Reforms on paper will never guarantee our rights
This week across Thailand and the world, the question of human rights has again been in the spotlight, with Thais marking National Constitution Day, and the world celebrating Human Rights Day. Yet in Thailand and beyond, these rights are still playing catch up to the promise of rights for all. Each and every day that has gone by since key documents were signed, reflects a failure to achieve a reality to which their words may once have aspired.
At this stage, we should hardly doubt that the failure to live up to these principles is intimately bound up with continuing problems within the political system itself - and in this context is the debate to legitimise further constitutional changes.Although this debate is finding its way back onto the Thai political stage, its fundamental purpose is not to address Chapter 3 of the Thai Constitution regarding the "Rights and Liberties of Thai People". Rather, it is the case that both the Pheu Thai government and the Democrat Party are focused on the ways in which the Constitution implicates on the question of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and his possible return to Thailand.
The reality of political expediency does not, however, negate the very real need to seriously address the essential question of constitutional reform. At a foundational level, the Constitution of 2007 continues to lack a sufficiently rigorous system of checks and balances, which would act to defend the rights and liberties of all Thai citizens.
It is therefore encouraging that in the minds of the wider public, there are now signs of a greater capacity for discernment in differentiating between an issue of fundamental importance such as basic human rights or the relationship between the individual and the state, and the related political gamesmanship. More pushback from the electorate when it comes to structural failures within the Thai political system is almost certainly a prerequisite for any kind of significant progress to be made.
Regardless of the motives of politicians - or judges, army officers or bureaucrats for that matter - actions to circumnavigate the very system to which they are responsible for upholding, is necessarily a violation of the public's trust.
Since the crackdown on red-shirts protesters in 2010, the focus has increasingly been to highlight rights abuses and violations, which have been committed by the machinery of the state. A range of NGOs and activists from both Thailand and outside have continued to raise these questions, including in the latest annual reports of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, two well-regarded international NGOs.
The rewritten Thai Constitution of 2007 was enacted following the coup of 2006, and little has changed in terms of the way in which the question of rights is addressed. It could perhaps be argued that this is because Thailand already claims to recognise such rights in full. It is, after all, more than half a century since Thailand signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, so it should already be clear to us that whether or not principles expressed in writing are a genuine attempt towards progress, without equivalent progress in the daily experiences of ordinary Thai citizens, those words remain merely aspirations on paper.
And so it goes on. Just last month at the 21st Asean Summit, political leaders reiterated the importance of the "promotion and protection of human rights", as reflected in the adoption of the Asean Human Rights Declaration. Yet, during Cambodia's chair of Asean in 2012, reports exposed the political double standard, as protesters were forcibly prevented from expressing their rights in ways that would have embarrassed the Cambodian political leadership.
In the words of US.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not just a catalogue of rights and government obligations. It is a time-tested blueprint for successful societies." In this context, when we consider the case of the US, we may well realise that progress is not merely dependant on words and pieces of paper. In addition, the vital contribution of the people in demanding that equal rights be recognised, has played an essential role in the emergence of the US democracy.
For instance, although rights in principle may have long existed for all Americans, when it came to the question of civil rights in the 1960s, it was not until politicians who desired to be on the right side of history could sense a change in the attitudes of the broad demographic that they sought to take up the leadership role in response.
Seemingly then, what is required in the case of Thailand is a sufficient momentum in the societal dynamics, in order that a change can be brought about. A constitution with effective checks and balances? Not yet. A sufficient desire amongst the population for equality for all? Doubtful. Politicians with a desire to emulate historical icons in standing for truth and freedom? We are still waiting.
Today in Thailand, there is a continuing drive to push through further legislation and agreements, and to build institutions that are charged with tackling the very real problem of human injustice. Indeed, more than ten years have passed since the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand was established, and yet over this same period the people from the provinces have taken an initiative in becoming increasingly politically mobilised. Whenever there is a persistent failure to recognise rights, political polarisation and a sense of alienation from the state can always be found, and this is exactly what we continue to witness in Thailand.
When the people justifiably have little confidence in the capacity of institutions to affect change, what would be the appropriate response? An ambitious political leadership may consider the implementation of a highly public strategy to engage the missing links within the social-political paradigm. The issue of institutional implementation is an ongoing problem, and it needs to be opened up to broad public scrutiny. A much-needed campaign to empower Thais to challenge the power of the state and to become the much-needed counterbalance would place more pressure on those who are failing in their role.
Thais may be better served by looking for political leadership that emphasises open admission of the problems faced and the mistakes that have been made, rather than self-serving strategies that indulge the primary interests of politicians and power brokers, and equally, a leadership that resists pandering to the immediate and all-too-often short-sighted personal interests of voters themselves.
Ultimately, the greatest failure of the past decade may have been Thailand's collective inability to effectively respond to the very real concerns of marginalised groups within the country. And although it may be uncomfortable to admit this, such an open acknowledgement may assist in Thailand learning a valuable lesson. Namely, that for as long as clear injustices continue to go unresolved, the opportunity for enduring progress will be forever undermined.