Where is David?

I was over at a friend’s house on the other side of Bangkok a couple of days ago, and he and some of his buddies were playing basketball on a hoop they set up in front of their house.

“Nice shot, nigga.” “Watch out, nigga” “No way, nigga”. It seemed every other word out of their mouth was “nigga.” These guys who were playing basketball were 4 Asian-Americans from the U.S., all quite into hip-hop culture. I wondered to myself if a black person were here, would they still be using the word “nigga” as frequently?

The cultural irony of people using a degorative slur amongst themselves as a term of endearment amongst themselves is something I assume has been studied before, and beyond the scope of what I am trying to write about. The strange fact to me was how grown men (25 years old or so) would imitate this, and whether or not other minority groups have the right to use this term amongst themselves.

I also tried to think if there’s any other term similar to “nigga”, and the only ones I could come up with were situations where friends will use words like “dumbass” with each other, but in a more playful way if one of them does something stupid. The word takes on quite a different meaning than when someone you don’t know calls you it.

Kind of a random title, I know, but I saw an interesting article at New Mandala bringing up this exact question, and it reminded me of some ideas I’d thought about before, mainly in China, but I’ll be considering its application to Thailand a bit in this article.

Basically, for those of you too lazy to read the article, it brings up the idea that it isn’t in a developing countries’ middle classes’ interest to have a full-fledged democracy functioning in the country. Why? Well, because the rural poor (who we’re assuming would have numerical superiority) would vote in their interest and the government’s policies would favor them.

The question is, who knows what’s best for a country, the uneducated masses or the more-informed educated middle class? Does being able to afford a daily newspaper and attending a couple of university classes make you a better authority on what’s good for the country?

Thaksin was one of the kings of populist politics. If there were an election tomorrow in Thailand, I honestly believe he would win. Farmers in Isan don’t forget who gave them that water buffalo that plows their fields every day. He also tried to win over the Bangkok middle class by building the new Suvarnabhumi airport (”The Pride of Thailand”) and numerous mass-transit improvements, but they turned on him and it was only with their support that the military was able to overthrow him. (The old-money rich families, resentful of the ‘new-money’ families, had wanted to overthrow him long before, but couldn’t do it without convincing the middle-class first).

Thaksin’s story is very much like the Tortoise and the Hare fable, where Thaksin (the Hare) got too cocky (aka corrupt and greedy) and fell asleep at the end of the race. Instead of being content with a multi-billion dollar fortune for himself, he tried to create his own dynasty among his friends and supporters, thus alienating the old-rich and creating his first enemies, jealous of his success.

Back to the article mentioned and how it applies to Thailand, if the rural poor were in charge of the country, what would (or should) they do?
Who knows, but here are some of my ideas on what I think would help the country modernize.

#1. (kind-of) Monopolize the distribution of rice. I’m not a big fan of monopolies, but this one would be key. Basically, you’d have to create a law that requires all rice produced by farmers to be bought by the government, who would in turn sell it to processors for distribution. This would allow the government to increase farmers’ income (by simply increasing the price they pay the farmers), basically a subsidy for rice farmers. (also would work for sugar, fruits, etc.)

#2. Flood controls. This one should be kind of obvious, but it basically boils down to corruption. There have been countless public works to try to avoid flooding, which normal people think of as a wet basement, but farmers think of as a year’s income lost, but either they suffer from lack of upkeep or they just don’t happen. Maybe to cut costs a politician would say, “Just make the levy a meter shorter” and pocket the money saved. Flood damages total in the billions of dollars lost for the Thai economy each year, and it would be in everyone’s benefit to see it stopped.

I think Thailand would be better off if it tried these ideas, but obviously #1 will never happen. Still, #2 might and hopefully will.

As for the bombs, no news lately. There have been lots of bomb hoaxes and suspect packages sighted, kind of gives you a sense of everyone’s paranoid state of mind recently. I’ll update with this as soon as I have any info worth reporting.