[经济学人08.12.4]国王与他们：泰国的君主制

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国王与他们（泰国的君主制） (2008-12-06 21:57:43)
（转自我自己的博客）http://blog.sina.com.cn/flawcharacter
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标签：杂谈

Thailand's monarchy
泰国的君主制
The king and them
国王与他们
Dec 4th 2008
2008年12月4日
From The Economist print edition

The untold story of the palace’s role behind the collapse of Thai democracy
不为人所知的故事----泰国民主政府倒台背后皇室所的扮演的角色
THAILAND’S tourism business, its export industries and its reputation have been wrecked by recent events. Crowds of royalists have occupied the government’s offices for months and then seized Bangkok’s airports. The police refused to evict them. The army refused to help. This week the siege was ended after the courts disbanded three parties in the ruling coalition. But the parties plan to re-form under new names and continue governing, so fresh strife threatens. It is as if a thin veneer of modernity, applied during the boom of the 1980s and early 1990s, has peeled away. Until recently a beacon of Asian pluralism, Thailand is sliding into anarchy.
泰国的旅游业，出口业以及国家声誉都在最近的事件中受到了损害。成群的泰国反政府示威者占据了首相官邸长达数月，之后又占据了曼谷的机场。警察拒绝驱逐他们，军队也拒绝行动。本周随着泰国法院解散了执政联盟中的三个政党，示威终于结束。但是执政联盟的政党们准备变换名字重组政党，因此很可能争端再起。20世纪80年代和90年代初期的兴盛时期，被贴上的那层薄薄的现代民主国家的外衣，终于被剥去。作为亚洲多元政体典范的泰国，正陷入无政府状态。
The conflict began three years ago as peaceful rallies against corruption and abuse of power in the government of Thaksin Shinawatra. The protesters, wearing royal-yellow shirts and accusing Mr Thaksin of being a closet republican, got their way when royalist generals removed him in the coup of 2006. But on democracy’s restoration last year, Thais elected a coalition led by Mr Thaksin’s allies. The yellow-shirts of the inaptly named People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) revived their protests and adopted increasingly thuggish tactics, prompting Mr Thaksin’s supporters to don red shirts and fight back.
这场争端起于三年前反对他信政府腐败和滥用职权的和平集会。抗议者穿着代表皇室的黄色谴责他信为搞密室统治的共和党人，在2006年通过军队的政变终于将他信赶下台。去年，通过民主选举恢复了民主政体，但选出的执政联盟仍由他信的同盟者所领导。这些不合时宜地自称“民主人民联盟”的黄衫军们重新举行抗议，并采取了暴徒策略，鼓励他信支持者脱掉红衫，反戈一击。
Speak it not
Throughout this conflict, the great unmentionable, not just for the Thai press but also for most foreign reporters, has been the role of King Bhumibol, his family and their closest courtiers. The world’s most ferociously enforced law against lèse-majesté (offending the crown) prevents even the mildest discussion of the palace’s role in Thai public life. Such laws are mostly in disuse elsewhere, but Thailand’s was harshened in the 1970s. Absurdly, anyone can bring a lèse-majesté suit. The police have to take seriously the most trivial complaints. All this makes the law a useful tool for politicians and others seeking a way to damage their foes. Often, the press is not allowed to explain the nature of any supposed offence against the crown, so Thais have no way to tell whether it really was so disrespectful.
封口令
在这场争斗之中，不仅是泰国记者，而且对于大多数外国记者，却恰恰忽略了国王普密蓬和他的近臣们所起的作用。泰国有着最严格的法律来制裁亵渎君主的行为，哪怕对王室在公共生活中的作用稍有提及，也被视为违法。这样的法律在世界其他君主制国家都已经被废除，但在泰国却从20世纪70年代以来愈加严厉。可笑是，人们竟可以穿着王室的黄衫。警察对于最轻微的关于王室的抱怨也会严厉打击，这经常被一些政客所利用来打击其政敌。通常，媒体也不允许对王室受到的批评进行性质的分析，因此泰国人也不明白这些批评为何是大不敬。
The lèse-majesté law is an outrage in itself. It should not be enforced in any country with democratic pretensions. Worse is that the law hides from Thais some of the reasons for their chronic political woes. For what the king himself calls the “mess” Thailand is in stems in many ways from his own meddling in politics during his 62-year reign (see article). In part, the strife also reflects jockeying for power ahead of the succession. With the king celebrating his 81st birthday on December 5th, that event looms ever larger.

在任何一个号称是民主国家中，亵渎君主法本身就是不合法的。更为糟糕的是这部法令掩盖了泰国人民饱受长期政治折磨的一些真正的原因。对于国王自称的这个“混乱”的泰国，其混乱在多方面正是根源于国王自己在62年统治泰国期间对政治的干预。泰国的政党争斗也部分地反映了在政权更替前对权利的争夺。在12月5日，国王庆祝其81岁生日之际，这场争斗变得愈演愈烈。
Much of the story of how the king’s actions have hurt his country’s politics is unfamiliar because Thais have not been allowed to hear it. Some may find our criticisms upsetting, but we do not make them gratuitously. Thailand needs open debate if it is to prepare for the time when a less revered monarch ascends the throne. It cannot be good for a country to subscribe to a fairy-tale version of its own history in which the king never does wrong, stays above politics and only ever intervenes on the side of democracy. None of that is true.
泰国人并不知道国王是如何损害国家政治的，因为他们根本不允许听到这样的内容。有些人会感觉我们的批评让人不舒服，但是这些批评并非是不必要的。如果泰国想要为迎接一位受尊敬程度不如老国王的新君主登基做好准备，那泰国需要言论自由。如果泰国将他们的历史美化为童话，其中国王永远也不会犯错，凌驾于政治之上，永远站在民主一边，那这对泰国是不利的。因为，这些都不是真的。

