Social order appeals to many in Thailand's urban jungle

Chang Noi, The Nation, Bangkok

In all the polls on the Thaksin government's first year, Purachai Piumsombun scores higher than anyone other than the prime minister. Yet a year ago few had heard of him. In the polls his "social-order" campaign gained the highest approval ratings. Why have Purachai and "social order" touched such a chord?

Probably because "social order" responds to two forms of moral panic that have risen sharply over the last few years.

The first is the fear of the wild. The urban middle class has been struggling to build a secure world, governed by rules and laws, where things are predictable and reasonable. The economic boom gave them the means to invest in a new lifestyle. Political liberalization brought a new Constitution and new laws which enshrine their aspirations. But this urban middle class world seems like a clearing in the jungle.

Beyond the borders are the wilds, populated by godfathers, tricky businessmen and powerful people who think they can get away with anything.

Since the crisis, the fear of the wild has increased. The modern economy, whose expansion was the motor of growing middle- class aspirations, has been poleaxed. The informal, invisible or illegal economy is growing. This is obvious from the statistics. All the indicators of growth in the formal economy (exports, investment, government spending) are negative or neutral. Yet GDP is somehow growing at 2 percent.

The difference must be underground. The methamphetamine boom is the most obvious evidence. Gambling is on a roll. Oil- smuggling may be undergoing a revival. Moreover the press reports on these activities consistently show that people in uniform play a major role. Of course they are a small minority. But over the last decade, they have displaced many competitors because of their unique comparative advantages.

The impact is very real. Methamphetamines have escaped from the slums and entered the mainstream schools where the best market is the middle-class kids with some money in their pockets. The night entertainment industry, around which much of the underground economy revolves, has escaped from its traditional zones and spread like a stain into commercial and residential areas.

The second moral panic is about sex. There has been a sharp, generational shift in attitudes and practices over the last few years. The new generation start younger. They do it more casually. They often do it more carelessly too. Sexual explicitness has risen in the public culture.

This generational shift has prompted a series of mini-panics. About models who are role-models moving into the nude-calendar game. About students selling sex. About sex-education materials that might really educate.

Where these two themes of moral panic converge is in the night market, in the night entertainment industry. Good girls may even act like bad girls. Who can tell the difference? Who can find the dividing line any more?

The night market is where the young middle class come as consumers, the underground as producers and vendors and the dodgy men in uniform as tax-collectors and protectors. It is where the tame rubs shoulders with the wild.

By imposing some limits and some rules on the night market, Purachai is responding to these two themes of moral panic. But so what? Is he merely treating some minor symptoms rather than the real disease? Particularly in the case of the expanding illegal economy, is there not a larger problem over law, enforcement and the police?

Certainly. But there is also a practical issue over how to approach this bigger problem. Frontal attempts to kick-start police reform have got nowhere. The public may want reform but is too resigned to agitate for it. Without popular pressure, the politicians see no gain, only risk. Even public scandalization, like the candid-camera exposure of police corruption, is only a short-term news story.

But Purachai's actions are new and unpredictable. When the cue ball slams into the pack, other balls bounce and cannon in all directions. Already Purachai's actions are having three consequences. First, in Khon Kaen, the police and military have begun a war of mutual accusation over one another's protection rackets. The large sums and the police/military involvement have been detailed in press reports and academic research. But it is rare to have confirmation from such authoritative sources.

Second, some police stations are said to be facing fiscal crisis because of the decline of their night-market income. Third, the impact of the campaign on both protectors and entrepreneurs is being translated into political pressure to have Purachai stopped. And that pressure opens up the rift between reformism and gangsterism that runs right through Thai Rak Thai.

Social order is as provocative as a pulsing navel.