Whoops. Thinking too much in the surf zone, Trang, Thailand.

When you are in a quickly changing situation like the political unrest in Thailand over the last few days and weeks, it pays to be flexible and responsive. We know from sea kayaking, paddle surfing and whitewater canoeing during our Expedition Field Courses at ISDSI that you need to be flexible, relaxed and aware to respond the best. When you get stiff, or freeze as you try and remember your checklist and details, is when you fail — flipping your boat, falling off, or failing to run the rapids.

Study abroad is no different.

When beginners learn a skill, they are focused on the lists — trying to remember the sequences, items, and events. With practice comes unconscious skill — you’re thinking about the movement and responding to the environment. In risk management and assessment, you need both — a list of principles that guide what you do, and the skill to apply them to fluid environments.

We’ve seen that a lot in the last few days and weeks in Thailand.

At ISDSI’s study abroad semesters in Thailand, we focus on training our American students to be culturally competent — not memorizing lists of do’s and don’ts, but rather learning Thai culture and language well enough to understand the “why” behind actions. Lists are only good for the situations you know about, but don’t necessarily guide you in what to do in new and unique situations.

At ISDSI our instructors work through lists, plans and contingencies — keeping daily course logs, training as Wilderness First Responders, working through scenarios and discussing what to do “if” — “if” being a very big, and ultimately unbounded category. However, rather than inflexible checklists or formulas, our focus is on learning how to appropriately combine three things: principles + resources + judgment.

Working on the flow chart and decision tree -- it doesn't work without good judgment.

Joe Brockington, associate provost for international programs at Kalamazoo College, one of our key partners, says in “Effective Crisis Management” that a crisis is an emergency without a plan. We would add that without good judgment, skill, and experience, a plan alone is worthless — and will quickly turn into a crisis.

Faced with a situation like the protests and later riots in Bangkok, the principles of how to ensure student well-being is paramount.  What resources do we have?  How can we combine them in the most appropriate way?  For example, the final capstone course (Coastal Ecology and Culture) had planned on having the students transit through Bangkok by train, and spend a day at the huge Chatujak Market doing a survey of coastal resources available at the market (from tropical fish to seashells). With the escalating tensions in Bangkok, we felt it would be better to avoid the city, and travel direct to the field site by bus — a decision that was easy to make, since we had the resources and experience to contact a reliable bus company, charter our own bus, and ensure that the students would arrive safely.  Likewise, during the tsunami that hit Thailand, we were able to contact our students since we have lists of their mobile phone numbers, and knew where they were.

We’re hoping that things continue to calm down in Bangkok, and it looks like that is what is happening. But we don’t expect that it will be the last emergency we’ll face at ISDSI.  In the meantime, we’ll continue to practice so we can be flexible and respond to the normal turbulence of living and working in Southeast Asia.

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For more information, see:

Effective Crisis Management by Joe Brockington.

Health, Safety, & Crisis Response by NAFSA.

The Objective Hazards of Culture outlining more of the ISDSI approach to risk management, including a list of questions for people involved in leading and managing study abroad programs.

As most folks who have been paying attention to the news know, there has been an on-going protest in Bangkok for about four weeks by a group known as the “red shirts” who, among other things, are opposed to the current Abhisit administration, and support Taksin, a former prime minister in exile and convicted on corruption charges. It hasn’t impacted our program at all, nor disrupted much of normal life in Thailand outside of the immediate area of the protests. Nonetheless, we thought it would be good to let people know a bit of the background, and what is happening.

It is complicated (as politics in Thailand tends to be), but over the last two years there have been ongoing protests from both the “yellow shirts”, loosely representing pro-elite and monarchist elements, and opposed to the supporters of the former prime minister Taksin. (It was the yellow shirts who briefly took over the international airport two years ago.)  The other group is the “red shirts” who support Taksin, and are largely drawn from rural working class Thais who benefited from Taksin’s patronage politics while he was in office.  The red shirts have explicitly framed it as a class conflict (which is somewhat accurate, except for the fact that Taksin is a billionaire and funds the protests) and as a pro-democracy movement (which some argue is open to debate).

Of course, the third group is everyone else, who are all mostly sick of the protests from both the reds and the yellows.

