct 24, 2013 19:45
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wid posted:Indonesian goon here. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm the only goon in the entire Bali island. I'm no historian so most of the info I got are stories from the old folks, their speculations and some random information here and there from the web. I'm actually taking a grad school course on Politics in Indonesia right now, haha, and just wrote a paper on Sukarno and Suharto (and the lessons that can be learned from their failures) last week. A couple of points I'd emphasize or maybe disagree with... A)Soekarno had brought the country close to bankruptcy through no direct fault of himself but more like no one had any idea how to govern a country like this. Well, he's not so blameless in this regard. The man had a distinct lack of appreciation for economics and thought he could govern the country in a "continuing revolution" mode. He and the PNI pushed for the Guided Democracy movement because they were upset that the DPR were so much more powerful (due to the structure of the Indonesian constitution at the time) and he was sick of being marginalized (and Nasution and the army weren't going to turn down a chance to increase their sway in the government). Guided Democracy essentially transformed the country into a three ring circus of the PNI (nationalist party allied with the military), the Masyumi (Islamic party), and the communist PKI, with Sukarno as ringleader and puppetmaster. He actually reveled in the idea that he was a puppet-master and compared himself to a wayang (shadow puppet) theater performer. It's not that he was bound to be a terrible leader, but by not bringing on the right people to assist him in the areas where he was weak, he really hosed up and the GDP dropped to levels it hadn't seen outside of WW2 since 1910. This was one of the areas where Suharto learned from his predecessor's mistakes-- he surrounded himself with technocrats who knew what they were doing to capitalize on the oil boom and industrialization through the 70s and 80s. B) You get the September 30th narrative pretty accurate but I think you're kind of giving Sukarno a free pass. It's impossible to tell since most of the people who perpetrated the violence are dead and the narrative has been completely re-written now, but at least as we've been able to reconstruct it, the PKI were arming themselves and possibly planning a coup against the army. On the night of Sept 30th, not just the top ranking general, but six of the top generals were either murdered in their homes or captured, brought to the communist outpost at the airport, murdered there and then dumped in a well. The only reason Nasution, arguably the "head" of the PNI wasn't offed was because he jumped over a wall in his backyard, fell and broke both of his ankles, and lay in a bush unable to walk until morning when some of the military guys found him and brought him to safety. In the middle of all this, Suharto was one of the generals of the military but was widely regarded by most as a simpering and somewhat spineless character that didn't pose a threat at all. So he wasn't targeted (unless you side with those who think he orchestrated the coup from the start, which is a possibility). One of his aides ran to his house after the killing started, Suharto drove to headquarters and basically assumed command from there. No one else knew what was going on so when he started delivering orders, people who would've been listening to the other generals had no other commanders so they followed his orders, and he went from there. Sukarno, meanwhile, had been "taken in for protection" by the PKI and was hanging out at the airport with them there during the blood-letting. They hadn't counted on Nasution surviving and Suharto stepping up. By the end of Oct. 1st, with relatively little violence aside from the murders, the army had retaken key points of the city and Suharto went on the radio, told everyone he was in control of the situation and delivered an ultimatum to the PKI to let Sukarno go. The PKI head fled from the airport, their soldiers ran off, and Sukarno was "rescued" by Oct. 2nd. If things had gone the PKI's way, it probably would have been the story that they had saved Sukarno from the killers when the military was unable to protect him, or their own, and... well, no one really knows what the plan was since Sukarno then insisted he had never been a part of it and was just a bystander. But yeah, like you said, after that Suharto never relinquished power, Sukarno tried to reassume his role and was just marginalized further and further until they officially transferred power a year and a half later. For a period after the attempted coup, it was just open season on communists. In a lot of towns, anyone who had a PKI membership card was shot (in some towns they were successfully able to go to city hall the very next morning, and claim they had no idea about the plot and were misled by the PKI and turned in the cards... but not in all towns), and it devolved into a "purge" which a lot of people used as cover to settle their own grievances. And the poor Chinese are always a major target in those circumstances-- even though the charter of the PKI explicitly forbade the membership of Sino-Indonesians. CronoGamer fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Oct 25, 2013 |
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Oct 25, 2013 00:35
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^^Thanks for all the Indonesia effortposts, you are gentlegoons and scholars. So I've seen on Times of India there's been streets protests against thread title and favourite Hun Sen, any more info on how that goes?
