ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – The famed Land of Smiles could be mistaken for the Land of Scowls as the color-coded political strife continues. On November 3, junta leader and present Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-ocha prescribed a Thaksin-detox for the media to remedy Thailand’s conflict. […]
ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – Thailand looks eerily like a Twilight Zone episode or George Orwell’s 1984. On April 17, parents of 34-year old Chatwadee ‘Rose’ Amornpat accused their daughter of violating lèse majesté. They turned in seven clips as evidence to the Crime Suppression Division (CSD). Derived from the Latin…
ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – A Yellow-shirt “boy’s club” has Thailand’s Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, in its cross hairs. Democrat party leaders and public spokespersons air Yingluck’s dirty laundry as a further attempt to delegitimize her and undermine the February 2nd snap election. Khao Sod daily newspaper released a video of Somchai…
ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – The “Bangkok shutdown” is drawing a darker, deeper line between the country’s rural, poor, pro-government Red Shirts, and the reform-oriented Yellow Shirts. While strong influences of sadkina (ศักดินา) – Thai feudalism – make corruption an old friend in Thailand’s national politics, reform is still a new beast…
ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – Thailand’s Democrat Party leaders are using momentum from the country’s current protests to further their own, longstanding cause: The overthrow of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinowatra and the dominant Pheu Thai Party. Protests first erupted between royalists (locally coined as “yellow shirts”) and those loyal to Thaksin (the…
ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – Donning a “Red shirt” may soon be a political faux pas due to the highly contested Amnesty bill before Parliament. After 2010’s violent political strife, Thailand finds itself navigating the retributive versus restorative justice debate. Deep political rifts between the Red and Yellow shirts have done…
