A Hollow Crown
A HOLLOW CROWN
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It was an image of perfect royal harmony; the Thai genius for hospitality and display had captured global media attention, while the King himself was not only loved by all butprofoundly respected for his shining virtue, wisdom, sincerity and personal modesty. Yet much was rotten in the state of Thailand. The spectacle of national unity was itselfa move in a bitter and far-reaching power struggle between the Palace and the
Prime Minister, controversial telecommunications tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, ...
While preaching a homespun philosophy of the ‘sufficiency economy’, the King owns the freeholds of many of the prime Bangkok locations leased to leading real-estate developersand shopping mall proprietors. The King Never Smiles is not on sale in Thailand and has never been openly discussed in the Thai media, although numerous copies are circulating
privately among the Bangkok intelligentsia. Conversations about the monarchy will neverbe quite the same again. ...
The unprecedented abdication abruptly elevated Bhumibol’s older brother Ananda to the throne. The boys were only half-royal, since their doctor-father Prince Mahidol had marrieda commoner. After Massachusetts, they spent much of their early life in Switzerland, receivinga European education at an elite Catholic school in Lausanne. They learnt French, English, Latin and German, but could barely speak Thai. ...
In 1957 Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat assumed power in a coup d’état that—like many subsequent putsches—received swift approval from the throne. In Sarit, as Handley puts it,the palace had finally found its strongman; the dictator acted as ‘royal enforcer’, strictly applying lèse-majesté laws, while the palace turned a blind eye to Sarit’s corruption.Whereas Sarit saw the monarchy as a junior partner that could underpin military dominance, Bhumibol collaborated with Sarit to enhance his own standing, and expand the scale of royal charitable and business activities. The King toured the countryside accompanied by his beautiful consort, Queen Sirikit, who presented him with four children in quick succession. This model family won admiration from the rural masses, as did the King’s intense involvement in the micro-management of socio-economic development, informed by a fascination with agriculture and irrigation. ...
Bhumibol worked hard to maintain Thailand’s forward role in the Cold War. Handley describesa trip to Washington in 1966, where the King ‘lobbied the United States to escalate its war against Hanoi, even criticizing Washington for pausing in its air strikes on North Vietnam.’...
More than any other prime minister, Thaksin apparently saw the position of the monarchy asan obstacle to Thailand’s development, and sought to roll back royal authority. Handley notes that Thaksin ‘was willing publicly to snub the throne, as well as play royal family members off against each other’. In an article published since his book appeared, Handley has argued that the September 2006 coup reflected Bhumibol’s fears that Thaksin could not be trusted to handle the delicate royal succession. Yet by abrogating the 1997 constitution, the military intervention left the monarchy a dangerously isolated pillar in a landscape otherwise bereft of legitimating political institutions. ...
The greater calamity of the succession lies ahead. The elderly King is in poor health, andspends most of the year as a semi-recluse at his seaside palace in Hua Hin. Thedhammaraja’s powers are waning; in 2006 the royal whisper proved insufficient, and ittook a crude military intervention to remove Thaksin from office. Paradoxically, Bhumibol
is a victim of his own success, having created unrealistic expectations of Thailand’s throne....
His preference is for a more ‘modern’ and ‘inclusive’ kingship, in effect, a ‘people’s monarchy’ to match the now-lost 1997 people’s constitution. Perhaps such a transition might be more feasible if Bhumibol were to follow Sihanouk’s lead, by naming his own successor before he departs. ...
In a kingdom where violence lurks just below the surface—violence that the King helped quell in 1973 and 1992, but tacitly supported in October 1976—Bhumibol’s passing threatensto inaugurate a new episode of civil strife. In the post-Bhumibol era, the monarchy may no longer offer a source of stability and continuity. No political order can safely invest its long-term stability in a single individual, however skilled, and however wise./