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Oct 25, 2013 00:45
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ecureuilmatrix posted:So I've seen on Times of India there's been streets protests against thread title and favourite Hun Sen, any more info on how that goes? Hard to tell. Sam Rainsy and the CNRP refused to take their seats after the election and are going the boycott route. It's difficult to say whether this is a good strategy against Hun Sen. The man has shown he's not afraid to utilize the military and a part of me sees echoes of Burma 1989 and he NLD in the CNRP. If Sam Rainsy wants to be another Aung San Suu Kyi he's got his work cut out for him. At the same time, if this is what Hun Sen and the CPP are facing, they have to look further ahead and see how the junta rule turned out, and how they had to drop the act and play fair with the West or else risk being turned into a Chinese annex. Just a wait and see situation at the moment. It's currently at a stalemate, but if the CNRP pushes any harder-- as they probably have to, if they want to actually get any concessions from Hun Sen-- they'll risk a crackdown.
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Oct 25, 2013 01:09
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All the Indonesian history talk is fascinating, please continue if you feel up to it - I love learning about it. The place is so improbable as a nation that its history has to be fascinating. ------------------ On Cambodia, Tytan will have a more nuanced view, but it has basically settled out the way I described a few pages ago in a way that I guess irritated some kind of idealists who don't understand Cambodian "democracy" as it is. The Khmer people can elect any leader they want as long as it's their beloved kleptocrat and Human Rights champion, Samdech Hun Sen. This is the most successful push back he's gotten during an election, though, and the protests continue, smaller and smaller, as do the crackdowns and pre-emptive occupations of public spaces. Everyone I talked to said that it's essentially died down to the point where nothing further seems likely. International Republican Institute favorite and noted Vietnamese-baiter/hater Sam Rainsy really did work every angle he could and got as close to concessions as anyone has since the first UNTAC election (maybe something was agreed upon behind closed doors unannounced, of course), but old one-eye is not going to budge. Bottom line, nothing will come of it in terms of democratic results this time and Hun Sen will be in office for another full term barring death or extinction level event. I do think maybe the old man got the message on his popularity, and some of the local expats I talked to said that bribes to cops and things had slacked off noticeably as the contested election has dragged out, but we'll see if that translates into longer-term results. I doubt it in most cases, but some of the more egregious offenses, like the land grabs, will probably be curbed to a degree as they proved to be massive headaches that cost him dearly politically. Either way, the guy has always vowed to rule until he's 74, so he doesn't have any plans to go anywhere. He's cagey and wily as a politician and he has nine lives, but he's a one-trick pony and a very blunt instrument who only understands one way of doing business and I can't imagine that changing. He rules by pulling the pin from the grenade and refusing to put it back in until you agree to let him have his way, basically, then, when you give in a bit, he tosses it at you and smirks. EDIT: CronoGamer posted:If Sam Rainsy wants to be another Aung San Suu Kyi he's got his work cut out for him. EDIT EDIT: Sorry, I forgot about you too when I referenced Tytan, CronoGamer. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Oct 25, 2013 |
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Oct 25, 2013 01:17
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ReindeerF posted:Sorry, I forgot about you too when I referenced Tytan, CronoGamer. No worries. A lot of my political knowledge of the region is newfound as of starting to study it this semester, and even then it's mostly based on articles and journals--you and Tytan have a ground perspective that I haven't had since 2009. Unrelated-- hope you all saw the fantastic article in the NYT today about the dispute over the Spratlys in the South China Sea, and what the Philippines has been doing. It only touches on a small facet of the fight over the whole 9-dash line, but it has some wonderful photos, videos and presentation that make it easy to follow. http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/10/27/south-china-sea/
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Oct 25, 2013 17:56
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CronoGamer posted:Unrelated-- hope you all saw the fantastic article in the NYT today about the dispute over the Spratlys in the South China Sea, and what the Philippines has been doing. It only touches on a small facet of the fight over the whole 9-dash line, but it has some wonderful photos, videos and presentation that make it easy to follow. This is fantastic! The timing could not have been worse with the US budget standoff; Obama putting off his visit pretty much left the Phils alone against China since nearly everyone else has either no physical stake in the whole thing or had Beijing flexing political/business muscle on them. Can't blame the man either; he has his priorities.
