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In the capital of Bangkok, Thais protest against Singapore's intriguing plan to change the name of Sathorn Road into Orchard Road and declare the area as "bubble gum free zone" |
If Charles Dickens were alive today, he would have written a slightly different version of the opening of his “Tale of Two Cities”:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. We had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going directly the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present era that its noisiest voices insisted on it’s being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
There were a prime minister with a square face and his wife with a plain face, running the Government House of the Kingdom of Thailand; there were an iron lady with a war chest of S$103 billion and her husband with a plain face on the throne of Singapore. In both countries, it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes that things in general were settled forever.
It was the year of Our Buddha two thousand four hundred and fortynine. Spiritual revelations were conceded to Thailand. Thaksin Shinawatra had recently dissolved the House of Parliament, proclaiming innocence over his family’s sale of Shin Corp to Temasek Holdings of Singapore for Bt73.3 billion. The people were up in arms over his loot. Yet Thaksin decided to whitewash his deal by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of Bangkok and Parliament after the April 2 general election.
But the opposition boycotted the election, insisting that the new Parliament would be nothing more than a joke. The future was gloomy as nobody knew when the crisis would end.
Singapore, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister, rolled with exceeding smoothness uphill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of the Lee Family, she entertained herself with such humane achievements as prohibiting people from chewing bubble gum in the underground trains, caning the disobedient and sending Temasek Holdings on a buying spree of foreign assets, including Shin Corp of Thailand, to enhance the Singapore Empire.
With a population of only four million, Singapore wished to put Thailand under its sway. Ho Ching of Temasek could not have a good night’s sleep after buying out Shin Corp, for now the Thai people were looking at Singapore with a suspicious eye. Already Bangkok’s Sathorn Road was dominated by Singaporeowned properties: Q House Lumpini, Q House Sathorn, Banyan Tree Hotel, Metropolitan Hotel, Singapore Embassy, Empire Place, the Met luxury condominium. Rumours were swirling around that sooner or later Singapore might change Bangkok’s Sathorn Road into Orchard Road and declare it “a bubble gum free zone”.
The ThailandSingapore Treaty signed earlier could be in irreparable jeopardy, harmed by the Shin Corp deal. The damage would be far reaching if other countries started to look at Singapore with similar suspicions. Singapore’s audacious foray into the region might be subject to closer scrutiny at a time when she wanted to diversify her international reserves accumulated over the years of prosperous trade and investment.
In Thailand, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. All the independent institutions were subjugated and public policies were twisted to serve the people in power, while press freedom was under constant threat. The country was bitterly divided. Families were up in arms against each other over the fate of the country, which boiled down to whether Thaksin should be allowed to continue his premiership or be forced to resign. The People’s Alliance for Democracy camped out at Sanam Luang, booing and jeering the prime minister. They vowed to storm the Government House to disrupt his rule if he insisted on hanging on his power by a thread. But more than two hundred thousand supporters of Thaksin were brought in from the countryside in cartloads – the ammunition of his triumph.
There were also fears in Bangkok that Singapore might use ITV as its propaganda machine, Shin Satellite as its spy satellite to eavesdrop on the secret formula of tomyam kung, AIS to further intoxicate Thai youth by chitchat until they had no time to concentrate in their studies, and AirAsia to fly the Shinawatra family members out to the British Virgin Islands in case of emergency.
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