BANGKOK – As the civil unrest in Libya escalates to full-scale war and dominates the headlines, Thailand’s competing factions find themselves engaged in a desperate race to be the first to co-opt the zeitgeist with a clever, working metaphor.
With the UN resolution authorizing the use of air force to protect Libyan civilians having passed, and footage of missile strikes leading the nightly news on both international and domestic channels, association with the Libyan opposition fighters is widely seen as the hottest soundbite in Thai politics.
The red-shirted anti-government UDD made the first attempt last week, citing the Libyan strongman Mohamar Qaddafi as an entrenched anti-democratic dictator whose military-backed oppression had suppressed the will of the Libyan majority for decades.
“We stand with the people of Libya in their desire for true democracy and resistance to the unelected, army-backed Qaddafi,” said UDD leader Natthawut Saikua at a rally on Sunday. “Their revolution will inspire ours.”
The UDD, however, was unable to come up with an analogy for Qaddafi himself. Reports suggest that they considered Abhisit, Prem, and Prayuth, the “Third Hand” and even members of the “sacred institution,” but in the end just went with the half-metaphor of aligning with the Libyan opposition.
Meanwhile, the Thai Patriots Network, the extreme faction of the yellow-shirted PAD, approached the analogy from the opposite end, calling Qaddafi the “Libyan Thaksin” and calling for armed overthrow as the only option when “a nation has been taken over by a selfish, corrupt madman,” in a reference to the 2006 coup.
The TPN metaphor ran aground when a MCOT reporter asked leader Chaiwat Sinsuwong about the role of the military.
“The Libyan army is like, um, like the Thai police,” Chaiwat said. “And the Thai army is more like, the military of the UN member states that are, wait, no, hold on…” he continued before trailing off.
The desire for positive association has also entered the censure debate in Parliament, where Pheu Thai MP Jatuporn Prompan has accused the Abhisit administration of behaving like “Qaddafi and Mubarak put together.”
“The world is watching and judging the failure of Thai democracy, just as it passed judgment on the sham democracies of Libya and Egypt,” he said during Monday’s debate.
Jatuporn tried to bolster his metaphor by claiming that PT was ready to ask for a UN resolution to authorize force against the Democrats, but was unable to explain just how that would happen.
The ruling Democratic party, meanwhile, came up with the most unorthodox Libyan reference of all, citing the UN resolution as an example of how civilized nations handle conflict through careful legal procedures.
“Even the decision to commence air strikes must come through consensus,” said Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva. “Surely we can emulate such civility in planning a second-quarter election.”
The most widely cited Libyan metaphor, however, came from Chulalongkorn professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak, who wrote in his blog last week that “the only thing Thailand and Libya have in common is their common delusion that their internal power squabbles makes them part of something bigger and grander than what they are: third-world nations with exploitable resources.”
