Should Thailands neighbours and the West including Australia help strike a settlement between the warring sides?
If the clashes in Bangkok were transposed to central Paris, international commentators would be talking about revolution, class warfare, the future of the social contract, looming economic catastrophe and the end of democracy. Outside pressure would be immense. Thailand’s latest turbulence, which began in March, has failed to attract that level of interest. That may change as the country struggles to avoid a descent into uncontrolled violence, even civil war. Despite a long history of military interference, Thailand is still a democratic country with a parliamentary system and a constitutional monarch. Its example matters to Malaysia, to the south, where tensions over ethnic, civil and human rights sometimes produce autocratic responses, and even more so in Burma, to the north, where pro-democracy forces oppose a brutal military dictatorship.