For the last four weeks the red shirts have rallied in Bangkok, and recently moved to an additional site in the heart of Bangkok’s commercial district. The Thai authorities, including Abhisit, the prime minister, met with the protestors for two days to try and work out a solution, but the red shirts refused to compromise. Over the last week, protests have occurred off and on in a few places, and the Thai authorities have been careful not to use force to try and keep things non-violent.  This has allowed the red shirts to expand their protests.

On Saturday (April 10) the Thai authorities decided to finally try and disperse the protesters from two sites, and the red shirts reacted by attacking the police and soldiers. Scores were injured on both sides, and there are reports that some have died. Eventually, in the face of the resistance of the red shirts, the Thai police and military backed down, fearing the conflict would escalate.

For us, we are hoping that both sides will find a way out of the deadlock they’ve boxed themselves into, and would be able to find a compromise that will address the concerns of the poor, and at the same time foster true democratic participation and not just autocratic rule validated by corrupt politics and vote buying.

For our program, we’ve not seen any impact since we are not in the places where the protests are. Life goes on normally in Thailand, but with more discussion and awareness of politics, development, and the complex relationships between class and democracy. That is significant. Those discussions are not just good for our students to be a part of, but are an important part of Thailand’s development overall.

Hiking through the forest in the clouds.

Many of the marginalized communities in Thailand have lived for generations in what are now classified as “protected” areas. National parks, forest reserves and wildlife sanctuaries have been declared in recent years (often after a coup) to extend state control and, it often seems, to make it easier for the state to proceed with building dams, clear cutting forests for monocrop plantations, and other mega projects.

Villagers have been fighting this for decades, with limited success. Every time the state extends control or evicts villagers from their ancestral lands (often at gunpoint), it is with the claim that villagers are “degrading” the resources.  Human occupation of course impacts the environment, but these communities have, by necessity, learned how to do it in a sustainable way. It is especially ironic that the excuse is “protection” when, in fact, the real goal — as we’ve seen year after year — is resource exploitation and privatization through dams, mining concessions and other mega projects controlled by the elite.

One of my favorite writers is Sanitsuda Ekachai, a reporter for the Bangkok Post.  Her posts are always relevant, and she understands the social and political context better than just about any other writer in the Thai media.  Below is a recent editorial that speaks to some of these issues that we study in our Forests and Rivers course, and touch on in the others as well, since many communities in Thailand are constantly under threat from resource exploitation and centralized control.

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Posted in the Bangkok Post on Friday, January 22, 2010

Forest eviction plan to steal from the poor
Posted by Sanitsuda Ekachai

Ulterior political motives aside, the Khao Yai Thiang controversy highlights how draconian central land control, legal impotency and endemic corruption are causing systematic land theft from the poor.

But it is a pipedream to hope that the government will use the controversy to clean up the system.

After all, General Surayud Chulanont is just one of the countless powerful figures and investors who have encroached on the commons to build resort businesses and holiday homes.

And who dares stir up the hornet’s nest?

Yet, without any sense of guilt, the forest authorities are using the Khao Yai Thiang controversy to step up their crackdown on the poor who live in the grey forest zones.

This is not a farce.

This is exactly what the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry has up its sleeve.

The ministry’s permanent secretary, Saksith Tridech, said recently there are over 450,000 people illegally occupying 5 million rai of forest land.

To counter them, the ministry will combine forces with the military and police to immediately crack down on the 190 critical areas across the country.

A forest area protected by the Karen.

The evictions will start without waiting for any pending court decisions because it would otherwise be too late to rehabilitate the degraded areas, Mr Saksith said.

Interestingly, among the ministry’s first urgent targets are the communities which have been fiercely fighting to reclaim land rights and to oppose the environmentally destructive state projects.

For example, the Kaeng Krung community which opposes the construction of Kaeng Krung dam in Surat Thani. And the Konsarn villagers in Chaiyaphum who are defiantly fighting against state-sponsored eucalyptus tree farms.

Obviously, the forest authorities see this is as a chance to get rid of the thorns in their side _ and to enjoy a huge budget at the same time.

How huge?

According to Mr Saksith, the first eight months of the nationwide eviction will need 1,200 to 1,500 million baht. And he needs a lot more to carry out the five-year crackdown plan.

Nationwide civil uprising is on the horizon if the cabinet approves this daylight robbery.

