Why Thailand’s sexpat community hates Thaksin ShinawatraBy Dan Waites, guest poster
The Thailand-based Western expat. We all know the stereotype, and it ain’t pretty. A man – it’s always a man – of modest means and even more modest talents fails to make a success of himself in his home country. He moves to Thailand. Here, he avails himself of the affordable pleasures of the sex industry, sleeping with women younger and better looking than any he could hope to sleep with at home. He drinks himself stupid on a regular basis. Perhaps, literally intoxicated by the lifestyle, he opens a beer bar of his own, complete with a coterie of prostitutes, in Bangkok or Pattaya or Phuket. Effectively, he becomes a pimp. Perhaps he lands a job as an English teacher, a position he is manifestly unqualified for, but this being Thailand he enjoys a level of respect he could only have dreamed of in his home country, for he is now an ajarn. Perhaps he tries to screw his students. Perhaps, dreaming of the license for debauchery issued only to artists, he becomes a “writer”, imagining himself a Bukowski or Hunter S. Thompson. He is not a Bukowski, nor a Hunter S. Thompson, and his books, which invariably detail his lurid exploits, are filed in a special section of Thai bookshops labelled “Expat Writing”. Perhaps he finds work in a boiler room or sells drugs or runs scams. Perhaps he is a criminal hiding on Koh Samui. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Whatever – he is addicted to a lifestyle of sex and booze and endless sunshine. He has vowed never to leave Thailand. And why would he?
It’s an ugly stereotype. Or, rather, it’s several ugly stereotypes rolled into one. And it’s also wildly inaccurate in the case of many expats, who are decent people living in Thailand for any number of decent reasons. But like all stereotypes, it has a basis in reality. There are people like those I’ve described above living in this country. In fact, there are lots. And interestingly, most of the worst seem to hate Thaksin Shinawatra.
A good place to find these shining examples of manhood is the Thai Visa Forum. Many of the people who post on the site seem to dislike almost everything about the country and yet, for some reason, they remain here (I suspect it must be the temples). The consensus on the Thai Visa Forum is that Thaksin is evil incarnate and must never, ever be permitted to return. (You will gain brownie points on Thai Visa by wittily referring to Thaksin as “Toxin” and to the red shirts as “red shits”). Here, tales of Thaksin’s return circulate like horror stories. Feelings for the exiled billionaire go beyond hatred and into the realms of outright terror.
Thai Visa recently did a survey of its members – 4,434 of them to be precise. Among the areas they were quizzed on was politics. They were asked: “Should Thaksin be forgiven and allowed to return?” Of those who answered, 73.3% said “No”. They were also asked: “If you were allowed to vote in the next Thai election, who would you vote for?” Of those who proffered an answer, 41.2% said they would vote for Abhisit Vejjajiva’s Democrat Party, while just 14.8% would vote for Thaksin’s Pheu Thai Party (39.3% said they would abstain and 4.7% would vote for another party).
Don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of valid reasons to disdain Thaksin. The war on drugs. The dreadful mishandling of the conflict in the Deep South. The intolerance of independent media. The autocratic style, the wild pronouncements, the arrogance – I get it. But the kind of expat I’m talking about – let’s call him “Bob Sexer” – is not what you’d call a “humanitarian”. He is not a “political junkie”. Bob Sexer doesn’t care about good governance or the functioning of Thailand’s democratic institutions. All Bob Sexer wants to do is have fun. So why does he quiver in fear at the prospect of Thaksin’s return?
In 2001, shortly after Thai Rak Thai took power following a sweeping election victory, Thaksin and his interior minister Purachai Piemsombun launched what was to become one of the party’s most popular policies: the “social order” campaign. Writing at the time, here was Shawn Crispin (via Bangkok Pundit):
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