Change of scene

Democracy is a sometime thing in much of Southeast Asia, and Thailand is no exception. It is one of the few things we're not so crazy about here, and neither are most Thais. A constitutional monarchy since 1932, the country has been run by military governments off and on for about half that time. Some of the regimes have been harsh, as in the mid-1970s and early '90s, and some have been fairly benign, as is the case now. Yesterday the Army-appointed prime minister, Surayud Chulanont, did not declare a state of emergency over anti-goverment demonstrations, so today Bangkok is relieved over that.

The educated Thai middle classes were not sorry to lose Thaksin Shinawatra, the elected leader dumped in a military coup last September. The evidence keeps mounting that Thaksin was a crook who evaded paying taxes and hid assets (his housemaid was discovered to be a multimillionaire) and who packed the courts and regulatory commissions with cronies. (Currently roaming the globe and allegedly plotting his return to power, Thaksin might instead fit in nicely over at the Bush administration.)

What really did Thaksin in, apparently, and gave the Army no choice but to oust him, was this: he publicly criticized the king. Lese majeste shocks the conscience in Thailand, and it is illegal. Most Thais think of their kings as bordering on the god-like, a belief buttressed by their having had quite a few good ones. The present king, 80-year-old Bhumibol Adulyadej, on the throne since 1946, is loved for his humility and tireless good works, especially among rural villagers. (These villagers are the same people who elected Thaksin, whose health-care and other rural initiatives may now be in jeopardy.)

The lese majeste charge against Thaksin is hard to pin down; at a rally in the North last year he complained about a "charasmatic figure" who was getting in his way. Not murky at all were the actions of one Oliver Rudolf Jufer, a Swiss 57-year-old living in Chiang Mai. He got drunk, spray-painted posters of the king, was caught doing this by security cameras, and on Thursday was sentenced to ten years in prison. The Swiss foreign ministry said that "our compatriot was arrested on the basis of clearly established legislation," and the Swiss have no plans to intervene.

Tomorrow we fly to the one country in Southeast Asia that doesn't even pretend to be democratic. Burma, renamed Myanmar by the military dictatorship, is where you go in the region to see unchanged ancient Asia. Internet access is available in some places, but discretion might be in order. So if the blog is studiously apolitical over the next two weeks---lots of pagodas in the mist, flying fishes playing, etc.---that's why.

Note to those admirers of Joe's wonderful photos who might have said to yourselves that it looks as if we have been wearing the same clothes for three months. Well, yes.