As taxpayers, why are we continuing to allow these bureaucrats and politicians to ruin our forests and steal from the poor?

One of the main reasons is because we have long been brainwashed into believing that the forests must be free from human habitation and conservation is best done through central control.

This belief is rooted in our ignorance about the way of life of the rural folk and lack of respect for their ability to manage their pool resources sustainably.

Following state central control in the past century, the rural communities have suffered from logging concessions and the draconian zoning of national forests which has turned local inhabitants into illegal encroachers.

Karen village elders.

Big dams, mining, massive tree farms and cash crop plantations _ all state policies _ further destroy the wilderness and the locals’ sources of livelihood. Meanwhile, land speculation amid weak law enforcement and fierce corruption has put much scenic forest land in the hands of the rich.

The injustice has given rise to nationwide resistance on the ground through the community forest and land reform movements.

The Thai villagers are not alone. Across the globe, the plunder of natural resources from draconian state policies has given rise to similar grassroots movements to manage the commons themselves.

From her extensive research in various parts of the world, the users-managed properties often work better than state control, concludes Prof Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University, USA.

And the world is listening, having honoured her with this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics.

Thailand is abundant with success stories of users-managed forests, rivers, lands and coastal seas. Yet, we refuse to take note.

If we support their movements, we can help them save the commons from breaking down. Or we can just allow the authorities to exploit nature to serve the rich and big business.

The choice is ours.

Most student who have been on an ISDSI semester know Dr. Christina Fink (Ajaan Christina) from the Foundations course.  Ajaan Christina has been teaching with ISDSI for years, along with her other work in the region.

She has just updated her book, Living Silence in Burma: Surviving Under Military Rule.

If you’ve already read the first edition, it is still worth getting and reading the new edition.  It has been updated with a chapter covering developments since 2001, as well as other changes.

It is very readable, and a great introduction to how “normal” life has been impacted by military rule. Not so much statistics (like a lot of books on Burma), but more nuanced and rich in its description of what is happening on the ground throughout Burma.

“Living Silence is particularly valuable for its study of the psychological effects of military rule on the people of Burma. The real struggle in Burma is the struggle between the desire to opt for the easy option of submitting to the demands of the powers that be and the commitment that leads to the hard road of resisting the threats and blandishments of a ruthless regime. By exploring the impact of military rule on the lives of ordinary people against a broad historical and social backdrop, Christina Fink makes an important contribution towards an understanding of the root causes of the problems and choices that the people of Burma are facing today.” — Aung San Suu Kyi

If you are interested in Burma and Southeast Asia more generally, this is highly recommended.

Available on Amazon.

Scientists need a listening public

A sobering post up by Joseph Romm on the failure of scientists to communicate the realities facing us due to global warming, Publicize or perish: The scientific community is failing miserably in communicating the potential catastrophe of climate change. His post is a reprint from a special issue of Physics World on Energy, Sustainability and Climate Change. (emphasis mine)

The fate of the next 50 generations may well be determined in the next few months and years…

The International Scientific Congress on climate change held in Copenhagen in March, which was attended by 2000 scientists, concluded that “Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realized.” That would mean that by 2100 there would be atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide of more than 1000 ppm, total planetary warming of 5 °C and sea-level rises probably on the high end of recent projections of 1–2 m followed by a rise of as much as 2 cm per year or more for centuries. We would also see one-third of inhabited land reaching dust bowl levels of aridity, half or more of all species becoming extinct, and the oceans increasingly becoming hot, acidic, dead zones. And if we do not change course quickly, the latest science predicts that these impacts may be irreversible for 1000 years.

That’s not good.  The problem is:

In short, the fate of perhaps the next 100 billion people to walk the Earth rests with scientists (and those who understand the science) trying to communicate the dire nature of the climate problem (and the myriad solutions available now) as well as the ability of the media, the public, opinion-makers and political leaders to understand and deal with that science.

Given the money being poured into denying climate science to protect the profits of carbon intensive industries (coal, oil, etc.), and their exploitation the false idea of “there are always two sides to every issue” we’ve got a serious problem. The same dynamic existed with the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer (money poured into creating doubt, insisting on “balance” when the science was clear there as a link, etc.).  The big difference here, however, is that the changes taking place are occurring over generations, rather than an individual’s lifespan.

