October 2020 Archives

100 Years of Chatham House: A Century in the Service of Empire

The authority of the liberal international order that grew out of imperial-internationalism, and further embedded Western power in world affairs, is unravelling at home and challenged by rising powers abroad.

Chatham House, the erstwhile Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), one of the world’s oldest and most influential think tanks, is 100 years old this year. Located near Westminster and Whitehall, it is a key institution in the discussion of British foreign affairs and world politics. Its flagship journal, International Affairs, is a sprightly 98 years old.

It leads in the University of Pennsylvania’s global rankings of think tanks. Despite such long-lived influence, however, the very liberal-imperial order founded on Anglo-American power that it championed, is unravelling. It has its work cut out to take on the forces of populism, nationalism, opposition to Western interventionism, and the ‘rise of the rest’, in its second century.

Made in war and revolution

Chatham House was formed in the wake of the First World War and the rise of an increasingly assertive, democratic and socialistic public opinion, especially among the working class and women. Claiming to be objective, non-political and even scientific, it promised to democratise the making of foreign policy, and to end the Foreign Office’s jealously-guarded monopoly over foreign and imperial policy. Steeped in its own elitism, and patronised by the monarch, it aimed at educating public opinion, the very embodiment of what American political commentator Walter Lippmann called a ‘secular priesthood’ to manage the masses in the age of popular discontent and revolution.

Also read: Washington’s Newest Thinktank Is Fomenting a Revolution in US Foreign Affairs

It never really achieved its stated goals, remaining wedded to imperial-internationalism, elitist in character in ‘educating’ newly-awakened ‘public opinion’, and supportive of a racialised world view wedded to Anglo-Saxonism. At the core of the Chatham House project lay the aim of an alliance with the United States as Britain’s imperial power declined. Such attitudes were on full display at the Paris Peace Conferences in 1919-20, where Chatham House was conceived as the British branch of an Anglo-American institute of international affairs.

Saturated with a haughty attitude to inferior colonials considered incapable of self-government, Chatham House elites looked down on an increasingly assertive organised working class, galvanised by the experience of bloody trench warfare, and inspired by the dramatic effects of the Russian revolution, and Lenin’s calls for workers to get out of the war and overthrow ‘their’ governments.

Made by Empire

Chatham House was a descendant of the Round Table, an openly imperialist group whose goal was the preservation of the British empire. Its main achievement was probably the making of the South African constitution under Sir Alfred Milner – which is instructive. It highlighted the group’s imperial and racist attitudes as that constitution embedded and codified racial inequality, laying the initial foundations of apartheid.

But increasing dominions’ nationalism, World War I, the virtual collapse of the moral authority of empire, and the rise of anti-colonial nationalist revolts, not to mention the Bolshevik revolution, forced a major rethink in elite circles. The post-1918 world was one of the crisis of colonial hegemony as the United States emerged as a dominant world power with a new, modern, scientific, concept of global governance, liberal internationalism.

In particular, a group of discontented colonial and other officials, and their allies, were largely ignored in the Paris Peace Conference deliberations and decided to form an institute of international affairs that would make the making of foreign policy more democratic and scientific. Chatham House was born as the weaker twin of its US counterpart, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR publishes the influential review, Foreign Affairs, that reflects the mindsets and preoccupations of the US foreign policy establishment.

But its imperial credentials and elitist mentalities, with their embedded Anglo-Saxonist notions of racial superiority, meant that Chatham House was destined to broaden the basis of oligarchy rather than democratise foreign policy. It meant that Chatham House became ever more integrated into the mentalities and machinery of the official foreign policy making process, even receiving direct funding from the state to supplement its corporate donations and US foundation grants. It was, moreover, part of a set of transatlantic, especially Anglo-American, elite networks that cemented politics, government, finance and cultures.

