Some, including the Nation in a particularly weak editorial, have recently suggested that Thailand does not need democracy because it has an excellent and functioning puyai system. There is certainly a connection between democracy in Thailand and the traditional puyai system, and unhappily, it's supporters are right when they observe that the puyai system is an alternative to democracy in Thailand. In fact, it isn't just an alternative, it's a fatal obstacle to democracy in Thailand and, with one exception, is gravely harmful to the entire Thai nation.

Thailand's puyai system has been in operation for a long time. It's hallowed roots go back well before 1932, but we're only interested in the bit after Thailand began it's ever feeble steps toward constitutional democracy. For all of that time, the puyai system has been there, staunchly upheld as teh guiding light of Thai social, economic and political development. And after all that time, what are teh benefits that the puayi system has bequeathed to the Thai people?

1. Poor education. The education system continues to be a miserable failure, because instead of making changes that would lead to education and critical thinking, the puyai at the top make decisions out of ignorance that can NOT be corrected or even challenged by the more intelligent and better educated people below them. This is disastrously bad for almost all Thai people.

2. Ignorance. Communication and information technology is strictly controlled by the puyai to prevent the free spread communication and information, and the puyai decide, in their wisdom, to censor topics of real public concern, thereby enforcing ignorance. They then claim that the people's ignorance is a reason why the puyai are needed. This is a bare faced lie. The Thai electorate's ignorance is a direct result of the puyai's deliberate management of information and communication to keep the Thai people in a state of ignorance. This is disastrously bad for Thailand.

3. Political weakness and instability. If the puyai were so wonderful, how comes it that the country, after eighty years, has had quite so many constitutions? Why so very many coups? Why so very little political maturity? The results of 1. and 2. above are compounded by the puyai's reluctance, refusal, to accept the basic premises of democracy, and that inevitably creates strains that lead to instability. The puyai are responsible for the eternal mess that is Thai democracy, and that is disastrously bad for Thailand.

4. Absence of critical thinking. Inter-related with the above, in order to maintain their positions of unquestioned eminence in the social and political realms, the puyai have to instill habits of mindless acceptance of their often inane utterances because people will otherwise review them critically and realise that they are often stupid. The Ministry of Education is a good place to see examples of this. Recently, the puyai there have asserted that by more strictly controlling the hair of both male and female students that the quality of education in Thailand would be improved. The senior puyai who suggested this should have been laughed at loudly, but instead of ridiculing and critising such idiocy, the Nation and other media reported it as though it had a scrap of merit. The Ministry of Culture is also a wonderful source of ideas completely uncontaminated by critical thinking or intelligence. The process of actively discouraging critical thinking and its expression begins in primary school and continues through the awful Thai university system, so that you get graduates from such places as Chula. (supposedly "good"), who can not actually write (who have never written!) an essay that shows any critical thinking ability whatsoever. (I work with graduates of that and other "good" Thai universities - KMIT and Mahidol appear to be much stronger academically than Chula. and Th.) This inability to reason critically, and the suppression of any expression of such critical thinking, is needed by the puyai to protect their status as superior beings whose words should be hung upon, and it is disastrously bad for all sectors of the Thai nation.

5. Anti-democractic beliefs. The very idea that some people and their narrow opinions should count for more than those of everyone else is anti-democractic. It has led to the acquiescent acceptance of coups based on the false notion that the army generals know better what is best for Thailand. They do not. It leads to the notion that a tiny Bangkok elite must have power to run the affairs of the entire country because they know best what is best for everyone. They do not. It leads to the idea that a tiny Bangkok elite led by the likes of Chamlong should be able to tell the peasants who they should have voted for and oust a democratically elected government because they know better and their ideas count for more than the peasants. They do not.

6. The only thing going for the puyai system is that it is traditional. And only a populace kept in ignorance and not allowed to think could accept such a pathetic argument in favour of anything. Only an arrogant and self-serving elite would present such an argument to support their claims to continued respect.

I was thinking of 7, 8, 9 etc, but since endemic and systematic corruption, connection based incompetence, economic inequality, excessive state control, lack of human rights protection and the like are well known, I thought it safe to leave the causal connections of those things with the puyai system to readers.

It would be in Thailand's best interests, and very much in the interests of democracy in Thailand, to ditch the outworn and unwholesome puyai tradition as quickly as possible. Replace it with a tradtion of according respect where it is deserved and for ideas that are found to be sound after a thorough critical examination. Nor would it hurt to start encouraging free speech on matters of serious public concern to dispell the deep ignorance that is currently favoured. When we judge the puyai system on its record over the past eighty years, it has seriously failed Thailand and teh Thai people as proved by the very poor social and political development that the puyai have overseen over that long period.