People who smoke die of lung cancer at higher rates, and it is easy to see and observe first hand, even by people who don’t understand the science. You can see an uncle who you remember being young and healthy coughing, getting ill, and finally dying from lung cancer in only a few years.  The end point — death — was something that anyone could see, and see multiple times from multiple cases.

We have, however, only one earth, and it is dying. Part of dealing with a terminal illness is getting over the denial that it is really happening, because denying in some ways makes you feel superior. “The doctor’s wrong!” “I’m as strong as an ox!” “The tests aren’t reliable!”

Another stage in dealing with a terminal illness is bargaining: “It won’t be that bad!” “There will be a cure soon.” “We can deal with it once technology gets better…”

The problem isn’t just that scientists are poor communicators.  The problem is that we don’t want to listen.

(See also The Invention of Lying about Climate Change)

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Antigovernment protesters ended a three week occupation Tuesday in the Thai capital after four days of chaos that prompted the deployment of combat troops under emergency rule. The negotiated end to a tense standoff throws a lifeline to the beleaguered government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva, which protesters had sought to topple.

By midday, thousands of red-shirted demonstrators, who had camped at the prime minister’s official compound, were filing out past security checkpoints, weary but defiant in the face of overwhelming military force. Protest leaders who had surrendered to authorities said they had agreed to stand down in order to avoid further bloodshed but insisted that their campaign would resume.

So things seem to have come to a rather quick conclusion over the last 48 hours.  The government was able to clear the streets of Bangkok, the protest leaders were arrested or turned themselves in, and the main protest (at Government House) stopped and people boarded government supplied buses to return home.  While not without incident, it was interesting to see that the general population of Bangkok seemed to be tired of the protests–even confronting the “red shirts” on more than one occasion, and supporting the efforts to clear the streets.

We’re glad to see a quick resolution, and hope that the government will become more stable and be able to address the underlying social inequalities that play into the hands of the politicians using these groups (the yellow shirts and the red shirts).

As I write this Monday night (Thailand time), the government is working to clear the streets, the opposition “red shirts” have issued a call to fall back to the main protest site around government house, and there are sporadic protests in the provinces.  No one really knows what is going to happen next.

It can be difficult at times like these to know what is going on, since there are so many rumors, mis-reported new stories, and unconfirmed reports. Through it all, however, day-to-day life goes on.  Today is part of the Thai New Year celebration of songkran, a water festival, and throughout most of the country people are having fun, throwing water on each other, going to local fairs, and enjoying time off from work and a relief from the heat of April.

Two excellent articles out today, not on the details of the crisis so much as the issues surrounding them. Both are well worth a read, and give a lot of good background on what is happening and why.

Philip Bowring writing an op-ed in The New York Times (What Shirt for Thailand?):

The situation is not beyond retrieval. Thailand has always flourished on pragmatic compromises, domestic and international. Ethnic homogeneity and the economic interests of a society with few big corporations but many small businessmen and independent farmers all make it unlikely that there will be widespread bloodshed.

But there remains a fundamental divide over the rules of the political game. Social divisions must be bridged if Thailand is to return to the promise of 1997, when elections and a new constitution seemed to put the nation on a path of liberal democracy.

Another good article from The Economist, “Thailand’s ugly crisis“:

Many Thais are heartily sick of the crisis and its enormous damage to the economy in terms of lost investment and tourists. Another military coup is rumoured, although it is unclear where the army’s political inclinations lie. Presumably Mr Abhisit’s days are numbered as prime minister, though who might succeed him is anyone’s guess. Mr Thaksin hopes to ride the protests and return to power. Yet with plenty of scores to settle, his would presumably be a brittle and autocratic rule at a time when reconciliation is badly needed. Fresh elections are probably the best bet, with the promise of a search for a broad political consensus for constitutional change to allow a more representative politics. For now, with violence in the streets again, Thailand teeters on the brink.

As someone who has lived in Thailand most of the last 20 years, and who has been through more than one coup d’état, it is still difficult to know what is going to happen, and how it will impact the country as a whole (the big picture) and our specific program and students (the details).

How do we figure out what is going on, and how best to respond?

There are a number of things we do in this sort of situation, and it may be helpful to share some of it, both for students, parents, partner schools, and for other faculty and/or programs who might face a similar situation.

