Thailand will eradicate poverty by next year.
No lottery ticket is being sold over the 80 baht restricted price.
Civilian governments are crooked; military government are not.
The junta never violates human rights.
We can go on, and it's official even though it's not official: Thailand is living in an alternate universe. Not the Marvel Universe or DC Comics Universe, but something less exciting. It's a Siamese universe where universal logic, laws, facts, values and common sense hardly apply, a universe governed by the law of gravity, yes, and not much else. The universe (or is it a coffin?) where the inhabitants must abide by the "unique rule" or will be told to get out.
This alternate logic doesn't always come from bad faith. Rather it's an accumulative consequence of official propaganda, a weak press, prolonged rule by unelected and unrepresentative officials, and the systematic suppression of different views -- all right, now it sounds like bad faith. It is also the product of a world increasingly intolerant of "democracy" and "bad politicians". The parallel universe, most of all, is shored up by the massive middle-class post-truth numbness -- so we're all complicit in a way -- and the staunch refusal to acknowledge a simple reality that we're backpedalling in a fast-moving world.
Something that doesn't sound like bad faith first: Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said on Thursday that the government would eradicate poverty from Thailand next year. That raised eyebrows. No more poverty in this poor country? If that doesn't defy logic and reality, then what does?
The sad fact of the world is that poverty can't be eradicated -- minimised, yes, through the fairer distribution of income -- and even Sweden has around 6-7% of people living in poverty. To wipe out poverty in a year is something worthy of the Nobel Economics, Peace, Chemistry and Physics prizes rolled into one unbelievable package: It's unfortunate, but it's just impossible. The deputy PM's announcement is yet another one of those wild claims regularly dished out by the bureaucracy to sustain the parallel reality of military-ruled Thailand.
Worse, the poverty-ending statement defies even the government's very own logic after they've gone on to cook up a great ballyhoo of issuing welfare cards for low-income earners. Insisting this is not a form of populism (another alternate definition in an alternate universe), the card more than acknowledges the 11-million-plus of people who're struggling in penury and have signed up. It also emphasises that status in a sanctioned class-based system that may soon be extended into other areas, such as public healthcare. No more poverty? The stock price of private hospitals will soar.
We can assume the deputy PM said it out of enthusiasm that can be forgiven. Less can be said about the lotto chief's much-mocked statement that overpriced lottery tickets don't exist in this country (neither does prostitution nor political prisoners), when proof of the otherwise abounds. The efforts to bend the truth and maintain the façade must be exhausting -- and yet it's us who feel exhausted after three years, and counting.
All of this can be dismissed as mere Thailand 4.0 absurdity. But what's more conspicuous, when it comes to the attempt to sustain the parallel universe, is PM Prayut Chan-o-cha's latest Six Questions, coming down like a Roussseau-like contract to the people. Written in the language of a military directive, the Six Questions ooze menace. Basically the questions allude to the poor performance of elected governments, the cynical interference of politicians, and the bright start initiated by the junta after three years in power. In short, and indirectly, he's asking to stay on, likely through the support of an existing political party.
These are questions from the alternate universe because they're simply rejecting the natural course of history: As painful as it sometimes is, elected civilian government is the principle of the modern world where people have voices, where negotiations of power and influence promise a degree of equality to everyone, and where accountability is as important as legitimacy. Any form of military government, open or covert, is nothing but a bastard child of ever-evolving democracy.
But what to do if the Six Questions are a self-rolling red carpet to prolonging junta power? What to do if the state insists no lottery ticket costs over 80 baht? Or that poverty will go way in a year? In this alternate universe, not much. We watch and complain, like madmen or zombies who don't realise we're already half-dead, since the logic we've learned all our lives has gone down the chute and since reality isn't what happens but what they want us to think happens.
Kong Rithdee is Life Editor, Bangkok Post.