Leaders of Chatham House supported the appeasement of fascism in the 1930s, endorsing the official policies of the British government towards Nazi Germany. In the Second World War, the Institute was virtually nationalised by the Foreign Office to engage in conceptualising and planning for the post-war new world order, in which its Anglo-American origins and connections permitted it to leverage influence in regard to the making of policy but also conducting semi-official information campaigns, and diplomacy via the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR). In the latter, Chatham House was the IPR’s UK national council, using the transnational forum to defend the ‘achievements’ of British colonialism against challenges from its US, Canadian, and Asian counterparts. Chatham House left its institutional imprint in the Foreign Office through the formation of its Research Department, which exists today as FCO Research Analysts. WWII was probably the height of Chatham House’s influence and prestige though it remained close to government, media, academia and embassies in London, not to mention West End clubland.

Committee of Post-War Reconstruction meeting in the Institute’s Common Room, 1943. Photo: Chatham House/CC BY 2.0

The liberal international order of the post-1945 period – the Bretton Woods system of UN, IMF, World Bank – and even the later Marshall Plan, and the concept and practice of ‘foreign aid’ for Third World ‘development, were debated and conceived in elite networks at the centre of which sat Chatham House, the Council on Foreign Relations, and their states’ respective foreign ministries.

By the1950s Chatham House had also become a model for think tanks across the empire and dominions. Versions of Chatham House appeared from the 1920s and 1930s in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India, and even across Europe. The Anglo-Saxonist core of the organisation, and its relations with the US and the rest of the English-speaking world, remained significant well into the postwar period.

Yet the winds of change forced a formal shift against overt racism in world politics. In the 1960s, Chatham House was accused of showing obvious bias against South Africa in the invitation to dialogues with a succession of sufficiently moderate black representatives. The aim was a negotiated revolution to ensure the smooth transfer of power to responsible black elites suitably attached in mind and interests to western capital.

Moreover, although the institute had no affiliation to any political party, it actually operated within and was greatly influenced by a particular ideological consensus or framework that reflected the mainstream of parliamentary politics – especially in its attachment to US global strategies, while ignoring alternatives. Yet in the chilly atmosphere of Thatcherism and Reaganomics of the 1980s, Chatham House suffered serious attacks when it showed its willingness to start dialogues with an unreformed Soviet Union.

As Chatham House enters its second century in 2020, much as its US counterpart the CFR, it faces a crisis of authority of the liberal international order that it helped conceptualise, foster, and engineer in and after the Second World War. As Antonio Gramsci noted, “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

Indeed, Chatham House is one of the key elements of a complex international elite knowledge network that is waging a battle for hearts and minds in the wake of Trumpism, Brexit, growing popular opposition to military interventionism in the Middle East, and the dissolution of the United Kingdom itself. The authority of the liberal international order that grew out of ‘liberal-empire’ – imperial-internationalism – and further embedded Western power in world affairs, is unravelling at home and challenged by rising powers abroad.

Inderjeet Parmar is professor of international politics at City, University of London, and visiting professor at LSE IDEAS (the LSE’s foreign policy think tank). He is a columnist at The Wire. His twitter handle is @USEmpire.

Shihui Yin is a doctoral candidate at the University of Edinburgh, and an alumnae of City, University of London.

Forget Gujarat, the Future Belongs to the Uttar Pradesh Model

Yogi Adityanath is the perfect man to achieve the Sangh’s goals.

As if the rape and torture of the teenage Dalit woman in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh was not horrific enough, the police clandestinely cremated her at night, rejecting appeals of the family to at least take the body home. The alleged rapists are four men belonging to the Thakur caste.

The entire episode displays upper caste arrogance and the heartlessness of the police. Police forces in India can be callous and with impunity – in UP, especially under Yogi Adityanath, they have been given a free hand, as was seen in the ‘encounter’ in which the gangster Vikas Dubey was killed in cold blood.

Now the cops are defiant of the chief minister, disregarding his orders to suspend a policeman suspected of murder.

In the meantime, Adityanath has been going after Muslims in every way possible and clamping down on all kinds of dissidence – Dr Kafeel Khan was thrown into jail for months because he pointed out the lack of oxygen cylinders because of which many children died in a Gorakhpur hospital. Properties of various protestors against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act were seized. Adityanath is going around changing the name of towns and museums, and is now inviting businessmen to invest in the state. And why shouldn’t he? Hasn’t India Today voted him as the best chief minister in India thrice in a row? Businessmen may now even hail him as the best man to become the prime minister. After all, companies will be allowed to sack workers freely.

