Vivat Rex, (Curat Lex)

Raja Petra Kamarudin has written mentioning to the article by June HL Wong on The Star Online. It's about the role of the king in Malaysia in the recent affair. I feel more and more that it's not polite to criticize any foreign country's internal affair publicly, especially this very sensitive issue. And I decide to refrain from any political comment, for most impetuous reaction in politics tend to come from emotion, not from prudent thinking (φρόνησῐς, Phronesis), as a pair between: "póiesis, práxis and theoría" vs "téchne, phrónesis and sophía", according to Aristotle.

Clan McCorquodale is a Scottish clan, recognised by the Lord Lyon King of Arms, though without a chief so recognised.

Only two notices here:

Firstly, from my own curiosity for a long time, whether it's good or bad for Thailand (compared to Malaysia or Singapore) to waste our time considering "political philosophy" deeply? In Malaysia (not sure about Singapore, but for sure in Indonesia according to my Indonesian journalist friend), they can't discuss "Marxism" publicly, but only in the class room. In Thailand, due to a legacy of the cold-war, Marxism has penetrated to almost every grassroots level either in philosophically or culturally. We have no way out but to wage an ideological warfare directly. Some of our elitist intellectuals even dig down to Athenian thinking to counter these attempts, which will be very difficult to debate with. Considering situation and debates in Malaysia recently, I feel that we have gone through the right track, albeit it will take a very long journey before reaching to a crystallized idea as a mature level.

Secondly, the last paragraph of this article has mentioned to our late King Bhumibol and his speech (a very famous one). Why not British Queen Elizabeth, if it's in Malaysian context? (I guess I know) A discussion about the monarchy alone is not enough, it mostly relates to the religion and national identity (Raja Petra's point is really valid, whether we do agree with him or not.) British Imperialism's religion is not "Protestant," neither "Anglican". It's much more complicated than that, and that's why it allowed things like Malaysian monarchy and Islamic system existing together with other beliefs in the so called "commonwealth".

By the way, the URL to our late King Bhumibol's speech and some translations (not official one, by myself) are as follow:

"But there is no one telling, (most people) only love to say the majesty has talked nicely, has talked rightly, but actually there should be some criticisms, and (I’m) not afraid if someone will criticize any wrongdoing so (I will) know. Because there is a saying that a criticism to the majesty is not allowed, it means that the majesty isn’t a human. (If there is) no criticism, I’m afraid either. If (someone say that) no criticism means the majesty is not good, how can we know that (the majesty is good or not good, by without criticism)?"

...

"แต่ไม่เคยมีใครมาบอกเห็นชอบว่า พระเจ้าอยู่หัวพูดดี พูดถูก แต่ว่าความจริง ก็จะต้องวิจารณ์บ้างเหมือนกัน แล้วก็ไม่กลัว ถ้าใครจะวิจารณ์ว่าทำไม่ดีตรงนั้นๆ จะได้รู้ เพราะว่าถ้าบอกว่าพระเจ้าอยู่หัวไปวิจารณ์ท่านไม่ได้ ก็หมายความว่าพระเจ้าอยู่หัวไม่เป็นคน ไม่วิจารณ์ เราก็กลัวเหมือนกัน ถ้าบอกไม่วิจารณ์ แปลว่าพระเจ้าอยู่หัวไม่ดี รู้ได้อย่างไร"

Reference

• The Chinese resentment of the Agong and his brother Rulers
• The thing about royalty...
• A rise in pro-monarchy vigilantism follows Agong’s resignation
• ‘Hunt’ for critics of monarchy: So what does the law say about ‘doxing’?