Political conflicts over the past four years have prompted the society to learn and see that the root of the conflicts is not only about former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra or about different levels of intelligence and accesses to information as claimed by some people. The actual root of the problem is "the disparity" in the society.
Prime Minister Aphisit Vejjajiva has told the media "The disparity problem is a fact that has been in Thai society for a long time. We shouldn't raise this issue to be the condition for stirring up hatred in the society. During the Thaksin government, the proportion of debt per households among Thais has increased more than one fold. Thaksin's wealth also increased more than one fold. This is also a kind of disparity."
Social Disparity Through Class System
Red-shirted leaders have been trying to explain social disparity through class system, "amataya-commoners." It could be concluded that the "amataya system" is "the cultural structure of power that lends power to a group of people that are the minority in the society without going through a democratic process which is an election. However, the group can exercise their power by intervening politics and public administration system without being accountable to the public. And they are not held responsible to the exercising of their authority politically or legally."
Amataya's power has been sometime dubbed "non-constitutional power." However, its meaning according to the norm is "influence." It is a kind of power in the conventional cultural structure of power, which accepts the existence of some "special power." The society believes that such power is the representative of morality, or the power of morality.
Blocking Democratic Consolidation
Although Thailand's administration system has been changed to democracy almost 80 years ago, some are still ''yearning for" the power of morality. The trace of nostalgia has been clearly reflected during the early phase of the "New Politics" proposal. It was proposed "If the government were corrupt of disloyal to the monarchy, the military may stage a coup d'etat. The monarch, on the capacity of the supreme commander of Thai armed forces, may freely appoint armed force commanders without waiting for the nomination by the prime minister."
The amataya system is hinged on the special power. In fact, there are two perspectives on the amataya system. One group views that the system is a unique attribute with historical value related to national development. At present, the system is still worthful because it could balance the power of corrupt politicians. (For example, it has helped get rid of a corrupt government.) However, another group says such special power is the root of problems that block democracy consolidation and cause social disparity.
This is because 1. Amataya power is not hinged on people power because amataya or elite bureaucrats are not elected; 2. amataya has intervened politics and public administration system. As a result, the power has undermined the importance of election because the government elected by the people has been dominated or regulated by another power. The government then may not implement policies according to the wills of the people. Amataya power could even overwrite the importance of election because the power has staged a coup to topple the government elected by the people.
This kind of disparity is the root of inequality problem in the "one man = one vote" system. It causes the minority to have "privilege" over the allocation of power and social and political interests beyond the majority in the society. It leads to law issuance and law enforcement with "double standards." The law that is contradicted to the equality of human beings and that violates the freedom of expression or other rights have been issued. And the law has been unequally enforced against people from different classes or different groups.
For this reason, "amataya" is viewed as a "privilege class." For "commoners", they are people in the class that has been exploited by privilege people or has been branded by the latter as being stupid, poor, sick and being used as corrupt politicians' tools. The latter thought they were not free people who understand "democracy" and they are not capable of exercising the rights to govern themselves with free judgment. Therefore, "commoners" should not have the rights to fully govern themselves. The power should be centralized for unity and security of the state.
However, the picture of disparity reflected through the "amataya-commoners" discourse is merely the reflection of disparity in only one direction. There are several more other directions of disparity. An example that could be easily seen is the disparity in educational opportunities. Farmers, papaya salad sellers, motorbike, taxi drivers or daily wage earners in general cannot or have any bargaining power to ask any educational institution to admit their children without going through the official admission system. At the same time, the number of "students admitted through special channels" from civil servants and generals might not be as high as the number of "students admitted through special channels" from business people, local politicians and national politicians who often have long lists of students that they have to place in various educational institutions.
Problems Between Conflicting Parties
University lecturers also have privilege over university officials, security guards and cleaners. Thaksin and retired generals that became Phuea Thai Party members, politicians, business people, and academics in Phuea Thai Party and in the red shirted movement, or those supporting the red shirted movement also have life styles and economic and social statuses that are different from those of exploited "commoners" in red shirted rallies, most of whom are from northeastern and northern provinces.
Generally speaking, there are several directions of disparity in the society. But even though political conflicts right now have made disparity more visible for us, the debating issues and negotiation conditions that could end conflicts still focus on individuals or conflicting parties.
Each party still talks about General Prem-Thaksin-Aphisit, or government– red-shirted people, amataya-commoners or yellow-shirted-red shirted. As a result, the negotiation to compromise or to save faces of certain individual or party has gained priority over a talk to find solution together to end social disparity problems.
Demand of Situation
Hence, the attempt to prolong conflicts is rather about ''winning or losing" a political game. If the parliament were not dissolved, no one could see a way out of the conflicts. If the parliament were dissolved, we might see the changing hands of power. But we might not see a way to solve "structural problems" that would concretely reduce disparity in different directions.
If we all insisted that ongoing political conflicts have developed to the point that people are clearly aware of disparity problems beyond problems of an individual or problems between conflicting parties, a question that should be raised during the negotiation between red shirted people and the government is how the decision to dissolve or not to dissolve the parliament could be a condition leading to the attempt to solve social disparity.
Each party should talk about the solution of disparity problem, which has been the root cause of conflicts. They should show the public their suggestions on how to solve disparity problems, to drive the society to move forward.
Otherwise, the attempt to end social disparity should be a key issue that political parties, civic groups or people in all sectors should campaign during the next canvassing campaigns or during the design of constitution or political reform in the future.
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