The official version of Thai history dwells on episodes such as the events of 1992, when Bhumibol forced the resignation of a bloodstained dictator and set his country on course for democracy. But many less creditable royal interventions have gone underreported and are seldom discussed. In 1976, paranoid about the communist threat, the king appeared to condone the growth of the right-wing vigilante movement whose members later took part in the slaughter of unarmed student protesters. In the cold war America saw Bhumibol as a staunch ally and helped finance his image-making machine. This long-standing alliance and the fierce lèse-majesté law have led Western diplomats, academics and journalists to bite their tongues and refrain from criticism.
泰国的官方历史对诸如1992年的事件总是乐此不疲地提及，当年普密蓬国王迫使双手沾满血污的独裁者被迫辞职，使泰国重回民主的道路。但是有些关于王室对政治的不那么光彩的干预却未加报道甚至少有提及。
（翻译到此，突然发现由于我的拖沓，12月9日，已经有人将此文完整翻译了出来，所以，以下内容为他人翻译，多数地方比我翻译的好。因此，我就省得再费心劳神了）
1976年，由于对于共产主义的过度疑虑，国王看来容忍了右翼势力解放运动的扩张，而这一组织的成员随后即参与了对手无寸铁的学生示威者的屠杀。在冷战期间，美国视普密蓬为可信赖的盟友，并且资助了他的注重塑造外部形象的政府。这一由来已久的联盟和极端的侵犯王权法，已经封住了西方外交官，学者以及记者们的嘴，也杜绝了批评之辞。

After the 2006 coup, the 15th in Bhumibol’s reign, officials tried to tell foreigners that protocol obliged the king to accept the generals’ seizure of power. Thais got the opposite message. The king quickly granted the coupmakers an audience, and newspapers splashed pictures of it, sending Thais the message that he approved of them. In truth the king has always been capable of showing his displeasure at coups when it suited him, by rallying troops or by dragging his feet in accepting their outcome. And he exerts power in other ways. Since 2006, when he told judges to take action on the political crisis, the courts seem to have interpreted his wishes by pushing through cases against Mr Thaksin and his allies—most recently with this week’s banning of the parties in the government.
2006年在普密蓬统治下的第十五次政变之后，泰国官员试图告诉外国人协约会规定国王接受军队掌权。然而对泰国民众的宣传则恰恰相反。国王很快同意接见政变组织者，随后报纸便刊登了照片，向泰国民众传达了这样一个信息，国王认可了他们。事实上通过召集军队或者拖延他认可政变结果的时间，国王早已能够在他觉得合适的时候表达对政变的不满。此外他的权力还可以通过其他形式施加。从2006年开始，当他告诉法官对政治危机采取措施的时候，泰国宪法法院似乎将他的意图理解为努力将案件的矛头指向他信和他的支持者——最近的例证是本周对政府中各党的禁令。
No fairy-tale future
In the imagination of Thai royalists their country is like Bhutan, whose charismatic new king is adored by a tiny population that prefers royal rule to democracy. In reality, with public anger at the queen’s support for the thuggish PAD and the unsuitability of Bhumibol’s heir simmering, Thailand risks the recent fate of Nepal, which has suffered a bitter civil war and whose meddling king is now a commoner in a republic. The PAD was nurtured by the palace and now threatens to engulf it. An enduring image of the past few days is that of PAD toughs shooting at government supporters while holding up the king’s portrait. The monarchy is now, more clearly than ever, part of the problem. It sits at the apex of a horrendously hierarchical and unequal society. You do not have to be a republican to agree that this needs to be discussed.
远非童话故事的未来
　　在泰国保皇主义者的设想中，泰国就像不丹，那里，一个新的具有领袖风范的新国王只受到了一小部分倾向于王权甚于民主制度的人的支持。事实上，因为泰国王后支持暴力的人民民主同盟以及普密蓬继任者的不称职表现，公众的不满已经一触即发。因此，现在的泰国正在重蹈尼泊尔的覆辙。(尼泊尔曾遭受激烈内战的折磨，而昔日干预政权的尼泊尔国王现在的身份是共和国的平民。)人民民主联盟的成长壮大得益于皇室支持，因此现在它誓死捍卫王权。过去几天挥之不去的画面就是人民民主联盟的强硬派在攻击政府的支持者的同时高举国王画像。现在，君主统治已经无可厚非的成为问题的一部分。它处于一个耸人听闻的不公平的等级社会顶端。关于这样的制度你不必是一个共和党人也会同意有待讨论。
As The Economist went to press, on the eve of the king's birthday, he was reported to be unwell, and unable to deliver his usual annual speech to the nation. So he had still not repudiated the yellow-shirts' claims to be acting in his name. His long silence has done great damage to the rule of law in Thailand. He could still help, by demanding, as no one else can, the abolition of the archaic lèse-majesté law and the language in the current charter that supports it, and so enable Thais to have a proper debate about their future. He made a half-hearted stab at this in 2005, saying he should not be above criticism. But nothing short of the law’s complete repeal will do. Thailand’s friends should tell it so.
在本期经济学家印发时，正是泰国国王的生日前夕，据说他身体微恙，不能一如既往的对国民发表讲话。因此他还没有否认“黄衫军”所谓以他的名义发动政变的说法。然而他长时间的沉默已经严重破坏了泰国的法治。但是对他而言还有补救之计，即运用他无人能及的权利要求废除陈旧的侵犯王权法以及在现行宪法中支持该法的内容，还有允许泰国民众对未来恰当的讨论。在2005年他曾经不经意的触及过这一点，表明他不应该凌驾于法律之上。但是除了完全废除这部法律，其他都于事无补。泰国的朋友们应该告诉泰国这一点。(青云)

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