Thai mystery writer and composer S.P. Somtow has also weighed into the debate with this surreal blog post in which he explains that foreign journalists lack the language skills to comprehend what is going on, and are desperate to portray Thailand’s crisis as a repeat of the “mythical story arc” of the 1986 Philippines uprising in order to “make sure the advertising money keeps flowing in”. It does not appear to have occurred to him that a more sensible business model for the international media to follow would be to report events dispassionately and with some degree of accuracy.
In an effort to educate uninformed foreigners about what is really going on, Thailand’s foreign ministry helpfully supplied this guide for journalists. Among other things, it explains that Thailand is fully committed to the freedom of the press but that some media inciting violence had to be shut down; that it is inaccurate to view Thailand’s crisis as rich versus poor but “such rhetoric has been employed by the protest leaders to create group emotion, playing on people’s grievances and sense of injustice”; that “the Thai monarchy is above politics”; that the “lèse-majesté law in Thailand has not been an obstacle to discussions”; and finally, that it is wrong to suggest there are double standards in Thailand:
For the present Government, there is only one standard and all are equal before the law.
Given that Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, who oversees the ministry that put out this statement, was a key figure involved in the yellow shirt occupation of Bangkok’s airports in 2008, it is clear quite how stupid the government regards the foreign media to be if it expects us to believe this stuff. Kasit remains a profound embarrassment to his nation, as he lectures foreign governments and foreign diplomats about how they should view the country’s political crisis, while his very presence at the heart of government totally disproves the image of Thailand he is trying to sell.