As the openly self-proclaimed fascistic and
anti-democracy Pitak Siam movement get set to march in Bangkok this weekend,
Thailand’s government have invoked a very limited use of the Internal Security
Act (ISA). It will be employed for 9days in a few, small areas of Bangkok. As
far as I’m aware there has been no call to ban the Pitak Siam protest, so their
rights to peaceful assembly have been maintained.
However, some voices have been raised in
concern as to the use of the tough ISA security laws and their impact on
civil liberties.
The line being put out is that using the ISA laws
now is no different to when Abhisit’s unelected, unpopular and unmandated
regime used them in 2010.
When the actual evidence is looked at, this
“false equivalence” (a classic argumentative device used by those who actually
don’t have any argument) is easily debunked. Here’s why.
First lets compare the governments of the Pheu
Thai Party and The Democrat Party.
The present Pheu Thai Party government won a
landslide election victory in 2011. This was the 5th straight
election win for the various re-incarnations of the Thai Rak Thai party from
which PTP sprung. They have a very clear democratic mandate to govern, winning
a single-party parliamentary majority and had a bigger share of the Thai
electorate voting for them in 2011 than any single party in any European
democracy. To claim that PTP have no legitimacy to govern is to attack
democracy itself.
The last time the Abhisit Vejjajiva-led
Democrat Party won the largest number of seats in the Thai parliament was in 1992. The Democrat Party has never won an outright majority. The only time it has taken power in
recent years (2008) was after aligning itself with neo-fascists, dodgy generals
and the corrupt Newin Chidchob’s Bhum Jai Thai Party – a political entity that
wasn’t even in existence when its members that made up Abhisit’s 2008 "Coalition of the Anti-democratic" were
elected in 2007. In short, Abhisit’s government was as democratic to the same
degree as the earth is flat. It lacked
the democratic legitimacy needed to clean Bangkok’s toilets never mind govern the
country. However, this didn’t stop Abhisit’s government sending snipers onto
the streets of Bangkok to shoot nurses and school children in 2010 in order to cling onto
power. Over 90 unarmed civilians died in 2010 as a result.
Only the most myopic and delusional would claim
that there is some “equivalence” of democratic legitimacy between the PTP and Democrat governments.
Now onto Pitak Siam and the Red Shirts.
Pitak Siam’s (PS) avowed publicly proclaimed
aim is to destroy democracy, throw out the democratically elected PTP
government and then shut the country down for five years. To ratchet up tension
PS have deliberately sowed rumours of violence and chaos up to and including
shutting down Bangkok’s electric and water supplies. They are backed by a
handful of very wealthy Thais and whilst they can call on a few thousand
followers have no mandate whatsoever. Their "aims" seem to be driven by a
peculiar form of nihilism that offers Thailand nothing other than chaos and violence.
They are, of course, backed by Abhisit’s Democrat Party.
The Red Shirts protests in 2010, which were
estimated to reach over 300,000 persons at their height, called, simply, for
Abhisit to test his government’s legitimacy with an election. When the Democrat
Party government finally did call one in 2011 they were hammered, returning with
less seats than they managed in 2007. The Red Shirt aligned PTP, as outlined above, won in a landslide.
So, we have one protest group seeking to
destroy democracy and one seeking to restore it. To claim they are “equivalent”
is, once again, absurd.
Now onto the invocation of the ISA.
When the Abhisit Vejjajiva government invoked
the ISA in 2009 and 2010 it was used to apply lethal force to attack democracy and keep the Democrat
Party’s unelected, unmandated and anti-democratic government in power. The ISA
was used purely for anti-democratic means.
The PTP government are being threatened by a
group whose sole aim is to overthrow and destroy democracy and who appear to be
more than willing to use violence to do so. It’s very clear that Pitak Siam
need to be curtailed and it’s very clear that the ISA is being invoked to
protect democracy.
To claim that the use of the ISA by an
unelected government to attack pro-democracy protesters is equivalent to the
use of the same law to protect an obviously democratically elected government
from a potentially violent fascistic tiny minority is not only disingenuous it
is dangerous.
It’s my view that Yingluck’s government has a
duty to protect both Thai democracy and Thai citizens from Boonlert’s fascists
and Mark Abhisit’s maniacal lust for power.
Those looking for a fence to sit on always find
excuses as to why they lack courage, principle and conviction. False
equivalences provide an easy but logically false way out that employs the kind of weak arguments a child
could debunk.
I wish that there was no need to invoke the ISA
but its present very limited use to protect democracy is entirely appropriate.
Let’s hope this weekend passes off peacefully and Pitak Siam scuttle back under
the stones from whence they came.