Initially, I wanted to write about something fun and happy this month. After all, this is probably one of the best times of the year _ many holidays and great weather. But given what is going on right now, it is hard to remain cheerful. Although the current political crisis is nothing new and I have already got used to blocked traffic, it is still upsetting to see Bangkok streets overrun with mobs every few years.
After failing to bring the situation under control, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra decided to dissolve parliament and call an election in February. But for the past two weeks, Thailand has grown deeply divided over whether the election is the answer to the country's political turmoil.
Last weekend, the Democrat Party's announcement that it would boycott the election just deepened the political woes. The last time the party boycotted an election, it caused a deadlock that eventually led to the coup in 2006.
Since our country became a democracy in 1932, we have had 18 attempted or successful coups and 17 constitutions. It is interesting to note that in most countries as economically developed as Thailand, these political patterns have long since disappeared.
To me, a high degree of political instability is partly a reflection of a leadership crisis. This is not really a pro-Thaksin versus anti-Thaksin or an election versus reform issue. The issue is simply that we have forgotten what good leadership looks like.
This month the world lost a great leader, Nelson Mandela _ the former South African president, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient and the man who freed South Africa from apartheid. Mandela helped unite a deeply divided country in a way that nobody else had done before. As Thai politics is entering the main stretch of a revolution, I think there is much we can learn from him.
Retaliation deepens divides, collaboration heals them. Mandela is renowned for this collaborative instinct, building a multiracial, mixed-gender leadership team to fight apartheid. Although he spent nearly a third of his life in wrongful imprisonment, he chose to win over his opponents in a relatively peaceful transition of power.
Mandela understood the power of choosing to forgive and refused to give in to the deep-seated desires for revenge. He persuaded the angry black Africans who longed for war to put aside their feelings of hatred and reach out to those who had wronged them. South Africa was saved from a brutal civil war.
Never give up on the impossible. Mandela is widely quoted as saying, "It always seems impossible until it's done." His perseverance shows us that the seemingly impossible will remain impossible if we fail to gather the courage to do what's right.
Throughout Mandela's life, whether it was during his early days of protesting, during his time spent in prison, or as a president when he was dismantling the apartheid regime, he was never afraid to stand up for his ideals and devote his life in every way to his quest. He gave the world a lesson that anything worth doing or remembering will involve opposition and setbacks. True leadership is about the courage to fight for what's right even when one meets with personal inconvenience or worse.
Know your rivals and keep them close. Mandela made white people trust him and think he was their friend. In the 1960s, he began studying Afrikaans, the language of the whites who created apartheid, because he wanted to understand their world view. He knew that to negotiate with them, there was nothing better than knowing their literature.
Mandela also knew that for the whites, rugby was their pride and identity, but for the blacks, the Springboks_ the national rugby team _ were a symbol of apartheid. So he used the 1995 Rugby World Cup, hosted by South Africa, as a step towards reconciliation. No one could ever forget the sight of him putting on the Springboks jersey _ the clothing of his enemy _ to shake the players' hands. Winning the World Cup that year helped banish the politics of hatred.
Last but not least, a single great leader is not enough. It takes more than one heroic leader at the top to change the path of a nation. To transform a nation we need a succession of inspiring leaders at every level. For Mandela, most people may see him as a secular saint who single-handedly saved South Africa, but he himself insisted repeatedly that he was in fact part of a collective leadership. A country cannot be built on just one leader. As Mandela put it, "No struggle can depend on one person. The struggle is basically a collective affair."
Luckily, Thailand is not fundamentally as hard to govern as South Africa. We are not separated by ethnicity, religions or the colour of our skin, and our differences are not as large. But we should realise that for every day of deadlock that cripples the country, our economic and political weight in the region will diminish.
It was a long walk to freedom for Mandela, and it likely will be for Thailand. Through forgiveness and putting aside the urge for revenge, Mandela gave South Africa a future _ he saved it. This New Year, it will be my wish that our leaders do the same.
Dr Tientip Subhanij holds a PhD in economics from the University of Cambridge and currently has a career in banking as well as academia. She can be reached at tien201@yahoo.com