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Oct 25, 2013 18:18
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CronoGamer posted:I'm actually taking a grad school course on Politics in Indonesia right now, haha, and just wrote a paper on Sukarno and Suharto (and the lessons that can be learned from their failures) last week.
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Oct 26, 2013 01:09
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CronoGamer posted:Unrelated-- hope you all saw the fantastic article in the NYT today about the dispute over the Spratlys in the South China Sea, and what the Philippines has been doing. It only touches on a small facet of the fight over the whole 9-dash line, but it has some wonderful photos, videos and presentation that make it easy to follow. I didn't even know that it was still above water, never mind that we still had guys there. I remember hearing about it back in the 90s as a preferable assignment to being sent to Mindanao just like the article said. I feel for our guys stationed out there but man, this just underlines how little we can do if China decides to just take everything. Though, with the way our government is more concerned about the scandals rocking their money making schemes I wonder if it would be such a bad thing. There's zero political will and even less capability to make use of whatever resources are there. We've had that area for years before all the troubles and we've done nothing. Also, it's funny how the construction of a basketball court is a priority. It's true everywhere in the Philippines. Local elections are typically won by whoever made a basketball court for the village. Maybe we should just start building basketball courts on the islands and have the disputes settled by a series of basketball games, like in Space Jam. It would be just like some of my Japanese animes. 
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Oct 27, 2013 11:48
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kazakirinyancat posted:It would be just like some of my Japanese animes. Slam Dunk is a legitimate Philippine institution  Honestly, I think that China doesn't even need to physically claim the isles to get that oil; even with the legal limit on foreign ownership of Philippine companies, the political system is so jacked they could just pay their way through and nearly everyone would just turn a blind eye. What matters for Beijing here is prestige amongst Asian nations and the chance to kick the USA while they're down.
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Oct 27, 2013 11:58
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jKW3wun4zo Can someone tell me what this product is? Skin-whitening drink?
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Oct 27, 2013 18:04
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Paper Mac posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jKW3wun4zo Some sort of dietary supplement with collagen in it. Don't know if anyone has been following Burma news here, but Aung San Suu Kyi has come under fire for refusing to acknowledge violence against Rohingya Muslims as a form of ethnic cleansing, and for refusing to categorically condemn the violence. "A Channel 4 blogger posted:When asked about HRW’s findings by the BBC, Ms Suu Kyi dismissed them out of hand. “It’s not ethnic cleansing,” she said. “What the world needs to understand (is) that the fear is not just on the side of the Muslims, but on the side of the Buddhists as well.” This is her standard response to questions about the violence. Nobody bears responsibility. Instead, “fear” is blamed. Everyone suffers “equally”. In Ms Suu Kyi’s world, victims and offenders are the same. This is pretty notable, because it plays directly into the "Muslims are breeding rapidly and receiving widespread support from jihadists abroad" fictitious canards popular in Burmese media. By being equivocal about the scale of the violence -- which has disproportionately harmed the country's Muslim minority -- ASSK effectively minimizes it. This is a country where, with Muslims comprising less than 5 % of the population, Burmese nationals are quick to suspect Islamic foul play for virtually any unsolved crime or inexplicable occurrence. Someone robbed in your hood? Muslims. Water source in your rural village turned green? Muslim saboteurs. How should we call Muslims in our local newspapers? "Beasts" works. What about the Rohingya? An invented ethnicity, history be damned. Muslims are routinely dehumanized by many Burmese. I'm not sure ASSK is personally Islamophobic, but she knows that were she to condemn the treatment of the Rohingya -- thousands of whom live in fenced-in camps and aren't allowed to leave, including some within miles of the country's most popular tourist beach -- she would be seen as a "Muslim lover" and it would damage her political career. edit: Anti-Islamic sentiment is really endemic in Burmese society, and it's impossible to overstate its pervasiveness here. It cuts across ethnic lines, too. Even members of historically oppressed ethnic minorities are prone to anti-Islamic beliefs, the logic being that Muslims aren't "true" Burmese, or that they dress or speak differently, or have a different religion -- the irony being this is the same sort of divide between many ethnic groups and the central Buddhist Burmans that have been raining gunfire on tribal areas for decades. MothraAttack fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Oct 28, 2013 |
