Category: Featured
Featured articles from FORSEA contributors.
Thongchai Winichakul and the Chronopolitics of Memory in Contemporary Thailand
At first glance, the Thai monarchy’s deceptions, manipulations, and silence appear far less fragile than the good silences recounted in Thongchai’s text. Crudely put, monarchic silence is motivated by self-preservation. It continues to deploy an extensive panoply of coercive and cultural power to protect its privileges, albeit to declining effect.
The Thai King Sends Messages Presaging Conflict in Thailand
Three months have passed and the protests in Thailand have intensified. One of the main messages of the demonstrations has become clear—the protesters believe the monarchy is in need of immediate reform. In just three months, Thais have repeatedly stretched the boundaries of what is acceptable to discuss in public—and at large gatherings—regarding the monarchy.
What Now for Thailand’s Protests?
Now that core leaders of the protests are in custody, the authorities are ramping up their suppression of demonstrators, and the possibility of life imprisonment has been mooted, it seems hard to imagine where this movement goes from here.
Use of force must be condemned. Violence must stop in the capital Bangkok
FORSEA issues the strongest condemnation statement against the Thai government. It urges the government to lift the emergency decree, release all those arrested, return free space for the people, and most importantly, stop using violent tactics against the protesters.
Abduction and Killing of Thai Dissidents
From 2016 to 2020, at least ten activists residing outside Thai borders were killed, abducted and forcedly disappeared. Most of them happened to be anti-monarchists.
Duterte has forfeited the Philippines’ EU trade privileges
In 2014, Trade Justice Pilipinas supported the Philippines’ pursuit of favorable trade privileges from the EU, hoping they would deter human rights abuses. Six years later, that hope has disappeared, and so should those privileges.
‘We are not dust, we are human beings’: The message for the next protest this month in Bangkok
Thai student protests are not just to shame the government, they also wanted to reform the monarchy – a long-held taboo in the Land of Smiles. The demand for immediate monarchical reform is now an official objective of the protesters.
Sabah Election Ends Inconclusively
Because of the outsize political representation handed to them at independence, Sabah and Sarawak parliamentarians now ironically hold king-making power over the fragmented Malay parties. That leverage could moderate the blatant governance abuses, provided the Borneo states learn to use their influence wisely.
FORSEA’s statement on the arrest of Joshua Wong
The arrest of Joshua Wong resonates with what is going on elsewhere from like-minded political activists in Asia. Youths are protesting against authoritarianism in their own country, but are labelled as threat to national security and hence prosecuted.
After COVID: 10 Steps to Avert Global Financial Collapse
In the US and China, volatile stock markets, property bubbles, and unregulated shadow banking sectors could trigger the next global financial implosion. The COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity for reform.