Tom Tuohy Feb 8, 2013
Op Ed
By now, most people will have
heard about Thailand’s newest inmate Somyot Prueksakasemsuk - who was
recently sentenced to 11 years in prison for breaking Thailand’s
infamous lèse majesté laws.
The
usual discussions and criticisms have of course taken place among
Thailand’s chattering classes and further afield as could be reasonably
expected. Perhaps the most voluble of these has been the verbal
onslaught from the former Reuters’ journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall.
His attack on the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Thailand (FCCT) has,
to some degree, shifted the debate about this draconian law, from the
actual unfairness of this law per se, to whether the FCCT is actually
upholding its own charter and protecting the very notion of freedom of
speech in the country.
The FCCT’s own charter or mission statement is clearly stated on its website. It even has its own heading –
“Press Freedom”:
“For
more than 50 years, the FCCT has played a vanguard role as the ASEAN
region's most active press club. The Club advocates press freedom as a
cornerstone of civil society in emerging democracies and is a vital
venue for an open exchange of information.”
The
key word for me here is “advocates” which suggests some kind of action.
After all, one cannot be an advocate if one does not share that idea
with others. Marshall’s suggestion – no, that’s far too subtle –
Marshall’s verbal onslaught, seething, acidic polemic, his
go-for-the-jugular approach, while true on many levels, does little to
encourage journalists, whether foreign or indigenous Thai, to attempt to
address the problem or even foster further debate. Rather it is
divisive when it could have been inclusive; excessively critical instead
of attempting to find common ground; one man’s two-finger salute to an
organisation that, while it may have its faults, does a lot to promote
the values of journalism within the region.
Asian
political analyst and co-founder of New Mandala Andrew Walker is
completely right when he says of this, “I can understand Marshall’s
frustration, even anger, about the FCCT’s position in relation to
Somyot’s imprisonment. But I am disturbed by his fundamentalism which
assumes that there is only one morally desirable approach to be taken to
the extraordinarily difficult lèse majesté issue. In his polemic there
is no room for self-doubt; no room for respectfully considering the
tactical judgments that others make; and no acceptance of the range of
opinions that exist about lèse majesté. To assume that there is only one
effective, or morally desirable way, of tackling a problem as
politically complex as Thailand’s royalist repression is extraordinarily
naïve.”
So,
who is right? Marshall does at least acknowledge that there are “plenty
of courageous and principled foreign journalists covering Thailand”.
However, is the FCCT, as Marshall states, also an organization full of
“feckless” foreign journalists who fail to do the job they are there to
do, instead preferring to pamper to the well heeled masses?
“Unfortunately,
their good work is undermined by a feckless majority who refuse to
stand up to censorship, and a vocal minority of longtime FCCT members
who unashamedly peddle palace propaganda.”
These
are pretty strong words and leave little in the way of scope for
discussion or wiggle room. The journalists Marshall criticises in his
article are some well known names: Nicholas Grossman, Dominic Faulder,
Julian Gearing, Paul Wedel, Richard Ehrlich, Robert Horn, Joe Cummings
and Robert Woodrow. He also cites the following: “A stunningly
obsequious story in November 2011 by veteran Associated Press
correspondent Denis Gray also deserves a special mention in the hall of
shame.”
The
opposing view is that the FCCT has taken the correct line and, in very
Buddhist fashion, decided to wait it out by treading the Middle Way. We
all know that the longer you stay in Thailand, the more you are inclined
to become, to some degree, assimilated into thinking and acting in much
the same way as the locals. Could it be then that many of the feckless
reporters Marshall mentions have gone over to the dark side? Could it be
that the long years they have lived in the Kingdom have rendered them
quasi-Thai, incapable of attacking this law head on in the way that
Marshall wants them to? Marshall, however, is clear this is not
something they can get away with doing:
“This is not an issue on which journalists can quietly retreat to the ‘middle ground’”.
It’s
interesting to wonder what purpose it would serve if, as Marshall
wants, many of these journalists did in fact speak out about the lèse
majesté laws and Article 112 which forms its basis in legal terms?
While, as he rightly says, it’s not illegal to actually speak out about
them, in my view, it is inevitable that far more journalists would end
up in the clinker no doubt sharing stories and hunks of dried bread with
Somyot Prueksakasemsuk and his ilk. What good would that do? Would it
be enough to put pressure on the powers-that-be to rescind the said law?
One doubts it very much.
As
a freelance journalist who regularly reports on Thai education issues
for a London based newspaper, I am not sure that Marshall’s attack on
his fellow journalists is fully justified or conducive to furthering the
debate. As Andrew Walker has said above, the laws on this underpin an
extraordinarily difficult lèse majesté issue. The jury’s still out on
whether Marshall or the FCCT is right in their approach to this issue.
Again, Andrew Walker hits the right tone when he says:
“I
completely support critical commentary on journalists’ coverage of Thai
politics and the monarchy. But I don’t support the fundamentalist
vilification of journalists – especially a fine journalist like Nirmal
Ghosh – because they have different opinions, or have made different
judgments about the path to political reform.”
Only time will tell who is right.
Tom
Tuohy is a teacher and writer. He has written for a number of
newspapers, magazines and websites including: The Guardian Weekly, the
English Language Gazette, jobs.ac.uk, The Bangkok Post. You can access
Tom's blog here.
Tom is also the author of Watching the Thais which is available in print, on the Kindle, and as an ebook.
(This article was originally published in the Chiang Mai City news, February 8th, 2013 - http://www.chiangmaicitynews.com/news.php?id=1374)
No comments:
Post a Comment