Opinion

The Ugly American In Thailand: Not All Coups Are Bad

Ted Gover Executive Director, Foundation for California
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Remember the Ugly American? He was the stereotype of the American abroad who never really left home. He carried with him, wherever he went, an arrogant sense of American moral superiority.

In the 1960s, we used to blame the Ugly American for the failure to win “hearts and minds” in wars in mainland Southeast Asia. He saw native people as inferior, their customs comic, their politics bizarre, their beliefs no more than simple-minded superstition.

Well, here we go again. For example, last month in article in Time, Charlie Campbell concludes that General Prayuth Chan-ocha, Thailand’s new prime minister, is “increasingly eccentric” and suffers from “growing superstitiousness.” Part of the evidence for Campbell’s conclusion is that statues of the Buddha and “religious idols” were set up in Bangkok’s Government House.

A lot of what passes as multiculturalism is a bunch of hooey. But when a political agenda shows contempt for legitimate religious expression, even if its not our own, you had better believe it, the Ugly American is back.

Thailand’s many temples have always brought worshippers before statues of the Buddha. Buddhism is not a superstition. It is Thailand’s national religion. Statues of the Buddha have a place in Buddhist worship not that different from statues of Christ or the Virgin Mary in many Christian churches.

As further evidence of “growing superstitiousness,” Campbell tells us that General Prayuth told his people that he had used “holy water” to cure a sore throat. Although Campbell’s purpose is to mock Prayuth, in fact he mocks widely held Buddhist belief in the power of holy water to ward off both earthly and spiritual ills. Perhaps Campbell does not know that a similar belief in the powers of holy water is held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox Christians.

Campbell claims that Prayuth’s “growing superstitiousness” is “reminiscent of Burma’s former military rulers who governed with the advice of numerologists, mystics and astrologers.” He fails, however, to cite or name a single numerologist, mystic or astrologer consulted by General Prayuth. The truth is that Cambell’s argument is founded solely on his view that orthodox Buddhist belief is mere superstition.

Campbell wants us to see Prayuth and the Burmese generals as one of a kind, not only in terms of military rank, but as the ruler of a  “totalitarian state.” No Thai, not even Prayuth’s domestic critics, will credit the comparison with Burma’s repressive regime.

Campbell mocks Prayuth’s “simplistic, homespun solutions” and “on-the-spot guidance” as echoing the “dictates … dispensed by North Korea’s tyrannical Kim clan.” It is an analogy that most Thais would find grotesquely far-fetched and insulting. By any honest measure, Thailand’s military government is not “totalitarian” but significantly less repressive than its neighboring regimes in mainland Southeast Asia.

Thailand has experienced military rule many times before this year’s coup – all told, there have been 12 coups in less than a century. It is a history that stands in sharp contrast to America’s. For more than 200 years, the United States has seen the peaceful succession of one civilian government to the next.

Thailand’s experience with democracy has been far more troubled than America’s. Some of the country’s elected governments have been blatantly corrupt, sometimes degenerating into personal rule.

Our own fortunate history disposes Americans to visceral, knee-jerk condemnation of coups of any kind. Thais, however, know that military rule in their country has sometimes achieved economic and political reforms. They remember, for example, that it was a military coup that put an end to royal absolutism and replaced it with a constitutional monarchy.

Campbell is guilty of more than cultural and religious insensitivity. He wants to measure Thai politics against American standards. It is an abstract measurement, remote from the facts of contemporary Thai public opinion.

There is significant evidence that Prayuth has built a popular following for his reform agenda. Most Thais support his national campaign against official corruption: they see corruption as a great fault of the former government. There is wide support, too, for his campaign for national reconciliation: Thais want to put an end to the political convulsions and unrest that preceded the coup.

Campbell’s attempt to picture Prayuth as a totalitarian is undermined by the fact that most Thais believe in his commitment to restore democracy. Even Prayuth’s predecessor as prime minister says that she trusts the sincerity of his commitment to do so.

The worldview he expresses is America-centric and, at bottom, xenophobic. He seems not to like or understand Thais’ religion. He shows no knowledge of their history. He ignores their public opinion.

In Southeast Asia, we’ve seen Americans like Campbell before.

Ted Gover is Executive Director of the Foundation For California, a non-profit educational corporation that conducts educational programs on issues of importance to the State of California, the United States and beyond.