Gay Boy Thailand

Someone asked me what Chalerm thought about Thaksin and all that.

Chalerm knows about the political tension in Thailand now, but he doesn’t think much about it. He is like I was when I was a kid and saw Nixon, Vietnam and Watergate on television. Those events were remote; I didn’t understand them and I felt they had nothing to do with me. Even worse, it was boring TV.

Chalerm also says “Thaksin is boring”. By this he means the demonstrations, the debates, and all the fuss.

I never hear Chalerm talk about Thaksin or politics with his friends. He goes home to vote every election, as is compulsory. I don’t know what the punishment is for not voting.

I don’t ask him who he votes for. I don’t want to know.

If the system in Anyburi is anything like that in other villages, elections are organised like this:

The central figure is the local Mr. Big, the pooyai. Chalerm knows who his pooyai is. He told me his name once, when I asked. Maybe I have seen the pooyai too, someone was driving a big fat Benz and there are not many big fat Benzes in Anyburi.

The pooyai is often a combined businessman, mafia boss and politician. When such men get a certain amount of power they run for election to further advance their careers.

The wheeling and dealing in Bangkok decide who the pooyai will support in an election. It is a question of alliances, highest bidder etc. The village headman is told who the village should vote for, and he sends his deputies out to the household to inform them. Vote buying happens at several levels. The pooyai gets millions, the village headmen less (in last election the Thai Rak Thai party promised a million baht in “development money” to each village in Thailand, something that by pure chance coincided with many village headmen buying new pickup trucks that year).

Ordinary voters get 100 or 200 baht. In the city people may get 500 baht. “They” are watching and making sure that the village votes for who they are supposed to.

Each member of parliament gets 30 million baht as pocket money to reward his constituency with. So there will be new schools and roads (with kickbacks to Mr. Big, who is not in politics to lose money on his investment), for which the locals are grateful to Mr. Big personally. Never mind that it is tax money he is spending.

The spirit of democracy has not caught on among ordinary people in Thailand. That they, the poor villagers, should tell the big guys what to do is a laughable concept to them. The big men tell small people what to do. That’s how it has always been. If nobody told them who to vote for they would be confused.

Chalerm is intelligent enough but since he is from a culture where one doesn’t speak about politics he isn’t interested. But I think if he got to stay abroad for a few years he would see the Thai democracy with new eyes.