Evidence of Praetorianism in Thailand (1932–2023)

A rapid staccato pop of pistol fire echoed down the long dimly lit corridor. I was at the Senayan shooting range in central Jakarta to meet with senior players in Jakarta's booming private security industry. ‘We come here regularly to hone our skills, socialise and to meet and train clients’, shouted Pak Brata. Hailing from a military family, he is director of Agung Rahardja Manunggal Yahya, or PT ARMY, a security company specialising in VIP bodyguard services and security for ‘national vital objects’, or objek vital nasional, typically extractive industry facilities. A career security professional, he has done specialist training in Israel and the United States and accompanied clients to Somalia and Iraq. As a senior figure in the nationalist paramilitary organisation Pemuda Pancasila (Pancasila Youth), Brata is also responsible for coordinating its ‘core commandos’ (komando inti, KOTI), who undergo focused physical and ideological training and are tasked with protecting the organisation's leadership. As we attempted to talk over the din, a group of Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) executives clumsily shot at paper targets under the instruction of another security company director. ‘He's just finished providing briefings to BNI and Shangrila Hotel Group on 2024’, says Brata. ‘An election year means lots of business for us. Companies want contingency plans, like how to get staff to the airport if there's unrest, potential hotspots and risks to company assets.’ Noticing my interest in the executives’ bespoke gold-plated pistols being diligently cleaned by pistol range staff, he added ‘more and more corporate clients are carrying guns nowadays. The more they have, the less safe they feel’.

What does it mean to be secure in twenty-first century Jakarta? While for the city's bank executives it may mean access to a firearm and specialist bodyguard services, for others it can be a matter of securing a place to live free from risk of eviction. Security perceptions and needs depend upon who and where you are in the city. Rather than consisting of fixed properties, security is politically constructed and contested, conceptually and in practice; notions of security and risk are also central to how cities are planned, built, governed, inhabited and imagined (Zeiderman 2016).

Myanmar has experienced various governmental regimes over the past six decades, transitioning from socialist to democratic systems and from planned to market economy structures. Despite each government's earnest aspiration for sustained development, the majority of economic policies they implemented were highly disjointed and often ad hoc in nature. These policies resembled quick fixes or short-term solutions aimed at alleviating symptoms rather than addressing root causes.

Since 1989, policymakers across different administrations have believed they were steering Myanmar towards a market-oriented economy, albeit with a limited understanding of what a true market economy entails. This resulted in what was termed the “Burmese/Myanmar Way to Market Economy”, characterized by numerous restrictions and controls imposed at the discretion of policymakers. It wasn't until the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) assumed power in 2011 under a military-orchestrated process to democratic transition that many policymakers began to acknowledge the need for reforms and recognize the prevalence of poverty in the country. Despite some positive strides in reform and liberalization during the USDP years, there were also negative consequences stemming from inadequate policy formulation, including a lack of thorough cost/benefit analysis, policy evaluation, and adjustment mechanisms. Although Myanmar was seen as a latecomer with the opportunity to learn from other countries’ experiences, policymakers often neglected to reference international lessons. Instead, they relied on Myanmar's own past experience, which included errors made by predecessors such as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military regime that held control of state power (first as the State Law and Order Restoration Council or SLORC) from September 1988 (and changing its name to SPDC in 1998) up to April 2011. For instance, the USDP's Ministry of Transport looked to the establishment of rice procurement corporations from the SPDC era when considering the corporatization of entities like the Myanmar Port Authority and Myanmar Airways, rather than drawing insights from a wealth of international examples in similar areas. As a result, separate special laws were enacted to corporatize and operate the Myanmar Port Authority and Myanmar Airways rather than incorporating them in accordance with existing Companies Law. These special laws aimed to allow them to become off-budget units with greater financial and operational autonomy and to enable them to receive all possible benefits from the government regarding fiscal incentives and market preferences rather than to strengthen their efficiency. Their boards of directors were predominantly composed of current high-ranking government officials, and their intention was not to operate efficiently and compete fairly with private sector counterparts in a competitive market, but rather to enhance monopoly advantages.

The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

Introduction

Social media has become an influential platform for political discourse and engagement in Malaysia. It has played a significant role in shaping political narratives, mobilizing supporters and fostering political activism (Leong 2019; Chin 2003).

In recent years, social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Twitter (now known as X), TikTok and YouTube have been widely used by Malaysian politicians, political parties and activists to connect with the public and convey their messages. Social media provides a more accessible and immediate channel for politicians to communicate directly with their constituents, bypassing traditional media outlets. Social media is also used by marginalized communities to create their own voice in Malaysia because these communities are often ignored by the mainstream media (Loh and Chin 2023).