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Oct 28, 2013 07:30
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I agree with everything you said, but on some details:CronoGamer posted:B) You get the September 30th narrative pretty accurate but I think you're kind of giving Sukarno a free pass. It's impossible to tell since most of the people who perpetrated the violence are dead and the narrative has been completely re-written now, but at least as we've been able to reconstruct it, the PKI were arming themselves and possibly planning a coup against the army. On the night of Sept 30th, not just the top ranking general, but six of the top generals were either murdered in their homes or captured, brought to the communist outpost at the airport, murdered there and then dumped in a well. That's the official version of the event but everyone doubt that's the whole story. One very interesting detail is this: the first high ranking general killed was Ahmad Yani, shot in his home by what the cooked up history books claimed to be a bunch of "PKI operatives wearing fake special forces uniforms". The special forces angle was probably used because his family survived and were eye witnesses. What's likely to have happened is they *were* special forces. It's very hard to find details on what really happened since the people who knew are either dead or would rather bury the whole thing and let the truth be lost in history. There was also the rumor that the top generals were forming some sort of secret council to topple Sukarno going around before the event. That info was included in the propaganda on the event (like the film) but chalked up as a PKI scheme to justify killing the generals. One interesting theory that survived to this day is how all the top generals were killed, even the ones who were *not* rumored to be part of the secret council, were all ahead of Suharto in succession. So all the murders, whether orchestrated by him or not, opened up the path to presidency with only Nasution (in custody) and Sukarno left. Suharto went from a nobody to the guy in charge of all the military forces. He even went as far as cooking up a story of heroism of leading on an offensive of some Allied occupied city on the 1st of May (celebrated as a national day until he got booted out in 1998). A lot of people said the leader of said offensive was actually the (previous) Sultan of (present day) Yogyakarta. My personal take on it is that Sukarno sensed the military was about to topple him, strike first but in the ensuing chaos Suharto took over, very likely with the help of CIA. Sukarno went from a friend to the western powers to friend of the communist powers rather fast, possibly due to the conflict with Malaysia like you said. Or he was just looking for a scapegoat since his policies were plunging the country even further into poverty. My parents recalled their youth of buying goods with cut up money. As in, paper money were so scarce, people were willing to take a piece of paper money cut in half for half the value.
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Oct 28, 2013 07:50
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MothraAttack posted:Anti-Islamic sentiment is really endemic in Burmese society, and it's impossible to overstate its pervasiveness here. It cuts across ethnic lines, too. Even members of historically oppressed ethnic minorities are prone to anti-Islamic beliefs, the logic being that Muslims aren't "true" Burmese, or that they dress or speak differently, or have a different religion -- the irony being this is the same sort of divide between many ethnic groups and the central Buddhist Burmans that have been raining gunfire on tribal areas for decades. That's democracy, more or less. The will of the people, even if the people are hateful bigots.
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Oct 28, 2013 07:55
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Is the violence in Burma strictly anti-Muslim violence or more specifically anti-Rohingya? Would a Burman Muslim (there must be at least a few) suffer the same kind of treatment? Or a Muslim from Indonesia? Or Saudi Arabia? Or Bosnia? Also are the Rohingya really visually distinct? Can you pick one out in a crowd of other Burmese ethnicities?
