Does this black hat go with my red shirt?

Q: Not to be too simplistic, but are there clear sides and good vs bad in this mess?? My tour guide loves the King - but it's hard to tell from reading how legitimate the greivances are among the rebels....

A: I think it's a great question, and the complexities of Thai politics beg for simplification.

First of all, any Thai person you speak to will automatically say "I love the King." You will never hear anyone who is Thai criticize the King. Thanks in part to hundreds of millions of dollars from the US government, the King's propaganda machine ensures that everyone in the country knows and loves who is at the top. Also, it is illegal to say anything negative about the royal family. But aside from all that, the King really is a good man overall and is in fact worthy of respect (his heir apparent is another story, but that's ... well, another story). Thais consider the King to be their Father, and his status is as close to divine as a mortal person's could possibly be.

One could argue that someone as powerful as the King has the ability to intervene in a crisis of government, and that his failure to do so contributes to the problem. But the King has repeatedly stated that he must remain above politics and that the form of the country's government must be sorted out among the people. Behind the scenes, it is thought that the King would rather not see full-blown democracy because it would jeopardize the traditional system of military/aristocratic control, but on the other hand he has in the past intervened to prevent excessive repression of democratic movements (as in 1992). So if the King is outside of politics, we're left with red shirts and yellow shirts.

The red shirts support Taksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister who was deposed in 2006 and who is richer than God. Taksin is no longer welcome in Thailand (unless he would be willing to spend a couple of years in jail) but continues to pump money into the red shirt movement. It is unclear what his - or their - goals are: to pave the road for Taksin's return, or simply to destabilize the government, or (I believe this is pure anti-Taksin propaganda) to depose the aristocracy.

The yellow shirts describe themselves as pro-King, but it's really a co-opting of the King's color. They are wrapping themselves in images of the King to deflect criticism from centrist Thais. They are led by another set of incredibly wealthy people, one of whom owns The Nation newspaper. The yellow shirts were responsible for the protests that led to the 2006 coup as well as for the airport closures in 2008. Their leaders have publicly stated that people in the rural areas of Thailand are too stupid to vote, and ultimately they think there's too much democracy already, preferring a return to the feudal military rule of more than 100 years ago.

So usually, I prefer the red shirts, because they are pro-democracy. Taksin was a crook for sure, but he was very good about funneling money to the poor areas of Thailand, which is why he is still loved there. The current government has very little legitimacy, and calling for new elections is definitely justified. However, over the last two+ months the current government offered new elections time and again, but this was rejected by the red shirt leaders, leading to the question WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT THEN? From the way the protests ended, it becomes clear that there is no effective leadership among the red shirts and that the goals of the group are nebulous and changing, and that at least some of the leaders preferred a "scorched-earth" end to things. This is not to say that that the red shirts are bad, just that there were a lot of thugs wearing red shirts.

The good guys right now appear to be the government (at least, they did everything they could to avoid bloodshed and will have to absorb a lot of abuse from critics who say they should have mopped up the red shirts a lot earlier). The bad guys will be whoever takes to the streets and disrupts everyday life.

Hope this helps and doesn't make things even more confusing!