And now, as if to rub it in, even as a temple is being built where a 400- year-old mosque was brought down by vandals while the Bharatiya Janata Party’s leaders cheered, all the accused in the case have been declared not guilty. Next stop is Kashi, and then, no doubt, Mathura; all of that will be achieved with the blessings of Yogi Adityanath.

Also read: How an Aspiring ‘Vishwa Guru’ Has Brought the ‘Third World’ Back to India

Behold the new, shiny Uttar Pradesh emerging before our very eyes – upper caste, intolerant and business friendly. And before we know it, this will become the template for India itself. Gujarat is yesterday’s news; tomorrow belongs to the Uttar Pradesh model.

It is worth recalling how the Gujarat model took shape.

Ten years after the Gujarat riots, in which over a thousand people died, most of them Muslim, Narendra Modi became a pariah of sorts. He narrowly escaped being sacked by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (who, two weeks later sang an entirely different tune, implicitly blaming the Muslims for setting the Godhra train on fire and thus triggering the Hindu reaction).

Modi saved his job, but was shunned by many in India and the international community. Indian businessmen were scathing in their criticism. “Internationally we have lost our name as a secular country,” said banker Deepak Parekh in anguish in March 2002. (He changed his tune later too.) Other businesspersons too had expressed their anger at the wanton killings and looting.

Many countries put Modi on a no-visa list, some openly like the US, others quietly. A few years later, their diplomats were equally discreetly going to Gujarat and meeting him, discussing investment.

And in 2013, at a Vibrant Gujarat summit, top corporate magnates were tripping over themselves to praise Narendra Modi. “He has a grand vision,” said Mukesh Ambani; “He is like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel,” declared Anil Ambani; Gujarat was the most investor-friendly state in India and the “credit goes to Mr Modi”, gushed Ratan Tata, to applause.

Narendra Modi raises hands with industrialist Mukesh Ambani, Vajubhai Vala, Japanese TC director Takeshi Yagi, Canadian High Commissoner Stewart Beck and Ratan Tata at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit – 2013 in Gandhinagar. Photo: PTI/Files

By then, he was also beginning to reveal his national ambitions and he was getting popular not just with the business sector but also with many Indians who were hearing only good things about him – the beautiful roads, no power cuts and peace and security of all. Left unsaid was that he had ghettoised the Muslims and shown them their place. As for 2002, that was completely forgotten and carping critics were urged to ‘move on’.

We all saw what happened after that. The media rose in one voice to support him and, simultaneously, rubbish the Congress. Each utterance of Narendra Modi was covered and those with long memories will recall the breathless excitement of television reporters and big-name anchors as they saw his road show in Varanasi. Contrary to the general perception, the media did not sell its soul and join the Modi fan club after 2014 – it happened much earlier.

The pundits nodded wisely, noting that he was no longer talking of divisive issues, but was only concerned with economic growth. Manmohan Singh, running a corrupt government, had ruined India’s economy; the squeaky-clean Modi would rescue it. Foreign investment would rush in, jobs would be plentiful and India would become a superpower.

Nothing of the sort has happened, and the super-efficient Modi has let India’s economy drift. At the same time, hate crimes have increased dramatically and Muslims are being marginalised. That was always the Sangh parivar’s agenda, which it has carried out with ruthless efficiency.

Three Farm Bills and India’s Rural Economy

With low levels of farmers’ income and a lack of assured price mechanism, what impact will the three farm bills have in the long term on India’s agrarian economy. Here’s an analysis.

Last week, the Union government passed three bills to replace the three ordinances that were enacted during the COVID-19 lockdown. These three bills, expected to bring revolutionary changes to agrarian context and help double farmers’ incomes are: The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020.

Taken together, according to the prime minister, these bills are expected to usher in a revolutionary change in the arena of Indian agriculture and would go in some way, perhaps a long way, in doubling the incomes of the farmers. We need to understand these legislations and their long-term impact on the agrarian structure against the expectation outlined by the government to see to what extent this policy prescription will go in doubling of farmers’ incomes and what kind of revolution will now be on the anvil.