Overall, social media has become the most significant factor in shaping political conversations in Malaysia. It provides a platform for citizens to voice their opinions, engage with political figures and mobilize support for various causes. However, the challenges of misinformation and government regulations continue to influence the dynamics of politics on social media in the country. This chapter highlights the political social media in Sabah and Sarawak, two states often ignored by scholars working on Malaysia. It is largely based on my observation and participation in many political social media groups on Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram during 2021–23. All these groups were started and administered by Sarawakians and Sabahans. This chapter is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the political social media community in Sarawak, followed by the social media community in Sabah. The second part discusses the key themes in Sarawak, namely Gabungan Parti Sarawak, state nationalism and secession, Abdul Taib Mahmud, the issue of native customary rights (NCR) and Dayak marginalization; followed by the key themes in Sabah, namely political instability and “Kataks”, the issue of Pendatang Asing Tanpa Izin (PATI), marginalization of Kadazan, Dusun, Murut and Rungus (KDMR) and non-Muslims, and territorial claims by Sulu. The final part deals with common themes in both states, namely the controversy over the Malaysia Agreement (MA63) and the political marginalization of non-Muslim Bumiputera.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on civil society worldwide as government authorities implemented draconian social movement controls to curb the spread of the virus by restricting all public gatherings. The Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF), a think tank in Malaysia that is actively engaged in spearheading Islamic reform, promptly reacted by embracing digital media to navigate the ensuing disruptions in order to ensure the continuity of its mission—that of bringing social change towards a democratic and inclusive religious society through intellectual discourse. This chapter first explains the impact of COVID-19 as the driving force behind the shift of the IRF's modus operandi from the physical brick-and-mortar setting to the digital sphere characterized by video conferencing tools and social media platforms. Next, it justifies the use of digital media as a sustainable strategy to reach a wider audience, give a voice to marginalized groups and promote a progressive Islam that actively engages with modernity. Finally, it discusses the future of Islamic reform discourse in the digital age, especially the extent of its influence on society and the state. This chapter uses Jürgen Habermas's concept of public sphere as an analytical framework.

Introduction

The spectrum of Islamic discourse in Malaysia consists of growing Islamic streams in Malaysia-Indonesia, where conservative Islamic traditionalism and Islamic revivalism groups nudge each other to establish a discourse that is deeply rooted in the tradition of the Malay community (Azhar Ibrahim 2014). While the Islamic traditionalist group that has existed for centuries in the Malay realm emphasizes individual piety and the hereafter over worldly progress, the Islamic revivalist group that emerged in the 1970s took the form of a da’wah movement that aims at “Islamizing” society, that is, cleansing society of secular influences deemed un-Islamic. Within the revivalist trend is the Wahhabi-Salafi offshoot that gained traction in the early twentyfirst century and acquired more grounds with the changing political climate.

The proliferation of social media has ramifications for Malaysia as it is a conduit for alternative information and democratic values. The Internet increases transparency by helping people avoid censorship, thus facilitating the flow of information about the government and people. This disrupts traditional established political structures and national security. During the 14th general election (GE14) in 2018 and the 15th general election (GE15) in 2022, social media was an important instrument in promoting democracy by opening up more space for Malaysians to deliberate on political issues. Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope – PH) dominated social media and managed to form the government after GE14. From post-GE14 until GE15, political parties had more freedom to campaign online. The Malay-based political parties such as the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party – PAS), and Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Malaysian United Indigenous Party – Bersatu) had the same opportunity to project themselves as champions of core issues such as Malay rights and unity. This chapter traces the impact of social media during GE14 and GE15, and examines the Malay-based parties’ mouthpiece websites, Facebook accounts and TikTok to see their narratives and coverage of issues of Malay unity and rights, particularly on protests over the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and struggle for the Muafakat Nasional (National Consensus – MN) alliance.

Introduction

The term social media or Web 2.0 refers to a new wave of Internetbased applications that enable greater interaction between users and also applications through user-generated content (Komito and Bates 2009). This content is varied and includes photographs, videos and text comments, forming a media-rich mosaic. Sites such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, TikTok and many more have been developed, where individuals not only post different types of information on their own accounts, but also link to that of their friends, thus the description of social networking applications. Basically, social media can take many forms such as Internet forums, news portals, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and videos. Social media technologies include blogs, picture sharing, vlogs, wall postings, email and instant messaging, among many others. All these digital platforms have functions that allow them to be democratically interactive in ways unlike radio, television or the highly edited letter pages of newspapers and magazines. Social media supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Social media is distinct from traditional media such as newspapers, television and film. While social media is a relatively inexpensive and accessible tool that enables anyone to publish or access information, traditional media generally require certain skills and resources for their operations. This is why social media has a huge potential for democratization which has led to Habermas's (2006) argument that the Internet can have a subversive effect on authoritarian regimes and could threaten their survival. This chapter traces the phenomenon of social media in Malaysia.