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Oct 28, 2013 08:44
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The violence in 2012 Rakhine State initially targeted Rohingyas but it has since expanded to include Kaman and Muslims of Indian/Bengali descent, so it is pretty broadly anti-Muslim. There were no Rohingya among the Meikthila massacre victims, for example. The Rohingya speak a dialect of Bengali, while other Muslims might speak Bengali or Burmese, depending. They tend to have darker complexions, but Burma is diverse enough to where I don't think this is a direct indicator. Language and dress would be the most immediate giveaways. The really racist government measures applied against the Rohingya (i.e., not recognizing any child after the second, not being allowed to travel outside your village without a permit) are generally lesser against non-Rohingya Muslims. They're not immune, though, as I know of a Christian Karen woman who was denied a scholarship in Yangon on the basis that her grandfather was Muslim. I read an account recently of an Indian Hindu tourist who was nearly assaulted by a Buddhist mob in Sittwe on the grounds they thought she was Muslim. It's simply not safe for Muslims or suspected Muslims to walk the streets of Sittwe. Buddhists that have helped bring food to the Rohingya ghetto in Sittwe, called Aung Mingalar, have been publicly humiliated by being forced to wear cardboard signs around town shaming them for helping Muslims. So yes, there's definitely hostility against anyone suspected of being kalar, a word formerly used to denote South Asian immigrants in colonial times but now used as a derogatory term for Burmese Muslims of South Asian descent, roughly meaning "negro" or "darkie," an imprecise but socially accurate translation. MothraAttack fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Oct 28, 2013 |
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Oct 28, 2013 09:09
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Amnesty bill for Thaksin passed the lower house in Thailand today 310-0. Its passage through the Senate isn't as certain, but it looks like it's a possibility, and people are NOT going to be happy. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24768110 Any Thailand goons want to weigh in on it? I've only followed the Saga of the Shinawatras from afar so I don't know what impact this would have. Especially since most people think Yingluck is just taking her marching orders from big bro already...
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Nov 1, 2013 21:16
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As far as I've heard the root problem isn't even Thaksin, but the rich/poor divide. He's just sort of the avatar of all the trouble.
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Nov 1, 2013 21:55
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I think he may get it. Of course they smartly structured it as a blanket amnesty, so all kinds of people will get amnesty. The main reason I think he'll get it is that he finally did the Thai thing you're supposed to do after a coup and shut his loving mouth (mostly) for a while. The pattern in the past was always coup, guy goes into exile and shuts up and is eventually welcomed back. Thaksin cot coup'd and went on a massive international PR campaign, causing further embarrassment for the coup-plotters and their allies, which doesn't go over well. Still, it's clear that his party's going to keep winning (for now) and they're still in power, so I think there's a bit of resignation - even the typical Thai-Chinese yellow shirt types I know, who don't want him back, also all just want this to all go away and are sick of the annual protests and street wars and things. As for whether he should get amnesty, the whole issue is fraught as Hell and the country's essentially a feudal kleptocracy, but I really do believe that all the good he did in currying favor with the rural people is pretty much over in terms of progress. They flubbed their own minimum wage, hosed up rice exports possibly permanently, had the disastrous first time car buyer initiative and have flailed around at every stupid feel-good incentive program they can find, all of which - along with things like their planned rail initiative that's being paid for by selling trillions in debt - are looting the country's coffers at an exorbitant rate. As corrupt as everyone else is, they really are that much more corrupt, in my opinion. In the West it looks like rich vs. poor because the crowds break down that way, but it's really old rich vs. new rich, all of whom own the poor and the middle class, urban and rural. What this is all really about, though, and why I think he finally shut the gently caress up, is the imminent succession crisis. Basically, what kind of political system Thailand will have after The Big One. When that political battle kicks off it could get very dicey here and I've never met anyone who knows the country well who has a strong opinion about how it will shake out. I certainly don't. I'd give even odds to any side. EDIT: You have to appreciate that he hasn't been assassinated, heh. We would've