Take one comment about Bangkok's anti-Thaksin demonstrations: "The spectacle of an urban elite overthrowing an elected leader, one who enjoyed great popularity among the rural poor whom he genuinely helped, is not only distasteful, but potentially dangerous." While it is unusual for a publication of such high standing to get it so badly wrong, it is useful to understand why this belief is so common in the Western press.

The perception that leads to it goes something like this: Thaksin (or replace his name with Chavez, for those of a more leftist bent) is a populist leader who is using his power for the benefit of the downtrodden rural poor (and in Western eyes, societies like Thailand are very much defined by the poor) but, in the pursuit of his crusade, has run up against the selfish metropolitan middle classes (note the simple class-based perception of oppression) who got out of their jeeps to block this man and his peasant followers.

Western observers often readily fall into the trap of believing that countries poorer than theirs need a simple wealth distribution (even if we are to believe this is what Thaksin is about). Witness last summer's "Live 8" concerts for more Western aid to Africa. These were attended by people who did not wish to know there was no correlation in Africa between aid and development, that many African countries already got 50 per cent of their budgets from aid money or that South Korea's explosive development happened with aid donations that never rose above 10 per cent of its budget. These were the elephants under the stage. In the case of Thailand, where the most serious division of wealth is between town and country, our North-country man Thaksin is the saviour of the poor (a sort of multi-billionaire Robin Hood, if you will), and Sondhi Limthongkul is the rich man's sheriff. Again, the root of the problem is seen as a simple division of wealth.

Even some of the most sensitive observers cannot help but see politics in the developing world through the template of Western political culture. In most developed countries, you can be sure rich and poor alike are highly sensitive to abuses of power by politicians and will hastily expel those who use their positions for personal gain. It feels unkind to acknowledge that the poor in other countries do not have the same standards, so when the middle classes who do take to the streets to protest, they see selfishness at work, not the people protecting their young democracy from a wannabe autocrat.

Furthermore, many observers still take political structures at face value. In Thailand, everything seems to be in place. There is a National Counter Corruption Commission, an Electoral Commission, a Constitution Court, an Anti-Money Laundering Organisation and plenty of other bodies with the serious-sounding titles that make the West tick. That there is a fungus of corruption beneath the veneer is often not understood, just as Thaksin's many, many misdemeanours are ignored. His likely shady dealings, human-rights abuses in the South, journalist intimidation, the Temasek affair: unstopped, uninvestigated, unpunished. These may be inconvenient for one's pro-Thaksin world-view, but that won't make them go away.

So the common view that countries are to be enriched by throwing more money at the poor is wrong: they are to be enriched by democratising their cultures, just as the West was. One does not develop a country by declaring war on its press or using the courts to intimidate anyone who begs to differ. Thai politics is not easy for unseasoned observers to understand, but that a growing mass of Thai people has high standards of political transparency should be warmly praised, not written off as distasteful and dangerous. That is simple enough for anyone.

Rado Tylecote is a Bangkok-based writer.

Rado Tylecote

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