Introduction

This chapter examines the role of cyber-communities in the consumption and dissemination of information relating to the political and socioeconomic discourse of Malaysian Indians. Numerous online platforms such as emails, blogs, online forums, online media and even text messages have played a crucial role in gathering and disseminating information which have reshaped the Malaysian Indians’ perception of then ruling Malaysian government under Barisan Nasional (National Front – BN). In fact, the Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF)2 was successful in mobilizing Malaysian Indians against the ruling BN in 2007. This may be construed as the outcome of the synergy between these newly emerged online platforms which effectively disseminated information on the Malaysian Indians’ marginalization that eventually resulted in the physical mobilization of the community in support of the HINDRAF leadership.

Since then, Indian based cyber-communities have played an important role in reshaping minority Malaysian Indians’ public opinion on specific issues such as Tamil schools, urban poverty and Hindu temples as well as general problems relating to good governance, corruption, human rights and ethnic supremacy in Malaysia politics. In recent years, social media tools such as WhatsApp and Facebook have become increasingly popular not only as a source of information but also as a platform where issues pertaining to Malaysian Indians have been openly debated and reshaped especially among the younger generation. The outcome of this resulted in “politically savvy” Malaysian Indians actively participating in Malaysia's electoral politics.

One such huge change in mindset was observable during the 15th general election held in 2022 where the Indian voter turnout was high. In fact, the emergence of online communities and influence meant that vital information managed to infiltrate class demarcation, resulting in both elites and non-elites, as well as younger and older generation Indians, voting for change. Based on documentation and close observations of three Indian Facebook communities, this chapter argues that Indian online communities have increasingly become an alternative voice and continue to reshape public opinion while simultaneously cutting across class and age differences.

The first section of this chapter briefly looks at the arrival of Malaysian Indians and their association with print media from a historical perspective. More specifically, this chapter examines the role of Indian newspapers in the country and how they moulded the Malaysian Indian community's views on socioeconomic and political development. The second section looks at the rise of cyber-communities and how they challenged mainstream Indian media in reshaping the Malaysian Indian community's views on the question of marginalization. The final section examines the nature of Indian online groups through close observation of three Facebook groups during the 15th Malaysian general election and how such social media groups became the catalyst for Malaysian Indians’ newfound voice.

Malaysia, like other Southeast Asian countries, has extremely active online communities. The drivers behind the rapidly growing online communities are basically youths, new technological developments such as mobile phone applications and the lowering of data costs. Young Malaysians, like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, are digital natives who grew up with smartphones and Internet access as part of their daily lives. The advent of social media applications, such as Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly known as Twitter), makes social interactions via online platforms the default mode to connect with friends, communities and the world. Furthermore, Internet connection costs have fallen dramatically. Many telecommunication companies in Malaysia offer unlimited prepaid and postpaid data access of 3GB for as low as RM30 (US$ 7.50) a month, which enables users to use applications such as WhatsApp and Facebook at RM1 a day. Statista Research Department (2023) found that as of May 2022, some 97.7 per cent of Malaysian respondents stated that their favourite communication application was WhatsApp. The dramatic drop in Internet costs is similarly mirrored by a fall in hardware prices. The cheapest smartphone in the Malaysian market at the end of 2022 was about RM300 (US$75) while second-hand smartphones cost around RM100 (US$25), which allows users to install and use basic applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram, X and even Facebook Lite. In fact, costs of more advanced smartphones have dropped significantly as well such that it is not uncommon for young professionals for change their smartphones once or twice a year. The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission Internet Users Survey 2023 showed that the country's Internet penetration rate stood at 97 per cent of the total population at the beginning of the year, of which 81 per cent used at least one social media platform (Shamsher 2023).

According to Boyd and Ellison (2007), social networking sites are web-based services that allow people to build public or semipublic profile in a system in order to share a connection; they can also view and cross-list their relationships with others in the system. Traditionally, communities that are separated in time and space face the dilemma of bringing people together as they had to be physically present to interact. Social media has bridged this gap by providing new resources to enable people to be “together” despite being separated by time and space (Wenger et al. 2005). Online communities are virtual spaces where people and entities with shared interests congregate to communicate and exchange information and ideas (Autio, Dahlander, and Frederiksen 2013; Kim et al. 2008; Miller, Fabian, and Lin 2009; Plant 2004). According to Rheingold (1994b), virtual communities are “social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace.” He added, “… virtual communities are cultural aggregations that emerge when enough people bump into each other often enough in cyberspace. A virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks” (Rheingold 1994a). These groups of people with shared interests interact using online technology (Rheingold 1993) and their frequent connections form a social structure (Dahlander and Frederiksen 2012).