capped that dude by now. EDIT EDIT: If he does get it, the legalities alone are going to be interesting. People forget that the final thing that triggered the coup is when he sold his massive telecom company (which provided national security telecom services too) for a huge pile of money to the Singaporeans via a bunch of shenanigans that ended up with him paying zero taxes and his maid and some other people around him turning out to be the paper owners. So, essentially, the government took all his poo poo and kept most of it (some got given back to his wife during their legally shrewd divorce - and to the kids, I think). How will they unwind that? First thing he'll do is go to court to get his money back. It's going to be a huge mess before you even get to the politics, because Thaksin doesn't play the game the old school feudal Thai way and has zero sense of noblesse oblige (not being a noble, as we think of it, himself). The old deposed Thai PMs basically worked it all out through the Thai system, but this new crowd of basically business tycoons are different. Leave aside value judgments on whether one way is better than the other and you can still see that what's happening is is the clash between a country's traditional feudal elite and its new capitalist elite with some obvious other issues tossed into the mix and the precursors to the war for who will rule next, the old Thai (often -Chinese as well) royalists and military crowd or the new almost exclusively Thai-Chinese business class? Stay tuned! ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 13:53 on Nov 2, 2013 |
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Nov 2, 2013 13:31
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wid posted:I agree with everything you said, but on some details: He was never a friend of the Western powers - he collaborated with Japan during WW2, and fought actual wars with the Dutch returning to re-assert colonial control. Rather, the main reason the West did not vigorously oppose him was that nobody was particularly keen to help the Dutch do so. The Netherlands got slapped in the face with UNSC condemnations twice. e: it's true, however, that the CIA did come to dislike him, for failing to do enough to contain the PKI. Then again, the judgement of the CIA is historically pretty bad on this. They said the same thing of Lee Kuan Yew. The British had a better gauge of the situation in Southeast Asia throughout, really. ronya fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 02:49
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ronya posted:He was never a friend of the Western powers - he collaborated with Japan during WW2, and fought actual wars with the Dutch returning to re-assert colonial control. To clarify: practically everyone in Indonesia collaborated with Japan during WW2 because they viewed them as liberators. Japan did kicked out colonial Dutch rule and spread some propaganda about being the Big Brother of all asian nations. But pretty soon after, they did a shitload of atrocities that are worse than the Dutch. Then when Japan surrendered to the Allies and withdrew from SE Asia, Sukarno (on pressure by nationalist youth groups) declared independence, citing the reason being there was a power vacuum. But then the Dutch tried re-establish rule along with Allied forces but was met with local resistance.
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Nov 3, 2013 17:36
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veekie posted:As far as I've heard the root problem isn't even Thaksin, but the rich/poor divide. He's just sort of the avatar of all the trouble. The rich/poor divide is important, but Thaksin- the man- and what he did when in Thailand are not ignored in conversations about this issue.
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Nov 3, 2013 18:46
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wid posted:To clarify: practically everyone in Indonesia collaborated with Japan during WW2 because they viewed them as liberators. Japan did kicked out colonial Dutch rule and spread some propaganda about being the Big Brother of all asian nations. But pretty soon after, they did a shitload of atrocities that are worse than the Dutch. Then when Japan surrendered to the Allies and withdrew from SE Asia, Sukarno (on pressure by nationalist youth groups) declared independence, citing the reason being there was a power vacuum. But then the Dutch tried re-establish rule along with Allied forces but was met with local resistance. The Chinese presence in Malaya (and the non-Muslim-Malay presence in Borneo) was probably why events occurred differently north of the Anglo-Dutch boundary, yeah. Too many Chinese and Sarawakian Christian Dayaks in Malaya; immediate democracy would have resulted in a Malay minority, unless paired with Indonesia, which then freaked the Malay royalists out. There were pro-Indonesian-ketuanan collaborationists in Malaya, too, they just didn't get very far. The first demand of the Malayan Malay anticolonial nationalists when the British returned was "holy poo poo please protect us from the Malayan Chinese Communists, they have a goddman army".
