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Published on December 2, 2007

You must promise to protect the poor from the rich, which is a joke, and the rich from the poor, which is a shame. Shakespeare called politics a "licensed stew" and he was right about that just as he was right about everything else. From the outside it seems the Thais don't know what they want and won't be happy until they get it. After all, if Banharn, Samak and Chalerm - not exactly the cutting edge of the zeitgeist - are the answer, could someone please rephrase the question? Whatever. Old faces will dominate, and new ones will be fast-tracked into positions way above their abilities.

It may be instructive that in books, love, art, music and politics we are always astonished by what is chosen by others. In that sense, politicians and teenagers have much in common right now in that the whole purpose of being either is to annoy people who aren't.

As the election countdown twitches with political tension, the leader of the People Power Party could make a bowl of somtam look tense. Others candidates are personable, likeable, good-natured, and after three speeches no one can stand them, plus there's a couple of scoundrels who can put up with anything except being ignored and one or two who are so right-wing they could even make General Pinochet wince. And let's not forget: when people are angry or cornered they often say a lot of stupid things they really mean.

Those in real power must be hankering for the days when politics was a private luxury rather than a public nuisance. But then, the laws were never intended to apply to those at the top, so it has never occurred to them to abide by them, or even bother to learn what they are.

We are also in a time of wild promises and bizarre policies as though those offering them expect a receipt. Polls should be taken and then largely ignored and extravagant claims listened to but not inhaled. We can look forward to new lows in high places. Most secrets will remain deeply buried, but some truths will come out. But then what's truth got to do with this election? What's truth got to do with anything?

And what about those politicians who are advocating nuclear power plants? Will Thailand have a future of streamlined, humming efficiency and endless energy or a landscape of chemically defoliated palm trees and a gently glowing rice farmer with a life expectancy of 22 cowering behind the last tree standing in Nan?

 

UUU

A freshly arrived visitor who already adores this Kingdom is, like many of us, a tad confused.

"Let me get this right. Sixty-seven per cent are going to sell their votes for money and having voted at the polling booths millions of them will then leave the scene of the crime?"

"Correct."

'That's not democracy; that's a giant New Year sale. Why don't they just put their votes on eBay?"

"They probably will for the next election."

"I hear most of this vote-buying will take place in Isaan. What is Isaan?"

"Its a place where they do unspeakable things to people who don't sell their votes."

"So what will happen?"

"We'll get the worst government money can buy."

 

UUU

Poor old Democracy. I keep an old newspaper clipping that never fails to cheer me up whenever elections come around. It's about Alfred Packer, the notorious gold prospector. Harper's magazine reported that the students of the University of Colorado named their student-union dining room the Alfred E Packer grill - after the only American ever convicted of cannibalism.

Packer killed and ate his five companions one winter in the Colorado mountains. Sentencing him to death, the judge, a Democrat, is supposed to have said: "There were only seven Democrats in Hinsdale County, and you, Alfred E Packer, you greedy son of a bitch, have eaten five of them."

 

UUU

Overheard:

"Do you think the banned TRT politicians have learned from their mistakes?"

"What mistakes?"

"Is Bangkok twinned with any city?"

"Not sure, but if it gets any more polluted I hear they are planning a suicide pact with Chengdu, where the weather is so shite the dogs bark at the sun."

UUU

Quote of the week:

"For you, an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman is a joke. For us, it's a hostage situation.

"Normally, Iranians don't go out: they're too busy staying at home and enriching Uranium 235. Iran's only exports are pistachio nuts and massive international ill feeling." British-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili.

UUU

Stats and bitz: It's not only a mad world, it's also that time of year again. The European Court of Auditors has refused to sign off on the EU's accounts - for the 13th year in a row - because, it says, there is £13 billion unaccounted for. In the meantime, £14.5 billion has been spent on an EU study this year to investigate reducing its administration costs.

Egyptians, Indians and Turks search for "sex" on Google more than any other nationality. "Hitler" is most popular in Germany, Austria and Mexico; "Nazi" in Chile, Australia and Britain. "David Beckham" gets most hits in Venezuela. (Reuters, October 2007).

 

UUU

You may well have heard or been following the tribulations of Gillian Gibbons, the 56-year-old English-teacher in Khartoum, Sudan, who was jailed after her class was allowed to name a teddy bear Muhammad. On Friday night editorial staff at The Nation were receiving wild rumours from around the planet.

The teacher has been released, but the teddy bear has been given 60 lashes.

The teddy bear was being dragged through the streets of Khartoum behind a camel through a crowd of excitable imams.

The bear had been kidnapped by religious extremists who sent one of the teddy bear's ears in an envelope to the British Embassy in Khartoum with a note saying: "Pay up, or Pooh gets it, inshallah".

Teddy is now on the run: he's fled to Chad, where he's forming a rebel group of oppressed bears who are planning a coup.

The teddy is undergoing counselling.

Gibbons will be out in five days and have a book out by Christmas tentatively entitled "The Teddy Bears' Nitpick".

Compiled by Roger Beaumont