Introduction

As the second largest ethnic community in Malaysia, the Chinese have been actively involved in Malaysian politics even before the nation's independence. As part of the four pillars of the Malaysian Chinese community, politics, alongside education, guilds and associations, and media, are central, indispensable and inseparable (Ng and Lee 2018, 2020). The Malaysian Chinese community has primarily supported the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), which has been part of the Barisan Nasional (National Front – BN) coalition. BN, mainly comprising of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), MCA and Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), formed the ruling government since 1957.

Since the 13th general election in 2013, Malaysian Chinese voters have mainly supported the Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope – PH) coalition helmed by Anwar Ibrahim (Marzuki Mohamad and Ibrahim Suffian 2023). This shift in support from BN saw less than 19 per cent of the Chinese voters supporting them. This trend continued in the 14th general election in 2018, in which 88 per cent of Malaysian Chinese voters supported PH as the coalition came into power for the first time. In 2020, however, the PH government lost power to the Perikatan Nasional (National Alliance – PN) coalition.

This change in government was triggered by an event dubbed the “Sheraton Move”, where several PH Members of Parliament (MPs) joined the opposition parties (Lee 2022). This defection, allegedly due to infighting, caused UMNO and Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party – PAS) to form the PN coalition which had the aim of forming a complete Malay-Muslim unity government. The eventual withdrawal of Mahathir Mohamad's party, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Malaysian United Indigenous Party – Bersatu), from PH led to his resignation as prime minister. As both PH and PN claimed they had the majority support of MPs to form the government, the Malaysian monarch, Yang di-Pertuan Agong, stepped in and asked every MP about their preferred prime minister candidate. Eventually, Muhyiddin Yassin, president of Bersatu, was appointed the eighth prime minister of Malaysia.

From March 2020 till August 2021, Malaysian Chinese voters were negative about PN as only 16 per cent were happy with its government (Marzuki Mohamad and Ibrahim Suffian 2023). During Muhyiddin's tenure as prime minister, Malaysia faced the COVID-19 pandemic, depreciation of the Malaysian ringgit, food security crisis, economic downturn and various lockdowns known as the Movement Control Orders (MCOs) (Povera, Harun, and Arumugam 2020). Despite handing out economic and financial assistance, only 47 per cent of Malaysian Chinese voters were satisfied with the government's pandemic management (Marzuki Mohamad and Ibrahim Suffian 2023).

Catholic Social Teachings and Their Online Communities

It is often thought that the Church's role is only in the spiritual realm and therefore it has no role to play in social and political life. There is sometimes a tendency to keep “sacred” and “secular and temporal” affairs apart because the fundamental principles are considered different. However, the spiritual and sacred affairs are matters experienced in the context of real-time and space just as how social and political affairs are experienced. Therefore, issues of justice and the common good are within the realm of that which are both sacred and spiritual.

The involvement of Malaysian Christian communities in the political and social spheres is not something new in Malaysian society. As in biblical times, the Church's mission in being the prophetic voice in society today by addressing social issues with great clarity and urgency, demanding action and situating itself as a community must be seen as a congruent part of the faith and not as opposing parts of the Christian faith and identity. Though the awakening may have been delayed, Malaysian Christians have been involved in public life and policies in the last three decades. Contrary to what many may think, “the separation of Church and state does not require division between belief and public action, between moral principles and political choices, but protects the right of believers and religious groups to practice their faith and act on their values in public life” (Fay, n.d.).

In the past, the Church and the State shared a close bond with each other, especially when the Christian emperor appeared as God's representative on earth. As the Western empires expanded, close bonds between both parties meant the imperial Church enjoyed privileges while the empire received approval from the Church's hierarchy. Nevertheless, the American and French revolutions at the end of the eighteenth century resulted in separation between the Church and the State whereby the government had to maintain neutrality towards religion, which meant that it could and should not recognize or favour any religion. This was the prevailing view of many Christians during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that the Church should only occupy itself with spiritual issues, and not become involved with temporal issues. Thus, anyone who spoke against political establishments was frowned upon by the institutional Church despite its early history where it was involved in the governance of the state and its people; it was considered not the “work” of the Church.