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Nov 3, 2013 23:05
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XyrlocShammypants posted:The rich/poor divide is important, but Thaksin- the man- and what he did when in Thailand are not ignored in conversations about this issue. EDIT: A prominent example of someone who turned, but for completely pragmatic business reasons, comes to mind. One of Thaksin's previous backers and business allies, a guy named Sonthi, became the leader of the Yellow Shirt movement that helped topple Thaksin, using his media empire to match Thaksin's allied media empires as best he could. After the coup at some point, during a time when Sonthi had become a national nuisance in helping to lead the occupation of Bangkok's main airport, he was shot up in his car by gunmen carrying automatic weapons and has, since recovery, quieted down a lot. Why did he turn against Thaksin? Thaksin was set to grant him some new media licenses of some kind that would help him expand his media empire and, at the last minute, decided not to do it. The web of guanxi internal warfare and old line Thai internal warfare (and the crossover) in this poo poo is so thick that it's nearly impossible to find a good guy/girl. The main positive to come out of it all is that the old line political party now pays attention to the non-Southern/non-Central poor at all, which is a major plus, since it means whoever gets into office is doing something on that front for practically the first time and not just leaving the topic to projects under patronage. The Democrat Party are much better technocrats, frankly, and, for example, shored up Thaksin's unsustainable, fledgling quasi-universal healthcare program among other things, which was a good thing (they could've just tried to dismantle it had they not recognized their political weakness). They're still a bunch of effete rich people living in fancy houses whose only interactions with the poor involve maids and drivers, though, but that's largely true of the leading Thaksin crowd as well - the main difference is in the policies and the campaigning. Thaksin brought in international political advisers like a smart businessman and they basically created his political persona and campaign approach, which is to get down in the mud, go to fortune tellers, ride motorbikes around the villages, hand out diplomas and so on. He cleaned the old guard's clock while they were busy acting like the country already belonged to them in perpetuity and they still are working on figuring out how to react. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Nov 4, 2013 |
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Nov 4, 2013 03:42
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Hong Kong is still mad at the Philippines because a Filipino guy killed several Hong Kongers three years ago. Here's the Chief Executive straight-up threatening the Philippines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi8femPhOzs He sure is saying a lot of words that don't mean anything. 'Substantial progress,' 'satisfactory response,' 'concrete and timely response.' The only thing that really caught my attention was he called it "Manila hostage-taking incident," rather than like 'tragedy,' 'massacre,' or 'holocaust.'
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Nov 5, 2013 06:55
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I'll be in Manila from Sunday through Tuesday if any goons want to drink cheap beers and discuss why this is ReindeerF's favorite city. The Philippines will also be hosting a super typhoon tomorrow. Sadly they do not have the equivalent of Li's Field.
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Nov 7, 2013 11:20
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Don't get on any buses or President Aquino might not apologize to whatever country you're from.
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Nov 7, 2013 11:43
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So is it kind of weird to look at Thaksin like a Huey Long? A supremely corrupt populist who made some big changes, bucked norms, advanced his cronies and found himself deeply loved and loathed? People are finally starting some small, evening protests on my town's main drag. The weird thing is that a number of Westerners are getting pretty involved in all this, posting things online and changing Facebook profiles to that the black "no amnesty" sign.
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Nov 8, 2013 10:07
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Bloodnose posted:Hong Kong is still mad at the Philippines because a Filipino guy killed several Hong Kongers three years ago. Here's the Chief Executive straight-up threatening the Philippines: Sorry Hong Kong, I'll never be coming back to visit, because China just revoked our Visa-free access to HK (and I don't care enough to get a Visa). 
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Nov 8, 2013 11:00
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Argue posted:Sorry Hong Kong, I'll never be coming back to visit, because China just revoked our Visa-free access to HK (and I don't care enough to get a Visa). My dad's gonna be bummed as hell about this. He doesn't even like traveling, but he always liked going on vacation in Hong Kong. What's the catalyst for this, anyway? Do the politicians need a rallying point for an upcoming election or something?
