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Since 2005, Thailand has been in crisis, with unprecedented political instability and the worst political violence seen in the country in decades. In the aftermath of a military coup in 2006, Thailand's press freedom ranking plunged, while arrests for lèse-majesté have skyrocketed to levels unknown in the modern world. Truth on Trial in Thailand traces the 110-year trajectory of defamation-based laws in Thailand. The most prominent of these is lèse-majesté, but defamation aspects also appear in laws on sedition and treason, the press and cinema, anti-communism, contempt of court, insulting of religion, as well as libel. This book makes the case that despite the appearance of growing democratization, authoritarian structures and urges still drive politics in Thailand; the long-term effects of defamation law adjudication has skewed the way that Thai society approaches and perceives "truth."
Employing the work of Habermas, Foucault, Agamben, and Schmitt to construct an alternative framework to understand Thai history, Streckfuss contends that Thai history has become "suspended" since 1958, and repeatedly declining to face the truth of history has set the stage for an endless state of crisis.
This book will be of interest to students and scholars of South East Asian politics, Asian history, and media and communication.
Truth on Trial in Thailand: Defamation, Treason, and Lèse-Majesté (Rethinking Southeast Asia) Reviews
Truth on Trial in Thailand: Defamation, Treason, and Lèse-Majesté (Rethinking Southeast Asia) Reviews
| 5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:  Truth tried and yet untried, By Brian Knight "BK" (Thailand) - See all my reviews This review is from: Truth on Trial in Thailand: Defamation, Treason, and L�se-Majest� (Rethinking Southeast Asia) (Hardcover) David Streckfuss is a direct and honest story-teller, describing in this well-researched academic book a compendium of conundrum, Thailand's criminal defamation 'ethic.' With years of research, study and personal experience at the helm, Streckfuss takes the open-minded reader into what seems an intractable problem - how to come to grips with decades of lies and violence perpetrated by a dangerous and yet fearful elite bent on preserving their dominated status quo at all costs, using the revered Thai monarchy as shield and cause-célèbre. Dr. Streckfuss is joined in an earlier work by FEDERICO FERRARA, Assistant Professor with the Department of Asian and International Studies at the City University of Hong Kong ([...]), who wrote one of the most frank accounts of Thailand's innate character in his book Thailand Unhinged, by Equinox Publishing. Streckfuss' book, however, is written as an academic work and by having done so the researcher and avid campaigner... Read more 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: for the serious observer of Thai society/politics/law, Amazon Verified Purchase This review is from: Truth on Trial in Thailand: Defamation, Treason, and L�se-Majest� (Rethinking Southeast Asia) (Hardcover) Thailand markets itself to tourists as a laid back place with easily accessible charms. Those who have lived there and peered beneath the surface of the veneer (just like anywhere else) have seen some of the warts. Institutionalized warts--codified warts related to a construct of national security/limitations on freedom of speech/opportunistic political exploitation of those limitations--are the subject of this book. It is an academic's piece-de-resistance, a thorough and careful analysis of the conundrum of using the legal code to control speech and loyalty, with disastrous absurdity. Dave Streckfuss knows his stuff. The book is for serious students of what's-wrong-with-this-picture? in the context of Thailand. It is also a clarion call for reform, a wagging of red flags that the authorities in Thailand would be wise to attend to--with a near certainty that they will not, if for no other reason than they have painted themselves into a corner, for to advocate change of the defamation... Read more |
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