A King for All Seasons
By DANNY GITTINGS
June 12, 2006; Page A13
BANGKOK --The sea of yellow shirts stretched as far as the eye could see on Friday, as one million adoring Thais dressed in the country's official royal color thronged the Royal Plaza in the city center. They were there to catch a glimpse of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, as the Cambridge, Mass.-born monarch kicked off five days of celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of his reign.
In towns and villages throughout this Buddhist kingdom, ordinary Thais placed offerings before huge portraits of the 78-year-old king, the world's longest-serving monarch. Today the celebrations continue, as representatives from most of the world's other surviving monarchies gather on the Bangkok riverfront to witness an ancient procession of ornate royal barges in King Bhumibol's honor.
Monarchies are an endangered species; in an age of democratization, having a hereditary head of state increasingly seems like an anachronism. And in many cases -- most famously in Britain -- monarchies have hastened their own decline through a succession of royal scandals. Britain's liberal elite responded by urging Queen Elizabeth to modernize along the lines of Scandinavia's so-called "cycling monarchies," whose royal families demonstrate egalitarianism by pursuing ordinary lives.
But to witness the reverence displayed on the streets of Bangkok in recent days is to realize that modernization is certainly not the only route to monarchical success. Ancient rituals, such as today's ornate barges ceremony, are what make a monarchy special. And Thais revere their king not because he has moved with the times, but rather because of who he is and the fact that he has not.
"Most Thais love this king so much that they would be willing to die for him," explained Charles Mehl, an American expatriate who works for the Mae Fah Luang Foundation, a royal-backed body that focuses on improving the standard of living for Thais in remote rural areas. That foundation is one cog in a formula that's been key to King Bhumibol success. It's an old recipe: a combination of royal largesse, deification and punishment of those who disobey. What makes Thailand different is how well that formula has been executed, at a time when others are moving away from it.
Even the king's critics concede he has done a brilliant job of projecting an image as a man of the people. His visits to the far corners of this 65 million-strong kingdom have become legendary. He's funded thousands of royal projects, ranging from education to irrigation. That, coupled with the palace's cultivation of a cult of deification, leaves many ordinary Thais believing King Bhumibol not only understands their concerns, but is blessed with god-like qualities.
On his visits to the countryside, it is not uncommon to see scarves placed on the ground for him to walk on. And one educated Thai told me last week that the sea of yellow shirts and adoring faces in the Royal Plaza reminded him of another personality cult -- in North Korea.
Add in Thailand's lèse majesté laws, which stipulate some of the harshest punishments anywhere in the world for criticizing the monarchy, and King Bhumibol's success becomes less surprising. But Bangkok is a world away from Pyongyang, and it would be wrong to attribute this particular personality cult to fear of a 15-year prison sentence.
In a small house on the outskirts of Bangkok, I meet a 73-year-old Buddhist scholar twice charged with lèse majesté -- although never convicted. Yet he continues to speak out. "We Thais are too submissive," complains Sulak Sivaraksa. "So long as the king is seen as divine, Thailand will never have real democracy."
In a country that has endured 14 military coups and 17 constitutions in the decades King Bhumibol has been on the throne, it's not surprising that Thais should count the monarchy as a more stable force than their comparatively weak political institutions. That's why, although ostensibly a constitutional monarchy with the same powers as Queen Elizabeth, the king continues to be dragged into the political arena in a way that would be unimaginable in any other constitutional monarchy.
That was demonstrated again earlier this year, when Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was accused of corruption and abuse of power. Street protests called for his resignation. Apparently forgetting their democratic principles, Mr. Thaksin's opponents called on the king to sack him and replace him with a royal appointee -- as the monarch had done during previous crises in the 1970s.
But this time the king refused, instead lecturing Thai judges on how it was their responsibility to resolve the impasse that had resulted from the opposition's boycott of elections for a new parliament. "It was a signal that the Thai people must learn to solve their own crisis without him," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
Early signs are that the strategy worked. Mr. Thaksin agreed to step down of his own volition, although he remains caretaker prime minister for now, while the courts are expected to issue a series of rulings paving the way for fresh elections. The king emerged from the episode with his reputation intact, even enhanced.
Monarchies that meddle in politics usually pay a heavy price. In Thailand, by contrast, King Bhumibol is in the happy position of being so popular that he is begged to perform a political role -- and then wins plaudits from all sides when he refuses. As they watch the royal barges float past in Bangkok today, Sweden's King Carl Gustaf and the representatives of Europe's other royal families might reflect on how their Thai counterpart has achieved so much more success by resisting the siren calls to follow them down the path of a more modern monarchy.
จากคุณ :
B.F.Pinkerton 
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A King for All Seasons (article from the Wall Street Journal)