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Nov 8, 2013 11:10
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I don't know if there was some other reason, but the reason given is that they're still angry about the botched hostage situation from a few years ago, as per that video Bloodnose posted above. Plus I'm pretty sure they already don't like us because of the whole Spratly Islands bullshit.
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Nov 8, 2013 11:15
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Eh, I reasoned that they would've pulled the visa exemption a long time ago if it really was about the incident. It's been two years, after all. I was also under the impression that most HKers (Hong Kongers?) still don't really care for mainlander politics and issues...
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Nov 8, 2013 11:34
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Argue posted:Sorry Hong Kong, I'll never be coming back to visit, because China just revoked our Visa-free access to HK (and I don't care enough to get a Visa). toasterwarrior posted:Eh, I reasoned that they would've pulled the visa exemption a long time ago if it really was about the incident. It's been two years, after all. It's a Hong Konger issue. The people who got killed were Hong Kongers. Also the incident suddenly flared up again after some Hong Kong reporters got thrown out of the APEC summit for attacking Noynoy.
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Nov 8, 2013 12:22
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Bloodnose posted:It's a Hong Konger issue. The people who got killed were Hong Kongers. Nah, I meant that the Spratlys thing isn't as big of a deal to HKers compared to mainlanders. Bit of a tangent there, sorry. I didn't know about the HK reporters during the APEC summit, though. drat, what does it take to get a real leader in power over here?
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Nov 8, 2013 12:38
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MothraAttack posted:So is it kind of weird to look at Thaksin like a Huey Long? A supremely corrupt populist who made some big changes, bucked norms, advanced his cronies and found himself deeply loved and loathed? I do, however, view his role in ushering in an era of populism as an unqualified good thing, I just think that he and his party deviated from that and have gone full bore into transparent kickback schemes. I mean the rice thing is all about providing money to the mill owners who control the rural votes. The first time car buyer thing was about rewarding allied car sellers. The first time homeowner initiative was about rewarding companies like SC (Shinawatra Corp) Asset and so on. I see less and less of the real, help-people universal healthcare populism and more and more grab-everything-you-can-and-mortgage-the-country schemes, like the trillion+ Baht high speed rail initiative that seems loaded with corruption. The closest they got this time was the 300 Baht minimum wage, but they hemmed and hawed on that when they and their friends and supporters didn't want to pay their own maids and factory workers 300 Baht. On the BKK FB feeds, the foreigners are mostly anti-Yellow Shirt (check Coconuts and Bangkok Expats for example). We joke about this usually involving ME MISSUS from the village because I don't think most of them have really thought through just how corrupt both sides are. It hearkens back to the Australian and the Brit who got tossed out for getting on the Red Shirt stages who were totally incoherent in their beliefs. I don't want to give the impression that I am therefore pro-status quo, but my experience of politics anywhere, and especially in the feudalistic developing world, is that when you start looking down the chain to how these things actually work at the local level it's pretty fraught. I wish one of these drat parties would make schooling free instead of handing out money for rice and everything else. The fact that many kids still need to pay 3,000 Baht a semester or whatever it is, plus buy clothes and supplies, is criminal. Instead, what did they do? Give out free tablets, because there's graft in giving out tablets. They also recently voted to give every member of the legislature new iPads. That in addition to the free THAI flights they've always gotten and so on. Urgh.
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Nov 8, 2013 13:02
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Splode posted:A couple of years ago, I had to do an assignment where I looked at ways of providing clean water to a village in the mekong delta (specifically in vietnam). Yes, very paternal Australia Knows Best. My father is from one of these farming villages and they're still around. Water usage is definitely an issue though and I don't see the dams helping in any way. More generally, I do get the sense that there's some populist anger with regard to China and its growing influence over the country but the Vietnamese government can't/doesn't want to do a thing.
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Nov 8, 2013 14:07
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CronoGamer posted:No worries. A lot of my political knowledge of the region is newfound as of starting to study it this semester, and even then it's mostly based on articles and journals--you and Tytan have a ground perspective that I haven't had since 2009. Thanks for that, fascinating read.
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Nov 8, 2013 16:08
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