As per census 2011, 96 million cultivators enumerated farming as their main occupation, down from 103 million in 2001 and 110 million in 1991. Still 46% of the workforce is working full-time in farmlands. The size of the operational holdings for small and marginal farmers has shrunk from 1.15 hectares in 2010-11 to 1.08 hectares in 2015-16, according to provisional estimates of the 10th agriculture census 2015-16, and small and marginal holdings constitute almost 90% of our total agricultural land holdings.

Another striking feature of India’s agriculture is the continuing trend of increase in the numbers of small holdings in the country. The first agricultural census done in the beginning of the 1970s reported that figure at 71 million. In the last five decades, those numbers have grown exponentially from 138 million in 2010-11 to 146 million in 2015-16, as per provisional estimates of agriculture census 2015-16.

In other words, the average size of operational holdings has considerably reduced from 2.28 hectares in 1970-71 to 1.15 hectares in 2010-11, and 1.08 in 2015-16, shows data.

What is more worrying is the fact that the top 10% of the households are now cultivating almost 50% of India’s total cultivable lands whereas the bottom 50% are cultivating less than 0.5% of India’s cultivable lands. The decline in the India’s bottom 50% land holdings is steady. The table below is rather self-explanatory of the plight of the farming sector households.

Table 1: Percentage of land cultivated by bottom 50% and top 10% of rural households
	*1987–88*	*1993–94*	*1999–2000*	*2004–05*	*2009–10*	*2011–12*
bottom 50%	4.1	3.8	2.7	1.9	0.8	0.4
top 10%	48.6	47.9	49.6	48.9	50.3	50.2

Low income levels

Given the state of holdings and the fact that two-thirds of them are in dry land farming areas of the country it is not surprising that the average income levels for the farming households and individuals are extremely low. As per various estimates from governmental sources, the average income of a farming household stood at a mere Rs 8,931 per month in 2016-17. This would roughly translate into slightly over one lakh rupees for a year.

What is alarming is the fact that almost 35% of the income has come from the wages. There is little reason to believe that the above figures have changed. Overall, we can safely state that almost 85% of our farmers fall in the category of marginal and small farmers with less than two hectares of land holdings. It is against this crucial factor that we need to understand the legislations passed and the impact they might have on the very structure of our agrarian edifice.

Farmers block a railway track as they participate in ‘Rail Roko Andolan’ during a protest against the farm Bills at village Devi Dass Pura, September 24, 2020. Photo: PTI

The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill seeks to completely open up the sale of produce outside the Agricultural Produce Market Committees, or the APMCs. It not only creates an e-highway for trading and transactions, but also creates a structure for e-trading of agriculture produce. Farmers are allowed to sell their produce outside of the APMCs, and that creates a possibility for more competition and better pricing for farmers. In other words, the market is thrown completely open for the private players to come in the agriculture sector and deal directly with the farmers.

The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill creates a framework for contract farming. It provides a template at the national level of farming agreements, with regard to agribusiness, processing, and the entire range of services including wholesalers, exporters and large retailers for sale of farming produce at a mutually pre-agreed price.

The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill takes away cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes from the list of essential commodities. Therefore, these commodities are now free of the Essential Commodities Act restrictions and stand deregulated. However, the central government has retained the right to regulate them under extraordinary circumstances, such as in case of a war, famine, natural calamity, and impose stock limits if there is a steep rise in prices.

Put together, this package of legislations seeks to open up the farming at both ends – production (through contract farming) and sale (through complete deregulation). So, what are the implications of such an act?

Also read: Farm Bills Will Create a Vacuum That May Result in Utter Chaos: P. Sainath

Trust deficit

Reforms are not new to the agrarian sector. According to eminent economist Himanshu, in almost 18 out of 36 states and Union territories, agricultural reforms in the form of permitting private markets have already been allowed. More than 20 states have allowed contract farming, and around 19 states have enabled direct purchase of agricultural produce from the primary producer by ‘processor/bulk buyer/bulk retailer/exporter’.

What is important to note is the fact that farmers have welcomed these changes in these states and many of them were suggested by the Centre in the past. The fear, therefore, of the newly enacted legislations being opposed just because the central government has proposed these are unfounded. Today the fear is that the complete opening up of the sector would throw all the marginal farmers, who incidentally are 85% of the total farming cohort, to the mercy of private players. There is also a crisis of confidence and a trust deficit between farmers and the government.