We of course have an emergency response plan, a team of well-trained staff, and have worked out in advance what to do in a variety of scenarios. I  (Mark) am a warden with the US Consulate in Chiang Mai, so get updates directly from the Consulate when they are issued, and also know many of the consular folks as personal friends. All of our staff carry cell-phones, and when students are in-country, the phone are on 24/7 in case of an emergency. We have a list of student cell phones, parental and school emergency contacts, etc. News feeds (online and off) are monitored daily for important information, especially as concerns security and threats.  All of that is (or at least should be) routine for any study-abroad program. (You can read more about our approach to risk management at “The Objective Hazards of Culture: Risk Management in an International Setting” here as a PDF.)

The key is knowing the place with the sort of “deep knowing” David Orr talks about when referring the ecological education and knowing a river or mountain.

“…[A] course on a nearby river might require students to live on the river for a time, swim in it, canoe it, watch it in its various seasons, study its wildlife and aquatic animals, listen to it, and talk to people who live along it.  A river become…”a microcosm of the world” and a doorway to wider knowledge…there are some things that cannot be known or said about a mountain, or a forest, or a river—things too subtle or too powerful to be caught in the net of science, language, and intellect.” (p. 96, Earth In Mind: On Education, Environment And The Human Prospect, 1994)

You have to “swim” in a culture to know it deeply.

For a culture and a country, knowing the community, the normal rhythms of day-to-day life, being comfortable speaking Thai everyday with friends and acquaintances (getting inside the skin of the culture), spending a lot of time reading and talking about politics with Thai and ex-pat experts. It is in part having a network of trusted friends, both Thai and ex-pat residents (foreigners) who are themselves well connected. People you can trust, who have good judgement, and who you can ask for help, advice and trusted opinion. Moving between the academic world of the urban elite to the world of marginalized villagers (in the North, Northeast and South especially) means that we have friends who are poor farmers, fishermen and tribal people–all of whom have a different view on what is happening, and how it fits into the bigger picture. It isn’t just the opinions of a Thai political scientist that matter, but also our uncles, aunts, older brothers and sisters out in the villages who matter.

Deep knowing doesn’t tell you what is going to happen, but helps you know what to do when something does happen.

So while there is not a simple formula to calculate what is going to happen and what we should do about it, deep knowing, a cautious awareness and multiple sources of information go a long way towards helping us know what to do and what is happening. We are fortunate to have excellent students who love Thai culture and dive into the language and home-stays with gusto (even when it is hard). As they develop cultural sensitivity and awareness, strong relationships with host families, and a good understanding of how to live in Thailand, it makes our job not just much easier, but deepens our own understanding of this place as we see them struggle to create a new home.

As the articles above point out, there are some significant changes happening in Thailand, and the rural-urban gap needs to be bridged. Having close friends among the urban elite as well as the marginalized rural folk leads me to be cautiously optimistic about the eventual outcome, but concerned as well for a country and a people that we love as the problems get sorted out.

As any of you know who follow the news about Thailand, there has been a long running feud between the “yellow shirts” and the “red shirts” here–the “yellow shirts” backing the traditional elites, and the “red shirts” backing the former prime minister Thaksin (who was deposed in a coup, fled the country and was convicted of corruption).

The best background is (as is often the case) at The Economist, “No green light.”

TRAFFIC lights go from red to yellow. Thai politics goes the other way. Last year it was the “yellow shirts” of the royalist People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) who stormed the prime minister’s compound, bringing the country to its knees and forcing the government out. Now, after a few months’ calm, tens of thousands of redshirted protesters are surrounding the compound, demanding the resignation of the prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, and holding up portraits of Thaksin Shinawatra, the twice-elected prime minister deposed by the army in 2006.

As of today (Sunday, April 12) there has been a state of emergency declared in Bangkok, with various reports of protests at different intersections, etc.  This week is the start of the Thai New Year, Songkran, and our spring break.  Only one student is in Bangkok (I just spoke with her) and is headed down to the beaches with her aunt.  The rest are in Chiang Mai, where the rest of Thailand goes to celebrate Songkran.

Let’s hope that the Songkran holidays, a time of renewal and forgiveness, will help both sides to back down and back off.

(If you want to follow the news and commentary yourself, two of the best sites for up-to-the-minute news are The Bangkok Post and The Nation.)