have tended to decay...The rise of corruption as an issue was more a function of increasing
competition for political power and corruption revenues between the old power-holders in
the military and civilian bureaucracy, and the new challengers in civilian politics, partic-
ularly those with a business background
(Phongpaichit and Priryarangsan 1994 : 173).
In the hierarchically structured Thai society in which form and performance play
a major role, the individual is regularly confronted with situations that cause heavy
psycho-social stress. As Thai rationalize these psycho-social problems in an ani-
mistic and fatalistic way, as the work of a bad spirit and so on, they therefore do not
seem to be able to address these tensions. The only way to solve such a problem is,
in their opinion, to get rid of the bad spirit by eliminating it (or its personification)
combined with the propensity to suppress anger, frustrations, and so on, until it
literally bursts. Whenever this happens, the outcome is usually very extreme and
this, for instance, is one of the explanations for the fact that Thailand has one of the
highest crime rates in the world.“With murder rate equal to US and three times
Cambodia, Thailand’s 6.1 million registeredfirearms used in never-ending stream
of murder cases with loss-of-face and business disputes two main motives,”reports
Jon Fornquest in the Bangkok Post of August 11, 2015.
As more people fall by the wayside in this power struggle, the longing for a
“safe”life in the inner-group increases. On the political front, this tendency has
given rise to the revival of conservative and nationalistic ideas. On the personal
level, it leads to the strengthening of Brahmanical and spiritual practices. The result
of a survey on Thai values among urban and rural Thai indicated that certain
superstitious behaviors such as“fortune-telling”and“lucky numbers”are practiced
more among Bangkokians than among farmers. No difference was observed in
terms of educational level.“This casts some doubt on the theory that postulates a
negative correlation between education and supernatural belief and behavior.
However, it is a dominant value behavior characteristic of the Thai. In addition, it is
a known fact that a number of highly powerful people in Thailand have their
personal well known fortune-teller”(Komin 1988 : 171). As many politicians and
business people before him, thefirst thing military coup leader General Prayuth did
after toppling a democratically elected government on May 22, 2014, was to go
through the rituals of animism and spiritualism to ward of all kinds of evil.“Despite
its outwardly modern appearance, everyday life in Thailand still prominently fea-
tures pre-Buddhist animist beliefs,”observed Amy Sawitta Lefevre ( 2014 ).
Public life is organized on the basis of friendship circles with an influential
leader on the top, that is the so-calledpatronage system(Chaloemtiarana 1983 ;
Lertrattanavisut 2004 ; Nelson 2004 ; Terwiel 1984 , 2005 ). Thais do not follow
political programmes or abstract ideas but follow leaders and charismaticfigures on
the basis of the‘right or wrong, my group’-principle. Girling ( 1981 , 1984 ), who
applied the Gramscian hegemony principle to the Thai society, reports that the
production basis is integrated in and determined by the culture-ideological super-
structure of the civil society:“The result, in Thai terms, is the‘bureaucratic policy’,
or what Gramsci calls‘transformism’: a ruling class that grows ever more extensive
60 4 A Village in the Jungle: Culture and Communication in Thailand