bangkok dave

Thaksin Shinawatra is not involved in politics. His sister Yingluck Shinawatra, who has just been elected as Thailand’s prime minister on a ticket of her big brother’s Pheu Thai (PT) party, does not take orders from him. Talks in Dubai (or is it Brunei?) that involve Thaksin and prominent Thai politicians are not about cabinet posts – they’re about “personal” matters (or… tigers, possibly).

These are examples of recent public statements made by newly-elect Yingluck (except for the part about the tigers), and it almost goes without say that they are all false. Actually, not just false – blatantly, absurdly, patently false. So false that even Yingluck’s supporters hardly doubt their falsehood, whether they admit it or not.

For Yingluck to earnestly state that Thaksin is not involved in politics and suggest that she has not been elected as his proxy is to challenge our most fundamental grasp on reality. Were Thaksin not politically involved, would Yingluck exist as a PM candidate? Who picked her, a businesswoman with no experience in party politics, to represent her exiled brother’s party over scores of long-time party operatives and seasoned politicians? Whose people worked to elect her? Why did her supporters vote for her? What were their expectations? If “Thaksin thinks, Pheu Thai does” as the party’s slogan says, what does PT actually “do” if the source of the thinking is not involved in politics?

No one is asking these ridiculous questions because no one needs to. Everyone in Thailand knows that Thaksin is very much involved in politics and has picked his sister to be his proxy, “clone”, representative, what-have-you, as a way for his party to win Thailand’s general election (done!) – and consequently, look for a way to get back into power (…not quite done).

But the funny thing about Yingluck’s pronouncements is not that they are obvious lies. The funny thing is no one reacts to these lies with amazement, dismay or outrage; frankly, so far, few people appear to care. Yingluck’s opponents know she’s lying, but feel nothing – because they expect nothing else; meanwhile, her supporters and those more sympathetic to her perhaps understand her need to keep up appearances and are not too troubled by the dearth of truth in her public statements.

Perhaps the facts that Yingluck was elected so decisively and is about to become Thailand’s first female PM makes it bad form to ruin the moment by harping on the fact that she’s lying through her pretty teeth.

But in all fairness, these are not little white lies that she’s telling. These are whoppers; they’re lies that fundamentally distort the basics of who she is and what she’s doing in office. Yingluck is not lying about things that could plausibly be true; she’s not lying about things we might only suspect of being untrue; she’s lying about things we know absolutely and definitely to be untrue; things that no one should have to lie about because the truth is so self-evident.

Yingluck might as well state that she herself is not involved in politics or that Thailand’s election was “personal” business.

Well, in a way, the last part may be true, as politics can indeed be very personal business – and for Thaksin, seeking a way to reclaim power is about as personal as it gets.

But the casual manner in which Yingluck makes her big lies has to be a little disconcerting. After all, she’s being pursued by allegations of perjury (which, after all, is a form of lying), as her testimony in a corruption case involving her brother was shown by the court’s verdict to be false. So it would appear that is not the first time Yingluck has lied on her big brother’s behalf; she certainly seems fairly experienced at it. But what else will she be lying about? Or better still, Can we expect any truth in her public statements at all?

In any event, so far, Yingluck hasn’t had too hard of a time from Thailand’s journalists, pundits and political observers. Perhaps some sympathetic commentators believe Yingluck’s “fibs” are cancelled out by the lies and “crimes” of her predecessors and are, therefore, either unimportant or morally justifiable. Or maybe, lying has simply become so endemic to Thai politics and society that even those who don’t support Yingluck find it difficult to make an issue of it.

It might just be a little too soon to criticize Yingluck. Let her enjoy her honeymoon with Thailand; everyone is too exhausted from the current political crisis anyway; why start a fight over something so relatively minor – after all, what’s a few lies compared to blood in the streets?

Whatever the case, everyone had better start getting used the “Thaksin is not involved in politics/is not running my government” line in all its permutations, variations and forms from now on – there’s going to be plenty more where that came from.