Farmers protest against the passage of new farm Bills in the parliament and land legislations proposed by the Karnataka government in Bengaluru, September 22, 2020. Photo: PTI/Shailendra Bhojak

The reasons for such a deficit to exist are not too far to seek. In 2015, the government in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court in response to a public interest litigation stated that the recommendation of the Swaminathan Commission on the minimum support price (MSP) for agricultural produce to be more than 50% of the cost of production cannot be accepted. It stated: “A mechanical linkage between MSP and cost of production may be counter-productive in some cases. No comparison can be made about increase or decrease of price of one commodity as compared to other commodities as the same depends on demand and supply and market forces.”

It further added: “It may be noted that pricing policy i.e. the fixing of MSP is not a ‘cost plus’ exercise, though cost is an important determinant of MSP. The pricing policy seeks to achieve the objective of fair and remunerative price and is not an income policy.” So effectively the critical recommendation of the Swaminathan Commission stood rejected by the Union government as early as in 2015!

The Swaminathan Commission had recommended a 50% increase on the comprehensive cost borne by the farmer – the C2, but the Union government had taken into account only the cash transactions and the payments made by the farmer on seeds, labour, pesticides and fertilisers (A2) plus unpaid value of family labour (FL) – the A2+FL. It completely ignored the rent on the owned land as well as the interest on the owned capital, which, if taken with A2 and FL would become the C2. Thus, even the existing structure is not as per the recommendation of the commission.

For more than four decades, more farmers are not able to recover even the basic cost of cultivation from their farms. The overall fiscal commitment to agriculture is drastically curtailed. The investments in the sector are at a standstill, and if one applies the factor of inflation, then these would stand in the negative.

Also read: Farm Bills, Small Farmers and Chasing the Agri-Dollar Dream

Conclusion

Farmers are debt ridden, starved of funding and of assured price mechanism. The three legislations if taken together accentuate the crisis even further. In the absence of a guaranteed support price mechanism, the legislations even fail to mention a very strong support for the MSP as a benchmark price as a fundamental condition for open agriculture trade and winding up of mandis.

For years farmers have demanded statutory support price for their produce from the government. The question is what is the base level of that income that will be taken for it to double and to what?

There is a need to restore the shaken confidence of the agrarian sector. In order for that to happen the government of India needs to give an iron clad guarantee on holding the price line 100% over and above the inflation-linked cost of production to the primary producer and not allowing any players to offer a price below that line to them. Only such a guarantee will ensure the confidence of the farmers in the system.

We need to understand that if the country has to come out of her grave economic crisis, the answer does not lie in the economies of the urban or of the extractive economies of the capital. The answer decisively lies in the revival of the rural with dignity and respect. The country, it must be understood, cannot survive if the rural falls and chances of such an event happening today can only be averted with a considered policy response initiated with empathy and care.

Vijay Jawandhiya is a senior farmer leader and an avid commentator on the agrarian crisis and Ajay Dandekar is a historian and has worked on the issue of agrarian crisis.

Why Young Thais Are No Longer Afraid to Take on the Monarchy

Protesters in Thailand are demanding changes to the power structures in the country, including a reform of the monarchy – a topic long deemed unmentionable.

Thousands of Thai students turned out over the weekend to protest in Bangkok — the latest gathering in a long-simmering movement against the power structures that hold sway in Thailand.

The three core demands of students are to dissolve parliament, amend the constitution and for the government to stop harassing dissidents and others.

The protests began in January, took a break during the COVID-19 outbreak and then resumed in July.

One of the triggers was the disappearance and apparent abduction of political activist Wanchalearm Satsaksit in Cambodia on July 4.

More broadly, protesters are angry at the perceived illegitimacy of the government (headed by the leader of the 2014 coup Prayuth Chan-ocha), the dissolution of leading reform party Future Forward and the government’s performance in handling the economic impacts of the coronavirus.

