On Wednesday Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha talked for 135 minutes at the Bangkok Post Forum, more than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on Monday combined. And this isn't even an election campaign. A good soldier, he's unfazed by the presence of enemies and microphone. From the podium, arms outstretched, the PM touched on a lot of topics: Thai education, the economy, Section 44, Thailand as a "developed" country, the 20-year prophecy, etc. But what struck me like a hammer was when the general mentioned ghosts.
The One-Ring-To-Rule-Them-All Section 44 is needed even after the election, and the mechanisms of non-representative control designed by the new constitution are required for five years or more, because, the PM said, they are "the talisman to ward off ghosts".
Yant kan phi -- it's just a saying, a phrase, a witty throwaway in a room full of admirers. But it's also telling coming from the PM. In case some of us still don't realise, what we have experienced in the past 28 months is a ritual of exorcism and Gen Prayut is the exorcist-in-chief of this house plagued by devils, banshees and vampires. In short: politicians, because soldiers live forever and only politicians are bloodsuckers that die and return as zombies. (If only it were that simple!)
So to ensure the result and not to experience deadly backfire like in The Exorcist or The Conjuring Part 2, you need more than a Van Helsing. You need the holy water of a handpicked Senate and the talismanic 20-year strategic plan. You need a sacred scripture -- the constitution -- that permits a non-elected PM and military chiefs in the Upper House. You probably even need Gen Prayut for another eight years so he can drive the stake into the heart of the vampire.
Most of all, you need Section 44 as a weapon and protection, a yant kan phi. Subjected to the procedure according to Thai horror lore, Yingluck Shinawatra, a powerful female ghost who has possessed half the country, is being forced to evaporate inside a consecrated pot, like the stubborn Mae Nak Phrakanong was, before being released into water to hopefully never return. The state is trying to impose a 35.7-billion-baht fine on the ex-PM for the rice-pledging debacle, and S44 has been issued to grant impunity to government officials who take action against her. No amulet is more powerful.
Ghosts are necessary, otherwise who could you blame when something bad happens around the house? In his campaign of national exorcism, the PM this week shows his vision by, again using S44, appointing Maj Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd as acting chief of the Public Relations Department. This is a man who has a list of his favourite ghosts folded in his pocket, and when something bad happens, such as the Erawan shrine bombing or the Samui car bomb last year, he could quickly attribute it to ghosts -- the "old power clique" that wants to destroy the military government, for instance. Maj Gen Sansern is most famous for producing "the anti-monarchy chart", a cabalistic diagram of invisible phantoms that succeeded in stirring goosebumps and paranoia, before the chart was proved groundless. With him as the PR chief, we'll have more excitement and demonic visitations when the election season comes (if it comes).
In the 1970s the ghosts were the suspected communists. And look what happened to those "ghosts" -- students and those accused of being leftist radicals. Today is Oct 1, and the month is a good time to remember the bloodshed of that decade when the killing of "ghosts" was rampant and even guilt-free.
I'm neither pro-ghost nor anti-ghost, though it's wise to learn their tricks in order to keep them in check. And while the prevalence of ghosts is used to justify the extension of military power as a form of talisman, let's recall another Thai saying: phi hen phi -- only ghosts can see ghosts, because in the netherworld they circle one another, learning and perhaps exchanging haunting tips, leaving us humans blinking in confusion. As the former defence permanent secretary Preecha Chan-o-cha, the PM's brother, is up to his neck in a scandal involving an alleged army construction project, we realise the ghost of graft appears in too many guises, sometimes in suit and tie, other times in camouflage uniform.
So, do we need amulets and mantras, garlic and sacred threads? Of course, but not like this. Not the silver bullet of S44 and vague interpretations of a possibly eight-year premiership. Not the holy potion blessed by obscure exorcists who also go on spending sprees to procure weapons (Ukrainian tanks, for instance). The moral of a ghost story, I believe, is to teach us how to be better humans. Don't blame it on the ghosts, especially if you're still probably one of them.