From: godfrey@sscvx1.ssc.gov (LAURENCE GODFREY)
Subject: from soc.culture.thai
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Organization: Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 17:34:00 GMT


In article <Bv6Kow.3us@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, ssg9328@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Samart Srijumno writes...
>ang@theory.lcs.mit.edu (William S. Ang) forwards Khun Anuchit's reply:
> 
> 
>>---------------------------cut here-------------------------------
>>From: Anuchit Anuchitanukul <anuchit@CS.Stanford.EDU>
>>To: ang@theory.lcs.mit.edu
>>Subject: Re: Khunying Supatra on Internet

>Let me add some information to that provided by Khun Anuchit. Khunying 
>Supatra is the daughter of the late Surin Masdis, an incorruptible MP from
>Nakorn Sri Thammarat, a southern province of Thailand. Besides being an
>articulate MP, Supatra has engaged in a movement to upgrade Thai women. 
>Though her honorific is "Khunying" (which is roughly equal to "Lady"), 
>Supatra has not joined the elegant circle of most typical "Khunying"
>who have superficial view about things. 
> 
>I want also to correct Khun Laurence here that in fact Khunying Supatra is
>not in Thailand. As mentioned by Khun Theerasak, she is now a fellow at
>a Boston institution. Nonetheless, since she has just left Thailand, plus
>her first hand experience in Thai politics, she should be a good source 
>of ideas. 
> 
>Like that of most western countries, Thai politics suffers from being 
>dominated by men. Politics sets priorty to the problems a society faces.
>Men are aggressive so is politics. Soft personality is regarded as wimp
>in political circle. I don't adore a female politician simply because she
>is a woman. Former British PM, Thatcher, is a woman but she had used men's
>strategies. She even acted like a man. Given the fact that women makes half

Correction from Khun Laurence, khrap.  The awful Thatcher being is neither
man nor woman.  No man would have produced the hysterical rantings of
the horrible Thatcher, nor argued by appealing to the basest instincts
of the electorate (eg greed and bigotry), nor raised the pitch and volume
of their voice when the had no rational arguments to present, nor
stubbornly adhered to demonstrably harmful policies.  She did great
damage to the image of women politicians the world over (to say nothing
of the damage she did in Britain itself).

The Thatcher pheonomenum arose from a perverse wish of many of the British
people to be dominated by a head-mistress tyrant with whips in her hands.
There are a number of precedents for such women leaders in British history,
each a testament to the masochistic nature of the poeple here (what the
French call the "English disease").


Talking of Thatcher, I recall being in Chiang mai when she visited Thailand
a few years ago, during which the BKK Post produced the most sycophantic
drivel I have ever seen.  I think they made the mistake of treating her
like royalty ( in truth, much the same way as she thought of herself)
and believing that they were obliged to grovel for that reason.  In Britain,
we do not have to be nice about our royalty (self-appointed and real) and
can say what we like.

> 
I forgot to mention that Thatcher too is now a Khunying too, and we are
supposed to call her Lady Thatcher over here.  Actually I know quite
a number of people who would prefer to prefix her name with a similar
sounding word to Khunying!

Sawasdee khrap, Laurence
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british