Pro-democracy protesters attend a rally to demand the government to resign, to dissolve the parliament and to hold new elections under a revised constitution, near the Democracy Monument in Bangkok. Photo: Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun

In the past month, protesters have also begun demanding reform of the monarchy — a topic long deemed unmentionable in a country with strict laws against criticising the royal family.

Where the protests go from here remains to be seen, but so far, the government has exercised relative restraint toward the gatherings, preferring to arrest leaders one by one away from the demonstrations and avoid street clashes.

But the protesters have made one thing clear: they will no longer be ruled by fear. And some believe the public airing of grievances about the monarchy marked a turning point.

Why symbolism matters in Thailand

The weekend protests were heavy on symbolism. They were held at the Royal Plaza, commonly known as Sanam Luang, which has been used for decades for both royal ceremonies and activities such as kite flying. It has also been an important site for exercises of power and protest.

Public access to Sanam Luang has been restricted in recent years, so to reclaim the square was itself a highly meaningful gesture.

The protesters also staged a ritual: the laying of a new People’s Plaque in the square. The new plaque read

at this place the people have expressed their will: that this country belongs to the people and is not the property of the monarch, as they have deceived us.

To appreciate the significance, some historical context is important. The original People’s Party Plaque was laid in 1936 to commemorate Thailand’s the abolition of the absolute monarchy and the establishment of its first constitution four years earlier. It read:

Here, at dawn on 24 June 1932, the People’s Party has brought forth a constitution for the progress of the nation.

This plaque disappeared mysteriously in 2017, shortly after the death of Thailand’s long-serving and much-revered king, Bhumipol Adulyadej, and the instalment of his successor, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn.

The disappearance of the plaque was part of a pattern of vanishing monuments related to the 1932 revolution. No public statement was made about the disappearance of the plaque and no individual or agency took responsibility.

In laying the new plaque over the weekend, the protesters invoked the spirit of all Thais who had fought for democracy in the past, including the revolutionaries Pridi Banomyong and Phibun Songkram.

Also read: Thai Protesters Challenge Monarchy as Huge Protests Escalate

They also included representations from minorities, such as the LGBTI community, and those from Thailand’s northeast and far-southern provinces. These groups are widely believed to have been disenfranchised under Thailand’s military government and its creeping authoritarianism.

The plaque itself displayed the three-fingered “Hunger Games salute”, widely used by protesters since the 2014 coup and representing the values of freedom, equality and brotherhood/sisterhood.

The new plaque was not long for Royal Plaza, though. Within a day, it had
been quickly removed and replaced with cement.

Worries about erosion of democratic freedoms

There has been increasing unease among younger Thais at these clandestine efforts by the military-backed government to erase the memory of Thailand’s democratic birth.

The younger generation voiced their frustrations with the government and the eroding democratic freedoms in the country in the lead-up to the 2019 election — the first vote in Thailand since the coup.

They voted in droves for Future Forward, a party whose key message was no more coups. But Prayuth, the leader of the junta that seized power in 2014, was nonetheless chosen as the new prime minister by the parliament last June.

Future Forward was then dissolved on a legal technicality in February, suggesting Thailand is adopting the sophisticated authoritarianism of its neighbour Cambodia.

Also read: Thailand: Facebook Blocks Page of Group Critical of Monarchy

There have also been fears Thailand’s rulers are only superficially abiding by the constitution.

One example was Prayuth’s refusal to promise to uphold the constitution during his swearing-in ceremony.

This followed King Rama X’s decision to amend the constitution unilaterally after it had been approved by the people by referendum.

Where do the protests go from here?

The plaque-laying students will likely face repercussions, although they probably will not be charged with lèse majesté. Since taking the throne, Rama X has indicated a strong preference against using these laws. The government has many other legal instruments at its disposal, such as charging protesters with sedition.

While momentum for constitutional reform is starting to gather pace in the parliament, concrete action on reforming the monarchy will be slower and more difficult. The students say their wish is not for a republic, but for a monarchy above politics and below the constitution.

As the country’s next generation of leaders in waiting, it seems inevitable that change in this direction will occur.

The students are next calling for a nationwide strike on October 14, another day redolent with symbolism. It was on this day in 1973 the Thai people overthrew a military dictatorship.

Greg Raymond, Lecturer, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.