• OPINION

  Cyber snoop bill caps off a year from hell

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/12/2016

  » It's a contest no one wants to win: Is 2016 the worst year ever?

• OPINION

  Pokemon goes on run from state capture

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/08/2016

  » No, they will not ban Pokemon Go, though it's not hard to tell how tempting that idea must be in the post-referendum landscape where peace, order and national security have been constitutionally enshrined.

• OPINION

  Breaking into song on the big vote day

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/08/2016

  » Tomorrow is the day. Are you ready? Really, are you ready?Keep calm, get dressed, put on your Sunday smile, and head out to … No, not the referendum booth, or maybe later. First you really must go to the Scala Theatre in Siam Square, where for the first time in Thailand in decades, The Sound of Music will play on the big cinema screen with its historic overflowing of saccharine -- and with one of the strangest anti-dictatorship sentiments ever shown on film.

• OPINION

  All aboard for a 'Thai-Thai' referendum

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/07/2016

  » The word "Thai" means "free". But when you repeat the syllable and say "Thai-Thai" (with a dismissive laugh), suddenly it means "fake" -- it means we've bent whatever rule the world has to make it suitable to our temperament, emotion and impulse. For example, when you're not sure if your principle is solid, your stance firm, your democracy authentic, or your coup justified, there's a simple way to shut down the argument: just say it's baab Thai-Thai, "in the Thai way". Then, if everything is not forgiven, at least it's understood.

• OPINION

  Vote displays regime's new take on reality

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/07/2016

  » Gabriel Garcia Marquez said it best: "When you reach absolute power, there is no contact with reality.""A powerful person, a dictator, is surrounded by interests and people whose final aim is to isolate him from reality."

• OPINION

  Openness is not a pretext for exclusivity

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/07/2016

  » A few years ago in my neighbourhood there was a Kurdish migrant. Not Iranian, not Iraqi, not Turkish, he would tell you, but Kurdish, the stateless ethnic group wedged between unsympathetic nations. His name was Abbas.

• OPINION

  Losing faith in the laws of the land

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/06/2016

  » Lawlessness is the new law. What's that term they're now using? "The new normal" -- right, say it even when there's nothing new and everything abnormal. But it's something more primitive that's making a screaming comeback.

• OPINION

  Charter tune plays like a broken record

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/06/2016

  » One song is championed, the other outlawed. One song hides its prejudices in the subconscious, the other clear in its messages. Both songs are about the referendum. That is, in case we still have the referendum, because it's almost safer now to bet on Albania winning Euro 2016 than on our slippery Aug 7 poll taking place.

• OPINION

  Clowning around is no joke anymore

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/04/2016

  » When humour is outlawed, what's left? When humorists, satirists and clowns are not safe from dictatorial fury, who is? Mockers jailed, jokers scolded, caricaturists threatened, sometimes by words, sometimes by pre-dawn commando raids, without warrants, as if they were hunting armed terrorists. That's how 10 people were carried off by uniformed officers on Wednesday, a few of them guilty of running a satirical Facebook page spoofing the PM. Yesterday, the military court denied them bail.

• OPINION

  'No' drama being played out in real life

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/04/2016

  » In October 1988 there was a national referendum. A military dictator, under pressure from the international community after years in power, years of human rights violation, abductions and forced disappearances, held a plebiscite where citizens could go to the poll and tick "yes" or "no".

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