New Mandala

The decision by the opposition Democrat-except-when-we-cannot-win-an-election-and-then-a-coup-is-ok Party to boycott last year’s general election (because they knew they would lose) has now paid off handsomely. The final result of the electoral chaos of 2006 is that Thai Rak Thai has been dissolved by the Constitutional Tribunal and over one hundred senior party figures have been banned from political office [...]

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New Mandala readers in the United Kingdom will be interested to know that Sulak Sivaraksa will be speaking on “Spiritual Ecology” in London on 2 June.  According to the advertisement it will be:
A special event attended by the eminent Thai environmentalist Sulak Sivaraksa on a rare visit to London. The event will look at the [...]

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Wednesday, 23 May 2007
The 70 people who trekked out to the second site of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at Vernon Square for this event went, I’m sure, expecting to hear about the advertised topic - “Thailand after the coup”.  Unfortunately, very little of what was said touched on the big issues [...]

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From Thailand Jumped the Shark:
“Andrew Walker … a loquacious incomprensible pompous bloviator on subjects of no merit or social value.”

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Here is the report from The Nation on the seminar I delivered in Bangkok earlier this month.�
Rural voters not politically naive, says Aussie anthropologist
Published on May 25, 2007
The stereotype view of Thai rural electorates as being ignorant and incapable of making informed political decision during elections is wrong and a better understanding of their complex set of values [...]

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The National Thai Studies Centre is hosting a workshop this Friday on the “sufficiency economy concept.”�
Thailand: The Sufficiency Economy Concept
Seminar Room E (Coombs Building), Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University
Friday 1 June, 2007 2:00-4:30
Following the overthrow of the Thaksin government on 19 September 2006 Prime Minister Surayud declared a new [...]

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Apologies for my longer than expected New Mandala absence. I have been travelling in Yunnan, with most of my time spent in Sipsongpanna. I had hoped to be making posts from the road, but in the few spare moments I grabbed I never seemed to find an internet cafe with anything more than the most sluggish [...]

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From different corners of the Thailand-focussed blog scene, Siam Sentinel and Thailand Jumped the Shark have both made recent posts that question what are perceived to be general Thai perspectives on the outside world.  New Mandala readers looking for some provocative reading material will find much food for thought (and fodder for contention) in these two [...]

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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s excellent Rear Vision radio program - a weekly look at the histories behind major events and issues - has followed its recent coverage of the Thai monarchy with an overview of Burma’s recent past.  This current offering is titled “Tragedy in the Golden Land“.  The segment, which features Gary Woodard, Monique Skidmore and Thant Myint-U, [...]

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Following the lively discussion generated by the recent New Mandala post on “Thai cinematic war with Burma”, many readers will no doubt be interested in Daniel Ten Kate’s recent Asia Sentinel piece.  His article focusses on the status of Chatrichalerm Yukol’s films in the Thai black-market.  According to the report:�
… even though The Legend of King Naresuan [...]

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